Apologies for the long stretch between chapters. I'm taking two AP classes this semester and one of them was squeezed into exactly one semester when it was supposed to have been two and it's an immense amount of work.
And Jesus Christ, matt! Were you reading my mind perchance? You were exactly right about Jordan's secondary infection. Kudos!
Hermione's plans for escaping this almost hopeless situation had yet to be seen through. The sun was shedding a scant stream of light through the scattered breaks in the perpetual mass of gray clouds, but it did nothing to warm her spirits. She sat in the middle of her cell to let the sun shine its scarce light upon she and her companion, who had not awoken at all since she had been brought here.
Jordan continued to slumber in an uneasy sleep in Hermione's arms. Though the young witch could not be sure, Jordan's temperature did not appear to have risen. That did not mean she was, in any means, out of danger. The looming threat of death and torture at the hands of the dreadful Drusilla aside, Hermione was gravely concerned over the rasping coughs racking her friend's body from time to time and the thick mucus she kept spewing up. Her breathing was ragged and shallow and it terrified Hermione. She was so afraid her friend would stop breathing, drown in her own fluids, if she left her alone for just one moment.
She must have picked up pneumonia as well. She'll die if she doesn't receive medical attention soon!
Sadly, there was no one there to hear her anguished cries over her sister slayer-witch's fate. Jordan's serious condition also posed the problem of distracting Hermione from her previous determination to plan an escape.
All she could do now was wrap the girl in her coat, as Jordan was not wearing one, and rock her back and forth while talking softly. Her line of thinking was, if Jordan heard a familiar voice through the delirium she might have something to keep her grounded and alive. Hermione had made a promise she would get them both out of this and Hermione Granger was a witch of her word. How she would accomplish it remained to be seen thus far.
The grating sound of the heavy wooden door scraping against the floor jarred the miserable girl from her thoughts. She sucked in a fearful breath of air and clutched Jordan closer to her as if she were a priceless possession in danger of being snatched out of her grasp. Had they finally come to take them to their doom at the hands of the alabaster goddess of death? Hermione almost wished that was the case because she was very near to losing her wits just sitting here with her extremely ill friend quite possibly dying in her arms. The waiting before the conclusion was sometimes far worse than the ending itself.
Two skulking figures entered carrying crude wooden implements that looked to be bowls. Both of the vampires—at least, she assumed they were vampires—were tall and gaunt. Their skin practically seemed to be stretched over their bones and their bodies were coated in dirt, blood, and other substances Hermione did not particularly want to know about. The two loathsome creatures set the bowls upon the ground without so much as a glance or a word to the curly-haired captive. When they stood back up, however, their eyes were trained on her and her companion. It was too dark to actually get a good glimpse of their eyes, but she could practically feel the hunger radiating off of them. Did their mistress starve them?
One walked forward, causing Hermione to vainly attempt to back up farther away. It was quite pointless of her to even try as she was sitting against the cold stone wall, but it was what her instinct was telling her to do. Her stomach flip-flopped in absolute terror and her heartbeat quickened its already accelerated pace. She tried very hard to suppress the whimpers her mouth kept traitorously emitting, but to no avail. Without her faithful wand or her slayer strength, she was about as helpless against these creatures as any normal Muggle.
"Don't worry. It's not your turn yet, Lucky Thirteen. My mistress is saving you for last. Doesn't it make you feel special?" he sneered, his voice, ironically enough, having a cultured air about it.
Before Hermione could do anything, she felt the weight of Jordan being lifted from her arms. She screamed out in rage and fear and lunged forward as if she were capable of getting her back. The vampire merely swatted her away with a simple flick of his hand, sending her tumbling back into the wall with a painful thump. She slid to the floor wincing and hissing in pain as Jordan dangled limply in his arms, still unconscious.
The creature ran his hands through Jordan's matted locks and sniffed her. His face twisted into a grimace of disgust. "This one won't last long. Smells rotten too."
Hermione was tempted to come to the defense of her friend by asking just how a person was to retain a pleasant body odor when being cooped up in a small cell without any washing for at least…however many days it had been. Truthfully, to Hermione, it seemed as if it had been weeks. Wisely, she chose to keep her thoughts to herself as she slowly rose to her shaky feet.
