A/N: Thank you all once again for the comments and reviews and to all those who read this story, I'm really nervous about these last two chapters. This is the penultimate chapter of this story. I cannot believe this fanfic is almost over. This chapter has a bit of everything going on and I hope you enjoy how everything starts to unravel.
A/N: Chapter Warnings – Possible mentions of sexual assault, violence, bad language and other sexual situations
Chapter 54: The Build-Up, Draco's Task, and Disappearances
Severus had just got back from another Death Eater meeting. Now that the world knew the Dark Lord was back, he was calling his Death Eater meetings much more frequently.
It had been just over a week since the battle at the Ministry, and Severus had already been summoned three times. He hardly ever got called during the term time at school, because it was more difficult for him to 'sneak out'.
Tonight's meeting had been the finalising of the Dark Lords next attack. It was to happen here at Hogwarts. Nothing major was to happen though, this was Draco's test and he was expected to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, bring them up to the astronomy tower where Draco would torture one of Harry's loved ones.
Draco and Severus had talked, and they still didn't know who was going to be the person tortured. Hermione had naturally offered, but both men had shot her down and even refused to tell her anything else just in case she tried to intervene. They knew it couldn't be Dumbledore, because there was no way that Draco would have been able to outmatch Dumbledore. They had decided that the most likely person would be Ronald Weasley or one of Potters other male friends, maybe even Longbottom.
Draco had to accomplish the task before the summer holiday. He had just over five weeks.
On top of that, Hermione was getting more and more difficult to distract. Severus needed to think of something and quickly.
"I wish I had done better" she said one evening, when she had snuck down to the dungeons and to his rooms.
Severus paused in his reading and looked at her confused. He was surprised to see that she had stopped reading and was just staring into the fire. Severus put his book down.
"I'm sure you did perfectly fine in your exams darling" he said to her, trying to be encouraging. In his opinion, it was almost unhealthy that she worried so much over them. But he had been in her position before and understood the pressure you were put under by exams.
"I didn't mean exams" she said still staring at the flames.
Severus frowned.
"Then what did you mean love?" He asked her gently.
"The battle at the Ministry. We have all missed a year of proper defence lessons because of Umbridge. The group that Harry led was good for practising what we already knew but we haven't learned hardly anything at all. It was unfortunate that Umbridge plied Cho with truth serum and it was disbanded. I just felt that had we had a better teacher this year, we would have done better at the battle" she said.
"You shouldn't have even been there. So that is your own fault. Plus, it still would've been three fifth years against the inner circle of the Dark Lord's ranks. You still would have lost against them" Severus replied.
Hermione agreed.
Then Severus had the best idea ever. He had been looking for a distraction for her; this would be perfect if she agreed.
"Well exams are over, we have five weeks until summer, how about we go to the room of requirement three or four times a week and practice some defence?" Severus asked.
Hermione's face lit up and she grinned.
"Really?" She asked.
"Of course, you once said that you were technically seventeen already because of your time turner travels in your third year, was that true?" He asked her.
"Yes it's true, why?" She asked.
"I wanted to make sure that you no longer had the trace on you" he said.
"Oh! No, I don't. I've tested it, that was scary, but I no longer have a trace" Hermione grinned at him.
"Good" he smirked at her.
Hermione frowned.
"Would it have made a difference if I still had the trace?" She asked him.
"Not for most things however, for what I want to teach you, it would be best if you didn't have the trace" he stated.
"What are you going to teach me?" She asked excitedly.
"What does the term 'The Three D's' mean to you?" He asked her.
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A week later, and Hermione was jumping up and down like a child, squealing as she leapt into Severus' arms.
"I did it! I did it! I did it!" She exclaimed happily.
"You certainly did" he said.
Hermione Granger had just apparated for the first time. It was nothing huge but she had managed to move ten meters, and that was fantastic for a weeks' worth of practice.
"Good job, how do you feel about twenty feet?" He smirked at her.
By the fourth week, Severus had Hermione apparating just outside the boundaries of Hogwarts and to a remote part of Hogsmeade village.
He had also taught her more occlumency, she was now a natural and Severus was thoroughly proud of her. She could also do a fair share of strong wandless and wordless magic. Not many fully grown wizards could even do that. Severus had to admit that he was immensely proud of her.
Hermione was extremely pleased with herself as well and she continuously thanked Severus, in a way they both seemed to enjoy, for being a fantastic coach.
