131
Alyssa
We were surrounded.
Surrounded by Death Eaters.
When I woke up this morning, I didn't plan on having this on my 'to do' list.
"Ickle baby Potter." The mimicked baby voice came from somewhere at the back, high and female. It was taunting.
"Where's Sirius?"
"Ooh, ickle baby Potter wants his Godfather."
I tried to find the voice among the crowd of back cloaks around us, but it seemed as if the voice was coming from everywhere. I noticed there were two Death Eaters not participating in the point-your-wand-at-the-teenagers. They weren't panting with exertion or anything, just… Standing there. Staring.
At least, I think they were staring. Those masks made it hard to tell.
"Potter, it's time you realize the difference between realityand dreams," A familiar voice said, and with a pull of his mask, he revealed himself as Draco's father.
"Where's Sirius?"
"Where's Sirius?"The woman mocked.
"Give me the Prophecy, Potter, and I'll tell you where your Godfather is." Lucius leered, outstretching his hand for what I now noticed was in Harry's clenched hand; a round orb, with what appeared to be swirling silver mist entrapped inside. A plaque was at the bottom, but I couldn't make out what it said.
"Even if I gave it to you, you'd kill us anyways."
"Not you, you're to be saved for the Dark Lord. You're too important to kill. Your friends are worthless to him, however. He sees no need to save them. Now, the Prophecy."
"Not until you tell me what kind of prophecy we're dealing with." As Harry said this, I noticed his foot seemed to glide slowly backwards, until it touched Hermione's. It was then I realized that Harry didn't intend to give this-Prophecy-to the Death Eaters at all. He was stalling for time, making sure we were all on the same page.
I knew my suspicions were right, when Luna stealthily whispered to me Harry's plan.
"…Dark Lord knows you are not unintelligent-"
"NOW!" Harry roared, and at once, we all cried, 'REDUCTO!', bringing down shelves and other orbs, smashing everything. As the Death Eaters ducked, we ran for it, sending more spells at the shelves. I covered my head quickly, feeling something heavy hit me on the arm and no doubt leaving an angry bruise.
We made it to the end, and raced past the aisles, hearing shouts and seeing the jets of red and green soar above our heads, sometimes inches away from hitting us. By the time we made it back to the circular spinning room, we had just seconds before Hermione slammed the door and gasped, 'Colloportus!'. The door made a weird sound, like jelly hitting a solid. A force hit the door, and we heard Lucius give orders to split up before the room began to spin.
"Harry, where are the others?" Hermione asked unsurely.
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach.
"We… we must have gotten separated…" At that moment, it was only Harry, Hermione, Neville and I. Which meant that Taylor, Ron, Luna and Ginny were somewhere in this huge-ass Department.
The room stopped, and Harry opened the door in front of us, checking for Death Eaters. We were in the room with the freaky egg-thing. Hermione turned and magically locked the door the same way she had before. I judged we only had a few minutes before more Death Eaters found us-
"This one's locked."
"Ugh,move aside. Alohamora!"
We quickly dived under the desks as the door slammed open. There was silence, other than our hard breathing, and we heard someone say, "Check the desks."
My heart was beating right out of my chest. I gripped my wand tightly. The shuffle of feet grew closer, and as they stopped right at the desk I was under, I pointed and yelled, "Stupefy!" Not expecting the spell, the person toppled over and the other Death Eater turned immediately at the noise.
"EXPELLIARMUS!" Harry shouted. The Death Eater deflected the spell. I went to his aid, as Neville and Hermione did the same. Our combined efforts forced him back, and he fell to the egg in the jar. Expecting the jar to break, I was surprised when his head merely passed through, and started changing into a baby's head.
"That's bloody freaky." I muttered, following Hermione and the others to the next room, where we were met by another group of Death Eaters. Before we could get a chance to attack them, they shouted, "IMPEDIMENTA!", and we all went flying backwards.
The last thing I remembered were flying, hitting a wall, seeing stars, and thinking that there was irony to be found in this situation before blacking out.
