Chapter Text
She lost her magic slowly, at first.
It started as a creeping deadness somewhere low in her abdomen.
It spread outward like necrosis into her chest and her head and her limbs. She had no recollection of when, exactly, it had begun. There were holes in her memory as large as oceanic trenches.
A gradual loss of the ability to cast spells over the course of weeks in captivity.
The loss progressed more rapidly after the night she encountered Dirk Creswell, about two weeks into her imprisonment at Malfoy Manor.
She was being kept in one of the manor bedrooms. A long, thin silver chain stretched from the bedpost to the collar around her neck, effectively limiting her mobility to a few armspans from the bed.
It was charmed to be far stronger than it looked. It was also spelled against being used as a weapon for strangulation – against others or herself.
She had tested it extensively.
She ran her hands along the chain, trying to work out the nature of the charm that had been used to bewitch it in case she could steal a wand and attempt the countercurse.
The Arithmetic root of the charm on the chain was ‘zero’. Demiguise. Without form. She could tell by the way the air shimmered around it and by the texture of the magic. It moved like velvet under her hands.
She heard commotion outside the door of the room – stumbling and groaning. Male voices.
Her entire body froze up. Dread thumped into her stomach, heavy and immovable. She wanted to crawl out of her own skin, to exist without a body somewhere for a very long time.
She felt half-dead after a week of this kind of captivity. Dead like watching herself from above and beginning to understand that dying could progress in minuscule increments. Death was not so much an endpoint as it was a process.
She found herself standing as the bedroom door crashed open, although she knew it was useless. Standing or sitting – what did it matter, really?
She stood up anyway.
The door rattled as it was flung open. Two men stumbled through the doorway, one supporting the other. Her heart leapt. Could this be some sort of haphazard rescue attempt?
A flash of blond hair – not Harry or Ron, then. They were still out there somewhere, no doubt trying to move heaven and earth to get her back.
Malfoy, maybe? Her mind raced as she tried to figure out if she even wanted Draco Malfoy to walk through that door. Would she get Malfoy the Order spy, or Malfoy the Dark Lord’s inquisitor?
But it wasn’t Malfoy. It was some other light-haired man – his face was vaguely familiar, but her brain felt too panicked and scattered to place him. He was being supported heavily by another man. Bile flooded her throat and her muscles locked up as she recognized the second man – Walden Macnair.
The younger man was bloodied, shirtless, and foaming at the mouth with exertion.
She clasped her hands together to still their shaking and steadied herself with a breath, trying desperately to keep her wits about her. She badly wanted to curl into a ball so small and quiet that she could disappear. Instead she observed. The younger man was hurt, but it didn’t appear to be a mortal wound. Macnair’s wand was in his second holster, secured on the inside left sleeve of his uniform. The other man did not appear to have a wand. Hermione quickly took in the brand on his neck – identical to the one on her own.
A Muggle or Muggle-born slave, then.
The men stumbled over to the bed, and Hermione attempted to move away to avoid being bowled over by them but stumbled over the hem of the dress she’d been told to wear. It was floor-length – thin, phosphorescent silk, so white it almost bled to silver, with a plunging neckline and back. It wouldn’t have been out of place at a pureblood gala. The length made it impossible to move easily, and her legs got tangled in the fabric, throwing her off-balance. The chain around her neck caught her. It made a sound like the tinkling of delicate jewellery and bit into her neck.
She grasped the chain to steady herself and watched the two men with hawk-like attention. In spite of her exhaustion and the mangled, hollow feeling in her chest, she forced herself to track every movement and object and potential weapon in the room, hoping for the barest opportunity to escape.
She knew why they’d put her in this outfit. Some men liked long, elegant dresses. Others preferred short, suggestive ones. She dug her nails into her arms and resisted the urge to draw blood. It didn’t matter what she said or did from this point on: her clothes always ended up on the floor.
Her mind felt pulverized. She blanched but remained still and silent in a bid to delay that part of the night from starting. Dread lanced up her spine, so strong that it made her want to claw open her arms and rip herself free from her body somehow.
Macnair deposited the man on the edge of the bed and moved back to take him in, grinning, eyes hot and bright, filled with a visceral mania. Hermione pulled her lips in and felt the urge to step backward. This was going to be bad.
The younger man collapsed into a seated position on the bed, head lolling. His eyes were fixed on his hands, which were open in his lap, covered in fresh blood. He was wheezing like he’d run a sprint, back heaving.
“Easy, my boy,” Macnair counselled. “The fight is over, and you won.” His eyes were lit from behind with some recent memory.
The younger man continued to gasp desperately for air, head lowered to his chest. He was bleeding profusely. There were deep gouges in his shoulder, evenly spaced. Half-crescent shaped. It looked like something had bitten his shoulder. Bitten and held on, tearing straight through skin and tendon.
