Important A/N: There are passages quoted directly from DH here. I've put them in bold. Credit for those goes to JKR.
Chapter 45
The world felt different to Hermione as she walked with feigned confidence down Diagon Alley. She employed her Mind's Eye full-force, filtering the world through it so that she could remain calm and objective. The few people in the street this early in the day seemed to shrink away, averting their faces as though she might lunge forward to curse them at any moment. She tightened her fingers around the walnut wand; it felt wrong in her hand, a snake that might bite at any moment, but she and the boys had agreed that using Bellatrix's own wand would be all the more convincing. Despite this, she was grateful that her own wand was tucked carefully up her sleeve.
She walked past half a dozen Dark Arts shops, all plastered with pictures of Harry, identifying him as UNDESIRABLE NUMBER ONE. Suddenly, a man with a bandaged eye came lurching out of a doorway, screaming at her about his children. Hermione stepped back quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid him entirely. Ron Stunned him, but the dread creeping through her had already been transmuted into horror. It was one thing to hear about the goings-on in the world from Potterwatch or from Harry and Ron; it was quite another to witness it.
Hermione engaged her Mind's Eye, immediately filtering away the spike in her emotions, and allowing a long moment of calculation before she drew her conclusions. She needed to talk to Harry – now. Their plan suddenly felt hollow and silly and unbelievably inadequate in the face of this, and Hermione was just about to subtly call a halt to their progress down Diagon Alley when –
"Madam Lestrange!" a reedy voice cried from behind them.
She took a moment to inhale deeply, clenching the horrible, cold wand in her hand, reminding herself of exactly who she was meant to be at that moment. Hermione coated her voice in contempt as she answered the man. And then she heard Harry's voice in her ear, telling her that this was a fellow Death Eater. Hermione's Mind's Eye calculated the impact of this information at once. Channelling the way Severus transformed himself before facing his fellow DEs, she successfully impersonated Bellatrix as Travers accompanied them up the street to Gringotts.
Here, the plan coalesced once more, and Hermione forced herself to discard her earlier calculation. This could work.
They were prepared for the Probity Probes, and Hermione glided past the wizards wielding the golden rods. She felt the whisper of Harry's magic pass her skin, and then she was through the doors, walking across the huge marble hall. She and Ron pretended to expound upon the impressive architecture while Travers stepped forward with his tiny golden key. A moment later, the Death Eater had finished with the goblin, but he lingered by the counter rather moving on to his vault.
There was nothing she could do about Travers. Hermione swept forward once more, Bellatrix's long legs moving her with a commanding grace Hermione herself had never felt before. The goblin behind the counter seemed dismayed to see her.
"I wish to enter my vault," Hermione stated, and was dismayed in her turn when the goblin requested identification.
"Identification?" she demanded, and Bellatrix's voice came out a little less sharply than before. She gathered herself once more before snapping, "I – I have never been asked for identification before!"
Hermione could only just hear the low rustle from behind her: Griphook whispering something to Harry. She couldn't focus on that now. The goblin behind the counter was answering her.
"Your wand will do, madam."
As she handed it over a rush of terror bled the colour out of her Mind's Eye: using Bellatrix's wand had been a mistake. The Death Eaters knew that the wand was missing… and now…now…
"Ah, you have had a new wand made, Madam Lestrange!"
Hermione stared as the goblin turned the walnut wand over and over in his long-fingered hands.
"What?" she demanded. "No, no, that's mine –"
And now Travers was stepping forward, all of his former suspicion returning, asking her who had made this new wand, and Hermione felt herself floundering until she heard an indistinct mutter from beside her. Travers examined and admired the wand, and Hermione was only just able to go along with his turnabout. They made their way towards the tunnel beyond the hall, firmly ignoring yet another goblin who tried to reinforce "special orders regarding the vault of Lestrange."
They finally attained the stone passage leading into the depths of the bank. Harry appeared suddenly at Hermione's side, and she felt a wave of unease crash over her as he explained that he'd Imperiused both the goblin serving her and the Death Eater. Doubt bloomed in her chest, and she discarded her Mind's Eye for a moment to experience the full range of her emotions. Panic, fear, uncertainty, and an almost undeniable urge to run.
"What do we do?" Ron said, still in his disguise, "Shall we get out now, while we can?"
Hermione peered back toward the main hall, and what she heard beyond the door turned her stomach in a twist of dread. Her Mind's Eye came together once more to sort through the emotions. She felt an intuition that she knew she had to voice.
"If we can," she said, hating the way Bellatrix's voice made her own words sound dark and threatening.
Harry looked around, taking in the gloom of the tunnel, and planted his feet firmly, setting his shoulders. Hermione felt a rush of affection at beholding the ferocity and determination in his face.
