Chapter 24: Shallowness is at an end
The three pounded through the door, under the archway to Harry's past, present, and future. Time seemed as if it were in slow motion. Nothing was as it seemed. Hermione saw the floor littered with people. Some she knew, somewhere new faces. Some were alive and merely frozen or knocked out. Most were dead. Then she saw him. The sight of him, cloak swirling, hair flying almost made her vomit with shock. She equally felt full of love and hate and the idea made the acid in her stomach rise with bile and flow into her throat.
The blood was pounding in her ears so hard that it blocked out the flurry of screams all around her. Somewhere in the back of her mind a rare sort of peace began to settle over her. Then her body shook with surprise as someone behind her hit her with a vicious curse.
III
She could hear all around her the battle ensuing. She pounded on the walls of her prison to try to grab someone's attention. If they'd only free her she could fight with them. Anger was bubbling through her system. She wished with every fiber of her being that if she had to stay locked away in here that she could transfer her love and power to Harry life his fabled mother had.
She began to sweat with the effort to escape. Her heart was beating wildly against her ribs and her hand began to shake with the effort to find the door in the pitch-black room. The walls were stone so if she could just find a crack, that had to be where the door was. While she crawled along the edge where the wall met the ground she repeated like a mantra, "Harry will be fine. I will get out. Harry will be fine. I will get out…" over and over again hoping that her witch background would make it come true.
Ginny finally sighed exhaustedly, wiped her damp forehead and took a small break.
IIII
He had noticed Ron and Harry. They were fighting fiercely and all the while Harry kept turning his head from side to side, trying to detect where the Dark Lord presided. If they were here Hermione must be around too. He began to worry that she might already be dead. She might have been caught off guard. He felt his throat begin to swell with emotion. Love, hate, sadness and fury boiled with Snape in a dangerous cocktail.
He then heard a distinctive "HA!" before he crumbled to his knees.
IIII
He finally saw him. His Snakelike eyes were red with joy at the torture he was causing. He had not yet noticed Harry, but likely he could sense him near. Harry gulped down the lump of fear in his dry throat. He knew that at any moment he would turn his dangerous eyes on him and the moment he trained his entire wizarding career would soon be upon him.
He poised his want tight in his fist as he let the truest amount of pain anybody has ever felt flood over him. His heart beat frantically as he remembered every time he had been face to face with the devil incarnate.
Suddenly his fear was replaced with hate. More than anything, at that moment, he wished he could drop his want, run to his opponent and claw at his enemy. Harry wanted so much to rip this man's crusty heart from his rigid chest. He wanted to destroy him with his own hands, so that he may feel so deep a pain as he had caused to thousands. He wished that if it were truly up to him Voldemort would never have a quick and easy death but a death so painful he begged Harry to end it for him.
With this rush of hate, Voldemort felt it sting within his brain and a truly happy smile spread across his twisted lips. As he turned to face his foe his heart stopped.
"Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra! Avada Kedavra!"
All four curses his Voldemort straight in the chest. A green light blew him across the room with the force of a freight train. The same green light emitted from him blew Harry, too, across the hall.
IIII
Her eyes were wet with tears. She sat up and looked at the surrounding that in the past few months had become so familiar and wonderful to her. She had so much looked forward to coming here that being here now hurt her soul more deeply than she could ever believe.
She comforted herself in knowing that before she had been hit with that damned knock out hex, she had been so close to murdering the person she now despised. She suspected that soon someone (from which side she did not know) would awaken her and she would find out just how bad her friends had faired in the battle.
She let her mind wander while she waited for the effects of the curse to wear off when she was suddenly conflicted with emotions. She began to cry harder than she had ever allowed herself to cry before. Crying was tool of weakening and she didn't want to appear weak. But here, she thought, she'd be all alone with her sorrow and allowed her self to cry as much as she dared.
Her heart was breaking. Only once before had she given someone control of her heart and only then had she given Ron partial control. Severus had all of her. Before she had felt safe and honest with him. Now she felt that he had used her and had taken advantage of her weak state. Never again, she swore, if I live will I allow myself to be weakened to this state of blubbery by another human being.
"Hermione is that you?" His voice was urgent and afraid.
She turned most abruptly and saw him standing there, wide eyed with disbelief just as a few moments before she had seen him killing and murdering. Hermione jumped to her feet, feeling renewed, and grabbed her wand. The anger that she had felt before began to again bubble through her veins and her mind became coarse with fright and determination.
"Oh Granger! I didn't think I'd ever see you again. It'd been so long since we've been in the dreamscape together… I thought that after tonight-"
"Did you think that you'd get away with it? I TRUSTED YOU!" Hermione screamed. The vibration of her voice shook her and shook the dreamscape violently.
"You don't understand. Damn all! It wasn't me… well it was." His eyes looked so very pitiful, she thought. He looked weak as he trued to pull up the front that he had kept up for so long.
She noticed he didn't have his wand. He must have been knocked out with out it in his hand fore she still had hers. She smiled to herself, finally realizing that she'd be allowed the one thing she'd wanted since she found out what a rotten liar he had been. She'd kill him now as he had tried to kill her friend. He had used her and had gotten inside of her head and he would be punished for such actions.
Without another word she raised her wand and looked him square in the eye. He rushed toward her, knowing that he had not yet made it clear to her that it wasn't him, but Voldemort controlling him that had caused all of this. She would kill him and he'd not be able to tell her how much he loved her.
"Hermione, stop. You don't know what you're doing." His voice was wet with desperation.
She began whispering under her breath.
"HERMIONE I LOVE YOU!" Severus screamed violently as she screamed, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" And then the most hideous green light shot from his body and he flew into the empty space of the dreamscape.
IIII
Everyone suddenly stopped. A loud uproar of confusion burst out on both sides and they watched their leaders lay leaden on the ground. Neither one moved nor neither side had any idea what to do next. Abruptly the door crashed open for the last time and hundreds of ministry workers filed in, ready to arrest all of the left over death eaters.
Hermione's eyes opened warily as a ministry worker worked the invigorating spell on her. Her mind was throbbing, but in some distant part of her brain she remembered she had killed Severus in a dream. She sat up strangely and began to look around at the masses of people bent over others trying to see who was dead and who was alive.
"Hermione! Thank God you're alive!"
Hermione turned her sore neck to stare up at Ron and Ginny. "Thank god you lot are alright! Where's Harry?" She asked suddenly frightened. Ginny and Ron's cheeks were tear stained, she noticed.
"He's…" Ginny burst into uncontrollable sobs and rushed into Hermione's outspread arms. She clasped her hands around Ginny's neck as she too began to break into tears. Everything she had wanted had turned out all wrong, she thought.
As she opened her eyes she saw that two men were carrying out a figure draped in all black. A sudden feeling of sickness rushed into her stomach and made her dizzy. Was Severus really dead? Was that his body they were so carelessly picking up to be discarded?