Categories > Books > Harry Potter > The Slayer, The Avatar And The Guardian Of Light
Chapter 83 - What Goes Up, Might Come Down
Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 24th September 2001 AD
Country: Britain - Scotland
Location: Hogwarts - Adam's Tower
Time: Noon
Adam was in his tower room; he had flown back after the prank had finished.
He was sitting on the balcony overlooking Hogwarts.
It was one of the things he usually did when he wasn't teaching, marking work or giving Buffy hints as to how to
incorporate magic into her fighting.
She was becoming quiet proficient and she had only been learning for a few weeks, she knew most of the basic
spells, plus a couple of duelling spells that given the state of the world could come in handy in a crisis.
He was doing what he was usually doing when he was alone.
Thinking.
What Buffy would probably have called 'zoning', and the heavy cloud cover outside wasn't helping.
He had been thinking a lot about Sara lately. Seeing Harry with Fleur, Hermione with Ron, Neville with Luna, and
Ginny with Draco was bringing back memories, especially Ginny now that she wore Sara's ring.
He didn't think she even noticed the type of ring it was, he knew Hermione and Draco would not tell her, but he
just wished she would conceal it a bit, every time he saw her, he was reminded of his wife.
His line of thought stopped when his magic picked up something.
He stopped and focused on the something he was sensing, trying to identify it.
He sat up straight; his senses were off the scale.
Jumping to his feet, he ran back into the tower summoned his staff from beside the fire before running back out the
window and jumping over the wall and beginning to fall.
________________________________________________________________________
Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 24th September 2001 AD
Country: Britain - Scotland
Location: Hogsmeade - The Three Broomsticks
Time: Noon
In The Three Broomsticks there was carnage.
Curses were being shot into the pub blowing up everything in sight, Ginny, Hermione and the twins had taken cover
behind their upturned tables, unfortunately, most of the rest of the room had not been quick enough.
Silence fell; everyone else in the room was now unconscious, badly injured, dead or dying, unfortunately most of
the crowd that had been in the pub for the prank had either left or had been congregated in a large group around
one table to chat about what had happened, as they had been so tightly packed together in the small pub, when the
spells started flying, the chairs tables and other students were in the way, making them easy targets for large
multi-person spells.
Hermione and the others were lucky enough to be away from the group.
Ginny had not moved from where she had been earlier; Hermione had been talking to the twins about the prank while
they tried to convince her to buy some of their products. On the other side of the room Hermione could see Neville
and Luna also crouched behind another table.
Hermione nudged Ginny and the twins and pointed at the pair.
Neville mouthed to them "Tell us when." Hermione nodded, she knew they were going to attack on their command.
"That went very well." one of the Death Eaters commented with a distinctively evil voice.
"Yes, I thought there would be more opposition, though I'm not surprised, stupid Mudblood's, couldn't defend
themselves against a house elf."
They howled with laughter.
The twins almost jumped up at this but were restrained by Hermione and Ginny's hands on their shoulders.
"Are you crazy?" Hissed Ginny "There are too many of them."
Hermione agreed, there were more people laughing than just the two that had spoken, probably at least ten, they
couldn't take on those odds.
"Shall we move on to stage two?" one of the Death Eaters asked with eager anticipation.
Just then there was a scream from the street and the sound of people running.
"Sounds like it's already started, but we could make things more interesting." the first finished with a laugh.
"Yes why not."
Feet were heard heading for the door.
"We can't let them leave." Ginny whispered, the twins nodded in agreement.
Turning to Neville and Luna, Hermione got their attention before jumping up and shouting:
"NOW!!"
The six sprang up, shooting a wide variety of curses at the Death Eaters, ranging from Reducto's to cutting curses.
Five immediately fell as the curses hit, the rest of the Death Eaters dived for cover as an old fashion saloon duel
started.
Using the tables as shields the two groups exchanged fire; a lucky shot by a Death Eater caught George as he moved
out of cover to fire a curse, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Fred checked his pulse and nodded that he was ok before going back to cursing with a vengeance.
Another lucky shot caught Luna's wand arm, leaving her conscious but with a large gash just below her shoulder that
started bleeding heavily.
Luckily the enemy were losing men, to the point where their numbers were about equal.
