~~ 13 ~~
One Last Stand
"Why am I fighting to live if I'm just living to fight
Why am I trying to see when there is nothing in sight
Why am I trying to give when no one gives me a try
Why am I dying to live when I'm just living to die?"
--Tupac
The pain is fading now, taking with it the cold laughter. I am struggling to my feet with adrenaline pumping through my veins alongside my chilled blood. Everyone now surrounds me, asking questions, begging to know what happened, and why I had collapsed. Hermione's hand is on my shoulder, saying nothing, but looking at me in concern. I have no time for their pointless inquisitions-our lives are all on the line.
Voldemort is coming; he's almost here. I know this as clearly as if I'd been told, and yet it makes no sense as to why I should know something like that. How could I, from laughter? But logical or not, I trust it, and my instinct is all I have to go on now.
"Get out!" I cry hoarsely, silencing them all.
"Harry," Sirius begins worriedly, moving toward me. I step back, shaking my head, and he stops. He is frowning and looks as though he fears for my sanity.
"Do as I say!" I yell, well aware of the wild, unreasonable tone to my voice. "He's coming, don't you understand? Forget our plans, forget everything! They're worthless, because he's here, now!"
Another silence. My frustration is enough to make me scream. What is wrong with them all? Why can't they understand? Why don't they just listen to me instead of standing here like deer in the headlights? Fear is written on every face now, but no one seems to believe it enough to do anything.
Sirius looks as though he is going to try to quiet me again-and if he had, I cannot say what I'd have done-but Dumbledore holds up a hand, his expression grim, his eyes locked into mine. I can see he believes and understands as I do. I see the wisdom of a century in his tired, bleak-looking light blue eyes, and it is with that wisdom that he can know that what I speak is the truth. He gives a slight nod. "Listen to him," he orders in his mild manner.
"Go, now!" I repeat, almost panicking. "We have no time to talk! We voted to run and if we want our lives to be prolonged enough to see the dawn, we have to do it now. Run and hide in the woods. Separate, but stay with at least one or two of the others. If you hear three owl hoots, it's me, or another group. Respond with two hoots to help them or me find you. Do not fight any enemy unless you have no choice. Now get out!"
My word combined with Dumbledore's seems to have done the trick. I watch, my heart pounding and my throat tight as my friends snap from their stupor and practically trample each other attempting to get out the door. The most unnerving thing of it all is the utter silence with which they do it. In Muggle movies and books, such scenes always take place with everyone screaming their heads off, or at least talking. But here, not a word is spoken. They are all terrified, but it is a silent and eerie terror with which they flee.
I stand back and catch Fred's arm as he is trying to make is way through the mob. "Where's Ron?" I demand.
"Uh . . . in the back room . . ." Fred says, realizing it as though for the first time, his eyes widening. He turns and looks as though he is about to run back down the hall, but I stop him.
I give a sharp shake of the head. "No, I'll do it," I say firmly. "Get out now."
Fred, after a moment's hesitation, complies with a nod, running out the door and into the blackness of the snowstorm beyond. I see Dumbledore and Sirius have hung back with me.
I turn to face them and take a deep breath, trying to remain calm. "Professor," I say to Dumbledore with as much respect as I can muster through my fear, "go with them, if you will. Try to keep them organized. They'll listen to you, and things are going to get messy out there. They'll need order if they've got any chance. I've got to collect Ron."
Dumbledore nods slowly. "Do as you must, Harry. I shall follow your orders. I trust you as I trust no other. But be careful," he states, placing a hand on my shoulder temporarily, a sign of his trust. He looks to Sirius and says firmly "He will be fine. Come."
Sirius looks at me, and nothing is spoken, but no words are needed. I can see everything he'd say to me if time allowed, everything you'd say to someone you care for deeply when you fear the end has come at last. The moment lasts for an eternity and a fraction of an instant at the same time, and then our eye contact is broken as Dumbledore pulls him out the door.
I begin to run toward the hall when a hand on my arm halts me. I spin, half expecting a Death Eater to be waiting, but instead I see only Hermione, standing there awkwardly.
