A/N: In this chapter we are finally meeting up with the story's summary. Thank you for being patient with me while I reshaped canon into what I needed it to be in order for my story to have a solid base. Also, guest reviewers to whom I can't directly reply, thank you so much for your kind words!


Hermione felt nervous, to put it mildly.

Inwardly, she felt like grabbing fistfuls of hair and pulling hard whilst pacing in a circle; outwardly, though, nervous was a good adjective to describe her state. Her brow was furrowed, but at least her bushy hair was still intact and as of yet the floor had not been worn out in a suspiciously circular pattern.

After she left Ron in the Gryffindor common room she walked half the way to the Headmaster's tower and stopped to sit on a bench under one of the massive windows opposite the Arithmancy classroom. There was no point in going any further. She was now at the spot where Harry's path might branch off, should he choose to go back to the Gryffindor dorm by any other route than the one she had come by.

Also, she didn't want to appear too overbearing by positioning herself as an additional sentry next to the griffon that stood by the Headmaster's doors.

Now, being where she was, she had to content herself with staring out the window as a pastime. She was not seated for two minutes before the portraits around her started protesting about the light of her wand, so she had to Nox it out and remain with only just the bit of moonlight shining onto her surroundings.

Though she fidgeted and remained generally restless, she knew that there was nothing much left for her to do other than to sit and wait for Harry to appear.

She reminded herself again that Harry was not actually late, since there was no specified time of his arrival back, but she still felt that the endeavour was taking longer than it should. She had a bad feeling about the whole business that just wouldn't stop gnawing at her. She felt a chill that had nothing to do with the actual temperature of the castle and despite telling herself that it was just her impatience getting the best of her, she just couldn't buy it.

And so she sat there, watching the tops of the trees of the Forbidden forest and hoping for suspicious movements that might indicate Thestral activity (she was still fascinated by the beasts, even though she thankfully couldn't see them), until a flash of green light illuminated the castle grounds and partially even a bit of the hallway she was in.

Instantly, sheer instinct told her body to make an extra effort to freeze any movements as her mind processed the silent change of light.

Every well educated witch and wizard knows that, as far as magic goes, green is a bad colour. Though there are some healing spells that shine green when cast, most of them are supposed to be used when healing a wound caused by Dark magic, so even they fall under bad news.

When one counted the intensity of the light into the equation, it became quite easy to deduce that someone had just cast the bloody Dark Mark above Hogwarts.

Hermione slowly stood up on the bench she was previously sitting on and pressed her face to the cool glass of the window in hope of getting a better view of the left side of the castle. There was no one on the grounds, as far as she could see. Above the rooftops she could see a greenish glare, but not the distinct shape which she feared she would see. It's not that she actually wanted there to be a Dark Mark, but a simple process of elimination told her analytical mind that there was nothing much else that there could be, other than what she feared.

Her mind, renowned for its quickness, already decided on a course of action.

Professor Snape.

She should go and rouse professor Snape because, in the windowless dungeons the Slytherins abided in, he was most certainly unaware of what just happened and would remain so unless someone went there to fetch him!

She knew that Professor McGonagall and most of the other professors would probably have a good view of the source of the light so there was no point in going to them. The other two Order members that Dumbledore had deployed to patrol the corridors and the grounds she had no way of reaching, unless she accidentally stumbled upon them, so there was no point in trying to hunt them down.

Just as she was about to hop off the bench and start her journey to the depths of the castle, something above the edge of the Forbidden forest caught her eye.

Two fast moving shapes.

Two people on brooms, she realised after a moment.

Someone was flying toward Hogwarts and she didn't even have to think about it, so fast it hit her – it must be Harry and professor Dumbledore returning! They were flying on her level in the moment she noticed them, but she realised that they were now ascending. And with how high the green light source was...

The Astronomy Tower!

She hoped against hope that there was someone else to alert Snape because she had no time for it anymore. She broke into a run.

She was in the wrong part of the castle and she needed to go back.

And then to climb.


There was a battle raging in front of her.

