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 9




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







Hermione found food in the converted bed and breakfast, as well as spoiled food in the freezers. She Vanished the bad, and collected the good on the kitchen table. Two days had passed since the attack, and still Charlie was unconscious. It worried Hermione.

During the bright of the morning, Hermione walked into Tyndrum proper, finding the two rail lines, one running to Oban, the other to Fort William. She read the schedules and the stops on notice boards at the stations, unsure of which line to take. Hermione feared that they would not be able to find the route the Hogwarts Express took.

In the village, she found more food, and more bodies. By appearances, the villagers had not died from the Holokaustion, but were attacked by Inferi. However, there were not any recent signs of Inferi activity. Tyndrum had been dead for a long time.

Hermione returned to the house to find Charlie the same.

She knew she should be used to the silence, she had lived long enough since February with only the silence of the lack of life. Hermione sat alone the kitchen, leaning into the table, her head in her hands, deafened by the lack of Charlie’s voice.

The night of the second day, Hermione left the house for the dark outside. She had her rifle and her wand, but she felt no fear in the night. Walking into the field beyond the house, Hermione pointed her face to the sky and closed her eyes. Listening to the wind coming off the slopes of the barren mountains, Hermione was reminded of Hogwarts, which surely was not too far away. Listening deeper, Hermione heard water and the cracking of swaying trees. Summer was coming, and Hermione could feel the life in the soil under her feet, ready to burst out from the dark. However, the chill that had settled over all of Britain seemed everlasting.

The music came moments later, faintly along the valley.

‘When we’re out together…dancing…cheek to cheek.’

It was haunting, as it had been the first time Hermione heard the opening chord of music. It was clearer, though faint. The voice was a recorded voice from an age past. Fred Astaire.

Hermione frowned and opened her eyes. It was madness.

It was as if someone had propped up millions of Muggle speakers, wired to some device to play the song over and over.

Hermione covered her ears with her cold hands, but she could still hear the faint melody.

Sensing without actually hearing. Hermione’s frown deepened.

There were so many things ‘wrong,’ Hermione did not know what to think about them all. From Klemper’s words to Malfoy’s, all that really mattered was getting to Hogwarts.





Charlie woke on the third day, weak and slightly delirious. Hermione was brushing her teeth with a toothbrush she had found in the lavatory when she heard Charlie move in the bed.

For two days, she had been force-feeding him broth and water, Charming the bed clean, wiping his brow with a damp towel, and speaking to him about trivial things. When she exited the bathroom, the toothbrush hanging from her mouth, Charlie had somehow managed to sit up, staring dumbly at the room and fireplace, then to her.

“Where are we?”

Hermione smiled even as foamy toothpaste trickled down her chin.





Charlie was surprised that Hermione had been sleeping next to him, adding her own warmth to that of the room. After a day of consciousness, Charlie learned that she had saved him and tended to his wounds. There was still a bit of soreness in his ribs and his arms, but as he rose for the first time, he stretched.

That night, Hermione slept next to him on the double bed, her hair, and skin smelling clean. Charlie felt uncomfortable, watching the firelight play upon the ceiling of the room. She was so close, the warmth of her body radiating against his left arm. He felt even more uncomfortable, knowing that during his unconsciousness, she had stripped him of his clothes. Charlie had awoken nude, his skin sliding against the clean sheets.

“Can’t sleep?”

Charlie blinked, he was certain she was asleep, her back to him.

“No. I feel I have slept enough,” he said softly.

He was dressed in only a pair of pyjama bottoms Hermione had found somewhere in the house. Charlie exhaled as Hermione shifted, rolling to face him.

“You aren’t well yet, solid foods in the morning…” she said sleepily. “Did you always stretch in the mornings?”

Charlie smirked. He had noticed Hermione’s gaze that morning when he did his morning routine.

