The Most Beautiful Witch Chapter 30 Reupload*

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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Peering out of the castle windows, Harry spotted the billowing steam of the Hogwarts Express as it pulled into Hogsmeade Station in the distance. Carriages would bring the students back to the castle soon, and tomorrow classes would begin again.

“Try not to tense up,” Astoria murmured as she pressed herself to his back. Her soft, delicate skin felt soothingly warm against him. “We don’t have to worry about anything right now.”

But despite her words, Harry knew that she was just as worried about what remaining at Hogwarts meant for them. Death Eaters had tried to kill them and their family, and they were stuck here. Running away and hiding wasn’t an option that he could stomach, not when it meant leaving everyone else to the fate of Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

“Has Daphne come back yet?” Harry asked as he continued to watch the steam dance through the air.

“No,” Astoria gave a slight shake of her head, letting her brown locks dance across his bare back. “She’s still trying to keep dad calm. He’s been really stressed about staying here. We have an old cottage in Norway that he was thinking about taking mum and Sirius too, but it mysteriously burned down over the holidays.”

So, the Death Eaters were cutting off their escape plans. The fortified walls of Hogwarts were enough that even Voldemort had never attacked it, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t still pose a danger from within.

“I know that your parents won’t like being cooped up in their rooms here,” Harry sighed. “But it’s the best option for now. Sirius and your parents just need to keep looking for someplace safe for them to go to. And for you and Daphne—”

“Stop,” Astoria shushed him. “Not another word about that. If you’re staying to fight back against the Death Eaters, then Daphne and I are too. Don’t forget that we trained with you. We’re ready for this.”

Harry hoped so, because he feared that the worst was yet to come.

But there was no sense in worrying about such a thing until it came to pass. For now, the best thing that he could do was stay relaxed and alert. When Draco and his Slytherin cronies returned to the castle, he’d keep an eye on them as before and try to not let it utterly overwhelm him as it did before the holidays.

“We still have some time before everyone arrives at the castle,” Astoria said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Come back to bed.”

Harry snorted in amusement. “I thought that you said that you were too sore for another round.”

“My mouth isn’t,” she giggled. “Come on now.”

She took his hand as she started walking backwards, and Harry let her lead him back to bed. It was impossible to understate just how adorable Astoria looked with her bare arse jiggling as she strutted forward.

As Harry got settled back onto the edge of the bed, Astoria knelt down on the ground next to him and planted herself right in between his thighs. His cock was already getting nice and hard just from watching her beautiful body move, but once her big brown eyes locked onto his, his cock leapt with excitement.

“I love this cock of yours,” Astoria purred as she let her tongue flick the head of his cock playfully. Her swollen lips planted a sweet, delicate kiss on the side of his shaft before she moved back up to the tip. “I’m going to savour every throbbing inch.”

Astoria’s lips parted and she took him into the wet heat of her mouth. Her tongue swirled around him as she let out a muffled moan of happiness. Harry watched, entranced, as inch after inch of his cock disappeared into her mouth until he felt himself hitting the back of her throat.

One of Astoria’s hands came up and gently began playing with his heavy balls while her other hand wrapped around the base of his shaft and began gently stroking him. Her mouth applied just the right amount of suction as she bobbed her head up and down, letting her tongue slide all around him so that he was perfectly coated in saliva.

Astoria was incredible at giving out blowjobs, but what made them truly special was the way that she used her eyes. She stared up at him through her thick lashes, maintaining eye contact as she sucked him off, letting him see just how much love and lust was in her gaze. He could literally see the effect his cock was having on her, the way it drove her absolutely wild, and she was showing her appreciation for it.

Harry couldn’t hold back his sounds of pleasure when Astoria relaxed her throat and took him all the way in. Her lips were locked around the base of his shaft and her nose was buried in his neatly-trimmed pubic hair when she began to hum around him. The vibrations ran through his cock and made his toes curl up from how good it felt.

“Fuck, Astoria,” Harry groaned, running his hands through her silky hair. “How the hell are you so good at this?”

