AN: Realized I'd forgotten a disclaimer. The characters in this and the previous chapters are not mine. Neither infringement nor profit is among my objectives.
Resistance
Chapter Twenty-Six: Preparation
The darkness was oppressive as Hermione and Fred crept up the gentle slope to the edge of the Little Hangleton graveyard. Shadowy blotches below made up what remained of the ruined town, and the tombstones shone a dull gray in the scant moonlight. Across the graveyard, looming above them, lurked the Riddle house, seeming to wait for them with malicious intent.
Nothing stirred, but Hermione felt the fine hairs on her arms prickle. When they reached the edge of the wards and stopped, she gratefully took a deep breath, pressing her hands against the sides of her invisible abdomen. The slight incline was a lot more to negotiate when one was quite a bit heavier and one's center of gravity was off.
Fred noticed the gesture.
"Are you all right?" he asked solicitously, and she nodded. She saw the uncertainty dancing in his eyes, and knew that he was thinking they had made a mistake. She pursed her lips in determination.
I can do this, she thought to herself, and then, somehow the internal declaration became a plea to an unseen Power. If you let me do this, I promise I won't put another toe out of line until after Laurel is born. Her shoulders slumped slightly in chagrin. Her promise wouldn't mean a thing, she knew. Harry was going to be beyond furious when he discovered where they'd gone, no matter what they accomplished by going. And she wasn't so sure that they hadn't made a mistake in coming herself.
Fred made a sweeping gesture between her and the boundaries of the wards.
"You know what wards are up. You'd be faster taking `em down than I would."
Hermione nodded again, as her eyebrows came down and together above her eyes, and she took on a distant expression of distinct concentration, all business. As she knelt, she was aware of Fred's stance above her, balanced on the balls of his feet, wand out, watchful.
"So…how'd you get in last time?" Fred asked, in a casual whisper, as she began to work. His eyes remained on their surroundings.
"There's a small cellar window around the east side of the house. It opens into some kind of forgotten storage room. Harry's cell was just a few meters away."
"And the house is warded?"
"Not much," Hermione admitted. "It had been abandoned last time… when Ron and I were here. But most of the wards were here at the perimeter. It's as if Voldemort isn't really expecting anyone to even make it all the way to the house."
"And the Repository Stones were inset into the floor of the cell? Were they warded at all?"
Hermione paused in her dismantling of the wards to cock her head curiously at Fred's questions. He shrugged noncommittally.
"I just think we should get in and out of there as quickly as possible," he said. "I might meet a girl after this is all over, and I fancy my bits intact."
She regarded him almost suspiciously for a heartbeat longer, and then her lips curled upward into a smile, as she turned back to the task at hand.
"I've almost got it," she said. "The Stones weren't warded at all. It was fairly easy to pry them loose. Ron just used Accio. Of course, there's always a possibility that that's changed, especially if Death Eaters have been back, and attached any importance to the fact that a stone was missing."
"I dunno," Fred replied thoughtfully. "I think this place has been abandoned for good. At one time, Voldemort might have intended to finish Harry off here, but now, I think he's got his sights set on Hogwarts."
Hermione tried not to let the finality of Fred's words sink in. She didn't know how long she'd known that the end would come at Hogwarts, but Fred's observation almost on the heels of Harry's comment that there was not much time left shook her to her core.
After another moment of silence, the last ward had been disabled, and Hermione struggled to her feet, her knees and back aching prodigiously.
"There," she said, unable to completely keep the satisfaction out of her tone. "We should be clear until we reach the house itself. Let's go."
"All right," Fred agreed, but there was an odd tone in his voice, and Hermione turned to look at him in concern.
"Fred? Is something - ?"
The abbreviated question was all she got out before she was hit with several spells in quick succession, cast with such rapidity that she was certain he'd been rehearsing the order in his head the entire time she was preparing for their entry.
She began to fall, the Body Bind rendering her limbs useless to keep her standing or catch herself, but Fred caught her neatly before she hit the ground, and laid her gently near the vast root network of an ancient tree. Her eyes were frozen wide in surprise and her mouth was locked shut, but she felt herself screaming inwardly.
Fred Weasley, what the hell do you think you're doing?
He had even cast Silencio to cover all his bases, even though she couldn't have spoken if her life had depended on it. Her wand was on the ground nearby, unreachable by her stiff, unmoving hands. She strained her eyes toward it, and saw only her faint outline, looking almost like a trick of the light in the blackness of the night that surrounded them. A Disillusionment charm blanketed her as well.
Fred hovered uncertainly over her, apology plain in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I can't let you go in there. I'll go - I'll get the repository stones and I'll be right back. I suppose you can go on back to the cavern if you'd like. I'm sure you could get your medallion to take you there."
She glared at him, because she couldn't do anything else, but was unsure how much of the furious expression made it onto her mask-like face. Briefly, she considered transporting herself back, and making everyone think that she'd been attacked, but discarded it just as quickly. She'd still have to have left the sanctuary of the cave to be attacked, and Harry's ire would still be swift and relentless.
I'm not going to leave you alone here, you great horse's arse, she thought mutinously at Fred, even though she wasn't sure what she could really do, other than make sure he came out again safely, and go to warn the Order if he did not return.
She saw him tap himself on his head with his wand, and with a trickling effect, he began to melt slowly out of sight. If she strained her eyes, she could see him moving gracefully and silently through the graveyard, darting in and out of the shadows of tombstones, all but impossible to follow. As he crossed the yard, and then truly disappeared from view, some of her seething annoyance was transmuted into worry and fear.
Please be careful.
Occasionally, a faint wind stirred the grasses around her and the leaves above her head. Their rustling was the only sound she heard for what seemed like quite some time. Adding the ghostly noises to the devastation of the adjoining town and the mere presence of the graveyard itself, Hermione felt more than a little ill at ease. She was grateful that Fred had at least pointed her in the general direction of the old manor house, and she focused all her attention that way, hoping with each passing second to see Fred's wispy outline making its way down the slope to her.
