Though Fred's tone was casual and his words realistic.
But that statement actually worked—the child on the stretcher seemed to feel a bit better.
Fred searched around for professors while controlling the stretcher, advancing toward the Great Hall entrance under Lys's protection.
He could see the situation was truly urgent and they had to leave immediately, but since this girl had helped him fight, Fred couldn't just abandon her. He explained to Lys:
"She helped me just now. She was hit with the Cruciatus Curse and slammed hard to the ground. That's probably when she realized defending the castle would be far more difficult and costly than she'd imagined."
Hunching his shoulders, Fred shouted at the Astronomy professor:
"Professor! Professor! This student is injured! Don't! That's my sister! Stop fighting!"
Fred wished he had eight mouths.
After finally getting his sister and the jumpy professor to stop fighting, Fred's first reaction was to change the color of Lys's shirt.
Black was now the most easily misunderstood color in this castle. He changed Lys's shirt to a strange brownish-yellow.
But his magic clashed with the fixing charm on Lys's left sleeve, the magical conflict tearing open a large rip in the shirt's shoulder seam, nearly exposing the Dark Mark.
Terrified, Lys quickly grabbed her sleeve and ran with Fred.
Being protected while following behind Lys, Fred even had the presence of mind and energy to look around.
"Lys, it's Potter! And Draco!" Lys looked in the direction Fred pointed. Potter and several red-haired young people were surrounding a black-robed figure who'd been cursed to look like a sea urchin, saying something, while at the corridor's end, Draco and a fat boy were slumped on the ground.
Lys raised her wand, unleashing her magical power amid Fred's shocked "Lys!" and shouting:
"Get down! Idiots!"
The side of the castle they were in collapsed...
War was destroying this castle.
This building with the most ancient protective arrays, the safest structure in all of Britain, began to crumble.
What followed were explosive curses and massive chunks of debris hurtling toward little Potter and those young people.
Those explosions and curses that would cause tremendous damage struck the magical barrier Lys desperately raised, producing dull sounds and silver ripples of magical energy.
Everything happened too suddenly, and Draco was too far away. Lys wanted to protect him too, which cost her more magical power and attention.
This caused Lys to fail to notice in time that the castle's chain collapse from the explosion was also happening above her head.
She was struck on her left arm—which she'd raised to protect her head—by a stone slab from the castle's collapse.
In the end, it was Fred's spell that protected Lys from being completely crushed by that massive stone slab.
Lys endured the pain and cast a detection charm toward little Potter's side through the stone. Someone's response was quite weak, but no one was dead.
Clutching her arm, Lys saw unidentified people jumping down through the hole overhead, while in the distance appeared the enormous shapes of giant spiders and giants...
Even greater chaos was about to begin!
Seeing the savior grab someone and jump back up with his companions, while Draco seemed to have disappeared as well.
Lys turned back to call Fred, whose gaze was still searching around. "Fred, let's go!"
To leave this area as quickly as possible, Lys used a Flying Arrow to carry Fred with her, forcibly enduring several curses shot from the darkness as they escaped the region.
The Flying Arrow's magic was disrupted by the curse strikes. Lys felt the familiar pain in her left arm as she rushed toward the Whomping WillowFred had mentioned.
After Fred pointed out the hole beneath the Whomping Willow, Lys froze. "How did you know there was a secret passage here?"
"After our last meeting when you mentioned Hagrid giving you Whomping Willow branches, I wanted to grow one too, Lys. But the professors wouldn't let me, so I came to try grafting myself... cough, and then I discovered it."
Lys watched Fred tie the branches into knots and followed him in, then watched him untie the knots.
"Where does this passage lead?"
"A broken house in Hogsmeade. Very broken." Fred thought for a moment. "That house might not be safe either, Lys. Maybe we can treat your arm here first."
"I'm used to it—this left arm! Fred, since I can remember! I've hardly ever seen it in good condition..." Lys complained, not considering that part of it might be her own fault.
Fred winced watching the blood splatter when Lys treated herself, gasping while helping clean the blood that had splashed onto her clothes and the ground.
He also pulled out a Blood-Replenishing Potion from his bag and handed it to Lys.
But Lys only treated it simply. "There aren't proper conditions—this will have to do."
She flexed her left hand. Her arm still ached dully but no longer hindered movement.
She led the way, supporting herself with her wand as she crawled into the pitch-black opening. Inside were spider webs and tree roots, which Lys blasted aside with several cutting curses.
"Let's get out first, Fred."
Lys didn't hear Fred following. She looked back.
"Lys..."
Lys hesitated. From Fred's suggestion in the castle, she knew Fred had grown up. If he still didn't know certain things, it might affect his future decisions.
"Let's go first. I'll tell you on the way."
The tunnel ahead was pitch-black, narrow and oppressive. After a stretch, Lys's hesitant voice reached Fred's ears.
"My reason for not fighting the Dark Lord isn't just because my strength doesn't match his. Fred, do you know about Horcruxes?"
Fred wasn't very clear. He held up his wand for light and shook his head, then remembered Lys couldn't see. "Lys, I don't know."
"Using magic to split and preserve one's soul. When someone with Horcruxes dies, part of their 'living' soul still remains in the world. The realm of the dead won't accept them or allow them to move on, meaning they'll be abandoned in this world, giving them a chance to live again—so-called immortality."
Lys caught her breath. This place was too low and winding. Walking bent over with her legs cramped was tiring—she was practically crawling.
"But don't think this kind of immortality is anything good. What is a soul? Memory? Emotion? Will? Anyway, it's the most important, most intangible thing a wizard has. Once it's split, it means you've abandoned the part that was separated."
Lys also stuffed Gabon into Fred's arms. Carrying a snake while moving in this position was too exhausting, and Fred could barely straighten his legs here—he could hold it without as much effort.
"I'm getting off topic. Anyway, what I fear is: if he doesn't die and I'm gone, what happens? Even worse, if I abandon everything and he really dies, but he can still come back, what about all of you?"
"Fred, I'm afraid that madman made more than one Horcrux. He's torn his soul to shreds, and a madman without reason won't spare traitors and his enemies. I only have one chance, but I don't know how many he has."
"I have to stay alive for the things I want to have meaning and safety."
Fred fell quiet. He should have realized—his Lys wasn't someone who hesitated. If she was hesitating, there must be something she couldn't resolve.
If that was the case, even being used and watched by the Dark Lord was indeed countless times easier than having the whole family killed or being seen as enemies...
"So Uncle Lucius thinks the same way?"
"Oh, he doesn't know. No one would choose to let others know the secret of Horcruxes. You must also hide this secret well—it's... a deadly secret. If you weren't starting to think about defying the Dark Lord, I actually wouldn't want you to know."
"As for your Uncle Lucius, he's just greedy and cowardly."
"And I'm an accident."
Lys sighed in the cramped passage, supporting herself on her knees.
If she could know exactly how far that tunnel from earlier had collapsed, she probably wouldn't have chosen this route...
Her damned height.
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