Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Light

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When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

-- African proverb

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Draco did not fall immediately.

He had gone rigid when the lightning struck him, but once the
immediate shock had passed through his body he went bonelessly
limp. His outstretched arm, no longer reaching for the Golden
Snitch, dropped, and pulled most of his weight to one side. It
seemed impossible that he should be able to stay on, but since
his left hand was still clutching the shaft of the broom he held fast.
With one arm and one leg hooked over the broom--which was
still moving forward, toward the Slytherin goalposts--he dangled
for a half-second at a crazy angle before his hand and leg slipped
loose.

The Roman Rocket, suddenly bereft of its rider, spiralled downward
like a seedpod falling from a tree. It hit the ground on an angle and
flipped up into the air to bounce once, then twice, and finally land
in a soggy patch of ground.

Draco did not bounce when he hit the ground. He landed on his back,
halfway down the pitch, and lay very still.

For two full heartbeats, an eerie silence fell over the pitch. No one
moved. Even the player on their brooms were stationary, hovering
nearly motionless in mid-air.

From somewhere behind him, Harry heard someone say, in a voice
that sounded far too loud:

"Well, there's twenty Galleons I'll never see again."

Then, a belated crash of thunder, long and fierce and angry-sounding,
split the sky with a noise like an entire library of books being ripped in
half.

That was when the screaming began.

And suddenly, everyone was moving at once.

Madam Pomfrey was on the move long before the echoes of thunder
had faded. Robes kilted to the knee, she ran, slipping and sprinting
across the sodden grass with a speed of a woman half her age. Colin
followed her, almost at her heels. The camera around his neck swung
wildly on its strap, bouncing against his chest as he ran.

The Slytherin and Ravenclaw players lost no time tipping their brooms
into dives, leaving Madam Hooch to take off after the loose Bludgers
to keep anyone else from being accidentally hurt. One by one the
players landed, and the second their feet touched the ground they
were running toward Draco and Madam Pomfrey.

The initially horrified cries of the students in the stands took on a higher,
more frantic note as the crowd surged forward. Everyone wanted to
see what was happening below, but Quidditch stands had not been
designed to give an unobstructed view of the pitch itself. Those toward
the front screamed that they couldn't breathe, that they were being
crushed. Those behind yelled back that people were pushing, that
they couldn't see a bloody thing.

Harry, Ron, and Ginny were closer to the front than the back, and
the weight of the crowd pressing forward from behind them squeezed
the air out of their lungs. A flying elbow knocked Harry's glasses
askew, and he staggered sideways, trying to keep them on his face.
He had barely shoved them back onto the bridge of his nose when
he heard a scream, almost in his ear:

"Ron! Harry! Help me!"

He swivelled round in time to grab Ginny's left hand and keep her
from being sucked backward and down, beneath the jostling crowd.
Ron flung out an arm, too, but his fingers merely brushed hers before
someone's shoulder hit him in the chest and threw him off-balance.
He nearly lost his footing, and by the time he was steady on his feet
again Ginny was beyond his reach.

"Ginny!" he yelled, struggling against the press of bodies pulling
them apart.

"Ron..." Ginny wheezed, unable to draw a full breath.

"Ginny, I can't...Harry, don't let her go!" He fought for a moment
more before the crowd closed over him, and he was out of sight.

Ginny's shoulders were bowed by the pressure from all sides, and her
entire arm shook with the strain of clinging to Harry's hand. Her
eyes bulged in her reddened face. "Can't...breathe...."

"Ginny, hang on!" Harry shouted desperately. His palm was slick with
sweat, and Ginny's hand was going slack, slipping out of his grip. She
would be trampled if he let go. She would be trampled, crushed and
broken, tossed aside just like Dennis--

"STUDENTS!"

Heads turned as all attention momentarily diverted from the pitch.
Over in the teachers' stand, Professor McGonagall was on her feet,
her wand in her right hand. With her left hand she wrested the
microphone from a very startled Lee Jordan, and bellowed into it.

"STUDENTS!" Her voice rose over the crazed din of the crowd and
the shrieking crackle of microphone feedback. The shrill amplification,
combined with the Sonorus Charm she had cast, was enough to make
one's ears throb. "RETURN TO YOUR SEATS! RETURN TO YOUR
SEATS IMMEDIATELY!"

In reality, there weren't any seats in the students' sections, but that
didn't seem to matter. The voice of authority was enough to quell the
worst of the panic. Students stopped pushing, though those toward
the back continued to hop up and down to see over the heads of
those in front.

McGonagall continued, her voice booming as loud as the thunder that
had shaken the pitch. "THE HEADS OF YOUR HOUSES WILL
ESCORT YOU BACK TO THE CASTLE. GRYFFINDOR HOUSE
WILL FOLLOW PROFESSOR SINISTRA. PREFECTS, PLEASE
GUIDE YOUR HOUSES TO THE STAIRS AND WAIT FOR
FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS."

The crowd began to move again, this time without the mindless panic
of before.

The Gryffindors turned to head for one of the two doors on either
side of their section. The doors opened onto the stairs leading down
to the wide catwalk around the interior of the stands. All around the
stands people were heading for the doors, queuing up behind the prefects.

