Chapter Six
April, 1917.
Hermione Granger had seen war. It was sickening, and otherwise difficult to describe. She'd watched her schoolmates fall, mutilated by dark curses. Few adults had come to Hogwarts to fight back against Voldemort, leaving children to defend to their last.
Magical war was vile.
Compared to what she saw every day in France, the Final Battle could be considered miniscule. A singular battle that ended it all, as compared to battles that went on for days and the constant flow of dying or dead men from the field.
Muggle war was brutal.
The trenches, one of History's most devastating stalemates. Hermione knew what they were doing wrong, being from a time where both world wars were examined under a microscope and picked apart with fine tooth combs. She knew that the problem was their use of old battle tactics with new weaponry. The Generals told the men to push forward and the Germans would use guns to mow the men down.
The Frenchmen never stood a chance to make it more than a few yards before they collapsed, dead or dying. Some were able crawl back to the trench, few could make it at a dead run without being shot, but many died on the battlefield.
Hermione could hear their cries in the brief silences, the times when no bomb or gun shots pervaded the air; pleading calls for help from a medic that went unanswered.
A great moral conundrum wracked Hermione nightly. She had the ability to disillusion herself, make way to the battlefield, and levitate some of the dying men to treat them. But she couldn't risk exposure; nor could she risk messing with the time paradox. At night, when she could hear the cries of dying men and the sound of battle not far off in the distance. She often cried herself to sleep.
Taking a boat back to France instead of traveling across the United States to take a boat to China had been a decision Hermione had yet to regret. World War I had thus far been a welcome distraction from thoughts of Silas.
A healthy coping method, it was not.
Hermione had given herself a mission; learn more about Dragon Lines. In order to conduct herself efficiently she knew she needed time to teach herself passable Chinese. As soon as the ship she sailed on harbored in France she'd walked around to an alley and apparated to Paris, picking up as many books as she could. Hermione hadn't originally thought to help with the war until she was already weeks into studying. Too many sleepless nights, a flood of nightmares in the wake of Silas' death, and her own failure to cope gave her a crippling need for distraction.
She'd gone to offer her help to the front lines in a field hospital after the third week.
Most of her time was spent on one side of the brick building she slept in. She shared a room with three other nurses, though it was rare to spend any time in it together. There was too much work to be done to laze around in a cot, and although beyond exhausted they worked with fervor, saving few in a hundred men who were rushed through the doors of the building each day.
"Jane, we've got six men with multiple bullet wounds, two who have severed limbs, and at least three with concussions on the table."
Hearing statements like that at the door was normal. She didn't hesitate to fly out of bed and toss her boots and medic coat on. She often slept in uniform, seconds counted when lives were in your hands.
Hermione raced to the hospital side of the building and jumped into the fray, rushing to a patient that was unattended; she began checking his vitals and running through his condition. Her focus was absolute, assessing whether saving each person she saw would be wasting her time.
She moved along each occupied bed of new patients, diagnosing and marking their foreheads with the nearest lump of coal, for they'd run out of marking instruments weeks ago. She gave the men morphine to help with the pain, even the dying ones despite the waste of resource.
Hermione moved to the next patient, noting that he suffered several gunshot wounds, one puncturing his liver. She knew it was too late for him.
"I don't want to die," he cried, clinging to her arm tightly. Blood that was spattered over his hand stained her uniform farther.
She swallowed and looked him directly in the eyes. "You won't," she lied, marking him with a black X, and dropping a kiss to his mud caked cheek before moving to the next man.
Choosing which soldier receives treatment in a detached way, to keep her sanity, Hermione wondered if she could live with it post war. That man would die, and it wasn't worth expending effort to try and save him when he was unsaveable in this era. This war was brutal, so many were dying on a daily basis, the hospital turned out more dead young men then it did live ones.
And it was always the young men who fought the wars, soldiers defending their country while white haired politicians drank and discussed among themselves in warm, well lit, and safe rooms. Young men who carried the burden of the fight, of watching their comrades die and throwing their lives to the cause. It would always be that way, the young and the healthy dying for wars created by the old, manipulative, merciless men in government buildings.
