Author's Notes: Thank you so much for the reviews you all have written. This story is coming to a close so quickly now. It's unbelievable to think it was started almost exactly four years ago. Thank you all for sticking with me this long and for your incredible patience. I couldn't have possibly asked for such wonderful readers and such sweet responses. It's been one hell of a journey and I'm glad I've had you all through it all! Only a very small number of chapters left (I'm thinking one more, maybe two after this, then the epilogue. Thoughts?) Enjoy! :)

She dropped the soap back onto the sink's ledge when a seemingly less important reminder of the book from Malfoy Manor slipped back to her. 'This charm's page...' She scowled down at the bar of soap with a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. 'Its edge was folded down... like someone had already studied it.'

Hermione lifted her eyes away from the soap nervously as the dull ringing still lingering in her ears mingled abruptly with the uncomfortable screech of the lavatory's heavy door. Unless they had also ducked into the bathroom in that same moment to recover from the battle raging on beyond its door, Hermione's breath hitched in her throat. 'Someone's following me.'

In the split second it took to gather her thoughts and raise her sights back up to the mirror in front of her, whoever had entered the bathroom behind her shot at the mirror. It shattered, raining shards of reflective glass down into the sink and onto the floor at her feet, forcing her to jump back for fear of the sharp bits slicing her hands to fleshy, mangled ribbons.

A second spell blasted past her side, hitting the porcelain sink instead just as Hermione dodged out of its path. Hurling herself behind the lavatory's tiled wall which separated the loos from the wash area, her heart pounded against her chest as her stomach felt like it were crawling its way up her throat. The skin of her wand arm still tingled with a somewhat foreign sensation as she squeezed her only means of defense against her palm and ducked into one of the stalls.

"Hiding, Granger?" An arrogant voice called out loudly. "Of course you are," he muttered, the sound of his antagonizing remarks clearly becoming closer as he spoke.

With her feet pulled up off the floor and out of view beyond the stall's locked door, Hermione flexed her hand, twisting and rolling it at the wrist as if testing the muscles and nerves for any lasting effects of the charm. It still presented a dull ache, though when she placed the wand back between her thumb and fingers and flicked it silently towards the stall's door, she sensed that a very basic, simply placed protective charm had been successfully applied.

"You never were as brave as they all said you were." The man stated bitterly.

But his voice was familiar and as his words reached her in the tiny stall's confines, echoing off the cold, tiled walls, ceiling, and floor, she knew that she recognized the speaker if only from years ago. He sounded older now, aged either too quickly or too harshly for the small handful of years they had spent apart, but as he called out to her one more time, perhaps his favorite word rolling off his tongue in the process, Hermione was certain beyond a doubt that it was him.

"Stupid little mudblood. Not so brave now, are you?" Draco asked, a shallow chuckle in his throat as he crept closer to her stall. "All alone, hiding like the filth you are."

Hermione tried to steady her breathing, firmly pushing the air out of her lungs before bringing the tip of her wand to the side of her throat. "You don't have to do this, Malfoy." As she spoke, her voice projected from the opposite side of the lavatory, as if coming from further down the second row of stalls across from her instead of her actual location.

Before the sentence had finished, a violent explosion interrupted her speech, leaving the stall it had supposedly been coming from blown apart, reduced to an ugly pile of shattered wood and ruptured piping. Aside from the now fountaining rush of water leaking from the demolished facility, the stall was visibly empty, no Hermione in sight. Draco groaned in frustration as he watched the water begin to flood out into the rest of the lavatory. "I can do this all night, Granger, if you're too scared to face me."

"You're not a killer, Draco, and neither am I. There's no reason for us to change that tonight." Hermione replied, her voice coming from a different stall midway down her row. Again, only shortly after her warning ceased, another destructive spell tore through the offending stall, sending drops of water sprinkling down over her head.

"You don't know what I am." Draco laughed, a weak attempt to cover the visibly growing impatience that seeped through clenched teeth. "Still hiding? I shouldn't have expected any better from a weak little mudblood. I'm sure you've become used to hiding. You've had no trouble sneaking around with my father." Malfoy grumbled bitingly before lashing out at another stall only two spots down from Hermione's.

