I wrap my arms around my knees, trying to keep myself as small as possible. All I have to do is sit and wait while my plans are carried out. I may as well get comfortable, I'll probably have to hide out here for a while.
I left my watch in my bedroom, so all sense of time has left me, but when the door to the Room of Requirement opens I am puzzled. This can't be happening, surely. It certainly hasn't been long enough for Albus to have died. So why is Draco here?
I lean forward, careful not to disturb the piles of stacked objects that have been hidden here for goodness knows how many years.
I duck my head down when he looks around in my direction. Nervously, as if he is regretting the action, he opens to the door of an old Cabinet.
I catch a flash of blond hair as the first figure steps out.
I can't stop the shriek that bursts involuntarily out of me and am forced to take further cover as my father sends a Killing Curse in my direction. It shatters the vase of fake flowers behind me, covering me in charred bits of fabric as I begin to crawl out, not daring to get up and run.
More Death Eaters began to make their way into the Room and each one is a stab of fear in my heart. Draco has brought my enemy into my home.
So this is how it is to be then. We promised to protect each other and to work our way out together; each with our own plans in mind. Thinking we were the betrayer and not the betrayed, when really we were both.
I make determined progress towards my means of escape, but a spell behind me forces me to leap forward and blow my cover. I have just a moment to look in the cold grey eyes of my father before his spell knocks me backwards.
I just manage to turn as I fall, so the curse misses my heart, but it strikes my stomach and I feel a sickening lurch as my organs threaten to escape the wound. I clutch myself, holding myself together and look up at them all, trapped and humbled on the floor. Familiar faces; they visit me every night once I close my eyes and fall asleep. My father of course, the Carrows and some others. I glare at Greyback and I know that I've never wanted to kill anyone the way I want to kill him. It would be so much easier than the others, he barely looks human.
He returns my glare and I spot another behind him, one I think is called Gibbon. There's something about him tonight. If I could define it, I would call it a shadow, a cloud, dark and looming behind him. A spark of light in the middle of the cloud, until I realise that's just the moonlight reflected off his wristwatch.
I turn last of all to Draco, who can't seem to stop staring at me. I can see the last year's strain etched on his face, how he stares at my wound as if he can't believe that it is there. Another reminder that the moment he is no longer useful to Voldemort he may receive a similar wound himself.
"Oh, so this is how a Death Eater inaugaral ceremony works" I spit at him. "Draco why didn't you send invitations? To Joanie? To Katie or Ron? Nothing like starting your career by bringing murderers into a school where twelve year olds sleep blindly, thinking they could trust you!"
For a moment, my fury blinds my reason and I snatch a metal pot and hit him on the foot with it. He yelps in pain and another Death Eater mutters something along the lines of "she has a thing about feet."
I feel a welt rising on my cheek as I am kicked in the face. My father's monstrous bulk looms over me, he raises his wand to deliver the death blow until Draco stays his hand.
"Don't bother!" The panic rises in his voice. "She's dying anyway, can't you see? We only have a limited time! Dumbledore could be back any minute! We can't let her distract us! It's just the kind of thing the bitch would plan. Let's go!"
He draws out from his robes the shrivelled Hand of Glory and lights the candle in the centre. He leads them out of the Room, refusing to look me in the eye. He leaves the Room where he expects me to die.
I have to work fast. I draw my wand out from my sleeveand clumsily seal up the gash along my stomach. It doesn't stop the pain completely but it should keep out infection and allow my organs to stay in.
They did not have time to close the door as they were confronted by the sight of people, waiting people. I hear a shout and then a cloud of darkness obscures everything.
Walking is painful and by the looks of things, dangerous with other people and potentially curses everywhere. I am forced to slowly crawl out of the Room, aware of only very little. I am giddy from the blood loss and I know there is very little I can do if I am confronted again. I long for somewhere quiet to wait and think about all that has just happened, but for now discomfort is my only thought.
Crawling, and eventually dragging myself along the floor is increasingly tiring. I know I must get more help before the situation turns tragic. I lie back against a wall and scream.
I scream without words, but my scream speaks more than I ever could. I screma for Joanie, for betrayal, for lies and hate and death.
Flitwick comes running. He squeaks at the sight of me. "Marion! What's going on?"
"Death Eaters! In the castle!"
"Death Eaters! I'll fetch Minerva!"
"No!" I yell at him and snatch at the hem of his robes. "Severus. Fetch Severus first, tell him everything."
"But Minerva is deputy-"
"Dumbledore would want to fetch Severus! Do it!"
He runs off again in the direction of the dungeons.
I stagger up, but large black spots popping in front of me force me down again.
