Chapter Twelve: Devil's Snare

Hermione looked around the room, and all of her strength seemed to leave her as she realized that McGonagall had not touched the place. It seemed as if Albus Dumbledore himself would walk into the room any minute and offer her a lemon drop. Everything was as it had been that night- even the layer of dust which would have been present in an un-used room had been wiped clean by the dutiful House-elves. She steadied herself on the wall for a moment before she began to walk through the room. Her answers would be here. They had to be.

But nothing came to her. The problems in her mind still remained.

Voldemort had to die, for if he did not, the war would never end.

Harry had to be the one to cast the curse, or else Voldemort would not die.

Somehow, Harry had to fall out of favor with Voldemort; somehow he had to become rebellious enough to wish to kill Voldemort.

But Harry was untouchable, protected by the centaurs and vampires.

They, too, were problems in themselves. She could not shake from her mind the dark clouds that Harry held over the cemetery behind Riddle Manor, clouds that blocked out the very sunlight that would be lethal to his vampiric followers. With this strange power of his, he could attack at any time he pleased, making day into pseudo-night so that his followers could attack without fear of the sun.

Voldemort's followers, Hermione did not fear. They were humans, and could be defeated by other humans. But Harry was not stupid. He had picked followers that were not human; followers that needed a more elegant plan to defeat. But Hermione had none.

"McGonagall told me I could find you here," a voice spoke softly from the shadows, and Hermione heard the faint creak as a door closed. She turned to find Ron leaning on that door, his face drawn and tired, perhaps mirroring her own.

"I've been thinking about the Furies of Hades," Hermione told him, turning back to look at the room. "But I've found nothing. Even here, I can't think of anything."

"Perhaps you're thinking too hard." Ron closed the space between them, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Perhaps you have to wait for the answer to come to you."

"We don't have time for that."

Ron frowned. "We'll have to take that time, then. At least enough time for me to infiltrate the Aurors."

Hermione frowned. He'd done it then. He'd agreed to become an Auror, all so that the Order of the Phoenix could slowly influence the Aurors in the fight against Voldemort and Scylla.

"It will take time, but I think I can do it."

Hermione heard the doubt in his voice. He knew she disapproved of the giant chess game that this war had become between the Ministry and the Order. And, yet, still, he wanted her approval.

"If anyone can do it, it would be you, Ron." She smiled at him and could almost feel him puff up in pride at her words. For a moment, she remembered that they were only just adults, had only just left school and childhood. They were only just stepping out into the world on their own.

"And if anyone can think of a strategy against Voldemort and H-Scylla, it would be you. Just have faith in yourself, and you'll find the answer. Come on-" Ron began to lead her to the door. "Dinner's going to be served."

"You're still up, Hermione?" Ron's tired voice called from the doorway, jolting her from the memory. "What are you doing up so late?" As he entered the room, he could see the table in front of her, strewn with newspaper clippings. "Oh."

"I don't want to hear it all again, Ron," Hermione whispered. "I remember what happened. I don't want to hear him tell about it. Don't want to hear him mock…" she trailed off in a sob, and Ron rushed to her side.

He cradled her to him as she cried. "Then don't go, Hermione. You've been through enough. You don't owe it to anyone to go."

"But… you know what will happen after he's finished."

"No, we don't," Ron reminded her firmly. "The trial isn't rigged. It will be fair. There is no forgone conclusion. Not anymore. We swore this would not be like the Death Eater trials before, you know that."

"I know. But even if he lives, he'll be locked up in Azkaban. I'll never see him again."

So you'll go to the trials and only get hurt more? Ron wanted to ask. Were it up to him, he would not have gone to a single moment of the trial. He knew the 'Harry' who sat there before the world and spilled his dark secrets was not the Harry whom had been his friend. This was Lord Scylla. He, personally, did not want his last memories of Harry Potter, his best friend, to be the twisted monster that now resided in Harry's shell.

Hermione's sobs had died down, and Ron loosened his hold as she sat back and returned her attention to the small table in front of her. Newspaper clippings. Hundreds of newspaper clippings which she had started collecting the summer after Bill and Fleur's wedding. If anyone wanted a timeline of all the things Harry had done as Lord Scylla, Ron thought, all they would have to do is look through these.

Hermione had placed them in order by date, and was now adding the most recent events to the bottom of the pile: those huge articles that repeated, almost word for word, the events of Harry Potter's slow transformation into Lord Scylla.

"You go to bed, Ron. You'll need to get up early again tomorrow."

"Will you be alright?" Ron asked softly as Hermione began thumbing through the clippings.

