Author's Notes:
This chapter is one of the ones for which the story receives its NC-17 rating, and it's not for sexual content. Just thought I would warn you. It's also the last completed chapter, so there may be a slow down soon, especially later in the week. I'm going to try very hard to finish the entire story by the release of HBP, but no promises.
And Happy 4th of July!
Chapter Twelve: The Tracking Charm
As the ether dropped Harry and company into the Hogwarts hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey rushed out of her office at the sudden noise. "What's happened?" she demanded as Harry lowered Hermione onto the nearest bed.
Dumbledore calmly began to explain. "Miss Granger was kidnapped by Death Eaters as part of a plot to capture Harry when he came after her. I do not believe she is seriously injured." While he was speaking, the school nurse had waved her wand, motioning Harry back from the bed, while she transfigured Hermione's clothing into something more appropriate for the hospital. He was unable to move far away, though, as the young witch was unwilling to relinquish Harry's hand in her own.
Frowning slightly at that, Pomfrey waved her wand over Hermione slowly, watching as it slowly inspected the young woman. Then she reached down and tapped her wand to Hermione's cheek with a soft incantation, and nodded with satisfaction as the bruise began to fade. "You seem to have been very lucky, Miss Granger, that that bruise was the worst of your injuries. I think a short kip should make you feel all better."
Harry breathed out a sigh of relief, and smiled down at Hermione, squeezing her hand. "You'll be fine." She nodded to him, and then closed her eyes. The Head Nurse glared at Harry, and he could see her thoughts in her eyes and he merely responded with a grin.
With a huff, she strode over to Dumbledore, who was dismissing Kingsley and Tonks, thanking them for their help, and asking Kingsley to tell McGonagall that he had returned before he left. Tonks, of course, managed to trip over the stone floor on her way out. Then he turned to the Nurse. "Yes, Poppy?"
"Headmaster, a Death Eater, or someone, seems to have left some sort of charm on Miss Granger. It's not injuring her in any way, but it is there."
Nodding, Dumbledore gave his orders. "Go get Filius, and we shall see what he makes of it." The Nurse left as instructed, searching for the head of Ravenclaw house, while the Headmaster walked slowly over to Harry. "Did you place a charm on Miss Granger?" he questioned softly.
Harry started in his chair, he had been drifting off as well, then glanced at Hermione, then up at Dumbledore. "No, I didn't." He turned and studied the sleeping young witch intently. "It's a form of the Tracking Charm, but modified to bind it to her soul. It's pretty dark magic, but requires no particular skills. With a scrying basin, they'll be able to track her anywhere. As far as I know, it's unbreakable, but limited in duration. It's blocked by the castle wards, though. I first saw one of these a year from now," he finished as the memory flooded back to him.
Having chosen not to blow his way through the anti-Apparition wards and announce his arrival, warning those inside, Harry instead had appeared just outside them. There were only two Death Eaters here, but he desperately wanted both of them alive, to make them pay for what they had done to him.
The lock picking tools Fred and George had shown him how to use slid into his hand, and he entered the cottage after a moment, silently gliding over the floor. Drifting up the stairs, he paused at a closed door, listening.
"Oh fuck yes!" Ginny Weasley's voice echoed from the other side. "Harder, Draco, harder!" Harry's lips curled into a sneer as he heard the sounds of something he would never have, but it was perfect timing. They would never have a chance to respond and they were paying even less attention than they would have been had they been asleep.
The wooden door exploded inwards in a shower of foot long splinters, jagged pieces that slashed into cloth and down and flesh, provoking two screams of pain, one low and one high. Standing in the doorway, Harry paused, glaring at the two people inside frozen in shock. Ginny, white knuckled, was gripping the headboard, kneeling on the bed, with Draco kneeling behind her, his hips flush against hers. Their joined white skin was stained with crimson, though, flowing from deep punctures and gashes, dripping the bedclothes beneath them.
As a wave of force sprung from Harry's hand, throwing the two against the far wall, he snarled angrily at Ginny, "Is Draco really that good a fuck, you traitorous whore?"
"Draco's twice the man you'll ever be, Scarhead," she shouted in response, breathless with her earlier activity and pain.
"Scarhead. Can't even think up new insults. As for being twice the man I am, if it takes fucking a slut who betrayed her family and friends to be a man, I'll pass." As Draco struggled back to his feet, lunging for his wand, Harry waved his hand again, pinning the blond dark wizard to the wall, spread eagled. Ginny leapt directly at Harry, and found herself in the same position as Draco with a cry of pain forced from her abused body. "I don't have time to play, and I need to take you both somewhere where I can question you. I'm sure your wards have alerted your compatriots as to my presence here."
With another wave of his hand, they were in a dark, dank room, with Ginny and Draco tied to the wall with heavy metal chains, Harry standing before them in his solid black, holding their wands. "You won't be needing these any more." He smiled calmly, then shattered the magical items like so much powder in his hands.
"What do you want, Potter?" Draco spat, blood splattering on the floor as he did so.
