Lover of the Light

Chapter Eighteen: Old Wars

The world was off.

The day had started off in bright colors for everyone. It poured through their windows, poking them awake with a heated flash of whitish-yellow, powerful and directly from the sun glowing outside. The sky had been blue, blue, blue—decorated with thick, fluffy cotton-balls as clouds. The trees had been green, green, green; along with the grass, the hills, bushes and the vines. Some flowers bloomed in reds, pinks, yellows, whites, purples, while others were beginning to bud. The snow had melted and the cobbled streets stood out more than before. Spring was approaching and it made people start bringing out vibrant colors in their wardrobes.

Color had been all around them. Not just by the actual hues of the scenery, but in the way they had been feeling that day. It was a light atmosphere: content, satisfied, overjoyed, grateful, tingly. It had been a day of peace.

But then threatening, black wind came and dropped shadows of destruction on everything they'd been enjoying. It took away their color. It took away all the mesmerizing shades, all the blissful emotions, and it painted it all red.

Red with frustration. Red with anger. Red with misery. Red with suspicion.

The world was off because a key piece was missing.

"This has been happening for months?!" The roar of indignation mixing with fury echoed off the great and ancient walls of the office that belonged to Headmistress McGonagall. "For months she's been getting attacked and threatened and no one said anything?!"

"Mister Potter," spoke the Headmistress with as much care and patience that was needed to cool the hot-head the Chosen One was known for. "There was nothing that could've been done to help protect Miss Granger if she didn't earlier reveal any of this to the right people. Since her attack inside this castle I've upped the security within the walls and the staff did double rounds. Nothing was out of place. We did all in our power to protect her."

Harry frowned at the old professor. "Then you didn't do a good enough job, Headmistress!" He loathed the way she sounded like Dumbledore; both so assured that the castle was the safest place in the world. There had been times when he'd believed that himself, but something always happened to contradict that claim of protection. Something always came back to remind him that peace wasn't everlasting. And it was always someone he loved that set the example."Hermione was taken!"

From their places behind the Boy-Who-Lived, four other boys cringed at the latter's previous exclaim of the ugly reality they couldn't yet believe. Hermione had been taken. She was gone.

"I do not control what happens in Hogsmeade," stated McGonagall with a shrill, offended tone. She held Hermione in high regards, adored the girl silently as it was in her nature, and was equally as concerned as all of them. That wasn't wavering, she just didn't have the answers he wanted to hear. "Whoever attacked the village had to be separate from the attack she suffered in Hogwarts months ago, Mister Potter."

"A case should've been opened! You should've reported this to—"

"It was reported." Looking up from a patch of marble flooring, Draco Malfoy stared directly into the unstable, bespectacled eyes of his childhood nemesis. Not only was Potter looking back at him with wild, questioning eyes, but the Headmistress herself stopped looking so composed. "There was another attack one evening during the holidays," he explained with no emotion at all, "right before Christmas. We were in America, shopping in a wizardying location when the store started coming down. She was struck with the Sectumsempra spell and almost didn't make it. The Zabinis reported it to the Ministry and a case was opened."

The Headmistress frowned hauntingly at the Slytherin. "The Minister would've reported to me that my student—"

"Is that why she'd gone off our radar?" Harry was adding up the pieces of his memory, remembering the two weeks that Hermione had stopped responding to their letters and left no trace until she showed up at the Borrow Christmas morning. "You said it happened just once before, not that time too, Malfoy! Why the hell didn't you say anything?!"

"Like you don't know Hermione!" hissed the Slytherin right back. "She asked me not to the time I managed to fend off her attacker, and the last time was all her choice. If she didn't want you or Weasley to know then she had her reasons for it!"

"Brilliant reasons, aren't they?!" Harry stalked towards the blonde, eyes full of hate. "You could've done something, Malfoy! From the beginning you could've helped save her! It's your fault she's gone!"

It was quick, it happened in a blink of an eye, but it was seen coming by everyone inside that office right when Harry had marched forward. Draco tore himself away from his own spot, meeting the Gryffindor in the middle with forceful strides. His wand had been whipped out, pointed at Potter's face, and the same hate was in his silver eyes.

Malfoy was shaking in his stance. The grip on his wand was tight, making his knuckles pop sharply from underneath his skin. His teeth were bared, free hand balled into a fist, and he had the Killing Curse at the tip of his tongue. He wanted to shout it, make the famous green light wrap around Boy Wonder and end him. He wanted to kill him. He wanted to kill Potter for ever insinuating that he hadn't wanted to protect Hermione.

She was his; he protected all that was valuable to him.

