THE RED KING

Author's Warning: BYOT

Harry was too stupefied to act.

Just staring, unseeing, at the empty space of air the memory had taken up. Hermione and Ron were still chained to the pillars on the gazebo. Her quiet sobs echoed around them in the air, the frigid late autumn wind sloping down off the mountains blowing her hair and dress around her.

Ron was beside her, face ashen, as he just stared at her, completely at a loss.

Harry felt the same.

Hermione's an orphan, Harry realized. Like me. Like Neville, who's as good as, considering. Like Draco Malfoy, even...

It was a fate he wouldn't have wished on anyone, and anguish surrounded him. The implications of two of those statements stung him.

Mine and Draco's parents share a deathday. If that isn't morbid enough, that deathday happens to be Halloween. And Hermione's parents...well, that would have happened last Saturday, on the 26th of October. She will need to hold funerals for them...although nothing would really be in the Grangers' caskets...since they were already cremated, really…

Merlin, where will Hermione live? Where could she go?

And more important...would she still be able to come back to Hogwarts after all this was over?

He was jolted out of his morbid thoughts by the phoenix Patronus.

"I am coming, Harry. Do not make any moves. Do not attack. Wait for my orders," the phoenix whispered, then dissolved.

Harry uttered a swear word, looking around to make sure the Death Eaters patrolling the area had not seen or heard anything. They were nowhere to be found, however, and Harry prayed they hadn't discovered Ginny, Malfoy, or Meghan.

Meanwhile, Krum was moving around the gazebo again. He pulled a vial of deep maroon liquid out of his robes and poured it into the stones beneath him. Quizzically, Harry crept closer, seeing Draco Malfoy to his left doing the same, watching Krum's movements as well.

Whatever Krum was doing wasn't good. Harry had to stop him before he got too far with it. But indecision tore through him. He and Draco could both overtake Krum now. They could take him, then take on the Death Eaters as they came. But Harry knew they had to act now.

Should he save Ron and Hermione now before anything else bad happened? Or should he wait for Dumbledore?

But who knows how long Dumbledore will be. It might be too late by then. Krum might try to kill them now.

What should I do?

Krum didn't seem to notice as Harry crept behind him until he was a dozen feet away, still hidden in the Invisibility Cloak. Keeping his eyes peeled around them to try and spot Ginny and the now-hidden Malfoy, Harry raised his wand and waited...waited…

The sound of footsteps behind him.

"Dolohov?" asked Krum to the figure that approached.

Harry withdrew sharply as the Death Eater passed him, lowering his mask enough to reveal a smirking Antonin Dolohov.

And in his arms was a struggling, red-faced Neville.

No!

"He tried to escape, but I caught him. And the Hufflepuff Cup," said Dolohov in his deep, raspy voice. He held up the golden item in his hand, the brim of which was smeared with a bit of blood. "Now we got what we need."

Striding over to the stairs, he went to the opposite end of the dais that Ron and Hermione were on, sneering at them as he went.

Of all the buggering sods…

Harry was panicking.

Although Neville was struggling, his lips were clamped tight as Dolohov spelled magical chains around him and the pillar. Harry was feeling worse by the second.

On the other two pillars, Ron started hissing curses again, but Hermione was silent and no longer sobbing. She didn't even seem to notice Dolohov. She was staring in shock at the empty space in front of her where the vision spell used to reside. When Dolohov was done chaining up Neville, he poured the remnants of blood from the cup onto the ground just as Krum had done before him. It trickled into the circle's grooves.

"It's not going to be enough," Krum hissed. "Ve need Malfoy. You vere supposed to get him too. He needs to be the one to stand-in for Slytherin in order for this to vork. The Dark Lord vill not be pleased—"

"Going back into the castle again is a fool's mission," said Dolohov angrily. "I couldn't find the little bastard. He wasn't on the Map. Besides, it would be suicide now that Dumbledore is back. We already know which line Malfoy descends from. I say we just grab his dead mother and slice her open. Her blood magic will be powerful enough for this to—"

"NO!"

With a lurch, Harry realized Krum hadn't spoken.

Both Death Eaters swivelled around to see Draco Malfoy springing up the gazebo steps, wand firing spell after spell. "Don't you dare touch my mother!" he hissed, eyes glinting dangerously.

Shite! Shite, shite, shite—

Disobeying Dumbledore's orders, Harry sprang into action. Apparently Ginny and Meghan Freeman did as well because there were shouts of curses and jets of light soon flying all over the place. He sprinted over to Ron and crouched behind his pillar, the Cloak hiding his every movement.

