Whom the Gods Would Destroy...

Title: Whom the Gods Would Destroy…
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Angst, Horror, Mystery
Warnings: Character Death, Graphic Violence, Adult Situations, Dark!fic
Summary: DH-EWE: The end of the world has come. Millions dead, magic waning, Hermione Granger and Charlie Weasley are the last people left in Britain—left to pick up the pieces of their once great civilization. Why were they spared? Who is responsible for the death of a nation? These are the mysteries left as a legacy for two lost and lonely people.
Author's Notes: This is my first attempt at a Charlie/Hermione pairing, so please be gentle. This fic is very much inspired by my morbid obsession with ‘end of the world’ scenarios. There are few OCs in this fic, and I have tried to keep much in ‘canon’ as possible. WGWD is unbeta’d, so pardon the mistakes, please?




Whom the Gods Would Destroy…

Part 10




‘quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.’ –A Roman proverb





There were no Thestral drawn carriages, no lanterns lit along the sheltered road, and in the trees, lost in the fathomless green, there was no life. Charlie had never felt so on edge as he did running along the muddy road. He had wanted the road between the station and Hogsmeade and the gates of Hogwarts to always be a magical place. It was not.

After feeling such a horrible lack of magic in the south, he felt suffocated with it so close to Hogwarts. It was if all the magic of Britain was being sucked to that particular area, making everything, the ground, the air, the rain, saturated with power. It unsettled him.

The road rose to a knoll as the trees broke to overlook Hogsmeade, and the walls about the grounds of Hogwarts. It was where they were forced to stop, and fall to the muddy road, fearing that they were seen.

“Fucking hell…” Hermione had muttered, panting out her breath in white streams.

The air was so cold for the first day of June that Charlie wondered if the rain would turn to snow at any moment. But the cold was not had Charlie’s teeth chattering.

It was just as Malfoy had said weeks before.

Charlie began crawling on his forearms and knees to the edge of the knoll, looking down on what had once been Hogsmeade. Hermione followed, her rifle down, her golden eye peering again through the scope.

The road forked below them, one road leading up to Hogsmeade, the other to the closed gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In the vale between the two places, there was what looked to be half a million Inferi.

Hogsmeade, from Charlie’s vantage point, had been turned into a regular hive of dead things. There were structures that were burnt, only the barebones of walls and rafters left. Other structures looked to be intact, but were surely housing Inferi from the sunlight. What Inferi were left outside alternated between lying on the ground in heaps of bodies or wandering the vale, mindlessly.

“The walls have not been breached, but I can see where the Inferi have tried,” Hermione whispered. “I can see the castle has been damaged, the Astronomy Tower is about to collapse…”

“Do you see anyone?” Charlie whispered back, pressing into Hermione’s side.

“No. It is out of range. I cannot see the grounds.”

Charlie sighed. They had to find a way in, and if it was not through the gates, then how?

Hermione shifted, the scope pointing up to Hogsmeade. Charlie waited for word.

“Honeydukes is gone… The Hogs Head… I think Gladrags too…”

Charlie licked his cold lips.

“I can just see the roof of the Shrieking Shack on the road to Dufftown. We could probably reach it if we climb up the mountain and go around.”

“Why?”

Hermione pulled her face away from the eyepiece of the scope and smiled. “I keep forgetting that you did not know about the Marauders Map.”

Charlie frowned. He did know about it, Fred and George had told him the year they found it in Filch’s office. Charlie had found the idea of the device ingenious, but Fred and George kept it so secret that even their older brother was not allowed to see it. Ron had told him about his Third Year, the truth about Scabbers, and the passage. Charlie had not asked ‘why’ because he did not know, he asked because if he were in charge of fortifying Hogwarts, the first thing he would do was block all the passages in and out of the castle.

Hermione was thinking a step ahead, however.

“They would not block off all passages in or out. That would be tactical suicide. The passage in the Shrieking Shack to the Whomping Willow could be defended easily…”

Charlie smirked. Yes, if the survivors in the castle had any hope of letting others in, there had to be a safe way in and out, a secret way. However, there were no assurances that the master of the Inferi did not already know about the passage.

It was then Charlie bit his lip roughly.

