Tension in the Laboratory

Hermione awoke as she sat bolt upright in bed, sucking in her breath, her heart pounding. It was morning, still dark. She was alone and naked. Her first thought was, “He’s Obliviated me.” The second was, “I have to face Voldemort today.”

She took a hasty shower and she pulled on her teaching robes. Then she twisted her thick hair on top of her head and stabbed it with a dozen hairpins. She headed out to her classroom in the dungeons, passing no one.

Her hands were shaking, but her head was clear. Having used the Obliviate spell twice herself and seen it used once, she had no doubts about what must have happened last night. “Then you won’t object to a ceremony after tomorrow. Directly after. No guests.” Those were the last words she remembered hearing, and then—nothing.

Her classroom was darker than outside, where dawn was beginning to pinken the horizon. Waving her wand, she ignited the torches and fire to get some cheerless light into the place. A fine-grained, steely frost covered the wrought-iron work around the high windows.

Hermione began systematically going through each book in the deeply scored bookcase along one wall, looking for information about Voldemort and the Dark Arts. She pulled out one slim volume with a tattered, leather cover and suspicious-looking dark brown splotches on it: Souls, Wands and Death: Being a Discourse on the Craft of Witchcraft and Wand-Making, Anno Domini 1633.

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped. Hermione’s hand purpled and stiffened. A chill shivered up her spine. Gray mist was filtering into the room through the high windows. How were Voldemort’s minions getting onto Hogwarts’ grounds? Oh…Karkaroff. She ran to the window just as it exploded.

“Protego!”

Her cry was almost lost in the sound of shattering glass fragments. When she lowered her arms from her face, she faced three Dementors.

“But they couldn’t have smashed the window,” she thought. “So Voldemort is just beyondddd….” Despair and hopelessness invaded her thoughts. What was the use? Voldemort had so much power already. She should just give in, make it easier on herself. Yes, give in and let him have his little class, before everyone else came and saw how powerless she really was.

“No!” some corner of her mind screamed. She narrowed her eyes. Not me! She clutched her wand “… Don’t bother, don’t bother,” sang the voice inside her. “No one can withstand the Dark Lord for long… .”

Hermione shook her head to clear it. The Dementors had moved from the windows and were floating toward her, their cold, scabby arms reaching for her, their rotting faces turned toward her. Horrified, she planted her feet firmly, raised her wand hand, and said clearly, “Expecto Patronum!”

They hardly quailed, were almost on her.

“Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!” Hermione shouted.

One of them grasped her shoulder with its scabrous hand talon. She could hear its hollow voice in her mind: “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. Just a little kiss… .”

NO! her mind screamed. She slashed her wand in front of her and said in her most authoritative voice, “Expecto…PATRONUM!”

The silver otter streamed from her wand. It swam after the Dementors, scattering them with playful barrel rolls. The sight of it brought a weak smile to Hermione’s lips. But the smile faded almost as soon as it reached the corners of her mouth. More Dementors were floating through the window. And behind them, a high, cold voice said, “So what is to be the answer to my request?”

An answer? She’d give him an answer. She raised her wand at the approaching Dementors…so many of them… “Expecto P-Patronum!” A weak, silver vapor trailed from her wand. She steeled herself. “Expecto—“

The door to the dungeon swung open with a nerve-shattering creak.

“Expecto Patronum!” someone bellowed. Hermione saw the silver stag leap forward. “Hermione! Put your wand up! There’s more of us coming!”

The sight of Harry’s flushed face, his hair more tousled than ever, his glasses askew, directing his Patronus around the room scattered Hermione’s dark doubts. She raised her wand with more confidence and summoned her Patronus to add to Harry’s. Within moments, the Dementors were cleared from the classroom.

Then it was eerily quiet. Only the sounds of Hermione’s and Harry’s gulping breaths filled the oppressive silence. Their eyes darted around. Then they heard it. The far-away click-clicking of a woman’s high heels in the corridor. Hermione saw Harry set his jaw. They knew who that woman would be.

“Show yourself, Voldemort!” Harry yelled. Hermione winced at hearing the name spoken.

