A/N: This will be my last chapter and then there will be an epilogue. So tune in for that.

Chapter 29: Walking Away

Ginny and Orlando came into the room at a quarter till three. "We haven't missed the party yet, have we?" the youngest Weasley asked cheerfully.

Ron stood up, his hands in fists. "What are you doing here?" he asked her. "I told you to stay in the common room!"

She looked over at him coolly. "I talked about it with Orlando, and I'm coming. I know that you don't want me there, but I'm not going to stay behind when my family and best friends and Orlando are going. Besides, I have a score to settle with Voldemort."

"Yes, you are staying! I'm not going to let—" Hermione stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Ron, none of us want her to get hurt, but she's old enough to be making her own decisions now. If you forget, she was with us at the Department of Mysteries last year. She's earned her way here." He turned to her furiously, and she looked at him with sad eyes. "Ron, look at her. She's not a child. She's made up her mind. So give her your support. You too, Harry," she said, nudging the boy with her foot. He looked as frustrated as Ron, but nodded.

Ron walked over to his little sister and crushed her in a hug. "If you get hurt, I'll kill you," he told her, only half-joking.

"I'm afraid you may have to work hard to keep that promise," she teased, but there was fear in her eyes. They all knew what they were up against.

"Five minutes until the portkeys go," Hermione announced.

Everyone fell into a fidgety silence. "One minute," she declared. Everyone stood and approached the desk, falling into their designated groups of five or six. "Thirty seconds…" Hermione looked up to meet Harry's brilliant green eyes, then moved on to the blue of the Weasleys, lastly meeting Orlando's eyes. "Ten seconds." She added, quietly so only the four who surrounded her could hear, "Good luck, and I love you guys." This is it. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One…"

There was a familiar jerk behind her navel and the classroom dissolved from her view.

Voldemort's office, which replaced it, was empty. She called the Order members to the center and told them directions in which to go. Outside the door, three groups went one way, and three another. Their orders were to search the house, and if they found no one they would meet at the Manor to assist there.

Hermione's group of five took the left corridor. They went up the stairs with a second group, leaving one downstairs to finish up with the left corridor. She led the way down the left hallway again. The five of them were alone. They opened doors as they went, checking that the insides were clear.

Ginny opened the third door while Orlando peered inside. He snapped his fingers and Hermione, Harry, and Ron went to him. Hermione looked in, then motioned that Ron should stay outside with his sister and Orlando. She and Harry slipped into the room like ghosts and took Pettigrew's wand before he even woke up. "Wormtail, you git, wake up."

The rat-like man snapped awake. "Why, my Lady, how are you? I have not seen you around recently."

"I've brought Potter. Where is my father?" she asked. Harry looked at her, horrified.

"At the Manor, talking with the Malfoys. May I…?"

"No, Wormtail. You may not ask me anything. I'll be back. Petrificus Totalus!" Once he was immobile, she slipped her wand and his into her pocket and roughly pushed Harry out into the hall.

"Okay, this is good. Pettigrew is an idiot. He'll spill any information to me that I'll need. All of you should head over to the Manor. That's where you'll be needed. I'll deal with Wormtail here. He may know where the slaves are, and…" a lump in her throat prevented her from speaking the last. Draco…

"Hermione, I thought…" Harry began.

"Look, Harry," she hissed. "I have Wormtail wrapped around my finger, and it'll look suspicious if I keep you around and actually listen to you. As of yet, he doesn't seem to realize that we're attacking. I can handle him, but we are all counting on you to deal with Voldemort, so go. Go. I'll do what I can here and come when I can.

"But Hermione…" his eyes were filling with tears.

"Damn it, Harry, nothing will happen to me. They practically worship me! Go!" She pulled him to her and kissed his cheek, then grabbed Ron and did the same. "Both of you. Keep him safe, Ron," she implored. Then Hermione turned to Orlando and Ginny. "And you two. All of you, keep Harry safe. Now go."

Ginny took her brother's hand and led him away while Orlando put his arm around Harry's shoulder and took him back downstairs. It was hard not to wonder if this was the last time she would see them. Hermione took a deep breath and reentered Wormtail's room.

