Thirty-One
Day: 1467; Hour: 6
She wakes up to Lupin beside her bed. He looks like he's contemplating something sinister, his face shadowed with the weak light of the candle at her bedside. When he finds her awake a dozen emotions pass across his features, though she doesn't know which ones are real and what the flickers of light have put there. Dawn is breaking through the high windows that mark the makeshift infirmary at Malfoy Manor. Her shoulder is sore and stiff when she tests it, but most of the pain is gone. She can feel the stickiness of potions on her hip and arm, the scratch of bandages, but she knows they are on their way to healing as well.
The memories are sharp, fast, and they hurt. "Where is Justin?"
She coughs through the dryness of her throat, and Lupin waits before answering. "I'm sorry."
Hermione lets her head fall back against the pillows, breathing out through her teeth and closing her eyes against the tears. "God."
"Brown has lost an arm. We would have grown it back, but she waited too long, and there's nothing we can do now. She refused to leave Harry and Ginny. They didn't know about Finnigan, so I'm guessing that you do."
She nods, the tears escaping the tightness of her eyelids, and she has to swallow five times to be able to speak through the thick, burning knot. "The rest are okay, though? Dean?"
"Everyone else is fine, recovering. Dean's going to have a bad scar on his face, and another across his stomach. Another five minutes and he would have died - the curse to his stomach nicked one of his organs. He-"
"But he's okay?" Justin, Seamus, Justin. Justin, oh God, he was going to be a father. He was nervous, and scared, and rambling with his stupid grin, and he was going to be a great dad.
"He's okay - I can't say how any of you are holding up mentally, though. It was very stupid, what you did. If Malfoy hadn't come to the Manor and then tracked me down in the middle of another mission, you would all be dead."
She almost can't grasp it through the dizzy spin of her head, through all that pressure of the war sitting on her chest, through the image of Justin in their youth, with his school tie and arms full of books. Would he have a son? Would his child know anything about the man, the great man his father was, and what he gave, and what it was supposed to mean? Ust had hardly even known him - how was his child supposed to? How was his child ever supposed to comprehend how deep the injustice of this war went? It stole him from that baby, from her, from them, from the world.
"Draco told you?" she chokes out, lifting her palm to her forehead, shaking under her thin hospital sheet.
Draco, don't be stupid, the nervous wringing of Justin's hands, Seamus all full of life to the brim of his skin and then gone.
"From what I understand, he stayed at the Manor for about twenty minutes, holding the coin in his hand. Minerva told me he seemed to be waiting for something, but refused to say anything. He caved when none of you activated the coin, I'm guessing. Minerva and Malfoy tracked me down to see if I knew where you had all went. As soon as I saw Malfoy across the street, I already knew. I should have known when I saw Harry after the interrogation. Should have known you two well enough."
"Is... Did we-"
"We found Ron. He's at Mungo's. He's alive."
The emotions become too much, and they take complete control over her. Suddenly, she is sobbing, shaking, a mess, and she doesn't care. She has waited too long to do this, holding off and burying it within her. It wins now, owning her, and she needs it to. But there is still some sort of strange, disgusting shame that makes the edges of her grief so much sharper. You weren't supposed to break down in war. You were supposed to be stronger than a human being could possibly be. You were supposed to get used to this, to take death and loss as naturally as breath, and it was supposed to get easier. It wasn't allowed to hurt. This. Badly.
There was a tragic burning to her gut and her heart, and these shocks of hope and relief that only made it all feel so much worse. There were dark, horrible thoughts that screamed from the back of her mind about sacrifice, consequences, and worth, and they came with bitterness and guilt. They came at the edge of a storm that had her sobbing so hard that she couldn't breathe, leaving her in a state of silent, violent shaking.
She pushed her hand under her pillow, curling it over her face, trying to hide from too many things. Lupin's hand touched down on her arm, and she pulled away from it, pulled into herself, and was lost.
Day: 1467; Hour: 14
Harry hugs her, careful of her shoulder and her arm in the sling. She hated wearing the thing, but they told her she had to keep movement to a minimum. "That scar is pretty terrible."
She looks down at the rough line halfway up her left arm. She found another, shorter, on her hip. The one on her arm is the ugliest one she has, and she hates it, but keeps it anyway. It reminds of Seamus, of her ability to still scar. "Thanks, Harry."
He smiles, disarming and boyish, and it forces her to smile back, but it gets stuck in a meaningless position on her face. She searches his eyes for things that she needs in this moment, but she only finds one, and it isn't enough. She wanted some sign of understanding, of grief, of knowing by the feel of it how much this cost them.
They died for Ron. They died for her. They died for Harry.
"Are you okay?" he asks in the way that says he knows she isn't.
His chin bobs down a little, trying to catch her eyes as they lower, but she doesn't give in. "No."
"I... I know, with... I never wanted anyone to die, Hermione. I-"
"I didn't say you did, Harry. I just-"
"It was the only way. If we could have all made it out alive, I-" We could have waited just a little while, we could have gotten a bigger team, we could have activated the coin, we could have not split up, we could have...
