We are FINALLY here: the Battle of Hogwarts is upon us. This chapter fought me every step of the way, and I really struggled to get it out. I'm eager to hear what you think.

~oOo~

The Battle of Hogwarts, Part 1

Hermione and Harry exchanged a worried glance.

"Ron didn't come back here?" he asked.

Ginny's brow furrowed. "Why would he come here? He was with you. He...he was with you, Harry. Wasn't he?"

Harry ran his fingers through his already messy hair. "He left, before Christmas. He said he was going home to his family. I just thought…"

"Ron wouldn't leave you. Why would Ron leave?" Ginny insisted.

"It's...ah...it's complicated. There are things… about what Dumbledore asked us to do, and he…" Harry's voice trailed off as he looked to Hermione for help.

"He left, Ginny. Of his own free will. He said he needed to check on his family. We haven't heard from him since," she said.

"You've not heard from him at all?" Harry asked Ginny, who shook her head.

"Ron wouldn't come back here, mate," Neville offered. "There are prices on your heads, all three of you. You're officially undesirables. Price has only gone up since you disappeared. If Ron just turned up here, it wouldn't go well for him."

Hermione shivered at Neville's words and the implication: if Ron had come to Hogwarts, Snape and the Carrows would have turned him over to Voldemort. He likely would have been tortured and used as bait to lure Harry.

"But if he'd gone home, why didn't someone tell me?" Ginny pressed.

"They probably didn't want to risk an owl," Parvati Patil supplied from behind Ginny.

"Too many letters from home get searched or confiscated here. Everyone knows Hogwarts is in a bad way. The Carrows, what they've done to students, even first years... " Parvati's voice trailed off as she shuddered. "I'm sure your parents wouldn't want to risk Ron's safety and their own to tell you that he was with them."

Hermione looked over at Harry, who she noticed was clenching his fist, obviously tense with worry over their friend and their mission. She had to bring Harry back around the important matter at hand. They were all worried about Ron, but they had a mission to complete, and a diadem to locate. The last thing Harry needed was to get distracted trying to comfort Ginny. Comfort would have to wait until this was over.

"We were on the run, Ginny. You have to understand that he didn't really have a way to find us once he left," Hermione offered in explanation. "If he's not here, and he's not with us, then he's with your family, and they've surely connected him with other members of the Order."

Ginny was still clinging to Harry with a wide-eyed look of fear and concern, and Hermione found herself surprisingly annoyed with the younger witch's damsel in distress expression. It wasn't that she disliked Ginny. On the contrary, as far as fellow witches went, Ginny was one of the few Hermione considered a friend.

But she'd also spent months on the run with Harry and Ron. She'd been hunted. She'd gone hungry and slept in the woods and shivered in the cold. She'd done without indoor plumbing or basic necessities. She'd given up her only family. She'd worried herself sick over her lover-turned-spy. She'd watched Ron turn his back on them, watched him walk away, and she'd comforted Harry in his despair after Ron's departure. It was honestly hard to muster a whole lot in the way of sympathy for Ginny's fear. No matter what it had been like at Hogwarts these last few months, Hermione thought, at least Ginny had had a roof over her head, shelter from the cold, and plenty of food to eat.

"Hermione's right. He couldn't have gotten back to us after he left, so the logical place for him is with the Order," Harry said firmly, and she breathed a sigh of relief at how he put a temporary end to the conversation.

For her part, Hermione genuinely had not expected to sneak into Hogwarts and run into Ron, not when Snape or the Carrows surely would have turned him over to the Dark Lord for questioning. Ron may have been a lackluster student, but he was a keen strategic thinker, and he would have realised the same thing.

Before anyone else could speak, Harry seemed to snap out of his tense state, and the focused young man he'd become, the wizard who was willing to do whatever he had to do to stop Voldemort was back. He looked around the room.

