Sorry for the horrifically late update, prelims and Advanced Higher investigations suck. As does partial writer's block. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this next part and hopefully the next won't be so long in coming. Oh yes, and please, please, pleease continue to review.
Shattering World
They lay together on one of the House's beds, entwined in each other's arms. Books were scattered around the bed, strewn unclosed on the floor. Hermione's bag was close at hand and they had gone to sleep with their wands in their hands. Old habits were coming back from the war. But now they were sleeping in the one of the few places that belonged to their enemy. The Home had fought valiantly against its old masters, but in the end, it could not refuse its creators. Golden sparks floated through the floorboards below them, swirling into a hand of ephemeral energy. It reached towards Hermione's wand, tendrils of colour splitting off its fingers and sparkling in the dark. It touched the wand with its Hand and started to pull it out of Hermione's grip.
On the other side of the bed, a similar operation was being conducted on Harry's wand, slowly prising it out of his grip and filling the space with illusion. It worked carefully, but quickly, knowing that its master's servant would soon be here and would expect everything to be ready. And in its hurry, one of its Hands brushed Hermione's skin. Images poured into its consciousness, the two on the bed laughing as three red and blond haired children ran around a nursery, locked in an endless game of tag. A young woman, with laughing eyes and blond hair inviting the two into dinner and the happiness at being able to help round up the children. It felt the joy and a piercing sorrow over past mistakes. <What mistakes> it thought and suddenly more images cascaded into its mind. A hospital, a tiny dead bundle of dreams wrapped in a blanket, a desperate sorrow as that bundle was carried away as they wept. Loss. Pain. Even punctuated by joy it flooded into the Home's mind and it paused. Only for a second, but it paused nonetheless and in that second Hermione's eyes sprang open.
She yanked her wand away from the Hand around it and slashed it in an arc around her and her husband. A wave of force swept out from that slash and fractured the form of the Hands around them. She shook her husband awake with one hand while her wand twisted and a bubble of iridescent light sprang up around them. She was already out from under the covers, conjuring her clothes onto her body. One of the Hands started forward, she flicked her wand at it and the Hand shattered into wisps of colour. She turned slightly and whispered urgently to Harry.
"Get up. I don't know how I know, but she's coming and this place isn't going to stop her. It was trying to steal our wands." She said in a voice of frozen helium.
"What? Why would it-" He stopped for a second and shook his head to clear it. Then his eyes cleared and he realised what she meant. "Oh."
"Exactly." Hermione's voice was harsh with irony, "We all thought it was so clever, this house that we found. We didn't understand it, but it kept us safe. Now we know how it did it." Her wand flashed in the dim light and three more Hands burst asunder before the House retreated. "Dammit, we don't even know if we can Disapparate out of here." She cried in despair.
"No. I refuse to believe that we are trapped." Harry replied forcefully, gently shaking her. "If we couldn't get out, why would it be taking our wands?" He asked triumphantly and Hermione calmed as his logic penetrated her panic. "Come on, we have to move again. We have to get out, if only to work out how to fight this."
"I know love," She gestured at the books around the bed and they flew into the bag. She checked the bag, making sure that it hadn't been ransacked by the House and checked her books as well. "Good, they weren't smart enough to steal my books." She said, her voice much calmer now that her precious books where safe. "Where do we go from here?"
"We can't say, it'll tell its master." Harry replied. "But I think I have an id-" There was a shattering explosion and the floor gave way. Silver flames flared up around them and Harry's hand twisted. The air shaped itself around them as they fell, steering them away from that inferno of power. They hit the ground hard, losing their feet in the impact and Hermione cried out as her ankle twisted in an attempt to soften the fall. She fell towards the flames but her wand flashed in her hand. A plane of force caught her and quickly deposited her no the floor not a moment before a bolt of golden light flared across the room towards them. She felt the heat of its passing as it plunged through the space she had just occupied and shuddered. Harry, having just climbed to his feet, hurled himself to the floor again to avoid another golden bolt of fire as it streaked across the room to impact on the wall. The wall had been shattered by the previous shot and now collapsed to expose the outside world. Harry's wand flashed in the silver light and a pane of blue force sprang up around them, dividing the room.
"Quick, out through the wall!" He yelled as the House started to repair itself. Hermione pointed her wand at her ankle and muttered an incantation before leaping to her feet and sprinting for the impromptu exit.
