Title: Morning Sunsets

Rating: PG-13 (talks of death, war, battle)

Genre: War, drama, angst

Spoilers: Philosopher’s Stone to Half-Blood Prince

Period: circa 1996-1997 (seventh year)

Pairings: None ; it’s set up at the moment to lead into Hermione Granger/Viktor Krum

Summary: Death Eater factions have attacked the Order of the Phoenix, and when Bellatrix finds Hermione in the trench, an unlikely Death Eater saves her life.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The plot, however, is created by the writer and is not to be replicated by another.

Writer’s Notes: Another part of the Morning Sunsets epic that disregards Deathly Hallows since it takes place after HBP. This was the first part written that spurned the plot bunny. It is a middle segment, although it could be the beginning too. Actually, this would have probably happened soon after the beginning with Bella and Krum.

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Emerald and garnet lightning flashed far above Hermione Granger’s head, illuminating the enveloping darkness. She crouched alone in the crude trench, her boots sinking deeper into the earth as rain pelted from above. Somewhere within the battlefield, beyond the distance of sight and sound, myriads of black robed and white robed wizards clashed into a greying blur. Shimmering razor wire and smouldering smudge pots bordered the theatre of war, the flames emitting a insipid light which did little to prevent the shadows.

Hermione clenched her vine-wood wand with white knuckles and chanced a momentary glance toward the battleground, hoping to find Ron and Harry. She couldn’t see them amongst the confusions of war. Hermione disappeared into the trench once more, feeling slightly calmed in the presence of the glow from the Welsh lantern at the bottom.

The waxing crescent of the moon slowly traced its movement in the leaden sky. When Hermione had browsed the heavens, the moon had moved only a fraction of its width. The luminosity from the stars existed only in the higher atmosphere, the dim points of light could not contravene through the thick rain clouds.

A desperate whimper faltered from Hermione’s lips as she whipped her head around, agonizing over every manner of commotion which belted forth from the incessant animosities. In her obsessive behaviour, she staggered forward and fell, a thin layer of mud staining the skirts of her robes, her hands scrapping against the duck boards lining the trench. She stayed there for several seconds, head bowed, before crawling toward the edge of the trench, using it to pull herself through the slippery muck.

Cracked sapphire light erupted centimetres above Hermione, and she saw a wizard who might have been Ron fall backward into a puddle of muddy water. The brunette shrieked and cursed, but the words were drowned in the downpour and echoes of magic. Hermione’s hands landed in the ground, level with her waist, and her arms twitched as she prepared to push herself from the trench. She then remembered her promise to Harry and Ron, and slowly removed her hands and wiped them using her crimson cloak.

The rain fell stronger as though some forgotten goddess cried over the meaningless deaths, and the flames of many smudge pots were extinguished. It soaked into Hermione’s discoloured robes and saturated her hair. She could barely see the figures of her comrades, or those they battled against, through the driving rain. She sent wishes to the gods that her logical mind couldn’t believe in that the Death Eaters had not advanced their lines.

Hermione’s stomach knotted as she cast a fleeting look toward the crescent moon that was disappearing into the folds of the thick clouds. The seconds of time trickled slowly through the night, as though the moon goddess desired to witness the outcome of battle, to personally coddle the dead into her bosom. It couldn’t have been more than an hour when the Death Eaters had devastated the wizarding hamlet of Godric’s Hollow, but to Hermione it seemed as though years had passed since she kissed Ron goodbye and hugged Harry close. She was left alone in the trench with what others could consider the impression of shaky-kneed weakness.

But in these times of war, Harry was her commander and she would follow him without a second thought, even if he led her through the fiery gateways of Hades’s underworld realm. It was nothing less than what Hermione expected from herself, than what the Order of the Phoenix expected her to sacrifice.

