Chapter 44: Distillation

A.N. The Battle of Hogwarts began at midnight on the 2nd of May, 1998, and took even more precious lives before it concluded. This is what war does: it takes and it takes. But in crushing people, it also draws out the most precious essences of their humanity: the perfume of their lives.

My baby arrived four weeks ago! Thank you for your good wishes. She is healthy and thriving, and very sweetly slept for the past two hours so that I could finish the last pages of this chapter.

Thank you for your reviews, and for the follows and favorites! The end is near, at least for this little fic.

As far as she knew, Rose was the only adult who had received her message through enchanted coin. Remus soon sent Patronuses to Kingsley, to the Burrow, to Shell Cottage, and to the house of Dedalus Diggle, asking that each recipient, in turn, send Patronuses to other members. As Remus and Rose were walking to the Apparition point of the Tonks' house, a silver hyena bounded up to them and spoke with Fred Weasley's voice:

"Hullo all! Harry's back at Hogwarts; the DA's been summoned to fight. They say the Head Death Eater himself might just stop by! Why don't you Order types come and join? It's sure to be a lark." The hyena then grinned, turned tail, and streaked away.

Rose looked at Remus, who shook his head. "They're taking this about as seriously as James and Sirius took the first war," he commented.

"Bless them," said Rose affectionately. She turned to Tonks, who was standing on the front stoop. Teddy was asleep in his crib. "We'll send word as soon as we can," she told her. Tonks only nodded. Her eyes, though they were red-rimmed, were dry, and she lifted a hand in farewell as Remus and Rose joined hands and Disapparated.

When she and Remus arrived in the pub, they found Molly and Arthur Weasley conversing with a rather surly looking white-bearded man. This was the first time Rose had seen Aberforth Dumbledore, never having visited The Hog's Head during her time at Hogwarts, but she recognized him immediately. His expression, manner of dress, and voice were quite different, but his eyes brought Albus to her mind immediately.

"I suppose you're wanting to get over to the school too, to try and throw yourselves in front of some Death Eaters?" he asked them harshly.

"We are coming to help protect the school and students, yes, Aberforth," Remus answered him. Aberforth only shook his head and grumbled as he led them to the fireplace, where the portrait of a sweet-looking blonde girl was hanging.

"This lot wants to come through too, Ari," he told her, and she smiled, just before he opened the portrait like a door and motioned for the four adults to pass through.

They emerged from the end of a long tunnel into a brightly lit room full of young people. Rose spotted Ron and Hermione immediately among many other members of Dumbledore's Army, and though the Weasleys made a beeline for them, Rose stood still. She searched the room for Harry, but she could not find him anywhere. Soon, she and Remus were joined by Bill, Fleur, and Kingsley, and they had to move over to make room for each new arrival. Rose felt dazed, overwhelmed. Voices and bodies surrounded them, but they were a blur on her senses. Then a voice behind her said her name.

"Professor Evans! Excellent! Glad you could make it to our little party!"

Fred and George Weasely were standing behind her, next to Lee Jordan. "I'm doing a bit of a Hogwarts post-doc, Professor," Lee said jovially. "I was thinking of some field experience in the area of protest and civil disobedience. Will you be my advisor?"

Flooded with sudden warmth, Rose smiled. "Certainly! It is an unconventional method of study, but is sure to be effective. And it has the advantage of involving no paperwork."

"That's my favorite method of study!" George cried.

"Hear, hear," said Fred.

Rose talked with her former students for several minutes; she was pleased to catch up with Katie Bell when she arrived alongside Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnett. They were in the middle of catching Rose up on their post-Hogwarts doings when the room suddenly became hushed. Luna Lovegood and Harry had just come into view in the hallway.

Harry stopped, staggered by the sight of so many people, and as his eyes swept the room, they caught Rose's for a moment. She smiled at him in what she hoped was an encouraging way, but he only looked aghast.

Remus approached the door. "Harry, what's happening?" he asked.

Rose was at the other end of the room, so she did not catch every word which passed between Harry and Lupin, but she distinctly heard him say, "Voldemort's on his way," which communicated worlds to her. If Harry is saying his name after everything that has passed, then the time for caution and deliberation is truly past, she thought, and edged closer to hear what Harry said next.

