Immoral In Devotion Skies

CHAPTER ONE: Trials and Tribulations

Are you swimming upstream in oceans of blue?
Do you feel like your sinking?
Are you sick of the rain after all you've been through?
Well I know what you're thinking
When you can't take it
You can make it
Sometime soon I know you'll see

'cause when your in you're darkest hour
And all of the light just fades away
When you're like a single flower whose colours have turned to shades of grey
Well hang on and be strong

Delta Goodrem "Be Strong"

What I seem to find amazing is how people can so brutally destroy one another - the brutality inside a human's heart. They have no soul, no compassion and no regard of how precious life is. They seem to tear it down and when someone tears down theirs, the pain is too unbearable to comprehend yet they can do the same to any person.

What brought the humane to such a degree of lowness? People have no heart and no love, and they live a happy life, taking away others' and watching the grief of those who mourn the victims. Their souls feed on pain, misery, blood and all that is good to humankind. These people are worse than Dementors because these are the human Dementors. I am disgusted to know that they have warm blood pumping through their body - like mine. But, I'm not like them. I never will be, and no matter how much grief they cause me...I will not break. I will survive, and they will never be able to touch my feelings. They will never feed on my existence, my compassion or my love for those who are worthy of my love.

*

The trees were burning, and flames licked high in the sky. The oranges, reds and yellows mixed with the powdery grey smoke that billowed out from the top of these flames. The trees fell like the defeated army, its branches torn apart from all that held human life and a tear fell from the night. Night was crying for the ruins of its people - the death, the screams and the War.

Draco Malfoy stood grinning like the cat that had gotten the cream as he watched the flames lick the bodies it housed in the toxic light. Death was truly glorious! He whipped his wand in a swishing motion, and a tree crashed down in front of him, right onto a person who just somehow managed to escape the fire. Well, he might have escaped the fire, but he couldn't escape death. Draco laughed. Death was truly splendid!

Unexpectedly, he felt the pressure of someone's hand on his shoulder yet he did not turn around to greet him. Draco knew who it was; it was the only person who he let dare touch him apart from his mother.

Lucius Malfoy said with satisfaction, "I am proud of you, son. The Dark Lord will be pleased."

Draco carried on staring at the fire; he could truly feel the immense power of it. Its heat, the danger - the deaths. He inhaled the scent magnificently.

Lucius Malfoy smiled. "Follow me, son."

Draco drew his eyes away from the fire and the destruction he had caused, and Apparated just as his father did.

*

Hermione Granger stood in the graveyard, oblivious to all those around her, lost in the grief of her mourning. She stared down at the coffin that lay on the ground and the wet streams ran down her cheek. Voldemort was dead and that was all everyone cared about. What about Harry who'd risked his life to save them? Harry Potter was dead because of it.

Harry wouldn't be dead if it wasn't for Seamus Finnigan, and Harry wouldn't be dead if it hadn't been for that Death Eater. Harry had met the same fate as his parents. He died because Seamus, as their Secret Keeper, had betrayed them. How could he have done that? Harry had originally asked both her and Ron to be his Secret Keeper but because they were out fighting with the Order and in regular contact with the Death Eaters, they had been afraid they'd be captured, and the truth could be discovered through torture or by some spell, as Hermione and Ron would easily be the suspects as Harry and Ginny's Secret Keeper. Voldemort had killed Ginny, Harry's fiancée.

Harry had asked Seamus, a good friend but not close enough to be a suspect as a Secret Keeper. They had all trusted Seamus and he had been honoured to be chosen. Unknown to them all, Seamus had been corrupted by the Dark Arts because he was sick and tired of people making fun of him, so he vowed to protect himself by learning to avenge those who'd hurt him. Harry had never hurt him; he was kind to everyone apart from Slytherin House. But, by that time, Seamus had been too corrupted.

Hermione recalled a time when Seamus had fallen over and his sleeve had rolled up. She had seen a mark on his arm; concerned, she'd asked him what it was. He'd protested that it was nothing, that it must be some bruise he'd received that day, as the area hurt, but he had some ointment his mother had given to him for bruises, so he was going to put it on. Before Hermione could say any more, he'd left. She didn't know that it was the Dark Mark etched on his arm. Nobody would have ever guessed. Like nobody would have ever guessed that Peter Pettigrew had betrayed James and Lily Potter. Harry had suffered in death exactly like his mother and father.

