Clairvoyance and its Consequences

Chapter 7_______________________________________________________________

"Wormtail's dead..." Harry said. "Well, like Dumbledore said, it was bound to happen eventually. Wormtail proved to be worthless more than once..."

Harry sat on the couch in the common room. Around him, in a rough organisation, sat the rest of the quarter's occupants: Hermione, Draco, Ron, Ginny and, as they had arrived, Neville and Luna.

Draco was frowning. "Nott as the Dark Lord's new servant, though?" he said doubtfully, tightening his grip on Hermione's hand slightly as Harry looked around at him. "Father held several meetings at the manor that I was forced to go to and - well - Nott's not stupid, but he doesn't seem bright, either."

"The number of Voldemort's supporters is decreasing rapidly these days," Hermione said. "Aurors from all different countries are working to capture them and they're doing a wonderful job at it. If that Bellatrix Lestrange cow hadn't been killed, she would've become Voldemort's right-hand servant. Perhaps Nott was next in line without us realising."

"Hermione's right," said Ron, who sat next to an extremely silent Luna, who stared ahead as though not taking in a word they were saying. "There are only about a dozen left, right?"

"A few more than a dozen unfortunately, Ron," Hermione said. "I'd say about twenty are still at his side, but a lot of the ones that are left are newer. They've captured most of the old ones."

A silence filled the common room as the occupants of it went into deep thought. It lasted for several long, dragging minutes until Luna spoke.

"My Uncle Mickey's an Auror," she said in her usual dreamy voice. "Daddy told me in a letter yesterday that he captured some men with the last names Scab and Boyle, or something like that... They were torturing a couple of Muggles. Stupid, really, to do it outside Uncle Mickey's house..."

"That'd probably be Crabbe and Goyle, Luna," Ron said to her as politely as he could.

Luna merely looked around at him and smiled pleasantly, causing a small tint of pink to rush onto his freckly cheeks. Ginny, having noticed this happening several times since Luna had arrived, shook with silent laughter next to Harry.

"So ... so does that mean that if they're new members, that the Order and all the Aurors don't know who they're after?" Neville asked hesitantly, looking rather frightened.

"Pretty much, Neville," Harry said, patting him on the back lightly. "They're looking for invisible suspects, basically."

"But the Order would have to have some idea of who are Death Eaters and who aren't, wouldn't they?" Hermione asked anxiously.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but Draco interjected. "If they don't, at least they know to go after Nott," he said. "He's the one doing major work for the Dark Lord at the moment after all... My bet is that Dumbledore's planting spies on dear old Theodore right now."

"Well, lets hope so," Hermione said, staring ahead absently, watching the flames in the fireplace dance happily. "The sooner everything's under control the better."

> * <

The next week passed rapidly with more unpleasant news about Voldemort than anyone had wished for. He had succeeded in raiding the Malfoy manor, and had taken the things he desired before leaving the mansion in a wreck. Hermione had continued to have dreams about Voldemort and Nott, revealing more behind their terrible secrets and plans and also the odd one containing a past confrontation with Draco. All in all, Hermione was becoming terribly stressed and anxious about what these dreams meant and what was to come in the near future.

The rest of the students in the quarters were working hard on schoolwork, as there had been an abrupt increase in the amount of homework they were assigned to do, what with the end of year exams frightfully less than four months away. The seventh-years had, with their NEWTs approaching, copped the worst of it, though. They spent countless hours in the evenings working in the study together, only looking up from their work to grab a new book.

"This is impossible!" exclaimed an irritable Ron as he screwed up the twelfth version of his Potions essay and threw it over his shoulder. "I'm never going to get this done!"

Hermione looked up as she finished her essay on transfiguring large creatures into smaller, much more minute instruments. "Why don't you stop fussing about it and write it, Ron?" she asked. "You're forever complaining about things being too hard for you when you don't try nearly as hard as you could!"

Ron opened his mouth to retort when Harry suddenly gasped loudly and grabbed his forehead in pain.

"Ahh!" he said, his eyes squinting shut in agony. "My scar! It's - Voldemort, he's -"

Harry slipped off his chair and fell onto the floor before them, gasping in great pain, his scar obviously in absolute agony. As they watched, he suddenly became silent and with a small thump, his entire body fell to a heap on the floor, unmoving and unconscious.

Hermione, very white with her mouth slightly agape, cautiously stood and made her way over to where Harry lay. Looking closely and touching his arm lightly, she found that he was indeed unconscious.

