They started at the Ministry. With Narcissa's intricate knowledge of the place, having gone there on Malfoy family business countless times, they avoided a number of potential pitfalls with ease.
Though they had no discernable way to destroy it, the locket was theirs.
They escaped the Ministry without arousing suspicion, which was something of a miracle.
But trouble was brewing at Number 12 Grimmauld Place.
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Hermione winced as she watched Harry grab his forehead once again, sucking in breath through his teeth and staggering backward.
"Harry, you have got to let me teach you to do Occlumency properly! It's no good having this connection with You-Know-Who!" she cried at him.
Nott, who had been silently sitting on the side of the drawing room, spoke up.
"He relishes the connection, Granger, you're fighting a losing battle."
It wasn't Harry or Ron, but Draco who drew his wand and pointed it at Nott.
"That's quite an accusation, Nott, are you sure you aren't talking about yourself?"
Nott took a deep breath and closed his eyes, while Harry fell to the floor, struggling with his vision, Ron and Hermione at his side.
"I am merely pointing out that you won't get a wizard to close his mind if he doesn't want it closed. Occlumency is—"
"Yes, Nott, I understand Occlumency. I know you fancy yourself some kind of expert on the subject, but we've been at it just as long as you."
Nott looked over at Harry thrashing on the floor and said, "It would seem there are some gaps in your knowledge."
Just then, Harry came to.
"He knows Nott is alive," Harry said, gasping for breath. "He wants him dead just as much as he wants me."
Nott stilled, his eyes locking with Harry's.
"Well, then, now we know two of his weaknesses."
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Their days in the house together became filled with research. The Order had cleaned out plenty of dark artifacts, including books, but there was still a formidable collection of them in the library.
That, and Hermione had packed every one imaginable in her beaded bag, the contents of which were now spread throughout her room.
After a private talk with Nott that Draco, Ron, and Hermione had not been privy to, Harry had consented to learn Occlumency, not to block out the visions completely, but to learn to have a choice to view them.
This resulted in many nights of both Harry and Nott becoming rather taciturn, which the others reasoned was because they had just seen one anothers memories. However, a strange bond was forming between them, and it was unclear whether their relationship was still malicious or not.
Everyone was working on their own mystery, however, so they didn't pay this much mind. Ron was running a variety of tests on Dumbledore's Deluminator, trying to ascertain how they could put it to use.
Draco and Hermione eventually discovered the symbol of the Deathly Hallows in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and were forming theories about the Elder Wand. Though, Hermione was insistent that they needed to stay focused on Horcruxes.
There were far too many mysteries and far too few conclusions.
Time was moving along, Muggle-borns were being imprisoned, and tensions were high.
After a visit from Tonks, they were clued into the fact that Fred, George, and Lee Jordan had begun a Wizarding Wireless show to share news, and it became a regular practice for them all to listen in.
That was how they realized that the Sword of Gryffindor was in Snape's office, and their plan to retrieve it was born.
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Camping was not anyone's first choice, but it made sense to be on the grounds of the castle in order to enact their plan. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco Apparated to the cave that Sirius had hidden out in, disillusioning themselves as they made their way into the Forbidden Forest. Narcissa stayed behind to be able to receive news from the Order, and while Nott wanted to come, Harry insisted he stay behind in a puzzling expression of care for the wizard.
Draco and Hermione privately theorized that the two had formed a similar connection of minds, and could communicate using Legilimency, the same way they had been able to during times of duress.
They each had other theories about what was happening between Nott and Harry, but neither voiced them.
Once they'd set up camp, they took Polyjuice in turns and set out on what was surely a far more dangerous undertaking than the Ministry trip had been.
Three days, and three abandoned attempts later, they sat in the tent trying to work through the plan.
Guessing the password at Snape's office when they were sure he was not there (using the map) had come up empty.
Hermione's idea to use the window, on the off chance that Snape left it open the way Dumbledore had, was equally a waste of time. Harry had flown up to it under his cloak with no luck, the windows were magically sealed.
Another attempt to simply wait outside the office and follow Snape in had turned out to be nearly disastrous, as the headmaster had sensed a presence, and began a duel with an invisible Ron, which he only escaped by utilizing the Deluminator to cause confusion.
It was the dead of winter, and while the interior of the tent was warm, one of them had to sit sentinel at the entrance each night. They sent messages back to Narcissa using Hermione's gold coins, Harry taking the coin for himself after asking Narcissa to pass it to Nott.
