Hermione was sitting watching the nervous students in the Great Hall when Fawkes appeared next to her. She swiftly took the letter he offered her, at which point Fawkes disappeared as swiftly as he arrived. Hermione looked at the letter written in Dumbledore's familiar handwriting. It said:
Hermione,
A group of Death Eaters has entered the secret passages and is moving towards you. They must be planning to attack you. Please look after the students and try to keep them calm.
Good Luck,
Dumbledore
"Damn," Hermione said quietly.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked. Hermione showed him the letter. After reading it through twice, Ron swore feelingly. "What are we going to do?"
"Call the others over here. Quietly Ron," Hermione said, preventing Ron from shouting to the other DA members as it looked as if he was going to do. "We don't want to start a panic." The two Gryffindors quietly set about assembling all the DA that was in the area. Soon the six of them had gathered together away from everybody else.
"What's the problem?" Ernie asked.
"Dumbledore sent me a letter," Hermione replied. "Apparently we've got several Death Eaters coming towards us."
"Bugger," Ernie said mildly. "What should we do?"
"Well, I think the students would be safe in the common rooms," Hermione responded. "The Death Eaters would have trouble getting past the guardians. I'm not certain we can get them there without a panic though."
"The Hufflepuff common room's nearest," Hannah said. "We might be able to rush everybody there in an emergency."
"That might work, but if we try to move them now it would be chaotic."
"How long do we have before they get here?" Padma asked.
"I don't know," Hermione responded. "Dumbledore didn't say. They might arrive at any minute."
"We'd better get ready to move everybody then," Ernie said.
"You're right. Ron, do you have the Marauder's Map?" Hermione asked.
"Here?" Ron replied, obviously surprised at the question "No."
"Then get it and get back here as quickly as you can, please. It would be useful to see where the Death Eaters are on the map." Ron left to return to the Gryffindor common room. Hermione turned to the other DA members. "Padma, Hannah, try to get the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs ready to leave. Ernie, tell Ron to do the same with the Gryffindors when he gets back. I think we'll want to keep everybody taking NEWT Defence Against the Dark Arts here though. They should be of some help in delaying the Death Eaters."
"What are you going to be doing?" Zacharias asked her.
"Distracting Malfoy," Hermione replied, an extremely sour look on her face. "I don't think we want him knowing what we're up to."
As the prefects moved off to make preparations for the imminent Death Eater attack, Hermione walked over to the Slytherin table. Pansy Parkinson saw her arrival. "What do you want, Granger?" the pug-faced Slytherin prefect asked.
"I'm here to talk with your boyfriend," Hermione said with a false sweetness reminiscent of Professor Umbridge.
"What if he doesn't want to talk to you?" Pansy asked belligerently.
"Then unfortunately for him," Hermione said, her temper shorter than normal, "I'm the Head Girl and the witch Professor Dumbledore put in charge of looking after the students. I will either make him talk to me or deal with one of the other Slytherin prefects instead."
"As if that would do you any good," Pansy responded scathingly. "None of the Slytherin prefects is going to listen to a Mudblood like you, not if they know what's good for them at any rate. And Draco's too busy to speak to you anyway."
"I'm going to talk to Malfoy, whether you like it or not Parkinson. Do you want to try and stop me?" Hermione demanded of the other witch.
"I most certainly do." Pansy went for her wand and attempted to stun Hermione. Although she was caught by surprise, Hermione swiftly cast a shield charm, reflecting the spell back towards Pansy who dived out of the way. Pansy changed tack, attempting to attack Hermione with a spell similar to the bat-bogey hex. Hermione again countered the spell and was preparing to take the offensive when the impromptu duel was interrupted. The exchange of spells had naturally drawn the attention of the nearby Slytherins, most of whom were cheering Pansy on. A few, however, were not doing so and one of them intervened. "Expelliarmus!" a deep female voice called out. Pansy's wand was sent flying out of her hand. Everybody turned to look in the direction the spell had come from.
"What did you do that for?" Pansy asked her bigger housemate.
"Are you out of your mind, Pansy?" asked Millicent Bulstrode. "An unprovoked attack on the Head Girl, especially when she's been put in charge of all the students by the headmaster. You'll be lucky if you only get detention out of this."
"It's the end of the year, Bulstrode," Pansy responded defiantly. "Why would I care what happens? We're going to be leaving school soon, and with any luck the Dark Lord is going to take over anyway. It's the perfect time to give the Mudblood what she deserves."
"Don't be stupid Pansy," Millicent said with a sneer very similar to Snape's. "Granger's much better than you are. You don't have a chance of beating her in a duel, even with the surprise attack you managed to get off."
"Of course I can beat that Mudblood," Pansy said arrogantly. "If she wasn't every teacher's favourite she'd never have got the marks she has."
