Pages 805-807 (revised)

[heidi]

Harry did not have to think; there was no choice. The prophecy was hot with the heat of his clutching hand as he held it out. Malfoy jumped forwards to take it.

Then, high above them, two more doors burst open and five more people sprinted into the room: Hagrid, Dumbledore, Moody, Tonks and Kingsley.

Malfoy turned, and raised his wand, but Tonks had already sent a Stunning Spell right at him. Harry did not wait to see whether it had made contact, but dived off the dais out of the way. The Death Eaters were completely distracted by the appearance of the members of the Order, who were now raining spells down upon them as they jumped from step to step towards the sunken floor. Through the darting bodies, the flashes of light, Harry could see Neville crawling along. He dodged another jet of red light and flung himself flat on the ground to reach Neville.

'Are you OK?' he yelled, as another spell soared inches over their heads.

'Yes', said Neville, trying to pull himself up.

'And Ron?'

'I dink he's all righd - he was still fighding de brain when I lefd-'

The stone floor between them exploded as a spell hit it, leaving a crater right where Neville’s hand had been only seconds before; both scrambled away from the spot, then a thick arm came out of nowhere, seized Harry around the neck and pulled him upright, so that his toes were barely touching the floor.

'Give it to me', growled a voice in his ear, 'give me the prophecy-'

The man was pressing so tightly on Harry's windpipe that he could not breathe. Through watering eyes he saw Hagrid duelling with a Death Eater some ten feet away; Kingsley was fighting two at once; Tonks, still halfway up the tiered seats, was firing spells down at Bellatrix - nobody seemed to realise that Harry was dying. He turned his wand backwards towards the man's side, but had no breath to utter an incantation, and the man's free hand was groping towards the hand in which Harry was grasping the prophecy -

'AARGH!' Neville had come lunging out of nowhere; unable to articulate a spell, he had jabbed Hermione's wand hard into the eyehole of the Death Eaters mask. The man relinquished Harry at once with a howl of pain. Harry whirled around to face him and gasped: 'STUPEFY!'

The Death Eater keeled over backwards and his mask slipped off: it was Macnair, Buckbeak's would-be killer, one of his eyes now swollen and bloodshot. He caught a glimpse of Hagrid's face - he was grinning to see Macnair suffering.

'Thanks!' Harry said to Neville, pulling him aside as Hagrid and his Death Eater lurched past, duelling so fiercely that Hagrid’s umbrella made a strange, pink blur, sort of like the lightsaber in a film he’d caught a few moments of on television once. Then Harry's foot made contact with something round and hard and he slipped. For a moment he thought he had dropped the prophecy, but then he saw Moody's magical eye spinning away across the floor.

Its owner was lying on his side, bleeding from the head, and his attacker was now bearing down upon Harry and Neville: Dolohov, his long pale face twisted with glee.

'Tarantallegra!' he shouted, his wand pointing at Neville, whose legs went immediately into a kind of frenzied tap-dance, unbalancing him and causing him to fall to the floor again. 'Now, Potter-'

He made the same slashing movement with his wand that he had used on Hermione just as Harry yelled, 'Protego!'

Harry felt something streak across his face like a blunt knife; the force of it knocked him sideways and he fell over Neville's jerking legs, but the Shield Charm had stopped the worst of the spell.

Dolohov raised his wand again. 'Accio proph-'

Hagrid had hurtled out of nowhere and rammed Dolohov with his enormous shoulder which would send anyone flying through the air. The prophecy had again flown to the tips of Harry's fingers but he had managed to cling on to it. Now Hagrid and Dolohov were duelling, their instruments flashing like swords, sparks flying -

Dolohov drew back his wand to make the same slashing movement he had used on Harry and Hermione. Springing up, Harry yelled, 'Petrificus Totalus!' Once again, Dolohov's arms and legs snapped together and he keeled over backwards, landing with a crash on his back.

'Nice one!' shouted Hagrid, blocking Harry with his enormous dragonhide cloak as a pair of Stunning Spells flew towards them. 'Now I want you to get out of-'

They both ducked again; a jet of green light had narrowly missed Hagrid. Across the room Harry saw Tonks fall from halfway up the stone steps, her limp form toppling from stone seat to stone seat and Bellatrix, triumphant, running back towards the fray.

