Storybook Return

By: Gemin16

Chapter 3: New Enemies

A.N: Anything with ^.^ Means it was written by Mouse. More A.N at the end.

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Hermione's eyes opened slowly as she felt consciousness return to her. She could feel her cheek resting against something cold, most likely the floor to something. Her lashes fluttered and she got a full glimpse of what she was surrounded in. It was dark and dim with only a single candle lighting up the room but she could tell by the vertical strips covering the background that she was in a cell of some sort. She sat up and looked further around the cell only to see another body lying next to her. She immediately recognized the long brown hair gathered up into a ponytail.

Hermione quickly moved over to her friend and tried to wake her up. "Lisa? Lisa?"

Lisa's still form stirred and eventually her eyes opened wide. "What happened?" She asked holding her head with her hands, trying to wake herself up.

"We were abducted by something," Hermione told her looking around. Then it hit her. She look frantically around, not finding what she was looking for. She couldn't see the smallest member of their group anywhere. Hermione stood up and ran to the bars.

"Katarina!"

***

Ron felt his chest grow tighter and tighter as he rant through he city looking for any sign of Hermione, Lisa, or Katarina. It was strange, one moment they were laughing and walking in the crowded street and then all of a sudden they were alone and the girls taken from them right before his and Harry's eyes.

Who the hell could have done that and for what reason? No decent wizard or witch would ever form an alliance with a demon because of their reputation. Everyone knew that the true demons of the magic world were a dangerous creature to even stand next to. Their powers in the dark arts were far beyond the thought of any person. Not even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Anymore used them in his plight to conquer. Ron didn't know of anyone who ever associated with the demons. But he knew this much, if that person associated with demons, then they were either a powerful person or just sheer mad. Maybe even both. He didn't even want to think about what they would do to the girls.

"Where do you think they could be?" He yelled at Harry.

"Don't know. They could be anywhere for all we know. If we only had some decent clue of some sort," he said slowing down to catch his breathe.

As if by cue a raven flew down from the sky and landed right on Harry's shoulder, carrying a piece of paper in its mouth. It dropped it to the floor and flew away as quickly as he came.

"They're playing games with us," Ron said as Harry bent down and picked up the paper. He opened it up and read it slowly. He looked at Ron and opened up the paper for him to see.

"Looks like they want us to come and pay us a visit," he told him as Ron read the paper.

"Purple Oak"

***

Sandra made her way pass the crowds as she walked towards the castle where she worked. She was in line for the meetings and was a crucial key to them. After all she wasn't one of the best witches in town for nothing. Her smile grew wide as her pet raven landed on her shoulder, noting that the message was gone. Her partner would surely handle them all while she was away. Besides she had her own business to conduct. She stuck another note at her bird and watched as it flew away. If he was gathering his trio then she might as well have her trio pay a visit as well. The surprise she had in store for them was too much for her to wait any longer.

***

"All this waiting is making me loose my temper," Cerisa sang as she complained as she opened up the window to her room. The others stood by in the exact same room listening in on her ramble.

"Unfortunately she does have the edge in this, after all we have no idea where she is," Brian said messing around with his wand.

"In those years after the incident, it makes you wonder what she's been up to," Ramone said quietly. "Especially since it was the same as last time."

"To think that the cycle is happening again. Will the outcome be the same?" Another voice added.

Brian shook his head slowly. "It's not the same. In fact you may want to call it something completely different."

Cerisa and Ramone nodded. "The times have changed and so have we," Ramone said.

The exact same raven that had given Harry and Ron the note came flying through Cerisa's window and landed on her bed.

"Why speak of the devil. Her calling card is here," she said picking up the note. She read it carefully and handed it to Brian for him to read.

He read it carefully and folded the note back up. "Looks like she's already started without us. Hostages."

"She's changed," Ramone noted solemnly.

Brian frowned as he stared at the note. "She sure has." He put it in his pocket and looked at his friends. "Lets go."

