A/N: Still on holiday, for those wondering, with little internet and lots of time to write in the mornings and evenings since I'm an early riser whilst my family languishes in the allure of slow and sluggish slumber…and all that jazz.

In any case, hope you all enjoy the second chapter of this fic. Just in case you've forgotten, '0' scenes are the past, and '1' scenes are the present (though they're both written in past tense).

As always, comments/reviews are welcomed and loved! And they never fail to put a smile on my face!

Without further ado, enjoy!


1

The tunnel.

Dirt flung all around Hermione Granger.

Squeezing her in like a lift's walls trying to crush her.

Limbs aching from fighting three guards already, who were unmoving on the ground.

A fourth guard, forgotten about, standing on the other side. Facing them. Snarl on his face beneath the mask. Eyes illuminated with the will to kill.

A Death Eater, in every sense of the word.

Hermione felt—

Clogged breath. Clogged throat. Clogged nostrils. Clogged heart.

And she saw a killing curse fired right towards Harry Potter.

Ripe with the intent to kill. Ripe with the intent to murder.

And vanquish her love in a heartbeat.

Hermione watched in horror, the world slowing down to a crawl, as green overtook the world. Lit up the tunnel walls with the snake-like grin of death. Dread bit her stomach, crunched on her legs, paralysed her eyes on the scene.

Harry—moments away from certain death.

Harry—moments away from—

Hermione did the only thing she could think of, the last Hail Mary of an idea. The one gamble she wished wouldn't need to be made.

The gamble of a lifetime. Her research, her hopes, her love, all culminating into one motion.

In that tunnel.

With the creeping darkness.

Suffocating air.

Tendrils of fear.

Hermione threw herself in the way of the curse. Right in front of Harry. Chest up, back straight, legs staunch.

Ready to take the punishment if her hope failed.

Please, Hermione wished. Please work.

And her wish was answered.

The killing curse didn't kill Harry, since Hermione was right in front of him. It deflected up, off her chest, slamming into the ceiling with a ferocity Hermione had never witnessed.

Causing a tumult of dirt to rain down, burying Hermione in its centre. Suffocating her far more than the stale air ever could.

Is this how death feels?

She sucked in air, perhaps her last breath, saw Harry's eyes widen and his hands reach out for her. His fingers brushed her free hand, sending tingles across her skin.

But the dirt buried her, and missed him entirely.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, as mounds of dirt swallowed her whole.

Am I…dying?

Somewhere, she heard Tonks shout, Ron swear like a sailor wouldn't dare, and Remus say that he'd taken out the fourth and forgotten guard.

Confirming that they'd survived the ambush in the tunnel from the final guard.

But the dirt buried Hermione completely, almost burrowing inside her ears and mouth, like an early funeral for a dead witch.

The dirt engulfed her.

Blocking her hearing.

Until it felt like she could hear no longer.

Breathe no longer.

1

Harry's stomach plummeted to depths he'd never felt, fright snatching his breath like a seeker grabbing the snitch, right as his fingers brushed Hermione's, dirt chucking itself down around them like hail, tunnel vision narrowing his eyes to only one.

He met her skin, felt the rough softness send zings right through him. Before his fingers slipped, fumbled, her skin leaving his, her warmth leaving his cold.

The connection between them severing.

Perhaps forever.

Panic seized Harry as he threw himself into the dirt and fell back out, ignoring the stench of death around him, ignoring the fact that Hermione had just taken a killing curse to the stomach from where he stood.

A killing curse that hit her, and ricocheted upwards instead of continuing towards him.

She had saved his life, undoubtedly.

And in the process—

She's dead, that voice within his mind said.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

A mantra, constant, looping like death meeting life meeting death, until Harry told it to—

Shut the hell up!

Ron and Remus and Tonks were on the other side of the piling dirt, manic eyes between them all as they watched Hermione be buried in soil.

Potentially as a dead witch.

Until Harry could see them no longer. The tunnel's dust and dirt had drowned them out, with only Harry left on this side.

Alone.

In a pitiful silence.

She's dead, that voice whispered like a devil.

She took a killing curse to the chest.

You saw it right before your eyes.

She's dead—

Harry couldn't take the risk. Because, just as she was falling into the dirt, her eyes weren't lifeless. Her eyes weren't rolled into the back of her head. Her eyes held…held emotion.

An emotion Harry couldn't decipher.

