Camp Potter II [Paintball, Week III]
Questioning Uncertainty
She could feel the blood oozing from the cut on her cheek, spilling warm red liquid that coursed down to meet the ground. She couldn't feel the stinging pain she knew she should feel from the cut. She couldn't find it within herself to wipe away the blood, or heal the cut. It would take magic that could be used to save someone else. The cut wasn't going to kill her.
The next Death Eater that rounded the corner just might, or he may even kill someone she cared about. Someone she may have the magic to save.
She was tired. The battle seemed like it had been going on for days, was it really only this morning that it had begun? It felt like she had been fighting for years. It felt like the Dark Lord had a never ending stream of followers. It almost felt like two more followers came for every one that was killed, almost like a hydra except-
Oh, Merlin. She was killing. These Death Eaters were people. People who had families, brothers, sisters, children possibly even people she had shared Hogwarts' hospitality with in years past. It made her feel sick. How was she able to kill with such ease, without a second thought. She knew how it felt to lose a family member, and yet how many people were she stealing family from? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? Hundreds?
She paused near one of the newly created windows in Hogwarts' wall. The castle looked on the verge of crumbling. Her children were all fighting against each other and destroying her in the process, not thinking about the one that had sheltered them for so many years.
They were careless, and selfish. They were only thinking about winning, not caring of the future consequences. Not everything was fixable. She didn't know how much of Hogwarts could be fixed. Did they have people powerful enough to resurrect the wards? Recreate the magic that had been woven into Hogwarts' very core? It had taken all four of the Founders' magicks combined to create it.
Could they really fix the damage they had wrought? She hoped so. She had liked the homely feeling Hogwarts had given off every time she had been within it. It was a feeling of being safe, and protected, similar to how she had felt when she had hugged her mother when she had been younger. That feeling truly meant more to her than winning the war did.
She caught sight of a Death Eater creeping up behind Neville, and her wand whipped out a spell faster than she could blink rendering the Death Eater unconscious. Neville sent her a startled but grateful look, and she smiled in return. But that feeling didn't mean more to her than the friends she had found along the way.
She watched Neville return to the centre of the duelling in what was left of the Great Hall. There were so many fallen bodies, so many peoples' deaths temporarily ignored in favour of the living because no one wanted to join the dead on the floor yet so many were still fated to do so. Because they would not give up, because they believed what they stood for was right.
They all did, or they would not be where they were. If they did not believe then they would be like the thousands of other witches and wizards who were in their homes, taking whatever came to them because they were afraid to believe. Everyone on Hogwarts grounds now were afraid, they feared for the lives of their friends and loved ones but they knew they were also fighting to protect.
She was too. She was fighting to protect those people who had given their time for her, for those people who were fighting to protect her too. They weren't willing to stand by and watch injustices plague the wizarding world, because they cared for each other more than they cared for themselves. They had known before this entire fiasco had even begun, that they would be losing people. Merlin only knew how many they had lost already, but they could not give up.
She knew she definitely wouldn't. She couldn't.
She had learned that from Harry, and Neville, and everyone else in Dumbledore's Army. Everyone had struggled. Everyone had felt like giving up, but they had each other. The dead could be mourned later, they had been brave and had died fighting for what they believed in. She couldn't let her fallen comrades die in vain. She couldn't let everything Neville had been through at the hands of the Death Eaters in Hogwarts mean nothing, nor could she allow the deaths of Dobby, Dumbledore, and so many others mean nothing.
If she had to join them, she would do so proudly like the warrior Harry had taught her to be. She would show the Death Eaters some honour by fighting them to the best of her ability, because that was exactly what they were doing. She didn't know how much longer that battle would last, but she knew she would last just as long, because she was determined to see it through the end.
A spell hit the wall just above her head, snapping her out of her musings. She spun around and saw the grinning Death Eater that had just destroyed a bit more of Hogwarts' protection. His mask had half fallen off and she could vaguely recognize his face being similar to one she had seen in Hogwarts, but she couldn't be sure, neither did she care to.
He sent another spell and she automatically replied with a volley of spells as she had done every other time. It was almost becoming like instinct now, that thought was almost sad. She was only sixteen after all. She shouldn't have an automatic response of subduing or harmful spells at this age.
She should never have had to experience war, but that didn't matter. It was already the past. There was nothing she could do about it now.
Her eyes flickered towards the movement she spotted behind the Death Eater, and was relieved to see it was one of the older Weasleys and not yet another Death Eater. She mouthed her thanks as he stunned the man from behind. He nodded and ran off in the direction he had come from.
She followed him. The only way for her to get out of this was for them to win.
She caught sight of Harry. It was just a moment, but the look of utter determination on his face would be enough to convince anyone that they would win.
She entered the Great Hall with a renewed determination.