Severus was satisfied; he had successfully kept Hermione distracted and had also been able to keep up with his Death Eater meetings, talking with Draco and Order meetings without Hermione even noticing that anything was going on.
Dumbledore had agreed that he would lower the wards around the castle, at the exact second that Draco was scheduled to allow the Death Eaters access to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore would keep the wards lowered until the Order had shown up and rounded up what Death Eaters and they had all left the grounds once more.
Severus agreed that this was the best case scenario as it would mean that Draco would appear successful, the Death Eaters were somewhat controlled by Dumbledore and Minerva, who would be wary on the evening that the Death Eaters were due, and hopefully the damage would be minimal.
Everything was ready; they were as prepared as they could be.
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On the night, Severus prepared Draco for a long evening. Draco was scared, he wasn't sure he could do this. On their way to the astronomy tower, they bumped into Vincent Crabbe. Severus saw the perfect opportunity, and used the imperius curse to get Crabbe to inform Dumbledore what was going on before forgetting about the whole evening and going to bed.
Crabbe followed the orders, and went to the headmaster's office where Dumbledore and Minerva were having tea. Crabbe told them that something was happening and that Severus wanted to meet them in the astronomy tower, then he seemed to forget why he was there in the first place, apologised for intruding and left for his dormitory. Dumbledore understood what that meant, and so he took a deep breath and lowered the wards around the castle and even the anti-apparition spell over the castle. It would make it easier for the Order to get through the school quicker to capture the Death Eaters.
"Contact Sirius at Grimmauld, and tell him its time and the Order need to get here quickly" Dumbledore told Minerva as he removed the charms.
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Meanwhile, in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione was reading by the fireplace when Harry awkwardly came down with his map and his invisibility cloak. He looked at her, his face was pale.
Their friendship had been strained over the last few weeks, but they were slowly building bridges again and they would talk to each other now and then.
"What's wrong Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Take a look at this" he said, as he made his way towards her and opened up his map.
"Do you see it?" he asked.
Hermione looked closely at the map and paid particular attention to the astronomy tower when something caught her eye.
"Right there! Do you see it? Something's going on Hermione, we need to get to the astronomy tower now" Harry said, voice shaking with adrenaline as he pointed to the dots that had appeared on his map.
Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, Fenrir Greyback and Macnair, to name a few, had just appeared on the map in the astronomy tower.
"Of course Harry, let's go" Hermione exclaimed as she watched Harry grab his invisibility cloak, and make a beeline for the portrait entrance.
As soon as he had turned his back on her, Hermione pulled out her wand and pointed it at Harry.
"Pertrificus Totalus" Hermione said as she watched Harry's whole body freeze and fall to the ground with a thud.
She grabbed Harry and pulled him away from the main part of the floor, so that he wouldn't get trodden on, or tripped over. She then grabbed his cloak, and threw it over him so that nobody would see him.
"I'm sorry Harry, I can't let you do this" she whispered in his ear.
Taking one last look at his eyes, she bent down and kissed his cheek.
"I love you brother" she said, as she got to her feet and fled the common room and headed for the astronomy tower.
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She cast a disillusionment charm on herself and kept her eyes closely on the map so she could avoid any undesirables roaming the castle. She wondered if she should send her patronus to Dumbledore, but upon looking at the headmaster's office, she noticed that Minerva, Dumbledore, and Vincent Crabbe were in there and she decided not to expose the situation with the son of a Death Eater in the same room.
She continued her journey, and stopped at the bottom of the stairs that would take her to the top of the tower. She was about to start climbing but she heard footsteps running behind her.
Without even looking to see who it was, she instinctively ducked out of view and hid in a narrow alcove that was next to the staircase. She bent down low, hoping to be hidden by the shadows, and held her breath as she watched the footsteps hurry up the stairs.
It sounded like there was only one set, but she couldn't see the map in the darkness and she wasn't going to risk a lumos charm when she didn't know who was around her, and Death Eaters above her.
She waited a couple of minutes before realising that she still had the disillusionment charm placed on her, and chuckled at her stupidity in spite of the situation.
There were now tortured screams coming from above her, they were male screams too. She didn't think much further, and began running up the steps.
'That could be Severus or Draco being harmed up there' she thought to herself as she pushed her muscles to the max.
