Chapter Thirty-Seven

A/N: All fully italicized lines, and everything else you recognize, belong to JKR. I simply could not write this story without the amazing betaing and advice I receive from Shellsnapeluver, RedOrchid and OpalJade. Thank you, my dears.

---

Their wands were delivered four days later. Hermione lifted hers from its box, relieved to find it warm and yielding to her touch. Ron had given her Bellatrix's wand to practice with, and it had felt dumb and heavy and somehow malevolent in her hands. But as pleased as she was to have a wand of her own again, the sight of Bill with a stack of boxes in his arms had made her chest feel cold and tight. They were going to Gringotts.

They had told Bill and Fleur nothing but that they were leaving and wanted to say their goodbyes and then be left in private. Bill had given them a long, measuring look before nodding. He and Fleur both looked an odd mixture of relieved and terrified.

"You will be safe?" Fleur asked, taking Hermione's arms and kissing her briefly on each cheek.

"As much as we can be," Hermione said.

"And you will contact us when you have done... whatever you need to do?" Bill said. He shook Harry's hand and embraced his brother.

"As soon as we're able," Harry assured him.

"I don't like this," Bill said. "It feels wrong, just letting you go back out there."

"You know we have to go," Ron said. "It's for--"

"Dumbledore, yes, I know," Bill said. "Still..."

Griphook stood watching the scene from the corner of the kitchen. His hooded eyes were unreadable.

There was another round of hugging and reassuring before Bill and Fleur turned and walked from the room. Hermione watched them ascending the stairs, Fleur's hand tucked into Bill's. As promised, they did not look back. For some reason, though they'd asked for privacy, it chilled her to watch them walk away. It made her feel somehow as if they were being left for dead.

"Ready?" Harry asked.

Hermione touched her bag. It was slung over her shoulder beneath her robes, which she had charmed to be several sizes larger to accommodate Bellatrix's height. At present, she knew she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother's robes, and it was hard not to feel small and weak as she prepared to fill Bellatrix's shoes. She drew a flask of Polyjuice Potion from the bag and set it on the kitchen table.

There had been great disagreement over what to do with Ron. They certainly couldn't leave him behind, but he would not fit under the Invisibility Cloak with Harry and Griphook, and Polyjuicing him into another Death Eater had seemed like inviting trouble. It would be difficult enough to pass her off as Bellatrix Lestrange. In the end, they agreed that Hermione would use a Disguising Charm on him, and if anyone asked, they would identify him as a foreign wizard sympathetic to the Dark Lord's regime.

She pointed her wand at him. "Dissimulo Adversus!"

Harry gaped at Ron, and inwardly, Hermione grimaced a bit. Ron's hair had become long and chestnut brown, and his nose had shorted and turned up at the end. He was deeply tanned, as if all his freckles had run together; he was short, and... there was something about him that reminded her of a hippogriff... of something patched together out of disparate parts.

"What?" Ron said.

"Nothing. You'll do. Now, Harry, I think you and Griphook should get ready."

Harry bent down and allowed the goblin to climb onto his back. Griphook wrapped his arms around Harry's neck and twined his long fingers together at Harry's throat. Hermione threw the Invisibility Cloak over them.

There was nothing left to be done; no way to put it off even a moment longer. She uncorked her flask of Polyjuice and dropped in the chunk of Bellatrix Lestrange's hair. The potion hissed and bubbled, turning a purple so deep it was nearly black.

Hermione stared at the unappetizing potion for a moment before she cast a defeated look at the boys and drank it.

It hurt, though not as badly as it had back in her second year when she had accidentally turned herself into a cat. But still, there was a kind of... stretching... of her body, that felt unnatural, almost unholy. And as she stood before them, it was strange to see Ron's visceral response to her new form. He took a stumbling step backward and stuttered for a moment before saying, "Well done, Hermione. You look perfect. Just like her."

It was clear that he did not want to take her hand to Apparate, but she glowered at him and seized his wrist. They had to keep moving or risk being paralyzed with fear.

"Harry, grab on. Here we go."

They landed in the Leaky Cauldron, and the look that she had seen on Ron's face was echoed all around her. Tom, the old barman, seemed to wish to duck down beneath the bar and disappear.

"Good morning, Madam Lestrange," he whispered.

Hermione nodded curtly, but inside she was afraid. When they left this dark, close room, when she had to speak, could she possibly pull it off? It had all seemed quite logical back in Shell Cottage. She would drink the potion, and it would fool the Gringotts goblins. But now it seemed ridiculous at best. No one would be fooled. As if to confirm her fears, the barman stared after her curiously.

She raised the heavy, unfamiliar wand and tapped the bricks outside the bar, breathing heavily as they swirled away, leaving nothing but open space. She turned back as they walked through the archway. This was foolish; there was still time to go back to Shell Cottage. She simply could not do this; there was no way for her to be this person.

But Ron grabbed her arm and guided her forcefully through. "Too late," he said, under his breath.

For they had been seen. There were people out, people shopping, and Hermione's mind could hardly process the idea. Somewhere inside, she must have known that the world had gone on, that people continued to need robes and potion ingredients, food and company, but it seemed unfathomable that there would be people out in Diagon Alley, living on, despite all that was happening.