Fred was explaining to Harry how they had gotten word to the older DA members and the Order of the Phoenix ("You can't expect everyone to miss the fun, Harry"). When George asked Harry what was going on, Harry said simply,

"They're evacuating the younger kids and everyone's meeting in the Great Hall to get organized. We're fighting."

He looked at Lupin, and then at Rose as he said this. Rose nodded to him as a great cheer went up at Harry's words. And then the majority of the people in the room were off in a rumbling swell, into the corridors of the school. Rose noticed that Harry, Remus, and the Weasleys had remained behind, and she sidled up to them while Kingsley waited at the door.

"One of these days you're going to have to tell me all your stories," she told Harry, while his eyes darted between her and the scene at the back of the room. Ginny was arguing with her mother about whether she should be allowed to fight.

Harry tore his eyes from Ginny and looked at Rose. "Are you doing all right?"

"I'm fine. You're the one who looks like a battlefield." Harry's hair had grown to his shoulders, now, and since she had last seen him he had accumulated quite a few minor injuries. She was sure that many of the marks on his arms, hands, and face were burns.

"I'm OK," he said shortly. And his eyes went back to Ginny. Rose remembered that they had broken up, "for a stupid, noble reason," according to Ginny. He seemed too distracted to have further conversation with Rose, so she turned to Kingsley.

"Shall we assist with the evacuation?" he asked her, and she nodded and followed him out of the Room and into the corridor.

As it turned out, the evacuation was not yet underway when Kingsley and Rose arrived in the Great Hall. Students were still trickling out of bed in pairs and groups, pyjama-clad and confused. Some had clearly just woken up, while others looked more clear-eyed and spoke to each other in anxious undertones. Their first task had been to round the students up and bring them to the Great Hall where Minerva McGonagall would address them.

Severus Snape had fled the school. The general consensus among both students and staff alike was that he was, really and truly, a Death Eater in good standing, and certainly in Voldemort's service. Rose found herself remembering what Snape had said to her, over a year ago, when she had finally learned to brew Wolfsbane.

"There may be a time," he told her then, speaking of Voldemort, "when he will no longer countenance any apparent disloyalty. I may need to prove my allegiance by abandoning my position here."

The back of Rose's mind kept contemplating Snape as she and Kingsley led group after group of students into the Great Hall. Did he hint at his future actions because he intended to remain loyal to the Order, but knew he would have to act as if he were not? Or did he only say it to try to keep my trust? Even as he committed himself to treachery and prepared to join the Death Eaters once again-? Snape's long, sallow face was in her mind. She remembered his expression when he said that Lily would be proud of her success with Wolfsbane; her thoughts on both sides of the question were saturated with doubt.

Minerva McGonagall presided over the assembly in the Great Hall. Once Harry and the rest of the Dumbledore's Army contingent had arrived, she addressed them from the platform, giving direction for the order of evacuation, and answering those who wished to fight with qualified permission: "If you are of age," she told Ernie MacMillan, "you may stay."

When, moments later, she alluded to Snape's having "done a bunk" that evening, Rose did not miss the utter contempt in her voice. He's convinced them all of his guilt, for better or for worse, she thought. She wondered even as she thought this why the question of Snape's allegiance should seem important to her just now. She supposed it was because the preparations for battle at Hogwarts had so much the appearance of a last stand. It would be a timely moment for Severus to strike a blow for our side, she thought, as she watched Harry's figure pacing up and down the Hall.

And then Minerva's instructions were overwhelmed by a chilling voice which seemed to pour forth from the very walls.

"I know that you are preparing to fight," it said. Rose, along with nearly everyone else, gasped, and looked frantically around for the speaker. "Your efforts are futile," it continued. "You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you, I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood." Dimly Rose was able to wonder as she listened in horror and disgust, whether Tom Riddle would consider her own blood, and the blood of the other listening Muggle-borns, to be magical.

"Give me Harry Potter," Voldemort demanded next, "and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you shall be rewarded. You have until midnight."

Rose, like all the rest of those assembled in the Hall, looked at Harry at Voldemort's closing words. She thought she had never loved him as much as she did that moment. And when Pansy Parkinson called out that they should grab him for Voldemort, she thought she had never before felt hatred for a student. Her very bones felt charged as she and everyone in his house immediately drew their wands and stepped between Harry and the Slytherin table, to be joined by the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. And then the whole scene disappeared as blinding pain filled Rose's head.

