Dark Daughter

Chapter 10: The Attack

Amy met Snape and he preformed the usual procedure wordlessly. They hit the ground of a grassy field, but this time, neither so much as stumbled.

"You are all here. Good," said Voldemort as Amy and Snape joined the circle. "I am starting the attack tonight." Amy held back a gasp. Tonight? "It will be at Hogwarts and the fires will spread to Britain and beyond." Oh no, Amy moaned internally. This was going to be closer to home than she thought. But how could Voldemort have enough people to launch an attack on Britain? "I will start my siege of the world tonight. I know that this is sudden, but it will be successful."

"Master," said Malfoy. "How will we do this? We do not have enough Death Eaters!"

Obviously, Malfoy was just as astonished as Amy was.

"Ah," said Voldemort, "but we do Lucius. We have many. I have not told you that I have recruited members all over the world. Only Amilia knows this, however."

Amy remembered. She had thought that Voldemort was merely planning for the distant future. She had only told Snape, but they hadn't informed Dumbledore. How could she have been so stupid?

"This battle will take several weeks. It may take quite a while to bring Dumbledore to his end. Once he is gone the world will be quickly consumed. Those of you who know where the dangerous creatures are, go and collect them, bring them to the Dark Forest. You will set them free on my command."

Voldemort explained where they were going to meet. He told them every last hiding place, every last dungeon in the caves, he told them everything that they needed to know for the attack. Amy listened, paralyzed with fear. She had to tell Dumbledore. But would he believe her? If not, she still had to try.

Voldemort sent out the handlers of the dangerous magical beasts to prepare. He had told them that most of the werewolves were under the Imperious Curse and were forced to stay in their wolf form. He told them, with obvious amusement, that they would be werewolves eternally.

Not if I can help it! Amy thought bitterly.

"Amilia, Severus," said Voldemort, "you must make sure that all of the students are in their common rooms. You must go now. The attack will begin in a few minutes."

A few minutes? Amy didn't know if she could stop Voldemort from killing the whole school--world--with in minutes. She had to try.

It was as she and Snape walked back to the portkey that Amy realized how unreal she felt. This morning she had been laughing at Flint because David's owl had let his droppings fall in the Great Hall and they hit Mordicus on the head with a splat. But now she was getting ready to fight the most furious battle in magical history. She was sure that there would be fighting. But she also knew that no one would listen to her. She would have to try and stop the killing. Working a double agent roll. This was going to be hard. Amy felt that all she could do was try . . . all that she could do was die trying.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was worried. Something was going on. But he couldn't focus. Amy's face kept popping up in his head. He saw her eyes as they looked into his. He remembered how they had brimmed with tears. Why? Why had been so mistrusting?

There was so much proof that Amy was on his side. She had nearly died for Harry. She trusted Albus; he was sure it would have been the deepest of disappointments to find that he didn't trust her in turn. But then . . . what if Amy had never been on his side from the beginning? What if she had been giving him false information? He wondered. For the first time, Albus really began to feel doubt in Amy Evans.

* * *

Amy seemed to hit the ground running. She fell over when they arrived in the dungeon and Snape helped her up.

"We have to go to Dumbledore!" she yelled (these seemed to be her lines). "Whether he believes us or not, we have to try and stop Voldemort taking the castle!"

She ran at top speed with Snape just barely keeping up.

"Evans," he panted, "what can we do? Didn't you hear the Dark Lord? As we speak Death Eaters are encircling the castle. There is nothing we can do!"

"There has to be something," said Amy desperately. "I know I can't stop people from getting hurt, but I have to try and stop them from being killed! We will have to try! And I will die trying if it comes to it."

They hurtled towards Dumbledore, who was standing in the entrance hall, half the Order of the Phoenix standing behind him. Amy ran up to him.

"Professor," she panted. "Voldemort's attack--it's tonight--it's at Hogwarts and--"

"Not this again," said Diggory.

"You have to listen to me," Amy pleaded. "The attack is tonight! Voldemort wanted us to make sure that all of the students stay in their common rooms. I think he's going to try and attack the common rooms. Please--"

"Don't you get it, Evans?" said Charlie Weasley. "No one trusts you! You're caught. Your tricks won't work on us anymore."

"Let her talk," said Black, transforming into his human form (he'd been in his Animagus form for safety).

"Who'd listen to a traitor like you, Black?" said Diggle.

Lupin held Black back as he made for Dedalus. But their argument was interrupted by four loud bangs, like bombs. One after another, the force shook the ground with tremendous and everyone fell over, except for Dumbledore. Each one of them felt like it had come from all of the house common rooms.

"What was that?" said Mrs. Weasley.

"It's starting," said Snape softly.

