Cor phlebotomans

Under normal circumstances Hermione wanted to believe that she was quite alert and mindful of her surroundings.

It was one of the very few benefits of growing up during a pre-war time and then fighting in said war. It had made her very attentive, always on the lookout for anything dangerous. These days she barely entered a room without at least a little bit of caution.

Her sleep had become very light and she was roused by every small noise, may it only be one of the girls shifting in their sleep or an owl hooting in the night.

She guessed the days in the tent with the other two boys and being on the run would not leave her very soon. She would probably never be a deep sleeper anymore.

But alas, it had become, in a way, something of a sixth sense. Some would say it was just that, a natural ability, that the three of them, the Golden Trio, had become so good at sensing danger that sometimes they just knew when something had been about to happen.

Some people would say it was their very own kind of magic. Hermione knew better of course. After always being on guard for most of their lives, their subconscious picked up on things that normal people wouldn’t.

Maybe it was just the movement in the corner of your eye or it was the lightly bent branches in the forest that indicated someone had been along that way, Hermione couldn’t say what exactly gave it away but Harry and her, more so than Ron, had always just known when danger was ahead. It had always come in handy and it was something that Hermione had come to rely on.

Maybe it had been their own magic that had grown to the occasion, so to say. Maybe they had really developed a kind of power that was akin to the one of a seer. Hermione’s skin always tingled in a very specific way when danger was ahead, it was as if a shiver ran down her spine, a preasure in her head and a silence in her mind.

So she blamed it on her teary eyes, even though they had been dry in that very instant but bloodshot and bleary none the less, and on her generally being preoccupied. Who would have thought that something was about to happen in Hogwarts anyway? It was, after all, still the safest place to be. Besides, who would go after an unassuming schoolgirl?

All in all, she blamed Tom, because Hermione normally wouldn’t have wandered the castle so early in the morning, the sun just peeking over the mountain tops and she wouldn’t have left the walls off the castle to feel the frosty air on her skin.

No, if it weren’t for Tom Riddle and her stupid heart and the whole ordeal of the Halloween ball, she never would have been so damn careless.

But most importantly she blamed herself.

~

She landed somewhere dirty, she just knew.

Dust was clinging to her nostrils and making her cough violently. She felt the grime stick to her hand and lips, lips that had cracked from lack of water and the dryness that seemed to course through her.

Her lungs expanded painfully with every breath she took, her muscles burning. All in all, she had felt better but also worse in her life.

Her hair was tickling her neck where it half-heartedly stuck to her skin that was semidry. Was it blood or sweat? Hermione couldn’t be sure but there was a slight pounding in her head so maybe she had hit her head. Therefore it could be blood. In Hermione’s life it usually was blood.

He lips, she realized were lightly touching something hard and cool… the ground.

She was bent forward, she realized, her sense of space and time returning. She ripped her eyes open just to be greeted by a deafening darkness. A blindfold, she realized as senses slowly came back to her and her initial panic had subdued. She could feel the light weight that had settled over her eyes.

It was as if her body and mind were crawling back to her, slowly everything returned. Her head continued to pound and her blood was rushing in her ears. At least she still had enough blood for it to be rushing, she thought grimly.

She just hoped that she wasn’t dead.

With the first rational thought slithering through her tired and tilted mind, her fingers went straight for her wand but her hand and arm was met with resistance.

She was bound.

The restraints were digging into her skin and the pain helped her focus. Trying to not draw the attention of people that could be in the same space as her, she tried to fight against the bounds.

It was done by magic, she soon realized. There wasn’t even the slightest wiggle room, not even for her to grab her wand that had to be in her pocket. Unless the people that took her, also took her wand. A numb kind of panic washed through her when she thought of her being wandless and therefore defenceless.

She racked her memory but the last thing she actually remembered was walking over the barley lit grounds of Hogwarts and letting the coldness of the morning seep into her clothes and bones. Then there had been… something… she had probably been hit by a stunning spell or something like that.

Well, all she knew that she woke up here, wherever that was and had apparently been knocked out for some time judging by the stiffness of her muscles.
She didn’t know who, why or where.

Desperately, she tried to strain against her bounds once again but they were tight and already cutting into her flesh, making her hiss in pain when they moved over the already disturbed flesh. It burned.

She let the pain wash through her.

Where had she landed herself this time, she wondered? Her whole body just felt so sore.

Panic began to seep into her consciousness again, making her thoughts jumbled. She didn’t know where she was, who took her or why. She was utterly helpless. Not even in the war had she ever felt like this. Her body began to tremble, her heart started to pound in her chest. She had to get out, horror images of the last battle in Hogwarts flashed before her in the darkness. The uncertainty of what lay beyond her blindness was making everything so much worse.

