The Kindest Curse
by Quillusion
Chapter 2
Hermione's heart was pounding in her ears, her breath puffing as loudly as the Hogwarts Express in her mind as she crouched behind the pedestal and vase on the lawn of an impressive Georgian house in Kent. The heavy scent of hyacinths drifted from the sweeping flower beds between her and the house, and she pinched her nose to keep from sneezing. Flames were just visible in the lower half of the front windows, licking tentatively at dry-rotted curtains before devouring them whole in an inaudible growl of hunger.
She hastily wiped her hand dry on her robes and tightened her grip on her wand, looking at the team leader, waiting for the signal. She wasn't an Auror, but her close knowledge of Voldemort and his tactics had made her a good choice to send as part of the team.
I'm not a field agent, she'd pointed out, eager to be part of the fight but reluctant to test herself when it wasn't Harry's life she was trying to save, but potentially her own. And yet they'd sent her, and she'd gone.
The team leader waved forward with a sharp, decisive gesture, and she ducked around her covering pedestal and dashed the short distance to the steps. Her efforts, combined with those of the two Aurors beside her, easily burned away the ward on the front door, and the Muggle lock- surprisingly engaged- released with a simple Alohomora.
The flames had reached the foyer, and when the front door opened, the fresh onslaught of oxygen sent them roaring to smoke the chandelier hanging in the front hallway. Hermione squinted against the heat and fumes, scarcely able to believe that they were running in instead of out. The two Aurors separated, each going to search rooms on opposite sides of the hallway, and Hermione headed straight back. She knew the rest of the team had entered from the back of the house.
A shout caught her attention, and she turned quickly to find its source. One of the Aurors was waving wildly at the front parlor from which the flames had initially come. Hermione made her way to the next door off the hallway, taking a quick peek around the corner before making her way in-
- and freezing at the sight of Lord Voldemort himself, in a towering rage.
He was angrier than even Harry had been able to make him, and that was an accomplishment. The Dark Lord was sending bolts of fiery energy into everything in sight, which she supposed explained the fire. It was terrifying. She had no idea what had set him off, but it was immediately clear that their little raid had been horribly mistimed. She wondered if there was still time to abort the mission.
Then the first Auror- foolish, overeager Sutton- charged in, and Voldemort vaporized him with a curse Hermione could barely hear over the roar of the flames.
Too late to back out now.
She moved around the corner when the Dark Lord lunged toward the front of the house, searching for the comrades he knew must have come with Sutton. Almost without thinking- this was the sort of situation for which training was supposed to prepare one, after all- she put the fire between Voldemort and herself, eyes scanning the room and its entrances for Death Eaters. It wasn't safe to assume Voldemort was alone.
Skirting the perimeter of the room, she crouched again behind a couch and got her bearings, sucking in deep lungs full of the clearer air near the floor. She quickly cast a spell to filter the worst of the smoke out of the air she breathed in, coughing a little as she sat up enough to look around her. She was at the back of the front parlor, and the smoke was getting thicker. She was now quite separated from everyone else, uncertain of the location of her teammates, unsure as well of the best way out of the stifling living room that was not far from becoming an inferno. The house would soon be losing its structural integrity, and she wouldn't have long to Apparate or run out of the building. She wasn't even certain she could Apparate, given Voldemort's usual wards. She peered over the back of the couch to see what the Dark Lord was doing. Voldemort was shouting now, firing off curses and bolts of energy almost randomly, and she realized he was yelling a name, over and over. She couldn't quite make it out. Curses and bolts were raining down on Voldemort as well now, well-aimed and expertly cast, but his endurance was as inhuman as he was, and hexes which would have crippled Hermione or one of the Aurors merely dissipated on Voldemort. In response, he sent several jolts of lightning toward the front door, peering into the smoke to see what the result was.
That's when she realized his back was to her, and there did not appear to be any Death Eaters rushing to his defense.
No time like the present.
She stood and stepped out from behind the couch, her mouth dry with nerves but her wand arm steady.
Just then he turned, slowly, as if drawn against his will, his red slitlike eyes scanning the room through the swirling black smoke.
She froze, unable to move, as trapped as if she'd been in a horrible dream.
