Prologue
"Well, what did you find?" I asked him as I saw his approaching figure.
"It was Dumbledore." He replied.
"And what did he say?" I prompted.
"He told me… that there was a possibility to remove the horcrux within me without killing me." He said.
"That's great!" I exclaimed, missing his doubtful tone.
He shut his eyes tight and sat down next to me on the fallen log. "It's not what you think. In fact, I think it sounds a bit like making a horcrux."
"What exactly did Dumbledore tell you?" I demanded.
"Well, he told to conceal a part of my identity into the object… the piece of identity defining me as the chosen one, as the one that Voldemort chose to battle, and should get rid of the portion of his identity inside of me as well. Theoretically, it should take away the piece of Voldemort that resides inside of me, but I'm not sure."
"When was the last time Dumbledore was wrong?" I comforted him.
For a moment, the two of us were silent, staring at the beautiful lights illuminating the night sky. The moon nothing more than a sliver of light, almost nonexistent, yet still there. I felt an arm snake around my waist, and I snuggled closer. Even in the treacherous wilderness, I felt completely safe, and it wasn't because of Hermione's wards.
I looked upwards. It was dark, but I could still see his tousled black hair, thick eyebrows (which were furrowed together, as they did when he was thinking), beautiful eyes… my gods, his eyes. The normally emerald green was now the deepest, yet clearest forest green.
He noticed me staring, and looked into my eyes as well. "It's all going to be alright." We both said at the same time.
It was what we had told each other for years in our hardest times. It was like the bringer of good luck, seeing that none of us had died yet.
"Harry! Alice! Hermione's made dinner!" Ron's voice from the tent seemed so far off, that I almost ignored it.
Harry, however, stood up. He held his hand out to me, and I took it. He pulled me up with ease due to his years of quidditch practice.
Although my legs ached from sitting on the log so long, I whispered to him, "Race you to the tent."
He smiled widely as we both took off uphill. I felt the wind blowing against my face, my hair flew in all directions and my arms were thrown carelessly to the side. I forged ahead of Harry, and I felt free from my horrible life for about ten seconds. As I neared the tent, beating Harry by just a bit, the great feeling eased. But I wasn't worried. The woods had that natural effect on me, and even though this was one of the toughest times, there were moments where I'd never felt freer, especially since Harry was there.
"Bloody hell, Harry. You got beat by a girl, again." Ron's voice once again broke me out of my thoughts.
Harry glared at him, "Running isn't my thing. You know that. I'm best at quidditch." He looked at me false mockingly, "Not bad for someone who trips while walking."
I huffed, but ignored his second comment, "Not everyone gets put on the team in their first year."
"We all know Harry's quidditch skills are legendary. No question there." Ron agreed, sipping a Hermione-made stew.
Hermione sighed, "You three and your sports. Why doesn't anyone like books? They're an awful lot more helpful."
"But sports are more fun." I told her, sitting next to Harry in the tent.
"Books are plenty fun!" Hermione retorted.
"You should try quidditch out sometime. It's a lot less stuffy outside than it is on the quidditch pitch than it is in the library." Ron said with his mouth full.
Hermione wrinkled her nose, "Ronald, don't talk with your mouth full. It's disgusting."
Ron was about to reply, but shut his mouth to avoid a lecture.
After they ate Hermione's… interesting soup, Harry suggested that they do some dueling games.
"You'll need all the practice you can get." Hermione had said.
I didn't disagree with her; dueling was one of my favorite things to do. Harry and I shared that talent, just like we shared our love for quidditch. But like Harry was better at quidditch, I was sure I was a bit better than him at dueling. He knew that too, not that he'd ever admit it.
I first paired up with Hermione, Harry paired up with Ron.
"Stupefy!" Hermione cried.
I sidestepped her spell. Even though Hermione had good spells, she was at a physical disadvantage. I played quidditch; she didn't.
"Levicorpus!" I shouted to her.
Hermione yelled the counter-curse and shot a non-verbal jelly-leg jinx.
I jumped to avoid it while sending my own shots. First, "Aqua Eructo" sent a huge jet of water out of my wand tip.
As Hermione tried to extinguish the blast with flames, I yelled, "Alerte Ascendare!" which sent her flying into the air as I disarmed her rapidly.
As Hermione fell, I used the "Aresto Momentum" spell to slow the fall.
When Hermione reached the ground, she glared at me. "You're taking advantage of my fear of heights, I demand a rematch."
"You don't get a rematch when you're fighting Voldemort." I said.
"Well he doesn't know I'm afraid of heights!" Hermione insisted, as Harry stunned Ron to win his own duel.
"Please, you weren't stopping that disarming spell in midair!" I retorted.
Hermione huffed. "Whatever. I hope Harry beats you."
I grinned, "No way. If he beats me, he can beat the Dark Lord easily."
Ron lifted his head up groggily, "You brag too much."
"We'll see about that." I smiled challengingly. Then, without warning, I yelled "Incendio!"
Harry wasn't quite ready, and it singed his sleeve as he dodged one second too late.
His green eyes met my amber ones. Game on.
"Serpensortia!" Harry waved his wand at me.
A rather fat Burmese python came from the tip.
I snorted, "Really? That's so… stupidly Slytherin. The thing's so slow, it's never going to get me."
"It's the one I first freed at the zoo." Harry replied.
"Finite incantarem!" I yelled towards the serpent, which burned up.
