The wards that surround Hogwarts are as old as the castle's foundations, and almost as deep. Successive headmasters and headmistresses have improved on the Founders' original spells, weaving their own protective wards into the tapestry of magic that surrounds the school and the grounds. It has kept the castle safe in times of war and civil strife, and the school has never been taken by force.

Grindelwald never tried to attack the castle. The Dark Lord never tried to attack the castle. It requires an astonishing amount of arrogance on Bellatrix's part to believe she can do what others knew better than to even attempt. Luckily for Draco, Bellatrix never lacked arrogance. More than that, she is filled with an almost religious fervour. Her quest is a holy one, and she will succeed because it is her destiny and because her cause is righteous.

Her enthusiasm is infectious, and the army that charges the outer edge of the defensive perimeter is in a frenzy. Werewolves and giants throw themselves at the invisible wall again and again, as if a physical attack had any hope of damaging the protective barrier. They're past caring. There's spoils beyond that wall, a castle full of riches, and power, and small, breakable children for them to rip to shreds. Not one of them cares whether the Dark Lord rises again or not. What has he ever done for them? What has any wizard ever done for them? But they love the taste of rich, warm blood, and soft flesh, and screaming prey, and Bellatrix has promised them plenty of that.

There's more Death Eaters than Draco has seen anywhere since the war, more than he would have thought possible if he hadn't known better. As it is, he's unsurprised.

The wards glow softly under the barrage of spells from Death Eater wands. The barrier will fall, but not yet. A trap shouldn't look like a trap.

If everything went according to plan, the sleeper agents at PHOENIX and at the Ministry will have started their attempts to take over by now. Dolohov passed on Bellatrix's orders to the heads of the lower cells, which will have passed them on to the agents immediately above them, which will have passed them on to the agents immediately above them, until it reached all the tentacles of the beast lying in waiting inside PHOENIX. The cell system they operate under ensures that no sleeper agent knows more than the identities of the agents immediately above and below him or her in the chain. It's an ingenious system, and Draco both loathes and looks up to whoever came up with it. It's what kept him from being able to identify them all.

An arrow flies past him and buries itself on the barrier, which shines brighter around it, and Draco doesn't have to look to know Hermione's exact location. He's been keeping tabs on her since they left the Manor. She's the only part of this whole plan that gives him pause.

They're all of them one step away from disaster, and no amount of preparation, no amount of surprise can ensure their side will come out on top, or that even if it does they will live to see it. Because they don't know who the traitors are, they had to keep the numbers of people in the know small — smaller than he would've liked, and smaller than is practical. Particularly at PHOENIX HQ and at the Ministry, the Death Eaters will have the upper hand, at least at first. There will be casualties. Whichever way the day goes, there will be collateral damage. Draco accepts that.

Death doesn't worry him, not even his own. Defeat does not worry him. He lived through the war and through everything that followed, and if there's anything he learnt is that good people die every day. He tends not to weep over it. They prepared as well as they could, and they'll carry the day or die trying. There are worse ways to go.

What does worry him is Hermione, standing by Bellatrix's side, her eyes glazed over and vacant as she shoots enchanted arrow after enchanted arrow at the defensive barrier. It's the one part of the plan that worried her too, for all that she never said a word; the one thing that worried her even as Bellatrix pushed her mind almost to breaking point and made her scream until her voice broke.

"If it comes to it," she had said, the last words she had said to him, "don't let me hurt anyone."

And he won't. If it comes to it, he will be the one to take her down. Because she asked. Because she trusts him to do it. Because he owes her that and more. But Hermione is the last good part of him, and he's not sure what sort of man will come out on the other side of that. He's not sure he or anyone else will care to find out.

When the wards fall, it doesn't happen all at once. It starts with a small tear, no bigger than the span of a hand. It looks small at first, inconsequential, but then it gets increasingly larger, and suddenly there's more tears, more gaps in the barrier, until the whole thing drops in a shower of silvery scraps, burnt around the edges. The moment it happens, the werewolves and giants charge forward, but they're quickly overtaken by the wizards and witches, who immediately Disapparate and Apparate onto the grounds, once, twice, three times, crossing the open space towards the castle.

Draco does likewise, Disapparating right after Bellatrix and Hermione. He doesn't pause, does not look back, but knows that the moment the last wizard crosses the perimeter, the wards will snap back into place a few yards closer to the castle, trapping a lot of the werewolves and most of the giants on the outside. The creatures will hurl themselves at the barrier in increasing frustration, only to realise too late that two British Army companies have approached them from behind and have them pinned in place.

