Damnation of Memory

Title: Damnation of Memory
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: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, Violence, Adult Situations
Summary: DH-EWE: With every generation, a Dark Wizard rises. Hermione Granger has survived one. However, after nearly thirteen years, a dead man returns to inform her that she must fight again, and this time, Harry Potter will not be the one to save the world from madness.
Author's Notes: This is my 1st full length SS/HG fic and my second 1st person POV fic. Please note that not every detail is canon, including the canon floor plan of Grimmauld Place. This chapter is also unbeta’d, so please, pardon the mistakes!




Damnation of Memory - XVIII







Part Three

She flies with her own wings
Alis volat propis



My mother’s grandmother had been a worldwide traveler. In fact, my great-grandmother inspired my mother to visit every county in Britain. Of course my great-grandmother, had travelled to the continent and beyond, mostly by train or steam ship. In modern times, my parents had urged me into the family sedan and off we went.

Sitting on my mother’s mother lap as a girl of six, I looked at the albums of mementos and photographs. My grandmother loved to recount the stories her mother told her. She taught me about Britain, the villages, the counties, the legends, and all the little things that would keep a girl’s attention.

“This is Glastonbury Tor,” I remembered my grandmother saying, pointing to an old postcard pasted onto the page. The image fascinated me, sunlight streaming through the passage from the east, making the printed sepia picture seem to glow. I absently listened to my grandmother’s words about the legends surrounding the place, for I was too enthralled by the picture on the post card.

However, when I came to the top of the Tor, there was no sun to be seen; only the ambient glow of sunlit mist blocking any sight of the world beyond the hilltop.

The path had led me about the eastern side of St. Michael’s Tower, and around to the western face. I stood approximately a hundred yards before the western façade, out of breath, my face sweaty.

The Muggles who had been ascending along the tourist’s trail had disappeared, and the only sound I could hear was the sea. The gentle sound came from beyond the tower; a sound I knew could not exist in my age, but in ages past. I had slipped through a crack to another plane, it seemed. I was not disturbed by this fact, though I knew any sane person would be.

As I regained some measure of breath, I straightened to gaze upon the Tower, my eyes moving from the top down. I then looked through the Gothic arch through the Tower, to the other side, and what I saw was not more mist. It was blue sky.



The Muggle world, the real world, was visible through the arch, facing east. Muggles could be seen milling about, taking pictures, other grouped together to look at unique architecture on the eastern façade. I began to move again, transfixed.

I neared the threshold of the arch, perhaps only twenty feet or less away, when an unfamiliar voice rang out.

“Stop!”

The vibration of air caused by the voice startled me, and the mist encroaching about the Tower. I whirled about, my wand drawn, but I saw nothing. I could not even tell where the voice had emanated.

“Step any nearer the arch, and you will let them inside,” the voice said again, but more as a rebuke than a shout.

I had heard the voice somewhere once before, but I could not recall where.

“The boy is still holding them off from passing the marker.”

The origin of the voice stepped out of the seemingly impenetrable mist, and for the first time in weeks, I felt relief.

Aberforth Dumbledore did not look well, but he was alive. His glittering blue eyes were unchanged, but he seemed thinner, his long white hair and beard was matted with dirt and grime. In so many ways, he looked like his older brother, but shorter and leaner in the face.

“It will only be a matter of time before they pass by him,” he continued, stepping from the western end of the Tor. As the mist cleared, I could also see that his clothing was in tatters, the old dark green cloak over shoulders the only thing untouched. “And when they come up the path, you must be prepared to kill every last one of them.”

I blinked, lowering my wand.

“How long have you been here?”

Aberforth was only an arm’s reach away, and I realized then that he held his wand in his left hand, his right arm limp.

“A week.”

I clenched my wand, feeling the impulse to cast some sort of Healing Charm on the ancient man, or a Cleansing Charm.

“Your letter at Stoke-sub-Hamdon mentioned that you were followed…”

“I burnt the bodies,” Aberforth said, interrupting gruffly. “Twelve of them.”

I lifted my chin. “Department of Intelligence agents?”

