The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

42. Centuries

"Some legends are told, some turn to dust and to gold, but you will remember me, remember me for centuries. And just one mistake is all it would take, we'll go down in history. Remember me for centuries." - Centuries, Fall out Boy.

I'm lying face down on the ground again. The smell of ashes and blood fills my nostrils. I can feel the cold hard ground beneath my cheeks, the glass, rocks, and gravel beneath me cutting into my skin like butter. Every inch of me aches: my head is spinning, having collided with the ground when I fell, and the place where the Killing Curse hit feels like the bruise of an iron-clad punch. I do not stir, but remain exactly where I've fallen, with my right arm pinned beneath my body and my face pressed against the ground.

The atmosphere couldn't be more different from the Forest. Voldemort and the Death Eaters have finally thrown caution to the wind. They are cheering and laughing triumphantly, and the air is wrought with beams of light shot towards the sky in celebration. I'm glad for the ringing in my ears, for the noise from the opposing side tears at my heart: sobs, screams, and strings of grief-fuelled swearing. They seem so close...the sound of Draco, Dad, Sirius, Hermione, and Ron crying makes the pain of the Killing Curse seem mild, and it takes everything in me not to scream back.

I'm alive, there's still hope, we're alive...

The commotion from both sides goes on for a while. I don't dare try and look behind me, though I imagine Bellatrix is once again hesitantly helping Voldemort back to his feet, having suffered the loss of the Horcrux he never meant to make.

And then, amidst the screams, and the cries, and the bangs, Voldemort gives a pathetic whimper. "Check her," he says weakly. "Check the girl, now! Tell me that she is dead!"

I don't know who he's sent to check. I can only lie here, with my heart thumping traitorously, and wait to be examined. I have no clue whereabouts Harry is lying somewhere behind me, and I'm stuck with the memory of Narcissa Malfoy examining him in the Forest, though my recollection is somewhat hazy. However, I have no clue whether this thought should comfort me or accelerate my terror: could this mean that Harry is really dead, and I am about to be discovered?

Hands, softer than I was expecting, touch my face, and it takes all my strength not to gasp and pull away. They are gentle hands, brushing the hair softly away from my face, creeping beneath my shirt, down to my chest to feel my heart. I can hear the woman's fast breathing, her long hair tickles my face. I know that she can feel the steady pounding of life against my ribs.

The Death Eater's euphoria continues in the background, and using this to disguise her betrayal, the woman leans close to me and says, "do you love Draco? Do you love my son?"

The whisper is barely audible; her lips are an inch from my ear, her head bend so low that her long hair shields my face from the onlookers.

"Yes," I breathe back.

I feel the hand on my chest contract; her nails pierce me. Then it is withdrawn. She has stood up, and the courtyard, at last, goes silent.

"She is dead!" Narcissa Malfoy calls to the watchers.

Still feigning death on the ground, Narcissa's true colours are revealed to me with a remarkable swell of admiration. She no longer cares whether Voldemort wins, only that her son is alive and happy, and lives long enough to heal from all the trauma and suffering her husband's allegiances has brought him. Even if that means placing herself in immeasurable danger, and allowing her son to love her families greatest adversary.

"At last, it is done!" Voldemort screeches over the tumult. "Harry and Haylee Potter are dead!"

The defenders of Hogwarts remain eerily silent, and oddly enough I don't think it is the result of Voldemort's gagging charm. The silence is too calm -- too powerful, for it to have been forced upon them. Even the Death Eaters break off: I open my eyes an infinitesimal amount. Peering carefully through my hair, I see that one by one they have all raised their wands towards the sky.