Sorry it's been awhile. No excuses, I promise. Just the next chapter.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish it were. All to JK Rowlings.
Chapter 16: Discoveries and Duels
Hermione stared at the aging, yet still intimidating, Lucius Malfoy, Minister of Magic. He stood, sneering at her, glad to have surprised her. She did not know how to react. This was the man who'd ruined the life of her late father-in-law, who'd been behind Voldemort during the entire War, the man who'd been responsible for everything wrong that had been happening in the past year. And suddenly, reacting was no longer an issue.
"It's you!" she screamed. "You're the one! You--you're behind all of the rogue attacks! But-you--why? Don't answer that. You took Molly and Evie! You've ruined my life with that stupid law! And you're supposed to be the Minister of Magic, the one person who's supposed to unite the Wizarding world, not destroy it!"
"Ah, well, that's where your understanding of the position goes astray," he drawled. "Every minister we've ever had does things for themselves before they worry about the rest of the population. Fudge took my money rather than attempt to control the Ministry's antics and Scrimgeour was far too interested in having Harry's name with his that he completely disregarded the Ministry. I'm simply keeping up a longstanding tradition." He picked at his fingernail nonchalantly.
She stared, trying to find the words to accuse him or to hurt him, but none came to mind. She spluttered for a moment, trying to find her words, before he began to talk again.
"You know," he began as he stepped slowly towards her, "you have been a thorn in my side for years, Mrs. Lupin. Always so close to being out of the way, but you manage to slip from my grasp each an every time. But this time, however, you've made things spectacularly easy." He smirked. "I had not expected you to come after the child and the old woman so easily. I had supposed that Dumbledore would have come up with some cunning plan or other, that I would easily foil, and then you would be so distraught as to be caught with little ado. But apparently your senses have been dulled by the death of your husband. You've saved me a lot of trouble, my dear."
She stared at him, stunned, but there was still enough of the old Hermione in her to bring back her famous ire. "What do you want?" she hissed. "What do want with me, why am I so important? What could I possibly know or do that could help you?"
He laughs at her naiveté concerning her own value. "You're so important, dear Mudblood. I should think it to be obvious. You're a genius, despite your blood. A mind of your caliber hasn't been seen since the Dark Lord himself was in power."
She sneered at him for a change. "I'm sure that just completely fuddled with your completely idiotic views on Muggleborns."
He ignored her. "We, the leftover loyal, wanted to capture you in order to use your intelligence as an ally rather than an enemy. I want to use your mind for our cause."
The mention of a "cause" sparked something within her. She became ruthless in her questioning, in her attacking. "And what of this supposed Voldemort? This heir to his own sordid throne?"
For reasons she could not completely fathom, he began to laugh to the point of incapacitation. "Are your wits so dulled by the loss of your pseudo-daughter? Can you truly not see it?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Are you going to tell me or continue insulting my intelligence that, need I remind you, you seem to be in desperate want of?"
"As you wish," he responds good-naturedly, at least, as good-naturedly as a Malfoy could ever possibly achieve. He took his wand and pointed it towards her face, muttering a charm Hermione could not catch. Suddenly, to her horror, the features of his face began to distort. The lovely features that had been the whisperings of many dorm-room fantasies during her years at school were suddenly being pulled back into his face, the eyes changing red and narrowing menacingly, the surprisingly full lips thinning to a line, his elegant nose shrinking into slits as his porcelain-like skin took on the hue of a corpse three weeks dead. Her breath catches in her throat as the combination of features begins to strike a familiar chord in her memory.
"You're..." she managed to sputter before succumbing to the shock.
Before her stood the figure of a man, no, creature, that she had only seen once before in her life. Before her was the face of the most feared personage ever to darken the Wizarding world. And when the thin mouth opened to dispel the voice of the new scourge of wizards and witches alike, she could not contain her fear.
"I am the new Lord Voldemort." He casually unbuttoned the sleeves of his expensive clothing and rolled them up to his elbow. When finished, he smirked at her uncharacteristically surprised face. He fell into a dueling position gracefully, still smirking. "Prepare to duel, Mrs. Lupin."
He gave her practically no time to catch her senses before hurling a curse in her direction. She barely had the sense of mind to dodge it, so addled was her mind and thoughts. She dove across the ground, bruising her elbow on the edge of an antique end table.
He straightened, noticeably pleased at her inability. "Come now, my dear Mrs. Lupin, surely you can do better than that. Remember, I too was at that final battle and I remember clearly you incapacitating nearly a dozen of my comrades in less than an hour."
