Disclaimer: I don't own "Harry Potter" and I don't intend to make any money with this fanfiction.
Authors note: I'm very sorry for the extreme delay of this chapter. The reason is a combination of RL time restrains and writers block. I hope to write another chapter of the second part of this story before January is over, but there are no guarantees. Enjoy!
Edititorial note: After waking up this morning I reread what I had posted and some stupid mistakes jumped me in the face. I decided to go over the chapter again with a fine comb and do some content rearrangement too. I would like to thank my reviewer "piceaabies" for important advice regarding quotation marks.
Part 2
Holidays from Justice
Chapter 1
It was a warm and very busy summer evening in Diagon Alley, with throngs of wizards and witches hustling and bustling around the magical shopping district, most of them only interested in finishing their business before closing time. The more frequented stores, like "Flourish and Blotts" or "Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions" had waiting lines of annoyed customers in front of their doors. Some of the people were even trying to relieve their tensions through harsh words addressed to the people in front of them. In these rush hour conditions it was nearly impossible to keep track of any single person for more than a few seconds, making it the ideal time for pickpockets, crooked street vendors and everyone else who wanted to vanish in the crowds or keep themselves inconspicuous.
No one noticed the unaccompanied teenage girl who entered the Alley through the backyard of the "Leaky Cauldron" and joined the flow of people heading towards Gringotts. Her bushy brown hair was held back in a practical pony tail and she was attired in a very simple black robe without any flashy embroidery or ornamentation that could attract attention. She let herself be swept along with the crowd, kept the gaze of her brown eyes fixed to the ground and didn't even react when a very fat and red faced wizard stepped on the heal of her right shoe without apologizing.
When the mass of impatiently pushing people in front of her had nearly reached the shadowy street corner that was the entrance to Knockturn Alley, the youth began to work her way to the edge of the road, timing her efforts well enough to slip into the most disreputable location of wizarding Britain without any concerned busybody trying to stop her. Before walking any further, the girl took out her wand and held it in a ready position, than she forced her features to form a frightening scowl that didn't fit her face at all. She started to walk deeper into the infamous lane and let her eyes roam from left to right constantly, very aware of the dangers that could lurk in the twilight, especially for someone of her age and appearance.
Knockturn Alley seemed nearly deserted, but she could hear hissing whispers, harsh breathing and the occasional hacking cough coming from nooks and crannies in the walls of the houses. Many of the dubious shops that gave the small street its reputation as a place where you could buy absolutely everything -if you had hard coinage- seemed to be closed, but the girl didn't bother to check if this impression was true. She increased her pace but kept up her vigilance, very aware that she had been noticed, but determined to finish her business regardless. A few minutes of silent and tense walking went by until she arrived in front of a dirty little shop whose owner seemed to have decided that painting the display windows in a deep red color was the way to attract clients. The faded writing above the door announced the shops conspicuously innocent name -"Wizarding supplies"- to everyone who ventured close enough to decipher it in the Alley's gloom.
The girl took a few slow steps in direction of the shops front entrance, her body language signaling doubt and hesitance for the first time since she entered the Alley. After a few moments of seemingly painful indecision she gathered herself visibly and knocked at the old oaken door. Nothing happened for many seconds, and time seemed to stretch itself thin, but finally she detected faint murmured words from the other side and the entrance opened with a load and jarring creak. The teenager pushed it fully open and entered the store, trying to see through the gloom inside with a penetrating gaze. She closed the door without letting her guard down and mustered the heavily cluttered room before her intensely. Identifying any of the contents was nearly impossible in the poor light falling into the store through the painted windows. After about a minute had passed in tense silence her eyes had adjusted and she became aware of a very small person clothed in an ominous black cloak who was leaning against a heavily ornamented trunk in the middle of the chaotic display.
"Greetings, young witch!" the same voice she'd heard before welcomed her. It sounded raspy and rather odd, as if the proprietor had his mouth filled with a hand full of pebbles. "What can I do for you this fine afternoon?" Still hanging on to her wand she walked over to him, rounding some tables covered with strange objects of all forms and sizes. When she reached the owner of "Wizarding supplies" she towered over him and it was impossible to get a good look at his face because he hid it in the shadows of his hood. "I heard you are selling some... very special items, things that may be hard to obtain elsewhere." she began to explain her reason for being there in a hushed tone, but paused and looked around as if afraid someone could overhear them. "Don't worry my child, there are anti- spying wards surrounding my property, you can speak freely." the dealer told her reassuringly. "What is it you wish to acquire that has you in such needless worry about the security of my humble establishment?"
