InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Theres no such thing as enough"

Hermione Granger (cerebralwitch) wrote in wished,
@ 2010-02-23 20:50:00

Entry tags:

!1998: 02, !incomplete, !plot, harry potter, hermione granger, luna lovegood, ron weasley

Who: The Trio and Luna
What: Meeting in Captivity
Where: Grimmauld Basement Dungeon
When: Backdated: After the Trio violated Taboo and was captured.
Rating/Warning: TBA

The battle had been over quickly, too quickly. Hermione hated that she'd lost her wand, wasn't sure at all what she'd do, but she wasn't thinking clearly through how much the hexed had hurt. They'd been overmanned. It was a blur, now, thinking to what had happened. How had they found them? Taboo - the word kept turning over and over in her mind. They'd been stupid, forgetting.

Stupid. That was the word that she kept coming back to as they were unceremoniously dragged into Grimmauld. She'd taken comfort in this home before - to see it taken over by Death Eaters turned her stomach. What would Sirius say? And she was scared. They wouldn't kill Harry, and she knew that really was what mattered - they'd leave him for Voldemort, and he'd survive. It was what he did. But she and Ron, they were in real trouble if they couldn't find a way out of here.

There were dumped down the stairway into the basement of Grimmauld place, and it took Hermione's eyes a minute to adjust to the darkness. When they did, they went wide. "Luna?" She asked it, too loud, before she'd thought better of it.

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lalalune
2010-02-24 03:10 am UTC (link)

Visitors were rarely a good things in this place. At Argus', he'd been the only visitor and she'd looked forward to when he'd come. Here, though, visitors varied, and with rare exception, meant they were here to taunt her. Or worse.

This time, though, her visitors were tossed down the steps, and landed in an unceremonious heap at the bottom of the stairs. Well, that had happened once before, though her goblin companion was mostly staying hidden. She'd tried to introduce him to Barnabas, but somehow that hadn't helped things. She stayed where she was, letting them sort themselves out, trying to identify them. While her eyes were used to the dark, she didn't dare think... It couldn't be...

Till she was greeted. A smile spread across her face, and she got to her feet, moving to help sort them out after all. "Hermione! Ron, Harry! I'm terribly glad to see you." She thought about this for a moment, then pursed her lips in a slight frown. "Well, no, actually I'm not, because you're here. What on earth happened?"

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sonofastag
2010-02-24 03:34 am UTC (link)

Harry pushed cracked glasses up onto his nose, squinting in the dim light and rubbing at his head, a little dazed. They hadn't exactly been tossed gently here.

He'd worked out how they were found, and had been kicking himself since, Harry's habitual mouthing off when faced with danger had eventually died off into sullen guilty silence.

He pushed himself to his feet too, looking over as Hermione spoke, cut off before he could ask if they were all right. "Luna?" It made sense she was there, he supposed. Why keep prisoners separate? He was glad to see her, but not - for the same reasons she wasn't strictly happy to see them. "I was an idiot and broke the taboo. Are you all right? We've been trying to look for you. . ." But hadn't found much of use.

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geroffme
2010-02-24 03:46 am UTC (link)

Ron took a moment to make sure he hadn't broken anything too serious on the way down - not that bones seemed very high on the list of things to worry about, just now. His hands were positively itching for his wand, and then there was the little matter of being surrounded by Death Eaters. It was taking the better part of his focus not to panic. They had Harry - and to think of what these people might do to Hermione -

He stepped up behind her, meaning to check her over; but when he realized they weren't alone, he looked over her shoulder, straining to see in the dim.

"Even stopped by your house. Nice room you've got," he said a little weakly, running his hand along the wall. "- They've been keeping you in this rat hole the whole time?" How long were they going to be stuck here?

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cerebralwitch
2010-02-24 03:50 am UTC (link)

Hermione was almost glad to think that she wouldn't be caught here as long as Luna. They'd have plans for them... it would just depend on how long it took Voldemort to come for Harry. Or for the others to realize that she and Ron were expendable.

She found herself hugging Luna, though. It was uncharacteristic, maybe, but just seeing that the other girl was alright... they'd started to think the worst, after they couldn't find any clues about where she'd been taken. "Luna!" She said again, then stepped back from her. "Are you alright?"

