#*sparkly

The younger students queue at the door, shivers running through them like electric shocks. Zacharias Smith (tall, blond, afraid) runs towards them, fights through them without pause for their feelings. His eyes are wild and he is driven by some force of desperation. A hand shoots out and catches his arm, pulls him to a halt. It is Colin Creevey (just as blond, just as afraid).

“Zach?”

“I’m not going,” he responds quietly, head bent to the younger boy’s level. “I’ll be back. You get out safely.” It is an order, and the Gryffindor snaps to attention, his eyes only slightly mocking. It’s some sort of automatic reaction – a seventh year tells you to do something, you do it.

“Of course.”

“Seriously, Colin,” Zach says, his brown eyes serious, and then he’s turning, calling over his shoulder, “I don’t care if you’re almost seventeen - get out now.”

(He wonders, later, if he knew at the time that that would never happen.)

Zach hits the stairs and sprints up them, turns along twisting corridors and bangs through shortcuts. He encounters Peeves, but the poltergeist takes one look at the frantic expression on the Hufflepuff’s face and leaves him alone.

The room of requirement materialises almost immediately and he bursts in. there is nobody there (everyone is in the Great Hall). He hurries to the portrait of the girl and she beckons him forward. He runs down the tunnel, appears in the Hogs Head, and trips spectacularly over the step at the entrance. Aberforth, who is lazily looking out of the window at the flashes in the sky, smirks.

Zach disappears with a crack of displaced air.

*

Justin strolls leisurely across one of the many squares inside Eton College. He is in rather more casual clothes than normal (which is a blessing) - a short blazer with the school crest on the pocket, black trousers, smartly shined shoes. The night is bitter and his breaths teams in front of him, and he rubs his hands together and thinks of a fire, warm in his dorm. His friend Nicolas runs one hand through his hair and says something about the pretty new maid, and Justin resists the urge to kick something. Not because of Nick, of course - it really isn’t his fault – but because of the buzz in the air, the feeling that something has to break.

There is a crack of displaced air; a figure arrives, silhouetted by the lamp post.

Justin, already on edge, has his wand out within seconds and, ignoring his muggle friend’s shout of alarm, he pushes the wizard against the lamp post. The light falls onto the man’s (boy?) face and Justin falters for a second, then his wand digs into the man’s (boy?) neck more securely.

He laughs weakly. “Justin, hey.”

Justin manages to hide a smile. “Not much of a welcome, I’m afraid, but you can’t be too careful these days.”

Nicolas, who seems to have been forgotten by the other two, stares wildly.

“My name is Zacharias Smith, everyone calls me Zach,” Zach is saying, “I have been going out with Lisa Turpin since I asked her to the Yule Ball in fourth year and she hexed me. I told you I loved her under the influence of some serious alcohol in fifth year, and you promptly told Ernie, who pestered me for months to tell her.” He takes a breath, “You are madly in love with Susan Bones and you finally managed admit it to her this summer after Padma told you she’d kill you otherwise, and our best friend is called Ernie Macmillan.” A pause. “Oh! I once called Michael Corner a bastard in the library and he and Terry Boot cursed me with something that nobody could find out how to undo, and they wouldn’t tell me until I apologised.”

Justin laughs and relaxes, moving away. He nearly puts away his wand in his blazer, but Zach’s hand shoots out and grabs his arm. “Don’t put away your wand, Finch. I’m not here for a social visit.”

For the first time, Justin notices the heavy bags under his friend’s blue eyes, the scars that slide across his face like lace, the bruises, the new lines.

His face shuts down, his eyes shutter slightly. “Susan?”

“No,” replies Zach. “We’re fighting. Potter’s turned up, they’re barricading the school. Proper fighting, Justin!”

Justin whirls, turns to Nicolas, who is looking almost afraid, his eyes flicking from the wand in his hand and back to his face. He snaps; “Nick, listen to me very carefully. Get to Henry Chatswire. Tell him that Justin Finch-Fletchley needs him to get the Princes out. He’s two years below us, you know, tall, dark haired. It’s really important.”

