Notes:

Another friendly reminder that you check out chapter 5 first, if you haven't already done so!

Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Stronger

Hermione's heart was pounding in her chest the entire time as they walked to the T&I building. Torture and Interrogation. She suddenly was right back at the Malfoy Manor and started to hyperventilate. No, no-no-no, she was stronger than this. Breathe Hermione, breathe. She can't hurt you anymore, she kept telling herself as she tried to calm down, while tears started to run down her face.

They weren't really going to torture her, right? She hadn't done anything wrong as far as she knew. Well, you know, besides appearing somewhere out of the blue. And what in the world happened when he had grabbed her arm? She could still feel the tingling sensation in her arm. She was fairly certain he had felt it too, seeing as his grip had tightened around her arm, painfully so.

While busy focussing on her breathing, she wasn't really paying attention to where they were going. Before she knew it, they had stopped in front of a grim looking building. The building didn't have a sign on it, but she didn't doubt they were at the right place.

As they entered, Hound brought her through several corridors, before stopping in a wide room. He then ordered her to wait as he walked up to a desk and spoke with one of the men there. She didn't bother paying attention to what they were saying, she couldn't understand them anyway. She felt a presence behind her and looked over her shoulder. 'Cat' stood there, blocking the door. If she wasn't so terrified, she would've rolled her eyes at that. If she were to run, it wouldn't be through the door, that's for sure.

Collecting her thoughts, the severity of the situation finally fully dawned on her. Fuck. She started panicking again, thinking about the mess she was in. How was she going to get out of this mess? No. Stop this, she told herself. This wasn't going to help anyone. She looked back at Hound. She had no doubt in her mind he was serious before. What she didn't get, however, was why they hadn't taken her wand yet, nor her bag now that she thought about it. Surely they hadn't forgotten about that?

Hermione thought back to when she and Remus had appeared here. It's been bugging her why they couldn't apparate away. She remembered feeling like they ran into a wall, she's never felt anything like that before. Would that mean she couldn't apparate at all?. That surely wasn't the case, as they were able to apparate a small distance in the forest. She was tempted to try, but if she were to hit that wall-like barrier again and they found her… she didn't think they'd be too forgiving. Best not to tempt fate for now, if she wanted to make it through the day.

"Granger-san?" A new voice spoke.

She blinked and turned her head to look at the person who had addressed her. "Yes?" She replied. He was an older looking man, maybe about Remus' age. As that thought crossed her mind, she felt a pang of sadness. The man didn't look as scary as the masked men did, at least not compared to Hound and the others. It made her feel a bit more at ease.

He was wearing a headband with a metal plate on it with a symbol etched into it. It was similar, if not the same, to the one she'd seen before entering the village. His long blonde hair was tied in a high ponytail. He was wearing a grey suit with a black overcoat. His light green eyes studied her as she studied him, his face serious. Would he be the one to..?

"My name is Yamanaka Inoichi." He introduced himself. "I'm going to have to ask you some questions so I would like for you to follow me. I'll arrange for someone to take the child, while we talk." He said as he looked at the bundle she was carrying.

Hermione blinked at the man, surprised he also seemed to be speaking English quite fluently. "What? No!" She exclaimed. "I mean, um, no, I'd rather keep him with me, if that's alright." She looked down to see Teddy still happily sleeping. She was happy he was still sound asleep after all the fuss that had happened around him.

The man looked at her for a moment and then sighed. "I'm afraid that's not possible, Granger-san. I assure you the child will not be harmed." He said as he signalled for someone to come over.

She looked from the man in front of her, to the one coming up beside her to take Teddy. Taking a step back putting her arms around Teddy. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you take him." Hermione took another step back and shook her head, looking around the room. She needed to get out of here. She noticed 'Cat' had joined Hound at his side. Both had turned their attention to her as well. With everyone's eyes on her, she knew she must be going mad with what she was considering.

"Granger-san," the blonde man, Yama-whatever his name was, started, noticing that she was looking for a way out. "Don't do anything rash," he warned.

Hermione let out a humourless chuckle. "Rash? I'm just trying to protect him, and myself." She replied. "And I can't do that when I don't know what's going to happen, who's going to be looking after him or where he'll be." Her voice wavered and she felt her eyes misting over while she looked at the man.

Everyone stayed silent, waiting for the other to make a move. Hermione looked at the men in the room. She was weighing her options, but neither seemed to be one she should take. However, it seemed the choice was made for all of them. There was a 'pop' and suddenly one of the Death Eaters stood right in front of her, wand in his hand. Without the mask, it was very clear who one of her attackers was. It was none other than Antonin Dolohov.

