A/N: Holy crap I'm updating! Totally did not think that would ever happen x)
Oh well, I did, and now am thoroughly excited about this fic once again, so look for lots more updates to come! Yay!
Sorry for the wait. If anyone is still reading this, I admire you more than I can tell.
"Hermione!" Ron called as he jogged blindly down the dark hallway. He could hear the clicking of her shoes on the stone floor a few yards ahead of him, but the only thing he could see was a vague outline of her figure. "Hermione!" he called again. "Just—wait, will you!"
"Wait for what?" she snapped back, and Ron could hear her footsteps slow, though they were still moving quite rapidly. "Wait for you to lie to me again? Go away, Ron."
"NO," he said loudly, and put on an extra burst of speed. Ron realized a moment too late that the sound of Hermione's feet had stopped, and then there was a mutual "OOF!" from both parties as Ron crashed headlong into Hermione's back.
Realizing at once that Hermione was not made of such sturdy material as himself Ron made a grab for Hermione's flailing figure and miraculously managed to secure a hold around her waist. He set her to rights in an instant, but didn't notice that his arm had neglected to move until Hermione gave him a sharp pinch on the back of his hand.
"Get off me!" she growled, and Ron felt his ears grow hot with embarrassment.
"Well, excuse me for trying to help," he muttered darkly as he cradled a stinging hand to his chest.
Then Ron sputtered violently as a he suddenly got a big mouthful of Hermione's bushy hair as she whipped around to face him.
"I wouldn't have needed your help if you hadn't blundered into me in the first place!" she snapped.
"I didn't mean to—" Ron started to protest, but Hermione easily drowned him out with a voice that was steadily growing in volume.
"Why don't you learn to watch where you're going? Why can't you just learn to control your big, stupid feet?"
"Hey! I was only—"
"What in the world were you trying to do? Flatten me to the ground? Hah! Too bad you stopped short—maybe then you could have slapped me up on the wall next to dear old Mrs. Black, and then you and Harry and Ginny could all have had a good laugh, couldn't you! Yes, look at that foolish, gullible girl with a great big M on her forehead! Just look at her!"
It was then, when he had just about had enough and was very much on the verge of throwing a royal fit, that Ron finally realized Hermione was crying.
Instantly uncomfortable in light of this new discovery, Ron did not quite know what to say first. But after less than a moment of his silence, it turned out that he didn't need to say anything after all.
At last spent of her rage and accusations, Hermione let out one last cry that sound a lot like a strangled, "Oh, Ron!" and then suddenly (and quite unexpectedly) Ron felt her arms being thrown around his neck and her nose squashing against his chest as she buried her face in his sweater.
Tentatively Ron reached up to pat her awkwardly on the back. "S'alright," he mumbled, his face burning so red that he was half convinced it was lighting the entire hallway with its glow. "Just…stop crying, okay?"
Hermione took a slight pause in her sobs to mumble something unintelligible into Ron's shoulder.
"What?" he asked quietly.
Hermione pulled roughly away and slapped him on the arm. "I said you're still a jerk! And just because I fell all over you doesn't mean that—Oh, what's so funny!"
Ron tried to choke back his laughter but it was a lost cause. "I'm sorry," he gasped. "It's just, you were so mad before. I thought you were going to murder me."
In the dim light Ron couldn't tell whether Hermione was frowning or smiling, but he prayed silently that it was the latter.
"Well that certainly wouldn't have been very funny," she said after a pause, and this time Ron was sure he could hear the edge of a smile in her voice.
"Uh…" Ron tentatively reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "Sorry," he said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with his other hand. "I, um, really thought I heard…"
Hermione sighed. "Ron, it really doesn't matter now whether you're sorry or not." She started to brush his hand off, but paused, and instead set hers lightly on top of his. "Thanks anyway though."
Ron glowed. "What do you think is down there anyway?" he said after a long pause.
The vague outline of Hermione's head turned to look down the hall. "I don't know. There doesn't seem to be any light that way."
Then she moved and Ron could see her reach into her pocket and take something out.
"Lumos," Hermione said suddenly and a beam of light exploded out of the end of her wand.
Ron did the same as Hermione took a glance down both ends of the hall and promptly began to walk directly into the apparently endless darkness.
"Don't you think we should get Harry and Ginny?" Ron called after her, but Hermione either didn't hear him, or did and pretended she didn't, because she didn't stop. Ron hesitated, looking over his shoulder uncomfortably, but he eventually shrugged to himself and followed after her.
