6th Year Part Eight: Chapter 36

A/N: Well everyone, we're at the end of the line! Last chapter of 6th year, and then the epilogue. I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has been with us since the very beginning, and even the newer readers who has tuned in in the last few weeks, y'all have been the light of my days seeing all the supportive and loving words. If anyone has taken up the mantle of silent reader, which I do myself very often, if y'all could take a moment as well to leave a little comment or review now that we are at the very end or even once the epilogue is published that would be awesome.

Honestly, when I begun this story I had no idea that it would become as long and loved as it had been, as it was originally meant to be just a simple one- shot of Hermione and Severus. Even though I might never put myself in the position of making another story as long as this one, seeing as how long it had taken us to get here and the many man- hours of work put into it, I am very glad that I was able to pull it off and accomplish it. It has become by little story- child and I am very happy of the way it has turned out.

I love you all, and happy reading!

"It is in my nature to be kind, gentle, and loving… But know this… When it comes to matters of protecting my friends. My family. My heart. Do not trifle with me, for I am also the most powerful and relentless creature you will ever know."

~.O.~

Hermione stared at the top of Harry's bowed head which hid his downturned eyes from her relentless gaze. Ron sat beside him all the while, moving his head back and forth between the two friends saying nothing of the returned Marauder's Map laying safely back within the confines of her beaded bag being held in her lap. She had given it back to him trusting that he would not misuse it in any other way than what it was made for, and as he was not prone to pranking such as Fred and George as well as the original makers of the map, she believed it to be safe in his hands. As it was, the fact that he had not told her himself of his plans of ordering Dobby and Kreacher to follow the Malfoy Heir whenever he was alone made her more disappointed than the fact that he did not believe her words of trusting Draco herself and blatantly showing his unmarked forearm to everyone within their Hogwarts Express compartment.

The two House Elves had unintentionally outed him in the end, Harry all while they explained watching her from the corner of his eye as they told him of the boy's disappearances behind a door that moved all about the seventh floor corridor. The Room of Requirement they told Harry, not believing him to have any reason for making as frequent trips into the Room for Hidden and Missing things. Which, as it was, had Hermione thanking the gods for small favors. The boy listened to each word carefully but disappointedly as it seemed the blonde simply was in want of a quiet space that almost guaranteed privacy. One consolation from the whole ordeal also it seemed was they did not seem fit to mention if they had seen her own curly head accompany him into the room, but even so, there was nothing of it either way even if they had.

Harry finally lifted his head up to look her straight in the eyes, apparently slightly immune from her Hermione temper after all these years to ask, "Can you please speak to me, Hermione?"

In answer to this, she tilted her head back down to the bag in her hands she had been waving her wand around, just in the process of placing blood wards upon it so that no curious little boys with grabby hands would get any ideas. She tells him with all her attention keeping to her complicated hand gestures, "I thought we didn't keep secrets from each other, Harry. No matter what it is. I know thought that nothing can keep you from something you really want to do though, Harry. Despite knowing that Draco is not a marked Death Eater regardless of his father's associations. But, this map will remain with me from now on. It never should have been made in the first place, as obviously, it violates everyone in this castle's privacy." She looked up to him with calm glowing eyes, "Now, is there anything else you haven't told me?"

"No, there is nothing." Harry tells her, his eyes burning with the lie of the scribbled in book within the confines of his bookbag. Her words of no secrets bothering him more than it should as a dark haired spy also came to mind.

What other secrets have you hidden from me, my sister- friend?

She holds his gaze before breaking it once more, "I will also keep your Invisibility Cloak until your birthday. Dumbledore never should have given it to you at such a young age no matter that it was your father's. If we have need of it, it will be in my bag."

Ron finally spoke up in outrage, "'Mione! It's his cloak! You can't take it away from him."

