70. The End of the World
When they got to the Great Hall, it seemed the entire school had already gathered, and McGonagall was standing at the front of the room. "Evacuation will be overseen by Mr. Filch and Madam Pomfrey," she announced. "Prefects, when I give the word, you will organize your House and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point."
"And what if we want to stay and fight?" Ernie called out from the Hufflepuff table.
"If you are of age, you may stay," McGonagall replied.
Callie spotted Harry near the Gryffindor table and went up to him. "Eh, what happened to Snape?" she asked.
Giving her a skeptical look, he said, "He jumped out a window and flew off. Literally, he can fly. Without a broom."
She simply stared at him, not knowing how to respond to that. "Well... if you see him, don't kill him," she said. He furrowed his brow in a rather angry fashion, but before he could object, she lied, "I wanna kill him myself. You can stun him, you can bind him, whatever, just... let me be the one to do it."
He studied her a moment, and said. "Right. Have you seen Ron and Hermione?"
"They were in the Room of Requirement last I-" But before she could go on, a high-pitched voice rang out across the Hall. It wasn't one she had ever heard before, but it was vaguely familiar, and something about it made her draw her wand and look around the room for its source.
"I know that you are preparing to fight," the voice said. A few people screamed in terror as it went on, "Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood."
The man - or thing - behind the voice was nowhere to be seen. It was as though he were speaking over a muggle intercom. Callie turned back to Harry and whispered, "Is that him?" He nodded in confirmation.
She'd been close. The Dark Lord's real voice wasn't far off from the one she had heard as the Voice of Torment. Except that it was a bit more inhuman, something like a hissing snake.
"Give me Harry Potter," it commanded, "and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded. You have until midnight."
Silence. And every single set of eyes in the room were aimed on Harry.
"But he's there!" somebody called out from the Slytherin table. Of course, it was the unmistakable shriek of God damn Pansy. "Potter's there! Someone grab him!"
Glaring in her housemate's direction, Callie took a step in front of Harry, as though acting as his human shield. Which turned out to be unnecessary, as hundreds of people from the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw tables stood up and turned on the Slytherins, many of them drawing their wands in a threatening manner.
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," McGonagall called out, trying very hard, it seemed, to contain her disgust and anger. "You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the rest of your house could follow."
Callie watched with a dejected look on her face as her housemates filed out. But then Astoria stepped out from the group, ducking so as not to be seen by McGonagall. "I'm staying," the girl said. "I wanna fight."
Callie gaped at her in shock, a slight smile playing at the corner of her mouth. But then she shook her head and said. "No. You're underage."
"I'm sixteen. You were sixteen when you fought last year."
"That was different," Callie argued. "This is... bigger. It's more dangerous."
"I don't care, I've made up my mind. I wanna fight with the rest of you, not run off like a bloody coward. And I'm tired of you being the only noble Slytherin in this place."
Before Callie could protest further, Daphne came up behind her sister and said, "What's going on here? Come on, we're leaving." She grabbed Astoria by the arm and tried to pull her along, but the younger girl jerked out of her grip.
"No!" she yelled. "I'm not going anywhere."
"What do you mean?" Daphne asked.
"I mean that I'm going to fight."
"Like hell you are!" the older sister exclaimed, trying and failing once more to drag Astoria away.
"Enough!" the latter said, turning her wand on Daphne. "You let me alone or I'll hex you. Get a bit of practice in before the battle starts."
"Stori, this is not our fight!"
"Maybe not yours, but it is mine! Because I know what's right, and I wanna stand up for what's right. No muggle or muggle-born deserves to be locked up or killed or subjugated. No one does! And when the Light Side wins this war, I wanna be standing with them. I wanna know that I did what I could to help, that I didn't just sit by and do nothing!"
The sisters stared off with each other, defiant expressions on both of their faces. After a moment, Astoria took a deep breath and said, "If anything happens, tell Mummy and Daddy I love them." She then went to stand at Callie's side.
