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The plan is simple, really. They'll hide against the wall the door is on, and when somebody comes to investigate, they'll ambush him. There are magical enforcements around the cellar but when the door is opened, they're broken for just a second. And a second is all Arielle Laurent needs to apparate Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas, Ollivander, and Griphook out, and for Sage, Ron, and Harry to disarm whoever is unlucky enough to be in the basement with them. They'll take the person's wand, Harry will use it while Ron grabs Hermione and Sage... she doesn't really have a job. It's mostly just 'look scary, act freaky', which she's always been good at. Then they'll make their escape, and it'll all be peachy.
Except, things never go to plan when Harry Potter is involved. The person who dashes down into the basement closes the door very quickly behind them, quicker than Arielle needed to react, and they all look at each other in the dim light with horror-filled eyes. Their carefully thought-out plan goes down the toilet.
"Everybody against the walls," Harry hisses at them. Sage, her mind still not totally connected with her body, is the last to react, and she's left standing in the middle of the cellar by herself with everybody else pressed into the shadows at the perimeter of the room.
"Er, hi," she says to the man before her. Well, he barely counts as a man. He spent thirteen years living as a rat.
"Get back, Morrigan," he hisses at her, brandishing a wand in his silver grip. Sage glances at Arielle, glances at Dean, glances at Ron and Harry... then she hears a scream from upstairs. A very, very familiar scream. "I said get back!"
Sage sighs, taking one long stride forwards so that she's face-to-face with Wormtail. "Like, no?"
She grips the soft skin between his shoulder and his neck, squeezes it hard and watches the skin ripple and blacken in her grip. The inky decay of her fingertips spreads through his body, hardening his sour expression into one that will last an eternity, his limbs crumpling inward like a spider might as it takes it's last breaths.
Wormtail drops dead onto the floor, and Sage feels a horrible, wicked rush of euphoria flooding through her body.
"Uh," says Arielle from his spot against the wall, and Sage can barely wipe the devil's smile from her chapped lips. "That was..."
"Freaky?" Sage asks him. Her eyes are burning and something in her stomach is churning wildly; she isn't sure if she wants to scream or cry or throw up or dance the Macarena. Then she hears another scream, and her smile is wiped clean. "Hermione," she says, and the boys understand. It's not hard for Harry to break Wormtail's icy fingers away from the wand in his hand, and even less effort for Sage to charge up the stairs and down the corridor, into the ballroom where she finds a scene she couldn't have imagined in her worst nightmares.
There's blood. So, so much blood. Sage won't admit it to anybody but she feels her teeth sharpen in her mouth at the sight of it, digs her fingernails deep into her decaying palms to stop the feeling. Bellatrix has Hermione pinned to the floor, crouched over her like a cat that's caught it's prey. Sage screams something at the woman in a language even she doesn't recognise, her voice two pitches at once as she barrels towards them and lands a swift kick into Bellatrix's jaw. Hermione lies on the rug before the fire, unmoving except for a twitch in her fingers.
Action ensues around them, but Sage couldn't give any less of a shit. All that matters is the girl before her, withering on the carpet, her skin glowing something beautiful and sickly in the dying firelight.
"Hey," says Sage, kneeling low beside Hermione. "Um, I don't know how to fix you."
Hermione wheezes half of a laugh. It takes her a moment and a few gulps of air to get out, "Yeah. There's probably something in my bag? Just accio it."
"I don't really do magic like that anymore," Sage whispers. She lets her body fall so that she's lying beside the other girl, one hand cradling her cheek and the other drawing runes into the carpet with Hermione's blood. "I do... weird magic. It just comes to me."
"Oh," echoes Hermione. Sage closes her eyes and clutches at Hermione's face, images flashing under the pink of her eyelids. The dying girl stares at Sage, watching her eyes dart around and her blackened fingers inking out a strange language. Harry is shouting something from faraway, Hermione feels a set of hands grab around her waist and lift her from the floor, away from Sage's grip and away from the pool of her own blood on the carpet.
Sage's eyes shoot open, entirely black and full of menace. She bares her teeth, uses a knife she finds lying on the carpet to gash open her palm, and grinds it into Hermione's ichor. The other girl immediately gasps, her body on fire and freezing cold at the same time, and her eyes manage to flutter open once more in time to see Sage sprinting towards them, covered in blood that isn't her own, reaching out one gory hand towards them just as the world turns black.
-
It's a cottage by the seaside. It's full of little glass trinkets and seashells and white-painted walls and sandy floors. Sage doesn't feel entirely at home here, but it's sure as hell better than taking a kip in her own grave.
The days pass slowly. Hermione is well, but tired. Sage doesn't really know what she did to the girl, but she doesn't half care. All that matters is that they're alive, they're safe, and they're together.
Which is really how they're spending their time. Nobody disturbs the two girls as they walk, hand-in-hand, along the length of the beach one way and the other, sit in the rolling dunes surrounding them, Hermione reading books to Sage before the fireplace with their feet entwined and Sage teaching Conner the raven to do tricks to make Hermione laugh.
Arielle observes. He knows, of course, what his daughter feels for the girl. It's hard not to feel the adoration radiating off of the pair of them, gazing into each other's eyes like a pair of lovesick songbirds. He hears Sage, who had never quite mastered the art of being quiet, sneaking into Hermione's bedroom after the last light is extinguished. He sees Hermione transfiguring oranges into peaches to give to Sage with her breakfast.
And when he walks into the living room and catches them locked at the lips... well, that's when it really boils over.
"Uh," he says, and Sage springs halfway across the room.
"Dad!" she exclaims, dashing towards him with open arms. Her cheeks are flushed deep ruby, and Hermione hides her face behind a couch cushion. "I-- it isn't-- me and 'Mione--"
"Sophia," Arielle says slowly, choosing his words carefully for his daughter. "It's... chill. Totally chill. Date who you want. Hermione's cool, and, like, I honestly wouldn't rather catch you making out with anybody else. Honestly, I totally had my money on you and Dean."
Sage stares at him blankly, and it's Hermione's muffled giggle that snaps her out of it. Sage turns a mad glare on the girl. "It's just funny," Hermione laughs, wrapping her arms around herself. "I'm not the most people-smart person out there, but even I could tell from a mile away that you're a raging lesbian."
Arielle snorts, which makes Sage blush even more, but Hermione's tinkling giggle makes it all worth it. Sage launches herself back onto the couch, crushes Hermione into a hug, and they stare up at Arielle with beaming smiles.
Whatever happens next, whatever the world will throw at them... right now, it doesn't matter.
Tomorrow, they'll be thrown violently back into the war they've been running from their whole lives. They'll lost ones they love, they'll fight until the bitter end. It will be hard. It won't be pretty. It will change them forever.
But today, it isn't that. Today, it's just Hermione and Sage, their undying love, and this little cottage by the seaside.
✨
a/n: if you've stuck around this long, thank you. i know it's been a fkn slog with this book, and i know the ending isn't as satisfying or thought out as it should be, but it's as much as i can make myself cobble together. the next chapter will most likely be the last, and i'm grateful from the bottom of my heart for everybody that has read my stupid little lesbian love story right through to it's end. i love you all <333
