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Portraits of a War  
By jaswanson

-- Not --

There was a river of blood, wide and long and thick, thicker than he’d ever known blood would be, all running together like that.  

He should have known.  

He should have known that blood would be nearly black once it dried and more of a deep burgundy, the color of dark wine, when it spread slickly over the flagstones.  He should have known that it would mix with the dirt of battle to cake his shoes and creep beneath his fingernails, making him look like a wild thing carnal and untamed.  

Neville Longbottom hated that he knew those things, now.  

 Base of Cimicifuga racemes, pinch of Horehound,  five lacewings…

He had come to hand out the potions he’d made with Professor Sprout, just in case, and to keep the supplies organized, the labels on the bottles just so.  He had come to shred Sallow and replicate the gauze if it ran low.  He was there to maybe brew up a quick potion or two, to exercise his strength in herbology in order to help, and also because he wasn’t any good at fighting.

Instead, when Neville walked down the short corridor to the infirmary he was met with the sight of Dean Thomas laid out on a table before him, stomach blown open from a flesh-eating hex and crying out in pain until he passed out completely, hand still clutching his wand.  There was blood everywhere, all over Dean and dripping - tap tap tap - onto the floor in a steady stream that belied Madam Pomfrey’s reassuring murmurs - you’re going to be fine, a scratch is all, nothing to stop you from standing up and fighting again on the morrow.  Dean was missing a shoe and aside from the gaping wound he had suffered, there was not another scratch on him.  Neville listened to the older witch’s mutterings, almost believing them except for the dark thought that perhaps she uttered such nonsense beneath her breath to keep herself from going insane.  The stench of seared flesh and the sight of ragged clothing mingling with peeled skin was enough to send him retching into the corner.  

Dean died not ten minutes after being brought inside the infirmary, having lost too much blood to stave off death, and because even Madam Pomfrey could not work miracles that large.  

Base of Coriander, one handful white willow, drop of dragon’s blood, four thorns from a rose…

The death of Dean was dismissed quickly as Madame Pomfrey grabbed Neville’s arms and gave him a good shake, hard enough to make his teeth knock together.  There wasn’t time to spare for despair or repulsion or horror, she told him.  There was only time to try to stop death from taking any more lives than absolutely necessary, time to heal those they could in order to send them back out into the fight, and time to make those who remained comfortable in their last moments.   Put this on, she said, and handed him a white apron.

White, he swiftly found out, did not stay white for long.  Blood spatters collected at an astonishing rate after Madam Pomfrey pushed him toward the nearest gurney with only a parting reminder that Professor Sprout did not speak highly of him for nothing.  

Everything from that point on blurred together in a mass of terrible things - hexes and curses and corporeal wounds - which all contributed to the ever widening carmine river that drained toward the grate at one end of the room.  Somewhere amidst the ghastliness came an overwhelming pain in Neville’s middle, the knowledge that he hadn’t been prepared for the consequences of war, had thought their victory sure and their fighters strong.  Staring wrongness in the face was an intense experience, guilt and dread settling in his limbs as lead weights.  

The sudden and urgent thought that he was not a healer, should not have been asked to look after anything other than the insignificant, rang loudly in his ears.  But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how loud the litany of logic - not not not- pounded at his temples, he could not make his feet obey.  Move, he told them.  Steadfastly, they stayed and only shuffled to another gurney when the time came.

Eye of newt, two taps of Valerian powder, one scoop Rue…  

The pre-made potions seemed to run out in the blink of an eye.  All that was left was tincture of Willow, used in Sleeping Draught, which would do nothing other than dull the knife’s edge of pain.  Neville was tempted to swallow the whole bottle himself as familiar faces stumbled into the infirmary.  Some were able to drag themselves, others had to be levitated, and Charlie Weasley, who had broken his wand, had shouldered the limp form of Hannah Abbott up the stairs and through the double oak doors.  There wasn’t enough help, but there also were not enough fighters, so those who could quickly spirited themselves away to rejoin the battle, while Madam Pomfrey, Neville, and a handful of other students took care of the rest.  Healers were on the way, they said, but Neville doubted if once the green robed fleet of medi-wizards arrived they would have anything or anyone left to heal.  

Even magic could not stay death forever.

Neville laid his hands on the foreheads of those with lesser wounds and bypassed them for someone who had suffered a more serious casualty.  He hated leaving a tiny second year girl, so small she seemed like something meant to flutter in the trees on a sunny day, putting him in mind of fairytales.  Her arm was broken and her head bleeding, and he had to leave her where she was, huddled against the wall between two beds.   When her eyes met his they did not understand.  

Base of bee balm, two handfuls marjoram, add Stevia rebaudiana once concoction reaches a slow boil…

The healing spells they’d been taught in Charms last month were only meant to be used for minor injuries.  Neville and a dozen others had been singled out to learn more advanced incantations, but even those did not prove adequate.  Each charm he uttered sapped him of strength, made his hands shake and vision blur.  

