A/N: I feel like I owe the entire community a huge apology. I really wish I had a good excuse, other than, you know, real life. I don't. Except for real life. Last semester, I took eighteen hours and worked three jobs. Right now I'm only doing two jobs and an internship, so… we'll see.
Author's Warning: This chapter is a little more mature than the rest of the story. Some bad stuff is about to go down. Not as bad as I originally planned, thanks to Harry's pure tenacity, but… well, read at your own risk.
Disclaimer: The usual.
Chapter Sixteen – Ruby Rough
"And he's got Luna."
The words were like a trigger; the second they hit the air, all present members of the team were instantly circled around Neville, their questions tumbling over one another and forming a solid barrier of noise until Ron, taking charge, shouted, "ENOUGH! Everybody, STEP BACK!"
Harry winced. Ron's mouth had been right by his ear.
"Oh, for heaven's sake!"
Hermione's exclamation broke through the din. Impatient, she pushed through the crowd, elbowing Ron and Fred out of the way. "Can't you see the man's Confounded? Give him room, and for Merlin's pity, shut it a minute!"
"We need to know where Luna is and if she's safe—" Ron began, but a quelling look from his wife stopped him in his tracks.
"And if you lot keep going the way you are, you're never going to find that out. Don't you know the first thing about Confounded people? You don't confuse them, or they'll forget everything!" Hermione was already waving figure eights in the air over Neville's head with her wand. Dazed, the man watched them, his eyes completely blank. With her free hand, Hermione shoved the man into the chair Euan had just vacated. "Will somebody see to that cut on his arm? He's getting blood all over the floor."
Ron just turned to look at Fred. "On it," the twin confirmed, and withdrew a tube from his robe.
"Neville," Harry said, taking charge since Ron and Hermione were preoccupied with the wound, "what's happened? Where's Luna? You said Dermot's got her."
"I—" Neville broke off, his eyes crossing. They were glassy, Harry saw suddenly, like he had been—
"Would you wait a second, Harry!" Hermione cursed again.
Harry bit down hard on his impatience.
"Looks like he got roughed up a bit, too. Hold still." Fred knelt to rub a thick green paste on Neville's arm.
Though he knew she was moving as fast as she could, Hermione's movements seemed too slow for Harry. Fear clenched in his belly into a hard twist, making his heart thunder while his pulse raced to keep up. He fisted his hands, wanting to move, to do something, to save Luna. If only, he thought ruefully in the part of his brain still capable of rational thought, he'd just hexed Dermot down that one day, so long ago, in Tony's.
Next to him, Ginny tensed, watching Fred dab something from a bright green tube onto Neville's cut. "If he hurts her..."
Harry said nothing. Words were cold comfort.
The instant Neville's eyes cleared, the other man sucked in a gasp. "Luna! He's got Luna!"
"Yes, you mentioned that," Ron told him, once again taking charge. He leaned down, forcing Neville to focus on him instead of the group of anxious wizards and witches that thronged around him in a random coffee shop in the middle of a Quidditch tournament. "What happened?"
Neville grimaced, all colour having long abandoned his face. "We were in the east corridor," he said, more to himself than anybody else. "The crowd was too wild over Harry's catch, so we went there to get out of the way. We'd planned to come straight here—we really had—"
"You were in the east corridor," Ron prompted, waving off Neville's bleating excuses.
Neville, however, was distracted by Fred's ministrations. "Oi, what's that?" he asked thickly, pointing to the tube of paste Fred was smearing on his arm.
"Prototype. Should have you fixed up in a sec, mate."
"East corridor," Ron prompted again, impatience leaking into his voice.
Neville's head swivelled to look at him. "It's a madhouse down there," he confirmed, hastily gulping the water shoved into his hand by someone or other. "Luna and I—we were waiting it out, trying to make it back here. I was checking my map to see if I could spot Dermot nearby and she was checking the dustbins—it's a long story, don't ask—when a security guard came around the corner with that team-mate of yours, Harry, the one who plays Keeper."
"Bear," Ginny and Harry both breathed. What did Bear have to do with this?
"But the guard, he looked funny. Like he had a pain or something. I didn't give it much thought, but Luna looked up just as I guess the Polyjuice Potion started to wear off. He'd Polyjuiced himself as a security guard, and he had that bloke, Bear, with him. By the time Luna got her wand out, he'd already Stunned her, but so quiet I didn't even hear him do it.
"I just heard a thump—it was her, hitting the floor." Neville took a deep breath, waved his injured arm. Green paste glowed like radioactive waste, throbbing menacingly. "I yanked my wand out, but he was ready for me. He clipped me good and he hit me with a couple of other things. I blanked out for a second, and when I came to, all three were gone."
"And you didn't see where he took them?" Euan piped up, speaking for the first time.
"I think." Neville's forehead creased. "I may have. I don't know. There's was a door, and I specifically remember something slamming—"
"Take us to it," Ron ordered.
