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Ch44: THE SACRIFICE
PART TWO
It would help me to know
Do I stand in your way, or am I the best thing you've had?
We are young, heartache to heartache we stand
No promises, no demands
Love is a battlefield
Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar
The three Death Eaters attacked simultaneously. Hermione cried out and ducked, a curse soaring over her head. Harry sidestepped the other two curses which were directed at him. He could see that the Death Eaters prepared themselves to fire again, but they were slow - too slow to be doing it by their own will, he thought - and he fired three quick "Finite Incantatem!" towards them. To Harry's surprise they all hit their target and the Death Eaters fell to their knees. The mask to the one furthest to Harry's right fell off and Harry realised he had been right as he saw the distant and confused look in the man's eyes; they had been Imperiused...
However, the Dark Lord had already summoned the fallen Death Eaters wands and pointed out three more Death Eaters from the crowd, and Harry paid no more attention to the ones who had already fallen. He was encouraged by how fast he had taken the previous ones down and he tried the same "Finite Incantatem" spell on the new Death Eaters, but this time only one of his spells hit target and nothing happened. Harry tightened his jaw. He should've known they all wouldn't be that easy. It was likely that only the three first ones had been under the Imperio spell.
They all circled each other for a while without attacking. Hermione held herself close to Harry, but made sure to give him enough space to move and dodge. Other than that she didn't pay him much attention; she was concentrating on the Death Eaters around them. She had no wand to protect herself with so she depended on her ability to move away the second a curse was fired towards her.
Suddenly a Death Eater shouted a curse, but Harry was ready and blocked it with a flick of his wand. It helped that the Death Eater said the curse out load. The next Death Eater who fired also yelled out load - "stupefy!" - only this time it was directed towards Hermione. Another stupefy curse was fired towards Harry. Harry, who wanted to keep his spells silent, exclaimed a `Protego!' inside his head to make a shield for Hermione and dodged the curse which was soaring towards him. However, Hermione had managed to dodge the first curse anyway so there had been no real use for Harry's shield, but Harry would rather be safe than sorry. Adrenalin and something else was surging through his veins, making Harry breathe hard even though he had not yet begun to tire. He swallowed when he recognised the `something else' he was feeling: it was the Dark Arts begging to be released. Firing a disarming spell towards the Death Eater closest to Hermione Harry allowed himself to cast a quick glance at her. He knew she wouldn't approve if he used any Dark Arts, but at the same time he knew that if he had to use them, he would.
The disarming spell he had shot had hit its target, and the Dark Lord wasted no time in calling that Death Eater out and another one in. Four down, Harry thought; trying to encourage himself.
A new stunner was fired towards Hermione and Harry raised a new shield for her just in time: she wouldn't have dodged quickly enough this time. A new curse that seemed much more dangerous than a simple stunner was fired towards her from another angle. Using what he had learned from the lessons he had taken from Dumbledore back in Grimmauld's Place, Harry put more strength and energy into the spell so that his shield widened and wrapped itself around Hermione from all angles. For the first time during the match so far she looked at him, surprise and admiration in her eyes. Then her eyes caught the curse that had been directed at her, but that had instead hit Harry's shield. It had been reflected back to its owner, who had not been prepared for Harry's trick. The curse hit, and the Death Eater fell to the ground and was quickly replaced by a Death Eater who seemed to dance on his toes to not stand still. Harry made sure to step on his toes as well like McClaggan had once taught him. Harry couldn't help but thinking that the practice sessions he had had back then was remarkably similar to what he was experiencing now - especially the one where he was supposed to protect Hermione, where she couldn't protect herself ... it was a remarkable coincidence. Harry was almost willing to believe Trelawney had made another prophecy about the situation in McClaggan's presence.
The match continued and Harry managed to bring down eleven more Death Eaters. The Dark Lord always made sure to collect the fallen Death Eaters wands so Hermione couldn't reach them, and he always made sure that there were at least three Death Eaters in the fray. However, none of that seemed to matter for Harry. All that mattered was he, Hermione and the Death Eaters they were fighting; everything else became an unimportant mist. Time seemed to slow down as Harry's feet worked overtime from keeping him in the same spot more than a fraction of a second. Hermione did the best she could not to be in the way and to dodge the spells that came flying towards her, but Harry still found himself conjuring shields for her almost as much as he fired back at the Death Eaters. It was no point only focusing on protecting Hermione and himself as no one had ever won a war by merely playing defence that he knew of, and the Death Eaters were so many...