“So she has finally woke”, a voice boomed, making her recoil at the sudden onslaught of sound.

She definitely didn’t recognize that voice. Slowly she tried to turn or right herself, she was still unsure as to where up and down really was.

The ground touching her lips was helping a bit. Her muscles pulled and protested. A grunt of pain left her lips without her permission and sweat beaded along her skin.

Suddenly dim light flooded her sight as the weight of the fabric that had been her blindfold vanished.

Like little needles pricking her eyes, the rays of light mercilessly invaded her sight until her eyes finally adjusted, leaving her with an even worse headache. Dust was clinging to her lashes and made her eyes itch.

She saw the little particles reflect the gloomy light that came from the high windows on the other far end of the room she appeared to be in. It stretched before her, a very pretty room, it reminded her of the Malfoy manor and wasn’t that just lovely.

That mental picture brought a whole other onslaught of memories that Hermione would rather not have. Her vision was still a bit off and tilted, her brain scrambling to adjust to reality again.

Her nose itched at the dust clinging to her nostrils, making her want to sneeze. An earthy scent, mixed with something she couldn’t quiet place, washed through her. She frowned.

Her eyes danced across the space in front of her, everything was very wooden and gloomy, the ceiling was high and the walls ornamented with beautiful magical paintings. She saw a small dragon blinking at her before crawling towards the ceiling.

How peculiar but none the less fascinating. Her guess was that she would have enjoyed the aesthetics of this… room… if it had been any other circumstance.

Next, she glanced at the windows. Was there any chance that she could haul herself out of them? Maybe the glass wasn’t magically reinforced, meaning that her captor wasn’t very well versed in the art of kidnapping. Then again maybe the view was simply an enchantment and beyond lay a fall off a hundred meters. She had no way of knowing but she would keep it in mind as a last resort.

“Is she stupid or why won’t she answer? Are you sure we got the right one?”, the same voice from before said, this time a lot quieter.

Hermione finally focused on the other people in the room.

The first one was a blond man of middle height and with hair that looked a bit like hers. Very bushy and curly. Poor guy, Hermione couldn’t help but feel for him even if he very probably was the one who had kidnapped her or at least the one behind it.

That man had a very roughish kind of handsomeness about himself, Hermione noticed. From the way he was casually leaning against a long dark desk to his hands being in his pockets, showing that he hadn’t even deigned her dangerous enough to pull out his wand. Something about him tickled her memory.

The desk looked just as brittle as the rest of the room. It looked like it had stood here too long a time and at slowly faded away. It was a wonder that it didn’t break under the weight of the man.

Another one was standing in her line of vision. She had to turn her head a bit to get a better look at him, her face scratching over the rough surface of the floor. This man, this boy, she knew. Raymond Nott, she shouldn’t have been surprised to see her school mate standing in the middle of the room but somehow she was.

He looked quite pale, Hermione noted, he didn’t seem at ease, not like the other one. Maybe he wanted to be here as much as she.

“I am very sure, that is Hermione Granger.”, Nott said, his voice sounding weak. Well, that was odd. Not cut out for being a death eater, are you? Hermione thought to herself not without malice.

“I thought you would be prettier”, the blond man said, cocking his head to the side.

Who was he? As if he had heard her thoughts, he continued, “If I may introduce myself, Gellert Grindelwald.”, the man, Grindelwald, finally said while smirking at her.

She didn’t even bat eye which in turn seemed to antagonize the dark wizard in front of her a bit. His eyes flashed with a kind of anger only men with superior complex had. Hermione wanted to roll her eyes. Maybe something was wrong with her and she was some kind of danger magnet.

“Maybe I have to loosen your tongue a bit”, the blond man said as he pushed himself off the desk that wobbled dangerously and slowly pulled out his wand.

The elder wand, Hermione instantly realized, her eyes glued to the smooth wooden stick.

She had seen the oddly shaped wand in the hands of her former headmaster and afterwards in Voldemort’s hands which had truly been a terrifying sight.

He was a bit taller than anticipated or maybe it was his impressing magic that seemed to seep out of his powerful wand and evade the space around them that made him seem more impressive than he really was.

“Gellert Grindelwald”, she said her voice raspy and not sounding very intimidating.

She had wanted to go for a dark whisper but her throat was parched and scratchy.

“Somehow I thought you had better things to do than kidnap school girls. But alas, apparently I was wrong.”, she waited a beat to let her words sink in while trying to right herself into a sitting position.

