Butterfly Effect ; H. Potter

148. the elder wand.

The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms? Harry's mind was in freefall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all his senses must be lying –

And then a body fell past the hole blown into the side of the school and curses flew in at them from the darkness, hitting the wall behind their heads.

"Get down!" Harry shouted, as more curses flew through the night: he, Antheia, Ron, and Hermione had ducked down but Percy lay across Fred's body, shielding it from further harm, and when Harry shouted, "Percy, come on, we've got to move!" he shook his head.

"Percy, please!" yelled Antheia, tears streaking down her face. Ron seized his elder brother's shoulders and pulled, but Percy would not budge. "You're going to get hurt, Percy, come!"

Hermione screamed, and Harry, turning, did not need to ask why. A monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb through the huge hole in the wall: one of Aragog's descendants had joined the fight.

Antheia, Ron, and Harry shouted together; their spells collided and the monster was blown backwards, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished into the darkness.

"It brought friends!" Harry called to the others, glancing over the edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had blasted: more giant spiders were climbing the side of the building, liberated from the Forbidden Forest into which the Death Eaters must have penetrated. Harry fired Stunning Spells down upon them, knocking the lead monster into its fellows, so that they rolled back down the building and out of sight. Then more curses came soaring over Harry's head, so close he felt the force of them blow his hair.

"Let's move, NOW!"

Pushing Hermione ahead of him with Ron and Antheia, Harry stooped to seize Fred's body under the armpits. Percy, realising what Harry was trying to do, stopped clinging to the body and helped; together, crouching low to avoid the curses flying at them from the grounds, they hauled Fred out of the way.

"Here," said Harry, and they placed him in a niche where a suit of armour had stood earlier. He could not bear to look at Fred a second longer than he had to, and after making sure that the body was well hidden he took off after Antheia, Ron, and Hermione. Malfoy and Goyle had vanished, but at the end of the corridor, which was now full of dust and falling masonry, glass long gone from the windows, he saw many people running backwards and forwards, whether friends or foes he could not tell. Rounding the corner, Percy let out a bull-like roar, "ROOKWOOD!" and sprinted off in the direction of a tall man, who was pursuing a couple of students.

"Harry, in here!" Hermione screamed. She had pulled Ron behind a tapestry. They seemed to be wrestling together, and for one mad second Harry thought that they were embracing again; then he saw that Hermione was trying to restrain Ron, to stop him running after Percy.

"Listen to me – LISTEN, RON!"

"I wanna help – I wanna kill Death Eaters –"

His face was contorted, smeared with dust and smoke, and he was shaking with rage and grief.

"Ron, we're the only ones who can end it! Please – Ron – we need the snake, we've got to kill the snake!" said Hermione.

But Harry knew how Ron felt: pursuing another Horcrux could not bring the satisfaction of revenge; he too wanted to fight, to punish them, the people who had killed Fred, and he wanted to find the other Weasleys – but he could not permit that idea to form in his mind –

"We will fight!" Hermione said. "We'll have to, to reach the snake! But let's not lose sight, now, of what we're supposed to be d – doing! We're the only ones who can end it!"