Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JKR.

AN: A big THANK YOU to my faithful beta Federer Rex

"Run!" Tori screamed.

She couldn't. Each ounce of strength seemed to have left Daphne's body as she stared in nameless horror at the deadly weapon that rose over her head and would kill her, making it impossible for her to react.

I'm sorry, Tori—

"Oh, fuck!" Lisa cried. She pointed her wand at the giant. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Despite her horror, Daphne almost snorted at Lisa's futile attempt to levitate a giant.

The club rose higher and higher—out of the giant's hands, until it hung suspended in the air about twenty feet above the giant's head, well out of his reach.

Daphne blinked.

The giant grunted in surprise and looked at his empty hands, then raised his head to stare dumbly at the club over his head.

"Finite Incantatem!" Lisa shouted.

The club crashed down and smashed into the giant's face. Without a sound, he swayed for a moment, then slowly toppled towards the battlement.

Her paralysation lifted, Daphne sprinted out of the way, Lisa and Tori right behind her. The ground shook under their feet as the giant crashed into the battlements. Daphne stopped and turned around.

The giant lay—dead or merely unconscious?—with his upper body sprawled over the broken wall of the battlements. The rest of his body was out of sight. As she looked, a masked figure climbed over the unmoving body of the giant onto the battlement.

She raised her wand and flung a Stunner at it. Weak as her Stunners were, the Death Eater deflected her spell like a bothersome moth and flicked a silent, sickly yellow spell at her. She dived out of the way. From the corner of her eye she caught two Banishing Charms almost simultaneously hitting the Death Eater in the chest. They flung the masked figure backwards to where it came from.

The reprieve was short-lived. More masked figures appeared in the gap the giant's fall had caused.

"They're breaking through!" she screamed.

From the left and right, reinforcement rushed in. The fight that followed seemed to last an eternity, although it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. The students, incapacitated by long years of inadequate teaching of Defence, were no match to Death Eaters with no scruples to use lethal spells against them.

Gods, she had no chance against them with her meagre repertoire of offensive spells. All she could do was shield her comrades against everything that was not a Killing Curse, and Banish obstacles in the way of every Killing Curse aimed at them. Sometimes, she succeeded, sometimes—not. The ground shook under their feet from more attacks with battle ram-like spells on the battlements. Or had He brought even more giants with him? The air was foggy with the dust of debris raining down on them, making her cough and splutter until she wheezed and every breath hurt, and the thousands of spells flashing around her blinded her.

Yet Daphne didn't relent in her efforts to protect. As long as her little sister lived—as long as she lived—she would protect Astoria.

Astoria and Lisa fought side by side. They took Kingsley's order to maim to heart. Lisa used a mean Blasting Curse that sent more than one Death Eater flying to death over the castle walls, or getting smashed against them. Astoria had resorted to the Cutting Charm their uncle used on his farm at slaughtering time. The result was—not pretty, yet effective, and had the Death Eaters bleeding out like the pigs they were.

Yet the defenders of Hogwarts fell like wheat under the scythe.

More Death Eaters appeared from the left flank. This was hopeless.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Kingsley's voice boomed over the confusion of the battle.

Daphne waited until Astoria had turned and ran towards the castle, before she also took flight, every so often looking back over her shoulder at the attackers pursuing them, and ready to shield.

A tall man was right behind them. Whether he was a Death Eater, she couldn't tell: he wore no mask. Unkempt, grizzled stubbles covered his face, and long, matted hair waved behind him as he ran. He stopped, a crazed grin on his face, and aimed at Astoria's back.

Daphne lost no time to shield.

A blackish-red spell that had an eerie bluish hue around it erupted from the wand of the attacker and impacted on Daphne's shield with a blast that made her stagger. Her shield dissolved as the spell passed through it.

Her sister fell to the ground.

"Tori!" Daphne screamed, ran to her sister's unmoving body, and knelt down beside her. A Blasting Curse raced past her.

"That one shouldn't bother us any more." Lisa appeared beside them. "How is she?"

"Unconscious and hardly breathing." Daphne forced herself to answer in a calm tone. She would be no help for Tori if she panicked, even though her greatest fear had come true.

Lisa put her hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. Maybe her answer hadn't been as calm as she thought. "Let's take her to the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey will set her right."

Daphne nodded and got to her feet. Each girl grabbed Tori by an armpit, and together they dragged her unconscious body that seemed to weigh a ton through fireworks of red and green spells flickering around them. It was short of a miracle none of them struck. There was no time to worry about that, no time for her own safety. She had to get Tori to Madam Pomfrey before it was too late—Daphne suppressed a sob. Would the matron be able to help Astoria? That curse had looked like nothing she had ever seen or heard of.

As they reached the door to the castle, Potter, Weasley, and Granger sped past them without a glance.

"I wonder what they are up to," Lisa said.

Daphne shrugged; she couldn't care less. All that mattered was Tori's safety—She pushed the door to the castle open with one shoulder and dragged her sister inside.

It was as if they had entered hell in a handbasket. The floor was littered with shards of crystal, gemstones, and marble. Daphne looked up. The four hour glasses that counted the house points were gone, and so were parts of the bannister of the gallery that overlooked the Entrance Hall. The unmoving form of a girl clad in a travelling cloak with Gryffindor lining lay at the foot of the Moving Staircase, the body of a grizzled man slumped over her, his teeth still sunk in her flesh.

