Six Months Earlier
Everything is black. Her eyes are locked shut, her body forced into a rigid freeze frame on the sodden ground thanks to a curse she didn't see coming. Blood is slowly seeping from a gash on the right side of her face. Occasional showers of green seep through her closed eyelids but beyond that there's nothing but blackness.
She's not sure how long she lies there, panting and trying in vain to break the curse so she can see something again. Screams regularly break the silence, some she recognises and some she doesn't. There were six of them in the sky when they were brought down, but the longer she lies there and listens, the more indication she hears that those numbers are dwindling.
Finally, after an age of terror lying on the frozen concrete waiting to be hit by one of those green showers of sparks, the curse wears off. She opens her eyes just in time to see a writhing, screaming Seamus fall still on the ground. She can't tell if he's dead or just passed out from the pain, but from her vantage point it doesn't looks like he's breathing. It only takes her a second to realise she's the last member of the order left in the alleyway aside from Seamus. It only takes her another second to hear heavy footsteps coming towards her.
In a flurry of movement she jerks upright, scrabbling around in the puddles to search for a wand she hasn't seen since she fell. Just as her hands find something long and smooth she's wrenched backwards by some unseen force, across the alleyway, her flight halted when she smacks violently into the wall. Her head ricochets backwards and bounces off the wall with a painful crack. She can feel more blood begin to trickle from her scalp.
Jerking her head upright despite a new pain in her neck, she sees Malfoy, wand pointed directly at her, a bitter grimace on his face. Her wand lies ten feet away, rolling in small circles in the shallow puddle of rain water. There's no one else in the alley, aside from three bodies, all lying motionless on the ground.
Harry, who was with them when they fell, is nowhere to be seen and Neville, Ron and George have disappeared along with him. If she has nothing else to be thankful for, at least she has that. They didn't get him, or at least she doesn't think they did.
The sleet smacks into the side of her face, stinging her cheeks as she hangs helplessly from the bricks. Slowly he advances on her, their eyes locked and despite the fear and disappointment warring within her she can't help but hold his gaze, out of a last vestige of pride which won't leave her, even now as she's seconds away from death.
"What are you waiting for, Malfoy?" she hisses at him, refusing to beg although she knows it would be the wise thing. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, the adrenaline from the fight still coursing through her. Maybe it's that which makes her entreat the man she hates more than anyone else to kill her or maybe it's simply another attempt to cling to some pride.
He doesn't answer although his steps falter slightly, stopping altogether when he's less than two meters away from her. His wand is mere inches from her throat. His hand is shaking, his teeth clenched tightly together, eyes narrowed to slits. His blonde hair is plastered to his pale face and there's something in his eyes that speaks of pure anger, and something else which she thinks might be confusion.
She doesn't understand the expression, but she still doesn't look away because no matter what happens they've won the fight now. Harry's safe, off somewhere with Neville and it'll be weeks before they have another shot at him. Two of the death eaters are lying dead and bloodied on the ground. Even if she dies, she's still done it for a reason.
"Fuck," Malfoy mutters suddenly, looking away from her for the first time since their eyes met. He flicks his wand silently and she feels the invisible restraints around her hands and feet disappear, dropping her to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Then he turns and walks away, kicking her wand a little further across the alley as he goes.
"What are you doing?" she yells after him, watching him turn back on his foot and clutch his wand a little more tightly, eyeing her with an unreadable expression. "Just do it!"
"I'm not going to fucking kill you, alright Granger?" he yells back, his tone verging on exasperation, like he's having to explain something very simple to someone very stupid. Turning again, he shakes his head, adding a much quieter, "Just go home."
With those words and a loud crack, he disappears from the alley. A slight ripple in the water at his feet and a pain in the back of her head from the wall are the only signs he was even there. She sits on the ground for a long time, confused and cold and aching, until she starts to shiver and her fingers are turning blue. Then, in complete silence, she climbs to her feet, picks up her wand, walks over to the unquestionably dead Seamus and takes him home to Grimmauld Place.
And this is how it begins.
She's not sure why, but when they ask her what happened that night she doesn't tell them everything. She lies to herself and says it's because it's not important, but she knows that's not true. It's maybe the most important thing that's happened to her in a while now. Maybe it's actually because she thinks they won't believe her or maybe she thinks they will and it might change things too much. She doesn't even tell Harry or Ron, the first because he's never there anyway, always off fighting one war or another and the latter because he's changed too much and she's having trouble dealing with it. Instead she just keeps it to herself and tries not to think about it too much, because there are far more pressing matters at hand.
They bury Seamus almost straight away and his funeral is like a memorial for all of the ones gone before him, because he's the first one to be brought home in a long time now. She cries, for all of them and for him, because it's the first time she's seen anyone tortured to death and it was horrible. And partly she cries just to make sure that she still remembers how to cry.
Ginny stands beside her, dry eyed and expecting, staring at the space opposite them that Harry isn't filling because once again he isn't there. In a sick kind of way, seeing it almost makes her glad things didn't work out between her and Ron. She doesn't like the idea of sitting up every night wondering if your child's going to have a father or not.
It's strange, but for some reason watching Ron touch Fleur Delacour's younger sister the way he used to touch her doesn't make her feel sick or bitter or lonely like she thinks it would. Instead she's just happy for him, which might be worse because she's sure you're meant to feel something more than that about someone you used to be in love with. Maybe it's because she is still in love with him, just in a different way, but she's glad he's got something to hold onto during this war. She still likes to see him get what he wants, even when it's not her.
The next one to go down is Cho Chang. Hermione's in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, drinking tea with Molly when Dean stumbles in through the door, blood spattered across his shirt.
"Cho's dead," all he says when a worried Molly rushes to his side and helps him to a seat.
She wants to vomit, simply because the people she always thought were untouchable, the people she grew up with and laughed with and learned with have started dropping like flies on both sides now. She can't help but wonder when it's going to be her turn. She can't imagine it'll be all that long now. Lately she tries her best to make the most of things. If only there was more time and less conflict, maybe she might do a better job of it.
The problem is that she can't envisage an end to the confrontation anytime soon, and honestly she's not even sure she wants to. Without it she's not convinced she knows who she is anymore.