"He was going to be a dad."
"What?"
"Justin." She looked up at the ceiling through the blur, sniffed, shook her head like no, don't believe this, I'm not really crying again. "He'll never know I was right. He'll never..." Anything. He'll never anything.
Harry grabbed the top of her arm with gentle fingers, and she wanted to flinch away from it. Just at first, just off instinct, and she was angry with herself. He would have taken it as blame, and he doesn't deserve that. Not from her. They had all agreed. They knew the cost, the risk, and they had all agreed. Why had they agreed, why had they-
"I know," Harry whispers, and he pulls her into him, the hand sliding to wrap an arm around her shoulders. "If I could have saved him... If I could save all of them. But I can't. None of us can, so we have to settle for what we do save. And we saved Ron, Hermione. We saved him, and now he's here. Our Ron. Don't... It wasn't your choice. It wasn't like you decided for them. And-"
"It doesn't make me feel-"
"There wasn't anything else we could do. If we would have waited, Ron could have been dead, or-"
"But now Seamus and Justin are." Harry stiffens against her, gone from warmth or anything soft. "Dean is scarred for life, lost his best friend. Lavender lost an arm. Seamus and Justin are dead. Dead, dead, dead. They are-"
"Hermi-"
"What is one life compared to two others? What-"
"Herm-" Harry snaps back from her, and she only meets his eyes for a second, just long enough to see the accusation and shock.
"We made that decision, Harry! You, me, Ginny. Seamus, yes, fine, maybe, though he ended up dying for me. And Justin? He was hardly on speaking terms with Ron, ever. He didn't die for Ron, Harry! So who did he die for? Us? Because we needed all the help we could get, and you..."
She stops herself, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, trying to stop all those dark thoughts from coming out. She has no control. She is overloaded with a hundred different emotions that stretch out all space inside of her until she is bursting, and breaking, and ripping apart.
And Harry sounds like he is there too, because his voice is so heavy and tight, like he's speaking around the knife she just shoved in his chest. "And I what?"
She wouldn't blame him. She would take every ounce of it first, because he gave himself too much already. If this, inside of her now, was what he had carried for so long... "And you know that I love Ron. That it wouldn't take me a second to give my life for his. But I just wish it had been me, and-"
"What? Are you fuc-"
"And not them! I feel like I didn't win this. Like I don't have the right to look at Ron, because it wasn't me who-"
"Hermione," he whispers, and the fear in his tone makes her look, makes her pull herself back together in a disorganized mess of feeling and body. His eyes are wide, green sparks against a pale face. "After all these years that you've told me not to blame myself for things I could not control, and now you're doing it. Justin, Seamus - as much as it hurts, they made their choice to go. We all knew what could happen. They knew they didn't have to. They died for what they believe in, even if it isn't fair, or-"
"They all die, Harry." She sounds broken, and maybe she was. Maybe she can't keep pretending anymore, just for now. "Everyone I love, everyone I grow to care about... It just keeps taking, and taking from me. And I hardly have anything left to give. But all that is left, if it takes those too, I-"
"You can't think like that. Hermione, you can't. I'm here, Ron is here. Ginny, Molly, Arthur-"
"I know." And she can see that his eyes are wet, that he might be trying to convince himself as much as her. She thinks that maybe he is better at hiding guilt, at knowing the crushing pressure within his chest. She thinks he might lose it too, and that she can't be the one to push him there.
His hands close around her arms and he shakes her a little, squeezes too hard. "We're going to be alright. It's the three of us now. We're going to make it out of this war, I prom-"
"Don't." She closes her eyes, because she can't even stomach the thought of him finishing that.
"You can't do this. Death Eaters did this to them. They killed Seamus and Justin. It wasn't us, it wasn't their choices, it was our enemies. You can't forget that. You know that. You're so smart, Hermione, and-"
"Okay." But it really meant shut up, shut up.
His fingers release, tighten. "We have to hold on to what we have. We have to. Alright?"
She meets his eyes again, pressing her palm hard into her chest, and Harry stares back so intensely that she drops her eyes again. "Okay."
"Alright. Good. You'll see," he mutters, taking her arm to start tugging her down the hallway again. "I'll show you. Ron is still knocked out. They don't think he'll wake until tomorrow. They're healing him up, giving him nutrients. Come on."
She thinks she has cried enough, that her overwhelming sense of grief should have been so large inside of her that it buffered the edges of her need to express it. She feels numb in a lot of ways, but here now, it is not the sadness that makes her cry. Ron's hand is hard and warm enclosed in hers, his face almost serene, his pulse steady. She hadn't admitted to it, but she had feared the worst for a long time. But Ron is alive, so beautifully alive, and Harry's arm is wrapped around her shoulders, his chin at the top of her head, and his pulse beating hard against her temple.
Somehow, it didn't make sense at all. Somehow, the three of them had made it.
