Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling. This story was written for fun, not profit.
Future Imperfect
Chapter Six
"'Cause the weak will seek the weaker
'Til they've broken them.
Could you get it back again?
Would it be the same?"
-- Lifehouse, "Simon"
the present
The first clue Neville had that something was wrong was when Harry Potter burst through the doors, stopped at the edge of the Great Hall, and yelled for everyone to follow him.
The second clue was the explosion that shook the entire castle.
"Get down!" Ginny yelled, throwing herself on top of him and bearing them both to the ground. Something heavy splintered the table they had been standing by and mortar dust showered both of them. Choking and coughing, Neville grabbed Ginny and hauled her out of the way, frantically trying to find Luna or Padma in the chaos. After a few seconds a pair of strong arms tugged him to his feet and he found himself face-to-face with an ashen-faced Blaise.
"What the hell was that?" the Slytherin demanded, apparently unconcerned by the flood of panicked students running for the exit. Under the circumstances Neville was inclined to do the same. Hogwarts was supposed to be the safest magical building in Europe, even more well-protected than the Ministry. What could possibly have made it shake like that?
No time to worry about that now. "Come on!" he yelled, and began to fight his way through the crowd toward where he had last seen Harry. When Blaise gaped at him as if he was insane, he just turned and glared at him. "Find anybody who can fight! We've got to get the first and second years out of here!"
Blaise nodded and disappeared into a knot of wide-eyed, pale Slytherins. Neville thought he saw some of the professors calling for calm and to follow them, but no one was listening anyway. Everyone was trying to get out, and the pleas for some sort of order fell on deaf ears.
"Up here!" Ginny called. Somehow she had found Luna, and now the two of them each grabbed one of his hands and pulled him up onto a table. From this vantage point Neville could see Harry, Ron, and Hermione all trying to point the other students toward side exits. They seemed to be herding them at the forest, of all things - although given the state Hogwarts was in right now, maybe that wasn't such a dangerous place after all. The two Aurors who had been guarding the doors had long since vanished, although the crowd made it impossible for Neville to get near an exit now.
Another tremor shook the castle, raining more dust on everyone. The enchanted ceiling quavered and shook, and then suddenly began to shrivel up and vanish like mist into the stones. For the first time Neville saw the arches and rafters that supported the Great Hall's soaring roof. The sight made something in his gut twist.
"Where's the magic going?" Luna asked in a loud whisper. She was staring up at the ceiling too, and was clutching her wand in a white-knuckled grip. Ginny followed her gaze and started to swear under her breath, but she didn't seem to know what to do about it, either.
By now most of the younger students had been able to wedge their way out of the Great Hall, so that most of the people left were fifth, sixth, and seventh years. Among them were a number of DA members. Most of the Slytherins were gone, but Blaise, Tracey, and Theresa were all still there. So was Draco Malfoy, to Neville's astonishment, although apparently not by choice - Theresa had managed to get to him and catch his robe, and was snarling something at him that probably wasn't pleasant.
A third tremor, more powerful than the first two, almost knocked the last few first years off their feet. Something high above them came loose with an audible crack and plummeted, splintering chairs as it came down. With a sick jolt Neville remembered what Luna had asked, and realized it hadn't just been a rhetorical question. Hogwarts was held together with magic. If something took that magic away…
Malfoy seemed to realize this at the same moment he did. "Potter! What the hell did you do? The ceiling's about to come down!"
Harry paused mid-motion and turned wide eyes to the ceiling. Hermione clutched his arm and hissed something urgent at him, tugging at him and pointing toward the castle's main entrance. Beside them, the few remaining professors had gone sheet-white.
"Go on!" Ron yelled, grabbing his two friends and shoving them toward the exit. "Figure out what You-Know-Who's up to! We can finish getting them out!"
For a moment his two friends just stared at him, and then each of them reached over and clasped one of his hands. They held on for a moment as if the sheer force of their grip could somehow keep them all alive, and then suddenly Ron ripped away from them and dove into the Great Hall, all but grabbing the last few third years by their collars. Harry and Hermione turned and ran.
Neville scrambled off the table and imitated him, shoving everyone who came into reach ahead of him. Stones and mortar tumbled from the ceiling with each new tremor, which meant it was only a matter of time before the entire Great Hall caved in. It was as if they were all playing some kind of insane, deadly game of chance - and by deciding to act as a rear guard, he had thrown away whatever hope he had of winning.
But he remembered the Ministry and fifth year, and the prophecy that could have fit him if the world had gone differently. Most of all he remembered his parents. If they hadn't run away when things got bad, he wasn't about to either. He kept pushing people through the doors, all the while expecting to feel a curse slam into him or the ceiling come crashing down on top of him.
And then there were no more students left. It was just him and Ron, and Professor Sprout and Padma were both yelling for them to hurry up. Neville snagged Ron's wrist and all but dragged him out of the Great Hall. It might have been his imagination, but he was sure he could hear the rumble of the ceiling caving in as they all ran pell-mell through the castle and out into the night.
