6
It is early in the morning. Snowflakes are silently falling around us. My joints are stiff, my skin is icy, my mind is racing.
The door to Honeydukes is just in front of me. The glass was broken long ago, and the shop was ransacked of pretty much everything inside. I can remember so clearly how lively the store was, packed with students and every type of candy you could imagine. An overwhelming sadness has engulfed me. No more Honeydukes' Best Chocolate. No more Ice Mice. No more Fizzing Whizbees. No more Cockroach Clusters. Actually, I didn't like those at all, so that's no real loss.
But still. It's just not right.
"So, um, are we going in?" Ron asks from my left. We've been standing there for nearly five minutes.
"Give me a sec," I reply, struggling to control my nerves and force myself to be ready for what's going to happen.
A minute later Ron speaks again. "Are we ready now?"
"No," Ginny says quickly, a faint quaiver in her voice. She sighs heavily. "Yes."
Harry starts nodding excessively, and I note that he's probably trying to psych himself out for this rather than express his agreement.
He claps his hands together. "Let's do this!" he says enthusiastically, shooting us all a largely over-the-top grin.
We walk into the shop, past the wrecked cash register, and down the steps into the basement. It appears that the hidden trap door was not discovered.
Harry and Ron quickly open it, and I slide in first, followed by Ginny, Ron, and then Harry. I start the long descent, lost in the rhythm of our footsteps tapping the stone steps.
I start jogging when we reach flat ground, desperate to get warm before my first duel. There's no sound except our muffled footsteps against the dusty stone, our silent gasps for air, and the whipping of our robes around us. My mind couldn't be louder.
It doesn't seem like that much later when I come upon the stone slide.
"I'll go up first," Harry says determinedly. He pushes past the rest of us and scrambles up the slide, his wand tight in his right hand. I watch him from below as he gets to the top and opens the hump of the One-Eyed Witch. He pokes his head out, looks both ways, then ducks back down. "It's clear," he whispers to us.
I start climbing up the slide as Harry pulls himself out through the opening. He helps me out onto solid ground, then helps Ginny and Ron as well.
As soon as my feet are on solid ground, I wish I was back in the tunnel. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.
It appears that the Death Eater's haven't bothered to remove the evidence of the massacre that happened here one year ago. Bloody, disfigured, dead bodies litter the floor in pools of dried blood and maggots.
The smell is worse than the sight.
Bile rises in my throat and I close my eyes and turn towards Harry. Judging by a muffled sob coming from my left, I can tell that Ginny has buried her face in Ron's shoulder.
Harry puts a comforting arm around my shoulder. "Let's get to Gryffindor Tower, we can plan our next step from there."
Swallowing hard and stiffening my resolve, I nod curtly and cling tightly to my wand as we navigate ourselves around the corpses. I try my best not to look them in the faces. I don't want to see if I recognize anyone.
It's hard to stay alert in the midst of so much death. I have to keep reminding myself to stay on the lookout for Death Eaters and to ignore the bodies around me. But any wariness concerning possible enemies is dashed at the sight of a small, blonde head face down in the stone, a wand clutched in the right hand and a Gryffindor scarf around his neck.
Ginny has seen it too. "Dennis Creevey," she mutters softly.
We stop our progress down the hall and take a moment to pay our respects to the lifeless body. Harry is silent next to me. That little boy and his brother were Harry's biggest fans. Muggleborn and anxious about magic, they looked up to Harry like some sort of god.
"He didn't deserve this," Ron says.
I blink hard, attempting to hinder the rush of tears fighting to escape.
"Let's keep moving," Harry says a moment later. His left hand snakes out and grasps my right arm, tugging me along the carnage.
We are rounding a corner to the staircase when Harry shoves me back and dives out of view behind the nearest statue. Listening, I can hear the soft tapping of shoes on the distant end of the corridor. I keep an eye on Harry as I listen to the footsteps getting closer. Ron and Ginny are doing the same as me, their wands out in front of them.
And then, the most horrible thing happens. We hear more footsteps coming down the hallway we've just come from. I can't count how many pairs of feet there are, but there are a lot.
I can see Harry silently curse to himself as he peers out from around the statue. I can see his left hand, and he hold up three fingers. I elbow Ron in the ribs who in turn elbows Ginny. We all watch for Harry's signal.
He has two fingers up. The footsteps are much too close.
As if in slow motion, he drops a finger and leaps out from behind the statue. "Stupefy!" he yells. I can hear the heavy thud of a body falling to the ground as I jump around the corner and yell my own curse. I too hit a Death Eater. It appears that they are too surprised to react. There are two left in that hallway.
But the Death Eaters coming from the other direction have started running at the sound of the curses. They soon round the corner into our hallway, and Ginny and Ron shout their curses. These Death Eaters are ready, and easily deflect their spells.
Meanwhile the two Harry and I are dealing with easily fall among their comrades. We turn and begin dueling with the other Death Eaters. A blast from one of their wands whizzes past my ear. More Death Eaters pile out from around the corner.
Harry seizes a fist-full of my robes, recognizing, as I have, that we are far too outnumbered. "RUN!" he yells, pulling me off around the corner at a full sprint.
Ron and Ginny lower their wands and run after us. I can hear the pounding of the Death Eater's footsteps not far behind.
Harry rips a tapestry clean off the wall and lunges through it, going down the stairs at top speed, his clutch tight on my robes. We make a sharp left at the bottom of the stairs and run along a thin, dark hallway, probably one of Fred and George's secret passages. I can hear footsteps behind me, and I pray that it's Ron and Ginny.
We take another sharp left and come to more stairs. We run down them, and then I hear something that makes my heart stop.
"Stupefy!"
A soft, strangled cry.
A thud as a body hits the ground.
"GINNY!" Ron screams.
My blood runs cold. There's no way we can carry her out of the castle and escape the Death Eaters at the same time. We have to leave her behind.
Harry and I slow to a stop, and share a fearful look that lasts an eternity.
To Be Continued . . . .
A/N Uhm, yeah... that was way too friggin' short. Sorry.
But cliffie's make the world go round, people!
Review, por favor!
felony melanie