Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own Harry Potter. They're JKR's.

Chapter Four

Hermione's grip on the Death Eater's shoulders sprung apart in an instant at the words.

The atmosphere was still under the – vampire? –'s spell. She was now sitting helplessly on the pavement as the stranger came forward, his dark hair slicked back and his beautiful face still serene and unfazzled. She watched, still frozen, as the stranger picked the Death Eater up in his arms and walked off, his movement still inhumanly graceful.

He turned and looked right at Hermione, almost as if to thank her.

But she just sat there, watching a very mysterious person had come along and taken her captive away, just like that. Yet she still couldn't move, couldn't bring herself to run after him.

The man walked slowly and surely. It seemed to take a few seconds before the effects of his eerie presence faded a little. Then Hermione stood up hastily, her instinct forcing her to run a few steps after him. But he was gone.

What the hell just happened? She gripped her wand tightly, more in confusion that anything else.

"Hermione!"

She whirled around. It was Lavender. She hadn't realized they had all left the warehouse. 

"There you are! You're okay! Hermione, did you get any of them?" she asked. "I saw you run after one."

Hermione stared back into the direction that the stranger had gone.

Lavender touched her arm. "Hermione – are you okay? You're shaking like mad!"

"Huh?" Hermione gave herself a mental slap. "Oh, oh yeah – oh, it's nothing!" she said quickly, trying to stop her hands from trembling.

Lavender tugged on Hermione's sleeve. "We've got to go, Herm. Seamus and Dean caught one of them, but the others got away. I'm just glad we're all alive. We've got to get back and owl Dumbledore."

Hermione nodded, her eyes still in the direction that the stranger had gone.

None of them slept particularly well that night. They decided not to go back to the warehouse, assuming the other three Death Eaters had gone for backup. They decided to keep Dean and Seamus's captured Death Eater – a middle-aged, brown-haired male, tied and bound and wand-less until Dumbledore came the next morning, hopefully with some Truth Potion. They were feeling nervous, still, about having a Death Eater, even a knocked-out one, sleeping two rooms away. Eventually, after some late-night girl-talk, Lavender, Parvati and Padma fell asleep. Hermione didn't tell them about the strange person who had well, asked her to let the Death Eater go.

Was she crazy?

No, of course not. He had been real. He had pale skin, dark clothes, red lips, and had manipulated her into letting the Death Eater go.

But who could have such manipulative powers? He wasn't hostile or scary. He was just there – a beautiful, supernatural being – somehow calming yet exciting in presence.

Maybe I should tell the others, Hermione thought. Would it cause unnecessary panic? Would they think she was completely Augureys? Was he dangerous? Well, he was definitely dangerous if he could confound her the way he did.

By the next morning, Hermione hadn't slept a wink.

Her muscles ached from lack of rest. But she was up again with everyone else. The Death Eater was still unconscious. She went and sat down by the fireplace with the rest of them.

At exactly seven o'clock, the fire shot up into high green flame and a tall, elderly wizard with a long white beard stepped out of it. Dumbledore. 

They all stood up. Then Minerva McGonagall, their strict Transfiguration teacher, head of Gryffindor House. Thirdly came Remus Lupin, their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor from their third- and sixth-years. Lastly stepped out Sirius Black, the once on-the-run-thought-to-be-guilty criminal from Azkaban, the man whom was accused of giving his best friends up to the Dark Lord – Harry's parents – and then causing his downfall. Although Hermione was used to him, the other junior Aurors took a slight step backwards when he arrived. Sirius Black's name wasn't officially cleared yet and they weren't exactly used to having an Azkaban runaway as one of their seniors.

"How is everything going?" Dumbledore began with fatherly gentleness.

They assured him everything was fine.

"Then I won't hesitate to begin. If you have any discoveries of your own, we need until after we discuss the Torchensend arson. This is not a light matter. Voldemort – " flinches from around the room, " – is not a fool. This raid was committed in top secrecy. Had Cho Chang not be in contact with her parents, it would have taken weeks, even months before we were likely to find about it. This was not a raid to gain fear. Voldemort was looking for something.