"Information, my dear Malfoy. Information on where each one of your precious little Death Eaters is hiding, so I can get each and every one of them."
"I'll never tell you anything."
Harry laughed, darkly, his eyes turning black as pitch and the air around him crackled with malevolent power. "That's what the poor sap who told me where you were said before I broke him."
"He was supposed to tell you, Potter, so you would drag us in here."
"Really? Why is that?" Harry gazed into the ether surrounding his two captives and spotted the charm immediately. "Ah. So you're tracking me. What's the goal?"
"To rescue the rest of our fellows hidden here."
The laugh came again, the torches lighting the bare walls flickering. "Do you see anywhere here for storing captured Death Eater trash?"
Malfoy's face, and Ginny's, if it was possible, went even paler. "You wouldn't. You didn't. You're Harry Potter, Savior of the World," Ginny whispered.
Sauntering up to her, he placed his wand under her chin and lifted her face up, looking into her eyes. "Until the day you had me murder my friends, you'd've been right, Ginny. After that, I discovered I rather enjoyed killing the scum who destroyed my life." When he moved his wand, her face fell again, as she was unable to hold up her head, she had grown so weak. "Now, I think I'll take what I need from Malfoy first." He turned and grinned. "We'll unfortunately have to do this quickly, since I'm sure your friends will be here soon. This means it will hurt more, though for not as long."
A dagger flew to Harry's hand, and in a single smooth move, he turned, and slammed it into Draco's pelvis, the wide blade completely removing the parts of him that were so necessary to the continuation of the pure-blood line. The scream was inhuman, and it merely fed Harry's satisfaction, as his gleaming eyes, green once more, took in the blood splattering to the floor from the lethal injury.
Almost lovingly, his hand drifted up to Draco's head, caressing the paling cheek, then with a murmured curse, began tearing silver strands of thought from his mind, dropping them in a waiting Pensive. Again and again he pulled every thought he could from the wizard's head, tearing them out with enough force to cause blood to run down the side of Draco's face. It took twenty minutes, but Draco had stopped screaming some time before, and finally Harry locked the last scion of the Malfoy's in a stasis, holding him alive until later.
Then he turned to Ginny. "It's your turn now, Ginny," he whispered, twirling the bloody knife in his hand. "Where do you think it would hurt the most, hmmm?" He looked at her again, his eyes blackening once more, and then he smiled, face twisted cruelly into an expression that had never belonged on the face of Harry Potter. "You're carrying his child. Does he even know?" That cruel, high laugh, that sounded so much like the Dark Lord echoed once more. "That is the wound I shall give you, then." The blade flashed, growing longer as Harry spun it, before he drove it between her spread legs, cutting up into her deeply, shattering her insides. "I'd pull it out, but you would die to quickly, traitor."
Which was when he proceeded to drain her mind of all its information and knowledge, placing these items once more in Dumbledore's Pensive. It took a little less time for her, as he used both hands, until blood poured from her ears, dark crimson against her red hair. A stasis took her as well, as Harry proceeded to process the memories, sifting through them quickly, absorbing the ones he needed, storing them as his own.
Then Harry removed the stasis on both of them, and tore the dagger from Ginny's body, spraying what little blood she had left across the room, spattering off the shield that instinctively arose before the dark haired wizard. Then, spinning, a quick cut decapitated Draco. Harry felt the tracking charm die, and smiled. "That's good to know."
Harry returned to the present and looked into the concerned faces of Dumbledore and Flitwick. "Are you okay, Harry?" Dumbledore asked softly.
Swallowing hard, Harry stared down at his right hand, the hand that had held the blade. "Yes, Professor," he whispered, barely audible. "Just remembering the future."
Flitwick started, but Dumbledore murmured, "Forget you heard that, Filius, and see if you can help remove the charm from Miss Granger." Dumbledore calmly placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. "If you should need to talk about something you did, Harry, I will listen, and try to understand."
"No, Professor, there are some things I would rather forget, some things I did." Some things I did that made Voldemort look sane.
"I understand." Dumbledore conjured himself a chair, and sat quietly, watching Flitwick work, as did Harry, still gripping Hermione's hand lightly.
Finally, the miniature professor straightened. "I don't think the charm can be safely removed, though it will pass away by the next full moon. Mister Potter is right that the castle wards will prevent it from being traced, but it is one of a very few locations in the world that would accomplish this, so it does not actually disguise her location very well."
"Undoubtedly, though the Death Eaters would be fools to try to take her from here," Dumbledore opined. "Not that they haven't proven in the past that they are fools. We shall leave the decision to Miss Granger when she awakens. If you have need of me, Harry, I shall be in my office. The password is Canary Creams. I would prefer if you didn't Portkey in there again without an emergency."
"Of course, Professor. Thank you. Both of you. I'll be here until Hermione wakes, and I'll explain the situation to her. We'll let you know what is decided." The two professors departed the hospital wing, and Harry let his eyes droop closed, joining Hermione in a nap, his hand still lightly gripping hers.