Music playing… Piano… Maybe Beethoven… Cameras flashing… People sitting in a crowd…
A storm… Lightning flashing… Thunder roaring… Rain pattering against the window… Dog whining…
A dark room… People dressed in black… Hiding behind wall… Daddy doesn't know I'm here…
"Wake up."
Alarm clock buzzing… Annoyance rising… Head throbbing…
Glasses…
"Miss Anaya, you need to wake up."
Throbbing quickly changing into pounding…
I groaned, and my eyes slowly opened. An old, aged face filled my view, and I forgot momentarily where I was.
"Dumbledore…?"
"Good. Now that you're awake, I have some business to attend to." With that, he was gone. I grabbed my head, and slowly rose to my feet, feeling unsteady. Everything came back to me, and I swore.
Which way to go…!
I took a chance, and followed the hallway straight down, running at full speed and terrified that something had happened.
Upon hearing shouting, I opened a door, and saw that everyone was fighting down in the pit with the weird veiled archway. Several were already knocked out, and I saw that Harry and Neville were struggling up the stairs. At the same time, I saw the Prophecy fall out of Harry's hand, and get kicked by Neville's flying legs. It smashed to the floor.
A figure rose from the broken glass, and it seemed to mouth something, but its voice was lost in the battle.
Nearby, Dumbledore had engaged what appeared to be Dolohov and Lucius at once. It amazed me how well he could handle a wand.
The fighting was being wrapped up; they didn't really need me. But there was one fight that seemed to have no ending to; one between Bellatrix and Sirius,the reason we had come to the Ministry. A roaring laughter filled the room, and I realized it was from Sirius.
"You can do better than that!" He yelled, and was hit with a red jet of light. He seemed to fall like through Jell-O, until he just disappeared through the archway.
Harry had been watching also. And he was running down to the ground, but Lupin was stopping him.
I waited for Sirius to come back out, to continue the fight and just kill Bellatrix. But he never did. And that didn't make sense to me, there was nowhere for him to hide. He should've been right there…
It wasn't the worst thing that happened. After the Death Eaters had been rounded up in the centre of the room, Dumbledore was unmasking each of them.
One after another was revealed; Crabbe's father, Mulciber, McNabb, Rookwood. All Death Eaters.
Only two were remaining. Dumbledore pulled the mask off the first person, and then the second.
Shouts seemed to echo through the room, and I realized they were my own. I sunk to the floor, realizing my fears had been true. That I had been right.
I didn't want to be right anymore. I wanted everything to go back to the way they were when I was a little girl.
But now everything made sense, and I hated that.
Because, in front of everyone, were the two people I had least suspected to be under those masks;
My mother and father.
132
Taylor
"Shit – shit – shit!" I yelled, pumping my arms in a vain attempt to outrun the Death Eaters. Harry, Alyssa, Hermione and Neville had taken a different turn somewhere back, leaving the rest of us to hightail in it whichever direction would allow us a swifter escape. There were no doors in sight for us to hide behind, only rows upon rows of orbs soon to be obliterated by the destructive rage of the murders at our heels.
"We have to find somewhere to hide! Something to throw them off!" Ginny shouted up to me, her voice strained and clouded by her heavy breaths. Ron voiced his agreement and Luna eerily quiet – not a single nargal accusation.
"There's nowhere to hide!" I responded, desperate to be proven wrong. There had to be somewhere – anywhere. There was no way we could simply run in zigzags and throw curses over our shoulders in hopes they would grow tiresome and give up.
We were running out of energy, and fast. We turned a sharp corner, taking the perpendicular aisle. As the Ron made clear of the edge, Luna mumbled to herself, pointing her wand in the direction of the Death Eaters who had yet to reach the turnoff. The shelves all around the corner exploded, falling on top of each other with the sound of cracking wood and shattering glass. The most direct pathway to us had been hopelessly choked-up, with the only viable option being to backtrack and go all the way around.
The aisles themselves were like a maze – we could gain a considerable lead – even lose them.
We were lucky, for a short while. We finally found a door, quickly slamming it behind us. We scoured the large room as Ginny set up every protective ward she knew. There was little to be seen; a desk and a few bookshelves. Nothing substantial.
"Will those hold?" Ron asked, as I thanked Luna for her car wreck of a blockage.