And then he spoke, his voice rasping like a basilisk's scales across the brittle bones of its victims.
"Did you really think you could hide from me?"
His words startled Hermione rather badly, and she knew she had to get out of his line of sight. She jerked back a step and crashed into something, losing her footing. She nearly lost her balance, but then someone gripped her shoulders in strong hands. It wasn't the couch she'd hit; someone had been standing behind her. When the powerful grip on her shoulders shifted a bit, she knew that whoever it was, she'd nearly knocked them over, too. She could feel that one of those hands was palming a wand with the thumb and index finger, and the panic left her. One of the Aurors.
She turned quickly around, wondering if the Auror had a plan, and found herself staring with shock up into the cold grey eyes of Lucius Malfoy.
Everything moved in slow motion in that second. Hermione's eyes widened, and she watched in disbelief as the elder Malfoy's face registered surprise, calculation, and then- to her eternal confusion- relief.
"Granger," he murmured, releasing her shoulders, and she barely heard it over the fire, aware even as she did it of the absurdity of nodding back in greeting. How like a pureblood to maintain the social niceties even in a crisis. Especially when that blood was at least in part French.
"Lucius Malfoy!" Voldemort's voice cracked like thunder, and Malfoy's gaze snapped to something over her shoulder. She spun around again, and there, not ten feet away, was the Dark Lord. His wand was raised, and his expression was twisted into a parody of rage and glee. Hermione stepped quickly to one side, not wishing to be between Voldemort's wand and anyone whose name he'd just said with such acid hatred.
"I believe it's time to pay the piper, Lucius," hissed Voldemort. Hermione and Lucius both retreated a step as the dark wizard pressed forward, and she suddenly found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with one of the wizarding world's most notorious villains, the two of them facing the greatest villain of the lot. Most surprising of all, it was clear from Voldemort's words that she and Lucius Malfoy were suddenly, unexpectedly, and inexplicably on the same side of this little conflict- however temporarily.
With the odd sort of attention to detail so common in tense moments, her mind absorbed the facts of the matter rapidly. Malfoy was smudged with soot, and his breathing was coming a bit fast; she could feel the quick movements of his chest where their shoulders pressed together. She realized, then, that he'd been the one firing the hexes at Voldemort, not the Aurors. She didn't even know if any of them were still alive; for all she knew, she was trapped alone with Voldemort and his second in command. But Lucius's hexes had been powerful ones, cast with accuracy and rapidity; after what she'd seen him throw at Harry, and at her, she would not have expected less. And they had been aimed at the Dark Lord rather than her. She swallowed, took a halting breath of smoky air, and realized that Lucius was speaking- and not to Voldemort.
His voice was low, his words not so much heard as felt through their physical contact.
"Cast Exiliem with me," he breathed.
She stiffened.
"Do it," he murmured, his tone skating the razor-fine line between supplication and command. "I can deliver this prize to you, but not now. No one can stop him right now. Either we take this chance, or we die where we stand."
Hermione could sense the vibrating urgency in his words, could taste the dry mouth of his anger and desperation, and she knew that Lucius Malfoy was afraid.
She also knew that he was right. Whether he would help them or not in the future was irrelevant. Survival was all that mattered.
One small nod was all she gave.
They cast simultaneously, the contact of their bodies giving them the timing with their breathing. Hermione put everything she had into the spell, her voice rising with Lucius's in a sharp command of magic.
"Exiliem!"
It was enough to overcome Voldemort's resistance. He vanished with a howl of rage, exiled from his own home- and through his own wards- to Circe only knew where, there to regroup and await the final confrontation with the forces that stood against him.
As the smoke billowed away from them in the wind of Voldemort's departure, Lucius Malfoy stepped away from Hermione. He turned to look at her, his lip curled in a satisfied smile. He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at her in inquiry, and she suddenly knew with dreadful certainty that every one of the Aurors who had come with her had died at this man's hands. When he raised his wand again, she felt herself immobilized, trapped without a single word, helpless to defend herself against whatever spell he might cast. She struggled, unable to tear her gaze from the icy grey eyes that studied her. He took a step toward her, then another. Then another.
And in the darkness of the small hours of the night, Hermione Granger sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat from a nightmare she hadn't had in almost ten years.
TBC