Daphne glared at the both of them, and then shook her head angrily and stepped forward. "I'm not leaving you here on your own," she told her sister. Then, to Callie, "If anything happens to her, I swear I'll kill you."
"Wait a minute," Callie said as her roommate stood beside Astoria, "now you're staying?"
"Only to make sure my little sister doesn't get herself murdered," Daphne growled.
Callie was amazed. Despite the fact that her roommate was only looking out for her sister and no one else, there were now two other Slytherins joining in the battle. I'm not the only one anymore, she thought, and there was a strange sense of being... free. As if she'd been bearing the entire weight of Slytherin House on her back all these years, and finally she didn't have to do it all herself.
"I'm staying too," somebody called out. Callie looked up and found Tracey Davis, her old friend turned enemy, coming towards her. "Slytherins are nothing if not prideful," the girl remarked. "I'd like to have something to be proud of."
Callie stared at her for a moment, then held out her hand for a shake.
"What a shame it would be to miss out on all the fun," Theo Nott said as he sauntered over to the girls. "Perhaps we'll get our names etched onto a memorial wall in the event that we're slaughtered."
Furrowing her brow, Callie said, "You're not serious?"
"We can't trust him," Astoria declared. "His father's a Death Eater."
He seemed unbothered as he turned his eyes on the girl. "Yes, he is. But I'm not."
Callie exchanged a glance with the others, then said to Nott, "You do realize it's us against your dad's ilk?"
With a nod, he muttered, "Hmm. And I look forward to it."
Callie hesitated. She had every reason not to let him come along. He could lead his father, or any of the other Death Eaters, right to them.
"As the self-proclaimed leader of Dumbledore's Army," Nott went on, "I assume you've got some sort of a plan?"
Pointing across the room towards Kingsley Shacklebolt, Tracey said, "That bloke over there said the heads of house were to take groups of fighters up to the towers. He and Lupin and that older ginger bloke are going out into the grounds."
Callie considered it, chewing on her thumbnail before she said, "We oughta get up on the towers, too. We'll have a better vantage point." She led her tiny group of Slytherins out into the entrance hall, paused, then made for the dungeons. "I wanna get some supplies together first."
The others waited in the common room while she ran up to the dormitory. Upon her return she opened up her sample of Liquid Luck, took a sip, and ordered them all to do the same. When the girls had all taken their shot, Tracey handed the bottle back to Callie, rather than passing it to Nott.
Callie eyed him. Did she really want to give the son of a known Death Eater such an advantage? Astoria was right, they couldn't trust him. For all she knew, luck for him could be successfully performing the Killing Curse on her - and she knew that he already had the capability; she'd seen him do it on an animal in class.
Seeing her obvious apprehension, he said, "I don't need it," nodding to the shimmery gold potion.
Taking a breath - and praying to God that she wasn't making the biggest mistake of her life - she held it out and said, "No, take it."
"Callie, we don't know who's side he's really on!" Astoria argued.
"Well if he's legit," the older girl countered, "and I don't give it to him... and he dies..." She shook her head to herself, shoving the bottle into Nott's hand. "I don't want that on my conscience."
Nott smirked at her. "Hmph. You're a real saint, Warbeck," he said, before downing the last of the Liquid Luck.
Reaching into a backpack she'd filled with supplies, she said, "Here," handing each of them a dagger.
"What's this for?" Daphne asked.
"Backup," Callie explained. "In the battle last year, I was so busy deflecting spells that I couldn't cast my own. So I threw a knife at the bloke."
"Wicked," Astoria commented, eyeing her shiny blade.
"Why do you have so many?" Tracey asked.