"I will be. All these hold are memories – nothing to be afraid of."

But Ron heard the fear in her voice. He'd heard it in her voice, and his own, ever since that first Vampire attack which had heralded the arrival of Lord Scylla at Lord Voldemort's side. They'd just become used to ignoring it.

As Ron padded toward the bedroom, Hermione replaced the clipping which had prompted her memory of her trip to Hogwarts. She'd cut off the outrageous, supposedly eye-catching title, which had asked "Is This Enough Against Two Dark Lords?"

It was the article which listed the new aurors that had graduated from training – pushed through the system as fast as possible so they could be sent to the field to fight in the brewing war. Ron and his seven other 'class members' stood proudly at attention, none of them smiling – with only the slightest twinge of movement to show that this was a wizard photo and not a muggle one. Aurors had such discipline that even their photographed selves would not move from where they were supposed to be.

The clipping was dated two months after Ron had left for auror training. The one underneath it was dated three days later. Hermione had cut off its title as well, the glaring letters that had proclaimed, "Vampires Stopped In Recent Attack". She remembered its cause, a short joyful one that had occurred the day before the attack. She hadn't expected to use her plan so quickly, but Scylla waited for no one in this war, and she had forged ahead with her idea, perfected only an hour before Scylla's vampires struck.

Hermione lay awake pondering Ron's words – words which had echoed in her mind even when Ron himself had been ensconced in his training and far from her. "Faith in herself"… she couldn't really remember having that. The only time she was sure of herself was after she had studied for so long that she had memorized what she needed to know. It worked for tests, but it would not work here. There was no book "How to Fight a War Against Your Former Friend 101". No; in essence she was doing the preliminary research one would need to write that book.

But she was blind. There were only a few times in which she had blindly approached something this dangerous, yet even those paled in comparison to this one. For, in those times, both Harry and Ron had been beside her, and she had known somehow that they would pull through because of that. Yet now she was alone. Ron was in the midst of his training to be an Auror; he had left that night, and would not be back for another month, at least. And Harry… Harry had changed. Harry was gone, and in his place stood Scylla. In Hermione's mind, they were still very much two different people.

But she did not want to think of the present. She wanted to think of the past, when Harry and Ron had been there, and she had faith that everything would be alright in the end, no matter the obstacle. She smiled as she remembered the first time she had met them, only a brief meeting when she asked if they had seen a toad, Neville's toad. Then there was Halloween, in which they had actually become friends. And then the search for the Philosopher's Stone had cemented that friendship, in her mind, at least. She had been confident that they could get through the traps; hadn't even thought that there might be a possibility of failure the way this sentence is designed, it seems to me that this is the way it's supposed to be interpreted. They seemed so sure of themselves, charging up to protect the Stone from Snape. How foolish they had been… she missed those days.

Of course, they had not even set foot into the hallway that led to the Stone before they'd uncovered, or rather fell into, the first trap. She had recognized the Devil's Snare immediately, and her memory had come through for her like it always did.

"Devil's Snare, Devil's Snare, is deadly fun, but will sulk in the sun," she whispered, picturing the vines that liked the damp and dark, seeing Ron still struggling within it overhead.

The picture shattered, and she sat bolt upright in bed.

"Will sulk in the sun…"

Her eyes widened as a different picture entered her mind, a picture of a graveyard covered in dense black clouds and dark figures sitting in the shadows.

"Devil's Snare hates sunlight."

Her hand found her wand on the bedside table and she pointed it up towards the ceiling, as if pointing it at her friend in need, or at the dark clouds.

"Lumos Solem!"

Light, sunlight, filled the room, and Hermione began to feel the stirring of faith within her. Sunlight, to destroy the vampires, when all other methods would take too long to implement. Two words, and one problem would be gone.

It was not a full strategy to win the war, but it was a start. And Hermione felt, for the first time, that everything would be alright in the end.

Looking back, she could almost call herself foolish for thinking that. Scylla had attacked again with a vengeance, this time sending his centaurs first to kill the aurors any who could cast the spell.

Hermione thumbed through the clippings, coming at last to the longest one. This was the only clipping which she had let keep its title. A foolish thing to do, but she had still held a small shred of faith. Yet now, with Scylla sitting on trial and with every word affirming that he was no longer the Savior the wizarding world had hoped for, the large black words seemed to mock her faint hopes:

HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED KILLED. HAS HARRY POTTER FINALLY COME TO SAVE US?

No, he hadn't. It had all been a trap, one which she had spun, and Ron had implemented; one which the entire Order had rejected. She'd stopped speaking to them after that. She had told only Ron the particulars of her idea, not realizing that he was carefully filing away her thoughts for later implementation.

