Thirty

Day: 1466; Hour: 6

Hermione doesn't know how they made it to the side of the building, but she doesn't waste time thinking about it. Angelina is at St. Mungo's by now as long as Ginny's violently shaking hand dug out the right Portkey. Lavender grimaces every time she moves too much from the Cruciatus she took, and Justin is still twitching from the two that hit him, though he refuses to leave. Hermione's arm is bleeding from some curse that only skimmed her, and she can feel her blood thumping under the Phoenix band she wrapped around it. That's all she knows from the short survey she took on the group, and when she asks about their health, they all reply "fine".

"Why are they all recruits? Wouldn't they send the-" Justin starts, his voice raising each time his body jerks.

"I don't know. We need a way in. Door is suicide, take us out one by one." Harry sounds angry, because that is what he needs to be.

Their backs are all pressed against the metal of the building, lined up like a firing squad. It's the safest way, as their backs aren't exposed, and their fronts are fairly protected by scanning eyes and raised wands. "Why haven't more come out? If this is a training-"

"A way in," Harry reminds Ginny of their priorities. "Did anyone see windows?"

"There's none on this side, but there has to be something," Justin whispers, his free hand soothing circles on his hip, trying to ease the nerves still twitching with memory.

"The vent!" Hermione is so excited by this that she almost forgets where they are. "There's smoke coming from the roof, and if something is coming out, it's likely something can get in."

"I didn't see smoke." Lavender looks up at the sky.

"Could have been mist, it was raining-" Ginny cuts herself off, and Hermione realizes that the strange weightlessness that takes over her is not from blood loss, or the twenty-four hours without sleep, but from Harry levitating her.

"Genius, Hermione. Even if there's nothing up there, it gives us a position for..." Harry's voice fades away as she rises out of earshot.

She turns, squatting with her wand raised, but she doesn't see anyone on the roof when her eyes clear the wall. She grabs the ledge and brings both of her knees to the floor before signaling for Harry to break the spell, throwing herself away from the ledge. The roof is clear from what she can see, and there are three wide cylinders raised up from the steel. She looks over the ledge of the roof and meets Harry's eyes, gesturing over her shoulder and giving him a thumbs up. Hermione runs toward one of the cylinders, then feels the rust stain her hands with a strange texture as she grabs the rim, peering over.

"What is it?" She jerks forward at Seamus behind her, and they both freeze as her wand hits the steel, a hollowed, hard sound echoing out around them.

She waits until there isn't any reaction around them before speaking, but Seamus keeps his wand moving across an empty roof. "A vent. It has a huge fan in it, but I think we can fit through the gaps. It's not spinning. We're going to fall, though, and I don't know how far down or into what."

A sound like thunder stops Seamus from replying, and they both look up toward the sky before the screaming starts. Seamus gets to the ledge before her, casting something at the ground, and she can see the back of Dean's head appear before Seamus wraps his arms under the other man's. He digs his heels down and throws both of them back, and she can hear them grunt behind her as she looks down at the field.

Three people are running across the field in the front of them, two more coming from the left, and another is falling through the sky. Hermione stuns one of them before she is yanked back, stumbling over her feet. Dean makes sure she is balanced before letting go of her arm.

"He said to go."

"What?"

"Harry said to go and clear the door."

Hermione blinks at him in surprise long enough for him to reach for her arm again. "I am not leaving them! The-"

"Harry said to go, Hermione! They shot something at me on my way up, they know we're up here, and they're going to be coming after us. Harry wants him and the others to take them down before they can, so it's our job to get in and clear the door!"

"We weren't supposed to split up! We'll be too outnumbered, they'll be too- I'm not leaving them, we'll just-"

"Yes, you are," Dean bites, gone the calm man she knew, and grabs her arm to drag her toward the cylinder. "They're waiting for us to clear the door, so-"

"Stop dragging me around!" Hermione yanks away from him, turning to give him a glare, and there is a part of herself that is expecting to see Draco there instead.

"Orders, Hermione. If we don't go and clear the door-" He cuts himself off, a knowing in his eyes that she hates.

Hermione digs the heel of her palm into her forehead, pressing hard against her skull, as if she can drive the right answer into her head. But there isn't a right answer in this - there are two things that she has to do, and neither one of them could work if she attempted the other. They need to clear the door for the rest to get inside - it is the whole reason they are staying on the ground, getting rid of some of the enemies and buying them time.

