She Knows

She sat on the floor in front of the fire, allowing the heat that surrounded her to seep into her bones. She was tired, both mentally and physically, after spending eight hours in the library. She had looked into blood wards for the school premises, which she knew was illegal, but necessary. The teachers didn't bother to stop her nowadays; they knew she had dabbled in the Dark Arts long enough to take care of herself.

She picked The Daily Prophet up from the table next to her and read the headline: Muggle homes annihilated by Death Eaters. As much as she tried to care, it was too much for her. She could pretend she wasn't fascinated by curses, that she couldn't see what Harry was doing to himself, but she couldn't bring herself to care about muggles anymore. As far as she was concerned, she was no longer one of them. In addition, those were the millionth houses razed, so her humanity didn't argue the point. She folded the paper neatly.

Feeling warm, she got up, went to her favourite chair and pulled out a thin book from her robes: Curses for the Strong Hearted. As it was a Restricted Section book, it had chains on it and it didn't seem to settle into her arms until she put a spell on it.

She read the night away, then read again the following day, and the following week and month. She found out her parents had been killed and drowned her sorrow in practising the dark spells she knew. They fed on misery, so she mastered them soon enough.

Weeks came and passed, and slowly, the students were called home to attend their families' funerals. They hardly ever returned. By the end of the Christmas holidays, only muggleborns were left; their parents couldn't send for them without the aid of Floo Powder. Harry, Ginny and Ron were somewhere in a Ministry hideout, probably in muggle London. Hermione was left alone in the castle with the house elves, while the teachers were fighting the first battles of the war. They told her to keep looking for things that could help Harry.

She was alone.

She ran through the castle, trying to get away from the vision and the voice... but there was no escaping her own mind. Her feet were aching, she was panting, she was dizzy from all the turns she had taken over the past hour, but she refused to stop. Because if she stopped, he would catch up.

She had called him two weeks before. The spell seemed perfect to keep her company, but it had a flaw: she didn't know how to send him back. The vision was always accurate: Harry, a Harry she had seen on very few occasions; bloody, bruised, lost, broken. The spell was perfect; it never failed. It was supposed to depict one's most beloved being's destiny. However, she wasn't ready to see this.

It was permanently trying to talk to her, to tell her what would happen. She didn't want to hear it. So she ran all day, until she fell to the dusty floor of some forgotten part of the now derelict castle, and then she covered her ears against his hollow voice. Something was different today.

She was done running. She had to listen.

The vision approached her without a sound. She was slumped on a wooden floor in the West Tower, Ravenclaw territory. He sat down next to her. She looked at him for a few moments, taking in as many details as she could.

"Tell me. I am ready to listen now." She could hardly recognize her own voice, ragged and harsh from lack of use. She had been alone for too long. He started to tell the story, and all she could do was stare dumbly at him, struggling to memorize every word that came out of his blood-spattered mouth.

She sat on the armchair in front of the drawing room fireplace, dimly aware that the Aurors were waiting for her to say what she knew from the vision. Her feet were curled up under her, the tea smelled lovely, she was wearing clean clothes for the first time in months, the heat from the fire slowly seeped into her weary bones. It all made her sleepy, but she had a mission to accomplish.

"Hermione, what did it tell you? You have to tell us, as hard as it may be for you. The fate of the world is in your hands. Tell us." Tonks was looking at her with a resolute expression and a smile that didn't reach her eyes. There was desperation in them, and it made Hermione feel uneasy.

She lowered her head and started whispering the story.

"...and on the fourteenth of June they'll capture him and take him to the cemetery where Voldemort was resurrected during the TriWizard Tournament. There will be a fight... and Voldemort will die. Harry will be killed by a Death Eater as he'll leave the cemetery."

Tonks was unusually pale, even considering what she had just said.

Hermione became very alert. Something was wrong. She suddenly knew what had happened.

"Where are Harry and the others?"

Someone in the back of the group sitting at the table slowly answered, "They're being transported to a safer location as we speak."

Hermione closed her eyes. "What day is it?"

"It's..." The Aurors were fleeing the room, led by a woman with spiky pink hair. "It's the fourteenth of June," Tonks shouted from the other end of the long corridor.

Somewhere in Scotland, a group of hooded figures reached the compact group flying through the night sky.