"Firstly, someone must contact Cho Chang. Severus has informed me that Voldemort is now personally sending a servant after her. She needs to head east, best through Istanbul to Asia. Next, we have to discuss what Voldemort is after. Torchensend was the last village that Tom Riddle visited after he left Hogwarts before becoming Lord Voldemort. The Torches were a powerful Dark wizarding family there. Isiam Torch was the one that apprenticed Riddle many years ago. Voldemort's current body was created from an old concoction of dark materials including a type of elixir found the rock faces outside Torchensend's borders. If you know, Isiam Torch once worked with Nicholas Flamel in the studies of Alchemy.

"I believe that the information to further reincarnation of an immortal life is hidden in one of Torch's books somewhere in one of the houses in Torchensend and that it has survived the fire. I believe that Voldemort is planning to search through the ashes and recover it to use. Torch wrote extensive books on Dark Magic, summarized into three large volumes, all of them gone now. Even information on these books is rare and must be researched carefully."

Dumbledore paused and looked for a response. Everyone in the room had gone silent. Then he continued.

"I have reason to believe Isiam Torch was also a descendent of Salazar Slytherin and that the key to unlocking the books is in Parseltongue. Harry and Ron are, then, with us. Now. For a fact, at least two of the three books left in the Torch Mansion after Torch's death had disappeared among muggles living there at the time. We're not sure where they are, but they must be found and destroyed.

"And that is where we need you."

Everyone was staring at Dumbledore now with very blanched expressions.

"We have to find them?" Hermione asked finally.

Dumbledore looked at her, his aged, wrinkled face as serious as ever and said, "Yes. But it will not be idle searching. You will need to research this."

"You mean, research – in a library?" Padma said.

Dumbledore nodded at her. "There are several extremely extensive libraries in Europe that contain millions of volumes of magical texts. It sounds easy, but no, even searching for information on the Torch Books is very difficult."

"Well, if it has to be done, we're up for it." Hermione said. She could see Remus Lupin, McGonagall and Lavender smile.

"Good. Then, more on that later." Dumbledore then seemed to turn more cheerful, which relaxed everybody. "Now, is there anything that you have for me?"

Oh yeah, the Death Eater! The triumphant image of their hostage suddenly popped up in everyone's minds like a Patronus to a Dementor

"Yes!" Dean cried. He stood up as if ready to present an A+ project in school. "We caught a Death Eater. Yesterday night – we raided a muggle warehouse and we caught him."

"Oh my," murmured McGonagall.

"There were four of them. They were doing something there," piped Lavender. "Three of them got away, but we have one."

"Who is he?" asked Sirius sharply.

"We don't know." Hermione replied.

"Where is he now?" asked Remus, a lot gentler than Sirius.

They eagerly lead the four older seniors into the kitchen, where the Death Eater was still sleeping.

"Enervate," said Dumbledore, pointing it at him. The man stirred and tried to get up. Then he realized who he was looking at.

"Dumbledore! H-hello! What are you doing here?" he was obviously panicking. "Where am I? Who are those kids?"

"I know you!" Sirius suddenly pointed his finger right at the Death Eater.

"Sirius Black!" the frightened man started to yell.

"Ralondolph Mora! You worked at the Department of the Control of Muggle Weaponry office before becoming a Death Eater!"

"Death Eater?" squealed Mora. Hermione noticed how much he resembled Peter Pettigrew four years ago at this point. "Who? Me? You must be mad…"

"Remus, untie his legs and bring him to St. Mungo's and give him a holding cell." Dumbledore ordered. Remus did as he was told and left through the fireplace.

"Excellent work." Dumbledore smiled distractedly at the Aurors and looked as though he was getting ready to go. "I'll give your assignments for the research later, but now it seems we have another issue to work with. As for Cho –" he looked at Hermione just as she was about to ask – "Hermione?"

Why does he want me specifically? Hermione wondered, but swallowed her fears and nodded. "Yes – I'll go, Professor."

He gave her his interrogative X-ray look and said, "The owl she sent me was traced roughly to Hogwarts, which is currently empty. And there may be Death Eaters following her as well. It will dangerous, and you'll need to go tonight."

Hermione assured him that she wanted to go, so he gave her a piece of parchment containing directions to get to Hogwarts before he, McGonagall and Sirius left.

~

"Dammit, can't you fly any goddamn faster?" Draco snapped. He parked his old Nimbus 2001 in midair and turned to star back at Mr. Goyle and Mr. Macnair, who were flying at about the same speed as winged slugs.

