Then it was time to go. Kingsley and Robards took Harry away and Timberly and Laurence came to escort Hermione, Ron and Hagrid down to the DoM. Arthur was permitted to follow them as far as the DoM's waiting room and there he had to stay. But Hermione, Ron and Hagrid were ushered in and sat down in a viewing area. Hagrid sat to the far left on a heavily reinforced chair that had obviously been enlarged to cater to his size. Then Croaker, Kingsley and then Ron and Hermione.

Ron leant towards Hermione. "How many?"

"How many what?" Hermione didn't understand the question.

"I'm surprised you're still over here, I thought you'd be down there with Harry." Ron didn't answer, instead he looked over at the Veil's arch.

"Why do you say that?"

"I know you, Mione. You're not going to let him go alone. Here." Her handed her a shrunken box. "Put that in your bag. How many?" He asked again. "I know you're going. George, I think he's in this, along with Bill and Charlie. Maybe Neville and Luna. But after that? I don't know."

Hermione looked at Ron. "This is why I nagged at you at school, Ronald. You have an incredible brain, you just don't use it often enough. And this is the one time, I wish you hadn't." She muttered.

"I'm not going to tell anyone. I might have had suspicions, but I had no proof, you just gave me that." He grinned. "But you didn't answer the question. How many?"

Hermione studied him for a few seconds before answering. "Well… besides me and Harry…?"

"Yes…?" Ron stared at her.

"Besides me and Harry, I've stashed over thirty people in his trunk." She smiled cheekily.

"Thirty…? How the hell did you get… Wait… the flying space? They're in the quidditch pitch?"

"No, right now, they're all in the pavilion waiting for me."

"Waiting for you? How are you…?"

"Same way I got about third year. Remember the hospital after we tried to rescue Sirius? Harry and I disappeared and then re-entered through the door?" Hermione didn't give him the answer, but she did give him the clues to know what she meant.

"Let me guess, you snatched one from the DoM when we were here last?" Ron sighed.

"No, McGonagall gave me back the one I used in third year."

"But… isn't it all used up?"

"Almost. This will be the last trip. Croaker warned me that Umbitch is involved, so I need to make it look good. Once I'm gone, it will be too late for her to do anything." She tucked the box into her bag and pulled out a box of her own. "Here, you take this, there's letters in there for people. It should explain everything. I'm sorry, but involving you…?"

"No, I couldn't have dealt with it. If I'd gone with you, there'd come a point where I'd blame Harry for me being there. I need to learn to accept the blame for my own actions and… well… I'm not there, yet. I kinda knew you were going to do something, not what, but something, so I stayed away, so I wouldn't be tempted."

"Yes, I figured that out after our little chat this evening." Hermione paused when Robards and the two trainee Aurors escorted Harry into the chamber. "Time's up. Wish me luck." She gave Ron a lightning fast hug and sat back in her seat, pulling the time turner from her pocket and twisting it around her wrist, before turning the tiny hourglass three times and holding it in her hand.

Lucius Malfoy appeared as calm an as collected as ever, but Hermione could see the twitch in the muscle under his eye, he was not happy. Lady Augusta Longbottom looked out of sorts and ready to snap at someone. Torrance Ollivander glanced at each of them and stood, taking control of the session.

"Mr Potter, you have been convicted of a number of crimes under Mordred's Law, and given three sentences to choose from. You chose the veil and we are here to see that sentence carried out. Various conditions were offered and accepted and Auror Robards has verified that everything you bear, meets those conditions. You also requested to enter the veil at the same time as your late godfather, Sirius Black, who perished here two years ago, today." He turned to the witnesses. "The Unspeakables have established that the late Mr Black entered the veil as a result of a blood-boiling curse cast by escaped convict Bellatrix Lestrange, at precisely two hours and four minutes after midnight. We have approximately six minutes until that time. I offer you that time to say your farewells." Hermione smiled at Ollivander's speech, Croaker had told her that it had actually been a confundus that had caught Sirius long enough for the Veil to catch him.

Harry gave the wizard a strained smile and came over to Hermione and Ron, he hugged them both before moving to Hagrid and letting the groundskeeper blubber over him.

"Time, Mr Potter. You have one minute." Mr Ollivander called, what seemed like bare seconds later.

Harry dragged himself from Hagrid's arms and gave Ron a last hug, then kissed Hermione's cheek and darted back to Mr Ollivander's side.

"You have ten seconds, Mr Potter." He said and began to count backwards from ten.

Harry looked at his friends and let tears fall, but when Ollivander reached one, he took a deep breath and stepped backwards into the veil. His image cried, before sliding backwards into the Veil's shadows.

A heartbeat of silence and… Hagrid's loud sobs broke out.

"Mr Potter's sentence has been executed. All outstanding class one warrants have been finalised. Mordred's Law is complete. Come the start of business this morning, the Ministry will have the task of electing a new Minister." Mr Ollivander said. "Let us all pray... that this does not come back to haunt us."

Ron and Hermione stayed seated.

"Miss Granger? Mr Weasley? I'll escort groundskeeper Hagrid to our healer and get him a calming draught." Kingsley offered.

"Thank you, Auror Shacklebolt, for everything you've done for Harry." Hermione said.

The chamber door opened, and a hated figure stood there, the toad in pink.

"Auror Robards, arrest Miss Granger." She ordered.

"On what charge, Madam Umbridge?"

"Assault on a Ministry employee." Umbridge gave a sickly-sweet smile.

Robards sighed but stood up. "Miss Granger? Please stand."

Hermione stood and jerked into taking a step forward. "What was that?" She gasped. "No!" She held out a hand towards Robards and jolted again, before slowly fading from sight, in a rather disturbing manner.

