Completed: (5/1/05) 11:35 PM
Posted: (5/2/05) 6:35 PM
A/N: Here it is. The final chapter. I really hope you enjoy it as I put forth a great deal of effort into making it perfect. I love this story very much, and I hope you've had as much fun reading it as I've had writing it. This will definitely be placed in the vault beside An Inevitable Fate, where it can be much loved for ages.
Mentions: My heart goes out to everyone who reviewed even just that once and especially to those who've been with me from the start: Rane2920072, dancing in rain, Mitsuki Ashya, ducks-rule-world, Black-rose23, StarDust002, MoonyNZ, and of course my muse meggiebaby81. If I've forgotten your name I'm sorry – there's just so many of you who've taken the time to write something and I appreciate all of it!
Plans: While there's a high probably of an epilogue because Meg demands it, it will become a DEFINITE thing if just twenty of you review with a 'yes'. This would of course wrap up everything that's been going on and answer the much debated question: 'Are the Marauders going home?'
He began to shake her. Each violent jerk slamming her head back against the tile and making lights dance across her vision. People were screaming and though a dozen sets of hands were yanking at him it only tightened his grip around her throat, and despite the bloody furrows she'd clawed into his hands in her desperation Harry was not letting go.
Her fingers burned from her slow suffocation, but she ignored the pain, curled each one in a fist, and with all the strength she had punched him right across the face. Harry rocked backwards, dragging her shoulders up off the ground with him, though the blow hardly fazed him at all.
"How dare you lay a hand on me, you filth," his hissed. Harry pulled back a hand to hit her and that was all that was needed.
Sirius came barreling into the shorter boy, his magical strength and momentum rolling the three of them over and then ripping Harry off of a flailing Hermione and careening across the dance floor. Blood trickling down her chin, Hermione sucked in and out but no air seemed to be making it past her lips. She was hyperventilating.
Remus was suddenly kneeling in front of her and she latched on to him, still struggling to get a breath past her frantically gasping mouth. She knew she had to calm down, had to breathe slowly, but all she could think was that she was suffocating and going to die. She needed air now.
"I've got her Remus – go help Sirius."
Cool, gloved hands cupped her face and though the smooth satin cooled her cheeks, it did nothing to stop her hysterics. Wide-eyed, Hermione watch Lily bite down on one of the glove's fingers and yank the whole thing off by her teeth. When the bare skin made contact with her own, air flooded into her lungs so fast she thought they would burst rather than collapse.
"Are you alright?" Lily asked, trying to get a lock on Hermione's darting honey eyes. "We need you to breathe, okay? We need your help."
"S-Sirius..." Hermione gasped, re-acclimating herself to the concept of breathing.
An explosion rocked the Great Hall, blowing a half dozen of the lights and raining rubble down on top of the two girls as they threw themselves to the floor. Seconds later, Sirius's body came skidding to a stop in front of them.
"SIRIUS!" Getting caught up in her thick gown, Hermione only made it a few feet on her knees before she came tumbling down and had to crawl to him.
"Gods, Sirius," she whispered, leaning over his chest and picking his head gingerly up off the hard ground. His face bore a few minor scratches from flying debris, but there was a long gash drawing a line from his temple to his jaw. "Come on wake up," she murmured, lightly tapping the uninjured side of his face while she lifted the hem of her gown to her teeth and tore a strip of the expensive silk free.
Another explosion sounded from the opposite end of the hall, and Hermione prayed that whatever was going on behind her could hold on a few more moments. Wadding up the silk, she pressed it against the wound to try and staunch the bleeding and somewhere in between, he'd opened his eyes.
"You're hurt," Sirius wheezed and coughed a bit and Hermione brushed back his hair with a soothing hushing sound, ignoring the dried blood on her chin.
"And you're an idiot." She tried to make it a joke, but it was hard to hide her distress as the blood had seeped through the cloth and was now dribbling down her arm. "I had everything under control..."
Sirius chuckled weakly at her joke and the action made him dissolve into a fit of coughing. She shushed him again and grabbed his hand, placing it over the makeshift rag.
"JUSTIN!"
Hermione gestured to Lily who reached out to take Sirius' free hand. "Lily's going to stay with you. Just keep holding that to your cut – it should stop the bleeding," she told him quickly, sounding surer than she felt. "I have to figure out what's going on."
"Hermione..." Sirius said as she got to her feet and looked down at him. "That's...n-not Harry..."
Hermione nodded grimly. "I know." The dress had to go. She could hardly move in the thick tulle. Dragging her hand across it, a jagged line sliced through each layer around the circle of her knees and the excess material of her once beautiful Vera Wang dress hit the floor. "Keep him safe, Lily."
Kicking off her heels, Hermione ran into the opposing flow of students trying to reach the doors, elbowing and shoving her way through the throng with Sirius yelling after her.
"I don't need a...babysitter!" He huffed. Sirius tried to sit up, but Lily pushed him back down with a hand on his chest.
"You've done your part," Lily insisted. "Hermione's the one that has to face Harry."
"No shit," he muttered, knocking off her hand. "But what about the others?"
"Others?"
Suddenly there were no more people to push through and Hermione staggered out into the open clearing the students had flocked to abandon and for good reason. Harry, completely unmarred from his fight with Sirius, was holding a flailing girl in a white dress above him, while James and Ron tried to fight their way through Justin Finch-Fletchley and some younger girl, who were battling back with a strength neither were capable of.
"HARRY!"
That got his attention. A pale panic-filled face surrounded by strawberry curls cried out to her in terror before Harry re-hefted his burden. It was Ivy Hart he was holding over his head; the fifth year, Ravenclaw prefect.
"Put. Her. Down." Hermione's eyes narrowed and her hands were up in position to attack.
"Did you enjoy the beating I gave your thrice-damned toy?" Harry laughed maliciously. "He flew a long way. Just like this pretty thing..."
Ivy screamed as she was hurled through the air.
"JAMES!"
The little girl he was fighting squealed as he kicked her off of him and ran for the falling prefect. He dove into one of the bordering tables to catch her and the pair rolled through a stand of candles then fell onto the floor. As James began violently trying to beat out the flames creeping up her pretty dress, Harry drew his wand on Hermione and the doors to the Great Hall slammed shut.
All the students were now trapped inside.
"I will enjoy flaying the flesh from your bones," Harry told her, twirling his wand. He was holding himself in a completely different fashion – taller, domineering, and more sinisterly. Not even his emerald eyes retained the spark that was 'Harry'.
"Do not think that because you wear the mask of Harry Potter, I will hesitate in killing you, because I won't," Hermione swore with complete apathy. "You are evil."
"Ahahaha!" The high-pitched, shrieking giggle came from the young girl; a second year by the name of Chrissy – her golden-blonde hair all curled into ringlets, her pink party dress neatly pressed, and a bloody handprint across her breast. "Death, Death!" She cried. "How good to see you again!"
Hermione recognized that fanatical laughter. It was the voice always ringing in her right ear; the one that haunted her sleep even now. And just like that...everything fell into place.
"Bellatrix," she hissed.
Chrissy clapped her hands excitedly together, Bellatrix Black's insanity turning her young, childish demeanor into a haunting parody of naïveté that was eerie to watch. "Oh, Auntie Death – you remember me!"
"You're dead now?"
"Mm hmm!"
"Good."
"Silence, Black!" Harry snarled at the little girl. "The Dark Lord may have killed you for his divine plan, but at least then I thought your damn babbling would stop."
"Who else would Riddle send in his front guard," Hermione said. If she kept them talking long enough, then perhaps Snape and Flitwick could break through the locks on the doors and get the innocent students to safety. "Bellatrix, Lucius," her eyes settled on Justin, cowering behind Harry, and her blood began to boil. "and Pettigrew..."
"Grudges, grudges mudblood," Harry said, toying with the end of his wand. Chrissy giggled inanely in the background. "Time to die."
They leapt at one another simultaneously and their fight began with flying fists and explosive bursts of magic. Though it was Lucius' soul now in control of her friend, he had gained all the abilities and strengths that Harry had, as well as his absolute raw power. The gravity training she'd put them both through gave their fight an inhumane agility and fevered pitch.
Hermione swung at his face while bringing back her forearm to block the punch intended for her gut. Harry blocked her as well and they shoved each others' hands back only to try and make bruising contact once again. As they exchanged rapid fire combos to breach the other's defenses, she watched Remus break the banister off of the bar and use the heavy makeshift staff to join the fight against Justin and Chrissy.