"Ron, it's me," he whispered. "We're going to get you out of here! Hang on…"

His best mate breathed a sigh of relief. "Never thought I'd be happier for your scrawny arse to come and save the day. Just in time too. I heard Krum mutter something about the Git Lord…"

Harry severed the bindings with a spell and helped Ron stand straight. "We sent help to Dumbledore. He should be—"

Pain ripped through his stomach, and Harry was sent sprawling across stone, leaving a bloody trail as he went.

Ron stared after him, aghast, and Harry's hand came away dark red from where it had touched the side of his abdomen. His Cloak was still covering his body, though it looked as if the few drops of blood were coming out of thin air.

He got hit by a missed spell from Malfoy's and Dolohov's fight, he realized dazedly. Of course, that didn't make it any less painful.

It's just a flesh wound. Just a flesh wound. Nothing serious. Nothing...Sirius...ha…

His vision was swimming laps around his brain, but he saw Draco on the dais fall from Dolohov's spell cutting his cheek and hands. Neville was unchained once more and beside Malfoy, fighting with Junke now, both their movements quick and furious. Until Junke was blasted away. Meghan Freeman, meanwhile, was trying to take on both Savage and Harper, who had come running. She was actually handling herself pretty well, until a spell sent her tumbling down the steps. Harry barely even had time to think about Ginny before he saw her body fly away from them through the air from the force of Krum's Impediment.

Meanwhile, Ron was trying to undo Hermione's chains, but without his wand it was useless.

"Harry, quick!" Ron hissed. "I need your—"

But a hex—missed or aimed, there was no way to tell now— knocked him down.

The rumbling in Harry's ears grew louder and louder till it was more like a roar. Blood kept leaking out of his side. He laid his head on the ground thinking of arrow-playing doohickeys and if he'd ever be able to fly on one. But the roar wasn't letting up. And the light was blinding his eyes. And the wind…

Confused, Harry tried to sit up. The light was coming from the gazebo ground, all around it like a ring. And the stone circles beneath him, were they...they were...moving…?

Harry clawed the ground as the gazebo started groaning and spinning in place like a merry-go-round—everyone around him was doing the same, screams of horror, of pain, but even though it felt like they were moving, they weren't moving at all—the marbled pillars were bursting with light, the wind whipped around them like they were a tornado and the pressure was building and building in Harry's ears so bad they were starting to bleed—

—a scream was ripped from his throat but he couldn't hear it, and then—

It stopped.


Draco hardly had time to register what was going on when the fivefold circle began to glow. He stared in shock at first, but it quickly turned to horror as he realized what was happening.

It was a portal. The urgency of the situation tore through him, and he forced herself to speak.

"Granger! Weasley! Longbottom! Potter! Get off the portal! Quick!"

But they didn't have a chance to comprehend what he was saying, and by the time they did it was too late.

The Scottish background around them, the forested pines, the Hogwarts castle behind them, the mountains reaching down to them, it all blurred and faded away.

They left behind Ginny Weasley, Meghan Freeman, even the Death Eaters and everyone else they knew, and fell into a hole in time and space.

In that brief second, the force of the pull was so great it felt like his organs were being ripped out of his body. His roar mingled with the others around him from the vacuum sucking them in, and the after-effects were so great that the portal had long since ceased before he chanced opening his eyes once more.

When the dust settled, Draco was no longer upright.

He was sprawled on the stone beside a bloody Weasley. He probably looked just as bad as him though. Raising a hand to wipe blood out of his eyes, Draco wondered what spell had been used on him to create so many small cuts.

Standing, he swayed a bit and looked around them.

Weasley and Longbottom were looking up from their collapsed, disheveled positions on the stone. Granger was still bound to the pillar, the portal's actions having disturbed her from her grief. She was staring in fear around them. And Potter—

He couldn't even see where Potter was. Draco's eyes darted around, trying to spot remnants of an invisible person.

Then he found it. The sole of a shoe barely envisaged right next to Weasley's. Glancing toward their captor, Draco allowed himself to be relieved that Potter had not been spotted by Krum yet. Perhaps they could come out of this unscathed.

But the relief was quietened when he looked around them for an escape in utter dismay.

They were definitely not at Hogwarts anymore.