An outburst of cold air howled in Hermione’s ears and she tightened the muddy cloak around her neck. The regulation uniforms did little to warm her; she shivered as the peculiar autumn season chilled her to the bone marrow. She moaned silently and nearly leapt from her combat boots when a fissure of silver light scorched the earth next to her. Hermione whipped her head around, her soaked hair beating against her face, the stench of sulphur burning in her nasal passages.

She was met with a crooked smile from a black-robed witch.

Hermione stared as the slender hands of the Death Eater tore the white-bone mask from her face, revealing smudged-charcoal eyes which glinted with mottled psychosis. Hermione recognised Bellatrix Lestrange in a horrifying moment, and the valiant Gryffindor focussed her wand between Bellatrix’s heavily lidded eyes.

Bellatrix laughed, the sound piercing through the air, overwhelming the reverberation of war. Her ebony hair dripped water beads into her eyes and through the angles of high cheekbones as she carelessly let her mask fall and sink into the mud.

Hermione stumbled from the trench, her drenched robes impeding her movements.

“Why do you hide, pet?” Bellatrix whispered.

A shadow of darkness fell over Hermione as she stepped from the soft light of the Welsh oil lamp. The flush tinting Hermione’s cheeks dulled, and she fought to regain her strength of mind and determination. The resolute façade that smoothed over Hermione’s face was met with a sniggering from the Death Eater.

Bellatrix bowed, her crimson lips coming close to Hermione’s. “Your boyfriends thought you’d be safe in a ditch? Why do you flaunt insolence in light of their memories by cowering with weakness?” she mocked as she pressed her wand into Hermione’s temple.

Hermione stared, and raised her wand against Bellatrix’s, gently knocking it down.

“I presume you’ve duelled, pet? I am already bowed; you will do the same.”

Hermione chewed her bottom lip, drawing dying courage in the countenance of demented death, and stepped from the trench. “I will never bow to you,” she stated defiantly, and held her breath as Bellatrix snarled and regained her well-bred posture.

“Offer respect, girl.” Bellatrix counselled, and a torrent of energy burst from her wand. She crowed with delight as she watched Hermione fight against the power. Bellatrix allowed herself a smirk of triumph when Hermione bent at the waist. The Death Eater readied her wand with such recovery that Hermione was only straightening when the spell was cast.

“Expelliarmus!” echoed through the currents of air and rain, fell to deaf eyes.

Hermione gaped as her wand was forced from her hand and fell in slender splinters, sinking and disappearing into the mud around her feet. The only sound piercing through the wind was the cackling of the raven-haired Death Eater.

“What is the matter, my pet?” she ridiculed in a penetrating voice, “are you afraid of death? One would imagine you’d be used to it by now. People die every day.” She traced small circles in the air with her wand, derisively intimidating Hermione.

“Death is naught but the next boundless adventure,” Hermione quoted, alluding to the words spoken by the great wizard Albus Dumbledore years ago.

Bellatrix sneered, wielding her wand with irate gestures. She pressed it into the middle of Hermione’s forehead and flicked her tongue over her lips. “Such heroism for one hiding in the gutters,” she mused, the words of her adored Cruciatus Curse cascading through her mind, radiating in silvery expression.

Hermione readied herself for the blow, refusing to close her eyes against the anticipated pain. She caught a glimpse of movement through the rainstorm -- a wizard in robes which used to be white was felled beneath a jet of emerald lightning.

A Death Eater emerged from the sheets of the intense rainfall, the bone-white mask shielding his identity. Within the shadows in the mask, his eyes glinted with recognition as they focussed on the witch in mud-stained robes. In that moment when Bellatrix raised her wand, readied it between Hermione’s chocolate eyes, his spirit plunged into the nucleus of the Earth.

The mediaeval language of magic barely passed Bellatrix’s lips when she was knocked forward by an eruption of energy from the Death Eater’s hornbeam wand. The aristocratic Bella collapsed to her knees and fell comatose, a mud mask rinsing her painted face.

Hermione stared, and saw her shocked reflection in Viktor Krum’s gunmetal eyes.