It felt wrong to leave Ron behind like that. I should have revived Ginny, although I was unpracticed with the Rennervate spell since Umbridge refused to let us use magic in her class. If it worked, though, she could have protected her brother. Neville could barely say the spell that Ron's life depended on! One wrong cut, and maybe he hit Ron's jugular instead of a tentacle.
"Shi-it," I swore, drawing out the word as I hesitated before the door. But, ultimately, I continued on. I wrapped my hand around my necklace, the one George gave me for Christmas, the one I wore that day as a good luck charm for my final N.E.W.T., and sent a silent plea to the universe that my boys would forgive me for that decision. It would be more useful protecting Harry. If he lost, it didn't matter if we died here. Hell, it would probably be better if we did.
I pushed through the door Harry and the Death Eaters went through, wand drawn, ready to attack. However, we were back in the room with the mysterious veil, the one that whispered and made the air heavy. I was above everyone, with vast stairs separating us; Harry must have tumbled down them, because he scrambled to his feet as I oriented myself in the room. Death Eaters surrounded him, mocking and flaunting their numbers
Since I had the advantage of passing unnoticed, I took the time to consider the best target for my attack. I could hit Lucius Malfoy first since he was closest to Harry, but that would turn eight heads my way, four of which were extremely close. If I hit one of the ones in the back, though, I might not attract any attention my way, which would not help Harry.
A pair of arms wrapped around me, and I screamed in surprise. "Stupefy!" I shrieked, but my wand was pointed forward instead of at my attacker, and the spell shot into empty air. So, there was an extra Death Eater in the room; I had not slipped in unnoticed. "Get off."
"Oh, it appears we have a guest," Lucius Malfoy smirked, and Harry's eyes widened at the sight of me. I saw his surprise, but I detected more than that. Maybe anger? Frustration? Whatever it was, I knew that I did not like it; he had not expected me to follow, and I resented the fact that he expected the most able member of the team to stay behind. "It's…Harper, isn't it?"
"Harper?" A woman questioned, and she turned to face me. Bellatrix Lestrange's eyes lit up at the sight of me. "Tell me, why do I know that name?" I gave up my struggle momentarily, letting my wand point limply at the ground.
"We went to school with a Harper," Lucius supplied. "You remember. Hufflepuff Prefect. Good with creatures."
"Oh!" Bellatrix grinned and turned back to me. "I do remember. Adelaide. She was quite a daredevil back in her day. What is it they say?" She cocked her head severely to the side. "Like father, like daughter? Oh, no," she laughed loudly, the melody echoing off the cold stone walls of the room, "that's not right. Like mother like daughter. Tell me, girl, what do you think she would say if she knew you were here?"
She would have a conniption. "What would yours say?" I grunted as I launched a fresh physical struggle against my captor. As I threw my weight against him to no avail, I subtly rotated my wand around in my hand so the tip faced the man holding me. Bellatrix found my attitude admirable and laughed again.
"You have her last name. Odd." She cocked her head to the other side. "Did you not have a father? Did he…run away? Leave you alone?"
"Something like that," I grunted, settling back down. "Rictusempra!"
The arms around me vanished as the Death Eater erupted into laughter. Spells shot my way as a fresh peal of Lestrange laughter bounced through the room, and I ducked down the stairs to avoid them all. I shot out a few more tickling spells as I continued to dodge shots of green light, amazed at how desperately they wanted to kill me. I heard a shouted "Crucio!" from Bellatrix as I neared the bottom of the stairs, but I could not tell which direction it came from and it hit me square in the stomach. I became acutely aware of every nerve in my body as if each one was individually prodded with a poker fresh from the fire, and I fell to the ground in agony. As quickly as the pain came on, though, it was gone; Bellatrix screamed, and the noise morphed into her sadistic laugh.
I looked up to see Lupin enter, followed closely by Tonks, whose hair color had changed yet again. Not far ahead was Moody, wand still pointed at Bellatrix from the spell that saved me. Seeing them made me so happy I could have laughed. Oh, how glad I was to see the Order.
Harry appeared at my side and helped me to my feet. "Are you all right?" He asked. I nodded. "Ron?"
"Neville's with him. He can hold off that brain thing. You all right?" Harry nodded, but at that moment a spell hit between us that shattered the floor and made us scatter in opposite directions.
Movement drew my attention forward to the first Order member to enter, and I caught sight of Sirius Black. Immediately, icy fingers clenched my stomach with such strength that I cried out in pain at the physical impact. Maybe someone noticed, but I'm not sure; I hugged my stomach in a desperate attempt to feel warm, to make the Feeling go away, forgetting about everything else in the room. My wand clattered to the ground as the cold spread up to shock my lungs, so strong that I could not even stay on my feet. My knees gave out, and I collapsed to the ground.
