Apparently I'm better at writing a bunch of short little things than I am at finishing my longer project. Oh well. I'll get to that someday.
Run.
Her feet pounded against the dirt. Her heart thundered in her chest. The thought crossed her mind that she was getting too old for this.
Run, and don't look back.
She flung a few spells behind her at her only remaining pursuers. The rest had already fallen.
Run. Leave this place.
A few more curses and the last of them fell.
Run. You cannot stop. Not yet. Not now.
She dashed into the forest. Her hair was wild; her robes were torn.
Run, don't think about it.
Only a few hundred yards, she knew, and she would be able to disapparate. Only a few hundred yards.
Run!
She felt the magic fizzle over her body. She was out. She could leave.
Go!
She cast a final glance back the way she came. Then, tears streaming down her cheeks, she disapparated.
She collapsed the moment her feet hit the ground. Sobs wracked her body for the first time in many years. Today was the end.
She had known from the moment his body hit the floor. This was the end. It was over.
They had fought valiantly, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
Too many had died today. Too many brave souls fighting for freedom, and peace, for equality, and all that was good in the world. So many had died, and for what? So she could run away?
And so she lay on the mossy ground and wept. She wept for those they had lost; she wept for those they had yet to lose; she wept for those she couldn't save.
Finally, her breathing began to even. She pulled herself to the nearest tree, still shaking, and leaned against it. Staring unseeing out into the darkened woods, she twisted her wand in her hands, perhaps to comfort herself, perhaps only to stop her hands shaking.
The few of them remaining alive had scattered, she did not know where. It was an unspoken agreement they would leave. They could not stand their ground and they knew it. They would do no one any good dead.
So here she was, alone in a forest, with no supplies and very little hope, injured from a battle they had lost, mourning the countless who had died, missing those who hadn't…
Nothing would be the same when - if - they returned. She had left her home today, she had left her home in the hands of those who would corrupt it in ways she could scarcely bear to imagine.
This was the end.
Might as well go down fighting.
Her hands stilled at the thought. She knew her odds were next to nothing, yet here she was, wanting to fight. Somehow.
And next to nothing was better than nothing.
One attack, one broken-up meeting, one intercepted owl, one assassinated enemy, one plot, one step, one breath at a time, she knew she would fight back.
Because Minerva McGonagall didn't go down without a fight.
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