A/N: Thanks to Raider Wolf, sunshine katz, Winddancer, Anonimous and the guest for your reviews! The continued support inspires me to write :)

As many of you might have guessed, this is the final chapter of the Games, and to call this chapter a struggle would be something of an understatement! It's taken me time, but we're there.

This is probably going to be a painful one, but I hope that you all enjoy this chapter :)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Draco Malfoy looked like he'd been through hell and back. His once white-blond hair was now matted and a sooty grey, his face red with effort and blackened with ash and grime. He was shirtless, his body covered in welts and cuts, the smouldering remains of his shirt on the floor behind him. He'd ripped it off and tried to stamp on the flames the second he was out of the inferno. Somewhere along the way out of the burning forest, he'd lost his broom, and was now standing thirty yards from Harry and Hermione armed with a wand and a sword, penned in by the flames and with nowhere to go.

The initial shock at how far Malfoy had slipped from his usual high standards of presentation was what forced both Harry and Hermione to stand their ground, rather than rushing in to fight. More than ever, Harry was so acutely aware of the way the Games had forced his classmates to turn against each other. Looking right towards Hermione, he could see similar battle scars, the bruises running along her arms, the exhaustion in her body shown by her heavy breathing.

Oppressed by the heat of the day, Harry could feel the same weaknesses in himself. They had all felt the kiss of the flames, and the stings on Harry's calves felt just as painful. Exhausted and with his unruly hair plastered across his face, Harry didn't know if he had the energy for another battle just yet.

Draco, meanwhile, looked furious, shooting daggers at Harry and Hermione as he glared at them, the Dark Mark burning brightly on his left forearm, the one part of his skin that seemed to have escaped the flames. Typical, he thought to himself, staring down his opposition, scared to let his guard slip for even a second. Of course it would be these two at the end. The last time he'd faced Potter and the Mudblood alone, not only had he escaped unscathed, Theo had bagged him a kill, too. Regardless, he knew he needed to be careful, to stall for time and wait for the best moment to strike.

It was the first time that Harry had seen Malfoy's Mark. Despite a year of convincing himself that Malfoy was up to no good and Hermione telling him that she had seen his Mark at the bloodbath on the first day of the Games, seeing it for himself made the threat seem so much more real to him. He'd fought off Death Eaters before, notably in the Department of Mysteries the previous summer, but with this being Malfoy, the threat seemed so much more imminent. Harry could still remember when Malfoy had challenged him to a duel in their first year, and how scared he had been at the time, even though they wouldn't have been able to cause each other much damage. He could remember their encounter at Lockhart's short-lived duelling club in their second year, when Harry had found himself ostracised for calling off Malfoy's conjured snake - which, in hindsight, was an incredibly powerful piece of magic for a twelve-year-old.

Now that they were both within a couple of months of adulthood and with the backing and tutelage of two of the most powerful men in the wizarding world, in an arena where the duel wouldn't be over until at least one of them was dead, the thought of engaging Malfoy in another battle no longer seemed so appealing.

But Harry had Hermione on his side, and he knew that she could make all of the difference, if they could pick their moment to strike. Until then, he knew they needed to stall.

Eventually, it was Malfoy who spoke up first, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

"Well, well, well," he said, pacing as he gripped his wand tightly. "Of course it's you two left - you always manage to luck your way through everything. If I had your luck, these Games would have been over a week ago. Missing Weasley yet?"

"You know, we're not the only ones who have lost friends here," Hermione snapped, and Malfoy briefly glanced at Zabini's body, a momentary glimpse of weakness in his eyes. "You may have killed R- well, Nott did, but I killed Nott," she continued, becoming enraged at Malfoy. She still couldn't bear to say Ron's name. "And Harry killed Zabini. We've all suffered to be here."

"Keep talking," Harry muttered to Hermione, who nodded. "Play for time; we'll pick our moment."

"You know, Malfoy, we're all here because we're the survivors. We're the best because we've survived everything the Capitol has thrown at us," Hermione said, trying to flatter Malfoy's ego to placate him.

