Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the work and property of J K Rowling. I am
making no profit from my writing.
From far below her, the sounds of fighting wafted up with the breeze to reach her ears. Shouted curses, cries of pain. If she closed her eyes she could almost see the curses strike, see the blood bloom and flow; see the pain on their faces. She closed her eyes.
In her mind, she lived the battle. Lived the fear and pain and looks of defeat or victory, lived the determination and sweat and blood. There was a lot of blood.
Then the noises stopped, and she was alone, in silence, blanketed in the wretched peace she had chosen they had forced upon her [it was] for her own good. There was nothing to indicate which side had one, who had triumphed, who had lived. She giggled in fear: her eyes staring at the door, the walls, the floor. He would be here for her any minute, she would be here for her any minute. Any moment now. The door to her little tower room was locked for her own safety, bullshit it is. She curled up on the floor like a cat like a slave and waited for them.
"Ginny, you have to eat."
"You've said this before. I believe I replied at the time."
"I can't just leave the food here and wait for you to 'send down an empty tray'." She pursed her lips in what Ginny might have once considered an attractive scowl. "Come on, it's yummy." Hermione dipped a plastic spoon in a bowl of custard and waved it in circular patterns through the air. To add insult to injury she started making whirring noises.
"No," Ginny frowned, waving her hand before her face like she was waving away an annoying bug rather than a spoonful of custard. "And what do you think you are doing?"
"It's an--aeroplane." Hermione looked chagrined.
"What the fuck is an aeroplane?" Ginny narrowed her eyes in incomprehension, then narrowed them further in realisation. "I'm not my fucking father. You can keep your muggle shit away from me."
"Stop swearing, please," Hermione begged. "I hate it when you swear."
"Well keep your muggle shit away from me and I might not swear. Are you trying to get me killed like my father?" She was screaming now, advancing on Hermione. The older girl tried not to flinch. "Are you?"
"No, Gin, love, I'm not. I'm just--I forgot, okay?" Ginny sneered.
"I'm glad that some of us can forget, my dear." She snatched the tray from the table, took two steps, and flung the whole thing out the window. "There's your tray, and," she peered downwards, "it appears to be empty. You've done your job, girl. Get out."
Hermione rose to her feet, and looked at Ginny with resignation on her face.
"I knew you'd do that," she whispered.
"I'm nothing if not consistent," Ginny snapped back. "Get out. He's not coming back with you here."
Hermione shook her head slightly and opened the door. "He's not coming back, Gin," she said quietly. Ginny's eyes flashed with rage.
"He is, he promised. He'll come for me."
"What makes you think he'll come for you and not Harry?" Hermione asked, losing her temper and trying to cut. Ginny ignored the sudden fear in Hermione's eyes when she only smiled.
"He's coming for Harry, all right," she said, her voice far away and dreamy. "But once he's come for Harry, he's coming for me." She sat down slowly on the pallet that served her as a bed in this tower, and wrapped happy arms around her chest. Hermione let herself out unnoticed.
Not at all unnoticed, she slipped into the meeting downstairs, more than a little late.
"Miss Granger. Nice of you to join us." Hermione tried not to glare at her old Potions Master.
"I'm sorry, I had to bring Ginny her-" she trailed off, knowing that everybody in the room pitied her for her futile efforts. "Lunch."
"Ahh, Miss Weasley," Professor Snape sneered. "How is your dear--friend?"
"She is-" she stopped herself from saying 'well'. "She needs help. Possibly St Mungo's, or, I don't know, there must be a physical remedy. Like a charm, or a potion." She looked around accusingly. "She is a member of this Order! Why is nobody helping her?"
"She's alive, Hermione," Harry said in a soft voice. "We can't do anything more."
"Can't, or won't?"
"A lunatic at the top of the North Tower is no use to the Order, Miss Granger," Snape said acidly, and Hermione tried to ignore the nods of quite a few other people in the room.
"She keeps saying that Ron is coming back to us," she cried desperately. "Maybe she can See something we can't."
"I'm sure she can see a lot more than any of us here can," the Potions Master replied scathingly. "What with her excellent view. But I can see as well as the next person that her brother is not the person coming for us, and our purpose here today is to plan for that eventuality." He sneered, but his sneer was terrifyingly defeated. "Let Mister Weasley come. Let any Weasley come. Merlin knows, we might actually stand a chance if the dead are on our side."
