We climbed higher and higher into the sky leaving London behind us; from this height it looked like a tiny toy town. All of our problems seemed so far away being this high.... But I felt peaceful up here, the cool breeze easing the pain in my blistered skin and the fog in my mind.
The original excitement of escaping was ebbing; I could hear Hermione crying—she had always been afraid of heights—and Ron swearing furiously. Even Harry's grip on my back seemed quite tense; though Gennie and Cole seemed to be the most relaxed I'd seen them.
"What does the message on the necklace mean?" Harry said again, and I realised I'd been spacing out.
"Who knows—Sam was a very complex person." I said, running my finger over the inscription that certainly wasn't there before today. "But we were so alike in so many ways..."
Of course, there were probably a hundred other theories that I didn't want to investigate, because honestly I was sick of it. If Sam was alive, why wasn't she trying to help us—why was she hiding out? And if she was dead, what was the point of the cryptic clues?
"I'm going to try and sleep this off, okay?" I announced to everyone, hoping that like Jenna once said, things make more sense after a good sleep.
It was easier to drift off than expected; the constant beat of wings was like a set of sails and let me imagine we were in a boat, not on a dragon thousands of feet high in the air.
There was a forest clearing, under twilight sky; silence floating over the desolated scene. And there, in the centre—was a gravestone, Sam's grave stone.
Samantha Annie Lockwood
October 26th 1979-June 6th 1997
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Dying flowers were still on the grave surface, neglected from lack of visitors. But then, the grave began to move. The ground was pulsating like a beating heart when—the surface of the dirt broke, and a white hand was visible, coated in dirt.
The hand was scrabbling, tearing at the surface, and muffled shouts could be heard. And then with the force of a balloon popping, a figure broke the surface.
Covered in dirt with a thin face and fire blazing in her eyes was the resident of the grave herself—Sam.
I woke up to screaming. It was clear as daylight what was happening; the dragon was out of control, twisting and dipping through the darkening sky. Everybody was screaming, and looking behind me I saw Ron holding on for dear life, close to being thrown off.
"WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU FALL ASLEEP!" Ron was screaming to Cole. "YOU'RE FLYING A DRAGON!"
"HEY, GENNIE AND RORY FELL ASLEEP TOO!" Cole screeched, and weirdly I saw that Cole and Gennie didn't look as distressed. In a split second I realised something—the dragon was trying to throw Harry, Ron and Hermione from its back.
"COLE, TRY AND LAND THIS THING!" Gennie screamed, as with another screech from behind Hermione nearly fell off.
"NO!" Cole bellowed. "You three—you need to jump!"
"WHAT?!" Harry, Ron and Hermione yelled in unison, as the dragon took such a sharp turn we all had to dig our heels into the scales to avoid falling off.
"COLE, WHAT THE HELL?!"
"LISTEN—THERE'S A LAKE THERE, JUMP ON THE COUNT OF THREE—"
"COLE!"
"TRUST ME—WE'LL FIND YOU LATER!"
"THREE—"
Harry loosened his hold on me. "YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS, HARRY?!"
"TWO—"
"LISTEN TO HIM, PLEASE!" Harry yelled back.
"ONE—"
And then Harry, Ron and Hermione leapt from the dragon, screaming and I watched in horror as they became three tiny dots crashing through the sky like lightning. And then they disappeared from view; three bullets deep into the lake.
"HARRY!" I screamed, but seconds later I saw three dots surface from the water.
The dragon took another sharp sweep, and I screamed again. "Cole, what is going on?!"
"What I thought would happen!" he shouted, and then almost by magic, the dragon flew as smoothly as it had been for the majority of the journey. "This!"
"You knew it would try to throw them off?!" Gennie said. "Cole—"
"I had a dream." Cole said abruptly. "Two—one that said not to jump, one that showed Sam—"
"--climbing from her grave." Gennie and I finished in sync.
Uneasily I whispered, "We all had the same dream?"
"Well I think Smaug here fell asleep too," Cole said, stroking the dragon's neck. "It would explain why we dropped so much—Sam, or whoever it was sending us the dreams, all wanted us to see that. And they didn't want the others coming with us."
"So where are we going now?" Gennie said, and silence fell upon the three of us.
"Choose the dragon and you will have your answers....." I whispered to myself, looking out onto the indigo sky, the sun setting like a drop of blood in the distance. "I think we're going to find out whether Sam is alive or not."
***
What seemed like hours later, the sun almost a pinprick in the sky, Smaug began dropping height, and instead of seeing tips of clouds we could see mountain ranges and forests.
"Oh my god...." Cole whispered.
"What?" Gennie and I said together.
