Title: For Every Action
Rating: T
Pairing: D/Hr
Summary: Post-HBP. When Draco Malfoy's attempts to change the past collide with Hermione Granger's attempts to change the future, the line between what is and what should have been begins to blur.
Disclaimer: Once upon a time, there lived a girl. This girl had way too much time on her hands and therefore wiled away countless hours of her precious youth thinking, reading, and writing about Harry Potter. Unfortunately for her, she was not J.K. Rowling, and hence did not own any characters, places, or events associated with the Harry Potter universe and made no money off of them whatsoever. Really.
A/N: Hello, my darlings, and welcome to my newest foray into the world of fan fiction. Instead of rambling on and on like I usually do, I'm just going to get right to it. Heaps and heaps of thanks to Lorett, beta-extraordinaire, and with no further ado, here is the first chappie of For Every Action!
Chapter 1: Permissum is fio
"Ronald Weasley, put that out right now. Do you want to kill yourself?"
Ron glared at Hermione Granger as he lit the cigarette dangling carelessly out of his mouth. In the dark of the alleyway in which they stood, the glow of his lighter cast all his face in an odd amber haze, until even his cobalt eyes seemed to burn like a dying sunset. The lighter snapped shut and took the light with it, and Ron disappeared into the shadows until he blew a cloud of smoke that shimmered silver in the light of a distant streetlamp.
"If I live long enough to die of cancer, you have my express permission to say, 'I told you so' at the funeral," he said in a dark, sardonic way that made it abundantly clear he never expected to have to make good on that promise.
Hermione pursed her lips but said nothing, deciding to choose her battles. She turned her attention away from her friend and focused it instead on the house across the street that was the reason for their presence in the ally on this December, midnight.
The house was dark, both in color and in spirit. No light shone out of its mostly-broken windows, and the door hanging upon a single rusty hinge swung sorrowfully in the chilly wind; but Hermione knew that meant less then nothing. The wards and enchantments that surrounded the house were so powerful that Hermione could actually feel them, as though their magic called to her own and pulled the very blood in her veins, just as the moon pulls the tide. A New Year's Eve celebration for the ages could have been raging within the decrepit walls of that house, and no on the street would have been the wiser. However, if those wards had been put up by whom they thought had done so, nothing so innocuous as a party was happening.
If their intelligence was correct, then this raid on the Death Eater stronghold they suspected was housed in that run-down old building could be the most important victory the Order had yet achieved against Voldemort and his ever-growing Dark armies. The War (for it was always capitalized in Hermione's mind, as if no other had come before it and no others would ever follow) had broken out not-quite five months ago, just before Hermione's seventh year at Hogwarts should have begun. The Order was by no means losing, but each battle won came at a cost, and they had not been without their losses. They could use all the victories they could get.
"So, what do you think?" Hermione started as she felt Harry Potter's breath ghost across her ear as he spoke. Over the past several months, he had developed a rather unnerving ability to move about silently, as though he floated over the ground like a Dementor rather than walked upon it like his fellow man. Often times, Hermione wasn't even aware of his presence until he chose to speak.
"They're in there," she replied softly when she'd recovered her voice. "I can feel them."
"So can I," Harry whispered back. She turned her head slightly to study his face. His messy black hair fell forward across his forehead, and it was the only thing about him that made him seem like the seventeen-year-old boy he was, for the rest of his features were haggard, too old for his years. His eyes looked hard and determined, haunted by too many ghosts. She tried to remember if they had always looked like that. Somehow, she thought they had.
He seemed to sense her scrutiny, and he moved his gaze from the dark house across the street to settle his vivid eyes on her. He offered her a small, bracing smile, and she took strength from it and smiled back. He squeezed her shoulder and then turned back into the ally where maybe a dozen other Order members were milling around, preparing for the raid.
She listened to the murmurings of the others, picked out the familiar voices, heard the tension and fear in every word they spoke. She knew what they were discussing without having to actually hear what they said. She had heard the rumors the same as they had, and she knew who everyone was expecting to find stowed away in that ramshackle house.
Though no one had seen hide nor hair of them since that fateful night at Hogwarts, Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy were with them always, a looming shadow over everything they did. When a battle was lost, when a decision must be made, when the Order needed guidance and strength, they were there, occupying the space where Albus Dumbledore had once been.
The hatred the members of the Order reserved for the pair was only exceeded by their hatred for Voldemort himself. Out of all of them, it was only Harry, with his sad, old eyes, who seemed to doubt, seemed to wonder if perhaps adding more hatred to a hate-filled world might not be the answer, but his opinion did not sway them. If Snape and Malfoy really were hiding in that house, then Hermione knew no power known to Muggle or wizard could save them from the wrath of the Order.
"It's time." Hermione turned around to find Remus Lupin standing behind her, an expression of grim determination on his kind, timeworn face. She glanced across the ally where Ron was taking one last, bracing drag on his cigarette before throwing it down and grinding up the embers with the toe of his boot. He looked back up at her, and though he did not smile, she took strength from the affection and support in his eyes, and she hoped he saw her brief smile of comfort before she turned to follow the procession of Order members into darkness and danger.
The wards could only be brought down for a moment, so when the Order burst into the house, it was in great numbers and in a great hurry. Gasps and screams and curses flew everywhere, and Hermione plunged into the chaos without a backward glance. Backward glances came at high costs. The War had taught her that.
She quickly took in her surroundings. The room was dark, with stone walls and old, unwelcoming furniture. She counted at least a dozen Death Eaters around the room, the majority of who were leaping to their feet even as they shrieked hexes and Dark spells at the intruding forces. Most of them were young, barely older than Hermione herself. Perhaps when the raid was over and she was alone with her thoughts, she would feel guilty for attacking a roomful of unprepared children, but there were times and places for feelings like that, and this was not one of them.
