Chapter Three - Shelter

When she'd Apparated away, dragging Neville along with her, she hadn't been focused on any one particular destination. The only clear thought in her head was, 'Need to get somewhere safe, somewhere that's not here!' She was more than a little surprised to find herself in another alley seconds later, not that far from the first, and even more shocked when she realised that both of them had arrived completely intact.

Leaning over Neville and checking to make sure he was still breathing...he was, but barely...she didn't hear the footsteps behind her, and had no idea that they weren't alone until a voice nearly made her jump out of her skin.

"Is he dead?"

It sounded like a child, Hermione thought, but she couldn't be sure. Still, she wasn't about to turn her wand on a kid if she could help it, and the thought occurred to her that maybe this child was with a larger group of Muggles. Muggles, in her mind, were defenceless against magic, and though they had weapons, it would only take one spell to take them all down. 'Yes, but there will be more, and you can't do proper magic with that wand. Do you really want to risk dying in this alley?' a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. Frowning, Hermione kept her back to the entrance of the alley, afraid to move one way or the other.

"Hey, is he dead?" the little girl asked again. Then she shouted, "Mum, Dad, there's someone hurt over here!" as she ran away. Seconds later, Hermione heard the sounds of a woman scolding the child for having wandered off, and then multiple sets of heavy footsteps were coming towards her.

Hermione knew that she could Apparate away again, but had no idea where to go. Each attempt seemed more dangerous than the next, and with Neville being so sick, she wasn't sure she should risk it again. Not knowing what to do, and realising that she was no match for armed adults...Muggle or not...with only Neville's wand for her defence, she made what she thought was possibly the hardest decision she'd ever had to make. Praying that she wasn't going to get them both killed, she tossed the wand behind the nearest dustbin, wincing as it clattered to the ground just as four men and a woman ran into the dim alley. Without a word, they surrounded her, guns raised.

"What are you doing here?" one demanded, staring her in the eyes, and she nearly froze. He seemed to be the leader of the small group, judging by the way the others were present all flicked their eyes to meet his whenever they dared to look away from Hermione at all.

"I... I don't know," she finally said, trying to buy herself time. "I.... Um, there was an attack. My friend is hurt...."

The man who had spoken to her looked Neville over from where he stood, narrowing his eyes at the blood that seemed to be seeping through his clothes once more. "What happened to him?"

"I'm not sure. I can't remember anything after the attack. I just woke up... in my flat. He was like this when I found him." Hermione did her best to look confused and terrified...not an altogether hard thing to do, considering the situation. None of this made any sense!

"Search them," the leader finally said after a moment, his eyes never leaving hers, and a second later Hermione felt coarse hands running roughly over her body, feeling for things hidden in her clothes or hair. She did her best not to flinch, hoping that in not fighting them, they would decide she wasn't a threat. Finally they finished and left her alone, turning to search Neville. When they came up empty-handed, the leader nodded slowly, and Hermione decided that they may make it through the day after all.

"Your friend needs medicine. Those cuts look infected," another man said. He had knelt over Neville and pulled back his shirt to reveal the oozing wounds on his chest.

"Can you help me get him to a doctor?" Hermione asked hopefully. The people around her only laughed.

"There are no doctors anymore, dear," the woman in the group finally said, her eyes softening a bit. "Not around here anyway. David here will do what he can, though. Took some medical courses at the Uni. He's the closest we get to a doctor these days."

Trying to figure out if she was being lied to, and realising that they were probably telling the truth, judging from the silence that seemed to overshadow what little noise they made, Hermione felt tears well up in her eyes.

"We'll take them back to the safe house," the leader finally said, peering out onto the street cautiously. "There could be another attack soon, and I don't want to be sitting in the open when it comes."

Agreeing quietly, two of the men lifted Neville from the ground and carried him between them, sticking to the shadows and hurrying towards a small building the next street over. The others followed, nudging Hermione along, and she did her best to remember the route they were taking, knowing that she'd need to get back there later if she ever hoped to get her hands on a wand again.