She wasn't sure how long she'd been there, frozen into place beneath that tree, but it felt like eons. Her eyes ached from the effort of looking for something that was not there, and she found her focus drifting toward the skeletal remains of Little Hangleton.
Something flickered in the periphery of her vision, like distant lightning. Panicked, her attention returned toward the ancestral Riddle home, and she saw it again, unmistakable this time.
The flash of spellfire.
Panic began to dial itself upward within her, made all the more frenzied by her inability to move, to cast, to make herself heard. She could feel her mouth suddenly go completely dry, could feel the bands of helplessness constricting around her chest.
Fred! She cried out inwardly, furious and terrified. She strained unmoving fingers toward the wand that was tantalizingly, maddeningly just out of reach. More faint flickers of light teased around the edges of her vision. She thought she heard the subtle tinkle of shattering glass.
Accio Wand. Accio Wand!
And then, against all hope, the wand, a dark slender shape, slid gracefully into her hand.
Finite - she thought, but was distracted by a heavy, warm weight landing almost atop her, brought by the magic of his Order medallion.
"Sorry about that. You okay?" Fred's welcome and familiar face peered down at her with concern. Over his shoulder, Hermione saw two dark figures detach themselves from the larger dark shadow that was the manor house, and begin systematically moving over the wide expanse of lawn.
There was not much time.
Finite Incantatem, she thought ferociously, and the network of spells ceased to function. She clambered to her feet, as quickly as she could, dislodging her surprised companion.
"They're looking for you. We've got to get out of here. Did you get them?" Her questions were short, urgent bursts of words. Fred held a small rucksack aloft, with a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
"Evidently someone was hoping we would try for them. But the simians they left in charge wouldn't be able to retrieve their wands from their arses if they were given directions. All the same, I suppose we'd better make…" he drew in a hissing breath, when he turned and the rucksack swung in an arc, hitting his other arm.
"You're hurt," Hermione whispered, in horrified realization.
"Just winged a bit," Fred said, pasting a smile over the obvious pain that lurked in his eyes.
"One of them evidently knew what a wand was," she retorted dryly, with concern in her eyes.
"Ah, but you fail to realize the full extent of my prowess," Fred said, tucking his injured arm protectively to his side, and wiggling his eyebrows at her. "There were four on guard inside, but only two came out to find me."
The Death Eaters had not seen them, were still searching, but had drawn closer to the far edge of the cemetery. Hermione linked her arm through Fred's good one, and, hoping to bring them back to the cavern as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, thought of Ron.
Soundlessly, they winked out of sight.
~*~*~*~*~
Hermione found herself in a dim cubicle, instantly realizing that they had not appeared in the infirmary, as she had hoped. She took one step forward, and nearly fell, clenching her teeth in pain as she collided with the edge of a bed's frame.
"Where were you trying to end up exactly?" quipped Fred from the darkness near her elbow. As her eyes adjusted to her new surroundings, she recognized the unmade bed and the clothing haphazardly tossed in the general vicinity of the open trunk.
"Madam Pomfrey must have put Ron's medallion in here with his clothes," she muttered, reaching down to rub at her throbbing shin with one hand. "How's your arm?"
"It hurts," Fred admitted, "but it's only as much as I deserve. Shouldn't have let him get a shot off. I must admit I wouldn't mind having - oy, what goes on?" He had stopped in mid-sentence, indicating with an inclination of his chin that the cavern had become bathed in brilliant light. For the first time, Hermione was aware of a frantic babbling of many voices.
Then she heard Harry's voice over everyone else's, impatient, angry, and fraught with worry.
"Where the hell is she?"
Hermione's eyes slid shut, as she realized that the moment of reckoning had already come, and apparently, that it wanted a large audience as well. She and Fred exchanged glances, and moved silently through the partition that delineated Ron's living quarters.
"I'm right here, Harry." She deliberately kept her voice even and calm. The War Room was jammed with people, packed into knots, talking in low, urgent tones, chaos brimming just under the surface, but Harry heard her. He jumped and turned in response, as if he'd just been hexed. His eyes flicked from her to Fred, to the divider through which they'd just crossed.
"We already looked - where have you been?" he said, the concern in his tone giving way to something more irate.
"Fred and I - we had an idea… we just went to - " she began.
"You left the cavern?" Her husband sounded incredulous. "Without telling anyone? Where did you go? What if something had happened?" His gaze drifted down to her abdomen, still magically rendered invisible, and she saw a muscle clench in his jaw.
"No worries, Harry," Fred said jovially, though Hermione could not help but notice the strain in his voice or his pallor. He held up the sack, so that the bulging of the contents could be easily seen. "We've just been up to Tom's place, acquiring something that belonged to you."
There was a beat of silence as the Order digested this, and Hermione was able to pinpoint the exact second that Harry realized just what Fred meant by his phrase "Tom's place."
"Sweet Merlin, Hermione, how could you?" he bellowed. "Do you have any idea what could have - do you stop and think at all before you go - " He sputtered into fuming silence, his anger evidently hindering his ability to be coherent.
She blinked at him apologetically, unsure of what to say. She knew that what she had done was very nearly unpardonable, but -as they'd been successful in their task - didn't the end justify the means? Even so, she couldn't really fault Harry for being upset and angry, and knew that it was his love for her and for Laurel that made him react that way.
"We - we've gotten the Repository Stones, Harry," she finally said, her voice coming out rather low and breathless, trembling with the anticipation. "We - we think we can get it back - all of it…" She flung a glance at Fred for confirmation.
"It was your wife's idea," Fred acknowledged. "Brilliant, that one is."
"Get what back?" Harry asked, in a somewhat more civilized tone. Curiosity seemed to have momentarily won out over anger, though Hermione could tell from his eyes that this was far from resolved.
"Your mag - " Hermione began to reply, but was cut off when Fred suddenly collapsed beside her, his limbs folding noiselessly beneath him. His face was white as chalk.
"Fred!" Mr. Weasley's voice broke through the others, as members of the Order converged on the wounded.