Hermione saw Fred pull an innocent looking pouch out of his jeans and start waving his wand over it.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, ducking as a familiar looking green curse as it passed over their heads.
"Miniature fireworks." He grinned "They explode over and over again for at least ten minutes. I'm removing the
safety feature to stop them burning people and modifying them so instead of lots of small explosions they give off
one big one."
When he finished he carefully opened the bag and told her to open her hand.
He very carefully poured some of the small round balls onto her palm before pouring the rest onto his own.
"Ginny." Whispered Fred "On my mark hit them with a sun beam spell."
"Sun beam spell?" asked Ginny "What good will that do?"
"It's a distraction." Fred grinned back before turning to Hermione "It will blind them, when they are distracted
throw them as hard as you can at the Death Eaters. Do NOT drop them. Ready?"
"Ready."
"Ready."
"NOW!!"
Fred and Hermione watched through the gaps between the tables, waiting for their moment.
"LUMOS LUMEN!!" Ginny cried as the dazzling beams of light shot towards the Death Eaters.
They immediately recoiled, crying out in pain and shielding their eyes.
"Now Hermione!!"
As one, the pair stood and threw the small round balls at the Death Eaters.
"DOWN!!" Fred bellowed throwing himself and Hermione behind cover, just as the other side of the room was rocked by
the detonation of over a dozen WWW Fireworks.
The room exploded with noise as the tables and chairs exploded and the bits of wood imbedded themselves in the
walls and the tables in front of Hermione and the others.
After about twenty seconds the group dared to move.
Slowly standing, they pointed their wands at the location that the Death Eaters had been occupying.
In their place were a lot of small pieces of wood, a lot of smoke and ten badly injured people.
The five moved out from behind their tables to examine the scene.
"Not bad." Pondered Fred, deep in thought "We might be able to sell those to the Aurors as grenades if we tweak the
power a bit."
"Don't move." Said a deep voice from behind them "Drop the wands."
No one moved for a second before they slowly obeyed, dropping them to the floor.
"Turn ar...."
The voice was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass followed shortly by a dull thud.
Turning around they saw Madam Rosmerta with a gash on her head, supporting herself against the bar with one hand
and holding the remains of a bottle in her other.
A Death Eater was lying unconscious at her feet.
It looked like she had just regained consciousness.
She looked sadly at the bottle and sighed.
"That Fire Whiskey was over one hundred years old. What a waste."
"Thank you." Smiled Hermione.
"No one attacks my pub and gets away with it." She said firmly, giving the Death Eater at her feet a hard kick in
the ribs.
"Sorry for destroying your pub Madam Rosmerta." apologized Fred.
"From what I have heard Mr Weasley," she smiled "You have easily enough to replace the furniture that explosion
destroyed."
They didn't get the chance to say more as more screams were heard from the street.
"Go and help." She instructed "I'll take care of the others and send them out to help if I can."
Giving her a quick nod, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Fred ran out into the street, leaving Madam Rosmerta and an
injured Luna to take care of the others.
________________________________________________________________________
Buffy was running, screams and shouts could be heard from the direction of the pub that she had left Adam and those
brothers of Ron and Ginny in.
Sprinting around the corner she stopped dead at the sight that greeted her.
Opposite the pub was a large group of panicking students and shoppers in a tight panicking ball.
They were being shot at by at least twenty Death Eaters who were surrounding them, herding them together, the only
delay being a few older students and shoppers who were doing their best to defend the panicking mass.
Just outside of the pub Hermione, Ginny, one of the twins and a few others who were pinned up against the wall by
yet more Death Eaters.
Herding in anyone who tried escape the two groups were a large number of vampires (which gave Buffy the impression
that the heavy cloud blocking out the sun wasn't entirely natural)
But what really surprised her was at the near end of the street, blocking her way, ranging from between thirty
centimetres to over five meters in length, were literally hundreds on snakes
"Snakes!" she exclaimed "Why does it always have to be snakes?"
Buffy could see that Hermione and Ginny had been separated from the rest of those emerging from the pub, whose
numbers were increasing as more joined the fight from inside, most appeared to be sporting injuries.
________________________________________________________________________
Ginny was literally frozen to the spot, she hated snakes, her incident with the Chamber of Secrets had left her
with a terrible fear of them, she didn't even like boomslang skin in potions.