"S-Siri…" I tried, but words were too hard. Even the frustrated growl I tried ended up as a pathetic whine, but I knew no one heard that over the spells that started to fly.
The Feeling thankfully began to ebb, although not as quickly as I preferred, and I fumbled desperately for my wand. But, I could not find it. It should have been right next to me, but it wasn't; probably, it hit the ground at a funny angle and bounced away just out of reach. My head pounded too ferociously to even attempt a silent summoning spell, and my lungs still ached from the shock of Knowing that Sirius Black was going to die.
"Ac…" I tried. "Acci…" I took one steadying breath, two…and erupted into coughs. Desperately, I struggled to push myself up at least to my knees, but as soon as my torso left the ground, a spell hit my shoulder and sent me somersaulting across the floor. My shoulder erupted with pain where the spell hit, and I landed with my left hand trapped under my body, rolled onto my back one last time, and lay perfectly still when the force of the spell ended. Nothing else touched me, so I did a quick injury assessment from my dance across the stone.
My knees were skinned, probably filled with pebbles. The back of my head now throbbed worse than the front did, and I wagered a bet that it was bleeding. My left hand felt as if it was completely crushed, which I decided it probably was. A slight flex of my fingers confirmed that they were all at least dislocated, if not worse, and therefore impossible to move. I'd worn the bracelet Fred gave me for Christmas on that wrist as a good luck charm for my exam, and landing on the charms had broken skin in odd little shapes all the way around my wrist. My right hand was all right, though, at least in the finger department. My palm felt ripped open and prickled dangerously, maybe from the glass I never bothered to deal with skidding across stone. My shoulder was definitely the worst of it, and I refused to even look. If I had a gaping wound, I did not want to know.
I did not, however, still feel cold. The initial impact of my Feeling was gone. "Praise Merlin," I croaked.
"STUBEFY!"
"WHAT?" I exclaimed, regaining my voice through a burst of adrenaline brought on from Neville entering the fray. Bloody hell. Who was looking after Ron? "Neville?"
"Stubefy!" he tried again, but his nose swelled even more since I last saw him, and it was impossible to get the spell out properly. The wand did not even react to his attempts. It was embarrassing, really. Brave, but embarrassing.
"Neville!" I paused to dodge a spell and sent a hex in return. "Neville, get out of here!"
"I'b here to hepp!" he insisted. "Stubefy!"
"Yeah, you're helping," I grunted to myself. Great, now I had someone else to look after. A male Death Eater locked eyes with me and attempted a spell that created a sickly yellow light that I ducked, and I levitated a chunk of broken stone towards his head. He avoided it easily and laughed at the attempt, which I found extremely upsetting. There was evil, and then there was rude. After ducking a stunning spell, I looped the stone around and hit him in the back of the head with it. He lurched forward and dropped his wand, so I used the opportunity to send my own stunner that found its mark quite easily.
When I turned back to help Neville, he was face down at the bottom of the stairs. "Shit!" I swore and rushed to his side. A quick check of his pulse told me he was alive, just unconscious. Probably stupefied by someone capable of producing a proper spell. "Oh, Neville," I murmured. Poor, stupid, brave boy.
I just spotted the purple arcing light out of the corner of my eye, and I leapt out of the way just in time to avoid being shocked by the stray spell. My wand clattered out of my hand from impact, and I prepared to defend myself with a wandless spell just in case.
But, I needn't have worried. As I frantically looked around for someone ready to attack me at my most vulnerable, I had the perfect view of Bellatrix Lestrange. She flicked her wand towards Sirius Black, and a stream of green light shot from it to pass straight through his chest.
The world froze as the spell disappated on the other side of his body. No spells were cast, no other bodies fell. Time stood still while we watched his body slice through the air until it fell through the mysterious, frightening veil. My wand snapped into my hand from a summoning charm I didn't even know I cast, and I sent the wand flying from Bellatrix's hand. Too late. Far too late.
Sirius Black was dead.
Bellatrix laughed, summoned her wand, and ran. Had I been made of stronger stuff, I would have followed, but that was bigger than I could handle. Kingsley caught up to her, though, and continued the duel. Harry shouted and ran for the veil; I let out a garbled, choked shout that would have been words if I was less panicked. The thought of stunning him to keep him from crossing through the veil seriously entered my mind, but Remus grabbed Harry around the waist to hold him back.
