freya mckinnon may share the same face as her aunt marlene, but she was more than just the niece of a war heroine, though no one seemed to see that. no one but george weasley, her rival on the quidditch pitch who quickly became so much more.
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CHAPTER TWENTY: NO TIME TO DIE (trigger warning: mentions of death and vomit)
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WHEN THE DEATH EATERS CAME, Freya knew she was going to die.
Hovering hundreds of feet in the air, she should've felt at home in the sky. She had Solana sitting behind her, and the Thomas girl was clinging to her back for dear life, but she tried her best to stay calm with each slow, even inhale of air. This was where Freya McKinnon would always flourish. A year couldn't have changed that much; Solana may have worn Harry's face, but everything would have to be okay so long as she had Freya by her side.
The broom beneath them was familiar -- as it happened, it was Freya's very own -- and she flew yards ahead of the others, knowing its strengths and its weaknesses like the back of her hand. However, when the dark night sky suddenly glowed with eerie green light, a deadly nebula, the world seemed to flip on its axis; the familiar now a stranger, nothing could truly be trusted. Killers in cloaks had surrounded them, hiding their identities behind masks and lies, all of them lusting over one boy's demise. Harry Potter's features were a curse, a blood-painted one that scarred Solana's back.
The sky was a foreign terrain now, and Freya struggled to navigate it. Terror crept to the surface, hot and scalding. Heart pounding in a thump, thump, thump rhythm that stole the breath from her lungs and the strength from her bones, she urged the broom forward as Solana's abrupt voice suddenly shouted, "Stupefy!" and Freya was momentarily blinded by red -- red everywhere, like an ocean of blood behind her eyes, suffocating--
"Sol?" she screamed, only somewhat comforted by the sudden loss of Solana's touch on her back; her wild, erratic panting a warning sign. It was a bad idea to give up Solana Thomas' identity, but she wasn't the real Harry, and the Death Eaters had already realised that from the sound of a feminine voice. Most of the light lingered behind them as Freya guided them forward; behind them, the real Harry Potter was trapped in the side-car of Hagrid's motorbike, right in the thick of it. Bodies dropped one-by-one through the sky like fallen stars, caught out by their damned mortal coil. Frantic, Freya blurted, "Sol, tell me what's happening!"
"We've been betrayed--"
Weight slammed into them like a freight train; crushing, winding weight that threatened to knock them from their broom. The thought of free-falling sent a swooping sensation through Freya's gut, and she struggled to right them as a masked figure rammed into them again, their laughter tinged by sick fascination. Magic be damned; they wanted bloodshed.
Solana was screaming. Freya couldn't breathe. Something sharp and metallic glinted in the moonlight; it cut a ribbon up her arm and threw her off-balance. Solana's jinx skimmed past their face, and she struggled to hold onto her wand as a second body appeared on their other side, bursts of green casting an eerie glow everywhere. Above them, a skeleton's mouth tore open for the path of a snake. A promise of death had been given tonight. How many loved ones had Freya already lost, and she didn't even know?
