Disclaimer: Not mine, as if you lived under a rock and thought it was.
PART I: The End of the Beginning
Chapter Five: Journey's End
Harry and Hermione moved in an erratic, zigzag course through the forest between Hogsmeade and Hogwart's, trying to head in the general direction of the Shrieking Shack. Harry seemed to be making for the dull orange gleam that was probably what was left of the "most haunted building in Britain". Every now and then, some distance ahead of them, there was a spray of light from a wand. Hermione thought that it must have been Draco, both helping them find the way and maintaining the illusion that they were dueling.
Harry obviously thought the same thing, for he was shooting hexes harmlessly into the trees at random intervals. They were moving at an easy jog, and it was a minute or so before Hermione realized that they were still - again? - holding hands. She guiltily thought of Ron, and squirmed her fingers a bit. She couldn't tell if he'd glanced at her in the dark, but she felt his sudden involuntary movement toward her, which he quickly checked.
He let go of her hand, and she felt bereft.
Behind them, Hogsmeade was lit in a brilliant blaze. Distantly, he heard cries of warning, sharp incantations, and exclamations of surprise or pain. White sparks shot up from two different places simultaneously. The battle appeared to have heightened in the few moments since their departure.
She felt him hesitate.
"Hermione…" he said, and in that one word - her own name - he managed to convey all of the uncertainty, the fear, the guilt, and desperation that he was feeling at that precise moment. They were two of the best combatants at Hogwart's - he had taken the place of an actual Defense teacher their fifth year! - and here they were, abandoning their mates at a time when they were sorely needed, to follow Draco Malfoy on an improbable quest into the Shrieking Shack.
He heard the soft smack of her lips, as she parted them to speak. Her fingers groped toward him in the dark, and caressed his in a gesture meant to reassure. He sent another curse into the treetops, and was pleased to see an answering flash, much closer to the fire. Some dried leaves fluttered onto their heads, dislodged by Draco's misaimed spell.
"Don't think of it, Harry," she said, her voice hoarse, and he knew that she knew and understood the thousand and one thoughts ricocheting around his mind. "If Malfoy's telling the truth…then how many lives will you be saving?"
"And if he's not?" Harry asked, as Hermione had known he would, his tone laden with bitterness. They were at the edge of the trees now, and the dying orange light was more vivid now. The Shrieking Shack was a shell of what it had once been - which wasn't much. The roof was blackened and gone on one side, and pieces of charred wall stood unevenly, pointing up at the sky like accusing fingers. The fire seemed to be going out on its own, though gouts of flame still shot up occasionally from the gap in the roof…or else the person guarding the tunnels was keeping it at a predetermined level. They approached the clearing around the house cautiously, wands out. Somehow he and Hermione had joined hands again. Damn.
"You're not thinking like him, Harry," Hermione said gently, feeling so glad that he was completely incapable of processes that dark. "Voldemort's scared of you. He's not sure he can beat you on his own, even though he gets some confidence from his horcruxes. He might not even realize that most of them are gone. Why not take out as many people as possible at the same time? And if - by some off-chance - you beat him, then he's still destroyed all the people close to you." Hermione spoke lightly, but her voice was tremulous.
Harry swallowed suddenly, watching her with eyes that seemed suspiciously moist. "I hope you're wrong, Hermione," he said. "And this at least reinforces my opinion that you shouldn't come with me. If anything happens to you…" He stretched out a hand to cup her cheek, but stopped, his eyes suddenly going to the ruined building. "There's Malfoy," he said suddenly, as the Slytherin tried to enter stealthily through a window, obviously keeping up the illusion of enmity. Harry blasted an area just to the right of the window with a Reductor curse.
"Let's go," he nodded to Hermione, and she followed him. They entered through the same window, stepping into a room that was hot and thick with smoke. Reflexively, they both began coughing.
"At least the passageway is in the basement," Hermione whispered gratefully. A spell shot past them both, and shattered another window. Harry swore under his breath. They crept through the downstairs rooms, stepping carefully. It was unbearably hot, and somewhere upstairs, fire still crackled. Harry watched as a tongue of flame worked its way down the mostly charred stairwell, only to stop suddenly at a point about halfway down. He grunted in satisfaction; he'd been right. After burning the downstairs, the fire had been charmed to stay upstairs, probably after the person guarding the passage arrived.