"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice going high and squeaky with panic. "Get out while you can!"
"No," she says, her voice calm to contrast her pale face and frightened eyes. "Harry, I'm not leaving you."
"Hermione, don't be foolish," I say. "I'm not letting you die here. Please, get out!"
She shakes her head. "You've never left me," she says. "Not once. You've stuck beside me no matter what, and I'm not about to run away from you because things are getting rough. I'm staying by your side to the end, be that end good or bad. And there's nothing you can do to stop me from keeping that promise."
I feel a moment of deep affection for her, and for an instant all I want to do is kiss her again, but my panic and the distant, fading footsteps of my fleeing comrades keeps me from showing it. I nod bluntly. "All right," I sigh. "Just stay behind me."
We make it down the hall to where the rooms are. The door to the room Ron and I share is locked, much to my irritation. I let out a growl of frustration. My situation is moving at far too fast a pace. If you've ever been in a situation where you know deep in your heart that time is short, you understand how I feel. The rushing adrenaline, the fast heartbeat, the rapid breathing, and the way you can't seem to stop moving-that's what I am experiencing now. I understand that we have precious little time left, and too much of our time has been spent talking. It seems as though we have so much less than we actually do, and my urgency grows with each passing instant. With each minute, I feel more and more as though I will explode from panic.
I pound on the door. "Ron, open up!" I yell, my voice edged with fear.
"Harry, go away," comes a bleary, muffled voice. "I don't want to discuss tactics tonight, okay?"
"He's here!" I yell back, not even bothering to stop pounding, just grateful to be moving somehow. "Voldemort is here, and we have to get out! Open up!"
Two seconds later I can hear him fumbling with the lock. The door is opened and he stands staring at me, eyes wide, face pale and disbelieving. "What is this?" he demands, not with hostility, but with fright.
I push him out of the doorway and Hermione and I rush in. I turn and slam the door quickly behind me, locking it with my wand, in case the Death Eaters arrive while we are still in here. The darkness is so deep in here that I can barely see, and I light my wand. I nod toward the window. "Get out!" I command. "Wait for me just below the sill! Grab your wand if you don't have it and be ready for Death Eaters!"
Ron, looking dazed, nods. I doubt if his mind has even fully comprehended what I'm saying yet. He goes to the window and slides out of it. I use up precious seconds to run to the table next to my bed and grab a pair of my pants. I throw them to Hermione and she catches them, looking at me in confusion.
"We're going to be outside for a long time, I have a feeling," I say bluntly. "You'll never make it in a skirt. Change and come out. We'll be waiting."
"No, Harry, don't wait!" she argues. "Just run. I'll catch up."
"Hermione, you promised you wouldn't leave my side," I say, standing next to the window. "Well the same goes for me. We're in this together. So just do it!"
With that, I catapult myself over the windowsill, landing about three feet to the side of where Ron is kneeling. I extinguish my wand, well aware that letting the light penetrate the darkness would be as good as sending out a beacon to summon death. The storm of earlier is still howling and whooping all around me, and I begin to feel compassion for Sirius, having to spend an hour out in it. Even with warm clothes and a jacket, the wind is tearing through down to my skin. I don't regret having Hermione change-had she not, she'd have made it little more than a quarter of a mile before collapsing of hypothermia.
"Harry, what's happening?" Ron demands, his voice full of terror and disbelief.
"Voldemort is here. He's here, and it's over," I reply hoarsely, well aware that I must sound optimistic enough to make anyone want to keep fighting. "It's all over."
"So that's it?" he whispers, his voice so low I can hardly hear him over the wind. "We're going to die here tonight?"
I feel guilt come over me. What kind of leader am I, making my friends feel as though all hope has gone? "No, of course not," I lie in a half-hearted attempt to reassure him of something I don't even believe myself. "Don't listen to me, I'm just being pessimistic. We'll make it out, don't worry."
My voice is not even convincing to myself, and I certainly don't expect Ron to believe it.
Hermione's soft voice drifts down from directly above where I'm crouching. "I'm coming down now," she warns.
