You must have chaos within you, to give birth to a star. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Bits of rubble stuck to her hair and embedded inside of her palms as Hermione moved to stand, muscles and bones protesting every movement, but if she didn't keep moving she would have worse damage than a few cuts and bruises, and one ruptured eardrum.

Another fanatic, a devout follower of Voldemort and his ideology, had attempted to use the Veil for his own dark designs. This time, however, the perpetrator was a man employed by the ministry for thirty years, and ten of those were spent during the second war fighting against Voldemort. Openly! Holden Ogden raised his wand again, the sleeves of his dark blue Unspeakable robes tattered and falling away to display an ugly self-made carving of a Dark Mark on his left forearm.

Hermione spit out a globule of blood from biting the inside of her cheek and threw off her robes as she ran back towards the middle of the Death Room. Thunderclouds gathered above the Veil, the stone structure as old as the Druids fighting back against the insistent ministrations of the dark curses and spells flowing from Ogden's wand like a kicked nest of vipers. Three other of her coworkers - his co workers, too - were trying everything to get through the shimmering sphere cast around him and most of the dais. A Patronus in the shape of a shark brushed by close enough to rustle some of the debris loose from her hair, circling the barrier, attacking at random intervals to try to force its way in. She added her otter to the mix of other prowling blue specters, but didn't stop moving towards the sphere herself.

She thought she heard Justin Finch-Fletchley call her name, right after she set her jaw and lifted her own hand towards the field.

If she expected to be thrown back or a jolt of pain, it didn't come. Her hand, then arm, then entire body passed through the barrier without issue, and the roar of chaos outside was silenced once every inch of her went inside.

"Miss Granger," Ogden said, twisting enough to glance at her without turning his whole body. His arm didn't stop moving.

Her eyes tracked the movements and body moved sluggishly through the air, as if she were underwater, but her voice rang as clear as his. "Holden, don't do this."

Laughter echoed inside like a bell jar, ringing against her damaged eardrum painfully loudly, and overlapping onto itself until it felt like an entire Wizengamot was inside of the cramped space. Even though screams rose up from the angry red of the Veil, they didn't chill her bones like the laughter.

"You've earned my respect this last decade, my dear. I have saved a place for you once I command the spirit of Lord Voldemort. With a force like his power behind me...I'm positive the Ministry will buckle from the combined strength-"

With his attention entirely focused on his work on the Veil, and blindly trusting the molasses like charm affecting Hermione, Ogden underestimated her determination to attack. So, when she body slammed him to the ground, the air easier to move through the closer she got, and his face stuck in a small oh after he was knocked unconscious on the stairs.

The sphere around her popped, the release of pressure almost enough to damage her still-working eardrum. Her balance was already hindered from fighting the vertigo effects of her inner ear obtaining damage. As the rubble started to rumble around her, and her other team members still standing and gaping at the fallen figure of their department Head, Hermione fell to one knee. Small rocks and chunks of debris flew towards the center of the room to reassemble themselves around the dais and the Veil, cutting her exposed arms and cheeks a few more times. Her breath came in gasps and her lungs filled with dust even as it started to settle around them.

She raised her wand to her ear, rolling onto her back to catch her breath. A whispered incantation later and the sick feeling of nausea accompanying disorientation was the only remaining indication her ear was damaged at all.

As the sound of the world flooded back, she called out for a sound off from the others, counting Reyes, Finch-Fletchley, and Hargrove. From the sound of their voices, they'd been knocked down by the outside force of the spell breaking.

Terrible coughing filled the silence, the sort of sound heard in hospitals and on streets when tuberculosis ran rampant, coarse and warning that death was not far behind. Hermione lifted herself up to cast an anapneo in the direction of the sound to relieve her teammate from the dust likely coating their lungs, not even opening her eyes, fighting waves of exhaustion after battling Ogden, the bastard, for hours. They would need Aurors to collect him, but the spells locking them inside would need to be broken first, and-

"Bellatrix! Where are you, you fucking bitch, you coward! Come out, come out and play!"

Her eyes snapped open and her heart stuttered, the list of tasks wiped clean from her mind. Long black hair filled her vision, framing a dirt-streaked face aged well past his thirty five years of age. His clothes were the same dark house clothes from the night over twenty years ago when he'd fallen through the Veil. Her stomach twisted at the wild expression in his eyes, the wand in his hand swinging like a broken compass needle, and blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"Sirius?"

Wild eyes latched onto her, and before she could sit up and scramble away, or even grasp her wand, he was on her. A bony knee held her down across her hips and his non-dominant hand pushed her shoulder into the stairs below. The tip of his wand started to bruise beneath her jaw.

"What have you done with Harry?" he screamed. The wand trembled and heated in warning.

"No!" Hermione choked out, forcing herself to relax, recalling what Sirius's Animagus form was and could do. "Sirius, it's me, it's Hermione! Harry is fine I promise!"

"You're lying! What did I give to Hermione Granger for Christmas two years ago?"

Rapid equations flew through her mind before she cataloged that Sirius would think two years ago was her third year. "Nothing! I thought you were a murderer!"

The wand relaxed slightly, but Sirius pushed more insistently into her shoulder. Hysterically she thought if this is a hallucination caused by something Ogden did, we are ALL fucked.

His eyes searched her face rapidly, looking for something he seemed to find several long seconds later, when he fell back to land heavily on his feet next to her. He kept a tight grip on his wand and didn't stop staring at her, pupils dilating quickly.

"...Hermione?"

[a/n] October 10th, 2016 - Originally posted as Chapter 67 of the Choose Dare Drabbles, and after very popular demand this will be expanded to about five chapters. And since it is October it is likely to have heavy influences from Halloween themes.