Betrayal of the Black

sixty-five

Gesturing to the crowd of students who had remained behind to watch the slaughter, she told Regulus, "Get them out of here."

She walked away without waiting for a response, and moved up the stairs to where she knew could find Theo. Distantly, she could hear Regulus tell the students to go to Hogsmeade. After the scene they had just witnessed, none of them argued. As she reached the top, he offered her a hand. She gladly took it, feeling more of the adrenaline drain away. With the absence of the adrenaline, the pain of her injuries became more prominent.

She moved to lean against a wall as Theo drew her sleeve up her arm. Her gaze caught on the corpse next to her feet. It was a student. Their eyes were still wide open with terror. Their wand was still clutched in their hand. The red of their Gryffindor robes did a fair job at covering the blood they were covered in.

No matter how many people they killed, students were still dying. She knew that they had made a dent in the Dark Lord's forces. It didn't feel like it was enough—she was confident it wasn't, in fact.

At the end of the day, Harry Potter was still alive.

Which meant Voldemort was too.

The students were outnumbered so significantly by Voldemort's forces. Even after slaughtering three rooms full of Death Eaters, who had been utterly dominating the students, she could still hear fighting. She could still hear screams. The building still shook with the force of explosions.

The sound of Theo's voice drew her back to the present. "How badly does it hurt?"

He drew his finger along the edge of the wound on her arm, and she turned her head back to look at him. He was covered in blood, though much less than her. His brow was creased in concern.

"Not that bad," she assured. "I've had worse."

He frowned but didn't comment. "What about the wound on your leg?"

"Worse than my arm, but I can deal with it."

He let go of her and took a step back. Glancing over his shoulder, she saw everyone else reach the top of the stairs. They were equally banged up as her, but Mary was already finishing up using a healing spell on one of Pansy's open wounds.

Mary looked over at her, and Celestia shook her head in silent answer. The pain was more annoying than an actual hinderance. She'd much prefer that Mary put her effort into focusing everyone else's injuries. Celestia could manage. She's always had.

Rather than abiding by her answer, it seemed to encourage Mary to come forward. Theo took a step back as Mary grabbed Celestia's arm to assess the injury. She let out a long, quiet breath, hoping it didn't come across as a sigh.

"It's fairly deep, but nothing I can't heal," said Mary, lifting her wand over the wound. "Episkey."

Could you check on everyone else? she asked, sliding into Theo's mind.

He didn't respond, verbally or telepathically, but she could still feel his agreement as if that was an answer in itself. His agreement was proved a second later when he stepped away from her and Mary and walked towards the rest of the group.

Sliding her gaze away from Theo, she observed the woman in front of her. Mary was concentrating heavily on healing the wound on Celestia's arm. The skin slowly knitted together again, leaving behind another scar on her skin. Happy with the results, Mary pulled her wand away.

"Are you injured anywhere else?" Mary asked. It was hard to tell how much of the blood Celestia was covered in was from herself or from others.

Tell her about the wound on your leg, ordered Theo.