"Harry Potter is dead!" Deafening silence.
"Harry Potter is dead!" the cold voice repeated. In the courtyard below us, there was a thin peal of laughter.
Across from me, the man I'd been fighting grinned. "Dead." He chewed the word slowly, like it was a particularly juicy spell he was trying to memorize. "And all the blood traitors next." He kept his wand at the ready, but he didn't make a move at me.
And I didn't make a move toward him. In my head, a million emotions raged. Sadness, first and foremost. It seemed like only yesterday that I'd met Harry. The cursed boy with a scar and a strange habit of finding trouble. I remembered him and his friends vividly; how they'd laughed at my stupid jokes, the questions they'd asked as I'd morphed my nose at their request.
And then old Mad-Eye had made me stop. Merlin, he was gone too. It was hard to believe. Hard to…
Down in the courtyard, someone screamed. I could barely see out of a cracked window, but I caught a flash of steel.
"Avada kedavra!" Voldemort's voice. A green flash. There were more screams; the sounds of the fighting resuming.
A moment later, my reflexes made me duck back. A flash of green light—the same shade as in the courtyard—passed inches in front of my nose. I spun, raising my wand to deflect the next curse from the death eater. He snarled, directing his wand at the arched ceiling above us.
Protego! The stones bounced away like raindrops against an umbrella. I pointed at one, casting a spell to turn it into a ball of flame. It shot at the death eater's stupid face, but he stopped it. It came back at me as a hissing snake. A scream escaped me as I tried to take a step back, stumbling on my own foot.
I went down quickly. A hard stair tore into my back as I rolled head over heels. I wasn't aware of what was happening until my head smacked against the stone floor. Twenty feet above me, the death eater came into view. I barely managed to roll out of the way of another green curse, rushing to get back on my feet.
In front of me, the scene looked like something from a storybook. As if in slow motion, I saw Voldemort and his followers taking on what was left of the Order. It wasn't much. And only a few of the DA members were still standing, doing their hardest to keep the death eaters fighting them busy.
Professor McGonagall circled Voldemort slowly, trading spells with him. They were simple spells, as if each one was testing the waters. He sent red sparks her way, and she morphed them into drops of rain. She sent the rain his way, forming a torrent that passed right through his body as if he wasn't there.
The sound of footsteps on the stairway reminded me that I had to move. I ducked down, narrowly avoiding another green spell. Whatever his talents were, the death eater chasing me wasn't very inventive.
Most of the death eaters were on my side of the fight, between me and the only possible hope at rejoining my friends or—a girl could hope—escape. But I didn't have another choice; I ran forward, my feet and fists pumping fast.
The sound of my steps echoed through the corridor. A pale woman turned to face me. Her expression immediately shifted into a mix of disgust and excitement.
"She's mine!" she shouted. Her shriek pierced my ears. Bellatrix. Bane of my existence. "Niece dearest! Haven't you heard? Harry Potter is dead!" She stumbled forward like a drunken warlock. "Your ickle, bitty savior. Dead as a doornail. How does that make you feel, hmm? Sad?" She pasted on a fake pout.
Don't respond, I told myself. Don't feed into this. She'll just make you emotional again. Strong emotions were the last thing I needed if I was going to have to face her.
She took a step toward me, spinning her wand around a thin finger. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
"What do I have to say for myself?" My arms shook with pure hatred. "You're horrible." I wanted to say something more biting—something that would hurt her the way she was so easily hurting me—but my mind came up empty. I'd never practiced trying to wound someone with words, but Bellatrix… well, words were one of her sharpest weapons.
"How many?"
"How many what?" I asked, taking a step back. She was getting too close—ten feet away or so—but still far too close for my liking.
"How many of your friends are dead, do you think? Sirius? The Potter boy? Longbottom?"
Not Neville. My blood ran cold. I flicked my wand thoughtlessly, summoning the first spell I could think of.
She whipped it away with a laugh. "Is that all you've got?" A moment later she'd closed the distance between us; her cold hand grasped my throat. "The dark lord killed Longbottom. I didn't get the set. Do you know how much that pains me, niece dearest? It's like an itch that I'll just… never be able to scratch." Her hand tightened with each syllable, until I was fighting for each breath.
I tried lifting my wand again, but she was too fast for me. It went skittering across the floor, coming to a stop at the edge of the hallway.
"Not that I'm complaining," she said. "It was his right to kill that snivelling blood traitor. But you… you're my right, dearest. You and my sister and her mudblood husband. They won't last the night." She breathed in deeply, a blissful look crossing her face. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this."
A loud crack sounded from over her shoulder. I couldn't see what it was, but I heard the sound of someone coming toward us. Two someones, specifically.
"Avada kedavra!" The all-too-familiar curse came our way, but it looked like it was aimed for Bellatrix instead of me. She let me go, jerking backward to avoid it.
Red hair—the Weasley shade—greeted me. It only took me a moment to recognize Ron, flanked by Dean Thomas. Dean pointed his wand at mine and it shot into my hand.
My first thought was that they didn't know about the death eater who'd been behind me. I spun to face him, only to get hit full in the chest with an invisible force. It sent me flying back several feet; I crashed against the wall, a wave of pain immediately shooting up from my wand elbow.
"… kill you," I heard Ron say. "Avada kedavra!"
Bellatrix rolled out of the way, cackling the whole time. "Ooh, that one had a punch! I take it one of the Weasley den is dead, then? Who was it? Your fat mother? Or your mudblood-loving father?"
The death eater I'd been fighting sent a spell at Dean. He brought up a shield to protect against it, replying with a spell that made the air ripple with bubbles.
There was a moment of quiet before it hit, in which we heard a girl whoop loudly. "We can disapparate!"
Dean's spell hit the death eater; it sent him into the air, floating like a light balloon. Dean and I looked at each other, both realizing the implications of what the whooping girl had said.
"Well? Disapparate, you idiots!" The voice was unmistakably McGonagall; when I turned to spot her I noticed she was at the entrance to the great hall, a considerable distance away from Voldemort. He looked at her and started forward, but she disappeared a moment later.
Ron was still sending killing curses at Bellatrix, who seemed to be getting bored of the game. Her expression was falling into one I knew too well; I'd seen it directed at me just a few seconds ago.
Stupefy! I thought, side-stepping to get the spell around Ron's body. The spell missed, but I wasn't prepared for what happened next. My spell hit the wall, but one from Dean hit her square on the chin.
Before she could recover, one of Ron's green curses found its way underneath her rib cage. Her body went limp like a master-less marionette as she slumped to the ground.
A hand grabbed me, forcing me to take a step forward. The world slipped away as my body shrank to the size of a pebble hurtling through space.
The next thing I felt was hard stone against my scraped knees as a new world appeared around me.