The Cauldron of Revenant

Prologue

All dead all dead

All the dreams we had

And I wonder why I still live on

All dead all dead

And alone I'm spared

My sweeter half instead

All dead and gone all dead

-All dead, All dead. Brian May

It was dark and all was silent. Across the dark and charred earth nothing moved save for the branches void of leaves, moving back and forth through a stale breeze. The wind picked up and bits of dirt and debris floated across a bloody ground hitting a limp figure in the middle of the zone. A solitary stone rolled across the ground and smacked against a pale, dirt stained cheek. Dark brown, wavy hair spilled into the dirt its once glossy sheen masked in blood, sweat and burnt earth.

Weak hands clawed into the raw earth and the body flinched as it suddenly came to life. A slight moan escaped through chapped, bloody lips as she struggled to lift her head. Taking a heaving sigh, she managed to sit up and let herself take in the surroundings about her. She closed her eyes slightly - to stop the dirt from penetrating her already sensitive eyes. Looking down at her hands, she saw that they were cut and bloody - a sign that hinted as to what had happened to her. Bringing her left hand up to her temple, she gently massaged it - the pounding in her head escalating to gigantic proportions. Closing her eyes, fully this time, she was greeted with flashing lights and the screams of a generation dying.

Her eyes flew open and she stifled a small gasp as a wall of dirt came flying towards her. She put her hands up against her face - the dirt slapping into her hands as if punishing her. She cried out for help but she already knew that help wasn't coming. She was all alone. There wasn't anyone there to hold her or to tell her that it would be alright. They were gone. If she was to be placed in hell - this would be it.

Struggling to her feet, she balked for a split second, reaching out for anything that could steady her wavering figure. Once she had gained her balance, the girl began a balk and off center walk. Her left ankle was screaming in pain but she didn't stop to comfort it, she had to keep going or she would never find out. She needed to know who had survived.

She continued walking through her own personal hell, wondering if she would be joined by anyone else. She didn't know what she would do if only she had survived. One more step and her left foot brushed up against a broken twig. Bending down, she picked up the branch and noticed that it wasn't the aforementioned branch, but a wand, her wand.

Clutching her broken wand, she remembered what had happened. It was as clear as if she was watching it happen right in front of her own eyes.

Curses were flying everywhere, yellow, red, blue, violet and, the one hue that made everyone in the melee pause - a blinding green. A yellow beam of wandlight went flying towards her, but she was able to block the curse with ease.

"You destroyed him!" a snarling voice said right behind her, "He has nothing left! I'm going to enjoy watching you die!"

A clawed hand ripped into the side of her face, leaving long scratches in her face. She found herself being thrown to the ground, her wand leaving the protective grasp of her fingers. She cried out as the palm of her hands slide across gravel, bits of skin flaking off the replacements small bits of stone and rubble.

"Now...I want you to scream...and beg for your life."

She saw her opponent's eyes alight with malice and hatred. For one of the first times in her life, she genuinely knew she was going to die. Keeping her hands up, a feeble attempt to protect herself, she stayed sprawled on the ground not knowing what was going to happen. At this time she knew that no one would be able to help her - this time was inevitable.

"Kill me, Bella," she said softly the blood on her face mixing with tears of sorrow and hate, "Kill me, but I will never beg for my life." Bellatrix Lestrange snarled once more as she stalked towards the young woman sprawled on the ground - her wand raised. It was at that moment she knew the end was near.

"'MIONE, NO!" a hoarse voice cried out. Hermione looked up and saw him come dashing over, pushing aside people who were holding him back. It all happened in a blur - a blinding green light and she was blown away tumbling head of heels until body met ground with a sickening crack.

Hermione gently put a hand up against her still bleeding face. If she ever got out of this nightmare she was almost certain that the scars would stay with her for the rest of her life. Her brown eyes searched the scene for any signs of life. There could be the slight chance that he had survived and then everything would have been alright. But she couldn't get her hopes up if she did, and it turned out that he was dead, her world would explode.

She continued to walk around the area, noticing the crumpled form of Bellatrix Lestrange, finally defeated lying stale in the red earth. Hermione had half the mind to spit on her or to give her some informal send off to the one place where she belonged - but Hermione knew better. She was above Bellatrix and wouldn't stoop to the horrid woman's level. So she continued to look until she came up to a fallen tree, a dead tree.

Hermione would have overlooked the tree had she not seen someone squashed beneath the tree, a mop of red hair matching the red dirt. "Oh, Merlin," Hermione whispered as she rushed forward grabbing onto the tree. She grimaced as the bark cut into her tender hands but she tried her best to pull the trunk off the shrouded figure that lay underneath the tree.

