Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. This story was written for fun, not profit.
Future Imperfect
Chapter Seven
"I wish something would break
'Cause we're running out of time."
- Live, "Overcome"
the present
Ron was not happy. He was also injured, but that was of secondary importance at the moment. There were plenty things out there that could kill him, but a few cuts and scrapes weren't among them.
As far as he could tell, the professors were having all the students make for the Forbidden Forest, although what kind of sanctuary that could possibly offer was beyond the worried Head Boy. As soon as he could, he hung back and started to scan the mass of Death Eaters and Aurors fighting each other right in front of the crumbling castle. There was no sign of He-Knew-Damned-Well-Who or of Dumbledore - and more importantly, there was no sign of Harry or Hermione.
But he knew that they would be there sooner or later. His best friend and his girlfriend would be right in the thick of things, and if he could possibly help it he had to be there with them.
He took a deep breath and started toward the battle.
"Are you insane?"
A small, surprisingly strong hand grabbed him and spun him around, so that he found himself face to face with a grimy, dust-coated Padma. She was glaring at him with that strange dignity she always seemed to have, even when everything was going to hell.
"Let me go!" He twisted free and started for the fight again. In the dark he couldn't tell who was winning, or even which of the shadowy shapes were on his side.
Padma didn't grab him again. She did, however, hurry after him and fall into step beside him. "Do you have some kind of death wish?"
Ron scowled at her, but didn't answer. He might not have been book-smart like Hermione, but he wasn't an idiot. Given the way Helen had talked to him and treated him - given the way she hadn't seemed to know him the way she had half-known Harry and Hermione - it was very possible that he would be dead in a little while anyway. Or worse, of course. There was always a worse.
It was clear that Helen hated him, and that it went way beyond her standard paranoia. The only reason he could come up with was that he must have done something horrible in her past - his future - and that she still hadn't forgiven him for it. She also hadn't told him anything, which left him to wonder and come up with ever more horrifying possibilities. What if he made a mistake and people died? What if he did something terrible under the Imperius Curse?
What if, for some unfathomable reason, he wound up hurting Harry or Hermione?
In a lot of ways Ron had sympathized with Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, because he understood exactly what it was like to be willing to die for someone, and what it meant to have a friend who was closer than a brother. But he was also afraid - not of the danger he found himself in, but of somehow failing Harry.
He knew Hermione felt that, too. He remembered when she had tried to explain Muggle mathematics to him. Most of it had seemed pretty worthless, but something had stuck with him in a way that Hermione probably hadn't intended. A triangle had three points, and it was only a triangle if each of those points was connected to the other two. Almost unconsciously, he had understood that the two points that held the triangle to the ground were him and Hermione, and the one point held aloft was Harry. Failing him meant destroying the entire structure.
Maybe if Hermione or Ginny or someone else had been around, he could have articulated some of this. But there was just Padma, with her pride and her grief burning like a fuse, and she was something else entirely. He didn't know what to do with her.
"They're not putting up a real battle," she said suddenly, frowning at the pattern of flashes and flares. "It looks almost like..." She stopped abruptly and looked up at Ron. "It's a diversion."
Ron was surprised Padma had noticed - and more than a little impressed. "I know. You-Know-Who's stealing the magic from Hogwarts."
"He's what?"
"Long story." Ron drew a deep breath and tried to take in the entire situation. If Padma had prevented him from running in blindly, the least he could do was stop and figure out the best way to approach things. It helped if he thought of all of this as a big chessboard - no easy task, since hundreds of people's lives were at stake. But he had done this before, even though it had landed him in the hospital wing, and if he had to he could do it all over again. Almost unconsciously, he began to try and sort out patterns in the mess, using his vantage point to watch the way the Aurors, professors, and Death Eaters moved.
