(See previous chapter's summary for summary)
"I'll try it first." It was surprisingly not the tallest of the three witches that spoke up—it was the dark-haired one among them. Something about her button nose reminded Hermione of Pansy.
"Excellent! Now, I'll have to ask everyone else to back away to this point while I referee the fight."
They stood up a good distance away, with Tom standing in the middle with a handkerchief. It was easy to guess that the moment his arm came down was the time it would start.
Hermione stood in a relaxed, loose-limbed pose.
The flash of white handkerchief fluttering had her sprinting from a dead stop. Whatever spell the Pansy look-a-like sent went wide off the mark. Hermione idly raised two shields to hold against the next several hexes and jinxes that were cast, the witch getting more desperate the closer Hermione gets. Another strategically raised shield, and then she stepped out from behind it to kick her opponent right in the midsection. The Slytherin witch was thrown back a nice distance. Alright, I am still feeling pretty vindictive at them.
"Expelliarmus," Hermione calmly cast. She might not be that good at hand-to-hand, but she did have the basics down. It was enough for self-defence (and kicking prissy Slytherins in fights, apparently).
She could hear Tom's lazy drawl calling out.
"Victory to Hermione."
"You used shields," the other witch accused.
"I said I'd use exactly one spell to attack you. I didn't say I wouldn't use any for myself."
When she seemed intent on complaining, Hermione cut in. "Did you know that the attacker we fought with outside had been wearing an anti-magic charm? How would you have dealt with that if you're apparently this helpless now?"
The witch's face reddened.
"Congratulations. A muggle can bring you down and kill you." She said, smiling but not bothering to make her words or tone any more pleasant. "Now please go away someplace safe before you get yourself killed. Or even worse, you might get someone more competent than you killed when they're trying to save you."
The shorter witch stood up, still rather shaken. Hermione kept her within her line of sight as she walked a few steps back and then turning around to see the other two. It was only then that she offered the witch her wand back.
"Is there anyone else that wants to try?" Her composure and voice were cool.
The princess lookalike wasn't going to try, she knew. That was why she stared down the tall witch next, waiting for her to move. The other witch didn't say anything.
"Great! Now, everyone can move on and leave this to Tom and I." Hermione stated.
"You're not waiting for the Aurors?" The tall witch asked.
"We don't know when they're going to come, if at all. Someone needs to bring him down." She said.
"And that someone is you?" The Slytherin was sceptical.
"To be honest, she did bring down the shooter outside," Tom answered with a studied casualness. "Hermione did it with a single physical attack—which, now that I think about it, sort-of mirrored what she did just now, doesn't it? I'm sure she's quite capable of bringing another one down."
Hermione could see fear growing in the blonde Slytherin, hemmed by her two henchwomen. Other than making her sound like some sort of skilled martial artist instead of someone who simply clocked a man when he was down, she appreciated Tom's defence. It certainly shut them up.
'-
"What are you looking for?" Tom asked her when he saw her lying down at the lowest steps of the stairs and gazing up from the carpet. With most people out of the way, the task of searching the shops fell to the two of them once again.
"Tripwires. They're not exactly magical traps that you can detect with a spell." She answered.
"Hermione, does the man we brought down look as if he's part of a disciplined, organised outfit?"
She paused. Well, he was definitely not from any army, unlike the ones Grindelwald brought against the Ministry. "No?"
"Then which do you think is more plausible, that he'd just arrived today or yesterday and it was his first visit, or that he'd actually visited Hogsmeade at least a week before to scout and prepare? And possibly even trap the place he was staying at?"
The brunette witch pushed herself up and saw the humour in his eyes.
"You just have to use common sense, don't you?" She grumbled.
"I do try." He said, with none of the humility that one usually expects to hear when someone gave that sort of reply. "How are you even sure that he's in the second floor of this place?"
"Well, based on the angle of your wound, and my memory of our position, it was either this store, or the ones to its left or right. Since we're already here, I thought we might as well check out the place."
She was about to step up when Tom went off ahead.
"Tom!"
"In case there is a trap, it's better if only one of us gets hit, isn't it?" He replied.
"Yes, but why you?"
