Chapter 2
-oOo-
Penelope grew thinner and thinner as the nights drew in. They'd found the Turpins dead one morning in November, and after that the twitch under her left eye wouldn't go away.
Justin would have liked to believe that he was bearing up decently under the circumstances, but he didn't seem to be able to do anything right. He didn't know enough spells, and the ones he knew he wasn't very good at. The responsibility to keep them clothed and fed fell on Penelope, since Justin had never had to fend for himself before. He knew that wasn't right, even without Penelope resenting it more and more as the winter wore on.
The old farmhouse they were using as a base was getting colder and colder as the temperature fell, and Justin's attempts to stop the wind from creeping in seemed equally useless whether he was using spells or Muggle means.
It was difficult to know if what they were doing made any difference. Apart from the nameless Death Eater they'd put out of action months ago, all they had to show for their efforts were a rake of sleepless nights and some spectacular failures.
He didn't care what Penelope said; Justin was certain he'd laid the Shield charm over Laura Madley's house correctly. The Death Eaters must have broken through it. They were powerful witches and wizards; it was ridiculous to think that a seventeen-year-old who hadn't even finished school would be a match for them. Nevertheless they carried on, tuning into Potterwatch whenever they could. It helped, knowing they weren't alone. The enormous kitchen they were camping out in seemed a little brighter when the voices of their friends made the shadows retreat.
Penelope was better at recognising the presenters, since she'd spent much more time with the Weasleys than Justin had. He hadn't know she'd been going out with Percy Weasley at school before she told him, but it made sense from what he knew about the former Head Boy.
Penelope had been ambitious too, before the war.
The Weasleys were an easy topic of conversation when other subjects became tense. When Penelope told him that Ron Weasley was laid down with Spattergroit, Justin hummed and looked appropriately concerned. He reckoned he knew Ron quite well. The chances that he'd be conveniently confined to his sickbed when Harry Potter was running for his life were slim to none.
Ron and Hermione were out there somewhere with Harry, and Justin hoped like hell that they were doing something to get rid of Voldemort.
He didn't quite know what they possibly could do, though, and Penelope's mysterious hints about prophesies and Fate failed to reassure him. Wizards were far too prone to attribute chance to Destiny in Justin's experience.
Nevertheless, all their hopes seemed to be pinned on Harry, no matter how daft it seemed to rely entirely on another seventeen-year-old runaway.
When Christmas came and the roof of the barn was covered in frost, Justin had to fight an almost physical urge to go home. There would be mulled wine and a Christmas tree in the hall, the neighbours coming over for a sherry after church on Christmas Day and the house bustling with people all over the holidays, mistletoe pinned above the kitchen entrance and the smell of snow in the air, and he missed it like he'd miss his own limb if it were cut off.
He could be home in a few seconds. Justin rose from the log they used for want of something better to sit on, and prepared to spin around to Apparate right there. They'd be delighted to see him-
Rupert wouldn't be.
Rupe was the only one of them who knew, really knew, what Justin was up to, and he certainly wouldn't approve of his younger brother putting their family at risk.
Going home would be an indulgence, and Justin knew he couldn't afford it.
Most of the time he felt hapless, like he'd stumbled onto the scene at a play and didn't know his lines, but now he filled with purpose. He mightn't be particularly good at it, but he was doing his bit for the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army and for Harry Potter. Their war mightn't be within the remit of Her Majesty's Armed Forces, but it was real and he was as much a soldier as his brother had ever been.
He sat back down, but this time his back was straight. Penelope was staring into the fire, and didn't seem to have noticed him getting up.
"Happy Christmas, Penny." Justin raised his glass of cheap red they'd splashed out for in the local supermarket. "To you and yours, wherever they are."
"Justin!"
He tried to bat the flies away; they were extraordinarily persistent. As soon as it had started getting warmer, flies had appeared everywhere in the farmhouse. He was sick of having to fight them, even when he was sleeping-
"Justin, wake up!"
It wasn't flies that were in his face, it was Penelope's hands. He sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"What's going on? I thought we were resting until tonight?"
"We're needed at Hogwarts!" Penelope's face looked like she couldn't decide whether to be petrified or delighted. They'd both learnt a lot in recent months, and Justin wouldn't like to be pitted against her in a fight.
He quickly pulled on his boots and grabbed his wand, ready to go, and then he remembered.
The day Rupert had been going back to his barracks after the wedding, a worn-looking wooden box had been left on Justin's bed. For months, it had been stashed in the old shoe-box Justin was using for his personal belongings. Penelope didn't even know he had it, and it hadn't felt right to bring it out on their patrols.
Now, it was time.
"Are you coming? We're needed at the the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade! Can you Apparate there on your own?"
Penelope did have a tendency to assume everyone else was useless in a crisis.