Day: 1467; Hour: 18
She passes Draco on the staircase. He doesn't even pause.
Day: 1468; Hour: 15
Three boxes and a trunk. She kneels on the floor, staring up at them as if she has collapsed upon the alter. Forgiveness, sanctuary, or salvation - she doesn't know what she is praying for. An entire life, more than two decades of it, and all his earthly possessions fit into just three boxes.
It doesn't seem fair, or right. There should be an island for what he left behind. The entire world should have stopped and recognized what they lost. This had been a life, a human soul, a good man. This had been Justin. How is it possible that all the space he takes up in this world is three boxes? That his entire life could be so stripped down? How did he not just take up the sky?
It feels cruel. It feels as cruel as it did when she had walked into Neville's room, and found the religious book on the dresser. The ribbon had marked his last spot at a chapter titled The Judgment Seat, and she had felt it then. Her anger at God, at the world, at herself, at everything.
Three boxes.
Day: 1469; Hour: 14
She buries herself inside the darkness of a room for two days. Her grief and guilt is so overpowering, she fears she will never come back from it.
Day: 1469; Hour: 17
They bury Seamus in Ireland, under a bright sun, within the rolls of green hills. Harry is a steady force against her side, filled with his own guilt, and she and Dean stare at one another over the coffin. Seamus' family sway in their sorrow, and the cries only get louder when the bagpipes begin a mournful song. Hermione stares at Seamus' mum, willing her to look up, and at her. To blame her, to yell, to hate her.
The Order and the Ministry never told the families exactly how a person died. They never told them the situation, the mission. Hermione had told the woman anyway, with a whisper across her ashen cheek. 'Seamus is a hero. He died saving my life', and she had had waited for the blows, the hatred, but there had been something worse. An embrace, her body held tightly to the older woman's, and sobbing in her ear. Hermione had nearly exploded under the collision of her guilt, sadness, and regret.
She speaks to him inside her head. She tries to tell him how thankful she is, but words are useless. She had always known the power of words in her life. The ones that she gained her knowledge from, ones that could make her laugh, cry, build her up and tear her apart. Words were powerful things. But there is not a word, not a string of them, not books of them, that could convey her deepest gratitude, her fiercest debt, her heavy sorrow, or her echoing regret.
Day: 1469; Hour: 23
"I don't think you ever stop wishing for a different moment."
"What?" Harry is smiling, she can tell by his voice, but when she glances over it is gone.
"Whenever anyone dies, I always think about the last moment I saw them. I think of that first. Every time, it's not good enough. I think...I should have said 'I love you', 'thank you', I should have told them how much I cared. I should have laughed more with them, and hugged them."
"It's not like we could have known... I mean..." Harry trails off and shrugs his shoulders.
"I know that. Most times we don't know that the last time is goodbye. So when it is, every time I think about how I'm going to stop getting caught up in all these stupid things that don't matter. How I'm going to enjoy my life and the people I love...but I forget. Out of all the things I remember, I hate how I forget that most of all."
He taps his fingers on the wall, and she looks away from the picture of a Gryffindor celebration at the noise. "It's too morbid to actively think that every time we see someone it might be the last time. I don't think we could survive the mentality of that."
"I don't know which one is worse, Harry. I-"
"The last time we see anyone isn't ever going to be good enough. No matter what happened, it doesn't change the fact that they died after that. It's never good enough, Hermione."
"Yes, but... I just wish it was different." Hermione pauses, pinching her nose at the physical reaction to her thoughts. "I keep seeing them. I keep seeing Justin staring up at me from the ground, looking just as scared then as when he told me he was going to be a father. Now he'll never have a chance to know how amazing he-"
"Hermione-"
"Neville, with those stupid pants on and-"
"Hey-"
"Seamus. Every time I close my eyes, I see Seamus. He died...in my arms, and for my life. People have risked their lives for me, have killed for me, but Seamus didn't die for what we were fighting for...he died for me, Harry! For me. And I..." Hermione swallows, chokes back, squeezes her lips together and waves her hand as if to ward off the things that make her unable to speak. "I have never, ever felt so guilty in all my life. I fought with him, I betrayed him, I didn't pretend to understand. I didn't hug him, I didn't thank him for coming back, I-"
"Hermione, please, you can't-"
"I did nothing. I didn't even give him forgiveness. What kind of person does that make me, Harry? What kind of person have I become, that-"
"Oh, Hermione, come on. Don't do this-"
"It's war, and I should have known better. I should have told him that he was a friend, that I cared about him, and not make him feel...feel... He gave his life for mine. Why would he do such a stupid thing? And I love life, and I've fought hard for my life, but every day I wish he hadn't. I really, really wish-"
"Shut up," Harry whispers, shakes his head, and pulls her against him. She fights his grip but he just holds her tighter, and he's speaking against her hair but she doesn't hear a word.
He's shaking too, because he gets it. Because Harry Potter knows what it's like for people to die to save his life. Because he was the one who asked them to go, because people forfeited their survival for him to kill Voldemort. Because maybe he sees Fred taking the death meant for Harry every time he holds Ginny through her grief. Every time he looks at a Weasley, or sits across from the empty spot at their dining table, and he remembers.
