A.N. Hello, gonna try my hand at disclaimers and such this time. Various things do not belong to me, but namely the world of Harry Potter and the title. The title is the motto of the Royal Artillery of the British Army of which the regiments of the Royal Horse Artillery are a part, and means 'Wherever right and glory leads'. The significance of the Horse Artillery will hopefully become apparent. As for the world of Harry Potter, it is not mine, belongs to one J.. If it was mine there would have been several major alterations to the end battle but the epicness that is Mrs Molly Weasley would have remained just that, epic. - DFF
Chapter OneInfiltrating the harbour area
"If you can't control that beast McNair, then it will have to be dealt with!"
"Yes Master, now settle down, ya nag!"
The struggle taking place at the clearing's edge did not abate at Voldemort's command. The captive's eyes seemed shine brighter and her straining at her ill-effective bonds became more desperate.
"Assist him!" Voldemort's lazy cold voice, directed at no one, sent a chill through the hostage's skin. McNair called to a few Death Eaters, but she didn't listen; she had the upper hand whilst there was only one. Leaping to her full height, she lashed out at a pair of clammy hands straying too close to her. A red spell leapt from the darkness and exploded over her side, searing the skin there.
Spinning round, deftly avoiding the ropes being thrown around her, she smiled in grim satisfaction as her legs made contact with the offending body, sending it slamming into a tree. There was a wet cracking sound. Seeing an opportunity, she darted forwards, stooping to retrieve her only weapon which had been tossed aside by her captors. Hagrid's warning cry and the feel of rope around her neck didn't register, until she had the air cut from her.
"Hold still little filly," McNair grunted as he hauled on the rope in his grip. The prisoner staggered as the rope tightened around her throat, dragging her over backwards. With a strangled cry, the figure crumpled onto the forest floor. McNair crouched over her, pressing the tip of his wand against her cheek, "and I won't have to do anything drastic!" Wincing at the saliva hitting her face, she bared her teeth in the best defiant act she could. Her quiver and bow lay some ten meters off, along with four cloaked figures, each sporting the same pheasant feather arrow fights in their necks.
"McNair, you fool." Voldemort's voice was cold and scathing. He advanced on the pair, robes slivering along the leaf-strewn floor. "You know no good spell will work on a creature like this. Did you not see Avery's stunner only burn it's flesh? No, you must resort to primitive force when dealing with mixed, contaminated blood." Voldemort conjured ropes and leather straps from thin air. He handed them to approaching Death Eaters, emboldened now that the threat was on the floor.
"Cowards!" Hagrid yelled from his bonds at the other end of the clearing. "You'll only take 'er on when she's outnumbered and on the floor. And keep yer 'ands off 'er!" She shuddered and snarled as a hand ghosted over her chest as leather straps were wrapped round her arms, pinning them to her sides.
"He did say 'primitive force', remember." McNair leered as he tightened a belt, crushing the breath from her and cutting into her arms. "Now be a good little pony, and the trotting up won't be too strenuous." It wasn't the pain that scared her, but the way McNair's eyes were glistening in the poor light, left no doubt the double meaning in his words. The ropes around her legs tightened, drawing them together.
The prisoner seemed to wilt as she felt a sudden sickness take her. What were they? What had happened to these people? Her head reeled as a halter was wrestled over her face and tugged by no less than four men. She was dragged by her shaking legs, and hauled towards the tree where Hagrid was bound. She closed her eyes and attempted to steady her breathing, the moist, rotten smell of the debris littering the clearing filling her lungs, making her cough. The Death Eaters tethered the ends of her ropes to the roots of the same tree as Hagrid. The hooded figures retreated into the shadows, disturbing the leaf litter as the scurried back to the dark.
"Dierdre? Dierdre, are you all right? C'mon girl, speak to me." Hagrid's low, scared voice reached her before she felt his straining fingers brushing her dark head.
"Yes, yes I'm…" she couldn't finish it, how in the world could she be described as all right. "I'm here."
"I know you are girl, I know," came Hagrid's soft reply.
Dierdre raised herself a few inches off the forest floor, as best she could, bound as she was. She propped her back up against his legs, muttering apologies as she moved, and tucked her legs underneath herself. She winced as the cords cut into her. Her wary fidgeting continued until her back was against the rough bark of the horse chestnut.
For a minute or so she sat still, letting her winded lungs recover and her spinning mind still. "Ruebus, had you heard from him? Was he well? Was he planning to fight?" Her voice was strained with the effort.
"I 'aven't seen the castle for weeks Dierdre. I dunno 'ow he is. But last time I 'eard, Trelawney was still hiding 'im, keeping 'im safe. Good thing to, God knows what them Carrows would 'ave done to 'im if he was found."
"Ruebus… please… don't." Her mind was flooded by images of the last time she had seen him in common company. That hostility had been his own kind, the Gods help him if those twisted wizards found him.
Dierdre forced her head back against the tree and looked timidly up into the night's sky, as though afraid of what she would see there. It seemed to mock her with it's gently brewing manner, Mars so vivid it seemed to pulsate against the black backdrop. How many times had the two of them looked up at the same yet different stars, and when was the last time she'd felt him lie beside her, lazily outlining elusive constellations with his arm lifted skywards?
It was the most desperate she had ever felt. All she could do was sit here, whilst he was inside that castle, fighting, dieing for all she knew. She should have stayed with the herd, should have waited for her brother to come to his senses and aid the castle's defenders, should have waited for the order to attack.
It wouldn't have come. Bane wouldn't spill his people's blood in the name of the dead man, the man who had preserved their way of life in this forest for decades whilst the Ministry shaved land again and again from their 'reserves' of dead ground. This was a wizard's war, he'd said.
But she was damned if she was to let Firenze fight in their name without her.
