Notes and Disclaimer
Written in response to a request from indigosquare over at LiveJournal. The prompt was, "A during-Hogwarts fic, in the lead up to the war. They're all starting to lose their way a little bit." Title, end quote and chapter headings for 1 to 9 were taken from T.S. Eliot, while the headings for 10 and 11 are courtesy of Douglas Coopland.
i have gone at dusk through narrow streets
1
he said hold on tight, and down we went
It's the night before and you're already seeing these hallways covered in blood. You navigate the sharp corners and the twisting staircases dead on your feet, a boy in a waking dream, jostled from all sides by other students rushing to somewhere else.
And should you, should you feel relief because the end is near, or should you tell everyone to get out while they still can, or-
There is a girl in the library, cheek smudged with ink, hair pulled back in a messy bun. Just another school night for Hermione Granger while you wander all over the place hoping for a sense of goodbye, and how crazy is that?
"You're blocking my light," she says.
I got all my ideas from you, you think, staring at her. The potion, the coins, they were all from you and you'll never even know.
"You're in my light," she says again, this time through gritted teeth.
Maybe it's the lack of sleep bringing on a startling instance of clarity or the adrenaline pumping through your veins, but you're transfixed by the freckles on the bridge of her nose, by the way her chin curves in the glow of the torches. You want to grab hold of those slender shoulders and shake her, force her to look up from that damn book, because doesn't she see, the dark days are coming and it's Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers first, didn't you tell her that once, long ago-
And it's the night of. There is a man in the tower, disarmed by your hand yet holding out his own.
"You are not a killer," he says.
What am I, then? you almost scream. I took the Mark. I swore the Oath. I waited my whole life.
You're out of your depth, treading water, trying to keep the shore in sight. Lightning is flashing and the world is moving too fast, it's falling away into the night, and then the Death Eaters arrive-
"Avada Kedavra!"
And you are swept out to sea.
2
where you linger
"Malfoy." Her foot taps rhythms on the classroom floor. "I thought we agreed you'd work on the differentials while I handled operator theory."
His knuckles whiten around the quill. "I have better things to worry about."
She sighs, exasperated. "You may very well consider Arithmancy beneath your contempt, but this assignment needs to be turned in at the end of the week and since we have the misfortune to be partners-"
His glare shifts from the desk to her face. She frowns.
"Are you all right? You look like you haven't slept in-"
"Shove it, Granger." He stands up. He walks away.
3
the heart of light, the silence
"Are they for real?" Pansy snorts, incredulous expression focused on the Gryffindors. "They're- they're bloody frolicking. In subzero temperature. It's enough to make you sick."
You Slytherins have never liked the cold, despite what anyone else thinks. In your bedrooms back home well-stoked fireplaces always burn brightly into the night, so different from the clamminess of the dungeons. You press up against one another's bodies at the far end of the icy courtyard, huddling for warmth and trying not to be too obvious about it.
"They'll get what's coming to them soon enough," Blaise remarks in a bored voice.
You look at the Gryffindors roughhousing in the snow and try to imagine their faces waxing pale in bursts of green light, faces that you've seen hollow out and mature through the years, slowly losing the baby fat, slowly losing the hesitancy as they, along with you, learned to traverse the corridors of magic with increasing confidence.
"I'll be glad to be rid of this lot," huffs Millicent, but her voice lacks conviction.
Pansy's eyes are carefully blank as she toys with the ends of her scarf. Goyle scuffs his shoe on the ground.
"There's Granger," Crabbe grunts, and all of you turn to watch her progress across the courtyard.
Theodore shakes his head. "First to go, that one."
Your group relaxes. When he was ten years old, Theodore had seen a cousin get killed for being a Squib at the hands of the Nott patriarch, and if he can speak so callously of death now, perhaps there is hope for the rest of you yet.
"Oh, no! Hermione, watch out!"
Granger looks up at the sound of Finnegan's voice, and is promptly hit in the face by an errant snowball.