"We could wait until-"

"There can't be any waiting, Hermione, you know that. This is our only opportunity-"

"Before they get to the roof," she finishes softly, her eyes burning with how hard she stares at the ledge.

A circle of metal webbing hits the ground, still burning with color around the edges from the Severing spell. Seamus braces himself to jump over the ledge, and gives them a fleeting look. "Follow in right after me. We don't know what's down there."

"Be careful," she tells him, though she doesn't think it's necessary for him to hear this.

He jumps the ledge, narrowly missing the fan blades, and she hears the pang before she notices that he's not gone. He gives a cautious and surprised look to the blade in front of his neck before looking up at them. "Not that deep then."

He's careful to sink to his knees and his head disappears in the darkness before Hermione follows. Her need to be quick for her friends waiting below, and perhaps a lack of stealth, lands her feet on one of the blades instead of through the gap. It bends under her weight and she falls forward, her chest hitting another blade and her arms dangling into the darkness. If she weren't so afraid then she might have been embarrassed, but instead pulls her legs forward and pushes herself back, her feet hitting the vent under her. She lowers herself until she feels it beneath her hands and then crawls forward, deeper into the darkness. She can hear Dean drop down and then start toward them, and begins moving again herself when the breathing in front of her grows more distant.

She checks Seamus's ankles to know which way to move, following in the direction that they point toward. He pauses sometimes, and she knows that he's reaching out, trying to feel the corners in search of the way toward the front of the building. They pass vents to rooms, or corridors, or nothing at all, but there are no lights and just the feel of the bars grinding into her knees.

It feels like it's an hour that they spend trying to crawl as quick and quietly as possible, but it's probably only been minutes. She's worried, and urges Seamus to go faster by pushing on the back of his shoes, but he doesn't. If more Death Eaters showed up on the field and there had only been four of her friends...four of them...just four.

The blackness around them gradually becomes lighter until Seamus's face is lit up. He stops, looking down into the vent, but the conversation below is too soft for her to hear. Hermione has to remind herself to breathe, too afraid the noise of it will alert the people below, and she realizes the major problem with her entry plan. Seamus could fire off curses, but if the Death Eaters heard even a squeak, she and Dean would be blown away as the Death Eaters shot out the ceiling. The thought makes her stop breathing again.

She hopes none of them make a sound. She hopes Seamus thinks about the impossibility of them defending themselves against more than maybe two enemies, and doesn't do anything stupid. They couldn't call for backup, they couldn't protect themselves. Don't be stupid. Don't be a hero. The thought thrusts a memory forward, and she thinks of Draco. Potter's the hero...be smart. Her eyes go wide as her mind pieces together what he might have meant. Because they could call for backup. Lupin would figure it out if she activated the coin with the magical location in Italy. He would have to know. Granted, she would be putting him and whoever else at risk, and they would almost be forced to come into a situation they weren't ready for and that Hermione and them had created, but...

Hermione's thoughts erupt into a consuming blankness in her mind when Seamus shoves his wand through the grate and casts two Stunning spells in quick succession. She stares at him in shock as he whispers another spell viciously under his breath, a mingling of hisses and growls. "Get ready."

Hermione can hear a popping and ripping sound before the vent begins caving under her. She scrambles to pull her feet under her as much as possible, and then the vent gives way, all three of them falling, their bodies unfurling in the air. Seamus lands on top of a table, Dean on his bum, and she hits the ground on the tip of her trainers before crashing to her hands and knees.

She's up on her feet in a second, her bones groaning and knees sagging in protest as her wand swings wildly around the room. It's empty, save for the two young women Seamus had Stunned. She can actually feel Dean's anger mirroring her own as he steps up beside her.

"What the fuck was that?"

"We would have been wandering around for days in that maze. There were only two, was I supposed to alert them to our-"

Hermione sucks in air so hard it comes out as a high-pitched whine. A boy, no older than seventeen, is sitting on a chair in the corner, between a wall and a dresser. His head is lowered, blond fringe falling into eyes that stare into her own with one of the most intense looks of hatred she has ever received. Her mind flashes on serial killers and evil spirits - he looks murderous, his body bound to the chair and only his hands coated to the wrist in blood. He had not been there a second ago, she is sure of it.