"Harry inflamare!" I flicked my wand at Harry sending a jet of flames towards him.
He managed an aguamenti nonverbally.
So he was going to play the nonverbal game? So was I.
Petrificus totalus! Harry dodged, and I swished my wand to hit him with colloshoo, a spell that connected his feet to the ground.
I smirked, not dodging so much anymore, are we?
Just as I did so, a flock of birds escaped from the tip of Harry's wand. A moment later the little critters started attacking me, their claws outstretched.
Evanesco! I thought, performing a circular motion with my wand.
The angry mob of bird disappeared.
Wingardium Leviosa! I thought, remembering our first lesson in charms. Swish and flick.
Harry's glasses levitated into the air. I placed a disillusionment charm over myself. Apparating behind him, I thought incarcerous and ropes tied up his body, and he tumbled to the ground with a grunt.
I was about to cry out triumphantly when a green streak rushed past my ear. I instead shrieked in surprise, and my disillusionment spell vanished.
I slowly walked towards the source of the light. Could it have been the killing curse?
"Help!" Harry wheezed lowly as the ropes tightened around his body.
"Harry, I think I may have just saved your life." I said quietly after freeing him from the curse.
Harry, who was still out of breath, managed to stand up and followed me and Ron soon joined. Hermione chose to stay and look around in other directions.
"Look out!" Hermione screamed as a powerful stunner was sent from behind us. We turned around but the spell hit Ron, who was at the back of our group.
"Ron!" Hermione yelled, running towards her boyfriend.
As Hermione bent over Ron to see if he was hurt, Harry suddenly gasped.
I followed his gaze towards the sky and found the dark mark.
"How?" I asked, bewildered. Hermione's shield charms should have been powerful enough to prevent detection.
"I don't know." Harry said quietly.
"Oh no!" Hermione exclaimed.
Around us, black figures materialized, each with masks, covering their faces.
Before I knew, another jet of green light had been shot, barreling straight towards my face. I stared in shock as Harry pushed me down to the ground.
"We're even now," he whispered.
Before I lost my chance, I smashed my lips onto Harry's. This could very well be the last time we ever saw each other. Harry did the same, and for a second, we just held each other. Then, we broke apart and I got up to my feet, brushing dust off.
"Time to kick so death eater ass." I joked. Harry smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. He ran off towards a thicker part of the woods without another word.
As I turned to see where he had gone, I came face to face with a grey mask. I suspected the death eater had been there for a while, but he seemed to be shocked.
"No, way." He ground out. I recognized the voice of Antonin Dolohov.
"Stupefy!" I yelled, taking advantage of his surprise. A large blast of red hit him as he fell to the ground.
I looked around the chaos to see that Hermione was battling two death eaters at once, trying to defend the still stunned Ron.
"Aguamenti!" I called out, pouring water over Ron's face, so he'd wake up faster.
Then, I thought conjunctivus at one of the death eaters Hermione dueled. The man cried out about his temporarily lost vision.
Hermione shot me a grateful look, as she defeated the other man with the impedimenta jinx.
"Without each other, Voldemort would have killed us all!" I yelled to her.
As I was about to turn, I saw a look of raw fear and realization on Hermione's face.
"What is it?" I frowned at Hermione.
"You said it! That's how they knew!" Hermione whispered angrily.
"What?" I asked, wondering if I'd heard her wrong.
"ALICE!" A loud scream of agony was heard from far off.
Harry! I thought fearfully, as I turned to see, far off, a man with a black cloak was standing over Harry, his wand producing a stream of read. Harry was on the ground, writhing in pain. The man himself did not have a mask. His skin was papery and white.
Voldemort. I ran as fast as I could, knocking down a death eater in the process. Why was he so far away? A cloak was tightly grasped in his hand – the invisibility cloak. What in the world was the invisibility cloak doing there? He wouldn't run away – no, Harry would never turn his back on his friends.
Without thinking, I angrily bolted towards Voldemort. He apparently didn't expect this, and came tumbling down. Using his moment of distraction, I pulled Harry up as well as his invisibility cloak, and ran as fast as my feet could carry me. Unfortunately, Voldemort got back on his feet sooner than I thought, seeing he was actually a 70 year old man whose soul was split 7 times.
Harry and I ran as fast as we could. At first, I had to pull Harry as he kept stumbling, being a recent cruciatus curse victim. But as the next few seconds passed, the cloak in my arms started feeling heavier, and my vision started to cloud. I hoped that I wouldn't run into trees as we ran, but I couldn't be sure. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my ribcage, and my head was spinning. Where my hands touched the cloak, it felt like electricity was traveling my fingertips then down my spine throughout my body. What was happening? What was the cloak doing to me? Harry wasn't holding up great, I could tell from his heavy panting next to me. As lost as I felt, it could have been worse. At least Harry's hand was grasping mine, at least…
My foot slammed into a tree root, and I fell to my face. Harry came falling with me.
"Avada Kedavra!" The shrill yell sounded so far off, that I didn't process what I'd heard. I then saw a green light heading our way in my dimmed vision and hit the figure next to me.
"NO!" I wanted to scream but it came out more as a strangled cry. My head and heart throbbed and my hands were shaking, any moment now, I was going to black out. I knew it was the cloak. I tried to let go of it, but my hands seemed glued to it.
Tears streamed down my face as I saw another green light, this time, heading towards me. I collapsed.
