Chapter Twenty Three: Regrets and Resolutions
"Professor McGonagall," Harry cried as he caught up with her just outside her office door.
"Mr. Potter, shouldn't you be in the hospital wing?" McGonagall said stiffly, her stoic nature carrying her through the grief Harry knew she was feeling.
"I've been sent to give you a message, Professor," Harry said, hoping his tone was comforting without giving away that he knew she'd been crying.
"A message?" she queried him, "From whom?"
"Um…could we go inside your office first, Ma'am?" he suggested.
McGonagall eyed him suspiciously until Harry thought he was discovering what it felt like to be Fred or George after a particularly well-masterminded prank. "Is there some reason why you can't give me this message right here?" she asked.
After seeing Filch impersonated by Pettigrew and now Snape replaced by Lucius Malfoy, Harry couldn't blame his head of house for being suspicious of him now. After all, hadn't she just seen Harry in the infirmary not more than ten minutes ago? And here he was delivering a message to her as though he had no reason at all to be sitting on a hospital bed. Harry sighed and looked around.
"Please, Professor, we need to talk. There isn't much time. We have about fifteen minutes by my best guess before Voldemort attacks the school! Professor Dumbledore asked me to speak to you…"
"P…Pro…Professor Dumbledore asked you…." She looked as though she would faint dead away if Harry so much as breathed on her.
"Yes, Ma'am," Harry cringed as McGonagall raised her wand and pointed it at his chest.
"The headmaster is dead," she stated flatly. "I've just seen it for myself. And I've just seen Harry Potter in the infirmary. So whoever you are, you're not Mr. Potter and I will not speak with you any longer. Finite Incantatum!"
She stared at Harry when her spell failed to produce any result. She tried another spell with which Harry was unfamiliar, but again, nothing happened. "What…how…" she stammered.
"Professor," Harry said exasperatedly as he pulled the time turner from within his robes. Comprehension dawned on the Transfiguration teacher's face and she stared at Harry again, her expression changing from distrust to admiration and…perhaps hope?
Harry sighed with relief and began his explanation, starting from his use of the time turner and completing the tale with the redecorating of Myrtle's bathroom. Professor McGonagall listened intently and was inexplicably enraged by the time Harry was finished.
"So, now that I've delivered the message, Ma'am, I need to go back to the infirmary before my friends miss me and come looking for me," Harry finished.
"And I need to find Albus and give him a piece of my mind," she muttered.
"Professor?" Harry queried.
"Never mind, Potter," McGonagall quickly covered. "You go on and meet your friends back in the infirmary. Do not give them any information about Professor Dumbledore until he tells you himself to do so. Alert the D.A. as he asked you to do, and hurry."
"Yes Ma'am," Harry said, relieved to have completed this first task to which he'd been assigned. He parted ways with his head of house and headed for the hospital wing once again. Just as the double doors covering the entrance to the infirmary came clearly into view a searing pain spread through Harry's forehead, into his neck and shoulders and ricocheted through his nervous system. He clapped both hands on his forehead and collapsed to his knees on the floor, gasping for breath.
"He's here!" he heard his own voice say from within the double doors.
"WHAT?!" came his friends' muffled cry.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Ron said.
"What'll we do?" Hermione exclaimed.
"Alert the D.A," his own voice said. "And find someplace to hide. He may already be in the castle."
"What do you mean by, 'find someplace to hide'?" Draco said. "We have to do something. The school is under attack!"
"I have to do something," Harry heard himself respond. "This is my fight!"
"You can't do it alone," Draco warned.
"I can't let anyone else die, either." Harry heard his own footsteps approaching the double doors from within the infirmary. He crawled along the floor and leaned his back against the wall, listening intently.
"Oi," Ron exclaimed, and Harry heard his friend hurrying to catch up, "You're not going anywhere without me!"
"Nor me," Draco agreed.
"And we're coming too," Ginny said. Two more pairs of footsteps approached the door.
"There will be no need for any of you to go anywhere," Harry heard himself argue. That was his cue. He waited ten seconds longer and stood up. As expected he heard his friends groan and sigh.