Gradually, healing was not enough and Neville found himself brewing curative potions over the great fireplace that occupied a portion of one side of the infirmary.  Lists of ingredients ran over and over in his head, while the heat from the fire left him feeling faint because he did not have enough energy to cast a heatless blue blaze.  The burgundy smudges on his arms mixed with dark stains from the herbs which were yellow and green and all manner of browns.  They soiled his clothes until he could not tell the juices from the blood.  Brewing potions was a messy business during the best of times, but among chaos it was filthy.  

Wizarding warfare turned out not to be all that different from what Neville had heard of Muggle combat. The injured did not stop coming and infirmary duties never trickled down to manageable.  Instead, the flood became a roar and the roar a great crashing wave of need.  

Neville stopped worrying about the dead.  He stopped worrying about the way his knees quavered from exhaustion or the tight clench of his jaw.  He stopped worrying about being overwhelmed and whether or not they would win.  Finally, he stopped worrying about the not of it all and started letting instinct rule his mind and body until nothing was left except the river of blood and a lick of determination in his gut.  



-- Nothing Heroic or Noble --

There was nothing heroic or noble about wielding a wand, shouting incantations one right after the other, making other human beings collapse in cries of agony.  When everything was said and done, Bill Weasley would not look back on this day and think himself a hero, a conqueror of evil and defender of the good, a brave warrior with a dragon’s tooth earring and a menacing scowl.  He had already caused too many deaths to merit self satisfaction.

As a young wizard, he and his brothers had built a fort in the backyard and played the parts of dueling lords.  They used the straightest branches they could find as wands and laid siege to the crude stronghold their father had helped construct from rotten planks of wood, taking turns being the Last Hero Standing and Evil Incarnate.  

This was nothing like that.

The roughly hewn fort was Hogwarts, now, and the face of the enemy did not ask to have a turn as a Knight or have freckles and red Weasley hair.  The suctioning blackness of dementors, curved sharp teeth of goblins, and loathsome humans with hearts so rotten that the stench, Bill imaged, was comparable to a den of trolls could not be mistaken for participants in a child’s game.  The tally here was very real and measured in the fallen forms of his comrades -- members of the Order and students and  the few Aurors the Ministry had been able to spare.  

The inner courtyard of Hogwarts was the last barrier between the dark forces and the castle itself.  Once inside, the battle would be over and students either made into dark recruits or killed in a mass execution.  The thought of his brothers and Ginny staring down the wrong end of wand during their last moments kept Bill fighting as if possessed.  He knew that somewhere his siblings were fighting as well, but at least if they died in combat they would not be made martyrs, they would be remembered for having stood up against Voldemort’s horde of ghastly creatures.  Bill hoped such a death for himself if his heartbeat was meant to peter out on this day.  

Regardless, his mother always said there was nothing like a stubborn Weasley.

Bill didn’t know if the fact that his wand hand hadn’t given out yet or that the lacerations on his arms and forehead didn’t slow him down counted as obstinate behavior.  He did know, however, that for each Death Eater he killed he would later add a notch on his wand to remind him of the contribution he had made to whatever end they met.  It was too early to tell if Dumbledore’s Army, a fellowship currently much larger than the mere handful of students who started it, was winning.  Truthfully, Bill did not see or hear much outside of the enemy in front of him.  His entire world narrowed to encompass the bolts of energy that flew from the tip of his wand, the incantations in his head and on his lips.

Never before had Bill been tempted to use a killing curse.  Today he ached to cast the words he saw so many evil mouths form from vowels and consonants and what must be a deep disregard for humanity.  Don‘t, his mind hissed, you’re not one of them.  

But, oh, how he wanted to.  

So Bill did things his own way.  There was a dagger in his right hand because sometimes the best method was the unexpected, a physical attack on a dark wizard’s person.  However, to wound was not enough and contrary to the games of his youth when a child’s perception of warfare dictated a code of decency.  Merely incapacitating an adversary was not effective when put into practice.  It still left the enemy able to mutter curses and feebly point a wand, didn’t it?  The searing pain on the back of Bill’s thigh had taught him a valuable lesson, one he would not soon forget.  There was nothing fair about this fight, so while he had not initially believed that his job was to kill, he did so now without sparing a thought for his shattered noble ideals.  

Out of the corner of his eye, Bill saw Nymphadora Tonks pause to cast a binding spell around the wrists and ankles of an stupefied Death Eater.  Behind her, a goblin raised his ax.  

Bill reacted quickly, whipping a cord of pure energy around the hilt of the snarling thing’s weapon and giving a great heave.  The large double headed hatchet came barreling toward him, rolling sideways through the air in a tight spin.  Bill’s arm shot forward to grab the hilt and the tightly bunched muscles of his arm sent the weapon hurtling back through the air where it lodged itself dead center in its owner’s skull, cleaving the tissue and bone nearly in half.  
Tonks glanced down at the fresh carnage, mouth grim.  Bill met her quick impassive stare with one of his own and, as one, they turned back to the fight.  

He did not feel heroic or noble.  



