Disclaimer- I do not own Harry potter, for the 18th time
Author's Note- Thank you so much for all your reviews. I was FLOORED when I opened up my e-mail and saw "10 unread e-mails" and there were like 4 more after that. 14 reviews, that's the most I've had yet! I sat down to write this chapter about 4 times and each time I started off with something I didn't like. This is the final version I wrote because I figured that I couldn't keep you waiting more than a week. That would be totally against my fast update feelings! So, I'm sorry that I took so long to update, but you may or may not be happy to hear that there is only one chapter left after this one here. Enjoy and Review at the end!
Chapter 18
Hermione stared forlornly at the white wall of the bland room in St. Mungo's. She hadn't really taken her eyes off the strip of wall for the last hour. It seemed so long ago that she had had her fight with Voldemort, and Harry, her dear Harry, had still been alive. She hadn't seen anyone since the aurors had taken them to the magical hospital and she was beginning to feel the grips of loneliness in her body. She didn't want to lose anyone else.
She could lose her dad because, as much as she hated to admit it, she had been prepared to lose him. Since meeting Harry and hearing of his parentless life she had been mentally taking charge of her life so that, if and when the time came, she could take care of herself and wouldn't fall into a deep depression. True, she still had fallen into a depression, but, she couldn't even imagine what would have happened had she not even begun to imagine. Her father was gone and she missed him and loved him still but she had known he wasn't going to live forever.
Her mother was a different story. She still wasn't exactly sure what had happened to her. She was pretty sure that she wasn't dead, someone in her family would have tried to contact her (she hoped), and she was pretty sure her mother was safe. Hermione just wasn't sure that she was ready to have her reenter her life after leaving her so coldly. She was prepared to say goodbye to her mother and she had been since the beginning of school. It was a dark way of thinking because, as far back as she could remember, her mother and she had been extremely close. Millicent could prove that fact because, when in her company, Hermione told her stories about her fabulous mother and showed her numerous pictures of family outings.
Ron and Harry were a different story altogether. They were her best friends in the whole world and she was not, even a smidgeon, prepared for them to pass on. They were too close to her and too young to go. She sniffled at the thought of losing them.
They had made plans at the end of the last year to get a flat together after they graduated, if only for a brief time. They had renegotiated this after they had learned that Hermione and Draco were to be wed. They had agreed that they weren't going to live together anymore (Hermione knew that would be too much for Draco), but they were sure as hell going to live by each other. Also, Harry, being the boy-who-lived, Hermione, being the brilliant one, and Ron, being one of the most avid followers of quidditch, were all going to get jobs at the ministry of magic although in different fields. They were prepared and excited for their life after Hogwarts, but, now it seemed as though it was what it had been then: a dream.
Hermione blinked her eyes rapidly, trying to block the tears that wanted to pour down her cheeks at the thought that none of their well-thought out plans would ever get used. Harry, one of her best and truest friends, was, to put it bluntly, dead.
A loud knock sounded on the door and a professional looking med-witch entered the room, a clipboard in her hand and small smile on her face. "Mrs. Hermione Malfoy?" Hermione jumped at the sound of her voice and took a deep breath to calm herself.
"That is me." It was still weird to be called a Malfoy and she figured it would take some getting used to. "Can I help you?"
"My name is Dr. Lawson. I'm just here for a general check-up." She moved closer to the dejected child sitting calmly on the bed. "We, the medi-wizards, want to make sure that you are okay and that none of the curses hurt your body. How were you involved in the fight?" Hermione regarded the woman for a moment.
"I was… the beginning, if you will." The woman looked questioningly at her. Hermione gave her a tired look.
"Could you please expand on this for me?" Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I was kidnapped on the way to Hogsmeade by a man. He drugged me, with HGF I believe, and took me to a building. I don't where, but I was put in a room for about an hour and then Malfoy, Parkinson and Bulstrode, came in and took me to see Voldemort." The woman flinched, "I was cursed with many pain inflicting spells and after having gone through this until the brink of insanity, I touched my scar to transport my four friends, Draco, Millicent, Harry and Ron, to me. We fought the battle and here I am." The woman nodded darkly and muttered a few tests. She looked at her clipboard quizzically.
"Mrs. Malfoy, your tests are coming back extremely oddly. Your blood pressure is way lower than it should be, your body temperature is a few degrees cooler and overall, you should be half dead." Hermione grinned ruefully.
"I am dead, basically." The woman looked at her questioningly. "I fought a Tipard. It's dead now, but it killed me in the process of me killing it. A girl at Hogwarts used a dark curse to bring me back and in the process killed herself." The woman shook her head and mumbled a few choice words.
