Chapter 8

I have to start this chapter on a rather unpleasant note, unfortunately, because I have to admit to being a little disappointed with the rather unimpressive turnout in terms of reviewers for the last chapter. Considering that I had made a rare appeal for them at the end of the last chapter, something that I rarely do, I had hoped for more, rather than fewer than usual, because it was somewhat of a milestone chapter. I needed to know what you thought. Sorry to have to start the chapter on such a bad note, and especially sorry for those loyal people who did take the time to review. You know who you are, and I hope that you know by now how incredibly grateful I am to you. I'm not going to try to force anyone to write me even just a quick comment, but considering I worked my socks off to get you that 12 page chapter out on time, I had hoped for a better response.

That being said, I still hope that you enjoy this chapter and apologies again to those of you who did take the time.

Harry's POV

I groaned. The light, it was unbearable; my eyes had become accustomed and adapted to blackness, perhaps only functional in the pure darkness that had been my life for the last weeks... months... years? I didn't even know. It had been such a long time since I had experienced any brightness that I'd almost forgotten that such a thing even existed, and my eyes couldn't stand the blinding blare. Covering my face with my hands, I groaned at the intruders to cut the source of the light. What was this? Another of Malfoy's cruel torture methods?

"Mon Dieu." I heard a female voice, a familiar one, from barely a yard away. "'Arry?"

My head began to spin. This had to be a hallucination, a dream, or perhaps Malfoy's cruel way of getting my hopes up. When had been the last time that I'd heard the voice of a female? When had been the last time that I'd seen the glare of light? When was the last time that somebody had stepped into my cell without the intention of brutally harming me?

The light went off, thankfully, but I kept my hands over my eyes. Still, I hadn't managed to convince myself that this was actually happening. Nobody knew that I was there, I was dead to the world. Could it really be possible that somebody had come to save me?

The soft skin of the intruder's long digits connected blissfully with my left arm, lightly gripping my limb as if examining it. Whoever was touching me, their fingers were a far cry from the calloused sticks of bark that Voldemort and Malfoy had beaten me with. It was like being touched by silk.

"'E is so thin!" The same familiar voice said with a tone of actual concern that I wasn't used to hearing. "Zhe poor boy!"

Triumphantly, my brain whirred into action and processed the fact that the accent was French but still, I couldn't work out who it belonged to. My memory was frustratingly bare; no matter how much I tried to squeeze out any success, I simply could not recall anyone with that accent.

Another voice rang out from the darkness, female again, this one far less emotional and readable. It was cold and flat but not unfriendly. Again, I couldn't work out who she was, though. Internally, I cursed Malfoy for his daily destructive rampages through my mind; surely that was the reason that I couldn't recognise these voices.

"We need to get out of here, Delacour." The second female said from a short distance away in the darkness, "if we're not careful, the wards will close before we can escape. I've sent Bill up to check on that auror friend of yours, so he'll make his own way back."

Delacour? Delacour? The name... it was familiar. I had definitely heard it before, surely the name of someone who I had known before this incident. Somehow, though, any memories of her seemed just out of reach and still, I could not recall anything about her. It was the most infuriating thing.

"Yes." Came the silken French voice of 'Delcour'. "'Elp me pull 'im up. If you two grab onto my arms then I shall take you to zhe Burrow. Zhe rest of zhe Order should be zhere."

The unidentified girl replied, "I'm not coming with you, Delacour. Somehow, I don't feel that your friends at the Order will be very accepting of someone like me."

Nevertheless, light footsteps approached and I felt another hand take me by my other arm. This woman's fingers were almost as soft as the other girl's, with long, dancing fingers. Now at least partially convinced that this could actually be reality, I was forced onto my shaking legs by my two rescuers. Immediately, my knees buckled below me like old trees in a storm and I tumbled unceremoniously back down, caught half way by the surprisingly strong arms of my two female liberators. It had been such a long time, months, since my legs had taken the full weight of my body and their muscles had wasted away like rotting fruit; I wasn't even sure that they worked any more.

Part of me wanted to scream out and tell these two heroic women to get out of there whilst they still could; from what I'd heard through the unbearable buzzing in my ears, it sounded as if there was somewhat of a time limit on this. I couldn't bring myself to do it, though. Any opportunity to escape from this hell hole had to be snatched, however uncharacteristically selfish I would have to be.

"Of course you will be accepted!" 'Delacour' panted to her accomplice as they slowly restored my balance, resting my weight on their two frames. "You 'ave saved 'Arry Potter! Do you know what 'e means to zhem?"