The same voice as before seemed to reverberate within Rose's skull.

And I see you, Rose Evans. Do not think I do not know what you have done this year, in your insolence and your infinite foolishness. So great is your concern for those who have died opposing me that it is clear you wish to join them.

But I shall not make it a quick death. Hide where you will, there will be no avoiding me. Your agony will be the greatest of all who die tonight. Fight while you may. I will find you in the end.

When the voice ceased, Rose realised she had fallen to her hands and knees on the floor. She opened her eyes to see Harry's face looking at her in concern. "Rose. Tata. What is it? Are you all right?" he was asking her, his green eyes wide.

She swallowed and let out a shaking breath before answering. "Yes. It's- it's nothing for you to worry about, Harry." He looked utterly unconvinced, but McGonagall had come dashing up to them.

"Potter," she said, "Aren't you supposed to be looking for something?"

"Something's wrong with Rose," he protested.

"We will take care of your aunt, Potter," she told him. Some of her usual briskness was missing from her voice.

"Harry. Listen to me." Rose had sat up and was leaning toward her nephew, gripping his arm. "His doom is on him. You can finish it, Dumbledore knew you could. I know you can. End him, and you end it for all of us. Go, darling," she added, when he still hesitated. Then he nodded, stood, and ran toward the entrance hall.


It was over an hour before most of the defenders of the castle saw combat. The first effort was all toward reinforcing the school against attack, using everything from Mandrakes to animated suits of armor and enchanted stone gargoyles. Rose joined Arthur and Remus in setting up the same sorts of protective enchantments they had set over the Montgomerys' home, and the homes of countless Muggles and others vulnerable to Death Eaters since the second War began.

Under the starry sky, on the relative quiet of the grounds, the Order members who spread themselves around the perimeter of the castle grounds worked at their enchantments like weavers at an enormous loom. Rose was reminded of their dancing at the Christmas Party at Grimmauld Place, which seemed a decade ago now. She felt again that they were weaving a heavy, solid fabric, woven with the fibers of defiance and love. And at that moment, Rose knew that she belonged to this patch of land in Scotland, the site of their final fight against Voldemort, more than she had ever belonged to Beauxbatons.

The enchantments kept the Death Eaters out for a time. They could see them, dark figures on the grass, some with lit wands, throwing spells at the invisible barrier that surrounded the school. The defenders spread themselves over the grounds, reinforcing the spells as one would darn a sock. But then there was a shout from Remus, and Rose spun round to see several Death Eaters surrounding a tall, pale figure whose skin shone in the dark. He lifted his wand hand, but before he began his assault upon the barrier to the castle, he looked directly at Rose. The same pain that had reached her in the great hall engulfed her head again.

I would run, if I were you, came his voice in her head, sounding cold and faintly amused. And then the pain ceased, and she got to her feet, and he was chanting his counter-spells against their protection. Rose and the other defenders were inside Hogwarts' gates before they heard the victorious shouts of the Death Eaters who were the first to attack the school.

The fighting was very different from the fighting she had done at the Ministry, or inside Hogwarts the previous year, or even at Bill and Fleur's wedding. All was dark, and at first, confused. Bodies streaked by, and unless they stopped and attacked, it was very hard to tell which side they were on. Rose was able to Stun one Death Eater, but she merely avoided the curses of the others. She found herself edging closer and closer to the castle itself, feeling the need for both light and a wall at her back.

As she did so, she became aware that defenders of the castle were firing spells from windows. "STUPIFY!" came a voice that sounded very much like Tonks, but though Rose craned her neck at the window she could not make out any faces. And then she was berating herself for her stupidity, for there were Death Eaters upon her and she needed all of her quick reflexes and school training to keep them from having the advantage. Here Rose quickly saw the disadvantage of her position, so near to the light of the castle: her enemies could recognize her immediately. And tonight, they all fought to kill.

It crossed her mind as she sent Stunners and Body-Bind jinxes at her foes that perhaps the time had come to meet deadly force with deadly force. It did not seem likely that anyone would blame the defenders of Hogwarts, should the war actually end and the events of that evening come to light, for killing those that sought to kill them.