You and the other Slytherins collapse into laughter and jeers. Granger's gaze somehow catches yours and she's so ridiculous, mouth hanging open in shock, brown eyes wide. A thin stream of blood trickles from her nose, bright red against the swirl of frozen whiteness that's tangled up in her messy hair. Your sniggers trail off half a beat too soon; for a few brief seconds there is only her face, the moment hanging in time.
And then it's over. Finnegan, Thomas and Longbottom run up to her, all hasty apologies and pent-up chuckles. You watch as she squeals and sputters in indignation, as she flings snow at the boys, as they back away from her, grinning, as they chase one another around in joyous shouts that seem to float all the way to the winter sky.
"Tossers, the lot of them," drawls Blaise. "How's your mission going, Draco?"
"Writing a book, are you?" you snap, because suddenly you really, really don't want to talk about it.
4
waste and empty is the sea
"Throw your chair at me, Potter."
The classroom, already as relatively quiet as it always is in McGonagall's presence, takes on the swift, heavy hush of death.
Beside Hermione, Harry blinks. "Er- sorry, Professor?"
McGonagall raises an eyebrow. "I trust I do not need to repeat myself, as simple as the instruction was."
"But-"
"Do it."
Looking slightly ill, Harry gets to his feet. He picks up his chair. "Professor, are you-"
"I haven't got all day, Potter!"
There's an audible wince from the rest of the students as Harry flings the chair in their teacher's direction. McGonagall cracks her wand and, quick as a flash, the chair dissolves into a flock of ravens that screech and caw and charge through the air. Harry ducks behind his desk and the birds, deprived of their target, fly out the open windows in a whirl of ebony feathers.
"Transfiguration," McGonagall announces into the shell-shocked classroom, "is both defensive and offensive. Whatever is coming your way can be turned into something that won't harm you or something that will harm someone else. In certain cases, the choice is the same." She clasps her hands together, speaking in measured tones. "It is no secret that there are difficult times ahead. Times that you may not be prepared for. Times that… we did not think we needed to prepare another generation for." Here she falters, for a split second older than she has ever appeared.
"Sooner or later you will all be facing enormous decisions- about what is right, what is wrong, how you want to live your lives- and I believe I would not be mistaken in presuming that some of you have already made your choice." Behind her spectacles, McGonagall's eyes sweep the room, lingering on the Slytherins, who look back at her, stone-faced.
"Obviously, we can neither stop you nor tell you what to do. We can only guide you so far. You can only be with us for so long. But I trust that, in the midst of everything, you will remember what you are to one another. No-" she says sharply, putting a stop to the chorus of uneasy murmurs that starts to bloom- "not friends. Not even rivals. Classmates. Whether you like it or not, sixth years, you grew up together and Hogwarts watched over you. And, in turn, it is my hope that you will keep in mind what she has taught. If you must wound, do it with mercy. If you must kill, at least know why."
"Guess Harry's standing up for the rest of the period," Ron whispers to Hermione.
She manages to smile, to relieve the chill that's shot down her spine.
5
and still the world pursues
"I did the computations. Look them over. It's the least you can do." She is waspish even in her compassion, pushing a roll of parchment across your desk.
You smirk because you do not understand. "Should've just left me out in the cold."
"I probably should have, but I'm not you. Take it easy, Malfoy." She glances at your unkempt hair and the dark shadows under your eyes, and just like that you're reminded of the single tear your mother shed that dripped onto your forearm and burned hotter than the Dark Mark that had just been carved there. It's small and secret and for a moment it eclipses everything else.
6
stay with me
They trudge down the corridors, both in foul moods and covered in the remnants of an illegal Potions experiment gone wrong.
"Who adds moondew before boomslang skin?" Hermione mutters. "Honestly." Sometimes being a prefect isn't worth it, especially when patrol involves busting a group of Ravenclaws attempting to concoct one of the more, ah, hallucinogenic brews, and having it blow up in everyone's faces. Literally.
"Those little swots are lucky all they get is detention," snarls Malfoy.
"Yes, they could have died," she points out.
