May 2, 1998

The wraith stepped out to stand beside me – blood dripping from his beak and skeletal hands – the stench of rot wafering through the air around him. I tried not to wince at the sound of blood dripping onto the floor below in an unsteady rhythm. I found my way to the wall and slumped down against it – the rush of adrenaline falling away and leaving me hollowed out and empty.

I was trying not to think about the two savaged the two Death Eaters behind me.

I allowed myself to slide down to the floor with a pained groan.

There was a simple logic to how the rest of the night would go, the fight would resume in an hour and I needed to be ready. I touched the cut on my head, my hair wet from the blood, wincing at the sting of it as I muttered a healing incantation to seal the wound. A temporary fix, and inefficient as I knew I had missed the edges of the cut due to feeling out the area with my fingers with no mirror to aid me, but it would help stop the bleeding. I double checked the healing spell on my arm, satisfied at the closure of the wound, it would finish healing on its own if I survived.

I checked my limbs, wincing at the pain in my ankle – I was not sure when I had done that. I took off my shoe and sock, binding the foot and ankle with a wrapping charm, inhaling slightly at the sudden pain of it and then the relief of it on my ankle. I moved my hands back up to my hair to put in back into a ponytail at the base of my neck.

Breathing was hard, I was almost too tired to perform this essential of life. I tried to block out the noise of the wraith feasting on the flesh of its victims – I was not sure I could stop it if I could. I put my hands over my ears and pretended I was somewhere else. It did not matter how long, I needed to rest.

I did not know how long I sat there – I wanted to move, but I did not have the strength. It had been sucked out of me when the fighting stopped and I was alone here with my thoughts and the monster. I removed my hands from my ears and looked over into the darkness where the sounds had finally stopped. I had no desire to see it, but a morbid curiosity pulled my attention as my mind began to plan how I would spend the remainder of the hour.

I could not go out the way I came, clearing the blocked passage. I was not able to face the mess the wraith would have left and I could not expose that to anyone. If that mess was tied back to me, I would never be able to explain the wraith, I would look insane. The giant spiders would have to suffice as a reason for the brutality – though there was no web. Oh, we were at war, would it really matter at the end?

The wraith staggered out of the darkness, as if being out in the world and physically interacting with it had drained him of his power. His shoulders were stooped and it was hunched over and dripping blood all over the floor, leaving a trail behind. I could hear its imitation of breath and stressed panting like a wounded animal, only the wraith made noise like rattling bones when it tried to breathe. I stared at it, wondering what it was going to do – stay in the physical world that seemed to pain it, or slip back into shadow? The wraith looked at me, the empty eye sockets showing nothing except darkness. With a final rattling breath, the long moss cloak slipped back into shadow, the smell of rotting flesh fading from the air as the wraith disappeared from sight.

Managing the wraith would have to come later – I was too tired to deal with him right now, despite being grateful for the protection he had given me, along with the disgust and horror of how he had ripped apart the Death Eaters.

It was time to move on – reconnect with the other survivors.

Getting to my feet was a pained effort, I balanced and stabilized myself against the wall, wincing at sudden pains that came through me that I had never noticed before. Either I needed to start joining Percy on his terrible morning runs, or I was getting old and I disliked both options immensely.

The corridor ahead of me was long and twisted. I searched my recollection of Percy's memory tours of Hogwarts school, he focused more on those long trips down from the Gryffindor Tower and a few select lessons or people. Namely the way he had to pursue Fred and George for assorted antics. We had done a full walk of the castle, the present images of ourselves wandering through the crowds of students in a form of youthful chaos. He held my hand through this, pointing at famous paintings and castle landmarks.

I could feel the phantom of his hand in mine, I still thought his hands were cold, but the weight of him and the memory of the tight grip of his hand left me bereft and lonely.

I needed… I needed to find Percy. I needed to know he was alive! I needed to apologize for putting my brother over him, that it would never happen again because I was ready to start living our life, no one else's!

The first step into the twisted corridor was easy, I struggled to tell if this was a configuration of the war or the natural building layout of Hogwarts. The stones were knocked askew in places and seemed primed to fall out of place with mere nudges. Rebuilding the castle was going to be a massive job for whoever won the war. I looked at the wall to find vacated picture frames and torn banners. I kept my wand close, I did not know much about giant spiders, but I doubted they answered to Voldemort as allies.

I did not know where I was going and there was no one to ask. I had only myself and my thoughts, that was not new these days, but now I had been to open war and had seen and committed deeds I only read about in stories.

Though, Yaxley had that beating coming.

It still felt strange to look back on the previous hours of hard fighting, I was not sure I recognized myself or where I had found the reserves of strength I needed to survive the experience.

Grandpa Atticus always spoke of his war experiences with such pride, fighting Grindelwald's forces in the European Theater was his first major career milestone and it marked the rest of his career. His twin sister, Armista, came home to instruct upcoming Aurors, using the techniques she learned on the battlefield and in the healing camps to build a better, stronger, Auror Corp. They had no sense of shame or withdrawal about their service, they would not have the trauma from the years of hard fighting that I was surely going to grapple with in the months ahead.

I turned another corner, there was still an eerie silence. How far removed was I from anyone else? Surely there had to be other people in this part of the castle? I hoped I was not alone...

I needed to go look for Colin. He was alone and cold and dead on the grounds and he deserved to be inside and mourned by those who knew him better than I-

The image of his body on the darkness of the grounds, so close to safety made me tagged a ragged, weepy breath. Apologies took hold of my heart, escaping my mouth in exhausted whispers.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

I resumed my ambling walk, examining the damage and stopping to admire somehow intact tapestries. I did not recall these tapestries from any point of Percy's tours of Hogwarts, they seemed to depict the founding of Hogwarts if the colors the robes of the four figures wore. I paused to stare at Salazar Slytherin, whose descendants had made their way to America to found Ilvermorny. I had never felt so close history beyond the Graves family before. I was looking at one of my ancestors. Salazar was a strange looking man, his ears were too large, eyes too sharp and I recognized the wand he was caressing in the tapestry. The wand that had sprung a tree at Ilvermorny that was renowned for its healing properties.

Parseltongues would never be accepted in Britain. There were already centuries of prejudice here, a historic dislike of a short-sighted man. Now there would be a more recent comparison to make in Voldemort that was already being made back in America. People were only tolerant when it suited them – I would be an oddity if the truth in full ever came out. Slytherin's descendants still lived and one spoke to snakes. If word got out, I would lay claim firmly on Rebekah Graves – because Lucinda was right, we needed to let this part of the past die to protect ourselves.

The shadow of Salazar Slytherin would only be a black mark on the good we could do when the war was over.

But I so badly did not want to be alone with this

I turned away to walk on, stepping carefully over fallen stones and broken portrait frames. There was another turn and I found myself climbing a broken staircase, stepping carefully over the missing stairs and holes. When I got to the top, I stopped for a moment and took in my surroundings, more doors, more damaged corridors... I knew I needed to go downstairs, going up felt like a bad idea but I had nowhere else to go.

There was a flash of movement from a nearby portrait. I turned to see a portrait of a milkmaid holding a pitcher – her skirts were a vivid red to counter the white of her blouse and the headband that adorned her dark hair. She disappeared into another portrait and I followed after her. The milkmaid had to be going somewhere! These portraits were all over the place and the way she was going seemed to make a sort of logical sense.

If I could find my way to the Grand Staircase, I should be able to get back to the Entrance Hall. A massive staircase should not be hard to find, it had to be near the center of the castle and from there I could maybe navigate properly.

It was a few more minutes of speedy walking, following the flashes of red skirt in the portraits as the turns grew more perilous with upturned stones and shattered statue remnants. There was blood on the walls as I felt myself moving closer to the center of the castle. I had to be close! It could not be so far away!

