Fighting Someone Else's War

Chapter Five – The Patrol

The Forbidden Forest was dark, even in the afternoon; the light struggled to pass through the towering trees. It was mid-October and the weather was pleasant, not too cold and definitely not overheating, just right. This would have been a romantic walk in the park except for a few factors. One of them was that the forest was infested with strange and hostile creatures and a soldier carrying an M4 didn't really show any sign of romance.

Kelly was walking casually but Ryan was keeping a watch for everything. On a few occasions Kelly giggled to herself the way her friend was behaving, he was so paranoid. She saw him stop every time he heard something crack and Kelly would show him the broken stick that he stepped on. After the little embarrassment he would continue on doing the same for the next ten minutes.

The sky above them darkened down and light became less visible. The Ranger forgot his NVG (night vision goggles) back at the base so their only source of light depended on Kelly's wand. They were about an hour into the forest and now there was absolutely no natural light except for the very little shine of the moon. Although she didn't show it Kelly was scared inside. She had never been in the Forbidden Forest before and now she knew why. In the afternoon it was peaceful but at night it was practically freaky, scary.

Feet by feet she began to inch her way towards Ryan. Now she wished that she were back at the castle. Why did she have to open her big fat mouth and asked him to bring her to the Forbidden Forest. It was scarring her a lot. 'Ryan… how 'bout calling the patrol a day huh? Let's go back?'

'Scared are you?' he asked amazed. 'You're the one who told be to bring you here.'

'I'm not scared and yeah… I guess. But let's just go back, we can go another day.' Kelly really didn't feel like being in the forest at this time of hour. She looked back to her watch, it read 8:02 PM. Dinner at the Great Hall was already over but they knew that she was patrolling the Forest with Ryan to Professor McGonagall's displeasure.

'Fine, we can go back in ten more minutes OK? Don't worry no one's going to attack us,' said the Ranger. Yeah right, thought Kelly. He was the one with the gun and all she had was a piece of wood that shot sparks to scare away people. Ten minutes was too long. She wanted to head back to the castle immediately before she went insane. The silence of the forest had a deadly tone to it. There was no wind in the air, no movements (except for them) and definitely no life in sight.

They decided to head back to the castle when Kelly's plea began to become more desperate despite the meaningless patrol. They were on their way back when there were movements heard. 'Probably stepped on another stick Ryan,' said Kelly. But that wasn't true. There was something out their – BOOM! An explosion blew in front of them. Both of them fell to the ground. Ryan jumped behind a broken down tree and Kelly followed. She had a deep nasty cut that went across her right arm, blood was pouring out. 'A piece of the tree must of hit me,' she said.

BOOM! Another explosion rocked behind them. Soon the air was filled with spells being shot over their heads and Ryan finally saw his first action in days. Turning over he shouted to Kelly, 'Shoot red sparks into the air!'

'What?' she shouted back over the noise.

'Shoot some fucking red sparks into the fucking air now, goddamnit!' he shouted back at her. He brought up his M4 and squeezed off a shot. As it turned out the gun went on full auto and unleashed seven rounds into the direction of one of their ambushers. 'Shit! I think I left this on rock-and-roll!'

Kelly held her wand up and shot multiple red sparks high into the air. Hoping that someone would see it she turned back towards Ryan and asked, 'What do we do now?'

'We fight these son-of-a-bitches!' he replied. He switched his selector to semi-automatic and fired even shots towards the direction of his attacker. Once or twice he heard some of them scream in pain. It wasn't a pretty scream either. It was agony beyond any other, a howling pain, the Ranger must of hit him where it hurt.

Another explosion blew behind them. A sharp piece of wood stabbed him in his left arm and Kelly was slashed across the back, both were drawing blood. The two were hiding behind a broken down tree and it didn't seem to help them at all. When a spell hit the tree in front of them it would send splinters into their faces.