Harry's palm caught her fist and began to squeeze. She aimed to bring her elbow down into his face, but he caught that as well and with a grunt of force lifted her up off the ground and threw her back over his head. Hermione readjusted her grip to hold him now, and she twisted to put her feet at his back and dragged him down with her. Kicking upwards, Harry was slammed down onto the cobblestones above her head, but before she could pull herself back up, he'd dug his nails into her hands.
Harry didn't have the strength – no human did. But from his own back he lifted Hermione off of hers and threw her across the room. With a shout she flew through one of the hanging House tapestries, getting tangled in the thick green cloth, and broke through one of the tables in a heap of rubble.
"Leave her!" Lily shouted, as Ron tried to break away from Justin to go to her. "She's fine! Remus! Protect the students while the Professors get these bloody doors open."
"Prefects!" Ginny yelled, shooting an array of sparks into the air. "Rally to me! Form a line of defense—"
The floor began to tremble, the goblets quaking across the tabletops and clattering to the stone. The sounds of James and Bellatrix's magic ricocheting off one another dominated the hall. And then the pile of debris that covered Hermione exploded upward in a column four meters high. Like a string pulling upwards at the crown of her head, Hermione rose up onto her feet, but she was changed.
There was a strange, phosphorescent light in her eyes and she suddenly seemed more than the frail eighteen year old girl she'd been before. "MALFOY!" Her voice boomed through the Great Hall, warped and with a deep echo that made it seem as though many different voices were talking over one another.
The self-satisfied smirk fell from Harry's face. "Ava-"
Hermione flung out her hand and a pulsing blue whip of magic shot out from her palm and lashed itself around Harry's neck, cutting short his curse as he struggled to pull the noose from his neck. With a flick of her wrist, she grabbed a hold of the whip's end and gave it a swift yank. Harry dropped to his knees.
"I will not bow to your kind," he gurgled, degradingly, spittle falling down his chin.
Hermione pulled herself to the struggling wizard by keeping her magic rope taught between them. "I don't expect you to bow..." her voice echoed.
Chrissy hopped down off the table she'd been standing on, her ash wand held in her chubby fingers. "I think she wants you to die, Uncle Lucy."
Hermione slashed her hand through the air, and Chrissy shrieked as four bloody furrows cut through her cheek. "Naughty Death!" She howled and waved her wand viciously at Hermione. Deep gashes broke the skin on either side of her face, snapping her head back.
Grunting with the effort, Hermione spun around dragging Harry and lifted him up off the ground. As she turned back to her original orientation she let loose the whip and Harry crashed into the blonde, knocking them through the band stand. Through all this, she'd paid no mind to the sniveling spirit of Peter Pettigrew that had enslaved the prefect Justin, and so she was caught off guard when his spell exploded in her face.
She screamed in pain and lifted her hand to strike, but lithe arms wrapped around her own and held it back.
"Hermione NO!"
Justin hid behind his hands as he slunk around the broken stand to hide from the witch's wrath. The light in Hermione's hand sparked against the restraint, but slowly as if in a daze she turned to look at Remus holding tight to her hand.
"That's Justin under there," he whispered. "Whatever happens here won't change my feelings for you, but for the sake of the others – do what you can not to harm them."
Hermione just stared at him, the thundering noise of static roaring in her ears. The world around her had gone completely red, the warm tingling feeling that pulsed through her veins only felt before with such intensity that day on the training grounds with Tonks and the others. The beast inside was pushing, clawing, searching for a way out.
Magic exploded in front of them both as Hermione stepped in front of Remus with her arms outstretched to deflect the spells launched at her by a recovered Harry. Keeping Remus behind her, she vaulted herself forward and into a front handspring. Chrissy's nose broke with an audible crack as her foot impacted it and then she was riding Harry to the floor.
Harry broke most of her fall, but as she righted herself across his chest his fist came free and cracked her across the face. She recoiled from the blow and then backhanded him across the jaw, splitting his cheek against the cobblestone. "What is your purpose here?" She demanded
"Our purpose is His purpose," Harry snarled, showing the snake of Malfoy inside of him.
Hermione punched him again. He laughed at her, sending a dark trickle of blood down his chin. "You can do what you like to this body, harlot; the dead feel nothing. You're only killing your little friend..." Malfoy loosened his hold on Harry's soul for the briefest of moments – enough time for the expression on his face to change and Harry's bright green eyes to lock onto hers.
"Hermione," he pleaded, nearly out of breath. Hermione's hand stopped halfway into the air and her blank face turned to his. Struggling every second of the way, Harry reached up to touch her hand and only managed the barest of grazes by his dirty fingertips along her palm.
"Kill him..." Harry whispered.
Lucius took control again with a guttural scream of rage. "NO!" he bellowed, reaching for her throat. Hermione knocked both his hands aside, pinned them with her knees, and blinded him by unleashing the light of an exploding star in front of his eyes.
His pained writhing offset Hermione and her back hit the stone. Harry reared up into a sitting position, eager to be free again though he still could not see properly. "Disgusting mudbl-"
Harry choked and gagged as Hermione's magic wrapped its invisible fingers about his neck and squeezed the breath out of him. She herself staggered up onto her feet and with a shuddering effort, shot equally strangling nooses around Justin and Chrissy. She'd never cast a spell to this extent before, but somehow she was managing with the physical gestures of her hands as she lifted the paralyzed but struggling trio into the air above the trashed band stand.
"Truth!" She called, not taking her eyes off them.
"What are you going to do, Hermione?" Ginny asked, kneeling on the steps beside her.
"I'm going to save them."
With a shuddering breath, the beast found its freedom in slipping through her lips because she couldn't wait for Remus to come to her. The leopard roared in her head and she watched through its eyes as it darted around students, sprinted over tables, and leapt straight into Remus. He staggered forward, clutching his bronze staff for balance, and when he looked up his blue-gray eyes had bled to gold.
Her metaphysical beast slipped back inside her through her legs, carrying with it a link to Truth and the musky after scent of the wolf. The rush of energy exploded the pleasure centers flaming through her body and she gasped loudly; her fingers convulsing a moment on the invisible ropes and choking the suspended trio further.
All she needed was a look up through her lashes and she could see the blackness festering inside Harry and the others. She could see it slinking outwards through their veins like cursed ink, poisoning their bodies with its evil taint. The wolf and the cat were curled around one another in her belly, pulsing with light and energy and heat; mewling in her ear to take those dark seeds and rip them out.
So she did.
Reaching past their true souls, she found each of the evil spirits and snatched them right out through the layers of flesh and bones and into the open air. A torrent of wind cocooned Hermione, whipping her sheared dress inappropriately in all directions and yanking curls all about, sending their restraining pins shooting off to the sides like miniature missiles.
The three bodies were slumped above her, unconscious from the metaphysical drain, and the souls of Peter, Lucius, and Bellatrix writhed in the air above her like fish caught in a net. Watching their limp, translucent images jerking spasmodically – mouths open in wordless profanities – Hermione felt herself regress to something pre-civilization, controlled by primeval urges.
She wanted to tear them apart with her eyes, rip the metaphysical substance into so many pieces that they'd finally explode like a million shards of glass and disappear forever, hardly enough of them left to make it past limbo. And she knew she could do it too. Or she could squeeze them like oranges through a juice grinder, lock them up in boxes from which there was no escape, and bury them a thousand miles under the sea where they would never be able to cross and would spend eternity with the fishes. She could do that too. They tasted so good; like honey and cotton candy. She could just swallow their souls whole.
And for a long time, the tense situation ground to a halt with a windblown Hermione standing with arms outstretched to the captured souls hanging over everyone's head. The entire hall was caught in Hermione's indecision; no one aware of the dark thoughts and even darker ideas plaguing her consciousness.
Magic roared over all other sounds, creating a wall of white noise that tried to block out the world around her – not even Lily's moving mouth beside her ear made it past the barrier. But a warm hand on her shoulder did. Wordless, but screaming, the emotions rocketed straight to her heart; hope, love, and utter surety in Hermione.
Clinging to the strong convictions Lily had reinstated in her, Hermione pushed back all thoughts, save one, and brought her palms together in a stinging clap.
"I CAST YOU OUT!"
