I say this too often, but it bears repeating: thank you all for your patience. Life has been so hard of late.

To RESimon and shestoolazytologin: I love you both more than words can express. Thank you both for whipping this fic into shape better than I ever could.

xx

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Hermione dipped two fingers into the shallow pot of glowing blue salve, watching as the thick substance clung to her fingers, featherlight, yet appearing heavy as it started to ooze down her fingers. She pressed it gently to the wound on her husband's back and watched as his frame rippled in a shudder, although he left no other indication that he was in pain. She bit her lip, thinking of the way her arm throbbed under her sleeve where it was covered by a bandage, still stinging from his application of the salve upon herself only minutes prior.

"Are you all right?" she asked, drawing her fingers downward as she spread the liquid across the wound that still looked fresh despite the days that had passed and watched it dissolve into purple foam that absorbed into his skin, leaving only a thin film as evidence that she had rubbed anything there at all.

"I'm fine," he grunted, jerking forward slightly as she pressed another dollop into his wound.

She leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder blade. "You don't have to pretend to be okay around me," she said.

He didn't answer, but took her hand and held it gently for a moment before she stood and picked up the glass bottle in which the rest of the bandages were soaking in more salve. He took it from her wordlessly, opening the bottle and pulling out a bandage. The salve had soaked it dark, the charcoal color of it standing out starkly against his alabaster skin.

She charmed the bottle to float air next to them and slid her hand to tangle back with his, using her other free hand to gently apply the bandages to his back. She finished a few moments later, but neither of them moved. His thumb was tracing small circles across the back of her hand, and her fingers tightened around his in response.

It was when the clouds shifted outside a few minutes later and moonlight illuminated the face of his watch that she reluctantly pulled away. "It's dry enough for you to shower now," she said. "I'll pack in the meantime."

He stood and turned to look at her for a beat before he nodded and headed into the bathroom. The shower turned on not a moment later, and she busied herself gathering what she thought they needed. Her beaded bag was frayed with wear, the underside of it missing entire rows of shining beads. The clasp was worn through, back showing through the silver enamel where she imagined it had been opened countless times over the months. Most things she'd put inside remained. The books she'd added because they were tangentially related to their mission were mostly untouched, while the most relevant ones had been perused, stuffed with notes in Ron's scratchy print or Harry's stiff scribbles. There were new things, too. Each carried a story she hadn't been privy to, a stone they'd turned on their own.

She didn't notice that the water had turned off until she heard Draco clear his throat. "Is that all then?" Draco was leaning against the bathroom door frame, watching her pensively.

"I'm just being cautious," she said, shoving a folded blanket into her beaded bag.

He cocked an eyebrow, looking beyond her at the neatly organized pile of supplies that lay at the foot of the bed.

She followed his gaze and gave him a pointed look. "I'm just trying to stay prepared," she said.

She paused and turned to him fully, her eyes slipping past the small smirk that played on his lips. She swallowed before she reached out, her hands stationary while a gentle tendril of her her mind curled towards was slow and gentle in her ingress into his emotions, pressing softly in question at the barriers he rarely dropped. She reflexively waited for his eyes to narrow and for the barriers to fortify. Instead, they slipped down slowly, his inner feelings suddenly within reach.

There was fear there, too.

She pulled out abruptly, crossing the room in two quick strides and wrapping her arms around him. She could feel his rigidity, his transition from closed to open anything but seamless. She held him tighter, breathing in the scent of him as her head pillowed into his chest.

"I'll be alright," she murmured.

She felt his hand pause where it was lightly touching her back, his fingers twitching against the thin fabric of her camisole. His hand tightened a moment later, crushing her closer to his body.

"We don't have to follow them," he said into her hair. "Godric's Hollow may mean something to Potter, but not to her. Not to him, either." His voice was low, and she pressed her ear to the rumble of it in his chest as he spoke.

