A/N: Wow, two chapters in one day, well close enough to be called one day. But hey, I was really inspired. Here comes the excitement! Direct quotes taken from pages 636-640, and pages 659-661 and belong solely to JKR.
Chapter 8/The Battle of Hogwarts
As the Death Eaters came pouring out of the secret passageway, I became separated from the group. I could see that the rest of us were breaking up as well. I found myself fighting next to Lee Jordan. He grinned briefly at me but thank goodness he knew now was not the time for flirting.
One hooded and cloaked figure came charging towards me. I twisted under his Cruciatus Curse and pointed my wand up towards his or her face.
"Avis Oppugno!" I shouted. A flock of birds emitted from the end of my wand and began to attack the Death Eater. The man, for I knew it was a man now that his hood had flown back, screamed as they started pecking at his face and hands as he tried to ward of the attack. I smiled grimly.
"Good spell," Lee gasped. "Wish I'd thought of it."
I nodded absently, looking for Fred in the three second lull. I spotted him fighting with another Death Eater but before I could even think about going to help him, a masked man launched himself at me. I quickly brought my wand up but Lee had already disarmed him by using a Stinging Hex. I nodded my thanks and turned towards another Death Eater.
"Duro!" I shouted. The Death Eater instantly turned into stone. Before I could decide whether or not this was good spell to use again (as the stone Death Eater was stuck in the middle of the hallway), I had to turn around instantly and yell, "Expelliarmus!" at another one. Did they ever stop? Lee used a Trip Jinx on the one I disarmed and he fell to the floor with a loud thump.
Temporarily out of Death Eaters, Lee bid me farewell and ran off after a group of the enemy that were fighting some of his fellow Gryffindors. I searched around for someone I could help. The rest of the defenders had disappeared. I stepped cautiously around the knocked out and dead Death Eaters and into the next hall. I instantly had to duck as a Stunning Spell flew over my head. I looked to who had sent it and smiled faintly as Seamus Finnigan quickly dispatched his Death Eater.
"Watch who you throw those Spells at, Finnigan!" I called out as I moved down the hall to where Neville Longbottom was struggling with a hooded figure.
"Sorry!" Seamus called ruefully as I rushed past.
"Expelliarmus!" I cried, pointing my wand at Neville's Death Eater. It whirled towards me and Neville shouted, "Stupefy!"
The Death Eater went flying and landed on the ground unconscious. I nodded to him.
"Nice job,"
"Thanks," Neville was breathing hard, but before I could ask if he was okay, he spotted Luna battling two more masked men and ran to help her.
I continued on my way. I soon discovered that I was searching for someone. I didn't know who and it wasn't until after I had knocked out another Death Eater when I realized that the person I was looking for was Fred. Why was I looking for Fred? I tried to shake off the memory of his kiss but the truth was my lips were still burning from the feel of his mouth over mine. I wiped sweat from my face with my sleeve and realized with a slight laugh that I was dressed in Ginny's old school clothes minus the tie. Here I was fighting for the school and I even looked like I was still a student.
Padma Patil came careening around the corner, a Death Eater after her. I quickly brought up my wand.
"Impedimenta!" I cried.
The Death Eater stumbled and fell. Padma gave me a grateful look before turning and shouting, "Incarcerous!" I nodded to her and moved on. As I turned one corner I thought I saw Fred and ran towards him, only to find out that it was George. Still I was glad to see him and didn't slow my pace. I stood beside him.
"George, have you seen Fred?" I asked over the shouts, screams, and yells that were coming from all around us.
"No!" He shouted. "Stupefy!" A Death Eater went down.
"I can't find him anywhere! Locomotor Mortis!" A Death Eater that had been trying to sneak up on us went down with his legs locked tightly together. George nodded appreciatively.
"Well done," he said.
"Thanks."
"I thought I saw him fighting with Percy a while ago," George said, moving to help what looked like Parvati Patil. "You be careful," he called to me over his shoulder. I waved and continued on my search.
Turning a different corner, with my wand at the ready, I literally bumped into someone. My mouth dropped in surprise when I found myself face to face with Draco Malfoy. He was flanked by Crabbe and Goyle. They moved forward threateningly but Malfoy held them back.