-- Liability --

Thirty three years ago, he saw her for the first time aboard the Hogwarts Express.  She had hair that was not quite blond and not quite red, eyes that were not quite blue and not quite grey, and a mouth that was definitely made for talking.  At the age of eleven she had already perfected a knowing expression, which she shot in his direction as he entered her compartment, making him think she knew about the chocolate frog he’d nicked from his mum’s secret stash before leaving.  

She was sorted into Gryffindor -- Molly O’Sullivan! -- which meant that she was brave.  He ended up there, too, which he reckoned meant that Weasleys knew how to not be afraid of the consequences.  It wasn’t a surprise on account of the fact that every generation of Weasleys had been sorted into the crimson and gold house for as long as anybody could remember.  But for some reason, Arthur Weasley was still inordinately pleased.  

On the way to the common room and his first night in the dormitory, Arthur lagged behind because he saw a wireless radio among another student’s things.  His hands itched to take it apart, get inside its casing and have a look-see.  He would have stayed there all night if it hadn’t been for the small, insistent hand that pinched his shoulder and the stern girlish voice that told him to come on already, they were going to be lost entirely if he didn’t pick up his trunk and move.  She spoke in clipped tones, clearly annoyed and yet unable to leave him behind.  

For the next six years he was caught between being terrified by Molly O’Sullivan and amazed.  

She did his potions homework for him because he didn’t bother, and he told her about all kinds of Muggle things while she made him recopy the work into his own handwriting.  He paid attention in History of Magic because ancient Professor Binns wasn’t bad and because old stuff was interesting.  He excelled in Muggle Studies because he secretly wanted to try out a life without magic and he admired those who didn’t have a wand for their ability to adapt.  The only reason he didn’t daydream about stop-and-go-lights and felly tones and tello-visions in Charms was due to the fact that he liked to enchant Muggle artifacts for his own amusement.  Incantations were useful for that sort of thing.  Once, he made Cassandra Henning’s porcelain teapot dance and she laughed, touching his arm.

Molly didn’t speak to him for a week.

He went to her, confused and feeling just bloody awful for doing whatever it was he did to make her angry.  He apologized profusely, then gave her a rose he had enchanted to spurt tiny golden sparks from its center, like a Muggle firework he saw in a book, once.  The resolute lines around her mouth slowly vanished, and though she took the gift with a small smile and a soft thank you, the fierce look in her eyes faded into something like hope.  Seeing that, Arthur felt his heart clench painfully in his chest and suddenly his stomach plummeted out from under him, sinking all the way down into his big toes where it stayed for a week.

Arthur wasn’t a quick study, and though Molly could take him apart for the smallest infraction, she could not speak her heart any easier than he could.  So it had taken them a while, but eventually they got to where they wanted to be all along.  He asked her to marry him on a sunny spring morning beneath the oak trees down by the lake.  Reginald Weasley hadn’t been able to lend Arthur any money for a ring, so he’d twisted a bit of twine around a tiny quartz crystal he found on the path to the greenhouse one day.  He promised he would get her something better, just as soon as he made a few galleons.  

She threw her arms around him and didn’t let go for the longest time.

Twenty five and a half years ago, they  got married in a small ceremony on the cliffs outside her village, facing the Irish sea.  

Twenty five years ago exactly, their first child was born on a stormy winter night.  Looking down at the tiny babe in her arms, with ten perfect tiny fingers and ten perfect tiny toes, Arthur told Molly it was the most brilliant sight he’d ever seen.  She had smiled up at him, exhausted, and said let’s name him Bill.  Everything about that night was so wonderful that her parents almost forgot to be angry that their daughter had carried a child to full term, but had only been married for six months.  Arthur almost forgot to be embarrassed.

One year after Bill’s birth, he bought them a house with the pay from his job at the Ministry.  She had been so patient and willing to wait as long as it took that when they finally had a big house of their own -- albeit a little crooked and a little haunted and a little old -- she cried.  He bent his head to taste her tears and loved her so keenly it hurt.  They called the dilapidated house The Burrow.  

A war broke out soon after, the first battle of many waged too close to home.  Arthur went to work at the Ministry every day and to clandestine meetings every night.  He came back to Molly after midnight for so many weeks that she started going to the meetings just to sit near him.  She didn’t blink an eye when he suggested they join the resistance movement, just handed him his cloak and told him to be careful on the way to tell Dumbledore because they had an awful lot of liability, now.  

They had more children over the years, the house fit to burst from pale skinned little bodies and stray animals the older boys brought home and gnomes, who sometimes snuck in from the garden.  Friends and strangers met by candlelight at the Weasley kitchen table, long after everyone was asleep, but when the candles finally guttered out, the sky was just beginning to go pink with the dawn.  So, Molly would start breakfast and Arthur would take himself off to work, and they would do it all over again the next night.   

The war became more serious, danger more imminent, then suddenly the threat receded a little because of a tiny black haired boy who lived.  Icy fear melted while the wizarding world righted itself again.  Horrific events became the stuff of legends and crept to the corners of their minds.   A powerfully evil name was banished from the collective vocabulary of the masses.  

