Gone Twisted

Spells shot past her as she shot spell after spell herself. About half an hour ago the hour they had given them had ended and Ash had led the Death Eaters into battle - Snape on one side, Bellatrix on the other.

She had ordered a group to attack form the west. Another, bigger group was supposed to attack from the north and she led the largest group from the south, where the main battle ground would be.

The resistance had been surprisingly good. She had nearly been stung by a stunning spell a couple of times, but the ruthlessness of the Death Eaters was prevailing.

They didn't care if they were attacking students, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. They didn't care if they killed, hurt or cursed them. All they cared about was that these people were their enemies that had to be eliminated.

"Stupefy!" Ash screamed and hit some blond haired girl wearing a white night gown in the chest.

"Glacious!" she called again and this time hit a raven haired boy with striped pyjamas, freezing him into a ice statue.

"You would have thought that they would have at least put some cloths on!" Ash called out to Daphne Greengrass who was - also - trying not to hurt any of these people to bad.

Daphne laughed at her words, "Or at least put on something good looking! Imagine dying in that!" she added and flung a stunning spell at a student that was wearing a fluffy yellow morning gown.

"Stop your talking!" Bellatrix fumed at them. "If you guys go on throwing around these weak spell we will never win this fight!" she growled, looking pointedly at Ash.

"I'm still in charge here, Bella!" she answered, her voice threatening.

"Only because the Lord has some kind of weird fable for you, doesn't mean you can not fight seriously!" Bella said back while continuing to shoot some nasty hexes at the students.

Screaming in fury, Ash dashed forward and raced through the Hogwarts defences, flicking away a suit of armour here and there and casting herself and Daphne a way inside the castle.

"Crucio!" she screamed when a older man stood in front of her, blocking her way. She had no complaints about attacking people older then her. "Immobulus!" another student fell down motionlessly.

Up the stairs they ran. "Ash! Where do you plan on going?" Daphne called after her. Ash looked back. A few flights down she saw that many of the other Death Eaters had managed to get into the castle as well.

"No were specific, but I have a feeling I could find Potter on the fifth floor somewhere," she answered, swinging her wand at another student that encountered them.

"But we're not supposed to go after him!"

"Dad will still be proud if we get him!" Ash returned the argument and on and on they fought their way up the staircase, only to find themselves stuck on the third floor, where some poltergeist attacked them with super glue until a group of very skilled witches and wizards came to fight them off.

"Crucio!" one of them yelled and a green light struck Ash hard. Gasping in pain, she felt herself fall to the ground, but she had suffered through too many crucio's as to black out by the excruciating pain.

Gasping for air, she grabbed her wand tighter and yelled "Avada Kadevera" hitting the unknown caster in the chest. The pain stopped abruptly as the other fell down dead. Quickly she scrambled up again, and was thankful for the others that finally made it up the staircase and help them fight off the Hogwartians.

After a long fight with a girl that looked asian, she was finally able to stun the girl and ran up another flight of stairs. But this time instead of running up even further, she ran left down a corridor, thinking she had just seen something familiar over there. When she reached the end of the corridor, she spied around the edge.

There he was! Harry Potter and his friends, plus three other red haired people, fighting off a couple of Death Eaters that made it there before her, but the Death Eaters were fighting a losing battle in there. Soon she saw them go down and watched as the group of six celebrated. She didn't know why, but she couldn't get herself to attack them.

Suddenly there was an explosion from somewhere she couldn't see and Ash could just rip herself away from the sight in time.

When she dared to look around the corner again, Ash saw one of the red haired people down on the floor, unmoving. Two others had fallen onto their knees and were crying over their dead friend... or family member while Potter, his little girlfriend and another red haired - the one that looked exactly like the dead one - just stared at the scene in shock, tears flowing freely.

Ash heard footsteps from another corridor as they ran away from the scene. The others tried to get the boy holding the other to move, get to safety, but the boy didn't listen. Finally one of them managed to get the other boy to move and help them move the corpse into a niche on the wall, safe from the war around it.

Gradually they hurried away, leaving the body and their unknown watcher behind.

Looking around herself carefully, Ash walked down the hallway towards the unmoving boy, crouching down in front of him.

Swallowing hard, Ash lifted up his head to look into his unmoving and lifeless eyes...

"Fred! George! Ron's being mean to me again!" her younger self cried, running up to a smaller and more alive version of the boy in front of her a second ago.

The twins looked down at her and shook their head in disappointment. "Why are you telling us about that?"

"Make him stop!" Ash said pouting.

"Find your own way of stopping him," they insisted.

"But..."

"But what?"

Ash scrawled, "For my plan I need magic, but I'm not allowed to use any yet!"

Fred and George looked at each other carefully. "You know there are a lot of way to play pranks on someone without magic," one of them told her.

"Muggles do it all the time! You should never forget that muggle tricks are a very important thing to know," the other added.

"Even if their a bit slow," both laughed in unison.

Tear were running down her cheeks now. She had known this boy. She had grown up with him. Letting her head fall onto his limp shoulder, she cried freely. At the pain of knowing she had lost someone who had played an important role in her life, at the pain of knowing he had meant something to her but not knowing what he had been exactly, at the pain of this confusion that rampaged her brain so furiously, so many times.

She was ripped out of her sorrow, when she heard a familiar voice boom out of nowhere and everywhere.

"If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one," Voldemorts voice thundered around her loud, emotionless and clear. "I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste... I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour... I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you... I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."

Brushing her useless tear away furiously, she grabbed her wand tightly and walked to the nearest window. There she jumped onto the ledge and muttered a short spell that her so-called father had taught her. Seconds later she soared through the sky, watching many of the other Death Eaters run back to the forest under Voldemorts command.