Disclaimer: The great and powerful JKR owns Harry Potter. I, Professor Mary, merely enjoy writing fan fiction and mean no copyright infringement whatsoever.
“Expecto Patronum!”
Ginny looked up briefly to see a dazzling silver mongoose hurtle from the direction of Neville’s outstretched wand where it joined Hagrid’s enormous dragon Patronus to fight off the two Dementors. Then she turned back to the hooded Death Eaters lying on the ground in front of her.
“Tetherus interminable” she shouted, as thick metal fastenings shot out from her wand and bound the two Death Eaters. She took another glance around to assess the situation. Harry had said that there were two Death Eaters and three Dementors. Neville and Hagrid were still battling two Dementors, trying to corner them for containment. Where's the third?
She whirled around when she heard the yelps of distress. She ran towards the unnerving sounds with her wand at the ready. She rounded the large tree trunk only to feel hit by a blast of coldness. There was Fang, cowering before the third Dementor.
If there was anything Ginny Weasley hated, it was a bully.
“Expecto Patronum! she bellowed, standing fast behind the foul creature. A magnificent silver lioness bounded out of her wand, immediately pouncing on the Dementor and driving it away from the frightened boarhound.
“Teneo Carceris,” came Neville’s calm voice from behind her. She watched as the Dementor was unceremoniously sucked into the tiny brown box in Neville’s hand. Neville closed the box and muttered the Unbreakable Charm over it before slipping it into his robe pocket.
Her lioness Patronus was still standing guard over Fang though it dissipated when Ginny finally reached the trembling dog.
“Come on, Fang,” she said soothingly. The giant whimpering boarhound seemed to finally realize that it was out of danger. With a bark of delight, it came vaulting over to Ginny’s outstretched hands.
“Don’t know why you insist on bringing this ol’ fleabag along, Hagrid,” she chuckled as her oversized friend came around to pet his oversized dog.
“Who you callin’ old?” Hagrid laughed. “Surely not Fang. He’s nuttin’ but a babe, aren’t cha, boy?” He said, leaning down to receive Fang’s lavishly sloppy licks.
“Well, we bes’ get moving ‘long,” Hagrid said, while Fang continued to drool on the side of his face.
“Let me just call Moody and make sure he’s behind us to pick them up,” Ginny said, gesturing back to where the unconscious Death Eaters lay.
“Elocutus Moody,” she spoke into her wand.
“Right there, Weasley,” came a battered voice crackling out from her wand. Within seconds, Mad-Eye Moody Apparated in front of them. He was shortly followed by three other members from the Order of the Phoenix who also happened to work for the Ministry of Magic’s Department of Law Enforcement.
“We’ll take it from here, you three,” Moody wheezed at them. “Watch yourselves in there. We’ll be behind you as soon as we get these two sorted out.” The old Auror nodded at them dismissively and Ginny, Neville, Hagrid, and Fang continued towards the compound.
“Do you think we still have the element of surprise?” Neville asked quietly.
“Well, I don’t think the Death Eaters had time to call for back-up and I haven’t seen the Giants or anything resembling resistance. Of course, we still don’t know what we’re facing on the inside,” Ginny responded.
When they got within sight of the compound, Ginny stopped them.
“Time for the Disillusionment Charm,” she advised. She waited as Neville uttered the appropriate incantation over all four heads. He had done himself first so she was slightly surprised to feel the familiar cool trickle seep down from the top of her head.
“Eh! I always hated that feelin’” Hagrid mumbled as Ginny watched the half-giant assume the chameleon-like appearance of just about everything else around him.
When Fang finally blended in with surroundings, they all preceded towards the first rendezvous point.
“Malfoy said the servants’ entrance was just beyond those sets of bushes, near the large stone flower pots over there,” Ginny whispered.
Quietly they made their way alongside the wall towards the hidden doorway.
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The door swung open and Pansy and Pettigrew belted into the dungeon. Holding her wand high to cast as much light into the deep dark room as possible, Pansy immediately spied her beloved.
Draco was leaning against the back wall, studiously ignoring them both. She eyed him closely. He looked rather mussed. She felt an uncomfortable pang of regret for having to hex him and then leave him in the dungeon. She looked around the room again. Lying on the floor on the other side of the room was the Mudblood. The bitch appeared to be unconscious and looked even more the worse for wear than Draco. She found that she could not suppress a huge smile for her future husband.
“Couldn’t resist, I see?” Pansy sneered at him. “Not that I blame you, of course, my love. I just hope you didn’t rough her up too much. That’s to be my job, you know.”
She pointed her wand at Hermione’s body and levitated it from the ground. Draco was still ignoring her, she noticed. She sighed, hoping that she was making the right decisions. She signaled to Pettigrew that he should take over the transportation of Granger’s body. A sickening smile played out on his face as he assumed the levitation charm.
