In reference to a certain scene in here, tried not to make it mushy and it would make more sense if you read the tie-in fic for this, "To The Future".
Chapter 22
"Dead Inside Is How It Feels"
~~
Piercing scream
Cut at the heart
Icy sweat pouring
Sheets ripped
In the struggle
To breathe once more
The touch of life
To counteract the chill
Of the absolute terror
The pictures presented to you
Blackened, dead
All around, smelted earth
Spears, daggers
Sharp flashes
The raven sitting
Watching horribly
Smirking with its beak
Warning you
Never to be naïve
Never to trust
That you'll wake up
~~
##Cassandra##
The short sharps sounds, like gasps came at a rash rate. She couldn't breathe. Stifled by the awfulness of the dream, the fear of the darkness she confronted.
Just a dream she repeats to herself.
Trying to control her breathing.
Yes, only. Not real.
A hand appears at her curtain, and 3 faces.
All worried.
They open it up and cover her, piling onto the bed.
Comforting her silently.
+++++
##Harry##
He sat at the desk, at home. What had become his in the past months.
He stared at the first letter he'd received from Elianne herself.
Writing back was harder than it seemed.
Trust his daughter to wonder about things that were difficult to explain.
Like her questions on Hermione.
What was she like? She only ever talked about the school, the subjects, the trio and adventures. I noticed she was head girl. She never said.
How was she?
Hard to say completely.
Studious. Yes, oh yes. So very much, so dedicated. She'd stayed up revising in the library every night for three months before the N.E.W.T.S
He remembered well. He'd sat with her every night after the first two months. He'd been concerned she was overdoing it.
Though that was never quite the full account, as he could recall it.
/// flashback///
Year 7, near O.W.L.S time - Hogwarts library
##Harry##
They'd been there since half four. Harry had soon got bored of the various tomes but she'd eagerly read all she could. Eating up volumes upon volumes. Tonight's subject was Potions. He'd had less patience with that than his other topics. Alas Hermione excelled as always in ALL subjects including his worst.
She wouldn't help him either. He could practically hear her pointed tone, saying "you can only learn by experience and by hard long work".
It was now 10pm. Everyone else had deserted the place. Even Madam Pince had packed up long ago, leaving them be with dejection.
He looked to her.
Her eyes furtively danced across the page, reading at great speed.
She bit her lip in concentration.
He found himself unable to turn away from her.
Mesmerised, he stared deeply, etching her features into memory.
Disturbed only when she too looked up, to him.
For a few brief seconds his brain whirred with thoughts.
What would she do, why was he looking at her, what's happening.
But he knew the answers to all of these.
As he lent into the kiss his heart leaped with joy, the moment he'd been waiting for.
That had been avoided for ages, circled anxiously and played around, ignoring feelings.
Lying to themselves.
Because he knew she wanted it as much.
Her eyes had said so, many a time.
And many a time it had not been. Tears had come to closed lids. With excuses for the hurt. Reasons why not, reasons to escape the risk.
He wanted more than friendship.
Only that could quell the desire in his soul.
The emptiness. What he fought for.
##Hermione##
She sensed his presence; he bored into her skull with a stare, a look.
Something she gave into for a minute number of glorious seconds.
Then she burst forth, through the aisles, running, fleeing.
Crying stiffly and quietly she did not listen to his plea as he searched for her in the corridors of books.
She heard him leave the room seeking her outside of it.
Then she sobbed violently.
Her heart of fire, the picture of the short happiness engraved, burning her.
It hurt to deny, always had. But when you knew the truth, that it wasn't theory. Proven that you could have it. Then denying tortured your spirit.
Why had it been like this?
Not giving in. Afraid of hurt.
Fake love. Famous, he could have anyone. He'd use her. Just infatuation, won't last, too young. Friends; would spoil the friendship. Won't last, then more hurt.
And now it was this.
He'll die, then more hurt. Can't commit to someone who won't live; who's in the firing line. Can't interfere with history. Voldemort must be brought down, can't sacrifice the future to whims.
She knew this was coming from that day in year three.
Had thought it might not, might have been changed because of that
But No.
And nor had what she'd seen of the far future.
That she caused the death of Harry Potter;
His sacrifice to her and that misfortune for the world.
