Chapter Thirty-Four

A/N: All fully italicized text, and anything else you recognize, belongs to JKR. Thank you to my wonderful beta, Shellsnapeluver, for her usual speedy and insightful work on this chapter.

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When Hermione returned, she half expected Harry and Ron to be wide awake, demanding answers. After she had whispered her thanks to Dobby and extracted from him the promise that he would return for her if Professor Snape seemed to be relapsing, she edged though the tent flap, searching her mind frantically for some kind of cover story, someplace she might have needed to go... The library! she thought wildly, but both boys were asleep where she had left them, their empty plates sitting before them just as they had been. Neither seemed to have stirred.

Still, she crept through the tent, silently levitating them into their bunks and drawing the blankets up over them. She looked hard at each of their faces, relaxed and open in sleep, shadowed in the flickering light of the lamp she had left burning on the table. Gently, she removed Harry's glasses and set them on the table beside his bed. She saw something pass over his face, but he did not open his eyes.

Her boys. All these hard months had taken their toll. There were hollows in their cheeks where there had been none before. Ron, in particular, had become nearly angular, and his nose looked longer on his thin face. His hair had grown out; it hung nearly to his shoulders, now, and pooled in a wavy mass on his pillow. Both boys were in rather desperate need of a shave. Harry's face was streaked with dirt, and Hermione thought she could see the old paths of tears beneath the grime. She cast a silent Scourgify on him, erasing the evidence of his pain. How much did he suspect? He said he was going to get home to Ginny. Did he know, did he guess what Dumbledore had planned? He had not spoken much about the end, about what would happen when the last of the Horcruxes had been destroyed. Perhaps because the end had never seemed to be drawing any closer. Perhaps because the next step in the plan was too impossible to consider.

Who thought of their own death at seventeen? She prayed that he did not.

What she and Snape had planned was foolish at best, suicide at worst. But as she gazed on the faces of her two dearest friends, Hermione was more determined than ever to go through with it. If there was a chance, any chance, that Harry could be spared, she would take it. At what cost? a small voice in her head piped up. Your own life? Ron's? Snape's, God forbid? The chance that Voldemort might win? But she shoved the voice down.

Hermione did not sit the watch outside the tent. She settled in the musty old chair across from their bunks and kept watch on Harry and Ron as they slept. Oddly, what she thought about that night was not the plan, not what she would tell them to convince them to undertake such a thing, but the Mountain Troll. She looked at the two of them and mentally erased the years until they were first years again, plump for the first time with the house-elves' cooking, living lives soaked in wonder and magic. She remembered them as they had been that night, the two of them bursting into the bathroom, calling her name. They had come for her. They had not left her alone.

It seemed crazy, and part of her chastised herself for drawing comparisons between their childish misadventures and the journey they currently found themselves on, but she could not help herself. They had come--though they might have died, though they might have been expelled. They had come anyway. How could Dumbledore have expected her to give them up without trying?

Suddenly, she was struck with the chilling thought that even if Harry survived, even if he were able to take the mastery and get out... if she or Ron were lost, the war might be also. The sense of responsibility in Harry, bred into him by his history... by bloody Dumbledore... if he thought that one of them had died for him...

Finally, she allowed herself to think of the man she had forcefully kept from her thoughts since she had arrived back at the tent. If she died... if she died, who would protect him? Who would step forward to defend him? And would he... would he find the strength to finish what had to be done? What had she set in motion?

When she finally succumbed to sleep, she dreamed as she had not since the destruction of the Horcrux, dreams in which Voldemort thought her the master of the Elder Wand, in which he tortured her, skinned her, burned her, but she could not tell; she would not tell; she would not endanger Harry or Snape; she would not give in. But as her blood boiled, her shields began to fail, and he reached into her mind and snatched the truth with his sharp, pale fingernails...

"Hermione!"

She woke in the chair to Harry whose face was inches from hers. "Hermione--wake up! I think we all fell asleep after dinner. Do you think there was something wrong with those berries we ate?"

"What? Oh...I don't know. Maybe. What time is it?" Could it really be that easy to explain last night?

"Almost noon. I guess we all slept through the watch."

"I'm sorry!" she said, bolting out of the chair.

Ron laughed. "Sit down. Clearly, we didn't have any unexpected visitors."

Hermione looked away, and her stomach sank. Now that they were awake, she would have to convince them. She would have to make them see what they had to do.

She went to the stove and started moving the pots and pans about, not wanting to look at the boys, just wanting to lose herself in the daily routine.

"Ron, do you want to go for food or shall I?" she asked.

Ron volunteered. Spring was coming, and there were more mushrooms and early berries, hard and bitter but edible. There was a farm about two miles to the south; perhaps he could snatch some eggs.