"I'm already hurt. It's better if further damage happened to me while you stay unharmed. You're the one who can apparate and get us out. It would be more inconvenient if you were the one to get hurt first, even for me."
His answer was a dispassionate, logical one. Some part of her still couldn't help but see it from the lens of selflessness and the way she and her friends would sacrifice their lives for each other. It did not seem to matter to her mind that she knew selfless was the last thing that he could be, and the ensuing dissonance was headache-inducing. The easiest solution, she had concluded, was to just accept what he'd said and stop thinking about it.
They reached the first-floor landing and heard nothing. Hermione augmented her hearing with a quiet murmur and then did the same for Tom. They waited for a while, but there were no steps on wooden floors, no shuffling of shoes. It wasn't fine enough to hear breathing in another room through wooden doors, though. She dispelled the charms.
"This is annoying," Hermione muttered.
If it was an ordinary Auror raid, someone would just cast a Protego attached to the end of their wand, maybe make it double-layered, and then rush in. Yet shield charms were no good against modern bullets (Harry, in his infinite curiosity and experimentation, had once found a musket and figured out how to load it. Unless it was shot at point-blank range, the Protego of a trained Auror actually stood up against it).
The witch sighed. Now what? She tried racking her brain. Planning raids were usually more of a Ron or even Harry's thing than hers. At most, she gave feedback to whatever plan was already in place.
"Use your knock-out gas," Tom said.
"Ah, good idea. There's still the issue of being in different rooms, though. Do you think Ventus is enough to send it into a room just relying on the space underneath the door?" Hermione started casting Aguamenti and its modified version that brought bleach on the floor around them. Tom crinkled his nose once at the smell but said nothing, only casting a bubble-head charm on himself. Hermione did it to herself a moment later.
"I don't think it would be effective for moving air to small gaps like that."
"Dammit. I wonder if there's a way of sending it through the water pipes..."
His suggestion was far more direct. "What I'd suggest it to blow the door open from a distance and then blow the gas in."
"Oh, right. We can just do that."
They did, starting with the door closest to the stairs. The rooms were mostly storage rooms, filled with bolts of cloth. Hermione had picked up someone's forgotten hat, tucked in a dusty corner of a store room. She transfigured it into a bottle and used it to collect the gas. Their plan was pretty solid against what was presumably a single muggle or two, at most, and they systematically continued, taking turns at blowing doors open and blowing the gas in (and then Hermione condensing and then collecting it all back with an Accio into the bottle when no one came out). Another room was someone's study, and there was also a bedroom. It was just too bad that said muggle wasn't even in the building in the first place.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," she complained, before pausing in surprise.
Wait, I sounded too much like Harry. He tended to be disappointed with raids that was too easy or ended too fast, even though Harry agreed with her that it was a good thing that no one got badly wounded.
"One of the other two stores, then?" Tom asked.
She sighed. "Yes. Probably. Oh joy, we'd probably need to repeat everything all over again and start by evacuating them."
On the upside, she now had a ready-made bottle of isoflurane. She did exchange the transfigured hat for an actual bottle—she was rummaging in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Hermione dumped the Pepper-up Potion in it into the sink. She didn't need the gas to accidentally be let loose by a stray Finite.
"Well," Tom remarked casually. "At least the storeowner can breathe a sigh of relief. We certainly won't need to burn this store down."
She gave his arm a light smack for that tasteless joke. Not that she thought it would make any difference, but it was the thought that counted.
'-
The store to the left of the tailor was actually the stationary store they had visited earlier during the day. The shopkeeper recognised them, probably since they had purchased significant amount of parchments and inks. Some people had taken refuge there the way they did at the other shop. Hermione repeated what they'd said earlier about the presence of a shooter holing up in one of the buildings on this side of the street, and how it would be safer if people were to leave.
Hermione was surprised that the people had not tried leaving via floo. But after listening to the opinions of several visitors, she had the impression that they were expecting the Aurors to come quickly. That had been something niggling in her mind, and now it became an actual mystery. What was also worrying were the concerns that at least one or two visitors had.
"What if they didn't think this was a big attack? What if they decided they didn't need to come because of it?" A wizard asked.
"They don't even know of the attack," Hermione reminded them. "Because no one has been able to contact them, remember? The people at the tailoring shop next door failed at floo-calling the DMLE. Or are you saying that you've managed to call them and someone at the other end actually said it was unimportant?"
