The Royal Despise (Completed)

Gringotts

Harry woke up at 3 in the morning, sweat covering his face from his nightmare as he slowly got up and stretched his stiff body. He  turned around to see Ron still passed out, a pain etched on his face. He walked out the tent to see a layer of cold mist covering the woods as Hermione still sat at the spot he'd seen her in, but this time with a book and her wand in her hand. She jerked her head to side as she heard him walk, her wand in front of her before she realised who it was and slowly lowered her hand.
"You were supposed to wake me up" remarked Harry.
Hermione didn't reply, her nose still under the book.

Harry sighed before sitting down besides her,
"Look, you can ignore me and act sad about our situation all you want, but right now we need to kill you-know-who and do something right for once. Ron's hurt, we have no idea if any of our loved ones are alive or what's happening in the Wizarding world but the least we could do is try to save it and you are not saving it alone. We came here because we chose to, no one forced us. So stop thinking like you need to everything alone and let us help for once for Merlin's sake Mione!"
Hermione listened carefully but still kept quiet before sighning and covering her head with her hands.
"It's all just so.... stressful. It's like people expect me to be this huge hero who gonna save everyone but I'm just 18, I know nothing-" Her breath hitched as her voice wavered. Harry said nothing, no consoling or comforting words,no solutions, no pep-talks. He just listened as he held her, and maybe that was enough. The silence, the comfort - that's all she needed.

She slowly raised her head back before taking out the book she was reading. "The tales of beedle the bart" , it read. It was what she'd inherited from Dumbledore's will.
"Do you think...",she began before eyeing Harry, "Do you think what Reeta wrote about him is true? Do you think he did do all that?"
Harry swallowed hard before replying,
"Maybe."
Hermione turned her head back to the book in her hand,
"I found something weird in this."
"What?"
"A symbol. Some sort of a triangular symbol that's all over this book. I.. I think Dumbledore wrote it. But I don't know what it means. I spend hours trying to figure it but I...just can't"
"Where is it?"
Hermione pointed to the symbol on the page, a triangle with a circle inside and a line running through it. It symbolises something, they were sure of it. It wasn't something that was put in the book or doodled just for fun, it held meaning. But what it meant was not known.

"What do you think we should do?"
"Luna. Luna's dad."
"What? Why him?"
"Don't you remember Harry? We've seen this symbol before. When we visited your parent's grave that summer, we found this symbol on one of the graves. And I remember Viktor sating it was Grindelwald's mark? Mr Lovegood had worn the symbol at Bill and Fleur's wedding, he must know."
"I don't know Hermione...Dumbledore told us to destroy the hocruxes, we can't get sidetracked."
"But-"
"Mione, I'm telling you this for your own good. We find the hocruxes, we destroy it."
Hermione sighed, "Fine, whatever. But if Dumbledore gave me this book with this symbol, he must've wanted me...us to figure it out. So maybe it could help find the hocruxes-"
"Isn't that all he does?"
"What?"
"Make us figure it out. Do you have any idea how much easier it would've been for everyone if he'd just told us what to do instead of giving us stupid riddles."
"Well he's dead, Harry. There's nothing we can do about it but do what he told us to."
Harry kept quiet for a moment, before starting,
"You have the polyjuice potion left with you? From the wedding?"
"Yes"
"Good. We'll need it."
"The ministry? We're really going with that plan?"
"There's no other way, we have to get the Hufflepuff cup from there."
"When?"
"As soon as possible, once we've come up with a proper plan that is."

[Time skip]

There they were, in front of Gringotts wearing clothes of two random deatheaters they had to fought of and use the polyjuice potion to turn into them. Ron was still in the forest, protected with charms ofcourse, and both of them were alone.
Harry, who now looked like a much taller and older deatheater named "Albert Runcorn" , turned to Hermione,
"You ready?"
Hermione nodded determined, she too now looked like an older deatheater worked who's name was "Mafalda Hopkirk" apparently.
They walked through the doors, heart beating fast as ministry workers zoomed past, but not the ministry workers they were used to. These ones were mostly deatheaters and pure bloods who  worked for Voldemort either through fear or through genuine support of his ways.

