Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
How do you know you've reached the top of the mountain?
Is it the clouds breaking over the top of the peaks? Is it the constriction in your chest as the oxygen levels lower? Is it the sunrays beating down on your face as your approach the barrier between earth and galaxy?
Or is it the feeling deep in your chest, the rattling of nerves and excitement, of overwhelming conclusion and finality that tells you more than compasses, or maps, or the sky welcoming you to its domain, that this is it.
Draco knew at that moment exactly how that felt.
And he knew the others had reached the mountaintop as well.
"Hogwarts," Potter breathed, managing to pull himself up to his feet after the attack. "It seems fitting, in a way."
"It'll always be there to welcome us home," Blaise muttered, clasping his arms around Theo and Daphne's shoulders on either side of him. "Guess it's time for homecoming, mates."
Weasley was ghost-like, his skin peppered with freckles, like rocks on snow. "Do you… do you think this is it, then? After everything… this is it?"
Potter looked up to answer the question, but instead of turning to his best friend, he turned to Draco. As the exchanged a glance filled with understanding, for the first time, perhaps in his entire life, Draco realized that he and the Chosen One had more in common than not.
The two of them had access to a knowledge that only comes from seeing the dark and the light. Flipping a coin and knowing that whichever side landed up, a part of your soul would feel seen while the other fell into the abyss.
"A legilimency connection?" Draco asked, his voice low.
Potter nodded, his green eyes dull. "It started in fifth year, after he returned."
"What have you seen, Potter?"
"Nothing worse than you, I'm sure."
They had both seen the dark. They had both been saved by the light.
It always came back to choice, didn't it?
And how hard you were willing to fight.
"This is it, ain't it, Potter," Draco said. He didn't ask. He didn't have to.
Potter nodded. "Seems like we've finally reached the end of this."
I'll find you there.
Draco froze as Hermione's words danced through his brain once again.
"Hermione will meet us at Hogwarts," he said aloud, unsure where the certainty in his voice had come from.
Waves of shock washed through the group.
"Do the two of you have a legilimency connection?" Potter asked, raising an eyebrow while Weasley gaped at his side.
Draco shook his head. "Nothing more complicated than a promise."
Potter smiled sadly.
"Nothing is more complicated than a promise."
Before Draco had the chance to respond, Potter had turned to the others, morphing instantaneously from the crumpled figured shattered by voices in his head to a wartime general, ready to direct the troops.
Ah yes. The Chosen One at last.
"We need to get to Hogwarts," he said to the group. "And quickly. Voldemort is going to be arriving there soon to check on the last Horcrux. We need to beat him to it. And the second he realizes we're there, it'll be a siege."
"Final battle," Daphne breathed, shaking slightly in Blaise's arms. "This is it, isn't it?"
Potter nodded. "It's going to be everyone. On both sides. This will be like nothing we've ever seen."
"I would hope you only see a war-ending battle once in a lifetime, Potter."
"Nott, are you going to help or fuck off?"
Theo chuckled, only his pale skin betraying his nerves. "I didn't say I wasn't fighting. If humour dies, they've already won. Wars are about more than just battles, Potter."
The Gryffindor shook his head. "Not today. Today it's only about this."
"So we need to get into Hogwarts?" Draco asked, leaning back against the wall. "How'd you all do it last time?"
"There's a secret passageway," Potter replied, rubbing his jaw. "From the Hog's Head pub through the Room of Requirement."
"The Room of Hidden Things?" Draco asked, frowning. "Never thought I'd be back there."
"It's our in," Weasley continued. "All the other passageways were blocked off. This one's only safe because the Hog's Head is owned by Dumbledore's brother."
"Dumbledore had a brother?"
Potter nodded. "They weren't close."
"Is Hogwarts still under Order control?" Daphne asked quietly. "That's the last I heard, after you lot ousted the Carrows a few years back."
"Yes," Weasley said. "McGonagall's in charge. But Hogsmeade is Death Eater territory. Once we're in, we're in until Voldemort arrives. Then we're fucked."
"But the first step is getting in."
"Can we just apparate into the Hog's Head?" Blaise asked. "If it's safe territory, shouldn't be much of an issue."
"We can't. Anti-apparition wards are all over the village. We'll have to appear at the edge and make our way in."
"We need to win ourselves as much time as possible," Potter murmured, cleaning his glasses on his shirt nervously. "While still making sure the call is sent out to the Order to get everyone to Hogwarts. Who knows how little time we'll have once Voldemort knows we're there?"
"Rock and a hard place," Blaise replied. "Do we sneak in as a small group to be less suspicious, or just have everyone go in simultaneously so that we're prepared?"