As soon as she heard the first sounds of the shouted curses and explosions she slowed down to cast a Disillusionment charm over herself, as strong as she could.

Fear was getting to her. Her legs felt as heavy as lead, but she didn't stop walking until she was standing at the end of the hallway. Just one more step and she would be inside the small hall in which her friends (half-family, really) were fighting Death Eaters.

The Death Eaters had their backs to her, but leaning onto a pillar behind them and completely exposed to her view was Draco Malfoy. As pale as a sheet, twitching every time a new spell was cast. As if he'd noticed that he was being watched and using the opportune moment when the battle shifted a bit away from him, he dashed toward the staircase that led to the Astronomy Tower. The same one for which she was aiming.

She knew she had no time to wait. She went around the fighters in a wide arc, keeping away from the spells they cast and started running in a semi-crouching position in order to lower the chances of being hit by a stray spell.

Once she finally made it to the entrance of the large, circular staircase, she heard no sound of Draco's footsteps. She groaned inwardly. Since she wasn't athletic like him, it would take her a much longer time to climb all the way up, and he already got a head start.

But after a while she finally climbed the last step of the staircase.


"I have to kill you! He will kill me if I don't! He will kill my mother if I don't!"

As loud as the battle downstairs was, Hermione felt like it was Draco Malfoy's shrill shouting that hurt her ears.

Even more noticeable than his blond hair in the semi-darkness of the night were his shaking shoulders. He was crying hard and she guessed, from what she could see, that his wand was already a bit lower than it was before she arrived.

The thunder and lightning of the storm seemed to have passed by Hogwarts and were continuing further west, leaving behind only the rain, as if the weather took pity on the old castle and its inhabitants; deciding that Lord Voldemort's soldiers invasion was stressful enough for one night, and that lightning striking at everyone's heels would be overdoing it.

There was enough light on the tower's platform for Hermione to notice professor Dumbledore's alabaster white wand shine out in one of the far corners.

She felt a bit light headed when she realised what she was looking at. Malfoy to have disarmed professor Dumbledore? She could barely believe what she was seeing. It only began to make a little more sense when she took a better look at the professor.

He seemed to be able to stand only because the iron railing was supporting him. He was drenched through with the rain and his skin looking shockingly gray, as if he had just crawled from the grave after being dead for quite some time. Whatever he and Harry were doing must have taken a seriously wrong turn. The headmaster had been either poisoned or was finally succumbing to the effects of the curse which was inhibited for so long in his blackened hand.

And where was Harry anyway? Her mind felt only relief at the fact that he wasn't there with them, thinking that he must have landed elsewhere, so the possibility that he could be a few meters away from her, paralysed and invisible under his trusty, old cloak (as he indeed was) didn't even enter her mind.

The sounds of battle below could still be heard.

She slowly walked to the first column to her right and leaned against it, listening to the conversation before her. Draco told the story about repairing the Vanishing cabinet in the Room of Requirement (she was astonished at that part) and then the two of them were going back and forth about who was at whose mercy, which ended in Draco feeling like he was nothing but a scared little boy that might have been waving a tree branch in front of Dumbledore's face instead of a wand, even before he had disarmed him.

Just like Malfoy had been contemplating whether he should just toss his wand aside and crumble onto the floor in a fetal position, Hermione was having an internal battle of her own.

If she disarmed the blond now and the Order rushed in to the rescue, what would happen? What would happen if they rushed in and she hadn't disarmed him?

What if she disarmed him and the Death Eaters broke through? The very thought of that almost turned the blood in her veins to ice.

In the end she decided to wait. There was still time.

Time for him to make the right choice.

It was obvious that Malfoy wouldn't hurt the headmaster, let alone kill him. It was also noticeable that he was buckling under the pressure and that his wand would soon be lowered completely. He was in a panic and had no idea what to do other than to hold his wand unconvincingly in the air while crying his heart out, out of fear for his mother's life.