The movement of people cleared a small space around Harry, enough
for him to pull Ginny closer to him and out of the worst of the crush.
She collapsed against him, almost fainting, and Harry was beyond
glad when he caught sight of Ron shoving his way through the milling
crowd. Ron soon reached his sister's side, and took her other arm.
Ginny slumped between them, breathing raggedly.

The three of them were about to join the tail end of the nearest
queue and figure out some way to get down onto the pitch when
Neville's voice popped into their heads.

H-H-Harry! he gasped out, breathlessly. It's blocked!

Harry and Ron froze. Ginny lifted her head slightly, and looked a
little more aware of where she was.

'Blocked'? Harry repeated dumbfoundedly, as if Neville had started
speaking in a different language.

We can't get down! Neville cried. The stairs down to the ground--
they're blocked--they're all blocked!

Harry felt his blood run ice-cold. From the catwalk, there were
separate sets of stairs that led down to the main exits and out onto
the castle grounds. If these stairs were blocked--

How are they blocked? he heard Hermione ask.

And where are you? Can you get up here? Ron said. He tightened
his grip on Ginny. She was starting to regain the use of her legs, but
neither he nor Harry trusted the people around them enough to let
her stand on her own.

The reply took a moment to drift into their minds. I can't see a
thing--hang on--

There was another pause, longer this time, and a faint tingling
sensation skittered up their spines as Neville cast a small spell--
Lumos, from the feel of it.

There's some light, he said at last. It's.... Without warning, he fell
silent again.

Neville? This time, Harry couldn't stand to wait for him to continue.
Neville! What is it?

It's...wood. The confusion bled out of Neville's voice as he spoke,
his words turning into a disbelieving ramble. It's all broken bits, all
over the stairs and it looks like they tore up a whole tree for it
and there's some kind of cloth and it looks like a--

The disjointed reply faded out as abruptly as a radio losing reception.

Harry's stomach dropped into his shoes. Neville?

There was no reply.

"Neville!" It was pointless to shout out loud, but some irrational
part of his mind hoped that Neville would hear him. "Ne--"

"Harry...."

Distracted, he glanced down to see Ginny's nose wrinkle, her eyes
squeezing shut in sudden strong disgust.

"Harry..." she mumbled, grasping weakly at his arm. "Tell them to
turn off the oven."

There were too many things going on at once for her question to
sink in right away. "What? Tell who?"

"Don't you smell it?" She coughed, grimacing. "Whatever they're
trying to bake...ugh, it'll be all burnt up, whatever it is."

"Burnt?" Harry sniffed the air. There was no smell, certainly not
the smell of cooking. The Hogwarts kitchens were too far away,
and in any case it was nowhere near mealtime. "Ginny, I don't..."

He trailed off abruptly, because his gaze had fallen on a thin,
twisting line, darker grey against the grey sky, that was coiling
up and into the air on the opposite side of the stands, behind the
Slytherin section. It looked like a long finger trying to touch the
clouds.

It was at that moment that he smelled something burning. Not the
acrid smell of burning food, but the damp, nose-tickling scent of
a campfire...like someone trying to start a fire with wet wood.

Beside him, he heard Ron murmur, wonderingly, "Where there's
smoke, there's--"

Harry didn't wait for him to finish the thought. "FIRE!"

He immediately clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late.
All around them people were shifting uneasily, looking up and down
and at their neighbours.

"What?"

"What was that?"

"Who said that?"

"Did someone say...?"

Harry drew a deep breath. He had to let the teachers know, but
the pain in his scar had sharpened all at once, boring into his brain
and making it next to impossible to think.

He closed his eyes, concentrating. If he spoke only to Hermione,
then perhaps he could focus long enough to make himself heard.

Hermione, get McGonagall! he shouted silently. The stands are
on fire! THEY'RE GOING TO SET THE STANDS ON FIRE!

The moment the message was sent he stepped back, reeling a little
from the crashing wave of dizziness that swept over him as soon as
he had closed the mental link. His foot hit something hard, and
he glanced down to see his Omnioculars lying at his feet.

Though his head was still a little giddy, he handed Ginny to Ron and
bent to scoop up the magical binoculars. He turned them over in his
hands, checking for damage. One of the lenses had been smashed to
powder, broken beyond repair, but the other appeared to be intact.
With a twirl of the dials and some quick adjustments, he was able
to come to a blurry focus on the teachers' stands.

From the look of things, Hermione was causing no small amount of
commotion. All he could see was the familiar bush of brown hair
pushing its way up, swimming through the crowd to reach Professor
McGonagall. It took seconds for Hermione to convey the message,
and he saw McGonagall's head snap up, alarm and surprise racing
across her face.

A sudden uproar from the Hufflepuff stands made him turn his attention
away from Hermione and the professors. Someone on the Hufflepuff
side had opened the door that led down to the catwalk, and Harry
didn't need the Omnioculars to see the column of thick, black smoke
belching out of the open door. He could hear the yells and screams as
the Hufflepuffs fought to get away from the choking smoke.