Hermione drew in a sharp breath and wished she hadn't. The scent of blood was biting and coppery, stinging her nostrils.
Macnair stepped forward and clasped the man’s unwounded shoulder like he would a comrade after a battle. “You pulverised that Muggle filth. I thought you were done for when he started to savage your shoulder, but you broke free somehow. And at the end, snapping his neck from behind – a bloody brilliant way to finish him.” Macnair whooped with glee, slamming a fisted hand into his palm to emphasise the word ‘finish’. “Winning three fights in a row, Dirk.”
The name jogged her memory. Dirk Creswell. Muggle-born, about ten years older than her. Former head of the Goblin Liaison Office at the Ministry of Magic. By all reports, a very mild-mannered Ministry bureaucrat who’d never had much interest in fighting a war. Macnair continued, “You’re making a name for yourself. You’re worth every Galleon I paid for you.”
Her stomach lurched. The image was clear in her head, now – two men locked in an arena, forced to rip each other apart with their bare hands. Only one would get out alive. Blood sport.
Dirk made a sound in the back of his throat. The breath went out of his lungs, only to be forced back in. He was hyperventilating, maybe, or just severely winded. She couldn’t tell.
Macnair removed his wand. Hermione catalogued how easily it slid out of the holster and how loosely he appeared to be gripping it. He passed his wand over Dirk’s shoulder and murmured a healing charm. The wound closed up – partly. “This will scar wonderfully, just like the one on your back,” Macnair said, voice low and possessive. “Make you look as fearsome as you truly are. Your scars will terrify the next man you’re slotted to fight.”
Macnair reached out and touched the newly healed flesh of Dirk’s shoulder, fingering the scar. Dirk flinched violently – pain or fear. As Macnair continued, something subtle changed in his posture. He leaned closer, inhaling. He brought his hand up to Dirk’s face and traced the line of his jaw.
There was black, carnal tension in the room, taut as a wire. She knew what the release of that kind of tension looked like too well to let it progress any further.
“Don’t,” she said to Macnair. The word scraped out of her throat. Speaking felt unbearable, but all she knew was that she couldn’t watch in silence for a second longer. It made her want to die, seeing him touch another person like that.
Macnair looked over at her. Her ears rang from the onslaught of fear and the blood rushed into her head as her vision began to tunnel. She could feel herself starting to tremble uncontrollably at drawing his attention.
Apparently he’d forgotten she was even there. He shook his head and seemed to come back to himself slightly, stepping away from Dirk. “Did you hear that, Dirk?” Macnair murmured with amusement. “You appear to have a protector. An admirer.” He grinned at her, eyes dripping down her body.
Dirk didn’t reply or look up. He didn’t even appear to have heard the exchange.
Macnair looked back down at Dirk. He shook his head again, like shaking off a pesky but persistent urge. “You deserve to relax and celebrate your victory tonight, my boy.” It almost sounded as if Macnair was reminding himself of that fact. He clasped Dirk’s shoulder again – congratulatory, man-to-man-like, performing his masculinity with renewed vigour. He conjured up a bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey and slapped the shaft of the bottle into Dirk’s hand. “You deserve a shower, a drink, and a fuck, and not necessarily in that order. This bottle is from my personal stores, aged to perfection. And as for the fuck–” Macnair chuckled, a low hum, turning toward her. His eyes felt like hot pokers on her face and body. She wanted to squirm away. All of the carnality and residual energy from watching a blood sport – moments ago, directed at Dirk – was redirected toward her.
Macnair jerked her forward by the chain, wrenching her around, pressing the front of his body into the back of hers. She repressed a convulsion of disgust and tried to remain still.
Macnair’s closeness disgusted her, but she also disgusted herself. The dirt, grime, and dried blood caking her skin had been temporarily covered with a magical glamour, but she still felt the grit and filth between her fingers. She’d also been hastily doused by House Elves with a cloying, heavy perfume – it clung to her and mixed hideously with the scent of blood and sweat it was meant to obscure. No one had thought to let her bathe; the illusion of cleanliness was all that mattered.
His wand was in his semi-limp hand. She thought of making a grab for it. Was it charmed against usage by others? Were his defences lowered enough? Perhaps he was feeling over-confident, as men so often were when they basked in other men’s victories.
He turned her to face Dirk Creswell, apparently for the benefit of Dirk’s inspection. “This is not just any lowblood slut. This is Hermione Granger. Just look at her.”
Dirk didn’t. Macnair wound his fingers into her hair and wrenched her head back and upward into his shoulder, twinging the muscles in her neck. His oily, bloodied fingers on her scalp brought on a full-body shudder that she failed to suppress. Nausea wracked her in waves. “You’re one lucky Mudblood, Creswell. Yaxley wanted her made ready for his use, but his plans changed at the last minute, so I got her for you for the night. Potter’s Mudblood. A fitting reward for a champion.”
