The Plague

A/N: Please feel free to ask questions about the story. You might catch something I missed and stir my brain into over drive. Also for anyone who might say Hermione is a little OOC I’d invite you to basically be locked up for several months by your self. Why did I do this? Because I thought it would be fun. Sorry it’s short I will try to make them longer but it was a good stopping point.


Chapter two:

The old problems - love, money, security, status, health, etc. - are still here to plague us or please us. -Shelley Berman

“I thought Merlin said that he had gathered the best of our world to save and find the cure.” Lucius Malfoy sneered as he looked down his nose at Hermione once she was fully in the room.

“Yet you’re here,” Hermione smiled, “he must think we need a peacock to keep current fashion alive if the magical world is wiped out by this plague of his.”

Lucius snarled but Hermione quickly turned her back on him showing him she did not think of him as a threat. Her eyes landed on the other side of the room and with the courage that only truly comes from being locked up and bored for months on end she started to name those she knew. “Potions Master Severus Snape, well that was an obvious choice for the reason he told us we were here and the real reason we are here. Antonin Dolohov, hmmm, nope sorry I have no idea why you’re here unless he wanted someone who couldn’t kill a bunch of teenagers.”

“Actually I was the top curse breaker in the world at one time and I’m sure my skills could be used in both reasons we are here.” He licked is lips as his eyes traveled up and down her body suggestively.

“Leave the know-it-all alone Antonin,” Severus silky voice drawled. He was leaning against the bar holding a glass with amber liquid in it. “If she gets started we’ll never hear the end of it and I for one would like to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Why Professor I never took you for one to live and a dream world.” Hermione said as she went to sit in one of the chairs that made a half circle in front of the fire place. This way she was facing Dolohov and the other dark haired wizard that was sitting on either end of the couch. “Were here until we fined a cure for this mysterious illness or it has to run its course and then we can rebuild the wizarding world. As the first task would require all of us working together with out fighting it will more likely take the longest as one of us is going to start a fight and/or annoy the others until no work is done. My money is on Blondie back there.”

“Money?” Lucius huffed, “Surely you jest as I highly doubt a filthy Mudblood like you would have anything remotely considered money.”

“Do you hear something?” Hermione asked looking right at the wizard she didn’t know. “It sounded like a peacock fluctuating to me.” It would seem that was all the man could take at this point as he started laughing though he tried to hold it in.

“Laugh it up Rabastan, I’m sure your sister in law will love to know you find a Mudblood funny.” Lucius sneered.

“Rabastan LeStrange I used to be a healer,” He said introducing him self with a nod.

“Well this should be interesting I’m surrounded by Death Eaters.” Hermione sighed as she looked toward the ceiling as if asking some higher power for patients. “I don’t suppose any of you know about this plague we have been saved from?”

All four sets of eyes looked at her like she had two heads, this let her know that this disease had been going on for a while and the order had been keeping it from her. Could it be that was one of the reasons for her isolation, Dumbledore’s own breeding program staring Hermione Granger. She couldn’t help but wonder who he had planed to breed her with and if she even got a choice in this matter. A shiver of disgust passed over her as she remembered who some of the order members were and what they looked like.

“How could you not know about the disease when two of your own have been killed by it?” Rabastan asked looking at her with narrowed eyes. Maybe he thought she was going to suddenly turn into a dementor and suck his soul out.

“Who?” Hermione questioned starting to get a panicky feeling as her stomach rolled. When no one answered she turned to Lucius figuring he’d love to rub it in her face. “WHO!”

“Miss Brown and young Miss Weasley. Though I heard Miss Lovegood is sick as well.” He informed her though he didn’t look as pleased as she would have thought he would be on delivering the information.

The glass that was pressed into her hand felt cool and allowed her to focus on the amber liquid in front of her. There was no morning for Lavender in her heart though there should be and her only thought about Ginny was ‘oh that is why Harry and Molly were acting wired.’ Did this mean she really was a bad person?

When she was seven a little girl in her class had been killed in a car accident. Everyone cried except her, when they had asked if she had needed to talk about it she had simply shrugged her shoulders told the teacher that there was nothing anyone could do about it and went back to reading her book. It was then the other kids had started calling her heartless.

