A/N: Endless thanks to my betas RenitaLenadra and Keladry Lupin. Also, many thanks to all of you who have been reading.
Chapter 17
Morning finally came, and with it came wind and rain. Hermione didn't think this was a good omen, but Severus seemed pleased enough with it, saying that the inclement weather would be an added distraction to the Death Eaters. Breakfast was a hurried affair; Harry didn't look like he would be able to swallow anything, but Remus told him that he needed to keep up his strength, so he finally forced down some food.
Afterwards, everyone met outside, just inside Hogwarts grounds. Hermione had already said good-bye to Molly and Susan inside the Gryffindor common room. In the distance, Hermione could still see the remains from the attack on Hogsmeade. She made a point to think about the lives that were lost there… the lives that had been lost all over wizarding Britain. She thought of Hestia and McGonagall, Bill, Mad-Eye, and Kingsley, who had all been alive just a few months ago. She thought of Dumbledore, who had sacrificed himself for the sake of the Order and a misguided student. She thought of poor Sirius, who had wasted away in Azkaban only to be killed once he had escaped. But most of all, she thought of Ron; poor Ron who had pushed Harry out of the way of the killing curse. Ron, who deserved to be there to fight at the end.
Severus, Remus and Tonks spoke together in hushed voices for several long minutes; and the rest of the group naturally divided into the young and old. Hermione and Harry stood apart from both groups, huddling together against the cold and rain. Finally, Severus came over to them.
"We are ready," he said curtly. "Remus will give us ten minutes to get onto Death Eater grounds and for me to remove as many of the wards as possible and warn Draco. Hopefully, we can take out most of the guards. They are poorly trained. If the Dark Lord has any weakness, it is his confidence. He doesn't believe we will ever make a direct attack on Riddle Manor."
He led Harry and Hermione away from the groups and off Hogwarts property. Hermione steadfastly refused to look behind her, knowing she would never see some of these people again and that, perhaps, they would never see her.
As soon as they were a good distance away, they Apparated to the same grove she and Severus had escaped to a month before. At his direction, she and Harry both ducked behind trees. Severus walked as far as the edge of the trees Hermione saw him perform several complex spells and then shoot two stunner spells at the two closest guards to them.
As soon as they fell to the ground, they heard more shouts, presumably from other guards who had seen what had happened. One of them ran inside Riddle Manor to alert the other Death Eaters, and two others began blindly sending curses into the forest, still unable to see Severusbecause of the driving wind and rain.
The spells were easy to dodge, but almost immediately,the doors of Riddle Manor flew open with a half dozen more Death Eaters emerging. Try as they might, Hermione and Harry had no luck trying to stun them, and the Death Eaters continued to move closer. Finally, Harry caught one with a well-timed Impedimenta and Hermione was able to disarm two of them. Severus, who had been busy trying to remove the rest of the wards, finally joined them and stunned two more.
As he did, Hermione heard the loud crack of multiple Apparitions and, although she did not turn her head, she knew that Remus had arrived with his part of the Order. She heard one of the Death Eaters give a loud yell and they turned to run back to Riddle Manor.
"What's going on with Malfoy?" Hermione heard Harry hiss at Severus. "We need to be getting in there before they have much more time."
"Nothing yet," Severus said as the other group caught up to them. "Give him a few more minutes."
"We don't have any more minutes," Harry said impatiently. "If Malfoy can't get it done, I'm just going to have to do it myself." He then turned and moved out of the woods.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted and ran after him.
"Gryffindors are going to be the death of me," Severus muttered to Remus before following them. He heard Remus ordering Sturgis and Charlie to follow them, and they made their way up to Riddle Manor. They did not go through the main entrance; that would have been suicide. Instead they went around to the side door that Hermione remembered escaping out of. The door had been protected with several charms; apparently, they had not been changed since Severus's defection, because he was able to get through them relatively quickly, with the others standing guard. As soon as he had broken through all the barriers, he turned to them.
"All right. Harry, you follow me. Hermione, you know the layout better than anyone. I want you and Charlie to try to find Draco. If he has been discovered, we need to get him out. Sturgis, you stand guard here."
No one argued, and they quickly followed Severus into the Manor. For a moment, the memories of her time there were so overwhelming to Hermione that she nearly staggered under the weight of them. Charlie put an arm out to steady her.
"You okay?" he asked and she nodded. "All right. Lead the way."
Hermione saw Severus and Harry moving down the hall, and she was just about to take a step forward when suddenly the entire house shuddered and rocked as if there were an earthquake. She turned to look at Charlie with alarm.
"Must be the giants," he whispered as the house shook again. She turned back as she heard shouts from Death Eaters moving toward the front entrance.
