Chapter 423: We Are Fighting
Professor McGonagall did not stay to watch Slughorn splutter, and walked to the middle of the corridor and raised her wand. Chris and Harry quickly followed.
"Piertotum---oh, for heaven's sake, Filch, not now---"
The aged caretaker had just come hobbling into view, shouting "Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!"
"They're supposed to be you blithering idiot!" shouted McGonagall. "Now go and do something constructive! Find Peeves!"
"P-Peeves?" stammered Filch as though he had never heard the name before.
"Yes, Peeves, you fool, Peeves! Haven't you been complaining about him for a quarter of a century? Go and fetch him, at once."
Filch evidently thought Professor McGonagall had taken leave of her senses, but hobbled away, hunch-shouldered, muttering under his breath.
"And now---Piertotum Locomator!" cried Professor McGonagall. And all along the corridor the statues and suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Chris knew that their fellows throughout the castle had done the same.
"Hogwarts is threatened!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "Man the boundaries, protect us, and do your duty to our school!"
Clattering and yelling, the horde of moving statues stampeded past Chris and Harry, some of them smaller, others larger than life. There were animals too, and the clanking suits of armor brandished swords and spiked balls on chains.
"Now, Christina, Potter, I need to get the other Gryffindors --" Professor McGonagall stopped abruptly and realization followed by panic dawned on her face. "Bernard!"
"Who?" Chris and Harry said together.
"There is another one of them apart from the Carrows. A brut wizard working for Maligno. He should be still in the castle," McGonagall said looking around as if he will pop out of the corner right then. "We need to find him first, he is extremely dangerous and him not being here when the entire school is awake is a bad sign. I will look --"
"Professor, leave that to me," Chris said stepping up. She knew that McGonagall need to collect the Gryffindor House first.
"Christina, you can't --"
"Professor, you need to inform our House students first. They will not follow anyone else as much as you, otherwise, I would have gone to collect them instead," Chris explained.
"Miss Norton, Bernard is extremely skilled and cruel, I cannot allow --" Professor McGonagall began but Harry suddenly proposed an idea.
"Professor, why don't we take Sirius with us? That way it would be three of us against one."
"Yeah, we can do that," Chris immediately agreed.
Professor McGonagall looked at Chris and then at Harry, finally, she nodded with a sigh.
"Please be careful, that Malgino's follower is nothing like those arrogant fools," She said before parting ways with Chris and Harry.
Chris wanted to ask Ginny or Colin to ask Sirius to meet there with them but the increasing number of students in the hallway made everything difficult.
"Is that Harry Potter?"
"Yes, that's Potter! Look Christina Norton is with him!"
"Norton is here?"
"Yes, look it's them!"
"I swear it's them!"
The murmurs quickly built into shouts and without a word, Harry pulled Chris with him. Harry did not look back, not before they reached the entrance to the Room of Requirement, Harry leaned against the enchanted wall, which opened to admit them, and he and Chris stood on the steep staircase. Harry let out a soft sigh.
"So much planning for sneaking in and out of the castle," Harry said bitterly.
Chris understood the meaning behind Harry's words. They were trying so hard to keep the others safe until then but suddenly everything was thrown out of the window. Malgino and Voldemort were coming and they needed to defend Hogwarts. At the thought of defending Hogwarts, Chris remembered the night she learned for the first time about her purpose. She was the defender of Hogwarts. The Protector.
Taking his hand, Chris turned to look at Harry.
"I know it's not what we wanted, but Hogwarts has suffered enough. I think this was the right decision. And I promise, I will do everything to keep our Hogwarts safe," Chris looked into Harry's eyes and saw the determination reflecting back.
"I know you will," Harry whispered with a ghost of a smile. "You are the successor of the Founders and you are the most powerful and amazing witch I know. I think we will be fine."
Nodding solemnly, Chris started to descend the stairs. Harry closely followed behind. Chris was ready to call out to Sirius as soon as the Room of Requirement appeared but she stopped when she saw the crowd inside the room. The room was packed, far more crowded than when they had last been in there. Kingsley and Lupin were looking up at them, as were Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, Bill, and Fleur.
"Harry, Chris, we got the message. But wanted to know directly from you, what's happening?" said Lupin, meeting them at the foot of the stairs.
"Voldemort's on his way, they're barricading the school---Snape's run for it," Harry explained as fast he could as he and Chris beelined for Sirius, but were intercepted by Neville and the Weasley twins.
"What's going on, Chris?" George asked unintentionally blocking her way.
"Yeah, are we really fighting?" asked Neville with clear enthusiasm and excitement.
Chris glanced at Harry and he nodded with the same determination. If there was any confusion or doubt in his mind before, now it was completely gone. Chris smiled and took a deep breath.
It will be fine, she repeated to herself before facing Neville, Fred, and George.
"Yes, we are fighting."