With a shrug, Callie replied, "I like to collect things." Such as her assortment of potion samples, which she had stuffed in her bag. Some of them had healing properties; she figured it couldn't hurt to bring them along for the fight. She had fashioned a makeshift utility belt, and multiplied it so that everybody had one. "Now," she said, "if you've got anything that could be used as a weapon, bring it with you." They all went off to grab anything that might come in handy, while she tucked her knife and her beater's bat into the belt. Pausing, she contemplated whether or not to add her father's wand to her assortment of weapons. It wouldn't work as good as her own, but hopefully it would be enough for a backup if she needed it.
But what if it gets lost or broken? she thought. She'd be devastated if that happened, but on the other hand...
He'd want you to take if it meant saving your life. Sighing, she pulled the wand from out of her bag - beech wood, eleven inches, phoenix feather core. "We're going to fight, Dad," she whispered, gazing at the object before tucking it into her belt. Finally, she attached Dumbledore's phoenix pin to her blouse as the others returned from their dormitories. "Are you ready?" she asked.
"As much as we'll ever be," Astoria said, tying her hair back. "Let's do this."
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Callie had decided it'd be best if they split up, rather than all of them congregating on only one tower. She figured that Flitwick would've brought his troops to cover Ravenclaw, and McGonagall would be at Gryffindor, so that left Sprout to man the Astronomy Tower. Where would Neville go? she wondered. With his head of house, or his favorite teacher? There were more Gryffindors in the D.A. than Hufflepuffs, so perhaps he'd have left Seamus and his other housemates to stay with McGonagall.
With that, she'd sent Astoria and Daphne to Gryffindor Tower, and Tracey and Nott to Ravenclaw. But when she arrived on the Astronomy Tower, there were only three people up there - Susan, Wayne, and to her surprise, Justin. "You're here!" she exclaimed. "You're alive!"
The boy flashed her a smile and they exchanged a brief hug. "Yep," he said. "Got the message on my coin. Brilliant idea, whosever it was."
Looking around, she asked, "Where's Sprout?"
"They went off to gather mandrakes from the greenhouse," Susan explained. "We're going to toss them to the grounds and hopefully paralyze a few of the dirty gits."
"Or kill 'em," Wayne said. "The cries of the fully-grown ones can be fatal."
"Excellent," Callie remarked. She looked down at her watch - it was a few minutes past midnight - then out over the grounds. It was already completely chaotic. Members of the Order and the D.A. were simultaneously struggling to hold up the protective enchantments around the castle, and dueling the dozens of Death Eaters who were trying to break through. A little farther down, stone statues and metal knights that had apparently been brought to life were attempting to hold off the rest of the Dark Lord's forces. In the distance, she could see five or six extremely large creatures - giants, she assumed - stomping through the woods.
"Bloody hell," she breathed. "You three stay here. I'm going to see if anyone needs help."
"Good luck, Warbeck!" Susan called out.
"You, too," she replied. "And good to have you back, Justin." He gave her a nod as she left them out on the tower.
Get to the grounds, she told herself. They need all the help they can get there. But on the second floor, a jet of green light shot through a window to her left and passed in front of her. "Christ!" she screamed, bowing down and covering her head. Very carefully, she made her way over to the shattered glass and looked out. Everybody out there was dueling at least one Death Eater; Shacklebolt had two. Callie aimed her wand and stunned one of them, then shot at somebody who was going after Anthony.
Change of plans, she thought. Don't go out there. Stay hidden. She took out a couple other windows herself, thinking it better to move around than remain in one spot. And while she did the best she could to secretly help her comrades, for every Death Eater that fell, it seemed that two more got past the knights and statues. Not to mention that there was an angry-looking giant wandering around amongst the battle. "Shit!" she exclaimed, shooting a Knockback Jinx at Padma, who had nearly been crushed under the giant's foot.
Then there was a loud crash, and it felt as if the entire castle was shaking. The protective charms are failing, she thought. Another crash, and dust sprinkled down from the ceiling. She remembered the cave-in during the last battle, and wondered briefly if it would be safer outside than in. Stay right here by the window and jump out if you have to, she decided, continuing to shoot both offensive and protective spells from the safety of the second floor.
