𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 | Harry James Potter x Reader

DH ☆•°~'* 16

"Now hear, you blissful powers underground-
answer the call, send help.
Bless the children, give them triumph now."

❈🌠➵9¾♌ ⚯ 🗲━━━━━★. *･｡ﾟ✧⁺

Y/N had barely set foot on the marble staircase, following the first group of evacuating students led by a prefect, when a loud voice drowned out every other noise in the castle. It was high, cold and clear: there was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. Y/N clamped a hand over his left arm, where the ugly mark upon his forearm burned hot.

'I know that you are preparing to fight.' There were screams amongst the students, some of whom clutched each other, looking around in terror for the source of the sound. 'Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood.'

Without meaning it, Y/N walked back, dream-like, into the Great Hall, where the rest of the school still was. Harry was there, standing almost in the middle of the hall. He seemed to sense Y/N's presence close to him and he wrapped his hand, vice-like, around his wrist.

'Give me Harry Potter and Y/N L/N,' said Voldemort's voice, 'and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter and Y/N L/N, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter and Y/N L/N, and you will be rewarded.

'You have until midnight.'

The silence swallowed them all. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry and Y/N. Harry drew Y/N closer to him. Then, from the Slytherin bunch, Pansy Parkinson raised a shaking arm and screamed, 'But they're there! Potter and L/N are there! Someone grab them!'

Before Y/N could do anything more than feel anger bubbling up, there was a massive movement. The Gryffindors moved to them and stood facing, not Harry or Y/N, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs, and, almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their backs to Harry and Y/N, all of them looking towards Pansy instead, wands raised.

'Thank you, Miss Parkinson,' said Professor McGonagall. 'You will leave the Hall with Mr Filch. If the rest of your house could follow.' 

The Slytherins trooped out on the other side of the Hall. Y/N watched them go, trying to spot Leonora among them, but there was no sign of her.

Harry checked his watch.

'Thirty minutes to midnight,' he muttered. 'Y/N-'

'I know,' said Y/N, giving Harry's hand a squeeze and following Professor McGonagall out of the hall.

She stopped in the middle of the Entrance Hall and Y/N almost walked into her. McGonagall raised her wand and cried, 'piertotum locomotor!'

All along the walls the statues and suits of armour jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Y/N knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.

'Hogwarts is threatened!' shouted Professor McGonagall. 'Man the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!'

The horde of moving statues stampeded out into the courtyard through the double doors, the clanking suits of armour brandishing swords and spiked balls on chains. 

'Wicked,' said Y/N.

'I've always wanted to use that spell,' said Professor McGonagall with a little smirk. 'Now - the evacuation, L/N.'

The Room of Requirement was packed, far more crowded than when Y/N had last been in there. Students were coming in and leaving through the portrait. Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet had decided to show up as well.