Semper Solus

- partIV: Hermione -

Harry pulled his cloak tighter against the blizzard. A few metres in front of him, Hermione did the same. "Where are we?" he shouted over the wind.

Instead of attempting to shout the answer back to him, she stopped walking, waiting for him to catch up. "An island just off of Norway," she said through her scarf. "Northern Norway. Don´t worry-- as soon as we see the castle, we can go into the forest, and it won´t be as cold or windy there."

They trudged along the snowy shore for what seemed like hours. But finally Hermione stopped, pointing, and said, "There it is-- Durmstrang! We must be getting closer."

"Can´t we stop in at Durmstrang for the night?" Harry asked, his teeth chattering.

Hermione shook her head. "We don´t have time; we´ve got a lot of forest to search."

"Then can we stop in at Durmstrang after we´re done looking for the day?"

"Think about it, Harry, they actually teach the Dark Arts there. I don´t think we´d be the most welcome of guests," Hermione said. "Now, if you´d just stop complaining, we could finish this faster."

They climbed a steep hill and found themselves on a cliff, where the wind was blowing so forcefully it threatened to knock Harry back down onto the beach. But as they walked deeper and deeper into the woods, the weather changed for the better.

"What exactly are we looking for?" asked Harry.

"I don´t know," Hermione muttered. "Anything out of the ordinary, I suppose."

Harry looked around him. Some of the snowfall managed to penetrate the thick, leafy branches above them, greatly reducing visibility. The great black tree trunks were so close together that they almost formed a wall. It all looked very ordinary to him. He adjusted his bulging backpack. "Shall we start, then?"

Together they trekked through the bleak forest, not quite knowing where they were going. Every so often Hermione sent up a fountain of red sparks to mark areas that they´d searched. They saw nothing of interest, and when they asked a pair of centaurs for help, all the creatures did was complain about how short the nights were during the spring and summer. When darkness fell they had no choice but to stop for the night.

"If we´re lucky," said Harry as they set up their magical tent (which resembled a log cabin), "we´ll find this thing in time for next month´s full moon."

"Don´t be so negative," Hermione scolded. "We´ve still got two whole days to look."

"Mind if I take the top bunk?" Harry asked.

"Fine with me," said Hermione, smiling. "I love the bottom."

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The next morning Harry awoke to find a plate of toast balanced on his stomach.

"Eat fast," came Hermione´s voice from below. "It´s almost 8:00-- we need to get started."

Yawning, he sat up carefully as not to overturn the plate. He stared at the strawberry jam on the toast. For some reason, he didn´t feel hungry, so he tossed the two pieces of bread out the window of the tent.

"Harry! Don´t waste that!" said Hermione.

"If we run out of food, we can always catch and eat a centaur," Harry suggested, pulling on his socks and shoes.

"That´s disgusting." Hermione went outside to retrieve the toast herself. "You can go ahead and eat that later, then," she said, throwing it into Harry´s bag.

"Yes, mum," Harry said sarcastically; Hermione smiled and rolled her eyes.

But their moods darkened as the day went on; their search was as unsuccessful as the day before. By the end of the day Harry was convinced that the task they´d been assigned was impossible, and even Hermione was worried.

"The full moon´s tomorrow night!" she said frantically. "What if we don´t get there in time? Think of all the people Voldemort could kill in the next month if we don´t make it..."

"We´ll probably find it tomorrow," Harry said to reassure her, though he disagreed with his own words.

"That´s what we said yesterday," she snapped.

"Look-- you´re stressed out. We should both get to bed if we want to get this done tomorrow," he said cautiously, as not to provoke her further.

Harry climbed into his bunk and Hermione, still grumbling to herself, did the same. But he didn´t fall asleep. He couldn´t keep terrible thoughts out of his mind. In the remote chance that they did indeed find what they were looking for tomorrow, would tonight be the last time he ever went to sleep? He wondered if Hermione was thinking the same thing. No-- her soft, even breathing coming from the bunk below told him she was asleep.

Snap.

With the mild paranoia, rapid reflexes and acute senses resulting from years as an Auror, Harry sat bolt upright when he heard the sound outside the tent. It´s probably just a centaur, he told himself. But out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark shape skulk past the window. In an instant he´d grabbed his wand from under his pillow and slid silently off his bed, landing softly as a cat on the floor.

