A/N: Well, that's it. No more pre-written parts. Updates will be, if I have any control over it, at least once a week.
I will do my best to keep posting, since I do have a lot of story left but the Muse is starting to flake out. (I'm also in the midst of a move and about to go on another business trip next month.)
ANYWAYS, NOW THE STORY GETS BETTER. MWAHAHAA.
I didn't know what to expect, really. As The Dark Lord lay dead, the utter shock and surprise wanted to keep me rooted to the ground. After seven years of hearing about this monster, it was over. He was dead.
Reality should have trickled in slowly, just enough so I could handle it, bit by bit. Instead it was utter chaos. Instant, utter chaos.
The firefight didn't just resume; the two sides were trying to massacre everything else out of sheer self-preservation. Fighters on both sides were getting mowed down as a rainbow of spell-fire lit up the early dawn. Jinxes and curses ricocheted off of each other, causing many to divert from their original path and leaving nobody safe by cover. The centaurs who had tried to stay neutral in this war, stood at the edge of the Dark Forest and were decimated instantly. The remaining ninety percent ran into the woods, only to be overrun by the acromantula and the Dementors. Firenze held his head in shame over at Hagrid's hut, as if he had seen this moment coming for years. Was there something to that whole divination thing after all?
"MOVE IT!" Narcissa grabbed Draco and myself by our wrists and pulled us out of the open battlefield. Draco had raised a shield and the sickly squelch of offensive magic impacting our barrier made me turn around quick enough to see Bellatrix scrambling on her knees towards her fallen master, her eyes betraying the lack of sanity behind them.
"Accio Elder Wand!" I whispered, knowing my wand would come to me. The demented witch saw it fly into my hands as she apparated away. What is she going to do with the corpse? My eyes darted to my right wrist, where the mark was fading but not disappearing. I'll have to compare it to Draco's later on.
The Giants and the Dementors seemed to want to still fight, but were willing to kill everything in front of them. Souls were getting sucked out of what must have been the shock troops, as a good quarter of them turned on the Death Eaters that were behind them. They must have been under The Dark Lord's control before...
The hand that pulled me to safety had let go, and only when I turned around to look did I notice Narcissa's arms wrapped tightly around her son. "Draco, you're okay! Let's get you out of here..."
"No mum, innocent people are still here and getting hurt! We're helping. It's what Hermione would do." Draco's shield charm collapsed as an errant spell ricocheted off of it. Narcissa's face flashed in anger as she took him by his casting arm and pulled him away from the fight even harder. Even as she tugged him off-balance, he got another shield up as a hailstorm of stunners were being shot right at us by a masked Death Eater.
"If she wants to just stand here like a stupid Gryffindor and die, let her!" Narcissa's words flew out instantly, and she doubled over in pain from the Compulsion. A rivulet of blood was slowly flowing out of her nose as she forced herself upright. "Sorry, Hermione..." Merlin, is there a way to stop her from hurting herself that way?
Instinctively, my wand was already casting the episkey charm on Narcissa as I was visually scouring the battlefield and finding hostile targets to disable. My wife's eyes narrowed as the spell took effect, twisting her wand with a flick that I recognized as the levicorpus. In the distance, I saw a Death Eater fly into an ambush of Dementors that had no mercy as they fed upon his soul.
As the three of us stood side-by-side, casting whatever spells, jinxes, and hexes to stop the Death Eaters and their allies from slaughtering us all, a gust of displaced air tickled the back of my neck as the tell-tale sound of fire hit my ears. Oh fuck me, they surrounded us with dragons!
"What are you still doing here? You're getting attacked by both sides!" Fleur said viciously, throwing fireballs towards some of the defenders of Hogwarts, "LEAVE THE GRANGERS BE! They killed You-Know-Who!"
I turned around to see what was going on and had to dodge a bright blue spell that was coming right at my head. Why are they targeting me? This is what the muggles call friendly fire, right?
"All I know is that she's with the Malfoys, and they shot You-Know-Who in the back. Not about to let them do the same to me!" My heart chilled at the sound of Dean's voice. We had worked on Defensive techniques with Dumbledore's Army...
"You don't want to do this, Dean. Lower your wand..." Narcissa urged, putting herself between me and the wizard.
"Hermione, we've got a werewolf pack coming towards us.." Draco warned, pulling my attention away from the imminent duel before me. I don't want to look away from this if I'm needed, but we have an equally important problem coming towards us.
The werewolves were making a bee-line for us, Fenrir shifting into his beast form outside of the Full Moon. Fleur took to flight, throwing down fireballs that Fenrir was easily evading due to the distance. A jet of purple light blasted into her left wing and she fell to the ground, hard. The fall was no more than 20 or 30 meters, but the sound of the impact told me that she'd be out of the fight for the rest of the day. "Granger..." she wheezed, "grab your shit and go..." A wet, slick cough told me that she'd need a mediwitch sooner than later. I turned my eyes away as I saw blood spatter out of her mouth; it was almost too much for me to bear.
"...no way am I going to trust a fucking Malfoy... RELASHIO!" Dean's spell never hit, and I had to assume Narcissa was taking care of the situation. I kept shooting stunners and took down a few of the werewolves as Draco deflected the hexes coming at us. My hand was itching to take The Elder wand out of its holster, but I didn't want to advertise the fact that I had it like Harry did. No need to make myself a bigger target.
"Not a Malfoy anymore, Dean. And I know your father wouldn't be happy with you attacking the very people who struck down The Dark Lord." Narcissa's voice was edgy; she was using excessive restraint with him.
"What do you know of my father? I barely even knew him!" Dean's angry voice was punctuated by his spell-work, and I took a second to glance to see his spells still being deflected.