“Do not hurt her, Wormtail,” she warned. He looked back at her, his smile gone.
“You’re no fun,” Pettigrew mumbled. He walked out of the dungeon, with Hermione’s limp body hovering in front of him.
Pansy turned to Draco then, her wand still leveled directly at him.
“Come now, beloved. I’m sure that a few hours with your favorite Mudblood has helped you to recognize your priorities,” she whined coyly. She sauntered over to him to where she was now standing just inches away.
“Indeed,” he bit back.
The harsh coldness of his tone felt like a slap across her face. Involuntarily, Pansy backed up, again wondering if she would ever have the love of this man.
“You’re coming with me, Draco. Now. I’ll make you if you force me to,” she reasoned.
He stepped away from the wall then, drawing himself up to his full height. Pansy had to catch her breath at the sight of him. She had always thought him beautiful and captivating- but when he was angry, he was the most intoxicating presence she had ever been around.
“You will not harm my daughter, Pansy,” he stated in an unyielding voice.
Pansy laughed. She couldn’t help it. She could have just as easily cried. There, unmistakably, was the intense look of love that she’d seen on his face earlier that evening. He loved his daughter. If she was responsible for the child’s death or whatever it was that would happen when the Dark Lord was resurrected, she would have to deal with a father’s love. She felt a sense of recognition at what she would have to do now. Her wand arm shook just a little bit as she struggled to retain her composure.
“And what’s in it for me?” she asked, her voice not belying her tumultuous emotional conflict.
“Well, Pansy, you may get to live through this. Because I assure you that I will personally kill anyone who harms someone I love,” Draco replied in that ferociously calm voice- the same one that still made her knees go weak.
“You think I care about only living, Draco? You think I care about my life if I can’t be with you? There’s only one thing I want. Give me the ring and I will spare the child,” she whispered hoarsely.
“I do not have it,” was all he said. Pansy started. She’d left the little red box with her outer robes in the room upstairs.
“I know where it is. But you’ll give it to me and then I will not complete the ritual?” she posed, her voice still coming in whispers. She watched him closely. He seemed to be carefully considering his next words.
“If I had the ring, I would not hesitate to use it in a way that would guarantee the safety of my loved ones,” he affirmed.
She nodded. This was exactly what she had expected of him.
The ring is as good as mine, she thought almost gleefully.
“Well, upstairs then. If we don’t hurry, there’s no telling what will happen to that stupid Mudblood. Wormtail is desperate for some playtime and Lucius and Narcissa will probably want to watch that…” her voice trailed off as the image of what she had just described played out in her mind. “And regardless of the ritual, I promised her that I would be the one to end her miserable existence. And that’s one promise that I’m going to make good on!” she laughed coldly.
She noted Draco’s hardened expression. “Okay, fine. If you want to rough her up some more, you can.”
He stepped away from his position in front of the wall and walked towards the door. Pansy followed just behind him, her wand point never wavering from the center of his back.
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“What is all that noise?” Neville whispered to Ginny.
Before Ginny could answer his question, the bushes just to the right of them split open as an apparently invisible force made its way through. Ginny didn’t have time to chastise Harry and Ron, whom she assumed to be responsible for the blundering noise because following closely behind them were three Giants.
She grabbed Neville’s arm and pushed him to the side of the large stone flower pots. She desperately hoped that Harry and Ron and Hagrid and Fang were out of the way, as well. She knew that Giants had fairly bad eyesight so she doubted they could discern their chameleon-like appearances. However, she also knew that they had very keen senses of smell. No sooner had she thought this than Hermione’s voice seemed to pop into her mind.
“Odorus tuna,” she whispered extremely quietly while pointing her wand to a tree about fifty feet away. All three Giants immediately turned their great lumbering heads towards the clearly identifiable smell of tuna fish wafting towards them.
Ginny pulled her robe across her nose as the smell was threatening to gag her. The Giants were talking now. Well, she assumed that they were talking. They were at least grunting in apparent confusion.
Come on, take the bait! she thought. About a minute later the Giants had seemed to abandon chasing an invisible creature for the promise of rotten fish. Ginny smiled to herself and sent a silent thanks to Hermione.
She felt a slight change in the air next to her. Though she certainly couldn’t see anything, she assumed that Harry and Ron were now very close to where she stood with Neville.
“Well done!” came Harry’s disembodied whisper.
“Yeah, bloody brilliant, Ginny!” whispered Ron, sounding as if was on the other side of Harry.
“Thank Hermione the next time you see her. It was her idea- she came up with it when she was coaching me through possible scenarios during Auror training,” she whispered back.
The mention of their friend’s name seemed to bring each of them back to seriousness of the situation.
“We need to get inside and get her out of there,” Ron said in a low determined voice.
“Before we go, we’d better make sure that those Giants don’t give us anymore trouble. Remus and Tonks should be along, soon, right?” Neville asked.
