Accidents of Circumstance

Chapter 28: Aftermath

Hermione felt the swish of spells all around her, but she had fallen and hadn't bothered to get up once Dumbledore had died. How could this be allowed to happen? How could the Fates let him be burnt to a crisp by a Death Eater transfigured into a dragon? For the creature to have all of the attributes of a dragon entailed strong magic, and it galled her to know that such a gift had been turned to Voldemort's use. If he can die, we all can die.

The floor began to shake. Hermione rolled over onto her back and sat up. Everyone was just as baffled as she was, looking about in confusion. She carefully got to her feet and gripped her wand tightly. The Death Eaters might have been just as confused as the Order members were, but she didn't put it past Voldemort or Lucius Malfoy to create something deadly to wipe them all out at once. She had seen how dispensable the Death Eaters truly were.

The stones parted smoothly, and Regina and Harry were tossed into the air. The stones fell back into place, and they fell to the ground. It rippled beneath them, absorbing the impact, and then was still. They got to their feet and looked around.

"Holy shit," Regina said, mouth dropped open and eyes wide. She hadn't realized the damage that would have really taken place; everything up until now had been spoken of as a series of potentials. It was suddenly very real.

Harry merely looked grim. He had the Sword of Gryffindor at his belt and his wand in his hand. He seemed battle-ready.

Hermione saw the splotches of blood on Regina's chest and wondered what had happened. Her eyes darted around, wondering if something had wounded her on the way up. In doing so, Hermione caught the ambitious Death Eater lifting his wand in the traditional swish and flick formation they had been taught in school. Hermione whipped her own wand out and shouted "Impedimenta!" at the top of her lungs.

And as the Death Eater froze to a halt, the rest of the room sprang to life.

***

Ron and Draco were sitting across from each other in a forgotten hallway in the Slytherin dungeons. Draco was awake and alert now, but Ron didn't quite trust him to walk to the Great Hall on his own yet. Draco was staring at his hands and not moving much. Ron had to check to make sure he was even breathing.

"We should go," Ron offered. "They might need us upstairs."

"Yeah. We should." Draco didn't seem to move.

"Well? What's wrong?"

"I left Selphie's sword next to my father's body."

Ron let out a whistle. No wonder the teen seemed ready to fall over. He saw his father dead on the ground and his mother tried to hex him into submission. With a family like that, no wonder he had been an unsociable git. Ron could afford to be nice to him now. "Tell me where, and I'll get it. You don't have to see anything."

Draco looked up at Ron and seemed almost pathetically grateful. Ron felt almost small and insignificant; the offer had been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, and it meant so much to Draco. "Would you?"

"Just tell me where."

Draco began to direct Ron, and sat very still when the redhead went off to get the sword. That was something friends did for you. Or true family. They helped out, they let you retain a sense of peace you wouldn't have otherwise had. They didn't try to hurt you, they didn't try to mold your mind in their image. They didn't do untold strange things to you and say it was in your best interest. It was interesting, to have this directed at him. It was something only the Golden Trio had, something Draco could only pretend to have with Crabbe and Goyle. But here was Ron, unthinkingly doing Draco a favor he normally would have done for a friend. Something twisted inside of Draco's chest, and it was nothing like pain.

If Draco had any word for it, it would have to be love.

Ron hurried back, the short sword in hand. "Here it is."

Draco took it and nodded his thanks. He was ready now, he could join the battle upstairs with the others. "Let's go. We have Death Eaters to fight."

***

Snape had to admit, the boy was spectacular at battle magic. Harry Potter had a strange kind of grace as the spells flew from his wand or his outstretched fingers, and it seemed almost like a choreographed martial arts fight scene from one of Regina's movies. Harry had an instinctive grip on the way magic flowed, almost as if he could feel it and sense where it was about to go. He used incapacitating spells, never killing his opponents. Snape couldn't say the same, having killed almost every Death Eater he had faced so far.

"Rack 'em!" Regina's voice boomed.

The Death Eaters didn't know the signal, but the Order members did. The Death Eaters were now being corralled into the designated area, a corner of the Great Hall that had been especially spelled for the purpose.

Snape felt the room chill a bare second before he heard the words.

"Avada kedavra!"

