We sat in a stunned silence.

"I'm so sorry," Scorpius whispered again, tears trailing down his pale face. "I'm so sorry."

"You—" Ginny began with an unsteady voice, "You— You killed my sister."

"I—"

"YOU KILLED MY SISTER! YOU KILLED MY COUSIN! YOU KILLED MY FRIENDS!" Ginny shouted at him, "AFTER ALL THIS TIME? WE SAVED YOU, HELPED YOU, WE WERE MORE THAN JUST ALLIES! WE WERE FRIENDS TO YOU! After all this time, did you ever feel a single bit of regret as you turned on us?"

"My family—"

"WHAT ABOUT OUR FAMILY?" Ginny cried.

"Wait, Ginny," I placed a hand on her shoulder, "Let him talk."

She looked at me incredulously, "Are you for real? He killed your brother!"

I fought the hard lump in my throat and said, "That was technically Goyle. And maybe we should hear his side of the story."

Ginny replied, "I say we kill him."

"Let's hear him out," Albus told her gently, "And then we'll think about what to do with him."

"Well?" Hugo raised an eyebrow at Scorpius.

Scorpius took a deep breath and began, "My family has never been on the best terms with the Dark Lord. And obviously, he's not fond of your families either. So when I was Reaped, he offered me a choice. He said that if I could kill off you guys, my family would live. If I didn't, they'd die. We were under constant surveillance. That's why he didn't kill your parents all those years ago. He thought this'd be better, to have them suffer before he does kill them."

He stopped for a minute before continuing, "I thought that it was a decent deal, not bad and secretly teamed with Goyle. I thought, 'Well, Dad was never a friend of theirs, so, it'll be easy enough.' That's what I'd counted on. I never thought about the possibility that I could've been friends with the people I was meant to kill. Allies, sure. But not friends. As the days went on, I found that, to my horror, I had found it agonizingly painful to turn on you like this. I realized that I yearned to be loyal to you. I didn't want to be, really. I wanted for us to be enemies, but then, deep inside, I didn't because I had found people I loved to be with. It hurt to sneak off and tell Goyle everything, it really did. Molly always showed me kindness and I regretted her death. I couldn't help but miss Colin. I felt horrible as I watched James's love pass away and then see him go the same way."

I couldn't look at him and starred at the ground beneath him instead.

"'It's for my family' I'd always told myself when I hesitated." His voice was shaking with emotion. I saw droplets splatter to the ground and when I looked up, I saw that he was crying. "But you guys seemed to break through my defenses. I never thought I'd make friends and be accepted in the Games. And most definitely, I never thought that it'd be you guys. And now that my family is safe, I can finally tell you without any harm coming to my family."

He covered his tear stained face with his hands. They muffled his words but they couldn't muffle his loud cries.

I looked over at Ginny and saw her struggling to maintain her angry fierce exterior. "What do we do?"

"This is what we're going to do," Albus stated hesitantly, "I say, we give you a second chance. Anyone against that?"

No one raised their hand.

"Are you joking?" Scorpius asked weakly, "After everything—"

"I've looked at it from your perspective," Albus extended to hand towards him to help him up, "But don't do it again."

Scorpius took his hand and smiled through his tears, "Alright." Every ounce of THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU that I knew he wanted to say was engraved into that one word.

I opened my mouth to ask Albus what we were to do next when I noticed something shoot into the sky. It looked like a blue spark. I could tell it had come from outside the arena because it hit the better from the outside. It made a strange cracking sound. "What's that?" I asked.

More sparks followed and soon the barrier was being bombarded with spells. I suddenly realized that whatever was shooting these sparks was trying to break through the barrier. Maybe to save us!

"My parents! They said they were coming for us. Remember?" Scorpius said excitedly.

"There's no way this is just your family," Hugo replied, "There's definitely more."

"Lily!" Albus cried, "Our family! It could be our family! Let's go!"

We ran towards the direction the sparks seem to have originated. As the spells continued to hit the barrier, the sound of cracking grew louder until it finally became a consecutive thunderous boom. And that's when I finally saw cracks appear in the barrier.

Ginny gasped in amazement, we were at the edge of the barrier and now it was visible. It was a sort of clear glassy dome with a bit of a sky bluish tint. And on the other side, we saw people shooting spells. And not just any people. There was Aunt Hermione, her face determined. Uncle Ron, his face glistening with sweat. There were my parents, the Longbottoms, and a bunch of people I didn't even know!

"They've come for us," Hugo whispered, "We're gonna get out of here."

And then with one last monstrous bang, the barrier fell away. Aunt Hermione smiled, "I knew we'd make it."

"Hermione!" Ron yelled spinning her around and pointing. There was a large mass of cloaked people surging toward the forest. The Death Eaters. They were coming for us.

"We've got to go! Now!" Dad shouted. He ran towards me and Albus along with Mum.

That's when enemy spells started firing. A jet of green hit a man squarely in the chest. A stream of red was aimed straight for Professor Longbottom, who quickly deflected it with a Shield Charm. Spells were fired blindly, flashes of color flying everywhere. Albus and I were still together, but we'd lost our parents.

"HARRY POTTER!" I then heard someone scream. Voldemort. I watched as he calmly walked through the battle, simply flicking his wand at his attackers who would then fall, clearly dead.

"MUM!" Scorpius shouted, "DAD!"

I saw Luna Longbottom run to him, firing spells of her own at the Death Eaters. "Scorpius! You've got to go!"

"My parents!" he protested, "I'm not going until I find them! Are they here?"

"No!" Luna panted and Stunned an oncoming attacker, "They're in hiding, they're safe!"

She grabbed his hand, and in a blur, they'd already Disapparated away.

Albus and I still hadn't been noticed. But Ginny had been seen by an Asian woman with long black hair. "Ginny!" she called. When she's reached her, Ginny said, "Who—"

"Cho Chang," she answered breathlessly, "I'm getting you out of here!"

"My father—"

"Our first priority is to get you children out of here! And that's what I plan to do!" And then she'd Disapparated with Ginny.

"Lily!" Hugo said in panic, "What do we do? We don't have weapons!"

I turned as saw my father dueling with the Dark Lord. Sparks of red and green and blue and gold flew back and forth. Time slowed as Dad's spells seemed to slow slightly and Voldemort's killing curse hit him. And without knowing it, I was screaming, "DAD! DAD!"

And I was running, Albus on my tail along with Hugo. "HARRY!" Ron cried, "HARRY!" My father's body dropped along with some others.

"HARRY POTTER IS DEAD!" Voldemort yelled triumphantly.

The fighters on our side looked up in disbelief. That provided as a moment of distraction that worked in favor of the Death Eaters. Quickly, the tables turned and the Death Eaters were taking over.

"HARRY!" Ron yelled. And that's when I noticed his body was gone. What had they done to him?

"RON!" Hermione cried after him, "COME BACK! PLEASE COME BACK!"

That's when Ron spotted us. He quickly grabbed Hugo, shouted at Hermione and my mother to get us and Disapparated with his son.

My mum grabbed my wrist and my aunt held on to Albus, and in a flash, we were gone.

I didn't recognize my surroundings but I could tell we were in a house. It didn't matter to me though. My cousin was dead, my brother was dead, my friends were dead, my father was dead. The tears came before I could stop them.

Albus started hesitantly, "What— What just happened?"

Hermione sighed gravely and replied, "The war has just begun."