Cole took one hand from Smaug's neck, and pointed in the distance. There; in the distance in all its glory was Hogwarts. A dark prickling fear came over me, and I was reminded of how dementors had surrounded the school and so were human guards.
"He's not taking us there.... Look." Cole pointed, and Smaug took a smooth right, leading us away from Hogwarts and towards.... the forbidden forest.
"Of course," I breathed out. My term hidden in Hogwarts hadn't taught me much, but I knew that there weren't any wards on the forest.
Smaug circled around the dark forest several times before he dropped on the very edge of the forest. His entrance wasn't elegant; he crashed into three trees and scared a herd of unicorns as he rumbled onto the ground.
"That wasn't subtle at all, but thank you." Gennie said, climbing off Smaug gingerly and patting his neck.
She held out a hand and I slid off with ease, eyeing up the creature. Hesitantly I stood forward and rubbed at its scarred side. "Thanks, Smaug for not killing us."
Cole finally slid off the dragon's back, looking as if he was losing an old friend. He rubbed at Smaug's neck for several moments, before looking back at Gennie expectantly.
"We can't keep a dragon, Cole." She laughed.
"Imagine how many bad guys you could set on fire with him...." Cole said, but he sighed and lightly kissed the scales on the dragon's neck. Smaug roared, and fire almost hit Cole in the face. "Ah well, worth a shot—stay safe, Smaug."
The dragon gave us one last fiery look before it batted its wings and took to the darkening sky once more. Through the broken trees hanging off their roots, a glimpse of granite could be spotted.
Without thinking, I started off at a run desperate to see if there was a possibility she was alive. Breaking through the gap in the trees, I found myself in the clearing the grave was located.
Hearing panting behind me I could tell Gennie and Cole were behind me, also staring at the grave. Everything was eerily silent, the click of crickets the only sound to show that this moment wasn't a dream.
Blinking, I realised what we were here to do, and I began shouting, "Sam! Sam!"
Running to the grave, I began digging, knowing her the ground would split soon and I would see her hand, and her face and her and she would give us all the answers we needed. There was so much dirt, but I had to keep going, I had to free Sam; I needed to know she was okay....
"Rory...." Gennie was pulling at my robe, but I brushed her off, the grave wasn't deep, I knew she would be struggling for air soon. "She's not...."
"She has to be!" I shouted, "Otherwise it doesn't make sense!"
"Sam!" I screamed again, and I could hear Cole crying behind me. "Please—don't be—"
My hand brushed against cloth and I recoiled, seeing the now dirt stained sheet Sam was buried under. I could see her outline, but she wasn't struggling to get out, or embracing us.... And there, sticking out from the cloth was a pale hand, but it wasn't moving....
"No," I choked out. "No.... No.... This can't be.... NO!"
Feeling sick I felt myself shaking and I clawed at the ground, desperate to get out of this grave... this grave where Sam lay and I'd broken into....
Gennie grabbed my arms and I was pulled back onto the grass and I could hear Cole howling, and the world was tilting.
Sam was dead, and she wasn't coming back.
"YOU PROMISED!" I screeched, getting to my feet and brushing Gennie off. "YOU PROMISED WE'D SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN!"
The grave was silent.
"YOU PROMISED ME SAM!" every inch of my body was shaking and I couldn't stop it. "Why have you been sending me here? WHY? Why do you want me to see you dead?"
"Somebody's been messing with us...." Gennie trailed off. "Maybe You-know-Who—"
I felt myself fall to my knees. "Just stop.... Just give us a sign, tell us if you're alive or not...."
Nothing happened.
Ripping the warp star out of my pocket, I flung it into the grave. "You can have it, you can have it and fucking keep it because I can't do this ANYMORE!" I screamed. "Just please.... Don't give us all this hope and take it away...."
Feeling on the verge of breaking down, I forced myself to my feet and looked away from the grave. "It had to be her who sent us here....she saved us from the bank, from the prison...." I whispered. "But why.... But why would she want us to see her corpse?"
"So we know she's not coming back." Cole said in a dead voice.
"It can't be her, look You-Know-Who's been in my mind before, it could happen again, he's trying to break us—break you, Rory." Gennie said, softly, putting a hand on my shoulder.
"It's working." I choked out, rubbing furiously at my face.
I'd gotten my hope up of seeing Sam, holding her again for nothing.... I'd gotten tortured for the stupid necklace, for nothing.... Nothing....
The world tilted again, and the dark smell of earth and saltiness of tears were fading away, there was a dark room and a deep searing pain in my wrist....
"Say it again!" murmured Voldemort. "Say it again!"
