A/N: Hello my lovely Lovies!!
I just wanted to start by thanking all of you! I have some of the most loyal and kind readers! you all are the reason I haven't given up on this project yet. Thank you for encouraging me to take breaks as needed and to make sure I'm taking care of myself. A special shout out to Melissa for reminding me to drink water!! lol
I also wanted to say, if you've been around since the beginning you know I love interacting with you in the comments, If ever I don't respond, please don't think I am offended, I laugh along with your jokes, sometimes I just don't know what to say lol.
So now, grab your drinks, (I'm hydrating with water) And a snack, (I have sour Scandinavian swimmers from Trader Joes) And lets get to it.
Love and Astronomy
Val
Sometimes, even the best laid plans are hard to watch. Sometimes you just need to dive in.
~Elodie's POV~
"It should be me going with you. Not Harry," I said to Dumbledore as I threw a ball of glowing red magic between my hands. Balancing it on the tips of my fingers before I absorbed it again, feeling it's presence behind my eyes.
We were gathered in the astronomy tower, just as the sun was setting. My comment went ignored as Snape continued arguing with Dumbledore. I sat on the ledge, dangling one of my feet over. If I tried hard enough, I was able to tune out their conversation. Focusing only on the way the sun fell behind the trees, like a silhouette painting, one where the trees were just black figures along a sky set on fire. If I tried hard enough, I could set those same trees ablaze with just a blink of an eye. That's the level I was currently functioning on.
"Have you ever considered that you ask too much? That you take too much for granted? Has it ever crossed your brilliant mind that I don't want to do this anymore?" Snape said, the volume of his words rising. He wasn't wrong. As of late, Dumbledore's requests sought only to twist the knife on an open wound.
I tilted my head slightly as the door beneath us creaked open. Using the new magic that had yet to settle, I gracefully floated up to my feet, planting them firmly on the floorboards before dusting off my jeans.
"He's not wrong," I said casually. "Though I would feel rather cheated if I'm to be the only one keeping promises made," I said, raising an eyebrow at the both of them. If they even thought about changing the plan now, I'd be sure to bring hellfire down on them.
"Whether it has or hasn't is irrelevant. I will not negotiate this with you, Severus. You agreed. No one will be going back on their word. There's nothing more to discuss," Dumbledore said, easing the situation.
"Not to be the one to put an end to this riveting conversation, but it may be vital to know we are no longer alone," I said, allowing my eyes to be the only part of me that moved.
Dumbledore moved to stand beside me, taking a look at the sun, the last few moments of a dying day, making way for another to take its place. Snape glared into his back before turning around and proceeding down the stairs.
Dumbledore placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a gentle squeeze. He was pushing himself. I shouldn't have taken so much from him. "All in order, I presume?" He asked. I heard Harry's footsteps growing closer and closer, and I wasn't quite sure if Dumbledore was referring to my patrol tonight, or to the plans I've made to leave in the next several months.
"Have you ever known me to be one without a plan?" I asked, deflecting. Partly for the sake of ears listening in. But mostly for the sake of keeping my own contingency plan to myself. "I'll be able to apparate though the castle now. Though I could have used that sooner," I said hoping to lighten the mood.
Though there was something about the way he spoke that didn't quite sit well with me. An underlying feeling. One that worried me that I may be taking too long. Dragging things out over a longer time than I would actually have. A feeling, that even though I knew his secrets now, there was still one I'd yet to uncover.
"Is this a good bye then?" I whispered, trying to keep my voice even. All while I was begging for an answer I didn't really want.
He gave my shoulder another squeeze as his lips set into a firm smile. "All departures must feel that way," He said, turning to look at Harry. "At least until the next one. Harry. You need a shave, my friend," He said excitedly, looking at my not so baby faced younger brother.
"Alright El?" He asked looking over at me as he ran a hand over his face.
I took in a breath through my nose, stifling a sniffle, as I gave him a nod. "Alright," I said simply. "He's right, you have about two, maybe three chin hairs out of place," I joked. He made a sour face as he mocked my statement. Probably one of the most sibling like moments we'd ever had.