Several people ducked quickly into shops as she and Ron approached, but there were others who came toward her, their hands extended in supplication.

"My children!" screamed a man in tattered robes, his left eye covered in a bloody bandage, "Where are my children? What has he done with them? You know!"

The moment had come. As the man crawled toward her, Hermione snapped her head up and pushed her thoughts, her self, down deep below the surface of her mind. My husband stands before Voldemort himself, and he is not afraid, she thought, before she drew her wand and blasted the man aside with a Stunner. Ron looked aghast, but she refused to think of that. This was her role to play, and she would play it. She would do it because they had no choice anymore, and she would not be captured in the middle of Diagon Alley on this bright spring morning. They had come too far to fail now. She swept her robes up in a grand flourish as she stepped daintily over the place where the man had been, as if she could not bear to tread on ground that had been so besmirched.

She strode toward the huge marble building that towered over the rest of Diagon Alley. She had the oddest sense, as she began to climb the steps up to the bronze doors of Gringotts, that she was actually becoming someone else. Her intimidation faded, and she drew herself up to Bellatrix's full height. Her brows lifted subtly, and her features drew down into a look of quiet contempt. Was this how he did it? she thought. Was there more than one Snape?

As they approached the heavy doors of the bank, two wizards stepped forward, brandishing slim, white Probity Probes. Griphook had warned them of the guards, and Hermione did not falter as she walked toward them, relying on Harry to Confund them, as they'd planned.

"One moment, madam," said a guard as she swept past him.

Trust. Trust, she thought. "But you've just done that!" she said, fixing the guard with a malevolent stare.

He retreated at once, looking confused.

Hermione proceeded to the long counter at which several goblins sat, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, and examining precious stones through eyeglasses. She had never been to this counter before. Each time that she and her parents had come to Gringotts, they had queued at a window to the left, which bore a large sign advertising the day's Galleon-to-Pound exchange rate. But she had been over this with Harry and Ron, and she swept up to the counter.

"Madam Lestrange!" the goblin before them exclaimed. "How may I help you today?"

There was something in the way the goblin looked at her--it was not quite alarm or surprise, but something cold and gleaming in his eye--that told her that they already knew. Gringotts had already been informed of the theft of Bellatrix's key and wand. What was most difficult for Hermione in that moment was remaining still and calm. She had no urge to run; there was no way they could escape now that they had begun, but she longed to draw her own wand--her good, responsive wand--from beneath Bellatrix's robes and Stun the goblins herself. It was not that she did not trust Harry and Ron... but it was difficult to stand by and wait for help to come.

"I wish to enter my vault," she said imperiously, as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. Could Harry possibly Confund them all? Did he realize what was happening?

When the goblin asked for her wand as identification, she protested, but could not think what to do except to hand it over. The longer this could play out as a friendly exchange, the longer they could keep from open warfare, the better. To be trapped in Gringotts... the thought horrified her. She supposed only Azkaban was more secure.

After a moment, the goblin handed back Bellatrix's wand. "And your key?" he said.

Hermione retrieved the key from where she had strung it around her neck. Was it her imagination, or had the goblin started slightly? She held out the tiny golden key.

"Very well. All seems in order," he said and stood up briskly. "I shall escort you myself."

Hermione looked down the line of goblins at the counter. They were not staring, not making any move to stop her or Ron, and she wondered what Harry had cast. The Confundus Charm, or some kind of Distracting Hex? Perhaps a combination... Stop, she thought sharply. Whatever it is, it's working.

The goblin led them through a door off of the main hall and into a dank little tunnel. He whistled, and a small cart appeared. She and Ron clambered in, trying not to leave too obvious a hole between them for Harry, but the goblin stared curiously into the empty space and the witch and wizard who sat smashed against the sides of the cart. Then, just as suddenly as he had taken notice of it, he seemed to forget it again and whistled once more, this time a high and drawn out tune.

Hermione recognized it from their planning with Griphook. It was not the danger whistle. He had whistled for the deepest level of Gringotts, twenty kilometers below London, where the oldest families kept their gold. For now, he believed.

The cart shot abruptly away from the doorway, bearing them deeper and deeper into Gringotts, twisting through impossibly narrow passages, then suddenly taking hairpin turns. Hermione grasped the edge of the cart and held on tightly. Deep below the thick blanket of her Occlumency, a cold fist of terror squeezed her stomach. There was no way to memorize the path they were taking; they were going too fast. The map would be all they had to rely on to guide their escape if the goblin were to discover them. The map and Griphook, its creator. Once again, Hermione felt the maddening unease of being completely at someone else's mercy.

The air grew chilly and damp, and the stone walls dripped with moisture. The very darkness seemed to bear down on them as they moved into the final labyrinthine passageways that marked the end of the Gringotts tunnels. The fires that burned from sconces on the walls seemed robbed of both heat and light, as if they knew that they were only guests in this underground world. Finally, the cart ground to a halt outside one of the last vaults.

