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 23




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








At age twelve, Tom Riddle had the penchant for mischief, to put it mildly. However, he pretended to be very good for the chance to go the cinema the summer before his First Year at Hogwarts. Of course, he knew he was a wizard, Professor Dumbledore had told him several months before, but still Tom Riddle was speculative.

The Rex, as it was called, was across the river in East Finchley, and the bus fare alone was more money than he had saved for a whole year, but the orphanage rewarded the older children with a film or a visit to a park on occasion. Tom Riddle loved the cinema especially, though in later years, he shunned anything Muggle in lieu of his newly discovered family history and burgeoning ideal. However, at age twelve, Tom Riddle had tried to be very good so he could go to the cinema one more time before going to Hogwarts.

He sat in the front row; ignoring Dennis Bishop’s elbow jabs into his ribs as the newsreel ran first. It was an RKO-Pathé newsreel, first showing a segment on a tragic rail smash in Norfolk, then a submarine disaster off North Wales, and another disaster off the coast of New York in America. Tom Riddle was enthralled.

The film started shortly after the newsreel, the RKO symbol with the radio tower upon the globe appearing, and the introductory music beginning. A man from the waist down began dancing on a polished floor, and Tom Riddle was entranced.

‘Top Hat’ was an older film by American standards, having come out in cinemas in 1936, but to Tom Riddle in summer of 1939, it was new and enchanting. The plot was simple, but it was not the plot that stuck in his twelve-year-old mind, as he rode with the other children back to the orphanage in Lambeth—it was the music. Fred Astaire had sang ‘Cheek to cheek’ to Ginger Rogers as they danced, he in a tail-coat and she in a feathered dress. Tom Riddle did not remember the other songs, but one was stuck in his head, though the words meant little to him. He did not know what it was to have a ‘passionate love,’ and he had no ‘affliction’ to ever dance. He did not understand why the characters seemed to spontaneously burst out in song, but it was a film, and far from real.

For the rest of the summer, Tom Riddle hummed the song, having memorized the words on first hearing. It was a melody that made him feel strange inside, and he never could identify the exact feeling in words.

It was hummed whenever he felt particularly angry to calm him, or when he was feeling particularly vindictive. It was sang when he wished to leave the orphanage to find his father, whom he was sure had to be a powerful ‘wizard’ like Professor Dumbledore. It was sang when the snake he kept in the back garden of the orphanage near the coal chute was being fed from Tom Riddle’s collection of dead insects and desiccated rats he caught in the cellar. It was sung as he stood on the magical Platform of 9 ¾ waiting for his destiny. All through his First Year, and into the summer when the orphanage had to evacuate to Cornwall, the song was in his head. He hummed it after Dennis Bishop and Amy Benson fell ill when he showed him what he could do without a wand. And when he heard Mrs. Cole played the record on the gramophone when the orphans were allowed to return to Lambeth, it thrilled him.

‘Cheek to cheek,’ meant little to him in terms of what the lyrics said. Tom Riddle simply liked the tune and the memory of hearing the song for the first time. It represented a type of joy to him, and excitement. It stopped, however, when he learned the truth.

Tom Riddle, Sr. was no wizard; he was not in the least bit magical. He was a Muggle who had left his mother, abandoned him. The truth crushed him, it angered him, and it made the song, so enchanting in his mind, stop. There was no music, no films, and no dreams, save one. Kill, destroy, and desolate. Make his father pay for his sins, make the world see him, as he truly was—raw power in human form.

The last hopeful piece of him died, a piece that constantly hummed the song. It was a blackened piece of his soul, one that yearned for universal recognition. His soul split, the first piece not made into what he would call a Horcrux, but set aside and left to wail for comfort that would never come in a far distant place away from his mind and body.

It was this piece that Harry Potter saw on the edge of oblivion, though, at the time, Harry Potter believed it to be the last surviving piece of Voldemort—a piece that would be destroyed with the incarnation of the man. However, Voldemort had no need for a soul to be able to move, to fight, and to murder. The piece, the flayed baby, representative of the last bit of ‘Tom Riddle,’ lay dormant, waiting for someone who would find it, pick it up, and comfort it.

Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, and more recently Teddy Lupin—all orphans, all lost, and all vulnerable to the evils of the world. It would be little Teddy Lupin who would find the flayed baby, hold it in his arms, and be possessed.

Teddy Lupin had no defence, and Tom Riddle’s soul pushed the boy’s soul out of the way. He was Sorted rightly into his House, and he had demonstrated his ability. Of course, he was nearly found out by Andromeda Tonks whose sudden death was brought about by the realization that her ‘sweet Teddy’ was not Teddy at all. The death of Teddy Lupin’s closest living relative was the only time that Tom Riddle’s hold was shaken, and Teddy fled, but not knowing from what.

When Teddy was found again, Tom Riddle was in control again, and he had gained strength and knowledge. Tom Riddle learned what happened to his older self, who was to blame, and he set out to make the world that had rejected him pay, and handsomely.

In the guise of a boy, Tom Riddle could move with some ease, traveling across a Twenty-First Century Britain, he made his preparations, found his assets, and plotted against his enemies. By the beginning of February 2010, Tom Riddle waited for the Ministry to find him, and waited to be set into the right place at the right time.

Teddy Lupin knew what the Imperius was, he had known of all the Unforgivables even before he was old enough to hold a wand, but to cast them was beyond the boy’s power. Tom Riddle had used Unforgivables without the notice of the Ministry or the staff of Hogwarts in his First Year. What Teddy could not and would not do, Tom did.

It was more than spell craft, of course. Taking Teddy’s knowledge, Tom knew how to find information about certain people integral in the downfall of the Dark Lord. What was more, Tom poured over Wizengamot transcripts he found in the Library at Hogwarts, as well as other papers he found in his grandmother’s keeping as she played quite a secretive role in what many called the ‘War.’ Tom learned more about Albus Dumbledore, his involvement with the Ministry, and a law passed after the ‘War’ having to deal with the ‘Seal.’

As Teddy-Tom waited for the Wizengamot to award custody to Horace Slughorn, he wandered the halls of the Ministry. Many people knew him—Harry Potter, his godfather, Arthur Weasley, a friend of his ‘father,’ and so many others. They all blinked at him, lost, never knowing what had happened to them.

And the Curse… The Dark Lord had murdered the pervious Dark Wizard, Gellert Grindelwald, in his own cell no less. Tom was very impressed with his older self. To overcome such a figure as Grindelwald was a mark of true power. A type of patricide, and a rite of passage…

The Holokauston was a Curse more fitting for him and not Grindelwald, and Tom found it in Horace Slughorn’s journal marked December 31, 1944, what would have been Tom’s eighteenth birthday.

‘Alexjic Krum writes to tell me of this new “Curse” and instructed I burn the letter after reading it. I, however, must keep the knowledge while it may be taboo in Eastern Europe…’

Tom’s soul vaguely remembered feeling a type of tenderness for Horace Slughorn once, remembering how helpful the rotund wizard had been in helping him adjust to life in Slytherin. Tom wondered if Horace had any idea how he had been used.

The pieces were in place, and Tom via Teddy, waited patiently for everything to unfold in the safety of Hogwarts on February 21, 2010.






“Restrain him!”

The tip of Hermione’s sword pointed at Harry, but none moved.

Hermione was holding her breath as Harry turned slowly on his heel, pushing his cracked spectacles up his nose and brushing a finger against his scar. Time seemed to freeze as Hermione stared at her old friend’s emerald eyes, and he back into her golden eyes.

The sword, whose name Hermione still did not know, or how it was wrought or when, had shown her the truth. Upon nearly killing little Teddy Lupin, whatever was infesting his body shook free. Like a parasite desperate to live, it moved to another host, and Hermione ground her teeth wondering how Harry Potter could have been so weak.

“What is wrong with you, Hermione?” Ron asked incredulously, moving to Harry’s side, his voice bringing air into her lungs and time moving again.

“Yes, Hermione, whatever is wrong?”