Justin had never seen the barman look agitated before. There were people everywhere, trying to be quiet but failing in the midst of greetings and urgent admonishments ("You will listen to me, Ginny!"). He lost track of Penelope and found himself creeping down a long, winding tunnel squeezed in between a Weasley brother whose name he didn't know and an elderly witch he recognised from his O.W.L.s.
He tried to turn around and offer her his arm, but she'd have none of it.
"Pish and tosh, young man – get moving instead! There's a battle on, you know."
"If you say so, madam. Please look out, there's a sharp bend coming."
Eventually they emerged in a gigantic room that reminded him of a circus tent; only the rough stone walls suggested that they actually were at Hogwarts. The noise had abated when they walked through the tunnel, but it was back now.
"Aurors and trained duelists, this way!" a tall, dark wizard bellowed, and to Justin's surprise the elderly witch detached herself from his elbow and tottered after him.
"DA members, follow me!" a familiar voice hollered – it was a battered Seamus Finnigan, who looked more in charge than Justin had ever seen him. Colin Creevey, looking as eager as always, was already flocking to him, along with Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell.
"How have you been?" Alicia asked Katie, and Justin suppressed his snort just in time. He was a little giddy – seeing so many of his friends he'd never thought he'd see again made it feel like he was back in the good old days. Before Muggle-borns were hunted by the Ministry, when going to Hogwarts had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.
"Justin, old chap – fancy running into you here!" Seamus said with a creditable attempt of copying Justin's accent. Even as they left the room and emerged into a familiar corridor with drawn wands, it only took their eyes meeting to set off another round of what would have been giggles if they'd been girls.
"Where are we going?" Colin asked, and all hilarity dissipated. Justin tried to remember what year he was in – he looked very young in the flickering light from the candles illuminating the corridor.
"We're on sentry duty. He-Who- Voldemort is about to attack at midnight, and our job is to make sure no one gets through the main entrance undetected."
It sounded quite professional, and Justin wondered who was in charge of strategy. It was reassuring, in a way: it wasn't just him and Penelope anymore, faltering on their own.
He wondered where Penelope was, and whether he'd see her again.
"Quick, we need to be ready by midnight!" Seamus marshalled his troops, brandishing a set of keys for the gate house. Without being told, Justin started casting his usual wards on the building: if there was anything he'd learnt this year, it was protective charms.
A quick inventory revealed several charmed Galleons left from the DA, so their line of communications was secured.
"Someone should be on the other side," Justin mumbled to Seamus. "Look, it's a great angle to attack anyone coming through the gates."
Seamus looked conflicted in the faint light from his wand.
"Not you, you've got to stay here. Me."
"Justin-"
"It's not about getting through the night unscathed, it's about winning."
"I'd like to think it's both," Seamus said with a trace of a grin on his face. "I need the rest here, but you're right – we do need someone out there. Be careful, and look before you curse – we're expecting reinforcements."
There was no time for goodbyes. Justin crept out through the side door and flitted across the path leading up to the castle just before the clock in the church in Hogsmeade struck midnight.
He clutched his wand and waited.
There was a sweet smell in the air: something was in bloom in a garden nearby. Hogsmeade was silent. Lights were on everywhere at Hogwarts, but they were too far away to hear anything.
Seamus had told them to scarper back to the castle if they came under attack, but he hadn't seemed too concerned at the prospect. Justin wondered if the Order still had some spies, or if it was just a logical assumption. Naturally, the front gates would be well protected, so would Voldemort's forces even bother with them? Then again, he didn't seem to be the type to opt for the servant's entrance.
Justin was staring so hard at the gates that it took several minutes before he noticed.
It was only when he dared to cast a quick look at the castle behind him that he saw that Hogwarts castle was under attack. Brief flashes of spell light lit up the facade of the castle, and he could see dots moving in the sky – Voldemort must have wizards on brooms to charge from the air. The sky above the Forbidden Forest was red.
It had begun.
He forced his attention back to the gates he was set to guard, but he couldn't help turning his head back to the fighting every few seconds. Had they been sent out of the way, so the grown-ups could fight? It didn't seem fair, when Harry-
An ear-splitting bang of protesting metal hit his ears and Justin perched on the balls of his feet, ready to attack.
"Alohomora!" someone roared on the other side of the gate, and Justin would have sniggered if he hadn't been trying to remember the slight variation on the Blasting Curse Penelope had shown him last week. Was it twisting his wand slightly to the right side?
"Deprimo!" the voice on the other side barked, to no avail. Behind them, the sound of the fighting was getting closer. An unearthly howl had pierced the silence first, and several loud bangs had followed.
"Sod this," the voice huffed. "Open it!"
Suddenly the lights from Hogsmeade disappeared and Justin stared at the gate, his mouth gaping.
A... thing was blocking the light.
It was even higher than the gates that moved and appeared to have arms and legs. Arms it currently was using to lift the gates off its hinges, despite the metal squeaking in protest.
Reading about giants in his textbooks had been one thing; seeing a creature from his childhood fairytales in the flesh almost made him drop his wand. With a start, he remembered what was in his pocket – it might work better than magic against the giant.
