Helena re-emerged in her human form and looked irritated. Floating over to the wall around the corner where a doorway appeared. Hogwarts was accommodating as always. Helena breezed through the door and the wizards followed. Draco had been here before when he fixed the vanishing cabinet. He knew without Helena's help they would never find it in a room crammed to the ceiling with everything imaginable.
She waited for them with her arms crossed. Impatient to get this over with because it reminded her of her shame. First in taking it from her mother, second in giving Riddle access to it. "Come this way!" She sped off down an aisle, turning this way and that. They had to run to keep up.
She stopped suddenly in front of a small table with a box and a white marble bust on it. "It's here." The wizards looked at the table and began to clear off some drapery and findings. Inside the box beneath was the diadem. Neville opened the box and went to pick it up, but Draco stopped him remembering his cursed necklace. "Don't touch it! Hermione said it would probably be cursed. She'd handled four of them and knows what she's talking about. Leave it in the box and let's go."
Neville pulled back and looked to Helena who had turned away from the scene. "Thank you my lady. We will finish it as soon as we can."
Helena turned around to look at them. "You must destroy it with fiendfyre so there is nothing left. When you do, the Barron and I will also be destroyed. We have lived many centuries, and we are ready to go to our rest. Do not delay long, it will fight you to stay alive. Goodbye."
Helena dissolved into nothingness and Draco and Neville were at mixed feelings. They did not know that the life force of the beautiful Helena Ravenclaw would be forfeit. No wonder she had hesitated. "Draco. Is there no way to…"
"No Neville. It must be destroyed. We must be sure that the evil inside it does not remain, or this will all have been for nothing." Neville nodded sadly. Another treasured soul lost to Voldemort's malevolence.
Getting out of the room of hidden things was a bit of a challenge. They got lost twice but finally managed to find the door, opening it with caution. Their path was clear and at the gates of Hogwarts they apparated to the Malfoy Mansion as dawn broke the sky.
Draco looked up knowing that the cover of night was behind them. "Follow me." There are many ways to get into Malfoy Mansion. Most are known only to its owners. He took Neville around the garden to a large rosebush full of menacing thorns. "A Malfoy" Draco called as he drew his wand with a hiss. The bush came to life wrapping a thorny tendril around his arm. The end of the tendril wrapped tightly around one finger and then pushed a thorn in. A drop of blood was collected by the leaves which turned color. Suddenly it parted revealing a doorway. Neville was fascinated. His first love was herbology and he was dying to ask a ton of questions. Maybe later.
The sun burst over the horizon and Neville panicked for a moment. "Wait Draco. I have to send my patronis." He stood apart remembering how he'd had such a hard time doing this at first. Harry was a patient teacher, and he was able to do it at any time now. "Butterscotch. All is well. Need more time." The ball of light zoomed into the distance.
"Butterscotch?" Draco looked at the young man with skepticism.
Neville looked him up and down as if he were joking. "We have a new code word every day so messages can be confirmed."
Draco shook his head. "Clever."
They descended a few stairs until they entered a tunnel that seemed to go on for miles, though it couldn't have. Draco stopped in a small room with a cobwebbed door. No one had been here in a very long time. He opened the door slowly to reveal a darkened hallway then stopped to listen. Hogwarts wasn't the only place to have patrols. After all, Voldemort lived here as well. As the son of the house, he would not be questioned if found, but Neville would be dead.
The hallway was clear and the portraits still sleeping. Draco put his finger to his lips to assure Neville would make no sound. They crept out and turned the corner to Draco's room. After an elaborate ritual to remove the wards they walked into the room, closing the door silently behind them.
Hermione was where they knew she would be. At a table surrounded by the hundred books Insea had brought her. Draco thought she looked like an angel. Her hair cascading over a stack of tomes much too large for her to pick up. The curve of her cheek pressed over her arm and the sweet countenance of her face peaceful as an angel.
Draco looked to Neville, unwilling to wake her. Neville was smiling at her, remembering how sad he had been, when he had thought her dead. The choice was taken from them as her eyelids fluttered and she sat up to yawn and stretch. When they focused she jumped slightly, not expecting two wizards to be standing there smiling like simpletons. "Do you have it?"
Neville sat it down on the desk and opened the box. It was beautiful. Hermione took the box in her hands to examine it more closely. She could feel the evil in it emanating from the large green center stone that made up the body of the raven. A sensitivity acquired from wearing Salazar's locket and destroying Hufflepuff's cup. She looked up at the guys a bit defeated. She needed to tell them. "This is it, but there's a problem. We have no way to destroy it. I had basilisk fangs in my beaded bag. It's how we destroyed the others, but it's lost now."
Draco was about to tell her, when Neville interrupted. "How did you get a basilisk fang? I thought you couldn't get into Hogwarts."
Hermione smiled. "You should know by now I'm always prepared. In fifth year I had Harry take me to the chamber. I thought it might be a good place for Dumbledore's army to practice. It turned out to be too impractical as it required Harry to open it every time with parseltongue. The basilisk was still there, but it was just bones. I removed several teeth and put them in my bag. I wanted to have access to anything that had killed you-know-who in the past. Whenever I lost hope, I remembered that Harry did it three times as a child."
"Destroying it is not the problem. Helena told us to use fiendfyre. The problem is, where. Draco can't do it here, right under Riddle's nose, and I can't do it at Hogwarts without being caught. We'll have to apparate a fair distance to find the right spot."
"Ummm. I see your point." Hermione considered a while. "But considering open war will break out within hours of when it happens, it won't matter too much if we give the Carrows a hot foot."
oopOqoo
Molly Weasley was done waiting. Arthur had told her he would try to find out what had happened to their boy, but it would be dangerous. They were being watched as it was and asking questions was a sure-fire way to disappear. Rumors had spread about the death of Nagini only two weeks ago. Voldemort himself had broadcast with glee how Harry had died, or at least a version of it with Himself as murderer. If he expected people to be discouraged and more pliable, he was wrong. If anything, it fanned the flames of rebellion brighter than before.
Harry was gone and Voldemort had rather unpleasantly interrogated everyone who had ever known Hermione looking for her, but there was no sign. It was as if she'd dropped off the planet. Molly feared she was gone as well, but a spark of hope still burned in her.
What had happened to Ron? Molly wept nearly every day. The clock on the wall clearly showed that Ron had gone from Mortal Peril to Lost.
At last, there was word, though from an unlikely source. An owl arrived from the school one evening. The headmaster was calmly giving notice to the Weasley parents that Ronald had been removed from the school rolls due to his passing. It gave a detailed account of the night of the party and how Ron had killed Lord Voldemort's long cherished pet, leading to his own demise at an unknown assailant's hand. By their lord's command both he and Mr. Potter had been cremated and their ashes scattered. It ended with the headmaster's sincerest sympathies and a promise to answer any questions they might have.
Molly and Arthur read the letter together to their family. Ron's death was not a shock but knowing that he died for something he believed in, that it was for something greater than himself, was a comfort. The tears that were shed as they clutched each other tightly, would cement the resolve that lived in them all. They would all fight to the last to kill Voldemort. They would do whatever it took to see it happen.
