Title: On My Own
Rating: M for violence, drug use, mentions of rape, probable language
Summary: Voldemort is dead, but when Ron and Hermione find themselves on their own in two separate corners of London with no idea of who they are or how they got there, they must find their way back to each other and into their world. Begins at the moment of Voldemort's death in Deathly Hallows
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
A/N: Well, some of you may know me from over at the Bleach corner, but I'm branching out of anime and into Harry Potter! Yay! So, please, feed my constant craving and review, review, review!
Prologue
There was a flash of blinding green light and a strangled cry, and Voldemort fell dead on the floor of the Great Hall. Silence descended over the groups of students and families, house elves and Death Eaters alike. No one dared move, lest the dream break. That was it. The end. Lord Voldemort had been killed by his own spell backfiring, yet again, from the Boy Who Lived. The war was over.
All hell broke loose as every witch and wizard that had flocked to the Great Hall to aid in the fighting began cheering wildly. Fireworks shot up from various wands, soaring into the enchanted ceiling, now showing the sun breaking through a perfectly clear dawn sky. It was almost as if the heavens themselves were rejoicing over the defeat of the most evil wizard the world had ever known.
Harry was caught in a mob of people, all wanting to cheer him, see him, touch him. To make contact with the boy who had not only survived countless attacks beginning when he was just a baby, but who had finally defeated Lord Voldemort once and for all. The crowd around him was pressing in, making it difficult to breathe. Voldemort's body was left lying crumpled on the floor. Most skirted around it, too afraid or disgusted to touch it or simply too focused on getting to Harry. A few bold rebels had the nerve to gloat in his blank face. One even gave him a quick kick in the side, immediately running off to his friends as if he were afraid that the contact would wake the Dark Lord from his death sleep.
Harry scanned the sea of faces, searching for any sign of his friends. There were people from the Ministry. Teachers. Classmates. People he'd met briefly in Hogsmede or Diagon Alley when they'd grasped at his hands and stared at him in adoration exactly as they were doing now. Then there were those who had also stared at him as he had passed, but in hate or contempt. People who had been duped by the lies that the Daily Prophet had been pumping out for the last year or more. And yet they were all here now, eagerly pushing and shoving and shouting exclamations of love and thanks.
Suddenly, the crowd parted, and Harry felt a large hand covering his shoulders and steering him out of the throng. He looked up to see Hagrid, tears streaming down his face. The giant let out a cry of joy mingled with relief and scooped Harry up in a bone-crushing bear hug that lifted him a good four feet off the ground.
"I thought yeh were dead!" Hagrid said, still holding him suspended off of the ground. Harry tried to respond, but his words came out in a muffled mess against the giant's chest. He felt himself being lowered to the ground and gasped in the fresh air pouring into his lungs.
"I wanted to tell you, Hagrid. But I had-"
"I understand, alrigh'. You 'ad to play dead to get You-Know…to get," Hagrid cast a glance around at the celebrating witches and wizards, and an unusually bold look came into his eye. He leaned down so his face was an inch above Harry's own. "To get…V-Voldemort…to kill Voldemort. That's righ', Voldemort! You've killed Voldemort!" It began at a whisper, but the volume rose until Hagrid was shouting at the top of his lungs the name of the Dark Lord that he'd been almost too afraid to speak out loud when they had first met seven years earlier. "Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort! 'E Who WILL Be Named! Voldemort!"
Harry stood back to avoid being hit as Hagrid turned around in utter ecstasy.
"Hagrid? Hagrid! Sorry to interrupt, but have you seen Ron and Hermione?" Harry shouted, gaining the gleeful gamekeeper's attention. He paused his revelry long enough to glance around.
"No, I 'aven't seen 'em since before you fought Voldemort!" The last word came out as a long, overjoyed bellow, and Hagrid continued his victorious celebrations.
Harry kept looking for Ron and Hermione the rest of the morning, being interrupted every few minutes by rejoicing admirers and well-wishers. He tried to avoid looking at the many bodies that were being laid out at the front of the Great Hall but, not finding the two anywhere else, eventually had no choice. With a lump in his throat reminiscent of the first time he caught a Snitch, he approached the line of the dead.