"I don't care what happens to them. If I weren't prefect I would have-"
"You would have what, Malfoy?" Her tone is challenging, harsh, even, but she's too grumpy and too tired to play nice. "Crabbe and Goyle aren't here. Neither is your father. Quite narrows down your options, doesn't it?"
His rage finds a new target. "So tell me, Granger," he says, mockingly pleasant, "what's a bloke got to do to dislodge that stick in your arse?"
She's about to retort when they pass by one of the torches, its golden light throwing his face into sharp relief. Black sludge is all over his nose and cheeks and matted in his hair, causing it to stick up haphazardly in random places. She swallows a giggle. "You look horrid."
"So do you." His lips twitch.
"What a school."
He extracts a handkerchief from the folds of his robes. "I should have gone to Durmstrang."
Sometimes it amazes her during rounds how quickly they fall into these short conversations that, while awkward and halting, are devoid of blatant spite. Maybe they've calmed down after years of each other's constant presence. Maybe it's something about the nights and these empty hallways.
She runs her fingers through her hair and squeezes out the slime as best as she can.
"Durmstrang?" she repeats. "You wouldn't have met me, then."
"All the more reason."
"I suppose." She tries to envision Hogwarts without Malfoy, how her life would have been different. She tilts her head to side, letting globs of potion drip to the floor, and glances at him.
He's paused in the act of cleaning up. His expression is unfathomable, his gaze focused on the angle of her jaw line, the curve of her neck. Her skin prickles under his grey eyes.
"A life without you," he says at last. "Must be really something."
7
run softly till i end my song
You're a mess of heartache and nerves by the time you reach the safe house.
"That was mine!" you hiss, rounding on Snape. "He was mine to kill! You had no right!" Tears stream down your cheeks and you can no longer tell who or what they're for.
Snape looks at you calmly, black eyes inscrutable. "You could never have done it."
"Don't give me that!" you rail. "I fixed the Cabinet. I found a way in. Who are you to decide what I'm capable of?"
"Narcissa never took a life," he says. "Not even once."
Your fists clench. "And so?"
"And so." He almost sighs. He looks worn around the edges. "You have her grace."
8
what the thunder said
The fire in the Gryffindor common room burns low, casting shadows on the solemn faces clustered around it.
"He spent the whole year planning," Harry muses, "but he couldn't do it. Not in the end."
Ron scoffs. "That's because he's a spineless git."
Hermione turns a page. Her hand trembles only slightly. "There are many ways to be a coward, Ronald Weasley, and in a perfect world, not killing someone wouldn't be one of them."
"I can't believe you're taking Malfoy's side, Hermione!" Ginny snaps, eyes blazing.
"Did I say I was?"
Seamus' foot lashes out at a nearby chair. "But that's the point, isn't it? This world isn't perfect. Dumbledore's dead. And all because of some bloke we had classes with who swallowed the bollocks his parents shoved down his throat because he's a bloody spineless git!"
There are somber nods from all around, except from Hermione, who clamps her lips together and continues reading.
"Right now," Dean says slowly, "I just want to beat the shit out of the first Slytherin I see."
"I'll hold him down for you," mutters Neville.
"Dumbledore wouldn't want that," Hermione remarks. "That's precisely the sort of thing he spent his life fighting against. Don't desecrate his memory."
"Listen to yourself!" Ginny bursts out. "You, of all people, sticking up for Slytherins! Don't you get it, Hermione?"
"Ginny-" Ron starts to say, but she cuts him off.
"You know I'm right, Ron. If You-Know-Who wins, who do you think will be the first to go? Miss World Peace here. The Muggle-born."
An uncomfortable silence falls over the room. Hermione looks at Ginny, whose chest heaves in the firelight as her eyes go glassy with unshed tears, once a timid little mouse, now a girl too proud to cry. Where have the years gone?
"Nothing's going to happen to Hermione," Ron firmly declares. "They'll have to get through me first."
"Don't let her hide behind you," Seamus advises. "Anyone can see that ginger hair from miles away. Easy target."