Aberforth tried to shrug, but only his left shoulder rose. “I s’pose. They did not speak. They managed to find a way to get around the marker stone, and they followed me. They all had on the same sort of velvet-type black cloak. They all were Polyjuiced.”

“Any familiar faces?”

“Kids, most of them, my brother’s beloved students…”

A great crack drowned out Aberforth’s words, and he turned sharply, staring out into the mist. Slowly, he turned back to me, unperturbed.

“The others, are they safe?” he then asked.

I licked my lips, as a softer crack seemed to echo off the mist. “Horace Slughorn is dead.”

Aberforth’s eyes darkened. “And Fannie?”

“Safe, but one of the others has been taken.”

Aberforth shifted on his worn boots and then took a step forward, but past me toward the Tower.

“We don’t have much time,” he said suddenly and I watched Aberforth’s hunched back straighten. “The boy is not going to be able to hold them off much longer.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. If Severus were to fall—there would be hell to pay.

“You’ll have to open the gateway when it is safe. Once you are inside…”

Another crack, louder than the first, shook the very ground under our feet. I stumbled, as did Aberforth, and I grasped his limp right arm to keep him upright. Aberforth did not look at me, but through the arches to the blue sky beyond.

“The only way to end this madness is to destroy the tree.”

“What?”

I had not realized I was whispering, but Aberforth’s face turned to me, his eyes narrowed.

“You know the tree, Miss Granger. You also know what is imprisoned inside…”

“But how can I destroy it?”

My voice had taken on a frantic edge even as the ground shook again and a piece of decorative sculpture fell off the façade of the Tower, smashing into the earth several yards from where Aberforth stood.

“Of the descendants of the seven of nine Morgens, the Knights never had the power to destroy Merlin. We had our own ways, abilities, and affinities. But it was the eighth, Nimue, who had the power to imprison Merlin, and eventually destroy him. You are descended from that witch.”

Just as the others had said, Aberforth believed me some descendant of legend.

“Nimue had the power over the elements. Nimue could manipulate water, as it was believed that she was descended from an ancient water deity. With her descendants, other elements were brought under the reign of the heir. Merlin had powers of his own, and the combination of the two bloodlines produced powerful offspring. That heir is you, Miss Granger, and only you can bring this to an end.”

Aberforth’s words were imbued with power, a power that seemed to run through the Dumbledore line. I was forced, by that power, to accept the truth. I would have to burn a sacred tree of Avalon and kill the evil blight inside.

Simpler said than done, I thought, as the ground shook again, accompanied by an ear splitting crack of magic. Aberforth had turned again, and limping as quickly he could, he moved away from the Tower.

“Come with me, girl!” he called. “The dark approaches. It has begun!”





When my magic first manifested at the age of seven, it frightened my parents and me. It was not something so simple as Levitating or Vanishing an object. It was not so benign as Summoning or basic Transfiguration.

I set the house on fire.

It was the middle of the night in the winter, and I had had a nightmare. After so many years, I barely remember what the nightmare was about, but it had frightened me. I had sat up in my twin bed in my pink bedroom with my childhood books, my childhood toys, and my favourite stuffed bear tucked under the blankets next to me. I screamed and screamed as around me the bed was burning.

I was not certain as to how it had happened, but flames trickled from my hands clutching my bear, and the stuffing and soft manufactured fur melted. The flames of blue and white rushed all around the bed, to the floor, to the walls. The fire alarms in the house were whining, my parents were screaming. I could see them from the open bedroom door, beating back the flames with a flannel blanket, my mother’s honey coloured eyes wide with fear.

“Hermione!” my mother had screamed, and suddenly, the terror of my dream was gone, and I stopped screaming. Instead, I was crying. I had feared fire as a child, terrorized by the thought that my parents would die in a fire. I did not know how that fear had begun, perhaps from the telly, or the newspapers recounting so many tragedies.

The threat of losing my parents to the fire made me wail and cry. And it was how the fire died as suddenly as it began, leaving smoking blackened devastation in its wake. I remembered jumping from my ruined bed and launching myself into my mother’s arms. My father called the fire brigade, and soon I was asleep again my mother’s arms while my father scratched his head, trying to explain how the fire started.

