Guys, a lot of this chapter has been taken directly from the book, so I wanted to mention that I don't own the rights for this stuff, everything belongs to JK Rowling, etc. I'm just picking extracts from her work and adding Hermione's and Draco's thoughts to it.

Chapter 4: Farewell

Hermione sat next to Ron in the hospital wing. Poor Bill, she thought. Tonks kept stealing glances at Lupin. Luna kept looking around the air and swatting it. Hermione was going to ask what she was doing, but she realised she already knew. Nargles.

Where is Harry? What happened? Did they get the Horcrux? A million questions were forming and dissolving in Hermione's head.

The doors opened: it was Harry and Ginny. Oh, thank God! Hermione thought as she ran across the room to hug him.

"Are you fine, Harry?" Lupin asked.

"I'm fine… How's Bill?" Harry inquired.

Hermione didn't have the heart to answer. She merely gestured at the bed on which Bill lay with his wounds.

"Don't you have something to heal them?" Harry asked Madam Pomfrey.

"I've tried everything. Nothing works! He'll be stuck with these scars forever."

"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," Ron said. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state -"

"Ron — Dumbledore's dead," said Ginny.

What? Dumbledore can't be—

"No!" Lupin looked wildly from Harry to Ginny, hoping one of them would deny it. Hermione hoped they would too, but the rational part of her knew it was true. This was too cruel to joke about.

Hermione was dumbstruck. She stood where she was, for once at a loss of words. She wanted to know how it happened, who did it, but she couldn't seem to move any muscle.

"How did he die?" whispered Tonks. "How did it happen?" Hermione wanted to give her a thankful glance, but she was still frozen.

"I was there, I saw it," began Harry. We arrived back on the Astronomy Tower because that's where the Mark was… Dumbledore was ill, he was weak, but I think he realized it was a trap when we heard footsteps running up the stairs. He immobilized me, I couldn't do anything, I was under the Invisibility Cloak — and then Malfoy came through the door and disarmed him —"

This jolted Hermione back. She clasped her hands to her mouth. No. No, he'd changed! He couldn't have killed Dumbledore, he was too soft, he wasn't who everyone thought he was….

"— more Death Eaters arrived — and then Snape — and Snape did it. The Avada Kedavra." Harry couldn't go on.

Professor McGonagall entered the ward. Like all the rest, she bore marks of the recent battle: There were grazes on her face and her robes were ripped.

"Molly and Arthur are on their way," she said. "Harry, what happened? According to Hagrid you were with Professor Dumbledore when he — when it happened. He says Professor Snape was involved in some —"

"Snape killed Dumbledore," said Harry.

She stared at him for a moment, then swayed alarmingly; Madam Pomfrey ran forward, conjuring a chair from thin air, which she pushed under McGonagall.

"This is all my fault," said Professor McGonagall suddenly. She looked disoriented, twisting her wet handkerchief in her hands. "My fault. I sent Filius to fetch Snape tonight, I actually sent for him to come and help us! If I hadn't alerted Snape to what was going on, he might never have joined forces with the Death Eaters. I don't think he knew they were there before Filius told him, I don't think he knew they were coming."

"It isn't your fault, Minerva," said Lupin firmly. "We all wanted more help, we were glad to think Snape was on his way…"

"So when he arrived at the fight, he joined in on the Death Eaters' side?" asked Harry.

"I don't know exactly how it happened," said Professor McGonagall distractedly. "It's all so confusing… Dumbledore had told us that he would be leaving the school for a few hours and that we were to patrol the corridors just in case… Remus, Bill, and Nymphadora were to join us… and so we patrolled. All seemed quiet. Every secret passageway out of the school was covered. We knew nobody could fly in. There were powerful enchantments on every entrance into the castle. I still don't know how the Death Eaters can possibly have entered…"

"I do," said Harry, and he explained, briefly, about the pair of Vanishing Cabinets and the magical pathway they formed. "So they got in through the Room of Requirement."

"Oh God. Oh God. No," Hermione whispered to herself shaking her head.

"I messed up, Harry," said Ron bleakly. "We did like you told us: We checked the Marauder's Map and we couldn't see Malfoy on it, so we thought he must be in the Room of Requirement, so me, Ginny, and Neville went to keep watch on it… but Malfoy got past us."

"He came out of the room about an hour after we started keeping watch," said Ginny. "He was on his own, clutching that awful shriveled arm —"

"His Hand of Glory," said Ron. "Gives light only to the holder, remember?"

"Anyway," Ginny went on, "he must have been checking whether the coast was clear to let the Death Eaters out, because the moment he saw us he threw something into the air and it all went pitch-black —"

"— Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder," said Ron bitterly. "Fred and George's. I'm going to be having a word with them about who they let buy their products."

"We tried everything, Lumos, Incendio," said Ginny. "Nothing would penetrate the darkness; all we could do was grope our way out of the corridor again, and meanwhile we could hear people rushing past us. Obviously Malfoy could see because of that hand thing and was guiding them, but we didn't dare use any curses or anything in case we hit each other, and by the time we'd reached a corridor that was light, they'd gone."