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"Sewers," George muttered, staring at the door Neville indicated. "Why didn't we think of that?"
"We did." Harry wanted to punch something, but knew it would only lead to a broken hand. And Luna and Bear would still be at the mercy of a lunatic. So he settled for pacing in short, jerky strides. "They were too easy for him. Don't fit his M.O. We thought he liked more of a challenge. And some place where the bodies could be found more easily."
"Well, they fit his M.O. now." Ginny's face was grim.
They stood in the east corridor, abandoned now that all of the other games were in session. There wasn't a single sign of a struggle, but that didn't mean anything. Dermot was the type to clean up a crime scene, unless he truly wanted it found, as he did in his Witch Hunter guise. There was no point in asking what was going on beyond that plain grey door, inconspicuously labelled "Sewer Exit E-A17."
Ron scratched his forehead, sighed. "Fred, George, Harry, we're going in."
Immediately, protests sprang up, but Ron glared around to silence the group. "Euan," he said immediately, "you're too green for this sort of work. Hermione, I need you up here organizing things and ready with backup, Neville, you're dead on your feet. Tara, I need you here to organise things with the Americans if this goes terribly wrong."
"And what about me?" Ginny demanded. "I know how Dermot thinks, I'd be useful—"
"You're not going." Ron's countenance was stony. "It's you he wants most, and this is one step away from gift-wrapping you and handing you over. You're going to stay up here where you're safe—"
"Oh, no I'm not—"
Harry, correctly reading the redness of both siblings' ears, made a decision on the spot. "She's coming, Ron. She knows how he thinks, and I'll watch her back."
"Like you watched out for her in the Shrieking Shack?" Ron snapped.
Harry's blood, already simmering, began to boil. "That was not my fault—"
"Bugger it." Neville shot the argument dead in its tracks by shoving through them and yanking open the door. "You lot can argue all you want, but he's got Luna down there, and if anything happens to her, it's on me. So I'm going in. If you're coming, you're coming. If not…" He shrugged and turned to go in.
Ginny lunged forward and snagged his arm before he could go any farther. "That'll be set up with a trap. Don't."
Ron sighed. "Fine. Neville's going with us. Fred, George, get us past the trap?"
The twins glanced at each other, holding a quick and silent conversation with only their eyes. Finally, George nodded. Fred leaned forward, quietly closing the sewer door. George, meanwhile, drew a bright blue stick, no longer or wider than his forefinger, from his robes. "Concept chalk," he explained with a lipless grimace. "We're developing a line for the Ministry. Under the table, of course."
"Of course," Ginny echoed faintly, watching George kneel and draw a square on the ground.
Without a word, George passed the device off to his twin, and Fred sketched in something—a handle, Harry realized. Fred reached into the square, closed his hand around the handle, and wrenched up the trapdoor. With the groan of concrete against concrete, it ground open. Ron popped his head through. "There's light down here."
"No magic beyond this point," Ginny ordered, looking at their tiny group. "He'll have sensors."
"It's a bit of a drop," Ron said, emerging from the hole.
"I don't know how long this chalk will work—it's pretty old," Fred admitted. "So let's hurry. Just loosen up and let yourself fall."
Arms taut on the sides, he lowered himself into the hole—and let go.
"Clear," they heard after a moment.
George followed his twin, dropping without a thought. Ron didn't bother to lower himself into the hole—he just stepped in and dropped. Neville went next; Harry and Ginny heard the "oof!" as he landed on the twins, then the brief swearing.
"Hurry!" George ordered. "The hole won't last much longer!"
"Together?" Ginny asked.
Harry eyed the hole, gauging the distance. "Together," he confirmed.
To compact space, Harry lifted his hands into the air. Ginny hugged his middle. "Three… two… one…"
And they leaped.
Immediately, the trapdoor groaned and compacted, plunging them into darkness as it closed. Harry had only time to grunt in pain as they dropped, their stomachs briefly and terrifying trapped in their throats.
Both landed on their feet, though Harry collapsed to his knees, his hand clutched in his midsection.
Immediately, Ginny was on her knees as well. "What? What is it?'
"Caught me," Harry grunted, and showed her his hand.
Long gashes raked down his fingers where the cement had literally ripped at his skin. Blood trickled down his wrist, glittering dark grey in the green fluorescent light. "Bloody hell, Harry—"
"Here." Fred nudged Ginny out of the way, his wand already out.
"No!" Ginny snatched the wand away. "No magic! Use that stuff you used on Neville."
"Fresh out," Fred apologized.
"It's okay." Harry grunted it, gently pulling his hand from Ginny's grip. "We need to go on and find Luna. I'll get it patched up after that. I've got a high tolerance for pain, I promise."
He did, Ginny remembered, thinking of all of the times at Hogwarts that Harry had dealt with excruciating pain without so much as a flinch.