'Harry, take the prophecy, grab Neville and run!' Hagrid yelled, dashing to meet Bellatrix. Harry did not see what happened next: Kingsley swayed across his field of vision, battling with the pockmarked and no longer masked Rookwood; another jet of green light flew over Harry's head as he launched himself towards Neville -

'Can you stand?' he bellowed in Neville's ear, as Neville's legs jerked and twitched uncontrollably. 'Put your arm round my neck-'

Neville did so - Harry heaved - Neville's legs were still flying in every direction, they would not support him, and then, out of nowhere, a man lunged at them: both fell backwards, Neville's legs waving wildly like an overturned beetle's, Harry with his left arm held up in the air to try to save the small glass ball from being smashed.

'The prophecy, give me the prophecy, Potter!' snarled Lucius Malfoy's voice in his ear, and Harry felt the tip of Malfoy's wand pressing hard between his ribs.

'No - get - off - me... Neville - catch it!'

Harry flung the prophecy across the floor, Neville span himself around on his back and scooped the ball to his chest. Malfoy pointed the wand instead at Neville, but Harry jabbed his own wand back over his shoulder and yelled, 'Impedimenta!'

Malfoy was blasted off his back. As Harry scrambled up again he looked around and saw Malfoy smash into the dais on which Hagrid and Bellatrix were now duelling. Malfoy aimed his wand at Harry and Neville again, but before he could draw breath to strike, Dumbledore had jumped between them.

'Harry, round up the others and GO!'

Harry seized Neville by the shoulder of his robes and lifted him bodily on to the first tier of stone steps; Neville's legs twitched and jerked and would not support his weight; Harry heaved again with all the strength he possessed and they climbed another step -

A spell hit the stone bench at Harry's heel; it crumbled away and he fell back to the step below. Neville sank to the ground, his legs still jerking and thrashing, and he thrust the prophecy into his pocket.

'Come on!' said Harry desperately, hauling at Neville’s robes. 'Just try and push with your legs-'

He gave another stupendous heave and Neville’s robes tore all along the left seam - the small spun-glass ball dropped from his pocket and, before either of them could catch it, one of Neville's floundering feet kicked it: it flew some ten feet to their right and smashed on the step beneath them. As both of them stared at the place where it had broken, appalled at what had happened, a pearly-white figure with hugely magnified eyes rose into the air, unnoticed by any but them. Harry could see its mouth moving, but in all the crashes and screams and yells surrounding them, not one word of the prophecy could he hear. The figure stopped speaking and dissolved into nothingness.

'Harry, I'b sorry!' cried Neville, his face anguished as his legs continued to flounder. 'I'b so sorry, Harry, I didn'd bean do-'

'It doesn't matter!' Harry shouted. 'Just try and stand, let's get out of-'

'Whozat!' said Neville, his sweaty face suddenly transported, staring over Harry's shoulder.

'What?'

'WHO ID DAT?'

Harry turned to look where Neville was staring. Directly above them, framed in the doorway from the Brain Room, stood Sirius, his wand aloft, his face white and furious. Harry felt a kind of electric charge surge through every particle of his body - Sirius would stop this, Sirius would save them!

He sped down the steps past Neville and Harry, who had no more thoughts of leaving. Sirius was already at the foot of the steps when the Death Eaters nearest realised he was there and yelled to the others. One of the Death Eaters ran for it, scrabbling like a monkey up the stone steps opposite. Sirius, who'd clearly had a lot of time to practise his dueling and spellwork on Kreacher in the past few months, spell pulled him back as easily and effortlessly as though he had hooked him with an invisible line -

Only one pair was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Hagrid duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: he was laughing at her.

'Come on, yeh can do better than that!' he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of light hit him squarely on the enormous target that was his chest.

The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock. Harry released Neville, though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again, pulling out his wand, as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais.

It seemed to take Hagrid an age to fall: his body thudding back in a way that resembled nothing more than a giant tree falling in the forest – but now, Harry was there to hear and see him as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch.