Everywhere around them was barren in a low, thinning fog surrounding the island wilderness. They were on a cliff overlooking the sea, a stone staircase spiraling down the hill they were on to reach the other parts of the isle. The ruins of a massive, old abandoned fortress crumbled in the distance, taking up the majority of the landscape where there wasn't a dark, entangling forest. Wind whipped wildly around and the roar of waves crashing into the cliffs surrounding them almost drowned out the monstrous roars coming from much farther away.

Roars that deafened his eardrums and made him quake where he stood.

Only one sort of beast could make that horrifying sound.

He knew exactly where they were.

The Isle of Drear.


Ginny stared, horror-struck and flabbergasted, as the dust settled revealing nothing but vacuity in its wake. They were gone. Ron, Hermione, Harry, Neville, Malfoy...even bloody Krum and that damned gazebo...gone.

One minute, Ginny was hurling through the air and landing in the hillside grass...the next second, she saw a glow surround the gazebo, encasing her friends, and then it was moving in place like a spinning top. And now...nothing. It simply blinked out of place.

She stumbled over to where she last saw Meghan Freeman, eyes not daring to tear away from the stone slabs, the only things left from the missing gazebo, bare as they stuck out of the demolished ground.

"W-w-what the hell happened?" Ginny gasped.

Meghan Freeman looked just as terrified as she did, which did nothing to unwrinkle her undergarments, let alone soothe her sorrows.

Damn the consequences, Ginny just wanted someone to give her some answers.

Looking around for the other Death Eaters, Ginny, stumbled over a body in the dark. Then retched when she saw the glassy, empty eyes of Harper.

He was dead.

Looking over to the other body, she saw Junke, blood matting his clothes, his legs completely missing. Dead too.

Killed by the force of the—the—whatever the hell just happened—both men had been standing right on the precipice of the perimeter of it. Junke had been utterly ripped in half.

And Dolohov…

Groans from her left alerted her to his position.

She strode over to the groaning Death Eater on the ground. A swift boot to the groin and three hexes later, Ginny stabbed her wand into Dolohov's throat and growled, "Where...is...my...brother, you death-eating bastard?"

The unnerving glint in his eyes said it first. "He's gone...to visit the...Dark Lord."

"What?" Meghan gasped behind her.

But the words of a murderer weren't good enough for Ginny. "WHERE?"

Blood trickled out of his mouth and he gargled in it before replying. His sickly grin rejuvenated, he said, "It...was a portal. They went...to the Isle of...Drear. But you'll never get there in time. They'll be dead any second now. The Dark Lord is waiting to kill them all..."

Ginny's scared eyes met Meghan's over the prone dark servant.

It was a move he'd been waiting for. In a slither of dark smoke, Dolohov vanished. All Ginny could hear was a rush of wind accompanying the swift form that blurred her vision as it gave an inhuman shriek, before the smoke dissipated and empty air greeted them once more. Whatever that thing was that came out of the smoke took off into the night sky, its wings beating silently.

They were alone in the night.


In the distance, gnarled trees towered into the sky above the white-grey mist surrounding them. But even through the thick fog, Draco Malfoy could see dark shapes appearing. At first, just a few. Then a dozen. Then several dozen. Coming closer, closer, their bodies materializing out of the mist and their robes, masks, and hoods striking fear into Draco's blood traitor heart.

Death Eaters.

Fear amassed. Draco's first instinct was to run. Run fast, and far. Just leave the Gryffindors to their fate and take care of himself. But he was on an island. Obviously, he wouldn't get far.

The indecision cost him. The Death Eaters surrounded them before Draco or the others could do anything about it.

And then the sea of dark servants parted, making way for someone behind them. All of them bowing down to—

The Dark Lord.

Draco Scorpius Malfoy was beyond petrified. He was a blood traitor now. But he was a Malfoy above all else, and did not show it.

His face was stoic as he stared at the Dark Lord.

The Dark Lord stared back.

"Bow, my children," Lord Voldemort commanded, his voice a mere hiss.

Draco fought the urge to bow as he'd had to do countless times in the past. Beside him, the others refused to as well, except Granger whose head was forced down in compliance from the curse where she was still chained to her Neolithic stone. Krum, however, groveled with his face to the stone willingly, Draco noticed with disdain.

His and the Gryffindors' defiance, however, was laid to utter waste as a great force lashed across his back, forcing him down to his knees in a convoluted bow. Weasley and Longbottom cried out in pain as they were made to bow beside him. There was no noise from Potter, and Draco sincerely hoped the Dark Lord had no idea he was there.

