A/N: Once again, thank you all sooo much for sticking with my story. I've seriously had way too many cp problems, and it's always when I'm about to submit a new chapter haha. Well, I hope you like this one, lemme know what you think!! As always I appreciate all my readers and everyone who has given me feedback to my story, it really is what keeps the writing going, so thank you all SO much. Enjoy!
Chapter Thirteen
"So, what was it exactly that your big mission was supposed to do?" Alyssa asked; she tore her eyes away from the frightening scene in front of them and heard Draco swallow before he answered.
"They were planning this, for one. I told Potter already, I'm surprised they've gotten this far."
Alyssa growled in reply and raised her right arm, palm facing the tents. Draco noticed her shoulders rise and fall as she took deep even breaths, and as she closed her palm into a fist, the flames died down until it was nothing but smoke. She stomped down the steps of the tent and looked around blindly.
"We have to find Harry," She started to say, before being interrupted by someone running at her from the left. She hadn't even braced herself when Draco calmly stepped in front of him and elbowed him in the face. Alyssa looked up at him and grinned slightly, "Thanks."
He looked over and paused; instead of seeing her shining violet eyes, they were now black. He flinched at the memories it caused him to have and nodded before looking away. "You're right," he mumbled nonchalantly. "We have to find him."
She ran from the tent, avoiding crashing into others as she did, and tried to ignore the look on Draco's face as her change in eye color registered to him. It wasn't like she could control it; they changed by themselves. Alyssa dodged bodies as she ran, but she didn't see Harry; it was hard to see anything, though, especially without the fire. Just as she turned to find Draco fighting off other Death Eaters, she was tackled to the ground and the wind was knocked out of her body. The first thing she noticed was that the guy was in a white T-Shirt – not in robes. She blinked before he jumped at her; she yelled out as she was tackled to the ground.
"Alyssa? Oh shit – I'm so sorry!"
"Alex? Jesus – get the hell off me!" She rolled the kinks out of her shoulders as Alex helped her up and he held her shoulders with his hands, "What were you thinking?" she questioned.
"I'm so sorry," he repeated, "I can't tell who anyone is in this mess."
"Where's Harry? Is he okay?"
Alex pulled her out of the way of flying curses and nodded his head, "He's fine; he's with Ron by the trees. This is it!" He said balling his fists, he grinned at her before running in the opposite direction with his wand raised. Alyssa jogged on, shoving people out of her way. She could see Harry in the distance but there were too many people in between them to get to him. She raised her hand as a curse came flying at her, and it ricocheted back at them. She scoffed to herself and searched her jeans looking for her wand; she eventually found it in her left boot and held it in her right hand tightly. She was thinking of what her next step should be when someone tapped her shoulder. Alyssa quickly whipped around and was the receiving end of a punch to the nose.
She cursed loudly and heard Pansy laugh at her. "That's for breaking my nose." She snarled.
Alyssa spat blood trailing from her nose to the ground and messily ran her hand across her face. At the same time they raised their wands at each other, ready to duel, but were distracted by an explosion not far from them. Alyssa stupidly chanced a glance at where it came from, and in the split second that she looked away, Pansy sent a curse at her. It hit her square in the chest and she flew backwards a few feet before landing hard on the ground.
She coughed loudly as she rolled over onto her stomach, feeling as if something cracked on the inside. Pansy walked calmly over to her and grabbed a handful of Alyssa's hair to pull her face up from the ground.
"Now, where's that lovely boyfriend of yours?" She teased, "I want him to watch."
Alyssa looked around as well, seeing that Draco wasn't too far away, surrounded by Death Eaters. He held his own, though, and sent curses at each one of them while simultaneously dodging the curses sent at him.
She threw an arm out to smack at Pansy's hand, and turned over on her back throwing her off balance. Alyssa sat up quickly, wrapping her arms around Pansy's waist and brought her down to the ground with her. She freed one arm and punched Pansy in the face, then twisted her arm backwards. Pansy stifled a scream as her arm was bent the wrong way and her wand fell out of her useless hand. It brought Alyssa extreme satisfaction as she stomped on and broke Pansy's wand.
The satisfaction left as quickly as it had come as the Cruciatus curse hit her from behind. Momentarily, she felt excruciating pain course through her body before she pushed it out. With a gasp, green light flooded out of her as the curse broke. She sat up, raising her hand towards the man who cursed her, and a white light shot at him. Hitting him square in the chest, he fell to the ground and lay motionless.