And Harry could've sworn, with everything in his body, that he hadn't just touched Hermione's fingers.

No, he could've sworn that she'd—

Touched him back.

And that sliver of a chance that she'd somehow survived something only one other had survived in history—that chance fuelled his aching muscles to grab the shovel and slam it into the dirt.

Hauling it out. Bit by bit. Despite the tiredness raking through him. Despite the fact that they'd come this far only to suffer a loss.

Despite the fact that the voice within Harry continued to repeat its chant, like Death Eaters did around Voldemort.

She's dead.

Dead.

Dead.

But after flinging as much dirt out of the way as possible, Harry realised a fact he didn't wish was real. Though they had softened the dirt around them with spells on the surface outside the perimeter…

That spell didn't apply to this new dirt that had fallen in.

So no matter how much dirt he threw to the side, no matter how strong his determination was—he wouldn't reach Hermione in time.

If Hermione was indeed alive, a possibility that dwindled with each second that passed, then being buried beneath dirt would give her brief minutes without breath.

Minutes in which her life could slip into the after.

Minutes in which Harry could've saved her, but failed to do so.

Minutes which were minutes too long.

I'm not getting there in time, am I?

Harry threw the shovel to the side. It hit the wall, then hit the ground, as though wanting to attack them both. Attack everything around it, infused with Harry's raging anger at himself for allowing Hermione to take the hit.

The humidity caused sweat to race down Harry's face, as though the beads were an hourglass of how long he had left to save his love.

Save the only thing keeping him up when the world dragged him down.

He activated his wand holster, flicking it up into his hand, knowing that this singular spell would alert Malfoy Manor to their presence.

Causing an all-out battle to erupt far too soon.

When they hadn't gotten allies into the manor yet.

War necessitated casualties.

But not this one.

Harry couldn't live with himself if he let Hermione die.

He fired a bombarda with as much force as his magic would allow. Fuelled by rage, by fear, by adrenaline, by love.

And the dirt blew in every direction, bursting like a bomb detonation, nearly shattering the walls around them, and Harry rushed forwards with fear and fire burning in his veins.

The cloud of dust cleared, settled on the demolished ground.

The dirt hadn't completely erupted, only the side Harry was on.

Leaving a gap in which he could glimpse—

A limp Hermione on the floor.

Not moving an inch.

1

In Hermione's left hand was her knife, with her arm lifeless on the ground. The other arm buried beneath a little dirt. Her legs motionless, chest unmoving.

Was she breathing?

Was she even alive?

Harry pocketed his wand, bent and grabbed her arm, using every fibre of strength he could muster, and dragged her out of the cavern of dirt.

Set her on the ground.

Leaned down, breath bated, and watched her eyes.

Watched for any sign of life.

Please…please…

"You all right over there?" Tonks shouted, voice muffled through the dirt.

Harry didn't reply. He'd barely heard her words. His attention was focussed, solely, on the person in front of him.

A person who was dea—

Hermione's eyes flew open, her mouth sputtering in an attempt to get air. She sucked in a breath, a ragged breath that shook her chest, before turning her gaze to Harry.

Harry, without thinking twice, hugged her tight to himself. Squeezing as though trying to push his own life force into hers. As though, if he ended this hug, it would end the connection between them.

Seconds past, but they felt like minutes, felt like hours, where only the two of them and their shared warmth existed in the world. Where everything had vanished, leaving only emotions and love and something transcendental to mere matter and dirt and the stench of the tunnel.

"We're coming through," Ron announced, before the rest of the dirt wall separating them imploded.

Ron had fired a spell.

Another signal to the manor that they were here.

They're coming. They're coming fast.

The Death Eaters, given the state of the war and Voldemort's dwindling horcruxes, were already on high alert.

Now…now they were coming to kill.

"Is she all right?" Remus asked, rushing over to Harry, whilst Tonks and Ron kept guard at the rear.

The three guards were robbed of their wands as they lay lifeless, with the fourth lying dead on the other side.

It was war, after all. And Harry couldn't risk Death Eaters staying alive right behind them. Not when more death would face them head on.

Not when casualties were an inevitability.

"Death is a part of war," Dumbledore had told him, a week or so before his passing at the end of sixth year. "It is the dark and twisted truth behind human conflict. When escalated enough…it results in something horrific and unimaginable. The only way to counter it is with death yourself, Harry. Therein lies the moral conundrum of the light, after all."

