Prompt: Stuck in a Boat

A/N: My first Volmione. Be nice. Also this is set in present day (aka 2016). Soulmate/Modern AU. Still magical, though. I promise you that. Also I diverge a little bit on canon details. Meh.

Also, for those who hate Ron, I'm sorry. I wrote him as a more positive character. Because I don't hate Ron enough. But he does end up dead in this fanfic.

It has been twenty years since Harry has died.

I.

The most evil and repugnant man, more monster than man, killed him in front of hundred of shocked and appalled onlookers. His crimson eyes glowed with pleasure as the Boy-Who-Lived lives no more. His shrill laughter was the only sound that could be heard over Ginny's sobbing. The fight began again, and Hermione found herself realizing there's no possible win for them. It made her gather the surviving Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army members and force them to retreat.

It was out of love and friendship that made her the last person to retreat. She wanted to get Harry's body before they could desecrate, mock it. Harry spent his entire life fighting Voldemort. He didn't deserve that.

She was only an inch away from Harry's cold and pale wrist when she felt her hair suddenly gripped. She craned her head slightly to see glowing eyes.

Voldemort laughed, looking to his followers. "What do we have here?" A pause. "Harry Potter's precious Mudblood." His sycophants jeered in delight as his wand pressed violently against her throat.

She remained quiet, her mind quickly thinking of an escape.

"Do you want to say goodbye to him?"

She felt tears forming at her eyes.No, no, no, she thought. Not now. Not now. It can't be right now. Not him. Not in front of him.

He shoved her at Harry's body. "A mercy Lord Voldemort will grant you. Consider it one last act of kindness." But the mocking tone in his voice said it is everything but that.

No, he wanted to see her fall apart.

She wasn't going to speak. Not now. Not ever. She won't say a word to him. She swore that she won't. Because I can't let him know. . .

She clutched at Harry's cold hand and then muttered a small spell. Then she concentrated. Nothing. She is still at Hogwarts and not a single inch changed. She needed to. . . She won't be able to escape by Apparition, but she could always try to escape. The hard way. The one where. . .

No, the Death Eaters. There were too many of them.

Desperate times demanded desperate measures.

"Harry Potter is dead," she said to an ear far, far away from Hogwarts. "Kreacher, help me. Please, Kreacher. Help."

A sudden arm choked her throat, cutting off her next syllables. Voldemort snarled, "There would be no help for you, Mudblood."

Crack.

A lone House-elf with wrinkled skin and hands stands right by Harry Potter's side. He gazed down at him with an unreadable expression. Hermione, hoping and hoping with everything she had, turned around in Voldemort's grip and kneed him in the nuts and shoved him as far away from herself as possible. She ran and jumped on top of Harry's body, and she was more than relieved to feel the weird sensation of being sucked through a tube.

That was how she and Kreacher brought Harry back to where it all began. That was where Harry was buried in unmarked grave right by his parents.

She felt like she was stuck on a boat. Her head was spinning round and round, and the only option was to drown.

But she wasn't going to let herself drown.

With the rest of the DA and the Order of the Phoenix, she began to rebuild what was left of their beloved Wizarding World in the face of a looming adversary.

II.

Death and life seemed to be her only absolutes. She was counting the years by the deaths. And she was holding onto the ways with life, with births of the children.

It was two years after Harry died when Charlie died protecting his dragons from a surprise Death Eater attack. It was six months after Charlie when Arthur died. And it was four months after Arthur when Dean Thomas was killed in a raid.

She and Ron schemed a way to victory. He was a master at chess, and he was excellent at laying out various plans. Attack the Ministry. Feint an attack on a recruiting ground for Death Eaters while mainly aiming for the stores in Knockturn Alley, where there were loads of dangerous artifacts of the Darkest Arts. Dangerous for the DA. But if they knew how to use it, then perhaps they could use it against the Death Eaters. One time, Ron laid out a plan for everyone in their forces to simultaneously attack several of their enemy's strongholds.

It was beautiful. The blow to their side was strikingly horrifying. A show of strength, a declaration that no matter what happened, they would never give up.

But the response was angry and thunderous.

It took three assassination attempts to end Ron's life. He had words carved into his skin. The first spoken words of his soulmate was mutilated beyond recognition.

That was three years after Dean's death.

He left Hermione with the reins for the rebellion.

