Y/n, Hermione and Ginny were running down the corridors now as Y/n frequently checked the map.
"What do you mean the school might be under attack?" Ginny asked as they ran.
"Harry believes that whatever Malfoy has been working on these past few months will come to fruition tonight." Y/n told her.
As they arrived on the seventh floor corridor they could see two familiar faces.
Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom.
Both could see the small group coming towards them.
"Hello everyone." Luna said dreamily. "Are we doing D.A meetings again?"
"We felt the coins get hot and came immediately." Neville said more seriously.
"Are you two the only ones?" Ginny asked.
"It is fine Ginny for I would take Neville and Luna over the rest of the D.A, For when called upon they answered without hesitation." Y/n said before he turned to the two. "We need your help tonight."
"What do you need us to do?" Neville asked.
Y/n looked down at the map again. "We need to split into groups." He said coming to a realisation. "Hermione, Luna. You two will go down to the dungeons and keep a lookout outside of Snape's office."
Hermione still wasn't very sure but she made no complaints.
Y/n took out the phial of Liquid luck. Its contents were small now that Harry had taken half and Ron had also taken some. He made a decision, and uncorked it bringing it to his lips and tilting the phial slightly so he could feel the potion on his lips. As soon as he did he tilted it back and handed it to Hermione who drank her share before handing it to Luna.
Once Luna had drunk, she handed the phial to Ginny who began to drink half of what was left leaving the rest for Neville.
"Stay safe you two." Y/n said to Hermione and Luna.
"You'd better stay safe too..." Hermione said looking at him as the gravity of what might occur started to dawn on her.
"I will." Y/n said feeling uncertain however.
They all watched as Hermione and Luna began to rush off towards the stairs.
"You didn't drink any did you?" Ginny asked.
"...There was not enough for us all." Y/n replied.
"Do you not trust her to look after herself?" Ginny asked.
"Of course I do." Y/n quickly said. "That is why I asked her to watch over Snape with Luna. We need to evenly spread out our abilities and Hermione is one of the most talented witches I have ever seen our age. But she is also the love of life and I would endure endless pain to keep her safe from harm if I can. Is that wrong of me?" Y/n asked Ginny.
"No, It's not." Ginny told him.
Time passed and soon Ron arrived with Professor McGonagall.
"So Mr Weasley was telling the truth. There are indeed students out of bed." She said crossly.
"That does not matter, We need the Order here tonight Professor." Y/n told her.
"As it so happens Mr Grindelwald, Dumbledore has already arranged for the Order to protect the school in his absence tonight. They are patrolling the corridors as we speak." Professor McGonagall told him.
"The order is already here?" Y/n asked a small amount of relief filling him.
"I am sorry but I must issue you all detention. You have put yourselves in great danger tonight, You of all people know the dangers that lurk beyond the walls of this castle Mr Grindelwald." Professor McGonagall said sounding both angry and disappointed.
"I will take as many detentions as you threaten me with professor, but I will not move." Y/n said.
Professor McGonagall stood slightly aghast. Y/n Grindelwald had never once been disrespectful to her in his entire six years at Hogwarts.
"I'm staying too." Ginny spoke up. "If Harry thinks Malfoy is up to something then that's good enough for me."
"Us too." Neville said.
Ron nodded his head.
"This is preposterous." Professor McGonagall said once again. "Now I will not tell you again, return to your common rooms immediately."
"Professor...in all the years that we have been at this school, have we ever been wrong about it, the students or ourselves being in danger." Y/n said to her. "I need you to trust in us tonight, as you would trust in the headmaster. He must have called the order here for this very reason." Y/n tried to reason with her. "He knows something is going to happen."
"Grindelwald..."McGonagall began to falter, but at that moment the sound of the room of Requirement's doors opening got their attention and they turned their head to see Draco Malfoy standing with what looked to be a shriveled-up old hand in one of his hands and something clutched tightly in the other. His eyes spotted the group awaiting him and before they could react he threw whatever was clutched in his hand at the floor and it exploded surrounding the corridor in total darkness.
"Lumos!" Ron says his wand trying to conjure light but it proves useless.
"Incendio!" Ginny tried.
"I can't see a thing!" Neville cried.
"It must be Peruvian instant darkness powder!" Y/n called to the others.
