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Chapter 7- A Life for Two Lives

Harry had decided to look for Sophia the next day. He was exhausted, and wanted nothing else but to fall asleep in his warm bed. He loved the fact that he had the dorm to himself again, though he knew within a couple of days he was going to have to give it up. It wasn't that he didn't like his roommates, he just wasn't used to living with five other boys.

He woke up early the next day, as usual, but decided against his morning run. There was something about the castle that he didn't feel safe running around alone. From the small bits of information they were able to get out of Zach and Ron, they still had no clue how they breeched the Hogwarts security. For all he knew, there was an army of Death Eaters waiting just inside the Forbidden Forest. The information they did get out of the two was useless, and it wasn't like they could focus too much on interrogating the two, considering the attacks happening twice a day.

Harry walked down to the common room and fell into a couch. He wasn't expecting anyone to be up yet, and knew better than to try to wake any of them, however he knew his sister well enough that she wouldn't hide up in her room, and skip breakfast, therefore within an hour she would have to cross through the common room, and that was when Harry planned to talk to her. So, he sat there, for an hour, and no one came down. He checked his watch, and saw that is was only quarter to seven still.

"Harry?" came a voice from the girl's stairwell. "What are you doing?" Anna walked down the rest of the stairs, and joined him on the couch.

"Waiting for Soph, is she up yet?"

"She never came back last night," Anna told him.

"What?" Harry knew Sophia liked to have her personal time, but she never took it for this long, and she had never not gone back to bed.

"She never came back, I thought you knew that."

"We have to find her. She could be in serious trouble, she always comes back." Harry jumped off the couch and ran out of the room, leaving Anna staring at the open portrait.

Harry ran straight to his parents' office, and told them that Sophia was missing, and they started a search of the castle. Everyone that was left in the school was looking for her, and after four hours of looking, still no one had seen her.

"Where could she be?" Harry asked Lily as the all sat in the Great Hall to eat.

"I don't know, but she couldn't have gone too far."

"Lil, we've searched the whole castle," Remus told her.

"Twice," Severus added.

"Is it possible.." Harry started, only to get cut off.

"Don't say it, Harry," James warned him.

"We have to give it a thought," Harry argued back, "It's my fault she ran off, and if she is being tortured right now because of it, I want to know."

"She wouldn't have left the grounds," Lily told her oldest son.

"She might not have had to," Kyle said.

"What?" All their heads turned towards Kyle who backed down slightly.

"Kyle, what do you mean by that?" Lily asked.

"She disappeared right after Zach and Ron, so who knows that whoever took them, didn't take her too?" Kyle answered. "They were on the grounds, and if she ran into them, they wouldn't have just told her to stay quiet. She would have been taken with them."

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"Get off me!" Sophia hollered for the umpteenth time. She had run off after Harry yelled at her, and ran right into the Death Eaters who had snuck into the castle to save Ron and Zach. The two prisoners had run ahead, and the adult rescuers were hanging behind to make sure they made it out okay. The next thing Sophia knew she was being tossed into a cell in the bottom of some dark and dreary manor. Her captors just reentered the cell to take her to the meeting room, and have their prisoner identified.

Sophia was kicking and screaming the whole way, forcing the Death Eaters carrying her to stun her, and carry her limp into the hall. She was forced into a chair and secured by chains before the spell was lifted.

"You!" she screeched as she spotted Ron sitting quite contently two chairs down from Zach. Looking around she saw more familiar faces. Bellatrix was on one side of her son, while an unknown man was on his other side. "Let me go!"

"That's the second Potter. Sophie or something, she's 14," Ron told the people surrounding him, ignoring Sophia screaming.

"I recognize her. She's brilliant at curses," Bellatrix commented, after studying the girl more closely.

"And if I had my wand you'd all be dead," Sophia had stopped yelling and listened into their conversation.

"Guess the whole family is cocky," Zach said. "Does she know anything?" Zach asked someone who was behind Sophia, and she couldn't see. She strained to turn around, but the chains just cut into her, causing her to bleed.

"No we questioned her under Veritaserum, and she knew nothing," a rough voice said from behind her.

"I have no need for her then," he said, and nodded to his mother. The last thing Sophia saw was a bright flash of green light.

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"You're sure they were here?" Harry asked Draco as they snuck into Malfoy Manor, but by the looks of it, the place was deserted.