"Much better," Voldemort said as he walked up the dais staircase to join them. "The Heirs of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff all bowing down to the Heir of Slytherin...just as it should be. Ah...and I see my special...volunteer...has come as well…"

"I aim only to please, milord," murmured Krum, bowing once more.

"Your humility is...ingratiating...but I am afraid the honor is all mine," said Voldemort with a sneer. "I am the one who brought him here..."

He brought me…

What?

Voldemort drew closer to Draco. A long-clawed finger stroked Draco's chin, making him shiver and forcing his head up.

He stared wrathfully into the eye slits of the man who murdered his parents. Who made his mother scream...his father beg…

"Young Draco...who has a sliver of Slytherin blood in him as well, incidentally. All Slytherins do as you well know. The Sorting Hat was spelled long ago to pick out the finest for Salazar's great house and weed out the rest. I can use this to my advantage yet for this special event I have planned…"

Voldemort's evil eyes wandered off him for a moment as they slid down to the barely concealed silver chain under Draco's shirt. All too late, Draco remembered what he wore.

"...and with the Locket of Slytherin, no less," Voldemort hissed, his eyes red with hunger and greed.

Fear hissed through Draco's body like steam. His second best-kept secret since summer was brought out to the forefront.

Not the locket, please not the locket…

Yet the Dark Lord's bony wand pulled out the chain with the locket attached and drew it from Draco's head.

The disappointment he felt was overwhelming. The one thing Mother had entrusted to him to protect—

"Keep this safe, Draco," her words echoed around his mind. "When the moment is right, use this as leverage to ensure a safehouse for us with Dumbledore. Do not let him have it until our future is secure! It is sorely wanted by the Order to defeat the Dark Lord. Keep it safe!"

The Dark Lord's quiet voice broke into his memory. "Yes...I knew you currently possess it. Doesn't the Dark Lord know all things? I read your mother's mind before I killed her. In her memories, I watched her steal my most prized possession. I witnessed her placing the mannequin head carrying my prize into a silver box for you. I heard her whispered enchantments surround the locket in ceaseless fire. I saw her present the silver box to you before you boarded the train. I used it to bring you to me tonight."

The dangerous glint in the Dark Lord's eyes scared Draco. But he was a Malfoy yet, so the stoic look on his face betrayed nothing besides bred contempt.

"I reward those who reward me," Lord Voldemort said aloud, his voice carrying to the Death Eaters surrounding them. "And I kill those who defy me."

Grief, profound grief, filled him at these words as the Death Eaters murmured their pleasure.

Then Voldemort focused on Draco once more. "Pity about your parents, young man. But they died well. Or...as well as could be expected from a traitor and his bitch—"

Draco's temper was much better controlled than Potter's was.

But not that much.

He spat in the face before him with a look of thinly-veiled venom. Death Eaters all around them hissed at the gesture. The expression on Voldemort's face was unreadable, but Draco found out just how much his act of defiance was appreciated when he was thrown backwards into the pillar behind him, his head cracking into it, chains twisting around him with all the savagery of snakes.

Groaning in pain, Draco realized that Voldemort was now doing the same to Longbottom, then Weasley back onto the pillar he had just vacated beside Granger.

The four of them hung on their posts, chains tightening against their chests and necks.

What on earth is he even doing? She-Weasel's words from mere minutes ago echoed in his mind. What on earth is he even…

And then he saw, from this new position on the stone pillar, what he had not seen before. The circles, the grooves, the aureoles...were blood-red from the blood that Krum and Dolohov spilled on them. Outlining the ancient rune that covered the portal.

His eyes met with Granger's, and the hundreds of classes they shared together in Ancient Runes lit up in their minds. Sitting not quite beside each other, learning the same runes and spellwork, reading the same textbooks, going over the exact same material every day…

And he knew what Voldemort had planned.


Hermione had never before known such fear.

Voldemort walked around the dais in his quiet, silky way, smiling at them all eerily. There was no way they'd be able to get out of this. They were going to die here. Yet through her fear and grief, one line stuck straight out at her. "The Heirs of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff all bowing down to the Heir of Slytherin…"

That...isn't right. That...couldn't be right...could it?

For her to be an Heir was impossible…

Wasn't it?

But why does he want all the Heirs here? Why go through such lengths to bring us here and not Harry? How in heaven's name could we be more important than him, given the prophecy and all? What could he possibly get from killing us?