He looked around wildly, trying to see where the green shaft of light had gone. His blood had gone cold. Please not Regina, not when we just got back together, not now, not after everything had already been done to us, please not now...

McGonagall froze as the green light engulfed her, and fell over.

The cry that tore from Regina's throat was one of agony. She broke formation, and so did Snape. He was at her side, holding her hand tightly. There was nothing he could say, no platitude to offer. There was nothing other than his presence to let her know that he was there for her. Death may have taken her friend, but it hadn't taken them yet.

Regina's face was set. "Cover me, Sev. I'm going to do the impossible."

"What?"

She turned her back to him, and held her hands hovered over McGonagall's still chest. He turned and fired off fireballs and mirror spells, anything to keep the attacking Death Eater spells from falling over their strange little trio. Regina wanted him to buy her some time, and Snape would give it to her.

Blue mist swirled around Regina's fingertips as she began to chant in the Jelisan dialect of Gera. The mist crept in from all around them, and infused Regina's skin with the strange blue glow. Her voice grew in intensity, and she began to lean in over McGonagall's body. Her eyes open, and they were a solid shade of sky blue, swirling at a rapid speed. Her mouth opened wide as she took a breath in, and then she breathed out the single word "Revivo."

The blue mist went from beneath Regina's skin to infuse McGonagall's. The glow was faint at first, then picked up intensity. It shone through McGonagall's skin, highlighting bone and artery and vein. Regina seemed to darken and look insignificant in comparison. Snape wondered what Regina had done, what old magic she had tapped into. Had she merely turned McGonagall into a glorified golem?

Snape didn't have long to wonder. The blue glow turned fever bright for a split second, then faded away into nothingness. The older woman gasped in a halting breath, and shot bolt upright, smacking Regina's forehead. They both fell backward and apart. McGonagall took several shallow gulps of air, and held out her hands. There was a slight tremor, but they apparently did everything she told them to do. Regina was curled on her side, gasping for air. Her hands scrabbled spastically across the stones as she tried to push herself into an upright position. McGonagall had to help her up. "Regina? What have you done?"

Snape shot a knifing spell at a Death Eater, causing him to dance into the blast zone. "Are you all right, Gina?"

Regina was making croaking noises, and shook her head. She clawed at her throat, and McGonagall gave her several strong thumps on the back. Regina's breathing centers kicked in again, and she took in a deep shuddering breath. "God! Holy fuck, it hurts when you do it to a human!" she cried, staring at McGonagall in amazement.

"Tell me you've done that before!"

"To a cat!"

Snape rolled his eyes. As if this was the time or place for academia! "Ladies! We're still in the midst of a battle."

Regina couldn't quite get to her feet. "Oh shit, my knees..."

"What can I do?" McGonagall asked helplessly. "I think I have my magic intact."

"A board. A fucking two by four with nails in it."

McGonagall transfigured a thread from her robes into a board with nails, and Regina looked pleased. She leaned against it, using it to help her up to her feet. Then she had an expression of intense concentration as she began to walk. The Death Eater that had killed Minerva McGonagall had his back to them, and was busily hexing Kitty Kalcature, the Magical Arts and Crafts instructor. Kalcature was falling backward under the onslaught, doing her best to deflect the hexes flying at her.

"Motherfucker, eat this!" Regina swung the board with all her might at the back of his head. The nails embedded into his ear, and he was thrown sideways by the impact.

"Regina, no!" McGonagall shrieked. Snape had never heard her terrified before.

But Regina wasn't listening, and hadn't intended for the board to kill him. She kicked him to his feet, and brandished the board so that he ran into the blast zone. She gave McGonagall a petulant glance as she tossed the board away. Kalcature was looking at her in horror, and scuttled away as soon as she got to her feet.

"Nobody fucks up my friends and gets away with it," Regina said matter-of-factly, her face one of bland disinterest. Inwardly, Snape cheered. The strange spell wasn't having any long lasting effects on her personality, at least.

Once the Death Eaters were in the proper blast zone area, Regina knelt down and put her hands to the stone floor. "Almost ready now," she murmured, and the stones rippled slightly beneath her fingertips in reply.

Three.

Two.

One.

"Incoming!!"

The Death Eaters, not knowing what was happening, were startled to silence. The teachers all backed away as quickly as they could.

