2. The Beginning of the End
It all begun less than a month earlier. Less than thirty days was between the beginning and the end.
It looked like a normal Wednesday, to begin with. Harry got up after yet another night filled with nightmares. He dressed, ate a very small breakfast and went to visit Hermione. He got a bit of a bigger breakfast for them both on the way, he might even have splurged a bit on the breakfasts foods he knew Hermione liked the best, because he could see that she struggled to eat and she had been underweight for years now, same as he. He had money, lots of Galleons stashed away in hidden places before Gringotts shut down, but he couldn't really move in the Wizarding World without trouble following him like bad breath and he couldn't exchange the Galleons for Muggle money, because Gringotts was shut. So whatever Muggle money he manged to get his hands on went to food in the Muggle world, that was safer. Fortunately, he could pay for Hermione's potions and Healers with Galleons, that made the strain on his stash of Muggle money a bit less, and because he was used to eat little, he didn't use a lot of money on food each week. While Hermione was at St. Mungo's, he slept in an abandoned building outside off Manchester. Their tent had been destroyed in an attack, or the charms on it had. Now the tent was a normal Muggle tent, functional, but small and cold. The abandoned building was better.
Hermione hadn't slept much. He didn't have to ask her to see that. Her face was drawn and pale with dark circles around her eyes and her mouth were hard and pinched. The pain had probably been too bad, again. The Healers were completely stumped as to what kind of curse she had been hit with. It had almost killed her, and it had more or less taken her voice. If she spoke, even a single word, she was in agony. In the beginning she hadn't even been able to try, but she could speak now, if she was willing to pay the price. So, it was getting better, but slowly, so slowly. The rest of her body was almost healed by now, two months after the attack.
Her smile trembled on her lips when she saw him, and she took his hands in hers and squeezed them hard. Desperate.
"We are still here, Hermi, still alive and fighting," Harry whispered, leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Still here." He looked her in the eyes.
One eye was a warm brown, and one was pitch black, no iris, no pupil, no sclera, only black, and completely blind. Black tendrils framed the left side of her face, from her temple down her neck. If Harry had known more, known the curse that hit her, or been faster to heal her … he might have saved her eye. He knew Hermione didn't blame him, knew she was grateful for being alive after a curse like that, and still … He should have been able to do more for her.
"I went to our book-stash up north," he said with a mischievous smile after checking that the silencing bubble around her bed was up and working, "and I think I found something good."
He enlarged the four books he had brought for her. Three of them were pilfered books from the library at Hogwarts, after the school fell. Better they were in Hermione's keeping than rotting on the shelfs, or in hands that didn't appreciate them. The last book was one from the Malfoy library. One of many they had taken in the hours between the battle when the manor's massive protective wards had fallen, and the time when the occupants of the manor had been able to get the wards up again. Harry didn't regret the theft for a minute. They had found some real treasures that time. During the war he had gotten a new awareness for books and knowledge. It was hard not to, when your only companion was Hermione and you had so many hours, between strategy meetings and battles, without anything to do.
So many, long, silent hours with nothing to do.
Year after year of it.
"What do you think?"
Hermione rifled through the books, offered him a small smile and handed him the five books he brought her some days ago, together with a notebook full of notes. He gave her a new notebook and a new ballpoint pen. It was easier for her to write with a pen that with a quill, even though her hands mostly had stopped shaking now.
"Still no trouble with the Healers or other visitors?" he asked.
Hermione took out a half full notepad that she used for communicating and an old pen before scribbling.
No, Harry, St. Mungo's is still neutral. She rolled her eyes, at least the functioning one. It has to be. Everyone agrees and no one can enter if they harbour ill intent to someone inside. Believe me, I have heard the discussions when a Healer has lost someone to the other side and is unable to come to work because of their anger and grief. And yes, I keep up the wards you made for me when I'm sleeping and my wand is always very close by, as well as my spare wands. I'm as safe as I can be, safer than you, probably.
He smiled softly at her, and she smiled back. She had kept her hair short after most of it had burned off during the massacre at Godric's Hollow a year ago now. It lay on her skull like a tight cap, in a way Harry hadn't believed Hermione's wild hair could do. Her hair was also darker now, almost black, another effect of the curse that had taken her eye. Harry wasn't entirely sure if the white strands he saw amongst the dark was natural, something that also had happened when she lost her eye, or if it had come later. Like after the massacre at Godric's Hollow.