It was in France that Hermione first felt the burn of unrestrained loathing pulsate deep in her core. It was as if the emotion a live and breathing entity hidden beneath her flesh. It seemed to growl and claw from the inside while she marked men for surgery and moved on to mark another for death. The feeling gave her more purpose than anything had ever before, and it fueled her to save as many men as she could.
Hermione moved on to the next victim of war. He was young, no more than twenty and that was stretching it. He wore no marriage band and looked at Hermione with the sorrow of a man marked for death. He gasped in pain and clenched his abdomen- for they always seemed to be shot in the abdomen. Hermione, for weeks now, had tried not to be moved by these dying men. It was in vain, always. There was little chance he would survive, but her mind zipped through the possibilities that he could have a chance. His eyes, they were so fearful. No more than any other in his position but there was something about him, something that told her to try.
"I need morphine, NOW." She called out to the other nurses. Not one questioned why she was playing doctor, at this point all nurses had become battlefield doctors and surgeons.
Hermione tried, for an hour. She'd managed to stop the bleeding and remove the bullet. Shockingly it hadn't punctured any vital organs. She wrapped his abdomen, praying to whatever deity truly existed- if there even was one, because Hermione doubted so at this point. She moved on to other patients, did her best to help them as well as the night stretched and turned into dawn.
There was no change in his pattern, he still slept- tossing and turning in agony. They kept him on morphine to help with the pain because it seemed as though it were working. Hermione stopped by his bedside every few hours as the day began to slip away, fading back into night once more and she'd yet to catch sleep.
It was well into the night when another nurse, looking slightly more rested than Hermione, came to her. "Jane, get some sleep."
Hermione began to walk the long stretch to her room in hopes she would have a chance at some rest. She paused by the man's bed, hoping he would heal. She stood over him, a mournful look across her hardened features. To her surprise, his eyes shot open. He blinked several times, recognition dawning a few seconds later when he noticed the sounds of groaning men in the room and the stench of death that permeated the walls.
Bodies lined the outside for days before they were removed.
He seemed to finally see her and grasped her hand, tears in his eyes he drew a shaky hand into his pocket and spoke in a language she didn't know, but recognized vaguely. He placed a dirty, blood stained envelope into her hand and brushed her cheek with his blood caked palm.
It took three days for him to die, his suffering had been immense, and painful despite the morphine they pumped into his body. She was there when he died, the light fading from his eyes and a small, relieved smile stretched across his lips. She scolded herself for trying as his hand fell limp in her grip and Hermione pulled her hand away, moving onto the next patient dispassionately.
It wasn't until over a week later Hermione gained the courage to read the envelope he'd given her. She didn't open it, only read the print on the front. It was addressed to a Cara Piccoli, in Venice.
November, 1918.
The war was declared over, and Hermione could almost feel the world take a collective breath of relief. She hadn't stayed for the commemorations, the drinks, and the parties in France. Instead she'd opted to take the first train she could find that would take her near Italy. She had a letter to deliver.
Hermione had warred with herself since that man she'd tried to save had died. Part of her knew it was cruel to hold onto his letter as long as she had but she'd held back, hoping to give his family the evidence of his death from a physical being, instead of papers in the mail and a letter from the government, the same one every family of a killed in action soldier would get, expressing their loved ones noble sacrifice.
She growled at the thought, glorifying war. A wretched sentiment. It seemed a disservice to tell the family of a fallen soldier that they had died heroically in battle when in fact they took no more than ten steps above a trench in France and were gunned down. How revolting, to glorify systematic, government sanctioned, murder a 'heroic deed'- patriotic even. War, killing thousands to millions of men, women, and children and for what? Politics? Power? Money?
Had it been worth it, all wars fought for these ends? Because they were always fought for these ends. In one hundred, perhaps two hundred years would these men be remembered as the brave and heroic souls who'd died to defend their country for the continuity of their descendants liberties? Or would the citizens of their countries become ungrateful, spiteful children spitting on the graves of men who had been long since dead for the hopes future prosperity?
Hermione was wrenched out of her thoughts when the train began to slow. She sighed from where she sat in the cramped compartment. Closing her book and tucking it away into her small bag, she noticed and flicked a piece of lint off her jacket and onto the tacky green floral patterned carpet. When the train came to a full stop she stood, smoothing her dress as she did before gathering her small bag and exiting her compartment.