Harry didn't realise just how true Dumbledore's words were until now.

Until those guards had been killed.

And until Hermione had almost died.

He almost felt like he'd passed through a rite of passage, and barely made it to the other side in one piece. Shaken, disoriented, panicked, near-hopeless.

But alive. All of them…alive.

"She's…she's fine," Harry muttered, as though to reassure himself. "She's not dead. She's alive, she's alive…thank God."

"We ain't got time to thank God, mate," Ron said, grabbing his door from where he'd set it earlier. "We need to set these two-ways up. Spell's bloody alerted the whole lot to where we are, and we ain't got time to shit-shat."

Ron's unique way of saying chit-chat.

Harry, who was still holding onto Hermione, still clutching onto her for dear life, gazed into her eyes.

The world slowing around them.

And Hermione gave him a single nod.

Telepathy, almost. Like their minds were linked through something beyond human comprehension.

And Harry got the message.

She would continue to fight.

For her freedom. For the freedom of muggleborns like her.

And the freedom of the magical world at large.

"Let's go, then," Harry said, rising with Hermione in his arms, in a princess carry. He set her on her feet, gave her one last embrace, before letting go.

All the while wishing that the embrace they shared—

That it wasn't for the last time.

Because Hermione had almost died before the battle began.

So when the battle actually started…

Harry didn't want to think about it.

He grabbed his two-way from where he'd left it against the wall, turned to glimpse the dead guards one more time, before heading forwards with the rest of his comrades.

They had to act fast.

Before the guards weren't the only dead bodies in the tunnel.

1

Hermione, whilst the others set up the two-ways she supplied from her bottomless bag, clutched her knife in another hand.

Clutched it hard. As though her life depended on it.

Because that knife…that knife had truly saved her life.

Whilst grabbing and handing over the two-ways with as much pace as her shaken body would allow, flashes of her research in that chilly tent returned to her.

Leonardo Da Vinci's discovery of that gold and silver alloy, mixed with magical substances and soaked in a tempering solution…that metal could repel almost any curse. The perfect armour, if near impossible to create.

Hermione had searched long and hard, whilst in that forest, for deposits of gold and silver. She'd used spells to retrieve them, since mining by hand would be too burdensome, all whilst trying to mask the traces of their magic in case Death Eaters caught their scent.

Until finally, she'd made enough of the metal for three knives.

Though she only made one, for herself, in case of an emergency.

The metal came with a caveat, however, one discussed by those who practiced alchemy before them.

The caveat of one curse that was doubtful for the metal's resistance.

One curse that none could test the metal's effects against.

The killing curse.

Avada Kedavra.

Da Vinci—said it was possible for the metal to deflect it.

Isaac Newton—impossible.

And Hermione had proven, without a shadow of a doubt, that Da Vinci was right. That he was thankfully right. And for that piece of knowledge, Hermione had laid her life on the line.

Jumping in front of Harry, knife flatted to her chest as the killing curse smacked its tip and flew into the ceiling.

Her gamble had paid off, and Harry was safe. And she was alive, despite thinking herself dead for God knew how many minutes whilst trapped in that dirt prison, unable to move, unable to think. Nearly paralysed from the weight, from the pressure.

And the knife—the knife was entirely intact after deflecting the killing curse onto the ceiling.

Hermione's mind flashed to the present as a rumble seized the tunnel.

Her senses slammed back into her.

The stench and sight of dirt and dead bodies pilfered their breaths. Hermione rubbed her nose, quelling the water brimming in her eyes, before turning to Harry.

"How many more two-ways left to set up?" Remus said over the noise of footsteps overhead.

Footsteps getting closer, and closer, to their tunnel's location.

Footsteps of Death Eaters.

All ready for battle.

All ready to kill.

"We need to activate them," Ron shouted over the noise of raining dirt. Hailing dirt. "We ain't got bloody time. It's hell up there."

"Last one," Hermione said, rummaging in her bag and handing it over to Tonks, who quickly set it up against the wall by enlargening it to a full-size door before pulling the handle.

They warded the two ways as fast as they could, spells muttered in hushed breaths, eyes focussed.

One of Hermione's hands around the knife that had saved her life, and Harry's life.

Harry's green eyes, as though containing the Avada Kedavra that had failed to kill him as a child, reflected the determination of someone haunted by his parents' deaths.

Hermione found solace in his will.

