5SOS Imagines

Ashton - Battle of Hogwarts AU

You remember the green that just missed his cheek, death flashing by in his hazel eyes when he pushed you away first.

You remember the fire that erupted out of your own wand and the ashes of another from your anger and fear.

You remember the bodies all too well; your fallen Headmaster and the burns on your hand from a magic you couldn't control, how the tears couldn't soothe the ache or the anger, how his kiss was just as fiery with loss and fury with tears in his eyes that refused to fall even after the procession of black.

You saved me.

Not if you didn't save me first.

He managed a broken little smile, and you think that you didn't save all of him – that maybe a piece of him was already beginning to chip away the night he first saw death in the face, in your hands.

Brave girl.

With blood on her hands.

Stupid boy.

Who saved a killer instead of a hero.

It was a domino fall from there.

-

"You should go too."

"No. I'm not leaving you behind."

"It's dangerous."

"All the more reason to stay."

He smiles a smile that's a little too fractured – it's been like that ever since the night of Dumbledore's death – his hand cupping your cheek lightly, long fingers slightly threading your hair.

"I can't lose you."

"Then don't let me go."

He sighs, but kisses your forehead lightly as a sign of acceptance. He knows there's no changing your mind, no getting you to stay when you were meant to set things ablaze.

There's one last moment of peace, one more moment in his arms, just listening to his steady heartbeat that's pounding in your ears – not a war drum for the battle that's to come, but a steady beat to a song that you knew so well.

He traces the scars on your back and you do the same for the ones that now mar his arms – it's been a rough year, a year of hiding in the very place you called home, tormented by those who were supposed to teach – you've both been on the receiving end of curses and hexes from trying to help your fellow classmates, for being ones who believed you were worth more than this – and this is it, it's all come down to this.

He remembers the first time you were dragged back to the Room of Requirement with the gashes on your back, two first-years in tow – they couldn't handle detention, not when it's like this, not when it's torture – but Ashton thinks it's torture for him to see you so wounded, despite your set jaw and determined eyes that refused to cry.

And he can't afford to see something like that again, something worse – no, he doesn't want to see you hurt, the one person he vowed to protect above all costs.

There's a war tonight, and this time it's not just hexes and jinxes, not just toying around and letting you go once they were bored – it's a battle and Ashton can already smell the death in the air, something damp and dark as the students prepared for war with whispered curses underneath their breath and beasts at the very ends of their leashes.

"You can still go. You still have a chance."

To go to Hogsmeade, to guide the first-years, to wait out the inevitable collapse instead of being a body underneath it.