The Most Beautiful Witch Chapter 31

AN: As always, this is a commissioned work for an anonymous user.

All characters are over the age of eighteen (18)

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The thundering footsteps coming from down the corridor matched the rhythm of Harry’s heartbeat. It pounded in his ears as he watched the trickle of blood spilling from Draco’s neck slow down until there was barely anything else coming out.

Harry didn’t feel bad that Draco was dead. The utter twat had been coming after his family for far too long to justify anything less than a proportional response to the violence he kept trying to enact, but Harry hadn’t quite been prepared for how gruesome Draco’s death had been.

Every time he closed his eyes for even a fraction of a second, he saw Draco’s bloody hands trying so desperately to stem the gushing blood from his neck. He could hear Draco’s screams echoing around him and see the look of pure terror in the man’s eyes as he realised that he was destined for death.

It was horrific. There were simply no other words for it.

In a perfect world, no one should ever have to suffer such a fate. That was the type of world that Dumbledore wanted, and Harry did too. The only difference was that such a world was a fantasy to Harry while Dumbledore still believed it was within reach.

After all he’d seen and done, Harry knew that true peace was impossible. You had to fight back against those who would harm you and even take proactive steps to defend yourself.

But still, he didn’t wish that such things were necessary.

He finally began to shake himself out of his thoughts when he heard Astoria sniffle at his side. Like him, she was staring down at Draco’s corpse, but her face was filled with horror. She and Daphne had both been through countless practice duels with Harry and they’d even fought off Barty Crouch Jr disguised as Alastor Moody, but neither of them had seen the sheer level of violence that came with fights like this.

Daphne, however, showed nothing more than cold disdain on her face as she watched Draco bleed out. She looked like she wanted to spit on his corpse for all that he’d done, but she held herself back.

So, turning towards Astoria, Harry tried to comfort her. “You don’t need to look at this,” he said softly.

“Yes, I do,” Astoria replied with a steely intensity in her voice. It was clearly hurting her to stare at the scene at their feet, but she understood the necessity of it. This wasn’t going to be the last time that someone was killed in front of her, and she couldn’t risk the chance of freezing up at the wrong moment. “I just… this is all so fucked.”

Harry couldn’t disagree with her there.

“We’ll handle this together,” Harry assured her. “The portraits would’ve seen Draco casting the Killing Curse. The Slytherins started this fight and—”

There was a sharp gasp from behind them as the footsteps suddenly ceased. Before he could turn around, Professor McGonagall roughly shoved her way in between Harry and Daphne and knelt down next to Draco’s corpse. Her wand came out and she quickly cast a diagnostic charm in the hopes of finding any signs of life, but Draco was too far gone for that.

Professor McGonagall was speechless as she stood back up to her full height. Her wand was still held loosely in her hand, ready to be used at a moment’s notice without it being directly pointed at anyone… yet.

“We were attacked first,” Daphne informed her quickly. “And Draco cast the Killing Curse. If we hadn’t defended ourselves—”

“Enough,” McGonagall replied in a shuddering tone. “This… it has been over fifty years since a student was last killed at Hogwarts. At that time, the Ministry of Magic demanded that protective measures be put in place should such an event ever happen again. The castle is on lockdown, and the Ministry has been automatically alerted by the wards. Aurors will be here at any moment. You three need to leave. Now.”

She wanted them to leave?

“Shouldn’t we speak with the Aurors—?” Harry began to ask, only for McGonagall to cut him off once more.

“Don’t be daft, Mr Potter,” McGonagall narrowed her eyes at him. “Surely you haven’t ignored all of Professor Dumbledore’s words to you this year. Lucius Malfoy’s influence over the Minister will ensure that the three of you never see a fair trial. And what with Voldemort lurking in the shadows—”

“You know about him?” Harry exclaimed in surprise.

“Everyone in the Order does,” McGonagall replied like he was stupid for asking such a thing. Then a look of realisation dawned across her face. “Albus didn’t tell you.”

“Tell us what?” Daphne asked. “What is this Order?”

A loud gong-like sound rang out, echoing through the halls of Hogwarts. McGonagall sucked in a deep breath.

“There’s no time for questions,” she said hurriedly. “The Aurors have arrived. You need to find your parents and godfather and get out of the castle.”