Hermione produced the key once more, and the goblin stepped lightly from the cart and pressed his long fingered palm against the door to the Lestrange's vault; the wood melted away obediently. Then, he retreated to the cart, leaving them in the privacy of the chamber.

Hermione struggled to keep her thoughts below the surface, not to react to the contents of the vault. For she had never seen anything comparable to the Lestrange's wealth. There were huge hills of gold coins, piles of precious gems, ancient and clearly charmed pieces of furniture. Hermione saw what looked to be a knight encased in golden armour, swords, heavy silver dinnerware, jeweled flasks containing all manner of shimmering potions, even a skull still wearing a crown.

"Don't touch anything!" Harry yelled, as Ron picked up a galleon and then screamed, releasing it. A shower of coins fell from his hand, and he clutched his fist and held it to his chest. "You know what we were told! Everything you touch will burn and multiply!"

The vault, though it was huge, had seemed undersized to begin with, shrunken by the acres of gold it contained, and now Hermione was afraid to take a step, as it seemed all too likely that it would all come tumbling toward them, and they would be buried in mountains of burning treasure. She stood rooted to the spot, scanning the glittering mounds for anything that might bear the Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw crest. Ron lit his wand and slowly drew the light over the gold. Harry's arm emerged from beneath the cloak and joined him, adding his wand's feeble light into the gloom of the vault.

"There," Harry whispered, his beam of light settling onto a small golden cup that was resting on a high shelf on the south wall. "That's it."

There was no way to get it except to go over the coins that stood between them and the cup. Accio would not work; Griphook had explained that once they entered the tunnel, they would no longer be able to cast Summoning Charms. There was silence as they considered their predicament.

"I'm tallest," Ron said, finally. "I won't have to go far. Just up that mound, there, and I'll have it."

"But your hands," Hermione said. "Once you touch it--"

"We always knew that would happen," Ron said. "I can hang on."

"Get close to the exit, Hermione," Harry said. "When he steps on the gold, there's going to be an avalanche of coins coming, and I don't want you to go under. We'll have to move fast; there's--"

"But what about you?"

"Someone's going to have to stay and make sure Ron can get out. Here, you take... him... and this," he said, pulling the cloak from over his head.

"No! I don't want you uncovered," she said, glancing back at the vault's entryway. "When you get out, he'll see."

"And if you don't take the Cloak, he'll be seen! I won't have him burned or exposed for helping us."

Harry bent down, and the goblin, still wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak, slid from his back, rendering him completely visible. "Um, if you don't mind waiting in the tunnel?"

There was no reply, and Hermione could not see where the goblin had gone to. This did not feel right. At any moment, Griphook could signal the other goblin, and they could shoot away in the cart, taking with them all the information that they needed to get out, taking the Cloak.

"He won't leave, Hermione. He wants the sword," Harry said, seeming to read her discomfort.

The sword. If they were to keep their bargain, they had to kill the Horcrux quickly so that they could hand over the sword. She reached under her voluminous robes and pulled it from her bag.

"Ron, see if you can hook it with this," she said. "Then maybe you won't get burned too badly." She handed over what felt like the last of her protection in this dark and suffocating place.

"Go, Hermione," Harry said, and she reluctantly took a step toward the door.

Ron charged up the pile of gold, and Hermione watched, transfixed, as his feet slid and slipped beneath the showers of coins. Harry took a few stumbling steps backward as the fiery discs began to cascade through the air, radiating a heat that quickly filled the vault. Ron fumbled and fell to his knees, hissing as the molten metal covered his hands, and he began to sink--he was up to his knees now--

"Ron!" she screamed. Harry began to start up the pile toward him, but his movement only increased the fury of the Gemino Charm, and he, too, began to go under.

Sweat rolled down her body beneath the heavy robes. The vault was filling up with the stench of charring flesh and sizzling hair. She was seconds from charging into the gold herself, though what good it would do she had no idea. But the oppressive heat was clouding her thinking--all the composure she'd had as Bellatrix Lestrange was fading, and a single thought kept roaring through her mind: burned and buried alive. Burned and buried alive. The coins seemed to have become almost a living thing, a huge, fire-mouthed beast determined to consume them.

But then Ron seemed to put on a huge burst of strength, wrenching himself above the sucking, snapping jaws of the glowing coins and leaping toward the shelf that held the cup. He thrust the sword forward and hooked the cup neatly by the handle and quickly started down the mound, seizing Harry by the hair and dragging him along the surging wave of gold.

As the wave seemed to crest, coming toward her with furious speed, Hermione turned and dashed out of the vault into the dark tunnel, tripping over her robes as she ran, catching them up in her fists and charging onward, her screams echoing off the close walls of the tunnel. She felt branded by circles of fire as errant coins shot from the vault and made contact with her shoulders, her neck, her fingertips as she frantically batted them away. Harry and Ron spilled forth from the vault, scrambling to their feet, dancing wildly, shaking the coins from their skin. They leaped away as the gold pursued them, still multiplying where it touched their shoes, singeing holes clean through the leather. The three of them ran up the track, away from the charmed treasure until they were free of the cursed metal.