The walkway was narrow, and bustling with people already. Hermione sucked in a breath as two young boys pushed rudely past her, knocking her into the closed door of another compartment. Her body was tensed, like she were a snake feeling threatened and ready to strike in the next second. Her breathing came in ragged gasps and time seemed to slow as she tried to handle the feeling of being smothered by the crowd around her. She'd never had this trouble before, and the crippling weight of the feeling crashed into her with fervor.
Hermione pushed into the closest empty compartment and collapsed to the floor, breath still coming in ragged gasps. Flashes of men ran through her mind in rapid succession, as if she were seeing it all through eyes that blinked too quickly to understand the whole picture.
Blink, a man crying for his mother and clutching her hand as blood seemed to ooze from his neck where a bullet had grazed him.
Blink, another dead man added to the pile of corpses outside the hospital walls.
Blink, a small child who got caught in a cross fire after another attack on a nearby town, covered in the blood of his dead mother and holding his sister closely- although the life had faded from her hours prior. He cried, loud wracking sobs that twisted Hermione's heart so ferociously she'd been unable to sleep for two days after.
Blink. "I don't want to die, momma. I don't want to die." A man's voice whimpered pleadingly in the middle of the night, his mutilated face glowing in the candlelight.
The sound of bombs and gunfire in the distance were a constant presence in every one. Hermione gasped and slammed a fist into the tacky green carpeting as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"Get up Granger," she told herself. "Get up and move."
Shakily, she grabbed the seat in front of her and pulled herself up. Her legs felt wobbly, and she caught herself just as she began to fall. She slapped a hand, frustrated, on the seat and pulled herself up and swung around to sit in the chair. Hermione closed her eyes when she noticed the compartment seemed to spin from her movements. She dropped her head into her hands and fought to get her breathing under control again.
A sharp knock came from the compartment door, along with a nasally male voice. "Signora?"
Well, she thought as she looked up at the olive skinned man to her right, at least she'd made it to Italy.
Just days later Hermione stood, fidgeting nervously on a stone doorstep in a residential area of Venice. It wasn't far from the bustling metropolis, she could still hear the crowd that were several blocks away despite having deviated from them blocks away. She was looking directly at the door in front of her, hand poised to knock yet remaining in the position as time seemed to pass slowly. Taking a deep breath, she pooled together all of her nerve and slapped her knuckles against the hardwood three times.
The unmistakable sound of children's feet racing down wooden stairs poured into Hermione's ears. Little Italian she knew, and the little she knew of children was enough for her to piece together that they were bickering over who was going to make it to the door first. Sounds of complaints from the children came through, causing Hermione to smile slightly as the door was pulled open to reveal a young woman- looking no more than Hermione's eternized age. She wondered if this was the recipient of the letter, Cara Piccoli.
No one made a move, or a sound. Not even the children budget. Hermione took a moment to detail the face of the young woman before her as she extended her arm to hand over the letter. High cheekbones, olive skin tone, dark hair and beautiful dark green eyes, her face became stern as the young woman took the letter gently from Hermione's outstretched hand. The children looked quite like she did, the four of them were clearly varying in ages too old for this woman to have given birth to any of them but the youngest in the arms of one of the older children, a boy.
The woman gasped audibly and held her free hand chest when she read the handwriting on the front of the envelope. Slowly, she turned it over and began to carefully break the seal with trembling hands. As if this letter were an artifact as ancient as Italy itself the woman gently pulled the paper from its sheath and unfolded it. The children said nothing, but they began to shift around from foot to foot as time went on, childlike energy practically emanating from their pores.
Finally, the woman looked up at Hermione with the shimmering eyes of someone on the verge of tears. A few fell and she hastily wiped them away with her dress sleeves and spoke, "Grazie - parli italiano?"
Hermione shook her head. "Inglese e Francese."
The young woman nodded her head, clutching the letter to her chest. "I know little English, thank you for bringing this to us. One year passed since we learned our brother died, no letter or belonging came from him. This… this is precious gift."
The woman's tears fell freely now, and she didn't bother trying to cover them or wipe them away. Hermione watched the devastation creep into this woman's face, a look she'd seen so much in herself since the death of Silas that she knew exactly the feeling this woman was trying desperately to conceal. Without a single thought, Hermione took a step forward and wrapped her arms around the girl.
