Little Memories

The broomstick Draco and Harry were on collided hard with the stone wall opposite of the corridor that lead to the Room of Hidden Things, or what was left of it. Draco rolled off the room and collapsed onto the floor. He lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling as he coughed roughly. The smoke had done a number on his lungs and throat, leaving them parched, dry, and burning. Slowly, he sat up and stared at the blank stretch of wall that they had just come from as he listened to Ron, Hermione, and Harry talking to each other about Ginny and if the Room of Requirement would work after what had just happened.

“Cha-Charlie,” he breathed, tears beginning to sting his eyes. “Charlotte,” he choked out in a louder voice before lifting a shaking hand to his mouth. The “Golden Trio” hushed suddenly and looked over at Draco, who had begun to freely cry.

“She’s dead,” Ron said harshly and Harry shushed him quickly.

“No…Ron, she was on our side all along,” he said quietly, looking a bit saddened at this revelation. “She helped us…back at the café at the beginning of the year. She gave me the locket on the night Dumbledore died…which I stupidly ended up getting stolen from me before I recognized the true value of it. She…she risked so much for us.” Hermione and Ron exchanged a look before glancing to Draco, who was muffling hard sobs beneath his hand that were echoing pitifully down the corridor.

“She really didn’t make it?” Hermione asked in a whisper, as if it would prevent Draco from hearing it but he did regardless. His eyes stared hard at the bare expanse of wall as the trio began to talk about where and how Crabbe learned how to do Fiendfyre as Draco pulled himself up to a seated position on the wall. It’d be a while before Gregory woke up and Draco hadn’t the slightest clue what he was going to tell him. He’d been unconscious for the most part and unaware of his sister’s whereabouts. The eldest Goyle was now the only Goyle, it seemed. Draco covered his face with his hands as rough, hoarse sobs tore from his body.

He didn’t pay any attention to what was going around him until a loud bang and the sound of dueling resonated down the corridor. His head shot up as he watched Harry, Ron, and Hermione bolting to two of the Weasley siblings. He frantically looked over at Gregory and his hand dove into his pocket for his wand, but then realized that his wand, or his mother’s wand, was probably now reduced to ashes and cinders. He grasped Gregory by the shoulders and began to drag him down the hallway, not wanting either of them to get caught in the crossfire.

Draco heard the sound of raised voices over the sound of Gregory’s body sliding against the dirt-ridden stone floors. Then, the air around Draco grew dense and pressed against his ears in an almost painful manner. He dropped to the ground as the world around him shook and he turned to look in the direction of the blast. Rubble splayed across the ground and dust settled like a hazy rain. He could hear someone screaming above the sound of his ears ringing and he continued to drag Gregory behind him. If the last thing Charlotte ever told Draco to do was to stick to her brother, he was going to go through with it.

That half of the battle passed quickly for Draco. Gregory had woken up and inconsolably bolted from Draco before he could stop him. The eldest Goyle sibling was going to search the school top to bottom for any signs of his sister; a dangerous feat for someone who was wand-less in the midst of a battle that was sure to go down in history.

Draco and Gregory only met up when the Dark Lord gave the opposing forces an hour to present Harry Potter to him and to bury their dead. Draco had been socked in the mouth my some invisible force, but he vaguely remembered hearing Ron Weasley’s voice yelling at him from a distance. Gregory looked haggard and a bit worse for wear, like he had narrowly escaped run ins with both sides. The same had happened to Draco, despite his desperate calling out to the Death Eaters that were attacking him.

“Are we going to stay in the castle?” Gregory asked softly, looking up at Draco with a furrowed brow. His eyes were a bit watery, but Draco could attribute that to the dust in the air that still hadn’t settled. They were standing in a third floor corridor, glancing around wildly at any little noise, which was mostly just pieces of rubble settling. Draco dragged his fingers through his hair and let out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t think we have much of a choice to be honest,” he murmured. At any moment, he expected a soot-covered Charlotte to come barreling toward him and wrap him in the biggest hug imaginable. Whether Crabbe was with her or not, Draco could have cared less as heartless as that sounded. But, her quick, light footsteps never came and her smiling, beautiful face never peered around the corner to look for him. Draco and Gregory met eyes for a brief moment and they both registered the same thing.

“She said this was going to happen,” Gregory murmured over and over again and Draco slowly began to watch his old friend’s sanity quickly unraveling before him. He paced up and down the corridor, tears cascading down his cheeks and dripping from his chin. Draco merely leaned back against the wall, the shock of his revelation leaving him a bit numb and in disbelief. “I didn’t want to believe it. But she said it would happen,” he kept repeating: sometime louder, sometimes softer, sometimes hysterical, and sometimes perfectly calm.

“When?” Draco asked him in a thin voice, wiping a few tears from his face. Gregory broke out of the panic he had put himself and looked to Draco with wild eyes.

