'Snatchers'
Spells ricocheted through the air, bouncing off trees as they raced away from the Snatchers, Harry helping Lori run.
Blood oozed from her leg with every step, the glass tearing deeper into her flesh with each pained pace, though Harry took most of her weight. She turned, "Confringo!"
A nearby tree burst into flame, falling on its side and engulfing a Snatcher in its burning grasp, his screams rang raw through the air as they pressed on.
"Just... leave me." she winced, Harry ignoring her and tightening his grip around her waist as chains latched onto nearby trunks.
Hermione sprung into view beside them, motionless as she looked around at the Snatchers, surrounding her with defeat in her eyes. Lori shoved herself off Harry, crashing to the leafy floor as Hermione shot a spell at him, his face already disfiguring.
She shrieked in pain as her landing shoved the shard even deeper into her leg, the hilt almost invisible above her bloodied flesh.
"The Hallows exist," Harry whispered urgently to Hermione as she raced over, "but he's only after one of them, the last one. He knows where it is. He's gonna have it by the end of the night. You-Know-Who's found the Elder Wand."
A hand gripped around Lori's neck, dragging her to her feet and shoving her onto her injured leg, her face instantly paling as another wail fell from her lips. Scabior smirked from behind her as he pushed her ginger hair to one side and pressed his face to her neck as if smelling her.
Lori grunted as he threw her roughly to the side, another Snatcher pinning her with all his weight as he strode over to Harry, "What happened to you, ugly?"
Greyback, who was holding Harry with a tight grip turned.
"No, not you. What's your name?"
"Dudley. Vernon Dudley." Harry muttered, Greyback pulling the wand from his pocket.
Scabior grinned wickedly and moved over to Hermione, "And you, my lovely, what do they call you?"
Her voice was surprisingly calm as she answered, "Penelope Clearwater, half-blood."
His gaze shifted to Lori as he slinked over, roughly grabbing her shoulder and pulling her up, "What about you?"
She cleared her throat slightly, ignoring her brother thrashing around beside her, "Danielle Clarke-Thomas."
"There's no Vernon Dudley on here!" one of the Snatchers informed, thumbing through a small book.
Greyback sneered down at Harry, "Did you hear that, ugly? The list says you're lying. How come you don't want us to know who you are?"
"The lists wrong," Harry replied, his eyes now heavily lidded and almost completely sealed, "I told you who I am."
Scabior's wand pushed a chunk of Harry's hair to one side, a triumphant grin settling on his lopsided face, "Change of plan. We're not taking this lot to the Ministry."
*
With a desperate glance at Draco, Bellatrix pulled Harry to his feet, "Well?"
"I can't be sure..." he stuttered.
His father moved closer to him, wine goblet in hand, "Draco, look closely, son. If we are the ones to hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything would be forgiven. All would be as it was, you understand?"
"Now, we wouldn't be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope, Mr Malfoy?" Scabior coughed.
"You dare to talk to me like that in my own house?" Narcissa had to pull her husband back.
Bellatrix looked hopefully at her nephew, "Don't be shy, sweetie. Come over. Now, if this isn't sho we think it is, Draco, and we call him, he'll kill us all. We need to be absolutely sure!"
He peered down at Harry, crouching to get a better look, "What's wrong with his face?"
"Yes," she straightened, glaring at the Snatchers, "what is wrong with his face?"
Scabior shrugged, "He came to us like that. Something he picked up in the forest, I reckon."
"Or ran into a Stinging Jinx." her eyes snapped to Hermione, "Was it you, dearie? Give me her wand. We'll see what her last spell was. What is that?"
In the hand of one of the more dirty men, was the highly polished sword of Gryffindor.
"Where'd you get that from?"
"It was in her bag when we searched her, reckon it's mine now."
Lori breathed out a sigh of relief that they hadn't found Fawkes, after she had bundled his cage in the Invisibility Cloak by accident.
Bellatrix's eyes flamed as she leered at the Snatchers, strangling and beating and cursing them from her sister's house, each of then racing out more than willingly.
"Cissy," she screamed, "put the boys in the cellar, I want to have a little conversation with these two, girl-to-girl."