The first manifestation of magic was soon followed by others, but never again did fire erupt from my body as if I were holding it inside. My parents repaired my bedroom, at great cost, and installed a smoke alarm next to the door. They were rattled for good reason. The fire, they believed, could have killed me. However, that night, I did not have a mark upon me. I had not been burnt, or suffered from any sort of smoke inhalation.

A mystery, my father had said, a fortunate mystery. By the time I went to Hogwarts, it was all a distant memory, forgotten.

However, the mystery was now gone, replaced by a truth that would have seemed as unlikely as the existence of magic to me when I was seven years old. Part of me wanted to believe that my life for the past month was something of a cosmic joke. I wanted to laugh; I wanted to smile, and most of all, I wanted to have done with it and live a normal life for once.

The moment had come and like an invading horde, they came, appearing out of the mist.

Aberforth stood next to me, his left hand rose, his wand pointing. The mist, across from the western façade of the tower, obscured us. His ancient face contorted horribly, and it began.

“Avada Kedavra.”




The sacred caerdroia had stripped away so much of the enchantment of the modern magical world. I could feel the difference on the Tor, the shift of magic, as if the whole world were off-kilter. It was if there was a magnifying glass over our heads, or around us, us being Aberforth Dumbledore and myself. The first Curse struck and three men went down. However, I did not see dull faces and eyes, like generic stand-ins for human beings. I saw faces I recognized.

There was shouting, chaotic shouting, and the figures that came into view were not in the least bit interested in where they were or why, but were searching the mist.

“Find him!” a particularly shrill female voice called through the mist. “He took Branstone’s potion…”

I blinked as Aberforth moved to Curse the next three faces that came near.

“He’s attacking from the mist!” another voice, male, called as three more familiar faces tumbled to the ground mid run. “Go left!”

Aberforth grunted as he began to move away from my side. The last I saw of him were his brilliant eyes, glittering as he looked down at me.

Black cloaked figures were moving before me, lost in the mist that was obscuring even the sight of the Tower. I stood dumbly for only a split second as a figure lumbered into view.

Finch-Fletchley nearly collided with me, his eyes wide. He wore the cloak of an ‘agent,’ and I realized then that even I had no idea who the ‘agents’ had been during my tenure attached to the DI.

“Here!” he shouted.

A bolt of green, sickly smelling magic streaked over my right shoulder and soon Finch-Fletchley was lying on the damp grass, dead eyes staring up at me.

“Damnit, Granger…” a familiar voice hissed from my back.

Shock streaked through my body as a pale hand slapped over my mouth to stifle any noise, and I was dragged back into the mist. My mind came back to me, and I twisted against the arm that held me fast.

Severus’ face was bloody, the bright red like some insane paint of an ancient Celt warrior. His eyes burned, his lips twisted back from his crooked teeth that were also red. He took a limping step back from me, and I studied him. His cloak was gone so that I could see his wiry, bare arms were blackened with Curse burns and bruises. His wand was pointing to the ground and his left arm wrapped about his middle where I could see dampness wetting his jerkin and the front of his trousers.

“Kill them! Fight!” he ground out, his voice wracked with anger and pain.

I lifted my chin defiantly as the shouts of those lost in the mist tried to find Severus. I knew that the only person who could use Branstone’s Polyjuice potions could be Severus. I imagined he used it to confuse his attackers, but somehow, they had managed to chase him up the Tor.

“We’re too close to have your lose your nerve now!” he hissed.

A black figure emerged from the mist, and I narrowed my eyes as it moved to cast into Severus’ back. With a practiced motion, I cut the figure down, seeing that it was another familiar face—Percy’s secretary.

Severus limped around the corpse, giving me a heated glance, and slipped into the mist again.

“Go!” he snarled, and I moved.

The Killing Curse left a hollow feeling in me, which was soon filled by an icy cold. I hated the feeling. However, as Severus left me alone, I knew that I could not always depend on him to save me. I had been such a fool. I still clung to some romantic notion that I would always be saved. Harry, Ron, Severus, they had all protected me, but I could not rely on that protection any longer.