Confused, Hermione caught the eyes of Draco Malfoy. His thoughts seemed to be mirroring her own, because they both reached a conclusion at the same time.

This was a ritual.

It all fell into place the moment Hermione realized that. The placement of the Four Heirs upon the fivefold circle. The Four Gifts that Krum held in his hands. The portal bringing them from Hogwarts to this strange isle.

Voldemort meant to sacrifice them.

Quickly drawing her eyes away from Draco's, Hermione looked once again on the repulsive man-creature circling them like an oversized vulture.

"Because of my endeavors, we now have the Four Heirs all present tonight...and the Four Gifts as well…"

Hermione sucked in a breath sharply as Viktor Krum presented to Voldemort the Hufflepuff chalice, the Gryffindor sword, and the Ravenclaw diadem. They joined the Slytherin locket as Voldemort held them aloft, and the Death Eaters hollered and stamped their feet in approval.

"Only portions of their bodies are needed for this to work, of course," Voldemort continued as he prowled. "I thought even bringing them to me Kissed and unable to struggle would be most efficient. But thanks to Lucius'...fallacies...this did not work out. Nevertheless...that may be for the better. More of this ritual has brought itself to light as I have uncovered more of Salazar's ancient writings. And now...here we are! On All Hallow's Eve at last!"

The roar around them was deafening.

With the other three boys securely bound and sure putting up a fight about it, Voldemort stood in the center of the disguised portal's dais in the middle of the fifth center circle, and started applauding.

His slow claps echoed around them eerily in the night.

"Strange, this," said Voldemort to his followers. "To have come so far in our endeavors...and here we are at last in the place where it all started over a thousand years ago. To the Isle of Drear. The birth place of magic. To return that which was stolen. Where everything that was taken from the Line of Kings shall be restored. With this sacrifice shall I be placed once more upon my rightful place. And...with nary a fight from our foe...

"Behold!" Voldemort walked around them in a slow circle, stopping by Ron. Hermione's heart clenched and she barely saw Harry's barely-concealed shoe disappear and a faint scuffle as he hastily backed away from Voldemort. "Ronald...Bilius...Weasley. The seventh son of a seventh son...and the true Heir of Gryffindor."

Hermione's brain was rummaging around this misinformation before she could stop it. Ron was the sixth son. Unless Molly Weasley had a stillborn or some other death, this couldn't possibly mean Ron. And what did he mean by Heir of Gryffindor…?

Hermione's color drained from her face as Voldemort touched Ron with the sword, the cold metal scraping his cheek and drawing blood. He struggled, but the chains were so tight around his whole torso that he hardly moved. She tried to cry out, to stop the wretched man from touching her best friend but Voldemort's presence was so thick around them that some invisible force lashed her tongue to her cheek, forbidding her from opening her mouth. Ron must have felt what she did, because his mouth was working furiously, trying to open. Only the slightest groan emanated from his closed lips.

"Dirty blood, this...yes…" Voldemort whispered. "It was clean once...untainted...but your beliefs, your values, they cling to your blood like a stench, stained and unwanted. I can see it...yes...the blood traitor you are drips from you now…"

Then with a swift strike, the blade pierced the stone grooves beneath Ron's feet, standing the sword up where it swayed slightly.

And Voldemort moved.

He drew closer to Hermione and she could feel his rancid breath as he placed the Ravenclaw diadem on her head.

"Hermione...Jean...Granger…" Voldemort hissed, far more unfavorably than before. "Our recent Mudblood-turned-Heir with the latent magic of the great Dagworth-Granger running through her veins from Rowena Ravenclaw herself. Heir of Ravenclaw."

Heir of...Ravenclaw?

Her brain spun at this. It couldn't be possible...it couldn't be possible…

For her to be Ravenclaw's chosen heir? For Ron to be Gryffindor's?

And yet, everything made perfect sense. Voldemort being after her and Ron since before the start of term. Him placing Dolohov and Viktor at the castle. Trying so many times to collect Hermione and Ron…the curse she was under…

As if reading her mind—he was, wasn't he, she realized with horror as his red eyes pierced hers—Voldemort's next sentence continued in the vein of her curse. His nasty eyes glanced down at her V-shaped scar, barely noticable from the front of her bodice going down so low.

And then she realized what he was thinking.

"A 'V' already marked upon your skin…" he said, then sneered in her face. "Fitting."

V for Voldemort.

