CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
Hermione's POV:
I was tired and my body felt heavy, so heavy, as I let myself lay limp in Alice's arms as she ran with me, racing against the clock. We appeared in the clearing where the main battle had taken place, and I let out a soft sigh of relief when I saw the Volturi weren't here yet.
The Cullens were all standing in a loose semi-circle around a bonfire, in which I could see no flames, only thick, purple-black smoke, hovering like a disease against the bright green grass.
Upon catching sight of us, Esme blurred and pulled Alice and I into her arms. "I'm so glad you're safe!" she breathed out, her face shining, and my heart swam with emotion. I had to blink back tears, and I blamed my heightened sensitive state on the leftover adrenaline.
"The Volturi will be here in less then two minutes." Edward interrupted our reunion, his face hard. Esme stiffened, and her eyes lost their sparkle.
A strangled groan dragged my attention to a surprising sight- a female newborn crouched on the ground, her fingers scrabbling at the earth as she looked at me with hungry eyes. The girl was curled into a small ball beside the flames, her arms wrapped around her legs. She was very young. Younger than me - she looked maybe fifteen, dark-haired and slight. Her eyes were focused on me, and the irises were a shocking, brilliant red. Much brighter than even the three newborns I'd just faced, almost glowing. They wheeled wildly, out of control. I met the girl's stare for a heartbeat. Chin-length dark hair framed her face, which was alabaster pale. It was hard to tell if her features were beautiful, twisted as they were by rage and thirst. The feral red eyes were dominant - hard to look away from. She glared at me viciously, shuddering and writhing every few seconds.
"Who's that?" I asked, with pity.
"Her name's Bree," Edward told me quietly. "She surrendered. That's one I've never seen before. Only Carlisle would think of offering. Jasper doesn't approve."
The young female suddenly threw her head back like an animal and wailed shrilly.
Jasper growled at her and she cringed back, but her fingers dug into the ground like claws and her head whipped back and forth in anguish. Jasper took a step toward her, slipping deeper into his crouch. Alice moved with overdone casualness, turning our bodies so that she was between the girl and me. I looked over her head to watch the thrashing girl and Jasper.
Carlisle was at Jasper's side in an instant. He put a restraining hand on his most recent son's arm.
"Have you changed your mind, young one?" Carlisle asked, calm as ever. "We don't want to destroy you, but we will if you can't control yourself."
"How can you stand it?" the girl groaned in a high, clear voice. "I want her." Her bright crimson irises focused on Alice, through her, beyond her to me, and her nails ripped through the hard soil again.
"You must stand it," Carlisle told her gravely. "You must exercise control. It is possible, and it is the only thing that will save you now."
The girl clutched her dirt-encrusted hands around her head, yowling quietly.
"It would be kinder to move away from her," I murmured to Alice, tugging on her arm. The girl's lips pulled back over her teeth when she heard my voice, her expression one of torment.
"We have to stay here," Alice replied. "They are coming to the north end of the clearing now." Sighing, I wriggled slightly in Alice's arms, signaling my wish to get free, and Alice instantly let go, and then frowned as I crossed over to Edward. "What are you doing?" she asked, her tone jealous.
"I'm Edward's mate, not yours." I remind her, gently.
"Right." Alice nods, face unhappy. Edward seemed to find it easy enough to pretend when I looked like Bella, easily sweeping me into his arms. I instantly felt uncomfortable, and wished I was in Alice's arms instead.
"Sixty seconds." Edward murmured, his head tilted to the side. He could hear their thoughts, I realized, which meant they were close. Within a mile. Alice couldn't help blurring over to Edward's side, next to me, and she was obviously fighting to keep her face blank as Edward clutched me to him, her every instinct screaming for her to rip me out of his arms.
I reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder, giving her a soft look, which helped calm her down.
I knew, when the Cullens all turned their heads in one direction, that the Volturi had arrived.
I couldn't spot them as easily as the Cullens, only the smoke, dense, oily smoke, rising lazily, undulating against the grass. Frustrated, I squinted, and managed to make out dark shapes in the midst of the haze.
"Hmm," a voice spoke, a dead sounding voice.
"Welcome, Jane." Edward said coolly. I strained my memory, trying to figure out if my essay on the Volturi, or any of Binns lectures mentioned her. I only remembered a vague reference, something about a twin, and being favored by Aro.
There were five vampires altogether. The girl in front was young, looked thirteen or fourteen. She was two feet shorter then the shortest of the gray-shrouded figures hulking behind her, and her cloak was darkest of them all, almost black. What I could see of her features, those not hidden in the shade of her cowl, were angelic to the extreme.
The biggest one let his head fall back slightly and winked at me, a smile playing on his mouth. With the familiarity he was treating me with, I could guess that Bella had met him at some time or other. I was careful to keep my face blank. Beside me, I could hear Edward growl lightly, and Alice was very still, fighting to keep control.
