A few minutes later, the students were moving through the halls of the castle to join their houses marching down to the Great Hall. Sharlen had cast the Disillusionment Charm on herself—which Fred and George had greatly appreciated with several curse words—and now followed unseen alongside the Gryffindors, who camouflaged Harry excellently. She watched Harry's face as they filed in, all the houses grouped in large rectangles together, her Master at the head of the hall, looking outwardly usual though his black aura had swollen and nearly engulfed him. As discussed, she stood in the middle of the aisle created between Slytherin and Gryffindor and waited.
All the students kept their heads down, most of them just tired and concerned with having been brought from their beds, while the auras of those in Dumbledore's Army stood out starkly, their faces fighting to stay facing the floor when they loathed Snape so completely. Surveying them with Alecto and Amycus Carrow flanking him and wearing undeniable smirks, Snape finally spoke. "It has come to my attention that Harry Potter has entered the castle tonight."
A flush of muttering and whispering washed over her as all the students began a hushed frenzy at the sound of Harry's name. Sharlen glanced over to see the disdain bloom in Harry's aura to hear his name from the headmaster's lips. Snape quickly continued and it fell silent. "Let it be known that anyone attempting to conceal Potter's whereabouts will be treated as… equally guilty. Anyone who wishes to divulge information of his location should do so… now."
Other than a whisper here and there, all was silent. Sharlen was watching the Gryffindors at her right and saw Harry move to escape the group, a surge of purpose around him, eliciting gasps and scattering from the other students in the Hall. Forming a wide perimeter around him, the students continued to murmur louder until Harry spoke from the center of the Hall. "Despite your exhaustive defensive measures," he spat clearly, "I'm afraid you still have a bit of a security problem, professor."
The door to the Great Hall flew open and in came the rest of The Order of the Phoenix to form a wall behind Harry. Lupin, Kingsley, Tonks, Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, Ron, and Hermione stood tall, hands on their wands. Putting a hand on Harry's shoulder, Sharlen raised her left hand high and twisted her wrist to undo the Disillusionment Charm, staring Snape down as she appeared. Half of her stood rigidly before Harry, her black eye and bruised ribs facing her Master.
When Harry had appeared, the dirty gray overlay of Snape's aura had expanded defensively. And then, a new color for him as she appeared at Harry's side: Burgundy, for despair.
"Sharlen…" he trailed off, transfixed.
"How dare you stand where he stood?" Harry continued, a painfully angry expression firm on his face. Sharlen stood unmovingly at his side. "Tell them what happened that night!" he demanded of Snape. "Tell them how you looked him in the eye, a man who trusted you, and killed him."
Snape stared with eyes racing between Harry and Sharlen several times before taking out his wand in a flash of black robes. A few students shouted and backed further away from the center of the room and Harry stiffened against her, left arm securing itself around her waist as he brought out his own wand. Professor McGonagall rushed in front of both of them, her wand pointing dead at Snape. The headmaster's wand pointed upward as he recoiled, hesitating, before extending his arm fully again, slightly crouched to attack. But he didn't.
Furious sparks and shocks flew from McGonagall's wand at Snape, increasing in intensity as she started toward him, visibly shaking with anger. Snape deflected her attacks as best he could, sending them into Alecto and Amycus over his shoulder. The Carrows slumped thickly to the ground. McGonagall sent a suit of armor after him and Snape struggled in its clutches, destroying it in an explosion and clang of metal as he fought to get away. Sharlen took a step away from Harry, eyes wide and frowning as she watched McGonagall duel him one-sidedly. Why wouldn't he try to kill her? Why isn't he fighting?
With a last glance back at Sharlen as an explosion was redirected above his head, Snape tore his wand through the air before him and dissolved into a giant black cloud racing upward, smashing through the main window of the Great Hall and out into the night. McGonagall's wand followed him out and she bellowed after him, "COWARD!"
The students all about them cheered as McGonagall bound the Carrows in tight, shimmering silver material that almost looked liquid, and lit the Hall candles in flourishing sweeps of wandwork. As their energy swarmed her, Sharlen's head pounded and her vision began to vignette. She brought both hands to her head and knelt down, stifling a whimper.
Harry followed her down, holding her sides where the bralet covered her skin. The warmth of his hands on the lace began to ground her. "Open up," he muttered close to her ear, placing his forehead against the crown of her head.
Sharlen exhaled, allowing her mind to open for only the second time in nearly a year. She nodded and Harry helped her stand, pulling her into his arms as though forgetting where they were. "I'm here," he told her, calm and clear against the cheer and chatter around them. "You're okay."
"Oh I missed you, I missed you," she whispered, moving the top of her head gently against his jaw.
McGonagall drew herself up and walked toward the two of them. They turned to face her and she recoiled slightly to see how Sharlen's black eye had worsened, the white of it around her iris almost completely red with blood, with mauves and deep purple-blacks in her skin. "Oh Sharlen—" she started.
"None of that," Sharlen protested. "Priorities, professor."
