Chapter 38: A Traitor in Our Midst

The dim lights seemed blurry to Astoria. She was leaning heavily against the castle's stone walls with Tracy beside her, making sure that she was still with them. The pounding in her head had yet to fade and she was feeling faint, she doubted that she could make it much further than where she was now. This was all forgotten however, as soon as Alvar came back to them. "Death Eaters."

Two words were all that were needed to explain the gravity of the situation. "Astoria needs to get back to our common room," Tracy whispered furiously to Alvar.

"Well we aren't going to be able to make it up these stairs, we still have a ways to go to get back to our dorms, we should go for the hospital wing instead," Alvar whispered back, not sounding quite as angry as Tracy was.

It's a funny thing really, being so close to death. Astoria knew that when she had been taking the potion, she had meant it when she said that she wanted to die there. It would have been wonderful. And yet, here she was. It really is strange, how one moment you can be begging for death and the next you can't help but feel ecstatic that you aren't dead. Well, maybe ecstatic isn't the best choice of words but it'll have to do for now. Astoria was tired, very tired. She shook her head as though it would remove the thoughts from her mind. It did.

"Err, what were we talking about?" Astoia asked, she couldn't recall anything that had been said in the past minute.

"We're taking you to the hospital wing. We're going to try to make it up a floor to the hospital wing. If we take the main staircase then we'll get there right away. Alvar's going to turn us invisible and we're going to go up the stairs, he will distract the Death Eaters if it's needed," Hermione explained.

"Oh," Astoria said dumbly.

"Are you okay?" Tracy asked concernedly.

"Yeah," Astoria lied.

"We're going to move very slowly, single file line. I'm going first, then Harry, Hermione, you, and Tracy, okay?" Alvar said.

"Yeah it's fine, let's go." Astoria pushed off from the wall and promptly fell forward and crashed onto the castle floor.

She could hear the voices around her but she couldn't make out their words. They were panicked, then someone shouted. Astoria opened her blurry eyes to see nothing, it was as though she were floating in mid air. She opened her hand in front of her and she knew that it was pressed up against something. "Stop it, you're tickling me," Alvar whispered fiercely.

Astoria let her hand go into a fist again as she leaned deeper into Alvar's back. He was carrying her on his back as they moved throughout the castle. "Slow, everyone."

No matter how hard she tried, Astoria couldn't make much out. Her vision was blurred and she ached all over. Her ears rang and even though she could hear Alvar it seemed that she couldn't hear much beyond that. "Madame Pomfrey?" Alvar whispered harshly.

"Oh shit, get in here," A man whispered.

Astoria felt herself being removed from Alvar's back. She reached out and tried to grasp Alvar's cloak but her hands were being pulled away from him. She cried out and struggled uselessly against her captors. "Stop fighting us Astoria, we're only here to help you."

Everything went black.

"Sirius?" Harry shouted.

Alvar looked down sadly at Astoria. She was passed out now on a bed in the Hospital Wing. She was sweating furiously and she was paler than any ghost in the castle. Tracy came back from the storage room with a small bundle of potions. "Blood replenisher, dreamless sleep…" Tracy muttered to herself as she placed the potions on Astoria's bedside table.

"Is she going to be okay?" Sirius asked as he pulled back from a hug with Harry.

Harry's godfather had saved them. As soon as Astoria had fallen out in the hallway the Death Eaters had immediately come searching for the source of the noise. Alvar had quickly used a wide range invisibility spell on the group and put Astoria on his back and led them out of there. They all held hands as they walked in a single file line toward the stairwell. Astoria had nearly sent him falling back down the stairs when she tickled him but he got her to stop and they continued onward. Right when they got to the Hospital Wing the gate was being lowered and Sirius appeared. He brought them back in and the entrance sealed itself back up again. "I hope so."

"We need to get all of us out of here, we need to find Dumbledore," Sirius told Alvar.

Alvar snorted. "Good luck getting to the Headmaster's office right now, especially with everyone that's here. Our best bet is to make it to our common room, we'll need all of us if we want to take on this host of Death Eaters. They have us surrounded and we don't even know their numbers."

