Chapter 14
The Tonks' House emptied in minutes. The members of the Order knew where they were apparating too, their hiding spots that had been assigned outside the castle in the Forbidden Forest. All those who had agreed to fight crouched in the shadows, waiting for the sign from the students within.
The waiting filled Fred with anxiety. Every minute that passed, every second they failed to hear from the inside, it felt like something was going wrong.
He couldn't have been farther off.
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McGonagall sent the first spell of the duel nonverbally. A line of fire shot out from her wand and Snape just barely blocked it. He wasn't expecting the ferocity of the attack, not in the name of a student not in her house. McGonagall sent another, and another, and another. All the whipping flames curved around Snape's defenses to get to him, but he redirected them to the ground.
As Snape stepped back and his heels hit the bottom of the stairs up to the dais, the Carrow twins fell to the ground. Snape had pushed the curses onto them in order to right himself and continue his backtracking.
An act of cowardice.
The Order watched on. Harry and Rebecca kept their hands on their wands and stood where they had been. The mass of Slytherin house was split in two, those that were watching the duel and those that stared at Draco. Only two students approached Draco: Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson.
Snape realised that there was no way he could win, not with the fury and betrayal fueling McGonagall. He raised his robe in from of him and apparated out, smashing through the stained glass window as he went.
McGonagall shook with hanger, holding her wand up to the window long after her final opportunity to hit him had passed. "COWARD!" She shouted after him, the students listening to the echoes of her voice fade away.
McGonagall let herself fume a moment longer before turning back to her students, to her school. She raised her wand and lit the pulpits along the walls and the candles that levitated near the ceiling.
Cheers broke out. Hogwarts had been swathed in darkness for months, but the light had returned. The Order tried to part through the students to get to McGonagall. Fred was near the front, inching towards Rebecca throughout the duel. He saw when her eyes faded and she was gone. He hadn't been there when she saw the vision of Sirius' false torture, but if he had, he would have recognised the signs of Voldemort linking with the Potter twins.
"Children," Voldemort whispered.
Fred grabbed Rebecca's arm and held her up from hitting the floor as violently as Harry already had. A chill descended over the hall and Sirius and Cedric recognised the feeling of a consciousness brushing up against theirs. The were among the few familiar with it.
A shriek came from the Hufflepuff quarter of the room, then the Ravenclaw, Parvati fell to the ground with her hands over her ears and a terrible scream ripping from her.
Rebecca twitched in Fred's arms, towards where the screams came from. Even with so little control over her body, she tried to get to those in need.
"I know that many of you will want to fight." Voldemort's voice could be heard in every mind. "Some of you may even think that to fight is wise, to fight is brave." Nearly every student had a hand to their head, most to their ears, some around whomever was closest to them. "This is folly. Give me Harry and Rebecca Potter. Do this and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry and Rebecca Potter and I shall leave Hogwarts untouched."
Voldemort's voice began to quiet, as if he were walking away. "Give me Harry and Rebecca Potter and you will be rewarded. You have one hour."
Rebecca blinked, closing her eyes tightly before opening them again. Her mind felt nearly her own again.
Fred tilted her chin up so he caught her gaze. "What is the name of our favourite record?"
Rebecca lowered her head, knowing he was right to verify it was truly her but ashamed for it all the same. "Lames' song."
"I'm sorry, love." Fred murmured, kissing the top of her head before pulling her to her feet.
"What are we waiting for?" Millicent Bullstrode shouted, stepping forward. "Someone grab them!"
The Order members stirred. Fred crossed his arms behind Rebecca, his wand in hand. Ginny stepped in front of Harry, other members of the D.A. putting a barrier between Millicent and the two of them. Nigel pulled something small and shiny out o fhis pocket, holding it between two fingers at the edge of the group.
The standoff paused momentarily as Filch's voice echoed in the corridor outside the hall. "Students out of bed! Students out of bed!" He appeared in the doorway and ran in his prance-like trot, Mrs Norris in his arms. "Students in the corridor!"
McGonagall ended the tomfoolery immediately. "They are supposed to be out of bed, you blithering idiot!"
"Oh." Filch looked around at all the school, all those who remained at least. "Sorry, ma'am."
"As it happens, Mr Filch, your arrival is most opportune." McGonagall walked briskly, leaving the dais and crossing the Great Hall. "If you would, I would like you, please, to lead Ms Bullstrode and any other member of Slytherin house whose loyalty lies away from Hogwarts and the good of Wizardkind away from the hall."
"Where is it I'll be leading them to, ma'am? And who am I leading exactly?"
"The dungeons will do." McGonagall caught Draco's eye. "Mr Malfoy will be the decider of whom you are to take."
Draco gulped and stepped forward, looking out over his housemates. The rest of the school didn't pretend to be busy or talk amongst themselves, they stared openly at Draco.
Louis bend down to Rebecca's shoulder, "Is this about what I said to him?"
Rebecca nodded.
Draco's voice spoke not only to his house, but to everyone who could hear him. "You all know who I was." Draco raised his arm. "You know who I became." He lowered his mark and let his arms hang at his sides. "Bit I can tell you that that is not who I am now. We--witches and wizards and Muggles--are..." Draco took a breath, finding that his next sentence was remarkably freeing. "We are not anything based on our families or our blood. Muggle-born, half-blood, pure blood. It's all meaningless. I wish I had seen that sooner."
Draco turned to face Hermione. "Our blood does not dictate the limits of our abilities." He turned back to Slytherin house and felt the time winding down for talk. The Death Eaters would be at their gates soon enough. "Fight with me. Fight with and for our school. Fight for our future. But you have to choose to, no one can make you."
Millicent and a few others, Crabbe and Goyle notably, sneered in disgust and lined up behind Filch. They would not loosen their hold on their beliefs so easily. Pansy walked in front of Draco, bringing his hand up. He had never let them look at his mark, not once. "Do you believe all that?" She whispered. "Truly believe it?"
"I wish I had let myself sooner." Draco answered.
Blaise nodded his head once. "We'll fight." He turned his head and looked at the meager remnants of his house, his friends. Many had gone with Filch to the dungeons. "We will all fight with you as the true Slytherins."
The other students cheered again as those who would not join were guided out. Crabbe and Goyle continued with their murderous scowls until they were out of sight, unable to direct their hatred and any of those who they blamed for it.
Harry and Rebecca broke from their shielding friends and family. McGonagall looked at them sadly, not liking their thin, ragged appearances; their new scars and bruises. "I presume you had a reason for returning. What is it you need?"
Harry looked around quickly. "Time, professor."
"As much of it as we can get." Rebecca finished.
McGonagall pursed her lips. "Do what you have to do. I'll secure the castle."
Rebecca pulled Harry away, moving towards the D.A. and the Order.
McGonagall calling their names made them pause. "Harry? Rebecca?" She looked at them and saw what she knew Lily and James would have wanted their children to become: strong, brave, fearless people who were going to do what was needed for the betterment of the world. "It's good to see you."
"It's good to see you too, professor." They chorused, jumping back into motion. Rebecca slapped Nigel's shoulder as they passed, "Hold the fort!"
She ran out of the Great Hall behind Harry. The students in front of them moved out of their way as they saw the approaching Potters. They congregated to one side of the stairs as prefects called for students of each house to gather in specific areas.
"Wait!" Ron shouted after them, stopping on the landing. "Hermione and I have been thinking. It doesn't matter if we find a horcrux."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"It won't matter if we have it if we can't destroy it. So, Ron was-" Hermione tried to explain.
"Well, it was both of us. We were thinking." Ron interjected.
"It was Ron's idea entirely." Hermione took over again. "Tom Riddle's diary was destroyed with a basilisk fang, right?"
Rebecca nodded.
Ron laid out his idea. "Me and Hermione think we know where we might find another one."
Rebecca dug in her pockets, searching for the Marauder's Map. "Take this. You'll be able to find us when you get back."
Ron took the map slowly. "Where are you going?"
Harry answered, Rebecca feeling the itch at the back of her mind as if there were something she was forgetting. "Ravenclaw common room! Got to start searching somewhere!" Harry and Rebecca both continued their sprint up the stairs.
As they rounded the corner on the sixth floor, Rebecca remembered exactly what she wanted to. "We don't both need to look. You'll be able to tell if it's there without me."
"Where are you going to go?" Harry demanded, sliding to a stop.
"I've got stock in the Room of Requirement from last year, things for defense I was working on. I'm going to get it all to where it can be used."
Harry wondered what on earth she could have been creating. "Smart." He hurried to her before she could run off. "Becs? Be careful."
Rebecca didn't wise-off, didn't crack a joke. She simply nodded her head and solemnly answered, "As long as you are." Then they were both gone in their opposite directions.
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"Harry!" Luna shouted after him. "Harry, wait!" Harry didn't slow down, climbing the stairs as quickly as he could with the students rushing down. "I need to talk to you!"
"I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment, Luna." Harry answered sharply.
"You won't find anything where you're going!" Luna snapped. "You're wasting your time."
"I'll talk later, I need-"
"HARRY POTTER!" Luna shouted, channelling her inner-Ginny. "You listen to me right now!"
Harry turned, shocked to a standstill by the ferocity of her tone. "Don't you remember what Cho said about Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem?" Harry didn't show any sign of remembering and Luna wondered for a second how they ended up the Chosen Ones. "She said 'there's not a person alive who's seen it.'"
"We have to talk to someone who's dead..." Harry whispered, understanding blooming inside of him. A glimmer of light out the window made them stop and stare. A haze was settling over Hogwarts in the form of a bubble.
Luna led the way in an instant, pulling Harry behind her. Running, she explained and brought him to a corridor he hadn't seen before. "If you are to find her, you'll find her down there."
"Aren't you coming?" Harry asked as he looked down the hall she had stopped at the mouth of. This was one of the lesser-travelled sections of the castle, no classrooms nearby and no proximity to destinations of importance.
"I think it's best if you two talk alone." Luna said. "She's very shy."
Harry walked with a purpose, the light from the shield now over Hogwarts making his face grow brighter and then fade as he passed in front of the windows. He jerked to a stop as a flicker of movement passed from one of the rooms the hall opened into. There was the ghost of a woman in a grey dress.
"You're the Grey Lady!" Harry exclaimed. "The ghost of Ravenclaw tower."
"I do not answer to that name!" She spoke quickly, sharply.
"No! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Harry reached a hand out, pleading with her to stay instead of leave as she had turned to do. "It's Helena, isn't it? Helena Ravenclaw, Rowena's daughter."
Helena reappeared on the stairs across the room, hidden half behind a column. "Are you a friend of Luna's?"
"Yes, I am." Harry wished that Rebecca were here. She always smoothed out his mistakes, she was better at talking to people like this, people who were hurt. "And she thought you might be able to help me."
Helena's voice fell flat. "You seek my mother's diadem."
"Yes." Harry looked up at her. "That's right."
"Luna is kind." Helena remained half behind the column. "Unlike so many of the others. But she is wrong. I cannot help you." She turned back into a wisp and launched herself across the room, plunging her icy self through Harry's chest.
Harry turned and ran after her. "Wait! Please, wait!" Helena paused hovering out over the castle. Harry put his feet up on the bannister of the corridor, the wind blowing against his face gently. "We want to destroy it!"
A flurry of strikes hit the shield of Hogwarts, though nowhere near an hour had passed. Harry cursed, they would have even less time than they were told.
"We need to destroy it! That's what you want too, isn't it, Helena?"
"Who is we?" Helena demanded.
"My sister and I." Harry flinched as explosions broke out against the shields. "W-we have to destroy it to be able to kill him!" Helena watched as he hopped down and then climbed up again nearer to her. "Don't you want it destroyed?"
"Another swore to destroy it many years ago...a strange boy with a strange name."
"Tom Riddle."
"But he lied." Helena backed away, though still listening to Harry.
"He's lied to many people. He's hurt many people."
Helena flew forward, stopping with her ghostly face inches from Harry's and shouting. "I know what he's done! I know who he is! He defiled it with dark magic!" She backed away from Harry before entering the hallway adjacent to them, keeping her back to him.
"We can destroy it once and for all. But only if you tell me where he hid it." Harry paused. "You do know where he hid it, don't you? You just have to tell me."
Helena circled him, her anguish evident. She stopped in front of him and looked him over. His words rang true. "It's here, in the castle. It's in the place where everything is hidden." Helena was at the end of the hallway. "If you have to ask, you will never know. If you know, you need only ask."
Harry knew at once where the diadem was. "Thank you." He turned and sprinted out of the corridor, hoping Rebecca had finished with her own task with the Room of Requirement because they were going to need it again.
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While Harry and Luna raced up Ravenclaw tower, Rebecca had found her Room of Requirement exactly as she had left it. The Ivy crawling up the wooden door, the chalkboards filled with ideas and notes and, most importantly, her defense trunk still full of prototypes. Blinding Bubbles, Darkness Drops, Searching Spiders, all things that could help.
