Always Book 3 (Severus Snape Love Story)

Chapter 15: Severus Snape's Death, Maybe. Part 3

A/N: Alright so I know I said it is going to be a 3 part but umm guess what Its going to a four part chapter! I hope you guys like this 30 page long chapter,

"—Protego Horribilis—the diadem of Ravenclaw?" Flitwick squeaked. "A little extra wisdom never goes amiss, Potter, but I hardly think it would be much use in this situation!"

"I only meant—do you know where it is? Have you seen it?" Harry asked.

"Seen it? Nobody has seen it in living memory! Long since lost, my boy!" Harry felt a mixture of desperate disappointment and panic. What, then, was the Horcrux?

"We shall meet you and your Ravenclaws in the Great Hall, Filius!" Professor McGonagall said, beckoning to Harry and Luna to follow her.

They had just reached the door when Slughorn rumbled into speech. "My word," he puffed, pale and sweaty, his walrus mustache aquiver. "What a to-do! I'm not at all sure whether this is wise, Minerva. He is bound to find a way in, you know, and anyone who has tried to delay him will be in most grievous peril—"

"I shall expect you and the Slytherins in the Great hall in twenty minutes, also," said Professor McGonagall. "If you wish to leave with your students, we shall not stop you. But if any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance or take up arms against us within this castle, then, Horace, we duel to kill."

"Minerva!" he said, aghast.

"The time has come for Slytherin House to decide upon its loyalties," Professor McGonagall interrupted. "Go and wake your students, Horace."

Harry did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter: He and Luna ran after Professor McGonagall, who had taken up a position in the middle of the corridor and raised her wand.

"Piertotum—oh, for heaven's sake, Filch, not now—"

The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting, "Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!"

"They're supposed to be here, you blithering idiot!" McGonagall shouted. "Now go and do something constructive! Find Peeves!"

"P—Peeves?" Filch stammered as though he had never heard the name before.

"Yes, Peeves, you fool, Peeves! Haven't you been complaining about him for a quarter of a century? Go and fetch him, at once!" Filch evidently thought Professor McGonagall had taken leave of her senses, but hobbled away, hunch-shouldered, muttering under his breath.

"And now—Piertotum Locomotor!" Professor McGonagall cried. And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.

"Hogwarts is threatened!" Professor McGonagall shouted. "May the boundaries, protect us, do your duty to our school!" Clattering and yelling, the horde of moving statues stampeded past Harry some of them smaller, some of them larger, than life. There were animals too, and the clanking suits of armor brandished swords and spiked balls on chains. "Now, Potter," said McGonagall, "you and Miss Lovegood had better return to you friends and bring them to the Great Hall—I shall rouse the other Gryffindors." They parted at the top of the next staircase, Harry and Luna turning back toward the concealed entrance to the Room of Requirement. As they ran, they met crowds of students, most wearing traveling cloaks over their pajamas, being shepherded down to the Great Hall by teachers and prefects.

"That was Potter!"

"Harry Potter!"

"It was him, I swear, I just saw him!"