848.
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i vanguard
Battle is not how Hermione had imagined it would be, and she has imagined it many times. Of course she has: she wouldn't be on the front lines without having been very sure of it. But she had never pictured the war coming into the castle. In those daydreams two sides had lined up in open country: Harry, fierce, defiant, noble, on one side, and on the other dark cloaks, silver masks, danger.
Real battle is not like that. The first thing is the waiting. This is a siege, after all, and so much of siege warfare is waiting. The four groups led by Kingsley Shacklebolt, Mad-Eye Moody, Arthur Weasley and Remus Lupin spread out through the grounds, taking up strategic positions. The sky is dark and poised as the hour draws on and past midnight. The forest spreads out below where they've taken up position near the greenhouses, swallowing what light there is. The mountains are shadowed against the horizon.
Twelve bells toll out through the still grounds. She feels each one hit her in the centre of her back like a curse.
The hour inches to a quarter past, and every eye and ear is alert to the night all around them. Every gust of wind in the branches seems like a threat.
"They're late," Remus says to her quietly. "It seems… strange."
Hermione dares to hope. Perhaps her and Theo's mad plan has worked, just a little. She wonders where Professor Snape is. Where Harry is. How she can get the vial to him. How she'll know when the time is right. How Snape will kill the snake - if he'll be able to even get close to it.
"I probably shouldn't have brought you out here," Remus says after a while. "You'd be safer in the castle. But I'll be glad to fight next to you, Hermione."
"I shouldn't think I'd be safer anywhere tonight," she points out. She is sick with fear, thrumming with excitement. She wishes they'd just come, hopes they never will. "How's Teddy?"
His voice is full of joy as he tells her about his infant son. How his tiny hands are already trying to clutch at his finger, gigantic in comparison. How gusty his lungs are. How hungry he is, how healthy.
The courtyard clock, high up in its bell tower, chimes to mark the half hour.
And then they come.
First they come as sounds that can't be dismissed: the great heavy crash of giants walking together through the forest. The brutal, savage war cry of an unturned werewolf. The keening wail of banshees. The searing and cracking of curses against ancient wards.
And then they come as the sickly bursting green skull, bigger by far than the one Draco had cast the year before, bigger than any she's ever seen in photographs, blooming out over the dark sky, bathing the grounds in jade light, ghastly and cold and eerie.
They wait still: wait and watch the flashing colours of spells in the distance as the invaders break through first one protection and then another and then -
Close enough for spell range. Close enough to kill.
A spell burns past Hermione as she side-steps out of the way, shoving Remus as she fires back.
It's chaos. Instinct replaces fear. There are so many of them. Creatures she's never dreamed of swirl around the feet of the Giants. Dead things walk.
"Fire spells," Remus reminds her, but she's already cast one, burning swathes through the inferi. Behind the creatures are black-cloaked figures. Most are bare-headed, but faceless, just silver masks and barked orders, their wands slashing death and destruction. There's no time to hope now. There isn't even time to check on the fallen. She fights on and on.
She'd thought she was part of the cavalry; now Hermione thinks she is part of the forlorn hope.
They're pushed back from the greenhouses, then to the castle. They lose the others - to injury, death, duelling - but the hours of private lessons pay off. Hermione and Remus somehow stay together. They clash with a giant, a werewolf, witches and wizards. Somewhere in the distance she can feel the pricking cold of gathering dementors.
A vicious Bombarda flies too close, and Hermione drops to the floor, rolling out of the way. They've been pushed back to the castle itself. There's a great gash in its side, spells flying out as dangerous to the pair as those coming from the attackers. The air is full of dust and the burning, gunpowder smell of dark magic and burning flesh.
"Where," wheezes Remus, back leaning against the spilled out stones, "are the rest of the Death Eaters?"
"The rest of them?" Hermione pants, baffled. Surely this is bad enough? They're vastly outnumbered, even with the parents and older siblings who made it through before the entrances were sealed.
The ground around them shakes, and somewhere nearby there's a tremendous clattering. It sounds like an avalanche. It must be another wall bearing the brunt of all this hate and rage. Someone screams a little further away. There has been a great deal of screaming already. But she can't think about that now.
"They still haven't broken through to the castle," her tutor points out. "We're -"
Whatever he's going to say is interrupted by another spell, purple and bright and powerful. It explodes into the stones next to Remus's head and he pushes into Hermione, rolling them both away again as he fires back.
"Inside," he says, "they're inside - look." He points up and she can see black-cloaked figures at the open door a little way beyond.
"If we get up and into that hole we'll be on the first floor and we can come down and help defend it," Hermione whispers. "I think we can climb from the cloisters."