Meanwhile, she was wondering where the hell Snape had run off to. Or if he'd come back and was one of the masked, hooded figures down below. He's a good duelist, the Dark Lord oughta have him fighting. But if he was down there amongst the other Death Eaters, he could easily be killed by someone from the Light Side. Now would be the time to reveal yourself, damn it.
As the battle outside raged on, the Death Eaters were coming closer and closer to breaching the castle. The Order and D.A. began to retreat back inside, so Callie made to join them on the ground floor. As she turned a corner, she crashed into someone and fell to the floor, instinctively turning her wand up at them.
"Whoa, hold your fire!" Nymphadora Tonks called out.
Callie looked up at her in surprise. "What are you doing here?" she asked, scrambling back on her feet. "Lupin said you were with your mum."
"I was, but I just couldn't stay there any longer," Tonks replied. "I had to be here with him. Have you seen him?"
"He was out on the grounds, but they're moving in now." She continued down the corridor, with Tonks at her side. "What about the baby?"
"He's with my mum, he'll be all right."
Callie glanced at her and sighed. "You really oughta go, Tonks. The rest of us have got this. You should be with Teddy."
"I need to be with my husband," she argued. "This is what I do, I'm a fighter. I don't sit back and let others do all the work."
"Yeah, but what if..." She trailed off, not keen on expressing the morbid thought that little Teddy Lupin needed at least one living parent. Harry had lost both of his in the first war. How wildly different might his life had been if either James or Lily Potter had managed to survive?
"Never mind 'what if,'" Tonks replied. "I'm here now, that's all that matters at the moment."
As they got closer to the entrance hall, they could hear the sounds of battle, and sprinted the rest of the way until they came upon a group of Light Side fighters backing up down the corridor, struggling to hold off the Death Eaters who'd gained entry. The two girls joined in, and Tonks called out, "Remus!"
No answer, but it might've been impossible to hear him calling back what with the shouting and the electrical crackling of dozens of spells going off all at once, and the breaking of windows and statues and everything else getting hit by misfires. Several times Callie heard ominous rumbling sounds, and again the castle shook beneath her feet. As more and more Death Eaters poured in, everyone broke off in different directions. A red light shot at Callie, and she dropped to the ground, pulling Tonks along with her. As the two struggled back to their feet, Callie shouted, "Come on!" pulling the auror along with her.
"I've gotta find Remus!"
"We've gotta get out of here! They're coming, they'll kill us!" She dragged Tonks up a staircase, the both of them shooting off spells and dodging attacks as they went. At one point, Callie shoved Tonks behind her back, entirely willing to sacrifice herself to protect the mother of a one-month old infant. "Keep an eye on Tonks," Lupin had begged her the previous year. She didn't know where the man was or if he was alive, and damned if she wasn't going to do everything she could to protect his wife and spare his child from becoming an orphan.
"Callie, please!" the woman cried out. "I have to find him!"
"Not if it means getting yourself killed!" Callie replied. "He wouldn't want that. Now come on!"
"Where are we going!"
"I don't know!" But that wasn't entirely true. She wanted to find Neville, and he was supposed to be up on the Astronomy Tower. She and Tonks ran up the seven floors, not stopping until they came out where Dumbledore had met his end the previous year.
Gasping for breath, Tonks asked, "What are we doing out here?"
It was only the two of them; everyone else had apparently gone back inside. "I thought there'd be people here," Callie said, not wanting to mention that she had come looking for her man, when she hadn't let Tonks search for hers.
"What's going on down there?" Tonks asked, nodding toward the battlements.
Callie looked over and saw that many people were still in battle on the grounds, a couple of fires were raging in the distance, and a few of the giants were smashing windows and hitting the sides of the castle with broken statues. "Bloody hell," she breathed. "It looks like the end of the world."
Tonks came to stand beside her, and they both stared in horror for a moment. Then the door to the staircase flew open, and they both spun around, drawing their wands.
