Author's Note: I posted the first few chapters of this story before but removed to make some revisions. Here it is again.
It seemed endless, that walk; even surrounded as she was by her beloved dead. They kept close; flickering flames of soul, her had-been shields, still trying to protect, even now. Still trying to lend warmth. But each step forward was heavier than the next, and her heart beat faster even as her limbs slowed; trying to live out the rest of its life in those last few minutes.
Beat, beat, beat.
Step.
"Does it hurt? Dying?"
Her own childish, pitiful voice rose out of her and dissolved into the cold air, but Sirius replied, and Hera heard without listening, just holding on to that warm cadence.
They walked on, her and her dead, touching but not touching and yet she was so close to them now, wasn't she? Closer than she had ever been. A ghostly procession of ghosts and will-be ghost, and her heart beat even faster with that thought, thudding against her rib cage, wanting out.
Out.
Out, OUT HERA, GET OUT.
But there were no more outs, no more saviours, no more parents, no more Sirius, no more Dumbledore, no more Snape even. She had used all those lifelines. All those sacrifices for the one great sacrifice.
And her heart was tearing with grief and pain. For them, for dying so fruitlessly, and for herself because I'M NOT DONE LIVING.
But she took each dutiful step; a death row prisoner with all the world to run to, but the gallows was home.
Almost there. She could hear the rough voices of men, see the glimmers of lights and spells and wards through the trees, even through the dampening effect of the dementors swirling around them like large ragged black snowflakes.
Her eyes raked frantically across the faces of her family, absorbing the open love, and buttressing her will with their expressions.
"You'll stay with me?" she half whispered, half croaked.
"Until the very end," said her father, and she wanted to ask again, that question-
Does it hurt? Dying?
But she couldn't speak, and the stone was clutched in her sweating hand so tightly that she was sure the symbol of the Hallows was etched permanently into her palm.
The sounds were getting louder now; they were leaving the dementor guards behind. Hera drew the cloak firmly around her, thinking of the legend of the three brothers, and what she herself might give to hide from Death.
Death. Why did everything have to be about death?
And Ron's voice and face came unbidden to her- "Why is everything I own rubbish?" he had said, voice tight with shame and anger and resentment, and Hera now, feeling that same mix of emotions for the first time-
Why does everything have to be about death?
Then she almost ran into Dolohov and Yaxley, arguing about whether she would come, and she followed them from a reluctant distance for what might have been minutes, or seconds, or an eternity.
Time moves strangely when you don't know what you want.
All of a sudden, she was stepping into a clearing, the stone falling from her shaking hands- because she was truly shaking now, and steeling herself, watching that bowed figure with the grotesque halo of a snake. Her frozen fingers hesitated for a second, before she shrugged the cloak off herself and forced her head high.
A triumphant, cackling din rose and fell quickly. Death Eaters stood, crowded, and then fell back, like the crashing and then receding of waves.
Bellatrix Lestrange looked from her Lord, to Hera, and back, her tongue between her teeth.
"Hera Potter," Lord Voldemort, twirling the Elder wand between long fingers, regarded her, speaking as if to himself. "The Girl who Lived…" And he tilted his head slightly as if curious- the girl who lived.
Or maybe it was Hera herself who was curious.
Her heart was pounding. She could feel the smooth wood of the wand of Draco Malfoy against her chest, no sensation was more stark. She suppressed the instinct to defend herself, an instinct honed over years spent running from this monster of a man.
There was nothing to focus on. His wand was lifting, his mouth was opening, and Hera watched the motions, frozen-
"Wait!"
For a split second she didn't realise that it had come out of her, panicked as she was.
Silence. Then, the Death Eaters were hooting, the giants jeering. Bellatrix laughed mirthfully, her face forming sharp temporary masks of Sirius' own joy.
Voldemort's lip curled. Amused red eyes flickered to his followers. "See how their champion, their so-called chosen one begs me for mercy," he crowed.
"I didn't," said Hera, her face burning, her hands curling into fists. That fleeting insanity had passed. The moment of habitual self-preservation which had surfaced, was turning rapidly to shame and anger.
