Chapter 1
There were several things that went through Hermione’s head as they walked down the long corridor that was lined with florescent prophecies. Her group of friends were walking a steady pace as Harry led them down the hallway looking for where his vision had taken place. In all honesty, Hermione thought this was a trap that they were willfully walking into. But when had expressed her concerns to her friends, she was all but ignored. Harry’s feelings of his only remaining family that actually liked him and his need to protect that connection made him careless; but Hermione couldn’t blame him. If she had a family member that was she was about lose, never mind the only family member that treated her nicely, she would do whatever she could to help them.
Harry was looking for the spot his vision had taken place, but Hermione was looking for anyone that could be hiding in the shadows; and there were a lot of shadows. The entire area was completely dark, even with the glow of the prophecies, if it wasn’t for all their lumos’s, they likely wouldn’t be able to see very far in front of their faces. The others were likely trying to catch the names on the prophecies to see if they recognized anyone; but that wasn’t how prophecies worked. The prophecies they could see and read the names of would be of people either long dead or not even born yet. Prophecies only showed themselves to the ones the prophecy was made for; the likely would only be able to find Harry’s that they knew the Dark Lord was looking for and only because Harry was with them.
Once they were so deep into the chamber, so deep that Hermione couldn’t see the door they had entered through anymore, Hermione felt eyes on them. She couldn’t see anything definitive, but she was sure she could see dark masses moving in the shadows that were definitely not there when they first got into the room. Hermione’s hair stood on end as she tried desperately to find who was looking at them, to try and figure out how many of them there were so she could try and make some plans. It wouldn’t do her very good to make up a plan if she didn’t know how many enemies were there; if they were even enemies. There was a small chance that it was some Ministry officials trying to catch them doing something outside of being in a place they weren’t supposed to be.
“Harry, I think that one has your name on it.” Neville said in a quiet tone, trying to keep to the quiet and dangerous atmosphere that had been surrounding them since they walked into the room.
Neville’s quiet announcement by Harry’s own exclamation, “This is where it happened, right here.” Harry declared.
“Not so loud Harry.” Hermione warned one of her best friends.
“There’s no one else here Hermione, it’s not like we’re in a library.” Ron casually said, as if he forgot they had broken into the Ministry of Magic and could be in some very real and big legal trouble if they were caught.
“I don’t see Sirius here Harry.” Ginny said in a quiet voice, more than okay with heeding Hermione’s warning. She started pointing her wand down the rows next to them as well, sensing they weren’t entirely alone like they had originally thought.
“He’s here somewhere I know it.” Harry insisted, desperation in his tone. He had to make sure he was there to help his godfather; he couldn’t lose his family, the one person that could provide him a nice place to live instead of in a cupboard and would actually want him around. He desperately wanted him around. “We just have to find him.”
“I wonder what your prophecy say’s Harry.” Luna said in her airy tone, bringing Harry’s attention to what the others had already noticed. “Perhaps it will have some helpful information.”
“Aren’t prophies nothing but riddles and missing information.” Ginny said with a frown, not really understanding all the hype about prophecies. From what her parents had said, prophecies were hardly understandable and usually whatever their translations were, were never correct and always ended up horrible somehow.
“Not always; it just depends on how they’re interpreted.” Neville argued, having faith that prophecies could be could if they were understood properly and in time for the event they were talking about. “I wonder what yours says Harry.”
“You should take it, who knows when you’ll ever be here again.” Ron said, for once Hermione actually agreed with him.
“He’s right Harry, people aren’t usually allowed in here. Prophecies are highly guarded and are only given to the people they are about if they have enough political clout.” Hermione said with a huff of annoyance, “The government is so concerned about being overthrown that they guard the prophecies in case it’s about them being over taken. Only those with enough political power can overcome all the red-tape to get a hold of their prophecies. That’s something I plan on changing as soon as I start working in the Ministry.” Hermione said with a look of determination; their government was too afraid of their shadow for their own good; there were a lot of changes Hermione wanted to do in her future after she graduated and Voldemort’s influence was over.
“You have to finish school first ‘Mione.” Ginny said with a smirk. Of course Hermione already had her life planned out after graduation. All Ginny could plan for was to finish the school year with decent grades; definitely better than her brother’s at least so she would look really good.
Ginny felt a hand on her shoulder, bringing attention to her fellow third year, “There’s nothing wrong with thinking ahead, perhaps she’s already seen how this whole war will end.” Luna said, causing Ginny to swallow a laugh. Yeah, Hermione, the girl who dropped out of Divination because she couldn’t ‘see’ the point in it.
“Sure Luna.” Ginny said with a fond smile, Luna could say some of the silliest things sometimes. But sometimes, if you paid enough attention, Luna could say some really smart and insightful things; there was a reason she was in Ravenclaw after all.
“Sirius clearly isn’t here, we can at least get something out of this trip and then get back to Hogwarts and see if we can get ahold of Sirius.” Ron said and before Harry could insist they keep looking for him he kept talking, “This is where your vision said he was right? Well, either the vision hasn’t happened yet or it already did; but either way, we should contact Sirius and make sure he’s okay and then we can tell him what you saw.” Ron said and for a moment, Hermione, and everyone else for that matter, were actually shocked by how good of an idea he had. That was normally something Hermione would say; perhaps Hermione was finally starting to rub off on him.
