A/N: We now join Hermione and the rest of our heroes, and villains, in the midst of the Battle of Hogwarts, this time unconstrained by the requirements of horrid plot points and mandatory Hollywood driven story arcs and excessively long final battle scenes and monologuing…. so I can substitute my own. Really, what would Hermione's mind be doing while everyone was just standing there, facing off?

Extensive direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows to follow, of which I own none. Thanks, Ms. Rowling.

The Last Horcrux

"NO!"

Hermione felt a spike of despair at the pain in McGonagall's yell, and pushed her way through the door into the courtyard, Ron and Ginny close behind. It couldn't be, Harry would never— She broke through the crowd, the sight of Harry lying motionless on the ground in front of Voldemort and his army ripping a scream from her own throat.

"NO!"

"No!" "Harry! HARRY!" Ron and Ginny screamed at the same time from behind her.

The spike of despair became a gaping chasm, and Hermione's thoughts and emotions nearly shut down. Harry was dead. He couldn't be dead. That was the one thing she had been sure of. Everyone else would fail, had failed them, had failed him. But not Harry. Never Harry. He would always, somehow, survive.

But there he was, lying still in the dirt. After all they had done, after all they had been through, he was dead. And in such a stupid, stupid way. Did he really think that Voldemort would honour any deal, that he would let Harry, or any of them live? Harry knew better, knew Voldemort better. What was Harry thinking? They were all going to die, if they were lucky, because Harry threw his life away. What could he possibly have been thinking?

She looked up slowly. Voldemort was spewing some ridiculous nonsense, his Death Eaters cackling and grinning behind him. "He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, killed while trying to save himself—"

Her thoughts circled sluggishly. That didn't make any sense. Harry never tried to save himself. Ever. It was his greatest weakness and his greatest strength. He— Hermione was nearly knocked over as someone pushed their way through and charged Voldemort. There was a bang, a flash of light, and a grunt of pain. Finally who it was registered through her mental fog. Oh Neville, not you too. What was it with Gryffindor males getting themselves killed in the most stupid of ways? Despair and fatigue piled higher and higher. She wanted nothing more than to fall to the ground and cry herself to sleep while the world ended around her.

Neville's wand flew into Voldemort's hand, and he struggled to his feet.

"And who is this? Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?"

Hermione's mind drifted while Voldemort postured some more. You've won, you thug. Not because you're right, but because you had more power, more money, more supporters. We had incompetent adults, a corrupt government, a secretive headmaster, and three teenagers. Idiot. Her eyes were drawn to Harry's body again, and tears finally came. Why, Harry, why? Why would you give yourself up like this?

Movement drew her attention. Nagini coiled and slithered just behind Voldemort. They were so close, just one more horcrux. The last horcrux. Harry had even turned within and tracked it down to the boathouse, and they couldn't kill it then….

The world shifted a few degrees to the left and clunked into place. Her eyes flicked from Nagini to Harry to Voldemort in rapid sequence, her thoughts now shedding their paralysis, racing through her head, making connection after connection. Harry's scar. The headaches, the connection, the visions.

Voldemort had killed his parents… had arrived at their cottage alone, without the usual horde of sycophants… had murdered his parents in cold blood… had been ready to create another….

Not the last horcrux. There had been two. The despair mounted higher, this time for what Harry must have gone through in the past few hours. Oh, Harry. You should have told me. We needed to know. I needed to know. You didn't have to do everything by yourself. I could have come with you. I would have come with you.

But if there had been two, now there was truly just one. You stupid, brilliant man. Just one more, and Voldemort would be beatable. Still insanely powerful, and just plain insane, but beatable. Nagini had to go.

She tipped her wand up slowly at her side, hoping no one would notice. She would have only one shot. She understood Harry now. Her life for a horcrux. Her life, for all the rest. It was a fair trade, and there was no time to tell anyone. Voldemort stood at the front of his troops, maybe someone would get lucky, he could be killed by anyone. The tears fell faster, there was so much she'd wanted to do. Her parents, they would never know…. She looked down at Harry again. There's so much I wanted to say…. I understand Harry, and I will come with you.

The words of the prophecy flashed through her head. Maddeningly vague. Power, hand, lives, survives. All meaningless drivel. Harry removed your horcuxes, showed me how to finish the job, delivered you to me. She felt the presence of the crowd behind and around her, tied together by their love for Harry, for each other. Maybe love truly was the power. Maybe she could play a part, nowhere did it say Harry had to do it all by himself. Maybe it would cause her to miss. In the end it didn't matter. She would do what she must do, and they would all know soon.

More blather from the madman. She looked up to see Neville with the sorting hat on his head. "Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to still oppose me," said Voldemort, and with a flick of his wand, he caused the Sorting Hat to burst into flames.

Screams split the dawn, and Neville was aflame, rooted to the spot, unable to move. Oh, Neville. Everyone's eyes were drawn to him, it was time to act. She started to raise her arm, to get the best shot at Nagini she could.

And then many things happened at the same moment.

She heard uproar from the distant boundary of the school as what sounded like hundreds of people came swarming over the out-of-sight walls and pelted toward the castle, uttering loud war cries. Hermione's thoughts continued to race even as time seemed to slow further. Really, now people come? Where'd they been the last two effin years? Twenty years? Where were they an hour ago, when Harry walked alone to his death? Her wand inched up.

