A week had passed since Quinn had given birth to Isabella. Puck had been given the title of godfather, a bit reluctantly by Draco. Rachel seemed to really like Isabella, and as soon as Madam Pomfrey gave the ok, both girls were out of the hospital wing and back to school life. Quinn was buying herself time, letting herself keep Isabella until the end of the school year. Then she would give her away. It was a hard concept to grasp, however. Everything seemed eerily at peace within the castle. It was Hogwarts, so naturally everyone expected there to be something dangerous going on. In recent years, it seemed almost ritual to have terrifying events happen to end the year with a bang. The peace was regarded with a little skepticism, but was welcomed eagerly by the relaxed students. Nothing seemed to really matter lately. Quinn was having a sleepless night. Isabella was crying nonstop and Draco had vanished without any sort of warning, leaving her to deal with it alone. She heard the noises from outside and, still bouncing Isabella gently in her arms, traveled up out of the dungeons to investigate. She saw a few students emerging from their beds, but passed them faster. She was determined to know what was going on so she could know whether she had to get herself and Isabella somewhere safer or not. She had Isabella clasped in her arms, offering as much immediate protection as she could against the ever-louder battle noises that were issuing from some point ahead of her. Her wand was tucked behind her ear, a trick she had picked up after seeing Luna Lovegood do it in the halls one day. There were no students except for her around. She caught a fleeting glimpse of the battle ahead, staring transfixed at it as Isabella started wailing miserably again. Quinn started bouncing her, staring at the jets of light ahead, knowing she should be going to notify someone. Then, she saw one of the figures saw her, one who was moving in her direction anyway. Her heart started to beat in triple time before she noticed it was Draco, and she relaxed. He ran ahead of the figure behind him and up to Quinn. She was ready to have a word with him, but the terrified look on his face caught her by surprise. It was only a second before he was gripping her shoulders and speaking in a fast, monotonous voice, strangely desperate. "Quinn, thank god you're here-""Draco, what's happening?""Listen to me, I'm going away, I have to leave right now. I love you. I love you so much. I'm sorry for sneaking away all year, I'm sorry for ignoring you for this, I love you I love you… I love Isabella too… Promise not to forget me, please, I did all I could…" he muttered, his intensity thoroughly shaking Quinn to the bone. The Draco she knew was offhand about these things, joked rudely about them. Not it was if he was making some sort of last confession, like he was about to die. There was so much Quinn wanted to ask him, so many questions what he just said gave rather than the answers he so desperately wanted to provide them. But then, Professor Snape was gliding up to Draco, and Draco was hurriedly kissing both of their foreheads before Snape rudely grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him off towards the exit. Quinn saw it instantaneously, the shift between worried, protective father into cowardly student at the powerful hands of Snape. Draco was letting him push him out of the front doors into the night, and Quinn reached out one of her hands as if to call after him, demand something, anything, that would clarify how scared she was. Isabella was still demanding attention, only soothed momentarily by her daddy that had now vanished, maybe permanently by the sounds of what he said. The shock, the hurt, the anger, the sadness. It wasn't slowly overwhelming her as it usually did, but had suddenly appeared, came out of nowhere, so she didn't comprehend she was possessed by the massive amounts of confusion she had just been delivered. It was as though everything had snuck up on her, creeping into her and fully manifesting when Draco's words had frozen her to the spot, no more useful to anyone in that situation than a mannequin would have been. A few minutes before, she had been nothing more than a curious student wishing to know what was going on outside her bedroom. Now she was a single mother, stranded with a child, a clueless survivor of a war outside her front door, annoyed, confused. As soon as she seemed to have regained control over her feet, she ran back to the dungeons, only hoping to keep her daughter safe.