She stands on the dead.
She stands on rubble and ash.
She stands on the land she demolished.
She was the ultimate evil.
She was the end.

Hermione struggled to sleep that evening and instead laid there in bed with her eyes wide open. The only noise came from the clock next to her and the pattering of rain on the window with the occasional thunder to keep her company.

"The Viceroy Supreme Malfoy."

They took their leave after that, all parting ways and left to try and decipher how Draco Malfoy climbed the ranks all the way to the newly created right-hand position of Voldemort. She had assumed their family was not in good standing, she knew they most certainly were not during the war. . . So what changed?

She racked her head at all the events that happened in these last few years. Lucious Malfoy was considered weak along with their family, leaving Draco the task of, not only joining Voldemort so young but killing Dumbledore. Severus expressed admonishment to her that he was the one Dumbledore wanted to originally kill him, as Dumbledore already assumed the situation at hand with Dracos's rapid decline in school. Yet, Severus was too late, he hadn't made it in time to do the task himself. Upon seeing Severus, Harry concluded Severus' allegiance to the Death Eaters despite protecting Harry in the process. Leaving the entire situation something still raw and emotional for Harry even now.

The act upon Dracos part no doubt gained him more favor within the ranks, but his father prevented them from going any higher. She didn't quite know why, but upon further thought, she remembered hearing from Severus on the fact that the Malfoys were gaining favor upon Lucius' untimely death. There was even a meeting held about it, Ron claimed to the group of the Death Eaters death at the hands of the Dark Lords own army. It was presented as a moment of great hope as it would undoubtedly show that Voldemort didn't even care about keeping his own people alive. Although, Ron had always been nearsighted in these situations, not thinking of the fear it instilled in his followers and the masses. No one ever thought Voldemort was above killing his own, they already knew he wasn't.

Her room flickered with sudden light as lightning dashed across the sky. She glanced at it briefly and finally turned over on her side, one thing she knew for sure was that the winds have most certainly shifted.

Ron and the rest of Dumbledore's army left early that morning to infiltrate where they felt Voldemort was keeping prisoners. If it wasn't a rescue mission it was a mission to find plans, to gain more knowledge. Sadly hardly any of these missions were successful and quite a few left even more casualties.

"This can't keep going," Hermione started to Ginny as the two were out hunting for more medical supplies.

"Hermione that's all you have stated, you know your words hold weight." She murmured to her once again, it was always the same argument. "You cannot possibly expect anything to come from your moping, all you ever do now is complain. And what for?" She accused her.

"I offered solutions, you all chose to ignore them."

"No!" Ginny yelled at her, stopping dead in her tracks. She was loud enough to startle animals in the nearby woods as they were on a tricky path that leads them to a black market. It was a dangerous thing to speak up, to be noisy these days which left Hermione looking around warily and trying to get Ginny to calm down.

"You don't get to claim to me that you gave us solutions! You gave us death traps! We are not winning a war by killing everyone around us, we would become no better than bloody Death Eaters. Harry and Ron told me that you had let go of the idea, that you were just anxious in the moment and wanted it all just to be done and gone. God Hermione, what would Dumbledore say? What would your parents say?"

With that Hermione felt as though she were punched in the face, no one mentioned her parents around her anymore. She wouldn't even let herself think of them if she could help it.

Only seconds late, she was but a mere second late to save them. She was able to have a couple of hours with them for goodbye, she locked herself in her room to prepare herself for what she was about to do. That's when the screams came, one blood-curdling scream came from her mother and her heart stopped. She sprinted to her wand before falling down the stairs in an attempt to get to them fast enough.

Bellatrix and her husband were standing there, a wicked grin spreading along her sick lips as she licked the blood that was oozing out of her mother's wound.

"I much like killing the muggle way," the wicked witch claimed with a sickening laugh. "Although, nothing can beat a good cruciatis!"

With that, she flicked her wand towards her mourning father who was shaking beside her mother's body. His body tensing up before he let out an even more startling scream than her mother's. They were beginning a torturing session just for fun before Bellatrixs husband caught notice of her.

