Twilight

Twilight

L.S. Song

Chapter Twenty-Two - Turning the Tide

The turning point of a battle is when one soldier decides that he will not give up. - Excerpt from 'Soldier'

***

"Attack," Harry had said.

The word echoed through the hollowed halls like a foghorn.

It was the call of war.

And so the battle began.

Jets zipped through the air, shooting flurries of bullets from machine guns, nailing many of the Death Eaters positioned at windows.

Giants headed the ground assault along with tanks, bashing a massive hole where the front doors used to be.

Most of the wizards had started dueling with the Death Eaters that poured out of the blasted hole.

The elite team of old students, consisting of Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Ron, Luna, and Neville snuck through a side entrance.

Their mission was to hit the Death Eaters at the front doors from the back, hopefully breaking through the ranks, allowing muggle infantry and wizard forces to enter.

They could only send six of them as any more would attract attention.

Harry led the little team of six, turning his head slightly to look down a corridor.

"Summune Invisibility Cloak," he whispered.

The silvery cloak appeared in his hand.

"Ron and Ginny first... teleport the cloak back when you get to that pillar there... when we are all there, two of us keep the cloak on during the attack..."

Ron and Ginny nodded, and swinging the cloak over them, disappeared.

Harry saw them reappear a minute later behind a big steel pillar, just ten meters away from the Death Eaters piled at the front doors.

All of a sudden, the invisibility cloak flew to his hands again.

"Nev, Luna, you guys next," whispered Hermione, taking the cloak from Harry's hands and tossing it to Neville.

"Harry... I have something... I need to tell you..."

"Can't it wait, Hermione?"

The invisibility cloak once again found itself in Harry's hands.

"Something's changing in me..." whispered Hermione as Harry swung the invisibility cloak over them.

Her eyes no longer looked confident, but scared, tears welling up in her eyes.

"What? Is it the veela changes?"

"I think so... I... when this battle started, a strange... a feeling went through me... it was like something prying to get out..."

"What are you trying to say..."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ginny waving urgently in the direction he and Hermione were.

"I think I was about to become the monster side of a veela!" she whispered, choking out the word monster.

He turned and stared at Hermione, whose bright eyes were shining, pleading with him to not be disgusted.

He wasn't.

"We'll talk about this later Hermione. Don't worry. I don't think any less of you because of it - after all, the bad has got to come with the good, doesn't it? And there's a lot of good to balance out there," he said, winking at her.

She smiled.

And huddling closer together, they started off to Ron, Ginny, Luna, and Neville.

As they arrived, Harry whipped off the cloak and handed it to Ron and Ginny.

"Harry..." started Hermione.

Five pairs of eyes snapped to her.

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

The other four looked baffled, Ron shooting a suspicious glance at Harry.

"Let's go," said Harry.

"On the count of three?" suggested Ron, sweeping the cloak over himself and Ginny.

"One..." started Harry.

"Two..." added Ginny from under the cloak.

"THREE!" they all shouted, and burst out behind the pillar.

"TRIXTONIA!" bellowed Harry, getting out the first curse, sending ten Death Eaters flying out of the front doors, straight into a barrage of bullets.

The Death Eaters now started to turn their attention to both sides, the wizards caught between crossfire.

Neville and Luna proved to have much more grit than Harry could remember, disarming and stunning more Death Eaters than an average adult wizard could've managed.

Ginny and Ron must've looked pretty strange to the Death Eaters, an orange net shooting out of midair to deflect their curses, and many of them were now falling prey to the invisible brother and sister.

Neville and Luna eventually got separated from Harry and Hermione, in the midst of the fray being driven back outside.

But Harry saw a chance.

"TRIXTONIA!" he cried again, this time blasting a hole big enough in the ranks of the Death Eaters.

The wizards and muggles alike, with a savage war cry, ran for the front doors, firing their guns and spells at whatever stood in their way, Harry and Hermione only barely avoiding some shots. One stunning spell would've smacked Hermione straight in the chest had it not been for Fortuna, who had jumped from Harry to Hermione and deflected the light with a meow.

