Chapter 1
Her adrenaline soared and pushed past her mind-numbing fear as Hermione ran through the grounds of Hogwarts, dodging and ducking and shooting and weaving through the crowds of people, both foe and friend.
She ducked behind a crumbled pillar, unnoticed, as she hid and waited for Antonin Dolohov to run past her and further into the heart of battle as he raced towards where Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Lupin nee Tonks were dueling back-to-back, clearly outnumbered, against 5 death eaters by a combination of sheer force of desperation and will.
Hermione took a wild shot at the back of the bastard that had scarred her permanently when he'd cursed her at the age of 16. Hermione's jinx went wide, as the Russian wizard ducked at the last second, making her swear under her breath, as he whirled around towards the direction of the spell, just as she ducked back down behind the pillar.
She sent another spell his way when he turned back to head towards Remus and Tonks again, this time sending a muffliato to silence him, reminiscent of what she'd done when he'd thrown the purple flame curse at her when the war was still being ignored by the daft fools at the ministry.
He whirled, enraged at being silenced, and she wondered at what point over the course of the last year had she stopped caring and become the jaded woman that parried spell after spell with a gleaming transparent shield from an enraged and truly terrifying dark wizard.
"Getting tired, Dolohov?", she taunted over the sounds of spell fire and battle around them, as she twirled out of the way of a sickly orange entrail expelling curse that he sent in reply.
She couldn't help but goad him further, "Ooh, not very friendly", she smirked as she sent the exact same spell back at him.
She shot a furtive glance at Remus and Tonks to see that Kingsley had joined them and they were finally, finally, getting an edge over their opponents, as Dean and Seamus shot Stunner's from the Ravenclaw tower windows.
She slowly kept backing up to give them a clear shot and tried to draw Dolohov farther away from the order members who could do without being further outnumbered. She was quickly forced to roll forward and onto her injured arm that still hadn't recovered completely from her torture at the hands of Bellatrix, as the Russian wizard sent an Avada straight at her head.
She cried out, as the tremors of the cruciatus ran through her arm, but that was soon drowned out by the terrified cries of several fourth years who had been in the process of running back into the castle, towards at least some semblance of safety.
Dolohov's curse had dislodged a large turret off the side of the castle and it was falling, straight towards them.
"NO!", she cried, her hands stretched out towards them as if to stop the turret from delivering their demise, and she started to raise her trembling wand hand a split second later in a futile effort that she knew would be too late to help them.
Just feet above their cowering heads, the rock structure stopped as a someone shouted, "Arresto Momentum!", and she looked over to see Percy Weasley standing there, half carrying, half dragging, an injured and almost comatose Fred, as he held his wand aloft and directed the turret away from the students and hurled it right at a group of incoming giants that the Centaurs were struggling to keep at bay.
She shot him a quick smile, but her eyes widened as she caught sight of Augustus Rockwood over his shoulder, pointing his wand straight at Percy.
"Percy, look out!", she yelled, as she cast the strongest shield charm she knew at his back. The spell that Rockwood sent harmlessly deflected off her shield, and she sighed in relief as she struggled to get back up.
She stood, and looked around for Harry and Ron, and saw a distinctive head of red hair and one of messy black running towards the Shrieking Shack, just as she had been as well, before she got separated from them. In her haste to make her way over to her friends, she forgot about Dolohov, and as she stumbled as she got up, she saw a familiar purple flame curse coming straight at her.
She stumbled out of the way, but not fast enough as the curse grazed her side and her already battered body took another hit as she added to her mental list of injuries.
She swore out loud as her side started burning, and knew that if she didn't see a healer or perform the counter spell soon, she would be in trouble, as the curse started to slowly spread, and would eventually eat through all her organs and shut them down.
She turned on shaky feet and prepared herself for the worst, as she shot the first spell. And the dance was on as she shot and he ducked and he shot and she parried.
She caught Remus's eyes over Dolohov's shoulder, giving him a desperate pleading look, as he stood guarding Tonks and Kingsley who were tying up and taking the wands of the last of the Death Eater's they'd defeated together.
His eyes widened as he saw who she was dueling and with a quick word to his wife and friend, he was sprinting towards her, sending a Stunner at Dolohov's back. Dolohov ducked at the last moment, as though he'd sensed the stunner coming, and he whirled around to face Remus, forgetting that Hermione was behind him.
She shot a stunner at his back that he was too slow to duck, and he dropped like a pebble in water.
Remus quickly hurried over to her. "What do you need me to do?", he asked, as he eyed the burnt side of her shirt where the purple curse had hit.
Hermione didn't reply as she twisted to inspect her side, and took in the damage done, quickly assessing if it was immediately life threatening or not. It was.
