The Final Battle: Part One
The silence in the Great Hall was almost suffocating. No one knew quite how to respond to the demands of the Dark Lord. It was clear that Harry wasn't just going to walk out onto the grounds and give himself up, leaving the rest of the school to live under the dominion of Voldemort for the rest of their lives. No, they had all waited too long for this day. People had already died so that this day could come. Harry thought of Dumbledore, of Sirius, his parents, and all the innocent people that Voldemort had killed for the fun of it, or to bring himself closer to Harry. He would not give himself up. They had to fight. They had to win.
Harry cleared his throat and began to speak again. "We will not give in to the requests of Lord Voldemort. He is not our lord. He has no power over us. We are better than him. He tortures and kills people for sheer pleasure. We cannot let this continue. When they attack, we will fight."
As if on cue, Voldemort spoke again. "You have thirty minutes."
The imminence of the battle stirred the Great Hall into action. Students stuffed the rest of their breakfasts into their mouths and began practicing defensive spells with their neighbours. Professor Sprout rounded up a group of her students and took them through a tunnel to the greenhouses to grab various plants that could potentially be used against the Death Eaters, before coming back to the castle and securing one of the towers from which herself and students could launch spells. Flitwick and McGonagall did the same thing with groups of students and the other towers. McGonagall lectured the students on the way out, stating that there was a proper way to turn someone into a cactus, "actually, I've changed my mind. If your technique is a little bit off, then it will be all the more painful for them." Order members and groups of students took to the grounds, placing themselves in strategic locations where the oncoming army wouldn't be able to see them at first.
Few students were left in the building, mainly Harry and his close friends: Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Draco, Neville, Seamus, Dean, and Luna. Fred and George, accompanied by Lee Jordan and several former Gryffindor quidditch team members bounded off to defend the castle's secret passageways.
"I thought you said some Slytherins were going to remain behind," said Ron, glaring at Draco.
"They will be here," said Draco. "They have to go about it a little differently than we do."
"Bollocks," replied Ron. "They're not coming and you know it."
"Who's not coming?" asked a newcomer to the group.
Ron gaped at the student.
"Good to see you, Blaise," said Draco, stepping forward and clapping Blaise on the back.
"You felt the call?" asked Blaise, nodding to Draco's arm.
"We both did," said Draco, motioning to himself and Ginny.
"A lot of Slytherins are out there, waiting to storm the castle with their parents. I've got my people out there too. They can't openly attack their families while the Dark Lord is waiting for Harry to give himself up for the sake of saving lives. When they storm the castle and everything gets more hectic, though, my people are going to turn. It'll be the added boost you need, but I can't tell you exactly when it's coming."
Harry managed a small smile. "Thanks, err, Blaise. I appreciate what you're doing to help."
Blaise nodded curtly.
"What about you?" asked Draco. "Are you going to go out there, or stay here with us for the first wave?"
"There's nothing waiting for me out there. I'll stay here. What do you want me to do?"
"We've got to kill that snake," said Harry. "It's the most important thing that has to happen before I can take on Voldemort by myself."
"I'll keep my eye out for her," said Blaise.
The group stood round silently for a quarter of an hour before anyone made a move.
"I'm going to go out to the grounds with the rest of the Order," proclaimed Ginny. "I can't just wait in here while other students are fighting for their lives out there."
"We'll come with you," said Blaise, motioning to himself and Draco. "We've got history with these people that needs to be ended."
"Should we come too?" asked Hermione, looking at Harry.
"We'll all go," said Harry. The large group joined the students and Order members waiting on the Hogwarts grounds for the initial attack. Lupin was rallying the troops and kept looking anxiously over his shoulder, as if expecting a Death Eater to appear out of nowhere.
Ginny turned and looked at the time. Four more minutes. She didn't think that Voldemort was going to be generous. She lifted her wand up and mentally ran through every painful and debilitating spell that she could think of. She knew how to cast the Killing Curse, but wanted to avoid it in all possible cases. She decided to stick with Sectumsempra whenever possible. Three minutes. She reached for Draco's hand and gave it a nervous squeeze. He squeezed back.