The news that Yaxley had wanted her made the breath go out of her lungs. He was one of the worst – not because he was rough but because he had a proclivity for using the Imperius Curse. He liked to pretend his victims enjoyed whatever he was doing to them.
Macnair’s hand dropped from her scalp to her collarbone and then to her breast. She felt her entire throat constrict around a dry heave, although she tried to stifle the sound. Her heart hammered and her skin prickled violently. She suppressed an urge to try to wrench away.
Macnair chuckled at her response to his hands. He said, “She is quite a magnificent creature. I hope you’ll enjoy her as much as I have.”
Dirk’s head came up at Macnair’s comment. One of his eyes was bloody and partially dislodged from the socket.
With a final squeeze to her breast, Macnair released her from his grasp and she stumbled away, arms going instinctively around herself, trembling. She felt her face crumple. It never got easier to endure. Never.
Macnair gifted Dirk with a final wave of his wand – a spell that firmly reattached his eye to the socket and reduced some of the inflammation. Dirk groaned with relief at the cessation of pain. “We’ll have that eye looked at more closely tomorrow morning. I doubt you’ll be able to regain full sight, but it’s worth a look from a Healer. Well.” A weighted pause. “I’ll leave you, now. Enjoy yourself, boy. You deserve it. I’ll even let you have a lie-in tomorrow morning.”
With a parting leer at her, he turned his back and left the room. The lock clicked shut behind him, a definitive sound.
Macnair’s exit had a similar effect to a bomb detonating. Dirk’s entire body convulsed, and he gave a sob of agony. He launched off of the bed – his breath made a wet sound as he dragged air in and out of his lungs.
Apparently, he’d been holding himself under some modicum of control around Macnair, but now he let himself go. He gritted his teeth, still coated in another man’s blood, and roared. The sound was so ferocious and unmoored that Hermione stumbled as far away from him as the chain would allow. She pressed herself against the far bedpost, freezing instinctively, terrified that his violence would find an outlet in her.
He stumbled around the room, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, making sounds like someone was driving a nail into his skull. He crashed into the nightstand, insensible, and it splintered noisily. He looked down at it – for a second, two seconds. And then he picked it up and hurled it against the wall as hard as he could, muscles cording in his back.
The sound was deafening. Hermione tried to pretend like she was part of the bedpost.
He picked up the splintered remains of the nightstand and hurled them against the wall, and did that repeatedly, until it resembled tinderwood. Then he collapsed to the ground, sobbing, wheezing, bellowing nonsense.
She felt unable to move, petrified that she would draw his attention, but she winced inwardly at the amount of noise he was making. Her legs felt weak at the thought of Macnair hearing the noise and coming back to investigate.
He cried and raved and, with time, slowly came down from the height of his frenzy. His sobs became mere wheezes, and his wheezes became exhausted shudders.
Some minutes later, he dragged himself up and looked around the room as if he didn’t know where he was. His gaze fell on Hermione, pressed against the bedpost. She flinched. She kept her eyes down, silently praying that he would turn his attention elsewhere.
He turned his back and stumbled into the bathroom. Her legs gave out and she slid down the bedpost, trying to breathe through the roar of blood pounding in her ears.
She heard what sounded like vomiting, interspersed with sobbing. Water from a faucet started running. Her ears were pricked, cataloguing sounds, interpreting their meaning, extrapolating his motives and future intentions. It was the only thing she could do – cling to the small scraps of agency remaining to her.
She wondered how long he’d been fighting. How many Muggle and Muggle-born men he had killed in order to be allowed to stay alive. Wondered if he personally knew any of the men he’d been forced to fight. Bile rose in her throat.
She ran her hands over the chain again, trembling. The man was clearly unhinged – barely clinging to sanity. He was also almost twice her size, capable of snapping her in half like a twig. A fact that had never once crossed her mind while he was a mild-mannered Ministry bureaucrat.
She fought off hot lashes of panic by closing her eyes and losing herself in the bright spots in her memory – past moments she hadn’t known were precious until despair had started to tighten its grip around her, casting her future in a sightless grey-black pallor that siphoned hope.
She remembered: three years ago, sitting beside Ron and across from Harry and Ginny at the Hog’s Head as they announced their engagement (“and at the same age as my parents,” Harry had said, grinning so widely that he could barely get the words out). The hope of that moment cut through the fog of the past few years – overwhelmingly bright, running the whole barroom with an orange-red, Christmas-lit wonder. The aliveness of sitting across from them in that moment and squeezing Ron’s hand warm in her own had imbued her whole life with a sense of movement, forward motion – the whisper of an escape from the drudgery of war.
She remembered: all of the days in Hampstead with her parents, in the house they had filled with jazz records and handmade miniatures of cities and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, hearthlight-rendered – the glow of it all still strong in her mind like an anchor, a shelter from storms, an illusory place of safety. The memory of it could lull her still, even if it only existed now in her mind.