Crouching next to Hermione´s pillow, he shook her shoulder gently with one hand and covered her mouth with his other. Her eyes snapped open and looked at Harry, puzzled. Without saying a word he jerked his head in a vague gesture towards the window.

It was enough; she understood. She drew her own wand from her pillow and cautiously stepped out of bed. She muttered a spell under her breath and the glass silently disappeared from the window. Motioning for Harry to do the same, she crept over to the open frame. Harry looked outside; the silhouettes that were the intruders melted into the dark trees, making them indistinguishable from the forest background. He´d never be able to see well enough to aim properly.

But Hermione, as always, had an answer to the problem. She stuck the tip of her wand through the window and said in a barely audible whisper, "Incendio."

A nearby tree burst into flames, illuminating the scene. In the firelight they could see a dozen Death Eaters, momentarily distracted by the fire.

"Now," Harry whispered; they both dove out of the window just as the door of the tent was kicked down by a hooded and masked figure. An assortment of curses flew through the cabin, hitting the wall where they had just been standing. The Death Eater stared around, confused. Harry took the opportunity to hit him with a Stunning Spell.

But the other Death Eaters had found them out; they were now racing towards them from both sides, wands outstretched. Hermione conjured a dense fog to the right to block the Death Eaters´ view; they could hear them cursing as they tripped and fell over roots and each other in their attempt to get into a suitable range of attack. To the left, Harry used a powerful Severing charm to fell a tree, blocking the path of the incoming wizards.

"Stupefy!" they both yelled over and over, hoping to Stun as many trapped Death Eaters as possible.

"Avada Kedavra!" shouted a deep voice. Harry and Hermione both dropped to their stomachs, flat to the ground, and the curse sailed directly over top of them. "Avada Kedavra!" the voice roared again. They both rolled to the side; the curse hit the snowy ground right where they were laying no more than a second ago.

"Petrificus Totalus!" said Hermione from the ground. They heard a scream that told them she had hit her target. Harry jumped to his feet. A sound above him directed his attention to the overhead branches of a tree, where he saw a Death Eater who looked as though he maybe a Crabbe or a Goyle...

"Impedimenta!" The Death Eater, wandless, had jumped. Harry´s spell had hit him in midair, and he fell slowly enough to the ground to give Hermione time to move out of the way before being crushed by the enormous Death Eater.

"Stupefy," said Hermione, to finish him off. "Thanks, Harry."

They stood in silence, looking around and listening intently for signs of activity. Harry was about to say that he thought they got all the Death Eaters when he heard a blast from behind him. Hermione was thrown forward with a crunch into the nearest tree.

"Expelliarmus! Stupefy!" Harry shouted, whirling around. Nobody was there. He leaned into the window and looked around the tent; a Death Eater´s head, hand, and wand was just visible under Hermione´s bed. "Stupefy," said Harry; the hiding Death Eater dropped his wand and his head to the floor.

He ran over to the tree where Hermione lay, and rolled her over. She was conscious, but her nose and forehead were bleeding profusely. "Are you all right?" he asked, wiping snow and blood off her face with the sleeves of his robes.

She blinked. "I think so," she said, but winced with the effort of moving her face. He pulled her to her feet and helped her inside the tent, extinguishing the smouldering tree as he passed it.

Sitting her on the bed, he handed her a towel for her face and one of the pieces of chocolate that he always carried with him-- a habit he´d picked up from Remus Lupin. Kneeling down in front of her, he took her face gently in both hands and examined it. His stomach flipped again; he didn´t know why-- he´d never felt queasy at the sight of blood before.

"Deep cut to the forehead," said Harry, "and a broken nose." He performed the appropriate healing charms as taught in Auror class. He ran a finger across her forehead. "Congratulations on acquiring yet another scar. Pity yours don´t come in cool shapes," he teased, tracing the lightning bolt on his own forehead.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She stood up, taking Harry´s hands in her own. "Thanks so much," she whispered, her cinnamon eyes boring into his emerald ones.

"You´re welcome." Harry looked away, let go of her hands, and ascended the ladder to the top bunk, leaving a disappointed-looking Hermione to climb alone back into her own bed.

