=== February 22, 1997 ===
Hermione and Flitwick pass several of the castle's statues, each guarding a known exit from the servants' corridors, as they walk the halls.
"Where are we heading?" Flitwick asks.
"The Room of Requirement." Hermione answers.
"I don't understand." Flitwick says. "That's the one place we know the Death Eaters aren't."
"Then why is it still open?" Hermione asks as they approach the door.
"So they left someone behind?" Flitwick asks.
"Most likely, though I'm confused why Ron wouldn't mention that." Hermione says.
"Does the map detect muggles?" Flitwick asks.
"I honestly don't know." Hermione admits.
"If it doesn't it's possible that whomever they left had their magical signature damaged and the map doesn't see them." Flitwick suggests.
Hermione nods as she summons her daggers into the air on either side of her and grips her wand tight as she opens the door and jumps backwards.
"No spells flying at us." Flitwick says. "That's probably a good sign."
"Only one way to find out for sure." Hermione says as she goes to step in.
Flitwick stops her. "Let me go first, I am technically responsible for you."
Hermione chuckles slightly. "I'm pretty sure that war exempts you from that responsibility, but if it'll make you feel better go ahead."
Flitwick rolls his eyes and steps in front of her. "Thank you." He steps into the room. "If there's someone here, we want to help you."
Hermione steps in behind Flitwick. "Are you expecting an answer?"
"Over here." Pansy says weakly from by the altar.
"You were saying?* Flitwick asks with a raised eye brow before heading towards Pansy.
"I honestly wasn't expecting that." Hermione admits as follows Flitwick.
"Sometimes you have to expect the unexpected." Flitwick says when suddenly something moves. He moves to cast a spell when Nagini lunges and bites him.
"Professor!" Hermione shouts as she sends Hugin at Nagini only to have it bounce off her scales.
Nagini lets go of Flitwick and lunges at Hermione only for Munin to get in her way. Nagini grabs the dagger with her mouth and then tosses it to one side, then slithers away.
#####
'Harry!' Hermione calls out through their bond.
Harry and Dumbledore are walking the halls when a raspy voice calls out. "Avada Kedavra!"
Harry tackles Dumbledore and the spell flies over them. Harry jumps to his feet and fires a few spells in the direction the curse came from.
The spells are blocked by a shield, the light of the shield luminates the form of Voldemort. "Potter!" He says the name like it's poisonous.
"Riddle." Harry replies with equal venom.
Dumbledore grabs Harry and pulls him aside as a series of spells passes them by. Dumbledore twists his wrist and the hallway lights up revealing Parkinson in his Death Eater robes, clapping. "Impressive, Headmaster, seems like you still have it."
"You have no idea what I have, Parkinson." Dumbledore says as a golden whip comes from the end of his wand and he slings the whip towards Parkinson and Voldemort.
Voldemort dodges into one room while Parkinson dodges into another as the whip destroys everything it hits. Harry goes to get up when he hears Hermione's voice call his name through their bond.
'Hermione, what's wrong?' Harry asks as Dumbledore vanishes the whip and gets all the way up.
'The snake is here.' Hermione replies, 'my daggers won't touch it, I need your sword.'
'Take it.' Harry says then looks at Dumbledore. "Hermione has my sword."
"I'll distract Riddle." Dumbledore says. "Take care of Parkinson so we don't have to watch our backs."
Harry nods and goes after Parkinson. As he goes into the room he blindly fires spells. As soon as his spells hit the far wall Parkinson fires his own spells, only for those to be blocked by Harry's shield.
Now in the room Harry looks around and sees no signs of Parkinson. A spell flies Harry's way, he easily dodges it and sends one in return. Another spell comes from a different direction, Harry easily dodges that one.
"Why are you hiding, Parkinson?" Harry yells.
"Simple," Parkinson's voice echoes from everywhere. "You can't kill what you can't see!"
Harry jumps out of the way of a massive attack that hits the floor, raising a cloud of dust. When the dust settles all that can be seen is a crater in the floor.
