But Haley didn’t.
Jordan gaped as she came abruptly to a halt in midair, bobbing gently up and down as though suspended from the sky. She beamed, looking outrageously calm and confident. “Bungee beans!” she shouted, brandishing a box of the brightly-coloured confections, “From Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes!” She swallowed and drifted gently to the ground, landing as light as a feather. “Jump from distances of up to a hundred feet with no ill effects,” she said with a smile. “For the ridiculously brave only.”
She bent over the bushes where Rookwood’s motionless body lay spread-eagled, and came back with his wand and her own Invisibility Cloak. “Take better care of my stuff, will you?” she said, stuffing the cloak back into her twin’s hands. “If Pizza Face got away with that, I’d go spare. Anyway, I checked on him, and he’s unconscious”probably got a concussion or something”but he’s alive, ‘cos those those bushes broke his fall. Probably his arm, too. It looks like somebody French-braided his bones.”
Jordan was speechless, but that was okay, because his sister was talking enough for the both of them. At last, he managed, “Weren’t you scared?”
Haley raised her eyebrows incredulously. “Are you kidding? I was totally freaked out. I hate heights. What do you think?”
“What did you do that for, then?” asked Jordan, still looking quite shell-shocked.
Haley grinned. “Because you’re my baby brother, duh!” she chirped and gave him a little kiss on the cheek and a ruffle of the hair before pulling the Invisibility Cloak over his head again. “But don’t get caught and make me do that again, okay?” she called behind her. “I don’t think anyone will fall for that trick a second time.”
As she turned to go, Jordan blurted, “Er… Haley?”
Haley whirled around. “What is it now, you goofball?”
Jordan sighed deeply. “Listen, er, Haley… if you hadn’t had those Bungee Beans with you… would you have still, erm, gone through with that? Off the roof, that is?”
Haley screwed up her face in thought, staring at a point faraway in mid air. At last, she said quietly, “Yes.”
Jordan felt his insides tie themselves in complicated knots. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could embarrass himself by saying something horribly awkward, Haley skipped away, twirling her own wand and singing to herself as she stuck Rookwood’s inside one of the many compartments of her Pockety Jacket.
For the ridiculously brave only… Jordan shook his head. For once in his life, he didn’t feel like the more talented twin.
Ivy had been fighting with Lucius Malfoy since nearly the beginning of the battle. It seemed like their duel had been going on since forever, but she still couldn’t get over the strangeness of the situation.
The year was 1998. She would be born in six years, and the man she was now fighting would be one of the first to proudly hold his tiny baby granddaughter. He would love her and send her expensive gifts. She even vaguely remembered him, though he had died when she was three years old. She had called him Granddaddy.
“Stupe””
“Protego!”
Ivy always fought defensively. She rarely tried to actively attack anyone unless she had to, focusing instead on protecting herself. But she was extremely good at it, and it was infinitely more effective than haphazardly firing curses everywhere.
But even as he attacked her, Malfoy’s eyes traveled across her face, his brows knitting together in confusion. Ivy was sure he could see himself in her”after all, the resemblance was too great for Lucius to miss. The sleek white blonde hair, the pale complexion, the light grey eyes, the pointed features and angular physiques… the two of them were uncannily similar… at least, physically.
“I’m your granddaughter,” Ivy said quietly, then realizing that Lucius’s only child was her own age back in 1998, she added, “From twenty-three years in the future.”
“You are speaking nonsense,” snorted Lucius, not missing a beat and sending another spell her way, which she promptly deflected.
“You like runny eggs and burnt toast like your old house elf used to make when you were small, but you never admit it outside the family,” said Ivy calmly, blocking yet another spell. “You’ve been terrified of Hippogriffs ever since you went to see the circus when you were four, and you can’t stand the sight of them. You love to dance, and you hate clutter. And if Draco has a daughter someday, she’s going to inherit your great-grandmother Aethonia’s diamond necklace and Narcissa’s mother’s silver tiara.”