"You're right," Malfoy said smugly. "You're not the only ones with loads of sponsor support! The people here in the Capitol here can see how powerful I am, the most dangerous wizard in our year, even if none of you fools in Dumbledore's Army could ever see it!"

"We all knew well enough what you were," Harry snapped, keeping a firm grip on his wand, sensing the tension building. "It's a pity that your father never set you a good example - what's it like visiting him in Azkaban?"

"Don't you dare talk about my father like that, Potter!" Malfoy spat. "Just because you had nobody to look up to as a child-"

"Would both of you just shut up!" Hermione shouted, shaking, and both Harry and Malfoy were so surprised that they fell silent. "Look... I'm not expecting either of you to think much of this, but-"

"What is it?" Harry asked impatiently.

"Give me a second to think and explain myself," Hermione said, frowning in concentration. "Look at where we are," she began, gesturing at the area around them with her wand. "This is clearly the end of the Games. We've all beaten everything the Gamemakers had to throw at them."

"Too right," Malfoy sneered. "The stuck-up bunch of-"

"Draco, please," Hermione said quickly, continuing. "We've got to the end of the Games, and we've all showed how good we are. Harry, your duelling is exceptional, we've fought off so many people thanks to you, and, well, I've-"

"You don't need to tell me how good you are," Harry smiled.

"Me neither," Malfoy added. "I get reminded enough by my mother every time I get the second highest grade in Transfiguration."

"Please, can you just listen?" Hermione said hurriedly. "Draco, I've seen what you're capable of, too. When you killed R-Ron, that trick with whatever you had in your pocket... It was actually really clever. I haven't seen anything like it before."

"I invented the spell," Malfoy said proudly, grinning even more as Harry glared at him. "Two stones that light up on touch, each affecting the other through a Protean Charm. Then, when in their altered state, a modified Portus Charm - Portus Loci - lets you travel to within five metres of the other stone. Nott and I kept them in our pockets - they would heat up whenever the other was in trouble, and travel to them."

"I don't care what fancy magic you've done," Harry snapped, but Hermione held up a hand to silence him.

"Draco... that's very clever, and not at all what I expected. If only I'd thought to do that..." Hermione said with excitement in her eyes, while Draco grinned.

"What's your point here, Hermione?" Harry asked, not at all sure why Hermione was suddenly so keen to compliment Malfoy.

"Do you remember what the new Head Gamemaker, that man called Marshall, said just before the Games?"

"About how we can't Apparate out of the arena without getting shot?" Harry said. "Oddly, enough, I haven't thought about it much with everything else that's going on."

"Well, I've been thinking about that," Hermione admitted. "With the talent that we all have, that you two can both see - come on, Harry, I know it's Malfoy but you've got to admit he's done well - I reckon we have a decent chance of Apparating out of here and making a run for it."

Neither Harry nor Malfoy had been expecting Hermione to say that. Her words hung on the tension in the air.

Nervously, Hermione kept speaking. "It's that or we stay here until two of us are dead. This way there doesn't have to be any more fighting."

"But they're just going to shoot us, aren't they?" Malfoy said, far from convinced.

"Possibly," Hermione admitted. "But we're wizards and, well, they're Muggles." Hermione paused for a moment, hating the argument she was having to use. "They don't know what we're capable of, and there's a chance we could make a run for it."

"And where do we go from there?" Malfoy challenged, crossing his arms.

"I don't know, but somewhere in the Capitol they must be keeping the Portkeys we used to first arrive here. There's a chance we can break out and find them, then get back to Hogwarts."

Harry frowned, still refusing to move his eyes from Malfoy. "I'm not going anywhere with him," Harry glared.

"Can't you see that this is our best chance of survival? Is it not best to try for all of us to leave here alive?"