Once she got to the top of the steps, she looked up and could see Bellatrix Lestrange grinning and chuckling manically at the poor soul who was being tortured.
Hermione quickly tried to look at the map and noticed there were dots now heading towards the tower, the dots were appearing all over the place, both downstairs and what appeared to be in mid-air outside.
Hermione was relieved to see the names Tonks, Lupin, and Moody starting to appear, the Order were here and they were coming for the Death Eaters.
"Keep going!" Bellatrix shouted.
Hermione moved around the space, below the group quietly, and looked up again; she wanted to see who else had arrived.
She nearly gasped in shock when she saw Draco, pointing his wand towards the ground, a look on pure hatred on his face.
'Is Draco the one doing the torturing?' Hermione wondered to herself.
Her fears were confirmed when the spell left his lips.
"Crucio" he spat at the victim.
Hermione was surprised at the sheer angry force that Draco was putting into his casting.
She froze as another thought hit her.
There were Order members on their way up to the tower at that very moment. If they caught Draco, red handed, casting an unforgivable...
Hermione shivered, she didn't want to know how that would end for Draco. Now, all she knew was that she needed to get in there and stop Draco before the Order saw him.
Without hesitation, she launched herself quickly up the last few steps, to the very top of the tower and decided to go with the element of surprise.
Within a second, Hermione had launched the door open and hit Draco with a stunning spell.
Caught off guard with the lack of actually seeing a physical presence in the doorway, Draco didn't have time to react and he was thrown across the top of the tower and hit the wall, causing him to blackout.
Bellatrix wasn't as slow and, as soon as Hermione cast the stunning spell at Draco, Bellatrix had cast the counter to Hermione's disillusionment charm, Hermione was now visible.
"Hello Mudblood" Bellatrix said gleefully, she knew she was going to have fun here.
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Hermione stood strong, refusing to cower before a group of Death Eaters. She could tell that Severus was internally panicking, and tried not to worry too much about him and rather concentrate on the psychotic witch who was currently pointing her wand at Hermione.
"Anything you want to say?" Bellatrix asked sarcastically in that high pitched, insane tone.
"No? Pity. You may have to join my cousin then" she said as she gestured to the semi-conscious body of Sirius Black.
Hermione stared in shock.
'So it had been Sirius that passed me on the stairs' she thought to herself.
Well, that potentially had a whole new meaning to why Draco was so violent with his casting, he had wanted to hurt Sirius for quite some time.
Hermione knew it was awful, but she didn't actually feel sorry for Sirius at this moment, not at all.
Hermione looked at Bellatrix with indifference.
"No? You don't care? Well, you will have to be punished for taking down my nephew. That was awfully impolite of you, although I don't expect someone of your background to fully understand that" Bellatrix said as she drew back her wand to cast what would be some nasty hexes.
Before Bellatrix could cast anything, a spell hit her from behind and she was thrown to the floor by its force.
Everyone had been distracted by the spell that had come through the tower window from outside, that nobody was watching the door.
Spells were flying through the doorway and Greyback, and Macnair, hit the floor. The Death Eaters had been so caught off guard that they were now casting in pure panic as Tonks, Lupin, and Shacklebolt stormed through the door and Moody flew through the window on a broomstick.
Hermione ducked in an effort to dodge all the stray hexes whilst trying to keep her eyes on where the remaining Death Eaters were. She was struggling.
Hermione could make out Minerva, Dumbledore, and other Order members also entering the tower to assist but the Order had been pretty successful already.
There was some smoke still swirling around the room, but everything was quite now. It seemed all the Death Eaters were down.
"Round them up" Moody ordered.
The Order members started grabbing the fallen Death Eaters and apparating them away.
Hermione was still trying to make her way through the smoke.
"Take Sirius and Mr Malfoy to the hospital wing for treatment" Dumbledore ordered.
"No!" Moody exclaimed roughly.
"Black is coming with me, he's evaded Azkaban for a while now, and we still want him to be taken to trial. We will have healers dispatched to Azkaban so they can treat Black there" Moody stated in a 'no excuses' tone.
Dumbledore looked like he was ready to argue but Moody glared back at Dumbledore menacingly as he bent down to secure Sirius Black, and Dumbledore could do nothing about it so, he backed down.
Lupin emerged with Draco Malfoy in his arms and headed down the stairs towards the hospital wing.