Hermione quickly cast a shield, tears rolling down her eyes as she tried to bid herself some time to think. A curse rang out from his lips and mind-shattering destruction began. Floorboards were peeling up from around her, pictures of her mom, her dad, her family, all were being shattered and torn around her. A few shards catching her skin as she began to slowly bleed onto the floor. The wallpaper was destroyed, ripped from the walls, and thrust back as the curse finally began to dissipate. Leaving a panicked Hermione left to try and figure out exactly what spell he had just used, it was not one she had ever seen or heard of before.

With a brief pause, she quickly ran behind a wall, hearing her father scream out for her help as Bellatrix laughed once more and left him screaming incoherent words.

She could feel Rodolphus stalking the room for her, the broken floor creaking underneath him. She tried to shuffle further away from the wall he was about to appear from. She could practically feel his disgusting heat from the other side of the wall before she bumped into a desk, sending picture frames to the ground.

She panicked.

He was going to pop out from the corner, know exactly where she was. What curse would he use? How would she block it? What spell should she use? Can she fight them off? Would she be able to combat these new curses they appear to be using?

She was running out of time.

He quickly jumped into her view, his wand tip becoming bright with a new spell.

That's when she did it.

That's when everything changed.

It felt like forever, her wand felt like it weighed eight tons as she guided its tip towards the man. A bright light beginning to appear with purpose.

"Avada Kedevra."

A green light erupted from her wand tip, guiding itself with angry purpose towards the man. Hermione watched as his eyes widened with horror as the beam came in contact with him.

And with that; he dropped.

A lifeless body now laid in front of her with the sound of a new scream with it. This time from Bellatrix, most likely from the horror of her husband now lying dead in front of her.

"You filthy, disgusting, abhorring, little mudblood!" Her words wrong throughout the entire house.

Hermione prepared herself for the unstable witch's wrath, crawling into a corner of the room that she felt could maybe save her. She was shaking, blood spilling down from her forehead, from her cheeks, her arms, and legs. Her wand was outstretched in front of her, trying to prepare for what was to come. That was when there was some shuffling and a loud bang into the wall across from her. She could hear a struggle and grunting. She could hear her dad.

Her dad was alive, her dad was trying to save her.

"Get off of me you buffoon!" Bellatrix roughly barked out. "Let go of my wand!"

Hermione scrambled to her feet with the realization she could still save her father. She stated in disbelief towards the man, he suffered multiple cruciatis curses, he should not be able to stand. Their eyes locked as the two struggled, they looked hopeful, pleading for her to run but she couldn't. One of her parents was dead because of her, she wouldn't let another die.

A cackled erupted between them, the air becoming more and more stagnate.

"Oh poppy," Bellatrix drawled. "I don't need a wand, didn't I already say the muggle fashion of killing was much more delicious!" A knife slipped out of her sleeve as she cackled.

Her father's eyes widened and Hermione lifted her wand to try and knock the witch back, but it was too late. Her father slumped over on the witch as Hermione cast a knock-back jinx, blood spilled along the floor rug and Bellatrix. The unstable witch cackling with amusement as the blood began to pour out even more.

A ringing filled Hermione's ears as everything began to become slow motion. Shuffling in the corner of her eye began, the room began to flood with people all cornering her?

No.

The people in front of her were Ginny and George. They came up assessing her injuries and bickering towards one another. The others in the room like Harry and Ron were trying to corner Bellatrix. She could see flashes, hear yelling and laughter. Someone fell like Rodolpus did and there was even more yelling and laughter. Then it all stopped, she was gone.

Hermione and Ginny did not speak for the rest of the day. They hastily found most of the medical supplies they needed and then parted ways, leaving them to wait for everyone's return.

She no longer went on missions with the rest, or rather. . . she wasn't allowed to go on missions with them. Ever since the day she uttered an unforgivable and fought for the use of curses rather than children's jinxes the team permanently sat her on the bench. That didn't stop her from doing something, anything to contribute. She was never one to sit idly around while everyone else did their parts, she was not going to turn into Harry. So she sat in her makeshift office that only very few people knew where was. Her work consisted of creating new potions that could help benefit them and working on counteracting spells to the deadly curses the other side kept creating. Although she has yet to make a counteract curse to the one Rodolphus used, then again, that curse has not been used since.

