Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognizable characters.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Author Notes: well this is the fourth chap….. Read on…
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Hermione woke up from a fitful sleep as the very first rays of the sun poured into the hut on a warm Monday morning. She sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Morning girls," Hermione said as she saw Ginny and Parvati stirring.
"'Morning," chorused the other two.
"Ginny you'll be off to Hogwarts today, right?"
"Yeah. What about you girls?"
"I've to clean the grounds of this god awful place." Parvati said as she gut up from her hay-bed.
"And I've to collect logs and chop them up for the fireplaces of apparent pure-bloods," Hermione answered. "Alright Ginny, I want you to stay safe but collect info at the same time too. As far as possible try to stick together with Nancy."
Ginny nodded. Hermione got up and walked out.
"'Morning," she said as she walked by Seamus and Neville already on their duty of cleaning the grounds.
"Good morning to you too." They mumbled sleepily.
Hermione set off towards the forest with a group of 12 other slaves. Dennis walked alongside her. "So are you okay from yesterday, Dennis?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, as okay as it can get. The bloody git used the cruciatus on me and it was a bit too painful for me to be okay. But other than that I'm perfectly alright. What about you?"
"I'm okay." She and the two walked in silence as she looked into the forest hoping she would get to stray away from the group for an hour at least so she could go to her cave again. She did not know if it was just her or if someone was watching them closely.
At once she was high on alert. She looked around carefully and saw a death eater walking along side the group to make sure none of them did not stray away. But something told her that it wasn't him, it was someone else, someone familiar.
All her senses were working with thrice as much efficiency as they normally would. She looked around trying to think of some way to cause a distraction. That was when she noticed Michael and Hannah standing around near a log trying to haul it towards the camp all on their own.
Hermione walked away from the group and moved towards them as discreetly as possible by her. But unfortunately, the death eater saw her move. "Where do you think you are going, filth?" he demanded.
"Trying to help them" Hermione said trying to look innocent.
"There is no need for that, now get back to where you were."
"Hermione, do you want to get away temporarily?" Dennis whispered to her.
Hermione, now sulking as she walked with Dennis again, looked up sharply. "Yes, actually I'm looking for a diversion. I need to be off for an hour."
"Maybe I can cause a distraction. You need to get yourself away in the mean time. Is that okay with you?"
"I'm not so sure, Dennis. But what do you have on your mind?"
"What if I fake a seizure or simply faint or something?"
"Well that might just work. But how long can you stall with that?" Hermione looked around at Hannah and willed her to look at her. As if by some miracle Hannah looked up and their eyes met.
Hermione concentrated desperately and solely on Hannah trying to convey to her that she needed a distraction. Finally she could do it.
'I need a distraction. Dennis said he would pretend to faint or something. But I need someone to prolong it at least by an hour.' Hermione was jubilant that she could do legimency.
At first Hannah looked surprised. But quickly recovered and nodded. She quickly relayed the message to Michael as well. He looked thoughtfully at Hermione.
Michael had noticed that the death eater with Hermione's group was scared of Suille. Apparently he was the in charge there. Well it paid to be observant at times.
He quickly walked up to the death eater and said, "Master Suille requires these logs immediately, and some more, but since it is just the two of us, we need help to take it to the camp as soon as possible. Can we use two of the strongest from there so we can deliver this to him soon?"
The death eater looked unconvinced.
"Well if you mind it so much its okay. I'll go back to the camp and get two more slaves from there. But you see, the problem in that is if I see Suille there and I've still not gotten the logs there…. I'll have to tell him you didn't let me borrow two people..." he trailed off pretending to be scared and uncertain.
The death eater still looked like he didn't want to lend anyone but accepted grudgingly. He pointed at Hermione and Dennis, "go help those two weaklings." The he muttered to himself, "I don't see any sense in anything that Suille says. Well, wait till I get to his position."
Hermione had noted time and again that there was restlessness among the death eaters. They were so power hungry that they simply refused to trust each others. They were always plotting each others demise. There she noticed the weakness in the band Voldemort had woven.
She could still feel the presence.
She looked at the death eater and said patronizingly, "I'll get back to our group as soon as I'm done with that job." She said without being too obvious. He looked at her with sharp eyes. But she was ready. She went on, "you know it's better as a group and with someone powerful around…" she let her voice fade off, she felt like gagging at that thought.
The death eater looked slightly flattered with this. Though he reprimanded her, "shut up and get on with the work assigned to you." She nodded like a good little lamp, pleased the death eater moved on.
"Thanks guys. But now how do I get away from here?" she asked in a low voice.
"You can just go though that path. We'll take care of the rest." Hannah told her.
"Okay. But what if you guys got into trouble?" she asked biting her lower lip.
