Armistice

May 2nd, 1998
Post-Hogwarts
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"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured." Voldemort's voice decreed.

Voldemort had given them an ultimatum: deliver Harry, or Die. Well, obviously they weren't going to just hand him over, so they had fought and people had died and now the survivors had to collect the bodies.

Instead of helping, Ron stood there, staring stupidly at the bear that was walking towards him. He didn't recognize Jo, but then he was probably in shock. Hermione was much quicker on the uptake, though admittedly how many bears could there possibly be wandering around Hogwarts? Not many.

Jo walked over and gave each a good wuffle. Deciding they were ok, she gave them a brusk nod before ambling off to help Leili pull kids and wounded out of their makeshift safe haven.

They were surrounded by the dead and dying. Leili wasn't sure she could handle it. She kept her chin up and the bile down while she worked, separating the injured from the dead, shuffling them over to Madame Pomfrey.

Triage, the nurse called it, worst cases first. But there were so many 'worst cases' that after a while, Leili couldn't tell anymore. That was when Jo came over, her big fuzzy bear head plunked gently on Leili's shoulder, applying light pressure.

"You need to sit down," the pressure said.

"I can't," Leili replied, but she was shaking.

Jo stood up on her back legs and plopped two heavy paws on Leili's comparatively tiny shoulders and applied the slightest pressure.

Leili got the "If you don't sit down, I'm gonna make you sit down," message loud and clear and so she sat. More like collapsed. On the ground now, Leilani's stomach heaved. She turned over, but there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. She barely noticed when Jo shrank back into human form and started scraping long hair away from her face.

When the dry retching had stopped, Jo sat down, tucked Leili's head under her chin and gave her a gentle squeeze.

Leili burst into tears.

She hated crying, she really did, but she knew these people. Little Colin Creevy was dead; Lavender Brown had been brutalized by Greyback and might not make it. If she did, she'd be horribly scared. Lavender would be lucky, like Bill she'd been bitten by Greyback in human form so she wouldn't become a werewolf. Snape was dead; they were bringing his body into the hall now.

Tonks and Lupin had been found reaching for each other. Tonks was dead and Remus was going to be distraught when they told him, if he survived his injuries. Oliver was dead and Leili was surprised at how sad that made her—she almost regretted not forgiving him. Fred was nowhere to be seen, neither was Marcus—just because the Slytherin was on the other side now, didn't mean she didn't look for him, even if only out of habit.

Sniffing back snot and rubbing tears away with her wrist, Leili eventually asked, "Hey, Jo? Have you seen Fred?"

"No, he was with his brother I think, last time I saw him."

"I'm going to go find him, 'kay?"

"'Kay," she nodded. "Lemme know if you can't find him, I'll help look." She pulled a hair tie out of the recesses of a pocket and offered it.

Leilani smiled a little and took the tie, "Got your necklace? Good. I'll be back." Leili left the Great Hall in search of Fred while Jo went back to helping collect the dead and injured.

So many bodies were strewn across the floor. Professor Vector from Arithmancy and Professor Babbling from Ancient Runes were both carried away as she passed.

"Fred?" Leili called as she walked the hallway, sniffing back the remaining tears. Every now and then she'd stop to feel a pulse on someone lying on the floor. All dead. Eventually she rounded a corner and saw a flash of red hair.

"Fred!" she called, relieved. But it wasn't Fred who turned to face her; it was one of his brothers, Percy, judging by the tie and formerly slicked back hair. Her stomach dropped to her toes at the look on his face. Time seemed to move in slow motion as she looked beside him and saw a hand, wand fallen from a lax grip.

"FRED!" she screamed running towards the pile of rubble. Every step she took felt like moving through mud, the ambient noise of the castle died away and was replaced with a ringing in her ears. Her heart felt like it was going to beat out of her stomach.

She skidded to her knees and began helping Percy remove chunks of the wall. When at last she could see Fred, his head was hemorrhaging. As she looked helplessly around for something she could use to stop the bleeding, the damaged Room of Requirement sensed her need and stocked itself with bandages. She lurched forward and grabbed a fresh white medical pad, pressing it to the wound with scrabbling hands. He had taken the lucky potion and so had she and George and Ginny and Ron, this shouldn't have happened.

