This works better than either of us could have ever dreamed. Better and worse, at once, because we draw… all the fire.
Not only is Granger one of the most high-profile Resistance operatives, she's not supposed to be here. And yet here she is, visible and identifiable, in the centre of the room.
My presence with her, visually unmistakable with my hair and the fact that Granger was known to be in Malfoy custody, means I'm in open betrayal and defiance of the Dark movement.
With this combination, everyone reacts.
The Resistance capitalises. As duels become distracted, heads fly. Blood streaks through the air, sometimes sourced from a limb still attached to something, sometimes not. Death eaters and Dark allies alike strike back just as lethally, but attention is turning towards the pair of us in the middle.
People are aiming for me just as much as they are aiming for Granger, but she's a force all on her own.
I cannot solely run defence for her now. Shield charms have to be used judiciously at this point. We're encircled by attackers, but rebounding spells off a shield could be just as damaging to the Resistance.
I'm grateful for our abundance of practice together in the field. I know how Granger fights, how she turns and spins, how fast she is with what manoeuvres and which one she favours most.
She is powerful and her wand is powerful, and she's devastating to the other side. I can't take the time to look at the expression on her face, but I'd wager she's enjoying herself now. This is about efficiency, yes, but it's a challenge. Granger loves a challenge.
Distantly, I see certain Resistance fighters regrouping near the periphery. As their own duels end, either because they violently came to one or because the Dark fighter in question re-focussed on Granger and me, they're collaborating on the next steps.
Quietly they space back out, moving through the shadows again as if they were still outside. Penelope Clearwater takes a position behind the pillar Granger and I just left. Katie moves behind a suit of armour somehow upright, and others spread out still further.
They begin picking off Dark fighters attacking us, one by one, from the darkness.
Something slices my temple and I feel a trickle of blood running down through one eyebrow. I whirl in the direction of the hex and see a fallen fighter on the ground, Katie behind him. She gives me a casual half-shrug when she sees my forehead. 'Sorry,' it says, but I don't think she is.
Well, if that's the worst she can restrain herself to, I can't complain.
But someone has spotted Cho, tucked into an alcove near the curving stone staircase. She hasn't noticed, aiming at another fighter attacking us from the centre of the floor, and I shoot a disembowelment hex at him before he can get any closer to her. Confringo would have endangered Cho in her position and a slicing hex is too precise for this distance.
It gets the job done, at any rate, and he falls to the ground like Marcus Flint had done outside, intestines unhappily exposed to the open air.
I feel a sharp pain in my left shoulder. Another fighter down and bleeding on the ground by the hand of Katie Bell, who gives me a legitimate 'sorry' look for that one. I'm not sure who sliced me, the Dark fighter or Katie's hex again by accident, but either way, it seems she saw me defend Cho.
Thankfully, it was my left. That arm's been useless anyhow. I don't think it's deep enough to cause a problem with eventual blood loss, so I ignore it.
We're finally whittling down the quantity of attackers in this part of the castle. Granger strikes down the last one with another hex to the throat, and other Resistance fighters I haven't had the opportunity to notice in person come to gather.
It's still extremely disorienting to see Death Eaters - gold armbands or no - standing here conversing with Katie and Angelina Johnson, who must have left the Laird & Dog at some point. But the clear body language is obvious. Angelina departs the group and comes to Granger and myself, while Katie turns and starts directing instructions to various operatives.
Each entrance and exit is covered by two people, keeping cover against the inside walls and an eye out for more arrivals.
Feeling relatively secure in the hall at this point, Granger faces Angelina. I'm not so confident and I can't adjust this easily, anyhow. Seeing Death Eaters I know and have known for years is keeping me on edge. 'Yaxley' is talking to Katie easily, gesturing in the air. 'Rookwood' is giving Cho a hand out of her alcove under the stairs.
I don't like it. I understand why they had to do it this way, but I don't like it. There are too many potential -
My attention is diverted by Angelina saying, "- Voldemort."
She's pointing at the staircase, the gigantic stone behemoth spiralling to an upper level, flanked by four Resistance fighters. Within seconds, she motions to Katie, who commands the reinforcements guarding the open points with a shout and three quick hand gestures. One operative from each pairing begins moving towards the stairs, the second remaining to cover.
We are not part of this formation. I have to wonder how many other last-minute additions to the Resistance are present. I'm alright with this. I don't mind looking out for Granger, and having her look out for me. We've been practising together and I'm just as happy to have it be only us two.