The left side of her face was heavily marked, but the right side wasn't much better, from her temple to her jaw there were a mass of scars after a ball of slicing curses that Harry still didn't know how to reproduce. And he had tried.
"I'm grateful that I never have been vain about my looks," was all Hermione had said when she had seen the result after the healing. Still, he had held her that night while she had cried. Then they had made love together, like so many times before. Because the words, the words weren't there, or not enough, or simply not right, but touch, touch and tenderness, those still worked to calm, and please and connect. And that was all they could do, really, try and stay connected, to each other, to sanity, to the world, what was left of it.
"So, a nap first, or breakfast first?"
Hermione held up her wand and without a word made the bed bigger. Harry got his sneakers off and climbed in beside her. The Healers had long since stopped trying to keep him from sharing Hermione's bed for a nap. They might not like him, or Hermione, but under the rules of neutrality they couldn't stop him from visiting and when he was here, a simple ward and silencing charm kept everyone away from them. On the other hand, maybe they realized that Hermione, as their charge, got better with sleep, and that she slept best in Harry's arms, as he slept best with her. Not alone. Alone wasn't good anymore. Everything but good.
After their nap and a late breakfast, Hermione swallowed, reached for something on her nightstand and handed Harry a roll of parchment with a heavy purple seal with a big M embossed on it, dangling down from a purple ribbon. She turned some pages in her notebook and gave him her prepared explanation.
A Ministry clerk came by yesterday, late in the afternoon. He said they couldn't reach you, but they knew that I had close contact with you, so he asked if I could give you this. I have checked it for anything harmful, but Harry, I have a bad feeling about this. Please keep calm and think about it, whatever that scroll says.
"I will," he promised her and broke the seal.
Not in his wildest dreams could he ever have imagined what was on that scroll. Silently he read it through several times before handing it to Hermione. Still dazed and just trying to understand. Hermione read the scroll and gaped at him, literally gaped at him.
What the hell! Her mouth formed the words without sound, but he knew what she said because the same words were spinning in his head.
The Ministry of Magic wanted him to seal a truce between the forces of Light and forces of Dark by marrying Voldemort. The fucking Dark Lord! They wanted him to marry the bastard after fighting him for years! After almost dying in battle against him, countless times! They wanted him to marry the evil bastard who killed his parents!
For a truce.
For peace.
But still!
Harry looked at Hermione, she looked back. Still with shock on her face.
And yet … for peace. For all of them.
Peace.
He was tired of fighting. Tired of losing people. Of watching people die. Tired of reading the lists of dead every week. Tired of hiding. Tired of starvation and cold and fear.
Of course, if he married fucking Voldemort, he would still live in fear, but Hermione and the rest of them, the rest who still were alive on both sides … They might know peace again.
The Ministry made it sound as a grand scheme. There would be magically binding contracts on both sides. Voldemort would be the ruling head of Wizarding Britan but would retreat from the rest of Europe and let them rebuild on their own. As for Wizarding Britan; while he would rule, the Ministry would still be a functioning part of that rule and Voldemort would have to keep the promises in the contract that he would sign in addition to the marriage contract. There would be one contract that would set the boundaries for Harry's life, for the rest of his life, there would be no possibility for divorce. And one contract that would set boundaries for the Dark Lord and his rule. If one believed that was even feasible. Harry wasn't sure he could believe in the possibility that anyone, even through a magical binding contract, could stop Voldemort from doing exactly as he wanted.
"Hermi … I … How did they even come up with something like this!" Harry's voice shook.
Hermione grabbed his hands for a moment before hurrying to write down her message.
Desperate times requires desperate solutions. And it isn't as if they themselves have to agree to marry him. No, they push that onto you; naturally.
Even without her voice, the words were bitter.
"The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Fucking-Regret-It!" Harry snarled.
She nodded.
"And now they give him what he has wanted all along! Free reign! With the added bonus of the guy he has tried, and failed, to kill so many times. To torture for however long he wants, before killing him. Me. What the actual fuck!"
Hermione held out the letter from the Ministry and tapped a portion of it. Harry read it again.
"Yes, alright, the marriage won't be held before the Ministry and Voldemort agree on certain policies to make sure that the peace is kept. They have to find a suitable middle ground for a lot of political questions." He looked up at Hermione. "I wonder what they will come up with regarding Muggleborns."
Hermione frowned a bit.
"Hermi …" He swallowed. "What do you think of this … Is it … is it worth a try?"
Hermione grabbed his hands, looked into his eyes for a long moment and then let go so she could write.