Because Harry knows that immeasurable guilt just as deep, painful, and consuming as she does now. There is no place they can put it and trap it away. It does not fit into some vault marked 'War' within their minds. It is in their bones, it is a heaviness to their breath, it is a coating along their veins.
Day: 1471; Hour: 11
"It was so gross, you have no idea." Lavender pulls a disgusted face, Hermione pulls her lips back from her teeth at the imagined pain, and Harold stops grinning. "You know, in the Muggle world, you donate blood... I always thought that was a little weird, giving up something so personal of yours, you know?"
"Well, it's to help people who-"
"I know that," Lavender rushed, waving her only hand. "But I think if it wasn't for the pain and the situation... I mean, you have no idea what it was like to leave my arm on the ground. To see this part of my body, that I've had and know, and just leave it laying there like a shoe, or something."
"She kept it."
"What?" Hermione thinks she might look more disgusted than Lavender had.
"Well, one day I'll die...of old age," Lavender reaches for the bedside table to knock on it, "and I want to be buried with my arm. It's preserved in my own locker here."
Hermione blinks at her until she realizes she's supposed to talk now. "Well, that's...great, Lav."
"It's a little weird, I know, but it's mine. I'm not going to come and visit it or anything." Lavender laughs, and Hermione can't help but join her.
"It was very brave, what you did."
Lavender shrugs, her eyes dropping toward the sheets. "I know people think a lot of things about me. But I would rather lose my arm than lose my friends."
"I don't think anyone will ever doubt that now." Harold grins and brushes a thumb across her temple before heading toward the loo.
"Why..." Hermione starts, examining the hospital sheet before running a hand over it. "Why were you guys hiding under the porch?"
"We were waiting for you guys to get to the door. It was the only bit of protection we had while we waited. We were able to take out Death Eaters as they came out - surprised them, then we came out and took care of who was left. There were only three of us. If we stayed out in-"
"The open, you would..."
"Yeah." Silence reigns and Hermione stops searching for something to say at the nervous pull of Lavender's fingers on her hand. "Hey, 'Mione... I know it's kind of ugly, this whole...circus, one arm thing-"
"What? Lavender-"
"No, it's... Well, Harold will lie, because he loves me. But... Do I... Am I pretty? I mean-"
"Lav," Hermione huffs a laugh and pushes the other woman in the knee. "You're beautiful."
Hermione keeps smiling, despite the tears brimming in Lavender's eyes, because she's pretty sure she needs to. "Really? I'm not a sideshow?"
"No! Your hair can get there sometimes, but-" Hermione's grasping, reaching, hoping she'll take it.
"Mine?" Lavender begins laughing hysterically, and Hermione grins, happy to be the joke, if only this time.
Day: 1472; Hour: 8
Lupin closes the folder, thick with simple parchments that outlined the hardest years of her life. "You don't give me much of a choice."
"I know."
"We can't afford to suspend you now. You're in good health, you...usually know what you're doing. Don't ask me what the hell you were thinking this time. All of you would have been dead. Some of you would have been lucky to get it early. You would have been forced to give up information, and you would have given the location of safe houses, plans-"
"I know, and-"
"You obviously don't, or care much for the lives of our people and the chances of our side to-"
"Are you kidding me? Lup-"
"You put everything at risk! The amount of intelligence all of you held, do you have any idea the damage you would have inflicted? It wasn't bravery to go marching in there for Ron, it was stupidity! We could have lost everything!"
Hermione breathes out quickly, gaping at the red face across from her. She hadn't thought of it at all. She had only thought about her life and the lives of her friends going in. She had only thought she was protecting the others by not calling them in.
"You then put us in a situation where we had to go in to save the lives of those who seemed to value ours so little. We had no plan, a flimsy map, and no-"
"Lupin, I am sorry, but I value-"
"Apologies don't work with this, Hermione. You screwed up. Yes, we retrieved Ron and other prisoners. Yes, we received information. But people died that might have survived, and things could have gone so easily in a different direction. This could have been more disastrous than you can imagine. You better thank Merlin for Draco Malfoy, or all of you would have been dead, and we could have lost any advantage to winning this war."
Hermione turns her shamed face toward the ground, her face red with anger at herself. At times she forgets the severity of consequences beyond immediate death. She forgets that she is not trapped inside a bubble of war, but that the war is everything. She has never really contemplated the idea that all of them are much more than soldiers, but can change things, for good or worse. It is easy to get stuck in the routine of missions and battles, to feel like just a small piece of the ultimate picture.
She had been thinking about Ron, and of the friends who went with her. She isn't sure if she has ever felt as selfish as she does now. "I can't promise it won't ever happen again. But if it does, you can take my wand for life, because it will have to mean that much to me. I'm sorry, Lupin - we did what we thought was the only thing we could."