"You're the traitor?" Hermione has no idea what Seamus is talking about, and the boy does not reply.

"Leave him," Dean whispers, and there is a stampede of feet coming outside the door, marching closer to the rhythm of her hammering heart. "They might be on their way outside or something. But if someone opens the door, start casting."

"We should cut them off then. That many... Harry and-"

"We'll..." Seamus turns his head toward her and she can only register a look on his face. She doesn't have time to think about what it is because he's suddenly in front of her, his fingers digging into her arms, and spinning both of them with the momentum of his weight. She hears a loud voice that circles her as they spin, but a wall has covered her eardrums, making sound numb.

There is an explosive fear in the color of his eyes and the lines on his face, and then it is gone. Just an absence of emotion as one moment they are drilling into hers and the next they are unfocused. His fingers go completely slack on her arms and he crashes into her with such force that they hit the ground and skid halfway across the room.

She watches his hair blow out from his scalp at her release of breath, the strands that aren't sticking in the sweat at his temple. His body is warm on top of hers, hard at the shoulders and soft at the stomach. His skin is sweaty and hot on his arms, where her hands are squeezing. His hair smells like the shampoo from the hotel they had been at when Justin lost the Portkeys, because the safe houses were usually out of the stuff, he had said. But he also smells of sweat, musk, the dusty inside of the vents, and...and Dark Magic.

Then he is gone, his weight lifted and gone from the shocked gaze she keeps on the ceiling. Dean's face appears above her own and he grabs the top of her arms, hauling her to her feet. Her weight is without support, her legs without strength, and she sinks down. The top of her shoes scrape against the floor and her knees hover, Dean's grip the only thing holding her up. He pulls her up again until her face is level with us, and he's saying something that she can't hear. He is shaking, or she is, and his face is starting to shine in the strange movements of light. Her ears are blocked off, only hearing the whine of silence and distant muffled noise.

She slowly gets her feet under her, and Dean begins to shake her, jerking her body when her eyes drop to the floor, searching. He jerks her harder, back and forth, and her teeth bite down into her tongue. The pain brings back the sound. "...leave me, got it? I need you. Our friends need you. You've got..."

His head turns sharply toward the door and he drops a hand from her to wrap his arm around her waist, stepping around her, and she can feel his chest against her back. His hand comes up to cover her mouth, and she realizes that there's a strange whining coming from her throat. He drags them back and they're both jerked by the small impact of his back meeting the wall. They're both facing the door, Dean's wand pointed out in front of them, and his hand over her mouth clenches and stops her from turning her face down. Turning her face down to the floor, down to Seamus, stops her from seeing.

But she already knows. She knows because of the look in his eyes, because of the way it all went frozen and blank. She knows because he hadn't moved, because he still isn't. Because she has seen death before, and she knows what it looks like the moment it comes, the moment it leaves, and what it leaves behind for them to keep. She knows because when Dean bends his head to whisper in her ear, the wetness on his cheeks are tears. His chest is trembling with them, and his voice hitches, and she thinks he's only holding on because she's so determined to let go.

"Get it together, Hermione. He died so you can live. Don't waste it, do you understand? Don't you dare fucking waste it. I'll kill you if you do. I'll fucking-" Then a gurgle of noise in his throat, and a sob kept trapped in his throat as his body heaved.

He lets her move her head now, and it's when she's searching that she finds the tears obscuring her vision this time. She blinks them down her cheeks to be with the others, and she swallows past the dryness of her throat. Dean must have flip him - he's facing upward, a statue, his face a still-life. Dead. He's dead. Seamus Finnigan gave his life for her, and now he's dead. Her knees go out again, but she catches herself.

That isn't Seamus. It's just some other person. It's some other person. It was that simple. Later, when they all got back to the safe house, they would have to do reports, and someone would write a letter about this man's death. Some little letter, some hand delivery, some broken family who had hoped too much. Some useless explanation about that elusive greater good, and the cause, and that sorrow-filled, duty-bound, world-weight they pumped into sacks of skin and erected as heroes.

Wake up, Hermione, she thinks, but it's in Ron's voice, some memory from too many years ago. Wake up.