They scramble to their feet and run, ducking curses and returning fire, towards the hole blasted in the wall. It's a scramble, but it's dark here and with the help of magic and luck, they make it up and into the castle.
If it's chaos outside it's worse in there, with the blazing torches revealing the damage already done.
Some time later, the clock's striking impossible to hear over the noise of battle, they're back-to-back with a group of students, the last of a cluster of giant spiders still twitching where it lies blocking the hallway they've just turned out of, when a man comes, black-cloaked and salt-and-pepper haired and full of hate, down the corridor leading to the main staircase. The Death Eaters are well and truly in the castle now then, she thinks. He hasn't bothered with a mask, this man, or maybe he's lost it in the fight. He fells a woman she doesn't recognise a little way ahead, brushing aside someone's mother or wife or friend's curses like a butter knife at a gun fight.
"Stay back," Remus orders a group of students on the stairs. "And you, Hermione. Stay here."
She protests, meets his eyes, obeys. The Death Eater doesn't rush to curse Remus as he steps forward onto the landing beyond. There are sounds of battle all around them, down the corridors, and further along near the landing, but for now it's quiet here, near the back of the castle.
[He'd known, she will think afterwards. He'd known what was coming. He'd let her stand with him against everything else but not this man.]
"Go," Hermione tells the girl leading the group. She's the Ravenclaw sixth year prefect. Hermione can't remember her name. Then she can. "Marjorie - take this lot and get to somewhere better defended."
Hermione hopes she at least can help. She watches the corridor behind them, keeping Remus's back protected with quick glances, and sets wards to warn her, to deter. The acromantula's body will be blockade enough for the other corridor.
"Werewolf," the man hisses when Remus deflects his first curse. She sees only now what a Death Eater is. The rest were something else. Foot soldiers perhaps. A vanguard of the Dark Lord's own. But not this .
At some point Remus calls him by name: Dolohov. Later, she won't remember when or why. Once he says it she can match the face with the newspaper articles she's read. Hermione doesn't remember the curses they exchange. She tries to help, but she can't do much without endangering Remus and when she does get a spell through it's brushed away or dodged. Whoever this man is, he is something more . He is extraordinary. Remus Lupin is the best duellist she's ever seen - and he's on the back foot. He's losing .
Dolohov pushes him back towards the small hall Hermione is standing in. She shoots a hex past Remus, but it goes wide and Dolohov pushes on, relentless.
Remus is still fighting back when his wife - who else could it be - arrives, but it's clear he's struggling. The mousy-haired woman arrives, panting, the way Dolohov had come, skidding to a halt. She claps a hand to her mouth, assesses for a split-second then joins the fray. Even two-on-one they're hard-pressed against this man. Their spells fly rapidly, some silenced, some screamed. One tears Dolohov's cloak and he stumbles, leaving it in a ragged heap. But he's too quickly out of the way, too aggressive on the attack, and the advantage is gone.
"Bellatrix will be jealous when I tell her," Dolohov tells her bleeding tutor. He's breathing hard, but he's smiling. "That I got the matching set."
Dolohov lunges towards Tonks and she shields, but he spins - it's a feint. He's been waiting. He ducks under Remus's own curse and - too quick on its heels - his own finds its target.
Remus Lupin dies with his wife's name on his lips, and Dolohov turns on Tonks, her own gaze caught on the body. But he has forgotten something.
Whatever it was he fires at Nymphadora Tonks goes wide. Dolohov crashes to the floor and lies still, far beyond harm or hurt. Hermione's own curse has hit him, green and implacable and deadly and forever.
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ii vanquished
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asks, sprinting across the hall and pulling the other woman back before she can go to the slain body of her husband. "We need to go, Tonks - come on." Hermione levitates Remus to one wall, casting a disillusionment charm on the body. "That'll have to do for now. Come on . You can't be here, you've got to get to the Room of Requirement!"
Tonks is gasping away tears, but she lets Hermione pull her down the corridor towards the staircase.
"Not bloody likely -"
A huge gargoyle crashes through the space where one of the great glass windows had allowed even the weakest sunlight to beam through onto the third-floor landing, bringing the last of the glass with it. It's been sheared clean off one of the towers. Hermione turns it to dust with a flick of her wand. She can't hear properly for a moment, then it rings back through her, people yelling spells and screaming in pain.
Tonks shoots a vicious spell at someone coming up behind them and then she and Hermione are back-to-back as more masked and hooded figures appear. Ron Weasley comes sprinting down, firing curses, white and furious and reckless, and Hermione yells, "Where is he? Where's Harry?"
