Hailey Potter couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She barely realised that the anguished, torn screams were coming from her. She clawed wildly at the nameless faces, figures, who tried to pull her away from him. "Hailey, you need to get up. We need to go." Said a soft voice, a voice she recognised… frizzy brown hair, laughing mocha eyes, the smell of cinnamon… Mione.
Finally, Hailey allowed them to pull them away and untwined her fingers from silky platinum hair, crusted over with blood. "Always and Forever." She whispered as they pulled her away, the same words he'd shouted to the night sky on the battlements, the same words inscribed on the necklace that felt like it was burning her neck, and on his ring.
They were leaving him behind, she realised with a dawning sense of horror, something about too many people already for the Portkey, and she began to thrash against their hold again with the wild desperation of someone who has nothing to lose, but it was too late, they had a firm grip on her now, hands almost painful in their tightness.
She screamed until somebody hit her with a stunner – from behind, the coward, she thought bitterly – and woke up alone in the Hospital Wing. Stupid of them, she thought, to leave her here unguarded. The last time she'd been here she was sixteen, innocent, naïve and full of hope and determination that they would win the war… A fool, she now realised.
She was more hardened now to the atrocities of the world, more scarred and used and bitter. The last piece of her heart had crumbled to dust with Bellatrix Lestrange's last spell – and oh the euphoria that flooded her veins as she'd killed the bitch, never looking away from the terrified, crazed black eyes until the light in them dimmed – and now here she was, alone… so alone.
Hermione would be fine, she knew. She still had purpose – Rose, Hailey's, second, and only living, godchild, and the only piece of Ron either of them had left – and Hermione always had been brave, braver than Rose was now, she thought, as the door to the Hospital Wing closed behind her, and she began to make her way – slowly, shakingly – along deserted passages.
They would all be in the Room of Requirement, she realised, making plans for the next pointless battle, more tactics to try and win a war that was already lost. The rebellion was down to only a few dozen now, she realised, from the thousands that had volunteered – eyes shining and determined – five years ago. Years – the word tasted strange on her tongue – it felt more like decades.
She had reached the Astronomy Tower, now, the place where he'd first told her he loved her, where they'd kissed for the first time – awkward but excited, their lips exploring a path they'd follow many times – and where he'd taken her, after Ron's death, with a bottle of Firewhiskey, and a drunken kiss had turned into something… More.
"Always and Forever." They'd promised each other, together in life… and in death. She jumped, and for the first time since Draco Malfoy was gone in a flash of purple light… Hailey Potter was free.