A/N: As promised, here's chapter two of The End of It All. Damage Done should be updating in the next day or two. This one has been a ton of fun so far. Things start to ramp up next chapter!
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. I'm just having some fun with JKR's characters.
Chapter Two: One Week After the End of It All
No one and nothing was the same after the Final Battle – the asinine moniker the Daily Prophet had coined for the battle where she'd lost nearly everyone that mattered to her. Hermione herself was an entirely different animal than pre-war Hermione. It was as if she'd spent all her energy in one go, and now she haunted the castle corridors bleary-eyed at all times of the day or night. She wasn't sleeping, she was barely eating, and she was so angry all the time.
All of her friends, lost. No Harry or Ron or Snape – they'd never come back after dragging Voldemort into Death. Lavender was dead, as was Fred, Charlie, Tonks, and both Creevey boys. Her parents had been obliviated months before and were living in Australia, blissfully unaware they had a daughter. Dumbledore had been killed by Thorfinn Rowle of all the idiot Death Eaters. Molly and Arthur both made it, as did the other Weasleys, but they were wrapped up in their grief having lost at least two, maybe three children in the battle. She had almost no one left.
It was noon, one week after the end of it all, and she sat in the Great Hall picking at a sandwich. The charmed ceiling had flickering patches that showed patches of indigo sky tempered with flecks of stars, even as the remainder showed the autumn afternoon outside Hogwarts. She thought the glitch had to do with the renewing spells Professor Snape had done at the end of her sixth year. They were keyed to him, and he was missing. She wondered if that night sky that flickered above her was the same sky he was looking at right now.
Luna sat across the table. Luna had lost an eye and three fingers in the last battle but was still so quintessentially herself that she was one of the few people Hermione still spoke to regularly. Luna had painted a busty Rowena Ravenclaw on her eyepatch that was a remarkably good likeness of the founder tapestry in Ravenclaw common room, on top of being… anatomically aspirational? Hermione rubbed her temples, trying to soothe the spear of headache that had been bothering her all day.
"You seem lost like your boys are lost," Luna said mistily before her voice sharpened and she added, "Plus, you're covered in more nargles than I've ever seen on one person." She took a sip of her pumpkin juice.
"No, I'm just tired, not lost." Hermione scrubbed her face with her hands and then pushed her sandwich away. "I know they're not dead – I think I'd feel it – but I can't find them. I have read The Book of Cernunnos backward and forward, and I can't figure out how to summon them home. Even worse, the book has got a hex or jynx I've never seen that's causing parts of the text to… I don't know… fade? It's half the size it was before! Like it's got a mind of its own. It figured it'd help us out with Voldemort, and now that job is done, it's focus is turning somewhere else."
"Hmmm. It could be a blagging worlnut, but you can usually tell that they've been stealing words because the pages get a little singed." Luna toyed with the sparkly blue and silver tassels on the edges of her collar. "I'm sure you've already tried asking it politely for help? I've heard some books can be very touchy."
Hermione loved Luna, but in that moment she felt a stab of such sharp irritation that she wanted to scream at the blonde girl. Taking a breath, she said, "How remiss of me. I should have invited it to tea. Honestly, Luna." She kept her voice level, but Luna sensed her frustration and smiled gently.
"I know most books here at Hogwarts have been like Muggle texts, Hermione. But very old Wizarding books are just like family homes or manors. They develop personalities that resemble their owners. Just like the Burrow is warm and happy and chaotic and Malfoy Manor is cold and unfriendly toward Muggleborns." Luna took a bite of her turkey sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "It's always best to approach strange books politely. It's pretty rare, but you hear about them every now and again."
Hermione's stomach flipped. She didn't recognize who she was anymore. Anger was her constant companion, and she was taking it out on people she loved. More than that, anger was making her stupid. Of course there were things about the Wizarding world she didn't understand. There were times Hermione felt as if she had been born into her adopted world, while other times she was forcefully reminded that, as a Muggleborn, she didn't know everything. It happened less frequently now, but there were still times she missed cultural references or nuances that those born into the wizarding world understood instinctively.