But as Rose dodged a Killing Curse and parried with a Stunner that connected with a short, squat Death Eater, she thought of Harry, Disarming Death Eaters in the sky that last summer. Harry would never duel to kill, she decided. And she wondered, between conflicts with the attackers, what he was doing, how many Horcruxes they had left to destroy, and if, after losing the Sword to Griphook, they had found another way to destroy them. Far from distracting her, she found that thinking of Harry renewed her determination to fight, so that she soon found herself moving further from the castle, pursuing the Death Eaters rather than waiting to be pursued.

At one point, after blocking a spell from a Death Eater who turned and fled when she attacked him, Rose was momentarily alone. Except, in the sudden quiet which followed, she was able to make out a rustling noise, the sound a robe would make if it swept over the dry leaves behind the shrubbery. And then there came a whisper.

"Rose Evans."

Her whole body tensed at first, thinking that it was Voldemort himself who stood in the shadow of the towering hedge. But no; that was not his chilling voice, nor was the voice accompanied by the pain which she had learned to associate with Voldemort. This voice was low, cold, but not menacing, and as it spoke her name again she realized it was also familiar.

"Miss Evans. A word?"

"Severus?" she whispered.

"Yes," he replied. "I will not harm you. I wish… to communicate something." When she only stood, frozen with uncertainty, her wand arm still raised, he added, "Please."

She knew she had only seconds to decide what to do before someone was sure to find them, either a Death Eater to attack her, or a Hogwarts defender who would probably attack Snape. "Quickly," was all she said, and when he disappeared back into the hedge, she followed him. When they were both concealed in the narrow space between the hedges and the courtyard wall, Snape murmured, "Muffliato." And then they were facing one another.

In the dim light, Rose could not make out his expression. She decided to be blunt. "You killed Albus Dumbledore," she stated.

"I do not deny it," he answered.

"Why?"

"He was dying. We agreed upon it, as a last resort. He preferred it."

Rose's mind was spinning. Never had Severus given her such blunt information so quickly, and she had a thousand questions. Why was Dumbledore dying? How did they know? He preferred being killed by Severus- to what other death, exactly? But she gave voice to none of these questions, asking instead,

"Whose side are you on, Severus?"

"Yours. Dumbledore's," he said simply.

Why should I believe you? Was on her tongue, but instead Rose settled for a simple, "Why?"

"Lily," was his equally simple answer. But the single word confirmed what she had suspected for years.

"You loved her," Rose said. It was not a question.

He went silent for a moment, and then said only, "Yes." But that single word contained more emotion than she'd ever heard in his voice before.

"How can I believe you?" was her next question, though if she was honest with herself, she believed him already. She supposed she wanted an argument which would convince anyone besides herself, Minerva perhaps, or Harry, if she was to be asked to explain or defend him.

Rose thought she could make out Snape's face, twisting into something which resembled his accustomed sneer. "You may not. But Potter must. He will, when he sees this." Snape reached into his sleeve, and Rose stepped back, raising her wand. But he only withdrew a small object, impossible to see in the dark, but clearly not a wand. He held it out to her silently and waited until Rose lowered her wand and took the object from him. She felt it: a small, stoppered phial, heavy with some liquid.

"A potion?" she asked, uncertainly.

"A memory. Or rather, several memories. Potter- Harry. He must see them. He must know what he must do, the last piece of the puzzle. The last step to ending Him." Snape stayed very still while he spoke, but his eyes glittered in the dark.

It was perhaps his use of her nephew's name, the first time she had heard him call Harry by his name, that solidified it for Rose. He was sincere.

"So you want me to find Harry and give him these memories. Your memories?" she asked, now looking fixedly into what she could see of his face.

"Yes, they are my memories. And they explain- everything. Except one thing. You must tell him that Dumbledore believed he would be able to return. Tell him just that: he is bound to his enemy, and so, he will be able to return."

"He will be able to return," Rose repeated. "I suppose this will make more sense to him than it does to me?"

"After he has seen the memories, yes. Do you know where he is?"

"He is in the castle, looking for something. Or, he was when I last saw him."

Snape nodded, as if he expected this. "Then, you will have more success than I in finding him." There was a shout from outside the gate, followed by the loudest, most sonorous bellow Rose had ever heard. "HAGGER?" it queried, and then the creature's reverberating footfalls entered the gate. Another incredibly loud, deeper roar seemed to answer it, and the ground outside where Rose and Snape stood shook.