Hermione went down onto her knees and brought her palms slamming down onto the hard stone. A deafening boom echoed throughout the Great Hall and a physical shockwave accompanied it, staggering back the crowded students. The unconscious bodies of Harry, Chrissy, and Justin all floated lethargically down to the wrecked bandstand and were laid gently out as if some great hand was putting its dolls to sleep, but Hermione was only conscious long enough to sever the link between Magic and Truth before she collapsed face-first atop the steps of the dais and lifelessly slid down them to a heap on the dance floor.
The doors slammed open and there stood Dumbledore, with McGonagall and the other professors right behind him. "Get the wounded to the Hospital Wing!" He boomed. "The rest of the students are to remain in the Hall until the rest of the castle is secured."
Hermione, the trio, and a few other students were placed onto magical stretchers and sent whizzing up the grand staircase to Madame Pomfrey's care, while the other students huddled in masse at the Great Hall's center, the prefects forming a protective circle around them.
"Severus! You and the Head Boy stay with the children. Everyone else split up and search the grounds!"
The staff followed Dumbledore out and diverged down the two corridors and up the Grand Staircase, wands held aloft. The large doors drifted back shut on the smirking face of Draco Malfoy and the lights went out. Some of the easily-startled students screamed and the prefects hurried to calm them down.
When the lights flickered back on, the Great Hall was empty.
"Hermione...Hermione, wake up."
"Harry?" Hermione groaned and rolled over on the starchy sheets. Gentle hands were running through her hair and she took a moment in the comforting silence to rub at her eyes before opening them.
Harry was sitting up on the floor-cot beside her own and idly putting back some semblance of order to her ruined hair. He, or Madame Pomfrey more likely, had fixed his glasses after the second hit to his face had finally cracked the right lens.
"Hey," she croaked and rubbed at her throat.
"I'm so sorry, Hermione," Harry insisted profusely. "I tried to stop him, really—"
"I look that bad, huh?" She chuckled humorlessly. Harry held up a mirror for her to see into.
Hermione probed the bruised flesh of her neck marked with the ten purple imprints of Harry's fingers, examined the dried, but bloody, gashes along her cheeks, and gently fingered the puffy circle across the left side of her jaw. "Well..." she said finally. "Guys dig scars, right?"
Harry gave a short laugh and hugged her tightly to him, softly kissing her temple as though he thought her entire face was one big bruise. "Madame Pomfrey should be back any minute," he swore. "Since none of us were actually dying she hurried down to get the students with the smaller injuries while the Professors secure the castle."
"Uhn," Hermione groaned; a pain jolting through her skull. "Is Sirius here? He, uhn...got hurt helping me..."
Harry was more worried about the pained expression on her face then her question. "No, he didn't make it in the first wave," he rushed out. "What's wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need to lie down?"
She smiled. "I think it's...yes, it's probably a concussion. I'll live."
Running his hands edgily through his already mangled locks, Harry let out a pent up sigh of frustration. "Well, you were right. Voldemort did try and pull something."
A dry chuckle. "I'm always right..."
WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!
"WHAT'S GOING ON!" Harry shouted. The hands they clapped over their ears did nothing to lessen the booming siren sound pulsing through the hospital wing. Red lights began to flash spasmodically and the entire Hospital Wing was filled with pained cries as the injured were awoken by the commotion.
"SOMETHING'S WRONG!" Hermione yelled over the noise.
"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" Harry was fumbling for his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans.
"I PUT THE GHOSTS INTO THE ASTRAL DIMENSION TO PASS ON!" The hardest part was to get herself moving again and her joints creaked, groaned, and protested, but she eventually got up to her knees. "THIS IS SOMETHING ELSE!"
"WHAT?"
"I DON'T KNOW—"
"HERMIONE!"
Following Harry's frantic pointing, Hermione looked down and was shocked to be able to see the tight knit of the floor cot through her feet. From her toes to her knees her dirty legs had taken on a translucent tone which was only growing clearer by the second. The toes of her right foot were already completely invisible.
The night was anything but over.
Exhausted and overcome with stress, Hermione shouldered it all aside – knowing that to do so would result in a complete and total breakdown at the end of it all – because time was now a precious commodity and for the sake of her friends' lives she needed to stay focused. With a great fistful of Harry's dirty tux she tugged him up to her level and put her mouth right beside his ear – he had to hear every word.
"Harry – you have to listen closely," she said quickly. "Something big has happened and our friends are in trouble. There was...I brewed a potion. It works like a portkey, with a few altercations. I slipped it on the seven of you before the ball – it was on my gloves...it, it..." Hermione's frantically rushing brain hurried to find the words to explain. "If one of you was in the same place as a dress Vera and I put trackers on, it would bring me there as well..."
Harry struggled to comprehend her rushed speech, but her translucency now up to her ribs had him rightly distracted. "Dresses--!"
"One, if not all, of our friends are with Death Eaters now," Hermione finished in a pained tone.
"You're in no condition to go!" Harry exclaimed, clutching her arms and turning his head to look into her eyes. His were wide with worry and fear.
"I don't have a choice," she insisted. "I'll do all that I can to help them, but if I can't reach Sirius then my strength won't last long. You have to get Dumbledore."
"Dumbledore? I-I…Hermione, I—"
"Harry!" Hermione said firmly; his stammering stopped as she grabbed his face between her hands. Her fingertips were gone. "Dumbledore," she repeated. "You must. get. Dumbledore."
"How will he find you?" He questioned, eyes darting down her invisible body.
"The medallion!" Hermione exclaimed with sudden insight. "Find my medallion from Vera on my bureau."
Harry nodded frantically, but there was no longer the solid weight of her hands on his cheeks. In fact, her face was already fading away – the last part of her left. "You're coming back alive," he told her earnestly.
"And you have to stay here," Hermione insisted. "The Order needs you. I'll bring back our friends; I promise."
Harry reached for her, but his hands passed straight through nothingness. She wasn't simply 'invisible'; she was physically gone. "Hermione—"
"Stay hidden." Her voice was like a shallow breath of wind barely heard over the alarms. "Keep yourself safe..."
Her eyes vanished.
"Hermione?" Harry cried desperately. "HERMIONE!"
She never answered.
Deep in the bowels of Malfoy Manor, where the cobwebs were so thick they choked the air and the rats were afraid to leave their dark chinks in the wall for fear of the spiders, there had been built a dungeon for use in the crusades when the Moors were flooding across England in their fight against King Richard. Cells lined opposite walls of the long rectangular room with bars an inch and a half thick and slick with grime, algae, and other things that brought such thoughts to mind as weren't worth the horror of naming them.
There were dark stains across the stone floor, equally unnamable in their appall, that had been there for countless centuries or just a few days. For despite the filth and appearance of disuse, these dungeons had seen their share of recent prisoners. And on this Halloween night, at a quarter to midnight, the cold dampness of the underground room was replaced by the frightened heat of hundreds of young bodies as the entire student body of Hogwarts was portkeyed into the cells.
First and second years were screaming in terror and huddling in teary groups by the older children, whose own fear made them hardly braver. The prefects and seventh years were discovering the magical shields round their prison as their spells came rebounding painfully back upon them. Snape, the only professor that had been left in the hall, and a handful of students – the majority of them Slytherin – appeared on the other side of the bars; walking free in the long hallway.
"I KNEW IT! MALFOY YOU SNAKE!" Ron yelled from one of the cells. Pushing through the frightened students in their fancy ball outfits, he reached the bars wand in hand.
"You knew and yet still I win?" Draco sneered, unthreatened by the wand pointed at him. "That makes you even more pathetic, Weasel. Prissy."
The fifth year Slytherin prefect and dressed in a lime green gown, Preston Linae elbowed her way through a Ravenclaw and Theo Nott, drawing her wand with dangerous glee. Her honey hair hanging over half her pixie face and her heavily kohl-ed eye wide with anticipation she resembled the dementia of Bellatrix.
"EXPELLIARMUS!" She cried, waving her wand sharply. The jet of magic hit Ron squarely in his chest, blasted him back off his feet and bowled over a dozen of the students behind him.
"RON!" Ginny screamed. But she was on the other side of the room and out of reach.
"Mister Malfoy," Snape hissed, drawing the younger boy aside. "I was not informed of these plans."
Draco glowered at his professor and wrenched back his arm. "Our Lord has recently discovered Dumbledore's gifts in invading the mind. You were too much in the old fool's company to risk telling, Severus."
