Resistance
Chapter Two: Absolution
Hermione opened her eyes the next morning, and was, for an instant, unable to remember where she was or how she got there. Then she felt the headache pounding in her temples, the raw skin underneath eyes that have been wiped too often, and the tender stretchiness of her newly healed palm, and it came flooding back with nauseating clarity. She sighed gustily, having hoped somehow that this had all been some horrid, unfathomable nightmare - like the vivid ones of Harry screaming, Bill's staring, but unseeing eyes, Moody being surrounded, green flashes that had punctuated her sleep all night long. There was no way to tell, of course, if it was morning, since they were underground, but she could hear the bustle of people beyond the door. Fred had already arisen, apparently, and she could faintly hear the crackle of the Wizarding Wireless, though she couldn't make out any of the words.
"You `wake, Hermione?" came a voice from the bunk beneath hers. Ron's voice was rough and shaky, and he sounded as unrested as she felt. She made a mumbling noise of assent, and climbed down from her bunk, settling in cross-legged at the foot of Ron's bed and stealing his blanket.
"Hi," she said, pulling the blanket up under her chin. It smelled like the soap he used, and she was momentarily grateful for that one small consistency. What words did one use, she pondered, when it was clearly not a good morning, and there might not ever be a good morning again? The silence between them was fraught with awkwardness and heartache.
"Hi," he finally responded in a raspy voice, and she noted the purple-blue rings under his eyes, which seemed sunken in his head. His fiery red hair was tousled, and seemed to have leeched all of the color from his pale, drawn face. He suddenly looked much older than his years. A sort of convulsion trembled through his shoulders. "Not a dream, then?" he asked, sitting up and leaning his chin on his knees.
Hermione wondered if tears were going to take up permanent residence behind her eyelids. She shook her head. "No," she choked out, forcing the words past the hot, painful clog twisting in her throat. "It's not a dream." His frame drooped a little, as if she'd told him something mildly disappointing, like a bad mark on an exam.
"I - I was sort of hoping that it was," Ron admitted suddenly, sucking in a noisy gasp of air. Tears brimmed over in his eyes, and spilled down his cheeks, apparently without his notice. "Mum - she was - she - " His voice was barely intelligible through the emotion.
"Ron," Hermione rested one hand on his arm sympathetically, dashing away the wetness on her cheeks with the other hand. "You don't have to tell me. I know how much it hurts." He scraped both palms over his cheeks, and blinked at her, as if he hadn't seen her before.
"That's right," he said dully. "I'd forgotten." Hermione wasn't surprised, but neither did she blame him, after what he'd been through. Her parents had been killed so early in the conflict that it seemed like ages ago - when it had really only been a handful of months. If I hadn't been at the Dursleys' with Harry and Ron last summer, she thought, knowing that her fate would have been that of her parents.
When Remus and Mrs. Weasley appeared at the front door of #4, Hermione had known - had known it like the dreadful, sinking certainty of bad news that one gets when the phone rings suddenly at 2:30 in the morning, or when a police car pulls into one's driveway for no apparent reason. She hadn't cried, not then, not in front of Ron, whose blue eyes were wide and mournful, even as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking fidgety and uncertain. She hadn't cried in front of Harry then, even though a shudder ran through her slender frame when he laid one hand gently on her shoulder. His face had been tight and pinched and angry and … profoundly guilty.
She had been practically able to read the thoughts running through his mind. This is all my fault. Being around me gets people killed. She would have been so much better off if she had never even met me. Everyone would. She had turned to Harry then, while everyone was poised to comfort her, waiting for her to say or do something so they could react, and looked at him, with hot, fierce, shining, dark eyes.
"It's not your fault, Harry. I will never forget what Voldemort has done to my - to my mum and d - dad. But I will never forgive him for what he has done to you." Their eyes had met then, shimmering, tear-filled gazes full of reflective agony.
"I'm - I'm so sorry," Harry had rasped, barely able to speak, and she did not reply, but merely held out her arms.
And then they were both clinging to each other, both crying, both assuring each other that somehow it would all work out, that somehow they would make it all work out. After all, he was the Boy Who Lived, and she was the Most Brilliant Witch of Her Age.