"Well, not really..."
"So why think that, then?" She asked.
"It's hard not to when you've been seeing things in the papers."
The papers? What? She didn't think she saw anything noteworthy in the Daily Prophet so far, though she had to admit that she didn't read every single news article there and only stuck to the highlights.
"Has anyone tried to floo to the Leaky Cauldron, and personally reach the Ministry of Magic that way?" Tom asked. "Even if it is impossible to floo-call the DMLE for some mysterious reasons right now, I doubt that the problem extends to the entirety of Diagon Alley."
There were low murmurs and uncertain glances. No one volunteered or even spoke up, and she found herself appreciating the plucky shop assistant next door. She intended to chat with Iris the next time she visited. The brunette witch supposed that people liked status quos, and they might not welcome any change during already uncertain times, but the amount of milling around happening was getting ridiculous.
"So, who would want to get out of this street first? Iris from the tailoring shop next door had checked Hog's Head Inn and found that it was safe. You can all go there first and then decide where you want to move on to." She said.
Hermione was just glad that it made people start moving.
"Why aren't you going there with everyone else?" A middle-aged man asked.
"Because I'm going to track the shooter down," Hermione said. "At the very least, it would make it easier for anyone that came after us—probably Aurors—to figure out how to get him."
"Aren't you just a Hogwarts student, though?"
"We know enough to not make stupid mistakes and live through the process," the brunette answered.
He still seemed rather sceptical, and Hermione dreaded the possibility that he'd wish to join them. The last thing she needed was an associate whose skill and temperament she had no idea about, joining for the first time in an actual operation instead of an exercise.
Can you say friendly fire?
"Actually, if you wish to test either of our fighting skill, you can just ask. We'll be glad to assuage your concerns." Tom said with all politeness, his smile completely unintimidating.
It spoke to how she was getting to know him that she knew he was getting impatient—he was usually less confrontational in the methods he chose to handle people. The wizard chuckled and blustered a little about how he couldn't possibly ask that, and that it wouldn't be fair, but seeing the matching bland expressions they both wore stayed unchanged, he trailed off awkwardly.
"I think most people have left already, Sir," Hermione said. "I'm sure you can contact your family and wait for them at Hog's Head Inn. They might start getting worried, especially if someone had already managed to contact the wizarding wireless over the attacks. You wouldn't want them worried, do you?"
She plastered her most harmless smile and gently directed him towards the fireplace at the back while she went on about all the things they could do at the Hog's Head Inn that they couldn't right now. She was doing it for the benefit of the other members of the public that had been stuck there, not just the wizard she was escorting—giving them something to look forward to. Then, she entrusted him to his fellow visitors to the shop who gave her a solid nod back. They'd take care of him. It would seem that helping Harry and Ron practise their friendly-but-persistent persona that Aurors need to take to direct a confused public helped her find the right tone to set.
Afterwards, she and Tom found themselves at the bottom of another set of stairs. Again.
"I can't believe this didn't occur to me before," Hermione muttered. She started casting cutting spells.
On further thoughts, she knew why it didn't occur to her—she had never been the heavy hitters and tankers on the vanguard of a charge. She was the one who adjusted the whole terrain to her team's advantage, and she did it better when she was just one witch amongst them and generally unnoticed to start her more complicated spells that usually take more time and concentration than the usual combat repertoire. Real transfiguration required a lot of focus.
Any trip wires already have been cut at the point of her entrance, courtesy of the barrage of spells from the frontline assault team.
A few moments of stillness at the top of the stairs showed that no one was going to come bursting out of the doors anytime soon. She augmented both of their hearings. One of the farther doors down the hallway, to the right, seemed to have someone walking around on the wooden boards in the room behind it. Eureka. She dispelled the charm.
Hermione held Tom back before he walked in that direction.
"Might as well clear the rest of the rooms to be sure. We don't need a surprise attack on our rear when we least expect it."
Well, at the very least they've gotten their routine down pat as they each put on a bubble-head charm. Tom was eyeing the wand movements for her invisible bubble-head charm, and she had the unsettling feeling that he'd be able to cast it himself after he watched it for just one more time.