At that moment, I really think I hated Harry Potter. Did this boy not understand what just happened? Did he not realize how many people just lost Sirius Black? Yes, Sirius was the closest he may ever get to his father, and I could empathize with that, but I could not tolerate how he handled this moment. Maybe that made me cold and unfeeling, and I knew I would hate myself for thinking like that later. In that moment, though, we still needed the Boy Who Lived to think, but he could not. Harry could not even realize that the man holding him back just lost so much more than he had and was handling it so much better. Remus just watched the last piece of his boyhood, the last of his friends, the last person from his languid Hogwarts days, the last of his family, die. And there he was, holding Harry back, ready to keep fighting. He would mourn later. He had a job to finish.
The other Death Eaters, though, looked at something far above us, and I strained my head to see what had their eyes so wide, their faces so pale. What could the evilest witches and wizards be so afraid of?
When I saw him, the answer seemed so obvious. What else would they be afraid of? Dumbledore.
The pain throbbing through my head got the best of me, and I squeezed my eyes shut as I fought back the urge to vomit. All things considered, I really wanted to walk away from this with at least a shred of my dignity left. When the moment passed, I looked up to see that Dumbledore had rounded up the Death Eaters in the center of the room with a spell that bound them together as if by an invisible rope, effectively ending our battle. Kingsley let out a cry and fell to the ground. Bellatrix laughed and turned for her next opponent, which was when she realized that it was over. But, it was not over for her, and she took off running. None of us took off after her. We all seemed to be of the same mindset; let her run. Enough blood had been shed. Both sides needed to limp home and lick their wounds. We could all agree on that.
Except, of course, for Harry, who broke free from Lupin's grasp and chased her out of the room as I sat on the ground, perfectly frozen. One thought and one thought only ran through my head: This room felt like death. The air in the room was too thick, heavy with bloodshed and death. I could feel it pressing in on me from all sides. Ghosts invisibly swam through the air. It weighed on my chest and pressed on my heart and made my head pulse that much more painfully, and I needed to get out.
"Are you all right?" Remus asked as he grabbed my upper arms and hauled me to my feet. "Are there others?"
"Y-y-yeah," I nodded, still staring at where Sirius stood moments ago. Remus shook me and managed to get my attention on him. "Yeah, they're, um, they're this way." Without waiting to see if he followed, I turned and stumbled for the door. I could not stay in that room anymore. How could any of them breathe? Did they not sense it? Couldn't they feel death all around them?
My knees complained with every step, but I refused to heal any of my wounds as I followed the markings and shoved open the door to the brain room. "Obliviate," I snapped at the brain purely on a hunch. My spell hit it, and the tentacles stopped. "Thank Rowena," I grumbled. It was genius, really, that the only way (seemingly) to stop an attacking brain was to erase its memory. Brilliant. I should have thought of it sooner.
Ron continued to struggle, but I had no time to deal with him. "Petrificus totalus."
"Mel." I ignored Remus behind me and used the spell I taught Neville earlier to slice through the thick tentacles until Ron was free. I just finished the last one when Lupin caught my hand. "Melbecka. Calm down. We can handle this."
"No," I insisted. "I came here…I was supposed to protect…" I was supposed to protect them all. I was supposed to protect Ron, who was now, well, simple and covered in freshly-sliced brain tentacles. I was supposed to protect Ginny, who was unconscious with a broken ankle. And Neville and Luna and Hermione and Sirius, who I Knew would die the moment I saw him yet I still could not help. My body shook as an effect of all the adrenaline coursing through my veins as I realized how wrong it all went.
"I know."
"You don't!" I snapped. I tried to spin around and face him, but my legs shook violently and I nearly lost my balance. Thankfully, Remus caught me before I hit the ground. "Thank you. Ginny's…"
"I know."
"And Hermione..."
"Melbecka. I know. See?" He motioned to Tonks, who went to Luna first since she was closest to the door. "Everything's going to be all right. Now, let me take a look at you." He pocketed his wand, which eased the fluttering fear in my stomach. "Nymph, can you and Kingsley handle the four of them?"
"I think so," Tonks nodded. "It shouldn't be too hard once we get them to the portkey."
"We'll help with that," he assured her.
Moody, who I was unaware was even in the room, grunted at me. "C'mon, Harper. You want to join the Order, right?" It should have surprised me that he knew, but it did not. At that moment, nothing could surprise me. I was just numb. Completely numb. So, I nodded once, barely dipping my head down. "Good. Then, you can help get Ron to the portkey upstairs. There's work to be done; you can recover later."
