Hermione completely ignored the voice and Ron's stiffening back as she clung to him, sniffing a bit. Ron was looking with wide eyes at Harry, who was glaring at the man who had just entered.

"Tom Riddle," Harry said, much as Ginny had, as he helped Mariah to her feet.

"Ah, yes, Harry Potter. I knew I'd see you…you're one of those people I just can't seem to kill. How funny… all the people in that category are in the room right now. Oh, no. Wait, I'm mistaken. Draco, your father is missing from this august assembly. Late, or is he not part of the party?" Tom smirked as Draco started to fume silently.

"Well… come to think of it, I didn't try very hard to kill him, did I? Such is life... I'll be sure to drop by there later, though."

Draco started forward, his face set in lines of fury. The time spent with the new and improved Lucius had endeared the man to Draco greatly… he was making up for lost time, and Draco would be damned if he would let this asshole ruin that again. He stopped when he felt Lexi's hand on his arm.

Since Draco's appearance, Lexi had done some very quick thinking. If she was pregnant… which, now that she thought about it, had to be true… SHE wanted to be the one to tell him. And if she knew Voldemort, he'd use it to either get Draco killed or as a distraction. And she didn't want that. Better to deal with it now.

"Lexi, let me go. I've had it up to here with this bastard," Draco furiously gestured.

"And leave our child without a father? No thanks, I think BOTH of us know what that's like," Lexi said gently.

"Le-" he stopped. His face bleached of all color. "Alexia Malfoy, what did you just say?"

"I said-"

"No, no, I heard what you said… I just can't believe you said it. Because your sentence implied that you're pregnant. And I KNOW you can't be."

"Draco, I AM pregnant."

Tom was now leaning against the closed door, fully radiating gleeful malice. "Ah, yes," he sneered, "the pregnancy. I must admit, that took a bit of work. First, to put the Imperious curse on two strong willed people… then, to erase your memories of your first time as husband and wife… ah, it was a challenge I relished."

"YOU SICK BASTARD!" Sephie yelled from her spot firmly entrenched in George's arms. Seeing her after that nerve wracking waiting, George forgot all his inhibitions and had swept her up. Scared and pissed, she allowed it, throwing her arms around him and totally forgetting she had been mad at him for the past 7 years.

Tom spun on her with the joy of scenting fresh blood. "You. Look at you two… you're pathetic. You had a chance at love. And you lost it for a cute Death Eater I threw at Mr. Weasley and a lack of trust… tsk tsk."

Sephie started screaming incoherently, throwing herself against George's strong arms in an effort to reach Riddle and rip his throat out with her nails.

"Sephie… Sephie…" George's voice was low-pitched to be heard under her screams. "Love, stop…"

She spun in his arms to face him. "Did you hear him? That son of a WHORE! He did this to us, George! He took away 7 years! 7 YEARS WE COULD HAVE HAD TOGETHER! DON'T YOU FEEL ANY PAIN FOR THAT? ANY SENSE OF LOSS!?"

"Yes… but your tears give him happiness, Sephie… do you want him happy? Wouldn't you rather get even?" he whispered as he cradled her in his arms. They had both grown a bit physically, but she still fit as perfectly as she had so long ago.

"Yes," she said under her breath. "And I will."

Tom had already turned to his next victim. "Ah, Mr. Weasley. Don't YOU hate me? After all, I ruined your wedding day. I took your fiancée, I took your friends… you, of all people, should hate me. Do you?"

"Yes," Ron gritted out. The veins in his neck stood out as he growled. "I hate you."

"Then prove it," Tom hissed. And, before Hermione could stop him, he ran at Tom. The man watched him come with all the calmness of someone with a brick wall between them. When Ron was within five feet, he waved a negligent hand in Ron's direction, and he went flying backwards. Hermione screamed and threw herself behind him. Ron slammed into her and they both slammed into the floor hard.

"H-Hermione!?" Ron gasped, scrambling off of her. "Are you alright?"

She smiled weakly. "Just… had… the wind… knocked out of me, Ron… hold on."

"You idiot!" he scolded, frantically checking her over for any injury. "I could have killed you!"

"And he could have killed you," she gestured. "Did that stop you? Love is blind, Ron. I thought we established that already?"

