The Battle of Hogwarts Part 7

Hermione could not remember making her way to the Shrieking Shack with Harry. She could not remember dodging the branches of the Whomping Willow. Nor did she remember crawling through the tunnel that led to the deserted old home.

All she knew was that she was suddenly there, crouched down in the dirty tunnel, with a small sliver of open door to look through. And he was there. Lucius Malfoy was there, just meters from her, and she wanted to exhale with relief that he was still alive, alive and uninjured, and so beautiful in comparison to all of the ugliness and death she'd witnessed thus far on this night. It took every bit of self control she possessed to stay hidden when he was so close by.

If Draco was right that the Dark Lord had legions he could send into battle, Lucius was clearly with the rear guard. Her secret lover was dressed in his Death Eater robes and armour minus the mask, and his long blond hair was pulled back neatly from his face, no signs of battle marred his appearance. He looked outwardly calm, but Hermione could see the subtle signs that all was not well - the way his lips pressed together and his hand clenched and unclenched around his wand when the Dark Lord's back was turned to him as the snake-like wizard paced across the very room where just a day before, she and Harry had slept in their makeshift camp.

She was so caught up in the sight of the wizard she loved that she almost failed to notice the snake, floating in some sort of enchanted bubble. Harry, still rubbing in pain at his forehead, quietly drew her attention to the creature, but she quickly turned her attention turned back to Lucius as he suggested that he lead a team into the castle to retrieve Harry.

Hermione had to stifle a gasp of her own as Harry pinched her, obviously having overheard Lucius. She rubbed her arm and glared at her friend as the Dark Lord insisted that Harry would come to them - and that he was well aware that Lucius only wanted to go into the castle to find his son.

Of course Lucius wanted to go into the castle to find Draco. She knew instinctively that her lover would be incredibly worried about his only child, and she could not blame him for that. No parent wanted his or her child to be caught in the midst of a raging battle! Unfortunately for Lucius it appeared that the Dark Lord knew it as well. She was thankful then that they'd managed to keep their relationship so carefully hidden. It would not do for the Dark Lord to think of her as another weakness of Lucius Malfoy's.

She watched Lucius clench his fist in a mix of mostly concealed anger and frustration as the Dark Lord turned his back and demanded that he send for Severus Snape instead.

Dismissed from the Dark Lord's presence, Lucius turned to leave. As he turned, he paused for a moment, and he saw her. His silver-grey eyes met hers through the sliver of open door and widened for a fraction of a second before he cut them back toward Voldemort. For the first time in a long time, she could see fear in his haughty countenance.

Hermione's heart hammered in her chest, seeming so loud to her own ears that surely someone would hear it and discover her and Harry hiding in the tunnel.

In the dim light of the room, she could barely see him mouth the words "Not safe, go," to her, cutting his eyes toward the exit before he took his leave of the Shrieking Shack.

'Don't go,' her mind screamed as she watched him disappear from the room, as she heard the tell-tale crack of apparition indicating that he'd left to track down Severus for their master.

Did he mean for her to leave now? They'd finally found the snake, and they couldn't possibly retreat now! She tried to focus on the snake, coiled in on itself in the protected bubble. What sort of spell would penetrate the bubble? Could she fire on it like it was a magical shield?

She closed her eyes for a brief moment and tried to visualize the books, so many, many books, she read at Lucius's urging. She was so caught up in her own thoughts that she missed Severus Snape entering the room and the beginning of his conversation with the Dark Lord. He'd appeared suddenly, and she wondered if he'd been nearby. Was Lucius still close by?

She pushed out a quiet breath and tried to focus on what the two dark wizards were saying. Harry's fingers dug almost painfully into her forearm as Voldemort spoke about a wand. She and Harry exchanged glances in the dark at the wand the Dark Lord held aloft - a wand she recognised as last belonging to Albus Dumbledore.

