I'd like to thank brianna-xox, fredfred and Otium for betaing. They improved the story a lot.

Chapter 22: Death and Destruction

London, October 2nd, 1999, 05.47 hours

Hermione woke up before her alarm went off. She was used to that - it happened often if she had an important task. The witch rolled onto her side and watched Ron. Her lover was asleep on his back, his chest slowly rising and falling. He looked relaxed and at peace, not worried and resigned, as he had the evening before.

She hated to wake him up, but she would. Just not right now. She reached out and touched his bare chest with her hand, caressing his skin and moving up to his head. Suddenly, her wrist was gripped, and she hissed in surprise and a bit of pain.

"Sorry." He released her hand, smiling sheepishly.

"It was my fault." She rubbed her wrist. "I should have remembered."

He propped himself up on his elbows. "How much time do we have before we need to be at the Ministry?"

"Not enough for what you are thinking," she answered, smiling.

He sighed theatrically. "Attacking at dawn! I know it's traditional, but it's very inconvenient right now."

"At least we will not be fighting at night," Hermione said. "They'll have a harder time escaping."

"Awfully confident, are we?"

She nodded. "We have the advantage in numbers and training, and experience." Although the last was only thanks to the veterans among Dumbledore's exiles. Then again, they were bound to be a bit rusty, unlike the Wands.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy," Ron quoted.

Hermione sniffed. "That saying was meant to tell people that they needed to be flexible, and have more than one rigid plan." Muggle books hadn't been permitted for Wands in training, but that one had been quoted by one of the older handbooks. So she had bought a battered copy in a used book shop, and smuggled it into the barracks.

Ron grinned. "Well… I know you're flexible. Very flexible." His grin turned into a leer as he let his eyes travel down her body.

She didn't blush, but her smile grew wider. If only they had time… She bent over to kiss him.

Five minutes later, her alarm went off, proving her earlier claim that they didn't have enough time.

The Weald, Kent, Britain, October 2nd, 1999, 07.20 hours

Ron Weasley was sitting on his broom, out of sight of the old and weathered, but still solid, house in the distance. He knew strong wards were layered over it, making it impossible for muggles to even notice it, and preventing spells and attackers from reaching its walls. The Dark Lord's hideout was well-protected.

It wouldn't help him, though. The Wands were out in force, and Dumbledore had brought two dozen of the Order of the Phoenix, including the four youngest Weasley siblings and Harry, who had confirmed that both the Dark Lord and his last Horcrux were inside. This time, he'd not escape.

Harry and Ginny were on brooms as well, next to him. Ron wished Hermione was there, but his lover was on the ground, with her team. Fortunately - even though she didn't like it - she was with the reserves, not the first or second assault element. He had wanted to stay with her, but he had been informed in no uncertain terms that it would be a bad idea, since he was not familiar with the standard tactics of the Wands, and so might get hurt by friendly fire. Sirius had been assigned as a liaison to the Wand-Commander. Harry's godfather had been torn about that - he had wanted to stay with Harry - but Dumbledore had persuaded him he could do more for his godson by ensuring the attack would be well coordinated with the Wands.

So he was with his best friend and his sister. Reserves as well - of sorts. Dumbledore had made it clear that they were not to engage until and unless the professor ordered them to. Something that had pleased Hermione.

They were more alike, he realised, than they thought. Ron chuckled, earning a glance from Ginny and a questioning look from Harry.

"Just a funny thought," he said. "Hermione and I, we are both happy that the other is in the reserves, and angry that we are."

Ginny and Harry exchanged a look that clearly said that they didn't think this was even remotely funny. Ron shrugged. They were about to face the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. His thoughts were bound to be a bit off while waiting for the battle to start.

Which should be any minute now. The sun was starting to rise. Ideally, the Curse-Breakers would move now, before the morning had fully broken, under the cover of the fading darkness. As if they had read his thoughts, a team of eight Wands disillusioned themselves and started towards the house. A minute later, a dozen Wands lifted off on their brooms. They'd cover the area with jinxes to prevent magical travel and disillusionment spells.

He started to take to the air himself - there was no need to remain in cover now. He was out of range of spells, and the Death Eaters would notice the attack as soon as their wards alerted them.

There! The Curse-Breakers were now protected by conjured walls and ceilings, forming an impromptu bunker. And broom riders were surrounding the house, flying in random patterns to make targeting them harder.