"Hello, pretties," a high-pitched, mocking voice rang out. Callie took in the appearance of the woman who approached them. She had wild black hair, pasty skin, and dark circles under her eyes, which had a rather psychotic glint within them. It only took a second for Callie to realize who she was staring at. She'd seen her picture in the Prophet two years ago, after the mass breakout from Azkaban. The woman who had tortured Neville's parents and destroyed their minds - Bellatrix Lestrange.
Turning her attention to Tonks, the woman said in an almost sing-songy tone, "Oh, Nymphadora, my dear niece. I've heard you've had quite the good fortune as of late. Congratulations on your new... puppy."
"You step back, woman," Callie growled. "I know all about you."
Inclining her head towards the younger girl, Lestrange asked, "And who are you, lovely?"
"I'm the last face you're ever going to see, you bitch. Avada Kedavra!"
Though the woman just barely dodged the curse, she seemed to be a bit taken aback that someone as young as Callie could actually produce it. However, her wide-eyed expression didn't last long, as Callie and Tonks immediately tag-teamed her. "Oh, you wanna play with me, do ya?" she shouted excitedly, deflecting their spells and shooting back her own with a speed that Callie had to admit was quite impressive. "Avada Kedavra!" she yelled, aiming the Killing Curse at the Slytherin girl.
But Callie was rather quick herself, dodging it just as Lestrange had. Beside her, Tonks shouted out, "No! You killed Sirius, you're not going to kill anyone else!"
"Try and stop me, darling!" the woman cackled. She actually seemed to be having fun with this. "Go on, try and get me!"
Never failing to deflect a curse, Callie pulled her dagger from her belt and whipped it at the woman. However, she didn't even flinch as it hit her in the shoulder and stuck there. Shit, she's insane, Callie thought, and ducked down to dodge another spell as she summoned the knife back into her hand.
"Ha ha ha! Can't you get me, Dora?!" the woman teased.
"Go to hell, Bellatrix!" Tonks screamed.
"Poor 'ittle-bitty Teddy Bear! Shame he'll have to grow up without a mummy and daddy!"
"God, DAMN YOU!" Callie screamed. Whether it was the suggestion that Teddy would be left without his parents, or that Neville had already been dealt that particular blow - and by her - she wasn't sure, but an anger that she had never known shot up within her, and she was determined to see this bitch dead. "Avada Kedavra!"
Once again dodging the attack, Lestrange laughed out, "Ha!" and fired back at her. The Killing Curse just barely passed by Callie's ear.
"Callie, get outta here!" Tonks called out, still desperately trying to simultaneously protect herself and overpower the mad woman.
"You can't get her by yourself!" the younger girl replied.
"I'll hold her off, just go!"
"You go! Teddy needs you!"
"I'm an auror, this is my job! I'm not going to leave you to die!"
"And neither am I!" She would've gone all night exchanging curses with Lestrange until one of them killed the other. But before she even knew what was happening, Tonks had turned her wand on Callie, hitting her with a Knockback Jinx that flung her backwards over the battlements. The last thing the Slytherin saw was a green jet of light from Lestrange's wand hitting Tonks directly in the chest. The auror was still on her feet when Callie lost sight of her, and the next thing she knew, she had crashed to the ground.
And then nothing...
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She opened her eyes some time later, and had to take a minute to figure out what had just happened. Tonks, she thought. Lestrange... we were up there. I got hit.
But not by the psychotic woman who'd been trying to kill her. It was Tonks who had thrown her off the tower. She told me to go... we couldn't stop the maniac, not even the two of us together. And if she'd managed to get one of us, the other wouldn't have stood a chance.
The young mother had sacrificed herself to save Callie, tossing the latter to relative safety and leaving herself open to the fatal curse.
God damn it, Tonks. You should've jumped and left me to die.
A tear ran down the side of her face as she looked up at the battlements. Her friend and comrade was up there, lifeless. And where's Lestrange? she wondered. Perhaps she'd assumed that Callie was dead too, from the fall, and took off to join another fight.
