When I saw her corpse, I didn't think about how she had been my best friend since first year or the fact that she was dating my brother behind my back or how her brother had been caught as a member of Dumbledore's Army just a few hours earlier. It was the dead of night and she was a seventeen year old female with multiple contusions and severe bleeding from a five story fall. I dropped to my knees and began to feel for a pulse, barely there. Then I searched her body for a wound to apply pressure to, Come on there's got to be one. I'm pawing her corpse, there's blood everywhere. Where's it coming from? Then I realize the blood's pooling around her head, her skull's fractured. There's no hope for her.

Blaise comes up behind me, "Whats-"he began to say, the words stuck in his throat.

"You need to get Madame Pomfrey" I said.

He didn't respond, he just stared dumbfounded, his mouth slightly ajar.

I stood up, remember triage, you're not helping this patient right now, go get someone who can. I ran up the stairs two at a time to the hospital wing and burst through the door waking up some poor third year with flummox flu who let out a few words of annoyance. I knocked on Madame Pomfrey's door only three or four times before she opened. She saw the blood on my clothes and was visibly shocked, "Are you alright, child?"

"Alice jumped in the north stairwell." I said panting.

Her face went pale and she ran past me. I ran after her. "Go wake the Headmaster" she yelled back at me.

I sprinted all the way down to the dungeon and I tried knocking and then banging with my fist. He didn't answer for several minutes so started banging with two fists. I almost hit his chest when he finally opened the door.

"For what reason, do you wake me at this god forsaken hour Davis?" he said in his slow monotone voice

"Its Runcorn sir, she jumped in the north stairwell" I said leaning against the door frame. "There's blood everywhere sir, I don't think-"

"Lead the way" he said cutting me off. When we returned to the stairwell, Blaise was still standing where I left him. He looked like a statue, he hadn't even shed a tear. There was a sheet over the corpse's face and Madame Pomfrey shook her head at Headmaster Snape came along.

"You and Blaise should return to your dormitory" said Snape

"Yes sir" muttered Blaise turning to go.

"Please keep quiet about this" said Snape

"Yes sir" I said

Blaise didn't speak until we got back to Slytherin house.

"I'm sorry" he said to me

"I'm going to bed" I said brushing my hand across my forehead

"Good night"

I as walked up the stairs to the girl's dorm, I felt warm tears running down my face. You need to be strong Tirza, I heard a voice in my head say. I need to keep it together, crying doesn't help anything. Once inside my room I simply removed my shoes and slid into bed. I couldn't bring myself to do anything more. The exhaustion set in and I was fast asleep in seconds.

I was awakened with a scream, Daphne's scream. I sat up alert in bed. A man had entered our room, in the dark I could make out neither his face nor his motives, all I knew was that he was an intruder. With the power of surprise on my side, I jumped off my bed to next to him. He held his wand in his right hand. I turned his right wrist getting him to surrender his wand and shoved the flat of my hand on to his face. I twisted my leg behind his and took him down to the floor. With my knees on his chest, I elbowed him in the nose.

His accomplice turned the light on as he walked in and saw me, on top of his limp partner whose nose was bleeding profusely. His partner was a deatheater, I could tell because he wore long black robes and his hair was slicked back. He simply looked down at me, raised his wand and I was writhing on the floor in pain before I could let out a "there's been a misunderstanding". When people said unimaginable pain, it doesn't quite get the point across. A true cruciatius curse hurts like the greatest physical pain you have ever encountered combined with a haze where you don't remember your own name. The curse made the ones the inquisitorial squad had been casting the past few months seem like child's play. This was unadulterated pain, blinding in its scope. All I could hear was screaming, at the time I didn't realize they were my own screams. I threw my body around on the hardwood floor trying to make it stop. When he stopped crutiating me, I offered no resistance when he grabbed me by the hair began to drag me into the common room.

"Where are you taking her?" Yelled Pansy

"Stay back girl" he said pointing his wand at her. She raised her hands in surrender.

"At least let her have her shoes" said Daphne picking up my loafers and following the deatheater, as he pulled me down the stairs to the common room. I noticed that people had come out of their dorm rooms after hearing the screams and the boys were all waiting in the common room for us. The boys blocked the entrance and the deatheater grabbing my hair paused. I took advantage his momentary weakness and elbowed him harshly in the rib. He released my hair and ran over to the boys. I hid behind Blaise and Ted who had their wands drawn.

"What do you want with her?" said Blaise his normal temperance pierced

"It is not of your concern" The deatheater said "Now let me through" The deatheater stepped towards Blaise in an attempt to intimate him.

Draco stepped forward and rolled up his sleeve to show his dark mark. "Let's not be drastic, what do you want with Theresa Davis?" Draco said

"What do you mean Theresa Davis?" The deatheater said confused

"The girl, there all black and bloody, she's Theresa Davis, seventh year and my second in command." Draco said masking his frustration with boredom. "Now I ask you again, what do you want with Theresa Davis?"