A sudden feeling of joy flowed through my body like running water down a shallow stream. This girl, one of my saviours, seemed to be implying that I had friends back where she was taking me, people who cared about me! It just infuriated me that I couldn't remember them, that no single image of any of these people who I apparently meant so much to could be conjured up in my broken mind. Finally, I opened my eyes in the hope of catching a glimpse of my two helpers but in the fog thick darkness, but I could only see two shining heads of hair, one a golden blonde and one a Moon silver.

As no reply came, 'Delacour' continued, "Daphne, I beg you to think again!"

A sigh followed from the second woman, who 'Delacour' had called Daphne, before some more dialogue.

"Fleur." Daphne said to the other woman, seemingly named 'Fleur Delacour', in the friendliest tone that I'd heard from her. "You don't see them like I do, the Weasleys. You'll see what I mean at some point, I'm sure. They are the most closed-minded family that I have ever come across and I can guarantee that they would never, ever accept me. To them, all Slytherins are the enemy and they cannot believe otherwise. I doubt that they've even accepted you and you're part of their family now, although judging by your refusal to call yourself 'Fleur Weasley', I assume that it's not a happy coupling."

It appeared that I was forgotten between them as Daphne went off on her torrent of complaints about this family, the Weasleys (that name definitely rang a bell) and her logical conclusion on Fleur Delacour's marriage, which was apparently an unhappy one. Daphne seemed like a very intelligent woman.

"My marriage with Beel is just fine, zhank you very much!" Fleur told her fellow woman rather indignantly, although there was little weight behind her words; I guessed that Daphne had been totally correct about Fleur's situation.

Daphne replied with a snort, "Whatever. You think Harry will be stable enough to apparate?"

"Mon Dieu!" Fleur replied with a soft cry, "How 'ad I forgotten zhat I was supposed to be getting 'im out of 'ere? I don't see any ozzer choice zhan apparition. Whatever zhe results, I'm sure zhat zhey will be better zhan leaving 'im here for any longer."

Daphne nodded, laughing with only a hint of humour. "That's certainly one way of looking at it."

After making sure that I was securely balanced on Fleur's frame, she stepped away from us. For the briefest of moments, I caught a glimpse of her features as a tiny crack of light from the corridor outside flew over her face. Taking my chance, I stored away anything that I could remember about her looks from this short opportunity; I was determined to remember something about the taller of my saviours, whether it would be her long, golden waterfall of hair or her piercing eyes of the lightest blue, I didn't much care.

"Stay in touch, yeah?" The tall woman asked the French one, showing the first signs of what was perhaps more of a friendly relationship than I had assumed from the interactions between them that I had seen up to that point.

"Of course." Fleur Delacour nodded beside me, making the silvery hair that adorned her head shake a little.

Then, there was an indescribable feeling of terrible contortions. Everything went black, even darker than the shadowy cell; I was squeezed from all directions as if under a steam roller; I was totally asphyxiated, there was a straight jacket tightening around my chest; my eyeballs were being forced back into my skull; my ear-drums were being pushed deeper into my head. The feeling was unbearable, as if my body was rebelling and self destructing; I tried to let go of the French girl beside me, but she determinedly kept hold of me with an iron grip. I let out an animalistic cry and next to me, Fleur's eyes softened ever so slightly.

After a single second that had felt like an agonising hour, we materialised with a resonating crack in a field of long, unkempt grass. Unable to control myself, I swayed and collapsed to the ground, a superhuman effort required to simply not be sick. I'd escaped, left that horrible cell at long last. At that moment, there was nothing that I dreaded more than returning.

Fleur, who had easily kept a graceful balance to make an elegant landing, knelt down beside me and concernedly stared into my eyes.

"Are you okay, 'Arry?" She asked me worriedly, scanning over me for any signs of damage or splinching. "It is going to be fine, we are gone. I can only imagine what you 'ad to go through in zhere, but I promise that you will never 'ave to return zhere, okay? Do you hear me, 'Arry? You'll never 'ave to go through zhat again."

Breathing heavily, I nodded in reply, words unable to formulate in my desert dry mouth. Her words were reassuring and touching; such care had become alien to me.

With a heavy sigh, she pulled me up and took my less than substantial weight on her frame once again, holding my arm round her shoulder as we hobbled through the field towards a vaguely recognisable house.

