The battle scorched the earth of the castle all around me. Harry was dead, or about to die. Only I knew it, and I didn't stop him from leaving for that forsaken forest. A despairing pressure built up over me, similar to all those months ago on that first night of sixth year.
I had to move. I had been wrong when I let Harry go to the Forbidden Forest. I knew what he was supposed to do, and still had to do... but I couldn't let him die alone.
Guilt ravaged my bones. Harry would be killed all alone. Would all be lost? Or was this part of the plan?
I would kill Voldemort. Even the mental image I had of Voldemort sickened me. I pushed away my loathing for the preference of action, and snuck silently away from Ron, who was looking in another direction. At what used to be the entrance of the Arithmancy classroom.
I ran. And ran, and ran... just like that night almost two years ago. New sweat mixed with old sweat. Beads of dirt, salt, and blood streaked down my face. I was numb. The necklace pulsed on my chest now, in time with my wild heart. I didn't notice as my heart raced faster and faster with adrenaline until I made it to the trees and slowed down to soften my footsteps. My breath mixed with the cold air of the forbidden forest.
I was almost there. I was almost within the grasp of Lord Voldemort, and this time, I wouldn't falter. I wouldn't hesitate. I couldn't see even a hint of Tom Riddle in Lord Voldemort.
Tom Riddle was gone.
Tom Riddle was dead.
I gripped my wand tighter in my hand... preparing to avenge Harry's death.
Tom Riddle's ring beat ceaselessly at my throat as my feet crunched in the cool underbrush. Thump, thump, thump.
I cleared my head again and walked further into the forest. I heard a shrieking cackle and knew it had to be Bellatrix Lestrange. She was next on my list of people I intended to murder with glee tonight.
I stopped and crouched behind a large bush when I got to the edge of a clearing that beheld the worst kinds of people imaginable. Could they even be considered people? What I saw made me doubt it.
Voldemort looked, for the first time in his miserable existence, completely dumbfounded when Harry stepped through the clearing.
I hardly held back a sob. My hands gripped the dirt underneath me for something to grasp, some semblance of reality to keep me from wisping away in sorrow. It didn't help.
"Harry Potter," Voldemort's velvet voice melted into silence for a few seconds as we all took it in. The death eaters, him, and me.
"The boy who lived... come to die." It was as if he could hardly believe the moment had come. And neither had I. Truly. And I still crouched lowly behind that bush. No one dared to look away from Harry, who was standing in front of them all. Barely shaking, but shaking nonetheless. It almost seemed like he nodded. Was that meant for me?
Nagini coiled close to her master, her scaly body hissing softly against the pine needles under her belly. Her master raised his wand hand slightly, and then all at once.
"Avada Kedavra!" Voldemort's voice was a low howl, and as green light burst from the tip of his wand I felt my arms and legs go numb. Harry's body thudded to the ground, and this time, I did shriek at the pain that ripped through my very core. Someone might have heard me if I hadn't in that moment simultaneously been yanked from my hiding place. Or rather, my soul was yanked from my own body. Suddenly I was no longer in a forest.
It was a dark room. There were no doors or windows. Just darkness from every angle. I was shivering, yet could not see where the cold breeze that made me shake was coming from. My hair ruffled past my face; the breeze was steadily increasing. I noticed that the cold air was not blowing at me, but from me. My lungs screamed as the oxygen was pulled from me like a vacuum. What was this feeling?
I was alone, in pain. A pain that I had not felt before this moment. I stopped breathing all together. It was too painful to try. But the sound of inhaling and exhaling prevailed. I froze completely.
I was not alone. Someone else was with me in this room.
"You have fought valiantly, but you have failed. Failed me, failed everyone," a voice whispered. It was of velvet, menacing, yet pleasing to the ears. Evil.
I tried to respond but my throat burned from lack of oxygen, and I could only make out a small murmur.
"Please, help me!" I croaked.
I whimpered when the voice responded with a sickening cackle, "Don't you realize? You did this to yourself. You chose this. You are to blame. Everything I do is because of you."
"No," I cried. This wasn't my fault. He had made his choice freely.
"Goodbye, my love," whispered Voldemort, spitting out that last word.
"Please," I whispered back.
He hesitated. Just for a second, and then the seconds stretched longer.
"Why are you in the woods with me?" he asked smoothly. The pain lessened.
"You killed Harry," I said simply and his snake-like eyes brightened in triumph. Every breath I took was excruciating, "Where are we?"
"I'm not certain. We don't have long though. Only a few seconds left. Goodbye Hermione Granger. I suggest you leave the forest before I can find you," he said with no emotion.
When I looked into his horrible face, his evil drenched eyes, I remembered. Tom Riddle was already dead.
"Avada Kedavra."
I said it, and green sparks flew out of my outstretched wand. I couldn't remember at what point in the conversation that I raised it. But it didn't matter, because Voldemort had dissipated into thin air, and I felt myself linking back up with my body concealed under the bush. My hand still clamped down hard on the damp dirt of the forest floor.
Voldemort was standing up from the ground, shrugging off his obedient followers that begged to help him off the dirt. Harry had landed facing away from me, but I could still see no form of life from him as Narcissa Malfoy walked cautiously over to my dead friend.
My eyes stung now, and before I could truly understand what I was doing, my feet carried me away from that horrible place.
I'd missed my chance to kill Voldemort.
Riddle's ring still drummed on against my heart, though I barely noticed it.
~~~
"Harry Potter... is dead," Voldemort had said, but then just as suddenly as everyone gasped and cried out in bitter sorrow, Harry sprung out of Hagrid's arms and fought Voldemort until the end.
My heart had felt as light as air when I saw Harry leap up, completely alive, and though my mind whirred with possibilities, I didn't even get a chance to think of them. I fought the death eaters that were attacking to my left, rejuvenated.
At some point in all of the fighting, Neville managed to kill Nagini.
The battle raged on longer, though this time, we all felt a looming triumph. That gave us strength to continue on as Harry battled with Voldemort. No one tried to get in his way... not even me. Harry should be the one to kill Voldemort... he was the only one of us that probably actually could.
And he did. Voldemort landed with a thud on the ground, as any ordinary person would. Voldemort's greed for power cost him his immortality. He was dead.
But the ring, looped around an ordinary chain at my heart, still beat. The necklace was somehow still alive.
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Fanfictiona sword, a boggart, a phoenix, A Psychopathic Future Dark Wizard? As Hermione Granger is starting her sixth year at Hogwarts, she accidentally travels to the past, but there is an underlying reason for her travel. Immerse yourself into the...