Disclaimer: Anything that rings a bell belongs to J.K Rowling

Chapter 75: Back and Forth

Harry's POV

The soft breeze had my dress robes twist about my ankles, but I was walking too fast to let the black fabric sit comfortably. It flapped about as I made my way down the long cobblestone road, the silence of the vacant village darkening the day, so it felt more like twilight than noon.

I glanced to my right at Zonko's Joke Shop out of habit, and I didn't need to look back to know that Ron had done the same. We've never entered Hogsmeade without paying the shop a visit and the fact that we continued past it reiterated how times, and our priorities, have changed.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice, although soft, whipped out into the empty street but I ignored her and continued walking.

I didn't ask them to follow me, considering I barely knew where I was going or why I was going there.

It would have been best for me to go forth without an audience, but no matter how often I thought it, I knew Ron and Hermione were about as much an audience in my life as my own mind was.

There was the faint sound of life from the train station some way behind us. It would seem that the mourners were making their way back from the funeral, their voices chipper even this distance away, a clear sign that their loss was skin deep. That it didn't sink into their flesh and latch onto their very soul in a way that made you wonder if it were possible to ever smile again.

I turned sharply right, leaving the High Street and entering the Residential District, the small cottages as empty as the shops.

I saw a pale face pop up in a window nearby, a little girl with blonde pigtails, much too young to be burdened with the reality of death, left at home by her parents so the sobs and tears and the abruptness of life would not weigh down on her little shoulders.

She'll never know him... she'll never glance up at his silver bearded face as he welcomed her home...welcomed her to Hogwarts...

I stopped abruptly, turning to face the house that lay before me; I didn't have to look down at the parchment to know that this was it.

The slate grey walls stared at me invitingly, the house all sharp edges and tall window frames in blinding white. It was narrow and seemed to ascend into the clouds, though I could tell it was just a triple story.

"Harry?" I turned away from the statuesque Victorian house and looked at Hermione. She glanced at me and then at the house in confusion and I realised that she could not see it.

It must be under the Fidelius Charm.

I glanced down at the address in my hands, a secret scribbled in his neat hand writing.

I handed the parchment to Hermione, and she swept a loose brown strand from her face, frowning down at the words as I pushed the black iron gate open.

It agreed to my intrusion politely, not a squeak of protest and I felt the affectionate feeling of permissible wards tickle my skin.

I made quick way of the path that led to the door, uninterested in the neat garden that flourished on either side of me. I could hear Ron and Hermione follow at my back, the latter staring around in keen interest.

I stared at the large front door, half of which was glass, the other half a light bluish grey colour. My fingers found the cool, crystal handle and I twisted it open.

I felt Hermione at my elbow, Ron's shadow falling through the open door, yet I didn't walk in...

"I saw it happen."

"Yeh couldn't have."

"I saw it, Hagrid."

Hagrid shook his head refusing to believe my words.

I wish I had the privilege of disbelief, not when the image of their deaths... their murders were charmed stuck at the back of my eyelids.

I turned away from the receding figures of the death eaters, Malfoy and Snape successfully getting away. Hagrid's flaming hut a physical manifestation of my chest as it craved oxygen, a commodity it was deprived of in my sprint here.

"KY! KY!"

I snapped around, recognising the voice instantly as Ron's and my feet moved on its own accord, slow at first, my sneakers crossed over as I turned around but faster as I saw the sprinting figures, all incessantly in motion as they flocked to what seemed to be...

I shook the memory from my mind, taking a step into the foyer. Like many Wizarding households, the vicinity was larger within than its outward appearance conveyed, the hardwood floors beneath me reflecting the sunshine that snuck through the many windows.

I looked up at the large chandelier, it was an amalgamation of diamonds and dark metal, arranged in a wild sort of manner that made it look like nothing but everything at the same time - branches and flowers and teardrops. I stepped towards the living room and I heard Hermione gasp.

