Hermione fell out of bed, and thought that the world was ending.
She could hear rumbles in the distance, and the floor itself was shaking. People were screaming, and shouting, and there was an all too-familiar light coming in through her window, although it was the middle of the night.
Fire. The fortress was on fire.
She was awake and on her feet, and didn't stop to look out the window. She wrenched her door open, to find Hannah poised to pull open the door. After a half-second of surprise, Hannah came in quickly, and shut the door behind her.
"Whatever's going on," Hannah said, without preamble "We need to get out of here as soon as possible."
Hermione nodded, turning to pull on jeans and find her jacket. Hannah left the room again, presumably to pack up a little too. Hermione shoved more clothes and the puppy notebook into her smallest bag, and was ready.
Then, while she waited for Hannah, she went to the window.
The fortress was burning. Some army was at the gates, and she could see flickers of magical warfare from her window. What was going on?
Hannah came back in, dressed for warmth. "I don't know how we're supposed to get out of here without being seen." She said. Her voice was calm. Her eyes darted around the room, but the rest of her was still and ready for action. Hermione knew then, if she hadn't before, that Hannah was very, very good at what she did.
"There're secret passages in here." Hermione said. "One behind the headboard, and the other through the closet. I don't know where they go."
"Open up the headboard one."
Hermione did, pushing back the headboard and scraping her wand against the stones there. They slid away and down, and there was a fairly large hole where there had once been wall. Hermione looked back at Hannah, who nodded. Hermione lit her wand, and went in. The light didn't do much to dispel the darkness of the passage. Hermione was comforted to notice that it was extremely dusty and dirty—if it had been a clean, well-used passage, then the chances of their escaping undetected would be a lot slimmer. But if no one knew this place existed… it was possible. Hermione kept going, the thought keeping the dark from pressing in around her. It was possible.
She'd never had a problem with small, dark spaces. She liked them, actually, drawing a sort of security from being surrounded and tucked in. When she'd started sleeping in closets after the Battle, it wasn't totally without precedent. Darkness and closeness never scared her.
Darkness and closeness in an evil fortress that was on fire, now that made her a little nervous.
The passage led down at a gradual angle, and no other passages led off or to it. They went single-file, since it was a pretty narrow passage, and didn't speak. There was the possibility of their being overheard, and then there was just the fact that there was nothing to say. What do you say, when you're fleeing a situation like that?
So they went on in silence, Hermione trying to block the (barely discernable, but still audible) sounds of the battle, Hannah's mind flicking from thought to thought. The only sounds were the sounds of their steps, and the sounds filtering in from around them.
Up on the wall of the fortress, in the middle of all the sounds and light and fury, Draco Malfoy was livid. It was a little hard to tell how angry he was, if one didn't know him. If one didn't know him, one would think that he was just focused.
Well, Blaise and Victor knew him well enough to stay well back. When his jaw took that certain set and his eyes took on that look…wise subordinates dove for cover. Wise subordinates probably didn't stand on top of walls in the middle of pitched magical battles, though, so maybe Blaise and Victor didn't qualify. But they stayed well out of Draco's reach, anyway.
Draco'd just lapsed into a fuming silence after issuing orders to his military lieutenants. He kept transferring his weight from one leg to the other, rocking slowly back and forth as he stared over the wall. Blaise and Victor stayed far back. And they didn't speak either. It seemed like their leader was fighting against some primal and barbaric impulse to leap over the wall and into the fray, and they didn't want to interrupt him while he was fighting that. Instead, they shot grim looks at each other, and shielded him from all but the most important questions (it was just better to keep the people asking 'are we going to die?' away from him, just then. For their sakes).
"Why?" Draco spat out, slowly grinding a fist against the top of the wall. "Why are they doing this now?" He kept grinding his fist into the stone, eyes flicking from one flare-up to another. "We told them. We told them we had hostages, and what we wanted. What the hell is Lupin doing?"