As soon as Ron had left the tent, Harry began lingering around the kitchen, looking at her shiftily. She wondered if he had woken when she came in, if perhaps he'd seen her tangled up in his dreams. Finally, she looked hard at him.

"What is it?"

He looked at her as if measuring how she would react. "I've been thinking about something. Remember when I told you that Vol--"

"No! Harry, you can't say--"

Harry rolled his eyes. "...that You-Know-Who had killed Gregorovitch? That he'd been after something?"

"Yes?"

"Look, I know you don't believe in it, but I think You-Know-Who was after the Elder Wand. I think Gregorovitch had it. I mean, he was a wandmaker."

Hermione could feel something that had been drawn tight inside her relax. She would not have to explain. He already knew.

"I guess it could have been," she said slowly. "But how would he have gotten the wand?"

"I don't know. But the person who took it--the person I saw in Gregorovitch's head before You-Know-Who killed him--it was Grindelwald."

"Grindelwald?" she exclaimed.

"Yeah--it all makes a weird kind of sense, doesn't it? That Krum thought the sign of the Deathly Hallows was Grindelwald's mark? If he had the wand, then maybe he used the sign to kind of brag about it, and--"

"But, Harry! If Grindelwald had the Elder Wand... Dumbledore--"

Clearly, he had not yet gotten that far, for he looked up at her with a horrible fire in his eyes.

"Snape," he hissed.

Hermione flapped her hands in a kind of frantic denial. "No, not Snape. Not Snape! You said Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore before--"

"But this is the Elder Wand, Hermione! You don't get it just by disarming someone!"

Their voices were rising, and Harry seemed to be circling her, almost as if he were getting ready to strike.

"Harry, when you saw into Gregorovitch's mind--when You-Know-Who saw, I mean--Grindelwald didn't kill him!"

"No. No, he didn't. But he attacked him; he forced him down--Gregorovitch didn't have a wand--"

"He overpowered him!" Hermione said, feigning excitement. "And when you came back to the Astronomy Tower that night--Dumbledore was weak. He'd been weak for months, since the curse on his hand. And you said he'd drank a potion that night. I think Draco Malfoy overpowered him. I think that's what it means to 'conquer.' Dumbledore was at Malfoy's mercy. Malfoy could have killed him."

"But he didn't," Harry said, pointing at her, "Snape did that."

"I know that! But he could have!"

At that moment, she heard Ron calling from outside the tent. Harry charged past her and stuck his hand through the flap. Guilt twinged in her heart. Was she any better than Dumbledore? Refusing to tell him the whole truth, leading him into a plan that might kill them all?

Harry looked back and forth frantically between the two of them.

"What's going on?" Ron asked, looking slightly comical, his arms full of eggs and a water skin.

"We have to get the mastery from Draco Malfoy, Harry. We have to go to Malfoy Manor."

"Are you daft? We can't just pop into Malfoy Manor," Ron said, clearly alarmed. He walked quickly to the sink to put down his load. As soon as he had unburdened himself, he turned back to them. "Hermione, what are you saying?"

"Do you think Dumbledore meant for me to have the mastery?" Harry asked. There was a bit of awe in his voice.

Hermione paused. There was no sense in trying to explain anything about what Dumbledore might have intended. She took a deep breath. "Absolutely," she said. "Think, Harry. If Dumbledore meant you to have the wand, he'd have left it to you. But why tell us about it if he didn't mean for us to take some action? I think he meant You-Know-Who to take the physical wand... but I think he meant you to master it so that the wand wouldn't work for him."

"That makes sense. That makes sense!" Harry began to pace quickly around the tent again. "But how will we get there? Surely there are all kinds of enchantments on the place, and there'll be loads of Death Eaters..."

"Wait, wait. We're really talking about trying to go to Malfoy Manor? To do what?" Ron asked, sinking into a chair and looking terrified.

"To disarm Draco Malfoy. To conquer him," Hermione said. "To get the mastery of the Elder Wand. Harry, what if we broke the Taboo?"

"The Taboo?" Ron said, clearly more alarmed even than before. "If we broke the Taboo, we'd be rounded up by Snatchers in minutes!"

"How many minutes?" Hermione asked, wheeling around to look at him.

"What? I don't know. How many did it take them to find us in Tottenham Court Road?"

"But those were Death Eaters trying to find us. What about the Snatchers, Ron? You said you'd been captured--"

"Yeah, but I walked right into those... Look, I don't know. I would guess five minutes at the most, probably less."

"Five minutes," Hermione said, appearing to think. "Five minutes. In five minutes, I could change our appearances enough to confuse them... cast Protego Horribilis on the three of us..."

"Look, you two, I hate to spoil the party," Ron said, looking back and forth between them, "but assuming we were able to get into Malfoy Manor, how the hell would we get out again?"

