My Darkest Hour
Let me up
Let me out
I am suffocating
I can't live without
This all behind me
Is this almost over now?
Jenny
5/1/11
11:05 p.m.
"Come on," Draco said to me, and he led through me through Hogwarts, (which was an amazing castle) to a giant hall full of what I realized were students. "I'm not going to be able to stay with you for the whole fight, and when I Disillusion you, I won't be able to see you. Please be safe. Any random spell could hit you, and I'd never find you." Draco said intensely all of a sudden, making me sigh. I knew this was coming. He stopped us in the entry way to the hall, taking my hands to enforce his point.
"I'm going to stay with you as long as I can, but I'm going to jump around from Order member to Order member. They all need protecting." He looked at me a moment, then we hugged long and hard.
"Be safe." He said, and I shook my head, a strange sense of nostalgia creeping over me.
"I thought we agreed that went out the window a few months ago. If I loose you in the fight, I'll see you tomorrow. I promise." I took one of his hands in both of mine and kissed it as Draco pulled me actually out of the entrance to the hall and off into a corner to listen, a fair witch with a sharply pointed hat addressed the student body. She was talking about reinforcing the castle when the high voice that had haunted me filled the hall, making me gasp and freeze.
"I know that you are preparing to fight. 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." Draco put a protective arm around my shoulders, looking around the hall with a fierce expression as I stayed frozen, staring into the distance. I could still remember the curiosity in his eyes, his hands on the side of my head-
"Give me Harry Potter," said Voldemort's voice, "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." Suddenly, all of the students seemed to turn to look at us, until I realized Harry was only a few feet away from us, looking at the ceiling with an unreadable expression on his face.
"Potter's there! Someone grab him!" A girl shrieked into the silence, and without thinking, I closed the few feet between Harry and me with a flip, landing in front of him. Blood was pounding in my ears. But the rest of the student body had turned to face the girl's table, wands out.
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," said the woman in a clipped voice, and started giving directions on evacuating the students. I turned around slowly, wondering where the hell that reaction had come from.
"Sorry," I started sheepishly, "It was just a reaction I swear." I hastily stepped away seeing the large size of Harry's eyes.
"It's alright," he sounded kind of dazed, so I patted him once on the shoulder, smiled, then went back over to Draco. He rolled his eyes at me so I punched his shoulder lightly as we listened to the woman on the stand addressing the students and wizards that would be the troops fighting against Voldemort.
"We've only got half and hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout and myself will be going to the highest towers to work spells. Meanwhile, Remus, and Arthur will be working the grounds. Fred and George will be working on passageways into the school. Leaders, come up here so the troops can be divided!" She called, and I turned to Draco, a sudden thought hitting my brain.
"I'll be right back," I promised, then darted over to grab Lupin before the fight. I caught his arm right before he went over to the group of leaders assembling. "Lupin, what are you doing? You can't fight on the grounds!" I lowered my voice for my last sentence, and he frowned.
"It's supposed to be cloudy tonight." He said flatly. I glared at him.
"You're lying, I can tell. Lupin, not many people will know you are fighting on our side! I know spells tend to bounce off of us, but this is ridiculous! If you change out there, you won't be able to use your wand! What do you think will happen to it if you change out there?" Lupin put a hand on my shoulder as my voice started to raise.
"Jenny, listen to me. I know the grounds as well as the gamekeeper, I spent most of my school days running around them. It's risky, yes, but this is war. We have to take risks. I," he paused, looking torn, "I don't mean to contradict myself, but please don't be too risky tonight, alright? I want to see you when this is over."
I opened my mouth to yell at him some more, but someone in the leaders group called him over, and he turned around without another word. I gaped after him for a moment before angrily stalking back to Draco, who was standing awkwardly next to Brian. "Stupid, overconfident, hypocritical and lying dick." I hissed under my breath as I drew up in front of Brian and Draco. "Lupin is being a…" I struggled to finish my sentence without using foul language, but had to move on. "It's a full moon tonight, we both drank potions, but he's working the grounds, which means if the moon comes out from behind the clouds, he's fucked." I growled the last word, crossing my arms then raising my eyebrow as neither male in front of me said anything, but glared at each other. "Ok, what is going on?" I asked suspiciously, looking from Draco to Brian.
