After Midnight

No matter how many times Hermione told herself that everything was fine, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was terribly off. She had given birth to Nicholas, their third son almost a month ago and since then, she hadn’t been out of the house or off the grounds. She knew that she shouldn’t worry, she’d spent more than a month without leaving the manor before, but this felt different. When she asked Draco about it, he told her that the boys needed to stay put for awhile after all the moving around they did while she was pregnant. She needed her rest as well. Breast-feeding and taking care of two three year olds was exhausting and since she refused to let the house elves act as nannies, they really shouldn’t go out. However, he didn’t deem her as being too tired to be taken again and again in their bedroom.

Last weekend, she had asked if they could go out, just the two of them. He had suggested dinner in the garden as an alternative and she exclaimed that she just wanted to see another landscape besides Malfoy Manor, that she was going crazy. He had sighed and asked if maybe he could ask Blaise and Ginny to come over to make the garden look a little different, a little more colorful and ginger. She had laughed at his joke about Blaise’s dress habits and Ginny’s hair and accepted his compromise. She enjoyed the evening very much and had enjoyed seeing Ginny rounded with the early days of pregnancy.

However, it was the fact that Draco had brought Ginny to her rather than eat by themselves in a restaurant that made Hermione most suspicious that something was terribly wrong. Normally he avoided the subject of Ginny the way a kneazle avoided a bath and when it was brought up, he would become sullen and often downright unpleasant. What was wrong that not only was he willing to suffer Ginny’s presence, he was willing to do it in his home and it was his own suggestion?

The other thing that told her something was wrong was that last night, he’d been quiet and reserved. She’d thought that maybe he wanted her to put the boys to bed early, but when she started to take them to their room and they began to ask to sleep in their parents’ bedroom, Draco got up, changed them into their night clothes and brought them back and allowed them to stay the night with them while Nicholas slept in the bassinet next to their bed. When she woke up to feed the baby, she saw him sitting in a chair across the room, staring at his family with an expression she had never seen before on his face. It was an expression of fear.

She was currently rocking Nicholas as he nursed from her. Troy and Dominick were playing silently in their father’s study. As she watched the baby’s drowsy, unfocused eyes as he fed from his mother, she thought about the strange and yet, not so strange events of the past month. She was engrossed in thoughts of Draco’s face last night as he watched her and the boys when she heard the fireplace in the study roar to life. Thinking Draco must have come home early, she stood with a still suckling Nick and began to walk towards the office where she could hear her boys speaking with someone.

Suddenly her gut clenched. They were speaking, not squealing or yelling in delight the way they did whenever their father stepped out of the fireplace. Whoever had come through the floo was not Draco. Her heart pounding, she stepped in the room, pulling Nicholas’ mouth away from her breast making the infant give an indignant howl. She got herself covered, but her top remained unbuttoned as she looked up to see who was in her house.

“Sweet Merlin, they’d told me you were still gorgeous after whelping, but I didn’t believe it until I saw you,” Marcus Flint said as he rose from squatting in front of her boys.

“Dominick, Troy, come to Mummy,” she whispered. How on earth did he get in their house? Why was he here? Where was Draco?

“Not so fast, boys,” Flint caught their shoulders to stop them from moving and Hermione’s stomach lurched. “The two of you need to stay here while your mummy and I talk in the next room.” He took out his wand and froze the two in place, much the way she had done to Neville Longbottom their first year at Hogwarts. Her heart raced as she looked at their confused, fear filled faces.

“You need to leave now and maybe Draco will let you live,” she spat at him, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. Her left hand was instinctively groping for a wand even though it had been almost four years since she’d had one.

“Draco won’t be in charge much longer. Everything’s going to hell in a hand basket and when it does, he won’t be able to keep his little trophy and I want a go with you before their side gets you.” Flint backed her into the hallway and through the door of a guest bedroom.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, holding Nicholas to her chest. Her heart thudded in her ears. She didn’t have a wand and she knew she couldn’t physically over power Flint, so she did the only thing she could think of, she tried to run.