"When will he ever learn that misery loves company?" Draco asked the others.
"Beats me," Ginny replied. "We've been trying to get him to trust us to help him for as long as we've known him."
"Where do you suppose he's gone?" Ron asked.
"Don't you mean when, Ron?" Hermione said, her voice edged with an impatience Harry recognized from every homework assignment she'd seen him put off till the last minute. "He's probably gone to try to save Dumbledore!"
"How would he do that?" Ron asked her.
"By stopping Dumbledore from going to Malfoy Manor in the first place," Hermione guessed.
"If he does that, there will be nothing to keep him from being hit with that Killing Curse," Draco summed up the problem.
"And it's just like Harry to do something so stupid as that," Ginny said, grief dripping like great drops of blood from her lips.
"And it's just like Dumbledore not to let me," Harry said, stepping in through the infirmary doors.
"HARRY!" Ginny and Hermione exclaimed upon seeing him. Ron and Draco spun in place to face him, their faces twin masks of surprise and relief. Both girls flung themselves on him at once for the second time that night, and Draco laughed wryly.
"It truly sucks to be you, Potter," Draco drawled. "Having girls throw themselves at you on such a regular basis must get so old after a while."
Harry slung one arm around each of the two girls' necks and smiled. "I can't say as I mind."
Hermione chuckled and slid out from under Harry's arm, but Ginny stayed where she was, her arms encircling his waist protectively.
"We need to get moving," Harry informed them. The D.A. should have assembled as much as possible by now. I was wrong before. Voldemort has not yet gained entry into the castle, but he's on the grounds. The D.A. has been asked to secure the common rooms, guarding all possible entrances. Hermione, would you use your coin to tell them to meet in the Room of Requirement if they haven't gone there already? We'll meet them there."
Without another word Hermione pulled her D.A. coin out of her pocket again and performed the charm that would send the message. Then the five of them ascended the nearest stairway to the seventh floor.
"I've always wanted to see the inside of this room, ever since I caught you coming out of it last year," Draco said wistfully. Harry laughed and began pacing in front of the blank wall. The door appeared and the five of them stepped through. Most of the D.A. members were already there, with Neville, Luna, Dean, Seamus, the Creeveys, and Blaise Zabini standing at the forefront. As Harry and Draco walked in, all conversation suddenly stopped and all eyes flew open in surprise.
"We thought they'd taken you," Neville said.
"How did you get away?" Blaise asked.
"Were there any heliopaths at Voldemort's secret compound?" Luna breathed excitedly.
"What's going on now?" Cho cut in, pushing her way through the crowd to get into the room.
"Voldemort and his Death Eaters are in the process of attacking the school," Harry said, forcing his voice to stay calm. "We need to ensure that every student is safely accounted for in each common room and DA members are stationed at every possible entrance for protection. Guard every window, every doorway, and every portrait that might open, even for a house-elf's entry. Don't let anything or anyone in or out once every student in your house is accounted for."
"Should we wait for the rest of the DA to arrive?" Hermione asked.
"There isn't time. We'll find most of them en-route to our common rooms. However, I need some volunteers to help guard the Slytherin common room. There simply aren't enough DA members from Slytherin house to cover every entrance there. Draco, how many would you say we will need?"
"There are twenty seven entrances to guard and we have twenty one DA members in all," Draco responded.
"Then you'll need at least six people," Harry said. He looked around at his friends. Ron and Hermione nodded their assent. Ginny clasped Harry's hand and looked determinedly up at him, and Neville and Luna looked at each other and then back at Harry. Without a word, Harry had his volunteers, counting himself. "That settles it," Harry said.
"Settles what?" Cho asked sounding bewildered.
"Neville, Luna, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and I will help to guard Slytherin house," Harry clarified. "The rest of you, go back to your common rooms and inform any DA members you meet along the way of the assignment. If there are any students missing from your houses besides the six of us, call for Dobby the house elf and give him their names. Then send him to me and I will send him to Professor McGonagall. Is everyone clear on what we need to do?"
