It feels like time has ended.

Harry is thrown backwards, arms spread, on the forest floor amid trampled grass and burnt branches.

Hermione runs to his side. His head jerks a little, and she can see his scar, a scarlet bolt on his forehead like a fresh wound.

Then, he stops moving.

For a moment, the whole battlefield stops moving, too. Death Eaters, giants, elves and students alike frozen in their tracks, as though they don't know what is supposed to happen next, watching their once hero morph into a future martyr.

Mrs Malfoy confirms Harry's death. It feels impossible. It's not real yet. If time doesn't pick up, it might not ever be. As it is, as they all march back to the castle following Hagrid, she can't tell if it's the night or the Dementors but the world looks significantly darker and more silent. She feels Ron's hand worm its way into her, and for a moment she thinks, she wishes it might be enough, but they're both so cold.

The procession moves on. Still in silence, Hermione, her friends, her enemies, her teachers, her classmates, and that one friend, teacher and classmate books and cleverness couldn't save walk into the Great Hall.

Voldemort declares he will let them pay their respects, and say goodbye to "the Boy-Who-Passed-Away", friend, student, outlaw, lost to them so soon. "A talented enough boy, of course," says Voldemort, as though giving a favourite student's funeral speech. "Such a senseless suicide."

When it's Hermione's turn she sees a smile on his face. He's wet, likely from Hagrid's tears. One of us has to die. So that's it, that's decided, that's who.

It's too short, and Hermione walks away and lets Ron take his turn.

"Stupefy!"

Hermione turns sharply. Where time had frozen it now resumes too fast: Ron was there standing, his wand in hand, a red bolt targeted at Voldemort, who didn't even bother raising the Elder Wand again, and now Ron's here at her feet, and there's blood, and Mrs Malfoy on the other side is so pale, and Ron's so red, you'd think she was dead and he was alive.

She's done it. She's taken her revenge on the woman who killed her sister by taking away her son, because that's love and war for you. Hermione agrees. She's drawing her own wand, she could do it, take out Mrs Malfoy – better, here's Draco in the room, queuing up to see the body, as though he has any right-

Hermione's cleverness overtakes her heart for a moment, and she silently keeps the wand sheathed. She lost Harry and she lost Ron, but they aren't the biggest losses, and Malfoy or his mother aren't the scariest enemies. The Dementors are roaming free all the way to Hogsmeade. In the village, evacuated sixteen-, thirteen-, eleven-years-old don't yet know that all hope is lost, and on Monday they'll come back to Dark Arts classes and torture chambers. She'll be killed, now that Harry isn't there to be lured, or at the very best exiled – either way, she's lost her world.

The gliding Dementors are haunting the Quidditch field and filling Hogwarts with their screeches, and Hermione is reminded of the last time they'd been there, when Voldemort was still a shadow himself, when she and Harry could just travel back in time and Hermione actually thought she'd finish school.

To survive and think, Hermione grabs Harry's invisibility cloak, laid near his body now that the Death Eaters have left and the survivors can grieve in peace. She throws it upon her shoulders and, after a last look at Ginny, comforting her tearful mother even though she must be so shaken herself, vanishes.

Though she's on a Muggle train to London, Hermione keeps the cloak folded on her knees, stroking the cloth as though to make sure it's still there. She can't believe she's safe, not yet, perhaps, in this world, not ever. She knows she hasn't been followed from Hogwarts, but London's another matter entirely, and for her, the war won't end. She understands, of course, that the wars of your life stay with you until life itself leaves, and that's what happened to Lupin, and Professor Snape, and poor Sirius, and surely it would've happened to Harry's parents, and perhaps their fate was kinder after all.

She thinks of the Hallows. She has the Cloak, looking so drab and innocent in the Muggle train's stark yellow electric light. It's not the one she'd have chosen, of course. Before, when Harry and Ron were there with her chasing for them, she'd most wanted the Wand, because magic has always been what Hermione trusted more about herself. It has driven away the bullies when she was a child, generated compliments in school, brought catharsis for her stronger emotions, and given her a fighting chance. If the prophecy was right, it could've saved Harry's soul.

But now Harry's soul, wherever it is, is no longer in danger, and she would want the Stone most. Just once, to ask him what was needed. All right, twice, because she wants to say goodbye to Ron, and that she loved him. Maybe just another time, to ask Harry's parents if there is any worry in death, if they ever wonder about the fate of the living, about this world, her world, Voldemort's world. To, perhaps, gather the courage to join them.

What she has is only the Cloak, the means to flee death, though where to she has no idea. Isn't it said to be the best of the three? Wasn't Ignatius the wisest brother, and the last one standing?

At the Ministry no one notices her. Voldemort and the Death Eaters spent the night at Hogwarts, and news of the death of the boy who should have lived haven't made it here, yet. She frets underneath the Cloak, tempted to burst into sight and yell they've won, scare away those Death Eater sympathizers, buy time for the few righteous wizards to run away to safety, but the youngest Peverell didn't get to be the wisest by running to his enemies. She tells herself the remaining few loyal to Harry are probably dead, or exiled, or defeated. She watches the daily operations for a while. Witches and wizards are sending owls, signing parchment forms, and briskly walking between offices. They talk about their dinners and their families and tell jokes, and for a moment, it's like this corner of the world runs on its own time, which hasn't caught on that it's supposed to have ended yet.

In the rectangular room of the Department of Mysteries, the veil awaits still, animated by winds that no science or magic Hermione knows can explain. She descends to the centre of the room, slowly, still hidden in Harry's invisibility cloak. When they shared that cloak in the past it was often in dangerous situations, but Hermione hadn't minded, because she always felt it protected them from all the darkest forces in the world, that with it, he would live, as he was meant to. To be wearing it alone now... it would have been unthinkable.

She stares straight at the veil, hoping to catch in the tattered folds a glimpse of the next world, hoping to hear a voice, perhaps a joking Ron or a sullen Harry, or Professor Lupin, telling her not to give up, to give Teddy a chance at growing up in a world worth living for. Perhaps Professor Dumbledore could throw her a book from beyond the veil, and in there could be the answer. It could be a book on how to live, or even how to die, and Hermione feels like she could follow either and do equally well.

But there is nothing to follow, and the room stays eerily silent and empty, her own body invisible.

Ginny could hear the voices, she remembers, but Ginny has better things to do, she has a mother and brothers left, she has a year of school in that horrible hellhole left, Ginny knows she needs to live. Hermione was never very jealous of Ginny, but now she is, because Ginny's lost Harry and Ron and Fred, and she could have lost Arthur, but she hasn't lost herself. Ginny can hear the voices behind the veil, unlike deaf Hermione, but she can also turn away and live, unlike Hermione who stands here, fascinated and frightened.

Hermione isn't sure whether she wants to join Harry and Ron or bring them back with her, but she knows eventually some Unspeakable is going to figure out someone's getting in the way of her job, so Hermione has to decide fast. What would Harry do? She thinks of the Harry who had to be restrained not to go after Sirius. The Harry who almost walked away alone after Professor Dumbledore's funeral. But mostly she thinks of the Harry who walked through the forest to Voldemort, and that's why she fastens the cloak before lifting a fold of the veil, and walking into the bright light.