"Giants?" Rose gasped.

"Yes," he replied. His voice was almost bored. "I must go. Make sure the boy sees what is in that," he said, gesturing toward the phial in Rose's hand. He turned, and began to step noiselessly away from her.

"Wait," Rose said, and he stopped. "You're not- are you going back to him?" she asked.

"If I must, yes. There is little else I can do, now." His voice was resigned. And suddenly Rose was filled with a powerful melancholy. This unpleasant, bitter man, who had loved her sister, who had protected her and Harry despite himself, who had taught her to make Wolfsbane for a man he loathed, this man was going back into profound danger. To what end? The despondency of his face as he turned back away from her cut to her heart. Before she could think any further, Rose stepped carefully and sideways through the protruding hedge branches until she was nearly touching him. He stepped back at first, but she placed a hand on his arm and said, softly, "Severus."

He froze. She could think of no other words to say, so she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. His eyes, which she could now see clearly, went wide. Clumsily, he patted her hand twice, and then, with a stricken expression, slid silently out of the hedge. In a moment, he was through the gate.

"Snape!" she heard a Death Eater greet him. "We're looking for a tunnel inside."

"Then, no doubt you will find one," Snape's voice drawled, and then both of their voices went out of her hearing.


Where was Harry? This question began to beat in her veins more insistently by the minute once Rose had fought her way to the entrance hall, then into the Great Hall, then through the first-floor corridors. She had not realized there were so many Death Eaters; either they had been recruiting in huge numbers since the last time the Order had staked out one of their meetings, or they had somehow managed to defy Gamp's Elemental Laws of Transfiguration and duplicate human beings. No sooner would Rose have Disarmed, or Stunned, or simply outrun one masked fighter than another would appear around the next corridor, or from behind a crowd of Hogwartians.

Outside, the battle raged noisily. Rose occasionally saw or heard something which made her feel a fleeting desire to dash outside the castle. Especially did she struggle to keep her focus on finding Harry when Tonks came hurtling around a corner and nearly ran into her. Rose had managed to stun and bind Thorfinn Rowle a moment before.

"Tonks! What's happened? Is Teddy-?"

"He's fine," Tonks said breathlessly. "I just- I couldn't wait. Have you seen Remus?"

"Not for a while. Have you seen Harry?" But Tonks had already rounded the corner and was out of earshot. Rose felt a terrible chill, then. The look on Tonks' face, half stubbornness, half intrepid courage, made her look very much like Sirius.

Rose felt the phial in her robe pocket, and willed herself to continue the search for Harry. On the second floor, she encountered Ginny in the company of three of her brothers, none of whom turned out to be Ron. All four were engaged in lobbing some sort of explosives out of a window that looked as if it had been half destroyed by giants.

"Have any of you seen Harry?" Rose asked them, hurrying forward to steady Ginny, who looked about to join a large chunk of the castle in falling onto the grounds.

"Not for a while!" Ginny replied. "He and Ron and Hermione sent us all out of the Room of Requirement; they said they needed it for something." Ginny's face was scratched, her hair wild, but she had a look of exhilaration mixed with fear on her face that drew Rose's admiration, even in her desperation to find Harry. Rose felt that she would like to stay with her, with all the Weasleys she could find, and but for the phial in her pocket she would have done so.

"I have to find him; there's something he needs to know," she said over her shoulder by way of explanation as she dashed away from them to the stairs.

On the seventh floor, Rose paced back and forth in front of the room, trying to concentrate on asking the room to become the place it had become for Harry instead of on the fleeting glimpses of brawling giants she kept getting from the window. Over and over again she attempted it, but the door simply would not appear. She had feared as much. She knew enough about the room from Harry's fruitless attempts to find Draco Malfoy the previous year to know that one needed a very specific idea of what the Room was to become in order to find it, and that when it was in use, there was no hope of it becoming anything else.

Rose gripped the sides of her head to try to rein in her panic. After a few steadying breaths, she had just made up her mind to stake out in front of the Room and fight off any enemy who made it that far, when she was distracted by the view from the window. The giants had moved to a different portion of the castle; instead, Rose was horrified to see Tonks and Remus dueling three Death Eaters. They were fighting impressively together, but Rose did not like their odds.

