Disclaimer: I wish Cedric was mine, but he's not. *sigh*

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Expelliarmus!" Ron bellowed in the same instant Bellatrix had spoken, sending her wand flying across the room. "Duck!" He shouted as the spell ricocheted toward them at a slanted projection angle. The other two members of the trio hastily followed his orders and jumped out of the way, the spell rocketing over their heads and exploding into a wall, causing it to crumble to the floor.

Bellatrix let out an enraged scream when the killing curse missed them before shrieking, "Where is my wand, you filthy ingrates?"

Hermione spotted it in the rubble and ran over to it just as the older woman's eyes caught sight of it. She got there moments before Bellatrix, who was racing across the room in an attempt to beat her to it. "This is for Neville!" Hermione shouted at her, picking up the wand and cracking it over her knee in one motion. She threw the pieces down and stomped once down on them, effectively breaking the wand beyond repair.

Bellatrix's eyes were wide, her pupils gleaming with the insanity of her mind as she skidded to a halt when the reality of what had just happened occurred. Hermione kicked the pieces off somewhere into the rubble, holding her head up defiantly despite her lack of magic. In reality, she was terrified, but she refused to back down. Bellatrix's eyes hardened to stone as they narrowed to furious slits. "You ungrateful, disgusting mudblood scum," she spat venomously, "do you realize what you've just done?"

Before Hermione could say anything, Bellatrix lunged for her, arms outstretched and prepared to attack. Harry was quicker. "Everte Statum!" He cried out, sending the crazy woman flying back into a wall.

Bellatrix groaned and struggled to stand up, but Ron recited another spell before she had the chance. "Petrificus Totalus," he muttered, putting her into a full-body bind. The trio was breathing heavily and Ron let out an indignant snort, looking over at her with undisguised hatred in his expression. "She deserves so much worse than that, but she's not worth our time." He looked between the other two, his face hardened with determination. "C'mon, guys. We've still got one more powerful psycho we need to take down."

Hermione couldn't help the surge of pride that coursed through her as she stared at her red haired friend standing in front of her. He had finally grown into the man she always knew he was capable of becoming, and she fought back the violent sobs that threatened to overtake her at the thought that she wouldn't see him continuing to evolve and become even a day stronger.

Harry interrupted her morbid, depressing thoughts, sweat mingling with the dirt smeared across his face as it rolled down his cheeks. "Let's go."

Now was not the time to mourn. He knew that and so did the people who now lay lifelessly on the ground.

Naomi and Andrew were close together, and he could see by the way their bodies were laying—Andrew's in front of hers—that he had died trying to protect her. Andrew had fallen backward onto the dusty floor of the corridor, his arms twisted at strange angles, his wand laying a few feet from him after having rolled out of his limp hand. His blue eyes were wide open and staring into nothingness, his mouth slack.

Naomi looked as though she had crumpled to the floor and Cedric feared that she had been tortured before finally being murdered. He hoped with every fiber of his being that her life had not ended in such a brutal way because for as sassy as she could be, she had always been a sweet, kind hearted person. She was laying on her side, her arms vainly reaching forward toward Andrew. Cedric saw the tears that still littered her cheeks and felt a pang in his heart as he realized that they looked fresh. Her brown eyes that had always held such warmth in them were now completely void of emotion, unblinkingly gazing in Andrew's direction.

He wiped his face once realizing that tears were streaming endlessly down his cheeks, gasping sobs erupting from his throat as he looked between the friends he had known throughout his entire Hogwarts career. He heard Scott sniffling beside him, breaking down as the same wave after wave of despair crashed down over both of them. Cedric's teary eyes finally landed on the third person and he choked on a gag, swallowing hard to keep himself from throwing up like Aiden had.

There was Cho on the other side of the hallway—quiet, unassuming Cho Chang who had never belonged in battle. None of them did, but certainly not her. She wouldn't have hurt a fly no matter how many times she waved it away in annoyance. He fell to his knees, his stomach twisting in revulsion as he looked at the blood that shone all around her. Her insides had been mercilessly torn apart as if they were nothing more than spaghetti noodles, her stomach split wide open. Her face was tilted off to the side with a relaxed expression on it, her open eyes still shining with the remains of her tears of pain. Blood was splattered across her face, the bright crimson contrasting immensely against her porcelain skin.