With the boys gone, Bellatrix leered at Hermione and Lori, smirking as she pointed her wand as the older girl, "Crucio!"
Agonising screams ripped through the air as she crashed to the polished wood, writhing and kicking as Bellatrix tackled Hermione to the floor, "That sword is meant to be in my vault in Gringott's. How did you get it?"
Her ginger hair flailed out around her, some plastered to her skin with sweat as she shrieked, Hermione crying out beside her.
"What else did you and your friends take from my vault?"
"I didn't take anything..." she sobbed quietly, "please, I didn't take anything..."
Bellatrix seemed to smirk, "I don't believe it." She leant over Hermione's arm, driving her small dagger deep into the flesh of her arm. Now, two sets of screams filled the air.
Lori's bleary eyes fell to the side, to the beaded bag. Thrashing against the floorboards, she tried to inch herself closer to the opening, her fingers itching towards the Phoenix.
"Levicorpus!"
Thrust away from the bag, she span, wailing, in the air. She looked almost like Katie had when she was cursed, except her suffering seemed to know no ends, nor any bounds.
Salty tears stung down her cheeks as she flipped, before dangling upside down, her body hanging loose like a broken doll as even her screams became more muted, as if she had been submerged.
Not even Bellatrix now torturing a goblin called Griphook entered her vision, she felt as if a heavy weight was wrapped around her shoulders, water slowly filling her lungs.
Then, instead of being held down, she was being pulled down, as if one of the Merpeople from the Black Lake had wrapped a scaly hand around her ankle, pulling her up through the high, vaulting ceiling of Malfoy Manor, into the murky depths of their home.
She had only a glimmer of hope: she imagined Cedric dragging her back up towards the surface, their heads breaking the water as they smiled.
Then, she dropped to the floor, almost like Katie had against the much softer snow. Except this time, she now lay still, rather than shaking.
Bellatrix grinned malevolently at Lori, harshly stroking her soaked hair from her cheeks as she bent down, "I recognise you... from the Department of Mysteries."
Still with Hermione's blood clinging to the blade, it swooped in a large arc, before stinging through Lori's own flesh, scratching twelve letters into her arm.
Blood Traitor.
She couldn't even scream, all the fight had drained from her when she had been suspended a few seconds ago.
Then, Ron suddenly leapt up from the cellar stairs, Harry, his face back to normal, stunning Lucius Malfoy against the wall, his wife and son shooting spells at them. Lori was abandoned on the floor as her captor flitted over to her friend.
"Stop!" Bellatrix bellowed, Hermione positioned in front of her, dagger to her throat, "Drop your wands! I said drop them!"
Two faint clatters and she smirked at her nephew, "Pick them up, Draco, now! Well, well, well, look what we have here. It's Harry Potter."
Ron moved to help his sister to her feet, clenching his jaw when Narcissa pointed her wand aggressively at him, urging him back.
"He's all bright and shiny and new again, just in time for the Dark Lord. Call him. Call him."
With great flair, Lucius yanked his sleeve up, slowly moving to press a finger to the Dark Mark emblazoned on his pale skin.
He stopped, however, when everyone looked up to the vast chandelier, a small creaking echoing from it, before it fell, with a great lurch, towards Bellatrix and Hermione.
Ron caught her, Lori latching a hand around the beaded bag as Harry wrestled their wands from Draco. Dobby stood proudly on a railing, his small hand offered to all his friends as Bellatrix's gaze snapped to him.
"Stupid elf!" she bellowed, eyes burning with cold fire, "You could have killed me!"
"Dobby never meant to kill." his high voice replied, "Dobby only meant to maim, or seriously injure."
Narcissa began to screech a curse, before her wand flew to the elf's small hand.
"How dare you take a witch's wand? How dare you defy your masters?"
"Dobby has no master. Dobby is a free elf. And Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!"
Malfoy Manor started to whirl around them, a small blade whipping towards them. With a thankful crack, sand appeared around them, sea gulls chanting in the distance.
"Hermione, Lori!" Harry sighed, "You're all right. We're safe, we're all safe."