"Sorry, master Malfoy, my broom is slow…"

"No, it isn't!" Draco snarled. "You are slow. Now get moving or we'll never get to Hogwarts."

He turned the broom around and went full-speed towards the dark patch of forest near the edge of the horizon.

Draco was on his mission to kill that Chang girl. Lucius had insisted upon him bringing Goyle and Macnair, which, for Lucius, was about as fatherly protective as he could get. Information from Severus Snape had suggested that Chang might be at the abandoned Hogwarts castle, so Draco started flying towards the darker regions of Scotland the next night.

Personally, Draco suspected Snape of being a spy for Dumbledore and was just pretending to be a spy for the Dark Lord. But the Dark Lord trusted Snape, so Draco didn't say anything. After years of living under Lucius's guidance, Draco knew to keep his mouth shut and not to meddle in business you don't completely understand.

Under his sleeve, Draco checked his watch. It was about forty minutes after six. The sky was almost completely dark except for a sliver of moonlight.

In exactly twelve minutes, two hours after Draco started out from the Malfoy Manor, a large muggle construction site came into view. Concentrating hard, Draco sped into the invisible field that guarded against naked muggle eyes, and the site became Hogwarts castle.

Landing the Nimbus, Draco jumped onto the grass next to the stone walls. In the sky, he could see two other figures on brooms coming towards where he was. Ignoring them, Draco put his hand on the wall and walked a few steps around. The magical guard spells were weakening from lack of maintenance.

There was a window close to his height. A weakness in the structure. Draco took out his wand, and aimed –

CRASH. The window's glass was smashed.

Draco hoisted himself up into the frame and into the castle. It was completely dark, but Draco recognized the main floor corridor, the high ceilings, the suits of armor, the doors leading to his old Transfiguration class.

Hogwarts. 

~

…Torchensend is a small village in the Romanian part of Transylvania, founded by the wizard Balaam Torch in the fifteenth-century. Although it is now currently a vacation village largely populated by muggles, Torchensend's oak forests have been known to mine highly valuable quantities of a rare, powerful elixir. The Torch family has given many distributions to magical innovation…

…The most widespread of muggle religions is Christianity. Originating in the Middle East at around 0 B.C., it is now spread among muggles worldwide. Symbols of the faith include a cross and/or a dead man hanging from one (Jesus Christ). For full history of Christianity see chapter 10.

Very, very few Christian wizards remain to this day, although Christmas, originally a Christian holiday, is still celebrated. The loss of magical followers to the Christian faith is largely due to the mass discrimination of witches during the Middle Ages by the Catholic Church (a religious group)…

  …Vampires are some of rarest, most mysterious, most feared and most famed magical creatures. Strictly speaking, a vampire is a walking corpse that feeds upon human blood. Myths say that a vampire may be rid using garlic or a wooden stake, but generally, exposure to sunlight or burning is the most effective way to kill one, although a well-placed curse can easily take one down. Muggles in rural regions are most afraid and superstitious about these nocturnal corpses. Vampires have sharp fangs used for drawing blood out of a victim's neck or wrist, and pale, sickly faces. Unless forcefully destroyed, vampires are believed to be immortal…

My god, what time is it? Hermione rubbed her sore eyes. She had spent the entire afternoon reading in to Flourish and Blott's to read some of the books she had taken out. Advanced Dark History had had absolutely nothing on the Torch Books. European Wizarding Settlements contained a small piece on Torchensend, but Hermione had ended up reading on vampires and muggle religions instead.

Looking at the darkening sky, Hermione packed up her books and went back towards the post office. 

"Are you really going to go?" Lavender asked, once she was back. Hermione wolfed down a sandwich and drained another cup of coffee as she studied the map given by Dumbledore carefully.

"Yes." Was all she said. Hermione picked out some short black robes that she used for Auror training, a small dagger from Moody that she put into her belt, a long-distance Bluebottle broomstick of Seamus' (transfigured into a necklace), and of course, her wand.

"When are going to go?" asked Parvati. "Now?"

Hermione pulled on the fighting robe (which she thought, self-consciously, made her look like a Japanese ninja). "Yeah, it's nearly dark."

"Oh." Said Parvati. "Well - good luck."

"Stay safe, okay?" Padma said emphatically. Dean, who had just come up and wrapped his arms around her, nodded in agreement at Hermione.

Hermione forced a smile. Alright, remember, just follow the Hogwarts express tracks until you get to the crossing, then turn to the direction of the lake, fly another eight miles before you'll get to an abandoned building…

 Hermione wasn't exactly looking forward to the mission. But for some reason, she just wanted to get away from the other Aurors for a while. It wasn't like she didn't love her friends, but she felt very…out of place. Besides, it was important and Dumbledore had asked – someone would have to do it. After saying goodbye, Hermione left Diagon Alley. She traveled by a muggle cab all the way to King's Cross, where she entered Platform 9¾.

It was completely deserted and dark. Hermione felt another chill as she looked at the unused tracks and thought about the Hogwarts Express that came to take them to school so many times before, to school with Harry and Ron…

SNAP OUT OF IT! She screamed at herself. Trying not to think about Hogwarts too much, she took out the necklace, and pointed at it with her wand. In an instant, it became a large, sturdy oak broom painted midnight blue with 'Bluebottle' inscribed in silver on one end. She found it easier to mount than a racing broom, and climbed on, slowly gliding above the railway tracks.

For about the next half and hour, cloaked by an invisibility charm, Hermione flew steadily towards the direction it lead her. She was going as quickly as possible, letting the gentle night wind cool her skin and her nerves. I wonder if Cho's going to be there, she thought to herself. Then again, Dumbledore wouldn't have sent me if he didn't think she might be.

The night grew darker as Hermione flew on. There was peaceful countryside below her, homely in the moonlight. Slowly, the hours passed.

…exposure to sunlight or burning is the most effective way to kill one, although a well-placed curse can easily take one down. Muggles in rural regions are most afraid and superstitious about these nocturnal corpses. Vampires have sharp fangs used for drawing blood out of a victim's neck or wrist and pale, sickly faces. Unless forcefully destroyed, vampires are believed to be immortal…

"Stop thinking about the vampires," Hermione said out loud. Whenever she wasn't thinking about missing Hogwarts and her friends, that stupid vampire book was popping into her thoughts. She shouldn't have read it just before she left. Think Death Eaters, not vampires, Granger.

Just then, Hermione saw the railroad track had split into two directions. She was nearly there. Hermione parked the broom in midair. The direction of the lake would take her to Hogwarts. It was eight miles northwest.

In about ten minutes, Hermione saw a great dark forest, and some sort of ruin. Heart pounding, Hermione lowered herself and glided once again over the dirt road leading up to the front of the rubbly building. There was a Do Not Enter sign hanging over it. Hermione held out her wand and muttered and incantation, and the door opened.

Walking inside, the world changed. The fence had become a brick fortress, and the dirt path was now leading up to a grand castle, surrounded by a lake to one side and a forest to the other. There was no mistaking it.

She had arrived at Hogwarts. 

~

Draco paced around the large room. It had some comfortable couches surrounding some furniture. There was a fireplace that he had lit. Draco glared at it.

There was sure no way as hell Chang was in the castle.

Draco had sent Goyle to help him search every possible room and Macnair to watch out in case the girl left or entered the castle. Draco himself had gone through most of the main areas himself, but the had no way of knowing all the secret nooks and crannies the castle hid.

They had been there for hours. She was not there.

Another thing he knew about being a Death Eater was to do what you are told with a closed mouth, and do it right. Or pay the price later.

It was nearly midnight. Draco glared at the cheerful fire and continued to pace. Where were the two imbeciles? If he didn't report any success on capturing Chang, it meant a lot of trouble. What was the big deal with her and the vampires anyways?

His cloak whooshing as he rounded a doorway, Draco stormed out into a wide hallway with vaulted ceilings and wooden pillars placed around the carpeted walkways. At the very end of the hall hung a large tapestry of a handsome old wizard riding a dragon. It was common Hogwarts knowledge that this tapestry was the entrance to a secret passageway that led to a tower on the west. It wasn't often used because Filch, the old caretaker had known about it, too.

Suddenly, there was a shudder in the canvas.

Blinking in surprise, Draco tensed, his wand out on guard.

It wasn't the Chang girl. It wasn't Goyle or Macnair who walked out either.

She turned. Draco could see her face in the moonlight shining through the windows. The eyes, the lips, the expression, the curly brown hair – still clutching his wand, Draco's jaw dropped. He dodged behind a pillar just in time, but it couldn't – it couldn't be –

Granger?