Harry saw the thousands of corpses littered outside.

They had succeeded in their mission... but whether it was fast enough he didn't know.

The Hogwarts doors were breached. The resistance now entered Hogwarts, with the air squadron outside prepared to gun down anyone trying to escape.

"GO, GO, GO!" shouted a muggle captain, and a battalion of soldiers headed off to the left side of Hogwarts.

"THIS WAY!" roared Snape and McGonagall, leading another battalion of wizards to the right.

Harry knew it was his signal.

"FOLLOW ME!" he shouted, beckoning his squadron of troops, and ran straight for the Great Hall.

There are times in life in which one was to be considerate of other people's property, and of consequences of your actions. But now certainly wasn't it.

"MAXIMUS REDUCTO!" he bellowed, blasting the doors of the Great Hall wide open.

He sprinted into the Death Eater filled Great Hall, a hundred or so wizards and a thousand muggles behind him.

Voldemort was nowhere in sight, but there was about three hundred Death Eaters in the Great Hall, firing off killing curses freely, cutting holes into the ranks of Harry's troops.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, ATTACK!" he cried, exasperated.

Running towards the fray, he yelled, "MULTIPLICUS SERPENSORTIA!"

This time was the most he had ever managed.

About fifty snakes exploded out of his wand, slithering.

KILL THE DEATH EATERS!

"PROTEGO!" he cried, as a jet of white light flew towards him.

Again he found himself without his watch nor Fortuna, who had perched on Hermione's shoulders on Harry's intentions - apparently Fortuna could now somewhat read Harry's mind.

"SKELEDESTRUCTO TOTALUS!" he shouted at a particularly large Death Eater, and just paused a second to watch the man crumple, his bones ground into dust.

Out of the people that were doing the most damage, it was clear that it was Hermione, and not Harry. Although Harry made his shots count, it could not be clearer the dangerous side of Hermione's veela blood was kicking in, and doing a lot, a lot of damage.

Harry watched, fascinated, almost horrified.

Her eyes were starting to glow a dangerous purple, and her fingernails had extended to long talons. Her hair rippled as if she was standing next to a strong wind.

Apparently Hermione was unaware of what she was doing as she sent a barrage of curses at the Death Eaters with one hand, throwing Veela fireballs that Harry had seen during his fourth year with another.

Her face was sheer battle fury. Hermione was practically invincible at this point, Fortuna blocking all of the spells that anyone aimed at her, and her spells and fireballs scalding anyone that dared come near.

Should a person have told him back in his first year that Hermione Granger would become a part veela that could fight like none Harry had seen before, he would've told the person that they'd had a bit too much to drink, or else they knew a different Hermione Granger.

His time for contemplating fell short however, when a killing curse zipped dangerously close to him.

Whipping around, he yelled, "FLIPENDO!"

The attacker flew upwards into a chandelier, coming crashing down, dead.

Harry now ran to Ginny and Ron's aid, as a few Death Eaters were cornering them.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" he cried.

A wand flew into the air.

"DIFFINDO!"

The wand split, splinters littering the floor.

The Death Eater turned around and stared at Harry.

Not smart.

"SKELEDESTRUCTO!" he yelled, aiming for the man's torso.

It hit him straight on, the man collapsing.

"Thanks, mate," Ron said, before turning his back and stunning a Death Eater that was approaching him.

Harry nodded, and now ran for Hermione.

No person should stand alone in a battle, Harry had learnt long ago. If one got hurt, no one would know where you were.

Hermione didn't look like one that would be hurt, rather one that would be hurting other people. She was surrounded by five wizards, but the five were the ones that looked worried. She was still in a fury, Harry could almost feel emotion radiate from Hermione like light and heat from the sun.

Harry came over and relieved some of her burdens.

"TRIXTONIA!" he roared.

The shockwave spell was becoming to be his specialty, he could now hit specific targets easily, blasting them further than the 'flipendo' spell, and temporarily deafening them.

Three of Hermione's attackers were blasted into the wall, where they fell unconscious.

Harry saw Hermione pocket her wand and throw two fireballs at each remaining attacker, hitting them both in the stomach.

The Death Eaters let out a cry and burnt to his fiery death, his flesh being roasted alive.

Hermione, in her victory, started to lose some of the sharpness in her face, although her eyes were still alight and her fingernails long and golden, like a bird's talons.

"All right there, my favorite sister?" Harry yelled towards her, whilst dodging a stunning spell cast at him.

"All right, my favorite brother," she grinned back at him, still apparently unaware of the changes that had taken her. (A/N: For those of you who don't like how I just did that, tough. I'm going to anyway.)

Within a few more minutes, the Death Eaters still standing were forced into a corner.

Harry smirked. It was his turn to try out the line he had heard so many times.

"Drop your wands and put your hands in the air, or else you all die right here right now," he growled menacingly.

They dropped their wands.

"ACCIO WANDS," he heard Ginny shout.

"Multiplicus Diffindo," Ron said afterwards.

The wands snapped.

"Serpensortia Prisone," Harry said.

The wizards now had snakes surrounding them, choking them, tying them. The spell Dumbledore had taught Harry was useful indeed - only he could free them.

"Stupefy," many wizards then shouted, stunning the prisoners.

"Take em down to the dungeons, you and your men, corporal," said Harry briskly, and walked out of the Great Hall, his five friends behind him.

"But I'm not a corporal," said the befuddled muggle as he watched the Boy-who-Lived walk out of the magical, corpse-strewn Great Hall.

***

Lord Voldemort was in a rage.

As he dueled with countless wizards, killing them all, his worthless Death Eaters had been defeated all over, by mere muggles and a small fraction of wizards.

He let out a roar of rage.

He knew that there was no point in holding Hogwarts if he was to be the only man left.

He sighed, as he knocked Kingsley Shacklebolt flying through a window and out of Hogwarts, to fall to his death should he not have been killed on impact with the glass.

Grabbing a nearby Death Eater, he pressed his finger on the Dark Mark.

"Retreat," he hissed.

He grabbed the snake amulet around his neck, and blasting about twenty more wizards with a single wave of his wand, he portkeyed away.

It was best to keep some men alive to live and fight another day.

After all, what good was immortality when there was no one that was impressed, and to serve you faithfully for it?

Not much good at all.

***

The day had passed so very quickly, tanks shattering walls and rolling into the castle, blasting apart some of the stone walls made centuries ago.

Slowly, but surely, Dumbledore's Army started to crush Voldemort's forces. It was not without cost, as many were killed throughout the day.

Hogwarts would never be the same again.

Nine hours after the victory at the Great Hall, at five o'clock in the afternoon, after fighting a series of exhausting attacks around the school, Harry had found himself moving up to Astronomy Tower, just in time to see Kingsley Shacklebolt, one of the many wizards there, be blasted through a window and out into the skies.

Snape jumped forward to take over Kingsley's duel with Voldemort, but the next thing Harry knew, there was a big explosion, and Voldemort disappeared, and a ring of wizards around him were scattered around the floor, dead.

Many of the other Death Eaters had also disappeared, but Harry, with a yell of, "FLIPENDO!" sent one Death Eater flying into a wall, in which he stunned right away.

Harry was frustrated.

He arrived just too late.

Voldemort got away again, and as long as he still ran free, the war wasn't over.

Now however, wasn't a time to think, as the three cornered Death Eaters were in a frenzy, unable to escape, desperate.

They were being cornered by Snape, Orion, and Moody, slowly but surely losing, when all of a sudden a jet of light smacked Orion straight across the chest, and she flew backwards, before landing at Harry's feet, dead.

Harry ran forward to take her place, Ginny at his heels.

"NO STAY BACK!" he roared.

The Death Eaters were desperate, hurling as many curses as they could towards them.

"FLIPENDO," yelled Harry, smacking a Death Eater straight against the wall, where his skull crushed with a sickening crunch.

Another Death Eater shot an enormous jet of light at Harry.

He jumped out of the way nimbly.

Just as he was about to hurl a stunning spell at the Death Eater, he heard a cry of pain behind him.

Harry whipped around.

