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TWENTY-ONE SOMETHING IN THE WAY

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       THE GREAT HALL BECOMES taken over by the Order of the Phoenix, dividing up the remaining students to help them fight. The blonde girl from before, introduced as Briar Lupin, a Beauxbatons student and daughter of Remus Lupin that was present at Bill and Fleur's wedding during the summer, stands next to Fred and George, tightening her ponytail. A pretty boy with dark skin stands next to her, muttering something in French; Holly stands back as students walk past her, going towards their designated leader for the time being. She stays quiet, her hand still holding tightly onto Harry's. She's not letting go of his hand until he's safe, ever since they walked into the hall she's been thinking that. I'm not letting anyone get him... Not even Pansy.

       Holly tries to rack her brain, trying to get into the mindset of her mother. When you hide things, you make sure that there someone that no one will suspect, nor somewhere you could just stumble across. Margo would've hidden it with the intention of it being almost impossible to find. And if it was in the castle, she would've chosen a place that was near enough a secret, undetected by the naked eye...

       Undetected...

       Ohhh.

       "Harry," says Holly, her eyes widening as she turns to look at him. "The Room of Requirement doesn't show up on the map, does it?"

       "No," he says. "Do you think it's—?"

       Holly nods. "But not the version we saw earlier," she says. "Whatever version Draco saw, it must've been the same one as Margo — it's got to be there! That's why I keep on thinking about my cousin — because it's there! It's where he spent all of last year! It's there!"

       "Let's go," says Harry. He calls for McGonagall, who nods, before Harry and Holly run out of the hall, running through the corridors to the Room of Requirement.

       This feels right. She can feel it, in her stomach, this is where it is. She knows it's here, it must be, she can already picture it: long aisles of towering shelves, with all sorts of magical objects, with the diadem nestled discretely next to an old jewellery box, and a ring that's sapphire glows in the dark space.

       "Potter!"

       They skid to a halt. Aberforth stands next to one of the old passageways, an angered expression on his face. Holly tries to catch her breath, as the old man shakes his hand.

       "I've had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Potter!"

       "I know, we're evacuating," says Harry. "Voldemort's—"

       "— attacking because they haven't handed you over, yeah," says Aberforth. "I'm not deaf, the whole of Hogsmeade heard him. And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Slytherins hostage?" Holly feels her blood boil. She lets go of Harry's hand. "There are kids of Death Eaters you've just sent to safety. Wouldn't it have been a bit smarter to keep 'em here?"

       Holly gives him a nasty look. "Oh, so, because my mother was Margo Valen, it suddenly means that I'm going to go and help Voldemort?" she asks, narrowing her eyes. She raises her wand at him. "You lay a single finger on any of the Slytherins trying to evacuate, and I'll kill you myself."

       Aberforth looks at her for a minute, as if waiting for the hardened expression across her face to crack, but it doesn't. Finally he grunts and walks away, and Harry takes hold of Holly's hand again.

       She lets out a breath. "Anyway."

       The two of them break into a sprint, continuing their run to the Room of Requirement. Towards the end they turn a corner, finding Ron and Hermione.

       "Where the hell have you been?" says Harry.

       "Chamber of Secrets," says Ron.

       "Chamber — what?"

       "It was Ron, all Ron's idea!" says Hermione. "Wasn't it absolutely brilliant? There we were, after you left, and I said to Ron, even if we find the other one, how are we going to get rid of it? We still hadn't got rid of the cup! And then he thought of it! The basilisk!"

       "What the—?"

       "Something to get rid of Horcruxes," says Ron with a shrug.

       Holly looks down, at the fangs in their arms.

       "But how did you get in there?" says Harry. "You need to speak Parseltongue!"

       Ron makes an awful hissing sound. "It's what you did to open the locket," he says to Harry. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but, we got there in the end."

       "He was amazing," says Hermione. "Amazing!"

       "So..."

       "So we're another Horcrux down," says Ron. "Hermione stabbed it."

       Holly explains that they know where the diadem is, as another group of students pass them, on their way to be evacuated. Ron and Hermione nod as she tells them where they need to go. The walls around them suddenly shake from the Death Eaters' attempts to get into the castle, and they set off, towards the Room of Requirement.

       They reach the Room of Requirement, and Holly thinks, We need the place everything is hidden. Please, please, please, please, please, we need to get in, we need—

        "It's there!"

       Holly turns around, facing the grand door appearing in the wall. The four glance at each other, before they walk into the room, now a massive labyrinth with aisles upon aisles of magical objects. She turns to them, and says, "It's down this one, I think..."

       "Shall we check the others, in case?"

       "May as well... It looks like a silver crown, there's an eagle in the middle and there'll be sapphires, or blue diamonds — some sort of blue jewel — attached to it."

       They split up; Holly breaks into a run, her brain urging to keep on going, faster, faster. She's almost there, she can feel it, she can practically hear her mother's voice telling her that she's getting warmer, warmer, warmer...

       And then she sees it.