A snort of derision escaped Hermione, and Ron's look of confusion brought her back to the present.
"I'm sorry, Ron," she mumbled, burying her face in both hands for a moment, and then blinking back up at him. "I was just thinking of - of that day Remus and your mum came - came and told me that - that - what had happened."
"I was pretty useless that day, wasn't I?" Ron said, one corner of his mouth curling up in a bleak smile. "I was afraid that nothing I could have said would be - would be any comfort to you at all. And now that - now I - I guess I know now that nothing I could have said would have made it better." He looked at her again, and she reached out and took his hand in hers. "A bit stunning really, how much it hurts," he continued, almost clinically, his voice detached. "Like you're surprised that you still need to eat and breathe and use the loo. Like everything should have stopped because you feel so - so - " He appeared suddenly startled by his soul-baring, and stopped abruptly.
"Frozen? Numb?" Hermione supplied glibly, arching her eyebrows in question.
"Yeah," Ron said, his thumb moving absently over the back of her hand. His gaze seemed very far away. "She was - she was knocking Ginny out of the way of some curse - I don't even know what it was. Ginny still got some of it, but Mum - Mum took the brunt of it." His face was wet again, but he didn't seem to notice. "She - she was alive for a little bit, but she - she - she just stopped breathing. I heard her die."
"Ron - " Hermione tried in a blurred voice of protest, but Ron spoke over her, as if the need to tell someone were something putrid that he felt compelled to purge, and she let him.
"I had - we had the Marauder's Map," he said, and she nodded that she knew. "Harry gave it to me, right before everyone split up. I had been looking at it the whole time. And then, I got burned and dropped the bloody thing. Tonks had bent over to pick it up - barely missed getting herself cursed. They just came out of nowhere. Remus was healing me - we'd stopped in a doorway - when it happened." Hermione did not have to ask what `it' was. His entire face was a mute testimony to the impotent rage and helpless despair that he had felt at that time. "I should have been watching, I should have been paying attention. It was only for a moment, but - but - " in that moment, you lost everything, Hermione finished for him. She thought of her sprint to the forest, when Harry did not follow her, of the sinking, bitter despair that raked over her like venomous claws when she saw the Death Eaters leading him up the hill.
"Don't blame yourself, Ron," Hermione heard herself saying mechanically. "All of this is because what Voldemort has chosen to do, not because of what you did or didn't do. Your mother loved you, all of you. And she would rather have died than see anything happen to her children."
"I know, Hermione. I mean, with my - with my head, I know you're right. But I still - I still feel so - " so damn guilty, she finished for him again, as he stumbled to an ungainly halt.
There was a long silence, as they sat together on the narrow bed, fingers intertwined. Ron's face was an excruciating mask of pain and despair, his eyes shuttered, numb, glazed. Hermione dabbed her tender, puffy eyes with the corner of the sheet, and thought of Harry.
"How do you do it?" he asked her hoarsely, his voice sounding intrusive in the near total silence. It had lain comfortably over Hermione's ears like a soft blanket of nothingness. She looked at him quizzically, and he continued. "How have you been getting through every day? You lost your parents and the world you grew up in. Now the only other world you've ever known is gone too." It had been fairly easy, Hermione thought, when one had had no choice at all. She sat for a moment, contemplating his words. After a hasty discussion with Harry, Tonks, and Remus, it had been an easy matter for the wizards to place evidence at the smoldering once-inferno that had been the Granger house. As far as the Muggles were concerned, Hermione Granger had died with her parents in that fire. She didn't really expect it to fool anyone in the wizarding world for long, but at least this would keep any other members of her family out of danger, if they felt the need or desire to take her in.
"It's not over. This world is not gone. We can still fight! That's how you get through every day, knowing that people need you to fight for them!" Hermione said, wanting to sound strong, but sounding more like she was pleading with Ron, especially when her voice cracked in the middle of her declaration.
"It's a pipe dream, Hermione!" Ron said in a dead voice that somehow cracked Hermione's fragile heart even further. "We might as well fight, but we're not going to win. Harry was the one prophesied to destroy him, and he didn't. Voldemort's won! And everything is lost." Hermione began reflexively shaking her head, even before Ron had finished speaking.
"No. No, he's not gone. Quit talking about him in the past tense like he's dead."
"The Dark Lord's taken him. He is dead!" Hermione blinked at him, stunned and furious. She didn't think she'd ever heard any Order member, save Snape, refer to Voldemort as the `Dark Lord'.
Face it, Hermione. In all likelihood, he's dead. You know that! Practical Hermione, who had been recently submerged beneath Emotional Hermione, seized the forefront of her consciousness once again. He can't be dead. He can't be dead. What will I do if he's dead? Emotional Hermione thought incoherently. What do you mean, `What will I do?' Practical Hermione said in a voice of derision. Isn't everyone in this together? There was a rising tide of pain and tightness in her chest, product of an unexpected emotion that Hermione was not capable of or prepared to identify at that moment. She firmly squelched it.
He was standing in the middle of a stone room, in the center of a glowing, green ring inset into the damp floor. One eye was swollen shut, and his entire face was crusted in blood. He had been looking at the ground, but suddenly looked up, and in his good eye still flashed the defiance that had not been evident in his pose. Hermione recognized that look; it was the same one he got when Malfoy insulted Muggle-borns, or when he had spotted the Snitch. It was his "never say die" look.
And he was looking at her.
She gasped suddenly and audibly, wheezing the breathless word, "Harry!" when she exhaled.
"Hermione, stop!" Ron said forcefully, his voice angry, but his eyes still wet with tears. "This is hard enough without - " She stood suddenly, clasping and twisting her hands together - her fingers were suddenly cold and clammy. She moved in a couple of different directions, saying,
"Oh…oh…" under her breath, before she finally bolted for the door, muttering something untelligibly under her breath. She could feel the heat in her cheeks and the excitement blazing from her eyes, and was more than a little sure that she must have looked half-mad.
She sprinted into the War Room, where Tonks, Remus, McGonagall, and Fred were huddled around a map at the far corner. They were talking quietly, pointing out various places on the map, where Remus was sticking small pins with flags on them. There were black pins in Hogsmeade and Hogwarts and - Hermione noticed with some alarm - several other places as well, one in London, that Hermione thought must be the Ministry itself.
"What - what - " she stammered, as they all looked up to see her carom into the room. None of them looked as if they'd slept at all. Remus appeared as he often did on the day after a transformation, and Tonks' hair hung in a long, drab, messy plait down her back. "How's Ginny?" she blurted.
"There has been some improvement," McGonagall said gently, although her sharp eyes were still searching Hermione's face. "I've tried to contact Poppy, but communications are haywire, and we still don't know what's being watched."
"But St. Mungo's - ?" the younger woman asked.
"I went over there this morning - used Harry's invisibility cloak," Fred put in. "Still seemed to be operating as usual, but it was positively covered up with Death Eaters. We'd be taken before we got within a kilometer of the place."
"Hermione?!" Ron hollered, finally hurtling into the room behind her. "What the hell is going on?" It wasn't until she saw the bewildered look of worry commingled with apology and despair on his face that she felt regret for just running away from him like that. He had learned too recently and too well that nothing should be taken for granted.
"They were just telling me about Ginny," Hermione said in a voice of calm quiet, and Ron's attention was instantly distracted.
"Is she going to be okay?" he asked immediately.
"We can't get her to St. Mungo's," Fred told his last remaining brother. "Professor McGonagall has been trying to reach Madam Pomfrey." Ron was looking between him and his old Professor, with a look that clearly said, "so, what's the problem?" Hermione regarded him with bitter amusement; for all his matter of fact assertions that their world had been irreversibly obliterated, he had still not taken in what exactly that would mean.
"Come on, Ron!" Fred said wearily, reading the look as easily as Hermione did. "Owl post is shot to hell. We can barely use the Floo because we don't know who's watching. Same goes for Apparating anywhere. Every bloody Death Eater who ever took a Dark Mark appears to be roaming around Wizarding London, including right above our own bloody heads!" He pointed at the ceiling for emphasis, and Ron blanched. "They've already gotten Harry, and guess who are the next-most-wanted on Voldemort's Hit List?" He looked pointedly at the remaining two members of the Trio, and Hermione flinched as if he'd physically struck her.