"You want me to post your letters for you, love?" Ginny didn't look up, and Hermione tried her false-happy voice again. "Ginny, I brought you an owl." Ginny didn't look up at that either, simply acknowledging her presence by waving a hand to the wooden perch on the southern wall. Hermione shifted the owl from her arm to the perch, glad to be rid of his weight after walking up so many stairs to the tower room, but sorry to lose the comforting warmth. She moved to sit near, but not quite next to the other girl.
"Who are you writing to?" she tried, knowing and dreading the response she would get. Ginny smiled, her whole face lighting up.
"I'm writing to him," she chirped in a stage-whisper. "I'm telling him your plans to find him. He's coming." Ginny smiled another brilliant smile, and Hermione wanted to cry. Each day she would come to this tower, and each day it would be the same. Ginny would be persuaded to eat a slice or two of toast for breakfast, but only while Hermione talked. She had run out of things to say, until the only actual events in her life were the Order meetings. She spoke of them: Ginny didn't understand enough to know what she was talking about anyway, and she had no way to spread their plans even if she wanted to. Except for Ron, poor Ron, the last Weasley except for Ginny, and whose body blocked the curse that would have killed Harry. Of course, the curse shouldn't have killed Ron--he was stronger than Harry, and the curse was only a stunner anyway--but for the Aurors who pulled back without him. The Order had mourned him, but had considered it only another minor loss: Harry was still safe. But it had been his loss that had sent Ginny over the edge.
"See?" Ginny smiled proudly as she held up an oddly morbid crayon drawing of what appeared to be a red-haired girl with a skeleton, a white-haired man and a black-haired woman. Hermione felt another pang of loss shoot through her at the white-haired man. The Order had not discounted the loss of Dumbledore as minor, attacked by gargoyles whilst on an evening stroll about the grounds. He hadn't even been guarded. Hermione choked back tears.
"Have you lost your brown again?" she asked, like one would to a small child. Ginny looked up at her with large eyes, curious. "I have brown hair."
Ginny nodded slowly. "You have brown hair," she repeated. Hermione left, as she always did these days, before Ginny sent the owl to her brother.
"We really should send her away," Harry mused in a whisper that evening as they sat, as always, around the untouched chess set. The chessmen had long since stopped glaring.
"You've found somewhere that will help her?" Hermione asked brightly, daring to hope. She nearly vomited in disappointment when Harry shook her head.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I meant--she's not going to be able to do anything here. And Voldemort's going to try and take Hogwarts sooner or later. Snape's surprised he hasn't tried already, actually."
"Really?" Hermione hadn't realised that she'd missed so many meetings.
"And yeah. She's not good for morale. The kids--they can't even play Quidditch anymore without her just staring at them from the window. They say she's like a ghost."
"She can't help it!" Hermione cried out. "It's not her fault. She watched most of her family get slaughtered. She's the only one left!" Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat like he always did when he was reminded of Ron.
"Listen, Hermione, I know she's your girlfriend and all, but this is really for her own good. What if the castle gets attacked? We can't leave that door unlocked, you and I both know it." Hermione nodded, it had been her doing in the first place. "There's not enough of us left to hold the castle. The Order is depleted, the Aurors can't keep up, and we're relying on children to fight for us."
"We were children when we started fighting this, Harry."
"Yes. So you should know better than Snape, better than anyone why they shouldn't be fighting now." Harry closed his eyes for a moment. "We're not going to win. I wish I could say that we have a chance, but we don't. You know that, I know that, even bloody Snape knows that. If Voldemort attacks, we're dead, and Ginny's going to be locked in that bloody room until," he grimaced, "well, until Ron really does come for her."
Hermione put her head in her hands, the bitter truth burning her throat, stinging her eyes. I don't think she's my girlfriend anymore. She had no tears left to weep. She and Harry both jumped at the sound of a crash downstairs.
From far below her, the sounds of fighting wafted up with the breeze to reach her ears. Shouted curses, cries of pain. If she closed her eyes she could almost see the curses strike, see the blood bloom and flow; see the pain on their faces. She closed her eyes.
In her mind, she lived the battle. Lived the fear and pain and looks of defeat or victory, lived the determination and sweat and blood. There was a lot of blood.
