Blaise found Laura, the fortress' chef, barking instructions from her post at the front steps of the keep. She knew the fortress better than anyone else, and she fell into step behind him after a few words of explanation. They sprinted into the fortress, Blaise leading the way.
(and)
Hermione and Hannah had come to a stop. Hermione had a strange impulse to yell, even though she knew that would kind of undermine their whole 'sneaking away' scheme. Still. The temptation was intense. Being stuck in a confined space while the sounds of an intense magical battle was still audible through the stones was making her feel just a bit crazy. The tunnel ended. Abruptly, and without a door. No wonder the stupid passageway was so dirty and dusty. No one used it, because there was only one way in or out of it.
"Well," Hannah said quietly. "Shit."
(and)
Blaise led the way to Hermione and Hannah's rooms. It had seemed like a really bright idea to put them as far away from the activity of the rest of the keep, but he was realizing now that there were a lot of stairs between him and the residential wing. Laura kept pace behind him easily and silently. Ugh. His legs were already burning, and they'd just cleared the first staircase up.
(and)
Hermione sat down heavily, her feet pressing against the dead end. "I guess the headboard passage was the wrong way to go."
"Mmm." Hannah mused. "I thought the closet one would be too obvious, and so had to be a dead end. I guess they outthought me there."
"Bastards," Hermione said glumly.
"Well… yeah." Hannah said, laughing a little. "Have you forgotten where we are?"
(and)
Blaise was getting very winded by the time they got to the second floor. But that floor, which held most of the offices of the Rebels, was packed with people running from room to room and just taking up space in the hallway. Truthfully, Blaise was happy to be stalled for a little bit. But he'd forgotten the steely determination of a woman who had to make meals on a regular basis for a whole keep full of wizards and witches. Laura tugged him into a side corridor, opening a door that Blaise couldn't remember seeing before she'd gotten to it. She gestured to him, and then pushed him through it. To his surprise, he discovered that this room had no floor.
(and)
Hermione kicked at the dead end. She didn't expect it to open. It was more to vent than anything else. Too bad the walls were made of stone, and the soles of her sneakers were very well-worn.
Hannah looked speculatively back up the passage as Hermione cradled her foot and swore. "I guess going back isn't an option. They'll certainly want to know where we are, once they get over the initial shock of being attacked."
Hermione looked up, pausing in her string of expletives to say "So, we stay in here until we die?"
"Would you rather be discovered in the middle of all this?"
Hermoine went back to cursing.
(and)
Blaise'd had all the breath knocked out of him when he hit the ground, and lay on the stone floor in a very embarrassing position for much longer than he would've liked, gasping like a fish. Laura landed beside him, stumbling a little, but somehow managing to keep her dignity intact. Blaise wheezed, and eyed her balefully. It would have been a more affective look if he hadn't been lying on his back, flushed and breathless. Laura grinned at him, standing up and swiping at the dirt on her pants.
(and)
Hermione stopped cursing, and tried to think. What was the sense of having a passage with only one outlet? Sure, old castles had their hidey-holes, but those were usually… hole shaped. Passages tended to lead someplace. Hermione rocked forward onto her knees, bringing her wand up close to the stone in front of her. Hannah watched, but didn't comment. She knew that chatter and stupid questions weren't very helpful in situations like these.
Blaise eventually was able to stand up, brushing dust off his jacket and fuming.
"So, what was the point of that adventure?"
"A very, very good shortcut." Laura said calmly, opening the only door leading out of the small room they'd jumped into. Blaise looked up at the door he'd come in through (fell in through), far above his head. He sighed, and followed Laura.
(and)
Hermione had found it. She squinted at the corner between wall and dead-end ('faux wall' she'd termed it in her mind), and there was definitely some trace there. The end of the tunnel had been sewn together magically. Hermione grinned with satisfaction, and rocked back on her heels. Now. How to unsew the door?
(and)
Blaise was barely surprised to find that the door opened onto the top floor, even though the door he'd fallen through had been on the second floor.