Harry reached his side, followed by Ginny. "He's still inside."

"Then he is now trapped." Ron smiled. So far, all was going according to plan.

The Weald, Kent, Britain, October 2nd, 1999, 07.30 hours

The Dark Lord Voldemort felt the wards come under attack even before they alerted him and his Death Eaters. His enemies had found them. But how? Was there another spy he had missed? There was no time to dwell on that. The wards were strong, but they would not stand up to a concerted attack for that long. Long enough, though, to prepare.

He called his followers to the hall, acting with more calm than he felt. It wouldn't do to show anything but the utmost confidence in his own power. They arrived quickly. Bellatrix was the first, as he had known she would be. His most loyal follower looked eager. Others tried to hide their anxiety. They couldn't, not from him.

"The mudbloods and the traitors are attacking the wards," he stated. "The fools do not know what awaits them."

There was a reason he had chosen this house. He had spent months here, decades ago. Back when he had acquired the notes of one of Grindelwald's highest-ranking Storm Wizards. Months he had thought wasted, back then. He had been young, and inexperienced. Talented, driven, but not yet ready.

But now one of his mistakes might just turn out to be his salvation. His followers looked at him. Bellatrix trusted him blindly, of course, but even those who had been lacking courage were now straightening.

He briefly checked the wards. They were still holding. As expected. And his surprise was already on the way.

"You know how I have been betrayed by those I trusted. How we have been betrayed. My sacrifice was used to conquer Britain 18 years ago, and what happened? Instead of preserving our culture, protecting it from the mudbloods' corruption, the traitors perverted it! They taught the mudbloods how to oppress their betters! Even now, they are out there, attacking us! They know we are the purebloods' last hope."

His followers yelled their support. He checked the wards again. They were steadily growing weaker. He raised his arms, and the crowd fell silent.

"I will not lie to you. The mudbloods and blood traitors outnumber us. And this time, Dumbledore is with them."

His Death Eaters remembered the fights with the mudbloods. And the older, more experienced ones would remember Dumbledore. The anxiety was back.

"While I battle Dumbledore, you will be facing hordes of mudbloods. Those beasts have but one goal: Our utter destruction. They deserve no respect, no mercy, no quarter. They are rabid animals that we must exterminate before they spread their disease to the country."

He took a deep breath. The wards were now close to breaking. But there was time still, to finish this. "Were it but me, I would not even contemplate this. I have conquered death itself! But you, my trusted, faithful followers… you are the flower of Britain. To save you, no sacrifice is too much, no cost too high."

He glanced to the side and opened a hidden door with a flick of his wand. A figure stepped out of the dark room behind it. His Death Eaters recoiled at the sight. Some hissed, some cursed. Wands went up, and even Bellatrix looked disgusted for a moment, before she smiled at him again.

"If not for our enemies treachery, this would not be happening. But as they do not respect our traditions, they do not deserve to be protected by them." He raised his wand. The wards were close to failing. His first spell ripped a hole in the roof. His next spell shot into the sky.

"To battle!"

The Weald, Kent, Britain, October 2nd, 1999, 07.55 hours

Wand-Leader Hermione blinked when the roof of the house blew up from the inside. For half an hour she and the other Wands had been expecting the Death Eaters to sally forth, or at least start attacking from behind the wards. That was why the Curse-Breakers had been protected by conjured walls. But this… why would they blow up their own roof?

Then another spell shot up, straight up. She saw the flyers move away, but they would be too late… the spell seemed to vanish. The blast she expected failed to appear.

"What the…" Dean muttered next to her. "What was that?"

"I don't know," she answered. She didn't recognise the spell.

"The clouds. They are moving faster," Colin exclaimed, next to her.

Hermione checked. Her friend was correct - the clouds were moving rapidly, in a circular motion. And the wind was picking up. She could see the highest flyers struggling to hold their positions.

"He's creating a storm. He's forcing the broom riders down." She was impressed by the sheer power this demonstrated. But why would the Dark Lord do this… she gasped. "Watch the ground!"

Her warning was too late. All around them, the earth erupted right in the middle of the Wands and exiles. And when she saw what was breaking through the soil, claws digging into the soft ground, unnatural, monstrous, wrong heads turning, seeking prey, she was not the only one who screamed.

