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Sirius and Remus instantly whipped their wands up and trained them on Hermione. She looked thoroughly unperturbed.
Remus stepped forward for a closer look, “Miss Granger? Is that you?”
“Yes Professor Lupin it’s me,” she replied with a cheery smile. “You said we would meet again, and well... here I am!”
“Shouldn’t you be in the UK, preparing for your final year at Hogwarts? What about your NEWTS?”
Hermione waved a hand dismissively, “Pah. I could pass all seven NEWTS in my sleep. I already waited ten months since Harry sent his final present. I couldn’t wait another year! I decided to find Harry now. Dumbledore will just have to choose another Head Girl.”
Sirius kept his wand trained on her, “What the hell is going on? Who is this? Where’s Rose?”
“I’m sorry Mr Black,” Hermione replied, “but there never was a Rose. It was always me, Hermione Granger. I took some hair from a girl I met on the way here and Polyjuiced myself to look like her.”
Harry was struggling to get any words out. Fortunately Remus asked the question he wanted to ask: “But why?”
“Because I wanted to get to know Harry of course,” she replied. “And I wanted Harry to get to know me. But I wanted him to like me for who I am – who I am this time, I mean, not who I was last time.”
Sirius, Remus and Harry all exchanged looks.
Hermione laughed merrily, “Oh you should see your faces! Honestly Harry, did you think I wouldn’t work it out? I’d begun to suspect that you must have come back in time even before you sent me the lost Diadem of Ravenclaw.”
“You did?” Harry mumbled numbly.
“Of course I did!” Hermione replied, sounding mildly offended. “You sent me enough clues! As soon as they gave me a time-turner in third year I began to wonder, because you knew things you could only know if you’d seen the future. That meant you were either a seer or you’d come back from the future. We all know that seers are frauds, so it had to be the latter, and the time-turner proved that time travel was possible.”
“Er, well in fact seers can...” Harry began, but stopped. “Actually, never mind. So how did you find us?”
“Harry, I have the Diadem of Ravenclaw. I can think of at least twenty ways I could have tracked you down, but I chose the easiest one – I followed Professor Lupin. In English folklore ‘Padfoot’ is the name given to a sort of spectral black dog, otherwise known as a Grim. It therefore seemed likely that Mr Black was an animagus who appeared as a Grim when you both escaped from Azkaban. Professor Lupin clearly knew who you were and left Hogwarts to come to find you. Since he knows you better than I, he would know where to look and possibly how to contact you. I suspected he would use muggle transportation, which would baffle most witches or wizards, but I’m muggleborn and he did not hide his trail very well. A few Confundus Charms at the largest muggle travel agents was sufficient to pick up the trail. When I arrived here I simply asked around about my long-lost childhood friend and his two guardians. It wasn’t hard to track you down – people were very helpful and you’re a very distinctive group.”
Harry spared a moment to glare at Remus, who had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“But why do all this?” Harry asked.
“I already said! To get to know you! You’ve been an invisible presence in my life for the last six years Harry. You’ve been looking out for me, guiding me, protecting me. When you said goodbye last year I was devastated. You left a hole in my life that was too big to fill, and I refused to accept it. I realised that you’re more important to me than Hogwarts, so I left to come find you. I needed to find out what sort of person you are, and to understand why you did what you did.”
Harry’s heart sank. She’d come to find out why he’d murdered Quirrell?
“I don’t mean why you killed Professor Quirrell,” she added hastily, seeing his expression. “I understand that – it was the only way to kill Voldemort before your health failed. I meant why you did the things you did for me. Everything that’s good in my life, I owe to you. So I wanted to see what you’re really like and whether you’d like me – not for who I was, or for how I look, but for the person I am now. So I disguised myself, and I knew that you’d probably shy away from talking to a seventeen year old, so I made myself look a bit older. Simple.”
“I see. And what did you discover?” Harry asked with a lump growing in his throat.
“I discovered that you’re a wonderful person. I discovered that you do like me for who I am, and I like you for who you are. But I still don’t know why you did what you did for me. To understand that, I need to know what happened between us in your previous life.”
She put her arms around his neck.
“Please Harry,” she whispered. “Will you tell me our story?”
Harry had spent five years building a future for Hermione but he’d always known that there would be no place in it for him – that just wasn’t possible. He’d never imagined actually seeing her again, and yet here she was. His Hermione! His Rose! Harry’s emotions were thrown into complete turmoil.