“You’ll see me soon enough,” Voldemort’s cruel voice intoned.

Two slim, pallid hands with black nails came around the metal door jamb. Bellatrix Lestrange seemed to pull herself into the room. She was breathing hard, too, but with what appeared to be eager anticipation. She was wearing a satiny, aubergine gown, cut low on top and tight on the bottom. Her black hair straggled wildly around her shoulders.

“Oh,” she said, licking her lips like a guest at a banquet and gazing at Hermione, “oh, I’ve been waiting for this for so, so long.”

“Leave her alone,” Harry growled. “You want me. I’m here.”

Bellatrix curled her lip. “Aren’t you shagging that Weasley slag? Maybe you should save the knight errant act for her.”

Harry’s face went white as paper, then flushed dangerously red. “Crucio!” he shouted with a slice of his wand.

Bellatrix pulled her head a fraction of an inch to one side to evade the curse. “Ooh,” she mocked. “Must have hit a nerve. You might aim better if you could control your emotions. But, oh dear, you didn’t do very well in Occlumency, did you, Potter?”

“Enough!”

The three of them turned. In the entry stood Dumbledore, panting slightly, with McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, and Snape just beyond him. Dumbledore, Hermione noted with horror, was holding his wand in his left hand. The blackened right one hung limply at his side.

Bellatrix growled. The sound startled Hermione and caught her off-guard for a split-second, enough for Bellatrix to pull Hermione in front of her, her wand jabbed up under Hermione’s jaw. “Can't show fear,” Hermione thought. Her heart hammered.

“Come any further, and I’ll crucio her,” Bellatrix snarled.

Harry eyes were practically spitting green fire, and his wand hand was shaking. Snape looked slightly bored. Dumbledore’s stern expression didn’t change. The others looked grim.

“Dumbledore,” said the high, cold voice.

There was a scuffling outside the windows, and Karkaroff, Lucius Malfoy, and several other Death Eaters dropped through the window onto the floor. Malfoy landed on the balls of his feet and stood slowly, a sneer on his otherwise handsome face as he surveyed the scene.

“We might have to permanently alter your little bit of fun, Severus,” he said with an icy smile at Hermione. “I do hope that won’t bother you.”

Hermione’s mind was racing. She knew she couldn’t count on any help from Snape here. In fact, she fully expected him to insult her at this point and profess his lack of interest, if not outright contempt. So she was mildly warmed by his drawled, “Get me the classroom, Lucius, or better yet, the headmaster’s office, and I won’t mind a bit.”

Hermione heard a muffled grunt from Harry’s direction. But before she could turn, Bellatrix yanked her head up by the hair and jabbed her wand into Hermione’s neck.

“Thank you, Dumbledore,” Voldemort’s voice said with glacial amusement. “Having Potter immobilized makes it much easier for me.”

“Not while I’m here,” Dumbledore said quietly.

“Ah, but I can take care of that,” Voldemort returned.

“Not today, Tom,” Dumbledore said as though they were about to discuss schoolboy misdeeds in his office. “I have some news for you, and I’m afraid it isn’t good.”

“You have nothing, old man, and now I’m going to take Hogwarts!”

“Maybe,” Dumbledore said genially, “you’d like to see what I have in my hand first.”

“What you have in your—" For once, the voice sounded perplexed.

Dumbledore extended his good hand, on the palm of which lay a ring Hermione had never seen before. She craned her neck to see, but Bellatrix yanked her head back so hard that Hermione couldn’t suppress a cry of pain. “There’s more of that where this came from, Mudblood!” Bellatrix hissed in her ear. “I have a silver knife I can’t wait to test on you!”

Hermione willed herself to stop trembling.

“It’s Marvolo Gaunt’s ring. Perhaps you’d like a better look?” Dumbledore inquired.

There was a roar of fury. A figure pale and inhuman flew through the high window and hovered in the air. “Give it to me!” Voldemort said through his lipless mouth. His slitted eyes flashed red.

Dumbledore cocked his head to one side, as though he had been asked a tricky question on a television game show. “I fear the ring is not what it was,” he said. “You see this crack? There was a little matter of Gryffindor’s sword—"

“Avada Kedavra!”

