Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I make any sort of profit from this hobby. All rights are reserved for J. K. Rowling
Only Time Will Tell
Prologue: Of the Battle
'PART I: THE BEGINNING'
By
RedLillies
"Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die."
― Herbert Hoover
May 2nd, 1998
The liquid splashed loudly as she ran through a puddle of blood. It coated everything: the floor, the bodies littered on the ground, the walls, the people still fighting for their lives. It streamed like a flourishing river over the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Screams adorned the rushing sound of blood filling the courtyard. They reverberated against the walls, making them louder, multiplying them until their bones were drumming to the sound. It surrounded her in an all-encompassing bubble. The tortured screams, however, could be heard above all others, the pitch and the anguish standing in contrast, drawing attention to themselves.
The stench of death reached her nostrils, making her gag as the tendrils of death tried to enter her body.
She narrowly avoided the burning body of one of her younger classmates as she shouted a spell at the creatures that tried to maul someone in a corner.
Her friends, classmates and teachers were fighting and dying all around her. They dropped like flies, one by one, to the ground littered with death. No one was safe. No one could comprehend what was happening around them. They were all moving on pure adrenaline. They were not understanding, that when they stood on a body or when their boots splashed on the blood littered ground, it could just as well have been their loved ones.
They did not get the time to mourn the fallen. It happened too fast. One went down and then another fell, you looked to you right and your friend was being mauled to death, the other burned alive.
Hermione covered her mouth with her left hand to protect herself from hyperventilating.
Just breath in and breath out, she thought to herself while almost choking on a sob. Harry, Ron and she decided to split up not too long ago, thinking that they could cover more ground. Oh, how she regretted that now.
''Expelliarmus,'' she screamed.
One of the Death Eaters that she hit passed out by the force of the spell. One down, hundreds more to go, ''Stupefy. Flipendo!''
The sky was now a burnt red and orange from the smoke and explosions. It seemed as if hell had personally opened her portal on this very ground, trying to suck them all in. The ground that was once sacred for all was now a cemetery.
The ache in her bones, the tiredness and the desperation, started to settle deep into her brain and her muscles, willing her to slow down. But she didn't have a choice. She had to go on.
She looked on as more beasts and Death Eaters streamed through the front gates. How many more forces does this man, no, monster have? They were everywhere. Giants, werewolves, dementors, vampires...
She couldn't get the haze and smoke out of her eyes. The blood that dripped down her face, obscured her vision even more.
''Protego!''
Hermione put up her shield just quick enough to protect herself from a cutting curse. Her sudden movements caused her already open wounds to bleed, even more, to tear even further. She hissed and sucked in a breath as another cutting curse hit her thigh.
She pivoted around and hid quickly behind a pillar, hiding from the battle for only a moment. Hermione perused the area, searching desperately for one of her loved ones that might still be alive.
She saw many of the people she held dear - but not alive, no, not anymore. They were scattered in pieces. The ones that had gotten mercy and a quick death were stacked upon piles of bodies and their once living eyes unseeing: Tonks, Remus, Kingsley, Ron - Oh Ron - Fred, Luna, Lavender, Parvati...
Hermione shook her head and hid cruelly behind a pile of bodies as she darted from behind the pillar with a new mission on her mind. She ducked her head above the pile and lay her grime-covered hands on top of the bodies, searching for something to hold on to and to not fall back down.
Get to Harry, her mind supplied, Get to Harry, you idiot. NOW!
''Will it ever stop,'' she voiced breathlessly to no one.
HARRY! Only Harry. Think of Harry! Don't give up!
She ducked quickly behind the pile once more as a curse flew over her head. The magical energy tingled as it narrowly touched her hair, leaving a sizzling sound in its wake.
Way to close. That was way too close, Hermione.
She looked unexpectedly to the left, to the doors of the Great Hall, and her breathing stopped. In the doorway hang the rest of the Weasley family, ropes tied around their necks, their bodies slain open. They were strung up, proudly, each with 'Blood Traitor' carved into their bodies. She looked down and collected herself, trying to stop the bile that rose dangerously high in her throat.
Don't get side-tracked, Hermione. Please, don't do it. He needs your help. Come on, you can mourn later.
Everyone was dead. All she had was Harry. At this very moment, he was what mattered most to her. For her to life to be bearable, only Harry needed to survive. He was her only string of hope, of happiness. She needed him alive, if only for selfish reasons.
He was her top priority ever since they had become friends. The sweet and gentle boy. They were once 'The Golden Trio'. Not anymore, thought Hermione sadly.
In a span of a day, they went from a trio to a duo. Oh, how the once hated name brought her such happiness in this very moment, such longing to easier times.
She saw the numbers of the resistance dwindle more and more as she arrived in the courtyard. Hermione looked wildly around the battlefield, searching desperately for a mop of black hair.
Once she spotted Harry duelling Voldemort, she ran towards him, hoping to cover his back. She had just stepped outside from the safety of the marble stone before she was spiralling back into the brick wall of Hogwarts as two powerful Cruciatus Curses hit her in her legs.
