A/N: This is the next to last chapter in this story. If you're confused about anything, well, as always, things come out senseable in the end......thanks for all the great reviews, and keep reading. Of all my stories, I am most proud of this one, and I eagerly await all of your responses to see how you liked this one. I hope you are all pleased. Cheers!
The same piercing fear which had crept over Hermione the night Harry died came back to her in a sudden flash. It made her quiver from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes. She knew who lurked behind the tree. Her breath became short and shallow, but gradually it began to speed up. Hatred for this thing was beginning to take over her fear; this this that killed Harry. Ron was staring forward, mouth open, but his eyes were flaring with the same putrid loathing. Almost by subconscious impulse, Hermione pulled her wand slowly from her coat. She reached into Ron's jacket pocket and removed his wand before spinning around to see this monster vividly for the first time. She thrust her wand in Voldemort's direction, but wasn't in time. "CRUCIO!" bellowed Voldemort as a shot of light emitted from his wand. Snapping out of his stupor, Ron pulled Hermione into him and whirled them both around. He screamed out in agony as the force of the blow shattered his back with the pain of a thousand nails.
"RON!" Hermione cried, as Ron's grip slid down her shoulders and released her as he sank to the ground. He was wringing, shaking, and howling the most horrific screams. Hermione knelt down to his side, but felt helpless as there was nothing she knew to do to ease this curse. So she reasoned to cradle him in her arms as Voldemort slinked towards them. As he approached, Hermione glared up at the cloaked Dark Lord through deathly, bloodshot eyes which were now beginning to well in tears at the sound of Ron's torture. Tears of anguish were running down Ron's cheeks as he whimpered into her Hermione's …" He sucked in another painful throb through gritted teeth, as Hermione whispered,
"Not a chance." Ron clenched at Hermione's jacket, and she held him tighter.
"I have no regret in killing the boy for you," Voldemort hissed as he neared her. "It's up to you." Ron was heaving as though he were in the midst of a fit. Hermione's heart ached at hearing him moan, but she was not going to show her fear to this dark creature. Her blood was racing, as she knew what to do. Ron knew that look and it petrified him. He knew she was about to attempt something stupid.
"No, Hermione," he pleaded. "Run, let me die and run!" he gasped. Hermione smiled at him, and ran a mitten smoothly over his cheek. Too weak to fight her relinquish of his body, Ron watched Hermione rise to stare down this vile creature. Her knees were shaking, but her boiling blood kept her on her feet. The two were now merely inches away. Voldemort's thin slit of a mouth curled.
"Not afraid to die, you foolish Mudblood witch?" he seethed.
"Terrified," she stammered. "But it will be a consolation to know that you are coming with me." The gleeful smirk faded from Voldemort's face as Hermione pointed Ron's wand at his heart as the two screamed simultaneously,
"AVADA KEDAVA!" Through the forcefully blinding red light that emitted from the two wands, Hermione felt a force pull her from the pit of her stomach, as though she were traveling by portkey. The graveyard grounds faded away as Hermione heard Ron cry out her name. She was soaring through a blackened tunnel, hardly aware of anything that was going on as her head spun in a million different directions. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, she was just falling. With a loud crack, she flew down faster and faster toward a blurred vision of someone below her. As she landed in her rescuers arms, she heard a deep voice fade away with her consciousness, "Hermione….Hermione….."
"C'mon Hermione, wake up. Hermione, please wake up," a voice echoed in Hermione's head. Barely able to comprehend what was going on, she shook of the eerie familiarity of the voice. There was no way the voice coule belong to the one she was hoping. He was dead. Slowly, Hermione opened her eyes, as a blurry image of a bushy haired young man with glasses was leaning over her, stroking her forehead. She could make out a faint smile upon on the stranger's face that showed a sign of relief. "You're all right," the blurring image said with an exhaled breath. He took her upper body in his arms and clenched her tightly.
Reluctantly, she placed her hands on the clandescent, torn, black school robes. Her vision was coming back to her steadily faster now, and she could make out the same framed shoulders she had embraced so many times over the years. The ones that belonged to a dead boy. "Ha--Harry?" she moaned. Harry released pulled her down so that her shoulders were now resting comfortably on one of his knees. With a slight gasp of shock, she gazed into his peircing emerald eyes that his behind the black wired glasses, and felt quite grateful she was on the ground. Had she been standing she would have surely fainted again. Harry broke into a grin, and nodded his head fervently.
