𝐉𝐈𝐆𝐒𝐀𝐖

Chapter 28

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Chapter Twenty-Eight:

The Pain You Tasted

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Harry's head hurt. He could hear someone calling to him, but it took him a while to recognize the voice. It was Alice.

"Wake up, Uncle Harry! Wake up!"

When he woke up, he was still in the observatory. It was very dark. He could hear noises, but they were distant and muffled. He sat up abruptly, gasping and looking around. Godric was curled up on his chest. All the other students were still lying on the ground. Harry wondered what had happened and how Godric had got there. The last thing he remembered was Voldemort standing over him and everyone else slumping to the ground.

Harry gasped in surprise, his mind whirling as he tried to grasp what happened.

"One of your teachersss wasss a ssspy. Thisss wasss all arranged by that one Voldemort fellow that everyone keepsss talking about. I imagine he wasss trying to kill you again. Not terribly good at it, isss he?" Godric asked, sounding almost amused, even though Harry had never found anything less funny.

"Wh-what happened?" asked Harry as he sat up and Godric slid off him.

"I'm not entirely sssure."

Harry ran over to Draco. He was still breathing and looked unharmed. Ron, Hermione, and everyone else seemed fine, too -- just unconscious. Harry tried to shake Ron awake, but he only moaned and continued to sleep. Harry heard shouting outside and looked up, hearing the sound of spells being cast. Harry shook his head, feeling slightly dizzy and wondering if it was from the pink smoke.

"There wasss fighting outssside. I ekssspect you'll want to be going in that direction. Jussst follow me," Godric said in an amicable tone, slithering through a large hole that had been blasted into one of the walls.

Harry stumbled after him, taking a moment to get his bearings when he got outside. They were on some sort of rocky hill and down below, in the valley, he saw people in what appeared to be a fight that was already over. It was impossible to tell who had won. Harry saw the other side of the valley, to the hill that was twin to the one he stood on. It was dark and the moon was high. Off in the distance, Harry saw Dumbledore and Voldemort, fighting a battle that seemed somehow unreal.

Harry moved further away from the building, finding a rope tied to a rock. Harry wondered why it was there, but figured he might as well use it. He grabbed onto the rope and climbed down. Godric rode his shoulders on the way down, hissing at him to swing on the rope whenever a spell came close. When they came to the bottom, Harry sunk to his ankles in the mud of the peat marsh, looking around at the flashing chaos that spun around him. He suddenly remembered something he heard his mother whispering to him in his dreams.

Harry sucked in his breath, and began to walk forward. "We're probably going to die, you know," he said. Godric seemed unimpressed by this statement.

Harry felt disconnected from reality. Everything was happening so quickly, so suddenly. The Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix couldn't really be waging a pitched battle on in the peat marsh valley of Bleaklow. Everything he felt and saw seemed like it was coming through a tunnel, filtered and distant.

Harry found Contessa lying unmoving on the ground. Her face was split open from left temple to right jawline, bleeding slowly. She was covered in mud and vomit. Near her lay a headless corpse. He thought Contessa was dead, too, until she moaned. Harry gripped her arm and an almost painful connection formed between them. He saw everything she had experienced over the past few hours, right through her eyes -- all in the span of a second.