Roommates

Twenty Nine

War

After the last echoes of Lilithe faded out of everyone's head, panic settled in and people started to scream and cry while they tried to cling to each other and ask Dumbledore about his plan at the same time. Quietly, the Headmaster beckoned Potter, Weasley, Hermione and Blaise over.

"Mr. Weasley, if you would be so kind as to remain here with your sister and calm the students while we try to formulate a plan upstairs?" Dumbledore asked.

"But sir, I would really-" Weasley started.

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley. Come along Minerva, Severus. You too, Harry, Hermione. And you as well, Mr. Zabini." They all followed Dumbledore up the stairs into the first empty dormitory they came to. Once they were all seated, Dumbledore spoke again. "As you are all aware, Death Eaters have penetrated the castle wards. Voldemort cannot be far by now and most likely intends to search the school in a more...efficient manner than his followers have so far. What makes our situation much worse is the fact that around four hours ago the wards fell. We are now defenseless; anyone can now Apparate into any part of the grounds or castle at their desire." His blue eyes sharpened when he looked at Blaise and Hermione.

"Therefore, we have only a few choices. We have to keep the other students safe. I estimate the students we have secured must be only around two hundred and fifty of our full number. I would like to think that the remaining of the students are in the common rooms of the other Houses, but that cannot be the case, unfortunately. However, we must--must--ascertain whether or not these students are still alive and well, so someone will have to go out into the castle to see."

Potter stood up. "I will, professor," he said quietly. "I'm not afraid of Death Eaters."

Dumbledore smiled kindly, and replied, "As much as I know that to be true, Harry, I am afraid I cannot allow you to place yourself in so much danger. You are the key to Voldemort's defeat and they will be looking for you. No, it cannot be you. You must be wondering why I do not want to send Severus. The risk is too high and it would be too suspicious for him to be venturing near the House's common rooms. And we cannot afford that attention."

Blaise heard this and knew, instinctively, that Dumbledore had meant for him to do it. He pushed himself off the trunk he was seated on and walked over. "I'll do it, Headmaster." He grinned bitterly. "After all, I'm already a dead man--you heard her. Might as well do some good before they find me."

A hand grabbed his sleeve and pulled him around. "Blaise, no! You can't!" Hermione exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock. "You- you could die!"

"That's the idea," he told her firmly, removing her hand and holding it in his. "Lilithe's got me marked anyway, Hermione. Either way I might die. At least this way, some good will be done before I do."

"How do you know Lilithe wants to kill you?" she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "She could've been lying, Blaise, lying to get you out in the open so she could get her power out of you."

Blaise put his arm around her shoulders. "Hermione, if she wants her power back, she's not going to take it as delicately as she put it in. She's going to want to rip it out of me. It will kill me, Hermione. And I don't want to have died without making a difference; without having the chance to save someone else's life. Do you understand?"

Hermione sniffed. There was an awkward silence behind them as she spoke, "Yes, I do understand Blaise. But I...I don't want you to die." She looked up at him and whispered, "I feel awful about this, but I'd rather have you here than anyone else." Tears fell down her cheeks unheeded as Blaise hugged her to him for a moment.

When he let her go, he placed his index finger over her lips and said, "No more talk of dying. If I die, I die. If I don't, I'll be here with you forever, I promise."

"Forever?" she said softly.

"Forever," he told her firmly. Turning around, he saw Dumbledore writing something on a piece of paper. "What's that, sir?"

"Passwords to the other common rooms, Blaise," Dumbledore said, finishing up his writing and holding it out to him. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Blaise felt Hermione stiffen behind him and he closed his eyes for a long moment, feeling everyone's surface emotions flooding into his mind. Then his eyes snapped open again and he held out his hand for the paper. "Yes, sir, I am."

Dumbledore handed him the passwords. "Then good luck. The Hufflepuff common room is in a cellar near the Potions classroom and the Ravenclaw tower entrance is on the fifth floor, though the tower itself is not far away from this one."

Potter walked up to Blaise and handed him a dirty old scrap of paper. Hermione gasped, "Oh, Harry!" Blaise looked down at it and handed it back. "Thanks Potter, but I don't need more parchment."

