Set the Fire to the Third Bar

Their words mostly noises

Ghosts with just voices

Your words in my memory

Are like music to me

-         Snow Patrol, Set the Fire to the Third Bar

Hermione Granger couldn’t feel anything anymore.

Oh, she had told herself that before. After Dumbledore’s funeral; when she found Percy Weasley’s body, so mangled that only the note pinned to his cloak identified him (“Merry Christmas,” it had read); the day Harry left and never came back.

Now, she realized that she had never truly meant it. She had never known the terrible feeling of cold etched deep into every pore of her body, even though the air around her was warm.

It was better to be numb, though. Nothing could get to her now; it all had to slide of the surface. The same way the tears slid off her skin and landed on the bodies below her. She was safe in her cold cocoon.

She knelt on the ground and stared at the lifeless figures before her.

They are nothing, she told herself. Not anymore. There is nothing left but flesh, bone, muscle, and blood. That is the only thing I am looking at.

She didn’t believe it, but she kept repeating it to herself anyway, hoping that if she says it enough, it will be true.

“Practice makes perfect, Miss Granger,” Professor McGonagall said.

But McGonagall is dead, and clearly practice did not make her perfect at dodging the Death Eaters’ curses.

“Flesh, bone, muscle, and blood,” Hermione says out loud.

Her voice is toneless, yet somehow the words still achieve a sing-song effect. It is a twisted song she is singing, but she cannot stop.

She fumbles around on the ground for a rock. Really, she reflects, she should use her wand to Summon one, or, at the very least, shed some light in the darkness so she can see. But she knows it would do her no good. Her hands are shaking too badly for a Summoning Charm to help her, and she wouldn’t be able to see through her tears, even if there was light.

She doesn’t know how long it takes her, but eventually her hand closes around a rock. It is sharp, and she nicks her finger on the edge, but she doesn’t mind the pain. At least she knows it will serve her purpose.

The stone is heavy in her hand as she lifts it; she can’t quite get her hand around it. It’s rough, too, leaving scratches all along the palms of her hands. With a grunt, she brings it down on the throat of the body closest to her, then drops it to the side.

Blood spurts from the wound; still warm, it taunts her.

If only you were quicker, it says. If only you had thought of the date. You should have known this would happen. Don’t you remember what happened to the Weasleys?

She shakes her head as if it would rid her of the reproachful thoughts.

I can fix this.

But what if she can’t? She is running out of time. He would have set wards around the house – there is no house anymore – to alert Him when she arrived. He was probably on his way now.

Her breath quickened. She isn’t nearly as unfeeling as she would like, because she is still afraid. That has not changed.

Yet, she mentally corrects herself.

A soft breeze blows her hair into her face, recalling her to her task.

She closes her eyes and dips her fingers in the blood, trying not to breathe in the scent of it. Hands still shaking, she traces the rune for Time on the woman’s forehead.

“I consecrate this death in the name of Time,” she murmured.

She picks the rock up and moves to the other body, giving it the same treatment. Now the blood has started to stain her clothes, and she wonders absently whether a cleaning spell will get it out, or if she’ll have to brew a potion.

The mundane train of thought soothes her. It is what enables her to grab the stone and lay on the ground between the two still figures. Another random thought, this one about whether she remembered to tell Mrs. Weasley that she couldn’t come to the dinner party, occupies her mind enough to let her grab the rock and drag it across her wrists.

She won’t be here much longer, and that thought is comforting. She wishes she could just give up altogether, and simply let herself die. She would like a little peace. But there are still so many people who deserve a chance at a better life, and so many who should have gotten a chance to have any life at all. So she takes a shuddering breath and gasps out:

“I consecrate this life in the name of Time, that all my sins be forgotten, and all my deeds be for naught. That I should flow on the Great River, and change the course of history.”

There, she is done. Now all she has to do is wait, and feel the life slip out of her. She still feels cold, and it only intensifies as she thinks of how, only a few hours before, she had been planning to have a happy birthday dinner with her parents, to make up for all the ones she had missed. Then the card had arrived.

“Happy Birthday,” it had read.

There was no signature. None was required, she thought as she stared up at the sky.

Hanging above her was the only signature He would ever need. An emerald green mark in the shape of a lightning bolt. The feared mark of the Dark Lord, Harry Potter.

And for the first time that night, as she lay dying between the bodies of her parents, Hermione Granger began to cry.