The Battle of Hogwarts Part 10
Hermione stiffened her spine and tightened her grip on her wand at the sight of her best friend, limp and lifeless. A sob threatened to tear its way from her throat, but she stubbornly tried to swallow it down, even as silent tears slid down her cheeks. Others around her were not so successful.
If Harry had done that… if he'd truly been willing to give his life to destroy the horcrux within him, then she owed it to him to finish this. The snake still lived, and once it was gone, Voldemort would be mortal again, and he could be killed. And then… and then she could only hope and pray that she would be able to bury Harry beside his parents in Godric's Hollow and to mourn him as the hero he was. He deserved at least that.
Barely cognizant of Voldemort's posturing, Hermione scanned the assembled Death Eaters, looking for Lucius's familiar mask. He was not wearing it though, and she caught sight of his pale blond hair almost immediately. Her heart lurched at the sight of him, standing beside his incredibly distraught-looking wife. Hermione was relieved to see that although Lucius no longer looked as composed as he'd been in the Shrieking Shack, he at least appeared to be uninjured. He'd not caught her eye, but he seemed to be scanning the crowd, looking for his son, she assumed. She turned to look behind her and then realised she'd long since lost track of Draco.
Her brain whirred with activity, and the pounding of her blood in her ears blocked out much of the sound around her. What to do now, she debated, biting her lip as she took in the horrific tableau before her. She'd given the sword to Neville, but she could not see him in the crowd. Fiendfyre would destroy a horcrux, she rationalised. She could cast it now. It wasn't a difficult curse to cast, but it was incredibly difficult to control...and the courtyard was filled with people. How many innocent people would she inadvertently kill if she lost control of the flames? They'd been able to seal the magical fire into the Room of Hidden Things earlier on this day, but out in the open, how far could it spread? The larger it became the more difficult it was to control. Was killing Voldemort worth it if she killed everyone else along with him? She bit her lip and clenched her wand in frustration as she realised that she couldn't do it. She may have killed on this night, but she simply did not have it in her to risk the lives of everyone here.
Surely Lucius would have options. Her lover was nothing if not a consummate planner and schemer. Surely he would have thought through possible contingencies for the battle, beyond portkeying her and Draco both to safety. She needed to get to him, she needed but a few precious minutes to hug him, to reassure herself that he was truly alive and well, and then to strategise.
It was a few precious minutes she would not have.
From somewhere in the crowd, a weary Neville Longbottom staggered forward, ignoring taunts from Bellatrix and others, as he faced down one of the most evil wizards to ever live.
Somewhere in the recesses of her prodigious mind, Hermione recalled Harry explaining to her that Dumbledore had believed the prophecy could apply to him or to another baby born at the end of July whose parents had also defied the Dark Lord.
Neville.
Dumbledore believed that by going after Harry, by killing James and Lily as he had, the Dark Lord had marked Harry as his equal, had chosen Harry just as fate had.
It made sense, she supposed, in some twisted sort of way. After all, Neville had never been the sort to inspire much confidence. He was gifted in herbology, of course, but throughout their years at Hogwarts, Hermione had heard the snickers and giggles, the tittering comments about how Neville should have been a Hufflepuff. She'd operated under the assumption that her fellow classmate had chosen Gryffindor just as Harry had, had asked the hat to put him there, as a means of honouring his parents and living up to his family's lofty expectations of greatness. She'd never been cruel enough to tell Neville that she thought he'd have been well-suited for Hufflepuff, but she'd thought it all the same.
But the wizard who'd greeted her and Harry in the Room of Requirement - Merlin but that seemed like a lifetime ago - and had provided a safe haven for so many of Hogwarts students, the wizard who'd organised and planned and schemed and led was a Neville she'd never seen before.
As she watched the tall, proud, but battle-weary young man pull the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat in his hand, Hermione knew then that Neville Francis Longbottom had more than earned his place in Gryffindor. She did not put much stock into divination or lofty thoughts of fate and destiny, but if such a thing existed and fate had chosen Harry, had led to his sacrifice, then surely fate had chosen Neville as well.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches.
Time moved in slow motion as Neville swung the sword, light from a distant flame reflecting off the metal.
In one fell swoop, Neville beheaded the snake.
It was done.
The last horcrux.
They had done it.
