Her Gryffindor moment

(reply to the chapter 85 of The Missing Moments by Ash-and-Vine)

Hermione's feet hit the frozen ground and she immediately stumbled and fell hard onto the snow of the hillside in Wales, the first place that had entered her mind as she leapt into the night air. Harry thumped down beside her. Her body ached in protest but she sat up quickly as she felt Harry thrash to her left.

Harry’s body convulsed in violent spasms, beating with limbs and head to the frozen ground. Harry was trained player of Quidditch much stronger than Hermione, so keeping him down and preventing him from hurting himself took all her effort. She had to kneel on top of his body and still even using her body as a weight she was soon sweating from the effort to keep Harry’s body firmly pressed to the ground.

Her mind was similarly convulsing in fear. What if Voldemort knows how to follow somebody Apparating? What if some Snatchers can hear noise of Harry’s seizures? Worries completely filled her soul. One hand still pushing Harry to the ground she pulled with the other hand her wand from her robes and held it in mouth. Then in short pauses between individual convulsions she threw around them all her usual protective charms. Just when she cast “Muffliato” around them, Harry started to shout out loud incomprehensible shrieks. Sometimes in the middle of terrified shriek, he started to laugh maniacally, and then again switched to something incomprehensible. Sometimes in the middle of shrieking even a comprehensible sentence emerged:

“KILL HARRY POTTER!”

Then in the fury of sneak hissing she heard hopeless crying “Master, forgive me!”.

Then again the shrieks lost any coherence. It was horrifying.

Too much stress on her body from the effort to contain Harry, constant hunger, and fear finally took the toll on Hermione, and she passed out exhausted on the top of his feverish sweaty body. Few moments later the freezing chill around them awoke her again. When she was opening her eyes, she caught a glimpse of their surroundings. There were in the middle of small clearing on the top of hill. All grass and shrubbery in the forest were covered with thick layer of snow which absorbed most sounds so she could almost hear the surrounding silence. She looked over the large stretch of land down below the hill all covered with forests and in the background the Sun was slowly setting down. Harry was lying still at the moment, so the beauty and absolute serenity of their surrounding contrasted sharply with her feelings. She sat up too briskly and suddenly there was a black in front of her eyes and she had to held firmly on the Harry’s coat so she wouldn’t fall again. She breathed deeply and she saw in front of her an image.

She saw herself sitting beside a bed in a tiny room completely dark just with a lamp on a small table. She saw a child lying on the bed. Its head was in the dark so it was not possible to look into its face nor whether it is a boy or a girl. She was gently caressing its hand, afraid not to wake it up.

The vision stretched just for a second, but she suddenly knew. She knew this is her child she will have with the husband she will marry after this war ends. She knew for the first time since they left the Grimmauld Place that this hopeless suicidal mission will actually succeed. And she hoped against all hope that the child’s hair will have the flaming red colour.

She also exactly knew what she needs to do right now. She summoned a tent from her beaded bag and with one swish of her wand she let it stand (she usually just did not bother with shouting incantations any more and did most of her magic non-verbally). Then took a really big slurp of the frozen air to keep herself focused and cast “Wingardium Leviosa” charm on Harry. She had to bite her lips not to cry over her memories of Ron, because she always associated this charm with him, but she managed to transport Harry to the lower bunk bed. Then she was attacked by yet another memory. She knew she should strip Harry from his dirty wet clothes and put him to the sleeping bag. She felt very uncomfortable doing it, but she remembered vividly how her mum (who was first a nurse practitioner in the large hospital before switching to being an assistant in her husband’s dental office) talked about how uncomfortable she felt when stripping male patients in the hospital. She just couldn’t be emotional at the moment so she bent down to him. Only then she recognized that the wand he still held firmly in his hand is almost split into two pieces holding together just by a thin string of phoenix feather.

“No, no, no!” she shouted. This was Harry’s wand with the twin of the Voldemort’s wand core. Hermione knew that he relied on its protection a lot. Moreover, a wand is way more for each wizard or witch than just a tool, even more than just a friend with whom they spent their lives. Each wizard has his wand since the moment they first start learning their first charms and so gradually part of their personality transfers to their wands, she felt like if part of Harry broke irreparably.