Now they were at the top of the stairs leading into the cellar. Harry thought of casting "Lumos", but decided against it, not wanting to give whoever awaited them any more of an advantage than necessary. He felt Hermione's hand dig into his, as they began their descent, the stairs beneath them groaning ominously.
Suddenly, a hand reached out between the treads of the stairs and grabbed his ankle, causing his forward momentum to continue only with his upper body. His hand wrenched from Hermione's - she shrieked his name and lit her wand - while he bounced end over end to the bottom of the stairs. He impacted the cool earthen floor with his face, although he did manage to absorb some of the blow with his outstretched arms. Something in his side crunched noisily as he hit the bottom step with his midsection, and he tasted blood in his mouth. He had heard Hermione's cry as he fell, and turned to look back up at her, his head swimming with the pain and sudden movement.
She was standing on the center step, her wand alight, staring at the foot of the stairs, but over Harry's head in utter horror.
With growing dread, Harry turned to look at what had Hermione so stricken. He was not sure who he had been expecting, but the person towering over him was not it; although now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure why. Anger spurred him to his feet, though the mere actions of moving and breathing sent stabs of pain through his torso. At least one rib was probably broken. He spat blood into the hard-packed earth, and willed himself not to throw up.
He lifted his chin with as much cool defiance and controlled fury as he could muster, and deliberately raised his wand. "You." His voice dripped with menace.
"I do hate to spoil your fun, Potter, but unfortunately, you have little time for ridiculous posturing." The man was as implacable as ever, speaking as infuriatingly calmly as he ever did while lecturing a Potions class. Did he not realize that the last time they saw each other that he had killed someone, and Harry had tried, however pitiable those attempts might have been, to kill him?
Harry stood silently, as he heard Hermione's soft footfalls on the stairs, and felt her presence just behind him. His nostrils flared as he compressed his mouth tightly, the anger inside him causing him to breathe more rapidly.
"Are you all right?" she asked softly, her voice velvety with concern. "Why are you hurting him?" She asked Snape accusingly, and her tone had a quasi-hysterical note in it that she immediately wished she could call back. She flattened her mouth into a thin line.
Snape read the situation instantly, and his mouth pinched upward in the approximation of a smirk. "Oh, this is lovely," he said sarcastically. Harry felt himself flush, as Draco Malfoy crawled out from under the stairs, and loftily brushed dust from his robes. Why did Snape have to take this… this thing…between him and Hermione, that neither one of them had even begun to figure out yet, and make it something tawdry and sordid? "The Dark Lord will very much enjoy having the girl Potter loves at his … disposal." His insinuation was unmistakable, and Harry felt his blood begin to roar at a fever-pitch in his ears.
"Really, Potter…I'd have thought you would know better than to bring someone so…important along. Having her here will only serve to make you weak." He spat the last word, his face twisting into an ugly sneer. Harry felt Hermione draw closer, and he had a sickening feeling in his gut that Snape was right. All Voldemort had to do was maim, torture, or threaten to kill Hermione, and he would be lost, broken…and the hopes of the wizarding world would be lost and broken with him.
"I'd think you'd be glad of that, then," Harry said coolly, his white knuckles the only betrayal of his surging emotions, as he gripped his wand tightly. The look on Snape's face was one of utter contempt and loathing.
"And still you fail miserably to understand. How predictable…and pathetic," Snape said. Malfoy stood nearby, watching the conversation intently.
"How come you're not carting me off to see Tom?" Harry asked, arching one brow, trying to call Voldemort the most disrespectful moniker he could think of. "Master would reward you pretty well for that, I'd imagine. Aren't you worried he'll know you're talking to me instead of AK'ing me on the spot?" His ire trembled beneath his words, and he struggled to control it.
"Once you were in the Shrieking Shack, you were removed from the Dark Lord's ability to see. There are powerful charms on this building…stemming, I suppose, from the years that wolf had to use it," Snape said, sounding almost civil until he began to speak of Lupin. Harry thought of Lupin, fighting in Hogsmeade, and the anger rose up to stifle him.
He felt the brush of a mind against his, and slammed the doors to his consciousness closed with all the force he could muster. He imagined gigantic steel portals shutting with a resounding clang. Physically, he hadn't moved a centimeter. Snape looked grudgingly impressed.