After a few moments he began to run, half-sliding down slippery grass slopes and scraping his hands on rocks and dirt. He had a good idea where You-Know-Who was, which meant that sooner or later Harry and Hermione would be there, too. The idea of actually being near the evil wizard made him feel strangely light-headed, as if this was all some kind of distant nightmare - or as if some part of him knew that running into danger really was going to get him killed this time. But he didn't have a choice.
Padma reappeared beside him, even though it must have been hard for her to keep up with his long strides. The look she gave him, daring him to ask why he had more of a right to protect loved ones than she did, stopped whatever protests he might have had.
He was glad for the company. Even though he was in the middle of a small war, he had never felt more alone in his life.
~~
Guided more by the pain in his head than anything else, Harry slowly picked his way around the sprawling battle. Hermione stayed close beside him. Spells sizzled and crackled around them, and once a stunner passed so close that Harry was left blinking red spots out of his vision for long moments afterwards. Hermione clutched his arm and guided him, half-blind and stumbling, until he managed to reorient himself.
Something stepped in front of them, coated in blood and grime like undead an apparition, and it took Harry a moment to realize it was Helen. He noticed just in time, since that moment was the only warning he had before the full force of her glare hit him.
"Why aren't you evacuating the students?" she snarled as she hunched over to catch her breath. Her gold chain had slipped free, revealing some kind of small, metallic pendant before she shoved it back under her collar.
Harry glared at her. His head hurt and his best friend could be dead at that moment, and he was in no mood to put up with Helen. "We already did," he snapped. "And the castle's coming down, in case you didn't notice!"
Helen's gaze flicked over to Hogwarts for half a second. Then the color drained from her face. She scrubbed her face, visibly attempting to pull herself together. "Damn it! I didn't expect the Dark Lord to retreat! That bastard's always in the middle of things in my time!"
"This isn't your time!" Hermione yelled, apparently heedless of the spells flying past her as she scowled up at the taller woman. "Why did you come here if you don't know anything?"
Something murderous flashed across Helen's face. "Because you told me to," she hissed through clenched teeth.
"We don't have time for this." Harry tugged at Hermione's arm until she got the message, and the two of them maneuvered around Helen and hurried on. After a moment, they heard their unsettling ally swear and follow them.
He never knew how they made it around the edge of the battle. Spells flashed between them, leaving craters in the ground in front of them. Twice he and Hermione had to stun someone cloaked all in black before either of them got hexed, and once someone with an Auror's badge pinned to their chest screamed and pitched forward into their path, twitching and gurgling. The Death Eater who had cast the curse fell back a moment later, brought down by Helen's precise, vicious spells. The young woman pushed between Harry and Hermione, planted a foot on the Death Eater's chest, and ruthlessly made a slashing motion across his throat before she continued on her way. Behind her, already forgotten, the Death Eater shook violently and then went limp.
Hermione hid her face against Harry's shoulder. "I'm going to be sick," she choked out. Harry couldn't do anything besides keep an arm around her to steady her. Despite the pain in his head, for a moment it felt like his legs wouldn't support him.
But he had to keep going. He pulled himself together - later, I can be sick later - and began to stumble along again. Hermione let out a shaky breath and followed him, occasionally touching his arm as if to reassure herself that he was still there.
And then, so suddenly that he almost stumbled, they were all in the clear. The battle was behind them, and it was just Hermione and Helen and the darkness of the forest.
Harry pressed his palm against his scar, trying to dull the suddenly searing pain. "He's in there somewhere. He's hiding in the forest."
"That's where we left Samantha and Julian!" Hermione moved toward the looming trees, as if she could somehow single-handedly drive Voldemort away from the two children.
Before she had taken more than a few steps, Helen stalked over and grabbed her shoulder, hauling her back to where Harry stood. She tore free with something that was almost a snarl. For a moment it seemed that she would forgo her wand and simply slap the time-traveler across the face.
But she was Hermione, and she clearly felt the urgency of the situation as much as he did. She gave Helen one last glare and began to survey the forest again. "We have to disrupt Voldemort's spell somehow. If I'm not completely wrong, he'll be using his own magic to help direct and control what he's stealing for Hogwarts."