There must have been at least fifty of them lying there, most bearing the shocked expressions of one whose death came too soon. Many were young and inexperienced, like Colin Creevy. Young students who had just begun their careers at Hogwarts and had been among those "little people," as Ron had dubbed them, who had gone into stuttering fits by merely being in his presence. Some were older, like Fred, just having left Hogwarts. The ones who were beginning the rest of their surely successful lives and were willing to fight for those dreams that made them so driven. And then there were those who weren't fighting for themselves. Those whose time had come and gone and were now fighting for those that now lay side by side with them on the cold floor of the Great Hall. It was in this last, entirely unselfish group that Lupin and Tonks had fallen into, faces relaxed and peaceful in the knowledge that they would not need to be replaced by any other fighters anymore.
Harry walked slowly, painfully looking each of them in the face and identifying them as one of his classmates or their mother or father. So many faces, some with eyes already closed, some staring blankly at the beautiful dawn that was emerging above them, but none of them seeing anything anymore. As he came to the end of the long row, besides all of the familiar faces, Harry realized one thing. Ron and Hermione weren't among them. A surge of hope went through him at the thought. If they weren't among the dead, they could still be alive. Possibly hidden away to finish what they had started earlier in the night.
"Still can't find your friends, Mr. Potter?" Harry turned to see a very tired, bedraggled Professor McGonagall standing behind him, sadly surveying the line of the dead. He nodded mutely, shocked at the sight of the head of Gryffindor House looking so beaten and weak. She gave him a sad smile.
"If you haven't found them yet, I can't say there's much hope of finding them at all." He gave her an inquiring look, his mouth going dry.
"Many of those who were killed…weren't left intact by the curses that hit them," she said slowly.
"You mean…t-they-"
"Their bodies may have been destroyed," she said finally, pain in every word. Harry's heart dropped into his stomach. His breath hitched in his chest. His mind stopped. Ron and Hermione. His two best friends since he set foot on the Hogwarts Express as a first year. Dead? Not only that, but so badly damaged that there was no trace left of them? No, it was impossible. But what other explanation could there be? If they had survived unscathed, they would have been looking for him immediately. If they'd been injured or unconscious, someone would have told him. He'd been looking for hours, and there was no sign of them.
"There's something else," Professor McGonagall said gently. Slowly, as if against her will, she slid a wand out of the pocket of her robes. It was burned and badly damaged but still recognizable. It was Hermione's wand. Harry swallowed hard. She would never have left her wand, and from the look of it, the wand and its user must have been hit by a powerful spell. Possibly one that could kill its target. One that could destroy them altogether. McGonagall placed her hand on Harry's shoulder.
"Mr. Potter…Harry…I'm sorry." And with that, she turned away, ready to help any others looking for someone dear. Someone doomed. Someone dead.
There was a bright white light and a thud as she landed hard on the pavement, unmoving even as the rain pounded against her face. She stared at a run down little shack that could hardly have had more than two or three rooms as a tall, pale man came out of it, looking slightly dazed and in shock that a teenage girl had seemingly crash landed in front of his house. She felt sleep overtaking her as he crouched down by her side, giving her and her badly beaten form a once-over before gathering her in his arms and carrying her off toward the little hut.
"Hey, Hugo! Look what I found in the street!" She barely heard his words enough to understand them before she passed out.
Miles away, an identical light appeared above a little clinic, its inhabitants lounging peacefully on the porch as he plummeted into the grassy earth. He could identify a flurry of activity as someone knelt on the ground next to him. His vision blurring, he could make out the floral pattern on the hem of a sundress.
"Benjamin! Get the stretcher!" he heard a woman's voice call and felt himself being grabbed by two sets of hands, one incredibly small, and laid out on an expanse of tight fabric. Someone took his pulse as he was wheeled up a slope and through a pair of doors before the darkness overtook him.
Well, that be the first chapter, my friends! What dost thou thinketh? Please, remember to review, or I might just die of starvation!