When they entered the building, they hurried up a flight of rickety, dangerous looking stairs and into a flat...the only one that didn't seem to be damaged in some way, from the looks of things. Inside, the little girl she'd seen in the alley and a few adults waited, eyeing Hermione and Neville warily.

"Is he okay, Daddy?" the child asked the leader of the group, pointing at Neville.

"I'm sure he'll be fine," he told her, lifting her into his arms. Turning back to the others, he simply said, "Bring him into the back bedroom and let David take a look at him."

"You," he called after them, looking at Hermione, "stay here. I'd like to talk to you."

"Can I go watch?" the little girl asked excitedly, already scrambling to stand on her own feet again, and after a moment of considering it, her father nodded, setting her down and watching her scurry away. Waiting until the door swung shut behind his daughter, the leader of the group finally turned to Hermione again and motioned for her to sit at the table that took up most of what Hermione thought must have once been the living room. Chairs were scattered around haphazardly, and against some of the walls there were blankets and pillows, as though people had been sleeping there.

Feeling grateful for the chance to sit down for a moment, Hermione sunk into the nearest chair, leaning heavily on the table.

"What's your name?" one of the men asked.

"Hermione," she answered. There was no reason to lie, she reasoned. They were Muggles. They probably had no idea how well known the two people before them had been only a week ago. "My friend's name is Neville."

"You're from London?" another one asked, and without hesitation, she nodded. "Any family?"

"Neville's parents... died when he was a baby. Mine live in Windsor. Is there any way I can get word to them?"

A few of the others exchanged glances, and someone told her, "That part of the country was evacuated days ago, from what we've heard. If they're alive, they're not in England anymore."

Hermione wasn't sure whether to be upset that she couldn't get word that she was all right to her parents or delighted that there was a good chance they'd managed to get away to safety. Nodding slowly, she looked around again, trying to take everything in. There were so many people in the tiny flat, and they all looked tired and dirty.

"You'll stay here," the leader of the group said after a moment. "We'd all better get some rest. We'll need to go out again at dark." He stood and walked out of the room without another word or a backwards glance, and the others all scattered quickly, some of them following the first man and others crawling under the blankets lining the walls. The only one who stayed with Hermione was the woman who had talked to her in the alley; she cocked her head to the side, motioning for Hermione to follow her, and then went into the back bedroom where Neville had been put to bed.

"I've given him some antibiotics...we have somewhat of a stockpile," David told them when they entered. "Michael, one of the men who lived here until... well, he's gone. Anyway, he worked at a chemist's," he explained at Hermione's raised eyebrow. "With any luck, they'll help his body fight the infection and bring his fever down. It's quite a bit higher than is strictly safe.... I'll be back to check on him in a little while." And without another word, he left.

Hermione settled herself onto the edge of Neville's bed, still trying to understand everything that had occurred. "What happened?" she finally asked the woman who had led her to the bedroom. The woman sighed and lowered herself into a chair on the other side of the room.

"You don't remember anything?"

"No," Hermione lied, shaking her head. "I was sitting in my flat one day and there was a big flash of light.... I didn't wake up until this morning."

The woman looked sceptical, but settled back into her chair and began talking. "We were attacked," she said, pausing for a second, and then finished, "by people who can use magic." She mistook Hermione's look of shock for one of disbelief, it seemed, because she continued. "At first, no one knew what to think. There was some sort of explosion in a building...a kind of hospital for their kind or something. The thing is, none of us could remember that building ever having been there. I've walked by there every day for most of my life and have never seen it before.... Then there was another explosion a few streets away...it was really odd. It seemed like the explosion happened underground. The weirdest part, though, wasn't the explosion, it's what was left behind. It's like looking into nothing. Not even darkness... just nothing. That was... five days ago, I think."

Hermione realised she was talking about St. Mungo's and the Ministry of Magic, and if five days had passed, that meant that the two buildings had been destroyed on the same day that she and her friends had been attacked at Hogwarts. Suddenly, she understood why no one had answered their messages begging for help, and she fought back the urge to cry as she considered the implications of what this could all mean.