Either way, Granger and I are motioned upward by the rear guard before they close in behind us.
The march up the curving staircase is quick, efficient, and silent. By the time we reach the top, the initial operatives that began the climb have already vanished into the darkness spreading down both hallways to the sides.
Angelina is motioning people in different directions, rapidly waving from right to left. I wonder what's going on ahead of us, equally dark, but Angelina doesn't stop to take questions. We move as directed, straight ahead, and I glance behind us.
She's sending more people our way now, herself included as the rear guard completes the staircase, but we're in the lead. I can't help but wonder if it's intentional, or maybe there are more people ahead we can't see. I wish I could trust it more, could trust this plan we know nothing about.
Granger doesn't seem fussed. She creeps forward into the dark fearlessly, methodically, wand raised and head on a swivel. I'm far more twitchy, waiting for the hammer to fall. It'll fall right on her and I won't be able to do anything -
When the attack comes, it's from behind. Of course it is; they let us move along confident in the absence of opposition, but I hear a body hit the ground from behind us with a sickening slick thud. Granger and I spin in one movement, and the dark corridor is lit in an instant with flying jets of light.
I feel better in front of Granger, but I want to attack in a way that could damage anybody in front of me. My instinct is to devastate the hallway but we have our own fighters here, too, and I can't do what needs to be done. In the meantime, people fall. It's pitch black up here, no lighting except what our curses give off, and the best I can do is keep Granger behind me.
But she's not satisfied with that, of course, wanting to move back into the fray.
"Stop," I shoot down at her. "We can't tell who's who. We aren't part of their strategy."
She does stop, frustrated and impotent. Join the club.
"Do it, then," Granger says at my side, reading my mind. "You'd do it if I wasn't here."
"You are here, and so are they," I spit out, motioning towards the mass of fighting, the rapid duels, the jets of light. Damage is flying across the hallway, curses and hexes hitting targets and the periphery, echoing and ricocheting through our vision.
"Don't be such a Gryffindor about it, Draco," Granger states flatly, repeating my own words back to me from all those weeks ago.
It cuts through to my decision-making in a unique way. I'm not sure anything else she could have said would have, but I still change tactics slightly. I'm unwilling to risk her.
I raise my wand and bring it down in a mass-blast, flinging every person in the hallway into the air. Granger matches me with a rapid lumos, lighting everything around in a blinding flash, and accio charms to the three fighters we had behind us that are still standing.
Their bodies fly past the two of us and I slash a confringo in the rest of the hallway, five more bodies disintegrating into pieces in the dark.
"Fast work. Are you sure you knew who was who?" I grit my teeth.
"Yes," she emphasises and I have to take her word for it.
Her series of spellwork was faster than I'd have been, at any rate. She was right about Angelina Johnson, who I can spot getting to her feet and checking one leg for an injury I can't see. Angelina doesn't immediately erupt in horrified protests about the people I just killed, so I suppose Granger knew who she was summoning out of danger.
Our merry little band of infiltrators, a total of five of us, reach another open area. The stone ceiling reaches high above and there's an overlook to the floor below to our right.
The walkway we're on, high above the ground level, explodes right before our feet. I grab Granger and pull her back, but the blast does the rest of the work for us.
Granger lands on me. I land on someone's foot by the feel of it in my kidney, hearing a grunt of pain behind me and adding one of my own. None of us are on the far side; all five of us are on the ground in a discombobulated pile. The stretch of hall we were about to cross is gone and I peer cautiously over the side to the lower floor level.
Two Dark fighters are pointing their wands up and I turn to the left, covering Granger instinctively as I get out of their line of sight. I hope.
Johnson isn't so lucky. Another curse comes up. I'm not sure if they're aiming for her specifically or at us as a whole, but another chunk of the walkway blasts away and Johnson lets out a yell. Granger launches herself across the broken path, tackling Angelina and pushing her back into the far wall with her momentum.
I'm loath to shout anything at all. Openly shouting 'Granger' is akin to putting a target on us, and my own voice might be recognised. Even so, I'm furious and almost panicked at the loss of her, the separation. But we're all on the same side of the divide, and this is manageable, this is -
Granger is healing Angelina with her wand, scanning her body for injuries. Granger herself has blood running down her forehead and the least Angelina could do is take care of that, but I'm distracted by the arrival of one of the Dark fighters up to the side of our destroyed walkway.
