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Bad Faith	By : angharad1143 Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 7649 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
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- 13
There had only been time for a panicked, disjointed account to Charlie, and he was currently Flooing
back to Headquarters, and then on to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, hopefully bringing some
help. Hermione had no idea how many Death Eaters had come in search of the Eye, but she did know that
Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Black, and Mulciber were among them–three of the deadliest of the Death Eaters.
Grabbing the last of the stones that Seamus had cleverly turned into Portkeys, Hermione felt the familiar jerk
just behind her belly and shot forward into rushing darkness.

She almost Apparated into a cruciatus curse, and Hermione ducked, rolling into a wagon wheel. It
was night, wagons were burning, Muggles were screaming, and horses were galloping everywhere, trampling
friend and foe alike.

The Aurors had taken cover along the snowy treeline and had the Death Eaters pinned down. It was
impossible to tell how many there were; jets of light, green and red and violet, flew back and forth, lighting
up the night like a Chinese New Year, and Hermione judged it best to stay where she was for the moment.

Until she saw Seamus on the ground a few feet away. He wasn’t moving.

Ducking her head, Hermione belly-crawled toward him with her heart in her throat, grabbing his arm
and dragging him back to the cover of the wagons, grunting with effort. Seamus, along with what looked like
most of the boys from Hogwarts, had gotten huge.

He wasn’t moving. Dammit, why wasn’t he moving?

Blank eyes, staring upward, no pulse...but that could just be because her fingers were shaking too
badly to check properly.

Tearing off a strip of her robes and gripping the stone in her pocket with it, Hermione focused on
the Aurors’ wing of the Ministry Clinic with all her might. “Portus,” she whispered, and pressed the stone
into Seamus’ hand, praying that would be enough. In the midst of this insanity, there was nothing more she
could do for him.

Seamus vanished, and Hermione crawled along the gravelly road, ducking her head under the front
axle of the wagon to worm her way forward. Along the opposite side of the wagons, where the Aurors’ view
was obstructed, she saw a masked figure leap from a wagon, one hand clenched tight.

Merlin help me.

With a muttered oath, she rolled out from underneath the wagon, sprinting alongside the caravan
after him. Trying to focus, trying to breathe, aim, as she leapt boxes and barrels. It was hard to hit a moving
target. And a shrinking target–Pettigrew?

If he turned completely into a rat, she’d never find him. The Eye was small enough for a rat to carry
in its mouth. Hermione ran faster, blessing all the hours she’d spent sweating in the sun, running until it felt
like her lungs would explode. Once before, Pettigrew had gotten away from her, condemning Harry’s
godfather to a fugitive existence that ultimately led to his death. The cringing little coward wouldn’t escape
her again.

Fire roared on all sides, and Hermione ducked as the roof of a wagon fell in, sending splinters in all
directions, a burning timber crashing almost on top of her. Coughing, she got a lungful of smoke.

Where the hell was Charlie? How long had it been? It had seemed an age, but time moved oddly in
battle, and Hermione had seen more than her fair share. She ducked an impediment curse, and another,
shoving the shadows that sprang up in front of her out of the way, flinging curses over her shoulders.
Merlin’s beard, how many Death Eaters were there?

Shouting, off to her right–Hermione swerved that way, jumping the tongue of a wagon and flinging
a few curses in that direction, her eyes always on Pettigrew, growing ever smaller ahead, until he finally
sprang into his rat shape, pausing to seize an object that glittered in the firelight. She put on an extra burst
of speed, seeing the end of the caravan ahead of him, and a stretch of clear road. Shit.

Vaulting the overturned bow of the last wagon, Hermione paused, breathed, and aimed...

An Impediment curse bowled her over, and as she fell, Hermione screamed for the other Aurors,
watching the shadows of two flicker along the treeline past her, following Pettigrew.

Rolling to her hands and knees, Hermione gasped for breath. The curse had knocked the wind out
of her.

A heavy boot caught her side and knocked her over onto her back, her wand falling from her hand.
Towering over her, Hermione saw a glint of the palest gold hair half-hidden beneath the hood of a cloak.
Through the mask of a Death Eater, Hermione saw a flicker of grey eyes that she recognized.

“It’s you?” Lucius breathed in a hiss, raising his wand. “A Mudblood Auror?”

She hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was talking about, but her hand inched toward her wand as he
spoke, until the same boot came down painfully on her wrist.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Lucius said, taking off his mask so she could see his face. Wildly, she
thought how unfair it would be to get killed by her future father in-law. Well, maybe. And Lucius Malfoy
would be killing his own son. “Avad–”

“Stupefy!”

Lucius dropped almost gracefully, and almost on top of Hermione, that long hair spilling over his
face. Flinching with disgust, she shoved him off, snatching up her wand and taking Morag’s hand to stand
up.

With an expression of the utmost distaste, Morag lashed Lucius to a nearby wagon wheel, with
another stupefy for good measure.

“Make sure he stays down,” he growled, raking dark hair out of his eyes. “Come on, I think they’ve
cornered Pettigrew–”

A tremendous explosion rocked the smoldering caravan, and both Hermione and Morag were thrown
backwards, covering their heads against a shower of debris. Hermione was up and running toward the crater
almost before the ground had steadied, dreading already what she would find there. It would not be the first
time Pettigrew had saved himself by blowing up everyone in his vicinity.

It was a terrible choice, chasing after the rat or stopping to help her friends, but Hermione made it.
She went after Pettigrew, firing a Lumos into the sky that made the road ahead nearly as clear as day.

There ahead, the small brown form of a rat darting this way and that, too panicked, apparently, to
dart into the trees where he would have cover. Hermione’s smile was as cold as Lucius Malfoy’s ever was
as she paused and took aim.

