Chapter 50

Hermione was horrified; anyone would have been if they had seen the things she had. People were being slaughtered in the very institution she had called home for last years of her life, and while she knew she was doing something important, it killed her to see the faces of so many she had come to know in the last couple of years. Which is why she knew now, more than ever, she had to succeed, even though there was a very good chance that victory would only come with the death of her best friend.

She had already cried her tears for it, and she knew that now she had to be strong, for Harry, for Ron, and for Draco.

Hermione watched as Harry walked past the Room of Requirement, and new that he was attempting to get the room to open.

'Come on,' she thought to herself, as she closed her eyes. 'We need a room where everything hidden can be found. We need a room to find what has been lost.'

"Hermione," she heard Draco's gentle voice break through her thoughts. "It's opened up." She opened her eyes as her boyfriend slipped his hand through hers. The three slipped through the doors, as quietly as possible. There had not been anyone around at the time, but it never hurt to take extra caution.

"Accio Diadem," Harry cried out, his voice full of desperation. She knew that he, more than anyone, wanted to try and prevent as many casualties as possible, and their time was running out. However, like in the Gringotts vault, the summoning did nothing.

"Let's split up," she suggested calmly. "That way we can cover more ground."

Harry gave her a grateful look as he nodded. "Okay. Just remember that we're looking for a stone bust of a man wearing a wig and a tiara. It should be standing on a cupboard, so search for that."

Hermione squeezed Draco's hand quickly and gave him a faint smile, before slipping her hand away from his.

"We're going to find it, Hermione," Draco said once he was sure that Harry had been out of ear shot.

"I know," she said. "Everything will be just fine."

Draco gave her a peck on the cheek before walking off in the opposite direction from Harry. So Hermione began to search. She walked through the room skimming across the various articles. It astounded her that so many people had been leaving objects in the room for so long. There were everything from letters, to Quidditch brooms, to old cauldrons. Hermione began to move deeper into the centre of room, searching the aisles, getting desperate to find something, anything.

Draco heard talking coming from the centre of the room. At first he thought it was Hermione and Harry, so he began to walk faster towards them. Had one of them found something? He hoped for both their sakes, and the rest of theirs, that they had. However the closer he moved, the more he began to recognise the voices. One was definitely Harry's, but it was the other two who worried him.

"We're gonna be rewarded," he heard his former Slytherin, Crabbe say with more confidence than Draco had ever heard be emitted from the boy. "We 'ung back to bring yeh in to 'im."

Draco nearly laughed right in their faces. Those two were planning on bringing Harry in? He had always known that they weren't the brightest pair, but this was just ridiculous.

"Good plan," He heard Harry mock the two bumbling idiots. He paused for a minute before asking them, "How did you even get in here?"

"That would be because of me," a voice drawled out. Draco cringed lightly as he recognised the sound of his former Quidditch captain, Marcus Flint.

"Oh yes, I had forgotten that the twins trapped you in the cabinet a few years back," Harry smirked. "Must have been a great experience seeing that you're so willing to come back for seconds."

"Shut up, Potter!" Marcus snapped. The Slytherin drew his wand and raised it at the boy.

"Are you talking to someone, Harry?" Draco froze as he heard Hermione's voice echo from the other side of the area where Harry and his former classmates had gathered. He wished he had been closer so he could prevent her from being seen. She emerged opposite to where Draco was standing, and Draco could see her face fill with shock upon seeing the confrontation occurring."

"Well, well. If it isn't the mudblood that you treasure so dearly," Goyle said with a crude smile. He raised his wand and looked as if he were about to cast a spell, before Draco finally stepped in.

"Stop," He said in a simple, yet commanding tone which he had often used with them as children.

He could see his former classmates freeze up when they heard his voice.

"Draco?" he heard Crabbe ask with disbelief, his face paling. "But you're dead!"

"Are you a ghost…?" Goyle asked slowly, looking a bit terrified at the sight.

"You idiots," Marcus said, as he smacked his forehead. "Isn't it obvious that he isn't dead? He probably never was. I bet the little traitor went into hiding when he was too scared to pull off the task the Dark Lord had set for him."

"That's not how I remember it," Draco said, pretending to think back to the events of the previous year. "You see, as I recall, I seemed to think that for some reason Voldemort is a hypocritical fool who started this whole thing because he was having abandonment issues. Oh wait; that's because it's true."

"How dare you speak that way about him!" Flint said in outrage. "The Dark Lord is a great and powerful man, and he is helping rid us of the vermin like that little mudblood bitch over there."