She fixed her gaze on the hood of the owner's cloak and her brown eyes seemed to change, from soft and bland to flinty and cold. "I need a book, I don't know the exact title or author, but I've read that it contains information that could allow *someone* to get rid of certain inconvenient security measures unjustly implemented by the Improper Use of Magic Office. Do you understand?" The dealer was silent for a moment, but then he moved his head in a nearly imperceptible nod. "You are the first one to ask for this in a very long time." he stated."I am not sure if there is a copy of that book still around somewhere, but we will find out." He hummed tunelessly, as if the prospect of searching for an old tome in the depths of the shop lifted his mood. "Come with me and I will check if I can be of service to you today."
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Stanley Grudegen was in the process of throwing his inconspicuous gray coat over his thin frame and already halfway to the door when the crystal that was installed at the ceiling of his office began to produce stroboscopic pulses of red light. He groaned silently -Miranda wouldn't be pleased if he had to clock overtime again- but he turned around dutifully nonetheless and made his way over to the old and worn out rack that covered the whole western wall of the room. It was filled with dozens of small mirrors in a variety of different shapes and forms, sorted from the top left to the bottom right of the frame in order of call frequency and general importance.
He let his eyes sweep over the shelves in a search pattern honed by long experience until they fell on the one mirror which surface had changed, not reflecting the rooms interior but showing something else altogether. He grabbed the magical communication device and held it in front of his face, frowning slightly to express his impatience. "Good evening Carrelus!" he greeted the informant, using a long established code name. "And to you, Keyholder. I see that you are in no mood for pleasantries, so I'll come to the point straight away- there was a young witch in this afternoon, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. She bought my last issue of "Breaking the bonds"."
Silence stretched for a moment between the two, until Grudegen had processed his informants words. Then he walked over to his desk and rummaged around for an unused parchment roll and his quill. "Well, that's the first one in a long time who was stupid enough to come to you." he said flatly. He put the mirror down on his desk and began to scribble an initial report form. "Just send over your memory of that girl and we'll see if we have a file on her- maybe we can put a stop to this before she tries the ritual." The hooded man in the mirror nodded. "I've already owled it in the usual container, together with my full report. It should arrive in the ministries post office sometime tonight. If there's nothing else, I'm signing out." Grudgen nodded without looking up from his papers. "Thanks for the good work Carrelus, I hope we can use it to keep that imbecile child out of Azkaban."
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Harry Potter was happy. Really and truly happy. A state of mind very unusual for him in this time of the year. The reason for his brilliant mood was the fact that he hadn't weeded his aunts plants, cooked dinner for his obese cousin or even heard the rough voice of his uncle for the last few weeks. Instead, he was sitting in the warm afternoon sunshine, with a slowly melting plate of delicious spaghetti ice in front of him and hundreds of people nearby who wouldn't even dream of calling him a "freak". The other tables of Florean Fortescue's ice cafe were occupied by dozens of wizards and witches and the stream of pedestrians walking by on Diagon Alley never dwindled even for a minute.
He took another spoon full and moved it to his mouth while he let his eyes roam around lazily. But the fantastic mix of vanilla ice, frosted whipped cream and strawberry sauce never reached his eagerly waiting taste buds. The ladle froze in mid air when he suddenly spotted a very familiar face in the crowd, which he hadn't expected to see for at least a few more days. He jumped up, snatched a silver sickle from his pocket, threw it on the table and was off, all in one fluid motion that betrayed the experienced quidditch player in him.
Harry joined the ranks of shoppers and instantly started to use his diminutive built and high agility to circumvent slow moving witches and wizards. He pushed through small openings between people, excusing himself left and right while he tried to keep that bushy mop of hair he had seen seconds before in his view. But she was moving too fast and he feared to loose sight of her, which made him brake one of the rules he had developed in his last month of relative freedom- he drew attention to himself. "Hermione!" he shouted loudly, trying to reach her ears over the buzz of the surrounding crowd. "Hermione Granger!" She didn't react and Harry doubled his efforts to reach her, winding through the throng like a garden gnome in freshly loosened soil.
"Hey Hermione, over here!" he called again, even louder than before. He heard some of the folk he had passed mumble angrily, but didn't heed their admonishments to be more considerate of peoples personal space. Finally, his efforts bore fruit when his friend looked around with a severe frown on her brow and spotted him coming up behind her. She seemed to tense for a moment, but then a somewhat untypical smile -one could have called it crooked- hushed over her face and she raised her hand and gave him a wave.
Half a minute later he arrived at the spot in which she had waited for him, panting from the exertion of the chase. He braced himself for one of her fierce hugs, but she stayed where she was, with a rather lukewarm smile on her features. He couldn't decide if he was glad or disappointed that she refrained from her usual habit of granting him crushing embraces."Hello Harry, what a nice surprise!" she greeted him, but he got the impression she wasn't all that glad to see him. "I hope you had a good vacation." she continued without her usual warm and enthusiastic inflection. Faced with her indifferent tone Harry felt a small prick of insecurity and confusion- was something wrong between them? Was she angry with him for some unfathomable female reason?