“I do, I did,” he answered. “My first year in Romania, a Ridgeback knocked me off my broom when we were trying to Stun the beast… I was laid up for about a month. The Romanian Healer suggested that I stretch to keep from getting stiff…”

Hermione made a noise, and Charlie glanced to her. She had moved her hand under the blanket, her hand poised to touch his ribs past his arm.

“I was never one for physical exertion. I’m rubbish on a broom…”

Charlie held his breath as she touched him, her fingertips skimming over his skin. Her very touch had warmth.

“I am surprised that I can run without tripping over my own feet.”

Her palm pressed into his ribs and Charlie was forced to breathe.

“I hate running.”

Charlie inhaled through his nose as Hermione’s hand ran to his hip, just at the elastic band of his pyjama bottoms. He would not look at her, but kept his green eyes on the ceiling.

Hermione seemed to sigh as she shifted closer next to him, the swell of her breasts against his upper arm. She wore a simple night shift, he remembered, but her body except for her head was under the duvet. Her wild hair was pulled back into a band, and away from her face.

“I am beginning to hate the silence…”

Her hand slipped under the waistband, and Charlie finally moved.

He grasped her wrist tightly, turning his head on the pillow to look down into her golden eyes. What he saw there startled him. Half formed tears, longing, and fear.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked in a whisper, unable to trust his own voice. Already blood was flowing southward and he could feel his pyjama bottoms shift.

Hermione closed her eyes and sighed through her lips.

“Because, I am pathetic, and I am frightened.”

Charlie released her wrist and felt her hand slip under the covers back toward her body. He turned his eyes away to the ceiling again.

To be able to touch another person seemed so important, to validate one’s own existence, but Charlie felt that it was wrong. Hermione Granger was a girl, so young, so brilliant, and she had been Ron’s. Adding to the fact that Charlie knew so little about her, he felt it even more wrong to let her touch him in some familiar way. His body was betraying him, not matter how weak he felt, his cock was not going to flag any time soon.

She had kissed him in Leeds, and during the time between there and London, they had stayed close, physically. Charlie cared for her, he knew. He had noticed her, her body, her smell, and her taste. Charlie could not deny that he found her attractive. Circumstances, however, had much to do with whether he would act on that attraction.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and began to rise from the bed. “I’ll sleep in another room…”

Charlie rose from the bed, resting back on his elbows as Hermione walked about the foot of the bed.

“No. I…”

Hermione paused before the fireplace at the sound of Charlie’s voice. With the firelight behind her, Charlie could see through her shift. The outline of her body was still thin, starved, but still there was a swell about her hips and breasts.

“I…” he tried again, but faltered.

Hermione started to leave the room again, moving to the door, but Charlie sat up fully.

“I did not mean to offend you, Hermione,” he said finally able to form a complete sentence.

Hermione’s hand wrapped about the handle. “No offence taken, Charlie. Sometimes I forget that perhaps I truly am mad.”

The door opened, followed by a cold draft of wind, and Charlie was on his feet.

“You’re not mad, Hermione.”

Hermione paused, slowly shutting the door. She had her back to him, but did not turn to face him.

“You are anything but…” he trailed, gently sitting on the edge of the bed, tired. “It is too cold in the rest of the house…”

It was his invitation back, not worded elegantly, but Charlie knew he was never very good with elegance. He settled back into bed when Hermione lay down, quiet, turning her back to him again. Charlie sighed softly and stared at the ceiling again.

The world was mad, not Hermione, and not Charlie Weasley.





He kissed her, cradling her face between his hands as her arms wrapped about his neck to pull him ever closer. Charlie drank from her mouth. She tasted real, more real than a dream.

Pulling back to breathe, Charlie knew he was not dreaming as he stared at Hermione’s swollen lips. The room was hot with the raging fireplace, and the blankets were kicked to the footboard of the bed. More than that, the night shift Hermione wore was gone, as was Charlie’s pyjama bottoms. All that separated them was a layer of sweat.