Still, she might have stayed where she was for the sake of Severus' message had not a fourth Death Eater joined the other three. Bellatrix LeStrange came into view, attacking Tonks with a wild, yet deadly energy. Tonks' scream of outrage and fear quickly gave way to increasingly desperate fighting. Rose could no longer stay where she was. I will have to come back and find Harry afterwards, was all she could think before she pounded down the stairs and began to fight her way to the grounds. Ginny, Percy, and the twins passed her on the stairs, but Rose did not spare a moment to explain herself. Within minutes, she was in the place where Remus and Tonks had been fighting, only to find that neither was there any longer. What she found, instead, were spiders.

Time had long ago lost meaning. Rose spent the next minutes (or, perhaps, hours?) in the company of Hogwarts students and professors, defending herself and those around her from a numberless hoard of the enormous spiders. It was there that she suffered her first real injury of the battle, for despite her vigilance she was caught off guard while throwing curses at the spiders who surrounded Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, she tripped over another hairy spider and found herself under several of their horribly crawling bodies before she could right herself.

A sharp pain in her ankle made her cry out; one of the spiders had bitten her. And then, they were all off of her, blasted by someone's spell, and a hand was extended to help her up. Neville Longbottom helped her to her feet, asking, "All right, Professor?" before he sent another curse at a different spider.

The pain in her ankle did not diminish, but she could not afford to attend to it. Hagrid had come charging into the herd of spiders, yelling, "Don't hurt 'em, don't hurt 'em!" before being overcome himself and borne away by the very spiders he was trying to protect. At that moment, Harry appeared from nowhere, shouting after Hagrid and running bent over because of the volume of spells filling the air.

"HARRY!" Rose shouted at him.

He did not seem to hear; instead, he charged away from the castle and into the grounds, bellowing "HAGRID!" as he ran. Rose tried to pursue him, but the pain in her ankle made her progress slow. Ron and Hermione soon overtook her and blew past her, Hermione only stopping to throw her an anguished look before continuing to pursue Harry.

As far as Rose could tell, they were headed in the direction of the Whomping Willow and the Forest, rather than the Quidditch Pitch or the Lake. She limped along, stopping occasionally to throw up a Shield Charm or cast a Stunner on a Death Eater. But these were fewer the further she went from the school. At the edge of the forest, Rose was overtaken again by runners.

Bellatrix LeStrange, cackling madly, was being chased by a sobbing, shouting woman; before Rose could make out who she was, she tripped over what turned out to be a body. Her heart in her throat and her ankle still throbbing, Rose pushed the body over and felt her blood freeze. It was Remus.

Frantically she reached out a hand to feel for a pulse, even as Bellatrix stopped and turned to confront her pursuer. Tonks. Rose's stomach seized.

"One blood traitor deserves another!" Bellatrix exclaimed, easily parrying Tonks' hex. "You should be thanking me, little cousin!" she continued, while Tonks tried and failed to hit her with curse after curse. "The dog you married was rabid!"

There was no pulse to feel. No breath fell on Rose's outstretched hand. Bellatrix had killed her surrogate brother, one of her best, and only remaining, friends. And with this realization, Rose leaped to her feet and joined Tonks in sending curses flying at Bellatrix, who could no longer be ignorant of her presence.

"Ah, haha! There she is! The Mudblood, whom the Dark Lord is so eager to meet! You must no longer keep him waiting, girl! I shall bring you to his feet myself, shall I?" she asked, her face fierce and her cruel eyes dancing. She was more than a match for Tonks and Rose's combined efforts, but they kept her busy. Tonks' grief had made her clumsier on her feet even than usual, but her volley of spells was unrelenting. Rose tried to time her own hexes so that they fell just after Tonks', hoping to overwhelm their foe, but Bellatrix only laughed and danced, seeming to duel them for sheer enjoyment. As the minutes passed, Rose noticed that Bellatrix tried with every spell to kill Tonks, but she never used worse than a few Crucios on Rose, and the back of her mind wondered at this. None of the Cruciatus curses connected with Rose, but it took all that she could do to keep up with even half of Bellatrix's ability. Here, at last, was a truly formidable foe.