The gates to Hogwarts held for another half a minute, and by the time the last, agonising squeak died down Justin was ready. He planted his legs wide, trusting the shadows and his Disillusionment charms to keep him hidden.
Several things happened at once.
The giant, followed by a number of smaller figures in black cloaks, burst through the gates and were hit by a barrage of spells from the gate house. Most bounced back, causing some of the windows to break in a rain of glass shards.
And Justin pulled the trigger on his grandfather's service revolver, hitting the giant square in the face. He'd always been good at target practice, ever since his father had taken him down to the edge of the forest on their estate and shown him how to use a gun.
For a moment it seemed to be enough to stop the assault, but the attackers roared and stormed forwards.
"GET BACK, GET BACK!" Seamus' voice hollered. Justin hid as the invaders ran past him, quickly checking there were no more coming before sending of a volley of spells hitting them in the back. Penelope had been telling him for weeks war was no time for fair play.
He almost got one of them, before a small contingent split off and went back to secure the gates. Justin ran for it, hoping the others had made it out before him.
Before he reached the castle he was afraid of being stuck on the wrong side, but as he came closer it became evident that the attackers had broken through the defences already.
He had to jump over bits of armour to reach an entrance, but managed to get in without anyone being the wiser.
Inside the castle, pandemonium reigned. Justin didn't dare to stop to pull out his gun, and after narrowly escaping a green curse from a masked Death Eater he stopped thinking about anything other than survival.
He remembered those corridors: his feet seemed to move of their own volition as he dodged creatures he'd never seen before except in his nightmares. Every so often he saw a friend in the melee; Seamus had made it back to the castle and together they brought down a snarling, biting beast that couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a man or a wolf.
"Nice going!" Seamus panted, before they were separated by a crumbling staircase.
On the upper levels there were monsters of another kind. Percy Weasley knocked down a Death Eater so his mask fell off, and Justin recognised the blond wizard he'd last seen on a tiny Scottish island.
He raised his wand, and then wavered. Penelope could say what she wanted; he just couldn't bring himself to kill a defenceless man in cold blood. When the Death Eater scrambled to his feet and launched himself onto Percy's throat, however, Justin had no qualms about Stunning him in the back.
As the invaders gained ground, the fighting and the curses got more ferocious until Justin was defending the giant staircase step by step with a gaggle of Order members and students.
Their opponents froze as soon as they heard Voldemort's voice echo through the castle. Justin let his wand drop, too, only to be admonished by Professor McGonagall: "Never let your guard down, Finch-Fletchley – this isn't the time to play nice!"
"It's a ceasefire! Look!" A dark-haired witch Justin didn't recognise pointed downstairs, where they could see their opponents retreat. Being stuck on the staircase temporarily prevented the group they'd been fighting from following their comrades, but they soon extracted themselves, too.
It seemed like they'd been fighting for an eternity, but when Justin made it to the Great Hall it was still dark outside. The battle must only be a few hours old.
Harry wouldn't turn himself over – Justin didn't need Professor McGonagall to tell him that. The hall was full of whispers about a secret plan and hidden weapons, but there was no telling which parts had substance and which were only wishful thinking.
He had headed to the Great Hall for directions, to get his orders for the next part, but once there the bodies laid out on the floor stopped him cold.
A Weasley, he didn't know which one.
Professor Lupin, who somehow looked smaller in death.
And Tonks, who'd never, ever given up, who'd always seemed to know what to do and how to keep on fighting even when the Ministry had fallen and everything seemed hopeless.
Death seemed to have drained all the vibrant colours from her and only left a black-and-white version behind.
Next to her lay Morag MacDougal, who never had possessed Tonks' rainbow hues even when she'd been alive. She looked like she was asleep, her often disapproving mouth slightly turned up in a smile instead.
There were more bodies, but Justin turned away in search of the living instead. He didn't want to see who else was dead. He didn't want to think about who he'd killed, either, but he didn't seem able to stop.
He'd hit a slim witch who'd been going for Susan Bones in the back with a Reducto. Hitting people in the back seemed to be his specialty this evening. When Death Eaters had threatened to surround their little group on the stairs he'd used his first Unforgivable. The screams from the witch he'd hit as she'd tumbled down to land with a sickening thud on the flagstones far below hadn't deterred him, and the spells he'd used had got more and more vicious as the fighting grew to a crescendo.
It struck him as slightly unfair that the battle would just stop in the middle, so they'd have to stop and think rather than keep cursing.
"Justin! You made it!" It was Ernie, who Justin hadn't seen since Dumbledore's funeral. It stood to reason that Ernie would be here. He was the most principled person Justin had ever met, and seeing Ernie made it easier to believe he was doing the right thing, using Unforgivables or not.
"I did. Good to see you." They shook hands, like they always had when they met again at Hogwarts after the holidays.