He stares at her for a long moment, and she hopes he gets it. Hopes he understands just how much he dug into her. "Upon notification, you will be suspended from any Order duties, and will be put on magical probation for six months. Meaning that you will not be able to use any magic, whatsoever, unless you're in a life threatening situation. Until then, every team you go on a mission with will be ordered to report any rules or codes you break. If you even attempt to do something like this again-"
"I won't."
Lupin exhales heavily from his nostrils, and slides her folder off the desk. "Then report to D-nine."
She closes the door to Lupin's head in his hand.
Day: 1472; Hour: 17
He doesn't look at her once, though she never takes her eyes off of him. After everything, she needed this to be easy, but she knows he won't give it to her. He looks relaxed, leaning back in the chair with his legs sprawled out, but she can see the stiffness in the line of his shoulders. She doesn't know if it's because of her, the mission, or anything at all.
There's a glass of liquor next to his notebook on the table, a single sip left at the bottom. There was a bottle on the end table that was half-empty, the label ripped from it and the top uncapped. She isn't sure how much of it he has drank tonight, but judging by the red across his cheekbones, it is probably the exact wrong or the exact right time to talk to him.
Hermione waits impatiently while he answers questions about the mission, the room clearing of those more seasoned - the ones who came in, got the job done, and left. The new ones - the ones who didn't understand, the ones who were scared - took the longest to leave. She isn't even sure if he's fully aware that she's there until the last person disappears down the hall and his gaze automatically swings to her. His face is a statue; beautiful, yet blank.
"You're angry."
"Are you trying to decide my moods for me?" She almost didn't expect him to speak. "I assure you, I'm-"
"Draco."
She didn't mean to sound so desperate, but it makes him pause. She just needed this to be simple, just this once. For it to make sense in a way that wasn't so complicated. He studies her for a moment, and she watches his tongue edge his teeth and press into his cheek.
"I'm surprised you're not upset."
That he told, he means. At least she hopes that's what he means. "I... Should I be?"
He smirks, shrugs a shoulder. "I would have been."
"Surprise, surprise," she mutters.
"What?"
"Maybe I should thank you." He glares because he knows it's not what she said.
"Is it necessary?"
"Yes. Thank you. You saved our lives."
"Well, I'm sure Potter will just ride back in and send you on another suicide mission. He seems to like those where you're concerned."
Hermione blinks at him and shakes her head. "What?"
"If it weren't for the fact that they could have gotten information from all of you, and that when you failed they would have left and we would have lost our chance...going to assist would have been pointless."
It stings, no matter how much she doesn't want it to. "Draco-"
"I've seen you fight for your life. But the moment Potter shows up and tells you there are things worth sacrificing it for, you have so little regard. You knew you didn't stand a fucking chance, so what was it? Dying next to Harry in some heroic battle, was it all too fitting for you? Was it some beautiful moment in your head? Was it better than you thought it could be? You in a hallway, Potter under a porch, Weasley in a cell. So far ap-"
"Shut up. You have no idea what you're on about. I-" Hermione jabs her finger into the air and he's on his feet now.
"Did it make up for the Graveyard? Was it the fact that he finally needed you? That-"
She cuts him off when she throws a pillow at his head, but it's not damaging enough to feel fulfilling. "Screw you, Draco Malfoy! I was trying to save Ron! I would have done the same for any of my friends! I would have done it even if Harry wasn't there to ask! It has nothing to do with that, and don't try to blame him. This was my choice, and I wouldn't take it back for a second! We have Ron, and-"
"And you wouldn't have shit if it hadn't been for-"
"I said thank you!"
"I don't want your-"
"What do you want? Huh, Draco? What do you want from me? I made the best choice I could-"
"To die?"
"To save Ron! I would have asked you to come, but I didn't want to force you into being a part of the situation at all. You have to know that. I-"
"Why?"
"Because there would have been a lot of repercussions for you. Ev-"
"Why do I have to know that," he states, the question already asked.
She is silent for awhile, both of them staring. Was he asking her to confess something? To state where she was at in this? Or was he trying to make her feel uncomfortable or odd for feeling like she owed it to him to explain, because he might be worth an explanation to her? She is so sick of the guessing game.
"I don't know," because it can be his turn to guess. "Why didn't you stop me? If-"
"What?" He sounds as if she had just told him he was on fire.
"You knew-" She stops when his face turns into a livid storm of rage.
He grabs her by the shirt and steps forward at the same time, her body hitting him like a wall. He bends his face toward her, the vein swelling up against his temple, his face red and his eyes like razors. "Don't you dare imply for a second that you gave me a choice in the matter. That choice was all yours, and I did the only thing I could. All you did was demand I watch you walk away. To let you die."
"I didn't-"
"You did," he hisses. "You looked like a child, wandless, standing in front of Voldemort when you left. And you just expected me to, to- You made me- And now you blame me?"