She felt a curse whoosh past her ear and turned to face its caster. A young woman she didn't recognize, with enormous green eyes, dark hair, and a cruel mouth, was halfway through the incantation for her next spell when Hermione's Stupefy struck her squarely in the chest. Hermione magically bound her wrists, levitated her out of the way of the battles raging in the dark, dank living room, and then turned to follow Ron and several other Order members as they began to search the rest of the house.
By unspoken agreement, they began to pair off as they approached a hallway lined by closed doors and a long, rickety staircase. Hermione began climbing the stairs, close on Ron's heels, she could hear the near-silent footsteps of several others behind them.
As far as she could tell, there were only three doors on the second floor. One, which stood open, appeared to be the bathroom, too small to effectively hide anyone. The two teams of Aurors behind them turned left to investigate what appeared to be the master bedroom, and Hermione and Ron took the closed door on the right.
Ron went in before her as he always did, and Hermione allowed it because she knew nothing she said or did would convince him to do otherwise. He quickly disabled the locking charms and pushed the door inwards, keeping his wand at the ready. When no spells or shrieked curses flew out at them, Ron peered carefully around the doorjamb.
Without any warning, Hermione watched in horror as Ron was struck by a bolt of silvery-blue lightning that flung his body backwards into the wall across the hallway. He slumped to the floor, unconscious (please, please let it be unconscious, Hermione thought desperately) and then flung the door wide open, ready to strike down his attacker before they could incapacitate her as well.
Hermione heard someone gasp and realized it was her. She was staring down her wandtip at none other than Draco Malfoy, who was looking at her as though he couldn't possibly imagine a worse fate for himself than finding Hermione Granger standing in his doorway.
He didn't look quite the way she remembered him. His hair was longer, hanging loose around his face and tucked behind his left ear to expose a series of three paper-thin scars across his cheekbone that hadn't been there before. His face was too young to belong to a man, his eyes too old to belong to child. He looked tired, scared, and quietly desperate. She supposed she did, too, but that didn't really bear thinking about.
He appeared to be the only occupant of the room, which would have struck her as odd if she had been thinking clearly. Behind him was a window, where Hermione could see distant fireworks and the flashes of light from the battle downstairs. In front of him was a table, and on that table lay a large, ancient-looking text. Around his neck hung some sort of gold chain, and he was clutching the pendant that dangled from it in a white-knuckled grip with one hand while the other aimed his wand directly at Hermione's heart.
For a moment, they merely stared at one another. Then, distantly, a clock bell began to chime the countdown to midnight, and Malfoy was suddenly spurred into action, but not the sort of action Hermione had expected. Instead of attacking her, he glanced desperately at the grandfather clock situated against one wall of the cramped, shadowy room and began to recite something in a thin, frantic sort of voice.
"EGO dico super vos Janus, vos quisnam tutela via,
deus of ianua of porta of quicumque est praelabor quod volatilis."
Suddenly, above the bang of the fireworks and shouts and cries from the floor below, a strange, almost-electrical humming began to buzz in the room. Hermione felt magic crackle on her skin, in the very air around her, but it was not her kind of magic. It was too old for that, too . . . angry.
"Malfoy, what are you doing?" she asked, hating the tremble of fear in her voice but unable to do anything about it. He did not answer her, and though the wand that he aimed at her did not waver from its target, it trembled slightly in his ghost-white hand. His eyes darted up to hers for a moment, wide and skittish and desperate as a cornered animal's, before returning to the text in front of him.
"Iam, ut terminus quod exordium es unus, EGO queso vos."
The buzzing energy in the room had grown steadily stronger, and now it was visible, cracking like heat lightning near the ceiling of the room. Hermione felt a wind with no source begin to rustle her robes and saw it whip Malfoy's pale hair around his face.
"Put your wand down," she ordered, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the buzzing, crackling noise of whatever dark and forgotten magicks he was invoking. "You can't get away." Something chilling in Malfoy's quicksilver eyes told her that he didn't really expect to get away, and he paid her no heed as he continued with his chant.
"Vultus ut preteritus, quod vox suus nefas.
Vultus ut posterus, quod planto is quis is est vilis futurus."
The bluish flashes of light began to converge on the ceiling above Malfoy's head, swirling ominously and taking a shape that was not quite yet clear. The wind picked up, and Hermione felt the first thrills of real, honest terror shivering across the back of her neck.
As an educated witch, Hermione could read Latin well enough, but deciphering it as a spoken language was not a skill she had quite yet mastered. She knew enough, though, to understand Malfoy was now toying with powers and magicks best left where they belonged: in the shrouded darkness of the past.
"Malfoy, stop this!" she cried above the now-howling wind. If he heard her, he did not respond.
"Per vox obduco tenus mihi per Merlin, per Orbis, per Morgana . . ."
Something fundamental was shifting, moving, changing. Hermione felt the foreign power in the room, a power older than memory, grow stronger, heavier, until she could feel the weight of it like a thousand boulders on her heart. She found her voice and did the only thing she could think of to stop it.
"Stupe --" Before she could finish her spell, Malfoy's eyes left the text and bore into hers, a strange sort of apologetic, resolute expression in them, and he finished the incantation before the final syllable could leave her lips.
"Permissum is fio."
The lightening cracked, the walls shook, the ancient magic poured through Hermione's veins, and the last thing she saw was a pair of moonlit eyes, the knowledge of the ages in their mercurial depths.
A/N: DUN DUN DUN! I know, it's rather cruel to leave you with a cliffy right from the get-go, but I'm afraid nothing can be done about it. Like it? Love it? Despise it with all your heart and soul? Let me know, my darlings. Review review review!