A/N: Two for one, since I have a busy weekend planned. Also, I have a hard time not reading these two chapters back-to-back, so I don't know why I should expect you to. So let's get to it. Welcome to the battle. :/
Fleur couldn't remember exactly how old she'd been the first time she'd dueled someone, but it was likely around twelve or thirteen.
She'd been in her Defensive Wandwork lesson at Beauxbatons. A rude boy called Carlo had just told her—after she'd incorrectly identified a spell earlier in the lesson—that she was lucky she was pretty. At least she had that going for her.
He'd got a laugh out of some equally obnoxious people, all of whom seemed to enjoy any opportunity to try and knock her down a peg. They could not seem to reconcile the idea that she was pretty and clever. Apparently, it had to be one or the other. Not both. You didn't get to be both.
And since they clearly could not deny her looks, her intelligence was often the thing that was called into question. When she did make a mistake, people like Carlo liked to point it out loudly for all to hear. It was a constant battle for her.
She was still thinking about the insult when her Wandwork professor had asked for volunteers to demonstrate basic dueling spells. She—the professor—had cleared the front of the classroom and conjured a dueling platform; she was now scanning all the hands that had shot up to offer themselves as a volunteer.
"Carlo," her professor said, gesturing for him to come to the front with his wand. "Et…"
She was looking for a second volunteer. Fleur—upon hearing Carlo's name—immediately put her hand up and locked eyes on her teacher. She may have even stood up, she couldn't remember exactly, but she'd made her intentions clear. She wanted to duel.
When she was chosen, there was a muffled, "Ooohh…." sound around the classroom, followed by some excited giggling and people now moving around in their seats to get a better view.
As they should. Fleur had every intention of putting on a show.
She'd been told before she was a fair dueler because she was quick. Quick, quick, quick—that's what people often said about her wandwork. Everyone had a bond with their wand, but her Charms professor her first year had told her she seemed to have a highly beneficial understanding with her wand—something deeply intuitive. As he explained to her, it seemed to know what she wanted to do before she did most of the time.
She hadn't quite understood then what that meant, but she was starting to figure it out with each passing year. Her wand did start to feel more like an extension of her body and less like a tool she used to perform magic. According to that same professor, all the best wizards and witches who ever lived would tell you they'd experienced the same feeling. She needed to learn to harness it with time.
That day in her duel against Carlo, she would put him on his arse three times—all because of her quickness and being milliseconds faster than him. She was always faster than her peers; she was nearly impossible to beat in a proper dueling scenario.
People would challenge her throughout her years at Beauxbatons, but no one could ever touch her. She'd go on to become head of the Dueling Club for her fourth, fifth and sixth year; always the champion of dueling tournaments. She'd had to give up the title her seventh year in favor of another title—this one to become the Beauxbatons Champion for the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts. People weren't surprised she'd been chosen for such a prestigious honor. They were already used to her winning. They had faith she'd keep it up.
Unfortunately for her, the Triwizard Tournament hadn't had as much dueling as she'd have liked to show off her true talents. The first task had been a dragon she'd managed to enchant to sleep; the second had been a lake full of awful things (and water. She never worked well around water. It was always a weakness). Then the third task…the maze.
The one place she could have dueled, but didn't.
As it were, the first time she was confronted with a proper chance to duel someone—to protect herself from the harm of a madman who had appeared out of nowhere to attack her that day—she'd done nothing. She turned a corner to find a shadowy figure of a man with his wand pointed at her; she'd stared at him as if frozen, unsure what part of the challenge he was supposed to be. There had been talks of creatures and hazards in the maze, not people. What was he doing here?
She didn't get to think about it, though. He'd stunned her to put her out of commission before she even knew what hit her.
And while the third task had brought so much lasting trauma in her life, the one other major change—the one she hardly talked about—was that it had forced her to live her life in a constant state of doubt.
Doubt in her abilities to actually protect herself when she was in real danger.
Because she hadn't been able to protect herself from the trouble she'd encountered while she'd been in that maze. She hadn't been able to protect anyone. The very first time she was faced with a situation that wasn't a properly monitored dueling tournament, she'd failed. Who was to say she wouldn't fail again if confronted?
Real life was nothing like school lessons.
