Marauder's Daughter (Eventual Tom Riddle X OC)

Chapter 59: Preparing

I was walking down the halls with Fred and George one day about a month into school and spotted Ron and Hermione sitting at our table in the Great Hall, but no Harry with them, which was rare. They both had worried looks on their faces too, which put me on edge right away, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand up.

"Abby?" George asks me curiously once he spots my expression. "All good?"

"Something's wrong." I observe. "I'll be back later." I spin around and leave immediately, gut instinct telling me to hurry. 

I happen to have Harry's cloak in my bag since I was doing a prank last night, so I used my locator spell on it to find him, then followed his freshest trail of footprints quickly down to the dungeons. I hear sounds of a fight and speed up and burst into a classroom and find Crabbe and Goyle ganging up on Harry in a fight. I was happy at least to see he was holding his own, especially since the two giant boys aren't using their wands and are manhandling him. He's effectively using their height and weight against them, but there's still two against one.

"Maneuver Beta." I call out to Harry, and he whips his head around at my entrance before he ducks under an attack.

"Got it!" Harry calls back in confirmation, and I swoop into the fight. 

I take one of them, Goyle I think, and Harry squares off to Crabbe. We've worked out a few different partner fighting maneuvers, but we've never gotten to use them in a real fight and it's far from seamless. Harry isn't a natural fighter like my brothers were in the last two lives, but he's proficient enough that we manage to take down the two boys quickly enough. I take out my wand at the end and wrap bindings around them once there are both in submission.

"Why did you attack Harry?" I growl out dangerously to the two struggling boys. I have a fairly decent idea on why, but I want to make sure.

"Potter killed our fathers. We're going to gut him." Crabbe grits out angrily. I feel guilty as I look over and spot the couple of bruises growing on Harry's face and arms from hits he received before I arrived. I know that my actions caused him to be injured right now.

"Voldemort killed your Death Eater fathers." I counter back darkly. "And if you come near him again, I will personally make sure you follow your fathers to an early grave. Stay away from him." I threaten them, my wand tightening the bindings around them in a painful constriction.

"You can't guard him forever." Goyle threatens back.

"I don't need to." I reply coolly, and smirk at Harry who tries to return it confidently, but I can tell he's confused. "He doesn't need to hold back next time." I give my godbrother a knowing look, and he seems to get it.

"I didn't want to waste my power on you. I didn't even start to use magic against you yet, seemed cruel to humiliate you both so much." Harry adds on confidently, catching on to what I'm doing. He takes out his own wand and shoots sparks dangerously close to their faces. "Come on Abby, let's leave these sods here for the ghosts to find."

"Muffliato." I cast the silencing charm on the door, a charm I was happy to see in the Potions Master's book. "There, now no one can hear you scream. Have a nice few days in here." I smirk at them as Harry and I leave the room, the boys stuck in the bindings. We walk a good distance away before I guiltily turn to the boy. "Harry, I'm so sorry. That's my fault you're injured right now."

"It's nothing, you got there right at the beginning of the fight. I might have been able to take them." He says with a small amount of confidence. "That was my first fight that wasn't with Dudley." He adds on quietly.

"It might not be your last." I say glumly. "I didn't know who I was targeting there that night, I'm sorry. Promise me you won't wander without someone for the time being. And we'll work on multi-enemy fighting now too." I promise him. "Come here, let me heal those up." I use my wand and heal the bruising on his skin.