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𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃

welcome to your life, there's no turning back

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i'm the commander.

no one fights for me

― lexa, the 100

·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .

𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐀 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃 by people, all asking her questions. Harry gone off to search for the diadem and Ron and Hermione were in the Chamber of Secrets, collecting Basilisk Fangs. For now, she was alone. As she answered question, Elara observed the preparations of war. Fred, George, and Aurora were handing out Molotovs, Seamus was happier than Elara had ever seen him, and Corrine and Oliver were threateningly patrolling the skies.

The first casualties of the battle were already strewn across the passage ahead: The two stone gargoyles that usually guarded the entrance to the staffroom had been smashed apart by a jinx that had sailed through another broken window. Their remains stirred feebly on the floor.

Ron and Hermione had agreed to meet back up once they gathered enough Basilisk fangs, but since there was only so many hours until midnight, Elara took it upon herself to find them.

She passed portrait after portrait, and the painted figures raced alongside her, wizards and witches in ruffs and breeches, in armor and cloaks, cramming themselves into each others' canvases, screaming news from other parts of the castle. As she reached the end of this corridor, the whole castle shook, and Elara knew, as a gigantic vase blew off its plinth with explosive force, that it was in the grip of enchantments more sinister than those of the teachers and the Order.

She forged on through the trembling passages, flames wand at the ready, and for the length of one corridor the little painted knight, Sir Cadogan, rushed from painting to painting beside her, clanking along in his armor, screaming encouragement, his fat little pony cantering behind him.

"Braggarts and rogues, dogs and scoundrels, drive them out, Elara Tonks, see them off!"

Elara saluted him as she hurtled around a corner and found Fred, George, and Aurora with a small knot of students, including Lee Jordan and Hannah Abbott, standing beside another empty plinth, whose statue had concealed a secret passageway. Their wands were drawn and they were listening at the concealed hole. The majority of them had Molotovs in their free hands.

"Nice night for it!" Fred shouted as the castle quaked again, and Elara sprinted by, elated and terrified in equal measure.

Along yet another corridor she dashed, and then there were owls everywhere, and Mrs. Norris was hissing and trying to bat them with her paws, no doubt to return them to their proper place. . . .

"Tonks!"

Aberforth Dumbledore stood blocking the corridor ahead, his wand held ready.

"I've had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Tonks!"

"I know, we're evacuating," Elara said, "Voldemort's —"

"— attacking because they haven't handed Harry over, yeah," said Aberforth, "I'm not deaf, the whole of Hogsmeade heard him. And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Slytherins hostage? There are kids of Death Eaters you've just sent to safety. Wouldn't it have been a bit smarter to keep 'em here?"

"It wouldn't stop Bitch Boy," said Elara, "and your brother would never have done it."

Aberforth grunted and tore away in the opposite direction. Your brother would never have done it . . . Well, it was the truth, Elara thought as she ran on again; Dumbledore, who had defended Snape for so long, would never have held students ransom. . . .And then she skidded around a final corner and with a yell of mingled relief and fury he saw them: Ron and Hermione, both with their arms full of large, curved, dirty yellow objects, Ron with a broomstick under his arm.

Harry came up upon them at the same time.

"There you are!" they all cried with relief.

"How did you get in there?" Harry asked, staring from the fangs to Ron. "You need to speak Parseltongue!"

"Oh — Right, I forgot about that when I asked," said Elara sheepishly, "But, yeah, how did you — ?"

"He did!" whispered Hermione. "Show them, Ron!"

Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise.

"It's what you did to open the locket," he told Harry apologetically. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but," he shrugged modestly, "we got there in the end."

"He was amazing!" said Hermione. "Amazing!"

"So — "

"So we're another Horcrux down," said Ron, and from under his jacket he pulled the mangled remains of Hufflepuff's cup. "Hermione stabbed it. Thought she should. She hasn't had the pleasure yet.""

"Brilliant!"

Genius!" yelled Harry.

