A tiny room with barely four standing walls, and a large fireplace with a delicate portrait of a beautiful young woman stood stagnantly behind a man that towered over the group as they stood united.
"Next time the lot of you decide to come to Hogsmeade, you might want to make sure there aren't any alarms you're going to set off with entry. You four are lucky those Death Eaters didn't blast you away before I got there."
"I am sure we could have managed." Lia sassed back.
"You, I don't think I recognize your face." Aberforth Dumbledore said inching unnervingly close to Lia.
There was no effects left of polyjuice on Lia's appearance as she stood before him with her long blonde frizzy curls.
"And I don't think I know yours either, but I'm not demanding an introduction." Lia angrily stated.
Harry pulled her back, approaching the giant man who had plenty of features that resembled his previous headmaster.
"Harry, although you are the chosen one, I believe you would have better chances fleeing and hiding away….. forever. There's no chance you can beat him."
"We have every fighting chance!" Lia retaliated over Harry's shoulder, where Hermione grabbed her hand and silently shot him a defensive glare.
"It's my duty, Aberforth. To this entire wizarding world, if I don't at least try, then there's no hope whatsoever. Please… if there's anyway….. I beg of your help, Dumbledore."
The man shook his thick head, allowing his overgrown beard to tremble in the stale air, where he turned to the painting and whispered into the girl's ear. It was only moments before her silhouette could be seeing traveling back up in to the painting with a lanky follower behind her. The painting cracked open and no other than Neville Longbottom was standing behind it with a black eye and countless bloodied scratches all over his skin.
"Harry!" Neville bellowed as he jumped down from the darkened passageway.
"Hermione! Ron! You're all okay! And….." Neville couldn't finish his sentence.
After releasing Ron, he hobbled over to Lia and touched her face to test if it was real.
"This isn't polyjuice, is it? You're alive!" He yelled, picking Lia up from the floor and spinning her around.
"Let's not get too fresh, Neville." Harry joked.
Neville sprinted off into the darkness where the group nearly had to run to keep up with him.
"Things have changed guys, but we've been trying to fight back. Dumbledore's Army is in full force now." Neville smiled behind his shoulder.
Another large thin painting whisked aside as Neville jumped down first from the tunnel and landed in a pile of dust while the group behind the painting jumped to their feet. The Room of Requirement had made a special arrangement for those trying to escape the horrid clutches of the Death Eaters and the regime of Snape who were inclined to beat students instead of punish them in a humane manner. That was made clear by the amount of bandaged students, and the desperate looks on their faces.
Harry was the first to enter, where the crowd went wild, more wild than they had felt in months. Tears and hugs were exchanged throughout the trio, where Lia felt odd being back in her own skin and not being able to decipher if those glares were out of curiosity or disdain. Neville started spreading the news of Harry's return like lightning through the allies, which traveled so fast and far that students that had been expelled from the school arrived within minutes. Ginny appartated and nearly knocked Hermione over from such a strong hug, as well as squeezing Lia's lungs that all of the air left them.
"You're alive?" She murmured through a slight welling of tears.
"I'm still here, Gin." Lia's voice cracked as she pulled one of her dearest friends in close.
Lia spent time silently going around hugging those in the Gryffindor house and apologizing where she was surprisingly accepted back into their ranks without any discrepancy.
"We need your help guys, we are trying to find an item. Something small and easy to conceal, but most likely something to do with Ravenclaw, any ideas?" Harry pleaded with the group, which most of them stared up at the ceiling deep in thought.
"The diadem! The lost Diadem of Rowena. If there was any object that would mean any more importance, it would be that one." Luna cried out.
"Do you know where that might be, Luna?" Harry asked spiritedly.
"Well, I have an idea, but-"
"He knows, Snape knows you're here, Harry." Seamus came busting through the crowd out of breath.
"He's calling for all students to meet in the Great Hall. Some Death Eaters moseyed on up here from Hogsmeade." Seamus explained.
