One-Shot: Love Will Find a Way
Hermione Granger was searching all over, now far afield from Hogwarts and the battle raging there, for her new lover, Ron Weasley. After they had kissed in the Chamber of Secrets, and following a near-death experience in the Room of Requirement, she and Ron had gotten separated from their best friend Harry Potter, then each other. Hermione had struggled her way out of the battle and now, she only wanted to get as far away as possible from it all: the horror, the death, the devastation. A part of her did not even care anymore if Voldemort won; she did not want to destroy another Horcrux, even if the end was so close. All she wanted was for the wizarding world to be at peace again…and to be with Ron. That is, if she could ever find him.
In a perfect world
One we've never known
We would never need to face the world alone
They can have the world
We'll create our own
I may not be brave or strong or smart
But somewhere in my secret heart
I know
Love will find a way
Anywhere I go
I'm home
If you are there beside me
Like dark turning into day
Somehow we'll come through
Now that I've found you
Love will find a way
Hermione finally came to a dune-like hillside overlooking a meadow, ready to give up. Unbeknownst to her, Ron Weasley had spotted her and was watching her from a short ways off. Seeing her look so dejected made his heart ache, but he gathered the courage to approach. As he did, Hermione was alerted to his presence and turned, shocked and elated all at once to see him, alive and unharmed and here.
I was so afraid
Now I realize
Love is never wrong
And so it never dies
There's a perfect world
Shining in your eyes
And if only they could feel it too
The happiness I feel with you
Ron and Hermione rushed into each other's arms and began kissing feverishly. They were in love, and nothing could penetrate their own little universe that they now found themselves willingly trapped in.
They'd know
Love will find a way
Anywhere we go
We're home
If we are there together
Like dark turning into day
Somehow we'll come through
Now that I've found you
Love will find a way
I know love will find a way
Ron broke the embrace at last. He was so euphoric that he began running around like a child, whooping and hollering. Laughing, Hermione followed, and they raced around the meadow until both tripped over each other and landed on top of one another. Hermione kissed Ron gently before he could squirm away, and he smiled.
"Hey, I guess we can say that our feelings for each other got the last word. We finally won."
He didn't notice his choice of wording, but Hermione did, and it reminded her that not everything had been won yet. She blinked, and comprehension dawned on her face. Ron was not paying any attention though, already getting up and jumping around again.
"Let's get out of here! WE'LL RUN AWAY TOGETHER!" Ron whooped. "And start a family full of little redheads all our own…." he added, snarling suggestively.
Hermione giggled at Ron's innuendo. She melted into his arms, resting her head against him.
"Ronald. We have to go back."
"You're kidding! But we're finally together!" Ron protested in disbelief.
"But Harry…"
"This isn't about Harry! Maybe we can take our chances and outrun You-Know-Who if worst comes to worst…"
Hermione shook her head with a soft smile. "Our place is with our best friend, our brother" she reminded Ron. "If we run away, Harry could be killed and our world would be divided under Voldemort forever."
Ron bit his lip in thought. Why did Hermione always have to be right?
Back at Hogwarts, Harry had already sacrificed himself to Voldemort to destroy the part of the Dark Lord's soul in his body. He had then come back to life, and was fighting Voldemort while also trying to destroy the last Horcrux, the snake Nagini.
So far, it wasn't going well.
The Death Eaters had now tried to bull-rush and overwhelm the Boy Who Lived, and were actually doing a hell of a job. Voldemort watched the spectacle as he sneered.
"Potter….you're mine!" He almost strolled over to where his weakened enemy was recovering from the latest onslaught. The Death Eaters backed off so the mortal enemies could be face to face. Voldemort and a determined Harry circled each other like two tigers in a cage, closing in for the kill. Just as each raised their wands-
A clap of thunder and lightning brought with it Ron and Hermione, who sprang into the courtyard and landed directly between the two foes, back-to-back, their own wands drawn.
Harry blinked. "Hermione?" he asked, his bewilderment met by his friend's steely gaze.
"Weasley!" Voldemort snapped. Ron only returned a look of stone, which Voldemort quickly matched. "Move…" the Dark Lord snarled.
"Stand aside," Harry told Hermione firmly but gently.
"Harry, this has to end," Hermione stressed emphatically.
"You're even weaker than I took you for, Weasley!" Voldemort barked, his anger sounding almost comical now, like a little kid throwing a tantrum. "Get out of the way!" But Ron was not backing down.