Luna died seven months after Ron. Lavender Brown managed to survive that werewolf attack and was turned because of it.

Kreacher died of old age three months later.

But there were surprises along the way.

Like how George Weasley and Angelina Johnson welcomed their firstborn son, Fred Weasley, eight months after Luna. It was strange how the world didn't even stop for the dead. It kept on spinning and spinning. So strange.

They had a daughter twelve months after Fred. Roxanne.

It was surreal how life could still come even in the middle of a war.

Ginny had her first daughter sixteen months after Roxanne's birth.

And Neville welcomed his first daughter nine months after Ginny's daughter.

And Percy had his daughter four months later.

And Bill and Fleur had their daughter. Victoire. After victory. In hopes that their side would be victorious in the end.

Nineteen months.

There was a war going on. And somehow, these children were going to grow up in one. It all made Hermione even more determined to fight those Death Eaters. She had to end it. . . But she would not let them get to the children.

More births and deaths were in Hermione's memories. That was how she kept track of time. It wasn't all years, months, and days anymore. It was the year of Ron's death when the Order lost some ground in London. It was the month of Fred Weasley II's birth when she devised a Muggle bomb to be sent into the heart of the Death Eater's main camp. It was Victorie's third birthday when Muggles began leaving Great Britain to the Americas because of the number of strange deaths here, there, and everywhere.

It was two days after Augusta Longbottom's death when she found herself sitting in a small, homely cafe and staring down at the headlines of the most recent attack the Order had carried out. Right by the bold title was the date: October 8, 2016.

She sighed. Her mind wandered a little, sifting through memories and battle plans. But it wandered a little more than usual. To something that was always buried. Until now.

She remembered tracing those words when she was young. Ever since Harry's death, she had stopped. It wasn't fitting to crave the attention and love of a monster.

Her small fingers dugged into right upper arm, which was covered securely by her white turtleneck. On the inside of it were these words: Do you want to say goodbye to him?

It was written elegantly.

It wasn't fair that it was him in the end.

How did she ended up being the soulmate to a beast?

III.

Out of habit, he rubbed at the empty spot on his right arm. There used to be some words there. It was completely nonsense. The idea of soulmates was complete rubbish. It took a rather Dark and mutilating spell to get those typewriter-like letters off.

One last act of kindness.

Even after Potter's death, the rebellion continued on. Voldemort, sitting on his throne and hiding behind his Minister puppet, was amused, at first. He wanted to toy with them. Watch them scramble around with their heads cut off. Chickens with no minds. Bleeding out by the seconds and completely unaware of their impending deaths.

But then he saw the numbers. The deaths on his side.

They were not silly little ants with their limbs cut off. No, they were calculating and powerful in their own way. Though they didn't have the number of bodies as he does, they had the determination and the intelligence to cut off parts here and there. Slowly snuffing out his Death Eaters without them knowing it. He recognized the patterns and understood the whys of their actions. Every move was painstakingly made, dedicated to strike him at the weakest points and to erode his influence in a subtle way. It took a year for him to discover who was the chessmaster hiding behind deft attacks of guerrilla warfare. It took him two years to personally kill Ron Weasley, a real thorn in his side and more than his best friend ever was.

He thought it was over. With Ron dead, surely everything would die away?

There were some headless and odd attacks in the following months after Weasley's demise. It was disorganized. Seemingly random. And it was strange, because the Order's raids were affecting low level Death Eaters and some shops in areas his followers enjoyed. Petty thefts. Nothing unusual, right?

No. Not even Weasley's death stopped the movement.

The entire scheme of the Order's was discovered when one of the objects in a shop, that specializes in selling Dark books to Lucius Malfoy, reacted strangely with an accidental misfire of a Stunning Spell. Upon further investigation by the shop owner, the object rippled as if under an illusion. One, twice. The owner called for the Death Eater's assistance. Four of them arrived.

By the next morning, the entire shop was destroyed by weaponized Fiendfyre. Not a single person survived that night. Along with every other place the Order attacked.

It was brilliant. It was Dark.

And it was causing his Death Eaters to run scared.

He didn't understand it. He pulled together a list of the remaining Order of Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army members. Some of them were intelligent enough to do it.

Like George Weasley. His reports told him about his gift with creating practical jokes. Some of which his followers used.

It had to be George Weasley.

The next morning, George Weasley had become Undesirable No. 1. He was on the top of the list for the next decade.