Hermione’s legs were wrapped about his waist, her breath coming out in gasps. Charlie’s eyes widened as her right hand slipped from his neck to drag fingernails down his chest. She said nothing, her golden eyes hooded, her lips parted. Charlie groaned as her small hand wrapped about his cock, positioning it at just the right angle. Her touch nearly did him in. The dream was real, and no amount of mental protest was going to stop his hips from jerking instinctually, the head of his cock sinking into her tight body.

Molten heat enveloped the head, and Charlie hissed as her body clamped down. He held himself above her, slightly aghast, slightly shocked, but more aroused than anything else. Charlie was not celibate ascetic, living among dragons like a holy hermit. However, he was not someone to push all his moral concerns aside for the sake of ‘fucking.’

Hermione’s hand moved to his face, to his hair, and with a rough tug on the longer hair atop his head, Charlie was drinking from her mouth again. He was lost.

One hand grasped her breast, the other slipped between them to brush at the course curls just above her clit. His thumb brushed the nubbin and Hermione moaned into his mouth. Her mouth pulled from his to cry aloud, his name somewhere in her voice.

Charlie grunted as Hermione’s fingernails scored into his back. As a type of retribution, Charlie thrust his hips.

“Oh!” was the only somewhat coherent sound Hermione made.

Charlie grinned into her shoulder.

Hermione was incredibly small under him, and tight. Charlie wondered if he should restrain himself from pounding into her body, but the prodding heels of her feet into his buttocks told him otherwise. She clung to him, riding against him as the headboard banged into the wall above them.

There was no tenderness, no lovely endearments, just grunts and moans, flesh slapping against flesh, and sweat dripping from one body to the other. Mating, coupling, whatever Charlie could think to call, it was primal. He simply wanted to fill her with his cum, feel her body convulse under him, and roar in completion.

It should have been more, he knew. Hermione should have more. Tender words, a loving caress, something soul jarring, something real. Charlie knew Hermione was a good woman, even though he barely knew her. She had thanked him for helping her, for traveling with her. She had cared for him, saved him, just as he saved her. Hermione was someone who should have been loved completely.

Charlie never knew what happened between her and Ron, but he knew Ron well enough that the boy could not keep his eyes from wandering.

“Charlie!”

She was close, every smooth thrust pushing her to the edge. Her breasts swayed between them, as Charlie tasted her mouth again, her nipples rasping against the sweaty, course crimson hair on his chest.

How could anything feel so wonderful? How could anything feel so warm? Charlie hissed, nearly loosing himself inside her body. He wanted to cum, he wanted to end the madness that made him believe that ‘this’ was more than loneliness manifest.

Hermione’s head tilted back from their kiss to reveal the column of her throat and Charlie tasted there as well. He did not stop moving against her, feeling her juices seeping between them and into the mattress. His lust-fogged brain had the desire to taste there too. Already, his vision was tunneling slightly, the tight, restricting swell in his sac informing him that he was too far gone.

A roar emanated from deep inside, and burst from his lips as his hips jerked erratically. He could feel his cum as it compressed inside her, it felt like scalding heat, alive, his soul’s essence.

Hermione held him tight in her arms when he collapsed, the muscles in his back and shoulders burning from use—a function of muscle and movement he had not utilized in a long while. He rested his cheek in her left shoulder, his eyes shutting. Her legs untangled about his waist and Charlie grunted as his cock was pushed out of her body, trailing cum and juices onto the bed.

The glorious afterglow resulted in sleep, and Charlie smiled into Hermione’s shoulder, feeling that she too was drifting off into a dreamless and sated peace.






Hermione woke sometime close to dawn, slipping from Charlie’s arms. She fled to the lavatory to wash, to return to cast cleansing Charms on the bed. She was not sure why she hesitated with the ‘Charm,’ but she cast anyway. Pregnancy was nothing but a complication, and she had too many complications to deal with as it was.