"Wait. At least put some Muggle treatment on it." Neville moved to the front, pulling a bandanna from his pocket. His hands were deft in tying it about Harry's hand, and Ginny imagined that he had probably seen several similar accidents around some of his rarer plants. Either that, or he was imagining tying up a beloved plant himself. "Try and stop the blood from flowing too much."
"I'm okay," Harry confirmed once the bandage was tied. He slid the injured hand from view.
It was then that the smell hit Ginny. She knew, logically, in her head that it was impossible that a hobo who believed showers were somebody else's problem had crawled down here and decayed to a sweet, rotting stench. She knew it was impossible. But she could almost see the body lying nearby, its skull bones grinning spookily, so strong was the stench.
They were underground, that was for sure. It was a barren concrete battle zone, a tunnel that opened into a labyrinth of concrete and metal catwalks. From far away, she could hear the gurgle of an underground river, echoing on the walls. Greenish fluorescent light illuminated the entire place from baskets that were set about twenty meters apart from each other. The lighting washed them all strange colours; Ginny stared at her brothers' freckles, their hair an odd mossy green in the light. The blood dripping down Harry's hand was dyed black.
"Well, Gin?" Ron asked. "You're the one that knows Dermot best. Which way did he go?"
She looked around, studying the surrounding area. The door Neville had seen him use was a few meters to her right, so Dermot would have no choice but to come this way. He would have been dragging Bear, under the Imperius curse, and spell-lifting Luna, apparently unconscious, so he wouldn't have picked too tricky a route. But his first priority would be to bury himself. To claim this territory.
"He'll have headed down," she remarked, eyeing the nearest catwalks. "If he's not going to be public hiding his victims, then he'll want to lay the best trap, and doing that will mean getting them—and us—away from the stadium. That'll be his first priority."
"Down we go," Ron muttered. "Everybody keep an eye out, but don't use magic unless you absolutely have to."
They made for an odd group moving across the catwalks. By unspoken agreement, Ron led the way, his wand held high—just in case. Neville followed directly behind him, obviously eager to get to Luna. Ginny walked behind the twins, more than aware that they were intent on forming a human shield. And Harry brought up the rear, limping slightly (though Ginny had no idea why). He trailed so close that she could hear the hiss of his breath as he breathed against the pain.
All was silent, save for the odd tramp of footsteps on metal. They descended, speaking only to warn others of rough patches in the metal walkway. The deeper they travelled, the rarer the light baskets became. Ginny's eyes slowly accustomed to the dark. All colour fled her world as her night vision took over; she was left with nothing but blacks and greys.
"Wish I had one of those Muggle lights, those whatsits—"
"A torch," Harry supplied, his voice strained.
"Yeah," Fred agreed. "Wish I had one of those."
"What do you think?" his twin asked him. "Have something like a Muggle torch on the line for next fall?"
"Maybe more an actual torch?"
"That spits flame?"
"Real flames, right? Not that tripe we came up with for the whatsits last month."
"Ooh, right. Not that."
As the twins discussed their latest project ideas, the group trekked deeper. Though they walked quietly, there wasn't time for true stealth. Everybody merely kept their wand hands ready, their fists tight around those wands. It wasn't long before they came to a crossroads, anchored against a cement wall. "Which way, Gin?" Ron asked.
Ginny nudged her way to the front of the group. Years of chasing the Witch Hunter resurfaced. She'd never tracked a trail this fresh, but when it all boiled down to it, Dermot was still the Witch Hunter, and she was still his tracker. Her mind weighed angles, debated what she knew about Dermot, factored in M.O., the different paths, lights, shadows, preferences.
And then she spotted the single golden hair.
"It's a trap." The words were out before she even knew she'd spoken. "This way's a trap."
"Well, let's go this way, then," Neville suggested, pointing to the left.
"Can't. That's a trap, too." She poked the empty air with her wand, and her suspicions were rewarded when the air shimmered vaguely pink. "It tells us we're on the right path, but he's rigged it to take at least the first three people out." She had a brief flash, years old and long buried, of walking into her first Witch Hunter house and nearly being beheaded by a very nasty curse that Dermot had left for her—and himself, ironically enough, as he'd been her partner—to find. The thought bought a grimace. "Dermot's fond of booby traps."
She heard George mutter his opinion of Dermot under his breath, and couldn't help but agree.
"So what do we do?" Ron asked. "Can you disarm the trap?"
"Not without a spell. And if we use magic, he'll know we're onto him."
"Well," and Fred removed another stick of Concept Chalk from his pocket, "guess it's time for other measures. Doing okay, Harry?"
He grunted. "I'm fine, but let's hurry this time. I don't fancy losing my other hand."
Fred drew another trapdoor, handed the chalk to George. "Half of us go through this one, the rest of us through the other," he suggested. "That way nobody has to lose any limbs."