"He's probably in shock," Hermione said, as Fred was Levitated toward the infirmary. "I didn't - he was - it's his arm," she supplied, as Madam Pomfrey approached rapidly. "He was playing it off. I - I didn't think it was severe…" she trailed off, aghast at her own thoughtlessness.
Madam Pomfrey neatly sliced the sleeve from his shirt, and Hermione gasped at the sight of the wound, ugly and quickly growing putrid. She recognized it instantly.
"Is - is that - ?" Fleur's voice could barely be heard, faint with horror. Hermione could hear Ginny, demanding frantically from the back of the crowd to know what was going on. Hermione dimly registered Cho and Padma moving to flank Ginny, and apprise her of the situation.
"Will he - can you - Percy…" Mr. Weasley stammered unevenly, taking up a place near Fred's bedside from which he would not be dislodged. Ginny was quickly guided to a place beside her father. Hermione looked over her shoulder toward the far end of the infirmary, where Ron lay sleeping, and felt fresh guilt wallop her over the head. Harry was standing nearby, but he was not looking at her, and the rigidity of his stance was as impenetrable as a stone barricade.
"We already know there's no anti-jinx for this particular spell," Madam Pomfrey said softly. "If left to itself, the Carioso will spread just as it did with Percy."
Mr. Weasley's face sagged, and seemed to age as Hermione watched. How much more? she felt the silent cry in her soul, even as her pulse thrummed out the rhythm, my fault, my fault, my fault.
"However," the mediwitch continued, "the placement of the curse is fortunate. We may yet be able to save him."
Several of the Order members standing a few paces away, near the dividers, stared at Madam Pomfrey with mingled curiosity and incomprehension. Mr. Weasley's eyes were bright with tears, but he nodded with resignation.
"You'll have to remove his arm."
There was a muffled cry of dissent from Ginny, and Hermione felt her chest tighten to the point where she could barely breathe. Her eyes stung mercilessly. Mr. Weasley patted his daughter's arm mechanically, with a there, there gesture.
"Better his arm than his life, Ginevra," he told her soothingly, but something bleak and sorrowful remained in his face.
"All of them - " she choked, gesturing despondently in the direction where she knew Ron's bed lay. She couldn't complete her thought, but Mr. Weasley seemed to know what she meant, for he pressed a kiss to the top of her vivid head, and murmured,
"I know, sweetheart."
Hermione knew too - knew that the Weasley family, being so much larger, had had so much more to lose, and it seemed that the strong and jovial sons in particular had been cruelly targeted. And Ginny too, Hermione thought, even though she knew that Ginny had not been thinking of herself.
Hermione's eyes dropped again to Fred's too-still form in the infirmary bed, the quietly efficient figures of Madam Pomfrey and Penelope hunched over him. My fault, my fault, my fault.
"Everyone will need to clear out of here," Madam Pomfrey said, in a tone that brooked no opposition. "The more quickly I perform the surgery, the more of his arm I may be able to save."
There was a rustle of movement as people began to exit the infirmary. Hermione heard Professor McGonagall say softly,
"Poppy, can you…?"
"There isn't much choice now, is there?" was Madam Pomfrey's resolved reply.
Hermione's arm had gone out to clutch at Harry's sleeve before she'd even registered the movement. The eyes he turned to her were distant and impersonal.
"Harry, please…" she managed to say before her throat swelled shut over the words. He parted his lips as if to speak, and then appeared to reconsider, his gaze flickering over the people trickling past them in twos and threes.
"Let's go somewhere where we can talk," he said in a stony voice.
She swept the Weasley bedside with one last sorrowful glance, and was surprised to see that family's patriarch watching them both. She half-expected to see some lurking recrimination in Arthur Weasley's gaze, but did not. He quirked one cheekbone up in an effort at a reassuring half-smile, but the gesture was quickly forgotten at Harry's implacable expression.
My fault, my fault, my fault.
~*~*~*~*~
"Harry, I know you're angry…" Hermione began, all but trotting alongside him, as his strides, lengthened by emotion, carried him across the cavern toward the living quarters.
"Damn right I'm angry," he replied in clipped tones. "You used to take me to task for flying by the seat of my pants, and here you are doing the very same thing. Only worse, because you have so much more to lose. You're not just putting yourself in danger anymore, Hermione."
"I know that, Harry. But the Riddle manor had been abandoned. There was no reason to suspect any danger in - "
"No reason? No reason to expect any danger from Lord Voldemort's bloody house?" Harry jammed both hands through his dark hair, simultaneously furious and terrified. "If you had said something - there could have been a small squadron of Order members sent to retrieve anything you wanted from that place!"
"I didn't think - "
"That's right, you didn't think. Cerebral Hermione, always so sure that she can logic her way out of any situation that presents itself. Logic is pretty worthless when you're staring down the business end of a Death Eater's wand. You're damned lucky that you didn't end up just like Fred."
"I didn't go in," she admitted hoarseness, as there came a break in Harry's tirade. "He - Fred wouldn't let me go in. He hexed me out in the graveyard; he went in alone." Her voice was mechanical, her gaze far away, as she relived the long, terrifying moments of helplessness and incapacitation at the base of that tree. "It was my fault - " she blurted suddenly, returning tortured eyes to Harry's face. "If I'd gone in with him - or - or if I'd - if I'd alerted the Order, he wouldn't have been - and now he's going to be handicapped…if he even survives." The rigid muscles in her body went slack so suddenly that Harry took an involuntary half-step toward her, thinking that she would fall. "Ron and - and now Fred…all to save me? And now they - that's two who can't stand with you at the end - can't fight. I'm not - I'm not worth the cost."
Harry's hand closed around her arm, just above her elbow, and drew her toward him. She could feel his breath warm on her face, feel the fringe of his bangs brush her hairline.
"You're worth very much," he whispered. "And I'd really appreciate it if you'd remember that once in awhile."
"I didn't think I'd endanger the baby," she murmured, her gaze sinking to her shoes. "I just - I just wanted to help."