Hermione's eyes widened as he set his eyes on her, an evil smirk appearing on his face. As all the men in the room went for Dolohov, Dolohov went for Hermione. She cursed her decision for pocketing her wand at that moment, not having enough time to grab it as Dolohov grabbed her arm. In a blink of an eye, they were back in the forest.

Due to the suddenness, she stumbled as they arrived, but managed to keep her footing. While she stumbled, Dolohov managed to throw a Diffindo at her. It tore through the cloth that held Teddy and the strap of her bag. As Hermione just barely managed to catch Teddy, she felt a soaring pain shooting through her chest, just below her collarbone. She screamed out in pain, noticing he had not just cut through the cloths, but her skin as well.

She fell to her knees, clutching Teddy to her chest. She reached out for her bag as she saw Dolohov firing another spell at her. Before it hit, she apparated away in panic. Like before, she was forcefully stopped by an invisible barrier a few yards away. Hermione heard Dolohov laugh in the distance. "Do you like the little barrier we put up? Ha! You can't run from me, Mudblood, we made sure of that!"

Merlin's beard. So they were the ones that created this barrier? That explained why she and Remus weren't able to leave earlier. It seemed to be limited to an area in this forest, however, and only when she was trying to leave. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to apparate here, she figured. Not that this helped her, because there was no way she would be able to make it out of the forest with this injury and carrying Teddy.

Hermione looked up, to where she could see Dolohov in the distance, from behind the bushes. She only had one option. She had to take him out, it was the only way. She just prayed she was able to.. Carefully lowering Teddy to the ground, she made sure he was unharmed, comfortable and still asleep. He was alright, thank Merlin. She placed her bag next to him and cast a few protection spells, successfully managing to hide him away. No one would be able to find him, as long as she was alive. So she just had to make sure to stay alive, then. Right. Easy, she thought sarcastically.

Pointing the wand to herself, she started whispering the incantation of a healing spell, slowly knitting her skin back together. She didn't have time to completely heal herself and she would definitely have to apply some dittany later, but for now that could wait. As long as she could move and wouldn't bleed out, it would be enough for now. She slowly stood up and readied herself. Taking a deep breath to calm herself a bit more, she raised her head in determination. Okay. She could do this. She was stronger than him. So let's get this over with.

As soon as one of the captives appeared, Kakashi sprang into action. He jumped towards the man as he reached for Granger. He cursed as he missed by less than an inch. "Fuck!" He quickly looked around, spreading his senses, to see if he could find them. He gritted his teeth when he came up empty, turning to look at the T&I staff. "How the hell did he get out here?!" He demanded. "Didn't you have him locked up?!"

"Get Ibiki," Inoichi ordered his subordinates as he stepped towards Kakashi. "The captives, including him, were locked up, Hound. He shouldn't have been able to get out."

A moment later, the door slammed open, revealing Ibiki looking pissed off. Looking at Kakashi , Tenzou and Inoichi, he let out a bark "With me."

Kakashi followed Ibiki to another room, with a screen mounted to the wall. When all four men were inside the room, he turned the screen on and looked at Kakashi. "It was your team that brought these men in, right?"

Kakashi gave him a nod at that, silently urging him to get to the point.

"Right. I understood you requested us waiting with the interrogation. The Hokage insisted we start right away, however, after receiving your note. So we did." Ibiki said, turning to the screen, which showed the man that had escaped, strapped to a chair. "Since all of them were unconscious when they arrived, we skipped the physical interrogation and had Inoichi dig through their minds. We started with him." He then looked at Inoichi, signaling him to continue.

"His mind was quite protected, surprisingly enough. He fought me a great deal, but I managed to get some information from him. It's just bits and pieces." Inoichi started, "what I saw, however… I have seen a lot of things in my life, but never anything like this. They are nothing like us, they call themselves… wizards, I believe?" He then turned to Kakashi. "I assume you've seen some of the things in the forest that I've seen in his mind. And, while I'm not entirely sure on the why, I do know for sure that he intends to kill her."

"We have to go find them, then." Kakashi stated. "Immediately." He couldn't explain why, but this all made him feel very uneasy.

"We have no way of tracking them. The way he disappeared… He didn't use chakra. And if we can't sense them, we won't be able to find them." Ibiki cut in.

Kakashi frowned at that. That did make it a lot more difficult to find them. He knew he wouldn't be able to use his pack either, they wouldn't be able to track their scent if they just disappeared like that. He bit his lip as he racked his brain. How do you find someone you can't track? Suddenly there was a feeling in his gut, which made him look behind him, towards the door.

