Title: Prisoner of the Light
Summary: There has been a great betrayal against the Light. An antidote to those Azkaban stories.
Disclaimer: Is it actually legally necessary to put this in? I highly doubt that JK employs lawyers to scan this site looking for those among us that leave this part off. I clearly own nothing, this site is called , why say what we all know?
Notes: I warn you, this will cast a few characters that I like a great deal in a rather unfavourable light. Also, as this is a little darker, or meant to be, I've tried in some bits to write in a slightly different style than is my inclination. I'm not sure how successful that has been. You tell me I guess.
We're in the past again here. Until the last bit, which is the present again. Am I insulting anyone's intelligence with these notes? I only put these in because sometimes the point of flashbacks and odd timelines in stories only seems to be to confuse, and I'm just sort of enjoying them. It annoys the hell out of me when other people do them, but then, this whole fic would annoy the hell out of me if I were reading it. I think there's also a rather clumsy attempt to create tension in there too. And disguise a weak plot.
Chapter 3- UndertowHere we go again, thought Hermione, it always comes back to this, no matter what we do. Ron was ranting again, pacing the room and practically spitting with rage. Unable to keep up any more with the seemingly infinite amount of rage her boyfriend managed to pull out of nothing, Hermione collapsed into a chair and covered her eyes with her hand just so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore. It took over a minute, but eventually Ron realised that she was no longer listening. Hermione heard him pause and then the sound of another chair creaking as chairs always did when Ron sat in them. Sat was perhaps the wrong term. Ron stood in front of them and then dropped like someone had cut all his strings. What with how tall he'd gotten he usually had a large amount of momentum before he hit bottom. Once Hermione had found this endearing, but now it set her teeth on edge and she quelled the urge to snap at him about it, knowing that it would just start another fight about the irrationality of women.
"I'm doing it again aren't I," she heard Ron say from the armchair opposite. His voice was simply exhausted now and Hermione finally looked back up at him.
"We do seem to be following a pattern here," was her cool reply.
"It just makes no sense." Ron's voice was still quiet, but the sentiment one was one he'd screamed at the top of his lungs so many times he no longer needed to to rile Hermione.
"So you keep saying Ron," it was her voice that was rising now, "but I still don't see you making any actual point here!"
"Snape-" Hermione didn't give him time to start again.
"Snape did nothing! You were there! You tried the damn potion! How many times do we have to have this conversation? It's never Snape! You just don't like him! You never have and you always just spring right back to the same thing when the rest of us got over it in FIRST YEAR!"
Ron stood up again, "What other explanation could there be? You can't believe it, I know you can't!"
"I- the evidence-" Hermione stuttered.
"This isn't about evidence! It's about more than that! You always have to look at things logically and coolly and find the correct answer! Try feeling something for once!"
Hermione ignored the jab at her and tried with limited success to sound calmer, "You think I like this? That I don't wish things were different? It doesn't matter what I want to believe. You can't just say 'oh, the evidence doesn't matter' and make it true!" Realising what was going on Hermione forced herself to stop. "We are not having this discussion again." She sat back down and looked away from Ron.
"Yes we are," came the reply and another complaint from the chair, "And next week too." Hermione looked at a newly calm Ron. "When did we start fighting all the time?" he asked.
"We've always fought all the time Ron. I think the question is when did it stop being..." Hermione searched for the right word.
"Foreplay?" offered Ron. Once, Hermione would have laughed, but now she just nodded. "I think we both know," he continued darkly, "It was-"
"Don't Ron," Hermione raised a hand to shush him, "Just please don't."
A glower was her answer, "You never let me talk anymore." Annoyance again.
"You only ever want to talk about one thing!"
"You never even think about it do you? Wouldn't be rational!" the resentment in Ron's voice nearly made Hermione flinch.
"Didn't you once complain that we talked about him too much?" she said, once again ignoring the personal jibe.
"When I did, did you listen?" Ron threw back. As that had in fact been the start of their relationship, Hermione chose not to ignore the comment.
"I did actually, if you recall." That silenced Ron briefly. Briefly.
"You always used to worry about him Hermione, but now you can't even hear his name."
"I don't see you throwing it around!" Hermione forced herself yet again not to rise, "It's pointless, that's all." She could see Ron opening his mouth to yell, taking a deep breath, no doubt to really get his message across, and Hermione knew that she couldn't take anymore, and that he couldn't either.
"What are we doing?" she asked him. Ron gave her a quizzical look, and Hermione felt another stab of irrational anger at having to explain herself, at the way his eyebrows lifted at her as if he was still eleven and she was telling him to study, at his half open mouth like he was some kind of idiot and the fact that in some ways he was actually right. Denial was something Hermione didn't usually indulge in, but here it was. Hermione didn't believe it, even though she knew it had to be true, and she couldn't stand to think about it, to talk about it all the damn time like Ron wanted. He made her think about things she didn't want to think about and he did it all the time. Hermione didn't know if she was being the irrational one now, but she needed her denial. She didn't want to become the suppressed, irritable person she was becoming around Ron and all the things he reminded her of. Most of her knew that she still loved Ron underneath it all, and she didn't want him to become the angry, hen-pecked caricature of himself that he was becoming either. They weren't doing each other any favours here.
For years Hermione had been imagining a happy future filled with little red headed children and a warmly loving, wonderfully thoughtless husband, but in that moment she let it go. She didn't know if those people even existed anymore. Hermione looked up at Ron with an emotion other than anger or irritation for the first time in what felt like years and spoke.
"I can't do this anymore," she said.
-------------------
Hermione didn't really expect pacing to help, but she couldn't think of anything else to do at the moment. She'd looked up all the information she could and her conclusion stunned her a little. Something had to be done and had to be done now. Every moment meant life wasted. The worst thing was, there was only one person who would remotely listen to her, and she really didn't want to speak to them. But she didn't have the tools she needed and her theory was just so awful if it was true after all this time that she needed someone to bounce the idea off. Just to check she hadn't finally cracked.
After a few more minutes of pacing Hermione gritted her teeth, grabbed some floo powder and went to stand in front of the fire. He'd better not say 'I told you so', she thought as she cast her powder into the fire with a cry of, "Auror Headquarters!"