"You'll help me most by living. Do you think I could survive without you?"
"Of course you could, Harry."
"I wouldn't want to."
They stared at each other for a long moment, the plethora of emotions swirling around inside both of them, too plentiful and conflicting to properly analyze - anger, fear, love, shame, sorrow, desperation - all writhing together in a confusing cacophony.
The knapsack that Fred had dropped caught the periphery of Hermione's vision, and she turned to pick it up, without really thinking about it. Harry's gaze dropped to consider the tattered brown leather.
"Are those really - ?" he began, trying to sound clinical and disinterested.
"Fred said he got all of them," Hermione replied, lifting the flap to peer inside. The interior of the sack was weighted down with a jumble of greenly-tinged crystals.
"And how are they going to get my magic back?" he spoke the question tentatively, as if he tried not to attach too much credence to the theory, so as to refrain from lifting his hopes prematurely.
"Harry, we - that is, Fred and I think that your magic is still in there."
"Where?" he asked, before looking at the Stones again, with comprehension dawning in his eyes. "In the Stones? He - he didn't -? "
Hermione shook her head, looking somber.
"They had served their purpose," she said. "He had stripped you of everything that made you a threat to him, had gloried in your humiliation and defeat. To him, he is the most powerful wizard in the world. Why would it occur to him to use your magic, to regard it as anything other than garbage? We scared him when one was stolen - although he probably couldn't know for sure who had taken it. He set up a guard, but again - " she shrugged her shoulders. "His own arrogance is his undoing."
"So with my - my full capacity of magic returned, d'you think I'll be able to - to win?" he asked delicately.
She turned to fully face him again, her eyes brimming with confidence and love.
"I think you'll be able to defeat him, Harry," and she quickly outlined the idea she and Fred had conceived, using Priori Incantatem from the brother wand to separate Voldemort from his magic.
She saw something unfamiliar flash into his face, and realized that it was lurking hope, finally morphing itself into a vision of freedom, of a life after Voldemort for which he'd hardly dared dream. He opened his mouth to say something, but never got the words out.
"Oy, Harry! He's going!" Seamus suddenly shouted from the War Room, where he and Blaise were keeping watch over the Marauder's Map.
Whatever Harry had been going to say vanished into the ether, as his face became suddenly hard and business-like and determined. He maneuvered between the disorderly clumps of chairs, still hanging on to Hermione, planting his other hand on the table's surface, and leaning over the Map for a closer look.
"What's going on?" Hermione asked.
"Neville's clone is taking out the Primes. He'd informed us that he was starting; that's when Seamus woke everybody up." Hermione's eyes widened in comprehension, as she realized her assumption that he had roused the cavern because he couldn't find her had been erroneous. She hunched next to him, almost breathless with tension, as Neville's spidery faint name moved out from a tapestry to confront a darkly-inked Ambrosius Weatherford. She didn't even register how tightly she was squeezing Harry's hand, until Weatherford's name faded from existence, dispersing into more and more minute particles of ink, until it was completely gone.
"Look!" came the hoarse exclamation from Blaise, as he pointed to the staircase of the Astronomy Tower. Another incarnation of Ambrosius Weatherford had also vanished. And then another… and another… By the time, the cascade of disappearances had stopped, six names had vanished from the castle layout. And who knows how many more elsewhere? Hermione thought.
Neville's name paused briefly in that corridor - and Hermione began to wonder what would happen to the multiples corpses - and ducked into another hidden corridor, moving to his next target.
"If you've - " Hermione began, but had to swallow in order to get her dry throat to continue. "If you've ordered Neville's clone to take out the Primes, then - then when - when do you expect to - ?" She couldn't finish, but didn't really need to.
"In two days. Blaise has been calling up the recruits," Harry replied, knowing what she did not ask. His face was set like flint.
On the Map, Quintus MacDougall became nine sudden blooms of rapidly diminishing flecks of ink.
~*~*~*~*~
Eighteen hours later found Hermione hunched over a cluttered worktable in Fred's lab. Harry sat on a nearby stool, his loose posture belying the cat-like alertness in his green eyes, which did not leave the form of his wife. She was closely examining one of the crystals, which was now a dull whitish grey, like the color of dirty dishwater. She picked up her wand, twiddled it nervously between her fingers, and then looked up, turning to Harry with a look of finality on her face, as she tucked a wayward strand of hair behind one ear.
"Okay," she said, resolutely. "I think we're ready."
She held up her wand and murmured a spell under her breath. The wood moved in the air, almost as if by its own volition, and a shining intricate swirl formed itself out of glowing light. Harry was reminded of the one he'd seen in the ramshackle cottage on the Scottish coast.
"There it is," she breathed. "Your magical signature. Still contained within these Repository Stones."
"Is it - is it still functional?" he managed to say.
"By definition, Repository Stones are for storage, not destruction. I'm not sure this has ever been done before in the history of wizard-kind, but - but your magic should be intact."
"So…what happens now?" he asked; his eyes did not leave the small stack of remaining green stones.
"Well, I've got to make sure that vial's signature is close to yours - it's really the closest way we have to verify that it actually belonged to Voldemort. Then I've just got to extract your magic from each Stone, and return - return it to you."
There was a beat of silence, as if neither of them could contemplate that it could actually be so easy.
Hermione cleared her throat uncomfortably, and picked up the vial, which felt unnaturally cold to the touch. The roiling mist seemed to intensify its movement, as if in defiance. She created an impenetrable field before placing the vial within it, and using her wand to remove the seal.
She sucked in air between her teeth, and darted an involuntary look at Harry, as the fog lurched outward to cover the inner surface area of the field, turning the hovering sphere iron grey, as it searched for an escape route. But her spell held, and the essence that had once occupied Harry's mind returned to the center of the sphere, to huddle in a pulsing and sullen ball of malicious energy.
"Call Professor McGonagall," Hermione whispered urgently.
"Why? Is something wrong?" Harry spoke to her, but his eyes remained transfixed on that which had once been the Circle.
