Wandless

A/N: I had such an unbelievable amount of fun writing the second half of this chapter. I can't imagine what Rowling felt while writing her own Final Battle scene, but it felt exactly like writing one of those shoot-em-up action flicks, except a dozen times more interesting with magic. But I totally think that I thought up a better way to deal with the Dementors than Rowling. The second half of this chapter is somewhat violent, minor amount of blood-letting but with explosions and fire to spare.

Obviously AU now... no Deathly Hallows spoilers in this, though I may work some in for later chapters. However, I'm pretty sure for you Snape-fans that my ending is much more... satisfactory. That means that in the first chapter...erm, that is... my, isn't it a lovely day today?

Chapter 4

Wandless

--6:00–6:30pm, June 18, 1998--

"Bombarda!"

The pillow exploded in a cloud of white, downy snow, which slowly began to settle over the bed. Hermione waited until the feathers were tickling her nose before cleaning up the mess with a sweep of her wand.

She wrote: 6:00–6:30pm, June 18, 1998 Mental breakdown (not funny). Replace Mrs. Weasley's pillow. Move on.

Then she removed the Silencio over the room. She didn't remember casting the Silencing Charm, but she knew that if she had not, someone would have already come running at the sounds coming from her room.

She felt her stomach rumble and smiled. "Check."

--6:30–7:00pm, June 18, 1998--

Dinnertime was a surprisingly cheerful affair. It was a weekday evening, so only Mrs. Weasley was home.

Hermione was also having a difficult time being called a new name. It was not something she instinctively knew.

There had been two objects on Minerva's desk: a scroll and a long, thin box. Minerva turned and picked up the scroll. "Here are your wizarding papers. Camilla Elliot graduated from Beauxbatons in the lower half of her class (Hermione had winced and Minerva had smiled – 'well, we must create an entirely different personality,' she'd said). All her known relatives are deceased, and she moved to Cambridge to enjoy some time off before searching for a job."

"Thank you," he murmured and he hugged them fiercely.

--10:30-11:00pm, October 31, 1998--

There was chaos. No order, no reason.

For a brief, terrifying moment, Hermione was lost, clutching her bracelet and dodging hexes left and right. The last thing she had recorded was preparing to Portkey to Godric's Hollow with the rest of the Order. The Death Eaters must have surprised them.

But that made no sense. The only person who knew of the plan other than the Order and the DA was... Severus.

The rush of dread that she felt then was enough to propel her to her feet. Amycus Carrow lay unconscious next to her, and she idly wondered whether she had done it.

She heard pops of Apparition all around her as more and more Death Eaters arrived. Fortunately, so did Order members and the DA. She saw Bellatrix Lestrange creep up on Harry from behind.

"Harry!" she shouted, and she jerked her wand to the side.

Fueled by her panic, the redwood wand overreacted, and she saw Harry lifted as if by a giant hand and flung to one side as Lestrange's spell impacted harmlessly against a tree. Harry scrambled up from the dirt where Hermione's spell had deposited him, glasses smudged and askew and the front of his robes gaping open. As he got to his feet, the chain around his neck shifted, and everyone saw the golden surface of Slytherin's locket gleam in the moonlight.

In a surreal moment, fighting all around them stopped. Then the sudden silence was broken by fierce whispering.

Then... out from the ruins of the Potter house on the top of a hill, stepped two tall, imposing figures swathed in black. Severus Snape and Lord Voldemort looked down at the wizards poised to destroy each other.

Hermione was immediately struck by the similarities between the two men... if Voldemort could still be called a man. Both had regal, imperious expressions on their faces as if they owned the world below them. Both seemed to stand a bit taller than normal human beings.

Voldemort's flat, red eyes clashed with Severus' small, dark ones. Voldemort held his wand loosely in a white, scaly hand, whereas everything about Severus' rigid stance suggested control. Looking at one filled her soul with intense hatred while the other...

No, Hermione realized. They were entirely different beings.

"Potter carries something valuable to our Lord with him." Snape's voice boomed over the crowd. "You will not touch him."

Voldemort cackled harshly, his breath wheezing in and out between thin, cold lips. "Severusssss, keep an eye on young Potter. Kill the ressssst." And Voldemort lifted his hand up and up...

To Hermione's right, there was a sound like bones cracking. She turned and saw a great oak tree by her side being torn out of the ground by its roots.

She looked up and up... and she saw the giant holding the uprooted tree in his hands like a spear. He was a great, shaggy thing that wore a leather kilt that seemed to be plaited with the feathers from an entire Hippogriff. Beside him, popping into existence to loom over the dumbstruck crowd like small hills, appeared at least eight other giants. The muscles in the shaggy giant's arms flexed.

