Disclaimer - By the way guys… and girls - I'd just like to say that I don't own any rights to this story and no money will be made by it…
Chapter Fourteen - The Shining Sword in the Tapestry
'The Dark Lord sent for me to be killed. As far as anyone knows… he succeeded. But the Dark Lord knows all! He accepted my one request after many years of faithful service. That I would have my revenge - to shed the blood of a Lestrange!' Neither he nor Meissa had noticed Claudia's painful attempts to raise herself from the floor, but inch by inch she was slowly edging toward them. A scraping of metal grinding against metal brought her to her senses as Regulus unsheathed the sword.
He raised it in his hands above his head.
Claudia screamed, tearing across the room towards him and throwing herself with al her might into against his unprotected side. It was enough to unbalance him as he desperately drove the sword towards Meissa, who spun and caught the blade in her hand. She let out a howl of pain as its sharp edge slit straight into her palm but kept holding it, causing the tip of the blade to drive straight into the Tapestry, tearing it, ripping it. Meissa plunged her uninjured hand into her robes and grasped her wand, shouting at Claudia to get out of the way, trying to maintain a clear shot of Regulus in the whirl of robes.
'Petrificus Totalus!' she screamed, but Regulus simply dodged the curse, his manic laughter intensifying as he threw Claudia aside.
'Expelliarmus' he cried and Meissa's wand flew out of her hand across the room, landing with a clatter by the unconscious Claudia, who Regulus had pointed his wand at
'AVADA -'
'NO!'
Meissa spun, grasping the handle of the sword with force she had pulled it free of the crumbling wall.
She charged forward and drove the sword -
Regulus gave one agonised yell, for a second standing limply as his eyes widened and fixed on Meissa - who brutally ripped the sword from where it had punctured his stomach - and then he was crumpling to the floor…
Meissa stood over his prone, twitching figure… her arm dropped limply at her side, still holding the blood-stained silver sword. She gave one loud, reverberating scream - dropping the sword and sliding down the wall.
Turning her head towards where the Tapestry still hung, she let out another piercing scream to see that it had sealed itself, mended as though never torn. That was how it had to be. She clutched her head in her hands, feeling the blood of her cut palm but the pain had vanished.
She had killed him! She had KILLED HIM!
Then hands were clutching her wrists, pulling her up even as she struggled to collapse backwards. 'Get up! Before you do yourself more damage!' it was the one voice that could eat past anything… the one voice that she would open her eyes for… Severus Snape stood over her, still tugging her wrists. She yielded, allowing herself to stand even as she cried out! She found Snape's shoulder quite appealing to rest her head on, though if she had been in any other state perhaps she would have considered the danger of doing this. As it was Snape was too overwhelmed in the chaos around them to really notice.
'He's not dead!' the voice rang out across the room and Meissa opened her eyes to see Lucien stride past her. Meissa felt her legs buckle so it was quite lucky Snape had snapped to attention at that moment in time to catch her. Meissa caught sight of Remus kneeling over Claudia, who seemed to have woken up and gestured with her thumbs up to show that she was ok. Was the whole order here?
But something seemed to break through chaos of shouts and rushing footsteps… Lucien had backed away from Regulus… whose body seemed to surrounded by green light… before twitching and shaking until a piercing, blood-curdling shriek filled the room. Snape had shielded Meissa from the blinding flashes and screams… and then silence fell over the room as the body of Regulus collapsed back on the floor, limp… Dead!