"No…no, but - but if it gets loose... Please, I need someone to ensure the blocking spell holds, while I remove the signature for examination." She looked up to see that her husband had apparently heard nothing she said. "Harry, please."
The emotional intensity in her voice seemed to jolt him from his reverie, and he staggered clumsily up from the lab stool on which he'd been sitting, nearly knocking it over.
"Right," he said, in a low, rough voice. "I'll be right back."
When he did return with Professor McGonagall, he was more like himself, and did not look at Hermione's sphere again, for which she was grateful. She was also thankful for the solid and immutable presence of their Head of House, who generally seemed unflappable, even in the direst of circumstances. Hermione found that it unfailingly gave her great comfort.
The professor trained her wand on the sphere, and nodded at Hermione, when she was ready. The younger witch carefully slid the end of her wand through the translucent barrier, and began using a gentle fishing motion, similar to the one she and Fred used to discern the individual ingredients of potions.
The grey essence of the Circle surged in one incredibly rapid, flowing movement toward the spot where the field had been breached by Hermione's wand, and she distantly heard Harry emit a muffled cry of alarm. But McGonagall was quicker, throwing what was essentially a magical patch over the spot as the last of the glowing strand had been pulled through.
Hermione directed the signature over to where Harry's still hovered, and found that her hands were slickly wet against her wand, and that her heart was pounding a terrified staccato within her chest.
"Thank you so much, Professor," she said breathlessly, as McGonagall efficiently forced the essence back into the vial, sealed it, and dispersed the barrier field.
"Holy hell," Harry breathed, moving past her to more closely examine the two magical signatures rotating serenely in midair. "Can you believe that?"
Indeed, the strands were very much alike, differing in only a few minor details. One segment of Harry's spiraled in one direction, while the corresponding segment of Voldemort's dog-legged in another. Harry's shone a brilliant green, while Voldemort's had a sickly reddish gleam.
"This must be his," Hermione finally said, and flicking her wand at a blank sheet of parchment, directed the two signatures to inscribe themselves in ink for posterity. When they had finished, she put the strand belonging to Voldemort into the empty Repository stone, which began to glow a dull and lurid red, and pulled Harry's signature into the tip of her wand, which effervesced slightly before subsiding.
"So, what happens now?" Harry's gaze was fixated on her, and she knew that he understood what would happen next, but needed to hear her say it. She forced trembling lips upward into a smile, although, somehow this time seemed too momentous for smiles, and gestured toward him with her wand.
"Now you get your magic back," she said.
"It'd be a sight faster, if we alternated, wouldn't it? That way one person could extract, while the other returned Harry's magic," came a voice from the lab's entrance, causing both of them to look up in astonishment.
"Mr. Weasley!" Professor McGonagall said, in the tone of motherly remonstrance that they had all become familiar with. He offered her a cheeky smile.
"Fred, are you sure you're up to it?" Hermione asked, in a hushed apologetic tone.
"It's good to see you up and about, mate," Harry said more jovially, though his eyes were serious.
"Hey, it's not like it's my wand hand, right?" the remaining Weasley twin said, shrugging both shoulders and indicating the empty space where his elbow joint and forearm had once been. "Madam Pomfrey's going to work on a magical arm for me. Wouldn't George have had loads of jokes about this?"
Harry and Hermione looked stricken, but Fred smiled a little. McGonagall's eyes were warm and proud.
"Let me help," he said earnestly. "I can do this, honestly."
Hermione didn't see how she could possibly refuse him, and she drew in a deep, uneven breath, before gesturing to the stool adjacent to hers.
"You know which spell to use?" she asked, and Fred nodded. "It'll store in your wand-tip for a while; just don't cast any spells until you transfer it to Harry." Fred touched his wand to his temple in a jaunty salute.
"Right-o, boss," he replied. His smile was as open and genuine as Hermione had ever seen from him, and yet she could not help the guilt that thrashed mercilessly within her. He must have seen some of it shadowing her eyes, for he nudged her teasingly in the side and said, "Hey, don't fret about it. The arm was given in a worthy cause, and I don't begrudge the loss. Now," he added, as Hermione's eyes filled, "let's get a move on, shall we?"
She nodded, and took another steadying breath, as she rotated on the stool toward her husband, who sat up straighter in expectation. Aiming her wand at him, she informed Harry apologetically,
"This may hurt a bit."
Harry straightened his shoulders and closed his eyes, as he muttered,
"It'll be worth it."
Hermione felt the strong desire to close her eyes as well, but forced herself to train her gaze solely on Harry.
"Recipero," she said, and nearly lost her grip on her wand, as it twisted in her grasp, recoiling backward with the force of the magic issuing from it. She moved her other hand up for support, and held on tightly.
A green stream of light, eerily like the Avada Kedavra, spewed from her wand-tip with a white-noise accompaniment, and hit Harry squarely in the chest. But where a normal spell would dissipate, this jet continued, the greenness diffusing throughout Harry, and causing him to glimmer slightly in the dim light. His head was thrown back, his teeth bared in a grimace, and his chest heaving, as he clearly fought the desire to cry out in pain. One hand flew out, searching for purchase on the edge of the lab table, and three or four potions beakers fell from its surface and shattered. Magic seemed to crackle ominously around them, and her own heartbeat roared in her ears.
Hermione struggled to maintain her two-handed grip on her wand, her eyes fixed on her husband, and her teeth clamped down painfully on her lower lip. Professor McGonagall Reparoed the mess of destroyed beakers, and moved behind Harry, bracing him with a spell so that he would not collapse onto the floor. She nodded at Hermione to keep going, and she could read in the older woman's determined expression that she was not to stop, no matter what.
Finally the spell trailed off into a puff of green steam, and Harry relaxed, as Hermione lowered her wand.
"Oh, God, Harry, are you all right?" she asked, moving toward him, but afraid to touch him. His spine hooked forward like a whiplash, throwing him from his arched position to one where he hunched over his knees, breathing heavily, and Hermione saw sweat dripping from the damp strands of his hair. She hadn't known it was going to be so bad, and she trembled at the thought that perhaps it had been like this when he'd lost the magic too.