Stoking the fire with a spell, Hermione slipped back into bed. Charlie sighed and pulled her near again so that her ear rested over his heart. It was endearing, the way his body wrapped about hers, and Hermione smiled softly, her fingers running along the trail of crimson hair on his chest, down to his taut belly under the haphazardly arranged sheet and duvet.

There was a semblance of safety and care in his embrace. It almost made Hermione’s world normal. She wanted him, not because he was a man, and not because the sight of him did arouse her. Hermione wanted him because he was Charlie Weasley, someone who was proving to be wonderful despite the state of things outside of their embrace.

Charlie sighed again as her fingers dipped lower, to brush the crimson hair above his turgid cock. Hermione licked her lips, and gently drew a finger along the underside of the shaft. The organ jerked and Charlie inhaled deeply.

Hermione drew her hand away, not wanting to actually wake the man.

She had wanted to touch him for some time, ever since Leeds the want had grown to need. Charlie Weasley was a proficient kisser.

He had been half dreaming when he took her hours before, kissing her, touching her, Hermione was only half awake when it started, but she did nothing to stop it. She needed Charlie to touch her.

Hermione did not need a validation of life. She needed to be wanted, and wanted she was.

A large hand grasped her wrist just as she began to pull away completely. Hermione nearly gasped aloud as the hand forced her fingers to grip the bobbing cock. Hermione licked her lips, unable to turn her eyes upward to Charlie’s face. Instead, her fingers wrapped about the thick shaft. She could not see the organ for the duvet in the way, but Charlie’s grip on her wrist forced her to stroke. Charlie’s cock was thicker than it was long, but Hermione’s small palm was not wide enough to span the length.

Charlie hummed at Hermione’s ministrations and in turn, Hermione felt her own sore pussy throb. There was something so base about stroking Charlie’s cock when everything around them had gone to hell, but Hermione did not stop.

Shifting under her, Charlie’s right arm moved to push Hermione’s head gently off his chest, his long fingers search down the length of her body. Hermione paused for a moment as Charlie turned onto his right side, his left hand now running along her right hip. They were face to face, and in the grey early morning light and firelight, Hermione could stare into Charlie Weasley’s beautiful jade green eyes.

His fingers slipped between the space of her inner thighs, sliding upward. Hermione huffed a breath as she faltered a stroke. Charlie seemed to sigh as his digits curled upward into her body, one long finger penetrating her.

She wanted to close her eyes, block out the sight of Charlie’s eyes as they crinkled at the corners finding how wet she was. Hermione did not close her eyes, however, and lifted her right knee to open herself to his touch. The soreness of muscle and bone were forgotten as a second finger slipped inside. A rhythm began, and Hermione whimpered, her grip tightening around his cock.

It was almost obscene the way Charlie’s fingers slipped in and out of her pussy, creating a sticky sound. She wanted to say how wrong it was, or laugh and say how adolescent, but it was not. It was pleasure, something Hermione had almost lost after so long.

When his thumb pressed against her clit, Hermione forgot to stroke him. He kissed her instead, rolling to slip his right arm under her hair and neck. Charlie groaned into her mouth as his hips pressed against her side, the oozing head of his cock brushing into Hermione’s nether curls.

He did not stop his fingers from curling, his thumb from circling, and Hermione breath hitched. She grasped him however she could when her voice rang out, her head throwing back, breaking the kiss. Charlie bit into the base of her neck as she trembled, her voice filling the silence in a throaty cry.

Climax had come suddenly, unexpectedly, and for a short, blissful moment, Hermione thought of nothing at all.

However, when thought returned it was to the sound of a growling stomach and Charlie was chuckling into her shoulder. Hermione snorted and suddenly, the intense moment was over, replaced by long missed laughter.

“And it is no wonder,” Hermione said while dressing into a clean set of clothing, using the footboard to balance her as she rolled a sock onto her foot. “No solid food for two days…”

“Better than no food at all, I suppose,” Charlie said from the bed, his hands behind his head, the sheets pulled up over his waist.