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Hermione shook him awake the next morning when it was barely light out. He felt as though he hadn´t slept at all. Groaning, he swung his legs to the side, dangling them off the bunk bed.

"The Death Eaters know we´re here," she explained. "We have to be a lot more careful. Of course, that means we have to go a lot more slowly." She pulled him by his ankles off the bed.

"What are we going to do with all these?" Harry asked, gesturing at the Stunned Death Eaters littering the tent floor and the ground outside.

"I suppose we could leave them in the tent until we get back home. We won´t need to sleep in it anymore, remember?"

Harry collapsed the magical tent, Death Eaters and all, and stuffed it into his bag. After breakfast (toast-- fresh for Hermione, soggy and stale for Harry), they set off again to finish their assignment. It was unfortunate that they had to do it after a night of interrupted sleep-- they needed their wits about them. The cold mountain air was refreshing at first, but after a few hours it became more of a curse than anything else.

"You´d think it was mid-January rather than mid-May," said Hermione, attempting to warm herself with a jarful of bluebell flames.

"It wouldn´t be so bad if we just got some sun down here," Harry said, looking up. The sunlight was blocked by the thick foliage above.

Their moods didn´t improve as the day went on. By noon they had given up hope of finding the Orb; exhausted and frustrated, they sat on the icy ground, backs up against a tree trunk. "We must be doing something wrong," Hermione said for about the hundredth time. "Come to think of it, I probably translated the rune wrong."

"We both know you didn´t," Harry argued. "We just need more time... pity you don´t have the Time-Turner anymore."

"Well, there´s always next month, I suppose."

"Wait..." Harry had spotted something in the distance. Between the trees he could see a narrow splinter of light reflecting off the white-blanketed ground. As they walked towards it he saw that the light was illuminating a black, flat, round object on the forest floor. But upon closer inspection Harry saw that the black thing was not an object at all, but merely a lack of snow.

It was a perfect circle, fifteen feet in diameter, in which no snow had fallen. The black forest dirt was visible, in sharp contrast with the snow-covered terrain surrounding it. But unlike the rest of the forest floor, no undergrowth or plant life of any sort was growing in the circle, and the branches of surrounding trees did not encroach into the space above the mysterious ring, allowing sunlight to brighten it and give it a ghostly appearance.

"Strange..." Harry murmured, gazing first down at the barren ground, and then up where the dazzling column stretched as far into the sky as he could see.

"Very strange," Hermione agreed, walking around the spot and staring at it. Harry could practically see the cogs working in her brain. "So... what do you think?"

"You´re the brainy one-- you tell me."

Hermione pulled a branch from a nearby evergreen and cautiously poked it into the circle. The part of the branch that protruded into the ring froze solid and shattered. "Well, it´s definitely magic," said Hermione uneasily. "D´you suppose it does the same for humans?"

"There´s only one way to find out."

"Harry, don´t--"

But Harry had already stretched his little finger a small distance into the circle; the tip of his finger went the way of the branch. But that was not what hurt him-- he staggered backwards, both hands clutching his forehead. "Well, we´ve found the right place," he said, panting.

"Sometimes," said Hermione teasingly, "regular scars are preferable to cool-shaped scars." Her tone became serious. "We´ve found it, then. The protective wards must come down at the full moon-- that´s when we have to do it. And the centaurs were right-- the nights are short because we´re so far north, so we won´t have a lot of time..."

"We´ve still got a few hours till sundown-- let´s just rest for a while," Harry suggested.

They found a small clearing nearby. Hermione made a magical fire while Harry dragged over a log for them to sit on. They sat in silence, brooding, staring into the dancing flames.

Now that they had found the entrance to the Orb of Slytherin, the reality of it was starting to sink in for Harry.

Tonight it would happen. Tonight he would finish what he had started twenty-three years ago, albeit against his will. Tonight they had the opportunity to avenge so many deaths. Tonight they could kill the Dark Lord, who sowed over twenty years of fear and misery for innocent people. Tonight they would change the wizarding world for the better.

Harry realised with a jolt that this was their last mission. Whether they destroyed Voldemort tonight or died trying, never again would they be called into service to capture Death Eaters and question them on Voldemort´s whereabouts. Never again would the troubled Ministry of Magic desperately call on the greatest Auror team ever for help. Never again would they spend days in non-stop combat, wondering whether they would live to see tomorrow.

