Harry Potter and the Sword of Gryffindor

Chapter 33

[WARNING] This chapter contains violence.

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After making up his mind, Harry tore back toward the Willow, flinging himself into the yawning mouth of the dark tunnel underneath. Leaving Sirius to lie there on the grass under the calm moon had been the hardest decision he'd ever made and he found his misty eyesight blurred by tears as he ran. He swiped at his eyes with the back of the hand that held the Sword of Gryffindor.

He didn't see another shadow treading lightly but swiftly behind him into the tunnel.

It seemed no time at all and Harry was stepping out of the One-eyed Witch's hump back and into the third-floor corridor. He listened intently for sounds of the battle, hoping against hope that none of his friends were injured or worse, bitten. He thought of Professor Lupin's long years of dealing with the pain, the torment, the prejudice of lycanthropy. He thought of the difficult and delicate Wolfsbane potion and the deadly Chameleon Tea Flowers and he took off running again, his sides heaving. Somehow he had to find them.

It did not take him long.

Below the first flight of stairs he heard Hermione cast a spell, followed by a bang and low growl of anger. Whatever she had used, it hadn't worked on the werewolf. Harry rounded a corner of the hallway and came upon the two, but he could not tell which shape was the werewolf and which was Hermione. He had the riddle quickly solved for him, however, when Hermione screamed. Harry lunged toward the werewolf, driving it with the Sword back and away from his friend.

One cane technique Lupin had taught him was called "shorelining." Harry used it now with his left hand along the balustrade toward the moving staircase. Keeping the snarling werewolf back away from his body with the sharp point of the Sword, he drove it backward and then backward again, feeling for the edge with his cane, praying the stairs were where he hoped that they would be.

The cane tapped downward, far downward. Harry lunged forward with both sword and fists and the werewolf toppled backward over the side where the moving staircase might have been had it been locked in place at that moment. The scream of the werewolf as it fell to its doom would haunt Harry in his dreams for afterward, but right at that moment, he merely stood on the blank edge, panting.

"Harry," shuddered Hermione, moving to stand beside him and peering over the edge of the balustrade. "Let's go find the others."

Together they ran down the hallway, watching and listening. At one point they looked down a set of stairs to find Ron at the bottom pelting a werewolf, who was trapped in the trick sixth step, with not only curses but enchanted chess pieces. Harry laughed grimly as Hermione sketched briefly what was happening. The monster howled with rage as the chess pieces bit it on the nose and ears but it was powerless to free itself from its trap.

Hermione pulled Harry onward and without thinking he took her elbow, letting her guidance double his own speed. They found Fred and George standing side-by-side battling a single, large brute with a low, resonant snarl that very nearly shook the floor. It was advancing upon them with crazed bloodlust but Harry skewered it with his blade before it had a chance to realize he was there. He realized immediately that he had missed killing it and it turned on him with a howl of rage.

It was close to him, too close to use the Sword for another blow. He swung his cane at its head, knocking it briefly off balance, its warm blood spilling against his right hand as he withdrew the Sword from its body. From his pocket, he pulled the bubble magnifier and swung at the brute's head again just as it lunged for him. He connected strongly with its forehead, knocking it senseless. For a long moment everything seemed a blur of teeth and hair and blood as it fell and he plunged his blade again into its body. It lay in a tangled heap at his feet, dead.