Unofficial Portkey Archive

Something had broken his fall. He was choking from the thick dust and debris in the air. He looked up and realized he had fallen down what appeared to be a long dried up well. Harry stood up and tried to brush some of the dirt from his clothes. He began to notice his surroundings as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. He had landed on a pile of human bones. He quickly scrambled off of them and stood on solid ground.

The floor was made from rough cut stone. There were cubby holes carved into the surrounding stone walls. It slowly dawned on Harry that he was in a very old crypt. He guessed that no one had been through here in many years, most likely in many centuries. He wondered a few times in his life what death might be like and what the next life might hold. This was not what he had imagined.

The dry well ended into this alcove, but there was also a dark tunnel that lay ahead. The tunnel had many more holes carved into it that were littered with the remains of those placed here some time in the distant past.

"Why on earth are there skeletons and crypts in the afterlife?" Harry pondered aloud. "That doesn't make any sense at all. Where am I? Am I even dead?"

Harry pinched his arm and felt a twinge of pain.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed. "What in the hell is going on here?"

He regretted saying that almost as soon as it escaped his lips. Harry was not one to swear lightly and he truly wished he had chosen another word to exclaim his confusion with. Harry felt a sense of dread filling him from the inside out. He had just killed two innocent and good people. He really was dead and now he was in a place that bad people go when they are murderers. He let out a sigh and told himself that this was quite appropriate after all. Of course, what good is feeling things like pain when you are in a place that you're already dead? He started to imagine things a lot more terrible than dying and it started to send shivers down his spine.

"I can feel things, because pain is a serious part of suffering," he mused. "I think I'm in a lot of trouble here."

He could hear his voice echo a bit down the hall in front of him. He looked up and realized there was no way to get back up there, so his only choices were to stay put and wait for someone or something to come along or the alternative was to start moving. He began to imagine the kinds of 'somethings' that might show up and decided it was better to press ahead.

"I wonder if I need to eat or drink anything down here?" he pondered. He did not feel hungry, but he suddenly felt very thirsty. "Let me guess, there's no water anywhere down here either."

He timidly began trudging forward. It was dark, but there was enough ambient light in the crypt to see what lie directly ahead of him. There was a pale glow like what the moon gives off in the early hours of the morning. It was coming from the top of the well, but somehow the glow reflected off the stone walls enough to light the way.

The hallway got a bit narrow in places and it made him get uncomfortably close to the dead lining the path. He had a hard time shaking the fear that they would suddenly begin to stir and start grabbing for him. That started the whole thought process of things worse than dying again and it caused him to pick up the pace a bit.

Whenever he closed his eyes he could see Hermione and Ron's faces. It would have made him start crying again, if he was not so scared. Harry suddenly reached up to his neck and pressed his fingers there. He held them there for a long time, before coming to the dark conclusion that his heart was indeed no longer beating. He was most definitely dead, but this sure was not what he expected it to be like.

--- ---

Hermione looked down at herself in shock and wonder. Just a few moments before, she had been walking down Knockturn Alley with Ron. She had been holding the death-eater cloak tightly around her, afraid that she would be seen and recognized. Ron was walking close to her, not saying a word. She figured he was just as nervous about the whole thing as she was. She hated to admit it, but she really wished Dumbledore had sent Harry with her instead, but this was too dangerous for him. Plus, Ron mentioned that Harry was going to be working with Professor Snape on something important.

The time had come for her to send the false dark mark signal into the night sky to help scare of the local riff-raff. The less people who were hanging around the better. There was going to be some new additions to the Order of the Phoenix and everyone wanted to make sure they would make it safely back to headquarters. Just as the signal had left her wand she noticed a lone figure straight ahead. She could not make out who it was, but they seemed to be highly agitated. She tried to pull her wand out of the cloak, but it snagged on some loose thread. The figure had their wand out and pointed right at them. She turned to Ron, but he was oblivious to the whole thing. A series of spells began to erupt forth from the wizard's wand and were headed this way. She managed to yank her wand out and had just enough time to get a shield spell off. She made the last minute decision to cast it on Ron. It was not out of any premeditated thought. She just felt that if she were going to do anything it was going to be to protect her and Harry's dear friend. A second later she felt an agonizing force rip through her and she fell.

After lying there for awhile she then gathered her courage and started to stand up. Strangely enough the curse that had been thrown at her no longer hurt. Nothing hurt actually and to be honest she never felt better in her life. She looked around and noticed that she was no longer standing next to Ron and she was no longer in Knockturn Alley. She was in a green meadow, surrounded by a misty forest. Everything smelled so sweet and alive; it filled her up with a giddy kind of joy. She looked down at herself and the death-eaters robe was gone as well. She was wearing a blue and white cloth dress. It was long and flowed easily down her body. It covered her quite well, but felt as if she was wearing nothing at all.

She knew that she should be feeling a sense of fear, or even outright panic. That emotion simply was not inside of her. She stood there and wrapped her mind around the concept that seemed so natural. She, one Hermione Granger, was dead. Strangely enough, she was quite okay with that, but for the life of her she had no idea of why.

--- ---

Hagrid knocked loudly and then simply threw the door open. Tears were running down his face.

"Hello! Arthur? Molly?"

Fred and George apparated immediately in front of the gentle half-giant. They both looked worse for the wear, but were trying to keep a stiff upper lip. Almost immediately after Ginny, Bill, Charlie, Molly and Arthur came down the stairs.

"Hagrid," cried Molly. "What is it? What's happened?"

Hagrid had a weary smile on his face.

"Well, it's like this. Mrs. Pomfrey just told us we've all made a right terrible mistake. She insisted on checking on Hermione and Ron herself. She just told me the news and Dumbledore agreed with her one hundred percent. It seems that our dear Hermione had gotten off a good, strong shielding spell on Ron right before she died. It was enough. So, Mrs. Pomfrey apparated herself and Ron to St. Mungos right away. The healer there told her that he was going to make it."

"I do believe it's time we made a trip down to St. Mungos right away. What do you say Weasleys?" Arthur said with a hopeful smile.

Hagrid could not hold back any longer and pulled out an oversized handkerchief and blew his nose as loud as a fog horn.