Disclaimer: I really don't want to repeat this over and over…I don't own Harry Potter!

Last Time:

He had to draw the girl here. He knew it would be putting her in danger, but he needed another human to save his sanity. He fingered his wand, hidden within his filthy robes, and wished he knew how to bring her here. The words lurked in his mind, accented with the snakelike hiss of Voldemort's voice, but he didn't know how to cast the spell upon her. Their connection would have to be stronger, and then…

Abi In Malam Rem

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Hermione felt the familiar block in her throat as she stepped into the grey daylight outside. The smell that haunted the air had grown less horrible as time passed on and Hermione grew accustomed to it, but the decay was unmistakable. The dust that covered everything made the once vibrant London a dreary desert highlighted with crumbling, lonely buildings. But the worst things were the bodies.

They were everywhere. Families with children clutching at the legs of their stick-thin parents, lovers locked in a final embrace, babies with eyes that would forever stare at nothing…they had all been killed with a swift wave of passing Death Eaters' wands or had been driven into fatal madness. Even in death, their hopelessness showed. If they had attempted to fight their fate, the dark side had tortured them. There were crucifixes stationed at nearly every corner – signs to those who wanted to resist. The ones on them had expressions of twisted horror as they realized their martyrdom was for nothing. The Muggles were wiped out, and even if Harry managed to kill Voldemort, the light side had failed in their task to save the innocents.

Hermione always undid the nails in the crosses with the magic that still ran through her wand, and her heart grew harder every time she saw another rebel crumble to the ground. She looked at every face she passed, no matter how painful it was. It made her mission to keep her friends and herself alive for as long as possible seem even more necessary. These people couldn't have died only to have their survivors give up and let the world collapse completely.

After walking for nearly three hours, Hermione finally found a house intact enough to venture into in the search for food. As she pushed open the door, dust trickled into her hair. She ignored it, and stepped inside of the creaking house. Her eyes suddenly gleamed as she saw what lie on the small table in the middle of the living room she was in.

A book, wrinkled with neglect but still undamaged enough to read, was lying half-open. She allowed herself a small smile – the first in days – and her fingers trembled with excitement as she picked it up. Her thirst for knowledge was one of the few parts of her untouched by the war and although the time for reading was scarce, she tried to fit as much of it in as possible. She nimbly dusted off the cover of the book as she picked it up, and read, The Odyssey by Homer. She gasped with delighted surprise, as this had been a book she had wanted to read ever since she had heard of the heroic epic poem. She held it to her tightly, almost as if she expected a Death Eater to attack her prized possession as they had during the war to keep the Muggles from learning any more than they already had.

Hermione softly walked into the kitchen, and clutched her newest object of comfort tighter at the sight in front of her. A dead toddler was curled on the floor, his once abundant curls hiding most of the tiny face. One of his arms was curled around his mother's ankle, and the other was held to his face as he sucked his thumb into his death. The mother was splayed on the table, her eyes rolled into the top of her head and her arms outstretched as far as they would go. Hermione shuddered at the obvious sign of madness. The toddler might have escaped this fate, his thin frame signaling starvation as his doom.

The girl squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears not to come. She walked around the table, only opening the amber eyes once she had escaped the immediate scene. She looked through the cupboards, her heart lifting slightly at the sight of dried noodles, canned food, and other imperishable products. She quickly found a bag, and stuffed it with the items. She would take it back to the hotel before the night came. The thought of getting caught when the sun went down sent a shudder down her spin.

She also stuck her book in the bag, freeing up her arms. Then, she ventured upstairs to see what else the house could provide, with only a swift glace at the tragic pair behind her. As she packed her bag with things like toilet paper, toothpaste, and other things the Colony could use, she suddenly heard a small noise in the room next to her.

She spun around, her wand out. Thoughts of the Creatures ran through her mind, but she slowly walked towards the closed door. She reached out to the doorknob but before she had a chance to turn it the door slammed open.

She screamed as a pair of white eyes glared at her. It was one of the changed, the Muggles who had turned mad from the battle of light and dark magic. Their minds and bodies hadn't been able to respond to the magic that coursed through the air, and slowly every Muggle had distorted into almost zombie-like creations. They ate human flesh, but couldn't know what they were doing. One bite could infect even the most powerful of wizards.

Hermione fumbled for her wand, but was too late. The monster bit through the soft skin on her wrist, and Hermione looked, horrified, at the blood that dripped onto the white tile below her. She knew she shouldn't hesitate; the white eyes were already beginning to tinge red with the lust for blood. She held out her wand, and yelled the Killing Curse as loud as she could. Her strength was already waning. She smelled the sickly smell of the corpse's rotting skin, and it was enough to persuade her to grab her bag and leave the house.