It was an abomination, Hermione noted, casting a Shield Charm before aiming her wand at it while it was still trying to lift itself out of the narrow tunnel it must have dug. Not quite an Inferius, though it might have started as one. Rotting, festering skin, flaking where it wasn't covered with dirt, covered a dead body, warped and changed. Too long arms ended in claws dripping with ichor. Empty eye sockets glowed with red flames above jaws that seemed to have been taken from a shark, or a dragon.

Her Blasting Curse hit the thing dead centre, knocking it back and blowing parts of its chest away. Rotting organs started to spill out, followed by green vapour. It didn't seem to be inconvenienced much, if at all, and was now almost out of the hole. Her next curse hit its head, turning the misshapen skull into a shower of bone fragments and rotten tissue. Even then it was not destroyed, but kept flailing around, almost catching Dean, who was retreating from another, in the back.

Her friend and teammate managed to dodge, though at the cost of letting another monster pull itself up and out of the ground. Hermione hit it with a Severing Curse, cutting off one arm but missing the head. Dean didn't miss with his own curse, beheading that abomination as well.

Then Hermione heard Colin scream. She whirled around and froze for an instant. Her other teammate had been caught in the gut by a monster's claw, the red tips coming out his back. Before she or Dean could react, the other claw ripped the boy's head and shoulder off, sending blood flying.

"Colin!" Dean yelled and started casting wildly.

The monster was hampered with Colin's corpse stuck on its claw, and didn't seem to be able to move as fast - certainly not fast enough to dodge as Severing and Cutting Curses sliced into it. Hermione shot a Blasting Curse at the monster's legs - sporting claws as sharp and long as its arms - and managed to throw it to the ground, one leg blown off at its second joint. Before she could exploit that though, something - the flailing limb of Dean's attacker - hit her legs from behind, bowling her over. If not for her Shield Charm, now gone, she would have been severely hurt. She found herself in a pool of blood and ichor, staring at the remains of another Wand, the body too badly damaged to be recognisable. Fighting the urge to hurl, she stood up again, recasting her Shield Charm.

Dean had finished the wounded monster off, cutting it to twitching pieces with several curses, but the other two creatures were still moving, even if they were blinded. And all around them, Wands were fighting for their lives against more monsters.

"Incendio!"

The dead things started burning, but not as quickly as she hoped. They had to be much more resilient than Inferi then, she thought. "Fire hurts them, but not quickly!" she shouted, aided by an Amplifying Charm.

Many of the Corps had realised the same thing. She saw a Wand back away from a burning but still fighting creature. She recognised him as Alvin, but before she could call out a warning he had retreated right into the claws of another monster. Other Wands were luckier, and had managed to form clusters covering each other.

"Follow me!" she shouted to Dean, and started to make her way towards the closest formation. They needed to form up to have a chance - already too many figures in brown robes were on the ground, victims of those abominations. And the Curse-Breakers… if those monsters had broken into their shelter…

Ron Weasley had known they were in trouble when he had seen the spell fly straight up to the clouds. And he had been right. Within less than a minute, the sky had gone from cloudy but calm to a rapidly brewing storm, making it harder and harder to stay in position - or even just stay on his broom without the help of a Sticking Charm. He spotted movement on the ground - enemies emerging from the earth, and spells started flashing, but the storm held his attention.

"We need to land!" he yelled into the growing roar of the wind.

"We can stay!" Harry yelled back. "I've flown in worse!"

"Bloody Quidditch Seeker!" Ron cursed, then yelled: "There'll be worse to come! It's a trap!" The Dark Lord wouldn't go to that length if it was just some wind. He saw Ginny struggle more and more to keep near Harry - her smaller body didn't offer much resistance to being blown away by the wind. "Get down, damn it!" They could deal with the monsters on the ground - Inferi, they looked like - but not with this storm.

He saw that the Wands in the air were struggling as well, and retreating. A few of the exiles were holding their positions, or at least trying to. The wind was now so strong, he'd need an Amplifying Charm to be heard over it. He drew his wand, and almost lost control of his broom. "Get down now!" he shouted, and started his descent, hoping he'd not be smashed into the ground by a sudden gust. Harry and Ginny followed him down.

Then the roof of the house disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire. For a moment, he cheered - someone had managed to strike back, or so he thought. Then the cloud of smoke and debris was picked up by the wind, and his Shield Charm was battered by fragments of wood and stone. The spell wouldn't last long, he realised, and dived towards the ground as if he was a Seeker pulling off a Wronski Feint. Ron almost crashed into the ground, but he managed to pull up in time.

