Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters. They all belong to J.K. Rowling.
Chapter Twenty Eight: Trusting A Fifteen Year Old Boy Is Never A Good Idea
Lottie's Point of View
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
"What the fuck?" Alex sounded almost relaxed. She leaned back and rested the weight on one foot. I flailed my arms slightly and she folded hers,
"IT'S A SUTEKH!" I yelled
"A fucking what?"
"A SUTEKH! FROM DOCTOR WHO! OH M--"
"Shut the hell up Lottie, It's only Malfoy's dad." Alex gestured her hand towards the figure then refolded it among her other arm. The figure moved forward more into the light, then seemed to pull the mask off and it disappear into thin air,
"Very good, Miss Tonks. I'm sure your abilities would have been a great weapon of the Dark Lord's, would your mother not have married a muggle." Lucius sneered at Alex. She laughed lightly, shook her head and tutted, before pulling a black hair band out of the air and beginning to tie her hair up into a bun as she spoke,
"Lucius, in case it escaped your notice, this girl here almost shit herself before you had even took your mask off, because she believed you were a villain from a muggle sci-fi tv show which, let me stress, is fictional and ended about 8 years ago. If it hadn't of been for me, you could have quite easily removed the glass ball from Potter and took off before these fools even registered what you was doing. They need me more than you do, I think I'm gonna have to stay put." She pulled her hair through the band a final time, shook her head to ensure it was tight and then nodded once at Senior Malfoy, "Cheers for the offer though."
"It's a documentary series." I grumbled quietly, mostly to myself. Lucius laughed at Alex and then held his hand with his palm facing upwards,
"Hand me the prophecy." Harry's grip tightened slightly on the crystal ball, apparently a prophecy. I stared at the side of Harry's face, trying desperately to telepathically tell him not to give Lucius the ball, "To me."
"Where's Sirius?"
"Up Lupin."
"Ship it." Alex and I high fived at hip level,
"The Dark Lord always knows!" A female voice yelled. The owner of the voice appeared, with untamed black hair and a freaky look in her eyes. She was wearing a top to toe black dress and stared at Alex with a new venom in her eyes,
"Alex Tonks." The woman said, sounding almost shocked,
"Yo."
"The Dark Lord--"
"Always knows, yeah, I know, you just said." Alex rolled her eyes. Geez, where is this girl's limit?
"Always." Lucius echoed both Alex and the currently unknown woman. He nodded towards his still outstretched palm, "The prophecy, Potter."
"No. No, you know. I want to know where Sirius is!"
"I want to know where Sirius is!" The woman mimicked Harry,
"Wow, is there a parrot in here?"
"Off the mark." Alex and I again high fived at hip level. I folded my arms as Alex raised her eyebrows.
"Itty ... Bitty ... Baby ..." The woman had her wand in her hand now and the tip was resting on her bottom lip,
"You've got him ... He's here, I know, I know you've got Sirius here."
"Aw! The ickle baby woke up from a dweam all fwightened and thought it was twoo." The woman had a strange, almost eerie smile. Still chewing on her wand, she swayed slightly on the stop, her eyes staring at the ball in Harry's hand,
"Don't do anything ... Not ye--"
"Oh! Look, Lucius! Look at how he's giving his instructions out to the other children! As if he thinks--"
"Children?" Alex piped up, "I think you know I could run rings around you, Bellatrix. Very easily." The woman I have now learnt to be Bellatrix had her eyes pinned to Alex. She looked completely furious,
"Who do you think you are?"
"Don't you know who I think I am?"
"Okay, wow." Alex and I high fived each other at hip level for a third time and I refolded my arms,
"Filthy ... Little ... Half blood." Bellatrix took a step closer to Alex with every word.
"It really doesn't have the same ring to it." Alex was totally unfazed by the experience, as expected, and she and Bellatrix were now staring straight into each other's eyes a few feet from the other's face. How does ... Geez, Alex ...
"Bellatrix ... Calm." Lucius reappeared in the situation and put his hand on Bellatrix's shoulder to pull her away from Alex and back towards his side. She shook him off almost immediately and went back to staring manically at Harry as Lucius spoke, "You don't know Potter like I do, Bellatrix. He had a taste for being heroic."
"Don't I know that one, merlin." I grumbled, shuffling my arms over. Alex, for the first time I'd known her, didn't yell 'what' at me for mumbling, but actually grinned at me on the corner of her mouth,
"Give me the prophecy."
"I know Sirius is here! I know you've got him!"
"You really should learn the difference between dreams and reality, Potter." Lucius sneered, "I won't ask again. Give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."
"Go on then!"
