Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews/story alerts/favorites adds, everyone! This is one of those chapters where there is a lot of stuff repeated...I hope it isn't too boring, I tried to change it enough to be interesting, and it is from Hermione's POV so that's different...
She and Ron were waiting on Harry and Luna to return from the Ravenclaw Common Room. Ron seemed oddly reluctant to have Luna take Harry, but he hadn't pressed the issue. They stood away from the others, who were all chattering excitedly, discussing how they would destroy the Cup Horcrux, when he walked in through the portrait behind Bill Weasley.
Her heart skipped a beat when he entered the room, and for a moment she thought she had gone temporarily deaf, until she realized that a hush had fallen over the entire room. He was looking around warily, slightly fearful of all the hostile faces he encountered, and then his eyes locked on hers. His expression softened, and he gave her a weak smile.
Without thinking about what she was doing, she crossed the space between them in a few long strides and threw her arms around him tightly, burying her face in his neck. He chuckled.
"You came," she whispered in his ear. "You're going to fight."
"Yes. Well, that is, if you don't strangle me first."
She quickly released him and stepped back to look up into his face. She realized she was beaming at him, despite the tears which were filling her eyes. He shrugged in feigned nonchalance.
"I thought about what you said, about me overestimating your abilities, and decided you were right. I was overestimating them. So to ensure you don't die, I had to come and watch your back, since I still don't trust Potter and Weasley to do it for you."
She laughed, but mainly at his poor attempt to gloss over his concern for her. Ron came over and shook his hand. That, combined with her own greeting of Malfoy, seemed to be enough for everyone else. They resumed their previous conversations, and he was promptly ignored by all in the room except she and Ron.
"Harry is with Luna in the Ravenclaw Common Room looking for…something," she informed him. "Something to help in the fight against Voldemort. Ron and I…we have to go look for something too. But we know where it is. We'll come back to this room when we get it. Will you…wait for us?"
He looked at her with an unreadable expression on his face, then nodded. She smiled at him.
"Good. We'll be back soon."
They turned to go, but a question from Malfoy stopped her in her tracks.
"What room is this, by the way?"
She paled slightly, then looked over her shoulder at him.
"The Room of Requirement."
She saw some color leave his face as well, but he merely clenched his jaw and nodded again.
She longed to say something else to him, but there wasn't much time. She and Ron headed out the door, toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom…
The trio ran down the seventh floor corridor, panting, and burst into the Room of Requirement. Four people were left in it: Ginny, Tonks, Neville's grandmother, and Malfoy. Hermione immediately walked toward him as Mrs. Longbottom addressed Harry.
"Thanks for waiting," she said quietly, not wanting anyone to overhear. "Are you going to go down to the Great Hall for a fighting assignment?"
He looked at her strangely, his brows furrowed. "I don't know. I don't really know…where I fit in to all this." She smiled at him sympathetically, then turned back toward Harry and Ron. She noticed that Mrs. Longbottom, Ginny, and Tonks had all left the room.
"Harry-", she started, but Ron interrupted her.
"Hold on! We've forgotten someone!"
"Who?" asked Harry in confusion.
"The house elves! We can't exactly ask them to fight for us, can we? We need to get them out…"
Hermione laughed, then bounded over toward Ron and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"All your years of making fun of S.P.E.W., and here you are, worried about house elves. I never thought I'd see the day…" she said, looking at her friend fondly. Harry laughed, then glanced over at Malfoy.
"Malfoy, if you don't mind, we need to get back into this room, but as something different, so if you could go down to the Great Hall…"
"Wait, Harry," she said. "I know what room you want to turn this into. And Malfoy has a lot of experience in there. He can help us."
Malfoy stood looking at them curiously, then he shrugged.
"Just tell me what you need me to do."
Harry hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. Let's all go outside, and I'll explain what we're looking for…"
Hermione was racing down an aisle of mismatched furniture and piles of books when she heard the shout of a spell, the crash of a large object, and a yell that sounded like Harry's voice. Then out of her peripheral vision she saw the mountain of accumulated junk to her left sway dangerously, and she let out a scream.
She pulled out her wand, preparing to steady it, but it stopped of its own accord, or someone else beat her to it. Blood was rushing in her ears as she sped around the corner, and froze at what she saw.
