Drowning

She can't breath, the water that continued to pour down her throat, tickled her lungs. Its salty taste stung her lips. The rope around her waist tugged her further, she felt the flesh ripping, shredding painfully beyond belief. Yet she did not cry, nor scream; she remained silent. She was silently trying to hold on to her life. Her tears mixed well with the salty water, neither could be torn away from the other. Silent words poured from her mouth, just like the water poured in, like a fish continually breathing in fatal air instead of its much overlooked water. She was a fish. Gasping, she was always gasping for air, Hermione knew she was dying; and she couldn't do a thing about it.

00000 Yesterday 00000

"Eat something Hermione, you're bordering on anorexia!" Ron Weasely ordered worriedly yet his tone remained casual and light, as if the past few years hadn't changed him. He prodded my stomach with the sharper end of his grimy, rusty knife, it slipped into my skin before exiting just as quickly.

She felt the flesh ripping...

I felt the blood drain from my body; I didn't bother to look down at the incision Ron made for I knew the red droplets would continue to seep out, staining my tattered clothes. He was stupid, so pathetic, even though he was in the Order of the Phoenix; Ron still managed to be a dim-witted, uncoordinated red head fool.

"Harry, you hold her down while I'll shove some potato into her mouth!" the bumbling idiot joked, his empty, saddened laugh echoed throughout the room and nearby halls. His laughter soon degraded into a pitiable moan as it bounced around the deadened area.

His idiocy was really was getting on her nerves. Not that she really had any, but the meaning of it was still there. With Ron smothering Harry and her constantly she always felt constricted, confined unable to break free of his asphyxiating gestures.

She was drowning...

"Hermione, come on! Here, have some carrots, or try some of this meat…uh I don't know what it's called but it tastes bloody good mate!" Ron persisted eagerly, loading my empty plate with the foods his discarded from his own. The meat was half rotten, but it was all the order could feed us with without arising suspicion. The flies had gotten to it before the Order did, you could almost picture the filthy creatures crawling all over our food, taking some to eat, and leaving a gift of their eggs in return.

"Ron."

"Yeah Harry?" Ron inquired, his normally confounded expression had slightly faded and in its place was a stranger look; one that clashed with his usual brave front, one that usually only rose when he faced peril- it was the air of distress.

In earlier times he was stressed by exams and facing the Slytherins in the next Quidditch match, but now, the only thing that scared him was Harry. Even death didn't seem to scare the fool as much as it did in the fifth year.

Harry said nothing; Ron had misread the call of his name for a question rather than just a word.

A word of silence…

Paling, Ron finally acknowledged what Harry had wanted; he rose from the table, standing straight the oaf was six foot five, towering over Harry by a good three feet.

Suddenly, he seized Harry with as much force as possible, pulling the raven haired prophecy closer to his freckly face.

"Snap out of it Harry!" he snarled, shaking the young man like a little disobedient kitten.

Harry's head rolled back and forth, the dimly lit light reflected his messy unkempt hair that had displayed a new colour flickering in Harry's hair for it was now a silvery black shade's. His once bright emerald green eyes had darkened into two deep wandering pools of madness, with his gaunt skin bone white stretched across his empty sunken face; he managed to stare at his attacker as if to tell him what had been obviously since the end of the fifth year. Everything that had once been held in his mind was now lost like a single crumb on the floor that barely held us up.

Can't you see that there's no going back? His eyes seemed to inquire mindlessly. The edges of his small pale mouth twisted awkwardly, eventually forming some sort of perverse smirk; almost as if to show his aggressor that there was no hope left in the battle against good and evil.

"What happened to the Harry Potter I became friends with? Who save my life god damn more times that any one else would've done? Where are you?" Ron growled, shaking him faster and faster as he continued.

"Where's the Harry that fought You Know Who and survived so many times more than anyone else in the entire universe huh? Why did you give up, the Harry I know would never give up, even if there was no hope, bloody oath! WHERE ARE YOU!" Ron's voice heightened to a fuming irate tone of pure insanity.

He had ignored the fact that Harry had gone. And he was never to return.

Shaking vividly, Ron threw Harry across the room, smashing him into the pots and pans that once stood untouched for centuries in the House of Black. With all the shattered clay glass surrounding the young man with silvery black hair looking blankly back at his previously red headed, red faced, best friend.

Neither Ron nor I saw him removed his wand from his pocket, it was supposed to be locked up in the late Sirius Black's old bedroom and kept under constant surveillance. Before even I could close my eyes to protect myself, Harry aimed his prophetic wand at the Weasely boy and yelled the fatal words, to end Ron's light in a sickening flash of bright foreboding green.

A cry of shock, or was it pain? That escaped from the now dead man's lips as he crumpled to the ground in a withered heap. Even Ron's eyes were still open, yet they were never to shine nor seem to smile again; the light had gone out- for forever. His body laid uncomfortably folded over, Ron's heavily disfigured face rested disgracefully in the dirt; the sweat that had seeped out prior to the incident had moistened the soil, smearing his lifeless face.

Harry hadn't even gotten up off the dusty floor yet; he was breathing so heavily, like he had just run a marathon, or swam a thousand miles of ocean. It had taken that much out of him to kill his best friend, I knew now that he couldn't kill me, not without resting first.

Ready to take the plunge into eternal sleep... just so ready...

I watched them silently before turning away at the scene that lay before me.

I was sick of been stuck here.

The want for freedom.

The need.

The lust.

So tempting to take.