"Perhaps you would care to inform me, now," The sallow-faced man said darkly, and for a moment Draco actually looked afraid.
"He's going to kill them," Draco said. "Their blood will give him new life and no one will be left to oppose him."
"SNAPE NO!" Lily's cries interrupted. James held her back. "WE TRUSTED YOU!"
"James!" Sirius yelled from the other side of the room. "Keep her quiet!"
In the cell beside him, Ron wasn't moving. He'd seen first hand what happened if you didn't hold your tongue.
"You'd do well to listen to him, Potter," Draco said silkily, twirling his wand. "Learn to control your women."
He snapped his long fingers and Pansy glided to him like a dog on a leash, her pink ruffled dress whispering across the disgusting floor. Draping her arms over his shoulder, the currently dark-haired Pansy hissed at the red-faced girl struggling in James' grasp.
"I TOLD HERMIONE TO TRUST YOU!" Lily yelled. "TRAITOR!"
Draco murmured something in Pansy's ear, and the smirking prefect lifted her wand at Lily. Eyes widening in surprise, James finally clapped a hand over his girlfriend's mouth and dragged her back into the swarm of students and out of sight. Pouting, Pansy began to advance, but Snape grabbed her wrist and yanked her back.
"Enough of your party games, Mister Malfoy," he ordered. "What of Dumbledore?"
"He'll be too late to stop anything – he's still searching the castle as we speak." Draco laughed as the dungeon doors opened and Death Eaters in their own Halloween livery began entering. "Not even the mighty Harry Potter is in any shape to take on the Dark Lord. His own mudblood whore took care of that."
Remus sighed in relief and the painful grip he'd set on Sirius' arm lessened. "Hermione's not here," he whispered, and the taller boy sagged against the bars in equal gratitude to the Powers That Be.
"Thank Merlin..." Sirius whispered into the darkness. "Moony, I—"
"Padfoot...If I don't make it out of this..."
Sirius looked over at him in disbelief, his mouth parted in an 'o' of surprise. Remus' hands found their way to the bars and he gripped them tightly, looking down to hide his eyes in a curtain of honey-brown bangs.
"Please take care of Hermione."
"Moony..."
"Swear it!" Remus demanded. He glared up at Sirius stubbornly.
Sirius' mouth was pressed into a thin, firm line looking down into Remus' fierce eyes. "Of course I will," he answered finally. "You know I'd do anything to keep her safe…"
Remus nodded, albeit sadly, and said, "I know..."
Sirius clapped his friend solidly on the shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry mate. She'll have you for that; I'll make sure of it."
Narcissa Malfoy, widowed but no less devoted, lifted up the skirts of her gorgeous emerald dress with its black lace accents and strode gracefully but with purpose across the dungeons to the gathering followers.
"Mother," Draco greeted reverently. He bowed and kissed the back of her ebony-gloved hand. "Everything has gone according to plan."
"Excellent," she praised. "You are on the right path to following in your father's glorious footsteps."
Her sharp eyes caught on something behind her son, and Narcissa pushed him roughly aside to confront it. "Is something wrong, Jezabelle?" She demanded suspiciously of the sixth year prefect.
The blonde quickly cleared her face and corrected her posture. "No, my lady." She curtsied swiftly in her svelte black dress that laced up over baby blue sides. She looked warily over at Snape and then back down to the monitor display where images of every room in the manor were exhibited.
"Your Lord has just arrived."
"Oh James," Lily whispered. "What are we going to do?"
He rubbed her back comfortingly and shook his head. "I don't know yet. We'll think of something...we've got to."
"But with two of the Star's strongest points missing and the third unconscious...we don't have enough power to do anything."
"Well, we're not going down without a fight are we?" He smiled, despite the bleakness of their situation.
Lily smiled back and hugged him tightly. "I think I know now..." she whispered.
"Know what?" he asked quietly.
"Why I married you..."
"Ronald. Ronald, wake up!"
Head aching and his back throbbing, Ron warily opened his eyes and was met with the curiously scrunched face of one Luna Lovegood. "W-What happened?"
The blonde settled back on her haunches so he could sit up and twirled a particularly frazzled-looking lock of hair around her finger. "You lost."
He glared at the odd girl. "I can see that."
As if his probable concussion wasn't nauseating enough, Luna's dress was poofy and pastel rainbow; the water-colored streaks of pink to lavender repeating themselves over and over. "You're friends in the next cell over said Hermione wasn't here. I don't think Harry got portkeyed with us either..." she mused, flicking the wand she'd stashed behind her ear.
"It's up to us then?" Ron swallowed hard. He'd always been the sidekick, right? First Harry had been the hero, and then Hermione had come into her own, but he'd never had any problem being backstage. Was this his turn? He could handle it...no problem.
"We're so screwed," he whispered.
The dungeon door drifted eerily open and the sudden chill that descended on the crowded cells instantly silenced the prisoners and everyone turned to watch Voldemort descend into the dungeons.
He wore heavy robes of the darkest black upon which were designed nearly invisible serpents and symbols of evil and darkness in every imaginable tongue. The hood hung low over his face to obscure all his features and not even the skin of his hands was visible for he wore thick dragonhide gloves. And when he called to Narcissa his voice was almost human.
"Everything is ready for the ritual, my lord," Narcissa informed him, curtsying low and abasing herself before the evil wizard.
"Well done, Narcissa..." Voldemort acknowledged lowly. "The killing of your cousin, Bellatrix, has opened the gateway to the realm of blood."
Narcissa nodded her blonde head low and ignored the image of her cousin's bloody body Voldemort slipped into her mind. The black dress with its blood red roses and overlapping tulle had suited her perfectly, even if she was still pale and emaciated from her stay in Azkaban. Narcissa had helped her with her long hair herself.
And all it had taken was a word from Voldemort that Bella's soul was needed for his plan and Narcissa had taken an athame to her cousin's back.
"Are they all fresh?" he demanded in that same low voice that was just soft enough to send chills down your spine.
Narcissa rose from her curtsy, no sign of reaction to her cousin's dead image on her perfectly porcelain face. "Yes, my Lord. After the first phase of your plan was completed we waited for the severely injured ones to be removed, including Potter, and for Dumbledore and the other professors to abandon the Hall before activating the portkey."
As the face beneath the hood turned to survey the cells, Remus in his panic grabbed Sirius roughly and yanked his body against his. A startled Sirius, bent down awkwardly in his friend's sudden embrace, stood stiffly against him until Remus whispered for him to relax. Voldemort's eyes passed over them like a tangible weight and Remus held Sirius' head between his own and his hand, keeping his face between Sirius and the bars.
"Remus?"
"Shh!" The brunet hissed insistently, hugging him tighter and trying for all the world to look as if he thought he was about to die. It wasn't hard to imagine.
"Perfect..." Voldemort murmured, and his gaze moved on. "You have far exceeded your late husband's worth, Narcissa."
"My only wish is to serve you..."
Remus released Sirius with a breathless 'thank, Merlin' and looked down at his hand. It was smeared with coppery blood that was already trying to drip down his arm.
Sirius gaped in surprise. Remus had been hiding his wound from Voldemort...
Wincing as he did so, Remus tore a strip off his wonderfully new and un-patched tuxedo jacket and used it to scrub at the drying blood with a frantic fervor. "Whatever this blood ritual Voldemort has planned for us, it's keeping us alive a little longer," he explained as if demonstrating how to properly pot a mandrake. "As long as he doesn't see your gash he won't find the need to kill you before we figure a way out of this mess—"
He was cut off by Sirius wrapping his arms around his shoulders and hugging him gruffly. "Hermione deserves you," he said huskily in his ear. "You're a good friend."
"She deserves you too, Pads," Remus insisted. Then he stepped away. " 'Sides...she'd kill me if I let anything happen to you."
"NARCISSA!"
Everyone in the room turned to watch Jezabelle, who was furiously tapping away at the monitor console.
"What is it?" Narcissa demanded, picking up her skirts and striding angrily over to the blonde.
The prefect's fingers flew across the board as she relayed the message. "Someone's breached the Manor's gate—"
"WHAT!" Narcissa shrieked.
"—they've entered the building. Sending guards to intercept."
"Find them!"
Jezabelle's face snapped to the side as the back of Narcissa's hand met her cheek. A tiny trickle of blood oozed down her jaw from a cut made by the ring on the woman's finger. Gritting her teeth, Jezabelle ignored the stinging pain and went back to her work.