They made quick work of going through the floor, dropping onto a lower catwalk. Only Neville and Ginny fell over this time. Harry, who'd gone first, grabbed her before she could tumble off the edge of the catwalk and into the dark abyss that waited below. He didn't release her wrist even after he'd ascertained that she was okay. She didn't mind.
"Is there any way to make sure we're on Dermot's trail and that we didn't accidentally bypass it?" Ron asked Ginny in an undertone.
"Gut instinct, but that's about it. He'll have gone that way if he were on this track."
"All right."
Darkness was nearly absolute now that they were away from the main sewer tunnelling system, but nobody said a word about having a torch. Tensions soared; Ginny's muscles were taut, the hand gripping her wand soaked with sweat. Every step brought her closer to her personal nightmare. Her heartbeat pounded a tympani rhythm against her throat, echoing hollowly in her ears. Breathing steadily grew harder and harder.
"Doing okay?" Harry muttered, his voice low.
"I'm fine. How about you? How's your hand?"
"Trying not to think about it, thanks."
They came across two more traps, bypassing them with the Concept Chalk each time. Finally, they hit cement, the very rock bottom of the sewer. "He's somewhere on this level," Ginny announced needlessly. "Walk carefully. He might have had time to come back and lay more traps, so be on your guard."
Fred reached into the long sleeves of his costume and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. "Another project," he admitted.
"For the Ministry?" Harry wanted to know.
"Nope, for the Tunnel. Magic-sensing. I'm not sure they work properly, but George and I will scout, make sure the path is okay." They were Muggle sunglasses all right, but Fred had obviously been raiding the retro bin at the local shops, for they were horrendously large, with a neon pink frames that clashed spectacularly with Fred's hair even in the dark.
"I should help scout," Ginny offered. "I understand him better than any of you."
Ron paused, considering this. "Fred, how are the glasses working?"
"Pretty well. There's a trap about ten feet ahead. We can avoid it if we walk to the right."
"All right. Ginny, it's safer for you to stay with Neville, Harry, and me. Fred, George, you two go ahead, scout it out. If there is any trouble, send up sparks. Forget the no-magic rule. I'd like to catch him unawares, but I'd like us to live more."
Fred and George set off, slinking silently into the shadows despite the neon frames. Right before a trap, one would appear, warn the others, then disappear. They had it down to a science, lurking easily in the shadows. The group was able to move faster because of their efforts. And never were the twins wrong.
"Okay, trap about eight steps ahead," Fred informed them, sliding out of a shadow, "so squeeze up against the wall, but be careful not to actually touch it, cos George is pretty sure the wall's rigged, too."
"Wonderful," Harry muttered for the group.
"We're getting close," Ginny told the others as Fred slipped away again. "More traps. And they're closer together."
"Let's get through this one. I'll go first." Ron stepped up onto a shallow ledge running along the wall. He began to sidestep down the wall, wobbling only slightly. Neville struck out immediately after him.
"Well, this is fun," Ginny observed as she, too, began to sidestep. "I don't suppose—"
A shriek, high, female, terrified, tore the air in half. All four along the wall jumped; Ginny nearly tripped off the ledge. Only Harry's hand on her elbow kept her from falling straight into the trap.
Neville, meanwhile, tried to charge past Ron, who turned and blocked the other man simply by wrapping him in a hard hug. "The trap! You go through that thing, you're no help to any of us!"
"That's Luna! He's hurting her!" Neville struggled, but Ron might have been a brick wall for all he moved. "Let me past!"
Ahead of them, the scream died into a choked gasp. Ron tightened his grip. "It could be a trap, too," he warned in a low voice. Neville went limp and stepped back. "Fred and George are closer than we are. Maybe they've already found something."
"Hurry up, then," Neville urged, giving Ron a little shove. "If he's hurt Luna—"
"He needs her alive," Ginny lied quickly, but they were scurrying over the ledge, running as fast as their side-steps would allow them. "She's the bait."
"Your friend Bear could be the bait," Neville pointed out.
"We're in a crisis," Ginny wanted to tell him. "Now is not the time to be logical!"
Instead, she ran. Panic coated the back of her throat in its sickly greasy way. It helped her mind to play a slideshow of all of the memories she'd worked hard to suppress, all the Witch Hunter deaths she'd seen when she'd worked that case. They'd been tormenting her from the moment dark enclosed their group, but now they spurred her legs fast, faster. If Dermot had killed Luna—if he had killed Bear—she didn't know what she'd do with those deaths on her head…
Ahead of them, one of the stadium's massive walls descended, putting an end to the catwalk and forming a small, short tunnel. Ron charged at it, in the lead, with Neville on his heels.
It struck Ginny an instant too late. "Wait, guys! Trap!"
