A/N: I know! Please don't be angry! I know it took me for freaking ever to get this chapter out! I said I would finish this story though and I darn plan on it! Thanks to all of you who are still reading this! I really appreciate your steadfast…ness? Anyway thanks a lot!
Chapter 17
"Now maybe next time you'll think twice before you try and talk back to your father." Mr. Granger said as pulled a knife from his belt and roughly cut the rope that tied Hermione to a hook on the wall.
Hermione's legs collapsed underneath her, giving way to the added weight and she fell to the ground immediately. She hit the cold cement floor hard and the impact reverberated through her whole body causing her to shudder in pain. Mr. Granger smiled as she fell, her wrists still tied together.
Hermione breathed rapidly as she lay on the ground, her back felt wet, and her flesh burned like it was on fire. The pain was searing. She hadn't felt pain like this in such a long time, not since she was a child. Tears stained Hermione's face but she didn't bother trying to hide them from the man that helped conceive her. She had kept herself from screaming out and that was good enough for her.
Mr. Granger put the knife back in his belt and started to head back up the rickety staircase, but Hermione couldn't let him get away with thinking he was her father, she would never consider him her father and she wouldn't allow him to either. She inhaled deeply and tried to speak, but her voice only came out as a strangled groan. Mr. Granger spun around at the sound and in a barely audible voice Hermione was able to choke out, "you… are not… my father."
Mr. Granger stared at her in shock. The audacity! Kids these days had no respect for authority. He pulled his foot back and roughly kicked her. Hermione gasped as his boot connected with her ribs. He knocked the wind out of her, she couldn't breath and she was almost certain that he had broken one if not several of her ribs.
"Stupid, stupid girl!" Mr. Granger hissed raising the bike chain that he grasped so hard it left an imprint in his hand. "You never did know when to shut up!" He swung the chain down as hard as he could and it sliced across her face.
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut as she saw the chain rise into the air and when it connected with her face she couldn't keep the scream of pain from breaking out of her chest. The chain smashed across her face and wherever it touched her skin burst open. Blood flowed freely from the wound. The lacerations throbbed and she could feel it like a line etched down her face. It started just above her left eye, ran across her nose and cheek to just under her right ear. She was so happy that it hadn't hit her eye that she didn't quite mind that her nose may or may not have been broken.
Lost in her world of pain Hermione's eyes were shut tightly. The only thing she saw as Mr. Granger's boot connected with her head was a burst of light and then nothing but darkness and suddenly she felt no more pain.
Ron apparated to the middle of his kitchen, all formalities completely forgotten.
"Ron!" Mrs. Weasley yelped putting her hand to her heart as Ron appeared right in front of her. Moments later Harry came running through the kitchen door, having apparated into the living room. "What on-" Mrs. Weasley began, but Ron quickly cut her off.
"I need to talk to you and dad right now!" Ron said in a demanding tone.
"Ronald Bilius Weasley do not give me that tone young man!" Mrs. Weasley said sternly.
"Mum, I-I'm sorry, but, this-this is an emergency, Hermione's gone, she's been missing for hours, she could be hurt, dead! Something is wrong here and we need to find her, we've got to find her!" Ron said, his demeanor changing from demanding to pleading in a flash.
"Arthur!" Mrs. Weasley yelled heading towards the kitchen door. "ARTHUR!" Mr. Weasley came quickly down the stairs and stepped hesitantly into the kitchen. "Yes Molly dear?" He asked, apprehension shining on his face. Immediately upon entering the kitchen he saw Ron and Harry and he turned a confused glance at them, "Boys, what-"
"No time for questions dad." Ron said, hurrying to stand in front of his parents, speaking quickly, Harry moving to stand behind him. "Harry and I were at this muggle place with Hermione and her family. To make a long story short, her family, but not her parents, are horrible to her, she got sick and went to the bathroom and her cousin followed her and when her cousin came out she said that Hermione disappeared."
"Disappeared…apparated, Hermione apparated? Hermione's not of age yet is she? And she did it in front of uninformed muggles?" Mr. Weasley asked, confused.
"No, but she wasn't thinking clearly at the time and she's gone, we've looked everywhere she might have gone and she isn't anywhere to be found!" Ron said exasperated, didn't his father understand that under age apparation was the least of their worries?
"Well, since she's underage, she probably just missed her target and got lost." Mr. Weasley suggested. "Don't worry boys, I'll go into the ministry and have her apparation tracked right away."
Ron shifted nervously from foot to foot, not quite happy with his father's response. Harry put a comforting hand on his shoulder, "Mr. Weasley's probably right Ron. Hermione probably just missed her mark in her condition. They'll be able to track her down in no time."
"Sure." Ron said, not satisfied, turning away from his father, "Owl me when you get any information, I'm going to check and see if she made it back to her house yet." And without another word Ron apparated back to the Granger residence.
"Oh dear." Mrs. Weasley said sadly, looking at the spot where Ron just stood before turning back to her dishes.
"I guess I can go to the Ministry with you Mr. Weasley to help give you information on the muggle location that Hermione apparated from." Mr. Weasley looked away from where his son had just been standing. "Good idea Harry, let's go" with that both Harry and Mr. Weasley apparated to the Ministry.
Hermione awoke from her unconscious state with a throbbing head, sticky face and a burning back. Not to mention the voices hovering over her were entirely too loud.
"I told you not to kill her!" One of the voices was saying.
"You know I can't control myself when I lose my temper!" the other voice yelled back.