The expression on Dumbledore's face was soft and grandfatherly but at the same time serious, certainly so that Draco wouldn't feel patronised as he was persuading him to abort his mission. Professor Dumbledore will soon fall to the ground, she thought, so weary and in pain he looked, though she could tell that he was doing his best to conceal it.

Though she had good intentions, Hermione ended up being wrong, because time ran out a lot faster than she thought it would. She noticed that the sounds of battle stopped only once they have been replaced by the sound of a group of people running up the stairway. Who was it going to be? She stopped breathing, her last inhale louder and deeper than it should have been, as if she was just about to jump into deep water and was prepared to sink to the bottom.

Much to the horror of everyone on the tower platform, it turned out to be the Death Eaters, led by none other than Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione closed her eyes as a single tear fell down her cheek.

They quickly spread themselves around Draco in a half circle. Every single one of them was glaring maniacally at Dumbledore who, unfortunately, as weak as he was and a minute away from falling to his knees, looked like a lamb about to get slaughtered. The remaining strength he had demonstrated for Malfoy in order to reassure him in his decision to accept his offer had dissipated, and all that was left was the sight of a dying and crippled old man.

"Good evening," he greeted the newcomers politely, but coolly. The foul group started jeering at him as a response.

No! She screamed inside her mind, begging for the strength to remain still. There was only one possible outcome of this situation unless she acted (but what was she to do?), and that is that she was about to see the headmaster murdered.

Bellatrix Lestrange approached Draco and put her hand on his shoulder, which had stopped shaking as a sheer instinctual response to the terror he felt when he realised who had broken through.

There would be no more stalling. This was the end.

"Now, Draco. Be a good boy and make us all proud," she said with great anticipation. There was a delighted gleam in her eyes that made her look even more beautiful than what was right, but it soon disappeared when the exact opposite of what she thought she would see happened.

Hermione almost gasped when Draco's hand moved, but luckily no actual sound came out of her mouth as he lowered his arm and let his wand drop onto the floor beside him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bellatrix hissed furiously when the thin wood struck the stone floor with a barely audible sound. She crouched and quickly picked up the wand from the floor and proceeded to try and open her nephews hand and stick the wand back in.

The rest of the Death Eater squad behind them started protesting (Greyback released a low growl), Yaxley actually taking a step forward whilst insisting that he would finish the job, to which Bellatrix almost screamed, because her baby was taking the glory he deserved, reasoning to herself that his previous action was just a bit of cold feet. After all, she thought, he was still just an inexperienced boy, though not far from becoming a man.

Hermione saw the look on Draco's face as he turned to his aunt. Bella's lips parted slightly at the sight of it. It was the face of a man who made peace with his destiny. He was wearing the saddest smile his features were capable of producing. As hopeless as the situation was, Hermione's heart jumped a bit when she realised that Draco actually chose the good side.

But it was too late.

Ignoring his aunt's nails that were digging themselves into the skin of his hand as she tried to make him hold the wand again, he turned to Dumbledore.

I won't kill you. I'll go with you if I have to, was what his eyes were silently telling his headmaster. His refusal to kill him wouldn't save the man's life, but at least Draco felt an immense weight lift itself off his shoulders. He knew in that very moment that whatever the consequences of his actions tonight would be, he made the right choice.

I'm sorry, mother.


Bella knew they were low on time. Her beloved nephew seemed to have made his mind up and there would be no unmaking it tonight, so she would just have to work with what she's got. They wouldn't be where they were if not for Draco and she was sure her Lord would see it that way as well. She would personally kill Dumbledore without trying to get all the glory the way Yaxley would and Draco would still be the greatest hero of the entire war.

At the very moment Bellatrix reached her decision, as if on cue in a theatrical production, Severus Snape stepped onto the platform of the Astronomy tower with a billow of his cloak and his coal-black hair fanning out in the harsh, cold wind belonging to the Scottish storm. He grasped the situation easily – the group's general unease; Draco's limp, wandless hand; Bella's determined madness.

He was going to have to fulfil his vow after all.

"No," he drawled in the same silky but menacing tone of voice he used in the Potions classroom when a student had given him a wrong answer.