Harry turned and looked at her expectantly.

"Dobby," she said.

"Dobby?"

"Dobby is a free elf," Hermione said. "He's always been willing to do anything for Harry. And he knows the Manor; he used to live there! If we call him, I'm sure he'll come. And house-elves aren't bound by the normal laws of Apparition. He should be able to get us out."

"That's taking an awfully big chance," Harry said, but she could hear the excitement still burning in his voice. "You're certain he would come?"

"I can't believe that Dobby would refuse to come if you needed him," she said firmly.

Ron stood up. He looked as if he'd been steamrolled. "I don't understand," he said. "I don't know... this seems like an enormous risk."

"I know it's a risk. To all of us. But we have to try. It's what Dumbledore would have wanted," Hermione said, swallowing the grimace that threatened her mouth. "In the end... if You-Know-Who has a wand that you've mastered..."

"Yeah," Harry said gruffly. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm just not following this. How can you be so certain that Dumbledore would have wanted us to walk into the home of a notorious Death Eater family--"

Harry seemed to come to some split-second decision in his mind. He looked at Hermione with a slightly crazed expression. "Are you ready?"

"What? Harry--no! Not yet! We have to--"

"Voldemort!"

Shit. SHIT! This was not how it was supposed to happen. For a moment, Hermione felt completely paralyzed. How the hell would she salvage this?

"Ron, look at me."

Ron turned toward her, looking angry and frightened. "What?"

She raised her wand, and he flinched backward. "I'm not going to hex you; I'm going to disguise you. Now, hold still."

He looked as if he might run from her, might run from the tent and leave them again. "Ron!" she bellowed. "Dissimulo Bellus!"

His stubble disappeared, though his hair remained long and wavy, its ginger color rejuvenated by the charm from the dusty, weathered color it had become. His nose became shorter and broader, and his freckles were reduced to a simple sprinkle across the bridge of his nose.

"What did you do?" Harry asked.

"I made him beautiful. Now you," she said. She thought she could hear voices in the distance, the squelching sound of feet moving over wet leaves. She shot Harry full in the face with a Stinging Hex.

"Ahh!" he cried, "Hermione, what the--"

"I'm sorry, Harry!" she cried breathlessly. "Your scar--I can't transfigure it; I just had to hide it the best I could. Pillarius!" Harry's hair doubled in length, now sweeping his shoulder blades.

The voices were much closer now. Harry was doubled over, clutching his face. Her eyes scanned the tent. Ron seemed calmer now that he didn't look like himself. "Ron, we won't be coming back--grab anything we can't leave behind--"

"Hermione! Do yourself!" he yelled.

She turned her wand on herself. What to do? One of them had to be recognizable. She couldn't get a good look at Harry to see how well his disguise had turned out. She cast a quick Straightening Charm on her hair, though it had never worked particularly well in the past, and gave herself nearly olive skin. She swept her wand in a wide arc that encompassed the three of them. "Protego Horribilis!" she whispered. "Don't forget--call Dobby if we need to get out. Harry, no matter what, you must overpower Draco Malfoy--no matter what; do you understand me?"

"Yes."

She could not mention Luna; there was simply no way to explain how she knew where Luna was being held. She would just have to pray that somehow they stumbled upon her. "Don't duel anyone else unless you absolutely have to. And Ron, if it seems like Harry isn't going to be able to--"

"It's time," Ron interrupted her. Turning, she saw a broad-knuckled hand attached to a thick forearm seize the tent flap and rip it backward. Hermione pulled up the leg of her denims and wedged the beaded bag into her sock, covering it with the heavy blue material.

"Come out of there with your hands up!" came a rasping voice. "We know you're in there! You've got half a dozen wands pointing at you, and we don't care who we curse!"

Hermione walked forward without looking back, hoping that the boys were behind her. If they seemed unafraid, perhaps it would confuse the Snatchers. She hadn't had time to give them any instructions about what to say, how best to lie. She would just have to answer first. Just before she crossed the threshold, she tapped her wand to her ring. Going now. There was no way to hide her wand, so she thrust it into her pocket.

When she saw the leader of the gang, her stomach turned sour. He was tall, but there was an odd stoop to his shoulders; his back seemed to curve forward, and all the skin she could see was dusted in thick gray hairs. He was cloaked in heavy Death Eater robes, but there was no mistaking him. It was Fenrir Greyback.

"Now, let's see who we've got," he growled and lunged at Hermione, knocking her legs out from under her and pinning her to the ground. His breath was heavy and carrion sweet, and she breathed shallowly as he considered her. Dimly, she could hear Harry and Ron yelling in the background; she could see them hitting the forest floor, subdued by other Snatchers.