Ruffling herself, McGonagall turned to Harry. "Potter, what are you— It was very foolish to enter the castle. You must flee—"
"I can't," he said. "Professor, do you know where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?"
Completely bewildered, McGonagall looked at him as if he may just have gone a little mad. "But it's been lost for centuries, hasn't it?" She straightened up. "Potter, it was utter madness for you to enter the castle—"
"I had to. Professor," he said, "there is something hidden here in the castle that I need to find, I need time."
"But if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named knows you're here—"
"He does," Harry told her. "Listen, I'm here on Dumbledore's orders, and Voldemort's getting close. I need to find what Dumbledore wanted me to, but we need to evacuate the students and prepare."
"Dumbledore's orders?" McGonagall repeated, drawing herself up. Seeing the conviction in Harry's face, her lips tightened, shoulders squared. She nodded once. "We'll barricade the castle against his forces and get the students to safety."
The chatter resumed as protests met them from the members of Dumbledore's Army and other students over the age of 17.
"But professor, we want to fight—"
"I'm not going anywhere—"
"Evacuate my ass, I—"
"All students who are of age may stay behind and help us secure the castle," she announced loudly.
"Is it possible, professor? To hold him off?" Sharlen asked, worry in the edges of her voice and crease of her brow. She'd seen what her father could do. They needed more time.
"I think so," she replied curtly. "We teachers are rather good at magic, you know. Now, we'll need a way to get the students out, the Ministry has been watching the Floo Network…"
"The Room of Requirement," Harry told her. "There's a passage out of the castle. They can leave from the Hog's Head."
Not bothering to question this, McGonagall turned to the rest of the student body. "All Prefects are to escort their students to the seventh floor corridor for evacuation. Sibyll, you will assist. Anyone of age who wishes to stay and fight is to follow professors Sprout and Flitwick to prepare the grounds."
As the Prefects and Heads of House began to shout and organize their students, Sharlen felt Harry stiffen at her side.
"He's here," Harry said with a wince. Sharlen turned to face him as if in slow motion as his face screwed up in pain and her father's voice flooded every part of their environment, reverberating off the walls and throughout her entire body as if she had never been solid at all. Many students screamed in terror as Voldemort's high, cold voice rang through them.
"I know that you are preparing to fight. Know that your efforts are futile," the Dark Lord told them, voice hissing as though from right by their ears. "You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts and do not want to spill magical blood."
The silence following this brief reprieve was one laced tight with pure terror. It connected every person like a lifeline. Sharlen's vision began to vignette again as the terror of those in the Hall strangled her. "Give me Harry Potter," came the voice again, "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 fell again heavily and with it, every eye in the Hall turned to find Harry. He swallowed, frozen by them, and suddenly Pansy Parkinson's voice rang shrilly through the air as she pushed to the front of the Slytherins, pointing at Harry hysterically. "But he's there! Potter's there! Somebody grab him!"
Sharlen stepped calmly before Harry, glaring murder at Pansy. All at once McGonagall did the same, as did the Order of the Phoenix, striding forward from the back to surround Harry, Hermione gripping him. The Gryffindors turned to stand between them and the Slytherins, as did the Hufflepuffs and the Ravenclaws. As the wands of all but the Slytherins began to emerge from sleeves and pockets and point to Pansy, Harry's aura swelled with pinks, overwhelmed and awed. He squeezed Sharlen's hand tightly.
"Mr. Filch," McGonagall said in a clipped voice, "Please escort Ms. Parkinson and the rest of Slytherin House from the Hall."
"Where to, mum?" he asked, a little bewildered.
"Out of the castle. Immediately."
Brief cheers lit up as the Slytherins left the Hall, followed by the underage students in the remaining houses. As McGonagall gave further instructions to the other teachers and Kingsley took over delivering orders about battle placement around the castle to the Order of the Phoenix, Sharlen grabbed Luna and Harry. "We must hurry," she said. "We need to get to Ravenclaw Tower and see the diadem."
"Professor Flitwick!" Harry shouted as the little Charms master sent the power of the wind out over the grounds. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Do you have any idea where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?"
"Protego Horribilis—The diadem of Ravenclaw?" Flitwick repeated between spells. "I hardly think that will be much use in this situation, no matter how valuable a little extra wisdom undoubtedly is!"
"But do you know where it is? Have you ever seen it?"
"Long since lost, my boy! No one in living memory has seen it!"
"Harry," Sharlen demanded. With desperation and panic dancing in his aura, he made to start after Luna and Sharlen, who were moving toward the exit.
"Potter," McGonagall stopped him. Harry looked back at her, and she smiled. "It's good to see you."
"It's great to see you too, professor," he agreed with a small, crooked smile, before hurrying off after the girls.
The three took the stairs as many at a time as they could, skirting and pushing through the students heading to the seventh floor to evacuate. All around them were shouts and instructions from the Prefects, guiding students, many of whom seemed insistent on reaching out to touch Harry and Sharlen as they hurried by with Luna. Harry kept a firm grip of her to help guide her, but she kept her mind open and focused on her breathing. It held off the visions for the most part, but whispers of them kept creeping into her sight, trying to take over. She was quickly out of breath, the muscles in her legs screaming in protest. Harry stopped before her momentarily and had her climb on his back, carrying her the rest of the way.
