A/N: I recommend listening to Snape's Demise on the HP & The Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 album!! (:
My feet moved in a calculated rhythm, syncing with the rapid beating of my heart.
Dumbeldore was dead at the hands of Severus Snape.
The group of Death Eaters quickly exited the tower and rushed in spiteful urgency towards the heart of the castle. I could hear the shatter of glass and the thudding of metal as Harry and I journeyed the labyrinth of the castle.
Shards of the life I once knew, crumbled at the feet of Voldemort and his loyal servants. My mind couldn't help but wander to Draco and ease at the knowledge that he hadn't been the one to kill Dumbledore.
I'm coming. I murmured down the burning link that tethered the soul of a broken girl and a boy who had no choice.
The Slytherin Prince and his Hufflepuff Queen on the opposite sides of a deadly game.
Swiftly running down the corridors, a deafening blow of shattering glass reverberated through the empty corridor as Harry followed suit.
The all too familiar crow of a laugh pierced the air and veiled the castle in its hideousness. This night hadn't relinquished its grasp of death and destruction just yet.
So I would fight like hell.
We followed their trail of clouded shadows; my stomach twisted in built up anticipation and acceptance of a sealed fate.
I felt a warm hand grasp my wrist and twist me around.
"If we follow them, Grier, Merlin knows what will happen," whispered Harry. His wild green eyes swirled in guilt and despair.
A forced smile spread across my lips, "I know, and I also know that, like me, you won't go down without a fight..." There was silence as my unsaid words haunted the still air around us.
For him.
He mirrored my expression, "Let's give them hell, shall we?"
"For him. For our parents. For the wizarding world. We won't die cowards."
We wallowed in one final embrace as if to exemplify the unsaid words and friendship that had blossomed through the horrors of this night and beyond. In a way, Harry and I were bonded like brother and sister.
Like the darkness hadn't tainted our hearts, but strengthened our souls to show us the glory of bravery, but more importantly the gravity of holding goodness in the forever broken parts.
"Together," I whispered into the night.
A familiar voice in my head muttered, Run.
In silent rectitude we bounded through the winding corridors and out into the open air of the innocent world beyond.
Heading for the stirring trees of the forest that led to Hagrid's Hut, we crashed into the waves of reality. My body relished in the capabilities that lurked beneath the surface and begged to be relinquished in a fight of good and evil.
A dormant power awakened in those moments before we broke through the veil of shadows and fog. It prowled my blood and intertwined with my bones as it coarsed through the entirety of my being. A hunger raged inside me to avenge the horrors that my mother, Harry's parents, Dumbledore, and so many more succumbed to.
I saw the gliding silhouettes of the Death Eaters before I heard them. Pure fury rampaged through my wand as I bellowed, "Expelliarmus!"
The outline of a curved wand flew through the air and landed with the soft crunch of the dried leaves that blanketed the forest floor.
"You little bit-," I dained to hear the rest of Bellatrix's insult before I cast another spell towards the brooding shadow that belonged to Fenrir Greyback.
In hideous unison, he shouted the Killing Curse.
The spells connected in blinding power, colliding with such force that tendrils of intertwined light expelled from the epicenter. Green spewed in endless streams from his wand, a face of dismay and anger possessed his wolf like features.
Flashes of my memory passed through me. His face lingered above my weakened body after he murdered my mother.
The pain in my eyes was evident from the memory. At this, a sick smile poisoned his features and flooded my veins with hatred. He remembered.
The green crept closer.
White blonde hair distracted me from my predestined fate. My eyes slowly turned to meet his own, and a reflection of fear looked back at me. His eyes pleaded with an impossible request.
Shaking my head, I summoned every last sacred drop of power within me and exploded it into my wand, hoping that the forces beyond would help in my victory.
I gritted my teeth at the vibration of power that now illuminated the night sky. I was unaware of where Harry and the others had scurried off to.
The beginnings of hope pried through my wall of trepidation as a golden light slowly cascaded from the meeting of our spells, spreading its mysterious hands into the air and around us like a dome.
I never wavered the strength that held firm on my only hope to survive as the dancing gold that surrounded us pounded with power.
"Please," I whispered to myself, and the locket that laid against my chest flared to life as its beating rhythm pressed against my skin.
In a surge of light, a single circle of brilliance shot out of the spraying waterfall of gold.
I allowed myself to watch the ball of light as it slowly moved to expand into something far more impossible.
My mother.
I stopped breathing.
Her golden edges faded in and out as if to replicate the beating of a heart, and her long hair swayed like the contents from a chalice as it was being poured.
Voice cracking, I whispered, "Mom?"
My lips quivered in disbelief, and my eyes shed tears in unchecked gaiety.
Eyes like my own moved to the man that held my life in his hands and the wand he beheld.
The wand that snatched my mother's life away with a single spell.
Her essence glided towards the man in a powerful force of light and wind. A distraction.
I moved quickly to break the spell, and sprinted into the unmoving abyss beyond as my feet pummeled the leaves beneath me.
Tears fled down my cheeks as I ran to find Harry, no inkling of direction.
"Grier," she said from behind me.
I stilled as I slipped into a state of shock, but I turned all the same. To see the face that I had lost in a sea of death. To memorize, once more, the face that was so like my own, and that spread the glimpses of light in my world of stirring decay.
So silently I said, "You're here."
A soft laugh blessed the atmosphere, "I can't stay much longer, but I have a few things to tell you."
It was as if she never left. I couldn't help but barrel towards her in an attempt to feel her embrace once more, but as expected, I was met with stilled air as our souls passed through each other.
"I-I've missed you so much," I said. "I never thought I would see you again." I bit my lip in a sore effort to hold back the tears and ungodly amount of things I so wanted to tell her.
"My beautiful girl is all grown up," she said with a smile. "Now I have to tell you something... Something you may not like." She sighed and gathered herself before continuing, "I've been with you since the day you arrived at Hogwarts. I've been the faceless menace that has bugged you throughout the year with ominous messages." She finished with a light laugh as a way to ease the news.
"What?" My thoughts were whirling as I shuffled through each incident in my head. It was her the entire time. "But why?"
Her face darkened, "I was trying to warn you of the dangers that came with you attending Hogwarts. Each message was supposed to scare you into leaving or push you to have the sense to be on guard." Tears now flaked her eyes, "At Christmas, when the Death Eaters destroyed The Burrow, I was the one to warn you to leave the house... or you would be dead. I did all of this to protect you, Grier."
It all made sense. From the very beginning, she was every anonymous voice in my head. Every feeling of dread in my stomach, and clear warning that there was dangerous, which started with the message on the mirror.
"It was all you," I said to myself more than her.
"I know that Dumbledore showed you the memories of Voldemort, so you must understand the danger that you are now in, so fight like hell my Grier, and never forget that I will be by your side."
She was blinking in and out of visibility as her golden hued spirit glided in between worlds. I stretched my hand out to her as I took in the last of my mother. She mirrored my action and like a phantom wind, I could feel the light touch of her fingertips and smell a hint of roses.
"For love," I said.
Before my next breath, she was gone. Taken away by the soft breeze that rustled my hair and tickled my skin.
Collecting myself, I sprinted to the burning light that was visible through the tree line as flames licked the clouded night sky.
Hell was coming, and it came in the form of a vicious Hufflepuff.
A/N: THOUGHTS?!?! How do you think this first book will end? Did you expect the anonymous "attacker" to be Grier's mother? How do you feel after this chapter?
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! (: