Chapter 158: Oh Kevin
Deciding on one, they headed for a fast food shop. The establishment already filled with the lunch rush of a Saturday, only Hermione, Sirius, and Harry went in, the rest waiting outside.
'Fish and chips?' Sirius checked with Hermione, his voice, unfortunately, still gruff with latent anger.
'Ah… yes,' Hermione decided. It wasn't a dish she got at home, so she might as well enjoy the greasy treat when she had the opportunity. 'Can either of you see a loo?' she asked, craning to see over the heads and shoulders of the people packed into the shop.
Making use of their greater heights, both Sirius and Harry obligingly looked.
'Over there,' Sirius said, pointing.
Thanking them, Hermione headed off, leaving the two to each other's silently grumpy company. The bathroom held only two stalls. The one for wheelchair accommodation was already occupied, so Hermione let herself into the one next to it.
'Oh Kevin,' a woman in the occupied stall was complaining. 'And it's all down your front too! What were you thinking?'
'I don't like it here,' a young boy griped petulantly back at her. 'And they don't like us!'
'Of course they like us, Kevin,' the woman said, irritated. 'They're family!'
Hermione did her business quietly, feeling the etiquette was to make her presence as little known as possible to the arguing mother and son. Plus, she was interested. There was something about the woman's voice that made Hermione think she'd met her before. Or, at least, heard her before.
'Then why do they never come to our place?' the boy demanded over the indistinct murmurs his mother was making. 'Why is it always us who have to come see them?'
It took the woman a moment to respond.
'Because,' she said, sounding very tried, 'it takes them a lot longer to travel to us than it takes us to travel to him. Now, turn around.'
'… Emmet was giving me funny looks,' the boy said, stroppy.
'Emmet is two years old,' his mother returned. 'And you made him cry.'
'Dad says we should never hide who we are!' Kevin shot back. 'See? It made Emmet cry because they don't like us!'
'Oh for Merlin's sake Kevin!' the woman exclaimed, and Hermione was suddenly even more interested in the pair. 'You know there's a difference between hiding who you are and doing what you know you shouldn't in front of the Muggles!'
There was a brief, heavy silence, then a gurgled splash.
'Kevin!' The woman exclaimed, fed up. 'Get your shoe out of the toilet!'
Hermione tried not to laugh. That was likely something the woman would never have thought she'd need to say back before she'd become a mother. Still fighting a laugh, Hermione finished up and left the bathroom. Harry and Sirius were still waiting in line.
'Harry,' Hermione began thoughtfully, 'does "you bust slug" mean anything to you?'
'"You bust slug"?' Harry repeated. 'Er… exploding slugs aren't a pretty sight?'
Hermione clicked her tongue disappointedly.
'I was trying to remember…' she explained. 'There was a witch cleaning her son off in the toilet stall next to mine. I thought I recognised them…'
Disproportionately alarmed looks were suddenly staring at Hermione.
'A witch,' Sirius said sharply, 'using spells?'
'I –' a two-tonne lead weight of terror landed, icy, in the pit of Hermione's stomach. Spells, right next to any Tracking charm that might be on her. 'I don't know!' she finished, panicking.
'Shit!' cursed Sirius as Harry hissed, 'We have to go!'
The crowded shop patrons being disagreeable about it, they pushed their way out onto the street, Sirius's fingers pinching into Hermione's arm.
'Hermione has to get home,' Harry supplied shortly to the others' questioning looks. 'Now!' he insisted.
Sirius was already pulling Hermione quickly along the street, his eyes darting every which way for a place to hide her so she could use her portkey. It was all Hermione could do to keep up with his urgent stride. She stumbled and caught her balance, picking into a run, very much in sympathy with Sirius's determination to get away.
'Just use the portkey here!' called Tonks from close behind them. 'Just –'
A CRACK, like a dreaded explosion, cut through the peaceful avenue. Then another and another –
'GO!' Remus shouted after them as Sirius stalled, Hermione colliding with him. 'We'll hold them off!'
They were turning, Remus and the rest of Hermione's friends, aggregating into readiness for a fight; wands being drawn despite the scattering of Muggles enjoying the sunny shopping street.
Hold them off – it seemed a bit extreme, for all Hermione had been sure she needed to run from some poorly-envisioned danger just seconds before. Her head became a jumble, trying to work out what the Ministry would do – question them on trumped-up charges? Arrest them? Ask them just to come with to the Ministry?
Duel them seemed a step further than Hermione had thought the Ministry was at.
And then she saw, past Harry's shoulder, the face of the nearest wizard, and went for her own wand.
'Carrow!' Sirius hissed.
The squat, asinine wizard looked murderous, his eyes oddly shiny. He had his wand pointed straight at Harry. Behind him were only a couple other faces Hermione recognised, the convoy that had Apparated into the street mostly dressed in the black robes of Hitters.