"m-my Lord... we t-tried to st-stop them... Im-impostors, my Lord... broke - broke into the - into the Lestranges' vault..."
"Who were they?
"It was... it was... the P-Potter's and the f-four accomplices.. They took a... a s-small golden c-cup m-my Lord..."
There was a scream of pure fury, and I could feel his fury.... He knew, he knew we were after them.... Images flashed through my mind in a whirlwind, blood, fury, fear.... Hogwarts.....
"Rory—"Cole was knelt in front of me, and I realised I'd fallen onto the floor. "What happened—did you see something?"
I nodded, crawling to my feet. "He knows—he knows we're after the horcruxes."
"Shit." Gennie swore. "Does he know where we are?"
"He will soon—one of them is in the castle." I said the world spinning. "We have to get it."
"What about Sam..." Cole trailed off, looking back at the grave.
Once again, sickness rose up inside of me. I didn't know whether that was Sam in the grave or not, but I didn't want to find out. I wanted answers, and I hadn't gotten them, so we would have to move forward.
"Horcruxes are more important right now." My mind was racing. "How are we going to get in?"
Cole's eyes lit up, and a long-forgotten mischievous smile was on his face. "I know how."
****
"You can't be fucking serious, Cole."
Hidden in the edge of the forbidden forest, we were only twenty feet from the boundaries of Hogwarts. And of course, creating more barriers looking as happy as Larry was Cole's brother.
"Look, it's the quickest way of getting in." Cole said, cracking his knuckles.
"I know we've escaped from Gringott's and everything, but this is a death wish." I said.
"Exactly, we've escaped from Gringott's, nothing is impossible."
Gennie swore again. "Cole—he's six foot five and a mass-murderer."
"I'm well aware of that—but I'm six two and awesome."
"This is the stupidest idea you've thought of—plus, wasn't he meant to be in Bulgaria?"
Cole rolled his eyes. "Just trust me."
He stepped out of the trees. "Cole!" Gennie hissed, but Cole ignored her.
"He's going to get killed." I groaned.
Cole stood in full view of Cameron, and waved energetically. "Hey, brother, how's it going?"
Cameron practically growled when he saw him. "What are you doing here?"
"C'mon, fight me," Cole said, holding out his fists. "I bet you can't beat me."
Cameron scowled, the half-completed boundary glowing. He looked between the boundary and his brother. "You're a coward," Cole sang. "I bet even Hollie could beat you, and she's twelve."
"Right!" Cameron growled, and throwing down his wand, flew out of the boundries and towards Cole.
I went to cover my eyes but Cole leapt at his brother at the same time and throwing his arms around him, tackled him to the ground. They tumbled around on the ground, fists flying and legs being kicked; until Cole managed to get his legs around Cameron's neck.
Cameron choked and writhed, but Cole had the upper-hand, and before Cameron could try and wrestle his way out, Cole slammed a rock onto his brother's head. Cameron's eyes flicked, before his head fell to its side and he was knocked out.
He climbed off his brother, dusting his hands. Gennie and I stared at him in disbelief. "C'mon," Cole said casually. "Quick, before he wakes up."
Scrambling from the bushes we ran through the broken boundary, and Cole quickly sealed it with Cameron's wand.
We were in.
Covering ourselves in disillusion charms we ran across the grounds, which were deserted apart from death eater guards dotted around the place. Managing to slip into the main doors when Carrow went through, it felt almost a relief to be back in the castle.
Though there was a weird air over the place, it was too quiet to be normal. It was like the calm before the storm hits.
"This is bad, very very bad," Cole muttered, pulling us into a cupboard to avoid one of the death eater guard. He'd just sent a patronus to Alia to come and find us, and now he seemed on the verge of panic.
"Look, we put Cameron in the forest, he's not getting in here for a while," Gennie soothed, rubbing at his arm.
Cole shook his head. "I managed to take him down."
"Yeah, you've done that before though," I frowned.
Cole pulled at his hair. "I've done it once before in my life—when I set him on fire, and the only reason was because he wasn't concentrating properly on fighting me off."
"And that was because...?"
"Gennie, he was trying to use the imperio curse on me when I was fighting him all those years ago." Cole said in a hushed voice. "And I could see that concentration on his face again tonight...."
"He wasn't trying to control you was he?"
Cole shook his head. "He's controlling somebody—shit!"
The door opened, and Alia had appeared. Her thin face looked exhausted with bags under them, and her curls were everywhere but just to see a familiar face was a bonus.
"Nice to see you, too." She said breathlessly, throwing her arms around Cole in a hug. She gave Gennie a long hug, and looked her up and down. "Good to see you up and about, Gen,"
Alia then gave me a hug, and whacked my arm. "Was it your idea to steal the dragon?!"