But they push through into a passageway, leaving the last of the masked group lying on the floor, and then he's there all of a sudden. His eyes are glassy like he's in that other mind. But Weasley doesn't seem to notice. He's off again and down the stairs. Longbottom and Tonks hightail after him, yelling at him not to be a fool and he shouts something about his brother.
Harry goes to follow but she stops him, grabbing his arm.
"Harry," she gasps. He's alright . He's made it this far. They both have. " Harry . Wait I need to give you something -"
Suddenly he's screaming, his hand pressed not to a wound but to his scar.
"He's so angry," Harry Potter gasps. "Angrier than I've ever - Hermione it's -"
She remembers him saying she helps and she steps forward and takes his hands, pressing her own forehead to his. After a moment his breathing slows.
"It's Snape," he whispers. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. We were trying to get out of the castle to get there but we got caught by that lot and -"
"Tell me in a minute," she says. "Harry, I need to talk to you. It's the most important thing for you right now. Come on, we need to hide somewhere for a minute."
He gazes once more after his friends, then turns.
"There's a secret passageway - down here."
He takes her hand and they run down the rest of the corridor and up a short flight of steps.
"In here," he says. "Quickly."
There are voices coming, too far to know if they're friend or foe.
"Did he kill the snake?" she asks when they're stowed away in what can hardly be thought of as safety.
"Yeah. He let it bite him and then he trapped it in a ball of some kind of fire - like it was made of writhing serpents or something - it was horrible - and even Voldemort couldn't put it out."
"Fiendfyre," she says numbly, because saying the answer is the only thing she can do. It brings no comfort. "It'll have destroyed the Horcrux in the snake at least."
"He's not even fighting ," Harry says disgustedly. He's running his hands over her, like he's checking she's all there. But he's avoiding her gaze.
"This is for you. It's memories - from Snape. Or Dumbledore maybe. You've got to go and watch them now. They said once all the other Horcruxes were gone to give you this, but I'd have done it earlier if I could find you. Oh, Harry -"
"It was just for the wand," Harry says. "He killed him for the Elder Wand."
"He knew he was going to die," Hermione mutters. "And he went anyway the stupid, reckless - Wait, the what wand?"
But before he can explain, the high, cold voice intrudes, a cold breeze of death lashing the backs of their skulls.
"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a waste."
Hermione feels sick with rage, sick at the injustice of it.
"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured. I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you."
She has to force herself not to grab his hand, to pull him to her, to lock the door and ward it with blood and darkness.
"You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and with the full might of my forces, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."
"Well of all the hypocritical nonsense," Hermione says, outraged. "He hasn't even come to fight and -"
"It's alright," Harry says. "I know. It's alright."
He's very pale though. He is staring at the vial in his hands. Hermione wonders what Voldemort's full forces would look like. She wonders if the captive children held some of them away. She wonders if the battle could, somehow, have been worse .
"Let's get to the Headmaster's office," she says, to distract him from his senseless guilt. "You need to look in those memories. It might be important. Tell me everything on the way. You got the Diadem?"
"Yeah," he says. And then more urgently, "It wasn't too bad. Took a while to find it. But Malfoy helped. He was outside the room when we got in, fighting off Goyle. Said he'd seen him following us."
She gapes up at him.
"And his dad put the idea of stopping the fight in Voldemort's head," Harry continues, shaking his head in disbelief. "Said someone else might kill me if he didn't hurry up. Just being a coward but… it's probably saved a lot of people's lives. The rest of it - Well, we were all waiting for ages weren't we? We could see people fighting down below but," he scowls, "McGonagall stopped us going out to join. Said something very blunt about stone walls and siege fighters. Also that if I die everyone will lose hope." He sounds very bitter about this. "And," he adds after a moment, "Fred Weasley died. I don't know who else."
His voice cracks. After a moment he continues. As they walk through the battered castle, past a few bodies - creatures and men and women - even past a few staring Order members and students, he tells her how he slipped into Voldemort's head, how he watched him watch the snake bite Snape. How he was going to leave him bitten and dying on the floor before the Professor engulfed the snake in the most dangerous fire the world had ever seen. There are bits she doesn't quite grasp, and he's somewhere else, half-gone with the guilt of it all, gazing around at the debris and the ravages of all the violence, talking about something called the Hallows. It fades as they get higher. The upper floors are hardly breached at all.
"What about you?"
"I was with Remus outside," she whispers, fighting for the words.
Harry stops in the corridor, jaw clenched, green eyes very bright as he looks down at her.
"He took you outside ?"
She nods, debating what to say, whether the truth will assuage his guilt or worsen it. Whether she can tell him what she's done. But they're nothing if they can't be everything.