Couldn't swap love for the safety of everyone she treasured, including him.
##Harry##
He noticed her flinch.
Saw movement in the corner of his vision.
Turned away, no one there.
And turned back. No Hermione where there had been one.
He caught sight of her body rushing away.
From him.
Why, why, why?
How could he be that stupid?
He wished he'd never done it.
Wonder why they do this dance?
Cruel and twisted. Stepping on toes with each and every step.
Hard nosed boots;
And fragile feet.
//end flashback//
+++++
##Leander##
School was not the same.
Lessons were ok.
Snape was not the same either. He hurried, acted genuinely glum.
And neutral. No points taken. No points rewarded either. To any house.
Slytherins were confused.
Gryffindors suspicious of how long it could last.
Only blossoming relationship with Flora and Leander cheered her classmates.
And only then it was really just because he in the worst of his times was fine.
An example. If when surrounded by darkness you could shine bright, then everyone else would be alright.
They didn't see that although his world was filled with shining, a great love and warmth; it was only her that kept him afloat, awake from his depression.
Alone in the tower she watched him cry gently, not wanting even her to see what he regarded as a spectacle.
"Leander, its alright to let it out."
She patted him on the back consolidating him
"Don't worry, I'm here for you."
She started to cry herself.
Sitting in the pale cold greyness forever.
Why the pain for him she thought.
Life never made sense.
She was lost. His best friend, a cousin -technically-, as was her being. Alive was what they called it. He'd logically seen through the phrase. She was on critical. That only ever meant you were closer to death than life. As that was why it qualified as extreme. On the borders. Tipping steadily over. A car on a cliff. One wrong move and it falls.
Down towards the jagged edges and the constant.
Despite all his family said, it was singly hope they spoke of. He knew in it that she was leaving them. Nothing to be done. Nothing to stop the way he was feeling. Would continue to feel like this until the inevitable.
He for the first time in an hour, glanced round to her.
Flora.
Seeing a face full of tears and yet still captivating.
A beautiful visage, that took his sadness away.
"I know you're here. It's not fair though, that everyone doesn't have someone like I do."
+++++
##Hermione##
The second letter of the day for Hedwig. Harry's owl, returned by Sirius. His owl who was now resident in her home and at her disposal rather advantageously.
The scrawled parchment was in reply to Ron.
She meant to ask why his associates i.e. Snape where involving her daughter in this business.
It took a while to get to her that Elianne wasn't her daughter. She wasn't, was she. Never really had been at all.
His talk of the attacks had distracted her thoughts further though.
It wasn't commonly talked of. Everyone knew what was going on.
They just lacked an understanding. They feared what was happening.
No one liked to think the way Ron did.
That there was someone filling the space left years ago.
He said they had agents on the insides. Gathering information. Finding out what they could. All they could to stop them and their plans, their attacks.
And it was on both worlds.
The muggles still blamed it on the hapless usual suspects.
Linked it to the events of Yule.
The M.O.M. had made no press statement on it.
Reports underplayed what was known of the happening.
Ron had said they wanted to reassure people. The newspapers didn't say either. The truth was left out as such.
Try to calm people down. That's what the editors had said to her. Don't say anything negative. Don't speculate. Pretend it's ok for now.
They knew panic was ready to strike ripe.
Parents had withdrawn children from magical schools around the globe.
Not a great number but enough to inspire trepidation.
She'd quit.
Duty was to the public and for the truth.
Thank god the real world press wasn't sensitive to the issue.
But they too lacked the knowledge that created the view of the authentic scene.
She tried to bring to mind what she'd read on the matter. The half poked facts they told.
The very journal she'd worked on for the last 4 years. Quaintly turning its cheek at the ministry's beckoning.
She scrambled in the desk drawers and the paper rack on top the table, looking for today's issue.
She sighed, resignating to having to move to another room to find it. If Harry hadn't taken it with him on his business somewhere.
Might as well make some tea whilst she was at it.
Peppermint sounded refreshing at this time in the morning.
She got back and curiously stared at what lay on her desk.
Issue 458 of the Kalashi Khronicle.
Right in the middle of the wooden slab.
It hadn't been there when she'd gone to the kitchen.
Strange.
She called out for Harry.
No response.