"Oh God," he choked out, plugging his nose as the sickeningly strong stench of iron and blood filled his nostrils. He didn't want to know how long she had been forced to lie there as she was savagely ripped to pieces, writhing in agony beneath her sadistic killer. He could almost imagine her shrieks of anguish slicing through the air like a sharp knife that no one could hear over the chaos of battle. It looked like the work of Fenrir Greyback, a realization that struck the strongest sense of abhorrence for another living creature Cedric had ever felt inside of himself.

He made a dark promise to himself that if he came across the bastard in battle today, he would show just as little compassion toward him that the callous werewolf had shown to his girlfriend.

"Ced, we have to keep moving," Scott urged him through his own tears, seeing the cyclone of emotions that had completely engulfed his best mate. Cedric shakily stood and dusted off the ash and small bits of debris that clung to his trousers, despite knowing it was pointless because they were in a crazed war zone.

"I'm coming," he said, patting both of his friends and wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his forearm. "Let's stick together, mates."

"I've figured out some things this year that we needed to know to defeat Voldemort," Harry told Hermione.

Ron elbowed him, eliciting a sharp ouch from Harry. "We figured it out, actually." Ron amended for him. "Harry, Ginny, and I, that is." Hermione nodded along. She felt hurt that they'd left her out, but she was also partially to blame for making herself an outcast from the group.

"What did you figure out?" She asked them, subconsciously clutching her wand tightly as the occasional shouts and sound of explosions occurred as spells flew this way and that.

Harry began explaining, immediately beating Ron to the punch. "We're not sure just yet why he didn't die the night he murdered my parents," a flash of pain flickered in his eyes as he said that, "but we figured out that when he was brought back, a piece of his soul was broken off and stored inside Pettigrew because Peter was the one who performed the enchantments."

Hermione took a moment to process this, all of her senses still on high alert in the middle of battle. Ron disarmed a Death Eater and Harry quickly immobilized him, followed by another, and Hermione's heart was beating rapidly in her chest after the close-calls. Finally, she said, "So you have to kill Pettigrew before you can even think about killing him?"

"Right," Ron confirmed. "But there's something else, too." He looked at Harry who gave him a nod of approval before he continued. "His creepy snake also has a part of him. When Voldemort came back, he somehow tore another part of his soul and put it in the snake."

Hermione furrowed her brows, thinking deeply. The night Harry's parents were murdered, Voldemort tried killing Harry as well. The spell didn't work because Harry's mother had protected him with her love, causing it to bounce off of Harry and hit him… Suddenly she figured it out. "Harry, Voldemort didn't actually die because his killing curse was weakened once it had hit you, so when it ricocheted off toward him, it threw him into some weird sort of limbo. That's part of the reason that he was in a phantom state when you ran into him First Year."

The boys stared at her in awe, but she wasn't finished. She remembered sneaking out to the restricted section multiple times, and in one of the books she read, she could remember something about ripping the soul into pieces. Unless all the pieces were destroyed, the witch or wizard couldn't die, which Harry, Ron, and Ginny had already figured out.

"Nagini, the snake, and Pettigrew are basically living containers for Voldemort's soul. I read about something like that in Fourth Year," Hermione shook her head, her brows still knitted in concentration. "It's extremely dark magic. When a wizard tears his soul like that, the receptacle that he uses to store it in is called a horcrux. Like you guys already figured out, the wizard can't die unless all the horcruxes are destroyed."

A look of recognition dawned on Harry's face. "So that means that Tom Riddle's diary—er, Voldemort's diary—"

"Was a horcrux," Hermione supplied for him. "Which you destroyed with the basilisk fang."

Ron looked at her with a dumbfounded expression. "You're bloody brilliant, Hermione."

Hermione smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes as she replied, "Thanks. At this point, my smarts are all I have."