Surprisingly she was able to lift the trunk off the figure and she pushed the hair away from her eyes as she got down on her hands and knees and crawled over to her fallen comrade. "Can you hear me?" she whispered as she grabbed her best friend, Ronald Weasley by the shoulders and hoisted him onto her lap, "Ron! Ron can you hear me?" she whispered, her voice becoming more frantic by the minute.

She quickly checked for his pulse and let out a small sob when she realized that there wasn't a heartbeat. Hermione looked down at his face and saw that everything was relaxed. There was no tension in his body - he was completely limp. "Ron," she whispered as tears ran down her face, creating clean tear streaks down her face. He had a massive cut on his forehead and she could tell by the way his leg was positioned that it was broken. But that couldn't be what had killed him. It had been all her fault. If she had been more careful and had seen Bellatrix coming...Ron wouldn't be lying here - dead.

"Oh Ron," she cried hoarsely as she leaned down and hugged her best friend tightly. "Ron I'm so sorry." She brought her hand up and let it brush away a small piece of his red hair from his eyes. Hermione shook him gently hoping that it would wake him from this trying slumber. "Ronald Weasley open your eyes. Right now!" she commanded giving him a hard shake.

It was impossible. He had sacrificed himself so that she could live. He was dead because of her lack of judgment in such a high stakes environment. It was her fault that Ron Weasley, the love of her life, the one who made her feel complete no matter what the situation was dead. She choked back a heart wrenching sob as she hugged him tightly silently wishing that he would wake up, or that she was running through a bad dream and would soon wake up to his comforting arms around her or his soft kiss.

"Hermione," a hoarse voice, other than her own whispered. Hermione didn't hear it at first; she was busy wishing with all her might that Ron would wake up and laugh at her for being so daft. He always hated it when she got this way over things. It had been like that since they were fourteen when she had concocted S.P.E.W. and had made the two of her friends to join because she had felt so passionate about it. Now, thoughts of S.P.E.W. long gone, Hermione didn't have either of them. Harry had been killed in the final battle and Ron...Hermione didn't want to think about Ron...at least she didn't want to think about him as he was now, pressed against her body cold and not moving.

"HERMIONE!"

"What?" she shrieked loudly looking up quickly. Her mouth dropped open and she would have dropped Ron onto the ground if she didn't have such a good head on her shoulders. It looked like he had been through hell. His infamous glasses were gone and a smudge of dirt covered his renowned lightning bolt scar. His shoulders were sagging and he had multiple cuts and bruises all over his body. His clothes were in tatters and it seemed like he had aged twenty years.

Hermione looked at him with her mouth agape. She had heard many of the Order members talking in hushed voices in dark corridors and secluded crevices that he was supposed to die along with the Dark Lord. The third part of the prophecy predicted that Harry would be killed along with his greatest enemy. So many people believed that he would have been killed. Hermione had even talked about it with Ron when he was...still alive

Even now it was hard to think about Ron being gone. Breaking the gaze she held with the man that stood before her, she looked down at the lifeless body of Ronald Weasley. Could he really be gone?

"Hermione, I've been calling your name for the past five minutes," his voice came again, this time it was not only hoarse but Hermione could hear it crack with emotion. She looked back up at the man, who wasn't more than a sacred seventeen year old boy, and saw that his eyes were filled with tears. How could he escape Voldemort for the eighth and last time? How was he able to escape while Ron had fallen and was never going to get up again? How could that be fair? "Would you please answer me?"

"You," Hermione started as she looked up at him, her lower lip trembling with emotion and malnutrition, "You're supposed to be dead," she said softly as she looked down ashamed that she had said such a horrible thing.

"I know. I don't know how I survived; I knew I wasn't supposed to." He said, voice shaking slightly. The next thing she knew he was down on his knees sitting next to her breathing hard and looking in the face of his fallen friend, "This is all my fault," he murmured and he shook his head rubbing it with his left hand that was covered in red scratches.

"I won't let you blame yourself this time," Hermione whispered before she looked back up at her other best friend with a sad expression. Her eyes began to brim with tears and she had to look away once again, her brown hair falling in front of her face, "This time it was my fault." They were greeted with an awkward silence except for the slight breeze that came through once in a while ruffling their tattered and dirty clothes.

"Is everyone..." Hermione whispered finally breaking the silence. She didn't want to think of everyone she ever knew and loved as finally gone. She had no one left except for this boy standing in front of her and at the moment it wasn't very comforting.

"Yeah...they're all..." it was apparent that not even he could finish that sentence but he was able to give a definite answer to Hermione's inquiry. She bowed her head and silently willed something, anything to happen. She didn't want to believe it had all happened. Taking another look at Ron, Hermione took a quivering breath and brushed another sideswiped lock out of his face.