"Well, hello, pretty," Greyback said, leering at her horribly. "What's your name?"

"Penelope Clearwater," she said as bravely as she could.

"What's your blood status?"

"Half-blood."

"Easy enough to check," a second Snatcher said, pulling a long roll of parchment from the pocket of his robes. "And your little friends?"

As the other Snatchers attended to Harry and Ron, Greyback's hands roamed over Hermione's torso, searching out her wand. When he slipped a hand beneath her, he discovered it in her back pocket and grabbed it, his hands lingering over her rear, kneading her buttocks. "Which one is your boyfriend, pretty? I'd like him conscious so he can watch."

Hermione swallowed the urge to spit in his face and prayed that Harry and Ron had been listening to her exchange with Greyback, that they knew to lie. She wanted to get them delivered to the Manor, yes, but not killed the instant they arrived. There had to be some confusion. But Harry lied a bit too well, giving a rather convincing account of the location of the Slytherin common room. For a moment, it seemed that Greyback was afraid, that he might release them and move along. It was very hard not to hope for that. But when Ron called himself Stan Shunpike, the Snatchers began to laugh and seemed to gain confidence again, and Ron was forced to identify himself as a Weasley cousin.

Greyback hauled her to her feet, and capturing her hands behind her back, he dragged her over to a pair of prisoners tied back-to-back beside the tent. A boy and a goblin. Dean Thomas. Hermione's heart fluttered. Dean--would he recognize her? Would he say anything? She looked hard into his eyes and willed him not to speak. Greyback shoved her toward a smaller man who began to bind her to Dean and the goblin. "Tie her up nice and tight, Scabior. I don't want to lose this one. She looks... delectable."

The thin, rabbity faced man who had tied Hermione to Dean had moved on to Harry. Dean's fingers clutched at her own where they were pressed together. A friend. For a moment, she took some comfort in the pressure of a friendly touch, but nearly instantly, she was stabbed with guilt. If the plan worked, she would be dumping Dean and this goblin, whoever he was, into the Death Eater's headquarters. The likelihood that she would manage to get all of them out alive was... not worth contemplating.

She felt the pack of prisoners jolt when Ron was brought over. As two snatchers worked to bind him to the rest of them, Scabior let out an excited squeak.

"Greyback! This one's got something!"

Hermione could not see what was happening; she was facing away from the action, but she could feel Ron stiffening beside her, and she could hear Greyback's lumbering steps as he approached.

"Very nice," Greyback purred as he drew something from Ron's robes. There was a long pause in which she assumed that the werewolf was examining whatever had been found. "Oh, very nice indeed. Tell me, my little Slytherin friends, how did you come into possession of the sword of Gryffindor?"

Elation and terror warred in Hermione's chest. She supposed that Ron had stowed the sword beneath his robes when she had ordered him to grab anything that they couldn't leave behind. This was the confusion she had been hoping for, and yet, to lose the sword would be unthinkable. Snape had risked so much to get it to her, and without it, they would have no way to destroy the Horcruxes even if they found them.

"The sword of Gryffindor?" Hermione said, trying to sound shocked.

"That's just something of my dad's," Harry said. "We brought it along to... to chop wood."

"Scabior," Greyback said, suddenly sounding thoughtful. "We've got a Weasley, a girl, and a kid in glasses... you don't think..."

The rabbit-faced wizard leaned in very close to Hermione, peering into her face. She tried to keep her expression neutral, to practice thinking of nothing but black, empty sky, but she knew she was trembling. Scabior moved along to Ron and then Harry, on whom he lingered.

"Merlin's fucking balls," he breathed. "We've caught Harry Potter."

***

Snape was nearly beside himself when he received her message. Going now? Going NOW? What in the hell could she have been thinking of? This was not the time; the plan was little more than an idea--she was supposed to contact him with a date, not Going Fucking Now.

Something must have gone dreadfully wrong. Perhaps Potter and Weasley had been awake when she had arrived. Had she told them everything? Had they thrown her out--had she been caught? His mind reeled with questions, though he struggled to think clearly. She would need help; that was the most certain thing. She was on her way to Malfoy Manor with little to no plan in place, and she would need very serious help.

Snape called Dobby to his bedroom. Instantly, the elf arrived, looking expectantly at him, and Snape had the urge to shout at the strange little figure before him. Why had she done this?

"Miss Granger and her friends have broken the Taboo, as we discussed," Snape said stiffly. "If all is proceeding according to the plan, they will arrive in Malfoy Manor shortly. I cannot imagine why she has done this," he could not help adding, "but I suppose it is of no consequence; it is done. I think it best that you go to the basement of the Manor now, if you are willing. Do nothing until you are certain that they have arrived. Then take Miss Lovegood and Mr Ollivander to Shell Cottage, the home of Bill and Fleur Weasley. Miss Granger reports that it is on the outskirts of Tinworth. It may be protected by the Fidelius Charm. Will that be a problem?"