She sat on those doubts for years; barely even entertained the thoughts of duels, fights, or tricky spellwork. She hadn't even told Bill much about her former "talent", though he knew she'd won some tournaments at school. He did frequently tell her how quick her casting was over normal, day-to-day spells. He'd meant it as a compliment, but she never received it as one. After all, what was the point when her quickness proved to be rather useless when she couldn't properly apply it?
"It happens to the best of us," Tonks had told her one night, just before their move of Harry from his Muggle residence last summer. They'd just wrapped an Order meeting at the Burrow, discussing the details of moving him, and Fleur had gone outside with Bill afterwards. She now had a pit-like feeling in her stomach.
She'd kept up appearances in front of the other members, but she'd let herself wilt a bit the moment it was just her and Bill standing outside. She had performance anxiety about the mission; she didn't know if she'd be able to fight back if they were confronted by Death Eaters given how she'd frozen in the maze.
She hadn't heard Tonks come outside.
"Sorry to eavesdrop," Tonks apologized, smiling a little awkwardly as she approached the pair. "I have a bad habit of listening to everything around me." She paused. "Sometimes though, given my job, that's considered a good habit…"
She waved herself off, as if she felt she was getting off track. "But I heard what you said about being nervous because you froze once, and…just know, I've done it too. I did it loads of times in training. It's why they make us train for years because…it's normal."
Fleur sighed, feeling inexperienced and rather stupid to be having this conversation with a proper Auror. "Perhaps, but you had years of experience training in these scenarios. I have not. I am worried I will freeze again. Except this time, they are not aiming to stun."
"They're not," Tonks agreed. "They're definitely not. But that's the difference. You know now."
Fleur stared at her, not entirely sure what she now knew.
"You know now they're coming to hurt you," she said. "You didn't know that during the Tournament you had to worry about Death Eaters trying to harm you, or what they're capable of. That would take anyone by surprise. Especially since, ultimately, the Tournament was…well, it was supposed to be a controlled space. Nothing bad was going to happen on Dumbledore's watch. It's why they transported Harry and Cedric away from him."
She stepped closer. "It's the same as my Auror training. In the beginning, everything's controlled. There are dangers, but someone is going to help you get through them. They anticipate the botched reactions; the mistakes. It's better to make them there than when you're in a real situation."
"I was in a real situation," Fleur countered. "That man could easily have killed me."
Bill and Tonks had the exact same reaction, both saying variations of, "Technically, I suppose…" before Bill added, "But he wasn't going to kill you in front of Dumbledore."
"You do not know that."
"I do," Tonks countered, showing an oddly serious side of herself. "Because he didn't. And I'm not trying to downplay what happened to you that night because I know awful things did occur. It was terrible. But even what happened to you was more controlled than you realized because Dumbledore was there. You really should look at it as training. And instead of kicking yourself on how you feel you handled your attack in the maze, consider what it's taught you."
Tonks started counting off on her fingers. "How to be more alert. How high your guard should be if we get confronted while moving Harry. How to anticipate the worst now because none of this is a game or a contest or a tournament anymore."
She looked Fleur in the eyes. "You weren't ready that time, but you are ready this time. And that's the key."
That was the key, she'd said. Fleur didn't quite understand that then, but two confrontations with Death Eaters later, she understood it now.
She'd done well in dueling lessons at school because she'd anticipated the attack coming and was ready. She'd survived the Death Eaters in the sky on the night they'd moved Harry because she'd made herself anticipate the attack and been ready. She'd helped her family at the wedding ambush because—once she'd escaped the chaos—she'd been able to return with the upper hand and had been ready.
She'd only failed when she hadn't been ready.
And as she looked out on the Hogwarts' grounds from the top of that tower, watching the monsters with the worst intentions coming—not to stun or disable, but to kill her and maim—she had to keep reminding herself that she was prepared. She was not that girl from the maze anymore, she was different now.
She was ready. She always did well when she was ready.
They'd evacuated the rocky tower once things began to feel unsafe. Percy had dashed down the tower stairs back into the castle, and she and Bill had followed. She had no idea how to get out of here and down to the grounds—she needed to follow them. They'd run into Flitwick on the main stairs; the sudden sounds of fighting and objects shattering all around them made her realize the fight had already entered the castle.