After the incident itself her memories had started to return, she remembered entering the chamber, releasing the
Basilisk; those memories still haunted her dreams.
One of the larger snakes turned towards her and Hermione.
It opened its jet black mouth threateningly.
Ginny had done a lot of research into snakes after her first year in attempt to remove her fear but it only
succeeded in increasing it, she recognised it as a Black Mamba, one of the most deadly snakes in the world; you
REALLY did not want to get bitten by one.
The snake slithered towards them making her try to force herself even further into the wall.
Hermione attempting to get around behind the snake but it lunged in her direction every time she tried to move and
at the moment she obviously could not think of the right spell to use.
While Hermione was pondering, Buffy had drawn her wand and a small dagger (heaven knows where she was hiding it),
had leapt along the shop window sill to avoid the swarm of snakes and had come up behind the Mamba.
She grabbed at the snakes tail and gave it a sharp pull before jumping back, barely dodging the snakes strike.
She lined up to attack it with her dagger when a cry went up from further down the street, turning she saw a
vampire taking a hold of a student and exposing her neck.
"Go....get the vampires!" Hermione shouted, moving around the snake so that she could draw it away from the
terrified Ginny "I can take care of the snake, they need you."
Buffy looked back at them for a second before nodding and taking off down the street.
________________________________________________________________________
Watching Buffy go, Hermione mirrored her earlier action and grabbed the snake's tail before rapidly jumping back as
the snake spun round and started following her movements, they watched each other as though it was a western shoot
out.
"Incendio!" Hermione cried.
The flame shot out and collided with the snakes head
It hissed out, but shook the flames off and then continued towards Hermione.
If Hermione swore this would be the time when she would do it, her spell had no effect.
_______________________________________________________________________
Buffy ran down the street, and literally jumped on the nearest two vampires, decapitating them with her dagger.
Swinging around to her left, she used her wand like a stake and plunged it into the back of the vampire whose fangs
had just penetrated the female student's neck.
In one movement she grabbed the girl and barrelled into the nearest Death Eater just as he was bringing his wand to
bear upon her.
This left a hole in their ranks that people poured out of.
Dropping the girl into an older students arms, she turned to deal with the next vampire. He was big, she'd never
take him down without her slayer strength, she'd have to try a new method.
"Lacarnum Inflamare!!"
Flames shot out the end of her wand, engulfing the vampire and burning him to a cinder.
"My god, this wand is powerful," she exclaimed looking at the instrument in question "That's supposed to be a weak
spell."
The vampire crumbled and she turned to find her facing four more, all rather heavily built; there was no way she
could take on those odds.
"Incendio."
A streak of flame shot past her engulfing one of the four.
Turning she saw that many of the students and shoppers that had been in the crowd had now rallied and were lined up
behind her, only the odd one or two were cowering in alleys, but at least fifteen were behind her, she turned back
grinning.
"Let's warm things up."
Spells erupted from wands; the air was alive with fire, in less than ten seconds there were no vampires left, just
many large piles of dust.
But that still left the snakes and the Death Eaters who had surrounded the crowd, blocking both ends of the street.
They were outnumbered badly, Hermione was still dealing with the snake in front of Ginny and where the rest of the
Gryffindor three and the Professors were, no one knew.
"Attack!" screeched a female voice from underneath one of the Death Eater masks.
"Shields!" called one of the Weasley twins from somewhere at the head of the mass of students.
That turned out to be a bad call as three of the incoming spells were green.
Three of the shoppers dropped to the ground, which seemed to do very little for the confidence of the crowd.
Buffy stared as the bodies dropped, before turning back towards the Death Eaters, a look of determination on her
face.
The nearest three Death Eaters never knew what hit them as a dagger sliced into their extended wand hands, shortly
followed by a domino knockout when the first was kicked in the side of the head and the kick forced his head into
his neighbour and both knocked out the third.
Buffy then spun around to kick at the next slightly shorter Death Eater but before her foot connected she found
herself lifted off the ground.
"Hey! What the...?"
A shrill cackle emerged from behind the Death Eaters mask.
"Is the poor little Slayer a little....high?"
