Persephone Descending

Chapter 4: Fidelis

"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."--Niccolo Machiavelli

She knew it was a dream, although she lay in her bed and everything in her room looked as it did in her waking reality.

Hermione looked towards the shadowy darkness of the doorway, and noticed it was open. She had never slept with it open, but she could see the faint outline in the darkness that proclaims it to be ajar. It had been a nightmare she had had for years--someone staring at her in the darkness of the doorway while she slept. Somehow she knew he was standing there, watching her.

His voice floated over to the bed where she was lying, unable to move.

"You are alone," he said, and the cold voice was unmistakable.

"I have always been alone," she said, voice soft. "Even when someone else was here, I was alone. Even in school, sharing a dormitory with two other girls, I was alone."

Dreams gave a pattern to her speech she did not have in her waking life.

"Without you, they never would have succeeded. He would have been sprawled at my feet in death long before now if he were without you. I would have had the Philosopher's Stone a decade ago, if it had not been for you."

"I like to solve riddles," she replied.

"If Harry Potter had lost to me all those years ago, girl, your lover would be with you in that bed."

"I know this," she said softly.

"Sometimes you hate him, don't you?" The Dark Lord's voice was conversational, as if they were discussing something banal, like whether to have tea or pumpkin juice with their scones. "In the dark, when you see the empty pillow beside you, do you hate the Boy Who Lived as much as I? He has taken something from both of us, you know."

In dreams it was easy to say what you had never admitted to yourself in the harsh light of day. "I do, sometimes. If neither Ron nor I had ever been his friend, then Ron would be holding me now and I would not be alone."

He laughed quietly. "I wouldn't be here, though," she continued. "You would have had me killed. I'm a Muggleborn."

"You do not know what I will do when he falls." There was pleasure in his voice at the thought of killing Harry.

"You misunderstand me, Miss Granger," he continued, the formality sounded strange from a man who stood watching her in the shadows. "I am pleased because you hate him."

"I hate you more," she said, voice strong. "You who have taken so much beauty from the world, you deserve my hatred more than Harry ever will. You seek to kill, to destroy. There is no beauty in that."

Her voice held the quiet certainty that he would win, because in her heart, she acknowledged this even though her friends and fellow soldiers did not.

"You say then there is no beauty in death, Miss Granger?"

She found she could turn her head towards the door, and did so slowly. He remained in the shadows, but she could see the burn of his red eyes, unblinking in the darkness. "There is nothing beautiful in what you bring," she said, her voice hopeless.

"I shall be most pleased to show you how very wrong you are when I break you."

"You think you'll break me so easily?" Her voice was incredulous.

"There would be no beauty in it, girl, if it were easy."

Harry had always told her the Dark Lord's voice was high and cold. It was not, now. It throbbed deep and rich with some dark eagerness she could not understand.

"I await your presence in my chamber, when you will kneel before me, eager to accept the bite of my lash," he said in that strange pulsing voice.

"You shall never have me, Lord Voldemort. There are some things even you cannot break or destroy." She felt a strange surge of certainty, a renewed sense of commitment to the cause. He would not have her, she would see to it. No matter what, he would never her on her knees before him.

He laughed at that, eyes glowing brighter. "You seem so certain of that, girl. I shall remind you of this when you come to me."

"Never," she whispered, "you shall never have what you want from me. You may torture me, break my body and yes, even my mind and my spirit, but I will never give you those things willingly."

"You shall," he said, arrogant. "I find I am most anxious to disprove you. Do come see me, Miss Granger..." The dream had started to fade, falling slowly out of focus.

He is mad if he thinks I shall go to him willingly, she thought, struggling to wake up. My loyalty shall never be his.

His laughter was the last thing she heard as she came awake, the alarm rousing her from sleep; his laughter and a promise echoed in the darkness. "You shall, Miss Granger. You shall."

*****************************************

She did not tell the Order at their next meeting about her dream, although she knew she should have.

Instead, Hermione sat and listened to Kinglsey Shacklebolt and the others talk of strategy and subterfuge, and she was quiet as they recalled their latest failure to draw Voldemort's army out at Rotherfield the night prior.

Of course that failed, Hermione thought, annoyed. Anyone could have predicted that plan would not have worked. Lucius Malfoy was not so easily fooled; he would have seen right through that "accidentally" released information of a supposed Order meeting. No doubt, he sent several scouts to patrol the area; scouts whose capture would not have dealt a blow to the Death Eaters.

We should have had him assassinated, she thought coldly. It was true--when Lucius Malfoy had been imprisoned in Azkaban several years ago, it would have been an easy thing to dispose of him quietly. I told them that without Lucius Malfoy's attempts at organization, the Death Eaters could have been overcome easily. Hermione remembered the Ministry raid from fifth year, and how Malfoy had struggled to reign in his more--excitable--colleagues. He was a brilliant strategist, and there was no way Lord Voldemort would have allowed him to remain locked up in Azkaban for long.

