The noise was deafening. There were people screaming, running, crying, falling. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to turn, with all the pain and evil swirling around me, I didn't know who to call. It was confusing. Through the smoke and bodies I managed to glimpse a fight, but it was between a little girl not more than fifteen or sixteen, her wand twirling as she tried to defeat a masked man, who laughed as her shield charm shattered.
The bodies closed, and it was then that I realized that she had vivid red hair.
"GINNY!" I roared, throwing myself into the fray, nearly stunning Professor Flitwick when he got into my way. I moved faster than I ever thought I could, whipping my arm up and stunning the Death Eater with a curse so strong he flew backwards and slammed into the wall.
"GINNY!" I screamed again, grabbing her off the floor where she lay. I could only think that I was too late, I was too slow, I couldn't save her. "Ennervate. ENNERVATE!" I cried, shaking her arm.
This was my little sister, on the ground, the one who I had watched catch butterflies in the backyard and who had cried in earnest every year I left for Hogwarts on the shiny red train, the one who I had attempted to cook a birthday cake for since I left for Egypt and failed miserably every year. The one who, although she's sixteen, still danced on my feet at my wedding in June, her gold dress billowing out around her the same way her nightgown did when she was three and we danced on Christmas Eve to Celestina Warbeck.
I can't let her die, there must be some way that I can keep her alive, some spell, something I can do. It's impossible that she's gone, impossible that she won't ever hide somewhere in the house and leave her shoes pointed towards the room so I can find her on Boxing Day, or see her pouring beetles in Percy's soup along with Fred and George.
"GINNY!" I shouted, one last time, grabbing her arm when it finally occurred to me to check for a pulse.
I suppose it was loud, like I had thought as I ran through the Great Hall, but it seemed as if cotton had been stuffed in my ears, and a little cough managed to get through. I released her arm immediately, straining my ears for that little cough again, and hearing something better.
"Bill?"
"Ginny!" I said, a rush of air I hadn't realized I'd been holding whooshed out of my lungs.
"LOOK OUT!" she shrieked, pointing her wand at and shouting "Reducto!" I was astonished to realize that she can produce such a good reductor curse that he hit the wall, and, topping my stunner, smashed right through.
"Are you okay?" I asked her, my hair falling in my face.
"Bill, move!" Ginny shouted at me. "PROTEGO! MOVE, BILL! STUPEFY!" She scrambled back behind a tapestry, pointed her wand at the floor and said "duro" in a firm voice. The tapestry turned to stone, and I looked at Ginny in wonder.
"Where'd you learn to do all that?" I asked her, looking at her bruised and cut face, the blood soaking through the sleeve covering her left shoulder.
"Let's see… I was with Harry at the ministry, and I did take the practical part of the OWLS last year, and I've spent five years hanging around with Hermione when Ron leaves to go somewhere with Harry and doesn't bother to tell me. Oh, and I'm one of the leaders of Dumbledore's Army." Ginny grimaced.
"Are you-" I started.
"I'm fine, I just need to get back in the battle, there's people that need help-" Ginny stood up and I recognized a flash in her eyes.
It was the flash I saw right after we'd tell Ginny to put down Fred's broomstick and go in the house to bake with Mum and she was coming up with a comeback, the flash I saw when Ron was jumping out of the way of a spider like a girl and she raised her foot to stomp on it.
She got up without a word to me, sidestepped from outside the tapestry, and sent a well-placed Bat-Bogey Hex into the crowd of people, and then she looked back, and gave her special two-finger wave, the one she's been giving since she was a baby.
The bubble I was in burst, and my little sister sprinted into the biggest battle in 300 years.
The noise came back to my attention and I raced back into the fray, now knowing who to turn to and exactly where to go.