Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [7]

⚡️ Chapter 37 ⚡️

"RUN!"

The night was full of hideous yells and blows as the giants wrestled, and Vega seized Hermione's hand and tore down the steps into the grounds, Harry and Ron bringing up the rear. Vega had not lost hope of finding and saving Hagrid; she ran so fast that they were halfway toward the forest before they were brought up short again. The air around them had frozen: Vega's breath caught and solidified in her chest.

Shapes moved out in the darkness, swirling figures of concentrated blackness, moving in a great wave towards the castles, their faces hooded and their breath rattling... Harry, Ron and Hermione closed in beside Vega as the sounds of fighting behind them grew suddenly muted, deadened, because a silence only dementors could bring was falling thickly through the night.

"Come on, Harry, Vega!" Hermione shouted. "Patronuses, Vega, Harry, come on!"

Vega raised her wand, but a dull hopelessness was spreading throughout her: How many lay dead that she did not yet know about? She felt as though her soul had already half left her body. She tried to mutter the charm but she couldn't. It was very distressing to be this hopeless.

"VEGA! HARRY, COME ON!"

A hundred dementors were advancing, gliding toward them, sucking their way closer to Vega's despair, which was like a promise of a feast. Vega aw Ron's silver terrier burst into the air, flicker feebly, and expire; she saw Hermione's otter twist in mid-air and fade, Harry could not move his wand and Vega's own wand trembled in her hand, and she almost welcomed the oncoming oblivion, the promise of nothing, of no feeling.

And then a silver hare, a boar, and fox soared past Vega, Harry, Ron, and Hermione's heads: The dementors fell back before the creatures' approach. Three more people had arrived out of the darkness to stand beside them, their wands outstretched, continuing to cast Patronuses: Luna, Ernie, and Seamus.

"That's right," Luna said encouragingly, as if they were back in the Room of Requirement and this was simply spell practice for the D.A. "That's right, Vega, Harry... come on, think of something happy..."

"Something happy?" Harry said, his voice cracked.

"We're all still here," Luna whispered. "We're still fighting. Come on, now ..."

There were two silver sparks, then wavering lights, and then, with the greatest effort it had ever cost her, Vega's Thunderbird burst from the end of her wand and a stag from Harry's. Vega watched in silence as her Patronus flew to the Dementors, making them scatter in earnest, and immediately the night was mild again, but the sounds of the surrounding battle were loud in her ears.

"Can't thank you enough," Ron said shakily, turning to Luna, Ernie, and Seamus. "You just saved –"

With a roar and an earth-quaking tremor, another giant came lurching out of the darkness from the direction of the forest, brandishing a club taller than any of them.

"RUN!" Vega shouted again.

But the others needed no telling; They all scattered, and not a second too soon, for the next moment the creature's vast foot had fallen exactly where they had been standing. Vega looked around: Harry, Ron and Hermione were following right behind her, but the other three had vanished back into the battle. She hoped they would remain safe.

"Let's get out of range!" Ron yelled as the giant swung its club again and its bellows echoed through the night, across the grounds were bursts of red and green light continued to illuminate the darkness.

"The Whomping willow," Vega shouted. "Go!"

Somehow, Vega walled it all up in her mind, crammed it into a small space into which she could not look now: thoughts of Hagrid, and her terror for all the people she loved, scattered in and outside the castle, must all wait, because they had to run, had to reach the snake and Voldemort, because that was, as Hermione said, the only way to end it –