"Look, I don't really know how it happened myself," Harry started, scratching the back of his head like he always did when he was nervous. "I'm suspecting the Stone had something to do with it, since I had it on me when it happened, but it also may have been a residue of my mother's magic or the fact I was a Horcrux. Hell, maybe it was all three."

Hermione looked away and started pacing. They were the only ones in the Room of Requirement anyway. Everyone else was at dinner. "But there is a chance that it could work," she repeated.

Harry sighed. "Yes, I suppose there's a chance but there's no way to possibly be sure. I mean, it's not like people have actually tried it before and lived to tell the story."

"Is it a bigger chance than this, though?" She waved the book she was still holding at him but Harry gave no sign of giving her an answer.

"Why do you need it anyway?"

Hermione sighed and stopped in front of him. "Just in case something goes wrong and he decides to take it out on him to punish me."

Harry furrowed his brows and crossed his arms. "All this for him?"

"He may not mean much to you, Harry, but he's important to me. I need a plan B in case this one fails."

"Fine," he sighed. "I don't get it but, still, fine. I think you have more of a chance with that book of yours. The Stone is too unreliable. Dark magic, on the other hand, you can always trust to be just the right amount of devious and immoral to be fitting for all sorts of manipulation."

Hermione let go of the book in her right hand and sat down in an armchair, covering her face with her hands. This was precisely what she feared would happen.

"Fine. Dark, soul-splitting, immoral magic it is, then."

She checked the clock on the wall, seeing dinner time had just ended, and got up. Right before dinner and right as dinner ended was the perfect time to move through the castle without being noticed, as it would be filled with students going to the Great Hall or returning to their dormitories, which was perfect for blending in and disappearing.

"Just… give me another hour so I can get this done before you do the spell." Hermione needed time to go back to the dungeons and explain to an annoyed Draco what she'd been doing the whole day.

"You're not staying for that?"

She sighed. "Forget it, by the time you do this I'll be as far from the seventh floor as possible."

"Why so eager to leave? It's not like the spell can be tracked down to us." Harry had taken on leafing through her book.

"Because if anything goes wrong and he manages to slip into your head again, he'll see me here and I'll be as good as dead."


"Harry, why are you stalling?" Ginny suddenly asked, sounding exasperated. Neville did not look much different.

"Hermione needed some extra time," he admitted.

Ginny raised a brow at him. "Hermione was here?"

He repressed a groan. Ginny was standing in front of him in the oh-so-familiar way Molly used to when she was about to scold one of her children. Silently, he nodded.

"Why?"

Harry hesitated. He wasn't sure how much Hermione wanted the others to know about her backup plan for none other than Draco Malfoy. He settled on, "She needed a second opinion on something," trying to keep it vague.

"And that second opinion had to be yours, why?"

The Molly pose was far from gone. Great.

"Because she needed someone that came back from the dead."

As Ginny was about to say something else, Neville got up from the couch and put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

"Look, we can talk about it later. We need to get this going now. The more time we let pass, the stronger he gets."

Harry nodded and took out his wand, then bent down to take the sheet of parchment with the spell Malfoy gave Ginny. He quickly read through the directions one more time, then drew out his wand.

Closing his eyes, Harry concentrated of the most painful memory he had. He had given it some thought, over the past few days, when he was practicing. At first, he had meant to think about his parents but once he tried conjuring the dark Patronus, only a bit of black fog came out of his wand. It'd reminded him of the time Lupin taught him how to cast an actual Patronus and, when the memories he chose weren't powerful enough, only a faint blue fog would appear, if anything at all.

It had taken him some time but he finally understood why. He didn't actually remember his parents. All he had of them was other people's memories. He hadn't seen them dying. He did, on the other hand, see Sirius being killed by Bellatrix and he was his last connection to his family and his parents, so when he'd tried thinking about that while casting the spell for practice, he wasn't surprised to see it'd worked.

With Sirius' last, devastating, moments flashing through his head, Harry took a deep breath and pronounced the incantation. "Praecido patronum!"

Shiny black fog emerged from his wand again, this time taking the shape of a stag, just like his regular Patronus. This stag was slightly different, though. It was somewhat bigger than his father's, with red eyes and a menacing posture. Trying not to let that distract him, Harry closed his eyes again and focused on Voldemort, as the next step of the spell required. When he opened them back the stag was gone.

