Death

Chris got up and saw who had saved her, and her eyes widened with shock.

"You still didn't learn to watch your back, did you?"

Jason Fawley was standing in front of her with a guarded expression, Chris was way too familiar with but he looked unfamiliar to her. Not only because of their last encounter in this very Hogwarts grounds but the way Jason looked. He was a bit taller than Chris before but now the wariness of his face and body made him look taller, there were also purple dark circles under his eyes, and his lips were thinned with a dry expression. Exhaustion and something else bleed through his body language. Something like regret or that's what Chris hoped considering they were . . . in the middle of a battle.

"Chris, look out!"

Before Chris could make sense of any of it, another voice broke her surprised trance. Chris's eyes snapped toward the voice and she saw Cedric looking up at the sky. Chris followed his gaze to find another massive creature, a big black wolf with skeleton-like wings snooping down to attack her. With her quick reflexes, Chris rolled out of the way and pointed her wand toward the creature to blast it off. Her curse combined with Jason's stunning spell and the creature blasted far away from them.

"What are you doing here?" Chris asked as she dived into the fray, knocking another creature and Jason followed her.

"Same as you, trying to kill these ugly weird monsters," Jason said as he created a fireball to scare and burn a few Inferis coming toward them.

Chris pulled a young witch out of harm's way and threw a few rapid spells at her attacker before talking to Jason again. She needed to gather her thoughts and an ongoing battle was not the right place for it. Still, Chris wanted to think before she spoke, the last time she saw Jason was playing at the back of her mind, yet she thought she shouldn't be too harsh on him, considering he was helping her right now. But then again what if he --

"You are not following their orders, are you?" Chris suddenly whirled around to look at Jason, who looked at her surprised.

"What?"

Realization slowly dawned on his face, but that didn't slow him down. He blasted off another large creature, something similar to the crocodile thing, Chris was for the first time in her third year, during the Triwizard tournament.

"Is this really the best time to talk about this?" He pressed his lips together. 

"To find out if you are working with us or our enemies? I would think this is the perfect time for it," Chris said coolly as she spotted another new wave of Inferis swarming in.

"I was not --" Jason began gritting his teeth, clearly affected by Chris's taunt. But he calmed himself down before speaking again. "I am not on their side. I am just trying to help everyone to help the school. That's all."

Chris opened her mouth to reply but Jason was already gone. Chris saw him disappearing behind two order members fighting a group of creatures and helping a few young students away from the fight. A pang of small guilt tugged on Chris's heart. He really was helping.

But before she could debate those feelings, she realized who were those two wizards fighting a group of creatures. 

"Richard? Shawn?" Chris called as she quickly jumped into the circle of monsters and started blasting them off one by one. 

The big monsters needed more than one spell but it was enough with Richard Nelson and Shawn Nelson's combined spells with Chris's deadly ones.

"Good to see you, Chris dear," said Richard Nelson, her stepfather with a smile in between the fight.

"Hey Chris, I was hoping to find you soon but I didn't --" Shawn huffed as he dodged a spell flying above him and missing him by mere inches. "-- have this background in mind."

"Me neither," Chris retorted back as they fought back to back. "When did you get here?"

"We found the Orders' message a couple of hours ago, but it took a while to get here with everything going on," said Shawn following Chris's lead to the blasting of those monsters. "Mom, Dad, Uncle, and I arrived just about half an hour ago. Mom and Dad went to the east side to handle the wizards while we are here fighting these literal monsters . . . I mean really, what are these creatures supposed to be? Wanna be Manticore?"

Chris chuckled at Shawn's joke as he nudged her to look at a several feet tall lion-like creature with a scorpion tail. It wasn't bigger than the bear though, so Chris wasn't worried as she attacked it with big icicles while Shawn threw another blasting spell. They were winning again and there was still a chance. Hogwarts was going to survive this and --

A new blast shook the entire Hogwarts grounds again. Chris turned around in a panic to find a part of the school crumbling down and another new scream tearing the cold night.

"Chris! The west side of the school is --" Colin's voice shook as he spoke rapidly through Chris's talisman. "Many got hit and many are buried under the rubble. I am trying to help --"

Another blast.

And then a ringing silence.

"Colin?" Chris called as his voice stopped coming. "Colin? What happened? Colin, are you ok? Colin! COLIN! TALK TO ME! COLIN!"

Chris screamed out loud as no sound came from Colin's end. The fight in front of her suddenly felt like a faraway thing as the worst care scenario painted itself in her mind. Colin was supposed to be ok, right?

"What's going on?" Ginny's voice came with her panting. She was probably talking while fighting.

"I think the castle --" Luna began but Chris cut her off.

"COLIN!!! He is not answering! He was just talking to me. . ." Chris didn't even finish speaking before Ginny and Luna called Colin through the talisman.

But no answer came.

Chris's stomach twisted in a knot and something sat heavily on her chest making the back of her eyes burn. Her ears started roaring with blood rushing through her head. She felt disoriented as the thought of the night Zil died flashed through her mind . . . the night she found out her friends died . . . the night she watched Dumbledore dying . . . the night she saw Tonks's parents die . . .

"I'm going to look for him," Luna's voice floated inside Chris's ears along with another muffled voice.

Chris couldn't make out the other person's words but recognized the panic in them. She turned around to look but she was too late. The scorpion tail of that wannabe Manticore flashed in front of her, the sharp point about to pierce through her chest. It was a blur, yet Chris felt like the moment stretched like an eternity. But she couldn't draw her wand fast enough, she knew the tail was already too close. Chris thought maybe that's how it felt just the moments before people were about to die. These are the last moments of life people talked about when their entire life flashes before their eyes. Chris's body braced for the impact of that scorpion tail . . . and it made disgusting crunching and squelching sounds as it pierced through bone and flesh.

Chris twitched but she didn't feel any pain, which wasn't supposed to --

Chris blinked realizing she was standing several feet away from the scorpion tale, and an arm that probably pulled her back was still wrapped around her shoulders. A familiar voice spoke near her ear.

"I'm sorry, I was late, Christina."

Chris's body automatically relaxed upon hearing Oziyat's calm voice but something still nagged her inside her head. She did hear the flesh and bone piercing sound and if it didn't hit her then it must have hit someone, who jumped in front of her to save her. Who . . . ?

Chris's eyes followed the Scorpion tale as it pulled itself back from the chest of someone familiar. The squelching noise filled Chris's ears again and blood splattered everywhere. Chris froze. Her body went limp as she recognized who had jumped in front of her and whose heart the wannabe Manticore just pierced.

"JASON!"

[To be continued]