There was a small yard at the front of the dwelling, with a garage and a coop that housed the resident chickens. A sign in the ground read "The Burrow" by the main entrance. The house itself looked like a highly unstable structure, leaning like the Tower of Pisa as if one (or five) too many stories had been built. Around me, in the long grass, I could see tiny, grumpy looking creatures hop around, mumbling and grumbling about all of the commotion that evening.
"Get ready, 'Arry." Fleur told me as we approached the drive, looking like two injured soldiers as we leaned on each other in our slow shuffle. "You are about to get a lot of attention."
Through the window, I could see exactly the kind of bustling commotion that I sought to avoid. A porky ginger-haired woman running around barking orders at people, people collapsed in heaps on the furniture, no space to breathe or think.

"Fle." I croaked, forcing my best imitation of her voice from the back of my desert dry throat. "No. Please."
It was all that I could manage; hopefully it would be enough.
She looked at me concernedly. "What? Do you not want to go in zhere, 'Arry? Why not?"
I shook my head, but that was all that I could manage. Just that simple action was an Atlas-like effort, like lifting a the entire weight of the sky; I desperately needed to collapse and rest.
Fleur looked at me, and then the Burrow. Then back at me, and at the Burrow again. An expression of decisiveness blossomed on the soft skin of her face, perhaps an understanding of why I did not want to visit that house.
"D'accord." She said to herself more than to me. "We will go back to my 'ouse."

She gripped my arm tightly once more and I closed my eyes, ready for the suffocation of her magical transportation. Once more, my body squeezed together into the tightest of compact masses and we were on our way.

Hermione's POV

The evening had been, for the most part, a success. The plan had worked; the Death Eaters had indeed been taken by surprise, the pathetically few of them out on guard duty that night a testament to how safe they felt behind the 'unbreakable' wards that their lord had set up. As a result of their lackadaisical and self assured defence efforts, or lack of defence efforts, more than one or two of them were lying unconscious at Grimmauld Place, carefully watched over by Kingsley and his aurors. Others had escaped, fled through the chaos, whilst a couple had even died, mostly due to the wild killing curses from the wands of their own colleagues. Their arrogance, as I had always predicted, had been their downfall. The most satisfying result of our attack was undoubtedly a certain blonde-haired, pale snot who had always sought to make the lives of myself and my friends hell.

Not everything, however, had gone perfectly. The biggest failure? Fate had spat on us again, and it seemed that Voldemort had chosen that particular night to go on a reconnaissance mission and therefore the greatest aim of the night had, unfortunately, not been fulfilled. Although I hated myself for it, part of me breathed a sigh of relief at his absence; if he had been there, for all I knew we wouldn't have all escaped with only minor injuries and thankfully no fatalities, as far as I was aware.

"Where's Bill?" Molly fretted nervously, her feet tapping as she checked her watch for the millionth time that minute. "He should have been back five minutes ago!"

Although I recognised her concern, Bill's team's lateness was certainly a serious worry, I felt myself slightly resenting the comparative lack of interest that she was displaying towards Fleur and Hestia, both of whom were in just as much danger as her son. It was clear to me that Bill and Fleur's marriage was a shambles, a war time impulse, and for as long as I'd known about it, I'd always naturally blamed the latter. She had always seemed to me a rather self obsessed witch who would always find a way to get on your nerves, whereas Bill had never appeared to me as anything other than, well, lovely. But I was coming to believe more and more that it was neither of their faults; Molly was the one who had never allowed them to bond, always a disapproving watcher. This incident was just more evidence that she valued Fleur little.

With everyone patched up and beginning to make their ways back home after a good night's work, with many pats on the back and high fives exchanged, she was running out of things to keep her mind occupied with. Ginny, who had fought like a little tiger, George, Charlie, Percy and Arthur reassured her with plastic smiles, knowing of Mrs Weasley's tendency to blow matters way out of proportion, but I knew that they all worried just as much as her. Fred's passing had destroyed them, dampened the spirits of the ever-cheerful family; none of them were game to losing another family member to this blasted war. Perhaps it was better that Ron was still unconscious, free from the ache in the heart of a missing sibling.

"I'm sure he's fine, dear." Arthur reassured the rest of his dear family optimistically. "He had the safest job of everyone!"

I chipped in, desperate to wipe the grimaces from the faces of my favourite wizarding family. "He could be back at Shell Cottage? I don't mind going to check."

From the slightly brighter expressions on their faces, I guessed that my objective had been fulfilled; I doubted that Bill had actually gone against the express orders to return straight to the Burrow, but hopefully by the time I returned, he'd be back. Either way, I didn't want to be back at the Weasley dwelling at the time when Kingsley returned; I had it on good authority that he was absolutely livid that Voldemort had avoided us, ruined months of planning.

