Title: An Inevitable Fate
Chapter Thirty Eight: The Void
Author: KissThis
--
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Drakie x Herm-own-ninny
Setting: 6th year in Hogwarts.
--
Disclaimer: I did not create Harry Potter or any of the characters from the Harry Potter series. I also have a mortal fear of lawyers. Harry Potter and all its rights ©JK Rowling.
--
A/N: Okay, here's the dealio. MUCHO short, but I wanted to get something out before I left. Sunday through Tuesday I shall be sans internet, and unfortunately immediately after that, on Wednesday, I'll be camping in Colorado for a week.
SO! Here's what we're hoping for upon my return (the 18th)
An Inevitable Fate 39
An Inevitable Fate 40
An Inevitable Fate 41 (?)
Tempting Propositions – it's my new Draco x Hermione fanfiction that I won't be posting any of until it's completed, so we'll see if I get that done in the cabin or not.
Gravity of Love Fic #3
A whole lot of goodies for you so hopefully you won't be terribly mad that I'm MIA for a week.
A small sparkle. A tiny glitter. Another one here...there. The milky whiteness that extended forever was filled with tiny crystals, no bigger than a thumb. Lights of all colors rose inside them pulsing and throbbing to blinding heights. Within the centers of the millions of tiny jewels small bodies began to materialize, drawing in the power from the corona of light and energy around them. Men, women, and children of all shapes, sizes, races, and descents formed into beings of immense purity, light and angelicism. Downy, white feathers layered atop each other forming great wide wings large enough to wrap around and protect their separate charges.
Great amber topazes glowed and softened, melting into wide, child-like eyes that blinked in wonder at the beauty and innocence of their whereabouts. Threads of the softest mahogany, and no larger than the gossamer weavings of a spider's web, were pulled from the white light surrounding the crystal from which her body was pulled. They twisted and wove about her head in blinding and wild patterns as if the hand of the Goddess herself were creating this being for the first time. Hundreds of perfectly formed curls were twisted into shape and hung past her shoulders, disappearing into the foggy mists."Hermione."The word was pulled and lengthened into an eerie, reedy whisper that echoed long after the voice behind it had died. The sound of it was hollow and at the same time, that of ringing bells. It was sound that lacked the harshness of reality and was not held down by any force - left simply to roam free throughout this dimensional plane.Hermione. The being paused a moment. Her ethereal wings swayed back and forth loosing pearled feathers upon her naked body. Was that her name? She knew of many names...the names of all creatures that had been born within the Void. The names of the ones yet to be created.......they all resided deep within her manifested body. She couldn't discern which name was hers, among the callings of the others. Nothing was certain in the Void. People didn't exist there, their souls did. They became one, with no feeling, no conscience, no sense of singularity. All those who resided within it lost themselves...their memories, their past, even their future was washed away in a sea of warm and unending light and safety."Hermione."The voice called again...it called to her. She hovered, hesitantly, above her glittering crystal marker, where she had materialized, and peered futilely out into the mists. Her wings lifted and extended to their full span. She leapt from her perch atop her crystal and soared high above the plane. Countless numbers of beings and "glitters" passed beneath her, but none held the voice that beckoned her.The tiny star that she had left behind appeared upon her breast in a spiral of glittering pixie dust. She swooped and dove with impossible ease and fluidity, never once needing to exert her energy upon it."Hermione."The voice was now behind her. She pivoted and winged left on the turn of a dime. Her wings folded against her back and she rocketed downwards. The mist curled and spiraled away from her as she streamlined downwards towards the origins of the voice that had lured her from her resting-place.A woman glided out from a shroud of fog, making the being backwing suddenly to avoid crashing into her. The being the voice had called Hermione stared in interest at the beautiful woman before her.Her hair was that akin to sunshine on a warm summer's day – bright yellow, like freshly spun gold. The waves of her hair reached her waist in flickering waves that gave the heavenly illusion of golden flames rippling down her back. Small, oval sapphires melted into glittering ocean orbs that shone with a power that rivaled that of the being named Hermione.When the woman spoke it indeed confirmed to "Hermione" that this was she would had beckoned her here. "Hermione..." The woman pulled Hermione down to the "ground" of the Void, if that's what you could call it for it all blended together in an all encompassing fog.Hermione's crystal marker began to glow and then it disappeared into her body. A small orb of light passed from her chest to her feet and reappeared beneath her as her glittering star. The crystal sunk down to the "floor", bringing Hermione with it like an anchor.The woman was smiling at her as if they had known one another in another time. Hermione's brow furrowed and she tilted her head slightly to the side as she studied the woman. Her mind was strangely empty save for the same fog that floated around her. She blinked blankly as the woman reached out to hug her. Her arms were loose at her sides and the strange woman pulled away in remorse.Hermione had no recognition of the soul, or the being, floating in front of her. Nothing was familiar here, not even her own voice had a memory within her as she spoke, "You called me Hermione..." She paused thoughtfully. "Is that my name?""Don't you remember?" The woman asked or her. The sapphire eyes faltered. "Not even me?""There is nothing in the Void." Hermione said simply in a deadpan voice. "No memories...........did you have a name?""Hope. I was called Hope.""Hope," she murmured. Hermione showed no recognition at the name. The woman, now revealed to Hermione as "Hope" stared hard at her before shaking her head. Hermione was confused. She held a clasped hand to her chest, nervously, and leaned forward slightly to stare back at the woman in front of her.
