Chapter 29
"King of the Castle"
~
We are the chosen; for a life that lasts
No joy to tempt us; yet there is that fairness
Our hunger sated but pain created,
Out of all we are capable of
Today is the day
As everyday is this
All the days as one
Great battle
Evil wins on the lust that rides deep within
The power we took, takes us to a place
That can't escape the grasp held tight upon
Hands ripped, cuts lye in skin
The damage of its sin
Forced to us
Centuries drive past
Millennia fall away
We stay
To tell a tale
Of wishes fulfilled
Of dread
And the killed
Whatever we see
Shall live on
~
##Hermione##
She looked up to the scene, her spirit dragging as He moved her body across the floor. He walked without her and she lagged along behind feeling ever weaker for his control.
She cried inside at her misery.
*Why? Why me? Why such randomness to who ends up with a god in them?*
It took blood to start it.
Not such of a surprise when you know he's not a nice guy, he's a dark god after all. The baddest butch in the pack of whatever they were. And his sacrifice demanded blood, which she'd seen. The poor helpless priestess brainwashed to believe she'd be rewarded.
But how is a dark god going to reward his followers when his idea of what's good is exactly the opposite of the norm. Either way they'd go to a hell made by him. Maybe the priestess' reward was a little less suffering when she got there, having paid a price in pain in her death for Khaeos.
Hermione just didn't know how it all worked. There weren't any textbooks on what to do if you were possessed by a divine entity intent on bring down the world in fire and brimstone.
But her guess was this would only end in tears. More pain and more blood, maybe that was the only way. Another ritual perhaps, that the Khaeodrics knew of. There must've been some manuscript, something that told them what to do. If only she could get to it or in this situation, if only someone else could get to it for her.
+++++
~
For every lie has truth
And every thing can't be
The same
That shame is in it
That pain is in it
And every one has it
Nothings false
It all could be
Every point possible
Every lie's true somewhere
And if you know it all
How do you tell?
What's true here
And what's false there
~
##Harry##
I do not pretend to think everything will be perfectly fine. We can only wait, wait and see. -Severus.
Harry read the letter and threw it over onto the desk impatiently. For days they'd not known what was happening.
Once more the Order was searching for her, scouring the bases for the new headquarters.
Snape however brought no news of her with his third daily post. Still no news.
And nothing from her either.
Harry wondered if they could even help if they found her. If she was even in danger. She may just as well be in hiding from us all.
Yet to look for her anywhere else other than in the Khaeodrics possession was pointless. Unless she was with them they knew not where to search.
Harry too did not know where to go. The place he'd found her in he'd known of only because it was a place discovered by accident once in their school days. Where else was their, she would now only go where he could not find her because she simply did not wish to be found.
+++++
##Hermione##
The body moved to strike out at a young woman. Khaeos hit the unknown girl across the face harshly reprimanding her for her behaviour.
Hermione flinched at the sight of the blood on the tiles. It dripped in a trail as the female follower fled the room crying. Hermione suspected the girl cried more out of unhappiness at displeasing her great lord than at the pain of the split lip.
Nevertheless she hated His shows of power over the people before him.
She had too much pain inside, could not stand for more to be inflicted. She didn't care whose pain it was just that it happened and needn't but for His satisfaction.
It needed to end here and now.
Stopping today.
The horror stopping at Him.
Him stopping was all that was needed.
She didn't care how.
Whatever it took.
She couldn't get Him or them though. The only other target was obvious.
Tears.
There would be more….
She turned to look at Him in the mirror, out of her eyes she saw his picture. A malice in her eyes, her whole being corrupted with Him.
…but if tears would be what it took then that would have to be it.
*On my own head it will stop today; tonight.*
~
What do you do?
When you know
Letting go will end a life
Do you let the grip
Slip past your tentative fingers
Saying ever more sorry
To her fearful eyes
Do you take in her plea
Asking don't let me die
Hold on, hold on to me, please
Taking a hand in yours tightly
Knowing that your hand touches death
Is pulling you closer to it by the minute
Tugging at her, at you
With no release because you promised
Yours to give, hers to give; both being taken
What do you do?
A choice hard, heartbreaking
The difference love and life
Compared to death and darkness
To whichever you reach
Matters solely on one girl
Who anxiously awaits
The answer that decides her fate
Let go
Don't let go
Picking off the petals
Only you know what's to be
Fate left to you
The Norns task
Put upon you only
~
##Hermione##
He'd been drumming her down, beating her up inside, telling her she's bad. Khaeos had said she was meant to be; destined to be this. So much had happened she'd been practically unsure what to believe.
