The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Forty-Seven

Day: 1568; Hour: 3

Coldness. A sharp impact, then a heavy weight to her gut. Hermione opens her eyes as the oxygen shoots out of her lungs, seeing a crooked mask over wide eyes staring out in front of them, before the Death Eater pushes themselves up and over her. A green light hits them in the back of the skull, and they fall before a figure darts through the smoke, stomping on her hand before disappearing.

Hermione yanks her hand to her chest with a squeak, her muscles stiff. She fists her hand, staring up at a dark sky and swirls of smoke. The screaming all around her is slow to filter in, and she's about to turn her head when someone trips over her again. There's only a dark cloak, no sign of either side, before they are rushing on.

They think she's dead.

Her breath tumbles into her lungs, and she clenches her other hand, finding the length of her wand still there. She had been running, and then...and then... She could have been dead. Would that have been it? Just...nothing at all. One moment wild with life, and the next another corpse on the ground, lost in the smoke.

Her inhale is sharper this time, and the mud is thick under her as she digs her elbow back. The fight. Draco, Harry, Ron, her friends, Sam, Toad, Lupin, all of them, out there, somewhere. And Death Eaters. Thousands of them, it feels like, and the heat of flames, the rotten stench, the tingling of magic along her skin, the metallic taste at the back of her tongue.

She rolls her head, looking to all sides of her, and then scrambles to her feet in slips, a grunt, and a hard grip to her wand.

Day: 1568; Hour: 4

"I don't get it," Toad wheezes, wiping his mouth, only to start gagging again when Sam vomits on his trainers.

Yellow and thin. Stomach bile, and Hermione feels the burning scratchiness in her chest and throat at the memory of it. Sam's hands are red and shaking, and he doesn't seem to notice how he smears it all over his face below the wrinkled lines of his brow, swiping at a wetness that feels more damaging. The tears might be for this moment or the force of his gagging, but they all pretend it's the latter or it was never there at all.

"Fu-- Do Aurors go through any training anymore?" Draco sneers, jumping back from the spray.

Toad closes his eyes, breathes, and shakes his head. Shakes it like it could dislodge the memory from his head. The Auror on the ground, half his face blown away and his legs severed. But there is no getting rid of that -- not without the use of strong magic.

"I don't get how there are only three Curses that are considered Unforgivable." Toad shakes his head again, wiping his face, trying to breathe.

"Just don't look at it." Harry's tone is low and even, before he grabs the back of her shirt and yanks her toward him.

Sam grabs Harry at the same time, pulling him back, and the force causes all three of them to stumble and trip to the ground. Draco dodges the spells aimed at them, Toad's shirt ripping as Draco pulls him faster, and the five of them send out their counter-attacks at the same time.

"I have to break." Draco doesn't flinch when she swings her wand toward him, casting over his shoulder.

"My neck?" Toad coughs, rubbing where the collar had dug into his skin.

"Where?" Hermione glances at the blond, his eyes trained on the sky.

"The graves." She catches the very annoyed look on Draco's face, and follows his eye line to the hesitant understanding on Harry's. "There's a tunnel there, Potter. I have orders."

"We'll go with you."

"I'll go alone."

"We'll bring you there," Harry corrects, and Draco scowls.