"Kill it!" Hermione shrieked, heedless now of who might be watching, only wanting, needing this all to have been for a purpose, to have some reason for the raw, disfigured faces of her friends before her.

"Hermione--the Polyjuice--" Ron shouted.

"I don't care! Do it!"

Ron thrust the sword into Harry's hands, and he slid the cup from the blade, trapping it against the stone wall of the tunnel. Raising the sword above his head, he seemed to brace himself and then plunged it into the bowl of the golden cup. A dreadful shriek rent the air, far too loud in the closeness of the tunnel, and it seemed to spiral ever higher, bounding and rebounding off the walls until Hermione thought her head would burst. She fell to her knees, clutching her ears, and watched as a sickly black substance rose from the severed cup. It swirled like heavy smoke into the air, and she removed her hands from her ears to clap them over her mouth. Something deep inside told her that she must not breathe that.

When it had dissipated, she looked at the boys, their skin purplish and raw, melted looking, their robes barely more than tattered bits of cloth, and she began to fumble beneath her too-large robes.

"Come here... Dittany... let me help," she gasped.

But all Harry said was, "Griphook! Where's Griphook?"

Hermione turned and looked back at the wreckage in the tunnel, the mound of steaming treasure, and a horrible certainty surged like adrenaline through her blood. "The cart," she whispered. "The cart is gone."

Ron stepped up beside her. "You don't think he--"

"No!" Harry said. "He wouldn't. He wouldn't leave us here. Maybe he's buried, maybe--"

Harry started back toward the gold, and Hermione grabbed his arm, quickly releasing him when he hissed with pain.

"Harry, stop--you can't! If he's under there, you'll just make it worse, heavier, hotter--"

But the goblin pulled off the Cloak as he walked easily over the false gold toward them.

"Griphook!" Hermione shouted in relief. "Thank god. Are you all right? What happened?"

"I am fine. My skin is not so... susceptible... as your own. As for what happened, I think he knew even before the gold began to replicate," Griphook said in his rough, guttural voice, and Hermione found his tone difficult to read. "The Imperius Curse was not cast strongly enough. And you said each other's names."

The Imperius Curse? She turned to Harry, amazed, and yet, why should she be amazed? She herself had Stunned a man in Diagon Alley for no better reason than that she'd had to be Bellatrix Lestrange.

"Thank you for staying," Harry said, and he held the hilt of the sword out to Griphook, but Griphook shook his head.

"I cannot carry it through the tunnels. I will have to trust you a bit longer."

"How long will it be before they come after us?" Hermione asked. The loss of the cart had sent her mind spinning through the long, dark passageways of Gringotts. Her feet itched to run.

"Come after you?"

"Yes, how long ago did he leave? Will Gringotts security come first, or will he call the Ministry straight away? Is there somewhere we can hide?"

"Miss Granger," Griphook said inscrutably. "They will not send anyone after you.'

"What do you mean? You said he knew--that he realized--"

"Bogrod recognized your deceit, yes, but he will not be sending the guards down after you. Tend your wounds. There is time."

"Do you mean that they're helping us?" Ron asked.

"Of course not. No search party will be sent because it is not Gringotts policy to pursue thieves. They assume that you will wander the tunnels until you die. Then, whatever you have stolen will be reclaimed and returned to the proper vault. No theft will have occurred, as no treasure left the building. Gringotts goblins take their reputation very seriously. It would not do to advertise breaches of security."

They assume that you will wander the tunnels until you die.

"But you know, yes? You know how to get out?"

"I know the way through the tunnels. But they all lead to the main hall, Miss Granger. There is no way out but through. Attend to your wounds."

Hermione waved her wand to remove Ron's disguise. When his features had rearranged, he looked worse, if such a thing were possible. The burns seemed concentrated over the lower half of his face and neck, and Hermione knew she must work quickly to keep him from scarring. With trembling fingers, she withdrew her replenished stores of Dittany from the bag and began to smear the viscous liquid over Harry's and Ron's burns. For a while, the only sounds were the mingled hissing of the Dittany over raw flesh and the boys' sharp indrawn breath as she worked. Griphook stood beside them and watched, saying nothing. When she had finished, she mended their robes as best she could with her wand and stood back.

"Let me do you, Hermione," Harry said, and she peeled away her robes, revealing her own wounds. The Dittany stung, but the pain was tempered by Harry's gentle fingers. It amazed her how comforted she felt by simply being touched with care.

"All right?" he said finally.

"Yes," she said and took the bottle of Dittany. It was difficult to tell in the dark of the passageway, but it looked as if the bottle were nearly empty. She hoped that they would not have further need of it before the end as she tucked it back into the safety of the bag along with Bellatrix's key and wand. She shortened her robes, strengthened by the feeling of her own wand in her hand.

"Now what?" Ron said.

"Now we climb," Griphook answered.

"You can't call the cart back?"

"It would not respond to me," Griphook said, and whether it were sadness or censure in his voice, Hermione could not tell, but she was suddenly struck by the notion that he was as much an outcast from his own world as they were.

