.
Part Three | Burn with Me
49. The Battle of Hogwarts
-I-
They apparated, just as planned, into the Hog's Head pub and were met by a vaguely familiar figure - who, according to Neville, was some kind of ally to them. At one point, Pansy remembered, they had been most thrilled when this man in particular had not been bothered about querying their ages when they'd ordered various drinks.
Now, however, he wasn't there to serve them drinks.
"You Longbottom's lot?" he asked gruffly.
"Yes," Theo answered with a curt nod.
The barman turned and inclined his head to a large painting Pansy hadn't noticed. A young girl in a blue dress offered the man a wide smile before turning and disappearing backwards somewhere through what could have been a tunnel, leaving an empty backdrop behind.
"Run away, did you?" he asked.
"Bit more to it than that, mate," Theo responded, polite but pointedly.
"Fair enough."
The wait, which Pansy knew logically was probably no more than a few minutes, felt like hours. Until finally, through breaths that were baited and a struggle to keep from being laboured, she saw him.
He smiled the smile he kept just for her as he approached, finally reaching the forefront of the painting and jumping down into the room to join them. Never before had Pansy thrown her arms around someone with quite so much gusto.
He pulled back, though kept his hands positioned firmly on either side of her waist, and locked his blue eyes to her green. "You alright?" he said in barely more than a whisper.
Pansy nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. It was easier to lie to him when she wasn't required to actually say anything.
The way the pad of his thumb circled through the fabric of her top told her he knew she was far from alright.
"Okay," Neville began, addressing the others. "Once we go through the painting, it leads us into the Room of Requirement, everything is a bit up in the air. Harry, Ron and Hermione arrived a while ago-"
"Potter's at Hogwarts?" Theo interjected.
Neville nodded. "We're preparing to fight, think Alecto saw him and called You-Know-Who."
"Fuck," Theo replied.
"Yeah," Neville began to move towards the portrait, beckoning the others to follow suit. "Thanks, Aberforth," he added, nodding once more at the barman, who muttered something blunt and raspy under his breath.
The tunnel didn't take them as long as Pansy would have thought. Her hand was clasped with Neville's as they made their way through the stone passageway. Until then, Pansy hadn't particularly thought about what would happen when they returned. As they walked, however, she began to feel a sense of nervousness gather in a jittery ball somewhere just below her navel.
Finnegan knows, and Weasley and Lovegood.
Three people was a very short list, when the rest of the students despised you.
They entered the castle and, just as Neville had stated, ended up in what Pansy knew must be the Room of Requirement. She didn't know a lot about the mysterious area of the castle, only that it could meld itself to the needs of whoever desired entry, and that it was where Draco went to fix the vanishing cabinet during Sixth Year. Apart from the time Dolores Umbridge had blown open the door to bust Potter's secret club, Pansy hadn't been anywhere near the room.
As though by reflex, she jerked her hand from Neville's, stung with a humiliation that hadn't yet come to pass, though one that she was sure was a certainty.
He shot her a strange, sideways glance in which his eyes were laced with the hint of a smile, before decidedly taking her hand back once more in his own, and holding it tighter still. She wanted to tell him the action made her love him all the more.
Instead, her mouth felt incapable of forming anything resembling words.
The space was large and full of what appeared to be hammocks hanging from the ceiling. The colours of the Houses decorated the walls, though she couldn't help but notice Slytherin's silver and green was decidedly absent.
Oh Merlin
Pansy's nerves intensified at the stark realisation she was now, indeed, back inside Hogwarts. The last time she had been so had been before she went to meet Rabastan. At the unwelcome thought, a thousand icy memory shards stabbed her somewhere close to the centre of her sternum.
The room was abuzz with activity and bodies, most of whom, Pansy was relieved to notice, hadn't paid the new arrivals any attention.
A few, however, had.
Ginny Weasley appeared through a small, nearby crowd.
"You came," the redhead stated bluntly.
Pansy didn't have a clue what to respond, and instead didn't. From just behind her she heard Theo utter, "Alright, Weasley?" just as she became aware of several nearby cries that sounded far, far less welcoming than Ginny's had.
"What the hell are they doing here?!"
"Neville, what's all this?!"
"Fucking Parkinson is here!"
Pansy had little clue as to who had even spoken which outburst, only that she desperately wished she could be anywhere else and not able to hear them.
"Neville what is this?!"