"What are you planning to do when there´s no need for Aurors anymore?" Hermione asked suddenly.

"How-- I was just thinking about that," said Harry incredulously.

Hermione gave him a soft smile. "I´ve known you so long, it´s almost like I can read your mind," she said quietly.

"Maybe you shouldn´t have been so quick to give up Divination."

"You still haven´t answered my question."

Harry thought for a moment. "I don´t really know... I suppose I might go to Hogwarts, and teach Defence Againstthe Dark Arts. I´ve heard that position will be open again in the Autumn-- no surprise there. What about you?"

"Well, I was thinking of teaching as well, but after thirteen years together, I suppose you´ve had enough of me."

"No-- not at all-- I--" Harry said quickly. He looked up at her-- she was smiling. His heart slowed back to a normal pace.

"I was just kidding. I´m still hoping to get a teaching job. I really want to have a normal life-- you know, get married, start a family..." her voice trailed off.

"And who´s the lucky man?" Harry asked, his voice accidentally cracking mid-sentence.

"I´ve got someone in mind," Hermione said very slowly and deliberately.

Harry busied himself tending to the fire, which had been doing quite well on its own.

"Good God, it´s cold," commented Hermione. She moved closer to Harry. Harry stood up abruptly, rummaged for something in his bag, and returned a moment later with a thick Gryffindor quilt.

"Here," he said, handing it to her. "Very warm." He sat down on the other side of the log.

"Thank you," Hermione said in a bit of an annoyed tone.

They spent the passing hours making small talk, delicately skirting around the topic of the impending mission. They reluctantly ended their conversation as soon as they could see the inky black sky through the gaps in the foliage.

"It´s time to go now," Harry said, fighting down the thrill and nerves inside of him.

Hermione nodded after giving an involuntary shiver and stood up from the log, on which the Gryffindor blanket sat, unused and still folded. Without a word they made the short walk to the mysterious circle. Testing with another branch, they found Voldemort´s protective wards were no longer intact. Holding their collective breath, they stepped into the circle; nothing happened.

"Now what?" asked Harry. "This circle isn´t just here for decoration."

"I don´t understand," said Hermione, frowning. "Maybe it´s not quite a full moon yet."

"It is," said Harry. "Remus would know. There´s something we´re missing-- wasn´t there a verse in the rune we didn´t understand?"

Hermione pulled a creased piece of parchment from her pocket and read aloud, "The key to the door of which I speak has been hidden along with this, and its sister remains lost among... Oh, I just don´t know! Wait..." Precious minutes of nighttime ticked away as Harry watched Hermione walking back and forth, talking to herself under her breath. Harry was reminded of a time long ago, in their first year at Hogwarts, when he had stood and watched Hermione solve the potions-logic problem on the way to the Philosopher´s Stone.

"What if..." said Hermione, thinking aloud. "What if `this´ means the parchment itself? A play on words, sort of, a trick... clever... If it does, then the key must have been in the box with it. But there were no keys, were there? Just more parchment, and... and--" She clapped her hands. "Harry, turn out your pockets-- do you still have the rings? The two silver ones?"

"Er-- yes, I think so," said Harry, fumbling in his pockets. His hand closed on two pieces of cool metal; he held one out to Hermione, but she shook her head.

"Not that one-- I won´t wear it. That was in the past, and I´m done with it," she said, taking the plain silver band from Harry instead. Not wanting to waste any more time, Harry uncomplainingly jammed Hermione´s ring onto his undamaged little finger as Hermione slipped the other ring onto her thumb.

Immediately Harry felt something pull around his navel, and together they underwent a voyage quite similar to that of a Portkey. Unpleasant memories ambushed Harry´s mind during the bumpy journey-- he was all too glad when they landed unceremoniously in a narrow stone corridor. Torches lined the cold, damp walls, but somehow the light they gave seemed dark. An enormous wooden door loomed ominously at the end of the hall.

They silently approached it. Harry put his hand on the doorknob but stopped at a light touch to his elbow. "Harry..."