-Brittany was asleep in her bed one night, Ciaytey curled up in a little ball next to her. Suddenly, she was roused by the sound of people moving around her. She woke up unwillingly and peered around the dark room. "What's going on?" she asked to the now-stirring room in general. She got a few muffled replies. Then Hannah Abbot said "Do you hear those noises? We had better go ask what that's about, it nearly sounds like a fight…" The girls climbed out of bed, all in their nightclothes. An awful feeling was aroused in Brittany, and she knew something bad was happening. Something wrong. She couldn't shake the feeling and she couldn't place it. Her instincts were screaming at her, however, and she was growing angry knowing she couldn't figure out what they wanted. Once out of their dormitory, the curious band of girls met up with an equally tied and curious group of boys. "There's certainly something going on outside…" Ernie MacMillian said, running a hand through his hair. "Anyone up to go and check?" A few people nodded and the Hufflepuffs moved as a pack out of their common room and towards the array of battle noises. Most of them had their wands drawn, and those who had forgotten theirs in their dormitories huddled towards the center of the group. Brittany's edginess was increasing the closer they moved towards the noises. There was certainly a fight going on. Part of her calmed down at the realization, but another bit flared up, positively shouting at her to find out what was happening, to fix the wrong. Just then, when they were beginning to catch sight of the damage and jets of light around the entrance hall, Harry Potter ran by them in a hurry. Ernie started to speak to him, ask what was happening, and suddenly Brittany understood what was going on. Most of those figures were adults. There were students there too, fighting. Battling. The hits of faces she caught in sudden bursts of light were certainly members of the DA. Ringing started in her ears and her sweaty hand gripped her wand. Santana was out there, fighting possible dangerous adults. Somewhere inside her she knew, Santana's voice was mixed in with those screams and grunts. Before Harry Potter could dash off, she burst from the group and grabbed him with such force that he had to stop. The crazy desperation in his eyes could have only been countered by Brittany's sudden terror. "Where's Santana?" she asked, and Harry pointed behind them towards the fight before allots violently tearing his arm from Brittany's grasp and flying off outside the castle. Brittany sprinted in the opposite direction towards the fight, wand raised. It only took her an instant to find Santana, dueling viciously with an apparently mad man with long blonde hair. He was big and apparently dangerous, twice anyone's size. Santana's fighting was thrown off by the appearance of Brittany, and she looked as stunned and pleased as though she had just seen an angel when the big man threw a curse at them. Brittany deflected it and countered with one of her own, nearly slipping in the puddle of blood she had backed into. The girls didn't say anything, just regained their composure and fought against the apparently mad man, Brittany still totally unaware of the reasons for the situation, just dueling to protect her girlfriend. After five more minutes that felt like eternity, a dark shadow of a figure that neither of the girls could real make out hit Brittany with something Santana couldn't place from behind. Brittany toppled to the ground and Santana watched it happen as if in slow motion. She thought the figure should be lucky it dated away so fast because if it had stayed, it would have had to face her sudden, immense rage that exploded within her like a bomb. However, she just picked Brittany up, who's hair had unfortunately landed in that same puddle of blood and was now dripping and stinking in a way Santana could hardly stand, and ran away with her, as fast as she could manage. Once she had ran away, as far as she could manage with the weight into some corridor she couldn't really place, Santana set Brittany down on the ground as gently as she could, and collapsed, panting. She had never felt more desperate, more secluded, more unaware of what to do. The pressure, the hatred, the sadness all collapsed on her in an instant where her own problems vanished and her body seemed to take on the pain of the world. She bent over in half and started crying, into the hands she buried her face in, her befuddled mind trying to carve out a way to the hospital wing that involved not running into anyone dangerous. For Brittany.