Astoria teased her way back to the tip of his cock, slurping up all of the excess saliva noisily. “Lots of practice on you,” she grinned as she stared up at him adoringly. She nuzzled his cock with her face. “I’ve never found anything I love more than taking care of you.”

Harry felt the same way. Anything he could do to improve Astoria and Daphne’s lives quickly became a top priority for him. Relationships were all about give and take and finding some sort of a balance between them. Right now, he was quite happy to be on the taking side of things.

Astoria dove back down onto his cock eagerly. Thick bubbles of saliva popped out of the corners of her mouth and started to dribble down her chin as she deepthroated him once more. She gagged as she suddenly buried her face into his crotch, and Harry instinctively thrust up into her mouth. She moaned around his cock and grabbed onto his thighs to help keep her balance as she continued to bob up and down.

“I’m so close,” he warned her, feeling his cock twitching with need in her throat.

Even with his warning, Astoria didn’t change her behaviour at all. She kept sucking his cock with everything she had, determined to bring him to completion before long.

But just as Harry felt that he was about to cum, Astoria pulled back suddenly. She moved so that just the tip of his cock was still in her mouth, and then she grabbed onto his shaft with both hands and started pumping him furiously.

“Merlin,” Harry gasped, grabbing onto her head with both hands and groaning as he shot out a thick load of cum straight into her mouth. Astoria’s fists pumped away, ensuring that every last drop ended up in her mouth.

Finally, Astoria pulled back and opened up her mouth to show off all the cum swirling around inside of it before she swallowed it all down, not wasting a single bit of it.

She quickly grabbed her wand and cleaned her mouth before climbing into bed next to him. Harry spooned her from behind and kissed her neck sweetly as they relished in the feeling of the intimate connection of their bodies.

Supper arrived later outside of their bedroom on the table by the fireplace. Given that they’d both spent several hours working up an appetite, they both donned bathrobes and made their way out to eat the roasted pork, glazed carrots and parsnips, and creamy mashed potatoes that’d been delivered to them.

Neither of them brought up the fact that the arrival of this meant that all of the students were back in the castle.

Daphne returned later, clearly having eaten with her parents and likely Sirius. The hour was late, so she and Astoria both hurried off to bed.

Harry was meant to sleep with Astoria that night, but he lingered in the main room, something pulling at the back of his mind. He knew that it was his nerves playing hectically with his ability to go to sleep, but nothing seemed to be able to soothe them.

So, he sat by the fire, waiting for whatever was coming.

He tried reading, but his mind couldn’t focus on the words on the page. He spent time toying with a new binding spell that he’d learnt, but without a target to see the effects on, he lost interest quickly.

Eventually, Harry pulled out the Marauder’s Map and searched for the Slytherin Common Room. Draco and Crabbe were in there, but he couldn’t find several other names that he expected to find. He scanned the parchment further and eventually spotted Warrington patrolling the third floor corridors on the west side of the castle. Harry watched him move slowly, never quite going anywhere important. When he neared the stairwell at the end of the floor, he turned back around and repeated his movements.

Confused, Harry watched Warrington for several minutes more before he looked for other names. Goyle was on the seventh floor, walking everywhere except near the Gryffindor Common Room. Pansy was on the second floor, Pucey was on the sixth floor, and Urquhart was on the fifth. All of them were just wandering about.

They were looking for him, Harry suddenly realised. Or Astoria or Daphne. Or their private rooms that they shared.

A white-hot rage rose up inside of him. They still weren’t going to leave him alone, no matter what happened. The attack on Greengrass Manor must’ve emboldened these wannabe Death Eaters… or perhaps Voldemort himself ordered the attack.

As curfew came and went, the Slytherins searching didn’t cease. They were careful, always out of the way of any patrolling prefects or professors, but they were relentless in their search.

Four times, Harry saw them pass by outside of his rooms. He would stare at the back of the portrait door, imagining that he could see the Slytherin behind it. They were hunting him, and his blood boiled at that. He wanted to ambush them, turning the table back around his hunters to make them the hunted. But instead he watched and waited.

It was close to midnight when the Slytherins began returning to their dorms. However, each stopped off at the office of Lucius Malfoy before they went to bed.

So, it was an organised effort.