Lord Voldemort - Tom Marvolo Riddle - was mortal once more.
~oOo~
The quick but brutal death of the Dark Lord's familiar - carried out in front of him and his assembled Death Eaters - sent ripples of shock through the crowd and then chaos.
Some of the Death Eaters rushed toward Neville, and Hermione saw the first curses fly, bits of magic lighting up the night. She moved without thinking, acting purely on instinct to throw a disabling curse back at a masked Death Eater who was firing on her friend and former classmate.
Some of the students and members of the Order ran toward Neville with wands drawn, understanding then that the fight was far from over. With or without Harry Potter, it would continue.
Others panicked and began a retreat toward the perceived safety of the castle, even though the enemy was already within the gates. From a tactical standpoint, she mused, a retreat indoors made sense as the building offered more cover than standing out in the open.
Retreat, however, was the last thing she wanted. She needed to get to Lucius. Hermione pushed her way through the crowd, ignoring the shouts and screams as she tried to move toward the place where she'd last seen him.
In the confusion, she missed the moment when Harry Potter's body disappeared from Hagrid's arms, vanishing without a trace.
Unfortunately for her, Hermione was trapped in a crowd moving in the opposite direction and fighting against it was like trying to swim upstream against a raging current. She was practically carried along with the crush of people into the castle. She stumbled over a broken piece of stone and managed to catch herself on a larger pile of what had once been part of a castle wall. Someone slammed into her from behind, and she heard screams and shouts around her.
She was knocked about by the crowd but managed to gain her footing and looked around, trying desperately to spot Lucius's pale blond hair in the panicked crowd. It made sense to her that Lucius would be back toward the courtyard, but then, surely he'd be moving this direction to try to get to Draco and to her.
She thought perhaps if she could get to higher ground, she'd be able to see him, to reach him. Hermione scrambled up the pile of broken stone until she could reach the railing of the nearby staircase. She pulled herself up and over the railing, not realising until she did so and saw the smear of wet blood on the marble rail that she'd scraped her palms when she was knocked down by the crowd. She wiped her hands on her clothes, ignoring the slight sting of pain, and ran up the stairs.
From her vantage point, Hermione frantically scanned the crowd searching for a tell-tale blond head of hair. Instead it was red that caught her eye.
Was that… surely that wasn't Ron, was it, she wondered in shock.
A spell exploded against the exterior of the castle, sending a shower of dust into the crowd, and she had to squint to try to focus on the red-haired man in the melee below. He had his back turned to her, fighting against the direction of the crowd just as she had, but from where she stood, it looked like it certainly could be Ron.
She'd kept quiet around Harry about the awful things that could have happened to their friend after he left their campsite. She'd not wanted to distract him or put further stress on him, but a part of her had tried to tuck Ron away behind occlumency shields, to put him and their friendship in a neat little box and lock it away as something to worry about later. The sight of red hair in the crowd had pulled the box out and opened it in her mind, and she suddenly felt a million things all at once: relief, fear, anger, frustration. A desire to hug him warred with a desire to hex him for worrying them all so.
It hit her then that if that was Ron, he didn't know all the horcruxes were gone! She needed to tell him! She turned and moved back down the stairs, yelling Ron's name as she went.
She realised quickly that it was hopeless. The red-haired wizard was moving away from her not toward her, and he couldn't hear her over the din. Several students ran up the stairs past her, and as the red glow of a spell whizzed past her, Hermione knew she was too exposed and vulnerable where she was.
Up the stairs and down the hall was another set of stairs and - she hoped - a better vantage point to try to find Lucius, Draco, Harry, or Ron. She headed back up the stairs and took off down an empty corridor. She heard a shouted curse behind her and fired back over her shoulder as she ran. More curses flew at her as a masked Death Eater pursued her, and she hurriedly cast a shield, hoping that perhaps a curse would ricochet off her and back into the wizard chasing her.
Up ahead, a tapestry on the wall caught her attention, and she remembered that it hid a secret passage to the other side of the castle. She flung the tapestry back and darted behind it, casting duro as she went, to turn the pliable cloth into stone. She heard a thud and the sickening crunch of body and bone as the Death Eater ran into the solid tapestry.