“Accio Eye!” She shouted, and another woman’s voice sounded almost simultaneously.

“Protego!”

From the trees came the shape of a tall woman, a thick knot of hair on the back of her neck. Even
through the mask, Hermione would have known that voice, that arrogant posture, anywhere.

Bellatrix Black Lestrange.

“Well, little Mudblood, we’ve certainly grown up, haven’t we?” She cooed. “Thought we would
catch the rat?” She spoke in horrible mock-baby talk that Hermione had heard only once before, in the battle
where Sirius was killed. Never in her life had she felt such loathing.

“Stupefy!”

“Protego!” Warily, they circled, wands up, and Bellatrix laughed almost hysterically. “You’ve lost,
little girl. In a few moments, the Dark Lord will have the Eye in his hands.”

It was true, Hermione thought despairingly. They had failed. Pettigrew was gone. That didn’t mean
Bellatrix was going to escape, though, Hermione thought, hardening her will.

“Petrificus!”

“Crucio!”

The beams struck, refracted, and Hermione ducked as shards of both went over her head, almost
scorching her hair. She rolled, and kept rolling, just ahead of Bellatrix’s curses, which struck the ground with
blackened marks. Back to her feet, where she faced Bellatrix again. The woman was almost inhumanly fast.

Keep her talking. Bloody woman loves to talk. Get under her guard that way.

“You’re still serving your Mudblood Lord?” Hermione scoffed. “Voldemort, the son of a Witch and
a Muggle? How are you dealing with that, Bellatrix?”

Hermione ducked as a crucio! blasted over her head, and rolled to one side, avoiding another.
Perhaps angering Bellatrix had not been the best idea.

“You’re not fit to speak his name, Muggle!” Bellatrix shrieked, and then shrieked all the louder, as
if she were fighting invisible hands, some compulsion that stopped her in her tracks. Snarling, she shot a final
curse at Hermione, and vanished.

Such rage went through her that Hermione almost literally saw red. Breathing, focusing, she searched
ahead for where Bellatrix had gone–not back to England, that was almost impossible, even for the most
highly trained Wizards. No, somewhere nearby...

A hand caught Hermione’s shoulder as she was about to go after the Death Eater, and she turned to
see Susan Bones, holding a rag to her head to staunch the flow of blood. Her brown hair was matted with it.

“They got it, Hermione. Don’t get yourself killed for nothing.” The girl’s mouth twisted. “We’ll get
it back.”

Oh, yes, they would.

~o~oOo~o~

It was only a few moments later that Aurors and members of the Order began Apparating into the
wood, having passed through the Dragon’s Door first. Though she couldn’t really blame them, it was too
little, too late. Pettigrew was gone. They had failed. She had failed.

Somberly, they gathered up Hestia Jones and Stewart Ackerley, helping a dazed Justin Finch-Fletchley to his feet. Hestia and Stewart were dead. Tonks was out, but was coming around.

Obliviators were herding the Muggles together, Aurors were dousing the flames and putting the
wagons to rights, and Charlie was visible, wrestling with wild-eyed horses. And there, talking to Morag, were
Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody.

She wasn’t ready to feel dread, approaching them. Hermione was still boiling with rage.

“I fucked up,” She said clearly, coming to stand beside Morag. “They got away with it. Goddammit,
they got away.”

“There were almost twenty of them, Hermione,” Morag said wearily, one of his hands clasped to a
shoulder that was bleeding profusely.

“They got away.”

“You’re bleeding,” said Moody curtly. “We’ll talk about all this later, Granger. Get your people
together.”

What’s left of them.

Lucius Malfoy was gone, too. Hermione kicked a wagon wheel and swore again.

Two Aurors she didn’t know carried Stewart by, his face frozen forever in a rictus of utter surprise.
And there, Hestia, her mouth set and grim, eyes staring solemnly upward, where the light of Hermione’s
lumos flare was fading. In the flickering firelight and smoke, it all had the unreal quality of a nightmare.
Muggle women were wailing over their dead husbands, their dead children, their dead friends, killed when
Pettigrew blew up the front of the caravan, or some, just unfortunate enough to have gotten in the line of fire.

All her fault.

She had known there were Aurors ahead of her in Romania, searching for the Death Eaters. And
there were three of them, varying in appearance and all dead: Constance MacDougal, Henry Bigglesworth,
and Terry Boot.

The Auror carrying Terry nearly dropped him, and Hermione hurried forward, taking Terry’s
shoulders and trying desperately not to look at what was left of his face. Terry had been in the explosion.

Terry, quiet soul that he was, had been in Dumbledore’s Army in fifth year.

Slightly away from the Muggle dead, the Aurors were laid out, five dead, possibly six, unless Seamus
had only looked as bad as she thought he was.

She couldn’t think. Surely, in all the chaos, there was something she could be doing. Instead, she
watched as Moody and Kingsley spread cloaks over the dead Aurors.

Hermione Granger fucked up.

It was a pretty pitiful epitaph.

The Muggles were finally silent, and now there was only the muffled roar of fire still burning,
whispered conversation, the urgent instruction of whoever the hell was in charge of this mess. It surely
wasn’t her. There hadn’t been Auror casualties like this since...

For once, Hermione’s knowledge of history deserted her utterly, and it didn’t fucking matter, did it?
Not when the dead lay at her feet.

Her head swam, and Hermione dropped to her knees. Not from exhaustion, not from blood loss, but
from the sheer weight of it all. She couldn’t bear it and remain standing. She...couldn’t...look...

And because she was Hermione Granger, she forced herself to look. Forced herself up, after a few
moments, to douse the fires and turn the wagons back over, to help the Muggles bury their dead. She might
have failed in everything else, but this much, she would do.
- 11
- 12
- 13
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Bad Faith