Turning on the lights, she took off her body-bind. "Hello, Peter. Nice to see you again." She twirled his wand in her fingers.

"My Lady, what are you doing?" he asked stupidly.

"I've just sent Potter off with one of my trusted Death Eaters. Lord Voldemort should be seeing him soon. Hopefully he'll be dead before dawn. That would be good. However, Pettigrew, I have come to question your loyalty in all of this."

"But…but…I have been completely loyal, always. Never told anyone anything. You have no proof!" he exclaimed.

Hermione arched her eyebrows high. "Completely loyal? To whom? Maybe my father, but I cannot recall a single time that you have been loyal to me."

"You are just his daughter! There was no need…"

"It was you who captured Malfoy for torture, wasn't it?" she said quietly. He whimpered, and that was all the admission she needed. "And all the while you could have told me and I would have given him to you. It would have been effortless. So why did you not tell me?"

She began to pace the room. "Is it possible that you did not trust me to give him to you?" She clicked her tongue admonishingly. "Do not be deceived, Pettigrew. Just because I have a boy to use as my tool does not mean that I wouldn't be completely willing to give him up."

Wormtail had had it. He finally changed into the rat he was and scurried off the bed. She murmured a spell, and the floor was covered in mousetraps. Hermione heard one snap, then a second, and Peter Pettigrew was human again, howling on the floor as other traps went off. She kicked some out of her way to get closer to him. "You didn't honestly believe I'd let you get away? I recall the last time you pulled that trick, and have been prepared for it ever since."

"Please, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did not mean to anger Your Grace, I did not mean it. He told me not to tell, he told me, I wasn't supposed to tell anyone."

Hermione kicked him. It was his fault that Draco wasn't with her. "Get off the floor, you're pathetic." She muttered a counter-spell and the mousetraps were gone. "I have a way you can pay me back for your disloyalty," she said.

"Anything, my Lady, anything," he whimpered.

"All I need is a bit of information that has been conveniently withheld from me. "Where is my pet being tortured?"

"Please, please, I don't—"

"You do know, Pettigrew," she snapped, kicking him again. "And I thought I told you to get up."

"They're somewhere in the Manor, in the dungeons somewhere, even I don't know for sure," he wheezed, pulling himself onto his hands and knees.

"You see, Pettigrew, that wasn't very hard. Now I have one last question for you. Where are the slaves?"

"Slaves?" She heard him lick his lips. "What—"

"Bloody hell, you imbecile. Tell me where they put the fucking slaves!" she yelled.

"Under the drawing room is a chamber. There's a trapdoor somewhere in there, leading to a passageway. The slaves are somewhere in there. We haven't had time to distribute them amongst the Death Eaters yet, so—"

"Stupefy."

The man fell silent and dropped to the floor. She pushed him under the bed so he wouldn't be found immediately.

Hermione hastened down the halls, but did not hear anything of the Order members. She wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but she didn't have time to find out and bolted out of the house, dashing toward the Manor.

The front door was open slightly, and she pushed through. She understood, now, why Order members were to travel in groups: if a Death Eater came upon her now, she would be quickly disposed of.

Except…hopefully they would not yet know of her involvement with the Order. They practically worship me, she had told Harry; then it had just been something she said to get him to listen to her and go, but now it was the only thing she had to protect her.

"Please don't prove me wrong," she whispered.

Hermione could hear the sounds of battle coming from the right wing of the house. But her footsteps carried her away from the battle, to the drawing room. She wanted to run to the dungeons and find Draco, but winning the war was the first priority. Besides, she didn't know how to get to the dungeons.

--

The battle was already going when Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Orlando entered Malfoy Manor. They stepped over a few bodies out in the hall, and followed the sounds of fighting into the ballroom. Ginny stopped while her mind reeled with what she saw. The Order was losing. Voldemort stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by about ten Death Eaters, while there were one or two more of them for every member of the Order.

The sight of Voldemort brought back things that Ginny would rather have forgotten. She ground her teeth together and backed up to Orlando. A few of the Death Eaters had noticed them by now and were approaching. A stunning spell went over her head as she ducked. "Protego!" the next jinx bounced off her shield and she cast a Bat-Bogey Hex at the offending Death Eater.