The large group of students formed a mass around Harry, who was under the cloak of invisibility to join them at the required meeting by Severus Snape. Hermione, Lia and Ron were given dress robes, where they cautiously lifted the hoods to help conceal their identities while they walked alongside the rest of the students.
"Polyjuice, Lia?" Harry asked, gripping onto one of her springing curls.
"Not here, I am done hiding. The one place I call home will not have to witness me as someone I am not. I'm ready now." Lia assured him.
There was no real uproar with the transport to the Great Hall, since the Death Eaters were looking for a frantic Harry running about the castle, so they didn't even pay a second glance to the orderly ranks.
Once the four houses were lined up in perfect rows, Severus stomped his way to the blackened podium and demanded utter silence. His eyes were soulless as he scanned through the crowd without much conviction.
"It has come to my attention that Harry Potter has been spotted not to far from the castle and is going to make an attempt to reach out to you." He explained in a monotone manner.
"If any of you are to come across Mr. Potter, you are not to fight him. You are to immediately turn him over to me, and me alone." Snape now was striding in between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw ranks.
Lia felt an invisible tug on her robe, known that Harry was signally her that he was going to make a move very soon.
"If anyone is to know the whereabouts of Mr. Potter and does not relinquish that information, they will be punished accordingly." Snape stopped, scanning the Gryffindor students.
"What if it were me, Severus?" Lia stepped out with her robe that was now lying on the floor.
Snape's eyes grew wider than saucers, quite literally reacted as if he had seen a ghost.
"Lia…" A breathless whisper left his lips.
The Carrows shot out curses at her, but an innate force caused Snape to block them.
Harry immediately flew out from underneath his disguise and blasted the Crutiatus curse at the siblings, being more than raged at their attempt to hurt Lia. Amycus was struck by the red lightning coming from Harry's wand and lay at Snape's feet with his eyes closed.
"Why Severus?!" Lia cried out to him, as Harry took lead in front of her.
Snape had no words, but only a swift movement to reach for his wand, where the couple defensively pointed their own right back.
"Severus Snape. Headmaster of Hogwarts. How dare you? How dare you stand there and claim you're equal. I bet none of them know. Know how that night you let the curse leave your wand and kill the only man known to trust you!" Harry yelled at him.
Harry could hear Lia whimper behind him, watching Snape stand bewildered, more affected by Harry's small monologue than he would let on. The Order busted through the Great Hall doors commencing almost an instant battle between Death Eaters and those against them. Minerva jumped in front of the action, and ceased the scuffle by releasing a spell at Severus herself. Snape fled, leaving a chaotic mess of students and Order members attempting to collect themselves.
The four in the group immediately separated and reached out to confused students, where Lia naturally gravitated toward the Slytherin students. Most of them looked utterly terrified, and she understood knowing that many of their families were forced to join the ranks of Voldemort. An eerie silence lay over them, where the students gently joined around the blonde.
"You are all so brave. I understand that right now, that instinct inside of you is to point your wands at Harry, and myself, and all those that fight in the name of good. But I promise you, if you all take a stand for what's right, your mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters will see the light. Voldemort has no power over love, and you all contain that right here." She said pointing to the center of her chest.
"I will not stop any of you if you think your place is out there with him. But if you can find it in your hearts, stay, fight against evil. You're Slytherins, proud and strong, so defend the school that gave you your honor." She cried out to them.
Few students filed out, sniggering under their breaths, but to her surprise many stayed. Lia married them along with the other students who were standing along with the Order. Harry was off taking to McGonagall, while Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Kingsley were performing charms on each and every student, giving them as much protection as they possibly could. A large group gathered, almost waiting for orders as they could sense the real battle was about to ensue any moment. Minerva pointed her wand at the ceiling, almost calling to the building for protection where massive enchanted statues fell from the walls wearing suits or armor and equipped with giant weapons. She then gathered Molly, Professor Flitwick, Slughorn and Bill to join her in using protection charms to help arm the building to its fullest potential.
"Harry… Ron and I had an idea, of how to destroy the horcrux… Down in the chamber-"
"No need to explain, Hermione. I know you two will figure it out."
