The Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw
Sunday, March 23rd, 1997
It was ten in the morning, and under the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, depicted in the same bright blue as the March sky outside the tall windows, every student of Hogwarts was seated at their long House tables, mismatched so much any passerby wouldn’t be able to distinguish which table belonged to which House, watching the teacher’s dais with tense worry, where Professor McGongall stood, the remaining teachers and adult members of the Order of the Phoenix behind her, along with Harry, standing just a couple feet away from the Headmistress.
“- evacuation will be overseen by Mr. Filch and Madam Pomfrey. Prefects, when I give the word, you will organize your House and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point. Any students not able to make it will be led to the dungeons and Slytherin Common Room instead.”
Many students appeared terrified, but Ernie Macmillan shot up from his seat between Justin Finch-Fletchley and Anthony Goldstein and shouted, “And what if we want to stay and fight?” to general applause.
“If you are of age, you may stay,” said Professor McGonagall, to a general booing.
“What about our things?” called a girl in Ravenclaw robes. “Our trunks, our owls?”
“We have no time to collect possessions,” said Professor McGonagall sternly. “The important thing is to get you out of here safely.”
“Where’s Professor Snape?” shouted another girl two tables down in Slytherin robes.
“He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk,” replied Professor McGonagall, cheers meeting her from across the room. Harry frowned, as he had been scanning those crowds for red, bushy, or gleaming hair, and now slipped away down the steps, inching along the walls to get a closer look and try to find them. Why had he never realized just how many students this castle held before? Especially as faces turned and whispered as he passed.
“We have already placed protection around the castle,” Professor McGonagall continued, “but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly, and so as your prefects -”
She was cut off be a different voice cutting through the air. Much different. This one was high and cold, hissing like a snake, coming at them from all sides, as if from the walls itself.
“I know you are preparing to fight.” Voldemort said, and students began to scream, cry, and shout at the omnipresent voice. Harry froze in his tracks at the entrance to the Great Hall. “Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood.”
Silence fell, the last whimpers of the youngest children dying.
“Give me Harry Potter and the wand of Draco Malfoy,” Voldemort said after a moment of painful quiet, “and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me the wand of Draco Malfoy, and you should be rewarded. You have until noon.”
They had two hours. Harry could work with two hours.
In the next second Harry had every eye inside the Great Hall on him, before they turned instead to a Slytherin who had just stood up on his bench and called out, “Where’s Malfoy then?!”
A couple students around him nodded their agreements, and murmurings soon spread across the entire Hall as people craned their necks in search of Draco. Harry watched in horror, hating every second of it, and found himself bounding down the Hall back to the dais, climbing up the steps and telling McGonagall, urgently, “We can’t give him that wand.”
“I don’t intend to, Potter,” she told him softly, smiling and nodding, then spread her arms out wide to the crowd.
“Silence!” she called and a hundred voices stopped still and hundreds of faces turned to hers once more. “We will not be giving anything or anyone up to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! Now, Filch, if you would kindly escort the Slytherins who do not wish to fight to the evacuation spot. Poppy, the Ravenclaws, please.”
The caretaker and nurse bustled forwards and led the groups out, leaving behind a good number of green and blue robes behind. McGonagall scowled, however, and strode down.
“No, no, up you get Miss Lovegood. You too Miss Greengrass.” she ordered, and Harry quickly sw, proved by the devilish smirks the Sixth Years gave each other, she could only kick out Fifth Years and below, as anytime she tried to turn away a Sixth Year, they would cry out, “But what about Harry?” or Ron, or Hermione, or Draco. Any member of the Quartet so essential McGonagall couldn’t kick them out.
So it was that being sixteen was of age as well, at least tonight. However, the cries of his friends’ names brought Harry back to his senses, and he ran up the dais to where the Weasley family stood together.
“Where are Ron, Hermione, and Draco?”
“Haven’t you found -?” Mr. Weasley looked around for them but was cut off by Kingsley stepping forward to address the remaining seventeen and sixteen year old students.
“We’ve only got half an hour until midnight, so we need to act fast! A battle plan has been agreed between the teachers of Hogwarts and the Order of the Phoenix. Professors Flitwick, Sprout, and McGonagall are going to take groups of fighters up to the three highest towers - Ravenclaw, Astronomy, and Gryffindor - where they’ll have a good overview, excellent positions from which to work spells. Meanwhile Remus,” he gestured to Lupin, “Sirius,” he gestured to Harry’s Godfather, “Arthur,” he gestured to Mr. Weasley, “and I will take groups onto the grounds. We’ll need somebody to organize defense of the entrances of the passageways into the school -”
“Sounds like a job for us,” called out Fred, elbowing George and grinning. Percy shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, but Kingsley nodded his head.
“All right, leaders up here and we’ll divide up the troops!”
“Potter,” said Professor McGonagall and he turned to see she was hurrying towards him away from gesturing the last of the underage Gryffindors away. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking for something?”
“What? Oh,” Harry nodded, snapping his fingers. “Oh yeah!”
“Then go, Potter, go!”
