They'd never understand. They'd never understand her choices, not in ten years or a hundred. They were stupid and petty and for all their talk of the future, the couldn't see the direction it was going.
"Ready?" She was the only one that spoke, there was no need for any other voice.
The people around her, her friends, her new family, looked at each other, then back to her and all nodded.
"For bravery." Ginny Weasley placed her hand in the middle, followed by Fred and George.
"For wisdom." Luna Lovegood place her delicate hand on top of Ginny's, her serene smile holding something darker in its depths.
Neville Longbottom and Theodore Nott placed their palms on the stack after hers.
"For power." Pansy Parkinson says simply, her own hand added to the pile. Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass were silent as their own hands were added to the growing pile.
Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger stare at each other, sharing identical smiles of power.
"For magic." Their intertwined hands top off the pile.
The pile breaks, and the eleven teenagers watch each other, drinking in each person because, for all they know, this is the last time they will see each other.
"It's time." Draco starts, looking at the assembled group.
"Beta team, you know what to do. Keep the battle away from the Delta team." Ginny and her brothers nod, waiting for Luna, Neville and Theo.
"Delta, get those wards down." Hermione orders. "Omega."
Pansy, Blaise and Daphne watch their leader. "Get every last underclassmen out of here. I don't care if they're a Muggleborn Hufflepuff."
Her eyes harden. "I have been fighting since I was eleven. I will not have that fall on anybody else."
Draco grabbed her hand in his.
The three teams vanish, set out on their missions.
"And us," he says softly. "the Alpha team."
"We prepare for the biggest show on Earth." Hermione replies.
"Do not doubt for one moment that I love you, mo banríon." Draco says, caressing Hermione's face.
The Irish pet names had come from the discovery that they both shared Irish ancestry, specifically their great-great grandparents growing up in the same town.
"Of course, mo ghrá." She rose to her toes to guide him in a kiss, before pulling away.
"Now, Mr. Malfoy, we go."
Draco Malfoy, pureblood, looked down at his betrothed.
"Of course, Ms. Riddle."
"Hermione!" Ron and Harry exclaimed together when she appeared by their side.
"Sorry, made sure the younger students were gone." She excused.
Neither boy paid her much attention.
"I've destroyed the last one. He should be coming soon." Harry says, fingering his wand.
There was a great rumble that shook the castle down to its foundations, and the Trio heard the telltale sound of crumbling stone.
No glances were exchanged as the three sprinted in the direction of the explosion, only coming face to face with an advancing army of angry, darkly dressed adults.
They didn't think twice, turning tail and throwing quasi-legal spells over their shoulders as they barreled towards the Great Hall where they knew most of the Order had regrouped.
"Ron!" Ginny yells, before jumping in to deflect a green bolt. "Mum was going to have a heart attack when she couldn't find you."
The youngest Weasley didn't even spare a glance at Hermione, and the older girl knew that to be confirmation that the plan was still in motion.
The Order, pushed back to half of the Hall, was faced front on by the army that belonged to Lord Voldemort.
Out of the corner of her eyes, Hermione noticed her team spreading out, and she recognized the masks of Draco, Blaise, Theo, Pansy and Daphne.
She didn't spot the gold mask she knew belonged to the most important person at the moment, so she assumed he was preparing for a dramatic entrance.
"How charming."
There he was.
"What's left of Dumbledore's mighty army cowering in the ruins of their precious school." The sea of Death Eaters had parted to reveal a figure in a gold mask.
"Voldemort." Kingsley Shacklebolt snarls, the closest thing the Order had to a proper leader now.
The figure removed his mask, treating the Hall to a wicked grin. "Auror Shacklebolt."
The gasps were instantaneous. The could not believe that this man was Voldemort. Dark curly hair and a jaw that could cut stone was a far cry from the noseless, lizard glamour he usually wore.
The man known as Lord Voldemort simply turned his attention to the wand clutched within his slender fingers. "The Elder Wand is such a marvelous piece of work, isn't it, daughter?"
Once more, a round of gasps circled the room. Daughter? This, this monster had a child?
This was her cue in the well rehearsed performance that was the Battle of Hogwarts.
"Simply enchanting, father." Hermione stepped forward, and Harry and Ron were frozen in shock, easily pushed aside.
Making her was to the right hand side of the dark lord, she was greeted by father's smile.
"It's been long, daughter mine."
Hermione matches his grin with one of her own. "Far too long, father mine."
The man moves over to allow Hermione to take her place next to him. Draco, on her right, removes his own mask while snaking an arm around her waist.
"Hello, love." He breathes, pulling her into a quick kiss.
"Traitor!" Someone screams in the throng of Order members.
The call is taken up, people clutching their wands harder as they realise that one of their own had turned. Or, really, had never been truly one of theirs to begin with.
Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are the first to throw spells.
"Expelliarmus!" Is backed by a fierce "Everte Statum!"
Both are thrown back into the crowd by Tom Riddle.
