** I don't own Harry Potter, the Queen J.K. Rowling does. Sadly I am not J.K. Rowling.
Hannah crept around the remainder of what was once a wall, she had just watched the innocent Collin Creevy get cursed into oblivion by a stray killing curse. Tears had sprung into her eyes as visions of his first year pooped into her head; his camera was with him in all of them. Her wand was clenched in her white knuckles.
She saw a flash of a silver mask in the corner of her eye and willed her wand, Petrificous Totalus. The Death Eater froze and fell, Hannah had realized at the beginning of the battle that she had mastered non-verbal spells and now her tactic was to fight. It was slow work, and she could never muster herself to think of the Killing Curse, but for now everything seemed to be working all right.
She watched one of her peers fall onto the floor. Dead she presumed or fatally wounded. She jumped in their place as the Death Eater threw back his head in laughter. Stupefy. Before the wizard could even take a breath he was shot backwards into a heap of rubble, and didn't get up.
Hannah inhaled slowly to calm her beating heart and thought of her mother and the flash of green light. The familiar twisting in her stomach was back but this time she channeled this into anger. He deserved it, she thought; and turned away from the unseeing eyeholes in his mask.
The next victim she jumped in for was still breathing fortunately, he was only petrified. Thank Helga! She stunned the next villain through an already broken window and dragged the slightly familiar Hogwarts alumni closer to the great hall and farther from the heat of the fight. That was when she realized, her place wasn't in the fight, and it was helping the fallen.
The rest of the night was filled with dodging any form of colorful light heading in any direction and the people creating them. Her small frame seemed just the perfect size to dart between the heated battles and lifting the victims. A large amount of the casualties looked too familiar even if she couldn't place a name. Names were the key to a somehow strong dam that held the rush of tears. All too many of the familiar faces were dead. All Hannah had to do was look into the eyes and know. The eyes filled with pain were alive, but the eyes that trapped the only joy in the room were the deceased. They were the lucky ones, the ones who found the light in the seemingly endless tunnel.
Hannah crouched behind a fallen pillar. She stared into a pile of bodies. And saw a pair of big blue eyes staring at her in the gap under one of her classmate's heads. The eyes were teary and she walked over to them. The small first year had blonde hair and blue eyes. He was holding the hand of a girl Hannah had barely known. He crept out as Hannah was asking the boy who he was. "Peter Clearwater," He had answered "I just wanted to be near Penelope in case she woke up. She came through that special room to fight and now she's just tired because it's way past her bedtime just like all these other people. I didn't want her to be scared when she woke up with all these people screaming so I snuck back in and stayed with her."
The innocent boy's story made tears well up in Hannah's eyes. "I think your big sister will be fine. We need to get you somewhere safe okay Michael?"
"No! I'm the man of the house now and I need to stay with Penelope!" The boy refused
"Peter, you need to come with me," tears were welling in the boy's eyes as he was torn away from his sister's side.
"I don't need to do anything with you" the boy yelled and Hannah clasped his face in her hands.
"Peter, if you stay here you could get very hurt we are in the middle of a war here. You need to come with me and I'll tell you about your sister okay?"
"Fine," the he said and rushed to give his sister a kiss on the cheek "I'll be back soon." He whispered
Once in the Room of Requirement Hannah sat Peter down among the wailing injured. "Peter," Hannah started,
"Call me Pete." He said
"Okay, Pete, your sister is a great person, and she fought very hard, she fought so hard that she is so tired. She is so tired that she is never going to wake up, Pete." Tears were streaming down her face as confusion spread through the boy's eyes.
"She's… dead?" he asked desperately, this hurt Hannah as much as it did the boy. "It's just me and mum?" Hannah didn't need to answer as the boy grabbed Hannah's sweater vest and screamed "bring her back! Magic can do anything! Bring my big sister back!" Hannah's tears were now falling into the boy's light hair as he wailed into her shoulder "please! PLEASE! Pennie! My sister!"
Hannah stayed with the boy the rest of the night. Wiping away his tears and holding him to her chest as they were dragged outside to see the Dark Lord conquer them. Pete shook as You-Know-Who's icy voice filled what used to be the courtyard. Hannah didn't listen she looked around herself at the remnants of her school. Over there was Professor Trelawney's Divination class, I used to hate the incense in there. She thought of her flying feather in charms class, her rabbit turning into a white porcelain teacup, her first Unicorn patronus. She looked around and tears rolled down her cheeks. Her childhood was definitely gone. No matter the outcome of this war, she could never go back to who she used to be. It scared her. The future scared her. A future without her mother terrified her.
The sun dawned on a horrific scene. The rubble that was once a beautiful castle looked like a corpse. As Hannah sat down with Pete in the Great Hall, he stared absentmindedly at the bodies covered in white sheets. Fifty six. Fifty six people who could have made a difference, one of them could have cured dragon pox, become the next Merlin. It didn't matter now that they were dead.
"Pete," Hannah said, and he looked up, "where is your family?"
"Well, my dad left us just after I was born" my mum should be at our house, but she always is locked up in her room. Pennie and I would often play family when mum started disappearing. It was like Pennie was the mum and I was the dad. We were a very happy family."
Hannah's heart sunk at the boy's poor predicament. "How about you come stay with me at the Leakey until we can get your mum sorted out?" Hannah said
"Sorted out?"
"We can get your mum a special doctor for feelings and she can go and get better," does that seem like a good Idea?
"I guess" Peter sighed long and heavy. Hannah put her arm around his shoulder and they stood up. They both walked together and helped the grieving families around them. It turned out that they both liked to play family. Hannah and Pete were in need of a family. So they created one just for them.
** I created Pete because I thought Hannah would be good with the families of the fallen. She also sorta needed one for herself so this was invented!
