The Way Life Used To Be

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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There's something happening here
But what it is ain't exactly clear.
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware.

I think it's time we stop
Children, what's that sound?
Everybody look
What's going down?

~ For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield,

***

Fears and Tears

***

10 February 2000

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I didn't know if it was the pills or the sound of destruction raining down somewhere anymore. I watched through what little window I had in my bedroom at the barracks. At the cold sun rise, and then the colder sunset across the Ministry of Britain's 511th Evac Hospital. I'd lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling. Books piled high around me, on desks, on chairs, on the floor. What used to be my escape became eclipsed by the bleak sadness setting free the darkness. I'd lie in bed for hours, dismissing nearly everyone at the door besides any rank superior to me for work.

My life: work.

And, dismay.

Ginny would come by and knock on my door.

Usually I just remained quiet even through her pleads for me to get up.

Thankfully, our schedules were opposite…and, even if they weren't, I learnt to be a chameleon, slipping in the shadow before some person, any person, noticed me.

At work I couldn't be bothered, a plus.

I've written him. A lot.

Harry.

I could say I've sent over a hundred letters through the post.

Not a single reply.

Kingsley—or the interim Minister—said he'd look specifically into the matter…

Nine months ago when Harry left for the British Ministry's 52^nd Airborne Squad.

Every day the memories became grainier, less coloured; the only true memories I had with me now encompassed the expiration of those around me. And, I could do nothing. I was human, and that was bad. I used to believe magic could fix anything; that, by picking up one of these books I could figure out the impossible. Now, I realized—I was insignificant. Sometimes I wondered how I even knew how to tie my own shoes, or get dressed, walk upright. I was that machine they taught me to be, and I'd die that machine, just like the rest.

And, that was life.

This was normal.

This was normal at twenty years of age.

***

The captain, the doctor had the radio on while we had to amputate another soldier's leg after one of the terrorists, a Death Eater, had unleashed some sort of bacterial agent. To his hip. The leg was gone. We'd seen this before, the biological warfare in the form of gasses, sprays, or liquid thrown at our kin. I wondered if we did the same thing to them, seeing the bacteria literally eat away at the man's leg: skin and muscle gone, the bone protruding. We had to drug the man to keep him from screaming in pain—he screamed on the way out of the helicopter and into the tent—and this was considered a “good day”.

We had on our full attire, in isolation, with everyone very aware of their surroundings for the bacteria could spread like fire if gotten on ourselves.

I watched our captain diligently mold his fingers across where he had to cut, healing through ointments made up this morning and his assistant, with myself, help in cauterizing the tissue surrounding the ball-and-socket joint. I watched our captain through the clear, magical shield covering my eyes go about his business as if this was like eating or drinking, an act of the every day, and I thought to myself:

Would I become like this?

The captain showed no emotion and did his work.

Would I become this numb?

The radio, its stereo scratchy and outdated, played Eric Burdon's ethereal vocals of House of the Rising Sun.

The doctor sang along as he went about his work, stitching the nub carefully.

Oh, mother, tell your children…
Not to do what I have done.
Spend your lives in sin and misery,
In the House of the Rising Sun…

I wondered if this was how he got by.

How he could tune out what I saw on a daily basis, and how this shifted his focus from the death and destruction around him.

Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train.
I'm going back to London,
To wear that ball and chain…

He probably missed his family like me, his loved ones, and the people so close to him.

Like me, he probably hadn't seen them for that year or more.

I didn't want to be like him, but I did.

I wanted to remember, but I couldn't.

The machine was that safety blanket; a something I could hide in until it became too real. Then, maybe, one day I would callous over like he has and I could take on anything. The pain. The hellish, undeserved, searing torture. My heart would eventually freeze over, my emotions dry, dusty, ash. I could finally live in this bloodied world without feeling—and that I dreamt in my nonexistent dreams.

***

Anyone near the television watched the moving picture on the black-and-white screen.

In our mess hall, those who were in the process of walking through, reading the Quibbler, or eating the grub they considered “food” stopped. I had stopped, walking by the entryway. I had my surgical cap still on and went to relieve myself of it, pulling the light-and-dark blue cloth from my hair. I crumpled the material up in both my hands, staring blankly into the flickering, yet stale, lifeless monitor.

The image was of Kingsley behind a Ministry-emblazoned podium. Various flags from other countries, the States, Europe, and Asia were accounted for in unity.

I had missed the majority of his speech, Kingsley looking able, confident, but tired behind the four or so feet of wood.

“…The Ministry of Britain, as the world knows, does not want a war. We do not want a war. This generation of Britains, of the International community, has already had enough of this war, of this hate, and of this oppression. But, we are at task to protect what we cherish, and that is our freedom to live and to love our brothers and sisters. We did not start this war, but we will finish this war. God bless Britain, and God bless the Allies against this evil tainting the earth.”

My ears perked up at the noise I couldn't quite recollect, an air of trepidation ripe within the room with everyone on pins and needles.

I believed we had hoped the Minister would be giving us good news.

A belief shattered in an instant, minutes in our long, trudging life ahead of us.