"It's not his fault." Breaking the lethal moment between the two enemies, Ron uncharacteristically stood between his best friend and the Slytherin to purposely end the feud. "He's right, Harry; we do know Hermione. She had the chance to tell us from the get-go and she chose not to. We can't blame Malfoy for her choice."

"He could've told—"

"Yeah, and if the situation was reversed we would've told him?" Ron snorted at his best friend, pushing him a careful step back as he wedged a bigger gap between the two infuriated boys. "He didn't owe us an explanation, Harry. His loyalty is with the Zabinis and Hermione, not with us. He trusts Hermione's judgment as we do."

Harry frowned at Ron and Malfoy's direction, but then quickly turned back to the elder witch. "Something isn't right here, Headmistress. None of her attacks were coincidences and done by different people. Someone inside the castle is responsible. Someone wanted her gone!"

McGonagall took a deep breath, mainly to calm herself. "I will not suspect any of my students, Mister Potter. It's preposterous. No one here could've possibly wanted to hurt Miss Granger."

Harry was about to tell her that the benefit of the doubt she gave the student population was idiotic. Hadn't he confessed his suspicious of Malfoy's vile doings to her Sixth Year? She and Snape had looked down at him for accusing his well-known childhood nemesis, but he'd been right then like he was certain he was right now. He didn't care that Malfoy was present, he was about to remind her of that memory, but then someone else spoke and the chance was gone.

"I blame Nott." With both his palms clenched into fists, controlling his anger since his worry and fear outweighed it, Zabini narrowed his eyes into slits at the direction of the absolutely silent Slytherin a few feet from him. "He's involved."

Seven seconds ticked as the words dug into the eardrums of everyone present.

"What?" Theodore Nott was no longer silent. He turned to face his classmate. The emotion in his dark eyes changed in the course of a rapid moment: perplexed, processing, outraged, and then completely set off. "What did you say?!"

Being the only one surprisingly alert and somehow level-headed, Ron tossed himself in the middle of Nott's furious path towards Zabini. He gripped the dark haired Slytherin, pinning his arms to his sides, and used most of his strength to keep him back and from attacking with his bare hands.

Nott struggled, refusing to let himself be settled as he thrashed and growled at Zabini. He was going to punch him into a bloody pulp. He wasn't going to get away with his remarks this time; not when it weighed that much.

Blaise stood firmly in his spot, unmoved by Nott's clear fury or the threat he might present to him. He glared right back, hatred and mistrust in his green eyes. "You heard me. You have something to do with this, I know it. You're the only one in the castle that benefits from her disappearance!"

"Fuck you!" Nott roared, shocking the others in the office with how raw it echoed off the walls. He thrashed against the redhead again, trying to free himself. "I would never purposely hurt her! I love her!"

Draco sneered at his fellow Slytherin. The hold on his wand went into a tight grip again.

"She's my friend!" Nott continued to shout. "If anyone was to hurt her here it's Weasley!"

Ron stopped trying to control Nott. Both Gryffindor and Slytherin met eye to eye as the redhead's arms slowly went limp back to his own sides. Disbelief crawled on his freckled complexion and became the only coherent emotion in his chest.

"You're barking," hissed Harry in his friend's defense as soon as the room went quiet. "If anyone in this room loves Hermione more than anything, someone who would never hurt her, it's Ron."

Theodore shoved the redhead sidekick away from him. "Weasley has been off his rocker for ages! He's been destroying classrooms, shoving people, punching walls—I've seen him. His eyes go blank, like he hasn't a clue what he's doing. Side-effects of war; he needs help! You know that too, Potter. You're barking if you don't suspect for a minute that he could've been the one that attacked her inside the walls of the castle."

Another thick, tensed silence fell upon the residents of the Headmistress' office. Harry tightened his lips into a line, but anyone could see that he was fighting to keep the truth of Nott's words off from his expression. He didn't want to show that he's known for ages that Ron needed help with his blacking out. Nott breathed heavily, meeting the eyes of the Chosen One, challenging him to contradict him at the same time that he tried to collect himself from the weakness he'd let out previously. Ron kept his gaze on the marbled floor, ashamed and his shoulders slumping down. Blaise, once the silence fell, dropped his anger and his worry was back on. Malfoy looked at nothing, mind off somewhere haunting, and he lowered his wand away from the direction of the two wizards he wanted to curse.

"All of you should be ashamed of yourselves." Making herself known again, Professor McGonagall stood from her chair and placed her wrinkled hands upon her grand desk. Her beady eyes narrowed with disapproval at all the boys. "All of you are standing there, accusing one another of Miss Granger's disappearance, and refusing to see the only obvious factor in this room."