"I'm not," said Brittany Maddox as she slipped in through the door, having missed the meeting up to that point.
"Talk to Hannah and Ernie," Harry told her, waving his arm at the two Hufflepuff prefects. "All right, let's go!" Hannah immediately took Brittany under her wing and directed her back out the door, explaining to her as they went. The D.A. members quickly separated and moved toward their common rooms. Harry and his friends followed the Slytherin students quietly down to the dungeons, catching a brief view of the battle that was raging outside of Hogwarts as they passed though the Entrance Hall. Harry saw Hagrid throw three Death Eaters to the ground at once, wielding his pink umbrella like a mighty sword as he stood back to back with Madame Maxime. Harry dragged his eyes away from the scene, worry and fear crowding out any feelings of pride he'd begun to have at seeing Hagrid fight so nobly. He wondered for the thousandth time when this great battle would ever be over and whether Voldemort could ever truly be defeated. The small group of students descended the steps into the dungeons and moved along the corridor toward the Slytherin common room.
"Malfoy, you can side with those losers and die however you want, but we draw the line at bringing them in here!" Vincent Crabbe shook his fist as he and a dozen other Slytherins met Draco and Zabini and their six companions outside their common room entrance.
"Yeah!" Gregory Goyle grunted his agreement. "Go hide out in the Gryffindor common room with them if you want. You and Zabini both! You blood traitors and mudbloods aren't welcome here."
If Draco was fazed by the taunts and threats of his former friends, he didn't show it. He pulled himself up to his greatest height, steeled his expression and stared lazily at Crabbe and Goyle, ignoring the others. "Exactly what reward do you expect to get from the Dark Lord for your most…noble…services?" Draco drawled.
"More than you'll get from the Old Fool for what you've been doing, that's for certain," Crabbe returned.
"Really, you think so, do you? Let's just see then, what has he rewarded his faithful followers with lately? Ah, yes, the Lestranges, apart from Bella, were allowed to rot in Azkaban for six months before the Dark Lord bothered to spring them. And as soon as they were out, sure he gave that idiot his proper head back, but he also tortured the three of them for hours for not succeeding at retrieving the prophecy! He claims all the property and livelihood of each and every Death Eater from the moment they enter into his service, and requires from them a lifetime of slavery, the only escape being death itself. Most of his followers end up dying at his hand if they aren't killed by an auror first. One mistake can mean your life, and will at least result in a Cruciatus Curse coming your way. So you bow down to him if you like, kiss his robes and spread roses under his feet. Give him a manicure for all I care. I've chosen better, I dare say!"
"You've chosen death!" Pansy Parkinson shrieked from the back of the small gathering of Slytherins. "If the Dark Lord doesn't kill you, your own father will!"
"They'll have to find me first, won't they? You idiots go on and join him. He's right outside the front doors by now. I'm sure he will reward you greatly."
"Find you? What trouble will that be?" Crabbe said. "Here you are already. If the Dark Lord is right outside the castle doors, why don't we go and see him together and see who he rewards best, you or me?" Crabbe raised his wand and aimed for Draco. "Petrificus…" he began to say, but before he could finish his spell, eight wands were out and casting spells in abundance. Ninety seconds later, twelve or so Slytherins lay on the floor in various heaps and the eight D.A. members stepped over their prone bodies and made their way into the Slytherin common room.
Upon entering the common room, Harry discovered just what had alerted the Slytherin greeting party to their arrival. The nineteen other D.A. members who had returned to the common room previous to Draco and Blaise were fully engaged in a wand fight with several other Slytherins who were obviously of the same opinion as Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson. Several neutral parties were watching animatedly, some cheering when a particularly stealthy move was pulled off by one side or the other. Harry watched in horror as they battled it out, a pit in his stomach slowly evolving into a churning of molten rock. Rage engulfed him as he watched one of his D.A. students drop to the floor with a nasty hex that left burn marks on his face and singed ends in his hair. The mountain of emotions finally erupted.
"ENOUGH!" Harry shouted. Instantly the fighting stopped and all eyes, at least those whose owners were not petrified or stunned, focused on Harry.
