The Boy Who Fought: OC X Hermione

Borgin and Burkes

The quartet trail Draco and Narcissa, who navigate these dark streets with ease. Hermione, lagging a bit, glances up at the darkening sky. When she looks back, she sees Ron and Harry far ahead. They turn a shadowy corner, vanish.

Harry, Carson, and Ron, duck inside a shop front. At the end of the alley, a single shop glimmers dully. Borgin & Burkes. Narcissa and Draco enter, greet an old man. He points to an area in the shop and Draco walks to a destroyed cabinet. He runs his fingers over its glassy surface while Narcissa speaks and Draco turns, finding Borgin holding the curtain to the back room aside. Draco hesitates, then follows his mother through.

"What are they playing at?" Ron asks, as Harry shrugs.

"Dunno. Let's get closer."

"Wait. Where's Hermione?" Carson asks, immediately growing worried that she had been kidnapped or killed.

Hermione moves through the shadows, alone, peering down side streets, each darker than the next, lost, but holding it together, hoping to find Carson, when... a shadow flickers overhead. She looks up, sees a shadow leap from one roof to another. She stands perfectly still, then... hears voices.

Carson, Harry, and Ron race down the streets, looking for Hermione.

"Harry where is she?!" Carson muttered, trying not to scream and give themselves away.

"I don't know! I'm turned around."

Hermione creeps to the end of a narrow passage, toward the voices, and finds herself... behind Borgin & Burkes. Figures encircle an old cauldron, among them Greyback, Bellatrix, Narcissa, and in the very center... Draco.

Hermione squints against the brilliance of the fire, the figures twisting. Draco extends his left arm... when a shadow falls over Hermione, fingers find her arm. She wheels around, terrified that she had gotten caught.

"Hermione! Thank god! I thought I lost you!" Carson whispered, both of them relieved to see each other.

"Sorry for worrying you love."

Just then, the cauldron explodes with light. Instantly, the group, including Draco, disperses and goes their separate ways.

"What just happened?" Harry asked, bewildered.

"I don't know..."

The next few days went by, and finally it was time to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The quartet had boarded the Hogwarts express, leaving for their sixth year. As the four had sat down in a compartment, they heard Luna trying to hand out copies of the quibbler.

"Quibbler...? Quibbler...?"

Luna moves down the aisle wearing a pair of red and blue cardboard glasses, identical to the ones modeled by a witch on the cover of the current issue of The Quibbler, a stack of which Luna clutches to her chest.

"There's an article on Wrackspurts this month. Quibbler...?"

The loitering students ignore her, including Dean Thomas, currently whispering to Ginny, who smiles mildly, more interested in the purple pygmy puff perched on her shoulder.

"He's lovely. They've been known to sing on Boxing Day, you know. Quibbler?"

"Please. What's a Wrackspurt?" Ginny asked, taking a copy of the magazine.

"They're invisible creatures that float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy." Luna states dreamily, as she keeps moving and offering quibblers.

Harry, Ron, Carson, and Hermione sit together. Hermione has a book entitled Advance Rune Translation open on her lap, while Ron lets Harry's invisibility cloak play through his fingers. Carson is sitting next to Hermione, asleep with his head on her shoulder.

"Don't you see, it was a ceremony. An initiation."

"Stop, Harry, I know where you're going with this..."

"It's happened. He's one of them."

"One of what?"

"Harry is under the impression that Draco Malfoy is now a Death Eater."

"You're barking. What would You-Know-Who want with a sod like Malfoy?"

"So what's he doing in Borgin and Burke's? Browsing for furniture?"

"It's a creepy shop. He's a creepy bloke."

"Look. His father's a Death Eater. It only makes sense. Besides, Hermione saw it. With her own eyes."

"I told you. I don't know what I saw."

Harry abruptly leaves the compartment, taking his invisibility cloak, and slamming the compartment door shut, waking up Carson.

"Hm...Are we there already?"