Silver Hourglass

The Wavering Blade Chapter 57

With another blast, Hogwarts shook, loose bricks fell onto the corridors as Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran down a corridor. When the Death Eaters invaded Hogwarts, they were separated from Draco, Theo, and Blaise. The six of them heard screams and have decided to split up to help more students. The corridors were littered with destroyed statues and suits of armor. They heard fighting ahead of them, and had to jump over a Death Eater's body as they ran towards the fighting.

"Careful Perce!" They heard Fred's voice yell as they turned the corner. Fred and Percy were dueling masked and hooded men. Jets of light flew in every direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast; Then his hood slipped and they saw a high forehead and streaked hair—

"Hello Mr. Thickneese, would you please tell the Minister I resign?" Percy said, sending a neat jinx straight at Thickneese, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort.

"You're joking, Perce!" Fred shouted as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning Spells. Thickneese had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some form of sea-urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee.

"You actually are joking. Perce. ...I don't think I've heard you joke since you were—"

The air exploded. They had been grouped together, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and Percy, the two Death Eaters at their feet, one Stunned; the other Transfigured; and in that fragment of a moment, when danger seemed temporarily at bay, the world was rent apart. Harry felt himself flying through the air, and all he could do was hold as tightly as possible to that thin stick of wood that was his one and only weapon, and shield his head in his arms. He heard the screams and yells of his companions without a hope of knowing what had happened to them—

And then the world resolved itself into pain and semidarkness. He was half buried in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack. Cold air told him that the sides of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on his cheek told him that he was bleeding copiously. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides, that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and he stood up, swaying, more frightened than he had been that day, more frightened, perhaps, than he had been in his life. ...

And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three redheaded men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood.

"No—no—no!" someone was shouting. "No! Percy! No!"

And Fred was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Percy's eyes stared without seeing, his horn-rimmed glasses in perfect condition as the life could be seen leaving the redeemed Weasley.

"Warrington! What the fuck are you doing!?" Marcus Flint yelled. They were inside the Quidditch Pitch. Around Warrington were all of his classmates who became Death Eaters, unconscious thanks to multiple Stunning Spells.

"I'm fighting Flint," Cassius said, his wand now aimed at him.

"You idiot! You were supposed to kill them! Not us! You traitor!" Flint yelled.

"I am not a traitor Flint, you are," Cassius said. "Now, are we going to duel, or not?"

Flint glared at him before whipping his wand. A jet of green light shot from his wand, and Cassius jumped out of the way. He fell on the ground and rolled to his back, sending an orange jet of light that hit Flint's leg. Flint was pushed back, his leg flying back causing him to lose his balance. As he fell, Flint aimed another spell at the raising Cassius. The spell hit Cassius' robes and it immediately went up in a blaze. Cassius yelled and struggled to pull his cloak off. The fire almost completely surrounded him when he was able to get the top button unbuttoned and he quickly pulled the cloak off of him, his hands being consumed by the fire for only a moment. Still blistered appeared immediately as he threw the cloak away and turned his attention back on Flint, who was just watching with sadistic glee.