Lucius stared at her. “How do you know that?” he hissed.
Ivy’s face was calm. “I’m your granddaughter,” she repeated.
“That’s ridiculous!” Lucius had forgotten to keep fighting now. He was simply standing there looking rather stupid, with his wand arm limp by his side and his mouth slightly agape. “If you were, you’d have no reason to fight against me!”
“But, I do,” Ivy told him in a small, hard voice. Anyone who knew Ivy knew that that voice was bad news”it was the voice she used when she had no intention of backing down anytime soon. “I’m in Gryffindor. Harry Potter adopted me. My boyfriend is a werewolf. I””
“Do not mock my family!” spat Lucius, his eyes narrowing. “And Harry Potter will certainly never adopt anyone, because he’s going to die today.”
“Really?” Ivy said politely. “I came back in time to see him defeat Voldemort.”
“You dare””
“I’m sorry I told you I’m your granddaughter,” said Ivy. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone. My brother won’t be happy.” Pink blotches were appearing on Lucius’s cheeks, remarkably like those so often seen on Ivy’s own.
“Is this some sort of joke?” he demanded.
“No,” said Ivy, “But I wish it was.”
“What do you mean?” snarled Lucius. “The Malfoys have all dedicated their lives to preserving the old wizarding traditions! All of these years, not a single blood traitor””
“Except for me,” Ivy cut him off, and her voice was so low, it was barely audible, but it was harder than granite.
Lucius Malfoy seemed to have realized all of a sudden that people were battling all around him, because he suddenly jolted back to life. But his face was no longer contorted with anger as it had been only moments before. Instead, he looked horribly, hideously cool and collected. He raised his wand. “Crucio,” he said in a flat, detached voice.
Ivy didn’t block this spell. Before she could react, it hit her, knocking her flat onto her back. She felt the white-hot pain beyond imagining surge through every inch of her, curling through her insides, searing her skin, coursing through her veins, and bending her bones. She scarcely recognized the screams that filled the air as her own.
As before, her pain-distorted brain cried out, only one thought remaining in her mind, playing over and over and over again like a soundtrack to her torture. But this time, the thought wasn’t she wanted this to end. She’d endured the Cruciatus Curse before, and she knew there was nothing she could do to guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again. No, her one thought was that this was the second time she’d been tortured by a member of her biological family for standing up for herself. She had learned years before that standing up for herself and pain didn’t have to go hand-in-hand. Now she was a full-grown witch, and she knew that the Cruciatus Curse couldn’t break her spirit this time. There was no way she was going to turn back into the shy little shell of a person she’d been after her first exposure to the horrible curse.
But then, that was taking for granted that she would survive this round of torture. It didn’t matter how secure she was in herself”that wouldn’t stop every fibre of her body from feeling like she was tearing apart. She felt herself trashing and writhing uncontrollably on the ground like a possessed woman, everything blurry through a haze of pain.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over, and Lucius Malfoy was standing over her, breathing heavily. His eyes were wide with fear, and Ivy knew that he was already regretting what he had done. He was a Malfoy, and obsessed with tradition and blood purity… but all of these were just accessories to his tremendous family pride. He cared for his family more than anything else, would unquestionably and unconditionally love the granddaughter placed in his arms in six years. But this seventeen-year-old girl who claimed to be his granddaughter from the future… he’d had no proof. If she wasn’t a Malfoy, there was nothing at all wrong with putting a Muggle-lover in her place the way he saw it. But if she really had been speaking the truth…
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” whispered Ivy. “You know I’m part of someone’s family.” A dull ache spread through her right leg, which was bent at a strange angle, and she realized that it had to be broken.
Lucius said nothing, but his face was whiter than Ivy’s, and he fled without a single glance back. Apparently, thinking about what he had done was too much for his brain.