A thousand questions still raged throughout Harry’s mind, begging for answers, but he didn’t doubt McGonagall’s sincerity that there’d be hell to pay from the Ministry. The odds of receiving a fair trial felt slim given all that’d happened. If the attack on Greengrass Manor still wasn’t being treated seriously by the Ministry, then what hope did they have by trying to plead their case with the Aurors?

“But couldn’t Dumbledore help us?” Astoria asked suddenly. “He knows the Minister too.”

“I’m afraid that his influence within the Ministry has diminished severely in recent years,” McGonagall grimaced. “He…” she shook her head. “Enough. Go! Now!”

“Come on,” Harry said softly, grasping Astoria’s wrist. “We can’t stay here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” came a chilling voice from behind them.

The four of them turned to see Lucius standing there with a menacing aura that seemed to physically radiate off of his robes. Magical energy seemed to crackle around him and he strode forward in a cold fury.

“You killed my son,” he stated, his words dripping with venom. “I didn’t believe it when Urquhart came to my door, but now I can see that he undersold the brutality of my son’s murder. You’ll hang for this, Potter.”

“Lucius, calm yourself,” McGonagall interrupted as she swept forward in front of Harry, Astoria, and Daphne. “What has happened here tonight is a tragic incident that will be investigated to the fullest. I was just sending the three of them along to Professor Dumbledore’s office—”

Lucius’ wand suddenly appeared in his hand. “They’re not going anywhere.”

Like a coiled snake ready to strike, Lucius lashed out and fired off a gentle yellow-coloured spell. Harry raised up a shield in defence, but it turned out not to be needed as McGonagall’s shield blocked the spell for him. There was a painful clashing sound as the spell exploded upon the shield, and suddenly McGonagall’s own quiet fury rose up to match Lucius’.

“You will not harm a student under my watch, Lucius,” she told him sternly, her eyes narrowing upon him.

“You would defend these murderers?” Lucius hissed.

“I would not allow you to add anymore victims to your tally of murders,” McGonagall replied coldly. “Lower your wand.”

Through gritted teeth, Lucius spat. “Make me.”

“Students,” McGonagall began, not once looking over her shoulder back at them. “It’s time for you to leave. Do as I said before and don’t dawdle.”

“We can help you,” Harry murmured to her.

“Believe it or not, Mr Potter, but I’m more than capable of defending myself against such a man,” she said loudly so that Lucius could hear her. “Now, do not make me tell you again.”

“Let’s go,” Daphne said, already starting to move.

“Oh no you don’t!” Lucius shouted and fired off another spell.

The explosion that rattled the corridor sent Draco’s blood spilling down new crevices in the cobblestone flooring.

As they rounded the nearest corner, the sounds of the raging battle behind them didn’t cease. Harry heard the roar of a lion and the clinking of cobblestone chips clattering across the floor. He so desperately wanted to go back and watch the fight and see what he could gleam from it for his own future duelling experience, but he wouldn’t abandon the task at hand for it.

They needed to get around back to their rooms to collect their things. The only issue was that McGonagall and Lucius were fighting close enough to the entrance that Harry feared going back and becoming a distraction for McGonagall. Luckily, he had a clever idea.

“Dobby,” Harry called out to the faithful house-elf.

In an instant, Dobby appeared before the three of them.

“Dobby is here, sir,” Dobby declared happily, but then he cowered and his ears trembled as another explosion wracked the corridor.

“We’re leaving Hogwarts,” Harry told Dobby quickly, kneeling down to face directly. “Could you go into our chambers and collect our things and bring them up to Dumbledore’s office.”

“But you can’t leave Hogwarts yet,” Dobby said nervously. “The term’s only just begun.”

“We have to,” Harry insisted. “Please Dobby. I know that I can rely on you for this. Won’t you please help us?”

Dobby perked up at Harry’s words. “Yes, Harry Potter, sir. You can rely on Dobby for this. I’ll do as you ask.”

“Thank you,” Harry smiled sincerely. “You’ve been a true friend, Dobby.”

With another pop, Dobby vanished once more.

“We still need to get to our parents and Sirius,” Daphne reminded Harry and Astoria. “We can wrap around this floor to get to their rooms.”

“We’ll have to be quick about it,” Astoria pointed out. “And we’ll need to find a safe way down to the second floor entrance to his office.”

“I’ll handle that last bit while you two round everyone else up,” Harry told them.