He felt the three men around him look at him in question. When Kakashi didn't turn back, Tenzou decided to speak up, "senpai?"

He didn't respond to him. He felt like there was a pull, urging him to go. He hadn't felt anything like this outside of battle. What he did know is that if he should trust anything, it was his instinct. So, without another word, Kakashi rushed out the door.

"Oi, senpai! Wha-" Tenzou started, but he didn't stay to listen, instead rushing out of the building. Pausing outside, he looked at where the forest was, where they had first found them. Something told him that's where he had to go. So not wasting another second, Kakashi leapt onto the building across the street and jumped from one rooftop to another, making his way back to the forest.

Behind him, he could sense Tenzou closing in on him. He didn't bother slowing down or explaining himself. That could wait until he got to his destination. Within a few minutes they arrived at the edge of the forest. He jumped onto a branch and sprinted off in the direction of the clearing.

A minute later, he was forced to dodge a stray beam of light coming towards him. He stopped in the tree he landed in, looking towards the clearing. A few seconds later, Tenzou appeared beside him.

Both had turned their eyes to the clearing, not quite sure on what they were seeing. Kakashi thought he'd seen it all before, but this... This was definitely something else. Bursts of light were going back and forth, both were attacking and deflecting. They needed to stop this fight, but he also knew they had to be careful.

Looking at Hermione, he noticed the boy wasn't with her, which made him frown. Quickly looking around, but not spotting him. If she was so adamant on holding him, why wasn't she now? As she moved, he noticed she moved slower than he had expected. He then saw a tear in her shirt and a lot of blood that had seeped into her shirt. His hand clenched into a fist at that. If she was hurt, what about the kid?

"Senpai, what do you want to do?" Tenzou softly said.

"We need to stop him, obviously."

"Well, yeah, obviously." Tenzou responded. "I do think we have to be careful not to get hit. I don't know what those beams can do, but it did kill that other man."

Kakashi glanced at Tenzou, nodding in agreement. His mind reeling, quickly thinking of a strategy on how best to approach this. From where they were standing, he didn't have a clear shot as they both kept moving in order to dodge certain attacks. He kept following the both of them, looking for an opening. "You stay here for now. I'll let you know when to attack." He said to Tenzou.

The second he saw his opening, he leaped forward into the clearing. The moment he appeared, the man fired a beam at him, which he skillfully dodged. He then grabbed Hermione and pulled her out of the way of another one, as she got distracted by him appearing next to her. He looked at her and saw that she also had a split lip as well as a small cut on her forehead.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, clearly out of breath.

"Helping you. Now, stay out of the way," he ordered her. "I'll handle him."

"I'm perfectly capable of handling him myself, thank you." She retorted.

"I'm sure you are, but you're hurt so I'm still going to handle it. So stay there." Kakashi replied, turning his back to her. As he did so, he saw a beam coming towards them. Shit he hadn't even heard anything. He shouldn't have gotten distracted by her. But before he knew it, the young woman pushed past him, waving her weapon and called out "Protego!"

He didn't see anything happening but as soon as the beam was supposed to hit, some sort of barrier appeared, stopping the beam from hitting them. "You'll handle it, huh?" She scoffed, trying to raise an eyebrow at him, but flinched in pain. "Fine,you do whatever it is you need to do. Just.. Don't get hit by any of the spells. I'll try to keep his attention on me as long as I can."

She yelled out something, waving her arm around and next thing he knew, there was an explosion near the other man. Kakashi looked at her. He had totally underestimated her, that was for sure. Now was not the time to think about that, however, he said to himself. He turned his gaze to the man at the other side of the clearing, who was preparing for another attack. The man was focussing his attention on Hermione now, which gave him the chance to disappear. Right before he used the Body-Flicker to appear behind the man, he gave Tenzou a signal as well.

A second later, he had the man in a headlock and Tenzou was holding his tanto against the man's chest. Kakashi saw Hermione walk towards them, calling out "Can you move out of the way, please?" She directed at Tenzou, who looked at Kakashi. He nodded at Tenzou to move. She then raised her stick towards the man and said "Stupefy!" The man suddenly fell unconscious, dropping his body weight on Kakashi as he still had him in a headlock.

"You can let him go now," she said as she reached them. "He won't wake up for a while. Nevertheless, just to be sure I'll incarcerate him." She bent down and grabbed the man's stick and put it in her pocket.

Both Kakashi and Tenzou looked at her in question. "I'm sorry, what?" Kakashi couldn't help but ask.

"I'll tie him up, step away, please."

Kakashi took a step back, before he realised that he had. He saw Tenzou do the same. Seriously, who is this woman? Both his eyebrows raised in wonder as a rope came out of her stick. Really? A fucking rope? Just, how?