They had thought her heartless when she suggested it. "We're not Death Eaters, Hermione," Remus had said patiently. "We do not kill indiscriminately to further our plans." Hermione had dropped her eyes from his gaze, thinking maybe we should. Ron had laughed and reminded everyone how she had lured Dolores Umbridge out into the Forbidden Forest in fifth year, resulting in that vile woman being sent to the hospital.

"Hermione is a loyal friend, and there is little she won't do to protect those she cares about," Ron had said proudly, grinning at her and throwing an arm about her shoulder with his typical easy charm.

I was not able to protect you, Hermione thought sadly. I would have gone up against Lord Voldemort himself to keep you safe, Ron. She would never forgive Remus for keeping her off of that mission to Hogwarts. Not only had she failed to protect her former school, she'd failed to protect the man she'd loved.

Hermoine had always been willing to break the rules when it really mattered; it was why she'd been put into Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw in her first year of school. The Sorting Hat had been well aware of that facet of her personality. Ron had once jokingly told her that it was a good thing her ideals were so noble and righteous, else "the Hat would've put you in Slytherin."

Hermione turned her thoughts back to the present as the meeting continued, and she struggled to pay attention, receiving her assignments and suffering through the usual lecture about "undue force" and the Killing Curse. Remember, it is not beyond the realm of possibility to suppose Voldemort is controlling these men, and they should be given the opportunity to switch sides. Hermione had felt irrationally angered at that, because it was so incredibly naïve. Why would any of the Death Eaters switch sides? They're winning!

She gathered her things and moved towards the door, resolutely avoiding the corner of the room where Ginny Weasley held court over a horde of new members, fresh from Hogwarts. They stared at her with adoring faces that made Hermione feel sick inside. She shoved her way outside and drew in great gasps of air, ignoring the strange looks from the Muggles who pushed her aside in their haste.

"Hullo, Hermione," a quietly familiar voice said, and she looked up sharply.

"Harry," she said, surprised. "What on earth are you doing here?"

The Boy Who Lived was dressed in Muggle clothes and running a hand through his messy black hair. He had grown tall--almost six feet--and was still lanky and wiry, never quite filling out as Ron had done. His green eyes were still bright, but tiredness leant a dull sheen to them so they no longer shone like cut emeralds. None of us shine as bright as we used to.

"I thought maybe we could have some tea," he murmured, eyes darting about anxiously. Hermione nodded, knowing they should move from the crowded street. Harry reminded her a bit of a fugitive on the lam--always required to move, never able to stay in one place for long periods of time. There were those who were not Death Eaters who would betray him, merely to end the War. The lines between the "good" and the "bad" side were beginning to blur in a frightening way, and it was hard to trust anyone anymore.

"That would be nice," she said evenly, and spotted a Muggle teashop on the corner. Gesturing towards it, she said simply, "Shall we?"

He nodded, and they walked in silence towards the shop. Venturing to Diagon Alley was too dangerous, so Muggle London was their only option.

In school, she had walked what must have amounted to countless miles with Harry and Ron, able to enjoy the companionable silence between the three of them or remain quiet as the boys chatted about Quidditch. Now, however, the silence between her and Harry was strained, and it saddened her that it should be so. What I wouldn't give to be walking across the castle grounds towards Hagrid's hut, she thought sadly, instead of crossing the street to take tea with my former best friend, the man upon whose shoulders rests the fate of the world. An overly dramatic thought, perhaps, but to her it seemed frighteningly apropos.

The teashop was crowded in the afternoon rush, and as they stood in the queue, they both chatted about inconsequential things. Hermione assured Harry she was safe enough in her small apartment, although Remus was pushing her to move. Unsaid between them was that Remus wanted her to be removed from memories of Ron, but this was not something she felt comfortable discussing with Harry. Time had changed things; the Golden Trio was no longer either.

"I really wish we didn't have to always stay so far apart," Harry mumbled, stirring his tea half-heartedly as they sat in a small table next to the window, fogged from the cold outside and the warmth of the interior of the building. "I get so bloody sick and tired of being alone all the time." He looked up at her, the tiredness in his eyes pulled at her sympathy.

"Oh, Harry," she scolded gently, reverting back to her old school self momentarily as she chided him, "you aren't alone. You know the Order is behind you one-hundred percent. It is just that ..."

"That I can't be a danger to anyone else," he said, disgusted. She watched him run his hands through his hair and swallow before fixing her with a look. "Do you ever wish it would just end, Hermione? That something would just make it all stop--a flash of green from somewhere when you least expect it?"

Hermione laughed mirthlessly. "Of course I do, Harry," she said, voice tight. "I have thought that every day since Ron-" She stopped and looked away at the flash of pure agony in his green eyes, brilliant from tears rather than from the inner fire that had seemed so much a part of him.