The panic spread, and a fresh wave of hysteria hit the Gryffindors.
A fourth-year girl, a friend of Ginny's whose name Harry couldn't
remember, was moaning "ohmygodohmygodohmygod" over and over
in a steady drone, her voice rising with every repetition. One of the
second-year boys had gone completely off his head, screaming for
his mother and father. Pockets of students were clinging to each
other and sobbing. One or two were on the point of hyperventilating.
Everywhere, cries of "I don't want to die!" and "Let me out of here!"
added to the chaos. The prefects were trying to restore some
semblance of order, but there were too many people to calm all
at once.

"It's not going to work," Harry said suddenly. His mind felt soggy from
the pain, and he had no control over the words that were coming out
of his mouth. "So if everything leading out is blocked off, and with all
the smoke and everything we can't get down--"

"What d'you MEAN, we can't get down?" Ron hissed at him. "We
HAVE to get down!"

"We can't--" Harry started to say dumbly.

Ron grabbed his arm, shaking him. "Look, we can't all just stand here
and wait to be burned up!"

The shaking cleared some of the pain from his head, restoring Harry's
concentration. He stopped short, thinking furiously.

They couldn't use the stairs; that much was certain. With the stairs
blocked off, the only other way he could think of to get the students
and teachers out of the stands would be to ferry them, one by one, on
the brooms of the Quidditch teams.

He dismissed that idea almost as soon as it came. The Slytherins had
fairly new Nimbus Two Thousand Ones, but Cho's Comet 260 and the
Ravenclaw Cleansweep Sevens were much older and far less reliable.
And even if they could carry passengers, a broom could hold perhaps
two safely, and there were only a dozen brooms to use. The whole
process would take too long.

Movement on the edge of his vision brought his attention back to
the teachers' stand. He squinted through the broken Omnioculars,
and saw that this time it was the teachers' stand that was in an uproar.

Professor McGonagall was fighting her way down to the edge of the
stand, trailing Hermione and Professor Snape and a string of other
teachers and prefects in her wake. She stopped when she had reached
the bottom, and looked over the edge.

For a crazy moment Harry thought she was going to jump, but in the
next moment McGonagall had her wand out, pointing down and over
the side.

"SCINDO!" she shouted, her voice still amplified by the Sonorus Charm.

A jet of bright light shot from the tip of her wand. It struck the
lower left hand corner of the bright cloth banner, blazoned with the
full Hogwarts crest, which hung from the edge of the teachers' stand.
The corner of the banner flapped free as the ropes holding it at the
bottom snapped apart.

McGonagall did the same to the other corner, and in the downstroke
of the second Severing Spell she gave her wand a peculiar twist, and
brought it sharply up. "VEXILLIAVEXI!"

With a loud crack!, the edges of the banner snapped perfectly straight,
as stiff as if they had been starched into place.

McGonagall waved her wand, and the length of stiff heavy cloth began
to grow longer, the school crest stretching and distorting as the fabric
seemed to stretch. In seconds, the loose end had come to rest on the
grass of the pitch, and the entire banner was at an angle to the ground.

Quick as a flash, McGonagall swung her legs over the edge of the
stands, and before anyone could move to stop her she was sliding
down the charmed banner, riding the steep incline until she landed
on the grass. She got to her feet, brushing splatters of mud from
her skirts, and called out:

"DAVIES! WARRINGTON!"

A twist of the Omniocular dials brought the Ravenclaw captain and
the Slytherin Chaser into focus. The two boys could only stare at
McGonagall, completely overawed by the display of magic they had
just witnessed. Their teammates had the blank, perplexed look of
startled cattle.

"YOU AND YOUR TEAMS GET THE ENDS OF THOSE LARGE
BANNERS FREE!" McGonagall pointed with her wand at the one
nearest to her, the vivid black and yellow of Hufflepuff House. "AS
MANY AS YOU CAN!"

The direct command shocked the members of the Ravenclaw and Slytherin
Quidditch teams out of their stupor. They sprang into action at once,
pulling out their wands and kicking off from the ground.

To Harry's great surprise, Colin sprang into action as well. He had been
with Madam Pomfrey, watching her as she bent over Draco, but when
McGonagall ordered the teams to take to the air he went for the only
broom left on the pitch--Draco's battered Roman Rocket. He yanked
it clear of the mud it had landed in and hopped on, though the sleek,
imported racing broom accelerated so quickly that he nearly fell off
twice before he could properly control it.

While the teams zigzagged around the pitch, firing off spells to break
the ropes holding the banners to the stands, Colin headed straight for
Professor McGonagall. He came to a screeching halt in front of her
and tumbled off the broom. With barely a pause McGonagall had
picked it up and was airborne, zooming toward the fluttering ends of
the nearest loosened banner.

Harry couldn't believe his eyes. His prim-and-proper Headmistress
was not merely flying, but flying with a Chaser's speed, a Beater's
nerve, and a Keeper's quick handling. She wove in and out amongst
the players like a Seeker who had sighted the Snitch, casting over
and over again the charm that transformed each banner into an escape
route for the trapped students. Her hair had come loose from its
usual upknot and was tangled around her shoulders, blowing wildly
in the slipstream as she flew.