Two more bolts of golden fire lanced into Harry's shield, causing cracks to appear, and he paled as he too ran for the hole. Hermione clambered through it and spun, wand outstretched to raise another wall of blue from the ground to cover her husband. Harry dove through the hole and his feet almost caught on part of the rebuilding but he twisted and sailed through intact. A screech of rage followed him as he leapt and an uncontrollable flare of white fire exploded from their pursuer. Their shields fractured and shattered as the fiery power leapt across the room and the entire wall disintegrated at its touch. Their wands moved together and two more sheets of blue popped into existence around them as the strike cascaded around them. Their shields splintered as the onslaught battered them down to nothingness. Tentacles of light threw them apart, wrapping them up in ropes of cool fire and their enemy stepped through the destruction she had wrought. Her face was hidden by the hood of her robe, an intricately beautiful construct of crimson and silver, but it was clear that she was a woman. She gestured slightly with her hands and her prisoners floated towards her, their wands bound by their sides. She pulled from her robes a gleaming blade of liquid silver and gestured again. Harry and Hermione's wands leapt from their hands and the bindings around them vanished, dropping them unceremoniously to the ground and their captor swept her gaze over them.
"So, this is all that I was to catch?" She drawled mockingly, her voice melodic and almost entrancing in itself. "I see no great power here, but then I guess that power is always hidden by ineptitude." Harry started at that, and she turned slightly, her smile full of contempt. "Just because you destroyed one of our toys, little `hero', that doesn't make you powerful." She laughed scornfully and Harry's head snapped back as if he had been slapped.
"Vol…Voldemort was a toy to you?" he whispered, aghast.
"Oh yes, a toy, albeit a flawed one." She replied, seeming to take joy in his shock. "But he served his purpose, he drew you out. And now," She glided across the ground towards him and raised her knife, "now you will release a foe so powerful that it will make what Voldemort did seem like a pinprick."
She placed her wrist alongside his, palm up, and twisted his hand around to match. Harry attempted to struggle against her grip, but she merely tightened her bindings on him to the point where he could not even twitch. But regardless, he still tried to twist free of her grip as she placed the roiling blade onto his wrist and began chanting. Then he saw Hermione, her hands stretching out towards their fallen wands and realised that the concentration it was taking to cast this atrocity was weakening the bindings. Hermione gasped soundlessly as she twisted in the grip of the binding spells, reaching desperately for her wand. Her fingers closed about it and as her hand rose, her mind screamed an incantation. A bolt of red light flashed from her wand and shattered on a ripple in the air. Their captor didn't even twitch, but paused in her chant. "You know, that wasn't a particularly good idea." She said with a gentleness that made Harry shudder. "An attack deserves retaliation." She paused again and then her voice turned gleeful. "You know, I've read about bond feedback, but I've never been able to test it. I don't think my masters would deny me this response." She laughed, an eerie tinkle that set Hermione's teeth on edge, and then spun on the spot, pointed her hand at Hermione and slashed her knife down Harry's arm, tickling his skin with the blade, but not drawing blood. Hermione screamed.
"Ah! So it does work." She exclaimed gleefully, "I knew I should have given him an easier death." She thrust her knife again at Harry, aiming at his heart and stopping just short of his skin and squealed with laughter as Hermione collapsed into a ball of shrieking pain. She turned back to Harry. "Don't try another spell my dear, or you'll find out what it's like to have your chest cut out." She resumed her chanting and as words spilled out of her, a circle of fire started to build up around her. She had forgotten one thing though, Harry thought, Hermione still held her wand and she had been tortured before in the war. He saw her straighten once more and this time she spoke her spell as she pointed her wand at herself.
"Relashio."
The bindings, already weakened by her twisting and the lack of concentration devoted to them, collapsed in on themselves and she fell weakly to the ground. But she kept her focus, and she spoke again the spell, pointing her wand at Harry. He felt the bindings slip slightly, just enough for limited movement and he pulled his wrist out of alignment. The mage whirled again, a corona of light building around her hands and Hermione screamed her spell again. "Relashio!" Harry's bindings shattered and as he fell her hurled himself towards their enemy. But she was faster, far faster than she appeared. She spun, her robe spinning around her and slashed his arm open from shoulder to elbow. He grunted with pain, hitting the ground hard and rolling towards his wand as Hermione collapsed again, the mage-made bond transmitting the pain a hundred-fold. Harry grabbed his wand and then flung himself towards his wife as a web of fire slashed out towards them. He grabbed her arm, closed his eyes and twisted slightly. There was a crack and the couple vanished, escaped again.
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