And just like that, they're all laughing. It's awkward at first, a bit forced, but soon it's a chorus, a crescendo that rebounds against the star-prickled windows before lowering back down to earth. The joke hadn't even been that funny, but Hermione doesn't care, because they put Dumbledore in the ground today and it just feels good to laugh with her friends again.
"We're going to be so messed up," Harry finally says, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. "If we make it through this war alive, I mean. We'll be the most messed-up kids the world's ever known."
9
the sound of water
Sometimes you look back. When your father hangs his head. When your mother flinches at the sound of footsteps echoing through a house that is no longer your own. You look back at that moment in the tower and wonder if the hand held out to you had been mercy instead of judgment, if you could have taken it any other way. The minutes tick forward but the years sweep back, and Potter's clinging on to Diggory's lifeless body and you're in the common room with your friends writing the lyrics to Weasley is Our King and Granger's slapping you and the Hippogriff's upon you in a rain of feathers and claws and you're in a canoe with so many others, gazing up at Hogwarts for the first time, shimmering panels of water reflected on all your faces. You were raised to believe you never needed to make a choice but this is not what you meant to be. Crucio, Crucio. Rowle and Dolohov twitch at the end of your wand and the Lord laughs and you think, Not this.
10
earthly sadness
It's a year later and there are five things Hermione has yet to tell anyone else.
The first is this: before they leave Hogwarts for the summer, she finds Pansy crying in the girl's bathroom. Upon realizing she's been caught, Pansy lifts her chin in defiance as Hermione stares at her.
"Bloody take a picture already, why don't you?" she snarls.
"Are you crying for Dumbledore?" Hermione asks before she can help herself.
"Dumbledore!" Pansy half-shrieks. "What do I care about that barmy old coot?" Even as the words leave her mouth she looks vaguely uncomfortable, and for that Hermione feels a surge of gratification because no matter how Slytherin you are it's still wrong to speak ill of the dead, and Hermione needs all the black-and-white she can get in a world where everything's gone grey and unsure.
"Who else should I cry for, if not Draco?" Pansy rails. "He shouldn't have- the Ministry-" She stops because she's already said too much, but the unspoken words are clear as day. Draco Malfoy is on the run, facing expulsion, Azkaban or the Dementor's Kiss.
"I would have stopped him," Hermione tells the other girl, "if I had known."
Pansy gives her a strange look, which slowly dawns into understanding, as if something's finally clicked into place.
"Yeah," she says at last. "He always had this odd thing about you." And she leaves before Hermione can ask her what she means.
The second thing: after Dumbledore's death, a Slytherin boy trips in the hallway, his books crashing to the floor and splaying out like a hand of cards.
No one rushes over to help. The other students give him a wide berth.
Hermione, still sporting a few bruises from the Death Eater attack, is determined to keep on walking, but she glances back- only to see Susan Bones silently picking up the boy's books as he gets to his feet. And all Hermione can think about at that moment is Susan telling her once that sometimes she still imagines what it would have been like to know her Uncle Edgar and grow up with the cousins that had been slaughtered in 1981.
The third thing is this: while Hermione's cleaning out her bag, she finds scraps of parchment covered in Malfoy's flowing, elegant cursive; she must have erroneously thought they were hers during one of the times they had to sit together in Arithmancy class. The handwriting is sharp and careful and treads lightly on the pages, much like the boy himself. She studies it far longer than necessary, not even realizing until minutes later that she's searching for answers like a detective at a crime scene, looking for any clues laid out in the ink that could tell her why he did what he did.
The fourth thing: on the train ride back to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, she overhears a conversation between Crabbe and Goyle, who have neglected to shut their compartment door all the way.
"D'you think he's at his house, then?" asks Goyle.
"First place the Ministry'll look," Crabbe replies.
"Yeah…"
Hermione's fascinated. This is the first time she's listened to Crabbe and Goyle actually talking to one another. There's an ease to their voices, a certain comfortable lilt, so different from when other people are around and she can practically hear their mental gears working overtime to generate the words.
"Greg, could you… could you kill someone? Y'know, if you had to, or wanted to."
"What? Sure." Goyle sounds taken aback and hesitant. "Sure I could."