Hermione's heart jolted in her chest once again as the commanding voice of the graceful, black eyed man put a stop to Lestrange's movements.

In that instant, tears of despair turned into tears of joy because, for a delirious moment, she became certain that they were saved. He would know how to overturn this situation, she thought. He is a spy and that is why the enemy group isn't attacking him, certain of their safety by his side, but he was about to do something that would save both Draco and Dumbledore.

With another billow of his robe and his head held high, radiating absolute power and strength, he walked in a half-circle around Draco without looking at the boy and placed himself before him; as if to protect him from the sight of what was probably about to happen.

But you won't. Won't you? Professor? She thought, each word ringing more frantically in her mind as she called out to him mentally, as if there was even a slight possibility of him hearing her. Because still no miracle happened and one was absolutely necessary.

"Severus," said Dumbledore in a tone of voice so different from the one in which he spoke to Draco just minutes before. It was the same stern tone of voice her father used on her when she was a child and was just about to do something naughty (like steal another cookie from the jar), and that tone of voice kept her at bay not to do it.

"Please," he finished, a bit more softly.

Her gaze shifted from Dumbledore's face to his charred hand and suddenly, all of the pieces of the puzzle came together. Harry was internally screaming curses at the 'traitorous greasy git', but the brightest witch of her age had figured it out.

Dumbledore wasn't begging for life. He was begging for death.

Snape made movements of his wand in a pattern she recognised well, having seen it last year at the Ministry more than once, so she knew that what he was about to cast was the Killing curse.

In that moment she was nothing but a part of an audience, watching an act of a play.

Oh, fuck that, she thought, and sprang to action.


"Protego Maxima!" Hermione shouted out and instantly a translucent, shimmering shield was cast over professor Dumbledore. It was the riskiest bet she had ever taken in her life, but the shock of her sudden appearance stopped professor Snape mid-spell and no more words came out of Snape's mouth as he recognised the voice of one of the worst thorns in his side.

With the casting of the spell her Disillusionment dissipated and she felt his eyes lock onto her. She didn't know it was possible for a man to look as furious as Severus Snape did in that moment.

Harry, who would have been crying tears of both rage and joy if the paralysing spell allowed it, wanted to jump out of his skin in order to be able to jump in front of her and protect her from the people to whom she had just exposed herself. Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, stood quiet and motionless, before finally collapsing on the floor, unconscious. On the face of the Death Eaters, Malfoy included, was the expression of general panic. Were ten more people about to spring on them from the shadows, or was it just a lonely Mudblood acting all on her own?

She didn't give anyone a moment to gather their thoughts and act.

"Expulso!" she shouted again and red light flashed in the night, erasing the foul green from sight. It was accompanied by a deafening bang and suddenly a large hole was blasted into the centre of the platform as if an explosive device had detonated. Stone and metal shrapnel flew in all directions.

Harry was lucky tonight. His cloak wasn't blown away and it wasn't hit by any shard of metal large or sharp enough to cause mayor damage in the form of a tear. However, quite a few small stones hit him, but a few bruises that might manifest themselves tomorrow were the last on his list of worries.

Professor Dumbledore was untouched by any of the effects of the destructive spell, tucked away safely behind Hermione's shield.

Hermione remained standing in the same spot. She was only a spectator of the destruction and chaos she created, feeling only the gust wind blowing her hair around her face in the aftermath.

No matter how destructive one's spell is, magic would never turn on its master. Therefore Hermione felt no heat. Not even the smallest pieces of stone or metal made contact with her skin.

She just watched as best as she could; her mouth and eyes wide open.

In the darkness of the night, momentarily blinded from the light of the explosion and holding her breath like a small frightened child would, she didn't notice the large amount or smoke in the air; her eyes were too distracted by trying to catch up with which Death Eater was flying in which direction, until they started tearing quite a bit.

Naturally she couldn't care less about what happened to the blown-away Death Eaters, her adrenaline filled body leaving no room for mercy in her mind. Sod them. As long as they didn't start climbing back up the tower like the relentless cockroaches they were.