As the end of each banner hit the ground, the students surged forward,
forming ragged, bulging queues against the sides of the stands. The
House prefects ended up with the unenviable job of trying to manage
the unwieldy queues, helping students clamber over the side to slide
to the ground.

Controlling the crowd wasn't the only dangerous part of evacuation.
The press of students was taking a toll on the stands themselves.
The old wood, waterlogged from the week of rain, protested loudly
as all the weight shifted toward the inner rim. Even with the many
spells and charms used to reinforce the structure, it would be only
a matter of time before the pressure was too great. Every creak,
every groan made the students fight all the more to get to the front
of the queues.

Once a student was on the banner, all he or she had to do was slide
to the bottom and hurry away from the edge after landing. Most of
the students remained upright on the way down, but quite a few had
problems. With all the people trying to get down at once, it was easy
to lose one's balance. Some students found themselves rolling head
over heels, and others ended up on their stomachs--both of which
meant a face-first landing in the muddy grass. Before long, however,
the stands were halfway empty, and students were streaming onto
the pitch.

Harry and Ron took Ginny under the arms and helped her forward,
reaching the edge of the Gryffindor stands in time to see Cho flash
past and sever the ropes at the bottom of the banner with a quick
twist of her wand. McGonagall flew by seconds later, and the cry
of "VEXILLIAVEXI!" was Harry's cue to throw a leg over and brave
the drop himself.

The incline felt terrifically steep. As Harry slid to the ground, he had
the bizarre feeling that he was flying down the giant slide that he had
once ridden at a fun fair many years ago. Professor McGonagall's spell
had not merely stiffened the edges of the banner, it had transformed the
heavy weave of tapestry into a silky-smooth and slippery cloth. There
was little he had to do but keep his legs in front of him and watch the
ground draw closer. The second his feet hit the grass he was up and
moving away from the bottom of the slide, as he had been taught.

Ron and Ginny weren't so fortunate. Ron had tried to keep hold of
Ginny on the way down, and had only succeeded in turning them both
around so that they were facing backwards. They landed in a heap
of arms and legs at the bottom.

The students and teachers who had already slid down the banners
were running toward the centre of the pitch, away from the burning
stands. Harry, Ron, and Ginny went with the rush of the crowd,
though not entirely by choice. Ginny was finally able to walk by
herself, but Ron nevertheless held fast to her arm. His long strides
forced her to jog to keep up with him.

Being on the ground made it both easier and more difficult to see
what was going on. Students were running to and fro, seeking and
and just as easily losing track of their friends and housemates.
Gryffindors stayed close to Gryffindors--though it was impossible
to tell whether this was loyalty to their own House or suspicions
of the others--and the other three Houses did likewise. Teachers
who did not have specific House duties circled the students like
dogs herding sheep, shouting commands of "This way!" and "Hurry,
over here!" as everyone moved toward the centre of the pitch.

The Quidditch teams were touching down, tucking their wands back
into their robes as they dismounted. McGonagall was already on the
ground, broom still in hand as she hastened toward Madam Pomfrey
and Draco. The mediwitch had been working on him the entire time,
and the warm pink glow of a Stabilising Spell surrounded both of them.
Harry couldn't see what else she was doing, but the Stabilising Spell
was enough to tell him that--incredibly--Draco was still alive.

Looking back, he saw several columns of smoke billowing from the
tops of the stands. More smoke spewed from the exits that led onto
the pitch, preventing anyone from trying to escape through the team
changing rooms or the other doors that offered a way out. The eye-
searing smell of burning and wet wood and smoke was overpowering,
but there was no sign of actual flame.

There was smoke, but no fire.

"Harry! Over here!"

It was Hermione's voice, and he turned around to see her, Remus, and
Snuffles hurrying--or rather, trying to hurry--toward him.

Remus's human side had not entirely recovered from his transformation
the night before. His skin was pale and sweat-streaked, but he was
hobbling forward with a look of fierce determination on his face,
leaning heavily on Hermione's arm and holding fast to Snuffles's
collar with one hand. Snuffles was straining against Remus's hand,
pawing the air as he urged his friend to go faster. By the time he
and the two humans had reached Harry, Ron, and Ginny, the black
dog's tongue was lolling from his open mouth. He was panting from
the exertion.

Hermione looked from Harry to Ron to Ginny and back to Harry again.
"Are you all right?" she asked.

Harry nodded, quickly. "We're fine, but--"

"--we don't know what happened to Neville," Ron finished for him.

"Wasn't he with you?" asked Remus.

"He was down on the catwalks, and then he--" Shame spread through
Harry's gut like the beginning pangs of nausea. In the noise and
confusion of getting to the ground, he had forgotten about Neville.
"Remus, what if something's happened to him?" he said anxiously.
"What if he's--"

"Right here, Harry!"

It was Colin's voice, and it made all of them jump a foot in the air.
Harry whirled round to see Neville and Colin limping toward their
little group.

