Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or ideas which you recognise as being from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series or any other trademarked or copyrighted work. The plot of this story is my own, but I have no intention of making any money from it.
Chapter 23
Severus and Draco startled the two Muggles drinking beers outside the Red Lion when they suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of them. They did not have time to worry about the Statutes of Secrecy, however.
"Ready?" asked Draco. He raised his wand.
Severus nodded.
Draco said loudly: "As heir apparent to all that is of the Malfoys, I remove all the magic on this Malfoy house." He made a complicated motion with his wand.
As soon as he'd finished, Severus raised his own wand and said simply: "Propan-1-one."
A glimmering golden net suddenly sprang up in front of them.
Draco looked at his godfather as though he'd gone mad. "What kind of a word is that?"
"Muggle Chemistry term. Unlikely to be used by anyone around here, tonight."
Draco nodded. "Good thinking."
They drew their wands and prepared to deal with whatever came through that net.
X
Harry was standing with Ron and Ernie by one of the back doors, when he felt the wards fall.
There was just time to think:
Oh fuck. This is it.
Then, the golden net was up.
"Go, go, go!"
There was no more thinking now. They had emerged onto a battlefield.
X
A few moments earlier...
Hermione stepped into the circle, and began to cast, arms outstretched and wand raised. An eerie wind filled the still-silent room, twisting the black sand into a thousand tiny tornados, higher, faster, bigger... The people below were coughing, black sand entering their lungs...
And then, it was gone. Two hundred golems stood dotted about the room amongst the crowd, including the Inner Circle Death Eaters on the balcony. Their emerald green robes swayed in a non-existent breeze.
"Behold!" said Lord Voldemort. "My army!"
"Ahem," said Hermione quietly.
The whole room was staring at her, amazed that she'd dared to interrupt the Dark Lord.
"They're not yours."
"What?"
"My name is Hermione Jane Granger. My best friends are Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. I'm in love with Severus Snape. And this is not your army. It's mine. And it's the army that's going to destroy you."
The Dark Lord spluttered. "What is this treachery? You will die now!"
He raised his wand, but Hermione was faster, casting a shield charm which shimmered in the air around her. His curse rebounded.
"No. You're the one who thought of the pentacle – it amplifies my magic, remember? And if I'm going to die here tonight, I'm damn well going to have the chance to make a speech first. I've been living in hiding for ten long years, Tom Marvolo Riddle. And you will hear me now."
The room seemed almost to bend under the force of her will. The entire crowd stood spellbound, not quite able to believe that this was actually happening.
"See, Tom," Hermione said conversationally. "Thing is, I'm a politician by trade, and the one thing that every politician gets is a farewell speech at the end of their time in office. So here's mine.
You destroyed my world when I was just discovering it. I've spent my adult life hiding from you, planning your end. You never got rid of the Order of the Phoenix, Tom. We were smarter than you. This is our sunrise. We're taking back the Wizarding World.
And these golems, now. Thank you, for giving me the idea. You want them to kill? Oh, they'll kill all right. Goodbye!"
Hermione raised her wand, tapped her Dark Mark, and shut her eyes. A wave of power spread outwards from the pentacle, touching on everything there. Everyone in the room, wizard and muggle, felt a sudden breeze. The golems suddenly had their purpose. Instilled with all of Hermione's magic, they knew what they had to do. "Kill the Death Eaters."
All over the room, the golems turned, quick as lightning, and began firing the Killing Curse. Some of the Death Eaters, faster off the mark than the rest, had time to dodge and escape, but for others, it was already too late.
On the balcony, Bellatrix and Lucius were desperately fighting three golems, back to back. Lord Voldemort was looking around, confused. He seemed to have lost all sense of what was going on, now that his plans were falling apart before his eyes.
Hermione herself had not opened her eyes. She didn't need to, she knew what was coming.
As soon as she had given the order, to kill anything with a Dark Mark, the nearest golem stepped into the pentacle. It was not hampered by the shield – they were both made of the same stuff – Hermione's magic.
By setting up the resonance to her own Dark Mark as the order, Hermione had made herself the prime target for her own creations.
The golem walked solemnly towards her. No killing curse here – a person could not cast it on themselves, and the golems were the extension of Hermione's will. Instead, it reached out one, pale hand, and with a superhuman strength reached into her chest and ripped out her heart. The other golems barely noticed as their maker collapsed. They had but one purpose, now. Kill the Death Eaters.