If Regulus Black had been the one controlling the Inferi, and Hermione killed Black with a Muggle bullet, why were the monsters still pacing outside the gates of the castle? Apparently, Hermione was pondering this question also as she lay the rifle down and rolled on her back in the muddy road.

“I should have checked the body. I should have stopped and confirmed the kill,” she whispered to herself.

Charlie said nothing, but reach to touch her shoulder.

They had to get moving before dark.




Even Disillusioned, and vigilant, the trek up the mountain, through the trees, past the tree line and down again to the lane out of Hogsmeade took hours. Hermione knew Charlie was frustrated at her slow pace. She knew that he was used to hiking over rough terrain. Hiking on trails in the Adirondacks was different that walking over the wet, cold, and steep mountains of the Scottish Highlands. By the time they knelt across the empty lane from the Shrieking Shack, it was already dark.

The sound that filled the remnants of Hogsmeade and the vale between the village and castle was terrifying. Thousands of dead voices seemed to howl, creating a din that made the hairs on Hermione’s arms and back of her neck stand on end. Thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of shadowy figures surged and withdrew in the vale from Hermione’s vantage point. A fear, new and fresh, seized her.

Charlie, however, grasped her left hand and squeezed. She could feel him trembling, but he was far better mentally composed than she was at that moment. His eyes were upon the lights in the castle.

The lights in the Great Hall and the dormitory towers were lit, as was the grounds, or what Hermione could see of them. It was as if hundred of Muggle flood lights lit the grass, even Hagrid’s hut, giving no room for shadow. The sight was heartening.

Charlie whispered to her, but Hermione could only hear the last word, his voice so soft.

“…go…”

They moved across the lane, careful not to let one footfall make a noise, and then ran from the lane down to the Shack.

In the dark, it was difficult to find an entrance. The washed out grey boards and siding looked all the same in the darkness, and Hermione was not about to light her wand. Charlie released her hand, and she could just see his Disillusioned form moving to her left, searching.

As far as Hermione could tell, the Shrieking Shack was as it always was, dilapidated, ready to fall in, but somehow sticking together, the wood creaking and shifting above her. There was no visible damage, and the windows were boarded up from the inside and outside, just as it had always been.

In the upstairs of the Shack, Hermione had first laid eyes upon Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. In the upstairs, Severus Snape had died…

The touch of Charlie’s hand startled her, and again he whispered to her, too low to discern. She figured he had found a way in. As far as she knew, Fred and George had never found a way in from the outside before. Perhaps a way was made, secretly, to allow survivors to pass inside.

Charlie found the trapdoor leading down into the underground passage in the basement before Hermione’s eyes could focus in the dark. All she could sense was the smell of damp and the cold. Even when Charlie helped to lower her in the tunnel, replacing the trap door overhead, Hermione could only see blackness.

“I think it is safe now,” Charlie whispered.

Hermione nodded to the dark, feeling Charlie’s damp body pressed into her back. Before she could raise her wand, the wet trickle of the Disillusionment Charm ripple across her body and Charlie lit his wand.

To see Charlie’s face was a comfort, and Hermione lit her wand as Charlie squeezed by her, crouching slightly in the tunnel. He stretched his hand back behind him to grasp hers, and together they began moving.

It had been years and years since Hermione had been in the secret passageway, and her head kept knocking against roots overhead. The barrel of her rifle scarped the roof of the tunnel and she winced, knowing that wet dirt was falling down the long barrel, cleaning the gun would have to wait… She had been shorter in Third Year. Charlie grumbled and cursed as he too kept his head bowed to avoid the roots and rocks.

“I’ve never been in here before… The passage doesn’t have any forks does it?” Charlie whispered.

Hermione licked her damp lips, “No.”

“Good,” Charlie grumbled.

The passage, as Hermione remembered, was long and at times very narrow. The ground under her feet sloped downwards, and she wondered if they were walking down into the vale between the village and castle. When the path sloped upward, Hermione knew they were close. She could smell fresh air, and Charlie quickened his pace.

“I see light,” Charlie whispered, stopping at a wider space in the passage to let Hermione stand beside him.