"How much longer do we have until they arrive?" The first voice, her birth mother's asked.
"I don't know, about ten minutes, maybe fifteen." Responded the gruff voice of her birth father.
Mrs. Granger dipped a cloth into a bucket of water and rung it out before pressing it against Hermione's bloodied face. Hermione inhaled sharply at the contact. Her flesh stung greatly and she couldn't stop the groan of pain that escaped her.
"See, I knew she wasn't dead!" Mr. Granger said with a smirk. "I just knocked the fight out of her is all." Mrs. Granger made a "humph" sound, but didn't argue. Just as Mrs. Granger began to attend to Hermione's bloodied back the sound of the door bell resonated through the house and Mr. Granger let off a string of swear words.
"They're early!" He said in frustration and if Hermione had opened her eyes she would have seen a flash of fear cross his face before it returned to its default sternness. "Finish up with her, change her clothes and bring her upstairs." He ordered before hurrying up the staircase causing it to wobble precariously.
Changing clothes, not to mention simply moving, was a very painful experience. Mrs. Granger had bandaged very few of her back wounds, only the ones that were still oozing with blood and roughly dragged her to her feet. It hurt her ribs to bend or turn at all and when a new shirt was yanked over her head it rubbed uncomfortably against her head and irritated the skin on her back.
"Let's go." Said Mrs. Granger in a business like tone after what seemed to Hermione hours of torment trying to get dressed. Hastily Mrs. Granger grabbed Hermione's now free wrist pulled her up the staircase.
When they emerged into the den, Mr. Granger practically leaped to his feet. "See, I told you I wasn't wasting your time, here's the girl now." Mr. Granger said, rushing over to Hermione, jerking her away from Mrs. Granger and pushing her to stand in front of two men. Two men dressed in black hooded robes.
"You've really done a number on her haven't you?" One of the men asked, raising a finger and tracing the cut that went across her face. Hermione shuddered at his touch and caught a glance at his partially exposed forearm, causing her to shudder even more.
"Death Eaters…" Hermione couldn't help but say allowed, both the men laughed loudly when she did and Mr. and Mrs. Granger took nervous steps backwards.
"She's alive." Mr. Granger said, trying to resume his gruff speech, "That's all you asked, that she was alive and she is. So, if you could fulfill your end of the bargain as we have ours, we can all be on our way."
"Of course, no need to linger among muggles any longer than necessary." The man who had touched Hermione's face said and he pulled a small satchel from within his robes and tossed at Mr. Granger who caught it clumsily.
Mr. Granger opened the satchel and emptied its content into his hand, once again he let out a string of swears, no longer seeming afraid of the men that each grabbed one of Hermione's arms and begun to drag her to the door way.
"What is this?" Mr. Granger roared. "Look, I'll accept pounds, euros, dollars, anything that's current, but I don't have time to be trading antiques!" He threw the large gold coins to the ground. "These things look like they're from the 1500's! I don't have time for this; we're on the run here!" Mr. Granger said gesturing angrily to himself and his wife.
"I told you should have just killed them right away. There's no use in trying to bargain with filthy muggles, they're too stupid." The death eater that had to say anything said. The other death eater nodded in resignation.
"You're right." He said as he released Hermione's arm and spud around, pulling his wand out and facing the Grangers. Mrs. Granger looked fearful, but Mr. Granger still just looked angry.
"You can't win a gun fight with a knife!" Mr. Granger said, misinterpreting the death eater's wand and pulling a gun from the back of his pants. Mr. Granger shot at the same time the death eater said "avada kedavra" and the two of them were down in an instant.
Mr. Granger was dead, but the death eater was alive, barely, but he breathed raggedly from the floor. The standing death eater pulled his wand out and quickly cast avada kedavra on Mrs. Granger as she crouched hysterical next to her husband.
"Help me…" the downed death eater gasped from the floor, clutching at his chest in fear, apparently he'd never had much experience with guns before. "What kind of magic did he use on me?"
The standing death eater merely grinned maliciously at the man as he bled and whimpered on the floor. "You should have listened to me, now Voldemort will know who his true follower is. You were stupid to trust a muggle." The death eater spat at the man on the floor. "I shall tell the dark lord of your betrayal, but I am certain you will not be alive to reap the punishment you deserve." He raised his arm into the air and the dark mark loomed over the house and then he and Hermione were gone.
Harry apparated into the Grangers house, all pretense gone, to find it empty except for Ron, Tabitha and William Granger, all of which were sitting silently at the table, untouched cups of tea steaming in front of them.
"The dark mark!" Harry yelled, slamming his hands down on the table as he gasped for breath, apparently he had run to the apparation site at the ministry as fast as he could. Ron jumped to his feet.
"What? Where? Who?" Ron asked, grabbing Harry by the shirt and shaking him slightly.
"Close by." He managed to gasp out. "At the Swanson's residence." Ron looked at him imploringly. He didn't understand what this had to do with them or Hermione. Harry continued, "Swanson is a pseudo name, a fake, it's really the residence of the Grangers."
Tabitha Granger gasped loudly. She might not have understood what the dark mark meant, but she did realize that Hermione was some how mixed up with her birth parents again and nothing good could come from that.
"Can you take us there?" Mr. Granger said, standing up from the table, anger shining in his eyes.
A/N: There ya go! Another chapter gone, I reckon this story will only be a couple more chapters, but I tend to get carried away when I'm writing certain scenes, so you never know! Thanks for reading!