His mind was transported back to that tent in the Forest of Dean. The memory of their dance three decades ago was as fresh as if it had happened just yesterday. Everything he’d felt came rushing back to him – the desperation and the despair of their situation, the horrors of war... the grief over those they’d lost... combined with an overwhelming relief that Hermione was there to help him through it. She was his rock, the foundation on which his confidence depended, and the only person who’d never let him down. Without her he would have been crushed by the enormity of the task ahead of him.
Sirius and Remus slipped quietly from the room, taking Nagini with them, but Harry barely noticed. He was completely consumed by memories of his previous life with Hermione. She was a truly wonderful person, he’d always known that. But now he’d learnt it all again, in the shape of Rose. He’d fallen in love with Rose within minutes of first speaking to her. She was amazing, and now he knew that Rose and Hermione were one and the same, he could see the similarities. But there were differences too. Rose had a calm confidence that Hermione hadn’t developed until she became Minister for Magic. Rose was also more carefree and light-hearted than Hermione had been. All the dark events and near-death experiences in her previous life had apparently stripped her of that, leaving her more serious.
The first time they’d danced, Harry had been given a glimpse of the life he could have had... if he hadn’t been fighting a war. For a brief moment, all thoughts of Voldemort and Horcruxes had fled his mind. He was just a teenage boy, holding his beautiful best friend in his arms, wondering if she wanted to be more than just friends. But when the song ended, the moment did too. Hermione had walked away, looking bereft and upset. Had she felt guilty? Harry had no idea, but he’d decided it was best to let her deal with whatever she was feeling before he went any further. So he’d carried on as if nothing had happened.
Over the next few days Hermione’s mood had improved enormously. She stopped crying at night and seemed to have forgotten about Ron entirely. They became closer as the weeks passed, and by the time they visited Godric’s Hollow on Christmas Eve, Harry felt like they’d more or less become a couple. He just needed to find the right moment to kiss her and make it official.
But that moment never came. Instead, Ron returned. At first Hermione had been furious with Ron, and refused to talk to him. But their goofy ginger friend was full of remorse and Hermione was too nice a person to bear a grudge for long. Soon after that they began teaming up against Harry, just like they had the previous year.
Harry was devastated. They were clearly back together and Harry’s hopes of ever being with Hermione were crushed. In the silent darkness of the tent that night, Harry resolved to bury his feelings for Hermione so deep within his heart that they would never again see the light of day.
In the weeks that followed Harry told himself that he’d been mistaken – Hermione had never felt the same way he did. She saw him as a brother, not a lover. Pretty soon, he’d convinced himself that he only saw her as a sister too. Nothing had happened when they danced, he told himself, or in the months that followed. It had all been a momentary lapse of judgement brought on by the stress of their situation.
Harry doggedly held onto that belief for the next thirty years, until the day his consciousness was sent back in time.
On that day Hermione’s last words to him had changed everything. With those final words, he suddenly knew that he hadn’t been mistaken. She had felt the same way. That realisation was the final straw. Voldemort’s insatiable thirst for power had cost Harry his parents, his Godfather, and then the love of his life. The mad bastard had taken away every single person Harry had ever loved. Harry had been pushed beyond endurance and as he sat in the cupboard under the stairs following his return, he had raged at the unfairness of it all. What had he done to deserve such a cruel fate?
But now, five years later, Hermione was here... looking up at him with her deep brown eyes.
It was more than Harry could take. Tears ran down his face – tears of pain and loss... and a desperate hope that he dare not even begin to entertain.
Hermione led him to the sofa and they sat hand in hand.
“Tell me the story of us, Harry,” she whispered again.
And so he did. Harry told her the entire story of his first life, because that was the story of them. Hermione had been there for every important moment of it. He left nothing out – he told her everything.
His tale began on the night that Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid dumped him on the Dursleys’ doorstep with a letter for his Aunt. Hermione frowned at that, but didn’t interrupt. She frowned even more when she heard about ‘Harry Hunting’ and that he lived in a cupboard under the stairs until he was eleven. Her eyes went wide when she heard about the troll and the giant three-headed Cerberus he’d encountered inside Hogwarts, but her mouth properly dropped open in shock at the revelation that she’d set Professor Snape’s robes on fire in the mistaken belief that he was trying to kill Harry. By the time Harry’s tale reached the end of their first year and he described the traps protecting the Philosopher’s Stone she’d become almost immune to shock, but hearing that Voldemort was a face on the back of Professor Quirrell’s head made her draw breath sharply. At Harry’s description of killing Quirrell with his bare hands she covered her mouth in horror.