"No, sir," Dobby squeaked. "We house-elves must be getting in and out of our masters' houses, even when they is under the Fidelius Charm. We is not told the secret."

"Yes, yes," Snape said distractedly. "Very good. I think--yes, I think I will have to go to the Manor myself."

Dobby held up his leathery little hand.

Snape stared down at it. Was this wise? He wanted to get to the parlour, not the basement. The sudden image of himself trapped in the cellar as Hermione screamed above assaulted his mind. He could not risk that. He would have to try to get in unnoticed.

"Go on," Snape said, waving the little hand away. "I will leave directly. Remember--if... if things are not salvageable... get Potter out."

Dobby turned his gleaming tennis ball eyes up toward Snape's. "I will not leave Miss Granger, Headmaster," he said.

Snape's jaw clenched. He opened and shut his mouth. He knew that if he agreed, Dobby would take it as an order, and as much as he needed to order the elf to save her first, he could not. "Get Potter out," he said again.

"Yes, sir," Dobby said and disappeared with a crack.

Dropping the anti-Apparition wards on his chambers seemed ill-advised, but he did not have time to get to the Apparition point outside the gates, nor did he want to speak to Dumbledore, so he reluctantly flicked his wand to dismantle them, quickly Disillusioned himself, and left.

He arrived outside the wrought iron gates that he had passed through so many times in the past. He could lift his sleeve. The Mark would admit him through the gate, but it would signal Lucius to the presence of a visitor. Instead, he would have to undo the enchantments on the property if he could and hope that Lucius was too cocky to have included any fail-safes. He felt oddly numb, robotic. Fear strung him tight as a wire, but it seemed it existed only at the surface. Beneath there was only darkness and purpose.

Snape had only just lifted his wand when he was knocked aside by the Apparition of Fenrir Greyback's gang of Snatchers, their hands all firmly grasping a clutch of prisoners, bound back-to-back. As he scrambled away from them on his hands and knees, he quickly scanned their faces. Seeing her this way--wandless, defenseless--seemed to break through the silence of his thoughts and brought them screaming to attention. Potter and Weasley were reasonably well disguised, but Hermione looked as if she had made little effort on her own behalf. Anger surged up in him once more. What had she been thinking?

He did not dare to try to disguise her now, however. He got to his feet and edged toward the prisoners as Greyback demanded admittance. He did not want to touch her for fear that she would startle and give him away, but when the gates swung open, he slipped through them, keeping as close to her as he could.

***

The first thing that she knew when they had arrived was pain. She'd stumbled as they landed, and her ankle had seemed to give beneath her. The second thing she knew was that Snape was nearby. He had not answered the message she had sent, but the electric tingle of her skin told her that he had come. She willed herself not to look around, not to betray him with her face. When Greyback marched them toward the Manor, she was in the rear, and she watched with mounting fear as the gates seemed to drift further and further away from her.

A cold, woman's voice came from the doorway. "What is this? Who are you?"

"You know me!" There was resentment in the werewolf's voice. "Fenrir Greyback! We've caught Harry Potter!"

Hermione caught a whiff of a delicate, floral scent as Narcissa Malfoy leaned in to inspect Harry. In her fear, her mind seemed to leap and stop on the oddest things. She savored the smell of Draco's mother's perfume as she inspected them, deciding whether or not to call Voldemort.

"I know 'e's swollen ma'am, but it's 'im!" piped up Scabior. "If you look a bit closer, you'll see 'is scar. And this 'ere, see the girl? The Mudblood who's been traveling around with 'im, ma'am. There's no doubt it's 'im, and we've got his wand as well!"

Narcissa hesitated, but she looked them over once more. "Bring them in," she said.

Hermione was dragged over the landing by the movement of the others, and she struggled to get her feet back under her as they were hustled into the parlour.

"Draco!" Narcissa called. "Draco, come here!" She turned imperiously toward Greyback. "My son, Draco, went to school with Harry Potter and his filthy little friends. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."

Hermione held her breath as Draco descended a curved, sweeping staircase into the hallway, followed by his father.

"What is going on?" Lucius said.

"They say they've got Potter," Narcissa answered. "Draco?" She indicated the group with her hand.

Draco stepped toward her. Hermione did not know what to do with her face. Should she try to stare him down? Look away? But when she glanced up into his eyes, she found them cloudy and hesitant. He moved from her to Ron without seeming to recognize them. Hermione craned her neck to watch him as he proceeded around the circle of prisoners, but he stepped quickly out of her line of vision.