"I know," she said. "It's likely that there isn't anything there at all. All we know is that he made his Horcruxes out of powerful things. Things that wouldn't be found there. But— it's still the place of his defeat. It means something to him, even if not something good—"

She felt the shift of his head as he shook it. "His interest lies in the grand. The powerful. Hers, too. She just had more of an affinity for what she found pretty than he."

Hermione shivered as she recalled the bust carved of glittering onyx, each facet filled with a hauntingly cruel beauty.

"It's close," Draco said. "I can feel it."

Hermione nodded into his chest, leaning more heavily against him. She could feel it too. The slow crescendo that had been building since the night Harry had come screaming out of the maze, each thrum of the impending devastation growing louder as they drew closer to this. It was a string pulled taut, threatening to snap with each moment that passed. It was an unavoidable climax, all that she'd known she would have sacrificed herself for.

She'd thought she had that night in Dumbledore's office. Yet now, now as she held everything, everything that nearly eclipsed the importance of all else, she clung to her life with a desperate fervor she never knew she'd had.

Their life.

Hermione pulled back far enough to look into his eyes. "If we have any chance of winning this, - of surviving this - "it's through Harry. We have to go where he goes."

X

They reentered the small basement room to find Harry and Ron waiting for them, their cloaks laying over the piles of boxes while each of them held flasks in their hands.

"Are you ready?" Harry said, eyes shooting to the bag that hung at her side.

She nodded before reaching into the inner pocket of her cloak, pulling out the book she'd found inside the bag earlier. The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, the cover read. Harry and Ron's eyes immediately went to the book, both of their mouths twisting into twin scowls.

She looked at Harry, softening her voice as she spoke. "I assume you've read it, then?" she asked.

Harry tensed. "I have," he said, looking away from her.

She opened her mouth and closed it again, shuttering away her empty reassurances. Who Albus Dumbledore was had been laying bare before her but a year prior, the memory of her confrontation of him in his office pulsing as sharply as the wound on her forearm. Harry's trust of the man had been tenfold that of her own, and she caught the flash of pain in his eyes as they cut towards the book before he cleared his throat and spoke.

"I trusted him," Harry said. There was an edge to his voice, separate from the angered detachment she had experienced from him since their return, yet devoid of sadness. It was devoid of anything at all, echoing of resigned acceptance of who the man he had grown to love as a father truly was.

"If you'd paid attention to anything about Dumbledore at all," Draco said, his tone biting, "then you would have understood this years ago."

Ron stepped forward, his face flushing red as he stared Draco down. "And what would you know about that, Malfoy —"

Draco laughed sharply, his voice cutting as he spoke. "He has done more to me in the past year alone than you could ever attempt to conceive —"

Ron's entire figure was tense as he took another step forward, near trembling as his eyes slid between Hermione and Draco. "Because you seem damned resentful about her, too, yet you both expect me to believe that this is love."

The sharp tension that was taut between them snapped in an instant. She snatched Draco's arm before he could lunge forward at Ron, the movement somehow stopping him in his tracks although she knew that he was more than able to shake her off if he so chose.

"And what have you ever done that makes you believe that you deserve her? What has she ever given you that made you think that she wanted whatever pitiful offerings had to give her?" Hermione felt his pulsing anger throbbing in her mind at the base of her neck, and she dug her nails deeper into his arm.

"Draco —"

He wrenched out of her grip, stalking closer to Ron. "You can busy yourself with whatever pathetic excuses you've conjured for why she may have left you, but you will never cast doubt upon what I feel for her again."

Hermione rushed forward, grabbing onto his arm once more. "We haven't the time for any of this," she said, looking between both men and ignoring the way her heart thrummed the wake of Draco's words, "we need to go."

Ron stepped forward, ignoring her words as he stepped closer to Draco.

"Ron —" she warned, moving forward in trying to step between them.