"How'd you get in here, Potter?" One seventh year Slytherin said. "We sent the others to keep you out."
"Get out of our common room," Theodore Nott agreed. "We don't want your lot in here. And take them," he indicated the Slytherin D.A. members with a wave of his thin hand, "with you. They're a disgrace to Slytherin's great name."
"Salazar Slytherin was once a friend of Godric Gryffindor's," Draco reminded them. "He was indeed noble once. It's about time we remembered what made him noble instead of celebrating the actions he took that eventually led to his downfall!"
"What would a traitor like you know of nobility?" Nott replied. Draco glared at him and might have said something, but Harry cut in.
"The fight isn't between Slytherin and Gryffindor anymore. It's between Voldemort," There was a collective gasp, "and me. Whichever of you can take me down in a single shot earns the right to deliver me to your great hero, Voldemort!"
"Harry, what are you doing?" Ron asked warningly.
"I'm settling this," Harry replied. "Come on, you lot, give it your best go!"
Nott raised his wand and squared off with Harry in dueling style. "You'll be sorry you ever set foot in this castle, Potter," Nott declared.
Harry waited until Nott cried out his first spell, "Opponeren Brysan," and then swung into motion, flicking his wand deftly and casting his, "Protego," faster than Nott could duck when his own spell came back at him. The bluish light hit it's originator in the gut and Nott howled in pain and doubled over on the floor.
"Who's next?" Harry cried.
A burly looking fifth year stepped up and kicked Nott aside with a sneer. "I always knew you were just a lot of fancy talk, Nott," he said. "The day a Gryffindor can bring down Marcus Mandura, I'll wear my sisters dress robes in the Great Hall!"
"I'm sure that can be arranged," said Draco. "I hope you look good in pink, Mandura."
Harry eyed the cocky fifth year. He'd never paid much attention to the kid before and wondered when the brute had gotten so big. He waited for the overgrown student to cast his spell, "Expelliarmus," before throwing out his own.
"Protego, Stupefy!" In one fluid motion the two spells left Harry's large opponent sprawled out on the floor, his wand in Harry's hand.
"Anyone else?" Harry grunted angrily. The room had grown quiet during the two short duels, and the rest of the Slytherins seemed unwilling to step forward. "No one? Fine then, will the members of Dumbledore's Army please take your places guarding each entrance and exit into or out of this room? Slytherin prefects, please gather a head count of your entire house, making note of anyone who is not here. You'll find about twelve of your classmates out in the corridor. You, and you," he pointed to two rather large looking boys, "go and get them. Bring them in here as quickly as you can." There was a scurrying as several people began to hastily obey Harry's instructions.
"A very Gryffindor means of handling the situation," Draco critiqued Harry as they stood by the brick wall entrance to the common room watching as the students they'd leveled in the corridor were carried into the room. "But I suppose it worked just the same."
"Yeah, I guess it did for now," Harry said, not quite keeping the worry he felt out of his voice. "I just hope…"
"You hope they don't turn on us at just the wrong moment?" Draco guessed. His face was pulled into a smirk, but there was a definite look in Draco's eyes that seemed to beg forgiveness.
"I…I'm sure we've stunned all the ones who might do that. But…what I was thinking was…I hope the battle never reaches the inside of the school. Do you know anything else about Voldemort's plans?"
"Only that you've already prevented most of his aims for tonight. He may have brought down Dumbledore, but he didn't get you, or me, or Snape, and he probably knows he won't be taking the school by surprise as he had hoped. I'm sure the wards were in place the moment you were reported missing by your friends," Draco cocked his head toward Ron and Hermione who were helping to guard the portrait entrances at the far end of the room. "Not to mention the whole Imperious parchment potion thing never even had a chance to happen because of you."
"I wonder where Umbridge and her fan club got off to," Harry said. "Seems they're no where to be found. What was their part in this great plan, besides to administer that test?"