"It was nothing," said Ron, though he looked delighted with himself. "So what's new with you?"

As he said it, there was an explosion from overhead: All four of them looked up as dust fell from the ceiling and they heard a distant scream.

"I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is," said Harry, talking fast. "He hid it exactly where Lara hid my old Potions book, where everyone's been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come on."

As the walls trembled again, Harry led the them back through the concealed entrance and down the staircase into the Room of Requirement. It was empty except for two women: Ginny and an elderly witch wearing a moth-eaten hat, whom Elara recognized immediately as Neville's grandmother.

"Ah, Tonks," she said crisply as if she had been waiting for her. "You can tell us what's going on."

"Is everyone okay?" said Ginny.

"'S far as we know," said Harry. "Are there still people in the passage to the Hog's Head?"

He knew that the room would not be able to transform while there were still users inside it.

"I was the last to come through," said Mrs. Longbottom. "I sealed it, I think it unwise to leaveit open now Aberforth has left his pub. Have you seen my grandson?"

"He's fighting," said Elara.

"Naturally," said the old lady proudly. "Excuse me, I must go and assist him."

With surprising speed she trotted off toward the stone steps. Elara looked at Ginny.

"Ginny, I'm sorry, but we need you to leave too. Just for a bit. Then you can come back in."

Ginny looked simply delighted to leave her sanctuary.

"And then you can come back in!" she shouted after her as she ran up the steps after Neville's Grandmother. "You've got to come back in!"

"Hang on a moment!" said Ron sharply. "We've forgotten someone!"

"Who?" asked Hermione.

"The house-elves, they'll all be down in the kitchen, won't they?"

"You mean we ought to get them fighting?" asked Harry.

"No," said Ron seriously, "I mean we should tell them to get out. We can't order them to die for us —"

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.

"FUCKING FINALLY!" shouted Elara, grabbing Harry and shaking him enthusiastically.

"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly.

Elara shushed him and tried to smack him on the arm, but he moved out of her reach.

"OI! There's a war going on here!"

Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.

"Cockblock," teased Elara.

"I know, mate," said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, "so it's now or never, isn't it?"

"Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted. "D'you think you could just —just hold it in until we've got the diadem?"

"Yeah — right — sorry —" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.

It was clear, as the four of them stepped back into the corridor upstairs, that in the minutes that they had spent in the Room of Requirement the situation within the castle had deteriorated severely: The walls and ceiling were shaking worse than ever; dust filled the air, and through the nearest window, Elara saw bursts of green and red light so close to the foot of the castle that she knew the Death Eaters must be very near to entering the place.

Looking down, Elara saw Grawp the giant meandering past, swinging what looked like a stone gargoyle torn from the roof and roaring his displeasure.

"Let's hope he steps on some of them!" said Ron as more screams echoed from close by.

"As long as it's not any of our lot!" said a voice: Elara turned and saw Ginny and Nymphie, both with their wands drawn at the next window, which was missing several panes. Even as she watched, Ginny sent a well-aimed jinx into a crowd of fighters below.

"Good girl!" roared a figure running through the dust toward them, and Elara saw Aberforth again, his gray hair flying as he led a small group of students past. "They look like they might be breaching the north battlements, they've brought giants of their own!"

Quickly, Elara wrapped Nymphie in a quick hug.

"Don't die on me, okay?"

"As long as you don't die on me."

"Dickhead," snorted Elara before Nymphie smiled and turned to shout after Aberforth.

"Have you seen Remus?"

"He was dueling Dolohov," shouted Aberforth, "haven't seen him since!"

"Tonks," said Ginny, "Tonks, I'm sure he's okay —"

But Nymphie had run off into the dust after Aberforth. Ginny turned, helpless, to Elara, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"They'll be all right," said Harry, though Elara knew they were empty words. "Ginny, we'll be back in a moment, just keep out of the way, keep safe — come on!" he said to Elara, Ron, and Hermione, and they ran back to the stretch of wall beyond which the Room of Requirement was waiting to do the bidding of the next entrant.

