Chapter Twenty Five

A/N: No reviewers.

Merida tossed and turned in her bed, her auburn curls tangling around her ears as they matted against the pillow. The cold night air seemed to creep through the gap in the window hinges, swirling around her bedroom with a chill far too pronounced for summertime. Somehow, the girl could not shake the feeling that the wind was not the thing that sent shivers running across her skin.

Eventually, she sat up and swung her legs out of bed, sighing in frustration. Thoughts were buzzing through her mind like a swarm of bees and she could not calm them enough to drift off to sleep. If she was awake, she might as well do something useful.

Merida retrieved a book from her desk, a heavy volume bound in black leather. Her mother had given her a number of advanced Transfiguration textbooks, hoping she would be inspired to take the subject at N.E.W.T. level. That seemed like the easiest decision she had made in school so far; her mother had been teaching her Transfiguration since she was old enough to hold a wand.

She had read the passage on human transfiguration three times, trying to get her head around the complicated charms, when she heard a movement from the next room. The redhead's brow furrowed. It was the middle of the night and her mother had gone to bed hours ago. Why would she be moving around now?

Merida pulled the door open a crack, just enough to see through without the light from her room giving her away. The fire glowed in the dark room, illuminating the shadow that swept past it, a figure wrapped in a heavy cloak.

"Mum?" Merida called quietly, pulling her door open and stepping through. Her mother spun round, her hand going to her belt, where her wand was strapped. She tried to cover up the move, crossing her arms over her chest as if in annoyance, but the redhead had been watching too carefully to be fooled.

"Meri, what are you doing up so late?" Minerva chastised, almost managing to hide the tremor in her voice before her usual authoritative tone.

"Where are you going?" Merida questioned in return, effectively avoiding her mother's attempt to change the subject. "It's the middle of the night and you've got your wand strapped to your belt. You would only do that if you were going to fight."

Minerva sighed, pulling her cloak to cover her wand a little more. She had a look on her face, a kind of wistfulness that only surfaced when she was longing for her daughter's childhood, the days before she was old enough to question her mother's word. "The Death Eaters have broken into Hogwarts."

Merida blinked. "That's not possible. You can't Apparate into the grounds and surely someone would have seen them if they did it on foot."

"I don't know how it happened, Meri, but it did." Minerva stated, turning back towards the door. "Harry Potter and his friends are trying to fight them, but it's far too dangerous for them to do it alone. They're going to need help and it's my job to protect the students of this school."

"What about me?" Merida volunteered, seizing a cardigan from the back of her chair and the wand from her desk.

Her mother was already shaking her head by the time she returned to the doorway. "I'm not going to let you, Meri, it's too dangerous."

Merida clenched her teeth, trying to maintain some semblance of calm. Shouting at her mother would only put her on edge. "Mum, I'm not a child. I can fight just as well as the others; Ginny and Luna are my age and they'll be down there. It's going to be just as dangerous for me if the Death Eaters take over the castle as if I'm down there fighting them; they're going to try and hurt me either way. So I might as well fight, right?"

She had never seen her mother so reluctant in her life, but finally the woman nodded, stepping forward to run her hand over her daughter's messy red curls, looping one around her finger the same way she had done when she was a girl. Merida supposed it was a last attempt to keep her a child, before they went off to fight the forces of evil together.

A moment later, her smile faded, a thought striking her. She looked up at her mother, her eyes wide with fear. "Mum? Draco isn't with them, is he? He's not involved in all of this?"

"I don't know, Meri." the woman answered, though she did not seem convinced. "I shouldn't think so. He's too young to be caught up in the Dark Lord's commands. He can't do unauthorised magic, so I shouldn't imagine he would be much use until he was seventeen."

Merida's heart skipped a beat, a frightened voice running through her mind. She had not focused on the words at the time, the shock of Draco having taken the Dark Mark overwhelming her mind, but now it was all becoming clearer. One word stood out among the haze, glowing like the fire through the darkened room.

Dumbledore.

"Mum, they're going to kill the headmaster." Merida murmured. Her mother blinked a little, frowning as if she was not sure she had heard correctly. "I can't tell you how I know, but I'm sure of it. The Death Eaters, that's why they're here. It's not anything to do with Harry or the other students, they're going to murder Professor Dumbledore!"

"Merida, don't be ridiculous!" Minerva exclaimed, but the thought was already implanting itself in her mind. Within a few seconds, the professor was running towards the door, her daughter in quick pursuit.

'We'll get there in time.' Merida assured herself, as she fought to keep up with her mother, who kept a fearsome pace for a woman her age. 'I've done the right thing, I've worked it out and that will make it alright. We can fight off the Death Eaters, stop them ever getting to Professor Dumbledore.'

The whole scenario seemed rather like a dream, like one of the fairy stories she had read as a child. The heroic warrior come to save the day. But they never explained the consequences properly in those tales, never told the truth about what happened to the innocents caught on the wrong side of the war. Those clear cut tales were not a patch on real life, where the choice came between a revered headmaster or an innocent boy raised too young to his father's place.

'If Dumbledore dies, then Draco has fulfilled his mission,' Merida told herself, shivering at the awful thought of Draco's allegiance to the Dark Lord. 'Maybe he'll rise through the ranks, gain some trust. He'll be safe. But if Dumbledore lives, Draco will be dead within a day, maybe his mother too. He could never be forgiven for not succeeding. Either way, the living party has blood on their hands. And either way, my heart's going to be broken.'

A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please review!