She ducked, covering her head with her arms as a few spare pieces of wood and debris flung into her space. "This doesn't involve him, Draco. What you do here is your decision to make, not mine and not his."

The sound of another loo blasting into a hundred tiny, wet pieces echoed over the bathroom's sleek walls. "No, this is entirely your doing!" Draco shouted angrily, his voice a shaking, hateful mess of emotions. "You think I'd bother with a repulsive mudblood like you if you hadn't dragged yourself out of whatever hole you had been festering in and tainted my family's name?"

Hermione glowered at the small sliver of him she could see through the stall's door frame. "I haven't done anything, Drac—,"

"Shut it!" Draco exploded, interrupting her with another reductor spell aimed at the stall directly across from hers. "Just shut your mouth! I don't want to hear you anymore. Come out and face me!"

With her wand firmly at hand, the last irritating effects of the charm a mere memory, Hermione sucked in a motivating breath. It was now or never; she had tried to persuade him by any means she could, but he was too blinded by rage to think of what his actions could possibly amount to. If she didn't kill him in the stand off and he managed to make it through the rest of the battle unscathed, that meant at the very least a life time spent in Azkaban when the Order found him. Either he had grown overly confident in his dueling abilities during his time with the V.R.S., or he was prepared to die in an effort to take her down with him. With wand at the ready, Hermione's fingers reached out for the door's handle.

"Draco!" Her hand froze. "Draco!" The voice called once more, belonging to neither of them. It was moving, quickly, and as he spoke again, Hermione knew their timely guest had made his way around the dividing wall of the sink area into their portion of the bathroom. "I told you to stay by me! Are you trying to get yourself killed?" His eyes must have scanned over the ruined, nearly destroyed collection of loos around them as his scolding tone died in his throat in exchange for a more protective, concerned air. "We need to go, now."

Draco smirked, lowering his voice down to a hushed whisper. "I've got one cornered in here, an Order git."

Lucius frowned as he glanced around at the handful of stalls still left standing. Judging by the seemingly random targets Draco had already chosen, he guessed his son hadn't a clue where exactly his opponent was. "Just leave it. We need to go." The elder man warned.

"Lucius!" Hermione's greeting reflected away from her actual stall into one of the empty, intact loos instead.

Draco shot wildly at the source, leaving another blasted pipe to add to the already flooding lavatory. "Stop!" Lucius shouted.

"Help me, father." the younger man requested, his words purposefully taking on a vulnerable, almost childish likeness. "I'm your son," Draco reminded, manipulating as if Lucius had somehow forgotten the uncomfortable position he had suddenly found himself in.

"We're leaving, Draco," Lucius warned, an authoritative growl to his words as his fist gripped roughly around his son's upper arm. "Now."

Draco pulled his arm angrily back and stepped away, his wand raised between them as if the man standing in front of him was nothing more than a stranger. "I can't do that, father. You know I can't." His hand was shaking but his teeth remained clenched, unwilling to sacrifice the satisfaction that only a certain muggleborn witch's demise would grant him.

"You can, Draco, and you will," Lucius corrected him as calmly as he could, his own wand hanging carefully down by his side despite his son's wand staying firmly trained out in front of him. "I won't let you get yourself killed just because you're angry with me."

"I'm not angry with you," the furious young man spat out. "I'm sick of you! You've ruined us, you know. Mother and I, you've made a fool of us, and for what?" His wand shifted to one of the untouched bathroom stalls, earning a nervous, uneasy jerk of resistance from his father. "For her?"

Lucius's arm raised, his feet taking a hesitant, apprehensive step to the side as if following Draco's wand's movement until it blocked the potentially occupied cubical from harms way. "Lower your wand, son." His demeanor dropped, the previously protective nature exhibited only moments ago twisting and shifting into that of a more defiant quality, challenging.

The young man's wand moved carefully away from Lucius towards the next closest stall. Again, Lucius followed it. "And if I don't, then what?" Draco asked, daring to bring forth the question ringing in his father's head since Hermione had first made her presence known. "You'll kill me?"