Blaise kept his opinions to himself. It would be suicidal to voice any of those opinions just at that moment. Honestly, he couldn't help but admire Lupin a bit for this move. The one move that no one expected him to make. No one expected him to cave, but at most they thought another ambassador would be sent, or negotiations would be set up. A direct attack had been totally unexpected. When Blaise had been woken up (from his first unbroken night of sleep in ages) he hadn't believed that they were being attacked. Not until he'd gone to his window and looked out at the commotion did he believe it. Even standing at the top of the battlements, looking and smelling and hearing undeniable evidence, he didn't quite believe it. Lupin had thrown them all for a loop. Blaise had to admire him for that.
A messenger from the field came up to Draco, and Victor let him pass. Blaise watched Draco listen to the man (a wizard from the south of Italy—not a Death Eater or from a Death Eater family) without hearing what they said. He felt detached, somehow. Well, alright, he usually felt detached, but this was a different kind of detachment. He wasn't quite focused on anything, though he knew that he could very well die tonight. It wasn't impossible. But then, he'd survived nearly seven years at Hogwarts, so imminent death was something he was almost used—something Draco'd mentioned was bothering him. Hostages. Hermione and Hannah. Had anyone seen them?
Blaise turned to Victor, keeping his voice down. "Did you send any guards up to our hostages' rooms?"
Victor looked at him for a moment, trying to bring his mind from the working of the battle to what Blaise was saying. Then his eyes went wide.
"Oh…" the Frenchman said. "Shit."
Well, that about summed it up, Blaise thought. Shit. They could be anywhere in the fortress by now. Lupin hadn't sent hostages who'd stay put in their rooms until someone showed up to tell them what was happening. Oh no. That would be making things entirely too easy for them, wouldn't it?
"What did you just say?"
Shit. Blaise turned a blank face to Draco, who'd unfortunately finished with the messenger just in time to hear Blaise's question to Victor. Blaise adopted his favorite position of defense—haughty ignorance. Which wasn't so effective when he was surrounded by explosions and therefore just a bit nervous.
"What?"
Draco wasn't fooled. "God dammit." He spat, slamming a fist on the wall. Victor winced. "Send someone to find them. We can't lose them now, when they're the only—"
He was cut off by a colossal boom, and the three men were thrown off their feet as a ripple shook through the fortress' walls. Dust blossomed up from somewhere, so they could barely see.
Victor, the first to orient himself, scrambled over to the edge of the wall and peered over it. He turned back to the others, the dust making him look at least twenty years older.
"They've breached the wall," he said. He looked like he was shouting, but in the great grinding chaos that echoed around them, his voice sounded like a whisper.
Draco pulled himself up, moving next to Victor. Blaise stayed down and back, thinking.
"Draco, you need to get out of here." He said finally, cutting Draco off in the middle of a truly impressive string of expletives.
Draco spun to face him. The effect was a little ruined by the fact that he was on his knees, and covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. He would be almost comical if it wasn't for the frenzied gleam in those eyes.
"What?" he yelled (more out of necessity than rage). "Leave? How could you even suggest something like that? They need me out here!"
"No," Blaise yelled, shuffling over to put his face within inches of Draco's, shouting to be heard. "They need you alive. If you get away now, we can recover. How can we recover if you're dead?"
Draco looked at him, face slack with fury. "I won't leave." He hissed, Blaise close enough to hear every word. "I won't leave them."
Blaise looked at him, annoyed. "Now isn't the time for great last stands!" he yelled (louder than he needed to, actually, since Draco's ear was inches away) "You need to think like a leader! Think rationally, and stop acting like an animal."
Draco actually snarled at him, his farmiliar sneer arching up into something that showed more teeth and considerably more aggression. He spun away from Blaise, looking back over the wall. Blaise looked up at Victor, and Victor nodded. Getting to his feet, he brought one big fist heavily down on Draco Malfoy's dusty head. The blonde man crumpled to the stones without another sound.
Blaise got to his feet, clapping Victor on the shoulder and shouting into his ear. "You take him out the secret exit. I'll get help and find our hostages." Without turning around to see Victor hoist the unconscious Malfoy onto his shoulders, Blaise turned and sprinted off. He didn't have the luxury of being able to remain detached.
A/N: alright! I know it's very rough, and I'm sorry, but I really wanted to post 18-20 together, and I wanted to post them before I forgot about them. Please let me know what you think! Hopefully 21 won't be too long in coming.