She winces as he yells the last part, his hand flying away from her like she brought disease. "I don't blame you! I'm sorry I... I said thank you! It's not what I meant! I didn't mean you should have stopped me, I know I didn't give you a choice. I meant... If you were going to go to... Why did you go to Lupin? Why did you get back-"
"Why the fuck do you think?" he yells, and flings his arms out. His knuckles hit the lamp and it falls, but doesn't shatter. It's as if the space between his arms gives her all the answers she needs, but it's just blank and empty, and she doesn't understand.
She exhales, clenches her jaw and shakes her head. Everything is falling apart. "This is too hard."
She can just see the confusion ghost across his face before she's walking away.
Day: 1473; Hour: 12
The sky opens with a scream. There may have been a moment between the downpour and the furious crack of shaking thunder, but she doesn't notice it. It feels as if the house moves from the impact of the noise, and there's a strain in her neck from snapping it toward the window.
It is the only roll of thunder that comes through the storm. She watches the rain for an hour, and everything else is still.
Day: 1473; Hour: 15
The sky is just blue, nearly white against black bark and shades of green. There's a bird feeder, oddly, hanging by wires from a branch, empty save the clumps in the column that moisture had formed. Birds are fickle on the branches, and the raindrops from the storm hours ago slowly drip down from the top of the massive trees. They set the leaves flickering, and noises she shouldn't be so afraid of sound off around her as the water hits various things.
She always loves to listen to the rain through open windows, and to watch the world rage inside the storm. It is different now, near dusk, with mud caked up her legs and her body shaking, soaked from the heavy storm and now dealing with the cold wind. She listens to the sounds around her, trying to adjust to what is nature so she will know well enough when it isn't. The last thing she needs is to waste her time firing off at raindrops.
She spots a bird through the foliage, flying far against the white-blue. In the distance there is fog that layers the hill the woods sit upon, and it creeps closer as they hustle forward. They sound like an approaching storm: the shuffle of fabric, the rustling of leaves, the smack and squelches of feet meeting mud, the snaps of twigs, the creek of moving branches, the rushes of oxygen to the lungs. The sounds become synchronized, playing like some ancient rhythm against a growing flood, building with the burn in her thighs.
Dean runs at her side, and every time she looks at him she sees the scar from her shoddy healing. In time she'll get used to it, but now it only makes her think of Seamus, of Dean bringing her back from the edge, and the two of them in a hallway with no hope. She wants to hug him fiercely every time she sees him. Do you remember when we were absolutely sure we would die together, when we were alone and there was nothing else to hold on to? Do you remember? Though she knows that he won't ever forget, and that she won't either. She had been in a lot of dangerous situations, and had been close to death herself. Seconds from it, even. A centimeter.
But there was something different about that day. She had said goodbye to him and to life that minute in the hallway, and it came close to being the last thing she ever lived. That was something that would draw her toward him for the rest of her life, even if they became strangers one day. It was something that would make her feel the need to hug him each time she saw him, and smile, and say we are alive, you know.
The end of the forest is sudden, and she has to grab a tree to keep herself from running right over the edge of the hill. The tree is young, her fingers nearly meeting her thumb around it, and the wood splinters just as her feet stop sliding in the mud. Her momentum sprayed mud up her clothes but she doesn't notice, jerking her hand away from the tree as an Auror grabs it and it finally snaps. He skids over the side, his back meeting the sharp incline of the hill with a grunt. There are three other team members standing at the bottom, mud-caked and confused.
"When the hell did we cross into the Muggle world?" Dean is panting for breath with the rest of them, his hand coming up to rest on her shoulder as he peers over the hill. As if she could hold them both up if he slipped or something.
Hermione glances at Draco who is too busy yanking the map out of his pocket to answer any questions. There is a chorus of obnoxious honking below them, and she looks down to see a car swerving in a puddle. The four that had fallen down are trying to climb back up, but the hill was too steep and the mud too slick. There is a highway in front of them, and a primary school on the other side. The highway disappears into woods on her left, and a market is at the bottom of the hill on her right. Further along she can just make out the sign of a restaurant. There is no house or building, no ominous structure tucked away in the woods.
She slides her wand back into the holster under her arm. She used to wear it at her hip until an empty day in a safe house had her trying on Draco's and she realized she was quicker that way. It only took her one time of freaking out and thinking she lost her wand, Lavender laughing hysterically at her, before she got used to the new placement. She can't wait for the day when she'll never again have to stand at one end of a hallway and see how fast she can pull her wand and blow a pot off an end table on the other side. When this was over she wasn't going to wear a holster again. Some days she would leave her wand at home - just because she could.
She was going to have to go without magic anyway, for six months at least. Harry, Dean, Angelina and Ginny would have to for three. Lavender had gotten six months, it being their second infraction together. They wouldn't but them on probation until after the war, but it will be a long time before any of them leave the house without their wand anyway. Hermione thought she might stay with her parents then, but it felt like hiding still, even if the war would be over. She doesn't know anything beyond tonight. Maybe, after the war, she would just stop caring. Maybe whatever happened she would let happen.