"But Dumbledore could help us," Sirius argued.

"Who do you think activated the defences here? Dumbledore. He's either fighting right now or he's up in his office and believe me, I doubt that he'd be up in his office unless he was seriously hurt. This being said the only place which these defences could be activated is from his office. My guess is that he was out and about in the castle, was caught off guard by the Death Eaters and was injured and fled back to his office where he activated the defences. Right now I don't think that he'd be much of a help. In any case there is sure to be plenty of Death Eaters trying to get into his office. If we can get more able fighters then we can try to make it to him later, but right now we need more fighters."

"What about the teachers?" Harry spoke up.

"Some could help, although I don't know how useful some of them would be," Alvar muttered.

"Flitwick and Sprout should be rather close by, we could go for them first," Sirius suggested.

Alvar nodded. "Harry, is your foot fixed up?"

Harry stood up from the bed and walked over to him. "Well that settles that. Hermione, I need you to stay here with Tracy to watch over Astoria. The three of us are going to go," Alvar told the two girls who were currently hovering over Astoria's bed.

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked nervously.

"Yes, we're sure," Harry answered. "Wait, do you even have your wand, Sirius?"

"Got it right here." He reached to his pocket with his right hand to grab it but he remembered that he couldn't control his hand. He swiftly reached around with his left hand and grabbed his wand from the pocket.

Harry eyed him curiously. "Are you sure that you're okay, Sirius?"

Sirius ran his hand over his bandaged head. "Yeah I think so."

"Alright then, let's go find Flitwick," Alvar told them.

They swiftly exited the room without so much as a backward glance, they had a mission to do and they had to see it through. The castle seemed even darker as they re entered the hallway with eerie shadows flickering across the walls from the torchlight. They walked out to the Grand Staircase. No one. It was deserted. "Where could they be?" Harry murmured.

"I don't know but this isn't the time to question it," Alvar said, leading them down the stairs.

A great gust of wind came over them and all of the torches lighting up the staircase went out. "It seems like we have students out of bed," A chilly voice rang out from above them.

"Move!" Alvar shouted.

The three men ran down the stairs just before an explosion rang out from above them on the staircase. Suddenly light flooded in from above them. Alvar looked up and he saw a mass group of Death Eaters standing on a landing far above them with Draco Malfoy at it's head. "A poor choice, being out in the open on a night like this. Two boys and a scarred old man. Dumbledore can't save you tonight, Potter," Draco spat out angrily.

"Keep moving," Alvar ordered.

"After them!"

Shouts were heard as Alvar, Harry, and Sirius ran down the stairs and out onto the third floor landing. "Right!" Alvar shouted and the three of them turned right and ran down an empty corridor.

A crack was heard before a suit of armor fell down in front of them. Alvar leaped over it and spun around, shooting off a cutting curse. The faint red curse flew down the hall and struck a Death Eater in the stomach. The Death Eater collapsed onto the floor, clutching his stomach while screaming in pain. "How did they get down here so fast?" Sirius wondered aloud as they ran away.

"Jump down and use a spell to stop their fall?" Harry suggested.

"Now is not the time for this discussion," Alvar growled.

Alvar led them down the winding corridors. A few times Harry had pointed out that they weren't going toward the Charms classroom. Alvar was purposefully leading them down a strange path, hoping to confuse the Death Eaters. "You can't hide forever!" A Death Eater shouted.

"There's the charms corridor!" Harry called out.

"Go!"

Alvar stumbled as his calf caught a cutting curse. He cursed as he slid around the corner. "Get Flitwick Harry, Sirius stay here and help me hold them off."

Alvar pulled his hand from left to right and a large stone wall was conjured in front of him, blocking off nearly three quarters of the corridor. "They're over here!" A voice shouted.

The sounds of rushing footsteps echoed loudly through the corridors. Sirius positioned himself in front of the gap in between the castle wall and the conjured wall with his wand at the ready. "Go for kills," Alvar ordered.