There was nothing to be done – I just needed to keep walking. One step at a time, over more rubble, over more puddles of blood and the stains on the walls. Past the burned portraits and through my own exhaustion. My legs were shaking with the effort of holding me up throughout the night of hard dueling.

I was not finished yet.

At last, I turned a final corner to see a wide-open expanse before me and I breathed a sigh of relief.

The stairs before me were mostly intact, one flight had been knocked down to the floor below, crumbled and shattered with the legs of several giant spiders sticking out of the rubble. The staircases moved with sickening creaks and groans, as if they were misaligned somehow, yanked out of placed by magic or forced to stay still to help the fighters on the upper floors of the castle stem the tide of the oncoming horde.

Who was to say? I had not been here.

I waited for a staircase to align itself to the bottom of the stairwell that I remembered had taken me down to the Great Hall when I arrived at Hogwarts. Merlin, that felt like another lifetime.

Being lost in an empty castle had not been too bad of an experience. Quiet, eerie and the kind a thing a person could take some pleasure in if they were of a retiring nature. If one could ignore all the fresh wounds of war strewn about the place. I noted the giant spider corpse at the bottom of an upper staircase and glance upward to make sure his fellows had not remained behind to pick off stragglers after the fight. It seemed safe enough.

The staircase down finally arrived and I began my descent. I could barely stand the silence, but the sounds my feet made on the stone echoed through the Grand Staircase we so spooky and out of place. This placed deserved to have hundreds of students go through at a time, not just a single stranger.

I staggered out to the Entrance Hall, recognizing the marble staircase where I had done the last of my fighting. Thank Merlin! How long was I wandering these corridors? I could see the wall collapse that had trapped me and stopped to look at the scattered jewels on the floor from the hour glasses that represented the famous four houses of Hogwarts – it felt strangely symbolic in a way I was not sure I was able to contemplate.

I saw Ginny Weasley coming back into the castle from the grounds with the arm of a girl slung over her shoulders. Her mane of red hair was messy, tousled and windswept and the edges of it seemed singed from spell fire. The girl clinging to her seemed fine but grabbing onto Ginny like a lifeline as she looked around with wide, frightened eyes.

There was a lot of noise from the Great Hall at the bottom of the stairs. I could see people going inside, a sort of instinctive drive to go there and be with their fellows. I should follow, I should see people, I should look for Percy but then a horrible, grieving wail came from the room and I froze halfway down the marble staircase. I could not tell if it was a man or a woman, but I could not bring myself to enter the Great Hall, but a sense of morbid curiosity took me to the door.

When I looked into the room there was a crowd of people who appeared to be receiving medical treatment on the raised platform at the end of the hall, people had their arms around each other at the edges of the hall, mourning and comforting one another.

What made me catch my breath was the bodies laid out in the middle of the hall itself. The bodies were the defenders and most wore the robes of students – it made my breath catch in my throat. I could not bear this! This was horrible...

There was a crowd of redheads at the end of the hall and my heart skipped several beats as my knees trembled beneath me, threatening to give out and leave me to collapse on the floor. If Percy was dead, I would not have it in me to fight again. I would just roll over and expose my throat for death to take me, because living without Percy with the option of an honorable death so close would send me over the edge. A kind of assisted suicide that would be too tempting to take in the moment.

No. I needed to endure and press on. It did not have to be a dead Weasley, it could be a close family friend. Percy lived. I was going to see him again. If I kept that thought in mind, I could make it through the rest of this horror.

