AN: this is it everybody, I've genuinely loved writing this story. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.

Disclaimer: I own very little and they simply aren't a part of the collection

Hermione crossed the room to where Dumbledore stood holding his hand out to her. She felt in that moment of connecting to him her strength return to her in the last hours. The strength she would need. They left the room and Hermione refused to look back if she looked back now she would never be able to go forward. They apparated from the safe house and onto the road just outside of the gates of Hogwarts. They walked through the iron wrought gates up the long walk to the school.

Harry and Ron dressed in their most comfortable clothes topping them off with black robes. Harry noticed off handedly that Ron's robes were faded and a few inches short. They walked for what they knew would most likely be their last time together out of the dormitory. Neither looked back as they crossed the empty common room heading out into the corridors. They walked with purpose through the corridors striding right down to the main entrance hall. They stopped a few feet short of the grand doors. They turned to each other all the things unspoken were in that moment unnecessary. They hugged tightly together such as only brothers could.

Pushing open the doors to the outside world, refusing to look back knowing they had to keep going they had to fight. They crossed the lawn heading for the sounds of chaos already occurring on the lawn. The death eaters were marching a long line towards them. They began firing off spell after spell. Dodging here and rolling there to avoid all manner of curses being flung their way. More and more students and teachers began to spill out onto the lawn.

A dance was being performed a dance of terrible darkness and death. The air reeked with the stench of fear, darkness and death. It became a palpable thing in that final battle. In the center of the fighting a tall figure stalked forward. Harry began to move towards it and the people parted like the red sea before him. They were to caught up in their own battles to notice. To enraptured with their own struggle to survive to notice anything ekes. Ron followed beside and yet behind his dearest friend in all the world.

Ron left him as they reached Voldemort he knew with all he had that Harry had to face old snake face on his own. He turned about to face down as many death eaters as he could. If he was going to die he would take as many as he could down with him He watched in fascinated horror as the people he knew and loved fell all about him as they each fought for the chance at future a future few that were there that day would ever see.

Harry met Voldemort with a clam that enraptured his very soul. They each bowed to the other with a long forgotten grace. They began to duel in the most violent way imaginable. Curse after curse was being thrown by each. Hermione looked to Dumbledore caught up in his own battles knowing it was time. She watched from a far as she made her way towards the two dueling in the center of the battle.

They were the eye of the storm brewing and bursting over. She walked with a serenity she had never known till that moment. Harry brought Voldemort to his knees with a curse that was lost to the chaotic noise and whistling wind. She saw Voldemort rise again and she made her move. She had come unnoticed between the two as Voldemort shot a burst of green light.

It caught Hermione square in the chest with a sharpness she had only imagined. Harry watched in horror as she took the blow for him. He watched as her body seemed to defy the very curse she had been hit with. In that final pain Hermione understood the sacrifice she was giving; she became aware of the deep magic before the dawn of time. The magic forged in the darkness and bound by a thing humans refer to as love.

Her body lifted itself from the ground and she hovered there. The entire battle seemed to pause in terrified fascination each needing to see, each needing to understand. Bands of multi colored light seeped from her body encasing the three in a bubble of golden light that reflected every color at the same time. Time seemed to stop as the golden light consumed all three in within its cage. Then a sudden explosion of bright green light ricocheted all through the bubble. It cascaded to every single fraction of a surface with a simple power. The golden light seemed to fade to a burnt crimson as it disappeared.

Every person there watched as the body of the now apparently dead girl floated to the ground. The two who had dueled lay upon the ground in a state that left no doubt to the mind. They had all died and yet in that finality of the situation it gave strength to the order and all of its numbers. They fought with renewed strength.

On the immaculate lawns of the stone castle rising from the very mountains themselves the fate of the world was decided. The order was able to finally subdue the last remnants of Voldemort and his death eaters.

With the final death of their leader they seemed to lose something in themselves that had enabled them to fight for so long. Hermione and Harry both were laid to rest in a private clearing deep within the forbidden forest. Ron sat at their grave site neither melancholy nor angry; he was an emotion he had no name for. Ginny he knew was standing on the edges of the clearing.

They had each received letters from the two deceased. They could not go back, they could change nothing and somehow they were glad of it. The end had come to all things in that chapter of their lives. They had nothing to do but move on that was what they would have wanted. They moved on with peace with memories of love and their loved ones.

An autumn day years later Ron and Ginny stood proudly beside their parents. They had decided to share their wedding days turning it into a double wedding. After the final battle they had grown closer than ever before. They had finally found happiness, in the very way Harry and Hermione had wished for them. In a quiet moment of repose Ron would have sworn he heard the wind whispered to him, Goodbye lionheart.

On this same autumn day a half giant sat in a clearing of the forbidden forest. He was joined by a wizened old man with half moon spectacles. They had laid flowers at the graves and sat in repose watching the burnt crimson light play across the thick leaves of the forest.

It is done and complete now everyone. That is the end of this particular story. It has truly been an absolute pleasure to write this one. I hope you enjoyed it. There won't be a sequel to this the story is done. Cat Out.