As she walked outside, nausea gripped the young witch. Everything was tinged with black, and Hermione was only capable of thinking about how she was letting her friends down. She doubled over, and her mind let down any defenses it had.

Far away, silver eyes gleamed as the boy felt his opportunity come. The girl was weak. He called to her, and muttered the spell under his breath. He closed his eyes and said the fateful words over and over. The brown eyes that swam constantly in his mind finally grew clearer, and the rest of her body came into focus. He reached out to her, touched her cold hands with his own. The feel of human flesh was almost enough to break his concentration, but he channeled his ecstasy into bringing the girl into his lair.

And finally, she came.

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Harry walked to the arches that marked the border of the safe Colony. He caressed them thoughtfully, his fingers outlining every crease in the stone. Someday, they would be able to move outside of these borders and expand to the land above them. It may not even be in his lifetime, but he would do all he could to rebuild the world. Killing Voldemort hadn't been enough.

Tears leaked out his emerald eyes as he slid down the arch to sit on the ground. He cupped his head and rocked softly, embracing the memories inside him. They tore him apart, but they were all he had to remember the ones he loved. He had to come here to cry…the survivors in the colony couldn't see him like this – he was their savior, the strong one. He allowed each memory to run its course, sobbing the entire time.

Dumbledore falling…it had been the beginning of the end. As he ran after Snape, hatred dashing unbridled through his veins, he had never imagined the truth. That Dumbledore, knowing about Draco's mission, had commanded Snape to make the Unbreakable Vow if asked… to protect Draco with the old man's life. He had seen something in Draco that nobody else could, but for what? Snape said Draco had been banished to somewhere unknown - that he would probably die within a few days.

Snape had been the most influential part of the Second War for the light side, save for the Golden Trio. As Dumbledore had foreseen, his "proven loyalty" for the Dark Lord had earned him a spot closer to the evil leader than even Lucius Malfoy. He was the one who pinpointed the Death Eaters for the assassins that would kill them off with a cold determination similar to that of their victims. Only Malfoy remained untouched.

The Order of the Phoenix had tried to save the innocents in the war, resulting in many of their deaths. Molly and Arthur Weasley had been at St. Mungo's when the Death Eaters had stormed the building, killing the helpless in hoards. They had killed two of the men in the hallway outside of one of the wards before being captured. Theirs was a public execution, an example for other "pureblood traitors". Harry remembered vividly the sobs of their children as their parents were slowly tortured. The pair had never screamed, only cried out their loving messages for those close to them.

Next, Voldemort's followers came after the children in Hogwarts. After they had entered the school once before, they managed to do it again. With Dumbledore gone, it had been easy. It had been right in the beginning of seventh year, right before Harry would have left to find the Horcruxs. Professor McGonagall had been the leader of the resistance within, and was one of the few surviving teachers. The screams of the younger children who couldn't defend themselves were shrill and bloodcurdling. The older students had gone into battle with looks of stone. They had seen and understood what the dark side had done to their families and friends, and were determined to get their revenge. Harry had been protected from all sides, a fact he remembered with pain. But it had been necessary. He needed to stay alive long enough to end this.

Neville's face was one of the ones Harry remembered best. His normally quivering, pudgy features were hard and frightening. Harry knew he was thinking of his parents as he marched towards the Death Eaters in front of him. He had managed to kill the older Goyle before a green light hit him in his chest, ending his life. Harry had almost collapsed then, but was held up firmly by Hermione and Ron, who flanked him on either side.

Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had been grouped together as they left their common rooms, and only a few had escaped before the lot of them had been escorted onto the grounds like animals and executed without any thought to their identity. Their sobs as they waited in line for death pierced the air.

The Slytherins who weren't joining the Death Eaters were led by Pansy Parkinson, a fact which had shocked Harry at the time but that he understood now. Her eyes had flashed with fury as she lashed out at her former classmates who had turned to the dark side, stunning or killing them without any apparent feeling. Her cold expression still struck fear in Harry. The group behind her was just as ferocious, and made up a large portion of the survivors.

The Gryffindors had, of course, been in front of and behind Harry, protecting him at any cost. Their bravery truly shone, as they grabbed classmates from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff who had escaped, shoving them into their ranks. Even as their peers collapsed next to them, they marched on and joined Pansy's group. The few remaining teachers who had survived the first wave also helped finally push the evil ones out of Hogwarts.

