Lightning Strike Hermione ran up the steep incline to Hogwarts, splashing in puddles, hurrying to get inside. She tripped over an unseen rock and sprawled in the mud. “Damn!” she cursed and tried to collect the huge stack of papers and books she had dropped. As she scurried around, plucking rain soaked documents from the mud, she heard an odd hissing sound. She lifted her head and listened, cocking her head as a cat would. She turned her head to the left and froze as she locked eyes with an enormous black snake with hooded green eyes. Hermione opened her mouth to scream but found that she couldn’t make a sound. The snake’s head began to weave back and forth, its eyes still fixed on Hermione’s. Hermione felt her head begin to sway as well. The snake slithered forward and wound its thick body around Hermione’s. It squeezed slightly and its eyes seemed to swallow Hermione up. She was falling, tumbling through blackness into a great deep well. Hermione hit bottom and looked around her. She was in a cage of black bars. The bars seemed to be crackling with energy and Hermione was sure she should not touch them. Hermione walked into the hall soaking wet and extremely dirty. It seemed odd to Harry that she didn’t seem to mind and instead had a smugly superior look on her Outside the bars she saw the snake remove itself from her body but it still had control over her mind. She heard it ordering her body to stand and walk towards the castle. The snake pried open Hermione’s memory and pawed through them. The snake appeared inside Hermione’s prison, outside the cage. It had assumed a human form, a tall woman with long strait black hair and bottle green eyes that reminded Hermione strongly of a housefly. I sssee now isss the time for eating,” the snake/woman said, elongating her ‘s’. “Perfect.” Hermione watched helplessly as her body walked through the castle doors and into the great hall. Harry looked up as Hermione walked through the double doors. She looked wet and dirty but it almost looked like she didn’t care. She wore a face that reminded Harry of Malfoy somehow, that same smug mocking look that always made him so mad. It looked extremely out of place on Hermione. Ron didn’t seem to notice, though. “Hey! Hermione!” he called happily and ran to greet her. Once closer, he noticed how bedraggled she looked and slowed down. “Whoa, Herm, what happ…” he never finished his sentence because at that moment Hermione lifted her wand and said loudly in a flat voice totally unlike her own, “Avada Kedavra.” The blast hit Ron full in the chest and the entire Great Hall sat in stunned silence for three full seconds as Ron’s stiff body fell to the ground with a surprised look on his face. Then Hermione turned and faced the diners. Chaos insued. Children dove under tables and behind chairs while a few fast thinking prefects tried to calm people enough to set up improvised barriers. Cho Chang was huddled behind an overturned table with a group of Ravenclaws. Hermione turned to the other side of the room and she saw her chance. She stood quickly and said “Stupefy!” Hermione seemed to sense it was coming before it even left Cho’s wand and she sidestepped the blow. She raised her own wand and said “Cruciatus,” Cho began to vibrate and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her body started twitching and she jerked around like a puppet on a string. Hermione laughed and made a cutting motion with her wand and Cho fell on top of the terrified first years that had been hiding with her. “Cho!” Alicia Spinnet screamed and leaped for her friend but she too fell before Hermione’s wand. Now Hermione turned her attentions to the silverware still littering the tabletops. “Levioso!” she said and all the knives leapt off the table. She waved her arm and sent her deadly missiles flying about the room causing injury and death. Justin Finch-Fletchly made a mad dash for the door but hardly made it a quarter of the way before a wayward knife plunged itself into his back with a sick squelching sound. He stumbled and fellto the ground. The sounds of teachers running down the hall could now be heard and Hermione slammed the door shut with another wave of her wand. “Accio table!” she said and sent the Ravenclaw table, which was closest, thudding into the entrance, barring the way. The people behind the table were exposed and Hermione froze three who weren’t quick enough to get away. She levitated them and sent one crashing into the wall head first, splattering his brains all over the Hogwarts banner and the other two she sent flying into the suits of armor that lined the walls were they were impaled upon the spears the suits were holding. Harry Potter was crouched behind a table with Seamus Finnigan and Parvati Patil, who was sobbing and clutching her dead twin’s hand to her chest. “Padma, oh Padma!” she gasped, unable to breathe, as