Her heartbeat slowed as she huddled into the warmth of her memories.
It was a long time before Dirk lurched back into the bedroom. He looked unsteady, probably from his damaged vision and from sheer exhaustion. He appeared much cleaner and less bloody, but still shirtless, wearing the same filthy, bloodstained pair of trousers.
His eyes went to Hermione. The chain was cutting into her neck because she had moved as far away from the bed as it was possible to be, knees curled into her chest to hide the plunging neckline of her dress. The ridges of the bedpost dug into her bare back as she leaned against it for support.
“Is there any food?” It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice cracked out of his throat, bone-weary and devoid of warmth.
She shook her head, afraid to look at him or speak.
He tried again. “Can we have food brought up by a House Elf? Can you call for one?”
It was the most normal he’d sounded all evening. Apparently he’d calmed somewhat while in the bathroom. She stifled a hollow bubble of laughter. She supposed – with the dress and the collar that resembled jewellery – that she might look, to him, like the sort of person who possessed some measure of power. She hadn’t eaten anything remotely resembling a full meal in the weeks she’d been at the manor.
For a moment, she felt a sense of camaraderie with him. They were both Muggle-born, both suffering and starving. She wondered if he felt it too – wondered if there was a chance that he wouldn’t hurt her.
Hunger was the most degrading sensation she had experienced so far, eclipsing other more obvious degradations. Starving gave desperation a physical form – it eroded dignity more rapidly than anything else could. After weeks of gnawing starvation, she felt ready to give anything for a hot meal. She wanted it more than healing potions. More than a warm, safe place to sleep. More than escape, in her worst moments.
She chanced a quick glance at Dirk’s face. She could see the same desperation in his eyes now, but his expression was shot through with hope – a dangerous combination. She wondered how to break the news without triggering his simmering rage. She was acutely attuned to his posture and non-verbal cues, all of her energy focused on parsing their meaning. Beneath that, she felt slightly woozy from hunger and exhaustion. Her mental capacities were waning. Words felt heavy and futile in her mouth. Finally, she said, “There’s nothing. I’ve barely eaten anything. Not for several days. Just scraps from their plates.”
Dirk startled her by uttering a peal of laughter. “Well, fuck.” He stumbled over to the bed, and she realised it was because the Firewhiskey was still lying there, untouched. His laugh seemed to spiral slightly out of his control before he reined it back in. “He gives me a whore and an entire bottle of Firewhiskey,” he said, more to himself than her, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, “and forgets that I haven’t eaten in two days. Two fucking days. I kill someone with my bare hands, and can’t even get a hot meal for my trouble.”
He unstoppered the Firewhiskey. His throat worked as he drank it like water. He stopped only when he started to choke, spluttering and spraying the liquid all over the bed. He gasped for a few moments, coughing and shuddering, and then took another pull.
He cast his gaze around the room. Roving. It was almost frantic, like he was trying to latch on to anything that would distract him from what was happening internally.
There wasn’t much. A chair, a desk, a splintered nightstand, a wardrobe, a bed, and her.
He wandered around restlessly, bringing the bottle to his lips again and again. She hoped against hope that he would drink enough to pass out soon. He opened the wardrobe, which was mostly empty. He rifled through the desk, probably hoping for food.
He turned back to Hermione. She was the only viable distraction in the room.
He stared at her as he took another swig from the Firewhiskey bottle. He didn’t offer her any, and she didn’t ask.
“Get on the bed,” he said, gaze dropping below her face.
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t say anything. She felt too small to speak, engulfed by the enormity of his presence, smaller and more helpless than she ever had in her life.
Suspended in that moment, she started to feel it: a creeping deadness somewhere low in her abdomen.
Her magic – latent, ever-present, fire-bright – was disappearing.
The loss became faster over time, rapidly losing charms, then curses, then even the capacity to sense magic, stillness inside growing cavernous. Eventually her magic went out of her like a light switching off – sudden and total and resoundingly silent.
~
Two months earlier
Harry was dying a little more noticeably every day.
She stopped short on the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory staircase and stifled a gasp at the sight of him. Harry was in the Gryffindor common room, alone, trying to fasten his cloak. His hands were trembling too badly to do it.
She almost didn’t recognize her best friend, who had once been broad-shouldered and lightning-quick; her best friend whose eyes had once crackled like embers, whose expressions had once been lively, vibrant, discerning. Now, Harry moved with a heaviness that belied his young age, shoulders bony and hunched inward, skin papery thin, eyes dull and sunken in their sockets.
His own magic was cannibalising him.
He tried to hide the fact that it was killing him, of course. He stood up straight and kept his chin high and put his hands flat on the table when he couldn’t control the palsy. He vomited as discreetly as he could manage and took suppressants to mask the deep, rattling cough he had developed.
But it got harder to hide with every treatment the Order of the Phoenix inflicted on him.