"Okay. Hermione and I have a mission, from Dumbledore. We're looking for an item that once belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw. We think Vol-"

"Don't say his name, mate," Neville cautioned, clapping Harry on the shoulder. "We're hearing some reports there may be a taboo on the name. I don't know that snatchers could break through the wards to come after you if you say it, but best not to chance it."

"Um. Okay. We think You-Know-Who may have hidden it somewhere in Hogwarts."

"What kind of an item?" Ernie Macmillan piped up.

Harry glanced over at Hermione, and nodded to her.

"We think a diadem - a tiara of some kind that had sapphires on it."

"The lost diadem, then," Padma Patil said as she moved to stand beside her twin.

"Lost?" Harry asked.

"It's been lost for centuries, supposedly. No one knows what became of it. But you think it's here?"

"It's got to be," he said grimly.

Surely they were correct in their logic, Hermione thought frantically. Surely this is where Voldemort would have left the diadem. But if it had been lost for centuries, how would He have found it?

"You should ask the Grey Lady." Luna's lilting voice drifted through the students.

"Who?"

"The Grey Lady. She's the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower."

"You think she'd know?" Harry asked.

Luna shrugged, a dreamy expression on her face. "I should think so. She's Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, after all."

At once everyone turned to stare at Luna, and Hermione felt her mouth fall open in shock.

"WHAT?" she asked.

Luna blinked and looked around, as if surprised that she'd managed to stun her classmates.

"Sure. I thought everyone knew that. You know, if you take the time to talk to her, and listen, she's really rather fascinating."

A hint of a smile twisted on Harry's lips. "I bet she is. Luna, can you take Hermione and me to find the Grey Lady?"

"Of course. You should put on student robes though so you blend in."

Harry smiled as he withdrew the invisibility cloak. "We don't need robes."

~oOo~

It struck Hermione as odd to realise that in all of her years at Hogwarts, she'd never been inside Ravenclaw's tower. Had she known that admittance was based on the ability to answer a riddle, she had to admit to herself that she probably would have tried to get in just to see if she could answer the door's questions. It did not strike her as the most secure method of entry, but then, perhaps Ravenclaws did not worry about that sort of thing.

Years ago, when she'd sat on a stool in front of all of Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat had dithered between placing her in Gryffindor, Slytherin, or Ravenclaw. The first for her outspoken nature and willingness to take a chance, the second for her ambition and her desire to plan and prepare, and the third for her love of learning and thirst for knowledge. She'd missed out on the chance to see Slytherin's common room due to that unfortunate mix-up with polyjuice and a cat hair in second year, but as she looked around the airy high ceilings and blue-draped walls of Ravenclaw tower, she thought that perhaps she could have been happy here.

The room was deserted, the students at dinner, and they had privacy as they spoke with the Grey Lady, a beautiful spectre with a sad look on her face. She told them her tale and shamefully confessed that she'd hidden the diadem away, revealing its location in Albania only once, to a handsome young head boy named Tom Riddle who'd filled her head with pretty lies about 'honouring' her mother's memory.

Hermione felt relief at the confirmation that they were seeking the correct item after all, relief that was tinged with sorrow at the idea that an artefact that supposedly enhanced the wisdom of its wearer had been missing for so long and likely defiled by Tom Riddle.

Unfortunately for them, Helena Ravenclaw was uncertain just where Riddle could have hidden the diadem, but Harry swore they'd find it and remove the dark magic. He did not add that doing so would likely destroy the relic, and Hermione was thankful for his tact, even as she mourned the item they would hopefully soon destroy.

"So where to now?" Luna asked as the ghost floated through the common room wall, disappearing from sight.

Harry ran his fingers through his hair as he looked around the room. "Honestly? I'm not sure. I keep feeling like I'm missing something. I mean, besides the diadem."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked with a frown.

"I don't know. It's almost like there's something I've forgotten, and I… I need to remember it. Whatever it is. It's important."