Knowing that there was one room with audible human presence made them feel more confident that the rest was generally empty, so even if she did let loose her knock-out gas, there was no blowing doors open (that would be noisy, anyway). By the third room, it was starting to feel a tad routine that Hermione was worried her alertness would go down. She was glad that it was only the room with the sound of footsteps that was left now (there was one other room, but that already had its door open, and a quick search showed that it was only a storeroom).
Harry's ability to just barge into a room, shields up and wands blazing with ten explosive spells at once, was something she'd never realised she'd sorely miss until now. He really did make it convenient for everyone else who was following behind him. At the very least, it would've been a lot faster.
They did blow the door open this time, and she did send the gas in ahead of her.
"D-d-don't kill me! Please! Take anything!"
The wizard was on the short side, and all his cringing didn't help. The dazed and frightened man turned out to be the store's owner.
"We're not here to kill you or take anything. We were looking for one of the attackers," she explained.
She sighed and settled to calm the wizard down while Tom discreetly checked the room himself. She apologised for her intrusion but explained the emergency. She told him that another shooter was still out there on one of the other stores near his, and he would be in danger if he didn't get away.
The wizard was glad to do so, but he was thinking of his store. Hermione wanted to assure him that the last thing most people wanted to do was rob a stationary store, yet she knew that his fears were real to him and her explanation wouldn't change that. Luckily for her, Tom stepped in.
"Close it up, then," Tom pointed out. "Everyone else in this place has left. You're the only one here. I'm sure you can lock up and raise the wards and then floo to Hog's Head Inn, right?"
So, after a final check to ensure that he was indeed fine and would soon leave, they left the store.
At any point in time, one of them always kept the man in their field of vision. Hermione only spent a few moments wondering whether Tom's paranoia was getting to her. Yet considering what happened the last time she gave her unguarded back to someone else, there really was nothing wrong with being too careful.
This left only one more plausible shop for them to check.
It was nothing as interesting as Honeydukes, or even The Scrivener. In fact, it was a rather run-of-the-mill, unimpressive dry goods store, whose sign probably needed to be repainted because she couldn't make it out clearly. Though the more she thought about it, the less it should surprise her. Why shouldn't Hogsmeade residents need a shop to buy their daily necessities at?
The wizards and witches who were stuck in there seemed to be composed more of Hogsmeade's residents than Hogwarts students or outside visitors, their clothes more understated. It might explain why they were more at ease at directly asking them what the quietness on the street meant.
"Is it safe to go out now?" A white-haired witch asked.
"No, not really. There's still one more shooter that needs to be taken care of," Hermione answered honestly. "But the people in the tailor's shop next door as well as The Scrivener have all gone to Hog's Head Inn by floo, so I'd suggest that you do the same."
"Why Hog's Head Inn?" A wizard approached her.
Where other people might have gotten shorter as they got older, he seemed to only lose weight and kept his height, ending up as the human version of a stick insect.
"Because it's a place that Iris from the tailor's shop has checked as safe, and it's a place where many people can gather together. If you're looking for someone or if someone is looking for you, it's a good place to start." She answered, and she could see most of them mulling over it.
"Well, I'll just get back home. Patrick's at work and he wouldn't have known until he checked the newspaper tomorrow." A plump matron said. She said cheery goodbyes to everyone else and the ones who knew her greeted her with the same ease. "I'll be borrowing your fireplace, Gladys. Sorry for the bother."
"Of course, dear. It's no problem at all."
It didn't take the rest of them long. Even as many of them chatted about what they think their family members would be doing right now, they had already picked up their bags and shopping (when there was any). They asked Gladys, which was the old lady behind the counter, to show them to the fireplace. To be honest, it felt more like they were all haring off to some weekend bridge club than some evacuation due to a crisis.
A few of them patted Tom or Hermione in the arm saying that it was very brave of them to have gone out to reach the store and inform them of the all the things going on. She took it with a smile and Tom was his usual gracious self (though she could tell that this crowd was definitely less annoying for him than the previous one—his pleasure was not entirely artificial).
"Not that I don't actually enjoy this well-ordered retreat," Hermione said to a neat-looking witch. Instead of flowers, there was a large and vivid red leaf pinned to her hat, "but none of you seemed to be that surprised or worried."