"Not far now," came Luna's musical voice as they mercifully separated from the packs of students on the fifth floor and hurried to the staircase of Ravenclaw Tower.
At the entrance, an eagle door knocker stirred to greet them. As they stopped before it, Harry waiting for Luna to say a password, the bird spoke.
"She sinks in when I am parched,
Carves through me when I am too still.
Though I hold her, she takes to the air.
At her fiercest, I drown.
Who are we?"
Sharlen climbed down from Harry's back, staring at the bird as though she'd watched it commit a rather ludicrous crime.
"Bloody hell," Harry mumbled, putting a hand to his head, "You have to answer a riddle to get into your dormitory?"
"Of course," Luna answered, turning back to them.
Sharlen's shoulders caved in slightly. "How exhausting. What if you can't figure it out?"
"Well, if you don't know that answer, you have to wait until someone comes along that does," she told them. "Some of us get in the habit of checking outside before bed, just to make sure there aren't any first year students locked out."
"We don't really have time for someone else to come along, Luna," Harry told her.
"Right, of course," she responded, wistful as ever. "May I hear it again?" she asked the eagle, who obliged her. Sharlen felt like a pencil slowly splintering as she listened to it again, mind racing over what her father might be doing outside the castle walls.
"'She takes to the air' is tricky…" Luna said to herself, thinking.
"Oh, is that the challenge?" Sharlen muttered, irritated.
"But it must be elemental, don't you think?" Luna said to the eagle as if she hadn't heard Sharlen at all. "Water evaporates into the air. It erodes earth, seeps into dry soil. She is the water, and I am the earth."
"Well reasoned," the eagle responded, the door opening before her. Harry and Sharlen stared at the white-blonde girl openly.
"Brilliant," they said together as they followed her inside.
The highest of the dormitories, Ravenclaw common room opened into a wide, airy circle decorated with a large, domed ceiling and a midnight blue carpet. Sharlen got the distinct impression Hermione would love to study here as she wandered toward the numerous bookcases along the perimeter of the room. Harry and Luna moved toward the white marble statue of Rowena Ravenclaw. Beautiful and intimidating, the towering likeness held a delicate circlet on her brow with the words, "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure."
"How is it possible my father could have found an object that's eluded Ravenclaws for hundreds of years?" Sharlen asked, staring at the likeness. That riddle had stretched her patience to the thinnest margin; she felt she was more suited to destroying the entrance than answering riddles. Harry shook his head, face hard with concentration.
"How will we find it…" he agonized slowly under his breath.
"Harry, no one's seen it in living memory," Luna said brightly, looking up at the two of them.
"We know that Luna," they bit back.
"Don't you see? You won't find what you're looking for here," she said, smiling widely. "You have to talk to someone who's dead."
Sharlen blinked back at her, but Harry's eyes widened considerably and he rushed forward to hug her. "Luna you absolute genius," he said, tearing away again. "You go find Neville and the others." With that, Harry grabbed Sharlen's hand and ran from the room, pulling her along.
"Harry, where are we going? What are you thinking?" she asked, a little breathless as they ran, rushing down the stairs they'd climbed just minutes ago.
"Keep an eye out for the ghosts, we have to find the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower—"
In unison, Sharlen and Harry lost their footing—Sharlen on all-fours, Harry slumped against the wall at the top of the staircase. Breathing hard, they stared at each other as though really seeing each other for the first time; they'd just felt Ron and Hermione destroy the Hufflepuff cup somewhere deep below them, and as the Horcrux was destroyed, pain and weakness surged through them, knocking the breath out of them. Harry felt Voldemort's immense rage and fear somewhere beyond the castle. They both assumed Harry was affected because of his connection to Voldemort, but why was she so affected as well?
"I don't… I don't understand…" she panted, gripping the top stair. Harry breathed hard, mouth closed, staring at her.
"I can hear it," he said finally, and Sharlen watched as two tears leaked down his face.
"What do you hear, Harry?" she asked, crawling over to him. He just stared at her, more tears filling his eyes, shaking his head. "A Horcrux? Ravenclaw's?"
"In you, Sharlen," he cried, defeated. "It's inside you."
He watched Sharlen's eyes widen in horror. "Please, no."
"That's why you can feel them and hear them," Harry continued, both hands balled into fists. "He made you a Horcrux."
"He told me he didn't," she told him quietly, defeatedly—sinking. "He just said he'd… considered it..."
Harry couldn't say anything.
Sharlen felt her lips going numb. She took a deep breath and knew he had to be right. "That's why your scar hurts around me now. More and more, as he gets weaker. As we destroy them."
He nodded, the pieces falling together.