After that, it wasn't long before his scar started burning. No one had even had time to say a word before the pain started. Harry tried to keep his composure and pretend the burning didn't feel like it was drilling a hole into his head. Statistically speaking, his scar hurting had never been a good sign so he didn't want to worry anyone before knowing something bad was actually happening. He knew he had failed when he saw a blurry Ginny stand up again – when had she taken a seat? – and scream his name. Not that he'd actually heard her screaming, that is. Her voice came to him somehow muffled, like a buzzing noise.

Harry took his head in his hands and dropped to his knees without even realizing what he was doing. He barely had time to see Ginny kneeling down in front of him before he wasn't even there anymore. Images flashed through his eyes in a familiar way he hadn't experienced in months. He was in a dark cave, much like the one he'd visited with Dumbledore. A huge snake was crawling on him, hissing, but not in a threatening manner. Nagini.

As he felt someone shake him he noticed he couldn't control his vision. He wanted to look around him, figure out where he was, but he couldn't. A muffled scream of his name reached him but it was even farther than the first one had been. He wasn't really in the cave, he realized. Voldemort was. He was there with Nagini. Harry was seeing through his eyes, just like he had when Mr. Wesley had been attacked. He could feel Voldemort's anger. It was overwhelming him. He wondered if this was a consequence of Hermione's spell. After all, the Patronus needed a piece of his soul to work so it was more than possible he was mentally there with Voldemort because his Patronus was.

His father's black stag appeared in his – Voldemort's – field of vision, as he was already surrounded by the familiar fog. Harry was sure his presence in Voldemort's head had been more than noticed. He saw a grayish hand rise in front of him and touch the black fog, then he was pushed out of his enemy's mind and back to the Room of Requirement, where both Neville and Ginny were now on the floor with him, the latter crying. Before doing anything else, Harry put up his Occlumency shield to prevent Voldemort from getting inside his head and see where he was, as he suspected he'd try to.

"Harry, please!" He heard Ginny say as his eyes focused back on her.

"It didn't work," he managed to say, his head still pounding from the pain of his scar.

"What do you mean it didn't work?" Neville asked, now pacing and seemingly hyperventilating.

"I got into his head. I don't know how. It may have been the spell. It didn't work, though," he repeated, closing his eyes back and taking Ginny into his arms.

"So are we back to square one now?"

Harry shook his head in dissent. "We're worse than square one. I think he's back."

Ginny pushed herself away from him just enough so she could look him in the eye. "What does that mean?"

He sighed. "He touched the Patronus and as he did I felt this wave of power going through me – through him. That's the opposite of what was supposed to happen."

"So Hermione sabotaged us, that's what you're saying?" Neville stopped altogether and stood in front of him.

He shook his head again. "I don't think she did. It was as if he managed to suck in the power of the Patronus, claiming it as his own."

"And how exactly is that not Hermione sabotaging us, using you to bring back her precious Dark Lord?" Ginny almost screamed.

"I don't think she knew, Gin. I saw the book she took the spell from, this wasn't supposed to happen."

"Then why did it?"

Harry closed his eyes back and rubbed his temples in the vain attempt to soothe the pain. "I guess evil feeds on evil." As the room descended into silence, a thought crossed his mind. He opened his eyes and looked at Ginny first and then at Neville, the realization slowly coming to him. Hermione had mentioned it while they were still on the run. As she was doing her light reading on Horcruxes she'd told him about an old practice she'd come across in one of the books. "Or he just learned to siphon the power of other magical beings."


Hermione's knuckles had barely left the door before it opened, revealing an annoyed Draco Malfoy.

"Where in Salazar's name have you been?"

"Can I come in first?"

Draco stepped aside, a hard look on his face, and she stepped into the room, hearing the door close behind her.

"Well?" He asked again, an impatient note in his voice.

Hermione sighed and turned around to face him. "I was with Harry. I needed his help."

He raised a blond eyebrow at her. "You needed Harry Potter's help?"

"Just hear me out," she pleaded. "I needed a plan in case something went wrong."

"If something goes wrong and it doesn't work, then Potter will have to fish the damn bastard out of wherever he's hiding and kill him old-style. Why would we need a backup plan for that?"

"That spell is from Secrets of the Darkest Art, Draco, where would the Order find such a book? The Hogwarts library doesn't even have it anymore. Dumbledore pulled it out when his top student started looking into how to split his soul in exchange for immortality."

Hermione could see Draco was starting to understand. She couldn't use words much smaller than that.

"Point being, if he doesn't die tonight he'll figure out someone on the inside is working against him?" Hermione nodded. "He can't be sure it's you."

