When the Fallen Rise
By: ccatastrophic
Chapter 1: The Interrogation
Moonlight dripped in through the only window in the entirety of the needlessly large room, critically eyeing everything it touched. Hermione focused on this small patch of light, reminding herself that, even in the wake such sickening events, the light always found its way in. Except for now, the light was not welcoming, it was judging her, it was judging everyone in that room. She tore her attention from the criticizing light and moved it to the stark grey walls and the cold edges where they met the ceiling and floor. Grey was such a wretched color, in Hermione's opinion, but perhaps rather fitting for the occasion. The scarce light did not hit a few corners of these walls, and spiders created their white, thready homes in the darkness of these untouched spots, hopefully oblivious to their current surroundings. She focused next on the biting air, so cold, very fitting for the activity occurring in the room, Hermione thought. This chilled air found its way into her lungs and veins, frosting every centimeter of her tense body.
The sharp intakes of breath next to her, secret displays of fear, were outward projections of what she herself could not express, she wanted to appear unaffected. Hermione focused on every aspect of the room besides the current scene being portrayed in front of her. It was like the sick horror movie she watched as a nine-year-old in the muggle world, but with no end. She preferred to keep her eyes off of it. Cold hands held hers, so tight she knew the knuckles were white as sand. She could envision her friends' eyes, based on just the movements of their hands. The reassuring squeezes they pressed into her palms were not just for her, they were for themselves. Harry and Ron's eyes were determined, she pictured, but underneath the strength, fear would be evident in both. She imagined delving into each of their pupils, pulling the tendrils of fear out so they could truly show no weakness, as she knew they wanted to. However, the absence of weakness is impossible, she had learned in her last few years on earth, impossible, no matter how hard one tries. She wanted the gentle shifts of hands and small touches of shoulders to work, she wanted to feel the comfort they intended, but she could not. Because of this, she did the only thing she could do under such unimaginable stress. She focused. She focused on everything she could in the room, just to draw her attention away from what she was supposed to be watching intently. Her tactic was almost successful; she could almost imagine herself gone from her present situation, gone from the recurring lurch in her stomach and from the sound of breaking bones and splattering innocence. She was so close to the beautiful feeling of ignorance of her surroundings, but reality is a bitch, and a quick spatter of dark blood littered the clean grey walls, and she was pulled forcefully back to the present.
The prisoner. He was bound helplessly to a chair in the middle of the room as an older man, an auror with the most wicked mind on the light side, paced slowly in front. The auror went by Malcom, and he was as evil as could be without being considered one of the opposing side- that's why he had the chore most fitting for his personality. Question the prisoners, gain information in any way possible. The room was mostly empty, save for a few highly ranked order officials littered behind a sheet glass, observing with dead expressions. None had any personal connection to the prisoner, that was profoundly unallowed. However, so was the golden trio watching in on an interrogation. Hermione reminded herself to later than Merlin for the invisibility cloak. They deserved to know what happened, Harry and Ron had explained forcefully numerous of times, they were the damn leaders of the light side of the war, they deserved to know its reality. Hermione had reluctantly agreed, knowing what they were about to witness may come to be one of the most sickening sights of their lives. The Malfoy interrogation. She had heard this phrase too many times, and it snaked out of the mouth like a disease. The Malfoy Interrogation, she repeated in her head, was one of the furthest things from humanity she had seen. She wondered faintly if Harry and Ron regretted their repeated persuasion of her into agreement, she wondered if they wished they hadn't come at all. She knew she did. The humorous aspect of The Malfoy Interrogation was that they never specified which Malfoy it was, Fred had pointed out, drawing in his invisible extended ear invention, where it had conveniently been placed ("On accident!" he claimed after catching Hermione's judgmental eye) on the floor next to the wall in the top secret order meeting. She had suspected it would be Lucius Malfoy, they all had, she believed. She looked back to the prisoner, the way his lanky body sat awkwardly and defeated into the chair, bound magically, the ropes chaffing his pale arms red. He looked out of place, not how she had remembered him. He looked weak, like he needed a shave, a shower, and a meal. He looked in no shape to be undergoing an interrogation, in fact, he looked in no shape to be awake at all. His face, so swollen and littered with blood and preforming bruises would have been unrecognizable, had Hermione not recognized the swirling grey eyes, the same color as the chamber walls, of Draco Malfoy.