"Okay, Mrs. Malfoy, I don't really know if I understand or want to understand but for the most part, you seem to acting as though nothing is bothering you. From the curses you were hit with, it seems like you should be injured in the least." The woman shot her a pointed look.
"I am the keeper of the light." Hermione said simply, "The light heals me when it flows through my body. It didn't save me when I fought against the tipard because I didn't have time to call to it." The woman's mouth hung open.
"The keeper? That's a myth!" Hermione smiled a large genuine smile at her.
"I guess even the craziest myths can be true." She sighed, "Is there news on a Ronald Weasley?"
What the hell was going on?
Ron sat in his bed, fidgeting, and listening to his mother sob on the opposite side of a curtain. He didn't understand what the fuss was about! He was alive! He had fought with his friends (Malfoy didn't count) against Voldemort and they had won, he was sure of it. He just couldn't fathom the reason why he was here, and why his mum was crying.
"ERghhhs!" Ron tried to call to her. The crying stopped and the very red face of a woman peered around the curtain surrounding his bed.
"Ron! I'm so glad you are awake! I love you so much!" Mrs. Weasley cried, racing to her youngest son and smothering him with kisses. "I'm so glad that you are alive. So very glad…" She trailed off, staring at her child with adoring eyes.
"Glsdfes…" Ron told her and gave her a very confused look. "Hushdts?" Mrs. Weasley looked confused.
"Ron, the spells that they placed on you must be stopping you from speaking." Ron looked at her angrily. "I'll go see if we can call a medi-witch to fix it." Ron nodded approvingly and Mrs. Weasley scuttled off to find someone to help her.
Ron stared at the spot where his mother had been standing less than ten seconds before. He didn't quite understand why she had been so emotional and he figured that he wouldn't until she returned and he could actually speak. Ron lifted his head and immediately knew something was wrong with his body, but, with his head feeling so muddled, he couldn't figure it out. At that moment a very pale, very skinny woman entered the room.
"Ronald Weasley?" She asked with a dulcet voice. Ron garbled in response, "I hear that you would like to speak with your mother and would like me to remove the pain relieving spells we have put on you. I can do this, but I am going to warn you that you may not like what you see." Mrs. Weasley reentered the room, a tissue at her nose.
"Have you explained to him?" She asked the tall skinny woman. The woman murmured an incantation and flicked her wrist. Ron's head immediately cleared but she gave him a sign to make him keep quiet. He was only slightly aware of a clenching pain throughout his body.
"Ronald, you were hit with a flesh-eating curse. The aurors that brought you here had quite the hard time reviving you. When they found you, you were inundated with light. There was a girl across the room from you sobbing into a boy's chest. We took the girl from the room, she was also glowing, and when she was taken away, you began to… Dim. The aurors brought you here and asked the boy, who seemed to be in good health, what he knew about you. The boy, when seeing your… injury, immediately knew what you had been hit with and explained that the girl, his wife, shot you with her light when she saw you hit by the curse, though she didn't know what it was. It was this shot of… light that kept you, quite frankly, alive." Ron looked startled.
"Hermione kept me alive?" He smiled but when he saw his mum's downcast eyes he knew there was more to the story, "What happened to me?"
"The light she hit you with knocked off the curse, Ronald, but it was too late to stop it completely. The flesh eating spell is extremely fast moving and she had to have been quick if she kept it from spreading all over your body. The tinges of pain you are feeling now are remnants of the curse, though they can't harm you. You may look and see that you have all of your upper body but from now on you will only have one leg." Ron looked startled.
"One leg? What about quidditch? What am I supposed to do about walking?" Molly Weasley looked at her son sadly.
"Ron, there are ways to move around with only one leg. Goodness knows people in the muggle world have been doing it long enough. I'm sure wizards have ways to help you through this." The medi-witch nodded, "As for quidditch, I don't know." Ron turned away from the two women.
"Ronald, until you create a broom for people with only one leg, you won't be able to ride one. I'm sorry." Ron glared at her but, after taking a deep breath, nodded understandingly.
"Thank you." He said disparagingly. "This is going to be hard, I know it. I have two of the best friends in the whole world though, so I am sure that they will help me. I owe Hermione enough already, but I'm sure she won't mind helping me with this." This thought of Hermione caused his to stop talking for a second.
What had happened to them? He figured that Hermione was okay since the medi-witch had mentioned her with a pleased tone of voice. But what had happened to Harry? Ron stared at the curtain trying to understand what had happened after Hermione had shot him with her light. He couldn't remember.
He bit down on his lip and went back to the events of the fight. He remembered hearing Malfoy warn him but after that everything was a blur. He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. Nothing!