She couldn't help but laugh, staring at her hands as though only now just seeing them for the first time. The angry bruising on her wrists now seemed delicate, superficial; the marks and lines in her palms insignificant and paperlike; the knuckles in her thin fingers comically surreal. Her recently prominent heartbeat now felt lost somewhere in the expanse of her chest cavity. "Truly just… an empty vessel," she said quietly. "For him to fill. With ghosts and souls and future purebloods."
Harry reached for her hands, breaking her staring contest with them. She met his worried eyes. "You're real. You've always been real. You're more than what he made you."
Sharlen smiled weakly. "I told you I was bad for you," she muttered, feigning humor, shaking like a leaf. "I wonder if Dumbledore knew all along."
"Stop it," he begged, wincing.
"Harry," she started, holding his face. She struggled to keep him in focus but his face hardened instantly.
"I'm not going to kill you," he said firmly, finally. He stood up quickly and marched away to keep looking for the diadem.
Sharlen grabbed him and spun him around, trying to keep the shaking out of her voice. "You don't have to, but I have to die. That's it. That's all there is to it."
"Stop!" he roared, rearing on her. She stood her ground. "I'm not losing you again! There has to be another way!"
"There isn't," she said quietly as the chaos of the castle echoed around them. "We're wasting time. You won't have to do it. I don't want your soul ripped apart over me. But you need to finish this."
"You're coming with me," he growled, in denial, grabbing her and dragging her along, "until the very end. There has to be another way."
Sharlen allowed herself to be pulled through the frenzy of the castle, where students were crying and running and older students fought desperately to seek out friends and siblings. Her head pounded with the emotion of it, Harry's strongest of all in his denial and anguish, but everything was beginning to grow hazy. Her body felt weak and tired. Temperamental. With a looming expiration date.
She heard the breaths leave her irregularly. The rise and fall of her thin chest, her hair waving along her lower back and between her shoulder blades. She marveled in moving. Time seemed to be slowing down.
And then she was crying and smiling, a tangle of limbs collapsing upon the stairs, teeth gritted painfully in a close-lipped grin. Her split lip parted further to send blood rushing to the surface. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to conjure the most vivid image she could of walking through the snowy castle grounds the year before, arm in arm with Harry. She wanted the cold of it, the ache of every inhale in her lungs—but more than anything she could want, she was overjoyed to have had it. Harry was gripping her shoulders, shaking her. "Stay with me," he said firmly. Then softer, "Come back to me."
"I'm fine, I'm alright," she gasped, the smile so painful on her ruined face but unstoppable in her overwhelming gratitude. "I've just been so lucky," she told him, finally opening her eyes. Something between a sob and a gasp fought to draw oxygen, her shoulders shaking. She breathed deeply through her nose as she smiled at Harry, and she wanted more than anything, in that moment, to erase the fear from his face. To have him feel as overtaken as she did by what he'd given her. She put her hands around the base of his throat like she had in her dream about them so many months before. "I love you," she whispered.
"I love you, too," he said, gripping her sides.
"Don't tell anyone about me," she whispered. "Don't tell them what I am."
Harry nodded.
She sucked in her bottom lip between her teeth to stifle the smile. "We have to go," she told him, gesturing for him to help her back up. Without another word about it, Harry lifted her, settled her on her feet, took her hand, and they set off again.
It took a few floors of running for them to find what they needed.
"NICK! Hey Nick!" Harry shouted, leading her at full speed toward the Gryffindor ghost at the far end of the hall they'd just entered. As students swarmed and fought past them, they moved through to finally reach him.
"Harry! A joy to see you!" Nearly-Headless Nick said, neck wobbling dangerously. He thrust his hands out to grab Harry's and the chill of it flowed through his aura like a shock. Then he became aware of Sharlen.
"You. You have no business here," the ghost said bitterly.
Sharlen felt entirely apathetic toward him.
"Nick, you've got to help me. Who's the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?"
Nick looked surprised and a little put-off, moreso than by Sharlen even standing before him. "The Gray Lady, of course," he said, "but surely if you have ghostly services in need…?"
"It's got to be her, please, do you know where she is?"
Nick looked around and squinted through the chaos around them. Sharlen stole herself from the thoughts trying to smother her, the ones that she was more impermanent than she thought—that she had been right, and she would die before the battle was through. She had to do all she could before then.
"She's there, Harry; the woman with the long hair."
Harry followed his direction long enough to meet the ghost's eyes, before she turned and floated through a solid wall. Harry and Sharlen took off running after her. Over her shoulder, she thanked Nick, who seemed resigned.
They burst through the door of the wall she'd disappeared through and saw her at the end of a long passage. "Please wait!" Sharlen shouted.
She paused, a courteous move, and allowed them to run up to her. Floating several feet above the ground, haughty and proud, but still lovely.
"You're the Gray Lady?"
"Yes."
"Please, we need your help," Harry told her. "I need to know anything you can tell me about the lost diadem."
A wicked smirk played on the ghost's lips as she turned to leave. "I am afraid," she told them, "that I cannot help you."