Idiots, all bleeding idiots! If Hermione had the breath to scream at Ron, she would have.

The sword hummed audibly and Ron’s eyes moved to it, frowning. Apparently, it attracted Harry’s attention as well, and he stepped forward, moving so that he was just out of range of the sword. Hermione dared not pay too much attention to the sword as it hummed louder at Harry’s proximity, almost hissing as the metal gleamed.

Hermione desperately wished she had her wand.

“You. You are wrong!” she spat, and Ron stepped forward, placing himself between the sword and Harry.

“Lower that thing, Hermione, by Merlin…” Ron started, his disfigured face twisting angrily.

Hermione did not, and she stiffened as Harry smirked.

The others in the hall began to move in closer, and Hermione exhaled sharply as she saw Dennis Creevey raise his wand and Theo Nott beginning to move directly behind her. She wanted to scream the truth, that Harry, her dear, sweet Harry had once again fallen victim to the evilest soul known to humankind.

How could they not see it?

A Stinging Hex forced her hand to relinquish hold of the sword and another on the back of her knees, penetrating the dragon hide forced her to kneel. Harry said nothing as Hermione glanced up into his face, her hand finding the hilt of the sword. In his eyes, she could see ‘him’ staring back at her.

‘Fitting place for you, Mudblood,’ those eyes said, and Harry turned away, striding out of the Hall.

Disbelief, shock, it was all Hermione could feel at first as Harry’s untidy black haired head disappeared into the Entrance Hall among a few lingering folk who had not retreated from danger further into the castle. Hermione knelt as the others backed away from her, and as she looked about, several eyes fell upon her doubtfully. Among them were Creevey who had sent the hex to her hand, and Nott who had hexed the backs of her knees. There were others, but there were also some eyes that were wide with fear or anger. The Malfoys, with an unconscious Teddy, were seething, but they were not looking at her, but at Ron. The Flints were whispering frantically, Marcus’ dark eyes having followed Harry.

“Well?” Ron asked, towering over her, his arms crossed before him. “Are you going to tell me…”

“No.”

Her voice was harsh, and the disbelief was giving way to rage.

“Where’s Charlie?”

Hermione did not answer, grasping the sword to let it dangle from her right hand as she stood. She would not sheath it until she knew that Voldemort, the last piece of him, was destroyed. Taking a step forward to leave, Ron jumped in front of her.

“Hermione!”

Hermione stepped around him, and again was blocked.

“Damn it, Ron, there is no time for this!” she shouted, and again she could feel Creevey and Nott begin to move.

However, several things happened simultaneously, and Hermione was left blinking at Draco Malfoy who caught Ron’s falling form and then to Astoria Malfoy who, despite her small size, held Teddy firmly against her side, and her wand in the other.

The Flints had Stunned Nott and Creevey, and Astoria had Stunned Ron.

“Go!” Draco hissed, helping Ron’s limp form to lie on the floor of the Great Hall.

Hermione did not hesitate, and ran.

Her boots skidded over the floor of the Entrance Hall, giving her just enough time to see Harry take off on the abandoned Firebolt she had left. On the ground, in pieces were his glasses.



She had had no doubt where he was going, and as she emerged from a low cloud, flying at breakneck speed on a Firebolt Three, Hermione finally caught sight of Harry somewhere south of Glasgow. He did not seem to notice her as she sped up to fly high above him just below the clouds.

Shock, it had to be shock that had so many in the Great Hall unable to move. Hermione ground her teeth, wishing she could knock sense into Ron. Even she had wanted to believe that Harry would be strong enough to resist…

Upon landing on a dark hill below a starlit lake, Hermione lost sight of him again, but knew that he had landed. Under her feet, she could feel a heart beat like pulse of magic. It was as if Hermione had stepped on an electrical cable and was receiving an almost unpleasant thrum of power through her nerves.

Dinas Emrys.

There was no turning back, she knew. This would be her personal Armageddon.

