"Harry, come on!"
Harry shook his head slightly and opened his eyes. "W-what?"
"Harry, we can go forward! The stairs are back, but we must hurry! It's five till midnight!" Kelly exclaimed, eyes bright.
Harry shook his head again and sat up as quick as he could. The troll lay a few feet away, as smelly as ever, but clearly knocked out, if not dead. The stairs had reappeared where they had once disappeared underneath Kelly and himself. As Harry looked at Kelly, thinking about his last memory, he saw that Kelly's lower body was all right. She was a little red, but no bones were crushed, like it should have been. She stood up, and held out her hand. She seemed to be feeling fine.
"What--?" Harry started.
"--happened?" Kelly finished, smiling and helping him up as he took her hand. "I don't know. Right after I took your hand, I went black. I just woke up to find the troll out cold, the stairs back, and you unconscious. Are you saying you didn't do it?"
"I didn't. Did you?" Harry asked.
Kelly laughed a little. "I couldn't take on a troll without my wand."
Harry nodded and looked at the stairs. Then he looked back at Kelly. "What will we do without our wands?"
Kelly shook her head. "I don't know that one, either."
Harry nodded. They looked at each other again, and then started toward the stairs. They stopped just in front of them and looked up. They couldn't see the floor above because the steps turned, like all the others. Slowly and carefully, they started to climb them, well aware that it wasn't likely they would come back down them.
They stopped near the top. They could hear whispering above, and then the distinct voice of Hermione.
"Leave them alone!"
Someone snickered and muttered an incoherent threat. Hermione was silenced. Harry and Kelly exchanged a glance, then stepped up so that they could see the room before them.
Whatever they were expecting, this wasn't it.
"I called them after Bellatrix, so go buy your own. Wait, I'm sorry, you don't buy--you steal," Hermione snapped.
"Oh… but I want the cookies!" Avery whined.
"Live with it," Hermione shot at him and went to sit down, eating chocolate chip cookies.
There was a party in front of them. Lights were flashing near the back, where it looked like Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy were dancing (Harry dared wonder what Narcissa would think). Hermione and Ron were whispering together at a table, unbound, not gagged, and eating the chocolate chip cookies Avery was eyeing so sternly from a giant snack table. An entire throne was on the wall near the middle, where Voldemort sat, staring at a clock on the other wall, about to tick midnight.
Harry and Kelly looked at each other, bewilderment all over their faces. They were about to whisper a plan of some kind when Voldemort stood. The music, lights, whimpering, eating, and dancing stopped all at once. Everyone looked at him.
"Well," Voldemort said in his high, cold voice, "it looks as though Mr. Potter and Miss Damen will not be joining our party."
Several Death Eaters exchanged smirks.
"Shall I contact them once more?" Voldemort asked.
The Death Eaters exchanged glances, then gathered around Voldemort. Voldemort closed his cat-like eyes and seemed to temporarily go into a daze. Kelly gave Harry one horrified look before she, too, went into a daze of some kind. Then she straightened up and looked around.
"Well, you're… oh, how long have you been spying?" Voldemort asked.
"Hermione! Ron!" Kelly screamed from beyond the ranks of the Death Eaters. They moved in closer.
"Why didn't you show yourself?" asked Voldemort. "I'd been waiting…"
Voldemort stepped over the stairs, and the Death Eaters turned to see who it was.
It was exactly what Kelly had been hoping for.
In the few seconds of their distraction, she burst through the circle and raced toward Ron and Hermione, close to cursing at how pale she looked.
"Come on!" Kelly yelled, grabbing them and digging Voldemort's nails into their skin, making them scream in pain.
Kelly looked at Voldemort's hands. "Geez! He looks like Dracula and he's got nails the size of Ireland! Doesn't he ever cut them?"
"Well, actually, I rather like them that way," Voldemort said, eyeing his nails fondly. "Yes, well, SEIZE THEM!"
Harry ran up the steps to help out his friends. Kelly kicked the nearest Death Eater who, from the gasp of pain, Harry thought was Lucius Malfoy. He, Ron, and Hermione just watched her kick, slap, hit, punch, and severely injure any part of a Death Eater she could until she noticed they weren't helping.
"Well, come on!" she yelled, ducking a spell Rookwood had tossed at her.
"We can't do that… that… um…" Ron said. "that Kung-fu crap."
"Well," Kelly said, tripping Jugson, "that 'Kung-fu crap' is the only reason we haven't been captured yet. Don't tell me you don't know how to bite!"
"Bite them!" Ron said in disgust. "I might get rabies!"
"Excuse you!" Bellatrix Lestrange snapped, taking a swipe at Kelly, "I wash every day, for your information! I do not have rabies!"
"Coulda fooled me," Ron muttered.
Kelly gave a slight scream as Crabbe punched her and she flew back into a wall. Harry nudged Ron and Hermione and they went forward, not sure what they were going to do, only that they had to do it if they wanted to escape alive.
Ron looked around, then attempted to tackle Goyle. This didn't work, as Goyle was five times his size. Goyle just looked at him, picked him up by his feet, and carried him over to Voldemort.
Hermione ran toward Bellatrix Lestrange and bit her wand arm, then started spitting because Bellatrix tasted so bad. Bellatrix kicked her and she flew back into Crabbe, who was unceasingly punching Kelly so that she couldn't leave the wall. Crabbe looked around stupidly like the troll, not sure what had hit him, and Kelly staggered away, gasping for breath. Crabbe saw Hermione, bleeding slightly near her head, and picked her up by her hair and carried her to Voldemort's throne.
Kelly, gasping for breath, was met by Lucius Malfoy. She tried to dodge his stunning spell, but it hit her and she collapsed. Lucius didn't carry her to Voldemort--he dragged her, her own blood leaving a trail behind her.
Harry, meanwhile, had gone after Avery. His back had been turned—he'd been eating Hermione's cookies. Harry pounced on him and punched him the face. He screamed, spit out a mouthful of cookies all over Harry's fist, and started raging like a madman. He tried to reach Harry, but Harry just hung on, refusing to let go.
The last thing he saw was Peter Pettigrew, alias Wormtail, pointing a strangely familiar wand at him before he fell unconscious.