She has thought of it multiple times, its workings, and what it could have done if she wasn't fast enough. Her conclusion was that the spell most likely would have torn away from each layer of her body, one by one until she ceased to exist. That would be why the curse radiating around her protection spell started peeling away the floorboards, the wallpaper, even the picture frames.

"Hermione," A soft whisper appeared behind her.

It was Lovegood, one of the very few people who found out where Hermione came to hide.

"They are back, do you care to see them?"

"Thank you, but no Luna. I highly doubt the army wants me attending their welcoming back ceremony. . . again."

"Oh, well. . . I just thought you would like to see Ronald. He appeared quite hurt." She dazedly claimed.

Hermione jolted up from her work, Ron almost never got hurt on these missions. The witch ran past Lovegood who stared past her, almost confused. She weaved past corners and past empty rooms towards the medic room.

Her mind was racing over what could have possibly happened, was he hit by a curse? What state would she find him in? Would she be able to counteract it in time? Would she even need to? The nurses were highly reputable, she probably wouldn't even be needed.

She turned one last corner and saw nothing but red.

The room was littered with wounded, people screaming in agony, nurses scrambling from bed to bed, rooms that had barely been used in years now overflowing. Blood was everywhere, on the walls, spilling from beds and chairs, all over the ground. There were nowhere near enough beds to hold them, many laid about on the ground. People darted past her as she stood frozen in place, there were even wizards and witches who barely left their houses, had no medical knowledge, they were trying to help them. There weren't enough staff. There weren't enough supplies. More screaming, more whaling, more pain, and agony filled the already suffocating room.

"W-what happened?" Hermione uttered.

"Th-there were so many!" A person screamed out in pain.

Another found her eyes, "They. . . they were already fighting!"

"W-we. . . no chance!"

"M-my son! H-he, th-they, ri-ight in front of my e-eyes!" A scream of Greif escaped the womans lungs.

This shouldn't be possible, their missions were never that deadly.

A line of orange raced past her and Hermione found her feet moving with them without her knowledge. She was so focused on the chaos around her. Her eyes kept finding people she knew, individuals she just talked to that morning.

Slumped into a corner she found the body of Dean Thomas, his face was half gone and what was left of him looked shredded. She stared in horror at his lifeless body, how limp he appeared when just that morning they were laughing at his jokes. Seamus Finnigan laid next to him, his eyes equally vacant as they peered up towards Dean. Blood was still seeping from his wounds, freshly dead. She averted her eyes only to find the next disaster of one of her classmates.

Cho laid there, struggling on the bed surrounded by nurses. One of her eyes was bulging out of her school, an arm was missing as a gurgled scream erupted from her, blood splattering all over the nurses. She watched in horror as her classmate clawed at the nurse's arms, unable to ease herself. She most likely was never numbed to the pain she was feeling, her injuries were so severe that the nurses probably never even thought to do so. Blood was pouring out of her body as the group struggled to put Cho's small intestines back into her body.

A thud into something in front of her caused Hermione to abruptly stopped. A mind-curdling scream filled the space, finally bringing her back to reality. Her eyes stopped on Molly Weasley as she fell into Harry Potter, her screams deafening her as she followed where Harry's vacant eyes led. In the bed in front of them was a young man, his face barely recognizable. He looked mauled half to death as his body slowly began to deteriorate, an ooze-like substance taking its place. A curse was slowly killing the man, eating away from him from the legs up. His fingers lightly picked up, just barely, but they did. They seemed to motion her to come forward, as though the man sensed her without being able to see her. Hermione felt numb, she felt as though the world was stopping around her, ceasing to exist as she stepped slowly forward. When she was finally close enough the man grabbed her arm with what little strength he had left, pulling her closer toward him. She felt a vile slip into her sweater pocket so quickly and swiftly that she almost didn't feel it happen. The grip was replaced on her arm again, he squeezed her as hard as his body would let him.

"Her-. . ." the man breathed in exhaustion, ". . . -mione."

Ronald Weasley whispered her name as if it were a secret.