Ch. 32: The Storm [Part Two]

Song For This Chapter: Miss Atomic Bomb by The Killers

We arrived at Hogwarts Castle in the throngs of a small victory. McGonagall had taken control of the school and Snape, along with his Death Eater companions, had been driven from the premises.

I tightened my hand in Fred's grip and he squeezed back, shooting me a tight-lipped smile. My heart fluttered and stopped for a moment, seeing the rushing people all around the castle, preparing themselves in case of a fight breaking out.

"Elizabeth Weasley?!"

I snapped my head away from Fred and watched as Lana and someone I hardly could recognize approached me, Jenna not far behind as they started to run. I dropped Fred's hand as Lana rushed at me and Jenna leaped into the air, tackling me into a giant hug.

"Oh, I can't believe you're here! I was just asking Hermione about you," Jenna gushed, blue eyes full of excitement as she pulled away. I paused, looking from her to Lana to the boy in between them. Lana lightly punched me on the arm and grinned.

"Hermione's here?"

"Oi, Fred, you aren't gonna say 'ello?" The beat-up man called to him as I racked my gaze up and down his frame, examining him. He's face was covered in lumps and various stages of bruising that it was hard to decipher who he really was.

Fred squinted at him and scoffed. "Blimey, Finnigan, is that you, mate? You look like shit."

"Still a lot better off than you," he replied as Lana snickered.

I could tell Fred was gearing up to spit something back to Seamus, but knowing the two of them, the insults would only grow more and more personal. "All right, well, what's the plan then?"

Jenna and Lana looked at each other. Frowning, I bundled up my mess of curls and tied them back, arching a brow at their silence. "Well? Do we have one?"

"We were sorta hoping you would have one."

"Us? We just got here!"

Lana scratched her cheek and somehow managed to shrug, as if our lives weren't going to be hanging in the balance by all this. "There's your answer over there, I'd guess." Following the curve of her thumb, jutting out over her shoulder, I watched as a flock of flustered professors heckled each other, talking loud and being followed by Neville, the Weasleys, and Remus Lupin and his wife, as well as a few other faces I didn't recognize.

"That must be the rest of the Order," Fred told me, sensing the curiosity no doubt radiating off of me. He nodded towards a few of them and I watched them as they approached, putting names to faces. "Remus Lupin you know, Tonks you know, Kingsley you may not know," he continued, "the women three in the back are Elara Delphi, Diana Ashwood, and," Fred frowned, narrowing his gaze, "is that Vera?"

"Who?"

Fred perked up and cupped a hand around his mouth as the flock of people passed. "VERA! HEY, BROOMSTICK!"

The menacing glare of the tall, lean woman with dark features and piercing eyes fell on the two of us and for a moment I felt my bones freeze before she broke the tension with a half-cocked grin. "Weasel Two?"

Fred led me to the group of them, Jenna and Lana and Seamus following behind. The woman named Vera stopped as the rest of the group collected at the front entrance of the castle. She was taller than me with an athletic, wiry build and olive toned skin that matched the honeyed brown of her irises. Though I found her pretty in a rough sort of fashion, something told me she was well aware of her looks and they didn't really mean anything to her.

"Elle, this is Vera Hadley," Fred introduced the two of us, "one of the best seekers Gryffindor's had in a while. She completed school in my fourth year," he explained, knowing that I'd never met her before due to the fact that I'd only come to Hogwarts in his sixth year.

Vera rolled her eyes, turning to me and shaking her head. "After his brother, of course."

"Vera, this is Elle Weasley, my wife." She wasn't at all phased by his words.

"Nice to meet you," I said.

"Not really," Vera inserted, taking me by surprise. "Actually, it's terrible to meet you under the circumstances. Fred," Vera turned from me and back to my husband with a stone face, all the while leaving me a bit stunned by her bluntness. "Oliver and his team should be flying through shortly for an aerial attack, you got a broom?"

Fred chuckled. "I always know where Filch keeps the confiscated ones. I reckon he still has mine and Georgie's old ones still hanging in his office somewhere."

"Same old Weasley."

Lana elbowed my ribs as Vera and Fred wrapped up their talk, mouthing the question of who this woman was, but I couldn't really tell her because I had no idea myself. "Let's talk with McGonagall," Jenna said to Lana and me, "not having a plan is stressing me out."

In agreement, I shot Fred a hand motion, silently telling him we were leaving and he nodded, expressing that he would catch up Vera soon. McGonagall was strolling through the halls, directing people in various places and thinking up positions to best tackle the beast outside our door.