Hermione paused then, hunched over, her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. She gave herself a moment to cast a lumos and use the wand-light to check her body for injuries. She healed the scrapes on her palms and cast a general healing charm at her knees where she'd banged into the debris downstairs as people fled.
That done, she began to make her way through the secret passage. It should have been a short walk, but on this night it seemed far longer than she remembered. When at last she reached the end of the passage, she cast a disillusionment charm on herself and carefully slipped out the other side.
Except she wasn't where she expected to be: in the corridor near the charms classroom. This looked more like the abandoned wing on the third floor that had once housed Fluffy the cerberus and Dumbledore's obstacle course she, Harry, and Ron had entered their first year at Hogwarts.
She looked around and tried to get her bearings.
"How on earth?" she muttered under her breath.
Hogwarts had long intrigued her, the magic of the building seeming to defy logic at times, and this appeared to be yet another instance of the castle doing something unexpected. Just as the staircases moved, the secret passage had apparently moved as well, depositing her in a completely different place. Was it magic to help the students and faculty escape an invading force? Was this something the founders had created when the castle was built, or had headmasters added it later as a need arose? What sort of wondrous magic did it take to essentially make a castle near-sentient? And if the building was changing on its own, how was she supposed to find Lucius?
Under the relative safety of a disillusionment charm, and somewhat removed from the fighting, Hermione took a moment to check her bracelet for a message from Lucius.
Know you are still there. Unsure how/why, but Potter is NOT dead. Stay with Draco - I will find you.
Her heart felt as if it had thudded to a stop. Harry was not dead? How? Why? She tried to make sense of what Lucius had told her. A jumble of emotions whirled inside of her: joy, relief, confusion, fear. She bit her lip as she stared at the message, wishing then that she'd taken the time to read it earlier. She once again wondered what on earth had happened when Harry went into the forest. If Harry was alive, then why fake his death? How had he managed to deceive Voldemort? Lucius had told her before that his master was unstable. Was he truly so unstable he couldn't tell the difference between the living and the dead?
Hope surged within her. If Harry was indeed still alive, they had all the more reason to fight! She needed to find Lucius straight away!
With a shaky hand, she used her wand to send a message through the bracelet.
Castle moved - in 3rd floor west wing. Got separated from Draco. Will try to get to Great Hall. Need to see you ASAP!
She could only hope that Lucius saw the message and could meet her there. Hermione took a deep breath and debated the fastest but safest way to make her way to the Great Hall. If the castle was indeed moving stairs and secret passages, she could easily end up transported far from her intended location.
"Hominum revelio!"
The spell was cast before she heard anyone approach.
Perhaps she was too distracted by the message from Lucius, by the knowledge that her best friend was still alive. Perhaps the sounds of battle had stifled the noise of another's approach.
Whatever the reason, whatever her excuse, she had failed to practise Moody's mantra of 'constant vigilance,' and the disillusionment charm evaporated from her body, leaving her visible and vulnerable.
A cackling voice sounded from the other end of the corridor, and Hermione knew with a sinking feeling in her gut just who had found her before she even turned around to face the enemy.
Bellatrix Lestrange.
~oOo~
Hermione whirled around, casting a shield immediately as she turned to face her attacker.
"What do we have here? An ickle... filthy... mudblood, all alone and defenseless!"
The witch stood at the opposite end of the corridor, looking like something dragged from the depths of a nightmare. Her clothing was ragged and torn in places, and her hair looked as if it had not been washed or combed in ages, but it was her face that terrified Hermione. Her mouth was twisted into a snarl, revealing blackened, damaged teeth, and dark circles ringed pale eyes that sparked with madness.
In that instant, Hermione recalled Lucius telling her the Dark Lord had tortured Bellatrix for her failure at Grimmauld Place, for allowing Harry Potter and his friends to escape. The cruciatus curse could drive someone to madness - Neville's parents were proof of that. How many times had the curse been turned on Bellatrix Lestrange? If Lestrange had been crazed before, when Hermione saw her in the Department of Mysteries or in the attack on Grimmauld Place, she was positively deranged now.
The elder witch cast first, and to Hermione's surprise, it was not the green glow of an avada kedavra that flew at her but rather an utterly horrific entrail-expelling curse Hermione vaguely recalled reading in one of the books on dark magic Lucius had loaned to her. She managed to just barely block it and threw back a dark spell of her own. She was unsurprised when her opponent blocked it as well.