I need the place where everything is hidden, Elara begged of it inside her head, and the door materialized on their third run past.

The furor of the battle died the moment they crossed the threshold and closed the door behind them: All was silent. They were in a place the size of a cathedral with the appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone students.

"And he never realized anyone could get in?" said Ron, his voice echoing in the silence.

"He thought he was the only one," said Elara. "Cocky piece of shit," she added, "I think it's down here. . . ."

She passed the stuffed troll and the Vanishing Cabinet Draco Malfoy had mended last year with such disastrous consequences, then hesitated, looking up and down aisles of junk; she could not remember where to go next. . . .

"Accio Diadem!" cried Hermione in desperation, but nothing flew through the air toward them.

It seemed that, like the vault at Gringotts, the room would not yield its hidden objects that easily.

"Let's split up," Harry told the other two. "You two go together and Lara'll stick with me. Look for a stone bust of an old man wearing a wig and a tiara! It's standing on a cupboard and it's definitely somewhere near here. . . ."

They sped off up adjacent aisles; Elara could hear the others' footsteps echoing through the towering piles of junk, of bottles, hats, crates, chairs, books, weapons, broomsticks, bats. . . .

"Somewhere near here," Harry kept muttering to himself. "Somewhere . . . somewhere . . ."

Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth she went, looking for objects she recognized from her one previous trip into the room. Her breath was loud in her ears, and then her very soul seemed to shiver: There it was, right ahead, the blistered old cupboard in which she had hidden Harry's old Potions book, and on top of it, the pockmarked stone warlock wearing a dusty old wig and what looked like an ancient, discolored tiara.

She had already stretched out her hand, though she remained ten feet away, when a voice behind her said, "Hold it, dear cousin."

She skidded to a halt and turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind her, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Elara and Harry. Through the small space between their jeering faces she saw Draco Malfoy.

"That's my wand you're holding, Potter," said Draco, pointing his own through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle.

"Not anymore," panted Harry. "Finders, keepers, Malfoy. Who's lent you theirs?"

"My mother," said Draco.

Elara laughed, though there was nothing very humorous about the situation. She could not hear Ron or Hermione anymore. They seemed to have run out of earshot, searching for the diadem.

"So how come you three aren't with Voldemort?" asked Elara.

"We're gonna be rewarded," said Crabbe: His voice was surprisingly soft for such an enormous person; Elara had hardly ever heard him speak before. Crabbe was smiling like a small child promised a large bag of sweets. "We 'ung back, Potter. We decided not to go. Decided to bring you to 'im."

"Good plan," said Harry in mock admiration.

"Really good plan, Crabbe," continued Elara, "But, I'll tell you what I told Parkinson: you'll have to go through me, and that is a fight in which you will not come out alive."

While she spoke, Elara had grabbed Harry's arm and tugged him behind her. Flames were already dancing around her hands, hungry for blood.

"So how did you get in here?" she asked, trying to distract them.

"I virtually lived in the Room of Hidden Things all last year," said Draco, his voice brittle. "I know how to get in."

"We was hiding in the corridor outside," grunted Goyle. "We can do Diss-lusion Charms now! And then," his face split into a gormless grin, "you turned up right in front of us and said you was looking for a die-dum! What's a die-dum?"

"Jesus Christ, Goyle, did you skip the first grade? Or the second? Or Third? Fourth? Fifth — ?"

"Elara?" Ron's voice echoed suddenly from the other side of the wall to Elara's right. "Are you talking to someone?"

With a whiplike movement, Crabbe pointed his wand at the fifty-foot mountain of old furniture, of broken trunks, of old books and robes and unidentifiable junk, and shouted, "Descendo!"

The wall began to totter, then the top third crumbled into the aisle next door where Ron stood.

"Ron!" Harry bellowed, as somewhere out of sight Hermione screamed, and Elara heard innumerable objects crashing to the floor on the other side of the destabilized wall: She pointed his wand at the rampart, cried, "Finite!" and it steadied.