"Attempting to track now," she imparted, and then shook her head. "They're moving too fast – I'm having difficulty locking onto them." She grabbed an odd looking set of headphones and held one of the speakers up to her ear, continuing to type rather hastily across the keyboard. "They've cleared the first floor. Confirmed. The intruder is now on the ground level. Sending more forces to intercept."
"Dumbledore..." Voldemort growled furiously, and a collective wave of hope spread through the prisoners.
"No!" Jezabelle argued suddenly. Pressing a series of buttons with the tip of her wand, she touched the wooden end to one of the display screens and the room image it displayed projected itself up into the air for the whole dungeon to see. "It's Granger..."
Five prisoners lost their breath.
An audience of two hundred plus watched in rapt attention as the brunette witch blazed her way through all opposition on the screen. Her appearance was a sorry sight, but her actions belied her downtrodden looks. The two Death Eaters that dared try to stop her met with a blazing fireball she conjured over her head and bowled into them when it was the size of a bureau. It was just as well the display carried no audio, for the open mouthed, charred black bodies of the Death Eaters writhing on the floor was graphic enough.
"Detach that camera!" Narcissa ordered. "Keep her on that display!"
Jezabelle typed in a short sequence and the image wavered a moment before moving by entirely as whatever device that had been transmitting the picture sped off down the hall after Hermione. The breakneck speed at which she moved through the hallways had never been witnessed by most of the students – though all had seen how fast she could fight from the battle in the Great Hall – and they stared in wonder and amaze as her bare feet seemed to almost disappear beneath her furiously pumping legs.
She swerved off to the right and before the video-probe could follow, she was skidding back out again and resuming her earlier path down the hallway. It followed closely after, whirring and spinning around her head. Hermione shot a jolt of electricity at it, but the probe was already flying back around her and the lightening bolt fizzled out against one of the walls. She kept trying to zap the annoyance, but her pace never slowed.
"She knows where we are..." Dagon, the Slytherin Fifth said.
"And she knows we're watching her," Jezabelle added.
"What's she doing?" Narcissa commanded, leaning over the monitors' console.
Jezabelle fiddled with another display, checking on the progress of the guards she'd dispatched. "She's systematically sweeping through the entire floor. She may not know how to get to us, but she's going to find out..."
"Kill her!" hissed Narcissa.
"You incompetent woman!" Snape roared, stepping up for the first time since his words with Draco. "Are you watching the screen! You can't kill this girl – she's breaking right through your defenses like tissue paper."
As Narcissa reared up to answer Snape's insult, Voldemort lifted a warning hand effectively staying both their tongues. "Severus is right...this girl's blood will be rich with power and magic. Bring her to me alive."
Bosom heaving beneath her tightly laced dress, Narcissa turned her sharp face to Jezabelle, though her husky blue eyes were still sparking with the angry sting of her counsel being replaced by a snake like Snape. "You heard him," she snapped, and Jezabelle quickly moved to comply lest she be slapped again.
Another screen was projected beneath the first, but this one displayed a green-grided outline of the entire ground floor with coordinates mapping out the sides. "Granger is currently moving through Sector Beta –" a white, flickering blip appeared on the right side of the screen. "—your guards have taken up a position to capture at the coordinates Alpha-9 and Alpha-0." A significantly larger red circle came up onto the screen at its far left. The white dot, though darting into side corridors every so often, was quickly closing the distance between the two lights.
"Estimated time 'til contact?" A Death Eater demanded.
Another sequence of keystrokes. "At her current speed...seventy-one seconds."
Hermione must have seen them waiting because she stopped checking hallways and used the extra time to utterly demolish a heavy antique table. From the rubble she grabbed the long, ornate banister that had served as a connector between the table's legs and spun it over her head to test the weight of it. Satisfied with her weapon, she shifted it to one hand and ran straight for the waiting Death Eaters.
Jezabelle looked over at the prisoners pressing their dismayed faces against the bars and bit her lip. Back at the console she clicked a button with one long black nail and held the headphone closer to her ear. "Ten...nine...eight..."
The Death Eaters completely blocked off the end of the hallway, standing eight abreast and three deep.
"Seven...six..."
They raised their wands.
"Five...four..."
Hermione's mouth opened in a ferocious battle cry and the magic gathering in her free hand sparked and crackled with equal fervor.
Jezabelle raised her eyes to the screen. "Three...two...one..."
The white blip collided with the sea of red and disappeared.
"The guards have engaged the intruder."
Hermione barreled into the twenty four masked Death Eaters and all the visual-probe reported back was a blinding explosion of brilliant yellow light. When the dungeon was able to see again, two of the Death Eaters already lay dead or dying and the fight had begun with the girl in gold at its center.
She swung her staff in front of her like an arc, knocking back three guards then shoved it back behind her, catching another one in the face with its end as he came at her back. Hands grabbed her arm and she swept their legs out from under them with her staff, but still they held on. And when they were lying at her feet, with the arm they desperately clung to pointing down at them, she cast a petrification spell and the blast turned them completely to stone. Another swipe of her weapon kept the other Death Eaters back as she wrenched her arm free from the stony grasp and the petrified guard's arms crumbled with it.
Every spell imaginable, short of Avada, was being thrown at her, but most fizzled out before reaching her. The spells that did appear to make contact had no effect other than to slow her down for a half second or more. Stumbling back after one such barrage, Hermione stopped her attackers from rushing her by giving her staff a forceful throw like hurling a javelin. The blunt object pierced the stomach of two rushing Death Eaters and knocked a third one into a wall.
A kick at her back sent her flying forward and nearly skewered her on the staff as well. A bombarda spell exploded the stone in front of her face and the force sent her flying into the air. Her flailing hands found the chandelier and as she swung forward she kicked in the face of a guard and sent him crashing through his swarming comrades. One of the Death Eaters she'd beaten down earlier reached up with torn and bleeding hands to try and pull her down, but she let go of the light with one hand to blast the offending man off of her.
Magic exploded above her, severing the chain that held up the chandelier, and she screamed as the giant crystal monstrosity crashed to the floor with Hermione buried beneath it. Everything stopped.
The younger children began to cry and some of the older ones even began to yell obscenities at Voldemort, who took no notice of them. James was holding Lily's hand as she cried into his shoulder, and Luna sat wordlessly beside Ron as banged his fists into the ground and said nothing of the tears in his eyes. Sirius' face was buried in his arms and Remus was staring deadly at the floor. Ginny was sobbing openly.
"She had better be alive..." Voldemort hissed at Narcissa.
While one or two of the guards began dragging their fallen comrades down the hall, the rest converged on the mound of twisted gold and shattered glass in a circle and began digging through the debris.
Narcissa and Snape had resumed their scowling match, but Voldemort had moved to stand beside a stiff Jezabelle at the console and was peering intently at the screen. "Have they found her yet?"
Jezabelle shook her head; long blonde ponytail swaying. "Not yet—"
"There!" Voldemort pointed at the screen and Jezabelle moved to zoom in on the space at which he was pointing. A pale hand streaked with blood was sticking out of the pile.
The Death Eaters had seen it too because they swarmed to that spot and began levitating off the hunks of warped metal and ceiling plaster. One grabbed for her wrist to pull her out and the onlookers watched fixatedly as his mask fell off revealing a mouth open in painful screams and his entire body melted into a steaming pile of goo that dripped off Hermione's immobile hand with syrupy consistency.
The pile began to rise and fall, knocking loose debris clattering down onto the stone floor. The hand began to move. It twisted and turned to widen the opening around it and was joined by a second hand. The massive remains of the chandelier parted like a sliding door and a bloody Hermione tumbled out.
She was exhausted and beaten, but she kept fighting as the guards resumed their attack on her. The first two she merely punched aside while she regained her strength and the next met with a roundhouse kick that sprayed a stream of blood from his jaw behind him. Both her arms were seized and she fired blast after blast out of her palms, but the guards were holding them tightly away from themselves. Trapped between them, two more Death Eaters fired glittering red streams into her. Stunning Spells. Each one sapped her strength, but by no means knocked her unconscious as they were intended to.
"Their Stunners are having no effect, my lord," Jezabelle reported needless. "What do you suggest?"
"I don't care how they do it – just bring her to me..."
