CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:

Bella's POV:

When Harry apparated into the living room, a downright dangerous look on his face, his magic flaring around him, wild and out of control, causing the frames on the wall to shake, and one to fall to the ground, wood splintering, glass shattering, we all knew that something had gone wrong. Seriously wrong.

And then I saw the wand in his hand.

"No!" Alice let out a cry of pure anguish, recognizing the wand, same as I did. It was her wand. Hermione's wand. "She's alright, she's fine, she's alive, please!" she begged Harry, blurring over to appear in front of the raging dark-haired young man, "tell me she's okay- please!"

A loud whimper escaped me, and tears welled up in my eyes. No, no, no, no, no! This was Hermione! She was fine! She had to be fine!

"We don't know." Harry's voice is trembling with fury. "She's gone, one of the Auror's guarding her is dead, the other's in St Mungos, along with Nott."

"What do we do?" Alice just about screams in his face, "we need to find her! You need to find her! He could be torturing her as we speak!"

"You think I don't know that!" Harry shouts, his magic exploding out of him, sending Alice flying backwards, along with half the furniture in the room. I freeze in terror. I know Harry would never hurt me, but I've never seen him like this. Ever.

And then his face crumples, and he's crying, big, wet tears. Alice's small arms are wrapped around him, and the little pixie vampire is crying too, the tearless sobs of a vampire.

The sound of apparating fills the living room, and the wary Cullens, along with Jacob, Seth and Leah, form a half ring around me, while witches and wizards, half of whom I've never seen before, appear.

Some I recognize, like the Weasleys- including, to my surprise, a tired-looking but steely-eyed George, the Headmistress of Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall and Fleur, but others, like the tall dark skinned man in blue robes, or the light-haired witch with a square jaw, I'd never seen before in my life.

Fleur strides over to me, perhaps taking pity on me after reading the confusion and fear on my face. "Bella, mon cher," she says, with a strained sort of half smile, "meet zee Order of zee Phoenix."

I gape and take another look at the thirty odd people in the living room of the mansion. This was the Order of the Phoenix? "Zey are under strict instructions not to 'urt any of zee vampires 'ere." Fleur adds, and a pang of guilt hits me when I realized the thought of the Cullens been in danger never even struck my mind.

The dark skinned man and McGonagall call the meeting to order. "Our mission," the man said, in a deep voice, "is to find Hermione. We do not know how much time we have, but we have to assume not long."

My heart leaped into my throat, and my stomach rolled. I was pretty sure I was about to be sick. "Aurors are going over every inch of every property we know Lucius owns," Ron said, face equal parts ashen and stony.

"All the magical traces left are been examined by Unspeakables," adds the dark skinned man.

Tears trickled down my face and I cradled my swollen stomach as I listened to them plan and brainstorm, but the fact of the matter was they had no idea how they were supposed to find her. My sister.

Fleur's expression was growing grimmer and grimmer, and eventually she cleared her throat- loudly- causing a lull in the noise levels in the room. "I 'ave an idea," she stated, loudly, "we use a blood ritual to locate 'ermione."

Silence, dead silence, filled the room, and then, "that's Old Magick, Fleur." Ron stated, his voice

hard. Fleur tossed her head, her eyes meeting his angrily. "And?" She demanded.

"And it's illegal! Old Magick has been outlawed ever since the Magical Extremities and Instability Act of 1781," Ron exclaimed, "and on top of that, blood magic's not exactly Light Magic we're talking about here! It's dark stuff, Fleur!"

"Zis could be our only chance to find 'er!" Fleur exclaimed, "zat malveillant abâtardi 'as our 'ermione and who knows what 'e is doing to 'er!"

Someone whimpered, and I wasn't exactly surprised to find out it was me. "Fleur-" Bill started, but was interrupted.

"Don't Fleur me, William!" Fleur exploded at her husband, and I noticed for the first time, that her blue eyes had turned completely black and... were her nails growing? "Je ne peux pas, je ne vais pas, laissez-lui faire du mal Hermione!" she raged, beginning to pace back and forth.

"I cannot, I will not, let him hurt Hermione," Edward translated for me, his lips brushing against my ear as he whispered.

"Je vais pas rester ici à attendre quand je peux faire quelque chose!" Fleur's hands were starting to send off wisps of dark grey smoke, and I watched in horrified fascination as the back of her beautiful ragon silk blouse started to rip as something grew underneath.

"I will not just stand here waiting when I can be doing something," Edward continued to translate.

"Si aucun d'entre vous ont les testicules à le faire, alors je le ferai! Je ne vous laisserai pas m'arrêter!" Fleur spat, and her blouse fell to the ground as long, scaly wings exploded from her shoulder blades.

"Holy fuck!" Someone shouted- either Emmett or Jacob, or maybe both, and I stared with a kind of horrified curiosity as Fleur's beautiful face twisted into that of some kind of cruel-beaked bird mutation. Flames burned in her hands, and by all rights she should look ugly, but instead there was a sort of feral beauty about her.

I'd always thought of Veela as pretty, but I'd never thought of them as dangerous, not like a vampire. But seeing Fleur now? I knew I was wrong. There was something very dangerous about the emotionally raw Veela right now.

"Wh-what was that last thing she said?" I barely managed to whisper to Edward. He paused for a moment, obviously having to tear his mind away from the sight before us, to remember what the Veela said.

"If none of you have the, er, balls to do it, then I will. I will not let you stop me." He whispered, finally.

"Oh." I murmured.