With a menacing snarl the vampire practically flung the limp form of Jordan across the room and she collided with Hermione who was once again forced back into the wall. Hermione emitted a choked scream of pain and rage as the back of her head once again made contact with the wall and her knees buckled under the dead weight of her comrade.
Fighting off a wave of dizziness, Hermione quickly checked Jordan over to make sure the girl was still alive and after being assured thus, dragged herself over to the two bowls lying before the now closed door. Her puffy brown eyes centered on the doorway and she felt a sudden surge of fury and despair overwhelm her entirely. She screamed with everything her parched throat could muster and, though weakened and dizzy, flew at the door. She scratched, kicked, and beat her fists against the doors until they began to bleed all while scorching tears ran down her dirty, pale cheeks.
Finally, exhaustion of body and soul began to eat at her and she ceased her tirade upon the door and slid down it to the ground still weeping copiously. Where was the brilliant Gryffindor who was reputed to be even smarter than the Ravenclaws? Where was the girl who was more able than almost anyone to keep her head in a crisis? This weak, dirty, smelly, sobbing, and bleeding wretch of a child whose number was nearly up had replaced her.
Hermione drew her legs in close to her body and wrapped her arms around them while laying her spinning head upon her knees. She rocked back and forth there in front of the door doing nothing much else except cry piteously as images of her family and friends ran through her mind. The family and friends she would never see again. Ron, I love you. Please forgive me.
She lifted her head up to glance over at Jordan who continued to lie in her prison of feverish coma, quite possibly, completely unaware of what had befallen her. Perhaps she was the lucky one. She wouldn't have to just sit there in the cell like Hermione just awaiting in agonizing isolation and heart-pounding fear of the moment when the guards would come to take her. It didn't even seem like they were going to bother torturing her or even killing her for that matter. Maybe they figured natural forces already sealed her fate. After all, drowning in your own fluids seemed a far better way to go than what Hermione feared was in store for herself.
Two days. Two days had passed and still there was no sign of Jordan, Hermione, or the other eleven slayer-witches who had been taken. The few facts that had given any semblance of consolation to the bereaved Slayer and her gang were that no other girls had been reported missing and there had been no attempt to try and wrest Harry Potter from their protective grasp. If they lost him, they might as well sign their own death certificates now.
Buffy rubbed at her itchy eyes, both of which were adamantly protesting the absolute lack of rest she was giving them. She wasn't the only one who was forsaking the bed for the seemingly futile search for their vanished charges. Everyone else was walking about Phoenix Headquarters in a manner very similar to that of a zombie.
The teenagers at least—Ron and Aidan to be precise—were slipped sedatives just for their sake and everyone else's. The two boys were not being any help at all in different aspects. Ron was near to hysterical over his girlfriend's disappearance (he barely acknowledged that she was only one of thirteen missing) and, while sympathetic, nobody had the time to comfort him. Aidan was much the same way as Ron over his twin, though he was slightly more useful than Ron due to his strange connection with Jordan. He knew his sister was still alive and, hopefully, Hermione and the others were too.
At the moment, Buffy was in a room of Order Headquarters surrounded by the drawn, ashen faces of her friends, sister, Harry, and the older members of the Order.
"Locator spell still isn't taking," Willow reported dismally.
"What about scrying?" Dawn asked tiredly.
"All I get is thick gray mist. There must be some powerful wards up of dark magic that I can't penetrate," Willow told them.
She was not quite willing to admit that she was afraid to breach those defenses because of the immense power it would require. The fears she harbored over losing herself to darkness and power all over again were still very real and very powerful.
"This is all my fault," Harry said flatly, his jaded green eyes staring off into the crackling fire.
"Harry, dear, that's ridiculous," Mrs. Weasley said gently, rubbing the boy's back.
Buffy didn't bother trying to refute the boy's statement because she had learned—from what Dawn had told her and from her own observations—that this was a habit of Harry's. Apparently, everything was all about him and anything that happened to anyone was always his fault. She smiled humorlessly at the thought because he reminded her quite a lot of herself. Buffy had always blamed herself for events beyond her control (although some had been within range, she believed). The weight one bears upon his or her shoulders can often trick one into thinking such things.