-Puck had snuck out past curfew again, to go flying at night. There was something exhilarating about having to trust you knew where you were with only the help of a tiny wand-light and much daytime practice on the quidditch field. He was taking a break when he saw the oak front doors burst open and figures run out. He was unaware it was Harry Potter among others dashing out of the hall, but it was such an unnatural sight for being so far into the night that he waited for them to move along just a bit before swooping down, only landing a few feet from the doors in the shadows of a tree, as not to alarm the people he saw gathering around the doors then. He walked through the doors, heard the battle going on right around the corner and ran right to the Gryffindor common room. He knew no one would be more interested in the fact that a fight was happening now than his friends, and if things turned out dangerous he wanted everyone to know. His broom clutched tight in his hand, he barely said the password before he was jogging up to his dormitory and bursting in the door. "Dude. Whats happenin?" Sam said, directly after the door was open and dim light spilled into the room. Seamus and Dean started to stir and looked to see Sam. Finn and Blaine both jolted into a sitting position before their eyes were fully open, and Blaine started rubbing his. "Dude, sup?" Finn asked, clearly annoyed that he would burst in like this, out of nowhere while everyone was sleeping. "Wait… Where were you?""On the quidditch pitch. Listen, there is something weird going on downstairs…" he said, tossing his broom aside and onto his bed. "Like, how weird? Because I want to sleep a lot right now…" Blaine said, trying to make his eyes open against the light appearing across the room now that the boys were lighting their wands. "Like dangerous weird." Puck said seriously. "Dangerous?" Dean asked, and Puck nodded. "Fighting. People are totally wreckin' the entrance hall up…""Then why should we go down?" Seamus asked, and Finn nodded. Puck looked around at all of them in an annoyed and partially shocked way, as if he had somehow been betrayed. "Because." he said, looking around at all of them. "You all have friends in different houses. Blaine, think about it. A battle is going on downstairs and you have absolutely no idea at all where Kurt is right now." Blaine looked twice as alert and a bit concerned. "Puck's right." he said, and hopped out of bed and went to pull Sam up. It was only a few minutes before the boys were out the door and walking down to see what was happening. A few other boys from the different years were walking down with them, a few third years stayed behind to pester a girl out of bed so they could pass on the information about what was happening. By the time they reached the entrance hall, the duels were coming to a close. Puck and Finn had to hold everyone back for a second, hurrying everyone to stand flat against a wall because just around the corner a few Death Eaters were flying out, leaving only residents of the castle behind. As soon as the Death Eaters were gone, Sam and Finn ran up to the bodies and the few surrounding them, interrogating the bloody, sweaty fighters and helping them hoist up the fallen people and carry them off. Dean and Sam ran out to the group of students gathered around the doors, started asking them what they saw. Puck and Blaine exchanged a quick glance. "You want to go find the Slytherins?" Puck asked, obviously hoping Blaine would say yes. Blaine nodded and they turned as if to go. They froze in their trackes mid step though. "Do you know where their common room is though?" Blaine asked, suddenly sounding slightly skeptical. Puck shook his head, and Blaine sighed. He barely had time to ask another question, however, when Santana Lopez came sprinting down the corridor, Brittany Pierce in her arms. Puck ran at her, caught her sleeve so she skidded to a stop. Blaine caught up to them just a second later. Santana looked frantic, but Puck knew they had no other choice and Brittany resting unconscious in Santana's arms was obviously something she'd want to take care of before personally guiding them to her common room. "Where's the Slytherin common room?" Puck asked, and Santana hastily gave them the instructions down to the dungeon dormitories. "The password's 'phantom'. Don't tell anyone I told you." she said before rushing off again. Puck and Blaine turned, and started jogging down the path to the wall that apparently hid the Slytherin's dorms. It wasn't long until they found their way and were at the wall. "Wait." Blaine suddenly said, looking up at Puck. "What?""Do we really need to burst into their common room? I mean, I don't even think we should know it's here…" "Dude! Don't worry about it!""But it's like… Private. Like reading someone's journal. And no one's fighting anymore, so…" Puck was about to argue back but then Quinn opened the door from the inside out and it appeared magically to Blaine and Puck, finally without Isabella in her arms, and jumped a foot into the air when she saw the two Gryffindors there. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "Seeing if my girlfriend and his boyfriend were here! What are you doing?" "Seeing if there's still a fight going on.""There isn't." Blaine said, nodding a bit. Quinn nodded, looking relieved. "Can you get Rachel and Kurt for us?" Blaine asked politely, and she nodded before disappearing again. It was a few minutes before she returned with a very tired looking pair of Slytherins. "What is happening?" Rachel asked, and Puck grinned before hugging her. "Why am I awake?" Kurt demanded before Blaine did the same to him, smiling fully. It was good to know they were there, instead of being carried off to the hospital wing. "There's fighting upstairs. We were making sure you were safe." Puck said, still smiling a bit. "Fighting? What do you mean?" Rachel asked, looking a bit concerned. Then again, she was expected to become exasperated when she thought someone was writing with their quill wrong. "People dueling. Death Eaters, it looked like. I don't know how they got in…" Blaine said, looking down a bit nervously. Rachel then stepped out the door and made as if to go right upstairs. "Whoa whoa whoa. Where are you going?" Puck asked, clutching her hand to keep her there."I'm going to see what's going on upstairs! Come on, Kurt, Blaine, Noah… Quinn, you should come too…" Rachel was thoughtful and casual with her words before turning and trying to walk off again. Kurt and Blaine exchanged looks and Quinn leaned against the doorframe. "But there's no more fighting! There's nothing to see." Puck said, still firmly holding her hand. "But I want to know what's going on. Maybe someone up there can tell us. And what if the fight just moved outside?" she added, and all of their curiosity gave them no reason to argue with her. Everyone followed Rachel up the stairs and into the unknown.-Only a few minutes after Puck arrived in the castle, Artie was having a vivid dream. He was in the Forbidden Forest and Luna was supposed to be with him, but she wasn't. She was missing. His other friends were too, Dave was somewhere, so were Santana and Brittany, but they were all close. He could tell they were there, just out of sight. But Luna, on the other hand, couldn't be further away from him. She was lost, somehow crying out to him from such a great distance, as far as a glistening star. In that strange dream world, her distance was threatening, frightening, it meant something was wrong with him as well and he had to find her before things got too bad. If only one of the others would come out of the dark hiding places and tell him what was going on…Then Dave was nudging him awake, Artie was fumbling for his glasses and put them on, blinking rapidly to try and make himself wake up from that nightmare. "Something's going on downstairs." Dave said, leaning over Artie's bed. Artie tried to focus on Dave's face. "How do you know?" "I just know, man. Something's not right.""Wanna go and check?" Artie said in a way that suggested he was not following Dave all the way down to wherever the hell to realize nothing was happening, but he trusted Dave's judgement anyway so he wanted some proof. "Sure. Be right back." he said and walked out. A few other of the boys were staring to stir, and Artie decided to go wait out in the common room for Dave. He wasn't going back to sleep and back into his weird dream. "Washappenin?" someone asked, and more stirring erupted across the room."Dave says something's going on downstairs, he went to check." "Wait, what?" another voice called, and Artie sat up straighter to try and see who was saying what. "Dave had a feeling something was going on so he's checking and I'm going to wait in the common room for him." Artie said, standing up and walking down the stairs. A few others followed him, looking groggy. "Wait, if something's going on then someone needs to go warn the girls." Terry Boot said once they were in the common room, as some other boys were coming down just to see what was happening. But then, Tina Cohen-Chang and Cho Chang walked down the stairs. The sisters were almost identical in the way they rubbed their eyes to try and clear away the heavy-liddedness. "What's up?" Tina asked, looking around at the pajama-clad boys around the room. Cho looked at them a bit suspiciously. Artie explained the situation again, and the sisters exchanged looks. "So you don't even know for sure anything's happening?" Cho asked, and it was the boys turn to exchange looks. "Better safe than sorry." Artie said, shrugging a bit as he sat down. Tina shrugged too, and went to sit next to him. "If something's happening, I want to be one of the first to know." she said boldly. Cho sat next to her and a few boys as well. Some realized they didn't have to be doing this and went back up to bed. It was a short while before Dave came back, looking slightly scared and somewhat justified. "There is something going on. I saw blood on the