Draco looked at him coolly. "Have you been talking to my aunt, Flint? Because it seems like you've been taking a hell of a lot of lessons from a crazy woman. And don't talk that way about her," he said, gesturing to Hermione. "She may not come from magical ancestry, but she still manages to put the entire line of all of your pureblooded families to shame."

Flint frowned at his comment, but surprisingly enough, it was Crabbe who spoke up next.

"So you decided to throw away everything you had for the stupid mudblood whore? Salazaar knows how many men she's spread her legs for, yet she still manages to seduce you into throwing away your entire future. You betrayed your entire family, for her," Crabbe said, his voice rising ever so slightly.

Draco gave him a smirk. "I threw away nothing; in fact I only had everything to gain. My life has become better in the last year, than it ever had in my entire life. But look at you, still mindlessly following somebody's orders, be it mine, Flint's, or Voldemort's. You see, Crabbe, you and Goyle aren't capable of thinking by yourselves; you need someone else to do it for you. As for switching sides for her, while she had helped me make my decision, it wasn't for her; it was for me. And she hasn't been spreading her legs open for anyone, just so you know; she's mine, and no one else's." He noticed Hermione blush slightly at this point, as she appeared to be fighting off a smile on her face. "No need to look so jealous, just because you boys can't seem to succeed with any ladies yourselves."

Goyle spat at the ground in front of where Draco was standing, "I never thought I would see the day where a Malfoy turned into a blood-traitor. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Your family's name has been diminishing steadily for years, so it was only a matter of time before you did something to disgrace them further." He raised his wand back up at Hermione. "I suppose it should be her who suffers for your crimes. Cruc-"

"Enough!" Flint commanded. "We're here for Potter, not for his filthy pet mudblood or the bloodtraitors he associates himself with." As Flint turned his attention to Flint, Draco caught Hermione's eye. She was looking up at the statue which Harry had described earlier, and Draco knew that she was going to try and go for it.

"We don't follow your orders, Flint," Crabbe said. "Just because we're here with you doesn't mean we listen to you. We're bringing Draco as well. I'm sure the Dark Lord would be most pleased to see 'im. But that doesn't mean we can't have a little fun first with the girl while the two of them are forced to watch."

Draco knew that he had to distract them, or one would notice Hermione as she was getting the diadem down from the pile.

"And how do you propose to do that?" Draco scoffed. "We're all much smarter and more skilled than you. You may have been here all year, but my aunt trained me personally. So who do you think is more likely to succeed?"

A flash of fear passed through Crabbe's eyes, however it disappeared quickly. "You don't have to do this you know. You can go back to the Dark Lord, and he will forgive you. Tell him that the Order held you prisoner or something. We're friends, Draco. At least we once were."

Draco shook his head. "No, we never were. You both knew that. And I'm sure the only reason you hung around me was because of my family's high standing in society. You were my lackeys, no more."

Goyle looked a bit upset by his statement but didn't say anything.

Flint, however had much to add, "And I suppose you believe that those people are your friends? They're just using you for information. If you think for one second that they won't just throw you in Azkaban after all of this, then you're mistaken. And if you continue down this path, when the Dark Lord wins, he will execute you personally. So tell me, which option do you prefer? At least the Dark Lord's fate for you would be quick in comparison. But either way you lose."

He looked over at Hermione quickly, who had secured the diadem in her hand. Now that they had the Horcrux, they just had to get out of here.

"You're wrong," Hermione said, after she hid the diadem from their view. "Unlike you, we don't lie. We told Draco upfront what he would be signing up for, and we were fair. He will get out of this with no charges, as the most influential people in the Order know of his loyalty, and will all vouch for him when we win this. You see, we have something that you don't; we have something worth fighting for. I bet none of you even know why you're in this, do you? You're just all in it because your parents want you to be, or because you're far too scared to stand up to Voldemort. And that is exactly why we will win; because we're all in this together."

He shot her a smile. Merlin help him, but he wanted to kiss her right there and then. Draco loved how she always stood up for everything she believed in, and it always shocked him how she always stood up for him even when he felt he didn't deserve it from her. She was always so radiant, and whenever she spoke about something she was passionate about, her eyes would shine brighter than any lumos charm.

"What do you know, you little mudblood bitch?" Flint snarled at her. "I should just kill you now, and rid ourselves of your filthy presence. Avada Ked-"

Draco nearly felt his world stop as the charm was cast. He was too far away to push her out of the way, but he knew one thing he could still do.

"Expelliarmus," he shouted as quickly as he could. Flint's wand flew through the air, and Draco leaped slightly to catch it.

"Descendo," Goyle said loudly, causing the stack of objects behind him began to tremble and quake. The objects began to fall around him, and it wasn't until a rather large statue of a nude man nearly crushed him, that he reacted and moved out of the way.