But they didn't hear her. Just as Ron reached it, the tunnel exploded into a furious retina-burning mass of white light. Heat flared briefly, agonizingly. The shockwave sent the group tumbling; Ginny went backwards—for one brief and terrifying eternity, she was airborne, her stomach bottomless and in her throat. She hit the concrete hard on her back and shoulders, skidding painfully. Near her, she heard the distinct clunk of skull against concrete, but her own skull hurt too much to locate the sound.
She groaned, opened her eyes. Saw nothing but smoke.
"Stupefy!"
A bolt of red nearly blinded her. It shot past her head, nearly singeing her with its heat in its nearness. Instantly, every tendon, every synapse in her body froze. Her heart pounded even harder; her chest rose and fell as it struggled for the air that suddenly seemed to be completely gone from the room.
She recognized that voice.
Before she had time to do the first thing that came to her mind—scream—an arm locked around her upper chest and shoulders. And she was being dragged over concrete.
"Shh," a voice said in her ear. She felt hot breath on her neck, and before she could consider screaming again, some coherent part of her brain informed her that the arm smelled like Harry's. "It's just me."
"Harry." She scrambled up beside him. She groped in the dark, latched onto his wrist. "Harry, he's here."
"Shh," he said again, under his breath. "Yeah. I heard him. I can't tell where he is, though."
"Stupefy!" This time the bolt of red was nowhere near them; Ginny stared, blinking away the afterimage the red had streaked across her vision. Who on earth was Dermot trying to hit? It struck her belatedly that he had no idea where they were; he was just stabbing in the dark, hoping he Stunned somebody.
She tightened her grip on Harry's wrist. "Ron? Neville?"
"Don't know. The blast caught Ron pretty bad. I can't see Neville at all, so I don't think Dermot can see us. C'mon."
But that heart-stopping fear had melted into anger. How DARE somebody attack Ron! He might have been her most annoying brother, but he was still her brother! If somebody was going to attack him, it had better well be a Weasley! Before she was quite sure what she was doing, Ginny rose. "Bugger this," she snarled, and snapped her wand at the fog. Instantly, it cleared—
—Revealing Dermot at the mouth of the tunnel, his wand trained on Ginny's head.
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For a moment, none of them moved.
"Well," Dermot drawled, his thick American accent playing a bluegrass twang on Harry's nerves, "you managed to live. I'm amazed. I set quite a few traps for you, but I guess your head is as hard as they say it is, Harry Potter."
"I reckon it is." Because she was still gripping his wrist, Harry felt Ginny's pulse accelerate to jack-rabbit in fear. Conversely, he felt absolute calm. Weeks of worrying and planning had come down to a standoff. If Dermot hadn't had a wand pointed at Ginny's head, Harry would have found the entire thing amusing. It reminded him, absurdly, of the old American westerns that he would catch on the telly late at night as a child after the Dursleys had gone to bed. He cleared his throat. "Put down the wand, and we won't hurt you."
"Oh, that's rich," Dermot snorted.
He didn't look good, Harry noted. Sweat coated him, slicking a reddened face up to a high shine. There was a gash of blood across one cheek: either Bear or Luna had fought back. It filled Harry with a sense of warmth… until he considered that Dermot's repayment for such an act might have been death. That only made Harry tighten his grip on his wand.
"Drop the wand, Potter," Dermot continued, taking a step forward. His wand stayed aimed at Ginny's head. He was smart; Harry had to give him that. Had Dermot decided to target Harry, the Seeker would have already taken him down. But keeping his wand on Ginny meant that Harry didn't dare so much as move.
"And let you kill us all? I don't think so."
"I don't want to kill you all. Haven't you even read the file on me? I don't like extraneous deaths. Why do you think I shot Harrows in the leg? Murder's a bloody and messy affair. I prefer my affairs civilised—why do you think I preferred strangling my victims? Less mess."
Rage boiled beneath the calmness. He ignored the meat of Dermot's message to focus on the bones. "You meant to hit Tracy?"
"Potter, not a thing has happened that I haven't planned for."
But he was wrong—or better, he was bluffing. Harry could see it in the way Dermot's eyes shifted away from his; even as he spoke with confidence, a quaver beneath his words bespoke panic. Something had occurred that Dermot hadn't expected, and Harry suspected the twins were at fault. He silently cheered the absent Fred and George even as he kept a steel hold on his thoughts. They couldn't be dead. The Weasleys had survived too much already; Dermot couldn't be the end of them.
Thinking that made Harry take a step forward. "Give up," he urged again. "This has gone on too long. Let's just end this before anybody else gets—"
And if Ron hadn't chosen that moment to moan, things might have turned out okay.
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Somebody had begun to tremble. Since she kept her grip on Harry's wrist, Ginny wasn't sure which of them it was, but she had a pretty good feeling it was her. Still, her wand didn't falter. It may have shaken a bit, but it remained true, pointed at Dermot. Just as his was pointed at her.