"I don't know." Ginny panted, running a hand through her hair to pull it away from her face.
"You don't know?" He demanded, eyes wide. His fear was evident; I wondered if my expression was so discernable.
"I'm not Hermione, Ronald!" Ginny shot back, frowning as she walked away from the door. My arm was burning, itching like mad and I was fairly sure my lip was bleeding. I could taste the blood on my teeth.
"We need to figure out what we're going to do." Luna asserted quietly, suggesting that, perhaps, speaking loudly wasn't the best hiding method. "This was obviously a trap – we need to discuss how not to get caught."
"We need to find the others." I added, "And quickly, if possible." We were silent for a moment, and the sound of heavy footsteps echoed loudly in the halls. They were close – we knew it. I walked quietly to the door, trying to hear and determine how much time we had.
Not much was the heart-stopping answer.
I heard them try to open the door, and then I heard them shout as though their voices alone would unlock it. Panic took over, and I turned around desperately.
"Get away from the door!" I yelled, watching as the panic spread visibly to everyone else's faces. Time seemed to slow as everyone ran to the far side of the room. I heard the door not only unlock, but also the recognizable cracking of the wood as splinters the size of my arm were sent flying.
I knew I was still too close when I felt the skin on my right side tear like paper. The shard of wood continued on its path, hitting the floor in front of me as I tumbled to the floor, my balance shaken. I could feel the tiny slivers left behind in my flesh as I moved to get up again, my head spinning.
I didn't bother to look at the gash above my hip, I knew there was blood – no sense in wasting time confirming what I already knew. The adrenaline dulled the pain, and I was fairly certain that it was more of a graze anyway. I stumbled my way to the back of the room to join the others as the Death Eater's stepped ominously over the debris.
"Your side…" Ron gasped, looking at me worriedly. I barely made eye contact as I tried to catch my breath, but I waved off his concern.
"We have bigger things to worry about." I assured, readying my wand as the dust cleared. A few more seconds and they'd be able to see us. A few more seconds, and we may just die.
Those seconds felt like hours.
"Stupefy!"
The sudden shout startled us. It wasn't us. And none of us were stunned, which meant it wasn't the Death Eaters either. I watched as one of them dropped down, his wand spinning half away across the room. Ginny ran, grabbing it quickly and snapping it on her knee before hustling back to us.
"Smart thinking," I panted, cold sweat dotting my hairline.
"Thanks," She smiled quickly, her chest heaving as she wiped the dirt from her cheek, succeeding only in smearing it towards her ear. We both turned to watch the desecrated doorway as the remaining Death Eaters filed back out of the room and the sounds of another battle filled in the now empty space.
I looked to Ron for a moment before we ran to the used-to-be door. The flashes of spells being fired left and right blinded us for a moment before we made out the familiar figures of Tonks and Lupin.
"How did they know?"
"Does it matter?"
"We have to help!"
"We have to find the others!"
The voices began blending together as joining the fray became the only option for me. I couldn't find Alyssa if I died here and now. I couldn't know that she was alright if I let these assholes get the better of me.
It felt like the fighting lasted hours; like we'd only moved a few feet when I actually found myself in a strange room on the other side of the department.
I watched in horror, tears welling in my eyes, as Sirius disappeared behind the black veil. I shouted, dreading every second as I waited for him to reappear. Harry yelled too, his voice echoing in my mind like a ghost. The atmosphere was haunting, almost seeping right into my bones as time simply stopped around us.
He never re-emerged. He was simply…gone. Gone. It didn't even seem like a real word. None of this felt real. It was a dream; it had to have been. Sirius couldn't be gone.
I dazed out – if someone had asked me, I wouldn't have been able to recall what happened within the next ten minutes. I wouldn't be able to tell them how we came to detain the Death Eaters, or how many of them escaped despite this. The only thing I could have confirmed would be that the two Death Eaters I'd witnessed earlier definitely had not been laughing. And they hadn't been laughing because they'd been too shocked by their intended victims.
Ian and Isabel had tried to kill us. And they very nearly succeeded.
Perhaps, in a sense, they did.