Treatment. The very word was a misnomer. The treatments were, in fact, the source of his deterioration. They amplified his magical power as surely as they shattered his physical health – weakening his heart, his lungs, his joints and bones.
But Order leadership pressed forward.
The treatments, after all, were working.
Harry’s magic had never been more powerful, and their hope of vanquishing the Dark Lord grew stronger with every passing day.
They called Hermione a genius and promised her the Order of Merlin, First Class, after the war. They gave her free rein of Snape’s old Potions dungeon and bestowed her with the rare, expensive ingredients necessary for producing the potions that were killing her best friend.
Harry became quieter as the pain worsened. His eyes grew dimmer.
She hated watching it more than she could possibly express, but desperation had driven her to come up with something that might give Harry and the Order a sliver of a chance at winning the war.
She fantasised in great detail about shattering the vials that were neatly lined up in her Potions workroom, carefully labelled in her own hand. She imagined hurling them at the wall. Imagined watching the colour come back into Harry’s cheeks, slowly.
In reality, she’d just watched him deteriorate. She watched, and dug her nails into her palms, and bit her cheek until it bled, and sometimes, when she was certain she was alone, she tore her room apart. She flung breakable objects into the wall, overturned furniture, slashed pillowcases, ripped down curtains.
A certain catharsis in the wreckage and the reparation of wreckage. A certain satisfaction in being able to break something.
At night, she dreamt of being swept away by tsunamis. Merciful cataclysms.
Frozen on the stairs, she swallowed thickly and forced a deep breath. She let the threat of tears dissipate and squared her shoulders as she finished descending the stairs. Harry fumbled with the clasp of the cloak, failing again and again as it slipped from his fingers.
She stepped in front of him. “Let me do it.”
She easily fastened the cloak with steady hands. Was he trembling from the neurotoxic effects of the potions or from nerves about the impending battle?
She looked up at his face. Although he hid it well from other people, she knew him well enough to know that he was nervous. A slight twitch of his mouth, eyes darting downward.
He was trembling from anxiety, then, not nerve damage. She breathed a sigh of relief. “You must’ve been afraid, all those times you fought Voldemort before. But I’ve never seen your hands shake. Except for that time you fought a literal dragon.” Her mouth quirked up slightly.
Harry shook his head. He spoke less and less these days, and she wondered if he might not reply. But he marshalled his voice. “I wasn’t afraid the other times because the stakes weren’t as high. Or maybe they’ve always been this high, but I was too thick to realise it.”
Hermione straightened the cloak on his shoulders. Fussing with his clothing was pure habit, at this point. She said, “It’s normal to be afraid of death, Harry. The stakes couldn’t be any higher.”
Harry shook his head. “It’s not death I’m afraid of. That’s always been there, for me, facing Voldemort – the possibility of my own death.” He took a shaky breath. “My thoughts were about you.”
“Me?” she asked, brow creasing. He nodded tersely in confirmation. She paused as her surprise registered. “It’s a war, Harry. All of our lives are on the line. How am I any different?”
The war had dragged on for too long. She could number the years by deaths. Eight years since Dumbledore had died. Seven since Dobby. Six since Tonks. Four since Ginny. One since Snape. The years piled up like cadavers, and Harry blamed himself for every single one.
He looked extremely reluctant to answer her, but he did. “All of our lives are on the line, true.” He hesitated and then spoke all at once. “But if Voldemort wins – don’t look at me like that, Hermione, if he does . . .” He closed his eyes, scrunching them inward. “They’re not planning to kill you or any other Muggle-borns. You know that, don’t you?”
He still wouldn’t use the word ‘slave.’ Couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud, although part of him knew what Voldemort planned to do with Muggle-borns.
Hermione didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to confirm it. She forced herself to meet his gaze. “I know.”
Harry turned his head to the side and pinched his mouth in. She knew he was biting the inside of his cheek to force himself not to have an emotional reaction. He’d done that since he was eleven – probably learned to do it while living with the Dursleys, where any show of emotion was ignored or punished. He said, “I can’t think about it. You, like that – I can’t.”
Her throat tightened. Slavery, subjugation, slowly losing the will to fight back – those were her worst fears for herself. She thought she had hidden them well. Now, those fears were in Harry’s face too. Pure divination.
Sometimes it scared her, how completely Harry loved people – like a train hurtling down the tracks without a functioning brake. There was nothing left to spare with love like that. No margin for error.
“Stop that,” she admonished, trying for lightness and missing badly. Harry frowned, so she clarified, “That selfless thing you do where you love people too much for your own good.”
He answered her dryly. “You make it sound so noble. It’s not really a choice.” He coughed, and it rattled his whole frame. He said, “Do you remember the time in second year, when you hugged me in the Great Hall, after being un-petrified from the basilisk? You got a running start and threw yourself into my arms.”