He'd become rather withdrawn from them all, and communicating with Nott seemed to be the only thing that grounded him. Since they'd left Grimmauld Place, the locket Horcrux had been hanging around Harry's neck for safe keeping, and the others were beginning to wonder whether it was affecting his mood, though he wouldn't hear a word of it.
The appearance of the silver doe outside the tent one evening was the event that changed everything.
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"I have seen your dreams, Harry Potter, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible."
Ghostly forms of both Ginny and Theo had emerged from the locket, along with a young Tom Riddle, the same as from the diary.
"Him?" Riddle Ginny said, looking at Riddle Theo."I will never forgive you for this."
Riddle Theo turned to Riddle Ginny and said,"You won't have a need to, we won't survive his wake."
Then, the young Tom Riddle slashed his wand through the air, and blood burst from Ginny and Theo's eyes, as their forms were torn apart by magic.
It took Draco, Ron, and Hermione grabbing the hilt of the sword while it remained in Harry's hand, and thrusting it into the eye of the locket before the deed was done.
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The vanquishing of a Horcrux created a celebratory mood for a good period of time. There were a few wonderful days of relaxation and Firewhiskey back at Grimmauld Place.
"Constant vigilance!" Moody's favorite line echoed through their minds, and they knew it couldn't last. Their journey to speak to Xenophilius Lovegood was one they'd embarked upon thinking it would be a casual jaunt in comparison to the sword quest, and it turned out to be far closer to disaster than any of them had predicted.
Then, the loss of Harry's wand in Godric's Hollow was the next major blow that seemed to send him back into a dark state of obsession that only Nott could pull him out of.
He was back to obsessing over the Hallows, and Draco, Ron, and Hermione took it upon themselves to continue staying focused on Horcruxes.
"Do you think they're in love?" Ron asked one night as the three of them were each reading through books on the founders.
Hermione looked up from the Ravenclaw biography with pursed lips. "I honestly don't know what they are."
Draco hadn't looked up from the Hufflepuff book, but was clearly listening. They hadn't talked about it, but it was certainly the Hippogriff in the room.
"It's like, they've been magically bonded or something, you know?"
Hermione glanced over at Draco, who was eyeing her in a very particular way.
"Yes," she said, without releasing eye contact.
Ron looked between them and then said, "Oh… is that how it was for you two, then?"
Draco shifted his gaze to Ron and said, "Something like that."
Hermione was smiling now, regarding Draco with some amusement. "He felt that way about me long before I felt it for him," she said.
"Well, that's obvious," Ron said, rolling his eyes and glancing back at his book with a chuckle.
At this, Draco slammed his book down. "Are we really going to compare a years-long developing relationship starting in childhood, to whatever convoluted mess Nott and Potter have gotten themselves into?"
"Well," Ron said, "there seem to be a number of similarities, and not for nothing, Hermione and I had a years-long developing relationship too, but yours won out over it in the end. I'm just curious as to how it happens."
"Is that an accusation?" Draco shot back.
Ron rolled his eyes, and said to Hermione, "D'you reckon he'll ever get that I trust him?"
She grinned and said, "If my relationship with him is any estimation, you have a few more years before he's going to accept it, Ron."
Draco scoffed and returned to his book, lounging back in his chair as Hermione and Ron exchanged another amused glance.
Later that evening was when Hermione brought the idea of the Lost Diadem to Harry.
It was also the evening when Harry remembered a dusty old crown on a bust of an old wizard in the Room of Requirement.
Their return to the Forbidden Forest started out similarly to the first trip, but became wholly different within minutes when a gang of Snatchers appeared as if they'd been waiting for them.
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Hermione was screaming, and Draco was losing his mind. They were trapped in the basement of Nott Manor, and Hermione was being tortured a floor above for her possession of Gryffindor's sword.
The fact that they had the sword at all had halted all plans to summon Voldemort to the scene, and his aunt had looked at him like he was her next meal, but wanted to save him for later.
"Did you send the message, Potter?" he growled at Harry.
"I'm trying," Harry snapped back. He'd managed to keep his coin, but not his wand, which wasn't his at all, but one Narcissa had lent him for the journey.
Merlin knew whether anyone upstairs would notice that fact.
Hermione's scream filled Draco's mind as terror for both of the women he loved most in the world threatened to overcome him.
He could hear Luna Lovegood and Mr. Ollivander, fellow prisoners, speaking quietly to Potter and offering instruction on wandless magic, but his vision was beginning to blur from the feeling of powerlessness.
