"Please Mum?" Hermione Granger begged, "I'll be back before you even noticed I'd gone, and you and Dad are going to be in this meeting for at least an hour. I really need this book, and I've saved up for it myself, I'll be in and out in less than an hour".
"Sweetheart," her father piped up softly, "Hermione's a bright girl, I'm sure she can handle being alone in the Alley for just one hour," he assured his wife.
Her mother scowled between the two of them for a moment before letting out a slow sigh, "I take it I don't get a choice in the matter?" she asked rhetorically. "Fine. You can go," she allowed, "But. I want you back at the office before the meeting is over, and I want you to be extra careful now that this 'Dark Lord' fellow is back. Alright?" she demanded quickly.
Hermione barely managed to resist the urge to salute her mother, a gesture she'd picked up from Harry who'd salute her after she gave her instructions regarding their homework, instead just launching herself forward at her Mum for a quick hug. "I'll be back before you know it," she promised, trying to get her overprotective mother to relax, "And I've got my wand, so I can protect myself on the off chance that something does happen".
When her mother pulled an unhappy face at the mention of her having to protect herself, Hermione patted her pockets to make sure she had both her purse and her wand on her, before giving her father a quick hug as well. Minutes later she was heading down the street to the Leaky Cauldron as her parents entered their lawyer's office, her mind racing with ideas of exactly what books she wanted to buy, having enough money to buy the book she needed as well as two others.
The Leaky Cauldron was quiet when she entered it, filled with nervous looking witches and wizards, more than one of them grasping their wands as she walked inside. Seeing her dressed in muggle clothing made them relax however, proving to her that they were on the watch for Death Eaters now that the Ministry had pulled its head out of its arse regarding Voldemort's return. It had taken them long enough too, they didn't want the proof that Harry had happily offered them… no… they were happy to alienate and insult him until they were faced with irrevocable proof, making them suddenly turn full circle to worshipping Harry as their 'saviour' as if they'd never turned on him in the first place.
Ignoring the whispers from the rare witch or wizard that recognised her from the Daily Prophet as Harry's friend, Hermione swept through the Leaky Cauldron and into the Alley, heading straight towards Gringotts to exchange her muggle money for wizarding galleons. Sidestepping a witch struggling with a baby, Hermione's world slowed as a bright light appeared in the corner of her vision, her head turning to follow it in time for everything to speed up, an explosion lifting her off her feet and throwing her across the Alley to bodily slam into a stall.
Coughing and gasping her breath as her ears rang, Hermione pushed herself onto her hands and knees, dizzily looking around at the black-robed Death Eaters that had appeared from nowhere to attack the Alley.
Pushing aside the fear that rose instantly in her chest, Hermione drew her wand and took aim, closing her eyes and shaking her head as she found her trembling hand unable to target the Death Eater holding the mother from before under the Cruciatus. What was wrong with her? She was Hermione Granger; friend of Harry Potter, co-founder of the DA, one of the Ministry Six. She could do this, she had trained for this all last year. She had done this last year as well, fighting off the Death Eaters in the Department of Ministries.
She would not fear them.
As her hand stabilized, Hermione took careful aim before yelling "Stupefy!" and sending the torture-happy Death Eater flying into the burning shop that had exploded before.
Scrambling to her feet, Hermione snatched up the crying and bleeding infant near her feet and shot across to help the mother up, shoving her baby into her arm with a quick order to "Run".
A familiar green spell hitting the stall beside her, she spun around with a disarming charm flying from her wand, barely missing the approaching Death Eater as he took aim at her once more. Easily sidestepping the Death Eater's cutting curse (Harry always claimed the most important part about duelling was dodging), Hermione sent a quick stream of charms and jinxes back, even throwing in a couple of minor cantrips just to throw the dark wizard off guard.
"Bombarda!" Hermione spat, slashing her wand across her chest and aiming the spell at the ground at the Death Eater's feet, the explosion blasting him backwards and into another black-robed terrorist.
"Avada Kedavra!"
As the killing curse flew towards her, Hermione's mind came to a grinding halt as she realised that that was it for her, that she didn't have the time nor knowledge to counteract the deathly spell. Closing her eyes as the spell neared it, a loud rumbling crack made her eyes snap open, just in time to see the stone wall that'd erupted from the ground in front of her crumbling into dust. "Reducto!" she cried, quickly cursing the Death Eater responsible for almost killing her while he stared at the remains of the wall in confusion.
When the Death Eater deflected the spell, Hermione opened her mouth to curse him again, only for him to stumble back and start sending spells far above her head. Before she had time to turn around, a blur was landing in front of her, a man standing before her dressed in a long black shimmering cloak that barely brushed the ground.
Lunging forward, the man threw a bolt of electric-blue energy at the Death Eater, the spell shattering the dark wizard's hasty shield and then doing the same thing to his chest. Not hesitating as he vaulted over the dead wizard's body, the man twisted and sent a rippling blast from his palm that blasted a piece of burning rubble into the Death Eater that had tried to kill her earlier.
When he landed gracefully, Hermione finally got a good look at the man that had saved her, blinking in shock as she realised he was wearing black leather body armour in addition to the shimmering cloak that covered his face. What caught her attention next, was that when the man raised his hand and snapped his fingers to conjure a ball of fire above his palm, she finally noticed that all the magic he'd done so far had been wandless.
Raising the fireball to his face and blowing hard at it, Hermione watched as the man released a cone of fire at a Death Eater, engulfing him before he could summon a shield as the other dark wizards began to realise that someone was actually fighting back against them.
Dancing gracefully out of the way of the Death Eater's attacks, the man shimmered slightly before two clones of himself stepped out of his body, all three of them twisting about to make a grabbing motion at the nearest Death Eater before suddenly tearing their hands apart. As Hermione almost threw up at the sight of the dark wizard being torn in half by the magic the cloaked man was generating, she watched as he casually flipped out of the way of several killing curses, her mouth going dry as one of them continued on its path and shot towards her.
Suddenly the cloaked man was appearing in front of her in a flash of light, throwing something at her as he backhanded the killing curse from the air and deflected it to the ground.
Catching what was thrown at her, Hermione blinked down at the rock in confusion before a sudden tugging at her navel lifted her off the ground and into the nausea-inducing vortex that accompanied portkeys.
Hitting the ground roughly, her wand was the first thing to rise as she pointed it around wildly, her mouth falling open slightly as she took in the brightly lit hall she was in. Looking around the hall that was perhaps only slightly smaller than the Hogwarts entrance hall, she frowned slightly as she saw the tables set up in a semicircle in front of her, parchment and books covering almost every surface with weapons scattered about the room.
With a glance around to check for the cloaked fighter that had both rescued and kidnapped her, Hermione edged forward, her wand still at the ready as she neared the table and faltered at the sight of what she could see written on the parchment. Some of the pieces of parchment held what looked like directions to casting spells, spells she was assuming came from the spellbooks surrounding them. Another table covered in pieces of parchment contained blueprints, some plain while others had glistening ink splattered across their surface with directions and arrows pointing everywhere. Moving over to a third table, Hermione's mouth fell open again at the sight of the muggle comic books strewn across the surface of the table.
"A superhero," she blurted dumbly, her mind coming to the only conclusion it could as she ran her fingers across the cover of a Batman comic. "A vigilante," she corrected a couple of seconds later, some youthful part of her mind feeling slightly excited by the whole idea while the rational part of her scoffed at the childishness of it all. It definitely made sense, even she could see that witches and wizards weren't going to fight for themselves, the moment Voldemort had been confirmed as back they'd all turned to Harry and started demanding that he kill Voldemort like he had 'the first time'. Wizarding Britain definitely needed a superhero/vigilante running around, not that she approved of the way he'd killed the Death Eaters without hesitation, but if a hero wasn't fighting for them then no-one would.
As her eyes rose up to the blue curtain that hid part of the hall from her eyes, her attention being caught by the light she could see flickering behind it, Hermione circled around the table and started towards it. She needed to figure out as much as she could about this place and the person beneath the cowl, before they returned to reveal whatever the reason they had for kidnapping her. What she was going to do when they came back she wasn't sure, she didn't think there was anything she could do to him. After all he'd swatted the killing curse aside like a fly and had conjured and thrown fire with his bare hands.