He sniffs indignantly. "Please. If you want to have any chance you'll have to do better than that."
Hermione laughs, but it's not the kind that Harry and Ron remember. This one is cold and detached and whispers of hatred and never ending darkness.
"Don't encourage them, father. No use in false hope."
It was the words false hope that forced the remaining Light forces to look around at their numbers. It was quite obvious that the Order was outnumbered. And with Hermione Granger on their side, they had one of the wars most powerful weapons. And by the look in her eyes, Hermione knew exactly what she was. She was a tipping point in a battle for life, she was the brains behind the Order's figurehead. Hermione Granger was the puppetmaster and Harry Potter was her puppet, and now she'd shown her true colors. She'd no doubt been working in the Dark's interests while directing Harry, and the Light did not know where that put them.
"How could you?" Ron sounded broken, disbelieving. His childhood love had allied herself with the monsters.
"How could I choose the winning side, Ronald?" She smirked at him, her eyes cold and her smirk colder. "I planned and I thought. Try it sometime, you might be useful as something other than a puppet for once in your miserable life."
Hermione heard chuckles from behind her, and a whisper in her ear. "Nice."
It was Bellatrix. The mad woman who had noticed Hermione's own budding instability and cultivated it like a proud mother.
"The time for games is over." Draco announces lazily. "Surrender and be shown mercy or refuse and know only painful death."
The Order members clenched their wands, looking among themselves. They were fearful of the Death Eaters and had so far made no moves against them.
A commotion started in the back, and two figures stepped forward. Hermione did not recognize them though, but cared little for that fact.
"No!" The woman shouted at the man. "I have sacrificed much for this, but my life will never be on the table." She walked towards the Death Eaters, and held her wand out, end towards her.
"I surrender to Lord Voldemort."
Tom Riddle made a lazy gesture with his hand, and a Death Eater removed themselves from the crowd to take the woman to the camp to wait for the end of the battle.
"Any others?" Tom asks patiently, curious. When no one else stepped forward his face broke into the widest and most terrifying smile the Light had yet seen.
A true testament to the madness that ran amuck in his mind.
"So be it. Avada Kedavra!"
And so the battle started. Members of the Order and the Death Eaters fell at steady rates, but the Dark had a simple advantage of numbers.
"Hermione!" Ginny yelled, deflected a spell and sending an order member to the ground.
Her allegiance was out.
"Thanks." Hermione gasped, landing back to back with the girl.
"Mighty fun, eh?" The younger girl laughs, wand spinning and spells flying.
"Oh, yes." Hermione agrees.
It was known quite quickly that Ginny was no longer friend but foe to the Order.
The rest of Hermione's team took this as a signal to reveal their own allegiances one by one.
As soon as Luna had taken down someone Hermione recognized from Order meeting (Hestia Jones, perhaps?), declaring herself Dark, Hermione found herself side by side with Draco.
"Luna's the last. We're open." Hermione told him, dodging spells from some boy in a Hufflepuff uniform, a seventh year most likely.
Everyone fifth and above had been permitted to stay and fight, with the exception if Slytherin House.
She saw Arthur Weasley fall to her left, and watched Ron take his place. Without thought, she jumped in to the fray to meet him.
"Hello Ronald." She greets, batting away the trivial hexes he throws.
"You're a bloody traitor, Hermione! I can't believe you would do this to Harry and I! And Malfoy! You're just a no good, dirty death eater's whore!" He yells, his face red from either exhaustion or anger. Both, Hermione decided. "You're just a filthy-"
Hermione cut him off. "Goodbye Ronald."
The red headed boy she had spent so many years with dropped like a sack of stones with the green light hit his chest.
The battle came to end soon after that. The remaining order, no more than forty people, stood in huddled groups, wands taken and held by Death Eaters. Harry Potter had surprisingly survived the fight, and kneeled on the floor between two Death Eaters bound in chains.
Hermione kneeled before him and hooked her fingers under his chin, pulling his face up so that her eyes could meet his.
"Defeat is bitter while victory is sweet, Harry."
He said nothing.
"But you know what else is sweet? Life. In return for some unfortunately happy memories my team and I share, you will walk away today with your life."
"And my freedom?"
Hermione laughed. "Oh, Harry. You will never know the taste of freedom until the day you die."
And with that, Hermione moved back towards her friends. Luna, leaning into Theo while Blaise had an arm around Ginny. Neville stood side by side with Pansy, hands intertwined. Daphne stood flanked by the Weasley twins, their arms brushing her back.
"What will happen to Harry?" Neville is the first to speak.
"He will be exiled to Potter Manor for the rest of his life. Forced to die of old age as he watches us rule the world." Draco says.
"So unharmed." Ginny says. She cared for him, but cared for Hermione and the team and Blaise far more.
"For the most part."
"To the rise of a new era." Hermione places the tip of her wand in the center of the circle. The rest of her team, the next generation of the Knights of Walpurgis, follow suit.
"To a new era." The group echoes.