Looking up, he saw Harry and Ginny close by, landing with more grace. Behind them was Bertram Millibed, a classmate of his father's, who was too slow and whose Shield Charm shattered in the middle of the whirling debris. Ron stared while stone and wood splinters ripped into the man and his broom, sending both to the ground, broken. He tried to cast a Cushioning Charm, but the storm made judging Bertram's fall too hard - the man crashed unimpeded into the ground. One of the Inferi was close, and pounced, and Ron realised it wasn't an Inferius at all, but something else. Something worse.

He rushed to Harry and Ginny, cursing the closest monster. Where was Dumbledore?

Albus Dumbledore had underestimated Tom, once again. The Weather-Control Spell was an unusual choice, and the old wizard had briefly wondered if the Dark Lord planned to drive the broomriders from the sky so his followers could escape. The storm had quickly grown too strong to fly through though, and he had started to descend right away. Countering the Weather-Control Spell would take too long - Voldemort would be free to attack the Wands and Order members. Unfortunately, Albus was a bit too late reaching the ground - abominations were already bursting out of the earth.

He cast a Fire Whip that cut one monster apart right before he touched the ground, saving an isolated Wand from death. He was too late to save the Curse-Breaking team though; from what he had seen on his descent, multiple monsters had emerged inside their shelter, and the walls that had served to protect the wizards and witches had then prevented them from fleeing.

"What are those?" the young witch asked, panting and pointing her wand at another batch of earth that seemed to move.

"Abominations," Albus answered. He didn't expand on that, even though he was familiar with them. Herpo the Foul had experimented with Inferi and possession, but it had been Gellert who had managed to merge two of the most corrupt Dark Arts. Albus had hoped that the knowledge had died with Gellert's inner circle in 1946, but apparently, Tom had either discovered the process, or created his own. He forced the memories this sight brought up away; he had to focus on the fight.

And with the way the abominations had appeared right in the middle of the Wands and Albus' friends, the professor couldn't use his spells effectively to deal with them. At least someone had managed to cast Fiendfyre on the Dark Lord's house; something was going according to plan.

Albus turned the earth the next monster was trying to break through into stone, then set the trapped thing on fire. He kept an eye on the house, so he was ready when the doors opened and the Death Eaters sallied forth. A few conjured stone walls hemmed them in, driving the first row into his next fire whip, but that wouldn't hold them for long. Albus's forces had to rally, and quickly, or they would be massacred in detail.

He searched the field, cutting another abomination apart, and finally spotted the Wand-Commander, in the midst of a dozen of her forces, next to Sirius. She would serve as the rallying point, he knew. An Amplifying Charm later, his voice rang out over the battlefield. "Rally on the commander!"

The yell was taken up by others, and he could see the battle lines, if they could be called that, starting to shift.

Then his walls were shattered, and the Dark Lord charged at him, followed by his Death Eaters.

The Dark Lord Voldemort was breathing heavily. Casting the Storm Spell, blasting the roof and turning it into debris to give the wind the deadly shrapnel to shred his enemies in the skies, didn't tax him much. But holding the Fiendfyre consuming his house at bay until Bellatrix had recovered the cup? That had been a draining experience, even with his skill and power.

But now he was attacking, blasting the walls trapping them inside the house, putting out the fire someone had started in the field - no Fiendfyre, that - and his Death Eaters surged forward, passing him on both sides.

Suddenly, a Fire Whip snapped across the first rank of his followers, cutting them in half. He stopped it with a conjured pillar of steel, then looked for the caster. Dumbledore! Snarling, he fired a Killing Curse at his nemesis. The old wizard stopped it with a conjured slab of marble, and the Blasting Curse Voldemort followed up with was deflected by a Shield Charm. At least the mudblood next to Dumbledore was felled by it, his broken body thrown back.

He readied himself to defend against the counter-attack he knew was coming, and when the earth around him rose, changing to blades, he was confident his own Shield Charm would stop them easily. But instead of striking at him, trying to shatter his defenses, the dozens of sharp metal spikes shot away from him, ripping through the ranks of his Death Eaters. And not all of their Shield Charms held up as well as his would have.

Snarling, he started to send curse after curse at Dumbledore, aided by Bellatrix at his side, whose own shield had withstood those attacks easily. His foe dared to ignore him, and attack his lessers? Voldemort would teach the old man the folly of his arrogance! And Dumbledore was giving ground, the sheer mass of dark curses forcing him to dodge and improvise - straight into the path of two of the Blood Inferi!