She shuddered at the inclination. To be marked in this way...like she was only an object...or a slave...to forever look down at her chest and be repulsed by what a Death Eater had done to her, giving her the mark of his Master...

Never before had she been this close to evil. There was no humanity left in Voldemort's eye slits as they stared at her with a fury so powerful that she half-expected to be turned into stone on the spot.

But he finally moved on, and Hermione could breathe a sigh of relief. Ron's worried eyes latched onto hers, and Hermione wondered if they would ever make it out of this alive.

It wasn't likely.

Next Voldemort walked over to Neville, the Hufflepuff goblet in hand, which he proceeded to place beside Neville's feet, reciting his name as he did so and his position as the Heir of Hufflepuff. His disgust for how Neville survived when his parents did not was quite imminent as he talked.

Then he finished his circle and moved back to Draco, who glared at Voldemort with a hate so strong Hermione could feel him almost radiating with its heat.

"Last, of course, is Draco Scorpius Malfoy...son of a fallen traitor and stand-in to the Heir of Slytherin Line. To be sacrificed in my stead. Rather...befitting...considering his family's sodden state. A chance for his line to redeem themselves with this humble sacrifice. Secondary Heir of Slytherin."

He draped the Slytherin locket around Draco's head, but didn't miss the younger Heir's mouth furiously trying to swear at him.

Voldemort Silenced him with a wave that made Draco start choking and gagging, and walked back to the center.

"Four Heirs and their Four Gifts, and the blood spilt by each. And now that they are all here, I can begin the ritual," said Voldemort.

Hermione watched with horror as a sickly green light shot out of his wand and illuminated them in a circle. The portal was soon covered in this transparent dome. Incantations were muttered low under his breath as he performed the ritual. Hermione would have been fascinated were she not terrified of what would happen when they came to the end of it.

Several minutes passed with Voldemort walking around them, connecting each column to the dome. When the green layer turned a smoky shade of gray, four Death Eaters from the four different directions of the portal cast their wands upwards to the top of the dome and gray lights shot out of them. Their voices toned in time with their master's, and the sickening feeling in her stomach spread around her organs like a virus.

Something was pulling her.

Hermione bit her lip to restrain from screaming, but couldn't help the gutteral cry escaping her throat.

The others could feel it too. Ron was clenching his teeth, hunched over in pain. Draco, though he couldn't speak, had his normally stoic face twisted in agony, and Neville wasn't faring any better.

Then she felt a warm squeeze from somewhere...somewhere...but she was so out of it she didn't know where…

Harry?

"I'm getting help," came a whisper in her ear.

In the midst of the hurt, Hermione nodded gratefully. "Hurry...Harry..."

His hand left hers, but a lingering warmth remained.


This was killing Harry. Watching his best friends in so much pain.

He had no effing clue what Voldemort was doing, but he had to stop it. Different scenarios ran around his mind, each with a Very Bad Outcome. If only he knew how this portal started up in the first place. Or if they knew how to Disapparate…but obviously with the Anti-Disapparation wards up around this damnable hell, that wouldn't have worked anyway.

His Occlumency and Legilimency lessons popped up into his mind, and he felt a glimmer of hope. Dumbledore was probably hundreds of miles away, though...was Harry good enough to accomplish it?

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Hermione's low, heart-wrenching cries broke into his consciousness, startling him out of it again. His fear mounting, Harry tried again to find that familiar phoenix scent in his mind, the warm blue glow with the lightning-white fizzing around the edges, picturing Dumbledore's eyes in his mind's eye—

Harry?

He felt more than heard the voice in his mind. Was this Dumbledore? It didn't feel like him...this was much softer, the white was more of a light cream color, and the phoenix looked much more like a kneazle than anything…

Not Dumbledore.

Hermione.

Amazed that she could feel him, and that he could actually hear her, he jumped at the communication.

I'm getting help, he told her.

Still unsure of whether this went through, he felt a great surge of relief when he heard her words back.

Hurry...Harry...

But they carried with them a sense of urgency, and he understood how urgent when he looked inside her mind some more and found…but...this couldn't be right...

Greatly disturbed, Harry reviled, jerking his mind out of her head.

What the hell?

He delved back into her mind and took more than just a cursory glance this time, needing to be thorough, needing to be sure…

But it was definite.

Horror slammed into him as he realized what Voldemort was doing. Harry felt like he was going to be sick. He cut his connection with her short before she could feel his horror at what he found.

Or rather...didn't find.