It was then that she looked over and saw the utter chaos that was going on not far away. Light Side versus Dark, fires, giants, flashes of green and red flying all over the place - and impossibly large, horror-movie-like spiders scuttling across the grounds and climbing up the castle walls. "Holy, ever-loving Christ," she breathed. One of the creatures was coming towards her, and without even thinking, she rolled over, very quickly, and Disapparated.
She came out on the floor of her dungeon, and after the loudness of the battle, it was eerily quiet. She stood up and went out into the corridor, where there was nobody in sight. But Snape's office and living quarters weren't far away, and as long as she was down here, she figured she may as well give them a check. "Where are you, ya slick bastard?" she groaned, limping her way along the cold stone halls. Of course, he was nowhere to be found. "Bloody hell, what now?" she asked herself. Tonks was dead; the whole damn castle and its grounds were overrun not only with Death Eaters, but magical monsters as well; she had no idea where Neville was, or even if he was alive.
"War is hell," she muttered, chuckling to herself rather maniacally. She sank to the ground in the middle of Snape's sitting room, thinking that if the son of a bitch had really fled and left them all to deal with this shit, she was going to track him down and kill him herself - just as she'd told Harry she wanted to.
"Where are you?" she called out, as if he'd somehow hear her. "You oughta be here fighting with us!" Her thoughts then turned to her father, and she pulled out his wand, twirling it between her fingers. "What do I do, Daddy?" she asked. "Tell me what to do."
What would he say if he were here? The anti-Disapparition charm was apparently broken now; would he tell her to get the hell out of there while she still had the chance?
No, a voice from within told her. She could feel a strong sense of... energy flowing through his wand. Go out there and fight for the people you love. Find Neville, find Snape, help the others. Don't you dare run now.
"God, help me," she sighed, standing up and marching off back to the ground floor. Her right hand held her own wand, while her father's was in the left. She glanced between them, but ultimately decided - or rather, she felt that it was the right thing to do - to tuck her own away and stick with his. He's here, she thought. I can feel him. He's with me now.
A phoenix feather, it contained. Well known for its ability to rise from the ashes. There was that psychotic laugh again, as though she had lost her damn mind somewhere in the horror and the chaos.
Not once had she actually used the wand. Best to try it out before rejoining the battle. She aimed for the door at the top of the dungeon staircase and blasted it off its hinges. And then she ran out into the entrance hall just in time to see a masked figure dueling with Mrs. Longbottom. "Stupefy!" Callie yelled, hurling the Death Eater into a wall.
"I had it under control!" the woman called out as Callie ran past. "But thank you!"
To her left, more of the giant spiders were crawling through the front doors. "Arania Exumai!" One of them was thrown off its eight legs.
She fought her way out onto the grounds at the same time that Theo Nott was running in. "Where's my father?!" he shouted at her.
"I don't know!" Hell, she didn't even know what the man looked like, and she really didn't give a damn about him at the moment. She was simply going on instinct now, shooting off spells wherever they were needed. Several yards away, the Greengrass sisters were battling two Death Eaters, and Callie sprinted off in their direction. But after the failed two-on-one duel with Lestrange, she decided to try a different tactic, morphing into her fox form as she ran. With a giant leap, she threw herself at one of the Death Eaters and sunk her teeth into his neck.
"Oi, get off!" he screamed through his mask. He fell to the ground, taking Callie with him, and she ripped at his throat with all the ferocity of a rabid animal. Soon enough, his screams were replaced by a gurgling, choking sound, and Callie let up and jumped back, wondering if she'd done enough damage to kill him.
Before she could figure it out, however, something that looked like a tree trunk slammed down in front of her, causing the earth below to tremble. She looked up to find two giants beating on each other, and she was very nearly crushed by another massive foot.