Her robes caught fire, and she cast another shield charm while dropping the burning clothes to the floor. There was no time to put out the flames. She dodged another spell, shooting off a charm. A jet of light missed her, but barely. "Accio chair!" she shouted, and the chair slammed into the back of a Death Eater. "Stupefy!" she screamed next, making sure he wouldn't get up.

The next thing she knew, she was in the greatest pain she had ever known. It felt like her bones were being cooked, and her head was going to split, and she could hear herself screaming and screaming. When it was over, she panted and barely managed to cast a shield charm that pushed the next spell away. The pain came again, this time cut off abruptly. Orlando crouched by her and jerked her to her feet before his body snapped together rigidly and he fell to the floor.

"Stupefy!" she screamed at the Death Eater, sure that her skull would shatter with the noise. She reversed the body-bind and dodged another spell. Her Bat-Bogey Hex missed completely, but the Conjunctivitis Curse she cast next hit someone. Ginny had a Tarantallegra Curse put on her and fell to the floor, where her legs continued to move uncontrollably.

"Densaugeo!" Her left wrist ached dully from falling, but she managed to hit someone with the charm. She undid the curse on her legs and stood up shakily, almost laughing as she saw her victim shambling around with teeth as large as a person's hand.

Her amusement faded when someone hit her with a jelly-legs jinx. Ginny wobbled uncertainly, whispering "Protego!" before she could be hit by another one. She fell to the floor and shot off "Furnunculus!" at someone before removing the jinx.

It was then that she realized that Harry was not with her. She stood and turned to look around the room, only finding herself face to face with a Death Eater. "Why hello there," a female voice said, then adding, "Stupefy!" Amazingly, Ginny managed to duck this and backed away into a corner. The Death Eater seemed amused and proceeded to shoot spells at her legs.

She's playing with me, Ginny realized with a sinking feeling. She danced around on the balls of her feet, never landing anywhere for more than a second. "I'm getting bored with this," the woman said, raising her wand up to finish it. Ginny pushed off the wall and smashed her fist into the Death Eater's face. Where her wrist had ached, she heard it crack and the pain was intensified. "Stupefy!" she yelled, pointing her wand at the Death Eater's heart. She went still, and Ginny looked around for Harry. There was an open door near her.

She got up and went through. Harry may have been the one that was supposed to kill Voldemort, but Voldemort had hurt her, and she would not let her friend do the task alone if there was some way she could help.

--

"Well, if it isn't Potter. The Boy Who Lived. You'll be lucky to see dawn," Voldemort taunted.

Harry sneered at him but the only thing he said was, "Expelliarmus!"

His spell vanished before ever hitting. "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Voldemort shook his head under his hood. "Bellatrix, would you like to deal with the boy?"

"It would be an honor," she said, stepping up. Voldemort leaned casually against the wall. "Crucio!" Bellatrix said before Harry could even think.

Reflexively, he dodged the spell and forgot about Voldemort. It was all about Bellatrix now. "Incendio!" the spell managed to catch her by surprise: her hair lit on fire.

"Imperio!" she screamed at him before pausing to put out her hair. Harry threw off the curse before she was finished and yelled, "Stupefy!"

The amazed look on her face as she fell was priceless. Harry was panting when he turned to Voldemort. "Well, I suppose the saying is true: if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. Crucio."

Harry dodged it, but had no chance to cast a spell before the next one came, or the next. "Expell…Expelli…" he panted out, but he couldn't finish the spell.

"Crucio." This one hit Harry, and he went down screaming. The spell ended suddenly, and Harry panted on the floor feeling as if his lungs had exploded. He pushed himself up as quickly as he could to see what was happening. Voldemort lay on the floor where he'd been knocked over, and Ron straddled him, pounding his face with his fists.

Harry gathered his wand as Voldemort finally screamed, "Relashio!" Ron was hurtled against the wall with the force of the spell, landing with a sickening crack. "Ron!" he yelled, taking a step towards him.