"What are you doing here in Diagon Alley all alone? Where are your parents?" he asked, trying to get a normal conversation going with his friend. Instead of answering him, she looked around, as if to make sure no one was watching them. "Come with me!" she said shortly, grasped his right arm and pulled him along until they reached a wide free space in front of a shop selling used cauldrons. "I'm alone and my mom and dad don't know I'm here." Hermione explained once she had made sure that no one could listen to her words. "I don't have much time before they start to miss me, so we have to keep this brief."
Harrys discomposure was growing by leaps and bounds by now, his thoughts a swirling mass of confused speculation. "What's up with you, Hermione? Why would you run away and hide something from your mom and dad?" he asked. She sighed impatiently and looked at an intricate mechanical wristwatch he had never seen her wearing before. "Must be a new one, maybe she bought it in France." he thought inconsequentially, while he monitored her facial expression for some hint what was really going on. "Look Harry, things have changed since last year, all right!" she whispered vehemently. "Being petrified for months by a giant snake as a result of an evil intrigue to rid the school of muggleborns has shifted my perspective on things."
The baffled look he gave her seemed to provoke her temper, because her voice was filled with vitriol when she went on. "Not only must I lie to my parents face about what happened to me, but I'm in fact helpless to protect them and myself if some nasty schemer like Malfoy wants to hurt us." Harry held both his hands up to placate her, but she didn't stop for a moment, caught in one of her trademark rapid fire rants. "I can't even raise a simple apparation warning ward without the mindless ministry sending me a reprimand for breaking their discriminatory laws!" she fumed.
"And that-" Hermione paused and gave him a calculating look, as if she wondered how much she should tell him "-is the reason why I'm going to take matters into my own hands." Harry was perturbed by his friends words and he wanted desperately to say something calming, maybe even cast a charm to restore her to the sane and friendly girl he had bid farewell on platform 9 3/4 not so long ago, but she went on heedless of his wishes. "I did some research while I was in Paris and I found a text that referenced another book which holds the solution to my families security."
She patted the book bag slung over her shoulder and gave him a rather conspiratorial grin. "That book is what I just acquired and before I leave for Hogwarts I'll make sure that no wizard can come into my parents house without them being warned." She nodded eagerly, as if to strengthen her own resolve. "I'm going to do this, regardless what the damned Improper Use of Magic Office has to say. I will just cast off..." Hermiones words were abruptly halted by a muted ringing sound coming from her wrist. She looked at her clock and cursed. "Sorry Harry, I have to run now or mom and dad will find out that I left the theater early." She touched his shoulder, gave him a hasty smile and started to jog away. "See you on the express!" she called over her shoulder, than she vanished in the crowd. Harry stood where she left him, astonished and afraid of what would happen to Hermione if the obscure plan she had hinted at went wrong.
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Hermione woke up slowly, roused by a loud pounding sound which throbbed through her head, oddly in sync with the rhythmic waves of a nauseating headache. Slowly she became aware that something was very wrong, and soon she was filled with the same foreboding she had last felt when she discovered the nature of the monster hidden in the Chamber of Secrets. Her mind cleared with a snap when the hammering stopped as if cut off and was instantly replaced by angry voices shouting unintelligible words. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on the floor beside her bed, clad only in her thin white nightshirt and in the midst of a pentacle formed by burned down red candles.
"What is going on here?" was the first clear thought that shot through her consciousness like a searing bolt of lightning. She cast back her mind frantically, searching for an answer. The last thing she could remember was lying in her bed, reading the book her parents had presented her with for the long drive back to London -The Count of Monte Cristo- and wondering how Dantès would take his revenge on Villefort There was just a blank where the explanation for her current position should have been.
Rapid steps sounded from the stairs outside her door, blotting out the yelling voices and coming closer with every heartbeat. Intense fear made her breath hitch in her throat and adrenaline pump through her veins. She rose up unsteadily, propping herself up on her nightstand, her eyes focused on the door to her room. She stared at it like a rabbit confronted with a rattlesnake, frozen in momentary indecision. "Where is my wand? I need my wand!" she realized, but before she could wrench her gaze away, the door was pushed open with such force that it banged against the wall and pieces of finery and wall paper exploded into the room.
A tall figure in a billowing black cloak stood in the door frame. The man was holding a brightly glowing wand in his right hand and had a look of intense fury on his gaunt face. Hermione threw up her arms instinctively, to shield her eyes from the glare. She stumbled back against the bookcase beside her bed and nearly fell, catching herself just in time. She was scared out of her mind by all the incomprehensible things happening, but from deep within she mustered her Gryffindor courage to demand an explanation for the outrageous intrusion into her bedroom. All her courage was in vain though- before she could utter even one syllable the unknown man started to move his wand and cried a single word- "Stupefy!" The last thing she saw was a red flash, than the world went black for Hermione Jane Granger.