***

"Where could they have taken her?" Hermione asked as she looked out the cell door.

"I don't know but we have to find her, she's only a baby," Lisa said chewing on her nail. "If those creeps even harm her one bit I'll, I'll-"

"You'll do what?"

Lisa and Hermione turned around and looked at the person whose voice spoke to them. A tall man stood before them, with what looked like to be fifteen demons behind him. He was hidden by the shadows of the dimly lit room but by the way he stood and talked to them, they could tell that he was most likely one of the people in charge. Even though she couldn't see his full features, Hermione could sense some aroma of authority surrounding the figure like he had some sort of incredible power within him that was barely being controlled. It was overwhelming even though it wasn't nearly as bad as the time she stood face to face with Voldemort but she could have sworn it was almost the same thing.

"Who are you?" Hermione asked swallowing most of the fear that was around. "And what have you done with Katarina?"

The figure laughed. "Do not worry about the little one, she is with the house elves at the moment. Although she might not be as lucky and end up with me in the future."

"Don't you even dare!" Hermione yelled at him.

He laughed again, this time stepping into the light. She was surprised to see a handsome man looking strait at her. His straw colored hair lay on his head in thick layers and gray blue eyes over freckles that carried a score of emotions all being restrained by his casual smile. She noticed his hands locked in the pockets of his robe giving him that sophisticated look. And she could feel the hairs on her neck rise in fear as she stared back at him.

"I'll dare if I wish because I am the one outside the cage unlike you. As for my name, I am Barty Crouch."

Hermione's mind soared into confusion as she heard the name but by the sharp gasp coming from Lisa she knew that it wasn't good.

"But your dead!" Lisa cried.

Crouch's expression grew wry as he stared at Lisa. "Far form it, my beautiful little prisoner." Lisa's face flushed but he continued. "In fact the whole scam about my death was staged so that I could achieve this role."

"Why do you want us?" Hermione asked regaining some control in her voice to cover up her nerves.

His eyes and face contorted into an angry expression. "You killed him. It's because you killed my master!"

Hermione didn't even have to ask. Visions of Voldemort instantly filled her mind. Images of how they killed him, how he attacked her and the others. Of task and bright lights and skulls filling the halls, things that she didn't want to remember much less come back to haunt her. Kalvin's death, Kitrina's murder, the pain from the final battle with him. She instantly knew what Barty Crouch wanted. Revenge.

Crouch continued, his voice growing louder with every word. "That day, that very day he died, I, one of his most loyal followers, was supposed to be at his side watching as he attained his goal of finding all the items but I was sidetracked. It wasn't until his sign appeared above the castle did I know that I must put all things aside and join him to glory but when I arrived I was greeted by scores of wizards all crying out joyously that he was dead, murdered by three teenagers. I wanted revenge for his death and I knew exactly how I would attain it. In fact I'm sure he'll want to thank you himself." He turned on his heel and walked away form them leaving them in shock. When he spoke again, his voice had gained its casual tone. "By hitting you where it will hurt the most. If I'm correct, your men are coming to get you. You stand guard!" A demon nodded and stood at the door as the rest walked away.

"A Death Eater," Hermione barely whispered after a minute had passed.

"One of the ones they couldn't capture alive, or supposedly I guess," Lisa said, her voice shaking slightly. "After You-Know-Who's death, a bunch of Death Eaters who weren't captured came and tried to wreck havoc among the city, trying to get revenge. It was all said it was planned and lead by him. That day all the Death Eaters were captured except for one. Barty Crouch. When the Aurors cornered him, they said he committed suicide, killing five of the Aurors along with him. But before that incident, he killed his parents and even went around murdering other Death eaters around that ring. He's mad, completely. And if Harry and Ron are coming here to get us, who knows what will happen."

"We have to get our wands, find out where Katarina is, get her, and get ourselves out of here" Hermione said whispering so that their guard couldn't hear them.

Lisa nodded. "How though?"