Ron shoved one of the flasks in his hands into Draco's chest. The gap between them ceased closing as quickly as they'd begun, Ron's arm stiffly occupying the gap as he pressed the flask into Draco's chest. Ron's hand tensed for a moment as Draco reached up and caught the flask in his own. Hermione's hand tightened around her wand as she waited for spells to fly.

Instead, Ron stepped back. "Just drink it. We need to go."

X

The frigid air nipped at her cheeks, biting with each swell of the wind. A few cloaked figures moved through the village, most of their movements cloaked by night. It was dotted with small, quaint homes, reminiscent of exactly how Hermione had pictured James and Lily lived for the short time that they had had together.

The thought made her turn to where Harry and Ron stood beside them,their polyjuiced figures hidden under the invisibility cloak in the darkness.

Harry had taken the form of a man shorter and stockier than he was, and her fingers felt strange in his thicker ones. "Harry?" she said softly. Her hand curled tighter over where she held his under the invisibility cloak.

He cleared his throat several times before answering her, yet the higher pitch to the tone that she knew had changed several octaves deeper after he'd drunk the polyjuice remained. "We should… start with the graveyard first," he said.

She fought the urge to lift the cloak and look into his eyes, already knowing what she would find there.

He pulled away without a word, the only indication of their movements the sound of their feet as Harry shuffled a few steps away with Ron.

"If you're finished making more noise than we ever needed to hear," Draco said, "then follow me." He jerked his chin toward a dimly lit street before them and set to walking, pulling Hermione with him.

Hermione's hand tightened in the crook of his elbow and she looked up at him and plastered on an enamoured smile. Draco's polyjuiced figure was shorter, thickly muscled with long dark hair that curled around his ears. Draco's eyes were only ahead of them, neither one of them giving any indication that they were anything but a random couple taking a late-night stroll. They passed only two lone figures as they moved through the evening, their pace frustratingly leisurely. There was a stillness in the air that made their silence nothing out of the ordinary, but filled her with growing trepidation as Draco led them forward nonetheless.

It was when they reached a wider road that they passed more people, all with heads held low as they passed through. In the corner farthest from them, there was low candlelight flickering around a carving of some sort—

The answer came to her before she could see it clearly. A memorial. They were close enough now to make out the names carved into stone, but Draco's path was clearly on the road past the memorial and ahead of them. "Harry," she whispered desperately, dipping her head into her sleeve as she feigned a cough. "We'll come back. I promise we'll come back. But we can't stop— not now."

Draco paused then, long enough to brush a soft kiss across her lips. Long enough for them to stand still for a drawn out moment. Long enough for Harry to look. Draco's kiss lingered for one beat, then another, and then his hand was snaking down to catch hers and they were moving forward once more. Not long enough, but something. There was a brush of silky fabric against her hand a moment later — Harry. Not long enough, she knew, yet he was alright all the same. He was still following, all the same.

Eventually, they started to crest a hill and the misty night parted to reveal the dark, looming crypts and mausoleums that dotted the cemetery moments before the rows of headstones became visible themselves. They continued to make their way toward the cemetery, careful not to slow their pace. Hermione's fingers tightened on Draco's elbow as she listened carefully for rustles in the air indicative of Harry and Ron passing them or stopping behind them. She scanned the headstones casually as they passed through the stillness, looking for somewhere unremarkable to stop.

It was by chance that the moonlight illuminated the symbol engraved on a headstone a few paces ahead. She tapped her fingers in a rhythm on Draco's elbow and they slowed their pace until she stopped them before the headstone beside it. She conjured a small bouquet of flowers and knelt placed them on the grave before her — in memory of one Ms. Emilia Johnson, loving wife, mother, and sister — all the while keeping her eyes trained on the engraved white stone beside them.

Draco stayed standing, placing a hand on her shoulder that surely looked comforting to any passersby. "They have two minutes," Draco murmured just loud enough for her to hear.