"At times I forget how much you've grown. At times I still see the small boy from the cupboard. Forgive my mawkishness, Harry. I am an old man," He said, playing everything off. Deflecting himself. Oh, he was good, much better than I gave him credit for.
"You still look the same to me, sir," Harry said, playing into it himself.
I looked between the pair of them. But it felt different. Not a single thing about the night felt as it should. And it took every ounce of my being to not look at Harry and want to tell him why. Instead, I kept the same smile plastered on my face I'd been wearing for weeks, months.
"I'll await your return. In the meantime, I ought to check in with the Auror's," I said, moving past Harry before I gave Dumbledore one last glance. Catching the look of distant approval in his eyes. He was sure of his plan, not that he'd ever wavered before. It was now my turn to take one last big leap of trust, and be sure of mine.
As I left the astronomy tower I knew that if I chose to go to Minerva's office, I'd feel even more guilty for having kept so many secrets from her. And suddenly, I felt like a hypocrite. Always tearing into Remus and Sirius for withholding from me. Yet here I was keeping just as many, if not more from everyone around me.
Sirius caught the signs. Not that I could have kept it from him much longer, especially seeing as he had a part of myself within him now. That was the odd factor I'd yet to consider. Just as Murphy's law would have had it, What could have gone wrong, was the single iota that went wrong.
He wasn't as easily convinced as Bill had been, not that I much expected him to be. He knew what I'd be up against. He knew the wicked ways of the most loyal of death eaters. But in turn, he also knew me. And as such, he knew with my mind made up, there wouldn't be anything he could say to make me change my mind. Not now that I was this far in.
Slowly, I walked down to the courtyard, stopping just before entering at one of the archways. From where I was I could hear the blackbirds song, just as it was ending for the day. Catching them just as their last tune came to an abrupt halt. I hadn't noticed as I'd been caught in my own mind of feeling my new found magic swirling around inside of me, but the sun had set, and a dark set of clouds had begun trailing in from the East.
Dumbledore said there was a chance they wouldn't be long, but just how much time had passed? Obviously enough for the sky to reflect the colors of a curfew, all students heading up to their beds. But this was different. Almost like a storm had come in unexpectedly. The sound of thunder tumbling from the center of the clouds sent a chill up my spine.
Something was happening, and not just a change of weather.
I pulled out the tiny Phone Sirius had given me out of my pocket and watched the screen cut in and out. Of course the muggle object wouldn't work on Hogwarts grounds. Brilliant. I had half a mind to send a patronus down to Bill, but quickly pushed the Idea out of my head. There was no need to worry him all over an unforeseen storm.
"Go to your houses. No dawdling!" I heard Minerva's distinct voice call over the opposite end of the courtyard.
I quickly turned, hiding behind the brick of the thickest part of the archway before she could look over and see me.
I waited until a small group of students walked past me so I could join the tail end of them and make my way back to the Astronomy tower. Moving with purpose unlike I had before, I jumped into a sprint, hearing a hissing return, just behind my ears.
The dark mark...
On the grounds...
No. It wasn't possible. But seeing as Dumbledore's presence was currently lacking, and the events of the night so far had already played out, It would have been safe to suspect that anything was possible.
I reached the top of the stairs of the Astronomy tower just as I'd heard the crack of Harry and Dumbledores arrival. They stumbled in, Dumbledore's arms draped over Harry's shoulders, looking even more sickly than he had before he left.
"We need to get you to the hospital wind, sir, to Madam Pomfrey," Harry said, setting Dumbledore down, no longer being able to bear his weight.
"What happened?" I asked as Crouched in front of him, placing my hands on either side of his face as I pushed a diagnostic carm through.
Harry took a step back, allowing me space to work, but before I could get a good enough read, Dumbledore grabbed one of my wrists, stopping me. I felt my eyebrows raise and my mouth open slightly, ready to protest.
"Severus. Severus is who I need," He said, voice shaking. Nearly choking on his words. "Wake him. Tell him what happened," He said, attention to Harry. "Speak to no one else. Severus, Harry," He said, pressing further.
I looked up at him as he waited for further instructions. "Go on," I said to him simply as I pulled my wrist free and tried at another attempt.
