Carpet Disclaimer for all chapters, past, present, and future:
The Harry Potter franchise is the property of the estate of Dame J.K. Rowling, Knight of the British Empire and her publishers and affiliates. The Elder Scrolls franchise is the property of Bethesda Softworks and its affiliates. This story, and, by extension, myself, are not in any official way affiliated with either franchise or its respective owners, nor is this work of fiction for monetary profit of any kind.
Now that that bit of legalese is taken care of, have a fresh-out-the-oven chapter!
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Chapter 1:
Warm Sun, Glittering Dark
All things considered, it had been a better year than I expected.
Sure, there had been the whole business with Sirius Black escaping from prison, and the Dementors stationed around the school… and that stupid falling-out over a broomstick; but, for all that, I couldn't say I was disappointed with how this year had gone, especially now that it was over.
After passing out from Dementor exposure on the Hogwarts Express, Harry had been rather quiet for a few days; he developed a thoughtful expression I'd never seen before, furrowed brows and a slight frown on his face; a bit more worrying were the occasional flashes of sadness I almost thought I'd imagined, they were so brief. Then, on the first weekend, he took Ron and I to an empty classroom, and told us why he'd passed out, what those monsters had made him relive.
Horrified doesn't begin to cover what I felt for my best(and first) friend. It was heartbreaking to hear him speak of such things, with a stony expression and flat voice; but that was almost nothing compared to what he told us next: he stated his desire to become strong, strong enough to prevent Voldemort (shudder) from harming anyone else, strong enough to fight off the Dementors.
I didn't even hesitate to offer to help him, despite the sheer amount of classwork I was in for this year. Ron, too, gave his support; would follow Harry no matter what path he took.
In the weeks and months that followed, we (okay, mostly Harry and myself, Ron lagging behind a bit) threw ourselves into studying everything the Hogwarts library had on defense; from stunners to shields, summoning and banishing, and every jinx and charm in between. We also began exercising; a Muggle basic training book from my dad, a former Army sergeant, had us up at the crack of dawn, running along the edge of the Black Lake, with push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, and pull-ups taking place in our dorms beforehand, much to our roommates' annoyance.
On the Sunday after our first week of self-imposed training, resting our burning bodies in the Common Room, Ron voiced his misgivings on the physical side of our efforts, "The spells I get," he groaned from the carpet in front of me, "but why are we running ourselves into the ground like this? It won't help us in classes…"
"Even if we get all our spells right," Harry muttered from the chair he was slumped in, "it won't mean anything if we can't outlast our opponent. Black is older, has more experience than we do. But he's also been in Azkaban for 12 years."
"That's right, Ron," I moaned, because God, my everything burned, "If we run into him, and, seeing as he's after Harry, that's likely," Ron groaned piteously into the carpet while Harry looked like he was trying to glare the ceiling into submission, "he'll be weak from all that Dementor exposure, living in that nightmare prison. If we get into shape, we'll be able to give him a run for his Galleons, if not get away to warn a teacher."
"Doesn't stop this from being torture, 'Mione," Ron grumbled, rolling onto his back to look at me, smiling, "But, hey, if nothing else, it's good training for when I try out for Quidditch next year."
I rolled my eyes painfully, as Harry chuckled.
And it was worth it. By Christmas, I was in the best shape of my life; not overly muscular, just lean, my thighs beginning to flare a bit, my shoulders and chest a little broader; Harry likened my figure to that of a deer, much to my embarrassment, and Ron's amusement. The other boys in our year were starting to take notice, and even Lavender gave me a bit of praise, backhanded as it was with a 'now, if only your teeth weren't so large.' That earned her a stinging hex in the bum.
Of course, after Christmas hols, things got a bit awkward between the three of us, what with the argument over Harry's Firebolt. We still ran together, still ate together, studied together, and, as we'd moved into the physical combat portion of our Muggle training, sparred together; but we didn't talk to each other more than was necessary for the whole month of January and into February: Ron and I didn't talk because I'd gone to McGonagall, Harry and Ron didn't talk because Harry thought my concerns were valid, and Harry didn't talk to me because, despite agreeing with me, getting the broom taken away interfered with his Quidditch training.
When Harry got the broom back, Ron almost bit my head off for worrying over nothing; a hard glance from Harry had him apologizing instead. I apologized back, then Harry apologized to both of us, and we were all back to the way we had been before that whole row. At least, for the first few days.
Two days later, a week before Valentine's Day, Harry asked if I'd like to spend said day with him.