"Yeah, yeah it's me Hermione," Harry said happily. He couldn't believe this whole scene was happening. He had no idea why, but all he knew was that it felt amazing to have his best friend in his arms like this. Hermione struggled for the words, but at last they came.
"But...you...I...saw....we all thought you were--" Harry clenched her hand tightly in his as he finished for her.
"No, I'm not dead. Neither are you." Hermione's hand was filled with the warmth of his touch. This entire situation defied everything Hermione knew about magic, but for once in her life, she was thirlled to be so very wrong. She threw her arms around Harry's neck again, as tears of happiness began to fill her eyes.
"I can't believe it, you're alive!" she said, joyously. "I thought that when Voldemort hit you with that light.....and then....when I performed that curse...I--I didn't know I had it in me to do that." Harry smiled to himself as he replied,
"You didn't, Hermione. I don't know why, but somehow neither of us did, and we ended up here." He released her as they both looked around the vacant valley yet again. "Wherever here is," he added. The next few words Hermione would never forget. He looked her square in the eyes and uttered, "The spell worked, but I still wish you hadn't gone through with it." Hermione flushed pretty shades of pink and then an embarrased white, as she found the strength to pull from Harry's arms. She didn't even have to ask what he was talking about. As always, she just knew.
"You know then?" Hermione squeaked, now taking great care to avoid those dazzling eyes. "How did you find out?" Harry didn't feel like explaining. The guilt that was welling up inside him was too strong.
"At first, I swore that if I ever saw you again, I would pitch a fit about how incredibly stupid you were to try something that dangerous. I certainly wasn't worth it." Hermione felt her heart jump into her throat at the curtness in Harry's voice. The sting quickly melted, as he turned from her, and gazed out over the barreness beside them. He wrapped his arms tightly around his knees as he sat there and allowed the dry breeze to blow through his hair. "But then it made me sick," he continued, "to know you would do that for me. To know that you......you....loved...me that much." Hermione could feel the awkwardness arousing in his voice and it bit at her like an annoying fire ant. "What's more, I was afraid. Afraid that I would never get out of here so I could tell you---" Harry broke off to suck in a deep breath so the words could come easier. "I'm sorry for being such a blind idiot all these years, Hermione. I couldn't see anything, ever, past my own selfish obessessions of trying to prove myself to the entire world, when that wasn't even necessary. Through it all, you were right there, and, it was always the world that I relied on. You would have never let me down, you had, would, and did, give up everything for me." Harry closed his eyes as he finished, "And I have always loved you for it." There was a moment's pause, before Hermione's laughter broke the silence, and flung backwards onto a patch of decaying grass. Harry was about to become furiously angry with her for laughing at him before she said,
"I get it, I get it. So, when do we get to the part where I wake up?" She covered her face with her hands to suppress her tiny giggles. "This has been the most VIVID dream--"
"You're not dreaming!" Harry cried, almost desperately, as he tore Hermione's hands away from her now astonished face. A look of shock overtook Harry at realizing his own actions, making him feel clumsily out of place. That and the fact that two-thirds of his body was now pressing against Hermione gently. Gratefully it was his upper half, but on the other hand......Not even the sharpest knife could have cut through the peircing stares that Hermione and Harry exchanged. Finally, Hermione spoke,
"No....no, I'm not. I just can't believe...I've waited to hear you say those thing fo so long. I thought you were dead." Tears came to her eyes, as she allowed her hands to travel up Harry's arms and around his neck. Harry was doing all he could to hold his position abover Hermione without crushing her. A feat that he was starting to lose as his hands suddenly ached to hold her like he never had before. "I was beginning to doubt everything I had ever believed in." Hermione's hands continued their journey up Harry's arms to his bushy strands of hair. Then one hand brushed along his cheeks with the tips of her fingertips. "But I will never doubt anything again." Harry smiled weakly.
"I am a very dangerous person to love, Hermione." Hermione shook her head as she then leaned in for his lips.
"I think we will both be agreed where we're concerned..." their lips were now only millimeters apart as Hermione whispered, "....danger is something we can handle." Their lips met in a warm, savoring kiss. Harry caved his arms around Hermione, forgetting the hold he was trying to maintain abover her, as their kiss deepened. Hermione could feel Harry's heart pounding against her chest, as a wave of joy spwet over the two of them so strongly that both were certain they would die right there.
