They turned back to the fight on the ground, but they were being driven back relentlessly.
A troll broke through, roaring, and took a gigantic swipe at Harry, who barely dodged out of the way in time.
Gremlins were breaking through left and right. Harry yanked an armoured figure to its feet, and decided that they'd have to fall back or be overrun.
"Retreat!" He roared over the clamour of battle. "Retreat!!"
The rest of the Hogwarts students rushed past, heading in the direction of the main courtyard. Hagrid stayed with Ron, Hermione, and Harry, making sure that no one was left behind. Grawp was last, following up the two giants. Rawth was limping heavily.
"Go, go!" Hagrid blinded the charging Dark forces momentarily, which gave them a few precious seconds to get away.
The courtyard was the final passageway before the main door of the castle.
"We make our stand here." Lupin's voice said.
"Agreed!" McGonagall barked. "Nymphadora, barricade the arch as best as you can. Kingsley, form a line. Form a line, everyone! Those at the front, try to protect the rest behind you by using Shield Charms. Those behind, raise your wands as one, and bring down as many as you can!"
Her voice had such a ring of command that everyone was galvanized into action.
Harry found himself in the second row.
"This is tense." Susan Bone's voice muttered shakily, in front of Harry.
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"Quiet, I can hear them coming." Neville whispered.
Sure enough, the drumming of hundreds, of thousands could be heard quite clearly.
The first gremlin poked its ugly snout around the barricaded corner and was rewarded by no less than fourteen Stunning spells. The effect was so spectacular that all Harry could see of it was a vague silhouette of red, and then it was catapaulted away.
But it was replaced by five more, whom were joined by the rest. They had bunched up so that the bulk of the charge would tear through the hasty barrier that Tonks had erected.
Harry froze a section of the ground as he had seen Ginny done, right in front of the arch.
"Wands ready." he said grimly, and unecessarily.
A tremendous crash was heard and the barrier flew apart. The arch was too small for a giant or troll to get through, but McGonagall had enlarged it temporarily before so that the three Hogwarts giants could be let through. Unfortunately, the troll's baser instincts snapped into action, and apparently one of them had crushed the barrier with a mighty blow of its war club.
However, the gremlins could step through easily, and rushed to fill the courtyard with their bodies. Thanks to Harry's sheet of ice, however, their footing was slippery, and made easy targets for spells. Harry stunned two, wrapped another in magical ropes, and caught sight of another being attacked by enormous globs of its own bogies. Harry grinned in spite of the moment; Ginny was spectacular at Bat Bogey Hexes.
The students were tossing out jinxes of every sort, and as fast as they could. Harry saw gremlins with abnormally large ears, and were trying to cover them; another was hopping around, a Leg Locker curse on it. Several more were laying on the floor, stiff as boards, others had huge boils on their face that had erupted painfully, obscuring their vision.
All in all, the mayhem and confusion were absolute. Harry nearly cursed one of his own DA members by accident.
The good thing was that it appeared as if they were actually winning, or rather holding them off, at least. Which was certainly good enough for Harry.
"Hey, I think we're actually holding them off!" Harry said to the person next to him.
"Not for long." Ginny's voice said grimly.
"Chin up, ginny." Harry whispered back to her.
Just as he finished saying that, a gremlin chose that moment to smash its rod into the back of Harry's helmet.
Harry's world went a crazy kaleidoscope of breen, black, and red. He fell to his knees, trying to get his bearings. He could not see yet, but he heard someone scream, "Harry!"
There was a bang, a flash of silver that assailed Harry's eyes, and a weight flew off of him.
Someone dragged him roughly to his feet. Harry's knees buckled.
"You all right, Harry?" Tonks said.
"Yeah." he mumbled.
But she fussed over him like a visiting aunt, and dragged him over to the door.
"Now don't move until you recover, all right?"
Before Harry had a chance to respond, she dashed off again.
He dragged himself over to the wall shakily; the rod had nearly knocked him unconsious and Harry still felt sick and dizzy. He lay back and resisted the temptation to go to sleep.
Someone jogged up. "Harry, you all right?"
It was Ron.
"Fine." Harry grunted weakly. "One of them whacked me in the head."
"Well, looks like you'll be alright." Ron said, the relief obvious in his voice. "Sit tight, I'll get Hermione and Ginny to protect you."
Harry started to protest loudly, but Ron would hear none of it, and ran off, leaving Harry thoroughly annoyed. The rest had enough to contend with without his need of babysitters.
Two armoured figures clanked up.
"I don't need any babysitters." he told them brusquely.