"What is going on here?" said Slughorn pushing though boys "Good god Davis what happened to your face"

"It looks worse than it hurts" I said with a smile. Slughorn raised an eyebrow at the man.

"We're here to collect Alice Runcorn" said the Man trying to regain composure.

"Why is it then that you have a bruised Theresa Davis?"

"She nocked my partner unconscious."

"Because he broke into her room in the middle of the night, you pervert" said Pansy, some of the other Slytherins cheered at that.

"Watch it" said the deatheater "Which one of you is Alice Runcorn?"

"She's in the hospital wing" I said.

"Hospital wing?" Slughorn said "I never approved that. Why is she there?"

"I'd prefer to discuss that privately sir" I said

"Draco would you escort Miss Davis and our guests to the hospital wing. The rest of you, back to bed. You still have classes in the morning." Slughorn said

"I need someone to carry my partner to the hospital wing" said the deatheater

"Ted, you and Draco go into the girl's dormitory and carry the man up to the hospital wing" said Slughorn

The boys and girls filed out. Blaise gave me a look of concern and I shook my head lightly. He understood what I meant and went with the other boys back to bed. Daphne handed me my shoes. Slughorn lead us out of the room and we began to climb the stairs.

"Alice is most likely dead" I said

"Dead? How? When did this happen?" said Slughorn

"Around midnight, she fell from the top of the north stairwell." I said "From what I can tell she fractured her skull and began to bleed out."

"Surely your school's healer can be assistance" said the deatheater

"She's not the witch of Endor, she can't bring the dead back" I said

"Who?" he said

"The witch of Endor, the first necromancer. Honestly does no one study history anymore?" I said

A certain solemnness came over the group and we remained in silence until we arrived at the hospital wing.

"What happened to your face?" said Madame Pomfrey

"You should see the other guy" I said pointing to the deatheater propped up between Ted and Draco's arms "He wants to see Alice's corpse"

"This way" said Madame Pomfrey with a false smile

She slid a curtain back to reveal a body covered in a sheet on one of the hospital cots. She lifted the sheet so we could see the girls face. Her face had suffered no damage in the fall and she would have appeared to have been sleeping had it not been for the depression in the back of her skull leading her head to be tilted unnaturally up.

Draco averted his gaze, I found myself unable to grant myself such mercy. Slughorn shuffled his feet and said "Well there's Miss Runcorn"

The deatheater nodded solemnly.

"We ought to report back to Malfoy Manor" said the man without a broken nose motioning to the other man.

"Do not destroy the body yet" The other said to Madame Pomfrey as they exited "We'll return in a few hours for it"

"Are you alright?" Madam Pomfrey said to me

"I'm fine" I said smiling

"Your face certainly isn't fine" said Draco

"What's that supposed to mean?" I said

Draco picked up a mirror from the table and passed it to me. I stared at my reflection, one of my eyes was puffy and swollen, my nose was broken, and my lip was cut up.

"I see what you mean"

"Have a seat over here, Honey" Madame Pomfrey said motioning to a bed

"You honestly don't feel any of it?" said Draco horrified

"No" I said

"I have to reset your nose now, hold still" Madame Pomfrey said, she slid her fingers on either my nose holding back into place. With a wave of her wand the bone merged back together. I stared out towards the window the light of dawn was on the horizon.

"You should get some rest sweetie" said Madame Pomfrey trying to push my shoulder down on the bed

"What time is it?" I asked shaking her off

"It's nearly six"

"I should go get ready for class" I said standing up

"You must be exhausted after tonight, get some rest" said Slughorn

"It's about the time I get up normally. I feel fine, sir" I said

"Come on, Tracey" said Draco

"I would just like to get on like everything is normal" I said. That shut them up, Madame Pomfrey allowed me to leave.

I took a shower, the blood washed off me in waves. First was the stuff on my face, then my chest, and finally my legs. I watched as my blood mingled with Alice's as it was washed down the drain.

And then I was clean.

I returned to the dormitory. The other girls sat around silently on the floor. I unbuttoned my blouse and put on a clean one.

"Is she dead?" said Pansy

"She's been dead since midnight" I said grabbing my cardigan

"How'd she go?" said Millicent

"She jumped from the top of the north stairwell, a painless death." I said sitting down on my bed

Millicent nodded. Daphne stared intensely at a spot on the ground. One could hear a pin drop in the dormitory.

"Let's get ready" said Daphne in her perky tone still staring at the spot on the floor.

"Christ what's wrong with you?" said Millicent

"What?" said Daphne staring doe eyed at Millicent.

"Our friend is dead and you want to go on like nothing's happened" said Millicent

"Daphne's right" I said "Alice may be declared a blood traitor, we can't be seen mourning her until we know what the suicide is ruled as"

"We're not all fucking ice princesses like you, some of us experience human emotion" said Millicent

"I don't see you weeping, dear sister" I said "We all experience grief differently. I'm leaving."