Bellatrix cackled again and actually hopped up and down with excitement. "Does Saint Potter know his filthy whore uses dark magic? Maybe instead of killing you straight away, I should give the Dark Lord the pleasure of ripping you open and spilling your dirty blood all over the floor!"
Hermione cast again, throwing a quick volley of spells. Lestrange was known as a fearsome opponent, deranged or not, and she doubted she could hold the older woman off for long. Most of her spells were harmlessly deflected, although she did manage to get enough of a blasting spell past Bellatrix to make her stagger to avoid an explosion of stone and debris. Hermione used the precious pause in the fight to throw up a shield and run for her life.
But where to go? Her mind raced with possibilities. It would be foolish to try to dart into a classroom - if she couldn't keep Bellatrix out, she'd end up trapped and likely tortured to death. There were alcoves sporadically placed in the corridor that would offer temporary cover, allowing her to cast and then dart back behind the stone wall, but those too could become a dead end if Lestrange advanced on her and cornered her there. She didn't know of any hidden passages in this section of the castle, beyond the trap door in the room that had once housed Fluffy, the cerberus used to guard the Philosopher's Stone. Unfortunately, the door to that room was behind her already. The stairs on the far end of the corridor would have to be her only option.
Hermione felt the brunt of dark magic hit her shield, pressing in on her, and she whirled back toward her attacker screaming, "avada kedavra!" at the top of her lungs. Dark magic surged inside her, exploding from her wand in a burst of sickly green.
Unlike her encounter earlier in the evening where she'd cast an avada kedavra for the first time, she did not hesitate.
Her curse missed its mark, just barely, as Bellatrix jerked to the side, a wide-eyed look of surprise on her face that morphed into a snarl as she cast a crucio at Hermione.
Sweat beaded on Hermione's forehead as she flung herself out of the way. She hit the stone floor hard and rolled, casting sectumsempra almost immediately as she staggered to her feet. The curse caught the other witch on the leg, and she screamed in rage. Instead of slowing her, it seemed the cursed only fueled Bellatrix's anger and insanity, and she advanced on Hermione, casting curse after curse.
Hermione might have been able to make it to the staircase, might have been able to distract Bellatrix in some way long enough to incapacitate her, might have been able to do something, had it not been for the stained-glass window.
With a wave of her wand, Lestrange blasted the window, sending a shower of coloured glass shards flying at Hermione. Hermione, for her part, had expected a magical curse or hex, and was unprepared for the witch to use items around them in a more physical attack.
Glass caught in her clothing and sliced into her skin. Enough adrenaline was pumping through her body at that point that Hermione scarcely registered pain from the broken window, but she was nevertheless distracted by it.
Those precious seconds were all it took.
"Expelliarmus!"
"NO!" Hermione screamed as her beloved vine wand slipped from her fingers and sailed down the corridor and into the hand of her opponent.
A single, simple flippendo later, and Hermione was on her back on the stone floor, the breath knocked from her lungs.
Think. You have to think. You have to get away.
The thoughts rushed frantically through her mind as Hermione tried to catch her breath. She was unarmed and alone with the Dark Lord's most obsessive and insane follower, a witch who would not hesitate to kill her. Hermione stretched out her arm, trying desperately to focus her magic, to somehow will her wand back to her. She'd not been able to master wandless magic, certainly not to the extent Lucius had, but perhaps… perhaps with the strain of battle and the desperation churning within her, she could do it.
"Awww… does Muddy want a wand?" Bellatrix taunted, sauntering forward.
Hermione scrambled back from her, wincing as she put her palm down on shattered glass.
"You're filth. Garbage. Scum. You don't deserve to even touch a witch's wand!" Bellatrix continued in a crazed shout, twirling Hermione's wand in her fingers.
Rage filled Hermione at her words and at the sight of Bellatrix's jagged nails digging into the delicate vine wood.
"It's MY wand. It CHOSE me!" Hermione spat. "MAGIC chose me. It bloomed in me! I have just as much a right to a wand as any other witch or wizard!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, Hermione knew they would enrage the insane witch, but she'd been unable to hold them back.
She knew she was worthy of the title of "witch."