Now, it seemed, others were paying attention, and Neville raised his free hand, palm outwards, and spoke, loudly, to the watching crowd of students and others alike. Pansy noticed, after a brief sweep of the room, their old Defense teacher Lupin, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, amongst others.
"Alright," Neville began, "I know the arrival of, uhh, these guys is probably a surprise to most of you."
"You can bloody say that again!" Pansy shot Justin Finch-Fletchley the most irritated look she could muster.
"But, you have to believe me," Neville continued, ignoring Justin, "when I say they're on our side."
His announcement was met with a buzz of disbelief. The words Parkinson, Nott, and Death Eater were a few of the words Pansy was able to decipher. Neville raised his hand once more. "I promise you all, I wouldn't risk this if I wasn't sure."
"There's no way-"
"Neville's right," Pansy could scarcely stop the gasp that escaped her lips as Ginny stepped forwards, joining them. "I didn't believe them at first either, but...they're on our side."
"How do you-"
"I didn't believe them," Ginny repeated, "until I saw Par-uhh, Pansy, and Theo, curse Alecto."
A stunned quiet was all that was present for a few seconds.
"It was rather impressive," Luna Lovegood's singsong voice echoed through the quiet, and Pansy found her eyes drawn to the blonde and something uncomfortably close to relief at the sight of Luna unnerved her.
"They fucked off for months!"
"So did I," Neville pointed out to a Ravenclaw Pansy barely recognised.
"You said that was because the Carrows marked you for death."
"They did. Pansy and the others left because You-Know-Who had earmarked them, for the dark mark, which none of them were willing to take."
Pansy didn't miss the slight hint of pride in his voice when he spoke. Nor did she miss the way he impressively orchestrated the crowd of onlookers as though he were talking to only a few people.
From over to her right, Pansy heard the clearing of a throat, and a familiar voice, rife with an Irish twang, spoke. "It's true," Seamus said. "I've known for a while, and I believe them. The day the Carrows attacked me and Neville, I found out the truth."
A silence followed Seamus's words, broken by the smallest of voices. "It was you tha-that helped us," Pansy's gaze was drawn to the source, a nearby First Year. She recognised the girl instantly, she was the one who Pansy had kept a lookout for, so she and her friend could return to their common room.
"I, uh...yeah," Pansy faltered, "that was me."
Another, entirely strange voice, broke at that moment. "I always wondered why," Pansy located the boy, who looked no older than fourteen. Pansy realised she did, in fact, recognise him, "that time you were ordered to torture me, you cast a spell...and I screamed and screamed, but it wasn't sore."
From another part of the room, a muttering that Pansy hoped she was reading correctly as agreement, could just be heard.
The next to speak was Kingsley Shacklebolt. The Minister for Magic stepped forward, his presence altogether impressive.
"Parkinson," he looked at Pansy, who nodded, before his eyes swept over the others, and rested on Theo, "and Nott. As in Cassius, and Theodore?"
"Yes."
"Your parents are not good people, Miss Parkinson, Mr Nott." His voice was heavy with accusation.
"I'm not my father," Pansy replied, as Neville squeezed her hand. "No more than Theo is his."
"I despise mine," Theo added in agreement.
"And mine," Pansy stated, finding the subject harder still, even now, "is a Death Eater because he literally sold me. I have less loyalty to him - to any of them, than you probably do, Minister."
Shacklebolt's eyebrows shot up his forehead in shock as regarded the pair for what felt far longer than Pansy suspected it was, until eventually, their words apparently enough to satisfy him, he gave them both a curt, barely a nod inclination of his head, before the familiar, but booming, all-encompassing voice of Minerva McGonagall filled their ears.
"ALL STUDENTS ARE TO GATHER IN THE GREAT HALL IMMEDIATELY. ALL STUDENTS TO THE GREAT HALL."
Further silence followed the announcement, before a collective shuffling as students began to shuffle out of the room.
"Alright," Pansy heard Blaise say, "Let's go to the Hall."
Whispers she more than likely imagined followed Pansy, and the others, all the way to the Great Hall. Finding their place, with the other Slytherins, Pansy, Theo, Millicent and Blaise stood together, unmoving until she heard a familiar voice, just louder than the confused din of students.
Not caring in the moment of how unloyal she, or he, may look. Not that it mattered anymore how she was viewed, having been outed not ten minutes prior, Pansy supposed, as she flung her arms around Draco's neck.
