It's not easy to explain, but . . .

Chapter 65

                                       Chapter 65 : One down, one to go.

Emma looked over at Tom, who was laughing hysterically, rocking back and forth on his chair.  Her eyebrow slowly rose and then she sighed, shaking her head.

"What is WRONG with you?" she asked, as he tried to catch his breath.

"It 's just . . .  just . . . " he gasped. "Can you imagine Helena and Helen working out that scene with Greg?  They would have had such fun!"  And he was off on another fit of giggles.

"Greg? Who is that?" Sirius asked.

"The stunt coordinator," answered Rupert.  "See, it's his job to make all the physical action look real and he stages all the fights, duels, all the bits where we actually have to do physical things.  Actually, sometimes it's so dangerous, we had stunt people take our places, dressed to look like us, but much less likely to get hurt . . .  they do this sort of thing for a living."

"But would Helen and Helena, whom I assume played Bella and myself, have actually done this scene in person . . . and the one playing me . . . " Narcissa looked at Tom.

"Helen . . . McCrory," Tom informed her.

"She would actually hit . . . Helena . . . Bella?"  Narcissa asked, eyes wide in question.

"Oh, no . . . well, maybe accidentally, if Helena didn't move just right . . . here, Rupert . . . punch me," said Tom, as he stood and looked over to his red-headed friend.

"Okay . . . ready?"   Rupert stood and turned to face Tom, who nodded.

Rupert pulled back his arm and then swung at Tom, who jerked his head, just as Dan smacked his own hands together to give a bit of sound effects to the movement.   There were gasps, but as Tom turned back to face the audience, he was grinning.

"He never touched me, but with added sound effects,"  he turned and bowed to Dan.  "It looked, for all the world, as if Rupert just cleaned my clock."

"Cleaned his clock?" Fred repeated.

"Nice turn of phrase," agreed George.

"Write that down," suggested Fred.

"Got it,"  George replied, even as he pulled a bit of parchment from his pocket.

"Anyway,"  Emma gave the twins a look and then continued.  "It seems the whole series of separate fights were slowly migrating toward the courtyard in front of the Great Hall.  Did any Death Eaters manage to get into the school?"

"They did," Harry informed them. "The ones fighting their way from the greenhouses were 'pushing' my group back along the walkway toward the Great Hall and the biggest group, now that the other groups had joined together, was in the Cobblestone Courtyard and it was splitting; half heading toward our group and the rest heading into the Staircase Tower."

"The ones who had stayed behind on the causeway to move the dead giants off, and despite the constant, persistent and painful bombardment from Sybil, had almost made it to the Entrance Courtyard by then, too," added Hermione.

X X X

Just before the Death Eaters from the greenhouses made it across the viaduct, Neville's group joined up with Harry's, having sprinted thru the archway from the Cobblestone Courtyard.

"Ah, the Weasley re-enforcements have arrived," laughed Victor, as Bill smiled and clapped him on the back in greeting.

"How's it going, Victor?" asked the oldest Weasley sibling, firing off a Jinx at the Death Eaters working their way toward them.