Junoesque ✿George Weasley✿

98.

Blair felt her energy begin to diminish once the werewolf had left the corridor in true loser style. She let her arm fall to her side and felt it swing limply, her body swaying to shift her weight from foot to foot. The corridor was quiet besides the faint sounds of explosions from other places in the castle but there was no time to relax. Blair sighed and turned around to check the other side of the hall, only to remember that Lavender Brown's body had been lying behind her.

Getting on to her knees, Blair could see no movement from the girl yet. Her skin was still grey and her once luscious, wavy hair was limp against her shoulders. The Hogwarts uniform looked wrong on her as it was usually worn by a lively, young student who had a whole life ahead of them. It was abnormal to see Lavender's corpse wearing it. Especially when her eyes were closed, and she was looking as if-

Blair froze. When she had first found the girl's body on the floor of the hall, Lavender's eyes had been open. They had been staring at the arches of the ceiling without focusing on any aspect in their coldness. But her eyes were closed. The girl's lashes lay over her cheeks and her chapped lips had parted to show the edges of her two front teeth.

Blair thought she was seeing things. She was sure that Lavender's eyes had been open before she was distracted by Fenrir Greyback's appearance. Her cold skin had not yet changed, but her eyes were certainly closed. If one were to think she was only sleeping, they would be believed. Lavender had changed since Blair had first tended to her. She had at least slid her eyes shut either consciously or not, but the movement wasn't something that was the characteristic of a corpse.

"Lavender?" she found herself calling. "Lavender, can you hear me?"

She felt foolish talking to someone who had just been staring coldly at the ceiling and pronounced dead. But she couldn't assume that she had been going crazy. If Lavender's eyes had slid shut, it could mean that she was alive. It could mean that Blair's potion had worked and revived the girl from the afterlife.

"Lavender?" Blair called again and took hold of the witch's shoulders. She shook them lightly and watched as her head fell to the side as limp as dead meat. This made Blair's heart drop and all hope in reviving Lavender was lost. Living peoples' heads didn't roll on to their shoulders like that. There was no structure or muscle in that neck. She was dead. Blair's potion was a waste of time and money.

But then she groaned. Lavender groaned like someone who has slept heavily yet is unaware of their voices' actions during the night. Blair's stomach leaped into her throat and she took hold of Lavender's shoulders again. Shaking them with another call of her name, Blair waited for the girl to sit upright like a vampire in its coffin. Lavender groaned again and it was like an angel singing to Blair's ears.

"Blahhmmhmm..." words now started to fall from Lavender's lips. Even though Blair had been positive and told herself that the potion would work, she can't believe that it actually did. Lavender was alive and talking as if she hadn't just been stone cold dead minutes ago.

"Blahhmm," the witch's eyes cracked open and saw the grinning face of Blair. "Bla... Blair Rosier?"

"Yes! That's me!" she cried and let out a madman's laugh. "I'm Blair Rosier! Lavender, you're awake and this is absolutely, positively brilliant!"

Pushing aside her immense exhaustion and the sour taste in her mouth, Lavender watched as the girl she only knew from sight and rumours laugh over her. She was confused as to why she was lying on the ground of a corridor with Blair Rosier laughing over her with tears gathering in her eyes. Her head ached and she couldn't remember what had happened before she passed out; at least that's what she think had happened. Why else would she be disorientated and on the floor? She must have passed out from a wound or from the overwhelming idea of the school being torn down by Death Eaters. Blair, however, was something that her brain couldn't make up an excuse for. She had no idea why the witch who she had heard was dating one of Ron Weasley's brothers was here with her.