Song: Broken by Seether and Amy Lee
Summery: Hermione has been out of school for eight years and the war is coming to an end. She reflects on everything that has happened and how everyone has changed.
Characters: Hermione, Draco mainly
Eight years. Eight years since I had graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Eight years since Death Eaters had attacked the Ministry of Magic, successfully killing every wizard unlucky enough to have been caught inside. Eight years since the entire wizarding world had been thrown fully into war. Eight years since Voldemort had killed my family. Eight years since I had last smiled. There was nothing to smile at these days. Muggles smiled; muggles went about their daily lives without ever realizing that a war was taking place behind their backs. A war that was tearing the wizarding world apart. Countless lives had been lost on both sides, there wasn't a witch or wizard left who hadn't experienced the death of somebody they loved.
Witches and wizards born to muggle parents were never contacted and told of their magic. Dumbledore was loath to bring them into such a war and Voldemort had no interest in the mudbloods. Not until we were out of the way of course. Once we fell, there would be nothing stopping Voldemort from 'cleansing' the world of all muggles. And that 'we' was a sorry looking group at the moment. Weary of body, mind, and spirit we all sat slumped in various chairs throughout the large room, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
Four years ago Hogwarts had been closed, the few students that remained were allowed to stay, but none of them did. Even with the threat of being attacked in their sleep and forced to choose between Voldemort and death, they had all wanted to go home and spend what time they had left with their families. Hogwarts wasn't exactly the haven it had been before either. As the new headquarters for the defense, the light side, the castle had become a main target for the Death Eaters. At first the halls had been filled with Aurors, Order of the Phoenix members, ex-ministry workers, and everything in between. Hagrid had spoken to Aragog as well as many of the other creatures within the Forbidden Forest and many of them had come to patrol the grounds. Not a single area of the castle was left un-inhabited and for a while it had seemed like we might just be able to win. Yet as time went on, and lives were lost in each battle, the halls emptied. The tables in the dining hall were left half empty, and dust began to reclaim much of the castle.
Now the castle was mainly unused. Those of us left stuck to the kitchens, the library, Dumbledore's office, and our rooms. The rest of the castle was filled with memories of people who were gone. Memories were worse than ghosts, for ghosts were nearly real. Memories were things that could haunt only you, and there was no way to get away from them. Not all the time at least, it took too much energy.
There were only twenty four of us left. Everyone else in the wizarding world had either fallen to Voldemort, gone into hiding, or died. Dumbledore, myself, Ron, Fred, Bill, Terry Boot, Padma Patil, Remus, Draco, Susan Bones, Lavender Brown, Blaise Zabini, Snape, McGonagall, Sprout, some assorted Aurors, a few spell decoders, and a single quidditch player from Ireland's team. Quidditch; it seemed like such a long time ago that Ron and I had watched Harry soar above the rest of the game, looking for a tiny flash of gold. Such a long time since I had buried my head in Ron's shoulder, unable to watch as Harry dove toward the ground. I had seen much worse things sense then. I had seen people die, loved ones die. I had seen Harry die.
The day Harry was killed was the day we realized that we weren't going to win the war. There were too many of them and too few of us. Of course none of us ever put this realization into spoken words, but we all knew it. I could see it in their eyes when they had been told Harry was dead, and I could see it in their eyes now. We had kept going of course, we would never give in. We would fight until every one of us lay dead. That was another thing that we hadn't put into words. We didn't have to.
Eyes were on me, I could feel them pressing against me, sending off warning bells in my head. Snapping my head up from where I had rested it on my arm I met stormy gray eyes. Instantly I relaxed a bit, Draco was no threat. We were all jumpy these days, and tonight was no exception. Maybe we should have been even more on edge, maybe we should have been keeping watch for the army of Death Eaters we knew were going to attack tonight. But none of us had the energy. What would happen would happen; and tonight we would fight Voldemort for the last time.
I bit my lip out of habit as I met Draco's eyes, and encountered the wall that I had never seen come down. I knew my once open eyes had a wall just behind the surface as well, but I couldn't always keep it up. As much as I tried to stop it, it had come down when Harry died. Not right away, I had gotten back to the castle and delivered the news, watched as Dumbledore hid his tears in his hands, watched as Ron collapsed against a wall, his eyes unfocused and his hands shaking, watched as Remus silently took it in and forced himself to move on immediately, watched as Snape slammed his fist into the wall so hard that the bones in his hand had shattered. I watched the realization come into their eyes that we weren't going to win.
That was when I had fled.
Running, not looking where I was going and not caring where I would end up I just ran on and on. When I finally could not run any longer I found myself before the portrait of the Fat Lady, and the entrance to Gryfindor tower. For eight years I had avoided the place that had been my home, afraid of the memories that would come with entering it. But now, with Harry dead, I wanted the memories. Maybe, if I let myself, I could get lost in them. Live in them, forget the war and the death and the pain. So I had pushed the portrait open, the password had been abandoned when the school officially closed, and stepped inside. I had expected seven years worth of living to hit me all at once, but it didn't. The common room was empty, everything was covered in a thick coat of dust, but the thing I noticed the most was the fireplace. There was no fire cackling away merrily; there had always been a fire going before.
