Invisible
To be invisible was complex and difficult magic. The death eaters had evolved since their days of robes and masks.
Lily squirmed against Ginny, causing a ripple in the fabric of their hiding place.
"Get back here!" Growled another voice. Apparently, Hermione's birds had still missed one.
"Stupify!" Fleur cried into the void, and it destroyed a hat stand, sending bits of fabric into the air. She cast again and again until, finally, they heard a grunt.
"Is there another?" Ginny hissed.
"Not sure. Vhe need to move before vhe find out," whispered Fleur.
"Fleur, you need to cast more lethal jinxes," Hermione hissed as they crawled along the shop floor. "Stupify won't cut it. He'll wake up any second and double down on us."
Fleur turned to her, and even through the disillusionment charm, Hermione could see rage on her pretty face.
"And vhat would you 'ave me do, 'ermione? Use bombarda again and take zis station down on our 'eads? Incendio and zet fire to ze damn place? Do you know vhat it takes to form a successful Avada Kedavra, 'ermione? 'ave you ever done et? Or perhaps I zhould 'ave leetle birds fight for me."
"Stop it, both of you!" Ginny spat.
"Fait chier,” Fleur mumbled.
No, Hermione had never used the killing curse. She was supposed to be shagging her husband on the kitchen table right now, not fighting for her life.
The dining area expanded from the center of Kings Cross into a triangle with the sandwich shop on one side, the store where the women hid on the other, and the exit lining the bottom. Across from them, between the sandwich shop and the exit, was the entrance to a long corridor that snaked down past the Hotel and to the Kings Cross exit. The mezzanine squealed and teetered above.
Muggles huddled under the small round tables. Hermione watched a group of them succumb to quick hexes cast by invisible death eaters on the far side of the seating area. They slumped over, one by one, beneath their table. Then another table of cowering muggles fell, and another. Carnage truly was the goal here.
"Hey you," shook the voice of a brave police officer as he moved slowly around a table. He held his gun out with trembling hands.
Shoot, damnit," thought Hermione. She'd never given much thought to guns, but she didn't see why they couldn't kill a wizard like any curse.
In his moment of mercy, the police officer went down, and Hermione jumped as his gun skittered toward them. She picked it up and handed it wordlessly to Miranda.
"What? I've never fired a gun before!" Miranda protested, but Hermione had already turned away.
"Toggle the safety on and off here," Ginny explained. "My husband loves cop shows." Hermione couldn't help but crack a smile. It felt foreign on her face.
"Who else wants to be brave?" Cried a bodiless voice across the dining area. Ginny raised her wand to hex in his direction, but Fleur stopped her hand.
"You'll give us away!" She hissed.
"There has to be a way to find out how many we are dealing with," said Hermione.
"Can't you do that thing with the birds again?" Miranda asked.
They'd be able to trace their flight back to here," Hermione replied.
"Wait," said Ginny, "and boy, I hope this hurts."
"Difindo," she whispered, and across the seating area, the tops of a row of coffee carafes in the Pret split and fell, unheard and unnoticed among the cries of falling muggles and jeers of invisible death eaters. Ginny levitated the carafes, and they whizzed in a straight line along the far side.
"Flipendo!" She muttered.
They heard the hiss and screams of several death eaters nursing burns on their skin, but also, the black coffee pooled and fell over their bodies, outlining them. At least twenty death eaters cried and grasped at their burned necks and shoulders.
"Brilliant, Ginny!" Hermione whispered, "Can we do that all around the perimeter?"
"You have more coffee?" Ginny asked, and Hermione shook her head.
And then Hermione saw her - Cho Chang, an old classmate, a member of the DA, Harry's ex-girlfriend, cornered against the far wall with her own young child in one arm. Their attack gave her a moment of reprieve, but before long, she resumed barely keeping hexes off herself and her child.
"Oh Merlin, Cho," gasped Ginny.
Cho took a hex to her wand arm and cried out in pain.
"We have to do something," said Ginny.
"Absolutely not!" Hissed Miranda, "Aren't you supposed to be our priority?"
"Anything we did from this far away could hurt her more, especially since we can't see her bloody attackers," Hermione whispered.
"I remember her," mused Fleur, "She vhas Cedric's petit ami during ze tournament, oui? She vhas very nice."
"We don't have time to argue," Hermione said, "Fleur and I will help Cho and draw their fire. Miranda, Ginny, get into the underground and get safe."
"What? No!" Ginny said, but Hermione turned to Fleur.
"Help Cho, and I'll cover you," then she turned to Ginny and Miranda. "Stay on our heels, and stay hidden."
Hermione took a deep breath, and she and Fleur dashed from the relative safety of the shop and into the middle of the seating area.
"Protego!"