The Death Eater waved a hand in front of her face turning her mask and robe turned to smoke, revealing a thin woman
dressed in a black dress that was practically a corset with a long skirt with a split sown on the bottom, her skin
was pale and her face was worn holding a pair of deep crazed eyes.
"Maybe she'd like to go for a little ride." She cackled before flicking her wand skyward.
Buffy did not even have time to get in a witty retort before she flew up into the air.
"Buffy!!" she heard called from the ground, but she it was barely audible above the whistling of the wind as she
was floated upwards.
"Oh, this is high. This is very high."
She slowing down several hundred feet over Hogsmeade giving her an excellent view of Hogwarts and the surrounding
country side.
Unfortunately she was not in a position to appreciate the view as she hung in the air the same way that bricks
don't before starting to drop.
"This one's going to hurt!!" she screamed as she hurtled towards the ground.
She dropped, hurtling through the air.
Three hundred feet.
Two hundred feet.
One hundred feet.
As she neared the ground something grabbed her.
________________________________________________________________________
"Professor Summers!!" shouted Neville as the battle raged around him, too distracted trying to think of a way to
save the rapidly descending Professor to even notice the number of near misses that Fred and a recently healed
George Weasley had saved him from.
Cushioning charms would not work and neither would levitation charms, she was falling too fast.
She was going to die.
He watched helplessly as she fell down below the levels of the buildings, accompanied by the mad cackling of
Bellatrix Lestrange.
He did not want to watch but he could not look away.
Then it happened.
With less than ten metres to go, she was hit at high speed by something that appeared to be a cross between a bird
and an MD Professor.
The animal or person wrapped its wing like arms around her protectively and together they tumbled sideways through
the air due to the male Professor's momentum, sending them crashing through the wall of the Hogs Head, taking most
of the front wall with them.
The sound of many pieces bits of breaking wood followed as they came to a stop, accompanied by the groaning of the
wood from the upper floors at having to support their weight on only three walls.
"Neville. Snap out of it!" Shouted Fred, elbowing him in the side, jolting him back to the matter at hand, he just
prayed the Professors where ok.
Curses were flying, bodies were falling, and people were beginning to panic. The snakes were impervious to almost
everything as the continued ever onwards, forcing the students and other shoppers closer to the Death Eaters.
Then all of a sudden Bellatrix raised her hand and everyone and everything stopped.
"Potter...." she said in a slightly manic sing song voice whilst walking around the street "Come out, come out
where ever you are. I know your there."
She continued walking around, walking straight through the two rows of pointed wands and back to her starting
position in the middle of the pack of Death Eaters.
"If you surrender, we will let the others live Potter....Their lives are in your hands."
There were a few seconds of silence, in which Neville subtly squeezed his Alliance Ring.
There was a minutes silence as the two sides faced off against each other, the only sound being the slight rustle
of peoples clothes and the odd snake hiss.
"Come out Potter, you are running out of time."
"Looking for me Trixie?"
Lestrange developed an evil grin before slowly turning to the source of the voice.
________________________________________________________________________
Harry and Fleur stood on the other side of the group of Death Eaters, they had been unaware of the attack until
Neville's message had alerted them, apparently the Death Eaters had put silencing charms around the area of attack
though the smoke rising from the Three Broomsticks was obvious when you were out in the street.
Fleur currently had her wand out and was pointing it at the group of Death Eaters, several of whom had turned their
wands on the pair, while Harry stood calmly, his wands still in his pockets.
"Potter." Bellatrix smiled manically "Its ssssooo good to seeee you."
"Likewise." He returned pleasantly.
"Did you come to play?" she grinned "I see you bought your pet pigeon for dinner. I do like to play with my food
before I eat it."
"Sorry Trixie." He replied "I'm the only one allowed to play with her."
He heard Fleur laugh slightly behind him.
"Are you going to surrender Potter?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you are a hero Potter, you save lives and by giving up you will save all these people."
Harry thought for a moment.
"I will tell you what;" he smiled "I will surrender to you, if you cast Cruciatus Curse on me and make me drop to
the ground."
"What!"
"Arry!"
"No Harry!"
Came voices from several quarters.
"You want me to cast the torture curse on you?" asked Bellatrix excitedly "I agree."
Harry moved his hands out to the sides.
"Then go ahead then."
She pointed her wand.
"Harry no!!!"