Cedric had just fought off a particularly tough Death Eater when he turned and saw a giant snake dangerously slithering toward him. Its red eyes were locked onto him, shining with a predatory gleam as it got closer. Scott and Aiden were still trying to hold their own against a pair of Death Eaters themselves, so it looked like it was up to him to fight the beast alone. He brandished his wand just as the snake got nearer to him, but it was knocked out of his hand by a rogue disarming spell and clattered to the floor somewhere behind him.

The snake's tongue flicked out as if it were amused and its hungry eyes were unmoving from Cedric. Cedric knew that there was no way he could outrun a snake that size—serpents were capable of traveling at crazy speeds—and prepared himself for his fate. This was going to be worse than his first death, and what was worse, he'd never gotten to thank Hermione.

The thought of her suddenly made a dream he didn't remember ever having swim to the forefront of his mind.

"Cedric," Hermione said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

He looked over at her as soon as she spoke, relishing in the way his name fell from her lips. The firelight reflected off of her porcelain skin, and he could see the way it made her eyes glow despite not being able to get a good glimpse of them as she stared into the flames. "Yes?" He responded, his eyes softening as he held his gaze on her.

She turned to look at him and he wondered briefly if a time would come that he would stop feeling utterly baffled when he saw her. "What's the first thing you want to do when you come back?" She asked, her voice soft and unassuming.

He saw the innocence in her expression, the way that she was genuinely curious to hear his answer, and smiled. If he were alive, he thought that his heart would have skipped a beat as multiple things crossed his mind.

Snog the daylights out of you. Hold you. Be with you.

"Truthfully?" He asked her, his eyes glowing. She nodded. "Take you to Hogsmeade and show you what a real good time is," he finally answered, choosing his words carefully.

She laughed softly, but he saw the surprise in her eyes. "And why is that?"

Cedric nearly shook his head in disbelief. For the brightest witch of the age, she was so oblivious to what was right in front of her. His feelings for her, his adoration for her... "You sure ask a lot of questions," he said, chuckling.

Her eyes were shining with mystery as she smiled. "Only to get the answers I want."

He gave her a thoughtful look, trying to figure her out. Every time he thought he had, she threw another curveball that had him knocked off-track. "You…" Cedric couldn't help but shake his head. She really was different from every other girl he'd ever met, a thought that brought a smile to his face. "You're something else, Hermione."

As he was still trying to process it, he was bombarded by another, the snake coiling as it prepared to launch itself at him—

"I'm sorry I yelled at you," he apologized softly, knowing that as he spoke she was still resolute as ever about bringing him back. As he looked at her, fear struck him that it might be the last time he ever would, influencing his words as he continued, "but I'll be bloody damned if I let you—" he broke off, clearing his throat. If he were alive, he was certain he would be crying by now. "I refuse to stand by and watch you die for me." He spoke in a soft, broken whisper. He didn't want to say goodbye. "I'm already dead anyways, so there's nothing for me to lose if this doesn't work." That was a lie and he knew it. He didn't want to leave her. No—he didn't want her to leave him.

Hermione wasn't the kind of girl to give up and he had known this about her all along, but he hoped that she would, just this once. He would rather disappear than live without her. He couldn't bear that.

Her eyes were unyielding as she stubbornly shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. He knew before she even spoke what she was going to say and it killed him inside. "It's already done, Cedric, and frankly, I refuse to watch you disappear forever."

The snake's tongue flickered out again before it launched itself into the air, and that's when he finally understood.

The shock and pain in Hermione's face when he woke up in the Hospital Wing and didn't understand why she was there—

Hermione gazing at him when she thought he wasn't looking—

Scott asking about his dreams multiple times and then dropping the subject—

His dreams were never dreams at all. They were memories.

But now it was too late to do anything about it as he stared down his death that was soaring through the air, mouth open to show off an impressively terrifying set of venomous fangs.

Author's Note: Hey, guys. I finally kicked that writer's block to the curb. I'm going to post the next chapter as soon as I can, but I can't make any promises because my summer is pretty busy now that I'm preparing for college.

That's right; I'm a high school graduate now!

How are you guys doing? For those of you on summer vacation, are you having a good one? Any cool plans coming up? And for those of you who are not, how's life? :)

I love you guys. Please don't hate me for this chapter. See you for the next update.

-Caitlyn