She shrugged with that universal 'what can you do?' gesture.
"This is Hogsmeade, dear. We're right next door to Hogwarts, and you know what they say about Hogwarts." She said.
"What do they say about Hogwarts?"
"There's bound to be a prophecy every quarter century or so, or a new dark lord. If you're extra lucky, you get both. Sooner or later they drag us into it! Frankly, you get used to all the doom and gloom if you live around here."
Hermione couldn't help but laugh at that.
"That's fascinating, Miss...?"
"Maple. Calliope Maple."
Hermione blinked a little at the name, almost too similar to a fictional detective she knew. Then she spied the red leaf on her hat made sense. "Hermione Curie. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Oh, I know who you are, Young Lady," was Miss Maple's shrewd reply. Was it just her imagination, or did the witch's gaze actually strayed to Tom once? "Good luck facing any prophecies or dark lords. You're in Hogwarts now, you'll need it—and I say this as an alumnus."
Hermione grinned. "Thank you."
With a nod, the witch walked away, also with her bag of shopping with her. Rationing, Hermione realised, was generally non-existent in wizarding Britain. She couldn't help but wonder how the food shortage was handled here, what with the German blockade around UK. Being able to easily cast a sunlight spell must've made growing plants, and even tropical plants, easier. No wonder Hogwarts could still easily serve banana cake.
"Well, that was very civilised," Tom remarked when all of them had gone to the back of the store.
"You have to wonder how one village can take it in a stride while most of Britain panics," she replied.
"The rest of Britain need more dark lords," he answered with usual twisted humour. She raised an eyebrow, curious about where it would lead.
"Really?"
"After all she did say that Hogsmeade is used to it; they've come to expect dark lords and ominous prophecies to appear sooner or later. What better way to desensitise the rest of the populace than to ensure they'll face routine attempts at world domination?"
Hermione did let out a bark of surprised laughter at that.
"You're incorrigible, Tom."
'-
Hermione was really having the déjà vu sensation of joining yet another one of an Auror team's raids, albeit with the unusual twist of her leading the charge too. They went up another flight of stairs and trying to detect any unusual sounds...
There were footsteps above them.
One person, unless there was someone else who was sleeping. Even then, it only meant that they would be facing two.
She realised then that perhaps it was the reason this store was chosen in the first place—it had a garret room. Assuming that the attic was just another storeroom, it would scarcely be checked every day. They conferred on the tactics to use for a while and then ascended the stairs. Tom went first, according to the very logical reasons he'd given earlier—he was already wounded and she was the one who could actually get them both away.
While Tom was using a subtler, albeit slower, unlocking spell on the lock (instead of Alohomora), Hermione cast Oleumenti in a line on the other side of the door.
It might be an overkill method just to oil the hinges, but it was worth the effort for added quietness. The door drifted open silently. There was a man on a chair by the window. Tom took two steps to the right and attacked him immediately—two stunning spells hit the man at once only to fizzle out. Fortunately, he didn't seem to realise that something was wrong or even noticed their presence yet.
The next thing that hit him, head first, was an armoire from one side of the room. There was the heavy clunk of his rifle hitting the floor boards. Hermione went left, trailing the wall while scanning the room and making sure there was no one else.
She breathed a sigh of relief.
It was just one room, with no other connected, and the roof sloping to half an adult's height opposite of the door. She noted the bleeding gash on his head and her reflex was to cast Episkey. The spell bounced and she huffed in frustration.
Tom divested the man of his necklace and few rings, before finding a piece of handkerchief to wrap them all in. Hermione stunned the man twice, before moving the heavy armoire away. She bound him with a quick Incarcerous and just hoped his concussion wasn't going to be too bad.
Thundering footsteps could be heard from the floor below them. They both had their wands ready, facing the half-open door.
Dumbledore crashed into the room, auburn hair flaring dramatically behind him and Hermione could almost feel the incoming waves of pressure from the magic he'd collected around him. It was akin to being a small fish being pushed back by the swell of an incoming blue whale. Dexter followed just a few steps away and she saw the yellow flash of his long braid, his magical presence more soothing and less overpowering than Dumbledore. They were an interesting contrast—Dumbledore with his purple, yellow and green outfit and Dexter in shades of black and grey.