floor of the entrance hall, and something's on fire outside…"The few that stayed, waiting for news, jumped up with their wands in their hands, ready to go explore the wreckage and find out what was going on. "Tina, can you go get Luna?" Artie asked, but Tina shook her head. "Luna wasn't in bed. Not this evening, either." Artie's face went pale. Maybe he wouldn't have been so startled if he hadn't just figured out a small battle had been waged downstairs or had just been roused from a dream concerning Luna's disappearance, but that information struck him as grave and he was the first one out of the room, leading the way back down. As they walked, their footsteps seemed to be the only noise. No one seemed to be out, and they looked around suspiciously, expecting the worst. Artie had the feeling Luna was down here, doing something she shouldn't have been, something unsafe. Something he would have asked her not to do, certainly. His worry was flaring up inside him, and he tried over and over again to tell himself it was was hoping that she would find them somehow. Reassure him of something. That she wasn't gone, even, or wouldn't go. That she wouldn't pull such scares in the future. His curiosity about what had just happened was raging inside him, too. What would bring any two people in the castle, more probably, to fight no harshly they drew blood? If it wasn't someone from the castle, then who was it? How did they get in? Why? Who was to blame? He was sure the group of Ravenclaws behind him were thinking the same thing. Something was happening, and they wanted to know what. They approached the entrance hall, where a group of Hufflepuffs and a few Gryffindors were peering around the oak doors, murmuring among themselves, still all in nightclothes like the Ravenclaws were. A few of them looked quite shaken, fiercely so. The Ravenclaws approached and started to interrogate them. Apparently, from what they gathered, there was a battle between grown people who appeared to be Death Eaters, some teachers, and students. Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, and Snape ran by, and every so often another would until the fight disappeared from the hall, carrying out into the night until the Death Eaters were off the grounds and could disapparate away. Something was going on outside, but they couldn't tell who it involved or whether it was safe to step outside of the grounds yet. "Have any of you seen Luna Lovegood?" Artie asked the people nearest him, and Susan Bones nodded. "She went up to the hospital wing." she said far too casually for Artie's taste. He and Dave exchanged a look before rushing off, up to the hospital wing to find was wishing too bad that she hadn't been harmed, it almost hurt. They were jogging, and Dave looked as confused as Artie felt. They burst into the hospital wing, where Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and a few others were gathered around the bed of a man Dave and Artie didn't know. But when Artie's eyes found Luna, whole and undamaged, he let out a sigh of relief and walked over to her. "Artie!" she said when she saw him. She moved towards him and they wrapped their arms around each other, letting their heads rest on each other's shoulders. "I thought you fought-""I did.""When they told me you were in the hospital wing, I thought you were hurt…""Oh no, I'm here for Ron, Ginny, and Bill." she said, gesturing to the horribly mutilated man on the bed who was being tended to by Madam Pomfrey. Artie looked at him for a second, eyebrows forrowed. Dave leaned over to get a look at him as well. "Who is he?" Artie asked. "My brother." Ginny said a bit shakily, and Artie nodded before turning back to Luna. "I was pretty scared about you.""I'm sorry. I wanted to help the others, you know, we learned how to fight and there's no better application then when there are Death Eaters in the castle…"Artie laughed breathlessly and pulled her into a quick kiss, his relief walked in then, sweaty and tired looking, obviously emotional. Her face was red and everyone could tell it wasn't just from walking a distance, she had been crying. Brittany was in her arms, still unconscious. "Brittany! Santana!" Dave said, and ran to go help her. Artie and Luna stared in shock, and everyone else in varied states of concern. Santana let Dave take Brittany and sat down on a bed, looking a bit shaken. Artie and Luna walked over to her. "What happened?" they asked right away, and she sighed. "We were fighting… One of the Death Eaters or someone got her." she said, and Luna ran over to the bed Brittany was laying on. The friends went to go pester Madam Pomfrey into attending to Brittany right away. Dave and Ginny left only a few minutes later to see what was going on downstairs. Artie and Luna sat down then, waiting.