Alyssa turned her attention back to Pansy as she used her wand to bind her hands together. She gave her another good smack in the head before standing up.
She was surrounded. She had lost sight of anyone on her side and instead met the eyes of Death Eaters. They all had their wands pointed at her, already knowing what she was capable of. Alyssa paused; she slowly got her breath back as she thought of what to do now. She only had mere seconds, though. They all raised their wands, ready to attack.
Before one of them could shout out a spell, Alyssa raised her wand and a stream of flames shot out of it. She slowly spun around, creating a circle of fire around her. It got bigger and bigger until she couldn't see the people surrounding her; she could only hear the shouts and screams as the flames got closer to them. She held on for a few moments longer before setting her wand back down. There were much less standing bodies than the amount that had been before, and other fighting had resumed.
She finally caught sight of Harry and jogged over to him. He was busy dueling with three other Death Eaters, and he sent her a thankful smile as she joined in.
They fought together back to back; Alyssa sent a curse at one man with her wand, while blocking a curse with her free hand.
"Rictusempra!" Harry shouted, causing his target to fly backwards.
"Sectumsempra!" One of them shouted.
Alyssa moved to Harry's side, shouting "Protego!" to block the curse, followed by a swift hex to their attacker.
"Thanks," Harry mumbled as he got his breath back. For the time being, they weren't fighting anyone so Alyssa took the time to get caught up in what was going on.
"How much more are there?" She asked hopefully.
Harry shook his head, "Not many; John and his team ended up ambushing their campsite. That's why everyone ended up here."
Speaking of the devil, John ran towards them, pushing himself through the crowd. Once he reached them, Alyssa noticed he looked slightly paler than he had been earlier.
"Is everything all right?" Harry asked.
He sighed and looked at Alyssa, whose heart suddenly raced and her mouth dropped open. "What's wrong?" she demanded.
John shook his head before answering. "We've got a tent set up in the back for the injured… I just ran into two of your Romanian friends over there… They brought a girl with them."
Alyssa held onto her breath, "Who?" Harry asked for her.
John quirked his lips, "I want to say her name was… Jamie?"
"Oh, no…" Alyssa murmured. And without another moment's hesitation she took off running towards the tent John had told her about. She reached the back of their campsite and spotted it out quickly because it was the only tent that wasn't empty. Alex was in front of the tent, pacing back and forth and rubbing his forehead. She shouted his name as she ran up to get his attention.
"Jamie – is she okay? Is everything okay?" She asked immediately.
Alex looked worried, and for someone like him, that wasn't a good sign. Without waiting for him to answer she ran up the few steps and into the tent. There were only ten beds set up, and each person in there was being tended to by a Medi-Wizard. She scanned each of the beds with her eyes until she spotted Jamie and ran over to her bedside.
Jamie was conscious. That was good. "Oh, God – Jamie, are you okay?" Alyssa asked.
She winced as she took a potion that the Medi-Wizard had given her. Alyssa observed her face; she had a cut on her forehead, a busted lip, and Alyssa's eyes finally landed on the wound that was bleeding profusely on her stomach. This was exactly why Alyssa didn't want her friends fighting.
"That ugly fucking bitch," Jamie muttered through gritted teeth; if it was from the pain or being angry, Alyssa wasn't sure. "Came up from behind me and hit me over the head."
Alyssa's eyes darkened considerably, "Who was it? Jamie, who was it?"
"Dammit, Alyssa," She cursed, wincing again. "You didn't tell me how much this hurts."
"I need some help over here!" Someone shouted. Alyssa looked over as Ron came into the tent, dragging someone she didn't know in with him. Since she'd had some experience in hospitals, Alyssa rushed over and helped Ron carry him to another bed.
"What happened?" she asked.
"That bloody cutting curse." He snapped, "I swear, as much good as Snape did for us, he certainly knew how to spread word of his handy curses."
Alyssa's eyes raked over the man's body. He was sliced in the thigh, his chest, and his left arm. "Ron, get your wand out and start healing the cuts on his arm. Someone get me some gauze!" She shouted.
Ron got to work as someone handed her gauze. She ripped open the man's shirt and used her wand to wash away the access blood, before putting gauze on it and applying pressure with both hands. Once Ron was done with his arm, she moved on to do the same to his leg, while Ron healed his chest.
"Excuse me, miss?" Someone asked, tapping her shoulder. She turned around to see Jamie's Medi-Wizard looking at her. He seemed somewhat reluctant until she questioned him.
"Well, Jamie's said something, something about her attacker."
Alyssa left the man she was helping to rush back over to Jamie's side. "What is it, Jamie?" she asked. She observed her body again to notice that she wasn't bleeding from her stomach anymore, and sighed with relief.
"I recognized her from a picture in Harry's office," Jamie said quietly. "Her name was Parkinson, if I remember correctly."
Alyssa growled and closed her eyes. How the hell did Pansy manage to get loose? She scoffed loudly and stood up. "I'll be back, Jamie, I promise. You'll be fine, this man's gonna take good care of you."
She kissed her forehead and ran back out of the tent; Alex was no longer there. She ran back to where the fighting was and squinted through the darkness, noticing that there was a remarkably large downsize to the amount of people fighting. She saw Harry; he was dueling again with John by his side. Pushing further through the crowd, she also saw Alex and Eric fighting together, with Blaise not too far away. It was when Alyssa heard that usual shriek of laughter that she finally found Pansy. She was dueling Ginny, who was bright red in the face from anger.
Alyssa ran up to Pansy, and without pausing to think about it, she spun her around by her shoulders and hit her in the face. Pansy recoiled quickly, and laughed when she saw Alyssa. The look was immediately wiped off her face, though, when Alyssa punched her again in the nose. Then she rose her leg and kicked her in the stomach, sending her straight to the ground.
"You fucking bitch," Alyssa muttered.
As she went to give her another swift kick in the ribs for good measure, a pair of arms gripped her shoulders and threw her away from Pansy. It was some guy she'd never seen before. As Alyssa tried regaining her balance, the man shot a curse at her. She was lifted off the ground and landed several feet back on her side.
With her current position on the ground, and the little time given, Alyssa looked at Pansy who was trying to get up and sent a beam of white light in her direction, hitting her in the chest.
The man standing above her looked over at Pansy and looked back at Alyssa. He scrunched his ugly face up and stomped on Alyssa's hand. She shouted out as she felt the bones in her fingers crack. He bent over and pulled her up by the hair, and when she struggled against him he hit her in the face. He pulled out his wand from his pocket and held it to her throat. Alyssa winced again as he gripped harder on her hair and closed her eyes, waiting for the worst.
The man paused and started turning his head to look to the left. Without hesitation, Alyssa grabbed her wand and apparated.
The only problem with apparition is that you always have to have your mind set on where you intended on going. Alyssa had no idea where she was going; the only thought in her head was to get away from the man trying to kill her. The next time she opened her eyes, she hit a body of water and sunk in ten feet below. Alyssa had never been in a near drowning situation, but as the water filled her lungs, and as she choked and sputtered with no oxygen inside, she found that this would be her first and last experience. Her eyes flew open but she saw nothing but black, and heard nothing but silence.
She kicked her legs with all the energy she had left. The silence of the water was deafening; loud nothing. She strained to keep her eyes open but it was so dark in the water and above the water that all she saw was a tiny patch of midnight blue of the surface of the water. The patch got bigger and bigger as she kicked harder and harder, and as her eyes fluttered shut and her strength ebbed away, she finally broke the surface. Alyssa coughed and spluttered, and squinted her eyes to see which way was shore before getting her breath back and swimming.
When her feet touched sand, she stood for a minute and waited for her heartbeat to slow down. Looking around, Alyssa had no idea where she was. She didn't know that there was a lake near their campsite. She didn't even know if she was close to the campsite at all. She took a few steps forward, baring her shoulders to the cool night air. Alyssa shivered. She weakly made her way to shore, and plopped down, clutching her broken hand in her lap.
"Good going, Alyssa." She sarcastically mumbled to herself. She also realized that she lost her wand; probably to the lake.
She held her good hand out to conjure some light but a noise from directly ahead of her stopped her. She let her arm fall back to her side and stared intently at the dark shadows the trees created. Finally, she heard the sound of running footsteps. Alyssa instinctively took a few steps back. Whatever was running, it was running towards her. When she finally saw motion, Alyssa raised her hand and emitted a ball of flames.
"Who's there?" She shouted.
"Wait!" a girl shouted back at her. "Don't shoot!"
Alyssa paused and straightened up, moving her hand to the side.
Only about three seconds had passed as the moonlight exposed Trish running full speed at Alyssa. It had barely registered in Alyssa's mind that it was her, until Trish grabbed her broken hand and kept running.
Alyssa practically screamed in pain and stopped short from running to clutch her hand. "What the hell are you doing?!" She shouted.