Harry was standing in the middle of an aisle. To his right she saw the bust of an ugly old warlock with a wig atop its head, and a dully shining tiara-shaped object atop that. The diadem. In front of Harry, just within her line of vision, were the hulking figures of two most unwelcome visitors: Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. She shot a stunning spell at Crabbe's head, who was barely yanked out of its path by Goyle. He turned on her furiously, and she didn't hear him say the words, but she could guess what that green jet of light meant, and she frantically dived behind a worn-out armchair. She collected herself, prepared to return to the fight, when she felt a warm hand wrap around her wrist.
"Don't even think about it," Malfoy growled in her ear as he charged around the corner, firing a stunning spell at Goyle as he went.
Simultaneously touched but irritated, Hermione had no intentions of honoring Malfoy's wishes. She lunged after him, but was forced to leap out of the way of another killing curse from Crabbe. She heard his and Goyle's shouts of confusion as their old comrade took up arms against them, and she smiled wryly. That ought to work to their advantage….
But then to her left she heard an unnatural screeching sound, and saw Ron charging up the aisle with Crabbe close on his heels.
"Like it hot, scum?" Crabbe roared, but he seemed to have no control over what he had done. Staring up at the mass of flames in horror, she was momentarily paralyzed with fear. Then she heard Harry's voice, over the howl of the blaze.
"RUN!"
She turned back the way she had come, and felt rather than heard Harry, Ron, and Malfoy behind her. She turned down the main aisle, back toward the entrance, but the fire had beaten her, and she pelted back in the other direction. She stopped when she reached the boys, and they all huddled together as the flames formed a circle around them, coming ever closer.
"What can we do?" she cried in desperation, and barely noticed when Malfoy grabbed her hand.
"Here!" cried Harry, and he grabbed three broomsticks, tossing one each to Ron and Malfoy. Without another word, Malfoy mounted the broom, then pulled her onto it behind him.
"Hold tight," he gritted through his teeth, and then they were soaring into the air.
"Harry, let's get out!" she heard Ron bellow, although she could not see him through all the thick, black smoke…
They began zooming toward where they thought the entrance was, but then a high, piteous human scream reached their ears from amidst the terrible commotion. She saw Harry turn his head, and then he changed direction, yelling back at them "Get out!"
"No, Harry!" she screamed, but Malfoy was heeding his advice, and continued on toward the entrance.
Black smoke was filling her lungs, she was choking, suffocating, they were all going to die in here, she found herself thinking, and no one else knows about the horcruxes…it will all be for naught…
And then, suddenly, she, Malfoy, and Ron were out in the corridor, coughing and spluttering but alive, thankfully alive. She turned her eyes fearfully toward the door, waiting, willing Harry to come out, and every second that ticked by drained her hope more and more…
And then he was there, lugging an unconscious Goyle. The door to the Room of Requirement sealed shut behind him, and she thought that she might weep from relief…
Goyle slid off the broom onto the floor, and none of them paid him any attention except Malfoy, who checked his pulse, then bound him in ropes. She and Ron approached Harry, who held up the diadem. A black, tarry substance appeared to be leaking out of it, and then it vibrated violently in Harry's hands and broke in two. She cupped her hand over her mouth in realization.
"It must have been Fiendfyre!" she whispered, staring down at the broken pieces.
"Sorry?"
"Fiendfyre - cursed fire - it's one of the substances that destroy Horcruxes, but I would never, ever have dared use it, it's so dangerous - how did Crabbe know how to - ?"
"Must've learned from the Carrows," Harry replied grimly. She nodded, horrified.
"Shame he wasn't concentrating when they mentioned how to stop it, really. If he hadn't tried to kill us all, I'd be quite sorry he was dead."
"But don't you realize?" she whispered to them. "This means, if we can just get the snake-"
She stopped abruptly as Malfoy approached them. If he noticed their sudden silence at his presence, he did not let on, but merely looked at them.
"So, what now?"
Harry opened his mouth to answer, but all four of them whipped their heads around as yells and shouts and the unmistakable noises of dueling filled the corridor.
Hermione felt her heart skip a beat. Death Eaters had penetrated Hogwarts.
Author's Note: For those who are curious, because this is an issue I grappled with while writing this story…when Harry and Ron Apparated away from Malfoy Manor, they had between them the wands of Draco, Bellatrix, and Wormtail. Harry uses Draco's wand, Ron Wormtail's, and Hermione Bellatrix's. When Draco was taking Hermione back down to the cellar, he borrowed his mother's wand, which he and Hermione used to Apparate away, so Draco has Narcissa's wand. Just fyi.