Potter sighed. Taking out his wand, he muttered, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," over the parchment and a map appeared on it, a complete map of the school. Blaise inhaled sharply. "It's a map," Potter said. "Some friends gave it to me a long time ago and you can use it now. It's not like I'll need it for what I'll have to do." He smiled grimly.

Blaise grabbed Potter's hand and shook it. "Thanks...Harry," he said. "This will really help."

"What do we have here?" Snape said, gliding over and snatching the map. His face paled and he glared at Harry. "Potter, explain yourself."

Harry lifted his eyebrows smoothly and said, "I don't know what you mean, professor."

Snape shook the map. "I saw this very map in my office four years ago! Headmaster I demand-"

"-That I destroy a device that will help us defeat Voldemort?" Dumbledore said quietly. "I think not, Severus. Please give the map back to Blaise." Snape handed him the map grudgingly. "And while he is gone, we will try and construct temporary wards around the Gryffindor tower, as quietly as possible, hopefully." Snape nodded curtly and walked over to McGonagall, who was pale and drawn.

Blaise stuffed the magical parchment in his pocket and nodded at them all. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he said. He turned to Hermione, but she waved him away. "Just go already," she said, her voice muffled. He hesitated and then left the room.

Leaving the common room, he put the Death Eater robes on again and took out the map. Looking through it, he finally found the Hufflepuff common room. It was in a cellar, down a flight of stairs two corridors over from the Potions classroom. Once he was down on the first floor, he stood helplessly for a moment as he tried to figure out how to get down into the dungeons without going down the main staircase. Then he remembered the map and began to look through it, finding a back staircase.

He wandered around for a while, dodging Death Eaters and barely avoiding a few, until he walked into a corridor with a statue of Merlin at the end and glanced at the map again. It had a bubble over the statue that said 'pumpkin pasties'. Blaise looked at the map for a moment, a bit confused, but then walked over to the statue and muttered, "Pumpkin pasties," over it. It slid into the wall and a flight of stairs appeared. He stepped onto them, casting the light charm and started the descent.

After he took a few steps he heard the statue close behind him and he resisted the urge to run back out. He continued down until he reached a doorway. Taking off the Death Eater robes, he stuffed them into his bag and tried the handle. It was jammed. He rapped on the door several times before there was a response.

"Who's there?" a suspicious voice called out.

"Me, Blaise Zabini," Blaise said. "Is that you, Zacharias? You need to get out of there, it's not safe."

"You're bloody right it's not safe," Smith said. "And because it's not safe, we're not leaving!"

Blaise glared at the door. "Zacharias. You need to get out of there! The Death Eaters are going through the castle killing everyone they find. Eventually they will find you. It's not safe! Get out of there and I'll take whatever students you've got in there to the Gryffindor common room-"

"Yeah, right. We're not going anywhere, you idiot. We can ride this out here, safe in our common room. There aren't any Death Eaters who know where we are. We'll be fine!"

Blaise groaned, irritated. He'd never gotten along with Zacharias. "If you think they won't find you, you're the idiot, Smith. If you don't get out of there soon, the Death Eaters will get tired of whatever 'sport' they've found in the halls and start looking for you, all cozy and snug and above all stationary in your little common room. And then, when they find you, there will be no way out. You will all die because of your stupid pride that you are all fine and dandy in there. Do you hear me?"

"You don't know anything of Death Eaters, Zabini," sneered Smith. "They're not that smart. They can't find us. It's not like they can read minds." Blaise counted to ten silently while Smith went on. "You are so pompous with your little girlfriend's group, wrapped up in the cocoon Dumbledore made for you, and now something real has happened and you've got your blown-up egos making you think you can deal with it yourselves, you prats, and you don't realize that we're better off here. So you can shove your theories up your-"

There was a thump and then Hannah Abbott's voice sounded. "Sorry about that, Blaise," she said through the door. Her voice shook and Blaise could tell she was being brave even though she was scared. "Zach thought we'd be safe here but I guess not, right?" Sounds of a barricade being moved were heard. A few moments later the door opened and Hannah stood there, a woozy Zacharias in the background, with about a hundred and twenty students standing behind her, looking wild and worried.

"We've got to get out of here," Blaise said. "I didn't see any Death Eaters coming through to your common room, but who knows where they might be.... I think they've set up a base in the Great Hall and it's impossible for us to get anywhere near there without somehow attracting their attention. I have a map, though, that will take us to the Gryffindor common room fairly safely.... Does anyone know how to do a Disillusionment Charm?"

