Chapters 171-180

Vitae Summa Brevis…

The darkness of Disapparition was too short to get a grip on her emotions. Hermione barely noticed the painful squeeze and nauseous twisting and turning that accompanied the procedure. Once it was over, Hermione staggered. Only Madame Dubois’s iron grip on her arm kept her on her feet. A muttered ‘Merde!’ and an anxious ‘Hermione, are you okay?’ finally penetrated her dizziness, and she regained some sense of herself and her surroundings. Madame Dubois was supporting her, while Alina held her wand out before them. The blue-white light of her Lumos spell gave the girl a ghostly appearance, white-faced and dark-eyed.

A CRACK! sounded in the distance, then Hermione heard a muffled curse.

‘Ron, that was my foot!’

‘Sorry, it’s DARK here, if you didn’t notice!’

‘Are you a wizard or what?’

Two wands lit up brightly, revealing Ron, Lois, and Ginny. Ginny carried a huge picnic basket. Ron was holding Lois’ hand.

‘Hey there!’ He waved his wand enthusiastically, oblivious of the sparks he was shooting into the air. ‘Anyone for tea or coffee? I’ve also got some mulled cider. And Mum seems to think we’re going to spend weeks here, given the provisions she put together for us.

‘Now, where is that holy horse we’re supposed to go to?’

‘It’s down there,’ Lois said and pointed off into the darkness between two banks that were fenced off with wire strung haphazardly between skewed, low posts. ‘Careful, the slope is quite steep.’

‘Right,’ Ron said. ‘Then we’d better have more light.’ His witchlight brightened instantly. ‘Are you coming, Alina?’

Alina cast a worried look at Hermione, but when she managed to nod, the girl scampered off. Madame Dubois kept her arm around Hermione a moment longer. ‘Will you be all right?’

Hermione’s lips curled into a mirthless smile. ‘Sure. I’ve never been better. No, really. Go ahead. I—I’d like a word with Ginny.’

oooOooo

‘Ginny!’ she gasped—and fell silent. She stared at her friend, at her golden engagement ring with its small Gryffindor ruby, at a loss for words.

The smaller woman squared her shoulders. Tendrils of Ginny’s hair had escaped the ribbon at the nape of her neck and now surrounded her face like a flaming red halo in the glare of the wand-light. She thrust out her chin stubbornly. ‘They’ll come back, Hermione. They’ll break that damn curse and come back. Remember? Harry is The-Boy-Who-Lived-and-Lived-and-Lived. He should have died twice already and survived both times. He’ll manage to survive again. And he knows better than to come back without the gr—without Severus.’

…without the greasy git. Hermione gulped. She clumsily wiped the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. Her hands were shaking too hard to hold a handkerchief.

Ginny shook her head in a bemused fashion. ‘You know, back at school, who’d have thought that you’d wind up in such a state one day because you might not see him again…’

‘Yes, life’s certainly weird that way,’ Hermione sniffled. Then she took a deep breath. Ginny nodded approvingly as Hermione managed to pull herself together.

‘Let’s get going,’ Ginny ordered briskly. ‘You’re supposed to be on holy ground when you activate that spell of yours. We’d better get you on that horse.’

oooOooo

When Hermione blithely marched past the signs that warned people to keep off the bank and cut through the low wire-fence with a flick of her wand, Ron sniggered. He nudged Lois and nodded to Hermione.

‘See, that’s our Hermione—she just pretends to be such a good little witch. Given the right incentive, she can be downright scary.’

‘Remove your shoes before you go down the slope, Ronald, or I’ll show you just how scary I can be,’ Hermione threatened. ‘We may be forced to disregard the rules here, but we’ll treat this place with the respect it deserves.’

‘Well,’ Ron said, looking around, ‘to be honest, it doesn’t look like much.’

He was right. Their wandlight illuminated a steep hillside surrounded by the darkness of an icy January night. Between ragged borders of grass scruffy and pale with winter, an area of crumbling white chalk bedrock lay exposed to the elements. It didn’t look particularly awe-inspiring or holy. It certainly didn’t look like a horse.

Lois shivered when she reached the stone of the Horse and hurriedly pulled her socks back on. Ron grinned. ‘Getting cold feet, love? Don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.’ He pointed his wand at her feet and murmured a quick Charm.

‘Oh!’ Lois squealed with delight. ‘That’s nice and toasty!’

‘So what happens next?‘ Ron asked, turning towards Hermione.

‘You enjoy your picnic. I invoke the spell. And then…we wait.’

oooOooo

Hermione remained barefoot when she stepped onto the white rock of this ancient place of power, unwilling to risk any interference with the spell. Cold seeped into her feet from the stone, raced in ripples of goose bumps up her legs, spread over her belly, shivered down her back, and hardened her nipples.

This will work. This must work. She pulled her wands from their sheaths.

He will come back. He must come back. She gripped her wands tightly. Sturdy vine and dragon heartstring in her right. Vine to bind and to heal. Dragon heartstring—the pure power of a white dragon. Long and slender, yew and sphinx feather in her left. Yew for death and resurrection. And sphinx, the guardian of the ways.

I love him.

…I love them both. Best friend and honorary brother. Teacher, Master, and husband.

She shivered convulsively.

I love you. I need you. She bit down on her lip. It just wouldn’t be fair. It was much too short a time to know you.

She raised the wands. You must come back to me.

‘Coniungo,’ she cried. Her voice sounded thin and shrill to her ears. ‘Coniungo!’

Through life and death we are linked. In death and life we are linked. For all eternity we are linked.

You must come back to me.