"Oh, give him the fucking prophecy Harry, then we can all go home, fuck sakes." I shouted. Everyone was staring at me, so I tried to divert attention by turning my back slightly, rolling my eyes and again shuffling my folded arms over,
"Well, erm ... P-Perhaps you ought to listen to your sister for once. Give us the prophecy, and no one gets hurts." Lucius was clearly stumbled slightly by my outburst, but he brushed it off and tried to regain the frightening aspect of being a deatheater. Please, he's a middle aged bloke in a pretty mask and a bathrobe. Harry laughed aloud,
"Yeah, right! Like I'm going to give you this ... Thing, whatever, and you're going to let us go hopping off back to Scotland merrily, yeah?" Harry scoffed, and then laughed a little again. The conversation began to bore me, because I wasn't really keeping up with it and I was also getting mesmerised by all the other glass orbs behind, in front, and all around me. If we're at row 97, how many rows are there? A thousand? Eight thousand? More? Less? Who knows? Well, someone will know. I presume I also know them particularly well as well,
"Hey, Alex? How man--"
"CRU--"
"NO!"
"Merlin!" I jumped back into Ron, who was so considerate that whilst pushing me away from him, also pushed me upright. I quickly patted him on the head then assessed the situation,
"We need to wait until we have the prophecy! Do not attack until we have the prophecy!" Lucius was shouting at Bellatrix, his hand raised slightly. I was more intrigued than worried,
"I don't know what's happening." I said to no one particularly,
"What's the prophecy all about?"
"I don't understand what is going on right now?" My mind seemed to be going blurry. Nothing made sense. I could hear their talking still, but I couldn't make out what they was saying, who was saying what or who it was being said to. I began to panic slightly,
"Don't play games, Potter."
"What is going on?"
"Dumbledore never told you?"
"Somebody, help me."
"So, he wanted me to come and get it, did he?"
"Alex ... Alex, help."
"Why couldn't he have got it himself?"
"Get it himself?!"
"Is this ... Is this real life?"
"The Dark Lords knows--"
"NOW!"
"Now what?"
"REDUCTO!"
"Whoops, here we go Lottie!" Alex scooped me up by my shoulders as I was about to stumble. Five curses from five directions flew past my head and hit the shelves on the rows opposite us. There was quiet, and Alex dropped me. I turned onto my side and saw the shelves swaying slightly, and then a glass orb fall. And then another. And then four more. And then thousands were falling all at the same time,
"Magical ..."
"Come on!" Alex stood on my little finger and I screamed, grasping it immediately and jumping up after her as she took off in the opposite direction to where the orbs were falling. Tears were brewing in my eyes, and I put my finger in my mouth and sucked on it to try to subside the pain, as you do. It didn't work, it just made me look a dork. I checked over my shoulder to see Harry and the rest running in relevantly the same direction as we had just previously been,
"WHERE ARE WE GOING?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" Alex yelled in reply, "I DIDN'T PLAN FOR THIS!
"BUT YOU PLAN FOR EVERYTHING!"
"I KNOW, I LIED! THROUGH THE DOOR!" Following the short period in which I had believed that Alex had no plan, I questioned why I had begin to think Alex wasn't prepared and followed her unquestioningly through a suspiciously convenient door that had appeared at the end of the row of shelving we was running down. She threw it open and jumped straight through, the wood clattering against the stone wall. I tried to skid to a halt just before going through the door hole, just to evaluate safety, but miss judged my speed and ended up falling less graceful through the air. I squeezed my eyes shut. The whoosh of the air flying past my ears left a ringing in them, and I heard multiple screams as the rest had also followed us unquestioning down Alex's door rabbit hole. It was like deja vu from the flight to London. My dying thought wasn't of George or Fred or Alex, or Lupin or Harry or anyone really, but the fact that there were cheeseburgers at dinner tonight, and instead of choosing one of them on my death day, I went for chicken noodle soup. What a mistake to make,
"Arresto momentum!"
"Oh fu--" I held my hands towards what I thought was the ground. After a few seconds of silence, one of my eyes peeled itself open and I was floating around ten inches from the ground,
"Arms in!" Alex shouted, and I pulled them in as the spell wore off and everyone dropped the ten inches to the ground. I was the third one up, after Harry and Luna, since Alex had landed gracefully on her feet from the off. Hermione was next up after me, closely followed by Ginny, and the three of us stood watching as Luna and Harry was mesmerised by a stone archway that was standing on the rocky island we seemed to have landed on,
"Harry, don't go near that. It looks ... Pretty dangerous."
"Hermione, there's voices. Can't you hear?"
"Harry, there is no voices."
"I can hear them too." Luna said dreamily. She had come to a stop, and was staring in awe at the veil,
"Oh ho, you don't wanna go near that thing." Alex said. She was walking around absent mindedly and was turning over rocks. It seemed as though she was scavenging for something, "That motherfucker will eat you up like an evening biscuit."
"Trust Alex to always put something in the most delicate terms." Hermione said disapprovingly,
"What did you wan--" Alex started. She was cut off by the sound of swooping in the air. Black cloud like figures flew about above our heads. I was caught off guard, pushed down and then dragged upwards. Next thing, I was stood staring at Harry, who was isolated in the centre of a circles created by deatheaters and now us, being held as hostages. A wand was jabbed into the side of my neck and I hissed. No need to be so rough mate, I breath with that.