Someone tutted.
'Wands out in the middle of a Muggle street?' came the voice of Yaxley, and he sounded like he was licking them out, gleeful and loving the taste of each one. 'A serious breach of the Statute of Secrecy. We'll have to take you in for that.'
No one bothered to point out the ludicrous irony in that.
'Just come quietly,' Yaxley said, as though it was a suggestion. 'The Minister would like a chat.'
No one moved, but it didn't matter. Carrow gave no one a chance to come quietly. His face red and blotchy, he'd yelled a furious, 'CRUCIO!'
Someone screamed, but it wasn't Harry. He'd thrown up a shield spell, someone else casting a loud 'Impedementa!' – and then there were more shouts – more spells – the street being thrown abruptly into a magical war, Muggles shrieking and running –
Ginny threw herself to the side, a rubbish bin exploding behind her into metal shrapnel. To Hermione's left a windowpane shattered, the Muggles inside screaming.
'GO!' shouted Tonks, racing to back up Ron. 'NOW!'
But Hermione's feet were stuck to the pavement. She couldn't go! They were outnumbered!
'GO!' Tonks yelled again –
Hermione and Sirius turned, Hermione unsticking her feet with a horrible effort – but it was too late.
'Incarcerous!' bellowed Rowle, bearing down on them, backed up not by his own Law Enforcement Department, but by Pratt and three more black-robed Hitters.
'Protago!' Sirius countered. Rowle's spell bounced off Sirius's shield, a Hitter tumbling to the ground tied from head to foot with iron chains.
Stupify! Hermione cast silently, taking out another Hitter as Sirius sent Rowle's next spell flying into a bus shelter. And then it was just all out fighting, Hermione's gut taking over, her focus suddenly capable of being on a half dozen things at once – spell after spell, the moving pieces of assailants through the street –
Hermione's Protago Repelliatum shielding them, Sirius picked off two more descending Hitters. Then they were fending off another attack, Hermione catching the lumbering Flint with a Transfiguration as Sirius sent a Stunned Pratt flying down the street. Finding himself abruptly in the form of a rhinoceros, Flint ploughed into Rowle and just kept going, on course for Pratt.
An enormous reverberating CRACK sounded from above. Hermione spun, then turned, sprinting with Sirius's yanking hand away from the falling mass of rubble dislodged from the top of a building.
'Untungus!' cried Remus, and the rubble became a volley of arrow-pointed projectiles. As one, he, Tonks, Harry, and Ginny ducked, the arrows shooting over their heads and straight into the oncoming force fronted by Yaxley and Carrow. The two ex-Death Eaters got their shields up in time, but several of the others behind them didn't. Bodies fell over tumbling bodies.
'Area Ametus!' Ron cast hastily. Hermione didn't pause to see the pavement turn to sticky goo beneath the tumbling bodies, she ran towards Ron, a shield spell flying from her lips.
It shielded Ron just in time, Yaxley's 'Motilo!' bouncing from it, the force of the spell knocking Ron over all the same.
Tonks shrieked, loud and pained, from Hermione's left. But Sirius and Harry were already hurrying to help and from behind Hermione she could hear the threatening, thundering approach of a several-tonne animal on four feet.
Scrabbling with Ron, Hermione helped pull him up as they stumbled to the side. They tumbled again, falling together as they ducked a hex, then Remus was above them, flinging a spell at the wild rhinoceros. Flint veered away.
A screech of large tyres had them staring at the juggernaut of a double-decker bus swerving to avoid the crazy magical melee in the street. Hermione stared in horror, no useful spell coming to mind, as the rhinoceros ploughed headlong into the swerving, teetering bus.
'Impedimenta!' Ron and Remus yelled together, the magically slowed bus tipping over gracefully in a gradual arc, Muggles racing out of its way before the bus landed, side-down on the pavement.
The hysterical yells around them had reached fever pitch. Closer to hand was a shrieked request for help from Leonora. Ron was on his feet before Hermione had managed to get hers under her, Ron trodding accidentally on Hermione's hand as he ran to Leonora's aid.
Leonora was jumping from side to side in a clever defensive manoeuvre, aiming panted spells wildly at Toldercot and several more Hitters all advancing on her. Ron caught one with a Stunning Spell in the same moment Leonora was hit. She fell backwards, unconscious, Hermione clattering to her side.
'Enervate!' Hermione shouted desperately as Remus joined Ron fending off the attack. 'Enervate!' Hermione tried again. Leonora didn't wake. Bizarre blotches in blues and greens were appearing all over her skin.
'Finite incantatum,' Sirius cast, appearing beside Leonora. 'Caillte! Enervate!'
That time, it did work, Leonora's eyes opening as the blotches started to fade rapidly away. Sirius was focused on a new onslaught by the time Hermione had a moment to look around for him.