"Finite," Hermione said and tower stopped moving. Draco shot her a grateful smile after catching her eye.

"We need to get out of here," she said, low enough for only him to hear. Draco nodded and knew that he had to disable his opponents.

He had been lying earlier when he said that he didn't care about them. Crabbe and Goyle may have only been companions to him, but that didn't mean that he wanted to see them dead. So any sort of spell that would cause them physical harm was definitely out of the question.

"Stupefy," Draco shouted, knocking Goyle unconscious. Well, now one was unarmed, and the other knocked out; that just left Crabbe. Of the two, Crabbe had always been slightly smarted, but that wasn't saying much to begin with.

"I dropped it," Harry yelled out. "It's here somewhere, it has to be. Draco, help Hermione while I search for it."

"Like it hot, scum?" Goyle spat out at Hermione, before casting a charm which Draco couldn't hear. The room immediately began to be engulfed in flames. Debris from the burning objects flew out and blurred his vision. He could feel the smoke begin to suffocate his airways due to the lack of ventilation in the room.

"Aguamentai," he heard Harry yell from a little further away. But as Draco suspected, the spell was dark magic, and would not be put out by a simple fire charm.

"RUN!" Draco shouted out through the flames. He saw Harry still attempting to find the diadem, but Draco knew it wasn't worth their lives. "Harry, we have to go now!"

As he ran through the room, trying to find the exit, he noticed Crabbe attempting to lift Goyle's body as Flint blindly ran around the room.

The flames began to take on shapes and chase them through the room. It circled them from nearly all sides, cutting off their chances of escape.

"WHAT DO WE DO?" Hermione yelled out in fear. "What can we do?"

Draco watched as the Chosen One grabbed three broomsticks and threw one to each of them. He mounted his as he looked over to his girlfriend, whose fear of flying was well known. However, to his shock, she looked almost ecstatic to have a solution. But to be fair, when the choice came between burning alive and having to fly, Draco was pretty sure that any sane person would gladly chose the second option.

As they flew through the air, he scanned the ground in an attempt to try and find the Slytherins. As they flew a bit further, he saw them on the ground, with Crabbe struggling to carry Goyle, and Flint still running around clueless. He shot Harry a look, and saw that he appeared to have the same idea.

Glancing at Hermione, he saw her tilt her head to give him an approving nod. While they may be in war where people would die, he didn't want to have any of it on his head. The three of them swerved their broomsticks down to pick up the three. While he would have preferred for none of them to be with Hermione, after all they tried, he preferred it be Goyle on their broom. While he was unconscious, he wouldn't try and kill her again.

"THE DOOR," Draco yelled out after he had Flint on his broomstick. "GET TO THE DOOR."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, POTTER?" he heard Crabbe yell from the back of Harry's broom.

He could see Harry lunging down, in an attempt to pick up the diadem.

Draco could see the door appear before them, and he knew They were nearly out, when a giant yellow serpent came out of nowhere and he knew that they had try and avoid it at all costs, though that was easier said and done. He turned his broom sharply to the left, as he had done during so many of the Quidditch games which he had played in the past. He felt Flint's grip around him tighten to a near deathly grasp.

Hermione had made it out of the room, as Harry appeared to be leading it slightly away from Draco. He wanted to help his friend, but he knew that he had to get out now, so Harry would stand a chance of escape. So Draco plunged his broom towards the ground and out the door. The further down they went, the hotter he felt as the fire nearly brushed against his skin and charred robes.

Draco landed on the ground beside Hermione and pulled her into a tight hug, not wanting to let go for anything.

He saw Crabbe crouch over Goyle's still knocked out body. Harry ran to them both after hitting the ground, and wrapped his arms around them slightly.

"You're both okay," he gasped as he held the diadem in his hand. It began to smoke, as a bloodlike substance began to ooze out of it.

"Harry," Hermione said as she looked down at it, "I think it's been destroyed! Of course! FiendFyre can destroy horcurxes, but it's far too unstable to use."

Draco was about to question how Goyle even knew such a spell, but as he looked over at his former housemate, he realised something was wrong. Draco stood rushed over to where he was lying, and all of a sudden it hit him; Goyle was dead, and it Draco couldn't help but feel like it was all his fault.

A/N: Hey guys! I'm so sorry about how late this chapter is! I honestly tried so hard to write it during the last week, but there was just too much going on all the time. I was literally out for all of Orientation week, doing something or the other.

I want to thank all of you guys who wished me well with my transition here. The first few nights were the worst, where I knew nobody and all I wanted was to go home, but after a few days, the homesickness wore off. But all of your reviews really did help! So thank you so much. J