Even Lucius Malfoy knew it. Lucius, the pureblood lord whose approval she'd so desperately sought as a child recognised the brilliant, powerful magic within her, and found her worthy.
She'd been born with magic. Every cell in her body sang with magic. She did not understand the how or why of it, why she'd been gifted with magic when so many other children of muggles were not. All she knew was that it was hers, as much a part of her as her mind or her soul. She was a witch.
She half-expected Bellatrix to argue with her, to scream and yell about illogical things like blood purity and stealing magic.
She should have known better. Bellatrix Lestrange was well past the point of being able to have a conversation about much of anything.
Time seemed to once again move in slow motion as Bellatrix raised her crooked black wand at Hermione and said just one word.
"Crucio."
~oOo~
In her sixth year when she jumped into a fight between Harry and Draco, she'd been grazed with the younger Malfoy's attempt at the cruciatus curse. The curse had sent searing pain over her shoulder and down her arm. That was child's play compared to the crucio Bellatrix Lestrange cast.
Pain like she'd never experienced, like she'd never imagined possible, ripped through her body, dropping Hermione on her back on the floor in an instant. All her brain could comprehend was pain: her skin was being sliced and peeled from her body, her teeth were being pulled from the sockets and her nails ripped from her fingers. Her bones felt as if they were being broken one by one and she was on fire, burning alive.
She'd never before wished for death, never before wanted it.
She wanted it now.
Make it stop, make it stop. Please oh god, make it stop.
It was the only coherent thought she could manage, and her mind repeated it like a mantra as she writhed on the hard stone, desperately seeking an end to the torture.
She was unaware of the tears that streaked down her cheeks or the blood that seeped from the cuts in her skin or that dripped from her mouth after she bit her tongue. All she knew was the horrible, high-pitched cackle of the dark witch torturing her, the sound of her own screams, and an endless stream of utter misery that would end only in the sweet release of death. There was no room in her mind for Lucius or Harry or the war or anything else. Just pain. Pain and inevitable death.
Death is preferable to this. Please, just make it quick. It will stop hurting when I'm dead.
And then, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a flash of green.
~oOo~
Hermione closed her eyes.
The pain lessened.
All was dark.
It had to have lessened, for surely she would never be able to adjust to this level of pain. Her throat still burned, but she was able to stop screaming.
Am I dead? Is this what death feels like? I thought...everything still hurts, but if I'm not dead, I'm surely dying.
She slowly forced her eyelids open and tried to focus on the darkness above her. That was...was that the ceiling? She slowly realised she was not dead, and she was still on the floor at Hogwarts, and with each passing second, the pain was fading, but there was a heavy weight on her legs, crushing her, pinning her down.
"Hermione!"
Yes, that's my name, she thought. The voice was familiar, but she struggled to remember why.
Light appeared in her line of vision. No, not light, her mind corrected. Blond hair.
"Can you speak?"
She blinked and focused up at the man. The weight crushing her legs was suddenly moved aside, and she heard what sounded like the cracking of wood, and then hands were on her, touching her, pulling her up from the ground as her muscles spasmed and cramped and her body screamed in protest.
"Lucius?" she croaked, blinking as her vision focused and she finally recognised the wizard touching her.
He heaved a relieved sigh, "Yes, pet. Thank Merlin, you're alright."
Alright? It was almost laughable that anyone would say she was alright after experiencing the cruciatus curse from Bellatrix Lestrange.
"Bellatrix," she managed to gasp.
"Is dead." He spat the words and glanced away. She followed his gaze to the dead witch on the floor, her eyes wide and unseeing, her crooked wand beside her, broken in two.
"You killed her?" Her voice sounded faint and raspy to her own ears.
He pulled her shaking form into a nearby alcove, and Hermione cried out in pain at the movement. He propped her up against the stone wall and rummaged in his pockets for something as she tried to stay upright. Her legs felt like muggle jello, and she didn't think she could stand for much longer. Just as that thought passed through her mind, she began to slide down the wall, crumpling on the floor.
Lucius, seemingly realising the futility of trying to get her to stand upright, shifted her until she was sitting on the floor, legs sprawled out in front of her as she leaned against the wall for support.
"Here, drink this," he said, holding a potion phial up to her lips. He had to tip her head back and hold the phial for her. As she swallowed, a cooling sensation worked its way down her ravaged throat.
