• • •
And I tried to save a life
With these diamond hands of mine
But they're sharper than a knife
• • •
"Girls, get up! Now! This is urgent!"
Rose swung her feet towards the edge of the bed, hitting the top of her head with the ceiling. Arthur was besides Ginny, shaking her awake. Dimly, Rose could tell something was wrong; she thought she might've been dreaming of those screams, but she heard them again now that she was wake.
"What's happening?" She asked over the screaming and the sound of people running.
She slipped down her bunk and reached for her clothes, but Arthur, who has pulled on his jeans over his own pyjamas, said, "No time! Grab a jacket and get outside- quickly!"
Rose did the same thing, retrieving three coats before pulling a weary Hermione and a sleeping Ginny out of their room. She stepped outside the tent, clutching her wand, to behold the horror that around them.
By the light of a few fires that were still burning, she could see people running away into the woods, fleeing from something that was moving across the field toward the, something that was emitting odd flashes of light and loud noises. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated the scene.
Rose flinched, dragging Hermione and Ginny behind her as the boys emerged from the tent, still looking half-asleep and frightened.
A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wand pointing straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. Rose squinted at them... They didn't seem to have faces... Then she realized that their heads were hooded, and their faces masked. Her stomach dropped and fear grew deep in her veins. They were death eaters!
High above them, floating along midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the death eaters on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air. Two of the figures were very small, almost like... children.
As more wizards joined the disguised group, they laughed and pointed up at the floating bodies. As the marching crows grew in number, tents crumpled and toppled. They witnessed one of the marchers use his wand to blow a tent out of the way once or twice. Several of them caught fire. The screams became more intense.
The floating people were suddenly illuminated as they passed a burning tent and Rose recognised one of them: Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager they had all laughed at earlier. The other three looked as though they might've been his wife and children. One of the marchers below flipped Mrs. Roberts upside down with his wand; her nightdress fell down to reveal voluminous drawers and she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd below her screeched and hooted with glee.
"I'm going to be sick," Rose muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side to side. She grabbed onto Fred's shoulder to keep herself standing upright. She glanced at the girls behind her, giving them a fierce look and a nod; silently communicating that it would be alright, they'd get them out of there.
At the same moment, Bill, Charlie, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands up. Arthur looked as if he was about to say something, but Rose beat him to it.
"Are you helping?" She asked, handing the girls their jackets, and slipping her own over her sleeping shirt. "I'll go."
"Rose, no!" Arthur shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot get in the woods and stick together."
"Arthur, I am sorry, but you can't stop me," Rose challenged him, her green eyes glowing with rage as she rolled up her sleeves and pulled out her wand.
"Rose, please don't go," Harry said, pulling her back as she tried to run.
Rose pressed her lips against Harry's head, drawing his face to her level. "I love you, Harry. I swear it'll be OK if you stick with Ron and the twins. GO!"
Before anyone had any time to argue, Rose had sprinted away with Bill, Charlie, and Percy; Arthur tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing from every direction toward the source of the trouble. The closer Rose ran, the louder the noise.
"Where do you need me?" Rose yelled at Charlie as he pointed his wand at the muggles, trying to get them down.
"Cover me!" Charlie shouted back. Rose understood what he meant, as soon as the death eaters saw what Charlie was doing, they tried to attack.
"Protego!" Rose yelled, deflecting a black curse someone had thrown at Charlie. She kneeled beside him, casting protection after protection, going on defensive and never on offensive.
A few other wizards begun to do what Charlie was doing form different points, surrounding the death eaters as other ministry officials got into duels. She kept protecting Charlie, but it was evident that she wouldn't last long in defensive, her defensive barrier was tearing down fast, no matter how many more times she repeated the incantation. In mere seconds she would have to go on offensive, but she wasn't sure she was strong enough to duel... or at least duel the way the death eaters were doing.
"Charlie, the walls are going down!" She yelled, muttering the incantation over and over but she felt it weaken.
"Hold it a few more second!" Charlie begged her, whispering different spells under his breath and hoping they would do the trick to bring the muggles down. As soon as Charlie's words rang through her ears, the wall came down.
"Stupefy!" She yelled at the first person who pointed a wand at her; she couldn't see their faces, so when the death eater received the charm straight in the chest, she didn't feel remorse and she crashed into a tree hard enough to break her skull. "Diffindo! Bombardo! Confundo! Expelliarmus!"
