Running Close to the Ground

Part IV: Last Things

Chapter Eleven: The Final Battle

I see pieces of men marching, trying to take heaven by force;

I can see the unknown rider, I can see the pale white horse ...

Beat a path of retreat up them spiral staircases,

Past the tree of smoke, past the angel with four faces,

Begging God for mercy and weeping in unholy places ...

- Bob Dylan, "Angelina"

Two nights have passed since Lucius and I left Snape's body outside the gates of Hogwarts. I do my best to calculate how long it will take for the Order to act on my information and prepare an attack. (If they understand my message. And if my hastily performed enchantments work at all. But I'm trying not to think about the ifs.)

I've got a feeling it's going to happen tonight. It would cost my life to warn Avery or any of the others, but there's Roo.

After closing time, I sit at the bar while she washes pint glasses. I smoke cigarette after cigarette and search for the right words to say.

"Roo," I ask her at last, "how brave can you be?"

She freezes, a dishrag in one hand and a glass in the other, but I think the question has not come as a complete surprise to her. "Brave enough," she says after a second.

"There's something I have to tell you. I don't even know how to begin, but ... I'm - well, I'm a wizard. I can do magic."

"Of course you can," she says with an indulgent smile. "On the stage, weren't you?"

"No, I mean I'm a real wizard."

"You're a Wiccan?"

"A what?" I ask, and immediately wish I hadn't, because she launches into an explanation of Wiccans which I don't have time to listen to. Apparently there are Muggles just like Travers.

"Look, forget about that bit. What matters is, this - this organization I'm part of, they're fighting the people in - this other organization, and they've got all sorts of weapons you've never seen before, and it'll be extremely dangerous for anybody who gets caught in the middle."

"Like a gang war?"

"Close enough. Anyway, you're to keep out of the way and hide out somewhere safe until it's over." (No, that isn't any good. There aren't any safe places. But the Order will have my map, and Roo and the other Muggles are labeled as harmless, so perhaps a few of them will get away in one piece.) "Keep well away from the action, whatever you do. And if I don't come back or you get caught in the middle of things, you're to surrender to the first person you've never seen before. Got that? Because my side doesn't mean well to your kind of people, but the ones who are attacking us will treat you decently. Most of them will, anyhow."

I try to think of someone I'm sure about. Moony, of course. He'd kill me just as soon as look at me, but he'd never hurt a Muggle, and he'll listen to her story.

"Ask to speak to a man named Remus Lupin. He's about my age, brown hair, looks like a stiff gust of wind will knock him over, but he's made of good stuff. Tell him everything. Just the plain truth. He'll see that they take care of you."

She stares at me, wide-eyed, and I realize I'd better check how much she's taken in.

"Now, repeat back to me what I've said in your own words."

"Sounds to me like you're involved with a ... a cult, and it's at war with another cult, and you're telling me I need to keep out of the way because your Fearless Leader has convinced you you've got some sort of secret extra-dangerous weapon."

"He hasn't convinced me of anything. I know."

"OK, you know you have a secret weapon." Roo rolls her eyes slightly. "And this other cult is nicer than your cult, so I should find this bloke in the other cult with the two funny names -"

"Remus John Lupin. Remember that name. It's important."

"All right, this bloke with the two funny names and the one normal one. And I should tell him everything."

A burning pain shoots through my left arm, and I know that I've run out of time. "Yes. That will do. I have to go now, but I'll be back in a little while," I promise, knowing there's a good chance I'll never see her again.

Almost thirty years after being Sorted into Gryffindor, I think I've finally got this bravery business figured out. The secret is lying your head off, even to yourself.

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"I still haven't the foggiest idea what you're mixed up in. But I want you to know that to me you'll always be a good man."

And she puts her arms around my shoulders and presses her mouth against mine like she'll never let go. This is our first kiss for the sake of kissing, the first one that wasn't a short stop on the way to sex. I like to think I'll take the taste of her mouth to the grave, but of course I won't. It will fade like everything on earth fades.

There's a blinding flash of green light outside, and the windows rattle in their panes. It's started.

"Oh, my God." Roo puts her hand to her mouth. "You were telling the truth. I've got to get Hat-Trick."

"You don't have time to get Hat-Trick," I tell her, but she runs upstairs anyway, and I keep watch until she returns. The last I see of her, she's hurrying down to the cellar of the Hanged Man with a wriggling, lop-eared rabbit tucked under her arm. The pain in my arm intensifies as I take my wand in my hand and Disapparate to Avery's side.