"No!" shouted Draco, staying Crabbe's arm as the latter made to repeat his spell. "If you wreck the room you might bury this diadem thing!"

"What's that matter?" said Crabbe, tugging himself free. "It's Potter the Dark Lord wants, who cares about a die-dum?"

"Potter came in here to get it," said Malfoy with ill-disguised impatience at the slow-wittedness of his colleagues, "so that must mean —"

"'Must mean'?" Crabbe turned on Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. "Who cares what you think? I don't take your orders no more, Draco. You an' your dad are finished."

"Draco, listen to me," pleaded Elara, "you don't have to continue down this path. I promised you I'd protect you, and here I am. We're so close — I can set you free from your chains. Just. . . . Let us go."

"Harry?" shouted Ron again, from the other side of the junk wall. "What's going on?"

"Harry?" mimicked Crabbe. "What's going — no, Potter! Crucio!"

Harry had lunged for the tiara; Crabbe's curse missed him but hit the stone bust, which flew into the air; the diadem soared upward and then dropped out of sight in the mass of objects on which the bust had rested.

"STOP!" Draco shouted at Crabbe, his voice echoing through the enormous room. "The Dark Lord wants him alive —"

"So? I'm not killing him, am I?" yelled Crabbe, throwing off Malfoy's restraining arm. "But if I can, I will, the Dark Lord wants him dead anyway, what's the diff — ?"

A jet of scarlet light shot past Elara by inches: Hermione had run around the corner behind Elara and Harry and sent a Stunning Spell straight at Crabbe's head. It only missed because Draco pulled him out of the way.

"It's that Mudblood! Avada Kedavra!"

Harry saw Hermione dive aside, and his fury that Crabbe had aimed to kill wiped all else from his mind.

"Oh, you fucked up," snarled Elara, lunging for Crabbe.

"Don't kill him! DON'T KILL HIM!" Draco yelled at Goyle, who was aiming at Harry.

"Expelliarmus!"

Harry was dueling Goyle, and Elara had engaged in a fist fight against Crabbe, who'd dropped his wand. Crabbe fought with his fists, not his head, which gave Elara an enormous advantage over him. After he threw a wild punch, Elara leapt onto a small platform and jumped onto Crabbe's shoulders.

Finding herself in a similar position as when she was in the forest, battling ten Snatchers at once, Elara threw herself backwards and landed on her knees as Crabbe soared overhead. She pushed herself up and grabbed Harry, making a run for it.

"It's somewhere here!" Harry yelled to Hermione, pointing at the pile of junk into which the old tiara had fallen. "Look for it while we go and help R —"

"HARRY!" she screamed.

A roaring, billowing noise behind Elara gave her a moment's warning. She turned and saw both Ron and Crabbe running as hard as they could up the aisle toward them.

"Like it hot, scum?" roared Crabbe as he ran.

But he seemed to have no control over what he had done. Flames of abnormal size were pursuing them, licking up the sides of the junk bulwarks, which were crumbling to soot at their touch.

"OH, BIG FUCKING MISTAKE, MOTHERFUCKER!" screamed Elara, her pendant glowing bright blue. "EVERYONE GO AHEAD OF ME AND GET OUT OF HERE!"

Draco grabbed the Stunned Goyle and dragged him along; Crabbe outstripped all of them, now looking terrified; Harry, Ron, and Hermione pelted along in his wake, and the fire pursued them. The FiendFyre took the shape of raging animals, the fire's roar shaping them into predator's. Only those who are dumb enough to conjure it do.

Elara heard their retreating footsteps and immediately threw up a wall of her own fire. The notebook had it written that you had to experience complete and utter rage in order to conjure and control the wild fire. She thought of Umbridge — the woman who forced Harry to carve is own skin. Bellatrix — the one who took Sirius away from her, the one that forced her to undergo months of torture. The bastard that killed Ted. Voldemort — the man that has spilled more blood than times he's not.