CHALLENGE by MegaNerdAlert:
"During the final battle, Hermione is hit with a hex which ages her about 40 years – a spell that takes away youth. Ron is no longer interested in her because she is not 'young and beautiful', and is physically past an age where she'd want to start a family. Once again Hermione retreats to her books and spends the next few years earning her mastery in [fill in the blank], and then returns to Hogwarts to teach at the invitation of the Headmistress. Hermione must address how she is to 'go on with life', and be happy with someone, when she feels the time to be young and in love has been whisked away from her. Minerva has some helpful suggestions as to how to get Hermione through it all."
BETA READ by Peetsden
Going Back, Going Forth –– Chapter 1
MAY 1998
Hermione panted, watching her adversary go down at last. He toppled slowly over, a loud smack resounding when his fully-rigid body met with the dusty old, cracked floor. It could only barely be heard in the overwhelming noise of ongoing battle, though: screams of defensive spells, intermingled with more curses, emitted cries of loss or victory, the sound of the structures of the castle or other being blown to little pieces or coming down. She checked her surroundings, quickly confirming that she was alone, the Death Eater down now. When Hermione had deflected the curse he had aimed at Luna Lovegood, Travers had been far from happy and had at once begun fighting her instead, hoping to kill or at least seriously maim her. Travers had forced Hermione to separate from the rest and the main fighting that way.
The Muggle-Born witch tried to just catch a breath as she stood there, but she didn't really seem able to. Travers had made a tough foe, and a couple of times, he had broken though Hermione's Shield Charm very nearly when she had cast one to deflect his curses. It had only been luck, she thought, that he had been too slow when she cast the Petrificus Totalus upon him. Someone had released a scream further away, and for one tiny second, his attention had strayed away from their battle, which Hermione had taken full advantage of. The Death Eater's ego and the fact that he had nearly killed Hermione a couple of times must have strengthened him in his belief that he could take her on easily… but that had proved foolish, as had his second of non-attention.
With a flick of her 10¾ wand, Hermione easily chained both his feet and his hands. He would need one of his own to Revive him, and the chains easily could be removed, but, if anything, it might take a second longer, and she had discovered very soon that any second in battle could be very crucial indeed.
Gulping air once more, she ripped her gaze finally away from Travers's unmoving one and followed the sound of the battle, running back. She saw the ravage was distinctly worse than earlier, even if she had no idea how much earlier and even if most of her attention had been on trying to stay alive and incapacitate the Death Eater then. Her eyes flashed everywhere, alert. Hermione tried not to dwell so much on the victims she came across; there were so many men and women and children from both sides for who all help had come too late.
She could see it all in the vacancy of their faces, their eyes. So many had fallen already, but she couldn't let her thoughts stray in that direction, not right now, because if she did, she would lose her focus and wouldn't manage to save herself, to eventually become one of those. She needed to focus. She needed to stay alive and find Harry and Ron and the others who fought on their side. Still, she couldn't help the indescribable feeling of loss swirling in the pit of her stomach as she considered what she saw and concluded that based on that alone, it seemed that way more people had lost their lives than there would still be alive when she got to the Entrance Hall and courtyard. While the lives of everyone were of course of importance, she begged most for those of the old Dumbledore's Army and the Order of the Phoenix.
All Hell had broken loose in the courtyard when Harry had killed Voldemort there. His loyal Death Eaters, those who remained of the army he had brought to Hogwarts at least, had continued to fight for him even with him gone.
A motion from the corner of her hazel eyes made Hermione stop, and she looked back to find someone faintly waving from beneath a large pile of rubble. A Hufflepuff tie caught her attention and she hurried over, as she did recognizing the face of the young pupil. He could have been only Third Year, at most. The stone archway seemed to have come down partially upon him and blocked his body underneath. The panic in the young boy's blue eyes didn't go unnoticed for even a second by Hermione. If she could only get the most rubble off of him to relieve the weight… "I'm here," Hermione whispered. She knew that it must sound quite stupid and useless, but it was all that she could say, even if she doubted if it was at all comforting and suspected it wasn't. She began levitating the heavy rocks off of him in fast-motion. She might be able to save his two legs, to save his life… She couldn't just leave him lying there like that. Hermione had quite nearly managed to clear the bigger rocks away when suddenly the boy's blue eyes enlarged and he began mouthing something she couldn't really capture. She tried to lean closer to hear him just when she got her answer in a vivid green bolt of lightning soaring past her right cheek, missing it only by a few inches.
Hermione cast her Shield Charm as she looked over her shoulder and turned her body slightly to see who had cast it and saw a familiar squat little man, grinning wide in triumph. She had stood against him before, and Hermione's heart hammered in her throat as she remembered Kingsley pushing her aside and taking over just in time… The boy couldn't run. She needed to get the Death Eater away from there. She didn't have much chance to look for a solution, though, because his next curse easily broke through her Shield Charm and she only just managed to duck down and roll to the side, casting the first curse that came to her mind back at him as well, but it unfortunately missed, Hermione's aim far off right in the middle of her moving.
When his next spell left his stubby wand, a bolt of vivid purple flashing in Hermione's direction she recognized as having been directed at her successfully, once before, when in the Department of Mysteries, Hermione rolled back in order to dodge it only just in time.
Squinting, she watched it connect with what once had been a tall and proud Hogwarts armor, now crumpled against the wall where she had just been squatting. She saw the material burst to pieces before her, a small bolt of bright purple might bouncing back from the shiny metal, getting redirected, soaring over Hermione's head. It happened in a matter of seconds, her mind processing what was going to happen too late. The witch cast a Shield Charm again and turned her head as she screamed, "No!", just as the reflected spell hit the boy she had been trying to save on the side of his face. Hermione knew her efforts to save him earlier had been useless.
She turned to her adversary once more and saw a sick smile spread on the bastard's face. He reveled in the fact that he had killed someone and she had had to watch. Breaking her Shield Charm, she fired a Sectumsempra and ran to take cover behind the pieces of a broken stone statue across the hallway, crouching as fast as she possibly could, the squat Death Eater's curses following her as she did. If only she saw a way to be fast enough to hit without risking getting cursed herself…
"Hermione, get down!"
As she whipped her head in the direction of where the voice had come from, she saw a flash of Charlie Weasley duck behind the corner before the wall was blasted away and collapsed on top of the Death Eater, who hadn't been fast enough to really react. The spell had been fired right after Charlie's words of warning to Hermione, who got blown back into an already broken hallway closet by the force of the blast. A flash of yellow flashed before her eyes. The sound of someone screaming in agony reached her ears before she lost consciousness.
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