Her own screams now matched the once around her, adding to the chaotic magic that their choir made. She welcomed the feeling of the curse into her body. The pain seeped from her skin into her muscles, into her bones, into the very atoms of her being.
Suddenly, it stopped. She breathed in a huge breath, letting her lungs fill with air once more. She opened her eyes cautiously, waiting to see the devil himself. Her eyes focused on the deranged form of Bellatrix Lestrange looming once more over her. Antonin Dolohov, not far behind her.
''Hello, love.'' She heard Dolohov's voice breathless and laden with excitement. She squeezed her eyes shut as he darted his face right into her own. She could smell the foul stench that emitted itself from the man's mouth.
''Antonin, Come here, now.'' Bellatrix Lestrange ordered her friend harshly, ''We're going to have a little fun, aren't we filth?''
No, no, no this can't be happening, she thought desperately.
''Let's play a little game, my darling mudblood,'' said Bellatrix cruelly, venom dripping from her tone, ''last time was so exciting! Pity we were interrupted then. But don't worry, filth, we will catch up again, and this time, you won't have your fickle little house-elf saving your worthless hide.'' Bellatrix hissed.
Hermione felt tremors going through her body. She was so scared. She didn't want to leave Harry, she had to help him. Helplessness started creeping into her body before being violently shoved down.
She felt Dolohov caressing her face, hungrily, with one of his hands, ''Don't worry love, we will have so much fun,'' he stated mockingly before he backed away, ''well at least I will.''
Hermione felt bile coming up her throat. No, no, no Hermione get your arse up. Now is not the time to be an obedient bitch. Stand up!
''What a fucking pity then, that I will not feel the sick and demented pleasure in torturing that you do. Fuck you,'' she spat in their direction.
''Shut up,'' Bellatrix shrieked, her ire rising. Bellatrix face, however, changed rapidly as she saw Hermione looking behind her making sure that Harry was all right. ''Well, well, the Gryffindor has finally grown a backbone. But it won't matter will it, when the Dark Lord kills your little Harriekins, your Chosen One?''
Hermione's eyes locked with those of the woman with a defiant glint in her eyes and kept her mouth firmly shut. Before she knew it, she was hit with two Crucios at the same time. Her screams once more adding to the horrifying choir of shrieks.
''Not going to happen,'' she said through clenched teeth as she felt the effects of Dolohov's curse seep into every nerve in her body.
Her fingers curled around her wand. ''Bombarda,'' she cried in her head and watched with relief as Bellatrix and Dolohov were thrown against a collapsing wall, their bodies crushed to death with the added weight.
Hermione felt neither satisfaction nor sadness as she saw her tormentors die. Her friends and family had gotten much worse.
She picked herself up with trouble, her legs trembling heavily. She started to walk to Harry once more but was stopped halfway by an invisible force. She pushed and pushed but could neither go forward nor backwards. She was the only one standing still in one place as curses zoomed over her head.
Hermione was about to scream Harry's name when she saw him drop dead to the ground. She was now the only one left. The only one of the resistance. Her hope, her sun, fell to the ground surrounded by darkness.
She wanted to run to him, to scream in agony, clutch his body to her own, hold him for dear life, willing him to come back to her. But she couldn't. Oh, how her heart tore itself apart - how her soul tore itself apart when she could not do those things; her feet still planted firmly to the ground.
Suddenly, there was a bright white light and she felt hands pushing her down. Her body landed harshly on the ground, breaking her wrist in the process. As she heard the well resounding crack, she let out a tortured scream. She felt her body tremble as she sobbed loudly, feeling herself being dragged away by her feet, climbing higher and higher in the air and letting her see the battlefield, the devastation, from above.
She heard multiple voices at once in her mind, making her brain throb with the force and power behind the words of those, ''Go to the land of sacred Forests. Summon her spirit with the words of invocation. She will show you exactly what needs to be done, and she expects you to follow through once shown. Be our champion. You have only one chance. Triumph.''
Rursus in unum deducere, quod tempus tribuitur, ut a recto loco suo. Electus est quaerere.
Rursus in unum deducere, quod tempus tribuitur, ut a recto loco suo. Electus est quaerere.
The nerves in her body exploded with agony and her muscles felt scorched as if being consumed by Hellfire. Every atom felt like it was being ripped to shreds with the burning that tore at her from within.
Then there was silence.
But the pain remained, leaving her screaming in the air, before embracing the darkness.
Time is such a precious thing. It is one of the oldest and complex magics, and as such, there is an entire room devoted to it in the Department of Mysteries, The Time Room. Time-travel, however, is complicated and unpredictable, volatile and dangerous.
No one ever can, or will, comprehend the effects that it could have on one's person as best as Hermione. The stress, the drain, it wasn't as glamorous as it was painted. It was a strain. Physically and mentally.
Time is wobbly and uncertain in many different ways. With every decision, you jump from consequence to consequence. From branch to branch, based on the decisions that you make - that you instigate. But how will it be when the decisions are ripped out of your hands, from your free will? What will happen when the volatile magic of Fate and Time mix, both combined of different energies - energies that clash violently when mixed.
But really, only Time will tell...