"Angela?" He asked, incredulous etched on his pale, gaunt face.
"Malfoy." I noticed he looked worse than the last time I saw him. Sweat beaded his forehead.
"What are you doing here?" He asked.
"I could ask you the same question," I said, looking over my shoulder for more Death Eaters. None seemed to be coming but I could not linger.
"Listen Malfoy, I don't have time to chat. We're in the middle of a battle here."
"I know," he didn't move out of the way. I tapped my foot impatiently.
"Malfoy, either kill me or let me pass."
He flinched and then slowly moved aside. I nodded curtly and started forward. He reached out suddenly and grabbed my wrist.
"Barry, don't get killed," he said.
I gave him a grim smile. "Oh, I'm not planning to."
As I walked away from him and him from me, I felt a pang in my chest. That was not at all the way I envisioned our first meeting after our engagement. For some reason I felt annoyed when Draco grabbed me. Shouldn't I have felt glad to see him again? What was going on with me? But my questions were driven from my mind by one constant name that kept pounding its way through my thoughts.
Fred. Fred. Fred.
I needed to find Fred. I rounded corner after corner, went through hallway after hallway. Stunned Death Eater after Death Eater, and helped whoever I could. Suddenly I came across a hallway full of Dementors. I stopped cold in my tracks. I felt the happiness start seeping out of me. Quickly raising my wand I gathered up my happiest memory and shouted, "Expecto Patronum!" Instantly a silver unicorn leaped from my wand and chased the Dementors away.
It was then that I realized my happiest moment had changed. Being so caught up in the moment I hadn't realized. Now the comprehension dawned on me like a load of bricks and I nearly dropped my wand in shock.
My happy memory had always been my thirteenth birthday with Cedric. After I had almost drowned and we were curled up on the sofa together, my head above his chest, listening to his heart. This time however, Cedric wasn't in the memory at all. No, my happiest memory had been the feel of Fred's lips on mine and that moment of truth when he brought his true feelings for me into the light.
I was still standing openmouthed at nothing when a hunched over, disgusting looking man came barreling towards me. I didn't have time to pull up my wand and was knocked over. He leered at me, licking his lips and eyeing me hungrily. I realized with horror that this must be Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf who attacked Lupin and made the Professor a werewolf. I shut my eyes tight as Greyback touched my neck lightly with dirty fingers. Was I about to become victim to a werewolf as well?
I could feel his hot breath on my cheek and a drop of saliva splattered onto my neck. I shivered with revulsion as he licked my face slowly.
"You taste good, my dear," said the werewolf. "This meal I will enjoy."
I tensed, waiting for the bite that would end my life. It never came. Footsteps ran towards us and someone yelled, "Stupefy!" Greyback flew off me and someone helped me to my feet. I found myself looking into the large eyes of Luna.
"Are you alright?" She asked. Her voice was surprisingly not dreamy for once.
I nodded, still unable to speak. She smiled faintly and then turned and skipped away. I blinked. How could she be skipping at a time like this? Deciding now was not the time to try to understand Luna Lovegood I turned and once again started searching for Fred.
I finally found him, fighting with his brother Percy. I ran to join them.
"Where have you been?" I said fiercely as I ducked under a Death Eater's curse. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"
Percy glanced at us. "I thought you said you weren't my sister-in-law." Fred grinned.
When neither of them answered my question, I just pointed my wand and began fighting Death Eaters alongside them. The enemy pushed against us and we had to start walking backwards to ward them off. I jumped out of the way of a Stinging Hex and found myself distanced from Fred and Percy. Suddenly we were joined by Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I was so glad to see them I almost started crying. Thankfully I held my emotions back and kept fighting.
Jets of light flew in every direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast: Then his hood slipped and we saw a high forehead and streaked hair—
"Hello Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?"
I had to laugh even as I was dodging another Hex.
"You're joking, Perce!" shouted Fred as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.