A girl in the back raised her hand shakily. "I- I do," she said tentatively. "My father, he taught me...just in case, you know."

Blaise nodded approvingly. "All right then. Everyone who's in Advanced Charms, you should be good enough to learn the charm. So get the spell and start working it on people here. I'll start, too."

"Blaise, you know it?" Hannah asked as he stood behind her, getting his wand ready.

A muscle ticked in Blaise's cheek for a moment as images of the death that he had seen in his family flashed before his eyes. "Yes, I do," he replied.

"Why?" she asked. It was a simple question. But how often do simple questions have simple answers? In this world, not enough. Blaise knew this. And this particular question had so many answers, none of them simple.

He paused for a moment before answering. "Curiosity, mainly. Wanted to see if I could do it." And he had been able to do it. It had taken two days for the charm to wear off, too. They had been a fun two days; he had been excused from all family activities and spent the entire time in the library reading old books that his father normally wouldn't let him touch.

"And you could?"

"After four or five tries, sure. Hold still." He cast the charm and she faded into the scenery. "How does that feel?"

"Weird," she replied, her voice shaking a bit more.

"Good. That's how it's supposed to feel. Stay there; I'll be back once everyone's finished." Blaise moved away and started charming people as fast as he could.

After about fifteen minutes, everyone had been Disillusioned and had everything they were going to bring with them, he donned his Death Eater robes after explaining to them he had to wear them to be able to go around in the halls safely and led them out of the Hufflepuff common room.

Winding through corridors and dodging Death Eaters, who were now trying to secure the second floor, where the ghosts were doing whatever they could to fend them off, Blaise led them all the way up to the seventh floor and back to the portrait of the Fat Lady. Leaning against the wall because they had had to sprint up a flight of stairs to avoid being seen, Blaise got his breath back in a few seconds, muttered the password to the Fat Lady and let all of the students in ahead of him before he closed the portrait behind them, making sure no one was out there, watching them.

As he climbed through the portrait hole, Blaise listened to the sounds of the Hufflepuffs having the Disillusionment charm taken off of them and heard the hysterical laughter that welled up after everyone had been de-charmed, now that they regarded themselves safe once again. He started towards the stairs to the dormitories, but he saw they were crowded, impossible for him to get through. He looked through the crowd of students and didn't see Hermione, so he walked over to Hannah Abbott, who was sitting in a corner, smiling. "Hannah?"

She looked up at him. "Yes, Blaise?"

"If you see Hermione, tell her..." He struggled with the thought of saying something so personal through a third party. "Tell her...tell her I'm being careful. That I'll be back soon, hopefully."

Hannah smiled, understanding. "I'll tell her." He started to walk away, but she tugged on his arm. "Blaise?"

Blaise turned back. "Yes?"

She kissed his cheek. "Thank you, thank you so much."

His mouth twitched into a smile for a moment. "I do my best," he told her. He saw her trembling a bit and pulled her into a one-armed hug. "You be careful, all right, Hannah? Go find Hermione, she- she probably needs some company right now." Hannah nodded stoically, but he could see the tears that threatened spill through her eyes so he turned away and quietly went through the portrait hole again.

~*~

This time, the journey to the Ravenclaw common room was easier. Dumbledore had said it was on the fifth floor. The trouble was, Blaise couldn't figure out which section of wall it was behind. Every time he looked at the map, it said the entrance was either behind him, in front of him or far to the left or right of him. And this was when he was standing still! Deciding Rowena Ravenclaw was a sneak and cheat at placing the location of her House's common room, he finally set to tapping the walls as quietly as he could, to find a hollow spot behind it. After two solid minutes of tapping the wall--and once kicking it--he found the entrance behind a tapestry of someone trapped in the Minotaur's maze, which was exactly how he felt.

Muttering the password at the wall, he limped his way to the entrance and banged on the barricade that blocked the way. Padma Patil's voice sounded through. "Who is that?"

"Blaise Zabini," he said, holding his foot, which really, really hurt. "Damned wall," he muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing.... Look, Padma, the Death Eaters are going to find you soon so you need to evacuate-"

"Not so fast, Zabini," Padma's voice said. "I need proof."

