Twenty-Three
Day: 1445; Hour: 16
Harold leaves at dusk, his cheeks stained with Lavender's kisses and a note to Harry crinkling in his palm.
Day: 1446; Hour: 8
"Did you ask him to come back?" Draco asks this like it's painful letting curiosity rule his tongue.
"Harold?"
"Yes, the one who obviously knows he is to come back." Dry sarcasm - it's possibly his favorite.
Hermione has to think about it for a moment because she's eating a croissant that could never taste like her gran's, but still reminds her of the woman anyway. And home, and spring mornings, and the smell of baking that lingered in the kitchen even after they had all went to bed.
"I told Harry what we were doing. I told him I didn't ask because I wanted him to heal properly."
"An apology letter-"
"No. I didn't say I was sorry."
Draco pauses in chewing, but doesn't take his eyes off the television. She knows he's not paying attention to what's on the screen anyway-he doesn't understand cartoons, and he has been staring at the yellow sponge on the screen with an incredulous look for the past five minutes.
"Would you care?" Because her tongue has always been ruled by curiosity.
"It's not of my concern if you feel the need to apologize to Potter."
"I meant if I had asked him to come back with Harold."
His jaw clenches, and he looks down to place his toast on the side table, no longer hungry from the apple that preceded it or from their conversation. "It's your mission, Granger."
He is being careful with the conversation and Hermione finds it odd, and annoying because he never is, not with her. He looks annoyed, probably with himself for bringing it up, and Hermione realizes that he's probably quite done arguing about Harry with her.
"I just didn't know how badly you might hate him."
"I don't hate Potter. I simply don't care about him or anything he does."
"He thinks you hate him."
And this is really the only reason she kept going. She has been trying to find a way to bring up Lucius, and how Draco felt about the whole thing without being obvious that she wanted to pry into his feelings. It was just that she thinks he might need her to talk about something like that, and she knows he would never bring it up on his own. She doesn't know if she can be the sort of person that can listen to anything about Lucius Malfoy from a son who might have loved him, but she would like to try... for him.
Draco can see through her though, like he always does, but she only has herself to blame for letting him know her so well. He gives her that warning look, his face pulled tight, lips thinned, his jaw clenching. It had taken her several harsh, long blown-out fights before she recognized the look for what it was. She used to just take the intensity in his eyes as meaning she had his full attention. She learned quickly enough.
She lets the silence weigh them down, even after he turns his attention back to the tv. They are both dressed in robes, as well as Lavender and Justin who had retired to their room a floor above them. Justin had found it hilarious as they all lounged about the room eating strawberries for breakfast and waiting for the hotel laundry service to be finished with their clothes. Lavender found it more hilarious when Justin remembered the small bag of Portkeys he had left in his pocket and went flying downstairs and through the hotel lobby dressed in only his robe, yelling after the maid to give him back his pants.
"Tell me about your family?" she asks, fairly certain a demand for this would do worse damage than a request.
He still looks at her like she's lost her mind. "No."
"I've told you all about my family." From her parents to her crazy uncle who liked to line his walls with stuffed birds, and go grocery shopping through his neighbor's trashcans.
"I believe you owe me for that rather than the other way around."
"Come on, what's your favorite memory of childhood?" She is walking across skyscrapers on a telephone cord, she knows.
"Breaking Potter's nose."
"Draco." Silence. "What about family traditions? Sweet sixteen? Favorite place in the hou-"
"Why the fuck do you want to know about my family?" He is looking quite vicious, and she had been hoping she would ask something he wanted to answer before it came to this.
She shrugs, giving a very Hermione-like answer. "Because I don't know anything about it."
"Haven't you learned by now that there are some things that aren't any of your business to know?"
She closes her mouth tight enough for her jaw to ache and looks down at her fiddling hands. "I know all about Harry and Ron's families - if you could even call Harry's family a 'family'. Those people-"
"Yes, I'm sure you all exchanged family stories over tea in the Gryffindor common room while Potter cried on your shoulder and Weasley drooled all over your-"
"You don't have to be so defensive. I'm not attacking you, there's no reason to attack-"
"Drop the subject Granger, or I'll show you a lesson on what defensive truly is." That vein on his forehead started making an appearance.