"Two can play at that game." Harry's voice echoes throughout the room.
"Fine!" Parkinson says as he comes out of hiding. "Let's do this properly."
Harry appears across the room. "Finally."
Parkinson fires off a trio of spells at Harry who avoids them all and fires his own set which Parkinson dodges. The pattern continues, which each set of spells fired they get closer to each other.
Then just when it seems like neither can win. Parkinson calls out: "Exspelliarmus!" The spell successfully disarms Harry. Parkinson immediately trips Harry then puts his foot on his back. "It's over, Potter. I have won the duel, now it's time for you to die."
"You're forgetting something." Harry says as he summons Hugin into the air behind Parkinson. "This isn't a duel." With that Hugin stabs Parkinson in the back with enough force to knock him off Harry.
Harry gets up and grabs his wand before going to see Parkinson. Finding him dead he summons Hugin from his corpse and heads towards Dumbledore.
#####
'Take it.' Harry says.
'Take Hugin.' Hermione replies and the dagger vanishes from her side. Nagini, thinking she has the advantage, lunges at Hermione.
Hermione smirks as she summons Harry's sword. She drops her wand and grasps the handle with both hands as she turns the edge towards Nagini.
Already mid-air Nagini sees the blade and is ready to bite it like she had the dagger. As she gets close to the blade she goes to bite it only to find her mouth held open by magic.
Hermione's eyes glow blue as she whispers the spell to hold the snake's mouth open. Nagini hits the sword, mouth open with all her weight. Hermione quickly shifts her spell to a shield, and does so just in time. Blood and ichor hit the shield as the blade splits the snake in half.
A foul black smoke rises from Nagini's corpse as Hermione banishes Harry's sword and picks up her wand. She runs over to Flitwick. "Professor!"
She finds him alive, but barely. With barely a thought she summons the grimoire and flips through it. Finding the spell she wants she whispers it and Flitwick stops moving.
"Did you kill him?" Pansy asks.
Hermione turns her wand drawn, only to see Pansy is in rough shape. One of Pansy's eyes is red with blood, her left arm hangs limp and she is shaking like she is freezing. "No, it's a stasis spell." Hermione answers. "It'll keep the poison from killing him."
"Are you going to kill me?" Pansy asks.
"That depends, do you still want to kill me?" Hermione asks.
Pansy shakes her head. "Can you help me? I think I'm broken. I can still feel magic, but it's like it's just out of reach."
"I can't, but Madam Pomphrey can." Hermione says. "Dobby! Winky!" She calls out and the elves appear.
"Yes, Mistress?" Winky asks.
"Take these two to the Infirmary." Hermione says. "Pansy, tell Madam Pomphrey what I told you about Professor Flitwick, okay?"
Pansy nods. "I will." The two elves grab her and Flitwick and vanish.
#####
Harry hears the battle before he sees it. He carefully looks into the room only to find Dumbledore and Voldemort locked in combat. A spell is flowing from each of their wands, and meets in the middle of the room.
Their battle takes place at the far side of the large room, with Voldemort's form mostly blocked from Harry's view. The floor is littered with debris and the walls of the room are scorched from their spell fire.
Dumbledore takes a step forward. "Give it up Tom, you'll never beat me." Dumbledore says.
"I think not." Voldemort retorts as he steps forward. "You're growing weak."
Just as Harry is about to step into the room he sees movement in the other doorway to the room. "You're here." Dumbledore says, as he looks at the other doorway, relief clear in his voice. "Come help."
Harry waits, whomever is there is someone Dumbledore sees as an ally, and can help quicker than he could. Severus Snape steps into the room. "Of course, I'll help." Snape says as he draws his wand.
Dumbledore nods and turns fully to Voldemort, pushing more power into the spell.
Snape raises his wand and shouts: "Avada Kedavra!"
"No!" Harry screams as watches the green spell hit Dumbledore and sees the venerable man fall to the ground dead.