Jenna caught up with the group first, falling in line behind Neville and listening as McGonagall told us to use any means necessary to defend the Castle and the student body. "Let me get this straight, Professor," Neville balked, mouth agape as she continued to move forward, barely sparing Neville an ear, "you're actually giving us permission to do this?"

"That is correct, Longbottom," McGonagall hoisted up the hem of her skirt as she descended the stairs that lead us, the whole group of people waiting for commands, waiting for the edge of war, outside.

"What's that she's sayin, Neville?" Seamus asked, even though the lumpy parts of his face, I could tell he was excited.

Neville arched a brow and McGonagall answered for him, voice perfectly clear. "Blow up the bridge leading to the castle."

"Just blow it up," Finnigan's voice scratched in anticipation. Lana and I stopped to watch the incredible, twisted smile take over the explosive Irishman's face. "Boom?"

"Boom," Professor McGonagall replied, leaving Seamus in her dust. Lana leaned into my side and murmured, "did McGonagall really just say--"

"--Yup," I whispered, "yup she did."

"Wicked," Neville and Seamus chimed. "But, how on Earth will we manage that?"

McGonagall paused, the group looking out into the night as dark clouds loomed on the midnight horizon, threatening to swallow us whole. "Why don't you confer with Mr. Finnigan. As I remember, he has a specialty with pyrotechnics.

"I won't let you down, Professor," Seamus immediately said, taking charge of the situation. "I'm going to need some help though."

Lana, Jenna, Neville, and I shared a nod and followed Seamus as he ran through the castle halls, a slight pep in his step at the thought of actually being told to blow something up.

We passed Fred and Vera as they began to head back towards the group. Our eyes locked for a second as my group ran past and Fred shouted out to me: "Oi! Letter, where are you going?"

"Gonna go blow something up," I shouted back, the smile on my face wide. Fred scoffed and said something, but I was too far away to hear it. We'd regroup after the bridge was gone.

Cobblestones passed underfoot as I raced to keep up with the others, my limp leg not doing too well, but not terribly enough that it was impossible.

Seamus tore his way through the Hogwarts Kitchen, collecting various empty, glass jars and wax candles from cupboards. "So, do you know how to actually make a bomb, Seamus?" I asked, watching as his hands hovered and paused over ingredients before picking them up. Something told me he was winging it.

"Explosions always happen to me when I least expect them," he replied, not fixing the anxiety in my chest, "so I'm sure this will sort itself out."

"Just do what you always do," Lana sarcastically claimed in the background, sitting on a work table and taking a bite from a cinnamon roll that had been left out on the tabletop.

Jenna pouted from beside her. "Hey, what -- where'd you get that? Is there another? Come on, share it!"

"Guys," I stressed, "come on, we're in the middle of something important."

Jenna frowned, crossing her arms over her chest with a heavy sigh over the cinnamon bun. Neville, with an arm full of glass jars, turned to Jenna with a nervous smile and pulled a wrapped parcel from his coat pocket, a wiry string keeping the wrappings together.

"Here, Jenna," Neville said. "I may have taken this from the kitchens earlier. I was saving it. It's not a cinnamon bun," he warned Jenna as he placed the parcel into her hands, "but, it's one of my favorite treats."

Jenna's bottom lip quivered as if she was going to cry, and I tried not to make a face. It was cute, but hard to appreciate due to the fact that people were scrambling around upstairs. "Jenna and her damned sweet tooth," Lana snickered in the background.

"Hey--" she started, but I cut her off.

"How can you guys be arguing over treats right now, honestly?" It was only a part way joke as I took the jars Neville was holding and followed Seamus out of the kitchens, the others quickly on our tail. Jenna put the treat in her pocket and tried not to blush too hard at the kind gesture from Neville.

Lana shrugged, swallowing the last bits of the roll before picking up the pace to a jogging speed. "Well, you know, this is kinda how we've been living the last few months, Elle."

"Seriously?" I couldn't believe the conditions of the castle. I could hardly recognize it as we weaved our way further and further down into the dungeons. Doors were boarded shut, pictures were missing from walls. But, as we ran past, people in the paintings were running too, spreading the word to all the other paintings across the Hogwarts Castle that Snape and the Death Eaters were gone. For now.

"Where are we going, Seamus?"

"Snape's old Potions class. The old tosser's got some great stuff in there. Brilliant for explosions."

The door to the Potion chamber wouldn't budge at first, the door having been locked with magic. "Alohomora." Neville pushed the heavy door open and Seamus rushed to the back case that sat in the back of the room. It had been so long since I had attended one of these classes, it felt odd to be back again, but in another, more dire, situation.

