The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

36. The Battle of Hogwarts

"Well, I never really thought that you'd come tonight, while the crowd hangs heavy on either side, give me one last kiss while we're far too young to die. Far too young to die." - Far Too Young to Die, Panic! At the Disco 

The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall is dark and scattered with stars, and below it, the four long house tables are lined with dishevelled students, some in travelling cloaks, others in dressing gowns. Every eye, living and dead, is fixated upon Professor McGonagall, who is speaking from the raised platform at the top of the Hall. Behind her stands the remaining teachers, including the palomino centaur, Firenze, and the members of the Order of the Phoenix who have arrived to fight.

"...evacuation will be overseen by Mr Filch and Madam Pomfrey. Prefects, when I give the word, you will organise your House and take your charges, in an orderly fashion, to the evacuation point."

Many of the students look petrified. However, as Harry and I skirt the walls, scanning the Gryffindor table for Ron, Hermione, and Riley, Ernie Macmillan stands up at the Hufflepuff table and shouts, "And what if we want to stay and fight?"

There is a smattering of applause.

"If you are of age, you may stay," says McGonagall.

"What about our things?" calls a girl at the Ravenclaw table. "Our trunks, our owls?"

"We have no time to collect possessions," says McGonagall. "The important thing is to get you out of here safely."

"Where's Professor Snape?" shouts a girl from the Slytherin table.

"He has, to use the common phrase, done a bunk," replies McGonagall, and a great cheer erupts from the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws.

Harry and I move up the Hall alongside the Gryffindor table, still looking for the others. As we pass, faces turn in our direction, and a great deal of whispering breaks out in our wake.

"We have already placed protection around the castle," McGonagall is saying, "but it is unlikely to hold for very long unless we reinforce it. I must ask you, therefore, to move quickly and calmly and do as your prefects --"

But her final words are drowned out as a different voice echoes throughout the Hall. It is high, cold, and clear: there's no telling where it's coming from, it seems to issue from the very walls themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have laid dormant there for centuries.

"I know that you are preparing to fight." There are screams amongst the students, some of whom clutch each other, looking around in terror for the source of the sound. "Your efforts are futile. You cannot fight me. I do not want to kill you. I have great respect for the teachers of Hogwarts. I do not want to spill magical blood."

There is silence in the Hall now, the kind of silence that presses against your eardrums, that seems too huge to be contained by walls.

"Give me Harry and Haylee Potter," says Voldemort's voice, "and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry and Haylee Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry and Haylee Potter, and you shall be rewarded. You have until midnight."

The silence swallows us all again. Every head turns, every eye in the place seems to have found Harry and me, to hold us frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. And suddenly a figure rises from the Slytherin table, and I recognise Pansy Parkinson as she raises a shaking arm and screams, "But they're there! The Potter's are there! Someone grab them!"

"Oh, give it a rest, Pansy!" echoes the voice of Blaise Zabini, and my heart swells with affection for Draco's best friend.

But before Harry and I can speak, there is a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of us have risen and stood facing, not Harry and I, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs stand, and, almost at the same movement, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their backs to us, all of them looking towards Pansy instead, and Harry and I, awestruck and overwhelmed, see wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and from under sleeves.