"Ginny, get down!" She grabbed the red-haired girl, who had been staring at the giant in abject terror, and forced them both face-first into the ground.

The tree hit the ground a few feet in front of their heads, the roots spinning into the sky like broken fingers, sending clouds of dust into their faces. Through fits of coughing, Hermione heard Harry shouting.

"HAGRID! Hagrid, now!"

From the woods around Godric's Hollow burst at least half a dozen equally large giants, including one that she recognized as Grawp. And running beside them, looking like a midget in comparison, was Hagrid, who was roaring in laughter.

"Aye, we're 'ere, Harry!"

The two groups of giants met with a sound like mountains crashing together, and suddenly the battle grew a hundred times more frightening.

Hermione scrambled to her feet, hunching slightly as she ran. "Stay low to the ground!" she yelled at Ginny. She ducked under a low-swinging club as hexes once again began to fly thick and fast.

She saw Remus Lupin, moving faster than she had ever seen him move, dodging the swinging claws of a snarling Fenrir Greyback. There was Neville Longbottom, his left arm struck with a vicious Severing Charm and dangling from his shoulder by a sliver of muscle, holding his wand triumphantly over a fallen Bellatrix Lestrange. Minerva, her grey hair freed from its bun and flowing about her neck, hissed as she Transfigured a blond Death Eater into a cream puff. Ginny Weasley, fully recovered from her panic, with her red hair streaming out behind her like a flag, hit Antonin Dolohov with a hex that had him weeping and staggering like a blind man, colliding into trees. Countless other nameless faces merged into a frenetic blur, viciously attacking Order members and teenage DA soldiers alike.

Suddenly Hermione's head was jerked to one side as if she had been struck across the face.

Lucius Malfoy stood barely three feet away, his wand pointing at her and a victorious gleam in his eyes as he said, "Ah, Miss Granger, we meet again. It seems that Severus has no more need for you, so... Crucio!"

She had no time to think about the meaning behind his words or even to run before Malfoy's curse sped towards her, filling her vision with red sparkling light. At the last possible instant, the spell veered to the side and impacted a rock, sending bits of stone flying.

"Reducto!" Hermione screamed.

Although he wasn't blasted into pieces, Malfoy flew backwards, his arm cracking sickeningly against a tree trunk.

Hermione looked around, her eyes wildly searching for the one responsible for deflecting Malfoy's curse. They lit upon Severus, standing mere feet away from Harry. Severus had his wand out, and as their eyes met, he nodded to her slightly. Harry seemed to look at Snape with slightly less hostility.

"Enough!"

Voldemort's hiss filled their heads as the world's most powerful Legilimens blasted out his thoughts for all to hear. Dodging hexes and running between tree-trunk thick legs of giants, Hermione didn't have time to think about what new evil Voldemort was summoning.

But then a great wave of despair washed over her. All around her, she saw Order and DA members falter, their wands trembling in their hands. Some began weeping. Even the Death Eaters turned pale. The giants, apparently not having emotion enough to care, continued raging around them.

Hermione looked up, her jaw going slack as she saw horde after horde of Dementors floating across the sky, forming "V"s in a horrendous parody of migratory birds.

She saw herself, writhing in agony underneath a curse. Bowing her head over a tombstone. Severus' face, bored and complacent, looking at her from across an empty bedroom.

"Expecto Patronum!"

A silver stag as large as a bear galloped past her, the wind from its passing rushing through her like an invigorating shower.

Waving her wand for the first time, feeling power that she'd never known tingling in her skin. Walking with Viktor into the Yule Ball, hearing awed and jealous whispers all around. Ron looking at her bashfully, holding a long-stemmed rose. Severus' hand touching her cheek, his face moving towards hers, her wide eyes and diamond-dusted dress reflected in his pupils...

"Expecto Patronum!" Hermione roared. A magnificent silvery snake erupted from her wand, floating its way up to join the stag, sending Dementors scattering as they attempted to dive down upon them.

Hermione stared at her Patronus, gaping, terrified. But it seemed that everybody was too busy casting their own Patronuses to notice hers.

One by one, silvery creatures floated past them and joined their brethren, uniting as a shield of good thoughts against the Dementors. But even from where she stood, Hermione could see that it was not enough. The Dementors had been breeding for nearly two years, and they were numerous enough to blot out the light from the moon.

Hermione heard a strangled cry, and she turned in time to see half a dozen Dementors pick up Ron, lifting him into the air above the trees.

"No..." she said. She took several stumbling steps toward him before despair overwhelmed her and forced her to her knees.