"Well?" Lucius demanded. "Well, Draco? Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"

"I can't--I can't be sure," said Draco, and his voice sounded nothing like the cold drawl she remembered from their school days.

Confunded, she thought suddenly. He's been Confunded.

Lucius came forward. Hermione could hear his heavy steps as he strode toward Harry, ignoring the others. "There's something here," he whispered, "It could be the scar, stretched tight... Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?"

But Hermione did not hear Draco return to his father's side.

"Lucius, we had best be sure. If we call him, we must be absolutely... we must not forget what happened to Rowle and Dolohov... to Travers."

She thought she heard Lucius taking a breath to reply, but just then, a voice that chilled Hermione's blood rang through the room.

"What is this? What's happened, Cissy?" Hermione did not have to struggle around to see who that voice belonged to. Since the night at the Ministry, it had turned up in her dreams.

She did not wait for Narcissa's explanation, but honed in on Hermione immediately, quickly circling the prisoners to see her more completely. The crazed and empty eyes of Bellatrix Lestrange raked her over from head to toe, and Hermione watched in helpless horror as she raised her wand.

"Finite Incantatem!" she cried.

Hermione knew that she was fully herself again; that both the boys were now undisguised, unprotected; that they were disarmed and bound in the middle of Malfoy Manor; that there were four Death Eaters in the room who could summon the Dark Lord with a touch, but she could not stop herself from scanning the room for Snape. Was he outside the range of the spell? Had he been revealed?

She did not see him, but the fear did not release its icy grip on her heart. This was all going terribly wrong. She wiggled her hands frantically, but the ropes that bound her were not magical ones and had not been affected by Bellatrix's spell.

Draco suddenly shot forward from his mother's side, joining his aunt. "That's Granger!" he cried. "I can see it now--she had some kind of disguise on before, but that's Granger--and Weasley--and--"

Hermione could not look away as Bellatrix's long fingers began to draw up the left sleeve of her robes.

Lucius Malfoy suddenly burst into her field of vision. "I was about to call him!" said Lucius, and his hand actually closed upon Bellatrix's wrist, preventing her from touching the Mark. "I shall summon him, Bella. Potter has been brought to my house, and it therefore is upon my authority--"

"I think you are forgetting who caught the boy," Greyback snarled, entering the fray. "I found the boy; I recognized him; I brought him here, and when the Dark Lord arrives, I will be the one to claim the glory--"

Hermione did not understand what was happening. Though she certainly could not be afraid of Greyback, Bellatrix Lestrange took several steps backward, a look of abject horror on her face.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing tremulously at the sword of Gryffindor where it hung from Greyback's belt. "Where did you get it?"

"Ah, yes, the sword of Gryffindor," Greyback gloated. "Found it on this one here," he said, indicating Ron.

Bellatrix turned frantically to Lucius, and Hermione's eyes followed. Lucius's fingers were descending toward the Mark.

"STOP!" shrieked Bellatrix. "Do not touch it, we shall all perish if the Dark Lord comes now!"

***

Snape had been lingering in the hallway since their arrival. He had suspected that it would only be a matter of time before someone cast Finite Incantatem, and so he had stayed where he would remain concealed even if the charm reached him. He had Confunded Draco simply to buy time, knowing that it wouldn't last. But now a different kind of time was being purchased. Bellatrix had seen the sword.

He held up a hand before his face, and having determined that he was still invisible, he crept into the parlour. Potter was facing away from him, blocked by the bodies of Dean Thomas and the goblin, but he had a fairly clear shot at Weasley and Hermione. He weighed his options. He might only have a single chance to cast the Protego Charm. Who would need it most?

Lucius, Narcissa, and Bellatrix had clustered about Greyback, examining the sword.

"The situation is graver than you can possibly imagine, Cissy," Bellatrix breathed, staring hard at Narcissa as if willing her to understand. "That sword should be in my vault." Snape watched in mute triumph as Bellatrix's hand strayed unconsciously to her neck where it fingered a slim silver chain that disappeared beneath the collar of her robes. "In my vault, Narcissa. What else do they have? Things I swore to keep safe, things he trusted to my care... If he comes now... Dear God, what else do they have?"

Narcissa took a step backward, as if to distance herself from someone so condemned. Bellatrix opened her hands in supplication to her sister. "The prisoners must be placed in the cellar, while I think what to do."

"This is my home, Bella, you don't give orders in my--" Narcissa said quietly. Snape thought there was a hint of triumph in her voice. Finally, she could outshine her sister. She had not been the one to lose the Dark Lord's treasures.

"Do it! You have no idea of the danger we are in!" shrieked Bellatrix. She looked frightening, mad; a thin stream of fire issued from her wand and burned a hole in the carpet.

