Once upon a time, [Hello? Can you hear me? *taps mike*] once upon a time, there lived a little beaver – but that’s not important, this story isn’t about beavers. This story is about love and war, and how they both kill in their own ways, and how, contrary to 'as to the saying goes,' nothing – nothing – is fair in either. This story is about beauty, and romance, and grief, and how we humans, silly mortal things, complicate things that simplify our path to nothingness. This story is about twists of fate, about those little words that cause enormous deeds, about those enormous words that are backed by very little of – if any – deeds.

It is about how love creates and destroys, about how easy the descent into the Apocalypse is.


Easy is the Descent
[ or The Trilogy of Hell: The Past ]
“Life offers thee nothingness”

Chapter 1:
{ a t d e a t h ; w e b e g i n }

The night terrified her. It reminded her of childhood nightmares and teenage dreams, both things with terrible ends. At twenty years of age, Hermione Granger was no longer lanky or bushy-haired or the kind of toothed that Crabbe and Goyle could make fun of, but her graceful posture and tamed locks and even, white teeth scared her nearly as much as the proverbial hours of gloom. There had been a point in her life when she had believed stereotypical beauty might contend her, but the reason behind the belief was gone, gone despite the promises, the assurances.

It was scary, how scary the night was.

The night. It brimmed with memories, memories of the days gone by, memories of the people that she had loved – still loved – adored. Memories that had become bitter because of their sweetness, precious because they were all she now possessed. She was empty, more hollow from within than any pair of eyes could gauge, alive only because of, and for, her memories.

A wind rustled outside the window and, with a slight shiver, Hermione pushed off her blanket and clambered from her bed. The bedroom lay in darkness, and it unsettled her. What have I been thinking? She asked herself. She had not slept without a light – not even once – since that dreadful night, seven months ago. Had she thought clicking off all lights, tonight, would drive out her fear? She had been stupid, stupid, stupid, she told herself.

But perhaps stupid was not the word. The drowning person grasps at the least of supports, and anything that could cancel her terror was welcome. She switched on a light, watched its brilliant, white shafts engulf the room and drive out the gloom that she so badly hated. This is silly, she thought quietly. I’m twenty, as far away from the least hint of magic as possible, and I’m still scared. “This is silly,” she said out loud. “Really silly.”

“But is it, Granger?”

The scream that escaped her throat was piercing, tore down the staircase and throughout the neighbourhood. For seven months, she had seen no wizard or witch; for seven months, she had struggled, only, to push out of mind the events of the past year or half; and for seven months, she had known she was wanted but she could not be found, not by the most powerful of wizards or witches. But the voice she now heard was no hallucination, no nightmare – it was real, it was amused, it was taunting.

“Say hello to you death, mudblood.”

The memories of the past year came back all at once, were the last thing Hermione Granger remembered before the world blacked out.

*

Maxie says: With this FF, I wanted to explore what happens when things go wrong. It's... dark? I don't know. I think it is. *mumbles to self*

Text Cut: Yeaa.

The Potterverse? It belongs to J. K Rowling. <3

{ Index }

[] Chapter 2: Two's company; three's a trio
[] Chapter 3: The beginning of an end