"Fleur, love, calm down," Bill was coaxing his wife, "calm down. You don't want to hurt the baby." He'd pulled off his cloak and held it up to cover Fleur's breasts, exposed when her blouse tore. For a long, somewhat tense, moment, Fleur and Bill's eyes remained locked, and then the wings were receding, and Fleur's face was back to its beautiful normality. The fire was gone (I noted all the vampires relaxing slightly at that) and the wicked talons were gone, leaving only French tips behind.

"Oh Bill!" Fleur sobbed, half collapsing into her husband's arms. "Je ne peux pas la perdre, je ne peux pas perdre tout le monde!"

"Oh love," Bill soothed her, the best he could, "let's go outside for a moment, okay?" Fleur nodded, sniffing, and I watched as her husband led the beautiful Veela out of the room.

Edward's face looked tight and grave as he looked after her. "What did she say?" I ask him, "That last thing- what did she say?"

"She said," Edward paused, clearing his throat slightly, "she said that she couldn't lose her. That she couldn't lose anyone else."

"Why can't we use that blood magic stuff?" I asked, loudly, wanting to know the answer. The attention of most of the room turned to me, and I hoped I didn't look as terrified as I felt.

"Well, we don't have any of her blood for start," someone said, their voice thick with scathing. I hold my chin up higher.

"I'm her twin. We have practically identical DNA make-up." I inform them, and they scowl and mutter something. I'm about to ask again, when someone else spoke up.

"Hermione has told you about Dark Magic, yes?" The dark skinned man asked, in his deep, pleasant voice. I frowned.

"Um, not really. Not much." I confess, "but can't we make an exception, just this once? To save Hermione?" I pleaded. The man opens his mouth, but Harry shakes his head.

"I'll take this, Kingsley." He says, and the dark skinned man, Kingsley- holy shit, didn't Hermione say a man called Kingsley was the Minister of Magic? Wait, not the time... I thrust those thoughts away, instead turning my full attention towards Harry.

"Harry," I let my desperation fill my voice, "please... please!"

"Edward, Alice, can you help me carry her outside?" He asks the vampires near me, "that way we can have some more privacy."

Impossibly strong arms are instantly lifting me, cradling me, the heavy quilt still swaddled around me, protectively. I bury my face in Edward's shoulder until I hear Harry muttering a spell I've heard Hermione use before, many times. A silencing spell.

"Okay, we need to be quick," he said, instantly, conjuring what looked like a handful of bluebell colored flames which hovered in mid-air. Edward seemed to pull back from it, reflexively, as did Alice.

"What?" I ask, confused.
"I need your blood," Harry works fast, transfiguring a leaf into a dagger. Hope flares up inside me. "We're doing it?" I gasp, shock and relief filling me.

"We need to be quick." Harry says, grimly, before turning to Edward. "Can you handle her blood?"

"I can." Edward's answer is short, clipped, but Harry ignores it. Alice's face is shining with a forbidden hope.

"This will really find her?"

"Yes." Harry said, only pausing for a moment. "I need your blood, Bella," he said, and taking a deep breath, I accepted the blade with trembling hands, and dragged it along my skin, wincing as it sliced apart the fragile flesh. Harry grabbed my hand, pulling it forwards so the blood rolled off my arm and into the flames. It was Fleur who cast the spell, chanting in a harsh language that I didn't recognize. "Krŭv za da namerite krŭv!" The most bizarre sensation washed over me as instead of leaking from the cut, it felt like my blood was being dragged out of it.

The flames flared red, the same color as my blood, and there was a flash of magic as the spell took hold. Fleur's entire body went rigid and her irises turned a horrifying shade of crimson, of blood. And then she started stating directions, in a voice that was flat and monotone, with no trace of her accent present. "West Europe, Northwest Europe, British Isles, Britain, Wales, Anglesey, Tros yr Afon. She's at Tros yr Afon Castle, Angelesey Island, Wales!"

Then, for a long horrifying moment, the blood-colored flames seemed to grow, and I started to get dizzy as more and more blood started gushing from my veins, as if the fire was fueled by blood instead of oxygen- my blood.

"Bella!" Edward's voice was panicked, and he was trying to pull me away, but my arm was frozen in place, and the flames were starting to lick around the skin, searing it, causing the flesh to blacken and then-

-then I was tumbling backwards, and warm arms caught both me and Edward, supporting us, and sounds of horrified pain ripped from my throat as I gazed down at my arm in horror.

"Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella!" Edward and Jacob's voices swam together, both frantic and panicked. And then Fleur was there, kneeling before me, pregnant stomach and everything.

"Caro Sancta. Caro Sancta. Caro Sancta." She chanted the words at my exposed flesh letting her wand hover right above the large wound. The magic expelled from her wand strung into a silver pattern across the skin, entwining with each other into an intricate web, slowly filling the charred,

blistering burn wound. Fleur's chanting turned into a flow like a song and I watched the spell turn solid, to shifting colors and finally turning to flesh. It was raw flesh, pink and sensitive like a newborn's skin, but the gaping wound, ripped open by magic, and the horrendous burns from the Dark fire were gone.

"Her-Hermione?" I gasped, as soon as I could talk again.

"Zey 'ave gone to get 'er." She promised, "rest. Sleep. 'eal." I nod, weakly, and close my eyes, trying to ignore the Darkness lingering inside me. There was a blackness in my blood. I felt a thick, dark weight push through me with every hollow heartbeat. It pounded in my temples, ached on my forehead, sludged with freezing tendrils to my limbs and skin.

It felt wrong. Evil. And, as if the previous display hadn't been enough, I now had a very good idea of why, exactly, the Blood Ritual was considered Dark.

"For Hermione," I think I said it out loud, but at this point, with my mind swimming in and out of reality, I'm not sure.