“True. There’s enough food here to last a while, or at least until you get your…” she trailed, a corner of her mouth lifting. “I was going to say strength…”

Charlie laughed quietly. “Another day of rest, real rest, then…”

Hermione’s smirk faded. “Then we find the way to Hogwarts,” she finished, seriously.






Charlie ate a real meal for the first time in perhaps a year. Living on the Reserve rarely gave him a chance at real food. Maybe a tinned meat sandwich constituted a meal, but Charlie could never keep a good Stasis Charm on bread while he backpacked the Reserve.

He loved to cook, though, and when he would return to the Lodge, we would cook for the boys. Sometimes stew, sometimes a few Romanian dishes he had picked up, sometimes meat pies they could take with them into the field. One Keeper, Clemens from America, called Charlie a ‘regular Betty Crocker,’ but Charlie never knew if it were a compliment or an insult.

Hermione had brought him two good meals, the first being a breakfast, granted the eggs were powdered and the ham tinned, but it was better than eating straight out of tins as they had been doing. He had risen and used the lavatory, stretched, dressed, peered out the room’s window. He still felt out of sorts, and the fact that his hips were sore, as was his back, did not help.

By midday, Hermione brought him lunch, managing to find tea, no milk, and adding a bit more to what tasted like a regular tin of cream soup. She ate with him at a small table near the window looking over the valley and to the mountains.

They spoke little, and Charlie was contented in the silence, as long as she was near. Hermione seemed to glow in the sunlight from the window as she ate her soup. Charlie could not stop looking at her. Occasionally she would blush when their eyes met, but there was no awkward moments, only comfortable silence. She was beautiful. The way the sun caught the golden highlights of her pinned up wavy hair, or her golden eyes… Charlie wondered if somehow he were falling in love.

Charlie finished his soup and stretched in his chair. He was beginning to feel suddenly restless. As much as he wanted to touch her again, as much as he wanted to taste her skin, he knew that there were more important things to do.

Hermione took the dishes away, but left the tea. Charlie helped himself to a fresh cup and drank slowly. He could hear her moving somewhere downstairs, a downstairs he could not remember seeing. When Hermione returned, she sat across from him, a demure smile on her lips as she reached for the tea.

“You haven’t told me…” he started, then paused as Hermione’s face seemed to drain of smile. “How you managed to get me here. What happened…”

Hermione exhaled as she finished filling her cup, a cheap porcelain cup that matched the rest of the small service.

“It was Black,” was all she said, before lifting the steaming tea to her lips and slipping quietly.

“As in the Black that was in the Ministry?” Charlie asked, blinking rapidly.

Hermione nodded, finding her tea too hot and putting it down again. “The same.”

Charlie listened as Hermione explained about the Muggle rifle, finding him in the stream, and healing his broken bones. There was not much to tell, she had said. “And here we are,” she finished.

Charlie frowned slightly, turning his eyes to the window again. There they were, in Scotland, perhaps only miles from Hogwarts, and no closer to knowing whether the castle had fallen or not. The fact that Black had attacked bothered Charlie, not just the fact that he somehow seemed to be alive after thirty years of death.

Why them, and why attack when he did? Of course, the overarching question as to why someone would want to kill all Muggles and Magical folk was left unanswered.

Hogwarts had to have the answers. Between Hermione and himself, they would find the answer, no matter how terrible it might be. They had endured enough horror so far, a little more surely could not rankle them any more.





Hermione slept against his side that night, breathing deeply into his chest. Charlie again, was staring up at the ceiling.

She had not hesitated as his open arms invited her to sleep. Charlie had only kissed her chastely on the mouth as she muttered her ‘goodnights.’ He could tell that she was reaching a new state of exhaustion. Her contemplative silences often made him frown. Just like him, Hermione was trying to know the unknowable.