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lalalune
2010-02-24 03:57 am UTC (link)

Luna blinked, but returned the hug, if a little gingerly. Not that she didn't appreciate the emotion, but she had been in a dungeon for... Merlin how long was it now? Six weeks? She'd gotten Argus to bring her some more water to wash in, but the Death Eaters here weren't quite as kind, and she knew she was a bit of a mess.

"Oh no, I haven't been here all along," she told them. "Argus was holding me for a while, but then he had to move me, so I came here a few days ago. It hasn't been so bad; Argus really just didn't know what to do with me. It's a bit worse here, though," she admitted, casting a glance upwards, as though the Death Eaters might hear her and come punish her for her statement.

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sonofastag
2010-02-24 04:10 am UTC (link)

Harry stepped in closer to the girls, though he didn't try to hug. He had his hands clenched at his sides, flexing them closed and open again, stretching out a wrist that had gotten jammed on the way down.

He frowned, staring at Luna. "Argus? What the hell does Filch have to do with any of this?" He used to work with Snape, sure, but he was a squib. Pro-Pureblood nutters weren't going to want to have anything to do with him.

"Nice room she HAD," Harry corrected Ron, giving him a once over and then sighing, running his good hand through his hair. "Your umm. . . house got the worst of things when we were there. Sorry. I'm really glad you're all right. . . mostly. We were starting to think. . ." he trailed off, leaving it unsaid.

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geroffme
2010-02-24 04:24 am UTC (link)

Ron looked down to the floor, pushing his hands awkwardly into his pockets. "Right," he muttered. It probably wasn't the best time to bring that up. He patted around in his coat for the Deluminator - it would be nice to have a little light, if it hadn't fallen away from him somewhere between here and Godric's Hollow. "Sorry about that," he echoed, heading over to search the floor around the stairway where they'd been shoved in. He thought it sounded more than a little lame, but his mind was racing. Finally he sat on the stair, and looked up to where Luna and Hermione were standing. He didn't want to think about how they'd been starting to think that maybe Luna hadn't made it, because the possibility was still far too real.

"It is good to see you. But I don't think we're going to have days to figure a way out of here." Every little sound from the floor above might have been someone coming to collect them, and it was putting him past on edge.

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cerebralwitch
2010-02-24 04:27 am UTC (link)

"No," Hermione said, and she looked back to Ron, wondering what he was thinking. "They'll come for Harry sooner than that." Or at least she assumed they would - Voldemort would want him as soon as he knew he was here. What that meant for the rest of them, she was trying not to think about.

"There isn't a way out," Said a nasally voice from the shadows that made Hermione jump a bit, and then she grit her teeth, hating herself from it, and turned toward the sound.

The goblin who was standing there, barely visible, she was sure hadn't been there a moment ago. Or he'd been hiding.

"If there were, I would have found it already," he went on.

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lalalune
2010-02-25 04:07 am UTC (link)

"No, no, Argus Pyrite," Luna corrected Harry, shaking her head. "He owns a restaurant. He was the one who captured and imprisoned me." There was so much going on, it was hard to keep track of who said what... particularly when the only being she'd had to talk to that wasn't a jailer had been a mouse for several weeks. And in the past few days Griphook, but Barnabas was a better listener.

Speaking of which... "Hello, Griphook," she greeted him cheerfully. "These are my friends, Hermione, Harry, and Ron."

Her brain caught up with something Harry had said at that moment, and she turned to look at him, her eyes widening in alarm. "Did you say... My house? What about... Is Daddy all right?" Ignoring what was probably the more important issue of getting out, at least to the others, Luna stepped forward, wringing her hands together. "Did anything happen to Daddy?"

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sonofastag
2010-02-25 04:45 am UTC (link)

Harry frowned. He knew the name, but not well.

Any questions he'd been about to ask were undercut by the new, nasally voice speaking up. Harry whirled to face the goblin squarely, squinting into the darker corner and reaching for a wand he didn't actually bloody have.

Sodding Death Eaters. Harry felt naked without a wand after all the time he and Hermione had felt on edge, grabbing for wands at any little noise.

"Griphook? Why is there a goblin tossed down here?" Harry asked. He frowned though, thinking of the articles they'd seen in strewn papers about the bank, and what had gone on. "Is this about the pureblood accounts?"