"You'll never hurt Hermione! Or Harry! Not while I'm here…." the last coming out in a growl.
Harry was having equal trouble talking sense into Hermione.
"I have to end this, you know that!"
"A young wizard once told me – Neither can live while the other survives. I didn't understand him then. Now I do."
"Exactly! Hermione, one of us has to die!"
"Do you? Look around you, Harry! Think of those words! Does this war have to end with one of you dead? Or can it just mean one backing down, being subdued?"
Harry turned her words over in his mind. As he did, the clouds parted, and the sun of a new morning pierced through. Harry smiled in understanding down at his surrogate sister, and the two friends embraced.
Voldemort, meanwhile, had witnessed this entire exchange from over Ron's shoulder and saw an opening.
"Bellatrix! Kill the boy! NOW!"
But his top lieutenant stunned everyone with a "No, my Lord!" Silence and then, she admitted. "The Granger girl is right." She moved to actually stand beside Ron. "Enough," she pleaded to her master.
If Voldemort was stunned at Bellatrix's apparent betrayal, he didn't show it. Instead, he sneered, "If you will not fight, then you will die as well!"
Unfortunately for Voldemort, this threat seemed to have the exact opposite affect on Bellatrix, along with everyone else. All the remaining Death Eaters began to leave his side in droves. Now, Voldemort's shock was on full display.
"WHAT? Where are you going? Get back here!"
"Let it go, Tom!" Harry admonished. "It's time to accept death for what it is: an inevitability."
"I'll never do such a thing!" Voldemort screeched, brandishing his wand. Nagini, the last Horcrux, appeared poised by his side.
"We feast now, Nagini!" Voldemort hissed.
Then several things happened at once.
Voldemort and Nagini lunged for Harry. Neville Longbottom swung the sword of Gryffindor through the air in a high arc, slicing off the great snake's head. And Hermione intercepted Voldemort before he could get to Harry, so that both Dark Lord and Greatest Witch of Her Age tumbled out of the courtyard and down the castle's cliffs towards the fast river below.
"Hermione!" Harry cried. He, Ginny and Ron raced to the cliff's edge.
"HERMIONE!" Ron screamed. Harry wasted no time in sliding down the cliff face, using magic to keep him up.
"Hermione!"
Voldemort and Hermione, meanwhile, battered down the cliffs and rocks with cries of pain and fear. Hermione finally managed to cling to the side and find a small foothold just beneath. Voldemort was grasping the rocky face just below that same foot holding. The river, now suddenly free of a log-cluttered dam, rushed ominously below – which did not go unnoticed by Ginny above.
"Harry!" she called. "Harry, the river!" Harry saw the rapids too and made to scrape down the cliff toward his friend faster.
Hermione meanwhile, had found footing on the outcropping, and now noticed Voldemort's more precarious position. She actually reached her palm down to the Dark Lord.
"Riddle, give me your hand," she encouraged. But Voldemort merely growled and swatted at her with his wand-less hand, even as his fingers - dug into the rock - began to scrape and slip down.
"Riddle, come on!" Hermione pleaded, as Voldemort began to slip dangerously close to the edge. She now pitied the broken man she saw. "I'll help you!" she cried.
Voldemort scraped closer and closer to the edge, until, as Hermione watched with horror, he lost his grip on the cliff at last and fell with a scream into the river below.
After a while, the rapids calmed, and Hermione found herself clambering carefully down the rocks to the calmer waters. She found Voldemort – amazingly still alive, but barely – on the bank's edge. He was in no mood to fight, with no wand, and would probably be dead in moments. No longer fearing him, and feeling even smug in her and her friends' inevitable victory, Hermione knelt beside the feeble Dark Lord and whispered in his ear:
"You have lost, Riddle. Your plan for wizard purity has failed. So hear me now: a child that is not of pure-blood lineage grows in my belly. He or she will be a greater magical being in a world without you, and halfbloods and Muggle-borns will be here in this world to stay!"
Voldemort physically twitched at this news and slowly, painfully expired. Hermione stood slowly and sighed. Death was always horrible, no matter if the deceased deserved it or not. Then, she heard a voice, warm and full of sibling affection:
"Hermione."
She turned to the Chosen One's outstretched hand and small smile.
"Harry. I tried."
They both rejoined the others at the top of the cliffs. Ginny hugged Hermione warmly before the brown-haired girl turned to her lover.
"Ron…"
"Oh, Hermione," Ron sighed in relief and the couple embraced. The wizarding world would be one again…and so would they.