"I love you, Ginny," he whispered.
She replied the same way. Two minutes. Was it just her, or did the day seem to be exceptionally cloudy, just to match the situation? She scanned the horizon, looking for anything out of the ordinary. One minute. Her eyes flashed back to a small spot where something seemed out of place. There was a dark mass, darker than the surrounding clouds, growing slightly larger with every passing second. Zero minutes.
There came a shout from one of the towers and everyone on the ground looked up. There were hundreds of dementors flying in the air above the castle, a giant, swirling mass of black robes descending on the unassuming army.
"Patronus charms!" shouted Harry.
A chorus of "Expecto Patronum," sounded throughout the grounds, but also in the towers. The dementors slammed into the force fields and began feeding on the energy provided, but they were unable to reach the souls of the people beneath them. Stronger Patronus' searched out individual dementors and drove them away from the fight. Harry's stag was doing the most damage against the dementors, but Hermione's otter and Luna's rabbit were corporeal enough to attack the dementors too.
"There's something else coming from the east," cried Ginny, focusing the majority of her energy on maintaining her Patronus, for Draco was unable to produce one of his own, but also straining the see what the dark form on the horizon could be.
"Giants!" shouted Mr. Weasley.
As soon as the giants were within attacking distance, half of the Order switched from the dementors to the giants, trusting the remaining Order members to control and fight the dementors. Spells were flying, but no one seemed to be getting hurt. The giants were throwing trees that were being blasted to pieces by members of the Order. Grawp came careening out of the Forbidden Forest and lunged into one giant, starting a terrible and terrific domino effect, bringing down four giants twice his size. The Order seized this opportunity to disable the downed giants so they would not be returning to the battle.
Ginny's Patronus fizzled out as Death Eaters and werewolves stormed onto the grounds. The students in the towers began launching mandrakes and venomous tentaculas at the enemies and McGonagall's bewitched suits of armour formed a line in front of the students fighting from the ground. "Draco, your dad!" shouted Ginny as a curse whizzed past her ear and hit one of the dead giants behind her.
Draco spun around to face the man who had raised him to believe that war and killing was okay, and that manipulation of a population was necessary for the greater good. This man had poisoned his childhood and ruined his adolescence. He raised his wand, "Avada Kedavra!" Lucius easily deflected the curse, sneering at his son.
"You are such a disappointment, Draco," he whispered. "I do my best to raise you well, and you turn your back on out beliefs." He flicked away another curse.
"They are not my beliefs," said Draco, seething.
Ginny raised her wand to help Draco, but was distracted by the appearance of Bellatrix Lestrange just to her right. "Hermione!" she called.
Hermione and Luna joined Ginny in attacking Bellatrix, who seemed to find the whole situation hilarious. She cackled as she deflected each of their spells in turn, taking pleasure in sending curses right back at them that were much more difficult to avoid. A sharp wind past Ginny's ear told her that if she'd been standing a centimetre to her left, she'd be dead. With renewed anger, she shot curse after curse at Bellatrix, who continued to laugh. Luna transformed her curses into daggers in a beautiful display of magic that went completely unnoticed and launched the daggers at Bellatrix. Each one was knocked away by a small flick of Bellatrix's wand.
Ginny didn't have time to wonder at the state of the fight between Draco and his father, being completely locked into battle with Bellatrix. If she tried to extract herself from the fight, she'd be killed without a backwards glance.
The sounds of the battle seemed to be getting louder. There were screams of dying people, dying animals, and angry fighters. Ginny noticed that there seemed to be a lot of commotion in he air above her head, but couldn't risk looking upwards to see what was going on. She hoped it was Draig, showing his true colours and killing countless Death Eaters. She blinked, opening her eyes just in time to see a curse flying straight at her head, leaving her with no time to react. A small house elf came out of nowhere and leaped in front of her, taking the full extent of the curse, and fell to the ground. Ginny muttered a quick prayer for the dead elf. She glared at Bellatrix and snarled, "Sectumsempra!" The curse hit Bellatrix in the hand, and blood stained the ground. Bellatrix replied with a Killing Curse that missed Ginny by the width of a hair.