Harry thought about bringing this to Dumbledore, but he could practically hear the man’s words already being spoken. ‘They’ve done nothing yet. You are assuming the worst and not giving them the chance to change for the better. I will not take any action until I find you bloody and beaten… if not worse. I don’t care what happens to your beloveds. They aren’t victims yet. Once I see their corpses strung up from the rafters, then I’ll—

Finally, Harry remembered to breathe. The world spun around him as he stood up abruptly and staggered away. He walked circles around the room until his heart stopped racing.

His anxiety was getting to him. He knew that Dumbledore actually didn’t think that way… but it was hard to imagine anything else. Either Harry struck first and would be cast as a villain by both Dumbledore and the Death Eaters or he and his loved ones would become the latest victims of the Death Eater’s assault upon the Wizarding World.

The dark thoughts lingered in Harry’s mind as he retreated back to Astoria’s bedroom and crawled into bed next to her. She rolled over, still sleeping, and clung to him as he stared up at the ceiling and waited for the morning to come.

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The corridor was crowded when Harry and Daphne were making their way to the first class of the day. Harry was used to the ridiculous stares of his classmates, but seeing them all genuinely staring at him as though he could be behind a shadowy cabal that destroyed Greengrass Manor was beyond ridiculous. A few people stepped out of his path while others, who must’ve thought the article in the Daily Prophet to be equally ridiculous, offered him looks of sympathy.

However, there were a select few who showed a different sort of opinion.

“You’ll be dead soon,” Blaise Zabini, a Slytherin in Harry’s year, muttered as he passed by.

“Excuse me?” Harry snapped, turning sharply on his heels, but Blaise was already disappearing into the crowd. Harry wanted to go after him, but Daphne tugged on his sleeve.

“Just ignore it,” she told him with a grimace on her face. “We just need to get to class and put this day behind us.”

Reluctantly, Harry agreed, but his eyes were scanning the crowd more closely now.

As they climbed up to the third floor, Warrington and Goyle were waiting for them. They were leaned up against the wall with their arms crossed, scanning the crowd as it passed by. As soon as they saw Harry and Daphne ascend the stairs though, they suddenly pushed off of the wall and headed straight towards them.

Harry subtly positioned himself slightly in front of Daphne, ready to defend her if the need came.

“Potter,” Warrington glared at him as he blocked Harry and Daphne’s path.

“Warrington,” Harry said with an edge in his tone. His wand was close at hand. He knew that he could draw it in under a second if he needed to. Daphne was also shifting into a defensive position, glancing behind herself to see if anyone was creeping up from behind.

“You shouldn’t have come back here,” Warrington said. “The message should’ve been enough.”

“What? That you’ll attack me wherever I go?” Harry asked mockingly. “Then why hasn’t Voldemort attacked me here yet?”

Warrington and Goyle both hissed at hearing the Dark Lord’s name being spoken so openly. They glanced about to see if anyone had overheard it before returning their focus to Harry.

“Don’t you dare say his name,” Goyle said, trying to puff up his chest to appear even more intimidating than his large form already suggested he was.

“Goyle’s right,” Warrington agreed. “You attacked the Dark Lord; you should’ve known that there would be consequences. It’ll only end with your death.”

“So, he sends two men to come face me who aren’t even real Death Eaters?” Harry chuckled darkly. “I find it hard to imagine you lot as threats when I already took you down. I may have even killed a few of your relatives back at the graveyard. If you think that the two of you can intimidate me, then you’re sorely mistaken. I’m used to taking on bigger threats than you.”

“Harry,” Daphne hissed in warning.

He glanced back over his shoulder for the briefest moment to see Pucey approaching them from behind. As he turned back, he noticed Goyle going for his wand.

With lightning-fast speed, Harry drew his wand. “Expelliarmus!” He snapped off the spell quickly, and just as Goyle’s wand found his fingertips, it went flying up into the air and into Harry’s hand.

Suddenly, the crowd around them dispersed. Faintly, Harry could hear several of them crying out in surprise and others shouting for a professor, but his entire focus was locked in on the threat in front of him. He trusted Daphne to have Pucey covered.

