CHAPTER TWO:

The Game Is Afoot.

Prompts Taken: Well-behaved women rarely make history.

Red.

Nobody is a villain of their own stories.

Wilhelmina's P.O.V

Well-behaved women rarely make history, a wise man once said. Wilhelmina Potter was neither interested in being well-behaved or making history. She didn't need her face printed in some dusty old textbook. She didn't desire her name repeated like prayers in lectures, dates of her life time-lined for ease of learning. She didn't wish for a pretty little medal pinned to her chest in empty platitude. Wilhelmina Potter wanted something much, much, much more.

She wanted to live.

That's all. To live. For as long as she could remember, that was all Mina had ever wanted. Since Dudley had first tripped her over, and she had sat there, gawking down at skinned knee, hearing him laugh, watching red soak and sprinkle and seep, feeling her heart thud, thud, thudding in her chest like a war drum, she had come to an astonishing realisation that had clung to her throughout her sorry little existence.

Life was survival of the fittest.

It was a rush. A sudden drop. A catch in breath. Grasping onto the edge, teetering, one second, one wrong movement, a shift in wind, from plummeting and it all felt so fucking alive. She also found, after pushing Dudley in front of that car an hour later, watching as it broke both his legs and cracked his skull as he went rolling down the road, that, in this cruel, cruel world they lived in, it was a principle of nature. The person who survived had to scrape and claw and bite and thrash, and the person who didn't, well, they ended up as Dudley did.

Smeared across the pavement.

Wilhelmina Potter bent down to the ground, gloved hand sweeping away the twigs and leaves from a ditch in the dirt. A footprint stared back. Standing, she eyed the cave in front of her keenly, whistling low. The sound carried into the darkness, a song sung backwards. The cave was deep.

Gazing at the black mouth of the cave gaping at her, Mina fiddled with her ruby earring. Just one, dangling from left lobe. The only thing she had from, she thought, her birth parents, or wherever it was she had come from. Like her, the earring had to come from somewhere. Things, and babies, didn't just arrive out of thin air. It brought her little comfort, but comfort all the same, to have something completely, wholly, utterly hers. She came from somewhere, from someone, from someplace, as did this earring.

They had found it wrapped in her blanket on the steps of the orphanage, before Lily and James Potter had adopted her. A chip of ruby that had endured as long as she had, through murder and prophecy, war and death, here they stood, her and the earring. Against the odds, Mina lived, and that, she thought, was terribly funny.

Not as funny as Antonin Dolohov, well, what was left of him, staggering and stumbling through the forest to his master. However, it was pretty damned close. Then again, the best was to come. He hadn't realised Tom was dead yet. He thought he still had a chance. The idiot didn't know the war was over, Mina had won, she was the shining saviour of the wizarding world, cast far from any suspicion, his cause was lost, there was no hope. But he would.

He would.

Just as soon as she caught up to him.

No point in ruining the surprise too quickly.

Merlin, she fuckin' loved surprises!

Flicking out her wand, Mina cast a Lumos and trudged into the cave's lofty, blackened bay. She couldn't help it really. The games she played. It was a… Thirst. A hunger. A shout in her mind, yelling, screaming, that she could never fully ignore. She wasn't outrightly vicious for vicious sake. There was no sexual joy to skinning a man. No delighted quiver at a wail. She wasn't a fuckin' depraved pervert.

But she was possessive.

"Antonin! I know you're in here! Come out and play!"

That's what it was. Control. What Mina did, it wasn't just about desire or brutality. It was that moment, that remarkable instance when the last breath came. A flutter in the wind. When you stared into a man's eye, when they knew it was the end, you were their end, and suddenly, you were… God. It was in your hands, your blood-soaked hands, to give them hope or snuff the flame.

"There's no need to feel shy! I won't hurt you… Much!"

They became an extension of herself, as hers as her ruby earring. She could make them say what she wished. Forget what she wished. Become something only she could imagine. Meld and carve and cut and render until, there, before her, was something only she could make. Not Albus. Not Tom. Her. A beauty she had cut free from the slab of mundane marble. Unfortunately, yes, some stone was weaker than others, and statues sometimes smashed before you had finished, but that was the price of art, wasn't it?