"Now, Potter." Malfoy's voice rang out. He walked slowly into the middle, standing in front of Harry and open his palm at him, "The prophecy."
"No! Harry, don't give it to him!" Neville cried. I moved my head to look at him and got jabbed in my neck again, so I accepted I was going to miss out any action that didn't happen within my eye sight. I looked back to the centre of the room, the only place I was currently seeing, at just the right time. Sirius appeared behind Malfoy and tapped him on the shoulder. Lucius spun around quite gracefully and Sirius raised his eyebrows at him,
"Get away from my godson." And Sirius punched Lucius square in the face. Amazing. How didn't I see this coming? I heard a sound which seemed to resemble that of falling rocks, and then of course--
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHH OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
Alex's holler echoed around the pit like a Tarzan call. She swung around and past the death eater that was holding Neville by the throat, kicking him in the face as she went. I was amazed the deatheater didn't grabbed her by the ankle, yank her down and break her neck. Instead, he shot a spell at her she easily dodged and sent one back his way. I pushed off the deatheater, took one step forward then spun around and knocked him back with stupefy. Alex gave another cry, let go of her rope which dissolved into air and punched another deatheater in the face. Whilst I threw spells out of my wand with my right hand, my gaze was almost totally fixed on Alex's speedy movements for a good twenty seconds. From running to punching to kicking to swinging on another rope, she did it all. How none of the spells that were being shot about were hitting and killing her was almost beyond me, and how she was hardly using any magic at all stunned me even more, then I remember that this is Alexandra Tonks, and she doesn't need to play by the rules. No magic knocks her down,
"GET DOWN, ALEX!" Tonks yelled as she kneed a deatheater in the face and continued to usher Ginny and Luna out of the area. I threw a final spell and raced after them. Alex threw herself from another of her conjured ropes and landed just a few feet behind me. She ran up beside and then past me, following her sister into a corridor leading back into the main areas of the Ministry. She ducked down as a spell collided with a rock just past the entrance and stood in the opening of the corridor,
"Merlin, you can run when you want to." Alex panted as I arrived at her side a few seconds later,
"I'm more powerful than you think." I half laughed, half exhaled. We stood and tried to catch our breath for a moment, away from the madness.
And then it went quiet. There was no spells. No shouting. No noise at all, until a pained shout echoed around the empty pit, and it sounded suspiciously like Harry's. I ran out of the opening back towards the pit and the archway, Alex hot on my tail. We skidded to a halt just past the rock when our gazes hit Harry, being held back from the archway by Lupin. Harry had tears streaming down his cheeks and he was clawing desperately at Lupin's grasp around his shoulders. I looked around and noticed no signs of any devastation, and then I realised that Sirius wasn't around.
I inhaled slowly, realisation washing over me as Alex took off in a bolting sprint towards another joining corridor. Harry also took off the same way, narrowly beating Alex and knocking her out of the way as he disappeared through the corridor. I looked in the direction of Lupin. With his hands on his knees and his head bowed, I tottered over the rough ground towards Alex to help pick her up. She got up before I got there, dusting herself off then turning towards me. She grinned slightly, as if she was glad to see I was still there, and then directed her gaze towards Lupin. He looked up from the ground simultaneously with Alex, staring straight towards us. He straighten himself up as we waded our way across to him. Lupin exhaled slowly and extended his arm towards me, pulling me into a slight hug before releasing me again and sighing,
"I'm so ... S-So sorry, girls." Lupin shook his head. Alex was still grinning,
"W-What for?" She asked. I wasn't sure if she hadn't realised or she wasn't letting herself believe it,
"Bellatrix ... The veil, Alex. It ... It took Sirius. It took him after Bellatrix hit him a-- ... There was nothing we could have done, Alex. I'm really so sorry."
"Nah!" Alex swotted her hand. She was almost laughing, "Naaaaaaaah! Naaah ... Nah ..." Her grin slowly faded and she looked towards the ground. I looked helplessly at Lupin and he mirrored my look. I extended my arm slowly and placed it around Alex's shoulders,
"L-Look, come on ... Let's go find Nymphie, yeah?"
"I'm not a child, Lottie. I--" Alex looked at me and cut herself off. She sighed and averted her gaze back to the ground, "That would be nice."
"A-And we'll go see if we can have some tea, yeah? There must be a 24 hour Tesco around here that does tea to go."
"I ... I would enjoy that." Alex mumbled, one of the only times I had known her to. I looked up hopefully at Lupin and he shrugged. I should have known, he's a man, he won't know what supermarkets are around here. I lead Alex after Lupin, who walked to the edge of the pit and then extended his hand towards me. I grabbed it, and he apparated us out of the Ministry.
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