Goyle looked dumbstruck that his wand had been snatched from him, but Warrington maintained that dark, angry expression on his face.

“You just made a big mistake,” he warned Harry.

“Funny, I was just about to say the same thing to you,” Harry replied, training his wand onto Warrington. “Threatening me hasn’t gone well for anyone before.”

Warrington let out a barking laugh. “If you think that—”

“What’s going on here?”

Professor Flitwick came bounding down the corridor with his wand drawn. The few students who remained in the corridor parted, allowing him to pass easily. Upon seeing Harry and the Slytherins around him, Flitwick frowned.

“Classes are about to begin,” he said sternly. “I can’t imagine that any of you are keen on losing house points before the start of classes again, hmm?”

“No, professor,” Goyle responded quickly. “We were just… playing is all.”

“Playing?” Flitwick stared at Goyle severely, as though daring the man to challenge his intelligence once more.

“Yes, professor, we were just—”

“Enough!” Flitwick snapped. “Mr Warrington, I believe that you have Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall any minute now. I will not be writing you a tardy slip for this event.”

“Of course, professor,” Warrington said as he shot Harry one last dark look. Warrington walked past him, and as he turned around to watch his path, he found that Pucey was nowhere in sight.

“Mr Potter, Ms Greengrass,” Flitwick said with a tired sigh. “I do not appreciate being called out here over students duelling in the corridors.”

“Harry was only defending us,” Daphne said quickly. “Goyle was drawing his wand and—”

Flitwick held up his hand, signalling Daphne to stop. “Regardless of that, casting spells upon one’s fellow student is rarely justified.”

He’s just like Dumbledore, Harry thought to himself sadly. He doesn’t care if we were just defending ourselves. Does anyone in this castle?

“I’m sorry, professor,” Harry said in a monotone voice. He offered Goyle back his wand, who snatched it up with no small amount of suspicion that Harry had somehow tampered with it in the short amount of time he had it in his hands. “We’ll make our way to class now without any more trouble.”

“I should certainly hope so,” Flitwick said.

Taking Daphne’s hand, Harry wordlessly began walking forward towards their morning Charms class.

“Harry,” Daphne said softly and sweetly.

“Forget it,” Harry muttered in frustration. “You did good, watching our backs.”

“I wish that I didn’t have to,” Daphne said.

“Neither do I.”

Charms class was dull. Flitwick lectured on about what they intended to cover for this half of the year and then began them on basic charms that Harry and Daphne had both virtually perfected on their fourth and third try respectively. The rest of the time was dedicated to ensuring that everyone was able to perform the charms at least semi competently, but Harry spent most of his time staring into the backs of the Slytherins who were all clustered together.

Although Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, Theodore, Millicent, and Blaise never once looked back at him and Daphne, Harry felt like they were somehow focused upon him. It took him a while to notice that Pansy had a small makeup pouch out underneath the table that had a mirror in it that was perfectly positioned to allow her to look back at him and Daphne.

Throughout the remainder of the day, none of the other Slytherins ever approached Harry and Daphne as openly as Blaise, Goyle, and Warrington had. When he checked in with Astoria at lunchtime, she reported that Draco had warned her to watch her back and to finally leave Harry lest she wanted anything worse to afflict her family, but those were the only insults she suffered. Thankfully, upon telling Ron and Hermione all about what had been going on, Ron had asked Ginny to walk with Astoria to her classes in order to make sure that she had someone watching her back. Despite sometimes being fickle, Harry knew that there was no one as loyal as Ron when he was on your side.

By the time that supper came around, Astoria and Daphne both decided to join their parents and Sirius in their parents’ rooms. Harry wanted to join them but instead chose to eat with Hermione and Ron in the Great Hall.

A small part of his reasoning for doing so was to catch up with them. The larger, dominating part came from the fact that he truly wanted to keep an eye on the Slytherins.

It wasn’t until halfway through supper that he saw Pucey as the first to leave the Great Hall. Harry thought nothing suspicious about it until he spotted Urquhart leaving a couple of minutes later, and then Crabbe, Pansy, and Draco each left within a minute or two of each other.

A dreadful feeling fell to the pit of Harry’s stomach.