Ron and I stand and move out of the way. I can hear the thud of Hermione as she hits the snow a moment later.
"Harry, where are you?" she asks worriedly, clearly as blinded by the darkness as I am.
I cover the tip of my wand with my shirt and whisper, "Lumos!" A light surrounds us, dimmed somewhat by the cloth over it. I am tense, having even this little amount of light. I want nothing more than to put it out immediately, but can't bring myself to do it, seeing the slightly relieved looks on my friends' faces.
"Now what?" Hermione asks, her voice taut.
A good question. "Er . . . I guess we should do what I told everyone else to do-hide in the woods," I say. I try to make it sound firm, like an order should, but it comes out sounding more like a question.
"Yeah . . . yeah, okay," Ron mutters. His face is still very pale and I can see that he is really starting to realize the sense of doom that has been upon me for hours. He isn't handling it much better than I did, either.
"Hermione, you have any better ideas?" I ask quietly.
She holds up a hand, her face turned in the other direction. Her eyes are narrowed and if she were a dog on the hunt, I feel sure that her ears would have been pointed slightly forward in intense focus. "Shh," she whispers.
Ron and I obediently fall silent. While I must focus with all my might to hear over the roaring of the wind, after a few seconds, I hear the dull murmur of voices and the crunching of feet upon crusty snow. I know in my heart, just as I'd known earlier that Voldemort was coming, that those sounds are not coming from my friends.
"Damn," I whisper. "It's the Death Eaters!" I hurriedly extinguish my wand and pray it is not too late. My heart is racing again. "Grab hands," I instruct, no question in my voice now. "I don't want us to lose each other in this storm, we can't risk the light. We head for the trees, now! Just keep running, doesn't matter where we're going as long as it's away from here."
I feel Hermione tentatively grasp my right hand, and after an instant, I ask, "Ready?"
They both respond quietly that they are, and I begin to pull them forward. The insanity of this entire situation is weighing on me. We're running through a blizzard in the forest, completely blinded by darkness, with Death Eaters roaming around us. If we survive to see the sun top the trees one more time, it will be a miracle.
Though when I'd imagined our escape, I'd pictured us running desperately, our retreat now is staggering and slow. None of us want to go too fast and run into a tree-or worse, a Death Eater.
Distantly, out of my peripheral vision, I can see the bobbing of wand lights. The Death Eaters, searching for us. My urge to hasten our retreat is magnified by a hundred and I begin to pull Hermione and Ron forward faster. I can hear their whispered pleas to slow down, but do not heed them.
I soon find myself paying the price for my haste. I hear Ron cry out and suddenly I am being pulled to the snow alongside he and Hermione. I hit hard and feel a good deal of air explode out of my lungs.
"What happened?" I ask.
"I tripped," Ron replies. "I told you to slow down! I can't see where I'm-"
"Be quiet!" Hermione hisses. "Don't move."
Once again, her hearing is keener than mine, and after a few instants, I can pick out a high-pitched voice that is colder than the frigid wind around us. It succeeds in freezing me as the air has yet to do. Voldemort's voice. I can hear only parts of what he is saying, depending on whether the wind was howling or at a lull.
". . . Escaped . . . hiding, probably . . . burn . . . can't come back . . . teach them . . . in charge!"
Through my panicked brain, I try to put together the missing pieces of that bit of conversation, but the fear, and chill, and screaming wind won't let me think at all. I start to slowly get to my knees. We have to get out of here before they come close enough to see us. They're already too close for comfort-with the light from their wands, I can see some of the mens' silhouettes. But just as I am trying, Hermione pulls me back down.
"Don't," she repeats.
"We can't stay here," I hiss. "They're going to see us!"
I don't hear any response, because in that instant, all sound-even the wind-is drowned out by an explosion of horrific proportions. The chill of the night is suddenly gone and all around me is a wave of nearly unbearable hot air. Crimson and orange light now fills the black void that had been before me moments before. In an odd sort of stupor, I feel myself being picked up from the ground and thrown several feet. I hit the ground hard on my back, now much further away than I was before. My head strikes the ground hard upon impact-just my luck I had to get a section of the ground that wasn't six feet deep in snow-and my vision swims.
