Hello, readers! Thanks for the reviews and alerts and favorites. I know especially Hermione's POV will get a bit repetitive, as I choose to follow the book/movie but I'll include my own stuff, so hang in there. And a little reminder for you about the boys' torture; Ron was used as a pureblood breeding machine while Harry was being attacked by animals, plants and spells, so yeah, they are pretty damaged. What this means for the trio you'll have to wait and see. Have fun!
Inspirational music: Mad World by Gary Jules
Chap. 37 Frauds
"Mr Ollivander, you talk about wands as if they have feelings…and can think."
"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr Potter. That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wandlore," Mr Ollivander revealed with a hint of a smug expression on his battered face.
Hermione listened intensively to what the old wandmaker said to Harry who sat on the man's bed, while she and Ron stood by the door. Neither of them had mentioned Harry's recent insight into Voldemort's mind but the fact that Harry sat hunched and had a weary tone in his voice made it clear he indeed had been affected by the news that the Dark Lord now wielded the Elder Wand.
Hermione too was worried and above all so very tired of the fight against the dark powers when every time it seemed they had even the slightest advantage, there would be an immediate and responding setback. But as she swept her eyes over poor Mr Ollivander, she realized hope was fading among those who did not follow Voldemort and that she, Harry and Ron needed to continue the battle no matter what challenges lay ahead.
Even though others like the wandmaker might have given up, she would never surrender. The wizarding world was all she had now when her parents had forgotten about her and left the country, and Hermione would not stand aside and allow the Dark Arts to destroy what she still considered worth fighting for.
"There's no telling whether He will find it," Mr Ollivander let out and brought Hermione back to reality. Harry straightened his back and gravely folded the hands in his lap.
"He has found it, sir," he said without embellishing the truth and Mr Ollivander stared at him, as did Hermione who had not expected Harry to talk about that hallow just yet.
Harry got up and Ron subtly nudged her to the side as he began to open the door. With observant eyes she saw that glimpse of strong, unyielding determination again in Harry's features and she automatically stood back from him as he marched past her when Mr Ollivander's fragile voice halted them all.
"He is after yu, Mr Potter. If what you said is true, and He has the Elder Wand, I'm afraid you really don't stand a chance."
Harry met the despair and doubt by suggesting dryly, "Well, I suppose I'll have to kill Him before He finds me, then," before he exited the room. Hermione followed suit, as did Ron, and together they walked back to their own bedroom. Finally in privacy, she got her chance to question Harry's agreement with Griphook whom they had visited before Mr Ollivander.
"Harry, how could you promise Griphook the sword of Gryffindor? Now we won't have anything to defeat the remaining horcruxes with," she exclaimed as Harry began to pace back and forth with a troubled expression.
"You heard him. He wouldn't accept anything else as payment for his help," Harry pointed out before he stopped walking and continued with triumph, "But I never told him when exactly he could have it."
Hermione caught on and though she might disapprove of his devious deception, she still could not help but admire Harry for his thinking.
"Oh. Great. But you are aware of how serious it is to close a deal with a goblin," she reminded him and that was when Harry resumed his restless pacing.
"And what happens when we find the horcrux in the vault? We've already seen how hard it is to destroy them even with a good weapon," Ron interjected and Harry shrugged sheepishly. "I'm still working on that part."
Hermione sensed this was the moment when the boys needed her to calm things down and analyze the situation with logic.
"How about we just concentrate on getting inside Gringotts for now and then worry about the items in Bellatrix's vault? I'd say we've always been good at improvising and I think we'll find a solution once we're in the vault."
Several pounds of weight seemed to leave Harry's shoulders and Ron grinned from ear to ear as he pointed at Hermione with his thumb and announced, "See, Harry? That is why we will pull off Gringotts. Hermione always knows what to do."
Hermione was unsure if Ron's insistent flattery was honest or just his way of making up for the nearly hostile dialogue with her before Harry had discovered Voldemort's new wand. She settled for modestly shaking her head and replied," I'm hardly certain of anything. Our task will be dangerous all the same, with or without my opinions."
"Well, I still vote for keeping you in our group. Don't you too, Harry?" Ron said and shared a glance with the raven-haired boy as Hermione threw up her hands in the air in resign at their antics. Then, there was a subtle knock on the door behind her.
When she turned around the door swung open and revealed a very familiar red-haired couple. The scream of joy that followed however, was not subtle at all.
"Ohhh! Ron, my boy! And Hermione and Harry! I can't believe you are all here and in safety! Let me hug you this instance!" Mrs Weasley squealed as she briskly launched herself towards them and managed to quite impressively trap all three of them within the range of her arms.
