The old inn was practically falling apart, at the end of a long, winding, unpaved road that looked to be mostly frequented by a boy carrying Muggle newspapers on a bicycle. It was obviously an ideal hiding place for those who didn't accidentally turn more than one object into a Port Key before they vanished, I thought. Granted, it had taken us longer than expected to find the single shingle that they had magicked into a Port Key along with the bit of stove pipe, but Avery had finally stepped on it, and now we were all here.

We came in through the back, trying, as any predators do, to keep as quiet as possible. The 'veterans', as they called themselves, divided the lobby and other large rooms amongst themselves, and Draco and I were left to patrol the bedrooms on the second floor.

The corridors were long and straight, carpeted in a drab shade of maroon, and candles were set in the tarnished brass chandeliers, casting light and shadow alike through the halls and rooms. The wallpaper was stained with varying shades of brown—tobacco, I assumed. The Muggles of old had had a terrible addiction to the stuff.

I found the Weasley girl alone in the second bedroom I searched, sobbing over the body of one of her brothers, whose head was bleeding badly. She was completely defenseless, and yet I couldn't kill her. I had only come along because Draco was there—I didn't have the Mark, I wasn't a killer. Even my father's death hadn't been enough to rouse the murderous rage that had resulted in so many innocent deaths.

I let her go. It must have taken a good amount of bravery, but she left her brother and began to clamber out of the window. Before she was completely out of sight, she looked back at me, and in those honey-colored eyes, so hardened by death and war, there glowed a simple gratitude.

Maybe we weren't so different after all.

He was gone. Now that I sat in the musty closet, in this broken down Muggle inn, waiting for them to find me—and I didn't even know who 'they' were, whether they were members of the Order or my enemies—I had time to think. To reach for the last possible moment I could have intervened, could have prevented all this from happened.

But it wasn't all my fault. I didn't feel guilty, not then. Weasley, the bastard, had put himself in charge of our little band in Harry's absence, thinking that the scrap of status he had obtained as right-hand man to the Boy Who Lived made him automatically the best person to lead us against the Death Eaters. He should have stopped to think about that. Should have done a lot of things.

Dean's body is still lying in Hogsmeade, in the snow in front of the Three Broomsticks. Why had Weasley chosen this one spot, the one that would undoubtedly be swarming with You-Know-Who's supporters?

He had just stood there beside Dean, mouth agape, as a nameless figure, cloak fluttering in the wind, had emerged from behind a cottage. No preamble; he simply opened his mouth to issue the six most terrible syllables in the world, his wand pointed directly at the redhead's chest.

Some of the damned Weasley instinct that had kept the other eight of them alive this long must have kicked in then, and he staggered—no other word for it, really—to the side a fraction of a second before the words were uttered. And Dean was in the way.

I was at the back of the group that was still through the back alley toward the pub, but I could run, still, and was there to hold him as the warmth ebbed from his body. Then I was swearing and sobbing and just trying to give a voice to the anger and hate, but it did no good. Someone was pulling me off of Dean, maybe Neville, and we were running, for there were more of them now, maybe a dozen cloaked figures descending upon us as we clattered up the ladder toward the Port Key.

And now we were here, in what could safely be called a dead end. I wasn't going to just sit and wait to be dragged out and slaughtered. I had control over that, at least.

I crawled out of the closet, into the hall. There was a short, balding man coming down the corridor. His wand went up as soon as he saw me, centered on my chest. I raised both my arms toward the heavens, where he was undoubtedly watching me.

"Don't hurt me," I began, softly, "I can take you to them."