This is a continuation of sastath's Harry Potter and the Unexpected (found in the Harry Potter and World War Z crossover archive), by yours truly. This is my first time writing outside of the Warriors fandom, or writing a multi-chapter normal fic for that matter. The italics are sastath's, but I've edited the grammar a bit.
"Look out!" Harry screamed, but it was too late as a groaning corpse wandered in, grabbing hold of the witch and sinking its teeth into the witch's neck. She screamed in agony as it dragged her to the ground. Many curses and spells were fired to no effect till George in a fit of rage, most likely from Fred's death, stomped the creature's skull into mush.
Harry's eyes widened, for the Dark Lord was not there, as he expected to be attacked when his back was turned. Voldemort was at the broken glass windows staring out. "How could you?" Fearing the worst.
Harry rushed to the window and peered out standing next to Voldemort. The grounds seemed blanketed by hundreds of undead as they made their way slowly to Hogwarts. Occasionally the undead would stop to feast upon a fallen or wounded victim who was unfortunate enough to be left outside.
"How could you?" Harry repeated.
"These are not Inferi Harry Potter." Whispered Voldemort.
"This is not of my doing."
Transfiguration Professor Minerva McGonagall staggered to her feet, recovering her balance from the spell Voldemort used to blast Professor Slughorn, Kingsley Shacklebolt and her away. Instead of dueling Harry to the death, the pale, hairless man was looking out through the broken glass of the window, at whatever lay outside.
"What - why - we're calling a truce?" Minerva spluttered, speechless with disbelief at the scene unraveling before her eyes. Why had everyone stopped?
Harry turned slowly away from the window. "There's…something out there coming this way." He paused for a moment, as if not really believing what he had seen. "They…they ate the dead people outside!" He yelled, his voice rising with disgust and fear.
Harry looked wearily at everyone in the ruins of what was once the Great Hall. They looked much worse for wear, sitting on the smashed pillars, huddling in their houses or families. Most of them sported noticeable wounds on them, disheveled and exhausted from the ordeal through the night. Ginny was sitting by George, defiantly glaring at the Dark Lord as she stood among other Gryffindors, her wand still in her hand.
His eye caught on the bloodied body of Lavender Brown, her throat and torso ravaged, eviscerated fully, her intestines shredded and laying beside her. A crystal ball lay silently by her killer, Fenrir Greyback, who was also laying motionlessly, above her spilled insides, a lump of flesh still hanging in his teeth, his own blood dripping from his throat, where a shard of crystal had pierced an artery.
"Get away!" Harry started at the familiar shriek of Hermione, and he strained to find her among the gaggle of tired students and corpses. He stiffened as he saw her, hiding her panic, her wand whipped out, pointing at a gray-skinned witch. Other students were backing away nervously, tugging at each other, tripping over bodies, skirting around pools of gore as they fled the scene.
Harry only managed a surprised "What?" when Hermione shrieked, "Impedimenta!" at the approaching witch. Her severed windpipe was hanging out the hole in her throat, blood already drying around the wound. Nobody could have survived that.
The reanimated witch wheezed and stumbled, tripping backward over a pillar and landing on her back. She struggled to her feet, shuffling forward again, wheezing and sticking her arms in front of her.
"Stupefy!" Hermione aimed her wand at the witch, sending a red jet into the middle of her chest and knocking her back over the same pillar. Her heels grated against the edge, the skin peeling off, but no blood appeared in the graying raw flesh. Harry stared at the witch, wondering if they were just another new mutation of Inferi. But surely Inferi could not simply turn each other by a simple bite?
The witch didn't seem to even notice the spell. She staggered to her feet, limping forward and wheezing again. A brief flash of panic flitted across Hermione's face, and was replaced with firm determination, her jaw set in anger as she realized the human part of the witch was now completely gone.
"A-a-av-Avada Kedavra." Hermione whispered, as if fearing the curse would cause an unspoken evil to fall onto her. Green light exploded out the tip of her wand, blasting into the witch's stomach. It folded over on impact, falling onto its fundaments but otherwise unharmed.
Kingsley yelled over the pandemonium, "Destroy the head, Hermione! DESTROY ITS HEAD!"
"I can't! There's no weapon!" Hermione shrieked back, her voice rising with unmistakable panic as the not-quite-dead witch inched closer. She frantically scrambled over the dead body of Bellatrix Lestrange and shot an impediment jinx at her pursuer.
Ron, who was helping Oliver nurse his wound, looked up. "Have you gone mad? Use your wand! Blast its head off!"
As if snapping out of a nightmare, Hermione seemed to have woken up. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and straightened up. In one fluid motion, her wand hand shot up, the tip pointing between the blank eyes of the shambling witch, and she whispered, "Confringo."
A white flash shot from her wand to the witch's head, and the sheer force of the spell blasted the now fully dead witch's head completely off her neck, obliterated into a mass of shattered bone, black sludge-like substance and greenish-gray flesh.
McGonagall aimed her wand at the open door and quickly locked it with a nonverbal Colloportus. With the help of Kingsley and Harry, she quickly gathered the bodies of the dead into a large pile in the middle of the room. With an almost mechanical efficiency and indifference, she cleared away all the gore in the hall, including the black substance on George's shoes.
"I know some of you might not like this, but we'll have to clean the bodies out as we'll have to live in here for Merlin knows how long." Harry started as McGonagall stepped up to what was once Dumbledore's seat and spoke.
Many protests rose from the gathered crowd. Dennis Creevey was yelling about his brother, the Weasleys gathering protectively around Fred's body while many others also inched toward the corpses of their former friends and family.
Voldemort turned from the window. "Do you think keeping their rotting corpses will make a difference? They're already dead," he hissed, "and they'll just make us all sick with the diseases from the rot."
The non-Death Eaters stared at him, defiance shining in their eyes. He noticed the Malfoys and Goyles were now standing beside Potter and his stooges. Perhaps you wouldn't be so eager to suck up to them when Potter cowers under your robes and makes you die for him. Voldemort chuckled as he imagined the look of shock upon their faces.
After all, emotions made people weak and too soft, and he did not need any foolish, bleeding-hearted weakling foiling his grand plans.
He raised the elder wand, admiring its power. Whatever Potter says, this wand's power will belong to only me.
At once, dozens of wands aimed at him, including saint Potter's. But he ignored them. After all, the Elder Wand was his.
"Incendio!" He shouted, making sure everyone heard him. A cruel smile twisted the corners of his mouth upwards as the faces of everyone around him froze with shocked rage.
The pile of those who had died, either for him or against him, erupted in flames.
Harry simply could not believe what Voldemort had done. Even as clothing turned into coal and dead skin bubbled, he could not believe that the sadistic dark wizard had simply disposed of the bodies with such cruel indifference.
The magically locked doors of the Great Hall rattled, interrupting the two of them as they attempted to see into each other's minds. They whipped around, then relaxed as they realized the undead things could not get in by force.
Harry walked toward the students, teachers and the Order. He gave a curt nod to Malfoy, while Goyle clumsily attempted to shake Harry's hand, making him wince as his fingers were probably crushed into dust.
Hermione was busy tending to a burn on a sixth-year Hufflepuff girl's hand, where a nasty jinx probably had grazed it. Ron was conjuring water onto a towel, then pressing it onto Oliver's forehead, while Katie Bell summoned another roll of bandages that dressed themselves onto the bite on Oliver's shoulder.
Viktor Krum was helping a young girl, who was probably in shock, to her feet, while the Weasleys were checking if everyone was there. Harry went to Ron, who was getting more agitated by the minute. Harry didn't know much about healing, but Wood seemed to be getting worse. He was bleeding out and with a fever, that's for sure.
Ron spoke before Harry could even open his mouth. "Merlin's pajamas…He's getting a fever, and we can't stop the bleeding!"
Professor Slughorn hobbled over. His left foot was dragging along on the ground, and he winced every time he put too much weight on it. Out of his chest pockets, the fat, balding man took out a few vials of potions. "Healing potions, anti-venom potions, fever-cooling potions…" Harry strained his ears, but could no longer catch up with the professor's speech.
While Wood gulped down the potion, Harry saw Ginny running toward him.
"What happened?" Harry asked, as Ginny stopped in front of him, panting and gasping.
"The first to fifth-years." Ginny gasped out, holding onto Ron's shoulders. "Most of them are still in their dormitories!"