"What? You mean, like, in the castle?" and if my heart didn't stop beating like that, it was getting something greasy for dinner.
"Er," oh my, was he blushing? "I sorta meant…I could meet you in Hogsmede…in disguise, of course. A color-changing charm on my hair and transfigured glasses should do it."
Did I dare…"Like…a date?"
"Um…yes? If you'd like?" he replied with a hopeful look.
Like to? LIKE TO?! "…I'd love to."
I'll leave out the details (a respectable young woman doesn't kiss and tell) but that day was one of the most fantastic I can remember ever having; and, on top of it all, I had a boyfriend! A dishy, gentlemanly boyfriend, if I do say so myself.
We both thought Ron would be jealous, when we told him after a sparring session the next day, of our new relationship status, but he just stared at us both for a moment with a calculating expression, then deadpanned, "Fred and George owe me 15 galleons."
Harry blanched, "W-What?!"
I, on the other hand, was a bit quicker on the uptake, "You bet on us getting together?!" Also, more than a little furious.
"There's actually a betting pool," Ron said nonchalantly, seemingly unconcerned that he was cruising for a cursing, "My brothers run it; mostly it's over who Harry starts dating and when. I put down a galleon for you, before the end of this-ACK!"
Afterwards, once we'd been to Madam Pomphrey to treat our cuts and bruises (mainly because Ron started cursing back when Harry hit him with a leg-locker) and apologies exchanged, we spent the rest of the term in a passive-aggressive prank war with the twins; at least, when we (read: I) weren't stressing over exams, dominating the Quidditch pitch and inter-house rankings (Harry), or looking over our shoulders in case Black made another attempt on Harry, like on Halloween, and again in April.
Interestingly, despite all the classes I was taking, the mountains of homework we were all doing (my boys actually studied Runes and Arithmancy on the side to help with my workload, the dears), the aforementioned attempts by Black (he's so lucky that I wasn't there), the time-lag from using the Time Turner, and the occasional strained muscle from sparring, I wasn't as stressed or tired out as I thought I'd be. Probably because I'd found an extracurricular activity that took much of the edge off: cuddling (and, okay fine, kissing) Harry under a notice-me-not charm in the Common Room. Ah, bliss.
Of course, all good things must come to an end.
Shortly after exams, we went down to see Hagrid, who recently had to sell off a Hippogriff to avoid getting the sack or, arguably worse, the poor creature executed (damn Malfoy with his pointy face), when Scabbers did a runner…right for the Whomping Willow. Ron was now fast enough, however, that he managed to save the little bugger from a squishy fate.
Then a Grim appeared, dragged Ron away under the Willow, and everything went strange for a while.
I'll spare you the gory details. It turned out, in the end, that Scabbers was not only Peter Pettigrew, but also the one who betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort (squirm), Sirius Black was innocent, there was some kind of bad blood between Professor Snape, and both Professor Lupin and Black, and that Professor Snape was a moron for knowingly putting three teenagers in mortal peril by not bringing a potion that makes werewolves (namely, Remus Lupin) docile. Oh, and Harry had somewhere else to spend the summer aside from his awful relatives; silver lining, sure, but that didn't stop our various reactions.
Ron sat, with a broken leg, staring at the ceiling of the Shrieking Shack with an incredulous expression on his face, like he couldn't believe the all-around stupidity.
Harry all but screamed at every adult involved, dressing them down for acting childish and not thinking things through, thereby putting everyone not a werewolf or animagus in peril, and, in Pettigrew's case, damning the man as a traitor, wholly deserving of a traitor's fate.
I just stunned the blubbering piece of trash, watched my boyfriend (mental happy dance) tear strips off two contrite-looking professors for a while, and chatted with a shocked Black about the Firebolt (how I learned about aforementioned hopeful summer arrangements); honestly, after three years of fearing for my life and those of my friends, running gauntlets to protect a priceless artifact and getting petrified by a bloody Basilisk, what had just happened was fairly tame.
Plus, we were all in great physical shape, had done well on all our exams, and would be going into 4th year as three of the top five students in our year; definitely a step up from last year.
So, yes, this year was easily the best I'd ever had, and, as Harry and I helped Ron down the secret passage back to Hogwarts, both the boys, one of which I was dating (happy dance!), would agree that it was all-around a great year. Take that, Dementors!
Still…all good things come to an end.
If I knew what was about to happen, I'd have brought my book bag, with my notes and pre-made potions and all we'd prepared for in the event of multiple worst-case scenarios.
If I had known where I'd be, what I'd be doing, I would've focused more on combat training than being top student in our year.