Time passed.  

Another child arrived with red Weasley hair and a sweet baby girl grin.  Hogwarts letters came by OWL post, while life started resembling the dream Arthur had forged the day he married Molly.  

But enchanted cars, visits to Diagon Alley, prefect badges, sopping towels left on the bathroom floor, plates piled high with food, dancing teacups, and endless summer days could not last forever.  

Stick together, he told her.  Stay by me and I’ll stay by you and together we’ll be fine.  

They went to the Ministry of Magic to raise the alarm.  The risk it took to get there didn’t matter in the end, because the wizarding government’s buildings were already under siege.  A witch was struck down at their feet, so they moved further into the fray to escape the band of Death Eaters at their backs.  Wands at the ready, they stunned and hexed and cursed their way through creatures so fowl that Arthur doubted they had been found anywhere on or above the earth -- surely, they had come from below.  

Stay by me and I’ll stay by you.

Molly’s hand separated from his own sometime after their combined strength brought down a troll and before they reached the portal to the main building.  Aurors swarmed the Atrium of the Ministry, shielding it from Voldemort’s horde, doing what they could to prolong the lives of those fighting for good.  All Arthur and Molly had to do was get inside the golden gates, tell someone about the siege on Hogwarts, and leave to help save their children and countless others.  They couldn't just apparate into the Minister’s Office because it was too dangerous, had never been allowed.  Besides, entertaining the idea of apparating anywhere was impossible.  Everything was too tumultuous to believe that they wouldn’t get splinched.  But Molly, where was Molly?

Together we’ll be fine.  

Arthur scanned the crowd desperately, shouting Molly’s name until his throat grew hoarse.  Gore was everywhere, the dead and dying strewn on the floor tiles like broken pawns of wizard’s chess.  Hexes charged the air with energy that made his hair stand on end and still he shouted.  

Then he saw her form lying prone not far from the bloody path they’d forged to the gates.   For long moments, he could not move, could not breath, could not go to her to find out what he already knew.  Finally, his legs moved woodenly, propelling him down the three stairs he’d climbed and over the other bodies frozen in death.  The air crackled and fizzed around his head, but Arthur did not pay it any mind.  His wand clattered to the ground as he focused on Molly’s pale hand with its wedding band of tarnished gold.  She had always had graceful fingers and now, they did not stir.  

Arthur’s feet stopped.  His legs folded as he knelt down beside her.  Her eyes stared unseeingly, not quite blue and not quite grey.  

Blindly, Arthur groped for the nearest Auror, a young woman who shook his questing hands from the bottom of her robes with a glare, as if he did not understand that she fought to save her life.  Hogwarts, he rasped brokenly, Attack at Hogwarts.  He did not know if she heard him, almost did not care.  His wife’s body was already growing cold and his heart along with it.  

He sat there for years, or maybe hours, or perhaps minutes.  The seconds ticked by slowly, making him choke on the smoke of battle and the memories that flooded through his veins.  

A wand point rested at the base of the back of his neck.  

He grasped both of her hands tighter in his own and closed his eyes.  

Stick together.  You stay by me and I’ll stay by you and together we’ll be fine.  



-- Redemption --

Combat reached a fevered pitch as hexes were thrown, marks met and missed, shouts of pain and suffering heard.  Severus now found it impossible to luxuriate in that basic element called time, for there was none.  There were only split second decisions and the need to be fast when it mattered.

The instinct was there like a constant itch at the back of his skull, inside his eyes, pumping through his arteries, bone deep.   His mouth struggled against his will, wanting to revert to forming those words, the Unforgivables, as if the last twenty years hadn’t happened.  He thought about uttering them, but he couldn’t be sure the Ministry wouldn’t prosecute him based on his past record.  Immunity was involved, certainly, but Albus’ protection would only extend so far, in the end.  Shamefully, as much as he wanted to take the lives of his former comrades he could not bear the idea of spending the rest of his life in Azkaban.  Even this vengeful errand simply would not be worth slobbering insanity.   

Once upon a time, he believed himself to be better then all the rest, enlightened and won back because he was unable to deny the goodness that lie dormant inside him.  Severus Snape knew the truth of his own heart, however, and was careful not to admit to himself or anyone else that he had done so out of fear.  When he had defected from Voldemort it was out of sheer terror, the unshakable feeling that he’d chosen the wrong side, ended up on the short end of the stick once battle lines were drawn.  He had feared the things that were demanded of him, afraid his soul would rot away inside his body to leave nothing behind but a used up shell of a man.  

Truly, he was no better than the rest, only more frightened of the fire.  