"Fine," he kept staring at her, perhaps because he knew the silence wasn't going to last, "I just want you to know that if you would like to ever talk about anything at all, I will listen if only for the sake of being curious."
It seemed efficiently cool and distanced from the sticky pile of things the world called "feelings", but Draco still lurches out of bed and she still cringes when his plate of toast shatters against the far wall. "What the fuck is your problem?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure that echoes my thoughts on the matter a-" Her nose is in the air, and she knows he hates that, but it's too much of a habit to stop.
"You always push! You can't accept when some things are off fucking limits, or I just don't want to talk about it! Like you're entitled to know everything about me-you're not. You're. Not."
"Dra-"
"You might like to go on and on about your feelings, but-"
"I do not go on-"
"I don't need you, Granger. I am not your pity case, I am-"
"I have never looked at you like a pity case, Malfoy!" She is on her feet now too, finger shoved in his chest and he grabs it, squeezes hard enough for it to be pin and needles when he shoves it back and releases.
"My father never saw you as more than a Mudblood, worthy of death only because you were so unworthy of life. Do you really want to hear about my summer holidays, or how he taught me to fly a broom, or how I couldn't kill the man you only shared mutual hatred for? How your brave, wonderful, heroic Harry came in and saved the day. Again. What-"
"This has nothing to do with Harry, and nothing to do with how I felt about your father."
"-and you-"
"It has everything to do with you, Draco! And I'm sorry that you're so scared of how you feel about things, but I'm not sorry I offered you to talk to me about it. Your father is dead and no matter..." She trails off, jerking back so quickly she finds herself seated on the bed. His hand hovers in air, pulled back from whatever instinctual action had caused it to snap toward her.
He is breathing heavily, his hand smacking dully against his leg, his voice rasping. "My father was dead the moment the manor doors closed behind Pansy. Perhaps even before that. I cared for my father, once. My memories are mine to keep, and not yours to twist. You don't need to understand this. I don't need you to."
"I wouldn't-"
"Granger, I-"
His fist is clenching again, and she lets it all go, quickly. "Okay."
She is debating an apology for all of five seconds until he walks out the door. Lavender arrives fifteen minutes later with a pillow and extra bar of soap, not saying anything to the frazzled girl across the room, opting to curl up under the blankets of the other bed and laugh at the cartoons instead.
Day: 1447; Hour: 6
"Shouldn't he be back by now?" Justin asks and then seems to regret it as the worry deepens on Lavender's forehead.
"If he's not back by tonight we should all go back." Lavender looks at the clock again and Hermione thinks she should just take a seat and stare at it for as often as she glances. "We don't have enough money to stay another night, right?"
"No. We have to check out in two hours."
"So, we have to go back, right? Maybe we should go now and-"
"We're not going now," Draco mutters, his eyes out the window.
Lavender gives Hermione the dirty look for Draco's attitude. Lavender had come down that morning from a visit to the other room, determined to give Hermione a speech on how to keep a man happy before Hermione threatened to hex her into the psychiatric ward. The other woman had settled on muttering about how they all had to deal with Hermione pissing him off and how it wasn't fair, while Hermione alternated between glaring and feeling bad.
"So what should we do?" Her lame attempt to talk to him like it was all normal.
"We don't have Portkeys to the safe house, we don't have money for a place to stay, or to even eat. I think we'll have to go back." Justin stops the drumming of his wand on the table to give them all an apologetic look for even saying it.
"Lupin might have things organized enough to make a bigger team anyway. And with the approval of the Ministry and the Order, we can actually use magic-"
"I'm sure the Death Eaters are still tracking magical use in the Muggle world, at least in the perimeter of their hideouts. The only reason none of them have seemed to show up here is because their numbers are down enough to be planning something else."
"Like what?" Justin looks up at the blond who finally turns to face the room.
"A bigger battle. They will not stay separated for much longer. They will organize, collect data, plan something brutal, and fight until the death. They have no other choices."
"So we're going back tonight if Harold doesn't show?" Hermione glares in thought at her shoes, but Draco confirms what she's already thinking.