Jane's gaze moved slowly across the faces of the Cullens and touched on the newborn beside the fire. Bree eyed her with a mixture of fear and something else. "I don't understand." Jane's voice was still toneless, but not quite so uninterested.
"She has surrendered." Edward explained, answering her silent question, the confusion in her mind. Jane's ruby eyes flashed to his face, narrowing dangerously.
"Surrendered?" The hulking vampire, the one who winked at me, and another one, a slimmer one, though just as tall, exchanged a quick glance. Edward shrugged at Jane, carefully nonchalant.
"Carlisle gave her the option."
"There are no options for those who break the rules." Jane said, flatly. Carlisle spoke then, his voice mild.
"That's in your hands. As long as she was willing to halt her attack on us, we saw no reason to destroy her. She was never taught."
"That is irrelevant." Jane insisted. I was shaking with fury by this point. Bree might be a murderer but Carlisle was right- she was never taught. The blood of every person she killed was on Victoria's hands. And despite this, despite the fact she had no way of knowing the rules, the small vampire bitch was going to kill her anyway.
"As you wish." Carlisle's voice was quiet. Jane stared at Carlisle in consternation. She shook her head infinitesimally, and then composed her features.
"Aro hoped that we would get far enough west to see you, Carlisle. He sends his regards."
Carlisle nodded. "I would appreciate it if you would convey mine to him."
"Of course." Jane smiled. Her face was almost too lovely when it was animated. She then looked towards the smoke. "It appears that you have done our work for us today... for the most part." Her eyes flickered again to Bree. "Just out of professional curiosity, how many were there? They left quite the wake of destruction in Seattle."
"Eighteen, including this one." Carlisle answered. Jane's eyes widened, and she looked at the fire again, seeming to reassess the size of it. The shadowy vampires behind her exchanged long looks.
"Eighteen?" Jane repeated, her voice sounding unsure for the first time. I almost smiled.
"All brand-new. They were unskilled." Carlisle said dismissively.
"All?" her voice turned sharp. "Then who was their creator?"
"Her name was Victoria." Edward answered, no emotion in his voice.
"Was?" Jane asked and Edward inclined his head toward the eastern forest where we had come from. I could only see a faint trace of smoke, a hint of purple. Destroying vampires my way had the added benefit of not leaving much mess behind.
Jane stared to the east for a long moment, then examined the bonfire again. "This Victoria- she was in addition to the eighteen here?"
"Yes. She had only one other with her." Edward lied. I could see the wisdom in his lie- the Volturi guards present were already reassessing how dangerous we were. In order to avoid unnecessary attention, it would be best if we appeared as unthreatening as possible, no matter how much I felt like shoving our victory in their faces.
Sometimes I really was quite Gryffindor. More brave, a.k.a. stupid, then self preserving.
Jane's eyes narrowed and she turned to Bree, her expression and voice harsher then before. "You there, your name." Bree shot a baleful glare at Jane, her lips pressed tight together. Jane smiled back angelically.
Bree's answering scream was earsplitting; her body arched stiffly into a distorted, unnatural position. Red light flashed behind my eyelids, and Jane's face blurred, becoming gaunt, her lips twisting into a delighted smirk, dark violet eyes glittering with a deranged joy.
My palms were sweating and my heart was racing. Alice and Edward literally both reached out and grabbed my hands, hearing my distress, but even Alice's touch wasn't enough. I have to close my eyes and turn away, fighting the urge to kill Jane, to cover my ears, to let out my own screams, as memories push their way to the front of my mind.
"How did you get into my vault?" screeches the deranged witch, with the crazy black curls and gaunt skull-like face.
"Please! We found the sword! It's a fake!" I plead, as I lay in a puddle of my own urine.
"CRUCIO!" screams Bellatrix, and then agony explodes over my body and I scream and scream and-
-and Bree's screams stop. My breath was rough, jagged, and I was clenching on to Alice and Edward's hands so tightly that the skin on top of my knuckles was as white as theirs.
"Your name," Jane says again, and I make myself turn back around, to watch the scene playing out in front of me, even through the tears that have pooled in my eyes.
"Bree," the girl gasped. Jane smiled, and then Bree was screaming again. This time I couldn't take it. I couldn't.
"STOP!" I shrieked, the angelic face before me flickering non-stop, blurring back and forth to the one featured in my nightmares, the face that had my heart thudding unsteady in my chest, even at the thought of it.
Silence, a sudden, cold silence, filled the clearing, as Jane turned her dead eyes to me. Alice's hand twitched around mine, and I could basically feel her terror.
What I'd done was stupid, so stupid, but I couldn't help it, couldn't bear it, couldn't take it.
