The battle was nothing like they had thought it would be. There was no order, no neat lines, no clear loyalties. Causes were betrayed, friends double-crossed and new alliances formed in the space of a second. But by far the worst was that it was impossible to keep track of anyone in the turmoil. She fought without knowing who was dead. She fought because in that moment there was nothing else in the world.

Hermione remembered the beginning of the last ill-fated battle. In every dream, the pain is just as fresh as that day, maybe worse because she is robbed of the blessed numbing shock which encompassed her that week. Their first warning that something was wrong came when Professor Lupin disappeared hours before a full moon. Hermione would see him again, but it would be on different sides of the battle line. He would never again appear to anyone in human form. Voldemort's call to the dark beasts was simply to strong for even the truest of hearts.

The Death Eaters had acted quickly and quietly when they moved, kidnapping Ron and demanding no less than Harry in exchange. Harry and Dumbledore had disappeared into his office for hours, while Hermione was left to pace the common room, the library, any space she could find. Harry returned pale and silent. Dumbledore went to Voldemort's encampment alone. His body came back broken and bloody a few hours later. Harry then began to pack; no one asked about Ron.

A scream tore from her own throat; she was back on the battlefield. Snape lay dead in the dust behind them, slain by the curse Bellatrix Lestrange had aimed for Harry's heart. With grim satisfaction, Harry then slew the murder of Sirius. Harry's voice, pronouncing the unforgivable curse, chilled Hermione. So this was what Dumbledore sacrificed himself for: he died to give Harry time to perfect the one art no 17-year-old boy should be asked to learn. She wondered, now, if it had been worth it. If maybe, there had been some other way.

Tossing in her sleep, she fought to awaken before the moment arrived: the moment when the fairytale broke, the moment when it all went completely and finally wrong. Some Muggles hold to a theory, grown out of the chaos theory, that for every action, every choice, a thousand worlds are created. Hermione did not long for thousands of worlds just one. Just one world, where the decisions about to be reenacted in her sleeping consciousness could be reversed, undone, expunged. A different world where the dead got up and led lives filled with laughter. A world that still had Harry in it.

After Bellatrix died, Harry, turned to Hermione and pointed towards Molly Weasley, who was about to be over come by three Death Eaters. Hermione rushed to aid her, but the attack never came. The wind had died, everyone on the field fell still as Harry and Voldemort circled each other, sizing the other up. If any words were spoken between the two Hermione never heard them, but she always imagined they were there.

Nor did she see the sneak attack from Draco: stupid, shifty, arrogant, and as it turned out, brave Draco. Draco, in the final critical moment, broke ranks with his father and the Death Eaters to physically throw himself at Voldemort, breaking the Dark Lord's attention and giving Harry his shot. Or at least, that is what Hermione supposed he had planned. Only somehow, Voldemort managed to see or sense him coming, maybe a reflection of the movement in the glasses Harry never gave up. Whatever the cause, at the precise moment Draco launched at him, the Dark Lord turned. Twisting the boy's form in the air, he placed Draco between himself and Harry. To have a clear aim at the Dark Lord, all Harry needed to do was send a curse and disable the boy who single handily had made his school years torture. But Harry didn't do it. He just stood there as Voldemort, sneering, broke Draco's neck and unleashed the Avada Kedavra's green light at him. Harry barely had his wand raised before the curse hit. As he fell to the ground, his glasses snapped and lay half-submerged in a pool of blood, mud, and worse.