"Blimey they're making us work so much, aren't they?" Said a goblin walking besides them who might've known who their polyjuice forms were to speak to them so unbothered by the fact that they were 'deatheaters' he continued,
"Who do they expect will show up? Hermione Granger?"
Hermione,or rather Mafalda, bit her lip at this. Gringotts was one of the most dangerous place they could be in ,besides the ministry, considering that now it was under Voldemort.
They both smiled as if they actually found the joke funny, trying to hide the panic as they kept walking through the busy crowd.
The other goblins seemed to be far more scared of them than the first one they'd met, all of the keeping their heads down as they tried to go on with their work.
"H-how can I help you today, Mafalda?" Said one of the Goblins.
Hermione put on a confident, self-assured front as she said in the most commanding way possible,
"Yes, I'm here through the business of you-know-who. I'd like to get into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault."
"I-I'm sorry ma'am, I can't do that unless she is actually here. Besides, You-know-who had specifically asked to not open the vault."
"Well we had a change of plans."
"Still-"
"You wouldn't want the dark lord and his followers to kill you for not obeying direct orders, do you?" She said menacingly
"Well I- of course not, ma'am but-"
"Then what are you waiting for?!" she shouted, making all the people in the room stop and stare. Harry raised an eyebrow at this, Hermione might be scary but not evil. She was really good at acting evil though.
"I- yes ma'am" said the Goblin as he ran to get the keys.

"Nice acting" whispered Harry as they walked through the sets of vaults on either sides.
"Thanks" she replied, sparing a smile before going back to the monotone expression.
"Here it is" the Goblin said as he stood in front of the vault and handed her th keys.
"Leave." She ordered as the Goblin scramed back to his post as fast as his tiny legs could take him.
Once he was out of sight, Hermione inserted the key inside the hole and gave it a twist as the vault opened with a click.
Inside stood the countless amounts of fortune Bellatrix Lestrange had, which at this point was not even surprising. But what they desired the most stood right at the middle, the Hufflepuff cup.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, before one of them walked up to it and carefully took it from its place. For a few moments, nothing happened and it almost seemed as if they'd succeeded, but the next thing they knew thousands of gold started spraying out of the box, covering the vault with gold and making it hard to move.

Hermione gasped as she tried to hold on while simultaneously trying to find where Harry and the cup is. She grabbed on to the gold trying to make her way up as the vault filled with more and more gold, slipping on countless ocassions and getting Merlin knows how many small injuries. Suddenly someone grabbed on to her hand as they pulled her out of the mess, Harry. The cup was still intact in his hands, he didn't let it go even once as he pulled Hermione up. They both clung to different objects to keep balance while trying not to get separated from eachother as Hermione yelled,
"What do we do now?!"
"Apparate!", He screamed back as he took out his wand ,and before Hermione could protest, apparated out of the place back to the forest.

Pain. That was all she could feel.

One moment it was fine, all she could see was the looming black shadows that come when you apparate, but the next thing she knew a twist of pain struck up her ankle as she tried to scream but couldn't. It was like a thousand knives were stabbing her in the legs as she tried to break free but all she could do was wait until they reach the forest. Apparating to the forest wouldn've only taken a few seconds, but it felt like hours to her as she wreathed in pain after getting splinched. She expected it of course, anyone who apparates illegally gets splinched. Lucky for her and Ron that their splinching wasn't as severe as other cases, but it still was bad enough for them to not be able to travel.

She cried out in agony as she lay in the leaves, blood oozing from her legs as she looked up to the sky. Harry was saying something but the pain was so intense she didn't have it in her to listen to what he was saying as she looked up into the blue sky. There were no clouds, just a layer of blue filled with the canopy of trees. What a beautiful sight to see if she hadn't been in such pain. But then again, isn't it through pain that we learn to appreciate the beautiful in the simplest of things?.

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Guess who's late to publish again? Yeah, you don't really have to guess cause you already know the answer.