I already had my wand out, but it was unnecessary, she was staring up at the chandelier in amazement as the diamonds began erratically dancing mid-air, arranging itself in a multitude of orchids that opened up towards the plain white ceiling. I watched as it rearranged itself into butterflies... then pixies... altering its form on the whim of the brunette beneath it.

I walked to the living room which was not just a contrast to the Victorian like architecture, but the village in general, as it was a clash of muggle metallics with appliances to match.

I strode toward the large fireplace as Ron tilted his head at the flat TV that occupied most of the wall.

My fingers ran over the ornate structure. It was familiar to me somehow. I didn't have to ponder the fact for long as I spotted the easily recognisable lion, and I understood it was in fact a replica of the fireplace in the Headmaster's office.

My throat itched as it found the portrait that sat above the mantelpiece.

Somehow even though the concept of portrait topped fireplaces was so pompous, the framed family picture exuded nothing but a warm, humble glow...

It was as if the emerald sword that plunged into Dumbledore... into Linus, had mutated into a pulsating hand which dove right through my chest, through the skin, flesh, bone and wrapped its powerful fingers about my heart and held it there... tethered it into a petrification that spread instantaneously through my blood like a virus, and sight, sound, smell was inhibited but for the figment that lay before me...

In some forgotten recess of my mind, I registered the dark beauty in it all.

The artistry of the way Linus' palm sat upon Dumbledore's chest, his dark auburn head resting upon his grandfather's arm as if the older of the two cradled the younger from the fall... I followed Dumbledore's arm down to his blackened fingers that for some reason did not look diseased but ethereal, spread open but the middle pointing like a compass needle to the slender finger not a foot away.

The digit belonging to a hand that loosely clutched the ground, a hand that followed up to a striking angel, her dark halo spilling from her hair tie, silky locks dancing in the wind across the tan unmoving chest beneath her cheek...

They tickled my palms as I carefully lifted her head and my fingers ghosted over her neck and suddenly the emerald hand lost all its power and my heart beat freely as I felt her pulse of life against my flesh.

Len's hand fell away from her with a thud that broke the time-freezing spell that seemed to have settled upon us all and life blared about me as I descended into all of Ky, clutching her to me hysterically as the tears of relief spattered across her blood smeared face.

"Harry." The voice was a lifetime away, the nudge soft and easily ignored, "Harry! HARRY!"

As jolting as claws the nails sunk into my shoulder, the ginger strands fell all about me as Ginny hovered over me, "Harry you have to get her to the Hospital Wing! HARRY!"

Ginny almost pushed me to the ground in her desperation to snap me out of my despair and for one heartbeat her brown rays pierced through my pain and suddenly I was on my feet and my surroundings were all but the past.

Doors flung open and stairs skipped over and Ky's soft head at my thumping heart were the only thing that centred me to this life, battering away the stench of death that was threatening to petrify me yet again.

I turned away from the portrait and walked towards the staircase, hastening up it, eager to distract my mind which seemed to be stuck in the events of four days ago. Yet it was evident I had come to the wrong place for refuge from my memories...

I looked away from the pictures on the white walls and made my way onto the first floor, pushing open the first door on my right.

My nose twitched at the unknown familiarity of it all. Everything was black, white, and grey with splashes of scarlet and emerald.

The carpet was like a cat's soft white fur, it felt wrong walking upon it with my harsh formal shoes.

I spotted a balcony across the room, guarded by two large glass doors; it stared out at the dark Hogsmeade Mountains that rolled across the sky in the east, Hogwarts castle formidable on the west.

The bed was large, and I didn't have to sit upon it to know that it would be ensnaringly soft. The kind of suppleness that chained you to it in comfort. I imagined her dark curls spill across the white pillow, her soft pink lips parted slightly with a sliver of drool leaking out in a way that was uniquely adorable.

