Blaise was sitting on a clumsy yellow tricycle, chasing a blackbird down a winding path. It flew far too fast, seemingly without effort. He peddled harder, but the tricycle was too slow and cumbersome. He had to catch that blackbird.
"Get up! Everybody get up!" someone began to shout. Blaise realised that his only chance was to stand up and run. He struggled helplessly, but he was stuck to the seat. And then someone drew back the curtains, and he was back in reality.
"Zabini, you might want to drag yourself out of bed a little early today," a voice drawled.
"Get lost," Blaise mumbled vaguely. He was still wondering where the tricycle had gone.
"Are you sure that you want me to do that, Zabini? Bearing in mind that any minute now the castle might be overrun with death eaters?"
Blaise pulled himself into a sitting position, suddenly noticed the screams coming from the common room and the panicked footsteps on the staircase outside the dorm. "What?"
"I don't have a clue. Apparently they'll tell us in the Great Hall." Nott grabbed his wand from his bedside table and left. Blaise looked around and realised he was on his own. Crabbe and Goyle had disappeared, and Blaise didn't have to think to hard to work out who's side they'd be on. Hurriedly he dragged on his robes over his pyjamas, and ran down the stairs. He joined a panicking stampede of other students as scared as he was, all pushing towards the Great Hall. The crush left him no space or time to think, and it wasn't until he got there that he realised he'd left his wand behind. He felt sick, helpless without it. There wouldn't be time to go back now.
The hall was packed, and the chatter of students was deafening. Almost everyone looked scared. He pushed his way to the Slytherin table and squeezed in beside Daphne and Pansy.
"What's happening?" he asked.
"You-Know-Who's in the forest, apparently," Daphne said.
A first year sitting across from them interjected, terrified. "I thought it was just 'cos Snape's disappeared!"
"They wouldn't wake us up in the middle of the night for that. I heard someone had been kidnapped by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," someone else said.
"Or murdered."
"Bet the Mudbloods who stayed are regretting it now." Pansy smirked.
"As some of you may already have been told, the Castle is besieged by Lord V-Voldemort and his followers," she began. On hearing the name, some students looked around, terrified, as if expecting him to step into the Hall there and then. "There is no need to panic. If we all stay calm, the castle can be evacuated safely and efficiently. The evacuation will be overseen by Mr Filch and Madam Pomfrey. Prefects, when I give the word, you will organise your house and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point."
A Hufflepuff stood up. "And what if we want to stay and fight?"
Some people clapped, but most, Blaise included, looked shocked by the very idea.
"Show off," Pansy muttered beside him.
"If you are of age, you may stay," McGonagall said.
Another student, this time from the Ravenclaw table, stood up and asked about her owl and her trunk.
"We have no time to collect possessions."
"But we have time to sit and listen to this crap?" someone muttered. Blaise glanced at the door again, half expecting You-Know-Who to burst in.
"Where's Professor Snape?" Daphne's sister, Astoria, got up and shouted.
"He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk," replied McGonagall. Most of the Hall applauded. Uh, hello, we're all going to die in a minute, and you're applauding? Blaise thought. He didn't say it, though. This was taking long enough as it was.
"Oh look, it's St. Potter and Co., returned to save us all. How delightful," a Slytherin muttered a few seats down, his voice oozing sarcasm. Blaise turned towards the door, and sure enough, Potter was striding through the Hall confidently.
McGonagall continued, although her audience was now distracted. "We have already placed protection around the castle, but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and do as your prefects-"
But she was cut off by the most terrifying voice Blaise had ever heard. It came from all around him, from the walls, the tables, the great ceiling, the air itself, as though even deafness would be no escape. "I know that you are preparing to fight," the voice stated, so cold and clear that a shiver ran down Blaise's spine. Several students screamed, before a terrible silence settled on the hall. "Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood. Give me Harry Potter, and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded." The voice, which Blaise realised could only be He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, paused for a brief second. "You have until midnight."
The silence fell back onto the hall like a heavy blanket, smothering every emotion but fear. Pansy was the one to break it.
"But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!" she shouted shrilly. Blaise privately agreed, but the entire hall stood, almost as one, and faced her, drawing their wands. A few of the Slytherins drew their wands too, but before the fight could break out McGonagall spoke.
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson. You will leave the Hall first with Mr Filch. If the rest of your house could follow."
