Chapter 33: Fallen Heroes
PRESENT: LATE MAY
It did not fall to Meli to reconstruct what happened in the wee hours of the morning that fateful day, and since she was not a direct eyewitness of the earliest events—nor indeed of the major events—she had only a general idea of how the battle for Hogwarts began. Others would learn that the Death Eaters had advanced from the forest and from the mountains behind the castle on foot, and over the lake on broomstick, just as the sun was beginning to show itself above the horizon.
Voldemort made no attempt at stealth this time. An hour before his forces entered the castle, alarms roused the faculty and students and alerted the Ministry—for all the good the latter would do. The Death Eaters would be upon them before more than a few Aurors could get there at such an unseemly hour.
Meli, who had known that something major was coming, had been sleeping lightly for months and had been all but insomniac since Fudge's assassination. The alarms did not so much wake her as give her an excuse to roll out of bed. Her Skulker costume (or ninja suit, as Crim had dubbed it) was within easy reach, and in under two minutes from the alarm, she was clad and ready to go. She passed into the main room to find Monty likewise alert and ready for battle.
"Good luck, Meli," he hissed, his eyes shining with excitement and anticipation.
"Same to you, my friend," she replied, her voice a touch muffled by her mask. "And be careful."
He drew himself up and bowed, then slid out the door beside her. At the near end of the corridor, they parted ways, Meli heading toward the more populated areas of the castle and Monty going silently deeper into the dungeons. The python, always ready for adventure and harboring a particular dislike for Death Eaters, had volunteered to act as a rear guard in the dungeons. Snape had been busy there, setting up all manner of elaborate death traps should a last-ditch defense be necessary, but there were ways into the dungeons that had to be watched, and Dumbledore had allowed Monty the chance to contribute as he could.
Meli's own job was far different from anyone else's. Her history as a Skulker had given her a knowledge of the castle's layout and network of secret passages unequaled by any of the other teachers, except for Dumbledore and possibly Snape, who would both be otherwise occupied. This made her valuable in several crucial ways.
First, it would enable her to move around the castle undetected, which would further enable her to wreak havoc against the invaders by slipping in behind their advance lines. A castle breach was imminent—Dumbledore had never fooled himself on that account—and a hit-and-fade saboteur would help to buy the defenders some time, as well as killing or wounding a number of the enemy.
Secondly, Voldemort would probably be sending in a team to kidnap Harry Potter while the defenders were otherwise occupied, and it was a good bet that he would send Dirk Pierce with said team. While Pierce's knowledge of the castle might not be as thorough as Meli's (something on which she wasn't placing any bets), it was still thorough enough to make him a danger. Most of the passages he would need to use had been blocked, booby-trapped, or placed under guard, but he was resourceful, and not every possible path could be closed—especially since Meli would need to use the passages, as well. One of her secondary objectives was to neutralize Pierce, something only a shadow-skulker who knew him would be able to pull off.
And lastly, Dumbledore had given her carte blanche for any kind of mayhem she could perpetrate to confuse, delay, or lead to the capture of the enemy. It was akin to the sabotage, but (as she thought of it) more explosive and, consequently, more fun. Toward this end, she amused herself by setting up tripwires, sample vials of Neville Longbottom's Potions disasters, dung-bomb launchers, and (on temporary loan from Hagrid) hunting traps, among other nasty little things.
She had time for this work only because she kept the equipment prepped and ready to go. Now that that work was completed, though, she had just enough time to fade into the shadows and slink away. Perhaps an hour and a half had passed since the initial alarm, and the teachers and Aurors defending the grounds would be falling back soon. The Death Eaters were coming, and not necessarily through the main gate.
A small intrusion team would be Voldemort's primary hope. The larger invading force would have plenty to do destroying the castle and killing or capturing its defenders, but no one doubted for a moment that the ultimate objective, dead or alive, was Harry Potter. So while everyone was tied up with the main army, Pierce and his group would come in through a side door and look for a way into Gryffindor. Meli had thoroughly booby-trapped the main floor side entrances, but that would only annoy, not stop, the commandos.
There was a shriek from the direction of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and Meli smiled beneath her mask. They really ought to have known better than to come in there, she thought, gliding back that way. That's my personal domain; of course the traps will be worse there! It wasn't that her personal domain was so valuable as to be more protected, but rather that a Defense Against the Dark Arts room just naturally contained nastier items and creatures that could be readily adapted into traps. To judge by the tone and frequency of the shrieks before they were abruptly cut off, one or more of the invaders had encountered the red cap she'd brought in for a demonstration in her third-year classes.
That there had been more than one shriek indicated that at least one of the intruders was a novice. That the shrieks had been so abruptly halted indicated that at least one of them was not.