Draco's eyes flashed to Potter. "We're running out of time. If Voldemort knows what we're searching for, the more time we spend planning the less time we have to win."
Potter nodded. "He's going to Hogwarts last… I saw that… it gives us a bit of time."
"Not enough, Potter. We'll never have enough time."
"He's right, mate," Weasley said, a sentence so painful it probably burned on the way out. "We need to decide now."
Potter took only a second to speak. Draco couldn't imagine all that flashed before his eyes in that moment, the faces of the dead, the voices of the living. The weight of the world on his shoulders, the feeling of being the final call before the cosmos exploded.
The unbearable responsibility of being chosen.
And the unthinkable responsibility of making the hardest of all possible choices.
"This is all of our war," Potter whispered, the second he took to decide stretching an endless eternity. "Not mine. Not just ours. Everyone's. We are all soldiers in this army. We'll win the world we want together."
He took out his wand and muttered a spell. Out of its tip shot a string of mist, quickly corporealizing into a beautiful stag.
"Tell everyone," Potter said, standing to his full height. "It's the final battle. The time has come. All Order Members and allies to Hogwarts as soon as possible. We'll enter through the Hog's Head. Expect resistance in Hogsmeade. This order comes from Albus Dumbledore, by way of Harry Potter. It's time to finish what we started."
The stag nodded its head in acquiescence, before the Patronus exploded in all directions, the lighthouse in the dark directing all Order Members into the harbour. A chance at peace lay in the port.
It was time to win the world they had earned.
They apparated to the edge of Hogsmeade without waiting for anyone to respond to Potter's Patronus. The Dangerous Duo had explained it was standard Order policy, especially for mass messages, and there was no one else at Headquarters.
Without much more hesitation, the group of six, unlikely allies in all scenarios, found themselves spinning through space to face the end of the world together.
It was sundown when they arrived, the winter evening chilling the ground under their feet. They stood at the boundary of the town, peering down the snow-covered street they had wandered up and down in their school days.
"What's the normal rotation on guards at Hogsmeade?" Potter muttered towards him, raising his wand ever so slightly in a defensive stance.
"Usually eight," he responded, mirroring Potter's movement.
"Eight on six," he replied, nodding slightly. "The only thing that's between us and Hogwarts is eight Death Eaters."
"I have faith in us," Theo said, the sincerity in his voice sounding unnatural. "Let's blow them to shit."
"The second we enter the village the alarm will sound," Potter said. "And then it's just a battle. Are you all ready for this?"
"Just take a step forward, Potter. The anticipation is going to kill me faster than any Death Eater."
The Chosen One sighed, and tentatively stepped forward, over the final frontier, propelling them into the possibility of finality.
The Caterwauling charm erupted the second Potter's foot hit the ground of Hogsmeade, loud screeching filling the air. The group rushed forward, wands ready, as they heard shouting erupt from further down the shop-lined streets. Draco saw a cloaked figure emerge from an alleyway between two shops. He didn't hesitate.
"Confringo!" he shouted, sending the Death Eater flying backwards through the air, the explosion blasting snow into the air, as other dark figures appeared in the mist.
Spells erupted from all sides. Draco cast a quick Protego in front of Daphne as a dark curse repelled backwards, flinging the caster to the ground.
"Stupefy!" he heard Potter shout. He almost rolled his eyes.
"Do you want to win this fucking war or not?" he yelled, before turning back towards his once allies now enemies, and without hesitation, cast a Sectumsempra into the group.
He hit his target without thought, and watched blood erupt out of the body of someone he didn't recognize. Someone he had probably fought alongside. But he couldn't find it within himself to care.
The after was in sight, if he could fight for it.
He watched Blaise shoot purple fire out of his wand as the group advanced, making way towards the Hog's Head. Another Death Eater was taken down, screaming as he went.
There were three remaining standing. One sent a blast of red back towards them. Draco dodged it readily, feeling relief momentarily before a scream erupted behind him.
His heart dropped out of his chest as he turned to see Daphne clutching at her chest, blood rushing through her fingers, staining the snow as it fell. A stain that would never heal, not even after the winter made way for spring.
"Daph!" Theo screamed, his voice tortured. Agonized. Before Draco could move towards her, to help, she had fallen as Blaise reached out to grab her. Theo turned back towards the Death Eaters, and Draco no longer recognized him.
This was not Theo Nott, his friend. His ally. Closer to him than family. The king of banter, with a heart as soft as the clouds.
No. This was Theodore Nott, heir to the Nott Estate. Son of a Death Eater, the ruthless Theodore Nott Sr. Without mercy, without care, murder at the end of his wand, torture flaring in his eyes.