That was all the discussion that needed to be had. The trust that the three of them had in each other in dangerous situations like this shone through immensely, and they quickly went running down the corridors, turning as quickly as possible to loop back towards where Anastasia, Cyrus, and Sirius were.

The Prefect’s Bathroom was located in a corridor in between the one that led to their rooms and the corridor that went to the others rooms. Astoria and Daphne broke off from Harry then and went running along while he worked through his map of Hogwarts. He wished that he had the Marauder’s Map on him, but he knew the secret passages well enough to draw up a good idea of where they needed to go.

He retraced his steps a bit to go down another corridor that led to the Grand Staircase. As he peered over the railing, he saw a swarm of red-robed Aurors climbing the staircase as quickly as they could. Had it not been for the fact that the staircase was notoriously fickle in deciding when it chose to align to allow passage between floors, they may have already reached the fifth floor. Still, Harry knew that he couldn’t dismiss the idea that some Aurors were climbing some of the normal staircases that sat in different parts of the castle.

So, instead of going to either location, he moved to a large painting of a grassy field with unicorns grazing in the far distance and whispered the password: “White and gold majesty.”

The portrait swung open, revealing a narrow but tall passageway up to the sixth floor. Harry knew of another passageway up there that would take them all the way down to the third floor, and then it would be a simple matter of getting down to the second floor and reaching Dumbledore’s office.

It took little more than a couple of minutes for Astoria and Daphne to return with Anastasia, Cyrus, and Sirius in tow. Cyrus’ face was full of worry and concern, but Sirius and Anastasia both had more serious looks on their faces. As soon as Sirius laid eyes upon Harry, he dashed forward and wrapped Harry up in a hug.

“You did well,” he said simply, and those were the only words that Harry needed to hear at that moment.

“We’re not free yet,” Harry pointed out. “We need to get out of the castle.”

“We will,” Sirius assured him even though it was Harry who was doing the leading.

Swiftly, Harry guided everyone up to the sixth floor and then took them down a short corridor to the next secret passageway that required you to crouch down through a small gap in the stone wall when you tapped the bricks in a specific order. This passageway was much wider than the previous one, and they were able to rush down to the third floor without much hassle.

But upon reaching the exit, Harry could hear the sounds of chatter coming from the other side of the wood panelling. He put his finger on his lips to indicate the others to be quiet before he pressed his ear against the wood.

A deep, rumbling, masculine voice rang out. “Figure he’s running then?”

Harry cringed, it sounded like the man was right on the other side of the wood panelling. They were stuck in this secret passage for now. They could try to double back, but Harry was uncertain if the Aurors were just taking a break or if they actually knew that this was a secret passage that they should guard.

“Who’s to say?” Another man replied. He sounded a little like Ron.

“I bet he has,” the first man sighed. “I doubt even his status as the boy-who-lived is enough to keep him out of trouble here.”

“He doesn’t deserve any special treatment over that,” Not-Ron snapped. “He killed a man here, Savage. And Lord Malfoy is making it sound like it was a brutal ambush in the corridor. And he even disintegrated the leg of some poor girl—the healers say it’ll take a week. Don’t forget that he’s already had a history of violent outbursts; do you remember when Fudge visited him because he blew up his poor muggle aunt?”

“I still can’t believe it,” Savage said. The wood panelling creaked slightly. “I’d never expect someone like him to become such a violent menace.”

“The famous ones usually end up that way,” Not-Ron replied. “At least we’ve had Lord Malfoy here to keep an eye on things. It was incredibly foresighted by Fudge to insist that he come here to teach and watch over the goings on at Hogwarts after all of the oddities last year with the Triwizard Tournament.”

The quiet thump of footsteps signalled that the two men were starting to move, but Harry kept waiting as he tried to map out which direction they were going.

“We’ll catch Potter and get him to trial,” Savage said. “He deserves that much at least.”

“After killing an innocent man?” Not-Ron snorted. “I’d be happy to see him hung.”

A pit formed in the body of Harry’s stomach. Dumbledore had been right all along. The Ministry was being skewed against him all thanks to Lucius’ insidious whisperings to the Minister. Harry was under no delusions that every Auror thought this way, but if they had no problem speaking about things openly like this, then he figured that it wasn’t exactly a fringe opinion.

