His eyes narrowed. She squared her shoulders and began to turn towards the door. As she pulled the door open, her fingers twitched, and she glanced over her shoulder. Severus was standing and watching her warily.
“Severus—” she started, her voice wavered. She looked away, swallowed, and started again. “Severus, if I don't come back, tell Draco — Tell Draco that I—”
Her head dropped down, and she quickly brushed her fingertips across her cheeks. She cleared her voice and shook her head. “Never mind. I imagine he knows.”
She set her jaw as she pulled the door open, stepped through, and apparated.
Chapter End Notes
Additional Illustrations:
Severus' Unbreakable Vow by saharok_illustration
Flashback 38
Author's Note: This is the final flashback chapter. A link to the summary of the first twenty-five chapters of Manacled can be found here.
July 2003
Sussex Lab was a huge black building that looked as though it had been dropped down into the middle of the Ashdown Forest. The apparition wards extended several hundred yards. Hermione approached under heavy disillusionment, giving wide berth to the other, smaller buildings scattered about it. The Lab overshadowed everything. The air was so twisted and corrupted with Dark Magic it was difficult to breathe. Dementors were patrolling high overhead.
From the angle of her approach, the building reminded Hermione of the pictures of Azkaban. She'd seen the blueprints of Sussex design and seen it from a distance, but it was the first time she'd approached it.
It was a towering, V-shaped building, with no visible point of entry. There were only a handful of windows on the uppermost floors. She knew from the blueprints that the only entry was by a secured apparition point inside the building, and the only exit a separate disapparition point on a different floor.
If she'd been calmer and less grief-stricken, she would have realised there was no way for Draco to extract Ginny so quickly without compromising himself.
They'd both made mistakes out of desperation.
She glanced around. It was evening and overcast for summer. It was beginning to grow dim; the dark creatures would soon emerge in force.
Hermione approached until she reached the final layer of protective wards. They were the same impenetrable kind that had been over Hogwarts. The grass and plants had burned away into ash along the perimeter.
Hermione held her hand out, and the magic crackled, shimmering into visibility at her proximity.
She pulled a knife out of her cloak and, kneeling down, pierced the wards near the ground. The manticore venom in the silver slipped through as though the magic didn't exist. Hermione pulled one of the dozens of bombs she'd brought, tapped it lightly with the tip of her wand, and pushed it through the opening, being careful not to let the ward or the knife come in contact with the tiny orb. If she accidentally set off a bomb, the Death Eaters would be picking up bits and pieces of her across a fifty foot radius.
She tried not to think about it.
She pushed five of the bombs through the opening in the ward and, with a flick of her wand, levitated the bombs over to the building, leaving three interspersed along the base and sending two to hover about twenty feet up the wall. She withdrew the knife, and the opening in the ward instantly resealed.
She quickly moved ten feet further and repeated the steps until she had made her way all the way along the east wall of the building and her pockets were empty. Based on every report Severus and Draco had ever brought about Sussex, the east side of the the building was where the curse development division and most research using human test subjects were located. The west side of the building was more technological, where the shackles and research into breaking the Fidelius had been based.
She backed away as far as she could, eyeing the edge of the disapparition wards and trying to gauge how far she'd need to run. With a quick flick, she cast a bubble-head charm on herself.
She closed her eyes and drew a slow breath before opening them and extending her wand hand.
I'm going to take care of you. I'm always going to take care of you.
She waved her wand sharply upwards and then slashed down.
There was a split second of silence. Then there was a rumble, as though the particles in the air were all vibrating.
The sound struck her like a wall, and her bones vibrated. The wards over Sussex rippled into view as rapid series of blasts zipped down the side of the lab. The air shattered in a deafening explosion. The blast slammed into the wards and then ricocheted back into the base of the Sussex Lab. A cloud of dust and deadly poison filled the air, and the entire east side of the building wobbled and then fell, toppling back and crashing into the west side of the building.
The ground shook so powerfully Hermione was thrown off her feet. Her head struck the ground, and pain caused her occlumency walls to waver. The dazed, drugged sensation seeped into her consciousness as she pushed herself to her feet. She shook her head, blinking and trying to clear her mind. There was a sharp, painful ringing in her ears that muted all other sound. She glanced back at the lab before bolting towards the anti-apparition point.
She had made it fifty feet when a freezing despair came over her.
She stumbled and faltered.
Harry had died.
All the grief abruptly struck her like a tidal wave.
Harry. Padma. Dobby. Everyone.
Everyone.
Everything she'd done. None of it mattered.
It had all been pointless.
Harry's blank eyes as he was struck with Killing Curse after Killing Curse.
Ron screaming. Throwing himself towards his best friend desperately.
“Is Parv—?”
Colin's screaming as he was flayed on the hospital bed.
There was no point.
“We had a good run, Granger, but we were never meant to last.”
She stood in the heath and shook.
A tidal wave of death washed over her.
They were all going to die.
She sank to the ground. She was so cold, and everything hurt.
She pressed her hand against her chest and tried to breathe.
“You must know, you're reaching the point where the damage is becoming irreversible.”
All the memories she tried to hide from. All the screaming and dying. The putrid, tongue-curdling smell of gangrene and rot. Burning flesh. Bowels and insects and poisoned blood. Clawed hands gripping blindly towards her— “Help.” “Kill me.” “Please.” “Make it stop.”
Her whole body ached with cold, as though there was frost spreading across her fingers.
She wanted to die.
Draco.
“You're mine. I'll always come for you.”
She stilled. She'd told him she'd be waiting for him.
If she didn't go back, he'd return to find a mess of hastily assembled explosives and her scrawled note on the table. I love you. I love you. I love you.
She forced her head up and realised there were Dementors, filling the sky and closing in on her.
She gripped her wand and tried to stand. She couldn't cast a patronus. She had to run.
She stumbled to her feet and then collapsed again, shivering violently.
The descending Dementors were gathered so closely around her they blocked out all light.
She pushed herself up again, racking her mind for something to use. Something that wasn't poisoned by the war.