Iniquitous

Chapter One

It seemed endless, that walk, even surrounded as she was by her beloved dead. They kept close; flickering flames of soul; her had-been shields, still trying to protect, even now. Still trying to lend warmth. But each step forward was heavier than the last, and her heart beat faster even as her limbs slowed, trying to live out the rest of its life in those last few minutes.

Beat, beat, beat.

Step.

"Does it hurt? Dying?"

Her own childish, pitiful voice rose out of her and dissolved into the cold air, but Sirius replied, and Hera heard without listening, just holding on to that warm cadence.

They walked on, her and her dead, touching but not touching and yet she was so close to them now, wasn't she? Closer than she had ever been. A ghostly procession of ghosts and will-be ghost, and her heart beat even faster with that thought, thudding against her rib cage, wanting out.

Out.

Out, OUT HERA, GET OUT.

But there were no more outs. No more saviours, no more parents, no more Sirius, no more Dumbledore. No more Snape even. She had used all those lifelines. All those sacrifices for the one great sacrifice.

And her heart was tearing with grief and pain. For them, for dying so fruitlessly, and for herself because I'M NOT DONE LIVING.

But she took each dutiful step, a death row prisoner with all the world to run to but the gallows was home.

Almost there. She could hear the rough voices of men, could see the glimmers of lights and spells and wards through the trees, even through the dampening effect of the dementors swirling around them like large ragged black snowflakes.

Her eyes raked frantically across the faces of her family, absorbing the open love and buttressing her will with their expressions.

"You'll stay with me?" she half whispered, half croaked.

"Until the very end," said her father, and she wanted to ask again, that question-

Does it hurt? Dying?

But she couldn't speak, and the stone was clutched in her sweating hand so tightly that she was sure the symbol of the Hallows was etched permanently into her palm.

The sounds were getting louder now. They were leaving the dementor guards behind. Hera drew the cloak firmly around her, thinking of the legend of the three brothers and what she herself might give to hide from Death.

Death. Why did everything have to be about death?

And Ron's voice and face came unbidden to her:

"Why is everything I own rubbish?" he had said, in a voice tight with shame and anger and resentment; and Hera now, feeling that same mix of emotions for the first time-

Why does everything have to be about death?

Then she almost ran into Dolohov and Yaxley arguing about whether she would come, and she followed them from a reluctant distance for what might have been minutes, or seconds, or an eternity.

Time moves strangely when you don't know what you want.

All of a sudden, she was stepping into a clearing, and the stone was falling from her shaking hands- because she was truly shaking now; shaking and yet steeling herself as she watched that poised, waiting figure with his grotesque halo of snake look suddenly up as if he could see her.

Her blood froze, and her frozen fingers hesitated for a second before she shrugged off Death's cloak and forced her head high.

A triumphant, cackling din rose and fell quickly. Death Eaters stood, crowded, and then fell back, like the crashing and then receding of waves.

Bellatrix Lestrange looked from her Lord to Hera and back, her tongue between her teeth.

"Hera Potter..." Lord Voldemort, twirling the Elder wand between long fingers, regarded her, speaking as if to himself. "The Girl Who Lived..." And he tilted his head slightly as if curious- The Girl Who Lived.

Or maybe it was Hera herself who was curious.

Her heart was pounding. She could feel the smooth wood of the wand of Draco Malfoy against her chest; no sensation was more stark. She suppressed the instinct to defend herself, an instinct honed over years spent running from this monster of a man.

There was nothing to focus on. His wand was lifting, his mouth was opening, and Hera watched the motions, frozen-

"Wait!"

For a split second she didn't realise that it had come out of her, panicked as she was.

Silence. Then, the Death Eaters were hooting, the giants jeering. Bellatrix laughed mirthfully, her face forming sharp temporary doppelgänger masks of Sirius-like joy. Voldemort's lip curled. Amused red eyes flickered to his followers. "See how their champion, their so-called chosen one begs me for mercy," he crowed.

"I didn't," said Hera, her face burning, her hands curling into fists. That fleeting insanity had passed. The moment of habitual self-preservation which had surfaced was turning rapidly to shame and anger.

His red gaze was back on her. She locked eyes with him.

"I don't beg for mercy," she said loudly. "And certainly not from you. But that was fun, wasn't it? The Great Lord Voldemort, taking orders from a girl... Wait, she said, and wait he did." She was panting now too.

Stillness reigned.

Even Hagrid had stopped his struggling; she saw him freeze in the periphery of her vision. Only Bellatrix panted in unison with her, insulted and angry on behalf of her Lord, whose cold eyes, still trained on hers, were now rapidly narrowing.

Visions of the piece of his soul dying within her, and of being free at last, at long last- those visons were at the forefront of her mind, making her almost smile in the face of death.

"Go on then," Hera spat through her teeth. "Do your worst."

Triggered unconsciously by the remarkably snake-like face of her adversary, her words came out in a long fluid parseltongue-hiss.

As the last echoes of their shared language became one with the spitting of the fires, and Hera saw him again raise his wand, she thought desperately of her parents, and of Sirius. Her eyes were blurry with unshed tears, but she kept them open in defiance until only the bursting light from his wand and the red of his eyes remained in relief.

Red like the fiendfyre that raged high to lick the vaulted ceilings of the Room of Requirement.

Red like the matted wet hair of her best friend Ron as he stabbed at a gold locket.

Red like the fresh pooling blood of the dead Potions master, and then-

"You have kept her alive so that she can die at the right moment?" Snape's horrified voice came clearly into her head, and his face swum up before her vision, wan and angry; and Dumbledore replying...

Hera was re-watching the memories of the pensieve once again, and it was seconds before she realised with a jolt that it wasn't only herself watching these memories, and that the pursing of the lipless mouth of Voldemort as he raised his wand hadn't been the Avada Kedavra, but-

"Legilimens."