“Why? What-” the poor boy says, but Justin looks serious. “Now, Nick! Tell him that they’re fighting. Harry and William need to get out as soon as possible if it all goes to shit.”

Zach looks at him in something approaching awe as Nicolas sprints to the door at the other end of the courtyard. “Christ, Justin. You don’t mean-”

“Of course I do. If the Death Eaters win, which is very possible, they’re going to go after the Muggles, aren’t they. In which case, the Royal family need out.”

They Disapparate. Nicolas Bosworth runs through the corridors of the esteemed college at 10 o clock at the weekend, searching desperately for some guy called Henry Chatswire (Chatswire? Was that the new kid? What was it with new kids this year?), and he has honestly no idea why.

*

They arrive in the small dingy pub, and Zach immediately takes over, leading Justin through the secret passage into the room, and from there to the Great Hall. People are running everywhere as they prepare; they bump into Michael, Terry and Anthony, who are leaning outside the library, intensely discussing something in a language neither of the Hufflepuffs understand. They see Neville shouting orders, and Lavender Brown shepherding younger students out of the castle. Justin sees the differences in people’s faces; the way that everyone obeys the seventh years without question, the cuts, the scar lancing across Anthony’s face, the bruises that render Seamus almost unrecognisable, Michael’s arm around Padma’s slim waist (when did that happen?) and the way that Hannah can’t move her arm above her shoulder.

“What happened?” he whispers as he enters the Great Hall.

“Snape happened. The Carrows happened.” Zach looks at him with something that is almost sympathy. “We aren’t the same people that you saw in September, we just aren’t.”

Justin opens his mouth to answer, some sort of witty, oh don’t be so dramatic, Smith type comment lingering on the tip of his tongue, but before he can say it he is almost knocked over by someone flying into him at top speed. He gasps as he recognises Susan, her arms wrapped tightly around his midriff and her face buried in his neck; shoulders shaking with tearless sobs. She whispers his name over and over as he pushes his face into her thick black hair, and she lifts her head and pulls him into a deep kiss. It is one that, when reluctantly broken, leaves them both breathless. He smiles at her.

“I missed you.”

She kisses him again; he can feel her smiling. Finally Justin pulls away, holds her at arm’s length and looks her up and down. His eyes alight on a deep cut, which stretches in an almost artistic curl from just below her ear, and disappears into her shirt. He runs one thumb along it contemplatively and she shivers, whether from residue pain or pleasure he can’t tell.

“Who did this to you?” he asks flatly. “I’ll kill them.”

Susan sighs and tugs him out of the hall. They plunge into the swarm of activity, winding in and out of people, and she drags him into a nearby alcove. She unbuttons her crisp white shirt with shaking fingers; the cut extends between her breasts and across her stomach, curving almost gracefully around her slim waist to her back. He winces, bending his dark curly head to kiss along it gently to her collarbone and then he sighs, resting his forehead on the pale stretch of skin.

“The Carrows,” she said grimly, “were talented with their curses.” She laughs bitterly; he hates the noise coming out of her mouth. It seems almost (although not really) appropriate coming from Zach, but not from the delicate, pretty, feminine Susan. “They saved the best for the pretty ones.”

He does up her shirt silently and kisses her, his hands trapped between them. He clasps her hands for a second, tightly, and then forces a smile.

“Let’s see how many of these bastards we can kill,” he says, and she smiles, a sort of wry, almost patronizing smile that makes him wonder, for a second, if there’s something she’s not telling him.

*

Neville walks towards them swiftly, looking harried. “Justin,” he greets, shaking hands distractedly (shaking hands? What the hell…) He turns to Zach and Wayne Hopkins, who are standing with them. “Zach, Wayne, we need you in the grounds. Justin,” he nods, “doors? Ernie’s there already.” he doesn’t pause for an answer. “Lisa, we need you at the top of Ravenclaw tower, go see Terry, and Susan, doors as well. Ok, good.”