Pansy glared at her, but there were too many to fight. She turned on her heel and walked out, and the rest of the Slytherin table followed. Filch lead them towards the stairs, refusing to answer any questions about where they were headed. Blaise kept close to the centre of the jostling crowd, which was far from easy as everyone else was trying to do the same. They followed close behind Filch as he started to walk up the staircase. All but two figures, who were sneaking off in the opposite direction, towards the dungeons. Idiots. No-one else appeared to have seen them, and Blaise wasn't going to do anything about it. It was none of his business if they wanted to get themselves killed, he thought. Then he recognised them. It was Nott and Millicent.
The few seconds of shock were enough for Blaise to be shoved to the edge of the crowd. He stopped walking, weighing up his options. No-one even seemed to notice him slip behind. In a few seconds they would be gone, and the choice would be taken from him. If he didn't follow Millicent, would he regret it for the rest of his life? On the other hand, if he did follow her, the rest of his life probably wouldn't be very long at all. Just as the last Slytherin disappeared around the corner, he made up his mind and sprinted after up the stairs, only to discover an empty corridor. Ah.
He spun around to see if he'd mistaken the direction they'd taken, but the entire corridor was deserted. They'd left, probably through some secret passage only Gryffindors were allowed to know about. He was alone. He was panicking. He didn't have a wand. He was going to have to follow Millicent and Nott anyway. He sprinted back down the stairs, towards the common room and the dungeons. At least this way he'd be armed.
"Hey! Where are you going?" he demanded. "We need to get out of here!"
"Zabini," Nott smiled patronisingly. "You'll get yourself killed."
"You'll get yourself killed! What do you think you're doing, sneaking off like that?"
"Sneaking off like this," Nott corrected.
"What?" Blaise asked, confused.
"Present tense, Zabini."
His tone was so annoyingly patronising that Blaise found himself reaching for his wand, only to remember he'd left it by his bed.
"We're fighting You-Know-Who," Millicent said. "What are you doing here?"
Now Blaise was confused. "So why didn't you stay in the Great Hall?"
"I'm not doing anything that Potter says," Nott said. "And anyway, Slughorn has a huge box of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder in his office, and I'm borrowing it."
"And you?" he asked Millicent.
She smiled sheepishly. "I forgot my wand."
A few minutes later, when Millicent and Blaise had found their wands and Nott had returned with a huge box of Instant Darkness Powder, the three of them started walking out of the dungeons towards the Entrance Hall. Blaise was thinking that if he stuck with them, then maybe, just maybe, he could sneak out in the confusion of the battle.
"Hey, do you think that there are other ways out, apart from the proper entrance? How will the evacuees escape?" he asked, trying to sound casual. It didn't work.
"I don't know," Millicent said.
"Why, Zabini, are you chickening out?" Nott added.
"No. Of course not. I'm just wondering."
"Zabini, why are you still here?" Nott asked. "I find it hard to believe that you're risking you're life for the good of mankind. Or for anything, actually."
Blaise decided that if he was going to get killed anyway, he might as well play the hero. "I've realised that there are some things worth fighting for, some things more important than the life of the individual," he said grandly.
Millicent smiled at him, her face lighting up completely. "I knew that we wouldn't be the only two Slytherins to fight." Nott just raised his eyebrows cynically.
They fell silent as they got closer to the Great Hall and sounds of the fight began to reach them. Shouted curses and screams of pain, with the crash of smashing masonry. Blaise wanted to run away, but he seemed to have lost all control of his legs entirely. They had become lumps of jelly that continued to move, independent of his brain.
Then, far too soon, they entered the Great Hall. It was dark, and the scattered figures were only illuminated by the flashes of light sent by the curses flying everywhere. There was no way these people knew who they were attacking, and no way that Blaise could sneak out unharmed. He managed to find enough strength in his legs to begin to back away, when one of the flashes of light missed it's target and shot towards him. He tried to duck, but there wasn't time. His shoulder filled with the most agonising pain he'd ever felt, and then he was falling, falling, falling... Blackness.
A/N: Second last chapter! It's probably sort of cheating to have Blaise knocked out before the actual battle, but I didn't think I could make him fight. He's too much of a coward. Also, an absolutely huge chunk in the middle of this was basically rewording something JKR already wrote, which was kinda... weird. Not sure I did that too well. Anyway, enough rambling. Please review!