Narcissa glanced at the carpet, at the sword, at the children bound in her parlour and then back at her sister. "Take the prisoners to the cellar, Greyback."

"Wait," Bellatrix said sharply. "All except... except for the Mudblood."

Snape closed his eyes for the briefest second. What if he were to wait until they had untied her, separated her from the others... and then lunged for her and Apparated them out of here? Surely Potter and Weasley could call Dobby... they might even meet him in the cellar...

But he knew he must not do that. He tried to remind himself that he was here to save Potter. He must not care for anything but--

As Greyback began to slice through the ropes that bound the prisoners together, the group turned slightly, giving him a clear shot at the boy. Lucius and Narcissa were still whispering with Bellatrix. Draco was leading the other Snatchers from the house. He cast a wordless Protego Horribilis at Potter. He watched the pale golden light stream across the room and strike his left shoulder, spreading quickly over his body. He watched the fool's head jerk upward, looking for the source of the spell before he was dragged, along with the others, toward the basement.

Hermione was alone, unprotected, in the center of the room, her hands still bound behind her back. Snape fought the urge to scream. He should have protected her. She would have known how to act, how to fake the pain, how to keep their secrets, and he could have made her a shield, but now she was defenseless, and he could not stand between her and what was surely coming. He could not stop it.

It appeared to him as though Bellatrix turned toward his wife in slow motion. He saw her wand slice upward through the air and descend like a cracking whip. "Crucio!"

Hermione screamed, a drawn-out howl of agony, and senselessly, it occurred to Snape that he had never heard her scream before, never heard in her voice any hint of pain. She collapsed onto the floor, but Bellatrix did not release the spell. Hermione's face hit the carpet, muffling slightly the sound of her cries. Her back arched, lifting her legs from the floor and causing her to shake violently as if she were seizing.

It seemed his every muscle was on fire for her. He staggered across the room toward Bellatrix, not knowing what he intended, having no thoughts except to get between his wife and that spell. Bellatrix's wand arm shook with the force of the curse she was channeling--Hermione did not so much look as if she were being tortured, but as though she were being electrocuted. Her piercing screams seemed to cut physical wounds into his skin. Fuck his wand. He would beat Bellatrix Lestrange to death barehanded; he would feel her skin rupture under his fingertips.

Suddenly, Bellatrix lifted her wand. Snape froze where he was. "Where did you get the sword?" she asked, leaning down toward Hermione's prostrate body.

Hermione choked on her own saliva as she swallowed. "Found it," she gasped.

"Liar!" Bellatrix shrieked, pulling a slim silver knife from the pocket of her robes and waving it in Hermione's face. "Tell me the truth, Mudblood, or I will carve that lying tongue out of your mouth."

"We found it--we found it--PLEASE!" Hermione screamed as Bellatrix's wand descended once more.

Dimly, Snape was aware that Lucius and the others were moving toward the cellar. There was some kind of disturbance, and Wormtail was being called to check on it, but he did not care; he did not care at all anymore if Potter got the mastery of the wand, if these fools believed him a Death Eater, if any of them got out alive; he would stop this from happening.

Bellatrix was standing over her now, her legs straddling Hermione's writhing body on the carpet. She reached down and hauled Hermione up by her hair, throwing her wand to the floor and pressing the knife into her neck.

"Last chance, you filthy piece of scum. You are lying, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth!"

Snape could see the thin stream of blood running down Hermione's throat. He crept up behind Bellatrix. If he did this well, he would save his wife and the plan at once. He raised his left hand and burned a single word into the ring with his wand. Fight. It did not matter if she read it or not; he sent it with such force, he felt sure that the word would travel straight into her heart through her bloodstream.

***

It did not seem that there could be any more pain in the world. Her scalp burned, but she could not find the strength to wrench herself from Bellatrix's grasp. The curse... the fucking curse had taken her power and left her muscles loose and rubbery; the nerves under her skin still sang in outrage. Her vision was spotty, and all of what she had, everything, was focused on keeping what she knew beneath the surface of her mind. As the curse had rolled through her, Hermione had known for the first time what Occlumency was truly about--the blackness wasn't to hide your secrets from another person. It was to hide them from yourself, to bury them where you could not reach them, where they would stay safe no matter what was done to you. But then, blinding pain coursed through her hand, and a single word seemed to swell inside her until she was nearly bursting with it. FIGHT.

She curled her feet beneath her and launched herself backward into Bellatrix's body. Hermione felt the larger witch rock on her feet as the knife flayed the skin from her neck. Then suddenly, Ron was flying across the room. He caught Bellatrix with the full force of his body, and she hit the ground beside Hermione with a crunching thud. "Her wand--Ron, her wand," she croaked, and the words tore at her throat and made her mouth feel coppery and thick.