Red eyes turned back to her. She locked eyes with him.
"I don't beg for mercy," she said loudly. "And certainly not from you. But that was fun, wasn't it? The Great Lord Voldemort, taking orders from a girl... Wait, she said, and wait he did." She was panting now too.
Stillness reigned.
Even Hagrid had stopped his struggling; she saw him freeze in the periphery of her vision. Only Bellatrix panted in unison with her, insulted and angry on behalf of her Lord, whose cold eyes, still locked with hers, were now rapidly narrowing.
Visions of the piece of his soul dying within her, of being free at last, at long last- those visons were at the forefront of her mind, making her almost smile in the face of death.
"Go on then," Hera spat through her teeth. "Do your worst."
Whether it was the abominable snake-like face of Voldemort, or just because here was a fellow parseltongue, her words came out in a long fluid hiss.
As the last echoes of their shared language became one with the spitting of the fires, and Hera saw him again raise his wand, she thought desperately of her parents, and of Sirius. Her eyes were blurry with unshed tears, but she kept them open in defiance until only the bursting light from his wand and the red of his eyes remained in relief.
Red like the fiendfyre that raged high to lick the vaulted ceilings of the Room of Requirement.
Red like the matted wet hair of her best friend Ron as he stabbed at a gold locket.
Red like the fresh pooling blood of the dead Potions master, and then-
"You have kept her alive so that she can die at the right moment?"
Snape's horrified voice came clearly into her head, and his face swum up before her vision, wan and angry, and Dumbledore replying…
Hera was re-watching the memories of the pensieve once again, and it was seconds before she realised with a jolt that it wasn't herself watching these memories, and that the pursing of the lipless mouth of Voldemort as he raised his wand hadn't been the Avada Kedavra, but-
"Legilimens."
Memories and thoughts were being quickly and roughly brought to the forefront of her mind. The destruction of each Horcrux was being re-lived, and in each memory, the intense hue of red- in the blood of basilisk, in the glittering rubies surrounding a gold cup, and in the copper hair of the ghost of Lily Potter walking beside a living Horcrux in a forest- lent such vibrancy that all other colours were deadened by comparison.
As soon as Hera realised that he was in her mind, she fought him, and as soon as she fought him, a freezing, all-encompassing pain overtook her. Her brain felt as if it had been doused in icy water, except that when she tried to bring up the memory of having felt that very particular pain before, it wouldn't come.
She could see nothing but what he wanted to see, could remember nothing but what he pulled out and played in short sequences like a librarian flicking through files.
Horcrux, horcrux, H is for Horcrux…
Overwhelmed by the pain, and striving to expel him, she vaguely felt herself falling onto damp mossy ground. Something slim and rigid was jabbing painfully into her ribs. Her vison was now a red haze where Dumbledore in his office, surrounded by her destruction, was reciting the prophecy in its entirety.
The tactile sensations were the only part of her consciousness not currently conjured by him. Her hands scrabbled, her mouth was open, and tasting dirt, and mouthing, or screaming, possibly:
"But he might have chosen wrong!"
She grasped unseeingly at the thing jammed between her chest and the ground, and her fingers closed around warm, friendly wood.
All her will and intent burst out of her heart. The image of Dumbledore flickered, and an eleven-year old girl stood in a dusty shop surrounded by boxes, holding for the first time, feeling the thrill for the first time…
"PROTEGO!" she roared. The spell came bursting out to hit her en pleine figure, the wand still tangled awkwardly in her robes and pointing directly at her own face.
She was thrown forcefully back by her spell, back and legs dragging harshly across the ground as she skidded several meters.
Her brain was reverberating around her skull; she must have hit several tree roots along the way. The freezing grip of Voldemort's legilimency was replaced by the searing physical pain of physical pain.
Every nerve was firing off at once.
Every part of her body screamed at her that she was probably dying, definitely fucked up.
But her reckless casting had done the trick; she was free. She was torn up and bloody, and her head pounded fiercely, but she was free.