One of our side - it might be Ernie Macmillan, but how the hell should I know in the dark? - cuts him down. I hear a yell from below as the body lands with a sickening thud and a responding chorus of voices, of arguing and suggested retaliation.
Urgently, I tell the group, "We need to move." Pointing my wand at Angelina and Granger, I levitate the both of them with as much speed as I can muster to the other side of the divide. I send Macmillan the same way, his protests dying in his mouth, and look at the final fighter on our little team of five.
"Oh, shit," I say, almost jovial. "Hey, Weasley."
It's George. How did I miss that red hair in the dark? He is covered in a mix of dirt and blood, not that that makes him less red. But now that I think about it, I did hear something about him and Angelina maybe being together. Or maybe that was Fred, but Fred died… either way. Not the time. "I saw your brother earlier. Tried to hex me."
He looks ready to voice the same sort of opposition as Percy, but we don't have time for more bat-bogey hexes. I send him across without ceremony and Angelina catches him.
Charming. Downright romantic. I look for my own girl and ready myself to run and jump across the gap. It's not too far and I just make it before the next curse comes blasting upwards, destroying what's left of our catwalk.
Granger catches me, too, and I do see the poetic nature of it now, this literal falling into the arms of the girl more capable than yourself.
Macmillan volunteers to stay behind and prevent any attempts to reach our little corridor, either from across or from below, and the four of us move forward without him.
"Where are we, exactly?" Granger whispers.
George and Angelina are the only two who can answer, and Angelina takes it. "Heading towards the northwestern wing."
"Why did you send the others down different halls?"
"A mix," Weasley responds shortly. "The attack on Voldemort's quarters was made in stealth. The rest are to fend off guards, retaliation, or unexpected arrivals."
"Why wouldn't they be coming here, to this wing?" I query.
He spares me an impatient glance over his shoulder, but at least it isn't hostile. "Our intelligence was that he didn't permit anyone into his own wing of the castle. No Apparition, nothing but his own designated, hand-selected guards."
"Who did you send?"
"Harry, Neville, Ron, and Ginny." George's voice is tight. No wonder he wanted to be on this part of the improvised mission. Two siblings here.
But we aren't in the Dark Lord's wing yet. This castle is gigantic and I have a whole new respect for the spread of it. We reach another cross-area, an expansive foyer leading out to a courtyard outside, and it explodes without warning.
I grab Granger again, spinning her into my chest as I turn my back to the blast. George does the same to Angelina and I don't think either of us miss the annoyed glances we receive from our respective witches.
A momentary flash of commiseration might pass between Weasley and I; it's hard to tell, before all hell breaks loose.
It's no longer the four of us plus miscellaneous Dark fighters. It's impossible to tell how many are on which side, and I'm taken viscerally back to the uncertainty of the initial great hall battle we did inside the castle. There must be two dozen people around, hexes flying, walls disintegrating, stone falling and crushing whatever in its path.
I immediately find myself missing the sixteen total minutes of this fight when I knew who was who.
I take my position behind Granger and we spin together, back-to-back, as we had earlier. It worked well then, and it works well now. But now, lacking the organisation of Katie's band of shadow witches, the Resistance isn't picking off our attackers with such efficiency.
Granger and I simply attack who attacks us, and she pulls no punches. I'm not the sort to pull them either, as long as I'm sure they're on the opposing side. But Granger doesn't waste time.
Maybe she's tired of the conflict, maybe she's desperate to reach Harry, Ron, and Ginny now that we're so close, or maybe she's just seeing more potential attackers from the park. I can't be sure. But she doesn't hold back. If she sees a throat-slicing opportunity, she takes it. She's absolutely lethal.
People climb in through the destroyed wall to our right. Some are here to help, some are not. It's hard to dedicate a solid inspection to anyone when curses are flying at my head - or Granger's - and I have to trust our peripheral team to address the new arrivals whenever possible.
Someone else's spell blasts the two of us apart, and my heart stops long before I hit the ground, the wind knocked out of me.
It feels like slow motion, like moving underwater, as I gasp for air and clamber back to my feet.
Two people are advancing on Granger, the obvious Resistance target. One is bulky with dark hair, but my brain won't assign a name to the person before his wand flies out of his hand. I glance to the side to see Percy Weasley, still sending ineffective bullshit like disarming spells.