It changed her life. Her destiny. Or did it. Was it her destiny to be this? Would she act like this if she were not a mother? Would she be willing to do this if she was someone who knew no pain? She knew love in all its forms. Unrequited, unconditional, for friend and for family.
Was that why her life had led to what she was about to do?
Even when she was determined to have a fate such as this she had a choice of what to do. She'd liked to have thought it was through the help of others that she'd become a good person but maybe it was from above. In subtle ways her life was changed over the years. Signs emerged that gave hope and strength. Not all ways to change things were direct.
*Perhaps one day they'll forgive me. Maybe sometime he'll forget me.* she thought as she watched over what was happening.
She'd figured it out.
Hermione knew they were protected. She could not harm Tom Riddle or any of the Khaeodrics.
And she could not control her body, could not get back what Khaeos had taken.
But he had not taken everything into Himself
She still had one commodity
And she knew exactly what to do with it.
She could stop this all with one sacrifice.
One thing she herself could do and then there would be no more threat to the world.
No longer any peril to Harry or Elianne.
If she could just concentrate long enough.
There was so much power in Him. Unguarded.
That could have been because it was really hers, built in to her by his design.
He meddled with her soul and now he'd feel the pain for making the mistake of thinking he was unbeatable because he'd left a backdoor open so to speak.
All she had to do to destroy him was in her. And in her reach.
She had will. Mentally even if no longer physically.
She knew he could sense her stirring now, her mind probing.
She heard the orders to Thomas.
The leader tries faithfully to help his master. She saw the ex-Voldemort cutting at her, hurting her. Making rips in the skin of the flesh.
Trying to weaken her.
Khaeos did not realise that it was too late. Now she knew there was no stopping her.
She found what she was looking for. The centre of it all. The orb of power within. The magic.
Hermione knew what she must do.
The sacrifice meant He could be gone.
Safe for all. And all she has to do is…
She reached out believing in it, knowing it was all it took to end it.
The crowd of followers stood round the figure of the girl hesitantly, they'd sensed a change. The god struggled internally with Hermione's spirit. He was fighting her.
Some realised what it meant. Gods were meant to be infallible. And so whilst a few pivoted on their heels and ran with all their might from the scene, others faithfully stayed.
Over time they sensed it too. That it was not right. But they realised too late because a blinding light came from the pedestalled figure. It in a moment that lasted ages it grew to encompass Hermione's body completely. And seen for a few further second was a beautiful sight impacted later by a massive magic explosion.
A rumble emanated from the site, heard from a mile away by the eloping Khaeodrics.
The magnificent monastery building lay in ruins. With only one room relatively intact - the main hall where the explosion had come from. Yet in it nothing was left except a darkness to it described as a chill atmosphere.
+++++
##Harry##
They all sat in the living room. Gathered after the evening meal.
All worried about Hermione.
Harry sat across from Cassandra. She sat watching him acutely. He'd wondered if she had a crush on him but it didn't fit with what she was like.
He peered over his book and saw her with a strange look, stranger than he'd ever seen on anyone and rather familiar to a certain Professor he'd known.
He knew she was in vision.
He walked calmly over to her. Frantic inside his head to know what she was seeing
Elianne and the others all looked up too at his approach to Cassandra.
He knelt infront of her as the girls drew near.
"Cassy, what do you see?" he asked her.
She remained non-responsive.
Dido crawled forward to the side of Cassy and sat on the edge of the seat. She moved her hand and waved it infront of Cassandra. Cassy's eyes did not blink at this.
Instead she spoke, as if on command.
"She is gone. Death is at deaths door. Khaos no more. There is no more. Cally's girl she was, she was, and she is no more……"
The girls sat there confused whilst Harry retreated back to his chair.
He looked out of the window to the view, closing his eyes on it.
He knew what it meant. It was exactly what he didn't want to hear.
She was gone. Hermione was gone. No more. He did not know how or why but she was dead. He sat down. Preparing to tell them.
The girls all still sat around Cassy as she awoke from the trance and still all were oblivious to the messages meaning. He'd have to tell them. But for a few minutes he sat there. Closed off from the world. Blanking out everything, wanting only for her not to fade from his mind now that she was only memories.
Epilogue
"The Stars Are Upside Down"
~
It would seem ok
If
You were only sleeping in a graceful coma
Pale in the face
Would be a little tolerable
If
You were at the end
Grasped in deaths hold: For eternity
Denied in mind, never to know the body
Yet you do not sleep eternally
You are not forever at the final point of life
For not even death can hold
Now you are decays
Rotting ever more away
Denied you in every sense
Not known by being
Very existence under defence
For now you are only memories
No body, not even cold and upturned
No body, all of you gone
And I could cope,
I could handle it
If
I could see you
Standing in death
Not mine; but not hidden either
Life would be better
If
You were near it; atleast
I can bear the silence
I can bear the cold
I can bear that there is no hold
No squeeze back of my hand
I can bear every denial of presence
Just Not That
That you are not any more
That you are obliterated from the world
From my world
And if
I cannot bear
The worst is
I may live
In this torture
Of not being
Of not being able to
Of waiting
Patiently
For that something else
That I cannot bring closer
For what I wish
~
#Harry##
Ten lonely people stood abroad the cold field.