Though Draco didn't recognize Theo in this moment, he knew the look imprinted on his friend's face. He had felt it on his own. Sons of Death Eaters, darkness imprinted on their hearts and lightness growing in their souls, if someone took the time to tend to it, to nurture their flames.
And it was always the women they loved that empowered their redemption or sent them down the road to destruction.
Theo stalked towards the enemy line, his knuckles white as he gripped his wand. With a force that would have sent the gods quaking, his hazel eyes burning red in fury, he raised the rowan weapon in his hand and brought it striking down like lightning.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
The force of Theo's curse knocked Draco to the ground. He watched as it propelled through the air, striking the Death Eater who had cursed Daphne in the chest, killing him on sight. The spell's strength sent the other two Death Eaters flying through the air as they collided into the brick walls of neighbouring stores. Falling to the ground, the sounds of their necks cracking reverberating throughout Hogsmeade.
Something Bellatrix had once said to him sounded in his ears.
You have to mean it.
Without giving his victims a second glance, Theo spun on his heel, rushing back to where Blaise had lowed Daphne to the ground, her head resting in his lap.
"Daph, no, Daph," Theo whispered, panic overtaking him. "Come on, you'll be fine. You have to be fine."
Blaise had ripped off his jacket to apply pressure to the wound on Daphne's chest. Draco pulled himself over to kneel with the group.
Her blue eyes were searching their faces, unfocused and dazed, as her complexion turned ashen. Theo was blubbering uselessly, crying and screaming and looking around for a saviour.
"We need to get her up to the castle," Draco whispered, trying to keep his voice steady when all he wanted to do was scream. "This is dark magic; we can't heal it here." Daphne wasn't dying. Not now. Not after everything. Not when they were so close to the end.
"Pomfrey can help her," Potter said, his hand on Theo's shoulder. "But we have to move now. She's not gone, yet."
"Theo," Daphne whispered, her voice as fragile as the light in her eyes.
"Yeah, baby, I'm here," Theo murmured, taking her from Blaise's arms, tears streaming down his face. "You're okay, I'm here."
"Theo, we need to move her now."
The broken man nodded, swallowing back tears as he forced himself to his feet, his lover cradled in his arms. Potter began shepherding the group forward, as Blaise and Draco took up the rear, wands raised and muscles taut in case another enemy was lurking in the shadows.
They arrived at the dingy pub Draco remembered vaguely from his teenage years. He would never have been caught dead setting a foot here. Now, he would be dead if he didn't.
Potter raised his fist to the door, as Theo cradled the now shuddering Daphne closer to his chest, whispering words of encouragement too intimate for the rest of them to hear, as silent tears ran down his cheeks.
Potter knocked on the door; three long raps, two short, four long. A coded message. If it reached it's intended recipient, they had time.
If it didn't, Daphne died in the streets of Hogsmeade Village.
Like an angel hearing the message from the heavens, the door opened, a sliver of light breaking through into the quickly darkening outside.
"Potter?" a hoarse voice whispered.
"Abertforth," Potter replied, pressing himself close to the door. "Did you get the message?"
"That the whole bloody Order is about to start thundering through my pub? The final battle, eh Potter? Confident, are we?"
"Aberforth," the Chosen One nearly growled. "If you ever cared about your brother or his memory, you will let us in now."
The low blow sometimes works. The younger Dumbledore moved out of the way, allowing the group to clamber into the pub. Draco shuffled in behind the group, his gaze on the street until the door closed behind him. When he turned, he was face to face with a set of eyes he only knew from his nightmares.
"Wait one second," the old man said, his eyebrows pursed. "You're the Malfoy brat."
Unsure what else to do, he nodded.
"You tried to kill me brother," he said, his voice low.
"But I didn't," Draco replied, knowing it was a shite answer but lacking a better one. Not when he could see Daphne bleeding out just over Aberforth's shoulder.
"You've got a lot of nerve coming here," the other Dumbledore growled.
"Aberforth," Potter barked, moving a table close to the fireplace. "He's on our side, now."
"Really?" he replied, his face shifting into a doubtful expression. "What could have done that?"
"Love of a woman," Draco answered coolly. "Something you'll never feel again unless you let us pass."
The man gave him a sharp look, but after a moment he stepped aside. Draco rushed forward to help Theo up onto the table with Daphne as Potter opened the portrait above the fireplace. The girl in the photo gave Draco an inquisitive look as she swung to face the wall.
Draco knew those eyes.
Moving the portrait revealed a dark passageway. Potter reached down to help Theo up the stone step and the Slytherin took off running into the black, Daphne nestled into his chest.