Harry felt again the relief, terror, and despair that had gripped all of the few survivors. But he only had eyes for one figure. Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman who had murdered Sirius, was lying stunned on the shining, blood red grass. Harry had silently walked over to her, just as she was beginning to rise.

Her eyes widened in terror as she awoke fully with him standing over her, his wand pointed at her heart. Her lips slowly rose in a sneer.

"You can't do it, little Harry-boy…you have to mean it."

"You killed the only family member I ever had a chance to love." His voice had been surreal even to himself. His voice wasn't that cold, that hateful. Bellatrix's sneer had dropped off as she realized he meant it. As he said the words that would end her life, she shut her eyes, but the look of a person knowing death was about to claim them would haunt Harry until it came for him.

Hogwarts had ended then forever. All semblance of a normal life was shattered. The war raged on, with deaths everyday. Bill, Charlie, Fleur, almost all of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students, so many people had died. All of the members of the Order save for Lupin and Tonks had been brutally and publicly murdered.

Harry thought about the day Snape had been caught as a spy. It was Malfoy who had suspected him, mostly out of jealousy. But one day he got lucky, and found Snape talking to Moody. Their guard had slipped for a single moment, and both were going to pay. Moody was slaughtered first, burned until only his rolling eye remained. But Snape had directly betrayed Voldemort.

Harry had never gotten close to Snape, but he knew the man was good inside his almost cruel demeanor. He had hung above the city for days, his eyes propped open with magic to dry and burn. Blind and helpless, he was subject to Voldemort attacking his mind over and over again.

Only when the man hung limp did the Death Eaters take him down, leaving him in the street for dead. Harry and Ron had dragged him to shelter, but the former teacher was beyond help. His skin was cracked and bleeding and his eyes were shriveled and useless. He was dehydrated to the point of choking on his own tongue, and his stomach had begun to eat itself in a desperate attempt at nourishment. His mental state was even more dismal. The once sharp, nearly genius mind was ravaged and destroyed. All he was able to do was scream occasionally as the images Voldemort has replaced his thoughts with ran through his mind again and again.

Still, Harry hadn't been able to end his life, and Snape was still with them physically today, although in no better mental state. Through the use of magic, they had created a feeding system similar to a Muggle IV, and nursed Snape at the Order's headquarters until that too had been destroyed, and then they had taken him with them to the Colony.

Harry opened his eyes, unable to continue with his recollections. The faces of the dead loomed before him, and he slowly stood up, shaking with every movement. He couldn't let anybody else die.

He looked up to see Ginny running towards him, her pregnant belly hindering her movements only slightly. His anguish grew as he saw her face.

"Harry! It's Hermione!" The words cut through him, and he sobbed again into Ginny's hair.

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A/N: Hey guys, thank you so much for the reviews so far it means a lot…and I'm going to address my first reviewers now, something I'm not going to do again in this way, although if you have any direct questions concerning the story or me, I'll try to answer them at the end of the chapters. Thanks so much again! And just so you know, my updating has nothing to do with the amount of reviews I get, I write for myself and not for reviews lol but they are so, so appreciated!

Cathrun: Happy Birthday on the 7th! Thanks so much for your continued support with this and CoL!

Applekissis: I'm glad you like the style so far! I hope it meets expectations!

Goldenlioness1102: Yeah, I agree with you…I think it takes some time and extreme circumstances for this shipping to happen, something I try to convey in every both my fics, although in this one it's going to be a LOT more extreme than in CoL. Thanks again!

Justamuggle: Yeah, they were talking through their minds; it will be explained better in a later chapter! Thanks so much for the review!

Dragonchick29: Happy New Years to you too! I'm glad you like it so far…Hmm... dragonchick doesn't apply to our own Draco/Dragon, ey?

Pepermint Patti: I'm glad you're looking forward to following this, I'll update as often as possible to make it a good experience hehe…

Tzefira: Oo! A double fan lol I'm updating every moment I have a chance! I'm even going to loose as much sleep as humanly possible! Thanks for the review!

Draco's-Loyal-Longing: I can't wait for the rest either! I'm so glad you like it!

Caroling Graceless: Don't worry you'll find out what the phrase means all in good time! But yes, it is Latin. (No cheating and looking it up though! Lol but it's already told in some part of the story looks mysteriously around) I'm so glad you liked it, and I'll be expanding more on the Final Battle scene throughout the story!

Deathbychocolates: thanks! I like your name by the way!

SummerWrites: Don't worry, It will continue in the dark tragedy/drama vein, and I really don't like fluffy happiness so that won't happen in the least! Thanks for your reviews here and on CoL!