It was her turn to raise a brow at him. "Who else would he suspect?"

Draco sighed and stepped towards her, pulling her into his chest. Hermione closed her eyes and tried not to think of the worst possible scenario, the one that would lead to her losing him.

"So what's Wonder Boy got to offer to the cause?"

Hermione smiled, her face pressed against his neck. Less than one hour later their Marks burned.


"And so your little reign has come to an end, Mudblood," a voice called behind her as she Apparated in Malfoy Manor's Drawing Room. Bellatrix was clearly ecstatic for the return of her master.

"Come on, now, Bella. You should be nicer to our Lady," another voice intervened, sounding quite amused. Dolohov.

Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed. "Dolohov, we've talked about this."

"About what?" The Dark Lord walked into the room and quickly scanned it, looking the opposite of pleased. His red eyes finally landed on her.

"About Dolohov's antics, my Lord. I'm glad you're back," she quickly answered, switching to her best Death Eater behavior.

Voldemort's eyes rested on her a bit longer and then moved onto Draco, standing by her side. Hermione's breathing stopped. She forced herself to give the impression of composure and pretend it wasn't affecting her at all, let alone as much as it was.

"Everyone except for Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy can go, for now."

She quickly swallowed and took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she knew was about to happen.

"Is anything the matter, my Lord?" Draco asked, faking nonchalance.

"It is, indeed. A funny thing has happened just moments ago, you see. I was joined by a black, stag Patronus in my previous location." Voldemort stopped for a few seconds, his eyes going back and forth between the two of them, then resumed his talking. "Would any of you happen to know how that occurred?"

Hermione furrowed her brows in fake worry, glancing briefly at Draco as to check his matching state of confusion.

"A black Patronus?" He asked, weighing the words as if the concept was foreign to him.

"Indeed, Mr. Malfoy. A dark Patronus meant to suck the life out of me. I wonder how the Order could possibly have found such a dark spell." His voice was casual, almost nonchalant, but Hermione could hear the rage behind them. His red eyes were darker than usual. How in the hell did he manage to come back stronger than he was when he left if Harry's Patronus had reached him?

"I don't understand, my Lord," she said, trying to sound as convincing as possible.

"I know that spell very well, Miss Granger. It is one of the finest works mentioned in Secrets of the Darkest Art. I won't ask again, how did the Order get their hands on that book? I have seen it in the Malfoy library but, as I seem to remember, the title was removed from the Hogwarts one."

"The Order has access to the Black family library. There could be a copy there," she said, hoping to it'd be convincing enough for him to buy it. It probably wasn't.

"How would they have access to that?"

Hermione considered how to tell him without revealing too much information a Secret Keeper shouldn't reveal. "Harry was Sirius Black's godson, so he inherited the family mansion from him. The Order used it as a base for a short while before he died."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at her, probably unconvinced. "Very well, then. Tell me where it is."

She almost sighed in relief. "I cannot do that, my Lord. The mansion is under a Fidelius Charm and they wouldn't tell us who the Secret Keeper is." Hermione knew perfectly well that was a lie but the only person in contact with Voldemort who knew the truth was Snape and she knew he would not give them away. If he did, she'd make sure he'd go down with her.

"Someone must have told you where it was, then, for you to be aware of its existence."

Hermione could tell he was starting to lose his patience and she was slowly starting to panic. She had to remind herself several times that she had everything under control before she could speak again. "No one did, my Lord. Harry, Ron and I were presented with a piece of parchment with the right location but we did not know who wrote it. The Order thought it was a good idea to keep the Secret Keeper… well, a secret. So that if one of us was captured we couldn't give it away."

"Convenient, isn't it?" What was meant to be a question sounded more like an affirmation. He didn't give her the chance to say a word before he grabbed Draco and pointed his wand at his temple. Hermione tried her hardest to still look unaffected. "I'll give you one more chance to tell the truth."

"Why him?" She managed to say without her voice shaking.

"I seem to understand you care about him, do you not?"

Hermione looked at Draco dead in the eye, knowing that was it. It was time to say goodbye. Finally, her chance to really prove herself to Voldemort had come. Glancing at his hand to look at his Malfoy ring one more time, Hermione raised her wand and pronounced the incantation for the first time, shooting a ray of bright green light that hit him straight in the chest. Draco's body dropped dead on the floor before her and she tried her hardest not to show any emotion as it happened. It just looked so real. It didn't matter though. It would be fine. Voldemort couldn't hold him against her anymore.

"He means nothing to me."