"Merlin," Draco steadied him, and her, self, having been almost bowled over entirely from the momentum Pansy had thrown herself against him with. "Get it together, Pansy," he said, half-laughing in spite of himself, and in spite of everything going on around them. As she pulled back she met his eyes with her own.
"It's good to see you," she whispered.
"And you," turning to the others, Pansy watched Draco momentarily reconnect with Theo, Blaise, Millicent and Daphne, respectfully.
"Good to see you, mate," Theo said.
They had little chance to say much to each other. Looking around, Pansy realised most of the school was present, and Professor McGonagall was speaking.
"...when I give the word, you will organise your houses, and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point."
Pansy wished for nothing more than to grab Neville and evacuate with the others.
From the Hufflepuff throng, Pansy heard the voice of Ernie Macmillan query whether they could stay and fight. Knowing it was futile, and the Neville had no intention of going anywhere but into the fight, Pansy wished McGonagall would say every student, of age or no, had to leave.
"If you are of age, you may stay."
Pansy suspected she was missing more talking, but cared little, after finally having located the stark and strong figure that Neville cut. His eyes were staring directly into hers, saying a thousand more words than anyone around them possibly could.
Professor McGonagall was saying something about protection around the castle when, swapping a brief look of something between comfort and support with both Daphne and Millicent, Pansy turned to look at Neville once more, when her thoughts, feelings and fears were all but temporarily wiped, by the arrival of a sinister and booming voice, that felt as though it were screaming in her own ears. And despite never having spoken to its owner, she, and she would imagine everyone around her, held no confusion over just who was speaking.
"I know that you are preparing to fight." Pansy heard screams echo from all around as a collective panic seemed to settle over everyone present, she no exception. "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. Give me Harry Potter, 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."
What the-
Directly to Pansy's left, so close to cry made her jump, a girl only just shorter than Pansy raised a shaking hand, and pointed directly at Harry Potter, who Pansy had somehow failed to notice amid the chaos.
"But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"
What felt like a hundred and more pairs of eyes were drawn towards them, and instantaneously a number of students, not just from Gryffindor, but Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, moved as one, in front of Harry Potter, protecting him.
"Shut the fuck up," Pansy hissed, not as quiet as she perhaps should have, at the girl, who looked perplexed at the act.
"Thank you," Professor McGonagall said dryly, "Miss Axle, you will leave the Hall first with Mr Filch, along with," Pansy swallowed as McGonagall regarded her coolly over her glasses, "the Head Girl and Boy."
It was one of the more Gryffindor-esc things she had ever done in her life. "No," she said, praying her voice wouldn't falter. "I'm staying."
Pansy had rarely seen Minerva McGonagall lost for words, and she watched the older witch blink, before stating, loudly. "All Slytherins underage and wishing to leave, go so with Mr Filch now, Ravenclaws follow suit," before she rounded on Pansy directly. "I can assure you, Miss Parkinson, this is no game."
The words, and sins, of her father, burned into the forefront of her mind. No it isn't, Pansy thought, not anymore.
It felt as though by a miracle, when Neville appeared by McGonagall's side.
"I know it isn't," Pansy replied. "I'm not on their-his, side. I never have been"
McGonagall opened her mouth, but didn't speak.
"She's telling the truth," Neville said, shooting Pansy the briefest of smiles.
The older witch did nothing to hide the shock in her voice. "You can vouch for her, Mr Longbottom?"
"Yes," said Neville, with no trace of faltering. "And for the others, the Seventh Years anyway," he gestured behind Pansy. Turning her head, Pansy realised dismally only she, her friends and a couple of others had remained from Slytherin house.
"Mr Malfoy?" McGonagall's voice was barely a whisper.
Draco's eyes were darting, the only part of him to look close to fearful. "He can't know," Draco said flatly. "Not until my mother-" he broke off, and Pansy was grateful McGonagall didn't press him further.
Instead, her eyes travelled to Theo. "Mr Nott?"
Theo took a deep breath, his usual sass and bravado absent. "We aren't our parents, Professor," he replied, echoing Pansy's sentiment to Kingsley Shacklebolt.
"Very well, the dungeons, they are a weak spot," McGonagall said, "they run under the entirety of the castle and it would be incredibly useful to have people stationed there, to stop anyone who may try to use them to sneak about."
"We can do that," Theo replied enthusiastically.