"I need to search for the diadem, Ginny, you stay here and help leading with Lia. The two of you will keep everyone safe."
Remus and Tonks had already disappeared to their stations with Fred and George so the frightened students had no guidance and were only moments away from mass bedlam.
Ginny immediately corralled students and started barking orders to them while Lia pulled Harry off to the side.
"Harry please be careful." She demanded of him, while pressing him against the cinder wall.
"I won't be long, back in less than a flash." He assured with a quick kiss.
"Do not worry about me, Lia. I am begging you."
She nodded giving him one more peck and darted off into Ginny's direction. Many of the students reacted brilliantly to the deafening explosions occurring outside, with their wands at the ready.
"Alright, I need you all to disperse throughout the castle, remember your spells, use them swiftly and before a Death Eater has a chance to even to notice your presence. Gryffindors, take the Viaduct Courtyard with McGonagall, Slytherins stay here, protect the Great Hall. Hufflepuffs, you take the upper levels, and Ravenclaws spread yourselves evenly on the Grand staircases and the surrounding areas. Please stick near the Order members, listen to them. If you are scared, hide; there is no shame in that. Otherwise be brave, fight along your brothers and sisters, and remember to help each other! Every single witch and wizard life matters."
The giant mass distributed while Lia and Ginny made rounds through the castle, making checkpoints with every Order member seeing where the help was needed the most. For the moment being, Lia and Ginny loomed in the Viaduct courtyard and watched as beautiful beams of deathly spells attempted to penetrate the large protection spell around the castle.
"Only moments now, dears." Minerva stood her ground, unwearied, where instantly the two women were in awe of her poise.
"Wands ready." She calmly instructed, now watching pieces of the protection spell float down to the ground singed by dark magic.
The storm came quick as a cloud of black smoke engulfed the courtyard and spells immediately began exploding the columns lining the outside of where everyone was standing. Ginny and Lia stood back to back, using defensive curses at the literal tornado of Death Eaters ripping through the castle. Not long after, Ginny caught a glimpse of Ron, where she tugged at Lia's shoulder and the two carefully exited the courtyard. The two were soaked from head to toe, where Hermione flashed ruins of Helga Hufflepuff's cup. They could hear Harry's clunky footsteps sprinting down the hall, where Lia yanked him to a stop noticing that he almost ran right past them.
"The Room of Requirement. We have to get there, now!" Harry exasperated.
A thunderous boom was heard just around the corner where shrieking screams of students rang through the halls.
"I'll go, you four get to the Room of Requirement, now!" Ginny demanded.
Ginny took leave to tend to the intense battling, while the group converged and ran in sync to the normal spot where Dumbledore's Army met in the Room of Requirement previously. A door unfurled from the cement just big enough for Lia to bring up the end of the group and duck underneath the archway.
"Look for something like a tiara." Harry advised, already rifling through a sizeable pile of leather suitcases.
The four separated rapidly piecing through random objects stacked in the room of hidden things hoping to come across anything that resembled a diadem. The blasts only became louder and thin lines of dust drifted from the ceiling as the tiles shifted from the commotion. Lia sifted through all kinds of antique jewelry and home furnishings, but nothing that even closely resembled a tiara.
"Got it!" Harry called from behind a mountain of clothes racks and tattered luggage.
"Not so fast, Potter." A lower pitched voice called from behind a tarnished birdcage.
"Draco!" Lia called, crossing in front of Harry's path.
Draco's jaw twitched as he unclenched it, now letting his shoulders relax and almost a doughy-eyed look glazed across his sapphire eyes.
"Lia, you're-"
Without letting him finished, she reached her insipid forearms out to his direction, where almost with a magnetization his body leaned forward.
"Draco!" Vincent Crabbe called out in disgust, stopping his friend before the two connected.
"I thought you were dead." Draco whispered with misty crystal blue eyes.
After a silent moment of reconciliation, Lia's eyes widened as she watched Crabbe cross Gregory Goyle and point his wand right at Harry.
