A/N: Thanks, everyone, for the reviews! This chapter was much easier to write, not being separated at all by time or points of view, so I am able to update much quicker this time.
A few things: 1. In your opinion, do you think my writing is still as good in these chapters as it was in the beginning? I may have put in more effort in the first chapters, but who knows. It's only fanfiction anyway, but I like to write well no matter what. Usually...
2. I do not want this story to exceed 21 chapters. Therefore, you should expect the next two chapters to be extra long. The entire climax is going to take place in chapter 19, so it might be the longest chapter yet. I'm planning to cover all the extra stuff after the climax in chapter 20, and chapter 21 is a suprise. Because of all that these next two chapters involve, it will probably take melonger to update.
3. I don't usually kill off characters I like in fanfiction. I won't give away any more than that, except for this: You should know that two characters will die before the end of the story.
That's all I got for now. Read, review, then wait, I suppose. Have fun with this.
The Negative Side
The Innocent Ones
The common room in Gryffindor Tower had cleared out for breakfast. Ginny sat on the arm of Hermione's chair, laughing hysterically. Tears were actually coming from her eyes, and she sounded like she was having trouble breathing. When she had regained her ability to speak, she asked again, "Every three minutes?"
Hermione nodded, amazed that she herself could keep a straight face. "For five seconds."
"How much time is that total?" Ginny asked with refreshed laughter.
"Don't forget, there was also the time after the spell, when we…" she trailed off as Ron emerged from upstairs. He saw them, stopped short, and walked toward them. "How are you this morning, Ron?"
He groaned in response. "Right. Meeting." This cavemanesque speech was all they could get out of him at the time. Hermione was not sure that he stayed awake between the moment he sat down and the moment Harry and Blaise entered through the portrait hole, their arms laden with food.
"We got a bit of everything we could carry," Harry told them. "Blaise said that everyone was more likely to be happy if we had choices."
With another grunt, Ron grabbed a few items and began to stuff his face, while Hermione fixed Blaise with a raised-eyebrow Look. "You're becoming quite the philanthropist, Blaise. I'm not sure you can continue in Slytherin now."
"After all the effort Draco and I put in, I find that your words hurt," Blaise responded with a mournful face. He tapped his chest with one hand. "Right here."
"Well, you can get Ginny to kiss it for you," she suggested.
"Hermione, you know better than to give them ideas like that," Harry said in protest as Ginny stood to comply. She settled into Blaise's lap with a few pieces of toast and an apple. "They can disturb us just fine without any help. We should be discouraging them from public sexual activity."
"I'd have to say I agree," Ron grumbled. "It was bad enough to see Blaise snogging girls in hallways when they weren't my sister."
Hermione could not help smiling. After only one day, Ron was already joining in the scathing but lighthearted banter that seemed to occur quite often between the boys. She had the feeling that Ron was more serious about his comments than the others, but he also did not look like he wanted to hit anyone. As far as Hermione was concerned, that was progress.
"Do you know when Draco said he would be here?" Hermione directed her question to Blaise, but it was Harry who answered.
"I believe he wanted to take a walk in the Forest before the meeting. Something about killing a vampire…" Hermione sat up utterly straight, her eyes wide. If Draco went after Erik after she had explained the situation, she would kill him. "I'm kidding, Hermione. You talked him out of going back for your – acquaintance – yesterday evening. He should be here any moment."
"Harry, that was uncalled for."
He shrugged. "You worried us all yesterday. Maybe you should know what that feels like."
"Harry!" Hermione stood, spilling crumbs from her lap onto the floor. "If you asked me to put a number to all the times I've had to worry about you, I'd be counting for days! You lead a far more dangerous life than I do, but I don't think about giving you a taste of that back, do I? I'm above that, and I thought you might be as well."
She reclaimed her seat with a pear in hand. By his expression, she could tell that she had angered him, but she found that it did not affect her. Perhaps it was time someone let him know what he was doing when he acted simply for the reaction. Feeling unapologetic, she returned Harry's dark look. The others appeared increasingly uncomfortable as they waited for Draco to join them.
When he came in, Hermione and Harry were still exchanging glares. "Do I want to know what you two have been fighting about?" Harry shook his head, stood, and went to the window.
"Come sit, Draco," Hermione requested. "The sooner we can start this talk, the better."
"Wait," Blaise interrupted. Draco sat on the sofa, next to the pile of Blaise and Ginny. "Does anyone know where Bianca is?"
"She's with Pansy right now," Draco answered. "Helping with her homework, I think. Bianca says she enjoys it, she wants to be ahead when she starts class here."
