Chapter Text
Prologue
“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength,” – Theodore Roosevelt
Harry, Hermione and Ron supported each other tiredly as they apparated a safe distance from the battlefield, their wands drawn as they secured the area with wards and transfigured a fallen tree to provide them some shelter so they could check each other’s wounds and provide what first aid and healing they could. Their precautions were just habit, they didn’t really expect anyone to turn up to continue the fight but these days even battlefield scavengers could be vicious in their desperation.
The war was finally over, Voldemort had been defeated and this time they’d encapsulated and destroyed his soul so that even if they had missed another Horcrux, it would be near impossible for him to return with any strength even if there were more than a few Death Eater’s left alive. Harry doubted that there were more than two or three still living though, and those few were only alive because they’d run from the final battle. Having betrayed Voldemort at the end he didn’t think that any of them would want him to return let alone choose to take an active role in raising him back to life unless that was what they’d been sent away from the battle to do.
Hermione didn’t think that would’ve happened though, even at the last Voldemort was so convinced of his own invincibility and superiority that he wouldn’t have made contingency plans for after his defeat. Harry and Ron agreed with her that Voldemort would have called all of the remaining Death Eaters to support his battle as soon as he realised Harry was there with the resistance fighters, particularly when the followers he did have started to fall.
There were less than a dozen Death Eaters present at the battle, though that had been enough for them and Voldemort to decimate the last of the resistance. In the end only the trio were left breathing though even for the three of them survival didn’t mean not permanently debilitated. Ron had lost his wand arm, Hermione had lost an eye and would never walk again from the dark slashing curse that had severed her spinal cord and Harry had lost a leg and his hearing, and all three had long ago lost the ability to have children of their own due to a dark curse Voldemort had developed to end family lines, though secretly Harry and Hermione believed he’d developed it to cast on his followers without their knowledge to stop them from having any loyalties potentially more important to them than service to himself.
The second generation of Voldemort’s followers had proved to be something of a disappointment to the Dark Lord, too young, too rash, and too full of their own importance to commit to him fully, nearly half of them had rejected him outright, unwilling to bow to another no matter how much they believed in his stated ideals. Those that had followed him hadn't lasted long once the resistance started firing lethal curses at the Death Eaters and an embarrassing number of them had been hit in the back by their own side while attempting to run away from one of the battles over the years.
Harry had struck the death blow to Voldemort but he credited the success of the battle and the end of the war to Hermione’s research into the dark mark which had allowed them to kill off so many Death Eaters before the final confrontation. Hermione had captured Draco Malfoy several months earlier and held him in stasis while she researched and experimented on the dark mark. There were rumours that Voldemort could use it to torture and even kill his followers so they’d experimented.
Eventually they’d found that spells cast in parseltongue directly at the mark were transmitted down to some of the other Death Eaters but they hadn’t been able to work out how to choose which followers were affected. Proximity seemed to play a part though so they could at least predict some of the effects. Using the Dark Mark that way also drew the attention of Voldemort himself but Ron and Harry had had fun apparating to a populated wizarding area disillusioned with Draco and having Harry cast the Cruciatus at the dark mark while Ron and Hermione walked through the crowd and killed anyone who appeared to be affected by the curse through the mark. Draco soon lost his mind from the agony, of course but that didn’t stop his dark mark from working to affect the Death Eaters in his proximity, and it didn’t matter much seeing as Harry and Ron had permanently silenced him by transfiguring his voice box into smooth windpipe after the regular Silencio had worn off again and he’d said something particularly foul about Hermione. They kept him stunned most of the time to relieve their own consciouses as much as Draco’s suffering. He’d been caught torturing the younger siblings of a first year muggleborn and didn’t deserve any pity.
War had brought out the worst in all of them, the ruthlessness needed to survive would have horrified their younger selves and most of the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Those members were all long gone though. Their reluctance to kill the enemy had allowed the Death Eaters the upper hand too many times and they’d paid the ultimate price for not learning from their colleagues mistakes.
Eventually they’d taken pity on Draco and captured another Death Eater to use and put him out of his misery with an Avada Kedavra aimed directly at his mark at point blank range. The Death Eater they’d captured had survived because Hermione had port keyed him away but there was reason to believe the Death Eaters known to be in the nearby Fidelius protected safehouse had never been seen again. Realising what had happened, they did this several times when they found approximate locations of a safe house, and it seemed to be thinning out the Death Eater ranks more than anything else they’d done. The only difficulty being that the dark mark ceased to work when the bearer died so they had to capture a new Death Eater each time which they learned to do by working out how to use the mark to summon a particular Death Eater though they soon ran out of Death Eaters they knew by name.
The fact that whole houses of Death Eaters appeared to be dying suddenly for no known reason while hidden behind increasingly strong protection wards, without the wards being disturbed in any way was frightening the wits out of those left alive and made Voldemort’s recruiting far less effective.