“What difference does it make, Draco?!” He snapped in a watery voice, gesturing with his hands wildly. “She’s fucking gone. She’s gone and she’ll never…” He let out a strangled cry and crouched down on the ground, wrapping his arms around the back of his head and dissolving into sobs once more.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron walked into the Great Hall with solemn faces. The dead were lined up in the middle of the gargantuan room, the long tables and benches gone. Ron immediately broke from the three and ran over to his family, who were grieving over the loss of Fred. Hermione followed after, gathering Ginny into her arms and the two of them cried together. The first body he passed was that of Jackson Harper, who’s arm was twisted at an unnatural angle and who’s shirt was covered in drying blood. Harry took the time to look around, his expression grim. He looked over the deathly grey face of Fred Weasley, Mrs. Weasley sobbing over him, Mr. Weasley comforting her, and the inconsolable remainder of the Weasley family. His eyes drifted over to the bodies that lay beside Fred and Harry’s heart gave a hard pang in his chest.

There lay his favorite teacher, Former Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts R.J. Lupin, and his wife, Nymphadora Tonks. Harry immediately blamed himself for their deaths and knew that if he’d just given himself over, all these people, these wonderful people he’d had in his life, would still be living and breathing. They’d be able to tell their family that they love them. They’d be able to raise their children. They’d be able to live a long, full life. His eyes then landed on a body and his brow furrowed a bit despite himself. Slowly, he began to walk over to the figure.

A stark white sheet covered the body, the only one who had their identity hidden. The sheet was stained with a watery sort of a red color in some spots, mostly on the right side of whomever it was that was laying there. Harry could see the chest of the body rising and falling dramatically. The closer he got, the more he could hear the air rasping in and out of their lungs and those lungs crackling and popping with the intake of air. Slowly, he shook his head, confused as to what happened, stopping at the feet of whomever it was. He heard Ginny and Hermione whispering frantically behind him before Madam Pomfrey rushed over to the body.

“It’s her, Harry,” Hermione whispered, stepping beside Harry and looking over at him, wiping her profusely watering eyes. Harry shook his head a bit and glanced over at her in confusion. “She’s not doing well and we aren’t supposed to say her name out loud.” Realization dawned over Harry’s features and he glanced back over to the body and watched as Madam Pomfrey waved her wand over the sheet, not wanting to risk pulling back the sheet to expose the identity of the girl beneath it.

“How did she…” Harry let his voice trail off out of lack of anything to say. He had so many thoughts going through his head at the moment that he couldn’t properly think things through.

“No one knows,” Hermione replied softly, wincing slightly. “Mr. Weasley found her not too far from Fred. Thankfully, Ginny clarified everything with him so they’d actually help her instead of leaving her there to die.” She pulled a bit of a wince as she looked over at the girl shrouded in a bloody white sheet. Harry followed her line of sight, a bit amazing that she had managed to make it out of such a mess, and feeling a sense of pride that he had someone who would risk so much for what he fought for. “Madam Pomfrey…” Hermione continued in a shaky whisper. “Madam Pomfrey doesn’t believe she’ll make it through the night. Not if she can’t get the proper help she’s needing and it’s dark magic that’s injured her, you see. It’s the same concept as…as George’s ear. It either can‘t be healed by normal means or it won‘t be healed at all.” Harry felt a hand on his shoulder and noticed Ginny on the other side of him.

She was staring down at the figure covered in the sheet with a sad sort of expression. Her face was blotchy and her eyes were large and watery, having been overwhelmed by the death of Fred. Harry looked over at her for a moment, pursing his lips a bit. She sniffled a bit and dragged the back of her hand over her tear-stained cheeks.

“It’s a shame,” Ginny commented softly. “I’ll probably never get to tell her how much I appreciated our friendship in the few months that we were actually talking.” Harry’s brow furrowed a bit as he looked over at her, slowly shaking his head in confusion. “She helped Neville, Luna, and myself back at the beginning of the year, before things started getting really bad and locked down. She tried to get the sword of Gryffindor from Snape’s office for us, knew exactly where it was too. I blamed her, naturally, when we got caught, but I genuinely think that she hadn’t the slightest clue that we would be caught.” Ginny took in a deep breath of air glancing between Hermione and Harry. “Sometimes she would let on like she knew more. And Luna sometimes swore that she would mention Dumbledore’s name, but then quickly backtrack and cover up the fact that she ever said his name to begin with.”

Harry drew in a deep breath of air and ran a hand down his grime, dirty, and blood-covered face. He looked down at the sheet, to Madam Pomfrey kneeling beside her, then to Hermione and Ginny beside him.

“She was brave,” he said softly. “She was brave to have allegiances to both sides and to help us out so much. Whether she lives or not, we, at least, will know that she was really fighting for us all along and at least our memories of her will be of a brave, bright witch who risked her life by crossing the darkest wizard of all time. I don’t think we’ll find anyone as brave to cross him as her.” But there was someone else braver than her and Harry would soon find out that one Severus Snape, who’s memories lay in a vial in his pocket, played the same game as the girl that lay nearly motionless, dying at their feet.