She barely glanced to the red head before continuing to stare down the silent owner of the object in question, "If you can not control yourself to focus on other things that are more important than following a boy who has done nothing to warrant your suspicions, such as figuring out how to get that memory from Slughorn, I will give you the control myself. Taking away your distractions as best I can being the only way, apparently. What Draco has been doing is of little consequence compared to the secrets Slughorn has been keeping about the horcruxes." Slitting the palm of her hand to allow the welling of a thin trail of blood, the boys both flinched at the sudden sight of her little silver dagger. Holding her fist over her beaded bag, she allowed several drops to sink into the fabric and disappear into the slight glow signaling the wards being set.

…

Harry finally followed Hermione's advice after her little push of a speech, and was able to convince Slughorn to give up his most damning memory of a young Tom Riddle with a little help of Liquid Luck Hermione willingly gave him. The memory in which held much shame for the old Potions Professor that Harry then handed over to Dumbledore to draw what conclusions he wished.

Nothing has changed… nothing at all…

Everything Hermione had done for Tom, betraying those she loved simply to save their lives, had secured his ability to stay alive, well, and away from the man who sought to take him from her forever. Dumbledore, the meddling old man who had to lead a boy to his death all due to the same prophecy her brother put all his faith in. The prophecy she had changed so that she would not have to change her belief in the power of love and devotion. But she could not help but think of how the man could be right in the aspects he had spoken to Harry of, the sentiment that she herself had thought to herself more than once. The fact that Tom had brought about his own fall by listening to that damable thing she had been forced to twist to her own gain, rather than simply tell her brother it had been lost to them. His sense of vengeance would have been his downfall once again if he had been allowed to continue on alongthat pathway, like a typical man whose ego had been wounded beyond repair.

How could they ever convince Harry to fulfill the prophecy she herself had fed to Tom if Harry was so naive to believe each and every word to come out of the Headmaster's mouth? If he was content in allowing himself to be wrapped up in the older man's beliefs in such a subtle manipulation she couldn't help but grudgingly admire, would he ever go the extra mile she was pushing him towards on his own?

Dumbledore could have made a good Slytherin for all his cunning and loyalty to his own cause… and at the expense of a boy who has barely lived…

He had told Harry that he felt vengeance himself for his parents, so now he feels the need to bring about the downfall of Voldemort. But Hermione couldn't help but think, was it really her non- blood brother who felt these things Dumbledore spoke to him of, or was it something that had been thrusted upon him for so long he simply believed that it was to be his life's purpose? His path that would lead him to his death.

He had always told her, either through words or actions, he had never thought much of being in the direct middle of the limelight with all the attention he drew as the Chosen One. But yet, he allowed himself to be taken in to the man who he admired's whispering in his ear all these years that he was indeed the only one who had the power to defeat Tom. She could understand the appeal herself though, Severus had captivated her in one way or another from the very first second they had met.

If the Headmaster had been absent all these years, who's to say that Harry would not have simply felt a deep sadness for the family he did not have, yet had found in the Weasleys a whole other type of family with a mother and father figure who loved him like one of their own. Perhaps he would have even been given to Remus or another distant relative within the Potter family line if Dumbledore had not decided to overtake every aspect of the war, as well as The Chosen One's life. He would not have been treated as a prized student given every opportunity to break the rules other students must abide by, and would have been much like Neville she supposed in the department of a normal boy.

A normal boy whose parents had been taken from him before their time by a madman who sought his death, but was not to be held responsible for ending his reign. He would have been sad, he would have been perhaps angry at the man who had caused so much death and destruction to many others than just himself, and yet, he had not even believed he was the Chosen One for the first few years of his schooling she knew because she knew him like the back of her hand. He never would have taken it into his head that he would be the downfall of Voldemort or had so much anger in his heart if the old headmaster had not egged it on all these years.