And then Bellatrix seemed to become bored with the situation. She didn't slow her pace, but she seemed to run out of taunts for them and at last said, "Enough. Enough of you-" and she sent a jet of green light at Tonks that connected, and Tonks fell to the earth like a rag doll. Bellatrix took advantage of Rose's scream of fear and fury to land a curse on her, and Rose too fell to the earth.

All was pain, pain that had had no beginning and would never end except in her death. Rose's whole body became a living node of pain; she herself had become a scream. And she screamed, and she screamed, and she would live out the rest of her life screaming, until abruptly, it all stopped.

She was gasping for breath, her face in the dirt. The pounding footsteps and shrieking laugh had nearly faded from her hearing by the time Rose was able to raise her head and realize that she was still alive. She looked over the grass to where Tonks had fallen and saw her sightless eyes staring just above Rose's head. In the distance, Rose heard Bellatrix's voice call out to her from the direction of the Forbidden Forest,

"Your death will be at the Dark Lord's pleasure, Mudblood! And it will be my very great pleasure to watch!"

Rose could not have justified her decision to get to her feet and limp after Bellatrix. After all, she could not have caught up with her, nor could she probably have hoped to defeat her in a duel. But somehow in Rose's mind, Tonks' and Remus' deaths were not fully real, and might not be real if she could only reach Bellatrix. She limped as quickly as she could, brushing away tears as she screamed,

"Salope! Espèce de grosse merde! Lâche!1 Fight me, then!"

Rose turned her limp into a painful run for a few paces, then fell heavily to the ground when her uninjured foot caught in a hole in the ground. She grunted, and cried out in frustration as she sensed a sprain in her other foot.

There was a distant cackle, and then a much nearer shout. "BELLA!" A rough voice sounded. "Is this the Mudblood? She is to be delivered to the Dark Lord; you know that." Rose was struggling to her feet when heard the man's "Incarcerous!" and felt the cords encircle her body as she fell to the ground yet again.

"But it's so much more fun to watch her chase me, Rody!" Bellatrix's voice, closer now, had a strange kind of appealing little whine to it as she answered the man Rose realized must be her husband, Rodolphus.

"Never mind your games," the man said harshly, but was prevented from saying more by another resonant projection of Voldemort's high voice. Rose whimpered involuntarily at the sound.

"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery," it said. "Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste." Rodolphus and Bellatrix stood at attention while the voice spoke, though Rodolphus kept his eyes on Rose.

"Lord Voldemort is merciful," the voice continued. "I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour…"

The voice continued, but at that moment Rodolphus spat, "Wait here, Mudblood. Stupify." And Rose knew no more.

She must have hit her head during one of her many falls to the ground, Rose decided, for her skull throbbed as she came to, still face down in the dirt. She felt the cords Rodolphus had bound her with still cutting into her skin, but she also felt her wand, still in her hand. "Relashio," she muttered, and the cords fell away.

As she struggled to her hands and knees, though, Rose understood the reason for the pain in her head, for it surged with the intrusion of Voldemort's voice again.

I will kill Harry Potter tonight, Rose Evans, it said, and when I can spare the time, I will come for what is left of you.

When the pain and the voice subsided, Rose opened her eyes and saw the starry sky go black. The air went very cold.

And then she was surrounded. Dementors glided all around her, like silent, graceful vultures and she knew that all was lost. Voldemort's forces would surely overcome the Hogwarts defenders. Remus and Tonks, now her closest friends, were dead. How many others were dead? Sirius had fallen, fallen, fallen away from her behind the black curtain and even his whispers did not reach her now.

Her mind's eye was crowded with the dead, but she could not remember them alive. She only remembered their deaths, and the horrible clench in her stomach and the echoing emptiness in her heart when she learned of their deaths.

Her parents, their bodies broken by the crush of an automobile…

James and Lily, killed far away from her in a flash of green light…

Sirius, gone,

Emmeline Vance, gone,

Dumbledore, gone,

Remus,

Tonks,

each death like stones piled on her chest, making it harder and harder to breathe and impossible to stand.

Owls soared around the ceiling of the Volière, each wailing, a cacophony of the hideous sounds of grief circling her head.

All the beautiful dreams of her childhood, of dancing, the lovely sound of music, the softness of beautiful fabrics, the smells and sights of faraway cities, were gone, and all had come to this: the loss of her soul on a muddy stretch of ground in Scotland under an opaque, starless sky. The moon could not help her now, and she would surely die here, the phial still in her pocket, unable to get to Harry.