"CRUCIO!!!"
Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 24th September 2001 AD
Country: Britain - Scotland
Location: Hogwarts - Adam's Tower
Time: Noon
Adam was in his tower room; he had flown back after the prank had finished.
He was sitting on the balcony overlooking Hogwarts.
It was one of the things he usually did when he wasn't teaching, marking work or giving Buffy hints as to how to
incorporate magic into her fighting.
She was becoming quiet proficient and she had only been learning for a few weeks, she knew most of the basic
spells, plus a couple of duelling spells that given the state of the world could come in handy in a crisis.
He was doing what he was usually doing when he was alone.
Thinking.
What Buffy would probably have called 'zoning', and the heavy cloud cover outside wasn't helping.
He had been thinking a lot about Sara lately. Seeing Harry with Fleur, Hermione with Ron, Neville with Luna, and
Ginny with Draco was bringing back memories, especially Ginny now that she wore Sara's ring.
He didn't think she even noticed the type of ring it was, he knew Hermione and Draco would not tell her, but he
just wished she would conceal it a bit, every time he saw her, he was reminded of his wife.
His line of thought stopped when his magic picked up something.
He stopped and focused on the something he was sensing, trying to identify it.
He sat up straight; his senses were off the scale.
Jumping to his feet, he ran back into the tower summoned his staff from beside the fire before running back out the
window and jumping over the wall and beginning to fall.
________________________________________________________________________
Dimension: 563 - Earth
Date: 24th September 2001 AD
Country: Britain - Scotland
Location: Hogsmeade - The Three Broomsticks
Time: Noon
In The Three Broomsticks there was carnage.
Curses were being shot into the pub blowing up everything in sight, Ginny, Hermione and the twins had taken cover
behind their upturned tables, unfortunately, most of the rest of the room had not been quick enough.
Silence fell; everyone else in the room was now unconscious, badly injured, dead or dying, unfortunately most of
the crowd that had been in the pub for the prank had either left or had been congregated in a large group around
one table to chat about what had happened, as they had been so tightly packed together in the small pub, when the
spells started flying, the chairs tables and other students were in the way, making them easy targets for large
multi-person spells.
Hermione and the others were lucky enough to be away from the group.
Ginny had not moved from where she had been earlier; Hermione had been talking to the twins about the prank while
they tried to convince her to buy some of their products. On the other side of the room Hermione could see Neville
and Luna also crouched behind another table.
Hermione nudged Ginny and the twins and pointed at the pair.
Neville mouthed to them "Tell us when." Hermione nodded, she knew they were going to attack on their command.
"That went very well." one of the Death Eaters commented with a distinctively evil voice.
"Yes, I thought there would be more opposition, though I'm not surprised, stupid Mudblood's, couldn't defend
themselves against a house elf."
They howled with laughter.
The twins almost jumped up at this but were restrained by Hermione and Ginny's hands on their shoulders.
"Are you crazy?" Hissed Ginny "There are too many of them."
Hermione agreed, there were more people laughing than just the two that had spoken, probably at least ten, they
couldn't take on those odds.
"Shall we move on to stage two?" one of the Death Eaters asked with eager anticipation.
Just then there was a scream from the street and the sound of people running.
"Sounds like it's already started, but we could make things more interesting." the first finished with a laugh.
"Yes why not."
Feet were heard heading for the door.
"We can't let them leave." Ginny whispered, the twins nodded in agreement.
Turning to Neville and Luna, Hermione got their attention before jumping up and shouting:
"NOW!!"
The six sprang up, shooting a wide variety of curses at the Death Eaters, ranging from Reducto's to cutting curses.
Five immediately fell as the curses hit, the rest of the Death Eaters dived for cover as an old fashion saloon duel
started.
Using the tables as shields the two groups exchanged fire; a lucky shot by a Death Eater caught George as he moved
out of cover to fire a curse, sending him tumbling to the ground.
Fred checked his pulse and nodded that he was ok before going back to cursing with a vengeance.
Another lucky shot caught Luna's wand arm, leaving her conscious but with a large gash just below her shoulder that
started bleeding heavily.
Luckily the enemy were losing men, to the point where their numbers were about equal.