If someone had told me what was coming …
…I'd have told Harry goodbye.
"MOVE AND I'LL BLOW HER FUCKING HEAD OFF!" Pettigrew screamed from behind me, Lupin's wand to my temple.
'Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck I can't reach my wand he has my wand arm oh fuck'
"HERMIONE!" Harry had extracted himself from where Ron had fallen on him and now had his wand pointed right at Pettigrew's wand hand, the only part of him he could aim at, "LET HER GO!"
"Shut up, Potter!" 'Did he have to spit? Ew!' I thought as I inched my leg into a position to hook his knee with my ankle, hopefully break it, and reverse his hold before transfiguring him into a tomato or something equally horrible, "I'm not going to Azkaban!"
"What's this going to accomplish, Wormtail?!" Sirius, from next to where Lupin had fallen, snarled. When Pettigrew woke up, being carried by Professor Lupin, he'd grabbed the man's head and drove him headfirst into the wall of the tunnel, snatched up Lupin's wand, stunned Ron, and grabbed me, putting me into a standing arm-bar before anyone could react beyond drawing wands. "You're still on Hogwarts grounds! You can't apparate! Give up!"
"I swear to Merlin," Harry hissed, green eyes filled with anger, voice low, "You hurt her and the Aurors will be taking you away in a fucking bucket."
'Just a few more inches and I'll break your leg, you-'
Pettigrew chuckled, "Who said anything about Apparating, Padfoot?" His wand snapped from my temple to … to the chain around my neck.
'Wha-'
"Portus," Pettigrew said gleefully.
'OH MY GOD IN HEAVEN YOU MORON!' my face contorted in horror.
"NO!" Sirius cried, sending a silent stunner right at us.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry cried desperately.
Too late.
There was a tug. Not in my navel, like the one time before I'd taken a portkey to Diagon Alley before first year with my parents, but in my chest. And we didn't go up, but sideways.
Harry's cry of my name faded quickly as a miasma of … light, rose to meet us. I can't find any other way to describe it, the light: it seemed to be every color of the rainbow and no color at all, like someone had taken the full palette of the universe and mixed it into an endless sea of every shade of grey, swirling in ways that my terrified brain told me fluid should never move, creating patterns and prisms complex enough to make any physicist or arithmancer hit the whiskey. It was also very loud; we (Pettigrew was along for the ride, if the screams from behind me were any indication) were moving very fast through the light, but the sound wasn't like wind; more like a cacophony of twangs, bells, dings, hoots, bings, and beeps, all rising together to create a symphony as discordant as it was orderly, if that makes any sense.
There was a sound, then, like glass shattering on a stone floor.
The light whirled faster, forming nine white stars.
The symphony changed, now like a chorus of screaming.
I shut my eyes, and prayed to live through this.
I hit the ground so hard I was torn from Pettigrew's grip, falling forward onto a rough, dirty ground while, from the sound of his 'Oof!', he'd fallen on his arse.
Something grainy fell from my neck as I propped myself up on my right forearm, slowly going for my wand with my left. I opened my eyes.
There was golden glitter falling on the ground. The blue-violet-lit ground. 'What?'
"W-What's going on?! Where are we?" Pettigrew sounded panicked, so I looked up.
And up. 'Oh, wow…"
We were at the base of a truly massive phosphorescent mushroom, maybe fifty feet tall, that pulsed with a pretty violet light. A quick glance around showed it wasn't the only such fungus; there were other, smaller, blue-white mushrooms scattered about in the … cavern? Underground city? There were regular structures, stone trimmed with golden brass, scattered about in the gloom. In the distance, I could see a large yellow globe, glowing like a false Sun over a partially crumbling citadel; the wall of the cavern was in the distance, sporting what looked to be more of those grey stone and brass structures ('maybe an exit?' I thought); the wall rose far above the cavern floor, to gargantuan heights, the roof being almost a half mile over my head, interspersed with bluish-yellow crystals and glowing…root…things, perhaps more fungus, and pillars of stone taller than the Astronomy tower holding it all up. It was awe-inspiring, and probably would have been beautiful, were it not for the sense of ruin and dread permeating the place: everything smelled musty, like no one had been here in ages, but with an undercurrent of something fouler.
I was, understandably, confused and more than a little frightened. Where in the world did the portkey take us…? Or, given the circumstances...when?
"What did you do?!" Oh, right, Pettigrew. Best take care of that. I flipped onto my back, drawing my wand to stun him-
"Stupe-"
"Crucio!"
