Mary hated the fact that she had to leave her friends again just after a brief reunion. It just showed that everything was becoming more and more uncertain as the night went on, along with a battle just about ready to unfold among them.
When the sounds of shouting spells faded, Mary began to slow down her pace, finally coming to a stop once she was completely alone. Panting, she looked around for anyone else to show up and catch her by surprise by throwing a hex her way. Nevertheless, she would be ready for enemies still lurking in the castle.
She looked at the wall in front of her, realizing how familiar it was. Taking a closer look, that was when she remembered her times with Draco just on the other side of the wall as they fixed the Vanishing Cabinet. "The Room of Requirement," she muttered.
"Mary?" a voice spoke up from behind her.
She turned around and furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Harry?"
"What are you doing in front of the Room of Requirement?" he asked, stepping towards her.
"No reason," she admitted. "We ran into Blaise and things were about to get bad. Oliver told me to go while he and the others fend him off." She paused, sighing. "What are you doing here, of all places?"
He merely stared at her, then faced the wall. "I'm looking for something." Harry closed his eyes, whispering just low enough that Mary couldn't understand what he was saying. Before she knew it, the wall in front of them began to disappear, where the entrance to the Room of Requirement stood. Harry began to walk inside. "Come on. Maybe you can help me look for it."
Mary obliged and followed him inside.
The room was cluttered more than ever before, with more piles and piles of things lined up at every possible available space. Like the last time she was in here, it was dark, showing no sign of light coming from any direction. It became an even more complicated maze, taking numerous turns as the two of them got deeper into the room.
"What exactly are you looking for?" she asked.
"A diadem," he answered. "Ravenclaw's, to be specific."
Seeing as Mary had no idea what he was talking about, she found herself being useless. "You do realize I have no clue what that looks like, right?"
Harry scratched his head. "Well, just be on lookout, in case anyone else shows up."
Mary nodded her head and held her wand with a firm grip, keeping it up in front of her. She occasionally shifted her eyes towards Harry as he continued looking at the piles of things. Finally, he stopped in his place and shifted his eyes towards one spot in particular. Scanning the pile, he walked towards it, his eyes focused on a box. He carefully opened it, revealing an eagle-shaped crown with small, silver jewels filling the wings and three blue stones in the center.
"It's beautiful," Mary commented.
"Yeah, it is," Harry responded, letting his finger lift the tiara.
"Well, well," a third voice spoke up, in which the two jumped and looked up to see Draco Malfoy standing there with his wand pointed at them, along with Crabbe and Goyle. "What brings you here, Potter?"
"I could ask you the same," he replied.
Mary put her wand down. "Draco?"
The blond boy gave her a surprised look. "Mary?"
Not this again. "Did you follow us?"
He stood his ground, looking at Harry once again. "Potter has something of mine, and I'd like it back."
"Well, what's wrong with the one you have?" Harry asked, pointing at the wand he was holding.
"It's my mother's. It's powerful, but it's not the same. It doesn't quite...understand me. You know what I mean?"
"Wait, Draco, where's your wand, then?" Mary spoke up, then turned towards Harry. "Do you have it?"
"It's a long story," Harry explained. "There's a lot more to what happened at Malfoy Manor when you weren't there.
"Like what?" she questioned.
Harry focused his eyes on Draco. "Why didn't you tell her? Bellatrix?"
"Tell her what?" she asked. "Draco, what is he talking about?"
Draco only responded by his face turning worried.
"You knew it was me, but you didn't say anything," Harry said.
Goyle scoffed, getting right next to Draco. "Come on, Draco. Don't be a prat. Do him."
As Harry reached in his back pocket for his wand, Mary kept hers up, going back and forth between Crabbe and Goyle. She did her best to not look at Draco, seeing as he was still on the wrong side of things. Yet, his expression said otherwise, as if he wanted to be on the right side, the good side. Still, Mary was certain that she would never be able to figure him out.
"Easy, easy..." Draco told his friends, eyeing Harry.
Suddenly, out of the corner of Mary's eye, two more figures appeared behind her and Harry.
"Expelliarmus!" Hermione yelled, a red light shooting towards Draco, who stumbled backwards.
"Avada Kedavra!" Goyle shouted, aiming at Hermione, but she blocked it, firing another spell at Goyle.
"Stupefy!" Mary intervened, shooting the spell towards Crabbe, only for him to narrowly avoid it.
When Draco ran off, Crabbe and Goyle were next to join him, and Mary was quick on her feet to go after them. Apparently, based on the sound of screaming that came from behind her, she wasn't the only one to do so.
"THAT'S MY GIRLFRIEND, YOU NUMPTIES!" Ron shouted.
The two dashed after the Slytherin trio, finally cornering them once there was no other way around the mountains of stuff. Mary's eyes caught Draco's as they became wide. Before anything could be said, a stream of fire emerged from Crabbe's wand, forming into a giant serpent.
Fiendfyre.
While Ron had a horrifying look on his face, quickly taking off in a sprint, Crabbe and Goyle were the next to go, leaving Draco and Mary behind. The two looked at each other before running off from the fire. Through the heat and hissing from the flames, trying to navigate out of the Room of Requirement became difficult, especially as the Fiendfyre continued to grow. Even with the many attempts at blocking the fire with a water spell, there was nothing they could do to stop it.
"It's just like what happened at the manor!" Draco shouted.
Recalling what she was told, Mary couldn't imagine how Draco was feeling when he found out his father was killed inside the manor as it went up in flames. However, she was aware of how cruel Lucius Malfoy was, and knowing that he was no longer here with any control over Draco was most likely a good thing. Still, if only Andrew hadn't been there...
