The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

The Precious Seconds He Had To Spare

The Precious Seconds He Had To Spare

The most mysterious
Thing about time
Is that we never know
Where it is
That we will leave it...

Derek Bell could not find his wand.

The dark of the woods sent shadows of trees over the bracken, which he shoved his fingers through, desperately searching. The light from the spells being shot between Bilius Weasley and Lucius Malfoy lit up the ground in flashes - red then white then red again - sparks hissing as the magic struck the ground all around him in showers.

And then he spotted it. Several paces away, stuck between a rock and a tree root. It was way over there...

"TIME TO GO! TIME TO GO!" A woman with wild black curls pranced across the field toward Malfoy and Bilius. She was singing the words, skipping along, her face flush with the excitement that danced in her eyes. "Quickly." She added, and she grinned. "Finish him off."

"I hate to cut our fun short," Lucius Malfoy panted, sneering at Bilius, "But the Dark Lord beckons." And he struck Bilius particularly hard with a spell, giving Bilius pause as he had to hold a protego for a moment as the magic blasted him - white sparks showered from the spell's energy hitting the protective field...

Derek needed his wand. He needed his wand if he was going to protect Bilius!

He scrambled, trying to get to his feet, slipping in the bracken, hitting one knee, and struggling to get up, the wand one direction - Bilius the other -

Behind him, there was a CRACK! as Lucius Malfoy disapparated.

And the dark haired woman sighed heavily and raised her wand.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" she screamed.

It was instinct.

Derek Bell leaped forward, his arms splayed as he jumped toward Bilius, jumped between the jet of green light and his best mate and he closed his eyes as time slowed down so much that it very nearly stopped and he stood, arms out, staring into the end of that jet of green light coming at him...

"Derek... Belll," a voice called, whispering through the trees.

Derek looked up.

"Precious seconds, Derek," the voice whispered.

And there was a jerk behind his naval and a flash of colour and Derek Bell landed on his stomach in the middle of a beach filled with pebbles, aquamarine water licking at his toes.

He lay there a second, disoriented.

Had the spell struck him? Was he dead? Was this heaven?

He stared about.

There was a clearing of a voice before him and Derek looked up and, surprised, he found an old man, hunched and wrinkled, with milky-white eyes and a cane of twisted tree roots that spiraled about themselves in great knots. Derek struggled to sit up and he stared up at the man without tearing his gaze away.

There was something very strangely familiar about this man. As though Derek had seen him before somewhere...

"Good evening Derek," the man said. His voice was cracked and raspy now, not like the whispered breeze that had carried it through the woods. "I don't suppose you recall me, do you, Mr. Bell?"

Derek shook his head.

The old man leaned against his cane and extended his arm out to offer Derek a help up and Derek hesitantly took it and allowed the man to pull him to his feet. He was shockingly strong for such a frail looking person, he thought, staring at the way the old man seemed to tremble before him in that way that elderly folks often do uncontrollably. Yet the grip on his hand was strong and the old man did not let go once Derek had stood.