"I'm so sorry, Luna. I was making assumptions. Thank you for telling me; I had no idea." Also, it wasn't smart to discount her friend. Luna's ideas could be untraditional, but she was fiercely intelligent with grades at the top of her house. "Please forgive me." Hermione reached out and touched the back of her hand.
"I know you're tired, Hermione. You must miss Harry and Ron. Plus, with Professor Snape gone, your aura has turned cloudy. You spent so much time together brewing for the Order the last couple of years that your auras started to mingle when you were near each other." Luna reached into her bag and pulled out a necklace of woven grass and acorn cups. "I made this for you. When I was little and something was bothering me, my mother would pick tall grass from the garden and weave it together with acorns from the big oak on our property. She said people used to believe oaks grow from lightning strikes, showing the hand of God among us. I don't think it's true, but when I had a problem I was trying to figure out, it always made me think more clearly. Maybe it could help you! It's really only good for a little while because the grass dries out and breaks, but I can always make you another one if you need it."
"Thank you, Luna." Hermione said. She took it from her friend and tied it around her neck. Even if the little necklace just represented that her friend loved her and was worried, she was touched and would wear it with pride. "I need all the help I can get. I have appreciated you these last days. It feels good to know you are in my corner – in Harry and Ron and Snape's corner."
"I hope you figure it out soon, Hermione. I think the boys will be all right. They're a little like children – if they're lost, they'll just sit down and wait for a grown up to find them. But I worry that Professor Snape might think death was what he deserved for the part he played in the war, and you and I both know how silly that is."
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Hermione thought, Luna is probably right.
After picking at her sandwich and eating nearly none of it, she went back to the bedroom Minerva had gifted her in the guest wing that normally housed visiting professors. She threw her outer robe onto the white coverlet of the canopied bed before kicking off her old trainers.
Feeling silly, she rubbed her hands on her thighs and sat down at the desk where The Book of Cernunnos rested. Hissing, she noticed that the green leather volume was no thicker than a pamphlet. Just this morning, it had at least been a novella.
"Hello," she whispered to the book and ran her fingers across the embossed lettering.
She cleared her throat because she felt silly, but she tried again. "Hello. I apologize if I was rude in our previous interactions. My name is Hermione Granger. Thank you for your help. I don't know that we would have been able to defeat Voldemort without the knowledge you contain."
Something in the Void rolled over and turned an eye to her.
Feeling every ounce of blood drain to her feet, she felt as if she were a deer in the crosshairs.
She continued. "You've already helped us so much. It's just that, I'm very new to being a Cernunnos or a… Huntsmaster, and I'm human. I'm having trouble, uh, calling my dogs back to me. And I'm, well I'm really quite fond of them. So, if you please, if you've got any information on how to call them home, I'd appreciate if you shared it with me."
A faint sense of humor and a pulse of negation. Behind her eyes, she saw herself with six-point branching antlers running like an antelope toward the gray watercolor boundary that separated life from death. Cernunnos-Hermione ran with a fey grace that she'd never possessed, and when she approached the boundary, she leapt with wild abandon into Death's realm. She landed, skidding into a marble hall and yipped. Barking sounded in the distance, and that's when she saw Him, lounging on a throne on the other side of the room. He stood and gestured, black robes flowing like water down his skeletal frame.
Hermione was thrown so violently from the vision, that she was knocked off her feet.
Every muscle in her body ached as she sat up, and a trickle of warmth flowed down her lip. She tasted blood. It had happened fast, but she understood now.
"I have to fetch them home myself." Using the chair for leverage, she pulled herself to her feet. On the desk, The Book of Cernunnoswas open. The entire book now consisted of just a single page but written at the top was a spell and ritual marked "Bihofþe Parlaī with Death."(1)
(1) "To Parlay with Death." I am aware I probably butchered this Middle English, so no need to let me know!
A/N: Like it, love it, hate it, review it.