Rewrite: Kind but Scary

Chapter 9: The Reckoning in the Stone Hall

Chapter 9: The Reckoning in the Stone Hall

The tension in the grand hall snapped like a dry twig.

"Intruders!" the scarred wizard shrieked, scrambling backward and wildly waving his wand. "Bombarda!"

The explosive spell erupted from his wand tip, but Hermione was already moving. With a swift slash of her arm, she intercepted the blast mid-air. "Aresto Momentum!" The destructive energy slowed to a crawl before dissolving into harmless, smoking sparks against her raised shield.

"Ron, take the left! Hermione, the right!" Jasmine commanded, her eyes locked entirely on the terrified scarred wizard.

The three rogue vampires lunged forward with terrifying, inhuman speed, their fangs bared and red eyes burning with feral hunger. But they had never fought coordinated, war-hardened magic users before.

The first vampire leaped toward Ron, who didn't even flinch. "Impedimenta!" Ron bellowed, hitting the creature squarely in the chest with a powerful jinx. The vampire's blistering speed froze, leaving it suspended in slow motion. Before it could recover, Ron whipped his wand in a sharp circle. "Glacius!" A blast of freezing blue light encased the vampire in solid, unyielding ice, crashing it heavily to the stone floor.

To the right, the remaining two vampires coordinated their strike on Hermione, attempting to flank her. Hermione merely smirked. She pirouetted gracefully, her wand tracing a complex pattern in the air. "Aguamenti! Glacius Triplex!" A massive torrent of water erupted from her wand, instantly freezing into a jagged, impenetrable wall of thick ice spikes that impaled the second vampire's stone-like limbs, pinning him securely to the wall.

The third vampire managed to bypass the ice wall, leaping directly toward Hermione from above.

"Incarcarous!" Draco's voice echoed from the doorway. He and Severus had just entered, having successfully held the wards until the final seconds. Thick, conjured steel-rope cords wrapped tightly around the mid-air vampire, slamming him hard against the stone pillar where he lay thrashing, completely immobilized.

"You're late, Malfoy," Ron teased, keeping his wand trained on his frozen target.

"We timed it to the second, Weasley," Draco retorted, though his eyes were alert as he scanned the room.

With the physical threats neutralised in a matter of seconds, all eyes turned to the far end of the hall. The scarred wizard was trembling violently, his back pressed flat against the damp stone wall. He held the cracked pocket watch in his hand, trying desperately to funnel magic into it to activate a escape portal, but the ambient magic-dampening mist still clinging to the room made his efforts useless.

Jasmine walked slowly toward him, her boots clicking softly against the stone. The neon-green highlights in her raven hair seemed to glow in the dim light, and her emerald eyes burned with an ancient, dangerous power.

"I believe you have something that belongs to us," Jasmine said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper as she pointed her wand directly at his chest.

"P-please," the wizard stammered, his knuckles turning white as he clutched the useless portkey. "I was only following orders! We were paid... paid a fortune by a French coven to eliminate the Volturi guards! They wanted to weaken Italy's hold!"

"Who paid you?" Severus demanded, his dark cloak billowing behind him as he stepped up beside Jasmine, his black eyes boring into the man's mind.

"I don't know their names! I swear!" the man cried, tears of terror finally spilling down his face. "They communicated only through enchanted mirrors! They gave us the portkey to intercept the guards in the transit corridors! Please, let me go!"

Jasmine stared at him, her aura sight active. The pale, frantic energy swirling around the man confirmed he was telling the truth—he was merely a desperate mercenary, a small cog in a much larger, darker machine.

With a swift flick of her wand, the cracked pocket watch flew from his grip and landed safely in Jasmine's hand.

"Expelliarmus. Petrificus Totalus," Jasmine cast cleanly. The wizard's own wand flew into her hand, and his body instantly went stiff as board, crashing face-first onto the floor, completely paralyzed.

"What do we do with them, Jas?" Ron asked, looking around the ruined hall at the frozen, pinned, and petrified enemies.

"We promised Demetri we would leave the leader alive," Jasmine said, looking down at the petrified wizard. She tapped her chin thoughtfully before turning to Hermione. "Mione, do you have any more of those specialized anti-magic binding cuffs?"

"Always," Hermione smiled, pulling a set of heavy, rune-carved silver cuffs from her bag and securing them tightly around the wizard's wrists. The runes flared purple, completely sealing his magical core.

"Good," Jasmine said, turning back toward the entrance of the keep. "Let's bundle them up. We have a delivery to make to our guests in Forks."

With the scarred wizard securely bound in Hermione's rune-carved anti-magic cuffs, the tension in the grand, damp hall finally began to dissipate. The stone-like bodies of the immobilized rogue vampires lay silent, trapped under layers of magical ice and conjured steel cords.

"We need to move quickly," Severus warned, his dark eyes scanning the high, arched windows where the pale Balkan sun was beginning to pierce through the mountain mist. "The magical disturbances we've caused will not go unnoticed by the local ministry forever, regardless of how remote this fortress is."

"He's right," Hermione agreed, shrinking the heavy, frozen statues of the rogue vampires with a few precise flicks of her wand so they could be easily carried. She slipped the miniature ice-blocks into a secure, velvet-lined pouch. "Let's grab our target and get back to Washington."

Jasmine walked over to the petrified, rigid form of the scarred wizard. With a casual wave of her hand, she levitated him off the cold stone floor, keeping him suspended in the air beside her like a bizarre piece of luggage. Her green eyes caught the light of the morning, resolute and calm.

"Everyone grab a shoulder," Jasmine instructed, holding out a sleek, brass-handled rope she had prepared as a return Portkey.

Ron, Hermione, Draco, Severus, and the twins stepped forward, each placing a firm hand on the Portkey. With one final look at the ruined, drafty grand hall of the Balkan fortress, Jasmine activated the magic.

The familiar, violent tug behind their navels took hold, spinning them away from the jagged, snowy peaks of Europe and pulling them back across the vast, blue Atlantic toward the quiet, rain-kissed forests of Forks.