She didn’t really look gracious while doing that but she didn’t care, her head was still pounding and she wanted to face her enemy head on.

“Now, may I inquire the reason of my forced stay in your company?”, Hermione said with an easy smile and panting from the strain of righting herself.

Everything was shaking a bit but she seemed stable enough. The panicked feeling from before had gone away at her finally knowing who, what and hopefully soon why. Now, only a slight feeling of excitement and eagerness to escape remained. A curse that had been left her from the war.

She had spent most of her life on the run or in an adventure. The adjustment after the war, returning to a normal life, left her empty and unfeeling. Only with Tom did she feel like a human again. With Tom and apparently when kidnapped by Grindelwald.

“Ah, so she talks.”, the man said, again with an small smile oozing confidence.

Hermione guessed that it would have unnerved many other people. People that hadn’t fought in a war and hadn’t risked their lives on a daily basis. She, on the other hand, only returned his smile with a grin. Too often had she been on the verge of death, staring into his black soulless eyes, to be afraid now.

“Some say she talks too much”, she hissed.

“Very well, Miss Granger, I will indulge you in my reasons for you being here.”, Grindelwald flicked his hand through the air.

Somehow he was a lot more eccentric than Hermione could ever have thought.

“You know it is hard to gain power, the path is long and full of traps. It is endless and steep and only the best of the best dare to take the steps of greatness.”

Hermione wanted to roll her eyes, again.

“You have to have… allies, friends and people who stand behind you and support your every move. Sometimes, just sharing the same believes just doesn’t cut it, some people need more… nudging. Just like the dear Nott family over here.”

With gracious strides Gridelwald approached Raymond Nott who seemed a little green in the face. The bony hand of the dark wizard landed on the boy’s shoulder and curled around it in a very strange gesture. One that didn’t seem friendly at all. So Nott wasn’t really here because he wanted to be.

“So, the very inventive man I am, I came up with a plan. Because what do families value more, especially those of pure blood than their precious pureblooded wives and mothers?”, at this Grindelwald let out a cackle.

His blood red lips stretched into a cruel grin, his white teeth showing and glinting in the dim light. He looked truly crazy. The elder wand was dangling from his hand, but his long fingers curled around it in a possessive way. The crazy glint in his eyes made Hermione uneasy.

“So you did what?”, she said, trying to shake the strange eyes of Gellert Grindelwald. “Let me guess, you took them custody and use them to blackmail the families.”

“Ah quite clever, Miss Granger, I would even be a little impressed.”, he said as he took a step to one of the high windows.

Strange, Hermione thought, she had never read about that in history books. Then again, Purebloods always have been outstandingly private with their affairs and she guessed having their wives robbed and taken wasn’t something they wanted everyone to know. Besides, they probably got them all back.

“Well, that is quite funny”, Hermione said, smiling. “You see, neither am I a Pureblood nor am I anybody’s wife. In fact I am, as you call it, a Mudblood. I think you really got the wrong girl.”

“Now, now, Miss Granger, not so hasty.”, Grindelwald replied. “I have one or two younger spies in Hogwarts but no one of importance, unfortunately.”

“Oh I am sure you want to know what Albus Dumbledore is up to.”, Hermione grinned at the other wizard.

Grindelwald seemed to flinch at the name of her beloved headmaster.

“That old fool is of no consequence to me.”, he said offhandedly.

“Oh please, you are basically the same age so don’t go calling him old.”, Hermione said.

“You have no idea, girl.”, Gellert answered, his easy façade finally cracking.

“Oh, I think I know better than you might think. Weren’t you and Albus’ neighbours?”, she leaned forward, her eyes staring Grindelwald down who seemed to have frozen. “until this day you still don’t know who killed Ariana, don’t you?”

The pain was instant and excruciating. She hadn’t even seen him raise his wand or say any words but the pain was there and it was very real.

Her whole body was on fire, her bones felt like they were splitting in a thousand pieces and rearranging themselves. Fire was crashing over her like waves and making her scream her throat raw until she couldn’t anymore but still did.

When it finally stopped, and that was an eternity later, Hermione felt the warm tickle of blood in her mouth. She spat, the ground beneath her staining red. She laughed quietly. The floor was dark and the blood stood in a red stark contrast.

“I don’t care what Albus has told you, this has nothing to do with him.”, Gellert said.

He had come closer, his hand grabbing her hair and yanking it. More blood was running down her chin. She stared back into his dark eyes. They reminded her of Tom’s.