Hermione remained silent through his retelling of their second year, until Colin Creevey got petrified... at which point she gasped.
“You’re joking!” she exclaimed. “You mean there was a basilisk loose in the school?”
Harry blinked at her; twice. “How did you figure that out?”
“It’s obvious!” she replied. “What else could it be?”
For the first time Harry realised how formidable this version of Hermione might be. With nothing to distract her from her studies, plus the two texts he’d sent her, and the Diadem of Ravenclaw... she would no longer be the smartest witch of her age, but quite possibly the smartest witch of any age. It was more than a little intimidating.
She had listened in wide-eyed amazement to his tale of flying cars, rogue bludgers and giant acromantulas, but when he got to the part where the Heir of Slytherin had abducted Ginny and written, ‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever’ she stifled a scream and grabbed his arm.
“Oh no! Please tell me Ginny was okay! She didn’t die did she?”
“No she didn’t die,” Harry reassured her. “Though it was a close thing...”
Hermione’s expression was fearful as he described locating the Entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, being betrayed by Lockhart and having to go on alone... to find Ginny lying close to death on the cold wet floor beneath Slytherin’s statue. When he described Tom Riddle’s spirit rearranging his name to read, ‘I am Lord Voldemort’, Hermione gasped again.
“No!” she exclaimed in horror. “Don’t tell me the Diary was a Horcux?”
Harry wasn’t surprised she’d figured it out. Dumbledore had done the same.
“I’m afraid so,” Harry replied. “And it wasn’t the only one...”
“No!” she whispered, cupping her face in her hands. “He made two?”
Harry shook his head sadly, “Not two. Seven.”
Hermione screamed, and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Seven!” she mumbled through her fingers. “That’s... that’s... monstrous!”
Her eyes went suddenly wide, “But how did you defeat Riddle’s spirit then? Only Fiendfyre can destroy a Horcrux, but you were just a second year. And he had your wand!”
“That wasn’t actually my immediate concern,” Harry replied dryly, “because he summoned the Basilisk and ordered it to kill me.”
“You fought a thousand year old Basilisk?” she shrieked. “It must have been sixty feet long! And you did it without a wand?”
“I did,” Harry confirmed, “and it was more like seventy feet. Its head was bigger than I was. I wasn’t entirely unarmed though. Fawkes appeared with the Sorting Hat, from which I pulled the Sword of Gryffindor.”
Hermione’s mouth opened and closed several times before she could get any words out. “Fawkes came to your rescue... and he brought a sword? A sword to fight a basilisk? That’s insane! Basilisk hide is far too tough! Why didn’t he bring Dumbledore?”
Harry shrugged, “I have no idea. I never thought to ask. Not that Fawkes could have answered... Anyway, I managed to slay the Basilisk by stabbing the sword up through the roof of its mouth.”
“Harry that’s... that’s brilliant,” she grinned, “and also insanely risky! What if you’d been scratched by a fang? Those things are razor sharp and laced with venom.”
Harry sighed, “So I discovered. One of them pierced my arm and snapped off.”
“But that’s impossible!” Hermione protested. “There’s no cure! You’d be dead!”
Harry shrugged, “Yeah, I thought I was done for. But Fawkes cried on the wound and healed it up.”
“Phoenix tears!” Hermione nodded. “Of course!”
“Then I stabbed Riddle’s Diary with the fang to destroy the Horcrux.”
“And that worked?” Hermione replied, astounded. “How on earth did you know? I’ve never read that anywhere!”
“Just a hunch,” Harry replied modestly. “Fortunately I was right and Riddle scattered into nothing.”
Hermione shook her head in disbelief while Harry continued his story. She raised an eyebrow when she heard that none of the Weasley family thanked him for saving their daughter, and seemed very interested to hear that she’d hugged him so fiercely after she was un-petrified, but otherwise didn’t comment.
The story of his third year was far less dramatic. Hermione wasn’t surprised to learn that Sirius was innocent, or that he was Harry’s Godfather. She’d inferred that from the lack of court documents and the fact that Professor Lupin would have turned him in if he was guilty. She was surprised to hear about Peter Pettigrew though. It had taken Ron several days to notice that his pet rat Scabbers was dead, but he’d just put it down to old age. He’d flushed the dead rodent down the toilet and forgotten all about him. There had certainly never been an investigation, so nobody ever knew that Ron’s pet had been a portly middle-aged man.