Ivy lay back on the ground, feeling exhausted and weak. But, she realized as she listened to her heart pounding in her ears, that she felt much stronger than she had in awhile.
“IVY! IVY!”
It took her a moment to realize that these shouts had blended in with her own cries of pain, had continued since the beginning of her torture. A very familiar shape was running toward her, like a scarecrow impersonating a windmill.
She smiled. She knew that ungainly run, that long and narrow silhouette, and as he drew nearer, she knew that earnest, tired-looking face and those big light blue eyes. But the most familiar thing, the thing she’d recognized before she’d seen him at all was his concerned voice.
Ted squatted down next to her. “Ivy?” he said softly, and his breath was warm on her face.
“I’m…okay,” she replied. “Tired. And my leg has to be broken. But I’ll manage.”
Up close, Ted’s hair was damp and sweaty, clinging to his forehead. She could see the mauled and shredded mess of his right temple through it, the disfiguring souvenir of that werewolf attack over two years before. His nose was bleeding, his t-shirt was torn, he was missing a sneaker, and the palms of his hands were scraped and raw. She wondered how many Death Eaters he’d fought on the way toward her.
“Don’t stand up,” Ted instructed. “Here, I’ll carry you behind that house over there.”
Ivy didn’t protest as he scooped her up, making sure not to touch her injured leg. It wasn’t like the fairy tales where strong, handsome Prince Charming effortlessly carried the beautiful princess away from danger. Ted may have been many wonderful things, but ‘athletic’ was not one of them, and Ivy could tell that she wasn’t easy for him to manage. He nearly dropped her at least four times.
But he was so warm, and it was comforting to hear the steady beat of his heart as she lay against his bony chest. Although he smelled sweaty, he smelled like Ted, reassuring and safe.
“Sorry I’m so heavy,” she said apologetically.
Ted gave her his sheepish, lopsided grin. “You are definitely not heavy,” he assured her. “I’m just so out of shape, I can’t carry anything much bigger than a sandwich, and that’s without the lettuce and tomato.” He set her down behind the house and flopped down next to her. “Not that I ever was in shape, unless you count spaghetti-noodle shaped.”
He brushed Ivy’s fringe out of her face. “I owed it to you, though. Remember last year, you carried me and Arden up and down that ladder at the zoo when we were both wolves and couldn’t climb it? I could tell that wasn’t fun for you.”
Ivy squeezed his hand. “Well, thank you. I feel a lot better now.”
Ted’s friendly face looked disturbed. “Ivy,” he said, and his tone was as serious as she’d ever heard it, “You know I hate it so much when you’re not happy. But, I mean, this was the Cruciatus Curse… I couldn’t stop it, and… it was sick. I’m… really sorry.” He looked sick as he said this, and Ivy knew that not being able to help must have been almost as much torture for him as it had been for her. Ted seemed to have Ivy’s father’s Saving People Disorder”this was the boy who would willingly jump in front of the worst of attackers just to keep those he cared about out of harm’s way.
“Now you know how it was for me to watch when you got bitten,” Ivy said softly. She looked up into Ted’s face, and she found herself blurting out something she’d never planned to reveal to anyone. “That wasn’t the first time I had to deal with the Cruciatus Curse, though.”
Ted looked as though she’d just told him that she regularly ate chimpanzee sandwiches. “What?” he squawked, sounding fourteen years old again. Ivy almost smiled at the memories, then remembered the much darker ones she was discussing.
“When I was nine, my mo”Pansy Malfoy, I mean”she did it because I said it was stupid to hate Muggles,” she said, her voice so quiet that it hardly sounded like a voice at all. “She made me promise I’d never say anything like that again, or I’d get the Cruciatus Curse.”
Ted said nothing. There was nothing he could say to something as shocking and horrific as what Ivy had just told him. So instead, he hugged Ivy, letting her absorb his warmth in the hope that they’d both stop shivering, even though it had nothing to do with the cold at all.
