A/N: Not my sandbox, just my sand castle. I don't own anything from Harry Potter. Additionally, no one has permission to bind and sell my works, fandom or otherwise. Shame on you for exploiting other people's works!
So this started out one way, I remembered I needed to incorporate another prompt, and ended in a completely different way.
This is Romione if you squint, and Harmony if you squint, so I officially say there are no pairings in this fic! LOL
Anyway, I hope you enjoy. This was rough for me to write while at work, just because I kept crying while doing so.
Also, something brought up by one of my betas, the word 'aftereffect'
Google says this:
In two of the best U.S. dictionaries—Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary—the word is spelled "aftereffect" (no space and no hyphen). In the premier British dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, it is spelled "after-effect."
English is so confusing, and it's my first language. I'm so sorry for anyone learning it as a second language!
Thanks to Dora, BeaWrites, Queenie, and Lily for the Beta!
Summary: Hermione wasn't sure what guided her feet through the Great Hall as everyone else mourned the dead. No, she was needed elsewhere. Where, she didn't know.
Triggers/Warnings: Battle at Hogwarts, off-screen character deaths, description of dead bodies, description of injuries, will probably make you cry…
Word Count: 1921
Prompts:
QLFC Beater Prompt:
Crescent Hotel, Eureka Springs, Arkansas: Write about someone making a promise they don't intend to keep
AND must contain a ghost as a main character
Additional Prompts:
1. (word) haunt
6. (dialogue) "If only it were that easy."
12. (dialogue) "For what it's worth, I truly am sorry."
Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry
[March Monthly] Time to Rhyme - (Dogs and Frogs)
Dogs: Shih-tzu - Hermione Granger
[March Monthly] Bejeweled
Botswana Agate
(emotion) grief
[March] Writing Club
Would You Rather?
Potter: (Setting) Hogwarts
Ongoing Challenge: Gather Your Party!
Barbarian: Ancestral Guardian: Being: Ghost
"Memories of the Lost"
The horrors that filled her gaze as she softly stepped past her downed classmates would stay with her forever. Hermione's whole body burned, an aftereffect of Bellatrix's Cruciatus that she had been under when the Death Eaters had stormed the castle. It was all worth it, though. They did it.
The good guys had won.
Their victory came at a cost, however.
Hermione had woken up in the Great Hall with a gasp, the sounds of grief filling the room. They had turned it into a makeshift infirmary, a place to mourn their dead and take count of their remaining numbers.
Hermione had been no help there. It was all the remaining members of the DA who had stayed the last year to fight and protect the younger years.
Dumbledore's Army…Defense Association…it was still her proudest moment, standing up to the tyrant that was Delores Umbridge. Through the DA, Neville became a strong leader, with Ginny by his side. Colin Creevey–
His body laid out on a stretcher before her and Hermione paused before him, inhaling sharply. His hands were slashed badly, a burn mark on his right hand from where his wand had exploded from overuse. He stayed fighting, until the end, protecting a few Fifth Years who had snuck back in to fight with their older siblings. Dennis Creevey knelt next to his older brother, hunched over, sobbing in his grief.
Hermione wanted to go over there, to rest a hand on his shoulder and give him some comfort, but her feet automatically moved on, forcing her to leave the wailing Gryffindor alone.
Lavender's mutilated face was covered by a conjured cloth. Hermione knew who it was based on the clothes and the flower tattoo on her hand that she'd gotten in their fifth year. Greyback had gotten to her before anyone could help. And while Lavender had gutted the beast, it had cost her her life. Hermione allowed herself a few seconds to drop to her knees, pain flaring in her stomach at the movement, allowing grief to overtake her. Lavender had been her bully growing up, but she had also been her dorm mate for the past six years. They were almost friends.
Sooner than she'd liked, Hermione stood and continued on, wiping the tears from her face, sorrow filling her.
The next familiar faces she found were Tonks and Remus, laid out next to each other, their hands almost touching. A sob built up in her throat, at their loss, at Harry losing the last bit of his parents that he had, at Teddy becoming an orphan less than a year old. Mid-sob, her feet forced her away, her body not listening to her commands to stop, to go back and properly grieve people who had become her friends. These deaths would haunt her, haunt the halls of Hogwarts, for the rest of her life. Had she only been smarter in figuring things out, faster in executing them…she could have saved them all. The ghosts of her past would hang on her conscience in every waking moment.
The Weasley family gathering around someone caught her attention, and she flew over there, her feet nearly not touching the ground in her haste. George's red mop was unmistakable as Hermione peered past Ginny's shoulder, seeing Molly and George wailing over the still body of Fred.
"For what it's worth, I truly am sorry," Hermione murmured. Too absorbed in their grief, no one took notice of her, and a stab of pain hit her through her chest. She understood though. She would be here for them when they needed her. She noticed that Ron wasn't amongst the group, and worry gnawed at her mind.
A cold wind blew through the Great Hall as she stood, watching the anguish on their faces, making everyone there shiver. Hermione barely noticed. The burning pain in her body was starting to numb, and she knew she would start shaking soon if she didn't finish all she needed to.
As though under a compulsion, Hermione's feet started taking her out of the Great Hall to wander the corridors and take stock of what still needed to be done.
"Until my last breath, I'll make things right," Hermione murmured to the empty hallways of her home. The trick step didn't bother her, the stairs aligning themselves just perfectly as she ascended through the castle. It was weird, in the back of her mind, she knew where she was going. Her body didn't respond to her request to stop, to breathe, to rest. No, she needed to go to Gryffindor Tower, where she had last seen Harry and Ron.