"WAIT!" Harry shouted. Sharlen gripped his hand, watching the panic and anger rise in his aura, rapid and writhing. They were nearing midnight. "This is urgent, please," he said fiercely. "If the diadem is here in the castle, I need to find it. Quickly."
"You are hardly the first student to attempt to covet the diadem," she told them, dripping with disdain.
"This isn't about wearing it, it's about defeating Voldemort. Or aren't you interested in that?" Harry shouted.
The ghost looked appalled and flustered. "But of course I—how dare you suggest—"
"We know you have the best interest of the school at heart," Sharlen said carefully, stepping forward. "Of course you do. But we need to find it in order to defeat him. Please, we need your help."
Helena Ravenclaw considered her wearily. "You know," she muttered quietly, looking between the two of them, "You both remind me of him a bit."
"Of who?" Harry asked.
"I hid the diadem in a hollow tree in the lonely forests of Albania," she told them, launching into her story of stealing the diadem from her mother and being hunted down by the Bloody Baron. "It remained there, the diadem, in the tree I thought was far from my mother's reach."
"But you've… told someone else this story before…" Harry muttered, sense taking over his panic. The Gray Lady nodded.
"A strange boy. With a strange name."
"Tom Riddle," Harry said.
She closed her eyes and nodded. "I had no… no idea… He was… flattering. He seemed to sympathize, to understand…"
"You wouldn't be the first he's wormed things out of," Harry muttered bitterly.
"He could be charming, when he needed to be," Sharlen added, almost apologetically, remembering the memories Dumbledore had shown her of her father the year before.
"...when he asked for a job!" Harry shouted, causing both women to jump. He started ranting about asking Dumbledore for a job, thanked the ghost with a final roar, and tore off back the way he and Sharlen had come.
"Harry, where are we going?" Sharlen demanded as she ran after him. Explosions from curses shook the castle.
"It's in the school, he brought it back and hid it in the school," Harry shouted back to her. "I've seen it. Last year when I hid Snape's old potions book, I saw it. It's in the Room of Requirement. I know where it is!"
Elation soared through Sharlen quickly and then evened out with a deadening weight as they struggled through the halls, the first casualties on the battle that had already begun strewn across the floor—gargoyles. They leapt over them and kept running, Harry's wand out. She couldn't help but think she was running to her death.
Around a corner, Harry let out a strangled groan of relief and frustration upon seeing Ron and Hermione, their arms full of large, curved objects. As they ran up to meet them, Sharlen saw they looked like teeth.
"Where the bloody hell have you been?" Harry demanded.
"The Chamber of Secrets," Ron said.
"It was brilliant! Ron's idea!" Hermione said breathlessly. She began distributing the fangs among them. "He was brilliant."
"I just thought it won't matter if we find the last Horcruxes if we can't destroy them," Ron explained, "and the basilisk skeleton is still in the chamber."
"Brilliant!" Harry agreed.
"How'd you get down there?" Sharlen asked. "Do you speak Parseltongue too?"
Ron responded with a hissing sound. "Heard Harry do it enough times to figure it out," he said with a shrug.
"I know where the diadem is," Harry told them. He explained about the Room of Requirement and the four set off running immediately, re-entering the safe room. Only three women remained, Ginny among them.
"Oh Tonks," Sharlen gasped, running up to embrace her, "It's so good to see you. Congratulations on the baby."
"I'm happy to see you too," she said in a strained voice. Her aura was nearly damp with her worry. "You look terrible."
Sharlen couldn't help but laugh. The blood from her lip dripped down her chin.
"I thought you stayed behind with Teddy?" Hermione asked her.
"I couldn't stand not knowing… Remus, where is he?"
"He's with Kingsley, fighting," Harry told her. Without another word, she sped off out of the room.
Neville's grandmother was there as well, asking where he was. To hear he was fighting with Professor Sprout, lobbing mandrakes at Death Eaters over the walls, she swelled with pride and excused herself to go fight at his side. That left Ginny.
"We need you to leave too, Ginny, just for a minute," Harry said. "Then you can come back in."
"Gladly," Ginny said, running from the room, excited for an excuse to leave her sanctuary where her parents had banished her for being underage.
"But then you have to come back in!" Harry shouted after her. "You have to come back in!"
The worry for her was plain in his voice, but the red affection in his aura was as present as always, and only for Sharlen to see. She honored her new perspective—for the first time, she felt no jealousy. No despair. Her time with Harry was ending quickly. Lost for words, Sharlen walked up behind Harry and leaned against him, pressing her face between his shoulder blades and lacing her fingers with his. The muscles in his back moved as his breath filled and left his lungs, and he smelled like sweat and lake water. But the battle outside was raging on.
"Hang on a moment!" Ron said sharply. "We've forgotten the house-elves!"
"You mean we ought to get them fighting?" Harry asked. Sharlen thought a moment, considering their unique powers.
"No," Ron said seriously. "We should get them out. Evacuate them. We can't order them to die for us—"
Hermione threw the basilisk fangs she carried to the floor with a series of loud clangs as she threw herself at Ron and kissed him full on the mouth, Ron responding ferociously in turn and lifting her off her feet.