Hermione was ready for battle.

Ready to end the war.

"It's time," Harry said, readying his wand, raising it into the air with Hermione and the others grabbing their own wands, pocketing the knives they'd brought with them.

Harry's wand raised itself, nearly hitting the ceiling.

The rest of them primed themselves for action.

And the sequence they'd practiced for months now…

They finally used it.

0

The battle at the end of sixth year was one of the toughest for Hermione to accept, mostly because she was the one at fault. She was the one that had fought with Harry over that Potions book of his, and she was the one that had distrusted his suspicions into Draco Malfoy.

Suspicions that Harry had been begging them to listen to for the better part of a year.

Suspicions that turned out true, in the end.

Because, from the embers of the Room of Requirement, Malfoy had managed to open up a closet of sorts that acted as a gateway from one place to the next. Connected to a place beyond the castle, teeming with Death Eaters ready to kill.

It bypassed the Hogwarts anti-apparition wards, placing the castle in grave danger.

Death Eaters storming the walls of peace Hermione had basked in since she was eleven years old.

Death Eaters ravaging the world that had whisked a young, friendless Hermione away into a life of adventure.

But regarding adventure—they never mentioned the hero's sacrifice, the heroine's turmoil, the scars left behind as though Death Eaters were playing tic-tac-toe with cutting curses against their skin.

But those were the things tormenting Hermione during the summer after that battle. Thoughts constantly swirling about what she could have done to help Harry, rather than hinder him. About how she should've trusted him, instead of pushing him away for the first time in her life.

Something she could've never imagined herself doing prior to that year.

Harry, after all, wasn't someone with lots of people he could intimately trust. He was a closed flower, only opening his petals for those that managed to be the sun in his life, a source of radiance that outstripped anything else in the heavens.

He reserved that trust solely for his two closest friends, Ron and Hermione.

And they had both, at one point or another, betrayed that trust.

And whilst Ron may have languished in his idiocy for a little longer into their seventh year, with him leaving the camp and all, Hermione would not do so.

Would not allow herself to make that mistake again.

She promised, during that summer, to herself and to Harry, that she would do everything in her power to help him. Everything in her power to believe in him, and follow him to the ends of the wizarding world.

Even if it…

Even if it led to her death, she was willing.

And the first step in changing for the better—it was re-examining the past and figuring out ways to learn from it. Ways to use it to her advantage. Ways to turn that guilt within her, that regret, into a brighter future.

If Draco Malfoy could make gateways to bypass Hogwarts' wards, then Hermione could do the same for the side of the light when the time came.

After all, the two-way closet Malfoy used was already in the Room of Requirement.

But what if one could make portable two-ways, undetectable because, prior to being activated by spells, they were nothing more than miniature, compressed doors?

And if those doors could be snuck inside Malfoy Manor underground, when the time called for it, then the Order of the Phoenix wouldn't need to sneak tens of people through the gates without alerting the wards.

No.

The plan would be to—

Sneak a few people in, activate the two-ways despite the spells alerting the wards, and begin the battle with their allies in tow.

And so Hermione, as she so often did, set to work. Reading over the summer as many books as her mind would allow. Cramming as much into her mind as mentally possible, alongside research into Da Vinci and a thousand other topics of interest.

Hermione was hungry for knowledge most of the time.

But that summer, and during her seventh year finding the horcruxes with Harry and Ron—she was positively starving for it.

Hoping that one day, her research would come to fruition.

And come to fruition it did.

In the best way possible.

And in the worst way too.

1

Harry knew this moment would arrive, in the middle of the battle, where they would have to make their grand entrance.

And he also knew of—

The risks.

Death Eaters right above them.

Murderers they hadn't anticipated. Hadn't anticipated when planning this raid months ago.

Their footsteps loud, urgent. Wands at the ready, no doubt. Killing curses lodged in their throat, ready to volley out like bullets from a gun.

A constant stream of death.

Ready to murder Harry and his friends. His loved ones in life. His only loved ones in life.

The wand holster Hermione had made him, metallic and strong and to stabilise his right arm, kept his hand steady as—

He raised his wand to the ceiling of the tunnel they'd dug, and howled the spell to create walls of solid rock, a metre or so in depth, stretching the length of the entire manor front garden in his mind's eye with small, door sized holes across the bottom for them to travel through.

Months of practice led to this one spell.

A successful spell.