She tried to ignore the growing tension at the base of her neck as the time passed, the short window they had allowed for this trip quickly closing. She ran her fingers over the delicate petals of flowers she had just conjured, reading the words on the gravestone next to them as she tilted her head slightly. Ignotus Peverell, it read. And the symbol, identical to that of the one in the passage she had marked for Harry was engraved in the stone, identical and unmistakable.

Her heartbeat thrummed harder. There was something about the Deathly Hallows that Harry had not been wrong in focusing on —

Draco's hand tightened on her shoulder. She stood as quickly as she dared, raising a hand to feign wiping at a nonexistent tear as she looked up at him. He wasn't looking at her at all, yet she felt his growing panic at the base of her neck, saw it in the way his entire form was tensed.

Her stomach dropped the moment she followed the direction his eyes gone in. An elderly woman stood several dozen feet away from them, her entire figure eerily still. It would not have been out of the ordinary, except for the fact that she was staring intently at the empty space in the air a few feet ahead of her, where to any other observer nothing would've been standing there at all.

In an instant, she knew it was exactly where Harry and Ron stood.

Draco's wand was out a half-second before hers was. "Diffindo!" Draco shouted at the same time she shouted, "RUN!"

Draco's spell hit true, severing the woman's body in half.

Neither one of them expected a massive serpent slither around of the woman's remains, her severed form flopping into the snow as her serpentine inhabitant lunged forward towards the place the woman had been staring only a moment prior. Then Hermione was bounding through the snow, her feet pounding through its icy wetness as she screamed out a spell that merely slid off the serpent's body.

There was a figure falling to the snow then, clutching their head as they cried out in agony while another — the tall, slender, fair-haired man that she recognized as Ron — leaped forward, his wand brandished as he shouted out a spell. The spell ricocheted harmlessly off the serpent's body as it lunged forward.

The blast Hermione sent into its side only seemed to anger it further. It curved sideways for a moment before it began its lunge anew. This time, it hit true. Hermione screamed as its fangs sunk into Ron's thigh, the deadly curses she screamed hitting it harmlessly as it latched onto its target.

She kept running, her feet crunching in the snow and sliding along the thick layer of ice that lay beneath. Her spells continued to ricochet off the serpent's body, as it sank its fangs deeper into Ron's thigh.

"REDUCTO!" she screamed, pointing her wand at a gravestone that promptly exploded, its heavy fragments landing on the serpent's body. Its body jerked as the heavy stone landed upon it, and Hermione started to run faster, jerking her wand at the gravestones all around it and sending them exploding into shards that rained down upon it.

The frigid air was thick with dust and flying debris that she threw out of her way as she kept running towards them, still moving too slow — too slow —

Her feet gave way beneath her and she had a slick patch of ice, and pain exploded in her abdomen as she slammed into a gravestone that was sticking out of the ground, nearly completely concealed by the amount of snow that had fallen over. Her wand tumbled out of her fingers as she smacked into the ground, the pain in her middle blossoming further. She pressed her hand over her stomach and pulled it back only to find it sticky with blood. She gasped in pain, pressing her hand hard over her abdomen as she grunted a healing spell and scrambled to pick up her wand.

As she looked up, she screamed. She was close enough now to see the glimmer of the serpent's fangs in the moonlight as it unlatched itself from Ron's thigh and rose up. Draco stood closer to the serpent, shooting sharpened fragments of ice and gleaming metal at it.

The snake managed to rear its head up anyways, it's jaw open wide as it aimed towards Harry. Hermione watched, horrified at how slowly she moved despite running as fast as she could, at how Ron somehow managed to throw himself over Harry —

She was close enough now to hear what Harry screamed. "He's coming," Harry choked and cried, clutching his head as he writhed in the snow, "he's coming — he's coming now — he's almost here — he's —"

The serpent's fangs embedded themselves into Ron's side.

