Lose Yourself
Summary: What was time-travel to someone who'd spent her whole third term bouncing back in time to attend all of her classes without fail? Well, Hermione supposed it was quite different traveling fifty plus years to the past, than traveling five hours into the past...that was certainly different. Although, when there was nothing left in her world to tie her down to the present, what did it matter?
Book/Movie: Harry Potter
Pairing: Slight Hermione/Tom – Hermione/Abraxas
Genre: Romance/ANGST/Adventure/ANGST/Drama/ANGST
Rated: M for Mature Content
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In the war-torn year of nineteen ninety-eight, there lay a battered and bloodied figure on the stone cluttered ground in the Great Hall of a once illustrious Hogwarts. No one could be seen moving, but the figure, there still came a rise and fall of the chest. Manic breathing, tearful expression, and a mad grin. "I did it...H-Harry?" She called out, but there came no immediate response. Only a slight whisper of the wind that had found its way inside the Great Hall through one of the many destroyed parapets of stone. "You saw, I...It's over...f-for good. Harry, I did it." Tears escaped the wild gaze of the young girl, who lay with her back to the ground, gravity pulling each tear from her with disregard for the broken heart she was nursing. "He's dead..." she said it, to no individual in particular, but she said it all the same. "HARRY, HE'S DEAD!" She screamed in anguish, her body shaking as she shook her head in a fit of unrestrained emotion.
She screamed, ongoing, she cried. Her voice breaking with each pain empowered scream that tore freely from her lips. This continued until she fell silent, her eyes staring up unseeingly at the tattered castle ceiling. Hours ticked by as silence had consumed the worn out girl, her sobs and heavy heaving having taken it's tole on her until sleep stole her from the lifeless remains of the castle, and more...her friends.
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May 3rd, 1998
Hermione Granger, at eighteen years old, she'd gone through a great deal more than any normal eighteen year old girl ever should. Sitting up, after having woken up to the sound of rocks tumbling in slight careless clatters, she stared brokenly at the battlefield. Standing, she picked up her wand and brought a hand to her cheeks. They were sticky from the tears intermingling with her sweat, someone's blood and the grime of the earth that had all but assaulted them in the battle. She glanced over her form and found that very little of the blood she actually wore, was hers. "How has yet, the Ministry not come?"
Bringing her wand up, she waved it caustically at a large door that had once been the grand entrance to this magical home away from home. Bodies were randomly placed around her. She found no one. The Death Eaters must have been the few to survive. Anyone else would have stayed behind to search for survivors, and she was certain that someone besides her should still be alive...right? Stepping forward, she let herself fall to her knees before Lord Voldemort, the tyrant who'd devastated the magical community with his fierce purist ideology, his cruel and methodical wand waving...his lack of human moral. He had truly been a great Wizard, and she wondered momentarily, if it had all been naught. Truly, he was dead, but the cost of which was the majority of the magical world.
"Would you...could you have...been different?" Her hand moved lifelessly to the cold, pale cheek of the death claimed Dark Lord. Her fingers trailing over the vessel of what had once been the most Evil Wizard in the world. "If there had been someone, anyone, who could have shown you love, or challenge you in wit, what if you had a friend, or family...if someone had come and saved you from that orphanage. Would you...still have become...the Dark Lord?"
"Perhaps, you would like to find out?"
Hermione jumped and turned with her wand held at the ready, slowly standing, her eyes darted all over the room. From where she stood, she saw no one, but moving towards the decimated entryway, she found a broken Lucius Malfoy leaning against the wall on the other side. "You! Avada-!" She stopped, her eyes were wide, pain stricken at the two bodies he held close to him. Tears had long since ceased their falling, he no longer cared for anything. The loss of reason to live was apparent to Hermione. She didn't drop her hand, but as she moved closer, she did take in every small detail that was the man in front of her. He was beaten, in ever sense of the word. His left hand was shaking over top his sons head, his right hand was running fingers through the long raven and blonde hair of his wife. She couldn't kill him. There was no point anyways...he was already dead. Hermione, finally, let her wand hand fall to her side as she once more let gravity pull her to the ground. "I'm sorry...Mr. Malfoy, I'm truly sorry."
"No...Miss. Granger, the blame is mine. It is I who was too weak to protect my family, I who led them into the fires of hell, I who vowed fealty to a Dark Wizard whom I knew could easily kill them. Do not apologize, for what rightfully is...my fault."
She dropped her head, her eyes falling over Draco's lifeless form. Years of his harsh and hateful treatment towards her...no longer seemed to matter. In the grand scheme of things, he was just a school bully, he was still her classmate, he had the potential of being a friend just as well. "I wish things had been different."
"With you, Miss. Granger, I'd say anything is possible." One last tear seemed to slip past the mans defenses.
Once upon a time, she'd had the single-minded thought that Draco's father looked quite dashing, despite the obvious age difference. He's actually been her second crush, at the time. Hermione figured a long time ago that she had dastardly taste in guys, and crushes in general. Her first crush upon her entering Hogwarts was actually Draco, he was cute, even if he was a right prat. Her second, was his father...her third was Gilderoy...then Ron...and Krum...really, she had truly horrid taste in men. For a good while, she'd thought it was simply Malfoy men, which was hilarious when given the fact that Malfoy's would never be caught dead in a precarious situation with that of a Mudblood.
"Anything is possible? I can't very well bring back the dead, Mr. Malfoy. If anything were possible, trust me, that would be the first of a great many things I'd do."
"Could you help me gather my wife and son, Miss. Granger, I'd like to bring them back to the Manor. I think, a new scenery is in order."
She couldn't help but feel as if he wanted to talk to her more, perhaps, she simply wanted that to be the case. The Ministry wasn't able to do anything without a Minister, and Shacklebolt was dead...so she'd no sooner be able to do anything else until things were sorted there and until someone came to the Castle. Finding her parents...well, that was unlikely. She had obliviated them and sent them off to Australia. Even if she did find them, helping them retain their memories would merely uproot them from whatever life they'd made for themselves now. She refused to be a come-and-go daughter. She erased her existence from them, it was done. Nothing left besides the lifeless bodies of her friends, classmates and professors, Hermione stood and helped Lucius move the bodies of the two who had ever held a light in the mans eyes. With another wave of her wand, she applied a weightless charm on the body of Draco while he lifted his wife into his arms. Doing the same for her fellow classmate, she really felt her heart dying at the feel of death that was heavy in the air, and light in her arms.
The wards on Hogwarts had long since been torn down, apparition was not a problem for either.
Composing himself, in such a manner that he regained some semblance of his Malfoy air, Lucius turned to Hermione and spoke without a break in his voice. "We will apparate to the front gates of the Malfoy Manor, I assume you know well, where it is we are going?"
She gave a silent nod. Turning her head a bit as she gazed one last time over the fallen, her eyes gently brushed over Harry and Ginny, who had died in the others arms, and Ron who had tried to avenge them...she let her eyes drift over the dead Lord...and even Bellatrix Lestrange, the vile piece of work that she was. After a moment, she dragged her eyes back to the boy in her arms, and in a poof of magic, the two were gone. Lucius disapparated mere seconds after her, only for the two to appear before the Malfoy Manor a fraction of a second later.
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Me: So, I am sure you are all very pleased that I would be writing another fic...yeah, I didn't think so, I'm sooooo sorry. I still hope you all enjoy!