"They were supposed to let Voldemort in through the Chamber entrance," Draco said, his face going a bit pale. "I assumed Dumbledore would take care of them, but if he went to Malfoy Manor before he did it…"
"Then they'll be buried in the Chamber right now. Dumbledore did manage to seal the Chamber's entrance tonight."
Draco was looking oddly at Harry as though sizing him up. "Half an hour ago, for me at least, you were bawling your eyes out because Dumbledore was killed in front of you. Now you're talking about him as though he has simply gone on vacation for a little while. What happened when you used that time turner?"
"Nothing much," Harry evaded. "I didn't convince Dumbledore not to go and save me, if that's what you're wondering about."
"Why not? I mean, you didn't just give up and let him go off to his death, that much I'm certain of," Draco pressed. "What is it you're not telling anyone?"
"You'll find out later," Harry sighed.
"Whatever," Draco relented reluctantly. He fell silent as the next pair of stunned Slytherins was hauled in through the faux brick wall, but he kept his eyes trained on Harry for a few minutes longer as though the answer might lie in Harry's schooled features. Harry shifted nervously under Draco's searching gaze and turned to focus on the two boys who were dragging a limp Millicent Bullstrode through the entrance with some measure of difficulty.
"That's all of them," one of the boys said to Harry as he puffed and wheezed under Millicent's weight.
"That was only nine," Harry replied.
"That's all that was out there," the other gasped as he dropped Millicent's feet to the floor.
"Oh that's nice," the first said as he sank to the floor trying not to drop the girl's head quite as disgracefully as his assistant had done her feet. He heaved her body to his left and struggled to get out from under her.
"Who's missing then?" Harry asked as he scanned the faces of the students now lying in a row in the middle of the floor.
"Vince, Gregory, and Pansy," Draco answered for him.
"What'd they get hit with?" Harry asked.
"I stunned all three of them myself," Draco replied.
"You two didn't enervate them did you?" Harry asked the two boys.
"No way," the one who'd dropped Millicent's feet said. "They'd've hexed us for helping you if we had!"
"Someone had to have done it, though," Draco pressed angrily.
"I swear, it wasn't us," said the one who'd been more careful with Millicent's head. "These were all that were out there from the start. It had to have been someone out there, a teacher or something."
"The teachers are all out on the grounds defending the castle," Harry shook his head. "Unless Peeves knows how to use a wand, which I greatly doubt, it would seem either your father or Umbridge or both didn't make it into the Chamber before Dumbledore sealed it."
Their conversation was cut short then by a tremendous crashing sound from above their heads. Harry and Draco looked at each other and seemed to come to the same conclusion without any discussion necessary.
"Zabini," Harry called, "come guard the front entrance. Ron, you and Hermione will have to guard all three of those portraits."
"Where are you going now?" Ron asked irritably.
"To find out what's going on outside," Draco answered for Harry. "Father and Umbridge are still unaccounted for. They could still be in the castle for all we know, and might even find a way to let the Death Eaters in."
"You're not going anywhere without us," Ron said stubbornly. "You," he called to a couple of students who looked as if they were in their second or third year, "you both know how to stun, don't you? And you, yeah, you with the big eyes and black jumper, I'll bet you can say 'Stupefy,' can't you?" The students he'd spoken to nodded wide eyed. "Get over here, then, one to each of these portraits. The moment anything begins to open one from the other side, stun them. You got that?" The three young Slytherins nodded again and stared up into Ron's reddened face. Hermione looked worriedly from the students to Ron to Harry and Draco, but shrugged her shoulders and followed when Ron stomped across the room to stand next to Harry.
"We've been with you in this since we all first met on the train, Harry," Ron said, quelling Harry's rising protest. "There's no reason to leave us out now. Let's go." As though to punctuate Ron's statements, Ginny strode forward and crossed her arms defiantly in front of herself, her expression clearly indicating her intention to go along as well.
Harry mimicked Hermione's defeated shrug and said, "Neville, Luna, and Blaise, you're in charge here until we return." Then he turned to lead the way out of the Slytherin common room and ran straight into a solid brick wall. "What? Malfoy, what's the matter with this thing?"