She would not have gained a blood brother who she loved very dearly…

He would have power the Dark Lord knew nought, Dumbledore told him. But he was wrong in that regard, even as he could have never in a thousand thousand years dreamt he would be wrong in that one piece of information. By the limited memories he had of Tom as a child, a child who had coped in the only way he knew within a decrepit muggle orphanage, he had decided the young boy could not understand nor feel love in even the smallest way.

But that man now knew nought that the serious boy now had a sister who he loved… and who loves him… above anything else… almost anything else… almost…

What more of the original prophecy could have remained and what part could have changed since she began meddling in things simply to keep Harry alive and safe as can be, to which Dumbledore was now working against for the greater good. Hermione wondered, how ever will they get Harry on the side of the dark if he admitted to the minister himself he was indeed Dumbledore's man through and through? This definitely being something she had thought on before and certainly not the last, she hadn't previously believed it to be a possible feat, and yet, she made the prophecy for Tom in the first place and much had changed between that time and now.

What had she turned the world into?

~.O.~

It was then, several weeks before the end of the semester that would change each of their lives in a monumental way, that Hermione felt an all consuming powerful fury mixed heavily with despair towards the boy who she so loved. She couldn't think straight for want of anything having had so hoped Harry would have left Draco alone after she had taken his cloak from him and therefore making it that much harder for him to disobey her wishes. But now as she glanced at the map while furiously stomping down the hallways, she could clearly see how wrong and naive she had been concerning the boy's aims for so long. After all, certain muggles did say love was deaf and blind and dumb. While she may not be either three at the same time, she obviously was in certain instances when it came to her adopted brother who she had done so much for, but could not save him from his own temper nor consuming irrational emotions.

Once she had come upon the Great Hall sans a black haired boy who had left the Common Room minutes before her, as well as a platinum blonde in dark muggle suits beneath his school robes, she had ripped the map out of her bag once she drug the answer she dreaded from a guilty faced Ron. But as she came upon a mostly deserted hallway, empty save for the echoing sound of a high pitched moaning emitting from the girl's bathroom, she found the stones soaked with water as shouted curses and girlish screams came from within the mentioned bathroom. Then, a word she had not thought she would ever hear from a familiar mouth cried out, making her stop in her tracks within the doorway as water soaked into her socks.

"Sectumsempra!"

How could she have been so stupid… so trusting… blinded and deaf to the lies staring her right in the face?

Wails of the ghost in the round glasses framed by pigtails echoed in Hermione's ears as if she were submerged herself in the liquid she ran through, the broken glass and debris littering the destroyed bathroom as she halted before a bloody and gasping Draco. A round eyed boy standing before him opposite her with a shocked mogue shaping his mouth as if he had expected something different from a spell in a book such as the one he had come into possession of. Her senses rushing back as she found herself kneeling beside the boy with her shaking wand running over the worst of the gashes littering his chest and face, she looked up while continuing to chant to see Severus staring wide eyed at the scene before him.

"Inform the Headmaster to bring himself to the Infirmary," Severus told the short girl with Slytherin green trim upon her robes who had brought him to this madness before him, his order causing her to twitch a nod slightly as her eyes tore themselves away from the blood soaking Hermione's clothes and hands.

Severus ran in feet of lightening to Draco's other side while Harry began stuttering above them, his wand twitching smoothly out of his sleeve before taking over the healing chant on the boy's chest to allow Hermione to end them herself for a moment. Discarding her best friend's apologies and attempts to excuse his actions for the moment, she bent down to Draco's ear and fluttering lids while taking his hand, all the while talking lowly to keep him conscious and coherent.

"It's okay, Draco," she whispered as his hand steadily tightened around her's, "You'll be good as new soon, Severus is right here taking care of you. Healing your wounds." Taking up the task of healing his face once his blood began dribbling down over her hands and wrists from the thinner gashes, her and Severus quickly ended the sad song- like counter curse to bring him to his feet and transfer him to the Hospital Wing and Madame Pomfrey.