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When she awoke again, this time with an even more horrible headache, Hermione found herself sitting upright, bound to a metal chair in the midst of an otherwise naked room painted in a harsh white color. The confrontation with the unknown man came back to her in a flash and burning fear spread inside her. It started to circulate through her system like a poison, corroded her sanity and devastated all rational thought. For a seemingly endless period she fought an intense battle with her own raging emotions. A fit of heavy crying shook her whole body and the extreme anxiety started to decline only when she had exhausted her tear ducts. At long last she calmed down enough to take a better look at her situation.
Her body was shivering slightly and her skin was covered in goose bumps. "No wonder" a detached part of her inner voice commented "you are still wearing your nightie and it's no more than 16 degree Celsius in here". A heavy iron door was the only visible way out of the chamber, but for Hermione it could as well have been on the moon- someone had bound her ankles to the legs of the chair with thick bands of rope. Her wrists were yoked in heavy iron bracelets which were themselves welded to the chairs armrests. She couldn't move more than a few centimeters in any direction.
"Only a calm approach to this horrible situation can help me come out of it alive." she told herself and repeated the simple insight like a mantra, until at least some clarity of mind was restored. "Even though I'm unable to escape from here just now, I can at least try to analyse what happened." she decided. One thing seemed obvious- if the man who had attacked her in her own bedroom had wanted her dead, she wouldn't be here. Therefore, he or his backers had some form of interest in her survival, at least for now. Hermione had read enough mysteries to know the next question she had to ask- "Cui bono?".
But as hard as she pondered the problem, no clear suspect who would profit from what had happened to her presented itself. Surely, no wizard would want to kidnap her for her parents muggle money? That much seemed certain. And what advantages could some party exclusively involved in the wizarding world gain by abducting a muggleborn -soon to be third year- Hogwarts student? "It doesn't make any sense at all!" she thought despairingly. Sure, there were people who hated her and her friends -the Malfoys and other fanatical purebloods- but it seemed implausible that they would actually raid her home and take her from her parents. If that had been a realistic possibility, surely Professor Dumbledore would have warned her about it!
Her thoughts wandered to the fate of her mom and dad. She realized now that the sounds she'd heard before she was captured had been the result of the intruder knocking on the door in the middle of the night and Charles angry reaction to the disturbance. She could only hope that whoever was behind her kidnapping wasn't interested in her parents. The fact that her attacker had somehow bypassed her father was very worrying though. Hermione's thoughts went in circles around that particular predicament until an unexpected sound made her look up hastily.
The heavy iron door creaked unpleasantly as it was opened, than the same man who had snatched her away from her home entered the room. In contrast to their first encounter his face showed cold indifference as he approached her. He stopped about three feet in front of the chair. Hermione felt as if her innards had frozen and she didn't dare to move. The wizard leaned forward and inspected her bonds, than nodded to himself obviously satisfied with their condition. Why he thought there was the slightest chance of a 13 year old girl escaping those manacles was beyond her, but she wasn't bold -or stupid- enough to make any comment, let alone a sarcastic one.
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The voice of the man sounded rough when he started to speak, but Hermione forgot all about that secondary fact when the meaning of his words registered. "My name is Senior Hitwizard Selwyn of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." he introduced himself and gave her the slightest bow, as if to mock her. "You are here because there is a strong suspicion that you tried to employ the "Ruptis Vinculis" ritual to get rid of the trace placed on you in accordance with the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery. This ritual is considered dark magic." He paused, as if to emphasize the seriousness of his allegations.
Hermione's head whirled with questions and an nearly irresistible urge to protest her innocence. "This is unbelievable and ridiculous rubbish!" she fumed inside, but before she could say anything, Selwyn continued in his raspy and monotone speech."You are also charged with three counts of illegal use of magic ancillary to said ritual, performed in a muggle area and in the presence of muggles; with one count of possession of a forbidden dark artifact, namely the book "Breaking the bonds" by Gellert Grindelwald; and with one count of reckless endangerment of muggles, namely your parents and neighbors."
Selwyn stopped and mustered her bound form. He grimaced, as if she were an especially ugly cockroach, than he began to pace before her. Hermione was truly shocked by his accusations, but she simply couldn't let those monstrous assertions stand without a sharp and immediate rebuttal. She collected herself and prepared to speak up in her own defense, but the hitwizard forestalled this by another barrage of magical legalese. "Your guardians have been informed of those charges. The fact that they are muggles made it inevitable to take them into protective custody for the duration of the case against you. This happened in compliance with the Laws of Conduct When Dealing With Muggles." He stopped his theatrical back and forth march in front of her and delivered one last, devastating statement directly to her face. "Your trial date has been settled for August 26, 9.00 a.m. sharp- in other words, it begins in three hours." Without another comment he turned around, went to the door and left a stunned Hermione behind.