"That the Death Eaters have overrun the castle?" he asked incredulously.

"No, you idiot. That you're you. I can't let these kids out of my protection just because some guy comes up sounding like Blaise Zabini and says we need to evacuate. I need proof." Her voice was stern and unwavering. He sighed, annoyed.

"When you came in third in Arithmancy two years ago," he said in a low voice that only she would hear, "you went up to the North Tower and cried for an hour until I found you by accident and...er, comforted you." He coughed for a moment, taken back into the awkward situation it had been.

She coughed too and said, "All right, remove the barricade and let him in to explain himself." A minute or two later, the barricade was taken down enough for Blaise to crawl through and then it was put back up.

Padma stood rather like a commander would in front of her troops as she faced Blaise. Behind her were about eighty kids, looking frightened out of their wits, much like the Hufflepuffs were when he first saw them earlier. "Well?" she asked, tapping her foot as if she had better things to do than speak to him. "Get on with it. No time for dithering."

"Where's Anthony?" Blaise asked, looking around for him.

"He's upstairs with the younger kids," Padma said, her face softening. "They...have been a bit upset. They were one corridor over when some Death Eaters got ahold of some second year girls and...well, you know." Blaise nodded.

"Well, all I have to tell you is what you already know. The Death Eaters have stormed the castle. We can only think that they'll soon come trying to get into the common rooms before He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named arrives. And I think he's going to get here soon. I've got this...feeling. Anyway, Dumbledore sent me to get you into the Gryffindor common room and I've got the Hufflepuffs out already so I just have to get you guys out."

"So?" Padma asked, still tapping her foot impatiently. Blaise nearly screamed.

"So? So you should get everyone who knows the Disillusionment Charm to get in here soon so we can start trying to charm everyone. There weren't any Death Eaters when I came down here, but that doesn't mean there won't be when we go back."

"Okay. Fine." Padma turned to a girl behind her, said something Blaise didn't hear, and the girl ran off, presumably to get all those who were good at Charms.

The Ravenclaw common room refugees were much quicker than the Hufflepuffs had been. Within minutes, everyone was in the common room and they were getting spelled. Barely two minutes after that they were following Blaise back down the passageway and into the corridors. He took the Map out again and led them through the back halls, twice avoiding Death Eaters by a hairsbreadth. They got back to the entrance of Gryffindor Tower and Blaise let them in, again waiting until the last chameleon-like student was de-charmed before slumping into a chair.

Blaise fell into a doze until suddenly he was woken up by someone shoving a mug of tea into his hands. He looked up to see Hannah Abbott standing there, smiling. "Thought you might want some tea," she said, rather shyly.

"Thanks," he replied, already sipping the tea. It was scalding, but just what he needed. "How'd we get tea, anyway?"

Hannah sat next to him. "After the Headmaster and professors Snape and McGonagall put up the wards--with the help of a few students, I think--they somehow blocked off the Floo access. After that we started getting hungry and the house-elves showed up then and started to cook." She waved a hand in the direction of three hard-at-work House-Elves.

Blaise nodded and took another few sips of tea. "Thanks again for the tea, Hannah," he told her, getting up and nodding at her. "I have to go talk to Harry now, all right?"

"You'll be back later?" She looked at him with an odd expression he'd never seen before. To placate her, he nodded before making his way over to the staircase and heading up to find Harry and Ron, neither of whom he'd seen in the common room among the throng of students.

As he picked his way up the steps he thought about what he was going to say to Hermione. Feelings washed over him, strange feelings. One was a sense of foreboding, and he felt as if someone was going to die. For some strange, terrible reason, he thought it was him. The other feeling was one of intense warmth; it sent chills and goosebumps down his entire body when he thought of it. It banished all thoughts of the previous feeling. He knew what it was: Love. Love, love for life, love for his family--those who weren't murderers--and, most of all, love for Hermione. It didn't come out of nowhere, he knew that. And yet...it seemed so sudden. He knew it had been staring him in the face since she had met his family and survived it so stoically, without exploding--literally or metaphorically. He resolved to tell Hermione, but not now. Not while everything was so dangerous, while they could be killed. He didn't want her to mourn him for the rest of his life if he fell. So he would save this for a more joyous occasion, perhaps after the Dark Lord's defeat--if he was defeated.