He leaves. Justin gapes. “Was that Longbottom?”

Zach laughs. “Yep.” He brushes a gentle kiss across Lisa’s lips, looking into her eyes for a brief second before pulling himself away with a simple “keep yourself safe.” He smiles tightly for a second and, with a lurch, Justin realises that he doesn’t expect to see her again, and how serious this is.

Justin Finch-Fletchley doesn’t do serious. He does gils, and the sorts of parties where you can wake up next to a Duchess and not remember anything of the night before. He does not do serious, yet here he is.

 Zach puts a hand on Justin’s shoulder for a second, touches Susan’s hand, and Wayne smiles at them all and then they are gone.

Susan turns to Lisa, who says, “I’d better go see Terry. He’ll know what to do.” The two girls laugh, as if at a private joke that only they understand, and they hug, tightly.

*

Susan stands with all her weight placed on her right leg. It is a habit that all the DA have picked up from someone (she is not quite sure who, although something tells her that it’s one of the Ravenclaws) and it makes a fast push off point if you have to run.

They are standing in a group by the doors and her internal clock ticks quietly along with everyone else’s, counting down the seconds and-

It’s midnight. The sky outside is a dark blue, although she can’t see it and at the moment that Hogwarts explodes, Susan Bones meets Justin Finch-Fletchley’s eyes. They are brown and intense and for a brief millisecond he winks at her, just a flicker (of course he does – it’s the kind of wink that says I know you and you know me), and she feels a smile growing on her face–

The sir is rent apart. The ceiling almost seems to disappear and there are bodies flying everywhere; she is tossed backwards as easily as a rag doll, smacking into one of the stone walls with a crack as her head hits its unforgiving surface. She feels abruptly sick as she struggles to her feet and the world spins, the floor ducking and diving under her feet like the deck of a ship. Her wand is nevertheless in her hand within seconds; a small trickle of blood dribbles down her cheek. Over the noise she hears a high insane cackle.

Bellatrix Lestrange enters the fray. Her black curls are wild and fly across her face as quickly as her wand slashes through the air. She cackles again and Susan feels a chill run down her spin as she sees, with a jolt of horror, Ernie Macmillan disappear under a swarm of hexes. Terry Boot (Terry is invincible) is cut down with an unthinking swish and flick; he drops like a marionette that has had its strings cut. Susan ducks a jet of green light and rolls, sending her own shooting into the back of a black robed Death Eater as Michael Corner falls (Michael! Down!), hands clutched to a face that is covered in bright red blood.

Bellatrix carves a path of destruction through the chaos and she enjoys it; the cruellest killer that had ever existed, the Hufflepuff thinks.

It happens in slow motion. Susan sees him run at her, the first one to take her on in front. Her wand comes up, she smiles, the watchers cry a warning. She curses him; the Latin resonates for a second in Susan’s mind before she begins to run. He falls.

((evanscor))

They were never taught it in the DA. Neville asked Tony and Terry (ohgodterry) whether they would teach them it; they replied that it was so old, so arcane, that even they didn’t know it and even if they did, they wouldn’t.

It was terrifying in its simplicity. It did something so straightforward that nobody had thought of it until the middle ages, and then it was banned, ostracised.

It vanishes the heart.

She fights her way to him; Bellatrix moves on, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake. The other Death Eaters bob in the slipstream, picking off the survivors who are injured. They don’t see Susan, she darts behind anything that it still, trying not to looks at the faces of bodies littered across the cracked paving stones. She shoots a curse and drops to her knees. They smart but she doesn’t care; she pulls him onto her lap. A droplet of blood is sitting at the corner of his mouth and she wipes it away, tears falling onto his face like raindrops. Real raindrops fall from the sky above them and he smiles shakily as he heaves one last breath, eyes staring at the midnight stars.

*

The ceasefire is called, and they count the deaths.

