Battle of the Astronomy Tower
June 30th, 1997
Post-Hogwarts
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The Dark Mark hung between the stars that night and it was one of the most frightening things either Jo or Leilani had ever seen.
They were supposed to be asleep, but they weren't. Jo had been uneasy all day, and they both knew by know that if Jo was uneasy about something, it wasn't a good sign. Her vibes, as they'd taken to calling the gut instincts Jo got, had been wrong once or twice, but most of the time, they were spot on. So instead of being sound asleep in their little beds above the Hog's Head, they were wide-awake and waiting for the storm to arrive.
They'd watched Harry and Dumbledore Apparate away, knowing they couldn't follow this time. When Leili looked out the window again later and saw the dark mark hanging between the stars above the astronomy tower, dread made her whole body run cold.
"Jo," she said, "look."
Jo looked, and swore.
She grabbed Leili's hand and together they raced to the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore. Aberforth had showed the secret passageway to them when he'd hired them. It was the fastest way to the castle, short of Apparating.
Along the corridor they ran, hoping they weren't too late. When they burst through the other end they saw what remained of Peruvian instant darkness powder in the Room of Requirement and the vanishing cabinet with its doors wide open.
Jo swore again and her hand tightened around Leili's, dragging her from the room.
Leilani wasn't even entirely aware of running, but she knew that the Dark Mark meant death; she'd heard the stories all her life, and now for the first time since Jo had nearly died in the graveyard she was well and truly terrified. Students were beginning to gather outside of their houses and there was blood splattered on the floors, on the walls.
She noticed the feel of lightning on her skin this time, noticed how it circled around the hand Jo held tightly; noticed how Jo wasn't being electrocuted. This was the only time that had ever happened, if they'd had the time she might have been inclined to examine it further. But they didn't.
"What's going on?" a student asked.
"Someone mentioned the Dark Mark…" Another said.
"Get back to your dorms! It's not safe out here!" Leili yelled at them. "GO!"
Students scattered.
When Jo and Leili came up on a death eater from behind Leili glanced at their clasped hands and whispered, "Have your wand ready but do not let go of my hand."
The girls crept quietly up on the Death Eater and Leili reached out a hand and grabbed the back of his neck.
CRACK!
The death eater convulsed and involuntarily flew several feet forward before landing on his face. Between being electrocuted and falling face first onto a stone floor, Leili figured he'd be out of it for a good long time. So on they ran, blasting Death Eaters out of the way and never letting go of each other's hand.
Upstairs, Draco disarmed Dumbledore and Dumbledore told Draco of his own plan, poisoning Slughorn's mead, cursing Katie Bell, sneaking the Death Eaters into the castle, a feat he—Dumbledore—had thought impossible.
Jo and Leili raced towards the tower, Jo's gut instinct leading the way, while Draco explained his mending of the Vanishing Cabinet and his placing Madam Rosmerta under the Imperius curse to Dumbledore.
The girls took solace in the fact that none of the students had been killed thus far. Some had been injured, one first year had cruel scratches down one cheek; another student was lying unconscious in the corridor.
They never made it to the Astronomy tower in time.
With a sharp tug, Leili pulled Jo over to the window when she saw a large object hurtle past. When Jo saw the body lying on the grass she slapped a hand over Leili's eyes, but it was too late, she'd already seen.
They had no time to mourn for shortly after Dumbledore hit the ground the Death Eaters were spilling out of the Astronomy Tower, cursing anyone in the way. They didn't look twice at the girls. Except for one lone Death Eater, who stopped and stared at them.
They raised their wands, prepared to give tit for tat should he attack.
He didn't.
He stared.
He just stared and then walked away.
The Death Eaters spilled out into the main castle wreaking havoc and destruction, except Snape and Draco who led the Death Eaters out onto the grounds. They didn't fight; they just walked.
Once out on the grounds Harry attacked Snape. The girls could hear the spells being bandied about but they didn't rush to help him. Even if Snape truly was a Death Eater, they truly believed he wouldn't hurt Harry.
Instead they began to gather the wounded.
Leili couldn't touch the wounded; she'd just end up electrocuting them. She conjured stretchers instead and Jo carefully moved the wounded on to them. Bill Weasley was one of them. An unknown Auror was another. Professor Flitwick had been stunned, but was otherwise ok.
The girls levitated the badly wounded to the hospital wing while the Order assisted those who were less badly wounded. The Order also began to put the castle to rights again, cleaning up broken dishware and windows.
There were a few Death eaters left inside the castle, unconscious or dead. If they were unconscious Leili took one lighting covered hand and just made sure they'd stay that way. No one spoke.