Slowly, as my eyes clear, I use my arms to push myself up into an almost-sitting position. The sight I am immediately confronted with is one that shocks me. Our house, our hideout of many months, is up in flames. Yellow, and orange, and red tongues of flame lick at the darkness, and devour our home, our belongings, all of our few, remaining possessions. All gone in that greedy inferno.
I can't take my eyes away from it. It is almost hypnotic. I notice dimly that the lenses of my glasses are wet with snow, but do not make a motion to wipe them off. He's taken everything, I realize. Our families, our friends, our lives, and now the few things we've managed to accumulate-Voldemort has taken them. There's nothing left. We're the only things he has yet to destroy. And I know with a horrible, sinking sickness that if it wasn't the connection between us that is my scar, we'd all have been inside there right now, burning to ashes along with our things. A lovely bit of irony-his first attempt to kill me is what has foiled all those after.
I finally manage to pull my eyes away from it, and look around for Ron and Hermione. The light of the fire has illuminated much of the surroundings-enough to see at least. While that's a relief in one sense, it's terrifying in another. The Death Eaters are too busy whooping and watching the show of our home burning right now to notice our surroundings, but sooner or later, someone's going to spot us.
Ron is laying some distance off to the side of me. He is half buried in a deep snowdrift and his eyes are also fixed on the flames. I push myself to my feet, feeling my headache increase sharply as I stand. I sway on my feet at first, an array of black dots swarming up before my eyes and blocking my vision. But after a moment they recede, and I run quickly to where Ron is trying to climb out of the snowdrift.
I help pull him out wordlessly. His eyes never leave the flames.
"He's taken everything, Harry," he whispers in a voice of misery mixed with anger. "Every last bloody thing."
"Not yet, he hasn't," I reply. "He doesn't have us." What I do not say aloud is my uncertainty at how long that will remain true. "Where's Hermione?"
He shakes his head a little, as though trying to clear it, and looks around. "I . . . I don't know," he murmurs.
I look around myself wildly. She can't have been seen, I think desperately. As most wild, panicked thoughts turn out, I am wrong. She is lying some distance away, at the base of a tree. She is motionless, still lying on the ground. I am struck by the thought that she must have hit the tree when the explosion threw her. She's likely unconscious.
I pull Ron along toward where she is laying. I am grateful to see that it is further back into the woods, for the Death Eaters are beginning to move around now, and we haven't much time left before Voldemort sends them to scour the woods for us, as he inevitably will.
I kneel by her side and feel for a pulse at her neck. It is there, beating strong. Just as I brush some hair out of her eyes, I feel her begin to stir.
Hermione's eyes begin to flutter open and she groans lowly. She shifts over so she's on her back and looks up at Ron and I. Her eyes widen. "What . . . ?" she asks in confusion.
"Sit up," I say gently, helping her do just that. Her eyes widen as she sees the flames overtaking the house beyond. The roof has collapsed and the fire's greedy teeth are now chewing along the walls like millions of starved termites. "Are you okay?"
She nods slowly, still staring. "Oh, Merlin," she whispers. "Harry, this all my fault."
"Stop saying that," I growl. "This would have happened eventually anyway. He was always coming for us, and we always knew he'd find us one day-sooner, later, what does it matter in the long run? Now stand up and let's get going before they start coming after us."
She pushes herself to her feet, ignoring the hand I hold out to help her. I steady her when she looks as though she is about to topple over. I hope she didn't hit her head too hard.
"You ready?" I ask, and she nods. I look to Ron and he does the same. I am struck by how unexpected it is, the three of us together again in a life or death situation, like so many times before. But looking back on it now, I was never so dead sure that we didn't stand a chance.
A/n: I know, this is a stupid place to stop a chapter. This chapter is actually 22 pages long and 11,000 words, but the site won't let me upload it all in one piece. I'm uploading the second half of this immediately after this goes up. Sorry to break it in two, but I had to. Don't judge this chapter before you read the whole thing, please. Thanks.