"You're actually are joking, Perce. . . . I don't think I've heard you joke since you were—"
The air exploded. Just when I thought there would be a lull in the fighting and we would have time to joke with Percy, the world was rent apart. I felt myself flying through the air, gripping my wand tightly and trying to shield my face with my free arm. I smacked hard against something solid and my head felt like it had split in two. Blood trickled down the side of my head in a steady stream as I slowly opened my eyes and blinked. Cold air told me that the side of the castle had been blown away.
I staggered to my feet, coughing in the dust that billowed up from shattered stone. Three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. I straightened and stared with unblinking eyes.
"No—no—no!" someone was shouting. "No! Fred! No!"
And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.
No wail came from me this time. No unearthly scream ripped through my mouth. I was frozen in place, my eyes not seeing, my ears not hearing, my heart not feeling. Everything seemed to have come to a standstill. The world had ended. It had crashed down around me and I was covered with its remains. I felt empty. . . . Everything around me was unreal. That wasn't Fred's body lying there . . . it was someone else. Someone I didn't know. Someone I hadn't thought I was falling in love with. . . .
And then a body fell past the hole blown into the side of the school, and curse flew in at us from the darkness, hitting the wall behind our heads.
"Get down!" Harry shouted, as more curses flew through the night. I dropped automatically, not having any control over my body. He and Ron had both grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the floor, but Percy lay across Fred's body, shielding it from further harm, and when Harry shouted, "Percy, come on, we've got to move!" he shook his head.
"Percy!" I saw tear tracks streaking the grime coating Ron's face as he seized his elder brother's shoulders and pulled, but Percy would not budge. "Percy, you can't do anything for him! We're going to—"
Hermione screamed, and Harry turned. I did as well and did not need to ask why she had screamed. A monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb through the huge hole in the wall. Ron and Harry shouted together; their spells collided and the monster was blown backward, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished into the darkness.
"It brought friends!" Harry called to us, glancing over the edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had blasted: More giant spiders were climbing the side of the building, liberated from the Forbidden Forest, into which the Death Eaters must have penetrated. Harry fired Stunning Spells down upon them, knocking the lead monster into its fellows, so that they rolled back down the building and out of sight. More curses came soaring over Harry's head and I noticed stupidly that it made his hair wave as if in an ocean's breeze.
"Let's move, NOW!"
His voice shocked me into moving once more. I stood but could not run. Harry stooped to seize Fred's body under the armpits. Percy, realizing what Harry was trying to do, stopped clinging to the body and helped; together, crouching low to avoid the curse flying at them from the grounds, they hauled Fred out of the way. I followed.
"Here," said Harry, and they placed him in a niche where a suit of armor had stood earlier. Harry glanced at Fred and then turned quickly and took after Ron and Hermione. I glanced at Percy and then wished I hadn't. The look on his face could have boiled ice. Rounding a corner, Percy let out a bull-like roar: "ROOKWOOD!" I failed to see him after that.
I then remembered George. He had to be told about his brother. Although if my connection with Cedric had been any sign, George probably already knew. Nevertheless I took off in search for him. My insides were still whirling and soon I had to stop and be sick in a corner. I felt cold all over and my motions were automatic, my mind numb.
It turned out that I didn't find George, he found me. He grabbed me and whirled me around in a circle, pressing my back against a hard wall. I winced; George had never been this harsh with me.
"Where is he?" He shouted. "WHERE IS HE?"
Something in his tortured face, in his broken voice, made my heart fail. Silent tears began coursing down my cheeks, mingling with the blood from my head.
"He's gone," I said, trembling.
George threw back his head and let out a howl of despair and anguish. I clapped my hands over my ears and cried harder. An unfortunate Death Eater made his way around the corner, and George, in his grief and agony, pivoted and cried, "Crucio!"
The Death Eater fell to the floor and began writhing in pain. His scream ripped through the room but George did not let up. He kept his wand trained on the Death Eater, his face grim and hard-set. I quickly stepped in, knowing that killing this Death Eater now would not be for the school but for revenge, which was too close to murder for me. This man hadn't even killed Fred.
"Stupefy!" I shouted. The man went still, unconscious.
