Would You Like A Hand?

31.5 | deleted scene

Holding her wand out to deflect the scarlet spell flying at her, Hermione didn't expect to see someone jump to intercept it.

She knew by the white hair that it had been Draco before her mind even registered that he was crumpling to the ground. Vaguely aware that she was calling his name in worry, she knelt down to make sure he was okay.

From behind her, where the doors to the office had stood before Harry blasted them apart, a new volley of spells were released. Familiar voices joined the fray, and Hermione spared a moment to recognize that they belonged to various professors from Hogwarts.

With their help, the Death Eaters were taken down in hardly anymore time. Draco was still breathing, so Hermione dragged him further away from the conflict - though there was hardly much left to worry about.

Voldemort was spouting nonsense at Harry now, no longer in any sane state of mind. He kept saying that the world was ending, that it was pointless now, everything was destroyed. Hermione had the feeling the stunt he pulled with raising the dead had not gone according to plan and he must have been panicked all month about what to do next.

She could almost imagine what had happened; a few Death Eaters lost to the undead, a few more lost to Voldemort in his rage or paranoia. That explained why there were so few of them left, and why they seemed nervous around him. And then Voldemort himself thinking that he had accidentally ended the world even though he had just wanted to take it over, so all his plans were for nothing.

No wonder he wasn't thinking very clearly anymore.

It was easy, in his panicked state, for Harry to deflect the killing curse and finally finish the man off.

Everything afterwards was a blur - Hermione remembered cheers all around the Manor go up from the students and the adults. She remembered helping the injured and setting up rooms for them. She remembered seeing Ron's bloody arm being patched up, and Harry's torso needing to be looked at for any broken bones. She remembered, at one point, looking outside to see that all the undead had stopped moving and were lying on the ground. Someone had told her that the bodies were going to be burned away, but that was for later, after recovery.

And then she was sitting by Draco, waiting for him to wake up and hoping he would soon - he had been diagnosed with being hit by the stupefy charm, and although he could be rennervated, she had been told to let him rest up.

Sometime in the middle of the night, he started mumbling, "... wish... pain... for you... wish... would... pain..."

Over and over, he mumbled, until Hermione could make out the sentence.

I wish I would've taken the pain for you.

"Stop it," she whispered uselessly. He couldn't hear her.

"Wish... for you..."

"No, you don't."