Funny thing about Death Eaters and their ilk: they never remember to factor in Muggles.

The moment the wards re-appear, several of the Death Eaters still Apparating and Disapparating their way closer to the castle suddenly fall from the sky with startled screams. If there's any justice in the world, more than a few will not get up again.

Draco had overestimated how long the wards would be down, so he too is caught by surprise when they snap back into place. Seeker reflexes kick in and he slows down his fall with a quick spell, landing with ease on the main courtyard.

All around him there's chaos.

Death Eaters clash against PHOENIX agents, and Aurors, and the castle defences. Next to him a seven-foot statue spears a masked figure from behind, impaling him all the way through. A few feet away, a man's skull cracks with a sickening sound under a centaur's hooves.

Bellatrix and Hermione are nowhere to be seen. Draco runs towards the big double doors, casting a stun in passing at the witch fighting Cho Chang. He takes off his mask, letting it drop, and his black robes shine briefly before vanishing, leaving only his PHOENIX uniform.

If outside there was chaos, that is nothing to the mayhem inside. It's obvious now to everyone that this was a trap, and the Death Eaters fight like cornered animals — furious and vicious and dangerous. Spells bounce off walls, hitting targets indiscriminately, and chunks of stone crumble from the ceiling. The air is heavy with smoke and the stench of charred flesh, and all around him people are shouting — spells, challenges, guttural howls of pain.

There are fewer agents inside, fewer Aurors too. Bellatrix's scattered forces fight off against suits of armour, and the school's faculty, and the castle's house-elves, who showed up in force to defend their home. Barty Crouch screeches like a banshee when a female house-elf bites his neck, and the small creature holds on to him with a vice-like grip as he frantically tries to dislodge her.

Draco comes across Potter in the Great Hall, where he's been cornered by Yaxley, Avery and Rabastan Lestrange. The Auror casts spell after spell in rapid succession, trying to keep them at a distance, but they're slowly pushing him against a wall. Draco's Death Curse hits Lestrange square in the back, and the wizard drops without making a sound. Avery looks to the side, surprised, and it's all the opening Harry needs to catch him with a full-body bind. He always was far too measured with his offensive spells.

Trusting that Harry — despite his often inconvenient and certainly misplaced scruples — is more than a match for Yaxley, Draco rushes across the Hall and out the door at the other end. He needs to find his aunt. He needs to find Hermione. If Bellatrix did not come for Harry and the Elder Wand, it's because she had her sights elsewhere, and he has no trouble imagining where.

His aunt Bella is many things, but complicated is not one of them. For all that she'd dearly love to get her hands on Potter and the Elder Wand, the first thing on her mind — the only thing on her mind — is him, always him. Voldemort. The Dark Lord. Whatever shrivelled, dried up thing passes for a soul inside Bellatrix Lestrange clings to him even now.

And trap or no trap, if there's a chance he's really here — if there's the smallest chance he's really here — she'll find him.

There are fewer people this deep inside the castle, and the sounds of fighting decrease until they stop entirely, but Draco knows he's on the right track. Whatever doubts he might have had quickly vanish when he comes across Lavender Brown, her eyes open and unblinking, the white PHOENIX emblem on her uniform red with blood.

He keeps going, running past empty portraits and silent classrooms, and finally catches up with them on the south gallery, almost at the stairwell leading up to the Astronomy Tower. The Tower, situated right above the entrance, is the highest place in the school, a natural convergence point for the castle's power currents. It's not surprising that Bellatrix would have assumed that if they meant to destroy the Dark Lord's remains, that is where they'd do it.

There's six of them, not counting Hermione: Bellatrix, Rodolphus, Dolohov, the Carrow siblings, and Macnair. Bellatrix is the only one not wearing a mask, the only one arrogant enough to proudly show her face, but he has no trouble recognising the others, even with their backs to him. He's spent years studying Voldemort's lieutenants, and then Bellatrix's, learning everything about them — the way they look, the way they move, what spells they favour. Everything so that when the day came to make them pay for all the things they've done — all the things they've made him do — he'd be up to the task.

Today is that day.