Harry was the only one to face the Headmistress.

"You're all very concerned for her," she explained in a harsh tone. "Miss Granger means something for all of you. I don't believe for a moment that any of you would have wished bad upon her or done her any harm. You all care too much for her to let that happen."

And that was a grudging truth that the mix of Slytherins and Gryffindors didn't want to accept. They did care for her, loved her, adored her—all in their own ways.

Harry tossed himself on an open chair, slugging down and burying his face into his palms. Blaise gave the others his back, facing a wall that was missing the last two former Headmasters of Hogwarts. His eyes watered, a knot grew in his throat, and he had to place a hand on Dumbledore's empty portrait to keep himself up. Theodore placed his hands on the armrest of another chair, leaning against it and hiding his eyes from the Headmistress. Draco remained still and cold. Ron was about to leave the office, refusing to be trapped with the lingering suspicion on him, but he was halted when a small group forbade access to the doorway.

"Kingsley."

"Minerva," greeted the Minister of Magic fleetingly. "I've got your message and I reported it quickly to her family."

Before more callous comments could be passed between the two, Blaise gave something that resembled a cry. "Padre," he spotted the two adults that had entered the office with the Minister and an Auror and headed to them, "Allegra. I'm sorry. I'm...I couldn't save her. I couldn't get to...I tried...I tried, but..."

Between Mister and Mrs. Zabini, Allegra reacted the quickest. She yanked Blaise towards her, embracing him, clutching him like a mother would do when her son was breaking down in front of her. She held him tight, her top teeth sinking into her bottom lip to keep her from sobbing out and breaking her always neutral composure.

She wanted to. God, she really wanted to. She wanted to fall onto her knees, not caring who saw, and cry all her fear, all her anger, all her worry out until there was no air in her lungs to keep her conscious. She wanted to break down like powder. But she couldn't. She hadn't been able to yet; everything had happened too quickly.

The Zabini patriarch looked at his wife and son for a fragment of a second, wanting to join in their misery, but he couldn't let himself. He owed it to his daughter to find her. He owed his daughter all his diligence on getting her back without distractions of surrender.

"I trust you have this under control, Shacklebolt," Deon said with a threatening undertone. "All the best Aurors, all the resources you need, and you find my daughter. You bring her back to me or I'll be forced to use my own methods and soldiers to find her."

"We're gathering a team already, Mister Zabini," Kingsley responded. "I give you my word that we will find Hermione."

Harry stood from his chair, now completely alert and with determination oozing out of his sockets. "I'm going to help you, Kingsley," he stated like he had all the power to sign himself up for the job.

The Minister gave him a solemn nod. He wouldn't put it past the Savior of the Wizardying World to not lead the hunt for his best friend. And he was no one—title of Minister meaningless—to tell Harry Potter no. Not like he would've taken it if it was even uttered.

"Ron and Malfoy are going to help too," continued Harry, a full tone of leadership in every word.

"Harry—"

"Besides me, they're the only two blokes that would go to the end of the world and back for her," Harry explained before the Minister could cut him off. "And if anyone is going to bring her back to the Zabinis, it's one of us."

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Feeling lost was something Ron Weasley was not a stranger to.

There was something prestigious and brilliant about being recognized as a war hero, as one-third of the Golden Trio throughout the Wizardying World, but no one really knew the faults that he hid with all that honor. He wasn't always a symbol of good conquering over evil. Ron knew selfishness, jealousy, wanton, embarrassment, and unloyalty. Ron knew all of that because a part of him was all of that.

Throughout the years of being Harry Potter's friend he lost his way. Some part of that was related to the fact that he didn't want to be known as Potter's friend—the Sidekick, as the Slytherins also liked to call him—and he wanted nothing more than outshine him. Yes, that was an ugly truth he carried. He wanted to outshine his best friend; he wanted to be glorified and desired through most of the masses like he was. The envy grew, not in strong and powerful vines, but it still wrapped around him and took him several times off the right course.

Lost he became Fourth Year, if he had a chance to earn his own glory it would've been through the TriWizard Tournament, but Harry had 'illicitly' entered the competition and all attention had been on him; he was lost on the run, manipulated by a certain degree from the horcrux, but he knew exactly all the bile he was spewing to his friend when he wounded him deeply and ran out on him. And it wasn't just with Harry that he didn't know who he was: it was with Hermione, always pulling her in just to push her back; with Lavender Brown, thinking that he'd liked her only to realize he was using her; with his family, always ashamed of the little that they had; with himself, never fully accepting what he was.