"Molly, let them breathe now," Mr Weasley cheerfully chuckled and his wife did as he said but not before she had adorned every one of them with a kiss on their cheeks. Looking like she had survived a tempest, Hermione flushed and brought up a hand to smooth down her curls. Beside her, Ron had blooming cheeks and Harry's glasses were askew.
"So nice to see you, Mrs Weasley," Harry stated and nodded to Mr Weasley who just now dared to enter behind his wife.
"Nice? By Merlin, it is far from nice! I haven't heard a thing from you in nearly a year and I've been worried sick! I will personally send one of our gnomes at Bill for not letting us visit as soon as you two were freed," Mrs Weasley said bitterly and looked pretty terrifying before she brightened again and in a motherly gesture patted her chest.
"But Molly dear, Bill already explained to us why they didn't fill us in right away. There were precautions to take care of as Shell Cottage would suddenly keep Ron and Harry safe," Mr Weasley tried but the headstrong woman would not have any of it.
"Arthur! Your son and his friend were reported freed from the Dark Lord and we have yet to hear about what happened to them in the Ministry. Don't pretend you didn't worry like I did when Bill sent us that Patronus. And then there was that demand yesterday when Remus came over to ask for our wands for Harry and Ron's sake. You two are lucky I don't live here, or else I would never have allowed you to go on a mission to the Malfoy Manor!" she let out in an ice-cold voice and all the men in the room shrunk away for the matriarch's wrath.
"Ehem," Hermione coughed to distract Molly from flooding them all in months of concern and continued, "Are the rest of the family alright?" Mrs Weasley gave a sob and her husband intervened.
"Yes, Hermione, everyone is perfectly well. We're staying at Aunt Muriel at the moment. I'm the secret keeper. Even Percy has joined us again. So has Ginny. It was far too dangerous for her to stay at Hogwarts when the dark powers search for victims close to Harry."
"And you!" Mrs Weasley said with a trembling voice and pointed dramatically at Hermione. "Where in the world have you been? We heard about how the Order only found Harry and Ron in the Ministry. Tell me you were unharmed, dear!" The distressed woman gave a whimper at the end and pulled Hermione into another crushing embrace.
"Mum, it's all fine. According to Hermione, she was in the hands of a merciful man. He sent her to Ireland. You do know it's very calm over there," Ron said and gently freed Hermione and guided her to the side. Hermione gave him a grateful look for the fact that he did not mention the rape attempt or how the man who saved her was a snatcher. She doubted Mrs Weasley would understand her explanation of said snatcher, nor let her continue the search for horcruxes with the boys if she found out exactly how Hermione had fared.
"That's right. I actually worried more about the rest of you," she commented and watched how Mr Weasley approached Harry.
"Did it go well yesterday? Were our wands useful?" he asked and Harry hurried to pick up the two wands from under his pillow. "Yes, yes, they worked for us. Thank you so much for the favor," Harry uttered as he handed the man his and his wife's wands.
"Anytime, Harry. Well, Molly, I think it's time we head back before Aunt Muriel starts to investigate those boxes in the twin's room."
Mrs Weasley had found a big handkerchief in her purse and dabbed her eyes.
"I hate this war. Look at them, Arthur! They look so tired and exhausted. Isn't there anything else the Order can do to relieve you of some of the burden?" she desperately inquired and the three teenagers looked at each other with sad eyes.
"Dumbledore gave this mission to us only, mum. But if we ever need the Order, I swear we'll contact you immediately. But it seems this is our adventure," Ron replied with a steady voice and again, Hermione was surprised by the maturity that her friend possessed.
"Alright, my boy. If you say so," Mrs Weasley delivered with a sniffle and urged all three of them again to gather within her arms. Ron's elbow accidently bumped into Hermione's ribs but she ignored it and succumbed to the feeling of a mother's warm embrace.
"Do keep each other safe. I will not accept any more separations," she lectured softly, clearly referring to the time the trio had first been inside Malfoy Manor. At last she released them and stepped back.
"We are all so proud of you," Mr Weasley beamed and threw a comforting arm around the woman's shoulders. The parting suddenly became stifling and unbearable so the man quickly hugged them in turns with his free arm and escorted his crying wife out the door. Harry carefully closed the door behind them and as it turned out, every one of them had something in their eyes.
Ron ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily as he seated himself on his bed. Hermione looked outside the small window and after a while she broke the silence.
"So, they don't know the details of your torture, either?"
No sound was heard but as she turned around, the boys affirmed her conclusion by nodding their heads.
"I guess if we told them about it, they would react the same way as mum did when she saw you," Ron mumbled.
"We have no time for being pitied. We have a Dark Lord to defeat and a bank to rob," Harry added and his brutal cynicism was maintained for a few seconds before they all burst into laughter. Hermione knew they took advantage of the small moment of glee before they would have to take on the big task stowed upon them. And as she snickered along, she felt that if she ever was to do a successful break-in, she was glad she had her friends with her.
