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Prompt Sweep Challenge - Prompt 19, TerryLisa.

The Great Cotillion Challenge - TerryLisa

Warning - Character Death, Angst, Read with Care!

Just One

He raced through the corridors, searching, searching, searching, but he didn't find her. He knew she was here, had seen her three hours ago, before the battle began in earnest. He'd tried to stay close to her, praying that he'd be able to keep her safe, keep her protected, but they'd been separated almost immediately.

"Have you seen Lisa?"

The question left his mouth over and over and over again as he passed by classmates helping the injured but each time he received nought but a shake of the head, a grimace, an unspoken apology. She had to be around somewhere, she had to be.

She couldn't be...

Even in his own head, he couldn't finish the sentence.

They had plans, the two of them. Plans of holidays and days out, plans of lazy mornings in bed and picnics in front of the fire. They had plans for a short engagement followed by a long happy life of marriage and children and love. He refused to believe that she could have left him alone, that she could have allowed herself to be killed, just on the brink of their happy ever after.

"Terry? You alright mate?"

"Have you seen Lisa?"

Ernie shook his head. "Last I saw her, she was with Colin."

"Colin Creevey?"

When Ernie nodded, a sinking feeling attacked Terry's stomach. Colin was... he'd seen the younger boy earlier, looking even younger in death as he was carefully laid out by two other students.

No. Lisa... she was fine.

She had to be.

"Have you tried the Great Hall? People were congregating there earlier."

Terry swallowed hard, shaking his head. "That's where they're putting the... She won't be there. I'll keep looking."

"Terry..."

"Thank's Ernie."

He set off again, climbing the staircases carefully, mindful of the damage. It had been a hard battle, and though he'd watched Harry cast the final spell to end it, Terry still held his wand tightly in hand, checking around corners before he ran down them, sure that any moment, an enemy would jump out and engage him. He wondered briefly if that paranoia would ever truly leave any of them.

Pushing the doors to the hospital wing open, he glanced over the occupied beds, heart racing in his chest until he confirmed that his Lisa wasn't in any of them.

"Madam Pomfrey? Has Lisa been up here?"

"Who? Oh, no dear, but if you see her, I need all hands on deck up here."

The Matron was flustered, snapping out orders to those able to help, and Terry nodded even though she'd already passed him by to check on someone else. Lisa had often helped out in the hospital wing, she had plans to be a Healer. He'd thought for sure that she'd be there, following the instruction of the Matron, helping wherever she could.

Still avoiding the Great Hall, he continued his search. He'd thought, perhaps, the Astronomy Tower, but the staircase was partially caved in. Then he'd thought the Room of Requirement, but the doors wouldn't appear, no matter how many times he tried to walk past the blank stretch of wall. Had something happened to the Room?

Leaning back against the wall, Terry felt wetness on his face and realised he was crying.

"Terry? What are you doing up here?"

He blinked, surprised to find Neville watching him cautiously.

"Are you hurt?"

"Have you seen Lisa?"

Neville nodded. "She was in the Great Hall last I saw her. I think she was looking for you, but Professor Sprout convinced her to wait there for you, sure it would be the first place you'd check. Come on, Mate, I'll walk down with you."

"Is she okay?"

"She's... as well as the rest of us, I suppose. She's alive, Mate. S'the best we can ask for tonight."

Terry nodded as he fell into step beside Neville, his body working on autopilot now. He just needed his girl in his arms. When she was there, he would know that they'd survived.

"How... How many?"

Neville swallowed hard. "Fifty, give or take. It's... well, at least it's over, right?"

Terry nodded again, his chest tightening slightly. Fifty people, their lives snuffed out for fighting for what they believed in. It wasn't... fair. It wasn't right.

"Harry did it. I knew he could."

Neville sound's proud to Terry and he cannot stop the small smile on his face.

"Yeah. Yeah, he did. He's alright?"

"Tired. He's gone to bed, I think. Poor bugger deserves it though. They've had a hell of a year I think. At least we were all together."

They stop walking when they hear rapidly approaching footsteps on the stone floor, their hands tightening automatically on their wands. Seamus skidded to a halt in front of them, breathless and panting.

"Have you seen Lavender?"

Terry saw so much of himself in his friend in that moment. The barely restrained panic, the fear in his eyes, the hope in his tone.

"Sorry, mate, haven't seen her," Neville replied quietly. "Hang on a minute, and I'll help you look."

Terry shook his head. "She's in the hospital wing. She's alive, mate," he whispered, patting Seamus on the arm. "Go and see her."

Seamus barely paused to give his thanks before he was off again, this time with a purpose, a location in mind to temper his movements.

Neville opened the doors to the Great Hall, and Terry stepped through, his eyes scanning the many people for the only one he needed to see.

"She's over there, Mate," Neville said, pointing to the other end of the hall, where Lisa sat with Hannah and Susan. Dodging through the people milling around, Terry vaulted himself towards his girl. She saw him before he got there, stumbled to her feet and collapsed into his arms as soon as he was in reaching distance. Terry held her close as she clung to him, both equally overwhelmed with relief that they were together, they'd survived.

"I love you," he whispered into her hair. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

"I love you too, Terry. I love you too."

He woke suddenly. Tears on his face. An echo of his love still resting in his arms. Reality hit him hard as it always did. He had found Lisa in the Great Hall but she'd been lay out on the floor, her arms at odd angles, her eyes closed. Just one in the fifty odd people. Just one in a line of bodies to be mourned over. Just one happy ever after that had been ended by the Battle of Hogwarts.