Brightly burning, the war that waged outside Hogwarts’ walls was violent and full of the fearsome quality Severus had worked so hard to ignore all the years since his redemption.  He had done everything Dumbledore wanted.  He taught Potions at Hogwarts, put up with students both dimwitted and bright, wrote scathing comments on the tops of their parchments to get them to do better, kept on writing them when  it seemed they only did worse.  Severus Snape relived the memories of his youth, the torments and the fledgling fear heaped upon his head by boys his own age who had no compassion but possessed valor in spades.  He even did the unthinkable -- went back to Voldemort and his cronies as a spy, betraying the last vestiges of his own goodness each time that he answered the Dark Mark’s call.  He crawled on his belly to the Dark Lord, groveled and bathed in humiliation to prove his loyalty, while curtaining the contempt from his eyes.   

Severus hated who he became at Voldemort’s feet, but kept going back to become that person again and again because it was asked of him.  

The startling reality of it all was that there were no heroes.  James Potter had been the toast of Hogwarts, he and his smarmy friends who were nothing more than bullies.  Everyone referred to Potter as a hero, winning the quidditch cup and marrying Lily, and probably saving kittens from drowning or doing a variety of other, so-called righteous deeds.   But Potter had died at the wand of Voldemort and that had been it.  

Misplaced heroics only got a man so far, and Severus thought himself lucky to be devoid of any such aspirations.  

If there were no heroes, then there were also no villains, no creatures of evil so putridly pure.  When Severus looked out on the battlefield, he saw only fallible men and women who had made wrong choices, had not been able to keep their wits about them when it mattered.  They died because they were not fast enough and what side they fought for hardly seemed to be of importance.  Whether or not there were words of repentance on their lips, the testimony of the dead went unspoken. 

Darkness was so greedy it did not discriminate between those who sought redemption and those who did not.  Neither did Severus.  He merely took aim and attempted to repay his debt to Albus and the countless other horrorstricken faces that ghosted back to him in dreams.

Mostly, he tried not to examine too closely the killings he now committed.  He counted himself among those whom many would say should die, but how could anyone make that judgment without having tread in the path of the one on trial?  Now, though, he was being asked to condemn other men because they were weak and imperfect, not unlike himself.  The cruel irony of it was not lost on Severus.  He welcomed the dichotomy with an assessing inward glance and a smirk.  

Of course he would be asked to do this, too.  And at wand point, no less, without even the requisite moment of humanity during which he would be allowed to ask, does this man deserve to die?  

Most horrifying was the way in which he could answer his own question without hesitation: yes.  For though Severus had been spared, and though he wished others could be as well, it was his duty now to kill them in payment for the deliverance he had been afforded.  Each life he took, he reclaimed a sliver of his own.  Each life he took, he crept a little closer to the light.  

So he made himself want to kill them, to keep from seeing familiar faces and accusing glares just before the life in their eyes flickered and vanished.  He would not use the Unforgivables, the soft underbelly of his weakness, but he would use whatever other combinations of spells and curses he could.  He would sink his teeth into the enemy’s jugular, if need be, and in a sense, into his own.  
Still, redemption seemed a long way off.  



-- Assault --

Chaos.  Which direction?  There, right in front of her.  Point your wand and say the first spell that comes to mind, they said.  What if nothing comes to mind?  What if she had already used up all of her stores of spells and courage?   Coils of panic.  Gut-clenching fear.  

A blast of red light, brilliant in its intensity.  The glowing jet shot toward her like lightning, then seemed to freeze for a moment in midstream.  

I should have told my mum that I was the one who stole her favorite lipstick the summer I was fourteen.  

Lavender Brown had left the inner sanctum of Hogwarts knowing full well that she was taking her life into her hands.  She had gone with Seamus and Dean who had decided that they were worth more dead than alive and cowering in a corner.  If they were hit with a killing curse, at least the chances were good that they could inflict some damage of their own before a Death Eater took aim and said the requisite incantations.  At least shielding spells were the one thing they had been drilled on, over and over again, in this year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class.  

Hermione Granger says I could be sensible if I wanted.  Maybe I believe her.   

But in order to conjure a shield, one needs to sacrifice the counter-offensive.  The glimmer and faint blue sheen that should have surrounded Lavender never appeared.  Funny how, in a classroom, a spell can be so easy to cast, so simple to mutter and swish and flick.  Funny how, in the middle of a once green field with hexes whooshing past her ears in blasts of energy, a spell can fail.   

I should have paid more attention when my professors were talking.  I have a feeling they were preparing me for this all along.  

When a brick falls from a high building and hurtles toward a person on the sidewalk below, that person’s instincts more often than not tell him to dodge out of the way.  Barring that, the person may duck low to the ground and throw their arms up round their head for protection.  At that point, there is nothing they can do to block the impact.  There is only the semblance of shielding.  

I wish I’d been kinder to Colin Creevy when he asked me to Hogsmeade last year.  

When a brick falls from a building, it moves slower than the electric current of a wand that zaps spelled energy through the air with lethal intent.  

I wish I wasn’t the girl all the blokes in Gryffindor stare at because I never really learned how to be modest.  

I love my dad, he makes the best chocolate berry tarts.