"She will be if she's doing seventh year homework," Harry said. He reentered the circle and sat in one of the large red armchairs. "All right. Hermione, let's just forget about what we were saying before."
"Why should we?" she shot back.
The room rang with silence before Harry responded. "What?"
"You heard what I said, Harry. Why should we forget about it? I think you don't realize what you keep putting us through. You dive recklessly into whatever you feel is necessary at the moment. I don't know whether you enjoy the thrill or whether you just don't realize how dangerous things are until you've already done them. This summer, when we were staying in London, you kept going out at night, regardless of the fact that Death Eaters would easily be able to attack you whenever you turned a corner!"
"I had Ron with me," Harry protested.
"Ron is not the most efficient bodyguard against a band of Death Eaters, and both you and he know it."
"What makes you think I need a bodyguard?" He sounded angry now.
"But it's not just recently. You have always been quick to act, and you haven't always let us help. Every time you think there's a reason to do something stupid, you do it without stopping to consider what might happen. Ron, you're the only who has known him as long as I have. Isn't it true?"
Ron was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him. His eyes were not quite on the floor, but neither did he look up. Draco attempted to placate her. "Hermione, now's not the time."
"No," Ron said suddenly. He looked up at them all, his blue eyes more intense than Hermione had ever seen. "He needs to hear this." He stood, took a few steps, and stoppedtwo feet from Harry. "I'm sorry, mate, but it's true. You might not want to hear that your heroic actions could possibly have negative connotations. Maybe you've started to believe this image of you that's been displayed to everyone – not the crazy, compulsive-liar-attention-seeker image. The image of The Boy Who Lived, the hero who is the antithesis of Voldemort. The model good-doer."
"What are you talking about, Ron?" Harry asked through clenched teeth, his voice shaky. The thought sprang to Hermione's mind that he might lash out, possibly punch Ron. Then again, she also thought thatthe way Ron had been acting for most of the year had earned him a black eye.
"Sometimes I really can't tell if you know that you have limitations, Harry. You never seem to stop and think. I've heard you say before that you don't want to put us in danger. You know what, Harry? As long as Voldemort is alive and has supporters, we're going to be in danger no matter what you do. If you don't let us in, then you'll end up dead when we could have kept you alive."
"That's what I meant when I said we worry," Hermione added.
The emerald green eyes did not glare, as she expected. They looked helplessly miserable. He started to pace slowly, walking toward the wall. Ron sat again in his spot, also appearing miserable.
"You don't know what it's like, do you? Either of you," Harry asked. No one spoke. "The loneliness. You've both had your families for your whole lives. People who love you. For ten years of my life, I had no one. I had no friends…no one was even nice to me. I came here, and everyone expected me to be a great wizard right away. I had friends and felt loved, for the first time. I'm not a great wizard, you know. I just do the best I can. I guess I have certain abilities, but everyone has something."
Hermione bit her lip. When she had first come to Hogwarts, it had taken her a while to feel accepted. Parvati and Lavender had been tight with one another from the beginning, and back then she had not gotten along very well with them. No one else had rushed to be friends with her, either, judging her by her love for books or her blood, or both. She looked to Draco, whose eyes were turned her way. He smiled briefly at her.
Harry continued. "The fact that I had you two, Dumbledore, Hagrid… that did not change what I didn't have for so long. There have been times when I've been surrounded by everyone I care for, and the loneliness crept back. That feeling won't leave forever. I can get rid of it for a while, but it always comes back. No matter what you say or do, you can't change that."
"If I lost either of you, Hermione or Ron, it would come back for good. There's no way I could ever feel warm again. My worst fear isn't dementors any longer. It's losing my best friends, who have become my family. That's part of why I don't always include you."
"What's the other part?" Hermione wondered.
Harry shook his head. "I don't know. If I had an answer for everything, I wouldn't be the Boy Who Lived. I'd be Dumbledore."
They all laughed. For a moment it was silent after the laughter died away, but it seemed that the tension had passed. They could get on with the purpose of the meeting. While a few of them nicked some more food items from the stash on the table, Hermione said, "You aren't going to yell at me again, are you? Or lecture me?"
"Not to be repetitive," Draco began, quite sarcastically, "but you've been putting yourself in danger by going into the forest on your own. If Bianca hadn't seen that you were in trouble, we might have found you too late. And if that had happened -"
"I've been careful, this whole time. I know a lot about dark creatures, and Erik was never going to harm me. But you know that now, right?"
"There are a lot of things in that forest that could have hurt you. The centaurs, for one. Well, I guess they don't count as one so much as tens, do they?" Harry said. The reprimand was lost in the technicality, and Hermione heard both Blaise and Ginny snigger. However, the memory that Harry had just struck caused her to ignore them.
