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The Battle for Hogwarts - although I was as prepared for it as it was possible for me to be, given the circumstances, I was still not prepared for it at all. I was not prepared for the changed world I'd find myself living in at the end of the day. But, as with all dreadful times, one simply slogs through it, compelled by duty, until one steps out of the dark and into the light on the other side.
The Witching Hour, the darkest, bleakest hours of the night, where even Nature is asleep. But we weren't. We couldn't be. Even if we grew tired, and Harry and Ron and I were exhausted, we had to carry on, buoyed by adrenaline and snatches of coffee and food when we could grab them. We had to fight, or die, or watch our friends and families die. Watch our world die.
But we did have friends, and we weren't alone. I felt guilty wishing my closest friends were away from the battle. Felt guilty hoping those I didn't know and love so well would be taken instead, if anyone had to be, but I did feel these things, and they were perfectly natural.
When Voldemort's evil voice infiltrated through the impregnable stone of the school and announced Harry's presence, my heart fluttered, skipped a beat, but it strengthened when Harry himself spoke, and I looked around at the scared yet determined faces around me. It strengthened when I recalled that I'd received promises of help. Had made promises. Promises I intended to keep. But I couldn't bear to be responsible for sowing grief, and half hoped I would be betrayed and abandoned, just so I wouldn't have to live with a greater pain. Selfish, I know. There hadn't been much warning anyway. Maybe they wouldn't be able to make it in time.
When the suits of armour and the stone guardians were sent out to defend Hogwarts, I was thrown into dueling for my life, and thrown into what professionals call 'the zone', which is where the body takes over from the mind, moving faster than it, drawing from the library of the brain the lessons so painstakingly learned. It's both pleasant and unpleasant to be so possessed by oneself. There is no time for fear, emotion is too slow to keep up with mortal peril. Fear comes later, if one survives to look back. There were no guarantees, people far more powerful and skilled than me were dying. Years of getting to know them, gone in an instant.
Two in the morning, Beauxbatons arrived, soaring out of the still dark sky on gigantic wings, gigantic horses landing amongst the Dark army, crushing acromantula and human alike, the great wheels of the massive carriage they pulled grinding up whatever they landed on. I barely had a moment to observe their arrival, but I heard the cheers of our side, and the aggressive snorting and blood curdling screams of the horses, which startled more than one Death Eater into a helpless frozen state. And that was before a very angry half-giantess emerged from the fabulous machine. But I wasn't waiting so anxiously for the fancy French school as I was for waiting for Beauxbatons' and Hogwarts' gloomiest sister. Waiting, and hoping she would prove fickle in the last.
On the stroke of three, the Devil's Hour, when the first spike of grey had shot zig zagging through the eastern sky, Durmstrang arrived, the sinister galleon bursting forth from the Lake as it did years before, only this time it was bent on war, not peace. Instead of stopping at the shore, it overran it, driving itself over and through the soft earth, it's ghost captain howling a ghastly warcry, it's triple headed dragon bowsprit impaling a giant through the chest before its sails had even finished unfurling. The canons housed in its sides emerged from behind the shutters that covered them and kept out the water, the booming of gunpowder and the crashing of cannonballs through trees and ground enlivening the Scottish Highlands for the first time in centuries. Wizards, having not had to deal with muggle weaponry on such a scale for just as long, didn't know what to do, and many Death Eaters and their allies turned to shattered corpses and red mist on the dawn breeze. No mercy. No second, third, forth, fifth chances. Chain shot - canon balls connected by an iron chain - went flying through the air to wrap around the neck of another giant, strangling it brutally.
I was present for the appearance of my one true love, had to dodge out of the way of the enormous ship and the waves of mud and grass and confused wildlife it sent surging into the air, and I added my cheers and whoops to the rest. It sounds crazy, especially since I wasn't even a sailor, but it felt like it had come to protect me personally. Of course it would not have come at all, had I not sold myself to another for it. But what is marriage but an exchange of assistance?