After several quiet moments, Ted broke the silence. “But Ivy, there’s a law and stuff that says using an Unforgiveable Curse on another person gets you life in Azkaban. Why don’t you report her?”
Ivy didn’t answer straight away. At last, she said, “I guess… I’m not her daughter anymore, I know that. But she was still my mother, at least once, and I feel like I can’t turn her in for something she did such a long time ago. I probably won’t ever see her again anyway. I’m past all that now.”
Ted opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he was going to say, Ivy never got to hear. Because just then from behind them, a man’s voice said slowly, “Well, well, what have we here?”
Emma was a force to be reckoned with, fighting double-wanded and fending off both Carrow siblings at once. She was fast, and she was furious, and most importantly, she was ambidextrous.
She was, however, slightly distracted from her duel when she saw a young man in Death Eater robes peer cautiously from behind a nearby house, his pointed face porcelain pale and his white-blond hair disheveled. She recognized the young Draco Malfoy in a heartbeat. But that didn’t concern her. She’d faced an adult Malfoy at the age of fifteen and had come off the better. What concerned her was the dark blur streaking past her like a rogue tornado.
“You!” shouted Tyrone, whipping out his wand and pointing it straight at Draco Malfoy. He moved slowly and menacingly toward him, a vein standing out in his forehead.
Emma was still fighting, but her concentration was no longer in it. Earlier, she’d told Tyrone to pay attention to his own fight, not to her, and now she’d forgotten her own advice.
Tyrone, though, didn’t even glance in her direction. He was facing Malfoy, his face twisted with hate. It was strange how different he looked from the lazy, playfully cocky boy Emma was used to. This Tyrone didn’t look like someone who would wear t-shirts that said things like “DO YOU HAVE THE MIRROR OF ERISED IN YOUR POCKET, BECAUSE I CAN SEE MY HEART’S DESIRE IN YOUR PANTS,” or someone who would charm his skimpy mustache electric blue, or someone who would do crazy tricks on a broomstick after midnight. For the first time, Emma realized how very big he was, how formidable he could look when he wanted to.
“Hello,” he said quietly, and his deep voice was not silky-smooth as usual. It was harsh and dangerous. “My name is Tyrone Thomas. You killed my mother. Prepare to die.”
Emma did not laugh. She watched young Draco blink confusedly, clearly having never killed anyone in his life. Tyrone’s favourite movie was The Princess Bride, and he took it seriously. Other people would have thought Inigo Montoya’s vow to avenge his father’s death at the hand of a six-fingered man was funny. Tyrone saw it as inspiration.
He was drawing his wand, his lips were moving, his eyes harder and colder than Emma had ever seen them.
“You don’t have three arms,” said a low voice from behind her.
Emma’s head whipped around to see a tall woman with long black hair and a cruel, hollowed-looking face. Her heavy-lidded eyes gleamed with vindictive pleasure, anger, and something very much like insanity.
“Even you can’t duel three people at once,” said Bellatrix Lestrange.
Alecto Carrow looked up angrily. “She’s mine, Bellatrix.”
“Oh yes,” replied Bellatrix, laughing, “Because you have clearly done such a wonderful job of killing her already.” Even Emma had to admit that this was a fairly snappy retort. “Why don’t we take a leaf out of the book of these blood traitors’ book and work together.”
Emma wanted desperately to curse her, but infuriating as it was, Bellatrix was right. She didn’t have three arms. If she tried to hex Bellatrix, she’d be leaving herself vulnerable attack from one of the other two sides.
She wished… no, she didn’t wish she had help, she told herself quickly with a glance over toward Tyrone, still locked in combat against a thoroughly terrified-looking Draco Malfoy. It always made her sick when some Noble Prince came to the rescue when the Damsel In Distress was totally capable of saving herself.
She’d seen Ted carrying Ivy across the battlefield, probably trying to be Chivalrous and Gallant, but just looking completely stupid and practically dropping Ivy on her head. She hoped they knew just how idiotic they’d looked.