They can't take him. He has a family. He's getting married.

Hermione struggled to her feet, barely able to see through the dark, swirling mist. She gasped as a giant's foot stomped down inches to her left.

Where was Michele? She and Charlie were supposed to...

A screeching cry filled the sky like the Hogwarts Express at full speed. Through the mist burst two enormous dragons, a Hungarian Horntail and...

"Norbert!" Hagrid shouted joyfully.

Hagrid's baby Norwegian Ridgeback had grown into a 100-foot long behemoth. Both dragons were fitted with saddles, and their underbellies were plated with burnished red armor. Norbert's tail lashed fiercely, sending Dementors scattering and slashing one giant across the face. The great creature ran screaming for the trees.

Atop the Hungarian Horntail, Michele yelled, "Hold on, Ron!"

The beast surged towards the Dementors holding Ron. One of them was lowering its hood, tipping Ron's face up... Michele wasn't going to make it.

The Horntail arched its neck and expelled an enormous column of fire. The faces of the crowd below were lit with an orange glow as Dementors screamed in unearthly agony, robes and bone-dry limbs aflame. Around them, the giants panicked and ran as one into the woods, abandoning the battlefield.

Dementors fell from the sky like scraps of burnt parchment, and Ron was falling with them. The Horntail put on a burst of speed and dived, its great spiked tail swinging towards Ron.

There was an almighty gasp, just as if the crowd below were spectators at a Quidditch match. Ron's hand flashed forward and caught around one of the dragon's many spikes, swinging himself up onto the tail as easily as if he were riding a broom.

An enormous cheer went up from the Order. Ron clambered up the dragon's back until he could settle himself into the seat behind Michele. He wrapped his arms around her, and Hermione allowed herself to admire how beautiful they looked together.

"Finish them!" Voldemort's hissing had taken on an edge of panic. "Kill them all!"

From above, Charlie gave a great laugh as he urged Norbert to dive.

"GET DOWN!"

Severus' voice filled all of their heads, and the Order and the DA all ducked as one. The Death Eaters did not, as Severus had apparently neglected to extend his warning to their minds.

Norbert screeched like a great eagle and spewed forth a column of fire bigger than himself, bigger than the world itself. Hermione coughed as fire scorched the air and ripped through the trees mere feet above their heads. Inhuman screaming began as Death Eaters were set aflame. Trees were burned to ragged stumps, and the last of the Dementors disappeared in an inferno of orange and red.

"Now, Potter!" Severus yelled, with his physical voice this time, loud enough for everyone to hear, including Voldemort. As Death Eaters frantically cast streams of water from their wands to douse their flaming robes, Harry ran through a cloud of ash and smoke and appeared... at last... alone before Voldemort.

"Avada Kedavra!" Harry screamed.

The shock of losing nearly his entire army and discovering that his most-trusted servant was a traitor would have been enough to destroy a lesser general. Voldemort was discomfited just long enough to allow Harry's hex, a sickly green jet of light, to impact his shoulder.

Voldemort stumbled. Hermione and the rest of the Order held their breaths.

Then Voldemort straightened up to his full height and glanced disdainfully at the smoldering hole in the shoulder of his robes. "Harry Potter..." he hissed. "You have trained for seven years to defeat me. Yet you still cannot summon enough hatred to do more than singe my clothing."

Harry's hand tightened around his wand, fury contorting his face.

"Then again," the Dark Lord hissed, "I have learned...in more ways than one...not to expect too much from a child. Dance, little Potter, Crucio!"

Harry jerked his wand to the side, and the curse swerved away. It had taken an enormous effort; Hermione could see Harry panting, and already, another jet of red light was streaking towards him.

Six curses later, Harry was visibly faltering. With a growl of frustration, Severus stepped forward and waved the next curse aside. "Stop wasting time, Potter! We did not all risk our lives tonight to see you play."

Harry's chest rose and fell with his heavy breathing. He seemed torn between dodging Voldemort's next curse and shouting at Snape.

"Do it your way, Potter," Snape said. "Pretend that he's me."

Before anyone had time to shout, Snape hissed something unintelligible and fired a spell at Harry. The curse was a jet of silvery, liquid light, as if Snape had hurled the contents of a Pensieve from his wand. It struck Harry in the back.

Three things happened at once. The Order raised their wands as one and aimed them at Snape. Hermione leapt in front of Severus, placing herself between him and the Order. But all of them faltered as Harry threw back his head and let out a scream like an animal in pain.

"NOOOO!"

Harry's eyes snapped open, and the only thing he could see before him was Voldemort, wand poised to cast another curse. Hermione saw Harry's face in the light of the blazing trees; it was full of unholy rage.

