We Never Said Goodbye (D.M)

~ Part 1 ~

    August 2001
    Three years after the Battle of Hogwarts
    Castle Comb, Wiltshire

    "Is there anyone I can call miss?"

    Hermione didn't realize the man was speaking to her until he tapped her lightly on the shoulder, with a glint of concern in his eyes. Hermione had been sitting in the muggle pub since three in the afternoon.. She guessed by the tired look in the bartender's eyes and the darkness outside that it was probably ten or eleven pm and everyone had already cleared out.

    Hermione couldn't remember the last time she hadn't ended her night with the same routine, always with a drink that burned with ever sip she took hoping that just maybe there was an answer to all of the worlds problems at the bottom of the glass, of course there never was with the war raging on and Voldemort's army growing stronger by the minute, forcing the order into hiding. The worlds problems seemed to actually increase with every sip.

    "Are you alright?" It was the bartender again "I could probably call a taxi.."

    Hermione shook her head escaping the trance she was in from the alcohol "No, no I'm alright" She said dazed, dropping the muggle currency on the counter to pay for her drinks "I live right down the street" The bartender quickly grabbed her arm as she attempted to walk away.

    "Ma'am I don't think you are in any state to be walking home-" his sentence was cut off from a flick of her wand with her free arm. Obliviating him, like she did every night so she could come back the next day and the day after that with no questions asked.

    The man released her arm looking around confused "Thanks for the drinks" Hermione mumbled before brushing past him to the exit toward the street.

    It was raining aswell and there was a long walk back to her campsite where Ginny and Neville were probably already fast asleep. She cursed herself for not accepting the mans taxi offer... but if Hermione had learned anything in the four years that the war went on it was not to trust anyone... even a muggle taxi driver.

     Hermione had been residing in the small town of Castle Comb, Wiltshire with Neville and Ginny for the past year since the divide of order members after Voldemort's attack on London where he massacred tens of thousands of Muggles and Muggleborns before taking over the city. Hermione went absolutely ballistic, she knew wholeheartedly that if the order used killing curses instead of non- lethal ones that thousands of people could still be alive. Harry and her argued for hours at that order meeting after London, where the group revisited Harry and Kingsley's previous rule of using non-lethal curses while fighting death eaters.. something she never agreed with she knew his outdated battle techniques were to blame and she wanted him to know it. He got so infuriated with her that she thought he might kick her out. He didn't have to though because right as the meeting ended she packed up her things and left.

    Neville and Ginny were the only ones who had agreed with Hermione, so shortly after she left they both joined her where she had set up a tent with an extending charm in the wooded outskirts of Castle Comb, a town in which her great grandfather had lived before he died.

~~~

    Hermione tripped and stumbled over her feet as she finally neared the campsite.  She stopped in her tracks listening for the buzz of magic that would tell her the protective wards over the site were still working, once she heard the faint familiar sound she stumbled into the dimly lit tent.. Inside was spacious but nothing extraordinary, to the left were the makeshift bunk beds Ginny and Neville shared and next to them sat Hermione's cot. In front of the entrance was a table and a tiny kitchen. To the right was a small bathroom that included a toilet and sink.

    "Mione is that you?" Ginny's tired voice questioned from the top bunk

    "Mhm" Hermione hummed removing her shoes and flicking her wand to conjure her clothes into pajamas, shorts and a t-shirt.

    "We have to go back to the market tomorrow.. we're out of milk and eggs" Ginny whispered as Hermione crawled under the sheets of her cot

    "Ok" Hermione whispered back her eyelids fluttering open and shut as soon as her head hit the pillow begging her for the release of sleep. She heard Ginny shift in her bed from leaning over the bunk railing to most-likely laying flat on her back with a sigh.

    "Ron showed up here when you were gone" The room went deadly silent and Hermione suddenly felt wide awake as she could feel Ginny's regret of mentioning Ron pierce through the air "He wanted to give us updates on the war efforts... and he wanted to see you"

    Hermione flinched... it had been one year three months and nine days since she last saw Ron Weasley.  Since the day he told her that she had changed that she was selfish and that she should have been doing more. She slapped him so hard across the face that day.  She had spent years developing new curses... non lethal curses and leading her own friends to battle.. just to be slaughtered because she wasnt able to use a killing curse.. all she wanted to do was save people. All she wanted to do was see the war end and somehow that had turned the order against her, only wanting to harm the people who had killed so many of their own, and she was the one being called selfish.. she would be ok if she never saw Ron Weasley or Harry Potter ever again.

    "I don't want to see him"

    "Mione.. he-"

    "I said I don't want to see him" Hermione hissed back.. if Neville hadn't been sleeping a mere feet from her she would have yelled "I've made up my mind" She heard Ginny sigh again, Hermione knew it was hard for her to be away from her brothers, to not know each day if they were dead or alive it was even harder for her to stand up against Ron and Harry. None the less Ginny Weasley was Resiliant, if she believed in something she would fight for it, and she believed we stood no chance against the death eaters if we weren't able to use our most viable curses.

    "I'll tell him if he comes back again" she whispered there was another pause of silence "He said they're finally making a move on one of the prisons in a few days.. Harry wants us there.. he says that it's one of the riskiest rescue missions we've done and he needs all the help he can get"

    Hermione scoffed, almost laughed.. she found it humorous that the order was going to attempt a rescue mission at one of Voldemort's heavily guarded prisons without the use of dark curses and wanted her help. "He's going to get himself killed"

    "I'm going to go" Ginny said "Ron thinks it's where they're keeping Luna" Hermione froze, Luna had been gone since the Battle of Hogwarts, and for a whole year everyone thought she had died, that was until Herself, Ron, Seamus Finnigan, and Tonks had rescued Hannah Abbot during a prisoner transport who told them that she had been sharing a prison cell with Luna since they had been captured and she was still in the prison.

    Ginny took it the hardest of course.. Luna was her best friend and she had just learned that she had been suffering a fate worst than death for the past year, when people get sent to his prisons... they usually never come out, that was until Hannah but she died just days after her rescue due to bite like wounds that almost reached her bones.

    "You should go" Hermione whispered

    "You think so?" Ginny asked

    "Yes but if the opportunity arises.."

    "Use a Killing curse"