Heartless. Now that wasn’t true, she cried when someone was hurt or she was teased. She got angry at people hurting others or animals. Just death never affected her the way it did others. Once someone was dead you could not bring them back, and no matter what your beliefs were they were supposedly in a much better place so why cry and begrudge them their freedom and happiness?

“Who else?” she asked turning her mind back to the task after throwing back the drink. No need to focus on the dead lets save those who were still alive.

“Pansy Parkinson, Alice Longbottom and Narcissa Malfoy are dead. Daphne Greengrass, Millicent Bulstrode, Bellatrix LeStrange, Marcus Flint and Draco Malfoy are all sick.” Rabastan said as he watched her. “Marcus Flint seams to be recovering though and he is the only one.”

“Wait you mean Draco is in the hospital and Merlin took his father away from him.” Hermione growled. “Heartless bastard him and twinkles have to be related.”

“I didn’t know you cared.” Lucius stated.

“I don’t I just think it says something about our host here.” Hermione responded shrugging it off. She had admired Draco for a while as it was always entertaining to throw insults back and forth with him. His father seemed to get just as flustered but he wasn’t as creative as Draco could be. Oh well she’d train him right as well.

“If I had my wand..”

“You’d conjure a mirror and primp in front of it.”

“Enough!” Severus snapped at them having seen something similar at Hogwarts from Draco and this witch. For a while he had just assumed that they liked getting each other riled to relive the sexual tension that neither of them could indulge in. “We will have to put this childishness behind us if we are to get out of here before the end of time. I for one would like that.”

“I agree I have no problem working closely with Hermione.” Antonin almost purred causing Hermione to pale and make a metal note to stick close to Lucius and Severus. They may hate her but that was better then wanting to have sex with her as far as she was concerned.

“I guess we should do a tour of this place and see what we have to work with.” Rabastan offered, “this is obviously a common room which our bedrooms lead off of.”

“The old pervert did say something about a library, there must also be at least a potions laboratory here as well.” Hermione added as she bit her bottom lip for a second. “Though I think we should wait a couple more minutes as the painting said something about there being another member of our group coming who is giving him a hard time.”

“Why should we wait for another person who will probably be as annoying as you?” Lucius asked trying to get her going again.

“Come on Lucius.” Rabastan said standing up and pulling the blond out the door with him.

Hermione was actually thankful when Severus pulled Antonin out of his seat and dragged him out the door. The man had tried to kill her at the Department of Mysteries but was now trying to vanish her clothes with out magic. Like she would ever be close with someone in there sixties that has tried to kill her.

It bothered her that she had been kept in the dark about so much by the order. All those meeting had to have been staged for her benefit but why? It’s not like she was that important in the grand scheme of things. Harry was the one who was prophesized. So why wasn’t she told about this sickness or the death of her friends. Well one friend Lav Lav was not her friend.

How long had Ginny been dead? When was her funeral? It had been at lest two months since she had seen Ginny. They had as close to a girls night as Hermione got. They had gotten pissed and Hermione confessed that Victor was a way better kisser then Ron. The red head had confessed that she had pictures of everyone of her brothers naked and periodically sold them to a witches magazine for some extra cash. She had also said that Charlie willingly posed for said pictures.

She shook her head to get her brain back on task. The question was is there a pattern? Going over the list of the dead and sick once again she tried to find the common thread. Of course the obvious thing was they were all Pureblooded which made her wonder if this was something the Order had started and it got away from them.

No there had to be something else besides them being Pureblooded. It was question time. She sat down at the desk on the other side of the room and pulled out a roll of parchment. When she had a problem she found it was best to write out all the questions that came to mind about the problem then find the answers to the questions. That always led to the solution.

1. Are only purebloods getting sick?

2. Is it bacterial or Viral?

3. Why is Marcus Flint getting better?

4. Dose he have antibodies?

5. Dose DNA play any roll in this?

“Is the plague magical or is it effecting Muggles and we haven’t heard about it yet because there is so many of them?” Hermione stiffened kicking her self for not feeling the person reading over her shoulder. That voice could only belong to one person and she would have been dead if not for the protections Merlin put up she was sure of it. “Well write what I said down girl. Has all of those Lemon drops Albus hands out rotted your brain and you can no longer follow simple instructions?” He hissed in her ear, “I do not repeat my self.”