"Rictusempra!" someone cried from the doorway, and then in quick succession, "Tarantallegra!"

Voldemort doubled over, laughing, while his legs danced uncontrollably. "Ron!" he heard the other person shout, running across the room. Another Weasley then, judging by the hair.

"Crucio!" Voldemort shrieked, not at him, but at Ginny. She fell to the floor, screaming and Harry took his chance. For Ron, and Ginny, and Hermione, wherever she is. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, putting all his feelings behind it. For my parents, and Sirius. "Avada Kedavra!" he said again, with more determination. Voldemort's laughter still rang in his ears. For Dumbledore. "Avada Kedavra!"

But Voldemort laughed on. Harry was disgusted and disappointed with himself, but he didn't have time to think on it. "Stupefy!" he shouted at last, finally silencing the man.

People ran in, shouting. Order members or regular people, he did not know, but they were not dressed as Death Eaters. So Hermione had succeeded in finding the slaves. They silenced when they saw Voldemort's still form.

This was his last chance to do it. In front of all these people, he could not fail. He thought of everything he had been put through by this vile man, and wanted him dead, wanted him dead so badly that it actually hurt. Harry approached the man who had ruined his life by killing everything precious to him. "Avada Kedavra."

Voldemort's limbs, which had been rigid with the stunning spell, went lax. His chest no longer rose or fell. The pain in Harry's scar was gone, though he hadn't even realized it was there.

A sob echoed through the room, and Harry turned quickly. Ginny was crying. Feeling awash with foreboding, Harry walked to her side. Ron's body was already showing bruising along the right side, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Harry reached out a hand to touch him, but then someone jerked it away.

"Don't touch him," Hermione hissed. "You may just make it worse. We need to get him to St. Mungo's. Now!" One of the Order hurried up and used Side-Along Apparition to take him out. Hermione stood, and rubbed her face with her hands.

"I see you found everyone," Harry said.

Hermione looked down at him with pain in her eyes. "Everyone but him," she said hoarsely.

"Let's go, then." Harry stood up, but then his knees buckled and he fell to the floor. Suddenly all his aches and pains came to him, and it was too much to even walk. He had fought hard to reach Voldemort.

"It's okay, Harry. I think this is something I should do by myself."

Looking up at her, he noticed how weary she looked. How long has it been since she slept? He wondered. Harry nodded her on, but grabbed her hand and squeezed it for an instant.

--

Hermione walked away from them all. She left Malfoy Manor behind and walked back to the house on the far end of the property. Wormtail was exactly where she'd left him. "Ennervate," she muttered after pushing him out from under the bed.

"My Lady, what…what happened?"

"I need your help, Pettigrew. Do you know how to get to the dungeons of Malfoy Manor?"

"Of course, but—"

"Take me there."

"But—"

"Wormtail, I'm not in a good mood. Don't make me use my wand," she threatened.

"All right."

And so Peter led her. He took her across the lawns and through the door to Malfoy Manor. He led her up the main staircase and into a study, then pulled open a trapdoor. "There, my Lady. Might I ask—"

"Do you know exactly where Malfoy is?" He shook his head, and she had no more use for him. "Oh, right, Pettigrew, I forgot to tell you…Voldemort is dead. Stupefy." She looked at his still form. "Peter, you can wait here for me until I come back, then I will turn you in and clear Sirius's name, and you will be locked away once and for all."

Hermione walked down steep steps into a dank hallway. "Lumos." She walked a long hallway until it split, then listened hard. There was no sound, from either way. Deciding that left turns had led her well that day, she took the left corridor. Off this, there were several branching hallways. "I'll never find him this way," she muttered.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" she said loudly. There was no sound. She wandered down the broad hall, occasionally calling out again. At last, there was muffled shouting.

"Hello?" Hermione turned down the hallway and came face-to-face with a Death Eater.

"Why hello there," said a soft ambiguous voice. "Who, may I ask, are you?"

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest. "Your Lady, that's who. And who the bloody hell are you?"

The Death Eater knelt before her. "My Lady, I am sorry, I did not recognize you."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Alecto, my Lady."

"Indeed. Where is Malfoy?"