Of course Harry’s fourth year, and the Triwizard Tournament, contained plenty of drama. Hermione was on the edge of her seat listening to his escapades, though she did (once again) seem to be especially interested in how much she’d hugged him. Her eyes went as big as saucers when she heard that she’d kissed him on the top of the head after the second task. The faint smile was wiped from her face when Harry and Cedric were portkeyed to the Hangleton Graveyard, and she cried openly at the news that Cedric was killed.
Harry’s voice cracked as he told her of his awful fifth year. Dumbledore had told everyone to keep him in the dark, which left Harry isolated and alone. He told her about his nightmares, being attacked by Dementors and the subsequent Ministry hearing as if they were nothing. Hermione’s eyes narrowed but she didn’t interrupt. He rubbed the back of his palm absently while he told her about being tortured by Umbridge with a blood quill. Hermione’s expression turned thunderous, but she was still shocked to hear that she subsequently tricked Umbridge into being abducted by centaurs.
When Harry’s tale reached the Department of Mysteries he faltered. Despite the fact that Sirius was alive in this timeline, Harry still struggled to talk about Sirius dying in the previous one. His voice wavered and his eyes prickled, but he ploughed on. The story would only get worse from here. He needed to get it all out in one go. Nevertheless, a lump grew in his throat as he described their desperate flight from twelve Death Eaters, and tears ran freely down his face as Sirius tumbled slowly backwards into the Veil.
Hermione grabbed his hands in hers, fighting back tears of her own. “I’m sorry Harry. I’m so sorry.”
Harry just nodded numbly and continued on, reciting the prophecy that Dumbledore had revealed in his office just after Sirius died. To his surprise, she barely reacted at all. Clearly this Hermione was firmly of the view that prophesies were nonsense, so he continued straight into his sixth year.
Hermione scowled fiercely at the news that she’d taken a fancy to Ron, and even more when she learned that she’d interfered with Quidditch try-outs to get Ron onto the team. The news that Ron subsequently dumped her for Lavender Brown seemed to induce conflicting emotions – she appeared both relieved and insulted. The frown didn’t leave her face as Harry described his lonely year of trying to thwart Malfoy while Hermione and Ron focussed on their love-hate relationship with each other. She flushed guiltily when Draco’s plan succeeded and gasped in disbelief when Dumbledore was killed.
“Nobody could believe it,” he told her woodenly, “but Dumbledore’s broken and lifeless body lay on the ground below the astronomy tower for all to see... he was undeniably dead. The whole school gathered around and raised lit wands above their heads, paying tribute to the fallen hero.”
Harry was weeping openly again. Tears ran steadily down his face as he stared numbly into the distance. Lots of things about that year upset him, though he hadn’t realised it at the time. In many ways his sixth year had been the beginning of the end. For the first time since the three of them had become friends, Hermione and Ron had both abandoned him. Dumbledore was being as secretive and obstructive as ever, but the loss of Hermione and Ron had hit him really hard. He’d been too busy trying to stop Malfoy to notice, but he’d been horribly alone. He felt betrayed and unloved. That’s why, when Dumbledore died, Harry felt like he’d lost everything.
Hermione drew his focus back to the present. She was crying too, “Please Harry. I had no idea you’d been through so much. Please stop, I’ve heard enough.”
Harry shook his head, “No, you need to hear it all. You need to know who I am... and why I did what I did.”
His eyes found hers and he swallowed painfully past the lump in his throat, “There’s worse to come; much worse.”
Hermione looked stricken as Harry launched into his seventh year. It began very badly, with Moody and Hedwig being killed escorting him to the Burrow, George being maimed, the Ministry falling to Voldemort and Death Eaters attacking Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Harry, Ron and Hermione fled to London but were immediately located by Death Eaters. They fought clear and found safety behind the Fidelius at Grimmauld Place. The country fell to Voldemort’s forces and soon become a totalitarian state, with Muggleborns being hunted by Snatchers and consigned to concentration camps or Azkaban. Dementors and Death Eaters roamed the country unimpeded, killing muggles for sport.
Eventually they’d tracked down another Horcrux – Slytherin’s Locket. But Delores Umbridge had confiscated it. After months of planning, their scheme to infiltrate the Ministry and recover the locket had worked, but Ron was badly hurt and Grimmauld Place was compromised during the escape. So they went on the run, living in a tent and moving every day. The strain of his injuries and the malign influence of the locket took their toll on Ron, who became increasingly hostile and eventually abandoned them.
“You were inconsolable for weeks,” Harry told her. “Until that song came on the radio: ‘O Children’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I’d never heard it before, and could make no sense of the lyrics, but somehow it struck a chord. I pulled you onto your feet and forced you to dance with me. For the first time since Ron left, you smiled.”