By the time she reached her own classroom, the four Death Eaters had made it through her welcome gauntlet. They were, as she'd expected, irritated but undeterred. The group was smaller than she'd thought it would be, and she wondered if the intrusion team might have split up before she arrived. The corridor turned in an L-junction nearby, and the rest of the Death Eaters could be just around the corner. She could see little point in listening for them, but she did it anyway.
There was, of course, no noise from the hypothetical second group, and the group she did know about was moving steadily away. Knowing that hesitation could carry a high cost, she quickly ducked into her classroom and grabbed a noisemaker, then crept to the corner of the L-junction and set it off, accompanied by a blindly tossed dung bomb. It would not deter the intruders anymore than the red cap had done, but it might delay them—if they even existed. That much done, she slipped back down the corridor to follow the visible group.
The Death Eaters were far ahead of her by now. She had spent a great deal of time on the hypothetical group around the corner, and this group had not been moving slowly in the meantime. She ate up some of the distance, but then one of them stopped and pointed to his right.
Hello, Pierce, Meli thought, smiling thinly. Not even the Weasleys knew about that particular passage. The four Death Eaters lined up single-file, then Pierce tapped at the stones beside a tapestry. Meli did not catch up to them just yet, but she slipped into the passage just before the entry closed in behind them.
"How long will this take?" one of the Death Eaters whispered hoarsely.
"Three more passages to Gryffindor," Pierce replied. "Now shut up."
There were two possible routes he could have in mind, then, Meli reflected. One was warded so thoroughly that they'd make it through only as mincemeat or extra-crispy bacon; she'd seen to that herself. The other, however, consisted of two passages she'd had to keep open for strategical purposes, and the third was warded less securely than the others because it was close enough to a dormitory that an enterprising student might try to use it.
Fortunately, she had some time to plan while in the passageway. She knew of no way to incapacitate all four without alerting at least one to her presence. It would be ideal to take out only Pierce, then pick off the others as they wandered without a guide, but there were three Death Eaters between her and him at the moment, so that course was impracticable—for the present. Any action she took would have to wait until they emerged in the corridor beyond.
It took ten minutes to go through the passage, with only the sound of muffled whimpering to relieve the ears for most of it. Perhaps halfway through, there was some scuffling, followed by one of the Death Eaters (the one Pierce had told to shut up) whining, "Ow!"
"Quit your moaning," a surly voice ordered. "It serves you right for stepping on a red cap. Now stop whining!"
The whimpering obligingly stopped, and the feel of the air shifted from purposeful to sullen.
Voldemort had to have a good reason for sending in a rookie, Meli thought. I wonder what it might be; he certainly isn't proving his worth at the moment.
At last the passage ended, and they stepped into a sunny, deserted corridor. Meli immediately took to the shadows, but neither Pierce nor his following did more than stay close to one wall. They were confident of being undetected—
Or they're a decoy!
Meli's thoughts flew once more to the hypothetical second group, and she wondered sickeningly if she had made a mistake in not checking to be certain. But if they'd been there—if they existed—would you have followed them?
She gritted her teeth. Who knew? There was no sense in second-guessing herself, though; it was too late to unmake the decision.
Pierce led his group around a corner, and she felt a cold sense of satisfaction; he was taking them down the death-trapped route. Whether or not they were decoys, they would soon cease to be her problem.
But then came something unexpected and quite unwelcome. A breathless Death Eater came dashing up to Pierce's group, his voice panicked and his robes in disarray.
"We need reinforcements in the dungeons!" he gasped to Pierce. "The teachers have taken Potter down there!"
"What about the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" Pierce demanded. "Is she down there, too?"
"Of course she is!" the messenger snapped. "Where else do you think she'd be?"
All but Pierce and Meli followed the messenger as he dashed back toward the dungeons. Pierce, however, turned down another corridor and headed for a very different passage than the one that might have killed him. Meli, seeing his intent, followed. She did not see that the limping novice had doubled back and was now following Pierce, and therefore her, at a distance.
As she had expected, Pierce had doubled back to a marble statue that stood sentry between two suits of armor. This particular statue had escaped the notice even of Filch and, she suspected, the Weasley twins, but the Skulkers had discovered it, quite by accident, as first years.
She watched as Pierce first looked this way and that, then tapped the stone figure's nose. The statue slid silently aside, revealing a passage into which he slipped, Meli almost immediately behind him. The entrance closed again, leaving them in inky blackness until Pierce illuminated his wand. He did not look back but instead moved rapidly forward and downward, Meli following just closely enough to benefit from his light.
I don't think I've ever in my life been so collected, she thought calmly. Perhaps I'm about to die.
As ridiculous as that off-handed thought was, it didn't bother her enough to shake it off. She filed it away for future reference and continued her silent pursuit, knowing that much, possibly everything, depended upon it. This particular passage was inconveniently long and roundabout for people in a hurry to go from place to place, but it had served the Skulkers well as an otherwise unknown route to the dungeons. Crim and Sharpie, especially, had used it a great deal.
