p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Title: The Blood Countess/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Author: Ryoushi/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Category: General, Drama, eventual Romance. Pairings: HG x SS or DM/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Rating: M/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Warnings: Tons of characters die. Hermione is evil. This is post HBP./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Notes: This story idea really just popped into my head while in the middle of class. There really are not enough dark Hermione fictions out there. This is pretty much the prelude. If you are really eager to know where this is going Hermione will be a Death Eater hunting after whomever she chooses. The next chapter will explain why she went over to the dark side. There will probably be hints at a relationship with Snape and/or Draco. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I wish I did./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Chapter 1/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"The rain pelted down her skin, but short of actual piercing hail nothing would keep Hermione Granger inside tonight. Injuries only delayed doing the work… finishing the mission. The rain suited her. After all, after tonight she would need it to clean away her sins. It was around one a.m., and she was lingering behind in an alley, waiting for her targets to appear./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"The night was sleepless, restless almost. The air was dank and dripping. Not from the obviously rain but rather from the mists that blew through the rain. The way the rain was falling, nothing looked wet and cold. Everything looked like it was moving and alive. The buildings were dancing in their solid foundations, and the street was a wild stream that looked like a brook after a spring thaw. But the mists… they clung with a grip and an energy that made the night feel alive./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione just stood there, still and waiting. Patience was perhaps her only virtue left. She began to work through potion ingredients and their properties. Anything to keep herself awake; her skin felt soaked through to the bones and all she really wanted was for the mission to be over. She could be home sleeping if only her targets would leave the safety of the muggle London pub. She dared not to use a warming or drying charm and alert them to her presence. Hermione began to wonder if her body temperature dropped enough to make her susceptible to hypothermia. Standing in the middle of a frozen March rain was not her idea of proactive health./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"How much longer would they be? How much Guinness could they wash drown their grimy throats? Being judgmental now would only make Hermione lose her focus. She would need her wits, her strength. Finally, the couple that was targeted emerged from the stairs that led down to the slimy pub./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry was stumbling, holding onto Ginny so that he would not fall down and crack his scarred skull on the sidewalk curb. Ginny was giggling a slight drunken giggle. It never really ended. It was just there beneath her words, chiding Harry for drinking so much and losing all their muggle money at the horse races earlier. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione began to wonder: how could they live with such stupid grins on their smug alive faces? How can they be happy when so many have died so they can drink and bet on birthdays? Is this what the sacrificed have died for?/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"It was time for an award-winning performance. Hermione put her hood of her cloak up. She readjusted her wand to keep it hidden, but accessible. Glaring at her own leg, she activated a curse she had muted by whispering the unlock que on the curse. The robes and surrounding clothing instantly ignited and burned. Her flesh would be scarred until she could rub some balms on it. The muscles glimmered beneath the wisps of skin melting away. It looked like some fiery flesh-eating virus was gnawing its way through her muscles and tendons. She began crying real tears. Physical pain is a small price to pay./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione stumbled out of the ally. She fell down on purpose in the gutter. She began to weakly get up when she heard their drunken voices, "Oi you all right over there?" It was Harry. Even drunk he wanted to pretend he could save everyone in the world. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione clung to a lamp post to look weaker than she was. How drunk was he that he could not sense the unlock que? This time it was Ginny who piped up, "Did you break something in that tumble?" Good they were getting closer. They could hear Hermione's fake labored breathing. Deep gulps of shaky panting./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""I'm ok; you should go on your way." Hermione pulled herself from the gutter and began limping along. She got about three cars away, staggered, and feigned fainting. She heard steps sloshing near her through the river that was once a street./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Ginny, I don't think she is ok." Harry reached out and touched the hooded figure. "Oh my god, her leg... her face…" He could see the blood mixing with the rain. A steady shadow of its dark color streaming beyond the cloak into the water. Blood is always darker, slower in the night. Never red, never colorful. Just black and ebbing, as if it was the life force leaving the body. In the cases Harry had seen blood at night, it always meant death. "She's bleeding bad Ginny, get over here."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry rolled Hermione over. At first, he did not recognize her due to the mass of long brown hair covering her rain-soaked face. The hair was so thick; he began brushing it away while elevating her head. He almost dropped Hermione when he realized it was her. "Ginny…" His voice was weak. Hermione took the opportune moment to flutter her eyes to a faked awakening. Hermione made a guttural sound, which was not faked. The hex was beginning to burn too much./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Am I dead?" Hermione's voice sounded even more weak and distant than she had intended it to be. She looked up into Harry's green eyes. How could she have even gotten this close? Harry, you stupid boy. The scared undertone to her voice had worked./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""No Hermione, you're not dead." Harry buried his head in her shoulder. "Ginny, call for an ambulance or something."