I was halfway into the Hospital Wing before I registered my surroundings and I whipped around, fiercely staring down each of the room's empty beds as if the outcome would be different depending on the simple choice of where I lay her.

Madam Pomfrey put me out of my misery and pulled down the sheets of a bed nearest the fireplace, and that simple movement by the matron was akin to a stringent shout from a naval commander to my nonplussed mind.

I ran towards the bed, laying her down gently on the firm mattress, taking in the dried blood smeared on her bruised cheeks and the bulge beneath her eyelids, her stormy orbs hidden from me as if in punishment... I should have been there... there to protect her somehow...

"What happened?" Madam Pomfrey snapped as she pulled out her slender, metallic recitator and begun examining Ky.

My eyes ghosted over the green shirt, which was neither hers, nor what she was wearing when she had left me earlier. The hemline sitting just below that of her pink shorts making it look like an amorphous dress, bumps and dips the only hint of the curves that lay beneath the green material.

"Potter?"

I pulled my eyes away from the shirt and stared at Professor McGonagall. I didn't even know that she was here. The Matron's recitator was emitting a warm golden glow over Ky independently and I sought for the right words but in honesty there were but three... "I don't know..."

"I do."

The voice was unfamiliar, but it managed to gather the attention from the whole room which I realised was considerably more full than I thought.

Bill was lying on the bed opposite Ky's, his eyes closed and his face bloody just like hers, the stark contrast being the long gashes across his cheek that she was thankfully missing.

Fleur was next to him, tending to him with a wet cloth, she and Mrs Weasley had been the only two people that hadn't snapped around to the voice.

Next to Bill's bed was Hermione's, who thankfully was wide awake and looked completely unharmed. Ron and Mr Weasley stood in between the two beds, whilst Lupin and Tonks were framed at the window on the other side of Hermione, all staring at the door.

For a moment I was blinded by rage as I stepped towards Liam Rheines, seeing not the sandy haired brown eyes, but the blonde, grey eyed bastard that he called friend.

Malfoy may not have intended to kill Dumbledore, but he had brought those murderers into the school. He had protected Ky and then had the audacity to use her as some kind of means of getting Dumbledore to help him... he even threatened to cause her harm if he didn't comply... was this his doing?

I was across the room in moments, ignoring the squeals from my background but any action I planned to take was halted by Ginny physically shielding the boy, "Wait! Harry! Let him speak!"

"This is no place for death eaters!" I screamed at the redhead, but she didn't flinch.

"Liam is no death eater Harry." The voice came from behind me, it was Hermione, even though she looked unscathed her face was pale and her eyes red rimmed and stuck on Ky. She pulled them away to look at the boy, whose lips twitched with nervousness, but eyes sparked with determination. "And if he knows what happened to Ky-"

"OF COURSE he knows what happened to Ky!" Ron snapped, he was a dark and foreboding shadow behind Hermione, his blue eyes glaring at the boy making Ginny step back further into the boy for protection, "He's Malfoy's right-hand man! Ky is in this mess because of him! We're all in this mess-"

"We haven't the time for all of that!" Liam's voice was high pitched in desperation, and he side stepped Ginny, running towards Ky's bed.

I took a protective step forward but was stopped, both by Hermione's grip on the back of my shirt and the concerned look on the boy's face, but my hesitation was but a moment as I lurched towards the boy as he grabbed Ky by her shoulder, "KY! KY! WAKE UP!"

Ron had got to him first, pulling him off Ky and I ran forward to unclench his fists from her shirt which was deathly tight in his hysteria.

"No! No!" Ron let go of the boy and swung him about in the same moment, his fist met the boy's cheek and echoed with the many feminine screeches.

I flung a hand out, keeping both Ginny and Hermione back as the boy fell onto the floor with Ron's second punch. All I could see was slimy black hair and glinting back eyes and emerald... so much emerald light...

And empty midnight blue eyes.

And blank hazel orbs.

And the hidden grey storm.

I whipped my wand out and stepped forward, staring into the boy's chestnut hazel eyes, and seeing only Karetnikov's jade green.

"STOP THIS AT ONCE!"

"RONALD!"

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE-"

My wand flew out of my hand just as Professor McGonagall, Mrs Weasley and Madam Pomfrey's voices fused into one bellowing ember that had Ron frozen in his steps. I glanced to my right where Hermione's wand was on me and a spike of rage that I never felt towards my best friend growled through me.

There was a surge of red as Ginny pushed passed me and fell to the floor next to the boy who crawled to his knees. She tried helping him up, but he battered her hands away, crawling desperately towards Ky's bed again.

Hermione fell next to the boy just as I stepped forward. She spared me a glare as she helped the boy to his feet with Ginny.

Ron had some right hook on him, the boy's right eyes was already surrounded by reddened skin that promised to be a sickly purple in hours. A thin trail of blood leaking from his nose which seemed to be broken. He was making nondescript noises, his eyes on Ky.

"Can't sleep. He said... he said she can't- KY!"

Rheines voice grated on my ears as he lunged for my girlfriend once more, but this time Hermione stood in his way, her hands on either side of the boy's cheeks and her back pressed against Ky's bed, sturdily keeping the boy away from her best friend and forcing him to look at her.

"Okay. Okay. Liam, look at me. LOOK AT ME! Okay, it's okay. Tell me... tell ME."

The boy's hands still clutched for Ky around Hermione, but as her brown orbs hooked onto his own, his hands fell away, and he almost looked like he was in a trance.

"Hermione." He muttered, as if seeing her for the first time.

He blinked once and with that blink a salty trail followed, a wet path of remorse that shook on his features as his lips trembled so much it almost look like it was vibrating, "He said she might be concussed and not to let her sleep. Lorenzo said... but then she just... her eyes glossed over and the blood, from her nose... and her screams... she wasn't with me anymore and I called, and I called for her to snap out. She was in such pain and then suddenly she was back and then and then she just ran. Fled away and he told me to look after...to keep her safe and down there until everything was over. He saved Ari. He saved Ari and it was my turn to... return the favour. To save his sister." His voice fell to a pained whisper.

"Now Mr Rheines I need you to answer my questions!" Madam Pomfrey's voice whipped out, a contrast to her tear stained face, mourning the loss of her employer and friend taking the backseat to keeping his grandchild alive. The recitator continued roving over Ky as she slept. "Was she dizzy? Did she have a headache? Did she look like she was having trouble seeing? Did she say she felt nauseas, or did she throw up?"

"She was dizzy, she couldn't stand on her own and she didn't say she had a headache, but she did keep clutching her head, and her eyes were unfocused..."

Madam Pomfrey took a sharp breath in, and her hands fluttered to the cupboard at Ky's bed, pushing bottles aside, my heart quickened... what happens if you sleep whilst you have a concussion?"

"Wait! Madam Pomfrey!" Hermione let go of Liam and whirled around, "I don't think she's concussed." She glanced down at Ky and back up to the matron, "I think she must have had a vision. It's all the signs of one-"

"That makes sense!" Ron shouted, "She must have seen... seen..." He ducked his head, staring at the floor, "I kept screaming for her, but she just kept running towards the Astronomy Tower... almost like she knew."

"And she summoned her broom." Tonks voice was soft and lacked its usual cheerful texture, "She was planning to fly up there."

"But her potion is supposed to stop those ghastly things." McGonagall stood next to Ky, stroking her hair in comfort.

"Only if she takes it every day." Hermione turned back to Liam, "Liam, where was Ky?"

The boy closed his mouth and swallowed, his eyes flickering around the room which I now realised was even fuller than I previously thought. The beds on the right of Ky were full right down to the end, the occupants next to Ky easiest to identify considering I was very accustomed to their sleeping forms.

"Neville? Seamus? Dean!"