At the last moment though, his foe stepped to the side and swept his wand in an arc - and the earth beneath the two monsters rose in a huge wave, carrying them and others towards Voldemort. The Dark Lord blew a hole into the earthen wall rushing him at once, but the two parts left kept coming, one of them burying another group of his Death Eaters, crushing them under tons of earth and stone.

That was what Dumbledore wanted, he realised. He wanted to force him to protect his followers, so the old wizard could defeat him!

"Scatter!" he yelled, "Massacre the mudbloods! Leave Dumbledore to me!" When he saw Bellatrix wasn't moving from his side, he added: "You too!"

"Yes, milord!" the dark witch spat out, almost reluctantly, then ran off, already cursing the closest mudblood.

But the command had given Dumbledore enough time to go on the offensive again, and this time Voldemort found himself forced back by spells he wouldn't have expected the old wizard to know, much less use.

Protected by a shield of shining metal, the Dark Lord grinned. His enemy had to be desperate to stoop to such measures. Victory was near!

Hermione and Dean had managed to join another team and the group had succeeded in driving back the monsters attacking them. Not unscathed though - Violet and Jenny were busy protecting Martin, who had lost his left arm when an abomination had suddenly jumped over another. If not for the storm pushing it to the side while it was in the air, he'd have lost his head.

For the moment though, they were in the clear. Hermione pointed her wand at the ground, and a flick of her wrist transfigured the earth into stone, forming a path safe from underground ambushes to the next group of wands. "Let's move!" she shouted. Her voice barely reached the group over the howling winds. Even walking became difficult in this storm.

"We could form a tunnel!" Violet yelled, steadying Martin. The wizard needed a Healer. Hopefully they would be able to link up with the main force soon.

"Not safe enough!" Hermione yelled back. The monsters would be able to ambush them, or even break through without being spotted. Instead she turned the areas next to the stone path to mud. That would slow them down. Hopefully.

A group of three monsters rushed at them before they reached the other Wands, jumping over the mud area. Bludgeoning Curses from Dean and Jenny slammed into them, pushing two back and into the mud. The third was bisected by Hermione's Cutting Curse. She set the two parts on fire as soon as they hit the ground. Dean and Jenny were destroying the other two monsters. Hermione didn't spot any other monster in the area, but widened the mud anyway.

Turning back, she waved Violet forward. "Come on! We're almost there!"

She saw the Wand grimacing, dragging Martin behind her by his brown robe, and then both disappeared in an explosion. The force of the blast threw them into the transfigured mud Hermione had created and splinters from the stone ground peppered Hermione's Shield Charm. That had been a Blasting Curse!

Hermione whirled around and saw human figures rushing at them. Death Eaters! She raised a wall, just in time to stop the next curse.

"Accio Jenny's robe!" Violet shouted next to her, followed by Dean's "Accio Martin's robe!".

The unconscious body of Jenny flew towards Violet, but Dean's spell only managed to summon the torn and shredded remains of Martin's clothes, dripping with blood.

"Accio Martin's corpse!" Hermione whispered. She saw a mangled body raise from the mud and winced. The Wand had absorbed the main force of the blast, saving Jenny at the cost of himself. She turned around again, raising another wall, trying to ignore the remains landing next to her.

Death Eaters were going around the wall now, the storm hindering their movements as well, and Dean and Violet took down the first with Reductor Curses, one spell shattering the man's shield, the next blasting his head off his neck.

Hermione turned more earth to mud, and two Death Eaters rushing at them from the other side became stuck in it. She transfigured the mud to pure alcohol, then set it on fire. The two wizards' screams carried over the storm's roar when they vanished in fire.

"Onward!" she shouted, pushing Dean, who was carrying Jenny, on. The other Wands had realised their situation and were moving towards them, but they would take a little while to reach them.

Then her latest wall was smashed to pieces, and Bellatrix Lestrange stepped out of the dust cloud, slinging curses at the four Wands.

Ron Weasley wiped blood from his face - a cut on his forehead was bleeding, probably from some debris that had caught him during his descent. They had destroyed three of those weird Inferi, Harry almost getting gutted in the process, only a Banishing Charm from Ginny saving him when one abomination had taken a swipe at him from his flank, but they were still isolated. They had to link up with the group of Wands he had seen nearby, before they landed. He hoped Hermione was still…

Harry though had other ideas. "Follow me!" he yelled, and rushed off in another direction.