Rebecca pushed it a foot before coming to her senses and waving her wand over it. Her trunk levitated so that she could run behind it like a trolley. The stairs proved a problem, the spell keeping it level, but she found that the significant amount of downward force could be exacted by jumping on to the top of the trunk. The bottom of the trunk only scraped the last few stairs before the spell righted itself and she could run behind it once more.
The halls were emptier now, students were out of the main corridors and either in the most secure locations in the castle or preparing to fight. The only sounds Rebecca heard, besides the odd explosion, was the slapping of her trainers and her panting.
"Professor!" Rebecca shouted, severing the spell and letting her trunk crash to the ground. The sound alone, as well as her arrival, caught the attention of many.
"Potter!" McGonagall looked her over confused. "Harry? You needed-"
"Only one of needs to look." Rebecca undid the latches, laying out piles as she spoke quickly. "None of it's deadly, I'm not mad-"
"Well, that hasn't been declared yet." Cedric muttered next to George. He wasn't quiet enough, though, and earned a sharp look from McGonagall.
"This lot will hid you, the bubbles blind whomever they pop against and the-well, the spiders will go through where you can't fit." Rebecca took out another armful. "This lot will hurt like a bi-" She looked up in horror. "Cause pain! This lot will cause pain!" More piles came out, more quick descriptions. "This pile..." Rebecca grinned. "This pile is good for blowing things up."
Molly shook her head, joining them at the sight of Rebecca. "How did-Why would-"
"Take the last pile." McGonagall ordered. "Take it, Longbottom."
Neville wrung his hands nervously. "You're actually giving us permission to do this?"
"That is correct, Longbottom. You and Potter will-"
"Potter-Weasley." Fred smiled, blushing slightly. "Sorry, professor. There's a little hyphen now."
McGonagall stared at him incredulously for a moment before running her eyes over the two of them, Rebecca now standing beside him. "Potter-Weasley then."
Neville glanced at the soon-to-topple pile of homemade explosives. "You want us to blow it up? Boom?"
"Boom!" McGonagall shouted. "Bring Mr Finnegan, he has a particular proclivity for pyrotechnics."
Seamus looked over the bits Rebecca had begun to scoop up in her arms and bent to help Neville grab the rest. "We can bring it down."
"That's the spirit." McGonagall grabbed Rebecca's arm holding it a moment and then let her go, a wistful look crossing her face. "Away you go. Away!" The three disappeared back into the castle, leaving Fred and Molly behind McGonagall and Flitwick.
"Hyphen?" McGonagall repeated.
Fred scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry to correct you. Figured there's not a lot of-"
"A lot of patience she'll have with you if you don't?" McGonagall redirected, not listening to the fact that either of her, of any of her students, may not see the next morning. "You had better correct everyone. Strong women require strong partners, Mr Weasley. Remember that."
Fred nodded, beaming at the word 'partner.'
"You do realise we can't keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely." Flitwick reminded McGonagall.
"That doesn't mean we can't delay him." McGonagall turned and looked at Flitwick sternly. "And his name is Voldemort, Filius. You might as well use it. He's going to try to kill you either way."
Fred stepped back, hearing George's voice shouting for him on the other side of the courtyard. "Go on." Molly shooed him off, Fred not wanting to leave Molly but wanting to help where he could the most.
Flitwick and Molly were all who remained on either side of McGonagall as she faced the entrance of Hogwarts, the same doors she had seen countless scores of students pass through as first years and leave as educated witches and wizards.
"Piertotum Locomotor!"
There was a series of cracks and smashes as the stone statues of knights and their assorted weapons left their posts and marched into formation. Knights with swords, axes, shields, lances, all made of deadly stone. Hundreds of status left the walls, listening to McGonagall's orders as the passed her.
"Hogwarts is threatened! Man the boundaries! Protect us! Do your duty to our school!"
Flitwick scurried away at the reverberations of such heavy footsteps, but Molly stayed at Minerva's side. The two women watched as the statues took up their posts.
"I've always wanted to use that spell." Minerva tittered excitedly. Molly glanced at her nervously.
Flitwick reappeared in the middle of the courtyard after the stone soldiers were past. He raised his wand up to the sky and began the enchantments that would strengthen the preliminary shield. "Protego maxima. Fianto duri. Repello inimica."
Slughorn raised his wand and began chanting the same spells. Other members of the Order with a proclivity for Charms did the same. The original shield was strengthened, eventually looking like a drop of water had formed over the castle. A visible barrier that would serve as another layer of protection.
Another layer to keep Voldemort from harming any of them.
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