She swallowed hard. She'd done the spell correctly, she knew she had. Harry should be aware that there were any gaps in his memory, or that his vision of the horcrux wasn't real.

"Is it...you think it's something related to the diadem?" she prompted.

Harry looked across the room at the bust of Rowena Ravenclaw. "Yeah, I think so."

"I'm sure you'll remember it soon, whatever it is," Luna offered.

Before Hermione could respond say anything else, they heard a thumping sound from just outside the door to the common room.

"Someone's coming. You need to hide," Luna whispered. "It's probably another student."

Hermione moved close to Harry, palming her wand in preparation as he withdrew the invisibility cloak to toss over both of them.

It all happened so fast.

One moment she was looking at Harry as he shook out the cloak, and the next the door to the common room was flung open, and Alecto Carrow shrieked at the sight of them, still partially uncovered, visible, and vulnerable.

She and Harry both raised their wands as Alecto pressed a stubby finger to the dark mark on her forearm. Harry doubled over in pain, and Hermione grabbed at him, trying to keep him from falling over.

A fraction of a second later, a loud bang echoed through the common room. Hermione looked up from Harry to see Luna standing over the prone figure of Alecto Carrow.

"Did you just…" Hermione's voice trailed off.

"I stunned her. It's a good thing we practised that in Dumbledore's Army. That was louder than I thought it would be," Luna observed.

Hermione blinked at the blonde, who seemed rather proud of herself.

"Harry are you alright?" Luna asked.

Hermione turned back to Harry, who was grasping his forehead in pain.

"I think...HE knows. That we're here. She summoned him before Luna stunned her," he gasped. "I saw a glimpse… of something. He's angry. He'll come here. We don't have a lot of time."

Harry had not been plagued by the sharp pains and strange visions in so very long that she'd almost forgotten about them. There was obviously some sort of strange connection between Harry and the Dark Lord, but she did not understand it. Now, she feared that Harry would be unable to be in His presence long enough to fight him without being in pain. What were they to do then?

Harry straightened up, still rubbing his forehead.

"What should we do with her?" he asked, nodding toward Alecto.

Hermione had a feeling she knew what Lucius's answer would be. She could almost hear his elegant drawling voice in her ear.

If you intend to take out your opponent, do not use a curse that permits him to get back up and attack you again. Even a wizard bleeding out from a severing hex could potentially cast an avada kedavra at you if he has enough time and his wand is in his grasp.

"We make sure she can't get back up again and come after us," she said firmly, moving forward toward Alecto, her wand extended.

"Hermione you...you aren't suggesting that we…" Luna started to say.

"We aren't going to kill her," Harry said firmly.

"We aren't?" Luna asked lightly.

Hermione sighed. She wished she'd had more time, more time to convince Harry that sometimes you had to play dirty in order to win, that a victory matter more than a righteous defeat.

Instead she acquiesced and hit Alecto with a stunner to the head and then cast incarcerous, binding her with thick ropes. Then she stepped over the witch's prone figure and stepped directly onto her wand, snapping it in two. The sound made her wince. Snapping a witch or wizard's wand was akin to ripping off a limb.

"It's not ideal, but that should hold her for awhile, and once she's awake, at least she won't have a wand," Hermione said with finality.

Luna gaped at her, and Harry studied her for a long moment before he nodded at her.

She knew Harry, knew he was a good, decent person who never wanted to kill anyone, but she also knew that he was coming to see that this was war, and sometimes, that meant taking someone out before they could kill you themselves. If they were to find and destroy the diadem and the snake and take out the darkest wizard of their time, they were not going to win by casting stupefy.

It was sobering to realise that she would have done it, she would have cast a dark curse at an unconscious witch, stealing life from Alecto as she surely had done to many others in her service to the Dark Lord.

But then, it wasn't really murder if done in the midst of war, was it? If it was kill or be killed?

