Harry backed away and edged closer to his bed, where his wand lay on the pillow.

“Stop!” Ron commanded, “Stay right where you are or so help me I’ll blast your bloody head off!”

Hermione pulled her dress back on and pulled herself to her feet. Ron pushed her behind him. She watched Harry over his shoulder. “What are you doing here?” Harry asked, still in a fair amount of shock.

“Do you think I’d trust you with Hermione after what I saw this evening?!” Ron yelled furiously, deciding not to mention the fact that Professor Trelawney’s predictions had put him in a very cautious mood. “I’ve been in the next room the whole time, just waiting for a reason to bust in here!”

Harry weighed is options. He could surrender to them, but then everything he had done so far would have been in vain. The Dark Allegiance would send someone else, someone who would murder Hermione, and probably the rest of them too, if they were cunning enough. The war would eventually end, but not without damage, destruction, and death. More wars would start, more people would die, and the world would sink into the farthest pits of hell.

Another option presented itself. He could reach for his wand. Surely Ron would not deal him a fatal spell. At most, he would injure him, but Harry could still get to his wand, even if he were in pain. Then the tide would turn! Harry knew he was a superior wizard to Ron. He knew all of Ron’s tricks.

He gathered his courage, as he had done years ago when he finally defeated Voldemort, with his friends at his side, and lunged for his wand. Ron yelled out a spell that Harry didn’t quite catch. Suddenly his left shoulder was burning with pain. It was so sharp and sudden that it almost threw him off his course, but he had dealt with pain before. He landed beside the bed, his hand on the wand. He pointed it at Ron.

Ron kept his pointed at Harry. “So, it comes down to this! I never would’ve dreamed it would happen, Harry. You, of all people…”

Suddenly Harry yelled out “Crucio!” Ron collapsed to the floor, clutching his stomach as if his insides were devouring each other, and probably feeling as such. Hermione cried out and fell down beside him, trying to cradle the pain away.

She turned her tear-streaked face to Harry. “Stop it! He’s our friend!”

Harry slowly rose to his feet. “Then I’ll end his suffering.” He pointed the wand at Ron again, and mouthed a spell that looked suspiciously like Avada Kedavra. And before Hermione could react, a green flash of light bolted into Ron’s chest. Ron gave a sickening cry, and his eyes went blank. He went limp in her arms.

Hermione screamed out, tightening her hold on him as if doing so would force his body to hang onto life. But it was too late. In her despair she had forgotten about Harry, who pointed the wand at her. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I tried to avoid this.” He opened his mouth again to speak a spell, but was cut off when he felt a tremor beneath his feet. Something was stirring, and the feel of it was far too ominous to be a mere earthquake.

Suddenly darkness spread over them. Hermione was shocked into standing up. Harry yelled “Lumos!” and she could see him glowing faintly in front of her.

“What’s happening?!” she cried, realizing that no matter where Harry held the light, nothing could be seen but the two of them, and Ron’s lifeless body that now seemed to be floating in mid-air.

“This is it!” Harry shouted, looking anxious, “This is the spell! They said there would be darkness for a time!”

Hermione looked around in horror. “This isn’t just darkness! Everything is gone!”

“But then, why are we still here?” Harry asked uneasily.

“I don’t know! You should know all about this spell, since you’re the one who helped them to cast it!” she yelled venomously.

“All they told me was that all Muggles would be removed from the Earth.”

“So they failed to mention that everything would be removed?! This is your fault, Harry!”

Harry looked horrified. He knew she was telling the truth. He’d made a mistake. The Dark Allegiance had been wrong about the spell. If they had been so wrong about something so important, then what else were they wrong about? Harry struggled through the mess his mind had been in since he’d met with the Dark Allegiance for the first time. Something was very wrong here.

Hermione stumbled toward the light of his wand. She wanted to put her hands about his neck and choke him, to avenge Ron, and to avenge the world. It was his fault! It was his doing! She stopped right at him when she saw him curl up into a ball, his hands at his head. He was sobbing like a child. “Harry, what are you doing?!”

He looked up at her. “I don’t know what’s going on! Suddenly nothing makes sense! What they did, what I did! It all seems so wrong now!”

Hermione leaned forward and put her hands gently on his temples. She concentrated for a moment, trying to sense out the problem. She opened her eyes. “That’s it! A powerful confusion spell, set to wear off after you had done what they wanted!”

