Part Three: The Fire Sermon
A boy with disheveled hair crept quietly down the hill that lead from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade, trying to make as little noise as possible. Of course, this was a bit difficult, and he stumbled on the small rocks littered on the pathway. He finally conceded to taking his wand out of his pocket, and casting a nervous and weary Lumos spell. He could now effectively see all the little rocks he was stumbling on. This was no good. He continued to yelp clumsily down the hill, sometimes running blindly, and thus falling. With a final fall and grunt, he found himself on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. Now was the time to make himself as seen as he possibly could without looking suspicious.
His green eyes glowed as he wondered around the streets, searching for people in dark clothes lurking around dark corners. He made his way to the questionable part of Hogsmeade, an area he would have normally avoided at all costs, but presently, he was on a mission and he'd be damned if he was going to get frightened. After walking along the dank alleys for what seemed like hours to him, he finally stumbled upon a few questionable looking people. They leered at him, but it was too dark for either party to see the other properly.
"Lost, boy?" One of the men sneered at him.
"Oh, a... a bit, yes," the boy squeaked.
"Pity," the second man clucked, "Come inside. We'll have a drink and then perhaps I'll accompany you back to your ickle mummikins." The men laughed, and grabbed the boy roughly by the shoulders, steering him into what appeared to be a desolate and eerie bar and inn. The boy gulped but said no words of protest.
Once inside, the men began appraising the boy in an almost sick manner. They looked at each other every so often, both thinking that he looked surprisingly familiar. Finally, one of the men scraped back a scrap of unruly black hair, only to reveal a scar they knew all too well.
"Well, well. This is interesting. What on earth is The Boy Who Lived doing out alone in a dark alley?"
"Looking for trouble, I expect," a third man who had joined them moments earlier conceded. "Potter, I never knew you were so stupid. I would have thought the boy who thwarted the Dark Lord on so many occasions would at least allow himself not to be caught so easily."
The boy looked horrified at the man's gleeful expression.
"Oh yes, we shall be repaid greatly for this little find," one of the men said. "Let's take him outside and go pay our Lord a visit, shall we? He'll be ever so pleased to find what the cat dragged in."
The boy gulped, before roughly being shoved outside. Only seconds later, he felt himself being grasped tightly by a man who clearly hadn't washed in many a year. Slowly, the desolate streets of Hogsmeade became a fleeting memory as everything turned black. The boy who was not in fact Harry Potter had been effectively captured and the plan went into action.
---
"Oh Merlin," Hermione wailed. "How could I have allowed him to do such a stupid thing? I can't believe I let him. I am so stupid. This will end in tears, I know it will. It won't work and Neville will have been... Oh!" She sobbed. "And it will have all been for nothing."
"This was your bloody idea, Hermione," Ron snapped.
"Well, no, Ron," Ginny said, "It was Dumbledore's, actually."
"Right well, Hermione wasn't exactly rushing to disagree with this grand scheme,"Ron huffed. "I wonder what's happening now?"
"Can we stop talking about this? I'm getting nervous. You're making me nervous, Ron," Ginny pleaded. "What's done is done. Now we just have to... well, hope for the best."
"Hope for the best? Oh don't be so stupid, Ginny. Gods, Neville's just... well, he's just thrown himself to the beast. I think we're allowed to worry about the man for just a few moments. No sensitivity. None at all!"
"Just shut up, both of you," Harry snapped. They both didn't reply, and everyone lapsed into silence, broken only by Hermione's sobs.
They waited for nothing in particular. They wanted some kind of sign that something was going right, or that something had happened. Anything to break the tension in the air. And then, that something they had been hoping for came, in the form of Arthur Weasley.
"Ron? Ginny?" The voice of Mr. Weasley could be heard from the stairs below. They waited for the balding head to surface, and when it did, they were horrified. Mr. Weasley looked in a right state. His robes were torn, and the bottom had clearly been trailing in mud, grass and puddles. His face was sheet white and his eyes bloodshot.
"What's the matter, Dad?" Ron said, walking over and putting a comforting hand on his father's shoulder. His father looked at him wearily and beckoned to Ginny, who had risen from her seat next to Harry. She stared at her father for a few moments, deciding that he looked so much older than he had the week before when she had seen him last. She stood beside him too, and faced him, a look of questioning curiosity on her face.
"We're being hunted," Mr. Weasley told them. "I've decided it would be best if you two were removed from Hogwarts. I've warned all the other children. They're outside the school, waiting for us. Your mother is already at the place I've chosen for us to hide."
