Prologue
The sun had long risen above the frosty land, failing to warm the ground, and to clear the misty sky of its gloominess. It was dark where Harry was sitting, but he would have been feeling miserable even if there had been no promise of another blizzard in the air, even if he were rubbing suntan lotion on his pale skin right now, even if the trees in the area were portraying all hues of green, rather than competing in which of them could produce the most meaningless shade of grey. He would have been feeling miserable anywhere, and the fact that he was sitting at the very entrance to Voldemort's lair did not help in the least.
Rubbing a stray remainder of sleep from his eyes with his sleeve, Harry got up, kicking yet another tin can against the wall of their hideout. His hideout, as he reminded himself, and the feeling of misery increased. Now that Hermione had shown her true colours - some boyfriend was more important to her than staying by his side at this crucial point - he was completely alone. He had been fighting loneliness ever since Ron had been taken out early, and Ginny's letters had stopped, but it had been bearable, because he had known that Hermione was by his side, to talk into the night with, to forget about those nasty pestering thoughts…
Early this morning, Hermione had all of a sudden received an owl - a terribly exhausted one at any rate, but Harry felt he'd rather it had not made its way to the hideout… There had been no information on it at all from Hermione, only thatRon was keeping in touch. She had seemed deeply immersed in thought for a while. Then, she had stood up, faced him, and told him she needed to seeRon now. Before he could say another word, she had Disapparated.
Harry sighed heavily. He might as well get going, before another storm buried him for good inside the cave. There was just no point in waiting… He tore his eyes from the Hermione-free horizon and reluctantly started to approach the entrance…
It was not just a dark night that followed Harry's darkest day. The sky had been bathed in raven-coloured ink and drained of the slightest trace of light. Snow was coming down thick and fast; it looked as though clouds from all over the world had gathered in this one place. The storm would be going on for hours. And yet, the girl's face was not so much wet with snow as it was with tears. Her blue lips barely moved, repeating the same word over and over again.
"Harry"
He did not hear her. He could not hear her, a snake being firmly wrapped around his body, and Voldemort's laughter echoing in his ears.
As his stiffened fingers helplessly scratched the surface of the tip of his wand, the girl stumbled and fell, as it happened, into their very hideout.
It took her about five minutes to smile at her success. Her cheeks felt as though they were frozen, and only reluctantly obeyed instructions from the brain. When she realised he was not there, which she ascertained within these five minutes, the smile faded quietly into nothingness.
She settled down, her back against the cold wall, and buried her head in her hands. There was nothing she could do now. The outline of the entrance, which had always been their lone companion, glowing eerily in the darkness, was gone. Harry must have sealed it, or Voldemort probably had. She preferred not to think about the consequences of the latter.
And yet, an image of Harry, struggling in the giant serpent's cold embrace, fiercely clenching his fists and ears to block out Voldemort's high-pitched laughter, pushed itself into her mind. "You read too much, Hermione", Ron had told her ages ago. She smiled bitterly; for the first time, she just had to agree with his statement. She had learned too much. She knew too much about the cruelties the world had in store, about the unlimited number of possible deaths one might encounter. If only she had never come across Harry's name in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century… She would have done well to stifle her curiosity at an earlier stage!
Hermione stuffed her fists into her mouth, almost chewing on them to produce some warmth. "No, no, no", she thought violently. She would have made friends with Harry regardless of what she might have and have not read about him. She would have followed him to the end of the world, ever since he had rescued her from the troll.
Silent tears were streaming down her face as she pulled out her wand once more. She could barely hold it for her icy fingers. But Harry's face, white as the snow falling down in the world above her head, had just floated through her mind, accompanied by Wormtail's cackling. She could not bear it, nor those blank eyes staring at her reproachfully. She needed to have another go at reopening the entrance, if it was only to find him the way she had pictured him now, eyes wide open, and blood trickling down his forehead.
Spell after spell shot from her wand in vain. Once, the entrance did suddenly glow faintly - her heart skipped a beat - but it faded immediately. Finally, Hermione's wand dropped to the floor. She wiped her forehead and her cheeks.
"I can't do it, Harry", she whispered, her voice unusually high. "I've studied so hard, and now I can't be of any use to you…"
She curled up to have at least some resistance against the cold. Her eyes closed instantly. She was about to fall asleep when one last thought came to her. She reached out for her wand without changing her position in the least.
"Expecto Patronum", she mumbled.
A dazzling white light shone through her eyelids, momentarily too bright for her tired eyes when she reluctantly opened them. A small white otter was prancing up and down before her.
"Go find Harry", she whispered. "Take the remainder of my strength and pass it to him. I want him to succeed. I want him to survive. Please, do whatever you can…"
The animal touched her forehead with a tiny paw and then vanished through the very entrance that would not budge.
"That means Harry's still alive!"
And on that thought, Hermione fell asleep, and only awoke when rumours of an explosion reached her ears from deep down below. She started, sat up, and the tentative early morning sun was blocked out by the figures of three adults.