They were back at Draco's cottage. It was dark and the waves were loud and powerful. Hermione's head was spinning so hard the only anchor to reality she still had was Draco's firm body that held her tight. She realized all the horrors she had been through tonight were over, but her body didn't receive that message.

"Can you—" she stuttered with her eyes still closed and Draco's arms still around her. "—let me go—I think I'm—gonna be sick—"

He softly lowered her down until her feet reached the sandy ground. She wobbled unsteadily a few feet away from him, then crouched down as if tortured by cramps and retched, vomiting the little of what she had in her stomach.

Afterwards she remained crouched down, but her retching turned to silent sobs. Her whole life broke in one single moment, and it was all her fault. There was definitely some sort of self-destructive tendency buried deep inside of her psyche that forced her to ruin everything good she had in her life. Tonight, Draco murdered tens upon tens of the good guys, of members of the Order all because he had to save her. She didn't blame him for it, she had no right to do so. She wanted to scream at him, Draco what did you do, why did you do this, do you understand you doomed both of us for the rest of our lives?

But it wouldn't have been fair to put the blame on him. She knew perfectly well what she was doing. She knew how dangerous it was to go where people wanted her dead, where people thought she was a traitor; and she still went because she believed she could fix everything. When was the last time what she did fixed things? Her heroism only made everything worse, including this time. She couldn't expect Draco not to come for her the moment the Stupefy hex stopped working, not when he swore to her that he would always protect her. Part of her wanted him to come for her, part of her knew he would. That part inside her brain, the one she hated so much craved for him to cause chaos and destruction in her name.

Now he did. Now he would never be accepted back into the wizarding society even if they won the war which seemed more and more unlikely every day. The Death Eaters will probably have taken down Hogwarts by morning, and there is no way they will find Voldemort by that time. Who knows how long they will be able to stay at this cottage if the war remains in this limbo state for who knows how long. She promised herself to keep him at her side for as long or as little as they had left. For the first time, she understood his need to have her at arm's length at all times – she couldn't stomach the idea of them being separated again, not when she realized he was her only haven, not when the thought of him getting hurt made her physically ill.

"What did they do to you," he asked, his voice hard as stone.

Hermione turned to him with teary eyes, trying to wipe the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand but only making more mess.

"Nothing too bad," she answered quietly. And then words filled with panic flew out of her mouth on their own accord, "I'm sorry… I'm sorry I left like that… You didn't deserve it… I love you… You deserve better… I'm so sorry I made you do this…"

She realized she threw in the most vulnerable sentence she ever told him in the middle of apologizing, and a long silence stretched afterwards, broken by nothing except Hermione's quiet sobs.

He looked down at her as if witnessing both and incredible marvel and a subject to obsess over.

"You didn't make me do anything. I did it. Don't blame yourself," Draco said finally, his voice calm and steady.

She sniffed. "No, if I hadn't gone, you wouldn't have killed them… We could've been free…"

"I was never going to be free. They were never going to let me go. Neither the Order, nor Voldemort. There was no choice for me only to kill them all."

"You-Know-Who wasn't there. That's what Snape said."

Draco nodded. "I know." He watched her for a moment, then reached out his hand for her to take. "Come on, let's get you inside."

He stopped abruptly at the doorstep, forcing her to stay back with his hand. She didn't understand his actions at first, but then she looked down where he was staring and they saw a snake nailed on the door, so dark it almost melted into the surroundings. Draco took the snake down gracefully and found a tiny note attached to it, now bloody. Even the words seemed written in blood.

Without Potter, there is only me and you, Draco, I know you've been working behind my back. I thought I raised you better, and I did. Meet me at my father's home and let's see where we stand.

There was no signature or anything else that could prove who left this. But they didn't need identification; they already knew who it was.

Draco's face was contorted in anger and for a long moment he didn't say anything. Hermione felt numb, but she still forced herself to get inside, turn on the light and get the fireplace going, since it was quite cold.

"He knows we're here," Draco gritted through his teeth. "There is no safe place for us."

"You're not going," Hermione told him, taking over one of his favorite lines. "If he's inviting you to meet him, that means—that means he had found a way to kill you."

Draco shot her an anger-filled look. "What will you have me do then, huh? Wait for him to come back here?"

"I need to rest a bit, I feel very weak. We'll go together, you'll be stronger if there's someone wo have your back. It'll be me."

"If you think having you by my side will make a difference in whether I kill Voldemort or not, you're more naïve than I thought."

Hermione tried to ignore that last bit. She understood he was angry, that his negative emotions were no heightened because the place he considered safe turned out to be a liability, and she tried the best she could to remain calm herself.

"Just a few hours. I'll take a nap, I'll eat something, and then we can go," she said, feeling sleepier with every word she spoke.

Draco stared at her impassively. "Fine," he bit out.

"I need you to promise me that if I fall asleep now, you won't go without me."