"We're out of options. We have Portkeys to the other locations, and we could sleep wherever. But with no money, and no food... short of robbing a market. What do you want to do?"
She thought this was rhetorical until she looks up and finds him looking back seriously, waiting. She wonders when she earned the honor of his respect for her opinions about war. Her pride in herself is swift, but it doesn't make her overzealous. "The possible consequences are too great. If Harold doesn't come we'll go back ourselves. If Lupin hasn't organized something, it is unlikely he will use the force of action it would take for me to be stopped from getting what we need and coming back."
She might be a soldier, but she is not a puppet. Unless Lupin took her wand, locked her in a cell, or put her in a coma, she would be resuming the mission no matter what he said, or the consequences he promised. It was just easier to not go back and face them, to not run the chance of Lupin doing something drastic. She has to find Ron. It is something that overwhelms the passion and insistence of need.
Day: 1447; Hour: 11
Harold shows anyway while they are standing on the curb, the hotel manager sending them suspicious looks for not leaving when they checked out three hours before. Hermione ignores the woman dragging behind him and instead focuses her surprise on Seamus. Draco's body grows tense next to her, and on reaction she reaches out to brush her fingers against the inside of his wrist. She is more surprised that he doesn't pull away than at herself for doing it.
"We couldn't get any new locations. I didn't even chance going back to Grimmauld... I barely escaped St. Mungo's. I made Portkeys to the house, but not the Ministry since those have to be done by the Ministry." By his tone of voice, Hermione is guessing he is the only one in the group who hadn't already known this. "I also went back to the house - it's still empty - and stocked up on more food."
Harold finished with a proud smile over the top of Lavender's head before kissing her properly. Seamus kept his eyes to the ground, but the woman smiled when she saw that the silent, tense attention was now focused on her.
"Margarete Ust," she steps forward, shaking their hands, "My brother is missing as well. I had heard some rumors about a group going rogue to find the missing. When I saw Harold I jumped on the chance."
"Nice to meet you. I'm guessing no one else is trying to find them?" Justin smiles in that innocent way that Hermione always found endearing because it was so honest.
"They're still organizing, from what I understand. Teams have been sent out, though no one knows what for, but them and the higher-ups. It's possible, but all I know is that I wasn't invited and I have to find my brother."
"Well, the more the merrier." Justin smiles again, and Hermione finally notices that the woman is rather pretty - she had been too busy scrutinizing her for a possible trust issue. "Well... it's not really merry is it, but the more the better... and quicker... to find everyone. Of course."
Draco's forehead crinkles and he places two fingers to his temple, closing his eyes as if he is internally threatening an oncoming headache. "If he isn't a virgin, I am honestly surprised."
Hermione smiles, if only because he mutters it low enough for only her to hear, and she likes when he makes things personal. She still throws him a look, though, because Justin's fumbling is cute and she doesn't know how to stop defending people.
Day: 1447; Hour: 17
"Hermione."
She looks up from Lavender's explanation of the plans to Margarete to find Seamus standing in the hallway. He nods his head toward the door at his shoulder. She brings her eyes around to Draco's across the living room, not surprised to find him looking at her. She isn't sure if he's still angry with her for digging so hard about his family. His attitude had mostly waned into brooding since Harold came back, but she doesn't know if he is setting it aside because he's over it or because there were bigger things to concentrate on at the moment.
She stands and Seamus walks into the bedroom as she starts down the hall, knowing this had to come eventually. Lavender is sending her nervous looks, and there is rustling sound from Draco's direction that stops when she takes her wand from the top of the television set. Not that she thinks she will have to use it, but she knows Seamus' temper is something to be careful around. Much like the blond's.
She closes the door, relaxing when she finds a rather defeated looking Seamus at the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. "What did you want?"
He sighs heavily, rubbing his fist into the center of his forehead, pausing before he looks up at her. "I'm sorry."
"I don't know if that's good enough this time, Seamus."
A flash of anger across his face, but he keeps it in check. "I went too far, and I know that. I can't say anything else but I'm sorry, so if it's not good enough, there's no point in you even coming in here."
