A Girl Named Hermione Granger: Year Four
Chapter Nine: Panic In The Heat Of The Night
Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
The still night air was pierced with terrified shrieks and screams; inside the green canvas tent Hermione found herself being jostled awake by Ginny. "Wake up!" The red haired girl hissed in panic, her eyes wide with fear, "Hermione, wake up!"
The fourteen year old brunette opened her eyes blearily, groaning with exhaustion as the sounds of mass panic blurred together in her ears. "What – what is it Ginny?" She asked with a wide yawn as the red haired girl, who was only thirteen, grabbed her by the arm and proceeded to hoist her out of the semi-comfortable bed. "Something's happening…we need to get to the other –" Hermione's foggy thoughts began to clear as a bright red flash of light illuminated the tent, and the front was forced open by several people.
"Get up, hurry!" Mr. Weasley said hoarsely, his eyes landing on the two girls. "You children have to get into the forest and hide – and for goodness sake, stick together!" Hermione leapt out of her bed, pulling on a pair of slippers, and safely gripping her wand in her right hand, "What's going on?" Behind Arthur Weasley stood her two best friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, as well as the rest of the Weasley boys; Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred and George, the three oldest had their wands drawn and looked to be on edge.
"Some kind of riot," Arthur breathed heavily, peeking out of the flap, "Severus is going to meet you all in the forest, and then get you out of here. Bill, Charlie, Percy and I are going to help." Hermione and Ginny rushed over to Harry, Ron, Fred and George, and nodded. "Is it death eaters?" Her mouth was dry with nerves as she asked; already knowing the answer to come. If it wasn't death eaters, her father would have come to apparate them away right from the tent.
"That's not important right now; just get going you lot." The five of them were ushered out of the tent without another word, and into pandemonium. Tents were on fire and trampled, witches and wizards were running in every direction, some were apparating away; some were calling out for friends or family, but most, most were heading into the forest. Towards the center of the large campsite, Hermione could see a group of wizards with cloaks as black as death, and above them, floating miserably in the air, emitting shrieks she could hear even with the distance between them, was four floating bodies.
"Come on, Hermione!" Harry's voice cut through her shock, and the Gryffindor witch allowed herself to be pulled into the forest, where they broke into a sprint, heading as deep as they could go. They ran for several minutes, groups of witches and wizards passing in a blur, before Harry tripped over a tree root, tumbling to the ground, with Hermione and Ron right behind him.
Hermione was the first to find her way back to her feet, and her hand gripped her wand tightly as she realized that the three of them were completely alone. "Hey, my – my wand, it's gone!" Harry's panicked voice caused dread to fill his two friends as they turned to face the boy as he clamoured to his feet, patting down his pockets. Ron scrambled to his feet and pulled out his own wand, "What do you mean it's gone? Did you drop it?"
Harry spun to stare down his red haired friend and scowled, "I must have… but I don't see it on the ground, hell, I can hardly see anything. It's pitch black."
"Lumos." Hermione let out a sigh as light began to flicker from the end of her wand; she would probably get in trouble for using magic, but this seemed like a pretty reasonable exception to the law. There was a death eater riot going on after all, and they were now lost in the forest.
Harry and Ron blinked at the brightness of the light for a moment before turning their attention to the ground, "Thanks, 'mione," Harry said gratefully as his eyes raked over the forest floor. "I still don't see it – must have dropped it a ways back," anything else that Harry might have said, was drowned out by the sudden appearance of a house-elf about twenty feet away from where they were standing; looking as though she was trying to run, but unable to.
"That's Winky, isn't it? The elf from the top box?" Ron asked quietly, as their eyes all remained locked on the struggling elf, "Looks like she's having trouble running."
Hermione snorted and turned away from the sight, "Poor thing was probably ordered not to leave the tent and is trying to escape being trampled."
She swept the surrounding area with a frown, "I wonder where my dad is, your dad wasn't really very specific about where we were meeting him, Ron." In their rush to escape the path of the mob of death eaters, she hadn't bothered to think about where in the forest her father would be waiting, and now she was worried. This forest was large, dark, and full of danger; and they had no way of contacting her father.
Harry and Ron merely shrugged, "We have no idea, really. Don't you have some way to contact him?" Ron asked with a shrug, earning a sigh from the Gryffindor girl, "Oh yes, Ron, I can magically contact my father. Seeing as I'm old enough to create and use spells outside of school."
"Techy," Ron muttered under his breath, not noticing how Harry had suddenly stiffened, until the dark haired boy began motioning for his friends to be quiet. He had heard something; a strange voice. They fell into silence, tensely waiting as Harry tried to pinpoint where the voice had come from; until the voice returned, shouting out a spell that none of the three had ever heard before, "Morsmordre!"
There was a blinding flash of green light that erupted from behind the bushes and trees that Winky had run into, and Hermione fell to the ground, clutching her left arm, jaw clenched shut tight from pain. "What's – oh that's not good," Ron croaked as his eyes drifted upwards and caught sight of the shape twisting in the sky; the skull and serpent mark of Voldemort.
Gathering her strength, Hermione pushed herself back to her feet and grabbed both of the boys by the arm, "Move, we have to move!" Harry resisted, staring in shock at the glittering, twisting shape, while screams erupted from the forest. "What's the matter?" Harry gaped, dropping his gaze to rest on his panicking friends. Their faces were white with fear.
"It's the dark mark Harry," Hermione moaned, trying to pull Harry's arm once more, only to feel the pain in her own arm flare up again. Before she could get him to stumble more than a few steps, the air around them filled with the soft popping sound that accompanied apparition, and they were surrounded by roughly twenty wizards.
