Author's Note: Most Harry Potter fanfiction I post up are ones I've written for the challenges at Darkones on livejournal. Otherwise, I have little to no motivation. This is my first piece of dark fiction, I figured it was time I changed my style and genre. Hope it isn't too confusing. Also have revised in valiant attempt to fix grammatical errors.

Jazzy

Disclaimer: This is a bit tedious… but alas, I am not the creator of HP
i.

She sat. That was all. Her body no longer remembered movement. In the past she would wonder what it was that kept her alive. Sometimes she was sure that she was fed without being aware of it, either by elves or fairies or friendly mice. Darkness was like a drug, a hallucinogen that seemed to materialize by the second. It fed on itself and enforced its abstraction with its reality. At times she would see, or perhaps she was dreaming.

She was in the Tower, there were nothing but darkness.

In the Tower, sanity was no longer statistical.

"All you have to do is keep your dreams separate from your reality." Pansy had told her, or so she thought.

She doesn't remember how long she'd been here. She was sure that she was the last one living of all of the captives, and she keeps that knowledge tucked away so she won't feel terribly alone.

In the Tower, sanity was almost subjective.

ii.

As the last wisp of lavender left the room in glitters, she began to braid her hair. She didn't remember it being that long; it seemed to extend as she continued, longer and longer until it piled like a neat pile of hay. Crazily in the depth of her mind she wondered how many bottles of Sleek-and-Shiny it took to make her hair so straight. The next thing she felt was the slight tug as she lowered the makeshift rope out of the window. She was fishing, she remembered, fishing for something important. She didn't remember what was outside of the window, but something told her that it might have been an ocean, or a village, or an endless expanse of thorn.

When she turned to the window, there was only light.

iii.

In reality, the war went on. Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost, sometimes the worst happened and they landed in stalemate. It didn't matter to them anymore. They had long accepted war as the one and only constant and certainty. To a point they relied on it. Everything was a drug now and the surreal reality was toxically addicting. They lived and they might die, the chances were all the same and sometimes they wondered if there were really any differences between the two. Once in a while someone really thought about it and chances were that they went insane. Those who did were sent into war, not that others weren't, but those who did were more likely. On the battlefield they were all the same, sane or not. The fields were littered with living corpses with eyes rolling backward and mouths frothing with blood and arms thrashing as if they were hung on a shred of stubborn skin. The hills were alive with death, portrayed by a dance where limbs fluttered and strings stretched and broke.

Sometimes, she thought, it might've only been the wind stroking the grass.

iv.

Her eyes fluttered open by the sudden weight on her hair. She thought she might have gotten something different this time, for this time the tug just might have been a little different from the last time. She told herself that it was heavier than last time (or was it lighter?) and that the footsteps that came up the wall were just a little quicker (or slower?). There was fear in the lack of change, fear in idleness. She stared into the light and hoped for a glimpse of her savior as she tried to ignore the burning in her retina. The tug had become heavier and the footsteps closer and against her better judgment, she allowed herself to hope.

v.

They feared the Dark Lord no longer. The true horror lay around them, amongst them. There was no escape and there never will be and they have long since realized that. War could take the good and evil out of the world so that there were no more labels. War would not end in a place that was addicted to it. The end was here, and the most terrible was that it would never stop ending.

vi.

Her vision had been coated with a shade of green. It tinged Harry's skin a sickening blue as his face appeared over the circular wall. Regardless, she was beyond overjoyed to see him.

"Harry!" She cried as she threw her arms around him and found his skin frightfully cold.

"Harry, Harry, Harry." She continued for the lack of words and the beauty of the name.

He gave her hair another painful tug as he brought himself over the wall and into the small, circular room. His body was ravaged by fatigue and injuries and they seemed to accumulate by the second and he finally crashed to the floor.

"Harry," She fell to the floor and helped him as he struggled to sit up, "Harry, have you finally come to save me?"

