Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc. belongs to JKR.
Accomplishments for today: I fell in a stream trying to rescue my dog's Frisbee, ate a pink mini-milk and wrote half a page about trains to post under the pretence of 'Harry Potter Fanfiction'.I need a life.
You remember sometimes, the War, the people you once loved more than anything in the world. You remember how Harry would subconsciously flatten his fringe to hide his scar in public, you remember how Ron used to take the chocolate chips out of anything and eat them last. You remember being annoyed at how they refused to take the train to Diagon Alley even when they could no longer easily access a Floo port. It was stupid, you had said, that everyone was so scared of what so many had died to protect, how people would go out of their way not to enter Muggle London for fear of a Death Eater attack. This was precisely what they fought against, such mindless prejudices, foolish notions of safety on home territory.
They had laughed and brushed it off, saying they just found trains uncomfortable. (To this you snorted, since when had trains been less comfortable than Floo?)
You remember the real reasons behind your argument though, and it makes you somewhat sad. Because even when your friends apparated, flooed and flew, you would still sit on a graffiti scrawled carriage, wand hidden beneath a muggle outer-coat, and wait the long way to get into London, even when the city was a shell of what you remembered it to be in your childhood. You still took the train over other faster and far more convenient modes of transport because you knew that avoiding it would gradually detach you from the people you were trying so hard to save. You knew that detachment would leave you on the same level as them, as the Death Eaters and their Lord, and you couldn't afford to lose that one advantage of understanding. You knew then, as you listened to the hum of wheels over rails that detachment could lose you the War. And you so desperately didn't want to lose.
There was no Final Battle. No burst of glory with golden sacrifices on blood soaked fields. No chink in the clouds to let sunlight bless the winner. There was no beauty and hope, there wasn't even enough time for fear. (Despair possibly, but not fear.)
It had come at night, as you'd always expected it to. Thick dark night which wasn't all that thick or dark because of the muggle streetlights that stood outside the door.
You hadn't woken with a feeling of heavy dread, you hadn't been nursing a cold cup of coffee with knowledge that something had gone wrong. No, you had been asleep, fast asleep and dreaming a rather pleasant dream involving Crookshanks, Malfoy and sharp feline claws. You'd been shaken awake with a distracted smile on your face as Ginny yelled something over her shoulder.
"Hermione, you've got to get up." She'd said, laughing at a comment from Fred or George (you weren't awake enough to identify which).
"Why?" Groggy and sleepy you itched your nose.
"I dunno, we just got a Floo message from Tonks, sounded distressed, but it's in code so we need you to translate it, sorry. Harry's out with Malfoy and we thought it looked urgent."
"Ergh. Where's Ron?"
"George's gone to get him."
"Right." A huge yawn and you dragged yourself upright.
It had been the kind of night that felt so normal and pleasant you hadn't bothered to put too much thought into it.
"Heya, Hermione. I'll get it up for you."
"Thanks…"
You knelt by the hearth and smiled at Charlie as he lit the fire.
You, Harry, Ron and Malfoy had been staying with a number of the Weasleys for just under a week. The fourth member of the group was greeted with something less than hospitality, but other than that it had been the best few days you'd had all year. The house was a deserted muggle one on a rundown council estate and would be near impossible to find were the Death Eaters ready to look, but as it was they were after the Order, who still continued Dumbledore's work with a devotion drawn from desperation and grief.
Pointing your wand at the green glowing flames you brought forth the message. At the sight of the woman in the flames your throat constricted. The auror's hair hung loose in it's natural but rarely seen black, her eyes were dark and brimming and even though she spoke in a broken and coded tongue it was clear she was on the verge of breaking down. Frowning and growing anxious for the first time in almost a week you knelt forward to listen.
"He's dead, Harry. Remus is dead. They-the" the woman shuddered with a repressed sob, biting her lip hard to continue with determination. "They hit the house at three hundred hours. Burst open the windows. Kreature… he found a way to communicate with Bellatrix, we don't know how. There's blood everywhere but we don't know who's it is. Remus went down in the first wave… Molly keeps calling Arthur 'Fabian'. Harry, her brother died almost twenty years ago. We think she was hit with some kind of disillusion but she's convinced she can see him. She won't fight anymore. Keeps saying, "Fabian's here. Fabian knows how to save us."" The images glances back into the flames, as if trying not to lose track of what's going on at her end. "McGonagall is unconscious and Neville hasn't stopped coughing since he first got hit. We drove them back but they've taken it, Harry. The Death Eaters have all the files, everything we know, and they've got the key." Her voice rising in desperation she looked straight forward. "They're coming for you, Harry. You have to get out. They're coming."