All gathered around a small patch of ground and a neat stone placed before a young tree.
A vicar took a sermon for them, saying a few odd words about Hermione.
Harry stood back from them all, right infront of the grave. If you could call it that.
The wind swept his hair across his face and he did not bother to flick it from his eyes. He could barely see as it was with his watery eyes.
They'd been to the site where it had happened. Finally they'd found it. Too late for her to benefit. The only reason they'd found it was because the ministry had detected a giant explosion of the magical kind and an informant had tipped them off. The ministry hadn't bothered with it, no muggles had been around at the time, no one to ask questions.
The order had transported them all there after the ministry had left. Harry had walked in the room where she'd been last. It looked mostly normal, only a few scorch marks compared to the rest of the place. All that was left was nothing to anyone else but to him he had seen it lying on the tiles. Her necklace of green tears, glittering in the remnants of the rubble.
Today he held it tight in his hand as he heard the words of the rector. Reverend Herrick was a family friend of the Grangers. Harry had not objected to this, he'd been grateful her parents had turned up at all with him present. Mrs Granger appeared to have forgotten all trouble with him at the news of her daughter's death.
It was a shame her mothers forgiveness had come only in the wake of death. But it was a shame about a lot of things to do with Hermione that would never be again.
It was summer, a very cool day for it, early in the morning. The dew was fresh on the grass as he knew she'd always liked.
The service was a formality. There was nothing to bury, nothing left of her.
So they made a place for her. Somewhere to go to grieve.
Elianne mourned the loss of a mother.
In reality she'd lost two in fewer days. One to prison, practically a passing away and the other to death itself.
No more happy dreams.
Harry thought endlessly of what might have been, who he could have become if Hermione had been here. Of what would have happened if they'd had a happy ever after.
But without her now…fate changed again.
Not how it should have been, is the feeling he felt.
At the end of the speech they began to leave. Snape and Draco paid their respects briefly, departing quickly off to their work.
In the height of this the ministry finally had accepted measures needed to be taken to ensure safety. Draco was being put in charge of securing Hogwarts once more and Snape had his own mission to leave for. Harry didn't care much to speculate but he thought perhaps it was to do with the knowledge that Thomas Riddle was alive. With all the pain Voldemort had caused Severus, he understood why that might be so important to tie the strings up. Snape already had Eliza holed away. Thomas would end things off nicely for him, settle the poor man's conscience at long last.
Harry walked over to the tree, reading the plaque on the stone. Instead of the normal headstone he'd had a rock, her parents had seen to the engraving and the plaque by the tree.
Hermione Granger lies at rest
Forever remembered
She was always special
He doubted very much if she was at rest. They'd omitted she lies here, because of course she did not. They hadn't asked too many questions, her parents had only accepted that it was so.
Special. Yes she was. And he cursed that it was that that had forsaken her to this.
Flowers dropped angrily on the grave.
Life was too unfair. Why did it have to be her?
If it had been Eliza no one would have missed her.
Yet life had picked Hermione for the fate.
That it was random made nothing better for him.
In fact it only infuriated him further that her death should have been so pointless and to no capable end.
He tore the necklace from his grasp and hung it over the branches of the Elder tree. The emeralds sparkled back at him. All his wishes could never have saved her. To take all your pain away & make you happy always - that was what it said on the back of the pendant. It hadn't worked one bit. The drops of the green gem smiled at him, like sweet tears of sorrow.
He got up and strided away from the patch of earth. Running from it, he could stand it no longer for it imbued the essence of all she had been through.
It was too much for him to take in on top of his personal desolation. So he hurried far away, pushing the fear to the back of his heart and wishing it from his head.
Wanting with one total desire that he would never forget her. She deserved more than that but it was all he could hope to give if it was possible at all.
~
You can't stop the world from turning
For the sunrise to become a sunset
And when dawn breaks
You know it's happened finally
There is no going back
There is no timer to click
Like you can pause it at this point
Trying forever to remember
Because you know you'll be forgotten just like everyone else
Because the planet runs over everyday,
Travelling further away from this
And memory getting buried deeper
With no reminder of what was
And only the bright green light
And the tears left to do that
~~~~~~