"Well, perhaps I want an explanation. I've known you since we were children, Seamus. We've never been best friends, but I grew up with you. You should know that-"
"That's the thing."
"What?" If growing up with her and never being best friends was his explanation for the horrible things he had said, sorry really wasn't good enough.
"I know you pretty well, Hermione. I mean... I know war changes us. I've always been a prideful person, and sometimes I let aggression get the best of me. You've seen me during a Quidditch game... it gets ugly."
She almost smiles-his is fake. He sighs heavily again and stands, pacing the floor with his hands shoved in his pockets. "I know that you-"
"Wait, hear me out. I've been holding onto my hatred for Malfoy because he reminds me of why I'm fighting. When I'm out there, in a battle, I know why I'm fighting. When I'm killing someone, I know. When I'm pulling dead bodies off the ground, I know. But when I get back to one of the houses, it sort of leaves me. I start wondering why I'm here, and not on a beach somewhere, hiding out from the war. I wonder why I haven't taken my family and ran. I wonder why I'm putting my life at risk every second of the day."
"We all do."
"I know. Because we shut down to deal with it. We don't think about the people that have died, because we can't. And when I'm alone, surrounded by good people who want to get away as well... I want to take us all and leave. I want to let the Death Eaters take it and let us all find somewhere else to live, rather than something to die for. You know?"
"You have to remember what-"
"That's it! Malfoy is my way of keeping myself in check, and I know it sounds shoddy, but that's what it is. Every time I'm out of battle too long, every time I've had long enough to convince myself I'm not that brave at all, I look at him and I picture the Dark Mark and a hood. I look at him and I remember Hogwarts, and the things he's done. Sometimes I look at him, and I imagine that he's his father. I ignore the things that other people haven't, because I need to hate him. Do you understand?"
She hesitates, stumbled over air with strange cracks of words before admitting the truth. "No, not really."
"And that's the thing. Because I thought you would, Hermione. I thought out of everyone, you would see that I needed that. You were the girl he put through hell. You were the girl he hated based on blood. You were the epitome, to him, of who he had to kill to win. And you should hate him just like me. You should hate him to remind yourself, or because he deserves it, or because you need to."
"I don't need to hate him, Seamus. I hate Death Eaters. Draco's a Phoenix just like we are," she says this quietly because Seamus is looking at her like he's begging for her to understand, and she can't.
"I know. It just feels like if I let one in... I... I just have to hate them all, all of them that came from that place. I have to, because I kill them, Hermione. I can't begin to think they're human, or I'll lose it. I swear I'll lose it. I know it's stupid. And I know, I guess maybe, Malfoy might have earned a little more... respect from me. But it has to wait for after the war. Because I need to hate him."
He says the last sentence in a desperate way that makes her chest clench up, though she doesn't know who it's for. Seamus sits on the bed again, his fingers curling up the comforter. He looks up at her, and he knows she does not understand, and that she doesn't agree, but he stares like she might change her mind if he doesn't look away.
"Seamus, I..." Hermione doesn't know what to say.
"I shouldn't have said those things. It's just that I thought you would understand out of everyone. It felt like... like betrayal. But we all have done things other people don't agree with during this war. I hate what you're doing, and you probably don't like what I'm doing... but if I'm going to move on and ignore it for now, you must do the same for me. And I am sorry... Really. I wouldn't have come back if I wasn't."
Day: 1447; Hour: 20
The sky is black. There is a wall behind her, cold stone aching into her shoulder blades. Her fingers are wet as they feel along the ridges, searching for the end of the wall, and she knows it is her blood. She would like to scream out to know if the gasps of breath somewhere in front of her are her friends, or their enemies. But she can see a rainbow of color exploding into the rock around her and into the shakes of her body if she does, and death is not something she gives into so easily.
It is complete darkness around them, the sense of sight shut down and shoved into someone else's eyes that are not their own. But she can still taste dirt, feel the frozen wall, smell the metallic bite of blood and the acrid stench of Dark Magic that reminded her of gasoline and bad body odor. She can hear the breathing across from her, another ragged breath a little further back and to her right. Her senses sharpened on their own, shoved into better working order by another, her sense of survival.
