Hermione
Hogwarts
May 2nd 1998
The seven had taken off, barrelling through hallways, dodging students, and at one point, running across a battalion of witches and wizards that the Ghost of Sir Nicholas had assembled to fight. Eventually, they came skidding around the final bend before the Room of Requirement.
The hallway was clear, except for one person: Ginny.
"Ginny!" Harry's voice panged against the walls as his feet brought him to a sprint.
"No more romantic reunions, please," Pansy groaned as the rest of the group walked quickly to catch up to Harry.
Harry collided with Ginny, her fiery red hair jostling into the air at their impact.
"Oi Ginny you shouldn't be out here," Ron barked at his sister, gesturing his hand towards the Room of Requirement, "get back in there."
Harry and Ginny reluctantly parted, keeping their eyes trained on one another as Hermione reached the three. Ginny, at the same time, spun to face Ron, her face hot and eyes blazing.
"Like hell I'm going back in there," she told her brother, and turned back to Harry. Her face softened, but only slightly. "I'm fighting."
Hermione interjected. "She can't go back in there anyway. It needs to be empty for the Room of Requirement to give us the place where things are hidden."
Harry watched Ginny woefully. His lips were a thin line, fighting back the argument on his tongue for her not to fight. He knew as well as anyone, perhaps better, that Ginny Weasley was not one to be swayed.
Just outside the circle, Draco cleared his throat, directing everyone's focus to him.
"I believe this Weasley squabble can wait."
Ginny's attention honed onto Draco, her eyes still hot from her declaration to fight. Her focus moved past the blonde Slytherin to Pansy and Theo, who stood off to the side.
"What are they doing here?"
Ginny's narrowed eyes redirected over Hermione's shoulder, where Draco's hand rested. The red head's jaw dropped, her brows careening to her hairline.
"I knew it! I knew there was something going on!" Ginny exclaimed, triumphantly jabbing her finger in Hermione's direction.
"Yes, well we don't have time for all of this," Draco cut in cooly.
"Ginny just stay in the hallway, okay?" Ron instructed, looking down the bridge of his nose. Ginny returned a few curse words under her breath and turned away from Ron.
Hermione, having disengaged from the Weasleys' argument, made quick work of completing three paces in front of the bare wall of the Room of Requirement and now stood before a materializing door. Ron, catching sight of this, pulled Harry's arm and brought them both over to where she stood. They each took at her flanks.
Her eyes careened over her shoulder until she found Draco. She reckoned the horocrux would try to fight her with visions of him, so she needed the real thing with her.
Words hadn't passed her lips, only a meaningful look, and that was enough. Her blonde haired Slytherin was at her side in an instant.
Ron watched as Draco took his spot by Hermione's side, his eyes leaping between the two in quick succession. Hermione noticed, and turned to her friend. The blue of Ron's eyes looked less mutinous about her and Draco's union, even if there was still apprehension behind them. He gave her a tight smile, one of begrudging acceptance.
She knew it would not be easy for Ron to come to terms with her relationship with Draco, but he would have to. Everyone would have to. She refused to give him up ever again.
Hermione shifted her weight forward, heaving the massive door inward. Out of nowhere, a red spell sailed past her nose, nearly hitting her face.
"Oi Malfoy!" A deep, grumbly voice called out from down the hallway. It was Goyle, and next to him was Crabbe, both with their wands trained on the group.
The two marched with heavy stomps towards the eight. As they dawdled forward, Goyle spotted Pansy and Theo. "And of course, Nott and Park…"
Two red lights coursed through Pansy's wand, nailing both Crabbe and Goyle in the chest. Their bodies lifted off the ground from the power of the spells, like they were weightless, and thudded to the ground. Their heaps were motionless.
Ron angled his head over his shoulder and raised a brow. "Impressive."
"Oh shut up," Pansy shook her head, shooing the four to continue on into the Room of Requirement. "We'll manage out here."
They adhered to Pansy's command, hurrying into the room, and shut the door securely behind them once across the threshold.
The soundscape of chaos brought on by impending war was gone. What remained was the hollow silence of an inexplicably large room, filled with a menagerie of things.
Being back in the room where her and Draco had solidified their relationship supercharged the resurfacing of her buried memories. The smells, the way it was lit, the way it sounded; everything pulled up the roots of what she should have forgotten. The overwhelming sensation made her momentarily woozy.
She steadied herself, though, and her muscle memory took over, sending her in the direction of where she believed the diadem to be. Walking briskly through man-made aisles, which she was beginning to believe she created, she spotted the bust.
"There!" She called back to the group trailing behind her.
The four wizards gathered around a desk bearing a bust of an old snooty man. The adornments on said bust were a contradiction to his pompous look; a gaudy feather boa wrapped around its neck, and atop his head was a tiara, which they now knew to be the lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw.
"Do you think it's a horcrux?" Ron asked, staring up at it.
Hermione gripped the basilisk fang, and as she did, the diadem shivered atop the dome of the marble man's head.
"I think it is," she said as she worked her way onto the desk. Standing tall, she stretched her arm out and took hold of the tiara.
Her skin prickled against the metal, giving her a similar feeling that both the locket and the cup had. This reaction was stronger, though. It was the first time she had a weapon in her other hand poised to kill it.
She crouched down on the desk to jump off, but Draco moved forward. He took her by the waist and eased her down until she was set lightly back on the ground.