Harry looked uncomfortable at Luna's question. "We think so," he answered awkwardly and apologetic. "But we're not really sure."

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geroffme
2010-02-25 05:01 am UTC (link)

Ron shot to his feet, and reached down to his pocket for his wand, only to come up empty. He took a few steps forward, trying again, and without much success, to see into the darker corners of the room. What the hell else was down here that they didn't know about? A goblin was bad enough - mean buggers, most of them - but the worst was that he couldn't even properly see the walls, not really. "And is - Griphook one of your friends, too?" He thought Luna might have introduced him just as casually to a very large animal about to trample him. "How long have you been looking?" he asked the goblin, sure he was probably right, but unwilling to give up hope without pressing.

"- He was alright when we last saw him," Ron added, sorry he had brought it up at all. Because that really didn't mean much, considering how they'd parted ways.

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cerebralwitch
2010-02-25 05:06 am UTC (link)

Hermione had taken the time to look at one of the articles, though. Purebloods not able to access their money, havoc at Gringott's... and what Fred and George had said about the queue. If this was the goblin that was responsible...

"A diversion," Griphook barked, but he moved into the light, his eyes on Harry and no one else. "Harry Potter." He said the name in a disbelieving hiss, as if he couldn't quite believe it, even if it was hard to deny. "Trapped here with the vermin, now?"

Hermione didn't quite like the idea of vermin, especially if he was referring to her or Ron, or to Luna... "A diversion?" She asked, watching him and also not liking the way he fixated on Harry. "For what?"

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lalalune
2010-03-02 04:09 am UTC (link)

Luna relaxed a little, but was still worried. Her father had been all right last time they'd seen him... But their home was gone. Which meant everything her father had worked for was gone, too. Oh dear.

Luna made a face at Griphook. "Don't complain about Barnabas again, Griphook." At his name, the mouse scrambled out of his hiding spot, looking around for Luna. She reached down and let him climb into her hand before straightening again. "There are other mice here, anyway." Whether he was talking about her pet mouse, the other mice, or something else entirely was another issue, one Luna was going to pretend didn't exist.

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sonofastag
2010-03-02 01:55 pm UTC (link)

Harry glared at the goblin, scowling, fingers twitching, though he had no wand to grab. "Stuck down here with you, yeah. So seems the same difference," he answered.

He grimaced though, realizing at least that he was being too aggressive - even if he was being a prat. Luna's calm comment drew Harry's eyes back to her and he smiled a little despite himself. Leave it to Luna to make friends with the MICE. Probably all carrying the plague or something.

He looked back at Griphook, who was staring at him like the others weren't even there. It was disconcerting. "What were they diverting from?" Harry was pretty sure that HIM being nabbed wasn't a diversion - it was a bit more important than that. Even if he'd rather it hadn't been. And Luna hadn't been diverting from anything - she'd been leverage for her father. Which left the goblin. "The bank bit was a diversion from you? Or for you?"

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geroffme
2010-03-03 01:51 am UTC (link)

"Either way," Ron said to the goblin, whom he really didn't think he liked very much. "Looks like you pissed them off pretty good, too - tossed down with the vermin, and all." But that could mean pretty much anything; it wasn't like this lot really cared for goblins generally, or anything that didn't carry a wand And he doubted it mattered very much, at least not right now. He couldn't imagine they'd learn anything worth knowing in the short term, and it sounded like they'd probably get groused at in the meantime. He really wasn't in the mood.

He inched just a little further away from Luna. He didn't feel like being introduced to her new friend, either. Rodents that answered to their names were nothing but trouble.

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cerebralwitch
2010-03-03 02:17 am UTC (link)

Griphook only seemed to snort, expression not changing - not that it ever much did. "I thought there would be more time," He said, finally and cryptically. "I only needed an hour more, perhaps two without the key."

Hermione was momentarily distracted by the mouse, but at that her attention quickly went back to Griphook as she figured it out. "Without the key to someone's vault." She said, and she'd read that only pureblood's had been affected. "One of the elite families, like the Malfoy's or the Black's? What's there?"

"I don't know," Griphook answered, broad and thick shoulders barely moving in a shrug. "But I would have found out. Something He wants, I can tell you that. Something He wants protected."

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