Colin looked to be all right, if badly frightened, but Neville was
in rather worse shape. He had an arm over Colin's shoulder, and
was allowing the younger boy to help him along. His robes were
filthy with soot and grime, and he seemed to be favouring his right
leg. Otherwise, though, he seemed alright.

"Neville!" Hermione sounded close to tears. "Thank god!"

"How did you get out?" Ron demanded to know at the same time that
Ginny asked, "What happened to you?"

Neville coughed. "Went up," he gasped. "Tried the first door, and
Hufflepuff was closest...couldn't see...turned my ankle...."

"Don't talk," Hermione said as Neville's broken explanation dissolved
into coughing. She knelt and pulled out her wand, muttering a Binding
Spell to steady Neville's wrenched ankle enough for it to hold his
weight.

Harry, meanwhile, was having difficulties with Snuffles. The black
dog had taken the end of Harry's robe in his teeth, and was blocking
Harry's attempts to move more than a foot in any direction. Any
movement on Harry's part was met with fierce resistance and an
angry growl.

"Quiet," Harry scolded. He wanted to see what was happening to Draco,
but Snuffles would not let go. Exasperated, he half-turned to Remus,
trying to talk to his professor and get his robes free at the same time.

"Remus, we have--will you let go of me?--to get everyone out of
here," he said, yanking at the bit of fabric that Snuffles would not
release.

Remus said nothing. Harry grunted and turned around all the way,
wrapping his robes around his legs in the process. "Remus, are you
listening to me?"

Remus, however, wasn't looking at him. His attention was fixed on
something over Harry's shoulder.

"Yes," he said. There was an odd tone in his voice that made the skin
on the back of Harry's neck crawl. "But Harry...I don't think we can."

"What do you...?" he began, but the words died on his lips as he and
the others looked back and saw what Remus had seen.

Something was moving in the smoke that was pouring out of the exits.
Just as the smoke had seemed dark against the sky, the shadows--for
there were more than one--were darker blotches in the midst of the
smoke. As more smoke rolled onto the pitch, the shadows seemed to
multiply. Two became four, four became a dozen, and a dozen became
two dozen...and then the shapes were no longer shadows, but figures
in jet-black robes and bone-white face masks emerging one by one
from the wreathing grey of the smoke that ringed the pitch.

Death Eaters.

"Oh, no," Ginny moaned.

Harry's stomach twisted in on itself. The back of his throat felt
raw and dry.

At first, only he, Remus, Snuffles, and the five children noticed
the Death Eaters' arrival. Most of the other students were too
worried about themselves and their friends to see much of anything
beyond the few faces in front of them. Most of the teachers were
too busy counting heads and trying to account for every pupil to
think of other dangers.

All of a sudden, though, there was a great whoosh of flame, as if
the piles of wood that Neville had spoken of had caught fire at
last. The teachers' stands were the first to go up, ignited in a great
blaze of red-orange as crackling flames chased smoke into the sky.
The fire spread quickly, so quickly that Harry knew it was not
natural. Only a magical fire could set soaking wet wood alight.

Those who turned round to watch the burning saw for the first time
that they were by no means alone on the pitch. Before anyone had
a chance to react, there was a shout from one of the Death Eaters,
a woman's voice calling out:

"MORSMORDRE!"

A flare of light shot from the tip of one of the Death Eaters' wands,
sending a spray of green sparks over the heads of the crowd. The
sparks coalesced into a massive, glowing green skull, floating in the
air directly over the pitch. The sinuous figure of a snake slithered out
of the skull's open mouth.

Harry saw McGonagall set the Roman Rocket down on the ground and
push her hair out of her face, which had turned a sickly, bilious colour
in the light of the glittering green death's head. Her wand was out, but
she held it limply at her side, unthreatening.

With the Death Eaters were blocking all the exits, the situation was
precarious. It was obvious that anyone who moved so much as a toe
out of line would end up on the wrong end of a curse. The teachers
and older students could try to defend the younger ones, but in such
an exposed position there was a great risk that someone would be hit
by a spell meant for the other side.

McGonagall drew herself up to her full height, but before she could
step forward Draco stirred.

"Ungh..." he groaned, the first noise he had made since he had fallen
out of the sky. He appeared to be trying to roll over, but he could not
move his shoulders enough to get leverage. "Gngh...hold...."

"Don't move, Draco," Madam Pomfrey said firmly. The glow of the
Stabilising Spell had dimmed. It was now a pale pink, the colour of
a wilting rose.

"Poppy, what is it?" McGonagall asked, keeping one eye on the Death
Eaters.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. "The spell's wearing off," she said
grimly. With her wand, she traced a slow series of circles in the air
over Draco's body, trying to recreate the spell. "It shouldn't be, but
it is."

"You can't keep him stable?" McGonagall said, alarmed.

"He's fighting me. If he keeps on like this, I won't be able to hold
the spell...." The mediwitch glanced up, though her wand never
stopped moving. "Minerva, I need to get him inside. I can't do
anything for him out here."

Professor McGonagall's jaw tightened. She inhaled sharply, and
threw her head back.