"Fred and George's." Ginny muttered.
Y/n heard hurried footsteps, what he could only guess were Death Eaters...using the cover of darkness to make their escape. "Do not use curses, we might hit one another otherwise, use the walls to guide you." He told the others and without hesitation he dashed forward blindly, trusting his instincts to guide him. The sound of footsteps and heavy breathing surrounded him as his friends did the same, determined not to let Malfoy and the Death Eaters slip away.
Y/n thought they were gaining ground, the darkness was beginning to lift, replaced by dim torchlight flickering along the walls. As his vision cleared, he spotted familiar faces ahead...Tonks, Bill, and Lupin, wands drawn and expressions grim.
The others looked pleased to see them but Y/n lifted his wand towards Lupin.
"Grindelwald?" McGonagall asked him.
"What gift did Professor Lupin give me for Christmas in my fifth year?" Y/n asked keeping his wand pointing at Lupin.
"A set of books to help you with the group you were teaching Defence against the Dark Arts to." Lupin answered.
Y/n lowered his wand convinced they were the real Order. "Sorry, but we had to be sure."
"Don't apologize. It was the right thing to do." Lupin told him sounding a little proud.
"Y/n, Ron, Ginny are you all right?" Tonks called out.
"We're fine, but Malfoy's brought Death Eaters into the castle with him!" Ginny told her, pointing down the corridor where the shadows still lingered.
"They fled down this way and we gave chase but the darkness slowed us down." Y/n explained.
"We only just got here ourselves so we didn't see which way they went." Bill said.
"Look, Malfoy's dropped his hand of glory." Ron pointed to the shrillved up hand they had seen Malfoy carrying before.
"That leads towards the Astronomy tower." Ginny called out.
"Good observation Ron." Y/n told him.
"Right we'll need to go after them. We cannot allow them to spread any further into the castle." McGonagall ordered.
"Avarda Kedavra!" They all suddenly heard a voice cry and Y/n pushed Ron down as a green light just missed the pair.
The group all turned their heads wands raised, to see Ivan, Priscilla and Atticus Grindelwald appear out of the darkness behind them.
"Atticus..." Y/n uttered his name.
"Well done Atticus." Ivan's voice said delighted. "You were quite right, staying back a moment to form a sneak attack was rather fun. But it seems we've been caught out now."
"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that by the end of tonight I will have killed the pathetic maggot who calls himself 'my brother' and that filthy mudblood of his if I can."
"That's the spirit dear!" Priscilla said sounding like a proud mother.
The others had raised their wands higher now ready for a fight.
"No!" Y/n called out to them. "You must take care of the other Death Eaters. I have this under control..." Y/n said, raising his wand towards Atticus who grinned manically at him.
"Y/n..." Lupin began to say.
"We do not have time, now go!" Y/n told them again.
"...I certainly hope you know what you are doing Grindelwald." Y/n could hear Professor McGonagall saying.
"So do I professor..." Y/n said quietly to her as he kept his eyes on his family. He pointed his wand behind him as he used the very same spell his Grandmother had used a year ago to produce a wall that cut the others off from him and his parents and soon he heard their running footprints getting quieter.
"So...Frieda's sacrifice leads to this?" Ivan Grindelwald said moving forward slightly.
Y/n knew that he was trying to goad him on and a few months ago it would have certainly worked. But right now he was trying to keep as calm and level-headed as he could. His Grandmother could not save him this time. He needed to keep these people away from his friends.
"I see that you both have only grown filthier since last we met..." Y/n called out and immediately he had to duck once again as a jet of green light shot over him.
"The only filth I can see is stood before us." Priscilla spat her wand pointed at Y/n.
"Now, now Priscilla. Atticus has been quite insistent on wanting to be the one to finish off the boy. What kind of kind of parents would we be to deny his glorious moment." Ivan chuckled coldly.
Priscilla lowered her wand slightly. "Of course dear. Atticus should savour this moment." Priscilla said in agreement.
"She didn't give very good sport in the end, Frieda. It was over far too quickly." Ivan said to Y/n now.
Y/n did not say a word as he raised his wand. He truthfully did not wish to fight Atticus, the prophecy Dumbledore had told him of lingered in the back of his mind. But a fight seemed inevitable. And so it proved to be as unable to contain himself any further Atticus cast first.
