Title: Retribution
Summary: "Just take out her wand. Say the words. She had enough anger, enough hate in her heart..." It would have been so easy
Rating: T, for mention of death
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
She fled. When the battle broke out, when the curses flew and corridors crumbled, she fled. Her heart pounded beneath her ribs, drumming coward, coward, coward, in her ears. Her wand stayed safely tucked within her pocket, forgotten and unwanted. She fled. She raced away. She ran on foot. Her feet pounded the ground like her heart beat in her chest. She fled with not a thought behind her.
Free, perhaps she thought. She was never very sure afterwards what she thought, but perhaps she thought free at last and continued to run. She was certain the faces flashed before her eyes – Tim and Clark and Noah and…and Dad – dead, dead, dead, her heart seemed to beat. Her brothers and father who'd been murdered for causing trouble, who were buried side by side in some unmarked grave, or turned to ashes, or rotting in some pile of bodies….
Mum…her mother's face wasted and eaten away from the dementors that guarded her cell unceasingly during the night, nothing but wretches to keep her company, no happy thought left to dwell upon….
She enjoyed thinking about her family. She bloody enjoyed it, to think of the sufferings of her brothers who had obviously not died easily. She liked the sense of cold brutality it brought her, the anger and cruel wrath that coursed through her veins. Make them pay, make them pay; she used to lie awake and think at night. Oh, for the right side of the wand to be turned away from her – to watch her families' murderers wreathe in agony upon the floor as they had watched her….
Her fingers itched for her wand. She longed to turn back, to charge back to the battle and find the first Death Eater she came to – to launch herself body and soul and tear them to pieces…. They deserved it, she told herself. Her families' murderers deserved no less.
She remembered that one day. That day when she almost had…. Millicent Bulstrode had been torturing a first year. She'd deserved it… she had almost – almost…. It would have been so easy. Just take out her wand. Say the words. She had enough anger, enough hate in her heart…. But this was Mil – Mil, childhood friend. She slept in the bed right next to her for goodness sakes! She couldn't…. She was weak, weak and puny and a coward.
Still she fled. Her feet pounded the ground and drew her unceasingly away. She couldn't stop herself, she thought later when she was trying to think up an excuse to her cowardice – why hadn't she turned back? Why hadn't she been brave like all the others and fought? Why hadn't she died like her brothers and father?– She couldn't have. Her feet would not allow her to turn around. She'd tried, she told herself, she had tried, but it had been impossible.
Some unyielding force pushed her forward, encouraged her legs to pump faster. Some indisputable presence forced her to run away, to not go back, to give up her wand…. Perhaps she cried as she ran. Perhaps the tears dribbled down her cheeks and over her chin. Perhaps she thought free at last and sobbed.
Tracey Davis fled.