"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly. Sharlen felt tears flood and sting her eyes, overwhelmed by happiness. And regret. She tried to collect herself while Harry gently scolded them.
"I know it's war, mate," Ron was responding, "so it's now or never, isn't it?"
Sharlen turned away and fought down the sob choking her throat. She had to be ready. She had to be ready to let go.
"Nevermind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted. "Can you two just—this is really great and all, but—just maybe hold it until we get the diadem?"
Ron and Hermione apologized in muffled tones as they bashfully collected the fangs and broomstick they'd dropped on the floor. The four of them left the Room of Requirement so it could reset.
But outside, the situation in the castle was notably dire; all around them the walls shook and deafening bangs burst through the windows where green and red flashes of light could be seen not far off. The Death Eaters were almost at the castle walls. Ginny and Tonks were sending jinxes and curses out the window as Aberforth roared past with a group of students, saying they'd nearly breached the northernmost wall.
"Let's go, let's go," Sharlen said, "We've got to get moving."
"Ginny, stay out of sight, keep safe—come on!" Harry shouted, retreating back to the Room of Requirement. Sharlen, Ron, and Hermione followed him back inside, to the place where everything was hidden.
As the door closed behind them, the battle beyond the walls was sucked out as if they'd entered a vacuum. The room, teeming with towers upon towers of forgotten and hidden items from long years past, rang with complete silence. Ahead, Sharlen saw the result of her spell against the Vanishing Cabinet. She walked toward the ruins, a blackened mass of rubble. She ran her hand along an adjacent bureau, wiping it clean of the black dust it had collected.
"I did this," Sharlen whispered, staring at it with wide eyes. "The night Dumbledore died. Someone was coming out of it."
Hermione shuddered and crossed her arms.
Harry led them further, but appeared to be unclear exactly where he'd seen it last. Hermione tried a summoning charm to no avail; the room seemed unwilling to give up its secret treasures so easily. "Let's split up," Harry said. "Look for a stone bust of an old man wearing a tiara. It's on a cupboard… definitely near here…"
The four of them took separate paths through the towering treasures, passing hoards of books and baubles, chairs and crates, weapons, hats, and complete junk. For a while, Sharlen could hear the others' footsteps, but as she waded deeper into the labyrinth, she lost all trace of them. Her eyes searched mercilessly, scrutinizing every detail of every item she passed, but she saw nothing of consequence. She'd yet to find her heartbeat since learning of the Horcrux within her. Alone for the first time since they realized, Sharlen clutched her chest roughly, straining for it, her breathing becoming harsher as a panic set in.
It started at the base of her throat and filled her torso, and suddenly her knees were shaking, a violent tremor moving through her again and again. Nearly convulsing. Where was her heartbeat, where was her pulse. Was there any room left for it inside her with everything else her father had filled her with? This wouldn't do—she had to let go. She couldn't hold this tightly.
"Hold it, Potter."
Sharlen's breath caught in her throat and she froze entirely, and suddenly she found her heartbeat thundering in her ears, banging against her ribcage. Draco, she thought, slinking toward the source of the sound. It hadn't been close, but it hadn't been far. She moved carefully around the piles around her, brow furrowed in absolute focus of where she stepped, as Harry and Draco's voices grew louder.
She bit her lip to try and steady her breathing as she moved closer. She could see them now, as Harry laughed at something Draco said. He was distracting them, letting Crabbe and Goyle explain something. And just out of his reach, ringing inside her—the Ravenclaw diadem.
"...whatever the diadem is, if Potter wants it, then we need it," Draco was saying as she inched around the tower beside Harry. She moved into the light carefully, joining Harry's side with slow, calculated steps so as not to provoke a spell. Draco's gray eyes moved as she did, his face falling. His wand stayed on Harry.
"Draco, please," Sharlen pleaded quietly. His grip on his wand tightened. "Draco, you don't need to do this."
"Sharlen, you…" he muttered, conflict rising around him at the sight of her.
"Don't be a prat, Draco," Goyle growled through gritted teeth, close to Draco's ear. "Forget the traitor. Do him. Kill him."
"Draco, you know I'll protect you," she told him, stepping forward from Harry's side. His cool eyes were locked on hers. She held both hands out to cover Goyle and Crabbe should they attack. "We can figure this out."
"You're as good as dead, Sharlen. When he finds you," he said quietly, voice and wand shaking slightly. He was filled with reverie and dread. Still reeling from the discovery that she was also a Horcrux, Sharlen found it difficult to stifle an insane smile at how right he was. "He'll find you. All this time... all for nothing." His eyes went back to Harry.
"Harry?" came Ron's voice from the other side of a wall of objects behind Harry. Crabbe sent a whiplike spell at the top of the tower and it swayed dangerously, the top of it collapsing down into the alley beyond.
"Ron!" Harry shouted as the crashing objects gave way to a scream from Hermione somewhere out of sight. He pointed his wand at the tower and shouted, "Finite!" to bring it back to a steady state, and Sharlen glared hard at Crabbe and Goyle, arms tense before her, waiting.