They stood at the entrance, a pile of damp rocks creating a makeshift stairway between the roots of the Whomping Willow. As Charlie had said, light was visible between the soil, rock, and root. Hermione smiled. They were on the grounds.

Hermione moved first, releasing Charlie’s hand, canceling the lighting spell. Charlie was just behind her as she pulled her rifle from across her chest, tossing it up through the hole onto the grounds. With a grunt, she climbed, and rolled onto her belly onto grass and dead leaves. Charlie was right behind her, on his back, staring up at the leafy branches of the Whomping Willow.

The tree was not moving, and slowly, Hermione moved to her hands and knees, crawling toward her rifle. The lights that lit the grounds blinded her from looking up to the castle.

“Oi! Stop there!”

The voice was loud, spelled to be loud, male, and angry.

Hermione touched her rifle, but as she did, a divot of earth exploded up next to the rifle. A small Blasting Hex, a warning…

“Not another inch!”

Hermione tried to look into the light as several shadows converged around her. Charlie was on his feet, hands raised in surrender, his thumb curling around his wand.

“Who are you?” another voice called out, female.

“I’m Charlie Weasley, this is Hermione Granger. We mean no harm…”

“Weasley?”

Suddenly, the light was not so blinding as six people dressed in thick winter cloaks blocked the floodlight, standing ten feet where Hermione crouched. Slowly, Hermione rose, leaning back onto her legs, her hands, and wand on her knees.

The faces she saw were familiar, but Hermione had a hard time placing names to the faces.

“How the devil did you…?” one asked, an older man.

Dedalus Diggle.

“The passage, stupid. McGonagall said we were to watch it!” a woman hissed, her dark face twisted angrily, her dark eyes studying Hermione’s face.

Padma Patil.

“But no one has used it since…” a young man said softly, blue eyes widening.

He looked like a Creevey, not Colin as he had died during the Battle of Hogwarts. Dennis, Hermione remembered.

“You two look like you’ve hard a hard time of it,” another voice said, kinder, gruffly.

Hermione’s eyes moved to the voice, and the face.

Marcus Flint.

“Come on then,” said another, sounding bored and sleepy.

Millicent Bulstrode.

Charlie helped Hermione up, grabbing her rifle and passing it to her. Hermione numbly let the rifle weigh upon her shoulder as the familiar faces led them away from the tree. Charlie was holding her hand again, having slipped his wand into its holster under his soaked trench coat.

“They’ll have questions for you,” Padma said to Charlie’ her dark eyes moving over Hermione again, a slight expression of disgust on her pretty face.

“Who?” Charlie asked, apparently more in the moment than Hermione. Hermione felt as if she were walking through a dream as they came up to the front doors of the castle.

“We’ve been calling them the ‘Three’ now that Malfoy Jr. is gone.”

Charlie sighed. Hermione blinked. Malfoy had mentioned his father, Ron and Susan Bones…was that the ‘Three?’ Hermione did not think long on it as the grounds leading down to the gates came into view. The expanse of lit green was littered with mounds of earth, and at the gates, the wards flashed as Inferi threw their dead bodies into it.

“Graves,” Flint whispered near Hermione’s shoulder. “Don’t think about it now.”

Hermione wanted to turn to Flint and thank him for being so kind, but did not have the chance as Charlie tugged slightly on her arm to force her to turn her attention to the open castle doors.

Light and warmth sufficed Hermione’s haze as she passed over the threshold and into the Entrance Hall. The sound of life was deafening, the hum of voices like a background roar. There was also the smell of life, something Hermione had not experienced for months—it made her nauseous.

She and Charlie were led past the doors to the Great Hall where the voices seemed loudest, up the stairs into the portrait hall, and to the first floor corridor. Hermione had noticed that the portraits were not moving, and it shocked her for some reason.

When Charlie pulled her into the History of Magic classroom, it was to a shout. Suddenly, Hermione backed away as Charlie’s hand slipped from hers. The guard that escorted them into the castle quickly left the large room, as a gaggle of red haired people seemed to devour Charlie in embraces and kisses.

Hermione could not breathe as she fell back against the wall near the door. The heavy sensation of life was crushing in on her, overwhelming her. The classroom was packed with people, and not just red heads. There were others, all crowding around Charlie, all familiar, and all people that Hermione had cared for once upon a time.