The Death Eater looked up at her. "You only want Malfoy?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "How many others are down here?" she asked.

"Well, there's Crabbe, Lestrange, Dolohov, and then the Malfoy boy, who I must say is the most interesting of all to torture. I apologize to inform you, but I still do not know who betrayed us. I think it may have been—"

"Show me where they are," Hermione snapped, cutting her off.

"Yes, Lady."

Hermione was first led to Crabbe. "Flagrate," she said, marking the door with an X. "Lead on," she told Alecto. She was then led to Dolohov, then Lestrange, and last Draco. She marked an X on each cell door, then had Alecto open Draco's door, taking care to notice how it was done. "And their wands?" she asked afterward.

The witch shrugged. "I was only entrusted with torturing them, not their wands."

"Okay. Stupefy."

Alecto dropped, and Hermione walked over to her Draco.

--

Hermione had finally managed to get to sleep when there was a splintering noise and the door crashed in. "What now?" she said groggily, sitting up in bed.

"By order of the Ministry, you are under arrest."

"For what?" she asked, alarmed.

"For the murder of Albus Dumbledore."

Well, if this isn't the icing on the cake, she thought as she allowed them to put her in anti-Disapparation handcuffs.

--

Harry came to visit her in Azkaban, which Hermione thought was very kind of him. "I'm sorry that all of this had to happen. I will testify in court that Dumbledore told you it was okay to kill him, but I'm afraid there's nothing more I can do. It's up to the jury, and to tell you the truth, they all loved the man."

"I killed him," Hermione whispered. "He was...great. And I killed him. I can't believe it. At the time, everything was going on and there wasn't time to think about any of it, but now...now I can't forget it, it keeps happening in my head. Thank Merlin there aren't any dementors here, or I'd be crazy by now. How could I have done it?"

Harry looked uncomfortable, then said, "By the way, what do you know about a letter?"

"Letter?"

"Dumbledore's portrait was so distraught yesterday that McGonagall called me in to talk to him, and he asked why you hadn't read the letter from him yet."

Hermione remembered the dark office, with the pensieve shining on the desk. Dipping the narrow brush in… "I remember the letter," she said quietly.

"Where is it? I'll bring it to you. Dumbledore has been adamant that you read it, so it must be something important."

"Oh, it's…you know, I'm not sure. I think it's somewhere in my trunk. Feel free to go through my things. I can't believe I killed him and then forgot to read his letter. He probably cursed me in it anyway." Hermione frowned and leaned back against the wall of her cell. "Hey, Harry? How's Ron?"

"He's still…well, it's still bad. But the healers say that he may be completely better…in about a year. Maybe less, if he does well," Harry said quietly. Ron had received brain damage when Voldemort threw him against the wall, and though he could still speak, he couldn't see out of one of his eyes and frequently denied that there was a problem. "They say he may never get his sight back, but his brain will heal."

"Ron always seems to have brain problems," Hermione said in jest, recalling the Department of Mysteries.

Harry gave her a crooked smile.

"And what of Draco?" she whispered.

"Draco will be out tomorrow, they say. He has been talking about wanting to visit you for days but they wouldn't let him out."

Hermione smiled. "Did he threaten them?"

Harry couldn't help but return her grin. "He sure did. They wanted to keep him another week at least."

"That's Draco for you." Hermione was silent for a while, and then the words came out in a rush, "Harry? I'm sorry I couldn't come to Lupin's funeral. Or Charlie's. Remember when he brought that dragon to class? That was fun, right? And Molly. She was a good woman, and she saved Orlando in the end, didn't she? Mad-Eye wasn't so bad either, when he wasn't secretly Barty Crouch. It's too bad he never really got to teach us anything and can't now. Tonks will get better, won't she? She can't die too. Oh, I can't bear being in here and not having any way to talk to them or pay my respects. At least the dementors are gone, but I need to get out of here, Harry."

"I know, Hermione. I know. I'll get you out so you can see Tonks and Ron and Malfoy. We can go together to pay our respects to Mad-Eye and Molly and Charlie and Lupin, I promise. I don't know how I will, but I won't leave you here. I'll find that letter for you."