I saw a few student defenders huddled in the Entrance Hall, mostly hidden by the marble staircase – I should be an adult, go check on them and say something encouraging, but I... my feet would not move- I had reached the doorway and could see the grounds before me and my legs had stopped moving. I could not turn around, I could not walk away, it felt like a perch

Some part of me needed to go into the Great Hall and see Percy in whatever state he was in. It was a compulsion that ran roughshod over my sense of logic and control that kept me alive for so long. Percy makes me unreasonable and this is a horrible way to make introductions – over a corpse Audrey, by the Twelve you're morbid! – but my heart stopped beating, taking leaps that could leave me breathless at the idea of leaving the world without seeing him again. Feeling his lips on mine, taking in the warmth of him and inhaling the smell of him, the combination of cut grass and parchment mixed in with his cologne...

An order came from Professor McGonagall's magically amplified voice to move the bodies to a room off the Great Hall, that we had gathered all we could and the rest would have to wait.

Suddenly, the clock chimed and the world stopped. The feeling inside the castle grew tenser with each following chime of the clock.

There were five loud chimes to mark the hour.

A horrible silence fell over the castle in the minutes that followed – I could hear an order to move the bodies to a nearby room off the Great Hall and then the sudden noise to match. It was dread and anticipation that could be felt in the air. The students behind me were getting to their feet, coming to join me at the door to look outwards to the grounds beyond. Some defenders who had wandered out of the castle to look for fallen friends were returning, there nerves evident as they walked past me – others joined me at the wide-open entryway. I could see the wooden door I had used as a battering ram laying several yards away, just off the path to the castle.

Voldemort was coming.

And he was late.

How rude.

I gripped my wand tightly and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly through my mouth.

There was a patter of footsteps behind me, coming out of the Great Hall, rushed, panicked and hurried.

"Where's Harry?"

I took my eyes off the road for a moment to see a tall redhaired boy with Ginny Weasley, along with Hermione Granger, who I recognized from the wanted posters – her hair was pulled back and still flying in a hundred different directions. That meant the boy must be Ron, he looked a lot like Percy, all long limbs and steady expression. I turned back to look out on the ground, I could see the Forbidden Forest from my perch and there was a great herd of dark clad figures emerging from the shadows and beginning a walk towards the castle at a measured, steady pace. As if they had all the time in the world.

The sudden rush of noise from the Great Hall left me staggered and uncertain where to go.

"Not long now," Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice came from behind me as he joined me at the door as a group of students crowded around us – his robes were a mess and he had massive shadows under his eyes. The fight on the grounds was harsh. "A few minutes if memory serves, where is Harry?"

"I've not seen him," I motioned towards Ron, Ginny and Hermione who were quickly being swallowed by the students who had emerged into the Entrance Hall. I caught a glimpse of Aberforth in the chaos, looking very ready for more fighting. "I don't think his friends have either."

I recognized Neville Longbottom, who was nearby directing students to different places nearby. Creating small units to disperse through the castle when the enemy arrived.

They strode up the path, my eyes were drawn to the half-giant Hagrid, a prisoner of the Voldemort's forces who was carrying... Something. Was that a body?

Shacklebolt tensed next to me, a harsh intake of breath as he had the same thought that I did while more people surged out of the Great Hall, crowding the door and pressing me against the wall. I could not take my eyes of the darkness moving up the path, I reached down to grip the handle of my wand tightly, not sure I knew what was coming next.

Voldemort's voice rang through the grounds in a horrible echo that came from every stone beneath my feet and the still standing walls. It encompassed everything around the castle and there was no place to hide from his declaration.

"Harry Potter is dead."

Oo0Oo0

Author's Note: Well, that was grim. How are we all doing?

An hour is not a lot of time, I think Audrey was lost in the castle for close to an hour. I checked the time for Sunrise in the Scottish Highlands in April-May, the sun rises around 5:30AM – so the battle ended at 4AM on May Second for the hour armistice – Harry dies in the final moments of the armistice (5AM). The fight resumed at around 5:30 – need to give Voldemort his death check on Harry, walk to the castle and a gloat – we'll say it was cloudy for symbolism and Voldemort dies around 6AM.

There was a lot of thought in here.