Shadow Walks |h.p/h.g|

ch. 18

Hermione reappeared from around the corner, her arms piled full of various and sundry paraphernalia that Harry could not hope to identify. Her eyes appeared too-large in her thin, anxious face, and Harry said,

"Here, let me," and held his arms out. There was no need to speak, no time for even the barest of conversations, but they were working together seamlessly, as if this colossal miscalculation had been planned out in advance.

She had begun shucking off the knapsack the instant her arms were empty, flipping open the flap and casting Shrinking charms on everything Harry was carrying. The door rattled again, and a twisting vertical crack began to meander its way down the length of the heavy wood.

Harry cast a Cushioning charm, and Hermione turned around, as he closed the bag, and helped her put in on her shoulders, even as they began to move toward the back of the room, toward the grate - and escape.

A spell flashed through the ever-widening chink in the door, that Harry only saw in his peripheral vision as it flew past him, narrowly missing his ear, and hit Hermione in the shoulder.

"Hermione!" His cry blended with her own, and she staggered, but did not go down, turning and lunging unevenly toward him, her fingers biting into the fabric of his sleeves.

"I'm - I'm...all right," she said, though her pallor and unfocused eyes suggested otherwise.

"You're bleeding," he pointed out, and she looked down to where a patch of brilliant red began to bloom on the light material of her cotton shirt.

"Cutting curse," she said, wincing as she shifted her shoulder experimentally. "Hurts, but I'll be okay. They're trying to stop us, not kill us."

Harry deftly removed the knapsack straps from her shoulder, as gently as he knew how, and proceeded to load it onto his own shoulders.

"Get up in the vent," he ordered, and she did not argue with him, which he thought was a rather refreshing change. She Levitated herself upward, landing neatly within the confines of the duct, even as the door finally surrendered to the bombardment it had been withstanding.

"Harry!" She called hoarsely, and saw him jerk his head in the direction of the cracking wood, alarm widening his eyes.

"Go!" He called out, without looking at her. He raised his wand.

"Not without you!" She hollered back.

His reductor curse crashed impressively into the nearest shelving unit, causing it to explode in a generous spray of paper shreds, wood splinters and glass shards, as it toppled into the adjacent unit, creating a domino effect. The war cries of Malfoy's minions quickly changed to shouts of anger and dismay.

"Accio grate," Harry said, and caught the flat metal panel in one hand, as it surged toward him. He knew he had only bought himself and Hermione time, and he quickly soared upward, landing inside the vent, as Hermione scrambled out of his way. He replaced the covering, adding several layers of complicated Sticking charms as an extra measure of precaution.

"I thought I told you to go," he growled at Hermione, mostly serious. She glowered at him, even though she was visibly favoring her injured shoulder.

"I thought you'd understand by now that we're in this together," she said defiantly.

"Let me see your shoulder."

"It can wait," she insisted, though her left arm was all but useless at her side. "Let's get out of here first." Harry wanted to argue, but subsided, still able to hear the Death Eaters as they struggled to free themselves from the wreckage of the room.