They'd met Death Eaters on the stairs, though Flitwick had quickly dealt with most of them. Fleur had managed to ding one, but she'd barely had time to register that when a violent shake took them all by surprise; even the staircase. Bill and Percy had been knocked off the stairs and back onto the landing; she and Flitwick were now being taken by the stairs in another direction.
She turned to see herself being pulled away from Bill.
More Death Eaters were awaiting them when they reached their new position, already firing spells at her and Flitwick before the stairs had even stopped moving. She took aim and fired quickly, though not as quickly as Flitwick, who already got two spells off in the time she'd got one.
If people thought she was quick, he was positively rapid fire.
The moment the stairs stopped, she found herself locked into a duel with two different people. One was determined to take her out, though the other took off at a run down the nearest corridor, cackling about something, but leaving her one-on-one with the more skilled assailant.
"I remember you!" the masked man called out, shooting a green spell at her that she dodged. "You were at the blood traitor's wedding! You popped out at the end to surprise us."
"I popped out at the end to curse you," Fleur said, firing off hex she'd dug up from the back of mind, one that she knew had a tendency to make a whistling sound as it was fired. The whistle tended to confuse people split second, they weren't used to it, thus it allowed her to follow up with a powerful Stunning Spell that knocked her uninvited wedding guest off of his feet and onto his back.
As she approached the slumped over figure and picked up his wand, she glanced down at his masked face with disgust. "And it was not a blood traitor wedding, it was mine."
She turned around, seeing that Flitwick was…gone. She peered over the edge of the stair railing to see he was already a floor below her, finishing off a Death Eater like they were nothing more than a housefly, before carrying on his way down toward the ground. The man didn't even stop to breathe.
She blinked and looked around, hoping that Bill would have caught up with her by now, but not feeling comfortable standing here on the main stairs and being so exposed. She glanced down a nearby corridor, wondering if it offered any place to lie in wait while she could search for Bill, but then she really started registering the noises that surrounded her—a scream, the rattling of the walls, the sound of a collapse, a spell whizzing by her head….
That last one made her duck off the stairs in a hurry, dashing down the nearest corridor. Who'd sent that? Were they close? What was she to do now that she was on her own?
She moved tentatively down through what she assumed—hoped—was an abandoned corridor, when she suddenly felt someone grab the back of her jacket from behind and yank her into a room. She'd been about to scream, but the person had covered her mouth. How had she let herself—?
"Fleur, it's George," he whispered into her ear. "Don't say anything."
With that, he released her. She turned to him as if to silently ask what this was about, but he put a finger to his mouth to reiterate silence. He moved back to the entrance to the door, his wand pointed at it; for several seconds, nothing happened. Fleur desperately wanted to ask what was happening, but that was when she heard yelling in the corridor that George didn't seem surprised by. He remained calmly holding his wand, eventually shouting, "Stupefy!"
There was an immediate thud on the other side of the open door. Someone yelled out in surprise, but George had already repeated his spell again before another thud followed.
"They always come in so loudly," George muttered, disappearing into the corridor. When Fleur followed him and looked around the corner of the door, two masked men lay unconscious on the floor.
"I'll be taking these," George said, plucking their wands out of their hands as he stepped over their bodies. He stuck them in his pockets, kicked the Death Eater he was closest to for good measure, and glanced back at Fleur.
"Sorry 'bout the grab. Heard you coming—" He suddenly held up a long ear-like device on a string, "and needed you out of the way before you unexpectedly ran into these gits."
"You knew they were coming?"
He nodded. "There's a secret entrance just down that way behind a statue of Gregory the Smarmy. Leads to the grounds. Fred and I discovered it our first week. These two are the fifth and sixth ones who've tried to come up through it."
Fleur looked around. "Where are the others?"
George gestured back into the classroom, where Fleur only just noticed a pile of bound, masked Death Eaters unconscious in the corner. She wasn't sure how she'd missed that.
"Where's Bill?" George asked.
"We were separated," she said. "The castle is already crawling with Death Eaters."
"Tell me about it," George said, again kicking the Death Eater nearest to him. "Doing my part to reduce the numbers."
"Where is Fred?"
"Went to check on one of the other entrances," George said, looking down the corridor behind her as if expecting Fred to appear at any moment. When he didn't, he looked back at Fleur. "What's your plan?"
