Hermione had been standing next to Neville, taking turns fighting and guarding against Bellatrix when it happened.
Shock and horror had momentarily gripped her. She thought she was about to be robbed of so much as having remains to bury, and a proper funeral to attend in his honor. After the hurricane of conflicting emotions she'd been lost in since he left, the promise of whatever paltry closure a proper memorial might offer was practically all that was keeping her going.
That thought vanished as quickly as it had come to her, when after a flash of radiant white light faded, Harry was miraculously standing there before her.
Just before the bolt of light that revived Harry, she'd been on the edge of failure and barely managed by a few inches to dodge a bolt of green death directed at her by Bellatrix.
In an instant, she was struck by a profound swell of joy, relief, and disbelief, bordering on euphoria. Harry was back somehow, and it felt like nothing else in the world mattered in the slightest for a few moments.
Hope. That's what it was.
It's a truly amazing thing, hope. Any leader worth their salt will confirm that hope can be all that is required to fan the embers of discontent into flames of revolution. Without it, life is dark; existence is cold, relentless, and suffocating. The world becomes a small, hollow shadow of what it might be. But hope is versatile. It can be a guiding light in darkness, certainty in doubt, peace in turmoil, or a raft in turbulent waters. In the face of daunting odds, it is often hope that allows us to remain centered and find the will to succeed.
Hope is to be cherished, nurtured, and tended to, though it is often taken for granted.
In battle, hope is not something to underestimate.
Harry's return paired with his persistent defiant tone and confidence triggered a significant morale shift in the courtyard. Allies who had thought all was lost were suddenly cheering as the spectacle passed and the battle began anew. All while many of the newer recruits to the cause of the Death Eaters were suddenly breaking ranks and fleeing the conflict entirely at the realization of Voldemort's failure.
Turning slightly for a moment toward Neville, Hermione ensured with a look that they were on the same page in their duel with Bellatrix as it resumed, and for an instant in transit, Harry's eyes met hers as he got his bearings.
With the new change in the landscape of the battle, both Neville and Hermione were like entirely different combatants. Hermione's attacks increased in intensity and speed, while Neville's defenses became more potent, nearly opaque in their ethereal power.
Hermione wanted, almost needed, to get to Harry, and Bellatrix had the misfortune of standing in her way.
Bellatrix started directing harsher magic at them with greater speed once the courtyard shook off the shock of Harry's return. Two, sometimes three spells at a time she assaulted the pair, doing her best to wear Neville's defenses down so the occasional more potent spell might break through the shield. Hermione recognized some of them. There were your standard stunners, cutting hexes, and explosions; but they were interlaced with much darker magic. Things like the slash of purple light Dolohov had nearly killed her with back in fifth year, and many more that she didn't recognize. While she was one of the darkest witches anyone knew, Bellatrix was a fantastic duelist.
A fantastic duelist who had made the single worst mistake you can possibly make in a fight to the death.
She'd underestimated the skill of her opponents.
"Avada Kedavra!" She bellowed once more, as she leveled her wand and an unblockable curse at the last of the Longbottom line.
Before the first word was completed, Hermione instinctively tapped into the joy she felt a moment ago when Harry came back to life. Given how unstable her magic had been as she watched Voldemort bludgeon Harry in front of the crowd, she suddenly found herself with access to more power than she'd ever sensed before.
Her wand hand blurred in a complicated motion as she nearly instantaneously conjured a full-length enchanted mirror directly in the path of the curse. Bellatrix's eyes bulged at the sudden and unexpected counter. She shielded her face with a hand expecting a bright flash and the typical small burst of energy that typically came when her favorite spell hit an inanimate object.
It never came. The mirror, inconceivably, worked as intended.
Bellatrix didn't have time to move her hand from her face before her own curse pounded into the center of her chest with a crack, knocking her back a few feet, where she fell lifeless to the ground.
—X—X—X—
There was barely a second to exhale in relief at the defeat of the dark witch before a piercing bellow of unhinged fury filled the courtyard. Harry and Voldemort had been circling each other slowly and Harry's back was to the scene unfolding with Hermione and Bellatrix, which meant that it all happened right in Voldemort's line of sight. Worse, Voldemort knew exactly who Hermione was. His forces had been delivering reports for the last several months about sightings of Harry and a muggle-born witch with bushy brown hair traveling with him. It was not a huge intellectual feat for him to deduce that it was her who had just killed his strongest supporter. There were still at least a dozen fights still carrying on in the courtyard around him, but he didn't care at all about the others.