He, Hermione, and Ron were some of the last to leave the Great Hall. They parted ways on the fourth floor as Harry headed for the smaller staircase that would more easily lead him up to his rooms while Hermione and Ron continued up the Grand Staircase towards the seventh floor.

The fourth-floor corridors were abandoned, as Harry expected them to be. He walked along silently, making his way to the western side of the castle. But just as he rounded a corner, he heard the sound of a shoe scuffing the cobblestone floor behind him.

Harry paused, hesitating mid stride as he craned his ears to listen behind him. There was the distant wailing of a ghost that lingered in one of the old rooms on this floor. Nothing else perked up his ears.

Slowly, Harry returned to walking forward, this time carefully listening for any noise behind himself.

It took less than a minute before he heard some footsteps that were so desperately trying to be quiet and yet utterly failing to do so coming from the corridor behind him. Rather than try and turn around to confront whoever was following him, Harry made his way to the staircase up to the fifth floor and then continued past it.

If anyone was following him, he wasn’t going to lead them back to where he slept.

He continued around the corridors, knowing that they would eventually reach the wide loop that ran around the exterior of the castle. He could continue down it and eventually reach the Grand Staircase again and take it up to the next floor or anywhere else where more students would be found so that he could escape into the crowd.

However, upon nearing that junction that he was destined for, he spotted Pucey lingering ahead, acting as casual as a poor spy could.

Harry instantly turned on his heels and walked back the way he came. It took the person following him several seconds to realise that Harry was coming back. As they fled, Harry spotted the robes of a much younger student. It must’ve been a first or second-year pupil who was watching him.

As he returned back to the staircase, Harry heard Pucey following him. There was no doubt in his mind that it was him—no one else had been in that corridor.

Harry climbed the staircase quickly and then diverted down a corridor that led away from his rooms only to find Goyle and Warrington standing further down the long corridor. They both spotted him but didn’t move, so Harry retreated back.

They were trying to box him in, he realised. With each step he took, he could hear more and more footsteps echoing throughout the halls all around him.

He passed by the portrait that led into his rooms and hurried down to a four-way junction. Left saw Pansy, Millicent, and Draco standing together. Right saw Urquhart, Crabbe, and Blaise. Straight ahead saw no one, but Harry knew that it led towards a dead end. There was a secret passageway down that corridor, but it was a well-known one that the Slytherins must’ve kept guarded.

He was trapped.

Harry knew that the safest place he could end up in were his chambers. The portrait was password protected, and even if the Slytherins dared to somehow destroy the portrait door, the other ones would spread the word of their actions. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long for it to reach Dumbledore or any of the other professors. They’d have to do something then.

So, Harry turned back, knowing that Pucey, Goyle, and Warrington were bound to be in his path. He was nearly back at his rooms when he saw the three of them stretched out across the corridor, blocking his path no matter how he tried to move around them.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Harry asked them dangerously.

“You’ve gotten lucky a few times now,” Warrington spat on the floor. “Tonight will be different.”

“The Dark Lord will reward us for this,” Pucey said with fanatical devotion shining through his eyes. “We’re just correcting history. You should’ve died as a baby.”

Goyle nodded along with their words. The second he opened his mouth to make his own grandiose statement, Harry attacked.

An explosive curse struck right at their feet, knocking the lot of them to the ground. Harry made it two steps before he felt that heat-like buzz of magic emanating from behind him. He twisted his body and brought up the strongest shield he could to intercept the curse that’d been sent his way. Draco was there with his wand outstretched, a proud look on his face as he sent forth another curse to try to hurt Harry. His allies were streaming into the corridor, leaving Harry with fewer options of escape.

As the second curse buffeted Harry’s shield, Pucey was the first to climb to his feet. His wand was held loosely in his hand, clearly unready to prepare for battle. Harry knew that Pucey’s side was the easier threat to deal with and the ones blocking his path back to his rooms, so it was a simple decision to go after them first.

Flames leaped from Harry’s wand at Pucey, Warrington, and Goyle. They were simple charms designed to light candles or perhaps catch cloth on fire without doing much damage, but they were quick to cast and quite surprising if you faced them head on. Both Pucey and Goyle threw themselves away from the flames headed their way, but Warrington was keen enough to block the spell and respond directly with a violet-coloured curse of his own.