Ron is here. Somewhere inside this building that she is inside now too, so very close. Harry, Ginny, Lavender, and Justin are outside, fighting off who knew how many and waiting for them. Dean, trying to hold it together and losing. They all needed her, and they all needed her now. Don't you dare fucking waste it.

Hermione breathes in deep, chokes on saliva and tears, and pries Dean's arm off of her. She can hear it then, people running past the door, a tempo to hurry. hurry. She runs forward and hits her knees at Seamus's side, her breath hitching as the prelude to tears that she forces to be the end. For now. For now because she's not going to fucking waste it.

"You're so stupid," she whispers like a breath. "So stupid, Seamus."

She is so sorry. She feels so incredibly sorry. Just as guilt-ridden as if she had killed him herself. But that is okay, because this isn't really him. This is a dream. It is someone who looks like him. It is just some poor kid who grew up into a war. It is bad timing, a curse, the burden of a generation who never asked for it but did something about it anyway. It certainly isn't Seamus, the person she has known for all these years. It isn't allowed to be.

The ultimate sacrifice so that she might live. There isn't a thing in the world she can do to show how thankful she was, how much she wished he hadn't. Except live, maybe...maybe that. Sorrow, guilt, determination, and anger collide to become a fierce emotion within her. Her hands are shaking and numb when she unties the Phoenix band from his arm, and she bends to kiss his forehead on instinct. Her tears mingle with the drying sweat there, and then she is pulled away, pushed aside. Dean takes the Phoenix band from her fingers, and she notices the violent tremble in his own, the constant heave of his shoulders.

This isn't Seamus. It can't be Seamus, but it is, and there isn't any changing that. She can't change it for anything, but there is still a part of her that is screaming how it couldn't be real. She reaches out a hand, catching cooling fingers between her own, and her thoughts become a chorus of apology. She can barely hear Dean through the bang of her heart and fast thoughts, but she knows he is whispering something. Goodbye, she thinks, or regret.

Dean pulls back, and when he does, the shaking of his shoulders has stopped. He ties the orange band around Seamus' eyes as Hermione places the redhead's hand over the stillness of his heart. Her body is a mess of disbelief and mangled nerves, but she stands to her feet with another emotion, so black and overpowering that it rides over any other emotion inside of her. Revenge. The man that killed Seamus with the curse meant for her is dead, laying on the ground beneath the blown out vent. But she looks at his face, studies it, because she has never had to chance to see the Death Eater that killed any of her friends. Suddenly, the man has killed every one of them. Suddenly, every Death Eater has the same face. There is an animalistic hatred that swelters up along the tissues of her heart. It makes her feel reckless, rubbed raw and violent. She might never step out of this building again, but she was going to fight hard until the end.

"We can't stay in here," Dean whispers when the footsteps start fading from the hall.

Hermione is cut off from replying by a knocking sound, and looks over at the boy in the chair. His head stops hitting the wall when he has their attention and he jerks his head toward the dresser. Hermione stares at him and he does it again, his face impatient.

"I say we tail the crowd. Get as many as we can from behind, as long as there aren't too many to begin with. If we fire off quickly enough, we can take the rest when they notice."

"Let's go."

Hermione gives another fleeting look toward the dresser before following behind Dean, his face blank and body stiff. Shutdown Mode, she calls it sometimes. When there's nothing there but the fighter. He checks both sides before they both take off in the direction the group had went. They follow the sound of feet and yelling as silently as possible, but she doubts any of the Death Eaters can hear them over their own noises. She's reminded that the place is filled with new recruits, which also happens to be the only ones she has encountered. The worst of them had probably left the moment the wards were tampered with and left the new ones to fend off the intruders. It was probably like a final test before training completion - if you lived, you passed.

It makes her even angrier that some training Death Eater was the one to kill Seamus. Seamus could have killed him first, but it would have been after Hermione died herself. He had made the decision in a second. To... She refuses to think about it. She clutches to the anger instead, the fuel of revenge that drives her, that pulled her back from the breakdown.

"You just killed Avot! You just fucking well killed him!" yells someone around the corner, and Hermione and Dean both pull to a stop.

"I didn't know!"