Turning left he saw a Death Eater running his way. Aiming his M4 towards him he pulled of three shots. The bullets smacked him in the head blowing off his mask revealing the bloody head. Half of it was missing and parts of the brain were visible. His next action he pulled the trigger on his M-203 grenade launcher. The fat round flew and exploded near where he saw spells were cast earlier on. No more spells were cast from that direction afterwards.

Another Death Eater ran his direction; he was taken down by a shot to the head. They were outnumbered ten to one but thanks to Ryan they were being held back. To lighten things up Kelly shot a spark into the air that exploded acting like a flare. The whole area was completely visible. The Ranger spotted a Death Eater leaning around a tree, he was taken out by an M-203 round. The explosion exploded the tree in front of him that sliced his body in half. Two more Death Eaters came from behind shooting spells wildly; both were taken down without hesitation. The area around them became littered with dead bodies of Death Eaters.

Soon whole hordes of Death Eaters began to make a frontal assault. Ryan switched his selector to fully automatic and took down the whole crowd. He fired an M-203 blindly into the forest exploding somewhere. As the sound of the battle began to increase a spell broke a tree down so it covered Ryan and Kelly's back. They now had cover on both north and south, all they had to worry about now was to be over runned.

As the time passed on he became increasingly worried. Where was everyone? Where was their backup? Where was Dumbledore? The Ranger began to become more jumpy as the battle wore on. He tried to keep his calm but it was too hard. People were shooting spells from all direction leaving him confused. He wanted to shoot back but he didn't know where they were. He fired blindly at the direction he thought.

Firing another grenade into the air the explosion lit up the area for a short time. He heard screams and saw a Death Eater running into the battlefield with his right arm missing. He ran in circles until Ryan decided to take him down.

'Argh!' Kelly yelped in pain. Ryan turned his head to Kelly and saw her slump back to the ground. He wasn't sure whether she was dead or not; he'd find that out later. For now he had to concentrate on covering both south and north but he wanted to see whether she was all right. Risking seeing if she was alive or not meant leaving him exposed for a short minute… he'd take the chance.

He ran over to the limp body of Kelly. He took of his gloves and placed his index and middle finger at her throat to feel her pulse. Still beating. Good, she was alive then, probably stunned. He put his gloves back on and went back to fighting the stupid Death Eaters. The Ranger killed three Death Eaters that were running at his direction. Another guy he blew apart when an M-203 round exploded when hitting his body. Fragments of his body parts flew in all direction. This was the most gruesome fight the Ranger ever fought.

In the next ten minutes he killed another thirty Death Eaters. Where were they all coming from? He was running low on ammunition and if help didn't come soon he would be captured. One of the Death Eaters that tried to kill had had his head blown off when three rounds were placed squarely on his face. Another guy was killed when he shot him in the nose. The bullet blew a whole through and exited at the back of his head. This was truly a gruesome fight.

Every once in a while he would go check on Kelly's stunned body. She had her eyes closed, at peace; it couldn't help remind him the soldiers he saw dying on the battlefield. When someone died they had the look of peace on their face… but they were dead. Their life ended abruptly when a bullet hit them causing them pain for hours or minutes then the end. They were dead. He turned his attention back to the battlefield.

He had five magazines left and he'd run dry in another twenty minutes. He had three grenade rounds left and decided to use them wisely and not waste them. His selector was switched back to semi-automatic so he could conserve his ammunition and not chew threw it in less than a minute.

A sharp spell drilled into his right arm this time. It was like needle that went right through his arm leaving a whole. It killed and he dropped his carbine to the ground. Another spell made a gash across his chest but luckily for his flak vest it wasn't deep. He began to grow tired as he lost more blood. He couldn't hold on any longer. He picked up his M4 with his weak arms and began to fire so inaccurately that he wasted ten shots on one guy.

A curse drilled into him delivering the finishing blow. Ryan fell back to the ground and saw the bright light above him. What was going on? Light above him? His vision became blurry before he blacked out into nothingness. So he was dead? Probably… life never was really fair.

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Author's Note: Well that's the end of Chapter Five. Review please!