"RUN!" Trish shouted, barely looking back as she ran.
Confused, Alyssa looked back over her shoulder at the trees. Suddenly she could see at least fifteen lights coming her way, which she assumed were the lit wands of Death Eaters. She took off after Trish, who was headed into another dark patch of woods. It became an instant struggle to fight off wayward branches, roots, and sticks and they could barely see a thing, save for the small amount of light coming from Trish's wand.
"What the hell – did you do – to get these – ugh! – Death Eaters running after you?!" Alyssa shouted through clenched teeth as she fought through the trees.
"To make a long story short," Trish broke off as she tripped over a root and regained her footing, "I set fire to a shit-load of tents while they were inside!"
Laughter threatened to escape from Alyssa's mouth as they continued to run. "That's awesome!" She shouted instead.
As they ran through the woods Alyssa looked back to see trees being blasted out of the way as the Death Eaters ran after them. It wasn't too long before they reached an opening and sped through. Trish was about ten paces ahead of Alyssa, who looked back once more, saw nothing, and then collided into what felt like another tree.
She hit the ground and shook the hair out of her face to look above her.
Draco reached down and grabbed her hand, hoisting her up. "Get behind me." He said quickly, shoving her back.
"Draco," she started; she had not seen him since they got separated. He ignored her, though, and instead he focused on the direction she had came from with his wand raised. She looked around and saw that there were five others with him, including John, Alex, Dan, Ron, and Harry. They were all lined up next to each other, as if expecting what was coming towards them.
Although Alyssa partly hated herself for doing it, she realized they'd be outnumbered and got in line with them (slightly behind Draco because she knew it'd annoy him if she didn't obey what he said). Trish was standing a few feet behind her. Trish's hands were shaking and her face looked as pale as a ghost, but she stood her ground with her wand raised.
The next events happened very quickly.
There was an enormous fire set to the trees, the men looked up, momentarily distracted and it was more than fifteen Death Eaters that ran out of the woods and surrounded them. Curses were shot out instantly and it was every man for themselves as people dove, ducked, ran and jumped to dodge each blow. The small cleared area was now filled with blue, red, green and white lights coming from every wand, and everything else was a mass of unidentifiable people running around in chaos.
The numbers slowly but steadily dwindled. Dan was laying on the ground, his arm injured; Draco and Ron stood back to back as they fought off Death Eaters; Harry was struggling with one, trying to get them down to the ground; Alyssa attempted blocking curses from hitting anyone on their side, and she could not focus on anything else.
It wasn't until they were almost even in combat when Alyssa heard the unforgiveable.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Alyssa tried shoving someone out of the way to see where the curse was shot but he wouldn't budge. Without thinking she hit them with her good fist, a blast of light shot through her and into the person and they went soaring away. Then she was hit from the side and fell over and into the ground.
It was finally silent. No one else was shouting, and there were no more jets of light flying around. Someone helped Alyssa up and she looked up to see it was Alex. But he wasn't looking at her; he was looking behind her and looked slightly pale, his face drawn into a stern look. She pulled away, more sharply than she intended to turn around and follow his line of sight.
Alyssa's heart sunk in her chest and she took a few steps forward. Lying maybe ten feet away from her was Trish. Her eyes were opened, and so was her mouth in exclamation. Her wand was still in her hand.
"NO!" Someone shouted suddenly. Dan ran forward and fell to his knees beside Trish. As if in shock, he slowly reached out a hand to place on her forehead, and his shoulders slumped. Alex followed suit; his eyes were wide and brimming with tears as he struggled to force down the tremor that coursed through his body. Alyssa finally took a breath she didn't notice she was holding, and realized tears were falling from her eyes. She walked as far as she could before her knees gave out, and she practically crawled the rest of the way to Trish's lifeless body. She ran her fingers through Trish's soft, dark brown hair. Dan closed her eyes with shaking fingertips. Behind them, John conjured up a stretcher. Alyssa felt sick.
She fell back onto her bottom and struggled to force herself back up in a standing position. She turned around, and Draco met her in an instant. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her to him as sobs wrenched through her chest. Sound started to muffle down, and her surroundings seemed to fade away. Alyssa didn't know how long it was that she cried into Draco's shirt until her sobs began to die out. Then the only thing she was aware of was the sound and steady rise and fall of Draco's chest as he breathed.
Suddenly his voice broke through the silence. "It's all over," he said soothingly, "I'm taking you home."