The brunette sighed in relief. Dumbledore's lucky this had been straightforward. I might have been more trigger happy otherwise.
"Tom? Hermione?" Dumbledore gazed at them both in puzzlement. She could feel the pinpricks of magic fading away from her skin as the transfiguration professor lessened his hold on them.
"The sniper's unconscious and bound, Professor," Hermione said. "We've cleared the entire building too—his was the last room we needed to check. We've been trying to track him down for a while."
"We know. We heard from the people you've sent to the Hog's Head Inn." Dexter said, worry in his grey eyes. "Good work in evacuating the people, by the way. It doesn't mean what you were doing wasn't dangerous."
"We've been waiting for the Aurors to come. If they had, we would have gladly let them take over," Tom said, more relaxed than he'd been before. "Yet if it wasn't for Hermione, more people might have died shot and bleeding on the streets."
"There were people bleeding?" Dumbledore's gaze was sharp.
"That was the work of the first shooter. We took him down. When Hermione was trying to help the wounded, there were shots fired from higher ground—that was how we knew there was another shooter."
"And these people are...?" Dexter began.
"Already sent to St. Mungo's with the assistance of Iris from the tailor's shop and Crouch, the... Seventh-year Gryffindor prefect, I think?" Hermione mused.
Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, that's Timaeus alright."
She could see that the two professors were beginning to wind down from their previous highly alert stance.
"How did the rest of Hogsmeade fare? I heard that the Three Broomsticks managed to defend themselves, but I also heard there was another attacker further down the street? We were about to head there once the wounded was secured, but then we got diverted into the sniper hunt." Hermione said.
"The attacker outside the Three Broomsticks had the misfortune doing so when Galatea, Honoria, Adele and Phyllida was trying to relax inside." Dumbledore said with amusement in his voice.
Hermione winced. He disturbed the downtime of the duelling mistress and several other experienced witches? The man was toast.
"As you can guess, he was no threat at all to them."
"As for the other attacker you've heard, Andrew Abbott made a good attempt at holding him back, mainly by throwing around so many things he had to duck and avoid them instead of shoot. It was just a shame Abbott's aim wasn't better," Dexter said. "But he did allow more people to safely escape that way. The...sixth-year Gryffindor prefects?"
The Head of Ravenclaw turned to the other professor, who confirmed his query. "Philippe Bernadotte and Ceres Victorinus. Yes, they're sixth-year prefects."
"Well, they arrived sometime later and managed to push the man back, corner him to an alley. That was when Albus, Filius and I arrived at the scene, and then he presented no trouble anymore."
"Was Abbott fine? What about Bernadotte and Ceres?" Hermione asked.
"Bernadotte and Victorinus was fine. I can see why Galatea said that they were among her best students. Well, Abbott did have a small wound to his side..." Dexter mused.
She inhaled sharply, holding her breath.
"Is he at St. Mungo's yet?"
"No? We thought a quick Episkey would do—"
"Take me to him right now, Professor." Hermione insisted, stepping forward towards her Head of House. "Because he needs to get that wound seen to properly unless you're open to the risk of him suddenly dying."
The two professors were slightly taken aback at her intensity.
"Was it really that bad?" Dexter asked.
"Oh, you should listen to Hermione, Professor. She was just as frantic when I was shot." Tom said, offhand. "So yes, there's a significant chance that Abbott's wound might be fatal."
"You were shot?" Dumbledore asked, stunned. It seemed that the surprises came quickly for the professors.
"That was how we knew there was the sniper. On the other hand, if I wasn't standing in front of Hermione, it would have been her. So, it wasn't too bad. She could heal me, after all, but I would have trouble healing her. Logically, my getting shot is actually the best outcome." Tom said. His usual polite and reasonable self was actually a tad disconcerting when combined with the morbid topic—Dumbledore, for one, was clearly still trying to digest all this.
"Professor," there was a warning tone in Hermione's voice. Dexter came back to himself as he shook his head.
"Right, right. You should all prepare yourself for side-along apparition, then. We're going to the Inn."
With that, the world was squeezed and folded away from around them.
'-
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