As Hermione lay there it struck her how red it was. Blood that is. It was red, stop-light red, fire engine red, flame red, scarlet red, and all those other shades that she used to see in the corner shop when she was but a girl. Oh, when she was a girl! How long ago those days seemed, when she was innocent, untouched by the death that surrounded her.
And surround her it did. All around her, it did. Friend or foe, it did not matter; all were dead, or, like herself, would soon be. She gently brushed a lock of red hair out of her face. It took a moment before she realized what was wrong with that. She did not have red hair. Especially not blood red hair, dyed in her own blood, most likely, or those who had fallen with her.
It wasn't fair. It really wasn't. It had been an ambush, one minute sitting calmly at a picnic with her lover, the next at Malfoy's wand point with pain coursing through her veins, her very being racked with it. Her being had been torn in two. Survival vs. loyalty. Loyalty had won, as it always had in the past. That, more than anything else, was what her and her lover's rebel group had been known for. Fight 'til the end. That was their motto. Never lose; that was their other.
Ha! Fight 'til the end, she had. Lost, she had. A freedom fighter never truly won; Hermione knew that now. One might think that the wizarding community might have rallied behind them, supported them with that same support with which they had once raised Harry Potter to the level of superhero. But they had dropped him. Fast and hard, indeed. After the Triwizard tournament his support had never quite been the same, always followed by suspicions of Cedric's death.
It had nearly broken him, but he, true to form, had persevered and formed the group with Hermione and Ron. They had struck swiftly and fiercely wherever they could, but the opportunities had been growing few and far between; the public was supporting the new rulers now. It was already being labeled in history books as the Malfoy reign, heralded in by Voldemort, powered by the rivers of blood that had flowed, spinning the wheels of terror.
How red it was.
Hermione winced as a bolt of pain shot through her arm as she moved. She felt a splatter of moisture on her face, dripping into her mouth. It tasted metallic. Blood, she realized. Her arm was covered in it, flowing from the gash from her wrist to her elbow. She couldn't even remember how she had gotten it.
How red it was.
Hermione felt her feet under her and she stood up, her vision filled with black spots. The ground was stained red with the blood of the fallen. A mangled corpse was stuck in the high branch of an old oak tree near her vision. She couldn't recognize the person it had once been; she didn't even care at this point. Survival was beginning to defeat loyalty. Realization of the hopelessness of the fight was beginning to sink in. Ron was dead, dead for 4 months. Molly and Arthur had been killed 2 months prior. Ginny, Bill, Charlie, the twins, all gone to the misty forest. Percy was a convert, a turncoat. He was rising fast in the ranks of the new ministry, or so she had heard.
She stumbled over a branch in her path and hit the ground hard. Her head struck a stone and she began to black out in pain. Rolling over, she fell into a puddle and the moisture seeped into her robes. As she felt her head begin to bleed again the mist began.
She knew this was it. No one could be saved once the mist began to form; the mist that heralded the entrance of a wizard or witch into the misty forest. A colored mist filled her vision, the color, she knew, was a reflection of her soul. As for the mist…
How red it was.
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A/N: Sorry to those who are waiting for Hermione's Grief Chapter 9…it will be here soon…I'm leaving for 3 weeks but when I get back…yes I know that I've been horrible with keeping on top of the story…it's nearly done just needs the last scene and a beta-reading. Please review this…this was just my futile attempt to deal with writer's block. Tell me what you think of my angst attempts.