The day after Dudley left, Draco came to the Marauder's lair early in the morning so they could all go and get their school supplies. Xenophilius had been released the previous late afternoon and he was now back home with his daughter. Sirius had offered to take her along for school supplies shopping but Xenophilius refused, saying that they already had half of it and that they'd get the rest later, together. They just needed to get her new school uniforms and a couple of books, so it would be quick.
Remus wanted to come along but two of the werewolves employees were unable to come to work that day, so he had to work, though Rose understood and she was fine with it.
Still, Sirius would have wanted more protection for the kids. Narcissa was supposed to be home resting, she had been released early under the promise that she'd rest but she had insisted on coming along, and so she was with them, using a cane to help her walk. Of course gossip spread around quickly and people knew how she had gotten injured. Some of them turned back and stared at her, unashamed and sometimes even impressed. Still, she held herself with her usual dignity and simply ignored them.
Although Narcissa couldn't ignore the fact that most people seemed kinder towards her now, she had surprised them and they were all impressed. They had expected her to remain the same, unchanging pur blood extremist, but she was proof that there was hope for everyone. if Narcissa Black Malfoy had changed her mind and switched sides, then there was hope for them to win this war, to cinvert more extremists.
"Why aren't Ron and Ginny coming with us?" Harry asked suddenly, realizing that it would have been easier for Molly Weasley to come along with them.
"She's not comfortable with them on Diagon Alley, she's asked Fred and George to buy everything they could and as for the robes, she did the measuring herself and sent her order by owl." Sirius replied.
"She's nervous, wants to keep them safe, that's understandable. Her entire family is in the Order of the Phoenix, most of them fighting on a regular basis." Rose nodded.
"Well, if danger is set to come your way, it will. No point sheltering you kids. I know you two, you'll run wand raised to the first available fight, and I know that no matter how much I'd want to, there is no stopping you." Sirius shook his head.
"So true." Harry chuckled.
"I know Draco enough to know he'd do the same. Plus, it feels nice to be here, walking in this street. Free, not hiding..." Narcissa shook her head, amused.
"Where do we stop first?" Draco asked, not concerned by the fact that he was seen with not 1 but 3 Gryffindors.
He had been raised to be proud of his truth, no matter what it was and he was acting on it. He was friends with Gryffindors, and he wasn't ashamed of it.
"The bank?" Sirius suggested and Narcissa nodded.
She was going to use this opportunity to take out of the Malfoy's account as much gold as she could to place it in her own private account. This way, even if Lucius managed to come here, he'd be unable to cut her off. She'd be cutting him off. Without his money, he'd be unable to buy people off for the Dark Lord, not that he'd have many opportunity to go since he was a fugitive. The Goblins had once set their own rules but now, they agreed with the Ministry that Fugitives and criminals couldn't access their money, though they couldn't stop their relatives from using it.
The Goblins had been helpful at Gringotts and everything had been done quickly. While Narcissa dealt with the vault, Sirius took the kids to get their school uniforms done and once it was over they went back to pick Narcissa up. She told them that the Goblin who helped her informed her that she couldn't empty the vault, that a minimum of 1 coin had to stay inside, so that's what she did. She took it all to transfer into her own vault and left a simple Sickle for Lucius to find if he ever accessed his account. She also left him a note saying "Happy Divorce to you, have a short life".
Of course, as soon as the money was in her vault and in her purse, she did the legal paperwork so that, if anything happened to her, her son would get it all and that his legal guardian wouldn't be his father but his Aunt Andromeda and his Cousin Sirius. He'd be an adult soon, but she still wanted to be ready for anything.
They managed to get their potion ingredients and pet food as well and, since it was time for lunch, they went to a small restaurant before they went to buy their books.
Lunch was quiet, but people did stare a bit, not only at Harry for once but at Narcissa. Indeed, what happened to her had been in a small article in the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly had written a bigger piece about it. Seeing her here, in public, with her Cousin Sirius who openly opposed Voldemort was a statement and people couldn't help but stare. The people who greeted her even did so by calling her "Miss Black" instead of Malfoy and she liked it. One woman even gave her a bouquet of flowers when they crossed her stand, saying it was to encourage other women to be as brave as she had been.
They went to buy their books, happy to find that the place wasn't too crowded. Rose, of course, bought a couple of extra books she wanted to study to pass the time during the school year. Then, since they wanted to get Ice creams, Sirius called Kreacher and asked him to get all of their purchase home.
"Hi Harry!" Someone called out after Kreacher left, Harry turned around and found the Creevey brothers looking at him.
"Oh, Hi Colin, Hi Dennis. You're here alone?" he asked, looking around them for muggle parents.