“Right - yeah -”
He ran out of the Great Hall wildly, swept up in the crowd in seconds, but not resisting as his thoughts swam with chaos. Voldemort’s phantom voice, the fact that all those kids were so easily ready to give up Draco on a silver platter, and what, because he was a Death Eater’s spawn? But no, he needed to focus on finding the Horcrux - but how could he do that, with the end of the war potentially coming to this school?
He stepped off onto a random shifting staircase and climbed up onto a plinth, holding his head in his hands, trying to calm his thoughts by focusing on taking in steady breaths. Hermione had taught him the calming method Ron had conversely taught her last year, when she was still plagued with Viktor-related PTSD, and knew he was too.
Those problems felt so small now…
Focus, Harry.
Voldemort thought I’d go to Ravenclaw Tower.
Of course! Snape had been standing in wait for him and Cho at the bottom of the spiral steps - he had to have been told Harry would come. So he knew it was the diadem of Ravenclaw, Slughorn told him Riddle had brought it up to him, but Slughorn hadn’t been able to offer him any information on it. So how had Riddle found it, hidden it ever more cleverly, and no one was any the wiser? How, when nobody had seen the diadem in living memory?
In living memory…
“... the school was founded, though the exact date is unknown…”
Of course! The diadem was simply lost to time, as the Founders themselves seemed to be! The only reason the locket and cup survived history was by their descendants and the sword was able to hide inside the Godric’s own Sorting Hat.
But the diadem? Only a ghost would know…
Harry sprung to his feet, invigorated by having put it together without even help from Ron or Hermione, and bolting straight through the throngs of students, passing some faces he recognized, some he didn’t, but searching only for one… and then he at last saw him, a pearly white figure drifting across the entrance hall. Harry gripped the staircase railing and bent over it, bellowing as low as he could about the crowds noisy feet and worried voices.
“Nick! NICK! I need to talk to you!”
He practically jumped over students to reach the bottom of the stairs and Nearly Headless Nick, ghost of Gryffindor, who instantly brightened at the sight of him, exclaiming, “Harry! My dear boy!” and grasping his hands.
Harry instantly felt those hands freeze as if meeting something icy cold, but shook it off with a shiver.
“Nick, you’ve got to help me. Who’s the ghost of Ravenclaw Tower?”
Nearly Headless Nick frowned, affronted. “The Gray Lady, of course; but if it is ghostly services you require -?”
“It’s got to be her - d’you know where she is?”
“Let’s see…” He pointed over the heads of many students at a tall female ghost, quite fair if not so sad faced. “That’s her over there, Harry, the young woman with the long hair.”
Harry instantly ran towards her, hoping beyond all hope this would work.
-*-*-*-
“How did you do that?” Ron asked, frowning, as the two ornate snakes carved into the massive door before them parted, the wall splitting in half so they could enter.
“There was an awful lot of Parseltongue in the Riddle Memories,” Draco explained, and when his friends still stared at him, confused, he rolled his eyes and walked forwards, muttering, “Never mind,” under his breath.
As they walked Draco idly admired the place his Founder had designed a millennium ago, and thought of how such a structure had gone to waste. Would have made a nice backdrop to Potions or Defense Against the Dark Arts, and a great place to hide underage students at present.
Although he noted, from the way Ron and Hermione were eyeing the place, they did not feel the same. But suddenly they came to a halt.
Before them was a grand display; a massive statue of Salazar Slytherin himself, towering above them and reaching to the ceiling, with the skeleton of a long, equally large Basilisk lying at his feet, rotted and all bone, but teeth still intact for the taking.
“Lovely,” Hermione winced, as Ron stepped towards the skeleton, then hesitated.
“You do it,” he told Draco, pulling the locket out from under his shirt and over his head. “I’ve got a feeling this thing won’t react nicely when it knows something that can kill it is nearby.”
Draco nodded and, sneering slightly in disgust, bent onto the dirty floor and pried one of the giant snake’s fangs out, but he’d already taken a dive down a tunnel covered in sewage muck, so what was more on his knees? Walking back over to Ron, he found him placing the locket on the stone floor, but raised a hand.
“Wait, I think you’ve got to do it,” he told him.
“What?” Ron and Hermione exclaimed in unison.
“Look I think it needs to be opened -”
“But we can’t open it, we’ve tried -”
“Which is why it needs to be opened with Parseltongue. Slytherin’s Locket and all… And Hermione’s already destroyed one so…” He shrugged his shoulders, not continuing and not needing to. Ron looked like he understood perfectly as he walked over and let Draco drop the fang in his hand, the blonde taking his spot, kneeling before the locket, ripping the chain apart so he could pin the two ends to the stone.
“Ready?” Ron gulped but gave a grim nod.
“Ready.”
Draco bent over the locket and let out a strangled hissing noise he tried to replicate from memory from the Gaunt House, and Ron reeled his arm back, holding the fang high, but nothing happened. He faltered, and Draco met Hermione’s gaze, confused.
But after only a second deliberation, Ron brought the fang down anyway, shattering the cover of the locket and causing Draco to fly back across the wet floor on impact, Hermione shrieking some feet away. Groaning, he sat up and watched as through the gold shards of the locket’s cover, an inky black smoke seeped out, thick like it was bleeding, almost. Draco swore he could hear a light sound of a voice, but couldn’t make any sense of it. Ron seemed to however, as he had gone sickly pale.
“Ron!” Draco yelled, as the incomprehensible hissing had gotten louder, “Hit it again!”
Ron didn’t seem to be comprehending him. A red sheen had fallen over his eyes. Draco thought for a moment as he reeled his arm back again he might hit him instead, and threw up his arms protectively, shouting out, “HIT IT RON!” desperately.
But then a crash filled the air and he was rolling across the floor again by the force of Slytherin’s Locket shattering into millions of tiny little golden shards and links of fine chain.
Groaning, Draco pushed himself up on his elbows and met Ron and Hermione’s gazes, panting for air. Weakly, the three smiled at each other.
“Well done,” said Hermione, clambering to her feet and dashing towards the skeleton, kicking up water as she walked, “Now he should probably collect more of these fangs, right?”
None of them questioned Ron on what he’d heard or the red in his eyes, as he seemed to be in quite a cheery mood while they yanked out the rest of the basilisk’s fangs. With that, and their hands all stuffed, the three ran back towards the entrance to the Chamber, where they’d soon fly out on brooms from the rucksack.
-*-*-*-
Many floors above, Harry ran alongside Hagrid, his large dog Fang sprinting behind them, desperately searching for his friends. As he ran he passed statues marching along halls, patrolling, waiting for the battle to begin and, judging by Harry’s watch, it would be in about half an hour.
As he ran he passed Professor Sprout, stampeding by with a half a dozen students all led by Neville, all wearing earmuffs, and all carrying large potted plants.
“Mandrakes!” Neville called as he passed “Going to lob them over the walls - they won’t like this!”
Harry scaled a staircase, madly finding himself on path back to the Room of Requirement, thinking, maybe, they’d gone back to the Hog’s Head, and he might still be able to find them if he got their fast enough, and they’d be able to start looking for the diadem. Helena Ravenclaw had been of great help in confirming Riddle had stolen it and hidden it somewhere here in the castle, but that information was still useless if he could never find where he did hide it in this massive fortress.
Bounding down a corridor he passed Fred, Lee Jordan, Hannah Abbott, and other students he didn’t recognize guarding a passage blocked by a statue.
“Nice night for it!” Fred shouted as he passed and he didn’t bother answering, keen on only reaching his friends before the time ran out as he rounded another corner.
(Meanwhile, Ron, Hermione, and Draco were frantically scaling steps on the other side of the school, running almost parallel to their friend, in the exact same direction.)
He ran past Mrs. Norris… Mr. and Mrs. Weasley… Anthony, Terry, and Ernie… Cho and Cedric… Was that Charlie?
“Potter!”
He skidded to a halt, and Hagrid stopped a few feet ahead of him. Aberforth Dumbledore was standing at the head of the corridor before them, wand held out, eyes narrowed dangerously behind his square spectacles.
“I’ve had hundreds of kinds thundering through my pub, Potter.”
“I know, we’re evacuating,” Harry explained, “Voldemort’s -”
“- about to attack because they haven’t handed you and your boyfriend over yet, yeah. I’m not deaf, the whole of Hogsmeade heard him. And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Slytherins hostage? There are kids of Death Eaters you’ve just sent to safety. Wouldn’t it have been a bit smarter to keep ’em here?”
“It wouldn’t stop Voldemort,” said Harry, speaking fast, “and if we do, we’d just as well hand Draco and his wand over. Your brother’s wand, by the way. And, speaking of, I know for a fact your brother would never think to hand them over like cattle.”
Aberforth grunted and bolted away, not knowing Harry’s reasoning wasn’t all positive, and he was currently thinking of how Dumbledore’s belief in everyone included the Slytherin snake Snape.
But he had just turned a corner - Hagrid was no longer following him - and ran smack into Draco. Stumbling back and looking behind him he saw Ron and Hermione, and the sight filled him with relief and fury he expressed in a great yell, culminating in bringing Draco close and kissing him with full force before pushing him away with just as much anger.
“Where the hell have you been?” he shouted.
“Chamber of Secrets,” said Ron.
“Chamber - what?!” Harry blurted, completely baffled.
“It was Ron, all Ron’s idea!” said Hermione, and it was clear she was out of breath from running. “Wasn’t it absolutely brilliant? There we were, after you left, and I said to Ron, even if we had the other one, how are we going to get rid of it? We still hadn’t gotten rid of the locket! And then he thought of it! The basilisk!”
“What the -?”
“Something to get rid of Horcruxes,” said Ron simply.
Harry connected the dots as he stared at the objects in his friends arms and realized they were teeth.
“But how did you get in there?” he asked, remembering the sink and the massive door, only opened by - “You need to speak Parseltongue!”
Beside him, Draco made a strange hissing noise and Harry looked at him, confused. He shrugged. “The memories,” he said simply, “The Gaunt’s spoke it quite a lot.”
“It was brilliant,” said Ron, bumping shoulders with him. “And, we’re another Horcrux down. I stabbed it.” He raised his chin proudly and Harry beamed at them all.
“Genius!” He yelled, adrenaline rushing through his veins so he barely acknowledged how much yelling he was doing.
“It was nothing,” said Ron, though his ears had turned pink. “So what’s new with you?”
“I know what the diadem looks like, but I haven’t a clue where it is. Oh, and Percy’s back. Not imperiused.”
“So Crouch must be dead then,” Draco said, eyes widening, and Harry met his gaze and nodded, understanding all the wild thoughts he must be thinking. The relief but guilt at being relieved… It was all understandable but they needed to keep moving.
“You heard -”
“Voldemort, yeah,” said Hermione, then slapped Ron’s shoulder when he shivered. “How much longer do we have?”
Harry checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“I think we should see this diadem thing too,” suggested Ron. “Just in case we recognize it.”
And, because they had no other leads to try and find its whereabouts, and Ron seemed on a roll with his hunches, the four friends wasted no more time catching their breath and charged off for the spiral staircase Cho had led Harry up hours ago.
By the time they reached the eagle knocker, exchanging nothing but silence as they were so out of breath from running the whole way, the castle shook terribly, and they could hear screams somewhere off in the distance. Harry checked his watch, but knew in his heart he didn’t need to.
The Battle of Hogwarts had begun.
“What is the front of the Double-ended newt?”
The boys all turned to Hermione, worrying her upper lip as she stared up at the door, thinking hard.
“Why can’t it be -”
“Don’t,” Harry told Ron, raising a hand, and he fell silent, allowing Hermione to step forward with the answer.
“It is a double entity. I mean, they are both the front, as the newt’s are separate beings.”
“Nicely put,” said the eagle knocker and the door swung open. The Quartet hurried inside, instantly striding across the starry carpet to the statue of Rowena Ravenclaw, trying to ignore the shaking in the ground and the screams that could be faintly heard beyond the glass.
“That’s it,” said Harry, pointing up at the tiara atop Rowena’s marble head. “Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like it here. Have you -”
“I have,” Draco instantly climbed up the plinth to get a closer look but that didn’t matter. He knew where he’d seen it before, passing by countless times last year. A dainty little tiara, unassuming to one who wasn’t looking for it, perched atop a pile of books crammed between a cupboard and a cage. “It’s in the Room of Requirement. Bloody of course it is!” He spun around, grinning madly down at his friends. “Riddle must’ve found it and thought he was special, that no one else knew of the Room. But we found it Harry,” he hopped down from the plinth and approached his boyfriend, still grinning, “We found something Dumbledore didn’t!”
Realization dawned in emerald eyes and Harry beamed, grasping Draco’s hands tight. “We did.” He breathed, and leaned in to kiss him when -
“Guys,” The stopped, looking over to Hermione, standing at a window, whatever lie outside of it making her look horrified. “Look…”
Slowly the three boys stepped over to join her, a faint popping noise from outside getting louder as they got closer, and when they finally reached the glass they watched, in horror, as what remained of the bridge to Hogwarts blew up into tiny splintering pieces, a hundred forms falling and falling down with it. Any allies… There was no way of knowing, only looking on in horror at the beautiful monument blown to bits, listening to faint screaming on and on.
“We have to go,” whispered Harry, tugging on his best friend’s hand. “We have to get that diadem.”
Hermione nodded weakly and, turning, they walked off to the door, their steps becoming quicker as she got more energy. They ran down the spiral steps and through corridors, tripping over broken rock and bodies they didn’t want to identify. Running past windows where outside they could hear screams and see jets of light firing back and forth, but didn’t dare look. Looking meant stopping and stopping meant wasting time they didn’t have already, which they needed to get that diadem.
Finally, they skidded to a halt before the blank wall and ballet dancing trolls, and Harry pressed his hands against the concealed entrance, which fell forward and allowed the four of them through.
The high ceilinged hide-out was barren save Ginny, Luna, and an old woman Harry remembered from St. Mungo’s over a year ago as Neville’s grandmother.
“Ah, Potter,” she said, turning to him and pressing her hands together expectantly. “You can tell us what’s going on.”
“Is everyone okay?” asked Ginny, standing from where she sat with Luna’s hand in hers.
“’S far as we know,” said Harry. “Are there still people in the passage to the Hog’s Head?” They needed to get everyone out so that Draco could have whatever room he’d been using all last year.
“I was the last to come through,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “I sealed it, I think it unwise to leave it open now Aberforth has left his pub. Have you seen my grandson?” Harry recalled Sprout and the Mandrakes.
“He’s fighting.”
“Naturally,” said Mrs. Longbotom, raising her chin in pride. “Excuse me, I must go and assist him.”
And, with impressive speed for an old lady, she ran off. Harry turned to Ginny and Luna.
“Ginny, Luna,” said Harry, “I’m sorry, but we need you to leave too. Just for a bit. Then you can come back in.”
But Ginny couldn’t look more pleased, turning and bolting off, dragging Luna with her, who waved with the same dazed look in her eyes as always to them, up the steps out of the Room.
“And then you can come back in!” Harry shouted after the girls, though he shook his head, exasperated at Ginny’s antics. “You’ve got to come back in!” If they didn’t? Well, he was sure they could handle themselves.
“Hang on a moment!” Ron suddenly said, and Harry, Draco, and Hermione froze in their ascent of the steps. “We’ve forgotten someone!”
“Who?” Hermione asked.
“The House-elves, they’ll all be down in the kitchen, won’t they?”
“You mean we ought to get them fighting?” asked Harry, stepping down, confused.
“No,” Ron suddenly looked very serious, and maybe concerned, “I mean we should tell them to get out. We can’t order them to die for us -”
With a clatter, Hermione dropped all of the basilisk fangs she was carrying and ran at her boyfriend, grabbing his face between her hands and exclaiming, “I love you, Ronald Weasley!”
“Oh!” Ron dropped his fangs and the broom he was holding with surprise, but then wrapped his arms around Hermione’s waist and lifted her off her feet. “I love you too.”
They kissed, so excessively it made Harry and Draco uncomfortable in seconds as they looked at each other, red in the face with embarrassment and pressure to maybe do the same.
“Are we intruding on something?” Draco whispered sarcastically, rolling his eyes, and Harry frowned as his best friends merely swayed on the spot. Cupping his hands to his mouth he shouted, “Oi! There’s a war going on here!”
Ron and Hermione broke apart, both very red in the face. “I know, mate,” Ron muttered, “But… it’s now or never, isn’t it?”
“I should have said it earlier,” said Hermione as he set her back down on the ground gently. “But I was scared. And we were so busy hunting Horcruxes -”
“Right, so could we keep on hunting Horcruxes a little longer?” Harry shouted. “Let’s just find the diadem. Then you two can, I dunno, get bloody married or something.”
They gathered up the fallen fangs and left the room, all red, Harry more for being a little angry still. Still, Draco paced three times back and forth before the blank wall, pausing when a door appeared.
“Watch out!” Harry turned and saw Ginny pull Mrs. Longbottom away from a spell cascading through a shattered window a few feet down the corridor.
“This old woman can handle herself, girl,” said Mrs. Longbottom, and Ginny instantly let go of her, but turned and fired an impressive and well aimed jinx out the open window, Luna aiding alongside her.
“Come on,” Draco called, holding the door open for them, and the three Gryfifndors piled into the unknown room, Draco stepping in after.
“What is this place?” asked Hermione, gazing up at the treacherous expanse of junk. A place like a cathedral in its massiveness, almost a city built out of hidden objects from thousands of students across thousands of years.
“It’s the Room of Hidden Things,” Draco explained, stepping down the center alley of the city of lost treasures, his friends following behind, staring up at the towers bordering them in wonder. “I found it last year. Montague told me he’d been stuffed in the Vanishing Cabinet - that’s how I found out about it, and what it did - so I asked Fred and George where they stuffed it. Found this place, and any spare moment I got last year I went inside.”
Harry thought of all the time he’d spent pacing outside the Room, waiting for a door to appear, and all the time Draco had been waiting just on the other side of that door, in a city of junk. He’d never imagined him being anywhere other than where the Room always presented itself to him - a training room for the H.O.O.D.
“And he never realized anyone could get in?” said Ron, voice echoing in the expanse of the Room, and its deathly silence. “I mean… Look at all this junk! How did he think it got here?”
“He was a pompous prat, Ronald,” said Draco, turning and walking backwards so he could smirk haughtily at them. “Luckily I am too.” The Gryffindors rolled their eyes.
Harry couldn’t appreciate the humor or grandiose beauty of the place; they needed the diadem.
“And you’re sure you know where it is?” He called to his boyfriend.
“Of course,” said Draco as he paused for a moment beside the Vanishing Cabinet itself, standing unassuming and almost plain, before shaking his head and turning left down another alley. “This way.”
After another minute they stopped at a deadend in the alley and he pushed a cage that had once held something that had long since died inside and a cupboard aside to show them a pile of books crammed between the two, on top of which sat a tiara, discolored from it’s age, but still showing one prominent blue gem, along with many adjacent sparkling gemstones. Clearly displayed across the silver ring read the words;
WIT BEYOND MEASURE IS MAN’S GREATEST TREASURE
Draco carefully picked up the old treasure, holding it out for his friends to see, smiling, then caught sight of something behind them and turned deathly pale, fingers slipping on the metal of the tiara in shock so that it slipped off and onto the floor, cascading across it and bumping into Harry’s foot. He did not reach to pick it up, however, for he, along with his best friends, had turned around and been paralyzed in the same horror as Draco.
Behind them stood Crabbe and Goyle, holding up their wands steadfast and stony faced, and behind the two bodyguards, were the blonde heads of Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, only the latter holding her wand, stepping aside to allow the slow moving, sneering figure of the werewolf Fenrir Greyback to step in between them and towards the children.
“Well look who we have here…” He snarled, then nodded down at the wand in Hermione’s hand. “My wand. You’re lucky I’m not here for that little stick of wood no, no, no,” he tilted his head, gray, piercing stare zeroed in on Draco. “I’m here for something much more… valuable.”
“Give him the wand, Draco,” said Narcissa, her voice light and gentle, a mother’s tone, “and he won’t hurt you.”
“He’ll kill Harry!” Draco blurted.
“No,” said Greyback, shaking his head and clicking his tongue, “The Dark Lord will kill Potter.”
“Vince, Greg,” said Draco, turning his gaze to his old friends and remembering Neville’s words from hours ago, about them being ‘indoctrinated.’ “What are you two doing?”
“We’re gonna be rewarded,” Crabbe croaked, then straightened, trying to look tougher than he sounded. “We ’ung back. We decided not to go. Decided to bring you to ’im.”
“Hm…” Draco hummed, and Harry realized he was buying him time. Slowly, he knelt down to pick up the diadem. Greyback was too focused on Draco to care. Strange, that he was the bigger price, and this man was so obsessed with the idea of getting the Elder Wand. He’d brought Draco’s friends and parents along with him; clearly, they hadn’t expected to get Harry Potter too.
“Well, I suppose Dad told you how to get in, then?” He nodded to his father, then paused, squinting at him. “Can I still call you that, after the whole family tree burning. Not sure about the rules on this -”
“Enough chit chat,” said Greyback, voice raspy. “You’ve raised an annoying brat of a son, Lucius, hardly worthy of wearing his Mark.”
“Well you’re happy to have mine,” said Draco, “but good luck getting it off. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Draco,” Lucius warned, for he could no doubt see how his son’s words were aggravating the werewolf, but he was half-wolf, after all, and Draco knew that. Harry could see the sense in the idea of getting him riled up; if he pounced, it would give Harry and the others opportunity to run.
But leave Draco in danger.
“About the wand thing,” Draco continued, removing his original wand from his pocket. “You mean this one?” He removed the Elder Wand from another pocket. “Or this?”
Greyback flinched for a moment, revealing he wasn’t sure of the difference, then sneered and turned to the Malfoys behind him, pointing a yellow nailed finger forward.
“One of you should know the difference!” When they stayed frozen still, Narcissa’s wand arm stiff, he yelled, “Whose side are you two on? Because if you don’t walk forward and tear the Dark Lord’s wand from that boy’s fingers before I count to three I swear you’ll wish you never became a Death Eater, Lucius.”
The couple didn’t move.
“One.”
Narccissa took her husband’s hand in hers and they met each other’s gaze, silent messages passing at a rapid pace just as they did back at Malfoy Manor. Harry’s grip on the diadem tightened.
“Two.”
Now Ron and Hermione took hands, grip on their wands tight and ready. Draco tensed only slightly.
“Three!”
“I already do.”
A jet of green light shot out from Narcissa’s wand and Greyback lunged towards a stack of chairs to avoid it, the pile of junk cascading over him. At the same moment Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco bounded away down an opposite alley, ignoring Lucius and Narcissa’s cries of Draco’s name as they did.
They could hear the pounding of feet behind them and the shouts of various people, but kept on running, hoping they were running towards the direction of the exit. Draco was at the lead, so they should be -
That was until a girl’s scream rang through the air and the boys skidded to a halt, turning and finding Hermione being tackled to the ground by Greyback, who was snarling dangerously.
“NO!” Ron bellowed, and fired a jet of fire at the werewolf, forcing him off her so he flew backwards, then scrambled on all fours like a wolf and bounded back the way they came. Without a second’s hesitation Ron bounded after him.
“Ron, no!” Hermione screamed, scrambling to follow but Draco ran forward and held her back.
“He’ll be fine, we need to leave! We’re outnumbered -”
Suddenly a distinctly male howl met their ears and Draco stopped short, Hermione’s mouth dropping in a silent scream. Down the way Ron had just run, they could hear the pounding of footsteps once more, a roaring, billowing noise, and the glow of something bright orange. Harry thought of Malfoy Manor, up in smoke, and had just enough time to tense before Ron was running back towards them, Crabbe at his heels, both being chased by a wall of cascading orange flames.
“Draco!” Crabbe practically screamed, running almost right into him, gripping him by the arms. “I dunno how to stop it! I -”
But Draco wasn’t listening, sensibly, as the flames were getting too close now, instead he grabbed his former friend’s arm and dragged him along down the alley after the already off and running Gryffindors, comforted by the sight of the diadem still glinting in Harry’s hand - that’s all that mattered right now, and the weight of the Elder Wand in his pocket. Even when he passed the Vanishing Cabinet, and all his hard work from last year, meeting the bright flames and crumbling almost instantly, he barely paid it any mind.
“Aguamenti!” Harry shouted, and Draco dodged, pulling Crabbe out of the way, to let the jet of water hit the fire, but it evaporated as soon as it touched the flames.
Fiendfyre.
“That was mad, Vincent!” Draco howled, turning a corner sharply after his friends. “Bloody mad!”
“They taught us how… I thought… I’m really good at it…”
“Too good I reckon!” Ron bellowed back at them, then let out a yelp as he was almost tackled by a form the flames had just taken; a chimera. Around them, they saw dozens of various animals rising and falling in the waves of fire, running along with them, as if racing them to the finish line. In Harry’s pessimistic opinion, they were winning.
The Gryffindors skidded to a halt and turned to see if Draco and Crabbe had caught up, only for Hermione to shriek as Draco had to lunge forwards through the dark magic flames, falling with a muffled cry onto the floor, still clutching Crabbe’s body.
Half of it was on fire.
“Help me!” He pleaded, and Harry heard, surprisingly, genuine worry in his voice, but the look on his boyfriend’s face as he turned his screaming friend over on the floor, half of him burning up terribly, was one of nostalgic worry. This was his first friend, and he might die in his arms -
Harry shook off his cloak and whipped Crabbe’s body with it, spanking out the flames, but his body still lied there, moaning and groaning and moving only his undamaged half, singed darkly one one side. Hermione looked away, gripping a hand over her mouth, looking as if she might puke, as Ron wrapped an arm around her comfortingly.
However looking around meant coming to terms with how they now were pinned within a rapidly closing in ring of vicious fire taking various shapes and forms, rapidly changing.
“What do we do?” Hermione screamed, voice nearly drowned by the roars of flame.
“Here!”
Harry tore two broomsticks off a wrack before it could entirely burst into flames and tossed one to Ron, who pulled Hermione on with him as he mounted it, digging into the rucksack on her back for his Firebolt as he tossed Draco the other one.
Crabbe slumped against Draco on the back of his broom and, after Harry had mounted his Firebolt, the three boys kicked off above the flames, Harry barely missing getting chomped in the maw of a flaming raptor. He was having terrible flashbacks to Malfoy Manor now, with all the heat and smoke filling his lungs, and everywhere he saw was fire, the brightness of it burning at his eyes.
But he needed to keep looking. Where were the Malfoys? Where was Goyle? It wasn’t fair for them to die like this. Crabbe and Goyle had clearly had no choice and they’d be dead without Lucius and Narcissa.
“Harry, let’s get out, let’s get out,” Ron was bellowing above the roar of the flames, Hermione clinging to his waist and looking at Harry with similar desperation, but Harry caught sight of how Draco was also searching the rapidly burning towers of junk, while adjusting Crabbe’s hands on his waist to make sure he stayed there, and he knew they had to keep going.
Especially as a woman’s scream pierced the air.
“MOM!” Draco howled, pulling his broom up short and spinning around so fast Crabbe nearly slipped off the broom. “MOM!”
“DRACO!” He and Harry both cast their gazes madly around the room for the source of the voice, but all they saw was flames.
But there, many feet away, were two brilliantly blonde heads among a sea of orange, one holding onto the shirt of an unconscious boy, dangling dangerously over the flames, clinging to a tripped over desk atop a fragile tower of junk.
In a second Draco had charged for his parents and Harry followed, Ron giving a noise of exasperation behind him before following. Hands stretched out, they flew for the three -
But while Harry caught a firm hold on Narcissa’s hand, her nails digging into his sleeve, and brought her up onto the broom behind him, Draco grabbed at his father’s only to slip from a mutual amount of sweat. Giving a short howl of rage he spun around, Ron doing the same, for Goyle had been too heavy on the first try.
“IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I’M GONNA KILL YOU TWO!” roared Ron, he and Hermione working together a second time to bring Goyle atop the broom. Draco charged for Lucius, gazing up at his son, nearly identical eyes wide and desperate, hand outstretched, and made contact. Lucius scrambled atop the broom behind Crabbe, gripping his shoulders and holding his now unconscious body steady.
The three brooms charged off for the door as fast as they could, Lucius muttering incessantly in Draco’s ear which didn’t help one bit but he couldn’t yell back for his lungs were filled with smoke. The door was up ahead, that was all they could focus on. And the glint of the diadem in Harry’s hand. The door and the diadem, the door and the diadem, the door and the diadem, the door and the diadem, the door and the -
They soared through the door into open, clear air again, gasping for breath, and immediately collided with the tapestry of the dancing trolls, tumbling onto the ground, rolling, coughing, retching, all trying desperately to get a bearing on things and fill their lungs with clear air.
But after Draco had wiped bile from his mouth he picked up a fang and ripped the diadem from Harry’s hand, shattering the center pendant with the point then kicking it hard into the flames. Hermione stumbled to her feet and ran across the floor to force the doors closed on the approaching animals of fire just in time, slamming them with a bang that left the whole corridor in a still silence, save for the sounds of straggled breathing and coughing and faint screams from outside.
“V-Vince,” Draco choked, falling to his knees and crawling back to his friend’s side, rolling him over only to see he wasn’t unconscious this whole time. His eyes were simply staring upwards, unblinking at the ceiling. Draco startled, hardly believing it, mouth moving to form words but nothing coming out, then let out a pained cry of grief and clung his first friend’s body to him, sobbing into his shoulder.
His Gryffindor friends watched him, frozen, but slowly, Narcissa Malfoy pushed off from the wall she was leaned against and crawled across the shards of glass from the window Ginny and Luna had been fighting at minutes ago, kneeling beside her son and rubbing circles into his back.
Slowly, he laid down his friend’s body and turned and embraced her too.
“Mom…” He cried into her singed cloak, and the Gryffindors watched on painfully at the loving display of a fractured three-part family that seemed to always find their way back to each other. “Mom I missed you…”
“I missed you too,” she choked, pulling away and holding his soot covered face between her hands, tears pooling over her fingers, but there were tears tracks through the soot on her fine features too. “My beautiful, brave boy, you were right. We should have never burned you off the tapestry.”