And then the floor erupted with a blast of light and energy so powerful that it was like a contained sun had exploded.

And then it was all over.

***

Hermione was helping Poppy Pomfrey administer to the wounded. There were spelled boundaries where the wounded and dead Death Eaters were placed, to be tended to later. The area that had been the designated blast zone was scoured clean, and there was no sign that there had ever been a fight there. She found its cleanliness disturbing and found any excuse to be as far away from it as she could.

A flash of red hair caught her eye. "Ron!"

Ron caught Hermione around her waist as she leapt at him. Draco tactfully looked away, and refrained from saying anything. Hermione deserved some relief, and Draco couldn't find it in him to skewer the look of pure joy on Ron's face. Ron laughed as Hermione kissed him all over his face, her arms circled tight around him. "I was so scared for you!"

Ron knew he looked a frightful mess. There was a burnt area along the right side of his scalp where a spell had scored him. His second hand robes had been torn in at least a dozen places from knifing spells aimed in his direction. His right hand had all of its fingers fused together, and his left leg was missing one of its long bones. Still, he was the same old Ron, and he was more or less okay. "Mione, I could never die on you... There's too much to do!"

Hermione laughed, holding him tightly and rocking him. "Oh, I was so afraid..."

"We've got each other, Mione... Always."

Leaving the tearful couple alone, Draco walked over to the lines of weary wounded. Some of the spell effects were downright nasty, some spectactularly outrageous. Heads were fused together, eyes turned into ears, noses turned into fish, mouths sealed shut and bodies bent into crooked shapes. He wondered idly what Muggle medicine and surgery would make of these wounds, and saw Harry Potter sitting and staring at the blast zone. He had various cuts on his cheeks, a nasty gash across his temple and a pustule on his left shoulder weeping bloody pus. It looked as though he had taken a few curses to the gut as well. The boy was slouched over, as if trying to double himself, and those gut wounds were hidden under the lumpy brown sweater he had worn. "You're a mess, Potter."

He looked up and blinked sleepily. Draco's hair was mussed, his Muggle clothes were torn and stained with vomit and blood. "Where are you hurt?"

"Nowhere it counts."

Harry nodded, accepting it. "Okay, then. Okay."

"Where are you hurt?" Draco countered.

"Everywhere. Nowhere."

Draco blinked. "Never killed before?"

"Not like this."

"Will you be all right?"

Harry looked at his hand, then up at Draco. He held out the ring on his finger. "I'll always have this, even if I don't know how to get back yet."

"I can Apparate," Draco said slowly. "I could teach you."

Harry brightened visibly, ignoring the cuts as they stung slightly. "Really?"

Draco thought of Ron, offering a casual remark that had meant so much to him. It had been a token of friendship then. It was Draco's turn now.

Draco held out his hand. "Yeah. Really."

Harry grinned, and grabbed Draco, allowing him to be dragged to his feet. "Thanks, Malfoy," Harry said. "For everything."

"For what?"

"I never told you... but your being a git helped keep me sane for a while. You were the only thing that never treated me different. You and Snape."

Draco snorted. "Everyone else thinks you're the next Merlin."

"And you?"

"I know you're not."

"Good."

"Ready to go?" Draco asked, eyeballing the rings on their fingers.

"In a minute... I need to say goodbye to some people."

Draco nodded. "Just come get me when you're ready."

Harry walked over to Dumbledore's body. It had been left where it had fallen, as though everyone had been too reverently afraid to move it. Harry fell to his knees and ignored the shock of pain. For better or worse, Dumbledore had been a role model to him. He reached out and took off the glasses. They alone seemed to be undamaged, and he had the feeling that if he touched the scorched flesh, it would flake to ash.

Instead, Dumbledore's eyes opened. "My dear boy, I need those to see."

With a cry, Harry scuttled backward. "Headmaster!"

Suddenly everyone was looking and running up to see what was the matter. Dumbledore was sitting up, the ash flaking off of unburnt skin. The robes were beginning to fall apart, crumbling to ash. "Goodness, gracious. What a mess."

McGonagall was pale. "Albus... You were dead. You were killed." She immediately turned to look for Regina.