"AVADA KEDA-"
"NO!" Lia screamed, pushing Draco to the floor, and deflecting the curse with her own wand.
"Are you MENTAL, Crabbe?! You could have hit any one of us with that!" Draco screamed, now pointing his narrow black wand in their direction.
"They all deserve it, Draco! Scum just like Potter." Crabbe snarled back.
"I would run if I were you." Ron called over to him as Goyle backed far enough to be amidst Draco and Lia.
A fiery burst came from the tip of Crabbe's wand and began multiplying as at each second it came whirling toward them. The entire path caught off into a blaze and an immense heat radiated from all of the objects catching fire. Ron, Harry and Hermione bumped their heals into what felt like bunches of hay, but soon realized that it was brooms that were neatly placed behind them. Harry immediately tossed one to Lia, while him, Ron and Hermione mounted the well-worn sticks. Ron and Hermione instantly lifted from the ground and began heading out of the sea of flames.
"Draco jump on with Lia! Goyle, get over here!" Harry shouted, almost amazed of the words that came out of his mouth.
"Harry, I'm sorry!" Draco roared over the roaring blaze.
"Shut up before I change my mind, Malfoy!" Harry replied, while raising himself and Goyle off of the ground.
The four brooms soared through the air hovering over a tornado of whipping flames of flinging debris. The group heard screams coming from below, coming to realization that Vincent Crabbe was burning to death beneath them. A wave of heat billowed behind them, pushing their brooms to the full potential as they squeezed between the doors. A hard crash landing caused the lot to land shoulder and head first, tumbling amongst the ruin scattered in the halls. The diadem sat idle, while Harry scurried to his feet, kicking the object far into the heart of the flame where an enormous snake created of smoke slithered straight toward the doors until they slammed shut. Once turning around, Harry saw Lia pulling Ron and Hermione from their backs to their feet, then taking an extra long time securing Draco, as she wiped crimson blood from his forehead. Lia's hand was knocked out the way when Harry's collided with it, reaching for the towheaded boy and yanking him to his feet.
"There was never anything between you-"
"No Harry, I've been awful throughout the years. But I couldn't even be that awful." Draco bowed to him then gently helped Goyle to his feet.
"Draco, get your parents, and please get out of here. There's still time." Lia pleaded with him.
"And abandon Hogwarts, no thanks. Just watch my back, okay Li." Draco smiled over his shoulder and took off running into the amber puffs of smoke.
"Li?" Harry shot Lia a rather inquisitorial look.
"He was my best friend Harry, besides you lot of course." She grinned at Ron and Hermione.
"Never seen Malfoy that cheerful in my life." Ron joked.
"It's because none of you were actually looking… Let's go!" She screamed watching a red ball of electricity blast out the side of the castle wall.
The four ran to where the commotion seemed the most heavy, noticing Fred and Percy Weasley dueling in a devastated courtyard while two ragged Death Eaters. A stupefy spell knocked Fred to his knees, causing an instant reaction for Ron to sprint to his brother's aide.
"Avada Kedavra-" One of the cloaked members screamed, before Ron was able to deflect the curse before it connected with Fred's chest.
There was so much chaos, Ron failed to notice that the first spell was deflected, but the second attack against his brother Percy had not been guarded so well. Harry and Lia chased the Death Eater's off while Hermione and Ron hunched over the curly haired Weasley boy, staring blankly off into the smoky sky. Lia could hear Hermione's cries as she disarmed and knocked the side-toothed smile Death Eater onto his back.
The entire Weasley family had gathered with only minutes while Harry and Lia secured the surrounding area so the family could have a few moments of peace. Off in the distance, Harry could see Remus Lupin carrying a petite silhouette with bright purple hair dangling from her skull. Arthur and Bill were also lifting Percy from the rubble and carrying his body in the same direction that Remus had just disappeared through. Harry set off to trail Molly, as she rounded up the twins from their knees, but he felt a slight tug keeping his feet planted. Hermione also did not follow, as her and Lia made eye contact before the large herd of redheads vanished into the castle.
"We will have time to mourn, Harry. But now we have a snake to kill." Lia squeezed his shoulders.