"Where on earth are you going?" said Millicent

"I'm sorry I think her boyfriend deserves to hear this from me" I said turning my back on them.

I waited for nearly an hour outside Gryfindor tower before my brother emerged. He was with Neville and Seamus and they seemed as jolly as can be.

"I need to talk to you" I said grabbing his wrist

"What's wrong?" he said in Hebrew trying to pull his wrist away

"Alice is dead" I replied in Hebrew

"What?" he said

"She knew the deatheaters were coming for her, she made the right decision." I said, I saw the tears well up in his eyes. I put my arms around him and he didn't resist.

"What's the matter?" said Neville, so terribly concerned

Gideon withdrew from my arms. "Alice died" he said softly to Neville. Neville recoiled covering his mouth.

"What happened?" said Seamus

"I don't want to talk about it, I'm sure the administration will release a statement" I said and with that I left for the great hall.

I sat down in my normal place at the Slytherin table. No one at the table spoke to me. Blaise turned to me at one point and placed his hand on my shoulder in a gesture of comfort. I shook him off. I saw Gideon at the neighboring table shoulders hunched over. I wanted to go to him and comfort him further but I didn't want to draw attention. Crabbe and Goyle moved close to the Gryfindor table though.

"She wouldn't be dead if that dirty Jew wasn't screwing her." Said Crabbe loudly so that the Gryfindors could here. Gideon looked up but Neville placed his hand on Gideon's arm in an attempt to placate him. With no one to placate me, I stood up to face Crabbe.

"What the fuck did you just call my brother?" I said calmly.

"Oh stay out of this." Said Goyle

I sighed, cracked my knuckles, and lodged a punch straight to Crabbe's face. Goyle punched me in retribution. Gideon got up to defend me, he punched Crabbe who punched back. So Seamus joined the fight to defend Gideon and then Ted joined to fight Seamus. Neville joined the fight to help even things out and Millicent joined for the heck of it. Soon the entirety of Gryfindor and Slytherin house were engaged in the melee. The reports would say that the fight lasted three minutes but it felt longer. It was a mess of Red and Green, Gryfindors threw punches at anyone in Green robes and the Slytherins back at them. The original reason for the fight was lost on almost all of the participants. All we knew was hatred.

The fight was broken up by several teachers systematically stupfiying the crowd. Once they covered about a fifth of the crowd people calmed down a bit and started filing out to the hospital wing. I picked up some stupefied slytherin third year and carried him up. In the hospital wing, the Slytherins filed to one side and the Gryfindors to the other. All I had was a bloody nose and torn clothing so I cleaned my face of blood and walked down the Slytherin side of the room. I saw Daphne tilting her head back whilst holding a handkerchief.

"You should look down, not up" I said. She opened her eyes and moved her head down slowly.

"You should see the other guy" she said weakly

"I'm sure you gave him a run for his money" I said walking over to her

Just then the Professors Carrow walked into the hospital wing.

"Davis, Davis, Crabbe, Goyle, and Finnegan, the headmaster wants to see you in his office" said Amycus

"Duty calls" I said to Daphne, I filed into the center of the wing with the others. We walked up the stairwell.

"Thanks for defending me" said Gideon in Hebrew

"It wasn't about you" I said in Hebrew

"You're in Scotland, speak English" said Crabbe

"What was being punched once not enough?" I said "By all means let's go round two"

Seamus chuckled. I rolled my eyes.

"Silence" said Amycus

The five of us filed into the headmaster's office. We stood in silence and he sat at his desk finally he asked "Which one of you threw the first punch?"

"That would be me sir" I said raising my arm at the elbow

"What do you have to say for yourself?" he said

"Well Crabbe called my brother a dirty Jew and insinuated that my best friend's choice in bed fellows is the reason she is dead. All things considered, I believe I responded proportionally."

"Very well, do any of you have anything to add?"

We stood in awkward silence.

"Your housemasters will deal with punishment. Davis, both of you, stay, the rest of you are dismissed."

Gideon shot me a look of fear as the other boys left, I shrugged ever so slightly.

"If either of you knew she was going to do that, now is the time to tell me" the headmaster said

"I have talents in healing and potions, sir. If I had known, trust me, I wouldn't have advised her to jump from atop a stairwell. If Gideon had known, he would have tried some sort of fool hearty escape attempt that would have gotten the both of them killed."

"Do you agree with that assessment?" The headmaster said to Gideon

Gideon nodded

"You two are dismissed"

"Pardon sir, if I may be so bold, I was wondering whether or not Alice was going to declared a blood traitor"

"It's too early to tell" Snape said

"Sir, people want to know if they can mourn her publically" I said leaving

"I can't say" he said "you are dismissed"