The Secret Heir {Dramoine}

Prologue

There's an old muggle saying that refers to killing people with kindness. In theory, it was simple to understand. Given the state of the war, killing people was a kindness. To Hermione, it was a sign of compassion, good faith if you believed in that sort of thing.

The first few years were difficult. The loss of so many innocent people, the bloodshed, the carnage. They were losing people in rapid numbers, first, it was Harry in the battle at Hogwarts. That one hurt the most, she must admit.

Then a few months later there was a raid on one of the order's safehouses for magical creatures in Birmingham. By the time they were alerted, and by the time they had arrived, it was an absolute massacre. The building was torn to shreds, no one could see the ground, it was so steeped in blood and chunks of beautiful magical flesh. The safehouse was supervised by Hagrid who lived among the creatures, he trained them, bred them, and guarded them with his entire being. Right down to his very bitter end.

It was there Hermione realized, that there are fates so much worse than death. Hagrid suffered a fate like no other. When they discovered his body in the stables, it was one of the most horrendous things she had ever witnessed, at the time. They mutilated him, tied him up to a wooden post just above the Thestrals' stables, and they crucified him. His hands were pinned down by dragon horns, his legs blown right off, his skin flayed from his chest like someone took a razor blade and hacked it away. Hermione could only hope that he died quickly, the image of him still haunts her every day.

That was when the carnage really started. For every person the order killed, the death eaters killed ten.

They were fast, skilled, and under the new command of the Reaper, they were absolutely fucking ruthless. He was like no other person she had ever seen in her life. He was a beast on the field, casting curses and hexes enough to kill twenty people at once. He was effortless, and relentless, as if the dark magic he was casting was nothing more than a daily chore.

She had gotten used to him on the field, she observed his skills, even attempting to mimic some herself when she was given the chance. He was a dark knight in the field of death eaters, commanding, and directing, even the death eaters themselves feared him. She could see it in the way they cowered away from him, in the way they refused to meet his eyes. He wore a mask that covered his entire face, it was black steel, it was engraved with designs etched in flecks of gold. His mask differed from the rest of them, even his gear was more that of an elite.

Then one day on the battlefield, Hermione had been fighting off a pair of Acromantulas when she heard the sky crackle so loudly, that she thought the earth was splitting in two.

It was when Bellatrix's Warcry echoed across the field that Hermoine finally turned around. Just at the edge of the forest came the reaper, and any other time she would have continued on but her interest peaked when she noticed two tall soldiers on either side of him, wands in hand as they sauntered out of the forest line.

Her heart sank into her stomach when she realized they were wearing the same masks as him. They wore similar uniforms to the reaper, ones that differed from the rest of the army.

Ones that screamed royalty.

And then it happened. It happened so fast that she barely had enough time to register what happened before they were forced to retreat. The one on the left of the reaper caught eyes with Neville, poor Neville who had been standing in the right place at the wrong time.

The death eater tapped the reaper on the shoulder as if asking for permission and his commanding officer gave him a subtle nod. Then green sparks began to crackle at his fingertips, it started slow at first. The death eater's fingertips began to crumble before him, and then his legs, and then he was suddenly a cloud of black smoke and ash, and he came hurtling towards Neville with a speed, unlike anything she had ever seen.