"Don't worry about us. We'll make sure that your group doesn't meet up with us. Plus we do need some extra help and Dennis here and do that. If we don't meet up with that death eater you sucked up to, no one will know you were away. But be careful." Michael said.
Hermione nodded and took of in the direction of the path. She felt the presence closer. She quickly ran to the lake though the thickest part of the forest. From there she ran off to the cave. Now, she felt the presence very close to her.
She felt apprehensions. What if this was someone who wanted to attack her? Had she just fooled herself into believing that this invisible person was someone she knew? There was just one way to find out.
"Who is there?" she asked nervously. When she got no reply, she repeated the question again. Now she felt stupid for talking to the air around her. She shook her head spun around. That's when she saw long white hair glinting in the sun. She gasped, she was right all along, there was someone there. But who?
The person, finally, pulled off the invisibility cloak. He was an old man with dirty glasses on his nose that almost hid his intelligent eyes. He had an unmistakable aura of familiarity about him. Hermione looked gobsmacked for a couple of minutes, stunned at the sudden appearance of Aberforth Dumbledore!
Hermione still looked at him suspiciously. "Reveal yourself." She demanded cautiously.
"I, Aberforth Dumbledore, was the brother of Albus Dumbledore and Ariana, who died in the cross fire of spells, hexes and curses during the duel between me, my brother and Grinderwald. I also was the barman of Hogshead. And you, in your fifth year at Hogwarts, held a secret meeting for the Dumbledore's Army in my bar."
Hermione blinked at him for a couple of minutes, unsure of what to do, and what to believe. Then all of a sudden she flew towards him to give him a hug.
"Mr. Dumbledore is that really you or am I seeing things?" she asked wondering if she was okay in her head.
"Aberforth please. Yes Hermione, it's really me." He said chuckling.
"I did not expect to see you here, Mr. Dumble- Aberforth. I did not expect to see you, period." She squealed happily.
He simply smiled at her and questioned, "Is there somewhere more secretive?"
"Yes, come along, there is a cave near by, I'm the secret keeper." She took him to the cave and the two walked in.
"It's quite a comfortable place. How did you chance upon it?"
"Harry, Ron and I stayed here a few weeks before the war. How are you? Are you on the run? Of course you are; what do you know about the others? Where are you hiding?"
"Whoa, slow down... answering your questions… I'm fine, yes, I'm on the run as you answered that question yourself, as for what I know of the others – I'll get to it later, and I don't want to give away my hiding place." He noticed that Hermione's face had fallen. He added, "It's just a precaution, if you don't know where it is, it won't be forced out of you."
He continued looking around, inspecting the cave, "the Weasleys –Arthur and those impish twins are in hiding, so are bill, fleur and their daughter, molly are at the shell cottage, Lupin and his son Teddy are staying with Andromeda Tonks at her place, Alicia and Dedalus Diggle are also on the run, their location changes every few days."
"How have you been?" he asked kindly, his eyes trained on her.
"I'm fine. Maybe not as happy, but I'm fine." Hermione answered truthfully.
"Hmm... and what have you been up to?" he asked looking peering into her eyes.
Hermione blushed, "who said I'm up to anything at all?"
"Ha! You are Hermione granger, best friend of Harry potter and Ronald Weasley you surely want to avenge their deaths?"
"Yeah, nothing would please me more than that."
"How do you plan on doing it?"
"I don't know, I've collected a few people, 'the phoenix!' we are scouring for outside news, in a few days we, I'm planning to sneak essential potions and other stuff from Hogwarts."
Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully. "That is not enough Hermione."
"Yes, I'm aware of that, but it was only a few days back that I could finally pull myself together." She said unabashedly. "We'll need all the help we can from you guys."
"I'm acutely aware of that. We are all there for you. We need to find out a way to keep in contact with each other. The death eaters are actively searching for us. So it will be a little difficult for us…" he trailed off.
"I think I can help there. But only one of you lot." Hermione said an idea forming in her mind, but she still was unsure of it.
"Out with it, Ms. Granger"
"Maybe I can pretend that one of you died and cry about it in the presence of a death eater."
"What if they fed you veritaserum?"
"Now that you mention it. I'm not sure."
Aberforth looked at Hermione with glinting eyes. "Are you a witch Hermione?"
Hermione head snapped up in confusion and she nodded still processing the question, "yeah, but what has anything to do with the situation at hand?" she asked.
"Can you do magic?"
"Assuming I'm a witch, I should be able to do magic?"
"I don't assume you're a witch, Hermione, I know you are a witch" Aberforth said kindly. "Do you have a wand with you?"
"Yes, infact it is in a safe in this very cave. Hang, on I'll get it." She made to move to the back of the cave to retrieve the wand when Aberforth stopped her.
"Let it remain where it is." he said. "I'm sure you're not allowed wands into the camp. They can be detected. But otherwise can you do magic?"
