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︵ . . ︿
Hogwarts breathes like it's a living thing, lungs full of smoke and screams. The stones you grew up trusting to always stand beneath your feet rattle; chandeliers shiver and spill diamonds of glass; portraits lean out of their frames to shout warnings you can't quite hear over the thunder of spells cracking down the corridor.
You run because running is the only way to keep your body from shaking. Your wand is hot in your hand from the death grip you've got it trapped in. You don't think about how many duels you've had tonight, or the way your lungs ache like you lost some of them. You think about the next corner, the next breath, the next person you can drag behind a collapsed wall and heal them enough to keep moving.
"Protego!" The shield bursts from your wand on instinct as a red streak slams into it, splintering light. You taste iron. Another curse sizzles past your shoulder and shatters a bracket on the wall. Your legs decide for you: left, then right, then a stagger because the floor is littered with what used to be a suit of armor.
And then you see him.
He's standing in the archway, sweater torn at the sleeve, face streaked with ash, hair wild where a curse scorched too close. For a second, he doesn't look like the boy who misplaced his toad. He looks like something the castle spawned specifically to protect its walls and the people inside it-- jaw set, wand raised, chest heaving—until his eyes land on you and the statue cracks.
He's already moving, reaching you in five strides, his hand catching your elbow to steady you as the floor pitches. "Are you hurt?"
You shake your head. "Not more than anyone else."
He grimaces. "That's reassuring."
A streak of green splits the air over his shoulder. The moment shatters. You both duck; you fire back without thinking— Stupefy, Stupefy, another Stupefy for good measure— and Neville's spell snaps like lightning, clean and sure, dropping the masked figure at the far end of the hall.
You fall into a rhythm that feels as easy as breathing. You cover his left, he covers your right. He calls out, "Down!" and you drop; you shout, "Now!" and he surges forward, spell flying from his wand. Every time your backs brush, something inside you steadies.
"Third floor stairwell's gone," he pants, eyes scanning the smoke. "Dean and Seamus were pushing people toward the kitchens. Safer route to the Room."
"Safer," you echo, because the word simply doesn't exist. Not tonight. "We should—"
A blast knocks the world sideways. Your ears ring, the shield you casted sputtering. Neville's arm slams across your shoulders and drags you behind a fallen column as shards of stone scythe the space where your head had been. Dust turns the air white.
