AN: Trying to update as much as possible. To be perfectly honest I have no idea how many chapters there will end up being but it will end soon. Once again anything you recognize is JK Rowling's anything you don't is mine.
Ron POV
Harry and I leaned back against a wall panting. Neville ran past with Professor Sprout and at least five other students carrying potted plants. "Mandrakes! Going to lob them over the walls – they won't like this!"
Harry and I exchanged a surprised look. "Well he's right."
I threw back my head and laughed. Harry suddenly stood up with a gasp his eyes lighting up. "What? What is it?"
"Do you remember when I told you about where I hid Snape's potion's book in the Room of Hidden Things?" Harry asked excitedly rushing around the corner ignoring a picture of Sir Cadogan who was yelling ideas at us.
"Some of it, are you thinking of something specific?" I asked watching Fred, Lee and Hannah as they listened closely to a hidden passageway their wands drawn.
"The bust of the ugly warlock wearing the wig? He had a crown on his head!" I gasped and followed after Harry. Godric! It had been so bloody close!
Different painted witches and wizards in the portraits were yelling out news from different parts of the castle. It was distracting to say the least.
Aberforth rounded the corridor his wand at his side muttering darkly under his breath. Harry and I darted around the last corner before the Room of Requirement and I ran into a small body. I looked down and smiled. "Hermione!"
"Where the hell have you been?" Harry yelled rubbing his scar.
"Mate I told you she went with Sirius to the Chamber of Secrets!" I yelled as the castle walls shook. Hermione screamed and dove out of the way of a piece of falling plaster. I caught her and she glanced up at me a small smile on her face.
"Where's Sirius?" Harry asked his eyes darting around.
"He ran off to help Remus who was dueling Dolohov." Hermione said. "So what's new with you guys?"
As she said it, there was an explosion from overhead: All three of us looked up as dust fell from the ceiling and we heard a distant scream. Hermione froze and her face paled. I gripped her arm before she could run after Hannah.
"I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is," Harry yelled trying ignore the shouting from the hall. "He hid it exactly where I hid my old Potions book, where everyone's been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come one."
As the walls trembled again, he led the other two back through the concealed entrance and down the staircase into the Room of Requirement. It was empty except for three women: Ginny, Tonks, and an elderly witch wearing a moth-eaten hat, whom I recognized immediately as Neville's grandmother.
"Ah, Potter," she said crisply as if she had been waiting for Harry. "You can tell us what's going on."
"Is everyone okay?" Ginny and Tonks said at the same time.
"'S far as we know," said Harry. "Are there still people in the passage to the Hog's Head?"
The room couldn't change if anyone was inside.
"I was the last to come through," Mrs. Longbottom said primly. "I sealed it, I think it unwise to leave it open now Aberforth has left his pub. Have you seen my grandson?"
"He's fighting," I said watching her nervously. She looked like a formidable witch.
"Naturally," said the old lady proudly. "Excuse me, I must go and assist him."
With surprising speed she trotted off toward the stone steps.
Harry looked at Tonks. "I thought you were supposed to be with Teddy at your mother's?"
"I couldn't stand not knowing—" Tonks looked anguished. "She'll look after him—have you seen Remus?"
"He was planning to lead a group of fighters into the grounds and Hermione saw him dueling Dolohov—"
Without another word, Tonks sped off.
"Ginny," Harry started his face pale, "I'm sorry, but we need you to leave too. Just for a bit. Then you can come back in."
Ginny looked simply delighted to leave her sanctuary.
"And then you can come back in!" he shouted after her as she ran up the steps after Tonks. "You've got to come back in!"
"Hang on a moment!" I said sharply. "We've forgotten someone!"
"Who?" asked Hermione.
"The house-elves, they'll all be down in the kitchen, won't they?"
"You mean we ought to get them fighting?" Harry asked brightly. I glared at him.
"No," I said seriously, "I mean we should tell them to get out. We don't want anymore Kreachers, do we? We can't order them to die for us–" I stopped nervously when Hermione and Harry stared at me in shock. "What?"
"Your brilliant!" Hermione yelled slamming into me wrapping her arms around my waist. I gasped as all my breath left my lungs.
"Er guys? Is this really the time?" Harry asked. Hermione pulled away from me smiling brightly.
"Yeah—right—sorry—" Hermione said trying to hide her smile.