Y/n was surprised as he had to wordlessly deflect Atticus's hex. He was also now casting wordlessly it seemed.
"You have gotten better..." Y/n could not help but say.
"I've been training in the dark arts under true wizards...not those washed up teachers that old man hires. I've learned things you wouldn't dare to try." Atticus said proudly.
But Y/n gave no reply now as he began to launch his own barrage of spells at Atticus in the hopes one would connect and bring him down.
The Dark Mark was glittering directly above the Astronomy Tower, the highest of the castle.
Dumbledore had already crossed the crenellated ramparts and was dismounting a broom as Harry landed next to him seconds later and looked around.
The ramparts were deserted. The door to the spiral staircase that led back into the castle was closed. There was no sign of a struggle, of a fight to the death, of a body.
"What does it mean?" Harry asked Dumbledore, looking up at the green skull with its serpent's tongue glinting evilly above them. "Is it the real Mark? Has someone definitely been...Professor?"
In the dim green glow from the Mark Harry saw Dumbledore clutching at his chest with his blackened hand.
"Go and wake Severus." said Dumbledore faintly but clearly. "Tell him what has happened and bring him to me. Do nothing else, speak to nobody else and do not remove your Cloak. I shall wait here."
"But..."
"You swore to obey me, Harry...go!"
Harry hurried over to the door leading to the spiral staircase, but his hand had only just closed upon the iron ring of the door when he heard running footsteps on the other side. He looked round at Dumbledore, who gestured to him to retreat. Harry backed away, drawing his wand as he did so.
The door burst open and somebody erupted through it and shouted. "Expelliarmus!"
Harry's body became instantly rigid and immobile, and he felt himself fall back against the Tower wall, propped like an unsteady statue, unable to move or speak. He could not understand how it had happened...Expelliarmus was not a Freezing Charm...
Then, by the light of the Mark, he saw Dumbledore's wand flying in an arc over the edge of the ramparts and understood. Dumbledore had wordlessly immobilised Harry, and the second he had taken to perform the spell had cost him the chance of defending himself.
Standing against the ramparts, very white in the face, Dumbledore still showed no sign of panic or distress. He merely looked across at his disarmer and said. "Good evening, Draco."
Malfoy stepped forwards, glancing around quickly to check that he and Dumbledore were alone. His eyes fell upon the second broom. "Who else is here?"
"A question I might ask you. Or are you acting alone?"
Harry saw Malfoy's pale eyes shift back to Dumbledore in the greenish glare of the Mark.
"No." he said. "I've got back-up. There are Death Eaters here in your school tonight."
"Well, well." said Dumbledore, as though Malfoy was showing him an ambitious homework project. "Very good indeed. You found a way to let them in, did you?"
"Yeah." said Malfoy, who was panting. "Right under your nose and you never realised!"
"Ingenious." said Dumbledore. "Yet...forgive me...where are they now? You seem unsupported."
"They met some of your guard. They're having a fight down below. They won't be long...I came on ahead. I...I've got a job to do."
"Well, then, you must get on and do it, my dear boy." said Dumbledore softly.
There was silence. Harry stood imprisoned within his own invisible, paralysed body, staring at the two of them, his ears straining to hear sounds of the Death Eaters' distant fight, and in front of him, Draco Malfoy did nothing but stare at Albus Dumbledore who, incredibly, smiled.
"Draco, Draco, you are not a killer."
"'How do you know?" said Malfoy at once.
He seemed to realise how childish the words had sounded, Harry saw him flush in the Mark's greenish light.
"You don't know what I'm capable of." said Malfoy more forcefully. "You don't know what I've done!"
"Oh, yes, I do." said Dumbledore mildly. "You almost killed Katie Bell, Y/n Grindelwald and Ronald Weasley. You have been trying, with increasing desperation, to kill me all year. Forgive me, Draco, but they have been feeble attempts ...so feeble, to be honest, that I wonder whether your heart has been really in it..."
"It has been in it!" said Malfoy vehemently. "I've been working on it all year, and tonight..."
Somewhere in the depths of the castle below Harry heard a muffled yell. Malfoy stiffened and glanced over his shoulder.
