Credits: HP BELONGS TO JK AND EVERYONE ELSE DOES TOO!!!!
Author's Note: I know I haven't beemn posting very often (sorry), but I had exams... YUCKY!!! And now I'm finally over them! And I think I passed every one! So, now I'm celebrating by posting this... erm, yeah... so, please read and review!
Chapter 12
For one split second, there was silence. The next,
pandemonium broke out.
Screams erupted from the mouths of people in the Three
Broomsticks, and they jostled with each other to get out of the way, scraping
chairs and knocking over tankards in their rush to get outdoors. Nirry,
Ron and Hermione sat, staring out of the window in disbelief. The giant
skull outside glared down at them evilly, as if able to see their faces.
A small man in long, black cloak and black mask ran across
their range of vision. He was clearly shouting something to the crowd of
black-robed followers running behind him. All had their wands out and all
were acting as though they were having the time of theirs lives, blasting shops
and shattering windows in their way.
"Oh, no, oh no, its- the Death Eaters- they're
here..." Hermione began whispering frantically. Ron turned to her,
eyes wide. His words were spoken in a sarcastic yet terrified whisper.
"Really, Hermione, I rather thought they were something
else, like fluffy little bunny rab-"
Without warning, a bright-yellow spark of light rammed
through the glass, shattering it, then going on to graze Nirry's forehead and
disappear into the darkened pub. She gave a small gasp of surprise, then
seemed to regained her senses. Ron and Hermione had leapt up from their
seats when the spell shot through the window to avoid the glass. Her hands
shaking slightly, Nirry reached up to her forehead to feel a long, wide cut
raking her hairline. Her hand came away slick with blood.
Hermione looked with horror at her head. "Nirry!
Oh, no, come on, we've got to get out of here!"
Nirry shook her head. There was no pain from the
blood-drenched cut; rather, a deep feeling of numbness was spreading from her
forehead down her face.
"You guys, let's go, come on..." she got up
quickly amid her friends' concerned looks, then forced a smile on her face,
which was hard to do as the numbness was spreading from her forehead slowly
down to her mouth. She shook her head again.
"I'm fine," she said impatiently. Outside,
they could hear screams and yelps coming from different directions.
Steathily, Nirry began to move toward the door, motioning for the two to
follow.
"Careful," murmured Nirry as they shuffled
outside, barely moving her lips, "they're still here..."
Death Eaters were chasing people around, enjoying their
screams and terrified yells. Nirry looked around for an escape route, and
spotted a narrow gap between shops.
"Over there, we've got them surrounded!" a voice
roared through the night. Nirry could just make out Professor
McGonagall's profile as she herded villagers safely to another side and
motioned for another batch of wizards to come forth. The Death Eaters
began to scatter, dispersing to hide in the woods.
From their cranny in the wall, Nirry poked her head
out. She could see her breath, coming in short gasps in the deepening
twilight. Not ten meters away, they could see Allies and Death Eaters
shooting spells at each other, shouting themselves hoarse and running to avoid
the other's wands. Nirry gestured to the others, careful not to make a
sound in case someone should notice. She dashed across the street into
the welcome darkness of the nearby trees, marking the beginning of the
Forbidden Forest. Panting, Hermione and Ron arrived seconds later.
"Are they mad?" gasped Ron in a whisper, looking
nervously around them. The tall black trees muffled sounds, and the eerie
quiet seemed foreboding. The yells in Hogsmeade sounded far away.
Nirry felt the hard edge of her wand sticking up from inside her robes, and
reached inside to withdraw it.
"Right," said Hermione nervously, taking her own
wand out as well.
"Lumos," they whispered, and dim lights at
the end of their wands lighted the damp forest around them. Quiet,
restrained footsteps could be heard all around them, as if the owners were trying
hard not to run. Nirry, Ron and Hermione backed up nervously into the
forest. The Dark Mark had now almost disappeared; only a faint trace
could be seen above the Three Broomsticks.
"Grloo-" Nirry started to say, then
panicked. Hermione and Ron looked at her curiously. She put her
hand with the dried blood up to her now catatonic lips.
Nirry tried in vain to move her mouth, but it was fruitless-
she had no control over her face now. When she struggled to move even her
head, not even a slight twitching of the muscle gave way. Ron looked
stricken.
"Nirry! Talk!" he demanded, then whirled
around at an unexpected sound from the forest. An owl hooted in the
distance, and they could glimpse flashes of bright light through gaps in the leafs.
Hermione managed to look deep in thought while twisting her head nervously
around.
"I think it's probably- no, it couldn't be the Body
Bind, what kind of spell would that be? No, it's some kind of Dark
Magic...," she chattered, nearly stumbling on a root. Nirry pinched
her lip with her fingers, then tried to say something.
"Ung- ung cahn- speh...wah ih, ik?"
Ron and Hermione's terrified faces had turned pure white,
staring at something over Nirry's shoulder.
"Avada Kedavra!" came an evil, cold voice
from the right of their spot in the trees. Nirry, nerves heightened by
adrenaline, saw the green spell coming as if in slow motion, and tackled
Hermione and Ron facedown onto the forest floor, pushing them down with her
hands and joining them a second later. As a bright green light the shade
of the Dark Mark lit the scene, Nirry, still falling and in slow motion, saw a
beam of the light aimed straight at her head, evil yet familiar red eyes
glaring at her from atop a tall body.