Fenrir Greyback! Daphne shuddered. Merlin have mercy with that poor girl—if she was still alive.

All around the Entrance Hall, spilling into the Great Hall and up the Moving Staircase, a fierce battle raged.

Daphne and Lisa exchanged a glance.

"There's no way around it, we have to get through here," Lisa shouted over the deafening noise of the battle. "Try to shield us the best you can and pray."

Daphne cast her shield, and the two girls dragged Astoria through the middle of the fight towards the Moving Staircase, trying to evade the spells sizzling around them. The miracle she silently prayed for happened: they reached the Moving Staircase without getting hit and climbed up.

It became somewhat calmer the higher they climbed, although the flickering light of spell fire and screams and shouts coming from the corridors they passed told them that fierce battles were going on almost everywhere in the castle.

At last, they reached the infirmary and bumped the swinging double door open with their shoulders. They dragged Astoria inside and stopped in their tracks.

The infirmary hadn't been exempted from the heavy explosions: not a single window pane was intact. Instead, hastily conjured bricks and wooden planks closed the openings of the tall windows. Here and there, shards of glass and splinters of wood still lay on the floor where the Vanishing Charms had missed them. The beds that stood under the windows had been shoved to the opposite wall, and the room had stretched itself to accommodate them, and was still stretching itself for the additional beds their fellow seventh year Morag McDougal conjured with quick jabs of her wand.

Each bed was taken, the occupants either unconscious or whimpering with pain. Madam Pomfrey, strands of hair loosened from her normally so neat bun, her nurse's bonnet askew, and her apron wrinkled and stained with liquids Daphne didn't dare speculate about, hurried from bed to bed, casting diagnosis spells on new arrivals, and shouting orders to three other seventh year students assisting her.

At their entrance, she looked up. "Bring her here," she said, and conjured another bed with a flick of her wand. The room adjusted itself to make space.

Daphne and Lisa dragged Astoria down the aisle. Madam Pomfrey levitated Astoria onto the bed and cast a string of silent examination spells on her. A row of runes appeared above Astoria's still form, and the matron took a sharp breath. "What kind of spell hit her? Can you describe it?" she asked, already casting the next chain of diagnostic spells.

Daphne's stomach knotted itself into a tight ball. The matron's reaction fanned the fear she had suppressed over the urge to get her sister to safety to a roaring fire of terror. Once again, she forced herself to stay calm and describe the curse that had hit Astoria to her best abilities.

Madam Pomfrey listened with a frown on her face. "That sounds like a Blood Curse," she muttered and turned back to Astoria. Her wand movements like a flurry, she chanted a chain of spells Daphne had never heard before in a singsong voice. Sweat beaded on her forehead when she lowered her wand, and she pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of her apron and dried her brow. "She's stable, for the time being, but she'll need constant monitoring until we can take her to St Mungo's." She looked around and bit her lips.

More injured had arrived while Madam Pomfrey tended to Astoria. The matron didn't have to tell her, Daphne understood: there was no one here to give her sister the care she needed—except for herself.

"I'll stay," she said. She had promised to protect Tori and failed. The least she could do now was give Tori the care she needed. "Can you show me what I need to do?"

Madam Pomfrey gave her a sharp glance. "Are you sure about that? There will be more injured I'll ask you to help with. Staying here tonight won't be a picnic."

Daphne shrugged with a mirthless chuckle. "It isn't a picnic out there, either. Astoria is my sister and the only family I have left,"—for her parents would denounce her, no matter the outcome of the battle—"I want to make sure she gets the care she needs."

The matron's stern face softened. "In that case—Give me a moment to check on the new arrivals. I'll be right back with you and show you what to do." She turned to the next bed, her wand already in her hand to cast the diagnostic charm.

Lisa put her hand on Daphne's shoulder and gave her a light squeeze. "I'm sure she'll be alright."

Daphne stared down at the still form of her sister. "Merlin gives you are right. That curse looked terribly dark." Her voice choked, and something hot welled up in her eyes. She wiped at them with the ball of her hand with more force than necessary. Now was not the time to break down and cry. Tori needed her! She took a deep breath to calm herself down and turned to Lisa. "I'm sorry I won't come back to fight, but—"

"—you're worried about your sister," Lisa finished the sentence for her. "Don't fret, I'd do the same if I were in your shoes." She gestured with her hand around the infirmary. "Besides, this is a battle of its own that also needs fighters."

Madam Pomfrey had finished diagnosing the last new arrival while they talked and now turned around to go back to Tori's bed. Lisa leaned towards Daphne and gave her a firm hug. "Take care," she whispered. "I was glad to have you and Tori fighting next to me out there."

"You, too," she replied. Gods, this was harder than she'd expected. She hardly knew the girl, and she'd been hostile enough when Tori and she joined the group, yet they had bonded over fighting Death Eaters and Giants together in a way that was hard to explain. Her heart constricted at the thought she might see her never again.

Lisa hurried out of the infirmary to join the fight again. When she slipped through the revolving doors, the noise of the battle crashed into the quiet room like a wave, only to pause the moment the doors closed.

Daphne took a deep breath and turned to the matron. "Show me how to help."

t.b.c.

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