"Stori, run!" Daphne called out. Callie dodged between the creatures' legs and escaped in one direction while the sisters took off in another. She transformed back into human and paused to catch her breath, but when she looked up towards the lake, her eyes widened at the horrifying sight across the grounds.
Dozens of Inferi were emerging from the water, reanimated corpses with rotten, greyish skin and cloudy white eyes, their faces entirely expressionless. Many of them were quite young, some even toddler-aged, once living, breathing children, now made to be vicious monsters. Bloody hell, who could do this to someone? she thought. She lifted her father's wand and scrunched her eyes shut, unable to watch the tiny corpse-children burn as she blasted them all with the Fire-Making Spell.
She kept it going until every one of them had retreated back into the lake, and then she ignited a line of fire along its edge.
"Hagrid!" somebody shouted, and she looked up to see a horde of the massive spiders scuttling off towards the forest, the half-giant caught up in their midst and wildly waving his arms.
"Arania Exumai!" Callie shouted. But she only got a couple of them before the others disappeared into the woods with her former teacher. "Damn it!" she exclaimed, noting that she was suddenly able to see her breath. "What the hell?" Despite the fire that was burning beside her, she was inexplicably cold.
Oh, shit. The sounds of the battle seemed to fade, and a feeling of deep despair was gradually building inside her as a mass of black, hooded figures floated over the grounds toward the castle.
You can do it, the Patronus Charm. She lifted her father's wand, but instead of her happiest memory, her mind was flooded with images of the man in his casket, pale and stock-still and cold to the touch when she'd taken his hand in hers. And the blank look in Tonks' eye that she'd seen as she fell from the tower. Teddy Lupin crying out, only one month old but instinctively yearning for his mother, who would never come home. The dead toddlers she had just set on fire...
"Warbeck!"
"Huh...?" With absolutely no memory of how she had gotten there, she was lying on the grass, and somebody was pulling her up into a sitting position. It was Seamus.
"Come on, lass, get up! We've gotta keep going!"
He helped her back up to her shaking feet as she mumbled, "Dementors..."
"We chased 'em off," he explained. "Come on, now." He was practically dragging her through the grounds as he shot off spells in every direction.
As she regained her senses, she asked, "Have you seen Neville?!"
"He's in the castle!"
Breaking away from him, she ran off across the grounds, transforming once again in order to stay low and avoid the jets of red and green flashing above her. Back in the entrance hall, she returned to human form just as some spell or another knocked her off her feet. Her dad's wand flew off to the side, and before she could grab for her own, she was hit with a Body-Bind Curse. Unable to move, she was certain that she was about to die as a masked figure came into view, holding his wand over her. Please, God! she silently begged.
And suddenly the Death Eater was blown off his feet, and the Body-Bind Curse lifted. Callie sat up and locked eyes with Draco Malfoy, who was aiming his wand on whoever had just nearly killed her.
"Thanks," she said, nodding to him before snatching up the beech wand and scrambling to her feet. Looking into the Great Hall, she saw Tracey in battle with Goyle, and ran to join her.
"Bitches!" he yelled. "Blood traitors!"
"Get out, Goyle, while you still can!" Callie shouted. Despite everything, a part of her didn't want to kill him, but if she had to...
"Shit!" Tracey shrieked. The boy had disarmed her, and now she was defenseless. In a stunning display of stupidity, Goyle shot at her again, rather than keeping his focus on the still-armed Callie, who was then able to knock him out with a Stunning Spell.
"Take care of him," Callie ordered Tracey. "Bind him."
"Incarcerous!" Tracey incanted, tying their housemate's hands and feet with black cords.
Callie was about to go back to the entrance hall when she finally spotted Neville up near the head of the room - and her eyes widened as she saw who he was dueling with.
Bellatrix fucking Lestrange.
How many lives had she single-handedly ruined? Frank and Alice would most likely spend the rest of their days as vegetables. Augusta had, in essence, lost her only child. Neville had grown up without a mum and dad who could love him. Tonks was dead at twenty-some years old. Lupin may never recover from that. And Teddy would never know his mother.
