Relinquished, Chapter Sixteen

By ArrA.

Katie woke to quiet a room; stiff sheets rubbing against her cold skin. She heard the whistle of wind outside the building as she focused on the room around her. She was on one of the hard infirmary beds with white sheets pulled around her separating her from the rest of the room. As she rose from her bed she noticed she was dressed in a white hospital gown. Shuffling towards the coverings she pushed them aside and looked out.

The room was empty. No Pomfrey fretting over students. Nobody else in the infirmary either. It was dead quiet, except the sound of wind, whistling as hit rubbed against the rough stone of the outside walls.

Quietly, Katie's feet pattered along the cold, worn stone as she exited the hospital wing and headed towards the Great Hall. The corridors of the castle were as empty and silent as the hospital wing had been and Katie found herself longing for any sight of a human, even if it happened to be Alicia or Angelina. The whole experience was reminding her of the muggle film she had seen during summer break, 28 Days Later, although she didn't believe some killer disease had caused everyone to go insane… or had it? she thought, reminiscing on her last memories before she had reawakened in the infirmary.

Suddenly Katie's thoughts were cut off by the sound of something clattering to the floor behind her. Spinning around in surprise, she saw a small girl peaking out behind a large suit of armor whose helmet was still rolling on the floor. Katie took a step towards the girl, noticing the small child was shaking. "What's the matter?" she asked softly.

The girl slowly crawled towards her and then launched herself towards Katie, a small body bounding into Katie's arms. "It was horrible!" she whimpered. "Men, dressed in black," she sniffed, "they broke into the Hall during supper last night. Me and some of Slytherins in my year ran but I got split up from them."

"Shhh, it's alright," Katie murmured to the girl softly, quickly darting glances in both directions. "I'll get you to safety."

The girl looked up at her and smiled at Katie hesitantly before replying, "I knew you had to be an angel."

Katie looked at the tiny girl uncertainly but detached herself from her and grasped her hand instead as she carefully led her down the hall. Katie found herself feeling helpless. She wasn't sure what she should do with the young girl or herself. If the men the Slytherin had described were really deatheaters, they would be after her and Marcus.

"What's your name?" Katie asked the girl.

"Lucinda," she replied.

"Well, Lucinda," Katie replied, testing out the young child's name, "my name is Katie."

Lucinda smiled, slightly confused. "I didn't know that angels had names!"

"Well what else would you call me?" Katie answered, laughing.

Lucinda shrugged.

After a few minutes of silence, walking farther into the castle, Lucinda finally broke the silence. "Where exactly are we going?" she asked hesitantly.

"At first I wasn't sure, but I've decide that the safest place right now would probably be Gryffindor Tower."

"With Harry Potter?" Delight spreading to Lucinda's face.

Katie shrugged, wondering if Harry would still be in Hogwarts or had been spirited away, a top priority over the other students. "He might be there, but the Ministry probably snuck him out," she told Lucinda and then as an afterthought, "to help form a plan to help those left in the castle."

Lucinda seemed to buy this and they continued through the deserted halls of Hogwarts with no troubles until they reached the corridor before the Fat Lady's portrait.

At the first sign of human life, Katie quickly pushed Lucinda behind her and pulled the girl behind a statue of a past headmaster. Down the hall the two could hear the sound of voices.

"Stay here," Katie whispered. "Don't move unless I call you."

Lucinda nodded and then Katie was sneaking towards the portrait as quietly as she could. Finally she made it to the corner, successfully drawing no attention to herself. Peaking a look towards the portrait she saw four strange wizards, watching the halls quietly, and discussing the threat of Hogwarts. Behind them stood Professor McGonagall who clutched her wand tightly, waiting for any sign of danger. Letting out a sigh of relief, Katie quickly scooted around the corner.

The professors turned towards her in surprise, training their wands on her. Katie stood speechless, holding her hands slightly raised and for the first time realizing that she had not brought her wand.

"Stand down," McGonagall commanded. "Do you wish to hit this student?" The wizards shook their heads and McGonagall came towards her. "Oh Katherine. It's so wonderful to see you. By the time we realized you were still in the Hospital wing it was to late to come and get you. We just had to hope you'd be left alone. At the first sign of danger Poppy had moved all the patients but you were not lucid enough to move at the time. I'm so sorry Ms. Bell. I'm just glad you are alright. I can hardly imagine what Mr. Flint would of said if anything had happened."

Katie took a deep breath and nodded. "I found a young girl, first year I believe, on the way here. Let me go and get her."

McGonagall shook her head. "No need, Ms. Bell. Where is she, I'll send someone to get her."

"Just down the hall."

McGonagall nodded and pointed towards one of the wizards and then down the hall by which Katie had came. Not two minutes later the wizard re-appeared with Lucinda trailing behind.

"Lucinda Moon. We had thought you were gone. Well then, come child, you'll be safe in Gryffindor," McGonagall said before ushering the two girls through the portrait hole which had opened to admit them.