Draco does not stop, he does not pause. There's six of them — seven with Hermione — and only one of him, but he's driven by faith — in himself, in his skills, in the bone-deep hatred he bears them — and if he dies today, he'll take with him as many of them as he can.

Alecto shrieks when Amycus is hurled sideways against a wall, the sound of breaking bones echoing in the almost empty corridor. He falls to the ground and Draco quickly dives out of the way of Macnair's Unforgivable. Suddenly they're all on him, bombarding him with an endless barrage of curses and black magic. His protective armour absorbs most of Dolohov's Sectumsempra, and he casts a shield just in time to stop Rodolphus's Stinging Hex. They're fast, but he's faster; they're good, but he's better. Draco whirls and ducks and dives out of the way of hexes and jinxes and curses, casting his own back with precision and power and grace. The trick is not to hesitate, not to overthink it, but to keep going, faster and faster, letting instinct and muscle memory take over.

Bellatrix does not join the fray, seemingly happy to let her personal guard deal with him. Queens don't concern themselves with flies. Or, come to that, with blood-traitor nephews that should have been drowned in their infancy.

She does not seem to worry when Rodolphus falls to Draco's death curse, does not make a move when Alecto is thrown through a window, her screaming loud in their ears one moment and gone the next. But when Dolohov and Mcnair start to give ground to Draco, she must revisit her stance on flies, because he hears her give the order, "Take him down," and from the corner of his eye sees Hermione reach behind her for an arrow.

The arrow feels steady and solid between her fingers, the tension of the string almost comforting in its familiarity. Hermione brings the bow up and takes careful aim at her target, analysing his movements, finding the pattern, anticipating where he will be. It takes no more than a second from the moment Bellatrix gives the order. Nock, draw, aim, shoot. Simple.

Mcnair makes a wet sound when the arrow pierces his neck from behind, but it's her whispered Avada Kedrava that kills him. Merlin, she loves her enhanced bow.

Before Bellatrix has time to react, Hermione brings up the bow in an arc, hitting her under her chin, and quickly swirls in place and sweeps her feet from under her.

"Yeah, I've done the whole mind control thing." She shoots Bellatrix's hand clean through before the other woman can reach the wand she'd dropped. "Not a fan." And then she puts an arrow through her other hand for good measure, pinning her in place.

Bellatrix screams and howls, a wild expression on her face as she thrashes and tries to break free, but the sort of arrows that can pierce stone are the sort of arrows that won't let her go anywhere. Isn't magic grand?

That taken care of, Hermione turns towards Draco just in time to see the flash of green that knocks Dolohov down. The Death Eater falls to the ground with a thud, and in the moments that follow the only movement, the only sounds in the gallery, are Bellatrix's increasingly frantic shrieks and Draco trying to catch his breath. And then he looks at her and smiles.

"Couldn't have lent me a hand?" he asks, and Hermione shrugs.

"You seemed to have it under control."

"I'm touched by so much confidence."

He pulls her to him and she wraps her free arm around him. Draco squeezes her hard enough to hurt, and Hermione squeezes back, too relieved for words. Because he's alive and she's alive, and because when it came down to it, she measured up. She hadn't been sure she would.

Bellatrix's howls have turned to mad cackling, and the woman is pulling ineffectively on the arrows, blood pooling on her palms.

"You think you've won, baby girl?" Her voice is loud and shrill. "Clever little Mudblood who tricked her betters? Think they'll forgive you now?"

"What do we do with her?" Draco asks.

"What's the protocol?" Hermione asks as if she doesn't know the answer.

"My pretty little sparrow pretending to be a hawk," Bellatrix continues over them. "Is that confidence or arrogance or stubbornness, I wonder?"

"Outside of combat? Capture her."

"I've seen inside your brain, dove, and there's nothing in it I haven't put there. You're mine, and you'll never be rid of—"

The arrow cuts off the string of words, poking obscenely out of Bellatrix's right eye socket. Her left eye widens in a startled expression, only to quickly disappear under a second arrow.

"Oops." Hermione nocks a third arrow and aims for the heart, though she's fairly sure Bellatrix doesn't have one. When the arrow hits its target, Hermione feels lighter than she's felt in months. "She always did talk too much."

Draco wraps an arm around her neck and pulls her to him, kissing the side of her head before letting go. "Come on," he says. "There's still a battle going on."

But by the time they reach the main landing, the battle is over. Ernest Macmillan, who's overseeing the transport of prisoners, nods at Hermione in passing. Just inside the Great Hall, Aberforth Dumbledore can be heard talking loudly with Gawain Robards.