"Lucius, don't." Hermione's voice lifted, finding refuge in one of the already shattered cubicles. "Just go, I'll be okay. It never should have come to this." It was in that moment she recalled, months ago as they stood in his home and questioned should this very situation arise, what their actions would be. Yet now, as he stood between a rock and a hard place, his only son and his unexpected love, Hermione knew it would tear him apart to have to choose between them.

"Quiet, mudblood!" Draco demanded, his aim still set firmly on his own flesh and blood. "He's not going anywhere, are you father?"

"Draco," Lucius began carefully.

The younger man shook his head, his hand beginning to tremble the angrier he got. "I don't understand what's so difficult, what's taking you so long!"

Lucius shifted his eyes to one of the remaining stalls beside them before returning his sights back to his son. "I can't let you do this, but if you're expecting me to strike you down, make you into some sort of a martyr just to validate your anger at me, you'll only leave here disappointed. Now put the wand down, Draco. Enough of this."

"You're right," Draco replied, though his wand stayed raised as his feet carefully stepped backwards, placing a distance between himself and Lucius. "You can't let me do this, can you? Because she's too important to you." He bit at his inner cheek, an uncertainty flickering over his eyes as he scanned down his father's front to the wand hanging down by his hand. "But me?" He questioned with a shake of his head. "I'm your son, your only son." His head lowered, eyes casting down to the ground as a slow nod began to linger over him. "I can understand that."

"Draco, my boy," Lucius smiled gently, a somewhat relieved praise passing between them as he repeated with an encouraging disposition. "My son, I knew you would see the need for compassion. Come, we need to leave before the battle prevents our safe passage."

"Compassion?" Draco asked as his head lifted. His lips curled downward into a disgusted twist over the word. He nearly spat it out of his mouth the second it touched his tongue. 'For a mudblood? For this mudblood?' His thoughts were bitter, hateful and dangerous as he replied with a continued mock understanding. "No, I can understand why you can't let me do this, why you're conflicted. So let me help you—Imperio!"

Lucius stiffened, his whole body tightening as the muscles of his limbs and torso seemed to constrict and pull themselves more firmly over his bones. As the curse first hit, a stifled, almost smothered gasp forced itself from his lungs and up out of his throat. A fog swept over his eyes and into his mind as a strange tingling sensation washed down his body. It trickled down his neck and spread across the width of his chest. The muscles that had tightened uncomfortably a second ago seemed to slack and loosen to an almost unnatural state, immobile as only his core muscles remained flexed to keep him standing. A soft, gentle voice called to him from the back of his mind, willing him to relax, willing him to give in to the sensation that bound him.

Draco's wand froze as his eyes scanned hesitantly over his father's face. The features were stone, unchanging, unresponsive, yet his eyes seemed heavy, strained. He was awaiting a command. A smirk dragged itself over Draco's lips. Quickly closing the gap between them, the younger man stepped towards his father until he could go no further, the toes of his shoes nearly crushing on top of Lucius's feet. "I've been practicing with Uncle." He muttered through a grin, his wand busy at hand as he tried to control the steady focus necessary to keep the Imperius curse continuous. Their close proximity made it only slightly less tedious but Draco's main concern the second the curse had been cast was his own safety.

With his wand tied up in upholding the curse's effects, he knew it made him an easy target if Granger decided to get daring. Draco stepped carefully behind Lucius, a bitter question murmured between them. "Are you proud of me now, father?"

Hermione stared at them through the thin opening of her stall's door frame, her irritation and disappointment growing at her own hesitation as she watched Lucius's body slack so unlike himself. As Draco slunk around him like a serpent eyeing a plump, juicy mouse, it made Hermione sick. 'If I had just stopped him before Lucius even arrived,' she swore, cursing her damned righteousness. ' 'You're not a killer, Draco, and neither am I.' ' She mockingly repeated her earlier words in her head, yet there he stood, using an unforgivable curse on his own father as if it were nothing. She may have known who he had once been but now, Draco Malfoy was as much a stranger to her as any other V.R.S. scum. 'If Lucius would just move!' Hermione cursed in frustration. She couldn't get a clear shot off even if she had all the luck in the world on her side. Her wand pressed against her throat heatedly. "Let him go, Draco! This is between you and me!"