Someone yells the Killing Curse and panic, anger, and shock ring out along the walls. Dean looks at her and she nods, both of them turning the corner at the same time. She casts so quickly that she can actually feel her strength begin to drain. There are eight on the floor by the time the five remaining find them. One steps back and half-turns as if to run before noticing there are only two of his enemies. Hermione sends out a Stunning spell with Dean's Binding charm before they both dart back around the corner. Spells collide with the wall and a chunk is torn out of the corner. Hermione can feel the aftershocks of magic brush across her cheek, and they both turn the corner again at someone yelling out a Reviving charm.

Hermione doesn't even feel the curse that hits her until her body locks. Panic races through her as she tries to move and can't, and there is a sick feeling of invasion within her mind. Kill your- The thought, someone else's thought, rips itself from her mind as Dean yanks her back around the corner.

"F. M. I'm-"

"Hermione."

She turns a horrified look toward Dean, the feeling of being invaded slow to leave. Her most guarded, trusted sanctuary, stolen from her. It was just a second, but long enough to make her feel dirty and sick to her stomach. Her nausea only increased when she sees the blood seeping through Dean's fingers, clenched to his cheek.

"Stitch it."

"St- I'm not very good at..."

Dean moves is hand so only two fingertips are pressed against his cheek, and the other half of the wound folds open, peeling away from his face to reveal tissue and more blood. The darker red, the line of the cut, runs down his face, and she has a feeling that if he were to let it flap open she would see tissue and the inside of his mouth. She hurries, pressing her fingers into his cheek and pulling the skin up to seal it with a healing charm. The scar will probably be thick and jagged later, but neither one of them are worrying about that.

They turn the corner again, all Binding charms this time. The Death Eaters had been busy reviving or cutting binds, and there are now five from the two that had been left before Dean yanked her around the corner, Hermione binds one and aims for the second, the Blocking charm Dean shouts coming too late for the spell that hits her. She can actually hear her bones crunch in her shoulder before she screams out. Inside her head, it's like watching a Bludger smashing into the wall of Hogwarts. Dean drops the block at the sound, and a jet of yellow stabs into her right above the wrist, slicing up her arm and moving over, just reaching her hip when it's gone. She sees a world of red, black, and all senses but the feeling leave her for several seconds. All but the very one she wanted to leave the most.

She has to remind herself to move, and she whips back into the relative safety of the other hall. Dean shouts the Killing Curse before joining her. "Okay?"

His voice comes out strange, like he had just visited the dentist. He's numb, she thinks, his body reacting to the wound on his face. Numbness is something she wishes for now, unable to stop making small injured noises. Her left arm is beginning to numb or just growing used to the stinging burn, she doesn't know. The blood is still flowing out of her arm and hip judging by the pounding sensations there, the trail of liquid, the wetness soaking her jeans.

Dean turns the corner again and she has to reach with her left hand to grab her wand out of the right. She doesn't know if she can even move her right arm, but it isn't something she wants to try. The pain is almost blinding, an eruption of fire inside of her that reminds her of too many bad things.

"Lost surprise. They're coming down the hall, know we're outnumbered. Cast to kill, now," Dean whispers urgently, and Hermione tenses her arm, the pain shooting out like star bursts as they both whip around the corner. The deep smell of Dark Magic burns her nostrils, waters her eyes.

"Avada Kedavra!" They both scream the words, and the magic and strength it takes from her has her knees buckling.

Black edges her vision and she moves her right arm, just enough to send jolts of pain searing up her neck and into her brain, just enough to make her gasp back into alertness. They pull back around the corner again, but there are still six left, all of the ones alive now revived and advancing on them. Her right arm is useless, her arm and hip bleeding so heavily that blood is dripping off her fingers, sliding down her leg, coating her wand. There is no time to stitch it; both she and Dean are leaning against the wall from the energy so much magic and injury has robbed of them, and there are several footsteps hurrying down another hall close by.

This is it. This is where she will die. Dean laughs, bitterly, an ugly sound, and his lips are wet with blood in the sweat at her temple as he kisses her there. "I'll take the left, you take the right?"

Him take the ones they were fighting, her take the ones who were coming. He knew it was over - his kiss was goodbye. Hermione shakes her head, one last plan in her mind. It hadn't worked out so well for her the first time, but at least she survived it. She casts the charm for the smoke, forcing her magic to focus and push out of her wand, and it folds them into dark grey in two seconds. Let them kill each other, she thinks, and knocks her left shoulder into Dean. She slides off her shoes and sticks close to the wall, sliding sideways as the footsteps pause to either side of them. Dean hisses as he trips over her shoes, but she can hear a faint squeak that has her guessing he's taking his off as well.