"You don't feel right," Hermione said, innocently. She floated over to Galaxia and turned her face towards her. She lifted a pale white hand to the tanned face and stroked it. Hermione's actions were alien to herself even as they were executed with age-old experience. Hermione was unsure if what she was doing was helping, because Hope had gone as still as stone beneath her hands."That is because I am not a soul. I don't belong here."
A small noise confused Hermione and she pulled her hand away, afraid that she had done something wrong. She looked up with curious amber eyes as Hope's body began to quake. She looked down at her own hand and found it still and unmoving. She lifted it upwards and stared at it with curious confusion, her eyes moving from Hope's shaking body to her own immobile one. Her strawberry pink lips pursed as she tried to "remember"...it seemed so familiar.She turned her palm to Hope and asked in earnest, "What makes your body shake so...?""Laughter," She chuckled, looking at the innocent soul before her."Laugh-ter?" She repeated the foreign word slowly in a halting voice. She looked up at Hope hesitantly and the woman nodded."I know 'laughter'..." She said quietly, her voice still stumbling over the new word. The small crystal beneath her that held her in place began to pulsate with milky light. Her entire body began to thrum like the string of a harp and her entire concentration was bent on her cupped palm."I-I...used to laugh until...my sides hurt..." She whispered, touching her waist. She reached out her hand, tentatively reaching for some unseen vision in the mists. "So many happy faces..."
The light within her crystal marker exploded in a swirling nebula of glittering light and her hand flashed crimson. Hermione gasped and stumbled backwards. Hope called her name, but Hermione was deaf to the world around her.All she could hear were the screams.
-- and then she let go. The serpent face vanished, and the death eater screamed as he fell. The merpeople grinned wickedly and swarmed together as he fell upon them. Their high noises drowned out his screams of terror and they pulled him beneath the surface. The bubbles trailed off and the water became calm once more.
Hermione screamed again, banging harder and harder. The wall was starting to form spidery, thin cracks that glowed white across the background of black.
"I'll never forget her face..." She laughed; a morose and pitiful sound. "...she didn't know what was happening, but she was scared all the same. She looked up at me...with that terrified face – begging to know what was going to happen to her – and I...I just walked away." She shook her head. "I will never forget her face."
She closed her eyes. "And until the day I die – I'll hear her...screaming."
Bits were chipping off and clattering to the floor; pooling around her feet. Her power was draining.
As a Death Eater attempted to jump to her ship he found himself skewered on her glittering sword. Pointing her weapon downwards, she watched with a sickening detachment as his body slid free from her blade and crumpled to the deck. She closed her eyes and turned away from the blood oozing out across the wood.
Lashing out, she kicked him square in the chest mid-leap and he toppled into the churning waters. Screeching merfolk surfaced around him. Hissing angrily and clawing at his body, they dragged him beneath the water.
"You can't do this to me, Hope! You can't keep me here!" She howled into the shadow.
She spun, bring her leg with her and kicking at her attacker's outstretched wand hand with immense velocity and dead-on accuracy. A loud and sickening snapping sound, followed by the sound of wood-on-wood as his wand clattered to the deck, signified that she had broken his wrist, and most likely the majority of the bones in his hand.