It wasn't until the crack of Apparation sounded and Kreacher the House-elf appeared that Draco's vision righted itself.
They were going to get out of this alive. All of them.
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Hermione was nearly passed out on the floor of the drawing room in Nott Manor, having been tortured for some indiscernible length of time. The word Mudblood was shining red on her forearm, and she ascertained that Bellatrix had moved on to torturing the goblin for information before she slipped out of full consciousness.
She came to for a moment and registered that Kreacher the House-elf was there. Someone picked her up off the floor and hoisted her over their shoulder.
She saw Theodore Nott's face, then saw Harry take his wand from him, saying something about not letting him become a killer.
And then they were gone, and the last thing she saw was the blade of Bellatrix's knife flying towards them as they Apparated away, missing them by a split second.
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Grimmauld Place became rather crowded, and the Order quickly created a plan to have Luna and Mr. Ollivander moved to another safe house.
Before they left, however, Harry insisted on a meeting with the wandmaker. Nott went along.
Draco and Ron attended to Hermione, the former with a far more desperate energy, and a desire to see her well immediately. Narcissa was able to assuage some of his panic by telling him that she knew of a number of effective treatments for the Cruciatus Curse.
The cursed cuts, however, would scar no matter what.
Draco slept next to her each night, regardless of his mother's wishes, and woke any time she did. One dawn found him hunched over her, stroking the scars on her arm and whispering, "I'm so sorry," over and over, as his own tears fell across her skin. She slept soundly through it all.
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Narcissa had nearly convinced them that she should go to Gringotts as her sister, but Hermione won out in the end.
It felt personal to both of them, of course, but the older witch could not claim to be battle ready as well as any of the others.
Though, shortly, she would not have a choice.
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They got the cup, as well as their first ever dragon ride.
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Retrieving the diadem from the Room of Requirement was something Nott insisted upon taking part in. He and Draco had gone with Harry, while Hermione and Ron went to the Chamber of Secrets to retrieve Basilisk fangs, as the goblin had run off with the sword.
Nott and Draco stood face-to-face with Crabbe and Goyle.
There was no contest. They fell before the Fiendfyre spell they were trying could even be cast.
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The battle had commenced, and after Ron and Hermione returned with the Horcrux-killing, venom-filled fangs, there was only the snake left.
Draco and Hermione dueled side by side. The shock of seeing the youngest Malfoy, for most of the Death Eaters, caused enough of a delay for he and Hermione to succeed in each instance as though they had taken Felix Felicis.
Ron reunited with Percy, and together they stopped a Killing Curse from hitting either of their twin brothers.
Ginny was fighting alongside Neville, and Hermione caught sight of their joined hands in a brief moment, hardly having time to register it.
It took them all a while to realize that Harry and Nott had disappeared.
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"Harry Potter is dead."
That was their reality for some indiscernible amount of time, until it was not.
The battle recommenced, and now it was as though the entire group of them had taken Felix. No Death Eater spells could hit their mark.
Molly Weasley struck down Bellatrix.
Professor McGonagall did away with the Carrows, who had been terrorizing the school all year.
Narcissa Malfoy came face-to-face with her husband, and in her moment of hesitation he raised his wand, but Hermione was faster. Stunned and bound, Draco moved his father to one side, content in the idea that he could face trial and sentencing, because to simply die in battle was too good an ending for the man. Narcissa wept as they battled on.
Finally, Harry removed his cloak and stood face-to-face with the man that he must kill or be killed by.
They circled one another, and Harry astonished the entire crowd with his words, revealing secrets about Tom Riddle that no one ever knew.
He had died for all of them, and they all had his protection as a result.
Because love wins. Every time.
And then, the most evil wizard who ever lived was finally gone.
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Nott was the first to embrace Harry, first kissing the scar on his forehead before collapsing into him. Everyone else crowded around them, not noticing or questioning their pairing.
Hermione sobbed tears of joy into Draco's chest, and he pulled her back so that he could kiss her, out in the open in front of everyone.
He found his cheeks wet as well, and saw that his mother was the same way, though hers now had joy mixed in.
As things in the remains of the Entrance Hall quieted down, Luna approached Hermione.
"Have you been with Draco for long?"
Hermione stared back for a moment before laughing. "Yes, actually," she said, glancing over at him where he stood comforting his mother. "Yes, we've been together for quite some time actually."
Luna smiled back knowingly. "I'm glad you found each other then."
Hermione returned the smile, "So am I. He… he saved my life."