“A few weeks ago I took the Lady Nott.”, Grindelwald let her head fall and she nearly crashed face first into the ground if she hadn’t braced herself with her arms. He had taken Lady Nott… Hermione’s mind flashed with Raymond in the early morning receiving a stranger owl…

“And Raymond was kind enough to offer his cooperation and he told me something very interesting.”

Hermione pushed herself up as best as she could and watched the dark wizard with his billowing robes. “A very powerful wizard, apparently, someone who surpassed anything that Nott has ever seen. I don’t believe that that… boy… could be better than me but his powers must be grand, still.

But more importantly, he already has the loyalties of all the Purebloods in Britain. Isn’t that absolutely fabulous? Control him”, Grindelwald crouched down to be level with her again and his lips pulled into another cruel smile “and control all of them”

Hermione’s mind pieced together the puzzle pieces.

“Ah, so I am your way of gaining control over Tom.”, she said, trying not to heave from the coppery taste of blood running down her throat.

“Yes, Tom Riddle will now do as I tell him to. And he will openly join me and therefore make every Pureblood join me.”

Hermione leaned back against the floor. Well, she got herself in quite the situation. It was doubtful that she would ever get out of this, Grindelwald wasn’t anybody.

He was clever and he would have made it nearly impossible for her to escape even if he didn’t know that she was capable of wandless magic. Her head touched the cool ground. The same strange smell reached her nose as before, it was cold and earthy and not, as one suspected, the rich smell of wood.

Turning around again she glanced at the floor. Strange dust-like particles were lying on the ground, similar to those dancing through the air. Strange… they looked like moonstone.

“I am not sure Tom would do anything you say to him, even for me.”, she said, her voice wavering. Surly, she couldn’t mean that much to Tom, even if he did to her. But it was Tom, the psychopath that wasn’t capable of love and… feelings.

“I doubted it too.”, it was the first time that Raymond spoke to her directly. “I thought it was just a passing fancy, nothing else. You aren’t even pure, after all.”, he said with a good measure of disdain. “But after you fled from the forest yesterday”

Yesterday?

”you should have seen Tom. I was sure that he was going to kill all of them. They disobeyed him. But instead he obliviated Edger. Quite permanently, if I may so, he will probably never retain the power of speech properly again. He didn’t even torture him. It was very unlike Tom. He was so angry, I have never in my life seen him like that. The whole forest was bending to the power of his magic but he reigned himself in and took after you.”

“Yes, well, if you are so sure, why aren’t you afraid that Tom will go after you?”, she directed her question to Gellert Grindelwald who was idly playing with his wand. The man laughed a bellowing laugh that bounced from the walls and echoed through the hall.

“A very good question. “, he finally said, after having laughed for far too long.

That man was absolutely crazy, Hermione realized.

“Besides the fact that no one can stand a chance against me?”, he said and twirled his wand again. “This house is under the Fidelus charm. Only I, Raymond and now you can enclose its destination. And none of you will leave this house, so I really am not worried.”

Well, that was rather not good, Hermione thought as her eyes danced across the room again. Maybe she could find a way. She gazed at the ground again. The strange smell was still clinging to her nose. That was very peculiar.

Maybe it was Hermione’s sixth sense again but something was off.

Maybe it had something to do with the odd smell in the air or the moonstone-resembling dust on the floor something was not quite right. She looked around one more time. The air seemed to shift and bend. A tingle raced down her spine.

The shadows around her seemed to flutter.

“Well, that is clever, I have to adm-“, Hermione didn’t get any further, there was the tell-tale loud pop of someone apparating and suddenly she wasn’t bound anymore, her hands finally falling free. She nearly fell to the ground, so sudden and unexpected was the disappearance of her restraints.

The dark and oppressing magic of one angered Tom filled the room instantly and made her own magic rise to meet his.

She smiled, the ring on her finger pulsing with excited magic. It really was Tom, who was standing in the middle of the room, just at the right angle to block her from any kind of harm, his wand raised against Grindelwald.

Gellert reacted instantly, his wand pointed at the young man.

The elder wand seemed to glow with his magic, it was a dark, murky brown.

But Tom, Hermione’s eyes were instantly drawn to the man standing in the middle of the room. He looked like an avenging angel, his magic dark and unforgiving, swirling around him like a storm of death. But his magic seemed to seek her out, caressing her calves and arms. It settled over her like a warm save blanket.

“Hermione”, Tom spoke into the silence that had descended over them. “Are you alright.”

“Fine”, Hermione grunted out while pushing herself to a standing position. Her muscles protest and her joints popped.

“That fucking hurt”, she mumbled.

Accio wand.

Her wand came flying from Raymond’s pocket and Hermione caught it in mid-air, magic rushing through her. She grinned.