"Mr. Weasley!" McGonagall said, somewhat reprovingly, but the austere conviction usually present in her voice was noticeably missing. Fred subsided, looking mostly apologetic, though a flash of "well, it's the truth!" was still evident in his eyes. Ron had finally noticed the black pins in the map, and Hermione watched his gaze flicker from one to the next.
"They've taken the Ministry?" he asked hoarsely, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, as he swallowed with difficulty. The three adults in the room - it still seemed pretentious to think of themselves and Fred as grown up, Hermione thought vaguely - exchanged troubled glances, and Remus finally nodded shortly. Ron waited for someone to volunteer more information, but no one did. "Dad?" he finally prodded, holding his body rigid, as if prepared for a blow. "Percy?" He sounded as if he didn't have enough air in his lungs to even wheeze the word. Hermione supposed that thinking your brother was a great git was a far cry from actually wanting something bad to happen to him.
"There hasn't been any communication from the Ministry since the attacks began yesterday," Tonks finally said, seeing that no one else was going to talk. "I've been trying - going through all the security protocols we have, but I haven't had any response."
"So he's dead then?" Ron said, his intonation making it sound more like a statement than a question. Hermione watched the bitterness come surging back into his eyes with all the force and inevitability of a tidal wave.
"We don't know that yet!" Hermione snapped, moving over to his side, desperate for him not to abandon all hope. "We don't know much of anything yet. We're still alive and - "
"More's the pity!" Ron interjected, his eyes flashing with angry grief.
"And while there's life, there's hope," she finished lamely, her voice becoming very small and tentative, as she recognized the utterly unwelcome triteness of her inappropriate words. "That's what my - that's what my dad used to say, anyway…" she trailed off, standing motionless in the middle of the room, feeling somewhat wilted. Ron's arms hung loosely at his sides, and he appeared absorbed in his shoes. He heaved a ragged sigh, and would not look at her. The tension in the room was thick and unbreathable, as painfully obvious as the despair which radiated from every face.
"What are the green pins?" Hermione asked, her brittle voice falling like pieces of shattered glass into the silence of the room. Tonks cleared her throat.
"They're ideas for possible safe-houses," she said. "The red ones are the ones that have already been exposed." Hermione stepped closer to the large map, and saw that Ottery St. Catchpole was marked with a red pin, as was Godric's Hollow and Grimmauld Place. Then, another pin caught her eye. It marked the last known location of Voldemort, and just pierced the "g" in Little Hangleton. In lighter days, someone, either Fred or George, had charmed an over-large skull on the head of the pin, which periodically got hit in the head by a lightning bolt and let out a tiny shriek.
She regarded the pin for a moment, watching it with wide, solemn eyes, wondering if Voldemort was still at the Riddle house. She figured that it was more likely that he had long since made for another location, especially since their intelligence information about Voldemort tended to be very outdated and spotty with regard to accuracy.
"Where are we going to start?" she asked, her eyes still fixed on the skull pin. There was a minute flash, as the bolt of lightning hit it between the eyes. Harry, she thought. Pathetic how even that little Weasley joke was painful now.
"Well, there's an abandoned house on a cliff in Cornwall," Tonks said. "It's large, and can easily be warded up with no one seeing. Nobody could sneak up on us either; it's very defensible." Hermione shook her head; Tonks had misunderstood her meaning.
"No, I mean, where will we start looking for Harry?" She reached up and fingered the skull-topped pin absent-mindedly. The silence got awkward and heavy. Remus looked particularly watery-eyed.
"Hermione!" Ron began again, but Fred hushed him with a wave of his hand.
"Hermione…" Tonks tried, her voice markedly more gentle than Ron's had been. For that reason, it also annoyed Hermione. The Auror began ticking things off on her fingers, as she spoke. "We - we have to get in touch with other Order members that could still be alive. We have to establish lines of communication. We have to figure out how to move people to Cornwall, how to acquire supplies. We have to figure out what our next move is going to be, if there's still any kind of government in place, if the Minister is even still alive. We - "
"You mean, you don't have time to help Harry," Hermione enunciated, stubborn tears pricking her eyelids, as she looked stonily at the map of England. The words `Little Hangleton' blurred and wavered in her gaze.
There was a hiss of air behind her, as Tonks sighed. Hermione could practically feel her exchanging questioning looks with Remus and McGonagall.
"If there were any indication of the possibility that Harry lives…" Remus began, his voice tentative. "Hermione, you know we would do anything to save him." She remained silent, her shoulders square, her spine rigid, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She winced and relaxed her hand, as her fingernails dug painfully into her recently healed palm. "Hermione, I loved him like he was my own son!" The werewolf finally exclaimed, his voice edged with frustration and sadness.
Hermione whirled on him then. "Quit talking about him in the past tense!" she yelled, her voice just shy of being hysterical. She caught herself, much as she had the night before, and forced herself to resume speaking steadily. "Harry is still alive. I know it." The excitement that she had felt a moment ago, when she had come to the conclusion that the reason she was seeing Harry was because he was still alive, thrummed through her again. She glowered at each of them in turn, her eyes darkly furious, like pools of hidden fire. She said this in such a decisive Hermione-like way, that Fred's eyes lit up, and Tonks took an unconscious step forward.
"How do you know?" Tonks asked. Hermione thought that she saw a narrow pink highlight form in the plait that was now flipped forward over her shoulder.
"Because if he'd died, I would know! I would be able to feel it if he weren't … here anymore," she said, putting one hand over her heart. She saw everyone in the room sag a little, as if the answer had been disappointing and not what they'd expected. The highlight in Tonks' hair must have been a trick of shadow, for when Tonks shifted her weight, it was gone. Ron was staring just staring at Hermione, as if he'd never laid eyes on her before.
"Hermione, that's - that's not exactly something we can … take to the bank," Fred said, his uncharacteristically gentle and rather patronizing voice both jarring and irritating her.
"I am telling you he is alive! He has always given everything he has to help you, and he does not deserve to be so summarily abandoned!" Hermione said, slapping her hand down on the surface of the table so hard that Fred and Tonks both jumped, and that she reopened the wound on her palm. She hissed at the sting of pain that suddenly jabbed her palm like a dozen tiny needles, and rubbed her thumb distractedly in the blood that began to smear across her hand.
"Why would Voldemort keep Harry alive?" Lupin asked, looking as stricken as she had ever seen him. "He has done everything he could think of to kill Harry for the last seven years!"
"It's his moment of triumph!" Hermione said, a note of sarcasm in her tone. "Perhaps he wants to savor it! I told you last night - capturing Harry is the endgame. But think about it, Harry has thwarted Voldemort for nearly eighteen years, defeated him as a toddler, as a young wizard barely in school who knew nothing about magic. Harry found out his secret, hunted down his horcruxes and destroyed them. Now, Voldemort is one-seventh of a soul - who knows if he even has enough of a soul left to split again? Voldemort has Harry right where he wants him, but that upstart son of a Mudblood mother has still managed to muck up all his plans! You don't think that Voldemort won't want to make him beg for death before the end?"
The others in the room stood as if they had all been Petrified. Hermione wondered if it was from what she said or from the derogatory term she had used. Ron had visibly flinched when the word `mudblood' had crossed her lips.
"It's possible, Miss Granger, but still unlikely," McGonagall said, as firmly as if Hermione were still a student in school. "Voldemort has no safety net left, since Harry destroyed the horcruxes. He wouldn't keep Harry alive, and risk a defeat, not when he only has the same number of lives as the rest of us, now. The likeliest scenario is that Harry was killed soon after he was brought before Voldemort."
Hermione closed her eyes, as if doing so would make McGonagall's words less logical, less probable. The image of Harry screaming filtered into her head again, and she wobbled visibly on her feet. The other Order members waited for her to speak, waited for her to concede that they were right, waited to enfold her in hugs of comfort. She knew they all loved and mourned Harry…maybe almost as much as she did.
Harry's shirt was torn and blood-stained. It looked like a couple of his fingers were broken. Half of his face was swollen, purple and grotesque, one eye merely a slit in his pummeled face. And yet his good eye seemed to pierce into her very mind, radiating challenge and fury and refusal to surrender.
She opened her eyes and jerked her chin up suddenly, defiance sparkling through the tears.
"I know Harry is alive," she stubbornly asserted yet again. "I have seen him." She searched all of their faces again, and noted the varied degrees of sadness, pity, uncertainty, and perplexity that she saw there. "And if none of you will help me, then I will figure out how to find him by myself." She bit off the last words, and turned on her heel.
A moment later, the door to the library slammed decisively.
~~**~~
Hermione looked at her smashed watch out of habit, sighing in frustration as she remembered a half-second too late that it would not tell her the correct time. She had no idea what time it was, but she had been holed up in the library for hours. She had not eaten at all, and her stomach rumbled noisily, even as she flexed her cramped fingers back and forth in an effort to ease the ache. They protested their long stint of uninterrupted time spent clenching a quill. Several feet of parchment flowed across the desk, and plummeted in rolls and billows to the floor.
She stood from her chair, groaning as she arched her back, her knees creaking loudly as she straightened them out fully. She wanted to go out to the War Room and look at the map again. After careful assessment, there were only a few places where Voldemort could be holding Harry, only a few Death Eaters who had estates extensive enough to support an operation like - like taking over the world - she thought derisively. There was also the possibility that Voldemort had returned to Hogwarts with Harry, although she wasn't sure whether he would want to give Harry even the admittedly slight advantage of familiar ground.
She looked longingly toward the library door. She had sealed it with an angrily-thrown Colloportus, and had heard only a couple of hesitant rattles of the doorknob since her self-imposed exile that morning. She sank back into her chair with fatigue, even as her bum protested another close encounter with the chair, so soon after its reprieve. She really didn't want to face everybody and their sad, tired, pitying demeanors.
I should apologize, she thought. There is every logical reason to believe that Harry is dead. How can I expect them to believe me, when all the proof I have is "I know he's not dead"? I wouldn't believe me either. I sound like Luna Lovegood. She was momentarily distracted as she thought of Luna and Neville, Seamus, Dean, and Hannah, wondering where they were and if they were okay, blessing Merlin that school had already adjourned for the summer holidays, that the seventh years had already graduated and gone. The Order would probably like to find that out as well, she reprimanded herself. But you want them to go off on some half-baked mission to save someone that may be beyond saving!
Even as she tried to play devil's advocate, she rejected it. No, he is alive. I know it. I know it like I know I'm alive. That unwelcome, unfamiliar emotion was rising in her again, and she swiped her sweaty palms against the softness of her pants.
Just then, the doorknob rattled again, and she heard Ron's voice, a combination of things that made her jump and flush like she'd been caught doing something wrong.
"Hermione? Hermione, can you let me in, please? You should eat, and - and we - I want to talk to you." She heard the rattle of cutlery against a tray, and smiled in spite of herself. Pointing her wand over her shoulder, she unsealed the door without looking, her eyes trailing down the parchment to the last idea she'd written down. Her face lit up a bit more. Yes, that little smidge of an idea was rather brilliant.
Ron entered the room, carefully balancing two servings of tea and a plate of sandwiches.
"I'm not really that hungry, but I reckon we have to eat," he said, sitting the tray down, after Hermione raked all her work to one side, beginning to neatly roll the parchment and stack the books. She wrapped her hands around one cup of tea, after she had cleared the space, and savored the warmth that flowed through her hands and up her arms. Ron chose a sandwich, and began listlessly picking at the crust of the bread, something that fairly shouted to Hermione that these were not normal times. She sipped her tea, her dry throat closing gratefully around it.
"Nobody - nobody meant to hurt your feelings, Hermione," Ron began, tentatively, wrinkling his brow with concern. "They were - we were trying - because we have to - " he floundered a bit, and then swore under his breath. "Dammit! Harry was always a sight better at this kind of crap than I am." His use of "was" still made Hermione wince, but she forced a smile.
"Neither of you have ever been very proficient at it," she retorted dryly, but her face grew somber as she returned to the topic at hand. "Ron, I know I sound crazy. But if you ever trusted me, if you ever believed in me, I'm asking you to believe in me now. I know he is alive. And I know the time that we have to find him is running short." She reached out and took his hand, with wide, pleading eyes. "Voldemort's torturing him, hurting him. I've seen him, covered in blood…screaming… "
Ron was shaking his head, helplessly. "How, Hermione? How could you possibly have seen him?"