Outside students and teachers gathered around Dumbledore's body, lying broken on the grass beneath the tower. Jo and Leili were near the front of the crowd when Harry and Hagrid made their way there.
Someone from Ravenclaw asked, "Oi, Leilani, d'you—d'you think you could bring him back?" It was a Hail Mary, a student's last-ditch efforts to save the day. They had noticed the lightning still on her skin and had heard of electricity to the heart to get it beating again.
But Leili shook her head, "Even if I could, he fell too far, you don't survive that kind of a fall."
"It wouldn't work anyway," Harry said softly, "Snape cast a Killing Curse." Slowly he noticed something hard under his knees. It was the locket.
Picking it up, he opened it and then the bit of parchment that lay inside. On it, in tiny script, was a note,
To the Dark Lord,
I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I, who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.
R.A.B.
Much later that night, there was a soft, rattling clatter on a window of the Hog's Head. A pause. Then again, rattle clatter. Jo stood to look out the window and a grin lit her face.
"It's Marcus! I'll be right back, Leili." She headed down the stairs and met him on the lane.
Then she noticed his robes.
The mask in his hand.
Her grin fell away, leaving her confused. "From whom did you take that?" She walked over to him, gingerly taking the silver, skull-like mask from him.
It felt wrong in her fingers.
Cold and foreign and wrong.
One finger traced the carved whorls and chills shivered from her fingertip all the way up her arm and along her spine. She jerked the finger away from the frigid surface as that chill slithered along her jaw, curling under one ear.
He pulled his hands behind him, positioned there at the small of his back, his elbows stuck out. "I didn't take it."
"What, you just found it on the ground?" Jo said, a disbelieving chuckle accompanying her 'that's stupid' look.
"No, it's mine."
"Yours?" She didn't understand.
She didn't want to understand.
"Mine," he whispered, slipping the mask from her fingers and putting it on.
Jo stopped breathing.
Death Eater.
She'd seen him.
He'd looked straight at her.
He'd looked straight at her and walked away.
He took off the mask and handed it back to her. When she didn't reach out to take it, he took her hand and pressed the mask into it. Her fingers clenched on its edge, nails biting into the undersurface.
For an eternity she stared at him. For an eternity the only sound was her heartbeat in her ears. Then, "You're a fucking Death Eater!?"she screamed, shocked and hurt that he would do something like this.
After all they'd been through, after all their conversations at school about how not all Slytherins were evil. She watched as he stood, back ram rod straight, face a mask of indifference, his voice quiet and calm in the face of her wrath.
"It is the highest honor the Dark Lord can bestow upon one such as me."
"WHAT?!" she cried, "What the hell does that mean?!"
He said nothing, his hands clasped behind his back, feet shoulder's width apart, chin up, eyes on her.
"They told me I couldn't trust you. I didn't believe them," she chuckled wryly, "I didn't want to believe them. Well, shame on me."
Years of warnings sounded in her head like a cacophony of bells, all chiming together.
Leili saying, "slimy things are slimy things", the other students' insistence that anyone from Slytherin could not be trusted. People's shocked looks when he'd held her hand.
The way he wouldn't introduce her to his parents.
"They're pure-blood," he'd said.
"They wouldn't understand," he'd told her.
"I'm not like them," he'd insisted.
"Shame on me," she repeated. A frown tugged at her eyebrows, "You know what, no. No! Not shame on me, shame on you! Shame on you for making me trust you, for making me love you! You need to pick. Me or him? Choose where your loyalty lies."
He blinked languidly at her, her fists clenching and unclenching, her brow furrowed as she awaited his decision.
His chest rose with the deepest breath he could take and his answer came as a whisper, "My loyalty belongs to the Dark Lord."
In a flash her wand was out, the mask crashed to the cobble stoned ground and without a word, things around them rose into the air and hurled themselves at Marcus.
She turned and stormed away, Apparating between one step and another to Leili's side.
She didn't see him not defend himself.
She didn't see him stand there and take the beatings of inanimate objects.
Her arms around Leili's neck, she promptly collapsed into a puddle of tears and snot. "You warned me," she sobbed. "You were right, the who-whole tihihime! I never should have trusted him!"
Leili stroked Jo's hair "We'll call it even. You warned me about Oliver, I warned you about Marcus Aurelius."
Jo chuckled wetly at the nickname.
"It's ok. It's gonna be ok," Leili soothed.
"How? How is it going to be ok?"
"I don't know," Leili smiled and pulled back to look at Jo, "it's a mystery."
Jo laughed through her heartbreak.