Her fingers find the edge, the lack of oxygen burning in her lungs, and the breathing stops across from her when her trainers skid over a rock. She breathes in raggedly, like fire, and yells out a stunning spell in the direction she last heard the breathing. She flings herself around the corner of the wall as the red spell lights up her face and the air, the vicious rage on the boy's face before he falls. Hermione trips, banging her arms and cheek against the pebbles and dirt at the other side of the wall. Green light smashes into the wall where she had been, and she stumbles to her feet and further down as the rock gives way and crumbles.
She bites her tongue hard enough to draw blood when a chunk collides with her shoulder, the wounded one that the healing balm from Harold has yet to take care of. She turns the corner sharply, sending out a random hex to light the area, and then the Killing Curse at the man running toward her. Blood sprays from her mouth as she yells it, and she's almost afraid that the gurgle messed it up before she sees the man fall face forward.
Hermione spits and it hits the front of her shirt, soaking through to her chest as she rounds the corner again; the first man already on his feet judging from his voice. "You fucking bitch!"
He yells the Killing Curse over and over, and it hits the wall all the way down, cracking rock and crashing her barrier to the ground. Hermione turns quickly, spitting again, but in too much of a panic for it to go further than over her lip and down her chin. She can see his wand turn toward her just as the green light vanishes into blackness again, and she does not have time to pray that she is quicker.
"Avada Kedavra!" she screams, and he is silent again.
She gasps in several breaths before calming them, her ears pulled up as she searches for sound. She feels as if she has fallen into a black abyss from which she will never emerge, and doesn't think she will ever look at a blind person without pity again, despite how much they might not want it. She runs forward, as light on her feet as is possible for them taking all her weight, but rocks and twigs mark her path. Briefly, she wonders if she is dead, and this is the place where they sent the sort of person war had made her.
There is a crunching noise from behind her and she turns quickly, slipping over grass. A blue light strikes and burns out within a second; a spell done wrong, but it shows enough for Hermione to see Lavender's hair and the glint of her eyes.
"Lav," Hermione whispers, but it's still too loud. She waits for a noise, a spell, but nothing comes at first.
"Hermione...you okay?"
"More bloody than I should be, is all. I'm fine." Hermione doubts she could have seen her, but explains just in case.
There is a sickly sort of silence from Lavender that lasts too long, and Hermione's stomach clenches with fear. "I, uh... I'm afraid I can't say the same for myself."
It comes out thick, like there is a ball of blood nestled in her throat, and Hermione is running toward her voice before she even finishes the sentence. There is a loud scraping of rocks and Hermione finds her on the ground when she gets there, having to feel along clothes and skin for Lavender's face. Bile and food are making plans of upheaval in her stomach as her hands grow wet and sticky, and Lavender's breathing stops to whine out pain.
Suddenly Hermione remembers the dog she had when she was a child, who went and lay down and refused to come, who whined and whimpered his death instead of howling. Suddenly Hermione realizes just how bad this might be, with Lavender's shirt absolutely soaked in blood as she emitted nothing but whimpers and the shaking of silent sobs.
"Lav, Lavender. Lavender!" Hermione yells this, and she doesn't care that it's too loud because the last thing she can think of is the possibility of her own death.
"Hermione," and she breaks finally, an echoing, tormented sob, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't-"
"I know, I know. You're going to be fine, hm?" Hermione whispers, and she is crying too, stroking her hand along the other woman's hair. The strands stick to the blood on her hand as she shoves her other hand in her pocket.
"I-You... Will-"
"Shut up, Lavender. Don't do that. Don't you dare." Hermione had lived too much of her life in battle to not know when someone was planning their goodbye, and she refuses to listen to Lavender's, because it's not true. It can't be.
A whimper, clogged with tears and dark possibilities. Lavender's voice sounds like a child's, their first year, when war was a little further away but they all still missed their mothers. "I'm scared."
"No reason. No reason to-fuck!" Hermione screams, throwing down the wrong bag of Portkeys and digs again, her hands shaking terribly and her body numb with panic. "You're gonna have kids, right? Kids, and be married, and they will... So much to fight for, Lav."
