For akadienne
Thank you Cordelia McGonagall, for beta-ing this story on such short notice!
I have never been a fan of height, nor speed. Never, in all my short life. Brooms were a means to an end, nothing more. Quidditch? Watching from afar was okay. I even secretly admire the Harpies.
During my schooling at Hogwarts, the balconies, moving stairs and trick steps were what I considered things I had to live with. I would take the longer route to walk from one class to another if I could avoid being near them. My strategy seemed to work well for the first six years of my Hogwarts education and was known only by my best friend, Parvati.
Then came my seventh year… the year I should have been designated as the Gryffindor beauty queen was spent keeping a low profile, trying to avoid meeting Slytherins in the corridors, to avoid making the teachers mad, to avoid punishment. Most of us Gryffindors have been punished a few times, most of us who were incidentally members of DA. But still, I tried to hold my head up high when punishment came, if Neville could do it, I had to do it too. Gryffindor pride…
The night of the battle, like my fellow seventh years, I knew I had to fight. Not that I was happy about it, but the reappearance of Harry, Ron and Hermione in the Room of Requirement a few hours earlier galvanized us. We, the members of DA, knew what was at stake, what we were risking tonight. However, even hours of practice could not prepare us for the chaos in the Castle.
Bang!
Crack!
Something is wrong, very wrong. There must have been a banishing curse thrown at me that I did not seen coming. It hurts, as if I were kicked in the stomach, and at the same time my body is violently pushed backward, until I hit something. I feel something hard and cold at the small of my back, as well as a sharp and intense pain. I fall on the floor, where stone debris lay where my body hit the bannister.
At least I did not fall from two floors above…
I really must get up. Another student is crouched near me, shivering, with blood oozing from a large wound on his head, and he seems terrified. I am too, but I must move if I want to survive. A masked figure is approaching. The other teenager tries to hide. My leg feels numb. I need to get up and stand my ground. Let it not be said that Lavender Brown did not fight until the very end. Holding to the debris and the bannister, I barely have the time to hold my head up high, my wand is not even in position yet when the blast comes.
I can't breathe as I feel my body falling, using the bannister as a point of contact, as I flip and fall from the balcony. It feels like an eternity, I can't breathe. When will I touch the ground? Where will I fall?
THUMP!
My body finally hits the floor. I feel broken. It hurts everywhere, and I can't move. I do manage to take a few shallow breaths. I never thought breathing could be so difficult and painful. At least it means that I am not dead. Yet.
Growling. Something (I don't even want to know what creature this is) jumps on me. Its weight presses on my arms and stomach, preventing any moves from my part. More pain. I feel like my body is ripped apart, as if many knives were cutting me from my neck to my waist. I can't see very well after I hit my head on the hard stone floor, and I can't defend myself from the beast that is slashing my throat open. Warm blood is gushing from my neck. Breathing gets harder by the second. My lungs are as stiff as a brick, filled by my blood. I feel cold. I still can't move my legs. I can't escape the beast. I am shivering, which I find odd since I feel paralyzed at the same time. I wonder if the student on the balcony is dead. I wish I was dead. I wouldn't suffer, helpless, on the cold stone floor as I am right now.
The beast is gone, as suddenly as it appeared.
Here I am, cold, suffocating, my larynx and trachea open, and haemorrhaging, drowning in my own blood, my eyes staring at the second floor balcony.
Am I dead yet?