For Amber

Voldemort Wins!AU

**Warning for major character death.


"Don't do it, please," Hermione pleads, her eyes glittering with tears. It's like they're eleven again, and she's tearful for different reasons — he'd pulled her hair, or made fun of her intelligence, or been jealous of Krum — and for a moment, he wants to return to that time. A time where Harry was alive, and he was admonishing them both for being so ridiculous.

He needed to do this — for Harry, for Fred, for all those he'd loved and lost — and a part of his conscious, the part that answered to Hermione, was begging him to stop. But he couldn't.

Sorrow tugs at his heartstrings, but all he can muster is a simple, weighty "I love you."

Then the green light is hurtling towards him, and the last sound he hears is his heart shattering in his chest.


A raw, unadulterated scream rips out of Hermione's throat as Ron Weasley falls silently like a marionette whose strings had been cut. She'd thought she'd felt unbearable pain when she'd watched Harry fall, but no. Nothing can ever measure up to this.

The worst part was that she'd known this was coming. She'd mentally and physically prepared herself for this moment, but she'd underestimated how truly paralyzing it is.

Why, why did he have to do this?


"I don't have a choice, Hermione," he says firmly. This is the most serious she has ever seen him and it is terrifying. He holds himself like he's a soldier headed for battle, but he knows he's not coming back. "I don't like this, but I have to do it. I don't want him to hurt you."

"You do have a choice," she urges him, tears pricking her eyes. "Think about all those who love you. Me, your mum and dad, your brothers."

"That's the thing," he murmurs; she could hardly hear him over the crackling of the fire. He looks haunted, the firelight throwing shadows on his gaunt face. "I know you all love me, and that's why I'm doing this. Harry will be the last person I lose to Death."


"Hermione Granger." Voldemort's thin, reedy voice breaks into her thoughts. His blood-red eyes rest on her. "I am a man of my word. I will not touch his family, nor will I touch you, nor will my followers."

"Does it matter?" she asks boldly. "You are not going to harm me or his family, but what about everyone else? You will continue to kill them without any remorse. You will not offer them the same boon."

She half-expects Voldemort to fly into a fit of rage and kill her too, and she doesn't care. Like Ron, she's tired of living in this barren world, her life dictated by some higher power. If Voldemort murders her, it's fine, because she doesn't have much to live for anyway. Her world is already dead.

"You test my generosity," he says coldly. "Lord Voldemort values honorable sacrifice, even if it is for the sake of Mudbloods."

Oh yeah? What about Harry and his parents? What about Fred and Dobby? Remus and Tonks? Were those not honorable sacrifices? She wants to carve each and every name onto Voldemort's body, and even if it causes him a fraction of the pain he has inflicted on her, it will be worth it.

"Be grateful that I spared your life," he continues. Hermione takes a step forward, reaching for her wand, but with a whirl of black robes, Voldemort is gone. All that's left in the clearing is Ron's motionless body, and with a wretched sob, she runs to his side.

Her hands move his neck, his wrist, checking for a pulse, but there is none — Voldemort's curse had done the job.

"I love you," she whispers, and somewhere in his hollow chest, she hears the echo of her own words.


645 words

Assignment 11, Potions Task 3 - Write about needing to do something you don't like.