"Ah, just a temporary setback, Minerva," Dumbledore said, holding his hands out for his glasses. Harry returned them promptly. Dumbledore wasn't quite sounding or acting like himself, but he was still the headmaster. "You see, the castle simply wouldn't let me die."

"The castle?" Harry asked, mouth dropping open.

"You never did read Hogwarts: A History, did you?" Hermione said crisply, coming up to the knot of people. "It's built upon the largest ley line junction points in all of Europe. The ones underneath Durmstrang and Beauxbatons can't even come close."

"Quite so, Miss Granger. At least now I know what the castle meant when it said it had plans for me." Dumbledore had almost regained his usual twinkle. "The castle and I are quite necessarily inseparable now."

"But you're alive," Harry whispered. "You're alive."

"For the moment, young Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said, his usual twinkle in his eye. He shook out the ash from his robes. There was a sibilant sound from his chest. "We are missing someone from our number."

Most the wounded had already been accounted for. It took everyone a few minutes of searching before they realized who was missing.

Weidmuller.

"That idiot?" Regina asked, unthinkingly. Most of the other professors frowned at her gauche statement, and she only shrugged.

"He was under a spell," Hermione offered. "He was the servant of Mr. Lestrange thanks to the Flower of Darkness spell. I set him free."

"So he wasn't really an idiot?" Ron asked, looking amazed. Some of the other professors were confused as to the spell used to control Weidmuller, but those who knew it were appalled. "I take back everything I ever said bad about him."

"Me, too," Regina said with a nod. "Where is he?"

"You're breathing," Dumbledore said quietly. It seemed an inappropriate statement, but Regina, McGonagall and Flitwick paled.

"But he couldn't have..." Flitwick began.

Dumbledore only nodded.

"Couldn't have what? Professor?" Harry asked. It seemed as though he was already aware of the answer, but was too afraid to hear it.

"There's a simple way to find out for sure. Albus can only do stone speech now, and the idioms aren't quite the same." Regina rubbed at the side of her face. "Hm... How did this go again?" she murmured.

"What are you going to do?" McGonagall asked quietly.

"Call on him."

"But he's not here," Vector said, looking around.

Regina closed her eyes. "He is. You'll see." She squared her shoulders. "Accio Weidmuller's sleeping pillow!"

Several teachers looked skeptical. "And this will do what?"

"Hair and breath, probably saliva for water, and hopefully blood from a shaving cut."

"You're going to create a manikin?" Sinistra asked, confused.

Something began to move down the hallway, and Regina slowed it down in a guttural bark. She looked at it, concentrated for a moment, and it slowly began to burn. She said a short rhyming phrase, then lifted up her right hand. The ash began to collect in her palm.

"Everybody back up. I think we all need to see this."

Dutifully, the crowd thinned. Closing her eyes for a moment, Regina breathed in deeply, then blew across her palm.

The ash immediately spread out to cover the entire Great Hall, its concentration greatest within the blast zone. At a guttural word, the ash began to fall backward and congeal into the shape of Weidmuller, preparing to dive across the blast radius. From there, the ashen body began to move in reverse. Wand in hand, he seemed to shoot off several spells and tripped an invisible form. In reverse, Weidmuller appeared to attack effortlessly, both inside and outside of the blast radius. It was almost as if he knew he shouldn't get too close, but didn't think about it while shooting off spells. His own need to compensate for his lackluster teaching year had led him to stray too far into the blast radius.

Someone began to cry. Regina turned and saw it was Trelawney. She and the Divinations teacher had never gotten along, mostly because Regina had felt the woman was a fraud. Having a Seer as a best friend, Regina knew the real thing when she saw it. Pomfrey was rubbing her arm comfortingly. "He was a good man after all," Pomfrey was saying.

"I was hoping I was wrong," Trelawney was sobbing. "I remember seeing the tea leaves this morning, and they read nothing but death. I was hoping I was wrong."

Regina looked back at the blast radius, at the ashen form of Weidmuller. She let go of the spell that had the ash play out in reverse all of Weidmuller's last actions. For the sake of the other professors, she cast one last temporary spell on the ash, to let Weidmuller's spirit take it over if he so chose. The form immediately looked at all of them and bowed slightly. He saluted them, and then the ash began to swirl into nothingness.

The Siege of Hogwarts was over.

***

Should we tell her?

