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I should have brought shoes. She thinks, warm blood already sticking between her toes. It awakens far too many memories of the war, echoes that crawl across her mind.
Shush. She tells the echoes firmly – this is neither the time, nor the place, and the war was years ago. Ignoring them (pushing them behind a wall, firmly, where they ought to stay forever), she kneels down. She doesn’t care that the blood soaks into her pajama legs, red spreading across the lilac in a far too metaphorical way.
What she cares about is Will Graham, who is dying of blood loss in front of her, and the young girl lying not far from him, whose neck is bleeding profusely. It’s quick work for a healing spell. The cuts are clean, made by someone who knew what they were doing.
She’s glad she got the alarm spell to alert her before Harry. It wouldn’t do for him to see this.
Will, still gasping, says something about others. He’s healed now, but the trauma is still there, and his mind can’t quite catch up with the fact that he isn’t dying.
And he needs a blood replenishing potion. She thinks. So does the girl.
The beaded bag is worn from the years, but still sturdy and reliable, and still packed as if a war is going on and any day might be her last.
The war was years ago. The echoes remain.
She extracts two potions and hands them to Will, who takes them with clumsy, blood-stained fingers, and a look of understanding.
As Hermione stands, turns, sends out a spell to search for body heat, she sees him give the girl her potion first. Like his father. She thinks, before entering the pantry, where the spell directs her.
The man in there is too weak to prevent her entrance, and he looks up at her with fogged eyes. He was attacked first, Hermione surmises. He’s bled a lot. Too much. She isn’t sure she can save him.
But she does her best, nonetheless. The same spell as she used on Will and the girl – close the wound, also a clean one. The man is trying to speak, but a stern look – and, she suspects, the blood loss and his severely weakened state – quiets him.
Surveying the damage more closely, she wonders if he even can speak.
Beyond the pantry she hears the crack of apparition. Harry’s arrived, and the first thing he’s going to see is his son soaked in blood.
She should’ve magiced the blood away, she thinks. But she knows she’s trying to work as quickly, efficiently, as possible – not only to save these lives, but to keep her own panic, her own worry, her own – merlin it’s little will and he’s covered in blood – horror away.
Hermione’s done all she can for the man before her (another potion, but she isn’t sure it’ll help). There’s one person left – just outside the house, actually, as the spell informed her. She can’t linger here long – not if she wants that woman to have a chance of survival as well.
Leaving the pantry, she finds Harry, bent over Will. Harry’s in his pajamas too, but he makes them look like a uniform when he’s like this. Shoulders tense – wand in hand. He’s a soldier, again.
But they were never really soldiers, never trained. Warriors, perhaps, was a better word.
Harry looks at her, quick – maximum information in as little time as possible. They exchange a fountain of information in that glance – not merely because they can throw thoughts back and forth.
She goes outside, casts a spell to keep the rain off her, and the woman, who lays at the entrance of the house. No cut, besides those inflicted by the glass. She fell, Hermione guesses, looking at the diagnostic spell. Her spine is broken, so is her arm. A few minor fractures as well, but the woman must have come from a healthy, hardy family. Hermione can’t do much for her, though. Spines are complicated.
It’s a delicate spell to move the woman inside, a combination of a simple floating charm and a cushioning charm. Hermione sets the woman on the dining room table – an expensive piece of furniture, from the look of it.
They’ll need to get a trained healer, and soon.
Harry enters the room, supporting Will on one shoulder and the girl on the other. He gets them to sit.
Hermione sends him a questioning glance – the man, in the pantry?
A nod is her response, though the look communicates that Harry isn’t sure if the man is alive or dead, or if he’ll be alive by the time he gets him to the dining room.
Hermione knows they shouldn’t move the people, but its habit. Get the wounded in one place, they’re easier to defend. Someone had hurt Will – had tried to kill him.
This isn’t war, but we are warriors.
Hermione sends out a distress signal for the nearest magical hospital. Then she pulls out a cellphone (what a joy, trying to make upwards of ten phones work for magical people, just so everyone in their group could stay in contact even when out in the muggle world).
She dials Ron first – explains (quickly, efficiently, maximum amount of information in as little time as possible) the situation. She doesn’t have to ask to know that within the hour a brood of red-haired Weasleys in full battle dress will be there. No one hurts what’s ours.
Next, Hermione calls Luna and Neville. While healing is not strictly either of their professions, they both excel at it. They’re better than she ever was, anyway. And even though she knows the magical hospital will have sent people by now, she wants her people to look at things too.
That, and Luna and Neville would beat her to bits if they found out about this later.
She isn’t, strictly, amassing an army to hunt down whoever did this. But little Will – not so little now – is theirs. The first joy after the war – Harry’s first joy. Even if Will wanted time to find himself; even if he quit writing. He is theirs.
A moment after she’s off the phone, Harry has brought the other man in, using the same spell Hermione used for the woman. Delicately, Harry lays the man on the floor, not wanting to crowd the table. He leaves a cushioning charm under his head.
Another moment, and witches and wizards wearing medical robes are there. Hermione and Harry answer what questions they can – Will, only half there, answers a few more. Before everyone is transported away, Harry tells Will he’ll join him soon. First he has to take care of a few things.
Will understands, naturally. He looks at his father with half-lidded eyes and merely nods.
Harry comes to stand next to her, and she can feel the anger radiating from him and bouncing off her own.
The last mediwitch hasn’t even left when the Weasleys pop in, Luna and Neville with them. The room is suddenly full of people. Ron is clothed for battle, and he’s got a bag she suspects has their battle robes in it. But she knows she won’t take the time to change.
Luna and Neville leave for the hospital after being told where it is, their faces grim, and plants poking out of every available pocket (and only some of those, Hermione recognizes, are medical plants. The others have darker uses – and she can guess where the couple intends them to go).
It’s short work with so many magical people to locate the man who hurt Will. He’s muggle, after all, and has no defense against their spells.
He’s quite a ways away, in a stolen vehicle. But that suits their purposes – he’s on a dark road, and it is simple to direct the car via magic to a suitable field. The muggle leaves the car swiftly, weapon in hand.
Hermione is the first one he sees, because Harry wants to watch him for a moment. Everyone else is disillusioned, waiting.
The blood on her lilac pajamas is dry now, and it clings to her legs uncomfortably. In the moonlight, though, it gives a good impression – the muggle doesn’t have to ask where she’s been.
He has predatory eyes. And an echo somewhere in her mind says those eyes look like the ones that peered out from behind white masks, years ago. She pushes the thought away, forcefully, and tightens her grip on her wand.
“May I ask what this is about?” The muggle questions. His voice is accented, and for all his attempts of hiding emotions, she can hear his unease. Good. He should be uneasy.
This isn’t war, but we are warriors.
“You hurt Will.” Hermione says, without preamble. “As well as three other people. Then you fled. We take rather a lot of offense to that.”
“We?” The man asks.
And he is surrounded by people. Harry has put his battle robe on over his pajamas, and it makes him look terrifying in the dark. He looks every part the auror, every part the man who hunted down what Death Eaters remained, and every bad witch or wizard since.
Hermione knows the muggle will survive the night, however barely. They aren’t barbarians – he will get a trial, though it will only be for show. But no one will ask about whatever state he turns up in. They, all of them, are the heroes of the war. They didn’t just fight – when the fighting was done, they worked. They helped rebuild, they searched for those missing, they healed.
And Will, Will is one of their children.
This isn’t war, but we are warriors.