Sirius would never forget the complete astonishment in Bellatrix's eyes as his curse stroke her before hers could reach him. And then she fell backward, her now unseeing eyes still wide open.
At that very moment , in a spell of loud cracks, the other members of the team apparated around him and Herione flung herself into his arms, her face livid.
"Thank Merlin, you got her, you won", she said in a stangled voice. She felt unable to let go of him, to fullly realize that he was really safe. She had been se madly terrified that they would arrive too late… And they would have, if he hadn't prevailed on his own.
"How did you manage to break the anti-apparition charm ?" Sirius asked.
Hermione took a deep breath. "Gormuck took advantage of the fact that you had all Bellatrix's full attention to lift the spell". She couldn't help feeling angry at the Goblin that he hadn't found the courage to do it sooner. "But it's over now", she said again, as if to convince herself of it.
She looked up to see Sirius' face. He didn't look as fiercely triumphant as he could have been. In his eyes she could only read relief, weariness, and strangely, what looked like a flicker of shame.
"I wanted to live", Sirius whispered suddenly. "So I broke my vow".
"What vow, love ?"
"My vow to never, ever use any of the Unforgivable, whatever the situation I would find myself in. So I would never be like the rest of my family".
"You're not like them", answered Hermione firmly. "None of them would ever have risked his life to save some unknown Muggles. Besides, Bellatrix had just told you how she'd made herself partly immune to the Killing Curse. And I bet she's still alive, as unfortunate as it is".
"You're right" said Tonks, who was leaning over Bellatrix's body, checking her vitals with her wand. "We're not finished with that freak yet. Her body is completely disabled for now, her awareness of her surroundings almost nonexistent, but I can still feel the evil inside her. It's very much alive."
"So the Office will have to find her horcruxes", said Harry. He and the others had checked all the rooms and doors of Gormuck's house to get sure there was no other death eater waiting for them. "What will have to be done then won't be our decision. It will be the Wizzenmagot 's job."
"Let's free these poor people now", said Hermione, "and then we can leave that cursed place and give Marcus and the others what they so richly deserve."
Epilogue
Eight months later, the same people, plus a multitude of other family members and friends, were all at Sirius and Hermione's house to celebrate the birth of Vivian Jamesina Black.
At the center of the happy gathering, Hermione was feeling confident that the world the baby had just come into was slowly becoming a better place. The network of dark wizzard that had remained after Voldemort's fall was in a fast process of desintegration, and most of Bellatrix's horcruxes had been found and destroyed.
Yes, as she looked lovingly at the man at her side, his grey eyes glowing with pure joy as he carried they beautiful daughter in his arms, she was sure that better times had come at last.