Harry stopped speaking, lost in his own thoughts.
He’d felt a connection to Hermione while they danced, and he realised something. Hermione was his best friend, not Ron. The more they danced, the more he realised how much she meant to him. Not just as a friend, but as more than that. She was easily the most wonderful person he knew. She was also, he noticed with a start, breathtakingly beautiful. Even wearing heavy boots, scruffy jeans and a lumberjack shirt, with her unwashed hair pulled back in a messy ponytail... she was gorgeous. Her smile lit up the room, and Harry’s troubles seemed to just melt away. As the song faded they had danced the last few notes in a close embrace, with their heads resting on each other’s shoulders... and something had stirred in Harry’s chest.
He was no longer going out with Ginny, he’d thought, and Hermione was no longer going out with Ron. He’d left them, after all. So it was just the two of them now – Harry and Hermione... fighting a war together... for who knows how long... against terrible odds. Would it be so wrong if something happened between them, he’d wondered...
When the song ended they’d pulled apart, looking into each other’s eyes. Harry wanted to kiss her, to tell her what he’d realised, to tell her how he felt about her. But he hesitated for the tiniest of moments and missed his chance. Hermione turned away and stalked out of the tent. He watched her go, feeling thoroughly dejected. Did that mean she didn’t feel the same way?
“We battled on alone,” he said, resuming his tale, “trying to understand the objects Dumbledore left in his Will, figure out how to destroy the Horcruxes, and uncover the locations of the ones that remained. But we hit a brick wall and in the end we had no choice but to visit to Godric’s Hollow, hoping that Bathilda Bagshot might know something useful.”
Harry paused again, his thoughts far away.
“We didn’t realise it until we got there,” he said eventually, “but it was Christmas Eve.”
“Oh Harry,” Hermione whispered softly, squeezing his arm.
“There was snow on the ground,” he continued, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “We could hear midnight mass inside the church. It was a hauntingly beautiful night. We saw the remains of my parents’ house – the place where they raised me before a madman came to kill us. There’s a memorial in the village square. To muggles it looks like an obelisk but to witches and wizards it’s a statue of my parents, with my mother holding me in her arms. In the winter, when the snow settles, it looks like they’re wearing furry white hats.”
Harry sniffed heavily, and for a moment he had a haunted look in his eyes, but Hermione’s trembling hands brought him back to the present again. She was staring at the floor and weeping silently.
“We found their graves in the churchyard,” Harry continued. “You conjured a wreath of winter roses and leaned it against the headstone. Then we just stood, you and I, arm in arm in that silent snowy graveyard, honouring my parents’ sacrifice.”
He squeezed Hermione’s hands and she looked up at him with bloodshot eyes.
“I never told you...” he said softly, “in all the years that we were friends afterwards, I never told you how much I treasured that moment. I went back there every Christmas Eve after that. I would stand alone at my parents’ grave and on the stroke of midnight I’d conjure a wreath of winter roses, just like you did, and wish them Happy Christmas. I talked to them, and to Sirius, and to everyone else we lost. And I remembered the snowy and peaceful Christmas Eve that you and I spent together there, in the middle of a war.”
“You never took anyone else?” Hermione asked in a tiny voice.
“No. Only you would have understood what it meant to me, but you were with Ron.”
After a few moments, Harry continued his story. The alarming things they’d learnt from Rita Skeeter’s biography of Dumbledore surprised Hermione enormously. Her faith in the Headmaster was badly shaken. The tale of Ron’s return made her groan out loud, and the fact that she’d forgiven him so readily clearly angered her. But Dobby’s death during the escape from Malfoy Manor upset her enormously.
“Oh no!” she wailed, her expression as desolate as Harry’s.
Harry wondered how well she’d got to know Dobby in the three hours that Harry was away. With a lump in his throat the size of a grapefruit, Harry told her of the grave he dug with his bare hands, and the stone he erected that read, ‘Here lies Dobby, a Free Elf’.
His voice broke and he looked away, his eyes stinging. Hermione broke down completely, bawling her eyes out.
With a loud pop, Dobby appeared. In his hands was a tray bearing two large glasses of Firewhisky.
“Harry Potter and Miss Grangy must not upset themselves,” the elf declared, offering them the drinks. “Dobby is safe and well.”
“Thank you Dobby,” Harry replied, swigging back the whisky and wiping at his eyes. “We’re fine, really.”