"But the centaurs are gone! They left the forest a long time ago. I forgot about that. I couldn't tell you because of Erik, I didn't want you to get suspicious and start spying on me. I suppose I shouldn't have bothered." She gave Ron a pointed look, but thattook all ofone second before she continued her explanation. "Once when I visited Erik, Firenze was there with him. According to what they told me, they were old friends. Firenze left the forest more than two years ago, if you remember, because the others considered him a traitor and would have killed him."
"I remember," Harry said with a nod. "What was he doing there?"
"I'm not exactly sure," Hermione admitted. "You know centaurs. He didn't tell me in the most direct terms. He said he had come to 'protect the innocent ones.' The other centaurs had left because men in masks and hooded robes kept coming into the forest and it was no longer safe. I assumed he meant Death Eaters."
"And that convinced you that it was okay to keep going back?" Draco put in, deadpanning.
"Draco, please."
"He's right, you know," Harry agreed. "Death Eaters coming to the forest should have warned you away."
"Erik's lonely, where he is," Hermione countered.
"I will not respond to that right now. But Hermione just reminded me of something. When we had that assignment in the forest for DADA, Draco and I found a Death Eater pretty far inside the border. He was performing some kind of ritual, but I don't know what."
"He was preparing to collect blood," Draco said abrubtly. The focus shifted away from Harry. "The vessels he had with him, and the spells, it was all for blood collecting. I never could figure out what kind of blood he wanted. The strangest part about the whole thing was that when we tried to bring him up to the castle, he disappeared."
"He Disapparated?" Ron asked. "Isn't that impossible?"
"Yes," Draco responded, "which is why I use the term 'disappeared' instead. Also, because he had just been knocked out. I assume it was an anti-capture type spell, to keep the information from our side. It's not even certain that he survived."
"Do you think that the blood might be from whatever Firenze was talking about?" Blaise reasoned. "The innocent ones, wasn't it?"
Draco nodded. "I'm sure of it."
"But what are they? What kind of creature?" Ginny asked.
"That would be the mystery, wouldn't it?" Hermione answered. "I might have a way to find out. There is someone I could ask, and he might have an idea of what in the forest is in danger."
"If you mean who I think you do, you can forget about it." Her head snapped quickly to look at Draco. "You aren't going out to see that vampire again. Not after what happened the last time."
"I have to," she said sternly. "I went there to release him from the binding spell that keeps him captive there. I finally figured out how. Draco, if you think you can stop me, then we have to have a serious talk. You are not my father, nor anyone else who has authority over me." She had never expected that Draco would be the type to feel ownership of that kind.
"I am concerned for your well-being."
"You can come with me, then. But you will not keep me from going in."
Sighing, Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of parchment. "We have another problem, though I think it's really a smaller part of the same evil plot. I received this letter in my room this morning, which is why I was later than expected."
Hermione remembered the last few important letters Draco had received. "It's not from your father, is it?"
"As shocking as it is, no. It's from my mother, who is not on the side of the Death Eaters. I don't want to hear it if you're surprised. You'll have to take my word for it, no questions. The issue is not my mother's loyalties, but what she wrote in this letter." He unfolded it and read, "'Dear Draco, I believe a plot of Voldemort's is coming to execution, though I do not know what it is. Your father has been preparing one of the house's secret rooms to receive some kind of prisoner. I believe that the captives will be animals, nothumans or anything like them. You should not act on this information, but go to the headmaster.'"
"Is that it?" Ron asked when Draco did not say more.
"What more do we need?" Draco responded. "Whatever these animals are, they have something that Voldemort wants badly. I would bet everything I own that it's something powerful."
Had Hermione been eating or drinking anything, she might have choked. He had told her how much he owned earlier that year. It was an obscene amount of anything, let alone money. "I'd have to say I agree with you," she said instead. "The only thing he cares about is power. The question now is what in the forest could be important enough for Voldemort to act upon?"
"All right, Hermione," Draco growled a bit as he spoke. "We get your point. We will accompany you to the forest to inquire of your vampire whether he has any information that could help."
"Erik," Hermione supplied, "is his name. And I'm leaving right now to see him. You should hurry up with that breakfast if you want to come with me."
It irked her that every single one of the boys and even Ginny tacked themselves onto her escort. She did not need company at all, but they all seemed to think that she would get into trouble on her own. Reluctantly, Hermione admitted that it was not unthinkable. She put a hand surreptitiously to the bandage on her neck where Couteau had bitten her.