"Who the fuck drew this map?" Draco snaps, and the paper doesn't stand a chance as he crunches it into a ball in his fist.
"Pee and pee," a young girl mutters somewhere behind her, timid from Draco's tone and her first mission as a Phoenix. Hermione can't remember whose daughter she is, or even her name.
"Bloody fucking fantastic," he snarls in reply, throwing the ball of a map to his feet. Hermione gives him a look for littering but doesn't say anything, because she's been down that road too many times.
This is the first time Draco conceded in letting P&P help in any mission he ran. They were started up a year ago for Aurors who weren't capable of fighting because of injuries, as well as people who found they weren't capable of participating in any battles. Cho Chang works there now, after losing her fingers. Planning and Preparation drew up maps for the locations, gave lists of available soldiers for the mission leaders, and came up with plans for every mission, among other things. The final say was always up to the mission leader, who could use nothing or everything P&P supplied.
She doesn't think Draco will be using them again.
"There's bound to be a GPS system in one of those cars down there. We can figure out where we are, map the coordinates to the ones where we're supposed to be." Dean looks at Draco, who obviously doesn't know what the other man is talking about and looks to be deciding if he wants to admit it or not.
"You're talking about breaking into a car?" Hermione can't help the slightly scandalized tone of her voice, or the purse of her lips as she raises her eyebrows at him.
"Do you have a better idea?"
Magic was something they couldn't use in case the location was close and the Death Eaters were monitoring. The fact that it was the Muggle world meant that nothing was hidden as Grimmauld was, because the Death Eaters wouldn't risk using magic, let alone just to enter a house. Time is something they never have enough of, and if the place wasn't already abandoned, it was bound to be soon enough. Running back to the Apparition point, making a new map, and then getting to the new location would take hours they didn't have.
"It's illegal-"
"For fuck sake Granger, now isn't the time to be the model of morality. Yo-"
"But," she cuts Draco off with a scathing look, "as long as we don't hurt anyone, it's the best we have got."
"Do you know how to work a GPS?" Dean asks, drawing her attention away from Draco as he grabs her elbow, leading her to the edge of the hill.
"I'll figure it out."
"I was hoping you would say that." She can hear the grin in his voice as she tentatively searches for some decent holding under her foot. I don't blame you, she tries to think it says. I don't blame you.
She finds some purchase on a rock, but the second after she brings her other foot down it gives way. She lets out a squeak, her elbow banging off something hard as she falls on her side, her weight and gravity dragging her down the hill. She flips onto her back, mud spraying up where her heels dig into the ground, and weeds sting her fingers as she grasps for something to stop the momentum. Her feet hit the ground below with a jolt and she buckles, falling forward on her knees. She can hear the curses, yelps, and drags of bodies above her and she knows Draco, Dean, and the girl met the same fate.
The four team members stare at her as she spits mud from her mouth and looks down at herself. Besides a streak of clean from her collarbone to her knee on her right side she is either splattered or covered. Dean is the least messy when he hits the bottom, having slid down on his feet and a hand, but he's clenching grass that is more red than green.
"There's a market..." Hermione trails off as Draco and the girl start trudging in that direction. Draco seems unaffected by the mud bath he just took until he begins to walk, and she can tell by the squelching that a layer of mud got into his boots.
One of the Aurors glares at the cars as they whiz past, spraying water up. Hermione takes a puddle to the face and her shaking doubles in the cold. She imagines they look like quite a group, eight people in cloaks and covered in mud marching along the highway at twilight. Draco walks with a purpose, as if the person who drew the map is waiting in the parking lot. Hermione has to stop herself from fidgeting with nerves.
She isn't sure if people are going to get too curious about the strange group of people on the highway, all of them wearing colored bands around their arms and their faces set in grim lines. They look like a cult, and when they started looking into car windows people were going to get anxious. They stuck out like a stain on a white carpet, and she would like to remind them that Muggles carried the Killing Curse and Cruciatus in metal bullets.
The mud is drying on the side of her face, making her skin itchy, and her tone is irritated when she speaks. "Does anyone know how to break into a car without using magic?"
Dean falters in his step, the girl continues flailing her arms to try and get the mud to come off, and the other team members glance at her with no idea what she's talking about. The girl looks up at her, cold, confused, and scared. "They keep them locked?"
"Trust me, we're not the first ones who ever thought about breaking into a car." Dean grins at her, but it fades as her eyes stay locked on his scar.
"I'm going to ask," Hermione cuts in, before Dean or the girl feel more awkward or Draco's head blows off his neck.
"What?" Draco asks this in a way that would have most people pretending they didn't say anything, let alone repeating it.
"I'm going to ask," because she's not afraid of him, not usually.
"And how could you possibly think that's the smart thing to do?"
"Some people are nice people," she says this very slowly, and watches his shoulders pull tighter and his fists clench.
"You're going to walk in there like that, and someone is going to let you into their automobile to find the location to some random coordinates?" Draco sounds incredulous, and two Aurors snort. She glares at all of them.