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Ginny was frozen in her tracks a few steps from Harry cuddling his long-lost child hood friend. She was silent. Afraid and Shocked. She looked so distrusting. Ginny always was Harry's smarter half. Hermione silently yelled, how could you not be anxious to see me after three years you ungrateful little wench? "No Harry, we need to call the Order."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry just gaped at Ginny. He could not believe he was hearing his wife correctly. "Ginny, she's on the run. Look at her. They've torn her to shreds." /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione did look pretty bad. She had taken a potion that deliberately made it look like she had been married to an abusive alcoholic for the last six months. The blackened eye and scar tissue running down the nape of the neck is what probably made Harry's heart explode. That and his beer magnified empathy. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"If only he had been sober, he would have had a clearer mind. Ginny did./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""The Aurors deal with death eaters Harry. We need to call them." Hermione shifted her wand into her hand. Harry never even saw the movement. All he heard was the words./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Accio wands." Both Harry and Ginny's wands zoomed from their pockets. Too drunk to even manage the simple silent counter spell, Hermione tsked. She stood up on her own violation. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Harry don't you know every good man has a woman behind him." He stared at Hermione in shock. His expression was like he had never seen her, and it was dawning. His eyes became clearer, and he looked at her in horror as if she had grown a third eye. The dawn had crested and he suddenly realized what was happening. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Will you ever be a good man again Harry?" Hermione snapped the wands with one hand, letting their splintered parts fall to the flooded street. Then raised her wand hand towards Ginny who was smart enough to attempt to run./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""AVADA KADVRA." The green light shot out from Hermione's wand. The light enveloped and attacked Ginny, and before her body splashed into the gutter, she was long dead. No dark blood. No epic battles. No prolonged duels that could result in her own defeat. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Words. Corpse. Bloodless. Efficient./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione felt the aftershock of the curse ricochet through her body. The killing curse always hurt the witch or wizard too. It required raw power to completely stop a life force of any being. But when you have killed as many people as Hermione Granger had in the last three years, power was something that almost needed to be shed./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry dropped to the water. He did not run towards Ginny. Shock does that. It keeps your body from moving, it keeps time from ticking, everything stops in that muted moment right before the body shuts down. For Harry though, the shock was common. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Even seeing his wife knocked down by the killing curse was not so exceptional. Only Hermione had ever successfully dodged the curse. Everyone else the boy knew and loved had died, and all too often - by the same curse. Parents, friends, teachers, and now wife. "What have you done Hermione?"/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"The voice was vacant, almost as vacant as the dull green eyes that looked up at her. Less than a few minutes ago he had been a cheerfully happy drunken twenty-five-year-old celebrating Ginny's birthday. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Now Harry Potter had transformed into a living ghoul. His skin had changed textures and colors; it looked like the flesh of the animated dead, completely gray under the street light. His hair clung to his face in wet knots, and the eyes were empty. It was like Harry finally realized that he could only bring death to everyone he knew. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""I've fulfilled one of many promises Harry."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione began to slosh back to the alley; she needed some place dark to apparat. She needed to put some distance between 'the boy' that just so happened to always keep living. Seeing zombie Harry, hold his dead wife's hand, gaping at the water; there was a part of Hermione that wanted to finish him off too. Be done and rid of the both of them. But that was not the mission. This was not his time./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"She already killed in public… with a spell. No memory charms needed for the good old-fashioned hangover. She need not linger at a crime scene; unnecessary risks where unnecessary. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry half groaned, half screamed, "Aren't you going to kill me too?"/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione's brown eyes had turned charcoal black some months past after a poor encounter with a dark magic relic. She tilted her ebony eyes down the ally, down towards Harry, down to the pain in his soul, "You are not allowed to die yet Harry. You have to feel this pain. You have to know what it is like to walk the world alone." br /br /Snarling back the anger she boiled with all these years later, "I am the fruit of what your actions have sewed, the karma you thought you had escaped. Remember that Voldermort's presence means no one is safe." /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"She felt a flicker of pain. The memories of her past quickly flashed between her eyes into her brain. She blinked them away, focus. The mission is complete. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Harry, I have always wished you were stronger. The world will be safer when you kill me." With that, Hermione disappeared in the alley with a loud crack, leaving behind the boy who lived a life no one wanted to live./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" /p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Author: Ryoushi/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Category: General, Drama, eventual Romance. Pairings: HG x SS or DM/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Rating: M/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Warnings: Tons of characters die. Hermione is evil. This is post HBP./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Notes: This story idea really just popped into my head while in the middle of class. There really are not enough dark Hermione fictions out there. This is pretty much the prelude. If you are really eager to know where this is going Hermione will be a Death Eater hunting after whomever she chooses. The next chapter will explain why she went over to the dark side. There will probably be hints at a relationship with Snape and/or Draco. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I wish I did./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Chapter 1/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"The rain pelted down her skin, but short of actual piercing hail nothing would keep Hermione Granger inside tonight. Injuries only delayed doing the work… finishing the mission. The rain suited her. After all, after tonight she would need it to clean away her sins. It was around one a.m., and she was lingering behind in an alley, waiting for her targets to appear./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"The night was sleepless, restless almost. The air was dank and dripping. Not from the obviously rain but rather from the mists that blew through the rain. The way the rain was falling, nothing looked wet and cold. Everything looked like it was moving and alive. The buildings were dancing in their solid foundations, and the street was a wild stream that looked like a brook after a spring thaw. But the mists… they clung with a grip and an energy that made the night feel alive./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione just stood there, still and waiting. Patience was perhaps her only virtue left. She began to work through potion ingredients and their properties. Anything to keep herself awake; her skin felt soaked through to the bones and all she really wanted was for the mission to be over. She could be home sleeping if only her targets would leave the safety of the muggle London pub. She dared not to use a warming or drying charm and alert them to her presence. Hermione began to wonder if her body temperature dropped enough to make her susceptible to hypothermia. Standing in the middle of a frozen March rain was not her idea of proactive health./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"How much longer would they be? How much Guinness could they wash drown their grimy throats? Being judgmental now would only make Hermione lose her focus. She would need her wits, her strength. Finally, the couple that was targeted emerged from the stairs that led down to the slimy pub./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry was stumbling, holding onto Ginny so that he would not fall down and crack his scarred skull on the sidewalk curb. Ginny was giggling a slight drunken giggle. It never really ended. It was just there beneath her words, chiding Harry for drinking so much and losing all their muggle money at the horse races earlier. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione began to wonder: how could they live with such stupid grins on their smug alive faces? How can they be happy when so many have died so they can drink and bet on birthdays? Is this what the sacrificed have died for?/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"It was time for an award-winning performance. Hermione put her hood of her cloak up. She readjusted her wand to keep it hidden, but accessible. Glaring at her own leg, she activated a curse she had muted by whispering the unlock que on the curse. The robes and surrounding clothing instantly ignited and burned. Her flesh would be scarred until she could rub some balms on it. The muscles glimmered beneath the wisps of skin melting away. It looked like some fiery flesh-eating virus was gnawing its way through her muscles and tendons. She began crying real tears. Physical pain is a small price to pay./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione stumbled out of the ally. She fell down on purpose in the gutter. She began to weakly get up when she heard their drunken voices, "Oi you all right over there?" It was Harry. Even drunk he wanted to pretend he could save everyone in the world. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione clung to a lamp post to look weaker than she was. How drunk was he that he could not sense the unlock que? This time it was Ginny who piped up, "Did you break something in that tumble?" Good they were getting closer. They could hear Hermione's fake labored breathing. Deep gulps of shaky panting./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""I'm ok; you should go on your way." Hermione pulled herself from the gutter and began limping along. She got about three cars away, staggered, and feigned fainting. She heard steps sloshing near her through the river that was once a street./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Ginny, I don't think she is ok." Harry reached out and touched the hooded figure. "Oh my god, her leg... her face…" He could see the blood mixing with the rain. A steady shadow of its dark color streaming beyond the cloak into the water. Blood is always darker, slower in the night. Never red, never colorful. Just black and ebbing, as if it was the life force leaving the body. In the cases Harry had seen blood at night, it always meant death. "She's bleeding bad Ginny, get over here."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry rolled Hermione over. At first, he did not recognize her due to the mass of long brown hair covering her rain-soaked face. The hair was so thick; he began brushing it away while elevating her head. He almost dropped Hermione when he realized it was her. "Ginny…" His voice was weak. Hermione took the opportune moment to flutter her eyes to a faked awakening. Hermione made a guttural sound, which was not faked. The hex was beginning to burn too much./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Am I dead?" Hermione's voice sounded even more weak and distant than she had intended it to be. She looked up into Harry's green eyes. How could she have even gotten this close? Harry, you stupid boy. The scared undertone to her voice had worked./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""No Hermione, you're not dead." Harry buried his head in her shoulder. "Ginny, call for an ambulance or something."