"Because if we're taking the Mark this summer we have to know for sure, right?" persists Crabbe.
"Right," Goyle says uneasily. And then, "I hope he's okay."
"Yeah. Me, too."
"He's a wanker, but I really hope he's okay."
Crabbe doesn't say anything. Goyle continues, the words pouring out like thick sludge. "Should be the three of us, yeah? Should always be the three of us…"
And this is the fifth and last thing that Hermione will take to her grave: the pain is too much, too fast. It fills her body until every drop of the blood pounding in her veins is screaming with it. She remembers spiders and the look in Neville's eyes. Bellatrix laughs and Hermione's neck arches back and Draco Malfoy's face wavers into her vision. Suddenly she's not seeing it across the distance of a room but through a span of years. That face's curious expression on the train before he discovered she was Muggle-born, that face spitting out Mudblood on Quidditch fields and Hogwarts hallways, that face frozen at the sight of hers on the night of the Yule Ball.
Did it have to come to this? she asks him somewhere in the recesses of her mind, as her limbs spasm on the floor of his house. Crucio, Crucio. We grew up together. Is this what you wanted?
11
even more real than you
The Astronomy Tower is a pile of rubble, its staircase a heap of broken stone. It's also deserted for the time being, and you sit down and lean against a section of collapsed wall, grateful for the solace.
That's when you see a foot sticking out from underneath the debris where the roof caved in. You turn to your side and throw up everything you've been holding in these last few hours, staining the floor with bile and ash. As you retch, you hear the approach of soft footsteps and Granger saying your name.
"Shouldn't you be off celebrating?" you ask her once the nausea has passed, staring at the ground and your trembling hands. "Your side won."
"Don't say it like that." She sounds so quietly angry that you look up. "Don't make it sound like it was some sort of contest. People we know are dead. No one won anything today."
And there are tear tracks in the smudges of dirt on her face and her hair tumbles down her shoulders in a mess of singed curls and you're tired and you want to tell her just this once that you've never seen anyone look so beautiful before, here in the dust and the half-light.
"I'm searching for survivors," she says. "Or…"
"Corpses," you finish woodenly.
She nods. You gesture to the foot under the crumbled roof and watch as she moves aside the stones, revealing a lifeless face that makes you blink in surprise.
"Slytherin. Fifth year," you announce. Odd. You thought everyone else in your House had made themselves scarce, but, then again, this particular boy had always been one of the more extreme fanatics.
"Help me carry him," Granger says, already lifting the boy's feet.
"No," you blurt out. "Not like that. He wouldn't have wanted it like that."
"Like what?" Then her eyes harden and there's a definite edge to her voice. "Oh, you mean the Muggle way."
You nod.
"I thought that after all this…" she trails off. She shakes her head sadly. "Never mind."
And you don't know how to say it, you don't know how to tell her that while you watched her being tortured all you could think about was the sunlight in her hair at the edge of the lake and Potter catching the Snitch and Weasley sleeping during History of Magic and the years flipped through your mind like pages in a photo album filled with snapshots of the life you had before and you keep going back to the image of her blood against the snow, bright red, the same color as yours. You want to tell her that Theodore Nott used to laugh at the Weasley twins' antics when he thought no one was looking and Pansy bit back a fond smile when she saw the unicorns and you're afraid to sleep these days because all you dream about is Dumbledore falling from the tower and Nagini eating Charity Burbage's corpse. You could tell her about your mother's face, usually so serene, how it crumpled when she saw Bellatrix lying on the ground. You want to tell her that the living can change, but the dead never will.
"The Muggle way is good enough," Granger says coldly. "Look where magic got him."
"He died for it." The words come out, unbidden, pushing past the knot in your throat. "Just give him this once."
For a second she looks like she's about to argue, and then you see the muscles under her face, that amazing face, move and soften in the way they do when she's changing her mind. She flicks her wand and mutters an incantation, and the boy rises into the air.
"Come on, then," she says, holding out a hand to you. You take it.
Mercy, not judgement.
the sea was calm, your heart would have responded
these fragments i have shored against my ruins
end