Charlie closed his eyes, feeling Hermione’s hand on his belly twitch, and her lips smack in her sleep. He grinned.

Hermione had been the first person he had found alive. She was precious, special to him. Perhaps, when things were safe, when they had answers, Charlie could ask Hermione how she really felt about him. Danger held them together, would safety keep them?

She sighed in her sleep, and Charlie let himself be taken by sleep. In the morning, they would continue north, to whatever awaited them. If only to keep himself from being alone, he would protect her, keep her close to his side. It was not love, per se, but it was need. Charlie needed her to keep the grief away, to keep sanity in.

Hermione Granger was more than just ‘Ron’s smart girlfriend.’ That time had passed, just had the time when the world made sense.





It was just past Tyndrum, almost near the junction of the A85 from the A82 that Charlie’s feet found the railway that was not marked on any Muggle map. The relief on Hermione’s face made Charlie grin. She had voiced her concern many times that morning after leaving the bed and breakfast, as well as her fear that they would somehow be barred from seeing anything magical.

Hermione had told him about hearing the music several nights before, while he healed. She had even sung the words of the song to him on their trek to Tyndrum.

“Does it mean anything to you?” Charlie asked.

Hermione shrugged as they walked the rails in a quick pace. The morning was unusually cold and Hermione kept her hands shoved in the pockets of her denims, the shoulders of her leather jacket rising.

“It’s an old song. My dad really liked it. All I know is that Fred Astaire sang it in the recordings my dad had…”

“Fred Astaire?”

Hermione smirked. “American Muggle, he was a famous dancer and actor in the ‘30s through the ‘60s. Did a lot of films, danced a bit with Ginger Rogers… I think the song was in one of the films he did.”

Charlie nodded as the rails ran slightly upward, climbing higher into the mountains.

“I just know that it was a popular song, somewhat symbolizing a time in Muggle history…before the War.”

“The Muggle World War?”

“The second one,” Hermione added.

Charlie licked his lips as Hermione picked up the pace to make it up the slope, bringing them into a highland, desolate, with no visible roads.

“Why that song, and why we can hear it, that is a mystery,” Hermione mumbled.

Charlie said nothing as she continued. She spoke of how she could hear it without actually listening, as if feeling it inside her body. Charlie had not taken the time to learn this disturbing bit of news, and he knew that it was perhaps better he did not try to hear it.

He remembered what Hermione said about Viktor Krum’s theory—magic calling to magic. If this were the case, were the only people left alive were the ones they had come across?

They walked in silence as the sun spanned the sky overhead, finally beating down on their shoulders to make them pause and take off their coats and take some lunch. By late afternoon, they both were walking a bit faster.

“Can you feel it?” Charlie asked, startling Hermione.

She was walking next to him, her hand sometimes finding his. Her pace quickened, but she did not glance at him.

“I do.”

The feeling, more like a sensation, had not suddenly become clear as they walked due north, but as the rail turned toward the northeast, there was an audible hum coming down the tracks. Charlie could feel it in the metal near his left ankle, through his dragon hide boots.

They stopped in unison, Hermione bending down to press her hand to the metal rail to her right, Charlie mimicking her on the left.

“There couldn’t be a train…” Hermione muttered.

“No,” Charlie agreed.

The hum or vibration was not from a train coming up or down the track. It was if the metal were somehow electrified, or heated, causing the rail to hum with an eerie metallic pitch.

Charlie glanced to Hermione to see her pressing her ear to the smooth silver metal, her golden eyes gazing up at him. She listened for a moment and then jerked away, as if shocked.

“What it is?” Charlie asked, startled.

Hermione’s eyes were wide as she stared at his face.

“I…” she starred, but trailed. “I don’t know. It is like a conductor…magical energy being sent along the rail. Listen.”

Charlie licked his lips and bent down. Pressing his ear into the sun-warmed rail, he felt the hum vibrate against the hair on the side of his head. Then he heard it.