"Don't get it," he gasps. "Tried to take cover - but they keep - coming at us. Almost like they put - Tracking Spells on us all."

It is the dark of the moon and the clouds are low, blotting out the stars. Curses light up the night sky like a thunderstorm; flashes of red and green turn the underbellies of the clouds livid. Wind and thunder and fire in my ears drown out my own screams and Avery's.

Fucking hell, you can't tell a friend from an enemy around here. Too much light, too much noise, too much chaos.

We stand shoulder to shoulder and fire off spells at everyone who moves too close. Several people fall in front of us. I think they're Muggles, so I'm aiming to Stun, not to kill, but I can't swear that Avery hasn't taken them out. They'll probably get killed anyway: this is no man's land, crisscrossed by lethal bolts of light.

Then Avery vanishes from my side. I can't tell where he's gone. But I'm sure of one thing about our Avery: he doesn't desert his mates on purpose.

Travers - loopy, bespectacled Travers - is standing with his back against the old church casting one spell after another like a killing machine. Half a dozen Aurors fall before him, and then somebody hits him from above with the Killing Curse. So it's a dirty fight on their side as well. I duck behind a stone wall, dodging another flare of green light by inches.

As more of the fighters fall, an eerie stillness settles over the village, broken by the sibilant whisper of scales on stone. A sea of moccasins and boomslangs and rattlesnakes surges from the cellar of the old Riddle house. So that's what the Dark Lord keeps there.

His tall, cadaverous figure stands at their back. He hisses, urging the snakes on, and a girl cries out as they strike.

Prongs - Harry, I mean - steps forward and drops to one knee in front of the snakes. He speaks in Parseltongue, and the sea holds itself at bay...

I hear Bellatrix Lestrange's mad laughter, as if from far off. She points her wand in the direction of Harry, who is still kneeling with his eyes on the snakes and does not see her. Another figure - long-limbed, youthful - throws himself between them, taking the full force of the curse she has just fired off. The newcomer lies motionless on the ground.

A spell hits Bellatrix square in the heart, and she falls too. It takes me a moment to recognize the dark-haired boy who fired it as one of Ron's dorm-mates, the shy round-faced one who was always short of confidence, for in this moment he is as cool and self-assured as a veteran of forty.

Ron. In a flash of white light, I see that the fallen boy has his coloring. The night wind ruffles his red hair and a pool of dark blood soaks into the earth. Please let it be one of the others - Percy, or Bill. I don't want it to be any of them, but please not him.

Harry rises to his feet and holds out his arm in a gesture of command, and the tide of snakes recedes. The Dark Lord staggers, bitten by one of his own reptilian army.

Too bad he didn't know about St. Paul, I think, and choke back a burst of hysterical laughter. Then the dementors close in on him and what remains of his inner circle, and I can no longer see their faces.

By now most of us are panicking. Crabbe's young son, or maybe it's Goyle's, tries to run and hide, but he doesn't get very far. The Lestrange brothers are standing on the roof of one of the village shops shooting down anyone who looks disloyal.

I'll never get out of this alive, but I'm going to try my damnedest anyway. I fire off Stunning spells at anyone who looks like they may be getting close to me. There's no time to work out whether they're Death Eaters or Order members or innocent Muggles caught in the crossfire, and it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference anyway. It's every man for himself now.

Something hits me in the back with a searing pain and I sprawl flat on the ground, fighting for breath.

The next bit seems to happen in slow motion. A familiar voice cuts through the screams of the dying and the roar of battle, and somebody falls directly in front of me as a bolt of red light hits him in the foot. I can feel his breath on my face, coming in short ragged gasps.

"Peter! Peter, can you hear me? I'm going to - get you out of here."

I struggle to speak with a tongue that seems as thick as roofing tar. "M-moony ... I'm s-so sorry ... know it's n-not enough b-but..."

"Time for that - later. Just listen. Going to try - to Disapparate - and take you with me. You don't have to do anything - just hold on. All right?"

I nod. I can feel myself losing blood and losing strength, but I grip his arm for dear life.

Over his shoulder I catch a glimpse of Rabastan on the roof of the building, wand ready, looking straight at us. Miraculously, he holds his fire - he just stands there staring for a long moment, as if the sight of us has turned him to stone. Slowly, he begins to lower his wand. Then Rodolphus half-turns and fires off the Killing Curse at his own brother.

His second shot is aimed at us. I try to shout a warning, but I haven't got the strength to speak. And then everything disappears.