Grimacing in pain, Hermione pushed off the ground and flipped herself backwards, thus wrenching herself from their grip and when she came right side up again, she kicked viciously out at the one on her right. The heel of her foot connected solidly with their throat; breaking their windpipe and cracking their spine. Grabbing the fist coming at her back, she heaved the attacking Death Eater over her head and slammed them down onto the stone in front of her, denting it.
She sagged against the wall, breathing heavily and blasting off anyone that came near her with weak bursts of energy. The visual-probe whirred overhead taking in the entire scene as she finally pushed off the wall with a few staggered steps and began to lope down the hall towards the dungeon doors.
A red burst hit her in the back and sent her sprawling face first onto the ground. The six black-robed bodies that remained literally fell upon her, pinning her to the ground as she fought and flailed to knock them off. The probe zoomed down for a closer look as Hermione broke free from the hand holding down her head and screamed. Golden light exploded across the screen and after there was nothing but static and then a black screen.
"The probe has been destroyed," Jezabelle announced into the following silence.
"And Granger?" Snape inquired lowly.
Her fingers flew across the console for a second and then she shook her head. "The registered camera for that section has also been destroyed. Waiting for audio confirmation."
All eyes were on the blonde as she pressed and held a key, lifting the speaker back up to her ear. She listened intently to a message only she could hear while Voldemort breathed down her neck and the prisoners waited in tense apprehension. Then she lowered the headphones and said, "Capture complete. Confirmed. The intruder is under secure custody."
Jezabelle had the distinct impression that Voldemort was smiling underneath the shadowing cowl of his robes. "Bring her to me..."
She nodded and lifted her finger off the key. Abandoning her post at the console, she warily moved to stand beside Pansy and Draco, her eyes on the door. It opened moments later to accommodate the four surviving Death Eaters as they dragged a still struggling Hermione behind them.
A thick iron collar was fastened around her neck so tightly that each forceful yank from one of the four chains held by her captors drew blood and sent her crashing down onto her bruised knees. There was no way for her to catch herself either for her wrists were also bound in iron chains. She was dragged down the stairs on her side and barely managed to get back onto her feet before she was forced down onto her knees in front of Voldemort.
"Gryffindors are always so valiant..." he mused dryly, circling the prone girl. "Did you really think you could save the day all by yourself?"
When she didn't answer, he crouched in front of her and tipped her face up with the end of his wand. She spit into the shadowed expanse of his face, and the mix of blood and hot spittle dripped down the collar of his robes.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Narcissa screamed in outrage and several Death Eaters had to hold her back.
Voldemort wiped his face with a gloved hand and then pulled back his hood to the startlement of all. He looked completely human. Breaking off one of the manacles over Hermione's wrist, he grabbed it with a gloveless hand even as she was reaching out with clawed fingers for his throat. Hermione glared up at his smirking face and tried to rip her arm free, but he only tightened his grip.
Hermione cried out as his nails broke the surface of her skin and blood welled up over her bruised skin.
"You may not be fresh," he sneered. "But the magic in your blood will more than compensate..."
Eyes widening in horror, Hermione's struggles became more frantic. "YOU'RE CRAZY!" She screamed, yanking back only to be choked by forceful pulls on her collar.
She twisted around onto her back and managed to get a leg out from underneath her, despite the best efforts of her containers, and kicked upwards at the side of Voldemort's face. He caught her ankle only inches away and held her in that poor offensive position as his nails continued to bite into her flesh. With her now free hand clawing vainly at the iron collar, the guards holding the chains all yanked backwards simultaneously, bringing her head slamming back onto the stone floor.
Hermione screamed and screamed but there was no one to help her. The Death Eater's all stared down at her pitilessly, watching eagerly for their Lord to regain his power.
"Unicorn blood cursed me..." he murmured sadistically to her as she kicked her held leg vainly and yanked at her arm. "But bathing in the blood of these innocents will restore me."
With a sharp pull that nearly dislocated her arm from its socket, he lifted her bloody wrist to his mouth. His foul, hot breath burned the cut skin and Hermione whimpered. "But your's I'll drink..."
"NOO!" The prisoners were screaming in protest and beating at the bars. More light exploded as they tried again to break through with magic. However, nothing distracted the evil wizard from his ritual and he'd nearly covered her flesh with his mouth when a persistent beeping cut through the din.
"What now?" Preston wailed, stomping a green heel.
Jezabelle moved to retake her stance at the console, but Snape pushed her aside and billowed up to the monitors. Long, spindly fingers traced over the screens and searched through the probes with quick strokes of the keys.
"We have a problem..."
With a growl of frustration Voldemort shoved Hermione back and stood. "Put her in the cells with the others," he ordered with a wave of his hand. "I'll deal with her later."
As the black-robed wizard stalked over to the monitor display, the guards holding Hermione dragged the bleeding witch across the room and shoved her up against one of the barred walls. Unlatching her collar they gave her a swift blast to the back and her body was knocked straight through the bars as though they'd completely lost their solidity. Some of the students rushed the cell wall hoping for escape, but whatever spell had allowed Hermione to pass through was gone now.
Someone was binding the cuts on her wrist and Hermione struggled to sit up, but was finding it hard to do so now suffering from multiple concussions. That same person, or maybe it was someone different, moved behind her and propped her back up against them, holding her with an arm around her waist. A hand took hers and familiarity washed over her as her fingers were interlaced with another's.
"Remus..." she groaned and forced her eyes to open.
He was kneeling beside her all bright gunmetal eyes and warm smiles as he squeezed her hand softly and brushed the hair from her face. Hermione hadn't realized how much of her had thought she'd find him here dead, and seeing his face again – alive and whole – flooded her with relief.
"I'm so glad you're alright," she cried and flung her arms around his neck. The arm slipped from her waist now that Remus was there to support her.
Remus hugged her tightly and buried his face in her wild curls. "I thought they'd killed you..."
Hermione was crying. He'd rarely ever seen her cry, but the hot droplets of liquid splattering on his check and collar were unmistakably tears. She pulled back only far enough so that their foreheads were pressed together, but it was enough that Remus could see the saline tracks down her battered face.
"Don't cry..." he murmured, though he wasn't sure she'd heard him.
"I'm not going to lose you again," she whispered throatily and somehow through all of this they found each others' lips.
It wasn't the first kiss little girls dreamed about – Remus' lower lip was split and Hermione's were bruised and cracked and both were cold and tasting of iron – but they were together again and quite probably near death and it was the kiss they'd been waiting forever for.
"I'm alright..." she breathed against his chin when they parted with shuddering gasps, and gripped his shoulders to brace herself. "I can stand."
"Sirius help her up," Remus asked, as he held her arms.
The arm was back around her waist and the three of them got her standing again. Reaching down a bit wobbly, Hermione grabbed the hand on her hip and squeezed it gratefully. "Thank you," she said, smiling over her shoulder at Sirius.
After a pause he smiled back. "I'm just glad you're okay."
Rubbing at the lump forming on the back of her head she gave him a rueful look before moving forward through the crowded students. "Your definition of 'okay' and mine are vastly different..."
At the bars, she caught James' attention and waved weakly. He, Ginny, and Lily all smiled in relief and he blew her a kiss, making her smile too. Elbowing his way through the frightened students, Ron fell against the bars that separated their two cells and grabbed her hand.
"Don't worry," she hushed soothingly. Reaching through she brushed back his ginger bangs with loving care. "We're going to make it out of this, I swear. That's why I came..."
"And Harry?" He asked anxiously.
"At Hogwarts," she assured him. "Safe."
Ron let out a long, low sigh and they gripped one another's hands with painful desperation – each equally grateful to see the other still alive. Bringing his white, strained knuckles to her lips, she kissed his hand softly and they both smiled.
"Hermione..."
She looked up at Sirius as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Something's going on," he whispered and pointed towards Snape and Voldemort.
"—a second intruder," Snape was muttering. Hermione could see the grid display from her cell; a white blip was moving hastily up the screen.
"How did they get through the defenses too?" Narcissa demanded. Pink splotches were staining her ivory cheeks in her embarrassment and outrage. Behind her back, Preston and another girl were snickering.
Snape, collected as ever, scarcely granted the hysterical woman a glance as he worked on detaching the magical cameras. "He came up through the sewer pipes – you don't have any more guards left to stop him, Narcissa."
"Him?" She hissed.
Snape scowled down at her and projected the desired screen up over the blackness of the probe Hermione had destroyed. He turned to Voldemort. "It's Harry Potter, my lord."
