Here's the next chapter guys, hope you all enjoy and thanks for reading! Cheers for my reviewer on the last chapter, really means a lot, but yeah if you guys get the time please review for me. Okay thank you, hope you all like it!
Chapter thirty-eight: Castor's POV
It took a while but I finally managed to bring myself to open my eyes, take a deep sharp breath and gaze upon the faces that I hadn't seen, in at least over a year… considering that it was at least September now as everyone was back at school. I could hear the Carrows screaming curses at me but I couldn't really make out much, through the violent, jagged pain that stabbed me over and over again, refusing to allow me anything but pain, still this was a new pain, a physical pain which didn't seem to hurt me as much as the emotional torment of the dementors. I could withstand the torture curse… I'd faced it before and I could face it again. Then, it was all over and I was left, breathing heavily, sweat staining my prison uniform, I coughed into my hand before dizzily looking at my surroundings. Alecto chuckled at me, her eyes containing a rather sickening glint to them as I shivered to myself but then I remembered my promise: I was done being scared, it was time to fight.
In one swift movement I jumped up and snatched the wand out of her hand, knocking her flying before standing, my wand pointed at Amycus Carrow, who however had his wand pointed straight back at me.
Letting out a low, sleek chuckle I gazed at him, my violet eyes ablaze with furry, there were gasps and murmurs from the other students. Whispers of disbelief. "You know Amycus… I had a lot of time… to practice certain things in Azkaban… I may not look like much, I may look weak and feeble. In Azkaban though… I learnt a few things… how to survive without my wand, the same as muggles do every day, I learnt how to use my fists to defend myself against any guards which were feeling bored. However in there it caused me a beating and starvation out here… I don't think you'll quite know how to handle the muggle way of fighting."
His eyes widened but I didn't give him time to fire a spell as I drove forward, tackling him to the ground, my heart pounding in my ears, fighting for dominance against the gasps and screams of disbelief. I punched him, tossing his wand as far away as I could, punching him again, my knuckles growing sore as a fierce light entered my eyes, his blood staining my hands as in a futile attempt to pull me off he reached for me but didn't prevail.
Alecto however had regained herself and fired a curse at me which knocked me off Amycus and onto the cold floor a few yards away, in between the tables. Neville looked at me, a slight nervous smile on his face, as he whispered the words, 'I knew Luna was right all along.' I nodded to him before jostling myself to my feet but another curse caught me in the back as I fell down, clutching my now bleeding side, clenching my teeth in pain, fighting the severe bright lights that danced in front of my eyes as I got ever closer to passing out.
"I suggest not firing again, that goes to either of you," Snape's monotone, curling voice brought shivers up my spine, he'd helped me before but I knew that curse had been from him and now I was bleeding, my hand clutching at the tattered fabric of my prison uniform. My lank greasy hair, which had grown longer in my year… or however long it was, in prison. My hair was now, just above my shoulder and slightly straighter than it had been and it was stringy and thin with grease. "I don't think either of his parent's would be too impressed if you did the deed that they themselves are so desperate wishing to commit." I gulped, my throat growing raspy, mum didn't seem to want it, she knew it was inevitable though, that one side would fall… she didn't want it to be her side because victory was the only hope she had left, however I was sure she didn't want me dead.
Alecto and Amycus saw sense and with both delivering a sharp, sneering glare in my direction put their wands away. "Should we tell our dear friends about the little blood traitor? So they can finish him themselves? Make him suffer," Amycus chuckled at me, a look of pleasure spreading across his eyes at the idea of that happening to me. Of my torture, demise and death.
"No, not now, they need to focus on hunting down Potter and his two dimwitted friends and what other tasks the dark lord has set out for them," he said looking back at me, hiding something behind his eyes that I couldn't quite detect as I attempted to put pressure on my wound, to little effect. Alecto looked like she wanted to protest but with a billow of Snape's robes it signaled he was done.
"It's morning, classes should have started by now! Get going, the entertainment for this morning is over children!" Amycus said, a furious tone in his voice. I felt arms grab me and drag me away as I continued to fight against the bright, burning lights, I refused to allow them to dominate over me and win. The soft comforts of the first real bed I had felt in over a year caused me to smile despite my bleeding side.
Neville leaned over me, his eyes glinting with a certain look of pure disbelief. "Thank you," I whispered, as he squeezed my arm slightly, "thank you for always being there for me Neville… despite our family history. Thank you." A slow tear fell from my eye but then I felt arms wrap around me, tighter than I had ever felt before, I hugged back even tighter, knowing exactly who it was.
"I thought I'd never see you again Luna," I gulped, holding back my tears because I was afraid that if I cried I might never regain myself again and I'd just cry into the night, unable to stop myself because the whole situation… the reunion with Luna and my friends, it was a day I never thought I'd see. I thought I was going to remain cooped up in the cramped, suffocating and maddening hell of my Azkaban cell and that one day I'd just become a prisoner of my own mind. Dreaming wishfully of people who would eventually grow without me, of Luna who would start a family without me, while I grew thinner and thinner and more lost in my own head with every passing day. Growing frantic when I couldn't quite remember a detail of a good time with Neville, or exactly what mine and Luna's first kiss was, or a time when Fred and George had played a harmless prank on me. It had happened though, I was back with them and I could forge new memories with them, I wouldn't be stuck forgetting yet grasping for the old ones.
That was of course, if we survived the war that was clearly raging, it had been bubbling under the surface when I had gone in but it appeared that in my time in Azkaban, tensions and battles had only gotten worse and now the wizarding world was at war with its own.
"I know… I… I thought that I'd never see your face and I'd forever be stuck, trying to remember every detail, the sound of your voice, every nervous thing you do… every action you have ever made in every memory I have of you Castor. I was so worried I'd forget… that then my memory of you would die because I'd forget and I wouldn't remember things right and then… then you'd be gone forever," Luna whispered and I smiled that her words were the same as my thoughts. We had both feared the same thing. The death of our memories and then inevitably because of that the death of the other.
"Where's Dumbledore?" I whispered, trying to bite back my nerves at the response they might give.
"He… he… while you were in prison he was killed... Snape killed-," I jerked up fighting to get out of bed in my anger but Neville grabbed me, pulling me back onto the bed and holding me to try and calm me down, in the back of my mind I knew that it would do no good and it wouldn't bring Dumbledore back but I couldn't help my rage. I wondered, if maybe… it was James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, especially James and Sirius of course, that had they damaged him so badly that he would kill someone who had clearly respected him so much. In some way I felt sorry for Severus, despite this crime… the man had clearly not had an easy life and despite my love for Sirius, how he had treated Snape sickened me.
I closed my eyes, trying to fight the new information whirling round my head, Dumbledore was dead and the whole world was going to shit. Something was pressed against my lips and I drank up, feeling the wound in my side begin to heal. I knew that staying here would do me no good but I couldn't think of what other options I had… there were no escapes I could see. I wanted to stay with Luna, with Neville and with anyone else who still wanted to be my friend… I just hoped that somehow, someway I could do my part to help win this war.
"Where's Harry?" I gulped asking Luna. She grinned at me.
"He's got daddy's and mine's full support. He's out… trying to stop this whole horrible thing… trying to stop that… that bastard," it was the first time I'd really heard Luna sound angry but there was a fiery flare in her eyes. She looked up at me, "There's been too many deaths and injustices, you going to prison, your uncles death… different friends, muggles… I'm done with all of this." She seethed and I agreed with her, I just had to find a way to help end the war, a way to help Harry.
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