With no wand to light her way, Hermione’s eyes widened to take in as much starlight and muted moonlight as possible. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and then she saw she stood on a track along the slope of the hill. Trees rose all around her, but few had leaves and most only had buds. Summer had not come, as it should have, and even the wind was cold as it blew around her body.

Hermione was not exactly sure where she was going, but knew she was moving about the face of the hill, to the west, finding that she had to take great care of where her boots fell. Portions of the hill track was steep or narrow, however, she felt as if the power of the place guided her for soon she came upon a wider track, more level, but still heavily wooded. Standing in the middle of the track, cast in shadow, a broom discarded, was Harry Potter. His back was to her, but Hermione was certain he knew she was so near.

She felt stupid. No wand meant no magic beyond basic wandless spells, and none that she knew would protect her or be used in offence. All she had was the sword, which, in truth, she knew nothing about using in any way that might save her from Curses or Hexes. All the same, her right hand went to the hilt, fingers wrapping about the handle to draw.

Perhaps she could try to distract him somehow, or call to the part of Harry Potter that had to still exist. Harry was not weak, but Hermione knew he had been weakened—how else would ‘he’ be able to get inside again? Losing friends, children, and taking so much of the blame unduly upon himself, Harry Potter was much the teenage boy she remembered, cursing himself for being fooled at the Department of Mysteries.

“Harry…” she said aloud. “Please.”

Even in the dark, his eyes were brilliant and wrong, emerald tinged with red and slightly luminous. Without the glasses and the wind blowing through his untidy hair, Harry was almost beautiful in the starlight.

“Why? Why are you here?”

It had come out in a near sob, and the dampness she felt on her face was not just tears of despair and fear, but of exhaustion. Charlie would be near by, surely, and Charlie would know what Ron did not.

“It should be obvious,” Harry said, but his voice was not his own, instead it was a hiss like sound with a hint of deeper timbre that Hermione knew from the voice she heard echoing over the grounds of Hogwarts in May, 1998. “All magic is moving to this spot, pulling in on itself, sending out ripples and wakes behind it.”

Hermione blinked in realization, but kept her eyes wide to see Harry’s face standing twenty or more feet along the track. The source of the Seal was using whatever magic was left in Britain, and she wondered if it were possible to somehow tap into that power, drawing magic into a vessel, a body…

“Why?” she whispered.

Harry shifted and she realized his wand was in his hand. She had to stop thinking of the man as Harry, no matter the resemblance. ‘He’ would not hesitate to cut her down where she stood, then again, what she knew of Tom Riddle cum Voldemort, he was proud.

“Is that all you can ask, Mudblood?”

The palpable venom in the faux voice made Hermione shudder. She had never come face to face with the ‘Dark Lord,’ until now, and it was in the guise of a man she loved.

“You have to fight, Harry. You have beaten him many times over, do it again!”

‘He’ laughed, and it sounded as if he were gurgling on water.

“Precious, sweet Potter…so weak…”

Hermione straightened.

“Jaime is still alive! And Ginny, think of them!”

Hermione stumbled back suddenly, an invisible force slapping her across the face, and Hermione’s vision turned red. She would not kill Harry; she could not, even if she had the power to do so. If anything, she would delay him until Charlie could find the source of the Seal and, hopefully, disable it. Hermione did not doubt Charlie’s ability; he had proven himself a formidable wizard.

Straightening again, Hermione tightened her grip about the sword handle.

“Voldemort is nothing, you made sure of that, Harry,” she growled, tasting blood in her mouth.

Again, a spell lashed out and Hermione was forced to her knees. She could taste more blood in her mouth and feel it dripping from her nose.

“Not all is lost, Harry. There is still—“

The flash of spell fire blinded her, but still Hermione moved, rolling on the dark and rocky ground as the sickly red light of a Torture Curse slammed just on the spot where she knelt.

Hermione rolled to her feet, crouching, and standing, drew the sword, which glowed a pale blue as it had when she found it in the depths of the Horcrux Cave. It lit the track and Harry’s snarling face and red eyes, all the lovely green Hermione had come to know, gone.

“There is still hope!”