As a result, by the time the final battle came there weren’t many Death Eaters left and the werewolves and vampires had abandoned Voldemort, either believing that he no longer had enough of a chance of being the victor to make the risks of supporting him worthwhile or seeing that he was likely to turn on them once the resistance had been beaten and the wizarding population had been brought to heel. The dementors were still a menace that they hadn’t worked out how to destroy or adequately counter, but they moved so slowly that they weren’t of much use in a spot battle unless Voldemort got to choose the battleground well in advance. Just as well, since the three of them were having difficulty these days coming up with happy enough memories to power their patroni. Hermione had found a spell that would destroy the soul inside Voldemort. It didn’t mean that there wasn’t possibly still a horcrux out there but without the wraith of Voldemort or his inner circle any followers they may have missed would be unlikely to find them and resurrect him again. The war was finally over.
Madame Pomfrey was dead, killed in an earlier battle and they needed more healing than they could do themselves so once they’d healed each other as best they could Harry made a portkey for the three of them to St Mungo's which had still been operating, last they'd heard in spite of several heavy attacks.
St Mungo's itself was a burnt-out shell. There were a couple of healers providing emergency care in the basement of a neighbouring abandoned building that hadn't been so badly damaged that they’d managed to make safe with shoring up charms and permanent sticking spells. The poor quality of the facilities didn't matter though. The healers refused to treat the trio, claiming that it was too great a risk to have He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's number one targets on site.
Harry slashed their sleeves and cast the strongest revealing spell he had the strength for to check for the dark mark.
“What was that for?” one of them yelled brandishing his wand.
“You’re refusing to treat us and now pointing a wand at the leader of the light. Of course, we’re going to check that you’re not Death Eaters waiting to ambush us, you’re lucky Harry didn’t kill you outright for supporting Voldemort!” Hermione said to them in a tone one might use to a very stupid badly behaved teenager.
"I just killed the bloody bastard! And the last of his bloody Death Eaters with him! Heal my friends, now! You do not want to make yourselves my enemies!" Harry growled. He wasn't totally sure about the Death Eaters but he wasn't willing to let the healers refuse to treat his bond mates. The healers healed what they could but were unable to regrow Ron’s arm, Hermione’s eye or spinal cord or Harry’s leg or restore his hearing. They told Ron and Harry to come back in a week or two for magical prostheses, and apologised for no longer having any healer with the knowledge to make a functioning false eye. “We need to wait a week or so for your magic to adjust to the missing limb before we can fit them,” the healer explained, nervously.
“You need a good night’s sleep but we don’t have the facilities to keep or look after residents, go home to bed and then take these,” another healer said apologetically, handing over several vials. “The dreamless sleep now and then the rest as soon as you wake up. This is the best we can do.”
“Thank you,” Hermione said softly. “Hopefully now the war is over you can rebuild.”
“There aren’t enough healers to run even a field hospital or enough people with the skills necessary to supply us with potions. Even if we had more staff and supplies, hardly anyone feels safe enough to come for healing,” the healer said tiredly.
“That might change once it becomes known that the Dark Bastard is dead,” Ron said.
“My brother works in the inheritance offices at Gringotts. He’s run off his feet trying to find heirs for the dead when so many of the potential heirs have also died out. The war lasted too long and his followers killed indiscriminately in the end, there aren’t many of us left,” the healer replied looking at Harry reproachfully.
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have all sat back and pinned your hope of survival on a 14 year old boy. The war could have been over before it began if everyone fought back from the beginning instead of putting their heads in the sand and calling Harry a liar, then turning around like hypocrites and demanding that he save you all,” Hermione retorted viciously.
The healer looked taken aback but Harry and Ron could see that less than half the people there acknowledged the truth in what Hermione had said. They would not be thanked for sacrificing the best part of their lives to fighting Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and their victory would not be celebrated by anyone, and. It had simply come too late.
-o0o-
Leaving the wreckage of the magical hospital, they apparated back to their most recent safe house, little more than a single room hovel with hastily erected war wards, and slept on and off for the next week.
Ron was suffering badly having lost his wand arm. They’d managed to find his wand intact but learning to cast nonbattle spells with the other hand was a tedious and sometimes dangerous business and he was frequently foul tempered with his bond mates as they stepped in to repair the damage of overpowered or incorrectly cast spells.
Harry, though he was stuck hobbling about on a pair of muggle crutches was much better off. He still couldn't hear but Ron and Hermione were able to speak to him through their bond and Hermione started repeating to him everything she heard so while he was the three of them he didn’t notice it much.
After healing, Hermione was able to sit upright thought the pain was still excruciating at times, and even move herself around by levitating the chair she was sitting in.