Hermione removed her hand from his, clasping both of hers together tightly. She stood up, sat down, then stood up again. "I don't know, Ron," she finally said. "I've been looking for a good bit of the day, trying to find other phenomena like this." She shrugged apologetically. "He used Legilimency on me, right before they took him. Maybe that, combined with the high stress we were both under, left some kind of imprint or something. All I know is that I can see him!"
"How do you know it's not just a memory of him? You've seen him upset and hurt plenty of times," Ron persisted.
"He's somewhere I've never seen before. His shirt is torn, and one eye is swollen shut. His glasses are gone. He's standing in the center of some kind of ring, like a forcefield, in a stone room - a kind of a cell." For a moment, she sounded far away, as she recalled details of her visions, but then she snapped back to reality, as she said stubbornly and defiantly. "It is not a memory, Ron!"
Ron had been watching her carefully. "And you say you can feel it - him?"
Hermione lowered her head to her hands. "I know it sounds stupid. I can't really sense his emotions or his thoughts or anything, but I just - I can just tell that he's still alive. I swear I'm not making this up, Ron. I'm not crazy or tired or in shock… I know he's alive!" Ron looked at her for a long moment, and she met his gaze with pleading, intense eyes.
"I believe you," he finally said, looking at her somberly. She noted how unutterably weary and worn he seemed, and lashed her whips of self-recrimination for unleashing all of this on him today. She smiled at him, a barely there, close-lipped smile.
"Thank you," she whispered softly. There was another long silence.
"What are you going to do?" He asked in a quiet voice, his eyes locked on to his as yet untasted sandwich. Hermione's heart sank when he said "you" instead of "we".
"I'm going to find out where Voldemort is, and I'm going to go after Harry," Hermione said, simply, as if she were proposing an errand to the grocer's to pick up sugar or milk. Their eyes met during the end of her sentence, as her mouth shaped and sounded Harry's name. Hermione's eyes were dark and somber and completely determined; Ron's own blue gaze was almost one of amusement, thought the haunted look did not completely vacate the premises. He looked as though Hermione's reply had not surprised him, as if he had been, in fact, expecting something of the sort.
"Just tell me what you need me to do, and I'll do it," he finally said, reaching out and clasping her hand tightly in his. She nodded her thanks, as a watery smiled flickered across her face briefly. She looked down at their entwined fingers, and the painful intensity returned. It was like she was physically stretching from the yearning that coursed through her as her blood flowed through her veins, so desperate was her desire to reach out to…Harry.
She blinked, startling suddenly, as if she'd been unceremoniously doused with ice water. She looked at Ron, as if desperate to imprint his face over the image that had invaded her mind without invitation. Ron is the boy I've been dating for almost a year! She scolded herself, as if her betraying subconscious had recently become unaware of that fact. I love my best friend, I miss my best friend, I want him back with me - us! Hermione had become nearly frantic to deny this thing - this feeling that had probably been present for quite some time, and she had only now exerted enough attention on it to notice. No, no, no, no, no! She repeated stubbornly to herself, as if she could intimidate the emotion out of existence. I will not be in love with Harry Potter! I refuse!
Ron appeared lost in his own thoughts, his head bowed, his eyes stony and distant, focused toward the faded, worn knees of his jeans. She watched him thoughtfully, feeling the comforting closeness of his fingers lined up with hers. How could I do this to him? She thought mournfully, remaining blissfully and ironically ignorant that she had moved directly from denying the existence of the feelings to plotting what she could do to get rid of them. Her thumb moved lightly over the skin stretched taut over his knuckles. He's already lost so much.
She closed her eyes, and shook her head resolutely. The situation was untenable; her feelings were ridiculous. Harry was missing. Harry needed her help. Everything else was window-dressing, frivolous, irrelevant, ignorable. Any interest in Harry - beyond that of friendship - had no place in her schedule.
She looked at her tea, abandoned on her desk, and by now, quite tepid. Quietly, moving slowly so as to not disturb Ron from his musings overmuch, she disentangled her hand from Ron's and reached for her wand, intending to cast a warming charm on her beverage.
A shriek sounding like it had issued from Tonks brought them both immediately to their feet, exchanging alarmed glances as they flew from the room. Hermione quite forgot about her tea.