Hermione's slender fingers wrapped around Harry's fingertips as she pulled him from the hazed courtyard while Lia followed closely behind. Harry was sunken nearly to the floor with depression as he prepared to exit the castle and stepped over chunks of the castle walls among some bodies that had not been collected yet of Death Eaters and students alike. His home was being destroyed, along with innocent children who were barely just sorted by the hat in their first years. The air to the shrieking shack was thick, almost like drinking down cool tea, where Harry could see trails of dense black smoke danced freely into the night sky from patches of wild fires lit from nearly every tower.
The shack had large frosted windows, where two silhouettes had a small distance between them and one's identity was more obvious than the color of the grass beneath them.
"Who is with Voldemort?" Lia whispered as the three clenched their muscles, moving as slowly and carefully they knelt perfectly to observe through a tiny crack in the window.
They watched as two black cloaks glided through the shack, speaking intensely without even a slight notice of the three against the shack's outer wall.
"Severus… this wand, it is failing me. I think we both know why, my dear friend. " Tom Riddle hissed underneath the single hanging dome shaped lamp.
"The wand answers to you, and you alone, my Lord." Severus replied with his face pointed toward the ground.
"Unfortunately Severus, although you've been a loyal servant to the cause, and to myself, this wand cannot answer me if you still breathe." Voldemort bowed his head, while resting the Elder wand gently in his hand, pointed straight at Snape.
"My Lord?" Severus asked, without an ounce of defensiveness in his stance.
Voldemort did not reply to Severus Snape, only pointed his wand, muttered a spell and encouraged his large snake to strike the man. Lia slightly gasped, where Harry was quick and cupped her mouth as he could feel streams of hot tears running over his fingers. It was only moments after that Voldemort aparrated away from the murder scene where Lia broke free from Harry and sprinted into the shack where she quickly tried to work her spells on Severus's wounds.
"Lia, it's no use." Harry heard Snape whisper to his girlfriend, who was now finger to elbow covered in carnage and blood.
"I can fix it." She was barely able to sob as she held her wand to the ripped skin all over his body.
"Lia…" Severus exhaled as his shaking fingers lowered her wand staring directly into her eyes.
A slight wind of air choked Lia as she gasped realizing that Severus was really going to die, and there was nothing she could do about it. At this point, Harry and Hermione were gathered around him, unsure of what to say or do as the blood from his body turned the entire floor red. Snape held out his hand to Harry, while Lia was now calmly sitting with her back against the far wall letting tears silently fall down her face. With Harry at eye level with Severus, it was much clearer to Harry that Snape was also letting tears leave his eyes.
"Harry Potter…. the boy who lived…." Snape gently chucked, with his face now glistening with a thick stream of clear tears.
The color was clearly beginning to drain from Severus's face, and making his sure death more apparent by the gargling in his breathing.
"Take my tears, Harry. Quickly!" Snape insisted, now realizing that the light was going to leave his eyes soon.
Hermione tossed over a clear phial, where then Harry held it gently against Snape's cheek as cloudy liquid poured from his eyes.
"Look…. at… me…" Severus pleaded with his last breath, while Harry glanced up from the vial and connected a gaze with a deep chocolate iris, watching the blackness relax as he took his last breath.
The three stood, where Harry could clearly see how distraught Lia was, a somber Hermione who had a heart to care about anyone, was now comforting even Severus Snape. The air went so silent that Harry felt as if the life had been sucked out of it until a slithering whisper came to echo inside of his head.
You all have fought so valiantly, but it is in vain. I only want one, and only one of you, whom of which is being an insufferable coward. Every bit of magic blood spilled is a shame, and I wish that no more will be forced to tarnish the Hogwarts walls. Harry Potter, I speak only to you. I will give you one hour to bring yourself to the Forbidden Forest and relinquish yourself into my forces. If you do so, your friends will find mercy. If not, the fight will continue, and I will join my army in the fight, ensuring death for all. One hour, Harry Potter, that is all I will give you to meet your fate.