He knew better than to use the killing curse after what had just happened.
He knew that he was dealing with Harry's right hand.
He knew he could hurt him… By hurting her.
Gathering his rage, hatred, and burning desire to cause as much grief as he possibly could for his mortal enemy, Voldemort made a stabbing motion with The Elder Wand, training his aim at the bushy haired mudblood, behind and beyond Potter. Just as the improvised spell began to take form, a fist the size of a watermelon collided with his ribs, knocking the air forcefully out of his lungs. He barely kept to his feet.
"Not anymore, yeh ruddy git! Yeh've done quite enough to that boy today. Let's see how you like it if someone bigger 'an you gives it a go, eh?" Hagrid bellowed his challenge.
"That bloody oaf is quickly becoming more trouble than he's worth." Voldemort thought to himself, just before a sharp, slashing flick of a wand and a green flash sent that particular problem to the past.
Refocusing, Voldemort made to continue what he'd started before he'd been so abruptly interrupted.
He looked past Harry, and smirked at the look of horror, anger, and regret on his face. Apparently, he'd cared for the half-giant. Leveling The Elder Wand once more, he took a step to avoid having the large man fall onto him, then set loose an angry swarm of tiny black specs of energy. They sailed nearly faster than the eye could track in the direction of the Potter boy, who still thought he was the target.
—X—X—X—
Harry wasn't sure what it was that tipped the man over the edge as he looked on at Voldemort's furious visage. He was clearly about to send a torrent of power at him. Naturally, he was already gathering energy for a shield when Hagrid threw off his captors and slammed a great fist into Voldemort's frail looking body. His heart swelled momentarily in pride and gratitude as his selfless, kind, giant friend came to his defense. But it was only a moment before his stomach dropped as a green flash whipped out from The Elder Wand and caught the gentle, friendly man just under the chin. Hagrid's face went slack, and he tipped forward, landing face down and unmoving on the rough stone ground of the castle courtyard.
A wave of emotion assaulted him for a moment, but he didn't have time to feel it all right now. Tom was getting ready to make his move.
Harry immediately put up a shimmering gold shield of energy to protect himself, squinting his eyes at the effort put into the defense. His magic was stronger since he'd returned to life. Whatever energy that horcrux had been sapping him before this morning was now fully back in Harry's control, but it was of no use. The cold, black energy of the spell missed him just to his right and proceeded past him. It felt like it pulled at his magic as it passed by, and immediately Harry knew something was wrong. There was no reason for Voldemort to miss that attack. It was practically impossible for someone of his skill to miss an attack at this range on an unmoving target, and Harry had made no effort to dodge.
The victorious smile on Riddle's face sent a shudder of fear down Harry's spine. Nothing good could possibly come from that.
He was still processing what had just happened when he heard it.
The scream.
One he'd heard before, at one of the lowest points in the last year. One of the lowest points in his life.
His blood ran cold, just like it did the last time he heard that terrible sound barely a month before, at Malfoy Manor.
He couldn't bring himself to turn his head and see what was happening to her. The thought killed him, but the details didn't matter.
She was all that allowed him to snap himself out of the darkness.
She was all that let him burn though his own mind's own boundaries and fight his way back to life.
She was the most important thing in his new life; the only thing he needed anymore.
She had always been there for him, and it was time he started living up to her example.
Whatever just happened was already done, and he suspected the shock of witnessing it would only give him pause which might get him and everyone else here killed. No, the best thing he could do to help her if she were to be helped, would be to end this, end him immediately, then do his best to pick up the pieces once it was done.
It was an odd sensation, as he switched his focus from winning to killing. A subtle change in the context of a duel, but a significant one at the same time. Mentally, he recoiled a bit. He had certainly hurt people before using magic. He'd needed to in order to complete his mission and make it to this moment - his destiny. But, he had never before taken action with the specific intent to kill and didn't much care for it.
Neither did Malfoy's wand.
Harry dropped his shield and leveled the smooth, black wand once more. It had been resisting him ever since it came to him, but he was starting to get used to it, until his intent changed. He could simply sense that the wand didn't want to take any part in stopping Voldemort's efforts.
If he had time to practice with it, or maybe if he were not in the middle of the middle of the fight of the century…
Perhaps if the cutting scream he dreaded hadn't come to a stop at just that moment, only a few seconds after it had started, he might not have taken such reckless actions as what he did next. But as a cold and clammy silence filled his ears, Harry let go.
He let go of his fear, his regret, and his anger.
He let go of his pain, his calmness, and his restraint.
