tainted transparency || a harry potter story

Chapter Thirty-Eight- It All Ends

As the raging war continued on, the Death Eaters started dwindling in numbers. We were slowly winning this gradually ending war. I'd managed to find Ron again somewhere in the mix but he had no idea where Harry had run off to.

My mind started racing but the one question that stayed fixed in my brain was- what if he'd gone into that forest by himself to give himself up? Ron and I quite literally ran into Hermione, then the three of us darted into the school to find some kind of sanctuary.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked. "Either of you know?"

"No idea, and it's scaring me," I admitted. "I really hope he hasn't given himself up."

"To save everyone else," Hermione scoffed. "It's scary how that sounds like something he'd do."

"I'll go," I said boldly. "I'll go check. I'll be careful. You two stay. I mean it. Don't follow me."

"You're going alone?! And we're supposed to be okay with that?!" Hermione almost laughed.

"Not bloody likely," Ron scoffed. "I'm not losing everyone in one night."

"I have to. I can't keep having people die for me," I told them, then left the castle. Thankfully, they didn't follow me. But looked awfully suspicious.

I entered the dark and musty forest with my wand drawn and tightly clutched in my shaking hand. I heard many strange noises but the loudest of all of them was the unmistakable crack of two spells meeting each other mid air.

I picked up my pace and the minute I saw Harry quite literally battling Voldemort, I ran out next to him. My presence distracted him from Voldemort and he lost his hold on his wand. The snake man's stream of curses knocked Harry across the clearing to settle motionless on the grass.

I'm not sure what to call the sound that I made at the sight of Harry on the ground. But it sounded like a mix of a sob and a scream. I dropped to my knees in front of Harry and caressed his face in an attempt to get some kind of reaction out of him.

"You're too brave for your own good," Voldemort's cold voice sent a chill up my spine. "It's pathetic. Isn't it?!"

The small crowd of Death Eaters he had with him all laughed and agreed with him.

"Oh, my Lord, please," Bellatrix pleaded. "Let me kill her. Please."

"Calm, Bellatrix," Voldemort gently silenced her. "Friends, this is the moment we've all suffered for so long for. This is the moment we gain the power we've hungered for! Bellatrix... kill the girl."

"Avada kedavra!" Bellatrix wasted no time shooting the killing curse, but it didn't stand a chance.

Not when mine and Harry's patronuses emerged from our wands without command. The stag and doe surrounded the two of us with a deep blue shield. The Death Eaters desperately hurtled every curse they could our way when they saw the protection we now have.

I looked in front of me where Harry was laying and took his hand into mine. But it's warm. Why is it warm? I leaned down to his face and kissed his cheek just under his eye. I'm trying to get a reaction out of him. Nothing.

Maybe he's just unconscious?

"Hazel!!" Draco's voice yelled from behind me towards the entrance of the forest. His white hair came into view and soon enough, he'd rushed to my side. "Come on! Grab him!"

I grabbed Harry's arm tightly into my hand, Draco hugged my shoulders, and we apparated out of the forest and into the Great Hall.

"Draco, please," I willed him to be careful when he picked Harry up and ran him to a back corner of the room and sat him up against the wall. "He's not... he's not gone. I think he's unconscious. I don't know."