As soon as they got close to the entrance, spotted above them was Harry, Ron, and Hermione on brooms. Mary only glanced at them for a brief moment before she faced the path in front her again.
BOOM!
Mary felt herself fly forward, barely having any time to process what was happening. She landed on the ground with a thud, grunting at the impact. Her head began to throb, along with pain shooting all over the rest of her body. She looked over to see Draco and the trio on the ground as well, but Harry was quick to get on his knees and use an object to stab the diadem, resulting in a black smoke emerging and drifting away towards the fire from Ron kicking the diadem into the Room of Requirement before the doors closed.
Before she could ask if the Gryffindor trio was okay, Draco pulled her up on her feet, panting. "Come on!"
She didn't argue as he got her away from the others down the corridor. For a moment, she thought things around her began to slow down, as if something bigger was about to hit them. It made her nervous, but she kept going. More students were now on the seventh floor as the two weaved around them, and in the midst of everyone, she spotted Oliver not too far in front of her.
Without hesitation, she ran to him and welcomed his full embrace. She closed her eyes for a brief moment as she held onto him, feeling relief that he was okay. When she opened her eyes, Jacob, Eliza, and Violet were standing behind them. Mary met her eyes with Oliver's and gave him a kiss on the lips, to which he responded immediately by kissing her back. Just as they pulled away from each other, a bright light came from outside, where the dome of the protective enchantment was breaking, followed by the sounds of thundering that vibrated all around the castle.
"What's happening?" Mary asked.
"Exactly what I was thinking as I watched you two snog each other," Draco spoke up.
Everyone was too focused on the outside to make a rebuttal to the Slytherin boy. Even Draco himself was left speechless at the sight before him. With a crack in their only protection between them and You-Know-Who, the dome was now crumbling down, dissolving into nothing at a fast rate. In just a matter of seconds, the enchantment was gone, and everything around them froze in place.
Then the screaming was all anyone could hear.
Death Eaters were flying all over the castle, many of them heading for the lower levels. As everyone took off running, they did their best to shoot spells at the Death Eaters heading their way. When a few stood in front of the Fire Pack and Draco, spells were fired, resulting in more Death Eaters showing up.
All of them knew the chaos was only going to get worse.
Spells were flying all around, hitting whatever was in their path, in which the walls crumbled all around them, along with students screaming and falling to the floor. Mary dodged every spell her way, almost tripping over her own feet. There was no slowing down anytime soon.
"Stupefy!" Mary yelled at a Death Eater in front of her, watching the blue light emerge from her wand.
The Death Eater blocked her spell, then raised his wand. "Avada Kedavra!"
Before she could dodge the spell, Draco stepped in the way with his own wand. "Hello, Dolohov."
Dolohov, a Death Eater that Mary recognized once Draco said his name, shot a glare their way. "I'd say it's nice to see you again, Malfoy, but we both know that's not the case."
"Mary, get out of here," Draco told her, ignoring Dolohov.
She gave him wide eyes. "What? No, Draco, I'm not--"
"Yes, you are, and you're gonna leave now before--"
All of a sudden, a green light hit the blond, shooting his body up in the air and falling to the ground.
Mary was the only one to scream. "NO! DRACO!" She made an attempt to run towards his body, but she felt a pair of arms pull her back. "LET ME GO!"
"He's gone, Mary," Oliver said. "Mary, we have to leave him."
She fought as much as she could, but she finally had to turn away and run down the corridor through her wet eyes, leaving Draco's lifeless body behind.
Merlin, she wished it hadn't been him. Out of all the people, Draco Malfoy didn't deserve to die. After all he had been through over the last two years, this was not how things were supposed to go for him. For the brief moment Mary saw him lying on the floor, everything around her didn't matter. All that did was Draco, and she couldn't go to him.
What made things worse was that Dolohov got away, which made Mary want to hunt him down and throw every hex his way and let him suffer each one she had up her sleeve. Anger and revenge was all Mary could think about, letting it rise inside of her.
The Fire Pack headed down a flight of stairs, followed by many more as they didn't stop descending. By the time they reached the ground floor, it only got terrifying from there. There were nothing but flashes of colorful lights and bodies flying in the air and dropping to the ground. Mary and the others contributed by throwing spells at any Death Eaters within their sight. They sprinted across the courtyard, where it became a battlefield as everyone fought with everything they had in them.
Suddenly, an explosion nearby caused them to be knocked back a little, almost falling over and turning away for a brief moment in order to avoid the smoke. When they all were about to take off running again, Jacob stopped them.
"Wait, where's Violet?" he asked frantically, looking around for her. "I swear, she was with us just now..."
The others searched for her as well, taking a moment to see where she was in the midst of the battle. When she wasn't spotted in the courtyard, they checked the corridors next.
All of a sudden, Oliver, Jacob, and Mary turned around to see Eliza take off running.
"Eliza!" Oliver shouted, running towards her, followed by Jacob and Mary.
The three approached Eliza, who was on the ground next to a familiar blonde with a bite mark on her neck: Violet.
"No," Jacob let out, being the first to break down in tears. "Not Violet, no..."
Before the trio could get any closer, Eliza's eyes went wide. "Guys, get out of the--"
She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence as another blast went off near them, with flying in the air and darkness to follow after that.
A/N: Well, I finally got this done, and it's super sad, but it's something I've planned for a while (please don't hate me). Hopefully, you guys liked it
Song above is Happiest Year by Jaymes Young.
Comment, vote, I'll try to have an update out by next Monday.
-A