"I'm so sorry for your loss."
The girls' back straightened and Hermione released her.
"Per favore, come inside. Tell us how you found this letter." The young woman stepped to the side and beckoned Hermione to come in.
Hermione hesitated, unsure if she should. She hadn't had a pleasant reaction to children in the train the other day and, despite having had the same reaction in other situations since, she didn't want a repeat performance if these children became rowdy. Hermione bit her lip and looked away, ready to decline when a small hand wrapped around her own. One of the children, a girl with hair not unlike Hermione's own disastrous mop, looked up to the older woman with intelligent green eyes and pulled her gently inside. Hermione had no choice but to follow, though knowing she could easily break the grasp of a girl no older than four.
Momentarily stunned, Hermione shook out of it in time to observe her surroundings. The children were all standing in a half moon around the door, back to a staircase leading straight up to a second level. The house was covered in old grey wallpaper that was peeling off in large sections all over, and her nose caught a faint whiff of must where the bottom floor must have flooded over the years.
To her right was a small living area sparsely decorated with a few old frames that held black and white photos. There was a couch positioned facing a window, the ends completely shredded and Hermione recalled Crookshanks with fondness as she realized the tears were probably from the claws of a cat. Other than the couch a leather chair sat in the corner, angled towards the foyer, cracked and seemingly well used. The room was dark, and well used from the toys that seemed to litter the scuffed wood floors.
"I am Cara," the young woman introduced once the door was closed- pulling Hermione from her observations, she placed a delicate hand on the boy next to her, the one who held a child less than two in his arms, "this is my brother Enzo, in his arms is our sister Sofia." Cara ran her hand gently over the baby's soft mop of dark hair before moving onto another boy who looked to be no more than seven, "This is Luca," and finally she got to the young girl who'd dragged Hermione into the house, "and this is Elena."
"Pleasure to meet you all, uhm, mi chiamo Hermione. Hermione Moore."
Cara said something to the children in Italian, the words were so quick Hermione failed to recognize any. The children understood and each one began to walk away. The older boy, Enzo, stomped upstairs with the baby Sofia and the other two, Luca and Elena, darted towards what Hermione assumed to be a small kitchen.
"They will prepare tea, sit, please." Cara looked over Hermione with kind eyes as the latter took a seat in a leather arm chair that sat in the corner of the room. Cara faced Hermione from her seat on the couch. "Hermione, from Shakespeare?"
Surprised, Hermione smiled. "Yes, not many are familiar with it."
Cara laughed, the sound like bells echoing in the small room. "Our mother loved The Winter's Tale, and Julius Caesar."
The women shared a smile, the mood between them shifted as the tightness in Hermione's chest at entering this unknown families home unclenched. Literature was a comfort, an unrelenting and unchanging force in her life that she could cling too while the world around her slowly molded into the world she had once known. Temporarily soothed, Hermione began to prod further into the topic of Shakespeare, keeping the conversation light.
When the children slowly trickled into the room, and the final two with the promised tea, Hermione resigned to the fact that she was required to give them whatever information they desired. She glanced over their faces, each one looking up at her expectantly. Hermione fidgeted from her seat, breathing becoming difficult as her chest constricted. She took a few deep breaths, centering herself to the living room, taking in the frayed wallpaper and the sparse decor.
Hermione briefly wondered where the parents of these children were. Surely Cara couldn't be taking care of them all on her own. She banished the thought when she placed her tea on the table to the right of her chair and focused on the four expectant people in front of her. With each passing second the older boy's eyes grew harder. Cara looked hopeful, the other two sat cross legged on the scuffed flooring, fidgeting and elbowing each other good naturedly. For a moment, time slowed.
She couldn't tell these kids that their brother died on a cot in the aid station. She couldn't tell them that she didn't know if he fought bravely, or if he'd saved lives before he'd been shot. Hermione couldn't stress the weight of senseless death and the gore of battle on these impressionable civilians. Hermione suddenly understood why commemorative letters decorated the dead soldiers in such a fashion. An involuntary shiver shot up Hermione spine, and she leaned forward to address the children in front of her.