“But, I can withstand the Imperius spell!” Harry cried.

“This isn’t the same thing. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but you had to have some similar thoughts in your mind before it could work, no matter how small or deep they were in your mind.”

“The war! I did see those terrible things, and they did affect me! That’s why I was susceptible to the spell!”

“Exactly!” Hermione said. But then she realized that this changed everything. It wasn’t Harry’s fault after all. He had been manipulated by the Dark Allegiance just as she had been manipulated by him. But all this had come too late. The spell had taken effect, and there was nothing they could do. Everything was gone,

“Hermione, your will!” Harry suddenly yelled.

“What do you mean?”

“Your will was what was stopping the spell! Your prayers and your singing in the church! That was it! Maybe you can use it to reverse the spell!”

Hermione looked shocked. “Surely I can’t! How can I stand up to a spell this powerful?!”

“You have to try! For Ron!”

Hermione looked back to Ron’s body. For him, for the world, she had to try. She conjured all of her hopes and prayers into her heart and gave them life again. Almost instantly a white glowing orb appeared before her, just like the one she had seen in a dream days before. She reached out and held it in her hands. It was so warm, so soft, and the most beautiful tune was coming from it. She realized then that it was the physical manifestation of her will, more powerful than any wand or Muggle device. It was purely hers, and it was beautiful.

She suddenly felt pressure, and the orb’s glow began to weaken. The darkness was threatening to claim it. Her will was fading. She struggled to hold it strong and bright, but it was too hard for her. She could feel the power slipping from her.

Then another familiar feeling washed over her. Strong, warm arms around her. She recognized it as the same feeling of earlier that evening, when Ron had carried her. “Ron?!” she gasped.

There was no answer, and his body still lay motionless a few feet away, illuminated from the light of her will, but the warmth and strength of the feeling flooded into her, and she felt as if Ron’s will were feeding her own. Her globe began to grow bright again, brighter than ever. The immaculate whiteness of it would have blinded anyone else, but it was soothing to Hermione’s eyes.

Harry had come to her side, his eyes shut tight, but his arms about her. “I’ll support you, Hermione, as you always supported me.”

Hermione smiled at him in return. She wondered then if this was how Harry had felt that day, facing Voldemort in a glorious display of power. She wondered if the energy she and Ron had focused onto him had made him feel this warm and invincible.

Finally, the darkness began to retreat, and the light of her globe poured out to fill the room, and then the Leaky Cauldron, and after that, presumably, the world itself. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Her only regret was that Harry couldn’t see it without risk of going blind.

After it was over, Hermione and Harry both collapsed, and the light dimmed to a safe level, the level of daylight. Everything seemed to have been returned to normal. Hermione barely took a minute to breathe before she crawled over to Ron’s body. She put her hand on his forehead. “Thank you, Ron,” she said tearfully, “you helped me more than you could know.”

Ron’s body gave a jerk, and his eyes flew open. He leapt up and scanned the room. “Did we do it?!” he yelled excitedly.

“Ron, you’re alive!” Hermione exclaimed, jumping up and hugging him.

“Of course he is!” Harry said from behind her. “Even at my lowest point, I couldn’t have killed him!”

Hermione looked stunned. “But, I saw you use Avada Kedavra!”

Harry felt like laughing, but realized that it wasn’t the right time for it. “I didn’t use that curse. I used a similar one to make you think I’d killed him. All it really did was paralyze him and slow his breath to the point that he appeared dead. He was alive and awake the entire time!”

Hermione looked at Ron, as if she needed him to verify it. He nodded. “As soon as it hit me, I realized that Harry wasn’t completely gone yet, but I didn’t know he was being manipulated. Oh yeah, Hermione, I probably would’ve died if you’d squeezed me any tighter!”

Hermione was still in shock. “I can’t believe it. You’re alive, and the world is back to normal!”

“Yep, the normal, violent, irrational world.” Harry said almost bleakly.

Ron and Hermione both looked at him with a trace of worry on their faces.

Harry laughed suddenly and put an arm around each of them. “But the war will end! People will smile and laugh again, and the sun will keep rising every morning, thanks to you, Hermione!”

Hermione smiled again, this time brauder than ever. As they walked out of the Leaky Cauldron and into the sunny street, she looked up at the white clouds and blue sky. “No, not completely thanks to me,” she whispered, and pulled them closer.