One look at the anxious and apprehensive face beside him told him what she was thinking-- her expression echoed the doubts and trepidation lingering in his own mind. Really, they had no idea what to expect... for all they knew, a million Death Eaters or even Voldemort himself could be waiting for them behind this door. But, of course, Harry didn´t voice these worries. "It´ll be all right," he told her instead. He wished he could make his voice sound more comforting, but it came out the way he was feeling-- fierce, determined, focused, and harsh. The time for action had come, and he was locked into a warrior mindset. "There´s a reason you were sorted into Gryffindor, and not Ravenclaw," he added.

Hermione exhaled loudly and looked away from Harry as he turned the knob. But she followed him into the vast chamber beyond the doorway, and the Auror in her kicked in as she rapidly began making observations.

"The floor is perfectly smooth," she noted. "And it´s dark-- no torches anywhere..."

"There´s something in here-- listen," said Harry. Indeed, they could faintly hear an obscure clicking or thudding noise.

"Suffering fuck!" Harry cursed suddenly. Out of nowhere had come a particularly nasty Dark spell that Harry had had the misfortune to endure once before, at the hands of Walden Macnair weeks earlier. Harry froze, trying to reduce the friction of his robes as much as possible. He could feel his skin blistering as though he were on fire. And just as quickly as it had come, the pain ended.

"Is there any countercurse you don´t know?" he asked Hermione, but she shushed him in reply.

"There´s no way we can know what´s coming if we can´t see," she said hurriedly. "Pity stone doesn´t burn..."

Harry was struck with the sudden inspiration that providentially always seems to come in times of danger. He conjured a curtain that spread itself over the farthest wall of the chamber. Hermione, cottoning on immediately, said, "Incendio." The room was now brightly lit-- but there was nothing to be seen.

"The Jujenaj," Hermione said quickly. "It´s invisible. This is just great... I´d been hoping Remus was wrong about this one."

Harry dodged a curse coming at him from a far corner. "It´s over there!" he shouted, pointing where the beam of light had originated. But a split second later a second curse shot from the other side of the room.

"This is impossible," said Harry through gritted teeth.

"Nothing´s impossible," Hermione said. "Watch this."

She muttered a few well-chosen words, and something blasted out of her wand and streamed onto the floor. It took Harry a while to realise what was going on-- Hermione was covering the floor with a layer of sand a few inches thick.

Hermione ended the spell. Nothing happened for a minute or two, but then Harry saw motion. A small hole appeared in the sand, and quickly filled up again. Tiny footprints became visible in the trail of the Jujenaj, which was also moving much more slowly due to the sand. It was now quite easy to tell where the creature was.

"Brilliant," Harry said as he blocked a curse sent at him by the Jujenaj. He aimed his wand, estimating the Jujenaj´s location based on where the long trail of footprints ended. Hermione did the same.

Together they said every spell they could think of to disable the Jujenaj. It worked-- the Dark creature stopped in its tracks and ceased to bombard them with curses. Harry resisted the urge to touch the Jujenaj to find out its shape and how it felt, and, slipping in the ankle-deep sand, followed Hermione to the door.

Harry had hoped that the next chamber would be the location of the Orb, but that would have been, of course, too simple. The doorway led into a sort of narrow hall. They ran along it until it split in two directions; down these alternate paths Harry could see even more forks and dead ends.

"It´s a maze," he said, his mind being flooded by ominous memories that he prayed weren´t foreshadowing tonight´s events.

"Oh, just excellent," said Hermione sarcastically, looking at her watch. "All right, Harry, listen up. We don´t have time to try to get through this maze together. We have to split up."

"But--"

"No, listen to me. With two of us going on separate paths, we can find it sooner. Every time you take a fork in a path or change direction, leave red sparks as a marker so you can find your way back out again, and so you don´t search the same path twice. I´ll use green sparks. If you find the Orb, or whatever´s at the end of this thing, use an Amplification Charm on your voice so I can hear you, and we can get out of here as fast as we can." Hermione said all of this very rapidly.

Harry blinked. "What if we don´t get out before the full moon is over?"

Hermione winced and said, "I´d rather not think about it. Let´s go." Without another word she sprinted down the left fork. Harry watched her disappear around a corner before hurrying in the opposite direction.