Hermione saw Fred pull an innocent looking pouch out of his jeans and start waving his wand over it.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, ducking as a familiar looking green curse as it passed over their heads.
"Miniature fireworks." He grinned "They explode over and over again for at least ten minutes. I'm removing the
safety feature to stop them burning people and modifying them so instead of lots of small explosions they give off
one big one."
When he finished he carefully opened the bag and told her to open her hand.
He very carefully poured some of the small round balls onto her palm before pouring the rest onto his own.
"Ginny." Whispered Fred "On my mark hit them with a sun beam spell."
"Sun beam spell?" asked Ginny "What good will that do?"
"It's a distraction." Fred grinned back before turning to Hermione "It will blind them, when they are distracted
throw them as hard as you can at the Death Eaters. Do NOT drop them. Ready?"
"Ready."
"Ready."
"NOW!!"
Fred and Hermione watched through the gaps between the tables, waiting for their moment.
"LUMOS LUMEN!!" Ginny cried as the dazzling beams of light shot towards the Death Eaters.
They immediately recoiled, crying out in pain and shielding their eyes.
"Now Hermione!!"
As one, the pair stood and threw the small round balls at the Death Eaters.
"DOWN!!" Fred bellowed throwing himself and Hermione behind cover, just as the other side of the room was rocked by
the detonation of over a dozen WWW Fireworks.
The room exploded with noise as the tables and chairs exploded and the bits of wood imbedded themselves in the
walls and the tables in front of Hermione and the others.
After about twenty seconds the group dared to move.
Slowly standing, they pointed their wands at the location that the Death Eaters had been occupying.
In their place were a lot of small pieces of wood, a lot of smoke and ten badly injured people.
The five moved out from behind their tables to examine the scene.
"Not bad." Pondered Fred, deep in thought "We might be able to sell those to the Aurors as grenades if we tweak the
power a bit."
"Don't move." Said a deep voice from behind them "Drop the wands."
No one moved for a second before they slowly obeyed, dropping them to the floor.
"Turn ar...."
The voice was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass followed shortly by a dull thud.
Turning around they saw Madam Rosmerta with a gash on her head, supporting herself against the bar with one hand
and holding the remains of a bottle in her other.
A Death Eater was lying unconscious at her feet.
It looked like she had just regained consciousness.
She looked sadly at the bottle and sighed.
"That Fire Whiskey was over one hundred years old. What a waste."
"Thank you." Smiled Hermione.
"No one attacks my pub and gets away with it." She said firmly, giving the Death Eater at her feet a hard kick in
the ribs.
"Sorry for destroying your pub Madam Rosmerta." apologized Fred.
"From what I have heard Mr Weasley," she smiled "You have easily enough to replace the furniture that explosion
destroyed."
They didn't get the chance to say more as more screams were heard from the street.
"Go and help." She instructed "I'll take care of the others and send them out to help if I can."
Giving her a quick nod, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Fred ran out into the street, leaving Madam Rosmerta and an
injured Luna to take care of the others.
________________________________________________________________________
Buffy was running, screams and shouts could be heard from the direction of the pub that she had left Adam and those
brothers of Ron and Ginny in.
Sprinting around the corner she stopped dead at the sight that greeted her.
Opposite the pub was a large group of panicking students and shoppers in a tight panicking ball.
They were being shot at by at least twenty Death Eaters who were surrounding them, herding them together, the only
delay being a few older students and shoppers who were doing their best to defend the panicking mass.
Just outside of the pub Hermione, Ginny, one of the twins and a few others who were pinned up against the wall by
yet more Death Eaters.
Herding in anyone who tried escape the two groups were a large number of vampires (which gave Buffy the impression
that the heavy cloud blocking out the sun wasn't entirely natural)
But what really surprised her was at the near end of the street, blocking her way, ranging from between thirty
centimetres to over five meters in length, were literally hundreds on snakes
"Snakes!" she exclaimed "Why does it always have to be snakes?"
Buffy could see that Hermione and Ginny had been separated from the rest of those emerging from the pub, whose
numbers were increasing as more joined the fight from inside, most appeared to be sporting injuries.
________________________________________________________________________
Ginny was literally frozen to the spot, she hated snakes, her incident with the Chamber of Secrets had left her
with a terrible fear of them, she didn't even like boomslang skin in potions.