"Lucius!" she called out. "Lucius Malfoy!"

There was a low, uncomfortable murmur from the crowd of students,
starting with the Slytherins and rippling outwards. The Death Eaters
kept their wands trained on the tight knot of people in the centre of
the pitch, and did not move.

"Oh, yes. I know that you're out there, Lucius." She spoke slowly
and carefully, each syllable distinct and as sharp as a knife's blade.
"Your son--Draco is very badly injured. He may die if we can't take
him to the infirmary immediately. Madam Pomfrey needs to contact
St Mungo's before we can--"

"Aah!"

Draco screeched suddenly, setting off a wave of terrified cries from
the other students. His head rolled from side to side, shoulders pitching
as his neck twisted into a painful-looking position.

"No!" he moaned. "More...mmngh...."

"Lucius, for god's sake!" McGonagall's eyes darted between Draco and
the black-robed figures, as if she could see through the emotionless masks
to find Draco's father and force him to care for his son.

Between Draco's moaning and undercurrent of frightened whispers from
those nearby, Harry almost didn't hear the whisper closest to him. It was
by pure chance that he happened to look at Ginny and see her lips moving,
forming words that he knew without even having to her trembling voice.

"Enter, lest the darkness win...enter, lest the darkness win...." She was
repeating her line over and over to herself, clinging to it like a prayer.
"Enter, lest the darkness win...."

Watching her gave Harry an idea. Dumbledore had once told him
that help would be given at Hogwarts to those who asked for it--so
he would ask for it in the only way he knew how. And though he
didn't know if it would bring the help they needed, if nothing came
of it they would be no worse off then they were now.

Gently, he opened the mental link and spoke to his friends. Enter,
Watchman of the Light....

Hermione responded immediately. Grant to us your inner sight.

Enter, for the time draws near.... Ron picked up the chant, pushing
it forward at a slightly faster pace.

Neville went still faster. Power will erase our fear....

Enter...lest the darkness win.... Ginny's voice nearly broke on the
word 'darkness'.

Colin, caught up in the excitement of the moment, spoke the last line
aloud. "We the Six now call you in!"

The words rang out, clear and strong, hanging in the air like the
remnant of a cast spell.

The world seemed to blink, a flicker-flash of a disorienting sensation
where everything was there and then not-there and then there again in
the space of a heartbeat.

And when Harry's vision returned to normal, he saw that Will was
standing less than twenty feet away, at a short distance from the
crowd of students and teachers.

The Old One's arrival caused no small amount of surprise, but the
surprise did not turn immediately to panic. Even though Will had
appeared out of nowhere, the other students seemed to sense that
this new arrival was not an enemy. Those who knew him, like Remus
and Professor McGonagall, looked as if they had seen the light at
the end of a long, dark tunnel.

Harry, of course, was beyond overjoyed.

"Will!" he cried out, as the relief that swept through him turned his insides
to liquid. It was fortunate that he had his friends with him, because if he
had been on his own he would have surely collapsed, dissolving into
water like winter snow in sunlight. Ron and Hermione and the others
had cried out as well, shouts of joy and hope that maybe, maybe, things
were not so bleak as they had been moments before.

But if Will heard them, he showed no sign of it. His strangely cold
eyes scanned the huddled mass of students and teachers.

His gaze fell at once upon Professor Snape.

Snape had not noticed Will's unexpected appearance, being far more
preoccupied trying to detach two first-year Slytherins from his legs.
They had attached themselves at the first sight of the Death Eaters,
and it seemed that unless he had concealed a prybar somewhere on his
person he was fighting a losing battle. At the sound of Harry's glad
cry, however, his head snapped up, and the tense frustration on his
face gave way to a sudden smouldering anger. He shook the children
off his legs as if they were toys and strode forward, mouth twisting
into a feral snarl.

Will's expression did not change. Never taking his eyes off Snape,
he slid back the left sleeve of his robe, baring his forearm to
reveal the cross-quartered circle of the scar that Harry had only
ever seen once before.

Snape stopped short, arrested in mid-stride.

Will extended his left arm, palm up, as if he was holding something
out...but his hand was empty.

"What are you--" Snape exclaimed, but got no further.

In one swift motion, the Old One passed his right hand over the scar
on his arm, and at the same time his lips moved, forming a single quiet
word that no one could hear.

Snape's eyes went wide, filling with sudden, intense agony. A hoarse,
wordless cry tore from his throat, and he sank to his knees on the
muddy ground, clutching his left forearm.

"How--you can't--" Both his breath and his words came in short,
pained gasps.

"Professor!" Two of the older Slytherins, one with a prefect's badge
attached to her robes, ran toward him.

"Get back!" Snape barked at them. "Stay...stay where you are!"

The Slytherins fell back, staring at their Head of House with
horrified eyes.

Snape was bent double, left arm held pressed against his abdomen.
His fingers scrabbled at the thick cloth of his robe, clawing at the
fabric as if he could tear through it and rip the Dark Lord's mark
out of his skin. His limp, greasy hair was falling in his face, and the
pained twist of his lips made him look even more like some mad
dog prepared to bite anyone who came too close.

