What You've Done

Seth's Fate

Hermione's Point Of View:

Everything seemed to have crashed down around us; all my hopes of fixing this dashed when I heard what Professor McGonagall had had to say.

My boy is gone; my little boy is lost in the world somewhere, somewhere where I wasn't there to protect him. He was probably in danger and there was not a thing that I could do to look after him or save him without knowing where he was and that was one piece of knowledge Professor McGonagall appeared to be lacking as she launched into a discussion of everything that she knew.

McGonagall had so far explained how they had taken him, how no one had seen him and how they had escaped the Hogwarts wards using the passage where the Head Prefects common room was located, yet they had been unable to locate them in Hogsmeade so they must have apparated as soon as they had left the borders of Hogwarts.

With each word, I felt more panic reaching my system. Every word made me realize just how much danger he was in, how smart these people are and how with each thing they did, the chance of them forgetting one aspect of their plan or making a mistake dropped to an even lower level of happening.

Drake's arm around me remained constant throughout the entire conversation and half-way through Serena moved onto my lap and I clung onto her, afraid of losing her too like I had her brother. I had failed at the basic maternal instinct of protecting my children and preparing them for what was out there.

I had failed at the first hurdle.

"Mrs. Malfoy," Professor McGonagall called me from my sorrows with a single word and I looked up at her concerned face.

They all looked worried for me, concerned about me.

"I know this is hard for you but you need to try stay strong, if not for you for your son and daughter. They need you." Professor McGonagall reminded me and I felt Serena reach up a hand to run it across my cheek.

Before I knew it I was crying again, I don't know what for but the tears flowed freely down my face as I gazed around at them all.

"I will." I said strongly as I brushed my tears away from my eyes. I placed a grin upon my face, bracing myself for whatever was going to come next. "Do you have an idea as to who took Seth?"

"We have nothing that is certain; however we do have a suspicion that it's the few remaining supporters of the Dark Lord." Professor McGonagall informed them all.

The silence that followed was deathly. It felt like everything had been sucked out of the world leaving just me, lost, alone and empty. After everything that had happened, I had believed that the one thing that I could rely on was that they were gone for good. He was gone for good.

"What makes you think that?" Drake muttered from my right. His words didn't register completely in my mind, like there was an invisible veil separating me from him, splitting everything that he said so that it came through to me sort of cracked like a radio with a bad connection.

"We found signs of dark magic, subtle things that you wouldn't see unless you knew where to look." Professor McGonagall explained softly. She was picking tentatively now, she didn't outright say that there were signs Seth had been hurt but I picked it up, my brain working thrice the usual trying to cope with all the new information I was receiving.

"Do you think that we could use that to trace them?" Drake asked curiously, his hand closed over mine, taking my silence for worry, and I squeezed it but I was unable to do more than that through the mask of fear that covered me.

"I'm sorry but I believe that is not possible Mr. Malfoy, we have not found any traces of dark magic except for in the Slytherin common room," McGonagall explained.