Then, in a sudden movement, Harry hurled his wand at Voldemort.

The dark wizard's eyes widened in surprise, and his wand halted in the middle of his curse; his arm moved to one side, intending to knock Harry's wand aside.

Wandless and defenseless, Harry Potter raised his right hand at Lord Voldemort.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

A brilliant jet of light, green as absinthe, shot out of Harry's palm and struck Voldemort squarely in his unprotected chest. Voldemort screamed, a broken sound, as if there were a million tortured souls encased within his body. For a brief instant, there was a brilliant silver haze surrounding his body. Then he fell to the ground, face-first, his wand rolling out of his limp hand.

A sickly greenish cloud rose into the air above the Dark Lord's body. In the next instant, three jets of identical hazy light shot from locations beyond the horizon to join with the original cloud. Harry stumbled forward, clawing at the chain around his neck as Slytherin's locket began vibrating and glowing. The chain broke and the locket hit the ground; another beam of ugly green light emitted from within, sailing through the air to join the growing cloud above Voldemort's fallen body.

Hermione, who was staring at the sight in bafflement, slowly began to understand. The portion of Voldemort's soul still in his body... the four remaining Horcruxes... they must all be together now... His soul was whole once again...

The soul-cloud twisted upon itself like a billowy snake and suddenly shot towards her with a sound like a shriek of rage. Her eyes fixated upon the cloud, imagining a gigantic set of jaws opening within, ready to swallow her whole.

Suddenly, she was shoved violently to one side. She picked herself up and saw Severus staring down at her with unfamiliar, hard eyes. He jeered, "Stand aside, Miss Granger. Your concern is neither welcome nor needed."

Time slowed to a crawl as she opened her mouth to scream, for she could see now that Voldemort's soul had been aimed towards Severus all along; she had merely been in the way. She saw Harry standing to one side, looking at Snape with absolute loathing. He was going to let Severus be consumed by Voldemort's tainted soul...

Then Harry lifted his fallen wand and pointed it at the sickly-green cloud.

"Ayuna nakaq!"

The words rolled off Harry's tongue with the whispered reverence of a prayer. The spell was not one she recognized, and the language sounded South American. Hermione wondered exactly what sort of training Harry had been receiving in Machu Picchu.

The spell emerged from his wand as a net of white light that wrapped around the soul-cloud. The beams of light drew tight, squeezing like long, thin fingers. The remnants of Voldemort began to glow blue, a color that grew brighter and bluer, until Hermione imagined it to be the color of the sky when the Earth had been born.

There was a blinding flash of white...the wizards left standing were knocked off their feet...then the light dissolved, leaving nothing behind, not even ash.

Hermione's breaths sounded loud and harsh in her ears. Silence had fallen upon Godric's Hollow. Every single eye was riveted upon the fallen form of Voldemort. This time, Hermione could see that he was truly gone. The body looked crumpled and empty, a shell of what had once been human.

His flat, red eyes were vacant and black.

Then one by one, Death Eaters dropped their wands to the ground. Lengths of wood hit the dirt like a shower of matchsticks.

Looking around, she saw that Severus was gone.

The air crackled with the sharp reports of a single pair of hands clapping. The clapping was joined by another and then another until full-throated cheers were ringing through the sky.

Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Tom Riddle, scourge of the wizarding world for over thirty years, was dead. And it had all taken less than half an hour.

As her bracelet tingled against her wrist, Hermione removed her quill from behind her ear with dream-like slowness.

The first words she wrote were: We did it.

But as she looked around her...Ron and Michele embraced atop the Horntail like a fairytale couple upon a steed. Hagrid comforted a weeping Grawp, whose head was nearly entirely bare, his hair scorched away. Tonks fussed hysterically over Lupin, her hair changing shades every two seconds; Lupin had a bleeding slash over his eye that ran from his forehead to his cheek, and Hermione thought it would look quite fetching once it had healed. Luna laid a comforting hand on Neville's shoulder, waving her wand over his nearly severed arm, knitting the flesh and bone back together. Even Kingsley Shacklebolt swooped down upon a startled Minerva and planted an enthusiastic kiss on her lips.

She looked around her and suddenly felt unbearably empty and alone.

Next chapter: Sunrises from two vastly different times. We finally find out the importance of Hermione's bracelet. Preparations for battle, when some things are said and others left unsaid, and someone discovers Hermione's secret.

As always, pleeeeease review. It takes less than a minute, but the giddy feeling I get when a new review alert shows up in my inbox rivals what drinking Felix Felicis must be like. Yeah, I'm shameless.