"Get ready for reinforcements!" Potter barked at Aberforth as Weasley and Blaise took off down the passageway after Theo. The Chosen One glanced down at Draco. "You coming, ferret?"
He nodded, jumping up onto the table, and rushing into the passage, as Potter followed behind him.
The group made their way towards Hogwarts, too tense to say anything. After a few minutes, the pathway began to slope upwards. They forced their feet forward until Draco could see light in front of them. He watched Theo and Daphne, Blaise, and the Weasley jumped down. He leaped out of the secret corridor, and his feet landed on the floor of the Room of Hidden Things.
It was as if he had taken a Time Turner back four years, and suddenly he was a terrified adolescent, tasked with impossibility on the lives of his parents. The never-ending rows of junk stretched out beyond him like a labyrinth he knew as well as the back of his hand.
Nothing ever changed, did it. Not until absolutely everything did.
"Which way, Malfoy?" Potter asked, his eyes growing more nervously as he glanced at Daphne, her small groans echoing in the cavernous room. "I know you lived here for basically a year. Get us out."
He nodded, feeling Theo's desperation as his own. Draco glanced around quickly, searching the surrounding aisles of crates, brooms, broken furniture, trying to find the spark of memory.
"This way," he said, starting down one of the rows. "This will get us to the corridor."
Without wasting a moment to second guess himself, he rushed down the aisles, the others following in his wake. They ran past bookshelves, empty boxes, disheveled clothes, that old stone bust with the tiara on it, broken broomsticks, until finally, finally, he saw the doorway up ahead.
"Get Daphne to the Hospital Wing!" Potter shouted at Theo. "Pomfrey will take care of her. She's Order, she knows we're coming. Just say you came in with us. Say Phoenix feather if she doesn't believe you."
Theo didn't need to be told twice. As they stumbled out of the Room into the familiar seventh floor corridor of Hogwarts, he took off at a sprint, disappearing around a corner.
Potter turned to the remaining three men. "We need to get to McGonagall," he said, panting from the rush. "They need to lock down the castle. It'll give us time to search."
"Lead the way, Potter," Blaise said. "No time for exposition."
The group took off running down the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the stone as they went. It was eerie; unnerving. This was not the school Draco remembered from his youth, though the building had not changed. The fear permeating the air. The students hidden away in their dormitories.
Hogwarts during a war. The stagnant darkness Draco knew well had reached far and wide.
He had never thought he'd be back here. Not really. He thought it'd be destroyed, or he'd die, or a combination of the two. But to be rushing through the building that had propelled his fall from grace, offering him the chance to reclaim it, he felt overwhelmed.
Hogwarts was always going to be there, wasn't it?
Voldemort himself couldn't change that.
They reached the second-floor corridor, taking a turn at alarming speed before reaching the Gargoyle that Draco knew held the Headmaster's office. Lucius had mentioned it before.
Potter ripped out his wand and cast out another Patronus. "Tell McGonagall that we're here."
The stag burst past the Gargoyle up to the above residences. The group stood there like sitting ducks, waiting for something to go wrong, for Death Eaters to burst through the walls.
But all they heard was the Gargoyle shifting out of the way to reveal Minerva McGonagall.
"Potter," she gasped, clutching her chest. "Mr. Weasley! And Zabini, Malfoy! What on earth?"
"Did you get the message?" Potter demanded.
"Of course I did, but I didn't…"
"Then you know this is it…"
"Potter, what on earth is happening? Why are you four here? Together?"
"We need to secure the castle, Professor," Blaise said, slipping back into a charm that had always made him the teacher's favourite in classes. "Immediately."
"Secure it? You can't possibly mean…"
"Voldemort is on his way right now," Weasley interjected. "The final battle. This war ends tonight."
"How could you possibly know this?"
"Because Dumbledore left me a mission," Potter said, exchanging a look with McGonagall. "You remember it. And it took longer than we wanted, but we're almost done. We're going to complete it tonight. And if we do that, then we can win."
"The mission from Dumbledore?" she exclaimed. She had obviously heard this before. Suddenly, she drew herself up to her fullest height. "We shall secure the castle while you search for this object."
Potter visibly sighed. "We need to get the students out. Through the Hog's Head. The Order is on its way."
"Potter," McGonagall said, hesitating slightly. "Are you positive that this is the moment?"
"Minerva," the Chosen One said, no longer a boy, but a man ravaged by a war. "I swear on my parents' graves. This is it."
"Then I trust you," she responded, eyeing Blaise and Malfoy strangely. "Though your company begs questioning."