"It would appear that you have at least attempted to follow the advice I gave you at our last meeting," Snape said, beginning to stroll coolly around the cellar. His black robes billowed behind him dramatically. Harry just gaped at him, thoroughly astonished. The nerve of this man to call their flight across the Hogwart's green firing curses and accusations at each other…their last meeting? "Voldemort will be expecting us to arrive with you soon. We do not have much time."
We do not have much time. Harry fastened onto that phrase and tried to understand it. Snape was still fighting against Voldemort? But where had he been? And why had he run? And why had he used Avada Kedavra on the only man that trusted him?
"I suppose an explanation of sorts is in order, because it is imperative that you do as I tell you," Snape continued. "I was ensnared into an Unbreakable Vow by Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange before term last school year. To refuse the vow would have invited questions and perhaps blown my cover. I confided this to Dumbledore, and we both began to watch Mr. Malfoy." Harry's surprise must have been transparently emblazoned across his forehead, for Snape turned to sneer at him again. "Did you really think that you were the only person in the school to notice that Mr. Malfoy was acting oddly? Your father had the same inflated opinion of himself, and it was just as revolting then as it is now."
"You leave my father out of this," Harry interjected, his voice quivering with rage. "You can't hold his actions in school against him, so you'll just hold them against me instead?"
"Like you hold my house and my former affiliations against me?" Snape rebutted smoothly.
"I hold only your blatant prejudices against you," Harry retorted, although he was not entirely sure that Snape wasn't at least partially correct. The former Professor waved one hand dismissively.
"I tried to gain Mr. Malfoy's confidence throughout the school year, and, though I guessed much, I was not actually told anything. It was only when Professor Flitwick came to my office with the news that Death Eaters were in the castle that I began to realize the full picture."
"You didn't kill him," Hermione cut in suddenly, remembering rushing in with Luna to help their fallen Charms teacher. Snape looked at her contemptuously.
"Ten points to Gryffindor. And contrary to popular opinion, Miss Granger," Snape said in a scathing tone, "I do not enjoy drinking blood, sacrificing baby animals, or murdering people.
"When I arrived at the Astronomy Tower, and saw the…tableau there, I knew then what Mr. Malfoy had been told to do, and that he would be unable to do it." He darted a quick look at Draco. "I must confess I had had my doubts as to Mr. Malfoy's allegiances up until that point. Dumbledore was dying already; it was quite obvious that he had ingested some kind of poison that was killing him. We had already discussed the possibility of Draco being forced to harm someone - namely him - and it was the Headmaster's opinion that my cover was more important than his life." Snape seemed to think the idea foolish, and Harry was reminded of Hagrid's report of their argument over…something the headmaster wanted Snape to do.
"Your story is quite convenient considering that the only other party to it is dead!" Harry said suddenly. But he remembered Dumbledore's final words, "Severus, please…" Harry had thought he was begging for his life, but what if he'd been wrong? Severus, please end this. I know you can see the pallor of death on my face. We've discussed this. Death Eaters are watching. Your ability to provide information is at stake. Severus, please… Uncertainty flickered across Harry's face, and he knew that Snape had seen it.
"Why did you run?" Harry asked abruptly, annoyed with himself. "If Dumbledore was so concerned about your ability to feed information to the Order, why did you run? You certainly haven't provided any information."
"I sent Draco to you as soon as I had any information to send," Snape said smoothly. Harry's face was a mask of confusion.
"The - the Death Eater attack at Godric's Hollow?" he asked. Snape nodded as if it should have been patently obvious. "He was … he was going through the desk…"
"He had placed a list of names and dates on the desk…information on the key Death Eaters inside Voldemort's inner circle. Did any of you even look at it?" Harry and Hermione exchanged bewildered looks. They had shrunk all their notes and carted them to Hogwart's. Had they even looked through it in the last couple of days?
"He tried to duel me!" Harry accused.
"I was trying to get you to listen to me!" Draco said, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived in the cellar.
"Disarming me after attempting to Stun me is not a way to get me to listen!"
"Did you ever stop to wonder why I tried to Stun you instead of just using the Killing Curse right then?!"
