One Hour

“Reparo.” I muttered, barely bothering to move my wand in the correct movement, the one like a back to front G; it was more of a sloppy O.

Nonetheless, the glass of the window now two feet behind me came together with only a few minor scraping noises as shards wriggled from beneath other shards. The draft – unseasonably cold, I noted – lessened ever so slightly. My footsteps sounded harsh in the quiet.

It felt wrong for Hogwarts to be this still. It wasn’t even like the few times I had sneaked out at night just for the adrenaline rush of breaking rules – then there had been the odd Prefect to hide from or Peeves. Occasionally a meandering ghost or two, perhaps an escaped pixie.
Now there was no one and the corridors were hardly recognisable.

I was on the Third Floor, I supposed near the Trophy Room. Large chunks of the walls had been blow apart, either leading into decimated spare classrooms or out into thin air or nothing at all. Patches of the floor had vanished as if a baby had clumsily crawled over an older sibling’s once complete puzzle, pieces sticking to their soft skin and being transported away.

For a few moments I paused and assessed whether I could make my way around a five foot pile of rubble that was once part of the Fourth Floor corridor. A snapped wand stood vertically atop, the flag in the sandcastle. I wondered what had happened to its owner and turned away from the thought very quickly.

Climb, I decided, testing my weight on the sturdiest looking of the chunks. It stayed with only a minor wobble and I almost felt satisfaction. The next slab of rubble fell away beneath me and I scrabbled for a moment before catching a hold, my heart beating too fast.

Reparo or locomotor would have been just as effective but even an amount of movement as small as climbing the heap was calming to the jittery energy making my hands shake.

I stepped from atop the rubble, pulling the action into a jump, my eyes instinctively shutting–

Although I could not hear it, I could feel the tiny crack as one of the bones in one of the fingers in the hand of the dead body I had just jumped on broke.

My foot got caught in the folds of their robes as I began to run and I tripped, landing with and ugly crunch on my hands and knees. Small stones and pieces of unnamed miscellaneous splinters embedded themselves in the skin of my hands.

Before I could regain my breath I was shoved aside by a blur of feet and tattered trouser hems and shouting. I fell and dragged myself backward as another set of feet stormed passed, their heavy footfalls landing where moments before my face had been.

I considered curling up where I was, discarded against the wall on the cold floor, but my sense of self-preservation would not let me. Instead I staggered to my feet and skidded around a corner and back into the tumult, blood pounding in my ears and my breath in irregular wheezes.

A red light flew towards me, too fast, and–

I landed cat like on the floor. Not bothering to brush myself off, I stood upright with only a few aches in my muscles and continued my journey along the corridor.

None of the inhabitants of the remaining tapestries greeted me like they used to. None even watched me as I passed, huddled in the very corners of their frames and disturbingly silent.
Every few steps the stones of the walls were stained with blood; some were large enough to give the idea a person had exploded there, guts flying in all directions, while others suggested the victim had been merely grazed.

One hour of armistice; a time for us to collect our dead and tend to our injured. My watch told me that fifty seven of the sixty minutes had already passed. If I found anyone alive now it was highly unlikely I’d get them to the Great Hall in time before the fighting broke out once more.

If there was to be any more fighting. If Harry Potter hadn’t given himself up or been killed otherwise yet.

A door to my right was still smoking slightly, a hole the size of a hubcap blasted where I presumed there had once been a doorknob. Tentatively, I walked over and pushed it inwards with the very ends of my fingertips.

A bemoaned creak and it swung open, revealing a demolished once spare classroom. I almost took a step inside before remembering that there might have been any kind of curse or hex set to go off when someone entered the room.

“Specialis revelio.” I tapped the wood of the doorframe and paused. Nothing. Even so, I held my breath as I placed my foot down on the floor on the other side of the door.

There was a horrible hiss followed by a clicking noise and I fumbled over my words in panic as I brought light to the room. Squinting in the sudden brightness I managed to make out a shape: an abnormally large spider was scuttling towards me, it’s pincers snapping together, it’s eyes glittering. My mind went blank as it reached a mere foot away and–

A jarring pain shot up my shoulder as I attempted to break the door of the room open. It wouldn’t budge, but neither would the block in my mind behind which any memory of the correct spell to use in the situation was hidden.

I slammed into the door again but it held fast, barely shuddering under the force. Behind me I could hear the battle continuing – a duel had made its way over, the two fighters sending their flashing jets of light non-verbally and ducking out of the way of the response. Somewhere in the grounds there was a roar of a giant.

Dust in the air made it impossible to see where they came from as the agonised shrieks of someone under the Cruciatus Curse echoed around the corridor, sounding like the music of merpeople during a song in which they had a duet with a Banshee.

“Come on!” Slam. Blood from a cut I hadn’t realised I had obtained trickled in my eyes and down to my mouth. “Just open already!”

The door I was leaning against burst into flames.

I lurched away from it, my clothes singed, and straight into a Death Eater. Their mask was torn away but their grotesque, grinning face still unfamiliar. Sweaty, grimy hands wrapped around my neck and I couldn’t reach my wand and I was already seeing bursts of light before my eyes and–

With my eyes squeezed shut I shouted my best hope, “ARANIA EXUMAI!”

There was a flash of light which was blinding despite my closed eyelids. I flinched away from it although I knew it was my own spell and couldn’t harm me.

When no flesh-tearing pincers bore into my skin I dared to open my eyes. The spider was on its back all the way over on the other side of the room, its legs curling inwards and still flailing slightly. Without hesitating – doubting any survivor, or body, was in the room in light of the spider’s being there – I nearly sprinted from the room and down the corridor, stopping only when I had put considerable distance between myself and the spare classroom.

I found I was all the way down on the Second Floor, near Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

Stopping to catch my breath, I leaned against one of the wall and tried not to focus on any of the numerous aches and pains and injuries. Or thoughts.

I tried to think of nothing but before I could even begin to attempt to clear my mind, an amplified, too-high voice seemed to sound from the very air itself. The hour was up.

“Harry Potter is dead.” He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named began, his voice almost impassive. “He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself as you laid down your lives for him.”

I shut my eyes and swallowed and tried not to listen to the next words but they were drilling into my brain – “… The battle is won. You have lost half you fighters…” – stinging and echoing and immovable and–

“This is the end, then, isn’t it?”

The man was too close to death, half chewed and mangled by a crazed werewolf, for me to think it necessary to move him. I wouldn’t cause him more suffering in his final moments; he would be far easier to carry back to the Great Hall when he wasn’t writhing in pain, too.

His eyes were already gaining a film over them, like the layer of dust over the glassy eyes of a doll forgotten with the departure of childhood. I didn’t even know his name.

I held his hand and lied to him all the same. “Maybe not.”