After a few days spent mostly sleeping they sat down to try to plan what to do next.
-o0o-
“Will you come with me to check on my parents?” Hermione asked hesitantly.
“Of course, Hermione, neither of us has a home to go to, you’re all the family we have left,” Harry said agreeably.
“Yeah sure. I hope they’re okay,” Ron agreed, hoping that Hermione hadn’t also lost her family.
The Weasleys had miraculously all survived the attack that destroyed the Burrow but had since been lost over the years of fighting, first Fred in the battle of Hogwarts then Ginny and Bill in the battle of Diagon Alley, George had also been badly injured in the battle and then killed when the Death Eaters sealed up St Mungo’s and burned it down with everyone inside. Arthur and Percy were killed when the ministry fell and Charlie had died protecting the muggle parliament. Molly had gone mad with grief and had attempted to attack a group of Death Eaters without backup and been quickly cut down, leaving Ron the only surviving Weasley, though he may have had some second cousins still hidden away somewhere too he had no way of knowing where to find them.
Holding Hermione carefully between them, they apparated to Hermione’s neighbourhood and cautiously made their way towards the house. The streets were littered with alert wards, not keyed to anyone in particular but when they accidentally triggered one of them nobody turned up to investigate. The Fidelius and protection wards Hermione had erected to protect her parents’ home had clearly done their jobs, the house was still standing, the only one in the neighbourhood that hadn’t been converted to ashes. Harry was impressed, Hermione’s wards appeared to have even withstood the Fiendfyre the Death Eaters had taken to attacking muggle neighbourhoods with. Someone had obviously known which suburb Hermione had lived in because the entire area including the surrounding suburbs had been razed to the ground.
They entered the house warily, aware that it could be a trap set for them and found it appeared empty. “Mum, Dad,” Hermione called.
There was no answer and they searched the house together, Harry activating the mage sight charm Hermione had put on his glasses as Ron led him carefully around the muggle furniture he could no longer see because of the charm. “There’s nothing magical in here, he said as they poked their noses into each room.
“There’s a letter on the table,” Hermione said, picking it up. She quickly scrawled Harry a note on the wall with her wand, not wanting to open the bond to communicate and flood Harry and Ron with her fears, “Turn your glasses off for a moment and give your eyes a break Harry, we’re safe here for the moment.”
“Dear Hermione,
There’s no food in the house and your father left to find a supermarket two days ago. He hasn’t returned so I’m fearing the worst. I’ve rung around the local hospitals and those that answer deny admitting a man who matches his description, and the nearest police stations that answer haven’t seen him either. This whole area has been declared a ‘no go zone’ and orders have been given for looters to be shot on sight.
The local channels on the television isn’t broadcasting and the reports of what’s going on in Britain and the satellite photographs of the devastation on the international news sounds incredibly bleak. I know that I’m taking an incredible risk leaving the house but I ate the last edible things this morning and if I don’t go now then you will find my corpse outside eating the grass and attempting to shoot down sparrows to eat with a slingshot. Your father headed west to the shopping centre and as much as I’m tempted to try to find him I know he would have moved heaven and earth to return to me if he could. I will be heading east towards Horsham. I will leave word for you at the post office there, assuming there still is one.
I love you Hermione and I’m sorry to be leaving your protections but I have no choice and I believe that attempting to return to this area will be impossible and far too dangerous to attempt.
All my love
Mum.
It was dated two months earlier.
Harry immediately pulled his wand and cast, “Point me Emma Granger,” the wand didn’t even twitch, “Point me Daniel Granger,” he said desperately hoping. The wand didn’t respond.
He looked at his holly wand then used it to summon the elder wand from his pack. Unfortunately, the results were the same.
Hermione collapsed crying and Ron and Harry put their arms around her trying to offer support.
“I thought you’d memory charmed your parents and sent them to Australia?” Ron said.
“I meant to but I couldn’t bring myself to wipe all their memories of me since I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to bring them back and they refused to leave. My Dad fought in the Falkland war and he still had his sniper rifle, I made him a heap of ammunition, silver bullets for the werewolves and explosive rounds to use against vampires. I thought that putting the house under Fidelius and casting as many protective wards on the house and their practice and telling everyone they were gone would be enough. I know several Death Eater supporters and spies heard me tell you. I know they stocked up on staples as much as they could so they didn’t need to go out so often but I never thought the war would go on for so long and I didn’t even think about them running out of supplies and not being able to just pop out to the local shops,” Hermione said sobbing.
"I’m sorry, Hermione,” Harry said remorsefully. He was used to being blamed for not finishing the war earlier before there were so many casualties but he knew Hermione wasn’t blaming him. She was blaming herself for not coming back and checking on her parents, or for not wiping their memories and sending them to the other side of the world against their will.