This was news to Hermione. Dumbledore's gone; she thought over and over.

"Luckily," said Lupin hoarsely, "Ron, Ginny, and Neville ran into us almost immediately and told us what had happened. We found the Death Eaters minutes later, heading in the direction of the Astronomy Tower. Malfoy obviously hadn't expected more people to be on the watch; he seemed to have exhausted his supply of Darkness Powder, at any rate. A fight broke out, they scattered and we gave chase. One of them, Gibbon, broke away and headed up the tower stairs -"

"To set off the Mark?" asked Harry.

"He must have done, yes, they must have arranged that before they left the Room of Requirement," said Lupin. "But I don't think Gibbon liked the idea of waiting up there alone for Dumbledore, because he came running back downstairs to rejoin the fight and was hit by a Killing Curse that just missed me."

"So if Ron was watching the Room of Requirement with Ginny and Neville," said Harry, turning to Hermione, "were you —?"

"Outside Snape's office, yes," whispered Hermione, her eyes sparkling with tears, "with Luna. We hung around for ages outside it and nothing happened… We didn't know what was going on upstairs, Ron had taken the map — It was nearly midnight when Professor Flitwick came sprinting down into the dungeons. He was shouting about Death Eaters in the castle, I don't think he really registered that Luna and I were there at all, he just burst his way into Snape's office and we heard him saying that Snape had to go back with him and help and then we heard a loud thump and Snape came hurtling out of his room and he saw us and — and —" Oh no, it's all my fault!

"What?" Harry urged her.

"I was so stupid, Harry!" said Hermione in a high-pitched whisper. "He said Professor Flitwick had collapsed and that we should go and take care of him while he — while he went to help fight the Death Eaters —" She covered her face in shame and continued to talk into her fingers, so that her voice was muffled. "We went into his office to see if we could help Professor Flitwick and found him unconscious on the floor… and oh, it's so obvious now, Snape must have Stupefied Flitwick, but we didn't realize, Harry, we didn't realize, we just let Snape go!"

"It's not your fault," said Lupin firmly. "Hermione, had you not obeyed Snape and got out of the way, he probably would have killed you and Luna."

"So then he came upstairs," said Harry, who was watching Snape running up the marble staircase in his mind's eye, his black robes billowing behind him as ever, pulling his wand from under his cloak as he ascended, "and he found the place where you were all fighting…"

"We were in trouble, we were losing," said Tonks in a low voice. "Gibbon was down, but the rest of the Death Eaters seemed ready to fight to the death. Neville had been hurt, Bill had been savaged by Greyback… It was all dark… curses flying everywhere… The Malfoy boy had vanished, he must have slipped past, up the stairs… then more of them ran after him, but one of them blocked the stair behind them with some kind of curse… Neville ran at it and got thrown up into the air —"

"None of us could break through," said Ron, "and that massive Death Eater was still firing off jinxes all over the place, they were bouncing off the walls and barely missing us…"

"And then Snape was there," said Tonks, "and then he wasn't —"

"I saw him running toward us, but that huge Death Eater's jinx just missed me right afterward and I ducked and lost track of things," said Ginny.

"I saw him run straight through the cursed barrier as though it wasn't there," said Lupin. "I tried to follow him, but was thrown back just like Neville…"

"He must have known a spell we didn't," whispered McGonagall. "After all — he was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher… I just assumed that he was in a hurry to chase after the Death Eaters who'd escaped up to the tower…"

"He was," said Harry savagely, "but to help them, not to stop them… and I'll bet you had to have a Dark Mark to get through that barrier — so what happened when he came back down?"

"Well, the big Death Eater had just fired off a hex that caused half the ceiling to fall in, and also broke the curse blocking the stairs," said Lupin. "We all ran forward — those of us who were still standing anyway — and then Snape and the boy emerged out of the dust — obviously, none of us attacked them —"

"We just let them pass," said Tonks in a hollow voice. "We thought they were being chased by the Death Eaters — and next thing, the other Death Eaters and Greyback were back and we were fighting again — I thought I heard Snape shout something, but I don't know what —"

"He shouted, 'It's over,'" said Harry. "He'd done what he'd meant to do."

Hermione felt so horrible. She'd been so stupid. She could've stopped Snape with one simple Stunning Charm. She knew that Draco wouldn't kill Dumbledore. If she'd hexed Snape then the fight would've continued, Draco would give in to Dumbledore to come over to the good side, and Dumbledore would've managed all the Death Eaters with a flick of his wand. If only she hadn't been so stupid…

Author's Note:

This chapter needed a lot of Draco's point of view, but as I re-read that part in Half-Blood prince, I realized that his feelings had already been described extensively. So I figured this was the way to go.

Next chapter may take some time, because my summer vacation's now over. :(

Thanks for all the support, you guys. Means a lot!