"Speak for yourself," Malfoy laughed. "I could take either of you any time I like-"

"I'd love to see you try-"

"Make one move and I'll cut you in half where you stand-"

"BOYS!" Hermione shouted, looking frantically from Harry to Malfoy, who were squaring off with their wands raised, poised to strike. "Please listen to me! Is this not worth trying, or am I crazy?"

"Look, Hermione, I can understand everything you're saying, but this is Malfoy we're talking about here. He killed Ron, for goodness' sake. Even if we do get out of the arena, what happens if he sells us out to the Peacekeepers, or stabs us in the back and does us in himself?"

Hermione sighed worriedly. "Harry, can't you see what's been happening to Malfoy here? He's been stuck in a family where he's been expected to grow up a certain way - a horrid, racist, bigoted way - all to follow in his parents' footsteps. He's been misguided and misled at every turn, he thought it was all fun and games when he was younger, but now he's older and he's bitten off more than he can chew. Surely, after what we've seen, he's the one who's been after Dumbledore all year, but I bet he didn't ask for it. That's why he's been so shifty, missing Quidditch and the like, because he knows he's failing and Voldemort's on his back. It wouldn't surprise me if he's been set up for it as punishment for Lucius not getting the prophecy last year at the Ministry of Magic! Can't you see how much he's suffered, and how much he's a victim in this too?"

Harry glared at her. "He's still Malfoy."

"Harry, I don't like him either," Hermione replied. "I probably never will. But I believe that with him, the three of us have a chance of getting out of here. Harry, it's not like everyone who does the right thing is a good person. I mean, look how loyal Snape has been to the Order of the Phoenix."

For a reason that neither Harry nor Hermione could understand, Malfoy laughed.

"Harry, none of us deserve to be here!" Hermione continued. "It's no more Malfoy's fault that we're here than it is our own. We are not each other's enemies - it's the Capitol that's done this to us."

"I'm still not convinced," Harry said sceptically. "I want us both to get out of here alive, but I don't trust him."

"But you trust me, right? And I feel like there is a chance we could trust him."

Draco listened to Harry and Hermione bicker, fury boiling behind his eyes. Hermione had been right, of course, about almost everything. Wasn't she always? He hated the position he'd found himself in; he had tried so hard to live up to his family's expectations, to be the man their status required him to be, but his parents never saw him as quite good enough, always second to the Mudblood pretender. So he had done all he could, until it all came too fast and he became overwhelmed. He'd wanted out almost as soon as he took the Mark. But that's not how it works, and if he had to become a Death Eater, he'd be damned if he didn't try to make a good job of it.

But he hated the way that she saw him as a victim, hated the pity that he had began to see in her eyes. Pitied, by a Mudblood! He was Draco Lucius Malfoy, the lone son of Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black, and he'd be damned if he'd let himself be pitied by anyone. He didn't need their help, but yet she seemed to want to help him, and maybe deep down he did want her help, he did want to be dragged away from the hell he'd thrown himself into, but he couldn't take it, couldn't take the help of someone like her; oh, the shame of it!

"Hermione," Draco sneered, silencing both the Gryffindors facing him as he felt his anger boiling over him. "Maybe you're right, and maybe serving the Dark Lord isn't all it's cracked up to be." He shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if he admitted that aloud back at Hogwarts, even in front of his peers, but here in the arena the thought was liberating, letting his anger grow even stronger. "Neither of you have any idea what it feels like to be given a task to complete with no guidelines and no idea of where to start, all the while with him watching over your back, his eyes everywhere you go! If I fail, I'm dead!"

Draco glared at both Harry and Hermione, who had no idea what to say, watching him warily as Draco turned his attention to Hermione, looking her straight in her eyes.

"And," Draco spat at her. "It's all your fault." He could feel his voice breaking, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "If you hadn't been at Hogwarts, if none of your kind had ever bothered to show up in our world, a place where you have no right to belong, maybe I'd have been enough for my parents, and maybe if Muggles and Mudbloods stayed away from our world, the Dark Lord would have had no use for me! I know you're probably right, as much as it pains me to say so, but if you and your type never existed I would never have ended up where I am now, and I hate you for it, for having everything while I've suffered so much. Crucio!"

