Chapter 25: Voldemort Returns
AN: Here comes the battle
Potter Manor - Wednesday 21st April 1982
Hermione jumped from her seat and ran out of the room, the patronus following her.
"JAMES, REMUS, SIRIUS!" Hermione yelled, bolting up the stairs and heading straight for the living room.
"Where's the fire?" Sirius chuckled at her.
"McGonagall's patronus has just arrived" she gestured to the cat waiting for her to explain the situation before it led them to the battle ground. They looked alarmed. "The Order have tracked several Death Eaters to Worcestershire. I don't know how many" she said seeing Remus was going to ask. "There's going to be a battle"
"We better get going then" they jumped up.
"Remus, go to the Burrow and inform Molly and Arthur, then take Harry to Malfoy Manor, it has more security wards, ones that even surpass mine. Get the Weasleys to follow you there. No doubt Lucius and Arthur will wish to join the fight, I will send my patronus in twenty minutes time, be back here before then and it'll lead you to us"
"I'll see you on the front line" he saluted and grabbed Harry, rushing to the floo. Hermione rolled her eyes. "We'll go in our animagus forms, it'll get us there quicker" the others agreed and they quickly changed and that's when the cat patronus took off and they followed.
Worcestershire
Once they stepped off the Potter grounds, they ran for three miles before they came across a large field filled with dark robes and silver masked figures fighting others who were wearing slightly lighter robes. There were explosions going off in the distance, shouts of curses, hexes and spells were heard and beams of lights could be seen. There were destroyed trees, patches of burnt grass and small fires littering the field.
They turned back and Hermione turned to face James and Sirius.
"You going to be okay?" she asked James more so than Sirius, Sirius had been with her at every battle, but James had been forced to stay behind and protect Harry.
"It's been a while, but it's like flying a broom, you never forget" he grinned at her and gripped his wand.
"Never learned to fly so I'll take your word for it" they chuckled at her. "Good luck" she looked at them both.
"Good luck" they both replied.
She kissed them both quickly before they disappeared into the battle. Hermione quickly cast her patronus, sending several to different members of the White Lions to inform them off the battle. She then turned and ran into the battle herself.
She quickly got into a duel with a Death Eater, sending a well aimed stupefy and sending him to the floor, casting an Incarcerous keeping him from escaping. Another Death Eater saw what happened and turned towards her, stopping her from making her way deeper into the battle, where she could feel a surge of power radiating from.
She was hit with a cutting curse in the arm, sending one in return and cutting the other's robes. He stepped forward and tripped on the robes and hit the ground, Hermione took the chance to cast a full body bind curse and secure him with some ropes.
It took her a good twenty minutes to reach the centre of the battle, several Death Eaters stopping her from reaching her target. She received several injuries but came out on top every time.
When she looked at the sight in front of her she realised why it radiated power. It was easy to tell the Death Eaters were far better skilled at duelling than the others, meaning they were likely members of the inner circle, but that wasn't what caught her attention.
No, it was Dumbledore and a cloaked man duelling fiercely and Hermione didn't have to see the face to know it was Voldemort, he had returned. A lot sooner than she thought he would. Ten years sooner than he was originally suppose to. She wasn't certain whether she should take it as good news or bad news.
Dumbledore cast a shielding charm as he looked around him, checking for any possible attackers, his eyes landed on her and his features hardened.
"What are you doing, Dumbledore?" Hermione spoke loudly and the hooded figure stopped sending spells to Dumbledore and turned to watch her with interest. "You can't destroy him, you know you can't. You put so much belief into that ridiculous prophecy why are you going against it? You're going to get yourself killed"
"I know what I'm doing, Child" he spoke coldly.
"Do you now? You're being stupid for someone who is considered to be one of the most powerful wizards in the world. You're not going to win this battle if you continue"
"Neither will you" he sneered.
"I don't expect to win; I have come to terms with it. I know that I won't make it through this war alive, I will die"
He ignored her and turned back to the cloaked figure and he pointed his wand.
"Avada..."
"Expelliarmus" Hermione called out, disarming Dumbledore instantly and he never saw it coming. He turned to her enraged. "I'm trying to save your life"
"I don't need your help" he waved his hand and his wand flew out of hers and into his.
"Avada Kedavra" two voices called.
The two beams of neon green light collided with a deafening bang and everyone stopped duelling and turned to look at the sight.
One body fell to the ground and everyone stared in shock, even Hermione. She took several deep breaths and then turned away to look at the cloaked figure that was laughing loudly. She glared at him and he pulled his hood down.