There wasn't much in Hogwarts grounds that befuddled Albus Dumbledore. He knew every inch of his castle, and prided himself in knowing most of its quirks and glories, its layers and peels. There wasn't much that could still surprise him, after all this time, with his magic tied so intricately within Hogwarts' own.

Until now.

He walked around the former gazebo with its raised columns and dais torn completely out of the ground, leaving a crater in its wake. The air shriveled frigidly around him, but did nothing to the complex web of spells he was casting, putting the puzzle pieces around him.

The others talked in hushed and exclaimed tones around him as the young Miss Ginevra Weasley and Miss Meghan Freeman Black recanted yet again what they had witnessed.

The Inspectorate Charm shimmered violet in the moonlight as it zigzagged its way around the gazebo debris from the stones that crumbled without the support of the columns. The Tracking Charm likewise left millions of golden sparkles all around them as it showed him exactly what had happened in the Hogwarts Cemetery.

The fact that the dais had been a portal was completely obvious.

He had known this for over fifty years. Had studied the runes etched upon it, had even gone thus far in his journeying to obtain some of the relics himself when he and Gellert fancied themselves worthy and deserving enough years ago. That was no more than a passing obsession, but wiser wizards than himself had fallen prey to such a thing.

But never before had he dreamt that Tom Riddle would figure out this Merlinian puzzle before him that coincided with the portal. Or that a group of sixteen-year-old students would be the ones to fit the pieces together for Tom to think fit for the taking.

Sadly he was going to rue this day indeed.

The numerous enchantments surrounding the area crisscrossed their way through the darkness as they mapped out which person stood where and which spell was shot when. These were spells that only advanced Aurors and DMLE personnel knew of, but they were extremely useful in relaying how a crime scene happened. Far better than Muggle cameras, in any case, because it could depict information from all angles and the caster could view exactly how a spell was shot from which angle down to the millisecond it was shot at. It truly was magnificent.

He studied the Portalus Charm next, and to his surprise the midair lines for it glowed a dark red. This meant that a very old blood magic was used to start the portal up. And since these stones were cast and erected decades before the Founders had added to the castle, that must mean the blood magic used would have been—

"Merlin's beard," he said to himself. "So it is true…"

Knock, knock.

Sir?

The voice of young Harry Potter accompanied the presence Albus felt in the forefront of his mind. He would have chuckled at the rather loud knocking Harry had projected to alert his presence, had it not been for the fear in the young wizard's voice.

Harry! What is it? Where are you? What is happening?

To his pleasure, Harry simply opened his mind up and allowed Albus entrance. He was able to search Harry's memories and watch from the younger wizard's point-of-view from the start of the portal opening up to transport them to the Isle of Drear, to the ritualistic wards surrounding the portal, and up until what Harry had glimpsed in Hermione Granger's mind.

Bile sprung up unbidden into Albus' throat.

There wasn't much that could still faze Albus...

But a bright, extremely powerful young witch being completely drained of her aura was one of them.

He only briefly allowed himself to feel the shock of what Harry had discovered in Miss Granger's mind. As horrifying as it was, in actuality, it was rather to be expected with this type of blood ritual.

The different scenarios ran through his mind as he figured out how best to help his young pupils out of their grave situation.

Relaying information to Harry as best he could, Albus then ensured that Harry could make it out of the blood ward dome and to the castle on the Isle of Drear to secure the last remaining item needed. He saw through Harry's mind to guide him to the guarded sepulchre, and told him what to do.

Albus closed the connection, leaving a miniscule opening for Harry to find his way back more easily. This done, he pulled himself back to the present and gathered the Auror and Order members around him together.

They had work to do, and not a moment to lose.


Never before had Ron felt such pain being torn from his body.

He thought the Cruciatus was bad, but even though that curse was like every single nerve ending his body was being fried, this...this feeling of a black hole in the pit of his gut, draining every ounce of strength and might that he had…

This was far worse.

And what was more, he could see it leaving his body. A reddish mist was being pulled from him and sucked towards Voldemort, standing in the middle of the circle. A blue-white mist was being pulled similarily from Hermione, a golden-yellow one from Neville, and a silvery green one from Draco.

It was their auras, he realized.

Voldemort was sucking them all dry.

And hearing Hermione scream beside him multiplied this pain by tenfold.

His head lolled from losing the force to hold it up. His arms hung loose, only being forced up by the pull of the chains surrounding him. He couldn't even muster the energy to look over at Neville and Malfoy and wherever Harry had gone off to. Feeling rather like a rag doll and hating every minute of it, Ron waited for this feeling to end.

