Chapter 22
Hermione smiled, and wondered if her life had been planned to end this tragic, this stupid, way. But when Voldemort stepped forward, his wand pointed at Ron, Hermione realized his simple but crucial mistake. Once again, someone had underestimated Hermione Granger.
"IMPEDIMENTIA!" she screamed, pointing her wand directly at Voldemort. Once again, he went flying across the room, and his Death Eaters roared their disapproval. The room filled with the flashes of light that signified curses, and Hermione pulled Harry under a bed.
"We can't use the spell I had planned on using," she screamed over the din. "You'll have to destroy his body! We don't have enough people for the other one to work!"
"Fine," he yelled back. "But you've got to distract him while I get the hatred up to do it!" Hermione pulled him back up and pointed her wand.
"STUPEFY!" she yelled, and someone fell over groaning. "Draco, you get your Dad!"
Draco nodded stiffly and pointed his shaking wand at his distracted father.
"ABICIO!" he yelled, and Lucius went flying across the room, hitting the back wall and slumping to the ground besides Bellatrix. A trail of blood followed him to the floor. Draco swallowed uneasily, and redirected his attention to the remaining Death Eaters.
"Hermione!" Ron yelled, blood dripping from a deep cut on his temple. "We can't hold them off much longer, we've go to run!"
She glanced at the approaching Death Eaters and nodded.
"Run!" she screamed, pushing Harry toward the door. They all broke into a full out sprint, Draco and Hermione running backward. Hermione saw Voldemort raise his wand and before she could yell "Duck" he had uttered the curse and with a bright flash of ruby red they were all violently pushed to their feet. Hermione groaned as she hit the hard bricks, and hoped that she wouldn't die.
"Pretend you're dead," she muttered to Draco, her ribs aching fiercely, who nudged Ron's foot. They all flopped limply and held their breaths. Hermione could hear the Death Eaters walking around them, watching them with disdain and disappointment.
"I didn't think they would die with such…" Macnair trailed off. "Dignity. I was rather hoping they would die in agony."
"Humph," Voldemort snorted. "Stupid children. Well, that's dealt with, we can leave-"
With a terrible cry Harry leapt to his feet.
"No you can't, Voldemort," Harry laughed manically.
Voldemort's red eyes widened, and Hermione could see the surprise in them, he reached for his wand. "What-?"
"This if for my parents, and for Sirius! AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry bellowed. A green light issued from his wand, and Voldemort raised his hand to block it, and fell to the ground, his mouth still open in shock.
"Master!" someone shrieked. "That filthy half-blood murdered the Dark Lord! Kill him!" Simultaneously they all raised their wands and opened their mouths to utter the Unforgivable curse, when Hermione struggled to sit up, summoning up all her strength and hopes, whispered,
"Abicio!" All five of the remaining Death Eaters went flying across the room and with a resounding smack, hit the far wall.
Hermione collapsed back to the ground, and everything seemed to fade to darkness. She didn't know what spell Voldemort had used to make them fall, but if she woke up, she was going to find out, it seemed very useful…
Madame Pomfrey entered the infirmary the next morning to find the walls covered in blood, six badly wounded and unconscious Death Eaters lying in wide puddles of congealed blood, four students who looked to be dead, and one completely and utterly deceased Dark Lord. She screamed as if someone had been murdered, and they had, bringing the entire school and Professor McGonagall to gawk at Lord Voldemort's pale lifeless body.
Hermione awoke the next day with a wretched headache and a sore back that hurt like a racehorse had sat upon it.
"Am I dead?" she moaned.
"Of course not," Madame Pomfrey replied briskly. "If you were, I doubt you would be able to talk to me."
"It's amazing what the dead can do," Hermione replied tiredly. "I wouldn't be surprised if I was dead and this was all a dream." Madame Pomfrey snorted irritably.
"Mighty good dream if you ask me," Madame Pomfrey replied. "The Dark Lord's dead, you and your friends survived, managed to put a bunch of Death Eaters back in Azkaban where they belong… Very productive for just one night, Ms. Granger."
"Oh, he's not dead," she said, looking down at the white sheets, knotting her hands together. "He's far from dead."
Hermione's recovery was quick, as were the others. It seemed whatever Voldemort had cast over them was intended to kill them, but something had prevented it from happening.
"I can't fathom why he used that spell, if he intended to kill us, because it didn't work all that well, did it?" Hermione said as they sat together in the infirmary discussing the previous night's events.
"What color was the spell?"
"Red, the color of, well, my ring…" Hermione said, showing them the ring Draco had given her.
"No, it wasn't," Harry said. "It was the color of dried blood, not that shade."
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked. "I was positive it was-"
"Hermione, what did you use to fuel that second shield?" Ron interrupted. "Because it wasn't magic, was it?"
"No," she said, blushing slightly. "I used the ring."
"But the ring's not a power source," Harry said. "You would have had to use your own life force to bring that up, or something equally as powerful."
"What did you use?" Draco asked, suddenly interested.
She blushed furiously. "I won't say."
"Just spit it out already," Ron said. "We want to know, and we saved your bum a few times last night, you owe us something!"
"Fine, fine," she snapped. "I used love."
"Love?" Ron said with a disbelieving expression.
"Well, I remembered what Dumbledore had said about Harry surviving, well you know, when he was a baby, and it was his mother's love that saved him. Well, I thought if I could use my love of all of you and focus it into something that would diffract it, that would create a shield."
"Brilliant Hermione, that's brilliant," Harry murmured quietly. "I never would have thought of that. This would also explain the flash of ruby red when Voldemort cast the Caedere curse."
"Caedere curse?" Ron asked.
"It's a curse that is intended to kill more than one person at a time, but most of the time it doesn't work, and only succeeds in stunning them all," Harry explained. "That's what Voldemort used."
"That would also explain why the spell color was ruby red," Ron said, suddenly excited. "Because Hermione's shield was still working, we just couldn't see it!"
Draco grinned. "So that's why we weren't killed straight out during the second go-around, because of Hermione's semi-permanent shield."
"But you'll notice that it had weakened in effectiveness," Ron pointed out. "Because I got a bloody nose-"
"And I got a great blow to the head," Harry said. "Don't you all see, the shield was perfect to hold off the major curses! We have to use it next time."
Hermione shifted her legs, as her foot was falling asleep. "Now, we need to discuss what we think Voldemort will do next."
"Does anyone know what happened to the Order?" Ron asked suddenly. "I want to know if my mum and dad got hurt."
"We should probably go get McGonagall's permission to go find out, or we could wait until Dumbledore gets back," Draco suggested, preferring the later, as he did not really want to meet Mr. and Mrs. Weasley after all the horrid things he had said about them.
Ron looked at him indignantly. "You may not be very close to your parents, but I'm not bloody going to let them get attacked by Death Eaters and not go help them out!"
A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed... and you know you want to do it again! Okay, just letting you all know, there are only five chapters left in this story, but I am working on the sequel as we speak... so it will be continued! Mwa-hahah! anglchel