Chapter 4
Fear tore at her. Rain blinded her. Thunder deafened her. Barely aware of what surrounded her, she sprinted down the hill. Her hair flailed wildly behind her, her sack gripped tight in one hand as she flew down the steep bank.
Lunging from his position, Carrows underwent the transformation from man to beast. When his paws touched the sludge, hardly a second had passed. Pelting after his fleeting prey he caught sight of his mate attempting to cut her off from the left. To his right the two younger full bloods, Williamson and Harvey, sped to aid their leader. There was no escape.
As the trap began to close in he could almost hear her heart pounding, her fretful scent having enticed him to increase his pace. But then, another full blood appeared with its snowy white fur stark against the shadow. Changing his course and barking a warning to his companions, he headed for the newcomer.
Hermione's feet slipped from under her, sending her flailing to the mud. She skidded a few metres before coming to a halt. In the heartbeat before Hermione could drag herself back up, a white blur leapt clean over her. Rolling to her front, Hermione watched as a woman appeared where a wolf snarled. Fur melted back to flesh; bones cracked and altered. A slender, platinum blonde haired female stood challenging the four that now gathered around her.
"Be gone from here!" The wolf-woman snarled over the roiling skies. In a brief whirlwind, three men and a second woman stood, anger and hatred plastered over their faces.
"Traitor!" Rookwood, the second female, crouched ready to leap at her opponent. "Your lack of faith in the pack marks you for death!"
"I shall not be the one who dies; it is you Rookwood, who shall taste the steel of my claws this night!" A gunshot sounded behind Hermione. She watched as the two younger males recoiled. A second shot and one dropped howling and wailing. His flesh smoked around his shoulder and from a wound wine red blood poured. The white wolf-woman leapt, transforming in mid air, upon Rookwood. Carrows was quick to follow as he protected his mate.
A third gunshot. Hermione covered herself as the limp body of Harvey fell onto her. Hot liquid seeped down her neck, blood she knew was not her own. A squeal of pain shuddered through Hermione as she felt another drop.
"Trinia!" Carrows voice rang with sorrow. His mate lay dead. A snarl and a flash of claw greeted his momentary lapse from the white wolf-woman. Twisting away and pouncing at her throat with his teeth bared they rolled.
The weight of the corpse was lifted from her shoulder. A strong arm looped around her stomach and hoisted her up to her feet. Her knees quailed beneath her but before she could collapse into the filth and gore, she was thrown over a shoulder. Around her the world silenced, the impact of sprinting feet numbed. Her eyes fluttered closed and her body slackened.
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"You sent for me my Lord?" Lucius Malfoy bent on one knee before his master. The sheen of the veined black marble reflected Lucius' features. His midnight cloak and robes hung around him, his silver braiding marking his rank of captain. Down his back his hair was neatly brushed and silky. His steely blue eyes fixed upon the back of the hooded Lord Voldemort.
The deep emerald green silk that adorned his body barely rustled as he spun on his heel to face his lesser. Lucius flinched and averted his gaze from the snake like face and red glaring eyes. Voldemort's forked tongue tasted the air with a light hiss before he spoke.
"Luciussss, I trusssst all goessss well?" The volume never rose above a whisper but it reached Lucius' ears in a shiver of revulsion. Lucius bowed his head in affirmation, his sights focused on the marble floor. The high, vaulted ceiling writhed with snakes, some undulating down the finely carved walls to the polished floor. An asp, black and oily sought out Lucius' warm, pale flesh with a flicker of its tongue.
"Incredibly my Lord, why, even the-"
"Ssssilence," Lucius gulped and held his tongue. Cold sweat began to bead on his forehead as his gaze met the unfathomable features of Voldemort. What does he want?
"And, are you…happy?" Voldemort spoke the word as if it pained him. In that small word a glimmer showed through of the sorrow the Dark Lord felt.
"I- I am my Lord," Lucius hesitated, unsure as to the purpose behind the question.
"You have a beautiful wife do you not? And ssssevral mistressessss besides?"
"I do my Lord, I love my wife but sometimes she is not able to fulfil my…desires," Lucius chose his words carefully, unfortunately, not carefully enough.
"Love? Love? Even evil can love, I have found, but I remain alone. Too grotesque for any woman to look upon without fear," Voldemort advanced, his voice cracking from its hiss to a deep, commanding voice. The asp now only a few metres from Lucius' booted feet. "I do remember there was one who looked at me with something else,"
Lucius frowned slightly, curious. Voldemort continued. "Every time I sign a death warrant, lift my wand to torture or take a life I see her face, see her eyes and the pity I found there. It is your job Lucius, to find her. I want my weaknesses where I can see them," Voldemort turned and strode to his desk. He sat behind it and turned in his chair to face out of the window at the buzzing city below him.
"How my Lord? She could be anywhere by now, maybe even dead!" Lucius shouted before he could stop himself. He was being sent to his death, he could feel it, and as a captain of the multitudinous armies of the Dark Wizard he had everything to loose.
"SHE IS NOT DEAD!" Voldemort bellowed, shattering the glass before him with a wave of magic and sending the snakes on the ceiling into frenzy. "I have seen her through the eyes of a traitor. She is beyond the wall in a colony founded in a network of caves. Kill them but leave her unharmed. Bring her back here Lucius," The black asp wound its way over Lucius' shoe and up his trouser leg, curling around his limb as it went. Lucius' eyes widened.
"If you do not return with her alive Hatshepsut will end your pitiful life for you," As if hearing his words, the asp flicked its tongue against Lucius leg as a warning. "If you do not return with her at all then I will make you wish you'd never been birthed into this world, understand me Malfoy!"
"As- As clear as crystal my Lord,"