"'Potter belongs to the Dark Lord…we are to leave him!'" Harry yelled suddenly, the words ripping hoarsely from the depths of his throat, betraying all of his pain and anger in one sentence, as he quoted from his battle with Snape. Something unreadable flickered in the dark eyes of their former Professor. Harry felt Hermione's comforting hand on his lower arm. He felt suddenly exhausted, trembling with fury and fatigue, and his left side was throbbing unbearably with every breath he took.
"We've tarried here long enough," Snape said, cutting into his and Draco's altercation. "Draco is to take you to him."
Harry looked at Draco Malfoy with the purest loathing. "Take me where?" he asked, with as much attitude as he could muster. Snape glanced at him with some surprise.
"Why, to the Chamber of Secrets, of course. That's where he's waiting." Of course, Harry thought gloomily. A part of him knew that in the next few minutes his life would most probably be over, and yet, there welled up inside him a fierce desire to live, not for himself, but for the hundreds of thousands - maybe millions - that would be affected if he failed. He was the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One… as much as he hated this nicknames, he was bound by them, bound by people's expectations of him. He couldn't let them down.
But the horcrux…the last horcrux…he thought dismally.
As if reading his mind, although Harry had felt no intrusion, Snape turned suddenly and looked at him sharply.
"The Dark Lord is wearing an amulet. He has confided to no one what exactly it is or what it does, but he has been fiercely protective of it and quite secretive about it. I would be wary of it, if I were you. Destroying it would most likely be … worth your while." Snape's black eyes darted back and forth across Harry's face, as if he were searching for something.
"This?" Harry said contemptuously. "This is what all the cloak and dagger was for? Spiriting me down here to tell me that Tom has a necklace he really likes?"
Snape's eyes appeared to grow darker in the dim light, and his mouth turned downward suddenly in an angry, angular slash. Harry could feel Hermione's hand on his arm, tugging insistently at his sleeve. He looked over his shoulder at her, and her eyes were wide, as she looked at him urgently, trying to wordlessly convey something to him.
Horcrux… the word swam through his mind and drifted away. Harry focused his attention back on Snape.
"Is the amulet a gemstone? A ruby?" he asked brusquely, trying to repress the urgency that laced his tone. Snape said nothing, but nodded once, slowly. Harry let a rush of air out through his nostrils in a kind of relieved half-laugh. Great…nothing to do now but destroy a Dark Lord and his last horcrux that he is guarding at the same time!
"Let's go," Snape said. Without warning, Draco shoved Harry down to the ground roughly.
He made a kind of grunting "Nngh" sound as he tried desperately to keep his injured rib from impacting the floor. He tore one knee of his jeans, and his cloak was smeared with dirt. Carefully, and with much effort, he stood back to his feet, trying to keep his weight off of the knee that was now swelling. His rib stabbed at him painfully, and he tried to take breaths without gasping out loud.
"Mr. Malfoy!" Snape said in an exasperated way, in what Harry assumed was intended as some kind of reproach.
"It has to look like I brought him in with a fight," Draco explained coolly, although a smirk played around the edges of his mouth.
"That would be easier to believe if you weren't enjoying it so much," Harry shot back. "Besides, if you really want me to prevail, starting me out with the disadvantage of being wounded doesn't make much - NO!"
Draco had moved behind Hermione, and was preparing to throw her down as well. He looked up at Harry's shout.
"Don't hurt her," he said. "She's not going down into the Chamber with me - "
"Harry - !" she protested, but he overrode her interjection.
"-so you don't have to hurt her. Please." His voice was calm, even though his insides roiled at the thought of pleading with Malfoy for anything. Malfoy arched one brow at him.
"Have it your way, Potter," he said, magnanimously, as if granting a favor. He raked his gaze insolently over Hermione, taking in her dirty face, slashed cheek, and bloody hand. "She looks bad enough all on her own, I suppose."
Harry made an involuntary movement forward, which Hermione checked by replacing her hand on his arm. "Don't fight him, Harry. You have rather enough to be worrying about." She then addressed the two nemeses that stood between them and the passageway to Hogwart's. "We're ready," she said coolly.
"Hermione, I said - " Harry began desperately, his eyes darting toward Snape and Malfoy. He really did not want to have this conversation in front of Snape's dour countenance and Malfoy's superior amusement.