"Explain to me, Harry, how this is your fault? Cuz I would really love to know," Dawn asked irritably.
Since the disappearances, this was all her boyfriend did: wallow in guilt-ridden self-pity.
Harry's answer was a glare and nothing more.
Tensions had risen to new heights between the young couple; they were barely speaking to one another except in short, grunting answers. It wasn't just those two either. Everyone was barely hanging on to their last shred of sanity, especially the parents of Jordan and Hermione. Mr. and Mrs. Firewell at least had their experience and jobs in which to submerge themselves but Mr. and Mrs. Granger were, much like Ron, almost hysterical. They were Muggles and did not understand the world their daughter was apart of very well. They had always had some irrational fears about its dangers, though they continued to let their daughter live in the Wizarding World despite of that. Now, it seemed those fears weren't so very irrational at all.
Everyone jumped at the sound of Buffy's charmed cellular phone. After taking a quick glance at the caller ID, she excused herself from the room and the anxious faces and walked out into the hallway. After minutes that seemed to stretch out into hours the small blonde returned with an unreadable look upon her fair face.
"What is it, Buff?" Xander asked hopefully.
"That was Lorne. He said Wolfram and Hart might have a lead on their whereabouts. Gunn and Angel are looking into it now," she said, barely suppressing the quavering note of hope in her voice.
She did not want to get their hopes up, but it was the best lead—actually the only lead—they had yet and she was willing to take any small morsel she could get. Every second that passed by was one less second those girls had and the world was a vast hiding place. Aurors and slayers on every continent were scouring about and they were bound to hit sooner or later; the big factor was time. Buffy didn't even want to ponder the abject hopelessness of their situation if the girls were no longer in this dimension.
He was suffocating. Or he wasn't. Perhaps it was his sister that was suffocating. Or perhaps it was just the combined effects of sleeping draughts and horrific dreams that caused Aidan to wake up on the couch in his family's living room in such a state. His forehead was sweaty and he felt like there was something compressing on his chest. He coughed so loudly that it sent his grandmother running into the room.
"Aidan? What's wrong?" the elder Mrs. Firewell asked anxiously. She instantly came forward to lay a cool hand on her grandson's forehead.
"Nothing, Grandma." That was the truth. Nothing was physically wrong with him. It was Jordan.
He didn't know when the sensation began, but he did know that it was getting stronger. Something was pulling at him with such glaring intensity he fancied he was soon going to go insane from it. His head did hurt as if there were someone with a hammer pounding on the inside of his skull over and over. The knowledge that he had felt like this during the last few days Jordan had been at the Hellmouth, the days she had been doing the most physical fighting, was not at all comforting. And there was something else very wrong. It was so wrong he felt he should know what it was, but he could not for the life of him figure it out in his grogginess.
After being practically force-fed leftovers by his grandmother and being made to drink a rejuvenating potion his head began to clear up. He shakily traversed the steps up to the second story of the sprawling manor with his hand sliding listlessly up the banister. He paused when his eyes caught sight of the most recent picture of his twin that hung upon their walls. She was all decked out in raiment of which Muggle Gothic style was the closest description. He remembered well that particular event in which that type of costume (he referred to it as costume because it was not his sister's normal attire) was called for, a concert of Netherworld Avengers or some other weird band Jordan was obsessed with. With the use of magic, her skin was literally glowing the color of milk and her eyes were darkened considerably by black eye shadow.
Aidan kept staring at the picture and the portrait began to eye him weirdly.
"What? Is my make-up smudged or something?"
Aidan began to whisper to no one in particular, "Her skin…it's so pale. It's almost like she's…dead."
His blood chilled to ice water as the impact of those words hit him. Dead. He finally understood what those feelings and sensations caused by the connection he had with his sister were. He should have known. He should have remembered how sick Jordan was before she had been abducted. She was not dead yet, he knew that instinctively, but she was damn close. So close that Aidan could practically feel the brush of the Grim Reaper's skeletal fingers himself.