"Right," Sirius nodded.

"Professor!" Harry shouted from down the hall, banging on the steel gate that guarded the charms classroom.

The first Death Eater charged into the corridor and Sirius blasted him away with piercing curse through the chest. The Death Eater's momentum was practically reversed as he flew back from the blast of the curse, with a small gaping hole in his chest. Suddenly, a huge influx of Death Eaters reached the entrance. One blasted the wall with an explosive hex to make another entrance into the corridor but this only helped Alvar and Sirius. The hastily made wall cracked and sent large chunks of stone flying at the two but Alvar's shield was able to stop them dead in their tracks. This provided enough cover for the two to get behind. Killing curses and an assortment of other curses rained down upon and around them but their makeshift shields saved them. Alvar tried to recall as many wide area spells as he could to help defend the two but it wasn't needed.

Professor Flitwick sprang onto the scene with Harry in tow. Flitwick, being a former dueling master, was well versed in a wide range of spells and it showed. A large jet of water was sent toward the Death Eaters, knocking many of them off of their feet and disorienting the rest. A freezing charm found many of the soaked Death Eaters frozen in place, only a handful remained that could still fight. Alvar got out of cover and quickly fired off a couple of killing curses which hit their mark, two more dead Death Eaters. The last able bodied Death Eater tried to run but was caught by a basic tripping hex from Sirius before being bound up in invisible bonds by Flitwick.

Flitwick summoned the tied up Death Eater to him and promptly dropped the Death Eater to the floor. He removed the mask of the Death Eater and gasped. "This is Niles Hanley, a Slytherin fifth year student."

"Check some of the other bodies," Alvar told everyone.

Every body they checked told the same tale, the Death Eater was a Hogwarts students. Alvar flipped over another body that had a large hole through it's chest. Alvar removed the mask and found himself looking into the cold dead eyes of Cormac McLaggan. Alvar patted down the body, looking for anything that he could find when he stumbled across a single golden galleon. He pocketed it for later along with Cormac's wand, the only other item other than clothes on the young man.

Alvar absentmindedly cast a cleaning charm on him to clear the blood from his robes. Voldemort had gathered students from all four houses of Hogwarts, all of them willing to kill for their master. It was despicable, they were seemingly hunting any student they could get their hands on. How could they kill their peers, the future of the wizarding world without a second thought? A clinking sound caught his attention. Sirius was standing with a small pile of galleons in his hand staring at them intently. "They had galleons on them too?" Alvar asked.

"Yeah," Sirius muttered, flipping a coin over. He paced around in a circle as he inspected the coins.

Professor Flitwick walked over to them. "Look at this." He held out two galleons, they were identical.

"What of it?" Alvar asked, staring into Flitwick's eyes.

Flitwick chuckled. "It is an impressive bit of charms work, though I am saddened to see it used like this. You see these numbers along the rim, they're unlike the serial numbers that Gringotts uses. They actually spell out a date and a time, today's date to be exact, and the time was set for a little over an hour ago."

Alvar's heart skipped a beat when Flitwick explained it to him. He locked eyes with Harry who was rapidly turning paler and paler. "It might not be hers…" Harry whispered to himself.

"What might not be hers?" Flitwick asked.

Alvar grabbed the galleon from Flitwick's hand and gripped it tightly. "Hermione Granger designed these."

"What!" Sirius exclaimed loudly.

Harry sat down and leaned against the wall, his head hung low staring right at the ground. He looked devastated. Alvar didn't know what to say, Hermione, how could she have done this. She is a muggleborn, surely Voldemort wouldn't accept her into his ranks. Besides, how could she have decided to join them, it wasn't like her at all.

"Maybe, maybe she didn't make these. Maybe a Death Eater or Voldemort had the same idea?" Sirius offered a weak smile.

Harry shook his head sadly. "No, I recognize the charms work, it's hers."

The hallway seemed so much colder right now. Alvar forced his hand into his pocket, to hide the shaking. "We're going back to the Hospital Wing," he stated firmly.