"I just-"
"You promise me you'll hold on, okay? Swear on it." Hermione throws the other bag down viciously, hating that she kept the ones to St. Mungo's on the bottom since they were used less. But needed more, she chokes in her mind. "Needed more."
Lavender is shaking against Hermione's knees, and Hermione finally hears the gurgling over her own determination to get the bag open. Her fingers dig too hard into Lavender's jaw as she throws her head to the side, feeling the blood, or vomit, or saliva run from Lavender's mouth and over her fingers. Lavender's head is jerking back and forth, and it takes Hermione a second to know it is from the fierce shaking of her own hand.
She wrenches the other woman's hand up and slaps the Portkey into her palm, squeezing Lavender's fingers around it and placing the fist on top of the decreasing movement of Lavender's stomach. Hermione bends forward, pressing her forehead to Lavender's hair and her lips to her temple, skin sliding over skin in tears and blood.
"Fight, and I swear to God you'll never see this war again," Hermione whispers, and jerks back before the pull at her naval can take them together.
Her tears and shaking have gone, but she is still kneeling in the same spot a long time later when the orange sparks light up the sky. It is their signal that the house has been cleared, and another out in the field of darkness lights up. Hermione knows that if there were any Death Eaters in her area they would have found her by now, so she sends up the same signal, giving two tries before she is able to stand.
"We found three prisoners. Two were citizens, one was an Auror." Seamus' voice, loud and crisp, breaking through her fog.
Hermione takes a deep breath, focusing herself, getting back into the right frame of mind. Lavender would live-she had to. "Search again."
"We did." Justin this time, his voice edging closer as he walked toward the house.
"You sent-" Hermione cuts herself off as a beam of light hits her, Draco standing no more than three arm lengths from her.
"Merlin," a female voice chokes, coughs. Margarete's, Hermione thinks.
He has a look on his face that reminds her of when she heard the sick silence from Lavender, and she knows he sensed something was wrong. Wrong enough for him to walk toward her so quickly, to search her out in the dark.
"I'm fine."
"Bullshit you're fine! Send her to Mungo's now!" Seamus yells, but Hermione can't tear her eyes away from Draco's face.
"Shoulder, bit my tongue, got a slicing curse to my back. We can handle it at the house."
"Where's Brown?" Because all it really took was a look at all the blood on her and the ground, the Portkeys all around her feet.
"Hospital. She..." Hermione shakes her head, chokes it back.
"Is she dead?" Margarete asks, because it is just another body to her.
"No! No, but she... It doesn't look good." Hermione tries to cough over the sob, but they all know differently.
Harold is gone before Hermione can even breathe in, and she coughs again, again, her throat dry like dirt covered rocks. She coughs herself out of breath, bending forward to put her hands on her knees, and she vomits so hard she feels her eyes bulge.
Someone puts their hand on her hair even though she always pulls it back on a mission for better vision. Justin, judging by the shoes, and his hand finds her back to run circles. "They will have her all healed up in no time."
She nods, even though she doesn't really know for sure. She breathes in quickly, panting - not for the oxygen, but to remind herself of her life. "He'll write, right? He'll let us know."
"Lavender will, at least." Justin is smiling she can hear, but she also knows that he is crying too.
Day: 1448; Hour: 10
Harold left behind everything, including the Portkey Hermione, Draco, Justin, and Seamus take to the cemetery. The four of them stand on the hill that overlooks the casket and the group gathered to bid Neville farewell.
She is fairly sure they all know of the four's presence, but not even Harry raises his shoulders from their slump as the casket lowers down. Hermione watches, her own shoulders shaking, wiping savagely at the tears that blind her vision. She allows this moment to bow to grief, to feel weak within its tide, and play her memories of Neville like a marching band inside her mind.
"Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand..." The words grind on the wind up the hillside, and Justin and Draco's hands meet hers at the same time she finds her whole body shaking.
It is familiar, though it has no right to be, the funeral song that plays on. I miss you, Hermione thinks, above the chords that bleed the oxygen from her lungs. I miss you.