As soon as he said it, the walls of the castle shook again—another heavy attack must have hit the castle. It only reminded Fleur of what she was supposed to be doing. The quiet nature of this corridor had briefly confused her that things were calming down.
"It is chaos outside," she said. "I need to find Bill, but I also want to go down to see how I can help. I have no idea how to get out of this school. It is a maze."
"Let me help you." He smiled a bit, beckoning her to follow him, but that was before the building shook again and dust fell from the ceiling. A moment later, a window at the end of the corridor shattered, and shouting voices started to approach them.
Without hesitation, she and George ran straight at the noise.
Fleur immediately recognized the girls they encountered as the one from the Hog's Head—Angelina and her friend. They were currently dueling a Death Eater, struggling two on one. The Death Eater was incredibly skilled, laughing loudly like a predator toying with their prey.
She and George both aimed at the masked figure, but she got her shot off first—striking the person and watching him take a tumble. George smirked at her, saying, "Well done," before rushing over to check on his friends. Unfortunately, they had little time to talk.
Four more Death Eaters had now appeared around a corner, calling out and yelling that they'd "found some"; spells instantly flying. Angelina and the other girl had barely a second to catch their breaths; they'd been taken off guard. The smaller of the two girls—who Fleur heard was called Katie once both George and Angelina shouted her name in unison—caught a spell to the chest and collapsed.
There was no time to check on her. The curses from the Death Eaters did not relent.
Four on three, Fleur could handle that as long as she had help, all three of them now casting spells as quickly as they could. Fleur struck one Death Eater down immediately; George got a second. The other two were much quicker and more skilled with their spell casting. Despite the odds now being in their favor, these two refused to back down.
A green spell that was unmistakably a Killing Curse suddenly shot out of one of the wands of the Death Eaters, just missing Angelina by centimeters. It had prompted George to shout, "Fuck off!" before sending some sort of vicious spell straight back at the assailant. Fleur didn't recognize it, but it immediately made the Death Eater drop to his knees, double over in pain and scream bloody murder.
Given the intensity of his screams, death may have been preferred.
The final Death Eater in the pack had cut away in the opposite direction, almost in retreat, though George refused to let him and took off immediately after them—shouting profanities and calling them incredibly foul names.
Angelina remained behind, going immediately to tend to her friend on the floor. "Is she…?" she asked, frantically feeling around Katie's body for a pulse. "She didn't…Did she?"
"She looks to have been stunned," Fleur said, having distinctly remembered the look on Cedric's face when his body had been brought back after his murder. She hadn't seen another victim of a Killing Curse since, but his frozen features and rigid body had been so distinct. She'd never doubted for a moment that she was staring at a dead body with Cedric, but Katie looked different. She looked as if she could be sleeping.
"I feel a heartbeat," Angelina suddenly said, looking up at Fleur. "I think you're right."
Fleur smiled a little and nodded, hearing the sounds of footsteps coming back down the corridor toward them now catching her attention. She raised her wand, ready to strike at first sight, but that was before she saw George jogging back toward them. He was loudly mumbling something about, "Bloody coward," to himself before switching gears to ask, "Is Katie—?"
"Stunned," Angelina said, smiling at him. "She's only stunned."
He smiled back, clearly happy to hear that. However, just as quickly as it had appeared, the smile fell suddenly off his face and he immediately looked…panicked. He started erratically looking up and down the corridor, as if searching for something, before he grabbed his chest and suddenly started taking deep breaths.
"I can't leave her here. I'll have to move her," Angelina was saying, having not noticed George.
He'd stepped back and away then, looking as if he was almost full on hyperventilating. Fleur watched him for a moment before stepping over Katie's limp body to approach him. He'd crouched down to his knees by the time she reached him; he was sweating and still clutching his chest. It was as if he was suddenly having a panic attack.
"Are you alright?" she asked, kneeling down beside him and resting a hand on his back. "George?"
"George, what's—" came Angelina's voice, having now noticed as well.
"Something's wrong," George swallowed, his eyes shooting straight to Fleur. "Something's…wrong."
She'd never seen him like this or anything remotely close to this. It was as if a burst of fear had possessed him. George usually kept a cool head about…well, most everything.
"You may be having a panic attack," Angelina said, sounding concerned. "It's a lot to take in. I know. You need to breathe."