"It was actually," I chuckled. "How did you know about that?"
"It's all over the papers!" she exclaimed. "You six are the biggest idiots I've met—why the hell are you back here?"
"We have to—wait, what?" Gennie spluttered. "The others are here?"
Alia nodded, "Yeah, they came into the room just before the patronus came. C'mon, I'll take you—we have a lot to discuss."
Putting the charm back on, we all scurried out of the cupboard, and followed Alia through several secret passages towards the room of requirement. My mind was on full drive again—Cameron was controlling somebody, but who?
Camille? Hollie? Or was he controlling somebody else? And why wasn't he in Bulgaria?
"Quickly—in here!" Alia hissed, shoving us through the door to the room.
Stumbling in after Gennie, I wasn't surprised at all to see many people staring at us. There were many familiar faces—Neville, Seamus, Lavender, Parvati; and of course, Ron, Hermione and Harry. Everybody beamed when they saw us.
"Thank God," Ron breathed out when he saw us. "I thought the dragon killed you!"
"We're okay," Gennie said, shutting the door behind Alia. "We just took a pit-stop."
The room span again, and I was almost brought to my knees with the pain in my wrist. Voldemort was in a shack, turning up the floorboards, screaming in fury.... He knew the locket was gone....
Surfacing back in the room, I found everybody staring at me. Staggering over to Harry, I hugged him tight, whispering in his ear, "Did you see that?"
He nodded. "And you know that...?"
"Yes," I breathed, and we nodded. I turned to everybody. "Okay, we need to get going."
"What's the plan?" Alia asked eagerly.
"P—plan?" I stammered, it was hard to not scream, my scar was still burning. "I don't think—"
"Look, the six of us need to find something, and then we'll be gone." Harry said firmly.
Nobody was laughing or smiling. Neville looked confused. "What d'you mean, 'get out of here'?"
"We haven't come back to stay," said Harry, rubbing his scar. "There's something important we need to do – "
"What is it?"
"We can't tell you, okay?" I snapped.
There was a ripple of muttering at this: Neville's brows contracted.
"Why can't you tell us? It's something to do with fighting You-Know-Who, right?"
"Well, yeah – "
"Then we'll help you."
Everybody was nodding, several people getting up. Alia looked like she was burning with determination, and Cole was glaring at her.
"We have to do it alone, okay---we can't explain, but we have to." Gennie said, her voice quiet but firm. "Dumbledore left us a job to do."
"We're his army," said Neville. "Dumbledore's Army. We were all in it together, we've been keeping it going while you six have been off—"
"Hasn't been a picnic—there's been prisons and stabbings and floating headdresses, mate," Cole said. "Just trust us, Nev, okay?"
"Shut up, Cole, everybody's been fighting all year—you can all trust us." Alia said sharply. "Now Camille and Hollie aren't here, we can trust everybody. Everybody has proved we're loyal, to Dumbledore—to Harry and Rory."
"Ughhhh," Cole groaned, and I could tell he was on the verge of telling Alia everything, but then the portrait opened.
"We got your message, Neville! Hello you three, I thought you must be here!"
It was Luna and Dean. Seamus gave a great roar of delight and ran to hug his best friend.
"Hi, everyone!" said Luna happily. "Oh, it's great to be back!"
"I sent for her," Neville said, holding up the familiar fake galleon. "I promised Ginny I'd send for them. It means revolution, right? We're throwing over the Carrows and Snape?"
I felt uncomfortable, I wanted to help them but we couldn't do anything—horcruxes were more important. "Umm...."
"You're going to leave us in this mess?" demanded a Ravenclaw boy.
"No!" said Ron. "What we're doing will benefit everyone in the end, it's all about trying to get rid of You-Know-Who – "
"Then let us help!" said Neville angrily. "We want to be a part of it!"
Another noise came from the portrait, and Harry looked like he was about to explode. Ginny was climbing through the portrait and followed by her were Lee Jordan, Fred, George—and Lacey.
Ginny gave Harry a radiant smile, and he looked torn at seeing her. Lacey beamed at me, and I scowled—why was she here?
"Aberforth's getting a bit annoyed," said Fred, raising his hand in answer to several cries of greeting. "He wants a kip, and his bar's turned into a railway station."
Then, behind Lacey appeared Cho Chang, Harry's old girlfriend.
"I got the message," she said, holding up her own fake Galleon and she walked over to sit beside a Ravenclaw boy.
"So what's the plan, Harry?" said George eagerly.
"There isn't one," said Harry, looking like he was about to faint. I put a hand on his arm.