And she was Hera Potter. This was her element.
Her own ragged breathing filled her ears. The star speckled night swayed alarmingly above her.
Hera leaped instantly to her feet, or tried to; still reeling, she stumbled and fell on to her knees. She flung the wand up in the general direction of her foe. Barely able to put words together, still seeing stars, she rasped out, "Bombarda Maxima!"
Funny just how much spellwork relies on complicated wand movements and precise intonations. Funny isn't it, how the right stress on the wrong syllable can be the difference between a flightless feather and a club rising to strike at a troll.
And yet in moments like these, where nothing, not even the rapid staccato of her heart operated with precision…
The blast of an explosion vibrated outwards, and she was once again thrown back. But this time, Hera was prepared.
Through the fading blinking lights in her head, she could see charred wood and small orange flames and dark robed wizards running. Hera felt the exhilaration course through her, along with that thrill of- where was he?
There was no need to ask, really. The Death Eaters, scrambling, and putting out fires, were gravitating like mindless black ants to the crouched figure in the clearing.
Hera turned, and as he straightened, brushing off his closest supporters with impatience, she sent a series of Confringo curses at him.
The blue lights left the tip of her wand in succession. She saw the pale Elder wand raise and deflect them, but she was already moving, the rough outline of a plan forming in her mind.
But first, she had to rescue Hagrid.
She aimed more curses in Voldemort's direction as she ran. A streak of red light narrowly missed her, striking just where her right heel had been, and she heard him scream at his followers.
"Do not touch the girl! She is MINE!"
Hera sent him another curse, not even looking to see if it had reached its target. She stumbled on, ducking, and keeping close to the ground, looking in the dark for that familiar gleam of silvery-grey.
Where had she, in her haste, and carelessness, dropped it?
"Over there, Hera!"
She turned to look at Hagrid, who, still struggling with his bonds, was indicating with jutted chin just a few metres ahead of her. Hagrid, who saw her step in to the clearing to die, who would know what she was looking for.
He was immediately backhanded by a hand larger than his head, and a giant stooped down to snarl its putrid breath in his face.
Hera, suppressing a sob of rage, sent another perfunctory curse towards the advancing Dark Lord, and turned her eyes to the spot pointed out to her.
Shadows and tree roots, and moonlight on dry leaves, and where?
"ACCIO Cloak!" she tried in her desperation, and to her utter joy and disbelief, a patch of moonlight detached itself to fly into her outstretched arms.
In her distraction, she was struck in the wand arm by a sickly green spell. She felt the feeling leave her arm. Her wand fell to the ground with a clack and started to roll.
"No," gasped Hera, as she threw herself down and lunged for it with her left hand.
Another streak of green, that same spell, rushed silently towards her and she flipped out of the way onto her back to avoid it, clutching the wand.
"Running away, are we?" Lord Voldemort, steps away, looked down at her as if she were a very, very cumbersome insect, one he just might distend his mouth to swallow whole. "How very like your father. He tried to run too, did you know? He tried to leave you to die."
"Shut up!" Hera snarled, jabbing the wand in her left hand up at him. "You're lying. You're a liar."
He flicked another spell at her. She recognised it now as a modified version of a petrifier, and sent off another shield charm to defend herself, this one weaker, affected by the clumsiness of her non-dominant hand. His spell ripped with ease through her pathetic shield and hit her on the left leg, rendering it instantly slack and boneless. She lay on her useless arm; the numbness was already spreading to her shoulder and down her right hip.
She had never seen him use this spell before. All his spells on the battlefield had been to kill and to maim, not to capture.
The realisation that he had changed his tactics, that he wasn't about to murder her outright, but to ensnare her like a spider, like a great coiling venomous snake, filled her with dread.
As far as futures went, who knew that the certainty of dignified death could now provide so much predictability, so much… comfort?
"As for your filthy mudblood mother…" he continued maliciously, circling, revelling in his dominance over her. "Severus described in great detail what he planned to do to her, would you like to know?"