~~**~~
Tonks' cry had evidently drawn attention from the others, who had been scattered around the small compound, while I was monopolizing the library, Hermione thought shamefacedly. The Auror was seated at the table in the War Room, hunched over a small object that she clenched so tightly that her knuckles were right.
"Nymphadora!" Remus cried, reaching her side, at about the same time that Hermione and Ron entered the room. Tonks waved one hand wildly at him, obviously indicating that he hush, and leaned even closer to what she held.
"What in the name of Zonko is going on?" Fred asked, as he too arrived, followed by McGonagall. Hermione shushed him, and in the resulting silence, they could hear a voice, though it was tinny and distorted, as if coming from very far away.
"… with you? Is everyone all right?" came a voice, sounding tinny and distorted, as if it had been produced on the other end of a bad phone connection. Hermione started in recognition, and felt Ron's fingers suddenly clamp tightly around hers.
"We're okay," Tonks said, a hedging noted obvious in her voice. Hermione finally realized that Tonks was holding a mirror, similar to the two-way mirror that Harry had received from Sirius. "How about you?"
"Dad?" Ron finally ventured, taking a half-step forward, but Hermione grabbed his arm.
"…shouldn't say more…secure connection…" crackled Mr. Weasley's tired voice over the mirror. "…someone to let me in, please, Tonks?"
"Absolutely, sir," Tonks said, in as deferent a tone as she would have used for the Minister himself. The mirror gave a flicker and a crackle as the connection was severed. Ron sank into the nearest chair, burying his face in both hands.
"Thank Merlin," he said in a muffled voice. There was a sound of rapid footfalls, and everyone turned to see Fred quickly making his way up to the laboratory of the shop to await his father's arrival. Ron stood, as quickly as he had sat, toppling the chair over backwards, and followed his brother.
"Did he give you any information about the status of the Ministry?" McGonagall asked Tonks, her eyes grave and somber.
"The Minister is dead," Tonks said, without dissembling. McGonagall's face grew even grimmer, and Hermione closed her eyes at the new development. She could not admit to any love lost for Scrimgeour, given his behavior toward Harry, but his death definitely wouldn't make any of their lives any easier. It meant that the Wizarding government had been effectively beheaded. "Arthur was apparently able to conceal himself after the building had been taken, and on the move all night, hiding from Death Eaters in the closets and back passages and ventilation shafts. He finally got a Auror mirror from - from someone - " Tonks faltered, and Hermione understood that Mr. Weasley must have removed it from a dead body. "He contacted us as soon as he was able."
Hermione felt a swamping wave of gratitude that Mr. Weasley had survived. She didn't think Ron or Fred could take much more loss. Almost as if in answer to her to her thought, she heard the heavy treads of several people, as they made their way down into the Shop. Mr. Weasley entered the room, flanked by his two sons, looking pale and strained. Hermione wondered idly, if they had told him of his family's fate.
"Percy didn't happen to make it here, did he?" he asked, hopefully.
"He didn't know where it was, Dad," Fred replied gently, and Mr. Weasley sagged a little.
"The Death Eaters were specifically looking for us. I can't think why. They couldn't find Percy either…I was - I was hoping…" he trailed off forlornly.
"Ginny's been hurt," Ron blurted abruptly. Mr. Weasley looked sharply and searchingly into the eyes of his two sons, and seemed to understand what they weren't telling him.
"Take me to see her," he ordered quietly, his face stern, his eyes hooded and resolute in the expectation of certain agony. He tossed a crumpled, torn segment of newsprint onto the table. "Nicked that just outside the Ministry," he said to Remus in an offhand voice, before following Fred and Ron to Ginny's room.
Tonks, Remus, McGonagall, and Hermione quickly gathered around the paper. Hermione smoothed her hands over the wrinkled paper, using her wand absent-mindedly to repair a long shred torn from the side, and saw that it was the front page of the Daily Prophet.
The headline blared: BOY WHO LIVED BELIEVED KILLED; VOLDEMORT TAKES MINISTRY; THOUSANDS DEAD; THOUSANDS MORE FLEE.
A small blurb beneath the date read, "Final Issue Until Further Notice."
TBC
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