“Oh, no you don’t, pet,” Flint laughed as he caught her about the waist. “Even if you did run, there’s no one coming to help you. I’d find you and make your boys watch while I played house with their mummy.” With that, he took the baby from her arms and using his wand, opened the doors to the balcony in the room and levitated the screaming child over the banister, bobbing it up and down in the air, a little white beacon for the eagles that hunted around the Manor.

While Flint laughed in her ear and his other hand groped inside her shirt, Hermione felt rage boiling up in her chest. She couldn’t lose Nick, he had just barely started life and no one would come in her home and terrorize her children. Remembering her time at primary school when she had caused a bully to disappear and then reappear on top of the school building, she thought very hard on how much she hated the man holding her. She hated feeling powerless and she hated not being able to help her children. The sound of her baby’s screams pulsed through her brains as she felt the power draw up from inside of her and push out of her body at all angles.

The man holding her let go and his screams soon joined those of her youngest son. When he let go of her, she didn’t look at him as she focused her energy on the baby still suspended in the air. She held out her arms and he flew into them. Even holding her child, her anger and hatred at the man behind her still burned. She turned towards him and her heart stopped cold.

Blood poured out of every orifice on his body. It looked like he was crying as the rivers of his blood left his eyes. He was shaking and pitiful. The moment she felt pity for him was the moment the magic stopped and he crumpled to the floor. It was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. What had she just done? She had only wanted to incapacitate him and cause him slight pain. The man on the floor was barely breathing. She stared at him horrified. This was why it was so dangerous for young witches and wizards to go untrained. Magic without the knowledge and use of a wand was almost impossible to control. She was lucky she hadn’t inflicted the same fate onto her son.

“Oh my God, Hermione, what have you done?” Her husband’s wavering voice cut through the room like a blade.

She looked up at her husband and the floodgate of tears that fell from her eyes could not be stopped. She was exhausted and overwhelmed, so she sat down where she was, holding Nick to her, rocking them both as she sobbed. The reality of what had almost happened to her and her children came crashing down as she thought of the price of preventing it.

Kicking Flint out of the way, Draco strode over to her and picked her up, holding her to him as if she would float away if he didn’t. She leaned into his embrace, her left hand gripping his shoulder as she cried.

“The boys…” she tried to get out between sobs that the twins were still in his study. He stood and carried her to their bedroom, leaving her for a moment. He returned with Dominic and Troy who cried out for their mother and left again.

“It’s okay, Mummy,” Troy told her. “Daddy’s here now and he’ll make the bad man leave.”

“I know sweetheart,” Hermione said into his hair as she did her best to hold all three of her sons to her. She heard a noise and felt a wave of magic go through the house and she knew that Flint was dead. That made her hold her children that much closer.

Draco came back in the room and waved his hand over the children’s heads and all three fell asleep. Picking the up one by one, he moved them all to their room to take a nap. When he came back, he could only stare at her and this made her cry harder.

“My God, I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered as he picked her up and placed her in his lap. She clung to him like a child and let him soothe her.

“I was so scared,” she choked out. “He almost killed Nicholas and he threatened to make Dominick and Troy watch while he…while he…” she couldn’t get the last part out.

“But he didn’t and I’m here now,” Draco said and she felt him tense as he thought about Flint.

She straightened up as she thought about Flint herself and decided to throw all caution to the wayside. “Draco, I need a wand.”

“What? Why? I know you’re scared right now, but it’s over and everything is fine.”

“Don’t lie to me and don’t insult my intelligence, Draco! I was just attacked in our home and our children were threatened and I couldn’t do anything about it. Nevermind the fact that for the past month you haven’t let me out of the house and that I haven’t seen a newspaper in weeks! I know something is off. When Flint was here he told me that you weren’t always going to be in charge and he seemed to indicate that someone else was after me. If everything is fine, then why don’t you sleep at night? I’m not some stupid doll for you to play house with, I’m the brightest witch of my age. If you won’t tell me what’s going on and you won’t let me out of the house, then at least get me a wand so I can defend my children when you’re gone. Am I your wife or am I just some pet in a gilded cage?” She finished hotly.

“You’re my wife,” he whispered hoarsely and two tears came out of his eyes.

“Then treat me as such and give me a wand. I didn’t mean to do what I did to Flint. What if I hadn’t been able to contain my anger so that only he felt the brunt of it? What if one of the boys had gotten hurt?”