The footsteps retreated, heading down towards the eastern stairs. Harry waited for thirty seconds after he couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore before he opened up the passageway.

“We’re close,” he told everyone. “Keep moving fast and we’ll be out of here in just a minute.”

They sprinted down a corridor and turned left down another to swiftly arrive at the stone gargoyle that blocked the entrance to the Headmaster’s tower. However, upon getting close, the gargoyle leapt aside, granting them passage within.

The spiral staircase behind the gargoyle carried them upwards to the Headmaster’s office. Inside, Fawkes was sitting neatly upon Dumbledore’s desk, watching over the pile of luggage that Dobby had left for them.

Sirius quickly shrunk the luggage and stowed it away inside of his pockets. But before they could do anything else, Fawkes squawked noisily at him.

Turning around, Harry noticed the scrap of parchment just beside Fawkes on the desk.

“Come see me at the Hog’s Head Inn,” Harry said, repeating the words that were written on the parchment.

“Is that from Dumbledore?” Daphne asked.

Harry shrugged. “Probably.”

“We’d best see him then,” Anastasia said as she collected the jar of floo powder for everyone. “He may be able to help us find a quiet place to spend the night, and to help us plan for what we do next. We’ll need to deal with the Ministry and the Aurors and come up with some way of getting out of this mess.”

Truthfully, Harry didn’t know if there’d be any way out of this through normal means. It felt as though the whole Ministry was against him, and he had no clue how to begin changing that.

“We can figure it all out in time,” Cyrus said calmingly. “The best thing we can do for now is to get out of the castle and find Albus.”

The fireplace was large enough for them all to fit into at once. Grabbing a fistful of floo powder, Harry hurled it into the fireplace and called out: “Hog’s Head Inn!”

They all stepped inside and were whisked away in an uncomfortable squeeze.

Although Harry had never stepped foot inside of the dark and dingy Hog’s Head Inn, he’d heard enough questionable stories about it over the years to have a visceral image in his mind over what it looked like. And stepping into the real thing didn’t disappoint.

The fireplace was filled with soot, and Harry and everyone else ended up covered with a thin film of it as they stepped out onto the dirty floor. The whole bar smelt like a mixture of wet goat, dung, and high-proof alcohol. The windows were covered up with grime, only allowing a thin amount of the sun’s dying light to filter inside. A few crudely made wooden tables had candles sitting atop them, but they had no guests there. The only other people inside were sitting down at the bar.

Professor Dumbledore had a small, sad smile as he raised up his mug of butterbeer in salute. “I’m glad to see that you all made it.”

Without even drawing his wand, Dumbledore waved his hand through the air. Suddenly, a gust of wind appeared and blew all of the soot off of Harry and the others’. The mess joined what was already on the floor, and that’s when the old, tall man beside him grumbled.

“Right, make more of a mess in my bar.”

“My apologies,” Dumbledore said. “I could clean the floors for you if you’d like.”

“Leave it,” the man spat on the floor. “Waste of time and effort. I’ll be in the back if you need me.”

“Don’t mind him,” Dumbledore told everyone as the man left for the backroom. “The innkeeper is not one for guests, ironically.”

“Albus, are you aware of what’s going on at the castle?” Anastasia asked as she strode forward. “The Ministry is there in force!”

Dumbledore nodded gravely. “Young Draco Malfoy’s death would do that.”

Even now, his words felt like a stinging rebuke in Harry’s face.

“He tried to kill me first,” Harry said, feeling the need to defend his actions to a man who so often acted like a mentor to him. “They ambushed me in the corridors and said that they were going to correct history. That I should’ve died as a baby. Draco even cast the Killing Curse!”

“The wards did indeed notice his use of that curse,” Dumbledore said sadly. “And yet, I do not rejoice in his death. He was a poor soul led astray by the trappings of his place in this world and the politics of his family. It is yet another example of the damage that can be wrought by extremism and rash behaviour.”

As Dumbledore drank from his mug, Astoria suddenly darted forward alongside her mother.

“Is that all you have to say?” She practically screeched at him. “We just went through hell fighting for our lives in your school, and you feel like offering sad words over a monster’s justified death? What about us who had to defend ourselves because no one else would? Do you think that we wanted things to go this far?”