"I'm…okay," he said, with difficulty, removing his glasses from his damp face, and placing them carefully out of harm's way on the back of the table.
"Good," Fred replied seriously, holding his own wand aloft. "Because I'm ready."
"Maybe we should give him a little time between rounds…to recover," Hermione blurted, still looking anxiously at Harry.
"There's no time," Fred and Harry said in unison.
"It's not that bad, Hermione, really," Harry added, his reassurances somewhat belied by his panting. "It - it's not incapacitating me, it just hurts."
"I think we're all agreed here about the hazards of prolonged exposure to pain," Hermione replied icily.
"Hermione, in a perfect world, I'd agree with you," Fred interposed. "But Harry's got to get his magic, adjust to having it again as much as he can, and maybe get a partial night of sleep before it's time for us to go."
"Fred, you can't mean to go," Hermione said in surprise, fixating on the plural pronoun.
"Like hell I can't," he returned reasonably. "There are already too many of us out of commission. Anyway, there's really not much time left."
Hermione wondered at his certainty, and saw Harry turn questioning eyes on Fred as well. The redhead darted his eyes toward the War Room before replying,
"They're onto Neville. The Death Eaters don't know who it is, but they're tearing the castle apart looking for him."
Harry did not look surprised, and Hermione found herself glancing wildly between the two men. Professor McGonagall looked grim.
"Well, why aren't we helping him?" Hermione asked. "If they know - if they're after him…why - why isn't he coming back here?"
"You know it's too big of a risk, Hermione, especially with them in pursuit; he'd lead them straight to us. `Swhy he didn't have a medallion."
"But - but he -" She had trouble fathoming how they could sit and talk about it so detachedly.
"He knew this was likely a one-way trip when he volunteered," Harry said tiredly. "He gave himself up to give the real Neville a chance - and to make up for what he nearly did to the Order. It's possible he could lose the pursuit and make it out of the castle, but…"
"But the passageway - the stationary Portkey? There's a medallion there, waiting for him."
"The Death Eaters know the Portkey's there," Harry reminded her. "We don't need them prowling around the woods hunting for Neville, when we're on the verge of staging a battle from that direction. And Neville's clone knows that, Hermione. If he can shake them off long enough, then maybe…"
Hermione clasped one hand across her mouth, and sat motionless on her stool, trying to imagine lovable, bumbling Neville - even a clone - being chased by legions of Death Eaters, wondering how they would make him pay for what he'd done to them. She was startled out of her reverie by Harry's gentle hand on her shoulder.
"We don't have a lot of time, Hermione. Right now, all Voldemort's resources are focused on finding the killer in their midst. We have to strike before he begins replenishing his numbers."
"Right," she said woodenly, and she felt his fingers linger gently before moving away. She turned back toward the workbench, and began to work on the next Stone. At the edge of her vision, she saw the green glow commence, and heard the grind of wood against stone floor, as Harry must have gone rigid, shifting the stool upon which he sat.
A strangled groan came from between his teeth, and Fred said,
"Easy there, Harry. Almost done."
The Repository Stone dulled before her eyes as the magic leached slowly from it. Fred was lowering his wand, while Harry seemed to be in an upright position, only because of the aid of their professor. Hermione sighed deeply, and turned to face them.
"I'm ready," she said quietly.
~*~*~*~*~
When Fred and Hermione had finally emptied the last of the Repository Stones and restored the full count of Harry's magic, they exited the lab together. Harry's clothing and hair were plastered to him with sweat, and he was walking with difficulty. They caught the attention of most of the Order, who looked at them with questioning, expectant gazes. Harry staggered sideways, and flung his arm outward to catch a nearby divider for support.
It burst into furious flames, and collapsed into a pile of ashes before Padma's quickly cast Aguamenti spell could even touch it.
"Damn, Harry," Seamus responded, with a low whistle.
Hermione eyed him anxiously, as Harry appeared to be largely embarrassed and flustered by his loss of control.
"Yeah," Harry replied with a tight smile. "I'm going to do the Order a whole hell of a lot of good like this."
"Harry, it's okay. You're just - you're just not used to having this much magic at your disposal. It's like being eleven again; you'll relearn it quickly. Plus, you've just been through a lot. You'll need a Calming Draught, and probably some sleep. You've still got a little time to adjust," Hermione rushed to reassure him, hating to see his discouragement reassert itself.
"How's Neville?" Harry asked tersely, not differentiating. Everyone knew who he meant.
"He's still free," the original Neville Longbottom said, somewhat ironically. "They know someone's in the castle, but so far, they haven't been able to find him. He's learned those passages well. He must have been Vanishing the bodies, but I guess there are just too many gone now."
"How many?"
"Two hundred eleven," was the astonishing number Neville gave. Harry nodded, and turned to Seamus and Blaise, who had virtually become his right-hand, especially given Ron's injury and Lupin's grief.
"And those you've contacted?" he asked, referring to the wizards and witches that had been recruited to their cause, most of them from the supply cooperative they'd formed.
"They're on alert," Seamus answered. "They know that it's happening soon, and they're standing by until we notify them with the medallions. We haven't given them any coordinates yet…just to be safe." The newer Order members - ones who did not reside in the cavern that was its heart - had been subjected to every kind of truth-divining and integrity-ensuring spell or potion or hex that they could think of. And even then, there remained the unspoken, but all too real fear that somehow someone would betray them.
"Give me a couple of hours to sleep this off," Harry told them, as Hermione interrupted.
"You need six."
"I'll take three," he bargained quickly, the implacable look on his face assuring her that she'd not get more than that. "Send word to everyone in two. Take the invisibility cloak and scout out the tunnel…make sure no Death Eaters are anywhere near it when we're ready to go."
Hermione threaded her arm through Harry's, as they made their way to the infirmary for the Calming Draught; her mind was whirling. She tried not to think about the fact that she'd be left behind, and clung to the hope that their idea would work, and that Harry would return to her and Laurel unscathed.