"Duck!" Harry shouted as the wands of the wizards around them were raised, and he pulled Hermione and Ron to the ground as the reverberating shout of "Stupefy!" and the blinding flashes which accompanied it, filled the clearing they were in. The spells shot off into the darkness of the forest, bouncing off trees, and disappearing into the night.
"STOP!" Hermione, though dazed from the pain spreading through her left arm, recognized the new voice, and she raised her head enough to make out the quickly approaching figures. "Stop! That's my son!" Arthur was in front of them in a flash, his face pasty white, and eyes wide with fear. "Ron, Harry – Hermione, are you alright?" Hermione groaned and tried to answer, but was cut off by Mr. Crouch, whom looked hell bent on attacking the three teenagers.
"Out of the way, Arthur! Which of you did it?" Harry was pulled to his feet by the irate ministry official, and subsequently blamed for the mark in the sky. "It wasn't us," Harry replied stubbornly, gesturing to the sky, and Ron was on his feet a moment later, backing him up. "We didn't do anything!"
Hermione took advantage of their distraction and tugged on Arthur's wrist, "Where's my dad?" She whispered as the weary wizard pulled her to her feet. "With the others."
"Do not lie!" Crouch spat, taking a step back from them, while Hermione stepped up beside her friends; determined not to let on about the pain in her arm to anyone. "You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!"
A witch in a woolen dressing gown stepped forward, "Barty – they're just kids, they'd never have been able to –" Mr. Weasley cut her off quickly, "Where did the mark come from, you three?"
Hermione pointed to the bushes they had heard the voice from, "Over there," her voice shook, more from pain than shock, but no one seemed to think it out of place, "there was someone behind the trees…they shouted words, an incantation –"
"Oh, stood over there did they?" Crouch spun his wild eyes on Hermione and she trembled under the accusatory glare. "Said and incantation did they? You seem very well informed about how the mark is summoned, missy." The other twenty-odd ministry wizards were silent, watching Crouch with disbelief, they obviously didn't believe that Harry, Ron and Hermione would be capable of summoning the mark.
They had all raised their wands once more, this time pointing them where Hermione had pointed to, "We're too late," the witch from earlier said, "they'll have disapparated by now." "I don't think so," a stubby wizard with a brown beard said as he nodded his head towards the trees, "Our stunners went right through there."
Five minutes later, Crouch was fuming over his house elf's stunned body, and Harry was watching with horror as a ministry wizard held Harry's wand as evidence. It took another ten minutes for Arthur to convince the ministry official to give Harry back his wand, and another ten minutes after that before they were given permission to leave.
Once they were out of sight and hearing range, Hermione stopped moving forward and cleared her throat, "I need to talk to my dad – it's important." She was afforded three blank stares, as she was gripping her arm tightly again; the pain was gone, but her skin tingled uncomfortably. "Why're you holding your arm like that? Come to think of it –" Ron was cut off by a fierce glare from the brunette and a quick jab to the ribs from Harry.
"He should be waiting at the tents with the others." The rest of the short walk was made in relative silence, and Hermione was the first to rush forward upon leaving the forest and spotting the tents. Fred, George and Ginny greeted them.
"Is my dad still here?" Hermione asked, craning her neck to look past the twins, trying to see if perhaps there was someone behind them; but there wasn't. "No, he just left," Ginny replied, placing a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder as Harry and Ron came over, while Arthur was occupied with the twins. "I want to know what happened back there," Harry whispered, making Hermione wince and nod, "Not here. When we get back to the Burrow."
Hermione was pacing around Ron's attic bedroom while both boys waited impatiently for her to explain. She wanted to tell them, but it scared her to think how they might react. It's completely true that she was marked against her will, but that didn't matter to a lot of wizards – would the boys understand?
"Look, just tell us Hermione. It'll come out sooner or later, whatever it is, and it's better if it's sooner." Harry was of course being the most logical, and she thought that he had a fairly good idea what the problem was.
With a deep breath for courage, she tugged up her left sleeve so that the faded mark showed to the two boys, "I probably don't have to tell you what this is – before you say anything, let me explain, okay?" The two boys were too dumbfounded to even make a sound, a small mercy.
"You know Snape's my dad, and, my mum was a – a death eater. Well, she tried to give me the mark when I was born, but she died before the spell was complete, because Julie protected me. While I don't have a full mark," she paused to take a deep breath before continuing, "mine still burns when Voldemort is strong…kind of like your scar, Harry."
"Blimey." Ron gasped out a few minutes later, his jaw opening and closing as though he wanted to speak, but couldn't. "That's not quite what I was expecting. But I guess I understand why you didn't say anything before." Harry said quietly, rubbing at his temples with his right hand.
Ron, finally breaking out of his stupor, was a little louder, and a little angrier. "Anything else you're keeping from us that we might like to know?"
"Erm…" there was one thing left she had yet to tell them, but she wasn't sure they'd like knowing it. After all, they were still on very poor terms with Draco. "I'm going to have a half sibling soon," she stuttered, earning two rather disturbed faces from the boys. "Who in their right mind would shag Snape?" Ron spat, looking as though he had just been force-fed troll bogeys.
"For your information, Ron, Julie has been dating my dad for well over a year and a half now!"
End chapter nine!
It's awful short, and possibly plain awful, but it's up! I'm sorry about the wait, I didn't mean to break my promise. I admit, I've been caught up a little bit with scribbling out some legend of zelda and gundam wing/AC one shots...which haven't been posted (but probably will be).
If this chapter is exceedingly bad, I apologize, because I'm still just a bit fuzzy and achy from a minor 'surgery' yesterday. Fyi, Camera's down your throat sucks big time. My throat is killing me.
I'll try to be better about posting updates.
Ta-ta for now!