→ we're older now, the light is dim, and you are only just beginning.

[leviohhhhsa]

Who: Hermione Granger, open
What: General horrors. Feel free to meet her in a safehouse, in the middle of monster-fighting or healing, hiding out somewhere, anything. She put out an open offer of help on the network; your character is welcome to take advantage of that.
Where: Everywhere.
When: All throughout the plot, really.
Notes: I will edit in locations once I know them for specific threads. I might put openers down below, but you're welcome to jump in with absolutely anything you might have in mind!
Warnings: Mentions of death, injury, horrors, war, PTSD. Angst.

For the first time since she was thrown into Baedal, Hermione feels purposeful. And she’s not going to analyse that, she refuses, in fact, to analyse that, because there are far too many other things she needs to be doing. She needs to keep her eyes on her surroundings, for one thing.

She knows she can help, that’s the thing, and that’s good enough for her. It’s not a choice, not really- it’s never felt like a choice, doing this sort of ridiculous thing, leaving home or a place passably close to home for the sake of being, well, heroic- it’s just the sort of thing you have to do in these situations. It’s what’s right.

Truth be told, when the war was going on she'd resigned herself, very practically and quite sensibly, in her opinion, to the fact that she wasn't going to live beyond eighteen. No one alters' their parents' memories and sends them to Australia if they think they're coming back, do they? No. She'd been expecting to die. Getting herself out of that mindset had been the real trouble- and now she can feel herself slipping back into it, which isn't at all healthy, but (God help her) it gets the job done.

She Apparates sparingly- partly because she has no idea what could be lurking in any of her intended destinations, and partly because the whole point of leaving her flat was to help people, and she can’t do that if she just vanishes and reappears in place to place. No, she has to go looking.

Not that she has to look hard. The city's overrun. There are certain areas which are worse than others- she tries to get a good look everywhere at first, which is how she learns very quickly that Apparating into an area blind is a bad idea- but aside from the safehouses that keep cropping up, nowhere's really dependable. Even those safehouses aren't invincible. There are stories about them being broken into- but the ones she trusts, where she takes people and takes a bit of shelter herself, seem to be alright. She doesn't use her flat much- it's safe, but it's also empty, and she hates sitting in the quiet while the monsters lurk outside.

Anyway, she doesn't know where Crookshanks is, and she doesn't want to think about that.

It’s hard and it’s horrible, but she’s quite glad of that. If it were easy to do and to get over, she wouldn’t feel quite human. It’s already too easy for her to function in these situations, to the extent that she wonders what happened to her life, what happened to all the plans she had before she turned eleven and got that letter, what happened to her, of all people, bookish and prissy and responsible as she is- but, again, she can’t wonder for long, because her life as it is now rather demands her whole attention. Still, she has to stop sometimes- Steph didn't quite succeed in making her promise to take a break, but her words have stuck in Hermione's brain, and she does have to eat and sleep and look after the injuries she herself sustains. When she stops moving, that's when it gets dangerous- that's when she has to wonder what she's thinking, why she's so convinced that she, an uppity bookworm with dreadful hair, can possibly do enough. And that's when she has to wonder why her. And that's when she has to get up again and just do something, anything, before she starts wallowing in self pity or thinking things that begin with what if or crying or doing something else that's stupid and unproductive.

She’s never done quite so much healing magic, not even when there was a war on. This time around that’s often the best help she can provide- that and Apparating people away from the direst situations. She’s good in a fight, but some of the things that prowl Baedal now can’t be fought, or not by her at least, and there’s no shame in grabbing somebody and leaving.

The good thing is that at least while Hermione's on her feet and acting, she's never been freer of her homesickness.

Comments

tell me if this is okay!

[catiana]

Once, Tatiana would have panicked at being separated from her friends. Kiden and Laura (and Bobby, but Bobby isn't here) - they were the strong ones. They were the ones who made her feel safe again.

They still do, but the years have made Tatiana confident in her own strength. Yeah, the city is overrun with monsters. Her costume is scuffed and torn, her body is aching in at least ten different places, she's tired and worried and a bit overwhelmed.

She can handle it. She can find her friends. She can protect the people here as best as she can; her med kit is in a pack slung on her back, and it's been getting a lot of use.

She's contemplating her supplies as she turns the corner, but the thoughts flee her mind as she freezes.

There were monsters here, no doubt about it. There's so much blood, and Tatiana swallows hard a few times.