"Somebody is putting up a good fight." said Dumbledore conversationally.
"Grindelwald will facing Atticus about now." Draco uttered. "He's always hated him..."
Harry was sure he could see Dumbledore let out a small sad smile.
"But you were saying...yes, you have managed to introduce Death Eaters into my school which, I admit, I thought impossible...how did you do it?"
But Malfoy said nothing, he was listening to whatever was happening below and seemed almost as paralysed as Harry was.
"Perhaps you ought to get on with the job alone." suggested Dumbledore. "What if your back-up has been thwarted by my guard? As you have perhaps realised, there are members of the Order of the Phoenix here tonight, too. And after all, you don't really need help...I have no wand at the moment...I cannot defend myself."
Malfoy merely stared at him.
"I see." said Dumbledore kindly, when Malfoy neither moved nor spoke. "You are afraid to act until they join you."
"I'm not afraid!" snarled Malfoy, though he still made no move to hurt Dumbledore. "It's you who should be scared!"
"But why? I don't think you will kill me, Draco. Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe... so tell me, while we wait for your friends...how did you smuggle them in here? It seems to have taken you a long time to work out how to do it."
Malfoy looked as though he was fighting down the urge to shout, or to vomit. He gulped and took several deep breaths, glaring at Dumbledore, his wand pointing directly at the latter's heart. Then, as though he could not help himself, he said. "I had to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one's used for years. The one Montague got lost in last year."
"Aaaah." Dumbledore's sigh was half a groan. He closed his eyes for a moment. "That was clever...there is a pair, I take it?"
"The other's in Borgin and Burkes." said Malfoy. "And they make a kind of passage between them. Montague told me that when he was stuck in the Hogwarts one, he was trapped in limbo but sometimes he could hear what was going on at school, and sometimes what was going on in the shop, as if the Cabinet was travelling between them, but he couldn't make anyone hear him...in the end he managed to Apparate out, even though he'd never passed his test. He nearly died doing it. Everyone thought it was a really good story, but I was the only one who realised what it meant, even Borgin didn't know. I was the one who realised there could be a way into Hogwarts through the Cabinets if I fixed the broken one."
"Very good." murmured Dumbledore. "So the Death Eaters were able to pass from Borgin and Burkes into the school to help you...a clever plan, a very clever plan...and, as you say, right under my nose..."
"Yeah." said Malfoy who, bizarrely, seemed to draw courage and comfort from Dumbledore's praise. "Yeah, it was!"
"But there were times." Dumbledore went on. "Weren't there, when you were not sure you would succeed in mending the Cabinet? And you resorted to crude and badly judged measures such as sending me a cursed necklace that was bound to reach the wrong hands...poisoning mead there was only the slightest chance I might drink..."
"Yeah, well, you still didn't realise who was behind that stuff, did you?" sneered Malfoy, as Dumbledore slid a little down the ramparts, the strength in his legs apparently fading, and Harry struggled fruitlessly, mutely, against the enchantment binding him.
"As a matter of fact, I did." said Dumbledore. "I was sure it was you."
"Why didn't you stop me, then?" Malfoy demanded.
"I tried, Draco. Professor Snape has been keeping watch over you on my orders..."
"He hasn't been doing your orders, he promised my mother..."
"Of course that is what he would tell you, Draco, but..."
"He's a double-agent, you stupid old man, he isn't working for you, you just think he is!"
"We must agree to differ on that, Draco. It so happens that I trust Professor Snape..."
"Well, you're losing your grip, then!" sneered Malfoy. "He's been offering me plenty of help...wanting all the glory for himself...wanting a bit of the action...'What are you doing? Did you do the necklace, that was stupid, it could have blown everything...' But I haven't told him what I've been doing in the Room of Requirement, he's going to wake up tomorrow and it'll all be over and he won't be the Dark Lord's favourite any more, he'll be nothing compared to me, nothing!"
"Very gratifying." said Dumbledore mildly. "We all like appreciation for our own hard work, of course, but you must have had an accomplice, all the same... someone in Hogsmeade, someone who was able to slip Katie the..aaaah..."
Dumbledore closed his eyes again and nodded, as though he was about to fall asleep.
"...of course...Rosmerta. How long has she been under the Imperius Curse?"