Just then, a sinister, serpent laugh from behind them caused their romantic moment to stop in mid-passion. Harry opened his eyes slowly and looked to his right as his lips unlocked from Hermione's. Hermione turend her head in the same direction as his, and her heart stopped as they bother faced Lord Voldemort yet again.
"This maniac has an unhealthy obsession with trying to kill me," Harry thought. His hand ran down the right side of Hermione's body that was concealed from Voldemort's view. "Where's your wand?" he muttered through clenched teeth, trying hard not to move his lips. Before Hermione could even answer, Harry had grabbed her, and rolled them dodgedly across the grass to avoid the light of an oncoming curse from Voldemort's wand. Harry curled right onto his feet like a looming cat, ducking low, keeping both eyes on the cloaked figure to try to guess his next move. Slowly, the Dark Lord was advancing on them both. Hermione still had her arms wrapped around Harry's neck, as they slowly stood, to maintain her balance. She was still very weak from her last encounter Voldemort.
"You can't kill us Voldemort! You do know that!" Harry cried arrogantly. The evil fiend before them merely laughed, those little red eyes twinkling.
"Foolish boy," he sneered. "maybe seperately you two are invinsible. Seperate and in a position where you both are safe, not to mention in controllable power. But behind this vewil, ONLY DARK MAGIC THRIVES!!" he shrieked malevolently, and pointed up to the now illuminate Dark Mark in the sky. Hermione screamed in terror as the blood drained from Harry's face. The thing was glowing horrifically, the epitome of a child's worst nightmares were encased in one singluar symbold. "Your pathetic love has no strength in this domain. It's how I got you both here. Your hearts are not black enough to kill me with a Death Curse, so it transported you beyond this veil to me when that pathetic Soul Keeping curse was performed. Such are the symptoms of side affects." Voldemort laughed as he continued, "And if you both had wands, and the flowing hatred enough to do so, one of you could have indeed killed me." This snake-like tone dropped as he seethed, "Such is the punishment of a valiant and true heart." His wand was now raised at the two of them, Hermione clenched onto Harry still tighter. "But since you are both chaste and unarmed, then well, it's most unfortunate for you that I have no remorse in fould play, and at long last, my power will FLOURISH!"
This was it them. Hermione clutched Harry tightly around his waist. Harry's heart sank. There was nothing he could do now, and he felt like this was all his fault. Almost as though she were reading his mind yet again, Hermione whispered through a stiffled sob, "Don't you dare blame yourself." There was nothing either of them could do.
"I love you, Hermione," Harry said meekly. Fear subsided between the two as Voldemort cried,
"AVADA---"
"I love you too, Harry."
"---KEDAVA!!" As the red light shot from Voldemort's wand, the two held each other close and awaited their fate.
It was then it happened. A intense glow began to emit from around Harry and Hermione. The two opened their eyes to find they were covered in it warm, protecting brilliance. Acting as a luminous shield, the stream of red light, ricocheted back toward their hooded nemesis, and up in the direction of the Dark Mark. "NO!!!" shrieked Voldemort in a high pitched voice as the shot of red light sliced through his center like a ray of bullets. Hermione and Harry stared through squinted and wondrous eyes as the evil creature's body wreathed and thrashed from the continual passage of the light which had faded from it's crimson red to the golden yellow that encompassed the pair. The Dark Mark in the sky was shattering downward like broken glass from a window as Lord Voldemort's shrill cries pierced the blanket valley. His head flew back as the yellow light blasted through the slits in his eyes. His arms sprayed out in a cross type fashion as the light passed through his finger tips. Then with one last cry, Voldemort's body splintered into trillions of dots of light. The Dark Mark had faded into nothingness. Dumbfounded by everything that had just occurred so unbelievably fast, Harry and Hermione looked at where Voldemort had once been and then questionably to one another. Still encased in the beacon of golden light, Hermione asked,
"Is it over?" Harry smiled broadly and laughed.
"I think it is. I think it's all finally over." Hermione returned his triumphant laughter as they two embraced happily. As Harry picked Hermione up and began twirling them around, he noticed that his feet were rising from the ground. Both of their heard shot down to look as they saw the light which had just acted as their protector was lifting them up towards the black opening they had both transcended through, who knows how long ago by this time. Hermione kept her arms firmly about Harry as she gasped,
"What's happening?" Harry clung closer to her as they began to pick up speed.
