In The Shadows [Book Two]

Chapter Ten:

Chapter Ten: 

It took several more minutes, a lot of running, Neville getting his wand and nose broke by another Death Eater (Dolohov), Hermione being hit with an odd purple flame and falling unconcious, and even more running (with Neville carrying Hermione) before we found the others.

Ron looked like he'd smoked some dragon grass, Ginny's ankle was almost certainly broken and Luna was the only one who seemed unharmed except for a tiny cut below her left eye which had already stopped bleeding.

While Longbottom carried Granger, Luna helped Ginny while Harry and I were stuck with Ron, who was a blubbering idiot laughing at pretty much everything (including Uranus). We made it to the shiny black circle with the blue flames but Death Eaters weren't far behind us. I heard Bellatrix scream out 'There they are' before stunning spells were flying towards us.

Harry and I jumped into the first room we could before Harry left again to help the others get in before we were caught. It was the room with the brains in tanks. Gross.

Once everyone was in, Harry turned to and locked it using the same spell Hermione had earlier, then Harry had us go through and use 'Colloportus' on any others that were around but Luna was interrupted in the middle of her spell by a group of DE's bursting through.

Before anyone could do too much, Ron was making a fool of himself and had Accio'd one of the brains from the tank. The moment he caught it, it began to wrap it's weird tentacles around Ron's arms and Ron screamed about 'not liking it'.

What was wrong with him? What had happened? I knew he was an idiot but nobody could naturally be this stupid... could they?

There was no getting rid of the stupid brain-octopus thing, and when it was just us three (Neville with Hermione's wand) left to fight off at least five Death Eaters, Harry ran. He just ran... it wasn't until the other DE's followed after him that I realized he wasn't running away scared; he was drawing the Death Eater's away from us.

I rolled my eyes at Ron, who at this point was being suffocated by the braintopus before pointing my wand at it at an angle (so there was no way it would hit my older brother's best friend) before muttering the Killing curse. I watched the bright green hit the brain before it curled up into itself and died.

"C'mon Neville, we'll have to leave them here, we have to help Harry!" I grabbed onto Longbottoms arm, dragging him with me as I ran and grunting as I tripped on a staircase heading down to the room where the arch and veil was. I was sure this was where I'd seen Harry head.

My knees hit the concrete, sending pain rocketing through my legs but before I could pay much attention to it, my hand was grabbed and I was pulled up and forward by Neville, whose nose had finally stopped bleeding, it seemed.

"I fink dey epected us," Neville said, just a moment after I'd noticed that they had Harry surrounded and they had now come up behind Neville and I and surrounded us.

"I think we have ourselves a traitor.. my my," I rolled my eyes at Goyle Sr, but hoped that Neville didn't hear. He was stupid but it would be easy to figure out what he meant if he just put a little thought into it.

Neville raised Hermione's wand and did either the stupidest or the smartest thing he could have, he attempted to stupefy some of the DE's. There were at least ten of them, and only three of us; but unfortunately with his nose broken all he could say was 'stubefy' which did absolutely nothing.

Our wands were taken from us all too quickly and within moments of someone saying the name Longbottom, Bellatrix Lestrange was there with an oddly happy smile. "Longbottom, was it? I had the pleasure of meeting parents once."

"I doe you hab!"

Someone threatened to stun the boy but Bellatrix seemed to have other ideas.

She grabbed Neville by his upper arm and pulled him closer before doing the same to me. Neville repeated "Don't gib it do dem Harry" right up until Bella pointed her own wand at him and with a cackling laugh, said 'Crucio'.

Despite the fact that I thought Neville was a blithering idiot, I also knew he was practically harmless despite how brave he'd been today; I hated to see him being tortured almost as much as I hated myself to be tortured.

Harry very nearly handed over the prophecy to Father, so so very nearly, but instead a door opened overhead and at least five more people rushed in, only two of which I vaguely recognized as my second year Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin and last years professor of the same subject, Professor Moody. A girl with odd couloured hair came in and nearly immediately stunned Lucius Malfoy and soon the entire room seemed to be filled with different coloured; some white, some red, some green, one or two were purple or orange.

Harry made his way to us, to see if Neville was all right as I helped him up off the ground; he was shaking and rather unsteady on his feet but he would survive, of that I was sure. Suddenly, a Death Eater jumped between us and began dueling me. I dropped Neville and began to defend myself, slowly leading him away from the rest of my friends.

Quickly, I pulled up my sleeve.

"Stop, you imbecile! I'm a Death Eater too."

Immediately the man froze, his eyes on the before he nodded, looked at my face and then left without a backward glance. My eyes darted around the room, there was a man with black hair and wild eyes, he was dueling Bellatrix it seemed; a very tall man who was intimidating just to look at was fighting two DE's at once, the odd hair girl was firing spells from up on the seats down to random Death Eaters (but mostly at Bellatrix) and.. Harry was being suffocated!

"Harry!"

Before I'd even yelled his name, Neville was running up to him and shoving Hermione's wand into the Death Eater's eye socket. Almost immediately Harry's throat was released and he took a deep breath. I stood still, not sure what to do.

Family or the Dark Lord? Did I have to make a choice?

I couldn't choose.. I didn't want to be tortured and put to death.. I liked being a Death Eater, I liked being strong and different.. but I also tended to like my older brother and every once in a while one of his friends would do something that would give me a rush of pride or some such.

So I backed away from the fighting, tripping over something circular that was rolling across the floor before I slammed to the ground, my head knocking against the edge of a. With my vision blurring, I let my eyes wander...

Was that an eyeball I'd just tripped on?

I let my vision blacken until I couldn't see or hear anything, I just floated.