Professor McGonagall's whole body shuddered. Her eyes flew wide, filled with shock, pain, and, at last, an indescribably complicated look as she gazed at Hermione's face.
Her lips moved, as if she wanted to say something, but all that came out was a mouthful of dark red blood.
The strength quickly drained from her body. Like a fallen leaf with nothing to support it, she crumpled backward, her eyes rapidly dimming as the last flicker of life went out.
To the very end, she stared fixedly at Hermione, as if trying to carve into her soul the image of the student in whom she had once placed such high hopes, but who had now killed her with her own hands.
"Minerva—!"
Dumbledore let out a heart-wrenching roar. His blue eyes blazed with immense grief and fury.
The Elder Wand erupted in an unprecedented brilliance of silver light, like a river of stars cascading from the heavens. Carrying the mighty will to cleanse all darkness, mourn the dead, and punish the guilty, it surged toward Hermione!
This time, he held nothing back!
But the moment Hermione struck, she used the recoil from her wand hitting McGonagall, along with a stagger caused by her badly wounded left shoulder, to roll backward and narrowly evade the full force of the silver torrent.
The aftershock swept across her back, tearing her already tattered robes to shreds and leaving a large, charred burn. But she seemed unable to feel the pain.
As she rolled, her gaze remained fixed on Dumbledore.
More precisely, she had her eyes on the instant when Dumbledore's control over the Philosopher's Stone had slackened slightly as he threw himself into his attack. The deep red stone was slipping from his sleeve!
Now!
Hermione ignored the severe injuries to her back and shoulder. As soon as she landed, she dropped to one knee and plunged her wand into the ground!
"Earth Bind!"
The ground instantly turned into a sticky mire. Several thick arms made of rock and soil shot up, clawing at Dumbledore's feet!
At the same time, she struggled to raise her left hand and held it out toward the Philosopher's Stone in midair, fingers curled as if grasping it!
"Accio!"
A powerful summoning force seized the stone. It shuddered, about to break free of Dumbledore's control!
Dumbledore gave an angry snort and thrust the Elder Wand downward. The mire and stone arms instantly hardened into slabs of rock, then shattered into pieces. His other hand darted toward the Philosopher's Stone.
But Hermione's madness had exceeded his expectations.
The instant he split his attention between freeing himself from the ground and grabbing the stone, Hermione abandoned all defense and hurled herself at him like a cannonball!
She poured every scrap of magic she had left, along with her reckless, frenzied resolve, into the impact!
Caught off guard, Dumbledore took the full blow to his chest. Even with powerful magic protecting him, the force sent his blood and breath churning, driving him back several steps.
His hand reaching for the Philosopher's Stone was forced to pull back and guard himself.
Now!
Hermione's right hand shot out like lightning. Her target wasn't Dumbledore, but the Philosopher's Stone, which was floating in midair, suspended by the surging magic of their clash and left unclaimed!
Her fingertips barely touched its smooth, warm surface.
A cruel glint flashed in Dumbledore's eyes. Without hesitation, he pointed the Elder Wand at Hermione's back.
This time, he was closer, and his magic was more concentrated. He was determined to kill the fallen girl who had murdered her teacher!
Yet Hermione seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. The instant her fingertips touched the Philosopher's Stone,
her body twisted at an impossible, almost bone-breaking angle, once again taking the blow from the Elder Wand on her already wounded left shoulder blade!
There was a muffled thud. The tip of the Elder Wand sank almost all the way through Hermione's left shoulder, its end protruding partway out the front and bringing with it a spray of vivid blood and shattered bone.
The unimaginable pain made her vision go black. She nearly passed out.
But the taste of blood from her bitten tongue and the one figure filling her mind made her summon the last of her strength.
Using the force of the Elder Wand piercing her body, she lunged forward, wrenching the Philosopher's Stone out of the air and clutching it tightly in her blood-soaked palm!
At the same time, she pulled herself free of the Elder Wand's impalement, leaving behind a horrifying through-and-through wound as blood gushed from it like a spring.
"Ugh!" At last, she let out a groan of pain, repressed to the limit, and collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. But she kept the Philosopher's Stone clutched tightly in her hand.
Dumbledore looked at Hermione, sprawled on the ground and gravely wounded, yet still clutching the Philosopher's Stone.
He looked at Professor McGonagall's cold body nearby. For the first time, his aged face twisted with a rage bordering on savagery and profound grief.
He raised the Elder Wand, its tip gathering a light of destruction. This time, nothing would go wrong.
But just as he was about to strike the final blow,
a faint, strange smile appeared on Hermione's bloodied face, filled with a frantic kind of satisfaction.
She looked at Dumbledore and summoned the last of her strength to press the fist holding the Philosopher's Stone hard against her mangled chest, as if trying to shove the stone into her heart.
Then, in a voice little louder than a whisper but clear enough for Dumbledore to hear, she rasped:
"...He... wait for me..."
The next moment, her body was engulfed by a sudden, extremely unstable and chaotic spatial fluctuation, which erupted from both the Philosopher's Stone and her own blood!
Was it a random teleportation triggered by the violent magical impact and the blood soaking into the Philosopher's Stone?
Or had she unconsciously activated, on the brink of death, one of the emergency measures Caesar had once imprinted in her mind?
Dumbledore's expression changed. The light from the Elder Wand shot forth, but only shattered the rippling space as it faded from view.
Hermione Granger, along with the bloodied Philosopher's Stone, vanished from the spot.
Yet, at the very moment teacher and student turned against each other,
"Avada Kedavra!"
An exceedingly faint but precisely aimed jet of poisonous green light shot out through a gap in the rubble.
Its target was not Hermione, but Dumbledore, whose defenses had faltered after the immense shock!
It was Voldemort!
He still had enough strength and malice left to launch one final attack!
It all happened too fast.
Dumbledore's dodge was half a beat too late...
The abandoned Potions Classroom deep within the castle was like a forgotten tomb. Dust and a faint scent of blood hung in its deathly silence.
The sounds of battle, explosions, and a dragon's roar outside the windows were cut off by the thick stone walls and the Protective Charms Hermione had cast, reduced to a muffled background din. That only made the silence inside feel more oppressive, more unreal.
Hermione had all but crashed through the door.
She had run all the way there, her heart pounding against her ribs like a drum. Every beat tugged at the wound beneath her ribs and the taut thread deep within her soul.
She clutched the deep red Philosopher's Stone in her hand. Its warmth stood in stark contrast to the cold, damp sweat on her palm, as if it were her last connection to the world.
The sight inside the classroom brought her breathing to an abrupt halt.
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