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The fire that shot through her ankle made her wish she could sit down, if only to get the weight off of it. She thought it might be broken but she didn’t have the time to stop and try to mend it. Her eyes traveled to where Hermione and Neville were huddled in the corner, the former clearing blood from the latter’s eyes.
Maybe she did have a second to -
Ginny dove out of the way as a curse hurtled towards her. It broke pieces of the stone wall off, showering her in the rubble, and she accepted the fact that her ankle would have to wait.
“Luna!” she cried out, reaching for her friend and pulling her out of the way of a curse. She didn’t know who shot it - didn’t know who most everyone in the room was - but she knew it wasn’t a rictusempra or something equally innocuous.
“Stupify!” she shouted, her wand directed at a tall man with dirty, scraggy dark hair. She assumed he was one of the ones recently broken out of Azkaban. She absurdly thought she would probably have made time for a quick shower before trying to murder some kids.
Disgusting.
Ginny looked up when she heard Hermione shout a curse and she grinned a bit maliciously when she saw Lucius Malfoy hit the ground. Part of her wanted to search for Draco, to see if he’d seen his girlfriend’s heroics, but there was no time. There was a loud cackle and she had to dive behind a stone to avoid a curse by Bellatrix Lestrange.
“She’s not very nice,” Luna panted, pushing her hair from her head. “Though I suppose I wouldn’t be either if I’d spent that long in Azkaban.”
Ginny pushed herself up to peer over the rock, ducking quickly as another curse was hurled in her direction. “We need backup! There’s too many of them!” she shouted, hoping someone would hear her despite knowing there was no way to reach the Order anyway. Unless …
“Oi! Harry! Mirror!”
“Hermione!” he shouted in return and she took that to mean Hermione had it and had already tried contacting Sirius.
She hoped the git was close enough to his own mirror to answer and get some bloody help.
When she felt the world closing in on them a little too much, she grabbed Luna’s hand and pulled her from their hiding spot. She cried out and had to tighten her grip on her friend to keep from falling when she felt her ankle give way.
“Let me fix that,” Luna offered, but Ginny just shook her head. “Ginny, please,” the blonde added, tugging her to a stop. “You won’t be able to keep running if you don’t. I can do it.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Ginny managed through gritted teeth. “But there’s …”
“You’re the one wasting time arguing with me,” Luna interrupted. “Now hold still.”
Ginny squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting Luna to see the itty, bitty sliver of fear she actually felt. Luna was talented but didn’t always enunciate and she didn’t want to end up like Harry had her first year when Lockhart tried to heal him.
She heard a soft word and then a trickle of cold in her ankle and then glorious relief. “Thanks,” she breathed as she opened her eyes and tested her strength. “Brilliant.”
Luna just gave her a beautiful smile and grabbed her hand. “Now let’s go. I think Draco and Ron can use our help!”
Ginny nodded and the two of them picked their way around the base of the platform, trying to be as sneaky as possible. Ginny wished she’d brought something to tie her hair up with but, to be fair to her, she didn’t know she would be fighting for her life.
When she and Luna emerged from below, she spotted Hermione and Harry battling Lucius Malfoy and the Lestrange twins, Neville against Crabbe and Goyle and Ron and Draco with Macnair, Dolohov, Bellatrix and some others she didn’t recognize.
Ginny charged first, Luna right on her heels, as she joined the fray.
“‘Bout time,” Malfoy said from beside her. She’d never really seen him so out of sorts. “You see Granger?”
“Kicking your dad’s ass,” she answered. “More than once, from what I could gather. She’s with Harry.”
“Bloody Potter,” he grumbled. “All the way to London and my cousin is nowhere to be found.”
“Hermione tried to reach him,” she grunted, throwing up a shield. “They should be here any minute.”
“Better be. There’s only seven of us and, like, a hundred of them.”
“Twelve,” Luna chimed in. “There’s twelve of them.”
“Maybe leave the arithmancy for another time, yeah?” Ron panted as he hurled a curse at Bellatrix. “Fuck.”
“You sure Granger used the mirror right?” Malfoy asked then gestured wildly. “Took us bloody less time to get here from Scotland. Just checking!”
As if Malfoy’s question was the password, the door high above them burst open and Ginny saw Tonks, Professor Lupin, Sirius and some others burst into the room.
“Thank Merlin,” she breathed, a rush of adrenaline surging through her at the arrival of reinforcements. She caught sight of Lupin engaging with some of the other Death Eaters and Sirius join Hermione and Harry. Moody did some kind of movement with his wand and took out most of the others.