Harry found this maze quite similar to the one featured in the third task of the TriwizardTournament, except that the paths were lined not by hedges but by stone walls that reached the ceiling, and the obstacles he had to battle through were much more difficult. He had to pass a crowd of real Dementorsrather than boggarts. Twice he almost inhaled nearly invisible poisons hovering in the air, noticing them just in time to hold his breath as he ran through the mist. Then there was the freezing darkness and the sheer immensity of this labyrinth that made Harry sure he´d been running for hours.

Having no idea where he was going, and convinced that the full moon had ended by now and that they were stuck in this dungeon for a month with no food or any means of escape, Harry was about to give up and turn back to the entrance of the maze when he heard Hermione´s deafening voice echo through the stone passageways.

"HARRY! Harry, I´ve found... something! But I need your help, come quickly!"

Ears ringing, Harry jogged towards her voice. He tried path after path, but none seemed to lead in the right direction. All the while he was trying very hard not to think about what on earth she could possibly need his help with. Finally he found a very long, straight course with no noticeable turns or forks. He hurtled along it; Hermione´s voice was getting louder and louder...

And at last, this path opened up into a larger, enclosed clearing. Hermione stood in the centre, leaning upon a sort of stone altar bedecked in silver and green cloth. Hermione pointed her wand at her throat and whispered, "Quietus." Her left hand sported a nasty burn and a collection of new cuts accented her neck and arms, but her face was practically glowing with excitement.

Harry looked on the altar and saw a silver cube, identical to the one from which they´d gotten the rune and the ring. He didn´t waste any time-- "Open up," he said hastily in Parseltongue.

The box cracked open. Hermione pulled the halves apart and looked inside. There it was-- a shiny greyish-black sphere, small enough to fit in Harry´s hand. Harry picked it up-- it was hard, smooth, and piercingly cold. Heart pounding, he set it on the ground and took careful aim with his wand.

"Avada Kedavra!" he shouted. The green light that blasted from his wand briefly illuminated the Orb before disappearing altogether.

"Did it work?" asked Hermione.

"I don´t think so," Harry said slowly. "From what I read about the spell, the object has to be destroyed completely. Maybe if we did it at the same time..."

They stood shoulder to shoulder, and in unison they raised their wands and yelled the killing curse. But the Orb remained perfectly intact.

"Wait a moment," said Hermione. She darted forward, picked up the Orb, and examined it at arm´s length. "We don´t need magic to break this. Look closely-- it´s made of hematite."

She handed it to Harry, who stared blankly at it. "Hematite," Hermione explained patiently, "is a kind of stone. It´s very strong, but it´s also quite brittle. All you have to do is throw it, hard as you can, at the wall or floor. Go on."

Harry looked at Hermione, then at the sphere in his hand, then back at Hermione. "No," he said quietly but firmly. He placed the Orb back into her hand. "You do it."

"Oh, come on, Harry. You´re fated to be the one to kill Voldemort once and for all."

"Neither you nor I believe in all that destiny rubbish, and you know it."

"After all Voldemort´s done to you, in your life, it´s only fitting that you get the honour of being the one to destroy him forever."

"Listen to me," said Harry. "I´m already famous. I have been my entire life. I´ve been admired and respected since I was a baby, and I did nothing to deserve it. Absolutely nothing. But you-- you´ve always been overlooked, ever since we were at Hogwarts. Even since we´ve been famous as Aurors, everybody´s soused to thinking of me as the hero that they´ve forgotten about you. But you´re far more deserving, and long overdue for all this glory that´s been piled on me all these years."

Hermione´s lip was trembling slightly as she weakly smiled her appreciation at him, but she said, "I don´t need that... I don´t need to be famous..."

"And do you think I do?" Harry continued stubbornly. "When we get home, I´ll see to it that everybody knows it was you who defeated Voldemort. Not me-- you."

Hermione looked as though she was going to say something, but instead she bit her lip and tossed the Orb lightly from her burnt left hand to her right. Without further hesitation she raised the sphere and threw it forcefully against the cold stone wall.

It shattered upon contact. Thousands of tiny fragments of smooth, dark stone scattered and bounced across the floor. Harry´s scar gave a final burst of pain as a strong wind filled the room, whipping his and Hermione´s hair around their heads and across their faces. When the wind subsided Harry brushed a lock of obsidian-coloured hair from his eyes and looked around, taking in the sight. Relief and triumph seemed to permeate his very soul. Voldemort was gone...

