Professor McGonagall sighed.
The battle against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his army was not progressing well.
Lupin, one of her strongest remaining defenders, had been struck down an hour earlier. Now it was only her, Shacklebolt and, maybe, Flitwick who could stand up against the Death Eater inner circle.
Potter and his gang had disappeared off on their secret mission hours ago, entrusting the defence of the castle to her, but she was quickly running out of defensive options.
She examined the group of students she was currently cornered with. She had been forced to use a great deal of her remaining strength in order to seal off the entrance to the Astronomy Tower with a transfigured silver barrier, but it wouldn't hold for much longer. The Death Eaters on the other side were hitting it with some powerful curses.
Oliver Wood, her redoubtable Quidditch hero, was her best support, even now he was giving a rousing speech to the others, lifting their spirits, but they were hardly more than children and they all knew that they wouldn't survive the next assualt.
A louder than before bang was heard on the far side of her hasty defence and Minerva readied herself to spend her life to protect her charges. No more children would suffer for her mistakes, she vowed.
It was just when the barrier was about to fall that she head it. Sweet, filling music swept across them. Minerva knew that she was an expert at magic, even though she knew she would never reach the heights that Albus had, she was confident enough to recognise the nature of the magic that the music carried to them all.
Courage, strength, fortitude, determination, faith and underlying it all... hope.
This was what the music spoke to them all, and Minerva could tell that the Death Eaters could hear it to, but for them it was the opposite. While for the Hogwartsians it was the power to defend themselves, she could sense that for his army, it was fear and despair.
Minerva's long suffering barrier collapsed, but rather than the death Eaters bursting through, it was the defenders of Hogwarts who struck out to expel the invaders from their home.