Harry sidestepped the spell and trusted his instincts as he dropped prone to the floor. He was rewarded with the sight of a bright red jet of light flying overhead and striking Goyle in the jaw, sending a spray of teeth to the floor.

Goyle shrieked loudly as he clutched his face, letting his wand fall to the wayside, but that didn’t make Harry’s job any easier. Both Warrington and Pucey had recovered quickly enough to begin casting curses at Harry again while he was busy shielding himself from the attacks coming from behind him. In a matter of seconds, Harry had little else that he could do but dodge, roll, and leap from side to side while maintaining a shield charm that grew weaker with each passing spell it intercepted. He didn’t dare drop his shield and cast a new one in case a spell happened to slip in between the gap and catch him unaware.

“Think about what you’re doing!” Harry shouted at the Slytherins around him. “Voldemort won’t last! His—”

He cursed as he rolled to the side again, catching himself against the wall. Suddenly the stone above his head shattered, sending a spray of sharp stones down upon him. His shield wasn’t angled correctly for that, so he was pelted by heavy stones that cut his head and torso painfully.

As he cried out in a rage, the portrait that led to his rooms opened. Astoria and Daphne dashed out with their wands at the ready, and the moment that they spotted Harry’s bleeding form brought about a rage within them that he’d never seen before. Daphne let out a primal cry as she battered Warrington with a banishing charm that sent him flying down the corridor, tumbling end over end. Astoria stunned Pucey from behind, catching him completely off guard.

Grinning, Harry spun back around to catch those who’d been attacking him from behind. Draco, Millicent, Crabbe, Pansy, Blaise, and Urquhart were standing in a strong line distantly down the corridor, each with their wands drawn. Astoria and Daphne hurried to his side, lining up alongside him.

Three versus six. Knowing exactly who was involved, Harry decided that he liked these odds.

Draco looked like a raging bull as he stared down Harry. His blond hair was dishevelled, and his chest was heaving like someone who’d just run a marathon. In contrast, the other Slytherins looked nervous. They’d just seen their friends go down easily, and they didn’t seem keen on continuing the fight. They looked to Draco for guidance, but he offered them no support. His eyes were solely locked onto Harry’s.

“It doesn’t have to be this way!” Astoria called out. “The professors are bound to be on their way already.”

“By the time they get here, you three will be dead!” Draco shouted, taking a step forward. “You’ve defied us long enough!”

Harry could see in his gaze that there was no bargaining with him. No matter what Harry or anyone else tried, Draco wouldn’t be talked down from his position. He was here for violence and death; nothing less would satisfy him.

Well, Harry was glad to grant him that wish. He’d feared that it would take weeks or months before the Slytherins made their move again here under the watchful gaze of Dumbledore. He’d been preparing himself mentally to be able to withstand the toll that came from always watching his back and ensuring that the ones he loved remained safe as well. With this ploy that Draco and the others had enacted, he didn’t need to worry about that any longer. A weight lifted off of his shoulders, and Harry settled himself into a duelling stance to ready for what came next.

As the other Slytherins looked to Draco for guidance, the man in question roared at the top of his lungs and charged forward, blindly casting spell after spell in an attempt to strike Harry with anything he could. Harry, Daphne, and Astoria each brought up their own shields to block the few spells from Draco that were on target, and it was only then upon seeing the faint blue auras in the air that the other Slytherins charged forward as well.

“Hold them back,” Harry ordered Astoria and Daphne as he stepped forward, intending on meeting Draco and the others before they could get close to his girlfriends. He unleashed a flurry of stunners that flew all around Draco and hurried for his friends. Pansy blocked one while another passed in between Millicent and Blaise. The final one nearly clipped Urquhart’s jaw. Out of all of them, he looked the most uncomfortable with what he was doing, but that didn’t stop him from trying his assault.

A series of spells flew from wands on either side. There was utter chaos in the corridor as figures fled from their portraits into neighbouring ones and the stones in the floors and ceilings chipped away and shattered.