Draco busted out laughing. "You're not a Slytherin. You can't enter or exit through that doorway without a Slytherin to lead you through," he explained between his gales of laughter.
"All right, wise guy, you go first then," Harry grunted. Draco sucked in a deep breath to still his chortling and placed his palm flat on the brick wall. It melted away and he stepped through. Harry stood staring for a moment until Draco poked his head back through the wall.
"Are you all coming, or did you decide to let me go solo for once?" Draco goaded them. Harry smirked, placed the palm of his own hand on the top of Draco's head and shoved him back through, then followed after him. As he, Ron and Hermione stepped into the corridor, Draco smoothed his fringe back into place and glared at Harry.
"Careful with the hair, Potter," the blonde boy scolded.
It was a golden opportunity to tease Draco for his over awareness of his own appearance, but Harry let it pass, feeling the seriousness of the situation now that they were out in the corridor and could hear the sounds of the battle as it raged above them. It was obvious from the crashing, clanking and echoing that the battle had reached the Entrance Hall and that the suits of armor that lined the walls of the corridors had joined the fray. Harry began to creep slowly toward the stairs. He could feel better than hear the others as they followed. Their hearts thumped in their chests so loudly that Harry began to fear the combatants above them would hear it. They kept to the shadows as they tiptoed up the dungeon steps and peered into the embattled Hall. Harry immediately spotted Remus Lupin warring with Lucius Malfoy, and Malfoy's presence gave rise to the deduction that he had helped the Death Eaters enter the castle. He spotted Umbridge then, standing shoulder to shoulder with Bellatrix Lestrange, fighting against Professor McGonagall and the real Professor Snape.
Impressed as he was with his teachers' fighting prowess, Harry could not suppress the dread that was rising with each moment that he watched. He flinched each time a spell was cast at someone he knew and cared about, and silently sighed each time one of them successfully dodged. He cast a glance over his shoulder and found that his friends were just as enthralled as he was. He saw Ginny cringe, Ron shrink backward further into the shadows and Hermione grab hold of Ron's forearm. Draco stood transfixed, staring in a single direction, and upon following his gaze, Harry figured out why.
There, in the middle of the Hall, red eyes full of a fiery rage, stood Voldemort himself, his pale, tightly pulled skin revealing the bulging veins of a man both angry and viciously convinced of his impending victory. The great and terrible wizard leveled his wand at Dedalus Diggle, shouted out his spell and laughed triumphantly as the green light of his killing curse dropped the courageous Order member to the floor. Harry's heart sank miserably for a moment until realization dawned on him. There was no pain in his scar. There wasn't a single twinge.
He moved carefully and silently toward Hermione and whispered almost inaudibly, "I don't think that's him!"
"What do you mean?" she asked, her incredulity evident despite her muffled tone.
"My scar, it doesn't hurt! That can't be Voldemort if my scar doesn't hurt!"
"Sure looks like the Old Snake to me," Ron muttered under his breath.
"But Harry's right. That isn't him, or Harry's scar would hurt. But it did hurt before, didn't it? When they got here?"
"It did, and I was even convinced at the time that they were already in the castle. But then I learned that Dumbledore had sealed the chamber before they arrived, and that they were actually out on the grounds. I think…I'm not certain, I mean…"
"Get to the point would you?" Draco whispered irritably as he continued to stare at the wizard in question.
"It's just, I don't think Voldemort came here at all tonight," Harry replied. "He meant to, but when we escaped Malfoy Manor and destroyed the test parchments, his plan got all fowled up. He couldn't cancel the plan to attack, or he'd lose face in front of his Death Eaters. But he couldn't come and not succeed, either. So he did what any corrupt leader does in such a situation. He stayed behind."
"Why would he do that?" Ginny whispered.
"Because," Harry surmised, "if the Death Eaters don't win, he can blame it on their own stupidity, say it was their inability and not his plan or leadership that was the reason they didn't prevail."
"Why'd he send a double, then?" Ron asked.