“Alright, we’ll go get you a wand,” he said. “Dink and the other house elves had been stunned, that’s why they didn’t help. I’ll go tell them to ward the Manor and watch the boys. Let’s go to Diagon Alley. Augustus Beaudreu has taken over Ollivander’s shop.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what’s going on or what Flint meant when he said something about ‘their’ side?”

“I’ll tell you, but not right now. It isn’t safe for anyone anymore. No one is listening to the Dark Lord and some of the lower, more base individuals are running about unchecked. That’s why you haven’t been out of the house. Many of them want you and are angry that they never got a chance. They answer to no one and the Dark Lord has become more and more paranoid as of late. If you were seen out of the house he might’ve suspected you.”

“Why is this happening? You aren’t telling me everything,” she pressed.

“No, but let’s get your wand first,” he said and led her to the fireplace.



As they walked through the wizarding square, Hermione noticed that everyone was tense. Augustus, the man who sold her the wand, had looked at her as if she were the Madonna, appearing out of nowhere. He wasn’t as creepy as Ollivander, but he was still unsettling as he stared at her like she was some sort of religious relic. Normally, time in the alley included shopping or ice cream, but Draco seemed in a hurry to get her home. When they left the wand shop, he drew her hooded cloak up over her had and around her face, obscuring her features.

They were almost to the Leaky Cauldron when the ground shook beneath them like an earthquake. Hermione watched in fascination as strong green vines, almost like that of a tentacular plant rose up from under the street around Gringotts, bringing with them, writhing wizards and witches. The plants arms moved throughout the air, tossing anything human it deemed unworthy. Hermione saw that not all the humans were being tossed to almost certain death. A few remained in the clutches of the greenery.

After the fall of Harry Potter, Gringott’s Bank had been overtaken by wizards, forcing the Goblins into either exile or slavery. The secrets held by goblins for centuries were stolen by the dark wizards, making the bank no longer the safest place in the wizarding world. As the plant moved upwards, several goblins slide down the vines and entered the doors with a cross between a battle cry and a cheer.

Hermione watched, dumbfounded with Draco as Gregori Dolohov, Anton’s brother, escaped from the plant, using a knife. Dolohov had instated himself as bank president when he had run the goblins out. He then ran towards the doors of the bank, trying to force his way through. He grabbed a hold of the door handle after his unlocking spells didn’t work and jerked on it with all his might. Suddenly, crackling blue bolts of magic ran from the door through his body, blasting him twenty feet in the air away from the door. His body landed and slumped at an odd angle and Hermione wasn’t certain if he was dead or not.

From within the bank, a mechanical sounding voice boomed, “Mr. Dolohov does not have a key, nor does he have access to any vault in Gringotts. He shall henceforth be banned from the bank for breaking and entering.” A loud rumble of cheering could be heard from the tiny beings in bank as they celebrated their return. Gringotts had been returned to the goblins.

As the cheers were heard inside, Hermione noticed that around her, the cacophony of noises held traces of joy and hope amongst the fear. As she looked around her, she didn’t see who had cast the spell, but soon a loud bang was heard and a whistling sound as smoking, rocket shaped thing climbed into the air over the bank. With an explosion and a sound the cry of an owl, the thing burst like one of Fred and George’s fireworks and a glittering image of Hedwig hung fifteen feet tall in the air above the bank. A loud cheer erupted from the people in Diagon Alley.

“Shit,” she heard Draco say. “You can’t be seen here. He’ll think it’s you.” He pulled her quickly through the street, but not before her eyes fell on someone she’d thought to be dead.

His body had been stacked and burned with the others, she’d been told, but she would recognize that clear blue gaze anywhere. He only had one eye, was dressed in rags, was covered in scars and it looked as if he had a false leg, but she knew his face. She’d seen that blue eye along with its now gone twin wide with fear in potions, squinted in concentration in herbology and she’d seen it fierce with determination in the meetings of the D.A. Hermione stared after him as she was dragged away. For the first time since being captured she felt hope as she watched Neville Longbottom limp, unnoticed, away.

A/N- Sorry it took so long, but here it is! Thank you for sticking with me! I promise to get new chapters out soon!