Harry. She could see him in her thoughts, his serious green eyes and sudden mischievous smiles under his mess of black hair. Goodbye, Harry, she thought. I'm so sorry. I tried.

But at the thought of her nephew, something in Rose stirred. All was dark, the Dementors were very near, but she remembered what Voldemort had said: "I will kill Harry Potter tonight." Harry was not yet dead. Harry was still alive, Harry, her little friend, Lily's baby, her family, he was still alive.

In an instant, Rose seemed to see dozens of memories of Harry at once: Harry, playing Dudley's Playstation and laughing; Harry, leaning forward confidentially over tea in her office; Harry, applauding the performance at The Globe, his eyes wide with enjoyment; Harry, hugging her after Sirius' death; Harry, blithely calling her Auntie and disappearing under his Cloak.

Harry. There was, after all, one person she could love who was still alive. All her hopes were not, in fact, gone, and as Rose felt the spark of life kindle inside her she also felt the hard wood of her cedar wand in her hand.

But she had never been able to cast a Patronus before, and her hope faltered. And yet- thought was following thought with breathless rapidity- she was not the woman she had been when she had last attempted a Patronus, lying on the bed next to Sirius. She was certainly not the girl she had been in Contre classes. Rose had always hoped that Remus would teach her to cast a Patronus as he taught Harry, but instead, he taught her to cry, and to grieve, and not to fear her feelings. And perhaps, perhaps that was good enough after all-

For as Severus had said, it was not a matter of the degree of one's happiness, but of one's ability to concentrate on that happiness. With an abandon that she had never known before, Rose opened her whole body and soul to the feeling of joy prompted by the idea of Harry, alive before her. Harry is alive, she allowed her whole mind to open to hope. She was crying, but she didn't care. Harry is my family, and we will laugh together again. Harry, I haven't given up, Harry!

The closest Dementors leaned toward her, greedy for the taste of the hope and the happiness that filled her, but Rose cried out with a conviction she had never felt before, "Expecto Patronum!" and a large silver shape flew from her wand. The Dementors fell away from its dazzling light.

It flew- yes, flew, for the silvery shape was, quite clearly, a snowy owl- in ever-widening circles around Rose until every last hooded figure had fled and Rose was alone under a starry sky.

She watched the Patronus for several minutes, basking in the exhilaration of its flight, until she thought of Harry and his danger. The silver owl flickered and nearly went out, but she steadied herself and beckoned to the bird. There was a trick to imparting words to one's Patronus; you had to think an incantation. Rose had never learned the gist of it as she had never before been able to produce a Patronus at all. Perhaps he will understand if he sees it? He may know that I am looking for him, and find me, she thought. She said aloud to the bright owl at the center of the silvery light, "Find him. Go and find Harry, please."

With a shimmering toss of its head, the bird lifted into the air and flew away in the direction of the Forest. But there was no return of the Dementors. Rose was still sitting alone in an exhausted daze when Kingsley Shacklebolt, pacing the grounds in search of any more bodies to collect, found her.

He lifted her in his arms. "You need Madam Pomphrey, Rose," he told her firmly as he strode toward the castle, carrying her in front of him, her head bobbing on his shoulder.

"I need to find Harry. I've done it, Kingsley! My Patronus. It's gone to find Harry. He's alive. I have to find him, Kingsley, where is Harry?" she jabbered, and he patted her head soothingly.

"There, now. We'll find him as soon as we can. Let's get you patched up." And Rose had no more strength to argue.


Deep in the Forbidden Forest, Harry marched, the silvery shapes of his mother, father, Lupin, and Sirius forming a kind of honor guard around him as he went. His father's words, Until the very end, were still ringing in his ears when another silvery shape joined them, not walking but flying above all of their heads. He looked up at it in dreamy wonder.

"Hedwig?"

How fitting that she had come. How fitting that she, like the shapes of his human protectors, was helping to ward off the Dementors that had been gliding through the forest minutes ago. He was walking to his own death, and he knew it, but when the silvery snowy owl alighted on his shoulder and nipped his ear affectionately, improbably, Harry smiled.


1 "Bitch! You piece of fucking shit! Coward!"