Reaching the curtain, Hermione whirled around as something clattered behind her, her wand arm trembling slightly as she pointed it at the tortoiseshell cat that had jumped up onto one of the tables behind her. As the cat fixed her with a clear 'What do you think you're doing?' look, Hermione's grip tightened around her wand until the cat turned her back on her and started grooming herself as if she'd already forgotten about Hermione's presence.
Swallowing nervously, Hermione glanced between the curtain behind her and the cat, slowly turning around and reaching out to tug the curtains open and revealing the semicircle at the apex of the hall. Feeling her jaw dropping for the third time that day, she stared up at the giant stone statue that stood at over three times her height, the sheer detail of it making part of Hermione suspicious that it was actually a living being instead of just statue.
Set at the very tip of the semicircle, the statue was made out of a white stone, depicting a tall and slender man. Clean-shaved and short-haired, the man was dressed in what looked like intricate leather armour, a long snake twisting down around one arm while a ball of real crackling white fire hovered above his other hand. At the statue's feet was something that made Hermione's stomach clench painfully, a bloodstained altar with several lit candles still burning on it and a long bloody knife.
Moving to climb onto the small platform the statue was on, the sound of a throat clearing directly behind her made Hermione jerk back, a scream escaping her mouth as she collided with a body that hadn't been there seconds before. Spinning around with a curse on her lips, her words failed her as Harry easily caught her flailing wrist and directed a scowl in her direction, before pivoting and physically throwing her away from the curtained off shrine (For that's all it could be).
"You know," Harry growled out, Hermione scrambling backwards across the floor to get away from the glaring boy, "I don't recall you being this nosy".
"Ha-h-Harry?" Hermione stuttered, the dark look on her best friend's face keeping her from being able to gather her thoughts.
Scoffing Harry stalked past her, shutting the curtains with a dismissive wave of his hand as he circled around the tables, unhooking the shimmering cloak around his shoulders with a simple gesture. "What's the first rule of duelling?," Harry demanded bluntly as Hermione pulled herself to her feet, watching as he threw what she now recognised as his invisibility cloak around a mannequins shoulders and redid it.
"I-um It's uh-um," Hermione began, trying and failing to link the brutal vigilante that had torn a Death Eater apart with a wave of his hands and her gentle sweet Harry Potter.
"I um it's uh," Harry mimicked sarcastically, "Line?" he exclaimed as he turned to face her. "I'm sorry, did you not get the script?" he deadpanned rudely, "Because this is where you're supposed to say 'The first rule of duelling is to not get hit'. Which by the way, you failed at, by standing right in front of the killing curse. And not just once, but twice!" he yelled angrily.
"HARRY!" Hermione shouted, snapping back to herself as she bit back tears at her friend's biting words.
"HERMIONE!" Harry shouted back without hesitation.
"You- You-" she began.
"I what?" Harry interrupted, "I saved your life? Don't worry about it, what's a little life-saving among friends?"
"How?" Hermione blurted, unable to gather the words she needed to ask the full question.
"How did I save your life?" Harry asked innocently, "Or how did I do all this?" he clarified as he gestured first around the room and then down at his leather armour.
"How did you do all that?" she demanded, gesturing at the imposing figure Harry made dressed in pure black armour.
"Long story," Harry dismissed lazily, "But the short version is that the wizarding world needed someone to do all the dirty work for them, and I needed to get revenge for Sirius' death. I help him, he helps me. It's simple really".
"You help who?" Hermione questioned, trying to wrap her mind around it all.
"Him," Harry clarified with a gesture behind her, making Hermione turn to see the blue curtain slowly sliding open to reveal the statue behind it. "The one who tasked me with cleansing the magical world of filth such as Voldemort," Harry explained simply, "The Patron Deity of the Potter family since the founding of my House".
"Loki; Trickster God of Mischief and Magic".
VIGILANTE
Based on DZ2's Vigilante Harry Challenge.
Now... there are probably some major spelling/grammar errors in this. But it's almost 3am and I'm really tired, and now that I've got this idea done and posted I might finally be able to get some sleep.
Hope you enjoy it!
I don't own Harry Potter.