"REDUCTO! REDUCTO! REDUCTO!" Hermione screamed as she pointed her wand wildly at the gravestones surrounding the serpent, sending heavy fragments raining down upon it. It unlatched from Ron's side, rearing towards Harry once more. She snapped her wand, sending a column from a nearby mausoleum slamming into the serpent's head. Draco sent another pile of debris raining down on the serpent, burying it.

Hermione threw herself over their bodies, Harry's shouts echoing in a sickening fury while Ron lay still — too still— in the slowly growing pool of blood that seeped from his wounds. No — no — no — no no no —

"GO!" Draco's voice was far, too far, tinged with an edge of urgency that had her shooting up as straight as she could manage. Her mouth went dry. Draco stood a dozen feet away, and a dozen more behind him were four dark-robed figures, moonlight glimmering off the silver masks they wore.

Death Eaters.

Her heart spasmed in her chest as spells started to ignite the night, and the ground started to tremble — the serpent, still burrowing itself out from underneath a pile of debris they had buried it in — and Harry's screams, growing louder —

— It was too much, and Draco was too far —

A figure Apparated beside her, their wand out and a curse shooting out of their wand.

Hermione was quicker. She sent two precise slashes across his chest and arm, severing it at the root and sending a spray of blood across the bright white snow.

Two more appeared in the first's place, a burning curse singeing the skin of her arm as she ducked out of its path. The silver of their masks glinted in the night as she sparred with them, sweat dripping down her brow as she fought. Her next curse hit the Death Eater closest to her square in the chest. He screamed and stumbled backward as his skin bubbled beneath where his robes concealed it. Her other assailant fell forward with a spray of blood, revealing Draco who stood a few feet away, eyes blazing.

The ground was trembling harder now, the serpent's head forcing itself out of the rubble.

"Come!" she shouted, beckoning Draco as she stumbled toward Harry and Ron, volleying curses around them as she wove around the ones that were sent at her. A curse grazed her leg and she cried out, stumbling forward as blood spurted from the wound. She landed in a heap between Harry and Ron, the pain blossoming further. She needed to concentrate, concentrate on where they'd agreed to go, but the pain only radiated further, clouding her mind as she tried to form the solid destination in her mind. A hand gripped her leg and she screamed, ready to lash out until she recognized Draco mumbling a healing spell. The relief was instant.

She reached down and caught Draco's hands. The ground trembled harder, the serpent's head nearly fully visible now. "We have to—"

Two more Death Eaters Apparated behind him.

Hermione cut one down with a flick of her wand just as a curse whizzed past her, striking Ron's limp body. Hermione snapped her head around, a curse immediately shooting out of her wand and hitting a Death Eater directly i

"Harry!" she shouted at where the man still writhed in the snow, "We need to go—" She cut off as Draco's hand left hers.

She turned back to where he'd been a second prior to find him being dragged through the air. He hit a gravestone several rows away, the thump of it too low because he was far, too far—

The snow was stained red beside her as blood continued to leak steadily from Ron's wounds. She looked back at Draco just as he turned back to her, glistening blood leaking down his pale brow.

"GO!" Draco shouted, his strained voice barely reaching her. The last Death Eater stood a few feet from where Draco landed, raising their wand. Her curse hit the Death Eater's shoulder just as a shot of green erupted from the tip of it. The spell hit a gravestone instead, exploding it and sending shards flying.

GO! Draco's shout reverberated in her head, clattering in her mind in a sickening cacophony.

Ron was dying. But Draco— Draco could, too.

Her fingers trembled and spasmed as she grabbed Harry and Ron, her wand nearly slipping out of her blood–slickened fingers as she tried to focus herself on where she needed to go, and not on the man that every fiber of her being wanted to stay with —

The snake freed itself, streaking toward them.

The last thing she saw was Draco's back turned to her as he emerged from the rubble, screaming curses as the sky above them glowed a deep green where the Dark Mark hung high in the sky.

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