Their small pocket of stilled Healing feeling less and less a safe place to be crouched, Hermione pulled the disorientated Leonora up. She forced Leonora's perplexed head down a second later, intercepting a jet of wicked green light and sending it into the underside of the bus above Flint's now untransfigured, prone and unresponsive body. Hastily, Hermione renewed the sticky goo charm on the ground beneath the less adroit of the Hitters' force, spun, and did the same to the Carrow-directed group facing down Sirius and Ginny.
From there, Hermione twisted, taking in what was going on around her, defending Leonora forefront in her mind. A spell she saw just in time had her pushing the dazed witch aside. Hermione stumbled over Leonora's feet, fighting to keep them both upright. Yaxley shouted a whooping 'Crucio!' somewhere to Hermione's right, the rise of Remus's warning shout disorientating Hermione as she tried to see both wizards at once –
There was an agonised whine from just beside Hermione. She whipped to stare towards it, Leonora stumbling against her – seeing Sirius sinking to the ground, the red light of the spell fading as Sirius crumpled in pain.
'NO!' Hermione launched for him. His arms wrapped tight around his middle, his body shaking in silent bearing of the curse meant for her – Sirius's pinched eyes met Hermione's.
'GO!' he ground out.
Hermione's feet tried to oblige him, hanging onto Leonora, shifting them away, then turning, her hand fumbling into her pocket for her emergency portkey –
Crazed eyes and a livid grin – a madman bearing down on her. A shocking sight, Hermione giving a squeak and trying to jump away as Carrow shifted, moving almost drunkenly, Leonora tripping over her own two feet –
Cognisant awareness caught up with Hermione too late. Her body was flying backward through the air by the time her brain had screamed for effective action. Her tailbone, then back, collided with something long, hard, and cylindrical, something extra knocking into her flesh, as, sight and sound twanging deafeningly around her, Hermione fell, her head cracking against something that shot her consciousness with white nothingness. Close on its heels, the implacable encroaching of darkness claimed her.
Consciousness reclaimed itself under a rain of falling rubble. Then blows – an assault to her side. Her vision wasn't working properly, blurrings of grey shapes all Hermione could see. Her mind found a pinpoint of focus on the thought of her helpless child. It was agony to move a body that felt like shattered concrete. Impossible, too, to force it to curl into a protective ball. Hermione wanted it to. Her legs, their lengths radiating with shooting pain, just wouldn't respond.
Instead, her body choking with nauseating explosions of agony, Hermione managed to tip her torso a bit more towards face-down. It did nothing to stop the blows. The world spun, Hermione suddenly aware of needing to gasp for air, as mad laughter issued from somewhere above her. A lower blow jarred Hermione's hip and white lights flashed into her vision again, her body retching against Hermione's will – she was trying to breathe.
Her fingers scrabbled on hard pavement, trying desperately to drag her body away. She choked again, barely feeling the blows anymore as distinct spots of pain in the roiling agony. Her head throbbed, her eyes blinking rapidly as shocking sparks of colour were reintroduced to her sight.
'Get off her!'
It was a voice Hermione recognised, but couldn't put to a face. She attributed it simply to the figure lunging over her. Another person shouted and something tumbled to the ground on Hermione's other side.
'Come on – okay – come on –'
There was a new person beside Hermione. It reassured her somehow, their arms grabbing around her shoulders. Her body yielded between the comforting presence and the inexhaustible surgings of pain. Gasping and wheezing, she managed to focus on and take hold of a strong, ring-adorned hand.
Then the world went blue and Hermione stopped looking. Stopped breathing. Her scrunched face bearing down on screams fighting to peal out of her. Her body felt like it was being wrenched in half as it spun, yanked by centrifugal force.
She slammed into a new example of flat, hard ground and Hermione did scream. The comforting presence grabbed her and pulled, sliding Hermione over the floor as she yelled and shrieked, intermittently sucking in insufficient lungful's of air.
'Okay – okay!' The presence rolled Hermione bodily over onto her back. Abrupt recognition of Sirius shut her up, the last scream a whimper as Hermione's breathing ratcheted up its pace.
Sirius's face was insistent above hers.
'Where does it hurt?' he demanded harshly. 'Tell me Hermione – point!'
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She gaped, fighting for words.
The pain had climbed somehow higher. Hermione groaned breathlessly. She tried to focus on Sirius as he leant over her head, but her eyes were blurring badly again. Her body was pounding rapidly, her head throbbing – her vision growing dark.
Hermione tried to speak again as the pain inexplicably started to subside. She worked to talk, producing only a mumbled 'Mmuhhh'. She fought to hold on. But a very vital part of her was slipping away.
Time warped. Sensation warped with it. Hermione reclaimed a hold enough to babble out a word she intended to be 'Baby!' then everything was easing strangely, the floor growing comfortable, dreamlike thoughts of floating, swirling colour bearing her away.