The goblin brushed past them and began to hobble down the tracks. Harry, Ron and Hermione followed, but it was frustrating to move so slowly. The track was on a mild incline and straight for several kilometers, and there were many times she wished she could offer to carry Griphook so that they might traverse the tunnels more quickly, but each time she glanced at him, she saw that his strange, wrinkled face was set with a kind of forbidding determination. She wondered what it was costing him to do this, to break the code of his people, and she dared not offend him.

"Griphook," Harry said as they walked.

"Yes?"

"I know you said that it's Gringotts policy not to pursue thieves."

"Yes."

"And I don't mean to sound as if I think terribly highly of myself or anything..."

"But you are Harry Potter. And you wonder if they are not contacting the Death Eaters as we wander in the dark?"

"Yes."

"From what I saw, I gather that you have destroyed something that belonged to the Dark Lord, something of value to him, and for this reason, you think that he will be notified. It is not so. The Gringotts goblins do not know or care what treasure lies in the Lestrange's vault. We have no stakes in a wizarding war. What we care for is the security of our bank. So long as you are down here, no treasure has been stolen and no alarm will be raised."

"But before my first year--the first day that I visited Gringotts--"

"You are referring to the attempted robbery of vault 713." Griphook's face was twisted with anger.

"Yes--the Philosopher's Stone--"

The track teed out before them, and Griphook turned down the left tunnel, picking up speed as he turned the corner.

"The vault was empty at the time," the goblin growled.

"I know, but it was in the paper. So surely, someone..."

"There is always great activity in the vaults just before September first," Griphook spat. "The thief was lucky to have been found alive. It so happened that the Malfoys visited their vault that day, and found him wandering, disoriented, in the tunnel. They brought him to the surface in their cart. He was released to Dumbledore as a courtesy. A courtesy that he repaid by informing the Daily Prophet."

There was no mistaking Griphook's tone. The goblin may not have been for Voldemort, but he certainly had no love for Dumbledore.

"He was released to... Dumbledore knew?" Harry exclaimed. "He knew it was Quirrell? Then why--"

"I have never been able to fathom the workings of Dumbledore's mind," Griphook said bitterly. "He employed the thief at a school for children, but informed the papers of the bank's failure... Of course, that is wizard business."

The path they had been traveling stopped abruptly, and Hermione wondered if they hadn't become lost after all. She had expected that there was a bend up ahead that she couldn't see, but now that she was upon it, there seemed no way forward.

But Griphook approached the wall without stopping and seemed to begin to climb right up the side of it. Hermione saw he had grasped the crosspieces of the track and was climbing them as he would a ladder. One by one, she and Harry and Ron began to climb behind him. No one spoke as they ascended the track. The climb was easy at first, but as time wore on, Hermione began to struggle, and by the time path had leveled out again, her arms and calves seemed to burn as the gold had burned her, and she was nearly in tears.

Griphook took a right so sharp that it was nearly a U-turn, and the three teenagers followed. Here, the tunnel continued to rise, but the incline was gradual so that they huffed only slightly as they climbed on through the dark.

Harry's voice broke the silence once more. "Griphook," he said. "Again, I do not mean to sound ungrateful, but... why did you help us? If you don't care about the war, that is. If the reputation of the bank is..."

The goblin did not look back, but continued to march along the tracks. Hermione thought that he must be stiffening up--his strides were jerky and uncoordinated, and his voice was low and tired as he replied. How old is Griphook? she wondered.

"Why did I help you?" Griphook said, but it was less a question than a statement. "Because, in the basement of Malfoy Manor, you saved me first. You could have left me there, or sent the elf back to get me once your own safety had been secured, but you sent me to safety first. I owe you a life debt."

They walked on in silence. Gradually, the air seemed to become less dense, and Hermione's breathing eased slightly. They had been walking for several hours, and yet they seemed no closer to the surface. She thought about the map Griphook had drawn for them. Had he left them, had he returned to the main hall in the cart with Bogrod, would they have been able to find their way out? A life debt. Wizards tossed the term around, but she had no real conception of what a thing might mean. Was it truly a spell, or was it a sense of honor bred deep in the bone? Did she owe her life to Snape, or he to her? Had the incident with the troll left her forever in Harry's debt, or had Godric's Hollow evened the score? Who could tell where love began and ended, where loyalty was replaced with magic?

"And in the vault," Griphook said quietly, picking up the conversation as if it had never ended as he chose a track that veered off to the left, "you sent me to safety; you did not reveal me as a traitor. You never said my name."

The path began to rise sharply again, though it never turned vertical as it had before. They climbed until Hermione was sure that she could go no further, and she asked if they could stop and rest.

"We have hiked for hours," Griphook said. "We must not stop. If you rest, your muscles will begin to cramp and bind, and you will not be able to go on. It is not much longer. We have made it beyond the dragons."

Another hour fell behind them. 'Not much longer' apparently meant something different to goblins than it did to wizards. Hermione felt her muscles trembling beneath her skin. Blisters had risen and broken on her feet so long before that she had somehow grown used to the pain and the sticky feeling of her socks inside her trainers. In fact, the pain and fatigue seemed to coalesce into a single tuneless hum inside her. The dark, the air around her--it all thrummed with the same ceaseless note.