She nodded and felt her brow furrow, confused at the change of subject.
Harry continued, “That’s the first hug I remember.”
She froze.
Harry shrugged and kept his gaze lowered, cheeks stained with colour. He pushed his glasses up his nose unnecessarily.
She shook her head, in a kind of dazed denial. She imagined a smaller version of Harry, who still had the same expressive eyes and wiry shoulders and natural capacity for love – drifting through childhood, withering from neglect, year after year.
The reality of a childhood like that – of course he never spoke about it, because what words were there? It was indescribable. Unbearable to imagine in any kind of detail. She stammered, “There must have been someone who hugged you before that – your aunt, or a friend, or a teacher . . .”
Harry shook his head, almost apologetic, wincing as he saw the pain in her expression. It hurt too much to think about. He pulled her into his arms immediately, but she didn’t hug him back. Her arms felt limp with devastation. “Shush. It’s all right, Hermione, it really is, because then I met you and Ron and Hagrid and Sirius and the Weasleys, and – I didn’t mean to make you cry. Just wanted to explain. This is why I get a bit mental at the thought of you or Ron being in danger.”
A bit mental.
It was the understatement of the century. Harry had once split the earth open, two hundred paces of it, to prevent a curse from striking Ron across a battlefield. Clods of dirt exploded into the air, a fissure rent the earth and split the ground, creating a sinkhole that swallowed Ron’s attacker as swiftly and silently as a grave.
Loving as deeply as Harry did wasn’t a choice. It was an inevitability.
And while he easily could have gone the way of Tom Riddle and closed himself off to the possibility of love, he had veered sharply in the opposite direction. When he met Ron and Hermione – the first people who allowed him to love them – he’d poured all of his pent-up affection and longing and attachment into them, bonded to them so strongly that it was sometimes terrifying.
Harry took a breath and released her from the hug. “Anyway. That’s all to say, I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t defeat him tonight. For your sake, not my own.”
She swiped at her face and forced her voice to be steady and firm. “You will defeat him. I know it. I have complete faith.”
Harry’s mouth twisted. “Wars aren’t won on faith.”
She could hear the heavy knowledge in his voice. The Order was outmatched. They’d been running on fumes for months. It would be a miracle if they survived this battle.
She put a bracing hand on his shoulder. The shadows under his eyes looked permanent. She wasn’t sure which part of the war had been more corrosive to him than to her. It had something to do with killing and something to do with losing Ginny and something to do with his connection to Voldemort’s mind and everything to do with carrying the burden of defeating the Dark Lord on his shoulders, for years, without complaining or breaking down or asking for help.
She looked at him – at how diminished he was – and thought, wars aren’t won at all.
She didn’t say that. She gripped his shoulder tightly and leaned closer. “You don’t need to worry about me. If you – fail – tonight–” she couldn’t say if you’re killed, couldn’t even think it, “I’m not going to stop fighting. Neither are the rest of the Order. I promise.”
Harry looked at her and nodded, like he was steadying himself in her gaze.
At that moment, Ron came clattering down the stairs, lacing up his arm brace. He grinned and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “You ready, mate?”
Harry nodded, pale and serious.
Seeing them stand side by side in the firelight made Hermione’s stomach twist with an all-too-familiar guilt. Beside Ron, who was well-muscled and bright-eyed and suffused with color, Harry looked positively frail.
Her fault.
“You look a bit peaky,” Ron noted, grin dimming. “But it’s nothing we can’t temporarily fix. Accio medical bag.”
Ron’s medical bag slapped into his hands, and he began rummaging through it. He still didn’t look fully comfortable in the role of Healer, but he’d taken it on more out of necessity than because it was a good fit for his temperament. Harry couldn’t manage to go five minutes without encountering mortal peril, so he needed a round-the-clock, on-call medic.
Hermione had many strengths, but she had quickly found that abiding the sight of blood was not one of them. So, the job had fallen to Ron.
He’d been a horrible temperamental fit for the magical equivalent of medical school – easily frustrated and discouraged, irascible, insecure, and allergic to book learning. He’d dragged himself through it by sheer determination and scraped a degree by the skin of his teeth.
Ron wordlessly handed Hermione potions. These were standard, harmless brews that could be found in any Mediwizard’s kit – not the potions that she had invented to strengthen Harry’s power. Those were kept under lock and key at all times.
She accepted the potions without comment. She unstoppered the first one and handed it to Harry. He grasped it without question and put it to his lips. Ron’s hand shot out and stilled him before he could down it.
“Bloody hell, Hermione.” Ron glared at her, radiating disapproval. “Will you please tell him what he’s taking? He deserves to know.”