"Fuck", she swore, " Remus, quick, there's a bottle of Dittany in my bag, get that out", she ordered, as she started the long-incanted counter curse that Madame Pomfrey had taught her when she was 16 and in the Hospital Wing and bored out of her mind.
It was a quick fix, and a flimsy one at that, but it would have to do for now, she thought as she finished the spell just as Remus finished fishing the bottle of Dittany out of her beaded bag. She tore out a strip from the bottom of her shirt and wrapped it around the wound after she had finished dousing it in Dittany.
She thanked Remus quickly once she was done and he only nodded at her, watching her stumble and trip multiple times as she sprinted towards the Shrieking Shack with worried eyes.
She caught up with Harry and Ron just before they were entering, and Ron's eyes widened, "Hermione…", he breathed in relief. Harry just gave her a quick smile and an assessing once over and his eyes widened as he caught her bandaged side, drawing a hissing breath in through his teeth.
She shook her head at him furtively, and tilted her head towards Ron, indicating that he would get too worked up and it would put a target on them. Harry grimaced, but nodded in agreement as they all started moving further into the shrieking shack.
As the blonde head of Lucius Malfoy came into view, they ducked behind old barrels, listening in to the conversation between him and his lord. Hermione and Ron exchanged a quick look over Harry's head when Snape was mentioned, and communicated wordlessly that they might have to hold Harry back.
Hermione felt a prickling at the base of her neck, and had a bad gut feeling, as they watched the potion's master come into view. It got steadily worse as she listened to the conversation between Severus Snape and Voldemort, and her instincts were screaming at her as Nagini attacked Snape.
After Voldemort disapparated, the trio cautiously made their way around the barrels and into the other room. Just as the potion's masters body came into view, the world around her exploded in reds and oranges, and she watched in horror as ignis Graecus burned straight through the shack and cut a path between her and the boys, corralling her in the room with an almost dead Snape, while it enveloped Ron's arm, as Harry tried to pull him further back.
Ron screamed and Harry tried to put the fire out, but it was a failed cause, and she watched with mounting terror as Harry cut off Ron's hand to keep the fire away. She was jolted out of her frozen state as Ron and Harry screamed at her to get out, to move, to fucking do something goddammit.
But she was stuck and the world around her was burning and so she yelled at them to go, to finish this.
She reassured them that she'd be fine, even if the words sounded like she'd swallowed the ash that was drifting down from the ceiling. Ron was crying, out of pain from his cut hand, and fear that he was going to die and she was going to die and they were going to die.
She caught Harry's eyes and mouthed to him, "Finish it", and watched as his glistening eyes hardened and he gave a resolute nod, and began to pull Ron backwards, out of the shrieking shack.
Once they were gone, she breathed a sigh of relief as she cast a bubble head charm around her and the potion masters head, even as the fire kept raging and chipping away at what measly wards the shack had from Remus's time there on full moons.
She knelt next to Snape and cast a modified aguamenti that surrounded them in a water bubble, and dug into her beaded bag to find something to heal him. She could've slapped herself for forgetting that Greek fire ignited with water and quickly corrected her mistake by transfiguring the water into glass and casting another aguamenti bubble within the glass as a second layer of last-ditch protection, that she wouldn't be able to maintain long, and she had no hope of anyone getting to them in time, but she couldn't and wouldn't give up or go down without a fight.
He was watching everything around him with wide eyes, and Hermione felt a stab of pity towards him, at seeing the formidable man so emotive and broken and scared. She made him swallow a blood replenisher and a bezoar, to at least try to counteract Nagini's venom, as she poured dittany and spread healing salve over his wounds.
He twitched his hand a little, to prevent form losing more blood from his abdomen and shoulder wounds that Nagini had given him that had missed his neck by inches. He twitched his hand again and pointed it towards her wand, indicating that he wanted it, and she gave it to him, because they were going to die anyway, and she was so fucking tired, and she really did not want to die.
He whispered a Patronus which seemed to take a lot out of him, and her eyes widened as she saw a familiar doe flounce of to god knows where. He turned his wand on her then, and she flinched, but before she could move away completely, with a whispered legilimens, he was in her head.
She didn't even have the energy left for whatever flimsy Occlumency shields she'd learned, as a second later her mind was filled with buzzing and information and memories that weren't her own and a headache the size of Hogwarts.
She stumbled back, as she snatched her wand from his hand, and reinforced the water shield that was rapidly turning into steam, just as a piercing cry cut through the roaring of the fire and a familiar bird materialized inside their shield with a trill of a battle cry and a glinting chain in its beak.
She watched, frozen, as Fawkes hurtled straight at her, as she stood, bleeding and hurt and caked with mud and grime, holding her beaded bag in one hand and her wand in the other. With the image of dark black eyes looking at her and fire and water and shattering glass, she felt Fawkes collide with her, and the last thought before her world went dark was, "I should have let Dolohov fucking kill me."