After the incident itself her memories had started to return, she remembered entering the chamber, releasing the
Basilisk; those memories still haunted her dreams.
One of the larger snakes turned towards her and Hermione.
It opened its jet black mouth threateningly.
Ginny had done a lot of research into snakes after her first year in attempt to remove her fear but it only
succeeded in increasing it, she recognised it as a Black Mamba, one of the most deadly snakes in the world; you
REALLY did not want to get bitten by one.
The snake slithered towards them making her try to force herself even further into the wall.
Hermione attempting to get around behind the snake but it lunged in her direction every time she tried to move and
at the moment she obviously could not think of the right spell to use.
While Hermione was pondering, Buffy had drawn her wand and a small dagger (heaven knows where she was hiding it),
had leapt along the shop window sill to avoid the swarm of snakes and had come up behind the Mamba.
She grabbed at the snakes tail and gave it a sharp pull before jumping back, barely dodging the snakes strike.
She lined up to attack it with her dagger when a cry went up from further down the street, turning she saw a
vampire taking a hold of a student and exposing her neck.
"Go....get the vampires!" Hermione shouted, moving around the snake so that she could draw it away from the
terrified Ginny "I can take care of the snake, they need you."
Buffy looked back at them for a second before nodding and taking off down the street.
________________________________________________________________________
Watching Buffy go, Hermione mirrored her earlier action and grabbed the snake's tail before rapidly jumping back as
the snake spun round and started following her movements, they watched each other as though it was a western shoot
out.
"Incendio!" Hermione cried.
The flame shot out and collided with the snakes head
It hissed out, but shook the flames off and then continued towards Hermione.
If Hermione swore this would be the time when she would do it, her spell had no effect.
_______________________________________________________________________
Buffy ran down the street, and literally jumped on the nearest two vampires, decapitating them with her dagger.
Swinging around to her left, she used her wand like a stake and plunged it into the back of the vampire whose fangs
had just penetrated the female student's neck.
In one movement she grabbed the girl and barrelled into the nearest Death Eater just as he was bringing his wand to
bear upon her.
This left a hole in their ranks that people poured out of.
Dropping the girl into an older students arms, she turned to deal with the next vampire. He was big, she'd never
take him down without her slayer strength, she'd have to try a new method.
"Lacarnum Inflamare!!"
Flames shot out the end of her wand, engulfing the vampire and burning him to a cinder.
"My god, this wand is powerful," she exclaimed looking at the instrument in question "That's supposed to be a weak
spell."
The vampire crumbled and she turned to find her facing four more, all rather heavily built; there was no way she
could take on those odds.
"Incendio."
A streak of flame shot past her engulfing one of the four.
Turning she saw that many of the students and shoppers that had been in the crowd had now rallied and were lined up
behind her, only the odd one or two were cowering in alleys, but at least fifteen were behind her, she turned back
grinning.
"Let's warm things up."
Spells erupted from wands; the air was alive with fire, in less than ten seconds there were no vampires left, just
many large piles of dust.
But that still left the snakes and the Death Eaters who had surrounded the crowd, blocking both ends of the street.
They were outnumbered badly, Hermione was still dealing with the snake in front of Ginny and where the rest of the
Gryffindor three and the Professors were, no one knew.
"Attack!" screeched a female voice from underneath one of the Death Eater masks.
"Shields!" called one of the Weasley twins from somewhere at the head of the mass of students.
That turned out to be a bad call as three of the incoming spells were green.
Three of the shoppers dropped to the ground, which seemed to do very little for the confidence of the crowd.
Buffy stared as the bodies dropped, before turning back towards the Death Eaters, a look of determination on her
face.
The nearest three Death Eaters never knew what hit them as a dagger sliced into their extended wand hands, shortly
followed by a domino knockout when the first was kicked in the side of the head and the kick forced his head into
his neighbour and both knocked out the third.
Buffy then spun around to kick at the next slightly shorter Death Eater but before her foot connected she found
herself lifted off the ground.
"Hey! What the...?"
A shrill cackle emerged from behind the Death Eaters mask.
"Is the poor little Slayer a little....high?"
The Death Eater waved a hand in front of her face turning her mask and robe turned to smoke, revealing a thin woman
dressed in a black dress that was practically a corset with a long skirt with a split sown on the bottom, her skin
was pale and her face was worn holding a pair of deep crazed eyes.
