Twenty-Four Hours

Twenty-Four Hours

Chapter Twelve

By Michelle Malfoy

Memories
Go flashing by
Before my very eyes
Like scenes upon the streams
Of a picture shown...
Like the hands of time
Caressing marks to be
Like a quiet night
That sneaks up silently
You'll always be with me

~You'll Always Be With Me by Mark Cohen

All heads turned to Varossa, who was standing by the door. She put one hand on the doorknob, ready to go back to the scene where she had spotted the Dark Mark, when Severus ran up to her, followed by Minerva, clearly intending to go with her. Harry, Hermione and Ginny quickly raced up to follow them as well, and Michelle hastened to catch up. "Oh, what the hell," Draco sighed, and joined the group of wizards.

"No use running," McGonagall moaned. "Listen here, you lot. You are forbidden from telling anyone this, but it is, in fact, possible to Apparate on the Hogwarts grounds. You just need to be thinking hard of the password designed by..." She trailed off, clearly still upset with Dumbledore's death. Severus nodded, placed one arm on Michelle's shoulder and the other on Draco's, and the three of them disappeared. "Miss Granger? Miss Weasley?" Minerva offered. They scrambled up to her, and within moments, the three of them were gone as well.

"Mr. Potter, come here." Cautiously, Harry walked over to Varossa, who Disapparated with him. Within a fraction of a second, he found himself standing at the edge of the Forest. "Follow me," Varossa ordered, and the others did, jogging along behind her. "There it is." She pointed to what looked like a battlefield; jets of different color light were dashing across it, and three figures lay on the ground.

And hovering over that horrific scene was the Dark Mark. "Hurry," Severus commanded, and he set off at a run towards the scene.

"SEVERUS!" Minerva screamed, but it was too late. He collapsed to the ground with a boom. Instantly, Harry felt very ill. One of the only competent fighters in this battle had already been eliminated. Varossa dashed over to Severus, but judging by her grave look, he was in fact dead. However, they had other worries on their minds.

"Who was in detention...?" Harry wondered. Then it hit him - Ron. Ron, Dean, Luna, Seamus, and Parvati. An odd combination of students, but Snape had assigned them detention due to their dueling with Crabbe and Goyle three days prior. This fact seemed to hit Hermione as well as Ginny at the same moment as it had Harry, because the two Gryffindor girls leapt up and began battling those who were clearly Death Eaters. Harry ran to join them, leaving Michelle and Draco looking very puzzled.

'If I fight with the Death Eaters,' thought Michelle anxiously, 'Harry will never trust me, not ever. But if I fight against them, I'll die. They're sooo much stronger than us, and my father will never forgive me for fighting against his master, and by extention, my father himself. And Dumbledore's letter said...

Then another voice perked up in the back of her head. 'Who are you kidding, Michelle?' it asked in disbelief. 'Since when do you care about what Dumbledore says? You are what you were born to be, you know that. Look at Draco, he's accepting it. Take a look at his left arm if you don't believe it. You are meant to be a Death Eater, that much is obvious. Now go over and kick Harry Potter's ass. It's what you were meant to do all along.'

'I... I can't,' she told herself. She stood up, walked over to where her Professors, Ginny, Harry, and Hermione were battling, and turning to the Death Eaters, screamed the first spell that came into her head: "Crucio!" She watched as the Death Eater standing closest to her collapsed onto the ground, shrieking in pain. Draco remained motionless, still unsure of what to do. "DRACO!" Michelle cried as two other Death Eaters advanced on her. "HELP!"

That scream was all Draco needed. As one Death Eater performed the near-deadly Cruciatus Curse on Michelle, Draco leapt from his position and ran to help her. "Finite incantatum," he murmured, but a Light spell could never stop a Dark one with such power behind it. Trying to shield his face from the Death Eaters, he summoned his parcelny and whispered, "It's okay, Michelle. It'll be fine." And sure enough, it was. Michelle tried to stand up, staggered for a second, and fell back down. "Don't worry," Draco soothed her, and lifted her up, allowing her to stand naturally.

"Thank you," she whispered to him. Seeing how he tried to evade the Death Eaters' eyes, she muttered, pointing her wand at his face, "Stersoilus." Instantly, his face was replaced by a dark mask, triple-knotted in the back with such a strong binding charm that only a parcelnist could undo it.

"Thanks," Draco muttered. The two of them rejoined the fighting Light wizards and began to help. "Don't do any more Dark magic," he advised Michelle quietly. "It can be detected easily; we are at Hogwarts, you know. When you really have to, do it by parcelny so it can't be detected, by the Ministry or the Hogwarts wards. And take off your necklace; Father Charmed it so that he can always detect you. That's the disadvantage of using it for my help during tests." He carefully unclasped it in the back and chucked it as far as he could away from the battlefield.

"'Kay," Michelle said quietly.

She felt someone pulling at her collar in the back and quickly spun around. It was, of course, a Death Eater tugging her collar, and he shoved her behind a tree. Nobody could see her anymore; they were too involved with the battle to be noticing anything lurking behind trees. "Silencio," the Death Eater whispered as Michelle opened her mouth to speak. Then, after he murmured the Binding Spell, "Crucio!"

And although Michelle had felt such pain before, never previously had she experienced it with such power behind it. She wanted to die from the pain ripping at her, tearing her apart, and knew that were it not for the Silencing Charm her screams would be piercing the night air far beyond her range of vision. Remembering the parcelny, she willed the Silencing Charm to end, foolishly not remembering that she could actually end the Cruciatus Curse instead. As she did so, she heard her screams piercing the night air just like she had predicted.

She heard footsteps, running towards her, and saw Draco and Harry both kneeling down next to her, and Draco's parcelny instantly ended the Curse. "Thank you," she breathed, trying to stand up, but found herself too weak to do so.

"It's okay," someone murmured in her ear, but found that it was Harry, and not Draco, who then lifted her up. "Malfoy, think you can handle those pieces of shit on your own?" Harry called.

"Yeah, thanks for the vote of confidence, Potter," Draco called back. Michelle then realized that Harry was taking her back to the castle; she bounced up and down, in and out of his arms due to the fact that he was running very quickly.

"Just try to relax," Harry soothed her. "Don't talk... atta girl." She opened her eyes and realized that they were in Hogwarts, dashing through a corridor Michelle didn't recognize. "Balderdash," Harry panted. Michelle gave him a quizzical look, but as she was lifted into a room decorated with red and gold lions all over, she realized that this must be the Gryffindor Common room. Funny how the fact that she now knew the password meant so little to her. A month and about three weeks ago she would have paid anything to know it. Now, however, she was just glad to be safe.

Harry carried her up a flight of stairs into what was apparantly the boys' dormitory. Neville Longbottom, whom Michelle so despised, sat on a bed in the corner. He looked up as Harry walked in. "Har - " he began, and then he spotted Michelle. He gave Harry a very untrusting look. "What's she doing here?" Clearly he had not forgotten Michelle's endless taunting of his Potion skills (or lack thereof).

"Oh, yeah, I'd better explain," Harry muttered to himself as he lay Michelle down on his bed, then sat down next to her. "You know the story about what happened in Riddle Castle?" Harry asked. Neville nodded, not yet seeing the connection. "Well, since she helped me escape, we're sort of... kind of... friends." He glanced at Michelle, who was too tired and weak to do anything but nod slightly. "And Death Eaters are down in the Forest. Snape and Dumbledore are dead."

Michelle could tell that Neville was not very disappointed that Snape had been killed. "Michelle's father attacked her with the Cruciatus Curse twice, so I brought her up here. Being hit by that spell more than once is deadly. Believe me, I know." Then he seemed to be hit with a sudden idea. "Nev, could you watch her? I'd better go back and help her brother fight the Death Eaters." At Neville's dubious expression, Harry said, "I never would have thought Malfoy had it in him."

"Can't Lavender? I mean, she is a girl, and I want to go fight too. You know I can, Harry." Harry looked at Neville, trying to hide his disbelief, but Neville caught it. "I saved your skin in the Department of Mysteries. I'm in the D.A. and I can produce as good a Patronus as you," he pointed out.

"Michelle, are you okay with that?" Harry asked, but Michelle was asleep. "Fine," he muttered. "But I'll need your broom." At Neville's bemused expression, Harry muttered, "Stupid Colin Creevery broke mine. Oh, you don't have a broom, do you?"

"I do," Michelle murmured, apparantly no longer sleeping. She pulled a shrunken Shimmer Star from her pocket. "I shrunk it so I could carry it around."

"Thanks," Harry said. "Reducio!" It returned to its normal size and Harry, still holding Michelle tightly in his arms, shot into the girls' dormitory.

Lavender, who had apparantly just emerged from her shower, screamed. "HARRY!" she yelled, adjusting her towel.

"Calm down, Lav," Harry sighed, "I didn't see anything. I just have a favor to ask you."

"Oh, hey Michelle," Lavender greeted Michelle, completely ignoring Harry. "Robiticus," she muttered as an afterthought, and Lavender was fully dressed in red-and-gold silk pajamas. Then, "Dessantis," and they were replaced by robes of pink velvet.

"LAVENDER!" Harry screamed. "Listen to me. You have to...." He explained his dilemma, talking a mile a minute.

"Oh... so I have to babysit this kid, never mind that she's a Slytherin and a Malfoy... oh, and a Future Death Eater." ("No she's not!" cried Harry.) "So," sighed Lavender, "what do I get from it?"

"Hmm..." Harry yelled angrily, "HOW ABOUT I GET TO GO BACK TO THE FUCKING FOREST AND KICK THE DEATH EATERS' ASSES BEFORE THEY KILL YOUR FUCKING BEST FRIEND?!?!?!?!"

"Parvati's out there?" Lavender asked, completely ignoring Harry's screams of fury. "Fine, I'll watch the kid... but if she touches my stuff, she's outta here." Harry nodded in agreement and handed Michelle the broom, which was now it's original size.

"You're going to need it," Michelle pointed out softly. Harry shrugged and slid down the stairs-that-had-turned-into-a-slide-the-second-he-sat-on-the-top-one. A low wailing noise began, but Lavender Silenced it quickly, correctly assuming that Michelle had gone back to sleep.

"Well," Lavender sighed, "I never thought I'd see the day. Mini-Malfoy's sleeping - peacefully - in the Gryffindorms." She smiled, thinking of the time when Ron had come up with the nickname 'Gryffindorms' for the Gryffindor dorms. It really wasn't all that clever of a name, but since Ron had thought of it...

Ahhh... Ron. He was always on Lavender's mind. Whether she doing classwork (to the worst of her abililty, thank you very much), applying makeup (perfectly), or dreaming, she could always conjure up a picture of the redhead in her mind. She knew that Ron fancied Hermione, but still... one could but dream.

As Michelle stirred, Lavender quickly jerked herself out of her 'trance' and into 'babysitter-mode.' She was, in fact, an experienced babysitter. Since age ten, she had had to babysat every child in the neighborhood just to earn enough money to go to the cinema. Her father never wasted a glance - or, for that matter, any money - on her, not unless he was feeling particularly angry and beating or raping her. Lavender, who was actually quite an intense person on the inside, sometimes wondered why her father was so cruel and abusive to her. More than once since she had turned thirteen had she found herself in a very uncomfortable and unwanted position regarding her father, but knew not how to deny him that sadistic pleasure of having her in his grip. She also wondered why she acted so shallow when she really spent hours pondering... everything.

And why, she asked herself, was she in Gryffindor? She wasn't brave, she never stood up to her father or told him no. She personally felt that she would have made a better Ravenclaw; at least that way she wouldn't have to act so shallow just to cover up her in-depth personality.

She supposed that her family life was the cause of her crush on Ron. He had the perfect family, even if it was slightly large and rather poor. They never abused the children - quite the contrary, Molly and Arthur Weasley did whatever they could to make their children happy. Even the fact that they were poor didn't bother Lavender; her family was very wealthy, she was just required to make her own money rather than spend her parents' cash.

"Where am I?" Michelle's voice asked. Lavender's head jerked up; she had forgotten that Michelle was there. And now that she thought of it, it wasn't Michelle's voice talking, not exactly. Michelle's voice had a sneering, condescending tone to it. This was softened!Michelle, a Michelle that Lavender had never really met before. Sure, she knew Michelle, or rather, the old version of Michelle. Ever since she had laid eyes on the young Malfoy, she had known that she would be exactly like her father and brother. And she was. Or rather, she had been. Now she was different, fighting for the side of good, resisting the Cruciatus Curse and not giving in to Evil.

And she had rescued Harry. Didn't that count for something? No, Lavender told herself, she only offered Michelle a second glance because she had rescued Ron from Riddle Castle. But, Lavender reminded herself, Michelle was the reason Ron was there in the first place.

"You're in the Gryffindorms - the Gryffindor dormitory," Lavender corrected herself. "Surely you remember that."

"I do," Michelle admitted. "Just wanted to make sure. Where's Harry?"

"He's out fighting," Lavender replied shortly, applying lipstick.

"What?!?!?" Michelle demanded, trying to leap out of bed.

"I said, he's out fighting. Why?"

"They're going to kill him - he's not safe," she shouted. She jumped out of the bed, leapt onto the Shimmer Star, and flew out of the room.

* * *

"Michelle," Harry gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"Harry, you need to get out of here," Michelle breathed. "It's too dangerous. Get everyone out of here, and there's no more harm the Death Eaters can do. Please," she begged.

"Why do you care so much?"

"I don't want you or Draco to get hurt," Michelle sighed. "Draco... well, he's my brother, Harry, you understand. And Harry... I - "

A deafening BOOM erupted nearby. Harry raced over to where it had come from, and found that the Death Eaters were gone, and one dead body - aside from Snape - was left in the Forest. Harry looked down, and found himself looking into the now unblinking blue eyes of Ron Weasley.