Once they had him standing upright and leaning exhausted against Severus' rigid side, Hermione found the paler than normal blonde looking over her curls with an exhausted look as Harry silently stared at the ground and twisted his wand in his hands. Slipping an arm around the boy's other side even though she knew her love was more than capable of supporting him down the hallways, she briefly looked to the darker headed boy with the most disappointed and saddened of looks that caused him to flinch visibly.

"Go back to the Tower, Harry." She told him, turning back away from the tears building in the corners of his eyes.

…

Once she was assured of Draco's stable health and he would sleep the rest of his pain away, she left Severus with assurances she would return his old potions textbook back into his hands as a positive that no other foolish student would use his spells again. Now, standing silently for a moment outside the portrait of the Fat Lady who was giving her sympathetic yet horrified glances once she croaked out the password, she breathed until feeling calm enough to face the small group that awaited her inside without her voice shaking with relief nor anger. Striding slowly into the empty Common Room, except for those who she expected, Harry himself, Ginny, and Ron as well as surprisingly Luna, the blonde was the first to speak to her.

"Hermione," Luna's tinkling voice sounding a little less bright than usual greeted her, rising fluidly to give her a hug heedless of the dried blood covering her. "If I had known what was in that book I would have taken it from him," the girl whispered into her ear as Hermione gripped her shoulders a bit harder than previously, "I knew he had kept it, but I just thought there were potion differences in it. I'm glad Draco is okay though."

"It's alright, Luna." Hermione said into the girl's curly hair much like her own, looking over her slim shoulder to the innocuous book laying before the remaining trio sitting before them on the short table.

Following behind her once they let each other go, the other girl took up her previous position of sitting between Harry and Ron to hold the former's hand, all the while Ginny glancing out of the corner of her eye in intermittent stares towards them. Each eventually raised their gaze to Hermione once she sat across from them on the vacant couch, Crookshanks bounding down the stairs to jump in Hermione's lap in order to sniff at the blood still staining her hands before she reached them out to pick up the book. Harry said nothing as he watched those small appendages flip though the ink stained pages that had cause him so much trouble in a short span of time, no words escaping his mouth until he quietly says her name. But Hermione simply continued pursuing the pages, feeling reverent in the fact that Severus had such a brilliant mind at such a young age even if it were contributed towards something in which had injured his godson.

He would make a brilliant father someday in the future… if he were so inclined…

"Hermione," he tried gaining her attention again, "How is he? Is he really alright?"

Finally finding the page describing vaguely the intent of the curse, she ran her fingers over the three short words before closing it once more and sending a purring Crookshanks to watch over Draco for the night. Her eyes lifting to Harry's increasingly wild eyed gaze, she answers his question, "He will fully recover in a few days, fine as can be after a short stay in the Hospital Wing. Save a few scars on his chest where you hit him with the spell, on the deepest of the cuts." He flinched slightly, the others around them uneasily looking between the two friends. "What on Merlin and Morgana's green earth possessed you to use a spell within this book that I specifically told you to return? That you had told me you did return to where you found it?"

The boy looked back down to his hands entwined with the pale support of the girl beside him, "I don't know. I was curious."

Hermione softly repeats his words softly, "You were curious. To what, Harry?" In her sudden returning fit of anger she slammed down the book onto the table between them, prompting Ron's mouth to open indigently, "See what the insides of a man's body looked like? If you wished to know that so badly you could have jut as easily enrolled within a muggle medical university. Or used a diagnostic spell." She turned her glowing eyes to both red heads who each had outrage written on their faces, Luna's having kept the calm she had been projecting, "Ron, Ginny, seeing as how I am speaking to Harry and him alone, I would wish you to keep both of your mouths shut for the moment, please." Their lips snapped shut as if she had used her wand to do so before she took a deep breath and returned her eyes to Harry once more, "I specifically warned you about this book, it's curses, and seeing as how I told you who it belonged to and why it was not the very best idea to be flinging them around at people you did not particularly like within Hogwarts for that specific reason, I would have thought you had hesitated enough to listen to me. Obviously I was wrong in that regard, and everything else I have done to keep you from hurting yourself has been futile."