This has to be up to you, Harry. No one can make this decision for you, and no one else should. It's your life, your decision, you and no other have to live with it. Just know that no matter what you choose, I'm with you, all the way, forever. No matter what, Harry.
She grabbed him when he looked at her again. Grabbed him and hugged the air out of him for several moments, before kissing his cheek.
They sat I silence for a while before Hermione put a book on her lap and held another one out to Harry, raising a brow. Neither could think well while reeling this much. Better to distract themselves for a while and try thinking again later.
"Thanks, I got one. Found one on healing and have already started on it." He took the book out of his pocket at made it normal size. "Maybe there will be something for your voice in here."
She smiled at him, and they began to read.
An hour went by in silence before screaming was heard outside the room. Coming closer. Hysterical sobs and smaller, pitiful whines.
"My boy, help my boy! Please! Help him! Help him!" A screech of fear and grief. A woman's voice.
They looked at each other and Hermione nodded towards the door. Harry went. Usually new arrivals were met, sorted and helped at the ground floor. The hospital tried to keep the two fractions apart, as much as possible, and sorted the people with different affiliations to different wards. Hermione had shared her room with a Death Eater before, but only once. And sometimes sick people got up here by simply pushing through the downstairs staff, thinking that the real help was in the wards. It wasn't, especially not in this ward that were the long time stay ward with people who didn't need immediate or extreme help.
"Madam, please calm down and put the boy here, then we will get him up …"
"No, he need help now! He need help! Help him!"
Harry looked out into the hallway. The Healer on duty tried her best to keep calm, but the sight in front of her disturbed even Harry. Two people covered in blood and ash. The woman held her boy in her arms, but one of his legs … Was it even attached to him anymore? And her face, it was half gone. A red light was blinking on the wall. The Healer had sent for help, but as sometimes happened when there was an influx of people, like just after a bloody battle, there might not be any help to get.
Harry hesitated for a moment before stepping out into the hallway.
"Healer Trelwys, do you know the right spells for this?" Harry asked while the Healer still tried to get the woman to put the boy down.
"Yes, I do, but for something like this we should at least be three Healers, I'm simply not strong enough …"
The woman finally put the boy, and his leg, down on the bed, but remained standing over the bed, hugging him. Crying and sobbing.
"I can give you the power you need, as long as you are able to cast the spells," Harry said.
The Healer nodded and tried to get the woman to move away, but to no avail. She clung to the boy.
"Either you Imperio her, or I will," Harry said after a minute. It was kind of lie, he couldn't use Imperio in here, because of the neutrality wards, but the Healer could.
In her shock the woman was killing her son. It would be easier to forgive others for using Imperio on her, than forgive herself for preventing someone to save her sons life. And Healers were allowed to use Imperio now, in extreme circumstances. There weren't enough of them to help traumatized parents, other relatives or friends, they didn't have the resources to keep people still in their beds while healing, either. First, they would save their lives, and then they could worry about the damage done to their minds while under the Imperius.
The Healer used the curse on the woman and diagnosed the child, her tan face getting paler by the second.
"Mr. Potter, if you are still willing … we should start right now."
Harry put a hand on her shoulder and prepared to be the well of power to help save the boy. They hadn't worked for more than a few minutes, stopping the bleeding and beginning to attach the leg again, before the elevator dinged with a new arrival.
"Oh, thank Merlin, finally!" The Healer almost gasped and didn't even look up before shouting. "Over here, the boy is still critical and the mother needs help!"
Harry, who were watching the elevator doors, grimaced at seeing a black man storming out of the elevator, blood on his face and cloak, Death Eater mask in hand and a wild look in his black eyes.
"Mira! Oberon! No!" He ran towards them.
The Healers head jerked up when she realized no help were coming, quite the opposite.
The Death Eater reached what Harry assumed were his wife.
"She is in shock and under the Imperius," Harry said in a low voice, to give the Healer the opportunity to continue healing the boy. "She wouldn't let go of the boy to let the Healer do her work."
The Death Eater's eyes went from his wife to Harry. Hate and desperation were dancing in his black eyes.
"Potter." He began lifting his wand and was summarily smashed into the wall by a spell from the open door right by him.
"That was Hermione Granger," Harry said slowly. "She stopped you from doing something truly stupid, like hurting the man who right now helps save your son's life. Or, like activating the neutral wards that will burn your wand hand if you use certain kinds of magic. She will let you go, if you promise to keep calm and not get in the way of the healing. We all know how it feels to come right from combat to bad news."