She focused on keeping stray bullets and hexes off Fleur, and when she had a moment to breathe, she cast rash-slicing hexes along the walls and sides. Occasionally, the invisibility would fade from a death eater, and they'd fall. It felt like slow work, but the moments between pure defense stretched as more death eaters fell. She turned and saw Cho beaming and running towards them.
In the split second that Hermione allowed hope to flood her, she felt a sting at her back, and her vision went dark.
"Hermione, Hermione!" She felt her shoulders shake. She tried to open her eyes, but the room swam around her.
Long black hair enveloped her face, and a tear dripped onto her cheek.
"Cho Chang, always bloody crying," she murmured as her eyes rolled open.
"Oh, thank goodness, you're awake."
Cho had pulled two tables down around them, and they could hear hexes ping along the exposed wooden undersides. She pushed the hair back from Hermione's face.
"Can you sit up?"
Hermione forced herself up, felt like her head stayed on the floor, and fell back down. The lump on her head sent out a shockwave of pain.
"Sorry, Hermione, but you have to get up. We can't stay here."
"Where's Lily?" Hermione asked, pushing herself up again as the room spun.
"Who's Lily?" Asked Cho.
"I mean Ginny, where's Ginny and Fleur?"
"I'm not sure where Ginny is, but Fleur is out there with that muggle girl." Cho swallowed. "Are you sure you're ok?"
"No, but I'll have to be," said Hermione, and Cho nodded.
"Where's Harry's invisibility cloak when you need it, right?" Cho asked, and Hermione's eyes widened as though remembering caused it to happen again. Harry, Ron, her children - all gone.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Come on, Hermione, stay with me. We have to find Ginny, remember?"
She nodded.
In her years of peace, Hermione had forgotten her resilience. She remembered when Hugo got an ear infection and cried all night. She'd sat by his bed wondering how she ever survived the Department of Mysteries and wondered where the girl had gone who left Malfoy Manor considering herself lucky for earning nothing more than a "cut" on her arm.
Miranda fell beside them with a thud.
"Shit, shit!" Hermione said, and she summoned her body beneath the barricade. She felt Miranda's pulse - mercifully, she was only stunned.
"Rennervate," cast Hermione, and Miranda spluttered to consciousness.
"I have to get out there," said Cho, "here, you need to take her," and she thrust her child into Hermione's arms. The child immediately started kicking and screaming.
"It's ok, Hana, go with Auntie Hermione." Cho gave a welling smile and hurried out with a fan of her hair. Hana kicked and spit and clocked Hermione in the jaw.
"Petrificuls totalus," Hermione cast at the child, and her desperate eyes searched Hermione's face as her little body froze. What kind of long-term trauma had she just caused?
"I…I ran out of bullets," Miranda wheezed.
"Of course you did. Here, take her," Hermione said.
"What did you do to her?"
"Full body curse."
"Right, of course, because you lot are fairies or something, yeah?"
Hermione felt her face grow warm with a small smile.
"Something like that," she laughed.
She took Miranda's gun and opened the chamber.
First, she cast an undetectable extension charm and then repeated the doubling charm, Gemino, on the bullets in quick succession.
Hermione held a bullet in her hand. She had rarely thought about muggle guns as they seemed so primitive compared to magic.
She shook her head, reloaded the chamber, and handed the gun back to Miranda.
"You need to take Hana and head for the underground. Find Ginny and tell her to take off the full-body bind curse. Do you understand?"
Miranda nodded.,
"Don't worry, I'll cover for you."
They both ducked out from under the table, and Miranda dashed to the underground entrance, the immobilized child tight against her chest. Hermione cast protection spell after protection spell on her, taking a grazing slicing jinx to her thigh.
When she disappeared, Hermione turned to Cho and Fleur. Cho nodded at her, even as silent tears ran down her face.
"Bloody Cho Chang, always crying," Cho said, wiping her tears on her sleeve and turning back.
The three women stood in a triangle at the center of the dining area. Hermione cast revealing charms as often as protection, occasionally hitting her mark and causing the disillusionment charm to dissolve. She'd then cast a wide-range attack such as bombarda, trying to ignore the continued damage to the station that crumbled around them.
They couldn't keep on like this forever, and yet it seemed that the death eaters were never-ending.
"Where are they all coming from?" Cried Cho, who seemed to match Hermione's train of thought.
"Must be from the front entrance," Hermione yelled back. The door to the Battlebridge Place exit hadn't opened and seemed entirely blocked by invisible death eaters, judging by the hexes that baraged from that direction.
This meant that death eaters could re-up in two places - the hallway that led to the Hotel and the front of the Pret.
"Cover me!" She yelled and moved between the two women.
"Diffindo!" Hermione cast a great slicing hex in the mezzanine above them and cut out a five-foot square.