"Got there at last, have you?" Malfoy taunted.
There was another yell from below, rather louder than the last. Malfoy looked nervously over his shoulder again, then back at Dumbledore, who went on. "So poor Rosmerta was forced to lurk in her own bathroom and pass that necklace to any Hogwarts student who entered the room unaccompanied? And the poisoned mead, well, naturally, Rosmerta was able to poison it for you before she sent the bottle to Slughorn, believing that it was to be my Christmas present...yes, very neat...very neat...poor Mr Filch would not, of course, think to check a bottle of Rosmerta's. Tell me, how have you been communicating with Rosmerta? I thought we had all methods of communication in and out of the school monitored."
"Enchanted coins." said Malfoy, as though he was compelled to keep talking, though his wand hand was shaking badly. "I had one and she had the other and I could send her messages."
"Isn't that the secret method of communication the group that called themselves Dumbledore's Army used last year?" asked Dumbledore. His voice was light and conversational, but Harry saw him slip an inch lower down the wall as he said it.
"Yeah, I got the idea from them." said Malfoy, with a twisted smile. "I got the idea of poisoning the mead from Grindelwald's little Mudblood Granger, as well, I heard her talking in the library about Filch not recognising potions..."
"Please do not use that offensive word in front of me." said Dumbledore.
Malfoy gave a harsh laugh. "You care about me saying 'Mudblood' when I'm about to kill you?"
"Yes, I do." said Dumbledore, and Harry saw his feet slide a little on the floor as he struggled to remain upright. "But as for being about to kill me, Draco, you have had several long minutes now. We are quite alone. I am more defenceless than you can have dreamed of finding me, and still you have not acted..."
Malfoy's mouth contorted involuntarily, as though he had tasted something very bitter.
"Now, about tonight." Dumbledore went on, "I am a little puzzled about how it happened...you knew that I had left the school? But of course." he answered his own question. "Rosmerta saw me leaving, she tipped you off using your ingenious coins, I'm sure..."
"That's right." said Malfoy. "But she said you were just going for a drink, you'd be back..."
"Well, I certainly did have a drink...and I came back...after a fashion." mumbled Dumbledore. "So you decided to spring a trap for me?"
"We decided to put the Dark Mark over the Tower and get you to hurry up here, to see who'd been killed." said Malfoy. "And it worked!"
"Well...yes and no..." said Dumbledore. "But am I to take it, then, that nobody has been murdered?"
"Someone's dead." said Malfoy and his voice seemed to go up an octave as he said it. "One of your people...I don't know who, it was dark...I stepped over the body...I was supposed to be waiting up here when you got back, only your Phoenix lot got in the way."
"Yes, they do that." said Dumbledore.
There was a bang and shouts from below, louder than ever, it sounded as though people were fighting on the actual spiral staircase that led to where Dumbledore, Malfoy and Harry stood, and Harry's heart thundered unheard in his invisible chest...someone was dead...Malfoy had stepped over the body...but who was it?
"There is little time, one way or another." said Dumbledore. "So let us discuss your options, Draco."
"My options!" said Malfoy loudly. "I'm standing here with a wand...I'm about to kill you..."
"My dear boy, let us have no more pretence about that. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it when you first Disarmed me, you would not have stopped for this pleasant chat about ways and means."
"I haven't got any options!" said Malfoy, and he was suddenly as white as Dumbledore. "I've got to do it! He'll kill me! He'll kill my whole family!"
"I appreciate the difficulty of your position." said Dumbledore. "Why else do you think I have not confronted you before now? Because I knew that you would have been murdered if Lord Voldemort realised that I suspected you."
Malfoy winced at the sound of the name.
"I did not dare speak to you of the mission with which I knew you had been entrusted, in case he used Legilimency against you." continued Dumbledore. "But now at last we can speak plainly to each other...no harm has been done, you have hurt nobody, though you are very lucky that your unintentional victims survived...I can help you, Draco."
"No, you can't." said Malfoy, his wand hand shaking very badly indeed. "Nobody can. He told me to do it or he'll kill me. I've got no choice."
"Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban, when the time comes we can protect him too...come over to the right side, Draco...you are not a killer..."
Malfoy stared at Dumbledore.