"We've got this far," he said. "I say we go on."
A moment later, Hermione, Harry, Ron, Bogrod and Griphook were squeezed into one of the tiny Gringotts carts, hurtling along the steep tracks and into the darkness beneath the marble hall. The ride went on for a long while, and Hermione tried to keep herself steady. Although still technically on track, their plan had altered so much that she was starting to truly doubt if they'd make it out of Gringotts with their disguises intact. Hermione let her Mind's Eye calculate a number of different escape routes, and was on the point of voicing some of them to Harry when they whooshed around a tight curve and were drenched in a waterfall that knocked their cart off the tracks.
It was just a second or two while they all flew through the air, but it was enough: the horrid wand in her fingers obeyed her shrieked command, and Hermione and the others landed safely, despite the rocky passage floor.
"C-cushioning Charm," she explained as Ron helped her up, and she knew, before even looking at her friends' horrified faces, that she was herself once more. The trembling voice had been her own, and it was Ron's own freckled face that was staring back at her.
She hardly listened as Griphook explained what the enchanted waterfall had been. She knew that Gringotts was now mobilising against them. Instead of talking to the others, she checked the beaded bag, and watched as Harry checked the Invisibility Cloak, and then recast the Imperius Curse on poor Bogrod.
It has to be done, a firm voice within her mind stated, Severus has had to do worse – so much worse – and now we just have to get this DONE. But her heart felt heavy in her chest as she watched her best friend – the best person she had ever known – cast the evil curse.
Hermione turned her head suddenly, a rush of sound reaching her.
"Harry, I think I can hear people coming!" It was the work of but a moment to sort through her feelings, to discard the scenarios that involved them leaving Gringott's undetected, and to summon her magic. She cast the strongest Shield Charm she could muster at the waterfall, and was pleased when it reversed, flowing up the passage they'd come through, effectively blocking the way.
"Good thinking," said Harry. "Lead the way, Griphook!"
They walked for a while, and Hermione tried to ignore Ron, who was voicing her own tamped down concerns about how they would get out of Gringotts after this. There were at least half a dozen ways out that she could think of; they'd find a way. Hermione went over the various options as they kept going, until they turned a corner and her Mind's Eye stuttered at what she beheld: a huge dragon blocked the tunnel before them.
Although the dragon roared ferociously when it saw them, Hermione could tell that it had suffered for its incarceration in front of the five vaults. The poor thing looked unhealthy, its huge wings pinioned to its body by the close-set walls of the tunnel, its scales peeling, its eyes partially blind, and its face disfigured by dozens of scars. Griphook took out the Clankers, and Hermione forced her feelings of absolute horror away, already sensing what was coming. They made noise with the Clankers, and the terrified dragon retreated, clearly expecting to be tortured, as it had been taught.
They skirted the dragon carefully while it cowered away from them, and Hermione watched, a little breathless now, as Harry used the Imperius Curse to force Bogrod to let them into the vault. As she walked into the small, close space, she mentally reviewed everything Harry had described to her about the cup: small, two-handled, golden… but the mass of gold and jewels was bright and distracting. If it even is the cup we're looking for, a doubtful voice hissed in her mind, it could be something of Ravenclaw's… we don't even know.
As if in response to her doubts, the vault suddenly went black as the door reappeared, shutting them in.
"No matter, Bogrod will be able to release us!" Griphook's terse voice said as Ron gave a cry of surprise. "Light your wands, can't you? And hurry, we have little time!"
It was awkward searching by the narrow beams of wandlight, but Hermione glimpsed something that made her stomach jump with excitement – a small goblet with at least one handle.
"Harry could this be – ? Aargh!" She'd reached for the goblet, had tried to fish it free from its tangled pile of gold and jewels, and had immediately let go of the thing as it blazed with sudden heat beneath her fingers before seeming to burst. Copies of the same goblet flew outwards from the pile. She saw in the wandlight that her fingers were blistered. "It burned me!"
"They've added Gemino and Flagrante Curses!" Griphook announced, and Hermione did not need his explanation to understand that they would quickly drown in the scalding treasure already springing up around them as Ron touched one of the goblets, causing dozens more to explode outwards.
"Stand still, don't move!" Hermione told him, grabbing his arm to hold him steady.
"Just look around!" Harry said. Hermione heard the miraculous calm in his determined voice, and forced herself to maintain the cool objectivity of her Mind's Eye, which was now lit up in pain. "Remember, the cup's small and gold, it's got a badger engraved on it, two handles – otherwise see if you can spot Ravenclaw's symbol anywhere, the eagle –"
They did as he instructed, but it was impossible to avoid moving. Soon the floor at their feet was covered in burning hot gold. Hermione kept looking, directing her wandlight as precisely as she could, careful not to look at the same spot twice. They kept at it, trying to place their feet carefully, and Hermione squinted, her eyes smarting from the heat –
"It's there, it's up there!"