"Because if they do win," Harry said "he gets to claim full credit for having led them to victory. He'll simply dispose of whoever is posing as him so that they won't ever know that he wasn't there. He probably has that guy under a really strong Imperious Curse to make him behave and sound like himself. If they do lose, he'll reveal to them all that this guy was given the great honor of leading the Death Eaters, like a second in command type position, but failed, and he will kill him anyway."
Draco had finally stopped staring at the Voldemort look-alike and was now staring wide eyed and pale faced at Harry as though Harry's words had stunned him. "If ever I'd had a second thought about returning to my father and his ways," he breathed, "that alone is enough to convince me not to do it. That guy's dead either way, and he's probably standing there expecting some grand reward!"
Harry gave Draco a sympathetic smile and returned his attention to the battle that was raging before them. "I expect they got into the chamber from the outside, Voldemort thought he was home free and sent the message that they were inside the castle to me through the link in my scar, taunting me with what he supposed was his victory. When they discovered the entrance was sealed and they could not break through, they came out the other way and began the fight out on the grounds where they are far more vulnerable. But they couldn't leave here without fighting, or they'd have been forfeiting their lives to him."
"So what do we do now?" Ginny asked, effectively returning their focus to the current situation. "How do we make sure they don't win?" she specified unnecessarily.
"We give them something they aren't expecting," Harry said. "And I say we give it Peeves style."
"Peeves?" Ron asked bewilderedly.
"Yeah, like this," Harry said with a genuine smile, and he whipped out his wand. He aimed at the chain that held one of the grand chandeliers in the Entrance Hall and whispered the severing charm. With a crash, the chandelier successfully leveled three Death Eaters in one go. The Order members shrieked and jumped back as though expecting the chandelier to spring at them next. Harry flattened himself against the wall of the stairwell to be sure he was fully hidden in the shadows and stifled a snigger. The others grinned mischievously and aimed at other strategic objects in the room. The great marble statues, the staircase railing, and the cut and dried flowers decorating the greeter's tables along the walls suddenly came inexplicably to life, throwing themselves into the battle. Soon the tables and chairs were joining the show and the confused and befuddled Death Eaters were staring around the Hall looking for the source of this odd brand of magic.
"What ails these crazy flowers?" one Death Eater cried as he tried to bat away the dehydrated foliage.
"Aargh," another grunted as he found himself wrapped in the self-empowered end of the staircase railing.
"Master, what is this magic?" another called out as he ran from the desk drawer that had been bewitched to continually project itself toward his head.
The distraction seemed to give the Order just the advantage they needed. As though they were given a silent command, they all raised their wands at once and aimed at the front doors. A broad streak of blue light connected with the doors and sealed them closed. In an instant the room was dark, pitch black, until another spell filled the room with a great ring of brilliant red light. Harry saw the Death Eaters begin to fall to the floor before the room was plunged into darkness again. When the candles of the chandeliers overhead flickered to life once more with their golden flames, the five friends found themselves surrounded by a dozen stern, though relieved, faces.
"Exactly what do you kids think you're doing?" Remus asked, his eyes resting firmly on Harry's.
"Helping?" Hermione suggested weakly.
Harry said nothing but stared back at Remus defiantly.
"Goodness knows you needed the help," Ron defended Hermione's answer.
"Is that so?" Moody growled at Ron, both his magical and his real eyes fixed on the redheaded miscreant. "I believe you were all told to remain in your common rooms, isn't that so, Professor McGonagall?"
"It most certainly is so," McGonagall said, her lips barely moving as they were pulled into the thinnest line Harry had ever seen them make. "You should not have been anywhere near this battle! What were you thinking, coming in here and causing a distraction like that?"
"They…they were…in the castle, Professor…they killed Diggle…they…."
"Yes, Miss Granger," McGonagall said as she stared down her nose at the girl, "they were, and we led them in here on purpose. It was our intention to capture the lot."
"Well, we did do that at least," Remus sighed. "But if one of them had seen you, they might have been able to hold you hostage. What could we have done then? We couldn't have risked any harm to you and they'd have gotten away, and could possibly have taken you with them."
"It's not as though we stood out in the middle of the floor," Harry defended himself and his friends.
