Chapter 15

The final chapter :') No infringement intended through any of this!!!

Chapter 15

 

My hands flew to my mouth, which was all too dry.  I watched him fall, bloody and beautiful, though glass pane after glass pane.  Only then did I realize that I could save him.  Thinking just as quickly as I could, I shot out my wand hand, using the summoning charm to call for my whistle.  I couldn’t summon a broom, but who needs a broom when you have wings.  It felt like ages before the tiny whistle zipped into my hand, and Al was already so far down… I whistled until I ran out of breath, then blew again and again.  Between blowing the whistle I screamed for Applesauce, but I didn’t see him.  Al was falling fast, and if the glass didn’t kill him, the impact would.  There was loud screaming from the stands as Harry Potter’s youngest son toppled into view atop a massive Giant, plummeting toward his death.  Then, suddenly, as I blew again and again on my whistle until my head spun even more and I was about to go unconscious, I heard the screams of terror turn into loud cheers.  I waited anxiously on my field of frozen Pixies.  Moments later Applesauce appeared, carrying a barely-consious Al on his back.

“AL!”  I cried, hugging Apples tightly and then running to him.  He barely stumbled off Applesauce’s back before passing out.  I caught him, slowly sinking to the ground.  “Al?  Al can you hear me?”  His eyes opened slightly.  “We have to finish!  Al?”  I looked to Apples, who seemed to be thinking the same thing as me.  I dragged Al onto his back and sat behind him, clinging to Apples and Al for all I was worth, each with just one hand.  We took off and I gripped Al’s slumped body as we flew.  He was cut many more times than I was, and some of them were very, very deep.  Apples flew carefully, he was a bloody brilliant Hippogriff.  I managed to let go of him with my wand hand in order to start casting color spells wherever I could to guide him.  We flew up, easily passing the Beauxbatons girls as we went.  Apples easily sailed by panes of glass even I didn’t see until the sun glinted off them as we passed.  We glided farther and farther into the sky until the cup I’d been dreaming of for months came into view.  We were so close… So very close…  I felt like I could touch it, I imagined feeling the cool metal on my fingers, wrapping my hand around the handle… Winning the Cup for Hogwarts for the first year since Harry Potter himself.  I could be famous, I could be a hero!  My excitement rose as we did, arching into the sky slowly.  Apples must have felt my excitement, because he started to fly up faster and faster, until we were almost straight up and down, and I was barely keeping Al and I on his back.  Fear gripped me, what if Apples got us killed.  But he wasn’t trying to hurt us, he could see something we couldn’t.

An arch of glass preventing us from reaching the Cup.  I didn’t know it was there until we hit it going top-speed.  Apples must have intended to shatter it as we flew, but instead he rammed into it and knocked himself out.  The three of us fell back at a rapid speed and slammed into a massive pane of glass that spread out below us.  Because of it’s size, we stayed up, but I heard a crack somewhere in the distance.  Apples fell a few feet away from us and lay still.  My breath was knocked out of me, and it took me too long to force air back down into my lungs.  I couldn’t think of what to do.  The cup was right over our heads, and seemed close enough to touch.  If only the glass encasing us would break…  It must have been charmed.  I was kind of a one-trick-pony with the Hippogriff thing, after all.  I could think of nothing else to do, so I crawled back over to Al, my head pounding from the fall.  I dragged Apples as close to Al and I as my half-conscious self could.  I then covered Al’s vital regions to the best of my abilities, because if this worked, the glass would rain down in killer shards on all of us.  I had a plan, but I wasn’t sure if it would work.  I raised my wand to the sky and looked right beneath the cup.

“Confringo!”