One more swift punch to the jaw, too hard for such a young and unhealthy man, knocked the familiar person's head back and crashing into the stone wall behind him. Hermione shuddered at the noise of another broken bone and the red trickles of blood racing slowly down the grey expanse where his skull and the wall made contact. Bile rose in her throat. She shuffled uncomfortably in her invisible place as the auror screamed obscenities at the young boy, a disguised plea for any valuable piece of information. The image of a man, no, a boy, of such arrogance and power lay defeated in the clutches of his enemies. Malfoy was unconscious in all forms of the world, chin resting forlornly on his chest, being held upright and to the chair only by the bindings. His once-white shirt was now a deep, terrifying magenta. Hermione wondered without spite if he realized they bled the same color. She wanted so badly to look away once again, to drown herself in the grey walls, to go back to a time before war, before the dark and the light, before other's lives depended on her own split-second decisions.
"Fred said Malfoy came to of us his own will," Ron murmurs softly, "I want to say he deserves this, but its bloody painful to watch."
Hermione felt a squeeze in her left hand, looking that way to see Harry's jaw clenched in anger and disbelief. To her right, she saw Ron, looking anywhere but the man in the room, skin a sickly, pale green color. "If he came to us, why would they be beating him? That's bullshit." Harry whispered back.
"Bullshit that he came of his own accord, or bullshit that they're treating him this way no matter how he came to us?" Hermione questioned, begging for one of them to affirm it was the humane, latter choice. She received no answer.
We came to see this for a reason, Hermione tried to reason with herself, it should be easier now that he can't be recognized. But it wasn't, somehow, the fact that Draco Malfoy nowhere near resembled his true self, just made it entirely worse. It sickened Hermione to see someone her age being treated by the light side just as she had been by Bellatrix Lestrange on the floor of the Malfoy manor, blood leaking out of her arm and pain radiating from her body. She absentmindedly removed her hand from one of her friend's clutches, dragging it lightly over the healed skin that permanently had the word "mudblood" etched into it. Ron caught her hand, recognizing the new anxious habit, and returned it to his by their sides. The beating continued, the blood and the abuse and the violent curses dragged on for an eternity. With each new hit to a defenseless enemy came a new lurch of something dangerous in Hermione's gut, something she could not push down. She began to feel an anger, an anger that her side, the side who was supposed to be fighting for peace and and equality, was doing unto its enemies as they had done to her. The scenes of her own torture and the one in front of her meshed together in a horrific film, her ears filled with white nose as her thoughts ran through her mind without control. She could hear her own screams, the repugnant laugh of Bellatrix Lestrange. she swore she felt Malfoy's blood splatter unto her, as if she was one of the stark grey walls, the same walls she felt were closing in on her, compressing her lungs. This is not right, her mind screamed at her, this is not who we are! We are the light; we do not torture! We must-"Stop!"
Her voice, independent of her will, rang out like a bell in the dead of night. The room fell into a painfully thick silence, stunned by her presence and the bold defiance of her voice and stance, save for the slight quivering of a bottom lip. She became faintly aware that her hands had lost grip of Ron and Harry's and that, at some point, she had removed herself from the invisibility cloak. All eyes in the chamber rested on her, a mix of surprise, disgust, and anger. "Stop." She repeated quietly, soft as a breath. She glanced to the prisoner, and for an intimidating second, she swore she saw recognition in the swirling eyes the color of the chamber walls until a blood-filled cough interrupted the gaze. As quickly as this moment came on, it was evaporated as she was grabbed by the back of her shirt and torn from the room, stumbling over her own feet.
Many hours later, she stood in the dim, dingy kitchen of the burrow.
"There are processes!" She screeched, voice shrill with indignation.
"Processes?" The voice of Mad-Eye Moody roared back, "This is war Hermione, not a god damn arithmancy test."
Hermione gave a brief second to consider how long this argument had been going on. Much too long, in her opinion, but she refused to back down. She glared eyes into one of the man's eyes, the other was occupied surveying the room in a swiveling fashion.
"There are two sides in a war," she said lowly, steeling her ground upon the auror's intimidating gaze, "one hurts, the other heals. After watching the interrogation, it's hard to tell which side we are."