Rose heard the ear-piercing cry a death eater yelled out as her cheek was cut clean by Rose's slicing hex. She heard the explosion go off, not killing, but maiming at least three death eaters and she heard a wand fall beside her after she disarmed a masked one.
"Sectumsepra!"
"AHH!"
Rose collapsed to the ground, striking the back of her head and maybe drawing blood. The air left her lungs as she gasped and coughed. As warm liquid saturated her shoulder, she felt a scorching agony in her right arm. Thankfully, Charlie saw it and immediately went on the offensive, disarming the death eater who had assaulted her.
"Rosie? You alright?" He yelled over the noise; his voice full of concern.
"Everything is in order!" She shouted back, clearing her voice, and standing from the floor. She staggered over her feet, everything appeared to swirl, but she immediately recovered and could see properly. "Give me a chance to free the muggles!"
"O.K! I'll cover you, do it quickly!" Charlie agreed, returning to his defensive stance. Rose took a deep breath, feeling the adrenaline rush through her veins as she raised her palms to the muggles. With each gentle movement of her hands, she could feel the air around her begin to manipulate at her command. Every ounce of the power enveloping her was addicting, and she found herself wondering why she had stopped harnessing her elemental.
The Muggles above her had started descending gently, but there was resistance. She yanked harder, but so did the person who had levitated them. She glared aggressively around the area, attempting to discover whoever was battling her.
Her eyes snapped into a man's dark eyes; his wand was pointing at the Muggles and an angry expression adorned his face. He was wearing the same robes the death eaters were wearing, but there wasn't a mask in his face.
"Charlie!" Rose shouted, gritting her teeth, refusing to allow the Muggles fall under the power of the other man. "Take down the guy over there! The one who wears death eater robes but doesn't wear a mask!"
"I-I can't!" Charlie grunted as he struggled with his barrier and his spells. "I'd leave you unprotected!"
"It won't make a difference if he doesn't leave his guard down!" Rose assured him, her eyes blurred by tears from the effort she was putting in. "Bring him down!"
"You got it, Princess," he agreed, leaving the barrier up as he started throwing hex after hex to the man.
"What are you bloody doing here, Rose?!" A sharp voice asked beside her. She glanced sideways, realising it was Bill Weasley; a bloody gash on his lips and a fierce expression in his face as he covered Rose and Charlie.
"Making myself a cuppa, what does it look like I'm doing?!" Rose shouted sarcastically, noticing the resistance in the Muggles loosening. She tugged harder at them again, forcing her head to stop spinning as dizziness slowly took over her senses.
Suddenly, the resistance was gone, and Rose carefully eased the four Muggles down, her hands shaking as she did so. Once their feet hit the earth, Ministry personnel dashed towards the muggles.
Rose let herself fall to her knees, observing Bill and Charlie kneeling alongside her, both of them out of breath. Rose urged herself to look up, noticing every single death eater was gone and only fires and consequences were left behind.
"You two alright?" Bill asked, his breathing still ragged as he stood from his knees.
Rose nodded, holding her right shoulder with her left hand as she stood up. The pain in her shoulder was no longer bearable, it no longer felt like a sting. It felt as if a hundred little knives kept puncturing her shoulder repeatedly.
"We should get back to the tent," Percy said, walking over to the trio and helping Charlie up. He was clutching his arm in pain; his glasses were broken but his voice was still stern.
"We'll have a look at your arm once we get there, alright?" Charlie said as he glanced down at Rose once they started walking away. "You think you can wait 'till then?"
"'Course," she assured him, her voice shaking slightly. The world around her had grown darker, and a sudden explosion startled the group. "What the fuck?"
Bill's breath caught in his throat, and he looked up, as did his brothers. Rose almost tripped over herself and the boys as she looked up at the sky. The landscape around them was illuminated by a gigantic white skull with a serpent spilling from its jaws. Rose gasped. It was the dark mark.
"Bloody hell..." she whispered, staring up at it in pure horror mixed with shock.
"Come on, keep walking."
"Come on, keep walking."
• • •
"ROSE!"
Rose looked up as Fred, George and Ginny walked into the tent. Fred sprinted to her, hugging her close and stepping away as soon as she flinched.
"What happened? Why is there blood?" he asked, the panic clear in his voice as he held her face in his hands.
"I got hit with something," she explained, smiling a little. "It's O.K., Charlie gave me something for the pain and the bleeding should stop soon."
Fred sighed, bending down and catching her lips in a desperate kiss, not caring at the faces of his sibling as their jaws hung open in shock.