"I promise," he gritted through his teeth. Still, Hermione didn't believe him, and stayed awake for ten more minutes. "Sleep," he commanded. "I'll be here when you wake up."

"You may be good at Occlumency, but I know you well enough to be able to tell when you're lying, which is now, Draco," Hermione said.

"I swear to you on my life," he drawled.

When she didn't budge because she knew how little his own life meant to him, he stood up to make tea which she refused to drink because she knew his tricks and she knew for sure he had put Sleeping Draught in it.

Draco sighed tiredly. "For Merlin's sake, will you sleep? You're about to pass out anyway."

He was right, she could feel it, but she protested.

Until she didn't.

When she woke up, he was gone.

Hermione cursed under her breath. She jumped up from the floor where she fell asleep and dropped the blanket Draco had covered her with on the ground. She found her wand which was barely as good as any, and quickly retrieved the Invisibility cloak. Then she stopped in her tracks because she had no idea what to do next. She didn't know where Voldemort's father's home was, although she vaguely remembered Harry mentioning it briefly.

She looked down at the ring on her finger. "Take me where Draco is," she told it, touching the emerald eye tenderly with her lips.

The ring started glowing green and trembled against her skin, warming up as a machine being turned on.

The cottage was gone and instead of it, a dark and gloomy lobby appeared in front of Hermione, similar to one at the Malfoy Manor, but a lot dirtier and colder. The air was stale and moss as well as shrooms were growing in the corners and on the stairs as if the house had been abandoned for far too long.

Hermione heard voices upstairs and she recognized one of them as Draco's, which, fortunately, meant that he was alive. He must've been talking to Voldemort, but she couldn't tell what they were saying. She quickly threw on the Invisibility cloak and, after making sure none of her body parts were left open, she started ascending the stairs. They creaked, so she had to move slowly and carefully as every single sound she made echoed through the empty rotting space.

They were there, in what seemed to be the dining hall, although the table was overgrown with moss and the chairs all had at least one leg missing, and the enormous chandelier that loomed from the ceiling had its' crystal shattered and seemed to barely hold up, perhaps i=only with the power of magic. That's what she managed to glimpse from the doorway, and when she entered, a bright green light hit where Draco was standing, bringing him to his knees, but he didn't let his weakness show, standing back tall and proud as soon as he was able to.

That seemed to fill Voldemort with fury. "You think you can play tricks on me, boy!"

"I'm no longer a boy," Draco answered calmly and coldly. "I've stopped being a boy the moment you made me kill my parents. I suppose not having your own mommy and daddy made you feel bad, so you wanted a friend in your agony."

"You could've been great. You could've stood by my side and ruled the world," Voldemort said as if the thought of lost potential actually saddened him, although he still had his wand pointed at Draco – the Elder wand, the most powerful of all.

If that didn't kill Draco—

—nothing would.

Hermione tried to walk closer to Voldemort without making a sound, and she saw from the side of her eye that Draco's eyes slid to where she was, although he couldn't possibly she her through the cloak.

"I wouldn't have ruled the world," he continued. "I would've always been your pawn."

Voldemort's red eyes glistened. "It's really unfortunate that your slow-witted father never taught you the importance of having powerful friends. We could've been—"

"You never considered me your friend. I was a puppet, a tool for you to get what you wanted without lifting a finger," Draco kept talking calmly. He exuded such peaceful aura that it didn't seem he was standing in front of the most powerful wizard of all time, ready to kill him.

"And what will you be now, without me? Do you think they will accept you with their arms open wide? Do you think they won't make you their puppet?"

Draco didn't answer, he only stared at Voldemort looking like he was already bored to death with this conversation.

Voldemort sent another Killing curse at Draco as if it was just another Expelliarmus to him. Draco's face contorted in pain but he didn't move an inch from where he was standing as if every attempt to murder him was making him more immune to this curse.

Hermione was shocked to see surprise and amusement on Voldemort's face. "I have an Elder wand, it's the most powerful, its' invincible. You've made one pathetic little Horcrux – that makes you immortal, sure, but it doesn't hide you from me! How are you doing this? How can you be able to survive my magic?"

"You may not be aware of this, Voldemort, but your Elder wand belongs to me, so it will never kill it's master." Hermione watched horrified as Voldemort's noseless nostrils flared, and she pointed her wand under the cloak at the monster. "You see, Dumbledore was still alive when I disarmed him, so naturally that's when it became mine. Just because you took the wand from Dumbledore's grave where it was buried with him, that does not change to whom the wand is loyal to."

Voldemort stared at him, disgust and disbelief mixed in his snake-like eyes. Hermione inched forward – if only she could force the wand out of his fingers. "Expelliarmus," she whispered, but the wand didn't budge. She didn't know if it was because she was attacking the wand that was invincible or if her own wand wasn't obeying her properly. It could be both.