The man blinked several times, took and deep breath and nodded. "Yes, of course. My apologies. I … I …" Hermione released him, and he hurried over to his wife, looked at her face and closed his eyes in defeat. "And now we attack innocent civilians … even children."
Something in his voice told Harry that the 'we' were everyone in the war, not a specific side. There hadn't been a truly neutral party to the war for years, neither side accepted that anymore, but both sides let children and parents that stayed home with said children, in peace.
Harry's heart wanted to beat out of his chest.
"Children? For how long? I have been … out of touch … for a while." Most days he didn't have it in him to read the papers, and while Hermione was at the hospital, he didn't join the fighting. He didn't want to risk dying and leave Hermione behind without a clue where he went or if he would come back. She did the same for him when he was recuperating. They still saw plenty of fighting, every year.
The man swallowed. "I first heard about it about a month ago, and when the madness first got started …"
There would be no stopping it, Harry knew.
No stopping hurt people from getting their revenge in the worst possible way. By killing more children.
Both sides were now targeting children. How could the Light even call themselves that, if they targeted innocent children, little children?! Even the Dark side had refrained from doing that, as far as Harry knew, up until now.
He himself was the only exception to that rule.
Suddenly, the missive from the Ministry didn't sound as bizarre anymore. It was desperate. They were desperate. All of them. Watching this man, this Death Eater, crying silent tears while watching his blood covered boy and his imperioed wife, Harry understood that desperation and saw the Ministry's proposal in a new light.
The choice they all had was between ending this war now, or be completely annihilated, down to the last child.
Harry cleared his throat while he felt the Healer pull on his power harder and harder while she tried to repair what had been done to the boy's insides.
"If you can keep control off your wife, if she turns violent in her shock, you can lift the curse. Hermione has healed me when I was similarly hurt, she should be able to heal your wife, if you cannot. The Healer are too occupied right now. I don't know why no one is coming to help."
The man swallowed hard. "We are just a few of the wounded of this battle, the downstairs atrium is crammed with wounded and dying." He stopped, breathed slowly and continued. "I cannot … I cannot lift my arm." The man looked down at the arm that held the Death Eater mask, it hung limply by his side and Harry saw that the sleeve was soaked in blood. "I will not be able to hold her, should she react badly again. I'm sorry, my love." He touched the good part of her face. "So sorry … I'm so sorry."
"Hermi, do you mind healing the mother? It looks like one of those face eating curses …"
Green sparkles shot through the door in answer.
"She has lost her voice, but she's very good at nonverbal spells," Harry said to the man. "Just go inside, stop by the green line on the floor by her bed and let her heal your wife."
After a look at Harry and one at the boy on the bed, the man carefully guided his wife inside the room where Hermione was.
"I can't give you much more now," Harry whispered to the Healer.
He still had a lot of power, but he might need it himself, if not to fight the Death Eater father, the maybe this evening if his hidey-hole was found, or tomorrow when he was on his way to visit with Hermione. He couldn't afford to weaken himself too much, not even for the life of an innocent.
There had been a time where he wouldn't have held back at all and said to hell with the consequences the loss of power could do to him; take what power is needed to heal the child.
That time was a long time away now, and several ambushes ago.
"I know I have taken a lot," the Healer said. "He is no longer in danger of dying or being permanently mutilated. The rest can wait for a bit. Thank you. And thank you for helping with the rest of his family too."
Harry didn't answer. He was relieved that he had helped getting the boy out of danger, before he had to start thinking of himself and his own survival. Trying to save the boy's life was a no brainer. But why did he care for either of the parents, people who had chosen their side and fought for it? Both were probably younger than Harry himself, maybe as much as five years younger, but they had still chosen and still fought. Harry didn't know why he cared.
He only knew that both sides now killed children.
Both sides used Dark curses; they had done it for years.
Both sides used all the dirty tricks in the book.
And both sides were desperate.
Some hours later Harry was talking to Germain Bandini, the Death Eater father, while his son and wife slept in the other bed in Hermione's room. Because, of course, they had gotten a bed there. Of-fucking-course they had. They went through the newspapers Hermione had kept a hold on for the past two months. She hadn't mentioned the new turn in the war, with the tactic of killing children, to Harry. Her sleep didn't get worse by news like that, while his did, so she did the reading and told him what she considered necessary for him to know.
She had broken their agreement in a way, by withholding the information on the new turn of events, but he had readily forgiven her when she had admitted to doing so because she was selfish and afraid that he would leave to fight if he knew about it. He knew he would have done the same to her, without hesitation. Other people might call them selfish and self-absorbed all they wanted. He only had Hermione and she had only him, and they had already lost so much.
