Heaven Tastes Sweeter
Chapter Six
The group had been walking for a while, Remus Lupin excelling in his part as the good professor, telling the students curious facts about the Defence Against the Dark Arts subject.
Pansy thought that Lupin did it to help them keep their minds off the present danger but she could tell that the man was even more tense than some of them.
Hermione and Ron kept close to each other, exchanging a few whispered words occasionally.
Everything was quiet. Far too quiet and, as Pansy had learnt, no news didn't necessarily mean good news.
Just in case, she kept looking around herself, observing, analysing everything, just as Harry had taught them. "Constant vigilance!", the bespectacled boy always said with a hint of humour. Pansy saw the tall trees surrounding them noticing, for the first time that, even thought it was only just past midday, inside the forest it was quite dark.
She felt a cold sensation creeping up her back that made her shiver. Then, for some unknown reason, she looked to her right and saw a bush that gave her a feeling of déjà vu. She had seen that bush somewhere before.
Thinking hard, Pansy suddenly remembered that that bush was the one she had seen at one of her visions.
Pansy was about to open her mouth to call Hermione when, with a deafening noise, a group of Death Eaters apparated suddenly blocking everyone of their escape routes.
"Everyone group together!" Lupin and Tonks exclaimed trying desperately to get all the students together so they all protected each other's backs.
Pansy panicked…this was exactly what had happened in her vision.
"Where are the aurors?" Pansy heard Tonks ask, her voice slightly shaky.
"They won't come…the Death Eaters have done something to them…" Pansy replied and, hearing her own voice, she realised she was actually speaking her thoughts aloud.
"What?!" Hermione exclaimed almost breaking their circular formation so the Gryffindor could stare at Pansy.
"The girl's right…your aurors won't be coming…we kind of caught them by surprise…" confirmed one of the Death Eaters, that meanwhile had got close enough for him to hear them.
"You're lying!!" Tonks shouted looking visibly alarmed.
"No, he isn't…I've seen it…" Pansy said getting a whole lot of stares from both her schoolmates and the adults that accompanied them.
"What are you talking about Parkinson? You've been with us the whole time!" Ron shouted angrily.
"I've had some sort of premonition…" Pansy started explaining.
"A what? Why in the bloody hell didn't you tell us about it before?" Ron shouted again apparently looking as if he didn't care about the fact that they were surrounded by quite a few Death Eaters.
"I had a premonition about this…the problem is that I'm not very good interpreting them yet…they're not very precise…" Pansy said with a small voice feeling stupid and impotent.
Suddenly, Pansy looked up and saw one of the Death Eaters looking at her quite keenly, meeting her eyes, he took two steps forward so he could stand right in front of her and said:
"The red head called you Parkinson, are you Philip Parkinson's daughter?"
"Er…yes…why?" Pansy replied hesitantly.
Then something weird happened. The Death Eater started laughing like a madman, he said something to one of the other Death Eaters making him laugh as well.
"That's just fantastic…this is our lucky day!" the first Death Eater shouted and then added, "Get her as well…"
Lupin, using this temporary distraction, made the signal that meant: attack at will.
Several curses and hexes started flying everywhere, even Pansy used a disarming curse on the Death Eater standing in front of her effectively sending both the wand and him flying away from her.
Hermione and Ron were fighting the best way they knew: back to back and as a duo. Harry had trained them to fight together and they were so synchronised that it looked as though they were a single being.
The battle would have been very unbalanced even if they had all been fully qualified wizards because the Death Eaters outnumbered them but, with only two adults and a few students, even if the students were members of the D.A., the fight was very much in the Death Eater's favour.
Pansy saw one of the Hufflepuff, a red head called Bones or something like that, chickening away, taking cover behind one of the fallen trees. Pansy didn't blame her, she herself would have given anything to be able to run and hide. Unfortunately she couldn't do it because she was totally surrounded.
"What happened in your premonition?" she heard Tonks shout the question at her while, the today pinked haired young woman was disarming, getting him unconscious in the process, one of the Death Eaters she was fighting, readying herself to attack the next one.
"I don't know! Like I said…they're not very specific yet…only images and a few sounds…" Pansy replied and was about to throw a 'tarantallegra' curse at one of the Death Eaters that was about to attack her.
Unfortunately for her, she had got distracted for a microsecond while replying and she found herself surrounded by a thick rope tying her. She tried to touch the robe with her wand to deactivate the bonding curse but the Death Eater that had thrown the curse at her, snatched the wooden rod directly from her hand.
"No, no…naughty girl…" he said breaking her wand in two in front of her.
Pansy looked around trying to find someone to help her. She only saw Tonks being very badly hit by a cutting curse and someone treating the poor Ravenclaw fancy dressed as Harry Potter, in very much the same fashion the Death Eaters had reserved for her. Everybody else were far too busy themselves to even consider the possibility of coming to her rescue.
The situation was so desperate that Pansy didn't know what to do next. She was spared the trouble of thinking of something to do, for she felt something hard hitting her head and then, everything went black.
To be continued…
A/N: Thanks a lot for the reviews!! I'm so happy you're liking this sequel…I'll try to post at least two more chapters before Xmas…so stay tuned!
Take care, Sanae.