Griphook turned back suddenly. "A Patronus. We need a Patronus."

Hermione looked up. She had not been aware that she had been staring at her feet, watching them rise and fall before her... for how long? How many kilometers? It was as if she had drifted into a kind of catatonia--lulled by the automatic motions of her body, its senseless pursuit of light and space. She looked at the boys and was surprised to see Ron's face streaked with tears.

"What--Ron?"

"A Patronus!" Griphook said again, and Hermione lifted her wand, but she could not seem to coax the otter into being. She turned to Harry. Surely, Harry could produce the Patronus... his was always so strong and clear... but Harry, too, seemed to be waving his wand fruitlessly.

"Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum!"

"Quickly now! We are approaching the surface. They've released the Despair!"

Ron did not lift his face or his wand, and Harry's face was constricted with effort. "Expecto Patronum!"

Hermione reached down into herself, below the shields she had put in place to take on the persona of Bellatrix Lestrange, below the pain and the darkness of the tunnel, down to where she kept the few hard truths that anchored her to the world. "Expecto Patronum!"

It surged out of her as if she had somehow exhaled her soul. Light burst from her wand, and a great hawk soared into the tunnel, so huge in the closeness that the tips of its wings seemed to brush the damp stone walls. The power of the spell seemed to light her from within. She could feel the link between herself and the bird in every cell, every beat of her heart.

"Hermione--what is that?"

"I--I don't know."

"Miss Granger, hold your Patronus steady for a moment. Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, get behind it. The goblins have released a spell of their own design. It is meant to suck out hope, to confuse and befuddle the mind, to turn you away from the exit even as you approach it. We are very near now."

Hermione could feel Harry's eyes on her as the group moved forward in a huddle behind the silvery hawk, but she kept her eyes on the Patronus. When the reached the heavy outer door of the tunnel, Griphook motioned for her to stop.

"I do not think that they will be expecting you--between the tunnels and the Despair, they will think you as good as dead. So you will have the benefit of surprise. However, do not think that because they are wandless that the goblins will not fight you. They will do anything in their power to keep you from leaving Gringotts. You will have to be fast, and you will have to be ruthless."

"What about you?" Harry asked.

"Do not worry about me. Goblins... if they have the choice between fighting you and fighting me, they will choose you."

"Griphook, I must ask one more thing."

Griphook looked at Harry warily.

"When we have escaped--the Lestranges will need to be notified."

Griphook looked mortally offended. He shook his head. "I cannot do that. The bank--I have told you--we do not report breaches--"

"You must! You-Know-Who must realize what has been taken from him. Griphook, please."

"My debt to you has been paid, Harry Potter! I have broken the code of my people. Do not ask me to dishonor them."

"The Dark Lord will show no honor to your people. If he wins, he will wrench the bank from your grasp and plunder its contents. He will banish you to the forests like the centaurs; he will steal your artifacts and call them his."

Griphook looked for a long time at the sword in Harry's hand. "Our artifacts," he said.

Hermione longed to stop this. The goblin's face had taken on a sickly, greenish hue. They had pushed him too hard, made him lead them down endless kilometers of track. Clearly, he was exhausted, defeated, and yet they asked him now to cast aside his deepest loyalties...

"Take the sword," he said finally. "Take the sword and make sure they see it. They will have to report its loss."

"Thank you, Griphook," Hermione said, but he shook his head and whispered, "Now the debt is reversed. You owe me."

She nodded.

"Keep the Patronus. It may confuse them," he said, and Harry raised his wand and blasted the door open.

The great hawk preceded them into the main hall of Gringotts, flapping its gigantic wings. Hermione felt in those fleeting few seconds as if she had never seen so much space; the ceiling seemed to rise into the heavens. But her attention was quickly redirected to the goblins who were scattering from behind the long counter, running toward them, their twisted faces angry, their teeth bared.

"Run!" Harry screamed.

She took off for the heavy bronze doors at the end of the hallway, but as she ran there began a deafening sound--a creaking, grinding sound--that seemed to shake the entire building. The walls had begun to slide together as if on runners. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of freedom, a dark slice of inky night as the door fell away, just before the slabs met and settled together. A long, red seam of magic glowed from between the walls for a moment and then faded, leaving nothing but a smooth expanse of white marble. There was no way out.

She slid to a halt and turned, watching, open-mouthed, as goblins seemed to pour into the main hall from all the doors along the corridor. For a split second, she recognized Griphook as he merged with his people, but soon he was indistinguishable, another twisted, angry face among the crowd of goblins that pursued them.

They were quickly surrounded. Hermione's back was pressed against Harry's shoulder, and she could feel Ron's elbow digging into her side. She shot rounds of Stunners from her wand, red light dancing and connecting, but the fallen goblins did not deter those who were still pressing in ever closer. They seemed moments from being subsumed entirely.