It was just then that the fifty Order members waiting in the wings burst into the hall. Harry and Ron apparated straight on to the balcony, next to Hermione. With cries of horror, they saw what had happened. The golem, having succeeded in its task, had moved on, and started to aim for Voldemort, who destroyed it in a pillar of fire. Ignoring the battle going on around them, Harry and Ron knelt down, cradling her dying body between them.
"I thought you were the exception!" Ron moaned.
Hermione's last breath came out as a little chuckle. "Honestly, Ron. I lied."
And with that, Hermione Granger was no more.
X
Bellatrix Lestrange, having dispatched her golems, noticed them. "The Mudblood is dead!" she called.
Ron, losing his temper, leapt to his feet. "I'll give you Mudblood, you filthy inbred cow!"
They began to duel, curses flying fast and thick between them, like a deadly lightning storm.
X
Harry felt the tears in his eyes. He looked up at Voldemort, fighting off several golems at once. He was slower now, confused.
Time to end this. No more speeches.
Harry Potter stood up. A space seemed to clear between the Dark Lord and himself, as Voldemort made the last of the golems fighting him crumble to ash.
He would not have known it, but the magic and his anger had made his true appearance return. His hair, which had always objected to being changed or cut, lost its redness and became black and messy once more. On his forehead, where the Muggle surgeon had worked so hard, a lightning shaped scar was fading back into sight. The Muggle footballer was gone, in his place a very angry wizard.
They walked towards each other. In his peripheral vision, Harry was vaguely aware that there were other things going on in the room. McGonagall, battling a gaggle of Death Eaters, hair coming unbound from its customary bun. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, fighting back to back. All over the room, Order members, fighting and dying for the cause of freedom.
But he did not take his eyes off Riddle.
"Harry Potter," came the hiss.
"Tom Riddle," he replied with an equanimity that he did not feel.
With a sudden fluidity of motion, as though both thinking together, Voldemort and Harry raised their wands in tandem, each shouting "Avada Kedavra!".
Just as they had in that graveyard so long ago, the brother wands met, a jet of green light uniting them. One green bead, glowing brighter than the rest, sat midway between the two of them.
Through sheer force of will, Harry began to push it towards Voldemort. He felt some resistance, but it was nothing that he couldn't handle. He simply took deep breaths, thinking of why he was doing this, all those he had lost, and all those he was not going to lose to this madman.
His parents.
Sirius.
Dumbledore.
Ginny.
Little Dennis Creevy.
The pair of them rose into the air above the balcony, the sheer power crackling between them defying gravity.
Percy.
Bill.
Hermione.
The bead was inching closer and closer to Voldemort's wand, now. A sheen of sweat was visible on that grey, snakelike brow.
"You have no power that I know not!" he screamed desperately.
"Really?" said Harry. He'd been wondering about that bit of the prophecy too, but suddenly it came to him, all in a flash. "What about love? This is for the people that I've loved that you've taken from me. And for the people I love now, that I'm not letting you have. Ever. Do you love anyone or anything, Tom Riddle?"
He paused for a second, and cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, first on that second list is Draco Malfoy, by the way."
As soon as he said the name, Harry felt a sudden burst of strength. The bead fairly shot the last few inches towards the Dark Lord. As soon as it touched Voldemort's wand, the beam of light vanished.
There was a silence, for one, long, second. The world held its breath.
"Hah-" Voldemort began to say, but before he could complete the thought, his wand shattered.
Then, with a cry of rage and pain which everyone in the room swore they would remember for the rest of their lives, Tom Marvolo Riddle, self-styled Dark Lord Voldemort, shattered into a million pieces and was blown away on an invisible, intangible wind.
Every surviving Death Eater in the room screamed, clutching their left arms, where the Dark Mark had vanished in a burst of white light. The Order members were quick to take advantage of their lapse in concentration, killing and incarcerating all those who remained.
Severus and Draco, who had been helping a pair of Muggle waiters who had run out of the building at the first sign of the battle, were no exception. They both collapsed, shouting, much to the confusion of the poor Muggles, who ran off into the night, shouting about madmen and magic.
Severus looked at his wrist. Pale, clear skin greeted him for the first time in thirty years. He would never admit it later, but a tear rolled down his cheek at that moment.
Draco looked towards the building. "Harry," he said simply.
Back indoors, all the golems vanished, collapsing back into sand. There was no need for them now, their purpose was complete. There were no more Dark Marks, no more Death Eaters. They joined their mistress in oblivion.
The battle was won.