“No, I do not,” Dumbledore said quietly. “I am not placing the entirety of the fault of this situation at your feet. There are too many factors to make things as simple as that, and yes, I do shoulder much of the blame for what happened tonight. But while you all have the chance to go on living and learn to come to terms with what happened tonight, Draco does not. Sparing him a moment’s thought seems like less than he deserves.”

Astoria shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

“Astoria, please,” Anastasia said, placing a hand on her daughter’s arm before returning her gaze to Dumbledore. “We need to find a place to stay tonight, and we need a plan for going forward.”

“The plan hasn’t changed,” Harry spoke up, drawing everyone’s gaze upon him. “We need to stop Voldemort.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore agreed, though he didn’t sound pleased about it. “He must be stopped, and I fear that you may just be the person to do it.”

“Why?” Daphne asked, her perceptive eyes narrowing upon the professor. “Why Harry?”

Harry blinked in surprise. He hadn’t ever really thought about the why of it all; Voldemort had been a part of his life ever since he was a baby, so it only seemed natural that Harry was destined to fight back against him given Voldemort’s persistence. But even still, why was Harry the specific person that Dumbledore felt would be the one to stop him?

“Because of a prophecy,” Dumbledore said after several moments of hesitation. “One told before your birth, Harry. It positioned you as the one to vanquish Voldemort. It was why he went after your family.”

A prophecy? All of this over a stupid prophecy?

Harry’s mind tried to process the information but couldn’t. This was all because of a prophecy? Something that someone else said? Had his body not frozen into place over the sheer shock of it all, he feared that he’d have already collapsed onto the floor.

He’d been left an orphan over a prophecy?

“Ridiculous,” Anastasia spat. “Surely the Dark Lord… Voldemort is beyond believing in such foolishness.”

“Not all prophecies are nonsense,” Cyrus spoke up tentatively. “Proper ones made by a true seer are as true as any form of magic. The issue often comes in how they are interpreted.”

“And the way that this one was interpreted led to Voldemort deciding that he could not stand to have a rival,” Dumbledore added.

“What are the exact contents of this prophecy?” Daphne asked. “What was the specific wording that made Voldemort decide this?”

“This is a conversation best left for another day,” Dumbledore said regretfully. “The Aurors—”

“Oh no you don’t,” Daphne interjected sharply. “You don’t get to just avoid this tonight.”

Dumbledore held up his hands in surrender. “That is the last thing that I am trying to do, but I am also aware that once the Aurors will eventually come looking to me for answers about your location, and if I’m not there to offer some type of answer, then things will become worse for all of us. Of course, I won’t actually tell them where you are, but I need to be around to help mitigate the fallout of this disastrous night. I can promise you all answers soon. But there are more pressing issues tonight.”

“Fine,” Harry bit out. He didn’t need to argue the point any further—it wasn’t like Dumbledore would ever agree with him anyways. “We need to get going, Professor. We’ll find someplace to stay and—”

“Actually,” Dumbledore perked up. “I have a plan in place for that. I am working on a more permanent solution to where you could all stay which should be sorted in the next few days, but in the meantime, I have the perfect place in mind for a temporary retreat.”

“Where?” Sirius asked.

The twinkle in Dumbledore’s eyes told Harry everything.

With a great big sigh, Harry relented. If this was the way things were bound to go, then he may as well get it over with. Besides, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t spoken about these people to Astoria and Daphne before.

“I assume you have a portkey,” Harry said to Dumbledore.

Naturally, he offered one up just a few seconds later. The long length of rope felt surprisingly smooth in Harry’s hands as he held it out for everyone to grab onto.

“I’ll be in touch soon, Harry,” Dumbledore said.

“Good luck with the clowns at the Ministry,” he replied.

Once more, they were all whisked away, only the transportation this time was different. They were more spread out as the wind whipped around them and screeched. Swirling colours surrounded them before they shifted into an all-too-familiar pink-and-white colour scheme.

As the six of them landed on the clean tile floor, panic erupted.

Sitting around the large dining table sat the three Dursleys. Petunia was screaming in horror and knocked her chair over as she threw herself back. Vernon immediately became a big defensive bear and turned around with a rage-filled face, spouting off various expletives as he demanded the intruders leave. Dudley was just swallowing the last of his mouthful of steak and kidney pie before he too leapt up, looking ready to punch anyone who got within a metre of him.

“These are my relatives,” Harry said with a sigh.

This was going to be a brutal few days.