Hermione had been there when Harry defeated Voldemort. The place had been in chaos. Trees were burning, houses were burning, and screams of the terrified and crying of children all pierced the air. The sky was dark except for the light of the moon, and the light of spells being cast flashed constantly. The Order had been preoccupied in defeating all the Death Eaters so Harry was alone when he defeated Voldemort, even though they were all on the same battlefield. Harry and Voldemort's wands had connected again and Harry had shouted "Avada Kedavra" at him, and the light had shot up the cord then everything exploded. When the smoke had all cleared, on the floor laid a pile of robes. The Order had spun round when the explosion happened but all the Death Eaters had been defeated anyway. The Order came forward and threw several potions on Voldemort's robes. Hermione later discovered it was to bind Voldemort's spirit so he could never return. The pile of robes disappeared and sank into the ground.

However, one of the Death Eaters was not dead; he stirred from five metres away and saw the Order gathered in a circle. Just behind the Order, stood Harry Potter with nobody watching him. The Death Eater grabbed a wand he saw a few inches away and muttered the same curse Harry had used to defeat at Voldemort. Unsuspecting, Harry had been caught off guard. The green light hit him square in the back, and he'd slumped to the ground. The Order saw Harry fall at the last minute and by then, there was no hope for him. Voldemort was dead, and so was Harry.

The Order looked for the person who'd murdered Harry and found the Death Eater hastily trying to run away. The Order ran for him, muttering all the curses they could think of in their pain and grief. The Death Eater couldn't survive with all the curses being cast upon him. Even when the Death Eater was dead on the floor, Ron ran forward and pummelled him with all the energy left in him, crying in anger as he did so. Ron had to be dragged away from him, and the members of the Order stared at the sad, angry boy, their hearts filled with grief and pain. Hermione had run off then. She couldn't deal with seeing any more death and pain. She didn't know how to cope. She didn't even know where she'd run off to, she simply hid, concealed in an alleyway. It took the Order four hours to find her - distraught, wrecked and shaking from the cold and bitter wind.

Hermione wiped the streams from both her cheeks. Harry wouldn't have wanted me to cry. He'd been born to fulfil a destiny he couldn't choose and he succeeded in what he was supposed to do and that was all that mattered. Even so, Hermione could not suppress the sob that was forcing itself through her body, and when it was finally released, the grief brought her down to her knees, kneeling on top of Harry's coffin and sobbing with an endless supply of tears.

Ron came up behind her and touched her shoulder and bent down to pry her head from her hands. He smiled sadly at her. "It's time."

Hermione looked up at him with swollen red eyes and a tear-stained face. "I'm not ready."

Ron looked down at the floor and muttered, "We never will be if we don't try. This is what Harry needs - he needs us to learn to move on and let him go. He doesn't want us to mourn him forever. Oh Hermione, if I died I wouldn't want you doing that!"

Ron looked up, took her hand and helped her up. She leaned on him, steadying herself, and the corners of her lips turned up slightly, "Thanks..."

Together, they walked up to the podium in the graveyard. Hermione could see a swarm of a thousand faces. She could make out very little of who the faces belonged to because the tears that were forming again blurred her eyesight. She hastily wiped the tears, took her speech out and held it in front of her face with one hand whilst the other firmly gripped Ron's.

She swallowed and smiled grimly through her tear-stained face at the crowd below her. "When you're eleven years old going off on your own to live at a boarding school, you feel a thrill of independence. When you're eleven years old and you help your two best friends fight the most evil person in the world and make it out unscathed...you get the thrill of feeling indestructible. When you're twelve years old and you're near death, but your friends save you...the thrill of overcoming anything overwhelms you. Invincibility. When you're thirteen and you help to save an escaped convict who was wrongly accused...you feel the thrill of righteousness. You're fourteen and your best friend is facing the hardest challenge of his young adult life. You help him prepare for the worst...you feel the thrill of companionship. And then, in a heartbeat, you lose all of those feelings. You learn the hard way that things can...and will hurt you. You learn the hard way that your friends won't live forever. You learn the hard way you're not invincible..." Hermione trailed off and the tears started splashing on the piece of paper...

*

Three Months Later...

"Draco Malfoy," Cornelius Fudge's voice rang loud and clear, "you have been brought here from Azkaban to answer charges relating to the activities of murder. We have heard the evidence against you and the evidence defending you. It seems the night you committed a hideous murder, it was not of your own doing. You were under the influence of your father and Voldemort, who had placed you under the Imperius Curse. The Ministry of Magic has had you under going several experiments in the recent months to detect any traces of the curse and this has been proved positive. So we are now going to reach our verdict. Do you have anything else to add to your testimony before we pronounce judgement?"