It was clear, as the three of us stepped back into the corridor upstairs, that in the minutes that we had spent in the Room of Requirement the situation within the castle had deteriorated severely: The walls and ceiling were shaking worse than ever; dust filled the air, and through the nearest window, I saw bursts of green and red light so close to the foot of the castle that I knew the Death Eaters must be very near to entering the place. Looking down, I saw Grawp the giant meandering past, swinging what looked like a stone gargoyle torn from the roof and roaring his displeasure.
"Let's hope he steps on some of them!" I said as more screams echoed from close by.
"As long as it's not any of our lot!" said a voice: I turned and saw Ginny and Tonks, both with their wands drawn at the next window, which was missing several panes. Even as I watched, Ginny sent a well-aimed jinx into a crowd of fighters below. I don't think I had ever been so proud of Ginny before.
"Good girl!" roared a figure running through the dust toward them, and I saw Aberforth again, his gray hair flying as he led a small group of students past. "They look like they might be breaching the north battlements, they've brought giants of their own."
Tonks suddenly ran the other way. "REMUS! SIRIUS! DOLOHOV GET AWAY FROM MY HUSBAND!"
My heart stuttered in my chest and I swayed on my feet. The Death Eaters had infiltrated the castle.
Harry ran back and forth in front of the blank wall. The door materialized and he ran in but not before grabbing Hermione and my wrist.
The room was absolutely huge and the silence was deafening after the chaos from the hall. Huge piles of random things towered everywhere making it a crazy labyrinth.
"And he never realized anyone could get in?" I asked my voice echoing in the silence.
"He thought he was the only one," said Harry. "Too bad for him I've had to hide stuff in my time . . . this way," he added. "I think it's down here. . . ."
He passed the stuffed troll and the Vanishing Cabinet Draco Malfoy had mended last year with such disastrous consequences, then hesitated, looking up and down aisles of junk. A small confused frown crossed his face.
"Accio Diadem!" Hermione cried in desperation, but nothing flew through the air toward them. It seemed that, like the vault at Gringotts, the room would not yield its hidden objects that easily.
"Let's split up." Harry told us, "Look for a stone bust of an old man wearing a wig an a tiara! It's standing on a cupboard and it's definitely somewhere around here. . . ."
Hermione POV
I silently walked down the man-made walls my eyes flicking around. Where could the Diadem possibly be? The room was absolutely deafening with its silence. For some reason it made me twice as jumpy.
I turned a corner and frowned. Had I been this way already? I looked behind me and cursed. How in the world could you find anything in this place?
"Harry?" Ron yelled from a couple rows over. I jumped and gasped in surprise. "Are you talking to someone?"
One of the walls of junk started to shake and a third of it fell into the aisle. "RON!"
I screamed and dove out of the aisle I was standing in. The wave of junk had created a domino affect and was slowly making the other junk walls fall. I ran towards Ron's aisle. He ran out of the aisle as it toppled. I continued to run into towards Harry's voice.
"STOP!" Draco shouted suddenly, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive—"
"So? I'm not killing him, am I?" Crabbe yelled. No they were going to take him to Voldemort. "But if I can, I will, the Dark Lord wants him dead anyway, what's the diff—?"
I hurled a spell and watched as my stunning spell hurtled towards Crabbe. Draco pulled him away and sneered at me. But it seemed forced.
"It's that Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!" I dove out of the way. Harry shot a Stunning Spell at Crabbe, who lurched out of the way, knocking Draco's wand out of his hand; it rolled out of sight beneath a mountain of broken furniture and bones.
"Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!" Draco yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, who were both aiming at Harry: Their split second's hesitation was all Harry needed.
"Expelliarmus!"
Goyle's wand flew out of his hand and disappeared into the bulwark of objects beside him; Goyle leapt foolishly on the spot, trying to retrieve it; I threw another stunning spell at Goyle but he leapt out of the way, and Ron, appearing suddenly at the end of the aisle, shot a full Body-Bind Curse at Crabbe, which narrowly missed.
Crabbe wheeled around and screamed, "Avada Kedavra!" again. Ron leapt out of sight to avoid the jet of green light. The wand-less Draco cowered behind a three-legged wardrobe as I charged toward them, hitting Goyle with a Stunning Spell as I came. He slumped to the ground.
"It's somewhere here!" Harry yelled at me, pointing at the pile of junk into which the old tiara had fallen. "Look for it while I go and help R—"
"HARRY!" I screamed. A huge fire was roaring through the room. Merlin!
"Like it hot, scum?" roared Crabbe as he ran. But he seemed to have no control over what he had done. Flames of abnormal size were pursuing us, licking up the sides of the junk bulwarks, which were crumbling to soot at their touch. Fiendfyre!