George was shaking. I put my arm around him, but before I could say anything, the wall opposite us was ripped away by a hand belonging to a gigantic giant the size of a mountain. He reached in to grab us but I ducked low and scurried away, dragging George with me. I took us down to the lower levels only to be confronted with more massive spiders.
I started flinging Stunning Spells at them until George broke out of his stupor and helped me. We got through and soon ran into Seamus Finnigan and Luna Lovegood.
"Are you okay?" We all asked together.
"Yeah, you?" We all answered.
"Fred's dead." George said in a haunting monotone.
Before that could register to Seamus and Luna, another giant came stomping towards us. Seamus pointed his wand towards the enormous foot, but I grabbed his arm to stop him.
"No, Stun him and he crushes us all!" I pushed him up a hallway. "Get moving before he spots us!"
Grabbing George's wrist I pulled him along. We had almost arrived near the Great Hall when quite suddenly a high, cold voice spoke so close to us I gave a small shriek and grasped George tighter. Voldemort's voice reverberated from the walls and floor and he spoke so that the residents of Hogsmeade and all of us still fighting in the castle would hear him as clearly as if he stood beside us, his breath on the back of our necks, a deathblow away. I shivered.
"You have fought," said the high, cold voice, "valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish for this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste."
I barked out a cold, hard laugh that made George jump, thinking of Fred and his "magical blood." Voldemort cared less about purebloods than I did about maggots. He killed even his own followers if they resisted him.
"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." I started forward, Seamus, Luna, and George followed woodenly. "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." I entered the Great Hall, the three Gryffindors still following me. "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."
I collapsed on the floor. People began to slowly bring in the dead on stretchers and the wounded as well. Madam Pomfrey, her robes stained with blood and dirt, divided the dead and the injured and directed the carriers where to put each. The dead were laid out in a row in the middle of the Hall. I watched with silent sobs as they carried in Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, and Fred Weasley, among others. I stuffed my fist in my mouth as I watched Tonks go by, her hair still a vibrant pink. I thought she was at her mother's with Teddy.
George lifted me up, and led me to where they had laid Fred out. Seamus and Luna seemed to have disappeared but I hardly noticed. He dropped to his knees beside his twin's head and I watched, mute, as giant tears rolled down his cheeks and into Fred's hair. A great scream made me jump and I was pushed aside roughly by Mrs. Weasley who threw herself across Fred's chest, sobbing. Mr. Weasley started stroking her hair while tears cascaded down his cheeks.
Ginny came up beside me and gripped my arm tightly. Bill had Fleur in his arms and while she was sobbing, he remained stoic. But I could see the tortured and lost look in his eyes that I knew were reflected in mine.
Hermione appeared and hugged Ginny tightly. Ron came up and Percy flung his arm around the younger boy's shoulders. I looked around for Harry but couldn't see him through the wall of tears that blurred my vision. I realized that this should be a private, Weasley moment and turned to leave. I couldn't see where I was going however, and ran into a hard, strong chest.
Whoever it was wrapped me tightly in his arms and I let the sobs and wails come. The man holding me grasped me harder and I didn't care who it was, I gripped him with all my strength. Before I was ready I pulled away, looking up into the man's face I almost started bawling again. Charlie Weasley pushed my wet hair out of my eyes and frowned slightly when his fingers came away red with blood.
"You're hurt," he murmured.
"Not much," I said, relinquishing the desire to stop crying and allowing my tears to continue down their path to the floor. I nodded towards the group surrounding Fred and made to step around Charlie. "I should leave you and your family alone—"
Charlie grabbed my arm to stop me. "You are family," he said meaningfully. I gave him a weak smile and he led me back to the group. I knelt down beside George and took up Fred's lifeless hand in mine. Lifting it to my lips I simply sat there, pressing his hand to my trembling mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut and the memory of his kiss seared through my mind.
For you he had breathed onto my forehead, For you. A strangled sob escaped me and George reached out and gripped my free hand. I held tightly onto him as sobs once again wracked my body. I felt Charlie's sturdy, muscular arm encircle my shoulders and I took comfort in the safe refuge of his strength.
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