Voldemort was destroyable – he had a weakness which they knew: the Horcruxes. If they were destroyed, then Voldemort could die. Harry, of course, had to be the one to issue the killing curse, but, if he did, Voldemort was finished. Assuming the Horcruxes could be located and destroyed, there were only two things that needed to be done. One was to somehow let Harry know that they were gone. The other was to incite him to hate Voldemort. In his new persona as Lord Scylla, hating Voldemort would be enough of an incentive to get him to kill Voldemort.

Ron had disappeared for months, shortly after. During those months, the war escalated, and Hermione withdrew further and further into herself as she searched for another way to end this bloodshed.

Ron had returned to her, weary and hurt, but with a triumphant gleam in his eyes. He refused to tell her exactly why. Now, Hermione understood his decision. She would have tried to stop him. She would have echoed the words of the other Order members, told him it was too dangerous. But, instead, blissfully unaware, she tended to his wounds, some looking weeks – months – old, and made sure he ate before sending him to sleep and to allow himself to heal.

Heal indeed. Heal the wounds he'd gained while destroying the remaining Horcruxes. And, with the very last one, he'd left a message for Lord Scylla. Pinned to Nagini's skin he had set a small piece of paper, on which was written words only someone with Harry's magic could see. It was a dark spell, one that would never have been condoned, but this was a dark war; they were not going to win without exploring all possibilities.

Hermione leaned back in her chair, and wondered what Harry's face had looked like when he read the words, written in an unfamiliar script.

"There should only be one Dark Lord, Lord Scylla, and it should be you."

Ron had asked Luna to write the message, a message obscure, yet pointed enough so that Lord Scylla would know what it really meant. That all the Horcruxes were gone; that Voldemort was defenseless against death.

Yet Scylla had no real need to kill Voldemort. Hermione had guessed this when she created her plan, and she had been right. Scylla was perfectly happy, he had what he wanted.

So Ron had stolen what Scylla held most dear and pinned the blame on Voldemort. During one of the attacks where Lord Scylla and Draco Malfoy were in two different places, Ron worked with all the aurors he could find to capture Draco Malfoy. As soon as they had subdued him, Ron himself cast Morsmorde.

And, Lord Scylla, coming upon the scene and seeing the dead bodies of his Centaurs strewn amid the field with the Dark Mark blaring in the sky overhead, had assumed that Voldemort had killed Draco as well.

Ron had barely had the time to order all aurors in the field fighting the Death Eaters that night to retreat before Scylla and his Furies of Hades arrived.

Hermione thumbed the newspaper clipping that described the event. Writers for every newspaper had gone on about how Scylla looked that night. He was the true image of a Dark Lord. He looked as if he wasn't human, and his battle against Voldemort was one worthy of legends, even if it was missing a hero.

Scylla had not held back that night. The sky thundered, rain and lightning pelting down to the earth in torrents. His eyes had glowed an inhuman green, and his very skin shimmered with a lightning all its own.

Voldemort had stood no chance. Scylla said nothing as he attacked; Voldemort assumed it a betrayal and had fought back. Scylla killed him within minutes.

And, then, Scylla had disappeared. No one knew why, though speculation ran wild. Death Eaters were captured in large groups by aurors who pressed them back farther and farther towards Riddle Manor. Scylla's Furies of Hades were not seen during the next full month. Scylla himself was rumored to have died with Voldemort, though Hermione had not believed it for a second.

Then Ron came to her and told her what had truly happened. He'd asked for another plan – this time to capture Harry Potter.

This was a very different problem. The plan to defeat Voldemort had taken her months of thought. But defeating her former friend was something which required almost no thought. She knew Harry. Therefore, she knew Scylla.

And Scylla had a weakness; a prominent one. One who was secretly imprisoned in the heart of the Department of Mysteries.

Draco Malfoy.

Hermione's footsteps echoed in the silent Department, her mind awhirl with the memories of the last time she had been in this place. Last time, she'd been too busy to realize how quiet the Department of Mysteries really was. Then again, there had likely been too much other noise last time to realize that.

The room that had been chosen for Malfoy's cell was marked only by the two guards who stood in front of it. They were two friends of Ron from his training, and, though Hermione had never been formally introduced to them, they knew enough of her from Ron to offer her curt smiles as they let her through.

Malfoy looked little worse for wear to her, though he would probably have vehemently disagreed. Ron had been very careful when he'd captured Draco Malfoy – the stakes were too high for any mistake to be allowed.

