This chapter is split POV between Hermione and Draco.
We're nearing the end here, looks like around 3-5 more chapters, depending on how they flow and break while I'm writing them. Thanks to all of you for sticking around for it all!
Song Inspiration: Great Love - Flyleaf
Chapter 30
Hermione raced out of the Chamber of Secrets and into the castle, Ron and Draco hot on her heels, only to realize that their time was up: the battle had already begun. Hermione could feel the stones beneath her feet shuddering as the spells from the other side crashed into the protective barriers that McGonagall had erected, along with the members of the Order and the other Hogwarts Professors.
Taking a moment to pause in their hasty rush through the castle, she looked out of the closest window and knew that the shield wouldn't hold for much longer. As the three of them stood there watching, mesmerized by the multicolored light show taking place outside of the castle walls, Hermione could see the exact instant the barrier began to crumble and watched as it collapsed slowly in on itself. She gasped and felt Draco's hand slip into her own.
Looking at the fair wizard at her side, she could see the look of steely determination glinting in his grey eyes as he gazed out of the window, and she felt a moment of pure relief that he was there, by her side. While the lion inside of her protested him being there, being in danger, the woman inside was glad to have her wizard right there with her, fighting for a world that could belong to them both equally.
"Come on," she said, looking at Ron to find the same look of resolve in his own eyes as he stared back at her, "we have to find Harry."
Ron nodded.
"We should head up to the Room of Requirement, start looking there," he suggested.
They made their way swiftly up the flights of stairs that separated them from the seventh-floor corridor, but along the way it became abundantly clear that Voldemort's forces had already begun to infiltrate the castle. Hermione saw Order members and older students fighting side by side as they battled the Dark Wizards.
A sudden terror gripped her at the thought of any of her friends or allies dying in the battle, but this was war: death was inevitable. She forced herself to lock the fear away in her mind, unable to dwell on that while trying to focus on finding Harry in the pandemonium that surrounded them.
As they raced through the castle, though, Hermione could not stop the urge to do everything she could to protect those around them. While she never allowed her pace to slow, she flung hexes and spells at every enemy combatant she saw, protecting as many of those that fought on their side as she could.
She watched as a tall wizard in Slytherin robes was backed into a corner by someone wearing the long robes and mask of a Death Eater. She heard Draco's surprised gasp as he recognized his friend, but Hermione reacted before Draco could even lift his wand.
"Stupefy!"
The unmasked Death Eater was immediately flung into the wall behind them by the force of Hermione's spell. Blaise Zabini looked up and, when his eyes met hers, nodded briefly in thanks. Hermione immediately continued upward as Blaise ran down, and she could hear both Draco's and Ron's feet pounding against the stones as they followed behind her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw a green jet of light rush directly toward her. She knew that it was too late to try to dodge it but just as she had arrived at the realization, she heard a deep voice shout out from behind her:
"Protego!"
As the spell ricocheted harmlessly off the translucent shield, Hermione glanced back to see Draco, wand held high and eyes as hard and cold as flint, as he stared down the Death Eater that had intended to kill her, before he sent a spell of his own back at the unknown assailant.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
She watched as the Death Eater's body locked up, then tumbled backwards down the stairs.
They continued on this way, level after level. Hermione and Ron defended as many as they could along their way while Draco protected the two of them, shielding them from stray spells and dispatching those that came after them. She had never seen Draco look so serious, or so focused. At that moment, with him protecting her back, she had almost no worries at all for her own safety.
Finally arriving outside of the Room of Requirement, Hermione heard Ron's quick intake of breath at the sight that greeted them. They watched as Fred and Percy battled side by side against three Death Eaters. The two Weasley brothers were doing a remarkable job of holding their own against the Dark Wizards, taking out two of them in quick succesion, but Hermione watched in horror as the last standing Death Eater pointed his wand to the ceiling above the brothers' heads.
"Reducto!"
Hermione watched helplessly as the stones above their heads exploded, chunks raining down on the ground around them. Before she could react, a huge piece had broken loose and was heading straight for Fred who stood beneath it. She heard Ron shout out a warning, anguish in his voice, but just before the stone made contact with his brother, they both heard a voice shout out from behind them.
"Protego Maxima!"
A shield of pure white light encased both of the Weasley brothers, protecting them as the stones rolled harmlessly off the shield to pile around them on the floor. They watched as Percy flourished his wand with a quick twist of his wrist, and the Death Eater who had nearly killed his brother was sent hurtling head over heels down the stairs to crumple at the bottom, motionless.
Fred walked over to the trio, ignoring both Hermione and Ron for the moment as he moved to stand directly in front of Draco.
"Thanks for that, mate," he said, voice filled with appreciation.
"Don't mention it," Draco mumbled awkwardly. "You and George were always my favorite Weasleys; couldn't let you be taken out by a tosser like Tobias Travers," he added, motioning with his head to the body that lay on the level below them.
Hermione watched as Fred threw his head back and laughed at Draco's words, and Hermione smiled at the thought that there actually were people out there that would accept that Draco truly was on their side.
As the five of them stood there together, Harry suddenly raced around the corner. When he spotted them all standing by the door to the Room of Requirement, he gave them a tired smile.
"Well?" he asked.
"It's done," Ron said, then tilted his head in Draco's direction as he added, "he destroyed it."
The look of surprise on Harry's face only lasted for a moment before he nodded.
"Good. I know where the next one is."
Fred and Percy nodded at the four of them before dashing down the stairs to investigate the loud, rumbling explosion that rocked the floor beneath their feet.