       Sitting on a statue, the diadem's jewels glitter ever so slightly. Holly reaches forwards and takes a hold of it. Her fingers wrap around it, and she takes it off of the statue it's been propped onto for months. Holly looks down at it, thinking, at long last. Finally she has it, finally she's done the thing her mother couldn't finish all of those years ago. They can destroy the diadem, and then this will all be over. Holly will be able to see her dad again, she won't have to pretend that her father isn't a muggle. She'll be free of this.

       "DESCENDO!"

       Holly spins around. In the far distance, she sees a tower of furniture begin to tumble to the ground. Someone steadies it, and Holly frowns. Who else is—?

       Holly, are you here?

       Her heart stops at the sound of her cousin's voice.

       I thought this was broken, she replies.

       Apparently not, he says. Where are you?

       Why?

       I'm getting you out of here, he says. You're not fighting.

       She doesn't respond. She can hear her cousin trying to get through to her still: Where are you? Holly, where are you? I'm not leaving without you!

       Then you're not leaving, she responds.

       "NO! DON'T KILL HIM!" she hears her cousin shout. "HE ISN'T OURS TO KILL, STOP!"

       "I DON'T LISTEN TO YOU ANYMORE!"

       A great fire erupts from part of the room; the most monstrous flames begin to scale a shelf in the distance, and Holly spots Ron and Hermione further down. She runs towards them, just as Harry appears. Her heart begins to hammer in her chest as she looks around frantically, her cousin nowhere to be seen.

       "Where's Draco?" she demands.

       "I don't know—"

       "I'm not leaving without him!" she says.

       The fire quickly begins to grow around them. Ron shouts at them, finding a pile of broomsticks buried next to a tower of textbooks. He throws one at them each, and Holly quickly jumps onto hers, thinking, I'm coming, I'm not leaving without you...!

       "HOLLY!"

       She turns back to Harry.

       "You get the diadem out of here, we'll get Malfoy!"

        Holly hesitates for a second, before she kicks off the ground, her broom bolting towards the door. She keeps a hold of the diadem, the metal heating up from the fire growing behind her. She keeps on glancing over her shoulder, looking out for her cousin. She can't help but slow down, unable to leave the room until she knows for certain that someone's gotten him.

       What are you still doing in here? says Draco.

       Are you safe? asks Holly.

       Potter's gotten me — you get out!

       Holly takes his word, and she bolts forwards on the broomstick. She looks at the fire spreading across the whole room, remembering one of her lessons from Durmstrang — it's cursed fire.

       She forces herself to keep a hold of the diadem, feeling her skin burn underneath it. She makes the home stretch out of the Room of Hidden Things, hurtling out of the door and skidding along the castle ground outside. She clings onto the diadem for dear life, even as she crashes into the ground, the diadem pressed underneath her chest.

       She hears her friends slam into the ground around her. Holly catches her breath, sitting up and looking down at the diadem, as a black liquid bleeds out of it. The diadem jolts around in her grasp, finally crumbling to pieces.

       Draco falls off of the broom, lying on the floor. Next to him lies Goyle, unconscious, and just as she thinks, where's Crabbe, Draco chokes out, "C-Crabbe..."

       "He's dead," says Ron.

       Silence follows. Holly sits up, and she exchanges a look with Harry, where she mouths, it's destroyed. She turns to her cousin, as she hears crashes and screams and bangs around them. The Headless Hunt charge past them, just as someone else lets out a shriek.

       She hears the three talk, asking if the Room of Requirement will still work after that. But Holly doesn't listen, moving closer to her cousin.

       "Holly, are you coming?"

       She looks up at the three, and then at her cousin.

       "I'm not leaving without him," she states. "You can finish this without me."

       Harry looks at her. She smiles weakly at him.

       The three set off, and Holly takes hold of Draco. Without a word he pulls her into a hug, bursting into tears. "He's going to kill me, he's—"

       "Not if he loses!" says Holly, pulling away from him so he can see her face. Draco looks terrified, as she tries to get through to him. "Please. Fight with me, fight with At, against him. He isn't going to win."

       "You don't know that," says Draco.

       "Yes, I do," says Holly. "You don't want to be on his side, do you? He forced you to become a Death Eater, because he wanted to punish Uncle Lucius. Do you seriously want to fight for the man that's ruining your dad's life? And—And all of last year — he was torturing you with the task you had to do. And yet — and yet — you want to fight for that monster?"

       "I'm not fighting for Potter," says Draco.

       "Then fight for yourself," says Holly. "We'll get Goyle out of here, to safety, and then we'll fight together. Yeah?"

       Draco looks at her for a minute. A crash in the distance makes him snap out of it, and nod finally. "OK," he says. "Where do we take Goyle?"

       Holly looks over her shoulder, and thinks, please show me the Room of Requirement, our friend is in danger... Slowly, it fades into view, and she rushes forwards, forcing it open. "HEY!" she shouts. "THERE'S SOMEONE ELSE TO GET OUT!"