"No!" Draco shouted, grabbing Crabbe's arm to stop him from repeating his spell. "If you wreck the room you might bury this diadem thing!"
"Not to mention I'll bloody kill you," Sharlen said coldly, the taste of blood in her mouth.
"Don't make me laugh," Goyle growled with mirth. "Potter's pet, a killer?"
"Voldemort's daughter, a killer. Yes. That's right," she told him, still rigid.
Goyle's face fell into a scowl, his aura growing more yellow with fear. "As if you wouldn't go full turncoat again to save your skin," he challenged. "Draco's right, you're as good as dead."
"'You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withall,'" she recited, promising darkly, "'Except my life, except my life, except my life.'"
Harry and Draco's auras betrayed that they believed her.
To draw the attention off of her, Draco told Crabbe, "If Potter came here to get it, then that must mean—"
"Must?" Crabbe challenged, wrenching his arm away. "Who cares what you think? You and your dad are nothing anymore, Malfoy. I take no orders from you."
"Harry? What's going on?" came Ron's voice again.
"Grab it, I'll cover you," Sharlen whispered urgently to Harry, who dove for the diadem.
Crabbe gave a strangled yell of opposition, shouting, "Crucio!" Sharlen tried to rebound the curse, then threw her palms together and out to send him flying back into Goyle, but the damage had been done. Upon impact from the rebounding curses, the bust the diadem rested on exploded, sending the tiara flying upward and out of sight in the mess of objects that remained.
"STOP!" Draco shouted, wrestling with Crabbe now, "The Dark Lord wants him alive!"
A jet of scarlet flew past Harry's head as Hermione tried to Stun Crabbe. In return, Goyle screamed, "It's the mudblood! Avada Kedavra!"
Sharlen's jaw hit the floor at hearing the Killing Curse, which missed Hermione by a horrifically slim margin. She saw Harry's mind and aura do a full reset to all-out fury, and he retaliated with his own Stunning Spell. Crabbe lurched out of the way, sending Draco's wand out into the ether of rubble they were accumulating.
"DON'T! Don't kill him!" Draco yelled at Crabbe and Goyle, which led to a hesitation Harry and Sharlen could take advantage of. Harry opted to Disarm Crabbe; Sharlen furiously sent Goyle flying back thirty feet. Ron took off after Goyle to seek revenge for his attack on Hermione, who was sending Stunning spells at Draco. He dove out of range, but just barely.
"Get the diadem!" Harry shouted to the three of them, clawing at the place they saw it disappear. "It's fallen, look for it here while I—"
"What have you done?!" Sharlen screamed, staring back where she'd thrown Goyle. He and Ron were running back toward them. Behind him, the familiar flames of Fiendfyre licked up and reduced to soot everything in their path, charging and forging new paths through the objects at their will. Goyle had no control, and was quickly losing any chance he'd had of it as he ran, becoming more terrified with every bound. The heads, teeth, jaws, and running claws were forming as the flames advanced, actively trying to kill them.
"HARRY!" Hermione shouted, finally getting him to turn around and see the rising beasts of flames as they neared. Sharlen was already trying to bury the flames in whatever objects she could throw at it, her arms like that of an orchestra conductor as she merged the towers before them, but none of this had any chance of stifling it. Harry desperately tried the Aguamenti spell, but the jets of water evaporated as soon as they left the tip of his wand.
"Leave the diadem! RUN!" Sharlen shouted, and the trio followed her away from the flames, in the wake of Malfoy dragging an unconscious Crabbe whom Ron had Stunned. Goyle helped try to drag him along, but the three were much too slow. Heavily, Sharlen knew they wouldn't make it like that. Rennervate Sharlen thought, throwing a hand out toward Crabbe. In the chaos of trying to navigate the labyrinth and avoid the swarming flames, she quickly lost sight of them.
The serpents, dragons, and great cat flames fed on the objects all around them and consumed them rapidly in the inferno. A fifty-foot chimaera charged them from the left, a snake lunged from the right and rose back up as a terrible phoenix. They were being encircled.
"Brooms!" Ron shouted, scrambling for three and tossing them to Harry and Hermione. Sharlen transformed into an owl and immediately regretted it; her feathers had a much lower tolerance for the rising heat of the room. She followed the trio as they rose up into the air, narrowly avoiding a tsunami of fire crashing upon them.
From above, they had a chance; smoke was rising, and she heard the others coughing on their brooms. "Let's get out, let's get out!" Ron shouted, though it was impossible to see the door through the black smoke. But Harry was flying as low as he dared over the monstrous flames, searching.
"Sharlen, find them!" Harry ordered. She clicked her beak several times loudly in disapproval, but Harry added, "We can't leave them here!"
Looking at his always over-burdened aura, she conceded; she knew what it meant for Harry to have blood on his hands. She banked hard to the left and searched, but the situation was grave; the flames were long out of control, nearly covering all of the ground. Only the tallest and thickest of towers remained untouched, but they would be quick to be climbed.