"Yes, our parents had errands to run in Muggle London and they're not too comfortable on this side anyway. They'll wait for us in a coffee shop mom likes not too far from here." Colin nodded.
"It rivals Misses Puddifoot's, dad hates it but he goes because it makes her happy." His brother chuckled.
"How have your summer been so far?" Harry asked the brother who then told him about their vacation at the beach, where they met cute girls and had a summer fling each.
They were sitting at Florent Fortescue's ice Cream place, the Creevey Brothers invited by Sirius to join them. They had been talking for a few minutes, Narcissa resting on a chair nearby, when everything changed very quickly.
The air ran cold, the sky grew darker and people started to pannick, feeling a big change coming.
A group of about a dozen dark figures arrived in loud 'cracks'. Umbridge was present, with her pink Death Eater robes, Pink haired Lucius by her side. Neither of them had masks on their faces. Behind them, among the other Death Eaters, there was 3 Dementors.
The second after they arrived, everyone started running away, afraid. Trash cans were thrown on the ground, the chairs and tables at Fortescue's ice cream place were quickly thrown out of the way of people running to hide inside the shops. Florent Fortescue himself ran out of his shop, wand raised and shooting spells, urging people to go in if they couldn't fight.
Sirius had told Harry that Florent was a skilled wizard, but having only ever seen him in his Ice Cream shop, it was still a shock for the young wizard to see the man fight with skills to rival a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
"Go inside the Ice cream shop, all of you!" Sirius ordered, looking at the Creevey brothers, Harry, Rose, Draco and Narcissa.
"Not a chance." Rose and Harry replied in the same voice, already engaged in a fierce duel with Death Eaters while Florent Fortescue was fending of dementors with a strong Patronus.
"Take my mother with you, please! She's not well enough to fight!" Draco asked a random couple running past them.
The couple nodded and helped Narcissa inside the ice cream shop where people were barricading themselves with the furniture and the spells they knew. Of course she didn't want to leave her son, she called after him, begging him to come with her or to let her stay in the fight but Draco wanted to show his father whose side he was truly on and that he wasn't afraid anymore. Most of all, he wanted his father to pay for what he had done to his mother.
Resigned, Narcissa went near the window and started casting shielding charms anywhere she could. She wished she could cast a strong Patronus, she had never really learned and had only started practicing recently though finding a strong enough happy memory was hard to do. Still, she managed to cast a small one from her spot behind the window and she watched the shapeless glowing fog chase Dementors away along with other Patronuses.
The moment the couple of people he didn't know carried his mother away, Draco threw himself into the fight, facing bravely his father. Lucius had seemed to want to fight Sirius too, probably to get revenge on his new hairdo, but his hatred for his son was bigger than the one he held for Sirius.
"You're a disappointment, Draco. Your death will be the best thing to happen to our family. I'll remarry and have another son, a better, worthier son." Lucius spat at his son.
"You'll pay for what you did to my mother." Was all Draco replied, refusing to let his father's word distract him.
Harry was dueling Dolores Umbridge, his twin sister was fighting against Nott, whose mask fell at some point at the beginning of the fight. Sirius was engaged against the Carrows, two siblings who were fighting fiercely.
Colin and Dennis Creevey hadn't left, even though Sirius told them to a couple of times. If Harry, their hero and friend, was staying to fight, then they'd fight too and so they were both fighting against a masked Death Eater. He was strong, much stronger than them, and even though there was 2 of them, they were no match. Dennis is the first one who fell after being hit by a strong cutting curse. He didn't die immediately and he still tried to fight from his spot on the ground while blood poured out of him but it only killed him faster.
His brother Colin fell quickly after that, due to a death curse he couldn't escape. He had avoided the first curse by using magic to use a table as a shield but the second curse was stronger, it broke the table and hit him.
The street was empty except for the ones who were fighting and it was chaos. Rays of light, smoke, screams, cries of rage...
Very few wizards had stayed to fight, though the ones who had barricaded themselves in the shops had called for help and, quickly, Aurors arrived, along with Fred, George and Remus. They had left their other employees to protect their clients. Even though the fight was far away down the street, it could always move up but they refused to stay and wait. They knew that Rose, Sirius and Harry were around and they had to check if they were fine.
Draco was bleeding, having received a cutting curse on his left shoulder, but he was still fighting, determined to send his father back to Azkaban himself. His father had just received a Cruciatus curse when Umbridge flew into him, having been hit by a strong spell as well. They were both getting back up when reinforcements arrived and they called their team members to 'fall back'.
Sirius immediately went to check on Draco, Harry and Rose. Harry and Rose were fine, in a bit of pain of course, but nothing major. Draco was the one who was the most injured.