They could at last begin to design their plan.
The gloves he had brought with him did little to preserve the warmth in his fingers. This trouble was made worse by the fact that Scabior felt it necessary to hold his wand in a firm grip throughout the night, as usual, which left him with ice cold fingers come morning.
He grunted in the misty morning light and removed the gloves so his skin could benefit from the body heat when he promptly thrusted each hand into the opposite armpit. He despised having to wake up freezing in the woods but there were not any alternatives to it.
To make a fire inside his small protecting shield would result in him choking to death from the lack of oxygen, if not the toxic fumes got to him first. And if he on the other hand dissolved the shield and lit a fire, the light and sounds from it could alert a human passing by and Scabior would profoundly prefer if he was not discovered by anyone, muggle or not. So he was left with only his own body as a source of warmth, as he did not want to exhaust his powers on a permanent heating spell.
He glanced up at the sky from his poorly excuse of a bed with the satchel as pillow and moss as mattress and studied the cloudy weather. I f he was lucky, there would be a glimpse of sunshine later but he would not count on it. It seemed something was determinedly keeping the sun from warming the British people and their troubled minds. As if something succeeded in delaying summer itself when the seasons were supposed to change.
The few flowers which had managed to produce buds froze when the cold nights arrived. Even the animals were affected by, what Scabior would bet his silver ring on, the dark powers' attempt to disturb the climate with thick, grey clouds. Last evening he had spotted a starved fawn snuggling close to its mother who apparently had no milk to offer her offspring. Scabior too had noticed the absence of fresh grass in the forests. Whether intentionally or not, the ecosystem would collapse if the Dark Lord continued to mess with it.
Scabior stretched his shivering limbs and tried to work the blood into them. Afterwards, he rolled onto his stomach and reached for the clasp on the satchel. He would have to rely on food to get warm today. He sneered at an apple and turned his eyes longingly towards his dear loaf of bread. He wanted the bread because it filled his stomach better and chased away his hunger. Unfortunately, he had become used of eating until he was full on Ireland which had been great for his recovery, but now made it hard for his body to accept limited rations.
One third of the bread was already gone and Scabior knew he needed to restrain himself. With a grimace and a rumbling center, he broke off a small piece of the valuable food and performed the replenishing charm on it. Now he had two pieces in his palm and even though one of them was drier, tasteless, nutrient-poor and simply inadequate; it would fill his stomach nonetheless.
His brain said it was a sham; a way of tricking himself into believing he could literally have the cake and eat it too. But his eyes registered two equal, identical pieces and his body said yes to them. He washed them down with a shot of Firewhiskey. In less than fifteen minutes, he would feel warm. Content at having his basic needs seen to, Scabior got up from the ground and picked up the statchel.
"Where to, today?" he mumbled to himself and crossed his shield.
Three nights had passed since he had been in Leeds and run into the wandless girl. He had found his way to the hospital but he had turned uncertain right outside the 'emer-agency'.
He really did not want to set the woman down on the cold concrete and leave her in the dark night. But he had no clue what was expected of a muggle who needed a hospital. Was it a custom to simply place the wounded on the ground by the entrance? Was he allowed to carry her inside? Did the muggle healers have an information counter like St. Mungos, or were they standing at attention on the other side of the doors with their needles and frightening devices, ready to pounce on anyone who entered?
But Scabior had not needed to make a decision when a man in a white robe marched out through the door and asked him what was wrong with the sleeping woman he carried. Scabior had told him what he knew and soon a bed on wheels was being rolled out through the broad entrance by a bunch of people, also dressed in white robes. Scabior was bid to carefully place the woman on the bed and then everybody began to speak some gibberish, or muggle healing language, as they quickly rolled her inside.
One healer had stayed behind and fixed Scabior with a stern expression as his eyes wandered over his form. Scabior recognized an appraisal when he saw one and did not answer when the man drawled something about punk. But then the healer had brought out a notepad and begun to ask him questions about how he had found the wounded girl. To Scabior, it sounded more and more like accusations and he wanted to get away from the annoying muggle.
Fortunately, an 'ambush-lance' had turned around a corner and as the man had turned his head at the blinking vehicle, Scabior got his chance to disapparate.
He hoped the woman would be treated better by the other muggles and recover from her injuries, physical as well as mental. He turned his thoughts to Hermione and scratched his unshaved chin.
The last two days he had visited the wizarding communities in the area and travelled to desolated forests nearby. He had wasted many valuable hours of daylight on sniffing in the woods, trying to pick up Hermione's scent. Truth to be told, he doubted she would venture into towns when there was a dangerously high price on her head. Scabior remembered how Hermione had mentioned that the trio often had set up camp away from towns and villages.