Her magic was like the first rays of sunshine after a long night, like the first fresh light of the world, peeking over mountain tops and reflecting in the still cold water.

“Well that didn’t work out as you planned it, did it now?”, Hermione said to Grindelwald and approached Tom whose magic was still crackling around him like a dark storm waiting to begin.

Tom’s hand grabbed her wrist and for a second their eyes met. Hermione saw so much in those few seconds, his gaze conveying so much emotion. His eyes danced over her face, taking in her blood and her unruly hair. She saw his angers, felt it pulsing in magic but she also felt his concern.

There hadn’t been time to prepare, their eye contact only lasted for a beat. Hermione didn’t know who was the first to fire a hex but suddenly all hell broke loose.

Tom pushed her away, blocking the first hex that was thrown in her direction with ease. Red and golden flashes of light bounced around the room, Gellert’s wand soon showing why it was the most powerful wand to ever exist. Hermione fired a stunner at Raymond who fell to the ground with a big thud.

Tom was ducking away from a dark brown muddy hex that had been cast his way. It bounced of the opposite wall and evaporated without leaving any trace. Hermione fired a Reducto and to her dismay Grindelwald batted the charm away without a second thought and without even looking at her.

No matter how powerful Tom was, Hermione realized, he could never win against Grindelwald. Even Voldemort in his later stages would struggle against the power of the elder wand, maybe he could win none the less, but not Tom, not this young.

The elder wand was vibrating with energy. It was the undefeatable wand, after all. Hermione’s shields, that had always been one of the strongest, were ripped apart by Grindelwald who was fighting not one but two wizards and definitely winning. They never stood a chance.

She locked gaze with Tom, his dark eyes hard but not without emotion. Hot flames of fire erupted from his wand-tip and zoned in on Grindelwald, enveloping him. Tom took the chance at the other wizard being a bit preoccupied to reach Hermione, grabbing her arm.

“Get out of here, Hermione, I will distract him and you just flee.”, he said in a low whisper but Hermione was already shaking her head because, no, she would never just go and flee. Never.

“No, I won’t…”

“Hermione, I only want you safe, please, I want you to live. The world is better off without me but not without you…”, his voice was so raw that a wave of despair and love rushed through her. Her eyes pricked with tears.

“To bad, you know boy, that you won’t follow me. You could have been my successor.”, Grindelwald said in a booming voice, startling them both. He had extinguished the flames and not even one hair was amiss on his head. Tom pushed Hermione behind him.

Flee, he hissed one last time before raising his wand.

“I don’t follow.”, Tom said, in a dark voice. “People follow me. I’d rather die than bend to some one’s will.”

 “Truly too bad”, Grindelwald said, his steps light as he swaggered closer. “Too bad, my boy, we could have been great together, Avada Kedabra”

Green flashed through the room and Hermione didn’t have time to think, she didn’t have time to think about what she was doing, didn’t have time to consider her option or her alternatives.

It didn’t matter that Tom had Horcruxes and could technically not die because everybody knew what happen when Voldemort had been resurrected. That kind of state of existing wasn’t really better than death itself.

No, Hermione had long ago decided that the snake-like monster with slits for a nose and red eyes was nothing like Tom.
Tom, the boy she loved, had nothing to do with that monster. It was soulless and not a human being.

But most importantly, she just saw the green flash and heard the words that she had heard too often in her life already and she realized that she it was like an instinct, something she would have done for Ron and Harry, too. It was like her sixth sense, it was just something that she did or had.

There had been no time for thought, no time to mull this over.

She just pushed and tripped, the flash hitting her squarely in the chest, knocking the air out of her lungs and pulsing through her body in one terrifying cold flash. The impact was forceful, making her fly or maybe she was already dead.

Maybe the flying sensation was finally her true death. Maybe it was finally over, finally finished and she wouldn’t have to live on. Maybe she would finally see all of them again. Remus, Tonks, Harry’s parents, Snape and all the others that had been lost. Maybe, some day, Harry and Ron and her parents would join, hopefully when they were old and had lived a full and happy life.

She would miss Tom, she decided. She hoped he would take another path than the one that he had the first time round. She hoped he would get out of this house and live. Live a life that he could have had if life hadn’t been so cruel to him.

She hoped he wouldn’t take her death as a reason to go insane… again. She hoped he would take her memory and live better for it.

Her landing in the brittle desk that Gellert Grindelwald had leaned on before was hard and loud, the wood splintering all around her, making more dust and covering her with broken bits of wood, the small pain she felt by them digging into her skin was inconsequential. She was dead after all.