Gently, she pulled a strand of his red hair, made redder with blood, from beneath the pad, noticing as she did that her fingers crackled with lightning. She had to be careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact. If she shocked him now, she might very well kill him. Sometimes she really hated her stupidly sensitive defense mechanism.

"What happened?" she croaked as she fumbled with her left hand for her wand and then again as she tried to angle it to tap the bracelet she wore on her left wrist and activate the protean charm there.

"Death Eater's spell. We were caught in the avalanche." Percy caught the sparkle of a ring on her left hand but it didn't matter right now. He didn't know this girl but she obviously knew Fred. Very well, it seemed. "He pushed me out of the way."

"Are you ok?" she asked, trying to keep it together.

"I will be as long as he is," Percy choked.

A minute later Jo was barreling around the corner in bear form, changing back in the space of one stride. "What happened?!" She demanded of no one in particular.

"We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey!" Leili shouted.

Jo grabbed a roll of bandages and began hurriedly wrapping Fred's forehead, nudging Leili's hand out of the way, ignoring the zap as she did. Wand hand free, Leili cast a quick "Ferula" on Percy's leg while Jo conjured a kit.

"Immobulus," Jo cast, immobilizing Fred with a spell in lieu of a stretcher, "Here, help me get him into the sling. He'll get there faster if I run."

"I can't touch him," Leili said miserably, trying very hard not to accidentally electrocute somebody. So Percy with his broken and splinted leg helped Jo maneuver his brother onto the kit. Jo transformed back into a bear, took the edges of the sling in her mouth and was gone in a flash.

"Locomotor mortis" allowed Percy to not have to walk on his injured leg. Percy gave a quiet sigh of relief and a grateful smile as he floated along behind Leili who flew down the halls after Jo.

Jo barreled up to Madame Pomfrey and gingerly laid down her bundle while Leili transformed between one wing beat and another, dropping to her knees on the stone floor beside Fred. "Fix him!" she begged, "PLEASE!" She was crying again, not that she noticed or cared. "Please, you've gotta fix him…"

"I'll do my best, dear," Madame Pomfrey nodded, unwrapping her patient from his sling. Jo dropped her big bear head on Leili's shoulder only to get zapped. She let out a small, annoyed noise as she shifted out of her bearskin.

"Leili…"

"I'm not going anywhere until Fred is ok."

Not that she would have suggested otherwise, though she might have suggested giving the nurse a little more room to work. She also might have suggested Leili try to calm down a little, she was still covered in tiny arcs of white lightning, which were presently zotz-ing Jo as she squeezed Leili's shoulder with her chin before moving to sit beside her.

"Ok," she said. "Gimme your hand," Jo sent a jet of water through her wand and washed Fred's blood off Leili's palm and then Leili's wand.

Leili looked at Madame Pomfrey, desperate, "How is he?"

"Concussion, blood loss, his chest was compressed but he's breathing fine now, still he may have some oxygen deprivation, we won't know how bad until he wakes up."

"So he'll be ok?" Percy asked.

"I'm hopeful you got him out in time, but we'll have to see how bad the damage is when he wakes up. I'll set the fracture in his pelvis and relieve the pain. He'll need to go to St. Mungo's for a Blood-Replenishing potion. We'll know more when he wakes up." If he wakes up.

While Madame Pomfrey fixed Percy's leg, Leili sat, Fred, unconscious on one side, Jo silent except for the sound of her breathing on her other.

"Andante, Andante…" she sang in a whisper. "There's a shimmer in your eyes. Like the feeling… of a thousand… butterflies. Go on, play, Andante, Andante, 'n' watch me…" Her voice cracked. "float away…"

Jo hooked her finger around one of Leili's, trying to be a comfort anyway she could. "Who did this?" Jo asked Percy.

"Death eater. Spell blasted the wall, caused an avalanche."

"Who was it?" Jo specified.

"Rookwood."

"I'll get him," Leilani said.

"Leili…" Jo started, not sure what she was going to say but sure that she didn't want her soul to be mangled.

"I'll get him, Jo."

Jo took Leili's hand fully in her own.