No, what Emma wished was that she had three arms, plain and simple, but she didn’t. All she could do was try her best and fight harder.
Bellatrix laughed wildly. “Two wands at once,” she said softly. “You are exactly like her.”
“Who?” Emma grunted, dodging two spells at once. It was rather like playing Twister. Thank you Ted and your stupid Christmas present, she thought.
And speaking of Twister, Bellatrix’s thin lips spread into a twisted smile. “Someone I destroyed.”
“Yeah, I figured it was probably something like that,” Emma said, wishing a dragon would swoop down out of the sky and incinerate Bellatrix. She was making it very difficult to concentrate. Sweat was pouring down her face, and her clothes were sticking uncomfortably to her skin, but she couldn’t let her guard down, not for one second.
Unfortunately, Bellatrix still seemed to be in a chatty mood. “Such a pretty girl,” she continued in a dangerously sweet voice. “Brimming with confidence, trying to impress her boyfriend…”
“I am not trying to impress anyone!” snapped Emma.
Bellatrix laughed again, this time maniacally. “Oh, does she have a secwet fancy?” she asked in a horrible high-pitched baby voice. “How sweet.”
Emma gritted her teeth and gripped her wand tighter than ever. If Bellatrix were someone at school, Emma would have already received at least five detentions for doing various horrible things to her, but as long as she was just talking, the important thing was to defend herself from the Carrows.
“You are just like Alice Longbottom,” Bellatrix crowed, dropping the baby voice. “Let’s see how the pretty girl likes this!”
Emma heard a bang and felt a beam of light hit her from behind and braced herself for the impact of the ground. But it never came. Bellatrix cackled hysterically, as Emma squinted in confusion. She felt fine… but something was wrong. She turned her head back and forth… something was definitely wrong. But what was it?”
Suddenly, it dawned on her. She reached slowly up to her head andvfelt it, and in a blaze of terrible shock, she knew what it was.
Her hair, her beautiful long, wavy, auburn hair was gone. All of it. She felt a strange choked noise escape from her mouth as she back of her throat constricting. What kind of a dumb spell was that, anyway? What kind of loony would leave victims totally intact except for their hair?
She’d never admit it to anyone, but she’d always been immensely proud of her hair, and though she knew it sounded vain, she’d taken compliments for granted, always known that most people considered her to be very pretty. She didn’t even want to know what she looked like without her hair, but she was sure that however she looked, it was certainly a far cry from ‘pretty.’
She hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings, so distracted was she by the incomprehensible, awful notion that she no longer had any hair. Before she could even register what was happening, curses hit her from all three sides.
Emma yelled something very rude as she hurtled through the air and slammed against a wall twenty feet away with enough force to make her teeth rattle. She slid down the wall and onto the ground, aching all over, but especially on her left side. It tingled in a strange, numb sort of way, and she knew her leg had to be at least as broken as Ivy’s after that impact”and most likely her arm, as well. But before she had a chance to examine her own injuries, something quite astonishing happened.
Bellatrix, still laughing, was holding two wands as Emma had, and she was slowly approaching Neville and Luna, who had just successfully Stunned a Death Eater. Emma felt a thrill of horror run up her numb arm. Bellatrix had broken her and discarded her like a little girl’s toy and was moving onto something fresh and exciting. It was sick.
Bellatrix was giggling the chirpy little giggle of one who was hopelessly criminally insane. “Back in battle, Longbottom?” she said in her low, cool voice. “Like the Cruciatus Curse and come back for a taste of more? They say ignorance is bliss. Do you want to live happily ever after at St. Mungo’s with your mummy and daddy?”
You’re making fun of insane people? Emma thought furiously. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You’re as nutty as they come.