"We came back when they got into the castle. Then Dolohov - he was duelling him - and then Tonks came and Remus tried to save her and Dolohov killed him. I've never seen anything like it."
"I killed him though," she continues in a rush, looking up at him with a little defiance to hide how sick she feels. She wouldn't turn her wand back if she had a time-turner. But it has cost her something nonetheless. "Dolohov. I didn't even think about it. He was going to kill Tonks - she just had a baby . I used Avada ." The confession tumbles out. She wishes she could spare him this. But she knows him. She knows he wouldn't want her to.
He takes a deep breath. She knows it's not what he'd do. She hopes he doesn't hate her. The silence drags out and stutters into fear.
"Good," he says finally. "I'm - I'm sorry you had to, Hermione. But I'm glad -" he breaks off and pulls her to him instead. Just for a moment. They're at the Gargoyle now.
She is trying not to think of Professor Snape as gone, quite yet. She doesn't think she can stand going into his office; she doesn't think she can leave Harry to face his fate alone.
Curious though she is, Hermione has no desire to go into the Pensieve, which she has only ever used with Professor Snape. And, she reflects, Harry had used it with Dumbledore and very soon - she suspects - all three of them will be dead and it will be just her left, for however long she lasts. The thought of Harry Potter dying is so wrenchingly incomprehensible her mind goes completely blank at the thought of it, sheering away from it and back into the realms of the possible.
"Look," he says, staring at the vial. "I've got to do this bit alone, I reckon. If you come… whatever's in here… it must be bad if they've waited till the end. I won't be able to… if I'm thinking about you."
She eyes him. He looks very determined. And besides, there is something she must do as well.
"I'll be in the Hall if you need me. I'll come with you. Wherever you go. If you stay or run or go to the forest."
Harry Potter gives her a tight smile at this. He already knows, she thinks, even if he hasn't consciously thought it. Knows what she knows. [Why is it, she has wondered, that he is chosen, marked. Why does he matter? How stable is a soul when you split it into seven? The questions and answers have flickered all the corner of her eye all year. She's never looked, but they're always there.] [So she knows this walk has been a gift. One last moment to be in love. One last moment to be together.]
"We'll I won't run that's for sure," he says with a brave attempt at a smile. "This ends tonight. He knows about the Horcruxes now — Nagini's death has really rattled him. He thinks I can't have found the Diadem or I'd have gone to find him already. But that won't hold him here for long, and if he makes more…"
She looks at her hands. They're blurry. She blinks away tears.
"It has been the great honour of my life to love you, Harry Potter," Hermione says a little tremulously. And then, defying the stars, she adds, "And I mean to keep on bloody loving you—"
His face - grim, dusty, pale, a cut on one cheek, the dearest thing to her in the world - softens. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her, cutting off her promises. The world is almost unimaginably quiet after the chaos of battle, and here in this moment, for a flickering second, the memory of all that horror fades too.
"Don't say it," he tells her. "Tell me later. Tell me you'll see me around."
She has to bite back a sob at this but she finds a smile from somewhere. If he can be a hero for everyone, she can be a hero for him at least.
"Good luck with," she gestures at the vial, "whatever heroic nonsense this is. See you around, Potter. Probably in an hour when all the fun starts back up."
She swings around as jauntily as she can, as if she's fifteen again and saying one thing to him with her sharp tongue and quite another with her eyes, and somehow she walks away from him.
Hermione has always known it would come to this, she reflects, as she fights down the grief. She has always known the danger, known she was shattering her heart on the cliff of a boy marked for death. She almost wishes he would run.
But there is hope there too, the hope that Harry always seems to bring to those around him. The hope that's always carried her feet to him even though she has always known he's a hero.
[Hero because he's been marked for it. Marked for greatness, marked for death. But Harry Potter is not just a scar. He is a hero all the way deep in his heart and his bones and his blood, too, and not even she can fight that.]
Hermione knows if she had to choose between Harry Potter and the world she would choose Harry. But she also knows that Harry would not make that same choice, and she knows if she took him away she'd be left to hold the ashes of a ruined world and a man who had once been Harry Potter.
So she keeps walking to find somewhere she is needed.
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Thank you to SallyJAvery & but_seriously for their help with this. I REALLY STRUGGLED WITH IT and they both helped a lot. And thank all of you for your patience - I love you so much and I really hate writing action so please be kind.
SIDE NOTE : Lucius really did stop the battle! I had never noticed it
"Aren't-aren't you afraid, my Lord that Potter might die at another hand but yours?" asked Malfoy, his voice shaking. "Wouldn't it be...forgive me...more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle, and seek him y-yourself?"
I mean he only cares about saving Draco here but I thought it was interesting.