Beneath us, the sound of the creaking door opening and closing broke the silence just before Harry made his way down the stairs. I snapped my head to look his way, quickly raising my finger to my lips so he'd know to stay silent.
"Hide yourselves below. Whatever happens, it is imperative you stay below," he said to the pair of us as I helped him to his feet. "Now is not yet the time. Trust me," He said further. Only his second statement was for my ears only.
I pulled away from him, slowly backing up towards Harry. Fighting the urge to let the warmth slip through my eyes. It was written all over his face. Only, I hadn't been looking before. He didn't need a few weeks worth of magic, he'd only needed hours. It was, just as I'd refused to believe, Goodbye.
"Trust me," He said once more.
Subtly, I reached up to wipe a traitorous tear away from my cheek as I clamped down on my teeth and pulled Harry below. Standing on the dusty platform where all the pipes and metal bars crossed, Harry stopped where he would still be able to keep a watchful eye on the floor above us.
First it was one set of footsteps that thumped on the hardwood. Dragging feet across I looked up but all I could see was a pair of black oxfords, and tailored black pants. Apparating away would cause too much noise, even with a silencing charm. The only way out was through the same set of stairs that had led up, which wouldn't have been a problem, had he not closed the door.
Risking it wouldn't be completely terrible, students snuck up here all the time. But it was Harry's planted feet that raised the issue. He wouldn't budge, and arguing with him now wouldn't remain silent. I looked around to see if there was a window close enough, or a different way onto the stair that wouldn't be visible.
"Good evening Draco," Dumbledore said, causing me to freeze as my head snapped up to look at the pair above us.
No.
"What brings you here, on this fine spring evening?" Dumbledore said. I almost didn't want to believe he was actually speaking to Draco. No, it wouldn't be...
"Who else is here? I heard you talking," He said harshly just as he came into view. And just as Dumbledore had informed me, Draco approached him slowly, wand defensively raised, curse nearing the tip of his tongue.
I almost hadn't realized I was shaking until I felt Harry reach down and grab my hand, clasping it against mine as I raised the other to my lips. I'd known for months, but I hadn't given the thought power. I'd hoped there would have been something in our few conversations that would have changed something within him. But all along, I knew.
"I often talk aloud to myself. I find it extraordinarily useful," Dumbledore said. With his finger raised to his lips, Harry pulled me closer to the center of the tower, peeking up through the opening. Stopping just here he was able to keep his eyes on Draco. Watching him like a hawk. Though in the back of my mind, I knew there would be nothing he could do. "Have you been whispering to yourself, Draco?" Dumbledore asked. "Draco, you are no assassin," He said kindly. Like a parent, trying to teach a child right from wrong. Like a teacher, trying to put a child in their care onto the right path.
"How do you know what I am? I've done things that would shock you," He said quickly, speaking through the shaking in his voice.
"Like cursing Katie Bell and hoping that in return she'd bear a cursed necklace to me?" Dumbledore said.
I tore my gaze away from the pair of them and looked at Harry. He didn't look at me as if to say "I told you so," the way I wouldn't put it past him to do. But instead he looked at me appotigeticly. Because he knew that I didn't want to believe the worst in those I cared about, and Draco had become someone I cared about.
"Like replacing a bottle of mead with one laced with poison," Dumbledore pressed further.
Poison. Ron had accidently been given a drink laced with poison, not all that long ago. I let out a sigh, and looked into the space filled with nothing but dust and piping. Nothing I'd said to him had mattered. The people I'd cared about had been getting hurt all along, and I'd had the culprit at my side. All because I refused to do something about it.
"Forgive me, Draco. I cannot help feeling these actions are so weak that your heart can't really have been in them," Dumbledore said calmly. I looked back up at them, feeling a burning run down my face. Was there anything in the last few months I'd been right about?
Quietly, I moved to the opening that would have been a nasty fall had I not been careful. I clasped my hands together quietly, and sent a patronus out to find Bill on the grounds. I couldn't risk whispering our location, so I'd just have to hope it would find him quickly, and that he would follow it.
