Unofficial Portkey Archive

The Way Life Used To Be

Rating: R

Ship: HHr (main emphasis)

The (unlovely) procedure: all rights go to JKR for previous plot and characters, Scholastic, Warner, and whoever else has their hands in HP.

***

The Pilot

***

Through the mirror of my mind

Time after time

I see a reflection of you and me

Reflections of

The way life used to be

Reflections of

The love you took from me

As I peer through the window

Of lost time

Looking over my yesterday

And all the love I gave all in vain

~ Diana Ross, Reflections

***

2 February 2000

-----

"First Lieutenant Granger."

Standing just outside a billowing tent flap a man addressed me as he climbed out, ducking as he did. He didn't startle me the least. Many men, and women, had come and gone now from the tent. Tents. Dozens upon dozens of them scattered throughout our infrastructure, the base. The chilly air of London had brought my arms together, and hugging myself from the winds whipping my short, shoulder-length mahogany curls back did I nod at the man's words.

He wore a uniform, camouflage of the navy-and-grayish type, and his uniform markings gave indication that he was infantry personnel. I wore a similar-style uniform; though mine held supplies unlike his: scissors, tape, sterile gloves, vials and ointments… "Granger" was spelt out in bold, black letters on my right breast pocket. "M. B. Army" was spelt out on my left. Dog tags dangled without care on a single silver chain around my neck. With the pair hung a small metal crucifix given by mum some odd years ago.

As he left, I thought if I should go beyond just recognizing the stranger; but, to remember him. If he'd die, I would like to have at least remembered him as he was surely-like all of us-gone from friends and family.

The Ministry was in the process of trying to take back London. And, as I looked out over what was left I thought to myself, in the deepest parts of morbidity, Why bother? The skyline was rubble, craters, darkness. Any buildings that remained standing stood alone, and broken like severely jagged puzzle pieces unfit against the horizon. We had pressed them back in the south, the Death Eaters. They retaliated after Harry had killed Voldemort. Unbeknownst to anyone their score, the flood of black cloaks overran the city-cities-in one last effort to instill their power. For they knew they would be sought out, tried, put to death. Their numbers, and with them their strength…

I had heard from Ronald a couple nights ago. A letter was left on my bed. I knew instantly his handwriting, having helped him with his schoolwork for the umpteenth… I had difficulty reminiscing on those innocent years. Before all of this. Taken-or was I ever innocent? I went from school to training in the field without a notion but my intuition to go on. I didn't want to remember. The trouble being I couldn't differentiate the pain between then and now. But Ronald… He was alive. Still. He sent word he was somewhere near Cambridge waiting to ambush a band of Death Eaters to the south. He and Harry always fantasized in our youth about being on the front lines… And, the irony…

Harry…

I hadn't heard from him since-

I felt a hand on my right shoulder.

My eyes, glazed over, kept going in-and-out of focus betwixt the Magical and Muggle troops alike. The various vehicles, Jeeps, covered trucks leaving with troops, covered trucks coming in with civilians, freight carrying ammunition… Who would have thought the Magical world would've dived head first into the realm of Muggles? Or Muggles, now knowing their magical kin? We were never taught how easily it could be done… As if we were all in denial of the fact.

Willful ignorance, I assumed in retrospect.

I hadn't responded to the touch until I felt the squeeze.

"At least they could remove those ghastly Dark Marks from the sky…"

I turned to my right side to see Second Lieutenant Weasley.

Ginny.

Her flaming-red locks, cut short like mine, licked, too, the wind.

She'd lost five of her six brothers during the Great Evacuation after the decimation of the Ministry, and that of the grand stronghold which was wizarding might.

Molly was murdered.

Arthur was MIA.

At least with me I knew my Muggle parents were away… In hiding. Australia.

I hadn't seen them in months, going on a year.

I didn't know how she could smile. There wasn't anything to smile about. With everything she, and I, had seen, been through… Ginny grinned beneath her navy-and-grayish cap and gave my shoulder another squeeze, giving me, too, a pat on the back.

"Just wanted to say good night-or good morning-before settling in for a nip."

"Keep your chin up, love," She gave me another pat, and then began wandering away. She took her steps backwards so she could show me another smile, a wave, saying with her hands over her mouth to amplify over incoming noise, "It'll get better."

"How?" I wanted to say, nothing coming out.

She did this for me, I knew.

We'd lost an Auror, and she was there…

We lost a lot.

Healers.

Or, to the Muggles, nurses.

In the beginning I knew I wanted to help, be a Healer-maybe-in school.

Maybe in a different life I could've been owner of some quaint, small bookshop.

And Ginny, a Quidditch star player.

Support aircraft, helicopters, flew overhead. Heading from the south to the north towards the centre of London, the aircraft caught me from watching Ginny's leave. Three, one leading with two close behind, brought a gush of wind off their low altitudes. I watched them, have watched them, alongside broomsticks wishing, wanting to see-as I did here-a flash of Harry amongst them. I wished I had chosen differently…at times. To be there with him, to fight by him like those many years… My skills, however, chose me better here. But, I wanted to give it all up to…

Just know he was alive.

To see him, that's all.

Give him the biggest of hugs.

Something so simple, human, now something…complex, removed.

I tried my best never to cry.

To bottle it all.

But I knew, illogically, logically, I'd succumb in the end to tears.

Only time would tell.

From behind me I heard the on-coming drone of a chopper, whishing, buzzing like a swarm of bees. The frigid wind took me as I turned. Placing my hand over my eyes to see, and to keep the hair from whipping against my face, I saw the cavalcade of one of our airborne squads escorting the Muggle machine. In its descent within our confined, magically-charmed boundaries I could see the sign of the Red Cross on its side as it flew closer. To see Muggles here wasn't rare, but to see them wasn't common either.

My life was brought up to expect never to see them; and sometimes, my mind remained there until times like these when the present suddenly became the devastating present it rightly was.

The helicopter landed, as did the airborne squad with them. Noticing as they did men helping men, and some…not so well off. My instincts began. What I was trained, learnt to do became me. I ran. I ran towards them as well as others from all sides, others like me. My adrenaline began to rush. Every time this happened it became one thought:

Friends?

Family?

Ronald?

…Harry?

Was I selfish, I'd asked myself once amidst a shower. To ask of them?

Just one time… I answered. It only takes one time.

And then what would I do? Would I…?

I couldn't make the man out, or at least the one I got to first. The morning hadn't quite set in, in the wee hours, floodlights our only sense of illumination besides the helicopter's. There were three in total, each of them covered in their own-and probably other's-blood. Maybe each other's? The first two were taken in, and I raced along with the third towards my tent.

"Status?"

"Private Bradley O'Connor, and the two others, helped storm what was thought to be a hideout of those terrorists. He's lost-"

There was a sheet draped across him where the majority of the blood puddled.

I lifted the sheet to see…a fairly extensive chunk of him missing.

The sergeant continued to speak, but I'd gone into that part of my world.

I had looked from the missing piece of Private O'Connor, to his face clearly shown now amongst the lights inside the tent.

He looked like…

His features looked just like Harry's.

"-Men haven't been able to keep him from bleeding, Lieutenant. He's lost so much-"

The sergeant was hurried from the proximity by other nursing personnel with my prowess at the lead, by rank and by skill.

At the helm, I began calling out orders to at least sustain Private O'Connor.

He wasn't going to die on my table.

The Muggle assortment of IV's were already in, and we began our own variety.

I hadn't noticed how much blood was on my gloves until I'd begun my healing enchantment. A lot. Too much. Private O'Connor wasn't active, and hadn't been. "Private O'Connor," I said with firm authority whilst in motion for the healing enchantment, "You're not leaving us today!"

