Hermione: May, 2nd 1998 The Battle of Hogwarts
Harry was dead. Voldemort was standing over his mangled corpse. Bellatrix's maniacal laughter rang in her ears. In that moment, Hermione realized three things.
One: Dumbledore had been wrong. Some fairy tales were just fairy tales. The Hallows hadn't made Harry the master of anything. He died, just as mortal as any man. There was a sickening crack as Voldemort gleefully kicked the corpse of the Boy Who Lived.
Two: The war was over. The Centaurs weren't coming. No one was coming to save them. They were outnumbered and overpowered. They had lost.
Three: She would go down wasn't going to leave this battle alive. The thought should've scared her or sadden her. It didn't.
What Hermione didn't realize in that moment was that her extendable bag had begun to glow as the powerful charm Dumbledore left on his copy of the Tales or Beedle and the Bard activated, turning the ancient book into a portkey.
In the next moment, as chaos broke out in the entrance to great hall, as some fled and some resolved to fight and die rather than live in a world where Voldemort ruled, Hermione was distracted by the familiar tug of a portkey at her navel.
And then suddenly, it was quiet. She stood in an empty marble chamber; she stood in front of the Veil.
The room was completely still. She had been here before. She was bleeding then too. The veil rippled in a nonexistent breeze. The white marble was cool as Hermione sank to her knees. Her mind swirled at the sudden lack of spell light and crashing noise.
It was quiet here. They had lost. Harry was dead. Voldemort had had taken Hogwarts. The light had lost. The war was over. This is where Sirius died she thought numbly.
Hermione thought of the other muggleborns, half bloods, half breeds, blood traitors... of the fate awaiting them in the darkness of Voldemort's unopposed reign. She thought of the powerful witches and wizards that would die tonight. Die fighting a lost war for freedom. She looked at her hands. They were covered in blood. So much blood. Her own, George Weasley's, Lestrange's, Remus's...
Sirius had died here.
Flashback
Bellatrix let out a gleefull laugh and Hermione felt something inside her snap. She spun around and watched Sirius fall through the veil. She crumpled to the ground, narrowingly avoiding most of the vicious purple curse sent by Dolhov. In the moments as she faded out of conciousness, left for dead by the death eater, she realized that no matter how much she had tried to deny it, no matter how much she had tried to convince herself she had feelings for Ron, there had been something more to her and Sirius's illicit relationship that summer. Too painfull to contemplate, she pushed all of the feelings she had for Harry's godfather deep into her subconcious
End Flashback
Her mind replayed Voldemort's smile as he stood over Harry's body and Bella's maniacal laugh as they reveled in it. In the pain and the death. In the darkness and the destruction.
They had been losing for so long. They had lost so much. They had lost so many. It had darkened even the purest of the light.
This was war. Hermione thought of the essays she wrote on the Goblin Wars, the defeat of Grindewald. She thought of the atomic bomb that ended muggle WWII. 'So this is what the end of war looks like,' she thought numbly.
Death. Torture. Pain. Hopelessness.
Harry was, had always been, their last hope. So stupid, so imesurably stupid, to entrust everything to one child. She supposed Harry had never really been a child. She wondered if Voldemort would ever be defeated. She hoped...
Mental foggyness blurred her thoughts as she calmly contemplated the red blood pooling beneath her on the white marble.
The Veil looked like liquid mercury. There were voices coming from it. There was silence in the room, but she could hear them. They were calling her. She held her abdomen with one hand and crawled on her hands and knees to the edge of the curtain.
She could hear them, Sirius and Harry... she could hear them calling to her...
They had lost. Harry was dead. There was nothing left she could do for any of them. She followed in Sirius's footsteps.
She reached for the peaceful oblivion of the veil.
