“To my fellow Wizards and Witches, I will repeat this again; hopefully you shall listen this time. We shall now stop fighting. You have fought bravely against my dedicated death eaters and some of you have proved yourselves valuable. It is not a canard that Harry Potter has died, your leader has fallen. Perhaps you better follow me instead otherwise you might follow in his footsteps, anyone else who rebels against me will unfortunately die.”
Voldemort paused, frozen as his scarlet eyes searched the crowds for any sign of someone hesitating, but all he found were smirks of agreement and bitter looks, but no one attempted to stop him as he continued to carry on lecturing them on the things to come in the future.
She let the sinister darkness envelope her fragile body, the bitter cold shrouding around her frail, quivering form as she stared at the gold watch that hung loosely on her wrist, hoping that she would receive some form of notification that everyone was safe within the next hour or so. It made no gentle ticking noise like all of her other previous watches, the sound she was so accustomed to was no longer there because if she was hiding from the opposition then a ticking watch would only reveal her presence. Hermoine sighed, once again finding herself on desolation row once more with only herself for company, something she now found on a regular basis.
Hermoine couldn’t help her stomach snarl at her for feeling empty and not being satiated, the thought that she would have succumbed to looking around the floor of an empty train station a few years ago would have repulsed her, but there was nowhere else to find food. She often rummaged through dustbins but rats had often beaten her to the chase and eaten anything edible, or people had saved the scraps for themselves as everything appeared to be rationed unless you were ‘worthy’ of eating such a delectable luxury.
Her status was ‘detrimental to the Wizarding society’ like many other Muggleborns all over Europe now. Muggleborns and Muggles were treated hostilely by few Witches and Wizards now; others tortured them mirthlessly using the ‘unforgivable curses’ which weren’t so unforgivable anymore and a majority of the Witches and Wizards favoured a concise precise death; a death where they didn’t have to feel remorse for executing such an inhumane act. A death similar to the one Voldemort accomplished little over year ago now. Thinking of Harry only revived the resentment and infuriation Hermoine thought she had put in a box a while ago.
Hermoine loitered in the vacant train station, vacuously roaming around, trying to keep her patience intact. It was after eight hours, forty-six minutes and thirty-one seconds that the one and only Neville Longbottom arrived looking rather unkempt as he staggered towards Hermoine with a slight limp in his one knee. Hermoine noticed this as she scurried towards him, her arms wrapped around his waist like devils snare bound around a person’s leg.
“Her-Hermo-Hermoine, I don’t know, I don’t know! Hagrid and Luna will be here shortly, the rest…I don’t know, I don’t know! Oh, but it was awful Hermoine, your lucky you didn’t see it! I don’t know where they went…” Neville’s voice trailed off, his coffee coloured eyes looked off into the distance, like he was recalling the distress he just left. Hermoine furrowed her eyebrows, bewildered by Neville’s incessant ramblings she lead him towards a decaying wooden bench and tenderly helped him sit. Flakes of crimson red were slowly peeling away and revealed rotting wooden slats, it wasn’t the most enthralling accommodation but it was better than sitting on the cobbled stone streets.
“Neville, what happened?” Hermoine asked in the most soothing voice she could muster, her blemished cheeks were the colour of the deteriorating paint; her eyes were profound with worry as she stared at him intently.
“Well, they saw us. It was like they knew we were moving headquarters tonight. Ron was with Ginny and I assumed they would be okay but I haven’t had so much as a patronus from them, Hagrid and Luna will be here shortly, they’re walking and then you’ve got…” Glistening tears left trails like snails down Neville’s cheeks, Hermoine fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief but all she had was a serviette from a derelict café off an empty motorway covered in filth from her travels. She handed it to him meekly; she did not say more until others came. Neither of them needed to be comforted by words, the fact that they were not alone on desolation row was just fine.