"He tried to save me," she croaked as she let a finger connect his freckles together. It was a game they had played together before their lives had been turned upside down. She remembered they would make words and animals or odds and ends out of the freckles on his face. Now the tiny red dots that had once been the bane of his existence, and a high form of entertainment stood out sickeningly against a pallid face void of any signs of life.

"I know...and I did nothing," he responded before he put his head in his hands and began to cry - broken. Slowly, Hermione placed Ron down on the ground, gently, afraid that if he were jostled she would disrupt his sleeping. Crawling over she placed a hand on her sobbing friend's shoulder. Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the savior of the wizarding world looked up for a moment before flinging himself into her arms, body rigid with heart wrenching sobs.

She willed herself not to cry. He needed someone else to be strong for once. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Harry had carried not only a whole nation but her and Ron on his shoulders since he first told her they hadn't seen Neville's toad. Now he needed someone and Hermione couldn't turn him away. She gently soothed his sobs to muffled whimpers until he was finally able to pull away and face her, his eyes red and puffy.

"Are you sure it's just us?" Hernione asked as she looked back over towards Ron. He still hadn't moved, 'Please wake up,' she silently thought hoping and praying that she was still in a bad dream.

"I looked and looked. We're the only one's left. Merlin knows why."

"The Order?" she inquired.

"Destroyed." Hermione blanched and put her head in her hands. It was impossible.

"Where are we?" she finally got around to asking. They certainly weren't anywhere near Hogwarts. She couldn't see any sign of the castle and the Forbidden Forrest and the Lake was nowhere to be seen.

"Hogwarts."

"What?" she asked incredulously. "We can't be - this place is..."

"A war zone," Harry finished for her, "Everything was destroyed. The forest was flattened, the lake dried up and the dirt and rubble you're standing on...the castle. Its' all gone...and I help him...I helped him do it," Harry's hands balled up into fists and he slammed them into the ground making a puff of dirt fly up.

"What will we do? Where will we go?" It was strange for her to be asking all these questions. She didn't like not knowing the answers to everything.

"I don't know, Hermione. I know that I have to get away or I'll go mad. You're an adult now, you can do what you please but I can't stay here. I need to leave..." Hermione nodded. She knew how it felt. She very well couldn't stay here in England. Her parents were dead, the Order was gone Ron... her Ron was dead and not coming back.

Harry had gotten to his feet and was looking down at Ron, his best friend, with tears in his eyes. Hermione got to her feet and stood next to her best friend starring down at the comatose figure of Ron Weasley. Hermione watched flabbergasted as Harry drew his wand from his pocket and whispered a few words. The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by floating bodies, all soaring above her head. Her eyes followed Ron's body as they all flew towards the dried up lake bed, all landing side by side. Hermione could make out the different faces and she willed herself not to cry again.

Lupin, Moody, Tonks, Bellatrix, Dunbledore, Neville, Wormtail, Fleur, Hagrid, Seamus, Parvati, Lucius, McGonagall, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ginny, so many faces and all with a look of extreme peace, as if they had gone to sleep after an extremely tiring day. She noticed that Ron was the last one to be placed in the grave and Hermione silently said her last goodbyes as a large wall of dirt, raised by Harry, slowly rolled into its place over the sleeping figures.

Tears were flying down Hermione's face as the dust settled and she looked over at Harry who had bent over something in the dirt. She walked over, the usual inquisitive look on her face, but this time shaded by hints of what she had been through were peeking through in all the wrong places. By the time she had reached Harry, he was standing up with her newly healed wand in his hands.

"Thank you," she whispered as she took her new wand from his outstretched hands. "And I'll go with you, Harry - we only have each other," she noticed a huge relief had come over his face and she smiled at him, as much as she could with all the pain settling in her heart. She knew it would be a great deal of time before either of them could smile without pain again.

"We better get going then. I can't bear being here much longer," he said with a small shiver. She nodded in agreement and gently guided him in the direction of Hogsmeade. She was sure that the town had been destroyed but she had a feeling that the very old spells on Hogwarts remained and she wasn't going to test them by suggesting an apparition be executed on the grounds. They started to walk but Hermione stopped for a moment, turning back to the lake.

"Wait," she said and left Harry standing at the base of a hill. She didn't' care if Harry followed her or not. Taking her wand out, she walked to the base of the grave and pointed the tip at the ground. Once she was done with the incantation she stood back and backed into Harry who had been standing behind her.

Together they looked at the large stone that marked the start of the mass grave. The words simply stating:

We Remember

1998

"Couldn't word it better myself," Harry said quietly before they turned towards the setting sun, pocketing their wands as they went. Hermione gave a quick, sad sigh as they rounded a corner the thing they once knew settling behind them like a thin layer of dust.