"I said shut up!" Hera struggled to pull herself up into a defensive crouch, facing him, feeling the rawness of wounds old and new, and wanting to wound him just as deeply.
"At least my parents loved me," she said vindictively, and thrust her wand out like a fencer with a rapier. "SECTUMSEMPRA!"
What was she fighting for now? The right to die?
He blocked the curse.
"AVADA KED-"
"Enough!" Red light flashed from the Elder wand as his silent disarming curse flew at Hera, and her wand shot impossibly out of her hand.
Before she could do more than wheeze her astonishment at this bizarre reversal of roles, and the unfairness, the utter, utter unfairness of it all, she was hanging suspended in front of him.
Her head lolled back, exposing her throat. Her long black hair hung freely. Blood-tinged sweat stung her eyes. She blinked reflexively and tried to clear it with her fingers but most of her body was completely paralysed. The sensation crept steadily up her neck, making her feel nauseous with helplessness.
Voldemort's face filled her line of sight. He was trembling barely perceptively, his skin even whiter, almost bone white, his flattened nostrils flared, and lips peeled back from pointed teeth.
"You think you know all about me, do you, Potter?" he said quietly. "You think you have me figured out? You and that deluded decrepit dead old man?"
Hera was unable to respond.
He gripped the back of her head; sharp talon like nails digging into her scalp, digging, digging, as though desiring to pull out the part of him that he now knew resided in her, and Hera, pinpoints of pain exploding in her head, her lungs trying to heave out the scream lodged inside-
The pressure eased. Lord Voldemort turned his attention away from her.
She heard him project his voice to his followers; giving out stern orders, directing them to stay, to keep watch over the castle…
She only half listened to him. Over the top of his head, she saw them crowding behind, some still masked, some grim faced, all acquiescing, moving, already forgetting her as one forgets the dead; already turning to the next part of their plans.
The marked Death Eaters were gathered closely around him, waiting for further instructions. He approached and talked to a few, dragging Hera along like a grim balloon. The thin black silk of his robes fluttered as he moved.
From the dim periphery of her fixed vision, she spotted the slow undulating movement crossing his left shoulder.
No longer in its enchanted cage, the unblinking scaled head and thick muscled body of Nagini came into view. Hera watched with horror as it extended itself towards her, tongue flicking, tasting the air, the lower half of its body still wound around its master.
Even if she could have shut her eyes, even if she could have moved, would she have?
The snake, like a grotesque rising column, reared up in a straight line, edging with purpose up high above Hera's head, and she felt all the vulnerability of her exposed neck. She watched with morbid fascination and an increasing sense of fatalism as it continued rising; the flattened head now out of view.
Every pore of her body leaked dread and fear.
The place on her forearm, where basilisk fang had pierced, throbbed with phantom pain. Images flashed in her head of a gigantic snake emerging from within the desiccated corpse of an old witch, like the head of a perverse, chimeric Hydra being re-birthed.
Was it possible to be more afraid of the pet than of the monster himself?
That moment when the snake touched her, actually touched her, descending softly onto her clavicle, she thought she imagined. But when it let the weight of its tubular body slump down and start gliding across her skin, she found the answer to her own question.
Never had she fought so hard to throw off a curse wandlessly, not even in that cemetery in Little Hangleton when she had, under the influence of the Imperius, refused to bow to its master.
Her primitive brain was throwing off confusing, erratic signals- to run, to remain frozen, to jolt her body, to throw it off, to scream; no coherent thought existed in her.
When Voldemort set his hand on her shoulder in a firm grip, she realised she'd forgotten he was there. He leered down at her as though aware of her internal struggle; like facing a rattlesnake, her mind unable to choose now which threat to focus on.
Each palpable throb of blood passing through the artery running along her throat reminded her that she was in a waking nightmare; Nagini's slow advance across the territory of her body sent her pulse into a frenzy.
Her brain ran through images- a stark vision of a snake striking at a man on the floor, and a mouthful of blood, and yesss.. hold you…
Voldemort tightened his hold on her and made a sharp movement. They were pulled into the vortex of apparition.
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