       She and Draco grab hold of Goyle, dragging him into the room. The remaining people in the room look unimpressed, but Holly looks at them hopefully. "Does it help if a Malfoy's on our side now?" she says.

       One of the fifth years still standing in the room raises their eyebrows.

       "OK, thanks!" says Holly, and she grabs Draco's hand, and they run out of the room, the door closing behind them.

✧

       THE CASTLE WALLS jolt with the shouts and curses erupting from everywhere; Holly remembers her years at Durmstrang, her panic during the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, as she duels one of the Death Eaters.

       She sends the Death Eater flying down the stairs. Holly turns around, two Death Eaters approaching her cousin from the top of the stairs. She stands by her cousin, her eyes narrowing, as one of the Death Eaters begin to laugh, taking off their mask.

       "My, my, Miss Lippincott..."

       The Dark Arts professor from Durmstrang looks down at her, yellow teeth spreading into a horrific grin. Holly, without thinking, steps backwards, her heart racing faster than it ever has before. She hasn't been this scared since she left that school. She's been killed, she's been tortured, but nothing will ever compete with the fear that school left in her. The words that have haunted her for years appear in her head again: do you not have the stomach for this, Miss Lippincott?

       "CRUCI—!"

       "STUPEFY!"

       Draco's Stunning Spell sends the professor flying backwards. Holly stuns the other Death Eater, who falls down the stairs, one of Trelawney's crystal balls hitting him on the head, before Holly runs up the stairs, towards her old professor. She casts the Full-Body Bind Curse on him, and she looks down at him, years and years of hatred boiling up inside of her. She wants to kill him, she wants to watch him in as much pain as he made her put on others, but she forces herself to hold back. She turns to Draco. "Can you defend me for a minute?"

       He nods, and Holly turns back to her professor.

       "Diffindo," she says softly, her wand lightly leaving cuts cross his forehead, saying I must not defy.

       Holly looks at him, one last time, and slams her foot into his nose, hearing his nose snap. She turns to Draco, smirking. "That felt good."

       Draco smiles back at her.

✧

       HOURS PASS AND THE CASTLE quietens, the hall taken over by Madam Pomfrey and anyone that knows how to bandage a wound. Holly, Draco, and Atticus sit outside of the hall, close enough to the courtyard to get fresh air; Holly forced herself to stay long enough to hug Ron, who was standing next to Fred's dead body, but after that the amount of death in the room was too much for Holly to cope with, and she left with Atticus holding onto her.

       They want to keep their distance, anyway, knowing that Atticus and Draco could be the target of anyone angry by the death of their loved ones. She quietly explains to them what happened the summer before, how Bellatrix had killed her but Holly was able to be brought back, because she gave Death a life earlier that summer. Now, they sit in silence, not sure what to do with themselves.

       Holly rests her head on Atticus' shoulder, tired. She looks around and she takes a moment to remember what Hogwarts used to be like. How it had looked the first time she had walked inside, shocked by an old hat talking, the candles burning brightly above people's heads, the way that people weren't scared of being at school, but rather, excited. Happy to be with their friends again, the girl in Potions in their second year or roommate they had grown to love like a sibling. She remembers the breath of fresh air this place had, compared to Durmstrang — and how, until last night, the school turned into a place worse than what she escaped from.

       It's slowly getting back to what it was. People are mourning and upset, of course, but there's hope in the air still. There's always hope. That's the difference between Hogwarts and Durmstrang for Holly. At Durmstrang, you kept your head down, there was no point fighting back, because there was no loyalty amongst the students, there was no optimism that they could succeed. Here, however, people want to fight. People want to give it their all, because there's always that chance of getting what they want.

       Holly feels herself drifting again. She looks up at Atticus, at Draco now leaning against the wall, and she says, "I feel like I'm about to go back again."

       "What do you want us to do?" says Atticus.

       "Nothing..." she says. She smiles weakly. "Just make sure I don't fall over and crack my head on the floor."

       Draco looks at her, and rolls his eyes.

       Holly smiles. "Love you too."

      She closes her eyes, and she feels herself falling, falling...

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YEAH SO we've got an au version of briar (which means there's a livvy??? hmm??? wonder why???) and also draco fought with holly bc,,, here me out,,, i don't like to change important parts of canon (like i didn't want to change the fact that pansy wanted to hand harry over, bc i still think she would've done that even if she had holly,, bc as she said,, she doesn't give a shit about the war she just doesn't want to die) buuuut i fully believe that if draco had holly he would've found the courage to fight against the death eaters, which he does in this version. honestly i think he should've had redemption at the end of deathly hallows because at the end of the day, draco was literally just a little shit at school bc his parents told him xyz so he assumed that was true, but obviously he would've realised things weren't like that when he got older, especially when he was told he had to kill his headmaster?? but anyway. guess the redemption only applies to gross old men smh

i hope you enjoyed, and let me know what you thought!!

(there is also one chapter left bc everything that would've been in the epilogue has been mentioned in that so sorry xoxoxoxoxo)