Meli herself had entirely forgotten about it and had therefore not thought to tell Dumbledore or Snape of its existence. As a result, the anti-intruder defenses in the dungeons probably had in them a flaw that would allow someone in through the secret passage. Knowing as she did the probable location of the Death Eaters' quarry based upon the messenger's route of retreat, Meli surmised that Pierce would also have the advantage of coming in behind Harry and his screen of protectors. No warning was yet possible, so it was entirely up to her to stop Pierce before he could reach Harry.
Well, to her and Monty, she amended. The python would be patrolling near the point at which she and Pierce would be entering the dungeons, and she hoped that his memory proved to be a little better than hers.
She dimly remembered that the passage could be traversed in twenty minutes if taken at a run, but Pierce was moving only at a light jog, doubtless hoping to conserve most of his energy for a fight at the end. She estimated, therefore, that they traveled in the darkness for half an hour or so before reaching the exit. She allowed Pierce to leave and step a few paces down the outside corridor, then counted off one more minute before pushing aside the portrait covering the door. Its occupant (a perpetually drunken sailor who had a bad habit of wolf-whistling at anyone who passed him) was, mercifully, elsewhere, and Pierce, as she had hoped, had already rounded a bend in the corridor beyond. She moved rapidly, but silently, after him.
She caught sight of him a minute or so later and shadowed him along his route. They were coming closer to guarded corridors now, increasing her chance of being able to warn others and head him off. Her goal at this point was to stop and capture him, for which she would need a bit of help.
As they got deeper into the dungeons, however, and crossed the first corridor that was supposed to be guarded, the guard was gone, either further up that corridor or even further into the dungeons as reinforcement for Dumbledore's group.
Ahead of her, Pierce turned down another corridor. Meli had just picked up her pace when she heard a loud reptilian hiss, followed by Pierce swearing in surprise. She, too, rounded the corner just in time to see Monty lunge furiously at the Death Eater a second time. Pierce's crumpled mask, doubtless the victim of the python's first lunge, lay across the corridor where Monty had whipped it with his tail.
Instead of making contact again, however, Monty raised himself up, his head and body enlarging and rapidly transforming. The snake disappeared entirely, replaced by an enraged man in blue robes who brandished a wand.
"I knew you'd come, Pierce, and now it's time for an accounting," he growled, but he never again spoke more.
Before Meli could react, Pierce shouted, "Sangrio venaruptura!"
The animagus dropped almost instantly, red blotches appearing on all of his exposed skin as every vein and artery simultaneously ruptured.
Meli ripped off her own mask and leapt around the corner, catching Pierce once more by surprise. Before he could make a move against her, she had snatched his wand and broken it over her knee, then done the same with his right arm. She whirled away from him, wand out, as he howled in pain, and then she uttered a spell she had never thought she'd use in a life-and-death duel: "Tu quoque!"
There was a strange crackling in the air, and she felt an actual shift in power levels, almost as if someone was drawing magic away from its designated place. That someone had an unstable hold, however, and the crackling exploded in a surge of power that rushed through the corridor with the physical force of a wind, a large gust of which was caught by and channeled through Meli's wand, which was aimed at the man who had once been Sharpie.
She watched now, horrified and mesmerized, as Pierce, too, fell, his own face and hands showing the blotches of annihilated veins. The spell shouldn't have worked that well—it wasn't powerful enough to duplicate a deadly curse . . . but somehow it had. Pierce should only have been badly hurt, but instead he died with eyes wide open in shock, staring up at her whom he had used to call friend.
There was no victory here, no sense of triumph or accomplishment. She turned to the man who had hidden as Monty for so long, only to blow it in a final, heroic Gryffindor moment. She closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, covering his face with the sleeves of his robes, then slowly stood again to leave.
Only as she turned did she see the Death Eater that had followed her in. She saw his wand, heard his voice form words, saw a flash of brilliant green light—
And she was falling ponderously to the floor, far too slowly for it to be real. She thought somehow that she might have ducked and tumbled off-balance, but there was a crackling in the air that betrayed the release of a huge amount of power.
Instant death takes longer than I thought, she reflected dryly. And isn't it ironic that I made the same mistake Pierce did . . . and that I'm also dying for it.
And then she hit the stone.
Anthony Flint smiled in self-satisfaction as he limped forward to survey his kill. The stupid little witch had never thought to look behind her, and, brave as she was, her idiocy had now been justly rewarded. He turned her over with his toe, eager to see the face of the Auror he'd single-handedly brought down.
Cold horror washed over him as the eerily smiling face came to light. Well she might smile; with her own foolishness, the last of the Skulkers had sealed his doom. He had managed to kill the only enemy at Hogwarts whose life was sacred to Voldemort. Flint stumbled numbly away, then, as it sank in fully what he'd done, he took to his heels and fled toward the enemy's position.
Better to die by an Auror's hands than to be tortured to death—or worse, allowed to live under a bane—by Voldemort's.