"I am glad to hear it, Mr Nott." McGonagall's voice was a fraction softer than it had been as she regarded Theo. "I am glad to hear it."
-II-
"It's quite exciting, isn't it?" Daphne was saying as she, Blaise and Pansy made their way towards the entrance to the dungeons a short while later. Theo and Millicent had gone in the opposite direction, towards the other entrance, and Draco, rather suspiciously after spotting Potter in the crowd, hastily said he had something he had to do.
She loathed to admit it, but Pansy couldn't help but agree, a small part of her did anyway.
The other, larger part, was still terrified. Of what, Pansy couldn't quite pinpoint. Rabastan, the Dark Lord, or her father. The latter she supposed was the least menacing, but in many ways was the one she wished to see the least. She'd never hated him, before, not really, but Rabastan's words, as they so often had, pierced her very heart like a dagger.
And I was the highest bidder
She hated him now.
Of that much she was sure.
Securing the dungeons was a mammoth task too vast for five teenagers, but Pansy and the others did their best in the short time they had. The group worked as systematically as they were able, and before long they had placed a number of hexes and traps in various parts of the dungeons, which ought to at least slow down any rogue Death Eaters who decided to utilise the underground parts of the castle.
A number of bangs and a thundering of a great number of rushing footsteps above echoed around them, sounded even louder than it probably ought to. Pansy was just finishing a modified tripping jinx she had manage to attach to a nearby stone, when a number of screams emanated from not too far above their position.
"Merlin," Blaise checked the watch on his wrist. "It's just after five past twelve."
You have until midnight.
Midnight had been and gone without them realising. The battle, that they were now directly involved in, the battle that marked them as traitors and could very likely be the cause of their deaths, had started.
They stayed put, as instructed, until Pansy could bear to do so no longer. Turning towards the stairs that led to the entrance hall, she felt Blaise's hand on her arm.
"Where are you going?"
"I can't just stay here."
"Isn't that exactly what we're supposed to be doing?" Daphne asked.
An explosion of some sort went off close to them, the noise ricocheting around them as the dungeons, once again, made louder by the enclosed, dark space.
"I can't," Pansy replied, "I can't just stay here, out the way. Not whilst they're all fighting."
"Alright," Daphne said, and exchanged a determined nod with Blaise, "let's go."
Pansy blinked. "I didn't mean we all had to, you guys can just-"
A further explosion, this one closer, stole the rest of her words.
"As if we'd let you go without us."
Pansy wished she were able to convey the gratitude for Daphne and Blaise in that moment, instead she settled on vowing to herself to buy them a holiday were they all to somehow miraculously make it out of the fight alive.
"We should find Theo and Millicent," Blaise said.
"I agree," Pansy said, although her mind was on someone distinctly not Theo, or Millicent.
"And Draco," Daphne added. "And Neville."
They entered the entrance hall into utter chaos; the air thick was dust and magic and a deafening and confusing din of shouting.
Within mere seconds, all three had thrown up shield charms and sent a barrage of curses. Pansy hoped there weren't too many people who still believed her a Death Eater in training.
"Let's go," Pansy barely heard Blaise shout over the noise. She'd never have believed the sheer volume were she told. Together, the three began to fight their way across the hall. It didn't feel like how she'd imagined, although how could it? How could she have ever thought they'd prepared, for this? For war?
"Thanks," Ginny Weasley shouted, after Pansy successfully stunned one of the three she and Luna were fighting.
It took a long while to find Theo, and it was, in fact, he who found them. Sweat glistened over his brow, where a large nasty looking cut was present. It oozed a nasty yellowish liquid which in any other circumstance both Pansy and Daphne would have recoiled from. Now, however, Pansy found herself unable to care about Theo's grotescue wound, and in a deserted corridor, hugged him as tight as she could.
"Where's Mills?!"
"Dunno," Theo's brows knitted together in concern as he leaned in to hug Blaise, "we got separated after we came up."
"Shit."
There was so much going on, both directly where they were, and all around, that were it anything less, she might have missed it. But there was no missing the searing pain that cut through Pansy's arm from a nearby, rogue curse.
"ARRGH!" she yelled to noone in particular, holding her arm. She whirled around but telling who the culprit was in the disarray that was the battle was an impossibility.
"GET DOWN!" Blaise's words made sense to her just in time, and with less than a second to spare, Pansy ducked. Looking up, a charred black mark was positioned exactly where Pansy's head had been, just moments before.