I had truly crossed the point of no return. Every last bit of innocence left me as I killed. The bitterness of loss, the sharpness of hate, and the heat of anger propelled me. I meant to kill, and so I did.

The horde of black cloaks was whittled down to a group of twelve, but on the ground, I had to step over bodies every few paces, mentally tallying names with the faces. Naïve fools were the only thing I could call them. They had died just like so many before them—like the Death Eaters, like those who followed Grindelwald, and all the Dark Wizards before them.

I was walking through a graveyard where the bodies had yet to be buried.

The mist began to clear, unexpectedly, and somehow I knew the climax was near.

The twelve surviving ‘agents’ had gathered near the base of the Tower, apparently finding each other and banding together. As the mist rolled back to the very edges of the Tor, I found that I stood in the middle of the dead. Aberforth Dumbledore was standing near me to my left, injured and breathing abnormally. To my right, closer than I had expected, was Severus, fresh blood dripping from his newly broken nose.

The two men managed to move to stand next to me. We stood together, staring back at the faces of those who wished us dead. I could see so many that I wished had not condemned themselves to this moment. Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, Dennis Creevey, were a few that I knew immediately. There were others, older witches and wizards, their faces stony, their wands drawn.

“A storm approaches, but the wind is still,” Aberforth murmured. He stepped forward, standing before me. “My time has come, I will perform the sacrifice,” he whispered.

I frowned, about to speak, but before any words could come, Aberforth was gone from my reach. Severus moved, and grasping my arm tightly, kept me from moving.

Before our eyes, Aberforth appeared again even as half of the figures below the Tower moved. I was shouting, but my words were unintelligible as green and red light flashed shadows into the façade of the Tower, and bodies fell.

One by one, the people who had once counted as allies fell in the light, until there were only four left standing. One, however, was on his knees.

I broke free of Severus’ weakening hold, and I was running, my legs straining as I leapt over the dead. My boots pounded into the grass and with every step, madness took me. I did not know Aberforth Dumbledore, and I doubted that were many that did, however, I ran still.

Aberforth knelt before the Tower, his eyes pointed beyond the remaining three figures, to the blue sky through the passage into the real world. I skidded in the grass, falling to my knees before Aberforth. His eyes did not see me, but he spoke to me in a ragged whisper.

“The way is open with blood.”

I could hear the blood in his lungs, in his throat, and as he continued, the blood trickled from his lips and into his white beard.

“Blood and bone, fire and stone, the gateway appears in the presence of the key and the keeper. This is the end, Miss Granger, you know what to do…”

I grasped Aberforth’s shoulders as he slumped forward, but there was nothing I could do. Blood stained his beard red and black, and his eyes shut for the last time. The Dumbledore line ended.




A part of the Arthurian legend and an explanation of Merlin’s imprisonment were read to me as thus: Merlin slept until the time Arthur’s power was needed in Britain again. I always wondered what that really meant—Arthur’s power. Did it refer to a time when Britain would have to unite to battle some outside force or threat? If so, the need for a man like Arthur Pendragon was wasted. The people of Britain had banded together many times through history to defend the lives of the people or the land they called home. It made me doubt the validity of the explanation once given to me in bedtime stories. Merlin was the one with the power, and because of that power, he was imprisoned.

I stood near the threshold to Avalon, wondering why Merlin’s power was needed. How could someone utilize that power? I doubted that if given a choice, the grand wizard Merlin would not willingly give his power to anyone. As in the misinformation of the tale of Nimue and Merlin, his power would have to be stolen.

It made no sense to me. What difference did it make if one were somehow to obtain Merlin’s power? It was not the same as if someone were seeking the Hallows to ‘cheat death.’ If it were true that some Dark wizard wished to expose the Magical world, what would be the benefit?

Was it a backhanded tactic to subjugate the Muggles? I wanted to laugh. Muggles had their own brand magic—technology. Perhaps five hundred years before, wizards and witches could have easily taken over the world, but what good would that be? It would be a desolate world, magic would die out, and humanity would end, perhaps.

No, to have the power of the most famous wizard of both the Magical and Muggle world denoted one thing.

Personal gain.

I had learned during the War that there was no such thing as the ‘greater good.’



TBC...