Their former headmaster had been buried with that wand. She'd seen him in the marble coffin, seen the tomb sealed after his death. Given all of the horrible, evil things the Dark Lord had done, the idea that he'd desecrated a tomb and robbed a grave probably wasn't the worst of his crimes, but she still found it disturbing to consider.

She tried to focus on what they were saying, but Voldemort was speaking softly as he paced the room, the snake floating in the bubble beside him. She thought she heard something about an elder wand. Or maybe he'd said elm? Probably elm, she thought to herself. Something niggled at the back of her mind about the term 'elder wand' but she couldn't quite recall what it was. She desperately wished she had one of the Weasley twins' extendable ears. She didn't dare attempt to cast any magic to hopefully amplify the conversation for fear of being discovered.

She glanced over at Harry in the darkness of the tunnel. He looked to be frowning and still clearly in pain. How on earth was he to defeat Voldemort if he could barely be in the Dark Lord's presence without doubling over in pain? There was obviously some sort of magic at play that caused Harry's pain, and unfortunately they'd been in such a rush to destroy the horcruxes that they'd not been able to understand the cause or fully think through what this would do to any battle strategy. She once again wished for Ron's presence, as surely Ron would have some sort of strategy in mind that would help them compensate for Harry's debilitation.

It was imperative, she decided then, that she get to Lucius, that she let him know he'd need to rally every possible supporter, everyone willing to turncoat in battle. Harry would need all the help he could get on this night.

She drew her attention back to the discussion on the other side of the room. Snape was saying something about offering to go back into the castle, to get 'the Potter boy,' and her loathing for her former professor increased. Dumbledore had been a fool to trust him! Voldemort dismissed this notion with a wave of his hand then, and she heard him say that Harry would come to him instead. She glanced over at her best friend and the intense look of concentration on his face. How ironic, she supposed, that they were right here just meters away from the Dark Lord without him even realising it.

They were back to talking about the wand again, about Voldemort not being the master of the wand because Snape had been the one to kill Dumbledore. There were faint protests from Snape, and some things she couldn't quite make out.

And then it happened.

Much later, after all of the death and the carnage, she would look back on this moment in the Shrieking Shack.

The Dark Lord free Nagini from her protective bubble.

This was the time to strike, was it not, she wondered.

Somewhere in her beaded bag, the Sword of Gryffindor was still tucked away, at least, she assumed as much. Harry had told her that the sword could come to a Gryffindor in need, and she was unsure whether that meant anyone, as there were surely housemates of hers in need at the castle this night.

She could wield the sword. She could use it to kill the snake, and Harry could attack Voldemort at the same time. But then, what about Snape?

No, that wasn't workable, she quickly surmised. If Snape was willing to go back to the castle to try to track down Harry and bring him to the Dark Lord, then he would surely fire upon her as soon as they burst from their hiding place. She was no good to Harry or to Lucius dead.

Harry's nails dug painfully into her hand, and Hermione felt her heart drop into her stomach as Voldemort gave the order to his familiar to kill.

It was a quick strike, a blur she almost missed, and the speed at which the giant snake moved was utterly terrifying.

Hermione herself had killed in self-defense. She'd struck down those who would harm her, harm Harry, but she was unprepared for how it would feel to sit silently by and watch someone - her former professor - be killed right in front of her.

She felt frozen, numb, unable to react as Voldemort departed with the snake, leaving a gasping, dying Severus Snape behind on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.

Precious moments passed in blur then: Harry approaching Snape, speaking to him, and collecting his tears in a phial - why on earth was Snape sharing those with him?

Why hadn't she found some way to get her hands on a bezoar, she thought frantically to herself. Surely she could have gotten one from Lucius at some point. Maybe a bezoar and some blood replenishing potions and a hefty dose of anti-venom could save him? She tried to think through everything she had in her beaded bag. There were some general antidotes, but they were meant to cure minor things like eating a mildly poisonous wild berry. The Dark Lord's snake had bitten Arthur Weasley during Hermione's 5th year in school, and he'd ended up in St. Mungo's. Nothing she carried on her person or in her bag was as strong as anything her former professor would need.