Somewhere in the back of her brain, she heard and absorbed the conversation. If the situation were any less fatal, and if three of her brothers weren't lying on the floor, possibly dead or missing, she might have found it funny. Her ex, the one she'd lived with for months, and her current flame. Harry had picked up a drawl somewhere; if the situation weren't so dire, she might have found it sexy. But as it was, she focused all her attention, all her hatred on Dermot. It was either that, or think about the three brothers that might be dead.
"Let's just end this," Harry urged.
Something dropped in the vicinity of Ginny's stomach. She stared hard at Dermot, her hand tightening its already vise-like grip on Harry's wrist…
Harry didn't notice. "Before anybody else gets—"
Somewhere in the darkness, she heard a long, loud, and unmistakeably Ron-like groan. It couldn't have been timed better had he tried. Ginny immediately swung her head about to search for the source and because of that, she didn't see the shot coming.
But Harry did. Ginny heard a loud CRACK! and "Stupefy!" Then she was being shoved backward, falling back onto the concrete. For one heart-soaring moment, she was once again airborne. And once again, she landed hard on her back and shoulders.
This was really getting old.
She heard another thud, closer to her. A thud that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting the concrete… "Harry?" Ginny asked, panic slithering down her middle. She immediately tried to roll over, but cried out in pain. Her entire left side flamed up in agony so great that her vision actually stuttered like a bad Muggle television screen. She grit her teeth and moved her wand to where she could do a numbing spell—
Only her hand was empty.
She'd dropped her wand.
Panic didn't merely slither now; it raged and burned, plunging the room into icy depths of fear. Ginny tried to scramble, tried to sweep her arm around and see if her wand was nearby, but her side hurt so bad—and Harry wasn't answering—and there was a wand in her face.
"Hey, Gin," Dermot purred, standing above her. "Shame about your boyfriend, isn't it?"
If Dermot's curse had struck true, Harry had merely been Stunned. Not dead. "What about him?" Ginny asked, hoping her voice didn't quiver as much as she felt it did. "He's just Stunned. And he could probably use the sleep." Deliberately, knowing she was pulling on a sleeping tiger's tail, she forced her face to smirk. Sweat dewed on her upper lip. "It's not like I give him much of an opportunity for it. Now that we're sharing the same bed and all."
Sure enough, the wand pointed at her face shook. She looked beyond it at Dermot's face and saw the rage firing up in those eyes she'd once trusted.
"Get up!" The wand shook again, this time to emphasize the order. "Took out your little party by myself, and that's all fine for now, but I've got something special saved for you."
Well, that couldn't be good. Ginny stared at the wand-tip, then slowly, creakily began to move to her feet. When she moved her left shoulder, she let out a short scream.
The wand-tip jolted. "Quit faking it. You've got the highest pain tolerance of any witch I've met." Dermot's voice was pure scorn. He ignored the fact that Ginny was panting shallowly in order to breathe, and jerked the wand imperiously. "On your feet. Let's go. Your brother's not going to stay unconscious all day and if he comes round while we're out here, I'll just kill him. You don't want that on your head, do you?"
Her teeth gritted, Ginny suggested an activity to him that she wasn't quite sure was physically possible. Dermot just hooted once, laughing mirthlessly in his own way, and reached around the wand. He grabbed hold of her wrist—Ginny's very flesh recoiled, though she could do nothing more than hiss—and yanked her to her feet.
She screamed again, tried to fall to her knees. Dermot's hand prevented that.
Somewhere in the darkness, she heard a moan. Though her entire side alit with fire, her head snapped up. "Fred?"
"Move!" Dermot ordered, shoving so that she had no choice but to walk. She stumbled over something soft that gave way beneath her feet, nearly hit the floor again. And wanted to retch when she realized that she'd just walked over Harry's prone form. Dermot shoved her again. "I said, move!"
She would never remember how she made it across the room, over Harry, beyond Neville, and finally past Ron's prostrate and bleeding body. Each time, she faltered, but Dermot was there, catching her, pushing her forward. No matter how hard she struggled or swore, it wasn't enough. With every footfall, the pain in her side focused, intensified until her jaw ached from being clamped shut. She whimpered; Dermot ignored her, continuing to frog-march her down a dark corridor, along a catwalk, up—past the twins, who were equally as unconscious or dead as Ron, Neville, and Harry. Footfalls blurred in her mind. There was only an agony, both hot and intolerable, and the stinging salt of her own sweat in her eyes. Dermot was silent as he continued to shove her along. He could have made it easier, she knew, by knocking her out and levitating her, but that irritatingly Muggle mindset of his would see the long march as a challenge and a rite.
Though the very sight of him sickened her below the pain, she couldn't help but study him. He didn't look…healthy. Something during the previous months had hollowed him of the youthful looks he'd had when they'd dated. His eyes were sunken, his skin was clammy and grey. His hair sat untidily, and he'd sweated through his "US ARMY" T-shirt.
Somewhere along the line, Dermot Raine had aged.