Harry looked up from the ground for a second and Alvar could see just how much this was paining him. He had unshed tears glistening in his emerald green eyes. Alvar knew just how much this was hurting Harry, but it was hurting him too. Hermione had become a very close friend over the past couple of years, he still couldn't get it through his mind that Hermione was working with the Death Eaters. "When we get in there, Flitwick, you and I will stun her. Move in slow, don't make anything seem out of the ordinary. As soon as we're all inside you and I get her, we can question her right after."

Flitwick nodded sadly. Alvar leaned down and offered a hand to Harry. He hesitated for a moment before taking the hand and getting back onto his feet. Sirius coughed loudly and had a horrified look on his face. Alvar and Harry looked over concernedly at the man. Sirius looked into Harry's eyes with sorrow clearly evident on his face. "I don't think that Hermione is the traitor."

He went on to explain everything from the night he was attacked, how Ron entered the house dressed as a Death Eater and when Sirius confronted him he discovered that Ron was a Death Eater. Harry seemed worse than ever, first he had thought that his girlfriend was a traitor, a follower of Voldemort but now he knew that Ron was the true traitor. "I can't believe that Ron would do that," Harry said, shaking his head sadly.

Alvar knew that Harry knew that Ron did it, he was just so hurt and confused at the moment that he didn't know how to react properly. Alvar put his hand on Harry's shoulder but the young man shrugged it off. "Professor, do you know where any of the other teachers are?" Alvar asked.

Flitwick scrunched up his brow. "No, however I believe that they may be inside of one of the common rooms. Professor Sprout is very close the Hufflepuff common room, I believe that she would be there. Professors Snape and McGonagall would hopefully be with their students as well."

"Great, so we would have to hunt all around the school to find the teachers to help us fight these Death Eaters," Alvar ran his hand through his hair and sighed loudly. Nothing was going according to plan tonight, Hogwarts was like a maze, searching around for the teachers would take a lot of time and effort. They couldn't afford to waste time hunting around so they should go straight for Dumbledore and help him. If all of the Death Eaters in the school were students then it shouldn't be too hard to defeat them, but the Death Eaters they just fought proved otherwise.

"We should go to Professor Dumbledore," Harry said quietly.

Alvar stared at Harry, he was finished. "Flitwick and I will, you and Sirius are going back to the Hospital Wing."

"What?" Sirius exclaimed.

Alvar shot him a dark look. "You heard me, neither of you are in a good enough condition to fight, I don't want to have something go wrong and have one or both of you get injured or worse, killed. You two are done here, we'll all go back but then we're leaving you there. We'll find you once we've gotten Dumbledore."

"That's not happening, you can't make this decision for us!" Harry cried out angrily. Harry locked eyes with Alvar and he could see the pain in them. Tears were beginning to stream down his cheeks, he wanted to fight, to continue on but Harry wasn't in the right state of mind to do so.

Alvar shook his head. Harry growled angrily and smashed his hand into the hard stone wall of the castle. This was just too much too fast for Harry to handle, Alvar had thought by now that Harry would be able to control his emotions better than this, but Harry's heart was too pure. He had so much love inside, so much passion for what he did and it was overwhelming for him at times. Alvar could remember a time when he was like that but he had changed, he was able to look at everything objectively and handle his emotions better than most when it was needed. Sure it made him seem cold at times, like nothing could bother him but he had simply learnt how to keep it in without it exploding outward. "Let's go back."

Draco was meandering around the third floor by the library when he saw her. Her dirty blond locks trailing behind her as she ran out of the library with a large tome clutched tightly to her chest. He quickly snapped off a tripping hex and the girl fell to the floor and the tome went sprawling out of her hands. She didn't move as Draco slowly made his way over to her, his footsteps echoing loudly in the almost empty corridor. "Luna Lovegood, what are you doing out of bed?" Draco drawled as he neared.