Something drew his eyes back to the altar. He looked inside the box a second time, and saw something he hadn´t noticed before. It was a piece of parchment, ripped at the top, written in Latin. He pocketed it for Remus to translate later. Exhausted, he leant against the altar and closed his eyes-- but Hermione grabbed his arm and said, "Not now-- we´re running out of time. Let´s go!"

He had completely forgotten that they had a time limit. His heart started pounding again as they backtracked along Hermione´s path through the maze, racing towards each fountain of green sparks, hurdling dead trolls and evading the various Dark obstacles in their path. Finally they reached the sand-filled room and continued on to the corridor through which they had entered.

They froze in their tracks-- the circle of light was gone. "Oh, I don´t believe this," Hermione moaned.

"How do we get out of here?" Harry asked, mainly talking to himself. "How long have we been in here?"

"A few hours," Hermione said frantically, "and the moon won´t be out for much longer. Maybe it´s already gone... maybe that´s why the ring of light is gone..."

The ring of light... something clicked in Harry´s mind. "The rings," he said. "Take them off!" For Harry, it took a solid minute of forceful tugging, and finally a very random but clever charm on Hermione´s part that allowed the ring to leave his finger; Hermione bent her hand toward the ground and the silver band slid easily off. Immediately the Portkey feeling returned, and before they knew it they fell face first into a snowbank.

Hardly daring to believe that they had made it back safely, Harry looked up. Through the branches and falling snow above him, he could see the full moon fade into a lightening sky accented by the blood-red and melon-orange of the sunrise.

"That was close," he remarked.

"Very close," Hermione agreed, nonchalantly wiping snow from her wand.

Harry stood, trying to savour the silence. But the peace he´d felt down in the chamber had left him. Uneasy qualms disrupted the tranquillity of his stomach and nerves. It had been too easy, he thought. Even though he knew that what they´d done would be impossible for anyone else, because only a Parseltongue could get to the Orb, it had come easy to him. It wasn´t right.

His worries were not unfounded-- they were spawned by his experience of past battles with Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Something was missing from this most recent mission of theirs. It had broken the rule that Harry had learned about the hard way, six years ago on Christmas. It was a rule that had defined his undesirable job and his miserable life-- victory does not come unaccompanied by loss.

Yet here they were, more or less unscathed, standing side by side and safe in each other´s company, victorious as always.

Yet here was Harry Potter, still alive after almost twenty-five years, his nemesis Lord Voldemort finally vanquished, and having successfully exacted revenge fro many who had been lost, his life´s mission finally complete.

Yet here was Hermione Granger, looking forward to a happy future and a peaceful teaching career, the triumph plainly visible in her bright amber eyes...

Amber eyes?But Hermione´s were brown...

"Hermione," Harry said suddenly, "your eyes..."

"What about them?"

"They´re yellow."

Hermione laughed out loud. "Sounds like someone got hit by a Colour-blind Curse."

"I´m not kidding, and I´m not colour-blind," Harry said indignantly. "What about me-- what colour are my eyes?"

Still grinning, she pulled Harry´s face a little closer than was necessary and pretended to examine his eyes intently. "Still as gorgeously green as ever."

Harry stared at her. At the moment she shared neither her eyes´ unusual behaviour nor her good mood. Hermione´s smile faded a little. "I know you don´t like showing any emotion," she said, "but you don´t have to act so depressed. You´re depressing me."

Harry didn´t take his eyes off of hers, which were now pale maize.

Hermione frowned outright. "You´re being serious, aren´t you? Well, you´re not the one to joke, that´s for sure..." She stooped down and rummaged in her bag for something. When she straightened back up again she was holding a cracked compact mirror, which she flipped open and used to examine her eyes herself.

A puzzled expression shadowed her face. "Bizarre," she said, still staring at her reflection. She snapped the mirror shut and looked at Harry. "But yours are normal..."

Hermione´s symptom sounded vaguely familiar to Harry, as though it was something he had learned at Hogwarts but had been forgotten over the years. He concentrated, trying to remember what it was. A memory of a spell floated to the surface of his mind. When he identified it, a wave of cold dread washed over him.

His face must have shown his shock, because Hermione asked, "What? What´s wrong?"

"Suffering fuck..." he murmured for the second time that night.

"What? Tell me!" Hermione said impatiently.