Ron’s comment lashed her like a whip. She hid a flinch and looked at Harry and said, “This one’s a mild sedative and pain reliever. It should take care of the hand tremors, but it won’t dull your focus.” She silently accepted another potion from Ron, and when Harry had downed the first one, she handed him the second. “This next one is Strengthening Solution, for your muscles and grip strength. This one is Vitamix potion, for your energy and reflexes. Girding Potion, for endurance – that one tastes bad –” She winced as Harry spluttered but managed to swallow. “And Pepper-Up, of course.”
Obligingly, Harry took each of them.
Ron snapped his medical bag shut and crossed his arms. “Don’t worry, mate. They’re safe – I prescribe this combination to my brothers all the time before raids and night battles. The patented Ron Weasley arse kicking starter cocktail.”
Harry started to come back to life before their eyes as the potions took effect. He straightened up and relaxed his shoulders. Only then did Hermione realise he’d been hunched and tensed against the spectre of constant pain. His eyes started moving more quickly, devoid of the sluggishness they’d grown accustomed to. A flush came into his cheeks and his eyes brightened.
He was still too thin, but he reminded Hermione of his old self.
It was a false illusion, of course. Temporary and chemically induced. After a few hours, he’d crash precipitously, weaker and more exhausted than before.
Ron grinned. “Not quite as good as new – but I think this is as good as it’s going to get, without risking a coma after the potions wear off.” Ron drew his wand and flipped it through his fingers. “Now. Are you lot as ready as I am to be finished with this war?”
~
They climbed the stairs to Dumbledore’s old office in single file.
When they reached the top of the stairs, raised voices sounded from inside – mostly male. Harry knocked, and then moved to open the door without waiting for a response.
Hermione grabbed his wrist, startled by his impulsiveness. “Stop. Wait for them to invite us in.” He ducked his head and heeded her without argument.
The voices ceased abruptly at the sound of the knock. “Come in, Mr. Potter.”
They entered Dumbledore’s old office, which had been repurposed as Order headquarters. Gone was the whimsical, elliptical quality of the room, which had once been articulated by antique, whirring gadgets, fantastical wall hangings, and by Fawkes glowing on his perch.
The room was sterile. Utilitarian and stately. Scrimgeour’s people had decorated uniformly in black marble inlaid with gold. The tapestries had been torn down and the gadgets were nowhere to be seen.
As they entered, Hermione noted that the full Order leadership council was present. Rufus Scrimgeour, Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, John Dawlish, Randall Savage, Minerva McGonagall, and the ambassador from the International Confederation of Wizards, Valence Hale.
When Scrimgeour caught sight of the three of them, his expression soured in a familiar way. “Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, please step outside. You are not members of this council and are forbidden from entering the office of the Minister without an appointment.” His tone brooked no argument.
Harry raised his head. “They stay or I leave.”
Scrimgeour didn’t have any choice but to concede. More and more, he looked weary and frazzled, and especially so when dealing with one Harry Potter.
Scrimgeour said, “Our intelligence indicates that the Dark Lord’s forces will attack within two hours. We have fighters in place at all entrances and more ready to move into place in the Great Hall.”
Harry nodded and took a steady breath. “Good. I’m ready. I’ll do everything I can.”
“What you can do,” Moody growled, “is get your head straight. Wars are won and lost between the ears.” He jabbed a finger at his own head. “You’re going to have to be the one to kill Him. He’s been behaving erratically since we destroyed his final horcrux, and this may be our only chance. There is no room for hesitation or error.”
“Understood.” Harry nodded, keeping his face blank and still. He was much less expressive than he’d been minutes ago in the common room.
“Good. Then you’ll undoubtedly agree that Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley must be evacuated to a remote safehouse while we undertake this final battle.”
Ron and Hermione reacted before Harry did. Explosively.
“That’s bollocks ,” Ron said, as Hermione simultaneously sputtered, “We will do no such thing.”
She found her voice while Ron was turning steadily redder. “You need us.” Her words cut through the air. “You can’t afford for us to sit this out. Harry needs a combat Healer and trauma medic beside him, if anything happens. That’s Ron. There’s no one else who can do it as effectively.”
“And Hermione is the best cursebreaker we have,” Ron added. “We’re fighting in this battle. That’s the end of it.”
Scrimgeour looked at the ceiling, and then at Moody and Valence Hale, exasperated. “This is why I wanted them to wait outside."
Valence Hale spoke. His voice, smooth and disarming, cut through Ron’s grumbling. He spoke to Harry. “They are a liability,” he told Harry. “Simple as that. You have proven yourself completely incapable of acting rationally where they are concerned. Your sentimentality is a handicap.”
Minerva McGonagall cut him off sharply. “That is enough, Ambassador. You cross a line.”
Hale lapsed into a seething silence, and Kingsley spoke up. “Harry, your love for your friends is not a handicap in the least. But in this particular situation – which requires you to be at your most clear-headed – they may be more of a handicap than a benefit in the fight.” Kingsley threw an apologetic glance at Ron and Hermione. “We honestly thought you’d be enthusiastic about the idea of keeping them out of harm’s way.”