Out of sight of Robards or Umbridge, she'd let go of the time turner's hourglass and it had started spinning.

Robards darted over and cast a detection charm.

"What the hell was that?!" Ron squawked, he wasn't sure that was part of Hermione's plan, it didn't look the way he remembered.

"I don't know. It… it was almost like a time turner, but not exactly." Robards frowned.

"What do t you mean, not exactly?" Umbridge demanded.

"All the time turners were destroyed the night Voldemort attacked the Ministry, there aren't any to use, plus… they don't work like that. They're instant, not slow, not like that." Robards explained.

"It could be a portkey." Croaker offered. "Dumbledore and Riddle were powerful enough to create a portkey that might override the Ministry anti-portkey wards. Might. What do the detection scans say?"

"The readings are…? See for yourself." Robards offered.

Croaker recast the detection charms and his frown grew. "That's… that's not possible."

"What?" Demanded Umbridge. "What did she do?"

"I don't think Miss Granger had anything to do with that. The primary magical signature I'm reading is… Bellatrix Lestrange. And there's a lot of malevolence to go with it." Croaker answered, quite glad he'd given Granger the warning he had.

"But Lestrange is dead." Umbridge argued.

"It looks like she may have planned a little revenge." Croaker replied.

Hermione waited for the room to settle around her, before removing the time turner from her wrist. She turned around and nearly squealed in fright.

"That is a most unusual arrival, Miss Granger." Croaker leant against a chair.

"Yes, it appears my time turner has reached the end of its life." Hermione remembered Croaker explaining it that way.

"Ah, yes, that would account for it. How far did you turn?"

"Three turns. The 'unturned' version of me will appear at your office in approximately half an hour, with Harry's trunk."

"In that case, shall we head there now?" Croaker asked.

"Please. Somewhere in there, McGonagall will also arrive." Hermione followed the Unspeakable from the chamber and through the deserted halls of the DoM to the wizard's office.

Sitting down, Hermione began to speak. "You need to stop me from entering the office and get Harry's trunk from me. Also warn me that Umbridge is going to try and arrest me, pretty much the instant Harry's gone. Suggest that I use the time turner. That because the time turner's almost…" for the next few minutes, Hermione paraphrased everything that Croaker had told before she'd 'turned' back from Harry's veiling.

McGonagall arrived and the three settled down to a well needed cup of tea. When the 'unturned' version of Hermione knocked on the door, Croaker made sure to keep them out of sight of each other. He passed back Harry's trunk and Hermione quickly enlarged it and entered, McGonagall called to Croaker and the Unspeakable came over, gave them a smile and closed the trunk.

"Now, we need to get that glamour in place, we only have a few minutes." Hermione said.

"We're only glamouring it to look like midnight, correct?" McGonagall asked.

"Allow me." Snape stepped from the Nest's entrance. "You two are in dire need of rest. Head over to the pavilion, I shall join you shortly."

"Thank you, Professor." Hermione smiled at him and headed off to meet with the Nest's residents. They'd decided that they would all stay in the pavilion until they knew Harry's veiling had gone off without problems.

"How did it go?" Snape asked.

"She said there were no problems on Potter's end, but that Umbridge tried to arrest her. She had to use a time turner that was on its last turn. That was apparently the only issue." McGonagall replied.

"Good. Let us hope that it remains that way." Snape turned to the entrance frame and began a series of complicated wand movements backed by a long and convoluted chant. But eventually the frame filled with a vision of darkness, just like a fog of darkness that didn't alter anything behind it. "Shall we?" Snape offered McGonagall his arm and once she threaded hers through it, he led her through the gardens and into the pavilion.

Hermione had set up a pensieve to show them the highlights of her memories of the last few hours. After watching the parting, there were a number of people in tears, Hermione included.

"It must be close to time." Bill said.

"Four passed two." Hermione responded.

"It's gone two, just." Bill grimaced, looking at the big clock above the pavilion's speaker's platform.

As he spoke a wave of shimmering light flowed through the pavilion. As it touched each person, they gasped and fell into blackness. Hermione had time to grab Draco's hand and draw a quick breath and… blackness…

The clock ticked over. Four minutes passed two.

Back in the wizarding world a letter arrived by owl from Hermione Granger to the acting Chief Warlock. This letter told the wizarding world how far it had fallen that over thirty people, who were not named, would rather follow Harry into the veil of death than stay in their society.

In Ottery St. Catchpole, Ronald Weasley laid down a letter and cried. He handed it to his father, while his tears fell.

Arthur read the letter and sighed. "I had a feeling this was going to happen."

"You need to tell the Aurors, dad. We can't hide this." Ron said.

"Right." Arthur took the other letters, those unopened and headed for the floo. "This is not going to end well, for the Ministry."

And he was right. There was no hiding this, Hermione had made sure of it, sending a letter to the Daily Prophet, that was printed on the front page of the newspaper, that day.

Many people were upset but life went on. By the time Christmas arrived, the group that entered the veil were almost forgotten.

Molly mourned her sons, as though they were dead. Malfoy had his marriage dissolved and attempted to remarry, but his wealth was gone, vanished under mysterious circumstances along with his wife and son. Augusta Longbottom broke down and was placed in the same room that her son and daughter-in-law had lived in for over a decade. Ginny married a teammate of Viktor Krumm's and went to live in Germany. Ron stayed single, his life devoted to quidditch and his creations, desk sets and travel cases. He had been stunned to find that Harry had left Ron as much gold as he had but it evened out. Harry might have left him gold, but he'd taken Ron's gold, his family, in exchange.

Every day, he sent up a pray that Harry and those with him, were at peace, that they'd found a home worthy of what Britain had tried to take from them.