The sound of shattering glass yanked at my attention. Seamus broke through the front panels of the case and merely began grabbing armfuls of different chemicals: gunpowder, exploding fluid, castor oil, and pearl dust where among the jars he chose, filling the empty glass jars we'd taken with the ingredients.

"This looks like a lot of steps," Jenna cautioned, helping by filling a few of the jars with gunpowder, getting a warning from Lana to be careful. "Do we know how much time we have?"

"Not much," Seamus admitted. "It's gonna be a big bang."

FRED'S POV:

"So, married, huh?" Vera scoffed as we broke into Filch's old office. It had been changed since the new Death Eaters had raided the place. I didn't even wonder where Filch had to be hiding out. It was obvious that a Squib wasn't really wanted at Hogwarts with Snape and those tossers in charge. "How'd she manage to get you to agree to that?"

I pushed open the glass case across from the old, familiar desk and grabbed the two Cleansweeps that George and I had used to do night raids on. George and I had decided to leave them in Filch's office instead of taking them when we'd left, as a memento to Filch so he could remember the good times.

Of course, they probably weren't good for him, but that was beside the point.

"I actually had to convince her," I tossed Georgie's old broom to Vera's waiting, outstretched hand, "took me three times."

Vera laughed at that, mounting the broom before tightening her hair up and out of her face. "Well, then she must be worth it. Why aren't you with her right now?"

Expertly, Vera kicked up from the ground and hovered in the air, waiting for me to join her. Waiting for me to respond. I hardly had to think too long to come up with my answer as we flew down the halls, leaving Filch's door open as another joke on my part. Filch had always hated his door being open; his cat would get out that way.

"She's got her friends with her, she'll be fine."

"Will you?"

The thought of dying didn't scare me half as much as the thought of losing someone I cared about. The thought of losing Elle, of losing George, of losing Mum or Dad, that's what really fueled the pain and anxiety in my chest.

I didn't respond to her. There wasn't anything I could say and Vera knew this as she pushed ahead to the awaiting outdoors, the pair of us hovering over my Mum, George, Blake, and the rest of the professors. "Oi, need a hand down there?" I called, earning a grin from my brother.

"You found them, I see," he yelled back. "Well, let's see it then, bring them down!"

Vera and I touched the ground and dismounted while Flitwick and McGonagall discussed some aerial strategies back and forth, thinking of the best ways to take the Death Eaters by surprise. Professor McGonagall took me by surprise by the battle strategies she easily created as she spoke. "You've got a mind for this, Professor?"

"I have a mind for many things, Mr. Weasley, as you will see very shortly," McGonagall huffed, and for a moment, though I could hardly believe it myself, the tight-lipped line on McGonagall's face that I had come to believe was permanently frozen in place, flickered with a ghost of a smile.

George offered the broom to Blake, who gripped the handle with a wicked, twisted gleam in her eyes. "You ready to show these boys how it's done, love?" Vera and Blake exchanged stone-cold squints, the old memories of battling it out on the Quidditch field resurfacing after all these years. Slytherin versus Gryffindor.

"Blancora Hall," Vera quipped, tightening her grip on the oak handle of the Cleansweep. "I didn't think I'd see you on this side of the castle."

Blake's gaze sharpened. "Vera Hadley. I didn't think I'd see you ever again. Don't you have a habit of running away from your problems?"

"All right, that's it--" George began to intervene, but Blake pushed him back, a flat hand on his chest. Quietly, I watched my brother retreat, head down and lips sucked in. I tried not to pull a face, but it was hard when he was acting like an idiot.

Vera and Blake glared for a bit longer, making the two of us think that perhaps pairing them up wasn't the most brilliant plan after all. Blake broke the tension first with a giggle until the giggle picked up speed and rolled into a genuine, roaring laugh. Vera's grimace broke down into a half smile, somewhat forced, but she didn't join in on the laughter. "All right, Hall, let's show these pricks how it's done."

"Yeah, we'll teach them a lesson or two." Blake slapped Vera on the shoulder after the girl had refused to acknowledge the high-five she had been holding up in the air. "Let's go."

George rose his voice as the girls lifted off from the ground. "Hey! Watch out and don't get too badly injured out there!"

"I'm a HEALER!" Blake yelled back, their bodies becoming smaller and smaller as they took to the skies. "YOU DON'T GET INJURED. OR AT LEAST WAIT UNTIL I'M BACK ON THE GROUND BEFORE YOU DO!"