With professor Dumbledore relatively safe, in that moment she cared only about the fact that she had she blasted Draco Malfoy into the wall opposite her with such force that she was terrified that his neck had been broken. At least, that was the impression his crumpled, bleeding body was giving off.

A top priority was also the fact that professor Snape was nowhere to be seen, but that problem had solved itself mere seconds later when she heard grunting to her right, over the edge of the platform.

She turned to look for the source of the noise but in the place she expected to see a man (or at least half of one clinging to the edge of the tower), she only saw a black wand lying to her left. It was the same wand with which, for the past six years, she watched a certain professor wave Potions instructions on a blackboard in the dungeons deep inside Hogwarts.

She picked the wand up and tucked into her trouser pocket, just to be safe, and rushed to the edge to inspect the source of the noise.

"Oh my God!" she gasped when she saw professor Snape hanging in midair, barely holding onto a broken piece of the railing. That he was wandless was bad enough, but he had also been bleeding heavily from his temple, stopping his climb to look up at her with what one could almost call hate. He grabbed the hand which she extended after she anchored herself with her legs onto to nearest pillar.

She pulled his up with all the strength left in her lithe body, her arms screaming from the pain of dragging up the body of a man who in that moment felt like he weighed over a ton.

Once he was safely back on the platform beside to her, panting heavily, he told her something in his typical fashion that, if one was very optimistic, might be interpreted as Snape's way of saying thank you.

"I will break you for this, Miss Granger, I will smash you," he seethed, pressing one hand hard on his injured head in order to stop the bleeding even a bit. The other he held on his stomach as he fought for breath, which he felt he would not be able to catch until tomorrow. He felt too old for this kind of business. But most of all, despite of being in a lot of pain - he felt angry.

They were sitting close to each other and their shoulders were lined up perfectly, but they were facing opposite directions. Panting even more heavily than the professor; with her head throbbing from the exertions of the evening and her blood pressure raging and causing a loud buzzing in her ears, Hermione had no way to notice the imminent danger she was in. She might have, if she hadn't let her guard down, but she did.

Her professor, though, who was furious with her for spoiling just about all of his and Dumbledore's plans, could.

"Bella!" he shouted just before a coughing fit overcame him.

The shout was certainly a warning, but the black haired woman who had just climbed back onto the platform had interpreted it quite differently from the bushy haired girl on the floor next to the Potions master.

Bellatrix thought he was warning her.

She survived her flight only because she hit and broke the same kind of iron railing that Snape did and managed to hold on to it in the same fashion. She was as lucky as Snape was and even luckier than her nephew (whose survival remained uncertain), and Gibbon and Rowle who she saw hit the far-away ground as she was hanging in the air and gathering the strength to climb.

I should have believed my Lord and trusted his wisdom, she thought as her eyesdesperately searched the floor for a wand.

Even from a glance she could see that Snape was half-blind from the blood that coated his eyes, and yet he still called out to her. She felt honour-bound to protect him from the ugly muddy-blooded pest sitting not far from him, now that he had proved his worth to her.

Dumbledore, almost killed by his hand! His vow to her beautiful sister, almost fulfilled!

Not only had he redeemed himself in her eyes as a loyal subject of their Lord, but he had also proved his love for her nephew and that somewhat warmed that which remained of her heart.

Now she only needed to get her hands on a wand and finish tonight's work. It had already become far too messy, even for her own personal taste (with two of her comrades dead), but it was the hazard of the job.

Hermione, thanks to her professor's timely warning, had enough time on her hands to decide what to do with the maniacal witch in the torn up dress.

She felt the danger of the murderous intent directed her way. To disarm the madwoman when she found a wand would not be enough.

Bella was less than a meter away from the opening of the archway and had just grabbed Yaxley's wand from under a piece of broken stone.

Hermione knew she had to act once again. Stupefy, she shouted angrily, passionately and viciously as if he was casting an Unforgivable.