He let go of his control.
He stretched his right arm out toward Voldemort, standing not more than 10 feet in front of him, throwing his wand in an arc with the same motion.
At that very instant, energy rippled off Harry in concentric circles as he focused and combined all his newly unshackled emotion with the new power he was still adjusting to. Time seemed to slow slightly around him, the wand slowly arcing through the air as Voldemort's eyes tracked it through the air with a look of shock about them.
Harry took two long steps forward and just as the wand was caught again landed a rising punch with his left hand right to the bottom of Voldemort's chin. It seemed he'd had a defense ready for nearly any magical attack, but the thought of being physically punched in the face hadn't entered his mind until it had been hand delivered by Harry.
There was a split second of stunned silence before Voldemort spat blood and slashed his wand violently at Harry, who visibly blurred out of the way, missing most of the attack, but an angry purple band of force glanced into his left side instead of the center of his chest where it had been aimed. Taking a few shuffling steps backward, he reflexively reached into his robe where he'd kept his old holly and phoenix wand before it was broken. He knew it was still in pieces somewhere in the depths of Hermione's beaded handbag, but somehow to his great surprise, he found something heavy there.
Gripping tightly and removing his hand from his robe, he was stunned to see the sword once again he'd used to slay a basilisk 5 years earlier. Meanwhile, he could feel warmth pooling on his left side where he'd been hit. He'd need to address that soon.
Voldemort slung a spell that glowed with a deep blue sheen and felt terribly dark at him and Harry instinctively reflected it right back where it came from using the sword. His eyes widened in surprise and Harry knew this was his opening.
As Voldemort yelled in surprise and dodged out of the way of his own spell Harry surged forward, letting out a guttural scream of determination, holding his blade outstretched.
His timing was perfect. Voldemort was committed to his dodge by the time Harry tackled him to the ground by the midsection.
The pair tumbled once, rolling over each other before coming to a halt on the hard stone ground. They were both on their sides, facing each other. Harry saw a look on Voldemort's face that blended rage and shock. The older man was taking fast shallow breaths.
Harry rolled onto his back and felt an ache of cold pain throb in his left side where that spell had caught him before. He gritted his teeth and sat up.
Looking over at Voldemort, it was plain to see life leaving him. There was a ruby encrusted, silver sword handle sprouting out from just under the right side of his ribs, and the silver tip of the sword was visible, protruding from a wound just above his left collar bone.
—X—X—X—
When the last blow fell, all other fighting had ceased almost immediately. Glancing around the courtyard, all the Death Eaters were either fleeing, dead, or bound and being held at wand point.
He could see Ginny standing atop the stone stairs near the entrance to the castle. She was holding her arm awkwardly and was bleeding from a nasty wound at her hairline. Molly was mending her rapidly, and he could see Ron with some kind of injury to his left hand making his way to his mother and sister.
George was hunched over and tending to Arthur who looked like he'd been burned badly about the head but was sitting up on his own power.
Another jolt of panic struck him when he saw McGonagall's pale face hunched over and across from Neville. They were both working frantically to do something for Hermione.
Harry retrieved the sword and shot up from his seated position next to the corpse of Tom Riddle.
Almost immediately, he screamed out in pain and fell hard, face first, onto the stone of the courtyard.
Maybe that spell had hit him a bit more than he'd thought.
Looking down again he surveyed himself instead of his fallen enemy. From just under his ribs on his left side to his hip, all he could see was red. He was losing a bit of sensation down his left side as well, his leg was tingling and while the wound felt cold, he could feel hot blood slowly seeping out of it.
Pushing himself up again using his right side, he got up and hobbled toward where Hermione lay on the ground.
He almost made it to her before his vision started going gray and he fell again. He was expecting agony, but he just felt a little cold. It wasn't until then that Minerva's attention was drawn from Hermione, and she noticed Harry shambling toward them leaving a thick trail of deep red blood in his wake. She yelled something toward him, it was loud, but his ears were ringing louder, and he couldn't make it out. After a moment, some others finally pried their eyes away from Hermione's still form.
The last thing he felt before losing consciousness was her clammy palm trembling in his hand as he finally reached and held on to her.
You and me
A little different though we tried to stay the same
It never leaves
And when it changes, it is still a waiting game
I wait for a lonely breath
I wait to surface from this depth
Wait for the light to come
And take away these images I kept
In my head
More than ever
I need to feel you
More than ever
I see the real you
Artist: Yellowcard
Track: Waiting Game
Album: Lights and Sounds