Justin. Jack Sloper. Terry Boot. Anthony Goldstein. Dean Thomas. Wayne. Ernie. LisaPadmaParvati. Blaise. Theo. Justin. JustinJustinJustin…

His name echoes as she tries to keep herself busy, but it resonates within her mind, reverberates so that everywhere she looks it is etched on the walls.

Neville saves them all, Harry finishes it.

It is over, in so many ways.

The midnight hour is finished, but it lingers in the scar that pulls Mike’s handsome face out of shape and the pain in his eyes, in the gashes across Lavender’s body as she is rushed to St Mungos, and the way that there are two empty spots by Justin’s body where Ernie and Wayne should be.

Nicolas Bosworth never quite understood why he ran for the Princes that night, but on the 5th of May 1998 he receives a letter, written in a pretty feminine hand that nonetheless scrawls across the page messily, as though the hands were shaking to badly to hold the pen.

Dear Nicolas, it reads, and his eyebrows rise to his hairline.

I was in love with your friend, and you did him a great service the other night. He will not be returning to Eton next term, but I would like you to know that he really did like you, Zach said. I would like to thank you for looking after him when we could not, and I would like to invite you to the memorial on the 4th of August this year. I think he would have liked you to be there.

Yours sincerely,

Susan Bones

He straightened his own white cuffs self-consciously (the colour was odd on him, and felt odd; it made him feel exposed and obvious, even though everybody else at the funeral was dressed in exactly the same way). Next to him, his sister blinked furiously, not wanting to ruin the day by crying, and on her other side his mother stood tall and brave, her eyes fixed on his father’s face. He had known by ten years old that to cry was, whilst not shameful in the privacy of your own home, not something to do when everyone’s eyes were on you.

And there were many eyes. His father was (had been) a popular man, a clever and brave man, a man who was greatly appreciated in Idris, and hundreds had turned out to watch him burn.

“Ave atque vale, Caelus Greymark,” said Lucian’s mother, and touched the burning torch to the pyre.

It lit immediately, catching as though it couldn’t wait to burn him. The smoke was grey and sooty and burned Lucian’s eyes, making them sting as though with tears. Amatis, next to him, had given up the fight; fourteen was too young for her to care and tears streamed freely down her face. Lucian took her hand, and his mother took the other. They stood in a chain, joined tightly; Lucian’s mother’s shoulders were tense and she looked as though something very heavy was balanced on her head; if she swayed even the tiniest bit it could fall and smash. Maybe it was her heart.

Across from Lucian, in the crowd, a girl with red hair like the flames that now licked his father’s body shot him a sympathetic glance and though he didn’t react, Lucian felt his heart grow a little warmer. The girl’s name was Jocelyn Fairchild, and they had begun school together six years before – they had been best friends long before that. Lucian could still remember watching her pull out a Seraph blade for the first time, aged six, and flipping it neatly in her hands as though it was a twig that they used to fence with in the garden behind her manor. They had got their first marks together; hers stood out against her pale skin, gentle spirals of black that disappeared down her collar and protruded ever so slightly from her sleeves. Next to her were her parents, her father stony faced and her mother bleary eyed with tiredness, all of them in white. The scarlet runes that entwined gently around their cuffs and collars seemed to sing of some deep sorrow. They called to him gently, comforting and reassuring.

Jocelyn caught his eye again and smiled weakly. All of a sudden Lucian just wanted all of this to be over; his father was gone and that was that. They knew it was going to happen eventually. Everyone here spent their lives on the brink, a waiting that was at the same time dreadful and also the only thing they knew.

Behind Jocelyn, even further back, was a boy Lucian counted as among his closest friends. He was tall and handsome, with hair so pale it was almost while and cheekbones (as Lucian’s mother used to say, half-jokingly) that you could grate cheese on. He caught Lucian’s eye as well and nodded, one man to another, and Lucian felt strangely comforted by his stony expression. He knew that whatever happened, Valentine would be there for him to scream and rage at when it was all over.