Millicent snorted. "Then why," she asked, "has Granger got consistently better marks than you in Potions? Our head of house can't stand her any more than the rest of us. That's not even considering that she took as many NEWTs as the two of us put together. And she's consistently been one of the best in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Only Potter's been able to beat her. Face it; Granger's more than capable of defending herself."
"Why did you butt in, Bulstrode? Nobody asked you to get involved," Pansy responded sullenly, obviously unwilling to concede Millicent had a point. "Have you become a Mudblood lover all of a sudden?"
"Don't be a prat, Pansy," Millicent said wearily shaking her head. "Of course I haven't started liking Granger. She's got almost as much use for Slytherins as I have for Gryffindors. And you might perhaps have noticed my past dealings with her?" Millicent added sarcastically.
"Then why are you helping her?" Pansy demanded.
"Pansy, I'm not helping her," Millicent responded calmly. "I'm keeping you and every other Slytherin safe. It might have escaped your notice," she continued sarcastically, "but we are slightly outnumbered here. If you harm the Head Girl you'll have at least the other seventh year prefects retaliating, and with them would come about half their houses, more in the case of Gryffindor. We'd have a damn battle on our hands here, and now is not the time for that."
"Fine then," Pansy said sulkily. "Since you're so keen to keep everybody safe you can deal with Granger." She stalked off to put as much difference as possible between herself and Hermione, pausing only to retrieve her wand. The other Slytherins, not wanting to deal with the Muggleborn Gryffindor Head Girl or the exasperated Millicent Bulstrode also dispersed, leaving the two seventh years alone.
"Thank you," Hermione said to Millicent, obviously surprised that the girl who had tormented and assaulted her on several occasions had intervened on her behalf.
"Don't thank me," Millicent responded. "What I told Pansy was the truth. I didn't get involved for your sake. Now, what do you want Granger?"
"I came over here to see Draco Malfoy. Do you know where he is?" Hermione asked, still surprised that she was able to have a civil conversation with Millicent Bulstrode.
"I haven't seen him since he stormed over here telling everybody that You-Know-Who is attacking the school and that we'd be on the right side if we know what's good for us," Millicent replied.
Hermione, not fully trusting Millicent, thanked her again for her aid then made her way to talk to Ursula Smith who confirmed that Draco had gone, leaving Pansy in charge of the Slytherins. 'That partly explains her belligerence,' Hermione thought as she returned to the other DA members. 'She didn't want me to know that Draco was gone. He might have told her to try and provoke a fight too.'
"What was all the commotion about?" Zacharias asked when she returned.
"Pansy Parkinson attacked me," Hermione replied. "I think she wanted to prevent me finding out that Malfoy has gone missing."
"Gone missing?" Zacharias repeated incredulously.
"Yes. He's not been seen by any of the Slytherins in the last hour or so. I'm not sure what he's been doing," Hermione continued, "but I'm sure it can't be good. Malfoy never does anything to help anybody that's not a pureblood fanatic."
"What did my sister have to say about the Slytherins?" Zacharias enquired, obviously interested despite his earlier protests that the two of them did not get along.
"Nothing overly useful, I'm afraid," Hermione said ruefully. "She confirmed what Bulstrode told me about Malfoy then said that the Slytherins are pretty divided. About half of them seem willing to follow Malfoy's lead, nearly as many are apparently unready to openly commit themselves to any side, while a few have declared themselves loyal to Dumbledore."
"I'd imagine the Dumbledore loyalists are a bit uncomfortable at the minute," Zacharias said with considerable understatement.
"Surprisingly, the followers of Malfoy, meaning essentially those who will follow Voldemort," Zacharias flinched at the name, a reaction Hermione completely ignored, "haven't done anything to the Dumbledore loyalists yet. From what Bulstrode said, I think they may be worried about starting a battle while they don't have any Death Eaters to help them."
"That seems a bit too clever for Malfoy," Zacharias noted. "He normally doesn't care what anybody who isn't a pureblood thinks."
"I know," Hermione said, agreeing with Zacharias's assessment of the situation. "From what Ursula told me, I think it's Nott's idea. He hasn't openly declared for Voldemort yet," Zacharias flinched again, "but it looks like he's quietly trying to persuade as many people as he can that the Death Eaters are going to win. Ursula's been doing everything she can to counter his arguments, but the Slytherins most inclined to agree with Nott don't exactly respect her."
"Why's that?" Zacharias demanded, less than happy at the implied insult to his sister. "She's every bit as much a pureblood as Nott is."
"Yes," Hermione responded matter-of-factly, "but Nott doesn't have you for a brother."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Zacharias asked belligerently.