Hermione's mind went curiously blank as she fought. Fear became simply a fact as she threw hex after hex. She could hear the explosive sounds of magic coming from the boys' wands, the boom of spells that had missed and ricocheted off the floor, the squelch of a Stunner that had found its mark. But for all their determination, the goblins attacked with a ferocity that she thought rivaled her own. One threw himself forward and latched onto her, knocking her to the marble floor. She could feel the sharp pointed teeth sinking into her shoulder, but then there was a flash of red light, and the goblin was blasted aside. Hermione's Patronus had dived between her and the screeching enemy, driving them back momentarily, and Ron seized her hand and hauled her to her feet.

"What the fuck?" he panted. "No way out! Fucking millions of them!" He turned back to the crowd. "Stupefy! Stupefy!"

Hermione whirled around, looking for Harry. He was brandishing the sword of Gryffindor in a wild, high arc, and the goblins danced away, but not before a piercing scream rose above the din, and she saw dark blood spattering the white marble.

"NO!" Harry bellowed. "No, I didn't mean to! Just get back! Get back!"

This seemed to drive the goblins into a frenzy, and their voices reached a furious pitch. "Thieves! Murderers! Stop them!"

Harry was being submerged in the crush of snarling goblins. Hermione could just see tufts of his hair as he went down. She ran back into the fray as Ron bashed the goblins aside with his wand and his fists, lifting and throwing them, trying to reclaim Harry. Suddenly, the goblins scattered. Hermione looked around for her Patronus, certain that it must have cut a path through the battle once more, but it soared above them, beating its heavy wings against the domed ceiling.

The floor shook beneath her. The goblins chattered and jeered in Gobbledegook. They had retreated into a large circle around Harry, Ron and herself. It was odd; they did not seem to be any nearer to releasing their prisoners, and yet the circle widened as the goblins pulled back further. They looked ready to run at the slightest provocation.

Then, suddenly, the entire world was shaken with sound. A roar so loud that it seemed to throb in Hermione's head emerged from the bowels of Gringotts, and she understood. They had released the dragons.

The building seemed to heave and settle. Hermione could nearly feel the gigantic beasts as they forced their way up from their caverns below the ground, smashing through the tunnels, shaking the very foundations of Gringotts. Shining, knife-sharp fear sliced through the false calm of Hermione's mind. They would destroy their own bank before they let us escape, she thought.

The goblins were pressed up against the walls now. They clearly expected the dragons to break through the floor in the center of the hall. Hermione grabbed Harry's hand and began to pull him from the middle of the room. "Dragons," she babbled. "Dragons coming... right through the floor... Got to get away... Come on!" But Harry seemed rooted to the spot. He was gazing at the goblins with sick horror.

"The walls," he said.

"What?"

"The walls. The building's going to come down around us."

Hermione followed his gaze. Harry had not been looking at the goblins after all, but at great, creeping cracks that had begun to emerge in the marble. Showers of dust and rock fell from the ceiling. The grinding noises were beginning to overtake even the roaring of the dragons.

"We'll be buried," he whispered.

Just then, an enormous chasm opened in the center of the hall. Hermione leaped backward, dragging Harry with her. Ron was at the far wall, where the door had been, and she ran toward him, glancing back over her shoulder at the beast emerging from the pit.

The sound was indescribable. Without the layers of rock to muffle it, the roaring filled the hall and rendered it into a huge echo chamber. Hermione clapped her hands over her ears, but it seemed she could feel the vibration of the air in her hands, in her face. She screamed, but could not hear her own voice.

A spiked tail emerged, bashing against the smooth floor, gouging away chunks of marble. The dragon backed into the hall through the hole it had made. Hermione could see its leathery wings and the curve of its spine as it rose. A huge ball of fire rolled along the floor like flaming petrol, and the goblins ran from it, huddling together on the other side of the room. Hermione could not seem to look away.

Suddenly, she felt Ron beating on her arm, and she turned to him, but could not hear the words he screamed. He pointed up, and she saw her own Patronus wiggling through a crack in the wall. Good, she thought crazily. Save yourself. She shrugged her shoulders at Ron and turned back toward the dragon, but he would not cease shaking her. He was pointing frantically at the wall where the Patronus had disappeared, nearly jumping up and down in his furious excitement.

Hermione tried to focus on him, but the dragon roared again, sending fire licking up the wall by the exchange counter. But this time, instead of dissipating, the fire found fuel and consumed the signs that had been magicked to the wall, moving along to the counter, taking records and chairs, stacks of pounds--anything it could find--into its hungry, growing maw.

Ron grasped her shoulders and turned her physically toward him. "OUT," he mouthed exaggeratedly. He pointed again to where the Patronus had disappeared. "OUT!"

The dragon staggered to its feet, now fully emerged from its chambers below the floor. Its head swung on its gigantic neck, and it seemed to be searching, itself, for a way out. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Harry take aim at the beast with his wand. She could not hear the words that he said, but the dragon stumbled back, enraged. One of its eyes had turned opaque and milky. The Conjunctivitis Curse. It roared again, and fire brushed past them, singeing the hems of Hermione's robes.

Half-blind, the dragon lurched furiously toward the wall of the bank and collided with it. The building trembled beneath her feet, and the squealing of stone on stone pierced the din. Ron grabbed her arm once more and leaned in, screaming into her ear at the top of his lungs. "Help it!"