"Bloody Hell!" He shouted. His mother gave him a stern look. The medi-witch gave him an optimistic smile and left the room. Molly looked at her boy and frowned.
"Ronald Weasley, I know that this will be hard but that does not require you to speak with such words." Ron jumped, startled by his mother and stopped his train of thought to look her square in the eye.
"Mum, I know it's going to be hard but I can't remember anything! What happened to Hermione and Harry?" Mrs. Weasley's eyes widened and she sat on the end of his bed (Where his leg should have been, he imagined).
"Hermione is doing okay. I talked with her doctor after she came out of her room looking flustered. She was spouting some nonsense about Hermione having died, but that's preposterous." Ron gave his mother a guilty smile. Mrs. Weasley eyed him incredulously.
"That's another story, mum." Mrs. Weasley nodded suspiciously.
"You better tell me it later, but Hermione is doing fine. Harry…" She trailed off.
"Harry's gone Ron."
Ron's mouth dropped open.
Dumbledore walked slowly through the halls of St. Mungo's. His eyes were blank and his face was layered with age. He looked twice as old as he felt. He knocked on the light blue door that was holding one of his most prized students. A portly man opened it and smiled congenially at the older wizard.
"Professor Dumbledore, we have some aurors here that saw the fight between Mr. Potter and you-know-who. Andre Flatter, that short man over there, has offered to let you use a penseive. We have his memory in the bowl already. We have been watching Mr. Potter very closely and we haven't had time to view it yet. If you would like to…" He motioned toward the ceramic bowl and Dumbledore nodded gravely.
Walking towards the bowl, the Headmaster of the most renowned school in the wizarding world began to feel a strange sense of hope. He leaned into the bowl and came face to face with a silvery liquid. He plunged his head into it and was immediately transported to this man's memory.
The battle was nearly halfway over by the time Andre Flatter arrived at the scene of the conflict. Dumbledore grumbled at this but then figured he could just use, with permission of course, Hermione's memory to view the beginning.
Dumbledore immediately became enraptured in the scene around him. He watched his students fight for their lives and he watched, slightly scared, at the power that they were exerting. Hermione's glow was brighter than he ever remembered seeing and Draco was more focused on his comrades then he ever was in his studies. Harry, he could not see, and Ron, Ron was floating above the fighting serenely. Everywhere Dumbledore spun spells were being shot. He gasped at the amount of bodies already on the floor. Time seemed to move at a quicker pace for a while until, much to his apprehension, he saw Harry and the Dark Lord's fight.
From the looks of the fight, it had been going on for a while and Dumbledore guessed that he had been fighting him since the beginning. Harry was the only one that Voldemort truly wanted dead. The headmaster fought down fury as he watched the powerful dark wizard shoot curse after curse at his student. Harry, much to Dumbledore's surprise, held strong.
The battle between the two men (Harry was by no means a boy any longer) was coming to a halt and Dumbledore moved as close as the penseive would allow him. His watchful eye was picking up everything. He focused on the last time Voldemort raised his wand and he wanted to leap over and protect Harry as the curse was hurled at him. He watched the whoosh of air that blew Harry's hair into his eyes and he viewed the chaos that erupted within Hermione at the scene that had played out before her eyes. He pulled out of the penseive, upset at the happenings and then… it hit him.
"Don't let him go Dr. Johnson!" The portly man looked at Dumbledore as if her were crazy.
"He's dead, Albus. The killing curse was shot at him." Dumbledore gave the man a toothy grin.
"No, that wasn't the killing curse. Every spell that is shot must be said precisely. Voldemort and Harry were so worn out and spent from their battle that their magic wasn't strong enough! Voldemort, as I have just witnessed, slurred his words, if only slightly. His magic wasn't strong enough. I am guessing that Harry is close to death because of how close he was brought from his battle. He isn't dead though, the killing curse was not used.
Harry Potter has lived again."
Draco knocked quietly on the door to his wife's room. He was fine. He had stayed out of most of the battle and when he was taken to St. Mungo's, he had immediately gone in search of food to calm his rumbling belly. Now, after at least an hour and a half, he felt that his wife must be at least somewhat worried about him.
"Hermione?" He called, walking into the bright room. Hermione opened her eyes and gave Draco a blank look.
"He's gone Draco. It's too much to comprehend at once. We watched as that curse was shot at him and how it hit him." Draco walked over to the stiff looking bed and sat on it.
"Hermione, it's not the end of the world. Instead, it's the beginning. Harry defeated the Dark Lord. He has saved everyone, even the people who don't realize it yet. Your name, as well as his and Weasley's are going to go down in history!" Hermione gave him a tiny grin.