"No!" Hermione gasped. It wasn't possible, and yet there was Harry, still in his torn tuxedo, sneaking along a grimy wall somewhere in the bowels of the Manor. Around his neck hung Hermione's gold medallion.
"You idiot," she whispered in dismay. "You were supposed to bring it to Dumbledore not use it yourself."
Voldemort began to laugh, blatantly nonplussed about the whole affair, and looked back over his shoulder at a hopeless Hermione clutching fretfully to the bars of her cell. "Why do you "heroes" insist on coming alone – it only makes it that much easier for me to kill you..."
"NO!" She screamed, blasting the cell door with the intent of charring Voldemort's body to a crisp. The magic burst rebounded on her and only Remus' lupine reflexes kept her from being thrown flat on her back for the umpteenth time.
Flinging herself back at the bars, she clawed for the laughing wizard between the gaps. "If you touch one hair on his head," she snarled passionately. "I won't stop until I kill you."
"Brave words...for a girl I'm about to suck dry..." He reached for her outstretched arm, the blood from her wound seeping through the makeshift bandage of Remus' dress shirt, and she recoiled reflexively before steeling her nerve.
She turned her wrist upwards, catching Voldemort's gaze on the crimson stain and shuddering in disgust as the sight of it ensnared him. Sirius tried to pull her away from the bars as the evil man stepped closer, but she only tightened her grip on the cage and it was Remus who pulled his friend away. The unspoken words "I Understand" hanging in the air between them.
Testing his bloodlust, Hermione moved her arm slightly. His eyes followed it. She repressed another shudder and took a deep breath. Voldemort reached for her hand and she lashed out, raking her nails down his cheek but missing the throat as he stumbled back.
This time it was Remus' hands on her shoulders pulling her back within the safety of the cell as Voldemort smirked and touched his fingers to the cuts.
"FILTHY MUDBLOOD!" Draco roared. "How dare you touch our Lord!"
Voldemort lifted a hand. "Silence, Draco!" He ordered. To Hermione, glaring defiantly back at him through the bars, he said, "Aren't you the insolent one? I won't leave a single drop of blood left to color those pretty cheeks of yours..."
"My lord," Snape said insistently, which led one to believe he'd been trying to get the wizard's attention for some time. "What shall we do about Potter?"
Voldemort turned towards the Potions Master with a sneer. "Let him come. After all...it's the "hero's" job to save the prisoners, isn't it?" He looked over his shoulder at Hermione. "We've also got her..."
"He's working his way through the servant quarters," Snape reported. He glanced briefly at Hermione and then back down.
Flicking back the long sleeves of his heavy robes, Voldemort clasped his hands together and turned to survey the cells. "Just how shall we occupy our time waiting for the young Mr. Potter to deign us with his presence?"
It seemed he'd taken particular interest in tormenting Hermione, for each word seemed to be directed towards her. He crossed the room and headed straight for one of the cells. Extending one of his hands he gestured into the crowd. There was a shout of surprise painfully familiar and then Lily was being pulled straight through the bars as she had been.
"LILY!"
"JAMES!"
The couple grabbed for one another, but Voldemort cruelly yanked her out into the hallway just seconds before their fingers touched. He left her sprawled on the floor and trying to regain her breath as he moved on to the next cell.
"I was always rather fond of red heads," he told Hermione silkily. She knew exactly who he was pulling out next before he even did it. Ginny scowled at him as his outstretched hand dragged her up to the bars despite Neville and Dean trying to hold her back.
"I remember you," he smirked, charmingly. He moved to tip up her chin but she snapped her small white teeth and nearly bit down on the flesh of his finger. "You've grown into quite the beauty. It almost makes me glad I didn't get the chance to steal your life force all those years ago."
He motioned upwards and Ginny's hands went to her neck as if some invisible hand was squeezing her throat and lifting her up off the ground. She passed through the bars and Dean and Neville collided painfully into their solid surface. Still holding the struggling prefect aloft he turned to Lily who'd pressed herself up against the bars and into James' arms. He flicked his hand upwards and her knees left the stone to the tune of her hysteric cries, trying to clutch to James' shirt through the bars.
"STOP IT!" Hermione screamed, as Lily's cries were choked out by that same invisible force.
"HERMIONE! DO SOMETHING!" James yelled, holding tight to Lily's hand with both of his.
Hermione lifted both her hands, crackling with energy and Remus could almost see her step into her world of red. "It won't work!" Sirius yelled, but the brunette couldn't stand there and let Voldemort do whatever he was planning to her friends.
"RON!"
The redhead fell to his knees and slammed his palms into the stone floor even as Hermione began the first of her violent barrage. The cell's wall was perpetually alight with her energy as every spell she sent at the bars exploded in a stinging blast of sparks and bowled back over her. This time she was ready, and as each blow hit her stronger than the first, she dug her heels into the stone floor and pushed right back. Beside her, Ron's hands were starting to glow golden-orange.
"Get down!" Remus ordered with all the authority of a prefect and the students in Hermione's cell all went down onto their knees and bellies. They threw their arms protectively over their heads as the embers that made it past Hermione rained down on them.
Voldemort was walking towards the room's center, the two flailing girls floating in front of him, and waiting for him at the edge of a dark smeared circle was Narcissa, athame in hand. It was still coated with the blood of Bellatrix Black.
Snape hovered anxiously behind her, hands folded into the sleeves of his robe.
The first scuttle went unnoticed as Narcissa lifted the knife in anticipation for the first strike as Lily was swung tantalizingly in front of her. The blonde shrieked though when the second scuttle sent a fuzzy body across her foot. She jumped and the dagger dropped to the stone.
"What?" Voldemort demanded.
"Something...Something – a-across my foot," Narcissa stammered. She whirled around searching for the culprit, but there was nothing. Only when she bent to pick up the athame did the black bodies came scuttling out from the shadows in a great ebony wave of legs and beady eyes.
She screamed and stumbled back into Snape, who seemed to only catch her out of reflex, as the flesh-fed spiders of the Malfoy dungeons swarmed up over their legs pinching and biting with sudden vehemence. The students instantly began to cry out in fear, but it was without reason as the large spiders seemed quite content to stay in the open hallway and crawl over the disgusted Death Eaters. The arachnid's focus seemed to be on Voldemort and he was invisible up to his chest in scuttling black bodies before he finally flung down the two girls to attack the annoying pestilence.
The two spots where they fell were instantly cleared of spiders as if they'd sensed their descent, and the two girls lay in clear gray circles among the throng of wild creatures.
Narcissa, silky blonde hair coming out of its once-sleek chignon as she frantically blasted off the disgusting spiders she hadn't even known were breeding in her own house, summoned the dagger out of the swarm of bodies with a spell. And handle clutched white-knuckled in her hand she shoved Snape away from her and began wading with fanatical determination toward the immobile Ginny.
"WHAT IS GOING ON?" Voldemort roared, but his minions were too preoccupied with their own problems to answer and Hermione had just noticed Narcissa.
"RON!" She yelled fervently, and in the blink of an eye rats the size of quaffles appeared out of every crack in the wall and scurried up the skirt of Narcissa's dress.
She cried out in pain as they bit into her, but she only swatted them off before continuing again.
"REMUS!" Hermione tried desperately, tiring quickly off the magical beating being waged on her. "Stop Narcissa! Bring her DOWN!"
"What can I do?" Remus exclaimed.
"Whatever it is," Sirius said. "Do it quick!"
The brunet nodded and set to work even as Hermione collapsed from the strain of her futile endeavors and fell back into Sirius' waiting arms. Remus was awarded with a welcome distraction as the door swung open and Harry barreled in, sword in hand and wand in the other.
He surveyed the scene quickly and lifted his wand in ready defense. "Is this a bad time?"
"Just one drink and I'll break your bones with my bare hands..." Voldemort swore and whirled around to face Hermione.
Behind him Narcissa began to scream and clutch her head. "I'M SORRY BELLA!" She wailed pitifully and staggered into one of the walls. Remus' gaze made a straight line to her forehead.
Hermione, too weak to defend herself, turned into Sirius and hugged him waiting for Voldemort to snatch her out of her cell and continue his barbaric ritual of blood.
"YOU STAY AWAY FROM HER!"