"Harry, I can help you!" Hermione whispered urgently, moving her hand from his arm to his mouth, to stem his flow of words. "You're going to need all the help you can get." Harry turned his head to one side, to speak again, and Hermione gasped slightly at the sensation of his lips running across her palm.
"You can't help me, Hermione. You'd be a liability down there. Anybody would…but you especially - "
"Why `me especially?'" Hermione asked quietly, looking hurt. He grabbed her arms just above the elbows with both hands, and looked intently into her face, which remained in the shadows due to the dirt and uncertain lighting.
"Hermione, don't you know that I l - " He blundered to a stop hastily, but not before it was obvious to everyone present what he had been going to say. He cursed inwardly, as Malfoy raised both eyebrows and rubbed his hands together in a sort of shocked glee. I was never going to tell her. I was never going to tell anybody, Harry thought angrily.
"Granger, weren't you lusting after the Weasel all last year?" Malfoy asked, delightedly. "A love triangle in the Golden Trio? How dirty!" He wrinkled his nose with mock amusement. "This might give me another reason to hope you live, Potter. Although, if you've got the choice between Ginny Weasley - " he made an hourglass shape with his hands and then gestured dismissively toward Hermione, who'd stepped out of Harry's grasp and was staring into middle distance, her chin lifted.
"Shut it, Malfoy," Harry ground out through clenched teeth.
Snape was masking a yawn politely with one hand. "These adolescent intrigues have always been quite tiresome, but never more so than now. For the last time, it is time you departed." He ushered them into the tunnel with one hand, Draco taking the lead with a lit wand. Harry and Hermione came after, and Snape remained behind, guarding the passageway. Harry felt some measure of relief that his great bat-like form would not be stalking behind them all the way to the Chamber.
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They stood in Moaning Myrtle's loo, staring at the sink in question. It was quite dark and disconcerting, and somewhere in the cavernous-sounding place, water was dripping. Voldemort must have closed the entrance after he entered to assure that only the lone Parselmouth in school would be able to follow him down there.
"Come on, snakey-face, let's have it open," Malfoy taunted, and Harry followed his instructions. His heart had been pounding rapidly as they walked through the strangely abandoned corridors of Hogwart's, but now, faced with his final destiny, he felt strangely calm. There was a heavy grind of moving porcelain, as the entrance to the Chamber formed in front of them. Hermione gaped at it in awe.
Harry moved toward the dark hole in the bathroom floor, when a breathy voice spoke from behind them.
"Oh, hallo, Harry!" it said in delight. "It seems as if you are always following someone down there. Though the little redheaded girl was a much nicer person to be running after than this chap who's down there now," the resident ghost shuddered dramatically. Harry thought he felt Hermione stiffen a little next to him at the mention of Ginny.
"Hello, Myrtle," Harry said politely.
"And you!" Myrtle's voice went up even higher, if that was possible. "I heard you couldn't do it," she said, disappointment tingeing her voice, as she looked fondly at Draco. "That's really a pity, because you could have stayed with me after they excecuted you! Do they still do that?" Her forehead crinkled, as she cocked her head inquisitively to one side, her voice oddly light and bubbly, considering the subject matter she was discussing. Malfoy was staring toward the sink, studiously ignoring her.
"Go on, Potter," he said woodenly, jerking his chin at the opening.
"That's fine," Myrtle said sulkily. "Ignore me now that you're no longer emotionally wounded. Just forget about how I was there for you, when no one else was!" She glanced back and forth between the two young men, and then flounced huffily off to her U-bend. There was a loud splash, and then silence.
"You're not coming?" Harry said, some surprise leaking involuntarily into his tone. A ghost of Malfoy's trademark smirk was back.
"You thought I was?" He asked, cocking one eyebrow. Hermione had moved up to stand with him at the entrance to the Chamber.
"Hermione, stay here." He said forcefully. She drew back in astonishment at his imperative tone. He blinked at her, and added, "Please. Stay up here. If anything happened to you - and he knows that…he can use it against me. Please." She watched him for a moment, her eyes limpid.
"All right, I'll stay," she said, even as she rather loathed the acquiescent note in her voice. "But we're going to have a lot to talk about when you get back!" One side of Harry's mouth quirked up in a half-smile, and he nodded at her.