But there was no time for emotional reunions full of tension and expectations confirmed or denied, because the battle was reaching its fiercest point, with big losses, and big near misses, occurring on both sides. As 'The Horror' groaned and winched itself backwards into the lake as if pulled by invisible hands, leaving a deep trench in the soil, I ran away, out of its gargantuan shadow, giving myself an excuse not to face my own machinations. My northern friends, if and when they left their floating fortress - which continued to roar at rapidly retreating Death Eaters - knew how to reach the Great Hall. That was where our forces were being pushed, partly because of the ship and carriage cutting off the lower sections of the grounds and forest.
But I didn't have to wonder whether certain people would linger where they were safe, and I shouldn't have wondered at all, since they had answered my desperate call for help in the first place. But I was conscious of being full of guilt and duplicity, and so I applied the overflow to others. Durmstrang, the school of war magic, arrived in great numbers, chomping at the bit for a chance to use all they'd learnt, and, being led by my friends, they did not default to Slytherin and the Death Eaters, as many assumed they would. The best seeker in the world shot by overhead at one hundred and fifty-five miles per hour, throwing spells like bombs at clusters of Voldemort's minions, while a great black wolf tore throats out right in front of me.
The Battle of Hogwarts, the Battle for Hogwarts and Dumbledore lasted just over five hours. Just over five hours of terror that felt like it passed in five minutes. The sun rose, Harry revealed himself to be alive, and more died, including Bellatrix Lestrange and Voldemort himself. It was over, finally. All over.
"Hermione-" But the sound and sight of Ron, whose romantic feelings for me I had been attempting to douse ever since Fourth Year, frightened me. I knew what he wanted, standing there before the main staircase, amongst the bodies and the dust. He wanted something I couldn't give him, that I wasn't certain I could give anyone. And I most certainly could not give it to him now.
"Ron. I-I…I'm glad you're alive." I said, backing away so that gravel and chunks of ancient masonry ground against the flagstones. I would have liked to hug him, but he would have tried for a kiss, and I had to be very careful of the shared property that was my body. My hands were raised, but they had no band of gold to signal that I was off limits. That was for later, when secrecy would no no longer be prudent.
So I fled from one of my best friends, ending up in the Great Hall, where I surveyed the dead as an excuse to avoid the living.
⚓🙂↔️⚓
We, the inner group, the Order of the Phoenix reborn and Dumbledore's Army and those connected to us by friendship and blood, retired to the Burrow to lick our wounds in the strangely tepid glow of victory. The Elder Wand was back where it belonged, in the hands of Albus Dumbledore, and Voldemort was dead, and life carried on.
"Dear Hermione. Take a seat, I'll bring you something warm." Molly Weasley gave me a great big hug, me and everyone else that walked through her door. Tears ran down her face perpetually, because she had lost no one. The arrival of the other two schools, especially Durmstrang, had flipped several situations that might otherwise have taken a tragic turn.
I mumbled something and moved away, avoiding Ron and walking through the living room into the comfortable kitchen, where a few people where having intense conversations. Fred, with a missing ear to match his twin, sat at the table between George and Viktor, all of them with cups of fortifying brandy in their hands. Of all things, they were talking about blackpowder and its many applications.
"Some things never change." I said, as a way to alert them to my presence. Yuri, sitting beside Viktor, turned even before I spoke, making my stomach fill with some sort of insect. I won't say butterfly, but there was definitely something fluttering away in there. Any more running would be hurtful, and I could face the future when it was focused down to a set of steps. A: Approach when there is no one around but those in on the secret B: Just be yourself, Hermione. Apparently it is good enough.
The four men made space for me, a gap opening up between the pair of Durmstrangers, as much brothers as the Twins. That was very kind of them, because else I would have felt like an outsider if I had to sit at the end of the row. They carried on their conversation about putting gunpowder in prank toys, which also helped to make me feel included. The world shouldn't stop for Hermione Granger. It's only when I felt a strong hand snake around my waist, that all that nervousness and anxiety loosened and fell away, like a cloak.
Just like I was in battle, my tongue began flapping ahead of my brain. "Tell me you're mine." I whispered, into Yuri's ear. It was a marriage of convenience, but maybe my feelings weren't only for the Uzhasnyy, as I made out.
"Did you see how many men I killed for you, zaika?" Yuri wiped at his mouth, as he would continue to do for months, although there was nothing there.