“Kingsley, shut up,” Ron snarled. “We’re standing right here. I am not a bloody handicap.”
Hermione straightened her spine. “You can’t forbid us from fighting. I won’t hear any more about it. You would have to force us to stay back. You’d need an Auror who is quick enough to Stun us both and a Healer standing by to dose us with sedatives. Are you sure that’s the route you want to go?”
“Enough, Miss Granger. Both of you,” Scrimgeour ordered, eyes flashing to Ron. “You are not members of this council. You do not make decisions.”
Hermione opened her mouth to retort, face burning with indignation, but Harry beat her to it. “I agree with Hermione,” he said to Scrimgeour. “Of course I want them to be safe. And I agree that I would probably be more clear-headed if they weren’t there. But they have as much right to fight this battle as I do. They would never forgive themselves – or me – if they sat out.” Harry crossed his arms. “I can’t bring myself to take this decision away from them.”
“We’re making the decision.” Moody’s voice cut into them. “This part is not up to you, Potter. It’s bad enough that you’re part Obscurial. You’ve lost control before, and it could happen again. It’s too dangerous. We forbid them from coming.”
Harry barked a laugh and turned his back on the assembled council. It was a singularly rude gesture. His expression had changed, and it was stripped down, mirthless. “I’m not a weapon you can use in any way you see fit. If Ron and Hermione don’t fight, I don’t fight, and you’ll be one saviour short of a victory.”
Hermione watched members of the council exchange slightly terrified glances. They no longer had any control over what Harry did or how he acted, and he was growing increasingly mercurial. Scrimgeour’s mouth twisted down. He looked, once, at Moody and Hale, but Moody shook his head infinitesimally. Scrimgeour said, “You risk them needlessly, then, and at the peril of winning this war.”
Harry nodded stonily. “Then that’s how it will be.” He kept his back turned, shoulders tense. “Anything else?”
McGonagall cleared her throat and began to speak, and Harry’s shoulders softened slightly at the sound of her voice. “We assemble in thirty minutes in the Great Hall to brief the rest of the Order. Until then, I suggest you go downstairs. Make yourself visible. The fighters in the hall will be grateful to see you calm and prepared for the battle.”
Harry nodded again. His eyes flashed to Valence Hale, filled with contempt. “And I suppose you have nothing to say to me today? No bullshit guidance from the International Confederation?”
“The Confederation is ready to step in to aid with peacekeeping and maintaining order as soon as you’ve defeated the Dark Lord. As always, we support you. I am not sure what I have done to lose your good regard, Mr. Potter,” Hale replied, “but I sincerely wish that I still had it.”
“Well, you don’t,” Harry confirmed, with scarcely collared rage, and turned to leave. When no one seemed to have anything further to say, he exited the office with Ron and Hermione and began descending the stairs, two by two.
“Harry – slow down –”
Hermione was wheeling her legs to keep up with him. She wasn’t used to having less energy than he did. At her behest, he halved his stride, nostrils flaring. Harry said, “I really hate that Confederation prick. Calling you a liability.”
“He’s under a lot of pressure from many angles, Harry, being a diplomat,” she reminded him. “But just remember that he’s ultimately on our side. Thank you, by the way. For advocating for us to fight in the battle. I know it’s not what you would choose.”
Harry nodded. “It isn’t. So don’t let your guard down and stay close to me. Both of you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ron cut in. “This isn’t our first go-round, mate.” Ron grinned nervelessly at him, and only let his grin slip after Harry had looked away.
Preparations for the battle were well underway in the Great Hall. Harry entered as discreetly as he could manage, which wasn’t very. The dread was so palpable that it seemed to muffle the sound in the room. Different Order members coped with tension in different ways.
George Weasley threw firecrackers at the ceiling.
Lavender Brown talked nonsense to Parvati Patil at greater length and at a faster clip than usual.
Luna Lovegood practised Severing Charms.
Neville Longbottom vomited into a metal canister.
No one hugged or made eye contact for too long or said anything remotely resembling ‘goodbye.’
As people became aware of Harry’s presence, the energy in the room started to shift and mellow slightly. He was there. Their only hope of defeating Voldemort, according to the prophecy.
Hermione waited until Neville was finished vomiting and then sat down next to him, close enough that their shoulders were touching. Neville Vanished the sick and the canister with it. When he looked sideways at Hermione, his voice was steady and assured.
“Why am I the only one who still vomits before a battle?” He grinned slightly in remembrance. “It used to be a bunch of us. Including you, if I remember correctly.”
“You’ve become the bravest,” she explained. “That makes you the most afraid.”
The side of Neville’s mouth tipped up.
Hermione’s head snapped to Harry as he stood up abruptly. He pressed a hand to his scar. “Voldemort’s here. In the castle.”
A few Order members had time to stand up and draw their wands before the doors of the Great Hall exploded inward.