There are a few people beyond help, and only one person standing. After those precious, wasted moments, Tatiana runs to her.

"Are you all right?"

shoot me a pm if it's not all groovy

[inkdamage]

She's not the only one who finds her temperament more suited to life during a crisis - all the baggage that comes with surviving horrific ordeals vanishes when you're still in the midst of it, versus the steps beyond; you make sense, in the context of nightmares, if you're damaged enough.

Which Severus Snape is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, cracked and splintered in all the right ways to make him appear almost too appropriate for a world gone mad. He makes more sense in Baedal than he does in Britain, and he makes yet more now than he did a week ago, black clothes stiff with blood, ash on his skin and under his nails, dark eyes keen. He moves with the disorienting snap-blink of Apparating, or as the horror show inspired black smoke of Death Eaters, or, as now, merely on his feet, walking across ruined cobblestones with his left hand raised, palm out, guiding purple-hued corrosive flames that consume and destroy every clinging, vicious little deathly sprite in its path.

When he sees Hermione he pauses, tilts his head and looks at her - but doesn't speak. The world around them is making enough noise as it is, but there's acknowledgement there. His gaze is too-sharp but distant at once, unnerving, the right side of his face painted (accidentally?) with what looks like a stripe of long-dried blood; maybe an injury, maybe a tribute. A metaphysical glimmer (of what should be familiarity) behind him says he's been shoving people behind wards, but he's here beyond them. In passing.

[instead]

When the monsters invade, Lily's first instinct is, as always, protect Harry. But when the first instinct crashes into the horrible reminder that Harry isn't here, her Order of the Phoenix training kicks back in, and she runs out into the mess to help as much as she can. (You've already died once! part of her brain points out cheerfully. What's the worst that can happen? Gallows humor. A necessary, if morbid, response.)

She skitters round a corner, firing off one last hex at the thing with too many legs that had been haring after her, and stops to catch her breath, hands on knees, still clutching her wand. She looks up, scanning the area, and spots a familiar figure. Quickly, she closes the distance.

"Ah - it's Hermione, right? Are you okay?"

[gramarye]

Wolfgang is not physical combat oriented (what he wouldn't do right now for a gun!) but there's a million little useful things he can do that he only freaks out about in private. It's been days, he's still not over this m-word thing -- but he doesn't have time to think too hard about it. He'll have his mental breakdown at a more convenient time.

For now, he's staying occupied. Part of what he's doing in the siege is supply runs for safehouses -- he can carry a truly ridiculous amount of stuff in one small backpack, plus he can look for people who need help on the way. It's during one of those runs that he hears someone screaming and immediately goes to help, but he's just a minute too late -- the man, armed with a sword he doesn't quite know how to use, has managed to kill the frog-thing that attacked him, but it took a huge chunk out of his thigh in the process and his face goes dead white as he collapses.

Wolfgang sprints the distance between them because even from twenty yards away, he can tell that's a bad wound. The man is mostly conscious but in a lot of pain. The bleeding's bad; Wolfgang applies pressure to the wound and rips his sleeve to make a makeshift tourniquet, hoping he can keep him from bleeding out on him even if he can't save the leg. Wolfgang is not a medic and the situation is rapidly getting worse. What he needs immediately is a healer, but he doesn't have the time or the ability to bring him anywhere; this man weighs more than he does. He can't carry him. God only knows where his CiD is, and he might not get a response in time.

Okay, so he'll just have to find someone.

Closing his eyes and concentrating, he sends his mind out in a wide radius from his body, broadcasting what's more of a feeling than anything else, an impulse. He has to hope someone is in his range and can get here in time. It is easier by far to broadcast a need than it is to use actual words, but he does manage one: Help.

do let me know if this does not work

[orionis]

Jumping into a situation blind is these sorts of crisis scenarios is generally a terrible idea. But fortune favours the bold, or perhaps caution is simply boring, because Bellatrix Black has Apparated close enough to a levitating creature that appears to be a mass of flesh, a large eyeball, and a handful of stalks with smaller eyeballs that she feels it prudent to pop out again. Some distance away.

Only she finds that as the thing is looking at her, she can't. She staggers back, one hand pressed to her head as a sense of inexplicable dread seems to crush her chest and leave her short of breath. She gasps - quite audibly - wand at the ready, and shaking in her white-knuckled grasp.