For his own sanity, he comforted himself with that Hermione would acknowledge the importance of concealing herself if she after all went into wizarding communities. So he too had gone to different towns, searching even for the faintest of smells but had found nothing, concerning scents at least. But he had come across some information.
Everywhere he went, Hermione's face met him on the countless black and white posters announcing her as an Undesirable beside posters of Potter and Weasley. The images always startled him but then calmed him, as it meant no-one had caught the famous trio. No shops of any kind were open and the streets were abandoned in every wizarding block he had visited so far, so he had been unable to get an oral update on the situation in Britain.
But yesterday, in the wizard streets of Birmingham, a dirty copy of the Daily Prophet had danced in the wind outside a plundered clothing store. Scabior had skimmed through it the best he could, what with the brown smudges and tattered pages, and had seen nothing new about the Boy Who Lived or his companions.
It was obvious the Daily Prophet was being run by Death Eaters now. The vocabulary had changed and in every article about new arrests the words mudblood or blood traitors were written at least three times. And in one article it was clear that apparently Hogwarts had lost a great number of pupils when worried parents had taken them home. According to the new teacher in Muggle Studies, Alecto Carrow, it was essential for every proper young wizard and witch to finish her compulsory subject or they would fail their year.
Scabior had crumbled the newspaper and thrown it back to the gutter where the other rubbish resided. Now he considered travelling to London to investigate Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley. Although, he did not really believe there would be people with information on those places either, he could not afford to ignore London and possibly miss a trace of Hermione.
As he decided on where exactly he would land in Diagon Alley, he noticed his hands trembled slightly. He closed them and dug the nails into the palms while taking a deep, calming breath to silent the snatcher within who advised against his plan. Scabior was not scared of entering the wizarding London. However, he felt unbalanced, incapable and even jinxed. Because Scabior was not used of lacking information. Before Hermione, information had kept him alive and successful. Now, he knew nothing about the two famous and large areas he was about to visit.
It could be dangerous and reckless to apparate at a certain place, but he would have no idea about it. He did not like that.
Furthermore, the quiet and seemingly deserted towns he had passed through had left him unsettled. Where were the wizards and witches of England? Was everyone who did not support the Dark Lord dead or in hiding?
Scabior rubbed his forehead and frowned. He was losing time on almost acting like a coward when he knew he did not have a choice. No matter how unlikely, Hermione could have been to London and if so, he would of course search the alleys for her scent.
Scabior looked around himself in the lonely forest and closed his eyes. 'By the love of Hogwarts founders; don't let her be alone. Please make her be with friends and allies,' he thought intensely, not quite sure who he addressed with his plea.
If only he somehow could get an assurance that she was safe and had company. After all, his sweet bird liked to talk. He smiled fondly at the thought of her and decided to land on a spot by the brick wall behind the Leaky Cauldron. Scabior held up his wand to disapparate; and fell helplessly to the ground with an anguished sound wrenched from his throat.
His left arm burned. In his, by sudden excruciating pain, delirious state, he actually thought his arm was on fire and angled his head to look at it. No flames licked the black leather and he pressed the hurting, as if scorched, limb to his chest protectively and groaned.
"Please, Merlin, not this! Not this!"
He did not want this! He had hoped he would never have to go through this again. He had been severely wrong. He refused to roll up his sleeve to relieve the burning flesh of the suddenly abrasive fabric of his green jacket, because he did not want to see what he knew was there. His fucking ugly Dark Mark would be black again, and distinct in the outlines and bleeding; just like the last time Voldemort had called for all his followers.
A splitting headache almost split Scabior's skull in two, or so it felt, and despite the effort the movement required of him, he reached up with his right arm and grasped his tortured head with a wince. He saw only white, seething smoke barriers of pain and was swiftly approaching the border to unconsciousness when a raspy, terrifying, and yet in a way gleeful voice disturbed his aching mind.
"I summon you. I summon all of my loyal servants and order you to gather in the Forbidden Forest. I shall bring out Harry Potter tonight with a little help from the Gryffindors at Hogwarts. Let us see if Potter deem himself more valuable than the lives of his classmates. Together, my servants, we shall at last cleanse our world from the last, foolish mudbloods and blood traitors. Under my strong leadership and powerful wand, you will see our victory by joining me in this honoring quest. Go now; your Lord commands it."
Just to make the timeline clear, as it can be confusing, Scabior is currently one day ahead of Hermione but that will be adjusted in the next chapter. As you can see, there are several cauldrons brimming with trouble, what with Voldemort summoning Scabior, Ron and Hermione's relationship and the fact that she hasn't mentioned a certain dashing snatcher. Oh, dear! But have faith in me; every tiny detail will be taken care of in this fic.
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