She slid down the wall, her arms wrapped about her knees to make herself smaller. Hermione was suffocating, panicking, and she could not stop herself.

After months of death, the overabundance of life was killing her.





“Oh sweet Merlin, my boy, my boy!”

Charlie was fighting the urge to push his family away, but their hands and kisses covered him, touching him as if to ascertain he were real. His mother held him the hardest, her cries of joy almost like an Inferius’ screech. Ginny was kissing his face; George was shaking his left hand roughly. Even Audrey, Percy’s wife was weeping. There were others as well, people who were not family, but were neighbors or old friends. Xenophilius was singing with happiness, even Mrs. Diggory was muttering a prayer while she held Charlie’s right hand.

“We tried and tried to contact you, Charlie, oh we tried!” Ginny wept. “How did you get here?”

Charlie could not breathe well enough to answer, until George finally shouted: “Give the man some room, Weasleys and friends!”

Even George’s voice was thick with tears, but the family complied, stepping back to assess Charlie.

“Where’s Ron?” Charlie asked first.

“He’s with the ‘Three,’ probably in the dungeons…” Molly Weasley answered, an icy edge to her voice.

“The children? Lucy? Molly? Jaime? Al? Little Fred?” Charlie then asked, his jade green eyes scanning the room.

No one spoke for a moment, and slowly some began to depart, Mrs. Diggory, Lovegood, Audrey and Molly… Ginny and George were the ones to step forward, standing close to Charlie, George’s hand clapping on Charlie’s left shoulder, Ginny’s hand taking his right.

“Gone. The children were the first to go,” Ginny whispered. “Lucy and Jaime are left, and Jaime’s in the Hospital Wing…I just left there…”

Charlie’s eyes widened. Malfoy had said that the children were dying, but…

“Only the older children seem to be fine. It’s Lucy’s first year, so she’s been moving between Ravenclaw and here…”

Charlie licked his lips. “And Bill’s?”

Ginny seemed to smile. “Bill and Fleur are in Alexandria. The children are with them. The last thing I heard from Bill was when he pulled Victoire out of school at New Years. He said that there were some strange rumours… But it doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that you’re here, and…”

Charlie followed Ginny’s gaze.

“Oh gods…” Ginny gasped, releasing Charlie’s hand and rushing to the door.

Charlie was on Ginny’s heels, kneeling next to his sister to reach for Hermione Granger’s face.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Ginny hissed to her brother.

Hermione’s face was blank, her golden eyes dulled. From the way she held herself, Charlie knew she was in shock. In the warm candlelight in the room, Hermione looked as if she were dying.

“Can I take her somewhere?” Charlie whispered, his hands taking hold of Hermione, plucking off the rifle from her shoulder before lifting her up into his arms.

Ginny was at his side. “Hospital Wing. What’s happened?”

Charlie grimaced as he managed to open the door to the classroom and slip out into the corridor. Hermione was stiff in his arms, but Charlie’s feet pounded into the stone floor as Ginny ran beside him.

“She’s in shock. Gin, you have no idea what we…” Charlie started, then trailed, trying to remember the quickest route to the Hospital Wing.

Ginny steered Charlie with a touch on his elbow, and Charlie was nearly running when the doors of the Hospital Wing came into sight far at the other end of the corridor.

“I’ll save my questions, Charlie, but is she alright otherwise? Has she been hurt?” Ginny gasped as she was running to keep up.

“Not recently. It is the shock of this place, the concentration of life and magic… It’s hard for me too…” he grunted, pausing to lift a boot to kick in the doors of the Hospital Wing.

Besides the shouts of protest and the sudden appearance of Madame Pomfrey, Charlie thought of nothing except secluding Hermione and somehow talking her out of her stupor. Charlie had not lied when he felt overwhelmed by the amount of life and magic around him. He felt as if he needed to lie down or vomit.

Charlie laid Hermione on an empty cot, away from the screened off portions of the Hospital Wing, and then collapsed to the floor next to the cot. Ginny called for potions while Poppy Pomfrey fussed over Hermione, running her wand up and down Hermione’s body.

