Time was passing rapidly, too rapidly for Pax's liking. Just moments before, it seemed, they had said their farewells and stationed themselves separately around the castle. Pax recalled her own words as if in a dream:

"We are all agreed on what we must do. Laetitia dear; join a group of defendants in the Forest. You know every inch, every angle of the landscape. You were born to till the earth: now you are called to defend what is yours and what you have a right to.

Annabel, my baby girl- keep to the stairways and the passages that lead to them. Do not let them pass you, Annabel, understand? The Death Eaters shall not pass. Not as long as we are there to block the way."

Annabel had nodded with brown-eyed dignity and Letty bowed her head in reverence.

Give me victory, Pax thought, give me victory or give me death.

And so they had parted. With love and fellow-feeling: at last the future had a purpose.

Pax had never regretted her decision to place her life on the front line. She was not a victim; nor a woman of regret, but a woman of decisiveness, a woman of action.

Above her head, the protective shield was crumbling and as the bubble-like sphere became more and more fragile only strengthened Pax's iron resolution, a steady iron kind that rust could never deter from the one true path.

Suddenly the defenders turned on their heels and retreated back to fight in the grounds. Defenders and Death Eaters alike raced for the castle. They rushed past Pax but, like the steady rock in the tumbling sea, she stood her ground.

The Death Eaters came like a plague, she thought: to her they were like big ugly rats that stole and scratched.

Three figures advanced on her and she instinctively stepped back until they had pushed her into a corner: she would have to fight her way out.

The three were Travers, Selwyn and Rookwood. To them, it had been so far so good- apart from the minor catastrophe on the covered bridge, the advance had been swift. They could be close to the Potter boy- but now Pax was in their way.

Despite being cornered, they saw her stony-faced, as still as a caryatid bearing a mighty weight.

"get out of the way, Mrs Rees, step aside" growled Travers.

"Never," was his response," For you have broken our sanctuary. For that I cannot step aside."

"You are 55 years old, Mrs Rees," leered Selwyn. "That's not going to help you."

"Then," spat back Pax, "My 55 years can curse you for not getting rid of me sooner."

"We don't want to use brute force" hissed Rookwood, as all four drew their wands "So uncivilized. But with you with must."

"Kill me then, traitor Rookwood. And to hell with you three men of evil, and all your Darknesses."

In the blink of an eye, they were fighting, oblivious to the chaos ensuing around them. Annabel, unable to help from her place in the gallery above, looked out over the passage and saw her mother fighting three on one.

Soon the tables were turned, and Pax was now the chaser and headed them off towards the great staircase. She was fast, and furious, this lioness that they had chosen to meddle with, and signs of her superior power quickly emerged. Selwyn screamed as burns scalded him all up his left arm; Travers' nose collided with his cheek; Rookwood narrowly missed a curse that created a crater in the wall behind him- almost taking his head with it.

But, slowly and surely they wore down her spirit through sheer outnumbering. She was stronger than them (and could have taken them out one by one individually) but after constant fighting: a familiar dreary fatigue entered her already tired bones. Her bad hip that had troubled her for years, that baffled Healers began to ache and get the better of her. The bright white light at the end of the tunnel was shut out forever.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then they cursed. The three raised their wands in unison and raised the cry that would end her life.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The three jets of green light hit Pax in the chest. The impact blasted her off of her feet and she landed, crashed on her back at the top of the stairs: interrupting multiple duels.

Scarlet blood seeped from the back of her head and slowly, sickeningly her body rolled and tumbled down the stairs until it came back to their feet, puddles of hot red blood marking its descent, each drop crying out for the witch who hours ago had been a living breathing woman who meant business and who paid the price of it: a violent early death. Only now, dead and broken, would she be humbled.

The sight of Pax Rees' broken, marred body was one that was irreparable, irreversible and unforgettable.

Less than a fortnight after the Battle of Hogwarts, the bodies of Travers, Selwyn and Rookwood were discovered face down in a ditch in Cumberland. Their heads were shaved and on the backs of their heads were written only the words:

"FOR PAX"