“Good idea, Neville,” Ginny said appreciatively. “What do you think? Just a simple Confundus Charm? That should go a long way with them.”
Neville murmured his agreement and then cast the charms on the unsuspecting Giants. On the surface, it appeared to make little difference as the three Giants were already laboriously searching around an old tree for tuna fish.
Ginny turned her efforts towards assessing the doorway. According to Malfoy’s instructions, this was definitely the correct spot. Only then did she notice that the Parkinsons' must not have had human servants but only house elves! The door before them was clearly large enough for nothing but a three and a half foot creature.
Before Ginny could even complain, she heard Harry’s soft voice, “Reducio. Reducio.” She heard two swooshing sounds and knew that Harry and Ron were probably now the size of house elves. Only the seriousness of the situation prevented her from giggling.
She quickly took Harry’s lead, “Reducio. Reducio,” she said, pointing her wand at both herself and Neville.
“Hagrid?” she whispered.
“Er- Listen I think I’d better stay here and guard the door. You go on now. Fang an’ me will keep an eye out on those Giants and I’ll tell Lupin an’ Tonks what to do to get inside,” Hagrid quickly replied.
“Okay,” she whispered back, this time not suppressing her giggle. She should have known that Hagrid would draw the line at being reduced to the size of a house elf. She doubted that he’d ever been that small- even as a baby!
She turned back to the door. Ron had gotten the door open after several attempts with Unlocking charms. The four of them slipped quietly inside. Taking just a minute to return to their correct size and then orient themselves, they quickly hurried off towards the drawing room, where Malfoy had suspected the ritual would take place.
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Hermione barely cracked open her eyelids. She figured she was safer if everyone continued to assume that she was unconscious. She listened closely to the sounds around her. Pettigrew had dropped her rather carelessly within some kind of circle of stones in the middle of a large and elegantly decorated room. Though the room was dimly lit, she could make out several other circles of stones. It seemed that her circle was to the right of a much larger circle. Another smaller circle appeared to be on the other side of the larger one. Within the largest circle was a heap of firewood.
That makes sense, she thought, given the nature of the Ritual of Resurrection. According to the spell, Voldemort would rise again from the fire just as Louisa herself was born from it, five years ago. As she inconspicuously fingered her ring, Hermione allowed herself to take some comfort in the knowledge that that would never happen now.
With the Annulus Aeternus, she and Draco were now bound together for the reminder of their lives. Even death would only part them physically. The ring’s magic was ancient. The strength of the bond was no longer as attractive to wizards and witches as it had been once. Divorce in the wizarding world was as prevalent as it was in the Muggle world. Most wizarding folk just didn’t want the level of commitment that the ring demanded and thus the rings had long since become a rare item.
But it was just the strength of this old magic that released Voldemort’s claim on Louisa. When Hermione was theorizing strategies to save Louisa, she had never even hoped for something like the Annulus Aeternus. She had been hopeful that a true affirmation of love between herself and Draco and then the subsequent consummation of that love would be strong enough to reclaim Louisa as their own.
And perhaps it might have been, she thought, a faint blush creeping over her cheeks as she remembered their lovemaking.
“The Mudblood smiles,” Lucius barked. “Stupid girl. Soon you’ll be dead.” Hermione felt a sharp kick in her side from a lady’s heeled shoe. She kept her eyes closed and didn’t make a sound, despite the shooting pain from an already cracked rib.
Hermione heard the swooshing of skirts and then felt hot breath on neck. She was overwhelmed by the heady scent of Narcissa’s perfume. Two small hands were now draped across her stomach.
“She is rather pretty for an animal. Shame to waste such a pretty pretty thing…,” Lucius drawled. Hermione felt a hot sticky tongue at the base of her neck. Slowly, Narcissa’s tongue made its way up her neck and then behind her ear. Rather callously, teeth bit into her earlobe.
Involuntarily, Hermione’s eyes snapped open. She gasped and looked directly into Narcissa’s cold stormy blue eyes. The older woman’s mouth twisted into a harsh smile, one that seemed far too large for her face.
“So the Mudblood awakens. Just in time for a little fun…” Lucius snarled, now laying Narcissa’s body almost entirely on top of Hermione’s and effectively pinning her legs.
The hot tongue resumed its trail down Hermione’s neck, heading menacingly towards the opening of her shirt. A sharp bite on her collarbone spurred her into action. She balled her fists together and tried to push the woman off of her body.
Lucius’s harsh bellowing laughter seemed to consume her. He used Narcissa’s perfectly manicured hands to easily restrain Hermione’s fists.
“Feisty animal… we like it,” he jeered, pressing down firmly with Narcissa’s thin hips. Hermione screamed out in frustration. He made no attempt to quiet her and he held her wrists with one of the tiny bejeweled hands while the other dived into Hermione’s shirt.