"I mean Nott doesn't have any Hufflepuff relatives," Hermione explained. "If you were a Ravenclaw you'd be tolerated. If you were a Gryffindor you might be grudgingly respected, but the pureblood fanatics see Hufflepuffs as beneath contempt. That attitude is really working against your sister. To be honest," she continued, "I'm not really surprised about the general Slytherin attitude. They're not going to want to choose sides until they have to. Which way most of them will jump I really can't say."
Just as Hermione finished telling Zacharias what was going on with the Slytherins, a breathless Ron ran into the Great Hall. "We've got trouble," he said immediately, drawing stares from most of the students. Hermione gave him a reproachful look, at which Ron moved closer to the two DA members and lowered his voice. "Sorry about that, Hermione, but we really have got serious trouble."
"What's the problem Ron?" Hermione asked.
"Look," Ron said, laying the Marauder's Map in front of her. "Down here where this secret passage from Hogsmeade connects to the castle." Ron pointed to the map where a name could be clearly seen – Peter Pettigrew. "Wormtail's going to pop his rat-like head into the castle any time now, and you can be sure the other Death Eaters won't be far behind. If you look closely," Ron continued, gesturing at the map once again, "you can see several other names inside the passage. I don't recognise most of them, but we've met these three before."
"Yes," Hermione said quietly. "Algernon Rookwood, Rabastan Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov. I doubt they'll have forgotten or forgiven us either."
"How long before they get here?" Zacharias put in.
"It's not easy to say," Hermione responded. "Wormtail will probably dawdle a bit to make sure he's safe, but the other Death Eaters will likely move quicker."
"They already are," said Ron, returning the others' attention to the map. "The Death Eaters have speeded up. I think they might be running now. That's not all though; look who's just joined Wormtail." Next to Peter Pettigrew could now be seen the name of Draco Malfoy.
Hermione swore, quietly but feelingly. "Malfoy's probably going to tell them exactly where we are. I knew his disappearance couldn't be good. We need to get everybody out of here now."
"How are we going to do that though?" Zacharias asked. "We might be able to move the Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws quickly and without trouble, but we'll never be able to do that with the Slytherins, especially with Malfoy's cronies working against us."
"He's right, you know," Ron said. "We should probably forget the Slytherins."
"We're not going to do that, Ron," Hermione said. "Dumbledore put me in charge of looking after all the students and, whether we like it or not, that includes the Slytherins."
"I know, I know. I wasn't being serious," Ron responded in a manner that made it clear he wasn't joking about leaving the Slytherins behind, or at least not that much. "So how are we going to do this then?"
"We need to get the others over here, quickly and quietly. It's a good thing I brought Harry's galleon." Hermione reached into her pocket and activated the DA's Master Galleon. Within moments, the other DA prefects had come to her side.
"What's up?" Padma asked.
"We haven't got much time," Hermione responded. "Malfoy's going to lead several Death Eaters here in a little while. We need to get everybody out of here now. Are they ready?"
"The Hufflepuffs are ready to go back to our common room," Hannah said. "I'll get them moving."
"The Ravenclaws are more or less ready too," Padma said earnestly. "There shouldn't be too many problems getting them to follow the Hufflepuffs if that's where we're all going."
"It will have to be," Hermione said. "We really don't have time to take everybody back to their own common rooms, so Hufflepuff is the safest place. Ron, go to the Gryffindors and get them moving as best you can. Padma, Hannah, get Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff moving too. Remember to keep the NEWT Defence students here if they agree though. Zacharias, keep looking at the map. Take Harry's galleon too. Signal the rest of us if the Death Eaters are near to anybody. Ernie and I will try to persuade the Slytherins to move with everybody else."
Everybody moved off to carry out their part in Hermione's evacuation plan. Within moments, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were moving towards the door nearest the Hufflepuff common room in a fairly orderly manner, although there were obviously some students less than happy with the situation. The Gryffindors were beginning to move in the right direction too. Hermione and Ernie, however, were having much more difficulty with the Slytherins. "Why should we follow you?" Pansy Parkinson asked belligerently, apparently voicing the thoughts of several Slytherins.
"Because, Parkinson," Ernie said, "we are the Head Boy and Girl and the headmaster has put us in charge of looking after all the students, which includes the Slytherins too."
"And why," Theodore Nott put in, "should we leave the Great Hall, the place where all of the teachers, most especially the headmaster and our head of house, told us to stay?"
"Why don't you ask your friend Malfoy when he gets here?" Hermione said. "I'm sure he knows exactly why we're leaving."
"Well, since he's not here," Nott continued, "why don't you spell it out for us. You do so like to explain things, don't you Granger?" he said sarcastically.
"We don't have time to discuss this Nott," Hermione said exasperatedly. "Now, are you going to do as we say or should we leave you here?"
"I think we'll go along with you for now, Granger. Don't you agree, Parkinson?" Nott said, looking briefly at the prefect who nodded, plainly willing to follow her housemate's lead. "So where are we going to be following you to?"
