17 November 1998.
The second howl came from Alicia Spinnet. She didn't move fast enough to evade the Sectumsempra that Severus threw at Hermione and it flayed her abdomen from the bottom of the left side of her ribs to the hollow of skin that dipped between her hip bones.
It was Alicia's blood that righted Hermione's world when the spray hit her face, her nose, her lips. The trees stopped moving and she leapt over Towler's body and sidestepped shallow fissures in a ground disfigured by wayward spells. She wasn't sure where the agility came from because she'd never moved like that before, but time to analyze it was not a luxury she was allowed to have. Instead, she simply reacted; she redefined the front line when she leapt forward in front of six people and a dead man, and she screamed PROTEGO! with so much passion that her voice carried over the pain and rage that blinded both sides of the war. Two seconds, five, six, the effort shook her bones and broke blood vessels in her eyes, but she held it eight, nine, ten. She held it long enough for Moody to re-issue orders, and somewhere, way far away, Hermione heard that Seamus was to Disapparate with Alicia in his arms and Towler's dead arm wrapped around his leg, because he deserved dignity in death, and Alicia wouldn't live much longer.
Hermione swayed dangerously on her feet, and her shield flickered alarmingly. In the fraction of a second it took for her shield to fail completely, Tonks, Moody, and Charlie overtook her and as one, cast Confringo. The blast brought her to her knees and when she wiped her nose, her hand came away red, and only some of the blood was Alicia's. She lurched to her feet and stared in disbelief when Rookwood, Rodolphus, Snape, Lucius, Crabbe, and Goyle Sr. flew backwards, but their flight was nothing compared to the explosion of the safe house. The sky was lit in shades of deep purple, magenta, and black. She shrieked when the green of the Killing Curse lanced toward them, and they scattered, and Moody was hoarse when he called for their return home. She didn't object when Charlie took her arm and Apparated her with him because her body still trembled with the effort it had taken to hold her shield and she collapsed back on Grimmauld soil.
When she woke, the white of hospital walls and bright light should have hurt her eyes. In a clinical sense she noted discomfort as a throbbing pain behind her left eye, but it didn't matter because she was straining against the bed and disoriented. Alicia was on her left, still and quiet with a face so pale it rivaled the bandages around her middle. Hermione's heart beat fiercely against her chest and she found it hard to breathe until she caught sight of the phoenix that was painted above the hospital doors. Just as Madam Pomfrey had intended it, the painted phoenix grounded her like it grounded all of the soldiers that woke somewhere strange in the midst of war, and she calmed. It was strange to feel serene in the hospital room, but having spent hours healing , she did.
She took a moment to take inventory of her body and found herself to be lacking superficial injuries, having three chipped nails, but in one piece. She swung her legs over the bed to examine Alicia, but the motion triggered alarms that Poppy had set and within seconds, the mediwitch hurried into the room.
"Lie back down and don't move, love. I need to look you over more fully, now that you're awake."
"Will Alicia be okay?" Hermione asked, even as she complied. Poppy was grim and hovered over Hermione, waving her wand and casting diagnostic spells over the younger girl. She still hesitated before answering.
"Severus' Sectumsempra. He intended to miss you, and couldn't have anticipated Miss Spinnet stumbling in the way. By itself, it can be healed, but it appears she was already bleeding internally. She was brought here quickly, but I couldn't heal her. I induced a magical coma, and cast a stasis over the injuries. It is temporary, not a solution. Severus is brewing something to try and repair the damage."
"Merlin… is he okay? And Tonks..Charlie… Oh, God, Towler!" Her stomach heaved and she leaned over the side of her bed and lost the contents of her stomach to the hardwood floor. The contraction of her muscles sent stars behind her eyes and she moaned and curled into herself.
"Physically, Severus was unscathed. Tonks had burns, Charlie broke his left hand and dislocated his shoulder, Seamus was only superficially injured, and Moody is recovering from Cruciatus. You, dear, had cuts and bruises healed. You still need to receive the potion that helps with the tremors, but the Cruciatus aftershocks will be particularly severe, because that shield you cast nearly exhausted your magic. Moody said he hadn't seen anything like that and wants to know how you did it." Poppy sighed and ended her spells, noting on Hermione's chart that the drop in magic had stabilized, and though painfully slowly, was beginning to rise again.
"For now, you need to rest. And, it is imperative that you do not use magic until your levels are safe again. To do so would run the risk of anything between a coma and losing your magic permanently." She paused. "Oh, Hermione – Mr. Weasley's – that is, Ron's- group returned shortly before your own. You should know that he came back unhurt, and Bill Weasley and Sturgis Podmore are both alive and healing.
For just a little too long her face remained blank, before she schooled her expression into that of pleasure. She bared her teeth in what she intended as a smile, but it curved her lips the wrong way and didn't reach her eyes.
"Thank you. I… I need to go. I need… to go." She fled, haltingly and ungracefully, from the makeshift hospital room. Hermione Granger desperately needed air in a way she hadn't in… three days. Her lungs ached and her mouth was dry and her pulse pounded in her temples. She threw open the front door and Harry spun with his wand drawn on her. It was a reaction, instinct, a manifestation of perfect wartime training and she shook her head and her breath caught in her throat. As quickly as he drew his wand he shoved it in his waistband and drew her into his arms. Murmured apologies and regret fell like rain from his lips and he clung to her like he was afraid she'd leave – maybe she would have if he had let go.
Ron was sprawled on the floor with his back braced against the house and his hand wrapped around the bottle between his legs. He felt guilty because he'd walked away from his battle uninjured. Bill had nearly lost his life and Sturgis had endured the Cruciatus, and he drank away the guilt because that was the only way he could fall asleep at night. The scent of whiskey assaulted Hermione's nose and it was heavy but inviting and she knelt, unpeeled his fingers, and drank straight from the bottle. Ron tried to look at her but his eyes wouldn't focus and his mind had drowned in the sheer quantity of alcohol he had consumed. He tried to speak, but she couldn't tell when one word ended and the next began and she shrugged and drank again.
She hadn't done this before. It wasn't like her, but she decided it was okay. Already the sharp angles of her emotions had been smoothed, softened, and the roar of thought in her head had dulled. She tipped the bottle to her lips a third time, and between lack of food and medicinal potions, it was enough warm her fingers and toes and let her giggle (really giggle) with a grin that crinkled the skin around her eyes when Ron passed wind and was too inebriated to notice. Harry rolled his eyes and hauled his friend to his feet. When the task of walking proved too arduous for Ron to achieve, Harry simply levitated him through the door and into his room.
Thoroughly amused, Hermione bade them both goodnight and capped the bottle of whiskey. She started to lift her wand to send the bottle back to the cabinet that held Ron's collection, but even the thought of magic created an angry pulse between her eyes.
For a long time, she simply sat outside and admired the beauty of the night. She fancied that the stars were souls who had defied gravity, suspended between time and space. She admired their beauty, and wondered how long they had studded the sky; if, in the nature of astronomy, that time and age were directly proportional to distance. She wondered if Kenneth Towler had become a star, and she wondered if falling stars were souls that chose to escape. She wondered if Death Eaters had souls, if they could become stars. She wondered if murderers could be stars, and found it hard to rationalize something so dark could ever be something as beautiful as the glowing balls of gas that lit the sky, and it made her sad when she wondered where her own soul would go and what she would look like; and then she snorted, because wondering that made the assumption that she'd still have a soul by the time she died.
Her mood had deteriorated as much as her sobriety had returned; with it, angry melancholy. She stood abruptly and flung open the door. The deep brown of her eyes seethed, not unlike the ocean, and she stalked through the halls of Grimmauld Place.