It wasn't long before the light from their wands suddenly fell upon the moldy surface of a solid brick wall. There was a steady drip of water running from the top right corner, but other than that, it looked completely impenetrable.
Ron walked up beside Hermione and glanced over at her. She was frowning and her eyebrows were knitted in confusion. Distractedly, he ran a hand through his hair, which was still wet and soapy from his fall earlier in the laundry room. "Well that's not very encouraging," he said finally, and Hermione nodded. Ron reached out to touch the slimy bricks but Hermione made a loud noise of unease.
"What?" he said, his hand still poised in mid-air.
Hermione fingered a button on her blue cardigan. "Well, you know…It's just…Remember what happened last we touched something?" As if to emphasize that point, she reached up to rub distractedly at the "M" on her forehead.
Ron scoffed loudly. "You're the one who touched the door, not me—I just want to see if there's anyway we can get through. I mean, I didn't see any other doors, did you? This must be the way we came in. Besides, we're already here—what else could happen? Where else is there to go but out?" And so without even waiting for Hermione to reply Ron laid both hands flat on the wall as though he were an investigator in a muggle mystery film and was searching for a secret switch.
"Ron, this is so dumb. You're not going to—" But Hermione stopped talking immediately as she felt the ground begin to tremble beneath her feet. Then her hands flew to cover her ears as what sounded like a thousand rocks grating together assaulted her on all sides.
"OH NO YOU DON'T!" boomed a voice that Hermione could not quite tell whether it was in her head or not. Either way, she recognized whose it was, and knew they were in trouble. She freed a hand from her ear long enough to reach out and snatch Ron away from the wall. "What did you do?" she shouted, unplugging the finger he had stuffed in his ear as the grating sound only seemed to get louder with each passing second.
"Nothing!" Ron shouted, slowly backing away, dragging her with him. "I didn't do anything!"
Hermione was about to shout back a very stinging retort, but she never got the chance. Just as she opened her mouth, the stone beneath both of their feet gave out and suddenly she and Ron were hurtling down, down, down into what felt like an endless, black hole.
Hermione screamed.
Ginny picked absently at a crack in the stone floor where she was sitting. Finally she sighed and looked up at Harry who seemed to have been doing the exact same thing. "Harry, this is ridiculous. Let's just go get them."
He shrugged. "If you want," he said, getting to his feet.
Ginny glanced over at the portraits, who were still conversing with each other quietly (or in Marty's case, trying to avoid being speared by a multi-feathered hat). She scowled at the two women when they noticed her looking and abruptly stopped talking. "How they are related to Sirius, I'll never know," she muttered to Harry once he had joined her and they began to make their way down the hall. Harry gave a small chuckle and nodded his agreement.
They had only been walking for a couple of minutes when they began to hear the sound of a distant rumbling and Ginny glanced down, feeling a slight tremor in the ground. Puzzled, she looked up at Harry who looked right back, seemingly just as confused. But before either of them could begin to make a guess, they heard the unmistakable sound of Hermione's scream and without even a word between them, they both broke into a full-out run.
"Hermione?" Ginny called desperately as she and Harry continued to stampede blindly towards the last echoes of the scream. Then the rumbling sound came again, and this time it was much louder, the source of the tremors much closer. She heard Harry cast lumos beside her, and she followed suit, sending out her beam of light in just enough time to catch a glimpse of a section of the floor, twenty feet ahead and at the foot of what looked like a very solid brick wall, shudder closed over a wide, dark opening.
Ginny fell to her knees, holding her shaking hands over the last place she had seen the chilling black hole, unsure of what in the world she should do first.
"Move!" Harry said, pulling her back with one hand, while the other held his wand, already poised for a spell. "REDUCTO!" he yelled, a red-orange blast erupting from the tip of his wand and slamming into the floor with a spectacular explosion. When the smoke cleared however, the stone was still perfectly intact, albeit a bit scorched.
Harry raised his wand and made as if to try again, but Ginny stopped him. "No, Harry," she said. "I don't think that's going to work."
Harry gave her an extremely disgruntled look. "How do you know? I haven't even—"
"Look," she said sternly, but not unkindly, "one, that was clearly a trap, and two, we are not here by accident. Some very powerful dark wizards lived in this house once, Harry, and I don't think anything as simple as a reductus curse is going to make much of a difference."
