For the first time in his life, Harry was not happy to see Hogwarts looming in the distance. If he could just make it into the school - if they could - then perhaps all would turn out well. But there was so much territory to cross, and there were so many places Death Eaters could hide, waiting for a chance to kill them off, one by one.
The majority of the Order would be fighting ahead of them if necessary, clearing a path. If he could keep Hermione and Ron safe - if he could just get to Voldemort - well, then maybe there was hope.
"You have a plan. I know you do."
Harry sighed aloud. He wished he could tell her, but she would try to talk him out of it, tell him not to trust the information he'd received. He gripped his wand tightly. No, it was too late to go back. He had to trust it.
A small hand slipped into his. Harry looked to his left to find Hermione staring back at him wearing the steely, determined expression she always had in times like these. The sight of it, even with the fear he could see lurking beneath the surface of her eyes, was strangely comforting. If he could protect her, just long enough to get out…
Harry squeezed her hand. "We can do this."
~
They were all too soon within the Entrance Hall of Hogwarts. Nothing had hindered them on the way into the school, setting them even more on edge. Hermione had the horrible feeling they were walking into a very elaborate, very deadly trap.
Like the grounds, the Entrance Hall was completely empty - save a masked Death Eater standing before the doors of the Great Hall. Hermione clutched Harry's hand harder as the man stepped forward.
"Harry Potter. The Dark Lord wishes to duel with you alone."
Hermione watched Harry's throat move as he swallowed. Before he could reply, several members of the Order had stepped forward.
"You're insane if you think we're going to send Harry in there alone," said Tonks.
"No," Harry said quickly. "Stay out here. There's nothing you can do."
"I'm going with you," Hermione said, hardly realizing she was speaking. Harry tried to pull away from her, but she held on, feeling as though letting him go now would mean letting go of him forever.
"No," Harry said vehemently. "Absolutely not. He could kill you the moment we walk in! I can do this, Hermione, but I need to know you're safe."
"I'm safest with you!" she insisted. "Please, I can't leave your side, not now!"
"Hermione," he pleaded. "Don't do this. This is my fight."
"Then it's mine as well," said Hermione, staring insistently at him. Harry stared back, and she could see the thoughts flitting around behind his eyes. She wished she could read them all.
Finally, he blinked. "All right. But stay behind me, and watch your back."
Hermione nodded and together they went forward. Hermione could feel the eyes of every Order member on them.
"She can't go in with you," said the guard when they reached the doors. Hermione glanced to her right. Harry had very subtly taken his wand out, and the guard had yet to notice.
"I can, and I will," Hermione said, attempting to divert the man's attention from what Harry was doing.
"Don't talk back to me, you Mudblooded -"
"Stupefy!"
Hermione recoiled as the man slumped to the ground at her feet. "You know, it would have been a lot easier if you'd only done that the moment we walked in," she said, shooting a look at Harry.
He shrugged. "Just occurred to me." He hesitated, looking at the tall, closed doors of the Great Hall. Once they had been welcoming; now what lay behind them gave them a bleak, desolate appearance.
His hand was cold in hers. Hermione squeezed it even more tightly, knowing she was probably holding onto him too hard and not caring. Why had this moment come so soon? They needed more time…so much more time.
"It's now or never," she whispered, voice shaking. He nodded.
Together, they pushed open the doors and stepped inside.
~
The Great Hall was completely empty, save for the creature sitting in an elaborate chair on the dais where the teacher's table had once been. The house tables were gone, leaving the Hall looking larger than ever before. Harry chanced a glance at the enchanted ceiling. It had begun to rain. How fitting.
Voldemort stood and raised his wand. Harry instinctively forced Hermione behind him, but to no avail - in the next second, Hermione was flying across the room, bound to a wall.
Harry fought back the panic threatening to overwhelm him. She's not hurt. She'll be fine…focus….
"I believe I requested that you come alone," said Voldemort, stepping down from the platform. "You're not to have any help."
Harry narrowed his eyes at the mutation of a man before him. "She's harmless. You know it."
"Can't take any chances, now, can I?" he said with a smile that Harry desperately wanted to wipe off his face.
Voldemort shut the doors to the Great Hall with a flick of his wand. "As the prophecy suggested," he began, "one of us is going to die today. So let's make it a fair fight, shall we? A simple duel, just you and I."
Harry scowled. "Fair? You're worried about what's fair?"
"Would you rather I cut to the chase and kill you now?"
Fair…he's not going to play fair. Now…now's the time….
Instead of replying, Harry raised his wand and cast a simple spell. A memory flashed through his head of a girl with patient brown eyes telling him, "Try again. You'll get this, Harry, you will." Hermione…
"Accio talisman!"
Harry was pleased to note the complete shock on the wizard's face as a circular glass talisman flew into his hand. Quickly, he raised it, poised to drop it.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Harry. If you break that, the girl will die."
The panic pushed forward. It's a trick, he's just playing on your emotions…it has to be a trick…but if it isn't?
"Harry, don't listen to him," Hermione cried from where she was bound. "He's just saying that to mess with your mind."
"And if I'm not?" said Voldemort, twirling his wand. "Can you risk killing her as well, Potter?"
"Harry, trust me. This is a trick. Please, believe me."
Harry took his eyes off Voldemort just long enough to meet Hermione's eyes, wide and insistent. Trust me.
Please…oh, please, let her be right, Harry thought frantically as he threw the talisman to the ground.