"This way," she whispered and moved him down another hall, away from the front of the house. She found the way to a back staircase that she had once been led down, and they made their way to the bottom level. She was relieved to see there was only one guard outside the door… a very distracted one, at that.
"Stupefy!" she shouted and the guard collapsed into a heap. They hurried to the door, and she tried to turn it. It was locked. Severus had told them that all the doors at Riddle Manor, even if they were not warded, were locked to anyone who did not have the Dark Mark.
She looked helplessly at Charlie. "Something tells me that this isn't going to be easy."
"Move aside," Charlie said and she stepped behind him. Without warning he raised his leg and kicked the door in, splintering the old wooden frame. "Sometimes the Muggle way is easier," he said with a grin.
Hermione rushed into the room, but all she saw were the chains that had held her and Draco, and a cup of water that had been tipped over. She cursed in a decidedly unladylike way and turned to look at Charlie.
"Well, either he was taken out of here, or the plan has worked and he used the Portkey. Either way, we'd better be getting back up to the main level."
Charlie gave her a look of confusion, and Hermione remembered that he would have no idea what Draco's role in the attack was. Still, he nodded his agreement and they moved back into the hall, narrowly missing a curse from Marcus Flint. Charlie stunned him and as they walked past him, Hermione kicked him hard in the face, breaking his nose. Charlie looked at her in shock.
"Bastard was one of my guards," she said calmly as if she had done nothing out of the ordinary. "Trust me, I got worse from him."
They hurried back upstairs, taking a different flight of stairs this time and as they emerged, they found themselves in the middle of a full-fledged battle. All of the Order were now on the property; she could see Hagrid had taken out two Death Eaters with one blow, Luna was helping a bleeding Neville to his feet and Fred and George fighting off Rabastan Lestrange.
One of them caught her eye and yelled, "Duck!" She ducked just in time as a green flash of light passed over her head. She turned to see where it had come from, and saw Bellatrix Lestrange moving towards her.
"Well, well, if it isn't our little escapee," Bellatrix said with a sneer. "Last I saw, Snape was paying dearly for his little stunt!"
Hermione forced down a wave of fear that hit her. Where were Severus and Harry? If Severus was hurt, how would Harry ever survive? She couldn't spare more than a moment's thought, though; Bellatrix raised her wand to duel. Hermione was able to miss the first few hexes the other woman cast, but she gasped in pain when Bellatrix's Sectumsempra caught her across her abdomen.
"Hermione!" Angelina shouted, moving closer and pulling Hermione into a doorway, just missing a stray hex. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Hermione said through clenched teeth. "It wasn't a direct hit."
It was a lie but there was nothing that could be done about it now. She used a rudimentary Healing Charm on herself, enough to stop the worst of the bleeding, and took a deep breath before moving back into the hall to face Bellatrix. They continued to duel for what seemed like an eternity. The rest of the battle went on around them, and occasionally Hermione would have to defend herself againstother Death Eaters as well, but the two women never lost sight of each other. Hermione felt her mind and body beginning to wear. Not only was it difficult to fight the clearly talented witch, but every few minutes the ground would shake from the force of the giants, causing her to lose her balance.
"Crucio!" she heard Bellatrix shout, and Hermione fell to the curse,unable to block it in time. Hermione felt the horribly familiar pain shooting through her body as she spasmed on the ground.
"Expelliarmus!" she heard Remus yell, catching Bellatrix off guard. Her wand flew out of her hand, breaking the Cruciatus. Remus reached down and pulled Hermione up. The moment his attention had moved from Bellatrix, however, she had turned and run down the hall. Remus tried stunning her before she got away, but she dodged him and disappeared from sight.
"Where is everyone?" Hermione asked Remus as they ducked into an alcove to catch their breath.
"A lot of them are outside. Most of the Death Eaters went out there when the giants started attacking the house. I haven't seen Severus or Harry."
"What about Draco?" she asked breathlessly, hoping for the best. But Remus shook his head.
"Sorry, Hermione. I haven't seen him either."
"All right," she said. "I'm going to go look for them." She moved back into the hallway, which had several Order members still fighting in it and in the surrounding rooms. It was difficult making her way down the hall, fighting off Death Eaters and avoiding stray curses. She had made it to nearly the end of the hall when she reached a room that was locked.
"Charlie!" she yelled and he came running over to her. He looked a little worse for wear now, with a nasty cut above his eye and he was running with a bit of a limp. "I need you again."
He gave a grin and once again launched his bulky figure toward the door. As it had previously, the door burst open. Inside, Hermione saw the figure of a blond young man lying on the floor, unconscious. Lying next to him dead, on the floor, was Nagini the snake. An enormous feeling of relief filled her.