When Harry was halfway through the crowd of Death Eaters it had gotten tougher. They were more advanced and knew more combat tricks, and they all moved in different directions. They seemed to prefer to keep themselves either directly in front of Hermione or on the other side of her, which made it extremely difficult for Harry to aim. Often he didn't dare to in case Hermione got hit, and so it began to take him as much as ten minutes sometimes to bring down one Death Eater and he began to tire.
`Stupefy!' he bellowed inside his head. `Avis! Expelliarmus! Stupefy!' Light was flying everywhere along with sharp-beaked birds, and one of his red stunners collided with a Death Eater's blue curse making the whole room glow purple in a spectacular shower of light. Hermione had to raise her arm in order to shield her eyes. `Incarcero!' Harry continued, making ropes fly out of his wand. They tied themselves around a Death Eater who didn't see it coming because of all the light and he fell to the ground. The ropes were another thing he had learned from Dumbledore, Harry remembered, and then he recalled an additional spell.
`Incendio!' he mouthed wordlessly, making the spell more powerful so that instead of a small flame it was a bomb of fire at the size of a small kitchen table that he shot towards a Death Eater, who widened his eyes in shock.
"Aguamenti!" the Death Eater bellowed, waving his wand frantically at the ball of fire that was too large to dodge, but it was no use. He was hit with full force and was thrown all the way to the other side of the room. His clothes, hair and mask on fire - his whole body, in fact - and he screamed in pain. Harry felt a great wave of adrenalin rush through him, making him lightheaded and his nerves on even higher alert. It wasn't as good as using Dark Arts, but it was still a wonderful sensation to feel so powerful.
Harry didn't realise he was smiling.
Another Death Eater replaced the fallen. Harry didn't take the time to look and count, but he guessed there were only eight of them left now. For the first time Harry felt as though he had a shot of winning ... Hermione would be able to go and be free.
As soon as he had thought that, however, the new Death Eater cried "Accio!" with his wand pointing towards Hermione. She yelped as her body was yanked forwards, but thanks to the lesson Harry had had with McClaggan he was prepared that it could happen. What he didn't know, however, was how to stop her from flying into the Death Eater's grasp. Thinking quickly, Harry tried to stop her course by crying out an `Accio!' of his own. She stopped in mid-air, but didn't come towards him. It was a weird sight, it was like she was about to have a fit. Suddenly she started to scream in pain and Harry's eyes widened in horror as he realised what was about to happen: she would be literarily torn in two ... at the same time, Harry also saw in the corner of his eye the two remaining Death Eaters fire at him. He broke the spell holding Hermione, dove to the floor in a forwards roll, before raising both of his hands and sending a jolt of electrical light towards to Death Eater to whom Hermione was heading. The two curses from behind soared over his head and by a stroke of luck also below Hermione's feet, hitting the unfortunate electrocuted Death Eater square in the stomach. A deep gash appeared there, and dark red blood flowed out. Hermione fell to the ground right under the red stream, which painted her hair and back with red blood. She gasped and spat and crawled to her feet - the bare sole of her feet slipping against the wet surface - and ran back towards Harry, who had turned facing the other way from her was now firing with full force against the two Death Eaters who had almost made him to lose. Harry desperately wished that Hermione could get a wand and help him. She knew so many useful spells.
Harry had avoided using any Unforgivable Curses for Hermione's sake, but he could feel his barriers slipping away ... his mind was in a battle-modus, where there were no restraints. To hell with that, he thought, this is about saving her, not being her white knight. She would have to settle for a dark grey one...
"IMPERIO!" he exclaimed suddenly, fortunately hitting a Death Eater. Struck by sudden inspiration he quickly found the bond that connected him to his victim, and commanded: `Attack those with dark robe and white mask!'
The Death Eater turned on the spot and began to fire against his own, taking an additional Death Eater down in the moment of surprise. It only worked once, however, as the Death Eater wasn't nearly as quick when he wasn't doing it by his own free will. Harry smirked with excitement. Why hadn't he thought about that before?
Five more Death Eaters to go now. Time for the Dark Lord's inner circle. Shooting Hermione a nervous glance, Harry was surprised to see her looking back at him. What was more was that there was no judgement in her eyes. Instead she nodded as in urging him to continue fighting ... Harry's heart jumped. She accepted it ... she accepted him! In a flash he could imagine all kinds of silly clichés, like the two of them as an old couple, sitting by the fire in a cosy home, a big and fluffy carpet underneath them. She would lie in his arms, smiling up at him as he held her tight. Everything would be all right in the world. The walls would be covered with prettily framed pictures showing their life together, and they would have children, beautiful children. They would celebrate every Christmas and every Thanksgiving together, there would be no war and there would be no Dark Mark on Harry's arm...