Malfoy had been stripped of everything wizard – wand, robes, everything. He was given muggle clothes to wear. Even the food given to him was prepared by a muggle, albeit unknowingly. The room, too, had been stripped bare of everyything wizard. Ron had gone so far as to have someone buy muggle furniture from a muggle store, and to chain Malfoy to it with chains devoid of magic.

Hermione was Malfoy's first visitor. She was probably the most magical thing Malfoy had been in contact with for the past month.

He looked up at her as she entered, but said nothing. He didn't need to. His eyes, luminous with hatred, said enough. She felt his distain in her very blood – the exact same blood which caused his distain in the first place.

"Hello, Malfoy."

An eyebrow arched in surprise before his face replaced the look of surprise with his normal cold expression. She knew her voice sounded strange – unused as it had been for so long. What had once been her voice was now quiet, hoarse, rough from disuse. But she would not explain why to him, and he would not ask. It would be useless for him to ponder it.

"I'm here to talk to you about Harry." His eyes bore into her with a new hatred. "Yes, I know I'm not supposed to call him that anymore. I suppose only you get that privilege nowadays." She stepped up to him, just out of his reach, and removed her wand. "Voldemort is dead. Your Harry killed him. Now all who remains to lead the war is Harry, but he doesn't seem to want to. He thinks you're dead, Malfoy, and suddenly he doesn't want to fight anymore. He and his horde of Dark Creatures sit cornered in their little graveyard and sulk." She stepped back as he lunged for her wand. "You are his weakness, aren't you? And you know it."

She sighed, moving away from him again, feeling his gaze following her wand as she walked from one end of the room to the other in a slow pace. "The wizarding world is all but destroyed. I'm surprised we've been able to keep the war from the muggles for this long. Then again, neither side wanted muggles involved." She gave him a sharp look. "At least until the war was over. If you had won, you would have destroyed the muggles. And if we had won, we would have begun the work of cleaning up from all those muggle deaths which your side revels in." She resumed pacing. "The wizarding world cannot take much more war. And, if we do not somehow bring Harry out of that graveyard to us, then it will stretch on. What happens once all the Death Eaters are rounded up? The aurors will start trying to capture the Furies of Hades. Yet, Harry wouldn't let that happen. That graveyard won't be taken in a matter of months, much less the days that people seem to think it will."

She returned to stand in front of him. "So, we'll bring Harry to us." She watched the understanding light in his eyes. "We'll put you on trial for war crimes. Harry will come to save you. And then we'll capture him."

Malfoy's eyes stared in comprehending helplessness at the wand now pointed at him. "I bet you're good at things like Occlumency, Malfoy. You have that kind of mind, unlike Harry. But you just don't have the mental strength that he does. And it's come down to a battle of that strength. My strength, my will to end this war – or your will to save Harry from his fate."

And then she uttered one word, a spell that she once had been so certain she would never say when she'd first read of it and its dark uses.

"Imperio."

The pale morning light that filtered through the window was unlike the light of the morning when they'd announced that Draco Malfoy would be put on trial, Hermione remembered. It had rained that day. It had poured. It had thundered, and the sky had been split with lightning.

Hermione blinked blearily and returned the clippings to the folder she kept them in. Once this was all over she might finish reading through them and put the ghosts of the past to rest. But now, the trial was beginning its second week, and her ghosts were still very much alive.

She would go and listen, she told herself. But not today. She did not need to relive the helpless months of searching for a way to stop the flow of attacks lead by Lord Scylla. She did not need to hear his words edged with delight as he spoke of killing the helpless. She would hear his last commentary, set to be heard Saturday, of the day when he'd heard Malfoy was to be tried for war crimes. And then she would hear as witnesses, like Ron, were called to testify to their part.

Ron, as Head Auror and the 'mastermind' behind the plot. The two guards who had guarded Malfoy for a month before the trap. The fifteen other aurors that had waited to ambush Malfoy and the other Furies of Hades with him – who'd waited again for Scylla to arrive in the Ministry to try to save Malfoy.

She owed it to them to listen. And she knew her name would be spoken more than once. But she would not testify. It would be known what she did – the dark curse she'd cast on Draco Malfoy in order to insure that Scylla was brought to his knees. Ron had known of her part in the plan all along, she hadn't hid it from him or any of the others who worked with him.

She'd already had her time on the witness stand, and been pardoned for her use of an Unforgivable because of her reasons for casting it. She was not without punishment for her crime – her wand was now strictly monitored. But she didn't mind. Let the Ministry record how many cleaning spells she used each day if they wanted – now that the war was finally on its way to completion, she had nothing to hide, no great plan to plot.

Her part in history was over.