He nearly jumped over the remaining steps down back towards the first story all the while crying a mantra over and over in his mind that consisted of the words: Fight, Jordan. Hear me out. Don't do this to me. Don't you even dare think about leaving me now.
If his twin heard him, he didn't know and he didn't even pretend to hope. They had never been able to read the other's mind; it was only the emotions that were able to spill over and be transmitted from one twin to the other. He could only trust his fervent desperation would reach her in her peril and keep her alive long enough for she and Hermione to be rescued. Perhaps, with their situation being so perilous, the Fates would be kind enough to allow his words, and not just his emotions, to be heard by his sister.
"Aidan? Where are you going?" his grandmother asked sharply when she saw him whisk by her as he headed right for the fireplace.
"I'm going to get my sister back." His voice was devoid of emotion. It was far more terrifying to hear than any expression of outrage.
"Honey—" Mrs. Firewell cautioned gently. "I know the connection between you two. I did, after all, raise your father and uncle. But you don't know where she is."
Aidan had gotten a successful fire going by now just by using the nifty silver lighter Spike had given to him for Christmas. His face was hard and filled with deadly intent as he awaited the flames to grow higher before standing and opening up the small urn filled with floo powder on the mantle. His intense honey eyes stared at the powder in his hand for a while as if he were starting to have second thoughts.
"You're right, Grandma. I don't know where she is," he returned. "But I know someone who might."
He tossed the powder onto the fire, stepped inside, and said in a clear, determined voice, "Malfoy Manor!"
Hell hath no fury like a big brother scorned. This chapter goes out to all the protective big brothers out there, especially my own who is at sea right now doing Merlin knows what and whose ass better come home in one piece.
I understand this is an agonizingly short chapter and left a lot of unanswered questions, but since it was taking forever to finish I decided I would at least give you guys this one as a sort of filler to hold yourselves over until I manage to eke out the next. I figure one of the questions will be about the questioning of Death Eaters and all. Well, that shall be answered next chapter. As to the fates of Jordan and Hermione………….(these dotties explain so much, do they not?)
I bless and thank every one of my lovely reviewers. Tis you all that makes the story worth writing and stressing over.
Aoi Dragon: Awww, you don't like wacky Drusilla? That's okay, but she's fun to have around.
Damia – Queen of the Gypsi's: I don't cry watching movies. I came damn close with The Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge though. Spike and Draco haven't exactly been formally introduced or crossed pathways yet because he hasn't spent much time at Hogwarts and in this story the resemblance isn't very striking. It's a lot more subtle because I found it overdone a bit.
Chrios: Anger and depression equaling happiness? In the world of Buffy and Harry Potter that is very possible.
FlutFlutLuver: Um, I have no idea what you mean by DMC, but I say go for it and I wouldn't recommend boiling your head in a fat fryer because it's really hard to get the grease out of your hair. Other than that, thanks!
demondude12: Wow, that was a mouthful. I leave Buffy as a secondary character mainly because she's not my favorite character (I still like her though) and she's almost always a major character already in other fics. Yes, I've read some Anita Blake, but it definitely would not fit well into this fic. I haven't actually had much time to read fics lately, but I'll try to take a look at yours. Thanks for the praise.
cbrownjc: Oh yay! More hp/btvs fics. I know there's a lot, but I just love the little buggers. Thanks for the compliments.
matt: No! I couldn't do that to Hermione ;). Unfortunately, I'm gonna need Pansy to keep her slimy face around for a while.
Silver Warrior: Oh yeah, incest is a big hit with the purebloods. It's like the fricken royal families of Europe and their penchant for marrying off first cousins in the past. Intermarrying in the wizarding families must account for all those squibs that keep getting born. Wouldn't you agree?
danielle: On the contrary, at the time I started writing this fic, (Xmas of '03) stories with Hermione as a vampire slayer were actually quite few. At least, I hadn't seen many of them. I can't speak for everyone.
Thanks also to MaryAnn Granger, Crazy-Vampire Slayer, General Mac, slaygal166, LovesBitch2 (love the penname), seirra, tinyanywhere, buffy, PotterGurl07, beth, and reigen.