“Wotcher, kids. Need some help?” Tonks asked with a grin as she shot a spell at Bellatrix, who looked furious at the sight of her halfblood niece. She shot a wink towards Draco. “I’ll take care of auntie dearest.”
Ginny felt a bit of relief flood her as Tonks led the insane witch further away. It was short-lived, however, because the others attacked with much more vigor. She couldn’t imagine being that age and wanting nothing more than to kill children.
Though Ginny supposed they probably didn’t count as children anymore.
A spell from Macnair took Luna out and it filled Ginny with a fury she’d only ever felt once before, after waking from the trance Tom Riddle had put her in. Gritting her teeth, she started shouting any spell she could think of at the attacking Death Eaters.
She was struck in the arm by a curse but it was as if she couldn’t really feel it. It would hurt like hell later, she was sure, but at the moment, they were a person down and she needed to pick up the slack.
“Gin, look out!” Ron shouted and she dove to her left just in time to dodge a curse from Macnair.
“Thanks, brother,” she said with a grin, pushing her hair from her face. She took a second to appreciate the fact that she was still alive before diving right back into the fray.
Ginny didn’t know how long they were battling, the kids and the Order, but she knew she was tired and sore. She’d gotten separated from Malfoy and Ron and couldn’t see either of them anymore. Her entire focus was on the one-on-one battle she was in with Goyle Senior.
She ducked to the left to avoid a curse but before she could gain her footing she was shoved to the side by a gangly body. Ginny thudded to the ground, Ron landing on top of her. “Sneaky git,” he grunted, lifting his head to probably check if the coast was clear. “Dolohov almost got you.”
“Always knew you were my favorite brother,” she panted, reaching her hand up so he could lift her to her feet. “Thanks.”
“No -“
Ron’s words were cut off as Ginny saw a jet of purple light hit him right in the sternum. It was so forceful that it lifted him off his feet and propelled him backwards. She was stunned and felt like she’d been petrified as she saw her brother enter the empty archway and then disappear.
“What the … Ron?” she screamed, rushing forward. “Ron?”
A pair of strong arms wrapped around her and held her back. “You have to stop.”
“No! Sirius, let me go!” She struggled in his strong grip, annoyed that he had so much weight on her and could hold her with little effort. “Ron fell through that -“ There was a thin curtain there now. “He disa - Sirius, he -“
Time came to a halt. She couldn’t move, didn’t even struggle. There was some shouting going on behind her but she didn’t hear a single word. She could feel Sirius wrapped around her but her eyes were glued to the floating curtain that was now hung in the previously-empty archway.
Ginny’s heart pounded as something like clarity pushed its way into her brain. In the silence, she shook her head. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she stared at the void, willing her brother to come back out.
Now, Ronald, she thought fiercely. Come back out right now. Mum’s going to be furious with you if you’ve gotten … no. No!
“Ginny?” Her voice was being repeated over and over again but she didn’t know how many times it took before she blinked and turned her eyes away from the curtain. “Ginny, come back.”
“I - I’m here,” she croaked, turning her head slightly so she could see Sirius. “What is … where …”
“I’m so sorry,” he said softly.
“For what?” she asked, though her shattered yet racing heart knew the answer. “Where did he …?”
“I’m sorry,” Sirius repeated. “There was nothing …”
“No,” she denied fervently. “No. You’re - he’s not …”
Ginny looked away from Sirius to try to find Harry and Hermione, though the second she laid her eyes on them she wished she hadn’t. Hermione was in her best friend’s arms and she could hear the older girl sobbing from where she stood. Malfoy was beside them as well, his hand on each of their shoulders and his head bowed.
“I don’t understand,” she breathed. “It wasn’t … it wasn’t a Killing Curse. It wasn’t green.”
“That’s not the only spell that can kill someone, love,” Sirius said quietly. “But the curse may not have been what did it. That’s … this …” Ginny had never really heard Sirius at a loss for words before so it made her pay even closer attention. “We’re in the - this is the Death Chamber. That’s the - it’s a veil. To the other side.”
Ginny didn’t hear a thing beyond Death. Logically she knew her brother was gone but the verbal confirmation from Sirius was too much for her to handle. She felt herself get lightheaded, heard him call her name, and then her vision went blissfully dark. Her last conscious thought was that this all had to be a dream because there was no way she could live in a world without her brother.