The young man with lank blonde hair sticking to his sweating, sallow milk face bound on the chair in the middle of the grey room in chains, said with a hoarse and raspy voice, "I'm so, so sorry and I do not expect to be released from the crime I committed."

Ron's angry voice from next to Hermione rang in her ear, "Stupid git! What's he trying to do? Get the sympathy vote?"

Hermione turned to face Ron and didn't speak, just looked at him. She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing at Malfoy's trial. Though she hadn't seen the horrors Malfoy had committed, she had been told, and she had seen with her own eyes, the eyes that had already seen too much, the ruins and devastation he had caused. She had heard his testimony and wanted to be there when the verdict was announced, she practically had to drag Ron to accompany her because she hadn't wanted to go alone. Ron didn't understand why she wanted to be here, it was after all the stupid git Malfoy, and he did what he did and the only thing he deserved was to be thrown into Azkaban and stay there. That was obviously going to be the verdict in Ron's mind.

However, Hermione thought otherwise - she knew he'd been a terribly horrible person to her, and he had murdered a hundred people but she knew sincerity and guilt when she heard it. Draco Malfoy did not deserve to be thrown into a life filled with horrors when he had already endured so much for a crime his conscience had not committed. He'd already been thrown in there without a trial. His crime was not a crime committed of free will. It was a crime committed through a curse and influence - strangely, Hermione knew he would have helped their side. Though, there was no proof... She knew. She just knew.

Fudge's voice yet again rang out, "Are you pleading guilty? Are saying you committed the crime with your own free will?"

Draco coughed violently and blood splattered the floor of the dungeon, unable to wipe the blood from his mouth, he said, "No. I did not do it of my own free will but it does not change the fact that I committed the crime, whether it was of my free will or not."

Fudge sighed pitifully at him and told one of the guards to wipe Draco's mouth clean. He sighed again and cleared his throat, "All those in favour of Draco Malfoy's innocence...please raise your hands," and he turned to face everyone that was attending the Trial. The War had killed too many people, including several members of the Ministry. There was no jury left and Trials were few. When there were Trials, those who wanted to or should attend, came and they became the ones to decide the fate of those on Trial. Then again, Trials were rare and the audience who attended were checked as those who helped the side to fight Voldemort so the verdict was as fair as it could possibly be in the circumstances.

Hermione slowly raised her hand, wincing at the thought of what Ron would say to her when he saw her and that would be any second.

Ron turned just at that moment and his eyes widened at Hermione's raised hand, "What the hell are you doing, Hermione? Have you been deaf to all those who told you what he did to those people?" Hermione continued raising her hand, her eyes forward. Ron's voice shook with anger, "Hermione! Have you forgotten what he did to us back in Hogwarts? The names he called you? The grief he caused me?" Ron stopped there...he couldn't bear to bring up Harry's name. Not yet. It was too soon.

His anger rose when he saw that Hermione still refused to put her hand down, he grabbed it and tried to force it back down to her lap. Hermione protested and because Ron still carried on doing so, she snapped at him, "Ron! Leave me alone! You can think whatever you think and I don't protest. Just let me voice my opinion on the matter here."

Fudge's voice rung up from down below, "Excuse me, young lady and gentlemen? Is there some sort of disagreement?" He looked at Hermione, "Do you, Miss - believe this man is innocent?"

"Yes."

Fudge smiled, "Thank you for your verdict, Miss."

Ron slumped onto his seat and sulked. The next call for hands to be raised was guilty, and Ron instantly raised his hand and looked over triumphantly at Hermione. Hermione smiled sarcastically back at him.

Fudge spoke to the man beside him discussing the votes on Draco's verdict. Once they were confirmed, he spoke aloud, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby announce Draco Malfoy to be..."

Draco didn't hear his verdict; he was too busy staring at Hermione Granger, the woman who believed he was innocent. When had he ever deserved her vote of innocence in him? All through Hogwarts, he had made her life a misery. He'd call her the worst name he could have ever called someone with Muggle parents. He didn't deserve her good heart...

He looked up as the guard came over and started to release his chains, "Am I guilty?"

The guard looked at him oddly, "What? Didn't you hear the verdict? You're innocent."

Draco smiled up at him and thanked him. He was grateful to those who had believed him to be innocent but not one of those mattered to him apart from the one he deserved the least, even though he didn't deserve any of them. He had probably killed the families of every person in this room. He shook his hands as the chains were released and flexed his wrist back and forth. Draco looked up as the crowd started to depart and saw Hermione. At that moment, she turned to face him and she smiled. A beautifully sad smile - of pity...