The spell came so suddenly that Harry and Hermione weren't prepared for it as it took Hermione off her feet, screaming. Thankfully for her, Harry was firing curses back almost instantly, and Draco had to break his hold to defend against him. Draco ducked beneath Harry's first Stunning Spell, but lost his footing as he dodged the second and fell to the floor.

Hermione, horrified and shaken, the echoes of the pain receding from her mind, was back on her feet. She advanced on Draco as Harry continued firing spells, ducking as a jinx that had ricocheted back towards her from Draco's Shield Charm. As she drew her wand, aiming for a repeat of the volley of spells she had used with Harry to defeat Zabini, there was a crack as Draco Disapparated.

It only took a moment to find him standing imperiously atop the Cornucopia. Hermione hurriedly fired an arrow in his direction, but the Slytherin batted it away, having less luck as a well-placed Reductor curse from Harry took his footing from under him. Landing lightly among the rubble as both Harry and Hermione advanced on him again, Draco pointed his wand into the forest and cried, "Accio broom!"

"Stupefy!" Harry screamed again, sensing Draco's distraction, but again the Shield Charm was up in time.

Sensing himself getting into a pinch against the numbers, Draco needed a way out, and fast. Remembering a difficult battle from earlier in the Games, Draco raised his wand high, conjuring hordes of eagles that swarmed around in front of him, obscuring him from his enemies' view.

"Avis," Hermione copied, summoning her own birds - falcons - to her side, circling around and above her.

"Oppugno!"

"Oppugno!"

Suddenly the air was full of a mass of birds, a whirlwind of noise and feathers that almost distracted Harry enough not to notice Draco's broom hurtling towards him from the forest, but Harry sniped it out of the sky before it could reach Draco with another well-aimed Reductor curse.

Cursing, Draco turned to face Harry through the chaos, birds falling to the ground on either side, crying, "Petrificus Totalus!" Again, Harry was equal to it, blocking easily before firing an Impediment jinx back at Draco, who Disapparated again before he could be hit.

Reappearing on the far side of Hermione, Draco caught her in the back with a strong Stunning Spell, causing her to collapse forwards onto the floor.

"Sectumsempra!" Harry cried in desperation, trying anything to keep Draco's attention from Hermione while she recovered, cutting a deep gash in Draco's right bicep, causing him to curse and shout, dropping to one knee.

"You'll pay for that, Potter!" Draco screamed, firing another Cruciatus curse in Harry's direction that wildly missed. Back on her feet, Hermione stood between the two males, her bowstring drawn, an arrow pointing directly at Draco among all of the chaos overhead. Frustrated and desperate, with blood pouring into the grass from his injured arm, Draco called "Accio sword!" to recover his fallen weapon and Disapparated again.

It almost all happened too fast for Harry. The snap-shock of Draco's Apparition, the awareness of a man close behind him immediately followed by the tip of a sword punching through his chest. Gasping in shock and in pain, Harry sank to his knees, Draco's laughter ringing in his ears.

Hermione had turned just in time to see the everything unfold. Fighting back tears, Draco had barely had time to pull the sword from Harry's back before a Disarming spell had ripped it from his hands. As Harry collapsed forwards onto his chest, Draco could see the finish line, his grin all too visible to Hermione.

"Crucio!"

"Protego!"

Sparks flew as curses flew overhead at met in mid-air, the duel continuing in the space above and around Harry's desperate figure, Hermione now solely focused on one thing alone. Desperate for a moment's peace to rush to Harry, Hermione became more and more offensive, pushing Draco back until-

"Avada Kedavra!"

The curse flew over Hermione's shoulder, snapping both of them out of the duel. The two tributes stood facing one another, panting with exhaustion, Hermione's curly hair flung across her face, Draco's hands instinctively holding the deep wound Harry's curse had left him with.