The words came from her mouth in a shout, but it was more than words, it was power, and Harry’s handsome face contorted. For an instant, the eyes cleared to green, but were overpowered again. Hermione could see the internal battle of wills, and could see that Harry was losing.

The sword hummed in her hands and when spell fire flashed again, the sword moved. All around Hermione, the spell was deflected, slamming into the ground and into trees. It was as one tree began to fall that Hermione had to run to keep from being crushed. Leaping up onto a low rock wall, an ancient fortification built after the time of Vortigern, another spell flashed.

Hermione landed, her face in the ground, her arms above her head, the sword gone. She knew the pain; the pain of being Stunned, but it did not keep her from curling her limbs to begin to rise.

Her eyes were dazzled, and the irises did not widen fast enough to see, but still she rose, a hand searching for the sword. On her hands and knees, Hermione gasped for breath, blood dripping from her nose and into her mouth. She did not rise completely when sharp, penetrating pain slipped through the soft of her back, through her gut and into the ground below.

The slide of metal through flesh and bone caused Hermione to grunt as it was pushed down and pulled out again, three times, until all she could see was the cold, dark ground under her face. The sword fell before her clutching hands in the grass and rock, the metal hissing, the blue glow obscured by black liquid.

“Goodbye, Hermione Granger.”







Charlie… Charlie…

Time moved slowly, every second a minute, and every minute an hour. Hermione stared at the sword, realizing that her own blood stained the blade.

Harry had killed her. No, Voldemort had killed her, using his bare hands to do so and it had taken no time at all.

In the starlight, she listened as footfalls moved away from her, a derisive snort the last sound she heard over the hissing of the sword. Moving her right hand from the grass, she grasped the blade, not caring that the lethally sharp edges cut into her palm.

The sword had saved her once; perhaps it would do it again?

Her blood pooled hotly under her body, and Hermione licked her lips. Blood was everywhere and in everything, her mouth, her nose, her hair from splatter. She could still feel the cool blade in her body, piercing her kidneys, her intestines, her liver, and a lung. Hermione would die slowly, knowing that no arteries were severed, but not knowing how she knew.

There was still a chance.

Her bloody hand moved from the blade to the hilt and stiffened fingers wrapped about the grip. The sword, whatever its name, hummed, and with it, Hermione had the power to rise to her knees and eventually to her feet.

Aranrúth was its name, perhaps, and as Hermione stumbled along the track, the blood stained sword’s tip dragging into the soil. ‘King’s Ire,’ a fictional sword that was forged by Elves, and later given to men as an heirloom of a long passed age of time… Lost in a battle with a king whose body was encapsulated in a cave to await the end of time…

Fiction, all fiction…

Hermione could think of other names of great, magical swords, but those thoughts were soon gone as blood began to run down her legs over the dragon hide, her cloak in tatters behind her as the wind caught it. She knew she was no warrior; she was simply a woman who needed the world to keep on moving and living. Although, she wished she were a warrior instead of a beaten thing trailing its own blood behind it.

She would die on Dinas Emrys, and perhaps it was fitting that she do so. So close to the end, lives were always lost in those famous adventure stories… Hermione Granger was not the hero.






“Go!”

Hermione felt Charlie jerk at her pleading shout, and then he was gone.

Using the last bit of her strength, she rolled onto her right side, eyes pointing to the rock face above her. She watched Charlie disappear into a small passage, and she smiled. Charlie would save them all.

The sound of footfalls again, caught her attention, but Hermione only closed her eyes, not wanting to see the beloved face so twisted by a soul so dark. She had no more energy to plead with Harry Potter to fight.

“Disgusting…”

Metal clanged against rock, and Hermione kept her eyes shut as the air moved around her and the footfalls faded into the distance. When she opened her eyes again, it was to see the sword’s blade before her face, the weapon thrust into the ground and standing upright before her.

I tried, she said to herself, fingers twitching and falling against the cool metal of the blade. I tried…I wish…

Hermione’s eyes shut again, for the last time, but still she lived, and could see and watch the truth like a spectre floating over the scene inside the cave beyond.