When the war came and left—Fred's death a huge hurdle that not only knocked him out, but sent him flying miles away from his path—Ron was left with no orientation. He felt nothing but grey emotions. He didn't care any longer; not about life, himself, or his loved ones. Grief had been too powerful and it became the only thing that made sense. Regrettably, he lost himself in it. He lost himself in all the shades of grief; from the terrifying to the heartbreaking.

But through that grief, through that shadowy and crumbled pathway, he always ended up in one place. Through his rage and lack of living, Ron started paying attention to the signs that the world was throwing at him. Life was trying to tell him he found something—though it didn't make sense at all.

Ron found direction in Pansy Parkinson.

'Why are you here?'

He was standing on rocky ground, several feet away from the front of a thick, metallic, black door, with his hands inside the pockets of his old jeans. Day had turned quickly to night, bringing grey, smoky clouds and the miserable drizzle that composed British weather; soaking him from head to foot. He had been standing on that rocky ground for more than thirty minutes, wondering why he'd broken through the wards of the thick, metallic gate surrounding the gloomy Victorian mansion and contemplating whether it was a good choice to have traveled this far from home. But as the rain had kept falling on him, his mind not settling on an answer for any of his questions, a house-elf had opened the door to let out a cat and caught him. He didn't have a chance to react at all before the frumpy creature insisted that she'd get the Mistress of the house.

'I...I don't know.' He scoffed the dirty point of his right trainer on a patch of that rocky ground. He really didn't; he really didn't know why he was there in the first place, but something always brought him to her. And this time all the way to her front door.

She raised a sharp eyebrow at him, her blue eyes cutting and blank. He knew that she must've been wondering how he found out where she lived, must've been thinking him a creep, but it paid off to have Parvati Patil as a friend; there hardly was anything that she didn't know.

Merlin, that did make him a creep, didn't it? He bribed his fellow Gryffindor to find out her address before the holidays even commenced. If he was the girl, he'd be hexing himself right now for such intrusion.

'I...erm...I'll just go—'

'No!'

Her shout echoed through the outside of her home; not only surprising him but the owls sleeping in the collection of trees just a few yards to the left of where he stood.

'Just...Just stay. Don't go.'

The perfect, cold calculation that was always hiding her eyes from showing exactly what she was feeling was gone. He didn't know if she was aware of it or when she'd become. He just knew that there was something heartbreakingly beautiful about the glitter of emotions sparkling her eyes blue. There was something raw, human, and sympathetic.

There was a glint of misery in them that he understood.

'...Why?' But he still had to ask.

'I'm scared,' she confessed in the smallest whisper.

He watched her take a deep breath, fighting an internal battle, but she'd lost. That night she had lost the fight against being the cool and refined Pureblood witch that wasn't allowed to show emotions. That night, she let him win the first round in their reluctant cat-and-mouse game.

She stepped away from the door; letting it silently swing open and inviting as she took surrendering steps towards him.

'What could you possibly be scared of?' He asked, swallowing a knot of scared hesitance.

Hurt flashed throughout her features. 'This house.'

'This house?'

Her cool fingers wrapped around most of his wrist, trapping him, capturing him, and she tugged. 'And its silence,' she added in the same whisper as she led him past that blockade she called a door and into her mansion.

From the moment he crossed into her home there was no awkward tension. She led him further into the house: giant, ancestral, schemed in grimy tones of black-cherry, chilly atmosphere, spiderwebs on the ceiling and on statues and furniture, and every window shut tightly and covered by thick, black curtains.

It'd been a long and slow way to a staircase, but he'd seen the open doors of rooms that they passed and he could hear the silence. He didn't say anything as they quietly made their way up three flights until they found themselves in an empty hall with just one door at the far end of it.

She had released his wrist once the door opened and she walked in a fluid stride. Shuffling his feet, eyes scanning, he'd become perfectly aware that they were in her bedroom. Her headquarters said just as much about her background as what he'd seen of her Victorian mansion. The walls of her bedroom were the same shade of black-cherry as the decor of her home; matching the curtains parted on a window at the far, right corner and the carpet underneath their feet. The frame of her bed was black and glossy, thick and arched. The wall behind the headboard was printed with black and white patterns that he didn't know how to identify. Her bedding was deep purple meshed with a glittering, black lace over it; just like on her four pillows.

Besides the overwhelming dark hues, he'd noticed that the walls were empty. The room was empty. It looked like no one had lived there in years; like their was no personal connection or homey-feel to the place. Ginny wasn't a typical girl, but Ron had known well enough what a girl's room may look like from his sister; Parkinson's room gave no evidence to that. There weren't any pictures, no posters, no stuffed animals, no sparkles, or other girly rubbish girls like Parkinson would own.