"Aguamenti!" Harry bellowed, but the jet of water that soared from the tip of his wand evaporated in the air.
"RUN!"
Draco grabbed the Stunned Goyle and dragged him along; Crabbe outstripped all of us, now looking terrified; Harry, Ron, and I pelted along in his wake, but the fire pursued us.
We turned a corner and froze. Huge beasts were forming in the fire: Flaming serpents, chimaeras, and dragons rose and fell and rose again, and the detritus of centuries on which they were feeding was thrown up into the air into their fanged mouths, tossed high on clawed feet, before being consumed by the inferno.
Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle had vanished from view: Harry, Ron and I stopped dead; the fiery monsters were circling us, drawing closer and closer, claws and horns and tails lashed, and the heat was solid as a wall around us.
"What can we do?" I screamed over the deafening roars of the fire. "What can we do?"
"Here!" Harry seized three heavy looking broomsticks and threw them at us.
I froze for one moment before swinging my leg over the broom and kicked hard off the ground. My heart pounded in my chest as I soared high above the flames wanting more than anything to close my eyes.
Thick billowing smoke rose through the air making it hard to breathe and see. I looked down at the flames looking desperately for Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. They may have been complete tossers for most of our school years but I never wanted them to die. Especially Draco after he saved my life.
"Harry, let's get out, let's get out!" bellowed Ron, though it was impossible to see where the door was through the black smoke. And then I heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the terrible commotion, the thunder of devouring flame. We couldn't leave them here.
"It's—too—dangerous—!" Ron yelled, but Harry and I both wheeled in the air. I dove down towards the flames looking for anything.
And then I saw them: Draco with his arms around the unconscious Goyle, the pair of them perched on a fragile tower of charred desks, and Harry dived. A moment later I followed.
"IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I'LL KILL YOU, HARRY!" roared Ron's voice but I ignored him. Draco saw us coming and raised one arm, but the moment Harry tried to pull him up he slipped out of his hands.
"NOOOO!" I screamed diving for him. Draco yelled as I lurched forward and gripped his hand. "Climb on!"
Somehow he pulled himself onto the broom. "The door, get to the door!"
I flew as fast as I could towards the small light I saw ahead of me. Ron flew next to me his arms wrapped around Goyle. Harry swerved in front of me and I almost crashed.
"CAREFUL HERMIONE!" I clung desperately to the broom and Draco wrapped his arms around me. One second there was a light growing bigger in front of me and the next we crashed into the wall.
Draco fell off the broom and lay facedown, gasping, coughing, and retching. I rolled over and sat up: The door to the Room of Requirement had vanished, and Ron and Harry sat panting on the floor beside Goyle, who was still unconscious.
"C–Crabbe," choked Draco as soon as he could speak. "C– Crabbe . . . "
"He's dead," said Ron harshly.
There was silence, apart from panting and coughing. Then a number of huge bangs shook the castle, and a great cavalcade of transparent figures galloped past on horses, their heads screaming with bloodlust under their arms. Harry staggered to his feet when the Headless Hunt had passed and looked around: The battle was still going on all around us. I could hear more scream than those of the retreating ghosts. Panic flared within me. Where was my husband? What all was going on out there?
"Where's Ginny?" Harry asked sharply. "She was here. She was supposed to be going back into the Room of Requirement."
"I don't know." I muttered shaking my head. Something out of the corner of my eye and my mouth dropped open in shock.
The Diadem of Ravenclaw was hanging on Harry's arm like a bracelet. Suddenly the tiara vibrated then split apart a black substance pouring out of it like a wound.
"We only have the snake left!" I screamed looking up from the tiara. Yes only two things left and then it would all be over.
Shouts and yells suddenly started from around the corner much closer than the others. Harry, Ron, and I ran forward to help Percy and Fred: Jets of light flew in every direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast: Then his hood slipped and they saw a high forehead and streaked hair—
"Hello, Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"
"You're joking, Perce!" shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.
"You actually are joking, Perce. . . . I don't think I've heard you joke since you were –"
The air suddenly exploded. I screamed as I flew back into the wall. Stone rained down on me and I gasped in pain. All I could do was desperately hold onto my wand. I pulled myself out of the wreckage as best I could to see two red haired men sobbing around one broken man lying on the floor.
"No—no—no!" Ron was yelling. "No! Percy! No!"
AN: Please Review! It helps so much more than you realize.