The Hunter And The Haunted

Part 3

Hogsmeade.

She remembered walking through its beautiful winding streets with Harry and Ron. She winced at the memories.

Honeydukes, The Three Broomsticks, Zonkos's Joke Shop.

She could wander these streets with her eyes closed.

And it would take her back...

...To butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks.

Eavesdropping with Harry and Ron on Cornelius Fudge, McGonagall and a few others to only find out Sirius Black betrayed James Potter.

She had never seen Harry as angry as he was that day.

To find out that his father had been lead to his grave by his closest friend.

Harry had vowed to kill Sirius Black.

And yet... Sirius Black had turned out to be innocent.

And had loved Harry like a father would.

His death broke Harry in a way he never recovered.

An alighted matchstick dropped in a barrel of gunpowder.

She should have known. She should have realized.

He tried to use the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange.

But Bella had survived.

She dragged her aching feet through the once beautiful streets that seem haunted by the ghosts of war. Every other building was a pile of rubble, some a few at a stretch. She stifled a sob as she saw the remains of the post office. The memory of seeing the lines of waiting owls for the first time as a thirteen-year-old burned at the back of her mind.

The now twenty-two-year-old begged herself to forget.

Those dark days were easier times. When all they had to worry was about a so-called mass murderer hunting Harry and a Dark Lord returning.

But even as she pushed on, her head hanging low, her heart broke for herself and her friends. For the children, mere children, they were and the children they should have been.

Instead, they had darkness upon darkness thrust onto them.

Even if she could find a time turner strong enough, she wouldn't dare go back to those days, however easier they were to her present.

What had she said back then? Oh yes.

"...There are more important things - friendship and bravery."

No, sweet delusional child. She could scream at her younger self. The most important thing in life is peace and safety. Which you never had. Not truly. For even as you slept in your warm, comfortable dorms, you were but pawns in a game of chess that the adults played.

A game of chess between the Dark Lord and Albus Dumbledore.

Neither of them had survived the game themselves.

And yet the game of death had been inherited.

New players, the same game.

And it still played on.

Getting bloodier as the years passed.

Each side was fuelled by death, pain, madness and a desire to control.

The world was burning.

It didn't matter who won anymore. Not to her anyway.

She trudged on through the once-picturesque village that was a shadow of its former self. Heading to the one place she knew she would not immediately be discovered by the assailants she had just escaped from. From the new occupants of Hogwarts.

Familiar faces, unfamiliar souls.

Hearts so black that a thick fog of darkness now laid across the courtyard of Hogwarts like a blanket of wraiths, waiting to swallow yet another unfortunate soul.

She pushed open the creaky door to Hog's head, marvelling at its survival in the face of destruction and marvelling some more at the fact that it was not as dirty as it used to be. No, it was more than dirt now. It was as though Aberforth had decided to paint every inch of floor, table, and cutlery in a shade of mottled black. Except Hermione knew that it was filth, not paint, that smothered the rickety inn.

Its patrons, an odd combination of bedraggled inhabitants of a world so broken, with their hoods drawn over their heads to preserve their anonymity, barely looked up at the witch as she pulled herself to the moth-eaten cushion of the bar stool where a frail, old man straightened slightly and went on cleaning the filthy mugs on his table. The only bit of acknowledgement of her presence.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

Aberforth knew who she was. She had come to his aid many times over the years. And yet, in her time of need, he was pretending not to know her.

"Wand," She hissed, over the counter as he passed, "I require a wand."

Aberforth's eyes swept to her in a moment of weakness and he looked away immediately, horrified.

But Hermione caught the look.

Beaten and bruised, but she would not back down.

"A wand, Aberforth," She repeated, her voice more affirmative; threatening even.

"I require a wand."