Chapter 14

Chapter 14

HERMIONE GRANGER

Hermione Granger felt her body jolt up, as rain ripped through her head. She tried to reach for her head yet found herself bound. Her heart thumped in her chest as she recalled her last proper memory.

The prison. She had been unable to sleep, devastated by what she had learned about Crovus Lestrange from the Headmaster she had decided to seek out the boy herself for some answers.

And then she had been kidnapped, much like him.

She felt her vision clear up before suddenly she heard the sound of shaking and looked up to find another silhouette beside her, bound to a chair just like her, shaking in his chair desperately, as a person stood infront of him.

She narrowed her eyes as she recognized that all too familiar face, despite the absence of his usual gold rimmed glasses. And a sense of relief passed through her as she tried to call him up.

'Harry' yet the words never came out of her gullet as she suddenly felt her body still as her eyes landed on his eyes, and a shiver ran down her spine as she saw their color.

Harry Potter was born with unusual green eyes, eyes that he had inherited from his mother. Yet right now, they weren't green. No, they were red. An ominous red. And that smile, that smile plastered on his face, was one she had never seen, one filled with malice and cruelty, and one may say many things about Harry Potter, but cruelty was something none would ever associate with him.

And then she saw him open his mouth, and the whole room shifted.

~"It's been a long time, son"~ she couldn't make out what was said as she saw him hiss. But his words made her skin crawl. His very voice and presence were making the magic in the air repulsive, and her heart was beating faster and faster as she realized that she had felt similarly whenever she had been in the presence of him.

Him. The Dark Lord.

Yet he was dead. Crovus Lestrange was restrained to a chair much like her, his arms and legs bound as Harry touched her face, his smile widening as she saw Crovus's body shake violently. He struggled in his binds, yet the binds refused to budge as she saw those orbs finally land in her and saw those red eyes glint in the darkness of the room, as dread pooled in her gut.

'Harry,' she tried to say again, desperately. Yet the gag in her mouth muffled her words, making it impossible for words to come out as she felt those eyes land.

"Ah, it seems our second guest is finally awake," she heard him speak, and his voice was different as well. Much deeper and filled with a promise if cruelty. He talked with confidence that she would never associate with Harry Potter.

"Hermione Granger, companion to the famous Harry Potter, the mud blood who brought down the greatest wizard of all time," he spoke with grandeur as he inched closer to her. Her body reacted on instinct as she tried to back away tried to get away.

Yet she couldn't move as Harry approached her. And by now, she was clear that this was not Harry.

"And yet here he stands, alive and more powerful than ever," he spoke, and her heart stilled at those words.

No. No. NO!

It couldn't be.

It couldn't be.

This had to be a joke, a joke. Or a nightmare, she said as she closed her eyes and tried to pinch her skin.

"Ohh, this isn't a nightmare. No, this is real," said the man as he reached for her face. She struggled to get away from his touch, yet the binds made her immobile as she felt him touch her forehead and then pain.

"AGHHHH!" she writhed in her binds, struggling as pain ripped through her body. Excruciating, burning pain.

And then it stopped, as he pulled away his finger, as she sat there as tears welled up in her eyes, as she felt him pinch her chin, forcing her to look up, and as she stared into those red orbs, she felt her worst fear materialize.

No, this was not Harry. Grief gripped her heart as she saw a smile appear on his lips.

"I told you, didn't I? This is very real. Granger, very real, your friend is gone. Has been since that fateful battle," and she stilled at those words. Her heart refused to believe them, yet everything she was seeing pointed to them being true.

He moved away from her towards Crovus Lestrange once again.

"AH, my dear boy. I should have seen that it was you working against me, sabotaging my plans," he said with a hint of sadness and pride as she felt tears fall down her eyes.

Harry was gone. Harry was gone.

"I trusted you, Crovus. Trusted you beyond anything else, yet you betrayed me." He spoke as he shook his head and tsked away.

"Yet you failed. You failed, for you forgot that I am Lord Voldemort!" and the whole shack shook as she felt his presence spread throughout the air, his magic repulsive and vile spread all around, and she felt her entire skin crawl.

"I am the one who conquered death. Do you really believe that a seventeen-year-old boy could defeat me? And with what," he said as he shook his head.

"With the power of love," he said before he began to laugh, his voice making the very light in the room dim.

"Hahahaa. Haaaa. Aahahaha! How naïve!" he said as that smile disappeared.

"And now I need not even wage a war to control all the witches and wizards." He said, and she stilled at those words.

"Hahaha, and you shall watch helplessly as I rule these lands as I was always meant to," he said as he laughed ominously, and she saw him take out his wand, and she realized that it wasn't the Holly and Phoenix feather wand of her oldest friend. No, this one was whiter and bent, a wand she had seen only in passing, but she recognized in a second, just as a hundred other would.

Yew and Phoenix feather, the wand that had been used by none other than Voldemort, a wand whose sheer presence was an indicator of death and carnage.

"You could have ruled these insects alongside me, Crovus," he said, and those eyes glinted with an emotion of jealousy as he leveled his wand at Crovus.

"Yet I know pain would mean little to someone like you," he said, and she felt a shiver run through her, before she saw those red orbs focus onto her as Crovus began to struggle in his chair.

"Yet I believe the same cannot be said of her," and she tried to move away, tried everything as she saw that wand light up as she heard him utter those accursed words.

"Crucio!"

And then she screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

.

.

.

.

.

BOOOM!

Until the sound of an explosion finally made the pain stop, and she was flung away, until her back hit the wall the shack, and she fell down, her vision blurry as she saw a dark silhouette standing over another.