St. Mungos, here I come, thought Harry to himself. He was clearly going insane.
"WATCH OUT!" cried Hermione suddenly, and Harry was abruptly pulled back to the reality. He swore to himself for letting down his guard. How could he have been so stupid?
A bright, green light was soaring towards him from behind his back, but he discovered it too late and time allowed him no more than to turn. A mere second before the curse would've hit him, however, he felt a rough shove on his side and he was knocked sideways. He fell to the floor, and he felt something that was both soft and hard fall on top of him before sliding off and landing on the floor beside him, and red-stained brown hair covered his vision. Harry's heart stopped in horror. For several seconds all he could do was stare.
Things weren't supposed to end this way. She was supposed to make it out alive, it had been the reason he came, the reason for everything ... NO....
"No..." he whispered in anguish. "NO!"
She had her face away for him. Harry was somewhat relieved because that meant he didn't have to see her empty eyes, devoid of the life and knowledge he loved so much about her. But he had to see ... he refused to believe she could be dead before he saw the truth with his own eyes.
Blinded by unshed tears and dizzying fear, Harry hardly noticed as he was scrambling to his feet that the Dark Lord was screaming in rage that `no killing curses was to be used! I need the boy alive!' or that another jet of green light soared across the room, hitting the Death Eater who had originally sent the killing curse towards Harry. If Harry had, he might've tried to block the course of the killing curse with his own body, in the hopes of getting hit. Without his Hermione, he had no one left to fight for, no one left to live for.
His breath coming out as short, panicked gasps, Harry leaned over Hermione's still body, and brushed away some of her blood-soaked hair so he could see her pale face and her still open eyes. She stirred and looked at him.
"Please don't be dead, please don't," Harry choked, not noticing her movement. "Please..."
"Harry," whispered Hermione hoarsely. Then swallowed to collect herself. "I'm OK, really, I just got my breath knocked out..."
Harry blinked at her in disbelief; sure that what he was seeing couldn't true. That he couldn't be so lucky. "You..." he said, grasping for words, but finding none. "You...!"
Hermione reached up a hand and touched his chin gently, and her touch was so delicate and welcome to him that it was impossible for him to move away from her. "Shhh..." was all she muttered, before giving him a weak smile. After a moment she slowly got up to her feet, on guard again. Harry did the same, his head spinning. That had been too close...
One of the Death Eaters he had been fighting with suddenly started to chuckle, and Harry recognised to voice as Dolohov's - who had been one of the two that had held Hermione in chains when Harry first saw her that evening and also the one who had nearly killed her last year in the Department of Mysteries. Suddenly something inside of Harry snapped and a rage stronger than what he had ever felt before - even towards Bellatrix - came over him and he saw red. It didn't matter to him that the Death Eater who had actually been stupid enough to shoot the failed killing curse was already killed by the Dark Lord; Harry was furious. Hermione had almost died to save him, and that Dolohov had the nerve to laugh?
Leaping to his feet, Harry bolted towards a no longer laughing Dolohov. "CRUCIO!" Harry thundered, hardly seeing what he was doing in his rage, but also instinctually knowing that his aim would hit its target. Red light shot out of his wand with an intensity that Harry had never experienced before. As the curse hit Dolohov he started to scream in such an agony that Harry felt spasms of orgasmic pleasure rally through his body; filling him, completing him. It was better than the sensation that had filled him the first time he had been riding on a broom or Sirius' motorcycle, it was more extraordinary than the time when Hagrid had told him he was a wizard and that he could live away from his Aunt and Uncle. Harry let all of his frustration and fury go through the curse, making it even more powerful than originally. All the pain Harry was causing Dolohov was transferred back as pleasure to Harry. And it didn't stop! It lasted and lasted and Harry didn't want it to end either. It felt wonderful and that was a feeling he hadn't experienced too often lately. Harry threw his head back and began to laugh. He was a butterfly, he thought with childish glee; a vibrant and alive butterfly with large, ticklish wings ... Harry laughed so hard he could scarcely breathe, but suddenly the pleasure stopped, even though the curse had not. Harry stopped laughing and suddenly felt very exhausted. Almost afraid of what he would see, but too tired to truly care, Harry looked down at Dolohov.
The Death Eater who had been exposed to Harry's rage lay on the floor, his eyes open and glazed, and inside his half open mouth and down his chin there was blood. With a very detached form of acknowledgment Harry realised he had killed him; Dolohov had drowned in his own blood after biting himself. Harry shrugged. It was impossible for him to feel any form for remorse; the bastard had gotten what he had deserved.
Harry felt a relieved grin start to tug the corners of his lips. Then he felt something hit his back and everything faded into darkness.
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