Her old classmate released a harsh laugh. "You still think you can talk me out of this? You're stupider than I thought." Draco frowned as if disgusted and confused all at once and questioned Lucius with a prod of his wand against his back. "What were you thinking wasting your time with such a stupid mudblood anyway?" As if the somewhat sarcastic question had suddenly flipped a switch of apparent brilliance on his part, Draco pressed the wand against Lucius's back again, firmer this time, and made a demand. "Tell her what you were thinking. Tell her how much your precious time together meant to you. Tell her how worthless she is. Go on."

"Lucius!" Hermione shouted, her voice appearing almost directly on top of them, louder than before. "Listen to me! I know you can hear me. Just focus on my voice." She pleaded. "You need to fight it! Push his influence out of your mind and take back control. He's weak! He won't be able to withstand it if you just fight back!"

"He can't hear you, Granger." Draco mocked. "Even if he could, he doesn't want to listen to you," His eyes lingered on the back of his father's head as his wand twisted into the blade of his shoulder. "Isn't that right?" As if Lucius were nothing more than an oversized marionette doll in his hands, his head slowly, oddly nodded. Draco smirked at the accomplishment and pushed for more. "Go on, father. Tell her how little she means to you."

There was a hesitation, a delay between Draco's demand and the clenching of Lucius's jaw, but it didn't matter. She had seen it, that small ounce of defiance that meant anything that followed was irrelevant, a lie. Still, as another firm poke of Draco's wand dug into his back, Lucius opened his mouth and spoke the words he knew his son had wanted to hear. "You meant nothing to me, Hermione. Our time, meant nothing to me." He stopped, an uncomfortable choking noise interrupting his speech as if the words had almost not made it out as clearly as they did.

The younger blond seemed to approve, his smile bearing teeth as he solicited a heartier admission. "And what do you think of her? I don't know how you managed to carry on together. Didn't she repulse you?" Another almost gargling sound escaped from his captive, earning a disappointed deflation to Draco's gleeful demeanor. His wand moved up his father's back to the base of his skull, its tip pressing into his neck. "What was that? I don't think she heard you."

Lucius sucked in a breath. "She meant nothing to me. It made me physically ill to be near her—,"

"Fight it, Lucius! Keep fighting!" Hermione's shouted encouragements cut him off. She needed him to regain control of himself, as hard as that was, but part of her knew she couldn't stand to hear him continue either. It was lies, all lies, but the words coming out of his mouth in his own voice was painful enough to hear. She couldn't bare to listen to any more of it.

"That's enough," Draco barked sharply at her. Whether he was disappointed that it didn't invoke the type of reaction from her that he wanted, or if her interruptions were starting to put unwanted strain on his concentration, she couldn't tell, but he was beginning to look exhausted.

"No!" Hermione continued. "I know you can hear me! You can do it, Lucius! He's weak! He's breaking already, I can see it!"

The creases of Draco's scowl deepened. Something was pushing against him, making it harder to keep the curse intact. It was as if a wall was slowly but surely building up between them, locking him out with each and every invisible brick laid in place. He grit his teeth together and muttered through a labored breath, "Finish this. Find her and kill her, now." He took a step back and waited.

At first, there was nothing. No more forced words and no movement. It was as if Lucius had become broken, shattered from the inside out as a war raged on inside his head and oozed down into every fiber of his being. His muscles felt foreign, like he was floating in mid air instead of standing perfectly still, yet as his wand arm lifted up away from his side and pointed towards a nearby cubicle, the shouting in his head seemed futile.

The first blast startled her as Hermione expected him to somehow pull Draco's influence out of him quicker than it seemed he could. She ducked as bits and pieces of the stall directly next to her scattered all around the lavatory. She had lost count of the number of loos already demolished, but as her sights fell back to the scene outside her cubicle and focused in on the way Lucius's wand began to turn and face towards her, she knew it was now or never.