With her hands still bound, she could not remove the ring, and it burned and seared into her skin with ever-increasing intensity. But the pain seemed to clear her head rather than cloud it, as the Cruciatus had done, and she could clearly see Harry, with an unfamiliar wand held aloft, as he battled Draco Malfoy. Red light shot from the tip of the thick black wand, and Draco dodged and danced to avoid Harry's spells.

She saw Ron leap to his feet, saw him Stun Bellatrix and Lucius. He took off after Narcissa Malfoy who was running down the hallway, deeper into the house. Greyback had disappeared, leaving the sword where it had fallen when Bellatrix had turned her attention to Hermione.

She turned back toward Harry and Draco. It seemed she did not have the strength to rise from the floor. Her limbs would not obey the most basic of commands, and she was helpless here. Where was Greyback? Suddenly, she felt long cool fingers closing over hers, and she began to summon the will to scream. But the hair that brushed her burning cheeks was fragrant and familiar, and she realized that the hands were working the bonds that held her, rubbing the chafed flesh beneath with incredible care, and when she was free, when she could move again, those deft fingers removed her ring and replaced it, ending the white heat that was keeping her focused. Snape's hand pressed something cool and hard into her palm as well as what felt like a chunk of hair. "I am sorry I could not kill her," he breathed into her ear. Then he pulled back, and she fainted.

***

Reluctantly, Snape retreated back into the hallway. If he needed to call Dobby, he needed to find a place where he would not be heard. From his position of relative safety, he could see Potter shooting spell after spell at Malfoy as he advanced on him. Malfoy fought back in kind; in fact, Snape thought he had never seen the boy possessed with such determination, but his spells seemed to glance off Potter like light on the water. The shield had held.

Potter drove Malfoy backward through the room, finally trapping him against the back wall beside the fireplace. He bore down on Malfoy with a ugly gleam in his eyes. "Stupefy!" he screamed, his wand held directly against Draco's chest. When Draco crumpled, Potter seized his wand and held it aloft in a kind of victory stance.

Snape knew he should feel triumphant. This was what they had come for, and now it was done, but instead he wanted to hit Potter, to seize him by the shoulders and whip him around, to make him look at what his victory had cost: the boy's own best friend lying bloody and unconscious, unnoticed, across the room.

But then Potter did turn, and as he ran toward Hermione, as he fell to his knees beside her, Bellatrix began to stir. In her hand, she still clutched the silver knife. She looked at Potter appraisingly from the floor, and he saw her hand flex and tighten around the handle of it. Snape watched the thought as it crossed her face. She was to save Harry Potter for the Dark Lord. He saw her fingers creeping toward the Mark as Weasley burst back into the room, Narcissa behind him, screaming for her son.

Bellatrix called to Voldemort; Snape felt her summons burn through his own arm, and now he would have to go, for the Dark Lord would know immediately if he were present. He would have to leave her here. He stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, his wand raised, his feet unwilling to go forward. Not until he knew help was coming for them. "Dobby!" he whispered. He heard the crack of the elf's Apparition, though he could not see him and ran out through the front door, still ajar from the earlier confusion, and down the long walk. He burst through the gate, and disappeared into the night.

***

Hermione woke as glass cascaded around her. She felt a hundred stinging points of impact, and instinctively, her hands rose to cover her face, though the damage had been done. Slivers of it tore at her skin as she tried to brush the shards from her hair. Bellatrix was struggling free of the rubble, her knife raised threateningly. Harry began to pull Hermione out from under the twisted metal, she felt his hands driving the glass deeper into her own, and she heard a strange, choked whimper that she dimly realized was coming from her own throat. Narcissa lunged at Harry, and he dodged her, releasing Hermione and running toward the house-elf who stood improbably atop the fallen chandelier in the middle of the decimated parlour. Was he going to leave her? Where was Snape?

Harry turned back. "Ron," he screamed. "Take Hermione and go--GO!"

She felt strong arms hoisting her to her feet, though her ankles would not support her weight. She was sure that she would fall, would slip from his grasp and be left behind. Ron spun but nothing happened. The wards, she thought vaguely. The wards will not permit--

"Harry, help me--I can't!" Ron yelled, and she fell to the floor as Harry turned and ran toward them, clutching Dobby's hand. Her mind was growing foggy again; the pain was rising like an enormous red wave--

"Don't let go!" Ron bellowed as he seized her wrist in his fist, thrusting the sword of Gryffindor into her hand. She saw his other hand collide with Harry's; she watched with a kind of polite interest as their fingers locked around each other. But she knew it was over. The last thing she saw before the sweeping darkness descended was Bellatrix, who had risen to her feet, and the silver knife flying through the air toward her.

They were too late.