"What happened to the boy?" Moody asked Severus.
"He didn't deliver on what his aunt had asked him to do so he paid the price and was punished for it" Severus stated.
Moody looked suspiciously at Severus and then turned to Hermione.
"You girl! Is what the Professor said true?" He asked her.
Hermione nodded.
"Yes, Draco was flung backwards into the wall and hit his head" Hermione stated, she had become quite an accomplished liar.
"How do you know this?" He asked her.
"I was below but then I saw it happen" she said, adding a silent 'I made it happen' in her head.
Moody nodded and went to interrogate Severus more but then he paused and turned back to Hermione.
"Just what the devil were you doing up here girl?" He asked.
Hermione gulped.
"I was on patrol and I heard voices and footsteps, my instinct told me something was wrong so I disillusioned myself and hid from sight as they came up here" she said.
"And why did you not alert the headmaster or another member of staff or adult?" He asked her.
"Because I was safe where I was. I didn't know how many of them there would be, and I didn't know if there were more coming up the staircase, so I didn't move, I was silent and waited for the opportune moment" Hermione replied.
"Good, well kid, you do well under pressure" Moody said as he moved to help gather Bellatrix, he'd been after her for a long time.
Hermione moved to the tower window, to get some fresh air, and she allowed a small smile to grace her lips as she noted all the bad guys being rounded up.
She looked at Severus and she gave him a small smile, he gave her a small nod in return, keeping it formal given the present company.
Hermione stood and went to join the others once more but, there was a sudden bang and the air filled with smoke once more. Hermione was disoriented, and she knew that the bang had been quite close to her. She tried to move towards what she thought was the middle of the room, and she could hear people shouting her name.
"Hermione!" Minerva was shouting frantically.
"Miss Granger!" Severus called out, sounding equally as nervous as the two professors tried to make their way through the smoke.
Hermione knew they were making their way towards her, and was relieved when she felt a hand grasp her wrist.
"Thought you'd escape me Mudblood?" The cold voice asked, whispering dangerously in her ear.
Hermione screeched at the top of her lungs as she was dragged backwards towards the window. The air by the window had cleared and enabled Hermione to see who had grabbed her.
Hermione gasped as she took in the face of Antonin Dolohov, the same man who had almost killed her a few weeks earlier. She knew she was in trouble and was trying to reach for her wand that she had tucked back in her pocket.
"Tut tut" Dolohov growled as he noticed where her hand was headed.
He lifted her roughly onto the window ledge and climbed up onto it, next to her. He then held her, bending her backwards so she was out the window. If he let go of her, she would fall to her death.
The smoke cleared and the remaining Order members made way for the window, wands drawn. They paused upon seeing Dolohov holding Hermione out the window.
"Lay one spell on me and I will let her go" he said.
They hesitantly relaxed their wand arms, knowing that if they so much as rendered him unconscious, he would naturally let go and she would fall.
"Now Antonin, perhaps we can come to some agreement" Moody offered.
"I don't know...it would have to be a good arrangement. I thought I'd already killed her in the Department of Mysteries. But now I have the opportunity to take her, break her and hurt her as much as I want" Dolohov contemplated.
"What do you want? We will give it, just let the girl go" Moody growled.
"You want me to let the girl go?" He asked sarcastically, turning this into a game.
"Have it your way" he said, as he let go of her out the window.
Dolohov followed out the window after her, and the two of them were falling towards the ground. Dolohov had been given the power of flight by his dark master and fully intended on using it now. He would take the girl, and make her suffer for his pleasure.
As Dolohov was a full grown, heavy man, he was catching up with Hermione and he reached out to grasp her ankle.
Severus' heart stopped the second he knew what Dolohov was going to do. As soon as he had let go of Hermione, Severus made a run for the window, fully prepared to jump out after them. He had been given the gift of flight too by the Dark Lord and he knew there was a possibility he could track Dolohov.
However, Moody and Minerva held him back as he tried to dive out the window.
The three of them watched helplessly as the two bodies fell towards the ground. They didn't know what to wish for, what was worse? An instant death by hitting the ground after a hundred foot fall or, captured by a Death Eater?
An agonised scream could be heard in the tower, and Severus would realise later that it was his own.
Severus got one last good look before there was a loud crack. The two falling bodies had disappeared in a cloud of black smoke that raced like a nightmare towards the mountains.