When she checked that none of the others had seen the movement, she found that Ginny was timing her pace to be a step behind Hermione. She motioned for the younger girl to catch up to her. "Was there something you wanted to say?" she asked, her voice low. She did not feel, at that moment, that she wanted her words to be overheard by all the annoyingly protective men walking along with them.
"I think that they're right," Ginny began. "You shouldn't have hidden this from us. But I also think they're overreacting. You know how boys get. Stupidly overprotective, trying to impress us all the time. Usually I hate it. That's part of the reason I came. I thought you could use some female company among these guys."
"Thanks, Ginny." A moment passed before Hermione wondered, "What's the other reason?"
"I hate being left out of the loop," Ginny replied with a shrug. "If you five are going to find out a crucial part of Voldemort's plan, I want to be there as well. Now that the group has expanded, I'm as much a part of it as Harry himself. It's only fair that I make the discoveries with you."
Hermione had to wait for the right words to come. "I know we left you out a lot earlier on. I'm sorry about that. We never wanted to involve many people, because we knew they would be in danger as well. After Voldemort came back, though, we couldn't be sure that anyone would be safe no matter what we did. When you, Neville, and Luna joined us at the Department of Mysteries… I guess you were automatically in the club, as it were."
"I know all this. You don't have to explain to me. I just hope you realize that it hurt to see you three keeping secrets. I wanted to be important enough to trust. I was the one who was affected directly by Voldemort in my first year of Hogwarts. Who else can say that but Harry?" Ginny pointed out.
"Hermione, are we nearly there?" Ron asked suddenly. They had breached the forest's boundary a while before, and the canopy of branches was thicker here than closer to the outskirts.
Hermione surveyed the area to get her bearings. "We've turned a bit to the left, but yes. Only a few more minutes."
Collectively, they veered to the right and continued, Hermione and Ginny in the lead. In no time, they had reached the clearing to which Erik was bound. Stepping out of the trees, Hermione could feel the relief of the others when they felt the sunlight. She smiled a bit, thinking of how accustomed she was to the darkness of the forest.
The clearing was empty. She could not see Erik anywhere. He must be wary, after being almost attacked by these same boys the day before. Hermione called out, "Erik! Where are you? It's all right, it's me, Hermione."
The woods remained silent. Lacking a response, she began to fear that something fatal, or nearly so, had befallen him. "Erik?" she called again.
"He might not be here, Hermione," Draco said softly, ignoring the fact that Erik was bound to that location, and could not be elsewhere.
"I am here, actually," Erik's voice said. Hermione looked up in time to see him emerge from the trees. She rushed forward to greet him. Her companions stuck close to her side. She glared at them, but they took no heed.
Erik raised his hand to trace the edge of her bandage. She put her hand to her neck, feeling sheepish. "I'm all right. I was worried about you. I thought something had happened…" The look in his eyes made her trail off. There wasa warningin his expression. "What is it?"
Erik kept his eyes on hers, avoiding all the others. He seemed nervous, too stiff, and his breathing was too rushed. He licked his lips to moisten them before speaking. "I smell blood," he said. "Something in the forest has been hurt or killed. This is not ordinary blood. It's powerful, more so than anything I would ever drink."
"When did this start?" Harry asked, sounding worried. Erik did not look away from Hermione as he answered.
"I can't judge exactly, but I believe it was about five hours ago. Before the sun rose, at any rate. I couldn't find anything. It is beyond the range of the spell."
"The spell!" exclaimed Hermione. "Oh, Erik, I'm sorry, I forgot. I came to you yesterday because I figured out how to undo that spell. I didn't have a chance to perform it, but I'm here because of that now."
Ron cleared his throat loudly. Hermione rolled her eyes, but continued anyway. "Also to ask you if you know what Firenze meant when he said 'the innocent ones.' We were trying to discern what the latest evil plan could be, but none of us know what Voldemort is after."
"Vampires do not usually concern themselves with human affairs," he replied.
"Erik, I know that you do. Please?"
He sighed. His eyes closed, and then he finally glanced over Hermione's friends. She felt some of them take a small step backward, but she knew that Draco, at least, remained in place. Erik began to pace, as he had when Hermione had first met him, but more manically. "I think that whatever he was looking for is probably what I've been smelling for the entire morning."
"If the blood is as powerful as you say, I would guess that's so," Draco said.
"Yes," said Erik. "I could lead you to the spot where the blood was spilled. You could probably learn more."
"Oh! Right." Hermione took out her wand. She called the spell to the front of her mind and uttered it, waving her wand as she did. A wisp of blue light shot out of it and passed through Erik. As soon as it did, he took off. Hermione and the rest ran after him, hoping they could keep up.