Tom made a face of disgust and changed his attentions once more. "Ah… sweet Virginia."

Hearing that made Ginny think of a Muggle song, and the urge to giggle hit her so strongly that she almost succumbed to it. She just barely held them back.

"You've grown up quite nicely… Jeremy must feel quite lucky to share your bed," he said with such confidence that Ginny started to blush, even though it wasn't true.

Jeremy started to growl. "Are you insinuating-"

"I never insinuate, young Jeremy. I am SAYING you share a bed. A werewolf and a Weasley, that must be a sight…"

"You asshole. I can't wait until you're roasting in Hell."

Tom shuddered delicately. "Oh, I can. I'll burn there, the sun's always out, and with my skin…or worse, I'd TAN." He was mocking them and they knew it.

With that sarcastic comment, Tom was on to his last victims... the one it all began with.

"Miss Jordan, aren't you tired of waiting for that ring? Tired of Mr. Potter's lack of commitment? His failure to finish what he starts? Don't you want some… stability?" His biting tone made Mariah flinch. She could feel Harry's wounded eyes upon her and knew he was taking it all to heart.

"No," she said; she was surprised on how strong her voice become with that single word. "I want Harry. Nothing more, nothing less."

From behind her came Harry's arms and his voice in her ear. "Oh, Mariah…"

Tom scowled… nothing was working out the way he wanted. Ah, well. "I'll leave you all here to stew… I'll be back to kill you once I decide on a suitably painful method."

They all stood and glared as he swept out. The door's closing was like cutting a string: Ron dropped to his knees next to the still seated Hermione, George's lips met Sephie's in a long awaited kiss, Jeremy and Ginny were busy whispering apologies to each other, and Draco rounded on Lexi.

"You- you're really- you mean we-"

"Draco, sentences are wonderful things… especially when they're coherent."

"YOU'RE PREGNANT?"

"That's a sentence," observed Hermione weakly from the floor- having all 185 pounds of Ron thrown at you by a spell could leave you out of the action for a bit.

"Thank you, Miss Grammar," Lexi said dryly. "And as for your question, Draco… let's find out, shall we?" With that, she deftly took Draco's wand out of his pocket and trained it at her stomach. She muttered words that no one caught, and a light green mist shot out of the wand.

"If I'm pregnant, the mist will settle right-" her breath caught, "there. Oh sweet God."

Draco swallowed. "Now we HAVE to win… I'll be damned if I let that BASTARD take our child away."

"Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me," Lexi murmured, still transfixed on the dancing green light above her belly.

The touching moment probably would have lasted a bit longer if a small noise hadn't turned all their attentions to the other two. Mariah was standing with hands over her mouth as Harry knelt in front of her, a box in his hands.

"I've had this for a while now, Mariah… I've been wondering when to give it to you. And…" he swallowed, "If we're going to die, I want you to have it… if you'll take it?"

Mariah stood there for a moment before taking a step forward and smacking him across the head. "Stupid, stupid Harry," she sobbed, "I'dve taken it 7th year… oh, God, Harry…" She fell to her knees in front of him and collapsed into his waiting arms.

~*~

They all sat there quietly, either trying to figure out how to escape or contemplating their deaths silently. Lexi was crying without sound, letting large tears slip down onto Draco's chest, where her head rested. They had discovered long ago that Draco's wand… the only one they had… was pointless. The room was surrounded by too many enchantments.

Finally, Hermione spoke the words everyone was thinking. "If we're going to die, we have to go down fighting."

"I agree," said Sephie quite fiercely. "I am NOT going to die like a helpless child just when…" she let the sentence hang, but her hand slipped down to grasp George's tightly.

"So… what do we do?" asked Mariah, now wearing a diamond that glinted in the little bit of light from Draco's wand that the room had.

"We kill him," Harry said, his eyes extremely pissed. "You know if we just run, he'll come back for us and we'll never be free. We have to kill him, even if we do," he swallowed, "die in the process."

"I agree with you, Harry, 100%, but how can we kill him? We don't have wands, and even if we did, I have a feeling that we'd never get close," Ron said with rising frustration.