"What? Wait!" Ron yelled, but he wasn't certain if his friend had heard him in this damned storm. Ginny of course was running after Harry, struggling against the winds. Ron could only follow them. At least his Shield Charm protected him against the full force of the storm's fury, he noted, when rocks and wood fragments pelted the shimmering shield.

"Where are we going?" he yelled as soon as he had caught up to Ginny.

Harry didn't answer. Two more abominations appeared in front of them, and for a moment, Ron feared his friend would charge them. Harry still had enough sense to stop, and set one of the things on fire before cutting its legs off. Ginny and Ron hammered the other with Bludgeoning Curses, stopping its charge, and Harry set it on fire as well.

"Where are we going?" Ron asked again, shouting into Harry's ear.

"The last Horcrux!" Harry yelled back, then he was running again, heedless of the wind that tried to blow the three away.

The three crested a small hill - passing a corpse pulped into an unrecognisable mass of flesh and blood - and came upon a large group of Death Eaters fighting Wands. Half a dozen black-robed bodies were strewn on the ground, but he could see several brown-robed ones as well. And corpses too burned or smashed to tell whose side they belonged to.

"There!" Harry pointed down, at a witch in the center of the battle. Ron recognised Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's right hand. Of course she'd have his last horcrux!

Then he recognised the Wands the dark witch and the other Death Eaters were fighting. Or rather, one of them.

"Hermione!"

Jenny was hit first. A curse struck her, and the Wand doubled over, holding her belly. Then she started to retch, and cough, and blood poured out of her mouth.

"Killing Curses now!" Hermione shouted. "Avada Kedavra!" Authorisation had been granted in advance for this assault, and the Wands had been trained to cast coordinated Killing Curses for exactly this situation - Malfoy had planned years ahead.

Three Killing Curses flew towards Lestrange, but the dark witch danced to the side, evading all of them. They didn't have the numbers for this tactic, Hermione knew. Jenny was still retching, gasping, coughing. Hermione raised a wall to cover her, far thicker than the one Lestrange had broken through, and Violet sprang to her friend's side, wand waving with counter-spells and healing charms. Dean moved to the edge of the wall, to keep their enemy busy. Hermione was about to reinforce the wall further when a series of explosions shook it, and it toppled over.

Lestrange had blown out the earth the wall had been set on, Hermione realised. Violet jumped up, wand swinging around, but a Killing Curse struck her through her Shield Charm. She fell, in front of Jenny. An instant later the other Wand stopped coughing her innards out, and collapsed on top of her friend.

Hermione sent two Blasting Curses at their murderer, catching a masked Death Eater who had stepped up to the dark witch, but Lestrange was hardly any worse for wear, her Shield Charm holding. Dean tried another Killing Curse, but once again Lestrange sidestepped it, her mouth moving but the storm drowning out her words. The Wand-Leader turned the area behind the dark witch to mud, as she had done before. Dean cast another curse, but this time, the dark witch didn't dodge, but stopped the curse with a summoned piece of the stone path Hermione had created.

More Death Eaters were flanking them, and while Hermione could see Wands charging towards them from the hill they had been moving to, they would have to go through the mass of the Death Eaters to reach Dean and herself. They were on their own.

She set another transfigured patch of mud ablaze, driving the Death Eaters there back, but before she could transfigure more earth to mud, Lestrange struck at Dean, showering him with curses. Dean's Shield Charm took three spells, then a fourth struck his foot, and he started screaming. Hermione saw him cut his own leg off below the knee while she tried to drive the dark witch off him. She failed.

Lestrange raised a wall of her own, cutting off Hermione's line of fire, and when the Wand-Leader's spells shattered that wall, Dean was on the ground, unmoving, and Lestrange was turning towards her, smiling widely.

Hermione snarled and started casting curses as fast as she could. She was about to die. She knew it. She was a skilled fighter, trained to the exacting standards of the Corps, but Lestrange had cut through her rag-tag team in seconds. And now the Wand was cut off from her allies, facing Bellatrix alone.

She knew she was about to die, but she'd do her best to take that dark witch with her! Her first two Piercing Curses hit the witch's shield, the third shattered it. She ducked under the witch's Killing Curse, and was about to cast again when the ground near her exploded and she was thrown back several yards.