"And if in the future the Auror Office would not find it too troublesome to give us more notice to evacuate than half an hour, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"Apologies, Headmaster. It was a matter of the utmost secrecy."

"It's all very well for you to say so, Robards, but you try squeezing three hundred students of four different Houses into the Room of Requirement, because it's the only thing you can do in such short notice. The outside might just have been safer, Death Eaters and all."

"Hermione, Malfoy!" They turn to see one of the twins walk towards them. "Glad to see you've made it."

"You too, Fred."

"George."

"Oh, sorry, George."

"Nah, just messing with ya. I'm Fred. Merlin, I'm going to miss doing that." He points at his ear, making a circular motion with his finger. "George got his ear torn off by a curse. That will kind of give the plot away now."

Hermione doesn't know whether to be alarmed or amused. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, yeah, he's brilliant. Giving everyone an earful about it. Get it? Earful?"

"Any news from Number 12 and the Ministry?" Draco asks, less interested than Hermione in George's missing ear.

Fred smiles widens. "Ginny sent word from Grimmauld Place and Neville from the Ministry. Parkinson held PHOENIX HQ, and McGonagall's reinforcements helped quell the uprising at the Ministry. We got them all." Hermione smiles up at Draco, who smiles back at her and tightens his arm around her shoulders. "Oh, by the way," Fred continues. "Neville said that when you're back at Number 12, he's going to sit you both down and have you copy out the PHOENIX handbook by hand a few hundred times until you learn the value of not lying to your superior officer to go off on crackpot missions without official oversight." Hermione makes to speak, but Fred cuts her off. "If you're going to bring up Parkinson or McGonagall, I wouldn't, because according to Neville, he," he points at Draco, "has, and I quote, 'a flimsy and questionable claim to official oversight', but you have diddly-squat, because apparently George and I don't count as official anything, which I really resent, because let's face it—"

They never find out why he really resents it, because just then Blaise appears by his side with a message from George demanding to know why his own twin is not at his bedside in this, his hour of greatest need, and if Fred has anything to say for himself, any sort of explanation to offer for his lack of brotherly concern, George is all ears.

They watch them leave in silence, and then Hermione sits down at one of the nearby tables, suddenly bone-weary.

"Merlin, I'm exhausted." She looks up at Draco, who moves closer to her, but does not sit down. "Sit," she says with a pout. She's tired and cold, and he's practically a furnace.

Unfortunately for her, Draco is determined to be difficult. "This is the Gryffindor table." He makes a face, and though Hermione isn't entirely sure what that means, she's pretty sure she doesn't care.

"Sit down, Malfoy," she says, kicking his shin. He rolls his eyes, but sits down next to her, and she hooks her arm with his, leaning against him. "Neville is going to make us do paperwork on this until we're old and grey."

"Don't worry. We'll get ourselves killed before then."

"You're an optimist."

"We could always go on the run. Can't make us do paperwork if he can't find us."

"I tried that. Some jerk came to get me and drag me back."

He smirks at her, nudging her foot with his. "No more than you deserved for hiding out in bloody Siberia of all places. Of all the stupid cliches."

"Shuddup," is her very mature reply.

They sit in comfortable silence for several minutes, a small island of quietness in a sea of chaos. There's rubble everywhere, and people hurrying back and forth — Aurors, PHOENIX agents, people Hermione doesn't know and who must be teachers.

Kids have started to appear as well, boys and girls who look more curious than worried, and more excited than afraid. Some are wearing Muggle clothes, but the vast majority of them are in their school uniform, and Hermione tries to imagine Draco as he must have been once upon a time, a young boy in a pointed hat and Hogwarts robes just like them. She tries to imagine a world where she too might have worn those clothes and sat in this hall surrounded by classmates and teachers and friends, but that proves too much of a stretch.

"Thank you for coming after me," she says. That time in Siberia and all the other times.

Just outside the door, Barty Crouch shouts threats and obscenities as Seamus and Macmillan drag him away. Of Bellatrix's inner circle, he's the only one who survived the battle.

Draco shifts his left arm almost imperceptibly, the smallest of tells.

"Thank you for coming after me too."

The End

AN: Thank you so much for reading! Hope you enjoyed it :) A huge thanks to everyone who followed, favorited and reviewed. You are all wonderful 3