To Get Back Life


Thank you –

Danish Pastry 28 – thank you, and just to let you know I haven't ignored your spelling tips from last time, I go back and change them and I'll edit the whole story once it is finished. So thank you.
Onigiri Momoko,
Mysteriouscharm,
countrybutterfly
xXWitchXx
londonmalfoy
epiphany-the-storyteller
mhbf
Lady Mariel


Chapter 11
Back To School

"I never thought I'd be breaking in to a school." Draco grumbled as they made their way into the derelict streets of Hogsmeade.

Ron rolled his eyes and was about to say something in response when Hermione shushed them both and pointed ahead. A group of deatheaters were stood in deep conversation, their backs turned to Hermione, Ron and Draco.

"Great what do we do now, they're right outside Honeydukes!" Ron sighed as they crouched down behind a crumbling wall to keep out of sight.

"How can you tell?" Hermione asked. She looked around at all the ruined buildings, hardly any still had the shop signs up and if they did the words were barely legible.

"Honeydukes was two shops down from the Three Broomsticks. There's the pub, you can tell because it's bigger than the rest of the shops, so count two down and that's Honeydukes." Ron explained.

"Wow Weasly looks like all that traipsing around Hogsmeade looking at the things you couldn't afford did you some good." Draco teased and Hermione had to hold back Ron as he tried to lunge for him.

"Do you want to get us caught?" Hermione hissed in the most severe tone she could manage while keeping her voice down to a whisper.

The two men sighed and shook their heads remaining silent.

"Now what we need is a distraction." Hermione said looking around for inspiration. Something caught her eye.

A dummy that would have once been in the window of a clothes shop was lay upon the floor, pointing her wand at it Hermione shrunk it quite considerably and accio'd it over to them.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked as Hermione rooted through her bag and pulled out a black robe.

"I'm getting us into the school." She answered as she rubbed dirt into the material and ripped it in places. Once the robe looked worn and tattered she restored the dummy to its original size and placed the robes upon it.

"Mobilicorpus." She whispered and the dummy sprung into action, using her wand she made it run across the square and down an alley near to where the deatheaters were stood. They saw it and quickly ran after thinking that it was a real person.

"Now we don't have much time, when they catch it they'll realise it was a trick and come looking for us." Hermione hissed as they ran to the former sweet shop.

Once inside they had to move a lot of stones and rubble from where the door to the basement was so they were able to get through.

"They're back." Draco groaned as they reached the bottom of the stairs and could hear the shouts of the deatheaters somewhere above.

"Where is it?" Ron asked frantically searching the floor for the handle of the trapdoor.

The shouts seemed closer and their search became more frantic.

"Down here!" Came a rough and loud voice, footsteps followed and the noise of more rocks being moved.

"Quick!" Draco urged as he glanced nervously to the top of the steps where light was pouring in.

"Got it!" Ron exclaimed and yanked open the trap door.

He quickly jumped down, followed by Hermione and then Draco who shut it firmly behind him.

They didn't hang around to see if the Deatheaters would find them, as soon as their feet hit solid ground they began to run down the dark passageway. Hermione and Ron had been down it so many times before they did not need to light their wands to know where the corners and sharp turns were, Draco on the other hand was finding it quite difficult and had to go slowly in order to make sure he didn't walk smack into a wall.

"I wish we had Harry's cloak." Hermione sighed as they got close to the end of the passageway.

"Or the map." Ron added.

"What map?" Draco asked, he knew all about the cloak having found Harry in it in the sixth year.

Hermione quickly explained about the map that Fred and George had given Harry.

--

It was slow progress making their way along the hallways of the old school building as they only had their ears to alert them to on coming dangers. There were many times when they would have to run back in the direction they had been going in order to avoid being seen.

"Do you even know where we're supposed to be going?" Draco hissed to Ron as they turned yet another corner.

"Of course I do idiot, we need to get down to the dungeons but we can't take the main staircases as we'd get caught."

With Draco still grumbling they carried on down the tiny staircases until they finally reached the ground floor. From there they hurried down corridors, glad to find they almost al of them were empty, and got to the dungeons.

"How do we know which one she's in?" Hermione asked as the stared at a long line of closed wooden doors.

"I guess we'll just have to open them all." Draco said firmly and began yanking on the handle of the one nearest to him.

"Draco! Stop it, do you want to get us caught?" Hermione snapped and he let go, hanging his head.

"What about the guard?" Hermione asked pointing up to the distant figure of the deatheater at the other end of the cellblock, luckily he was out of hearing range.