Hermione looked up in surprise as Harry leapt at Voldemort's back, riding them both to the ground only to be flung back into the spiders that parted for his collision by an outraged burst of energy from Voldemort. Both wizards got to their feet and went at each other with ferocious abandon and deadly spells.
As they fought, Ron continued to aid Remus' power by flowing all the creatures towards the psychologically distraught woman as the lycan bent all his will and Truth upon the fragile mind of Narcissa Black Malfoy.
"It was for the cause cousin," she moaned, clawing her nails down her face and staggering about. "Always the cause!"
"What's going on with Narcissa?" Pansy trilled in her high-screechy voice as Draco fought to keep the painful spiders and rats off the both of them.
"DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!" The sharp-faced woman screamed into thin air. "YOU WOULD HAVE DONE IT TOO!"
"She's totally lost it!" Preston exclaimed, viciously exploding a rat with a wave of her wand.
Hermione slipped out of Sirius' arms and pressed herself flat against the floor. The creepy arachnids with their hundred faceted eyes skittered out of the way of the arm she extended out through the bars. The vibrant mound of orange curls was still a foot or so out of reach.
"Lily..." she whispered desperately. "LILY!"
The body shifted and slowly a face turned to look across the dusty floor at her. "Lily, listen to me," she whispered lowly. "I know you're tired and I know you're hurting, and I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of training you, but please...I need you to do this. Take my hand."
Lily moaned and lifted herself painfully off the ground to pull her arm out from underneath her. She collapsed back to the stone in a poof of dust and dirt and could only manage labored breaths for a few precious seconds. Achingly slow her hand started to slide towards the bars.
Hermione glanced up at Narcissa, wildly waving around the dagger, and then over to Harry now bleeding profusely from one arm as he squared off against Voldemort. "Lily...you have got to take my hand..."
"What are you trying to do?" Sirius asked, leaning over her in concern.
A girl screamed "OH MY GOD!" and Remus fell onto his side beside her, sweating and trembling. Hermione didn't dare take her eyes off of the struggling Lily, but she heard enough to piece together what had happened.
"DRACO! MY GOD – SHE'S DEAD!" Pansy wailed hysterically.
"She stabbed herself!" Jezabelle's voice was disbelieving.
Hermione was pressed so hard against the bar that the metal cylinders bruised her cheek and her shoulder screamed in protest. Lily was straining her fingertips to reach Hermione's hand. "Reach..."
"I'll slit her throat." Preston had pulled the athame from Narcissa's breast.
Hermione was stretched as far as she'd ever thought possible and it was now up to Lily to bridge the distance between them. Hermione was marshalling the last bit of Magic left inside her – all she needed was a millimeter of contact. Tears of pain leaking down the corners of Lily's beautiful jade eyes, she dragged herself that last half-centimeter and the two girls met in the merest grazing of fingertips.
It was enough.
Their fingers stuck together instantly as if cemented together and Hermione sent her power coursing through their very skin and into Lily where there were no force fields against her magic. Sirius instantly grabbed her hand and the flow of energy increased tenfold. Lily's body was quickly filled to the brim and the excess magic seeped out through her very skin and flooded the dungeon in a flesh-prickling ripple.
Though steadfast and sturdy for countless centuries, the cell walls had not been designed with even the smallest imaginings of such a power buffeting it on both sides. Only a handful of seconds under the assault and the wall of Hermione's cell was blasted clear off its hinges.
Dangling off the brink of consciousness, Hermione fought to ride the wave of power to its completion. Like a row of dominoes the cell walls exploded outwards down the line of her wall and then back up along the opposite. James leapt out of his prison and covered Ginny's unconscious body with his own as the heap of metal blasted over his head and collided with Preston, standing knife raised over him, and with a screech she was batted across the room.
Remus shielded the immobile Hermione as Sirius lead the charge of students out into the hall, Ron and his group not far behind. The Death Eaters were overwhelmed and despite their greater experience the sheer numbers beat them. And then to the surprise of all there, Jezabelle fell upon Draco with her wand as he moved to attack James in the back. Right behind her was Snape, wand ripe with purple magic that he blasted into Voldemort's side and he and Harry forced him back.
"TRAITORS!" The dark lord hissed. "How dare you!"
Jezabelle looked up at him defiantly as she helped Sirius carry Lily across the room to James. "You're a washed up old fool," she snapped callously. "I was never part of your 'cause'."
Voldemort, snarling in rage, launched a crucio at her, but Snape stepped in the way and deflected it with a powerful protego spell. "It's over Voldemort," he sneered and raised his wand to attack again.
And then something odd happened.
As Lily was deposited into James' arms a white pillar of light consumed them and Sirius, buffeting Jezabelle gently to the outside. Ron, jostled back by the crowd of students rushing to escape the dungeons, was suddenly stuck in a similar pillar of light that ensconced Remus, Hermione and himself. Between the two beams of light, Harry was covered in a spotlight of gold.
Snape stepped back warily beside Jezabelle and the two watched in confusion.
"This is it!" Sirius said. "The Aureus Prophecy!"
Hermione's unconscious body and Lily's were levitated up into the air and in a flash golden beams laced out from Harry to the both of them and then between one another; pinning Voldemort in a triangle of ancient magic. It hadn't been the Golden Trio after all, but the Golden Points of the Star that fulfilled the prophecy they'd been fiddling with since the beginning of term – Man, Heart, and Magic.
Hermione was the most powerful witch in this age, and Lily's awesome power in protecting her young child proved her to be the most powerful of her age. Harry, filled with Lily's powerful blood and bonded through souls with Hermione, was the link between them.
Not to say that he was merely standing about while all this happened, Voldemort was truly fighting to break free of the invisible triangle that held him prisoner. The ritual, however, once enacted was impossible to breach. He roared and cursed and filled the space with the sparks of his dark magick, but nothing could save the dark wizard now.
Sirius and James were pulled to each side of Lily as her mouth opened and she chanted, "Love." James' light flickered.
"Power." Sirius flashed.
"Child." The trio's light was sucked into Harry's beam and its intensity doubled.
Poor Hermione, who'd given so much of herself in the last few hours, was now unwakeable at the end of it all making all her long and psychologically painful hours of training seem all for nothing. Arms and legs dangling downwards as a thread appeared to suspend her by her waist, she hung like the dead above their heads. Despite her immobility, both Remus and Ron were bumped to the sides as their friends had been.
Without moving her lips or even appearing to stir from her stupor, Hermione's voice echoed eerily over the proceedings.
"Heart." Remus glowed and blushed.
"Blood." Ron pulsed.
"Soul." The trio's lights twisted into Harry and the gold light around him was blindingly impossible to look at.
Wand outstretched, Voldemort charged at Harry – the sickening green light of an Avada sparking at the wood's tip. Radiating calm and tranquility, Harry lifted his arm and touched the tip of his index finger to Voldemort's forehead; freezing him mid-charge.
"Consecrate," was all the bespectacled boy said and all the pent up light flowed down his arm in a rush and into that single point on the evil wizard's forehead.
A thunderous right noise filled the room in such a blank roar that all sound was utterly blocked out and Hermione and Lily were set back onto the ground. White light inked in Voldemort's outline from his feet to the crown of his head as though his evil visage was being "whited-out", and then...
...he was simply winked out of existence.
All the paranormal light and sound vanished just as suddenly as he had gone, restoring the dungeon to its original shadowed darkness. And the six remaining points joined Hermione in blissful unconsciousness.
Not a single life had been lost on the side of good that Halloween night, and though the events at the evening's climax seemed some fanatical myth to those who had not witnessed it no one else was stepping up with a different story. The line of students outside the Hospital Wing waiting to deposit their meager offerings of candy on the bedsides of seven recuperating patients was inexplicable otherwise. Their names were spoken openly in the hallways and there was even word of special awards being prepared in their honor.
But to the seven it was enough to simply be together, and the week they spent in the Infirmary was a pleasant one. The hard choices still ahead between them were left undiscussed and unmentioned. It was a silent agreement that they would at least have this week in one another's company; joy and laughter.
Voldemort was gone forever. And though the horror and tyranny he imposed over two generations could never be undone or repaired, the people of the world – both magic and non – were now free to begin picking up the pieces of their broken lives. They were free to see their families again or seek out the scattered members – or even start one of their own. They were free to laugh, to learn, and to live without fear.
But most of all...they were free to become the carefree teenagers they'd been before the war had stolen their childhood– full of light, hope, and a vibrant love.