Bellatrix Lestrange was so close to victory, but it was just not enough. On her face was the expression of shock as she felt herself lifted into the air by a Mudblood's spell for the second time that evening.

With a flash of red and blue, she was gone.


Severus Snape had a hard time believing his eyes.

Dumbledore's plan for his own death had obviously failed, thanks to the busybody who never seemed to know her place, but even that didn't seem to be enough for the brave little idiot. From what he could see when Granger was dragging him up, Rowle and Greyback were nowhere to be seen; Yaxley, barely visible from the rubble covering him, was lying on the floor not far from Draco and neither of them was giving away any signs of life. To add to that, he had just witnessed Bellatrix Lestrange being blown away from the Astronomy tower for the second time in five minutes.

With the current death toll, he thought, the Dark Mark had certainly not been cast in vain.

After she was finished with Bellatrix, Hermione ignored both Snape and Dumbledore as she rushed to Malfoy's side, under whom a large pool of blood had already formed. Shape got to his feet and lumbered towards them slowly, having injured his knee as well. He could hear Miss Granger's pained shouts of his godson's name as she was trying to determine whether she had killed him or not. Draco's neck seemed unbroken but his body still appeared heavily damaged. He needed to be taken to Madam Pomfrey as soon as possible.

Some protecting he did there.

Would the Vow to Narcissa take his life along with Draco's if he died tonight? He wandered at that as he stood behind Hermione with difficulty, barely able to adjust to his senses. His eyesight was clearing a bit but the centre of his balance was damaged. He also realised that he was partially deaf.

That was the reason he could not hear the rustling behind him.

Greyback, miraculously surviving the flight by landing on one of the tiny window rooftops and holding on with his giant claws, had finished his climb up the tower and took a step toward him. He was ready to take revenge for his fallen comrade, Bellatrix. Even though he couldn't see what had happened, his unparalleled werewolf senses allowed him to hear everything that was said and done at the top of the tower.

That is how he knew that Snape let the girl kill Bellatrix by not bothering to interfere and he even heard his sigh of relief when the woman was blasted away.

When he saw Snape and the girl seemingly holding a wake over young Malfoy's body, rage boiled in his body even harder than it did before. Fuck the girl, he thought, since she was an enemy and only doing what was expected of her, but Snape had betrayed them. Bellatrix was right all along. He charged at Snape with the inhuman speed of an animal.

Hermione, whose spell of dizziness had passed away once her blood pressure settled itself, moved fast.

Snape saw her aim her wand towards him and thought for a moment that has she gone mad, but he then realised her eyes were looking at him something beyond him.

In the same moment that Greyback's right canine made contact and broke the skin of his neck, he saw the girl angle herself and shout out the same spell incantation she used to make Bellatrix Lestrange fly away.

Light flashed beside him and by the time he turned, Fenrir Greyback was out of sight.

Slowly he put his hand on his injured neck and then returned it in front of him for inspection. He was thanking Merlin that barely any blood was there. The fang didn't set itself into his flesh nowhere near deep enough so that he would have to fear the transmission of the monstrous disease, since the poison had not been injected into his bloodstream. He looked at Miss Granger and nodded his head very slowly; a voiceless form of saying thank you.

She did, after all, save his life.

His mind, though, was too shell-shocked from the head injury caused by the explosion to truly comprehend what had been happening for the last few minutes, which is why it would take him a good night's sleep to be able to fully understand the consequences of Miss Grangers last action.

Almost as if he was in a daze, instead of thinking rationally and trying to get medical assistance for both his students and himself, he tried to imagine what the fiasco on the tower must have looked like to Hagrid or somebody who might have been watching from the ground.

The Flight of the Death Eaters.

That should be the name this battle gets, he thought as the beginning of a smile formed in the corner of his lips, right before his vision turned black and his body hit the ground, unconscious.


Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you like the more frequent 5k words updates (a rough size of all of the chapters as of yet) or if you would prefer longer (10k minimum, up to 15k) chapters that would take me a bit more time to write. I am still undecided as to how I should proceed with the updating schedule now that the 'intro arc' is finished.