“Here, Charlie,” Ginny whispered, pressing a phial into his hand. “It’s Pepper-up.”

Charlie drank, feeling quickly warmer, his senses dulled slightly until his brain could sort them out. He felt better, but the weariness was not gone. Slowly, he pulled himself from the floor to sit on an adjacent cot, watching.

“Exhaustion,” Pomfrey said with a scowl. “Muscle strain, some fractures, but most of all, mental fatigue.”

Charlie sighed, relieved. He watched as Pomfrey forced a Dreamless Sleep down Hermione’s throat and she relaxed.

“A few days rest, some real food… And now for you, Mr. Weasley,” Poppy Pomfrey said, finally managing a smile.






Ginny did not leave Charlie or Hermione’s beds. Through the rest of the night, Charlie told his little sister what had happened to him since February. As he spoke from his cot, he studied Ginny’s face.

She looked tired, and older. Charlie had seen her at Christmas, but already, by June, she looked as if she had aged years instead of months.

“I found Percy.”

Ginny took a shaky breath. “We had no hope left that he would come…”

Charlie closed his eyes. “And Hermione found the list of those who were used to cast the Curse… Dad…Angelina…Harry…they’re all gone.”

Ginny made a noise and Charlie opened his eyes.

“Not… Not all gone. Harry is still…”

Charlie frowned. “What do you mean?”

Ginny sighed and shifted on the chair Pomfrey had brought for her.

“He’s in a bed down the way.”

Charlie sat up suddenly, and regretted it as his head spun. “He’s not…?”

Ginny shook her head, her face grave. “He resisted the Imperius. He did not cast the Curse. I Stunned him.”

Charlie blinked rapidly as Ginny’s face seemed to soften and she smiled softly. “Harry knew what was happening. He shouted that I get Al and Lily away, and when he could not hold off the Imperius, I Stunned him.

He’s alive. In a coma, but alive, at least… Al and Lily, they…they died a month ago…”

Charlie reached for his sister as the tears began to fall, and Ginny launched herself from the chair into his arms. Charlie held his sister, as she wept quietly into the nightshirt standard for all patients in the Hospital Wing, and pet her long, lovely hair.

He glanced over to Hermione, whose face was peaceful in sleep. Screens surrounded their beds, and over Ginny’s sobs, he could hear snores and whispers. When Ginny pulled away, it was to apologize.

“Ron has been working so hard to find a way…” she began, her blue eyes shimmering in the light that lit the grounds outside the Hospital Wing windows. “We are dying Charlie, some faster than others. Our magic is fading. I can feel mine weakening, and Jaime…I’ll lose him soon.”

He could not think of anything to say to soothe his sister. All he could do was hold her tight and stroke her hair. Surely, Hermione could have thought of something to say, but Hermione was having a hard time of her own.

“Malfoy’s dead then?”

“Yeah.”

“We waited for word, but we knew that it might never come. The Seal is still in place… And I’m glad,” Ginny whispered into Charlie’s left ear.

They parted slowly, Ginny sitting on the edge of the cot.

“Lucius Malfoy…he was against it from the start, but Ron pushed, convinced Susan that it was the best thing to do. Ron said that if we wanted a chance…” Ginny whispered, trailing as the sound of footsteps filled the Hospital Wing.

Almost immediately after Ginny’s last word, the screens parted, and standing at the foot of Charlie’s bed were three figures, the tallest of which was dressed in dragon hide armour, an angry purple scar running down the left side of a familiar face, pulling the skin around the eye down hideously.

“Gin, you need to go.”

Charlie stared at his youngest brother, bothered by the dull coldness in his blue eyes, just as the scar bothered him. Flanking Ron to the right was a very haggard looking Lucius Malfoy, dressed in Muggle clothing, two canes in his hands to hold him upright. To the left was a young woman, Susan Bones, with a long plait of strawberry blond hair wrapped like a serpent about her neck, also in dragon hide armour.

Ginny squeezed Charlie’s hand and rose, nodding to Ron and the others as she left the screened in area. Ron moved, more limped, to the left side of Charlie’s bed, Susan behind him. Lucius Malfoy lumbered to the right side of the bed to sit heavily in Ginny’s vacated chair, his pale eyes moving smoothly to stare at Hermione.