She had led him to her bed with another tug of his wrist. He had followed obediently, sat and then sluggishly laid on her mattress. She hadn't minded the action and the open intrusion from his part—especially when she laid herself next to him and rested her head on his chest. She hadn't minded his wet jumper, either.

By the time two hours had passed, Ron already knew one thing: she was alone. He wasn't very perceptive of the things around him, everyone knew that, but the walls of her mansion had given him more clues of her misery and secrets than if she would've opened her mouth to tell him about them. All the dust, the unkempt bottom levels, the darkness, the creaking silence—it explained the times he'd caught her with tears in her eyes in Hogwarts several embarrassing times.

'Fine,' he mumbled, looking up at the ceiling and focusing on the shiny, detailed chandelier hanging at the center, 'I'll stay.'

Her right arm tossed itself over his stomach. At his slightly pudgy side—courtesy of his unwavering appetite, despite being mad in grief—she sunk her nails and held on. 'Promise?'

He glanced down from the ceiling to the top of her head. She was doing good at hiding her face from him, but she had revealed her status in her previous murmur. It was weak, tired, childlike, and so terrified. It pulled on his heartstrings.

'Yeah...I'll stay until you need me to,' he replied in a hushed voice.

'Do you mean that?'

The massive loneliness that impelled the room, that swept through the small gap left by the open door of her bedroom from every corner of the outside, was enough to get an automatic answer. It was tragic and pitying, a seventeen year-old girl living on her own for Merlin-only-knows-how-long, but that wasn't why he answered what he did.

It was because she was lost, too.

He didn't understand why the world worked the way it did, why things happened the way they did, but he knew that something kept pushing him to her. Out of all the bloody people in the castle, they had to be the only ones that always stumbled upon each other during their breaking-points.

That's why he put a wet arm over her shoulder and said, 'I think so.'

He had left McGonagall's office once the details of Hermione's hunt had been somewhat sorted. He had listened to a few tactics discussed between Kingsley's Auror and Harry, but most of everything else had been tuned out. He had wanted nothing more than storm out of that office and crawl into a hole and die. How could he not? But marching out in the midst of the rescue plan for his best friend was not considered adequate—even for him.

But that memory, playing over and over in his head as plans were being hashed out, was what ended up bringing him to the place he was standing in front of now. Out of all places to go—left, right, down, up, one side to another opposite one—his feet had dragged him to the north of his biological compass.

It was the weekend, around dinner time, and he knew that the upper levels of the castle were going to be vacated. Since staff members of the school had to feed themselves as well, Ron found no blockade when he entered the Hospital Wing. It was quiet, smelled like hospitals tended to, cold to add to the sterilizing air, and only one person occupied a bed.

Being pale was not something uncommon among the Hogwarts population, but the white of her skin made him wary when he approached and got a good look at her. Her body was rigid, arms straight at her sides, resting above the crisp, white sheets, and her ebony hair was flat and lifeless. Her bottom lip was sliced and swollen, cuts scattered on her forehead, cheeks, and nose, bruises under her eyes, and at the visible skin of her arms. It wasn't as bad as it looked, McGonagall had informed them when they were in her office right after the attack in Hogsmeade, and she'd be completely clean of any evidence in that time.

Whatever friendly and open encounter that they had shared earlier that day was wiped away by the memory of when he found her in the disarray of a shop and unconscious. Just like that night in her house, Parkinson had made his heart hurt by her loneliness. Malfoy and Zabini were fond of her—as much as Slytherins can be fond of one another, he supposed—but neither had bothered to scout for her through the commotion. Their attention had been solely on the one being hunted. He loved Hermione, she was his best friend, but that biological compass had pointed him in another direction.

Pansy Parkinson was his north.

He felt damaged and torn, panicked and scared, when he found her. Grief jumped out of his body and clung onto his back, trying to cage him. Tears had blurred his vision when he'd gathered her in his arms. He didn't know what she'd been hexed with, if anything was internally wrong—he just knew that he didn't want to lose her. He couldn't lose her, too. Strange as it was, unwilling as it was for him, he needed her.

After Nott had accused him of harming Hermione, Ron had been blown off the course he'd been walking on for the past weeks. Something inside of him was rotten, he knew that, but he didn't believe for a second that his unsettling rage would ever lead him to something like that. Parkinson was assurance of that. Parkinson was the testimony that he was still good.