He obviously thought it would work because it would have worked on him; the loss of a wand is the end of things.
But better wizards than Percy have other cards up their sleeves, and this fighter grabs Granger's sleeve from behind as I scream her name.
Granger turns and he grabs her wand hand, grasping for her wand. He's disarmed; she should be too, and he moves on her coldly, unhesitating.
But Granger doesn't hesitate either, not past the half a second it takes to realise he's physically confronting her. I'm still three metres away when he grips her fist, yanking her towards him, and Granger rocks her head back.
Being shorter than he is, Granger leans back on her heels. She slams forward and up into his nose, her forehead cracking into him with a sound I can feel.
He collapses at her feet. From the distance I'm still at, I can see the deadness in his eyes, the light leaving them. Granger staggers backward from the impact of the headbutt, her wand still in her hand, but that kind of hit takes a toll.
She lands on her knees, blinking and disoriented, other hand raised to her forehead. There's blood trickling down it again, the skin split.
I hit the ground next to her and slam my wand into the ground at our feet. Everyone within four metres goes flying, Resistance and Dark alike. I see red hair from the corner of my eye and Percy hits a wall. I don't feel remotely bad about it.
"Are you alright?" I ask, almost in a panic, gripping Granger's face in my hands.
I gently pull one eyelid up to see her eye, her pupil a normal size. She's dazed and maybe slightly concussed, but her eyes are tracking movement. I'm so relieved I could collapse right here, but neither of us can do that. All I can give her is a few minutes of recovery, and I will.
Tucking my
(warrior queen)
witch into my side, I take over the offence. The second Dark fighter is still coming, knocked back by my hex but not giving up. I don't waste time before slicing his throat the way Granger would have done in my stead.
"I'm alright. I'm okay," Granger says from my left after another minute, but I don't believe her until I see her moving with the sort of speed I'm used to seeing.
Almost as quickly as it began, the fighting winds back down, another room cleared of opposition.
I see Angelina wincing away from George's hand as he inspects an injury. Someone or other is tending to Percy. Might as well leave him there, in my opinion. He's useless here; shouldn't even be here fighting if he isn't willing to do what's needed.
Others are performing the quick Healing charms of the battlefield, mopping up what's easily managed in the moments of quiet we are able to get. I do the same to Granger's forehead, where she split it open moments ago. She checks me over, healing the bleeding cut over my eyebrow and my cut left shoulder.
Several people start moving bodies, separating Dark fighters from ours on the floor. Granger moves forward to help with triage.
Some Hufflepuff I vaguely recognise is climbing over the fallen stone rubble towards George and Angelina. They talk quietly together. Angelina bats George's hand away from her temple again.
I wonder where Katie's little foursome is and find I wish they were around. They were brutally effective from the shadows. Angelina points up again and seems to be arguing with the Hufflepuff.
Good luck, I think.
"Angelina," Granger calls in a loud whisper.
I don't expect Johnson to come over. She seems to be the one in charge, at least in this part of the mission. Surely she has bigger things to strategise just now, but she does. Granger commands respect, just by being Granger. George takes over the Hufflepuff argument.
"Where is Harry?"
Angelina shakes her head. "We can't know for sure. I'm trying to keep us moving in that direction. I was going for stealth, but that obviously isn't happening any longer. I'd have thought this commotion might have drawn them out, but -"
And the room erupts once more. Dimly, I think of how often battles go exactly like this, in fits and starts. Silence, chaos, silence again. A terrific, concussive crash shakes the ground from the outside in, the floor seeming to move beneath my feet.
"The North tower is coming down!" Lee Jordan shouts, scrambling in over the busted stone wall from the outside.
He's followed by a handful of other Resistance fighters, including Anthony Corner and Marietta Edgecombe - who does still have SNEAK scarred right across her face. It's a bit hard to tell with all the dust, dirt, and blood covering her, but I can't imagine the blood spatter would form something quite that specific. Hm. I hope she's not holding a grudge for that one.
Provided she doesn't take a shot at Granger for it tonight, I'll give her a vial of alba pellis myself.
What must be the corridor to the North tower is also a flurry of activity. We can hear footsteps running, shouts. Angelina holds her hands around her mouth and bellows orders to cover the entrances, mind their formations.
Once again excluded from this prior planning and strategic setup, I back up to Granger and prepare to improvise. One thing can be counted upon: Granger and I will be a target. I'm finding an odd sort of comfort in this. It's consistent. No guesswork.