"Come on!" yelled Amy and she ran towards the Gryffindor common room. But people were pouring out of their common rooms, running towards the front doors in a wild attempt to get out of the castle. But Amy's four friends ran to her instead and the Weasley children ran to their parents with Harry Potter and Hermione Granger following.

"What's going on, Amy?" Jason shouted over the screaming.

"The castle's being attacked!" Amy yelled.

"We've got to get outside!" Sirius Black cried. "It's our only chance.

Amy shouted, "No!" But no one heard her.

They were flocking on to the grounds. Amy and her friends were being pushed toward the front doors, and they had no choice but to run out onto the grounds and Amy gasped.

Two dragons were breathing fire and lighting the trees around them afire. She recognized one as a Peruvian Vipertooth and the other as Romanian Longhorn. Death Eaters were setting loose swarms of doxies. From the screams that they were causing, Amy could tell that they were biting people. She knew that the doxies couldn't cause much damage, but they added to the confusion and chaos. There was an all mighty roar from the opposite side of the grounds and Amy saw a Chimaera running at the students. Werewolves, too, were being set loose. All of the students screamed and ran into the forest. Amy knew that that was the worst thing they could do.

Amy heard someone saying, "Dumbledore, I think our only chance is to get into the forest."

It was Fudge, the Minister of Magic. But why he was at Hogwarts, Amy never found out. She turned to her friends.

"We have to scan the castle," she said. "No one else is going to check for left behind students. It's up to us."

"Right," said David. His shadowed face looked determined.

"Jason," Amy said, "you go down to the Slytherin common room. Blast the wall if you have to. Derek, you go to Hufflepuff common room. You know how to get in. Joanne, go to Ravenclaw common room. David, search the castle best you can. I'll go to Gryffindor. We meet back here at," she checked her watch, "four-twenty. That'll give us ten minutes. Let's go."

All of them nodded. Amy dashed up the marble staircase. The trip to Gryffindor tower seemed to take no time at all. The Fat Lady's portrait was lying on the ground some ten feet away from the portrait hole. Amy climbed in.

Half of the common room had been blasted away. A bit of it was hanging on the edge. And that was where the last student was. He was a first year that Amy didn't know by name. When she had seen him before, he had brown hair and dark eyes with a colorful face. Now he was pale, there was a cut across his forehead and he was paralyzed in a crouching position against the wall. The giant slab of stone was going to fall any moment.

"Help me!" he cried.

"Hang on!" Amy called as she climbed over the rubble and upturned chairs. "I'm coming!"

Amy reached him and held out her hand. The boy didn't move.

"Take my hand," Amy said as gently as she could, but she still had to yell, because of all the screaming out on the grounds. "You have to move. I can't come out to you or we'll both fall. Common, you can do it!"

Slowly, very slowly, the boy crawled towards Amy.

"That's it," Amy encouraged. "You've got it. Keep coming."

But the west side of Gryffindor tower fell and the boy made a leap in which Amy caught him.

"Thank you," he said.

Amy didn't answer. She took his arm and led him out of the common room. Something told her that there were no other students.

"I'm Amy," she told him. "What's your name?"

"Andrew," he said.

"Andrew," Amy said as they ran down the marble staircase. "The castle is being attacked. I'm part of a group that's trying to stop it. You need to stay close to my friends and me. That's them at the bottom--you see?"

She pointed to her friends, who were waiting at the bottom of the marble staircase.

"Amy!" shouted Joanne. "The Death Eaters are moving in. We need to take the secret way out!"

"Let's go!" said Amy. No one seemed to have found anyone left in the castle except Andrew.

They went out a side door, to the left of the marble staircase and down a tunnel. It was dark, but they quickly lit their wands. After a while, Amy and her friends were standing on the battlefield, which had once been a Quidditch field.

Some students were standing, fighting off Death Eaters, but the majority of them were retreating into the forest.

"Did find anyone else?" Amy asked.

They said that they didn't. Amy introduced Andrew and they ran to the forest. They were lucky not to meet anyone. The stood at the edge of the forest, staring at the castle. No one was on the grounds except the dementors. Andrew stood shivering next to Amy. She put an arm around him as thought he was a brother.

Jason, Derek, Joanne and David were also shivering. Amy was cold, but she never knew if she had been trembling too. All that she remembered was staring up at the lightening sky and watching a dark mist shoot up from the dementors and creating a large cloud of the black mist. It hovered over the land and the students screamed more loudly. The cloud blocked the rising sun. Leaving the world dark and the future seeming hopeless.

A peculiar feeling was taking hold of Amy. She didn't know how she was going to get out of this one. All that she knew was that the battle for the whole world had just begun. She knew that she would play a crucial part in it--victory or defeat for either side but did not yet know how. This was The Battle--the battle between good and evil--light versus darkness--Amy against her father.