Entry for the Quidditch League, Round 3; Wigtown Wanderers vs. Appleby Arrows

Task: Your team name is your prompt.

Wigtown Wanderer(s)

Choosen word count limit: 1201 – 1500

It took a few days for the realisation to finally sink into Rolanda Hooch's mind. Until the moment in which she had finally become aware of the full scale of the meaning of the last days' events, everything had passed by in a blurr.

But now, she was walking down a track across some fields somewhere in Scotland. Surrounded by the green meadows and the Highlands, far away from all kinds of civilization, carrying a backpack with only the most necessary items to survive, she was hit by it all.

The world which she had known had completely collapsed, after having been shaken heavily by the death of Albus Dumbledore and then by the fall of the Ministry. To that certain moment a few days ago, she had still held on to some ridiculous hope that her worst nightmare wouldn't come true.

However, it had.

A few days ago, she had heard that Severus Snape had been appointed as Hogwarts' new Headmaster, and these news had forced her to finally realize that everything the people around her were saying about him was true.

He had betrayed them all. He had fooled them all over all these years. He had played with their trust, and he had killed Dumbledore.

Until that day, she had tried not to listen to the rumours that were spread about the events on the Astronomy Tower, really, she had excelled at being illusional. However, when she had seen his picture in that rotten Daily Prophet, it had hit her. Obviously she had never known the real Severus Snape. He had easily deceived her with some mask he had put up to conceal his true intentions. What a fool she had been.

And after dropping the Prophet with these news onto the floor, she had kept all kinds of thoughts away from herself, as all of this had simply been overwhelming for her. Too much information, too many things that she hadn't wanted to be true. But they were.

In the last days, she had acted more on instinct than on rational thinking. Before she had really been able to realise what she was doing, she had had stuffed clothes and food into a backpack and had left the cottage she had been living in over the summer for the last few years. Honestly, at first she had had no idea what she was doing there. However, then she had been able to sort it out – she wanted to get as far away from him as possible. She couldn't imagine going back to Hogwarts, to see him and know that he had played with her, with all of them.

But only now, as she urged her aching legs to continue walking, she was hit by all the things she had held back until this point. Tears were burning in her golden eyes as she ran her fingers down her braid and felt the pain of betrayal coursing through her whole body, accompanied by the weight of having lost everything that she had once called home.

Severus Snape, the man whom she loved with all her heart, wasn't the man she had thought he was. And this realisation caused her to feel like her life at Hogwarts had been a lie. That she had been used by Severus to appear a little bit less like the sociopath he really was.

Her heart was clenching upon the memory of how they had been lying in bed the morning before he had killed Dumbledore. It felt so wrong to remember how comfortable she had felt in his arms and the words of love he had whispered hoarsely into her ear before pressing his face into her hair again made her feel sick. As she closed her eyes, letting the upcoming breeze waft over her face, it was as if she could still feel the warmth of his body pressed up against hers. His surprisingly muscular arms wrapped around her gently, holding her close, making her feel like she was something precious to him, something he didn't want to let go of. The wind blew a few stray strands of her blonde hair against her cheek and if it had been warmer, it could have been his breath. She still knew how it had tickled her when he had whispered into her ear, making her shiver in happiness when he had said those three words. Those magical three words expressing a feeling only a few people knew he was capable of having.

And of course the most vivid memory was the of the way his lips had felt against hers when he had kissed her. Softly, lovingly, always a bit as if he was afraid she could disappear any moment, mixed with a little bit of shyness from the most hidden parts of his soul.

All these little things had made her believe that she knew who he was, and that he was showing her the real him.

What an excellent actor he had been. She had really thought that he was a good person on the inside and that she had found her place in this world, along with the person that was meant for her. Or maybe she had just been easy to fool, possibly he had taken advantage of the situation, of how much in love she had been with him around that time. As if she had been blinded by fluffy, rosy clouds, she snorted inwardly.

However, the thing was, though everything seemed to be so obvious now, she still had no idea what really had been truth and what had been a lie.

And now she just felt lost. Her feet were carrying her onwards, her body was moving through the peaceful landscape, but she had no destination. With deciding not to return to Hogwarts, she had officially become an enemy of the new system, so there was no way she could go to any familiar place. After all she had better ways to spend her days than being captured by Death Eaters.

With nowhere to go, no one to safely contact, all she could do was wander around the country staying away from trouble and carrying her broken heart. And well, maybe wait for the day on which she would hear about the war being over – in whichever way it would end.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks and fell onto the dirt underneath her feet, joining the raindrops that were starting to fall from the dark sky. There was nothing left and she felt so empty inside. All she had now was the road and her bare life to protect, even though she didn't really feel the need to do so. Darkness was spreading inside of her, suffocating and tainting all those happy memories she had held on to tightly over the last weeks. These familiar things seemed so scary to her now, so unsafe, so painful.

And so all her hopes were lying on wandering. That every single step would help to get away from those things that frightened her now, from the danger that was in the air.

Maybe she would be able to start from the scratch, somewhere else, as someone else. But until she had found this somewhere, she would continue to follow this path to whatever place it was leading to. No matter how lonely this road would be, she just hoped that it would be worth to go down, and that upon arriving she would find something that made this pain disappear.