She bends to pick them up, continuing to creep farther down the hall until the whispers stop from around the corner, footsteps taking their place. She throws her shoe to her left, to the end of the hall, grinding her teeth to keep from crying out at the pain. Yells and colors come to life as it smacks off something far away from them, and Hermione and Dean walk quickly in the opposite direction.

She remembers a door on the other side of the hall and that is where they will hide. In these situations, Hermione does not think herself above hiding - not when there wasn't another choice. She still had to find her friends. They had been waiting so long, and she knows they are still waiting, because she has to believe that. She absolutely has to.

Hermione hisses when Dean's fingers touch the cut on her arm and then travel down, taking the shoe out of her hand. He throws it, another bang against the wall, another slew of spells, and his arm brushes hers as he runs forward. She runs with him, her face screwed up in pain as she tries to hold her arm as still as possible. Her left is still swinging though, and hits against something hard enough for her wand to drop, her grip slippery with her blood and lack of strength.

She turns wide eyes toward the hardness at her side, knowing she is in the middle of an open hall and that Dean has disappeared into the smoke in front of her. A hand presses into the side of her mouth, most of the fingers on her cheek, and it's the dash of orange on the dark figure that has her choking back a startled sound. Another hand reaches up, waving at the smoke as they bend closer, and though her mind is running through how Harry and them managed to get inside, it is Rogers face that appears before her own.

His expression is angry, hers is shocked. He stops waving his hand, holding up a zero, five fingers, then two. He cocks his head and shakes it, questioning, and Hermione thinks she knows enough of what he's asking to raise five fingers, pull them in, and raise one more. Rogers stares at the blood coating her hand and then gives a solid nod, looking up at the dark figures moving slowly around them. All of them have orange bands around their arms. Hermione didn't feel the coin activate, but doesn't care about how at this point.

Rogers' face is swimming before her, and she knows it's not just from the smoke. She knows because there is a haze taking over her mind, an odd drifting feeling in her bones, and not even twitching her shoulder is bringing her back. She's thinking of a way to try and communicate about Harry when Rogers stares too long over her head and turns on his heel, burrowing into the smoke. Hermione stands, swaying on her feet, feeling as if she is in a dream. The numbing pain, the smoke clouding everything, the phantom shadows of people all around her. How often has she dreamed this?

An arm wraps around her waist, gentle, and she jumps, reaching up to push it off as screaming erupts somewhere in front of her. The odd moment of relief at seeing backup has vanished, replaced again with fear. The arm tightens in response, and as she digs her nails into it, bending to pick up her wand, another arm hits the back of her knees. Her scream with the movement of her shoulder as she is picked up only blends into the others, and her voice is raw over the waves of pain. She doesn't even notice the pull of a Portkey until she opens her eyes again, clear air blurred by the tears of her sobbing.

"Fuck, Granger."

This grabs her attention, dragging her from the darkness of agony pulling her under, and she blinks up at the smear of a face and platinum hair. His face. The one she left in the room, that she... It can't matter right now. She blinks rapidly, clearing her vision, and groans at the sway of pain. "Take me back."

"Are you fucking serious?" He looks furious, and she doesn't care. "No wonder Lupin said not to just let you Port-"

"Put her on the bed, Malfoy." Someone behind her head.

"No! No, Harry, Ginny-"

"They're fi-"

"No!"

"We found them under a fucking porch by the front door, alive and fine." He only seems to be growing more angry, and though he's careful to lay her on the bed, she still cries out anyway.

Her head is tilted back and though the taste of the pain relief potion is utterly disgusting, it is sugar to her because it means relief. She breathes in deep, exhales, and when she breathes in again the pain is fading away from her. Her eyes begin to drop in response, but she struggles to stay awake, finding Draco at the side of her bed.

His blue shirt is black with blood down the chest on his right and down his stomach on the left. From her, she thinks, my blood. "Promise?" Because she would never forgive him for lying.

His lips pull thin again, but his knuckles are gentle when they skim over her eyes. It feels physically impossible to open them again. "Potter, Weasley, and Brown are alive."

She falls into her exhaustion.