She stood shakily, still trying to make sense of what she'd seen, but the determination in her eyes had returned. "And I distinctly remember that your son was one of those dozen," she managed to say. "How is he doing in Azkaban, Minister? Are the dementors seeing to his needs?"
The anger in Lucius's eyes snapped dangerously. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Mudblood." He threw another curse at her which she easily sidestepped before returning one of her own.
"Maybe not," she conceded, after giving a few more curses, one of which connects and causes a distracting cut on his brow, the blood dripping in his eye. "But I do know that he's getting simply what he deserves."
Lucius could not contain his anger, and retaliated with a band of hexes that managed to throw her against the wall and making an audible SNAP! sound in her chest along with a sharp pain. 'A rib,' she thought as she stood carefully, one hand holding on to her left side.
"Besides, I'm sure I could say the same of your late husband," Lucius continued, after a few more minutes of heated dueling.
For a moment, she stopped, her chest heaving and her eyes ablaze. "Don't you dare talk about Ron," she hissed.
He took a slightly casual pose, eying her as though he could see which words caused the most damage. "Why ever not, my dear Mudblood? Too painful, is it?" And they began to duel again, more fiercely than before. As she leaned against the wall, after once again being thrown into it, and he wiped the trail of blood falling from his mouth, he began to talk again.
"He was nothing, really. Just a Weasley. There are ever so many more of them." He laughed derisively. "Actually, I suppose there aren't, are there? Most of them have gone the same way as your dear Ron, haven't they?"
She threw herself from the wall and began to duel again in earnest. "Don't ever talk that way about the Weasleys!" She gave off a curse that pulled his legs out from under him, making him hit the floor with a dull thud.
He stood quickly, more agile than she would normally have expected of a man so many years her senior. Then, with a well placed Expelliarmus, her wand was gone into his hand. "Do you want to know something, my dear sweet Hermione?" his voice fairly dripped with false familiarity.
She held herself up carefully, panting heavily. "What could you possibly have to say that could ever interest me?"
He sneered, his teeth shining red with blood. "Your beloved Ron? He died at my hand." She breathed in sharply, causing a flash of pain to erupt in her chest. "I killed him. And I enjoyed it."
In that instant, she went berserk. She forgot completely about the fact that she didn't have a wand, and that he was far larger and more able bodied than she was. She ran at him, her mind a blur. She threw herself onto him, pushing him down and clawing at his face, screaming and sobbing the entire time. It did not take him long to free himself of her, and when he did, he stood over her. He fiddled with his wand almost absentmindedly, still watching her carefully. She could feel the tears on her face and the hate in her heart, an emotion she thought she'd ever feel so forcefully.
"Strange that I should kill two Weasleys with the same wand, one after the other," he said quietly. "Almost poetic, don't you think?" And he took careful aim at her.
She could not even manage to be upset. She would be joining Ron. But a nagging thought entered her head. How ironic that it should be her begging for the return of her husband, making him promise to live, and then she should die before he ever has the chance to keep his promise. She looked up at him, dull and unseeing.
"Avada Ked--"
Suddenly, for reasons she could not begin to fathom, he slumped forward, his head brushing against her legs on the floor. She looked up in bewilderment, surprised to see a floating rock in the place where his head had been moments before.
"What--?"
And then, there he was. Remus, wand outstretched, appeared in the doorway. He rushed over to her, puling his wand down and causing the rock to crash to the floor.
"Hermione!" He knelt beside her, searching her for damaging curse remnants. Uncertain of how to react, she simply let him look. "Hermione! You silly, stupid girl. Fighting him by yourself! The Dark Lord, Hermione! You could've been killed! You almost were! How could he be alive, really? And what were you thinking, trying to take him on? Hermione!"
"I--but Remus. It's not really Voldemort." She put her hand to her face, trying to gain some semblance of control over herself. "It's--"
But she stopped mid-sentence, surprised by the people stepping through the door. "Molly! Evie!" There they were. Molly was completely disheveled and a bit uncertain in her footing, but still managed to hang onto a grubby Evie. Even the normally stoic Hermione could not hold in a cry of relief.
She stopped Remus in his search for injuries and pulled him close to face her. "Thank you, Remus."
He looked at her, his face dirty and more tired than she could ever remember seeing it. "For what?" he asked, his voice soft and kind. She had to fight to hold in her tears.
"For returning to me. Just like you promised."
He flushed slightly under the layer of grime covering him. "Really, Hermione, it was no--"
But she stopped any protest or denial he could have made by kissing him soundly.
Well, there it is. I hope it lived up to your expectations of the long awaited chapter. There are very few chapters left and I hope to have them to you ASAP. But no guarantees! It will, thought, be finished! I promise!
Well, review, please!