He reached the room they had been in before, opened the door quietly and slipped in. Weasley, Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall were sitting tensely, except for Hermione who was also twitching slightly.

"I'm back," Blaise said softly. They all jumped.

"Oh thank God!" Hermione exclaimed and ran over to him hugging him tightly. He looped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. "I'm fine," he said into her hair. Her head bobbed up and down but he still heard muffled snuffling against his chest.

Dumbledore gave him a grave look. "You have succeeded?" he asked.

Blaise nodded. "As you know, of course. The level of noise has intensified over the last few hours, I'm sure. The students from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw common rooms are safe here."

"Surely," Snape said, "you mean the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students."

Blaise gave him a level look. "No. The beauty of this attack is that it forced us to form some sort of inter-House unity. Among both the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students there were some from Gryffindor and Slytherin, and a few from each other. The only reason I can think that there weren't any students from the other Houses in Gryffindor common room before I brought the students from Hufflepuff is that the Gryffindor common room is so high up that there are few classrooms near here, so there weren't any other students to be taken in." He turned to Dumbledore. "Now the only common room needing to be checked is the Slytherin common room. I can go, if you want."

"No!" Hermione interjected, her face becoming visible again as she loosened her grip on Blaise.

"Hermione, if I have to do it, I have to do it," he told her reasonably.

"No. You can't do any more dangerous things, Blaise, you can't!"

He ignored this statement. "What do you think, Headmaster?"

The Headmaster considered this. "While I would say that might be a good suggestion, Blaise, after your sister's...announcement...we can hardly allow you to go anywhere near where she might be. And, sadly, there might be a great deal of Death Eaters in the Slytherin common room. So we must relegate ourselves to accepting that they are in the hands of the enemy."

Snape stepped forward. "I will go, Headmaster."

Dumbledore frowned. "I do not think that you should, Severus-"

"I have to, Headmaster," Snape slid in smoothly. "Otherwise they will think I am a traitor and all my work will have been for nothing. I will have to report anyway, once the Dark Lord arrives and that I cannot be late for. So it is best if I go now."

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Go, then. Be careful Severus. We shall need your help in the battle ahead." Snape nodded curtly and stepped out of the room.

Conversations resumed around Blaise as he sank onto a bed and closed his eyes, sinking into thought. Lilithe surfaced in his mind and he shuddered a bit. His sister truly scared him--scared him out of his mind. She had gone from being his older sister to being someone who was a bully and a menace to being someone who could--and would--kill him the minute she saw him, if possible. His family was torn apart because of her. Before, it had been precarious at best, but now...anything else would cause them to fall apart. He couldn't let that happen. He had to do something, anything, to save them.

Blaise's thoughts were then interrupted by a loud cheer that sounded like it came from the part of the grounds by the Entrance Hall. He jumped up and rushed over to the window with everyone else in the room and crowded around it to see the Death Eaters grouped around one person, bowing and scraping to him.

"Voldemort," Harry breathed. "He's here."

Cold washed over the room and Blaise shivered again. Hermione spoke up, not looking back at Dumbledore, "Headmaster, where is the rest of the Order?"

"They are on their way. That is why it took so long constructing the wards around the tower; we had to allow for the Order to Apparate in, but no one else." Dumbledore sighed and Blaise saw him look, for a moment, almost completely worn out before he pulled himself together and became himself again. "They should be here in an hour."

"Good," Hermione replied. Blaise saw her shudder and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders again, drawing her near to him. "I'm scared Blaise," she whispered to him. "I don't want to die."

"You won't," he assured her, stroking her hair with her head tucked under his chin. "You won't. I promise."

"I don't want you to die either, Blaise," she said, just as quietly. "Promise me you won't." He was silent and finally she looked up at him. "Blaise?"

He avoided her gaze as he answered, "Of course not, Hermione."

The hour passed with them watching the Death Eaters mass out on the grounds and then break up into smaller groups. At one point, Harry wordlessly handed Blaise a pair of omnioculars and Blaise lifted them to his eyes and quickly found Lilithe, standing under a tree, staring up at the tower. Their eyes met and her pale hand lifted and she waved a bit, laughing madly as he tore the omnioculars away from his eyes and jumped back from the window, broken out in a cold sweat.