"You're with him? I blessedly overlooked the signs, but Jenny-" Brian started.
"This prick, is being the most jealous controlling-" Draco started simultaneously.
I looked at both of them in disbelief. Now of all times, right? "Stop, stop." I shook my head and raised a hand, too anxious to listen to both of them at once. "Draco, he has every right to feel this way." I ignored Draco when he went to retort and instead addressed Brian. "Brian, I'm sorry, I really am, I should have been straight with you as soon as we rescued you, but you had a lot on your mind. I love you like a brother-"
My probably long winded apology was interrupted by Luna running over and turning me around. "Jenny, I just got a message from Mr. Ollivander. Something about your anger fueling your," she lowered her voice, although it remained urgent, "wand, and that he and Tonks were wrong about your heritage, that you don't have any magic in your blood other than the werewolf thing. I'm sorry, Jenny, he said overtime your wand abilities would disappear completely, unless you were to go on another murderous rampage." Luna said earnestly, watching me the whole time. A horrible feeling had fallen into my stomach. My biggest advantage was going to disappear.
"Thanks, thanks, Luna," I said quickly, shaking my head lightly to clear it. She nodded once with a bit of sympathy on her face before running to join a stream of kids leaving the hall. "Shit," I swore under my breath, rubbing my temples. I was still an ordinary slightly psycho Muggle. Lovely.
"Jenny-" Brian started, but about three floors up, a thunderous crash echoed through the castle, and a weird and high keening scream broke through the night. Brian looked down at his wrist, at his watch. It was midnight, the fight had begun. I turned to Draco.
"Disillusion us, please." I said quietly, and after a moment, Draco scowled and rapped me over the head, and then Brian, and it looked a little harder than necessary. Brian was scowling too as he vanished into oblivion. "See you soon," I said to the air, then pulled the two knives back out and jogged over to the doors, which were open to let troops in and out. I slipped through and onto the steps of the castle. The grounds were huge and dark, but were deadly silent. Suddenly, jets of light flew from a semi-circle in front of the doors, and the wizards on the steps instantly started to fire jinxes back. Staying low, I crept around the stairs and into the dark grounds, and around a huge mass of wizards dressed in black.
Death Eaters. Their numbers were almost triple ours. Old hate for them burned in my veins, and I pulled many tiny blades out of one of my pockets and started silently throwing them, hitting Death Eater's precisely in the back of the head. When a Death Eater turned after the fifth of his own men fell, I backed off quickly as shouts started out among them.
"She's here, somewhere over there!" one of them shouted, pointing in the opposite direction of me, and hexes and curses of all kinds started out that way, their ranks going back to back for a few minutes until they thought they had killed me, then they all turned to face the front, a driving force trying to break into the castle. Soon their ranks broke, and wizards from the Order mixed in among them, dueling dangerously. On my silent trek through the fights, I spotted the back of Lupin, dueling with Macnair. With one shot, I got him right in the heart, making Lupin whirl, scan the fight with eyes that couldn't see me, then he joined a student dueling with another Death Eater. Barely resisting the urge to follow Lupin continuously, instead I searched for Draco, and found him jinxing a Death Eater until he resembled a pile of mush.
"Dear, Draco, what would your mother say?" I said clearly, and he stiffened then grinned, scanning the area for trouble with ever watchful eyes.
"I'd say she would be proud." He said starkly, making me giggle, then throw a knife thirty feet into a Death Eater's back, making him keel over, leaving his opponent utterly bemused. Draco and I rejoined the fight, but the Death Eaters pushed us farther and farther back until we were inside the castle.