"After that, things just got worse. We thought that it was a terrorist group at first. There was talk that it had been suicide bombers. Everyone was scared, but... we never really imagined...." The woman's voice faltered as she spoke, and Hermione could see that she was blinking back tears. And yet, she kept going. "Then this horrible looking man...he looked like a snake turned into a human being, if you can imagine such a thing...he showed up with hundreds of these people in black robes, all of them wearing masks except for the snake-man, and started declaring that all of us were his slaves. He called us 'Muggles', whatever that means.

"At first, everyone laughed it off, I guess, because he got angry, and killed someone. Just pointed this wand at him...at least, I'm guessing they're wands, they all seem to have them...and killed him. It was on the telly. I suppose reporters went there when they heard that there was a group of strangely dressed people gathering in London, claiming to be responsible for the explosions. The police had been called, but only a few had arrived at that point. Kind of crazy, that reporters got there before the police, you know?

"Anyway, the snake-man said that we had to either submit to him or die, and, well, would you let yourself be forced into slavery? No one knew what sort of weapons these people had, but there were only a couple hundred of them, so when the police arrived, they surrounded the group and tried to arrest them. All of the police and reporters, and most of the people watching, were killed. They just... died. They weren't even given a chance to fight back.

"After that, things just became chaos. They started killing every normal person they saw, and in retaliation, the military started sending in troops to areas where the wizards were thought to be hiding...those people, they called themselves wizards," she explained, "and I think they were telling the truth. They seem to be able to do magic with those wands they carry...I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. And the only way to kill them, it seems, is to do it before they know you're there. Once they see you, if they're able to hit you with one of their spells, you're dead. The thing is, the wizards seem able to disappear in an instant and reappear somewhere else.... If you can get their wand away from them, though, they're practically helpless. But that's almost impossible to do without killing them, so the easiest thing to do is kill them as soon as you find them.

"Most of the country has been evacuated, from what we've heard, but in the big cities where the wizards are still hiding and attacking, the people are on their own, and London is no exception. We've heard that there is a safe zone just a ten or eleven miles outside the city, near the edge of the Thames, but we have to get there ourselves, and most people that have tried to get there have ended up dead. Eventually we'll have to head that way. We don't have enough food to stay here forever. That's what we were out looking for when we found you," she explained, running a hand through her hair and rubbing at her tired eyes. "These people, these wizards, they're inhuman. Evil. They'll kill us if they find us. And while we've managed to kill lots of them, there are still some hiding around the city...."

Hermione stared at the wall, trying to make sense of everything, and just kept shaking her head, not wanting to believe anything the woman had said.

"I know it's a lot to hear all at once," she said a minute later, reaching over and covering Hermione's hand with hers, "and I'm sorry, but you need to know what we're up against. When we attempt to get to the safe zone, you're welcome to come with us, and in the meantime, feel free to stay here. You'll be expected to help search for food, of course, once you've had a chance to rest... but it's better than being out there alone, right?"

Patting Hermione's hand one last time, the woman stood up and moved towards the door. "I'm Laura, by the way. If you need anything, just yell."

"Okay," Hermione said softly, giving her a weak smile. "Thanks."

Laura left, closing the door behind her, and Hermione heard the clinking sound of it being locked from the outside. She stretched out on the bed beside Neville, touching his forehead gently and finding him still warm with fever. Feeling lost and completely alone, Hermione wrapped her arm protectively over Neville's chest and settled her head beside his on the pillow. She felt as if she were guarding her only link to the life she'd known just days before, and tried to focus her mind on understanding everything she'd just learned and come up with a plan. Judging from what Laura had said, there wasn't much of a wizarding world to go back to, and Hermione supposed there were worse places to be...especially if magical people were being hunted down and killed. Wondering what had become of her friends and praying that they'd somehow escaped, she tried to put them out of her head, resolving to focus on getting herself and Neville out of the country safely.

I know, I know, Snape is conspicuously absent. But he'll be back shortly, I promise.

Many, many thanks to the lovely Vaughn for the beta work, and to ladyinthecloak for so graciously being my sounding board and ongoing source of encouragement for this fic.