"I would change all the publicity I am getting for just one more moment with Harry. I'm not kidding either Draco, don't give me that look. I love Harry so much. He is my family. He and Ron are my only family." Draco raised an eyebrow and pulled her into his embrace.
"Hermione, we're a family." Hermione smiled at him and rested her head on his chest.
"Thank you." She whispered. Draco grinned into her bushy hair.
The door to the room opened and a pleased looking Dumbledore entered. Draco and Hermione leaped apart at the noise and were giving each other looks from opposite sides of the bed. Dumbledore chuckled.
"Headmaster, what are you laughing about? Harry is dead." Dumbledore beamed at her.
"No Hermione, he is alive. He is on the brink of death, but he is alive." Hermione shrieked and Draco gave her a look.
"That's good news Professor." He said and went back to curiously watching his wife who couldn't keep her silly grin off her face. All of a sudden the smile vanished, Draco frowned.
"Professor, where is Millicent?" Dumbledore furrowed his brows. "I have not gone yet to visit her! Do you know how many curses she was hit with before the aurors came and helped her away?" Hermione looked puzzled, as did Draco.
"She was supposed to alert the aurors to come and fight but just as she left the aurors started apparating in. She was supposed to apparate to Hogsmeade and then run to the castle to alert you." Dumbledore looked worried.
"She never approached me, Hermione. In fact, we had a teacher in Hogsmeade to bring stragglers from Hogwarts into the castle. She didn't find anyone and she was there up until 2 hours ago. I was in the castle the whole time too. I can not just leave my students. This is a special visit; Fudge is over at Hogwarts now. He surprisingly understood my urgency to be here with you all. I can assure you that Millicent never arrived." Hermione's breathing quickened and she turned to look at Draco with worry. He was staring blankly at her, no emotion crossing his aristocratic face.
Another knock sounded on the door. "Maybe it's Millicent!" Hermione yelled racing across the room to throw open the door.
"Yeah, and maybe I'm not pureblooded." Draco grumbled. Hermione faced him from 5 feet away.
"I was always told it takes one to know one!" Hermione smiled at him. Draco looked confused and she threw open the door to see a very flustered Millicent. "Lis!" Hermione cried throwing her arms around the girl standing in the doorway. Millicent looked very nervous but hugged Hermione back. "I was so worried about you!" Hermione told her, finally releasing her from the hug. Millicent looked behind her and sighed angrily.
"I was worried about you too Minee, but give me one moment. I'll be right back." Hermione groaned in confusion and plopped down on the bed next to Draco.
"What just happened?" Draco growled in irritation.
"I don't know!" Even their headmaster looked confused. Hermione watched the door closely and not five minutes later Millicent's head popped into the room.
"Hermione, I didn't go to see Dumbledore. I saw and heard the aurors right before I was sent away from the room. I focused at the last minute on a picture you showed me… of your house. I popped into the house and saw her Hermione!"
"Saw who?" Hermione questioned frantically, "Who did you see?"
"I caught the Knight Bus here from your house. I guessed that this is where they would take you if the battle was over. It took me a while to convince her to come, but after we sat and talked she began to believe me."
"Who, Millicent?" Hermione practically yelled. Millicent opened the door all the way and Hermione's eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open.
"MUM?"
Hermione's mother entered the room, a frown on her face. She pulled her hand from the Slytherin girl's grip and faced the occupants of the room defiantly. "Mum? Is that you?" Hermione asked disbelievingly. Draco stood behind her, holding her protectively and Dumbledore watched with caution. "Mum?" Hermione asked one last time. The woman grumbled.
"I don't know who this girl is but she told me that I had to come with her." She took a deep breath and gave the group a guarded smile.
"Hello," She said confidently, "Who, may I ask, are you?"
Author's note- I'll apologize for getting this out so late. A week, man, I've been slacking! I want to thank you all again for your reviews. My e-mail is being wacky again so I can't go in to respond to them. It's like someone cursed this thing, but I'll make sure I have responded next chapter, as it will (absolutely… most likely) be the last.
I will respond to the gottalovedrakie because her review I remembered specifically only for the reason that she complimented my fight scene so nicely! I was worried while posting that it wouldn't be good enough or that it would go by too quickly and you have no idea how long I debated going back and redoing the whole thing…again. Thanks, you made me smile!
Don't think that I don't appreciate anyone else's reviews because I totally do. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I really hope that you review again. Oh, I just reread this again for mistakes but I think I am too tired to actually find any. I'll apologize for the way I brought Millicent in, it seems a little rushed, but I want to get this out and I couldn't think of a better way to bring her in. I do like the mom part laughs
Enjoy lovelies!
Xo, Kate
Review!