"But I got this far, didn't I?" he said slowly. "They thought I'd die in the attempt, but I'm here... and you're in my power...I'm the one with the wand...you're at my mercy..."
"No, Draco." said Dumbledore quietly. "It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now."
Malfoy did not speak. His mouth was open, his wand hand still trembling. Harry thought he saw it drop by a fraction...
But suddenly footsteps were thundering up the stairs and a second later Malfoy was buffeted out of the way as four people in black robes burst through the door on to the ramparts. Still paralysed, his eyes staring unblinkingly, Harry gazed in terror upon four strangers: it seemed the Death Eaters had won the fight below.
A lumpy-looking man with an odd lopsided leer gave a wheezy giggle.
"Dumbledore cornered!" he said, and he turned to a stocky little woman who looked as though she could be his sister and who was grinning eagerly. "Dumbledore wandless, Dumbledore alone! Well done, Draco, well done!"
"Good evening, Amycus," said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party. "And you've brought Alecto too...charming..."
The woman gave an angry little titter.
"Think your little jokes'll help you on your death bed, then?" she jeered.
"Jokes? No, no, these are manners." replied Dumbledore.
"Do it." said the stranger standing nearest to Harry, a big, rangy man with matted grey hair and whiskers, whose black Death Eater's robes looked uncomfortably tight. He had a voice like none that Harry had ever heard, a rasping bark of a voice. Harry could smell a powerful mixture of dirt, sweat and, unmistakeably, of blood coming from him. His filthy hands had long yellowish nails.
"Is that you, Fenrir?" asked Dumbledore.
"That's right." rasped the other. "Pleased to see me, Dumbledore?"
"No, I cannot say that I am..."
Fenrir Greyback grinned, showing pointed teeth. Blood trickled down his chin and he licked his lips slowly, obscenely.
"But you know how much I like kids, Dumbledore."
"Am I to take it that you are attacking even without the full moon now? This is most unusual... you have developed a taste for human flesh that cannot be satisfied once a month?"
"That's right." said Greyback. "Shocks you, that, does it, Dumbledore? Frightens you?"
"Well, I cannot pretend it does not disgust me a little." said Dumbledore. "And, yes, I am a little shocked that Draco here invited you, of all people, into the school where his friends live..."
"I didn't." breathed Malfoy. He was not looking at Greyback, he did not seem to want to even glance at him. "I didn't know he was going to come..."
"I wouldn't want to miss a trip to Hogwarts, Dumbledore." rasped Greyback. "Not when there are throats to be ripped out... delicious, delicious..."
And he raised a yellow fingernail and picked at his front teeth, leering at Dumbledore.
"I could do you for afters, Dumbledore..."
"No." said the fourth Death Eater sharply. He had a heavy, brutal-looking face. "We've got orders. Draco's got to do it. Now, Draco, and quickly."
Malfoy was showing less resolution than ever. He looked terrified as he stared into Dumbledore's face, which was even paler, and rather lower than usual, as he had slid so far down the rampart wall.
"He's not long for this world anyway, if you ask me!" said the lopsided man, to the accompaniment of his sister's wheezing giggles. "Look at him...what's happened to you, then, Dumby?"
"Oh, weaker resistance, slower reflexes, Amycus." said Dumbledore. "Old age, in short ...one day, perhaps, it will happen to you...if you are lucky..."
"What's that mean, then, what's that mean?" yelled the Death Eater, suddenly violent. "Always the same, weren't yeh, Dumby, talking and doing nothing, nothing, I don't even know why the Dark Lord's bothering to kill yeh! Come on, Draco, do it!"
But at that moment, there were renewed sounds of scuffling from below and a voice shouted, "They've blocked the stairs...Reducto! REDUCTO!"
Harry's heart leapt, so these four had not eliminated all opposition, but merely broken through the fight to the top of the Tower, and, by the sound of it, created a barrier behind them...
"Now, Draco, quickly!" said the brutal-faced man angrily.
But Malfoy's hand was shaking so badly that he could barely aim.
"I'll do it." snarled Greyback, moving towards Dumbledore with his hands outstretched, his teeth bared.