Through all of this, not one of the Death Eaters had moved. Whatever
Will had done to the mark on Snape's arm had not affected them.

Will let his arm fall to his side, and began to cross the pitch.

Anyone looking down on the pitch from above would have seen a roughly
diamond-like formation. Madam Pomfrey, McGonagall, and the half-
conscious Draco were at the northernmost point, farthest from where
Will had appeared. The main body of students and teachers were
separated from Harry, Remus, and the rest of the Six by only a small
space, but as Will drew nearer to them they scattered, regrouping in
frightened little knots of no more than a dozen students clustered
around each teacher.

The Slytherins were staring at the man who had attacked their House
master with fear and the beginnings of hatred in their eyes. Many of the
students, and not a few of the teachers, watched his every move as if
they expected him to turn and attack them at any moment. Professor
McGonagall was trying to keep up a strong, brave face, but there was
no disguising the betrayal deep in her eyes.

Will, for his part, gave all of them a wide berth. The path he took
brought him closer to where Harry and his friends were standing.

Without thinking, Harry twisted out of Remus's grip and ran toward
Will. Remus shouted at him to stop, and Snuffles barked furiously
at him, but his legs kept going. They carried him toward Will as
fast as they could move.

Will did not break his stride, but the look in his eyes was enough
to make Harry skid to a stop, slipping a little on the wet grass.

Harry took a deep breath. He wanted to say something useful, to
give a warning or ask what he and the others should do. He wanted
to know why Will had brought Snape to his knees, and why he hadn't
done the same to the Death Eaters. But when he opened his mouth,
the only thing that came out was a plaintive, petulant, and entirely
undignified:

"Where were you?"

He cringed at the sound of his own voice. He might have been five
years old again, complaining of a skinned knee or a pinched finger.
He was embarrassed to hear himself, so embarrassed that he half-
wished for a bolt of lightning to strike him where he stood, just as
it had for Draco.

Will, however, kept walking, sparing him no more than a momentary
glance. Harry might not have said a thing. But as the Old One strode
past Harry heard in his mind, as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud:

Cornwall.

And then Will was standing alone, almost in the exact centre of the
pitch.

Harry retreated. There was little else he could do.

The second he was within arm's length of Remus, the older man's
hand shot out and pulled him close, gripping the sleeve of Harry's
robe with a strength he certainly hadn't had a few minutes ago.

"Do you realise what a foolish thing you just did?" he said into Harry's
ear. His voice was breathy and shaking with anger.

"I didn't mean to," Harry said wretchedly. "It was only--"

"One spell," Remus whispered, more furious than Harry had ever heard
him sound before. "Only one spell. That's all it would have taken."

His point made, he let go of Harry's sleeve. Snuffles whuffed
disgustedly, echoing Remus's rage in the only way his Animagus
form would allow.

Unshed tears and blowing cinders made Harry's eyes sting. He kept
his gaze fixed on Will, watching and waiting to see what the Old
One would do.

Will regarded the circle of Death Eaters with flat dismissal, as if
they were nothing more than a cluster of naughty children caught
misbehaving on a playground. The air around him seemed to ripple,
a blurred shimmer like that of rising heat that was gone as quickly
as it had come. The children knew that it wasn't a defensive spell,
even though it looked like one. The magic surrounding him was far
more ancient than wizarding magic; the briefest display of a power
beyond that of mere wand work. It had lasted only long enough to
reinforce the message that this was not a person to be trifled with.

Then, he lifted his head, looking up to the slate grey sky.

"You will not enter!" he called out, the challenge ringing in the air
and reverberating across the pitch.

There was a great flash of lightning, followed immediately by a
long, ripping peal of thunder. All of the younger children screamed,
clinging to each other out of sheer terror. Even many of the older
ones could not help crying out.

Will paid no attention to the terrified cries. There might not have
been anyone else around for all he seemed to care. There was only
the great mass of cloud overhead--and whatever it held.

"Am I to have the favour of a reply?" he demanded of the sky.

A greenish, bilious light flickered through the clouds, creating shadows
like those cast by guttering candles.

"So." The reply, thin and high and deathly cold, seemed to come from
the sky itself. "It would seem that you've decided to put in an appearance,
Stanton."

Will's eyes narrowed. "So it would seem...Riddle."

The Old One's contemptuous, dismissive use of the Dark Lord's true
name chilled Harry to the bone. He shuddered.

"Only you, then?" Voldemort said mockingly. His sibilant, disembodied
words seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "A far cry from
the armies of the Light I had expected."

"If there must be a battle, it will be elsewhere," Will said, ignoring
the taunt. "I and the Six will face you there on such terms as you
may deem appropriate. But the Light bars you from this place." He
held out his arm, displaying the burned-in sign of the Light. "You
will not enter."

The Dark Lord laughed, a low, gurgling rumble like an undercurrent of
thunder. "I will not enter, you say. How frightfully simple you make
it sound."

"Begone, Riddle," Will said. "Begone, before your arrogance destroys
you."

"I would not speak so lightly of arrogance, Stanton," Voldemort
sneered.