In some ways, Ron's death had been harder on Harry than anyone. There had always been a sense that if he still had his best friend with him, nothing could happen that he could not handle. Hermione seriously believed that they lost the War the day Ron Weasley died. Something had irrevocably changed on that awful day they'd buried Ron beneath the azure-blue sky on that crisp fall day; something that siphoned a little more of their certainty and their optimism out of them with each passing day. The horror of it was that they could not confide in each other, as they had always done. The Order had declared it too dangerous for them to remain in constant contact, and they'd been separated. Alone, they'd learned to keep their own council.

"I didn't think anyone else would understand," Harry mumbled, giving up on his tea and staring unseeing at the crowds of people that passed by outside their window.

"I don't know," Hermione said slowly, staring down at her hands. "I think perhaps it's like what the others felt when Dumbledore died."

Losing the greatest wizard of the age had been a horrific moment indeed. Voldemort's surge of pure delight in the old wizard's death had caused Harry to almost break, the continual connection between them wreaking havoc on Harry's state of mind. It had been horrible with so many of them in tears, weeping over Dumbledore's death. But Harry had been laughing like a madman in one moment and then crying in agony in the next. Hermione shook her head, willing the image to go away. Next to Ron's burial, it was the worst memory of the War that she had.

"I can still feel him, you know," Harry said, breaking the silence between them and causing Hermione to wonder if he'd been thinking about the exact same memory. It is a pity we can't think back on the joy of shared triumphs and remember Quidditch games and OWL results.

"I can feel that he is growing stronger, as we get weaker. I can feel his certainty that it'll be over soon. Sometimes, I find myself staring off into space with a smile on my face as I imagine myself lying dead at his feet."

Hermione's eyes flew to his, horrified. "That's awful," she breathed, though inside she felt a twinge of disloyalty, as she remembered her dream. "Do you ..." She closed her eyes briefly, collecting herself. "Do you still...dream...of him?"

There was a long moment of silence between them as they stared at each other. "Yes," Harry said dully, "but it is not of him, exactly. Instead, it is of what he's going to do to every last person I care about after he's killed me." Harry looked up at her, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it roughly. "Promise me something, Hermione," he said heatedly, his green eyes narrowing as he held her gaze.

"What?" she asked breathlessly, frightened despite herself.

"Promise me you will end it if he wins. If you find out that I'm dead, please do me one last favor and kill yourself or have someone do it for you. I can't stand to think that you'd suffer what I've seen in my nightmares when he wins. Promise me, Hermione. It's the last favor I'll ask of you."

He was crying, she noticed as she stared at him, the blood pounding in her ears. They'd been together far too long and were breaking a million rules with their impromptu meeting, but she squeezed his hands back. "Harry," she began, "I won't need to kill-"

"Yes, you will," Harry said, a fine trembling in his limbs as he shook his head, tears running unchecked down his face. "I swear, Hermione, you don't want to live through what he has planned for you." He released her hands and rubbed his palms into his eyes. "Promise me," he mumbled, "because I think this might be the last time I ever see you, and I can't stand to think that you'll be left to ... that."

Horror rushed through her as tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. They were receiving strange looks from the other customers, though neither of them cared. She wanted to argue with him, convince him it was a lie, but she couldn't because she knew that he it was the truth. "I promise, Harry," she said quietly. "I promise."
He looked up at her, and they both became self-conscious. He because of his tears, and she because she was so close to crying herself. "I have to go," he mumbled, and she nodded.

"It's probably for the best. We'll both receive a tongue-lashing from Remus if you don't," she agreed.

They stood and walked outside, their tea untouched on the table behind them. The street was less crowded, but they moved to the side of the doorway nonetheless and looked at each other. "You said when," she said dully, unable to think of anything to say but needing to say something. Surely this can't be the last time I'll see him, she thought, but there was a horrible certainty about his words that chilled her.

He looked confused for a moment. "I said when?"
Hermione forced herself to speak, trying to articulate the words she couldn't seem to grasp. "You said when the Dark Lord triumphed, not if."

Harry laughed bitterly, the sound older than his twenty-one years. "Yeah," he said, "I did. It's hard not to think that way, when it's all I see in my mind and all I dream about at night." He forced a smile on his face. The gesture twisted his face into a thoroughly unpleasant expression and she stepped back from him instinctively.

"I'll fight him until there's nothing left in me," he said simply, "but I don't think it'll matter much. I can't run from our confrontation because he'll never leave me alone, and I'm going mad from how he taunts me with these horrible images and promises of what he'll do to you and the others when I die. It seems I've lived my life in cycles of eleven years," he joked, but there was no humor behind his words.

"Take care of yourself, Harry," she whispered and reached out to hug him. It was the first time she'd embraced him since Ron's funeral, and she noticed he was skeletal beneath the plain Muggle clothes he wore.

"You too, Hermione," he said, and pressed his lips to her temple. "God knows I tried."

He turned suddenly and left her there, and although she tried to watch him as he disappeared into the crowds, the tears in her eyes blinded her. She leaned against the wall and finally let them fall, her hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs.