Attack in the Night

It was probably midnight when Harry finally started back up to the school from Hagrid's hut under the invisibility cloak. He had wanted to hear the details of Hagrid's trip with Olympe Maxime to send envoys to the giants, but had no idea that the story would last so long. He had seriously considered sleeping on Hagrid's couch.

It must be late, he thought to himself, as he saw what looked like dark black flying carpets moving swiftly, inches above the sloping lawns up toward the school. He felt an extreme cold come over him as he spotted a crowd of men in dark black cloaks atop the hill, illuminated by the pale moon light. His eyes shot back to the black carpets.

In his mind, a book bound with red leather and gold lettering flipped open to a specific page. The book was Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the page was describing Lethifolds. How they came into homes undetected in the middle of the night and smothered its victims and digested them. The only defense against them was the Patronus Charm.

Harry ran as quickly as he could up to the school, stepping between the Lethifolds. He wished Hermione was with him. He stepped through the Oak front doors and slammed them shut behind him. A Lethifold was coming through the crack between the floor and the doors. Then another.

"Get up! Everybody get up!" He screamed. His voice hardly penetrated the depth of the castle.

He pulled his wand from his pocket, held it to his throat and said, "Sonorus!"

"WAKE UP! THERE'S AN ATTACK ON THE CASTLE! EVERYONE WAKE UP!" He learned the spell when Ludo Bagman used it to commentate at the Quidditch World Cup. His voice resonated so loudly that Harry had to hold his hands over his ears to keep from bursting his eardrums.

Doors were slamming. Filch came stalking down the marble staircase with Mrs. Norris. Students were filling the corridors. A low rumble of confused talking went over them. Harry spotted Hermione and Ron.

"LETHIFOLDS! GET PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE!" Filch's eyes got very wide and he and Mrs. Norris hurried off to get Professor Dumbledore. Harry realized that Filch couldn't have seen him, just the Lethifolds. He took the invisibility cloak off and stuffed it down his robes. Stepping back from the door, he called on the moment he had received his Firebolt. He raised his wand and yelled, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

A silver stag exploded from his wand and lifted the Lethifold from the ground. He bucked it about on his antlers until it had disappeared. Another was coming through. He stomped it with his hooves.

"PRONGS! STAY THERE! KEEP THEM FROM COMING THROUGH!"

Apparently the wizards Harry had spotted in the moonlight had come to the front door, because there was a furious pounding with a barrage of spells. Hermione and Ron were at his side now.

"HERMIONE! WHAT'S THE SPELL TO MAKE MY VOICE NORMAL AGAIN?"

She pulled out her wand, held it to Harry's throat and said, "Quietus!"

"Thanks."

"What's going on?"

"I dunno, I was on my way back from Hagrid's and I saw a group of wizards and all of these Lethifolds."

"This is insane!" Ron yelled.

The wizards managed to burst through. Harry stared hard. They all had masks on. What caught his eye, however, was a glint of silver. It was a hand. A silver hand.

"DEATH EATERS! IMPEDIMENTA!"

The wizards stood frozen where they were. "Come on," Ron grabbed Harry and Hermione by the wrists and pulled them up the stairs. When Harry looked back, Prongs had vanished. The Lethifolds were advancing up the stairs.

"RUN!" he yelled. "DEATH EATERS!" The students were in an uproar. Professor Snape was there.

"Well, well," Harry heard from the door, "If it isn't the coward who fled to Dumbledore."

Snape threw a curse at the Death Eaters.

"Potter, Weasley, Granger, get these students out of here."

Ron stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, silencing everybody. A Lethifold had made it up the steps and had engulfed a Hufflepuff first year. His mouth was open wide, and the black veil had smothered it and been sucked in. It visibly conformed to his features. He fell to the ground before Harry could use the Patronus. Harry bit his lip.

"EVERYBODY GET OUT OF HERE!"

The students were all trying to file out at once.

"COME ON! FOLLOW ME! I'M A PREFECT!" Hermione yelled, leading them down a corridor. Harry hadn't gotten quite so used to his prefect status yet.

"Hermione where are you going?"

"I don't know."

"There's a backdoor in the kitchens."

The Lethifolds were grabbing students all over the place. Harry performed the Patronus again. Prongs stomped the ground and bucked several Lethifolds into the air.

They all rushed down to the kitchens. It took a while. Harry spotted about twenty students as he turned back to look, their features being conformed to by the Lethifolds. He keeled over and threw up.

Professor Dumbledore ran into him as he rushed by.

"Professor Dumbledore. Death Eaters, front doors."

"Hurry Harry, get out of here."

Harry followed the crowd of students. He realized as he moved through them that the only Gryffindors were Hermione and Ron.

"Hermione! Where are the other Gryffindors?"

"M and Ron were on our way to find you when we heard you yelling. Gryffindor might not know."

"RON! COME WITH ME! WE HAVE TO GET THE GRYFFINDORS!"

Ron ran after him while Hermione tickled the pear and led the students into the kitchens.

Up the stairs and through the portrait hole they went.

"I'll take the girls' tower," Ron said. "You take the boys'."

Harry ran up the spiral staircase. "GET UP!" He shouted. He banged on all of the doors. Colin Creevey stuck his head out of one door.

"HARRY! What's up?"

"Get down to the common room. Bring everybody in your dorm. Wait for me and Ron there."

He went into his own dorm yelling.

"Get up! All of you! Dean, get Neville!" Dean was wide awake, but Neville wasn't waking.

"What's up Harry?"

"Death Eaters are attacking the castle."

"What?"

"Just hurry." Harry woke the rest of the students. Fred and George wouldn't stop joking until Harry told them what was going on.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah." He rushed downstairs.

"Come on, all of you. We're going to escape through the kitchens."

They rushed down to the corridor where the kitchens were, but found something that made Harry's blood run cold. Dementors.

"Run!" They ran and Harry led the whole of Gryffindor House to the first place he could think of. The statue of the humpbacked witch.

"Dissendium," he said, and a hole in the hump opened, "Everybody in! Fred, George, lead the way."

"Right." Harry and Ron brought up the back of the line.

They went through the tunnel for what seemed to take forever while they were inside, but seemed instant once they were on the other side of the tunnel. They went to The Three Broomsticks and banged on the door. Madam Rosemerta answered in her silk nightgown.

"Madam Rosemerta," Harry said, "Death Eaters have attacked the school. A lot of students were killed. We escaped through a secret tunnel."

"Come in! Come in!"

After Harry had explained the whole ordeal to the Gryffindors and Madam Rosemerta, he spotted Hermione and the rest of the students outside in the streets.

"Come in here, if you can all fit."

"How'd you beat us?"

"We used the tunnel to Honeydukes."

A lot of Slytherins were missing, including Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

"Where'd the Slytherins--"

"Do you have to ask?"

"I guess not."

"Where's Neville?" Hermione asked, looking around.

"What?"

"I see all of the Gryffindors, except him."

"Dean, where's Neville?"

"I don't know. I didn't see him after we saw all of the dementors."

"Oh, no."

Sometime around three in the morning, Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape found them in the Three Broomsticks.

"Thank you Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ronald Weasley for your brave efforts. You'll all receive awards for Special Services to the School. The Death Eaters and their creatures have gone."

He then read a list of the students who had been found dead. Neville Longbottom was the only Gryffindor. Most of the students were in silent tears.

Nobody spoke until Hagrid came to say that the other teachers had taken care of all of the bodies. As they left the confines of the pub, they saw the bright green light of the Dark Mark hovering above the castle.