A piteous scream met her ears amongst the thunder of devouring flame. She saw Draco's white-blond hair and gave a screech, alerting Harry, Ron, and Hermione to turn around.
"IF WE DIE FOR THEM HARRY, I'LL KILL YOU," Ron bellowed. Sharlen circled Draco and Goyle, who were desperately climbing the mountain of chairs, desks, and decor to get to the top. Crabbe was nowhere to be found, and she didn't try to look any harder for him. Harry soared low over Draco and grabbed his outstretched arm, pulling him up to secure him on the back of his broom. Ron did the same to Goyle, and they all sped off to the entrance of the Room of Requirement. Hermione in the lead, she cast a spell allowing them brief passage through a wall of Fiendfyre, opening the door out to the hall long enough for them to escape before slamming it shut again, possibly for good.
Once on the ground, Draco and Goyle scurried away from the trio, coughing and sputtering. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were gulping down water, sprawled about each other on the floor. Away from the extreme heat of the fire, the hall made Sharlen shiver. She returned to her body, feeling heavy with rage.
"C-Crabbe…" Draco choked as soon as he could speak.
"He's dead," Ron spat at him mercilessly.
"Is… is the room destroyed?" Hermione choked out between gulps of water from Ron's wand. "How long will the flames burn?"
"When there is nothing left to burn, they will die," Sharlen told them, standing incredibly still. "Fiendfyre can't be controlled by someone who is afraid," she spat at Goyle, rounding on him. "You would know that if you had any right to know that spell! You will never know what it means to control it. Your friend is dead because of you! Because of your hatred!" He scrambled back from her, into a wall, but she followed closely, shouting. "Screaming the Killing Curse at another human being because you are thick with prejudices, setting fires you have no hope of taming. Do you even understand what it means to end a life? Have you no respect for what can never be forgiven?"
With unnatural strength she seized his robes, bringing Goyle up to his knees. He reeked of fear and fire, looking at her, maybe for the first time, as the Dark Lord's daughter, his open mouth trembling. "Will you force me to be the one to end the life you're wasting? How far will all of you fall?!"
"Sharlen," Harry said, now standing some feet behind her. The calm of his voice brought her down a half step. "You're not him. Step away."
She realized her right hand was held back menacingly, ready to strike him. She slowly relaxed her hand and let Goyle fall to the ground. After a few long, tense seconds, she allowed Hermione to bound Goyle before her, where he would wait retribution. Draco ran off, out of her sight.
She knew it was likely she would never see Draco again. He had disappointed her for the last time.
"The diadem…" Harry said, staring at the wall to the Room of Requirement in agony.
Then he and Sharlen felt the Fiendfyre destroy it, felt a flash of white hot in their hearts, a surge of weakness, and then something hollow and empty take its place. "It's gone," Sharlen gasped when it was over. Her lungs felt heavy, but she knew water wouldn't help her. "The Fiendfyre, like I used on the bracelet. It's gone."
"What? How do you know?" Hermione asked, turning away from Goyle. Her eyes were wide, but she went no further.
"We can feel it, remember," Sharlen muttered, more a statement than a question. She walked over and embraced Hermione tightly, the two briefly relieved.
They broke apart quickly as the sounds and spells of dueling filled the corridor. The Death Eaters had entered the castle, and Fred and Percy Weasley were backing down the hall, locked in their fight. The four of them rushed forward to help them, Sharlen throwing Rookwood back with a swipe of her arm. He hit the castle's outer wall heavily, casting a jet of purple light back at her with a strangled growl. He fell under the weight of the trio's three Stunning spells while Percy rendered Pius Thickness, free of his fallen hood, into something of a sea urchin. Fred was laughing at a joke his brother made about resigning as the four of them caught up to them.
But the air exploded as the outer wall of the castle buried them in stone and rubble, blasting them off their feet and into the air. The shouts of the others were all around Sharlen as she fell, crumbling against the opposite wall and barely protecting her head from the rocks. She opened her eyes and groaned in the brief stillness, sitting up with great difficulty, her spine giving her great protest as she shoved the remains of the corridor off and away from her legs. She smelled blood and dirt strongly enough to make her gag. Coughing, she crawled over to Harry, who was bleeding heavily from his hairline. She started to help him up when a terrible cry, she didn't know whose, turned her own blood into ice.
She helped Harry up and they went to Hermione, who was struggling to free herself from the wreckage. Staggering over to the three red-haired men gathered together on the ground where the castle wall had blown apart, Sharlen stayed rooted to the spot, the black and burgundy auras of the group consuming all the light around them.
"No—no—no!" someone was shouting. "No, Fred! No!" It didn't matter who was yelling, she realized, sinking back against the far wall as Harry and Hermione's auras merged with Percy's and Ron's. It was all of them. It was this entire night. Through the bodies, Sharlen could see Fred's wide eyes, his crooked smile frozen forever.
Louder than ever, the battle raged on, bearing down on them.