"I don't know the details of how your brother fought," she began slowly, focusing on everyone while Cara translated what she said, equally as slow, back to her siblings, "I know little but what I saw when I met him in the aid station. He'd been shot in the abdomen and was bleeding at an alarming rate. I had no chance to speak with him, he was unconscious when I began to operate. He held on for several days, I tried to make him comfortable. In the end, he passed silently."
Time seemed suspended as Cara slowly worked through the English. One by one the children looked back to her with wide grins. Confused, Hermione stared at Cara with her eyebrow raised.
The woman turned away, glancing over her siblings' faces once more and speaking Italian. The three children rose, racing out of the room and chatting animatedly. Cara watched them go with vacant eyes, and once the thudding on the stairs ceased she turned to address Hermione.
"Thank you for your honesty, Hermione. The children, I told them Dante died a hero in battle." Cara spoke in soft tones, as if the children could suddenly hear through walls and understand English.
Unable to contain her inquisitive nature, and feeling a bit out of sorts with the conversation, Hermione blurted; "Excuse me if this is too personal, Cara, why did your brother enter the war? How did he end up in France?"
Cara smiled meekly and shrugged. "He and a group of his friends volunteered, they believed it was the right thing to do. Dante, not so much." Cara laughed, the sound forced. "He did not believe the way his friends did, but our parents had gone and we needed money."
The young woman's back straightened and she looked into Hermione's eyes then, her face was hardened with strength and experience beyond her years. She stood, gathering the tea set and holding it steadily. "So I told the children our brother was a hero because it is the truth, perhaps not for fighting a war but he was to his family. His memory deserves to be... how you say… preserved."
Cara motioned for Hermione to follow her into the kitchen. The room was small, the walls were barren of wallpaper or art, the plaster was greyed and peeling much like the rest of the house. Hermione briefly wondered if the place had once flooded. Cara began to fill a sink to the far end of the kitchen, feeling useless Hermione grabbed a dish rag from the stone countertop.
"Grazie," Cara said, "are you staying in the region?"
"No, I'm leaving soon."
Rinsing the suds off a teacup, Cara glanced over at Hermione, her voice betraying nothing as she questioned; "You came only to bring Dante's letter?"
Hermione nodded once, taking the cup from the younger woman's hand and drying it.
"Can we persuade you to stay a while?"
"Why would you want me to?" Hermione raised an eyebrow, taking the clean tray from Cara.
The younger woman shrugged, pulling the drain of the sink and wiped her wet hands on the front of her dress. "I do not know, but I do not believe you've come to simply deliver a letter. War is a terrible tragedy; I feel you've suffered as much as the rest of us, if not more. It is in your eyes."
Hermione's brow rose as she placed the dry tray on the counter. "My eyes?"
"Si," she began, observing Hermione closely with a thoughtful expression, "eyes that have glared death in the face and told him, maybe more than one time, 'not today'."
Chuckling at the staggering truth to that statement, Hermione turned her body to face the younger woman and began to fold the wet dish towel. "Perhaps you're right."
There was a brief silence while the two women stood there staring at each other. Hermione could hear the muffled sounds of children playing above them. She marveled at what she'd learned about this family in the short time she'd spent here. Her chest swelled with sudden emotion as comprehension dawned; Cara had been raising these kids for some time. The younger woman had mentioned that Dante ran off to war for the salary he would earn because their parents had 'gone.'
Hermione didn't know what 'gone' ment. The parents could have died, or abandoned them, but it didn't matter. The problem was that a woman no more than a child herself had been left to raise her young siblings while their adolescent brother had run off to join a war in hopes of supporting his family.
Her stomach and heart clenched.
"Scusate! I didn't mean to upset you," Cara said suddenly, a blush forming across her cheeks, "You have gone out of your way and given my family a gift; closure. I wish to repay you."
Banishing her emotion, Hermione took a few seconds to compose herself. If she stayed any longer she would be tempted to accept Cara's mild offer and remain in Italy. As much as she felt this family needed help, Hermione couldn't offer it. She needed to research Dragon Lines, she had to find a way back home.
"There's no need to repay me." Hermione stated kindly, turning away from the Italian. "Thank you for inviting me into your home, Miss Piccoli."
Hermione was down the hall and out the front door before Cara could formulate another response.