With a soft fizzle the message cut out, swallowing Tonks in a swirl of emerald flames. You stared after her and blinked, turning to face the crowd of redheads behind you.
"They're coming." Was all you managed to choke out.
That night had started so similar to any other but within the space of five minutes your life shattered. You sent Charlie after Harry and Malfoy, writing down the message for them to read. You begged with Ginny to leave, told her to go to Hogwarts, to round up the centaurs, to summon every ally they had, but she wouldn't leave Harry. No one would leave Harry.
"Pack up, we're leaving." Was all Harry had to say on the matter.
You all followed. You had no choice; in times like these his words were law.
Malfoy burnt the place to the ground, erasing all traces but ash. You yelled yourself hoarse at him, telling him he'd kill all the surrounding muggles if it spread. He'd told you your priorities were fucked up and if you didn't stop preaching and start running the Death Eaters would get you too. He said death by smoke inhalation was doing the muggles a favour.
These are the memories. The memories you've never lost. The ones that stay with you in the torture and the pain. They haunt your dreams and dredge your soul. You see his eyes and you see their bodies and in the blackness of the cell they are projected before you, bleeding and shouting and telling you to run (because there was no winning, you could hide and fight but you were already lost).
These are the memories that break your heart every minute of every day. And you'd hate him were it not for the fact that he suffers it too. He suffers it and you suffer it and you both take it in silence because these thoughts should never be voiced. Never forgotten but never voiced.
"Granger?"
"Yeah?"
"Were you in love with Weasley?"
You'd felt something inside you crack (though it makes no sense because you're as broken as it's possible to be), something cracked and it came flooding back. Bloodies sacrifices, bitter pleas, decades of hatred.
"What?" A croak, a plea, a desperate cry for mercy.
"Did you love him?"
And you hate him. You hate him for his stupid words that mean nothing to him and everything to you. For his ability to break you down, to smash you like an ant underfoot. For the way he asks the worst questions when the answers no longer mean a thing.
And you're crying again, and hating yourself for it because tears get you nowhere and you can feel them sticking to your skin and soaking up dirt and filth and making you more foul than you were before when it's all unnecessary because if you just didn't listen to Malfoy you wouldn't have to compete with this kind of self-loathing and pain. (Or perhaps you would, but even then you'd be allowed to suffer it in the dignity of silence.)
"Shut up." You hiss with all the venom of uncertain decades of hate and fear and pain. "Just shut up, Malfoy."
And he falls silent with a rush of indignant breath as though he has no clue what you see through his words, like he doesn't understand why you would rip apart every atom of his body if you had the strength, just for asking that question… for saying that name.
"Hermione, keep going!" It's yelled between gasps and you feel a hand pushing you forward. You were dropping behind but he'd promised not to let you fall.
A blast of fire to your right and you all know they're upon you.
There was no Final Battle. No blaze of glory or gold-washed red. There was not even the dignity of a head on challenge (but they were Slytherins after all).
Ahead you heard Malfoy swear, muttering a series of Dark spells meant to protect while dragging Harry by the arm.
Burning chest and you ran like you'd never run before, feeling as though your very lungs were sweating, ready to drown you, feeling a burning hand on your wrist, seeing swirling shadows looming over you, Malfoy's guard. The hand tugged you forward and you looked up to meet Ron's eyes, he flashed you an almost-comforting smile but didn't loosen his grip.
"Damn. The anti-aps are up." Hissed Fred as his tugged his sister's hand.
"No shit, genius." Mumbled his twin between pants.
"I can break the barrier." Said a voice, ragged but determined. It was Charlie.
Ron had immediately fired up, refusing angrily with three other siblings backing him. But in the end it only took one word. ("Harry.") Ron's stance deflated and they turned to look at their last hope, limply holding Malfoy and Ginny in an effort to stay upright.
Charlie shattered the spell in a burst of golden light and with the compression of apparation they left him.