"They're okay Harry!" Ginny quickly replied at the look of horror on my face, "Neville is unconscious, he fell and hit his head. Seamus and Dean... well Madam Pomfrey says it's sleeping potion. Lavender found them when they got back to the Common Room... they were asleep on the sofa, this empty bottle in their hands."

She gestured to Dean's bedside and Hermione gasped when she saw the bottle of wine which I recalled was in her hands when she was in the Common Room hours ago, but I didn't question her as I just remembered what Malfoy had said, "Malfoy said he stepped over a body... he said..."

I stepped forward, squinting through my misty lenses at the two unfamiliar figures right at the end of Ky's row of beds.

"It must have been Bill." Ginny replied once again, gesturing across the room to her brother, "Greyback attacked him..." Her voice was as if she was whispering secrets, and her eyes shook with unshed tears.

I looked away at the heart-breaking sight of Fleur delicately tending to her fiancé's wounds and the muffled sobs of Mrs Weasley and glanced at Lupin. "Remus says that he should be fine."

Lupin however was staring at Liam in contemplation, and I turned back to the boy, appeased that my friends were safe, and completely consumed with finding out exactly what happened to Ky.

"Malfoy said that he was protecting Ky." The bitterness flooded through my voice, "But he also said that he could stop doing so if Dumbledore didn't agree to his terms." I stepped forward threateningly, "Speak Rheines."

The boy's lips stopped shaking and he straightened up, wincing slightly and meeting me eye to eye. "I cannot tell you everything-"

Ginny had a palm on my chest just as Hermione fluttered in front of the boy as I stepped forward once again, "But he will tell us what is important... won't you Liam?"

"Maybe we should call the Ministry. Send some people that will make you talk, boy." Lupin's voice was alien, the viciousness so unnatural that Tonk's grabbed at his forearm to calm him.

"That is unnecessary Professor Lupin. There is nothing that the Ministry can do as I have done nothing wrong. I am not a death eater and I have no reason to help you, to tell you anything."

Liam's light hazel eyes found mine and my heart panged as I recalled Len, lying there, shirtless, and still, like some statue of a Greek God, "I owe Ky my life. It was she who sent her brothers to save my sister and I will sooner harm my own flesh than I would harm her."

He stared past me at Ky. "You must know how desperately people want to harm her. Whatever the reasons for death eaters entering this castle," Ron scoffed at the sentence, and I agreed, as if this boy didn't know, "One of them was most definitely to harm Ky. Alya Bellamy, Bastian Blishwick and Katerina Karetnikov are but three of those who would want to see her dead-"

"You're not telling us anything we don't already know!" Ron snapped.

"Let him speak!" Hermione retorted.

"She was locked in the Dungeons. For her own protection."

"Locked in the Dungeons? How?" Ginny asked softly.

"Lock and key." He replied as Lupin snarled,

"Be serious boy! You are to expect us to believe that a mere lock and key will chain Ky!"

"The Dungeons?" Hermione looked at Liam, her brown orbs shining with nostalgia and the boy nodded at her. "She wouldn't be able to get out because there's no magic allowed there..."

"No magic allowed where?" Lupin and I snapped together, and Hermione looked to me to answer.

"It's a place, well below the Castle, deeper than even the lake. There are wards that prevent magic-"

"No such place exists in this Castle." Lupin replied confidently and I remembered the Marauders Map, who would know better than the maker of such an artefact.

"There is. I believe it because I've been there and there really is no magic allowed there."

"And why we thought it the best place to keep her." Rheines gazed down at Ky affectionately and I stepped closer to her protectively, "As much as she couldn't get out, nobody would be able to get to her either. But having her down there was twofold... she was also bait."

"Bait?"

"Yes." He nodded at Mr Weasley, "It occurred to..." He stopped before he could speak his name as if we all didn't know it was Malfoy he was working with, "We knew that Blishwick was informed of her whereabouts. Lucan Banner had found out how to get to the Dungeons," His eyes flickered to Hermione quickly and then back to me, "He led Blishwick down there, but they didn't have a key which was promised to them."