She looked at the young, round face of the boy who would one day become Professor Longbottom and saw that his eyebrows were contracted and his lips pressed in determination. His face was bright red, and he looked as though he’d like nothing better than to punch Bellatrix in the mouth, but there was not a trace of fear in his expression.
“Oh, that’s a really awful thing to say,” said Luna, her vague expression coming as close to anger as it probably ever had. She was another person who couldn’t exactly talk about madness without speaking from experience, but she wore an expression of serene defiance as she took Neville’s chubby hand in her small, pale one.
Bellatrix cackled again. “Oh, the little girlfriend. Well, isn’t this familiar? The boy and girl always fight together before I destroy them. It doesn’t do any good. Your parents still don’t recognize each other.”
“Shut up,” said Neville quietly.
“What, aren’t you proud of your parents? Don’t you want to be told when you’re lying in St. Mungo’s that you drool like your daddy and you have your mummy’s vacant stare?”
“I will kill you,” said Neville in the same quiet voice.
Emma couldn’t stop staring at the boy. She knew Professor Longbottom as a cheerful, slightly dorky man who wheeled around calmly in his wheelchair, often forgetting little details like the day of the week or once (according to Emma’s not-entirely-reliable cousin Edwin) his trousers. Professor Longbottom would never say anything like that.
But a boy facing the evil woman who had taken his parents away and left him with two empty shells could.
“That is adorable,” said Bellatrix, “But I believe you have it backwards.”
It all happened in a flash. A green flash. She drew both wands, carelessly pointed them somewhere in the vicinity of where Neville and Luna were standing, and shrieked, “Avada Kedavra!”
And somehow, in the split second before the spell made its impact, Neville and Luna jumped in front of one another, ending up exactly where they had been before.
ZAMMM.
The spell illuminated the sky and ricocheted off its targets, hitting Bellatrix squarely in the chest. She fell to the ground in a lifeless, crumpled heap, a gleefully deranged smile still on her lips.
Neville and Luna lay on the ground beside her, their chests rising and falling with shock.
“I’m alive!” gasped Neville.
“Am I?” asked Luna. She didn’t sound like she was joking.
“You, er, look alive to me,” Neville replied cautiously.
“Oh.” Luna nodded. “You see, I couldn’t tell. Everything’s gone black.”
Neville’s head snapped around and he stared at her. Her previously round, silvery eyes were milky white, like twin full moons. “Luna!” he cried. He tried to stand up, but couldn’t even budge and inch. “My legs… why won’t they work?”
Luna did not look particularly shocked. “I expect the Killing Curse bounced off your legs and my eyes and hit Bellatrix Lestrange. Something like that once happened to Harry, you know, only it was his forehead.” She paused. “I’m going to really miss colours.”
“But… but why can’t I stand up?”
“I think the Killing Curse just killed the part it hit,” replied Luna. “But you don’t think it’s nice that we saved each other?”
Neville gave her a nervous smile. “Er… yeah, but, er, Luna…”
Emma stopped listening to the conversation, feeling like an indecent intruder. So this was how it had happened. She couldn’t believe it. Neville and Luna had sacrificed themselves for each other and both lived to tell the tale? Only they never did tell the tale. They kept it completely to themselves.
It was bizarre. Such a thing had only happened once before, when Lily Potter sacrificed herself for her son, and everyone knew about that. Why wasn’t Neville and Luna’s amazing escape from death not just as well-publicized? Everyone knew that Harry Potter had defeated Voldemort in the final battle, and that Neville been paralyzed and Luna blinded. But nobody but those who had been there knew just how it had happened, or who had defeated Voldemort’s chief lieutenant, Bellatrix Lestrange.
Realizing that the Carrows would probably come back to finish her off before long, Emma tried to climb to her feet and test her weight on her injured leg. But for some reason, it wasn’t working at all. She tried again, with still no result. Having just seen Neville do something very similar, she felt dread curling in her stomach.
She tried to raise her arm to feel her leg, but her arm wouldn’t cooperate.
She couldn’t move.