"Boys," Professor McGonagall called our attention away from the skies. "I need you to get up high, preferably the east towers as Remus and Nymphadora have the west ones, and cast Protego Maxima. We're going to shield the school as best as we can for now."

"Yes, Professor. Will do."

Mum pushed her way between the students and teachers to grip both George and I's shoulders, peering deeply into our eyes as she took a deep breath. She didn't need to speak for the two of us to know her fear. "Be safe, dears. Be smart."

"Always," George and I chimed together, shooting Mum a reassuring grin and she sniffled and pat out cheeks with a pained smile. We broke away from Mum all too soon for her liking and she pulled us back with an alarming amount of strength, hugging the two of us firmly before sending us on our way.

ELLE'S POV:

"Hurry, hurry!" Seamus rushed us, laying traps across the whole bridge. Carefully, but quick enough as to not let time get away from us, Jenna, Lana, Neville, Seamus, and I all mixed the powder together, each posted at different areas on the bridge and taping down triggers for Neville to send off later.

Everything needed to be handled with care. I strung some wire from my triggers and connected them to the ones that Jenna had made across from me, running the string down across the rest of the bridge.

I had to climb up on the ledge of the bridge and straddle the stone face between my thighs, to reach the weak points on the bridge. It needed to collapse, not just shake. It had to disappear entirely, and, hopefully, take as many Death Eaters with it as possible.

"Oh god, that's high," I moaned, feeling sick as the vast darkness of empty air swam beneath me, teetering on the edge. "I-I don't think I can do this."

Lana swung herself over the side of the bridge and sat on the edge beside me, hold out a firm hand to take the wire from my shaking fists. "It's okay, Elle. Get down, I'll finish this side." She offered me a brisk nod and I agreed, not the least bit afraid to turn down the task.

"Would you look at that?" Jenna gasped, pointing to the sky as a large, blue glowing disc began to descend around the outskirts of the castle, stretching over our heads and passing the end of the bridge, keeping everything secure from within. "A protection shield!"

"That won't hold for long," Seamus said over his shoulder, fixated on his work. "Babe! Toss me the wire when you're done with it."

'Babe? ' I mouthed to Jenna, she bit her lip with a soft chuckle and nodded her head towards Lana who tied off the end of the trigger and tossed it to Finnigan from the other side of the bridge. "What the hell happened now?" I whispered to Jenna.

"Long story," she replied under her breath, trying not to have the others interfere. "We'll talk about it later."

Lana pushed between the two of us and sucked on her teeth, eyes racking the pair of us. Once Neville and Seamus began tying the wires on the opposite side, Lana whispered at me, frowning and blushing. "Look, you know, it's not ideal, but if you must know.... Seamus asked me to be his girlfriend."

"And you said ye--"

"Shhhh! Shut up," Lana hushed my loud voice, the three of turning to look at the boys, still fixated on the important things. "Loud ass," she muttered.

"And you said yes?" I whispered. Lana nodded slowly, trying incredibly hard not to meet my eyes as the goofy smile spread over my face. She was such an idiot. "I knew it. I called it years ago."

Lana mocked me in a high-pitched, shrill tone. Jenna chuckled and pushed away from us as the boys finished with the triggers. Our hands were black with ash and gunpowder and I was sure I had it on my face by the way I kept touching it.

"So, you've got the plan, Neville?" Seamus asked, bundling up the excess wire and shoving it into his back pants pocket. Neville's Adam's apple bobbed up and down and he nervously nodded.

"Yeah, yeah. Antagonize the Death Eaters, get them to follow me, boom."

"Boom," Finnigan grinned. "Yes, exactly. Now, any o' these triggers should be good enough to set off the chain reaction. Just, mate," he pointed to the nearest point by the castle, "make it to the end before you set it off. We don't want you fallin' too, do we?"

Jenna chewed at her bottom lip as she picked at some dirt under her uneven nails. "W-Wait, Neville," when he turned to face her, Jenna seemed to lose her nerve with what she wanted to say.

"What is it, Jenna?"

"A-Are you sure," she blinked a few times, eyes racing from him to the rest of us before settling back on his confident frame, "are you sure you want to do this?"

Neville leaned back, slumping his shoulders as he flashed her a reassuring grin. "Of course, Jen, I can do this no problem."

In the low, torch-lit darkness, only Lana and I could really see the flush of embarrassment on our friend's cheeks.

God, these girls were killing me.

"They're coming," Seamus alerted us, looking out over the ledge of the bridge and across the field. "Everyone, off the bridge!"