For a week during the holidays he stayed inside her house upon her request, and it'd been since then that he'd laid in the same bed with her. It wasn't new or odd, it was comfortable and right when he invaded the space on her left side and wrapped his arm around her middle.

It reminded Ron that he wasn't lost, that he felt more than grief, and it was his way of reminding her that she wasn't alone. They had each other now.

And he found himself in that.

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'HERMIONE!'

There had been nothing but darkness before a voice rung in her eardrums and yanked her from the clutches of nothingness. Her eyes shot open—it'd been Malfoy's voice. It sounded far away, like a distant memory. It was if it was years ago, but the intense emotion that coated it was fresh in her eardrums and sent her heart palpitating with aggressiveness.

Malfoy had sounded anguished and defeated.

She was trying to connect a facial expression with the tone of his voice when he called out to her, but the muffled darkness around her distracted her for a moment. The walls surrounding her did not look like her dormitory. The walls surrounding her did not seem familiar with its beige and brown shadings, the single portrait decorating one of the empty walls, or the barred window on the furthest right wall.

The sensitivity of her left hand became prominent as she furrowed her brows at her surroundings. It was clutching something. She glanced down, not only noticing the mahogany sheets she was laying upon, but the cloth her left hand was tightened around. Her fist slowly released itself into a flat manner, her fingers sore from the balled position they'd been in, and her attention zeroed in on the fact that the piece of cloth was drenched red.

Blood. Her blood.

Throwing the cloth like it'd electrified her, Hermione's eyes widened at the profound slices on her open palm; cuts that exposed the layers of skin beneath the surfaced one, turned upward and seemingly tortured. She closed her hand again, bolting into a sitting position but shrieked at the fire and the throbbing affliction most of her lower-half was in.

Her own body tossed itself back fully onto the mattress, top teeth sinking and biting her bottom lip to keep the screams somewhat muted, and her eyes let tears escape. Through the pain that was gnawing at her flesh and bones, her ears perked up and listened to the shuffling of feet. Her prepared mind, her skills earned from her time in war, wanted to stay alert and find the source of the sound but—

"Shhh." Someone was gripping her face. Small hands; cold, hysterical, and scabbed. "Shhh. Please. Please don't cry. Please."

Her head shook on its own accord. The request was irrelevant—how could she not cry? How could she not scream from the agony and torture most of her body was in? Her back was burning, her legs were aching, her everything was painfully decomposing itself in a tortuous rate with no ending.

"'Mione," but then someone else was crying. "'Mione, please. Please."

Opening in a single jolt, Hermione's eyes focused and found a pair of pale blue eyes staring at her with their own share of anguish. Benjamin Nott's eyes were shedding tears of worry and fear. His little hands shook as they held onto her face.

Seeing him, her psyche connecting him to a harmless familiar, abruptly settled her body and most of her trembles. Nonetheless, the bottomless pain was still clawing at her limbs. Her teeth released her bottom lip and her eyes shed the tears blurring her vision to get a better look at him.

"Benjamin," she breathed with a knot in her throat. "Benjamin, what's going on? What is this place?"

The jitters quaking his little hands did not decrease. "I...I don't know where we are," replied the boy. He sounded guilty. "I don't know where this place is. I haven't left this room, 'Mione."

Gritting her teeth, the brunette tried to raise one of her hands to pat his cheek reassuringly but she failed. Not only did everything hurt, but her bones seemed to weigh something equivalent a ton of metal. "What happened to me? Where's Malfoy?"

Benjamin looked confused. "Malfoy's not here, 'Mione," he whispered. The hold his small hands had on the sides of her face slackened. Those blue eyes of his leaked more tears, these silent but still powerful. "You're hurt. You're hurt and I can't fix you."

With more strength that should've been required, Hermione managed to pick up her wounded left hand to touch the little boy's face. She was about to soothe him, to tell him that she didn't expect him to heal her from the monstrous injuries that'd been inflicted on her body, but she never got the chance when the door inside the unknown room flew open.

Gritting her teeth as Benjamin jumped and accidentally bumped the slices on the inside of her palm, Hermione managed to settle the shot of pain when she recognized the person standing at the doorway. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and a snarl that she could never forget.

It was her attacker.

She'd never seen his face, the hooded cloak he always wore to attack her forbade her to, but she knew it was him. He had piercing golden eyes—like vibrating honey. He had jet-black hair, skin touched by the sun, a nose with a crook in the middle, and a beard that highlighted his nasty leer.

"Giancarlo, behave." A female voice echoed inside the room from behind the attacker.