0000

DAPHNE GREENGRASS

"I am telling you there was no reason for him to escape," she tried to convince the Minister, who rubbed her eyes as they sat in her office.

"And I am telling you there is nothing I can do, and though I may be inclined to believe you, I cannot take the risk. Disregarding his twisted allegiances in the war, none can deny that Crovus Lestrange is a highly dangerous wizard. I will not rescind the orders," she said, and Daphne gasped as she shook her head. Her mind raced to piece together just what the hell had happened here.

The orders the Minister spoke of were the wartime protocols that had been established to deal with Death Eaters, protocols that gave the aurors full authority to kill rather than contain.

Ordinarily, with the way the trail was going, she would have been able to convince the Minister to rescind those orders, yet this was not being treated as a simple escape, even though she knew that this was anything but that.

It was being treated as a high-risk abduction, the abduction of one of Britain's most esteemed heroes, Hermione Granger.

She bit her lip as she looked up at the Minister once more.

"What was she even doing there? Visiting hours had long ended. How did she even end up in his cell?" she questioned through gritted teeth. Daphne had a great deal of respect for Hermione, both as a witch and as a person. From her understanding, without her, Harry would have been clueless.

The Minster at least had a somewhat guilty expression on her face at this.

"She wanted to meet him, so Potter obtained special permission for her from the DMLE so she could see him," she said, and she shook her head.

There was just so much they didn't know. So much they did not know.

"The young man was absolutely livid with himself over this. This has become a highly sensitive matter, Miss Greengrass, and I cannot take any risks," the Minster told her as she pointed towards the door.

"Now, please, let me do my job. I will try and contact you once I get anything," said the Minister, and she got up from her seat reluctantly as her heart raced laced with worry for Crovus.

Crovus had a lot of enemies, enemies who were vicious and dangerous and would do anything to destroy him. And she feared that this was their doing, and the way the whole thing had gone down seemed as if it was planned, and so as he reached the door, she glanced back and spoke up once more.

"If anything happens to him, Minister Bones, you will have blood on your hands. Blood of a boy whose very sacrifice and mercy allows you to sit comfortably in that chair." She said through gritted teeth.

The Minster simply stared at him with a hardened face as she answered.

"Then so bit," and this meant she wasn't going to change her mind over the aim to kill order.

"I will not forget this, Minister," she added with vehemence as her eyes watered up, as she opened the door and fell back as someone bumped into her.

"Ouch!" she fell to the ground as the stranger, whom she realized was wearing Auror robes, rushed into the Minster's office, his face pale and sweating, and she didn't miss the words he uttered.

"We found him. We have found him," she heard him utter, and the Minister was on her feet in an instant.

"What are your orders, Minster?" and at this, she looked at the Minster who evaded her gaze and said in an icy cold tone.

"Tell them that Death Eater protocols are active; aim to kill at the first sign of resistance!" the Minster ordered, and her heart dropped at that.

"No!" she gasped.

0000

CROVUS LESTRANGE-1995

A young Crovus Lestrange walked through the Halls of Malfoy Manor. The walls of the place which he had once called home had become drear over the years. The sheer presence of Voldemort in these Halls had sucked the life out of the once beautiful manor.

Death Eaters parted as he made his way through the Hall, some of them even bowing to him as they would for the Dark Lord. Over the course of the two years since he had joined them, Crovus had left everyone in the dust and was one of Voldemort's most trusted men.

Helping the man get inside Potter's head and getting him that accursed prophecy had brought him closer to the man, and that was besides the resemblance they shared and his special pedigree.

And thinking about that made his bile rise up, yet he thwarted it as he pushed his occlumency shields and made his way to the washrooms.

The washrooms were empty at first glance. He walked towards the last stall and leaned along the side of the door. To anyone else apart from him, the washroom would be empty, yet he could hear the sounds coming from inside, the whimpering and the nausea and gurgles and the hiccups.

And he regretted ever having helped her get into this hell hole. It was his mistake, a mistake he aimed to correct very soon.

"The plan has been made. Everything is set." He announced in a low voice and felt the door to the washroom open. And one could see a blonde girl some years older than him hunched over the toilet seat as she lay there helplessly, vomiting into the toilet.

She glanced back at him with a complicated gaze as he wiped away her tears.

"I am sorry," he uttered, blaming himself for destroying her life. For though he might be able to help her escape, the damage this place had done to her was enormous enough that he often wondered if she would recover from it.

And it was all because of him.

"No, it's not your fault I didn't listen to you," she soothed him as she looked up and sighed, as she simply remained in their place, a comfortable silence permeating between them until she suddenly she spoke up.

"How can you stand this?" she questioned, looking at him with a complicated expression.

And sometimes, he found himself questioning the same thing.

"What can I say? It's in my blood." He quipped and felt her grip his trousers, making him look at her as she shook her head.

"Don't say that. We have been over this. You are nothing like that monster!" she said through gritted teeth, and he nodded as he swept away the bangs covering her face. As she stared into his eyes before her lips parted once more.

"Join me." She pleaded, her voice shaky, though she already knew the answer to that question.

"I cannot. I have to bring him down," he replied, and she gritted her teeth, knowing that there was no chance of convincing him.

"Just how much will you suffer?" she said as tears dripped down her eyes, and he didn't know, honestly. Yet he was sure of one thing: He planned to end Voldemort no matter what it took.

"Be safe, Adelaine," he said as he helped her up. She already knew the plan. The rest was all execution.

And just as he had taken a step outside the booth and turned, he felt her reach for him as she pulled him back rather violently, and then, before he could react, a pair of lips crashed against his own, and for the first time in years, his occlumency shields were lowered as he lost himself with her in that booth.

0000

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