Disclaimer: I take credit for this plot and my own characters, but everything else belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Note: Forgive me for making this chapter shorter than the last one. I promise, all these little random chapters will
make sense by the end of the story. Stay awake, people! I promise, promise, PROMISE you're going to love chapter
fifteen! It has a *drum roll, please* surprise in store for you wonderful fans of this first story of mine. Thanks for
sticking with me!
Chapter Fourteen
Prisoners of War
Draco heard the heavy door being unlocked from the outside, but he didn't look up. Let them come and do to him what they wished, but they would get no more information out of him. He was too close to death as it was to feel the pain of their torture. He figured they knew that, for why else would they throw him in this dank dungeon cell if not to say, "We're through with you, you may die now,"?
He sensed the light from the hall flood his dark room as the door swung open. He closed his eyes tighter against it, willing the light to go away so he could back to his final thoughts of his beloved family in the peace of the darkness. He heard rough voices, someone straining, and then a soft thud on the cold stone floor. Someone started sobbing as the door closed. Intrigued, Draco looked up at his new inmate. What he found took his breath away.
Hermione was sprawled across the floor, face buried in her stretched-out arms as she cried her heart out into them. Draco felt a sudden wave of hatred for his captors for extracting the information about her from him and then treating her so harshly.
"Hermione?" He whispered. As soon as she heard his voice, Hermione's head snapped up, peering through the darkness to locate him.
"Wh-wh-who's there?" She stammered weakly. Draco's heart broke at how defeated she sounded. He inched himself closer to her.
"It's me, Hermione; it's Draco." He took her face in his hands and directed her eyes to his. He watched the recognition fill her cinnamon eyes, and then she was throwing her arms around him, clutching her to him for all she was worth, sobbing into his chest. Draco smoothed her hair, willing her to calm down so they could speak.
"What ha-ha-happened?" She stuttered through her tears. Reluctantly, Draco explained everything to her, starting from the conversation he had eavesdropped on to how Damien had probed the whereabouts of Hermione from Draco's mind. By the end of it, Hermione had pulled away and was watching him intently, her tears momentarily subdued.
"I'm so sorry, Hermione," He whispered, hoping she believed the sincerity in his voice. He watched as she sat in stunned silence. He knew it was probably too much for her to absorb all at once, but he also knew there had been no other choice but to tell her. After a while, she spoke to him.
"It's not your fault Damien got in. You did the best you could," She glanced up at him through the darkness, her almond-shaped eyes genuinely relieved. "You protected Harry and the bases. Thank you, Draco."
"But they got you," He insisted, refusing to let himself off the hook that easily. "And not only did they get you, they had to have known the location of the castle to capture you, which means I only jeopardized ARMED and the Few more!"
Hermione waved it off. "They already knew the location of Hogwarts. I'm not sure how, but it's certain by now that they did. And you jeopardized no one. Harry will stay at Hogwarts and prepare for the advance on that castle that will surely come now that they know where to find us. Ron and Luna are, to the best of my knowledge, still coming for you, and they were probably told by now that I'd be here too. Everything is going to be okay."
"How is it going to be okay?" Draco choked. "They will kill us here if we remain silent! It'll take at least another five days for Ron and Luna to get here, and how are we certain Luna isn't a spy and leading yet another one of us into a trap? Her information and her whereabouts of this base, and now us getting captured...it's all too coincidental, Hermione, and you know it. What do you expect us to do until they get here?"
Hermione thought in silence for a moment. Draco wondered if she had cracked that easily so early into her capture. Finally, she looked up at him again and said, "You leave our survival to me. I have friends in low places as well as well as high ones. We'll take them down from the inside as best as we can. They will get no information out of us. Trust me."
~*~*~*~*~
'They will both return.'
Harry read the short note over and over again. An owl had brought it in the middle of the night while he had been contemplating his options. It was unsigned, but Harry recognized the handwriting to be that of the Spell Caster's.
Agitated, he crumpled it up in his hand. With his wife now involved, the last thing he wanted to do was sit back at Hogwarts and leave this in the hands of Ron, Luna, and some magician who's identity he didn't even bloody know. And yet...
Harry didn't know how the enemy had discovered the whereabouts of the castle, but the undeniable fact was, they had, and there was nothing about it he could do. He was a husband, but at the same time, he was the leader and protector of more than one thousand people in Hogwarts alone. He was missing his best fighter and his best spy to this mission; he knew full well he couldn't afford to sacrifice himself, no matter how much he wanted to go after Hermione. She would want him to stay at Hogwarts, anyway. He could hear her angelic voice echoing in his ears as he imagined what she would say.
"They're going to come to Hogwarts now, Harry," Hermione's ghostly voice whispered. "The Few and ARMED are going to need you more than I do. Trust Ron."
Trust Ron. Trust Ron with Hermione's life? Harry closed his eyes and kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. He had no other choice. He had to do what was right, even if that meant leaving Hermione's safety in the hands his of best friend. This time, Harry Potter had to step down and let someone else be the hero.
~*~*~*~*~
Ellanee's long, delicate fingers plucked at strands of air. The others watched as she spun her chosen winds into intricate circles, whispering the words of power as she went along. After a moment, she braced her palms together, closed her eyes, and slowly spread them apart. The other two could see the picture suspended in the air between Ellanee's hands; a beautiful young woman was leaning against a tree that was rooted high upon a forested mountain. The sky was debating whether it wanted to be a rosy pink or a dusty lavender for that night's sunset. It was clear the woman was waiting for something, and unfortunately, the three women knew what it was she was anticipating.
"After all we've seen her put through," Trilithiana sighed, shaking her head. "And with the rest still to come...isn't there something we can do to make sure she gets through this?"
Ellanee twisted her hands, and the image disappeared. Sighing, she looked at her twin sister, thinking the very same question. Of course she was thinking the same question; that was why Trilithiana had asked it in the first place, to give voice to her muted sister's thoughts. Ellanee returned the favor by looking to the third woman, sharing the favor of sight with Trilithiana like she had shared her voice with Ellanee. They both watched through Ellanee's eyes as the eldest of them sighed.
"Ellanee...Trilithiana...there is nothing more we can do for them until their day of judgment, and we knew that from the beginning. You have no idea how it hurts me to sit back and watch her face trials like this, but they need to happen in order for the prophecies to be fulfilled."
"Everything was coming along so smoothly. Is there absolutely no way we can interfere to make sure she stays on the path?" Asked the blind Trilithina, this time as the result of her own thoughts instead of her muted sister. Ellanee nodded her encouragement, but their older sister was shaking her head.
"I fear there is nothing at all we can do, dear sister. I know you have the best of intentions, but not even we know the Future. Anything we do could damage the plan Fate decided upon. They are on their own now, and they need to learn to rely on each other to carry this through to the end."
"And yet, if we do nothing, we could be jeopardizing the last chance this world has," Ellanee thought. Trilithina voiced the opinion, and the third woman shook her elegant head.
"It's a chance we're going to have to take. It's time we stop meddling and put our trust in the Chosen Ones. Only they can save themselves now."