"Nooo!!" she moaned softly in her throat, the
sound not passing from her numbed lips. For the second time that evening,
she felt a white-hot spell penetrate her forehead, passing right through her-
but this time, it was not sideways that it passed her, but right through her
head. With the force of a bullet, Nirry landed on her back in the earth
and saw no more.
"Stupefy!" The usually menacing voice of
Professor Snape cut through the still night air- a second later, they heard the
telltale whooshing sound which meant Voldemort was gone. They were deep
in the forest- not even the distant screams from Hogsmeade could be heard
here. Suppressed silence rang in the ears of Hermione, Ron, and Snape.
Hermione and Ron wobbled to their feet, staring, stricken,
down at Nirry. Hysterical tears were verging on the edge of Hermione's gray,
shocked face, and Ron was staring in disbelief, trembling from head to
foot. Snape watched them with cool eyes, eyeing Nirry's corpse with
something almost like pity in his face.
Ron gave a great gasp.
"What happened?" asked Nirry, suddenly opening her
eyes with a start and sitting straight up. All numbness from the previous
spell seemed to have melted away. She sat up, her head clear, only to
find both Hermione and Ron staring at her, dumbstruck and openmouthed for the
tenth time that night.
Severus Snape felt all the blood rush to his usually
chalk-white face.
Nirry stood up, very much alive.
* * *
"Death Eaters, dragons- it's too much, I tell
you!" The voice of Madam Pomfrey seemed near tears. "When I
was a girl, nobody would have ever- why, I declare, another one?
Headmaster, I thought you had more sense than this!"
Wordlessly, Nirry, Ron and Hermione entered the hospital wing,
which was nearly bursting with the people in it. Madam Pomfrey raised her
voice over the chaos.
"Teachers! Headmaster, please... everybody, out,
out, out!" trying to shoo all the people out, most of whom seemed to be
teachers with slight burns and students exchanging words of what had just
happened, Madam Pomfrey's harrassed face was seen, jumping up and down.
Nobody seemed to want to leave.
"Headmaster- if I may speak to you for a
moment..." Snape left Nirry's side. Dumbledore turned with difficulty.
"Severus?"
"Yes, Professor-" Snape began in a very low voice,
checking on Nirry out of the corner of his eye. People had at last begun
to heed Madam Pomfrey, and the flow was moving on towards the door. The
current of people was slowly pushing Nirry, Ron and Hermione out the door.
"Privately?" asked Dumbledore, noticing the
unusual whiteness of Snape's usual yellow face. Madam Pomfrey bustled
over to them, mixing a bright purple potion as she motioned to the last
scragglers out the door.
"Really, Headmaster, these people need rest! They've
just been through a very-"
"Yes, yes, Poppy, I quite understand, we were just
leaving..." Dumbledore led the way out of the door, closely followed by
Snape. The Headmaster's eyes, though twinkling as usual, were tired and
kept darting around nervously. Once outside, he looked around to check
if the coast was clear.
"Follow me, Severus," he said very calmly, then
took his wand out and tapped the tapestry opposite them, a rather dull-looking
landscape. A dark hole appeared.
"Yes, Professor," murmured Snape, following
Dumbledore with a grim expression on his sallow face.
* * *
Nirry led the way to the common room, with Ron and
Hermione trailing her. They seemed to be slightly in awe and fear of her.
"Calamilana," they chorused, and the Fat Lady
swung open silently.
Unusually grim and ashen faced people could be seen
inside. The three kept their heads down until they reached a far corner
of the room, where they sat down in their usual chairs. They sat for
almost a whole minute in silence.
"Okay now. What's the matter with you
guys? You're acting as though I came back from the dead or something!"
exclaimed Nirry in a low voice, as to not disturb any of the others around
them. Ron and Hewrmione looked awkward.
"Well- you see, Nirry, actually..." Hermione
trailed off.
"You did, sort of," Ron said uncomfortably.
Nirry glanced at him and gave a hollow chuckle.
"What?" she replied uncertainly, eyes
narrowing, "I did?"
"Don't you remember?" asked Hermione in a hushed
voice.
"Well, I do remember when Voldemort-" Ron
flinched- "came, and then he shouted somehting and then I felt something
on my head... but- but that's it!" Nirry said, raising her voice
impatiently.
Hermione choked. "Yes, but...do you remember the spell
that You-Know-Who attacked you with?" she asked Nirry, eyes large.
Nirry shook her head, racking her brains.
"No." With that, Ron fidgeted nervously.
"He- he said, Avada Kedavra, Nirry," he
said almost exasperatedly. Nirry looked blank.
"And that is...?" she said expectantly, glancing
from Hermione's worried face to Ron's white one.
"Oh, Nirry, that's- that's the killing curse,"
Hermione seemed close to tears.
Nirry's face went under a series of transformations- first
she looked confused, then the blood rushed from her face and then...
"So... I'm supposed to be..." she gulped.
"Dead."