"Positive, they might have moved though, considering I now knew where the headquarters was."

"Damn it, they're not here, there's been no magic here for over a week," Harry said, and walked out of the grounds, not bothering to hide.

Harry apparated the two back to Hogsmeade, and they started walking back to the castle. They were discussing other possibilities when they reached the gates, and Draco stopped dead.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked, turning around to see the blonde staring open-mouthed at the ground. Harry followed his gaze, to see his sister's dead body lying there. She looked tortured and mangled, and it was almost enough to make him puke. Harry had just enough sense left in him to send an urgent patronus to his parents. He fell to his knees, and hugged Sophia's body to his chest. Draco stood back, and let his friend grieve.

Harry cried for the first time since he started his training back when he was eight. Sophia had been his best friend all his life. And, now that he had started Hogwarts, he had been ignoring her, and because of that she was now gone. Lily and James came running out, followed by the other professors. Lily ran right to her oldest child, while James stopped and watched. It was a sight James had hoped never to see. Watching his wife comfort one child, while another lay dead in their arms. Remus caught up to the group, and stayed back with James. The rest of the staff stood a little farther back, giving the family their space. Lily eventually got up, and went right into James's arms, breaking down. Remus went to Harry, to help him back to the castle, while Severus gathered Sophia in his arms, following the group back to the castle.

The family all went to Lily's office, and stayed there. Remus went to get Kyle and Emily. The five Potters stayed there all night, none spoke, they all just sat there together, taking in the loss.

Remus and Severus contacted Sirius, and they waited together for the family to come out, and sat with them. Minerva was taking care of arrangements, with the help from a few other teachers. The few students that were still there were told of what happened, and when the rest of the students returned the day after, they were told, and informed that Charms and Transfiguration classes would be cancelled until further notice.

Harry, Kyle, and Emily stayed in their parents rooms for the first week, until after the funeral, and then returned to their dorms and classes. Harry had forgotten that all the students had come back, and was somewhat relieved to be surrounded by people again. His roommates and friends however had no clue what to say to him.

"Harry!" Mia squealed as he walked into the common room with his brother and sister. She wrapped her arms around him, and led him to the couch where all the sixth years, and a few others were sitting. Harry sat down, and wasn't quite sure what to say. They were all friends with her too, and he had never had to deal with something like this before."Don't blame yourself, Harry," Mia whispered in his ear, as she sat down next to him. "it wasn't your fault, as much as you think it is, it is not."

Harry looked at her, and remembered telling her the same thing one of the days after Ron attacked her. She was the first person to tell him that it wasn't his fault. He had been thinking that they all blamed him for Sophia's death, since it was him who made her run off in the first place.

"Why don't we go for a walk? All of us together?" Katy mentioned, breaking Harry and Mia's eye contact. Harry nodded. It had snowed a lot the previous week, and going out to have a snowball fight, actually sounded like it could get his mind off of things. He also hadn't been outside the castle since that dreadful day.

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January went by faster than any of the Potters could realize. Though as fast as it seemed, it seemed to crawl by, just because the absence of the sixth Potter was present at all times, and coming to terms with the fact that they would never hear Harry and Sophia gang up and fight against Lily and James, was a tough thing to accept. Harry wasn't used to coming back late at night and not having her sitting there, like she did on the first night, blaming him for abandoning her. Emily had lost her older sister, and as much as she admired Harry, Sophia had been her role model, there was no one else that a little sister looked up to more than her big sister, and since she and Kyle had been denied seeing their sister's body, it never seemed real to her, and each day she dreamed that Sophia would walk into the Great Hall as if nothing ever happened. Kyle dealt with it in his own way, and he just ignored everyone in his family, and pretended as if nothing happened. He didn't want to talk to any of them, since it was him who brought up the fact that she could have been taken, and he was right, and he hated himself for that.

After January came February and the routine went on. Harry went through his training, just as he did in the beginning of the year. The students were getting buried in homework, as the teachers tried to cram everything in before the exams which were over four months away. They however kicked up the security in the castle, fearing that more Death Eaters could get in, and they would have more situations like they did in the Potter's case. The news of Sophia was not released in the Daily Prophet, as they did not want parents to take their children out of school, which would only cause what happened in the first war to happen again. The attacks kept coming, and Harry, James and Lily were fighting out of revenge now, instead just to rid the world of just another Dark Wizard. Studies of Sophia's body confirmed that it was Bellatrix that cast the killing curse, and the three Potters, as well as Sirius, Remus, and Severus went after her the hardest.