"We're going back!" he replied. "Hold on tight, I don't know exactly how this is going to work!" Hermione let out a high squeal as they rose upwards at earth shattering speed. They shot through the veil's opening like an exploding cork, and fell. Only this time it would be on familiar ground.
The same piercing fear which had crept over Hermione the night Harry died came back to her in a sudden flash. It made her quiver from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes. She knew who lurked behind the tree. Her breath became short and shallow, but gradually it began to speed up. Hatred for this thing was beginning to take over her fear; this this that killed Harry. Ron was staring forward, mouth open, but his eyes were flaring with the same putrid loathing. Almost by subconscious impulse, Hermione pulled her wand slowly from her coat. She reached into Ron's jacket pocket and removed his wand before spinning around to see this monster vividly for the first time. She thrust her wand in Voldemort's direction, but wasn't in time. "CRUCIO!" bellowed Voldemort as a shot of light emitted from his wand. Snapping out of his stupor, Ron pulled Hermione into him and whirled them both around. He screamed out in agony as the force of the blow shattered his back with the pain of a thousand nails.
"RON!" Hermione cried, as Ron's grip slid down her shoulders and released her as he sank to the ground. He was wringing, shaking, and howling the most horrific screams. Hermione knelt down to his side, but felt helpless as there was nothing she knew to do to ease this curse. So she reasoned to cradle him in her arms as Voldemort slinked towards them. As he approached, Hermione glared up at the cloaked Dark Lord through deathly, bloodshot eyes which were now beginning to well in tears at the sound of Ron's torture. Tears of anguish were running down Ron's cheeks as he whimpered into her Hermione's …" He sucked in another painful throb through gritted teeth, as Hermione whispered,
"Not a chance." Ron clenched at Hermione's jacket, and she held him tighter.
"I have no regret in killing the boy for you," Voldemort hissed as he neared her. "It's up to you." Ron was heaving as though he were in the midst of a fit. Hermione's heart ached at hearing him moan, but she was not going to show her fear to this dark creature. Her blood was racing, as she knew what to do. Ron knew that look and it petrified him. He knew she was about to attempt something stupid.
"No, Hermione," he pleaded. "Run, let me die and run!" he gasped. Hermione smiled at him, and ran a mitten smoothly over his cheek. Too weak to fight her relinquish of his body, Ron watched Hermione rise to stare down this vile creature. Her knees were shaking, but her boiling blood kept her on her feet. The two were now merely inches away. Voldemort's thin slit of a mouth curled.
"Not afraid to die, you foolish Mudblood witch?" he seethed.
"Terrified," she stammered. "But it will be a consolation to know that you are coming with me." The gleeful smirk faded from Voldemort's face as Hermione pointed Ron's wand at his heart as the two screamed simultaneously,
"AVADA KEDAVA!" Through the forcefully blinding red light that emitted from the two wands, Hermione felt a force pull her from the pit of her stomach, as though she were traveling by portkey. The graveyard grounds faded away as Hermione heard Ron cry out her name. She was soaring through a blackened tunnel, hardly aware of anything that was going on as her head spun in a million different directions. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, she was just falling. With a loud crack, she flew down faster and faster toward a blurred vision of someone below her. As she landed in her rescuers arms, she heard a deep voice fade away with her consciousness, "Hermione….Hermione….."
"C'mon Hermione, wake up. Hermione, please wake up," a voice echoed in Hermione's head. Barely able to comprehend what was going on, she shook of the eerie familiarity of the voice. There was no way the voice coule belong to the one she was hoping. He was dead. Slowly, Hermione opened her eyes, as a blurry image of a bushy haired young man with glasses was leaning over her, stroking her forehead. She could make out a faint smile upon on the stranger's face that showed a sign of relief. "You're all right," the blurring image said with an exhaled breath. He took her upper body in his arms and clenched her tightly.
Reluctantly, she placed her hands on the clandescent, torn, black school robes. Her vision was coming back to her steadily faster now, and she could make out the same framed shoulders she had embraced so many times over the years. The ones that belonged to a dead boy. "Ha--Harry?" she moaned. Harry released pulled her down so that her shoulders were now resting comfortably on one of his knees. With a slight gasp of shock, she gazed into his peircing emerald eyes that his behind the black wired glasses, and felt quite grateful she was on the ground. Had she been standing she would have surely fainted again. Harry broke into a grin, and nodded his head fervently.
"Yeah, yeah it's me Hermione," Harry said happily. He couldn't believe this whole scene was happening. He had no idea why, but all he knew was that it felt amazing to have his best friend in his arms like this. Hermione struggled for the words, but at last they came.