Unfortunately, her whisper wasn't as inaudible as she believed it. Voldemort's red eyes turned to her as he stared straight into her eyes, seeing her. No, he didn't really see her, he couldn't, but he knew she was there…

Her ring was shaking as if in fear.

"I suppose there is no way to make you see the benefits of choosing my side, Draco boy. Then I must do the same to you that you had been so successfully doing to me for the past few months."

Voldemort reached his hand towards Hermione and she stumbled back until she fell and the sounds she made now definitely betrayed her presence, but everyone in the room already knew she was here. Voldemort grabbed the cloak and threw if off her, unveiling her. A grimly victorious expression settled on his face when he saw her.

"I see it's your little Mudblood wife that had been carrying your secret all this time," he snarled, pointing his wand at Hermione. Draco face went from impassive to horrified in seconds as he now had his wand at Voldemort fully ready to attack. "Lower your wand if you don't want me to kill her here and now."

Draco stared at them the muscles in his jaw twitching violently. The he did as he was told.

Voldemort leaned in and stared at the ring on her finger, recognizing the intricate patterns, the silver snake, the emerald eye. Hermione shied away from his demonic gaze.

"A ring. Not very original," Voldemort said.

Draco didn't answer that.

Hermione kicked Voldemort, sent two Curciatus his way which did nothing, because Voldemort's body was so disconnected from the physical world it couldn't feel anything. The only way to affect him in any way was to kill him.

But now he was furious, and he Cruciated Hermione because she dared hex him with Unforgivable curses. Hermione felt just like she did a few hours ago when Snape tortured her, but now there was no bitter aftertaste of betrayal on her tongue because she wouldn't expect anything less from Voldemort.

Hermione cried and writhed in agony on the ground, she barely heard Draco howl. "Stop! Stop, I'll do anything you want!"

Voldemort stopped inflicting pain on her.

"Anything I want? Haven't I just told you what I want?" he asked.

Hermione looked at Draco who now seemed determined. Decided.

No, no, no, he can't do this…

"Fine. You have me. Just let her go."

Voldemort turned to her. "Give me the Horcrux, Mudblood."

Hermione clutched her hand close to her chest, refusing to give him a chance to grab it. She shook her head.

"Hermione, give it to him," she heard Draco say, his voice incredibly soft.

She twisted away, refusing to look at either of them.

Voldemort had lost all of his patience because she practically jumped on Hermione, who yelled, "Bombarda!"

The burst that spread from her wand did little harm to the Dark Lord but it gave her time to stand on her feet. "Ignis Infernalis!"

Fire spread all around them, impossible to stop, and Hermione knew that if she and Draco didn't hurry, they will burn together with the Fiendfyre. Voldemort roared as if possessed by the devil, and grabbed her arm, wanting to pull the finger off her. If he managed to do that, he could throw it into the Fiendfyre she just conjured, and all would be lost—

But the ring didn't budge. He hexed her hand with an Arm Severing curse, but it did absolutely no harm, Hermione only felt slight tingling. She stared in horror as Voldemort ghostly long-nailed fingers that reminded those of vampires touched the glowing eye.

And the ring exploded, sending her into the wall, but not hurting her, although she couldn't tell the same about Voldemort.

He was off her finally, and Draco somehow appeared in front of her, shielding her with his body.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouted. And this time, the wand listened. Or perhaps the Elder one obeyed its true master for the first time. The invincible wand flew in the air and appeared in Draco's hand so fast that neither of them had the time to react.

The moment before Draco spoke the deadly curse Voldemort already looked like a husk, stripped of everything that made him him – all his Horcruxes were destroyed, he had no wand that was truly his, and his father's home, one that had most of paternal magic inside it, was about to burn down in flames. There was no defiance. There was nothing. Now even Hermione wouldn't be able to call him a person. Now Voldemort was just it. And soon he will be nothing.

"Avada Kedavra," Draco spoke loudly.

Instead of falling to the ground, Voldemort's body was immediately devoured by the fiend flames, as if after killing the husk there was nothing even remotely resembling and earthly being that could fall. He was gone as if he never existed.

Hermione stared in awe as the flames blackened, but Draco grabbed her hand. "Let's go!"

They were unable to Apparate from here, so they had to run down the stairs. When they were outside, Hermione took in a shaky breath – they were both unscathed, save for the flames on the lapels of Draco's cloak which they brought down immediately.

They were both breathing heavily as if they had just ran a marathon. Their faces were sooty, so Hermione's tears waged a river bead down her checks as she sobbed in relief, running to hug him. Draco hugged her back so tightly that she couldn't breathe for a moment, but that didn't matter because she was in his arms.

"It's over," Draco whispered as if to himself. "He's gone."

Hermione nodded as they pulled away, and he wiped her tears with his thumbs softly.

"I love you," he whispered. "I didn't say it when you did, but I—"

Hermione smiled through her tears. "I know."