And then, just as suddenly as the death itself, it was all over. Amatis dropped his hand as swiftly as was humanely possible and Lucian pulled it to him, trying to massage some feeling back into his numb fingers. It was December, and freezing; even the runes of warmth hastily scrawled on his inner arm couldn’t hide that. People began to trickle away, murmuring condolences as they passed, but they didn’t linger. There was no point. There were other things to do, and this, whilst being a tragedy, was not the worst that could happen. At least, people said, it had been quick; at least, people said, it hadn’t been one of the children. At least, he thought dryly, it hadn’t been him. Ha-bloody-ha. Lucian patted Amatis on the shoulder, briefly, before falling into easy step next to Jocelyn.

“Aren’t you staying with your mother?” she asked, quietly. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye; he had his hands shoved deep into his white trouser pockets. Everything about him was familiar, his walk, the fall of his hair, the shade of his eyes.

“Nah,” Lucian replied, just as quietly. “I thought I’d leave her to it.”

Behind them they heard hurried footsteps, and then Valentine was on Lucian’s left, clapping him on the shoulder with one hand. He was taller than him and wider too, though it was all muscle. Lucian mused to himself that there were never any fat Shadowhunters. Maybe those with an inclination towards heaviness were shot at birth.

He instantly felt awful.

“Alright, Greymark?” Valentine asked, his hand still on Lucian’s shoulder, which shrugged.

“Alright, Morgenstern,” he said. Valentine raised his white eyebrows at Jocelyn over Lucian’s head (he could sense it but he ignored it).

“We’ll find the demons that did it,” he promised, nudging Lucian’s shoulder with his own. Lucian shrugged again. It was unlike him to be so quiet, Jocelyn thought, and exchanged another look with Valentine. “We’ll kill them,” the blond boy continued, not breaking eye contact. “All of them.”

“Isn’t that what we do anyway?” Lucian pointed out, but he did feel slightly reassured by the comment nonetheless. For some reason he always felt like whatever Valentine promised, he meant. It was something about his speech pattern; it was lilting and persuasive.

“I meant us,” Valentine elaborated. “The Circle.”

“The Circle?” Lucian asked, curiously. “Is that what we’re called now? I thought it was ‘the fantastic fifteen’ or something similarly depressing.”

Valentine snorted with barely supressed laughter.

“Did you see Mayrse and Robert?” Jocelyn asked, changing the subject. They had reached the street where both the Fairchilds and the Greymarks lived by now, and Lucian briefly wondered whose house they were going to. After all, there was nobody in his. “They were all over each other.”

“How disgusting,” Valentine commented mockingly, catching Lucian’s eye once more, and Lucian couldn’t help but smile slightly. Everyone knew that Mayrse and Robert liked each other, and they could have each other as far as he was concerned. Though he didn’t actively dislike either of them, they had always seemed cold to him in their own way. Jocelyn, meanwhile, was continuing, walking with her swaying walk down the centre of the street. The houses on either side of her were tall and greystoned, beautiful in their own way, like Victorian townhouses in New York.

“And Alexander Carstairs was back from London,” she continued, pushing her hair away from her face. “Bloody mess that was – obviously it wasn’t his fault, it was his parents, but still, I doubt the Clave’ll be happy. What’s more, now it’s December he’ll have to join the school year halfway through, which’ll mess everything up-”

“Jocelyn,” Lucian interrupted abruptly. “You do realise that I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, right?”

“Well, yes, obviously,” Jocelyn said, stopping. They were at her gate now and she leant against it, grinning. He was only half an inch taller than her, and Valentine only a head. She’d catch them both up if they weren’t careful. She was all elegance today; white suited her, making her green eyes greener and her hair redder, her freckles standing out against the bridge of her nose. She flicked a hand at him dismissively. “But you don’t matter.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Valentine, who smirked.

“I know what you’re talking about, Jocelyn,” he said, faux-superciliously, and Lucian laughed.

“I bet you do,” he said, taking a step backwards. “Don’t mind me, you two, you continue on with your conversation about…Alexander Carstairs or whatever his name was. I’m sure he appreciates the attention.”