Hermione stopped for a sec. "I have yet to figure that out."

*** ^.^

Time passed, and still no idea for salvation came. But what came was food, brought by a demon far uglier than he was smart. His stench caught Hermione's attention before any sound of his approach was heard. It (Hermione didn't have the fainstest idea what sex it was, and she didn't want to find out either) delivered a fearsome grin to the guard and tossed a small box into the cell through the bars. It clattered noisily onto the floor, to be followed by the loud clanking of silverware. Lisa rushed to the door and stared at the back of the retreating demon. Her angle revealed their guard, seated at a small wooden table, reclined as though asleep. Their wands were on the table beside it. In frustration she rattled the door.

A sound caught Hermione's ears, the breaking of metal, barely audible above the rattling of the door, and the creaking of the hinges. Their demon guard stirred, cast a glance toward them, then returned to sleep. Hermione inspected the lock.
"The lock's close to breaking." She whispered to Lisa. "If we could break the lock we could get out."
"The hinges are rusty, they'll wake the guard." Her friend sounded depressed.
A glance toward the box of food gave Hermione an idea, sliding it open, she found a greasy mass of some unidentifiable substance. There was no way the house elves made this! The smell it was emitting was nauseating, but pleasant by comparison to the demon standing guard over them. She grabbed a handful and moved to the door.

"What's that?" Lisa's face contorted in disgust.

"Freedom." Hermione replied simply.

She smeared the oily mass on the hinges until the grease had lubricated them. Then she turned her attention to the lock. Grabbing a spoon, she jammed it into the door near the bolt. Pressing all her weight on it, she was rewarded with a snap as the bolt broke. A very loud snap.

The demon leaped up and moved to the door, a deep sense of panic began building in Hermione's chest. She moved to one side of the door, her heart pounding. The door exploded open, the demon's power emanating along with its intolerable smell. Its red eyes scanned the room, and fell on Lisa, huddled against the far wall. It started to move.

Hermione shoved the door with all her might. It sped toward the demon with impossible speed and stopped just as suddenly. To her horror, Hermione realized that the demon had stopped the door, and noticed her.

A small scream erupted from the other side of the room as Lisa sprinted forward and dived under the demon. A roll brought her in the hall behind it. She sprinted toward the table, only to feel an electric sparkle run up her spine as a spell slammed into her. Her legs froze and she started to fall forward.

The demon approached quickly, as feeling started returning to her legs. She got up and started running again, only to find a strong hand lift her off her feet and start carrying her back to the cell.

"Accio Sandals!" A voice screamed from behind them. The demon's feet shot out from under it and Lisa slid from its grasp onto the stone floor. A solid thump sounded as the demon slammed into the wall.

***

Crouch looked at the baby that sat before him. Her hazel eyes, the black hair that fell innocently form her pigtails. The innocent eyes that looked directly at him but strangely enough they held no innocence in them at all. Instead they held something that a child of her age shouldn't hold at all. It gave him goose bumps.

But what only lasted for a few seconds, quickly vanished with a blink as a house elf tended to the small child, shaking a rattle in front of her. Katarina giggled with glee as she tried to reach for it, grasping it and began to play with it on her own. A look of light confusion fell upon Crouch's face. What was with this child? Her expressions were capricious and her nature unknown to him. But that shouldn't have mattered to him. The only relevance that the toddler had was her relation to Hermione and the others. That's all that mattered and that was all he should care about.

"Make sure you feed her," he told the house elf. "And make sure the sleeping position I made is within it. I will not wake up to that brat crying at night."

The elf nodded quickly as she continued her current task. "Yes, Master."

Whack! "Oww! Damn it!" He quickly winced as he rubbed the back of his head after the whacked him. He spun around to find the child clapping her hands and giggling constantly as the house elf tried to calm her down. Damn Brat!