She was surprised to see a young man with dark black hair, dark brown eyes, almost black and pale skin. His had a prominent jaw and high cheek bones. It seems destroying parts of his soul made him look human once more, but she doubted there was any humanity left in him.
"You did warn him" he chuckled. "He should've listened to you instead of patronizing you" he said with a smirk and Hermione looked down at the body of Albus Dumbledore.
"The Order of the Phoenix has fallen" he said loudly, all Death Eaters moved in a flurry and stood behind him. The members of The Order that weren't part of the White Lions huddled together and he smirked at them triumphantly as many of their members had fallen.
"But the White Lions still remain" Hermione called out and his eyes snapped to her. Every member of the White Lions present flocked to her and stood behind her, glaring at him. James, Remus, Sirius, Lucius, Arthur, Fabian, Gideon, Kingsley, McGonagall, aurors and several new members, who had all survived.
Moody looked at Hermione and the group in shock, particularly at McGonagall, Kingsley and the twins.
"You're with her?" he growled.
"Have been since she quit The Order" Fabian grinned unapologetically and Voldemort watched amused. "You were going to get us killed; you were going to get her killed. The way you were treating her wasn't right, she wanted to help and you were too afraid of her"
"She had the sense to get out before Dumbledore led her to her death" Gideon spoke. "And we had the sense to follow her. You've got to admit, she's much nicer and better looking" he winked at her.
"Oi! That's our girlfriend" Sirius and James spoke annoyed.
"A triad?" Voldemort spoke, sounding delighted.
"Shut up" Hermione glared at him and turned back to Moody.
"The file? The information? The tracking?"
"All a set up" Kingsley spoke with a pleased look on his face. "Do you honestly think they were completely untraceable? It's true that Mia is amazing at avoiding being tracked but only for a few hours at most before her trail can be picked up again"
He turned to look at McGonagall.
"You?" he growled.
"Albus could not be trusted. He all but admitted that it was him who broke into their apartment and tortured her, if he is capable of that he is capable of anything" she said without regret, though her eyes softened when she looked at the body on the floor.
"I see you finally see what Dumbledore was?" Voldemort spoke and Hermione turned to look at him. She felt a tingle going over her and she knew that he had cast a silencing charm so only they could hear each other. "I've had people watching you, you intrigued me. You know more about me than I have ever told anyone before. After my loss last year I had someone look into you. The name Mia Granger didn't exist until last year, you appeared out of nowhere with impressive exam results" Hermione looked at him with a bored look on her face.
"Why are you here? Why this place in particular?"
He smirked at her. "That bald friend of yours is right, you are difficult to trace, more difficult than any of my Death Eaters could ever hope to be. I however am not so easy to trick, I can see the difference between a fake trail and the real one. Imagine my surprise when I decide to take a trip down memory lane and visit the home of my ancestors, and who do I see leaving the building, you" if Hermione was panicked she did a hell of a job hiding it. "I followed you, the best I could do was here. Your trail just disappeared; my guess would be there's a property under the Fidelius nearby. I returned and I was a little more than irritated to find that my family ring was missing, I want it back" his eyes had gone hard, taking on a terrifying red tint.
This time she smirked. "Well I would give it to you except that I can't, it's currently sat at the bottom of the River Thames" he looked furious. "Not that it matters, your precious Horcrux is destroyed" his fury turned to shock. "I told you Riddle, I know far more about you than you could ever imagine. I know that you have five Horcruxes, unfortunately I have only managed to destroy four of them, I am unable to figure out the last" she frowned, hoping to give off a look of annoyance. At this point in time she was bluffing, the final Horcrux had been an accident so as far as he was aware, there were five not six.
He smirked at her in relief, he still had one left, and he could always make more. He locked eyes with her and she felt a presence in her mind, but she was prepared for it. Hermione tugged on the magic of the moon to help reinforce her occlumency shields and he was thrown out of her head. He stared at her in shock. He had a decision to make, she was too valuable to the other side to be allowed to live, but she could be tremendously valuable to him. He cancelled the silencing charm so everyone surrounding them could once more hear the discussion.
"Join me"
Hermione burst out laughing. "I would rather be locked in a room with Moody" the Marauders and Prewett twins snorted at her. He glared at her. "I will never join you, The Order may be no more, but the White Lions are standing strong"
"Very well, Dumbledore is dead, many are wounded. I will give you one week. One week to bury the dead and heal the injured and the battle will continue for one final time. Don't say I'm not merciful" with that said he turned on the spot and apparated, his followers not far behind him.