Silence reigned once more except for the crackling fire, Ron looking very much like he was bursting with questions but heeded Hermione's temper and previous warning.

She asks the darker haired boy, "Did you use any other spells in this book?"

He hesitatingly nodded his head, "Just a few."

She pursed her lips before opening the book to glance at a page and turning it around to tap a word that beside it simply said to silence. "Do you know what would have happened if you had decided to use this spell, instead of a simple Silencio?" He shook his head silently, "If you had thought, oh this will just knock them unconscious or glue their tongue to the roof of their mouth so they can not speak, you would have been very surprised to find it is more along the lines of the Unforgivables." She looks down to her slim fingers still tracing the words, "This particular one causes the cursed to claw at their own neck with their fingernails, ripping their skin and muscle until you can see their spine through the front of their neck, all in an attempt to yank their own vocal cords from their throats. If by some miracle they live, they will never be the same again and most likely would not be able to speak, so congratulations. You got your wish of silencing them for good."

Finally a paler than normal faced Ron could no longer hold his questions within his brain and asks, "How do you know all of this, 'Mione? How do you know who it belongs to and what these spells do if the book doesn't say?"

She looks to him and pushes the book towards him to show him the loopy spidery writing within, "It was not very hard to figure, Ron. Seeing as how we have seen the same exact handwriting on our potions essays for five whole years, and now our Defense Against the Dark Arts." He opens his mouth in dumbfoundedness as she turned back to Harry who had returned his eyes to her small face as she was speaking to Ron, she ignored Ron's question of how exactly she knew of the uses, "I am not going to punish you, Harry. Honestly, I don't believe anything else I could do would punish you more than I am sure you are punishing yourself."

As she returned to the portrait hole with the book hidden within her beaded bag, she walked past the Head Boy bearing a scroll marked with Dumbledore's seal headed for the exact direction she had just left.

…

Hermione stayed true to her word, she continued to treat Harry just as she always did, although there was a significant amount of tenseness sprinkled among their conversations that had also became much less frequent. The two friend's carefree days, as carefree as they could be anyway, those days were very much no longer a staple of the week. Dumbledore, also staying true to his past, had decided Severus' weekly appointed detentions was a sufficient punishment to one of his precious Gryffindors. Being as that was, and considering all perceived circumstances regarding the war and the Dark Lord, she was glad Harry had not been expelled but thought there should have been more stringent punishments to dole out in cases such as this.

In the time it took Draco to heal fully, and Hermione silently distancing herself from each of her friends and others with the exception of Severus, she continuously gently coaxed the Vanishing Cabinet into giving her the results she wished. Her triumphant day coming to a screeching halt once Harry told her hesitatingly over dinner that the Headmaster wished to take him out of the castle to hopefully find one of the horcruxes. A saddened feeling overcoming her as if a dementor had chosen to kiss her for a moment, she had spontaneously grabbed the boy up in a hug in a way she had not done in ages while pushing his invisibility cloak into his hands.

As his arms had come up around her tightly without any delay, she pressed her lips to his shoulder, and knew without a doubt that once her and Draco found a yellow bird flitting about the closed cabinet just hours later that nothing would be quiet right again for a long while.

~.O.~

Scores of Death Eaters belonging to the Inner Circle of the Dark Lord's cause amassed within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, binding the students of various houses as well as the professors in a way in which was so efficient it became a terrifying thing to behold. The Headmaster was nowhere to be found, neither was the Boy- Who- Lived, and yet there was no outbursts of temper as to that fact by the handsome young man encased with a circle of bone masked loyal followers. The students had been all rounded up by the intruders and herded, terrified and confused, into the Great Hall as they were stripped of their wands temporarily and whispered as to if this coup was in truth the work of Voldemort. After all, Harry Potter and their Headmaster had repeatedly told them their version of truth, but the Ministry maintained it was simply his masked loyal followers. Even if either of these assumptions were true, what did the terrifying robed figures want with them? Why were they simply being ignored as the figures all stood perfectly still as if imitating statues about the Hall while awaiting instructions, their stances remaining even when several yells and screams were sounded outside.