"Watch me."
"Bullshit I will. If no one agrees, which they won't, we'll be screwed on getting to the GBS-"
"GPS."
"I don't give a shit. We're-"
"Draco, no one knows how to break into a car without magic. There are car alarms to consider if we so much as lean against it, and-"
"There-"
"There's a restaurant up the road more. If no one will help me, we'll go there and try...it your way." She was going to ramble on about how much his plan sucked compared to hers, but changed her mind. There is pride to consider, he's already angry, and it would set him off if it was just the two of them let alone the rest of the team that he is leading.
He squelched his way into the parking lot, stopped for a breath, and then turns to face her. He's eying her critically, and raises an eyebrow when she raises her nose into the air. "Go, Granger."
He's giving her an appeasing look, and there is an air of cockiness to the tilt of his head, as if he is sure she will fail. Like he was about to let life teach her a big lesson since she refused to learn it from him. Dean gives her a smile and the rest of the team stares at her like this entire failed plan has been her fault.
She takes her cloak off and Draco is reaching for it before she even holds it out to him. He stares at the fabric for a moment and then raises his eyes to hers to give her a look, taking it with his other hand. She's confused for three seconds until she sees the piece of paper in his hand when he waves it, and his fingers are ice cold as she takes it. She begins to turn but stops with a jerk, looking over her shoulder as the blond removes his finger from under her holster. She takes it off and hands it to him with a blush. "Go...over there. The side of the building."
She marches up to the doors of the building, shaking harder when the doors open and blast her with cold air. She's careful not to blotch the numbers out with the dirt on her fingers, holding the scrap of paper at the very corner. The cashier at the ten-items-or-less desk blinks slowly at her, and tries not to look like she's staring.
"Hey there." Hermione smiles at her. Hey there? Hey there? When in her life has she ever said hey there?
"Hullo," the other woman greets, and stretches her lips into something like a smile.
Hermione takes a deep breath, trying not to let her big brain rule her nerves. She was always under the impression that people could see right through her when she lied. She sneaked out of her window when she was ten to meet up with her friends at a cemetery, like in a movie they had watched. The next morning her father asked her how she slept, and he smiled when she said "fine". Before he had even fully turned around to flip the eggs she had convinced herself that the way in which he turned meant he knew everything, and she blabbed it all until she was red in the face.
"I have a serious problem." By the way the other woman suddenly looked nervous, this wasn't the best way to start. "I've been on this sort of...search and find thing. See, my boyfriend Dra- Kuh, Henry...Drake Henry, thought it would be this really romantic thing to send me around to all these different places and find clues to find him. And it is this really romantic thing, don't get me wrong, Henry is very romantic. It started out all sweet..." Hermione pauses, her face flaming despite her coldness.
She's rambling now. She's a rambling, muddy mess of a mad person, and this woman is probably three seconds away from calling the police. Hermione watches her fingers pull under and into a fist against the counter, like she is getting ready to attack her or something. Hermione couldn't deal with Draco's face if this went wrong. She might have to smack him upside the head if only to get rid of the smugness.
"That is sweet."
Hermione raises her eyes to find the cashier's smile more genuine than nervous, and releases a heavy breath. "Yes, yes, very sweet. See his last clue were these coordinates, and I thought I had the right place but then, all of a sudden, I fell down a hill. Over there," she makes a vague gesture over her shoulder. "So...not there than."
"Down a hill?"
"Yup!" Hermione says this far too excitedly. The woman pauses, confusion flitting across her face. "But I'm still very excited to see him, and I was wondering...is there any way that you could look up these coordinates for me? I just need a-"
"Oh. I don't know."
"It would only take a minute really. Or just ask if anyone in the sto-"
"I'm not supposed to log onto the internet if it's not for store purposes." The cashier purses her lips and moves over to the front of the computer screen. Hermione blinks at her for a moment, because she can't honestly remember the last time she heard something like 'internet'. She suddenly wonders how many emails she's gotten, and a strange, crazy sort of laugh bubbles up in her throat.
"I would really appreciate it if you made this one exception."
Because it was pretty important. Because there is a war raging, and Hermione is a soldier with scars, and memories, and friends who have died. There were these people, these horrible people called Death Eaters, who were in this safe-looking town. The town where you didn't lock your doors at night, where little kids played outside until well after dark, where people lived and breathed and didn't know. Not until someone in a hood and mask comes and kills you, without feeling, while you were bent over produce and trying to pick out the best oranges. Not until your children are orphans who don't play outside anymore, when even a locked door can't protect you, and people can bring your world to its knees with a flish and flick of a stick.
Hermione feels a burst of anger, raw in her gut. All the cost of war, and all that it took from her, and this stupid woman with her sour face who wouldn't even get onto the internet for the sake of it. Hermione would like to shove her inside her memories, to show her every moment that hurt too much to think about, and every smiling face that she would never see outside of them again. Do you see, she will ask, and scream, and maybe she will cry. Do you see?
"I'll go ask my boss."