It was like sinking into an old nightmare; Hermione felt as though she couldn't breathe, her gaze fixated upon the tiny body laying lifelessly on the grass, whom was pierced by Bellatrix's silver dagger — the same dagger that had pierced her heart as it was plunged deep into Charlie's skin over and over again.
Had she lost him too?
Had Charlie met the same fate as Dobby?
Was it too late?
Beside her, Harry's voice was still saying, "Dobby... Dobby..." even though he knew that the elf had gone where he could not call him back.
Hermione wished more than anything that everything that had just unfolded was some cruel nightmare, and that she'd eventually wake up — unharmed and immensely content — in Charlie's arms. The heart-wrenching pain and emptiness she felt at seeing Dobby's lifeless form, however, acted as a painful reminder of reality, which was threatening to overtake her completely. If Charlie, too, was lost, Hermione was quite certain she would've rather let the waves wash over her, allow the sea to take her.
Somehow, she managed to pull herself from her morbid thoughts as she looked back down to Dobby, her reddened cheeks stained with tears. Hermione watched as Harry stretched out a hand and pulled the sharp blade from the elf's body, then he dragged off his jacket and covered Dobby in it like a blanket.
The sea was rushing against the rock somewhere nearby; Hermione listened to it while the others talked, discussing matters in which she could take no interest. In the midst of the chaos, Dean had carried the injured Griphook towards the house, Fleur hurrying away with them, and now Bill was making suggestions about burying the elf.
Through the dull hum of it all, Hermione could've sworn she felt Ron pull on her arm. He desperately tried to escort her back towards the safety of Shell Cottage, but Hermione remained firmly still, numb and isolated to everything happening around her. Her rage was dreadful, and yet her hope that Charlie was somewhere out there — alive — seemed to diminish it, so that it became a distant storm that reached her from across a vast, silent ocean.
"I want to bury him properly," she heard Harry say, the first words of which Hermione was fully conscious of hearing since their arrival on this shore. "Not by magic... have you got a spade?" he asked Bill, his glasses slightly fogged.
And shortly afterward, Harry had set to work, digging the grave in the place that Bill had shown him, just up on top of a small cliff, looking down on the cottage. He dug with a kind of fury, relishing the manual work, glorying in the non-magic of it, for every drop of his sweat and every blister felt like a gift to the elf who had saved their lives.
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