"I love you, Harry. So much. Just like him. I loved him too. How couldI have killed him? I don't understand now. His blood was so red, Harry. I don't think you'll ever see blood that red, and it was all over. It just wouldn't stop..."

"I love you too, Hermione. Just hang in there."

With that, he left, and she was so distraught she barely noticed how shaken he looked.

--

Apparently the Ministry had searched Voldemort's office and had found in a drawer a letter, telling Hermione that she was to kill Dumbledore. After checking with a professor—who preferred to remain anonymous—at Hogwarts, the Ministry had decided that they had enough evidence to incarcerate Hermione.

Dumbledore's letter was eventually what made the Ministry set Hermione free. In it, besides a letter to her, he had written that he had persuaded her to kill him against her will. Along with Harry's testimony that this was so, and his accounting of everything she had done for the Order and after he pointed out that she was an excellent student and unlikely to ever have another crime to her name, they had been forced to give her a pardon for Dumbledore's murder. Of course, it helped that it was the Harry Potter saying this, the Boy Who Lived, and the Defeater of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and several other long-winded titles that Harry despised.

The day she got out, Hermione went with Harry to visit the graves of those who had died during the battle. She cried out everything she had for them, and left roses on each grave. Then they visited Ron in the hospital, who was getting better, or so she was told. If she hadn't already cried out everything, she would have cried over his deplorable state. Tonks they visited next, and she was not so bad. When they were there, she was suffering from an abnormally high fever. The right side of her body was mangled horribly, where the flesh had been turned inside out and then burnt, making a full recovery impossible. But she had been coherent, and had bet that once she was out of St. Mungo's she could make the scars turn color.

Harry left to go home with the Weasleys, but Hermione went back to Hogwarts, though the term was a mere few days from being over. She spent a single night with Draco in the Room of Requirement, curled up in his arms and sleeping more deeply than she had in months.

The next morning she woke up and slipped from Draco's grasp, only pausing to dress and put on her too-long cloak before going for a chilly walk around the lake. When she turned around, Draco was standing outside of the big Hogwarts doors, looking like he knew what was coming.

Hermione approached him slowly, trying to savor this last walk. "Draco, I—"

She stopped, unable to say what needed to be said, and looked him over. His face was still gaunt from his torture session, and she could see a welt on his neck from a wayward whiplash. Hermione tried not to remember the marks she had seen all over his body, tried to forget the ragged state she had found him in.

Try as she might, she could not forget.

"Draco, I have to go away. Everything…all this, is just too painful. I can't stand to see everyone hurt, every day. And there are so many who are dead. I can't deal with it," she said. "I can't deal with you. You look at me, and you love me so much, but I look at you and see my failure. I look at you and you remind me of everything that I've done, everything awful that I couldn't stop. I look at you and I see…" she choked on her words. Dumbledore...

"You see everything you don't want to," he said for her. Hermione looked up at him, meeting his grey eyes. She saw blessed understanding.

"I can't come back to this," she said.

"Okay," Draco whispered. He pulled her close and kissed her forehead, then let her go.

Hermione gripped her wand and looked back at Draco one last time, then turned around and walked away from everything.

--

Pansy came out from behind a tree. Draco wasn't surprised to see her there, she had always loved mornings on the lake. He'd even seen her slip behind the tree when Hermione had neared.

"So it's all over now, huh?" she asked. Pansy put her arm on his shoulder and leaned on it.

Draco laughed softly. "With her, it's never over."

"Aren't you worried that she won't come back?" Pansy asked, honestly confused.

"She'll come back," he told her.

"Oh, yeah? And what if she doesn't?"

"She will."

"Well, you're one self-assured bastard," Pansy told him affectionately. Together, they watched Hermione's form disappear into the distance. "Breakfast?" she offered perkily.

Draco smiled. "Breakfast sounds great." They turned and went inside.

--

I'd rather run the other way than stay and see

The smoke and who's still standing when it clears

—The Fray, "Over My Head (Cable Car)"

--

THERE WILL BE AN EPILOGUE. It should be up within a couple of days.