After that, I have no sense of time or place. Soldiers came and go, the box of horrors opened yet again. I cannot fight for more than a minute at a time and blackouts become longer and more frequent. Everything is dim and dark until I hoist myself up the window and watch as my father torches Hagrid's hut. I watch the flames devour, but I feel nothing. Only shock until the pain kicks in. Nothing is sacred any more. I wonder how many of the Death Eaters at Hogwarts enjoyed their time here? Laughed in the corridors? Sat by the lake? Swore loyalty to the Headmaster, only to turn coat and goad a teenaged boy to kill him?
I know Dumbledore is dead. Something snapped during the battle and I knew he had left me. I don't know for certain who cast the curse, but I'm sure that it was not Draco. Just as I knew that Gibbon would die, I knew he could never do it. That at least is the silver lining of my storm cloud. The Death Eaters may stand and watch as their humanity burns before their eyes, but the ashes remain and blow in the wind, whispering warnings of conscience and stinging their eyes.
Stinging eyes that cry.
I fetch a blanket from the hospital wing and wrap it around me like a cocoon. I stroke the thick fabric with my clean hand, the gently warming feeling is soothing.
I see the remnants of the castle defenders, a rag taggle of defiant teenagers like me and Order members. I'm sitting alone on a hospital bed the other side of the wing. Hermione came over just now, with a kind hand and gentle words, but I turned her away with the hollow words:
"I know what happened."
I close my eyes and breathe in and then out. And then I am struck by the desire, the sudden desire, to pay Albus one last visit. To say my last goodbyes. I did not intend to, thinking it would just bring up more pain and memories, thinking it would be better to just imagine him as a sweet dream, a vision for what I must do with my life. But I suppose feeling grief and pain would be better than being an empty shell, emotionless.
I visit my bedroom, to choose something to give him for his last journey. I glance at pictures, stroke the spines of books, crank the handle of a music box, the clanking melody discordant when it once was beautiful.
I run the soft velvet of my old quilt through my fingers. Long, purple, spangled with shimmering golden stars. An eccentric choice, but the best one. Ingrained in the fabric are memories. Memories of peace, of better times. Of dreams and hope and a new world beginning. The world I wish to claim. The world I fight for.
The early light catches on the stars, and they light up with a happy fire. I roll the quilt and choose one more thing to help me say goodbye. If my words fail, I can use another's, so I take a book. A special book, a book of tales and adventure. A book of meaning and moral, a book of old and new, a book that taught me to change the world.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
The room where he lies is lit by only a few candles that seem to turn his white hair to gold. Aberforth snores softly in the corner, his goat Muriel beside him. I scratch her fondly on the head before drawing a stool by Albus' side.
He is so still and quiet in death. But he looks peaceful- and is that the shadow of a smile? Perhaps now he can truly be happy, free of the strife in the world.
"Good evening, Albus" I say, as if this were the end of just another day, and not the end of an era.
"Read me a story, Albus."
"But you are a big girl now, Marion. Shouldn't you prefer to read it yourself?"
"I can't do the voices like you can. And I shan't be able to understand what's going on if the voices are all wrong. Please read it for me. Please?"
"Allright then. Which story?"
"Any story- as long as it's Beedle."
"Then we shall read together the Tale of the Three Brothers. Now, there were once three brothers..."
"Your choice tonight, Albus." I give him a wink (an odd thing, to wink at a corpse) and give a nod in Aberforth's direction. "No more Grumble the Grubby Goat, I should think."
I open the book, having marked the desired page with a sherbert lemon wrapper. I take a deep breath, and begin.
"There were once three brothers..."
I continue the story, trying to recreate his calm, measured tone and pause and emphasise in all the right places, just like he did. He was a master of storytelling.
My voice shakes as I come to the ending: "And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life."
My voice finally cracks on the word "equal" and I close the book, tears glancing off the cover. I lift his arms and place the book in them, front cover face up. Lying there so, he looks as if he were about to open it.
"Well, Albus" I say shakily with an attempt to be jolly. "I couldn't let you go on your journey without a book to read, could I? You would get so frightfully bored."
I smooth out the quilt and cover him with it, as if I were tucking a child into bed. My quilt has become his shroud and he shall sleep under it until another time. The stars shimmer as I cover him, the same way his eyes twinkled. I remember the stars. Albus said they would blaze with light and frighten away all of my bad dreams. And that is what I shall do. I shall try and be those stars.
I kiss him lightly on the forehead, before covering his face.
"Goodnight, Albus." I whisper by way of goodbye. "Perhaps I shall see you- in the morning."
And then I walk away, never to look back.
