We Are Angels

Chapter Five

Leaning back against the wall Draco looked her over, so scarred, so battered, so happy. He lowered his eyelids so he looked to be recalling a memory, though she could tell it was only a brief bit a mood setting acting. She wished he wouldn't.

"Okay Mother Goose, tell the story."

"What is Mother Goose?" asked Snape from his perch in the cloudy sky above.

"Bugger off," droned Draco and Hermione in unison, it didn't phase either one of them.

"Just listening," Snape replied calmly, not moving one jot.

"Fine, stay," hissed Draco. "There once was a time Hermione, when you loved to live, you loved life. All the pleasures of it, the food, the people, the laughter, the books, the emotion...all of it...every shattering moment."

Giving a great sigh and realizing this was going to take a valuable chunk of her time she slid back down on to the floor with her back to the wall her face lifted up toward the sky. "Keep going."

"When you were happy everyone around you was happy," oh brother, thought Hermione, he was positively glowing. "It was infectious," he paused, "to just about everyone, I certainly didn't think it was, but Krum, Weasley, and later that other bloke thought it was."

"Seamus, that other bloke was Seamus," she interjected.

"Yes, the great Clover Potato of The Mighty Isle, anyway, you loved life. Then things started to change, you were happy less and less, resorting to violence, getting bored of the normal distractions, alcohol, the like...you found yourself a lover."

"You," she supplied simply.

"Me, we never got along, just used each other as vices to get by. No one ever approved, but neither of us gave a shit. Then the war started and I joined my father, the entire time we were together I was never good--"

"And neither was I," Hermione whispered smugly.

"No, neither were you, you always said you could be as much of a bitch as you wanted with me because no body could see. You joined Potter and Weasley, for appearances sake, but there was no lover to use as a vice...so you found a new drug, a new and stronger addiction."

Sadistically she grinned in husky voice, "Killing, murder, blood, death," she listed.

"Yes, you had lost all your humanity, no friends, no love, no real feeling other than cynicism and sarcasm."

"Nothing wrong with those emotions," mumbled Snape under his breath.

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity," chirped Hermione.

"No changing the subject," growled Draco through clenched teeth. "This war made you who you are now, it hardened you, broke what was left of your humanity. You climbed the ranks happily, you let the killing make you happy."

"You've abused your gift Granger," whispered Snape, finally meeting her eyes. Not breaking contact she finished off her whisky.

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to go seek the Pope out and ask for forgiveness and penance?" she asked scornfully. Listlessly and with pleading eyes Draco looked at her, hoping, as any living being would, that she would come to her senses. "Forget that." In what seemed to be slow motion she stood up shook out her hair and flew into the sky just as the rain began.

Sighing Draco asked, "Why do epic battled always happen in the rain?"

***

Ginny hurried from triage to triage, mending gaping wounds, getting blood in her already matted hair, spilling healing solutions on her shoes, getting dirt under her nails...

She sighed, she'd had blood on her hands all day, her blood, her friend's blood, the blood of complete strangers, and now she had her brother's blood on her hands.

"Come on Ron," she breathed. His kneecap was shattered, and there was a large slash across his stomach, crossing his navel. Muttering quickly spells left her wand scarring the slash and sewing the kneecap.

His eyes fluttered open, he gasped, then he started to breathe quietly and steadily...sleeping.

Then Ginny closed her own eyes for one blissful moment before turning to her next problem...Where was Hermione, or Harry for that matter?

Ginny slipped out of the field hospital where her brother was sleeping just as Hermione came in through the other side. A twisted smile was wrought over her face, her black eyes swiveled crazily, "Goodbye Ronnikins," she cooed.

Gently she removed the necklace from her thin tanned neck, "I don't need to hold this over you anymore," she dangled it over his sleeping form.

Drawing the charm back into her fist she clutched it tightly, preparing to smash it...just for the sake of seeing what it would do, how it would effect Ron.

At the last moment Hermione tilted her head to one side, and she saw, she saw what she had become (as if she was looking into a rotten and dusty mirror), if he stopped breathing, it might actually be true (true that she couldn't feel, despite her senses being so intact). Quietly she laid her palm on his chest, she felt the deep breathing, and she felt the life.

Gently and quietly she settled the charm into his palm, curling the scratched fingers around the pennant, walking away from the tent a single glistening tear escaped.

***

Draco flipped over the last table in the dungeons and then ground the splinters into the stone floor. "Where the hell is she?" he yelled in frustration.

"Calm down Malfoy."

"Why Potter? Why should I just calm down? I've tried everything, I've talked to her, and I've faced my fear! So tell me, why should I just calm down?"

"Because I'm right here," said Hermione's voice from the door.

Draco whirled around to see the human Hermione Granger leaning on the doorframe for support, wearing tattered plain black robes over worn jeans. To say emotion flooded him would be an understatement, he nearly wet himself with shock...but there she was.

He took one step forward, but the arrow reached her before he could.