Heavy footfalls called out, aggressively disturbing the otherwise peaceful grounds as a thestral howled tellingly in the distance. Breathing heavily, the first runner increased her already insistent pace, emitting a nervous whine as she realized she was nearly maxed out. Her assailant growled in an animalistic baritone of frustration, and his muted thuds of boot against sod increased in urgency.

Her breath now coming in half-strangled gasps as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest, the girl desperately thrust each leg forward after the other, though her muscles screamed each time she did. Searing pain and tears blurred her vision as she bolted through the blackness of night.

Of course, none of it really mattered – as long as she returned alive, her condition upon arrival was moot. Though magic could heal nearly anything with time and means, the reality was that it could not restore a heartbeat to a corpse, and her heartbeat was instrumentally important to the vessel she hosted. It was imperative for the sake of the war that the vessel be brought to safety, and conclusively key that she made it back with a heartbeat.

She had not forgotten the absence of twinkle in her mentor's eyes as he had designated her duty, the hard set in his jaw, or the way he was unable to face her once his resolve had been steeled; nor how she felt more like a pawn than ever before. He knew that no price would deter her from success, for the sake of the war.

She would not fail for the sake of the vessel.

Finding a new wind at the end of her rope, she burst into a dead sprint, all oxygen leaving her lungs at once. Her pursuer struggled to match her pace, snarling furiously. She battled with herself for a few seconds, struggling for air and finding that her lungs refused. Just as she was about to resign to failure and accept certain death, her foot connected with the earth on the other side of the gates. Gasping a breath, she immediately turned over her right shoulder and disintegrated into the night.

The Dark Lord slowed and then finally sank to his knees within the boundaries of Hogwarts, moist earth creeping through the cloth of his trousers. As he stared at the spot she had vanished from, he sighed, sitting back on his heels.

This is it, he thought. Love.