"Professor," Katie asked, as she entered Gryffindor Tower, "can you tell me what has happened?"

"Someone will inform you momentarily, Ms. Bell," McGonagall answered, any other words cut off by the closing of the portrait.

The common room was full of wizards, some in Ministry robes, others wearing nondescript clothing. A few of the older witches and wizards sat at the back of the room, chatting idly to them or among themselves.

Several people looked up as Katie and Lucinda entered the room, many of them students, recognizing Lucinda as a Slytherin and Katie as a Slytherin's girlfriend. "Katie!" she heard someone scream and turned to see Alicia pulling herself out her seat, looking white with worry. "I'm so sorry!" Alicia almost cried. "We all feel so guilty for what we did."

"What did you do?" Katie asked, feeling confused.

Alicia raised an eyebrow. "You mean no one told you?"

"No one's told me much of anything, actually," Katie told the other girl.

"Me and Angelina put alihotsy in your drink. We're so sorry Katie!"

Katie felt her cheeks grow warmer as red wage surfaced onto her face. "How could you do that? We've been friends since first year and you let a boy get between us? I can't believe you would do that."

"We really are sorry, Katie," a voice cut in and Angelina appeared beside her. "But you hurt all of us, going after Flint."

"Marcus has nothing to do with our friendship. And just for the record, I would probably be dead by now if Marcus hadn't have saved me."

Angelina shook her head. "He should of left you in the first place," she hissed, angry.

"To deatheaters, less willing to save me than himself? It was a miracle that he found me! I think he could be the love of my life and you're ragging on me?"

"He's dangerous," Alicia interrupted.

Katie glared at the two girls. "I don't care. And anyways, he isn't the problem at the moment, now is he? What's going on?"

"It's simple, deatheaters attacked the Great Hall but this time most students got to safety. Of course Harry, Hermione and Ron have been removed from the danger but everyone else has been confined to the castle," Angelina answered.

"Where's Marcus?" Katie asked, the question rickashaeing through Katie's head.

Alicia and Angelina looked at the each other with worried expressions. "We don't know Kate. Sorry."

Feeling light headed, Katie stumbled forward until both girls grabbed her by the arms and helped her into a chair. "I'm sure he'll be fine," Alicia murmured, trying to be helpful.

"Ya. Think positive, Kate. When this is done, we should all get away from here and go on vacation, Marcus included. We can get to know him. I mean I'm sure you're right about him. You have a good judge of character."

"That's not what you were saying a minute ago," Katie told Angelina bitterly.

Angelina sighed. "I realize that you'll be mad for awhile but please, don't hate me forever. It was just so fucked up, seeing you with a Slytherin. We didn't know what to do. All my life I envisioned myself with Fred and you with George; we could be sisters! Now that's not going to happen, and that's so fucked up."

"I need to think," Katie finally answered and pulled herself from her chair and found a secluded corner and practically collapsed into the chair provided.

* * *

Marcus lay on the ground and slowly waited for the feeling to come back to his arms and legs. As this was a lengthy process he replayed everything that had happened slowly through his mind. He had been on his way back from the hospital wing, fuming over what those girls, who were supposed to be Katie's friends, had done to her. It had taken close to an hour to sedate Katie and deliver her to the infirmary. When he saw her asleep comfortably, he finally left the hospital wing and made his way towards the Great Hall.

Unfortunately he arrived there before the attacked begun, or he would have been able to get back to Katie, but that wasn't the case. The student body had panicked and the teachers had struggled for control over the situation and vastly failed. There were many students who were left behind during the confusion of the attack, many bodies littered the floor, and many moans lingered long after the fight was over.

Arcus had automatically looked for his son during the beginning of the fight. He had glared, a sinister reminder of Marcus' horrible childhood, before attacking his own son. Arcus being anything but a gentle man soon dominated the fight, bring his own son to his knees.

It was only a matter of time before his sadistic father was standing over him, drilling Marcus over the where-abouts of his 'whore'. Marcus remembered screaming in anger and making an effort to climb to his feet but his father had pointed is wand at his own son and mumbled some words under his breath before the world had turned black and Marcus felt the pain of a boot connecting to his abdomen before the world went black.

Now Marcus waited for the next round to begin, when all the deatheaters and want-a-be deatheaters figured out that he was conscious and the previous fun would start again, not ending until his father decided it was time for a bit more fun with his son again. Until then, Marcus was content to lie between the other victims of the attack; some still breathed, although many did not.

Author's Notes

Yay! Another chapter! I believe I'm going to finish this off soon and hopefully finish some more of my fics or start a new one! I mean, this thing has taken a long time to write, almost a year, so I'm very surprised that I still hold interest in it! But a new fic would be nice and refreshing!

Many thanks to my awesome reviewers. You're all the best! I write for you!