"But...you...I...saw....we all thought you were--" Harry clenched her hand tightly in his as he finished for her.
"No, I'm not dead. Neither are you." Hermione's hand was filled with the warmth of his touch. This entire situation defied everything Hermione knew about magic, but for once in her life, she was thirlled to be so very wrong. She threw her arms around Harry's neck again, as tears of happiness began to fill her eyes.
"I can't believe it, you're alive!" she said, joyously. "I thought that when Voldemort hit you with that light.....and then....when I performed that curse...I--I didn't know I had it in me to do that." Harry smiled to himself as he replied,
"You didn't, Hermione. I don't know why, but somehow neither of us did, and we ended up here." He released her as they both looked around the vacant valley yet again. "Wherever here is," he added. The next few words Hermione would never forget. He looked her square in the eyes and uttered, "The spell worked, but I still wish you hadn't gone through with it." Hermione flushed pretty shades of pink and then an embarrased white, as she found the strength to pull from Harry's arms. She didn't even have to ask what he was talking about. As always, she just knew.
"You know then?" Hermione squeaked, now taking great care to avoid those dazzling eyes. "How did you find out?" Harry didn't feel like explaining. The guilt that was welling up inside him was too strong.
"At first, I swore that if I ever saw you again, I would pitch a fit about how incredibly stupid you were to try something that dangerous. I certainly wasn't worth it." Hermione felt her heart jump into her throat at the curtness in Harry's voice. The sting quickly melted, as he turned from her, and gazed out over the barreness beside them. He wrapped his arms tightly around his knees as he sat there and allowed the dry breeze to blow through his hair. "But then it made me sick," he continued, "to know you would do that for me. To know that you......you....loved...me that much." Hermione could feel the awkwardness arousing in his voice and it bit at her like an annoying fire ant. "What's more, I was afraid. Afraid that I would never get out of here so I could tell you---" Harry broke off to suck in a deep breath so the words could come easier. "I'm sorry for being such a blind idiot all these years, Hermione. I couldn't see anything, ever, past my own selfish obessessions of trying to prove myself to the entire world, when that wasn't even necessary. Through it all, you were right there, and, it was always the world that I relied on. You would have never let me down, you had, would, and did, give up everything for me." Harry closed his eyes as he finished, "And I have always loved you for it." There was a moment's pause, before Hermione's laughter broke the silence, and flung backwards onto a patch of decaying grass. Harry was about to become furiously angry with her for laughing at him before she said,
"I get it, I get it. So, when do we get to the part where I wake up?" She covered her face with her hands to suppress her tiny giggles. "This has been the most VIVID dream--"
"You're not dreaming!" Harry cried, almost desperately, as he tore Hermione's hands away from her now astonished face. A look of shock overtook Harry at realizing his own actions, making him feel clumsily out of place. That and the fact that two-thirds of his body was now pressing against Hermione gently. Gratefully it was his upper half, but on the other hand......Not even the sharpest knife could have cut through the peircing stares that Hermione and Harry exchanged. Finally, Hermione spoke,
"No....no, I'm not. I just can't believe...I've waited to hear you say those thing fo so long. I thought you were dead." Tears came to her eyes, as she allowed her hands to travel up Harry's arms and around his neck. Harry was doing all he could to hold his position abover Hermione without crushing her. A feat that he was starting to lose as his hands suddenly ached to hold her like he never had before. "I was beginning to doubt everything I had ever believed in." Hermione's hands continued their journey up Harry's arms to his bushy strands of hair. Then one hand brushed along his cheeks with the tips of her fingertips. "But I will never doubt anything again." Harry smiled weakly.
"I am a very dangerous person to love, Hermione." Hermione shook her head as she then leaned in for his lips.
"I think we will both be agreed where we're concerned..." their lips were now only millimeters apart as Hermione whispered, "....danger is something we can handle." Their lips met in a warm, savoring kiss. Harry caved his arms around Hermione, forgetting the hold he was trying to maintain abover her, as their kiss deepened. Hermione could feel Harry's heart pounding against her chest, as a wave of joy spwet over the two of them so strongly that both were certain they would die right there.
Just then, a sinister, serpent laugh from behind them caused their romantic moment to stop in mid-passion. Harry opened his eyes slowly and looked to his right as his lips unlocked from Hermione's. Hermione turend her head in the same direction as his, and her heart stopped as they bother faced Lord Voldemort yet again.