His face was slightly distorted as he coughed into his dirty sleeve, "Yes… yes, of course."

She saw the doubt in his eyes and was suddenly frightened.

Harry turned around and cupped her face painfully in his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes, "There is nothing to save you from now, Hermione, but yourself."

She screamed as his face peels away, revealing the flesh and bone, which quickly shriveled and turned into ash. A gust of wind blew them away, and left behind nothing but the scent of lavenders.

vii.

It was dark in the Tower.

She thought that she had opened her eyes, but wasn't sure. It didn't make any difference anyway.

It was always the same dream.

She turned to the only window in the circular room and wondered insanely if she should braid her hair. She was almost surprised to find complete darkness at the window, but she reminded herself that this, supposedly, was reality.

Dimly she heard footsteps coming up the wall. Strangely, it scared her.

This was reality.

The footstep came closer now; they were slow and showed signs of fatigue. She hated how familiar it all felt, hated how she much she dreaded the person who was climbing over the wall.

"Never confuse dreams with reality, Hermione. It'll keep you sane and alive."

She thought it was Pansy's voice that she remembered.

"Yer brilliant, 'ermione. You'll be the best of us yet."
Ron's words, she remembered.

She tried to keep them in her head, repeating them like a mantra; yet despite her efforts, she could not stop hoping and praying that the person climbing the wall was not Harry.

Anyone, anyone, but Harry Potter.

The window is dark. She muttered to herself, the window is dark.

This was reality.

And he threw his body over the wall, evidently injured and fatigued. The glowing wand in his hand dropped to the floor.

She suddenly felt that the room had become much brighter. Almost instantly she felt the burning in her retinas.

When she turned to Harry's face, it was a sickening shade of blue.

"Harry."

His body crashed wearily to the floor.

Hermione wanted to scream, scream herself numb so that she can wake up and see the blissful darkness again.

Still, she had to know, had to confirm. Cautiously she walked up to him and fell at his side, helping him prop himself into a sitting position.

"Harry, Harry, Harry." It was so hard to find the courage for the next words. She cleared her throat several times and managed to quiver it out, "Have you finally come to save me?"

He coughed twice into his dirty sleeve and sighed, "Yes…yes, of course."

She struggled out a cry and edged herself to the other side of circular room.

There was alarm in Harry's voice has he stood up and hurried toward her, "Hermione, Hermione, what's wrong?" He tried to grab her arms and steady her, yet each time she threw them away from her like they were diseased.

"Hermione!" he screamed as he tried to pin her against the wall. He could hear her crying out through cloth and limbs over and over you're not real, you're not real.

He seized her shoulders and gave them two hard shakes; he felt her resignation momentarily and forced her to look at him, "Yes, I am."

His gaze softened her eyes a bit; her whole face, though still slightly contorted, shone brightly under the wandlight. He let his grip relax a bit on her shoulders, still holding her in place and made sure she paid attention to his next words, "I'm real, and I've come here to save you."

She relaxed with his words and he loosened his hands on her shoulders. He let his hands travel up to cup her face so he could comfort her further. Immediately he was met by the tensing that shot through her body. Her eyes grew wide as she glanced at his hands and noticed the familiarity in the gesture. She trembled as she looked down and her expression was crazed when she met his eyes again.

"There's nothing…" She mouthed and he stared back incredulously.

Her voice cracked and she forced out a sigh before she tried again.

"There's nothing to save you from… but yourself."

She thought she could feel her skin peeling off her face and flesh and bone turning into ashes. She could almost feel the wind sweeping her fragments. She felt her dreams and reality fusing into one and could feel her mind start to fissure and disappear. She was sure that any minute now, she would smell the lavenders.

He sat with her, at the opposite end of the room, as she sobbed and trembled and clutched at her hair, often tearing handfuls. If that was night, she was dead the next morning, a puddle of drool collected around her face, wetting the scattered piles of hair around her.

end.

If you made it through this far. I love you.