Ron drew his wand from his trouser pocket and cast a spell; one that Charlie learned was the ‘Muffliato.’ Then he cast another spell to magically move the screens back in place, blocking out any lamplight.

“I know it is late, and that you must be tired, Charlie, but we need to ask you some questions,” Ron said finally, his voice rougher than Charlie remembered.

Ron and Susan stood stolidly by his bedside and Charlie had to lean back into his pillows to be able to see all three around him.

“Alright,” Charlie said softly, his jade green eyes moving to Susan, whose pretty face was turned downward into a frown, then to Lucius Malfoy whose eyes never left Hermione.

“It is good to see you, alive and in one piece,” Ron began, his eyes flickering to Hermione and back to Charlie quickly. “And since you have come so late, I suppose you did not hear of the evacuation.”

Charlie frowned. “Evacuation?”

Susan sighed, and spoke for the first time. Charlie did not know much about Bones except for her family and that she was in the same year as Ron.

“It spread by word of mouth just before the Inferi swept through. It was the Ministry’s idea, when there was still a Ministry…”

“Fucking…” Lucius Malfoy muttered angrily, his eyes finally leaving Hermione’s sleeping form to gaze evenly at Charlie. “A disaster that will go down in history, if we will still have a history left before we all die.”

Ron cleared his throat. “It was an evacuation that came too late for most. With you being in Wales, it must not have gotten that far.”

“My co-workers?”

Ron shook his head. “No one came from Wales.”

Charlie brushed a hand over his face. “What the hell happened?”

It was Malfoy who spoke, surprising Charlie, and when Lucius Malfoy spoke; it was if he were reading from a prepared statement.

“This is what we know.

February 19th, sixty-seven people were Cursed, all who had been in or around the Ministry in London. February 20th, Inferi overtook Cornwall from the east, into Devonshire and Somerset. February 21st, the sixty-seven people were ordered to cast the Holokauston, meanwhile, the Inferi overtook Glastonbury Abbey, all of Devon, Dorset, Bristol, heading east and north. That same day, the Minister had the Seal enacted, locking us on this island with no means of escape. February 22nd, Hogwarts is attacked by legions of Inferi, and McGonagall lays the wards to protect the students and those who sought refuge here. February 23rd, the Ministry Aurory moves to eliminate all witches and wizards involved with the Holokaustion, while more refugees arrive at Hogwarts. February 24th, the evacuation order is given, and any survivors in or around London board the Hogwarts Express north. February 26th, Hogwarts is attacked again, the wards fall, three hundred die in the battle before new wards are laid. March 1st, the first of us begin to lose our magical ability—the old ones and the young ones. March 5th, we bury the dead in the grounds. March 6th, the Lords of the Forest hold conference with us; the Forest is crowded with magical creatures—centaurs, Thestrals, giants, a myriad of sentient creatures. March 7th, the centaurs take control of segregating the species; we receive our last refugees from the east.

From March 8th to May 23rd, we have been living here, the best we can. In late April, my son left for London by broom, to release the Seal. Obviously, he was unsuccessful…”

The venomous glanced Lucius Malfoy directed at Ron was blatant.

“Since we lost Draco, we have been trying to come up with a safe way to perform reconnaissance, but with the loss of magical ability, it has been difficult finding anyone trained to do it,” Susan said with a sigh. “We are losing more everyday to this lack of magical ability.”

Charlie glanced to Hermione, who slept quietly; her dirty hair arranged on the pillow under her head, her calloused hands folded on her belly over the sheets.

“Not all of us are losing it,” Ron continued. “There seems to be a pattern…”

“He means Pure-bloods,” Lucius growled. “Pure-bloods of four or more generations, like myself and many of the Death Eater families taking refuge here.”

Ron groaned. “Not now, Lucius…”

Susan hissed, and Charlie frowned. There was dissonance with the ‘Three,’ it seemed.

“So our first question, Weasley: can you manage to get your wand up?” Lucius asked with a comical drawl.

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mr. Malfoy, I can, and I have.”