Hermione had been sitting in Ron's arms for a long time, her mind racing. She finally looked up.

"Us," she said simply.

"Huh?" asked George.

"Us. We saw what just Sephie and I can do by holding hands and wishing hard… can you imagine what the five of us can do?" she said quickly.

What she didn't add was her fear: if simple things took so much energy that she and Sephie had to pass out to regain it, what would taking a life require? Another life? She examined the thought, saw it as inconsequential, and cast it away.

"But our first problem is getting out of the room," Ginny reminded as the guys stared.

"Get up, Sephie," Hermione said, extracting herself from Ron's startled hold as her sister did the same. They made their way over to the door and took hands.

"Are we blasting?" Sephie asked under her breath.

"No, no… should we send Professor Dumbledore a hello?" Hermione asked back. Sephie grinned.

"Temporospatial claudication? Ooh, Hermione, that's against the law! You rebel, you!" she teased as she closed her eyes.

The girls concentrated… and as their hands began to glow, the door just simply… disappeared.

"Wow."

~*~

As Professor Dumbledore sat at his desk, trying not to woory about his former students, he heard a pop and a thud as a full sized door landed on his floor.

"Ah." He got up and examined it. "So THAT'S where they are. All right, then.. .good luck, ladies," he said with a sigh, shrinking the door and putting it in his pocket.

~*~

"If I were a deranged psycho killer, where would I hide?" Draco muttered as they all crept down the hall.

"If I were a sick, twisted version of Malfoy, where would I hide?" Ron mocked quietly.

Draco just made a face at him… a sign of their aging maturity… and they all kept going.

"Come in, I've been expecting you," came a booming voice as two large door slammed open with great force.

"Jesus, he's so dramatic," Lexi muttered as they strode in, not bothering to hide.

"So, you've come to kill me," Voldemort said with a small condescending smile. "Go ahead, gentlemen, try."

With no further ado, the five guys ran at him.

"What are they DOING?" Lexi hissed as they hurriedly got into a circle. They clasped hands and Hermione hissed back, "They're distracting him."

"Distracting? He's beating the crap out of them!" Mariah half sobbed as they all closed their eyes and concentrated on each other.

The raw power that slammed through the room and through the linked circle stunned them all. The girls all clenched hands tightly and screams ripped out of all of them as the power exploded outward.

"What?!" Voldemort screamed, looking toward them. They were all glowing from within… as if their skin was translucent and they were glass vessels for this great power. It started to seep outward and entwined in the middle as they all kept screaming and a wind picked up in the room.

In the middle was a figure, rising from the power. It was a woman. The guys in the room recognized bits of their girls in this figure… it was a blending of them all. When she straightened to full height, her white eyes opened and Voldemort recoiled.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," the woman said, the words echoing in the room and in their heads, as well. The one she was addressing clapped his hands over his ears, but it was fruitless.

"You have murdered the innocent, you have murdered the guilty, you have interfered with time, you have corrupted souls, you have enslaved the gullible, you have ruined lives, you have created terror, you have bred havoc. You have called forth demons and slaughtered verenated saints. Do you deny it?"

Voldemort tried to look away, but he could not.

"DO YOU DENY IT?"

"NO!" The word was ripped from his mouth, and he grimaced in pain.

Her etheral hand extended a finger toward him, and he was thrown into the wall, screaming. "The pain of Imperio."

She twitched her finger, and he screamed louder. "The pain of Crucio."

Twitch. Louder. "The pain of death."

She held that position, and soon the screams were so loud that the walls literally shook. It was disintegrating his body from the inside, and he was choking on his blood as he kept screaming.

Eventually, the screaming lessened, and he slumped against the wall. An etheral Voldemort rose and looked at the battered, bloody body.

"You BITCHES, you killed me," he said in wonder and dawning anger.

The woman flashed blue for a moment, then smiled. "Yes, we did. And now we send you where you belong." She began to speak in a flowing tongue, and soon there were five voices speaking that haunting, liquid speech.

"No! NO!" Voldemort's spirit started screaming, making a break for the guys. If he dove into one of them, he reasoned frantically, he would be safe.