Spitting blood, she conjured several rocks and a wall behind her to provide cover, and rolled to the side. Another Death Eater was rushing towards her, using the rocks she had conjured as cover. She sent a Cutting Curse at him at knee high, but missed before he dove behind the next rock. And Lestrange was coming at her from the other side.

Then an explosion threw the broken body of the Death Eater into the air, shredded by rock splinters, and she heard a voice dimly over the roaring wind.

"Hermione!"

Ron Weasley barely noticed where the scum he had just blown up landed. He knew the man was dead, and Hermione needed help. "Hermione!" Two more Death Eaters turned to face him, but Harry and Ginny were close on Ron's heels. "Focus on the right!" Ron yelled, casting another Blasting Curse. The dark wizard's Shield protected him from that explosion, but shattered in the process, and Harry and Ginny finished him off an instant later, Bludgeoning Curses smashing him against a large rock. The second dark wizard turned to flee, but seemed to get stuck in the earth, and Ron cut him down with two Severing Curses while rushing on.

Hermione was on the ground, behind a rapidly disintegrating rock, curses hitting all around her. Lestrange was casting as if she had gone mad - and from what Ron knew about Horcruxes, that was a distinct possibility. Even Lestrange was forced to react when three wands spewed curses at her from the side. She didn't flee, though, but whipped her wand around, and a Killing Curse followed by some brown curse Ron didn't recognise forced Ginny and Harry to step to the side. Ron charged on, towards Hermione, almost blindly sending a few spells at the dark witch to keep her busy dodging.

He slid behind Hermione's boulder. "Hermione!"

"Ron!" She smiled at him, then gasped. "Keep her busy! I've got a plan!"

Ron chuckled once, then stepped out from behind the rock, and barely managed to jump out of the path of a Killing Curse. On the other side of the rock, Hermione crouched low and was aiming her wand at the area far back from Lestrange. He didn't know what she was planning, but he trusted her. And there wasn't much else to do but cast at the dark witch anyway.

Harry had emerged from cover as well, his wand flashing, and Lestrange twirled around, caught in a crossfire. Her Shield Charm deflected Harry's spells, though, and Ron didn't manage to shatter it before the dark witch had raised a wall to hide behind.

"Keep her busy!" Hermione yelled over the storm.

Ron was about to yell back when Lestrange jumped over the wall and sent a Blasting Curse his way. Once more his Shield Charm saved his life, but he was thrown back a yard, and on the ground. He waited a second, until he saw flashes of spellfire from Harry and Ginny, then stepped out again.

Lestrange was dodging back and forth between pillars of stone in a deadly dance with Ron's friend and sister. He added his own curses, and the witch had to take cover again. Behind her, a wall had been steadily growing higher - that had to be Hermione's work! If they could keep the dark witch focused on them for a bit longer…

Lestrange suddenly turned and dodged behind the pillar again. An instant later, curses flew at the wall, blasting it to pieces. Ron was about to curse when he saw a big wave of a clear liquid pour out from the - as he realised now - hollowed wall. Then the liquid ignited, and the wave turned into flames, engulfing Lestrange's position. Ron thought he heard her scream, loud enough to be heard over the storm's roar, but that might have been his imagination.

Hermione stood up, on shaking legs, but her wand was aimed at the inferno. "Stay sharp!" she yelled. "She might still… there!"

And in front of Ron, the dark witch rose up, out of the flames, her robes and hair burning, floating without a broom, her face a mask of hatred and pain. Ron was already casting sending spell after spell up. So was everyone else. The storm battering the dark witch around made most spells miss - most, not all. And there was no cover in the air.

Lestrange was struck again and again, her burned skin cut and pierced, blood pouring from deep gashes in her body. She tried to fly away from the burning inferno, to find cover on the ground probably, but the storm drew up the flames, and the witch with it. Suddenly, she seemed to go limp, and then start to fall down.

"Accio Lestrange's corpse!" Harry yelled, and the remains shot towards him, smashing in the ground next to Ron's friend. Ginny turned away, retching, but Harry didn't pay attention. He ripped something from the corpse instead, then turned towards the house where the Fiendfyre was still raging.

"Depulso!"

Something golden flew towards the house, vanishing in the flames. For a moment, Ron thought it was a snitch, then he saw Harry relax, and understood.

Voldemort's last Horcrux had been destroyed.