Through the bruises from Grawp that still mottled Hagrid’s face, Harry could see a look of mingled fear and surprise as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind, then fell back into place.

Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream, but knew it meant nothing - Hagrid had only just fallen through the archway, he would reappear from the other side any second...

But Hagrid did not reappear.

'HAGRID!' Harry yelled. 'HAGRID!'

He had reached the floor, his breath coming in searing gasps. Hagrid must be just behind the curtain, he, Harry, would pull him back out...

But as he reached the ground and sprinted towards the dais, Dumbledore grabbed Harry around the chest, holding him back.

'There's nothing you can do, Harry-'

'Get him, save him, he's only just gone through!'

'- it's too late, Harry.'

'We can still reach him -' Harry struggled hard. 'He hasn't gone!' he yelled.

He did not believe it; he would not believe it; still he fought Dumbledore with every bit of strength he had. Dumbledore did not understand; people hid behind that curtain; Harry had heard them whispering the first time he had entered the room. Hagrid was hiding, simply lurking out of sight...

'HAGRID!' he bellowed. 'HAGRID!'

'He can't come back, Harry', said Dumbledore, his voice breaking as he struggled to contain Harry. 'He can't come back, because he's d-'

'HE - IS - NOT - DEAD!' roared Harry. 'HAGRID!'

There was movement going on around them, pointless bustling, the flashes of more spells. To Harry it was meaningless noise, the deflected curses flying past them did not matter, nothing mattered except that Dumbledore should stop pretending that Hagrid - who was standing feet from them behind that old curtain - was not going to emerge at any moment, brandishing his pink umbrella and eager to re-enter the battle.

Dumbledore dragged Harry away from the dais. Harry, still staring at the archway, was angry at Hagrid now for keeping him waiting...

But some part of him realised, even as he fought to break free from Dumbledore, that if Hagrid was not reappearing out of that archway when Harry was yelling for him as though his life depended on it, the only possible explanation was that he could not come back... that he really was...

Sirius had most of the remaining Death Eaters grouped in the middle of the room, seemingly immobilised by invisible ropes; Mad-Eye Moody had crawled across the room to where Tonks lay, and was attempting to revive her; behind the dais there were still hashes of light, grunts and cries - Kingsley had run forward to continue Hagrid's duel with Bellatrix.

'Harry?'

Neville had slid down the stone benches one by one to the place where Harry stood. Harry was no longer struggling against Dubledore, who maintained a precautionary grip on his arm nevertheless.

'Harry... I'b really sorry...' said Neville. His legs were still dancing uncontrollably. “I know Hagrid was a friend of yours, but I’m sure that Care of Magical Creatures will be better next year without him there to teach us…'

"Yeah, that's true," Harry observed, his head suddenly clear with the meaning of what had just happened. Sirius had rounded up the Death Eaters! Sirius had saved all of the Order! Kingsley Shacklebolt was an Auror - and a witness to all this! Sirius would now be free to go about just as he pleased! Excellent!

Of course, he'd miss Hagrid, he knew that. But perhaps Sirius could take over the position teaching Care of Magical Creatures! He was quite good with animals.... (to be continued?)

Comments

[jayabear.livejournal.com]

... O.o Ack!

Um... was this the story belonging to VBT#2*

Not the sort of thing you want to see just before you go to sleep.

Damn.

~j


* Very Big T00b #2

[malachan.livejournal.com]

Very amusing...but Dumbledore seems to just appear in the text without actually making an entrance...

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

He's, um, filling Lupin's role.

[dinahrae.livejournal.com]

I will print this out and glue it over those other nasty pages. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

BWAH

RIGHT ON SISTA

[lea-ndra.livejournal.com]

partly. the person who deleted "Lupin" and put in "Dumbledore" did so rather sloppily. Hey, I mean, I'm glad it's Hagrid in this story, and not Sirius, but .. what the heck? where's that from? why can't people write their own stories?

[frances-potter.livejournal.com]

Around the worlds thousands of people woke up. They all turned to their partners and said "Wow, I had this really strange dream that JKR killed Sirius."