Her brow furrowed. No, she had last seen them on the staircase just as they were about to split up to take care of the last Horcrux. She and Ron were to go to the Chamber of Secrets while Harry stole away to the headmaster's office. Bellatrix had intercepted them on the stairs between the third and fourth corridor and–
Harry and Ron sat, slumped over the non-moving steps, a full flight up from where she stood. From her vantage point, Ron's hands looked red, and glistened in the torchlight.
Was he hurt?
Annoyingly, her feet refused to move faster, and so she continued her weary pace up to the boys.
Her boys.
They were crying.
"Ron? Harry?" Hermione asked hesitantly as she drew closer. Their heads whipped up, agony on Ron's face, and Hermione could finally see what they had been crumpled over.
Her body…
"Hermione!" Ron called out, standing to rush to her. He passed right through her, the faintest feeling of warmth spreading through her body before it settled on that ever-pervading chill once more. Hermione only had eyes for the thick-bladed knife sticking out of the stomach of her body lying on the floor. Her gaze drifted down to her own stomach, seeing a ghostly knife sticking out of her gut, and a sob wrenched up from inside of her.
"How–" Hermione tried to ask. A noise of distress bubbled from her throat as she sank to her knees in front of her body. Everything began to click into place. Why no one noticed her, no one replied to her condolences, why her body burned like it was slowly being consumed.
She was dead.
"We were headed down to the Chamber of Secrets when Bellatrix had caught up to us. Said she wanted to settle the score…Hermione…I'm sorry…" Ron's voice cracked as he spoke, taking his place back by her body laying on the floor.
"I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough," she said, flashes of her death coming back to her. Bellatrix had easily fought her and Ron off, but was definitely aiming most of her attacks at her. Bellatrix had no plans of spilling the blood of a pureblood in that battle, but was willing to rough him up a bit. Ron had gashes and burns all over, but he seemed unaffected by them.
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," he replied.
"For what it's worth, I truly am sorry," Harry suddenly said. Hermione and Ron looked at him in surprise.
"Harry, what–"
"I had come back from Dumbledore's office too late. I should have been here for you. It was always the three of us. We were strongest when we were all together. You two only ever get hurt when we split up…" Harry's voice was morose, his gaze averted. "I should have been here, I could have saved you–"
"If only it were that easy," Hermione said, stopping him before he could get to full steam in his rant. He had already taken a defeated stance. "Harry…she would have dragged you down to Tom Riddle had she caught you. We wouldn't have gotten this ceasefire. We wouldn't have been able to mourn the dead."
"Hermione…"
"What did you see, up in the Headmaster's office?" Hermione asked. She felt Ron reach for her hand, and shudder as he passed right through her.
"My scar…it's the last Horcrux. I have to go meet him in that clearing. We have to get rid of this last Horcrux, and then he'll be mortal. I'm trusting you guys…I'm trusting you, Ron," Harry said. "You need to deal the final blow. You have to be the one to kill him."
Hermione's mind raced at his words. "What about you?" she said. "Why won't you do it?" Harry took a moment too long to reply. "Promise me. Promise me you'll come back, for Ron, for Ginny…for Teddy," Hermione stated. Harry held her gaze for a moment before looking away. "I will haunt you in the afterlife if you don't promise me!"
"I promise, Hermione, to come back." His reply was quiet, and Hermione knew he didn't mean it. But even just making him promise could give him the incentive to actually do it. Ron looked at his watch, his face growing pale.
"The hour is almost up," the redhead said. Hermione stood at the same time as Harry.
"I have to go," he said.
"Then I'm coming with you," Hermione replied. Harry began to protest, but she punched him, her ghostly hand phasing through his shoulder, making him jerk back at the icy feeling. "I'll be with you until the end, Harry."
"If only it were that easy."
Hermione grinned widely at him. "What's Tom going to do, kill me?" The absurdity of her comment made all three of them chuckle before sobering up.
"I'm coming with you two," Ron then declared. Hermione surprised them all by speaking up first.
"No, your family needs you in the Great Hall. You should go be with them," she said.
"You're my family," Ron insisted, but Hermione shook her head.
"I was," she replied. "And while I may need you now, they need you more. We'll be okay. We'll be back." Hermione knew that Harry wasn't expecting to survive his encounter with Lord Voldemort, the Darkest Wizard of their age.
Hermione knew she wouldn't let him do it alone.
Minutes later, as the time ticked down to the end of the ceasefire, Ron wandered into the Great Hall in a daze, his eyes red rimmed, carrying the limp body of his best friend. People clamored around him, shouting at him for answers that he didn't have.
"Where's Harry?" Ginny asked solemnly as Ron laid Hermione out next to the still body of his brother, Fred.
"He's going out to meet Voldemort," Ron replied stiffly, reaching to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Hermione's ear. Laid next to Fred, both looked only to be sleeping. Ron knew otherwise.
"But–"
"He says he'll come back," Ron stated, his eyes still tracing Hermione's face. He focused on the curve of her nose, and the shape of her brow, burning the image of his best friend into his mind so he would never forget her.
"Will he?"
"You know he doesn't plan on it. They raised him to be a lamb for slaughter…" Ron replied, finally looking up at his family.
"Someone could go after him, bring him back!" Ginny exclaimed.
"If only it were that easy." Ron turned back to the two bodies on the ground. "Hermione is with him…he'll be alright." He noticed everyone's eyes turn to Hermione's body on the ground. Ron turned his eyes towards the entrance to the Great Hall, and what laid beyond it. He knew, out of anyone else, Harry and Hermione could do it. They would defeat Voldemort.
The British Wizarding World depended on it.