Hermione shouted breathlessly for Erik to slow down. He was almost out of sight. Luckily, he stopped just before he left her view. She slowed as she came closer to him. He stood motionless, shaking with what she guessed was bloodlust. She reached the spot, halting about a foot to his right. Erik pointed. "There it is."
She stared at the thick silvery liquid as the others gathered around. She caught her breath at last, and spoke. "Oh my god…"
Harry caught her eye. He looked more frightened than she had seen him for a long time. "Unicorn blood. Of course. Unicorns are probably the most powerful creatures you could find here. Why didn't we think of that?"
"I have shown you what I needed to. Now I must go," Erik said. He turned to Hermione, taking her hands in his. Draco, Ron, and Harry all stepped forward, but she held them away with a look of admonition. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Ginny had held onto Blaise. Ignoring them, she met Erik's eyes again. He seemed sad. "You have done more for me than I ever would have asked, Hermione Granger. I will be indebted to you undoubtedlyforthe rest of your years. If you ever meet me again, I will be sure to remember what I owe."
Surprisingly, Hermione felt tears trail down her cheeks. Erik had been kind to her, and a good friend, even if he was a vampire. He wiped her left cheek with his thumb. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, revealing his fangs for one of the exceedingly few times she hadseen them.
"Goodbye, Erik. Good luck."
"Goodbye." He surveyed the entire group one more time, then grinned again. "If you'll excuse me, I must go find an old friend."Erik turned and swept away through the trees, disappearing in an instant. She knew that he would search out Couteau and pay him back.
"Hermione, why are you so upset?"
"I'm not, Ron. Let's concentrate on the problem of the unicorns, all right?"
Draco's expression told her that he wanted to hex something. "That's what they were preparing for at the mansion. They needed a place to put the unicorns once they got them there. I have to go there, now."
"Draco, the letter said to get Dumbledore, not to do anything ourselves. You know what happens when I take things into my own hands," Harry growled. He must have been speaking of Sirius and Dennis.
"I understand, Harry, but we don't have time for that. Whatever they mean for these unicorns, we can't let it happen. Voldemort does not need the power boost, and unicorns are rare enough as it is."
"Do you think they're even still there?" Blaise asked. "It was a few hours ago that they were taken. Maybe they took them to your family's mansion at first, but moved them afterward."
Draco shook his head. "The Malfoy mansion is an incredible hiding place. Remember when I was reading the letter, I said that they were preparing one of the secret rooms? Well, if my mother had known which one, she would have told me. Only Lucius knows the location of all of them. You only find out when you inherit the house. As it is, I know of four of the secret areas of the mansion. There must be nearly twenty, total."
"Then how are we going to find them?" Ron wondered, annoyingly.
"Good point. Maybe we should have kept Hermione's vampire around. He could track their blood for us."
"Erik," Hermione corrected.
"You guys?" Ginny slipped into the conversation suddenly. She had a look of realization that made them all pay attention. "What if they don't intend to keep the unicorns? What if they wanted them for some kind of ritual? They could already have started, or worse, finished. It's been enough time, it seems."
They all stood silent until Draco took out his wand. "What are you doing?" Hermione asked him.
"Making a Portkey. I have to go there and stop them, or at least find out what's going on. Dark rituals tend to take forever with Voldemort, he likes to do all the bits of ceremony. If it involves most of the Death Eaters, you can almost bet they wouldn't be done yet. No matter, we and the unicorns are still in danger. We can't waste any more time."
"Don't even think I'll let you go without me," said Hermione sternly.
"Well, I can't let you come with me," he told her, throwing his hands out.
"Draco." She walked up to him and took him by the shoulders. She forced his deep gray eyes to look straight at hers. "I am concerned for your well-being."
For a moment she thought he would laugh, but he simply nodded. "We're all coming with you," Blaise stated. To Hermione's annoyance, Draco did not argue. He seemed to think it all right for the rest of them to go on dangerous missions, but not her. She should be flattered that he wanted to protect her. Instead she felt belittled.
Draco removed Narcissa's letter from his pocket and muttered the spell to create a Portkey and then slid his wand back up his sleeve. Five hands reached forward to touch the parchment. When they all had a hold on the Portkey, Draco began to count. "Five, four…"
Hermione wondered whether they should not, in fact, find Dumbledore. He would be far more likely to know what to do, and he would not be breaking so many school rules.
"…three, two…"
Draco looked straight at her. In that moment, she knew that once they entered the mansion, they could not turn back. And they would probably end up having to fight.
"One."
The familiar jerk behind her navel came, and Hermione felt herself spin off into nowhere as her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.
...TBC…