"Lucius, stop!" Hermione shouted, bursting through the door with wand drawn out defensively in front of her. Draco was still tucked back behind his father, hiding like a weak little child. Her eyes fell to Lucius's face. "Look at me!" She demanded. "Keep fighting, Lucius!"

He froze, the wand in his hand suddenly feeling heavier than it once did as it steadied itself forcefully on her. He wanted to drop it, throw it to the ground and snap it in half, but the damned muscles of his fingers wouldn't peel themselves away from the trembling wood. With every scrap of his core, he shouted. He tore the walls of his insides to ruins until the nails of his fingers became chipped and broken, drenched in bloody stains that dripped down to his forearms. Yet as his body finally responded to his mind's violent thrashing and pleads, his ears only captured what he hoped was clear enough to reach her. "I'm...sorry."

"Don't, Lucius. You don't have to do this." Hermione begged. If he would just keep pushing, keep brawling and keep building up that wall inside of himself until Draco's imperius curse couldn't touch him...

The tip of his wand began to glow, a powerful spell trapped deep inside its wooden prison as Lucius tried with all his might to drag it back inside him. It was too strong, the control he tried to regain was slipping away and before he could do anything to stop it, a searing, angry spell exploded from his wand across the bathroom towards Hermione.

Her shield came up just in the nick of time, knocking her backwards against the stall's outer wall as she blocked the spell successfully. "Lucius, please!" Hermione cried as her wand hand shook with the anticipation of his next attack. Just like the first, it soared towards her in a flash of bright light, threatening to collide with her face. With a timely block, Hermione swung her wand arm up in front of her, causing the spell to fizzle away into nothingness, but as she lowered her wand back to her defensive stance, the third assault was already barreling towards her. His pace was too quick, forcing her to spin out of the way of the spell, twisting her back off the stall's outer wall and ducking down into the adjacent cubicle for cover.

She couldn't keep it up, not endlessly. No matter how many times she blocked his attacks, Hermione knew there would be another one only seconds after it. She needed to slow him down, stall him in any way that she could. Yet as she sucked in a quick breath and shot a spell out from behind the stall's door, she closed her eyes and prayed it didn't make contact.

A painful crash echoed through the ruined bathroom as the spell hit its target. Lucius was sent hurdling backwards against the tiled wall behind him, missing Draco by nearly an arms length. "Get up!" Hermione heard Draco shouting. "You can do better than that, or are you too weak?" He spat crudely. "Useless, get up!"

Hermione's head was shaking, her eyes squeezed closed as she whispered pleadingly, "Stay down, please, just stay down." He was hurt; she could hear it in the way he groaned as he got back to his feet. She cursed under her breath and forced the door to her stall back open. "Expelliarmus!"

It was uselessly blocked, followed up quickly by Lucius's returned fire. "Avada—," His spell began.

"Expelliarmus!" Hermione repeated, more forceful than before as she willed it to work. Again, her disarming spell failed as Lucius deflected it off with an unsteady step backwards. It wasn't working and as Hermione heard his footsteps marching closer to her tiny little bathroom cubicle, she shot at him again. "Reducto!"

This time, the spell landed, hitting him square on his chest and flinging him off his feet and onto the ground as if he were nothing more than a rag doll. 'Stay down,' Lucius croaked to himself through clouded thoughts. 'Just stay down, lose consciousness, something, anything!' For a moment, he thought his body had finally given up, too sore from the beating it had taken and too tired from fighting against the imperius curse that still held a firm grip around him. He counted the seconds silently as his head laid uncomfortably against a piece of rubble on the floor. 'One… two… three… stay down.' A muscle in his arm twitched. 'Four… five… don't get up.' His right knee ached as his leg painstakingly shifted and pulled itself beneath him as best it could. 'Six… please… seven… no… eight...' The palm of his left hand flattened itself against the floor's dust-covered surface as his final plea resonated uselessly against deaf ears. 'Don't.'

Hermione heard him shifting around on the ground, heard the heels of his shoe meet the tiles of the floor, and cursed inwardly at the tears welling up around her eyes. She couldn't keep doing this, couldn't keep hurting him and hurting him until it would finally be enough, until he would finally just stay down. She couldn't bring herself to deliver the final blow, no matter how scared she was of dying. Through glazed eyes, Hermione shot out at him again. "Expelliarmus!" It was her last chance, and it missed.