Ron and Ginny looked rife with protest, but said nothing. Mr. Weasley turned to Harry and Hermione, who looked equally horrified. "I'm sorry you two, but I'm afraid to endanger my family any further. If you two would like to join us, you're-"
"No, no, Mr. Weasley," Harry responded quickly. "Hermione and I... No, we need to stay here. We're safest here." Hermione stared at him with a confused and slightly scared expression on her face, but she said nothing to contradict him. "Besides," Harry continued, "I'd just be putting you in more danger. I seem to have attracted quite a lot of it as of late." No one responded to Harry's attempt at a joke.
Finally, Mr. Weasley nodded. He turned to his two youngest children and told them that they needn't pack because Mrs. Weasley had already taken some of their clothes that they'd left at home. They both nodded mechanically, eyes sad, but loyal to their father. They turned towards Harry and Hermione. Quickly exchanging hugs and goodbyes, the redheaded family departed from the office, leaving Harry and Hermione quite bewildered and quite alone.
"Do you think they'll be all right?" Hermione whispered.
"God, I hope so." Harry replied defiantly. He went back to his chair and reread Dumbledore's letter. "And I hope Dumbledore knew what he was doing when he wrote this." Hermione nodded sadly, and went to sit beside Harry in Ginny's recently vacated chair. It was there that they slept.
---
Walking through the halls the next morning had not been a pleasant experience. They both felt stiff from sleeping in hard backed chairs, but Harry and Hermione were not immediately bothered by this. As they had walked down to the Great Hall for a tense breakfast, the few students who remained at Hogwarts were standing in the Entrance Hall, whispering amongst themselves, looking at the two Gryffindors. With horror and pity, Hermione had even noticed a few girls crying softly. When they entered the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall greeted them, to their surprise.
"But, Professor, I thought you were in Diagon..." Harry started, but a sharp look from Hermione stopped him in his tracks. McGonagall looked older, her skin oddly stretched over her thin and bony features. There were dark circles under her eyes that had never been there before. She had lost the stern look in her eyes; all Harry could see was hopelessness, despair and the desperate need for a good drink.
"Professor," Hermione began quietly, "You look... awfully tired. Has something... has something gone wrong in Diagon Alley. Because, you know, they really can't... they can't be stopped. Not yet."
McGonagall shook her head, but it didn't seem as though it was in denial of Hermione's question, but simply a wish that it would all be over. Harry didn't see any of the courage she had once possessed, nor did he see the calm poise that the old Headmaster had once exuded in times of danger. She looked at a loss for words, unable to decide what could be done. But finally, she spoke, shaky words though they were.
"Follow me," she had said, but her voice had lost its usual curtness. They walked a little ways behind her to the deserted Slytherin table. No Slytherin had remained upon the unofficial closing of the school. Though not all of them belonged in the families of Death Eaters, their families were all Pureblooded and proud, thus convinced they could protect their children better than any qualified Auror or teacher could. McGonagall urged them to sit down. Harry felt odd sitting where he was. He felt as though he was betraying the innate goodness within him by sitting at a table where such evil had been harbored. Finally, with a shaky hand, McGonagall extracted a paper from her robes, and laid it out carefully in front of them.
The headline read, "EIGHT FOUND DEAD IN DEVON". Upon further examination, with a horrible, sinking feeling in his stomach, Harry realized that the eight dead in question were in fact...
"Oh my God!" Hermione sobbed. "Not them. Not Ron... Ginny." She had clapped a hand to her mouth in shocked horror, and tears leaked onto the pristine paper before her. Harry stared blankly at the paper, feeling so sick, he almost had the urge to wretch beside himself. He couldn't believe it. All of them, all of the Weasleys were gone. His best friend... was dead at the hands of his enemy. He felt for a moment defeated so utterly that his body shook would rage and despair. And they hadn't even unearthed Mrs. Weasley's body! Harry allowed himself angry tears. He slipped an arm around Hermione, who was now very near hysterical, and watched as her bushy head collapsed into the crook of his shoulder. McGonagall looked down at the two, tears very near welling up in her eyes as well.
She then sat across from them, putting her hand upon Harry's. "I don't know if this will be of any comfort to you, but Mrs. Weasley isn't... she wasn't with them. She's still with us." Harry looked up at her. "She was apparently already in hiding when the rest of her family were intercepted." A tear trickled down her cheek. "She'll be here by tonight, I'm sure of it. But, poor Molly. I don't think she'll want to live after this terrible, horrible..."
They sat in silence, all crying quietly. Harry allowed himself a break from his grieving, feeling a horrific pent up need to kill.
---
A/N: I understand now that people aren't really liking this. But I'm going to finish it anyway. So, I hope someone who enjoying this reads it. And don't worry, the Draco/Hermione stuff is coming soon enough.