Then he was gone.
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At the bottom of the slick chute, he landed with a light splat into damp muck, much as he had nearly five years ago. He came gingerly to his feet, his left arm cradled protectively around his side, limping slightly. His knee felt stiff and sore. Damn Malfoy for his ridiculous games. And damn him for always hedging his bets. How typically Slytherin! He knew that that was the reason Malfoy had remained above…in case Harry lost, he could still pretend that he had always been on Voldemort's side.
His scar began to twinge, and the pain quickly grew into a dull, throbbing ache, pressing mercilessly against his skull as if something were trying to get out. Something like despair surged up in him. How was he supposed to fight Voldemort - or anybody at all - handicapped thusly?
Shuffling softly, wand out but unlit, he made his way to the door with the entwined snakes, and quietly hissed for it to open. The panels of the door slid to each side, and Harry found himself in the Chamber. Instinctively, he kept to one side, stealing near the shadows of the pillars that lined the main aisle, rather than walking in plain view.
"Mr. Potter?" came a high, blood-chilling voice. "So good of you to come." He managed to make it sound like he had invited Harry over for tea.
"Let's get this over with, Tom," Harry said dully, putting a biting emphasis on the Muggle name that Voldemort hated so.
"Taking a lesson or two from old Dumbledore, are you?" Voldemort said, with anger obviously running through his tone. "He couldn't stand against me either!"
"We won't ever know that, will we?" Harry shot back, ducking around one pillar and peering toward the statue of Slytherin. Where was he? "You didn't even have the guts to do it yourself; instead you bullied a little Death Eater-in-training into doing it. And then Snape had to save his arse. Some following you have, eh, Tom?"
A jet of light shot from somewhere ahead of him and to his right, and nicked the edge of the pillar just above his head. Powdery rock sifted down onto him and stung his eyes. His scar throbbed.
He shot a reductor curse, not in the direction of the light, but at the Salazar Slytherin statue. A fold of his robes and part of his beard crumbled away, falling onto the damp stone with a low rumble.
Voldemort laughed. "You're going to have to come out and face me eventually, Potter!"
Harry's next two curses misfired, which was no surprise since Harry still had no clear read on exactly where Voldemort was standing. Voldemort's next hex stung the edges of his fingers, which were clinging to a pillar, and caused him to drop his wand. It clattered noisily to the stone pavement, echoes resounding around the chamber, and Voldemort chortled again.
He's completely mad, Harry thought in amazement, as he threw himself down to the damp stone and scrambled for his wand. He could not stop a loud wheeze of pain as his knee and rib protested mightily. Half-blindly, he searched, his numb fingers questing, until they finally closed around a smooth wooden shaft. He breathed a silent sigh of relief, and crept around another column, almost noiselessly.
And there! He could see the hem of Voldemort's robes, standing at the head of the Chamber, partially obscured by Salazar's memorial. I wasn't so far off with my reductor curse after all, he thought, and sent a non-verbal Incendio toward his archenemy.
The flame snaked across the floor as if following a fuse, but stopped short, as something blue and shimmery swirled around Voldemort. A shield… Harry thought glumly.
Voldemort snapped his head in the direction from which the flame had come. A gout of green light spewed from the end of his wand.
Harry jerked behind the relative safety of the stone column just in time.
The curse hit the column, which vibrated in protest with a dull roar. More rock bounced down toward him, as Harry looked warily at the ceiling.
He leaned with his back against the column, and thought furiously. Voldemort was obviously in no hurry, thinking - probably correctly - that he could take Harry out at anytime he so wished.
He darted suddenly from one column to another, throwing out Stupefy after Stupefy, as he did so. He watched Voldemort's shield smoke and begin to fizzle, as the Dark Lord tried desperately to get a bead on him. Green light shot almost continuously from his wadn, gouging out holes from the paving stones and the surrounding pillars. Harry danced away from it, favoring his injured leg, desperately trying to stay one step ahead of Voldemort's curses. The Chamber rumbled again, as if in protest.
Harry had raised his wand again, hoping against hope that the shield had been dismantled by his bombardment, when he heard it. He stopped still, wishing with everything that he had that he'd been wrong.
But no, there it was again.