Hermione could not understand where this was taking them, but decided to humor the wizard in front of her. "'otherwise can you do magic' don't you need a wand to channel and control your magic?"
"Yes, but what about the times when children below 11 tend to do accidental magic?"
"Well, they are accidental magic isn't it?" Hermione was now on the verge of concluding that Dumbledore had officially lost his marbles.
"Yes, they are accidental magic, but there can be incidental magic as well, did you ever considered that?" he asked, his eyes twinkling as he looked at Hermione.
Suddenly something dawned on her. Ah! Yes the proverbial light bulb! She immediately became excited, "you mean to ask if I can do wandless magic. Wow that is difficult to trace... no priori incantatum... no wand detection" At this she faltered, "but…,"she said biting her lower lips, "I can't really do wandless magic"
Aberforth Dumbledore smiled indulgently at her, "but I heard you were an excellent student, Ms. Granger. I'm sure you can learn it. Do you have the books that are required?" he asked giving the heaps and heaps on books a cursory glance.
Hermione nodded, "I do have two books on wandless magic. But for some reason, I've not read it yet." She said.
At this Dumbledore pulled an old and worn out book from his cloak and gave it to her, "here, this will be extremely useful."
Hermione smiled gratefully at her former headmaster's brother, "thank you."
"You are welcome, plus when you are learning, do not experiment it in the presence of others, I prefer that this is kept completely under the wraps, not even the members of 'the phoenix!' should know about it."
Hermione nodded. "Okay."
"It is not easy; it needs a lot of hard work, concentration and brains. And I believe you can do it."
Hermione blushed at the compliment. "Yeah, I'll give it my best."
"Okay, my work here is complete; I need to be on my way. Do not try to contact me. No matter what the emergency. I'll contact you, not any time sooner, but one of us will contact you. Be safe." He started walking to the entrance of the cave.
"You too professor, give the others my love, and professor–"
"Yes?" he asked turning around.
"I just wanted to know. I've been feeling weird these days; I can hear foot steps 20-25 feet away, I also noticed that my eye sight has become... uh...um better. Do you know why or at least how?"
"That Ms. Granger is for the future to unfold. See you as soon as possible. Take care." Hermione moved towards him and hugged him again. With that he walked out into the sunlight outside the cave and disappeared. Hermione looked at the book clutched tightly in her hands.
She noticed something shiny by the entrance of the cave; she walked over and fingered the cloak. She realized that it was Harry's invisibility cloak! So Dumbledore had it?! But why didn't he take it back with him? He didn't even seem to need it.
'Of course, he is powerful enough to use a disillusionment charm, he probably left it for my use' she thought sending a silent thanks to whoever was up there and liked her.
She tucked the cloak into her dress. And looked at the book once again with longing, she was itching to read the book then and there, but if she didn't get back, Michael, Hannah and Dennis will end up in trouble.
Finally she placed the book on the pile of transfiguration books and whirled around and ran out of the cave. For the second time in hours she found herself running to the clearing where she had left Ginny and the rest yesterday.
Once she reached there, she pretended to pick up dry twigs, once her arms were full of them, she proceeded to move towards the camp, on reaching there she noticed Michael and others a few feet inside the camp. She caught Hannah's eyes for the second time that day and gave a meaningful look.
"Come on Granger, get the dry twigs in here quick" Hannah shouted across. At the sudden shout from the generally quiet Hannah, Michael and Dennis dropped the log they were carrying in surprise, looking around they caught sight of Hermione, and quickly resumed their work with no indication of what had transpired. Hermione joined them quickly.
"Where were you? We were getting worried." Michael said.
"I'm here aren't I? Don't worry about me. Thanks guys." She said meaning every letter of the word 'thanks'. The others nodded their welcomes. "Common lets get this stuff inside before they start doubting anything." She said expertly squirting around the question of where she had been.
Michael looked unconvinced, again. But he let it go, he trusted Hermione.
They were finally done with the logs.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
They had lunch and she was waiting to meet Seamus, so they could go to Hogwarts, for it was their slot there.
She saw Seamus hurrying towards her looking murderous. She was wondering what was up when he halted in front of her and announced, "Guess who is here?"
Hermione got sight of a platinum blond head about 35 feet ahead of them, it was too far away even for her improved sight.
"The albino ferret himself," Seamus revealed.
Hermione didn't know whether she went white with dread or red with anger.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Author Notes: hi guys! How did you like it?
Foot prints are left on the beach for the sea to wash them; reviews are left for the author to treasure. So please do review.
Can you guys guess the other two betrayers, I mentioned in the 'author notes' of the second chapter? See if you get it right, plus you can only guess once.
I know I said that this chap will have Draco's entry into the story. But the chapter was already long enough.
Take care,
Azea!