There is an empty classroom on the fourth floor where Seamus and I were too impatient to wait any longer.  I wish he’d been my only and not just my first.  I wish I were there right now.  

 Shouldn’t Professor Trelawny have seen this coming?  

Oh --       

A blast of red light, brilliant in its intensity.  The glowing jet shot toward her like lightning and connected with her chest, smack over her heart.  Rapid thoughts, random images stored up from thousands of moments, millions of seconds, the eons of Lavender Brown’s life flashed through her mind
She crumpled to the turf without a shred of grace, only a muffled thud.

It was practically instantaneous.    



-- Endurance --

Just a little longer, another mile or so and they would be able to shove open the trap door to breathe the sweet smell of freedom.  Or, almost-freedom because then, at least, they would be safely tucked inside the walls of Hogwarts until the battle was over or the castle taken, whichever came first.  Beside him, Hermione ran with a desperate look in her eyes, fear clearly painted on her face for him to read.  She knew they could die here, in the underground tunnel that ran from the basement of Honeydukes to the Hunchbacked Witch in Hogwarts.  If they did, he reckoned no one would find them until months or even years later, after all the other carnage had been cleaned up, until they were nothing more than dust.  

Ron didn’t want to be dust.  He wanted to be in the meadow behind The Burrow, or on the quidditch pitch, or giving Ginny a bad time about Dean Thomas, or sneaking out with Harry, or anything other than this.  Certainly, he wasn’t enough of a spell-caster, a hero, or even very brave.  The last, especially, because what guts Ron possessed stemmed from the feelings that curdled in his middle when thrust in a situation that demanded daring.  He was bloody well awful at being brave the rest of the time.  

Of course, now that he was running for his life, and Hermione’s, and the dozen or so tiny lives whose footsteps echoed with their own, Ron hoped his Gryffindor courage would kick in to save them.  All they really had was his stupid brute strength and Hermione’s brains, which had come up with this plan to make a run for it.  

They’d been in Hogsmeade at the Three Broomsticks when dementors came swooping from the sky, rattling and casting the world into bleak blackness.  Death Eaters began apparating after that, the air cracking continuously as one right after another materialized in the streets.  For several terrible moments, Ron and Hermione sat immobile on their chairs.  When the first screams of anguish rang out, his heart stopped in his chest as the marrow of his bones iced over and froze.  

They moved as one, rising and quickly drawing their wands.  She’d looked even wilder then than she did now, and he knew he must’ve been white as a sheet.  Ron had grasped Hermione firmly by the arm before dragging her through the backroom and out into the alley behind the pub.  Somehow, her hand became tangled in his as they stared up at the mouth of the alleyway, which framed a young witch sprinting past with a boy clutched in her arms.  

They watched as a blast of feral green light collided with her back.  Like a rag doll, she collapsed on the road without a sound.  

Suddenly, Hermione was running toward the street, hair streaming behind her and arms pumping furiously.  His mouth gaped while he pursued her, hands struggling to gain purchase on her robe.  

Is she mad?  She’s going to get us both killed!  

He hauled backward with all his strength, pulling her against his chest before locking his arms around her waist.  She turned like a wildcat in his grip.  

Ron, the boy!  He’s trapped under her body!  He’ll die!

Her eyes pled with him, so he pushed her up alongside the wall and issued a harsh command that she stay still, don’t move, as he ran into the main thoroughfare of Hogsmeade to kneel down beside the fallen woman.  

He didn’t even have to lift her corpse as a small pair of hands reached out for him from beneath her voluminous robes.  The child, no more than two years of age, stared trustingly into Ron’s face.  Without a second thought, he scooped the boy into his arms, barely avoiding a ricocheted curse, and blindly held out a hand for Hermione.  He felt her palm slide into his as she gasped -Honeydukes!- in his ear.  They ran toward the other shops, hunching close to the wall.   

The child’s arms clamped around Ron’s neck, nearly suffocating him as he shifted the boy’s weight to one hand while grasping his wand with the other.  The wizards and witches who lived in Hogsmeade or operated businesses ran screaming in terror, some fighting back and some practically laying down before the Death Eaters, surrendering their souls without a struggle.  

Ron wondered, now that he was in the passage, how he and Hermione had managed to make it inside Honeydukes without being confronted by one of Voldemort’s frightening multitude.  After barring the door behind them, they’d rushed straight into the basement where the entrance to the passage was secreted in the floorboards.  Once there, they found more than sugar and sweets…

…they also found children.

At least a dozen; when the panic had begun the tiny wizards and witches, and some too young to be either, had instinctually fled to the cellar, effectively trapping themselves for the Death Eaters to find.  Round eyes, pale faces, and quavering bodies sat beneath the lowest shelves of candy.  Only one girl, with a fiercely protective frown and thick black hair with a texture that reminded Ron of Hermione’s, stood with her wand drawn and pointed at their hearts.  Hermione appealed to the girl in a calming, gentle voice.   

We’re not here to hurt you.  There is a way out, all you have to do is trust us.  