"Harry?" came a questioning voice, like she was looking for him in the library, instead of in the evil Chamber of Snakes and Death, with the most feared wizard ever trying to kill him.
It was Hermione.
She was walking almost unconcernedly up the main aisle of the Chamber, in plain sight of Voldemort, like she was taking a stroll out in the courtyard on a lovely spring afternoon. Her wand was out, but down by her side. Hermione, what the hell are you doing? Harry thought desperately.
Voldemort was watching her with undisguised and almost amused curiosity, and Harry felt hope rise up in him again. His ego is what Hermione is counting on. Perhaps he could finish Voldemort off while Hermione distracted him.
The two duelers raised their wands at almost the same time.
Voldemort was aiming at Hermione.
"NO!" Harry screamed out suddenly, the echoes bouncing hideously around the Chamber. He dashed out from his hiding place, wildly fired off a couple of curses that bounced off of the still-intact shield, and would have thrown himself in front of her, but Voldemort leveled his wand on Harry instead.
"Reducto!" Voldemort said in a low, malevolent voice, and blasted out both of Harry's knees.
Harry let out a blood-curdling scream of unadulterated pain, as his legs crumpled grotesquely beneath him, and he skidded toward Hermione, his cheek coming roughly into contact with the damp stone of the Chamber floor. His wand flew out of his hand into the shadows of the pillars opposite.
Hermione was looking at him with unmitigated horror. Her wand was blasted from her hand by a wordless spell from Voldemort, before she even had a chance to raise it.
She knelt down behind him, and he pulled himself up into a half-sitting position with his arms, still managing to be in between her and Voldemort. His vision blackened around the edges, as he dragged his useless legs behind him.
Voldemort regarded the two of them almost paternally.
"This has all turned out much better than I expected," he said. "Now I get to kill you both." He looked at Hermione. "Yes, I know you quite well. His dreams are full of you? Did you know that?" He then addressed Harry. "Did you think I couldn't sense your dreams…the disgusting dreams you had about this filthy Mudblood? They were repugnant, pathetic… a symbol of everything that is wrong about our world, but now… you get to watch her die." He shrugged casually. "And then you will die too, and the prophecy will be fulfilled. I would say you put up a valiant effort, but…" he trailed off, his meaning unmistakable.
Harry felt Hermione shifting behind him, and wondered what she was doing, even as he hazily felt her press something into his hand. It was hard and sharp, and small enough to cup in his palm.
It was slender, with two pieces of hard metal jutting out from the sides, near the top, like the crossbars of a "T". He felt blood drip into his palm, as the pointy end of it grazed his skin.
And then all at once, he knew what it was.
Voldemort was standing nearly over them now, looming menacingly, speaking loftily about blood cleansing and a new order of things. Harry fought to stay conscious, cupping the precious object in his hand, trying to concentrate on the spell that he would need. His lower back was flush against Hermione's bent knees, and he felt her arms pressing against his back, helping him stay in an upright position.
At that moment, Voldemort leaned toward them, and a large red stone swayed out from underneath his robes, hanging from a heavy gold chain. It looked like the rubies from the hilt of Gryffindor's sword, and yet did not, as cold fire swirled and roiled in its depths, almost as if it contained something alive.
Harry concentrated, his brow furrowing, calling up magic from the deepest of his reserves. As the force welled up within him, he felt the pain from his knees fade into the back of his mind. He thought fiercely, Engorgio!
Voldemort stopped speaking, and looked at him, clearly not liking the sudden determination shining from Harry's face. He raised his wand.
Harry clenched his hands around the pommel of Godric Gryffindor's sword.
Voldemort aimed carefully at Hermione, who blinked placidly at him, her face calm and unafraid. Something else was shining from her face as well…something that he did not altogether understand, and so was uncomfortable with…something that had beamed from Lily Potter's face like a beacon on that Halloween night so long ago.
"Avada Kedavra!"
With strength he didn't know he still possessed, Harry raised the heavy sword, which shone oddly in the otherworldly light, and blocked the jet of green light. The sword clanged like a gong and shivered in Harry's hands. He felt the shockwave from the impact reverberate down into his arms, and he grunted, feeling the searing pain in his legs beginning to surge back toward him like a tidal wave.