Absolutely not. Let it all be a surprise. Better if she doesn't plan.

She'll hate us for it.

Yes. Eventually. But she'll get over it. She really has no other choice.

Poor dear. She doesn't know what she's going to get.

My dear, they never do.

***

Death Eaters were rounded up and sent to the Ministry to take care of. A donation had been made some months before to replace the missing Dementors, but no one knew who or what the donation was. These Death Eaters would be the first to see the mysterious caretakers. Rumor had it that a creature donated to Azkaban could remove the soul from the body in a similar fashion to the Dementors' Kiss. If so, a lot of souls were likely to be liberated.

In dread fascination, Draco watched the Aurors take away his mother, still bound in ropes from Ron's spell. She couldn't see him, since she was being levitated by a spell and he was hiding from her. He didn't want her to see him cowering in fear, didn't want her knowing that he had killed his own father and the Ministry would never know it. She likely knew it already, but she would definitely know the truth in his face.

"Oy, Malfoy," Ron said, sliding up next to Draco. "That Auror over there says I did a right job with your Mum."

Draco had nothing to say. He felt all cold inside, when a moment ago he had been just fine and almost pleased with himself.

"She's going to go to Azkaban for what she did to you," Ron said after a moment. "The Aurors told me. I thought you should hear it from me, and not the Daily Prophet."

Draco winced. That damned paper... "Thanks." His voice sounded raw and painful now.

"Er..."

"You don't have to say anything," Draco said, turning to face Ron. "She did what she did, and you did what you did. Nothing you can say can change it."

"I'm sorry, mate. Really. No matter what, she's still your Mum."

Ron was actually being sincere, and Draco managed to give him a half smile. "Thanks. She's all the family I've got left."

Now Ron looked uncomfortable. "Well... um... uh..."

"What?"

"It's okay. For you to date Ginny, I mean." The words tumbled out in a rush. "She said you're a good enough guy if I got to know you. And it took more courage to try and face down your Mum with her spells and to take down the Death Eaters than it did for us. You had to fight your family for us. And it's good enough to let you date my sister."

Draco smirked at Ron. "Did you think I needed your permission? I have hers."

Ron's face flamed. "Doesn't matter if you didn't want to ask... I'm saying it's all right by me. But if something happens... She's got lots of older brothers."

Draco allowed himself to stop smirking, even though he still wanted to. Ron was being stupid, but he was trying to be nice, at least. "All right then. But I'd never hurt her."

"As long as we understand each other."

"We do."

"Good." Ron stood there a moment, looking uncomfortable. "But she is my baby sister, you know. Just... take care of her, okay?"

Draco's face softened and he actually clapped Ron on the shoulder. "Of course I will."

Hermione ran up, face glowing. "Ron! Ron!" Both boys turned to see what was going on, if something new had developed. "They want me to become a mediwitch! There's a special academy to train in battle magic healing!"

As Ron turned to catch his girlfriend, Draco slipped away. It seemed as though everyone was trying to go through the motions of ridding the castle of Death Eaters. Draco walked across the entryway to the castle, intending on heading to the dungeons. Those sigils he and Snape had painted should probably be taken down...

And then he caught a flash of pale blonde hair floating past. Someone had found his father and was levitating him out of the castle.

Frozen in place, Draco could only stare. His father looked as if he had been felled by Avada Kedavra. Likely, no one would do an autopsy spell to find the true cause of death. The body was unmarked now, the only thing missing was his heart. No one would care. It was just another Death Eater being carted away, just one more body to add to the count.

Draco was startled when Harry touched his shoulder. "Ready to go now?"

He waited until the pale blonde hair could no longer be seen. His father was well and truly gone now, and he was the only Malfoy that counted. Draco was more powerful now than he had any right to be, he could feel it beneath his skin. Harry was probably his only equal.

Draco turned to face Harry Potter. Years had been wasted. Too many years had been wasted hating and hurting someone who had always been set apart, someone who might have understood and could have eased the loneliness. True, Harry had always had Ron and Hermione, but even they didn't know everything. Even they couldn't understand what Harry had been forced to go through every year.

Maybe Draco was starting to.

"Yeah, I'm ready to go."

They disappeared with a twist of a ring and a shout of "Home!"

***

***