For something to happen to stop it from happening.

For someone to come rescue them.

But it never came.

Hermione's screams ceased and died down to mere whimpers. Neville's groans of agony suddenly stopped, and Ron feared the worst. He couldn't care less about bloody Malfoy, but even the blond Slytherin was silent.

Voldemort's chanting seemed to reach its crescendo and he brought his wand down. The auras were no longer there, just wisps in the air, having been sucked in by Voldemort.

Ron's eyes drifted slowly towards Hermione. She was unconscious, head down, brown hair falling over her eyes. He loved her eyes. Wanted to brush that lock of hair out of her ashen face. Brown sugar. It reminded him...reminded...him...of brown sugar. Her hair. That's what it was. The...shade.

Her eyes made him think of chocolate that he could melt into. He did love chocolate...

Not that he was hungry...he was...he always was...but food wasn't his favorite. Hermione was his favorite. He loved her like he loved food.

He was in love with Hermione.

But it was too late.

Ron could feel his organs failing as his strength was depleted. His thoughts barely held their own, drifting off in his brain before they even began. He was so tired...if he just closed his eyes...he could be done with this…all this agony would just melt away…

Ron wanted to die.

Hermione looked like she was already dead. He wanted to be with her...to join her...if they were going to die today, he wanted it to be together.

But Voldemort was not finished yet.

His footsteps echoed inside the dome as he approached Malfoy.

"Blood...of the Slytherin Line...you shall be inherited…" said Voldemort.

With a slash of his wand, Malfoy's chest was sliced and blood began seeping out, stark red against his white shirt, seeping into the locket on his chest. It glowed brightly from the contact until Voldemort ripped it from Malfoy's body.

Malfoy's gasps for air filled the silence.

Neville was next.

"Soul...of the Hufflepuff Line...you shall be borrowed," Voldemort said.

Then his arm fell in an arc and a small white orb floated out of Neville's gasping mouth.

Death Eaters watched enthralled as it slowly made its way to the goblet sitting beneath his feet, settling therein and making the cup shine brightly. Neville's body sagged, an empty shell without the spirit. Voldemort picked up the cup holding Neville's soul.

Ron was going to throw up...this was wrong...this was beyond wrong...

Voldemort moved on to Hermione.

Ron struggled against his chains feebly.

Not Hermione. Not my Hermione…

But the chains didn't even make a rattle as his body refused to obey him. He furiously tried wandless magic, nonverbal magic, this stupid Heir of Gryffindor magic, hell even sword magic...any magic...but he couldn't even lift a finger, let alone open his mouth to shout hoarsely at Voldemort not to touch her.

"Magic...of the Ravenclaw Line...you shall be stolen…" Voldemort hissed.

His wand touched Hermione's forehead and he uttered one simple syllable before Hermione let out a gut-wrenching scream and her body started glowing brightly.

Ron couldn't watch anymore, she was so bright. Eyes were shielded from the glare as a great force burst out of her body not unlike a star exploding.

But as soon as it began, it ended, and the light left her. Once more she sagged against her bindings, no longer bright, like a shadow was permanently passed over her.

Ron saw it all in horror, and willed her to get up, to show to him that she was alive, anything…

She didn't move.

Voldemort gently picked up the still-brightly burning diadem from her still head, and gazed at her a moment longer.

Then he turned to Ron.

Kill me. Kill me, please, kill me. If she hasn't died yet, you as good as killed her, and I want to be with her. I need to be with her...kill me...please...just kill me…

Those evil snake eyes read his thoughts. Poison seeped into the forefront of his mind, and he realized too late that the venom was Voldemort's presence in his consciousness.

Kill you? Yes...yes, that can be arranged…

"Body…" Voldemort said aloud, "...of the Gryffindor Line...you shall be given…"

Ron didn't want this evil ugly Git Lord to be the last thing he saw before he died.

Tearing his eyes away, he looked at Hermione...to gaze at her one last time…

Her eyes fluttered open and for a single moment in time their eyes, their souls, their love for each other was locked into place, this connection between them silently declaring what they never had the courage to say to each other in life.

He had the courage now.

I love you.

The words echoed around his mind as they did in hers. It was spoken and felt by them both, a feeling so strong that it filled his head with a soft white light and shone brighter...and brighter…

...and brighter…

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

And then was gone.