"Don't be stupid." Ginny said. "We can't afford you to get more hurt."
"I can protect myself!" Harry insisted.
Hermione was also adamant. "Harry, we're not babysitting you, all right? We're just making sure none of them get way too close for our liking. It's just until you feel better and can stand up without wobbling."
Harry didn't have to heart to disagree with Hermione, so he contented himself by getting up in an awkward sitting position. His head throbbed unmercifully, and he secretly thanked himself for agreeing with Hermione. After all, they didn't hover above him, but kept a couple of yards away, and that was to his liking.
A gremlin sailed over his head, accompanied by several out-of-place tentacles growing out of its head.
At once, Harry staggered to his feet and ignoring the throbbing pains in his head, scanned the nearby battle as best as he could, without teetering.
"They're getting smarter." Ginny gritted out through clenched teeth. And she was quite right; the gremlins had formed a lopsided, but formidable line; the front being all shields. Curses and hexes bounced off, while they sent their green jets from behind.
"How're we supposed to counter that?" Ron grunted, nursing his side.
"Rush them." Harry said.
"But we'll get blasted by the beams." Ron countered.
"No, not if we have our wands out in front of us and can block it in time. Get your sword ready."
Ron reignited his arcane blade, and gestured Ginny and Hermione to do the same.
"On three, ready?" Harry whispered. "One, two.....three!"
They shot forward like a streak of azure lightning, Ron and Harry out front. Harry roared: "Protego!", just as he saw a gremlin point a rod at him.
The beam bounced off his shield so fast that the assailant never had time to raise its shield, and its face was grotesquely blasted apart by its own weapon. The other gremlins spared a split second to watch it fall, and that cost them terribly.
Ron didn't use either his sword or wand, he lowered a plated shoulder and rammed it into the front line. The impact was so great, it knocked two aside.
Harry plunged in after him; he was so worked up that he forgot completely that he was a wizard, ended up punching a gremlin very hard in the face and made it a complete mess, which a Furnunculus Curse only made worse.
Harry saw Ron trip another, and started beating him ferociously, swearing colorfully the entire way.
Behind him, the girls were yelling unworldly cries; it was too close for duelling and swords, so Hermione elbowed one in the face and Ginny threw a drop kick at another. Harry would have laughed if the situation hadn't been so dire.
His wand was still in hand, so he started slashing wildly, and heard a yelp from Ron.
"Watch it, Harry! You nearly took off my head!"
"Sorry!" Harry barely had time to yell back as another gremlin leapt at him. He ducked under its clumsy charge and bowled it over onto its stomach.
But as he was about to finish it off, something incredible happened.
A bright wave of light erupted from the topmost tower in Hogwarts, the Astronomy tower, and Harry instinctively knew that it was there that Dumbledore had garrisoned himself.
And that this could only be his "ultimate" spell.
Sure enough, the wave passed over everything. The defenders did not feel a thing, apparently, but the Dark forces were utterly ravaged.
They clutched at their ears and head, screaming. Screaming so hard, as if their minds were being torn apart. Harry had to plug his ears and squint his eyes to try to block it out; it was deafening.
He looked around; the others were doing the same. Ron was mouthing something intellegible.
Then, the screaming faded and they started to drop. Harry heard thousands of bodies hitting the floor; it sounded like rain, with the volume cranked up to maximum.
The defenders stimply looked on, stunned. There was not a single enemy to fight; all of them had died.
Harry was the first to recover from this initial shock; the realization that they had been successful, that they had actually won the battle.
"I guess we have some cleaning up to do." Ron muttered.
There was no jubilation, no happiness as Harry might have expected had they won. There was a definite sense of weariness, and relief.
"How many of our casualties are there?" McGonagall asked, a slight tremor in her voice that Harry had never heard before.
"None that I know of. Everyone's reasonably well here." Kingsley said, looking around.
"Right. Where's Albus?"
As if to answer her words, Dumbledore came staggering; Harry had never seen him so weak, and was shaken by the sight. He was being supported by a man with silver hair to match Dumbledore's own, but the beard was considerably shorter. The newcomer had bright green eyes to match Harry's own, and Harry sensed an aura of pride emanating from him.
"My brother, Aberforth." Dumbledore grunted, sliding down to sit in a pile to debris. "Without his help, I could not have done what I have just achieved."
Harry vaguely remembered Dumbledore mentioning his brother during his fourth year, to comfort Hagrid, if he remembered correctly.
Aberforth Dumbledore acknowledged his brother's compliment.
"Two Dumbledores, eh?" Ron muttered so that only Harry could hear. Behind his visored helmet, Harry grinned.