she rocked back and forth. Seamus looked sick about the dead body but Harry didn’t notice either of them. His entire attention was focused on Hermione. She didn’t seem right somehow, her normally cinnamon eyes seemed black and sunken in her face. It was then that he noticed the faint shimmering of coils around her body and in the back round, the great black serpent that had left the residue. There was only one snake that could have that much influence. “Nagini!” Harry called her by her true name in the language of the snakes. “Harry Potter,” she answered and slithered into the light, curling around Hermione’s legs and up over her shoulder. “Do you like my creation, little wizard boy?” she asked with a hint of amusement. Harry gave a shout of rage. “What is it? What did it say?” asked Seamus frantically. “That snake is Nagini, Voldemort’s (Seamus winced but Harry, not noticing continued) personal pet. She’s got control over Hermione’s body somehow, she’s controlling her,” Harry said through clenched teeth. “So that means…” “We can’t hurt Nagini without hurting Hermione,” Harry said grimly. “Harry, you’ve got to do something,” said Seamus desperately as another knife found a target, “people are dying, Harry!” Just then, however, the door burst open in a shower of sawdust and through the cloud, Harry saw Snape raise his wand. Hermione did the same. “Noo!” Harry screamed and the world seemed to slow. Hermione and Snape’s mouths opening. Harry standing and Seamus pulling him down. Nagini slipping away. Hermione’s eyes clearing at the exact moment that Snape’s curse hit her. The terrified scream that was strangled in her throat. Her limp body thudding to the floor. Harry’s blood pounded in his ears. His head throbbed painfully. With a jerk he snatched his arm loose from Seamus and sprinted across the room and up to Snape. He pulled back his fist and socked him hard on the jaw. “She was being controlled you greasy bastard and you killed her!” He leaped on him and the two tumbled to the ground. Harry closed his hands around Snape’s neck and began slamming his head against the floor. “You killed her,” Harry tightened his grip. “You-killed-her,” Snape’s eyes were beginning to bug out. Hands grasped Harry and vainly tried to drag him off of Snape “YOU KILLED HER!” Harry screamed. He didn’t seem to notice he was doing the same. The hands finally succeeded in dragging him off Snape. Harry wrenched himself from their grasp and dashed off down the hall with the sounds of Dumbledore’s shouts ringing in his ears. He dashed without seeing until he ran into a door and without thinking, opened it and ran inside. He slammed it shut and leaned against it, slowly beating his head against the hard cold metal as tears streamed down his face. After a time he turned around and found he was in a room full of crates and crates of alcoholic beverages. Harry’s face cracked into a relieved grin. Three hours later he was tumbling down the hall with a bottle of tequila and singing the British national anthem. He took a swig from the bottle and staggered into the wall were he crashed into a suit of armor. Blearily he stared at it and decided it would be a good idea to put it on. So he did. He started galloping down the passageway on an imaginary horse and ran strait past shell-shocked teachers and prefects out onto the Hogwarts grounds. It was storming. Harry amused himself by charging the Whomping Willow for a while and having it bash him and throw him backwards. Then he noticed the Astronomy tower. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled across the sky as Harry stared upwards at it. As he watched, lightning struck the metal rod that was attached to the roof of the tower. Harry’s face lit up in a gleeful grin. “Hee hee hee!” giggled Harry and dashed back inside, streaming water from the joints of his suit. Harry blew past teachers and ghosts again and when Peeves dropped a water balloon on his head, Harry laughed and shouted at the top of his lungs “Accio Peeves!”  He then proceeded to stuff him in a flowerpot. He resumed his mad flight up to the highest point of Hogwarts castle. Round and round the tower stairs he went, up and up until he reached the platform. Then he climbed the conical roof of the tower, which was no easy task in a wet suit of armor. He scrambled up the peaked roof and clutched the lightning rod stationed there. Lifting his tequila bottle high in the air he shouted, “All gods are BASTARDS!” He laughed maniacally and waited for the strike. The lightning arched down like the claw of some great bird coming to pluck him from his perch. It slammed into him and he felt his body jerk. His hand lost its hold on the rod and he tumbled off the roof and fell six stories to the grass below. He slammed into the ground, but he had been dead long before that. Hagrid and Fang found his body the next day.