I had realized then that there were no memories to save me. There was nothing left but war, hatred, pain, and death. I didn't want to live in a world like that, I didn't want to keep waking up in the morning wondering which of us will not come back that night? Throwing myself from the astronomy tower sounded so wonderful at that moment, and I would have done it if not for Draco. He was the one who had gotten me through that night, he was the one who held me in his arms and promised me he would never leave me behind. Draco who had told me stories of before the war, when we were in school and happy. Draco who made me remember what we were fighting for, what was worth dying for.
I wanted you to know I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away
I keep your photograph; I know it serves me well
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain
Since then I had spent every night with him, he was the only one who could chase away my demons and it was only in his arms that I could sleep without hearing the whispers of the dead. He never said it, but I knew it was the same for him as well. Another thing we never said but we both knew was true was that either we would both come back to the castle, or neither of us would. We couldn't live without each other, not anymore.
We didn't talk much, in fact nobody talked much. There was nothing to say. There was no big, final, winning battle to plan. No hope of increasing our numbers, nothing to do but wait. And we had been waiting. Waiting for months. After tonight there would be no more waiting. After tonight there would be no more Draco to hold on to. And there would be no me as well.
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away
Gone away
You don't feel me here, anymore
Never once had Draco let down the walls he kept up. I had learned to read what little emotion he did show, but he never once let me see what he really thought, what he felt, what he remembered.
Outside, we heard the first signs of the Death Eaters that were coming for us, and nobody moved. They would find us no matter where we hid, and none of us wanted to be killed while cowering in a corner. We would fight, we would take as many of them with us as we could. But we wouldn't win. We knew that, they knew that. And yet, nobody in the room would ever think to run and hide. After eight years there was nothing to hide from any more. We had all accepted the fact that the war would most likely take our lives. It was before that point that things had been hard. Every death made you fear more for your own. Every battle was entered with fear and left with relief. Between the battles had been the awful part though. The fear built up inside you until it was a living thing, controlling what you did and what you said. Ironicly, it was often the fear that got you killed. In battle it would take over your mind, forcing you to run. And by running, you would turn you back. It would be the last thing you ever did. Yes, before you let go and accepted death things were the worst. After that, you could build walls to stop the pain. You could watch a friend fall and turn your back on them and continue with the battle. Everyone in this room had crossed that line almost immediately.
The worst is over now and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away
There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain
We could hear them now, in the entrance hall. It was only a matter of time before they found the entrance to Dumbledore's office, and one by one the people in the room stood up, pulling out their wands to wait. Draco didn't move; I didn't move. His eyes were the most beautiful things I had ever seen, dark gray and swirling, with flecks of black and silver in them. I had spent entire nights just staring into them, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Now I did the same thing. Was he scared? No, he wasn't. None of us were.
As the sounds of the Death Eaters drew closer his eyes darkened, then suddenly it was gone. The wall he had always kept up had fallen and I could see everything written in his eyes. He was glad that the end was finally here, glad that I would never have to feel pain again. Me, he worried about me, worried about everything I kept inside, all the pain I carried. But there was fear for himself as well. Not fear of death, fear of life. Of living without me. I knew my eyes had reflected the same thing a thousand times but to see it in his made my heart race. Deeper still were scars from when he was younger, the things that made him who he was. His father had disowned him when he had refused to become a Death Eater, this much I knew, but I had never know that he still carried the pain of it with him. My heart broke for him, for me, for everything the war had taken from us as I heard the Death Eaters closer than ever, in the hall just below us. Not long now, not long at all. No more waiting.
'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away
We were the only ones left sitting now, yet I couldn't tear my eyes away from his. He needed me, I had already know that. But there was something deeper, something I had always hoped for yet dared not ask for. He loved me. He loved my strength and my will, just as I loved his. Maybe, if the war had never happened, if Voldemort had died when his spell meant for Harry had been turned on him, Draco and I would never have needed each other. The war had brought out the best, and worst, in everybody it seemed, even if only during battle. Not that it mattered anymore, nothing mattered anymore. What if's and could have been's were long forgotten, even if by some miracle we managed to win and bring the wizarding world back to the way it had been, we ourselves would never be the same. We would never be able to lead normal lives again. We had seen too much, we had been left behind too many times.
Draco had promised he would never leave me behind though, and he never had. More than once I had wondered if he expected the same of me. Regardless of weather or not he expected me to come back every time I did. I couldn't leave him, not when I knew how much he needed me, not when I knew he would never abandon me.
What drove the others on? That was something I wondered quite often. Why did they get up and fight, why were they standing now, waiting for the Death Eaters to come? Revenge, most likely. Or perhaps, they didn't know what else to do. Either way they all waited now as the grinding of the gargoyle moving sounded below us. This was it. I swallowed and bit my lip again as I pulled my wand from my robes. Draco still hadn't relinquished my gaze, and as our eyes bored into each others he smiled. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen somebody smile.
'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away
We both stood just as the door blew open and the Death Eaters streamed in. Then all sense of time was lost as we fought. We weren't trying to survive, we were just trying to kill as many of them as we could. Ducking, cursing, hexing, blocking, everything blurred together and all I could focus on were the smiles. Ron looked at Draco, saw him smiling and smiled as well. Fred saw Ron and smiled. Dumbledore saw Draco and smiled. Then I saw Ron fall in a flash of green and when he hit the ground he was still smiling. It was over for him. The pain, the suffering, it was all over. One by one they fell, each sill wearing a smile. And my last thought was that we're free. No more war. We lost, but at least it's over. I was the only one left and as the Death Eaters raised their wands; I smiled.
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away
Gone away
You don't feel me here, anymore