As if none of that had been enough, hearing the woman shout, "Crucio!" and seeing Neville writhing on the floor turned Callie into something completely inhuman - and she didn't even have to transform. She damn near flew across the Hall and hurled herself into Lestrange, knocking her to the ground, climbing on top of her, and wrapping her hands as tightly as she could around her throat.
The panicky look in the woman's eyes and her struggle to take in a breath were sickeningly satisfying. Screw the Avada Kedavra, Callie wanted to kill her with her bare hands instead. The girl was actually smirking as Lestrange began to turn blue, but then somebody grabbed her by the hair and yanked her up.
"Shoulda just used your wand, girlie," they said, snatching Callie's redwood wand out of her belt. "Mine now!"
But she grabbed the dagger and stabbed him in the thigh, causing him to double over and release her. Then she took the beater's bat and smashed him in the face, and she was pretty sure that she could feel bones breaking on impact.
"Cal," Neville called out in a croaky voice, pulling himself to his feet. He was shaking from the after-effects of the Cruciatus, but he looked more determined than ever to keep going.
"Where's Lestrange?" Callie asked, binding up the possibly-already-dead Death Eater.
"I think she Disapparated," he replied, grabbing up his wand.
Callie handed him the bloke's and said, "For backup," then spotted her dad's and shoved it into her belt. "She killed Tonks."
Neville froze. "No," he breathed.
With a heartbroken look in her eye, she said, "She's on the Astronomy Tower. Have you seen Lupin?"
Before he could respond, a green light shot between them, and they both turned at exactly the same second to stun whoever had fired it. The masked figured was blown back clear across the Hall.
"Nice work, Comrade," Callie said, giving Neville a pat on the arm. They rejoined the fight, and Callie ended up back in the entrance hall, where she slipped on a puddle of blood and fell to the floor.
"H- Help me," a strangled voice choked out beside her. It was Lavender. She was lying on her back, barely able to move, covered in blood and deep cuts.
"Lav?" Callie said, scrambling to her knees and looking over the girl. "What happened?" She was in terrible shape and was struggling to form a reply. "Never mind, don't try to talk," Callie said, glancing back at the chaos still going on behind them. She needs help. But I've gotta get her out of here. She didn't want to take the risk with Side-Along Apparition, so she dragged the girl into a supply closet nearby and locked the door.
"Lumos," she incanted, providing a dim light from her father's wand. She also used the same spell with her own, running it over Lavender's wounds. "Oh, God," she exclaimed. She was ravaged, looking similar to how Bill Weasley had when the werewolf attacked him the previous year. It occurred to her that may have been exactly what had happened to Lavender. "Was it the werewolf?" she asked. "Greyback?"
The girl simply groaned. Hell, it didn't matter. Whatever the cause of her injuries, Callie had to help her. But this was extensive; she couldn't do it on her own. "Puffy?!" she called out. The elf appeared beside them, and she ordered him to go into her backpack and get a first-aid kit she'd stashed in it.
"She's bleeding everywhere," Callie informed him. "I want you to clean up every wound you find and bandage it." She then retrieved her sample of blood-replenisher and poured it all into Lavender's mouth. "Stay with her. Keep working." She Disapparated to the hospital wing and returned with two full-sized bottles of the potion. "As long as we keep her blood supply within normal limits, she should be all right."
She checked for internal injuries, but all she found was a dislocated shoulder. "I fell off the balcony," Lavender explained in a very weak voice. "And then... someone... jumped on me... someone tried to take a bite out of me..."
"You have fought valiantly."
Callie damn near jumped out of her skin at the cold hissing voice that had sounded in the Great Hall hours earlier. She grabbed her wand and whipped her head around in search of the Dark Lord, but of course, he himself was nowhere.
"Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery," the voice continued. "Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.
"Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately.
"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.
"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."