With a sneer still aimed at the brunette's direction, the man stepped into the room and went to the side. He pulled out his wand, stating that he was to be feared, but Hermione did not see his threat. Her eyes just gaped in disbelief at the woman that was smiling at her.

The woman was Abri Vivaldi. Allegra's cousin.

"Don't mind Giancarlo, Aria," the woman said as she approached the bed where her second cousin laid in disbelief. "He's just acting like a business investor. Though, I am ashamed of you, Giancarlo. Look at her! She's still very much hurt. We're not animals here! Fix her."

The man rolled his eyes at the order, but nonetheless he pointed his wand forward.

"Don't!" Hissed Hermione. With the same force that she had managed to summon just to raise her hand, she found some to move onto a sitting position and glare at the two adults. She was in dire pain, but she was not letting them get anywhere near her.

"Tesoro, you need some assistance," said the woman with a dulcet, caring tone. It matched the concerned expression on her face—Hermione wanted to slap it off. "Glass punctured your spine and right hip. If we don't heal the wounds they'll get infected. We wouldn't want you to suffer, would we? Be assured, Giancarlo is an amazing dottore in Italia. He knows what he's doing."

"What's wrong with you?!" Hermione's shriek bounced off the walls of the foreign room and startled her attacker and little Benjamin. "Why am I here?! What did you do to me?!"

Abri sighed. "The wounds weren't planned—"

"They were,"

"—but things happen off schedule all the time. So, for the record, we didn't cause those injuries on purpose. You're famiglia, Aria. Don't think me a monster." The woman chortled to herself, tossing a section of her light brown hair away from her shoulder. She ignored the man's comment, but everyone in that room knew that the plan was to cause Hermione agony. "Now, be a good girl and let Giancarlo fix you up. You'll thank us later."

Hermione opened her mouth to let out a string of curse words that would normally never be said by her, but the man detached his feet from where he was and approached her in forceful strides. Not feeling the pain with the adrenaline that shot through her body, Hermione picked up her legs to kick him but he'd seen her fight beforehand. He waved his wand, locking her legs together, and then with his free hand he forcefully shoved them down to the mattress.

She started wiggling her body, trying to shake him off, but he just clutched on. His elbow jammed itself onto her abdomen, making her lose some oxygen.

"Leave her alone!" Cried Benjamin Nott.

The boy sprinted to Hermione's rescue, looking completely afraid and like he was trying to summon courage and strength to be her knight in shining armour. It would've been adorable in any other circumstance, but in the current one, he got elbowed in the ribs by the man and he was knocked down.

Hermione cried out in protest for the boy.

"Sta 'zitto!" Snapped the attacker as he smacked her across the face. He elbowed her once more before gripping the roots of her curls, yanking, and forcing her onto her stomach. "You couldn't have chosen a worse person to kidnap, Abri," remarked the man in anger and with a thick Italian accent.

The woman laughed silkily once more. "Well, mio fratello, we don't choose our family."

Hermione was still struggling against the man's aggressive hold, screaming into the mattress, but her mind had managed to remember the Italian lessons Blaise was discreetly giving her for a few weeks since they started spending time together. And those developing Italian skills informed her that her attacker, the man that had been stalking and trying excessively to kill her, was Abri's brother. Giancarlo was Allegra's cousin, too.

Blindsided by the snapping of her spine, the torn skin of her back feeling like it was being sewn together without a numbing charm, Hermione screamed more powerfully than before. Her mind was still spinning by that pain that she didn't struggle when the man turned her over once more and his wand waved around the other areas of her body that'd been tormenting her when she regained consciousness.

The man released her. Her body was still trembling with pain, she cried and screamed, but what felt like a lifetime later, the aching stopped. All she had to remember the agony of those wounds was the memory.

"I told you Giancarlo was excellent. Best Healer in all of Verona. The family is really proud of him. He's just twenty-four, you know."

Heaving for air, Hermione shakily made her arms pull her up to appear less vulnerable to the two adults. Disgust bubbled in her brown orbs as she frowned at the woman and her clearly demented interior that was hidden by affection and rosy expressions.

"Why am I here?" She stammered out. "What do you want from me?"

Abri pulled on a sweet smile. "Cara, you've got nothing that I want. It's your enchanting father that has something that's dire for the surviving Vivaldis." Taking the liberty to, the woman strolled to her with a powerful, fluent motion. She sat at the edge of the bed and properly crossed her legs over one another. "You just happen to be the key."

Curiosity was her damned temptation. It was her sin and her lover. Curiosity was the one thing that Hermione could never control. It always poked at her head, jabbing her mind with questions and possibilities. And it never hid from her eyes or her face when she was intrigued by something. That's why the woman laughed at her before responding.

