𝐢. 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐎𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐂 ; harry j. potter ( UNEDITED )

129. "cause I love how it feels when I break the chains"

As Harry turned to look at Lucia, he merely saw her biting her lip in distress as she fidgeted around with the peony locket on her collarbone, anxiety encasing her very body. Out of instinct, he slipped his hand, interlacing their fingers together, causing her to jolt in startlement before she seem to noticed what was going on around her again.

The sight of Harry, though not reassuring her as much as she wanted, was able to keep her calm.

For now, that was.

"We have already placed protection around the castle," Professor McGonagall was 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 —"

Lucia began to tremble as all the nerves in her system went numb, a ringing pierced through her ears like a sharp knife penetrating without mercy. She'd never felt such thing before, and it terrified her.

She tried steady herself, but that only worsen the state she was in. She clutched Harry's hand tightly, and faintly she heard Harry's voice, "Lucie?"

But she couldn't respond, too much in pain when Professor McGonagall's final words were drowned out and at once a different voice echoed throughout the Hall. It was high, cold, and clear: There was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have lain dormant there for centuries.

"I know that you are preparing to fight." There were screams amongst the students, some of whom clutched 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 was silence in the Hall now, the kind of silence that presses against the eardrums, that seems too huge to be contained by walls.

"Give me Harry Potter," said Voldemort's voice, "and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave the school untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded."

"You have until midnight."

The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, "But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"

Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then hopping out from the crowd of serpents, a brunette girl scurried to the Gryffindors side, glaring as her housemates looked at her scandalously before the Hufflepuffs stood, and almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead as Lucia took the chance to stand right in front of the Slytherin girl.

"Try stepping one toe out of this imaginary line I created, Pugface," Lucia sneered, anger ruling her anxiety through every fibre of her body. She twirled the wand around her fingers and simultaneously, Harry, awestruck and overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and from under sleeves, "you'll regret ever stepping foot into this hall."

"Thank you, Miss Parkinson," said Professor McGonagall in a clipped voice. "You will leave the Hall first with Mr. Filch. If the rest of your House could follow."

Lucia heard the grinding of benches and then the sound of the Slytherins trooping out on the other side of the Hall, however one stood still, not even moving.

"You're going with them," said Harry urgently at Astoria.

"What, why? I want to fight!"

"You're underage, for Salazar sake!" Daphne Greengrass came to her sister's side, seizing her wrist. "We're going!"