Fred As-whatever-Hermione-called-him, singing that song that had tormented them both for what seemed like ages. But under the music was something else, a sound that Charlie knew, but did not know.

Life.

“Merlin, we’re close,” he said, without thinking. Then rising from the rail, he met Hermione’s eyes. “It’s Hogwarts, it’s them, and they’re still alive!”

Hermione launched herself into Charlie’s arms, laughing. Charlie held her, his eyes misting.

For the first time in months, there was life, concentrated life! No rumours, no vain wishes, but proof! They were on the right path, and they were close. Hermione was laughing wholeheartedly, and Charlie knew that she was near to weeping.

It was late May, and almost three months had passed since ‘it’ all began. Now, they were so close.

Charlie felt a tear trickle out of the corner of his left eye and he cleaved to Hermione Granger, thanking whatever power, they had survived so far. All that remained was closing the distance between them and that hum of life.

Together, they ran, toward hope.




Two and a half days, that was how long it took them to come around a bend on the track and see the Black Lake and Hogsmeade. Hogwarts, however, was obscured by mist, or so it seemed.

Hermione grasped Charlie’s hand to stop him from their vantage point along the track, her eyes peering through the trees to Hogsmeade station. Hermione could still feel the hum from the tracks around her feet, but danger compelled her body to freeze while her eyes studied and interpreted what she saw in the distance.

Charlie seemed to be doing the same.

It had begun raining the day before and had not stopped. Hermione could feel the weight of her damp hair, too anxious to stop to Charm it dry. They had not slept. They had not eaten. The need to press forward required no rest or food. However, as Hermione shifted her rifle from her shoulder to lift it up, she peeked through the scope with a sinking sensation in her belly.

The red cars and engine of the Hogwarts Express was stationary by the platform. From the station, Hermione moved the scope toward the jetty nearby, a place that held such a special memory for her and most likely Charlie. The enchanted boats that they rode on as First Years, before the Sorting, were gone. The mist from the loch was too thick to see Hogwarts or Hogsmeade. Hermione sighed, lowered the rifle to rest the butt by her toe.

The road along lake and up to Hogsmeade was surely watched, and if what Malfoy said was true, Inferi were blocking the way.

“If there are wards protecting the castle and the grounds, differentiating between live and dead, we shouldn’t have a problem,” Charlie sighed. “But getting to the gates…”

Hermione nodded. “We could cut across the mountains to the east, beyond the border of the Forest…”

“No. It may not seem like it, but the Forest stretches further east than you might think. Miles. Bill and I tried to fly around it one time in school. We nearly got lost.”

Hermione bit her bottom lip. The Forbidden Forest was enchanted, and doubtless warded along with the castle. Her eyes moved to the Black Lake and the wooded road. They could double back, head to the northeast, and cut across to Dufftown, a hamlet at least fifty miles down the valley from Hogsmeade, but that journey would take at least a week. They did not have a week.

“We cannot wait until dark,” she said aloud, unable to think of any other way to reach the gates of Hogwarts except for the obvious—the road from the station. “Surely, if it is day…”

Charlie made a noise that sounded like a sneeze and Hermione glanced to him.

“It is hardly day, with a sky like this. This weather, for this time of year, is unnatural.”

Charlie had sneezed, and for the first time since feeling the hum in the rails, she noticed how pale he was. He still was not one hundred percent, and the cold seemed to drain all colour from his skin. They needed shelter. Hermione was not feeling well either, her exhaustion making her more susceptible to the cold and wet.

“Well? The road, or are we going to stand here until nightfall?” Charlie grumbled, obviously tired and short tempered.

Hermione shouldered her rifle and drew her wand. Charlie followed suit.

“It would be a pity to die so close to the goal,” she whispered, searching for Charlie’s free hand.

“Wouldn’t it?” he said with a small grin.


TBC...