"And how long would it have been before they noticed the angle of the spells that were charming the objects in the room?" Remus scolded. "We had hoped to unmask our Voldemort imposter to the rest of the Death Eaters, show them just how courageous their leader truly is, but we had to move forward quickly with the stunner when we realized what was going on."
"You should've known you couldn't hide from ol' Mad-Eye," Tonks chided them, and Harry's face reddened as he realized the Order probably knew they were there from the moment they stepped out of the Slytherin common room.
"You mean you knew he was an imposter?" Hermione asked in an awed voice.
"Of course we knew," Moody barked, and Hermione flinched slightly. "After all these years of fighting that monster, don't you think we'd know our enemy by now? It's not just his looks and mannerisms, mind you. Every move that Snake makes, the way his mind works, is all familiar to us."
"And it didn't hurt that McGonagall scanned him for any trace of Morphus Draft in his blood and he came up teaming with it!" Lupin cut in. Moody glared ferociously at him, but Remus ignored him. "The point is, Harry, you have got to learn to trust the Order to do the job they're called upon to do. Fighting Death Eaters is our sworn duty. Yours, within Dumbledore's Army, is the protection of the student body. We did our job tonight. But you abandoned your post out of curiosity and perhaps in search of a bit of glory for having helped in the fight."
"That's not fair," Harry shouted, "We came here out of concern for all of you as well as the students. If Death Eaters had entered the school because Umbridge and Malfoy had let them in, we needed to be aware of it!"
"Do you really believe Dumbledore would leave those two hanging about the castle after their plan was so commendably discovered by you kids?" Lupin asked. Harry studied his feet and sighed. "He locked them in the Chamber to wait for their master's arrival," Remus continued. "And he gave us leave to lure them in here for the trap. It's a shame poor Dedalus got hit, but we all knew the risks involved when we signed up as members of the Order. You kids, however, have no business taking on such risks before you're even of age, with no thought toward your parents or others who care very much for you and are here doing this for the express purpose of providing for you a better and safer existence. What reason do we have for risking our lives if the very people we're protecting throw themselves into danger anyway?"
Harry had not felt so low since the day he watched Sirius fall through the veil of death at the Department of Mysteries. He knew Remus was right, that he had wanted some part in the fight more than he was truly concerned about the safety of the students. He had once again risked his friends' lives and marched into the middle of things, heedless of the consequences. He thought he'd learned something about responsibility last year. Now he knew he had deluded himself into believing he had to play the major role in the defeat of Voldemort, that he alone could stop this battle and save Hogwarts.
The words of the Sorting Hat's song at the beginning of the year played through his mind, "To be united is to heed the call. To be divided is to let this school fall." And he knew he had not, in this instance, acted in unity with the order, but had, as Lupin said, abandoned his post out of curiosity and the desire to join the fight and win some glory. Last year's mistake had been one anyone could have made, given Voldemort's aptitude for the art of persuasion. But this mistake had been his own doing, and once again, he'd led his friends, even Ginny, into harm's way. His confidence shattered and his pride tarnished, Harry wished with all his heart that he could just fall into a black abyss and disappear forever. He even felt as though his feet were sinking slowly through the step on which he stood.
"I'm sorry," Harry muttered, utterly defeated. "I'm so dreadfully sorry. I swear, it won't ever happen again." With heavy footsteps, he pushed his way past Tonks and Lupin and weaved his way through the fallen witches and wizards in the Hall. He stopped for a moment as he came upon the Voldemort imposter and glared down at the man. A tear began to make its way down his cheek, but he hastily brushed it away and dragged himself up the stairs toward the Gryffindor common room. He barely registered his friends and teachers shouting something at him as he whispered the password to the fat lady and stepped in through the portrait hole.
Suddenly he found himself in the path of what seemed like a hundred streams of red light at once. He realized his mistake at about the same moment that Dean, Seamus, Colin, and Dennis realized who they'd stunned, but in that instant, the red light connected with Harry's chest, shoulder, left leg and right arm, and he collapsed to the floor.