One glance down at the witch to my side, and she's looking up at me. A small smile quirks up one corner of her mouth and I know she feels the same way. I give her a little wink and she fires a hex at someone across my other side.
"Do get something done over there, won't you?" Granger rolls her eyes, but the smile is still on her face.
"I'll do my best," I shoot back, and we begin our spinning dance in the middle of the floor again, back to back as the battle recommences in full. "I don't want to take all the fun away from you."
Granger turns under my left arm and I adjust automatically to cover her other side. "I think there's enough to go around."
But I feel the change immediately. The relatively light banter, her posture, the very air around us, all goes cold. I look down at her and her eyes are locked across the destroyed room on a hulking, grizzled man with bad teeth and worse breath, the close talker who doesn't understand how disgusting he is. Or maybe he does and just doesn't care.
He's got a gold armband on and the visual alone makes me hesitate. Not an enemy. One of ours.
It only takes a second, but Granger knows, puts it together faster than I do. There's no reason Dolohov would have been called away from the park in advance of tonight. He would not have been part of the castle guard here in Scotland. He has no Polyjuiced replacement.
This is exactly the sort of thing I was worried about. Once they figured out the tactic, how easy it would be to imitate it. It puts every one of us wearing one at risk, once the Resistance figures out they can no longer trust them.
I doubt Dolohov was smart enough to come up with it and wonder how many more imposters we have infiltrating our ranks, every minute that goes by.
We need to end this. Now.
The armband is granting him an easy stroll through the mayhem and Granger faces him squarely. She begins to walk, stepping over rubble, prone limbs, ignoring everything. She doesn't raise her wand to defend incoming fire. I'm not even sure she sees it, and I'm kept extremely busy.
Susan and Cho dart past my line of sight, engaging attackers on either side of us. They see what Granger's doing, who she's aiming for. I breathe a sigh of relief as I can focus better on Dolohov, grinning maliciously at my deadly little
(warrior)
witch. This could get interesting, I think, sparing a glance at our surroundings for peripheral dangers. I'm just as concerned about more falling stone as I am about spellwork.
Katie's taken over for Cho, who is fighting her way to Angelina and pointing at Dolohov. She must be telling her about the false flag he has wrapped around his left arm.
I'm not sure what we can do about this new wrinkle in the plans but at least word will spread. I would very much prefer to not be killed on this battlefield and anyone gunning for me will have a ready excuse for striking. I could do worse than keep my eye out for Ron Weasley.
Fast as a snake, Granger slices open Dolohov's cheek. I didn't even see her move. He grins wider, if possible, showing every blackened tooth. His return hits my shield but she ducks on reflex anyway, coming back up to cut open his other cheek.
When he raises his wand, she cuts his wrist, deep. When he grimaces at the amount of blood, she takes the opportunity to land another slice on the side of his neck.
She's getting under his skin and he's getting annoyed. He doesn't see this as truly dangerous to him, I don't think. Bit unfortunate for him, really. He lacks the imagination to see how this is going to escalate. He fires her way again, and I send it back. Again.
It takes Dolohov a few minutes of this before he realises I'm not attacking him. I'm only deflecting what he sends at her.
"Not going to fight me, whelp?"
"She doesn't need my help."
"She seems to," he counters, as I rebound another curse away from us. It blasts open a desiccated suit of armour on the ground against the wall.
Granger lands another cut in response, high up on his thigh. Deep. Dolohov yelps at that one. Must have gotten close to something valuable.
"No, she's just playing with her food," I tell him. "I can keep it up as long as she wants to."
Granger ignores this juvenile back-and-forth. Her next slice cuts off a finger on his wand hand and he bellows at her. She's going deeper and Dolohov is getting angry. The game is ending.
I see his wand tip start to glow green and I know what's coming. I tackle her to our right and can only hope nobody was in the line of fire behind us. But there's no deflecting a killing curse with a shield charm and Granger rolls off me. She comes up fast, striking Dolohov's wand hand and parting it cleanly from his arm.
Furious and growing desperate, he scrabbles for his wand on the ground with his left hand. Granger misses her next mark - I think - because her hex lands high on his arm instead of cutting off that wrist, too. But she's cut something important, and Dolohov is starting to lose copious amounts of blood.