~~
Harry saw shadows moving as he approached the front entrance. He grabbed Hermione and tugged her behind a statue, holding her so close that he could feel her heart hammering against his chest. A moment later two Aurors ran by, completely missing the two half-hidden seventh years. There was shouting nearby, along with the sounds of splintering stone and the occasional chilling, high-pitched scream. Hogwarts' trembling was almost constant now. If they didn't do something fast, the entire castle would come down on all of them.
"It must be some kind of focusing charm," Hermione whispered as they crept out of hiding and began creeping forward again. "Voldemort's probably having other Death Eaters perform a modified draining spell. They must be channeling the magic to him instead of keeping it for themselves."
Harry tried to imagine what Voldemort would do with that much magic, and then realized he didn't have to. He just had to remember Helen, deadly and cold and probably insane, and Samantha, who thought this kind of destruction was normal. This had to stop.
But if Helen didn't know what to do, how was he supposed to?
Hermione was still thinking out loud, as if spilling her words out for everyone to find would somehow make them more powerful. "We'll have to attack him directly. There's no point in going after any of the channeling Death Eaters, since there must be a lot of them and we can't get them all at once."
"And we can't ask the Aurors to take care of it because they've got an army out there distracting them. Great."
Hermione caught herself on a wall as the castle heaved. "So how to do we find Voldemort?"
"We just do." He put his hand to his forehead for a moment. His scar was still burning, but the sharp pain from before had receded a little. "I'm pretty sure he's not close anymore. He must be letting the Death Eaters do his dirty work."
"Or he knows Professor Dumbledore is here." Hermione peered around a corner and then quickly ducked back against Harry. "There are a couple of professors guarding the entrance."
Harry frowned. There was no way they could get out without being seen. He gripped his wand and peeked around the corner, counting two professors before he stepped back out of sight. "It's McGonagall and Hooch. The others must be outside."
"So how do we get around them?" Hermione whispered.
Harry drew a deep breath. "We have to go back through the castle."
"We what? We'll be crushed!"
"Do you have a better idea?
She opened her mouth as if she intended to argue with him. Then squared her shoulders and tightened her grip on her wand. "All right," she said, and there was a light in her eyes that he had never seen before. Despite the situation, he managed a small smile. Hermione might not have been as reckless as him or Ron, but he felt sorry for whoever got on her bad side when she looked like that.
The two of them picked their way back through the heaving castle, choking on dust and climbing over broken statues. Twice they had to duck out of sight as anxious ghosts flitted past - probably looking for stray students, he realized with a grim smile. His scar was starting to hurt more, and there was a strange tingling amusement spreading through him that he recognized as coming from Voldemort. The evil wizard probably hadn't moved any closer, but he was definitely getting stronger by the moment.
As he and Hermione moved past the Great Hall, all thoughts of Voldemort vanished. The doorway was half-collapsed, but through a pile of cracked stone and splintered wooden beams it was possible to see that half of the ceiling had caved in. There was no sound save for the distant shouts and screams from the battle outside.
Hermione made a noise like a strange, strangled gasp and clutched at Harry's hand, staring at what was left of the Great Hall with wide eyes. Harry felt something inside him lurch. Even as he tried to tell himself that Ron and the others must have gotten out, that they were probably outside waiting for him, he kept seeing the horrible specter in his mind of his best friend crushed beneath the stones - and what would he tell Mr. and Mrs. Weasley? Could he live with that?
I would, something inside him answered. Maybe living is all I'm really good at.
"He got out," he heard himself say. With a great effort, he shook himself free of horrible what-ifs and squeezed Hermione's hand.
After a moment, she squeezed back and pulled him past the Great Hall, stumbling with him through the rubble. The castle's condition seemed to get better as they moved closer to one of the exits, and Harry felt his hopes raise with every step. He wasn't going to let Voldemort win. Not this time.
Only when he was outside, covered in dust and gasping for breath, did he realize he hadn't let go of Hermione's hand.
~~
Samantha Potter carefully adjusted her grip on Julian, holding the baby with practiced ease as she watched the flashing lights and listened to the shouts of dying men. The expression on her face suggested a kind of bemused detachment, because this was nothing strange to her. Neither were the screams. She had seen Helen fight plenty of times, and it wasn't as if the things the Death Eaters did were new to her, either.
She wished the pretty castle didn't have to fall down, but that was the way things were supposed to go, wasn't it? It was like watching a story. It never occurred to her that maybe the ending to her own little fairy tale wasn't supposed to be quite so bleak. Stories with happy endings were a peculiar novelty and tended to be reserved for the children of Voldemort's followers.
"Mama said the castle fell down before morning," she said conversationally. This meant nothing to her. Mama had said a lot of things, often muttering to herself while she worked. Samantha had understood, in a childish sort of way, that she was of secondary importance until Mama's big project was finished. Except Mama's big project hadn't worked out quite the way anybody had thought.
If it had gone right, why would anybody in their right mind have sent Helen?
A spark shot past her and slammed into the tree a few paces back, igniting it in a flash of red and gold. Samantha flinched and climbed to her feet, clamping her small hand over Julian's mouth so he wouldn't cry out.
Maybe it was time to find somewhere else to hide.