IV.

To a group of weary Dumbledore's Army members, Hermione says, "Twenty years since Harry Potter has died. We lost so many since then. But we can't give up now. We have patiently waited decades for this. Now, it is our moment. We can't let Harry down." She raises her cup. "To Harry."

They echo, raising their own cups. "To Harry."

George, holding the arm of his wife, adds, "To Fred."

"To Ron." Molly Weasley wipes away the tears from her eyes.

There is not a lack of silence when a hundred names were spoken at once. To, to, to, to. . .

V.

There is a full-blown war.

Voldemort is shocked. He never expected the other countries to bother Great Britain. After all, he controlled Russia, Albania, and various other nations. But Aurors and Hit Wizards coming in from the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Mexico, even China are joining in to fight against his Death Eaters. They are all swept under a huge umbrella about a humanitarian crisis in Great Britain. He never thought that they would actually dare. . .

Throwing spells left, right, and center, he watches with satisfaction as various Aurors throw Shield Charms to protect themselves. He laughs callously at the Ministry of Magic's lobby shakes with the sheer force of his magic.

Three Aurors.

Oh. . . And another. But different.

Coming down from the stairs, one masked Auror nonverbally casts unknown spells at him. The mask is silver; neither the mouth nor eyes in the holes are visible at all. He narrows his eyes when he sees them, out of the corner of his perspective, do quite a lot of damage to the Ministry's walls. Dark Arts.

Very Dark.

The other Aurors press harder on him, throwing spells and expending more energy in a desperate bid. Voldemort casually flicks his wand. Fire begins burning on that Auror's robes, and he smirks when his colleagues look at each other in horror at the smoking, man-shaped pile of ash and dust left behind.

A snap in his wrist throws them against the walls.

The sole Auror left only stares at him without fear or apprehension. He starts out with the Torture Curse. The Auror responds by moving his foot to the left, his black robes moving in a way similar to his former Potions Master. Snape. How interesting.

"A mask?" he muses. "Why a mask?"

He doesn't speak. Only returns a Stunning Spell.

It's a strange contrast from the Dark spell he used earlier.

"You could do better than that." He hisses, "Like this." He grabs his wand with both hands and throws a lightning bolt straight at the Auror. The power explodes, and he could feel the sheer heat of the light blinding and burning and beating down on everything. Still, he keeps pushing on the powerful Shield Charm the Auror holds.

He makes a calculation. He lets go of the spell and unleashes fire in the shape of a serpent. The Auror, seemingly unafraid, only walks closer to the serpent and lets himself be eaten.

Then he walks through the flames, as if it isn't even there.

Fiendfyre always eats, burns. . .

That's impossible. He doesn't understand.

The flames die out.

He makes it all the way to Voldemort. Just a feet away. He points his wand at Voldemort, strangely silent. Not a single word spoken.

He is not going to admit that he is unnerved.

His hand snakes out and grabs onto the wand. A spell is misfired from the Auror's wand, and casually, he takes it away from him. Then he snaps it into two.

There is not a single peep of horror from the Auror.

Perhaps he is a mute.

Perhaps he has a disfigured face.

Perhaps he doesn't speak English.

"Why don't you speak?" he snarls, his left hand reaching out to the mask. The silver mask dissolves away to reveal a woman. A woman with surprisingly cold eyes and an even colder curl on her lip. There is no softness or curves that resemble anything to the girl she was.

"Hermione Granger," he whispers, smirking.

Of course he remembers her.

She was the one who escaped with Harry Potter's dead body. She was the one who gave him a hit in his manhood. She was the last member of the Golden Trio. She was Undesirable No. 3, right after George Weasley and Neville Longbottom.

At last, he has her.

Her hand quickly slips into her robes and pulls out a second wand.

He stares at that. And he wants to laugh, even though he is standing at the wrong end of her wand. He has never met someone that prepared. Two wands. He wonders if he breaks this one too, would she pull out a third wand?

"What are you going to do now, Hermione Jean Granger?"

His blood freezes when he sees her smirk.

"One last act of kindness."

Right before a lethal, green spell hits his chest deadcenter, he marvels at the sheer intent and determination she has within her. And he wonders, almost foolishly, he supposes, what it would be like to actually hear her speak? What would it be like if he were to reply? What would it be like if they never met on a battlefield but instead at peace?

Read and review, my darlings.