"A long, long time ago, powerful wizards and witches conquered all of the motherland for its riches and its possibilities of greatness. It's told that the first paramount family managed to create gold and precious gems from the then tiny city of Ferrara; opening the gateway for others to potentially establish themselves. Ever since then, there's been a war amongst the ancient families to become supreme of all of la bella Italia.

"It is also told that the founding Rainaldi family gave a portion of their magic to a selected, competent few in every city they conquered. From the originals, the first ever generation of the Vivaldis was born with pure blood and greatness."

"Along with the De Carlos, Zabinis, and Salvatores," interrupted the man boredly.

Abri aimed her brother a frown. "Yes, but the Salvatores have been extinct for three centuries, Giancarlo. Not to mention that the De Carlos are close to disappearing themselves."

The man sneered at the woman. "As are we, mia sorella."

Taking a deep breath, collecting herself so her perfectly polished expression would not crack, Abri turned back to the girl she was holding hostage. "In our generation, Aria, there were only five heirs to the Vivaldi throne. Our bisnonno took it upon himself to sacrifice two of them: Sienna, your mother's older sister, who was brutally murdered by the De Carlo family; and Cristiano, my brother who he sold as a slave for land.

"Allegra's parents nor our father are longer alive. And before our great-grandfather died months ago, he drained half of our fortune to try and find Cristiano. The old idiot tried to make amends for his sins and he cost Giancarlo and I our future. My brother is dead. He's been dead for years, but the old man never cared for facts. Nor did he care about the poverty he'd leave his legacy in in order to soothe his conscience. He was vial; a single attempt of a good deed does not erase that. He's certainly spending all of the afterlife burning in hell."

Hermione's disgust for her biological mother's cousins was off charter. How could two people care so much more about money than their brother? If there could've been a remote chance that he was alive, they should've wasted the last coin in finding him. Family was more important than all the riches.

"You want Deon to sacrifice his fortune for my freedom." Though she was appalled by their lack of humanity, Hermione was still smart enough to put the pieces together. They hadn't been hunting her for months to tell her the story of their family now, were they? She was their bait. "You're not going to get away with it."

Abri chortled and Giancarlo snorted.

"Oh, but my dear Aria, we don't want Deon's fortune. He might carry the Zabini surname, but he stopped being one the night he ran away with your mother and both disgraced their respective families. Although his fortune is impressive, it's nothing compared to the original Zabini family's wealth." Abri smiled and made a manicured hand reach for Hermione's wounded one. "That doesn't mean Deon cannot persuade his father to hand over their hold of Roma, Napoli, and half of their fortune as ransom."

Hermione smacked the woman's hand away. "You are not getting anything," she hissed. "And you're most certainly are not going to get away with keeping me here. They'll find you and you'll live as a slave to a prison cell."

The mask of sweetness was gone from Abri's pale face. A glare, one the gleamed with the shadow of someone truly demented, narrowed her golden eyes. She took her hand once more and roughly grabbed Hermione's wounded one. She sunk her long, manicured nails into the girl's open, sliced and swelled flesh.

"Men always repent for their sins, Aria," snarled the woman. "Your father happens to carry many involving you. He'd kneel before his own father to save you from unknown clutches."

Hermione didn't want to give her the satisfaction of sobbing from the pain in her palm, but she was grateful when Abri released her and she stood. She watched with watered eyes as the woman smoothed the wrinkles from her expensive, silky white pantsuit. Another hauntingly sweet smile graced her face.

"In the meantime, I'm sure you'll enjoy little Ben's company. He too is here for a purpose."

"He has nothing to do with this!"

Abri's grin got wider. "He's collateral damage in our plans."

"He's just a boy!"

Shrugging carelessly, the woman made her way back to the doorway. With a single indication of her index finger, her brother followed her order to vacate the room.

"What happens if the Zabinis refuse to pay the ransom?" It was a likely scenario. The Zabinis resented Deon for breaking his betrothal with Blaise's mother and fleeing Italy with Allegra. To them, Deon had disgraced their family and he was no longer a part of their family tree. They would never give up their proud fortune for Deon and Allegra's child.

Abri stopped in her tracks for a quick moment. Her golden eyes were soft, but Hermione could see the evil behind them. "Your name might change, Aria, but you're still the Brightest Witch of the Age. I'm sure you know the answer to that."

The two Vivaldis exited the room and a strong locking spell trapped Hermione and Benjamin as their hostages. Staying alive, seeing the outside world and their families, counted on the Zabinis sparing her.

Her days were coming to an end, then.