It almost wiped away her fear. Or it would have, had Ginny's vision not been blurry from the pain. She staggered forward another step, but her knee simply gave out. She went down hard, banging that same knee painfully against the concrete.
"You've gotten weaker," Dermot observed scornfully.
Ginny closed her eyes. Her fists curled against the concrete. Every breath came as a short gasp.
"Move it—it's not that far."
"Luna?" Ginny panted, staring hard at the concrete floor. If he was going to kill her, she decided, she didn't very well have to watch—even though she doubted he was going to kill her right here. He'd preferred to strangle his victims in their sleep. For some reason, she felt strangely calm about that—but only that. Her frenzied mind was torn between anguished thoughts of Harry and pure anguish itself. "Bear?"
"What use do I have for either of them? Get up." These words were delivered with a swift kick to the ribs that made Ginny cry out again. She collapsed sideways, but Dermot was there again, yanking her to her feet, pulling her along.
Finally, an eternity later, he shoved her away from him. She stumbled. Thankfully, he'd pushed her at a wall; she leaned against it, her breath hissing out between her teeth. Through the haze, she discovered they were in some sort of chamber, similar to the one Ron and Harry and Neville were Stunned in, several corridors back. This one, however, had not been abandoned to the rats and the spiders.
Somebody had made this a home.
Shock overloaded her brain as she gaped at a four-poster bed, similar to the one she'd slept in at Hogwarts. It sat, almost apologetically as though it were aware that it looked absurd, in the middle of a concrete warren. Above the bed, a nature landscape of some place in Alabama hung in midair, as though against a wall. On either side of the bed was a bedside table. She knew without having to look that the table closest to her would have a photograph with nine freckled, grinning faces waving at the bed's occupant. Just like she knew that the opposite bedside table would have three Muggle magazines—Field & Stream, The Sniper Handbook, and GQ.
Dermot had read those magazines faithfully. The sight of them still brought bile to Ginny's throat. She choked it down as she studied the bureau, something they'd picked up at a yard sale in Alabama, the knickknacks. It was an absolutely perfect replica of the place where she'd nearly been killed. Though she wasn't cold, she started to shudder.
"I see you've changed your obsessions," she observed, her voice cracking. "You're no longer obsessed with tidy witches—it's just me now, isn't it? That's why you waited so long, played all those games."
Dermot's head snapped around so quickly that she knew her arrow had hit dead-centre. "I don't have obsessions!" he snarled.
Ginny merely studied him as levelly as she could, ignoring the fire-ache in her side. In language Ron would be proud of, she told him exactly what she thought of that statement.
She saw the backhand coming, but not in time to duck.
White flashed hot right behind her eyelids, exploding all the way from her jaw to her temple. It splintered into a thousand tiny needles that tore jaggedly into her face. Ginny grunted, her head flying back at the impact.
Carefully, she leaned forward. Her entire face throbbed in time to her heartbeat. Her eyes never left his as she lowered her head, spat out blood. "That's funny. You never seemed to prefer violence before."
"SHUT! UP!"
"So what's the matter, Dermot?" Ginny asked with confidence she didn't feel. Somewhere beneath the fake calm, panic scratched its nails down her body, urging her to run—to flee—to do something! To get away from this place that replaced her skin with goose flesh.
But she had to find out if Luna and Bear were still alive. Without her, they would be dead. So she tossed her head back, locked gazes with her worst fear. "Your normal M.O. wouldn't work for you after I got away? Find out you were impotent because some…bloody…hen outsmarted you?"
This time, she saw the backhand coming, and threw herself to the side just in time. Dermot, however, was still faster than her. Before Ginny had fully regained her footing, he'd grabbed the front of her robes and dragged her up until they were nose to nose. She could feel the rage trembling through him, could see every vein in his bloodshot eyes.
"I. Am. Not. IMPOTENT!"
He smelled rank. Ginny realized what had been bothering her for the entire time: the Dermot of her past had perfect grooming. This Dermot, however, smelled like a shower was nothing but a very, very faint memory. And he smelled of…whiskey?
Somehow, that gave Ginny the courage to look him straight in the eye and say, "Oh, yeah? Prove it."
Right before she swung her leg back and drove her aching knee as hard as she could into his groin.
Dermot shouted, but didn't let go until Ginny slammed the heel of her shoe flat onto the top of his combat boot, grinding in. Ignoring the pain that wrenched through her, she fell sideways—straight on top of Dermot's wand. Later on, she might be ashamed for it, but the bloody prick had hit her. So she bit his wrist as hard as she could. When he screamed, she yanked the wand out of his hand, stuck it in his face, and shouted the first hex that came to mind.
Dermot immediately dropped to the ground, clutching his head and screaming. Bat-shaped contusions sprang out of his forehead, stretching the skin into horrifying and disfiguring mask over his features. Ginny scrambled away from him, Dermot's wand held at ready, but Dermot just continued to lay there, crying out every time a Bat Bogey tried to erupt from his skin.
