Disclaimer: Harry Potter and related characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Brothers and various publishers. Transformers and related characters are owned by Hasbro, Takara, IDW Publishing, Dreamworks, and various publishers. No money is being made off of this work.
A/N Warning. This chapter contains snobs. When I say snobs I mean those "old money" types who think they're above the "common folk" and lord out like so. If you ever have this crazy urge to go out and murder rich people as a result of the snob overdose in this chapter keep in mind that most millionaires in the US are "new money" and are more or less like your next door neighbor. Of course, for all of you who live in Europe however, please remember that murder is a crime and you really don't want to go around killing rich people. So you have been warned.
Chapter 18: Malfoy and Mirage
Hermione stirred on a cold metallic floor, feeling something licking at her cheek. Her brown eyes opened and saw that it was Crookshanks licking her. Groaning, she managed to pull herself up. "Ugh... what happened?" she asked no one in particular as she cradled Crookshanks. Like a rush, she instantly recalled the events of what had happened on the Hogwarts Express. "Merlin!" she exclaimed as she bolted to her feet.
Hermione immediately registered that she was in a large, dark, metallic chamber. It resembled many of the chambers and rooms on the Ark, only far darker and colder, like the very air itself was sinister. She noted that right behind her was what remained of the Hogwarts Express carriage she had been in. Lying unconscious in huddles within the carriage were several first year and second year students. Also nearby one of the huddles was the unconscious form of Luna Lovegood.
Hermione immediately went to Luna's side and started shaking her. "Luna... Luna... please wake up."
Luna let out a small giggle in her sleep. "Oh Ronald, that tickles. Such a naughty thing," she said dreamily before starting to hum 'Weasley is the King'.
Although they had broken up, Hermione wasn't quite comfortable to learn that Luna was having naughty dreams about her ex-boyfriend. Then again even if she and Ron had never dated in the first place she'd probably still be uncomfortable to learn that Luna dreamed about that. "Luna wake up!" she said somewhat harshly.
"Huh?" Luna's eyes snapped open. Groggily, she sat up. "Were... were we attacked by heliopaths?" she asked.
"By Decepticons," said Hermione.
"Of course!" said Luna, instantly becoming lucid. Her eyes immediately lost their dreamy quality and even started to tear up. Hermione accurately guessed that she had just recalled what had happened to her father.
"Well, well, look who's finally decided to rejoin the land of the living," said a snarky voice from nearby, "the bookworm and the lunatic."
Hermione instantly recognized the voiced. She and Luna looked toward their right and were surprised to see none other than Draco Malfoy observing them while seated cross-legged on a pile of tires. "You're alive?" Hermione exclaimed.
Draco scowled. "Nice to see how quick people were ready to declare me as dead mudbl... Granger," he snarled.
Hermione rolled her eyes and said, "Oh drop the high and mighty act Malfoy. Unless you haven't noticed, we're all in the same predicament here." She started attempting to straighten her hair out when she was suddenly struck by an epiphany. "It was you!"
"Huh?" exclaimed Malfoy.
"It was you!" said Hermione as she rounded on Malfoy. "You told them about the Weasleys and the Lovegoods! You told them about the Hogwarts Express! You're the one who's BEEN SUPPLYING THEM INFORMATION!"
The guilty look on Draco's face confirmed to Hermione that her accusations were true. Only a split second later, Luna let out an enraged scream and tried to assault Draco.
"Wha... Luna!" exclaimed Hermione as she tried to hold the blonde girl back.
"You led them to us!" screamed Luna, tears starting to stream down her face. "You told them about us! It's your fault Daddy was killed!"
"Well what choice did I have?" snapped Draco. "They've only been keeping me alive so long as I can tell them what they wanted to know! I had no idea why they wanted to know about Potter's friends or why they were curious about how the Hogwarts Express worked! It was all a matter of survival."
"Oh honestly, it was all about saving your own skin!" said Hermione, her voice laced with venom. "After everything we've been through, you're still the coward from our Hogwarts days."
"And what would you have done differently?" Malfoy said haughtily.
"I would give my life for Harry!" declared Hermione.
Suddenly, a voice from nearby drifted over saying, "As entertaining as all of this has been you're really starting to induce malfunctions in my audio sensors. So will you shut up?" The tone of the voice was rather haughty and pompous, much like Draco's usual tone was.
Hermione, Luna, and Draco stopped arguing and started looking around. "Who said that?" asked Hermione.
"Right here," said the voice again. The very air in front of them suddenly shimmered as if a disillusionment charm had worn off and a twenty feet tall robot suddenly shimmered into view right next to the carriage. He was predominately blue and silver and was currently sitting on the floor, his legs crossed, and leaning back on the wall. Hermione was surprised to see that he had the Autobot brand engraved on his armor.
"You... you're an Autobot?" asked Hermione.
The robot shrugged. "Well yeah. The name's Mirage," said the robot. "And... I guess you could say I'm an Autobot."
"Well... what are you doing here?" asked Hermione.
Mirage haughtily scoffed. "What's it look like? I'm a prisoner as well. Though come to think of it, I'm starting to think that the Decepticons have forgotten that they're holding me down here. Hmph! You'd think they would give a prisoner of my stature better treatment but NOOOOO! They just had to put me in with the commoners. Of course, I work with commoners all the time with the Autobots but you would think that someone of my standing would be placed in a more befitting setting."
"I agree!" declared Malfoy. "A prisoner of such high stature such as myself deserves better treatment than this! These 'abnomalies' have no culture I say!" Hermione was starting to feel nauseous with all the snob talk when Draco said, "I mean, look who they got to guard over us?"