"I really hate this place." He said dully, then picked up a loping jog, leading the way towards Hermione and Hannah's rooms. The wing was unnervingly silent. Most had probably gone to see what was going on, or hid. He hoped at least a few had remembered what to do in situations like this. Otherwise there wouldn't be much left of the Rebels. His and Laura's steps echoed, and for a moment he worried that Granger and Abbot would hear them. But then he realized that footfalls probably couldn't alarm them now, when the sounds of fighting had been reverberating around and through the whole fortress for almost three-quarters of an hour. Blaise wondered that it had been so short a time. It had seemed like he was in the middle of a battlefield for hours. But then, facing imminent death for prolonged periods can do that to a person's sense of time. Blaise didn't stop to chuckle over this. He just kept running. They were getting close to the hostage's rooms.
(and)
Hermione brought up her wand, finally, and extinguished the light. Hannah brought up her wand so that Hermione could see what she was doing. Hermione was intent on the wall, and didn't acknowledge it.
"Huh," she said meditatively. "Someone worked very hard to get this tunnel sealed off."
"Why didn't they just block it up in the normal way? Actually setting the stones in place?"
"No one thinks in straight lines up here." Hermione said reflectively, doing some subtle wandwork that was casting the stone wall with a faintly bluish glow. "I know I wouldn't, if I had to live up here for long."
Hannah laughed. Hermione flicked her wand, and the stone shifted slightly. Dust poured down onto Hermione's head and filled the passage, sending both of them into coughing fits.
When the dust cleared, Hannah looked up to see Hermione grinning under a thick layer of dust and dislodged dirt.
"Excellent!" Hermione breathed. "One layer done!"
Hannah sneezed, and tried to look enthusiastic. She hoped every layer didn't send grime shooting all over the place when it was undone.
(and)
Blaise stood in the doorway of Hermione Granger's room. He wasn't even surprised. Just annoyed. Why couldn't they have stayed put? Laura came up behind him, and told him what he'd already guessed.
"Hannah Abbot's not in her room either."
"Where could they have gone?" Blaise asked, running a hand over his hair (decidedly less tidy now, having gone through running and falling and landing and more running). "They can't have gotten through the second floor unseen. Someone would've recognized them."
Laura chewed on a fingernail, thinking. "I don't know about secret passages in this part of the castle. I haven't had much of an opportunity to look it over."
"And you can't look it over now?"
She shook her head. "Not if you want to catch up to them tonight."
Blaise meditated on this, one hand fiddling with the string attaching his coffee mug to his pants.
"Draco's got floor plans in his study." He said finally. "Let's go."
And they were off again. More running. Blaise really, really hated this place.
(and)
Hermione unlocked another layer. More dust gushed down, but the two women were prepared.
(and)
Blaise ran, following Laura this time.
(and)
Hermione fiddled. Hannah couldn't understand how she could be so focused, drenched in dust and with the sounds of the fight (dulled, but still unnervingly discernable) all around them. But she was bright-eyed and smiling, and more than she ever had before, Hannah was reminded of Hermione as she'd been at school.
"Another layer!" Hermione announced (though the dust fall that came before the announcement had already clued Hannah in). "Not much further, now!"
(and)
Blaise and Laura flew down staircases, whipping around anyone in the hallways. Laura wasn't comfortable enough to try out any shortcuts to Draco's office, so they had to just run. They pressed through the mill of people on the second floor, struggling towards the hallway that led to Draco's room. Time was everything. Every second they spent waiting for a horde of shaken Russian wizards to collect themselves and get out of their way was another second Hermione and Hannah were able to get further away from the fortress.
(and)
Another dust shower. Hermione didn't even bother to cover her mouth and nose this time; she just bowed her head until the shower was done, and then went right back to work. The pair of them looked like golems now, crusted in dirt and dust. Hannah idled in the tunnel, feeling a little useless and a lot grimy.
"Only one more now, I think." Hermione said quietly. Hannah instantly stood straighter, watching as Hermione again bent her attention to the wall. Her heart was rabbiting around in her chest as she watched. Soon. She only hoped this tunnel didn't open into a sewer. But anyplace would be fine, as long as it was away.