Ron was pointing his wand at the wall behind them, the wall that the dragon fought against, the wall that led out into the street. She could not read the spell on his lips, but she watched as red light connected with the wall and tore away a chunk of rock.

The fire that had begun at the counters still raged and grew. Heat mounted in the main hall, and thick black smoke swirled overhead. If they didn't get out soon, they would smother. Coughing and choking, Hermione raised her wand and joined Ron in trying to blast through the thick outer wall of Gringotts.

"Defodio! Deprimo! Defodio!" She ran to and fro, blasting and gouging with her wand until she could see the night sky beyond. "Defodio! Diffindo!"

Ron disappeared for a moment and then returned to her side, dragging Harry behind him. The dragon, maddened by the flashing lights and showers of stone, charged the wall, swinging its enormous tail and scattering goblins left and right.

Huge chunks of rock flew through the air as Gringotts began to collapse in earnest. Hermione ducked and danced to avoid them as she tried to shove Harry and Ron through the crumbling wall.

"Go! Go!" she screamed and ran through after them. She stumbled on the steps leading down into Diagon Alley, and her knees buckled beneath her, taking the brunt of every step as she fell.

"Hermione!"

When they burst through, Hermione had expected to see crowds of people waiting to apprehend them, and she had the wild thought that they needn't have taken the sword of Gryffindor at all--surely, the Ministry was already on the way. But the shops around Gringotts were empty and dark, closed for the night, as if everyone had been in a hurry to return to the safety of their homes. Harry was running toward her, Ron's hand held tight in his, and he grabbed her and began to turn on the spot. She watched the flailing dragon and the hordes of shrieking goblins melt away as they moved together into the squeezing, binding darkness.

They landed in a heap in an open field beside a lake. Moonlight shown off the water. The quiet and the stillness of their surroundings seemed like madness in the face of her pounding heart and surging adrenaline.

"Are we... are we all alive?" she whispered.

Ron sat up, disentangling himself from the pile of limbs, but Harry did not move.

"Harry!" Hermione said, pulling her left leg out from beneath his heavy body. "Harry!"

Harry's face was drawn and tight, his eyes squeezed shut. As Hermione began to open his robes, searching for the source of his injury, his head rolled from side to side.

"Harry! Harry!" Ron yelled, shaking him.

"What did they take?"

It was not Harry's voice that emerged from between his lips, but the high cold sound of Voldemort, and Hermione's blood seemed to stop in her veins. She and Ron both froze, as if Voldemort could look through Harry's eyes and see them.

Harry screamed, a sudden shriek of rage in someone else's voice, and Hermione clutched Ron's arm.

"What should we do?"

"I guess we wait."

The minutes stretched on as Hermione stared anxiously into Harry's face. Finally, his eyes opened.

"Hogwarts," he said, his voice thick and choked. "It's at Hogwarts. He knows. He's gone to check the others. There's not much time."

"What is it?" Ron asked.

"Don't know. He didn't think of it. But he's going to it last. He thinks it's safest because of Snape."

No one moved.

"We have to go! Harry, come on, get up," Ron said.

"Wait!" Hermione said. "We need to find out how to get in."

There was no time, no time to work around the boys. They'd seen the Patronus; she couldn't take that back, and if they put it together now, it would just have to be okay. It would just have to. Because there was only one person who could help them get into Hogwarts.

She whipped the bag over her head and drew from it Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait. "Headmaster Black! Headmaster Black, please!"

"Miss Granger, what a surprise," Black said silkily as half of him entered the portrait. "And with your usual decorum, I see."

"Headmaster Black, there's no time for that. I need to speak with the Headmaster. It's an emergency."

"I'm afraid the Headmaster has stepped out," he said, and she could not tell if he was lying in a fit of pique or if Snape were truly out of the office.

"Please, Headmaster. We're working on Dumbledore's orders--there's something we need in Hogwarts, and we have to get in immediately."

"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Granger," Black began, but he was interrupted by Dumbledore's voice, low and steady, but impossible to ignore.

"Ah, yes," Dumbledore said. "I thought there might be one here, though I never could find it. I have always rather suspected that he dropped it off when he came to ask me for a job. But, never mind. The way into Hogwarts, Miss Granger, is through a portrait of my sister in the Hog's Head Inn. I believe it will take you into the Room of Requirement."

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry whispered. His eyes were round and glassy in the moonlight. He looked shattered.

"Harry, my boy. It is good to hear your voice. But make haste! Time is short. I am sure that we will have plenty of time to converse when your task is complete. Oh, and be sure to Apparate directly into the Hog's Head. I do believe there is a curfew in place."

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore," Hermione said, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Thank you, Headmaster Black."

She shoved the portrait back into the bag. Where was Snape? She had needed to hear his voice as much as she had needed to know the way into the school. Would he know that she was coming? She tapped her wand into her palm, striking the invisible golden circlet.

On the way to Hogwarts.

Hermione felt as if she were in a trance as Harry ushered her under the Invisibility Cloak. They were going back home.

On the way to Hogwarts, she thought. And they spun.