"…Aidiona almuerta lonrdain!" the voices finally spat, and the floor in the center of the circle of girls opened. All around them materialized the forms of those Voldemort had murdered over the years. Harry started to cry as he recognized his parents, and even Draco shed a tear when he saw his mother.

"You go where you belong, Tom…" James Potter said. Lily stepped up next to him, and beside her was Peter Pettigrew… but a different Peter than the one they all knew. This must have been the one his parents knew, Harry reasoned. Not the sneak, but the friend.

On the other side of James was Ella Jordan, and on her right was Gabrielle Malfoy.

"We help our children give our deaths meaning, Riddle," Ella said as the five advanced on him. Voldemort backed up as they came.

"No… nonononono…" he said. The five stopped, and Cedric Diggory stepped forward.

He reached out with a hand. "Accept the fate you made for yourself, Voldemort," he said… and, with a finger, pushed his soul into Hell.

The woman smiled and looked at the other forms. They faded away, save the parents. Those stayed for one more minute. Ella made her way to where Mariah was still locked in stance, supporting the woman, and brushed her cheek with a kiss. "Be happy, sweetheart."

Gabrielle approached Draco and placed a hand on his. "Tell your father I really did love him, Draco… and I'm glad he can now be at peace."

"Ok, I love you, Mum," Draco choked out.

She touched his cheek. "I love you, too, Draco… and don't worry, I'll watch over my grandchild."

James and Lily approached Harry, who was now sobbing openly.

Lily opened her arms to her son, who looked quite afraid. She looked to the woman.

"For one moment?" she pleaded.

The woman's eyes twinkled with unshed tears. "One, Lily… just one."

The woman's hand extended, and Lily and James took on solid form. Harry ran to Lily and hugged her hard and she hugged back, crying. James enfolded them both, crying as well.

"Lily, if I hold you two longer, your son will be without a wife," the woman reminded gently.

She gasped and nodded. "I'm ready now. I love you Harry."

"I love you too, Mum, Dad."

"We're so proud of you, son," James said with one last hand clasp before they turned etheral again. The four clasped hands and faded.

When they were gone, the woman bowed her head and faded as well. As one, the girls collapsed.

Five names were called at once, and five men ran to the women they treasured so much.

Their torn and bleeding hands and wrists were testimony of how tightly they had held hands, and their skin was still translucent.

"Oh my God," Draco gasped as he reached Lexi. The first thing he did was check for a pulse. It was there, but thready and weak.

The word around the circle was pretty much the same, and they sat there with the women in their laps, lost. Now what?

There was a slight flare, and the boys looked up to see the etheral forms of the girls.

The first thought to cross all their minds was that they were dead.

"We're not dead," Hermione said immediately.

"This is our power… the power that was ours, anyway," Mariah added.

"The amulets and scars are still powerful, but any other powers… like our telepathy… is gone," Lexi said solemnly.

"We're holding this up long enough for you to get our asses OUT, morons," Sephie said impatiently.

"So what are you doing talking to us? Save us!" Ginny exclaimed, and they faded.

As one, the boys picked up the girls and ran.

~*~

At the moment of Voldemort's death, Severus Snape was sitting in Dumbledore's office, dicussing what to do. He felt a kind of blessed release from his arm and stopped in the middle of his sentence to hurriedly push his sleeve up. There was light pouring from his Dark Mark, temporarily blinding him… and when he could see again, the Mark was gone.

He stared at it in shock. "They did it. Those crazy bitches DID it," he whispered. He moved his arm experimentally. He had always had problems with his left arm for this very reason, but now… it was like new.

He looked up at Dumbledore, who was grinning. "Yes, they did."

About three hours later, there was a commotion going on outside. Severus leapt from his chair, ran down the hall, and hopped over a railing with cape flying behind him to see all of the current Hogwarts student body watching five ragged men carry five dying women through the halls.

"Madam Pomfrey is expecting you," he said curtly… not meanly, but knowing that seconds were life in this situation. He led them, leaving Hogwarts to speculate wildly and not caring.

A/N: OMG! An epologue and this is done!!!! Cries. A story in the making 2 years is almost finished… girls, I love you all, this is our magnum opus.. thank you to all the readers who topped 200 on the reviews and made us want to finish this monstrosity.

All my love,

Maggie