Hermione flinched. To her surprise, Dumbledore moved with the reflexes of a young man, dodging the curse. “I’m afraid anger won’t bring it back, Tom,” he said calmly. “I think you should take your followers and leave.”

“No, Dumbledore. The Ministry is mine, and Hogwarts, too. You just don’t realize it.”

Then to Hermione’s horror, he flicked his wand not at Dumbledore but in the other direction, where Harry was standing frozen just beyond her line of sight.

“Protego!” she shrieked, throwing her arm wide. Dumbledore’s wand was out at the same time. Hermione’s spell, just wide of Harry, knocked him to the ground away from the hex, while Dumbledore’s hit Voldemort in the face. Voldemort smiled, showing teeth that seemed filed to points.

“Ah, Dumbledore. I might have spared you some pain, for old time’s sake. But now—"

The hex shot from his wand. Dumbledore parried it easily, and the two began circling each other.

Then suddenly, a blinding pain enveloped Hermione. She had no thoughts. All she knew was pain. Her body felt as if it were being ripped to pieces, her joints and bones coming apart, her skull being crushed. She let out scream after scream of pain.

She heard a crash and someone panting behind her.

“Hermione! Move!” Harry’s voice.

Hermione willed her numb limbs to move, but it all seemed to be in slow motion. She couldn’t scuttle fast enough.

“Having trouble in the legs, Mudblood?” Bellatrix said. “Crucio!”

This time Hermione heard the curse and was able to roll away. Gathering her wits and energy, she lifted her head and shot off two hexes in Bellatrix’s direction, catching the dark witch by off-guard.

“Crucio!” That was Harry again.

Bellatrix gave a low snicker. “I told you before, Potter, you have to really mean it!”

“Does this work better, then?” Harry said. “Crucio!”

This time Bellatrix didn’t laugh. She barely got out of the way in time. She and Harry began to duel.

The other staff stood back, waiting, like Hermione.

Amazingly, the Dark Lord was throwing jinx after jinx at Dumbledore, but none of them were finding their mark. Instead, Dumbledore, his useless right arm dangling, was pushing Voldemort into a corner.

“Incar—" Dumbledore began.

“Severus!” Voldemort’s voice shook as he parried the hex with a drooping arm.

Purple flame erupted from Dumbledore’s wand, and again Voldemort swiped it away, but his arm was even lower and his face was going gray. “Severus!” He sounded as if he were pleading.

Snape spoke now. Hermione was across the room from him. Her hands clenched in anxiety.

“Headmaster,” Snape said, apologetically, “I must advise you to step back from our guest.”

“Step back?” Harry said incredulously, his eyes never leaving Bellatrix. “Oh, I can’t wait to have a go at you, Snape. When I’m finished with this one, I’ll give you such a—“

“Stupefy! Stupefy!” Bellatrix shouted.

Harry was forced to leave off his plans for Snape’s immediate future and give more consideration to his own.

Dumbledore had not let up on his attack on Voldemort, and now the Dark Lord could barely rise from the floor. He was on his knees before Dumbledore, his head tilted back, a malicious gleam in his red eyes, the flattened nose heaving in breaths, the lipless mouth panting. Dark rings encircled his eyes. His hand shook each time he raised his wand.

“He can’t last much longer,” Hermione thought. “Now’s the time for Dumbledore to kill him and be done with it!”

“Oh, Tom. To think it’s come to this,” Dumbledore said sadly.

He raised both his hands slowly, his wand overhead.

A jet of white shot from Snape’s wand to Dumbledore.

Hermione and Harry yelled. Dumbledore’s blackened hand flew off and hit the wall by Voldemort’s shoulder. With a roar, Voldemort rose in the air and escaped through the window. Dumbledore said weakly, “Stupefy!” and Snape fell to the ground.

The staff immediately advanced on the rest of the Death Eaters. Pale with fury, Lucius Malfoy turned to follow his master, but Bellatrix shrieked, “No!” She raised her wand in Harry’s direction. Lucius and another Death Eater grabbed her and forced her out of the window with them.