"Remember, Granger, it's not real," he said, trailing behind her as she walked off, looking for a spot to place the horcrux. She stalled, and he brought himself against her body, his tall frame sending warmth to her. Her chin rose and looked at him. "You're a brilliant witch and you'll be able to oust this thing easily."
She burned his steely stare into her brain. The intensity behind those eyes gave her courage, courage she needed to store away for what she had to do.
"Hermione," Harry called out, standing a few paces ahead of her. "There is a clearing over there you can use."
She found the spot Harry was suggesting. It was the clearing from her dreams, which she now knew were memories from their past. It was where Draco kissed her, where he held her, where they did things that she really shouldn't be thinking about if she wished to stay focused.
She could never tarnish that spot with something so nasty as Voldemort's soul.
"No, not there," she dismissed gruffly, turning her back to Harry and the rest, her eyes scanning their surroundings for an alternative.
Up ahead, where two aisles met, was a path that widened at the fork. It would work, but she would need to make more space.
As she moved her fingers along the contours of her wand, the magic that sizzled within her buzzed against the wood grains. She was reminded then that she was an exceptionally powerful witch.
From her position down the aisle, Hermione pointed her wand ahead, training it on a pile of items taking up space, and fired a forceful spell in its direction.
The pile of items exploded outwards, as if they were hit with a Confringo spell, but there was no sound, and after a millisecond, the torn apart pieces hung in mid-air for a breath. Then, like ashes in the air after a fire, the pieces drifted to the ground weightlessly.
There was a pregnant pause before Ron shouted, "What in the hell was that!"
"Pluma Creitus," Hermione replied, her eyes trained on the clearing she had made for herself, not distracting herself with Ron's shock. Pocketing her wand, she grabbed the diadem and walked it to the center of the space.
Hermione backed away from the horcrux, keeping her eyes forward on her target. She faintly felt Harry and Ron arrange themselves behind her. In her peripherals, she picked up a flash of blonde that kept her steady.
She took hold of the fang in her right hand, gripping it tight enough to dampen the circulation to her digits. Not a second later, the metal crown erupted into the same black billowy smoke that had formed when Draco challenged the cup.
This version of Voldemoret's soul wasted no time in its defenses, swirling to mount its attack at once, not bothering with any small talk. Hermione was ready, though. Her feet carried her closer toward the metal headdress, the basslick fang trembling in her right hand.
The smoke settled into a version of Draco. He looked ethereal, and somehow more beautiful than he already was. His eyes, though, were as hateful as coal, and directed his look to a version of Hermione that materialized before him. This version of her appeared tattered and weak.
"Who could ever love you, you filthy little mudblood" the unearthly version of Draco declared in a scathing tone, curling his lip down at her smoke form which cowered cowered before him.
Hermione, present of mind, took another step, and smoke spun chaotically. It sensed she had no tolerance for its little games.
The smoke reformed and showed Draco's bloodied corpse, lying at her smoke counterpart's feet. A hazy vision of Narcissa stepped out, pointing a finger at Hermione screaming, "My son is dead because of you! You killed him!"
Her hand shook violently, unable to look away from the dead body of the wizard she loved. The war was not over, and something horrible could still happen to him.
She forced herself to crane her face over her shoulder. There he was, alive and well, his eyes urging her on.
The smoke sensed her resiliency and spun chaotically, searching for another weapon to stop her, but she took the two additional steps needed to close the gap.
In a cathartic movement, Hermione swung the fang down on the crown, and with it, releasing the anger and resentment she had built up over years at being an outsider in the wizarding world. Voledmort's soul wanted her to cave, but she wouldn't. She had always been strong enough, and was finally giving herself the permission to believe it.
A primal roar ripped through her lungs with force. It mingled in the air with the inhumane whine of Voldemort's soul dying. The diadem now laid as two pieces before her, black tar oozing out of each side.
Draco was at her side in a heartbeat, pulling her body forcefully into his until his arms latched around her frame like a vice. His head dipped down to her ear.
"You did," he was breathless in her ear. Her chin jutted upwards to his face, needing to see him.
This wasn't the Draco from the vision that had hateful dark eyes, and said he could never love her. This was her version of him; one that could somehow contain irises of ice, but their effect was anything but chilling; it warmed and awakened all her senses.
A blood curdling wail ripped through the Room of Requirement.
Hermione's head pivoted so quickly she nearly lost balance. Harry was behind them, down to his knees, clawing at his scar and panting in agony. Hermione and Ron moved to their friend's side, while Draco stayed off to the side, looking uncertain.
"He knows," Harry groaned, grabbing at his scar. "He knows we destroyed it."
"How could you know that, Potter?" Draco sounded dumbstruck.
Hermione rubbed circles over Harry's back as she would do any time he had these fits, but her mind was elsewhere. A devastating theory she had been doing her best to ignore manifested in her thoughts.
"I can hear him, see his thoughts. He can sometimes see into mine as well," Harry panted out, still in insurmountable pain.
Draco looked at Harry with unbelieving eyes, "how is that even possible?"
Hermione cast a furtive glance over at the diadem, then back at Harry.
Harry's body lurched forward violently, screaming once more.
"You have failed to bring me Harry Potter," it was Voldemort once again, this time, it was like he was standing next to each of them, whispering into their ears.
"You will pay with blood. We will now begin our attack of Hogwarts."