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Ginny was frozen in her tracks a few steps from Harry cuddling his long-lost child hood friend. She was silent. Afraid and Shocked. She looked so distrusting. Ginny always was Harry's smarter half. Hermione silently yelled, how could you not be anxious to see me after three years you ungrateful little wench? "No Harry, we need to call the Order."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry just gaped at Ginny. He could not believe he was hearing his wife correctly. "Ginny, she's on the run. Look at her. They've torn her to shreds." /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione did look pretty bad. She had taken a potion that deliberately made it look like she had been married to an abusive alcoholic for the last six months. The blackened eye and scar tissue running down the nape of the neck is what probably made Harry's heart explode. That and his beer magnified empathy. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"If only he had been sober, he would have had a clearer mind. Ginny did./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""The Aurors deal with death eaters Harry. We need to call them." Hermione shifted her wand into her hand. Harry never even saw the movement. All he heard was the words./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Accio wands." Both Harry and Ginny's wands zoomed from their pockets. Too drunk to even manage the simple silent counter spell, Hermione tsked. She stood up on her own violation. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Harry don't you know every good man has a woman behind him." He stared at Hermione in shock. His expression was like he had never seen her, and it was dawning. His eyes became clearer, and he looked at her in horror as if she had grown a third eye. The dawn had crested and he suddenly realized what was happening. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Will you ever be a good man again Harry?" Hermione snapped the wands with one hand, letting their splintered parts fall to the flooded street. Then raised her wand hand towards Ginny who was smart enough to attempt to run./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""AVADA KADVRA." The green light shot out from Hermione's wand. The light enveloped and attacked Ginny, and before her body splashed into the gutter, she was long dead. No dark blood. No epic battles. No prolonged duels that could result in her own defeat. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Words. Corpse. Bloodless. Efficient./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione felt the aftershock of the curse ricochet through her body. The killing curse always hurt the witch or wizard too. It required raw power to completely stop a life force of any being. But when you have killed as many people as Hermione Granger had in the last three years, power was something that almost needed to be shed./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry dropped to the water. He did not run towards Ginny. Shock does that. It keeps your body from moving, it keeps time from ticking, everything stops in that muted moment right before the body shuts down. For Harry though, the shock was common. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Even seeing his wife knocked down by the killing curse was not so exceptional. Only Hermione had ever successfully dodged the curse. Everyone else the boy knew and loved had died, and all too often - by the same curse. Parents, friends, teachers, and now wife. "What have you done Hermione?"/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"The voice was vacant, almost as vacant as the dull green eyes that looked up at her. Less than a few minutes ago he had been a cheerfully happy drunken twenty-five-year-old celebrating Ginny's birthday. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Now Harry Potter had transformed into a living ghoul. His skin had changed textures and colors; it looked like the flesh of the animated dead, completely gray under the street light. His hair clung to his face in wet knots, and the eyes were empty. It was like Harry finally realized that he could only bring death to everyone he knew. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""I've fulfilled one of many promises Harry."/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione began to slosh back to the alley; she needed some place dark to apparat. She needed to put some distance between 'the boy' that just so happened to always keep living. Seeing zombie Harry, hold his dead wife's hand, gaping at the water; there was a part of Hermione that wanted to finish him off too. Be done and rid of the both of them. But that was not the mission. This was not his time./span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"She already killed in public… with a spell. No memory charms needed for the good old-fashioned hangover. She need not linger at a crime scene; unnecessary risks where unnecessary. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Harry half groaned, half screamed, "Aren't you going to kill me too?"/span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"Hermione's brown eyes had turned charcoal black some months past after a poor encounter with a dark magic relic. She tilted her ebony eyes down the ally, down towards Harry, down to the pain in his soul, "You are not allowed to die yet Harry. You have to feel this pain. You have to know what it is like to walk the world alone." br /br /Snarling back the anger she boiled with all these years later, "I am the fruit of what your actions have sewed, the karma you thought you had escaped. Remember that Voldermort's presence means no one is safe." /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;"She felt a flicker of pain. The memories of her past quickly flashed between her eyes into her brain. She blinked them away, focus. The mission is complete. /span/p
p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: medium; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;""Harry, I have always wished you were stronger. The world will be safer when you kill me." With that, Hermione disappeared in the alley with a loud crack, leaving behind the boy who lived a life no one wanted to live./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: medium; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" /p