Hermione looked around and saw that the Weasleys were the ones guarding them, each standing in a different corner of the chamber. Ginny in particular looked rather menacing with her wand trained on them though her eyes were still glazed.
Draco scoffed. "What's up with them? They under the Imperius?"
"Cerebro shells," said Mirage, "same principle. I've got a nasty experience with them myself. Hmph, bad enough to be treated like such a lowlife slave... then again, if Megatron had his way I guess we'd all be slaves or dead. Still, to think that they would actually treat me the same as common folk..."
"I'll say," declared Draco. "When my father hears about this..."
Hermione started. "Er... Draco," she said hesitantly. "Your father... your parents were killed in the attack on the manor."
Draco's already pale skin turned pasty white. His eyes widened in shock before narrowing to slits. His teeth started grinding while his fists clenched so tight his hands started to bleed. It was just then that the main doors of the chamber opened and a voice said, "How are our 'guests' doing today?"
Draco spun around and screamed, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The green light of the killing curse blasted forth from Draco's wand straight at the intruder. Aside from staggering a little from the curse's force however, the robot was completely unharmed. Belatedly Draco realized that he had attempted to use the curse on Megatron himself.
"Ah yes, the so called killing curse," said Megatron, "I'll have to remember that one."
So incredible and sudden yet familiar was the terror that suddenly gripped her heart that Hermione had initially thought it was Voldemort whom had walked through the door. Of course, it was a giant robot rather than the late Dark wizard that had walked into the room and Hermione was instantly able to put two and two together to realize that this was none other than the dreaded Lord Megatron. Idly she noted that Mirage had turned invisible again. Draco for his part looked shell shocked.
"Well, well how are our guests feeling today?" said Megatron.
Swallowing her fear Hermione demanded, "What do you want from us?"
"Oh? By that do you mean in short term or long term my dear?" said Megatron. "Nothing of much importance, really; in the long term of course, I want all of you dead." The casual way he said it placed a sense of dread in Hermione's gut. "In the short term, you will all serve for ransom."
"Ransom?" said Hermione. She gritted her teeth and snarled, "Is that all we are to you?"
"And why complain? You humans should be grateful that I'm even keeping you alive for a little while," said Megatron. "You 'insects' are merely a step to my true target, one in a long line of to come. It will be your lives that will lead me directly to Harry Potter and then, his life will merely be the next step: one step at a time, one step closer to the goal. And it appears that you fleshlings have yet to learn your place." To Hermione and Luna's horror, Ginny suddenly placed her wand tip on her own forehead. "One command and I can make her blow her brains out," said Megatron. "Perhaps I should make her do so just to show all of you your place..." Megatron stopped his tirade when the whole hideout shook.
The lord of destruction made his way over to the door and said, "Report."
"We appear to be under attack by an unknown species, my lord," said Soundwave from the other side of the door. "They appear to be human, only around the same size as us."
'Giants!' realized Hermione. 'We must be in the Alps.'
"Now that's interesting," said Megatron. "Whichever way, no matter their size, a fleshling is still a fleshling." He turned toward the prisoners and smirked. "Well now, looks like your friend is lucky. I have just been presented with a much better way of demonstrating my power." Megatron suddenly transformed into a jet and took off. The doors closed shut as soon as he was gone.
Draco's shaking subsided and he took a few calming breaths. He turned around and saw that Hermione and Luna were staring at him incredulously. "What?" he demanded, already sounding like his usual haughty self.
"You had your wand all along?" said Hermione, a tone of disbelief in her voice.
"And what would you have expected me to do with it?" demanded Draco as he put his wand away. "Make my escape? Ha! Fat chance with this factory filled with 'abnomalies' crawling around. Safer to just stay put!"
Hermione shook her head. "After all these years; still a twitchy little ferret aren't you, Malfoy?" she said. She ignored Draco's scowl and shouted, "Mirage!"
"What?" said Mirage as he faded back into view.
"I've got a plan," said Hermione. "But I'm going to need your help. You see..." She stopped when one of the walls lit up like an IMAX movie screen. "What's that?"
"Visual panel," said Mirage. "Looks like they want to show us something going on outside."
The first thing Hermione saw were about twenty giants beating on the edge of the mountain. The mountain clearly looked like something had been engineering something on it and was undeniably looking rather alien. The giants were dealing with it in the same way dealt with anything unfamiliar to them: smashing it with their clubs.
Amidst the chaos, a silver, alien jet suddenly flew straight in between the giants and transformed into Megatron. The lord of destruction landed right in the midst of the crowd and the giants immediately turned on him. The giants were bewildered at first but Megatron was only a few feet taller than them and they far outnumbered him. Furthermore, they had their clubs and boulder axes while the strange creature had no weapons except maybe that weird black tube thing on his right arm.
Relying on their usual tendencies, the giants roared charged straight at Megatron wielding their clubs. As the giants closed in around him Megatron merely smirked.
"See well, the eventual fate of all fleshlings," he said.
Seconds later, Hermione and Luna were huddled together shaking in horror while Draco vomited in a far corner. Displayed on the screen were the mangled, bloody corpses that were all that was left of a once proud race.
A/N I don't think this chapter turned out too well. I've been having a difficult time writing recently (you know that point that comes in between the main body and the climax that just seems to drag). Anyway, it's written though. By the way, a few of my readers asked me this: "abnomalie" is a word I made up. It's supposed to be a shortened form of "abominable anomaly".