The Inadequate Life

“I’m telling you, I saw Angelina and Alicia fly in here!” Cho hissed, cautiously peeking through the open door of Florean Fortescue’s. “And there were some flashes, like someone was being hexed. They haven’t come out again—they might be hurt!”

Justin glanced nervously over his shoulder. A lot of the fighting had died out, but people from both sides were still hiding all around Diagon Alley, and there were infrequent lights as Curses were fired when someone thought they had a clear shot. “Can you see anything?” he asked.

“Brooms,” Cho said; she sounded confused. “I see two brooms, but not Angelina or Alicia!”

“Maybe they got out another way,” Justin suggested.

“And left their brooms behind?” Cho scoffed. “Those Firebolt Mk. II’s cost more than a year’s wages!”

Justin bit back a smart reply regarding the relative value of racing brooms and the girls’ lives as Cho stood up in preparation to step inside the shop. But a slight bit of movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention; he whipped his head around just in time to see a pair of Death Eaters come around the corner, spot Cho, and take aim.

“LOOK OUT!” Justin shouted, leaping at Cho and simultaneously drawing his wand, even as the first Death Eater snapped off a Curse. He bowled into the startled Cho and knocked her out of the doorway and into the shop… just in time to be perfectly framed by the door himself as the Curse struck him.

*****

Ron had never been much of a nail-biter before—that was more a nervous habit of Hermione’s. But the nails on his left hand were worn to the quick. The sounds from the battle were muffled in the flat, but Ron’s imagination gave him a pretty good idea of what each yell or scream was caused by. Occasionally he heard a whoosh as one of the fliers zoomed past nearby—although he hadn’t heard that particular sound for a good while. There had been roars, and thumping hard enough to cause a tremor in the floor, when Grawp stomped by too closely, but an anguished roar of a different pitch and a cessation of the thumping led Ron to suspect that the Death Eaters had managed to take Grawp down permanently.

Ron also had no way of knowing if Harry, Ginny, Neville and Pansy had succeeded—or even if Voldemort had shown up at all. They were too far away for any method of communication to work, and anyway they’d be far too busy until it was over—at which point they might not be capable of responding.

The only indication he had of what was going on outside of Diagon Alley was Hermione. She was still hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, but occasionally there was a slight rustle of movement as she shifted. She’s warned Ron that, even while under trance, she might physically react, in a small way, whenever someone attempted to break through the Anti-Apparition fields she was holding up. That had certainly proved true near the beginning, around the time that Ron estimated the Death Eaters had run head-on into Hagrid and Grawp and tried to escape any way they could. Hermione had shifted a number of times, but they were miniscule movements, not enough to warrant any concern—according to Hermione, that is. Ron still fretted.

Ron would never have said it to Hermione, but he had serious doubts that she could maintain not one, but two Anti-Apparition fields, on her own, under the circumstances they’d expected. Having grown up in a wizarding family, Ron had heard enough about the fields to know what sort of magic they required. The Anti-Apparition field that had blanketed the Burrow and the surrounding areas during Bill and Fleur’s wedding had been maintained by three skilled witches, who performed the magical service regularly for wizarding weddings. That three witches, each of whom had years of experience with maintaining the fields, had been required for one Anti-Apparition field over a relatively small area and only intended to keep one person—the groom—from escaping, was indicative of how difficult the fields were. The idea that Hermione could maintain two of them, on her own, only having cast the fields a few times before, while dozens of Death Eaters and eventually Voldemort himself tried to counter her…it made Ron shudder to think about it.

And yet, every indication was that it was working fine. The raging battle outside was proof that the Death Eaters had been unable to flee Diagon Alley, and Hermione’s little movements were clear, expected signs that a number of them had attempted to break through the field—unsuccessfully.

There hadn’t been any movements for a while, which Ron thought probably meant that the Death Eaters had given up trying. Which meant that Hermione had managed to take on the combined magical strengths of dozens of adult wizards—and had won. It was unbelievable.

Of course, Voldemort would be another story.

Ron had been sitting quietly against a wall off to one side. Hermione had told him that any noise he made, and the noises from the battle, wouldn’t distract her at all since she’d be so deeply in trance. But Ron had felt that, with such a monumental piece of magic being performed, and with so much at stake, he shouldn’t take any chances.

But now his nerves got the better of him. Leaping up, Ron began to pace restlessly about the flat. He never moved far enough away to lose sight of the corner where Hermione sat—even though he couldn’t see her—but he stalked about with anxious movements, twitching every time he heard something from Diagon Alley.

There were no sounds coming from nearby, nothing that Ron could hear. So he was completely unprepared when the door to the flat exploded inward, slamming against the opposite wall. His wand was already in his hand, and his reflexes honed by months of dueling practice, so he fired a Stunning Spell before the intruder managed to recover. The spell definitely struck home, but there were others who were untouched—Ron got off a Stinging Hex while they were still cursing, drawing more cries, but one of them shot a Bombarda that Ron was unable to dodge completely. It didn’t do any permanent damage, but it did knock him off his feet, and his wand flew out of his hand.

Ron scrambled towards his wand, but a Death Eater shouted “Expelliarmus!” and the wand flew off the ground and towards the door, where the Death Eater caught it. He strode over to Ron in two steps and kicked out; Ron was strong enough to block most of the blow, but it did knock him over.

Two more Death Eaters entered the room, and slammed the door. One of them was blinking rapidly, a sure sign that he’d just been woken from being Stunned; the other was holding his wand in his left hand, and had removed his mask to clap his right hand over the side of his face, which was severely swollen and red. “That bloody hurt!” the second one growled.