"Dean, stop it! My wife isn't even attacking you!" I shouted, redoubling my efforts to at least wing the werewolf leader before he gets too close. Gritting my teeth, I let my anger into my magic and wielded it as I switched from stunner spells to the spell I modified at Gringott's.
"FIRE! SLYTHERIN'S... I'M ON FIRE!" Draco shrieked, changing the type of shield he had up, extinguishing the slight smolder on his outer robe. The air felt cool and moist around us, despite the fact that I had molten lava shooting out of my wand and was laying down a kind of fiery moat in front of us. Greyback stopped in his tracks as his minions crashed into each other, the closest ones shrieking in agony as they couldn't stop in time and fell into the burning pool, screaming into silence as the intense heat and fire suffocated them as they roasted alive. Serves them right for siding with Voldemort. They all should burn in hell.
A high pitched shriek made me glance back at my wife, bleeding from a nasty cutting hex that Dean must have landed on her. Instinctively my wand carved a gash across his chest, and I had him pinned onto the ground, my boot stomping on the free-bleeding wound and wand pointing directly at his face. "You. Will NEVER. Hurt. Narcissa." I said coldly, my hand trembling in the anticipation to end the life of the miserable wizard beneath me. It would be oh so easy... just pull out the Deathstick and do it...
"Hermione, NO!" Narcissa said fearfully. "His father was a good man... My sister and Dolph were supposed to recruit the Pureblood, but he refused and was killed. You BOTH need to stop." I lowered my wand and looked back to where Fenrir was advancing. He was gone. My jaw was clenched and my pulse was quickened with adrenaline. The look in Dean's eyes was of horror as his face went pale.
"He disapparated. Bloody coward." I said, shooting curses towards the wizards that were still trying to hex us.
Draco sneered, pushing my foot off of Dean and began to sing a charm to heal the boy's gash. Dean looked shocked at the turn of events, and Narcissa took the moment to pocket his wand out of precaution. "Hermione, you trying to make your friend bleed to death?"
The fight was still going on around us, and the acromantulas were beginning to swarm the battlefield. In the distance, Harry and some Order members were beating back the Dementors with a phalanx of Patronuses. They were about to get overrun with spiders as the House-Elves ran into the field, armed with knives and whatever they could get a hold of to slaughter the incoming arachnids.
"Kreacher! Can you make them do nap-time?!" Narcissa yelled, sure that the elf would be able to hear her over the noise.
"Yes, Former Mistress..." Kreacher said dutifully, muttering as he ran away, "married to the mudblood that finished Master Regulus' task... proud day indeed... but confusing." As he said that, his fingers snapped and a nearby wizard fell unconscious. The other elves did the same thing, and the enemy wizards started to tumble like dominoes.
What the bloody hell just happened?! I wondered as narcolepsy rolled over the battlefield like a tidal wave. The remaining werewolves and spiders were easily dispatched as the fighting force dropped to nothing.
"Kreacher?" I asked, and he popped right in front of me.
"Friend of Harry Potter, finishing Master Regulus' duty of destroying the locket, and defeating The Dark Lord... I am at your service." His bow was an awkward, stuttering nod of his head. "Mistress Black would not approve, but perhaps she was mistaken about the pale man..."
"How were you able to do that? Make them all drop?" How come the house-elves didn't do this before?
"House-elves usually avoid Wizard battles, but Kreacher learned from Dobby that some rules ought be... changed."
Draco had an arm around Dean while Narcissa helped revive Fleur. "Wife, House-Elves can spell children to sleep when tasked to. I wasn't sure it would work, but it was worth a shot."
The deep voice of Kingley Shacklebolt boomed over the field. "Okay, they are going to be out for at least three hours. Bind the known Death Eaters and snap their wands, have an Auror take custody of them. Enemy combatants who don't have the Mark might be under the Imperious Curse, but we should bind them as well. Let's get our injured looked at in the Infirmary. Anyone got medical training?"
A few hands went up, including my wife. Kingsley nodded, "alright, you all go help Poppy in the Hospital Wing. I'll see about getting mediwitches from St. Mungo's here to do triage as soon as possible, but we're probably going to also need more Potions." Narcissa looked to me, nodded knowingly, and set off with Fleur by her side.
Draco shot some sparks in the air, and magnified his voice as well. "I can access the Potions lab and start on those." Dean looked at him shiftily, but nodded his consent to go with him.
Kingsley sighed deeply. "Alright, looks like we all know what to do, either help the injured, or tie up the enemy and send them off to Azkaban for a trial. Let's go!"
A trial?! I was livid at the idea. These people infiltrated the Ministry, took power, and destroyed families and killed thousands of Muggle-borns and Muggles and we're going to play the part of nice guys and give them trials to claim innocence and get off?
I began to cross the field, binding witches and wizards that weren't dressed like snatchers or Death Eaters, furious with Shacklebolt's misguided mercy. I came across a mask and pulled it off, exposing the sleeping face of Dolohov.
Antonin Dolohov. The bastard that nearly killed me in the Department of Mysteries.
The scar on my chest made by him twinged and urged me to exact my revenge. I bound the man beneath me, banished the wand out of his hand by a few inches, and relished stomping on it and feeling the thin shaft of wood break under my foot.
"Hermione?" A voice called out behind me, the sound an errant buzz that I shook off. I've got to mean it.
"Hermy!"
"Avada..." A hand clasped my wrist and pulled me away from my prize.
"Hermy-own-knee, no! Don't become them!" It was Viktor. He looked relieved and genuinely happy to see me. Relief was on his face as his lips split into a boyish grin. I smiled back, feeling a bit odd at the surprise reunion.
And then he kissed me.