The floorboards were easily lifted, revealing a dank tunnel, roughly hewn from soil and compressed rock.  A musty, rotten smell rose from its depths, but Ron didn’t care and neither did any of the others.

For once in her life, Hermione didn’t argue when Ron told her to climb down into the passageway first, she just lifted her robes and jumped.  He could not think of a moment when he’d loved her more.  Carefully, he pried the boy’s arms from around his neck, then passed him into Hermione’s waiting hands.  

One right after another, Ron lowered the children into the darkness.  They did not utter so much as a squeak, for which he was thankful.  Especially when a resounding crash registered from above.

Loud footsteps.  Three more children.  Search the store!

One child lowered down, down, down.  A crash, the sound of glass breaking as hundreds of jars of sweets were overturned onto the floor.  

Two more children, then one as Ron held a boy by his wrists before letting him through the gap in the boards.  Nothing here, no one to kill.  

The last child, a waif of a girl with china blue eyes and tiny pinked lips.  Search the basement!  

Then there was nothing left but Hermione’s beautiful, dirt streaked face, staring up at him in silent entreaty.  Ron braced his hands on either side of the passage before hoisting himself into it.  He lowered the hatch just as the first loud footfalls sounded on the wooden stairs leading into the storeroom.

Subterranean, now, Hermione led the children down the tunnel while Ron brought up the rear carrying the boy they’d rescued in the street.  They could have made better time if there weren’t a dozen or so small bodies clinging to his and Hermione’s hands, twisting dirty fingers in their robes, stumbling and still shaking in fear.  But the children persisted, moving as fast as they could carry themselves.  

Though he didn’t say so, Ron thought it was only a matter of time before the Death Eaters found their escape route.  Whether or not they would follow the passage to its end remained to be seen - until then, the group of survivors would continue running.  

The little waif slipped and fell on the slick cobbles that paved the tunnel.  Her palms were skinned, so he heaved her to her feet and kept a hand on her back as they sprinted.  Finally, the passage made a sharp turn to the left and a portal loomed in front of them.  

It was all the encouragement the ragged group needed and the children put on a sudden burst of speed.  Hermione reached the entrance first, skidding to a stop.  He reached the end of the tunnel on her heels and stretched up above their heads to throw open the grate that emptied into the hallway in Hogwarts via a statue.  Quickly, he began hoisting children to the opening, while Hermione comforted those who waited.  

When the last little boy was taken from his arms, he turned to Hermione.  Her eyes were wide, fear still etched in her face, and yet there was something else there underneath it all.  

He searched for the words he felt were needed to fill the space between them before they were swept up in the rush to find Dumbledore in order to let him know about the massive attack on Hogsmeade.  The passageway would need to be sealed and the likelihood of a battle raging at Hogwarts was a reality they both knew was probable.

Ron opened his mouth to say the first thing that would tumble off his lips when Hermione grasped his ears and brought his head down to hers.  She pressed her warm lips firmly against Ron’s for what felt like an eternity.  His eyes stayed closed even after he felt their mouths separate.  When he opened them, she was looking at him with somber admiration in her eyes.  

I’m in love with you, he said honestly.  Her face softened and slowly, she smiled.  

Funny, how he’d wanted to tell her for the longest time, how he’d waited years and maybe lifetimes.  Now, on what was probably the eve of his death, he’d finally stepped off the precipice and fallen into Hermione.  She seemed to already understand the swirling thoughts in his head that he still couldn’t give voice to, so all that was left for her to do was raise her arms to be lifted up.

Ron put his large hands on her waist to give her a boost and she disappeared through the hatch in the blink of an eye.  He gripped the ledge above him and knew that when his feet were planted on the flagstones of the hallway, they would find Dumbledore if they could, then seek Harry to fulfill their duty.  If, in the morning, he found himself alive, he planned to start making up for all the time he’d been tongue-tied, scared, and in love.  

Just a little longer, through the night and the darkness before dawn.  



-- Surfacing --

There was nothing left of the grounds outside Hogwarts.  The once vast lawns were churned up into a muddy field that was half blood and all sorrow.  The ground was littered with the bodies of the dead, lifeless and lacerated forms that bore hex marks and manifestations of curses, the worst of which were the victims of the Unforgivables, who lay stiff and pained looking.  

Trees throughout the Forbidden Forest and most of those that adorned the campus were uprooted, laying on their sides like dead things, roots exposed and foliage completely wilted.  Giants had done this, whether at the behest of Voldemort or according to their own devices.  Those who had seen the thick, calloused hands of the monstrous folk wrap around the bases of the trees and pull, as if ripping up a thing so large were nothing, would be hard pressed to forget.  Despite such formidable members of the Dark Lord’s horde, the walls of Hogwarts had remained relatively intact, their mortar strained and visibly weakened in areas, but still standing.  Eventually, the strength of the stone would give out, leveling the school’s last line of defense.  Until then, there were more important matters to attend.  
Ginny Weasley surveyed the devastation from the steps that led to the pair of heavy oak doors that opened from the inner courtyard of Hogwarts to the outside.  The sanctum had not been breached, which seemed a miracle given the size of the Dark Army.  As her eyes roamed, Ginny knew she should feel something, but had no idea what.  Nothing penetrated her haze of exhaustion, save an odd numbness that filled her weakened limbs, mind, and heart.  There was only the dull ache pressing in her chest to remind her that she was capable of emotion at all.  She didn’t know whether her friends and family had lived or died and that, she thought, was the most awful part.  