Then the noises stopped, and she was alone, in silence, blanketed in the wretched peace she had chosen they had forced upon her [it was] for her own good. There was nothing to indicate which side had one, who had triumphed, who had lived. She giggled in joyful fear: her eyes staring at the door, the walls, the floor. He would be here for her any minute; she would be here for her any minute. Any moment now. The door to her little tower room was locked for her own safety, bullshit she had said. She curled up on the floor like a cat, like a slave, and waited for them.
She didn't have to long to wait.
She heard the handle turn, looked up to see it catch. That other girl kept the key on her, she had told them that. A moment later the handle was caught no longer: alohamora had always been simple and effective, especially when the treasure behind the door was a girl without a wand. She rose to her feet.
The doorway was wide, like every doorway in every old castle she had seen. Not like the narrow things in that place her parents those wretches how dare they [have] trapped her in for eleven years. The three passed through like the most natural thing in the world, the sunlight lighting their pale, pureblood features like they were angels. Ginny had always wanted to live in a castle.
They drifted a few paces into the room, the skeleton's face unreadable, the white-haired man's eyes evaluating her little tower room, and the black- haired woman's eyes never leaving her face. As one, they bowed to acknowledge her. Ginny smiled, a little-girl giggle bubbling from her throat. She remembered her place, and stepped forward from her pallet, smoothing the skirts of the Slytherin school robe she had found and had taken to wearing after Ron. That other girl had teased her for it, but Ginny had ignored her. The white-haired man looked on with approval.
"My Liege," she said, curtsying deeply, her back straight but tilted forward, her eyes downcast to focus on the floor an inch before his feet. The skeleton touched her hair, and she rose again.
"My Lord," she turned to the white-haired man, curtsying again, with her back straight and erect, her eyes lowered slightly: a sign of respect to the man whose rank outstripped her own, but who commanded her not. He nodded to acknowledge her once more, and she rose to turn to the black- haired woman.
"My Lady," she said then, her voice full of reverence as she curtseyed the deepest yet, as close as she could come to the ground without being unable to right herself again. Her liege would not mind, she knew, as she waited in that position.
"My love," the black-haired woman answered in a voice that reminded Ginny of her parents' requiem. Long, thin and pale, pureblood fingers grasped Ginny's shoulders and brought her to standing again, and the black-haired woman kissed her mouth gently. "Call me Bellatrix."
From far below her, the sounds of fighting wafted up with the breeze to reach her ears. Shouted curses, cries of pain. If she closed her eyes she could almost see the curses strike, see the blood bloom and flow; see the pain on their faces. She closed her eyes.
In her mind, she lived the battle. Lived the fear and pain and looks of defeat or victory, lived the determination and sweat and blood. There was a lot of blood.
Then the noises stopped, and she was alone, in silence, blanketed in the wretched peace she had chosen they had forced upon her [it was] for her own good. There was nothing to indicate which side had one, who had triumphed, who had lived. She giggled in fear: her eyes staring at the door, the walls, the floor. He would be here for her any minute, she would be here for her any minute. Any moment now. The door to her little tower room was locked for her own safety, bullshit it is. She curled up on the floor like a cat like a slave and waited for them.
"Ginny, you have to eat."
"You've said this before. I believe I replied at the time."
"I can't just leave the food here and wait for you to 'send down an empty tray'." She pursed her lips in what Ginny might have once considered an attractive scowl. "Come on, it's yummy." Hermione dipped a plastic spoon in a bowl of custard and waved it in circular patterns through the air. To add insult to injury she started making whirring noises.
"No," Ginny frowned, waving her hand before her face like she was waving away an annoying bug rather than a spoonful of custard. "And what do you think you are doing?"
"It's an--aeroplane." Hermione looked chagrined.
"What the fuck is an aeroplane?" Ginny narrowed her eyes in incomprehension, then narrowed them further in realisation. "I'm not my fucking father. You can keep your muggle shit away from me."
"Stop swearing, please," Hermione begged. "I hate it when you swear."
"Well keep your muggle shit away from me and I might not swear. Are you trying to get me killed like my father?" She was screaming now, advancing on Hermione. The older girl tried not to flinch. "Are you?"
"No, Gin, love, I'm not. I'm just--I forgot, okay?" Ginny sneered.
"I'm glad that some of us can forget, my dear." She snatched the tray from the table, took two steps, and flung the whole thing out the window. "There's your tray, and," she peered downwards, "it appears to be empty. You've done your job, girl. Get out."
