Duels and Dances

Chapter 1

The sky is an angry, desolate grey. The clouds overhead block all attempts of the sun's sympathy, casting dark shadows across the grounds instead. If Death were a color, this would be it.

The courtyard is brimming with Death Eaters.

Even though they'd been preparing for this day for months, nothing could have actually prepared Hermione for the horror that she is currently witnessing.

Hermione scans the field of underaged wizards and foul creatures, her eyes hoping to land on his pale form. Quick flashes of red, blue, and green scatter across the landscape in front of her.

The green makes her stomach churn.

Lord Voldemort was kind enough to also recruit a plethora of dangerous magical creatures like werewolves, hags, and trolls to his ranks - making their own army, composed largely of underaged wizards and misfit allies, look rather pathetic. They were nearly outnumbered.

As Hermione looks across the field, her eyes land on a werewolf towering over Colin Creevey, who appears wandless. Colin is prone against the scorched earth, his arms braced in front of his face, his mouth contorted in a horrified expression. She only has a brief moment to panic before the werewolf pins Colin to the ground, ripping out his esophagus in one quick motion.

Hermione lets out a gutteral scream as she starts toward Colin's mutilated body. Her stomach heaves as she doubles over, gagging, her hands grasping her knees.

She hears him calling her name somewhere to her left, and she turns to face him.

Briefly caught off guard, Hermione is thrown high into the air, before landing hard atop a mound of stone debris. A sharp crack resounds in her ears. Even without having studied every book in the Hogwarts library, she'd have recognized the sound of her spine being crushed.

The breath is knocked out of her and she gasps. Her vision goes red as she cries out in agony, clenching her teeth as her body spasms in pain.

Hermione forces herself to breathe. She's studied enough medical cases to know that the splintering of the vertebrae affects the nerves in the surrounding tissue, intensifying the pain. Her vision goes red as she drags in oxygen. She takes note of the fact that her limbs have gone numb.

Hermione knows she's paralyzed before she lets herself admit it. The ugly, grey sky that she's now forced to stare at taunts her. The Dark Mark leers at her from above, a mockery of her incompetence.

You have to get to him. The mantra repeats itself in her head. You have to take care of him.

You have to kill him.

Her heart pumping blood, thundering in her ears, is the only mirage of bodily sense that remains. In stubborn disregard to her condition, Hermione grits her teeth and tries to will the strength to sit up. To grab her wand beside her. To do something.

Before she's given the chance, a searing, white hot pain tears through her mind, severing neurons and shredding its way through her brain matter.

~~~~~~~~

Hermione awakes to the sound of her own screams.

Her nerves are on fire, feeling as if they were flayed open and dipped in acid. She feels the tears streaming down her face before she even opens her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Miss Granger, but this is necessary. You're lucky to be alive," Madam Pomfrey coaxes in a strained tone.

The smell of the infirmary alone is enough to make her nauseous. It feels too clean. The air too dry.