Apples and Snakes

The Battle of Hogwarts

The portrait appeared in the late hours of May 1, about ten at night. It was of an empty room.

"What's it doing here?" Hayden asked.

"I didn't request it," I said with a shrug. A girl in a dusty blue pinafore and long blond hair with a vacant expression walked up. She gestured to the corner of the painting.

"I think she wants us to pull it away," I said slowly. Hayden and I pulled away the large painting, about six feet tall. Inside was a dusty old passage, deep and dark.

"Lumos," I muttered. "Think it's a trap?"

"We'll find out," Hayden said with a shrug. I had both my wands lit, and she had hers lit. We went in, and the door immediately shut behind us. I sighed, and continued down the passage, which was very earthen, but then we started to go back up, and wooden supports started to appear in the roof and walls.

"There's a floor," Hayden said, bending down. She removed a bit of dust and dirt with her hand, to reveal old, albeit rotting wooden floors.

"What is this place?" I asked, kneeling down with her.

"No idea," she replied with a shrug. "I'm guessing someone needs us in Hogsmeade, so the Room of Requirement somehow got the request."

"Interesting, that it's picking up on requests outside of the castle, now," I said.

"Or maybe this has always been hooked up to the Room of Requirement," she speculated. "We just haven't needed it before now, and we definitely didn't want it. We wanted to contain the fight, so that we actually had a chance at winning."

"That very well could be," I agreed. "I guess we'll know when we get to the other side."

"Yeah," she said, her blue eyes now much more eager. Ravenclaws do have their curiosity, don't they?

I suppressed a chuckle, and kept going, until we saw another door, closed. I placed my wands in my holsters strapped to my arms. Hayden put hers inside her jacket pocket made for it, and we both pushed on the door.

We stepped out into the Hog's Head, in the upstairs level where the owner and bartender lived, as far as we knew. There were six people in the room, though. One of which was the bartender, old, with the blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore that pierced my dreams sometimes.

The rest I all recognized. I immediately threw myself into the arms of Ky, who laughed affectionately.

"I missed you, too, Princess," he murmured as he ran a hand through my hair.

"Can we cut the romantic crap?" Harry demanded. "Besides, he's a traitor, no good for you, Alice!"

We reluctantly broke away. I glared at Harry. "You, brother dearest, don't get to tell me who I get to be romantic with and who I don't. You lost that privilege years and years ago. Besides, he never was a traitor to our cause. Any secrets he spilled, I told him to spill. He was our intel, my special agent."

Ky smirked at Harry, Weasel King, and Hermia. Hermia looked particularly frustrated with him.

"And nice to see that you had a change of heart, Draco," I said, and I shook his hand.

"It's nice to be here," he said. "Well, except for robbing a bank."

"You robbed Gringotts?" I cried. "What the hell for?"

Weasel King raised a golden cup with a badge on it.

"You broke into Gringotts for a cup?" I asked, and I facepalmed. "Please tell me there's actually something important about the cup, and not because you ran out of funds!"