His screams of pain only fueled Hope's cries for death. His mask clattered to the ground and he cradled his twisted hand to his chest. Hermione reached out and grabbed the petrified man by the throat.
With one last enraged scream she leapt back at the wall and punched straight through it.
The woman screamed as Hermione's arm pulled back readying to thrust her blade into her enemy. A feral cry tore from Hermione's lips as she fell upon her victim.
Even as the tears dried upon her windblown cheeks, a sadistic grin curled Hermione's lips as her sword buried itself in the woman's body with such force that the tip of the blade pierced the wood of the deck. Blood sprayed into the air in a short lived fountain of life before receding to a gurgling expulsion of liquid as the woman's body rapidly cooled in death.
The body, now barely recognizable as the woman's so mangled and coated in blood was it, slid down the blade with a revolting sound. Hermione lifted a blood-flecked hand and grasped the golden handle. With a small grunt she pulled it free from it's wooden sheath and then out of the woman's body through a mutilated slit where a mouth had once been.
The man's body exploded. Blood sprayed everywhere as bits of human flesh rained down upon the damp grass. Hermione shuddered uncontrollably as she turned to face the Order. Crimson dripped from her pearly wings and the smell of iron filled her nose. Her entire body was drenched with blood.
She screamed.
Light burst through the fist-sized opening, blanketing Hermione's slumped form in it's blinding warmth.
The man was struggling to his knees. Not a single emotion crossed Hermione's face as she raised her sword above her head, point down. She'd retreated into her mind where there was nothing but white fog and the noise of static. There was no remorse as she buried her sword in his back.
He was dead.
Unable to move, she lay half-leaning against the beaten wall; struggling just to breathe.
A single tear rolled down Hermione's ethereal face. She screamed into the fog as painful images demanded to be seen. Shadowed and dark...with angry crimson eyes filled with pain and chaos..."Voldemort." She whispered. Her heart became so numb she couldn't even feel the sword in her hands. A chill ran through her. Seconds later it felt as if an icy hand had grabbed a hold of her heart. She gasped and flung her head upwards. The hand squeezed painfully and dug its nails inside her heart turning her gasp into a scream of anguish.
Hermione screamed again, and her wings wrapped around her trembling and writhing
body. Her hands clutched her breast as
if she would try to pull her heart from her chest to end the torture. The phantom pains left her panting and faint.
Hermione looked up at Hope floating in front of her and saw the same blue eyes
that were so empty and dead in her mind. She cowered in fear and fell to her
knees. She clasped her throbbing head in her hands.
Hope nodded into Hermione's hair, and cradled the woman's head in her own. She mirrored Hermione's previous action, and the rhythmic motions of her fingers soothed Hermione and calmed her.
"What is happening to me?" Hermione whispered. "There is nothing in the Void...only souls rest here...""Remember." Hope breathed, brushing the bangs from Hermione's eyes.The orb exploded over her hands. The golden light seeped up her arms like melted gold. In awe she lifted up her arm and as it caught the dawn light liquid ambrosia dripped down onto her clothes, staining them saffron. Her eyes rolled back into her head showing only the haunting whites. But even they too were consumed by the light and turned to blinding gold.
And she stood there...and let Hope overtake her. She felt herself slipping away, but did nothing to stop the energy from stealing her body from her. Only a deep sadness was left. And then she was no longer Hermione Granger. She was no longer a seventeen year old girl standing deadened in the fog.
She was Hope...
Hermione cried out and fell against her. She clutched to the back of Hope's tunic and pressed her face against her shoulder. Hope's arms closed around her, and Hermione's face contorted into the cloth as she braced herself for pain. But none came.
She pulled back enough so that she could look up at the child that held her. A ghostly face smiled down at her with dimpling cheeks. She could see straight through her, yet the spectral arms that held her felt as real as any human's. They were warm.
"Hope," she whispered. "Hope, what's happening?"
Hope giggled and it was near empty sounding, echoing. "I'm just going away for a bit, but don't worry. I'll be back when you need me, silly girl."
Hermione gasped as Hope's arms slid through her back and the tiny child pulled herself inside of her. Like a bucket of icy water had been dumped over her, great chills spread throughout her body in waves. Her eyelids fluttered and as her support disappeared she fell face forward onto her bed.