But now he read the papers and knew he would have nightmares for years, staring row after row of murdered children. Only their names, thank fuck, but still.
"Why?" Harry asked through gritted teeth, almost pulling his hair out. "I don't get why!"
"I don't know," Bandini said in a low voice. He was healed and had gotten cleaned up, but still was in his Death Eater robes, his mask lay on the table between them together with the big pile of newspapers. It was hard for Harry to keep his eyes of it, and even harder not to smash it, but he manged. "I don't know how it even started, but suddenly … it simply … was … The worst part … would you like to know the worst part, Mr. Potter?" He hesitated and looked at Harry's waxen face and blown pupils.
"There is something worse than killing children in their beds?!" Harry croaked and slapped one paper down on the table, with just that story on the front page.
"No one orders it, from either side. My Lord has tried to disabuse his followers of this tactic, several times, and threaten with severe punishment if he catches the guilty part of such an act. And your side …" He held up a newspaper where the Ministry begged people to let the innocent civilians be and reminded them that it in fact was illegal, even during a war, to kill children, no matter their parent's affiliation. He held up two other papers which said the same thing. "The Ministry do in no way, shape or form authorize these killings, Mr. Potter, no more than the Dark Lord does."
"So, what you are telling me is … Both sides have rouge groups that go against their leaders? Or do we have one rouge group killing children from either side for the hell of it?"
"I sincerely wish I knew. Those I fought today … Those who attacked my home … I don't know who they were. They didn't have Death Eater masks, but the where heavily hooded and cloaked. They could have been anyone, from any side. I didn't even mange to incapacitate and hold back any of them, so I could find out who they were. Then and there … I thought, naturally, that it was your side … but honestly … I do not know." He dragged a hand over his face. "I simply do not know."
"I guess that the Ministry and Voldemort won't be able to find out either, because of all the time and effort going into the rest of the war." Harry barked out a humourless laugh. "Ha! Without knowing who is behind it, even a truce between the parties won't grantee a stop in the killings. The world is well and truly fucked now."
Moments later a paper plane crashed into his head and Harry flattened out the piece of paper and read Hermione's words, nodding slowly.
"She says that even if the killings don't stop during a truce, there will be more people and resources to find the culprits, and everyone would like to hunt them down and stop them."
"Too true," Bandini said with a sight, "too true. And with a truce I might actually be able to see my son grow up too, both because I will be alive to see it, and I will have time at home."
Bandini left an hour before Harry had to leave. Harry wanted to be sure that the man wasn't waiting outside the hospital to follow him out of the neutral zone around the hospital. Whatever kind of unspoken accord that had been between them during the hours at the hospital, Bandini was still the enemy. Even if he seemed like a kind and caring husband and father and even if he had talked respectfully to both Hermoine and Harry, after the first few moments; he was still the enemy. Harry would not and could not forget that, and he was certain Bandini wouldn't forget it either.
"Hermione," Harry whispered.
She looked at him like she knew what he would say, but she didn't try to stop him or write down something for him to read.
"Would you really be my friend, even if … even if I should marry Voldemort to try for that treaty? To try for peace. Would you really not turn your back to me? Or think less of me for holding on to a foolish, foolish hope?"
Hermione swallowed and tears shone in her one healthy eye. She started writing, but her shoulders shook and her hand spasmed around her pen, and Harry got up into the bed to hold her while she wrote and cried.
I would never, ever, turn my back on you, Harry James Potter! Ever! I would miss you immensely, every minute of every day, for the rest of my life, if you choose to take this road. But I will always love you and always be by your side in minutes, given the opportunity, always.
"I suspect that both the Ministry and Voldemort have their own plans and wishes for the marriage contract and the treaty, but will you help me look them over and make my own conditions, where they will permit me to do so?"
Of course I bloody will, Harry! Of course! You should at the very least be allowed conditions in the marriage contract.
Harry wasn't so certain that was the case. The way he read the situation was that he was the worm on the hook, making sure the fish would bite and be caught. No one really cared what the worm thought about his situation, did they?
She hugged him hard and cried.
He hugged her back and cried till his head hurt.
He had fought for peace and freedom more or less his whole life, certainly his whole adult life.
Now he would stop fighting; for peace and for the freedom of others, by giving up his own independence.
The bloody Boy-Who-Lived-to-Regret-it-Deeply. That was him.
That would always be him.