The others had placed shield charms around their position, and both Blaise and Theo were sending spell after spell at a group of Death Eaters nearby. Pansy recognised a few, Mulciber had done business with her father for years, and Yaxley had sat at her dining room table a number of times.
A curse Blaise fired hit Yaxley on the leg, and the Death Eater, after letting out a roar similarly to one Pansy would expect to hear from a cave bear, sent a number of curses directly at the small group, one of which caused a thick, black smog-like something to erupt all around them. In the confusion, Pansy and Theo jumped one way, and Blaise and Daphne another. Clinging to whatever part of Theo she could, Pansy heard the sound of her own scream as what felt like a number of people running around, and on top of, them.
"Stay down," she heard Theo say somewhere close to her left ear. By her heart, she felt a warmth emanating from where she knew her shikkane sat. The pain in her arm and face was still very much present but Pansy thought perhaps it was a touch dampened.
A huge, louder than any she had heard this far, explosion sounded just above where they were, and the number of crashes and bangs that follows, all around them, and - terrifyingly, on top of them, told her that, in some form, part of the castle had been blown up. The sting in her arm was greater now, and throbbing, and Pansy could feel a similar pain pulsing close to her chin. She felt sore almost everywhere, her body ached, and already felt like one giant bruise was settling in.
She and Theo emerged, magically blasting their way through a number of large rocks and boulders, coughing and spluttering on the enormous volume of dust, to the realisation that, as much as she was glad Yaxley and Mulciber were gone, Blaise and Daphne were too.
"Where the fuck-" she heard Theo question the very thing running through her own mind. Nearby she could see what looked an awful lot like a small pile of dead bodies. Pansy swallowed.
Theo looked as beaten as she felt, and he grabbed her arm - her uninjured one thankfully, and pulled her away from the wreckage. "Come on!'
They made their way, if truth be told aimlessly, through the castle. Past fighters, both downed and still standing, firing spells at whoever they saw and knew weren't on their side as carefully as they were able.
"Maybe we should double back," Pansy suggested, after they had searched fruitlessly for longer than she had hoped they'd have to, maybe Daphne-"
But Theo had thrown one arm outwards, hitting Pansy in the stomach and halting her words by momentarily winding her.
There, directly in front of them, and luckily were still yet to notice the two teenagers, stood two of possibly the worst people they could have come across.
Theodore Nott, Sr, had never been a particularly attractive man. Pansy had often wondered just how attractive Theo's mother must have been in her youth, for - luckily for Theo, he certainly hadn't inherited his father's looks. He stood, tall and imposing, an unworried look loomed on his waxy face. He was discussing something, something which seemed to bore - given their matched expressions, both he and his acquaintance.
Pansy watched, as rooted to the spot as Theo was, as Rabastan pushed his longish, dank hair out of his eyes. She wanted to both scream and not utter a sound, to both run and stay still, to kill him, and run from him.
She felt Theo's hand gently grip her arm, and guide her, both with and against all of her conflicting instincts, into a nearby room.
"Pans?! Pans it's okay, he's not here."
Pansy realised at some point she must have started hyperventilating. "Theo, I…" she broke off, with no real clue as to what she even would have said.
He allowed her a long minute to collect herself, before asking, "Are you okay to keep going?"
"Yeah," Pansy swallowed. "Sorry, I…"
She felt him grab her hand in his own. "You have nothing to be sorry for." Theo appeared to visibly shake himself. "Always thought if I had the chance, I'd be able to do it," Pansy heard him mutter.
He leant his head out just enough to peek into the corridor. "It's deserted," he said, "let's go."
"Okay," Pansy replied, wondering whether Neville and the others were okay.
They had barely made it through the door when the same booming, all-encompassing voice from before began to echo all around them. It felt as though the Dark Lord was screaming, albeit camly, directly into Pansy's head.
"You have fought valiantly, Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery." In spite of himself, and the situation, Theo snorted. "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.'
"Shit," Theo said.
Pansy's thoughts were on the others again. "We need to find them Theo."
They began to make their way towards the Great Hall, which seemed the most logical place for everyone to congregate. Pansy hoped Neville and her friends would be amongst them.
The Hall was full, of students, teachers, fighters and everything in between. Pansy swallowed dryly at the sight of the river of dead bodies, each placed carefully and respectfully down the centre of the long room. Saying a brief please please please to any deity willing to listen, Pansy preyed that Neville, or Daphne, or Draco, Blaise or Millicent weren't amongst them.
It was Daphne who found them first, and a squeal was the only warning she got before her best friend launched herself into her, nearly knocking the pair of them off balance. Pansy's arms tightened around Daphne's back as tears gathered behind her now closed eyelids.
"We didn't know what happened to you both," Daphne was saying. "Oh Pans, I'm so so happy to see you."
"I'm happy to see you too," Pansy replied, her words muffled against Daphne's shoulder. "We haven't seen anyone, we didn't know," her words were as disjointed as her thoughts.
"With you and Theo here," Daphne said, "everyone is safe."
"Y-you've seen…" Pansy couldn't continue.
"Babe he's standing right behind you."
She left Daphne's embrace, whirling around, not daring to believe the words, and entered Neville's. His arms, as they always had, felt like home.
"I tried to find you," he breathed against her, holding her tighter than he ever had.
Pansy's voice was little more than a high pitched squeak. "I tried to find you."
She didn't want to let lax the grip her arms had around him, but he forced her gently, pulling back, just enough in order for him to get a look at her face. She must have looked worse than she'd realised, given the sharp intake of breath he took. As for Neville, Pansy was relieved to see he didn't look as bad as he could have. Not as bad as she looked, clearly.
"Oh, baby," he whispered. His eyes roamed over her face, resting momentarily on the cut by her chin, before pulling her against him once more.
She didn't know how long they stayed there. After letting go, begrudgingly, of Neville, Pansy was reunited with Blaise, and then Millicent.
They were situated on the edge of what was usually the Slytherin table. No one paid them any attention, though Pansy realised, with a raw surge of emotion, that the attention they did receive was positive.
"Uh, sorry to interrupt," another voice cut through their reunion, and Pansy turned to see a vaguely familiar face.
He used to play Quidditch for Gryffindor
"Neville are you still okay to…" he trailed off.
Reluctantly, Neville removed his hand from the small of Pansy's back. "Yeah, yeah of course. I'll be back," he said, before, as gently as he could, placed a brief kiss upon her lips.
She watched him leave, with the older boy she wanted to call Wood, wondering vaguely just what it was Neville was still okay to do.
"Hey," she heard from behind. Pansy turned as quickly as she could, and threw her arms around Draco, squeezing him as tight as she dared.
"Hi," she squeaked back, her usual tone having apparently long since deserted her. Pulling back, Pansy examined him. He didn't look good, although remembering Neville's reaction upon seeing her own face, Pansy didn't doubt that right then she looked worse. Various small cuts littered his face, and he had a somewhat charred look to him, as though he'd been thrown briefly on a bonfire.
"Want to sit?" he gestured towards the nearby benches. Pansy nodded, unsure whether she'd be able to speak like herself ever again.
"Where did you go?" she asked, "when we went to the dungeons."
Draco swallowed, and Pansy didn't miss the way he wrung his hands together. "I went...to help Potter."
"Oh."
"After I returned, I figured I would try do some good whilst you lot were still at the cottage. So I tracked down Crabbe and Goyle."
Pansy wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Bet that was fun."
"Tons," Draco replied dryly. "Anyway, by this point I made them tell me pretty much everything they knew about anything, most of it utter drivel, but one thing I did learn was that when the inevitable happened and Potter returned here, they were going to do everything in their combined, insignificant power, to thwart him. They had this dream of being the ones to deliver him to the Dark Lord."
"What?" Pansy mentally brushed aside her momentary desire to laugh.
"So tonight I knew they'd sneak back into the fight, which they did, and follow him, which they did. So I followed them. Then they saw me," Draco added, clearly annoyed at the occurrence, "so then I obviously had to pretend to still be on their side.
"We followed Potter, Weasley and Granger to the Room of Requirement, and then to cut a long and pretty boring story short, Crabbe ended up casting bloody fiendfyre of all things."
"Where the hell did he learn to do that?" Pansy wondered aloud.
"No idea, anyway Potter seemed to realise I'd been throwing curses at Crabbe and Goyle and not him, pulled me on his broom-"
"His broom?"
"Insignificant detail. Pulled me on his broom, and Weasley ended up saving Goyle, you can imagine how happy he was about that."
"I can't imagine how happy I'd be about that, let alone Weasley," Pansy said with a snort of laughter.
"Yeah, well, we got out, the five of us anyway. Goyle's still up there as far as I know, unconscious. He can stay there for all I care."