Draco was standing against the wall, positioning himself directly behind his father, but if she could just get to him, just get past Lucius without him killing her first. She couldn't keep her head out past the door any longer. Lucius's wand was raised and ready, a spell already partially murmured between his lips. "Avada—,"

Hermione's heart raced, beating through her chest as if it would never get the chance to beat again. She was ready, tears streaming down her face and wand arm trembling out in front of her, but she had made peace with all that. The door to her stall opened as she found his eyes. "I forgive you, Lucius."

'NO!' Lucius raged, the pounding in his head coming to almost crushing levels. She couldn't give up. There had to be a way. If he were only stronger. 'If I weren't so weak,' he barked frantically, thrashing against the walls of his subconsciousness just as the killing curse's incantation against his vocal cords came to completion. "Kedavra!"

Time seemed to slow, dragging on painfully so as his voice filled her ears for the final time. The dry, chapped flesh of her lips parted, one last breath drawn deep into her lungs as if she would surely drown without it. 'I'm ready,' Hermione chanted silently. 'I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.' It would be quick, like falling asleep. As peaceful as a midsummer cat nap, Hermione declared to herself. Every book she had ever read containing information on the Killing Curse had said it to be just as such. No pain. No suffering. One day you're there, living your life, and the next, you're elsewhere. Beyond the veil and finally at peace. She closed her eyes and repeated softly, "I'm ready."

Her mind flooded with images of her past, a slideshow of sorts highlighting her life as it stereotypically flashed before her eyes. The oversized, ridiculously baked birthday cake that she and her parents had made for her fifth birthday came to mind. It had been her favorite birthday up until her time spent at Hogwarts with Harry and Ron. The images fast-forward to the day she received her letter to Hogwarts. It was confusing and exciting all at once. Her parents were concerned, having never heard of a wizarding school. 'So far away?' Hermione remembered her mother asking. She had never spent such a long time away from home before. It would be her first big adventure.

The train was magnificent and as she passed each and every compartment and saw the older students with their wands, performing real live magic. She was nearly too swept away to continue walking down the train's narrow aisle, but she'd always be thankful that she did. Meeting Harry and Ron had meant everything to her. Maybe not then, and maybe not when they fought or bickered over little things once arriving at Hogwarts, but as the years past and they remained by her side, she knew they would be there for her for as long as she lived. They were the brothers she never had and she knew in that moment as the slideshow passed over their faces, she would have given anything in the world to have one last moment with them before the spell speeding towards her finally hit.

But her life's slideshow hadn't ended there, not by a long shot. She thought, at one point, that there was nothing more for her, nothing left to tell of the brilliant, young, brave Gryffindor. After Hogwarts and after the war, her life had been turned upside down. Depression, fear, they ruled her every waking moment and when she slept, the nightmares greeted her there as well. There was no escaping any of it, so she escaped from the ones she loved instead. It had been a mistake, Hermione thought now as she watched the slideshow depict how she had ran away from Harry, from the Weasleys, from everyone. It was painful to watch and even more painful to remember, but then it stopped.

It all stopped and as the images cleared from her head, she expected the spell to hit her true, but nothing came. Her farewell ceremony, as private and as intimate as it was, hadn't ended yet. A monetary pause in her otherwise busy life. Lucius. 'Lucius,' Hermione thought fondly as his image flooded her memories, overwhelming them with his presence. He was striking and he was cold. His words were biting and his glares were even more judging than they had been in all the previous years she had known him. But they persevered. He saw how she struggled and saw how she hated herself for it, much like himself. He allowed her a sanctuary to relax, a safe area for her to reclaim herself, and in the process, she helped him recover what little good of himself he had left. He had been striking and he had been cold, but as their masks both chipped away and left them barefaced and vulnerable, he pulled back and evolved. That which was once cruel and unforgiving had turned tender and warm.