"Just going to make it up as we go along, are we? My favorite kind," said Fred.
"Stop sending for people!" I snapped at Neville. "This is crazy—Lacey, what are you doing here?"
"Helping, of course!" she snapped. "I might be a squib, but I can help! I have a bunch of hand-guns, and Andromeda has Maia—I'm not waiting to hear news about you morons dying!"
"They can help," Hermione whispered, and the five of us turned to her. "We don't know what we're looking for—they can help."
Harry wavered. "Harry—you don't need to do this alone," Gennie said quietly. "That's always been your problem.
"All right," he said quietly, looking convinced. "Okay," he called to the room, and everybody looked up.
"There's something we need to find," I said, feeling nervous at everybody staring at me. "It's something that will help us a lot. It's at Hogwarts—something that might have belonged to Ravenclaw."
I looked towards the small group of Ravenclaws, but Luna answered, perched on the arm of Ginny's chair.
"Well, there's her lost diadem. I told you about it, remember, Rory? The lost diadem of Ravenclaw?"
"Yeah, but the lost diadem," said Alia, rolling her eyes, "is lost, Luna. That's sort of the point."
"How long ago?" Cole said, and Alia rolled her eyes. "C'mon, it's worth a try."
"Centuries ago, they say," said Cho, and my hope slipped away.
"And none of you have ever seen anything that looks like it?" Harry said desperately.
Everybody shook their heads, and I felt on the verge of screaming. It couldn't be a horcrux if it'd been lost for that long, but what else could it be....
Cho spoke again. "If you'd like to see what the diadem's supposed to look like, I could take you up to our common room and show you,"
My scar seared in pain, and I got a glimpse of Voldemort flying to another location.... I never usually saw him this clearly, it was alarming. We didn't have long.
"Right, I'll go with you and Harry," I said to Cho, my wrist jerking again. "You four—wait here, it's a far reach, but we need to see."
Cho had got to her feet, but Ginny said rather fiercely, "No, Luna will take Harry, won't you, Luna?"
"Oooh, yes, I'd like to," said Luna happily, as Cho sat down again, looking disappointed.
"How do we get out?" Harry asked Neville.
"Over here." He led us to a cupboard which opened onto a steep staircase. "It opens up somewhere different so the death eaters and Camille can't find us—Camille's tried enough times to follow us back here. Be careful though."
Thanking Neville, I hurried up the staircase with Harry and Luna, guided by many lit torches. We reached a dead-end, which I figured was the way out. Harry threw the cloak over the three of us, and pushed the wall.
It melted away at his touch and we slipped outside. Looking behind, it had sealed by itself. Hovering by the wall, I pulled out the map, which had been un-touched in weeks. Unable to help myself, I looked for Draco—he was down in the dungeons.
"Right," I said, after looking for Hollie and not spotting her, disappointment eating at me. "We're on the fifth floor."
The journey back through the castle was one of the worst I'd been on. Maybe it was because we were doing something so important, but I jumped at every sound, and my hands sweat so furiously I could barely hold the map.
"The way," breathed Luna, plucking our sleeves and pulling us toward a spiral staircase.
Climbing in tight circles, I felt as if one wrong step could make me end up breaking my neck. At long last we reached a door, without a handle or a keyhole—just a knocker with an eagle on.
Luna knocked on it once, and a soft musical voice asked, "Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?"
"What the hell?" I whispered.
"We have to get it right or we can't get in," Luna said. "Hmm... I think the answer is that a circle has no beginning."
"Well-reasoned," said the voice, and the door swung open.
It was a wide circular room, with graceful curved windows and a star-painted ceiling. There were so many reading corners and bookshelves, I felt the urge to pick up a book. And opposite the door we'd come in was a tall marble statue.
I recognised Rowena Ravenclaw from the weird bust in Luna's house, and a quizzical smile was on her face, her eyes lifted up to stare at the small tiara on her head.
A small inscription was on the statue, but I couldn't read it. Looking around, nobody was around. Stepping out from the cloak, I read aloud: "Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.'"
"Which makes you pretty skint, witless," said a cackling voice.
Gasping, I turned around, falling off the plinth, just in time to see Alecto Carrow. Before I could raise my wand, she pressed her finger to the dark mark on her arm.
-------------------------
A/N I hope this makes sense, I've been in a writing slump, sorry
But essentially, somebody led Rory, Gennie and Cole to the grave, and somebody is in the grave.... But is it Sam?? *eye emoji*
Guys, there's like 8 chapters left????? Help???
Place your bets: two people are going to die. Someone has their memory wiped. Someone is being controlled. Something unexpected happens. And is Sam alive or dead???
I'll try to update soon, love you guys x