Crouch had no time for this child's play, he was about to reach for his wand when a hand came up and held his shoulder. It was soft but held a firm grip on his shoulder. He turned to see Morgan standing behind him. "I never would have thought that the patient and cunning Barty Crouch would loose his temper on mischievous little toddler," she said with a calm demeanor. She let go oh him and picked up the rattle. Handing it back to Katarina, she turned to face Crouch. "She's only a child."

"To think that the coldhearted Morgan had a thing for children," he responded. "You must have dreamt of having children with him, am I correct?" He immediately hushed when he saw the piercing look that Morgan had returned to his comment.

 "Is the vixen ready?" Morgan asked letting Katarina mess around with her hand.

Crouch smiled. "As ready as ever, all we need is all of them here and they'll see just how serious we are." A number of demons showed up behind him, looking past and staring strait at Morgan. What seemed to be the leader yelled something foreign to her. Crouch awaited to what she would say. He lacked her gift of being able to speak the native tongue of the monsters. She responded quickly and quickly took her hand away from the baby.

"What was that all about?"

Morgan flipped a portion of her hair. "I'm needed." She placed her hand on his shoulder again, only this time she dug her well kept nails into his shoulder. "If you ever mention my past like that again, I'll show you the reason why demons fear me." She let go and calmly walked out followed by the demons that had come to retrieve her.

Crouch watched as she walked on, rubbing the away the pain that was in his shoulder. He walked away in the opposite direction form the babies room and wondered ion awe how such a dangerous beauty could have remained hidden in the shadows from the dark arts circle for long. Especially a person who had the entire army of demons behind her, with such power behind he she could have joined up with his master and conquered the world.

But she didn't. He knew right away that she could care less about the world and everyone in it. The only thing that led her forward was revenge.

Crouch continued to think until a lower wizard came up to him and demanded his attention. He quickly related the urgent news, watching as Crouch's stoic look turned into one of amusement.

"So they've escaped. Let the girls go, however send the vixen out to find them."

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I took long….trust me I realize that but then again my life has gotten considerably more difficult in the past weeks and now I have more ahead of me (weep) but I am thinking of Storybook Return everyday (mentally), with this chapter I just couldn't type. For hours I would just sit and stare and nothing would sprout from my fingers. You've probably realized that this chapter is horribly shorter than the others but that's because I wanted to give you some sort of proof that I was alive and writing. Also I would like to take this time to thank my very best friend and Beta reader: Mouse

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You…………

Alas! There are less than twenty days left of school! Which means more time for SR! WHOOPY!!!!!

Now to the reviewers:

Claire S and BGR:  Here's your next chapter.

Claire: Hehe I know but put it this way, if it weren't for the bad guys being so clever then the good guys would all so boring.

Hyperly Mad: (pokes with a stick) Are you still alive?

Lordoftherats: I hate being a student and worse yet is that I've got Spanish now and the teacher gives us so much homework. Mi maestra de clase de español trabaja para el Diablo porque ella confere muchas tareas todos noches. (Take that Senorita!)

Xodox: I have actually yet to figure that out because for one thing I feel that I personally suck at poetry much less anything that involves music but I'm glad you like it so much. It must be some sort of weird thing bestowed upon me by my insane Muse.

Drieanna: No, Morgan wasn't apart of the last story, she's a new character put into this story and as for the lullaby, it was something that I wrote a few months ago, took me a while to write and a scolding from a teacher because I slept in his class the next day.

R/Hr:  LOL….I love reading your reviews and yes Crookshanks is Gatoh so you can see where I got the name from. Its also coincidental because I hate my Spanish class but yet I use it in my writing.

Lirawen: Took longer this time as well…LOL. As for reviews, trust me I was more surprised at the reaction I got from this story when I started it.

Gillian: LOL….since I am a major R/Hr fan I will keep on writing that (unless something changes my mind).

Zoe McArthor: (pulls off all the cob webs that have gathered up on the reviewer) Uhh, did I keep you waiting long?

Ferggirl: LOL….such an interesting twist of fate isn't it?

Hermione Starwise: Hehe thanks.