This is not happening!Hermione seemed to scream inside of her head. Once again, she struggled against Narcissa’s grip. Other sounds in the room distracted her slightly from the woman’s groping hand and grinding pelvis. Pettigrew had stopped whatever he was doing and was now just standing on the side of the circle, leering at them. Hermione was sickened when she saw the drool dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. She could also hear approaching sounds in the hallway.
Draco! He must be coming with Parkinson, she thought. She wondered if he’d be able to help her. She knew that he needed to keep up some kind of illusion for Parkinson in order to get them safely out of here as well as to uncover the remaining Death Eaters. She knew it was necessary. But she didn’t like it. Suddenly she desperately did not want her husband and that Parkinson cow to see her in this ignominious situation.
Just then Narcissa’s wandering hand had wondered just a little too far, jerking Hermione out of her desperate thoughts. Not only did not she not want to be seen in this shameful predicament, she just plainly did not want to be raped by Draco’s father and mother!
Several things seemed to happen at once. Pettigrew had now dropped into the circle to advance on the two women’s bodies. Hermione felt her temperature spike as her blood seemed literally to be boiling. Narcissa’s probing fingers had jerked back as though burned even as Lucius was trying to force them to resume their exploration. Hermione had taken Draco’s parents’ seconds of indecision to quickly bring her knee up to wedge Narcissa’s chest away from her body. And Draco and Pansy came though the door of the drawing room.
“What the hell is going on here?” Draco’s voice thundered.
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Draco stoically followed Pansy out of the dungeon. He didn’t clinch his fists the way he wanted to. He didn’t swear under his breath. He made no effort to knock the wand out of Pansy’s hand. He just calmly marched up the winding flights of stairs and then walked down the long corridors.
With every fiber of his being, he hoped that Hermione was all right. Now that he was certain that Louisa was out of danger, all of his efforts were trained on Hermione. She was not safe. Without their daughter, he figured that the ceremony would be scrapped. But what would happen to Hermione when the Death Eaters realized that her blood was now worthless to them? He was sure that it wouldn’t be pretty, whatever it was. They would be angry and would dole out punishment to his wife.
It was this fear for her safety that primarily motivated his current subterfuge. At the moment, he could have cared less about the Order’s plan to apprehend the remaining Death Eaters. All he cared about was saving Hermione. With Pansy in her current role of violent love sick puppy and the completely bizarre presence of his father, Hermione would be instantly killed if found out to be the object of Draco’s affections. If the two conspirators learned that Draco and Hermione were already married by the Annulus Aeternus, he imagined that they’d both be tortured and then killed.
Though he wanted to, he didn’t sigh.
“Draco, you’ll see. This will all work out. You’ll come to love me. And we’ll have a family. I can love your daughter, too. I can forget about the Granger bitch’s blood- she’ll be our child. All I need is you,” Pansy whimpered into his back.
Draco said nothing though he felt as if he might burst into a furious violent rage at Pansy’s words.
“Leave everything to me. I’ll need to bring the child here- but nothing bad will happen to her. You see, once Granger is dead, her blood will mean nothing. If it isn’t drained from her live body during the ritual, it won’t work. Pettigrew won’t be a problem. He won’t know what hit him. Lucius and your mother might be another story. I don’t really know what’s happened to them- and I’m not going to speak ill of my future in-laws, but that whole sharing-a-body-thing is just strange,” Pansy stated.
Draco thought “strange” didn’t quite cover it.
So that’s her plan, he thought. He hoped that Harry, Ron, Ginny, and anyone else with a wand and a steady aim were close by. It seemed that, in addition to himself and Hermione, only Pettigrew, his parents, and Pansy would be witnessing the ritual. Without a wand, he was pretty sure the odds were against him. Once again, he hoped that he’d finally figured Pansy out. Everything depended on her.
As they drew closer to the drawing room, Draco could hear the muffled sounds of a struggle. Several hooded Death Eaters were standing watch outside of the room. Their presence assured Draco that Harry, Ron, and Ginny had thus, not yet arrived. The Death Eaters nodded at them as they walked towards the closed door.
“We are not to be disturbed under any circumstances,” Pansy commanded. They murmured their acquiescence.
They walked into the room. Even in the dimmed light, Draco could plainly see the cause of the sounds he’d heard from the hallway. Pansy shut the door behind him, locking it.
“What the hell is going on?” he thundered.
There on the floor in front of him was his mother, perched precariously on top of his wife, with a drooling Death Eater crouched right beside them. His father’s eerie laughter suddenly filled the room as Narcissa’s head was thrown back, her eyes gleaming at the horror-stricken face of her only son.
A/N:
Teneo- Latin “ to contain
Carceris “ Latin- prison
From:
University of Notre Dame Latin-English Grammar Guide. Found at http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm