Shadowed

The four reappeared in the middle of an open field, surrounded by rolling hills of yellowed grass. Neville’s hand let go of Harry’s, and Harry heard him mutter an apology for how clammy his hand was. They both stayed crouched under the cloak, but the second Ron and Dean began to sprint towards the light metal box in the near distance, Harry and Neville stepped through the shimmering anti-apparition ward and began to run as well.

From the corner of his eye as they passed, Harry saw Dean and Ron holding off the Death Eater guards, who weren’t too skilled duellists from the look of it. The metal box had two doors on the front of it that looked identical to a muggle elevator. On a panel next to it was a red button. Harry pressed it, and the doors opened instantly. Two Death Eaters were inside, leaning against the back wall lazily. Neither had time to draw their wand before Neville and Harry simultaneously hit them with “stupefy!”

Six more fighters came bounding across the field, and helped to knock out the guards that Ron and Dean were still dueling.

“Harry? Neville? Are you two in there?” Terry Boot asked, running a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. Harry thought he heard him mutter something along the lines of needing a haircut.

Neville stepped out from under the cloak, and Harry took it off from over his head. Terry stared at the cloak with a hint of awe in his eyes. He was one of the few Resistance members who still thought the Invisibility Cloak was the neatest thing they had ever seen.

“Everyone, get in.” Flitwick pushed past Terry and stood next to Harry. “You all have forgotten that timing is essential in missions such as this. We should’ve done training beforehand.”

Harry grimaced, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. They had slid down due to the sweat of running in the hot weather under the heavy cloak.

The ten of them all crowded into the elevator with the two unconscious guards propped against the wall. Besides Terry and Flitwick, the group now contained Ginny, Oliver, Moody, and Remus. Moody pressed the red button inside of the elevator, and waited for the doors to close.

After seconds that seemed like minutes, the doors began to close. Painstakingly slowly.

“In the plans, I didn’t account for the elevator mechanics to be so shit.” Ron murmured. Harry tried to hold back a laugh, but the whisky in his veins was making it hard to keep a hold of his emotions. He hadn’t remembered that he was such a lightweight.

When at last the doors closed, the elevator started its descent underground. From the map Moody had drawn out, there was a small tunnel from the elevator exit to the prison entrance. There were two guards stationed within. Harry was trying to get his breathing steady, to prepare himself for the fight ahead.

The slow speed of the elevator was almost comical. Harry leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and pursing his lips impatiently. At one side of him stood Ginny. She looked up at him, and squeezed his hand encouragingly. On the other side, Neville and Terry began to play rock paper scissors. Harry could smell whiffs of boomslang on one or both of them. So, he hadn’t been the only one to poison himself before they left. Oliver began to softly whistle a tune from an old Bent-Winged Snitches song, and Ron, who had been impatiently tapping his fingers against his thigh, began to drum them against the elevator wall to the tune of the song.

“Stop that.” Moody snapped at Oliver, and then whisked his head around to glare at Neville and Terry. They took a step apart from each other sheepishly. Flitwick was right; the lack of missions in the past few months had made them all let down their guard.

Then again, what else was there to do in an elevator that descended so agonizingly slow?

At last, it slowed to a stop. Harry stood up straight and grabbed his wand. Around him, everyone else did the same. The doors opened. There was the beginning of a shout outside before Moody cast a nonverbal spell and the noise ceased. Moving quickly, the group hurried out of the elevator and down the tunnel. It was made of solid concrete, with torches lining the walls. At the end were two metal doors, each with a handle to open it. From what Harry could tell, there weren’t any protective spells on the doors. The two guards who had been keeping watch were unconscious off to the side. They had been taken care of before Harry had even stepped foot into the tunnel.

Wordlessly, Remus grabbed one of the handles and swung open one of the doors. In front of them was a wide room, with a few armchairs and couches on wood paneled floors. Was that where the guards spent their time when they weren’t interrogating prisoners? Suddenly, the air around became full of magic. Harry cast a shield charm just as a curse nearly hit his face. Perhaps I should think about ditching my glasses as well, he thought offhandedly. In front of him stood a Death Eater guard, adorned in typical black robes. However, he was lacking the usual off putting mask that Voldemort’s soldiers usually wore. The Death Eater cast spell after spell, and Harry felt his shield wearing thin. Around him, the Resistance members were steadily taking down the guards. Though they were twice outnumbered, the Death Eaters stationed at the prison appeared to be untalented and unprepared for such an attack. When Harry felt his shield fall, he quickly jumped to the side to avoid another curse, and murmured “expelliarmus.” The wizard’s wand flew from his hand, and Harry stupefied him instantly.

The double doors behind him opened wider, and the second wave came running in. Harry cast another shield and moved back to help defend the new arrivals. Though he couldn’t keep an eye on them, he saw the second wave disappear around a corner, leaving the first wave to continue fighting. It didn’t matter if they managed to knock out all the Death Eaters. The only important thing was that they gave the other Resistance members time to rescue the prisoners.

For what felt like hours, Harry dueled guard after guard. So far, no one had been seriously injured that he had seen. There were a few bodies across the floor, but they were all from the enemy’s side.

As if he had jinxed the battle, one of the fighters across the room wordlessly collapsed. Harry saw a speck of blonde hair disappear beneath the crowd. No one around seemed to notice, not even when the Death Eater he had been battling turned and ran the same direction the second wave had. Harry contemplated going after them, but decided not to. Ten wizards versus one Death Eater wouldn’t be a hard fight. Instead, he opted to run over to where the Resistance member had been fighting, and defend the body until it was possible to heal them. As he rushed over, Harry’s mind split between two possibilities. Would covering the body bring more attention from Death Eaters, or would the body being unguarded be worse?

Sirius would’ve guarded the fallen fighter, even if it cost him his life. If the body wasn’t seriously injured, there was the possibility that a guard would try and make him.

When Harry reached the body (a man’s), he instinctively nudged it over with his foot, while keeping a hand on his wand and an eye on his surroundings. He was relieved to find that there was no bloody wound. Instead, there was a sticky dark orange substance quickly spreading across the victim’s face. It was transparent, almost like gelatin, but fizzy like a bottle of pop. The nose and mouth were completely covered, and Harry watched as the substance spread over the two closed eyes within seconds. Though unconscious, the body began to convulse.

Not only was the substance devouring the face, it was also suffocating the victim. The spinning gears within Harry’s head paused. A memory from the past week shot to the forefront of his mind. Snape, with his wand pointed at an apple, cast a curse that had recently been made available to the Death Eaters. The substance, which apparently originated in Flesh-Eating slugs, shot from the wand and began to consume the apple like an invisible vacuum sucking away all the fruit. But what was the counter-spell? As the memory continued, and the seizing of the body along with it, a faint outline of words wrote themselves onto Harry’s tongue before he realized what was happening. He shouted them assertively, because he had learned that with magic, it could somehow sense when a user was lacking confidence, and backfire.

To his relief that came and went within seconds, the slime seemed to melt into water. It became less opaque, sliding onto the floor and sinking through the floorboards. Even from his standing position, Harry could see that the wizard’s face was absolutely mangled. His stomach began to churn as he registered the state of the skin that had been under the mucus. It was as if a toddler had used red finger paint across the person’s skin. The wizard’s lips and most of his cheeks were gone, showing muscle and gum underneath. The flesh on his nose and under one eye were gone as well. For a nose, there was a single piece of cartilage protruding from his face. Blood had begun to well and drip in streams into puddles on the floor. The body was no longer convulsing, though. That thought was Harry’s attempt at making the glass half full instead of utterly empty.

Panic re-entered his mind just as soon as it had left, as when he turned away, the body continued to seize. No, it wasn’t seizing; it shook once, then stopped. Was that the halting of a last breath? If so, why did Harry feel himself seize and sway as well? In fact, the entire array of soldiers on the lower floor had. Accompanying the shaking of the building was a thunderous crash from somewhere that managed to drown the screams and whistling noises of spells piercing the air.