"But I haven't even tried—"
"Look, I'm not saying that we can't do this, I'm just saying that we need to think it out a little more. I mean, what makes you think we won't just trigger the trap again?"
At that Harry, took a step back, looking very uneasy.
Ginny ignored him and continued, frowning as she tried to puzzle a plan together. "I have no idea where this mystery tunnel leads, Harry, but I don't expect it's anywhere good. If we end up down there with Ron and Hermione I doubt that we'd be in any shape to help them." Her frown deepened as she looked up at the wall in front of her. "And there is obviously no getting through that way. I hate to say it, but I think that those portraits are our best hope."
"What?" Harry hissed. "But they're the reason we're here! You want their help? How in the world do you imagine we'll manage that?"
Ginny finally stood, stepping carefully back, away from the wall and the hidden trap. "Well to be honest, it's Hermione they really want, not us. We just happened to be with her. And I think that my being pureblood might help us out a little."
"So what are we going to do then?" Harry said finally.
"We're going to make friends," she replied.
Harry looked skeptical, but he grudgingly complied. Ginny thought he sounded a little a miffed that he wasn't actually allowed to blow things up and save the day in the nice, manly way for once, but she did not care in the slightest. She knew she was right, and if he didn't think so, well, she knew quite a mean bat-bogie hex that just might change his mind…
Hermione kept her eyes closed tight as she fell, unsure of whether it was her body or just her head that was spinning. She had no thoughts, no ideas, nothing going on in her brain but a sheer, blind panic. She heard Ron cry out beside her, and she scrunched her eyes even tighter, willing her mind to cooperate.
Open your eyes, she commanded herself. And to her surprise, she did. She expected to be met with complete darkness, but instead she was startled by a bright light that was flashing somewhere below her feet. She looked down and saw that it was Ron's wand, flipping over and over itself, a good five feet away from Ron himself, who also appeared to be spinning.
At that point, Hermione found herself beyond screaming. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at the wand as the wind roared in her ears. Then she began to see something reflecting the light far, far, below them, and it wasn't long before she realized that it must be the ground. This should have spurred her into some kind of action, but all it seemed to do was immobilize her even further. Do something! her mind screamed. Do a spell! Do any spell! Just do SOMETHING! With each flash of the rotating wand, the oddly reflective ground got closer and closer, and still Hermione could do nothing. Finally, as the end of their fall rushed up to meet them, Hermione felt herself hold out her wand in a grip so tight that she could feel the wooden ridges biting into her palm. She closed her eyes once again and willed herself to think of a spell. She could feel herself falling faster and faster and she knew that any second she was going to find herself flat as a pancake, but still nothing came. Without even the slightest clue as to what she was doing, Hermione started to wave her arm in what she hoped with all her heart were the appropriate movements and screamed the first thing that came into her head. "WINGARDRIUM LEVIOSA!"
It must have worked a little bit because she did slow down, but they were both still falling at a considerable speed when they hit, so it was a very lucky break for them that the ground turned out to be a very deep pool of ice-cold water.
Hermione felt all the breath leave her lungs with a whoosh as she hit. The water was colder than she could have ever imagined and it filled her mouth and lungs as she struggled to get her head to the surface. She heard Ron sputtering as his head popped up beside her. He instantly came to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and helping her keep afloat (everyone knew that swimming was not her strong suit). Hermione clung to his neck with a deathly tight grip as Ron began to paddle towards some unknown destination—hopefully solid land. (It was far too dark and her eyes were still too blurry to make out definite shapes). Hermione squinted, trying to make out anything around them, and suddenly notice that what little light they was beginning to dim steadily. It was then she realized that Ron's wand must be sinking.
"Hold on," Ron rasped in her ear, shoving her away and diving back under water with a splash.
Hermione called after him as her searching hands made contact with a wet and slimy, yet thankfully stable object. She hugged herself to it and tried to calm her shaking body as Ron's wand light continued to fade. Then suddenly it went out completely and Hermione found herself in total, utter darkness. It was painfully quite and the only thing she could hear was the soft splashing of Ron's remaining ripples and her own erratic breathing. She flinched as she felt something ghost across her knuckles, and it wasn't until after she shook her hand violently and heard the sound of squeaks and skittering claws that she realized it had been the whiskers of a rat.
"Ron?" she whispered desperately, but there was no reply. Hermione was alone.
A/N: To be continued…
And as always, comments greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading :)