Twenty Three

                                    

                                          
Whirling around on the spot Eleanor found herself face to face with a pale, blonde haired man who, if she had to guess, was somehow related to Draco. The woman who emerged beside him as she mocked Harry's demand for Sirius she had no trouble identifying, Bellatrix Lestrange.
Seeing the woman who had killed her mother in person turned the blood in Eleanor's veins to ice and she backed up slowly until she felt Cynthia's hand slip into hers.
"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Potter," the pale haired man said, the group of death eaters around him still advancing slowly on the group. Slowly, not daring to draw attention to herself Eleanor slipped her hand into her pocket to grip her wand.
"Go on," Harry replied to a threat of the man's, raising his wand, and as he did so Eleanor watched as all of the others raised theirs with him. Eleanor couldn't believe what was happening, how they had ended up here surrounded by death eaters when hours ago they had been celebrating the end of their exams.
Bellatrix made an attempt to summon the prophecy that was in Harry's hand, but Harry was fast enough to shield himself and the man, definitely a Malfoy, Eleanor had concluded, roared at the woman not to break it.
Eleanor could feel the tense restlessness of the others around her as they prepared to do something, all they were waiting for it seemed, was a signal from Harry. Her hand gripped tighter on to Cynthia and she too pulled her wand from her pocket, holding it aloft in her hand.
A dozen spells were running through her head as she tried to think of what she would do when they acted. Their best chance was not to engage directly with the death eaters, but to cause enough of a distraction that they could escape, so she settled on one that would cause the most damage to the orbs and shelves around them, hoping Cynthia was thinking the same way.
"NOW!" Harry yelled and all around her Eleanor could hear the others shouting Reducto in different directions, shattering hundreds of glass orbs, all of which released white figures whispering their own prophecies into the air.
Sha vaguely heard Harry urging them to run and a tug on her hand told her Cynthia had turned and began to take off. Not needing any further encouragement Eleanor followed suit, holding her hand above her head to shelter from the debris falling from the shelves. She had lost Harry and the others, and, rounding a corner she found only Cynthia, Ginny, Luna and Ron, all of them breathless and unsure of their next move.
Behind them they could still hear the death eaters pursuing them and they moved off again, Ginny pointing out a door to the left. Without consulting one another they all cram themselves inside a dark room where the only thing Eleaonr could make out were what she assumed were models of the planets.
"Eleanor?" She heard Cynthia whisper into the darkness, the strange sensation of floating descending on their bodies.
"I'm right here Cyn," she whispers back, reaching out into the darkness for her hand.
From behind her Eleanor can hear the death eaters stumbling into the darkness behind them, Ginny letting out a yell.
"They've got my foot," she says, and in the darkness Eleanor can make out her kicking and flailing against someone, to her right Ron is also illuminated as a spell hits him.
"Reducto," Eleanor heard Luna cry, aiming at the death eater who had a hold of Ginny, the girl let out a stifled cry of pain and Cynthia moved to catch her as she slumped to the ground.
Ron was now laughing at the planets, jokes streaming from his mouth and they could still hear more death eaters behind them.
Together, Luna and Cynthia helping Ginny and Eleanor close behind with Ron made their way out of the room and through a doorway which led them back to the circular room from earlier.
"Ron," Harry called and they were relieved to find Harry and Neville holding onto Hermione.
"We have to get out of here," someone said, Eleanor couldn't quite make out who. With Luna helping Ginny who insisted she could walk herself, and Harry leading Ron, Eleanor found herself helping Neville with an unconscious Hermione across the threshold of another room just in time for Harry to seal the door shut.
The ones of them who could still walk and weren't talking nonsense ran around the room sealing as many doors as they could when Luna cried out before flying across the room as death eaters surged in through one of the doors they hadn't yet reached.
Ron chose this moment to point out to Harry that they were back in the brain room, pointing his wand towards one of the tanks, "Accio brain."
Everyone in the room, even the death eaters turned to watch the brain burst from the top of the tank and wrap itself around Ron who at first seemed unperturbed as it wrapped the things like tentacles around his arm. Moments later he was calling out for help, the tentacles wrapping themselves tighter around Ron, and none of the spells they shot at it could make the brain creature stop.
The death eaters, done watching this scene had shot several stunning spells into the room, one of them hitting Ginny and sending her to the floor, another one, silver light in the form of an arrow almost instead of the red light of a stunning spell, colliding with Cynthia who sprawls on the floor beside Ginny.
It was just Harry, Neville and Eleanor left now, the latter staring in horror down at her unconscious friend before shooting back her own spells in the death eater's direction.
She watched Harry run from the room, the prophecy held in front of him as he lured the death eaters away, Neville trying desperately to separate Ron from the brain.
She knew she should chase after Harry, to help keep him and that prophecy safe, or lend Neville a hand, but instead she crouched down beside Cynthia, checking her pulse and her breathing before rolling her onto her side. She quickly checks Ginny as well and finds Luna unconscious, moving her with a levitating charm to lie beside the other two girls.
Neville called out her name, telling her to help him and Harry but she motioned for him to just go, she would stay here with the others, Ron was still struggling against the brain as she racked her own for a spell they hadn't tried to pry it off him.
In the sudden silence of this room she felt panic welling up inside her, threatening to overflow and take a hold of her. But a look at Cynthia unconscious on the floor reminds her why she's here, why she can't just curl up and wait for something to happen.
A few more death eaters run into the room, on their way to the commotion caused by Harry and Neville.
No matter what happened, they would not be separated. Eleanor reminded herself, moving in front of the unconscious bodies and hurling stunning spells and body locking spells at the cloaked figures, somewhere in the distance she could hear the sound of the fighting escalating and wondered how Harry and Neville were still holding so many of them off.
She had just managed to dodge a nasty looking curse when the death eaters in the room were on the ground, unconscious, as Albus Dumbledore stepped in through the doorway behind them.
"Keep watch on your friends," was all he said to her before he made his way off into the next room where the sound of fighting had dimmed within minutes.
Eleanor let out a shaky breath and lowered herself to the ground beside Cynthia. Ginny was the first to stir, sitting up slowly, Luna and Cynthia following shortly after. The fighting seeming to have ended, though she could hear someone, Harry, she thought, yelling, his voice growing closer as none other than Bellatrix Lestrange ran through the room, sending a curse behind her that covered Harry in the liquid inside one of the brain tanks as he followed hot on her heels.
"Harry, what-?" Ginny called, gaining no response as he ignored them all.
With the fight clearly over, Eleanor watched silently as Neville, her old Professors; Moody and Lupin and a man she didn't recognise slouched into the room, helping to pry the brain from Ron and help Ginny and the others to their feet.
"We'll take you all to the hospital wing back at Hogwarts for now," the man she didn't recognise said, introducing himself to her as Kingsley Shacklebolt.