What is up, my homiez? I am soooo happy right now! I am happy because: You get to Review my story some more!YAY! LOL.

Any hoo,

Here's chapter 16.

Enjoy…….

Chapter 16

One by One

Over the course of the next few weeks, Hermione recovered and went back to her classes. She also had more and more frequent dreams about Ron, Harry and herself facing Voldemort. Then, people started to go missing. Lavender Brown was first, then Parvati Patil, then Hannah Abbot. Then teachers started to disappear, too. Then, the headmistress of Hogwarts was gone.

By now, rumors of kidnap and murder were flying around the school, and the disappearance of Minerva McGonagal helped none at all. Weeks after Lavender, Parvati, and Hannah disappeared, Harry, Ron and Hermione all received a detention by being accused, by Madame Pince, of trying to steal a book from the library.

For their detention, they were supposed to go into the forest and collect bowtruckles for Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class. There were none in the trees in the shallows of the forest, so they continued on into the very heart.

"Harry, do be careful," Hermione said, bandaging Harry's fingers for about he third time. He kept on getting cut by the bowtruckles.

(Authors NoteVERY IMPORTANT: IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THINGS OF A GRAPHIC NATURE, DO NOT READ UNTIL NEXT AUTHOR'S NOTE IS GIVEN! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!)

Hermione reached her hand into the hollow of a tree and felt something…wet.

"What the," Hermione said, withdrawing her hand hastily from the tree. Her hand had some sort of substance on it. It was too dark to see what exactly it was, so Hermione withdrew her wand and said,

"Lumos!" The light shone onto her hand, and…

Hermione screamed. Her hand was covered in blood!

"Hermione, what's the matter?" Ron asked.

"B-blood," Hermione answered, gesturing wildly at the tree.

"What?" Harry questioned in horror, staring at the tree.

"Reducto!" the tree fell apart.

"Oh, my holy freaking god!"

Out of the tree fell the bloody, maimed bodies of the three missing girls. Hermione let out a shriek that could give even the loudest banshee a run for its money. Harry let out a strangled yell. Ron threw up.

"Sorry, I have always had a weak stomach," He said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

So Hermione and Harry went up to examine the bodies, while Ron stood by.

The girls, by the looks of it, had not been killed by magic. There were significant gashes and cuts that suggested that they were killed with a knife. It looked like Hannah had been severely beaten before being killed. She had bruises all over her. Parvati and Lavender, however, looked like they had put up a fight, and a pretty good one at that. They were both still clutching their wands very tightly in their hands, and they both had bruises on the backs of their knuckles; the unmistakable sign of somebody punching something else repeatedly.

"Oh, god," Hermione said after about Half an hour. "We need to go back up to the castle and tell someone about this. And it's getting very late. We don't want to get caught out of bounds and get another detention, now, do we?"

(Author's NoteAGAIN VERY IMPORTANT you can start reading again for those of you who did not read that stuff above this. BACK TO THE STORY NOW!)

Weeks after the horrific discovery in the woods, Harry announced to them all that he had finally located and destroyed all of the six Horcruxes. The only one left was the one inside of Voldemort's body.

"Which means," Harry explained, "that we have to face him."

"When?" Hermione said quietly after a long silence.

"I don't know. Soon, most likely." There was an awkward pause (A/N: Don't you just hate those? Lol.). Finally, Hermione stood up.

"I need to tell you guys something. About my visions," Hermione said looking at them all. They all listened intently.

"I've been having visions and nightmares ever since I got out of the Hospital Wing a while ago," Hermione began. She went on to tell them all about the visions that she had about Voldemort killing Harry.

"Then, Voldemort- Oh, Ron, GROW UP!- turns to Ron and me and says, 'Don't worry, you'll both be with Harry soon. And you'll be with your family, Mudblood.' Then he uses the killing curse on us both," Hermione finished her story.

"And….." Ron prompted.

"And….. nothing. That's where the dreams always end."

"Okay, so… how can we tell if your dreams are completely reliable?" Harry asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, need I remind you of our fifth year? Voldemort could be planting these dreams to make us stay away from him, because he is doing something he needs to be doing to become powerful again." Harry stated matter-of-factly.

"I don't think so because he said 'Now it will be mine!' That would have told us that he is up to something. Why would he tell us that?"

As Hermione slept that night, the nightmare returned.

They were in what looked like the inside of a cave. Harry's body was lying limp on the ground, with Voldemort standing over him.

"I am victorious! He is finished! Mow the ruby will be mine!"

Hermione woke with a start. She couldn't sleep the rest of the night. She had hundreds of questions to ask Harry in the morning.

At breakfast, Hermione began to tell Harry about her dream. When she got to the part about the Ruby, Harry looked down at his plate.