I was craving it.

So desperate.

So dangerous.

My thoughts whispered softly, haunting and echoing in my mind, making my head ache with confusion and utter distress.

It would only take a few minutes... maybe a little more... maybe a lot less...

0000000000000000000000000000000000000

"There was never to be a great war to end this continuous battle against Good and Evil, fore the anticipation would kill everyone before the even was one to begin with..." I wrote on her bedroom wall with my very own blood. Few letters managed to maintain the form as the dark red droplets dribbled down the decaying wall and shaping into several pools on the floor.

"This war for power, for control of the world, never was really a subject to be fought over, because the power is out of our control..." I continued, I felt my flesh pale, the hammering sound of my heart pounding in my ears as my eyes became unfocused and wandering off the point.

These words, these wise words of unthought-of subjects were spoken just a few days ago, when Albus Dumbledore was overheard by Ginny and I as he conversed with Severus Snape.

00000 Flashback 00000

"But Albus, you can certainly not go in alone, it would be as if you were committing suicide." Snape insisted after the aged man had told him the future plans.

"Severus, my friend, I am not going in alone; Harry will be by my side, you know he has to at least kill Voldemort." Dumbledore mused at the thought as he swallowed yet another Lemon Drop to cover the horrible stench of rotten eggs that percolated out of his mouth.

The double agent sighed in frustration, they had had this conversation far too many times and yet the Headmaster still stubbornly believes that the idiotic, psychologically challenged boy was still the hero, the gallant warrior that would save the world- both muggle and magical world from power hungry fools.

"If you want to commit suicide, fine by me Albus," he held up his hand to signal the withered man to keep quiet, "if you want to do the world a favour and get rid of Potter, I don't care," Snape hissed at the sound of that most hated surname before continuing, "But when you endangered the rest of the Order, the residents of England and the population of the entire world; well, I have to say I do care. So, stop immediately what you're planning to do, gather the armies and we will all go in Albus, and we will all fight."

Ginny's mouth dropped open, she had never heard her own Potions professor argue with the Headmaster, let alone hold such a righteous demeanor for the good of the world- ever.

"Shit 'Mione, he either must be intoxicated by those awful fumes in the dungeons, or Snape must be sick of being a double agent!"

"Shut up Weasely." I muttered, not realizing that I hadn't called the red headed seventh year by her first name- but by what Malfoy and other foul creature do, by her last.

"There was never to be a great war to end this continuous battle against Good and Evil, fore the anticipation would kill everyone before the even was one to begin with Severus, you should have picked up on that a few years ago when Sirius died." Dumbledore muttered, his voice was tired and withered, just like him.

"Albus stop talking in riddles. Nevertheless, Black was nothing but a fool, his apparent courageous manner was just stupidity and the battle will happen. I can see it now though, you will lock yourself away, let no one in until the very last days, and then when mankind struggles against itself endlessly, you'll come in and end it all. Just like the prophecies told you."

"Severus, if we ever did have a war for power, for control of the world, never was really a subject to be fought over, because the power is out of our control, so in fact, in technical truth, the Great War to end all wars, cannot exist."

00000 End of Flashback 00000

I snapped out of my trance, wiped away the excess blood that indeed still oozed out of the tips of my fingers as I exited the room quietly, it was like I wasn't even there.

But my mind still whirred with infinite thoughts of unwanted yet the captivating needs of perilous risks that will obviously lead to death.

All you need is some rope, a large rock and just an ever so little jump and this will all be gone...

The thoughts.

So enticing.

Tempting.

The very though was alluring.

Attractive.

Death seemed so beautiful.

Wonderful.

Achievable.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

The wind rippled through my hair, tickling my neck, caressing my skin, freezing my flesh. I ran my fingers across the water's edge; the water itself was incredibly icy cold, no creature dared to even dip itself into these frosty depths.

Yet I did.

Without further hesitation, I dipped both of my bare feet in, my already aching muscles tightened, and with teeth clenched I began wading my way deeper and deeper into the perilous depths of the lake. Its black murkiness created somewhat of a resemblance to the life I led, the life I was imprisoned in unjustly and discriminatorily and the life I wanted to throw away.

As the wind rustled the trees, its contemptuous leaves flittered carelessly around in the crisp cool air; eventually falling onto the shadowy, cheerless lake and sinking gently deeper and deeper into its depths.

Everything so was set.

So perfect.

Faultless.

Easy.

With an incredibly simple flick of my wand a rope was by my side, lying smoothly in my hands, another flick and one end was attached to my waist and the other; to an ominous rock that was floated magically above the very centre of the lake.

The very thought of death was strangely soothing.

Calming.

Reassuring.

Encouraging.

I was ready.

Yet I waited for something.

Standing.

Waiting.

Wishing for the time to come.

I didn't know exactly why I was waiting, I never had waited for anyone in the last few years and I did not intend to start right before the great finale.

"It's now or never Hermione…" I muttered to myself, tightening the rope and getting geared up to just give it all away.

"Prior incantem!" I whispered it was the spell that undid 'wingardium leviosa' quite efficiently; tears fell freely down my face, for I knew I would miss my memories of what I had.

Flying.

Falling.

Drowning.

0000000000000000 SOMEWHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF SWEDEN 00000000000000000000

"It is done. The girl is dead." The eerie voice echoed in its sinister tone, thick with his own personal satisfaction. A thin evil smirk crept onto his skeleton like white face for he knew he, Lord Voldemort, had won.