"This maniac has an unhealthy obsession with trying to kill me," Harry thought. His hand ran down the right side of Hermione's body that was concealed from Voldemort's view. "Where's your wand?" he muttered through clenched teeth, trying hard not to move his lips. Before Hermione could even answer, Harry had grabbed her, and rolled them dodgedly across the grass to avoid the light of an oncoming curse from Voldemort's wand. Harry curled right onto his feet like a looming cat, ducking low, keeping both eyes on the cloaked figure to try to guess his next move. Slowly, the Dark Lord was advancing on them both. Hermione still had her arms wrapped around Harry's neck, as they slowly stood, to maintain her balance. She was still very weak from her last encounter Voldemort.
"You can't kill us Voldemort! You do know that!" Harry cried arrogantly. The evil fiend before them merely laughed, those little red eyes twinkling.
"Foolish boy," he sneered. "maybe seperately you two are invinsible. Seperate and in a position where you both are safe, not to mention in controllable power. But behind this vewil, ONLY DARK MAGIC THRIVES!!" he shrieked malevolently, and pointed up to the now illuminate Dark Mark in the sky. Hermione screamed in terror as the blood drained from Harry's face. The thing was glowing horrifically, the epitome of a child's worst nightmares were encased in one singluar symbold. "Your pathetic love has no strength in this domain. It's how I got you both here. Your hearts are not black enough to kill me with a Death Curse, so it transported you beyond this veil to me when that pathetic Soul Keeping curse was performed. Such are the symptoms of side affects." Voldemort laughed as he continued, "And if you both had wands, and the flowing hatred enough to do so, one of you could have indeed killed me." This snake-like tone dropped as he seethed, "Such is the punishment of a valiant and true heart." His wand was now raised at the two of them, Hermione clenched onto Harry still tighter. "But since you are both chaste and unarmed, then well, it's most unfortunate for you that I have no remorse in fould play, and at long last, my power will FLOURISH!"
This was it them. Hermione clutched Harry tightly around his waist. Harry's heart sank. There was nothing he could do now, and he felt like this was all his fault. Almost as though she were reading his mind yet again, Hermione whispered through a stiffled sob, "Don't you dare blame yourself." There was nothing either of them could do.
"I love you, Hermione," Harry said meekly. Fear subsided between the two as Voldemort cried,
"AVADA---"
"I love you too, Harry."
"---KEDAVA!!" As the red light shot from Voldemort's wand, the two held each other close and awaited their fate.
It was then it happened. A intense glow began to emit from around Harry and Hermione. The two opened their eyes to find they were covered in it warm, protecting brilliance. Acting as a luminous shield, the stream of red light, ricocheted back toward their hooded nemesis, and up in the direction of the Dark Mark. "NO!!!" shrieked Voldemort in a high pitched voice as the shot of red light sliced through his center like a ray of bullets. Hermione and Harry stared through squinted and wondrous eyes as the evil creature's body wreathed and thrashed from the continual passage of the light which had faded from it's crimson red to the golden yellow that encompassed the pair. The Dark Mark in the sky was shattering downward like broken glass from a window as Lord Voldemort's shrill cries pierced the blanket valley. His head flew back as the yellow light blasted through the slits in his eyes. His arms sprayed out in a cross type fashion as the light passed through his finger tips. Then with one last cry, Voldemort's body splintered into trillions of dots of light. The Dark Mark had faded into nothingness. Dumbfounded by everything that had just occurred so unbelievably fast, Harry and Hermione looked at where Voldemort had once been and then questionably to one another. Still encased in the beacon of golden light, Hermione asked,
"Is it over?" Harry smiled broadly and laughed.
"I think it is. I think it's all finally over." Hermione returned his triumphant laughter as they two embraced happily. As Harry picked Hermione up and began twirling them around, he noticed that his feet were rising from the ground. Both of their heard shot down to look as they saw the light which had just acted as their protector was lifting them up towards the black opening they had both transcended through, who knows how long ago by this time. Hermione kept her arms firmly about Harry as she gasped,
"What's happening?" Harry clung closer to her as they began to pick up speed.
"We're going back!" he replied. "Hold on tight, I don't know exactly how this is going to work!" Hermione let out a high squeal as they rose upwards at earth shattering speed. They shot through the veil's opening like an exploding cork, and fell. Only this time it would be on familiar ground.