"Pain potion, targeting the nerves. It's not a quick fix for the after-effects of the cruciatus, but it's the closest I've found," he said in explanation as he set the phial aside.
Somewhere in the back of her mind his words registered with her - "it's the closest I've found." He had experience with the torture curse, deeply personal experience, and now that she'd felt its full horror, she felt sick at the idea that Lucius too knew what it was like.
She closed her eyes and sagged against him as the potion moved through her body. After the horror of what she'd just experienced, this felt almost heavenly in comparison. Lucius wound his arms around her and held her close, crushing her against him, and she cried out in pain again as he inadvertently forced small bits of glass into her skin.
"What is it?" he asked, releasing her quickly.
"Glass," she managed to gasp.
A wave of his wand, and she felt sharp tugs of pain across her body as she last remnants of the stained-glass window vanished.
He forced another potion down her throat, and she thought - hoped - the sensations she felt were the cuts in her skin knitting back together. Tremors wracked her body as the battle raged in the distance and the potion did its best to soothe her damaged nerves. She closed her eyes and heard him whisper notice-me-not and repelling charms to disguise their presence in the alcove before he pulled her into a gentle embrace.
Eventually he pulled back from her, produced a handkerchief from somewhere, and used it to clear her face of blood and tears. His hands were gentle, and she leaned into him.
"Look at me," he said firmly.
Her eyes met his own, holding her gaze for a time, and she could see the relief on his face at the realisation that her mind had not broken under the strength of the curse.
"You're going to be alright." He said it succinctly, with an utter certainty that might have amazed her any other time. On this night, she simply took comfort in his presence and protection.
Even with the potions, her body still ached, and she felt shaky and disoriented. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into Lucius's robes, inhaling the familiar scent of him as she tried to slow her racing heart. When she opened her eyes again, she looked past Lucius and could see a pair of legs and a bit of black fabric, lying still on the stone floor.
Bellatrix Lestrange's corpse.
"You killed her," she whispered. It was not phrased as a question, but she could not keep a bit of wonder from her voice.
Lucius had saved her by killing Bellatrix Lestrange. He could have disarmed her, could have stupefied or petrified her. Instead he'd chosen an instantly lethal spell. She was his wife's sister and the Dark Lord's most devoted Death Eater, and he'd killed her.
"I did."
There was no emotion in his voice.
"She…"
"I know you may not wish to believe this, given how much pain you were in and are undoubtedly still in, but you're lucky she's a sadistic bitch. Had she not stopped to torture you, you'd have been dead before I got to you," he said bluntly.
She swallowed hard at his words, knowing just how right he was. She'd been unprepared. She'd been taken by surprise by one of the Dark Lord's closest followers. She'd nearly died because of it.
He raised his hand in her line of vision, showing her the Malfoy signet ring.
Her eyes met his again. "You got my message?"
"I did, and it's a damned good thing you sent it."
She could not help but silently agree. He'd gotten her message, he'd come to her, and he'd saved her. She wanted to tell him how much his actions meant to her, but the words stuck in her throat.
"I love you," she managed to push out in a hoarse whisper.
He pulled her close again, and she felt his lips press a kiss on the top of her head and his fingers weave through her tangle of curls.
"I know. And I you. I have no intention of letting Bellatrix or anyone else take you from me. You are mine."
His words and his implicit declaration of love soothed her just as much as the potion had, and she tilted her face up towards his and pulled him in for a kiss. His lips were featherlight on hers, and he pressed gentle, tender kisses to her cheek and forehead before pulling her close again.
He loved her. He'd as much as said it. She knew it was twisted of her, but it was worth all the terror and the pain to be here with him, to feel his kiss and his touch, to know that they were both alive, and to hear that he loved her. She wished, oh how she wished, they could remain there in their little alcove until it was all said and done, that she could keep him here and guarantee that they both emerged from this night safe and sound.
"I need to get you somewhere safe," he said, seemingly in line with her thoughts. He stood then and pulled her up with him.
Hermione lifted her head to look up at him, and the sensation of doing so after being dragged to her feet made her dizzy. The potions had soothed her frayed nerve endings but had not fully eliminated her pain or touched on the physical exhaustion wrought by the curse.
"You were supposed to be with Draco, pet," he chided.