For now, though, all that was left was to weed through the wreckage and wait.  Both options were equally evil taskmasters, the first demanding that one pick though the bodies in order to find survivors and gather dead for burial.  A list of the lost would have to be compiled and circulated before anyone could know anything for certain.  

The second meant that Ginny had no choice but to wait for her loved ones to find her, wait to uncover their corpses on the battlefield, or wait to receive word from the other places that had been attacked.  The war had been won so she knew Harry must be alive, but the rest was all shadows and questions.   Covered in the vestiges of battle and facing the aftermath of warfare, Ginny found she wanted nothing but answers and proof that it was really, truly over.  

Unfortunately, she had neither.  

Others were starting to trickle onto the field including what few medi-wizards and Aurors had managed to survive the Ministry siege and make it to Hogwarts.  A familiar head bobbed among them.

“Neville!” she cried, and urged her tired body into faster, fumbling gait.  

He lifted his head and spread his arms to catch her as she flew at his chest.  Neville gathered her close to him for a time, bowing his head to nose her hair and breathe deeply.  When she pulled away, the tears in his eyes mirrored his own.  She was so very glad to find him alive and for all appearances, unscathed.

“You made it,” he said quietly.  It seemed wrong, somehow, to speak in anything louder than a whisper because peace had descended at last.

“And you,” Ginny acknowledged.  “Have you heard…” she trailed off, unable to ask.

Neville shifted his weight and looked into the distance, rubbing the back of his neck with a dirty hand.  His palms were stained red and yellow and brown, which Ginny stared at until he found a way to say what he knew.

“Dean Thomas is dead.  I saw him first thing in the infirmary.  Both of the Creevy brothers, but only Dennis managed to pull through.  Hannah Abbott, Padma Patil, and Terry Boot, as well.”

“Dead?”  Ginny found she needed confirmation, even with clear evidence of the carnage at her feet.  

He nodded affirmatively, eyes boring into her own.  “Do you know what happened?  About Harry, I mean.”

“No word, yet.  He went chasing after Voldemort and then disappeared.  He’s alive though, I can feel it.”

“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

There wasn’t much to say after that, so they worked alongside one another, searching for signs of life and levitating bodies into neat rows.  Initially, Ginny's stomach turned, turbulent from the wasteland of bits of severed flesh and bone that were no longer connected to their owners, frayed tendons evidencing their loss.  Eventually, witches and wizards who were able would make their way to Hogwarts to help clear the devastation and pay their respects, but for now the job rested with those who had been spared.  So Ginny swallowed the bile that rose in her throat; it burned all the way back down to her stomach.  

She felt as though she were walking underwater, sounds faint and indecipherable by ears that were too used to the clash of wands and screams of surrender, vision blurred by the bloodshed.  Her movements were slow and awkward, impeded by fatigue but sustained by necessity.  Neville paused once to push her hair back from her forehead in order to wipe the skin there with a bit of cloth torn from his undershirt.  The fabric was not clean to begin with, but it came away far dirtier, stained with half-clotted blood and filth.

They did not rest, except when Ginny uncovered the body of Seamus Finnegan, wholly unharmed except for the blackened spot on his robes where he'd been hit squarely in the chest with a killing curse.  His eyes stared unnervingly into the grey sky.  Neville prised his fist apart and found a St. Cristopher's medallion that had left an imprint on Seamus' skin.  The symbol of protection.  

Just then, three lone figures appeared in silhouette on the horizon, one in the middle supported by the other two.  From where she knelt over Seamus' body, Ginny grabbed Neville’s sleeve to get his attention.  He followed her gaze and his eyes widened.  Neither of them breathed for many moments, simply stood there staring in disbelief.  

Then they simultaneously took off at a run, charging toward the figures with every last ounce of energy they possessed.

When Ginny launched herself into the arms of the red-haired man to the left of the middle, she felt the underwater feeling recede, a little, as she surfaced at last.  

FIN



A/N:  Warfare is an ugly thing, but I sincerely hope that I succeeded in portraying the element of humanity as it is often sacrificed, as well as the inevitable physical results of conflict.  My goal here was not to create a continuous timeline of events, but rather to offer frames of consciousness from the perspectives of several different individuals as they each dealt with the same event in different capacities and locations.  Though it is not written in the style that is typically canon, I do hope that it will prove an interesting, if not enjoyable, work of fiction.  I must acknowledge Rudhampiel for providing the inspiration for this story via a fic in which Penelope confronts warfare as a field-based healer.  Thank you for reading!  Your comments and reviews are appreciated.