Merely Misunderstood

Chapter Seventy-Five

At some point, the battle ended, though the exact moment evaded me.

All I knew is that after an excruciating expanse of time, the darkness clouding me was shattered by a cold voice whispering in my head; something about fighting valiantly and that if we continued to resist, we'd all die, one by one — but that Lord Voldemort was merciful, and we had one hour to dispose of our dead and treat our wounded.

Draco was nervous about leaving the darkened classroom we'd barricaded ourselves into, but eventually gathered his wits and shoved the desks away from the door, peering into the hushed hallway.

The quiet was eerie— there was no screaming, no shouting or the crashing of spells, no flashes of light... Just silence.

Draco led me down the corridors, hesitating when we retraced our steps through the corridor where we'd found her. Using his wand, he levitated the body of my best friend, taking her with us as we descended the staircase, heading for the Great Hall.

The enormous room was crowded, overflowing with an air of despair. The House tables were nowhere to be seen, giving leave for groups of survivors to huddle together in grief. The raised platform had been turned into an infirmary, with Madam Pomfry rushing around treating the injured.

And there, in the middle, was a row of the dead — students and teachers alike.

Mourners knelt over the corpses of their loved ones. Not too far from the Great Hall entrance, the entire Weasley family surrounded a lifeless figure, whose flaming red hair was visible even from where Draco and I hesitated in the hallway. I didn't know which of the Weasleys hadn't made it to the end of the battle, but I didn't want to find out.

Draco added Mirah's body to the row of the dead, and I sank to the floor beside her, my vision too tunneled to notice anyone else but her.

I stroked her golden hair out of her peaceful face, so lovely even in death. I could almost imagine her eyelids fluttering, her lips turning up into a smile to tease me about watching her sleep. "Don't be an Edward," she'd chide, referring to the muggle movies I'd introduced to her.

Her beauty blurred as moisture gathered in my eyes again, and I choked.

Draco crouched beside me, his arm winding around my shoulders. The next second, I was crying into his shoulder, the sobs heaving from my stomach with such force that I couldn't breathe.

He embraced me, murmuring into my hair, offering comforting words that I couldn't decipher. My surroundings vanished. There was nothing but Mirah's stillness, Draco's warmth, and my own suffocating agony.

Time passed strangely. The seconds seemed to drag, but by the time I was brought back to the present, it was as though hardly a minute had passed — though, from the bluish pre-dawn light coming in through the windows, an hour had gone by.

It was just as Lord Voldemort had warned; we had one hour to dispose of our dead. That hour had passed, and the Dark Lord had returned.

I remained slumped numbly against Draco until a great movement arose around us; people moving out of the Great Hall in large groups, hurrying for the castle entrance.

It was then that I registered the horrible voice of Voldemort booming over the grounds: "... The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman, or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family...."

As the Dark Lord prattled on about threats and death and so forth, I turned to Draco, the question I'd been about to ask dying on my lips.

His face was drawn, his eyes void of their former light. A sickly green tinged his face, and he clenched his jaw as though fighting the urge to hurl.