The world around Harry continued to shift as a Death Eater flew into him, sending them both to the ground. The Death Eater’s face was blank, but alive, a result of being stupefied. Harry’s lungs were being compressed. He couldn’t breathe. Gosh, how helpless he looked, sitting on the floor and struggling to get air into his body. At last, he forced his breath back into his lungs, and stood shakily.

“Harry!”

Ginny was standing by the stairs, beckoning him. Other Resistance members seemed to catch her cue, and began to run past her. Harry followed the others, stooping down to grab the body on his way. When it was too heavy, he hastily cast a levitation charm, and let the floating wizard stay between he and Ginny while they met and began to sprint upstairs and towards a pair of doors that had been blown off their hinges.

The two side-stepped the splintered doors that continued to litter the hall, most of which were iron cell doors that had been sloppily removed to free the prisoners inside. Harry thought to make a positive comment about how successful it seemed the mission had been, but found his breath was still missing.

Another staircase was waiting for them, which they somehow had the energy to climb. Again, there were doors across the floor, as well as stupefied Death Eaters watching the Resistance members with wide eyes. There was a dented metal door near the end of the hall. Its twin had been removed and thrown into an open cell. Harry, Ginny, and the floating wizard ran through the small doorway.

Harry couldn’t help but pause for a moment to analyze what lay beyond the doors. The map of the prison projected itself behind his eyes, which included the fact that members of the Resistance were all kept in their own heavily guarded section, a detail Harry had forgotten. Though the layout of the more secure area didn’t differ much from the rest of the prison, there were significant differences. The cells were narrower and closer to the wall, leaving more space in the center of the room. Within each cell were cuffs hanging from the ceiling. A few cells had traces of blood on the floor. The room's center was cleaner, but if he looked closely, Harry could see maroon hidden within every crack and crevice in the floor. A metal chair was the centerpiece of the space. It had two cuffs on the armrests, two on the legs, and a few leather straps to restrain the rest of the body. There was a lever on the side that Harry decided transformed the chair into a flat surface, perhaps for a more disorienting interrogation process.

Sunlight shone through a colossal hole in the wall that was the probable cause of the building’s shake. It covered most of the back wall as well as a portion of the ceiling. The edges were charred. Parts were on fire, dropping ash onto the floor below. Ginny was already across the room. Harry followed, and the two stepped out onto the vibrant grass that so greatly contrasted the depressing color scheme of the prison interior. A few Resistance members were running in front of them. Harry watched as they passed the anti-apparition wards, and vanished instantly. Some had bodies they were manually dragging or levitating. Surprisingly, there were no Death Eaters in sight.

The shimmer of the wards was quickly approaching. Ginny passed first, then waited for the faceless wizard and Harry. Once the three were beyond the magical confines of the prison, Ginny was fast to grab both their arms and apparate away.

They reappeared in the hallway outside of the hospital ward, which wasn’t as crowded as it had been after previous missions, to Harry’s surprise. However, as they entered the room, he could tell why. Madame Pomfrey was stationed by the door, looking over every injury and determining whether the victim would remain in Grimmauld Place, or would be taken to another safe house where they could easily be healed. She sent a witch dripping blood and moaning in pain to the hospital safe house in Bibury, and an older wizard missing an eye and breathing raggedly to Charlie’s safe house in Hallstatt. When she saw the body in front of Harry, her face slightly darkened, and she turned to see how many beds were still open. She eyed one by the front, and pointed towards it.

Harry countered the levitation charm, setting the body gently in the bed. Almost instantly, the pillow became soaked with the blood that had turned the wizard’s blonde hair red. Hermione finished an incantation she had been performing on another patient and hurried over. She had less of a reaction than Madame Pomfrey had.

“Who is this?” She demanded.

Harry opened his mouth, but no words came out. He swallowed and tried again. “I’ve no idea. He had the, um, flesh-eating slug on his face, so I countered it and…”

The edge of the sweater the victim was wearing caught Harry’s eye. It was various yellows and browns, messily handwoven. Upon further inspection, Harry saw drops of blood scattered across it.

Bile rose in his throat as Harry looked at the torn apart face in a new light. “Neville?” He muttered in disbelief. The name came out more as an inaudible squeak.

Ginny’s brow furrowed, and then rose as she realized what Harry had said.

Hermione simply nodded. “He’ll be fine. It’s good that you countered it when you did.”

Harry opened his mouth to thank her, but Hermione was already back in her own world, eyes glazed while she began to clean Neville’s face. Ginny placed a gentle hand onto his shoulder, prompting him to turn and leave behind the darkness of the ward.

Ginny’s hand, covered in sweat and coated in dirt, was grasped by Harry’s. They walked down the second floor hallway, avoiding Resistance members who were running in with injured fighters behind them. The staircase to the first floor was like a dream. It was so familiar that, compared to the recent landscape, it didn’t seem real.

The drawing room was surprisingly empty. Alicia Spinnet was asleep on one of the couches, half of her body dangling off the side. Michael and Terry were passed out on the rug. Terry snored heavily, which drew a smile of amusement from Ginny. She and Harry claimed the other couch. The moment Harry sat down, an overwhelming urge to kiss Ginny claimed his mind, compared to his usual nicotine craving. His heart was still racing with everything that had happened in the past few hours. He was struggling to grasp the idea that he was safe, and could rest. Ginny was right there. She looked so perfect, especially then, through the filter of adrenaline. He needed that physical comfort.

Yet, Ginny’s head was thrown back. Her eyes were one of the chandeliers above. Harry watched her chest rise and fall a few times, to try and match his rapid breaths to her meticulous calm ones. She was a work of art, he thought, and he wouldn’t mind studying her forever. At last, she seemed to feel his gaze. Her eyes met his, and her head rose slightly to turn towards him. Harry brushed a hand through her hair, causing a smile to form on both their faces. While he continued to run his fingers through it, her shoulders slumped and her eyes closed, as if she was asleep. Harry couldn’t believe that just twenty minutes earlier, he had been sprinting across a battlefield. Then, on the other hand, he couldn’t believe much about his life. The bad was so frequent that he forced himself to normalize it, which made the good moments seem even more dreamlike. Any moment, he would wake up, and Ginny would be gone. Maybe he would even be back in his cupboard under the closet.

Sometimes, he wished he would. Everything would be easier had he never received that Hogwarts acceptance better. Yes, he would be miserable, but he would be safe. There was a question that could drive him to insanity: happiness or safety? If he had a choice, which would he choose? That’s the idea that seemed to separate the Order at times. Those who supported the use of the dark arts wanted the feeling of security to return to their lives, despite the fact that they would never feel the warmth of a love or a laugh again. On the other hand, those against the dark arts would prefer to always watch their own backs if it meant they could have a bit of light in their world.

While he thought, he watched as Ginny reached up to scratch her cheek. Her eyes opened slightly when she realized her dirt coated hands had left a streak of dust and mud on her face. This realization was accompanied with a slight chuckle. Harry couldn’t help but pout when she sat up and stretched her arms with a pop.

“I should probably shower.” She said. Her voice was weighted with exhaustion, despite it only being a few hours after noon. “And you need rest. Moody will probably call a meeting first thing tomorrow morning. I don’t think he’ll be too pleased if you fall asleep during it.” She nudged his foot with hers playfully.

The strains of whiskey and adrenaline in Harry’s bloodstream combined with the grounded feeling Ginny brought on made him feel dazed. He nuzzled her shoulder like a child. “Do you think we could go swimming? Think about that. An entire Order and DA pool party. I mean, it’s such a nice day out.” He slurred.

Ginny grimaced at the thought. “To be perfectly honest, if I saw Dedalus in a swimsuit, that might well be my Boggart for the rest of my life.” She looked down at Harry nestled into her shoulder. “You should sleep, Harry. I’ll join you after I shower.”

“Would you mind if I joined you in the shower?” He murmured, trying to play it off as innocent as he could.

Ginny stood slowly, and twisted her face as if she was deep in thought. The familiar smirk returned to her lips. “No, I don’t think I would mind if you did.” With that comment, she began to make her way towards the short hallway that led to her bedroom and bathroom.

Full of warmth that, for once, wasn’t brought on by cigarette smoke, Harry followed.