When he saw who was hit, he let out a roar of anguish.

Laying in front of him, chest impaled with a massive quivering arrow, blood splattering everywhere, was Ginny Weasley.

"GINNY!" he cried, sprinting for her, Ron and Hermione a few seconds behind him.

Ginny's eyes were closed, her body trembling furiously.

"PULL IT OUT!" he cried.

Hermione, with a wave of her wand, sent the arrow zooming out of Ginny's chest.

She snapped awake with a scream.

"Ginny, hold on... we'll get you out of here, we'll take you to a safe place... you'll be alright..." said Harry, tears welling up in his eyes at the sight of Ginny's suffering.

A small, choked sob from Ginny told him it was an affirmative.

He pulled her bleeding form into his arms, and sprinted with inhuman speed, Ron and Hermione tailing him, down the steep staircase, leaving Moody and Snape to deal with the two kamikaze Death Eaters.

"No... no... this can't be happening," stuttered Harry, tears now blurring his vision, as Ginny groaned in his arms.

So fragile... so innocent... she can't die... please don't let her die...

"It hurts, Harry," said Ginny in a pitiful small voice.

A solitary tear fell on Ginny's lips as she said this.

Harry, angrily wiping away the rest of his tears, increased his pace.

"You'll be okay Ginny... I promise."

As Harry sprinted with superhuman speed down the corridor, he searched desperately for the hole with the letters MWPP scratched around it.

"I SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I AM UP TO NO GOOD," he screamed at the hole, whipping his wand inside. He had stuck his wand inside with such a force that it almost snapped, an event that Harry would've regretted enormously had it actually taken place. However, he was in a fever, practically bouncing up and down, clutching Ginny in his arms like a priceless jewel, or a newborn baby.

She was getting weaker and paler by the second.

A stunning spell whizzed past Harry.

He didn't even notice.

It opened, ever so slowly, every second seeming like an eternity, every second could be a second that Ginny would stop holding out, every second a year of torture to Harry as Ginny bled in his arms.

She shivered, and Harry tightened his grip around her, a hand closing over her wound to prevent more blood loss.

Diving through the hole, cradling Ginny in his arms, he sprinted for the fireplace, and softly lay her down on the sofa.

"HERMIONE! HEAL HER!" he cried, tears now filling to the brim of his eye as he watched Ginny breathe slowly, sniffing and letting out sobs in front of him.

Hermione quickly ran at Ginny, pushing Harry out of the way impatiently, and waved her wand, starting to chant various spells.

"Harry... she's dying... blood loss... no charms to... we have to... no time to make a potion... she needs..."

Harry took just a second to contemplate and understand this.

"Take mine," he said in a hollow voice, "As much as she needs."

"And mine," said Ron, stepping up, offering his arm, as if blood was going to be pouring out of it any second all on its own.

"No... mine," said Hermione.

Harry almost snapped at her then, but stopped as Hermione opened her mouth again.

"Veela blood... restorative properties - warmth... what she needs now..."

With that, Hermione, with a wave of her wand, cut open a large slit in her palm, where blood started squirting out like a fountain.

Grimacing with the pain, she moved her palm down to Ginny's wound, and slowly transferred the blood from her to Ginny.

"Harry... Ron... Go help Snape and Moody... They might... GO!" hollered Hermione.

They didn't move.

"Go. They need help," said Hermione, a steely glint in her eye.

"I'm not leaving," said Harry, when Ron had already ran out after kissing Hermione on the cheek, and hugging Ginny and pecking her on the head.

"You are the freaking Boy-who-Lived. They need you out there. GO HARRY!"

Time and time again, people had pecked at his responsibility in order to get him to do something.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE THE BOY-WHO-LIVED! WHAT GOOD IS IT WHEN I CAN'T EVEN STAY WHEN MY OWN GIRLFRIEND AND MY BEST FRIEND ARE LYING THERE, BLEEDING, SUFFERING?"

Hermione stopped for a second, and raised her eyes slowly to Harry's.

Cool amethyst met fiery emerald.