"No," George snapped, swallowing again and shaking his head ferociously. "Something's wrong. I can feel…" He then took a huge, gasping breath and, with eyes as wide as saucers, looked at Fleur and said, "Where's Fred?"
Fleur didn't know what to say, so she shook her head and looked at Angelina, who shrugged and gaped a bit before looking up and down the corridor. "I haven't seen him since earlier…"
"I need," George took another gasping breath, "to find," another breath, "Fred." Another breath. "Something is wrong."
"How do you know—?"
"I just do!" he yelled, sounding manic as he stood back up then. He looked absolutely dreadful, sweaty and pale, like he'd immediately come down with an illness. His eyes however were more alert than Fleur had ever seen them before.
"George," she said gently, afraid that he'd collapse if he wasn't careful. "You need to—"
But he'd already taken off running down the corridor without bothering to look back. Where he was going, she didn't know, but she did not get much of a chance to think about it because an explosion roughly ten yards away from where she was standing blew her and Angelina to the ground, rubble dropping down on them from every direction.
What happened immediately after that, Fleur never knew. She was struck by something and everything had gone black.
When she did open her eyes, she found she was no longer in the corridor she'd been in with the explosion, rather she was in a classroom. Her head was absolutely killing her; a throbbing pain pulsing in her skull. There was a ringing in her ears that didn't seem to be going away, and when she reached up to touch her forehead, she felt something rough and flaky caked on, much like dried mud.
"Are you alright?"
It was Angelina. She was across the room kneeling beside a sitting, but awake, Katie. They were both looking at her.
"You got hit hard," Angelina added, coming over to check on her. "You had a nasty gash on your head from some stone that struck you. I mended it as best I could, but my knowledge of healing spells really only revolves around Quidditch injuries, and I've yet to ever see a Bludger do that sort of damage to the top of someone's head. But I got it to stop bleeding."
Fleur touched the top of her head. It was very tender and there was a definite coarse feeling, gash-like mark where an injury had occurred. But it also felt as if it was in the process of healing.
Angelina smiled consolingly at her. She had a scrape down the side of her face and was covered in gray colored dirt and dust. Otherwise, she seemed to be in good shape. She looked to have made it out of the explosion in one piece.
"You look terrifying right now," Angelina offered, and when Fleur obviously reacted with confusion, she added, "I meant in a good way. In a way that would scare anyone looking to start something with you. You've got blood streaking down through your really blond hair and it's rather demonic looking."
Fleur stared at her, not even slightly sure how to take that.
"I'm just saying I'd run away screaming if I saw you coming at me with a wand," Angelina offered, glancing over at Katie for some sort of confirmation.
"It is rather scary," Katie piped in, pulling herself up from the ground. "Like a creepy doll with bloodstained hair."
Fleur swallowed a bit, figuring that she could work with that image as she achily pulled herself up into a sitting position. "How long was I unconscious?"
"Fifteen or twenty minutes," Angelina said. "I brought you and Katie in here and tried to help you both. Barricaded the door to buy us some time. I've heard at least three more explosions." She paused. "And screaming. I've heard screaming."
Angelina then gestured to the window that was across the room. "Things don't look good out there."
Fleur pulled herself up fully to her feet, feeling a bit wobbly, but she made her way over to the window to peer out of it. Given the angle of the room, the main part of the battle wasn't entirely visible to her, but what she could see was a giant swatting and stomping at something much smaller down below. There were also mysterious looking cloaked figures around the castle that seemed to be…floating? Flying? Were they flying? How were they flying?
"What are those cloaked creatures?" Fleur said, noticing that some of them looked to be approaching the castle in an attempt to get inside. "The ones that are flying?"
"Dementors," Angelina and Katie said in a very weary sounding unison, with Angelina adding, "Get away from the window. You don't want them to sense your presence."
Fleur did as she was told, knowing she'd heard them spoken about before and that they were something horrible. They guarded Azkaban and she'd been told nothing but terrible stories about them, though she'd never imagined that this was what they'd looked like. Ghostly, black figures that seemed to be floating straight out of a nightmare.
"Of course You-Know-Who's got Dementors," Katie muttered, sounding exhausted and rather defeated. "He's got every horrible thing I've ever seen or heard about supporting him."