At the same time, Grawp came lumbering around the side of the castle and yelled, "HAGGER!" His cry was answered by roars from Voldemort's giants: They ran at Grawp like bull elephants, making the earth quake. She dismissed them as insignificant. Her wand moved up further.

Then came hooves and the twang of bows, and arrows were suddenly falling among the Death Eaters, who broke ranks, shouting their surprise. About effin time, they'd only known this was coming for decades. Her wand tracked left and up as the snake slithered about, raising its head in alarm.

Through it all, Hermione kept her eye on the four figures in front of her, Harry, Neville, Voldemort, and Nagini, while everyone else, on both sides, whirled and stared at the chaos all around them, her wand now pointing unerringly at the head of the snake.

And then it passed from chaotic to surreal.

In one swift, fluid motion, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; his hand shot up, inside the flaming hat, flinging it off his head, leaving him holding something silver, with a glittering, rubied handle—

The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over the roar of the oncoming crowd or the sounds of the clashing giants or the stampeding centaurs, and yet it seemed to draw every eye back to the centre of it all. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake's head, which spun high into the air, flickering in the light from the entrance hall windows.

Screams filled the air, silencing and paralysing everyone. The first came from the tumbling head of Nagini, an eerie spine-chilling shriek, as a contrail of dark, thick smoke marked its trajectory, forming a vague face contorted in agony before it started to break apart. Unbidden, the image of a countdown clock in slow motion appeared in Hermione's mind, glacially ticking from 01 to 00.

The second came from Voldemort, a wordless scream of pain and loss, blending into the shriek of the horcrux, as he saw his beloved familiar parted in two before him, and one of his most precious treasures destroyed in front of everyone.

The third came from herself, as her wand tracked just a bit higher from where Nagini's head had been to where Voldemort's head was now.

Wisely, she chose to scream "BOMBARDA!"

Voldemort was silenced as his head disappeared into a mist of grey and red, coating every Death Eater within twenty feet.

Everyone, every single being, remained frozen for the eternity of the few seconds it took for Voldemort's now headless body to crumple and fall to the ground. Then everyone, every single being, turned to look at Hermione, her wand still raised and tears streaming down her face. No one knew what to do next.

Slowly, starting with the nearest Death Eaters, they started to remember that they were still in the midst of a battle, and dozens of wands came to bear on her as she stared at the bodies in front of her.

And then it passed from surreal to impossible.

Hermione saw Harry's eyes snap open, and her scream of before was dwarfed by her roar of "HARRY!"

Everyone snapped out of their paralysis. Harry rolled to his feet, answering her cry with a roar of "PROTEGO!" Such was his shield that the front row of Death Eaters were knocked back into the crowd behind them, disrupting their spells.

The main castle doors exploded open again, and hundreds of elves added their voices, and the mass of witches and wizards from the gates and the centaurs from the forest resumed their charge, the roar growing and swelling to drown out even the boom of the giants. The defenders of the castle finally shed their shock and raised their wands and their voices again. Spells and arrows rained down on the rapidly encircled forces of Voldemort, even as elves flickered amongst their legs, bashing and slicing. Anyone who fell near them would never rise again.

Hermione lowered her wand, and as the Death Eater army was quickly decimated, she calmly walked to where Harry, somehow, stood near the headless corpse of Tom Marvolo Riddle, casting curses and shields in rapid succession. She stopped to stare at her handiwork. Even in death, he was still… creepy. It was all rather anticlimactic. She noticed that he was still holding his wand. That could come in handy, and really, it shouldn't be left lying around. And if Olivander was right, it was hers now. She bent and grabbed it up, feeling the warmth flow up her arm. It whispered to her, promising power and wealth. She ignored it, tucking it up the sleeve of her jumper. There were far more important things in life.

She ducked under Harry's wand arm and popped up right in front of his face, then grabbed him in a fierce hug.

"Diffin— Hermione!" He tentatively returned her hug.

She tipped her head up. "I finally know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, Harry."

"Er, yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm going to study necromancy."

"Necro—what?"

She released her hug to grab his face between her hands and stare right into his eyes. "Yes, necromancy. So that the next time you wander off to kill yourself or something else equally fatally stupid, I can resurrect you and torture you to death myself! Don't you ever," she released his face to free her hands,

Whack.

"Hey!"

"Do"

Whack.

"Ow!"

"That"

Whack.

"Hermione!"

"Again. You understand me?"

Before he could make excuses or promises he probably couldn't keep, she grabbed his face again and kissed him soundly.

A/N: Anything else would be superfluous.

A/N: Another attack from the dreaded greater fanged plot bunny survived.

A/N: Small plot point, but major source of confusion for me, is why Hagrid was carried off into the Forest by the acromantula. It would make sense if they were trying to save him, but they were kidnapping him. Why? They were killing everyone else. Evidently on the orders of Voldemort. Why? He was killing everyone else too, and Hagrid's a half breed, top on the list for elimination. But no, he's uniquely spared and tied up to a tree. The one and only prisoner. It's all in direct opposition to what the characters would actually do/were doing. So apparently, it's only for Hagrid to be available to carry Harry back to the castle. So even as a plot point, it makes no sense, because Hagrid carrying him back really doesn't add much. Have Voldemort floating his corpse along, dropping it from fifteen feet up, like they do with all the muggles. Far more degrading and despair causing.