When he was only a handful of steps away Luna sprang into action. She rolled over and shot of a stunning spell which Draco batted away effortlessly. He continued walking forward casually and replied with a body bind spell. Luna tried to dodge it but Draco's aim bested her and she was frozen on the cold castle floor. She stared up at him with empty eyes as he plucked her wand from her hand. Draco pocketed the wand and with a wave of his wand, Luna was moved into a seating position on the floor, up against the castle wall. He seated himself opposite her and stared at her.

Minuted passed by before Luna spoke. "What are you doing, Draco?" She said airily.

"Sitting here with you," he replied casually, as though the two of them were simply sitting down at a restaurant together.

Luna continued to stare at him and Draco almost found it unnerving. "That wasn't what I meant," she said finally.

"Then perhaps you should tell me what it is that you meant," Draco replied.

"Why are you with the Death Eaters? Why serve under Voldemort?" Luna asked with a curious look on her face.

Draco grimaced at her. He raked his fingers across the smooth stone floor until his fingertips bumped into the wall. "I do it because I believe in his cause. People like Dumbledore… they can't lead our world to where it needs to be. The mudbloods that infect our system are slowly taking everything away that makes us wizards and witches what we are. They try to assimilate us into muggle society without any reverence for what we hold dear. The Dark Lord knows what needs to be done and I am helping him along that path."

"You're not like Voldemort you know," Luna said simply as she leaned her head back against the wall.

"What?" Draco asked with a confused expression on his face. What did she mean that he wasn't like the Dark Lord?

"You and him are not one in the same. You have a level of compassion in you that he never could have."

Draco snorted. "And what pray tell allowed you to determine that I have a level of compassion that the Dark Lord lacks? I have killed in cold blood as he has. I have hurt people because it pleased me."

Luna tiled her head back down and locked her grey eyes on his own grey eyes. "You may have done all of those things but you never did them because you truly wanted to. It was how you were brought up, what you were expected to do. If you hadn't have done those things then you would have been hurt or killed. Besides, if Voldemort saw me walking down the hall then he would have killed me the second he saw me, not stopped what he was doing to have a chat."

Draco grew angry, how dare she speak to him like she knew everything about him? He shot up to his feet and pointed his wand at her head. "I could kill you right now you know," he said coldly.

"But you won't," Luna stated firmly.

His arm was held steady, wand pointed right at her head, he could do it! No, he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of killing her right now. Later, yes later once they leave he could bring her with him to his home and lock her up in the dungeons. Of course! Then she would learn. All of the Death Eaters could show her. Except for you, a small voice whispered in his mind, you won't hurt her, she said something, something that you know to be true.

"Come now Draco, can't you kill a little girl?"

Draco whipped around and found Ron with a wand pointed directly at his head. "You couldn't kill a measly little girl," Ron sneered. "Avada Kedavra!"

Luna's body slumped down onto the floor, she was dead. Draco growled and unconsciously took a couple of steps back. "I had that under control!" He shouted pointing to Luna's corpse.

"Of course you did," Ron said condescendingly. He walked over and picked up the book that Luna was carrying. "My 'friends' asked her to go get this for them, I was to go with her and help protect her. Too bad." Ron set the old tome on fire and dropped it to the floor.

"We could have used her for information on Potter and-" Draco began.

"I'm all the information we needed, anything that she knew I know. I'm done acting like a friend to Potter and the others, I'm going to be staying with the Dark Lord from now on," Ron told Draco with an air or superiority.

Draco suppressed a curse. His hand twitched, he could curse the annoying twit right now. "Well then, I'm going back to see if anyone has made any progress on getting into Dumbledore's office. If we can't get in then we're done here, we'll move out immediately."

"Wonderful." Ron gave a feral grin. "Shall we go then?"

AN: Hello everyone, well we're winding down in the sixth year, there isn't much more to cover. Unfortunately due to upcoming midterms and essays and family events, I don't know when I'll be able to update this story next, definitely not for at least 2 weeks. I wish it wasn't so but unfortunately school comes first. I hope that I'll be able to update near the end of October, perhaps the 25th but don't hold me to that. Anyway, thanks for reading!