"I said no!" shouted the brutal-faced man, there was a flash of light and the werewolf was blasted out of the way, he hit the ramparts and staggered, looking furious. Harry's heart was hammering so hard it seemed impossible that nobody could hear him standing there, imprisoned by Dumbledore's spell...if he could only move, he could aim a curse from under the Cloak...
"Draco, do it, or stand aside so one of us..." screeched the woman, but at that precise moment the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood Snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from Dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four Death Eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and Malfoy.
"We've got a problem, Snape." said the lumpy Amycus, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon Dumbledore. "The boy doesn't seem able..."
But somebody else had spoken Snape's name, quite softly.
"Severus..."
The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading.
Snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed Malfoy roughly out of the way. The three Death Eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.
Snape gazed for a moment at Dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
"Severus...please..."
Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at Dumbledore.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The air crackled with magic and tension as Y/n continued to face off against Atticus. Their duel had raged on for what felt like an eternity, the walls scorched and the ground littered with the remnants of spells gone awry. Their breaths came in ragged gasps as exhaustion settled in more with each spell.
Atticus stood across from Y/n, his eyes blazing with fury and a twisted determination. His wand was raised, the tip glowing with the sinister green light of a curse Y/n knows all too well. His intent is clear...he wants him dead, and he will stop at nothing to achieve it. The bond of brotherhood that once tied them together was now completely frayed, nearly severed by the weight of betrayal and differing ideals.
But despite everything, Y/n still could not find the desire to kill him. His heart was heavy with the conflict, torn between the love he once held for his brother and the necessity of stopping him.
"Is this what you really want, Atticus?" Y/n shouts to him, trying one last time to reach him. "We do not have to do this!"
"Enough Y/n!" Atticus spat back, his voice cold and merciless. "You've always been weak. Always trying to find a way out, to avoid making the hard choices. But this is where it ends."
He hurls a powerful curse in Y/n's direction, the spell's light streaking through the air with deadly precision. Y/n only barely manages to deflect it, the force of the impact sending him staggering backward slightly before an idea suddenly comes to him. Closing his eyes and pointing his wand forward he cries "Lumos Maxima! which creates a large burst of bright light that momentarily blinds both Atticus and their parents.
In the midst of the chaos, Atticus falters. It's only for a split second, but it's enough to give Y/n the time he needs. Y/n stumbles, his wand lowering slightly as exhaustion and doubt take hold. In that moment, he sees his opportunity...the perfect chance to end it, to strike Atticus down and end the threat he poses once and for all.
But as Y/n raises his wand, something inside holds him back. Despite everything, despite the darkness he's embraced, he's still his brother. He still cannot let go of the loving memories he shared from when they were younger, before they had discovered their heritage.
In his moment of hesitation, Y/n could see the three were starting to recover. Making a decision, he points his wand not at Atticus, but at the ceiling above. 'Bombarda Maxima' he wordlessly cast and soon a large explosion of stone takes place along it before the rest of the ceiling above starts to groan in protest before it gives way completely, a massive section of stone and wood comes crashing down between Y/n and Atticus. The noise is deafening, and for a moment, the world is nothing but dust and rubble. Y/n shields himself the best he can, feeling the floor tremble beneath his feet as the ceiling continues to collapse around them.
When the dust finally settles, a wall of debris stands between Y/n, his brother and his parents, cutting off the fight.
"No!" Y/n could hear Atticus angrily shouting at the debris of the ceiling that blocked his way.
"You will have your chance Atticus, in the future the boy will die. For now we must leave the others will have finished by now as it is. We must leave." Ivan's voice told Atticus.
"Come along dear. It is time for us to be rewarded by the Dark Lord..." Priscilla said and Y/n could hear their feet disappearing on the other side.
Y/n fell to his knee for a moment. He had hesitated when presented with the opportunity to kill Atticus. "I failed.." He angrily told himself and shut his eyes, letting out a noise of deep frustration with himself.
He only allowed himself to rest for a mere moment as he remembered the others might still be fighting, returning quickly to his feet and waving his wand to dismiss the wall he had conjured. Setting off to the Astronomy tower he found its corridor to be empty save for the body of a Death Eater he did not recognise.
Turning back he rushed towards the stairs and headed down them in any direction, hoping to find either a member of the order or one of his friends. He couldn't see them, all he could see was a small crowd of students who appeared to be crowded around someone who lay dead upon the floor.