"Out of the way!" shouted a newcomer to the battle. Molly Weasley, looking sweaty and defiant pushed Ginny out of the way, glaring at Bellatrix. "You too!" she said, signalling to Hermione and Luna. Bellatrix laughed at the change in battle tactics.
"Ickle mommy come to kill me?"
Ginny didn't stick around to watch the remainder of the fight, but found another adversary and began anew. She couldn't see where Draco had gone, but didn't see any white blond hair splayed against the ground, which she took as a good sign. "Sectumsempra!" she cried, brushing the sweat out of her eyes and dodging the shards of something that had just exploded. She thought the name of her attacker was Dolohov, but she couldn't be sure, and at this point she didn't care. She didn't have time to wonder at the name and history of her attacker, or wonder if the Slytherin students had joined the fight yet, or even let herself thing about whether Draco was still alive. Her spell missed, hitting a tree behind the man, who smiled and shot a jet of red light at her. She managed a shield charm just in time, and decided to try one of Harry's favourite tactics. "Expelliarmus!" To her surprise, her spell made contact and the wand went flying into the air. She finished with "Sectumsempra" and left the man bleeding on the ground. This was no time for sympathy.
Ginny continued to fight for what felt like hours. She'd lost track of all of her friends and seemed to be continuously surrounded by people who wanted to kill her. She vaguely noticed that her Dark Mark hadn't stopped burning since the beginning of the battle and that the Forbidden Forest seemed to be on fire, but nothing mattered anymore except fighting every single Death Eater, one by one, until none were left. She ran to avoid being bitten by a werewolf, throwing curses over her shoulder, and hoping beyond all hope that a stray spell wouldn't hit her while she was in motion.
Suddenly, it seemed as if everything had come to a standstill. The Death Eaters and their companions were retreating. Had Harry won? Was Voldemort dead and the war really over? No. That voice was talking again.
"If you do not send me Harry Potter, you will all die. This is a tragedy to the magical world; every drop of pure blood hitting the ground is a drop that will not be around for future generations. I have ordered my army to retreat. You have one more hour to give up. Harry Potter: you will come to me in the Forbidden Forest, or everyone will die by my hand. One more hour."
Ginny ran to the castle, following the other Order members, each one caked in mud and blood. She ran to the Great Hall, having eyes for only one person. "Draco?" she called. She asked a student passing by, "Have you seen Draco Malfoy?" The student shook her head. She ignored the people that were carrying bodies in from the battlefield and ran back outside, scanning the grounds for the man she loved. She ran towards the forest, looking for a scrap of blonde hair, willing Draco to be alive. There was no sign of him. She ran back towards the castle and saw Ron and her father carrying Fred's body into the castle. She let out a strangled sob, but would not stop. Too many people were dead but Draco was nowhere to be seen. He had to be alive. She ran back towards the gated entrance to the Hogwarts grounds, but stopped short before reaching them. A flash of white caught her eye. She backed up.
A body was lying face down in the mud. Ginny's stomach felt like it was trying to emerge from her throat. She knelt to the ground and placed her hand on the shoulder of the body. She flipped the body and instantly breathed a sigh of relief. Lucius was dead. That meant that Draco had been successful. But where was he?
She walked back into the castle slowly, not wanting to face the reality that she could have lost a brother and a boyfriend. She turned the corner into the Great Hall, rubbing her eyes and scanning the room for Draco. She saw the bodies of Fred, Lupin and Tonks lying side by side, and Colin Creevey, his brother hunched over his body, shaking with sobs. Harry wasn't anywhere to be seen, but Hermione and Ron were standing over Fred's body with the rest of the Weasley family.
Ginny walked over to the group, numb. She sat down silently by Fred's body and let the tears come, whether they were tears for Fred or Lupin or Draco, she didn't know. A warm arm encircled her body and she let herself be pulled into the lap of Bill, nestling her head into his shoulder and sobbing.
Lupin was gone. Her brother was gone. Draco was missing. The Dark Lord ruined everything. Ginny clenched her fists. He had to die.
Thanks for reading and reviewing-we're getting close to the end. Thoughts, comments, questions? Please let me know what you think!