The inevitable

Truths

Hermione slipped down to the Dungeons as she always did around this time of night. It was the time she spent working with Severus on the possible cure for the curse. She was unaware that the stone behind her had turned a slightly different colour.

Under a Disillusionment spell, Draco, Pansy, Blaise and Luna followed Hermione down into the depths of the castle. They were determined to find out what was wrong with the sickly looking girl they all had come to care for.

They followed her to the familiar classroom of Professor Snape. "Typical she comes here." Draco muttered.

"Shh! She might hear us." Pansy hissed, elbowing the blonde in the stomach.

"Yikes, Pans. Did you really have to do that?"
"Just shut up."

"Make me."
"Will both of you shut up?" Luna snapped, casting a silencing charm on the two arguing Slytherins.

Blaise grinned. "I really like this girl."

The two silent Slytherins sent a death glare in the Italian Slytherin's direction. A faint blush covered Luna's cheeks.

The door to the classroom opened and Hermione slipped inside. The four managed to get inside before the door swung shut.

"Sev? Where are you?" Hermione called.

"In here, Mya!" Severus yelled from his private quarters.

Hermione and her four followers entered the Head of Slytherin's private rooms and Hermione threw herself onto the sofa.

"So, what are we doing today?" She asked.

"Working on the cure." Severus replied as he flipped through a potions journal.

Hermione groaned. "Why? We know it won't be found."
"You may be willing to give up, Hermione, but I am not."

"Sev, you need to make peace with it. I already have."

"There has to be a cure somewhere."

"Please, Sev. Voldemort made this curse; I doubt he would let a cure be found."

The four people under the charm gasped. Severus and Hermione turned round with reflexes honed by the war and pointed their wands at the group hiding under the spell.

"Disillusionment." Hermione stated.

"So it appears. Finite Incantatem." Severus agreed. The spell shot of his wand and hit the four.

The spell melted away to reveal a still silenced Pansy and Draco and a horrified looking Luna and Blaise.

Hermione slumped slightly. "Great. Are you guys spying on me? I'll bet you wanted to see if the rumours were true." She sighed, aiming it at the Slytherins.

"I never thought you would believe them, Luna."
"We don't. We saw how ill you are getting and wanted to see what was wrong. To see if there is anyway we could help." Draco argued after Severus had removed the silencing charm.

"Right. The great Draco Malfoy wants to help me, a lowly Mudblood." Hermione snarled.

"I don't believe in any of that. I had to or my father would have tortured me and killed my mother."

"Our families were neutral." Blaise added, gesturing to Pansy and himself.

"And, you know you're my best friend Hermione. I would never..." Luna protested.

Hermione felt tears come to her eyes. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm just a little stressed."
Severus snorted. "A little? You come down here every night to look for a cure you don't believe you will find, and then you go to Madam Pomfrey before going to bed; and you still have your homework to do, so you get up extra early. You only get about four hours sleep."

"I...I..."

"Don't deny it."

"Fine, I won't."

The four exchanged worried looks. "Hermione, please. Tell us what is wrong? What does the curse do?" Luna begged, taking her friend's hand into her own.

Hermione looked into the misty blue eyes of one of her only friends left. "I'm dying."

They hadn't been expecting that and it sent the four reeling in shock and horror.

"How?" Draco choked out.

"The curse. Voldemort created a curse that mutates the magic in a person's veins so it becomes like a virus and slowly kills them. It attacks their organs and slowly drains them of their life."

"You know, when I was led their in my own blood and vomit and Voldemort was telling me how the others he had cast this curse on had simply exploded, I prayed for that not to be. I prayed that I would survive so I could find a cure. I was so scared that all I had left to cling to was hope."
"But that diminished when I found there was no cure. Now I wish I had just exploded. It would be less painful." Hermione concluded, tears running down her flushed cheeks.

"Why...why did they explode?" Blaise asked, looking rather ill himself at the thought of those who died by explosion.

"A magical person's magic is contained a core inside of them. Sort of like a heart for the magic. The curse mutated the magic inside of it and the core overloaded. It burst, causing the rush of magic to go through the person's veins all at once, overloading them and causing them to burst as well, to explode." Hermione explained.

The three Slytherins and Luna all looked sick. "How can anyone do that to another human being?" Pansy gasped.

Hermione shrugged as she sat down on the sofa once more. "Voldemort was never really human. His soul was split too many times for him to really be human anymore."

"Yikes." Draco muttered with a shudder.

"Yeah, Yikes. Trust me, it was hard finding his soul parts and destroying them."

Severus looked at Hermione, his lips pressed into a thin line. During those months she had almost burnt herself out. He had had to watch her get worse each time she used the time turner. The more tired she was, the weaker her body's resistance to the curse was.

"You destroyed parts of You-Know-Who's soul?" Pansy gasped in awe, staring at the dying girl.

"Yeah. I guess you wouldn't have heard the story. We never really told anyone. It was just another part of the war." Hermione mused, shaking her head slightly.

"Tell us!" Blaise demanded eagerly, sitting on the edge of his seat and staring the war heroine.

Hermione laughed. "Okay, Okay. Do you want to start with what really happened in first year or just skip to the sixth year?"
"All of it." Draco replied softly as he stared at the girl he considered the most beautiful.

Hermione caught his eyes and blushed slightly. "Well, it all began during the Halloween feast..."
Hermione told every bit of the tale of her, Harry and Ron's adventures during the school years. The five, for Severus had never heard the tale either, were a good audience. They gasped in the right places, laughed in others and generally got absorbed in the tale.

"Then, Ginny turned the boys against me and it was the end of the Golden Trio." Hermione finished, sighing sadly.

The five got up and hugged her. "You have us now and we will never leave you." Severus swore.

Hermione smiled happily. She was alone no longer.