mirrorball

chapter twenty nine

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

This must be some terrible nightmare. Clara could not imagine this. Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all her senses must be lying to her.

And then a body fell past the hole blown into the side of the school and curses flew in at them from the darkness, hitting the wall behind their heads. "Get down!" Harry shouted, as more curses flew through the night: Clara lay back on the ground immediately and mere seconds later felt Harry's body on top of hers, his hands covering her head. Ron had grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the floor, but Percy lay across Fred's body, shielding it from further harm, and when Harry rose and shouted "Percy, come on, we've got to move!" he shook his head. "Percy!" 

Clara raised her head and saw tear tracks streaking the grime coating Ron's face as he seized his elder brother's shoulders and pulled, but Percy would not budge. "Percy, you can't do anything for him! We're going to— "

Hermione screamed, and Clara, turning, did not need to ask why. A monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb through the huge hole in the wall. One of Aragog's descendants had joined the fight. Ron and Harry shouted together; their spells collided and the monster was blown backward, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished into the darkness.

"It brought friends!" Harry called to the others, glancing over the edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had blasted. More giant spiders were climbing the side of the building, liberated from the Forbidden Forest, into which the Death Eaters must have penetrated. Harry fired Stunning Spells down upon them, knocking the lead monster into its fellows, so that they rolled back down the building and out of sight. Then more curses came soaring over Clara's head, so close she felt the force of them blow through her hair. 

"Let's move, NOW!" she cried. 

Pushing Clara ahead of him with Ron and Hermione, Harry stooped to seize Fred's body under the armpit. Percy, realizing what Harry was trying to do, stopped clinging to the body and helped: together, crouching low to avoid the curses flying at them from the grounds, they hauled Fred out of the way. "Here," said Harry, and they placed him in a niche where a suit of armor had stood earlier. A moment later he had caught up to Clara, who trailed behind Ron and Hermione closely.

Malfoy and Goyle had vanished now but at the end of the corridor, which was full of dust and falling masonry, glass long gone from windows, Clara saw many people running backward and forward, whether friends or foes she could not tell. Rounding the corner, Percy let out a bull-like roar: "ROOKWOOD!" and sprinted off in the direction of a tall man, who was pursuing a couple of students. 

"Harry, in here!" Hermione screamed. She had pulled Ron behind a tapestry. They seemed to be wrestling together, but as Clara ducked her head into the tapestry, she saw that Hermione was trying to restrain Ron, to stop him running after Percy. "Listen to me—LISTEN RON !" 

"I wanna help— I wanna kill Death Eaters— " His face was contorted, smeared with dust and smoke, and he was shaking with rage and grief. 

"Ron, we're the only ones who can end it! Please—Ron—we need the snake, we've got to kill the snake!" said Hermione.

"She's right, Ron. We need to stick to our task. It's the only way we can make all this end." agreed Clara. 

"We will fight!" Hermione said. "We'll have to, to reach the snake! But let's not lose sight now of what we're supposed to bed–doing! We're the only ones who can end it!" She was crying too, and she wiped her face on her torn and singed sleeve as she spoke, but she took great heaving breaths to calm herself, still keeping a tight hold on Ron.