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"Harry, behind you!" Remus yelled across the room, as a Death Eater approached Harry from behind. Harry ducked a spell from the one in front of him, and stunned the one that was coming up behind him. Remus grabbed one of the others arms and twisted it, so that he went flying face first into the floor.

Harry took a second to glance around and make sure no one was in desperate need of help. Lily and James were taking on three Death Eaters together. Severus was nowhere to be found, but this barely worried Harry, as the point of the raid today was to get prisoners out, and that was Severus's job. What worried Harry was that Sirius was also nowhere to be found. He was supposed to be watching Harry's back, which he apparently wasn't. Harry spun around again just to kick the first Death Eater in the nose, causing it to bleed profusely, and him to retaliate with a curse that Harry quickly dodged. Harry waited for the guy to fall to his knees, and then pushed his head down, shaking his head at him. He walked over to his parents, and took one of the three off of them. For a place that was supposedly Headquarters for Zach, at the moment, it sure had very few under-trained guards. There had only been about fifteen guards, and half were taken down within minutes of them arriving.

James nodded to his son, as each of the Potters took down their own Death Eater, and Remus joined them.

"Something is wrong," Remus told them first.

"There should have been a bigger fight," Lily agreed.

"You don't think this is a trap do you?" James asked.

Harry wandered off from the group, and started checking the various hallways that led off from the foyer that they were stopped in.

"Where'd Sirius go?" Harry asked, as he glanced down one hallway that seemed darker than all the rest. "He wasn't following Sev was he?"

"He wasn't supposed to," Remus said. Harry started down the hallway. "Where are you going?"

"Something doesn't feel right," Harry said, as he kept walking.

"Harry, wait," James said, and ran over to his son. James started walking behind him, and soon they couldn't be seen by Lily and Remus who were left to just stand there.

"Where do you think it leads?" Harry whispered, as they were about halfway down. There was a sliver of light coming from the far end, from the door that was cracked open.

"More like who does it lead to?" James answered.

"Only one way to find out," Harry replied and picked up his pace. James stayed close to him.

As they got closer, voices started coming from the room as well. Harry stopped just as he reached the door.

"He's a teenager, how can you not kill him?" a voice that Harry didn't recognize said. He sounded angry.

"He's a lot stronger than you would think," came a female voice. Harry and James both knew that one, and James had to hold Harry back from not going in there to kill her.

"Dad, we're trying our hardest. He's only winning by coincidence. Sooner or later he'll fall," another familiar voice came.

"It better be sooner, because you both know what will happen if it isn't," the first voice said again.

"It shouldn't be much longer. By April he should be out of your way."

"And if he isn't…" the first man threatened the two. They were all silent for a few minutes. Harry was tempted to go into the room and strangle the two people he recognized, and probably would do in the third as well, but James kept a tight hold on him.

"What about that Weasley kid? The red-head, how's he doing?" the man asked.

"Father, she isn't returning any of his owls. He claimed that she was still infatuated with him, but I'm not too sure."

"I want her on my side. I don't care what you have to do, but my eldest daughter will be your wife, and she will rule right along side you."

"Of course, father," Zach replied, and footsteps started coming towards the door.

Harry and James froze. "I didn't dismiss you," the voice said.

"Of course not," Zach replied, his voice shaking.

Harry and James, however, did not stay to find out what else had to be discussed. They bolted back towards the foyer. When they got there, they found Sirius waiting along side Lily and Remus.

"Well?" they all asked.

"Back at school," James replied.

Right then green sparks flew up outside, and the group in the foyer followed their signal and walked right out of the front door and to the gate. Not a soul noticing. When they got to the gate, they only walked a hundred yards, until they met up with Severus and the prisoner. For the first time, Harry was able to see who they risked their lives for. He was shocked to see two younger versions of Hermione standing beside his uncle. The two girls looked starved, beaten, and tortured. Harry glanced at all the adults, and they nodded, confirming his question. Hermione's younger sisters had not been killed in the attack on her house more than a year ago.

A/N: Sorry about the shortness of this one, but I leave for Florida tomorrow, and when I get back, the new semester will be starting, so I just wanted to get this one out before I go.

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