Maybe he was harsh, but it didn't feel that way. It felt good to have something to do. My body was thankful to levitate Ron's still-petrified body off of the ground and follow Tonks with Luna, Kingsley with a barely-conscious Ginny (and eventually brave Neville), and Remus with Hermione.
"If we all take one, we can do it in two trips. Sound good?" Remus asked as we reached the floo system, where they left a portkey in the shape of a wooden bowl, entirely too quickly. Had we navigated the Department of Mysteries? Taken the lifts? Crossed the atrium? When? Why had none of that processed in my head? I looked around frantically after putting Ron down and saw Moody stumping away towards a commotion at the far end of the hall. There was a large group of people down there, including our headmaster, but they were too far away for me to figure out what was going on.
"Tonks and I will take the worst of them. We will be fine," Kingsley nodded, sharing a look with my old professor that I would have known the meaning of on a better day. "I am sorry, my friend."
Lupin smiled tightly, which only accented how the difficult years had aged my former professor. It never occurred to me until that moment that Remus Lupin spent thirteen years alone, the only people that accepted him dead, convinced that the one person he had left had betrayed him. And now that things had changed, he lost even the one person he had left from those easier days. My heart hurt for him, this lonely man, fairly young but so, so old.
Kingsley slapped a hand onto his shoulder that Remus covered with his own until Kingsley pulled away, and he caught Tonks's eye for the briefest moment. Thatlook. I knew that look. Even in my muddled, confused state, I could recognize love. I had received that look, given that look. I turned to Tonks to see if she had the look's match, but they were gone. Ginny and Neville were left behind for the moment, the least of the injured. Round Two. Ginny blinked slowly and stared straight ahead, brain still foggy from being stunned.
"What were the orbs in there?" I asked before remus could begin to order me around again.
Remus hesitated before he answered. "Why do you want to know?"
"What were they, Remus?" I wanted to glare at him, but I found the anger to do so beyond me. Maybe that was why he answered; he could see how beaten I was.
"Prophecies. When a Seer makes a prophecy, it is captured in an orb and stored in there. Why do you ask?"
"One of them had…well, it had my name on it." Remus did not flinch at the news. "And, um, these letters. F. to A.P.W.B.D. What does all that mean?"
"F. stands for the Seer, and A.P.W.B.D. is whoever witnessed it." He looked over his shoulder and licked his cracked lip. "I suppose…"
"It broke," I shook my head. "A lot of them did. They fell from the spells we were casting. There was nothing we could do about it, really."
"Oh. Well, I'm sorry, Melbecka." He did not sound so. "Maybe it's for the best. Some things, we don't need to know."
I think I heard it. And I wanted to tell him, but I didn't. With everything else that happened in the Department of Mysteries that evening, a prophecy that may or may not have been about me, may or may not have been ominous, and certainly created more questions than it answered, did not need to be discussed. It was only now that I had time to think about it that I could even see how it the words I heard when regaining consciousness minorly applied to me. I needed more time to figure out if it could really be mine or not. "Yeah, you're right."
"We should get you back to school."
"No. We'll take them back," I told Remus, gesturing to Ginny and Neville. "I-I don't need to stay…I just want to go…" I stopped by myself. I was going to say 'home', but I wasn't really sure where that was anymore. Was it my place in Knowle St. Giles with my mother? No, that had not been home since I was eleven years old and met a pair of redheaded twins on the Hogwarts Express who taught me to live in a completely different way.
Was Hogwarts my home? No, I would be leaving there soon, and it already did not feel like I belonged anymore.
Maybe Grimmauld Place was my home, but I doubted it. I'd grown a fondness for it in my short stay there against my will, which I still remembered quite strongly. But, it was not my home. It was something else. I don't think there's a word for it.
So, what did I want? Where did I want to go? Lupin waited for my response, so I told him the only thing I could think of.
"I want to go see George."
"You will," Lupin assured me, running a hand over my hair in an oddly comforting gesture. "But not right now. You need to go back to school. You don't have to stay, but you need to go. You're injured, and I've heard Madam Pomfrey has a way of handling your…eccentricities." I laughed and smacked his hand away, but it pushed on the glass in my palm and hurt. He noticed my wince and looked at my pointedly. "See, that's what I mean. Go back there, clear your head. Be somewhere familiar for the night."
I sighed. He was right, but I didn't want to go. I wanted George.
He was familiar.
Nothing else was.
I've been writing like a fiend (y'know, if fiends wrote…a lot…), so the next post should be up soon-ish. Hopefully this weekend! Don't worry, she'll be reuniting with the twins soon, really. Not next chapter, but soon. It's coming. Really. I didn't forget about them.
Next Chapter: Thank-You and Goodnight