✔️ 𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 → 𝑐.𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

26 | R E D E M P T I O N

  CAUGHT IN blasting red light, Charlie Weasley witnessed things happening in nothing but silhouettes against this blinding explosion. Screams were echoing all over the field, Death Eaters bursted out of their formation, running away as fast as their feet could drag them. Bellatrix Lestrange's wand was gone, and so was the woman herself, rushing through the light, forward to her master. As Charlie watched her, someone was jumping forward, and he didn't even know if he was hallucinating at this point, but that someone didn't hold a wand. He held a sword, and a second later Voldemort's snake was beheaded.

   Charlie, no longer captured by Bellatrix, rushed forward as well, deeper into the light, aiming at the source of it ...

   The light died so sudden, Charlie thought it must have been sucked into a black hole, and surprised, he stopped, scanning this new situation.

   The snake was dead, it's headless corpse towered by Neville Longbottom, who, in fact, held a sword in his dirt and blood crusted hands. Harry's corpse was gone, and people yelled again, not only because the remainings of their chosen one had vanished into nothingness, but another obscure detail in this whole situation that was just so impossible ...

   Where Anastasia Voinescu's corpse was supposed to lay, the young woman was still standing upright, not a scratch marking her beautiful face. She seemed to be as shocked by this as anyone else, but no one on this whole battlefield could feel as relieved as Charlie Weasley.

   "Well", Ana spoke into the silence that had followed those screams of shock, "that didn't go as planned, Tom."

   And she raised her arms, her hands jolting forward in a flash of a motion — and nothing happened.

   "Wha—"

   Hell broke loose. While Ana stared at her hands in painful disbelief, Voldemort raised his wand, aiming at her for the second time, and Charlie had a feeling that this time he wouldn't fail to seal her fate. He spotted towards her, but as he did, he knew he wouldn't be with her in time.

   All around him the remaining Death Eaters were under attack of the survivors of Hogwarts, and Charlie had to duck from spells and curses, his own wand trying to aim at Voldemort, impossible to to without having someone else jumping in the way. Then arrows started hailing from the sky, as galloping Centaurs entered the battlefield, and Charlie speeders up with all he could, but there was a flash of green breaking from Voldemort's wand, aiming at Ana ...

   "NO!", Charlie screamed out, but Ana was thrown off her feet, landing with her back on the ground. It was happening so fast. Too fast.

   When Charlie reached finally reached Ana, he found her buried under Fred's sheltering body, and his lips parted, when Fred pushed himself back to his feet, then reaching out his hand and pulling up a startled, but whole and healthy young woman.

   "Now we're square", Fred told her with a smirk, even winking at her to make this situation more surreal than it already was. "Wait until I tell my grandchildren about this." He laughed, then looked at Charlie. "You've got this now, I assume? I'm going to beat some asses. George! Georgie, wait for me!", he yelled after his twin, following him into the Great Hall.

   Charlie had no time to cope with what has happened, as Ana's knees started to buckle and give in.

   "Ana!", he yelled, catching her as she crashed against his chest, closing his arms around her small body, guiding her to the ground, as he pressed her against himself.

   "What is happening to me?", she asked, her voice sounding weaker than anything he had ever heard before. "What has happened to my powers?"

   Charlie had no answer to this question. "It's alright", he whispered at her, hearing the battle sounds from the fight that has moved into the castle once more. "We will find out, Ana. We will find a solution to get them back —"

   She shook her head. "I don't want them back", she said, and Charlie blinked at her in surprise. "I feel ... I feel tired, Charlie. I feel so tired. Is this the way humans feel?"

   "You've never been less than a human, Ana", Charlie tried to reassure her, but she shook her head.

   "I can feel them now. All of them", she spoke in barely more than a breath. "Their fear and their pain. All the horror I did to them and their families. There's blood on my hands I will never get rid of, Charlie. I am no better than him. Like Voldemort. Maybe I am even worse. I am a monster."

   "You are not", Charlie told her, watching the lights in her eyes grow dim. "You're here with me. You were about to die for me, Ana. What kind of a monster would do that?" He paused, as her eyes fluttered shut. "There had always been hope for you, Ana. Dumbledore knew it. That's why he sent me to you. And the second I met you, I knew he had been right."

   Ana's pale lips curled into a smile, though her amber eyes remained shut.

   "Stay with me", he begged her. "I will get you to the hospital. I will make sure you'll be fine. Everything will be fine."

   She was breathing calmly, the smile still on her face, but she didn't answer. Pressing her tighter to his chest, Charlie heared the cheers booming from the castle, not knowing if it were the Death Eaters or his own people. He threw a look at the castle, saw people rushing out of there; people dressed in black, unmasked, trying to escape ...

   "It is over, Ana", he whispered at her, not knowing if she did still hear his words. "The war is won. They have defeated him. Your sacrifice was the spark they needed to burn him and his fellows to ashes."

   His heart skipped a relieved beat, as he noticed her smile growing wider.

   "I am glad I didn't murder you back then, Charlie Weasley", she mumbled, then her body fully sacked into his arms, and the grin faded as her head lolled to the side and silence fell once more over the grounds of Hogwarts.

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