"Got separated," she mumbled into the black dragonhide of his Death Eater robes.
"I'm going to portkey you to the lodge now. Mipsy will put you to bed," he said as he gently stroked her back.
His words registered slowly as she saw him withdraw his wand from his robes.
"No! Wait!" she gasped.
"What is it?"
"You can't send me away! This isn't over!" she reached for his wrist, pushing his wand away from her.
"Pet, you were subjected to the cruciatus curse. You need to recover."
"I won't leave you! We have to end this! The snake is dead, and that means… it means he can be killed now! And Harry! You said Harry was not dead! What happened? Where is he now? We have to end this! Please, Lucius, please don't send me away!"
"You can barely walk," he pointed out, stepping back from her. She stumbled at the sudden loss of his body against hers and was angry with herself for proving his point.
"I need…there's pepper-up potion in my bag, and a general healing potion. That will help," she said, reaching for the beaded bag that was still across her chest.
Lucius pushed her hands away and used his wand to accio both potions.
"There is a limited effectiveness to these. If you take these now, you will collapse and likely lose consciousness when they wear off."
"I don't care," she said stubbornly. "What happened with Harry?"
In a halting voice, he summarised what he'd witnessed in the forest: the Dark Lord had cast the killing curse at Harry, striking him down. He'd sent Narcissa to verify that the boy-who-lived was no more. Narcissa had declared him dead, but as the Dark Lord gathered his forces to march on Hogwarts, Narcissa had pulled Lucius aside to tell him that Harry was alive, that he'd confirmed their son still lived, and that she cared only about getting to Draco.
"He survived the killing curse?" she gasped in shock, her brain focused more on her friend than on Lucius's wife.
"I can't even begin to imagine how."
"The horcrux," she whispered, her mind connecting he dots between what she and Harry had learned in the headmaster's office and what had apparently happened in the forest.
"What?"
"There was a horcrux, inside Harry. Dumbledore..." her voice trailed off as she recalled the horrific images they'd witnessed in Snape's memories.
It was her turn to tell a shocked Lucius of Severus Snape's death and the memories he'd left behind. An array of emotions crossed Lucius's face, ranging from shock to horror to anger. She knew the moment he tucked it all behind his occlumency shields as his handsome face took on the cold, placid expression he often wore in public.
"We will discuss this further after this is all over, for now you will stay by my side until we leave here. When the potions begin to wear off, I will portkey you out of here, whether it's over or not. Do you understand?" he said firmly.
By her own quick calculations, she figured she'd have hours before the potions wore off and she was forced to rest. If the battle was not ended by then, perhaps she could convince Lucius to tuck her away someplace safe here in the castle to rest. A slight giggle erupted from her lips at the thought of sleeping away part of the battle in the castle like Sleeping Beauty in the muggle fairy tale.
"Hermione! Do you understand?" he snapped, startling her as his fingers dug into her upper arms.
"Yes, I understand. I do. Give me the potions."
He held her steady and helped her drink the healing potion and then the pepper-up, and she was thankful that he had no witty or cruel quips about the steam that blew from her ears as the pepper-up took effect. Within minutes she no longer felt as if she might keel over. It wasn't perfect, but she was hopeful that the adrenaline of the battle and the potions would be enough to sustain her until the end.
Lucius discarded the phials and studied her for a moment.
"How do you feel?"
She twisted a bit and stretched. She would be sore later, after the potions wore off, but it would do for now. It would have to.
"Passable."
She reached up to cup his face with her hand and gaze up at him. "Thank you, for saving me."
He turned his head and pressed a kiss to his palm. "I told you - you are mine. I won't let anyone take you away from me."
In the midst of battle, after witnessing so much death and destruction and experiencing so much pain, the sweetness of his words and the realisation that he loved her as she loved him healed her just as much as the potions had.
He clutched his wand and reached for her with his free hand. "Let's get out of here before someone else finds us. We need to find Draco. Now."
~oOo~
Thank you for your patience on this chapter. I know a lot happened here, and I hope Hermione and Lucius's reunion was worth the wait. I've had the Bellatrix and Lucius scenes written for months and was so excited to finally get to them. Thank you to Margot Le Faye for talking me through the outline of the battle, and thank you to everyone who continues and read and share your thoughts with me about this story. I'd love to hear what you think about these latest developments.