A flash of blinding white light filled the room. Harry shut his eyes against it, hearing Voldemort's cry echo against the stone walls. In the next instant, the light was gone. Harry opened his eyes. The room was that much darker after being so brightly illuminated - his eyes hadn't yet adjusted well enough for him to see Hermione.
"Hermione? Hermione, are you all right?" he said, trying to call to her, but the sound came out as a hoarse whisper.
"I'm alive." Harry almost fell to the floor as powerful relief hit him. I'm alive - easily the second most beautiful words he'd ever hear her say.
As his vision cleared, his eyes fixed on the spot where Voldemort had last stood. All that remained was a small pile of dust on the floor.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. How fitting.
Harry looked over to Hermione. She still sat on the floor. Harry quickly went to her, noticing as he approached that there were tears on her face. "Hermione?"
"I - I think I hurt my leg. I wasn't expecting the spell to break…when I fell, I didn't land properly -"
"Come on, then," Harry said, helping her up and steadying her as she stumbled. "Let's get you to someone that can fix that."
"Harry, what - the talisman - how did you know…?"
"I'll tell you later. It's still not safe here, with Death Eaters running around. We shouldn't linger."
~
Two hours later, Hermione lay in her bed at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. The rest of the Order, save Harry, who had returned with her, and Ron, who by Molly Weasley's orders had been forbidden to leave in the first place, were still at Hogwarts, clearing out all of the Death Eaters. One of the Aurors had mended her leg. Now she was settling in for a well-deserved rest.
Unfortunately, her plans were quickly laid to rest when a knock sounded on her door and Harry's head appeared in the doorway.
"You awake?"
"Yes. You know, you're supposed to wait for a reply after you knock. I could have been naked."
Harry grinned as he stepped into the room. "Would you slap me if I said I was hoping you would be?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "You're a git."
"I know," he said, sitting beside her on the bed. He looked tired…so very tired.
"I thought you were going to get some sleep."
Harry ran a hand through his already mussed hair. "I tried, but my mind's still too mixed up. Is your leg -"
"Still perfectly fine, Harry," she interjected. "I'm fine, really."
Harry looked down at his hands. Hermione could feel a long talk coming on.
"I feel like I betrayed you today," Harry finally said.
Hermione frowned, sitting up. She hadn't been expecting that at all. "What? What are you talking about, Harry?"
"What if Voldemort hadn't been bluffing. I - I could have -"
"Oh, Harry, no - I told you to do it, didn't I? I knew he was lying."
"But I didn't."
Hermione sighed. "Would you have done it if I hadn't asked you to?"
"I - I don't know. I don't think so."
"Harry, I told you to do it because I knew there was no way I could be killed by that binding spell that he used, and it's impossible to kill a person once you're dead. It's good that you trusted me there, Harry, because if you hadn't, we both would be dead. You did the right thing today, Harry, you did."
She reached out for his hand, and he finally looked up at her. "Harry, you trusted me. It's our faith in each other that makes us so strong. So stop dwelling on it, Harry. It's over now, we won. You should be celebrating."
He smiled slightly. "Yeah. I suppose I should."
"You still haven't told me how you knew about that talisman."
Harry suddenly looked very uncomfortable. "Well, that's sort of what I was doing the other day, when I couldn't tell you where I was going."
Hermione frowned. "Who told you?"
"Pettigrew. He asked me to meet him; he said he had information for me. And I knew that if any of you knew what I was doing you'd try to keep me from going."
"Yes, we would have," Hermione said, digesting the information with some difficulty. It was in the past, of course, and Harry was alive and well now - but what if it had been some sort of trap, and she hadn't known where he'd gone?
Harry nodded. "He told me about the talisman. It was connected directly to Voldemort's life. Evidently, he was so close to being dead already that the only thing holding him together was magic."
"And you didn't tell us afterward because you knew we wouldn't want you to trust that information," Hermione said for him, unsure whether or not to feel angry with him.
"Yeah," Harry said, his fingers toying mindlessly with the fabric of her comforter. "But I had to believe it, Hermione. It was the only way I'd found so far to defeat him, and Pettigrew…well, he owed me."
Hermione watched him fidget, looking for all the world like a boy who'd just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It's our faith in each other that makes us so strong. No, she couldn't be angry with him, not when his judgment had saved them all.
"That was a good Summoning Charm," she said, and he looked up at her with a wide grin.
"I had a good teacher."
Hermione blushed. "You would have learned, eventually."
Harry shook his head. "It wouldn't have worked in there if it wasn't for you," he said so sincerely that she found herself blushing all over again.
At that moment, before Hermione could come up with a reply to his words, Harry gave a forceful yawn. He chuckled and smiled sleepily at her. "I suppose I should get to my bed now."
Hermione swallowed. She couldn't believe what she was about to ask, even after all they'd done. "Do you…do you want to stay here? With me?"
She watched as he wet his lips and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."
Hermione scooted over and he slid between the blankets next to her. Immediately her heart was racing - how did he do that? He pulled her nearer and then she was against him, wrapped in all his warmth. Contently she let her eyes drift closed.
"I can't believe it's over," she murmured. "We've finally made it to the end."
"No," Harry said. "It's only the beginning."
Authors' Note: For those of you wondering, there is one more chapter left to this story. This was originally supposed to be the last, but then Goldy was attacked by a plot bunny. Chapter 9 will be posted sometime next week. We've been updating daily because the story was already written and ready to go thus far, but as 9 was not, there will be a bit of a wait.
See you soon!