“Sure, okay.” Harry said with a serious look now that he had a plan of action in place. Easily reaching up to grab the prophecy that not only had his name but seemed to glow brighter at him, he grabbed it, and instantly heard words going through his mind.
Harry froze as he grabbed the prophecy, making Hermione and their friends worry. They hadn’t expected anything would happen if Harry grabbed the orb. Hermione and Rob both took a step towards their best friend, concerned about Harry freezing in place; perhaps there was a curse of something similar on the orb. Both Hermione and Ron reached a hand out to Harry’s shoulders, either about to shake him or say something, but they were both caught off as someone walked out of the shadows in front of them.
“I think it would be wise for you to give that orb to me.” Said a sophisticated tone that made Hermione’s skin crawl. It was a tone that spoke of entitlement and expectation. It was a tone that made Hermione want to physically hurt the speaker; which when someone was so adamantly against violence as she was, that was saying a lot.
“Don’t do it Harry,” Ginny, “It’s yours.” She argued.
“It’s only right that you have it.” Neville added as they all pointed their wands towards the few people that were appearing from the shadows.
Hermione knew they weren’t alone. She was regretting not trying to come up with escape plans regardless of not knowing how many people were there.
The man used his wand to drain his mask away from his face in what was just an impressive looking spell but not overly complicated to perform. “Give that to me boy.” The man said, desperation and anger seeping into her tone relatively quickly. Hermione couldn’t help but roll her eyes; did he really think ordering a bunch of teenagers was going to get them to do what he wanted? Hermione knew the man as Draco Malfoy’s father; his tone and orders may work on the little brat, but it certainly wasn’t going to work on her and her friends.
“Don’t do it Harry; only you can hear what’s on the prophecy anyways. He can’t do anything with it.” Hermione cautioned. It didn’t matter what Malfoy wanted with the prophecy, she knew whatever it was it wasn’t good and therefore she didn’t want the blonde snake to have it.
“Yeah mate, it’s yours not his.” Ron said with a glare towards the older man who would only sneer at the children.
“It would be in your best interest to hand that over.” Malfoy said as he held out his hand, expecting his demands to be met.
Instead of the prophecy, his hand was hit with a quick sting jinx thanks to Ginny who only gave him a triumphant smirk. Lucius was about to reach for his still encased wand to retaliate but was stopped short at a cackle that he really wished had stayed behind at her own home.
“It seems these little brats have a bit more bite than you thought little Lucy.” Bellatrix said with a wicked grin, completely amused by the turn of events as she slowly swaggered to stand next to Lucius.
“You can’t even get a little prophecy from a bunch of school children. How disappointing.”
Everyone tensed as they realized who exactly they were facing. Everyone else that had appeared from the shadows were still wearing their masks except for Lucius, but Bellatrix hadn’t even bothered to wear hers; completely okay with being shown and known she was there.
“Don’t come any closer or you’ll regret it.” Neville all but shouted as he waved his wand at the older woman, completely intent on attacking the woman if it hadn’t been for his friends purposefully moving to stand in his way.
Bellatrix let out a shrill cackle that was likely the thing of nightmares for some people, “What will you do, little Neville?” Bellatrix asked and just for a moment, Hermione was actually surprised she used his name instead of an insult; she was even more surprised that she knew his name in the first place. “Try your best.” She said in a low tone, her smile making her look just as mad as everyone said she was.
“Enough!” Lucius yelled, “You are not in charge here, I am.” Lucius said in a hard tone, clearly losing his cool. “And you,” He said as he finally pulled out his wand and aimed it at Harry, “You will give that to me or you and your friends will not be walking out of here.” He threatened with a snarl.
Harry looked at his friends by his side and knew that while they had been training as much as they could, there was no way they could defeat a bunch of trained Death Eaters; no matter how much he wished they could. He looked at Hermione and with a nod to each other and then with Ron, he yelled.
“Now!” All at once, thankfully this was the one thing Hermione had expected they would have to do; just with guards not with Death Eaters, all the students cast their strongest bombarda at the floor and then quickly turned to flee.
As they ran, they naturally split off to race in the general directions they had come from. Luna and Ginny ended up running down their own isle as Luna cast her stronger bombarda and Ginny cast any all jinxes at their followers. Harry, Ron and Neville ended up together as they ran, Harry and Neville casting any spell they could hoping to hit at least one person and Ron… well, he tried. Ron had been looking to see where Hermione had gone and instead of hitting his bombarda at the ground by a Death Eater, he hit a shelf causing the shelf to slowly start to tip over.
“Run!” Harry yelled as the three boys realized the shelf was going to cause a domino effect and it would be safer for them to get out of the room all together than try to dodge the falling tall shelving full of prophies.
They all sprinted as fast as they could towards a door that they could finally see, not caring if it was the same door they had walked into the room with or not. Their first instinct was to get themselves to safety, to run as fast as they could and make sure they weren’t caught.
None of them realized until after they had slammed the door shut behind them, hearing the shelves collapse into the wall in front of them, that Hermione wasn’t with them. None of them had seen the dark, curly haired woman use her apparition skill to, instead of taunting the children by appearing next to them and throwing spells at them, to appear right in front of her target and grab her. Bellatrix didn’t even give Hermione a chance to scream as she apparated them away. The moment Bellatrix saw the bushy haired brunette with the other children, she knew she had to act. She may have been sent to collect a prophecy for the Dark Lord, but now that she had the muggle-born, she had her prophecy to full fill.