In his distraction, she cuts his other thigh and I do know what she's aiming for there. Well, no; I was guessing his bollocks, but she nicked his femoral artery. He goes down to one knee and has to catch himself with his remaining hand.
She walks over to him, almost calm. I summon his wand to me as she stands over him. I'm tense, waiting to see if he'll physically strike out at her but he's losing blood fast. He's increasingly pale, the hand supporting him starting to tremble with the effort.
"I figured you'd want to take his bollocks off, to be honest," I confess.
Dolohov's eyes look up at us, wide and panicked, pleading. This resonates somewhere deep in his little brain, it seems. Granger tilts her head, letting him worry about the possibility.
"I could…" she muses. "But it really only matters if he'll have to live his life without a cock and balls. He won't. Even so, it would hurt, wouldn't it?"
"Momentarily." Perversely, I wonder if he'd have ghost sensations the way amputees occasionally report having from their missing limb. Fascinating.
But 'momentary' is insufficient. Granger nails him with her boot instead. Having been on the receiving end of several of Granger's kicks with far less momentum, I almost feel for him. Almost. Stupid guy thing, I suppose, seeing someone else's bollocks get absolutely annihilated. My own shrivel in reflex.
On his back now, Dolohov is openly crying. His remaining hand is cupping his crotch, blood still pouring from his open wrist, upper arm, and both thighs.
Granger has still inflicted far fewer cuts than on her imitation practise dummy of Dolohov, but this one bleeds more. I fleetingly wonder if she has any intention of healing the cuts to draw things out, but she doesn't. She cuts off his shirt with a swipe of her wand and eviscerates him cleanly, opening his stomach cavity to the air.
Almost as an afterthought, Granger cuts off the gold armband, not that much of it was still gold. She walks away without another glance back, the job done. He'll die sooner or later. She doesn't want it too quick and we can't waste time standing around watching.
I follow obediently, tossing Dolohov's wand out the cavernous gap in the wall nearest us. I wish I could show Percy Weasley the appropriate way to disarm someone who is trying to attack Granger.
It doesn't seem like there could be any other fighters spread across the grounds now. Everything and everyone is gathering on this one focal point, this tip of a knife, this vortex of spells and jets of light.
People I've seen scattered about all night are consolidating here, drawn by the battle, and I can feel deep in my bones that it's all about to end.
What happens, when it happens, is almost predictable.
I feel intrinsically that we should all have seen it coming, could have closed our eyes and watched it happen, preordained.
But we don't. None of us do, I don't think, except maybe one or two - and if they did see it coming they didn't change a thing.
We should have seen that coming, too.
"It's him!" someone shouts and who it is depends on who they mean: Potter or the Dark Lord? Either way, they're right. A whirling duel spills into the hall, black robes spinning, jets of light streaking through the air.
He duels Ginny and Potter both.
('never meant to be on the sidelines')
Ron's supporting Longbottom in the background, but both are still casting spells. It looks primarily like defence of the surrounding area to me, trying to catch wild curses and hexes before they hit the crowd in the hall.
They don't dare aim anything offensive into the fray for fear of hitting Potter or Ginny and thus presents the crux: once knocked out of the duel, it's nearly impossible to re-enter it.
I can see Granger visibly gauging the opportunities to do just that, split seconds that pass here and there, a gap or a quick turn in aim. I sense the tension in her posture, her weight balanced on the balls of her feet. Ready for flight.
I grip her arm. "No. Don't risk disrupting -"
She tries to yank away from me but I've got an unapologetic iron hold. Potter and Ginny are a marvel of a team. I can only wish Granger and I look similar in battle, the way they defend and attack simultaneously, protecting each other in unspoken symmetry.
Ron props Longbottom against a wall to continue his defensive deflection of dangerous curses and is slowly circling the trio, finally gaining an opening.
Granger's hands are over her mouth, horrified and motionless. My hand is still locked on her arm. I don't trust that she won't do the exact same thing.
Ron jumps back in on Potter's right and the Dark Lord now duels three at once.
I have to assume the fight began this way, if not four against one, and that the Dark Lord was pleased to have reduced his quantity of opponents. The re-entry of a third adversary seems to ignite something in him and the tip of his wand begins to glow green.
It could have been any of them.
They're moving so fast, he wouldn't care which one reduced their number, but he aims at Ginny. The jet of light leaves his wand, and without hesitating, Potter steps right in front of it.