You can see them even now. Each face, exactly as you saw them before you had to say goodbye.
"Hermione, get down!"
"Ron, RON!"
"Hermione… please. We've got to go."
"NO! No. Ron… RON!"
"Hermione!" a tugging on your arm, a different hand, an unsmiling, unfamiliar face.
"No." Almost a whisper as you're pulled away. You should have died there and then. Died avenging the one who gave his life for you. You should have died.
It was hopeless. From the moment Tonks left that message it was hopeless. You couldn't win. You'd all known it from the minute you left the house.
You still didn't have it.
The sixth Horcrux lay out of reach and Voldemort was coming for you.
That was the punchline really. That you had lost before you even picked up your wands. The Order didn't know, even Ginny didn't know. One fragment of a soul was all that stood between you and a possibility of a hope. But that fragment of soul remained and with its partner it tore your world apart. And you're bleeding again. Bleeding for that piece of soul, for those weeks where you rested and didn't search with every last scrap of energy you possessed, bleeding for the truth of the fact you lost and are at their mercy.
You're bleeding and screaming and across the empty blackness you hear him do the same.
And it's funny sometimes.
Because it couldn't be any different if you'd tried. And you still question your existence and his existence and… existence in general. And you still hope even though it's… hopeless. And it strikes you as odd, that meaningless of everything you've done since Ron took the spell for you. You hadn't managed to save Harry, you hadn't even managed to save yourself. You hadn't died but that wasn't exactly of your own accomplishment and he really did die for nothing. And it's funny, because he had been sacrificing himself since first year, when he played knight against giant chess figures, and when it mattered the most he calculated it all wrong. And that is funny. (Because that way it doesn't break your heart as easily or as often, and it isn't as real (not that you'll ever let yourself forget).)
And you're sorry, but focussing on Draco Malfoy makes you far happier than concentrating on Ron Weasley and that is a thousand different kinds of wrong, but all the same, it keeps you going. And while Ron gave you life, Malfoy gives you sanity, and you may hate him for his petty words and stupid questions but you also owe him what's left of the you there was before the world turned dark.
You owe him and it makes you hold your tongue before you blame him for the past. You you're your tongue and sit in silence.
AN: Dizzydragon and tahwekileohcin: Apologies for the mess up of the last chapter and the repeated postings of chapter 6. In short I hated ch6 take one and two and had to obliterate them entirely. Only I didn't and kept a paragraph because I'm lazy and unimaginative.
Additional note to dizzydragon: As always, your review was hugely flattering and left me somewhere between thinking you were utterly insane and wanting to hug you for all the nice lovely things you wrote that were so nice and lovely and smile inducing. Yay! But yeah. Point of reply: No, I assure you, there is no plot. Just spontaneous bursts of thought when I happen to be alongside a computer. And it's embarrassing, because having reread I've noticed that most of them contradict. (And I don't hate people either! Honestly. I really have no clue what I'm writing about!)
Trieste: Just so you know, this is mainly being updated in all its pointless glory because of your review and your lovely response to my first review of Haven (which I love btw). I'd almost forgotten it existed. Lol. I liked the idea too, it was all original and depressing but then I got all carried away with rants about pointless stuff like cavemen and the moon. Hmm. (P.s. Funny punctuation rocks and I still claim it's not decimating the English language if you know you're doing it, and I'm sorry for the typos, there's a rant entirely dedicated to them below which I urge you not to read.)
I just reread this from the start. And Oh My God. It's utter crap. I hate it. I really, really do. I need to completely revamp the first few chapters – they're embarrassing, like a twelve year old trying to sound mysterious and poetic- I swear – it wasn't even conscious! Oh the shame. There're also the most ridiculous amount of typos. Everywhere. I get headaches just trying to decipher half of them. I went back and changed the obvious mistakes, originally planning to make it slightly more HBP compatible and ergh. I feel bad for even posting it. lol. I need a beta but I lack the motivation to go get one, I need to learn to type accurately too. Or just get rid of auto-correct and follow the little red lines. Blegh. Nasty. shudders
But yeah. Please Review lovely kind people who are open-minded enough to plough through 7 chapters of pathetically badly written angst to bask in the glory of… a longwinded pointless author's note. Yeah. (Oh come on, you've got to pity me. I sound like a deranged… thing.)