"Watch the door," she said to Charlie as she hurried in. For a moment, when she reached Draco, she feared he was dead. But as she struggled to turn him over, she heard him give a faint moan.
"Draco?" she said hopefully. There was no response. "Draco, I need you to wake up!" She continued shaking him, but aside from occasional moans of pain, he would not respond.
"Charlie!" she called.
"What?" he said a bit impatiently as he fought off a hooded Death Eater.
"I need you to help me get Draco out of here," she said. "He's hurt and he needs to get either to St. Mungo's or back to Hogwarts."
"Bloody hell!" Charlie spat. "He's a Malfoy!"
"I don't care! Either get him out of here, or I will."
Charlie gave her one look of annoyance and then motioned for her. "You'll need to hold them off, then. I'll not have you killing yourself over a Malfoy."
Hermione gave a triumphant smile and joined him in the doorway to take his place.
"Be sure to tell them that he was helping us," Hermione said as the stocky young man bent over and picked up Draco's slight body. He looked up at her with surprise and she motioned to the body of the snake lying next to him. "He destroyed the last Horcrux."
With Hermione blocking the curses from the Death Eaters, Charlie stumbled out of the Manor as one of the giants thundered by. Hermione could not afford to watch and make sure they made it to safety; the fight going on around her was still too intense. So she returned to the hall she had first gone down, hoping to find Harry and Severus.
Although she knew this had been a Muggle home, it seemed that somehow the house was enchanted as she twisted and turned through the halls. She knew it could not possibly be this big, yet at the end of every hall, there was another one.
Soon, though, she began to hear yelling ahead of her instead of just behind. She slowed her pace and, as she continued, she realized that it wasn't yelling; it was screaming. Her heart felt like it was in her throat as she approached the open door where the sounds were coming from. She knew why they were screaming. It sounded just as she did when she was being tortured. It was a sound that no human should ever be able to make: as if the screams themselves were being ripped from the victim's throat. She was unable to tell who it was, and she approached with extreme caution until she could just barely see inside the room.
The first thing she saw filled her with dread and horror. Severus was unconscious on the floor, lying several feet from the door. Hermione could not tell if he was breathing or not, but he lay in an unnatural position, as if he were a rag doll that had been tossed away.
Harry was clearly at the mercy of Lord Voldemort; Hermione didn't see his wand, and she supposed he had lost it during the duel. In the corner, Hermione could see Wormtail, trembling like the coward he was and watching the events unfolding before him. Harry had just risen from his knees where he had fallen during the Cruciatus when he caught Hermione's eyes with his own. Hermione tried to back away, out of sight, before Voldemort saw what he was looking at, but it was too late.
"Expelliarmus!" Voldemort said, and Hermione's wand flew out of her grasp before she had a chance to block the spell. He caught it neatly in his hand, a wicked smile of delight on his face.
"Well, what a lovely reunion we have here," he said, his voice sending shivers through Hermione. "I'm so pleased you could join us, Mudblood. Are you enjoying your return to my lovely home? I see you have reacquainted yourself with Bellatrix." He pointed toward Hermione's blood-soaked clothes, which were torn across her abdomen. He then turned back to Harry.
"I would love nothing more than to kill your friend here while you watch, but I feel that I have put off the inevitable long enough." He then turned to the snivelling man in the corner. "Wormtail! Get over here and hold onto the Mudblood! I don't want her getting away!"
Wormtail shook his head and seemed to retreat further into the corner. Hermione wondered if perhaps the joy of being a Death Eater was beginning to wear off.
"You filthy coward!" Voldemort hissed. "Do what you have been told, or you will pay the consequences."
Wormtail still refused to move. "You will pay for this disobedience," Voldemort said in a tone that would have had even Godric Gryffindor shaking.
"Incarcerous!" Voldemort shouted pointing his wand at her and she was suddenly tightly wrapped with ropes. "It's not quite as enjoyable this way, but I suppose it will do."
He then turned his attention back to Harry. Hermione struggled against the ropes as hard as she could and she managed to loosen the knots on her legs enough that she could move forward, just an inch at a time. Voldemort was raising his wand towards Harry, and Hermione frantically tried to move as quickly as she could. She was only a few feet away; neither Harry nor Voldemort had noticed her movements, both of them centred on the other. She was five feet… four feet… three feet… She closed her eyes tight, grimacing in pain as she continued her slow movement.
No sooner had she done this, though, as she heard the words, "Avada Kedavra!"
"No!" she shouted as the first word was being said. She launched herself the last few feet in the air, hoping to block the spell, and knocked Harry off his feet just as the world went black.