Forever Knight [Harmione]

Chapter 23: Betrayed

Harry apparated back to his room after flooing everyone and admitting them to Grimmauld Place.  Taking a deep, calming breath, he threw open his armoire.  Systematically, he slipped on the necessary holsters, potion packs and materials he would need.  Without giving it much thought, he slipped on his sword.  There was no telling if it would come in handy.    

He and Hermione had decided that they would put off spreading the word about Lucien until they were sure he had left the perimeter of their reach.  Harry knew he was risking much assuming that their small on-call group could find him, but Hermione begged to keep the search confined to his group for now.

“Less chance of miscommunication.  Less chance that they’d try to kill him at first sight…  you don’t want to lose people unnecessarily, Harry.” 

He and the aurors only ever hunted down one vampire before, and while they had been successful in tracking it, catching it had been a murderous failure. They had lost three men to the hunt, and that vampire was nowhere near Coven caliber. 

Harry shuddered at the thought of someone like Lucien, relatively old and competently trained, running scared, or worse, running guilty. 

Properly armed with a coat to protect him from the cold, Harry rushed out of his room and bounded down the stairs to the living room. 

Hermione stood amongst a solemn group.  Remus, Tonks, Ron, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, George, Ginny, Dean, Seamus, Luna and Solomon.  Sitting off to the side was Draco, watching it all with a bored expression. 

Luna looked as spacey as ever, though she was steadily staring at Hermione, and Fleur was scowling, perhaps put off by the fact that there was someone else more interesting than her in the room.

Hermione turned at the sound of his heavy footfalls.  “We’re ready, Harry.”

Harry nodded, approaching her.  “Good.  The sooner we could start the search, the better.”

“What exactly is he running away from?” asked Ron who had apparated all the way from Romania in a hurry, with Charlie. 

Hermione shot Harry a pleading look.  She didn’t want him to tell them; not yet, at least. 

“I’ll explain later,” Harry said.  “First, we get him back, so listen up…” He gave a brief but concise exposition of Lucien, telling them in no uncertain terms what Lucien was capable of.

“Humph,” said Draco from outside their circle.  “Knew he was up to no good first time I laid eyes on him.”

Harry could see Hermione tensing at Draco’s words. 

Waving his wand, Harry cast a detention charm on Draco’s anklet, preventing him from leaving Grimmauld Place by any magical and non-magical means.  Draco’s other restrictions would apply as well except this time, Draco would not have his wand.  It flew out of Draco’s sleeve and straight into Harry’s hand. 

Draco complained, swearing viciously as Harry pocketed the wand. 

“You will let me know immediately if he happens to come back to the house, understand?” Harry said. 

“You can kiss my arse, Potter!” Draco hissed.  “How dare you take my wand!  I’ve done nothing in the last five years to deserve this kind of treatment and—“ 

Harry shot a pocket two-way mirror at Draco.  Many of the Order members were issued two-way mirrors and it was understood that one must exercise extreme caution when using it.  The mirror provided no magical means of security.  It could easily be a tool of deception if one of it got into the wrong hands, and the best they could do was issue passwords to communicate from one mirror to another.  Top-secret information was never communicated by mirror and there was a level of importance that one had to adhere to in order for a mirror-borne message to be acknowledged.  Overall, the two-way mirrors were only used for fast-paced communication, like on missions and raids.