Hermione rose to her feet, and looked at Ginny with resignation on her face.
"I knew you'd do that," she whispered.
"I'm nothing if not consistent," Ginny snapped back. "Get out. He's not coming back with you here."
Hermione shook her head slightly and opened the door. "He's not coming back, Gin," she said quietly. Ginny's eyes flashed with rage.
"He is, he promised. He'll come for me."
"What makes you think he'll come for you and not Harry?" Hermione asked, losing her temper and trying to cut. Ginny ignored the sudden fear in Hermione's eyes when she only smiled.
"He's coming for Harry, all right," she said, her voice far away and dreamy. "But once he's come for Harry, he's coming for me." She sat down slowly on the pallet that served her as a bed in this tower, and wrapped happy arms around her chest. Hermione let herself out unnoticed.
Not at all unnoticed, she slipped into the meeting downstairs, more than a little late.
"Miss Granger. Nice of you to join us." Hermione tried not to glare at her old Potions Master.
"I'm sorry, I had to bring Ginny her-" she trailed off, knowing that everybody in the room pitied her for her futile efforts. "Lunch."
"Ahh, Miss Weasley," Professor Snape sneered. "How is your dear--friend?"
"She is-" she stopped herself from saying 'well'. "She needs help. Possibly St Mungo's, or, I don't know, there must be a physical remedy. Like a charm, or a potion." She looked around accusingly. "She is a member of this Order! Why is nobody helping her?"
"She's alive, Hermione," Harry said in a soft voice. "We can't do anything more."
"Can't, or won't?"
"A lunatic at the top of the North Tower is no use to the Order, Miss Granger," Snape said acidly, and Hermione tried to ignore the nods of quite a few other people in the room.
"She keeps saying that Ron is coming back to us," she cried desperately. "Maybe she can See something we can't."
"I'm sure she can see a lot more than any of us here can," the Potions Master replied scathingly. "What with her excellent view. But I can see as well as the next person that her brother is not the person coming for us, and our purpose here today is to plan for that eventuality." He sneered, but his sneer was terrifyingly defeated. "Let Mister Weasley come. Let any Weasley come. Merlin knows, we might actually stand a chance if the dead are on our side."
"You want me to post your letters for you, love?" Ginny didn't look up, and Hermione tried her false-happy voice again. "Ginny, I brought you an owl." Ginny didn't look up at that either, simply acknowledging her presence by waving a hand to the wooden perch on the southern wall. Hermione shifted the owl from her arm to the perch, glad to be rid of his weight after walking up so many stairs to the tower room, but sorry to lose the comforting warmth. She moved to sit near, but not quite next to the other girl.
"Who are you writing to?" she tried, knowing and dreading the response she would get. Ginny smiled, her whole face lighting up.
"I'm writing to him," she chirped in a stage-whisper. "I'm telling him your plans to find him. He's coming." Ginny smiled another brilliant smile, and Hermione wanted to cry. Each day she would come to this tower, and each day it would be the same. Ginny would be persuaded to eat a slice or two of toast for breakfast, but only while Hermione talked. She had run out of things to say, until the only actual events in her life were the Order meetings. She spoke of them: Ginny didn't understand enough to know what she was talking about anyway, and she had no way to spread their plans even if she wanted to. Except for Ron, poor Ron, the last Weasley except for Ginny, and whose body blocked the curse that would have killed Harry. Of course, the curse shouldn't have killed Ron--he was stronger than Harry, and the curse was only a stunner anyway--but for the Aurors who pulled back without him. The Order had mourned him, but had considered it only another minor loss: Harry was still safe. But it had been his loss that had sent Ginny over the edge.
"See?" Ginny smiled proudly as she held up an oddly morbid crayon drawing of what appeared to be a red-haired girl with a skeleton, a white-haired man and a black-haired woman. Hermione felt another pang of loss shoot through her at the white-haired man. The Order had not discounted the loss of Dumbledore as minor, attacked by gargoyles whilst on an evening stroll about the grounds. He hadn't even been guarded. Hermione choked back tears.
"Have you lost your brown again?" she asked, like one would to a small child. Ginny looked up at her with large eyes, curious. "I have brown hair."
Ginny nodded slowly. "You have brown hair," she repeated. Hermione left, as she always did these days, before Ginny sent the owl to her brother.
"We really should send her away," Harry mused in a whisper that evening as they sat, as always, around the untouched chess set. The chessmen had long since stopped glaring.