I'd read about the Unforgivable Curses, anticipating, someday, having to face one of them. Just another risk of being friends with Harry, I'd thought at the time. Best be prepared.
Nothing could have prepared me for the reality.
"-fffiiiiiIIIIEEEEEEEEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" It was like being flayed alive while being doused with acid … after being set on fire. Luckily, I wasn't held under it long, just long enough to leave me quivering and sobbing with pain. I almost didn't catch his next shouted demand.
"-ask you again, mudblood!"
'FUCK! C'mon, girl, get those tears under control before he does that again,' I thought, trying to control the tremors running through my body, "I-I-It wa-wasn't-t-t m-me! Th-The chain! It w-was for a T-Time-Turner!"
"…WHAT?!" Did he have to scream? Who knows what could be lurking around this place? "Why didn't you say anything, you little slut?! Now we're-ah!"
Odd thing to say, in normal circumstances, which these hardly were, but still-
Oh. There was an arrow in his shoulder. "Wha-what the fuck?!" He looked rather surprised by this; given all his screaming, he shouldn't be.
We both looked at where the arrow had come from.
Just past the gargantuan purple fungus, there was a gloomy, dark structure, with crouched humanoid shapes, about fifteen of them, moving about it. Moving toward us. Alarmingly fast, at that.
'Okay Granger,' I thought, my grip tightening on my wand, 'you can try fighting some unknown force, outnumbered at that, next to the guy who helped make Harry an orphan and just tortured you, or you can head for the wall of the cavern and try to find a way out.'
I glanced toward the wall, about a mile away. Looks clear. I looked at Pettigrew.
"Reducto!" he cried painfully. One of the humanoid shapes shattered. Its friends sent more arrows, one of which missed me by inches. Yeah, hell no.
"Depulso!" I cried, making Pettigrew stumble towards the creatures that were getting rather too close for comfort, before getting on my feet and sliding down the hill we were on, hitting a convenient road and booking it as fast as I could away from the screaming.
It was a few sprinting steps later that an arrow hissed by my right shoulder and clacked off the stones. They were chasing me! Crap! I picked up the pace, weaving in an erratic path to keep them from drawing a bead on me, occasionally turning to loose a spell or two at my pursuers, who, once they crossed beneath a primitive streetlight, I got a good look at.
It was like someone who was afraid of house-elves and prone to paranoid delusions had described them to the most callous Dark wizard they could find, who then made these horrific creatures. They were blind, as far as I could tell, but from the look of their long ears and the bat-like holes where their noses should have been, they obviously made do without sight. The sharp teeth just added to their nightmarish look. They were armored in some kind of chitinous material, wielding swords and cruel-looking axes made from the same material; and was that lightning crackling on one's hand?...
BZZZT!
'OH SHITE! WANDLESS MAGIC?!' Oh yeah, run like hell.
I managed to make it to the hill right before the wall, climbing up the road as fast as I could. Luckily for me, these things didn't move as fast as I did after a year of physical training, so I made the top of the hill before any of them were even close to halfway up.
There was as door set in the wall, one that was eight times my size and probably weighing hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. Bugger. That'll take too long to open. There was a house to my right, though. As I ran toward it, I already had a plan: get to the house, lock myself in, wait till these things lose interest, and find a way home to Harry. Not my best plan, but the details would get meshed out once I had a better idea of where I was.
I was almost at the door, about to raise my hand to open the door, when the arrow tore straight through my right calf, sending me to the rubble-strewn ground with a cry of pain.
'NO!' I thought, turning over to see one of those things bearing down on me with a sword, "Not like this!' "Reducto!" The thing was blasted back, a smoking hole in its chest; I tried to shimmy back to the door, to safety, when the arrow in my leg caught on a stone.
I hissed; another arrow flew wide, skipping on a rock; I looked at my leg: a large pool of blood had formed beneath it, the arrow broken in the wound; I was getting light-headed. 'No…not an artery! Fuck! FUCK!' Tears came to my eyes, realizing that I…I probably wouldn't make it.
I looked up. Another of the creatures, covered head to toe in insect-like armor, raising a club with hairy-looking spikes on it.
I heard metal grind on stone behind me.
I thought, inexplicably, of my first kiss with Harry.
The creature struck.
Pain.
Red.
Black.
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A/N: And that's the first chapter of what promises to be a reasonably long story, 20 to 30 chapters or so. The outline is pretty much done, and just needs fleshing out. Look for updates roughly once every few weeks, or every month or two.
Oh, and did I mention this was AU on both sides of the fence? Whoops.
Thanks for reading!
~Baked