“It wasn’t right,” choked out Lucius behind her, and Draco watched, awed, as his father knelt beside his wife and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, squeezing not firm or commanding but out of love. It was now everyone saw how much Voldemort had hurt him following their escape from Malfoy manor; he looked nearly worse than Seamus. “We should have never - But - You must understand - He would have -”
“I know,” Draco reassured him, forgiving him for everything almost easily, and he lunged forwards and embraced the man he shared such a likeness to firmly. He understood his father’s pain completely. He was a Slytherin after all, and while Harry would always choose the selfless thing to do, he was self-preserving unless being loyal to those he loved above all else, and had felt the anguish his father faced all throughout last year in his mission to kill Dumbledore. In fact, looking back, it was difficult to see why he’d ever thought his parents had stopped loving him at all.
“They let us go,” croaked Harry behind them as Draco pulled away from his father and the two men simply soaked in each other’s presence and the fact that they were alive. Draco startled at Harry’s words, however, and turned, confused.
“What?”
“They let us go at Malfoy Manor. They sent us to come and save you from Crouch,” he nodded at Narcissa. “She even knocked down Bellatrix.”
Draco looked between his parents’ faces, baffled, but they simply nodded, confirming Harry’s words. He let out a strangled, stunned laugh. “I love you,” he breathed, and hugged them both at the same time, arms linked around their necks.
As the family of three sat hugging close the Gryffindors clambered to their feet, and Ron looked around them, frowning. “Where’s Ginny?” he asked, voice dripping with worry. “She was here when we left -”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Hermione reassured him. “We should go.”
The three turned to the blonde trio, breaking apart and helping each other to stand.
“I’m sorry to break up the cheery moment,” Harry intruded, stepping forward but Draco had suddenly grabbed him by the arm and forced him forwards even closer to his parents.
“What’re you -”
“I’m dating Harry.”
There was a pause as Lucius and Narcissa locked eyes, blinked, then looked back at their son, straight faced.
“We know,” said Narcissa.
“What?”
“Draco, you’re not very subtle,” said Lucius gently, though the corner of his lips were tilted up in a smirk.
“Neither were you,” Narcissa hissed at him and he opened his mouth to make a retort but Harry raised his hand and interrupted.
“Like I said, I’m sorry to break this up but there’s a war going on and all and we…” He took a deep breath. “We need your help.”
The couple immediately turned serious again, shifting and frowning at him.
“I know how to kill Voldemort but I have to kill his snake first. Obviously, to kill the snake you have to actually get to him so… Where is he?”
Narcissa instantly turned and looked up at her husband, who was staring at the floor, frowning. After a moment he met Harry’s eyes and whispered, “The Shrieking Shack. That’s where he’s hiding.”
Harry beamed, feeling happy enough to hug the man. “Thank you!” he exclaimed, awkwardly stepping forwards with his arms open then backing up, rubbing his neck. “I… uh… I dunno where you two can go…”
“We’ll fight,” said Narcissa determinedly, but then looked back at her husband, wandless and beaten, and Goyle lying on the floor, also wandless. Harry looked over at the blank wall beside them, wondering if the Room of Requirement would still work.
“They can go to the Slytherin Common Room!” said Draco. “The dungeons, they’ll be safe there.”
“Alright, let’s go, then -”
They were interrupted by yells and shouts and the sparks of spells on spells, and turned to see flashes of bright lights before two boys with bright red hair backed up into the corridor, being pursued by masked and hooded men. Harry’s mouth fell open and his heart sank; the Death Eaters had breached Hogwarts.
The Gryffindors ran forward to help and Draco raised a hand to his parents, silently telling them to stay, before charging forwards as well. As they got closer they recognized the gingers as Fred and Percy.
“Hello, Minister!” Percy was shouting, firing a jinx at Pius Thicknesses chest, who dropped his wand to claw at his chest. “Did I mention I’m resigning?”
“You’re joking, Perce!” Fred exclaimed, the Death Eater before him collapsing from his own Stunning Spell and ones fired by Ron and Hermione. Tiny spikes were erupting out of the puppet Minister’s body, and it looked as though he was transfiguring into a sea urchin. Fred turned to grin at Percy.
“You actually are joking, Perce… I don’t think I’ve heard you joke since you were -”
BOOM!
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Fred, Percy and the two Death Eaters soared through the air and fell against the ground or walls like pebbles thrown aside from the force of the explosion.
When Harry and Draco regained some sense of their surroundings all they heard was a ringing in their ears that faded by the time they’d forced their way out of rubble which had half buried them, but thankfully they’d landing rather close and instantly scrambled over it to reach each other once they’d met each other’s gazes.
But before they could embrace they were distracted by a terrible cry beside them, one which expressed agony in its truest form; not caused by physical damage, but a loss heart wrenching and terrible. The pair helped each other to a stand, climbing down from the wreckage on swaying feet to find Hermione also struggling, also starring forwards, at a grouping of three red heads. At something that gave your insides the same agony as Percy’s scream. A sight which struck a fear unlike anything else Harry had felt that day thus far.
“No - no - no!” Percy was screaming as he shook his brother, Ron kneeling beside him, bent over and shaking with sobs. “No! Fred! No!”
But Fred’s eyes only stared up unseeing at the ceiling, the ghost of his last laugh etched permanently on his face.