The three wand beams came together to reveal the cup, out of reach on a high shelf.
"Accio cup!" she yelled, already knowing it was unlikely to work.
Harry was snarling at Griphook, demanding a way to get to the cup without touching the rest of the treasure. Hermione was already fumbling with the beaded bag when Harry turned to her. She handed over the Sword of Gryffindor when he demanded it. Harry tried it out for a moment on something silvery in the corner.
"If I can just poke the sword through a handle – but how am I going to get up there?"
The heat was starting to make her feel faint, and Hermione heard a horrifying noise beyond the vault: the dragon's roar, and the approach of what sounded like a horde of goblins. You are so close, a deep, resonant voice resounded through her Mind's Eye, you WILL get this done. Hermione turned back from where she'd directed her wandlight at the closed door to look at Harry, whose green eyes were brighter than any of the treasure around them.
"Hermione," he said, as calmly as if they were discussing a Quidditch match, "I've got to get up there, we've got to get rid of it –"
She flicked her wand and levitated him, jumping out of the way when he twisted in the air, bringing burning replicas down around them. There was no way to avoid touching the treasure now, and the blaze of golden replicas at their feet rose to their ankles, and then quickly to their knees.
"Impervius!" she screamed, waving her wand so that the Charm would cover herself, Ron, and the two goblins, but treasure kept falling on them, crowding around their thighs now, burning and burning and burning.
"Liberacorpus!" she heard Harry yell, his voice filling the vault, his powerful wandlight wavering as he fell onto the mound of scalding gold and silver. Her stomach clenched when she saw him heave Griphook – badly burned and screaming – up and onto his shoulders. "Where's the sword? It had the cup on it!"
The dragon had gone silent once more as they all looked around, and Hermione refused to think about the sound of the approaching goblins, which was deafening now. It was Griphook who found the sword, and who used his place on Harry's shoulders to grab it, to fling the cup up and away from all of them. She watched, fear and pain and immanent death squared perfectly away by her Mind's Eye, as Harry launched himself into a dive, heedless of the blistering gold beneath him. It was a perfect catch, and Hermione watched as Griphook leapt from Harry, towards the door to the vault, which burst open.
Harry scrambled after Griphook, heedless of the screaming mass of goblins Hermione could now see just beyond the door. He sent Stunners into the crowd, and she and Ron followed him, slipping and sliding through the door on the river of searing treasure that now flowed from the vault. She kept her eyes on Harry's messy-haired head, following him beyond the vault and back the way they hard come. It was all confusion and screaming and – her Mind's Eye could do nothing to stem her fear now – the dragon suddenly roared and spat a gout of flames down at the goblins surrounding them.
Hermione met Harry's eyes for just a moment, glimpsing the flames reflected in his round glasses. He turned away from her, and she had a sudden premonition of what was about to happen.
"Relashio!" Harry hollered, and the cuffs holding the dragon in place within the dank tunnel broke open. "This way!"
Hermione shot silent Stunners at the goblins around them, following Harry's lead, but when her friend approached the dragon's side, still firing spells, her breath seized in her chest.
"Harry – Harry – what are you doing?"
But it was plain what he was doing: a moment later, Harry sat astride the dragon, looking down at her and Ron, holding out a burned and blistered hand. This was not one of the many plans or scenarios her Mind's Eye had calculated.
"Get up, climb up, come on –"
They had no time and no options but Harry, as he always did, found a way. She felt a blazing light in her heart as he helped her onto the dragon's back, Ron clambering up behind her. They were all seated not a moment too soon; the dragon roared and reared, finally realising that it had been unleashed, and the three of them had to huddle down close to its back as it crashed into the walls and ceiling.
"We'll never get out," she shouted to Harry over the deafening roars, "it's too big!"
As if in answer, the dragon released a blast of fire, which widened the tunnel before them as the walls began to tremble. The dragon launched itself forward, pushing its way through, and Hermione helped, blasting the tunnel walls out of its way. She heard Harry and Ron yelling their own Gouging Spells, and the ceiling soon fell away entirely. It went on and on, and Hermione could not have said how long they spent with the dragon slamming itself forward through the underground tunnels, forcing itself up and out from beneath Gringotts, the three of them clinging to its back, helping it to blast their way free.
And then, so suddenly that she almost lost her grip on its back, the dragon was in the huge marble hall, its wings unfurling on either side of her. Hermione clutched Harry as the dragon hurled itself against the great metal doors of Gringotts, and out into Diagon Alley. She had only a moment to glimpse dozens of startled faces around her before the dragon was springing up, catching the wind in its wings, and soaring up into the sky.