Arthur looked at me gratefully. "Good idea, Hermione. I'm sure that that's all it is, dear."

Spreading a few more reassuring words about Bill's certain safety, I walked from the Burrow and focused clearly on the rolling waves of the Shell Cottage beach, the salty shells which lined the walls, the pale sand where a free elf had been buried by my former best friend's hand.

The familiar gut wrenching sensation, almost second nature to me by now, and there I was: back at the small cottage that I'd only just become accustomed to calling my home. I let myself in and stumbled upstairs, checking for any signs of life in the solitary building. Searching briefly through most of the rooms, I saw that the house appeared empty. I grabbed a few supplies from my bedroom and stuck them into my tiny handbag, or my portable library as Ron called it, knowing that I could potentially have to stay overnight at the Burrow, depending on my boyfriend's mobility and his mother's over protectiveness.

Leaving my room, I heard a noise from the master bedroom. Strangely, my first reaction was to whip my wand out and prepare for an attacker; paranoia was one of the unfortunate side effects of a life of fighting. I tip-toed to the door, pressing my ear against the wood as I had done on the night when I'd overheard the argument between Bill and Fleur.

"You are going to be fine, okay?" I heard the soft French voice whisper, followed by the noise of an urgent movement. "I promise zhat I will sort you out."

Relieved, I put my wand away. It was Fleur, and it sounded as if Bill was indeed here, although apparently injured if she was having to reassure him that he was going to be okay. Not feeling comfortable embroiling myself in their affairs, I retreated backwards with the intention of making my way back to the Burrow. My left foot dropped onto a slightly lifted floorboard. There came a long, drawn out squeak, followed by silence. Fleur stopped whispering; she had heard. Suddenly, I was back in the heat of battle with a tough decision to make. Continue my retreat with the hope of escaping before she saw that it had been me eavesdropping, but risk only making the situation worse for myself, or stand my ground and pretend that I hadn't been doing anything abnormal.

"'oo goes zhere?" She called from the master bedroom, probably taking her wand out. "Beel?"

My brain drawing a rare blank, I made no reply and she walked cautiously to the door. Her footsteps were slow and gingerly. Slowly, the door pushed open and she pressed herself against the wall to the left of the doorway as she prepared for someone who wanted to kill her. I couldn't blame her for her suspicions; the whole situation must have appeared very unusual.

She peeked through the doorway, sighing in relief as she saw me. "'Ermione. You scared zhe life out of me."

"Sorry," I blushed, embarrassed at my awkwardness. "I didn't want to intrude on you and Bill."

There was a silence as she seemed to consider how to reply. "Eet is not Beel in zhere, 'Ermione." She told me seriously, her eyes begging for me to understand that she had something important to say. "I am not sure zhat you will want to see..."

Whether I wanted to or not, there was no escape by that point. My imagination was already filling in the blanks, imagining any and every possible situation that could have caused her slightly odd reaction. If she wasn't looking after Bill, who was in there? There was simply no way that I could walk away at that point; I simply had to know, my brain had to be satisfied.

She evidently saw my determination because nervously, she beckoned for me to follow her. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of drama overtook me. Who was behind that door? What had caused her mysteriousness?

The door held open for me, I tentatively peeked through. My eyes were drawn to the bed. A gasp drew from my throat and I was running, sprinting away from the truth. It was cowardly, I knew, but I could not bear to take another look. The plain wallpaper of the corridors a blur in my peripheral vision, I fled from what I had just seen, ignoring everything around me but the floor ahead of me. Fleur's shouts didn't register in my ears; I needed to think. I had always been able to rely on my mind; it betraying me was unthinkable. But surely, it just couldn't be, that I had just seen my dead best friend, the one who had willingly perished at Voldemort's hand to give us a fighting chance in this bitter war. Harry Potter was dead. So why was he lying, thinner than a dying tree in Winter, in Fleur's bed?

Sorry that it has taken me such a long time to write this, especially because it's not even particularly good. Ideas, motivation and time were all a problem for this chapter; I wrote it out about five times before this version and none of them satisfied me. It doesn't help that I am now busy on one of my only free days now, because I'm doing a few hours of voluntary work for a charity called Headways on Wednesdays. That's why I had to post this rather unsatisfactory chapter today; I knew that I wouldn't be able to work on it tomorrow.

I won't ask for reviews this chapter, don't want to make a habit of it. All I can do is send a massive, mega, super thanks to those of you who have done and got me over the 100 review milestone. Yay! Next stop is, hopefully, 200 (eventually).

See you next time.

Charlie.