"He trusts me. I was chosen," Draco spat back just as I'd sent the bright blue spark down the stone wall of the castle. But even as I tried my best not to look, I couldn't help but catch a glimpse of the dark mark branded into Draco's forearm.
It's his mark...
The vile mark...
Made by forcing our hand...
It took all my efforts to stop myself from gasping loudly. I had been willfully blind. I'd ignored and looked past all the red flags all because I so desperately wanted to see the green. Had it all been a lie? Had he really been working his way into my head as a way to convince me to join them? That was after all what the dark lord wanted.
"I shall make it easy for you," Dumbledore said as he raised his wand delicately.
"Expelliarmus!" Draco said violently, disarming the fragile man without hesitation or resistance. This was how he'd predicted it, but it wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
Harry raised his wand, pointing it directly at Draco, but I was too far to stop him without rushing over and making noticeable noise. I widened my eyes at him, shaking my head in hopes he would hear my mental screams to stop whatever idiotic plan he was spinning together on the spot.
Beneath us, the creaking of the door opening filled the space once more. "You're not alone. There are others," Dumbledore said, pointing out that the sound of multiple sets of footsteps gave away that it couldn't possibly have been Snape. "How?"
Draco took in a shaking breath, his wand trembling in his hand. Had it not been for how hard he was gripping it, I suspected it would have easily fallen through the cracks. "The vanishing cabinet in the Room of Requirement."
Harry reached out for me once again as he dropped his wand and began looking around for a way out, just as I had. I tightened my eyes and pressed my finger to my lips for fear his breathing had reached an audible volume along with his movement.
"Draco, years ago, I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices," Dumbledore said clearly. And it finally hit me. He was trying to put Draco off, not for the hopes that it would spare his life, that was already on borrowed time. But for the sake that it would buy enough time for Snape to be the one to do it instead. Only he was taking long enough. "Please let me help you."
"I don't want your help!" Draco said, and through the cracks of the floorboard I could see the tears streaming down his face as the realization of what he was tasked to do, what he was working up the courage to do, had finally, after months of knowledge, set in. "Don't you understand? I have to do this," He said, frustration audible in his voice. "I have to kill you, Or he's going to kill me," He whispered as the footsteps reached the top of the platform. And for the smallest of moments, I pitied him.
I pulled Harry back, as far away from the light as possible, behind the cover of a brick wall. I held one of my hands out past him and crossed the other over his chest, bringing my lips close to his ear. "Close your eyes Harry," I whispered, low rough for him only. Small enough the sounds of footsteps would muffle my words. Sincere enough that he'd hopefully listen to me.
"Well, look what we have here," Bella's distinct voice said. But it wasn't us she was speaking to.
Looking up through the floorboards, I could see she wasn't alone. I couldn't make out two of the men with her, but Grayback, him I could spot in a cloud of darkness. And with that I felt my blood boil as rage overpowered the magic coursing through my veins.
"Well, done Draco," She whispered loudly, stepping up behind her nephew.
Harry stepped away from me, raising his wand once again, only this time, I didn't have it in me to stop him. Instead I eyed the opening of the quick drop and the short stop, wondering if I could pull both Harry and Dumbledore out with me. I had the magic to catch us, but did I have the strength to carry them both while avoiding death eaters that knew how to fly without a broom if they chose to?
"Do it!" Bell yelled at Draco after a quick back and forth with Dumbledore.
"He doesn't have the stomach, just like his father," Grayback retorted. Oh, I'd show him what it meant to have the stomach to kill someone. That was one promise I would make gladly. "Let me finish him in my own way."
But not today...
I looked at Harry, realizing if they were all here, that would mean the door would be clear. But as he held his wand up to the group of them, Snape approached behind him, reading to disarm Harry if he tried something stupid.
"The Dark Lord was clear. The boy has to do it," Bella said above us. "Now!"
Just as Harry turned to look behind him, Snape raised his finger to his lips and shot me a look before eyeing the open space, knowing where my mind had gone in stepping closer to it. He turned and finished walking up the platform, joining everyone else.
