Retribution

Little flakes of snow are falling to the ground, slowly creating an escalated surface of a white blanket. It covers the drooping life, and hangs tenderly on to the branches of twisted and gnarled trees. There are deep footsteps in the crystallized water droplets, two pairs going to a spot, but only one pair leaving. The ground is polka-dotted with black drops.

From the spatter, trailing towards the last place where the footsteps stopped, tendrils of dark brown bushy hair lie, shifting slightly in the wind. The hair had been pulled back into a simple braid, and it currently is a wet mess, globules leaking through the weaving of the hair and spilling onto the white surface, deoxygenated blood turning black. A skinny length of wood is in view, and maybe it's sinking slowly to the ground where it can never be found again.

("sweet merlin, is that you, granger? what the fuck are you doing there? get the bloody fuck up, you mindless twit, now isn't the time to rest!")

His boots are black, and she sees that his clothing is drenched and continues to absorb more water. It is running up to the length of his pants, but she can only see up to his ankles. But they are soon receding to snow instead, and suddenly, she hears the crack in his knees from the fluid in his synovial joints leaking, and she can see peripherally that he is looking at her. His face is tilted to the side, his ear grazing the snow, and she notices that it is red tipped, and maybe hers is, too?

("granger?" his lips are pale and cracked, chapped, bloody. twisted and sneering. mask of concern. "answer me.")

It thunders when he snaps his fingers in front of her face, and slowly, slowly, very slowly, her eyes droop closed to open slowly, slowly, very slowly. She wants to open her mouth and tell him something, but her lips aren't opening, her mouth, why isn't it working? His sleek white blond hair is wet and dripping from what she can see under his hood. He moves closer to her face, and she could see the individual pores of his skin, and she can study the hair follicles. Under his eyes, she thinks they are upside down rainbows of warped, sad colours, and he's suddenly exploding into a mass of a billion particles, dark edges of the forest seeping into her eyelids.

("DON'T GO TO SLEEP. fuck, fuck, fuck, who. oh. oh oh fucking." angry, his words are small promises of death. violence. she thinks her lips are quivering into a smile. "ENNERVATE!" she feels - FEELS - pain on her sternum as he jabs with his wand. "oh, shit, sorry, i didn't mean to hurt you. don't you dare close your fucking eyes, you hear me, granger?" slap, his fingers are digging deep into the hollows of her cheeks. "okay, i meant to hurt you then. shit, granger, come on, don't fucking do this!")

She thinks that maybe the cones in her eyes have somehow been turned (??burned!!) off because all she can see is in black and white, and she really doesn't think that the world was black and white before. Or maybe it was, she can't remember. She wants to shiver because it's so cold, and she can feel every single snowflake gathering on the side of her, like an extra weight pushing her to go beneath the surface.

His hand is cupping her cheek, and his face disappears from view as she thinks he's looking around. She sees his long elegant phalanges, covered with skin and running with blood vessels, break two pieces of her wand, and suddenly, he is blurred back into her purview.

("i didn't notice you here before. okay, granger, just listen to my words, okay? don't go to sleep, don't close your eyes unless you're blinking, i just. oh merlin, oh sweet sweet desperate merlin... I'm going to need to check how badly you're hurt, all right? this. i need to. can't. oh merlin." she wants to scream back to make him keep his cloak on, god, it's chilly, isn't it? he really should keep it on, he doesn't want to catch pneumonia, does he? honestly, men!

she feels his fingers curl around her shoulder, his other hand pressing against her scapula, as he pushes her down. flat. on her back. prostrate. "let me just check, okay." she thinks she can feel his wand trailing down her body to check, but she's not really sure because she can't feel anymore. maybe ice is covering her thick?

"DON'T CLOSE YOUR FUCKING EYES!! ENNERVATE!!")

She's bleeding front and back, isn't she, because she can feel a lush pouring moving daintily across and down her sternum and also gushing out of a spot next to the bones of her thoracic vertebrae. Her tongue seems to be immobile in her mouth, but when he screams at her, spittle flying into her corneas, while he jabs pokes prods at her with his wand, her back arches into a U, and all of the pain that she hadn't felt is suddenly occurring quite suddenly. She thinks that, suddenly, her synapses are firing off all at once, and her body will combust and explode and become charred if she can't be numb to it again. Her fingers are twitching and she's sucking in deep great huge big gigantic gulps of cold, snowing air, and she thinks that they have frozen her bronchioles because now she can't breathe.