Nothing of the sort; a continuation of the same toilet bowl we'd been churning round and round in until we eventually all were sucked down the drain. All of us.

Flaming waves of ginger stood from me across the hall.

Our eyes caught each other's, and I took off, leaving in immediate haste.

She appeared in front of me, having apparated that distance, her pop making me take a step back. She never was one to dismiss, stubborn.

“Hermione—why haven't you spoken to me?”

I didn't give her the time of day, or night, or whatever bloody month it was anymore.

I didn't give a fuck.

I made my mind up in that mere second and apparated from betwixt her holding my shoulders, making her shuffle forward for she'd been leaning on me. Instead, she grabbed air. She scowled, turning one way down the hall and legged it, her boots clomping down the darkly-stained, shiny floor. Busting through group after group, she'd been persistent. I knew. I knew for I heard her knock, her fists banging my bedroom door. I'd apparated into the medical barracks.

In the lavatory, I began disrobing. I had to get the filth off. I had to get the blood off. With the water on full blast, I shoved my head underneath it.

Maybe, I thought, I could drown her out.

Maybe, I thought, she would grow tired.

Maybe, I thought, she wouldn't tear down my door.

But the third maybe never came.

I heard something finally give, a wrench kind of sound as if the very metal twisted and heaved until it could hold its shape no more. I didn't shut the deluge off, the echo cascading from the opened lavatory into the closet I lived in with a bed. Looking onward, I saw two of the three hinges gone, blown away. That was the noise, the squeal as it took a certain kind of witch to remove them. And, she did, unfastening the final hinge and I—

With wandless magick, I swiped the air, having a chest of drawers dig up from its bolted down feet.

I didn't have to wait long, the door giving in and falling the moment I threw the chest of drawers at her.

Heartily trained, too, she flinched, but caught the force of which I used and threw down the chest of drawers before it could escape the confines of my small space.

The chest of drawers landed in a mess along my chest, bursting forth with all my clothes scattered everywhere.

A drawer had flown out and hit the wall, making a slender desk of books and a radio fall, toppling all to the floor.

The radio cracked, a fuzzy sound appearing beneath the crashes which came, to clearly turn on:

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world
`Cause you don't love me anymore..?

“Leave me alone!!” I screamed so loud I felt as if my vocal chords would bleed.

“Hermione!” huffed an exhausted Ginevra, her chest heaving from the immense amount of effort she drew upon to get to me—ultimately.

I fell into a heap of myself onto the ground.

I sat on my knees and slowly slumped forward.

Tears trickled and flowed easily from their ducts.

“It…hurts…so…much…”

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love…

I felt something warm envelop me, and then her shout, “Oi! The fuck you pricks looking at?!”

My room grew quieter, the buzzing of which gained in my ears softened and the lights from the hallway ceased. I looked up through my strewn, chaos of strands sticking together like tattered curtains to see she'd lodged the door from the floor back into its position. And, that she was on the floor with me, embracing me to her.

“I haven't heard from you in—!”

“I haven't showered in days—I haven't eaten—I work—“ I cried into her, wailing as I hugged myself. “I haven't slept—“

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was?
I can't understand
No, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does…

“It's because of the God damned pills!” She fled from around me, the coldness seeping back in; the cold like a wet blanket atop me, suffocating. “The God damned pills, Hermione!”

I heard my pill bottles being opened, and then thusly thrown across the room. “I've seen you steal these from the medical room! I knew you were popping them up like Bertie Bott's! This isn't a fucking game, `Mi! You could die!”

Whatever pills didn't land in the floor was promptly flushed down the toilet, Gin having a go at the loo.

“Maybe that's what I wanted!” I screamed out over the radio, the water still pouring waterfalls into the cavernous sink.

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said goodbye…

“I won't let my best friend talk like that—!” She was in front of my again, her warmth back with me.

But, I was gone into my own realm of madness.

Not quite that far from reality.

A fine line of sanity.

“I need to get you some help— You won't talk to me! You need to talk to someone! I won't let you leave me!”

Leave.

“I'm leaving…,” I spoke calmly, and through reddened eyes I coughed up swallowed tears.

“What?!” Ginevra choked.

“I have to see him—I can't not see him anymore! I can't!”

“There's a psychologist—a Muggle, you know, on base. He can help—“

“I don't care anymore, Gin,” My voice hauntingly reverberated off the chilled environs, the British winter creeping in from every tiny crack. “I've decided. It's done. Over.”

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
It ended when you said…

“I'll be on the next eagle flight out to London.”

“A-Are you,” She became a stuttering version of herself, topped with ripe emotion. “Suicidal, `Mi?! You know if you sign up for that you'll be out of here! You might not ever come back!!”

I felt her hands on me tighten their grip.

“I can't live like this anymore.” I heaved, thoroughly drained.

“What…?” Her voice was short-lived, a breath of itself, squeaky.

“…I need to know if he's still alive.”

Ginevra gazed on with a steadily gaping, twitching mouth, concussed.

…Goodbye.

***

{Author's Note: Back to work for me. This series and the chapters are going to be much shorter than Life and Times which helps as my days are just as short of free time. Life and Times takes a lot out of me; but with these I can write them in a relatively sane amount of time.}

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