~*~*~*~*~
Harry's chest moved up and down rhythmically beneath Hermione's temple, as he breathed in sleep. She could not sleep, and had made no attempt to do so, even if Laurel's cumbersome presence would not have made it difficult. There were things she could be doing, maybe even things she should be doing, but she would not give up these last moments with Harry.
She knew that their odds were long; even with their additions and the Death Eaters losses - thanks to Neville's clone - they still remained far eclipsed in number. Add to that, the Order members who could not fight - herself, Ginny, Ron, and Fleur with baby William - and the numbers shrank further.
Part of her would stay saddened that, to reach this pivotal final moment, Harry would have to go on alone. Neither she nor Ron would accompany him to the end. I always thought I'd go, she thought, not for the first time.
Laurel kicked at her ribs enthusiastically, and Hermione winced and shifted. Her movement roused Harry, who moved his hand up her back, and pressed a kiss into her hair.
"Did you sleep?" he mumbled, still sounding halfway there himself.
"No, did you?"
"Hard to believe, but I actually did. Had a nice dream too - about a little stone cottage and me and you - and a little girl with red hair."
"Red hair? Really?" Hermione was both amused and delighted that Harry's dream had Laurel looking like Lily. They snuggled in silence for a long moment, as the noise outside in the cavern proper picked up pace. Neither of them said anything, but they both noticed it, and knew what it meant.
"Hermione," Harry said, propping up on one elbow, and taking both of her hands in his. Hermione noticed absently that the slightly irregular skin present on both of their hands was hardly visible in the low light. "I want you to promise me that you'll stay safe - that you'll not come unless you're absolutely sure that there's no danger. Your first duty is to Laurel - promise me." Hermione nodded mutely, unable to say anything around the large lump that swelled in her throat. "If the battle is lost - "
"Harry, no…" Hermione interrupted. She did not want to hear it.
"If the battle is lost," he repeated steadily, his eyes boring into hers. "Take the other Order members who are staying here, and get out of England… do you understand?"
"We can't just leave!" Hermione was incensed; she couldn't imagine just cutting and running, leaving who knows how many magical folk within Voldemort's iron fisted rule.
"If I - if - something happens, then - then I'll not have you dying for something that cannot be won… not when you have Laurel to think of. She's too important; remember Luna's prophecy? Promise me."
Hermione nodded shakily by way of response.
"I promise." Her voice was the barest of whispers. "But you have to do something for me too."
Harry arched his eyebrows questioningly at her, prompting her to continue.
"Take my wand with you."
"No."
"Harry!"
"No! Absolutely not. I am not going to leave you here with no way to protect yourself."
"I've thought about this, Harry. Your wand has a connection to Voldemort's. He'll be expecting that, and if he thinks that you no longer have your wand, that you are using another, so much the better. He won't even know what hit him, when you bring out your wand and use Priori Incantatem. Duel with my wand, but deal Voldemort his death blow with yours."
"But what will you - ?"
"I'll be here, in this highly warded cavern beneath a lake." She reached out to brush the angle of his cheekbone with the tips of her fingers. "Waiting for you."
"Will I be able to use your wand as well as I could mine?" he asked.
"I think so," she replied, her eyes going distant. "Remus and I talked about it once. When we were in the forest, the day of the Circle - I used your wand, as well as if it had been my own. It was just a while later that I found out I was pregnant. Not quite a Wand Bond, but near enough to it. We're connected, Harry."
Harry's gaze grew soft as he reached for her, and kissed her gently on the lips, an easy kiss that became almost desperately passionate.
"I love you, Hermione," he whispered.
"I love you too." She reached over to the side table, and pressed the smooth length of her wand into his hand. He still looked as if he wanted to argue with her, but he said only,
"I'll bring it right back."
"See that you do," she replied, the words meant to be light-hearted, but her trembling voice gave the true emotions away.
~*~*~*~*~
When Harry and Hermione exited into the cavern, Blaise was just returning from the tunnel, reporting no Death Eater activity in the vicinity. Fred brought Harry his wand, with the empty and waiting Repository Stones shrunken and inserted into the wand-tip. Harry took a long look at the altered wand, and tucked it safely into his robes.
"Are we ready?" Seamus asked, as Harry took a few practice shots with Hermione's wand. After a false start or two, it seemed to be performing quite efficiently.
"I reckon so," Harry answered, exchanging meaningful looks with his wife. For a moment, nobody spoke, and Hermione's eyes tripped over the other Order members. Professors Lupin and McGonagall, and Mr. Weasley were standing with the fighters, which including the whole of Seamus and Blaise's team. Fred was pale, but standing firm, with a determined look masking his merry face, and one sleeve of his robes billowy with a Cushioning charm, protecting the newly healed stump. Ginny stood next to Fleur, who cradled a sleeping William; both of them wore the stoic, rigid expressions that Hermione felt sure resided on her own face as well. Penelope was going with them; while Madam Pomfrey would stay to care for Ron.
Almost with one synchronized movement, the team removed their medallions, and let them fall. They would instead be using preset Portkeys equipped with the voice activation that Hermione had devised, which would take them each to a different location where password-activated medallions were camouflaged and waiting. Harry was determined that the Death Eaters would have no way of finding out about the cavern.
As the metal disks hit the stone floor,Hermione felt like her heart was seizing up with each resounding ping. And then, there was a flurry of sudden movement: Seamus' team was huddled in a tight ring, arms intertwined, as Blaise spoke intently to them, and Padma motioned for Luna to join them; Professor McGonagall and Penelope converged on Madam Pomfrey, embracing her tightly; Fred and Mr. Weasley kissed baby William's cheeks - having apparently already said their good-byes to Ron in the infirmary; and Neville surprised everyone, including Ginny, by kissing her fiercely.
Hermione locked eyes with Harry, but they did not move toward each other, did not speak, did not touch. She clasped her hands around her swollen abdomen, her message clear: Come back to us.
