Escape

The crowd of Potterites rushed forward, their movements halted by the surrounding Death Eaters, who pushed them back at wand point.

"Neville Longbottom is going to demonstrate the punishment that will befall anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me," Voldemort hissed. The hat burst into flames.

Screams issued forth from Dumbledore's Army, and Attica's choice was made for her. Neville had to be saved, if nothing else. She whispered a glamor charm so she wouldn't be seen. She had been formulating a plan to make her way into the inner circle without being stopped by the Death Eaters, but the battle had already begun. Giants and centaurs flooded the courtyard, and it took Attica a moment to find Neville amidst the chaos.

With Voldemort's attention diverted, Neville was able to shake off the binding curse. Her heart started racing as she saw Voldemort's snake slithering through the crowd toward him. She was trying so hard to reach him, but there were so many people in her way, and her limbs felt as if they were made of lead. Neville threw aside the burning hat and seemed to pull a silver sword out its depths. Time seemed to stand still, and Attica saw him brandish the sword, looking more determined than she had ever seen him. In a graceful arc, he lowered the weapon to meet its target. The sword sliced through Nagini's neck and the head seemed to remain suspended in mid-air before hitting the ground with a sickening thud.

Voldemort's scream could be heard above the din of battle. Attica knew that he was feeling something he had not felt for a very long time. Fear. With the death of the snake, she realized, Voldemort's only affectionate relationship with another living creature had been severed.

But this was of little consequence. After killing the snake, Neville turned and ran headlong into the entrance hall and directly into the battle that was erupting there. Attica began to run to catch up to him. When she reached the entrance hall, she slowed down to navigate through the multitude of spells being thrown haphazardly all around her. The hot smell of hexes zapping through the air made her nausea swell.

She passed Voldemort warring with McGonagall, Slughorn, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, but she was set on finding Neville before he got himself killed. She would have to come back for him later. Frantically searching the large entrance hall, she finally spotted Neville fighting alongside Ronald Weasley, both of whom had been attacked by Fenrir Greyback. Attica cast a silent Incendio and watched as the werewolf erupted into flames. Another flick of her wand and he was thrust back several yards, landing with a crunch against the opposite wall.

"Nice one," Weasley called as he turned and narrowly missed being hit by a hex thrown by another Death Eater.

She reached out and grabbed Neville's wand while he was still trying to make sense of what had just happened. In his confusion, he did not resist when she pushed him around the corner and into an empty room. The tumult of the battle was still pouring through the castle, and Attica knew that time was short.

"What..." he began.

Realizing that he could not see her, she lowered the invisibility glamor.

"Attica! What are you doing? What are you doing here?"

She swiftly placed a hand over his mouth to quiet him.

"Shhh," she hissed. "We only have a few seconds before someone finds us here." She stared up into his soft brown eyes for a moment before realizing that her hand was still clamped over his mouth. She lowered her hand and returned his wand to him. "I'm getting you out of here."

The surprise in his eyes lasted only a fraction of a second. He shook his head. "No, Attica. I have to fight," he whispered passionately.

Attica wanted to scream in frustration, but struggled to keep her voice down. "I'm not going to stand by and watch you die, Neville," she snapped.

"I can't just leave all this behind. I'm a part of this, and I'm going to see it through to the end. Attica, we have to fight for what we love," he said simply.

"I am, Neville!"

A pregnant pause followed her exclamation and a glimmer of hope flittered across his face.

"We are leaving. You have your wand back. We are going to have to fight our way out of here." Grabbing his hand, she turned toward the broken window on the other side of the room. She would body-bind him and levitate him through the window if she had to, she thought wildly.

He pulled away from her grasp and she looked back at him. He shook his head adamantly. "Go if you want, Attica. I'm staying." He leaned down and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead before exiting the room and rejoining the battle.

After recovering from her shock, she replaced the invisibility glamor and rushed after him. She dodged hexes from both sides as she followed Neville, who was fighting his way through the crowd to the entrance of the castle.

Attica froze. In the middle of the hall, the battle had died down and a circle of people surrounded Voldemort. She tried to push her way toward the circle for a better view of what was happening. It had to be something big if it had halted the entire battle. As she drew closer, she noticed that there was someone else inside the circle. With a gasp of disbelief, she recognized Potter. His wand was drawn as he and Voldemort circled each other. He was alive.

"But you're too late. You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I look this wand from him.*

"So this is what it comes down to," whispered the Boy Who Would Not Die. "Does the wand in your hand know that its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does... I am the true master of the Elder Wand.*"

The room was silent with trepidation. She dared a glance at the Dark Lord. She could see it there again, the fear. Only this time, it was much more pronounced.

It all unfolded very quickly.

"Avada Kadavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

The two spells met, green and red, uttered at exactly the same moment. Voldemort's wand arched high into the air, landing at Potter's feet. The Dark Lord crumpled to the floor and his body remained where it had fallen, lifeless. His own curse had rebounded on him once more. Voldemort was dead.

~~~

Attica couldn't make sense of any of it at first. The Elder Wand was only a myth. Potter was supposed to be dead. Once again, the rug had been pulled out from under her, and her thoughts were a web of tangled dread and disappointment.

She reassured herself with the fact that Neville had not been harmed. Hesitant sounds of merriment began to rise and then flooded through the entrance hall. The joy was almost palpable, but Attica was numb to it, and her hatred of Potter began to bubble to the surface once again. It had receded in the moments following his ostensible death, but now it was resurfacing, more potent than ever. Neville had chosen to fight for him rather than escape with her. As if she needed another reason to hate Harry Potter.

Still enveloped in the glamor, she pointed her wand at Potter from across the room. "Avada Kadavra!" she hissed through clenched teeth. She was reminded of the fact that a spell caster had to really mean an Unforgivable to cast an Unforgivable. She knew that when Snape had killed Dumbledore, he had had to work very hard to contrive his hatred for the man. There would be no pretending here. She meant the curse with every fiber of her being, and she believed in her abilities with absolute certainty. There was greater chance that the sun wouldn't rise than she would find the killing curse to be above her capability.

~~~

As the sun rose high above the recovering occupants of Hogwarts Castle, Attica was nowhere to be found. Her curse had failed, and no one had even heard her utter it, so absorbed were they in the comparative bliss that had immediately followed the fall of the Dark Lord. She could not fathom why her curse had foundered, and she glared at her ash wand as one would a traitor.

She was all at once overwhelmed with the knowledge that she had failed, twice over. Despair coursed through her, and all she knew was an inordinate urge to be alone in her misery. She knew that she no longer belonged there, among the walls of the castle that had been her sanctuary of learning and magic. She no longer belonged in the only place that had remained constant in her unstable life. This place had offered her asylum like no other place had been able to, not even her haunted dreams. And now, she was a stranger to it. Her magic had betrayed her. Attica slowly stole away from the castle, needing to be anywhere but there.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear the murmuring of the Dark Lord's voice, taunting. There was not even a place in her mind where she could seek refuge anymore.

Still, she ran.

A/N: *These lines were taken directly from JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 36, "The Flaw in the Plan." I make no money from the writing of this story. These characters (with the exception of Attica) belong to JK Rowling. She built this beautiful world, and I find myself supremely lucky to have the honor of visiting it from time to time.