 

The world cascaded down around us as Al regained some sort of conciousness.  He stared up at me as I lay across his chest, one arm in the air while the other hugged his face close to me.  As soon as I’d casted the blasting curse, I’d followed up with a shield charm.  Half of me expected it to fail, and glass to cut us to pieces, but it created a nice umbrella over the three of us from the falling arc.  Once all of the glass had fallen, I stood, dragging Al to his feet.  He said nothing, just grunted as we managed to stand.  The cup was within a few feet of us, then, having lowered a substantial amount.  I suspected this was the end of our long, terrible journey.  My chest exploded with emotion as I walked over to where it was suspended in midair, a few feet away from us.

“Together.”  I whispered as Al and I both reached for it.  He nodded.

“One…” He whispered, his voice sounding curiously strong for someone who shouldn’t be alive.  “Two…”  I held my breath, my hand was inches from the cup.  “Three.”   We both wrapped our fingers around the braided handles and the world exploded into light.  Part of me wondered if it was another trap, if the person who’d entered our names into the cup had also chosen to kill us with the final moments, but the light faded and I felt myself tumble down onto grass.  The cup had been a Portkey to the ground, and I kissed the grass.  It was over.  The pain, the worry, the nerves, we’d done it. 

We’d won the Tri Wizard Cup.

 

I was barely aware of Professor McGonagall pulling us to our feet, or Hagrid’s crushing hug, or the many handshakes we were given.  I faintly remember seeing Harry Potter standing down on the field, and I thought I remembered him saying something, though I couldn’t remember what.  I woke up ages later, after all the happiness had died down, in another medic tent.  This one was still on the Quidditch field.  I was all fixed up, no more open wounds, no more headaches, and Al was looking good too.  He was still asleep, his eyes darting back and forth behind closed lids.  He was beautiful.  Then Harry was there, and he smiled at me.

“Hullo.”  I said, softly.

“Hullo, Miss Frederick.”  He smiled.  “How does it feel to be the first Tri Wizard champion to emerge with a partner?”  He asked.

“Pretty good.”  I smiled.  The joy of it all filled me again, but something nagged in the back of my mind.  “Applesauce.”  I blurted out.  “Where is he?  Is he all right?”

“Yes, yes he’s fine.”  Harry patted my hand, awkwardly.  “Hagrid’s with him now, patching him up.  From what Al told me when he was awake, I’d say he’s just as much of a hero as you two are.”

“He’s more of a hero than I’ll ever be.”  I smiled.  “I owe him my life.”

“So does Albus.  Twice now, if I’ve counted correctly.”

I just nodded, staring out into the field.  “So what happens now?”  I looked over at Al, who was still fast asleep.

“You celebrate.”  Harry smiled.  “Because you’ve done the impossible.”

“No, you’ve done the impossible, I’ve just managed to hunt down a cup.”

Harry shook his head.  “It’s so much more than that, Sophie.  Someday, you’ll understand.”  Just then, James, Rose, and Scorpius flew into the tent.  Rose hugged me and kissed my cheek.

“Oh God I’m so glad you’re all right!  We were all so worried when all that glass came down, after Al fell like that… Oh Sophie!”  She squeezed the air straight from my lungs.  I just laughed.  James rubbed his hand in my hair as Rosie clung to me.

“Good job out there, kiddo.”  He said, smiling.  “And thanks for saving my kid brother.  Everyone thinks it was just the Hippogriff, but we all know you called him.  So thanks for looking out for him when I couldn’t.”  Tears, I kid you not tears showed up in James’s eyes.

“Are you crying?”  Scorpius asked.

“No, I’m just thinking about how wonderful you are, and how your hair just shines in the sunlight.”   James laughed and Scorpius joined him.

“Geez, not that again.”  Al said, sitting up slowly.  “Hullo, Sophie, feeling all right?”

“I’m feeling just fine.”  I said, my smile hopefully hiding the tears that I felt.

“I should hope so.”  James said, crossing his arms.  “We’ve got a game next week, and I’m not loosing to Hufflepuff ever again.”