"Stop?" Jane said, her voice venomous. My heart slowed down to its normal speed, and the tears in my eyes cleared. A new strength filled me, pushing away my exhaustion, and I held my chin up and met her dead gaze with my own narrowed one.
"Yes, stop."
"H-Bella!" Alice basically whimpered beside me, terrified. I released Edward's hand, slipping it into my pockets, letting my fingers stroke against the carved wood.
"I don't need my Gift to hurt you." Jane threatened. This was better. This I could take. The threats, the bantering... this I was good at. This I could do. I'd had more then enough practice juggling dangerous situations, where sometimes words were my only weapon.
"Really? Because that's all you do. Use your Gift. Kind of cowardly, don't you think?" I asked, coolly. Jane's expression turned furious, and I was ready for what was next.
Of course she went for Edward, my 'mate', turning the full intensity of her Gift on him. Edward flinched back, preparing for the pain, but I tightened my grip on his hand, pushing into his mind, pulling up shields against the mental attack, similar to the way I'd created shields in Leah's mind, guarding it. All this legilimency and occlumency was giving me the world's worst headache.
Jane's expression was worth the headache though. It was actually amusing, her face first shocked beyond belief, and then furious, as Edward didn't fall to the ground, screaming in immense pain.
"How is this possible?" she hissed through gritted teeth. I smiled at her, a smug smile meant to enrage her. It worked, and she actually crouched as if to lunge, and one of the vampires behind her had to grab her, restrain her. Panting with anger, with fury, she turned venomous eyes on me. "You just signed your death sentence, human!" she hissed.
"To kill me, you'd have to kill all my protectors." I told her, coolly. "There are three of you, against eight of us, and your Gift is useless. You wouldn't even get near enough to touch me, and even if by some miracle you did, you'd have to have slaughtered Carlisle's coven to do so, and I'm fairly certain your Masters would not be pleased. So why don't you just go trotting back to them like a good little pet."
Jane's furious snarl of uncontained fury ripped through the clearing, but she didn't attack, knowing the truth to my words. "You will pay for this!" she promised.
I raise my chin. "Go cry me a river."
"We're leaving!" Jane turned to face the other two cloaked figures, snarling, her uncaring, bored composure long gone. The two guards glanced at each other, then one nodded towards Bree, who was pressed against the ground, eyes terrified.
"What about her?"
"Destroy her." Jane spat, turning to me, daring me to object. I bite my tongue, knowing that while taunting Jane was a stupid, idiotic thing to do, the consequence wasn't a death sentence. Interfering with the guard, however, was.
I turned away, having no wish to see the newborn being destroyed. There was a deep, rumbling growl and a scream of agony which cut off quickly, and then the only sound was a sickening crunching and snapping.
The heavy incense smell grew stronger, fresher, but I still didn't turn around. I didn't even move until Alice yanked me into a hug, indicating the Volturi was long gone. "I'm going to kill you!" She half laughed, half sobbed. "Of all the stupid, dim-witted, idiotic things to do- taunting Jane like that- so un-fucking-believably stupid-" she broke off, shaking her head back and forth, her face still pressed against me. I sagged against her, the temporary strength that had filled me, vanishing.
"I couldn't do nothing. Couldn't just stand there and watch, listen." I tell her, feelings of guilt seeping into me. "It's... it's a Gryffindor thing. Act first, think later. It's what we're famous for." To their credit, none of the Cullens asked what a Gryffindor was, only Alice knowing enough to give a half laugh, half sob. Edward's lips twitch into a tired smile, and I realize that he's read Alice's mind.
Not liking that idea, worried about what else he might see, I used what little strength I had left to shield Alice's mind. And then I slumped my head against her shoulder, letting her lift me up so she was cradling me.
"We're safe now. Let's go home." She smiled down at me, and I smiled back up at her.
"Let's go home."
A/N: I've gotten comments remarking on how it was out of character for Hermione to let Bree be killed, so I thought I'd explain why I wrote that scene how I did. It was a hard scene to write, because while I couldn't see Hermione sitting back and letting someone get tortured after being tortured herself, I felt she was also smart enough to know better then to take on a very powerful vampire coven. I read in a fanfiction once that Hermione has the ability to operate on cold logic- the centaur thing with Umbridge, for instance; in mythology centaurs are known for sexually assaulting women, Hermione would have known when she led Umbridge to them what the woman's fate would be (it's only ever implied in the books, but JK has basically confirmed in an interview that's what happened to Umbridge). So yes, it is both in and out of character for her to let the Volturi to kill an innocent, but I decided it would be more in character for Hermione to place the lives of the Cullens and her sister over the life of an individual she didn't know, though she did ensure that Bree suffered as little as possible. I hope this makes sense for people :)
~Cheshire Carroll