There was a great roar. Almost everyone looked hopeful and ready for action.
"They're evacuating the younger kids and everyone's meeting in the Great Hall to get organized," Harry informed the crowd, and the crowd surged toward the stairs as they ran past him and Chris, the mingled members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's Army, and Chris's old Quidditch team, all with their wands drawn, heading up into the main castle.
Finally, because of the thinning crowd, Chris spotted Sirius at the back with Cedric. Chris quickly walked towards them only to see another problem arising.
"You're underage!" Mrs. Weasley shouted at her daughter as Chris approached "I won't permit it! The boys, yes, but you, you've got to go home!"
Now, only a little knot of people remained below in the Room of Requirement. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, with a furious-looking Ginny, and around them Ron, Hermione, Luna, Colin, Cedric, Sirius, Aurelia, Lupin, Fred, George, Bill, and Fleur, and a little far from them Draco.
"I am not! I told you hundred times now!" Ginny shouted with equal fierceness as her mother. "I am old enough. I don't even have the trace anymore. And I am definitely not going home."
Ginny's hair flew as she pulled her arm out of her mother's grip. Chris looked around for help, to see if anyone can convince Mrs. Weasley because she definitely can't. Sirius and Aurelia both look like they were thinking of taking Ginny's side, but they thought better and stayed silent. However, as soon as Cedric noticed Chris, he slid up to her quietly.
"There are more people coming, Chris. We have contacted a lot of people, including people from Aurelia's wizard association. I hope they get here in time," Cedric whispered. "If you and Harry can handle Voldemort and Maligno, we might have a chance to win."
"We are winning, Cedric," Chris said looking up at him and Cedric smiled hearing the confidence in her voice. But much of it was Chris's determination to win rather than her confidence.
"Good," He gave a respectful nod, then glanced at Ginny and Mrs. Wesaley still arguing. "I wish I could help her, but after what Ginny pulled with her fake death, Mrs. Weasley has been extremely angry."
"Yeah, I know," Chris sighed. "But I should say something, even though it won't make much difference."
Cedric gave a sympathetic look and headed toward the stairs, presumably to join the rest in the Great Hall.
"I don't care what you think!" Chris heard Mrs. Wesaley's screech as she looked back from Cedric.
"Mom, I am fighting and --" Ginny began and Chris stepped forward to say something, she didn't know exactly what but she needed to try.
But both of them were interrupted by a scuffling and a great thump. Someone else had clambered out of the tunnel, overbalanced slightly, and fallen. He pulled himself up on the nearest chair, looked around through lopsided horn-rimmed glasses, and said, "Am I too late? Has it started? I only just found out, so I --- I ---"
Percy spluttered into silence. Evidently, he had not expected to run into most of his family. There was a long moment of astonishment, broken by Fleur turning to Lupin and saying, in a wildly transparent attempt to break the tension. "So--- 'ow eez leetle Teddy?"
Lupin blinked at her, startled. The silence between the Weasleys seemed to be solidifying, like ice.
"I --- oh yes--- he's fine!" Lupin said loudly. "Yes, Tonks is with him --- at the Grimauld Place ---"
Percy and the other Weasleys were still staring at one another, frozen.
"Maybe, we should also join others at the Great Hall, huh Sirius? Remus?" Aurelia lightly nudged Sirius and tactfully looked at Remus.
However, Sirius just glared at Percy without appearing to have any intention to move.
"I was a fool!" Percy roared, so loudly that all of them looked at him startled. "I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I was a – a --"
"Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron," said Fred.
Percy swallowed.
"Yes, I was!"
"Well, you can't say fairer than that," said Fred, holding his hand out to Percy.
Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father.
"I'm very sorry, Dad," Percy said.
Mr. Weasley blinked rather rapidly, then he too hurried to hug his son.
"What made you see sense, Perce?" inquired George.
"It's been coming on for a while," said Percy, mopping his eyes under his glasses with a corner of his traveling cloak. "But I had to find a way out and it's not so easy at the Ministry, they're imprisoning traitors all the time. I managed to make contact with Aberforth and he tipped me off ten minutes ago that Hogwarts was going to make a fight of it, so here I am."
"Well, we do look to our prefects to take a lead at times such as these," said George in a good imitation of Percy's most pompous manner. "Now let's get upstairs and fight, or all the good Death Eaters'll be taken."
"So, you're my sister-in-law now?" Said Percy, shaking hands with Fleur.
As the Weasley brothers and Fleur turned towards the staircase, Mrs. Weasley, however, turned to Ginny, who was about to join them.
"Ginny!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "You are still not going."
Ginny looked at Chris, and Chris nodded, ready to defend her best friend but right that moment Remus chimed in.
"Molly, maybe we should --" Remus began looking worried but stopped short hearing Ginny's scream.
"Chris, duck!" Ginny's eyes widened as she thundered raising her wand.
[To be continued]
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