Dark night encased the small town in a smothering blanket. The town itself was dark; not a light was shining in any of the houses' windows. Shurlings was the town's name, though it was of no importance, had ruins of a house over on the west side. It looked like it had burned down in the past. It was an old Victorian and navy in color, but stained gray by soot, snow and rain. One side of the ruin was an almost-whole wall. The wall looked to be part of a living room or parlor, with a fireplace and wallpaper that used to be well decorated.
Within the grand fireplace, a person sat, waiting. The waiting person didn't look like they had always been present there; it looked like the waiting figure was waiting for something, or someone at this random place where no one would usually meet. The waiting figure also didn't look as a normal person would; what was worn was a long, black cloak with a wide hood that could be pulled down to cover the face. Underneath the dark-clad waiting figure wore a shapeless black dress, with a cord tied around the waist, shaping off the torso, the chest showing breasts. She wore a strip of dark material over her mouth and nose and another over her forehead, covering any feature that might be used to identify her. Her brown eyes, the only feature on her face not covered, were bright, the irises shinning in the dull and muted moonlight.
As midnight sounded from the clock tower in the town as twelve low, long and monotone rings, the waiting figure looked up. She stared at the sky, as if expecting something.
Suddenly, a jet of green sparks exploded silently in the sky. The waiting figure no crawled out of the fireplace and stood, brushing dirt and old soot from her backside. Then she pulled out a stick of wood, less than an inch thick and a foot long, and pointed it skyward. Muttering something under her breath, the waiting figure conjured a jet of red sparks out of the end of her wand. She then put it away and sat down again, now on the open ground and leaning her back against the wall. The waiting figure now had a clear view of the part of the sky that the green sparks had erupted from. Though nothing more sprouted in the sky again, she sat, still watching and waiting.
Soon, a new figure approached the Victorian ruins, looking very lost. The waiting figure now hid again in the fireplace, unsure of the sudden present of the new figure. He kept approaching, scouting the ruins, looking for something. The waiting figure kept watching him, waiting for something to happen.
She, the waiting figure, had two choices of ways to deal with this matter. On one hand, she could wait, hidden, and watch the new figure to finish his search and move on. One the other hand, she could wait, hidden, until he was close to the fireplace and then attack him, knocking him out. Both choices sounded reasonable to the waiting figure, but both yielded unpredictable results. The first, which she preferred, could result that this new figure was her reason for waiting in the ruins, and waiting for him to leave might screw up the mission that had been entrusted to her by the Order. The second choice might also endanger her mission by attacking her target and loosing the trust of the Order, which she was on very fine ice with already. The waiting figure's choice of what to do required much thought.
She ended up choosing a third choice, a combination of her original two. As the new figure turned his back to the fireplace, the waiting figure jumped out, pulling out her wand as she did so and pointed it at his back.
"Identify yourself," she stated. Her voice, now heard, sounds raspy and static-like as if spoken through a barrier or communication device. It was a charm place upon her throat to make her original voice unrecognizable and untraceable. The new figure started to turn slowly towards the waiting figure. "Don't move!" she stated again, noticing that he could get the upper hand on her if she let her guard down. But the new figure obeyed and remained motionless. The waiting circled to face him, keeping her wand pointed straight at his heart, if he had one.
As she faced him, the waiting figure discovered that the new figure's hood, too, was pulled down to cover his face, but what she could see from under the disguise was that the face was pale and slim and had a scar on his forehead, the exact shape unclear. The scar in itself was unusual; it looked like a trickle of moonlighted water than a deep, healing scratch.
"Identify yourself!" she said again, this time she put more meaning into her words. With a more threatening grip on her wand and changing the way it pointed made her seem more deadly and serious. The new figure stepped back in fear and held up his hands in defence.
"Please, point that thing somewhere else!" he said. His voice was a pleasant, honey-due shadow of a man's bass tone.
"I'll point this where I please," the waiting figure replied tartly, sounding very menacing with her jinxed voice. "Now, identify yourself!"
"I'm a friend, I think," the new figure said, still holding his hands up in defence, but not as afraid as before. "Please, I really mean no harm."
"That's was all Death Eaters say," she replied, scanning his appearance darkly.
"What? I'm no Death Eater! I'm… well, it's complicated." The new figure was dressed like her with a long traveling cloak, but what he wore underneath was different. There was some slivery cloth stuffed into an inside pocket of the cloak and he wore simple street clothes; a tee-shirt, worn jeans and ripped-up trainers. His wand was in plain view, sticking out of his waistband, in easy reach. The waiting figure started to reach for it but he saw to where her hand was drawn and jerked back, pulling out his wand as he did.
"Don't make me fight you," he said. Both figures watched the other intensely. After circling each other for several minutes, it was the new figure that attacked first.
The battle between them lasted only a matter of minutes and ended when the waiting figure took a strong stunning spell directly to her chest. Instead of falling to the ground unconscious, she doubled over in a coughing fit. It continued, the coughs become more deep and began shaking her whole body. After several minutes of heavy coughs, blood started to come up with the coughing. Shortly after, she fell to the ground, still, pale white and didn't get up again. The new figure watched her, staring blankly and doing nothing until she fell to the ground, stark white.
He knelt beside the waiting figure's body, feeling her wrist for a pluse. There was none. He leaned over her chest, pressing his ear to her heart, listening for a heartbeat. There was no sound except the crickets. The new figure sighed and took off his hood. Harry, taking the cloth binding off his perpetually unkempt hair and straightening his glasses, looked at the dead body as he sat on the ground next to it. He hadn't come in contact with the order for many years and this was going to be the night he was going back to the Burrow, but messed up with his Aperating. Harry bent over the body another time, it was still cold and unmoving; she was dead.
He pulled off her hood, at least to give her memory respect before he buried her. Harry gasped at the face of his opponent.
Hermione. He had killed his best friend in cold blood. He sat there for many minutes, stunned and numb; it felt like the last curse that he had performed had rebounded onto him. Then it hit him like a slap on the face. Hermione, dead, he killed her because he thought she was an enemy. Hot tears came to Harry's eyes, suddenly and hard, and resting his head on hers, he wept.
FINIS