She heard his voice in her mind, like she had at that other battle of Hogwarts, that distant day when she thought she'd lost him forever, and she prayed that this fight would not end as that one had.
I love you, he said.
I know.
Blaise moved out into the water, going as an advanced scout one last time, to make sure the area where they would gather was clear. He had just cast his Bubble-head charm and disappeared beneath the murky water, a scuffling movement drew everyone's attention to the infirmary entrance.
Ron was standing in the doorway, his face an ashy grayish-white, leaning heavily on the support post. Hermione wondered absently if he'd always looked so thin.
"Mr. Weasley!" Madam Pomfrey said, with an air of high dudgeon. "What in Merlin's name are you doing out of bed?"
Ron did not answer her, but began moving unevenly towards the group.
Harry and Hermione met him halfway, and three hands clasped.
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, gladness plain in her voice.
"Couldn't let you go without saying good-bye," Ron said thickly, his eyes initially on Harry, but moving to encompass his brother and father, as they joined the small knot. "I'm sorry I can't - I can't go - "
"We'll be okay, Ron," Harry reassured him. "You just take care of yourself - and make sure Hermione looks after herself, would you?"
Hermione managed to look at them with fond indignation, but Ron's eyes were very serious.
"Absolutely, mate - but - but only until you get back."
"Of course," Harry said agreeably, as if his return were a foregone conclusion.
Ron turned to Fred, and shook his hand with as much heartiness as he could muster, and said, "Kick some Death Eater arse for me - and for George too - and - "
"We'll do it for all of them," Fred answered. "Weasley banner flying high, and all that."
There was a muffled splash as Blaise reappeared and staggered, dripping, back into their midst.
"Still clear," he informed them, and Hermione took a deep breath into lungs that suddenly seemed to be constricting. Arthur Weasley took his youngest son into a tight embrace, and something that Fred whispered to Ginny made her half-laugh, half-sob.
There was ponderous silence as everyone took in what was about to happen, and Hermione saw Lupin's eyes flit over toward the rocky wall behind which Tonks lay. One by one, the fighting Order members moved toward the lake, and began to duck beneath the gentle waves that lapped at the cavern floor, the light glinting briefly off the shining surface of their Bubble-head charms. Harry walked backwards until the lake was at his waist, refusing to take his eyes off of Hermione until the last possible moment.
Finally, he turned away, as if being physically forced to against his will, cast his own charm, and was gone.
Hermione felt all the air leave her lungs with a whoosh, and tears pricked the backs of her eyelids, though she refused to let herself cry. Ginny sagged against Fleur, who wordlessly wrapped the arm that was not holding her son around her sister-in-law. Ron was terrifyingly pale, and remained motionless, staring with remote eyes at the shallows of the lake, and Hermione knew that he was wishing with everything he had that he was with them. Madam Pomfrey watched him, her lips pressed tightly together with sympathy, and went to his side, tucking her shoulder beneath his to bolster him and escort him back to the infirmary. He swore briefly, but did not fight the mediwitch, and Hermione watched him go, knowing exactly what he was feeling.
As her eyes drifted aimlessly around the too-empty, too-large cavern, she noted the now vacant War Room, with the Map half-furled on the central table.
"The Map!" she shrieked suddenly and without preamble. "We can see what's going on!" She added in response to Fleur and Ginny's questioning faces, and the three of them rushed eagerly over to the parchment.
None of the Order had arrived yet, and Hermione figured that it might be a few more minutes, while everyone was organized and deployed. Hogwarts was in an uproar though, as clusters of Death Eaters roamed the corridors like stirred-up ants, apparently still on the lookout for Neville's clone, who - by the looks of things - had managed to take out a few more Primes even while being pursued.
Hermione finally spotted his name, and realized with shock that, whatever the patrolling Death Eaters were doing, it was not looking for Neville, as the spidery faint script of his name now resided in the Headmaster's office, surrounding by the chief amongst the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself.
"Oh no!" she gasped, and watched Fleur's eyes follow her own and darken.
"What's wrong?" Ginny asked, her wide eyes flickering back and forth sightlessly.
"Voldemort has Neville's clone," Fleur informed her, looking grim.
The other dots began to sporadically converge on Neville, sometimes all but obscuring him from the Map completely, and the ink that denoted his name began to flicker.
"What are they doing to him?" Fleur asked, sounding despairingly outraged. Hermione exchanged helpless glances with the Frenchwoman, as they watched transfixed, horrified. There was nothing they could do.
And then it happened. Neville Longbottom burst apart into miniscule ink particles that faded away, as if it had never been, even as Harry's team popped into sight in the dungeons of Hogwarts, a darkly-inked Neville among them.
"He's gone," Hermione said dully, unable to believe that they had been a distant audience to someone's death. The Order was moving carefully through the dungeons; the nearest Death Eaters moved about inside Slytherin's common room.
"He was very brave," Fleur said. "Who knows what would have happened if he had not taken out all those clones?" Ginny said nothing, but sniffed audibly. There was a moment of silence, broken when Fleur exclaimed, "What on earth is that?"
Hermione had been distracted watching Harry's dot prowl through the corridor, and had to crane her neck to see to what Fleur referred.
Ink was dripping down the blank space at the bottom of the parchment, the space where messages from Neville's clone usually appeared. It slowly began to form itself into letters, but they were blood red, and not in the untidy scrawl that Neville generally employed. The letters were slanting and slashing, written with bold, almost violent strokes, and their very presence on the paper sent out an unmistakable air of malevolence.
And the words read,
Hello, Mrs. Potter.
TBC
Hello everyone! It has been a long time, but you see that I have not dropped off the face of the earth. I did have a baby, who happens to be unfortunately ornery for a third child, and - as if that was not enough - we have sold our house and are in the process of moving, so…
Anyway, here's a chapter. I'm sorry it took so long, and I hope there are still people out there interested in this story. I'd like to have an update for "Bridges" soon too, but it may have to wait until after we're settled in our new place (2 weeks).
You may leave a review on your way out, if you're in a forgiving mood toward this tardy author!
lorien
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