A/N: Well, here it is: chapter nine. I hope that it's not too crappy, but it was the best thing I could come up with these days. If it does suck, however, don't be too harsh on me. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Um... no. Just the plot.
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It was as if Ron had thrown a bucket of cold water over them. Harry and Hermione, still vaguely disoriented because they had just woken up, stood up as they took out their wands.
"Voices? What voices?" Harry gruffly whispered.
"I don't know," Ron answered, his voice trembling. "I can't recognize them," he said. Hermione couldn't see neither Harry's nor Ron's faces, and the fact that they hadn't planned what to do if a circumstance like this arose contributed to her growing panic.
"What about the Confundus?" she could only ask, feeling lost. Where would they go? They hadn't warned anybody, they hadn't talked to anyone save Lupin-
"I didn't have the chance-" Ron started saying when they heard a few branches snapping, as well as a sudden silence in the cave. Harry's emotions were going haywire, and he couldn't tell why. There was fear, there was nervousness, but there was that emotion, that sensation rising inside of him...
"We have to go. Now!" he exclaimed, grabbing Ron's and Hermione's arms just as a bright red light, obviously a spell, flew right over their heads.
"Stupefy!" a woman's voice was heard, and another beam of red light bounced off the wall.
"Look out!" Ron exclaimed, and Harry bent down as Hermione gasped. There were hurrying footsteps coming from the tunnel, accompanied with excited exclamations. Without another thought, Harry grabbed Ron's and Hermione's arms and closed his eyes so he could Apparate elsewhere...
"Yes!" a shout brought him out of his concentration. Harry immediately grabbed his wand, and without second thought he cast the first thing that came to his mind.
"Sectumsempra!" he exclaimed. The beam of light illuminated the cave for a couple of seconds, giving him the chance to see how many people were inside: three or four- A shriek was heard when the spell met its objective.
"Cru-" another person began saying, when Harry felt Hermione rising next to him. A blue beam shot out of her wand and hit the one who had been speaking, making him topple over like a wood plank, but there was one more left.
"Expelliarmus!" Ron shouted this time, aiming at, hopefully, the remaining person. They heard a dry sound, probably the wand hitting the walls, and a growl. For a couple of seconds nothing happened, and then someone pushed Harry against Ron, causing them to hit the walls...
"Let me go!" Hermione shrieked in the darkness. Harry heard this and peeled himself off Ron so quickly that he stumbled with one of the unconscious persons, causing him to fall on a puddle of sticky liquid that he assumed to be blood.
But he didn't care. There was a white rage inside of him, almost blinding him... He stood up, breathless, and felt pure, raw outrage and strength running in his veins, making him reckless. He didn't care if he hit, injured, or killed: Hermione had to be safe. There was no other option, no other way. His heart was beating so fast and hard that it nearly hurt him; his head was pounding under the influence of whatever was he was feeling...
Hermione had been forced to drop her wand, and was about to punch the face of the man holding her when she felt an invisible tidal wave sweep over her body. A tidal...? Hermione felt goosebumps forming on her skin as the man holding her stopped fidgeting. Were had that came from?
"Let her go," Harry growled, and a new wave of that raw magical power swept over the whole cave now, endangering all of those inside, including Harry. One had to learn how to control such crude force before unleashing it, and Hermione was certain that Harry had never done such thing. After he had spoken, the dust particles hanging about in the air seemed to stay still for a couple of seconds.
Harry was breathing heavily, gritting his teeth; his hands turned into fists. He seemed to grow taller inside that small cave, towering over the man holding Hermione. His features had hardened: his lips in a straight line, pale as a ghost; glaring down at the spot where he knew the man trembled, keeping him immobilized without the need of wands or threats.
Hermione knew perfectly well that the magic was not directed at her, but she couldn't help but to be scared. She had never seen Harry like this. Suddenly, the man (who she assumed was a Death Eater) released her as if she was on fire and let out a high, prolonged shriek. Hermione panted and backed away from him; her hand madly trying to get a hold of her wand; the man began to thrash around the spot, still letting out those horrifying screams. She wanted to say something, do something, but she her mind was completely blank-
Next thing Hermione felt was someone roughly gripping her arm, and then the familiar sensation of Apparition. Once it was over, she wrenched her arm out of the person's grip and her sudden dizziness made her fall on her back.
"Hermione," a male voice reached her ears. She blinked a couple of times, focusing the face in front of her.
"R- Ron?" Hermione asked. "Where are we? Where's Harry? Are you alright? Who were those people?" she started firing questions in quick succession, standing up on wobbly legs. She didn't know if her disorientation was a product of the adrenaline, the fear and the shock, or a mixture of the three.
"I'm here," Harry's deep voice made her turn around. There he was, unscathed and unharmed, but his clothes were covered in blood. He looked worn down.
"Harry..." Hermione whispered, aghast. He stepped closer to her.
"Are you okay?"
How could he act so calmly, after the episode in the cave? What exactly had he done? Neither Hermione nor Ron had ever doubted Harry's extraordinary magical power, but still...
"You- you used... Did you cast the Crucio?" Ron wanted to know. Harry's eyes fell on him; taciturn green orbs that held nothing of Harry in them.
"I don't know," he replied. Hermione raised her hand to her mouth at this. So Harry had not only done wandless magic, but had also performed an Unforgivable Curse no less? Where his feelings for her truly so strong?
"Where's your wand?" she questioned.