"Alright, that's that, then." She sighed in what seemed to be relief. He didn't blame her, seeing the state she was in.

"Cat," Kakashi called. "Take him back to T&I, I'll take her to the hospital, after I've found that boy."

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay, just in case?"

"Nah, I got it. Get going. Fill them in on what happened okay? And don't let him wake up."

"Alright, if you're sure. Don't take too long, senpai." Tenzou said before picking the tied up man up, hoisting him over his shoulder. A second later, he was gone.

Kakashi then turned to Hermione, once again looking at the cuts on her face, but most importantly the bloody and ripped t-shirt and the damaged skin underneath. "Are you alright?"

Hermione glanced at Hound, before glancing down at her shirt. "What? Oh, yes, yes. I'm fine." She said, waving it off. "I just need to mend it some more and put some dittany on it against the scarring and it should be fine."

She turned around, looking across the clearing. It looked like a whole different area after all the spells that were fired by her and Dolohov. But that's not important now. She needed to get to Teddy and her bag, because she was not fine. Not at all, but he didn't need to know that. The place Dolohov had slashed through hurt like hell, even if she somewhat mended it. Hermione clenched her jaw in pain as she turned towards the bushes where she left Teddy.

"Hey! Where do you think yo-" Hound started, following her.

"I need to go get Teddy." She called over her shoulder.

A second later, Hound was next to her, which made her stop walking. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, silently asking what he wanted. He shrugged and said "It's not that I don't trust you, but…"

"You don't trust me," she finished dryly.

"Right," he nodded.

"Alright, fair enough. It's just through there, I think." Hermione pointed to her left. She led him towards the area where she believed she had hid Teddy. It really was hard to tell after that fight. A few moments later, she felt the barrier hum right in front of her, which made her sigh in relief. With a quick 'Finite' the barrier vanished and the small child came into view, surprisingly still sleeping.

"Oh, thank Merlin, you're alright. Good." She felt like crying, now that she was sure he was safe. She picked up the torn strap of her bag and repaired it, before flinging it over her shoulder. Hermione then pocketed her wand and carefully picked Teddy up and held him against her chest before standing up again. "Okay, I guess… we should head back to your village, right?" She asked tentatively.

"Yes." Hound responded.

"You're going to take me back to get interrogated?" She already knew the answer to that. While maybe before they could've gone easy on her, there was no way they would now.

"No."

Hermione blinked in confusion at the answer "Wh-what?" He wasn't going to take her back to T&I?

"Well, obviously we still need to question you. But I'm taking you to the hospital first." He clarified. "You need to get your wounds looked at."

She frowned at him. While she appreciated the thought, she didn't need to go to a hospital. She'd been in enough hospital beds for a lifetime. "That's alright, really. I just need to mend this, I can do it myself."

Hound snorted at that. "Yeah, I'm sure. But no more of that magic for now. We're doing this my way." He said, "besides, I have a feeling you would need this to heal yourself, so you can't."

Did he really just snort? Wait, I would need wha- No! She looked at the items he held in his hand. Which happened to be her wand, and Dolohov's. When the hell did he take those? "What do you think you're- Give it back!" She called, while trying to reach for her wand, which he quickly pocketed inside his cloak.

"Yeah, not going to happen. Now, come here." He said, while opening his arms.

"Why?" She asked hesitantly. She did not trust him, especially if he was able to take something out of her pocket without her noticing. Who the hell did he think he was?

"Because I'm going to carry you. There's no way I'm walking for another hour and a half when we could easily get there in a few minutes. So, come on. I promise I'm not going to hurt you."

Hermione didn't move. She really rather not be carried. Also, what would happen if he touched her again, did he think about that? What if he dropped her or something? Voicing this, Hound sighed in annoyance.

"I'm not going to drop you. Look, we really don't have time for this. So either you let me pick you up, or I'm picking you up by force. Your choice."

Charming man, ain't he? She thought to herself, rolling her eyes. "Alright, fine. Fine," she relented, stepping towards him.

He bent down and carefully lifted her in his arms, shifting her for a moment, so he could comfortably carry her. She winced in pain as he did so, which caused him to cock his head at her. "You're just fine, huh?"

"Oh, shut it." She huffed. A moment later she felt her eyes close, unable to keep them open as the exhaustion set in. Hermione fought it for a moment, but the steady movement of Hound running made it hard to fight. As she tightened her hold on Teddy, she hoped he was still with her when she woke up. She wouldn't be able to fight them on this, was the last thought that went through her mind as she fully lost consciousness.