(and)
Blaise and Laura made it to the office, quickly shutting the door behind them. Blaise quickly went over to a cabinet next to the big window, nudging piles of paper out of the way of the door with his foot. He got the door open, and started rummaging. Laura waited, eyes moving around the office.
(and)
The last dust shower. Hannah was almost happy to be swallowed in it. Hermione fiddled a little, than looked up and nodded. She got to her feet, and Hannah moved forward to set her shoulder against the stone. They braced themselves against the dirty floor, and started to push.
(and)
Blaise found the floor plans. "Here!" He said excitedly, putting them on Draco's desk. Laura came to stand next to him, and they both looked for the plans for the residential wing. The plans were very old, and very hard to read… Blaise hoped that Laura was having an easier time figuring out which set of squares with squiggly writing on it was the right one, because he sure wasn't…
Blaise looked up. He was sure he'd heard something. A sort of… scraping noise.
(and)
Hermione and Hannah pushed, as hard as they could, and the wall gave.
(and)
Blaise watched, mouth open, as a section of the wall fell forward, crushing a coffee table under it. After it tumbled a pair of very filthy figures, and a sea of dust and dirt.
It was Hermione and Hannah. Hermione looked up, a smile still on her face, and froze.
"Well." Blaise said, too shocked to smile (though he'd laugh heartily later) "Shit."
There was a moment of silence.
"Shit." Hannah said feelingly, struggling to her feet and grabbing at her wand.
"Incarcerous," Laura barked, and Hannah fell to the ground, struggling against the magical ropes that pinned her arms to her side.
Hermione was up by then. She pointed her wand at Laura, and the other woman's wand flew out of her hand. She turned to Blaise, but he'd already gotten his wand out.
"Incarcerous!" Hermione was tied up tightly, and her wand clattered to the ground.
Blaise ran a hand through his hair, staring down at the two women with some mixture of relief and confusion. Laura went to get her wand. Hannah turned over to face Hermione. She opened her mouth in anticipation of some comment that could maybe lighten the mood, but nothing came to mind. They were finished now. Hannah tried to think of some way that this wouldn't end in their deaths, and kept coming up blank. Guilt swamped her. She was the field expert. She was the one who should've been able to save them from this. She looked at Hermione's filthy face and couldn't focus on anything but how it would be all her fault if Hermione Granger died. She tried to find something to say that would ease Hermione's mind, something that might make the other woman feel better, but she had nothing.
Hermione looked at her, and smiled. "You are filthy." She said solemnly.
Hannah stared, and then laughed. "You don't look much better, alright?"
Laura turned to Blaise. "There's a way to the exit from here. There had to be, as it's his room." She turned to the window, and tapped the sill with her wand. It slid away with a sizeable part of the floor, revealing worn wooden steps spiraling down into very foreboding darkness.
Hannah sneezed. Hermione suppressed a giggle. Well, hysterics were better than panic or despair, right?
"You go in front," Blaise said, hoisting Hannah to her feet and then moving on to Hermione, collecting their wands as he went. "I'll follow behind and keep my wand on them."
Hermione almost thought of resisting. It was two and two, wasn't it? She'd faced much worse odds when she was in Hogwarts. Yeah, she didn't have a wand, but was it that important? Almost as if she knew what Hermione was thinking, Hannah caught her eye, grinned, and shook her head. Hermione thought of moving on her own, then, but thought better of it. Hannah was more used to these things, after all. And as she thought it, she suddenly felt very tired, and very useless. This had been crucial, hadn't it? Her time to maybe do something that would help. And all she'd done was break into another part of the fortress at exactly the wrong moment. What had she come out here for?
She followed Hannah down the stairs without making a fuss, thinking hard and getting nowhere. What had she come out here for?
AN: An update? Seriously? It's true! Sorry for the horrible, horrible wait. This chapter's laid out a little strangely, but I just wanted to try something other than the little stars (*******) let me know what you think! And sorry again for the looong absense!