All whilst the two-ways had been set up by the others in the tunnel behind him.

And, from the power of his magic, the earth began rumbling. Shaking as though struck by an earthquake. Trembling as though tectonic plates shifting against each other. And that rock wall formed, before jutting through the ceiling and destroying whatever dirt existed there.

And suddenly, the open night sky met them.

Black. Endless. A void.

Just like death.

The rock wall almost reached to the heavens, separating them from the main building of Malfoy Manor.

Blocking it from view.

Blocking them from the view of Death Eaters.

They were safe, for now.

But Death Eaters were already on their side of the wall, ready to fire.

Death Eaters they hadn't planned for.

And that was the biggest risk of them all.

"Up here," Ron shouted, blasting a path through the front of the tunnel up onto the grass.

With hurried steps, they all reached flat ground, some with Ron's path, some forging their own by blasting away the dirt.

And they stood on the grass beside a defunct water fountain and burnt black bushes, sweat marring their grimy faces, determination their fuel where energy failed them.

Chill circling them like ghosts of the past.

Ghosts of those who had died.

Wind lashed their faces, icy and violent.

The first drips of rain held their threats in the faceless clouds above.

Their wands were primed.

Rock wall menacingly behind Harry, Ron, Hermione, Tonks, and Remus.

Before the first spell fired.

A killing curse Tonks just managed to avoid.

Starting the real battle.

The two-ways activated, lighting up like portals out of a science fiction movie.

The Order of the Phoenix began spilling into the tunnel, joining the fight as allies as they climbed the dirt onto the grass.

Faces of Professor McGonagall, the Gryffindor boys, the entire Weasley clan, Neville, and many others whose expressions turned into blurs as the fighting around him clenched its fist over Malfoy Manor.

And Harry could hear noise on the other side of the wall behind him.

Death Eaters joining the fight from the main manor building.

They hadn't planned for Death Eaters to be on this side of the wall, and that was the issue. Since it meant that, for all intents and purposes, they were sandwiched between two sets of Death Eaters.

Having to fight back to back to save their backs.

Harry ducked beneath a cutting curse and fired one of his own. Aim steady, mind focussed on winning at all costs.

Even if that meant his own death.

He glanced back, at Hermione firing off her own curses. Blocking a stupefy with a protego that barely did enough to absorb the spell.

And then Harry's eyes flicked to the rock behind Hermione, where a hole in the wall represented one of its doorways.

And someone emerged from that hole.

With a sinful smile, relaxed gait, ravaged clothing, evil eyes, manic expression, no mask, wild rabid hair.

Wand ready to kill.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

1

"Hermione, watch out!"

But Bellatrix Lestrange was too quick, cackling as she fired off a curse.

It barely grazed Hermione's shoulder just as she turned, all whilst Harry slammed Bellatrix with his own spell.

Which did nothing.

As if her robes were protecting her, some kind of armour. Absorbing the hit like a permanent protego circled her.

Harry's blood nearly froze. Only his instinct to survive, something which had carried him through seven years of Hogwarts, rolled his shoulder under Bellatrix's stupefy.

The order had been hard at work, developing new technologies for the war with whatever resources they had. Limited, yet they felt limitless in their research.

But that didn't mean the Death Eaters stood by, idle, waiting for the fight to come to them.

No, they had been proactive as well. Improving, developing, perfecting their craft of murder.

Harry wasn't just fighting a deadly enemy.

He was fighting the unknown.

The scariest enemy of all.

He stormed forwards, wand fixed to its holster, another curse firing at Bellatrix just as he reached Hermione's side.

The place he always wanted to belong.

A place he couldn't belong if either of them died.

And that pang of guilt nearly crushed him again.

Bellatrix fired off a string of curses, one after the other, as though in rehearsed chants. As though she had trained for this very moment. Whispers that nearly deafened them as she brought up a wall, dodged to her left, and surprised them with a fiery red curse.

They dodged, towards each other, nearly bashing together as they fell on the grass.

Chaos snatching them.

Chaos all around.

As lives were lost. And others were taken.

Bellatrix seeking to extinguish theirs.

Harry watched her movements. Light on the feet, swishing robes protecting her, that unknown charm protecting her from whatever they threw at her, except for—

"There," he pointed out to Hermione, whilst fighting raged on around them.

Whilst shouts pierced their ears.

Whilst the wind almost ripped their throats from them.