I couldn't just snap my fingers and produce the liters of blood he had to have lost already.

Stubbornly, fixed to my handiwork, I watched our specialized herbalist with my own hands try our damndest to hurriedly cauterize the man so much like Harry. Another Healer, a nurse called out his vitals every minute for I was only one person. I could hear her, and those monitors, the incessant beeping slowing down until I couldn't heal any longer and I had to switch mindsets.

"He's flat lining!"

I called for the shock.

"Everyone clear!"

Another Healer had come in and pressed her wand against Private O'Connor's chest.

At first nothing, silence, and then suddenly Private O'Connor's body jumped, his heart reacting at first…

…To flat line again.

"Clear!"

I closely watched the monitor to see the Private's reaction again, to only bottom out afterwards.

"You!" I pointed at my second, my hands, and thoughts onto Plan B. "Incendio tria-Type III! Mind the skin! We don't want to destroy perfectly good tissue!"

I think somewhere deep inside I knew it was futile.

"He's not going anywhere!"

But, I couldn't let him go.

From my peripherals I could see a nurse maintaining his fluid input, replacing a bag of packed red blood cells for transfusion.

I couldn't let him die.

From my peripherals I could see a Healer diligently charting the second-by-second events through means of a Quick-Quotes Quill.

He wasn't going to die.

I began doing chest compressions, quick and steady.

I shouted when I couldn't stand the sound of the flat line anymore, frustrated, "Can someone please turn that fucking noise off?!!"

"Come on, Bradley!" I struggled against time, against myself. "Come on!"

I'd gone mad.

A machine.

He couldn't, wouldn't die.

I didn't know how long the sound had been off nor how long I'd been doing compressions.

My arms grew tired, and I fought with a nurse when she tried to get me to rest, for her to begin chest compressions instead.

He was mine.

This was my patient.

Harry…

…Private O'Connor.

He had a life.

Has a life.

A wife.

A child.

Maybe more than one.

All of them somewhere…and he in this damned war, on my table, and me…

Me.

I could hear myself breathing, panting, grunting.

And finally, I couldn't go on any longer.

I wasn't left alone.

But, I was alone…

…With his blood on my hands.

***

I couldn't get the blood off my hands.

There wasn't any blood.

But, I couldn't get it off.

Private O'Connor's death at my hands was hours ago.

I washed, and washed, and washed.

But, still…

I saw it.

The redness, dark, dying life on my fingertips and between, covering what were white, clean gloves sanguine.

I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't sleep at all.

I could see his face among the hundreds, thousands, I saw come through the tents.

I saw him, and I saw:

Dad.

Mum.

Ginny.

Ronald.

Harry-dead, and I could do…

Nothing.

And, I was alone.

Tonight I couldn't take it any longer.

I couldn't.

The bottle which held all those tears finally swelled over.

I fell against the wall, my backside taking the brunt of what was my tiny escape, my bedroom, alit like a prison with bars across me. I slid down, holding myself, hugging myself as I bore down, biting my teeth, crying through them. My ducts, unknown to the saline I produced, stung with those first few before thin, wet, warm lines stuck to my cheeks. I could feel myself through the sleeveless, white undershirt. Hot, I heaved, dry breaths I breathed, stuttering with the crown of my head aligned with the surface of the wall.

Slowly, I just fell over in a heap of myself, battered and beaten, hopeless and helpless.

Those prison bars of darkness and light devouring me.

***

Through the hollow of my tears

I see a dream that's lost

From the hurt

That you have caused

Everywhere I turn

Seems like everything I see

Reflects a love that used to be

Reflections of

The way life used to be

Reflections of

The love you took from me

~ Diana Ross, Reflections

***

{Author's Note: A "pilot episode" testing the waters, and another story similar to Life and Times in the stark reality personae I enjoy writing (or hope to do). A little idea I had over the course of the past couple of days off work. If you enjoyed reading it, please review. If not, constructive criticism is never overrated.}

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