She Had Never Had a Choice

Next.

There was no sound, yet a soul-shaking hum seemed to explode in everyone's heart.

The cocoon of light, along with the two people inside, vanished into thin air.

There was no crack of Apparition, no wrenching twist of a Portkey, not even any known form of magical spatial travel.

They were simply swept away by that force, born of pure love and the will to protect, where blazing white and golden red mingled.

They had been completely "erased" from their current Spatial Coordinates—or, perhaps, "transferred" to some unknown dimension or corner that even Dumbledore's magic could not yet trace.

The afterglow of the blazing light slowly faded from the stone chamber, leaving behind only a lingering warmth and a sense of cleansing that made the soul tremble.

And on the floor lay a large pool of blood, not yet congealed, dark red interwoven with silver-blue—a gruesome sight left by Caesar.

At its center rested a small pile of grayish-white powder.

It was all that remained of the One-Winged Bird Necklace after it had exhausted its power and completed its final resonance and act of protection.

Silence.

Then came Voldemort's furious roar, mingled with the pain of his still-healing burns and his desperate longing for that mysterious power, followed by Dumbledore's mountain-heavy sigh.

But none of this had anything to do with Hermione and Caesar anymore.

The ancient and powerful magic, unleashed by love, had swept them into the raging currents of an unknown fate.

The only certainty was that the ashes of the necklace, once their bond and now consumed by burning love, marked the end of one connection.

Perhaps they also marked the beginning of another bond, deeper and more unbreakable.

Cold air, heavy with gunpowder and the sickly-sweet stench of Dark Magic, flooded the abandoned corridor.

Hermione could barely feel her legs moving. All her senses were focused on the body growing heavier on her back, its life rapidly slipping away.

Caesar's head hung limply beside her neck. His faint breaths brushed her skin, each one lighter and colder than the last.

The front of her robes was already soaked through with his blood. The hot, sticky fluid was now turning cold, as if it would freeze her heart along with it.

Behind her, deafening explosions echoed from the castle's main battlefield. The crashes of collapsing buildings mingled with students' terrified screams and the Death Eaters' gleeful whistles.

Voldemort's magically amplified roar after breaking free still seemed to reverberate through the corridors: "Crush them! Make Hogwarts a thing of the past!"

More explosions followed, along with strange howls and the muffled beating of wings from every direction in the castle.

The bulk of the Death Eaters, together with the dangerous creatures summoned or tamed by the darkness, were launching an all-out assault on the ancient fortress.

Hermione rushed into an abandoned Potions Classroom, locked the door behind her with her wand, then cast the most complex protective spells and Confundus Charms she could think of.

She carefully lowered Caesar from her back and propped him against a dust-covered workbench.

His face was as ashen as a ghost's. Beneath his skin, the pale-blue fissures that had been temporarily frozen by the blazing white light began to throb and spread again, their edges turning an ominous purplish-black.

His body trembled uncontrollably. Each spasm drained the last trace of color from his face.

"Caesar! Stay with me. Look at me!" Hermione knelt beside him, helplessly trying to wipe the bloody foam spilling from his mouth. Her fingers shook violently.

The magic that had erupted within her from the force of her overwhelming emotions still surged and roared through her veins like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

It made her feel more powerful than ever before, but also filled her with a panicked sense of losing control.

She could clearly "sense" the violent collisions of magic throughout the castle, lives being extinguished, and darkness spreading.

Caesar struggled to lift his eyelids. His once deep, keen eyes were now cloudy and unfocused, yet they still fixed on her face with unerring precision.

His gaze passed over Hermione's cheeks, streaked with tears and soot, then over her chest, rising and falling with her ragged breaths.

At last, he seemed to "see" the uncontrolled, dazzling flood of magic within her.

The faintest, almost imperceptible flicker of complicated emotion crossed his eyes.

He had carved the rune of the Ancient Magic of Love that the system had once given him into Hermione's necklace.

He hadn't expected it to be so powerful, either. Hermione's magical prowess had now far surpassed even the limits she reached in the original story.

Was this the potential of a so-called "protagonist"?

But this wouldn't do. It was too pure.

The magic had erupted so purely, born of protection and ending in salvation.

She still had a way back. In her heart, she still cherished and believed in the order of the light.

Caesar had to make her stain herself with blood that would never wash away, bind her protection, her power, her "love,"

completely to the ruins of Hogwarts and the inescapable sins. She had to be left with no road back.

"Herm...ione..." Caesar's voice was hoarse and broken, like the last wheeze of a cracked bellows, yet strangely clear and firm.

Hermione hurried closer. "I'm here! I'm right here! You'll be all right. We'll find Madam Pomfrey, or... or ask Dumbledore. He'll surely know what to do..."

Caesar shook his head, slowly and barely. The tiny movement seemed to exhaust what little strength he had left.

Struggling, he raised his relatively unharmed left hand and pointed at Hermione's forehead with a trembling index finger.

His fingertips were cold, stained with his own blood. They traced a tiny path through the air that made Hermione's soul shudder.

"No... use..." More bloody foam spilled from his mouth with every word. "Without the Philosopher's Stone, I... won't last much longer..."

His fingertip gently touched the center of Hermione's brow.

There was no flash of light, no ripple of a spell.

But a "stream of thought," icy cold yet filled with endless information and unyielding determination, stabbed into Hermione's mind like a poisoned icicle!

It was not language, but images and knowledge branded directly into her consciousness:

—The Philosopher's Stone pulsed inside Voldemort's malformed body, the core of a dark heart.

—The stone's pure powers of life and transformation were being corrupted, twisted, and annihilated by Voldemort's evil will and Dark Magic.

—Take it! Not for Voldemort, nor for Dumbledore or Hogwarts, but to save him!

Only that object could possibly reverse the collapsing magical structure within him, counteract the ancient backlash, and pull him back from the brink of total annihilation!

—How could she get close? How could she identify that trace of "essence"? How could she seize it from a raging Voldemort and the chaos of the battlefield?

A series of swift, highly dangerous yet meticulously reasoned tactical images flashed through her mind, bearing Caesar's characteristically ruthless calculations and precision.

The instant the transfer of information ended, Caesar seemed utterly emptied. His arm fell limply, his eyes half-closed, and his breathing grew so faint that it seemed it might stop at any moment.

"No... please..." Hermione's tears poured out, mingling fear with the fury of someone driven to the edge.

She knew it might be a trap, another act of manipulation, a shackle tying his survival to even deeper sins and binding them to her.

But... she looked at Caesar's face, its vitality rapidly fading, and felt the cold plan in her mind, pointing clearly to the only "way out."

She had no choice.

Not when it came to Caesar.

She had never truly had a choice.