Harry did his best to banish the debris back towards the attackers, but even his speedy wand movements couldn’t keep up with the chaos around him. He suffered a cut on his cheek and his thigh from stray curses and stones, but that didn’t stop him from fighting back.

“Reducto!” Harry shouted.

Millicent screamed as one of her legs began to disintegrate in front of her eyes. The fabric of her pantyhose turned to black flecks in the air before her pale skin and white bone joined it. She dropped to the floor, abandoning her wand entirely as she clutched at the stump she now had to deal with.

Astoria lunged forward and intercepted a dark curse meant for Harry. She retaliated with a blasting curse or her own, which Blaise dodged easily. Continuing her assault, Astoria separated Blaise from the pack, but upon noticing what she was doing, Pansy joined her classmate in trying to defend against Astoria’s onslaught.

Meanwhile, Daphne was rapidly battling away against Crabbe and Urquhart’s shields. The two of them were struggling under the force of Daphne’s blows. Each strike made them both physically recoil as though they’d been struck by a powerful fist in their guts. Cool, calm, and collected, Daphne kept her wand movements flowing from one to the next with an incredible ease.

Trusting his partners to keep their targets under control, Harry was left with the final enemy in the corridor: Draco.

The blond-haired man looked skittish now that his allies were being dealt with, but that didn’t make Harry feel any sympathy for him.

“You’re finished,” Harry told Draco.

“Like hell I am,” Draco cursed and fired off a spell that Harry didn’t recognise. He dodged it all the same.

“If you stop this, Dumbledore will let you leave the castle!” Harry shouted at him. At this point, he didn’t truly believe that Dumbledore would offer any real punishment for what Draco and his allies had done.

Draco screamed and battered away one of Harry’s spells with a well-timed shield. “Why don’t you just die already! No one wants you here!”

“I beg to differ,” Harry scoffed as he brought up a shield of his own. Draco’s counterattack was surprisingly powerful. Harry’s shield buckled under the force of the blows, but it didn’t break.

“The Greengrass sisters will bow before me!” Draco shouted at Harry as he continued his attack. Each spell was predictable but carried behind it a power and weight that made Harry struggle to continue shielding against it. He would’ve leapt out of the way if it was only him in this corridor, but he couldn’t risk Astoria or Daphne getting caught up in the curse. “They’ll realise what fools they’ve been following you. And once I’ve fucked them and impregnated them, they’ll—”

Harry couldn’t tolerate another word. With a single lunge forward, he sent a bludgeoning hex directly at Draco’s face. The blond man dodged and responded with more venom than ever before.

“Say goodbye!” Draco shouted. “Avada Kedavra!”

Before the spell had even left the tip of his wand, Harry was already on the move. This wasn’t just a mild brawl anymore… this was life or death.

The bolt of green magical energy soared past Harry’s face, careening into the distant window that overlooked the Quidditch pitch. As the glass shattered, Harry recalled the magic he’d used upon Voldemort only days before.

“Depulso!”

Those countless shards of glass came flying overhead like a wave that was about to crash down. Draco couldn’t do anything more than scream as the sharp shards began to cut through his skin, shredding his body to bits.

Harry watched, utterly unfeeling as the glass continued to pour down. Draco’s screams faded into desperate gasps of breath as more and more cuts opened up upon his body. His robes were torn to tatters, flaking away from his skin like freshly-peeled bananas. As they fled, his pale skin was stained crimson from the blood pouring out of him.

A cut to Draco’s neck sent out a rush of blood that had the man trying to clamp it with his hands. As he collapsed to the ground, Draco’s blood-covered, slippery hands kept trying to close the wound that’d opened on his neck, but he never seemed able to truly stem the flow of blood.

Harry watched Draco’s last feeble attempts to cling to life before he let out his last breath and fell truly limp upon the cobblestone floor.

In an instant, it seemed as though the other Slytherins suddenly understood that this wasn’t just play fighting. The sight of blood and a death shook them deep to their core, and they ran fleeing from the corridor. Neither Astoria or Daphne chased after them; they stood by Harry’s side and watched as the last drops of blood spilt out of Draco’s corpse.