Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 46: XLVI

February 23rd, 1999

If she knows anything about war, it's the way it peels back skin. Exposes nerve endings. Those months she spent running, fighting - they've had a measured affect on her instincts. She's seen it, taking her reaction time from ten, maybe fifteen seconds to nearly zero. Which is why she should've already drawn her wand.

But she forgets that Pansy has seen war too.

And in that millisecond it takes Hermione to assess the situation, Pansy pins the guard to the bars behind him, dark rowan of her wand jabbing into the fleshy wrinkles of his throat.

"Where is he?" she hisses, voice like a knife's edge.

Hermione doesn't move to stop her. Not yet.

The bars are still rattling from the impact, and the guard's beady eyes have popped wide. But an uneasy, nervous smile splits his face as his eyes shift between Pansy's. "You think you can threaten me, girly? I know all about you. I know you're not allowed to use that wand."

Pansy digs the wand so deeply into his throat, it looks like a new eye socket, and his gagging noise is loud - foul.

"I will bleed and gut you right here, you filthy Squib. Try me."

Still, Hermione has no thoughts of intervening. It's only when the guard gives a wheezing chuckle and Pansy rears back, all manner of curses on her lips, that she steps forward and stays her hand.

"Don't. Don't. We may need him."

"Granger - " she growls, furious gaze still trained on the guard, but Hermione speaks quickly.

"Let me. I can - I know what to do, let me."

Pansy's look of doubt is vastly overshadowed by the stark fear in her eyes. It's a look that says she doesn't have time to second guess. Doesn't have time to revert back to old ways, old prejudices. Gryffindor this or Gryffindor that. And when she steps away from the guard, leaving him spluttering, Hermione feels that she's trusting her not to be gentle.

She won't be.

"Legilimens," she snaps the moment her wand is out, and the dizzying rush of being pulled into memory reminds her how long it's been since she practiced.

The world passes by in faded wisps of grey for long, drowsy moments as the magic settles, faint figures racing across her vision until time slows around the moment in question. The one she's searching for.

The guard is still at his post, only in different clothes - and he's not alone. Hermione grows tight and tense at the sight of Dawlish in his Auror robes, hunched as he passes a folded scrap of parchment to the guard.

"Tonight," he says, voice an echo. "You know where to leave him. When the trial suspension expires, you'll alert the Wizengamot that the Nott boy has escaped."

The guard strokes his dirty chin. "I'm supposed to send reports of prisoner status upstairs every morning. You would be asking me to lie on official forms-"

"For which you will be compensated," grunts Dawlish.

The pause that follows is excruciating. The guard's lip curls slowly into a grin. "Say I do, then. What about the girl?"

Dawlish's hooded eyes narrow a fraction, the way they did when he met her gaze during the trials. "What about her?"

"Well, what if she comes poking about? Barely gone a day without having to open one cell or another for that bint." The guard picks his teeth. "What do I do with her?"

Dawlish seems to consider it for a moment. Then, "Tell her the truth."

Not seconds later, Dawlish is turning on his heel, and her spell collapses on itself. Those grey wisps fly past and force her back into her own form. She stumbles forward, dizzy, not realizing at first that it's Pansy's hand that steadies her.