“Wingardium Leviosa!” She cried as she caught the chunk of metal before it fell on them. She swung it to the side, and it crashed to the floor, blocking the hallway to the Hotel.
"Brilliant, Hermione!"
Almost immediately, the opposition lessened. However, she knew it wouldn't be long until they regrouped at the front of the Pret. The problem was the entrance to the Pret was more extensive, and death eaters could also sneak in from the shops
"What time does ze next train from Platform 9 come een?" Asked Fleur, and Hermione felt a rush of adrenaline.
She thought back to her brief glance at the board.
"Soon," she said, and then she checked her watch, "Now!"
“Sur trois!” Fleur called.
"Un,"
"Deux," Cho and Hermione cast simultaneous protection charms around the three of them.
"Trois!"
"Accio train!" Cried all three.
Hermione allowed everything in her brain - Ginny, Lily, Hana, Miranda, Ron to quietly slip away, and she imagined the train at platform nine.
A great crash of glass and screams erupted from down the station and was soon drowned out by the sound of grinding metal.
Hermione opened her eyes to see the massive train shoot past them and land with a grinding thud along the far end of the dining area. She cast sticking charms on each of the car doors she could see.
"We did it! I can't believe that worked!" Cho cried. Hermione looked over to see fresh tears falling down her cheeks, and she smiled.
"I know, I know!"
"Go," Hermione said, "While they're stalled. Get to Hana and Miranda and Ginny."
Cho nodded, and Hermione covered for her as she darted to the underground.
A wave of exhaustion overtook her, but even though they'd blocked the two entry points, the curses in their direction were unrelenting. They still had no idea how many death eaters were in the room with them now.
How had the resistance garnered this much support? Where had all of these people been hiding over the years? Had they worked in the ministry with Hermione - smiling at her weekend plans at the water cooler while hating her, resenting her existence, and seeing her as a symbol to be destroyed?
"Vhe must start moving to ze underground," huffed Fleur, a sentiment that sounded easier than it was. They were still far enough away that it required several protection charms to make it alone.
"You go," Hermione said.
"Absolutely not," said Fleur, "togezer, or not at all."
A great blast shook the hall, and the two women had to throw up quick protection charms to avoid the debris flying towards them. Bits of glass and metal hurled toward them and bounced off their charms. The center of the train had been blown to bits, and amid the rubble stood Draco Malfoy.
He smiled at Hermione and Fleur. She'd never seen Draco Malfoy smile - sneer or smirk, yes, but not smile. Her blood ran cold.
He began to cast a series of minor hexes at them. Quick and biting- a small flame that burned a hole in her skirt and a slice that nicked her elbow. These hexes moved so quickly that they seemed to slip through the cracks of her protection charms.
He laughed and whispered something to an invisible companion. More memories flooded her - all the times he sat on the sidelines and mocked her, mocked her friends. He'd bullied and tormented them with quick-cutting jabs like the hexes he threw now. All the while, the same barrage from invisible beings encircled them.
"We can't do this much longer!" Fleur cried. Hermione's muscles burned. She hoped beyond all hope that Ginny, Miranda, and Cho had found safety in the underground tunnels and that her children, Ginny and Harry's children, and Fleur's daughter were safe at Hogwarts. She hoped beyond hope they'd all see each other again.
“Fleur, thank you…thank you for…”
"Don't zank me yet! Vhe 'ave to get out of 'ere, tout suit!"
A second crash sounded behind them. Hermione whirled around to see that the doors to the Battlebridge Place exitwere blown open and in poured aurors, clad in their standard red cloaks. But as soon as it spread across her face, Hermione's smile sunk.
They fell one by one.
As though in slow motion, she turned back to see the spells erupting from Malfoy's wand. He cast green killing curse after green killing curse like it was nothing.
"Now! While they're distracted!" Said Fleur, but Hermione turned to Malfoy. This was all him. He'd watched Hermione be tortured, he'd caused Dumbledore's death, Lavender, Fred... And now, hell was starting all over because of him.
"Avada Kedavra!" She yelled, whipping her wand tip at Malfoy. But no green curse erupted from her. Instead, her head felt like it split open, and the tip of her wand blew apart. She grabbed her skull and cried out. She'd have been better off trying to make him eat slugs.
Through her pain, Hermione saw Malfoy's smile turn to a sneer.
He didn't even need to speak the words. The green bolt of light flew past Hermione's ear and into the side of Fleur's temple. She fell with a thud beside Hermione.
The underground rumbled behind her as a pack of snarling, matted, hunched beasts emerged from its bowels. Ginny, Miranda, Cho… she'd sent them down there, and what came back up now made Hermione want to vomit.
Surrounded on all sides and alone, among the snarling and jeering, she heard the quiet voice of Draco Malfoy.
"Greyback," he said, "dinner."