Tin toy soldiers in a row,
Wind them up and watch them go.
Where they went we'll never know,
Much to young to die alone.
Time moved slowly and Ginny wavered unsteadily on her feet as the walls of her school crumbled into pieces around her.
The blood trickled into her eyes and she blinked it away, wrapping an arm around Colin's torso as she screamed a curse at a shadow. She tripped on the rubble as she dragged his body away, hiding him behind a wall before running back into the fray.
Neville was being levitated by a Death Eater while another cackled as he screamed under her Cruciatus Curse. She killed the laughing one first and didn't feel sorry. Neville fell to the ground with a sickening thud, and she turned away.
"Avada Kedavra!" - again and again, and to hell with 'unforgivable.' She didn't want forgiveness anyway. She only wanted them dead. Every bloody one of them.
Lavender screamed as she fell from the sky, wrapped in red. Ginny tried, but she wasn't fast enough. Lavender hit the concrete with a boom louder than Neville's, and Ginny turned away again, pushing aside an obscure thought regarding spilled milk, because Parvati was backed into a corner and screaming. Everyone was screaming.
"Avada Kedavra!" twice, and then Harry, Ron, and Hermione were running through the wreckage and Ginny watched him jump over bodies and rubble. Her heart clenched and she wanted to cry out so he would see her, but her voice wouldn't work. Hermione shouted at Greyback and then they were gone.
Greyback was slumped against the wall, coughing, and Ginny wondered why Hermione hadn't just killed him. He had been eating Lavender, from the looks of it.
"Avada Kedavra!" again, and she meant it, from the very depths of her soul, she meant it. Every thread of all the anger she'd ever possessed, woven into a storm and she couldn't bring herself to care about morals or judgment - they didn't, and all is fair in love and war. She was going to stoop to their level, and go so low they were going to wish they had never dared to cross the threshold of her school.
She was jerked into the air and slammed into a wall. The pounding in her head grew louder and louder and liquid gold was being pumped from her heart, burning the veins it flowed through. She forced her hand to grip her wand and her eyes to open. A wild-eyed Death Eater stood over her, cackling loudly as he pointed his wand between her eyes. She was so tired...so tired...
"Reducio!" and the Death Eater was reduced to ashes in a flash of blue, revealing a bloodied and bruised Neville. He nodded at her and she nodded back - he turned and ran.
Ginny drew in a shaky breath and willed the pounding of her head to go away. She stared, unfeeling, at the battle before her. She grew up with these kids, and kids they were. Kid soldiers. They were her friends, these pretend grown ups. She had been with them for first kisses and first heartbreaks, for late nights and early mornings, for Quidditch and detentions. They had survived basilisks, Dolores Umbridge, Triwizard Tournaments, and Snape as Headmaster. And now they would die here, every last one of them, and she felt nothing.
Colin stumbled into her view, and she wondered absently if she hadn't just held his lifeless body, but there he was, shooting spells with blood dripping from his temple and his shoulder and his abdomen. And she remembered why she had been fighting a few moments - hours? - days? - earlier:
She'd be damned if she didn't die with them.
She spit the blood from her mouth and hauled herself back to her feet. "Avada Kevara," she whispered, and another shadow disappeared in green.
"Reducio!" for the next one, and she liked it, liked watching them turn to ashes. She felt the mania bubbling up, and she laughed, loud and hysterical, and a tiny part of her mind told her she sounded like Bellatrix - maybe she should let go of some of this hate. She pushed it away and turned to the next one - Colin was lying on the ground, clutching his stomach and frowning at her. She felt her heart drop, and she was suddenly at his side, her hands hovering over the hole in his side.
"Colin?" she sobbed, not laughing anymore. He seemed to be choking, so she lifted his head, and blood spurted from his lips. She drew in a shaky breath and tears started to cloud her vision. He coughed and raised the hand holding his wand. She didn't know what he wanted, so she grabbed his wrist, but he frowned deeply, and a blue light shot from his wand. Ginny turned, and there was a pile of ashes behind her, blowing into her face as a powerful curse shot past her.
She turned back to Colin, but his eyes were staring at nothing above her shoulder. She screamed, and there was the crazy in her again, because he didn't deserve this - none of them did. She tucked Colin's wand in her pocket, and then it was "Avada Kedavra!" again and again, because she didn't care anymore. She wondered why she ever had. They were all going to die anyway. The Death Eaters could join her in hell.
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