Promised to them by whom? By Malfoy?

"Whilst they waited for me to get the key, I ran to the Astronomy Tower and found one of the Thornton Brothers. Lorenzo. I told him where Ky was and I gave him the key, knowing that he was more than capable of finishing off Blishwick in a vicinity devoid of magic. I do not know what happened down there. I waited upstairs to keep lookout. That's when Lucan and Anna arrived. I stunned Anna and Lucan, but his head hit the step on his way down."

He turned to the body at the end of the row of hospital beds, "I cracked his head." He sounded fearful for a moment, but he didn't have much time to wallow in whatever regret was seeping through on his face.

"Lorenzo showed up with Ky... he initially told me to fetch some Wide Eye Awakening Potion and Vitamix, anticipating her to be grievously injured, and I had done so. It was a good thing too... she was practically unconscious when they arrived... she looked..." he swallowed, and Hermione touched his shoulder in comfort.

"That's when Len told you to keep her down there. To not let her sleep." Hermione surmised from the words he had been repeating earlier.

He nodded slowly.

"And then she had the vision of..." Hermione turned to me and I realised that every eye on the room was on me now.

Lupin took a deep breath as if he were reigning in all emotions that were battling to burst forth, "Hagrid just told us that Snape... that Snape-"

"He killed Dumbledore." My voice was hollow as I stroked the back of Ky's hand hypnotically.

"And Linus?" Hermione feigned strength with the solid set of her mouth, but her voice shook nevertheless and I grit my teeth.

"Karetnikov. Dumbledore immobilised me." Memories of the dark-haired man grasping at air over the turret blazed through my mind, "I couldn't do anything."

Lupin had turned and faced the window. He had always felt responsible for Karetnikov, being the one that introduced her to the Order.

Ron was massaging his forehead as Hermione's lips begun to tremble. All pretences of strength forgotten, I watched as the teardrop splashed onto Ky's hand and rolled down her left ring finger and I quickly wiped my cheek with the back of my hand.

"How did Linus even get up to the tower? We had been trying but there seemed to be wards that prevented anybody without a dark mark to go up?" Tonks' voice was raspy from crying.

This explained the commotion downstairs, why nobody came to help. Why Snape was let through.

"Sheer mastery of magic." Lupin muttered, turning sorrowful eyes on Ky, "I've never seen anything like it. And I've been awe of both of those boys fighting skills for months now. I had arrived a few minutes before Linus and Len. Luna informed the boys that Ky was missing, that she was last seen in the Dungeons. That the entrance to the astronomy tower seemed to be blocked, and that Harry and the headmaster had been out of the castle. Linus said he would go to help Harry and the Headmaster, he seemed to think that they must be up there if that place was warded, and sent Len to look for Ky. I was duelling Gibbons, but Linus took a matter of minutes to break the wards...he was so bright, so powerful."

My heart clenched when Lupin referred to Linus in the past tense. He was bright, and I'm sure in a fair fight he would have won, but Karetnikov had taken advantage of his surprise at the loss of his grandfather, and Snape allowed it. Allowed Ky to lose her brothers, and her grandfather, all in the same night. Just like he was the reason my parents were dead.

My heart pounded in my chest, remembering Linus' child-like call for his grandfather. I felt a hot tear stroll down my cheek as I hoped that Dumbledore had died when the curse struck him, I hoped that there was no way he could have heard or seen his grandson be murdered, for surely that was a pain worse than death itself.

The silence that followed Lupin's words was short lived however as the doors banged open, and the room's occupants clutched once more at distraction, pushing the grief that lingered about us like a melancholic cloud, at bay once again.

A/N: This is just the first part of the chapter, hopefully will get through with the second sometime this week.

Feedback as always will be greatly appreciated!

Kalina