"Maybe she'd like to go for a little ride." She cackled before flicking her wand skyward.
Buffy did not even have time to get in a witty retort before she flew up into the air.
"Buffy!!" she heard called from the ground, but she it was barely audible above the whistling of the wind as she
was floated upwards.
"Oh, this is high. This is very high."
She slowing down several hundred feet over Hogsmeade giving her an excellent view of Hogwarts and the surrounding
country side.
Unfortunately she was not in a position to appreciate the view as she hung in the air the same way that bricks
don't before starting to drop.
"This one's going to hurt!!" she screamed as she hurtled towards the ground.
She dropped, hurtling through the air.
Three hundred feet.
Two hundred feet.
One hundred feet.
As she neared the ground something grabbed her.
________________________________________________________________________
"Professor Summers!!" shouted Neville as the battle raged around him, too distracted trying to think of a way to
save the rapidly descending Professor to even notice the number of near misses that Fred and a recently healed
George Weasley had saved him from.
Cushioning charms would not work and neither would levitation charms, she was falling too fast.
She was going to die.
He watched helplessly as she fell down below the levels of the buildings, accompanied by the mad cackling of
Bellatrix Lestrange.
He did not want to watch but he could not look away.
Then it happened.
With less than ten metres to go, she was hit at high speed by something that appeared to be a cross between a bird
and an MD Professor.
The animal or person wrapped its wing like arms around her protectively and together they tumbled sideways through
the air due to the male Professor's momentum, sending them crashing through the wall of the Hogs Head, taking most
of the front wall with them.
The sound of many pieces bits of breaking wood followed as they came to a stop, accompanied by the groaning of the
wood from the upper floors at having to support their weight on only three walls.
"Neville. Snap out of it!" Shouted Fred, elbowing him in the side, jolting him back to the matter at hand, he just
prayed the Professors where ok.
Curses were flying, bodies were falling, and people were beginning to panic. The snakes were impervious to almost
everything as the continued ever onwards, forcing the students and other shoppers closer to the Death Eaters.
Then all of a sudden Bellatrix raised her hand and everyone and everything stopped.
"Potter...." she said in a slightly manic sing song voice whilst walking around the street "Come out, come out
where ever you are. I know your there."
She continued walking around, walking straight through the two rows of pointed wands and back to her starting
position in the middle of the pack of Death Eaters.
"If you surrender, we will let the others live Potter....Their lives are in your hands."
There were a few seconds of silence, in which Neville subtly squeezed his Alliance Ring.
There was a minutes silence as the two sides faced off against each other, the only sound being the slight rustle
of peoples clothes and the odd snake hiss.
"Come out Potter, you are running out of time."
"Looking for me Trixie?"
Lestrange developed an evil grin before slowly turning to the source of the voice.
________________________________________________________________________
Harry and Fleur stood on the other side of the group of Death Eaters, they had been unaware of the attack until
Neville's message had alerted them, apparently the Death Eaters had put silencing charms around the area of attack
though the smoke rising from the Three Broomsticks was obvious when you were out in the street.
Fleur currently had her wand out and was pointing it at the group of Death Eaters, several of whom had turned their
wands on the pair, while Harry stood calmly, his wands still in his pockets.
"Potter." Bellatrix smiled manically "Its ssssooo good to seeee you."
"Likewise." He returned pleasantly.
"Did you come to play?" she grinned "I see you bought your pet pigeon for dinner. I do like to play with my food
before I eat it."
"Sorry Trixie." He replied "I'm the only one allowed to play with her."
He heard Fleur laugh slightly behind him.
"Are you going to surrender Potter?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Because you are a hero Potter, you save lives and by giving up you will save all these people."
Harry thought for a moment.
"I will tell you what;" he smiled "I will surrender to you, if you cast Cruciatus Curse on me and make me drop to
the ground."
"What!"
"Arry!"
"No Harry!"
Came voices from several quarters.
"You want me to cast the torture curse on you?" asked Bellatrix excitedly "I agree."
Harry moved his hands out to the sides.
"Then go ahead then."
She pointed her wand.
"Harry no!!!"
"CRUCIO!!!"
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