Harry stared at her for a solid minute before finally speaking. "It´s an ancient Dark spell-- I read it in Spells for the Elite and Evil-- same book where I found the House of the Soul Charm."

"And?"

"It´s when two people willingly create a magical bond between them, which links them in life and death. When the person who cast the spell dies, the other´s eyes begin to gradually lighten." Harry was now fighting valiantly to control his voice. "When the person´s eyes reach transparency, he or she dies."

Hermione froze. She seemed uncertain as to whether she should believe him. "Are-- are you sure?"

"Do you think I´d joke about something like this, Hermione? I´m serious... oh, God..."

Her eyes, now the colour of straw, looked purely disbelieving. Somehow managing to keep her voice steady, she said, "But you said the two people have to willingly accept the spell. I´ve never done anything like that, you know I never would. You know I´ve never done a Dark spell on a person in my life, let alone let someone put one on me. It must be something else... how could I be under a Dark spell?"

There it was-- the voice of reason that had kept Harry from falling apart more than once in his life. "I don´t know," he answered her. He didn´t have the heart to argue his opinion further. But he felt sure that he was right...

He could see Hermione, staring off into space, was racking her brain for an alternate spell that had this same symptom. There weren´t many spells, Dark or not, that she didn´t know. Any that escaped her mind had to be particularly ancient, rare, or dangerous. The certain one Harry was sure that afflicted her happened to have all three of these qualities. Never in his life had Harry hoped more that he was wrong.

And finally, in defeated acceptance, Hermione agreed with him. Throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face in his shoulder and burst into tears.

See? Harry told himself. This is exactly why you had to learn to get rid of your emotions. If you´d let yourself get close to Hermione, you´d be devastated right now. These past six years are paying off right now...

But that thought didn´t stop his heart from beating as unnaturally loudly and quickly as a snare drum. That thought didn´t stop his throat from feeling as narrow as his wand. That thought didn´t get rid of the sensation that a particularly hyperactive Bludger was fighting to escape from his stomach.

And then a new voice sounded in his ear, strong and clear from the back of his mind; Your heart can´t lie... love is not a weakness.. The voice echoed in his head in rhythm with the blood pounding in his ears. Your heart can´t lie...

The dam burst open in the river that was Harry´s mind, and he was overwhelmed by the flood of emotions that had been building up for years. He returned Hermione´s embrace, holding her as tightly as though he was trying to squeeze the death out of her, frantically planting kisses on the back of her neck and head.

Regaining his composure, he pried her from his sodden shoulder. Still supporting her in his arms, he gently lowered her onto his lap as he sat on the log by the fire. He hushed her sobs and ran his fingers soothingly through her hair in an effort to calm and comfort her-- which he was sure would be impossible, seeing as he was desperate to be calmed and comforted himself.

Nevertheless, he held her close as he talked to her in what he hoped was a soft, relaxing voice. "I´ve been wrong all these years," he told her. "And you were right about me all along... I just can´t believe it took me so long to realise..."

Hermione reached out an arm and drew his head and lips down onto her own. Harry returned the long, gentle kiss, his heart threatening to leap out of his chest. The quiet passion now coursing between them was unlike anything he´d ever imagined; it was what he had been waiting for all his life, and yet he knew that it was the last time he could experience it. He pulled her back up so that her head rested on his shoulder once again-- but by now she was beyond tears.

She told him, "Don´t say anything-- you don´t need to." She gave a small smile that completely melted Harry´s aching heart. "There´s no one on earth, in heaven, or in hell that I´d rather be with right now. You´ve made me so happy, Harry. Just live. I can wait for you."

There was nothing Harry could do but hold her, so that´s what he did. He held her close and they communicated in silence, as they´d always been able to do. Their eyes did the talking-- his green and hers white as the snow falling around them.

As the minutes passed, Harry wished each one would never end. The thirteen years that he had known Hermione Granger now seemed like a millisecond. He prayed for another millisecond to spend with her.

Questions were screaming in his head: Why was this happening? Why her?

He closed his eyes-- he couldn´t bear to watch hers move steadily towards a lethal clear. When he finally opened them again, she was gone.

Six years´ worth of repressed anger and misery condensed into a single tear, which fell from his eye and onto the lifeless body of the woman he loved.