They watched as Harry opened the door to the Room of Requirement to make sure that no one was inside. Then he paced up and down the hallway once…twice…three times. A different door appeared before them, one that Hermione and Draco knew all too well. She looked at Draco as he swallowed nervously and took his hand, and they walked through the door together.
Draco looked around the room at the towering piles of junk that surrounded them. The massive black cabinet loomed ominously above them, and he shared a nervous glance with Hermione before waving his wand. At his urging, a large desk drifted through the room to drop down right in front of the Vanishing Cabinet, ensuring that the door could not be opened from the inside. He shrugged at Hermione's quizzical glance.
"Better safe than sorry," he said simply.
"So where is it?" Hermione asked Potter, and Draco felt a twinge of unease in his gut at the sheepish look on the other wizard's face.
"About that…" he hedged.
"Oh, come on, Potter," Draco said snarkily. "You said you knew where it was."
"Well," Harry responded, now defensive, "I know its general whereabouts."
Draco rolled his eyes as Harry described the item. A silver diadem with a blue, oval-shaped sapphire.
"I'm pretty when I saw it last year, after…" Potter paused and glanced guiltily at Draco, "yeah… It was on some bust of an ugly old warlock."
Just like that, Draco knew immediately what Potter was talking about. He caught Hermione's eye before he darted off down one of the many paths that wound through the mountains of rubbish around them. He could hear Hermione, Weasley, and Potter chasing behind him, but he didn't wait for them – didn't slow.
Only when he came to the corner that had flashed into his mind's eye at Potter's words did he stop running. There, perched on the head of the ugliest warlock he had ever seen memorialized in stone, was an old, inconsequential-looking tiara. He looked at Potter, who stared at the headpiece with his head tilted slightly, eyes unfocused: almost as if he were…listening.
"That's it," Potter finally said softly, and at his words Weasley clambered over the precariously stacked furniture to pluck the diadem from the head of the statue. When he got back down to the ground, he made to hand it over to Potter, but the other wizard shook his head.
"No, Ron. This one has to be you."
Draco watched as Weasley's face blanched, making the freckles stand out vividly against his suddenly pale skin. His eyes flickered over to Draco, and Draco knew he was remembering what the last Horcrux had tried to do to him only thirty or so minutes earlier.
No one said a word as Hermione dug into her enchanted bag and carefully pulled out a single, sharp fang. She handed it over to Weasley, then she and Draco moved back, away from the place on the ground where the gangly redhead had placed the diadem.
Draco saw Weasley gulp heavily, saw as his hand trembled faintly in apprehension, then that hand drove the dagger down and into the center of the sapphire.
There was no thick dark cloud of smoke this time. Instead, a fiery wraith rose from the now mangled hunk of metal. Draco watched as it swirled around Weasley, not bothering to try to consume his body like the cup had done to him: instead, it attempted to devour the other wizard's mind.
"Poor Ronald Weasley," the distorted voice of the Dark Lord hissed at Weasley as he sat, cowering, on the ground. "Always the least important person in the room. Not the most loved of your mother… Nor of your best friend… Nor of the witch whom you desire above all others…"
Weasley's eyes flickered over to Hermione before jumping back to the apparition in front of him, and Draco clenched his teeth at the reminder that, even after all the times that he had chosen another over her, the redhead still saw Hermione as belonging to him.
"You'll never be more than what you are right now," the voice continued to taunt in a whispering, mocking tone. "Too bad you didn't have the nerve to join me, as your blood status dictated. I could have made you great… I could have given you everything that you will never attain on your own..."
Draco saw the flash of regret and envy in the bright blue eyes that stared up, mesmerized, into the flaming visage in front of him. Then he watched, stunned, as Weasley broke the spell that the Horcrux had been weaving around him with a monumental display of determination.
"Liar!" he shouted in rebellion.
He raised the dripping fang high into the air before bringing it down a second time on the priceless artifact before him. With a scream, the burning wraith folded in upon itself painfully, contorting into a tight ball…then erupted outward in a blinding flash of light that left Draco blinking desperately, willing his vision to return.
When it did, he found that his hand was no longer tightly grasping Hermione's. Instead, his witch was on the floor holding Harry's trembling body, Weasley right beside her. He rushed over to join them, waiting.
Finally, the trembling stopped, and Potter lay, gasping, on the floor. Sweat drenched his face, and Draco could see where the inky black strands of his hair stuck to his face and neck. Hermione lifted her wand and gave it a quick wave, and he felt the effects of her wordless cooling charm envelop the four of them.
"What did you see, Harry?" Hermione urged quietly, and Draco knew that Potter had been drawn into the Dark Lord's mind once more.
"He's at the Shrieking Shack," Harry said, before turning his gaze to Draco, "with your father."
Draco felt his heart plummet. He knew that the odds were high that he would have to face his father. While he knew that his mother wanted more for her husband and son than to serve the Dark Lord mindlessly for the rest of their lives and would likely refuse to do more damage than was absolutely necessary to preserve her own life, his father was a different story. Warped by his time spent in Azkaban, not to mention the Dark Lord's cruel cycle of reward and abuse, the man lived now only to serve his master. He would kill Draco if he thought his son would bring the displeasure of the Dark Lord upon him.
"... asking for Snape."
Draco had missed most of their conversation, lost in his musings about his father's presence at the battle, but was yanked back to the present at his godfather's name.
"Why?" he asked tersely. "Why does he want Severus?"
Potter studied him for a moment.
"I'm not sure. But I have a feeling that we need to go find out."
Hope you are all doing well! Thanks for reading!
sbz