Angelina reached out pat her friend's shoulder. "So I suppose that means we'll be seeing Callum out there as well, then?"
Fleur didn't understand what that meant, but it made Katie laugh, which seemed to be what Angelina was going for. When she saw Fleur's curious expression, Angelina offered, "It's her ex. He's a real prat."
"He is," Katie agreed. "Though, to be clear, he's not actually a Death Eater."
"Still horrible, though," Angelina mumbled before looking over at Fleur. "I don't think standing around here waiting to be attacked or discovered by a Dementor is the way to go. If you're up for it, we should make our way back out into the fray."
She nodded. Standing in this room was doing nothing, and while her head hurt, she needed to push through. With help from Angelina and Katie, the three of them cleared the barricade of desks and chairs; Angelina removed the charm she'd put on the door. As she did, the castle walls shook once more with a violent shudder.
"George said there was a passage he was watching nearby," Fleur said once she pulled the door open. "That it will lead to the grounds? A statue of someone…smarmy?"
"I know the statue," Katie said immediately, making a left straight out the door, though before she could move very far, she stopped in her tracks. Fleur soon discovered why. A wall had collapsed—likely the wall that took her out—-and was now blocking most of the corridor. It would take some time to move everything.
"I know another one!" Angelina offered. "I'm not sure where it leads, but Fred and George used to tell me about it." She turned in the other direction and pointed with her wand. "We can go that way."
"We don't have much of a choice but to go that way," Katie said, taking off at a run and following after Angelina.
Fleur took a deep breath, her body's weakened response feeling very adverse to running right now, but she pushed through and followed the girls back into the center of the castle, where the staircases were.
Or used to be….
It looked as if some of the moving stairs had been blown to pieces; entire segments missing and gone. Some of the portraits that lined the wall were now askew and hanging by their corners, if not the victims of rogue spells. Some had smoking holes burning in the center of them; others blasted off the wall entirely. It seemed their inhabitants had evacuated to another, hopefully safer location.
Everywhere Fleur looked, she saw destruction and damage. From the lower floors below, she could make out the sounds of battle still fully waging, but up here it seemed oddly quiet. She didn't trust that they weren't being watched right now.
"It's this way," Angelina said, leading them up a few stairs and then immediately turning off into a landing. Fleur was forced to jump over broken statues and remnants of walls just to make it down the corridor. The signs of a battle were everywhere, including the stiff body of a cloaked man at the turn of a corner. It was enough to make her, Angelina, and Katie stop in their tracks.
"Dead or stunned?" Katie asked.
"Dead," Fleur said before she thought better of it. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. It was the first proper death she'd seen since the start of the fight.
"Which way, Ang?" Katie said, urging her friend—all of them—to press on. It was clear she didn't want to stand around her any longer than she needed to.
"Uh, right," Angelina said, as if remembering what she was doing. "This way."
She led them down another corridor, rubble covering the path, windows broken, open holes in the exterior walls that looked as if some of those giants outside had used the castle as a punching bag. They'd all stopped to peer outside of one massive hole, though they didn't dawdle once the flash of a red spell came flying by the opening. For good measure, Fleur sent one aimlessly back toward the ground.
"It should be just up here near a mirror," Angelina said, edging her way around another Death Eater body they'd come across lying under stone and rock. She and Katie had been so focused on avoiding it and moving forward, they hadn't bothered to look to their right and see the niche where a suit of armor once stood, one that held yet another limp, lifeless, hidden figure.
Fleur noticed it, though. This one froze her to the spot and pulled a scream out from a depth inside of her that she'd mustered only once or twice before. It was a scream she had hoped to never make again, though that was apparently nothing more than wishful thinking.
The sight of absolutely wrecked her in an instant; a part of her feeling as if the world around had just grown exponentially smaller.
Because there in the niche was a man with distinctive red hair, two ears, and a face that she immediately knew would never open its eyes again. It was everything she ever feared about this night staring her in the face.
Or not staring her in the face. Never again staring her in the face….
"What—?" came Angelina, having doubled back to see for herself. Just like with Fleur, the only other noise that managed to escape Angelina's mouth once she laid eyes on the sight was a horrific sounding scream. The sort of scream that echoed not only in the corridors, but in your mind forever.
Fred Weasley was lying there dead.