Nagini reared back to strike, but as she did so, Neville suddenly broke free of the magic restraining him. His hand shot out. As Voldemort had said, he wasn't holding a wand. Hermione's heart stalled as the sword of Gryffindor flashed through the air and severed Nagini's head.
The snake dropped, and a wave of dark magic rippled out and dissipated into the air.
Voldemort gave a scream of rage that tore through the air with such violence Hermione could feel the pressure against her eardrums. He raised his wand to curse Neville, but, before a spell left his lips, Harry appeared, standing protectively in front of Neville.
“Here I am, Tom,” Harry said. His voice was almost too quiet to hear compared to Voldemort's amplification.
The entire field went still.
Harry and Voldemort stood facing each other at the base of the Astronomy Tower.
Voldemort seemed surprised to suddenly find Harry before him. He stared at him for several seconds in silence without moving.
“Harry Potter,” he finally whispered. “The Boy Who Lived.”
No one in the Resistance moved. The Death Eaters did not move. They were all waiting. The whole war reduced to a moment.
Harry's wand hung from his fingers. Not raised. Not prepared to duel. He was simply standing, waiting. Facing death with an expression of grief and resignation.
Voldemort seemed baffled. He tilted his head to one side and stared at Harry for several seconds before extending his wand.
Hermione saw his mouth move.
A flash of green light.
The curse struck Harry, and a backlash of power ricocheted back and struck Voldemort, throwing him off his feet.
Harry dropped to the ground.
Hermione felt as though her heart had ceased beating. She didn't scream, but she could feel a strangled sob in her chest and throat, like a creature in its death throes, trying to break free.
It felt like she was dying too.
Harry. Please. You're the boy who lived.
The entire army was too shocked to make a sound.
Voldemort stood up, almost shakily, but Harry still lay where he'd fallen.
“My Lord.” Lucius Malfoy and several other unmasked Death Eaters had gathered around Voldemort.
“I do not require assisssstance.” Voldemort jerked away from the hands extended towards him. “Is the boy dead?”
Ron and Fred and several others were moving towards Harry, but before they could reach him, Voldemort cast a spell, and Harry's body was violently jerked across the grass towards him.
“Allow me, my Lord,” Lucius said, giving a low bow to Voldemort before approaching Harry's body.
Lucius was gaunt, even from a distance. It was as though his skin were tightly drawn over his bones. His blond hair was longer than it had been when Hermione had fought him in the Ministry so many years before. He still moved with an easy grace almost reminiscent of Draco, but there was an edge of eager unpredictability woven into the way he moved. An aristocratic bloodlust.
He knelt down next to Harry and slowly slid a hand up Harry's throat.
Lucius' hand jerked back, and he stood as though burned.
“He's alive.”
As the words were uttered, Harry suddenly moved, his wand whipping up.
Voldemort was quicker and already poised to strike.
“Avada Kedavra.”
The curse struck Harry in the chest, and his green eyes went blank.
Voldemort wasn't done. His face contorted with rage.
“Avada Kedavra.” The curse struck Harry's body again.
There was screaming now. The Resistance screamed Harry's name, over and over. Hermione gave a low sob, torn from deep in her chest, gripping the canvas of the tent in order to keep from dropping with despair onto the ground.
“Harry!” Ron threw himself towards Harry.
A scarlet curse shot out from among the Death Eaters and struck Ron. He flew through the air and crashed into the Astronomy Tower with a sickening crunch that Hermione could hear across the field.
Other Resistance fighters were moving towards Harry too, as though they didn't know what to do but try to reach his body.
Run. Hermione wanted to scream it, beg it, plead it. Leave the dead behind.
Run.
“Avada Kedavra!” Voldemort cast another killing curse on Harry.
Hermione started to flee but flinched as she heard another “Avada Kedavra!”
She looked back one last time and watched Voldemort walk over, casting the Killing Curse on Harry a sixth time. Voldemort's right hand was extended, his wand hanging from his fingertips, but his left hand was pressed lightly against the centre of his chest.
The gesture was strangely human. As though he were injured but trying to hide it.
There was still a horcrux left. Harry's plan would have worked, it should have worked, but there was still a horcrux left.
Hermione's eyes swept across the battlefield. The fighting had resumed, but the Resistance had lost. They were too shocked and despairing as they tried to defend themselves.
Hermione's hand twitched forward. Then she set her jaw and slammed her occlumency walls into place.
You can't save them. Someone has to find the last horcrux. She turned and bolted towards the apparition point.
As soon as she was away from the disillusioned tents, she was spotted. Several spells shot past her as she made for the treeline.
A curse grazed her shoulder, but her cloak blocked it. She flung herself into the forest. As she reached the anti-apparition marker, a Death Eater suddenly appeared, blocking her path and catching hold of her arm.
Hermione twisted and broke free, driving her elbow into his diaphragm and flinging herself past the disapparition point.
She was vanishing as she felt herself crushed under a body.
She reappeared and choked as her lungs filled with water. She was face-down in water. Her lungs burning as she tried to fight free. There were stones digging into her as the Death Eater's weight pinned her underwater. She pulled her head up, choking and gasping. The water and blood roaring in her ears. A hand gripped her hair and wrenched her head further back. Her hands scrabbled through the water, she snatched up a rock and twisted her body to smash it into the Death Eater's head before he drowned her.
She managed to strike him once before the rock was knocked from her grip.
A moment later everything went black.
Chapter End Notes
This chapter contains several lines and paraphrased excerpts of Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows Chapters 33, 34, and 36.
Also, Manacled now has a Facebook Group.
Flashback 37
Two notes: First, regarding my making a summary of the first twenty-five chapters before the present chapters resume, I have decided to create one. However, in order to avoid breaking up the story unnaturally, it's an external googledoc, found here. However, the readers who have reread say that the recontextualization of the flashbacks makes rereading the story an entirely different experience.
Second: Manacled now has a Facebook group discussing theories. It's a closed group called Granians and Paper Cranes.
July 2003
She woke with a start and found herself lying on a low, makeshift bed, Draco leaning over her.
She jerked back and then stilled and looked around, realising she was in his safe house in Whitecroft. She looked back at Draco, and everything came rushing back. She drew a sharp breath and felt as though she were being crushed to death. “What — What happened?”