Whilst the world seemed tilted at an impossible angle.

Harry had found an opening. A three-centimetre gap in the robes, right at the neckline, exposing Bellatrix's skin.

Skin they could rip to shreds if only their aim rang true.

"I'll fire right, double up at her neck when she turns."

Harry's instructions were hurried. His movements faster.

He hoped, beyond anything, that Hermione understood.

That Hermione got the timing right. Just right.

He dodged to his left, rolling on the grass, spindles eating into his mouth and nose, firing a curse as he regained his footing.

Bellatrix turned and her robes absorbed his curse.

But Hermione's stupefy fizzed towards her.

1

Hermione felt not fear as Bellatrix emerged from that door in the wall. No fear even as Bellatrix's cutting curse tinged her shoulder, causing blood to seep onto her jacket.

Determination fuelled Hermione. Determination because her good friend, Neville Longbottom, had his life ruined at the hands of this woman. At the wand of this woman. At the evil of this despicable excuse for a human being.

Hermione wasn't one for revenge. Far from it.

But sometimes…the sweetness of revenge, the sweetness of that devilish voice in the back of her mind, tainted her spells.

Rendering them all the more potent.

And the stupefy that zinged from her wand's tip was the most powerful she had ever cast. Erupting like Vesuvius had imbued its death-seeking essence within her magic.

As the shrieks cut through the air as though Death Eater diffindos, chaos erupting in the form of fallen bodies and fallen souls.

In the midst of it all, whilst watching her curse fly towards Bellatrix and ignoring the throbbing in her right shoulder, Hermione glimpsed Remus and Tonks back to back against a pair of Death Eaters, Professor McGonagall holding off two on her own whilst chanting spells Hermione had never heard of, Ron and Luna fighting side by side, Lavender and the other Gryffindor girls finally using their training, Fred and George laughing as they fought alongside their mother, Kingsley and others in the ministry.

Dean Thomas dead on the floor. Seamus beside him.

Another body dropped.

Bellatrix's body.

Onto the grass.

But she hadn't died. Not yet. Stupefies didn't kill, sadly.

And that thirst for revenge fuelled Hermione.

She rushed to the body, wand in hand, whilst Bellatrix writhed with limited consciousness. Writhed with, ironically, the will to live. Something she had denied in so many others.

Her arrogance in her protective armour—her arrogance over those she viewed as lesser, those like Hermione. That arrogance had cost her.

The irony—dying at the hands of the muggleborn she hated the most.

The irony—so afraid of death she clung to life.

Hermione would put an end to that.

She jammed her wand in the gap in Bellatrix's robes.

The tip touched her neck.

Stared into the witch's eyes.

"You deserve this," Hermione uttered.

Before she uttered something else.

Severing Bellatrix's life for good.

Vanquishing what little light was left in those dead eyes.

A pause pounded her heart, and Hermione remembered to breathe. Whilst earlier, in the tunnel, she'd been unable to take a life, now she didn't hesitate.

Hermione had changed. She had been changed.

A necessary change for herself.

For Harry.

Relief flooded Hermione for multiple reasons, and she searched for Harry amongst all the fighting. Searched for her north star, her guide, to support him as they battled together, as they had promised together.

But Harry was nowhere to be seen.

And Hermione's body froze, the battle slowing before her as she stood besides Bellatrix's body.

Scanning the chaos.

But Harry was gone.

Disappeared.

Into thick air.

Thick with the stench of spilled blood, the sight of dead bodies, the shouts of war.

But Harry was gone.

He couldn't have, could he?

And Hermione's worst fears came to light.


A/N: Hope you all enjoyed that, especially the cliffhanger at the end. I wonder what happened to Harry, hmmm.

In any case, that was a lot of fun to write, and I can feel myself becoming more comfortable with writing fight scenes. Especially since magical fight scenes are a lot more diverse than the street fights I'm used to writing (in original fiction, I mean, since I don't really write fantasy outside of fanfic).

Still on holiday, and the lack of internet and no lack of free time is causing these updates, so thank God for that. I've been here for maybe 10 days so far, and I've written like 30k in that time because of sheer boredom.

Also, shout-out to my brother again for lending me his laptop to post this, since mine doesn't have internet access (I disabled the network adapter completely when I first bought it, so I can only use this old thing for getting words on the page).

Again, hope you enjoyed, and always feel free to comment/review! I love reading them, always!