The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

38. Rise and Fall

"Just stop you're crying, it's a sign of the times. Welcome to the final show, I hope you're wearing your best clothes. You can't bribe the door on your way to the sky, you look pretty good down here, but you ain't really good." - Sign of the Times, Harry Styles 

The Dementors are defeated, and yet the air around me still feels icy and thin, and every breath I take feels like a dagger to my side. The remenants of our Patronus' fall over us like sparkling snowlikes of hope and protection, and for a moment I think she is an angel. I take a few deep breaths, give my head a rough shake, and rub my eyes, expecting her to disappear when I open them again. But she is still there, stroking Riley's hair lovingly while he mumbles inaudibly into the fabric of her jumper. My eyes must be fooling me -- my sanity must be evading me, and the madness of it all sends my mind into a frenzy. Tessa Jensen is dead. Draco saw her die, and yet, there he is, standing beside her as if she is not some Death Eater trap sent to destroy us from the inside.

"Am I dead?" I ask finally, glancing around the castle with teary eyes. The battle is still going on around us: if I'm truly dead, then this must be hell.

"You're alive, Haylee," Tessa says softly, gently pushing the distraught Riley into Draco and Blaise's protection. There is an ethereal nature to her as she kneels before me, and it is only when she takes my shaking hands in her own that I realise she is truly here. She is no ghost, nor is she a wicked figment of my own imagination; there is warmth in her hands, colour in her cheeks, and spirit in her bones.

"It's you," I choke out, my voice constricted by a tightness in my throat.

"It's me," she says with a smile, and I see the all-too-familiar glint in her blue eyes that she knows more than she lets on. "Haylee, listen to me. I know how easy it must feel to just give up right about now, but you've got to keep going. The end is so close, I promise."

More tears slip from my eyes. "I'm so tired, Tess..."

"I know. Just one more push, though, okay? One more push and all of this will be over," she whispers, and in this fleeting moment, she is how I've always imagined my mother to be. Red hair blowing in the spring breeze, her voice soft, and comforting, and warm.

I wipe my eyes with my sleeve, and give a firm nod, allowing her to help me to my feet. "One more push," I repeat, more to myself than anyone else present. "Tessa, I missed --"

With a roar and an earth-shaking tremor, another giant comes lurching out of the darkness from the grounds, brandishing a club taller than any of us.

"MOVE!" I shout, but the others don't need telling: Draco, Riley, and Blaise scatter, rejoining the thick of the fight, and Tessa pulls me towards the grounds.

"Harry's probably already at the Whomping Willow!" She shouts. "You need to get to him now! RUN!"

I don't bother asking how she knows where we were headed. "The Willow, right...And Tessa," I say, grabbing her wrist and stopping her from chasing after the others. "I'll see you on the other side of all this, all right?"

Tears pool in her eyes, and she blinks them away feverishly. "I'll see you then. Now, go!"

Somehow, I wall it all up in my mind, cram it into a small space into which I can't look now: thoughts of Fred and Remus and Tessa, and my terror for the people I love, scattered in and outside the castle, must all wait, because I have to run, have to reach the snake, and Voldemort, because as Tessa said, we're so close to the end now --

I sprint, half believing that I can outdistance death itself, ignoring the jets of light flying in the darkness all around me, and the sound of the lake crashing like the sea, and the creaking of the Forbidden Forest through the night is windless; through grounds that seem, themselves, to have risen into rebellion, I run faster than I've ever moved in my life, and when I see the tree, with three shadowy figures surrounding it, the burning in my lungs seems to disappear.