The Headmaster was supposed to protect them… where had he gone… had he fled at the scene of dozens of black figures appearing in the halls suddenly as if out of the ether? Surely not… he was the defeater of the once great Gellert Grindelwald…

Those brave professors and Heads of House not unconscious within the Great Hall were seen in staunch battle against the Death Eaters, until they were overpowered, outnumbered and dropped to the ground into an indefinite sleep themselves. All but the Slytherin Head who was one of those in which few students saw at the side of the handsome blue eyed and dark haired man, protecting him from any stray curses and spells that might cause him harm. The small group ascending the Astronomy Tower in which there was a small light emitting as if from a lumos cast from a bone white wand.

"Stay covered until I tell you, Harry," Dumbledore told his companion weakly, shaking hands covering the messy head of black hair as they listened to the screams of small children echoing on the stone walls of the school, and footsteps coming up the metal stairs of the tower in which they stood. A golden locket dangled from the man's left hand fingers as he expelled the light of his wand.

Harry stood just to the side of Dumbledore, not knowing who they were to come face to face with in the next second. Once he did lay his eyes on the face of the man who his sister loved and trusted above all else, and the familiar blue eyed man within the circle of protectors, anger filled him as Snape raised his wand to the Headmaster, the short figure beside him taking Dumbledore's wand with a silent Expelliarmus.

Something was just on the tip of his tongue… something having long balanced there too long… but what was it? So familiar…

"Please, Severus," Dumbledore told his most trusted spy, a terror he had only ever felt few times before in his long lifetime filling the pit of his stomach, and yet a strange sort of acceptance. He had lived a long life full of everything he could have wanted, barring a few exceptions, and if this night were to end in the way he thought, he would have few regrets. But even a few were too many at this point.

A beautiful young blonde man with one light and one dark eye flitted through his brain… his one great love… yet one great regret…

Who would look after the boy after this? How did he misjudge how most loyal spy's intentions for so long?

Who would know what needed to be done…

Those who surrounded Tom Riddle resurrected lowered their hoods, unveiling Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange, and a shirtless Fenrir Greyback who began stalking the small room restlessly. The figure beside Snape remained cowled, but Albus knew exactly who the robes covered.

How had he been so blind in his ego once again? Again… one of the regrets… a small girl with an adoring smile… Gellert's mismatched eyes looking into his own…

"Finish him, Severus." Tom Riddle drawled, his voice drawing Dumbledore's eyes.

"Hello, Tom." The Headmaster said to the boy he had spent years and years fighting against, drawing people together so he would not yet again have to face yet another of his failures. All for the good it had done.

Tom's lips twisted into a sneer that did nothing to detract from the attractiveness of his face so much like his sixteen year old self Harry had met within a long gone diary, "My name is Marvolo now." His eyes twitched towards the two main figures standing before him, "Go on, Severus, Sister."

Harry jolted in surprise and confusion at the term of endearment, never knowing Voldemort had any type of sister let alone a magical one, and judging by Dumbledore's slight jerk, he did not either. Hermione looked up to Severus' stony face from beneath her cowl, just knowing how it might kill part of his soul to murder the man they were tasked with killing no matter the hatred suffusing either of their hearts. So, making a split decision that would have more consequences than anything she had ever done, she placed her hand over Severus' that held his wand aloft.

Sudden explosions rocking the tower, each of the inhabitants lost their balance for a moment that allowed Dumbledore to lift his suddenly steady hand towards the black clad man, his eyes on the girl beside him as his lips twisted into a sad smile before turning back towards the boy who had once seen him as a father, "I am sorry, girl. My boy. Hopefully this will atone for some of my failures towards you."