“It’s a Stinging Hex; it’s not supposed to feel pleasant,” Ron retorted, trying to sound dry and unconcerned.

The Death Eater snarled and raised his wand, but the first one—the one holding Ron’s wand—held up a hand to stop him. “Why are you here?” he asked sharply.

Ron forced himself not to look in the direction of Hermione’s still-untouched corner. “I got bored with the fight, so I thought I’d catch up on some laundry,” he replied.

The Death Eater removed his mask, revealing a thin, pointy face. He frowned at Ron for a moment, and then raised his wand. “Crucio!”

Harry had said that the Cruciatus Curse was impossible to describe properly, to truly explain what that kind of pain was. Now Ron understood what Harry had meant. No pain Ron had ever experienced even came close. Every nerve in his body screamed at him; he was aware of every millimeter of his body as a separate, excruciating pinpoint of agony.

The Death Eater only held the Curse for a few seconds, but it was enough to leave Ron gasping for breath. “You’re a Weasley,” the man said conversationally as Ron recovered. “I can see the resemblance to your muggle-loving father. And being that this flat is over that Weasley shop…where Harry Potter has been seen frequently…”

He crouched down until his face was just slightly higher than Ron’s. “I know you’re not the eldest, since he’s been scarred,” he said thoughtfully. “The stuck-up one’s dead, and the dragon enthusiast—why, he’s been working for us for ages.”

Ron’s eyes widened, but then narrowed; Charlie, working for the Death Eaters? He didn’t believe it for a second.

“You’re clearly not a twin, since those two were tailing us here,” the Death Eater continued, “and that only leaves one Weasley boy left: Ronald. Harry Potter’s best friend. So where’s Potter, boy? Is he here, in this flat? Are you hiding him?”

“He’s down in Diagon Alley kicking the arse out of your Death Eater pals,” Ron snapped.

“And yet he left you, his best friend, all alone up here? I don’t think so. This madness we’ve been lured into—it’s all Potter’s doing. He sent the note to the Order which brought us here. He knew we’d come, and he set a trap for us. So… where is he?”

“Ran. Chickened out. Hopped on his broom and flew to Australia weeks ago.”

“Then why have our people seen him in recent days?”

“Polyjuice.”

“This is getting us nowhere!” the Death Eater with the Hexed face interrupted angrily. “We should just kill him and search the flat! If Potter isn’t—”

“Quiet!” the first one snapped, standing abruptly. “Listen!”

At first Ron didn’t know what the man was hearing. There didn’t seem to be much noise coming from Diagon Alley except the occasional Curse being fired. But then he heard it too: a sort of intermittent rustling sound, like—

Hermione! All the blood drained from Ron’s cheeks. Hermione was shifting again—someone was trying to break through her Anti-Apparition field. And from the sound of it, they were giving her a good challenge. That could only mean…

“Last chance, Weasley,” the first Death Eater said, looking down at him. “Tell us where Potter is, and the source of that sound, and—”

“And what?” Ron interrupted. “You’ll kill me painlessly? Yeah, right!”

“No, I don’t believe I was going to offer that option,” the man replied calmly. Spinning, he faced in the general direction of the corner Hermione was hidden, waved his wand and called up a wind spell. Before Ron could move, the Invisibility Cloak that had been protecting Hermione was whipped away, and there she was.

Ron was on his feet in a heartbeat, but didn’t get more than a step forward before the other two Death Eaters had their wands trained on him and he had to stop. His fists were clenched so tightly that the knuckles were white; he wanted nothing more than to lay into the smarmy, satisfied-looking man and pound him until his face was unrecognizable.

“Who might this be?” the man said, quirking an eyebrow at Ron. “Let’s see… Ronald Weasley is left behind to guard her, so she must be—not the mudblood, surely? Granger? But we’d heard she was dead!” He clapped his hands together gleefully. “How remarkable! Very clever of Potter, I must say. And what is she doing, Weasley?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. “Why is she moving like that?”

“She can’t stand how badly you stink,” Ron barked.

“Hmm,” the man said. He walked slowly over to Hermione and peered down at her with his head tilted to one side. “She’s in a trance. How interesting. Did you know that, if a trance is deep enough, a person won’t even know that their body is being harmed? The things I could do to her before she came out of it—”

Ron lunged at the man so quickly that the other two Death Eaters didn’t have time to cast spells; they barely managed to catch Ron’s arms before he was on the man. Ron was strong, and the two of them managed to force him back and to his knees only with threatening prods from their wands. The leader eyed the enraged Ron like a cat who has the key to the birdcage. “We’d heard you were engaged to Granger,” he said, and twisted his lips in disgust. “Honestly, Weasley—a pureblood like you? It’s a disgrace. It’s nauseating. You’ve probably already been sullied by her touch, haven’t you—”

“If you harm her,” Ron said, in a low, dangerous tone, “I will kill you.”

“That would be impressive,” the man replied with a nod. “However, I really think that there’s only two ways this situation will end. The first: you submit to The Dark Lord’s will, tell us what we ask, and we’ll let you live and only kill her. Or the second: I torture her in front of your eyes. You tell us what we want to know anyway, and then I keep torturing her, making certain that she lives so she can suffer when she comes out of her trance. Then, we kill you in front of her, and then leave her to die.”

“If I walk out of here alive,” Ron answered, “it means that you don’t.”

The man shrugged. “It’s all one to me. I enjoy torturing Muggles, but Mudbloods are even better.” He turned back to Hermione. “Perhaps I’ll violate her before I shatter her feet…”

Ron roared.