She wanted to run back the way she came, to find Harry and the others, but a gut instinct told her that Dermot had stashed Bear and Luna somewhere close. Her arm shook as she raised the wand again, pointed it at Dermot.
Immediately, he went still. Even the fake bats beneath his skin died to pathetic twitches. Ginny breathed a sigh of relief and pointed the wand down at her side. The Numbing spell brought instant coolness, and she allowed herself one deep breath.
A movement out of the corner of her eye made her glance over, but it was only a shadow. When she looked back at Dermot, she found herself staring into the business end of a Muggle gun.
Unlike most witches, Ginny knew exactly how dangerous guns were. Dermot was responsible for that; he'd even taken her to a place he'd called a shooting gallery on one of their dates, so that Ginny could fire one of his Berettas. She hadn't liked it; the recoil had kicked all the way back through her arms, making her a weak and ineffectual shot.
But Dermot, she knew, could hit a Muggle coin at two hundred yards. As he was only a few feet away now, she decided that it might be wise not to move.
"Put it down," she said slowly. "You don't want to shoot me. You've never wanted to shoot me."
He rose. His chest heaved as though he'd just sprinted a marathon, but his gun arm was steady. "I am not," he panted, "impotent."
"Oh yeah?" asked a new voice from the shadows to their left. For the first time since entering the chamber, Ginny felt an unchecked trill of hope. Harry! "That's why you need dying women to get your rocks off?"
Dermot let out an unearthly snarl and whirled, already firing. Though Ginny wanted to clap her hands to her ears, instead she raised her wand, pointed it at Dermot. He had only time to glance over his shoulder and start swinging the gun her way before she shouted, "STUPEFY!"
He went down like a sack of potatoes. The gun skittered toward Ginny; with vicious rage, she kicked it as hard as she could.
"Ginny!"
Harry shot from the shadows at her right—hadn't he been on the left? Ginny thought it hazily. In an instant, his arms were braced around her, as though he were never going to let her go. She didn't care; she clung back. Her mind was hazy with disbelief. Was it really over? Had she finally bested the man that had sent her into hiding for nearly two and a half years? Had she finally beaten the Witch Hunter?
"Harry—how? How'd you—?" He'd been Stunned, she remembered.
But Harry just pulled back to grin at her. "Your ex has the lousiest aim with a wand I've ever seen," he told her, and kissed her soundly. "He just clipped me. I was only out a couple of minutes. I came in just as you got him with that Bat Bogey. Did he hurt you? Are you okay? What happened to your face?"
Ginny told him.
"Son of a—" Harry dropped her arms, strode over to Dermot, and kicked him viciously in the head. Several times.
"Harry James Potter!" The shocked voice emerged from the shadows instants before Hermione Granger herself did. "Back away from him at once!"
Harry looked very much like a chastised schoolboy as he stepped away. But his voice held none of a schoolboy's innocence. It was almost an octave lower than normal, and furious, and for some reason, it made Ginny want to shiver. "Did you see what he did to her?"
"No, I didn't get here in time for that." Hermione strode forward, businesslike. "Are you two all right? Where's Ron?"
"Back that way. He got hit pretty badly, but he'll be okay. He and Neville are back working on the twins." Harry eyed Dermot's prone and bleeding form, looking torn between obeying Hermione's orders and kicking him again.
But Ginny stared at Hermione. Dimly, she realized that her side was beginning to hurt again, so she leaned against the wall for support. "What are you doing down here? How did you get here? It took us ages to get past all of the traps."
Hermione opened her mouth to answer, but before any sound could emerge, all three heard a triumphant yell. "Found 'em, Granger!"
And Melinda Warren, one of the three Typhoon Chasers, strode into the corridor, looking triumphant. "Team's all secure," she told Hermione. "I've given them our coordinates, so they should be here any second—"
Both Ginny and Harry stared at her, mouths agape.
A soft pop! to Ginny's left made her crane her neck over. A wizard in official Ministry robes landed there, blinking hastily into the dark. Another pop! followed to her right; another wizard, then a witch, then two more wizards all Apparated into the room. Ginny could do nothing but stare.
"Like I said," Melinda repeated. "Team's all secure."
Harry stared dazedly at the legions of official wizards that had joined them in Dermot's sick fantasy chamber. He watched as two began to bind Dermot's wrists with the magic-leaching cuffs that would stop him from getting away. "I think I speak for everyone," he said, just as Ron, Neville, and the twins limped into the room, looking a little worse for wear, "when I say: what the HELL is going on?"
A/N II: Well, that was the long chapter from hell that took forever for me to put into words. But there you have it. I personally kind of hate it, but you're welcome to leave me a review telling me what you thought about it.
The chapter where I explain everything, and some things you might not have realized, to be continued…