No! She still does not have time to cry, she must carry on and take care of him. She unbuttoned his jacket and not thinking much about her emotions she took down his jumper and shirt. The first thing she saw was that the Slytherin’s locket got completely grown into the Harry’s chest. However, at the moment fresh air touched the locket, Harry started to thrash again. His shouting and shrieks were deafening. Hermione wanted to run away to cover her ears from the noise, but she just refused to think at the moment. She tried to remove the locket from the chest, but it held too firmly. She thought about her mum again, swished her wand and shouted “Diffindo!”. The locket got separated, but huge cuts to the chest appeared as well. She poured a dittany on them and hoped that she did not hit some important vessel. She really did not have in herself to wear the locket covered in Harry’s blood, so she just put it on one pole supporting the tent. They were likely not moving any time soon anyway. At the moment she moved the locket away from Harry, he calmed substantially. Now he was more just shaking than convulsing. She summoned a chair standing on the other side of the tent and sit on it. This was just too much at the moment for her to stand. However, after couple of minutes, she knew she has to keep moving, or she will lose the focus.

She went to the toilet of the tent and filled a small washbasin with warm water and soap. She found somewhere a piece of cloth, went back to Harry, and started to wash his chest from all blood, dirt, and sweat. Then she saw horrible stabs by the snake’s fangs and she doused good spill of dittany over them hoping the wounds are not cursed by something which wouldn’t heal just by the potion and Harry’s own body strength. She then continued until Harry was clean, in pyjamas, and lying in the warmth of his sleeping bag and she was sitting next to him with a cup of hot tea in her hand. His body went through more seizures and she must then always stop and held him down pressed to the bed so that he did not hurt himself at least by falling from the bed.

She held her hand on his chest so that she could feel soon first signs on upcoming seizure, but she finally could stop and think. First however she finally let herself to cry over her panic in the Bathilda Bagshot’s house, over her fear which surrounded her all day yesterday in Godfric’s Hollow, fear of future, fear of what will happen to Harry who was caught by another convulsions in that moment, mourned over destroyed Harry’s holly wand. When she allowed herself to cry, she cannot stop and continued to cry over her separation from Ron and her fear of what happened to him, over her parents, how she missed all her friends in Hogwarts, and over all other stresses which plagued last couple of months of their life. She cried so long until there were no more tears to be shed. She felt completely hollow and empty.

However, then in this empty place in her soul she recalled her vision minutes ago and suddenly strong surge of hope overcame her heart. She really believed in that moment they will succeed, that all those questions for which they have no reply will be answered, and they will see death of Tom Riddle. And she knew with great certainty her only responsibility is to be what she was until then, and she should not worry about anything else. She should be Harry’s older sister standing always behind him and the friendly know-it-all of their gang however large it will be, with or without Ron, helping them navigate by the power of her brains.

She was still afraid of future, she was still afraid what will happen to Ron, she was still afraid whether she will see him again or not, she was still afraid of what happens to Harry, she accepted yet another fear, whether other will understand her vision and her hope. What she learned from the ridiculous classes with Professor Trelawney was that future is never certain, so she knew there are many decisions on which that beautiful vision she saw earlier depends. There was a lot to be afraid of, but now she felt she is free of these fears, and she knew they will not control her in the future.

And she finally recognized what she did not get during all those years in the Gryffindor tower. That there is not only masculine bravery to run to the middle of the fight, but that there is also female bravery to remain with somebody who may die, to remain alone with Harry in the situation which seems completely hopeless. And she should now follow with Harry what she saw in the vision. Just sit beside his bed, be with him, take care of him when seizures overcome him, and wait until his body wins the hurt caused to him by the snake.

She put her hand on in this moment calm Harry’s chest and said to the silence surrounding her “We will make it, Harry. We will get the bastard.”

Then she sat on a chair standing next to Harry’s bed and opened the book “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore” she brought from the Bathilda Bagshot’s house. They need to understand this book and she will make sure they will be ready when needed.

She knew she will sit and wait in that chair for a long time and morning was still far away.