Hermione turned to look at her friends and family. Many had cuts and large wounds, but nothing fatal. She took a head count and breathed a sigh of relief when she realised no one was missing, they had all survived.
She looked around the field. There were many bodies littering the floor, Death Eaters and members of The Order. All The Order members in question were dead; some of the Death Eaters were dead and others just unconscious.
"Kingsley, Fabian, Gideon" she said turning to look at them. "It's time to get to work" they nodded and they left with the other aurors to start preparing for the transporting of the captured Death Eaters. Aurors from The Order looked around before slowly moving to help the others; Moody stared at Hermione before turning away to do his job.
Hermione turned to the rest of her group of friends and one by one, she started healing their injuries. There was nothing serious so it didn't take long.
"We're going to be at the Ministry all night taking statements and writing out reports" Fabian called over, as he checked over the binding ropes of a Death Eater.
"I hope you all got plenty of sleep last night; we're not going home any time soon" Hermione spoke.
Malfoy Manor -Thursday 22nd April
Six very exhausted figures made their way through the manor and to the dining room, where lunch would be on the table since it was around noon.
"Thank Merlin" two very worried women shrieked, chairs scrapped across the floor and they rushed forward, taking it in turns to draw them into hugs.
"What happened?" Molly asked. They all took their seats at the table after greeting the Weasley children, Draco and Theo who were oblivious to everything that was happening in the world around them.
"Dumbledore is dead" they gasped. "Voldemort is back in England. We arrived at the battle grounds and started duelling. I finally made my way to the centre of the battle and Voldemort and Dumbledore were duelling. I told Dumbledore to stop fighting, that the prophecy wouldn't allow for him to kill Voldemort, neither would the precautions, as far as he's concerned there's still four left. I disarmed him and he didn't heed my warning. Dumbledore is dead. Voldemort gave us a week to heal and bury the dead. In a week's time the Final Battle will be upon us"
"Dead?" Molly whispered.
"None of ours died. Several Death Eaters, some Order members and we captured many Death Eaters. We didn't have any fatal injuries and so they were easy to heal"
"What about the final precaution?" Narcissa asked.
Everyone looked to her.
"I'll take care of it" that signalled the end of the discussion and everyone ate breakfast.
"Where's Harry?" James asked.
"He spent all night screaming, he finally cried himself to sleep in the early hours of the morning. He's still asleep" Narcissa answered whilst leaning over to wipe some food off Draco's face.
"He'll be exhausted. When we're finished here we'll had home, I'm exhausted myself" James replied.
Potter Manor
They put a sleeping Harry to bed, Remus went to his room and in some unspoken agreement James, Sirius and Hermione went to her room.
They stripped down to their underwear and climbed into bed. Hermione resting her head on Sirius's chest and James wrapping an arm around her and his chest to her back.
"One week" Hermione whispered.
"We know" they whispered in reply.
"One week and I'm going to die"
"You're not going to die" Sirius growled.
"I am; I can feel it" Sirius felt a tear hit his chest.
He and James looked at each other and they made a decision, this wasn't how they wanted to do it, but they had been discussing it for some time. "We love you"
Hermione sniffled and small smile pulled at her lips.
"I love you both" she replied, Sirius kissed her forehead and James her shoulder.
"We are not going to lose you, I won't allow that to happen" Sirius said. "You're it for us, our forever"
"We love you and we want to spend the rest of our lives with you" James picked up. "We couldn't imagine loving someone else, sharing our lives with someone else. All we want is you. All we need is you. We want to marry you"
Hermione stopped breathing.
"This is the part where you give us an answer" Sirius said.
"You didn't ask a question" Hermione muttered.
"Marry us?" they both asked.
"We've only been dating for four months. You're only doing this because there's a week until the battle"
"No, we're not" James spoke.
"Well we are" Sirius said. "But that's not the only reason. We've been discussing it for a while now, we have been intending to ask you to marry us for some time, but we knew you would want to be together longer first so we put it off. We want to marry you before either of us die, for you to be our wife before there is a chance for you to be taken away from us"
"We may have officially been together for four months, but if you think about it, it's been longer. We had feelings for you long before we started dating, about three weeks after we met you to be specific. I love you, more than I have ever loved anything, except Harry of course"
"I have never loved anyone the way I love you. I love James and Remus and Harry, I love the Malfoys and the Weasleys but they are my family. I am in love with you. You are the only woman I ever want to be in love with, to ever reciprocate my feelings. I want you to be my wife, my first and my only"
Her tears were flowing freely.