"And...Crabbe?"
"Dead," Draco said with no hint of remorse.
"Huh," Pansy replied, feeling the same amount.
One by one, their friends ended up joining them. Slytherin table was the least occupied, but was being used by some nearby.
"I'm going to offer to help, over there," Daphne nodded. Pansy's gaze followed and saw Madam Pomfrey, a giant stack of bandages and a dwindling potion supply.
"Okay," Blaise replied before giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. "She's too good for me," he added as he watched her leave.
Pansy's mouth was dry, her eyes were no longer on Madam Pomfrey, but Neville once more, who she had noticed return to the Hall. In his arms was the torso, whilst Wood carried the legs, of a fallen fighter. That's what he was going to do, retrieve the dead. "I know the feeling."
-III-
"Harry Potter is dead." The voice, the same magically enhanced, painfully loud, sinister voice cut through every single person present like a large, sweeping knife. "He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself, whilst you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero has gone.
"The battle is won. You have lost half your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will their entire family.
"Come out of your castle now, kneel before me and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live, and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."
Silence passed over not just their group, which Neville and Daphne had since rejoined, having finished helping, but over what felt like the entirety of Hogwarts.
As one, the occupants of the Hall rose, and began to slowly make their way out the doors, to the courtyard beyond. Fear positively gripped Pansy. She wasn't sure she'd have been able to loosen her grip on Neville's hand if she had wanted to.
Outside, the atmosphere felt as fragile as a twig, as though one snap and it could be somehow broken. Potter lay in a chained Hagrid's arms. He looked very much, just as Voldemort had stated, dead.
"Merlin," she heard Theo say, his voice low, from just behind her.
Pansy heard shouts, primarily from Harry Potter's loved ones, all around her. At one point Voldemort himself shouted for silence, but was all but ignored. Ron Weasley yelled, clearly without care. Pansy didn't blame him. Maneuvering her gaze over the throng of Death Eaters Pansy was able to locate those she recognised easily. Her father stood near the back, only the top of his face visible to her. Rabastan stood close to Voldemort, his sneer more prominent than ever, Draco's parents stood slightly off to the side. There were no sneers present on either Lucius or Narcissa's faces. Pansy turned her face to look first at Draco, who was whiter than normal, and then at Neville, who looked nothing short of livid.
He turned his own head, his eyes meeting hers in a flash of understanding Pansy wished she didn't understand. No, she mouthed.
"I love you," he said, before wrenching his hand from hers, and stepping forwards.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!
It didn't take Pansy long to realise that someone - probably Draco, had both silenced her and rooted her to the spot. Unable to move, she could only watch, horrified as the person she had grown to love more than anything in the world, did the very thing she was certain would mean he would no longer be a part of the world for her to love.
Neville had run forwards, and promptly been disarmed.
YOU FUCKING IDIOT, Pansy's thoughts screamed through. Only able to see the horror unfold, and cry, she daren't look, daren't watch as what she was certain was the inevitable happened, and yet she couldn't look away, both physically and emotionally. She wouldn't look away. She loved him too much to do that, as much as his STUPID GRYFFINDOR HERO COMPLEX was going to get him killed, she loved him too much to ever look away.
Voldemort was questioning who Neville was. He's no one, Pansy cried inwardly, still unable to make a sound, he's no one you care about.
He was outed by Bellatrix Lestrange. FUCK YOU! Pansy's internal screams shot at the crazed woman. FUCK YOU! Were she able to make a sound, she knew she'd have screamed the words at the witch.
Neville got shakily to his feet as Voldemort continued to question him.
He'd join you when hell freezes over. In any other scenario it would have been amusing when Neville spoke the exact same sentiment aloud. "Dumbledore's Army!" he suddenly bellowed, and a cheer erupted around Pansy and the others.
"Neville mate, what the fuck are you doing?" Theo muttered.
Swallowing was becoming increasingly difficult for Pansy, and her tears littered the ground like raindrops. She still couldn't close her eyes, not whilst Neville still stood there. I love you, those were the last words he'd spoken to her, and perhaps the only ones that mattered. Still she watched as Voldemort summoned forth the Sorting Hat, of all things, spoke something Pansy barely heard about Salazar Slytherin, before forcing the hat over Neville's head.