Checking the house she didn't find him either.
She came back to the magazine.
Maybe she'd neglected to see it in a dizzy. The way the most obvious thing is overlooked when you search for it.
What else could it be?
Wandless magic. She scoffed at her own rash hypothesis.
There was evidence. Evidence ultimately lead you to the accurate conclusion. As long as it was followed by a correct analysis.
Research on it could prove useful.
But she barely doubted the incident was merely an odd occurrence of a selective display. You look so hard you can't see what you're looking for.
Regular science taught many clearly rational things she felt applied to magic. Including Occum's Razor.
The simplest explanation must always be true.
+++++
##Snape##
Snape bided his time outside the grimy pub.
A _muggle_ pub.
He itched in the rough fabric and constraint of trousers.
His thoughts centred on Draco.
There was that explanation, of why he could never kill him.
He was subject to the same misfortune Yvette was.
Wrong person, wrong time, wrong place.
Whichever.
He couldn't control his father, nor his talent.
Severus could not let anger get the better of him that night.
Draco had emerged shaken, scarred perhaps for the duration of his pitied existence.
He had emerged. That once gracious act Severus attributed to Yvette. She saved the boy from beyond the grave. For Snape had known she would not want more pain, more death. He left the slaughter of the masked fiends to whatever justice was. But he was a child practically, forced, who'd remember with a vengeance what he had done.
That was Draco punishment. His penance to those he'd destroyed was to avert its happening once more.
Likewise, none could have predicted the defection of someone so close to Potter. Though it was more the other way. They'd been on the dark side all along, playing them. With their loyalty understandably placed elsewhere.
But even after those events, he could not at the end of the day blame Draco, nor himself. He'd wrestled with these issues in those five solitary years before coming back to reason.
Draco had his unborn daughter to think about, could not refuse. Was a hurtful legacy that the Malfoys where enthralled in that brutal plot.
Another point scored that it hit the Snape heir too.
That it all helped to the greatest wizard of their days, most spitefully too from life, that he was also had the darkest heart. A beast, seeking immortality, pain inflicted, supreme rule. Almost aspiring to be a god. In all his years Tom Marvolo Riddle had never changed his goal. Not even when such a small boy had destroyed him so nearly.
+++++
##___##
The blonde woman spiked her head up. Eyes blacker than black. Equal to an abyss.
She had sensed a change in the order of the realm.
"Are you any closer to finding her?"
Thomas' voice echoed off the enclosed walls as did his shadow in the dim light.
"Rachelle says she felt something in the ether, an energy peak."
He smiled dearly at his prodigy.
"How does she…know… this?" he questioned her in a teacherly manner.
"She's a feeler. A seer in approach. Though blind and deaf to what it is."
He smiled again. Glad she had that talent, that she did not fail him.
"I know. I have heard of their breed."
Eliza very subtly arched her brow. Annoyed at his testing.
She still told him, fearful of reprisal if she questioned her father.
"They are becoming evident, only a matter of time before she uses it again, and more powerfully. We will have the Cwendendia in good time. In time to please Adeodatus more than pleasantly."
His smile widen at the news.
"Tend to Rachelle. She has done excellently. And I believe she will be drained in doing what she allowed. Give her plenteously. As a reward for a great service."
She moved away curtly, her position blank to his pleased exterior.
"You too have done well my Elizabeth."
She came forward to his praise and knelt humbly,
"You live up to what is great in you. I am honoured.", to which he tilted her cranium to kiss her forehead in an imperial fashion.
"You'd do well to remember that always. Failure is not tolerated. Not by our Pater. Not by yours."
He walked away, through the secretive altar door. To a place she couldn't follow.
~~
Just a game played
Figures
Twisted
Turned
Burned down
And taken down
With more replacing them
Villains
Heros
Always someone else
To fill their place
To step up
To the empty castle
Their void, their challenge
Be better than before
And
Once
This time
There's something that is
A conspiracy of days
That's been in the making
Longer than most
And its chance are
Greater than most
But still
We are all players
Pieces moved by the master
And they never want to play themselves
Wondering why
We walk forward
Into the next battle
Fought for an unknown reason
Yet all else is because
It has to be
We're going to do
What we have to do
For whoever's up there
For whatever there is to it
~