That I Should Rise and You Should Not

Chapter Twelve

Charlie walked silently beside his brother, keeping pace with Minerva, whom he was still struggling to call by her first name, despite her continued insistence to do so. The corridors of Hogwarts felt disgustingly empty without students milling about, and despite the company of the families that had managed to make their way to the great castle, it simply was not enough to feel as though they had saved a considerable number from the disaster that confronted him every time he went outside.

Muggles had bombed their own cities, desolated so much, and the Wizarding World had suffered from the decay of the mundane just as much. The two worlds were impeccably linked. Bill would have likened it to a network of runes. The Wizarding world could not survive without the energy the mundane world supplied them.

Charlie rubbed his head. They would survive this, they would—both worlds—but he was unsure what shape they would survive it in. Perhaps Severus was right, that they could not live as separate worlds now and this was the beginning of a new age. Severus was still in the infirmary. Lucius had managed a few good shots at their potions professor, and for once, the man was actually not complaining about sleeping off his wounds, not when Dudley and Piers gave him pouty faces. Those two muggle boy's thought the utmost world of him, for some reason. In the past year, Piers had practically made him a new father—much to the hilarious amusement of all in Hogwarts. Oddly enough, the stoic potions professor had not bothered to dissuade the muggle boy, letting him trail around behind him in silence.

Petunia was the most confused. Apparently Piers had never known how to be silent before, but he was like a perfect little gentleman around the potions professor.

Charlie smiled. Well. If anyone could teach silence, it was Severus Snape.

"Minerva, what is going on?" Bill's cragged voice broke through his mulling. Charlie looked up, realizing they had come to a pause. As tired as he was from the journey beyond Hogwarts, it seemed the amassing problems just kept coming, and rest was still beyond his grasp. How he wished his father was still alive—and Percy—Merlin—Percy's voice of reason would have been so welcome right now.

They had travelled deep into the foundations of Hogwarts, deeper than he had ever been before. The magic was rich, flowing around him like a thick ocean, causing his skin to crawl. To be honest, he didn't much like the feeling, it was to choking and strong, drowning him in its power.

It felt a lot like being around one Harry Potter.

"I brought you both down here for a second opinion." Minerva looked old as the words left her lips. Charlie stepped forward, offering her a supportive hand against her arm.

"What is it?"

"You are both, perhaps, the most experienced young men we currently have in this area. I should have brought in you in on it earlier but...truly...the more who knew about it...the easier it would have been for others to glean the knowledge from you."

He noticed his brother's brow furrowing. Mind invasion? So, they had come to a point in their history where mind magic's were being freely used—how distasteful. Just because civilization was collapsing did not mean their code of ethics had to collapse along with it.

"Do you know where we are?" Minerva offered.

Bill looked up and Charlie followed his example. The high ceiling was coated in a single, huge slab of stone, and that stone was covered in glittering runes, appearing like a scattering of stars. He was transported back to the orchard nearby the Borrow, the night he had spent with Bill when they had been kids, lying on the law, staring up at the sky. Never would he have envisioned this future for them.