Snape had killed their headmaster, stared him down and hit him with an Avada Kedavra that blasted him from the Astronomy Tower. He'd killed him in cold blood. Hermione had neither liked nor trusted Dumbledore at that point, but that didn't mean he deserved to die.

Snape was one of Voldemort's loyal henchman, a double-agent who'd cost them the once safe-haven of Grimmauld Place, who'd likely spilled all manner of Order secrets, who'd gotten Remus Lupin fired from Hogwarts and tried to have Harry's godfather re-arrested and kissed by dementors.

The humanity inside her, all of the things that made Hermione a good and decent person, cried out to save him, to petrify him and cast a stasis charm on him that would hopefully stabilize him, and then apparate him to St. Mungo's. She could leave him there, and then someone else could care for him, perhaps save him, and when this was all over, they could worry about how to best mete out justice.

Instead she stood there, her wand gripped tightly in her hand, trying to hold it steady, as she watched Severus Snape die.

She told herself that their former headmaster did not act like he wanted to be saved. He seemed more concerned with using the last of his magic to share tears and a silvery wisp of memory with Harry instead. She told herself that it would be grossly irresponsible of her and Harry both to leave the battle in order to apparate a dying wizard to the hospital, particularly one who hated them both and had betrayed them. She told herself that if the Carrows and the masked Death Eaters in the corridor at Hogwarts had no deserved her mercy, then neither did Snape, but she still felt guilt and horror and fear inside of her as she watched the wizard who'd once inspired fear and loathing in her breathe his last, stuttered breath.

How did Lucius do this? The question rattled in her mind. How did he go on missions and into battle and into meetings with the Dark Lord knowing that he could be killed, that he might have to stand by in silence and watch someone he cared about die right in front of him? How did he do that and remain sane?

Did Lucius know?

The thought hit her suddenly.

The Dark Lord sent him to find Snape. Lucius and Severus were friends, of a sort, she supposed. They'd sat together at Draco's quidditch matches, and Snape had reached out to Lucius over the whole werewolf thing with Remus Lupin. Did Lucius know that his friend had just been killed? Did he know what fate would befall him when he sent him to the Shrieking Shack? Did he know he'd sent his friend to his death?

Lucius knew she was there. He'd seen her, he'd tried to warn her away from the shack. She needed to tell him. She needed to find him. She'd just watched the Dark Lord murder one of his most trusted advisors, and Lucius needed to know, needed to be warned just how unstable Voldemort was on this night. If the Dark Lord could just strike Snape down like that, then Lucius was not safe, and neither was Draco if Draco was trying to find his father.

These thoughts swirled in her head as Harry grabbed her hand and dragged her back into the tunnel. She tried to listen as Harry dragged her back toward the castle, talking about a pensieve and Dumbledore's office and whatever it was Snape had wanted to tell him before he'd died.

In the midst of her jumbled thoughts about the gruesome death they'd just witnessed and Lucius and his safety, one thought kept popping up in her head: if Snape wasn't the master of the wand, who was? And what was so important about Albus Dumbledore's wand anyway?

~oOo~

Hopefully I'll pre-empt some questions here: as a reminder, because Sirius did not die and was able to help them figure out who RAB was and because Lucius is helping Hermione, our timeline has moved up from canon and it's more like February instead of March. As shown in earlier chapters, Hermione does have Tales of Beedle the Bard from Dumbledore, but they've not gone to Xenophilius Lovegood's house and had that conversation with him about the hallows, so she hasn't quite put all the pieces together yet.

I appreciate your patience with me as I try to juggle work, parenthood, and graduate school. It's been a lot harder than I anticipated, and unfortunately it's limited the time I have to write. Many thanks to Margot Le Faye for talking me through some options for the rest of the battle.

Cheers,

Elle