"No," He said, just as casual as if he were hosting any other potions class. Just as casually as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
"Severus..." Dumbledore called his name, acknowledging his presence. Almost as if to ask what had taken him so long.
I pulled Harry close to me once more, as the air that encapsulated the lot of us filled with silence. No longer being disturbed by the blackbirds song, nor the lightning. Not even the wind dared to cast a song too loud.
"Please..." Dumbledore said. Asking him one last time, to uphold his end of the deal he'd made. Asking him to see their plan through to the end.
"Close your eyes," I whispered once again, touching only Harry's hand. Snape raised his wand, pointing it directly at the center of Dumbledore's chest.
"Avada Kedavra," Snape said, sending a jet of green flame through the air, hitting Dumbledore squarely in the chest. Sending him over the balcony, for a moment, as both of our eyes shot open in horror for different reasons, it seemed almost as if he were suspended in midair. Floating just for sport. Then the weight of gravity implemented upon him, sending him toward the ground.
Without thinking, moving on pure adrenaline, I jumped off the balcony, as close to the wall as possible, diving for his body in the hopes of changing the way of things at the last moment. He didn't have to die. Not yet.
I reached my hand forward, all I needed was to grab hold of him to apparate us away. But just as I touched the charm of his neck, I felt a burn run up my hand as a suction pulled me back as I landed on one of the dining tables of the great hall, ribbon charm in hand.
He'd anticipated as much. The old man turned the last bit of magic I'd given him into a portkey. One that dropped me, backside on a large wooden table, knocking all the air out of my body. For a moment of horror, I was sure I'd finally died. I was sure that the feeling in my legs was gone for good.
Exhaling a small groan and gasping in a breath followed by the pain that radiated through my body was enough to make me realize the fall was enough to wind me, but not break me. I sat up enough to do a quick visual check to make sure I hadn't been splinched in the process, and once that was over I fell back once again laughing. Laughing so hard it turned into a cry. Crying so hard I was gasping for breath once again.
Dumbledore was dead. I'd jumped off the bloody astronomy tower to try and save his life, but with his last moment of life, with his last hint of magic. He saved mine.
I took in anothing shaking gasp of a breath. He'd done what he needed to do. He'd known with such certainty, it was almost as if he'd seen it all play out. Now it was my turn. I had to do it just as easily. Footsteps walking by the great hall made me sit up, dragging my face over my hand to allow me to see.
"You alright in there?" Professor Burbage asked as she walked by before she was struck with a jinx that sent her flying back. I rolled off the table and behind me, I saw Snape approaching with the lot of them, Bella trotting on the table I'd just fallen upon, kicking glasses with each opportunity.
"There she is!" Grayback said throwing a jinx my way. "Told you I could smell her through the lot of them. Do you want to come and play?"
"Go Elodie! Go!" I heard someone shout. But the only person who would was Draco, and he seemed unmoved as I deflected another jinx, quickly walking backwards.
"Go! They're coming, you have to go!" The familiar voice called again. Only when another jinx was shielded away, and I turned to run, I saw it was Bill standing at the entrance of the great hall.
And then I was running again. Running so fast it felt like the only thing holding me back was the breeze from the wind. Running so fast I almost thought I'd be jumping off of another tower. The sound of shattering glass blasted behind me, pushing me forward. And then I met the ground again at Bill's feet as he tried to shield me away from the tiny fazor like gashes I felt on my skin.
Pulling me back to my feet, we made it out to the courtyard, deflecting jinxs and curses. Just as Bill had nudged me to leave the courtyard and run out to the grounds, I felt and enormous weight collide against me, pinning my arms at my sides.
"I told you I'd get you didn't I?" Grayback said, pulling his claws back, just before he was hit with another jinx, pulling him away enough for me to stand on my feet and move to Tonks who was nearly overpowered by Bella.
"Harry! They ran that way!" I heard someone shout, catching my attention just as Harry left the courtyard chasing after the only two that were missing. Chasing after something he wouldn't find.
"Harry!" I shouted and ran after him, leaving the order to handle those that had stayed behind to fight while Draco and Snape got away. "Harry!" I called ignoring the cry of pain erupting behind us.