Voldemort lifted his wand again -
It was as if a curtain had been lifted. Harry could see into his mind.
…he wasn't going to cast the Killing curse again. He was going to blast the sword -
He was afraid of the sword.
He couldn't protect himself from the sword.
The horcrux swung pendulously from its heavy chain, catching Harry's eye again.
Harry struggled to swing the sword higher, his arms trembling with fatigue. He suddenly felt Hermione's arms go around him, her hands encircle his, and they both surged forward, Hermione pressing into him from behind, holding him up, driving him forward.
The sword penetrated the amulet with a squelching noise, passed through it and into Voldemort's breastbone. Red smoke began to hiss from the ruby, as Voldemort's eyes widened with something like shock. Blood spattered across the floor of the Chamber.
Harry's scar glowed white-hot, and seemed to be branding itself anew into Harry's forehead. He released the handle, as if it was burning him, and fell backwards onto stone, most of his weight on top of Hermione. Hermione helped him sit, after a fashion, and pulled herself out from under him. He felt her fingers thread through his hair gently.
Voldemort staggered backwards from them, the heavy silver sword still protruding from his body, his eyes fixated with wonder on Harry's forehead. The amulet was hissing violently now, and a faint, shrill scream issued forth, spiraling up toward the shrouded roof of the Chamber. When the shriek had died away, there was a loud crack, and the ruby shattered into pieces that clattered across the floor, rolling into silence. The heavy chain hung loose and empty around Voldemort's neck.
But the older wizard still had his wand, and was struggling to make his fading body obey him.
Harry watched him in horror, knowing that he had nothing left. His knees were screaming now in blind agony, and he pitched forward from his half-kneeling position onto his face. His vision began to cloud over, as he felt something sticky and warm seep through his shirt, and knew that he had fallen into Voldemort's blood.
Green light flashed somewhere above his head, and he heard Hermione let out a short shriek that was suddenly cut off. Rock bounced down around them, obliterating themselves on the damp paving-stones of the floor.
Hermione! No! his mind screamed out, as the ceiling began to rumble, and that rumble turned into a dull roar. The roof of the Chamber began to cascade downwards. Harry struggled to lift his head again, saw Voldemort fall at the feet of Salazar Slytherin's statue. He did not move again.
"Hermione?" he asked, clinging to consciousness with all that he had left. There was no answer. He pulled himself around, turning himself in the opposite direction, where Hermione had been behind him, his fingers bleeding from the abrasion with the stone floor. His fingernails were tearing away from his hands.
He saw her slumped form in the middle of the aisle.
"Hermione?" he asked again, and his heart leaped into his chest, when he thought he saw her stir ever so slightly.
He dragged himself toward her excruciatingly slowly, the pain making him nauseated and dizzy. He belatedly realized that some of his difficulty might have been due to the destruction of another horcrux. The ceiling continued to groan and shift, and every now and then, small pieces of rock and dustings of powder tumbled down onto Harry's head.
Finally, he reached her side, and feebly shook her shoulder.
"Hermione?" he asked again, in a broken, despairing voice. There was a pool of blood beneath her head. He wanted to scream, to cry, to demand of Voldemort that he take him too. He was too tired for sobbing, and tears just leaked weakly out of his eyes, trailing damp dirty tracks down his filthy face. She had brought him the sword. She had risked her life - perhaps given her life - to destroy the darkest wizard of all time. He had won…but the victory was bitter as ash in his mouth. He didn't want to win, if the cost was her life. You can't ask it of me, he thought bitterly, railing at Fate. The price is too high.
The beleaguered Chamber finally decided that it had had enough - Harry wondered dimly if it had anything to do with the death of the last of Slytherin's line - and the ceiling caved in completely.
Harry pulled on the last of the magical reserves he had, and extended a Protego around Hermione. He tried to put it over him as well, but wasn't sure he had enough power to do it. He reached out for Hermione's hand, as the rocks rained down around them, a death knell for an evil place, an evil man, an evil age.
"I love you," he whispered brokenly as he gave in to the gathering darkness that had been waiting to claim him.
TBC
AN: Please review! I liked this chapter okay, but I have a terrible feeling that I suck at battle scenes. So if you liked it, let me know. Or if I was right and it did suck, you can tell me that too, but I can't promise to like that as much.
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