They didn't notice the Creevey brothers at first, laying on the ground side by side, dead. Harry, knowing they had stayed since he had seen them fight at the beginning, started looking for them, growing more worried every second that he didn't see them. He was sure that if everythign was fine for them, they'd be calling out to him so he started looking, moving broken furnitures.
"Did we catch any of them?" An Auror asked.
"The Carrows are unconscious over here." Sirius pointed.
"One of them is over there, I petrified him, I'm not sure who he is but he has a kid at Hogwarts, I saw him at the train station at the beginning of summer." Rose replied.
"Nott." Sirius recognize.
"Good, that's 3 less on the streets." The Auror approved, still angry that they hadn't been able to come faster.
"NO!" Harry screamed, immediately surrounded by his sister, Godfather and a few other people, though he didn't notice.
His scream had been so emotional that everyone around had come, to see what made Harry Potter react this way.
"Colin and Dennis! No!" Rose cried out, tears in her eyes at the sight of the two boys.
One look was enough to knwo that they were dead, that there wasn't an ounce of life left in them.
The battle might have been over but it was still chaos all around them. Florent Fortescue's chairs and Tables were broken all over the place. It was obvious that some of them had been used as shields.
The people who had been hidden in the shops were slowly coming out, giving testimony before they were allowed to leave. Narcissa was by her son's side as a Healer took care of him and Harry was by the Creevey brothers' side, refusing to leave them alone.
"They said their parents were on the muggle side... I don't even know what they look like or how to warn them..." Harry whispered.
"I know Harry... I've called Minerva with the mirror, she's on her way. She's the one who told them about their sons being wizards, so she knows them. She'll come, wait for them and break the news to them." Sirius replied, understanding why his godson was furious.
"I should have been able to protect them. I've failed them." Harry shook his head.
Looking at the two boys, Harry had a hard time seeing them as the teenage boys they were, he still saw Colin as the first year student who was in Ginny's year and was obsessed with taking his picture. He still saw them both as young boys and it broke his heart to see them this way.
"Of course not, Harry! You were fighting someone much older and experienced than you, you can't be expected to be everywhere. The blame can be placed on a lot of people for their death, but none of those people are you." Sirius replied.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Rose being hugged by Fred and Remus.
"Those cowards, running to hide, that's who's the blame for those two kids's death. They should have stayed and fought. The Death Eaters would have been outnumbered quickly if they had stayed. Even Draco Malfoy stayed and faced his father. That boy is braver than the lot of them. So were those two kids." Alastor Moody growled, having come along with the reinforcements.
Less than 5 minutes later, Minerva McGonagall arrived, looking grave. She fought back the tears when she saw the dead bodies of the Creevey brothers, almost expecting it to be a mistake. Almost expecting for Sirius to tell her that it was all just a sick joke, that the kids were fine. Harry realized, seeing her reaction, that they were lucky to have a teacher like her in charge of them, one who was strict, sure, but who truly and deeply cared for them all.
Sirius told her what the brothers had said about the coffee shop their parents would wait in.
"I... I'll go and... I'll go and find their parents..." Minerva whispered before she walked away.
"I'll take you guys back home, no need to stay here any longer." Sirius declared, having brought Harry back near Rose.
Draco and Narcissa had already joined them.
Aurors, in their impeccable purple uniforms, were bringing the three prisoners away, to Azkaban. Watching this scene, Draco felt anger. He was angry that his father wasn't one of the prisoners being sent back to Azkaban.
"How come there wasn't anyone patrolling the street?" Remus asked.
"Yeah, there's always a few Aurors patrolling all over the street, we see them all the time." George nodded.
"Mad-Eye said 4 of them were found stupefied over there." Sirius replied, pointing to a dark corner hidden by trash cans.
"So they planned it." Remus frowned.
"Father let escape that they'd been spying on this street for a while now, waiting for the moment I'd come to pick up my school supplies. It's all because of me, it's my fault." Draco shook his head, looking guilty.
"If I'm not allowed to blame myself for this and the Creevey's death, then neither are you, Draco!" Harry exclaimed.
"Harry's right, I think they would have attacked eventually anyway. Your father just wanted to get a rise out of you. I saw you when you were fighting, you kept a cool head, didn't answer his insults. It angered him. Even if it's true that they attacked today because you were here, it's their fault, not yours." Rose reassured him.
"You did very good today kids, all three of you. I don't like that you stayed and fought, but if you hadn't, the number of casualties would have been much higher." Sirius told the three of them before they warned Moody that they were going home, that if there was any more questions to ask, they'd be able to reach them at the Marauder's lair.
Don't hate me for their death, please, a war without death isn't a believable war...
Review please?
Lorelei Candice Black