They had no time for her to ponder this, as Alecto's twin brother Amycus burst through the door moments later shouting at his sister for summoning the Dark Lord, waving his wand about. He was followed quickly by Minerva McGonagall.

Amycus stopped short at the sight before him and then gave a fierce cry before firing a curse at Harry, who parried it. As a Death Eater, Amycus surely knew plenty of dark curses, but he seemed to be holding back as he and Harry fired upon each other.

All of the books, all of the training, all of the lessons Lucius had taught her kicked in. They had no time to waste on a lengthy duel, and she could not risk any of them being injured or killed, not when they still had horcruxes to destroy.

She cast negant spirito with a whisper, without even much of a thought.

She hit the Death Eater-turned-professor before he could even wave his wand in her direction.

It was an insidious hex, a nasty bit of dark magic that resembled a stunner, rendering the victim unconscious. It would then close off the trachea, rapidly denying the victim air. 'Silent strangulation' Lucius's book called it. She'd practised the spell with Lucius but never cast it on a person. Until now.

She watched in silence as Amycus collapsed. He was not dead yet, but he would be soon. It wasn't as instantaneous as an avada kedavra, but it was at least reasonably peaceful: Amycus Carrow was out cold and would not know he had only minutes to live.

I've just killed a man, she thought grimly.

It felt vaguely like an out of body experience. Somehow she expected it to feel worse.

Was murder not worse than the way she'd wiped her parents' memories of her? The way she'd stolen Harry's memory of Lucius and Narcissa emerging from the horcrux? She'd been devastated both times, inconsolable even.

But then, Harry and her parents meant so very much to her and Amycus Carrow was… he was a Death Eater, a reportedly violent wizard who had no business being around children. Maybe that explained the strange feeling inside her, and the utter lack of remorse she felt.

"What was… did you just…" Harry looked at the fallen Carrows and then at Hermione and Luna.

"We don't have time," she said insistently, trying to ignore the clawing, writhing feeling inside of her that came with the use of dark magic.

He eyed her warily before offering a curt nod. He wasn't going to question her. Not now anyway.

"You-know-who is coming. Alecto summoned him before Luna stunned her," he said to Professor McGonagall. "And he won't come alone. We need to get as many of the students out of the school and to safety as possible. Unfortunately I can't leave until we finish what we came here to do."

"The students are safe behind Hogwarts' wards. Where do you propose I send them, Mr. Potter," Minerva said tersely.

"There's a tunnel, in the Room of Requirement. It goes from there into the the Hog's Head Inn. The owner, Aberforth is-"

"Albus's brother. Yes. I know."

"It's the only way I know to get in and out of the school undetected. Are there - can you gather some of the other professors and help them move the younger students to safety?" Harry prompted.

She looked down at an unconscious Amycus whose lips were turning blue and then at Hermione.

"What have you done?"

Hermione stowed her wand and lifted her chin defiantly at her former professor. "What I had to do. We don't have time to argue about this. The Dark Lord is COMING, and we have something we HAVE to find and destroy first."

Minerva stared at her for a long, hard moment and Hermione could not help but wonder what the older witch saw in her. She realised with a start that she no longer cared. It did not matter. The only thing that mattered was ending the war and getting back to Lucius.

Finally Minerva nodded curtly. "It's good to see you both. I wish it was under better circumstances, of course. Now, what do you need to find?"

Hermione exhaled in relief.

~oOo~

So, Hermione's finally done it: she's used dark magic to take a life. I was always going to have her kill during the final battle, but I wasn't sure who and what it would look like (or how many she'd kill). If you've read "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, then perhaps you'll recall a scene after the war in which Scarlett O'Hara shoots and kills a Union deserter at Tara who plans to rob her and her sisters. Her grim acceptance of her actions and her justification of it is similar to how I saw Hermione in this scene. She's not thrilled with it, but she sees her actions as justifiable.

Thank you so much for continuing to read and to share your thoughts with me!