"You've found somewhere that will help her?" Hermione asked brightly, daring to hope. She nearly vomited in disappointment when Harry shook her head.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I meant--she's not going to be able to do anything here. And Voldemort's going to try and take Hogwarts sooner or later. Snape's surprised he hasn't tried already, actually."
"Really?" Hermione hadn't realised that she'd missed so many meetings.
"And yeah. She's not good for morale. The kids--they can't even play Quidditch anymore without her just staring at them from the window. They say she's like a ghost."
"She can't help it!" Hermione cried out. "It's not her fault. She watched most of her family get slaughtered. She's the only one left!" Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat like he always did when he was reminded of Ron.
"Listen, Hermione, I know she's your girlfriend and all, but this is really for her own good. What if the castle gets attacked? We can't leave that door unlocked, you and I both know it." Hermione nodded, it had been her doing in the first place. "There's not enough of us left to hold the castle. The Order is depleted, the Aurors can't keep up, and we're relying on children to fight for us."
"We were children when we started fighting this, Harry."
"Yes. So you should know better than Snape, better than anyone why they shouldn't be fighting now." Harry closed his eyes for a moment. "We're not going to win. I wish I could say that we have a chance, but we don't. You know that, I know that, even bloody Snape knows that. If Voldemort attacks, we're dead, and Ginny's going to be locked in that bloody room until," he grimaced, "well, until Ron really does come for her."
Hermione put her head in her hands, the bitter truth burning her throat, stinging her eyes. I don't think she's my girlfriend anymore. She had no tears left to weep. She and Harry both jumped at the sound of a crash downstairs.
From far below her, the sounds of fighting wafted up with the breeze to reach her ears. Shouted curses, cries of pain. If she closed her eyes she could almost see the curses strike, see the blood bloom and flow; see the pain on their faces. She closed her eyes.
In her mind, she lived the battle. Lived the fear and pain and looks of defeat or victory, lived the determination and sweat and blood. There was a lot of blood.
Then the noises stopped, and she was alone, in silence, blanketed in the wretched peace she had chosen they had forced upon her [it was] for her own good. There was nothing to indicate which side had one, who had triumphed, who had lived. She giggled in joyful fear: her eyes staring at the door, the walls, the floor. He would be here for her any minute; she would be here for her any minute. Any moment now. The door to her little tower room was locked for her own safety, bullshit she had said. She curled up on the floor like a cat, like a slave, and waited for them.
She didn't have to long to wait.
She heard the handle turn, looked up to see it catch. That other girl kept the key on her, she had told them that. A moment later the handle was caught no longer: alohamora had always been simple and effective, especially when the treasure behind the door was a girl without a wand. She rose to her feet.
The doorway was wide, like every doorway in every old castle she had seen. Not like the narrow things in that place her parents those wretches how dare they [have] trapped her in for eleven years. The three passed through like the most natural thing in the world, the sunlight lighting their pale, pureblood features like they were angels. Ginny had always wanted to live in a castle.
They drifted a few paces into the room, the skeleton's face unreadable, the white-haired man's eyes evaluating her little tower room, and the black- haired woman's eyes never leaving her face. As one, they bowed to acknowledge her. Ginny smiled, a little-girl giggle bubbling from her throat. She remembered her place, and stepped forward from her pallet, smoothing the skirts of the Slytherin school robe she had found and had taken to wearing after Ron. That other girl had teased her for it, but Ginny had ignored her. The white-haired man looked on with approval.
"My Liege," she said, curtsying deeply, her back straight but tilted forward, her eyes downcast to focus on the floor an inch before his feet. The skeleton touched her hair, and she rose again.
"My Lord," she turned to the white-haired man, curtsying again, with her back straight and erect, her eyes lowered slightly: a sign of respect to the man whose rank outstripped her own, but who commanded her not. He nodded to acknowledge her once more, and she rose to turn to the black- haired woman.
"My Lady," she said then, her voice full of reverence as she curtseyed the deepest yet, as close as she could come to the ground without being unable to right herself again. Her liege would not mind, she knew, as she waited in that position.
"My love," the black-haired woman answered in a voice that reminded Ginny of her parents' requiem. Long, thin and pale, pureblood fingers grasped Ginny's shoulders and brought her to standing again, and the black-haired woman kissed her mouth gently. "Call me Bellatrix."