"The Hufflepuff common room," Ernie replied. "Everybody should be safe there."
"Why should we go to the Hufflepuff common room?" Daphne Greengrass asked, seeming genuinely curious. "Surely there isn't room for all four houses in that little cave of theirs."
"Yes," Vincent Crabbe said. "If we go to any common room it should be ours. We should wait here for Draco."
"Look," Hermione said tiredly, "we really don't have time for this. Hufflepuff's common room is the closest and there should be enough room for a while at least. Now, would you all please follow the Head Boy to the Hufflepuff common room?"
"Why not?" Nott said. "We have nothing to lose by doing as you ask. Parkinson, get our house ordered and we can then go have a look at Hufflepuff's miserable excuse for a dungeon." Pansy, completely ignoring the protests from Ernie and Hermione, made a great show of checking the name of each Slytherin to be sure they were there and ordering them by year and name. Several of the other Slytherins, most particularly some of the second and third years, seemed to regard the whole thing as a joke and took great delight in causing chaos, further slowing down the evacuation of the Great Hall.
"They're deliberately stalling, you know," Ernie said quietly to Hermione after the younger Slytherins had delayed the departure of their house for the umpteenth time.
"I know," Hermione responded equally quietly, "but what can we do about it? The two of us, three counting Zacharias, can't exactly force the entire house to get a move on if they don't want to. All we can do is try to get them organised and out of here before the Death Eaters arrive."
"All right, I'll go and have another word with Parkinson. Maybe this time she'll listen to me and either forget about this daft process altogether or use the bigger students to force the others into order." Ernie's tone of voice made it clear that he didn't hold out much hope that this would happen.
"While your doing that, I'll go and have a word with Zacharias. We need to know how near the Death Eaters are." Hermione left Ernie to remonstrate with the older Slytherins as she quickly moved to Zacharias's side. "What's happening?" she asked him.
"The Death Eaters are heading this way," Zacharias replied quietly. "Judging from the rate they are moving on the map, I'd estimate they'll be here in about a quarter of an hour."
"Damn, that doesn't give us much time," Hermione said feelingly. "How are the others doing?"
"Aside from the few students taking NEWT Defence Against the Dark Arts that have stayed here," Zacharias said indicating first the dozen or so non-DA Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students huddled together as far away from the Slytherins as they could get, then the area of the map where a large group of names could be seen gathered near the kitchens, "everybody is near our common room. They should be there long before any Death Eater can get near to them."
"Good. Now, I want you to lead the NEWT Defence pupils to the Slytherins. We've run out of time for appealing to their senses." Hermione quickly retraced her steps to the Slytherins, briefly glancing behind her to see that Zacharias was doing as she asked. When she got there, it was plain to see that the situation had not improved in the brief time she had been looking at the map. "Sonorous," she muttered quietly, then using her now unnaturally loud voice shouted "QUIET!" Every bit of noise in the hall ceased almost instantly. "Good. Now, since you are unwilling to move because you are asked to, I must tell you why we want you to move. This wasn't revealed earlier because we wanted to avoid a panic, but time is short. You heard earlier that Voldemort," Hermione ignored the predictable reaction to the name, "is attacking the school. Well, the reason we want everybody to move to the Hufflepuff common room is because a group of Death Eaters have managed to penetrate the castle and are now nearing here. If you don't want to risk waiting to see what they will do with you, go ahead. I would advise, however that you follow the Head Boy as quickly and safely as you can. Ernie, if you would please lead the way."
Ernie headed out of the Great Hall as quickly as he could with most of the Slytherins, now thrown into a panic by Hermione's words, hot on his heels, though a few of them, most noticeably Crabbe and Goyle, continued to hang back as though they were waiting for something. They left not a moment too soon. Just before Hermione left, the first black masked figure burst into the Great Hall. Hermione avoided the curse the Death Eater sent in her direction then slammed the door. As soon as it shut she cried "Colloportus!" ensuring that the Death Eaters would have to take the time to unlock the door before they could pursue them. Hermione then ran to catch up with Zacharias and the Defence students who, along with a few older Slytherins, were bringing up the rear.
"So what do we do now?" Zacharias called over his shoulder as they ran.
"We hope that none of them knows a short cut," Hermione replied.
"Is that all?" Zacharias asked.
"No, it isn't."
"Then what else do we do?" Zacharias enquired sarcastically.
"We run like hell and if we have to, we fight," Hermione said grimly. Nobody said a word in response, though they all speeded up, hoping that the Death Eaters would not catch up to them before they reached the safety of the Hufflepuff common room. A few minutes later, a loud bang could be heard behind them as the door Hermione had sealed was blasted off its hinges and the Death Eaters began their pursuit.