"You've been wrong before," Helen growled. Hermione ignored her.
So, for the time being, did Harry. He held up his own wand. "Would this do? It blocked his curses during the Third Task."
Hermione hesitated. "I don't know," she finally admitted reluctantly. Then she squared her shoulders and nodded. "But it's the best chance we've got, isn't it?"
Harry glanced back at the battle and the trembling castle, and then at Hermione. The expression on her face - determined and worried and trusting - made something catch in his throat.
"Right," he said, squaring his shoulders, and set off into the forest. Hermione was a half-step behind him.
~~
Somehow Neville found the presence of mind to stop running. He wasn't entirely clear on the hows or whys, just on the fact that somebody ought to stay and see what was happening and to look for stragglers. Besides, Harry and Hermione were still back there somewhere, and he didn't want to leave his friends.
"Where the hell is Ron?" Ginny snapped as she stumbled over to him. She and Luna both looked rather the worse for wear, but they hadn't followed the professors and the rest of the students into the forest. Neither had a few others. Dean and Colin were both still there, and so was Colin's little brother Dennis - still searching, no doubt, for his missing friend Natalie McDonald.
But there was no sign of Ron, or of Padma Patil. Neville scanned the battle as he caught his breath, searching in vain for the missing seventh years. "Maybe they went ahead into the forest?"
It was a stupid guess and they all knew it, but Ginny nodded anyway. "Yeah," she said, as if agreeing would make it true. Then she gave Neville a sort of savage half-smile. "So I guess we're the rear guard?"
"Looks like." He looked away from Ginny long enough to count who had stayed behind. To his surprise, most of the surviving members of the DA had straggled into view. So had Blaise, Tracey, and Theresa - the latter still twisting Malfoy's arm behind his back.
The Slytherin prefect seemed to notice him watching. His eyes narrowed to gray slits and he began to struggle harder until Theresa got a better grip on his arm. Even that didn't shut him up. ""There's a war going on down there!" he hissed. "Why in hell are you staying behind?"
Neville expected one of Malfoy's housemates to answer, but they didn't. They just looked at him. He felt something strange and bright inside him, pride in the fact that he was being looked to and considered a leader. He didn't even know how it had happened, but it was nice. Maybe this was what regular people felt all the time.
But he wasn't a regular person, he realized immediately. He remembered what he had understood earlier - that there had to be a trio and a Harry Potter, even if the people were less important than the symbols. And now there was a crisis and Harry was missing, so of course the weight of that symbol had to fall on someone else. As prophecy and sheer bad luck would have it, that someone was him.
I don't want this, he thought, quickly and fleetingly, and then the moment had come and gone. He drew himself to his full height and glared at Malfoy. "We're staying behind because somebody has to," he said, and then ignored the bully in favor of the other members of the DA. "Susan, Justin, I need you to get up in one of the bigger trees and pick off anybody suspicious at a distance. Hannah, Seamus, Dennis, you go back a ways and stun whoever gets past the rest of us. Theresa and Tracey, find out if Malfoy knows anything about this. And everybody else..."
He fell silent. Something like a heavy weight pressed on his heart. What he decided now would probably mean life or death for some of his friends and classmates, and he wasn't sure he could do that.
Except somebody had to. "Everybody else find some kind of cover," he finished softly, and looked away. There were dark shapes moving toward the forest now, no doubt aware of where the students had run to. Some of them were already shooting hexes blindly into the trees.
He sensed more than saw somebody move to stand beside him. When he turned his head toward the presence, he saw Ginny watching him with a strange, intense expression.
"You'd be a good leader," she said. Her voice was so soft that he almost didn't hear her.
But he did. He even risked a small smile. "Even if I don't want to be?"
She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. He rested his hand on hers for a moment, strangely reassured by her presence, and waited for his own small battle to start.