Suddenly, he found himself floating into a web of happiness, a harmonious tune playing softly in the background, his mind emptying. All he knew was he had to walk outside, and go and help Snape and Moody, or else terrible, terrible things would happen.

He found his feet carrying him out of the Marauder's Room.

He had gotten halfway up to the Astronomy Tower when he realized what Hermione just did.

Dratted Veela powers.

Fuming, Harry sprinted up the Astronomy Tower.

Best get it all over with.

The sight that greeted him wasn't the one he expected.

Slumped in the corner were Moody and Snape, and the Death Eaters were the ones towering above them.

Damn.

"PARISTRAN MAGICA!" he roared.

The spell smacked straight into a Death Eater, and he felt an awesome surge of power.

That left the last Death Eater there.

He stared into the man's eyes.

It was none other than Macnair, the scum that had tried to kill Buckbeak.

He grinned foolishly.

Harry didn't have time for this little nonsense.

Rage flared through him that he had never known before.

The bastard shot Ginny.

He walked closer.

The idiot still smiled, and turned to him raising his wand.

Harry, his eyes still alight, did not notice a huge torrent of wind erupt around him as he glared Macnair in the eye, fury radiating from every cell within him.

The smile disappeared, turning into a horrified expression.

Yes, you should be scared.

"Ssss... st... stupefy!" stuttered Macnair.

The red jet of light disappeared, engulfed by the whirlwind spinning furiously around Harry.

He didn't want to play around anymore.

THIS BASTARD SHOT GINNY!

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" he roared.

The jet of bright green light hit Macnair in the stomach.

Harry watched in slow motion as Macnair let out a deep roar as it hit, and Harry watched as his body, still clinging on to life arch backwards.

Cold eyes stared upon Harry as he hurtled towards the stone walls.

The last thing Macnair saw was the fury in Harry Potter's green eyes.

His spirit, which was already leaving his body shook like mad.

Macnair smashed into a windowpane, ripping out its' iron foundations as he flew straight out of the window.

No one in the castle saw him fall, but many people heard it.

Macnair had been blasted all the way to the Forbidden Forest.

And as he fell, he landed neck first onto a sharp boulder.

The sickening crack as the thin bones connecting his skull to his torso snapped.

Anyone who heard it and knew what was the cause of it would remember.

They would remember that no one messes with Harry Potter's girl.

***

Around Hogwarts, the battle was ending, the muggle soldiers rounding up the last of the Death Eaters that had not managed to escape, or Death Eaters that refused to.

Corpses littered the halls, stained the floor and walls.

The majority of the muggle soldiers and almost half of the wizards and giants had fallen in this long battle. Tanks lay burning in the grounds, and several jets had nosedived to the floor, going up in flames.

But they were successful.

The Death Eaters had nearly been cleansed, only about a hundred of them escaping.

All the dementors and trolls had been vanquished or killed in this battle.

Tanks had blasted away much of the grounds and parts of the castle.

Fighter jets had strewn corpses all over the Hogwarts grounds, which was blood-drenched.

But at the long battle's end, they were successful.

They took back the symbol of hope in the wizarding world.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the once heralded as untouchable, the pride and joy of centuries of Headmasters, great wizards and witches.

It was also Lord Voldemort's strongest fortress.

And it had been felled.

A large horn blew in the distance, signaling the end of the war, and also as a tribute to those that died bravely in the noble fight.

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Ginny Weasley, the two girls supported by Harry and Ron who had escaped practically unscathed besides for a few cuts and bruises, stood at the top of Astronomy Tower.

They surveyed the grounds.

Hogwarts was theirs again... but at a great cost indeed.

Tears of joy and of grief came out of everyone's eyes but Harry Potter's.

In their eyes, the war had now turned to their favor.

In essence, it had.

But the still, the main obstacle lay ahead.

Lord Voldemort still lived.

At the top of the tower, Harry Potter trembled slightly.

He felt the anger and hatred radiate from Lord Voldemort.

He snorted aloud. The hatred was mutual.

Powers from both sides.

Both so strong, so proud.

And they both knew that at the end, only one would stand.

"Your move, Riddle."