Bangs sounded from above, signaling the arrival of the mysterious "Order". The members filed through the doors and Blaise recognized, vaguely, the Weasley family (identifiable by their bright red hair); Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbaton Champion from the Triwizard tournament; Mad-Eye Moody; Professor Lupin and Kingsley Shacklebolt, a friend and occasional source of information of his father's. Many more poured through the door until they filled the room, sitting on any flat surface and, in the case of Fleur Delacour, on the lap of one of the older Weasley sons.

Within minutes, a few were chosen to stay behind and guard the younger students, only to come and fight if necessary. During the organization of who was to fight who, a loud explosion of noise out on the grounds indicated the arrival of the Ministry forces. Once again, Blaise turned to the window and he saw hundreds of Ministry officials fighting the Death Eaters that had been lounging about on the grounds. Hagrid appeared out of the Forbidden Forest with a woman who looked like the Beauxbaton Headmistress, Madame Maxime, and with several Giants behind them to counter the Giants of Voldemort's that appeared from behind the castle to attack the Ministry forces. Blaise's eyes flew from person to person but he could not see Lilithe anywhere. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his mind and found that she was in the castle somewhere. He would have to fight her soon.

"Then we are all agreed?" Dumbledore said. There was a general murmur of agreement and as they left the room, Blaise whispered to Hermione, "What happened? I didn't listen; I was watching out the window."

They went down the staircase and filed towards the portrait hole , and Hermione whispered back, "We're going to try and protect Harry as he goes to get Voldemort. Dumbledore, Ron and I are going to stay with Harry and be his bodyguards, of a sort."

Blaise nodded. "Oh."

Hermione looked up at him and squeezed his hand. "Don't worry; we'll all be all right. Trust me, Blaise, I know we will be." But a tremor in her hand suggested otherwise. He smiled comfortingly, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

They had only made it down one floor before Blaise suddenly stopped. "Stop!" he hissed hoarsely. "Stop...she's here."

Dumbledore turned around. "What should we do?" he asked Blaise. "I must admit, I have little experience with people like Lilithe."

Blaise looked at the people grouped around him. "Run," he said. "She doesn't want you, but she'll kill you if you're here to protect me. And trust me, in the way she and I can kill, there's no way you'll survive it and I can't protect everyone, even with this extra...stuff...inside of me."

"'Extra stuff'? What exactly do you mean?" Dumbledore asked.

Blaise glared at them. "I mentioned she has power reserves? Well, I lied. She has a power reserve, one reservoir, one place she's placed all the power she's gathered and for the last three years she's quite cheerfully placed it all in me and it's become incorporated into me so that I remember all the things that she took the power from. I've got memories from countless people and I hate it. I'm her power and she can't do anything but try to take it back before I use it. Now get out of here before she comes. Get out! RUN!"

The Order looked at him blankly for a moment before starting to run. Hermione gave him a goodbye look before she ran with them.

When they were all out of sight, he sighed and carefully undid the necklace his charm hung on and slipped it into his pocket. He wouldn't need it; he knew what was going to happen. Thoughts slid into his mind and so did many other things. He pushed them aside and focused on finding Lilithe. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes abruptly and dove into a corridor about five feet away from him before a Killing Curse hit the spot he had been standing. He rolled and scrambled to stand up, whipping out his wand and pressing his back to the wall, trying to breath as quietly as possible.

"Blaise?" called Lilithe. Even her voice was seeped with madness now. Killing so many, he supposed, had leeched out her humanity slowly, until she was completely maddened, evil and perversely twisted. "Blaise...come out and play, dear Blaise. I won't hurt you...much."

"Even if I believed you," Blaise said, "I wouldn't come out. Bitch."

Lilithe's laugh sounded. "Name calling? What a bad boy you've been. Seems daddy wasn't as good a parent as mummy was--though at least he didn't lie to us about our parentage, did he, hmm? But you don't see me calling you names, do you?"

Blaise edged towards the edge into the corridor where Lilithe was and hissed out a spell he had learned from Slytherin's books he had read. Lilithe screamed, so he peeked around and saw her writhing on the floor with blood pouring out of her nose and eyes. He ran for it, hoping whatever it was would keep her detained long enough for him to find a hiding place.

An hour later, he had had no such luck, for a moment or two after he had began running he heard her footsteps behind him and a few hissed curses were aimed his way. He dodged them in the same way he had dodged the Killing Curse and the third time he dove into a new corridor he broke his left arm, landing on it the wrong way. He screamed in pain and his sister's laugh sounded again. Scrambling up again, he took off running for a staircase that was just changing.

He leaped from it to the fifth-floor platform where it had been before it started to change. He landed heavily, hastily crawled behind a pillar and leaned up against it, panting. Footsteps marked Lilithe's approach. He got to his feet again and jogged, limping a bit from the landing, and winced as he noticed an open cut on his leg, a mark from where he had failed to dodge one of her curses.

Within about four corridors from the staircase, Blaise found an alcove with a bench so he sat down and leaned against the wall, allowing himself to relax for a moment before he began his final preparation for an offense. Closing his eyes, he settled inside of himself and began examining his power source. Soon he found the larger, brighter ball of white fire that marked the power Lilithe had siphoned into him slowly over the past three years. He began taking it, bit by bit, and feeding it into his own power source, which was depleted beyond what he had even felt it. He supposed, as he carefully merged the new power with his own, that much of it had been used unconsciously blocking the curses Lilithe sent at him and allowing him to be as energized as he was.

A few minutes later, when he opened his eyes, he felt much better, though his hand was still throbbing with a dull ache. Closing his eyes again, he began working on the spell he had been thinking of for the past few days, since his mother had been killed.

Most of it was designed to paralyze whoever it was cast on. The rest was for the receiver to loose all willpower. As he finished it, barely conscious of the footsteps that his ears picked up on, he examined it and was satisfied. He opened his eyes once more and, spell ready for use, he gripped his wand and stood up, limping towards the footsteps.

Lilithe was in sight within a few moments of him walking. "Blaise!" she crowed. "Come to face your death like a man? That's very odd for someone raised by that oafish, degenerate, insult to the title of-" Her eyes clouded over as he muttered the words to the spell and pointed his want directly at her. She had no time to shield herself and she screamed as the spell hit her. An unearthly, inhuman scream that resonated through the castle and caused Blaise to shudder for minutes later.

Blaise advanced on her form on the floor and reached out with two fingers to touch her temple with his right hand. He closed his eyes and entered her mind. To him, it appeared a large black mass teaming with even darker shapes lurking behind every corner. He pushed through it to her life source; it was smaller than it should ever be in anyone and thread-like black tendrils were hooked into it, leeching bits of it away into the dark mass of her mind. He took his own power and formed it into the shape of a diamond-sharp, star-bright, glowing knife. He raised it, but stopped, seeing her power source not too far away. He paused and went to it, shocked at how large it was.

"She didn't use any of it on me," he whispered. The blood drained from his face and he realized what she would have used it on, how she would have used it once he was captured. Stoically, he went back to her life source and he plunged his power-knife into it, severing it from her and from her mind and absorbing its power into his own.

His eyes flew open and he saw her body twitching violently. He backed away, slowly at first and then running as fast as he could, ignoring the pain in his leg. He made it to the giant stairway enclosure and dove out into the open as her body exploded; her power flooding out into the castle, causing the stones to explode as well as the raw magic energy touched them.

Time stood still as he seemingly floated down, light as a feather, the castle exploding around him. The third floor passed him by as he touched his power and tried to form something to surround him. He had almost got it--it teetered into shape, tenuously leaving his mind and entering physical existence--when he blacked out. The last thing he saw was the floor speeding towards his face.

~*~

Outside on the grounds, Hermione was fighting a Death Eater to keep him away from Harry as he finished his battle with Voldemort when the castle exploded. The night sky exploded into noontime glory and left sparks on their eyes even while Harry finished Voldemort off while he was distracted, destroying him for good. The wave of energy streaming off the building hit the outer edges of the Ministry and Order fighters as they attempted to finish off whatever Death Eaters they were fighting. They didn't succeed and the Death Eaters Apparated away, seeing the wave coming towards them.

Time stood still for a long moment and Hermione saw everything that happened around her. Then it whipped back in a frenzy and the wave hit the outer edges of fighters and seconds later it hit her and she fell over.

Hermione was conscious for a few moments after the shock. She turned towards the castle.

"Blaise..."