Her eyes widening, two words twisted her and Severus' lips in the same moment a wandless spell was directed to her love's chest that knocked him onto the floor beside her, unconscious as fading white overlapping lines upon his wrist and hand disappearing beneath his leather bracelet indicating an Unbreakable Vow being released. The Headmaster fell to the ground level of the Astronomy Tower, screams ringing in the sudden silence to the top while both Hermione and Tom went to their knees beside Severus to run white healing hands all alone his length.

All the while, as Hermione had joined her hand with her love's to deliver that damnable curse, Harry Potter stared uncomprehendingly at the familiar charms glinting on the bracelet attached to her exposed wrist. That thing having balanced for months on the top of his tongue since he first set eyes on her after binding herself to her brother, her cheekbones sharpened into a likeness to him, finally toppled right over onto it's side. Somehow he knew all along who the small figure somehow always accompanying Severus was as it had always been, just as it had both been a surprise to find them lovers, and yet not. Just as they two spells were cast by the most powerful men in the room, Fenrir Greyback completed his third round of stalking the length of the room, smelling the fear of the cloaked figure and the blood pumping fast through his heart. His mind numbed by the new information he never would have guessed out loud even in jest before this day, he was brought to heel as sharp fangs dug into his neck as the cloak ripped off his body. He fell heavily to the floor with sudden feminine screams filling his ears.

They have won… all was lost…

How did it come to this?

...

Hermione sat between her two black haired men, the other Death Eaters outside of the Infirmary making sure the trouble students and bound professors were being escorted back to their houses efficiently on her orders, knowing that once the Ministry was alerted more reinforcements would arrive in due time. As well as those within the Order. There could be no doubt as to the identity of who had lead the attack on the Hogwarts Headmaster and the school under his charge, Tom Marvolo Riddle also known as Voldemort to those who feared him, the Dark Lord. High ranking members of the Ministry also holding a place within the Order of the Phoenix most likely having alerted the Minister of the night's events, Pius could only delay aurors so long as to allow them to escape the school. But it would matter to Hermione not one bit, everything yet nothing had gone to plan this night.

The curly haired girl could only brush a sweaty blood soaked lock of hair across Harry's forehead, pressing her lips to it as his eyes opened groggily. He would not make it through the night she knew, Fenrir's teeth being made to puncture veins and muscle as smooth as butter each time he sought one out. Magic was no balm to a werewolf's bite.

"'Mione," he croaked out to her lowly, his vocal cords near torn to pieces, "I saw you," he told her, to her immense non- surprise.

She smiled slightly at him, meeting two pairs of sad grey eyes standing near the window over the prone boy's head, the only black robed figures to grace the otherwise empty Hospital Wing.

"I know, Harry. I am so sorry."

She hugged both Lucius and Draco tightly even as she was once again covered in blood in too short a time, so tightly she wished she could never let them seperate themselves from her again. She pulled back to smile her own sadness to them that was mirrored on their faces, kissing their cheeks as they each walked back into the Hospital Wing's doors once again. Walked back to the boy she had done everything to keep alive, thought she had planned for every eventuality. She was wrong. So wrong.

His throat worked to allow all the words he needed to say to his best friend, to his sister before he succumbed to his injuries, "Why did you let Cedric die?"

It was the one thing that had never made sense, why did that sweet boy who always had a smile for everyone have to die? Why did the man who was the brother to the girl he had thought was his sister kill him? How had she become ensnared in that Dark Lord's web as easily as Bellatrix Lestrange?

All questions for the ages.

Hermione hugged Luna who had hidden through the short battle and then hesitatingly revealed herself to the other curly haired girl, managing to avoid the Death Eaters crawling about the school like ants through a hill. The pale girl looked to Hermione with calm eyes despite everything Hermione had babbled at her in her short bought of panic and scramble mindedness, revealing her true goals and alliances all through the years they had known each other.