She recalled their conversations in his library, forced and bitter at first, yet natural and sincere as their time together grew and intertwined into something beautiful. The images in her head filled with memories of his kindness, his generosity, his love. They brought her back to the moments when she couldn't possibly picture spending the rest of her life without him, and him with her. They had been content, overly so, and engulfed in one another. Even when they fought and she thought he had forgotten her, he proved loyal. He risked his life infiltrating the V.R.S. as much as he could. He protected her when she couldn't protect herself, and when he saw that her fighting Gryffindor spirit demanded its own means of protection, self-worth, and strength, he had given her a wand.

It wasn't hers and it wasn't the same, but Lucius had found it for her regardless. It responded to her well enough, better than she expected, and when she questioned him, he had revealed that he specifically sought out that wand in hopes of replacing her old one as best as he could. As she recalled the conversation, his thoughtfulness was enough to bring her to tears. Hermione's mind replayed their exchange as if the measly slideshow images couldn't possibly do the memory justice.

"I managed to get one with a similar core. Dragon heartstring, isn't it?" He shrugged and added, "I thought it might have a better chance of understanding you well enough if you stuck with the same core type, though I'm not sure if that really matters at all."

Hermione stood inside the cramped dressing room and listened to him talk about the wand she could feel tucked safely away in her pants pocket. She looked down at it as he mentioned the wand's elements. "You remembered my core?" she asked automatically.

Lucius's eyebrow tweaked back upwards as he heard her finally speak. "Of course. It's the same as mine, so it was hard to forget."

Hermione's thoughts stopped. The make-believe slideshow honoring her life thus far ended abruptly as her mind exploded with the remnants of the last memory. 'MY WAND!' She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it sooner. 'Dragon heartstring. We share the same core. There's a chance, a small, fraction of a chance that this can work—,'

It all happened so quickly. In the blink of an eye, her wand was up and out in front of her. Her heart felt as if it had jumped uncontrollably up into her throat but then it struck. The killing curse cast from Lucius's wand made contact with Hermione's block. For a moment, it felt as if she were holding pure fire, the flames licking at her palms as she grasp her wand tightly with both hands. It was working!

'Yes! Yes, Hermione! You brilliant, brilliant witch!' Lucius burst with excitement as he watched their spells connect and fight for dominance. 'Keep fighting, Hermione!' He pleaded, his thoughts locked behind his imperio'd body. 'Just keep fighting!'

As if stunned by what he was seeing, Draco's concentration snapped. Just as quickly as it had taken over him, the imperius curse lifted from Lucius like a bucket of cold water. His limbs felt weak and his head was spinning but his body was his own and he couldn't think of a single thing he cherished more in that moment. His fingers tightened around his wand as Hermione's spell teetered dangerously close to overtaking his, the sudden lift of the imperius curse throwing off his spell's control. If he didn't back out soon, it was bound to strike him dead. Lucius grit his teeth and tried to hold on just a second longer, only a second, that's all he'd need to try to redirect the spell's path. But it was crashing closer and closer towards him, burning the tip of his wand as if it were only simple tinder. He shouted behind him. "Move, Draco! Get out of the—,"

His voice collapsed. He had heard the shuffling of his son's feet behind him, distinct panicked stumbling, but it was too late. The killing curse reflecting back towards Lucius bit at his wand, forcing him to give up its hold. With a leap of faith to the side, Lucius jumped out of the curse's path and tried to redirect it towards the pile of rubble and debris beside them. But it needed a life. It wouldn't latch on to the broken bits of piping and walls, not like it latched on to Draco— demanding, consuming, final.

ANs: Wow, oh wow. This chapter was definitely a thrill to write! Crazy amounts of emotions going on here but honestly, what would war be without emotions? I hope everything came off as clearly as I think it did, but just in case, if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to read them in the reviews/PMs. I'm expecting quite a few mixed reactions with this one, especially from the folks who were rooting for Draco to make a redeeming comeback. Sorry!

Once again, thank you so much for your kindness and your patience. My goal is to end this on the anniversary of this story's publication date: Feb. 8th. Think we can do it? I sure hope so! See you all next chapter :)

WildBubblesRoam xoxo