"I love you both so much that it hurts. Growing up I knew I wouldn't survive the war and therefore I never thought about a future. I never thought about marriage, children, a career. But you make me want to have that. I want to get married, I want to have children, I want to have a career. But I am going to die and I am never going to have that and I want more than anything to have that with you. I want to watch Harry grow old, I want to watch Draco, Theo and the Weasleys head off to Hogwarts and maybe even a couple of my own children going with them. I want to see your smiles, hear your laughter every day. I want to see you attempt to make me love Valentine's day every year. I want to spend the full moon in my animagus form and play fighting with Moony. I want to tell you how much I love you every day for the rest of my life"
"We can give you two of those things now and when you survive we can have the rest" Sirius spoke.
"Molly and Narcissa have been conspiring against us and have been planning a wedding; they said they knew it was coming. They're probably finished; everything can be done in a few days. We can be married before the week is up"
"And the second thing we can give you is telling you how much we love you each day" James muttered. "So, will you marry us?"
"Yes, I will marry you" they smiled.
"We'll let them know in the morning" Sirius replied.
"There's something I need to tell you"
"What is it?"
"The final Horcrux"
"I know it's Harry" James said sadly.
"WHAT?" Hermione yelled, sitting up and pushing both Sirius and James away from her in the process.
"I know it's Harry" he repeated and tears started to once more fall down her face. He cupped her cheek.
"How? I was so careful not to tell you"
He smiled at her sadly. "I put the pieces together. Harry is a Parselmouth. He has a connection with Voldemort; you told me that he transferred some of his abilities to him. Voldemort was defeated when the curse backfired. You were always sad when we brought up the final Horcrux; you looked like you were in pain. It wasn't difficult to come to the conclusion that he was the final Horcrux, the accident"
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. "It's okay" he said softly. "I know you wanted to protect us from the pain of knowing. I know you didn't want to hurt us, panic us. I know you have been researching since the day you got here to figure out a way to get rid of the Horcrux without hurting Harry"
She nodded. "I think I've found it, it won't kill him, but it will hurt. I've got a plan"
"Does this have something to do with the stone you removed from the ring?" Sirius asked.
She nodded. "I need it to save Harry"
"Why?"
"You've heard the story of Death and the Three Brothers haven't you?"
"Yeah" the replied looking confused.
"The cloak, the stone and the wand" they nodded again. "They're real" their eyes widened. "The Three Brothers existed, the Peverells. James, the Potter line branched from the Peverells" their eyes widened further. "Your many greats of a grandfather was the owner of the cloak"
"My invisibility cloak?" he whispered.
"Yes, it is one of the Deathly Hallows"
"The ring?" Sirius asked.
"The Gaunt ring contained the resurrection stone, their line also stemmed from the Peverells. They obviously didn't know that they had a Deathly Hallow in their presence. In my other time Dumbledore discovered the stone in the ring and found a way to conceal it in a snitch and he gave it to Harry. I removed it from the ring before I destroyed it. I have it now"
"The wand?" James asked.
Hermione's answer was to reach over to her bedside table and pick up her wand. "It's mine" they stared at her.
"It doesn't look like the wand" Sirius muttered.
"Dumbledore was in possession of it before me, before that it was Grindelwald. The way to Master the Elder wand is to disarm the owner, and once that happens the power transfers over to the victor's wand. I have the Elder wand"
"That's why you disarmed him at the battle; you said you needed something from him"
"Yes, but also because I wanted to save his life, but yes, I also needed the wand. The Elder wand will work for me and for Harry. With the three Deathly Hallows, Harry will become the Master of Death, as a precaution I will pull on the power of the Moon Goddess for help keeping him protected. What I need to do will be very painful, for that I will give him a pain potion, enough that it will knock him out. I can't give him a sleeping draught, he's still too young"
"How will you do it?" James whispered, gripping her hand.
"Basilisk venom, I'll put a few drops on his scar and it will kill the Horcrux, leaving Voldemort mortal"
"I have faith in you" he spoke, but she could see the fear in his eyes.
"I figured it out, I'm the reason he survived. My love for him, our magic, our bond saved him this time round. I'll die before I let Harry go before me"
"We better get some sleep, if we're getting married we're going to need it in order to deal with Molly and Cissy" Sirius spoke and they laid back down and drifted off.