“Harry Potter is not fine. But Dobby knows that Harry Potter must tell his story, and Miss Grangy must hear it. Dobby hopes it will be the last time.”
Hermione took the other glass. With a pop, Dobby was gone.
“The last time?” Hermione asked, dabbing at her eyes with a white handkerchief from her purse.
Harry sighed, “I resisted telling Sirius and Remus the whole story for a long time. When I did, I asked Kreacher and Dobby and Winky to join us. I didn’t want to have to tell the tale more than once, but it was... difficult... the first time. I was a blubbering wreck for a lot of it. They begged me to stop, but I insisted on getting it all out. I knew that if I stopped I’d never be able to start up again. I wanted them to know what happened, just as I want you to know. But it took a lot out of me, and afterwards I withdrew into myself. I didn’t speak for months. In the end, Remus insisted that I see a muggle psychiatrist. He brought her here and proved that magic was real. She said I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When she heard my story she said it was no surprise – Dumbledore had basically groomed me to be a child soldier. I killed Quirrell with my bare hands when I was eleven years old, and Dumbledore brushed it off as if it was nothing. Even worse, I later discovered that my mentor, the person I trusted most in the whole world, and who I loved like a grandfather, had left me with child abusers so I’d willingly walk to my death when the time came.”
“No!” Hermione gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“I’m afraid so,” Harry declared bitterly, “but we’re not there yet, and that was far from the end of it.”
Harry explained how Bellatrix’s panic at seeing the Sword of Gryffindor told him that one of the Horcruxes was hidden in her vault. So they’d broken into Gringotts and escaped on the back of a dragon, destroying half the bank in the process.
“I rode on the back of a dragon?” Hermione squeaked.
Harry grinned, “Yes you did. I think you enjoyed it even less than the Thestrals... and Buckbeak... and brooms. For someone who hates flying, you did rather a lot of it I’m afraid.”
Hermione smiled weakly.
Harry described their return to Hogwarts, via enemy-occupied Hogsmeade, in a mad dash to find the next Horcrux before Voldemort could retrieve it. McGonagall and the other professors reclaimed the school and triggered the defences, just as Voldemort’s army arrived outside the grounds.
“What followed became known as the Battle of Hogwarts,” Harry told her.
“They attacked the school?” she gasped. “When it was full of children?”
“Yes,” Harry replied miserably. “We managed to smuggle the younger ones out through a passage to Hogsmeade, but the older ones insisted on fighting. They wanted to buy me the time I needed so we could defeat Voldemort for good. They were incredibly brave, but Voldemort’s army was vast. He had giants, werewolves, Dementors, acromantulas and hundreds of witches and wizards. He laid siege to the school and the defences collapsed. After that the fight was brutal and ugly. Half the school was destroyed.”
Harry closed his eyes against the pain of those memories.
“How many died?” Hermione asked brokenly.
“Too many,” Harry replied bitterly. “On our side we lost Remus and his wife Tonks, Fred Weasley, Lavender Brown, Colin Creevey, Severus Snape and fifty other students. On their side they lost hundreds. Quite a few pureblood families came to an end that day.”
Hermione shook her head in disbelief as Harry resumed his story. He’d figured out where the diadem was but got into a fight with Malfoy and his goons in the Room of Requirement. Crabbe was consumed by his own Fiendfyre, while Harry and his friends managed to save Goyle and Malfoy. They were barely free of the flames when the battle found them. Percy made the first joke of his life, just before a massive explosion threw them all from their feet and killed Fred.
Harry took a moment to shake the image of Fred lying dead on the stone floor from his head... and resumed his monologue. Only Nagini remained, so Harry used his connection with Voldemort to find him and his snake skulking in the Shrieking Shack. Harry, Ron and Hermione raced through the castle with people fighting all around them. They saw Lavender Brown fall from a balcony and get ravaged by Fenrir Greyback. Hermione blasted the werewolf clear as they ran past, but it was obvious that Lavender wouldn’t be getting up. Hagrid disappeared under a tidal wave of acromantulas, bellowing at people to not hurt them. But Harry couldn’t stop to help anyone; he had to kill the snake.
He didn’t get the chance. Voldemort ordered Nagini to kill Snape and swept from the Shack before Harry could make his move. Instead, the dying Snape gave him a set of memories that might answer Harry’s remaining questions.
Voldemort called a cease-fire and offered the defenders their lives in exchange for Harry Potter. Harry and his friends returned to the castle, where Ron and Hermione joined those grieving for the dead in the Great Hall.
Nobody had noticed when Harry slipped away.