It took a great effort for Harry to tear his eyes away from the stand-
off going on before him. He looked round, squinting to see through
the burning in his head.

Ron and Hermione were white as sheets, their faces masks of horror.
Ginny was shaking so badly that Ron's arm around her waist seemed
to be the only thing keeping her on her feet. Neville was whimpering
very softly, and holding his head in his hands. Colin appeared to be
on the point of dropping dead from sheer fright. And Draco--

Draco was trembling all over, emitting a series of whining moans.
Madam Pomfrey circled her wand over his body, trying to recast the
Stabilising Spell. She was fighting to keep her patient under control.

"Ungh..." Draco groaned. "...rat...nrrgh...."

"Rat?" Ron whispered fearfully. "Does he mean Wormtail?"

"He wouldn't...." Harry broke off, wincing. The pain in his head
had swelled to unbearable levels. He couldn't think properly, not
even to answer Ron's question.

Gingerly, so as not to attract the attention of the onlooking Death
Eaters, he fumbled through his pocket in search of his Chocolate
Frog. The bit of chocolate would help, surely, if he could only
get it out of his pocket.

He pulled it free, but it slipped through his fumbling fingers and
dropped to the ground.

Slowly, very slowly, he knelt down and reached for the colourful
package. He picked up the Chocolate Frog and was about to open
it when he felt a hand grab his arm.

"Harry!" Neville hissed. "Look...look at the stone!"

He let his eyes follow Neville's pointing finger, and bit down on a
startled cry.

The pocket that had held his Chocolate Frog was the same pocket
where he kept his warestone. When he had pulled out the Frog the
little quartz-like pebble had fallen out as well, though he hadn't seen
it fall at the time. The stone had landed on the pitch, but it had not
lain where it had fallen.

Instead, it was bouncing, chittering along the ground as if it was
caught in the throes of an earthquake. Where it touched the ground,
the grass withered as if hit by a heavy frost, and the liquid mud of
the pitch froze solid.

Someone--someone VERY close by--was under an Unforgivable Curse.

"Cruciatus?" whispered Neville, seeing the question in Harry's eyes.

Harry shook his head. "Whoever it was would have to be right on top
of us...look at it!"

Neville looked, watching the stone as it vibrate so rapidly that it
barely seemed to touch the ground.

"Imperius, then..." he mumbled. "But where?"

Keeping his head down, Harry looked around. Snape was still on the
ground, clutching at his arm as if he would gladly rip it out of its socket,
given half a chance. The other teachers were shielding or attempting to
shield the students, and McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey were bending
over Draco as the latter doggedly worked to recast the Stabilising Spell,
because his moans had grown louder and he seemed to be trying to move--

Harry leapt to his feet, all thought of caution driven clear out of
his mind.

"Will, it's Malfoy!" he yelled. "He's--"

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Will barked.

Madam Pomfrey recoiled, startled by the force of his command. The
distraction made her lose concentration, long enough for the warm
glow of Shielding Spell to flicker and vanish completely.

Draco screamed. His back arched so violently that only his head
and heels touched the ground, and there was a horrible grinding
noise of bone on bone that could be heard even over his horrible
cry.

McGonagall's mouth dropped open. "Dr. Stanton!"

"Don't go any closer!" Will ordered, noticing that Ron and Hermione
had started to move toward Draco. "Keep clear of him, all of you!"

"But I have to...I have to stabilise him!" Madam Pomfrey pleaded.
Her wand hand trembled as she looked to Will, as if she was afraid
that she would anger him irrevocably by recasting the charm without
his permission.

Will turned back to the sky without so much as a glance in her
direction.

"You would doom this child's mind?" he said angrily. "I warn you,
Riddle--you tread on dangerous ground."

"What is this talk of doom, Old One?" Voldemort replied. "What
right does an Old One have to command the Dark?"

"As much right as a slave of the Dark has to control the mind of
a man," Will countered.

Voldemort laughed at that, and streaks of lightning flashed through
the sky. It was impossible to tell whether the Dark Lord's laughter
brought the lightning, or whether the crash of lightning sounded like
the cackle of hideous laughter.

Draco screamed again, shuddering uncontrollably, as if the bolts
of lightning tearing through the sky were coursing through him at
the same time.

"Stop him!" Harry begged. Draco's screams were mingling with the
clamour in his mind, cries that sounded like his mother and his
friends and the terrified people at St Mungo's and King's Cross.
He would go mad if it lasted a moment longer. "You have to stop
him!"

"He can do nothing!" Voldemort declared, his laughter sending
crackles of lightning racing from cloud to cloud. "The Light's
champion, the last of the Old Ones, and he can do nothing!"

"I warn you, Riddle!" Will had to raise his voice to be heard over
the noise of the onrushing storm and the roar of the fire that was
now raging out of control. "You court your own destruction!"

"You think I have need of your warnings, Old One?" Voldemort
said scornfully, still laughing. "The only destruction here shall be
your own."

And with those words, Draco's entire body convulsed and he cried
out, the words cracking into a high-pitched, terrible shriek:

"Master--I INVITE YOU IN!"