"Antonin…"

It wasn't like Mina hurt sincerely innocent people. She wasn't a monster. She wasn't Tom Riddle. The first person she had hurt, truly hurt, Luke Wicker, she had caught shoving his hand down a crying four-year olds trousers in the girls bathroom. It had only seemed right to take that hand from him.

Dudley's harassment had been getting worse, Larry, their neighbour, had nearly drowned in the river Dudley had lured him and pushed him into. A knock to the head, a five-week coma in hospital, a persistent stammer and memory issue that lasted to this very day, had halted all that bullying. All it had taken was a quick shove into a car. And Dolohov? Fuck, don't get her started on his long list of sins.

In the end, didn't she make a better world? A world where people like Luke, Dudley and Dolohov couldn't go around un-muzzled? And now, in this new world, fresh from the greatest war Wizarding kind had ever seen, Death Eaters on the run, so many who no one would miss if they disappeared off the face of the earth…

Well, Mina had her hands full.

Sure, her methods were… Out of the box, but better them than her. Better them than someone like Remus or Hermione. Real, good, honest people. Because… Because it had to be someone. Mina couldn't stop. She needed to keep going. As the game, once began, needed to end. Dolohov needed to be caught. Dolohov needed to die. Need. Need. Need. Gnaw, gnaw, gnawing away. You see, the need always won.

She wasn't a monster.

She had some principles.

"Dolohov, this is getting real bloody old!"

A flicker of pasty light flashed at the far end of the cave. Mina's grin glinted wolfish under the pale light of her wand. Striding down, she came to a, not a shimmering eye, gleaming buckle, or anything vaguely huddled Dolohov, but a crack in the cave's side.

A crack just big enough to fit through.

A crack that had a scrap of Dolohov's torn, bloodstained shirt stuck to a ragged edge.

"Gotcha."

Tapping the Lumos off, stuffing her wand back through the bun of her hair, Mina crept through the crack, careful to keep her sides from wrenching into the jagged stone. One step. Two steps. Three steps. The wind rushed. Cold. Sleek. Bitter.

Winter.

Something powdery crunched underfoot.

Snow.

A flash right in the eyes.

Sunlight.

Mina came sliding out into a field of snow and ice. Her breath a lazy cloud of smoke in the air. The odour of pine from the surrounding woods was potent, almost sickeningly so. In the distance, on a slanted knoll, before a great frozen river, stood a… Castle.

A castle that was not Hogwarts.

High walls, grey, it was an almost ugly slur on the horizon. Dank, dark and dim. Mina whirled around. It was gone. Nothing. No crack. No splinter. No hole. No fuckin' cave. Just a slanted mound of snow-capped rock. She brushed a gloved hand across the icy face.

Solid.

No illusion. No spell. Only stone.

Well… Shit.

A glimmer of red on white caught her eye. She strode down to the side, bowed, near the bed of dead river thrush, fingered a brittle, withered leaf. Blood. Antonin's if she had to guess. She pressed the leather tip of her finger to her bottom lip. Fresh. Still warm. He was close. Her gaze dragged to the snow. Slight impressions. Askew. Crooked. Limping. Darting into the forest. North… Towards the castle.

"So that's the game you want to play then?"

Mina stood once more. She eyed the clean face of the cave that was no more. Turned to gaze at the castle. It could be a trap. A Death Eater stronghold. She did tell Antonin to run to Tom. Perhaps in his confusion, upon not being able to sense his master, he had run to the next best thing. His brethren.

"You naughty boy."

Still, something was wrong. She had set Dolohov free at night. It had only been three hours. Much too soon for the sun, shrouded by clouds as it were, to be shining in the sky. It was spring back home. The snow here spoke of winter. Pine didn't grow in the forbidden forest, yet here she was enveloped by it.

What a delightful… Surprise.

Mina loved surprises.

Grinning, she used her thumb to swipe at the drop of blood now frigid on her lip, smearing a stream of crimson. With one last glance to the clear stone behind her, she took off running, charting Antonin's steadily fading trail.

The game was afoot, and there was only one thing Mina liked more than games and surprises.

Winning.

Whose P.O.V do you want to see next?

So there's our first little peep into Mina's mind. It was only a small little glimpse, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same! As said before, prompts are more than welcomed!

A huge thank you to everyone! Silent readers, followers, favourite-ers, reviewers, if I could, I would give you all a hug, but I'm afraid my thanks will have to do.

As always, please drop a review if you have a moment, they keep the muses chattering.