"Long story," Potter muttered. "I'll tell you if we win."
"And win we shall."
She raised her wand, and from the tip of her wand burst three silver cats with spectacle markings around their eyes. The Patronuses ran sleekly ahead, filling the corridor with silvery lights.
"They are off to warn the Heads of Houses," she explained. "If Hogwarts is truly about to be under siege, we most protect as many innocent lives as possible. Follow me."
Like four schoolboys under order from their professor, they fell into line, following McGonagall as she led them through the corridors. As they reached the bottom of the Entrance Hall, Draco heard voices call out to them.
"Minerva! Is that.. is that Potter?"
The group turned to see Flitwick, Sprout, and Slughorn rushing down the staircase towards them. The Heads of House stuttered to a stop when they saw the others.
"Malfoy?" Slughorn asked, shocked. "What on earth…"
"Minerva!" Flitwick cried. "What is happening?"
"I got the Order message," Sprout exclaimed. "But I wasn't sure what it meant."
"I could not have been clearer," Potter muttered before suddenly shouting, his hands flying up to his forehead, clutching at his lightning scar.
"Professor, we have no time! We've got to barricade the school, he's coming now!"
"Very well," Minerva sighed. She turned to the other professors. "He Who Must Not Be Named is coming."
Sprout and Flitwick gasped; Slughorn let out a low groan.
"Potter and these boys have some work to do in the castle on Dumbledore's orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are capable, while they do what they need to do."
"You realize, of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely?" squeaked Flitwick.
"But we can hold him up," said Sprout.
"And hold him up we must," McGonagall replied. "Agents of evil are descending on Hogwarts tonight, and come hell or high water, the war will end. We must fight until death to ensure that the winners are us."
Flitwick and Sprout nodded enthusiastically, while Slughorn gave a curt nod of acquiescence.
McGonagall clapped her hands. "We must put up the basic protection, and then assemble the students in the Great Hall for evacuation."
As if they were entranced under her orders, the group followed the Headmistress out into the courtyard.
"I'm going to need you all for this," McGonagall said stoutly, turning towards Potter, Weasley, Blaise and Draco, before raising her wand to the sky and casting the final barrier into existence.
"Protego Maxima!"
Streams of light erupted from her wand, flying into the sky above the school. The other heads followed suit, aiding McGonagall in casting the wards around the school.
Simultaneously, the four men repeated the action until eight wands unified to protect Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Draco watched, mesmerized, as the streams of light combined to form a protective bubble around the school, expanding to meet the other streams, until they began to descend towards the ground.
The progress was slow, achingly slow. Draco watched, transfixed and terrified, praying that the wards would reach the earth in time. They would be protected from air, land, and sea…
As if the gods could hear their innermost thoughts, Draco felt the wards shatter, as the group was sent stumbling backwards.
He looked up in fear, expecting to see the wards cracking and disintegrating above them. But the bubble stood strong above Hogwarts.
"It's the lake!" Blaise shouted, rushing forward to the edge of the courtyard to see over. "Someone just blocked the wards on the lake!"
"Voldemort?" Weasley shouted in fear, turning to Potter. The Chosen One frowned.
"No, he's not here yet, he's still at the lake with the locket…"
"Who could have possibly broken through the wards?" Flitwick demanded, rushing after Blaise. "We were moments away – they would have had to counteract our combined power…"
Power.
The second Flitwick said the word, Draco knew. He knew it with the certainty that the sun would rise in the morning, and the moon would rule the night.
He moved towards the edge of the courtyard like a man possessed, unable to direct himself anywhere but forwards, to look over the concrete wall, with the others at his side, and to see…
"Oh Merlin," Potter breathed. "That's Hermione."
Standing alone on a single boat, making its way across the glassy water towards the castle, a pinprick of light in the darkness was indeed Hermione. She was not steering the boat; she did not need to. It was propelled by magic alone, and even from the distance Draco could see it. She was glowing; her hair fanning out behind her as she made her way towards Hogwarts. Behind her, from the space she had broken through, the wards had resealed themselves.
They were safe.
"Oh gods," Blaise whispered. "Look. She – she found it."
Draco frowned, looking harder at Hermione's approaching figure. He knew it was her; the hair was a dead giveaway even before considering the magical. Trying to focus, to ignore how his nerves had turned into live wires, he looked down.
And then he saw it.
Because it was Hermione, brown, curly hair, her eyes focused ahead of her, her wand clutched tightly in her hand.
And on her chest, at the end of a bronze chain, as obvious as a comet shooting through the sky, was a bright blue sapphire.
Two and a Half Weeks Earlier
"So, Theodore. Tell me about the sapphire."
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