"Avada Kerdavra" A green light shot down the room, illuminating everything as it passed and hit the deatheater on the side of his head. He fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

Hermione turned to look at Draco with shock, expecting to see his wand drawn but she saw he had the same look of fright upon his face too. She turned to Ron in time to see him stuff his wand back into his pocket.

"Ron!" She gasped.

"It was him or Ginny, there's no contest." He shrugged and walked off to begin opening doors.

For a few seconds Hermione couldn't move, she never thought she'd see one of her best friends use an Unforgivable, ever. She began to wonder what Ron had been through and whom else he had killed.

--

They found Ginny in one of the last cells they opened; she was curled up in a tight ball in the corner of the small room. Ron hurried to her side and the siblings embraced. Hermione and Draco stood by the door, looking in on them.

"Come on." Hermione whispered and pulled him away. They continued to open the rest of the doors to free the others in the cells.

With a loud bang the door that led out into the corridor was blown open and deatheaters began pouring in. Screaming and shouting began as spells flew through the air hitting the unarmed prisoners as they tried to escape. Ron and Ginny were quick to find Hermione and Draco and the three of them that had wands began defending the large amount that hadn't.

They were fighting a loosing battle though, there were fifteen deatheaters and only three of them, so soon they gave up and just ran.

"How are we going to get out?" Hermione yelled, not bothering to keep her voice down now the deatheaters knew that they were there.

"Well we can't use the grounds, there'll be guards." Draco replied, panting slightly at the speed that they were running. "And we can't use the passage we came in because of the deatheaters in Hogsmeade."

"So what do we do?" Ginny croaked, she was in a bad state she had had very little food in the time she had been in the cell.

"Fly." Ron said firmly and pointed to the wall.

Upon it was a large family crest of someone they did not recognise, there were two broomsticks in the centre of it crossed over to make an X shape. The brooms were real. Ron and Draco quickly pulled them down and looked at them.

"They'll do." Draco said quickly.

"Well they'll fly at least. Now where can we take off from?" Ron asked.

"Astronomy tower." Ginny sad quickly and they turned to the stairs.

They got all the way to the fifth floor before they were met by more deatheaters, a larger group this time at least twenty. They began to fight but were soon overpowered; Ron lay on the floor in a full body bind, so strong his couldn't even move his eyes. Draco was bleeding badly and Ginny was unconscious. A deatheater grabbed Hermione by the throat and slammed her against the wall. Her feet were inches off the ground and she tried to see if she could touch the floor if she went onto her tiptoes. The deatheater saw what she was trying to do and lifted her even further.

She gasped and struggled and kicked out at the man, clawing at the strong arm holding her trying to get him to let go, but nothing worked white dots started appearing in front of her eyes and her lungs burnt with lack of oxygen.

"Let her go." Another deatheater commanded. "I am under strict instruction to take these four and throw them off the top of the Astronomy Tower.

"Ses' who?" The deatheaters growled, but Hermione felt his grip loosen slightly.

"Orders from the Dark Lord himself. Do you defy him?" The second deatheater questioned.

"No, no! Never." Hermione was dropped to the floor and grabbed by the deatheater. Using his wand he made Ginny and Ron float behind him Hermione tried to turn around in his grip to see what had happened to Draco.

"Let me go!" She screamed and yanked at his arm hoping that he would let go if only for a second so she could run. She had no such luck, she watched as the deatheaters parted to make a path to the stairway that would take them to the tower.

"You must all stay here." The deatheaters holding her declared, "Voldemort wishes to kill them himself, you must wait down here until he arrives."

It wasn't until halfway up the staircase that he let her go and Draco took off the deatheater mask he had been wearing.

"Draco!" Hermione exclaimed and wrapped her arms around him she pulled away and hit him hard on the arm, "You scared me to death!"

"Ssshhhhhh! They'll hear you, now come on." He whispered and they continued up the stairs.

When they reached the top of the tower Draco let Ginny and Ron down to the ground and pointed his wand at them both, Ron and unbound and Ginny had water poured over her until she woke. Hermione then stopped him and using her wand she bandaged up his injuries.

"You saved my life again." She smiled as she held his face in her hands, "That's like the fourth time now."

"I'm a very handy person to have around." He smiled and lent down to kiss her.

A cough from behind them made the stop.

"Shall we get going then? It won't be long until they figure out it was a trick." Ron said as he picked up his broom. Draco took the miniature version of the broom out of his pocket and returned it to its normal size.

"Let's get going then. Come on Hermione. Hermione?"

Ron, Ginny and Draco all turned to look at Hermione who was frozen to the spot. They then all turned to look at where she was looking and gasped in shock.

"H-Harry?" Hermione whispered, looking at the ghost before them, not quite believing her eyes.