Lucius smirked; making his face soften, appear younger. “And your companion?”

Charlie nodded. At his gesture, Ron seemed to sigh in relief.

“We can question Granger later,” Bones said softly, moving to sit on the foot of Charlie’s bed, weary. “But we need to know what you have seen, Weasley…”

“Yes. Have you seen anyone else alive? How did you get here?” Lucius asked.

He began slowly, just as he had with Ginny, but added in the details he had omitted for Ginny’s sake. Everything from the Reserve to Cadwallader’s house, then the Burrow. Charlie paused, looking to Ron, when he mentioned that Burrow’s state.

“It was burnt when the Aurors were searching for dad,” Ron said dully, his eyes distant. He said no more and Charlie knew that Ron could not speak any more about that matter.

Charlie told them what he found in the southwest, the lack of magic, and the devastation in Glastonbury.

“I headed for London. If there were any answers, I thought it would be there.”

The ‘Three’ listened intently, and did not interrupt as Charlie told them about finding Hermione in Trafalgar Square. He told them about the Ministry, finding Percy and the others dead in the Minister’s office. He told them about the way they died, and the list Hermione had found.

When Charlie started to tell them about finding Draco Malfoy, about the Locked Room and what Malfoy had shown them in the mirror, Lucius predictably interrupted.

“Draco was certain it was Regulus Black?”

Charlie shrugged. “He knew well enough…”

“Black was killed in ’79. Except for a few photographs Cissy had, Draco would not have known it was his cousin…” Lucius mused to himself, his eyes moving, strangely, back to Hermione.

“And Black did not kill Malfoy…” Bones whispered.

“Hermione and I tried to talk Malfoy out of trying to somehow disable the Seal. Hermione threatened Malfoy, but it was no use.

I don’t know what happened, but Malfoy gave us time to escape before the Ministry collapsed, literally…”

Lucius closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.

Charlie continued, telling the ‘Three’ about the front of non-magic they had hit north of Mansfield, and the effects of using magic where there was none on Hermione. He told them about resting in Leeds, but did not mention the music they both had heard. Charlie wanted to know more about mentioning the strange Muggle music.

At the mention of Klemper, both Ron and Lucius Malfoy seemed to perk up. Charlie told them about what Klemper had said.

“He was mad, delirious. What he said could have been a mistake, a dream even. A man who controlled the Inferi, bowing to a boy?”

Ron licked his lips nervously. “Did you see a boy?”

“No. It was not until later that we saw, well, Hermione saw, Black for the first time.”

Charlie summarized everything from Klemper to Hogsmeade as concisely as he could. And when silence filled the small screened off space, Charlie was searching their faces for answers.

“In the morning,” Bones began, glancing to the other men. “We can speak more in the morning.”

“Yes,” Lucius Malfoy agreed. “There is much to consider. Though, I would like to hear from Miss Granger as well.”

“In the morning,” Bones repeated.

Slowly, Ron dispelled the Muffliato Charm and Bones helped Lucius to his feet, the two pushed through the screens leaving Charlie with Ron.

Ron was staring past Charlie to Hermione, his blue eyes softening. “Will she be alright?” Ron asked quietly.

“I think so. She’s had a harder time than me… But we’re here, we’re safe.”

Ron made a strange noise and met Charlie’s eyes. “I would not be so sure, mate.”

Before Charlie could open his mouth to ask what his younger brother meant, Ron was already walking to the foot of the bed, slipping between the screens. Charlie was left grinding his teeth in frustration. Moving his eyes to Hermione, he noticed that her face was no longer peaceful, her brow furrowed. Dreamless Sleep, apparently, was not working.

With a sigh, Charlie threw back his blankets and sat up. Scowling at his silly Hospital Wing gown, his bare feet moved over the cool stone floor. Sitting on the edge of Hermione’s bed, his hand brushed her brow and at his touch, it smoothed.

Pressing a kiss into her temple, Charlie inhaled. Hermione’s hair was dirty, but underneath the dirt, he could smell her—like vanilla and ginger, something intrinsically feminine. Charlie pulled away to look at her face.

They had made it, and for the moment, they were safe, no matter what Ron implied in his cryptic words.