Neville twirled his wand between his fingers, muttering the fire incantation under his breath so that he wouldn't forget it in the heat of the moment. Jenna, who trailed behind Lana, Seamus, and I, stopped to turn back to Longbottom, worry causing a dip in between her brows. "Good luck, Neville."

Seamus nodded. "Yeah, good luck, mate.

"Thanks, guys."

FRED'S POV:

It wasn't too hard to climb up all of the stairs to the tower, and it helped that George and I used to navigate these halls after hours long after curfew had fallen on the castle. Together we shot our own spells into the air, adding to the growing dome around the castle as it stretched farther and wider, as teachers and students and friends and family alike all contributed to the shield.

The glowing light that surrounded the castle illuminated everything in a blue, ominous hue, and I leaned against a parapet to drink it all in, feeling my heart sink into my stomach, my insides freezing and liquidating all at once.

"You okay, Freddie?"

I couldn't speak. George could sense the fear and I knew he felt it too. In the distance, hundreds of curses were hurled across the fields, pounding against the dome, searching for weak points. We could die tonight. Swallowing the mounting fear in my throat, my brother and I shared wide-eyed looks.

"Where did Elle say she was going, George?"

The sky ignited in orange flames.

ELLE'S POV:

It was quiet. Unnervingly quite as everyone in the castle seemed to simply freeze and wait, watching in horror as the last catapult brought down the dome. Seamus had been right after all. It didn't protect us for very long.

Midnight had fallen and the war has begun. I blinked away the film that was collecting in my eyes, trying to shake the disbelief as I peered up at the orange sky from the end of the bridge, waiting for Neville to blow it up.

I had never thought I would be fighting for my life. Yet, here I was. Willing and unready.

"Holy shit," Lana said beside me and Jenna, breathless as pieces of the dome fell in broken tatters; fire was raining from the heavens.

There, all three of us locked hands, tightly gripping onto one another in fear. I wanted to cry, the sight brought a torrent of tears to my eyes, but I couldn't manage to do it, to let them rain down. It felt hopeless.

It felt as if that moment lasted a lifetime. Stretching on and on into infinity as we stood there and watched the sky fall. Pieces of it floated down and settled to the ground in front of our feet.

"It's kinda beautiful though," Lana broke the silence, "in a weird sort of way." Both Jenna and I looked at her in disbelief. "What."

"I can't believe you," I pulled my hand from hers and immediately, somehow, felt a little better in the process. "Ha, okay, Lana."

There was a loud roar from across the bridge, the sound of men and women and beasts as they ran through the crumbling protection shield, feet creating a thunderous noise.

In the distance, we could see Neville scurrying in front of the hoard of Death Eater's, running for his life, dodging blasts and curses being tossed at him. Behind us, Ginny burst through the entryway, eyes wide.

"Welcome to the party," Seamus drew his wand at the approaching crowd, while Lana and I made room for Ginny to stand beside us and Jenna was gnawing on the dry skin on her thumb.

Neville flicked his wand towards the edge of the bridge, igniting the triggers up in a cough of flame and smoke, section after section, toppling the wood and stone into the abyss below. Screams and yells and curses from Death Eaters falling to their deaths echoed through my chest.

"He's not gonna make it," I squealed, placing a hand over my mouth as we rushed to the end of the bridge, watching the bridge fall fast than Neville could run, his legs beginning to lose their stamina.

All too soon, in a puff of smoke and an echoing blast of the bomb at the end of the bridge, we were shoved back by the explosion, falling to the ground. Coughing against the smoke clouded air, the stench of burnt hair and flesh in the air, I scrambled up onto my feet with the others, our ears ringing.

"NEVILLE!" Jenna shouted, the brave boy nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, Neville," Ginny gasped, clutching my arm.

The smoke cleared, but there was no Neville.

Jenna dropped to her knees and cupped her face in her hands at the burnt remains of the bridge. The sound of Death Eaters bombing the castle pulled out attentions back to the war at our doors. I placed a hand on Jenna's shoulder, trying to think of something to say, trying to make sense of what had just happened myself.

Then, like a cockroach, an arm hoisted itself up from the edge of the cliff side, followed by another arm holding a wand, and then, Neville, his face covered in soot and tiny scratched from the rubble that had exploded around him.

Jenna's breath hitched and she jumped up from the ground. "Holy shit, Neville, you're all right!"

"Bloody brilliant, Neville!" Seamus cheered while Lana, Ginny, and I shared a joined sigh in relief.

Neville flashed a bold smile, grunting a bit as he pulled himself up from the cliff, laying on the safe ground and huffing out a sigh.

"That went well."