"Not all things are black and white, Hermione." The calming voice of Remus Lupin entered her ears, she turned to see him standing in the doorway. She felt much of the red anger leave her body, knowing that, no matter Lupin's side on this issue, he would never reprimand her for her view. They stood in the kitchen of the burrow. Most of the busy house's occupants were sleeping, she remembered upon seeing the hints of the sunrise enter the window above the sink. She vaguely wondered if they had woken to the argument.
"Torture is." She said coolly.
Lupin's tired eyes glanced down to her forearm, where her fingers were currently tracing the racist, ugly word. "You care," he questioned, "when he stood by you and let that happen to you?"
"Yes." She answered frankly. She imagined this scene would look rather comical, had she been watching for a third person point of view. The anger radiating off her and Mad-Eye as they bore into each other's eyes, her looking up at him and he down at her while Remus stood relaxed in the doorway, a concerned yet questioning expression playing on the lines of his aging face.
"I've recommended a suspension from the fight, it is clear Hermione's emotions interfere with the processes" Moody glared, "that the Order must use-"
"A break?" she exclaimed, a now un-rare feeling of anger rushing through her veins once again.
"A break." Moody clarified. "You shouldn't have even been near that room."
"He came to us of his free will! You abused a person who came to us of their own free will, for Merlin's sake!"
"Why do you care, Hermione?" Lupin asked calmly.
"As I mentioned, I care because I am fighting for peace, not violence, and even if it is Draco Malfoy" she spat his name with a strong hint of disgust, "we have imprisoned, he does not deserve to be treated with such violence. It was disgusting and vile and-"
"War is disgusting and vile." Moody grunted.
"Why did he come to us?" She demanded, curiosity now replacing her anger, remembering Ron's spill of information as they stood watching the violence.
"You are not at liberty to know."
"Then I refuse my punishment! To Hell with your break!" She swept from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Four days following the heated argument between she and Moody, Hermione lay on the tufts of grass outside the borrow, twisting the blades between her fingers and curling them between her toes. Her back was to the Earth and her eyes roamed the sky, offering herself this small, rare moment of peace before what was to come. She allowed the September sun to fall upon her face as a cool breeze drifted over her skin. Hermione closed her eyes, imagining a world where such a luxury as this was a commodity, not a rarity. She imagined golden skies and smiling faces, and in a small moment of selfishness, even allowed herself to pretend that those she had lost were in this pretend world with her. She felt the burning behind her eyes at this image, the signal of tears, and abruptly opened them. Such thinking, the kind without and semblance of truth, was dangerous at a time like this.
She heard a door open and shut with a soft click, listened to the soft pattern of footsteps until they arrived where she lie. Harry sat next to her, and she turned to her side, moving her head unto his lap, a platonic display of love. He blew a full breath through his mouth, its remnants tickling the side of her cheek and eyelashes.
"I don't want to leave this place." I fear I might never come back, Hermione mentally finished the last part of his sentence.
"We'll be back." She affirmed softly, "We always end up coming back."
He left no reply, lost in his thoughts just as she was a few minutes before. She welcomed the silence, acknowledging that this, like any of the previous times, could be the last time she sat here with Harry. This knowledge fell over both of them like a wet blanket, yet they liked to pretend it didn't.
"You can exercise that break you're supposed to be on, 'Mione," Harry murmured, letting his chin fall up to the sky, "your, erm, suspension. We need you."
"We need you too, it's just another mission."
"Not this time. It's different."
"I know Harry, we'll make it."
The irony of such young people discussing life and death like the weather made Hermione realize how far along this path she had truly come. She was different now; she could feel it. Everyone was. How things, how people, would be after the war was a fear of hers she didn't like to dwell on. She wished she could stay in this moment for eternity, but she was on the light side for a reason, so that this wish could become a reality.
"Do you want to go over the plan again?" he asked.
"No, Harry." They fell into silence once more.
Soon after, too soon, the door opened once more. Hermione dreaded what was to come. "It's time to go, mates." Ron voiced.
They both stood and meandered to Ron. The three friends did not hug, did not cry nor throw passionate, knowing glances towards one another. That would make what was to come far too real. They simply stood a second longer than needed and nodded to one another before entering the burrow for what could be the last time, and began preparations for the mission to come.
A/N
Hello! Welcome to my first Dramione FanFic EVER. After reading them for years, I decided to make my own. Please leave any thoughts/suggestions/questions in the comments- they are greatly appreciated & needed to help this story be the best it can be! I also plan to cross-post this on Archive of our Own- is that normal? Happy Reading
-ccatastrophic