"What ruby was he talking about, Harry? And don't you dare give me the whole 'I don't know' bit, because I know you do," She told him. After a pause in which Hermione could tell that Harry was debating whether or not to say anything, he said,

"It's one of his horcruxes, but it's very powerful. He needs it to complete his plan. Of course, he didn't know that he would need it so badly before he placed a piece of his soul inside of it."

"I thought you said that you'd destroyed all of the horcruxes," Hermione stated sternly.

"I know, but I just can't seem to destroy this one. It's already a mystical object, so who knows what kind of magical power it's already got?" Harry retorted.

Hermione didn't speak to Harry very much for the rest of the day. In the common room that night, Harry was trying to destroy the ruby. Hermione was watching. Ron had already gone up to bed.

"Harry, how many spells have you tried?" Hermione asked.

"How many spells are there?" Harry replied skeptically.

"Well, there's Reducto, and…….. Reducto," she said kind of crestfallen.

"But," she added at the look of disdain on Harry's face. "There are many different forms of Reducto. Give me that!" Hermione walked over to Harry and snatched the ruby out of his hands.

"Hey! Give it back!" Harry cried, like a kindergarten boy that just had his lucky pencil taken by a bunch of second graders.

Hermione set the ruby on the floor in front of her and said,

"Dynamito Reducto!" There was a hissing sound like that of a lit dynamite fuse.

"Silencio!" Hermione shouted, pointing at the boys and girls dormitory steps.

"Harry, get down!" Hermione yelled, diving behind an armchair, and covering her ears.

The hissing stopped. Then, a split second later…

KABOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!

There was an enormous explosion. After all the smoke cleared, however, the ruby still lay in the middle of the floor, without so much as a scratch on it.

"I don't understand this. Here let's try this one…" And so it went for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Hermione and Harry were both exhausted and laughing hysterically. Ron came down the stairs, saw the pair covered in soot, from all the explosions, and asked suspiciously,

"What's going on here?"

"Nothing, Ron!" Hermione answered between screams of laughter. Finally the two calmed themselves down and went upstairs to clean up and get dressed.

At breakfast amidst the post owls, there was a package for Hermione. When she opened it, she saw a note lying between to golden chain of a beautiful necklace with a genuine vela diamond set in the pendent.

The note said;

Neuclation Reducto

Hermione turned the little piece of parchment over, but the two words on the front were the only words at all. She knew who it was from, but she fastened the necklace around her neck anyway.

Instantly, she felt more beautiful than any other human being on the planet. She continued to eat, smiling because she could feel the eyes of every boy in the Great Hall on her. When she finished, she got up and swept gracefully from the room.

"Hermione!" Ron shouted, running after his girlfriend.

"Why was everybody in there staring… at…….you…." his words trailed away as he looked at Hermione. There was something different about her. She looked…… taller. And slimmer. And a whole lot more beautiful.

Her eyes were not the brown that Ron knew very well, but they were now a deep emerald green. Her lips were fuller and redder than ever. Her hair had smoothed itself and it was a lot lighter, almost like a dirty blonde color. He continued to let his eyes wander, inspecting every single inch of this new Hermione. His eyes lingered for a while when he reached her chest, which, he noticed, seemed to look a lot bigger than it used to ( A/N: Well, how would YOU know Ron? Hmm….. lol).

"Well, Ron," Hermione said abruptly, tearing Ron out of his examination.

"I received this in the mail, and I decided to wear it," Hermione said, showing him her necklace. Ron stared at it.

"My God, Hermione! Is that- is that a,"

"Veela diamond? Yes, it is lovely, isn't it?" Hermione cut across Ron, and tucked the necklace back inside the collar of her robes..

"Well, I've got a free period right now. I was going to go play some chess in the Common Room. Would you like to join me?" She asked, already knowing that he wouldn't refuse.

"S-sure!" Ron exclaimed happily.

Meanwhile…….

Malfoy cleared out his cauldron. He had finally finished the potion he had been working on since the beginning of the year. He had soaked the Veela diamond in the strongest love potion in the world, Amortentia, to make it even more powerful than it already was. What's more, he had given Hermione the correct spell to destroy whatever they had been trying to nuke all the previous night. This would most definitely get her attention.

But as he walked away from the potions book, he did not notice the words printed at the bottom of the page;

WARNING:

If the Amortentia Potion is used on anyone with a kind, loving, and PURE heart, it could result in severe depression, illness, or even death!

Hermione felt wonderful all day until History of Magic. During the middle of the class, Hermione began to feel very ill. She raised her hand and asked if she could go to see Madame Pomfrey. Professor Binns told her that she could. She walked about two steps towards the door, and then crumpled onto the ground, shaking violently and breathing heavily.

Soooooooooo……… I don't think my big scary death scene was very good. It was my first. If you read it tell me if you liked it or not. FOUR MORE CHAPTERS! Yay! Then I can get started on another story!

NEXT CHAPTER: Ruby Gone& Pheonix Song

The ruby goes bye-bye, and an old friend of Dumbledore's returns…..

Stay Tuned!