"This is odd," she said, shaking him lightly. "I mean, his scar often hurts, and it hurts an awful lot but he's never collapsed or lost consciousness because of it. Has he, Ron?"

She looked around at Ron, whose many freckles were brightly distinguishable against his now chalk-white face. He slowly shook his head, staring at Harry's form. "No," he croaked.

They all looked around as the door to the study opened to reveal Ginny. "Has anyone seen -" She stopped as she noticed Harry on the floor. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly, looking around at the people. "What the hell has happened to Harry? He's not dead, is he?"

"No," Hermione said quickly, "but we don't know what's wrong, either. His scar was hurting and he - he fell to the floor."

The room was silent as Hermione looked down carefully at Harry. She placed a hand on his cheek, which felt oddly cold and slightly clammy beneath her fingers. She ran it along the entire of this face before resting two fingers lightly on his scar, shaped perfectly like a bolt of lightning. Everyone in the room jumped when she gasped and withdrew the fingers abruptly, as though she had received some kind of shock.

"What's the matter?" Neville asked, looking slightly scared.

Hermione didn't reply but instead replaced her fingers on the scar, a searing heat grazing upon them as she did so. She ran them once across it before another, much more stricken gasp exited her lips.

A jolt of something very powerful had escaped the scar and into her fingertips. The power of it made her no longer see the room around her, but she knew her eyes were open. Looking around slightly, she didn't see bookshelves or the table that her friends surrounded. She instead saw a blur of colour, swirling in an almost familiar fashion. It was then that images filled her head.

Lord Voldemort stood in the centre of a large paddock, the corpse of Wormtail at his feet. In the background, the ruins of a small castle could be seen, along with a man that could only be Avery Nott.

"I have a power over Harry Potter," Voldemort said, speaking to Nott in a sickly cruel hiss. "He is unconscious wherever he lies and he shall stay that way until I have Malfoy in my possession. My greatest ambition will be fulfilled soon."

"That's wonderful, my Lord," Nott said. "It is the time we have all been waiting for. The time you finally succeed in killing Potter. The time that you regain all the power you lost before and become more powerful than anyone can imagine. We are all waiting patiently for such a time."

"We all," Voldemort chuckled, "but mainly I. My Death Eaters, as much as I may trust them, could never want this more than I. I have waited much too long for this."

"Indeed, my Lord," Nott said quickly, moving in a slightly uncomfortable manner.

Voldemort turned and looked at the ruins behind him. "I assume you have everything ready for when you bring Granger here, Nott?" he asked. "I do not wish to leave her here long. I only wish to keep her until Malfoy arrives. I have no other use for her than that. It is Malfoy I need the most at this present moment."

"All is ready, my Lord," Nott said. "We only need the timing."

"Very well," Voldemort said, "it won't be long now Potter's in a ... world of his own..." A cold, piecing chuckle filled the air.

Hermione gasped again as she regained use of her eyes. She was shaking and could feel herself rested up against someone's chest. She ran a hand over her face, feeling a cold sweat on it. Wiping it with her robes, she blinked several times to get focus of her eyes but it didn't seem possible. Everything stayed rather blurry.

"Hermione?" asked Draco's voice in her ear, telling her it was he she was lying against. "Hermione, what did you see?"

"Voldemort," Hermione whispered, not having full use of her voice. "He was discussing his plan in taking me to him in order to get you. He did this to Harry, as well - he's sent Harry into unconsciousness until he's gotten you." She swallowed, overcome by a strong wave of nausea. "It's all part of getting Harry killed so Voldemort becomes more powerful than any of us can imagine."

"But you're alright?" Draco asked anxiously.

"Yes - no!" Hermione said suddenly, leaning sideways and vomiting beside the blur of Draco's right leg, which helped keep her steady. She was shaking terribly now and sweat was still forming on her skin.

"We have to get her to the hospital wing," Ron's voice said from somewhere within the room. "Her and Harry. We should tell Dumbledore, too."

Hermione felt Draco nod. "Come on, Hermione," he said, trying to push her into a standing position. She was, however, suddenly overcome by the sensation of her head spinning and the vision she had disappeared completely.

She spoke, but couldn't hear a word she was saying. She could feel Draco dragging her to her feet and she could feel his arm around her back, attempting to hold her steady, but everything else was oblivion to her. She had no sense of her own touch or her own speech or her own feelings. It was numb to her.

It was numb to her... That was the last thought that passed through her mind before she lost consciousness.

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