 

The celebrating took ages to end.  I was so tired by the end of the feasting, the telling of our horror stories again and again, and the constant hugging and ruffling of my hair, I could have slept standing up in my full uniform.  But before I could sneak off to the common room and sleep, Al caught me.

“I’m sorry.”  He said.

“For what?” I asked, shocked.

“For being so cold earlier.  It wasn’t until I was falling to the ground on top of a giant that I realized what a jerk I’ve been.”

“Hey, I’m guilty too.”  I said.

“But not as guilty as me.”  He grabbed my hand.  “I just want things to be back to normal.”

“Of course, Al.”  I smiled.  “Back to normal it is.”

“Good.”  He sighed.  “Wow, it’s been a stressful year, hasn’t it?”  He leaned against the wall, his hand still in mine.  “And it’s not even over yet…”

“Not only that, but there’s still one more to go!”  I laughed.  But I shouldn’t have laughed.  Everyone assumed that there couldn’t be a more stressful year than the one we’d just been though, but they were wrong.  We were all wrong.

Gryffindor won the house cup that year because of our outstanding Quidditch skills.  Not to mention we’d all been taken into the Great Hall near the end of the year and been taught to Appararate, I was very excited.  At the final feast the halls were decorated with our colors and the lion, and Professor McGonagall congratulated us as she handed us the cup.  That’s two cups for Gryffindor in one year, it had to be a record.

We left Hogwarts feeling elated.  Nothing could bring us down.  We’d done the impossible and come back unscathed, spare an X scar on my arm and an eerie warning.  I felt the exact opposite of what I’d felt when the Dementors attacked as I boarded the train.  I felt as though nothing could be sad again, like everything in life was good and happy.  Albus and I were together and alive, and Apples was doing just fine.  What was there to worry about?  The Centaur’s warning that hadn’t come true?  No, there was no worries, and there never would be.  Never again.  I kissed Al on the cheek as I thought this, and he smiled.  He asked what it was for and I replied with a girly, ‘oh, nothing.’  James stumbled into the compartment and flopped down next to me, he’d been gone for quite some time.  He let out a cheer as he sat down and put his arm around me.  Then he surprised me even more by smashing his lips into my cheek in a rather rough kiss.

“What the-“

“Well, everyone,”  He announced.  “I’ve done it.”

“What’ve you done, you git?”  Albus asked.  “I’m sure it doesn’t give you the right to kiss my girlfriend.”

James winked.  “Ah, but it does.  I’ve asked Katrina Letterman to be my girlfriend and she’s said yes.”  He looked very proud of himself.

“Isn’t that Cho Chang’s daughter?”  Rose asked.

“Yes, yes she is.”  James stood up again.  “I just thought I’d stop in and give you all the good news.”  He walked out again, looking all too happy.

“That hardly gives him the right to-“

“Oh, let it be, Al.”  Scorpius said, his arm around Ro.  “He was just having a little fun.”

“You would know.”  Al shot back, but Scorpius wasn’t all that bothered with it any more.

“Shut up, Potter,” he said, though there wasn’t a trace of venom in his voice.  The rest of the train ride was spent with talk of summer plans and promises to hang out, which for once, I felt would be fulfilled.

It was looking like we’d reached the bottom and were finally on our way back up…

 

As summer dwindled to an end and our annual trips to Diagon Alley commenced, we discovered that there was in fact more of our adventures to be had.  About one week before we were due to board Platform 9 ¾, I received a letter from an anxious Professor Longbottom.  It was about Hagrid.

 

To be continued…

Author's Note

I hope you liked it! Tell me if the end is tooooo cheezy :P
Please review and tell me what you thought of my fanfic! It took me a long time to write, and I hope you enjoyed it :) Love to you all and have a blessed day, you beautiful creatures! (Ps, should I write a sequel? I'm thinking about it.)
(Pps, the picture is of all the boats going to Hogwarts, I found it online, and I don't own that either, it's just really cute :) http://www.mugglenet.com/wallpapers/hw004.jpg )