("what the fuck granger! breathe!")

She thinks she can feel her heart hammering and beating ferociously against her ribcage, but maybe that's just his wand. And then it slows down at a more leisurely pace, and she begins to puff out white.

("don't ever fucking scare me like that again, shit, i thought i had done something wrong. look, i need to get you out of here, we're easily spotted here, i don't even know how the fuck you got here in the first place, shit, just wait until you wake up. no. i mean. respond. to me. and then i. i have to kill the fucking fuck."

but it feels so nice here, not moving, relaxed muscles. all the tension out and floating in the air, but not near here, nopes, not here. she thinks a little bit of cataclysmic events, but then strains to hear strange mutterings that are coming out of his lips. turning faint. faintly blue.

"...you know what they're going to do to you, don't you, granger, if they find you alive. it doesn't matter if you're almost dead, half past dead, they'll go on and try to claim you, but they can't, and you know why, you know why they can't. no one can fucking touch you while i'm alive. fucking shit granger i don't even know if you're going to make it if i even attempt to try to get you out of here."

she feels the bright red war paint that was streaked across his face fall into her unblinking eyes and splash onto her lips. her world is encased in red as she stares at the person above her, his hands moving quickly, bundling her into a cocoon of attempted warmth. and his fingers brush lightly against the apex of her thighs and she sees him look at her in wonder, his grey irises that look slightly pink or maybe slightly black darken, and his pupils dilate. he leans sinuously over her, and she thinks of how he resembles a predator, baring his teeth to feast on his kill.

"if only for one last time, granger...just one last time to plunge into your warm, tight, slick heat...")

She stopped blowing out white smoke a while ago. She doesn't really notice that she's only breathing every other hiccup, a wet gargled short inhale.

("but you don't deserve that. you should die with some dignity, i know. i'm going to kill the person that did this to you. to us." his laughter scorns her thoughts.)

She can see the sky now, and she can feel the snow rest against her epidermis, soaking into her bloodstream, making her blood vessels constrict. When she slowly, slowly, very slowly blinks, her eyes continue to close for a longer duration of time as the snow seems to ice her lashes together. Hardening to form intricate spider webs on her eyelashes so that she can only mutely hear or feel.

She thinks she can feel his heavy palm whacking the side of her face, but she's only speculating because she doesn't feel any cold anymore, she doesn't feel any pain anymore.

("i know exactly who did this to you, granger. and he's going to pay dearly. yes, yes, he is." and he doesn't notice how manic he looks with his hair brushing her forehead and smearing his touch on her. breathing lightly. almost gone. can't. can't continue.

"he's right here, granger. this fucker is going to pay for doing this to you." he points his wand to himself, staring straight at her.)

She watches as Ron and Harry fight other people and she delves slightly into their minds, wondering what they are thinking about. Ron is worrying about staying alive and worried about Hermione and worried about Harry and worried about Ginny and worried about his father his brothers his family his mother god he's worried about everything just stop thinking I need to survive. Harry's mind is somewhat blank as his prevailing thought is to destroy Lord Voldemort as fast as he possibly can.

She touches Ron's cheek and kisses his forehead as he takes a break after stunning a man with a skull and snake blemish on his inner arm. She ruffles Harry's hair as he runs over to Ron, telling him to regroup and collect all the bodies that they can because it seems like the battle is done here. Ron nods and they both scan the snow, wondering, hoping if Hermione is all right. All right and not dead in the snow.

She sees her white translucent skin that is blemished with blue veins and dark seeping blood and scar tissue. And she hears rather than feels the pounding of footsteps from behind her, and she twists her head to see them and various shouts and a staccato breath that reverberates in her ears. She can almost feel his weight slowly, slowly, very slowly fall on top of her prone form that is still allowing the falling sky create webs over her while he now stares resolute, hateful, angry, into the patch of dark red snow underneath their bodies.

His white mask spills onto the ground next to her broken wand.