But Luna stayed true to herself and her personality.

She had placed a pale hand wringed in bottle caps on her friend's face while the other tugged on the strap of the beaded bag practically glued to Hermione's skin even beneath her Death Eater robes she still wore, "You know what to do, Hermione."

It was as if ice had made it's way through her veins in a mimicry of what she had felt that not so long ago night, slowly making her cold from her lips to her toes, "It was never supposed to happen like that, Harry." She stifled a sob in her throat as old and new guilt and sorrow came along with the coldness, "He was never supposed to be there. Tom had lost his wits after just being resurrected, and he lashed out at the closest thing that was not familiar to him." She closed her eyes just as Harry's slipped shut in his exhaustion as well, just on the cusp of closing forever as she continued to whisper to him with her forehead pressed to his, "I understand if you have to break your promise, Harry. But remember, everything I have done was to protect you. To keep you alive, and know that I will always love you. Even if you can never love me again." She paused for a second, speaking to Harry's steadily dimming soul as if not aware she was speaking out loud, "I should have been worried about me all along."

She continued to stroke her chosen brother's forehead, tears leaking down her cheeks as loud muffled shouts began outside the heavy wooden doors to the room. Lucius and Draco shifting as their wands appeared in their hands, moving to stand guard before her and the doors. She ignored everything around her as swirling thoughts filled with definitions of devotion and loyalty she had once dismissed in denial began again within her mind, at a time like this.

"I am sorry, my Brother. My blood." Hermione told her brother's peaceful face as she held his head in her lap for one second more. The still retreating footsteps of their followers levitating both the bodies of her love and other brother quickly growing farther away as she cast the spell over her brother, gently lowering him to the ground to tell him her goodbyes.

His eyes flickered from behind his lids, signaling that he could hear every word she said even if he could not answer her back. That was how she had wanted it, least she begin bawling to the point of no return as he held onto her. Asking her what she was going to do, how she could leave him.

That he loved her more than anything… his only family…

"Everything I have done in this war, Tom, and everything I will do has been for the betterment of everyone involved. Including you, and me. Know that no matter what I have to do, I will protect the people I love. Including you, Brother."

She left her brother under the light of the crescent moon as the feeling of crushed velvet slid through her fingers and into her beaded bag, cushioned on the soft grass of the Hogwarts grounds with a pale girl looking on as hissing filling the silence, a command given to the only other conscious creature of like blood that remained.

All would be well again…

She kissed Harry's forehead with trembling lips one last time, never knowing his eyes had opened once more to see a golden chain wrapped around his sister's neck framing another that peeked from behind her shirt collar. And as his eyes grew blurry and unfocused, never to blink again, his last memory would be of the girl he loved with all his being with her watery smile blinding him with it's brilliance as the last words on her lips were of I love you.

Best friend, sister, family.

If you ever find out what I have done in this war, Harry, or whatever I will do… Promise me you won't hate me…

I promise…

I… promise…

Hermione leaned over Severus Snape, killer, spy, lover, and wrapped that all too familiar chain around his neck under the sad watchful gazes of the two Malfoy men who loved her just as much as Harry had. The doors to the Wing bursting open in splinters, wood flying in all directions as a now awake brother burst into the room to see a sister with a time turner in hand, small fingers just on the dial. Setting eyes on one another, Tom Marvolo Riddle, The Dark Lord Voldemort let panic sweep across his body that was infinitely more painful than any restoration magic he had performed. He now knew the meaning of her words, and the panic dripped away as if water flowing off his body. Her wet golden eyes meeting his for the last time with sadness and yet a joy that should have never been there in circumstances such as these, her whispers within his head.

I love you, Tom. I will see you very soon, my love.

With these words, the only family he had ever known disappeared in a golden white flash just as an orange, green and purple blur seemingly came from the veil and jumped onto the dark man's slowly rising chest.