"I have it," Ron said before Harry could speak. "I grabbed it and did side along Apparition," he added before handing the wand to Harry. Only then did Hermione truly pay attention to their surroundings: they were in a sort of forest; the moon was shining so brightly that the shadows of the trees hid them from prying eyes.
"Where are we?" Harry asked, also looking around.
"Far from Hogsmeade; near Hogwarts," Ron responded.
"We have to tell Lupin or McGonagall," Hermione stated. "We'll need the mirror." she added, gazing at Ron, who nodded. They both turned to look at Harry, who was staring at the ground with a lost look. "Harry?" Hermione said, but he did not acknowledge her.
"Mate," Ron said loudly, waving his hand in front of Harry's face. This time Harry did react, and looked up at them looking disconcerted. "We have to use the mirror," he told him.
"Oh... Yeah, sure..." Harry replied absently, taking the small mirror out of his pocket and handing it to him. He glanced at Hermione before returning his gaze to the ground. Ron raised his eyebrow at the mirror.
"Remus Lupin," he spoke. His reflection blurred and then the mirror's surface turned black, but no face appeared on the other side. "Lupin," Ron repeated, making Hermione bit her lower lip worriedly as she leaned over his arms to see the mirror, while Harry merely looked at them. The blackness in the depths of the mirror vanished and Tonks appeared this time, with her pink hair and big bags under her eyes.
"Ron? Ron, is that you?" she asked, widening her eyes.
"Where's professor Lupin?" Hermione asked. Tonks sighed.
"Full moon," she simply said. "What did you need?" Ron and Hermione looked at each other; unsure of what to say, but when they gazed at Harry he shrugged.
"It's a risk we have to take," he told them.
"We need to go to Hogwarts," Ron told Tonks, who frowned slightly and then nodded.
"Very well," she said. "I'll tell someone to wait for you." And with that her face blurred and disappeared, leaving only a pale Ron staring back at himself and Hermione.
"Let's go, then," Harry broke the silence. Ron and Hermione agreed with their heads and they started walking in direction of their school as Ron handed the mirror back to Harry. The three wands were out and ready for an attack, but nothing but their own steps followed them through the night.
"Harry?" Hermione timidly asked. "Whose blood is that?"
"I casted the Sectumsempra on one of them," Harry started, looking at the spots like he hadn't noticed they had been there before. "Before I... Er... I slipped and fell into the puddle," he added.
"Oh." Hermione said. She knew it was stupid, but she didn't quite know how to handle Harry after what he had done. After all, wasn't this part of the reason why she had decided to go after Ron during their sixth year? She was ashamed to admit it, but some part of her knew it was true. "I imagine Harry is a scary boyfriend," one of the girls had once said. Hermione stole a glance at Harry, who was walking next to her, and let out a sigh.
That magic he had done... It had been because of her. And while that idea was flattering in its own way, as well as amazing in the sense of how much power he had released, well... It had been a bit frightening. They could all have died, since there had been such little room for the magic to expound about. Hermione glanced at Ron, walking at her right side, and frowned slightly. Ron wasn't scary. No... He wasn't scary, but he couldn't fulfill her in the way Harry did. That was what she couldn't see last year.
Besides, truth to be told... Could anyone blame Harry for being `scary'? With all the crap he has been trying to cope with since he was one, could anyone expect anything else? Hermione thought, in all honesty, that Harry could have turned out a thousand times worse.
Harry Potter was a scary boyfriend. But Hermione Granger wasn't a coward.
Hermione grabbed Harry's hand, surprising him. "You'll have to learn to control that power before you do it again," she told him. Harry opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, for he had been expecting Hermione to be utterly horrified with what he had done.
"I... I didn't know I could do it," Harry finally told her, blushing. "I'm- I'm sorry," he added.
"Don't be," Ron cut in, grinning, making Harry and Hermione turn to look at him with their eyebrows raise. "It was kind of creepy to watch, I'll admit it, but brilliant nonetheless," he said. At his best friends' looks, Ron also raised his eyebrows. "Oh, sorry... did I interrupt a deep, contrite talk you two were about to have?"
"Oh shut it," Hermione told him, as Harry shyly started to grin, looping her arm around Ron's and her left one around Harry's.
"There it is," Harry stated, pointing at the looming Hogwarts castle. There were no lights coming from any of the windows, nor smoke coming from Hagrid's hut. The place looked so forsaken that it was alarming. Their footsteps faltered as they neared the gates, and the wands tips were lit in spite of the moonlight. And while they cautiously neared the familiar grounds, the same question ran through the three heads: "have we been tricked?"
The still silence was broken when Hermione heard a rustling of leaves at their right. She wrenched her arm away from Ron's and pointed her wand directly at the spot from where the sound had come out. "There's something there," Hermione whispered to both Ron and Harry, who followed her example and also pointed them at the stubby bushes.
"At the count of three," Harry whispered back. Hermione and Ron nodded. More rustling was heard at this. "One... Two... Three!" he exclaimed, and the trio shouted Stupefy in unison. The bush's leaves rustled because of the spells, and then there wasn't any other movement. Harry was about to inspect what they had just stunned when a strangled gasp coming from Hermione made him freeze.
"I must admit you have the most acute hearing, Miss Granger."
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A/N: Short chapter, I know, and some may think that it could be nothing but a filler, but allow me to differ. Again, I can't tell when I'll be updating again, but I hope you liked this one, and I also hope that you'll let me know if you did through a review. Thanks for reading!
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