"Well," replied their partners. "We've known all along it would be Hagrid."

Thanks, Heidi.

[cleverthylacine]

That does it.

sigh.

I'm starting deaddogparty as I have been threatening to do, since June.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Oh my GOD! You're right! I forgot to change it in TWO places!

You know, if I had taken this from someone else, I would've linked to it, not just pasted it in as if I'd done the parody/alteration myself.

Yes, you read that right. Where did it come from? It's been a compulsion - I've wanted to do this since perhaps the 23rd of June.

And why can't I write my own stories? Well, ordinarily, I do, but the point of this, which perhaps I should've made clearer than I did in the cut-tag, was to just rewrite the "worst" part of OotP by changing as few words as possible. The point of this is to be *not* my own.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

ok! Let me know when you do!

Deeply ashamed!

[lea-ndra.livejournal.com]

sorry! I didn't mean to insult you. maybe if you added a bit about where this came from... I feel so bad now.

and of course I know that you can write your own stories. without an introduction, I mistook it for A REAL ATTEMPT at "FAN FICTION" - > kind like those people who write a fic where they include so many Rowling quotes from the book that you can't see the fiction behind the plagiat. I'm sorry. Forgive me?

Lea

[lea-ndra.livejournal.com]

I'm actually afraid to say anything at all now. Sometimes one (read me) shouldn't open his/her stupid mouth before thinking.

I'm just going to deeply apologise, again. I feel really horrible, horrible, horrible.

[siriologist.livejournal.com]

Bravo! Bravo! I agree with the person who said they were going to cut this out and tape it over *those* pages in the book. A much more satisfying ending to that scene. I might even want to read book 6 if that was how book 5 ended. Now what can we do about Molly?

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate it, and totally accept it,. and to be honest, I was a little more bratty than I needed to be in the first line of my response, and I'm sorry. I didn't need to be so cutting - and you were right about the glitches - there weren't many, but I could've been more careful.

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Now all we need is someone who can make a PDF of them so they look like the US edition, and the UK edition. And someone to translate it...

[amaterasu.livejournal.com]

Phew! What a relief, like having the fabric of space-time restored. Y'know the end of Back to the Future, when the timeline is restored and Marty's hand goes back to normal? It's kinda like that.

[neviachiel.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I rather like this revisionist look on things.


A thought that struck me while reading: Why is Tarantallegra such a commonly used spell? When you think about it, doesn't it seem ridiculous to use and not as helpful as others?

[musikologie.livejournal.com]

::rubs head:: I had the strangest dream, where Sirius died and...

Thank you, I like this version much better. Now all we need is some declarations of undying love and I'll be all set... ::goes to find a pen...::

[sff-corgi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like the way you two thing, I really do.

[HUGS]

[guardian-writer.livejournal.com]

waah. That would have been a better ending. I'm printing it out too. :-D

[nostrademons.livejournal.com]

I bet I can rewrite it and change even fewer words. Starting at the bottom of page 805:

Only one couple was still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix jet of red light: He was laughing at her. "Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.

The second jet of light hit Hagrid, who had conveniently stepped out of a plot hole and into the path of the onrushing curse, squarely in the chest.

The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.

And then replace "Sirius" with "Hagrid for all the death scene parts.

1 word changed, 15 words added.

[weaverandom.livejournal.com]

*sniffles wistfully*

Oh, if only, if only.

[saucy-wench.livejournal.com]

Much better. Much much better.

Take over the writing, Heidicakes.

[shelaghc.livejournal.com]

Heidi wrote:
Of course, he'd miss Hagrid, he knew that. But perhaps Sirius could take over the position teaching Care of Magical Creatures! He was quite good with animals....

Well... just a *smidge* flip of a way to end offing poor Hagrid (whom I like very much and think would have been just as traumatic for Harry to lose ultimately).

But given the choice? Off 'im and keep our dear Sirius!

Blessings upon you, Ms. Heidi.

;->

[doll-mouth.livejournal.com]

Hurray! It was awesome, the only thing that would have been better was if Harry screamed, "Hagger!Hagger" like Grawp did. ;)