It was as though watching some grotesque and horror-filled show, only made more grotesque and horror-filled when Voldemort set the hat on fire. Time completely and utterly stopped, and yet she still wasn't able to move. When somehow, suddenly, he wasn't on fire anymore. Theo's wand was outstretched, close to Pansy's ear and Pansy wondered fleetingly whether Theo had cast a spell to help Neville, only to see her boyfriend pull out a sword, bandish it wildly, and behead a snake.
"YES NEVILLE MATE!" Theo cried, though his shout was lost in the enormous din that enveloped them.
And suddenly she could move, and so, it seemed, could the crowd. If the earlier fight had been chaotic, it held nothing on the madness that ensued this time. Pansy however, cared not about fighting, not about the giants running about, or the centaurs, or even, in that moment, her friends.
She knew he would have been looking for her but it was Pansy who reached him, and held him and, despite knowing they both needed to get up and fight, didn't ever want to let go.
They rose up together, and Pansy, as much as she wanted to, knows the chance to yell at him for how stupid and amazing and reckless and brave his actions had been, wasn't now. Because, just as she knew they would, they had to keep fighting. And through the fight they raced, towards everything and nothing, and they dodged past fear, and sprinted by hope, ducked under pain, shielded against grief, and turned. Turned in the face of the kind of courage that only exists when the very real danger of being snatched from the world of the living is a very real possibility in that moment.
And this time, at least, they did it together.
Their actions weren't calculated and precise, not like they had practised, because it wasn't like anything they could ever have prepared for. It was, once again, nothing like Pansy had ever imagined, and with nought but wand and adrenaline and the fact that Neville was this time beside her and still breathing despite his best efforts to the contrary. It was raw, and real and somewhere deep inside she felt as though she could have looked the devil himself in the eye, and laugh.
They broke off from the fighting, with a convenient assortment of broken armour and fallen stone providing a brief place for a reprieve.
His eyes lock with hers for mere seconds before Pansy's resolve weakens, and she balls her fists, holding his t shirt as her tears begin to fall. "I'm so mad at you."
"I knew you would be," he says, his words gentle as Pansy let go of his t shirt, threw her arms around his neck and held him the only way she knew how: with grit and longing and absolutely everything she had.
And then, she saw him. Close to them, too close. For the second time that evening he was too close.
"Neville," she whispered as fear gripped her. "Neville, there's Rabastan Lestrange."
She had always expected a confrontation, of course she had. The decision for them to come back and fight meant that should have been inevitable. Neville pulls out his wand.
"What are you doing?" She asked, terrified.
In a second Rabastan is placed in a body bind, and stunned.
"I should kill him."
"You aren't a killer," Neville said.
From their position, they watch a second man approach Rabastan's stunned body. Pansy felt her heart lurch towards her throat.
"You don't have to do anything," she heard Neville whisper.
"Yeah, I do."
She stood. "Hello, father.
"Pansy?" Her name felt strangled and foreign when uttered from his mouth. "Pansy, I...leave. You can still leave."
"No," Pansy replied.
Pansy didn't miss the flicker of his father's eyes towards Rabastan on the floor, and then to Neville, wand raised and pointed at her father's heart, by Pansy's side. "I-I have made mistakes."
"No shit."
"I only did what I thought was best. It was the game, Pansy, I tried to-"
"You don't sell your child, for a game."
She watched Cassius Parkinson swallow, she didn't know whether it was regret at his actions in his eyes, or at her reluctance to follow them. She found she didn't care.
"Petrificus Totalus." She made sure his body hit the floor before she stunned him after an emotionless Fuck you, father, leaving both him and Rabastan together on the ground. Pansy walked towards the two, firing five extra stunning spells at each as she did, before levitating a pile of rubble, and dumping it atop the two Death Eaters.
Pansy and Neville entered the Great Hall once more, not to what either expected: further madness. There was only one fight, and was, for some reason, all being done through spoken word, as Harry Potter faced off against Lord Voldemort.
They joined every onlooker, glued to the scene and watched as both Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort finished speaking, and both raised their wands. Unable to tear their eyes away as Voldemort cast a killing curse and Potter, for reasons Pansy would never fathom, cast a simple disarming charm.
They watched as both spells met, and ricocheted, and watched still as Voldemort's rebounded.
Pansy Parkinson's breath was hovering somewhere in her throat, her hand refusing to leave the sanctity of Neville's, the only sanctity either had, perhaps they only sanctuary either had ever had, as they watched Voldemort fall, and Harry Potter win.