Chapter One: Final Battle
The final battle occurred one and half months after Harry, Hermione and Ron would have graduated from Hogwarts. The three, instead of finishing off their seventh year, spent the year tracking down Voldemort's horcruxes and managed to destroy them all just before Harry's eighteenth birthday. Surprise, surprise, when Voldemort plans his attack for the very day.
The Golden Trio, headed by the 'boy-who-lived', stormed through the battle fronts to where Voldemort and his closest minions were and destroyed him. Nobody thought it possible, but through Hermione's research, Ron's brave leap to block the cruciatus from getting to Harry, a diversion in the form of a giant named Grawp, and Harry's swift cast of the killing curse, Voldemort ceased to exist in brief seconds.
The wizarding world began to celebrate that very minute. The death eaters began to attack all around them, catching anyone off guard. Ron Weasley, who was on the ground in severe pain from the cruciatus curse, was the first target of Lucius Malfoy. Seeing the danger her fiancé was in, Hermione leaped to protect him, receiving the unknown curse herself.
Lucius was swiftly hexed afterwards by a very angry Harry. The rest of the Death Eaters were wrangled in that day as well, aside from a few that got away. At the end of the day, Harry was a little battered and out of energy, Ron was fighting tremors from the after affects of the cruciatus, and Hermione was unconscious in the Hospital wing, unable to be awoken.
Despite the many tragedies of the day, including Neville's demise and a blinded Luna Lovegood, the unconscious form of Hermione Granger unsettled Harry the most. His best friend was unmoving in the bed next to him while the entire wizarding world was celebrating her success. She was the one who searched and searched for the Horcruxes and Madame Pomfrey was not even sure she would ever recover from whatever curse was affecting her.
As the days went on and Hermione was still unable to regain consciousness, everyone lost hope that she would ever awake. In the beginning, Harry and Ron would visit her bed side and talk to her, like they did when she was petrified from the basilisk. A week later, Harry was there all the time and Ron only showed up a couple of times, claiming that he could not bear to see her like that.
Others came to see her often too. Professor McGonagall would threaten to give her a detention if she didn't wake up. That seemed to make her listen when she was still a student, but to no avail, she remained in her slumber. Professor Snape, whose name was cleared by Hermione during the search for Horcruxes, visited nearly every day, much to Harry's surprise. They never talked to each other, but when Harry left Hermione's side for a bathroom break, he often came back to see Snape speaking with Hermione's sleeping form.
"I don't much care to take on apprentices, Miss Granger, but if you wake up, I will think about it." Harry heard Snape speak in soft tones as he approached the bed.
"There is still no sign of her awaking yet." Harry stated matter-of-factly as he took the seat next to Hermione's bed and offered Snape some tea. He politely declined and Harry proceeded with adding cubes of sugar to his own.
"Where is Miss Granger's fiancé?" He asked with what seemed to be an almost impassive tone of voice.
"Ron said he couldn't handle seeing her like this." Harry said, disbelievingly, and shrugged. "Hermione is like a sister to me and Ron is, of course, my best mate, but I honestly do not get how they managed to become engaged to each other. It makes no sense." Severus cocked an eyebrow at the boy he had spent his entire life loathing.
"I agree." He muttered quietly and Harry could have sworn that hell froze over at that minute. "Miss Granger is not Weasley's type."
"Yes, I doubt very much that Hermione would have spent the rest of her life admiring Ron, like he would have wished her to do."
"Then I suppose it is best that I saw him escorting Miss Brown through Diagon Alley yesterday evening." Harry shrugged and then looked at Hermione sadly.
"How is she going to handle that when she wakes up?" Harry said, more to himself than to Snape.
"And you presume that she is going to wake?"
"Yes." Harry answered without question. "I have full confidence she will pull out of this trance. I just wish that she would do it sooner rather than later because everything is changing around her." Severus only 'humph'-ed and Harry could have sworn he saw one of the sides of his mouth curl upwards in a half-smile.
"Good day." He said and then left the room quickly, his robes billowing behind him. Harry smiled down at Hermione.
"You should really wake up, Mione. It seems that even Snape cares about you." With that, Harry left the room to go about his regular business. Even he knew that he couldn't spend every waking moment in the room with Hermione. He knew that she wouldn't like that very much, especially with Voldemort gone and his life ahead of him.
AN: I'd love to hear what you think about it so far. Reviews are always welcome... even if they state I am a miserable writer and that I should have my fingers dislocated to prevent me from ever typing another letter... Smiles...