Draco was stunned - he almost couldn't believe he'd done it. It had been the first time he'd ever cast a Killing curse, the one thing he had never been able to do, the one depth he had resolutely refused to sink to for so long. He stood there facing Hermione for a moment, his wand held loosely, his arm limp by his side.

Hermione was properly crying now, tears running down her cheeks.

"You could have done so much," she cried. "You could have been incredible. But look at all of the stupid decisions you've made in your life, look how far you've fucked everything up, look at the mess you've turned yourself into, you monster-"

Another Killing curse flew past Hermione as she rolled out of the way, drawing her bow in one swift movement. Rolling through to crouch on one knee, in one fluid motion she pulled an arrow from her quiver and fired it into Draco's stomach.

The effect was instantaneous. The impact punched Draco backwards, knocking him to the floor, his wand flying high into the air. The second arrow went straight through his neck.

As soon as Draco collapsed, Hermione flung her weapons to one side and ran to where Harry was lying motionless on the floor.

When she reached Harry, she saw where Draco's sword had run straight through him, narrowly missing his spine. Splotches of crimson covered the back of his shirt.

"Oh, Harry..." Hermione cried as she struggled to roll Harry over, trying to look at him and assess the damage as he cried and moaned in pain.

"Hermione..." Harry said weakly. His face was pale, his breathing ragged. "Don't worry about me, it's too late..."

"No!" Hermione wept, wiping her eyes with the heels of her grubby palms. "No, it's not over yet! I can't lose both of you, I just can't."

"Listen," Harry said, mustering what strength he had. "We've won. Voldemort is gone. The Games are over. You don't have to fight anymore."

Hermione didn't know what to say. In that moment, when there was so little time, it seemed like there was far too much she wanted to say.

"Ron loved you, you know," Harry said, coughing, and Hermione nodded shakily. "He always did. We both did."

"I know," Hermione said, but it didn't feel like enough. "I loved you both too."

The boom of a cannon made both of them jump. They were now the only two left alive in the Games.

Harry gripped onto Hermione's hand tightly. Looking up into her eyes, he said, "You were like the sister I never had... I don't think I could have made it this far without you."

Hermione smiled slightly. "Neither would I, Harry, without you."

For a long moment Hermione looked deeply at Harry, and Harry looked firmly back at her, before Hermione reached forward and pulled him into a tight embrace, desperately trying to stifle her sobs. Harry reached up to her, loosely draping his arms around Hermione until they finally fell limp, and he relaxed backwards into the grass.

Hermione remained motionless for a long time after the final cannon fired, kneeling beside Harry, almost scared to look away as all of the tension and pain in her body coursed out of her, her sobs shaking her until she could feel her head pounding and sorrow gave way for anger. Anger at the world for dealing her this hand, anger directed at Snow for suggesting this happened to her, at Dumbledore for agreeing to it, at the world for letting it happen, and letting everyone around her and the people she cared for suffer so much. She was angry for Neville, for Parvati and Lavender, for all the people who suffered at Malfoy's hands, for Harry and Ron.

She couldn't imagine what the pain would be like if she ever got back to Hogwarts without them all.

The pain and the anger fuelled her until she finally knew that she needed to move away, to put everything behind her. Walking past the ruins of the Cornucopia towards the dying embers of the inferno that had destroyed the forest around her, Hermione finally began to hear triumphant music overhead and the cheers and applause of the people of the Capitol.

Finally, above all of the noise, Claudius Templesmith's excitable voice cut through, and this leg of her journey was at its end.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the victor of the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games! I give to you Hermione Granger of Gryffindor!"

A/N: I don't really know what to say here, other than that I really hope this is a fitting end to the Games.

If you did enjoy this chapter (and indeed, the portion of this story covering the Games from chapter 11 to 26), then please review! More than ever, constructive criticism is welcomed :)

I'm planning on there being one more chapter published in a week's time, and I'm working on a possible epilogue after that. Currently I don't have plans for a direct sequel to this story, but I'm not really sure where to go next, either, so any opinions on the matter would be appreciated :)