Minerva moved quietly along next to her father, using the shadow of the trees to keep him from seeing her feline self. In the end, she'd been unable to leave him behind. She knew that she could do nothing to help him, but it still felt wrong to leave him behind with no one but himself as an ally.

The progression of Tempus McGonagall was quick and stealthy. He wove in and out through the trees, moving quickly towards the spot where he'd last seen Grindelwald and his followers atop the hill. They were somewhere in this forest now, moving towards him. His eyes scanned the shadowy forest endlessly, searching for any sign of his would-be assassins.

The sounds of many talking voices reached Minerva's delicate ears before anything else. She heard them laughing. They'd killed somebody . . .

The voices next reached the less acute ears of Tempus. He paused to listen to them, trying to pick up on what it was they were saying. Perhaps it was something useful.

"Ruddy spy," said a low voice, confirming both Minerva and her father's suspicions about the identity of the dead body that could now be faintly seen on the forest floor. "Should have just stayed with McGonagall, 'stead of running for it. Would have given his death," and here a sneer entered the voice, "meaning."

Quiet laughter filled the night. Grindelwald's followers thought that man's death was funny. Minerva knew that she should expect no less from people who had done the things these people had, but it still made her sick to hear their ringing laughter.

Tempus' eyes cast about the ground, looking for a second body. Minerva had not been too terribly far behind Thomas. He'd been afraid that perhaps they would have discovered her as well. It was an irrational fear—it was unlikely that they would ever recognize the tabby cat with the square markings about her eyes for what she was—but she was his youngest child. Such were the fears of a parents, rational or no.

A sigh of relief escaped him. Minerva's triangular ears swivelled toward him as he did and she stared at him curiously. What on earth had made him sigh like that? Was he suddenly worried about the odds against him?

She wanted to help him. She wanted to turn back into a girl and use her wand to take each and every single one of those people out. He was her father. She didn't want him to die. Not here. Not now. Not thinking he was alone with no one to help him. She was here. She wanted to do something.

But she couldn't. Her father's words reverberated endlessly in her head. He would not survive if he was worried about protecting her. She could not let him know she was here. She could not afford to have him thinking she was here and needed to be protected. She refused to have her father's death on her hands. She would not be stupid. No matter how much her heart screamed at her that she should be.

The laughter of Grindelwald's followers was beginning to die down. They would soon be back to searching for Tempus. Grindelwald could not be soon, and Tempus was not certain where the dark wizard might be, but now was the time to strike. He would not get a better opportunity to cut down the number of people he was up against. He would simply have to hope that Grindelwald would not turn up unexpectedly.

He moved quickly through the cover of the trees, circling around the witches and wizards standing around Thomas' body. Ducking around a tree, he made his move.

"Stupefy!"

A tall witch with thick brown hair fell to the ground, stunned, as Tempus melted back into the trees. He moved quickly away and then back, reemerging to stun a short wizard with a receding hairline. Tempus was again away before the man had hit the ground and his companions had had time to respond.

A third time this occurred, but by then Grindelwald's follower's were ready. Spells flew everywhere as they tried to catch their phantom attacker.

Nearly hit by a Body-Bind Curse, Minerva skidded to a halt and quickly propelled herself up a tree and out of the line of fire. There were curses and hexes everywhere. She'd even heard someone use the Killing Curse.

She could not see her father. She hoped he was all right. Her eyes, the eyes of a skilled predator, quickly scanned the shadows. She could barely make out his outline against a far tree. He seemed fine.

How long would he be fine, though? There were at least ten more witches and wizards looking for him and ready to curse him into oblivion as soon as they found him.

Tempus moved in again for the attack. This time two wizards went down, but Minerva could smell her father's singed hair from her treetop perch as a hex whizzed over his head. She could not sit by and do nothing. There had to be something she could do. Not being able to help her own father against such a multitude of opponents . . . It was lunacy.

Suddenly it came to her. If she changed into her human form up here and fired off spells at them, then changed back into the tabby cat and moved to another tree she could help her father and never let him know that she was there. In the confusion of all the spells flying about down there, they would just think that she was her father and her father would never know she was there. He would be not be distracted by concerns for her safety because he would be unaware of her presence.

She quickly resumed her human form and stunned to witches situated almost right below her. Changing quickly back into the tabby, she sprang away to another tree. Three more people fell in quick succession. Suddenly things were looking far better. Between Minerva and her father the numbers of their opponents were decreasing rapidly.

"He's up there, in the trees! Get him!"

"No, no, you fool! He's over here!"

A flash of blue light burned through the pine needles of the tree Minerva was perched in. Yells followed her as she sprang quickly from tree top to tree top, scrambling to stay ahead of the curses they threw after her.

"Avada Kedavra!"

And suddenly Minerva found herself evading no more curses. She stopped and looked down at her pursuers. They were all staring at the tall figure she knew to be Grindelwald. He stood no more than 10 feet from the body of her father's spy, his wand pointed in front of him. A body lay on the ground in front of him, spread eagle and unmoving.

It can't be, Minerva thought. It's impossible. Not my father. Not my father!

She was again springing from tree to tree, moving quickly towards the spot where her father lay. It couldn't be true. She knew it couldn't be. Her father still had many years left to live. His life could not have been ended now. She would not believe it had been until she had clearly seen that that body was his. Until she'd seen it and proven that he was not simply stunned or in an enchanted sleep.

"We are finished here. Let us go," said a deep voice.

"But, mein Fuhrer, he had a companion. Surely we should not let that ally esca—"

"He had no companion," the voice boomed. "You were chasing nothing more than an ordinary house cat. I saw the creature myself. You are all very foolish. Now, come! I have an attack to make tonight."

He swept away, his red and black robes swirling around him. His companion all following quickly behind him, falling into a neat formation like a well-trained army. Keeping her wits about her, Minerva waited until they were well away before she came down from the tree. She did not want Grindelwald to reconsider his analysis of her as "ordinary."

She leapt quickly down from her tree and transformed back into the tall, raven-haired teenage girl that she usually was. She ran as fast as she could to her father's body, falling to her knees beside him and wrapping her arms his body. He was still warm.

"Father," she whispered into his ear. "Father!"

She shook him, as she had done earlier that night when trying to wake him. His eyes did not flutter open as they had before. He was dead. She knew he was dead. She just did not want to believe it.

Tears sprang into her hazel eyes. She tried to fight them, wiping them quickly away with the back of her hand as they leaked from her eyes. She did not want to cry. It was something she rarely did, but here in the pine forest outside of her home with her father lying dead in her arms, she did. She could not help herself.

She pulled his large, limp form to her and, finding that she could not fight her tears, embraced them. She cried openly into her father's robes, leaving a large wet stain on the emerald material. For nearly twenty minutes she did this, until she felt she had no more tears left to cry.

With the ending of her tears, so returned her wits. She was the only one, now, who knew of the impending attack on Hogwarts. She had to warn them. She had to save the castle. Her father would have wanted her to do that, she was sure. She could waste no more time here with a man who would never again awaken.

She ran back to McGonagall Manor as quickly as she could. She knew exactly who she would go to. Albus. He would know exactly what to do. She'd always thought of him as a pillar of strength and a man who was never without a plan. That was the person she needed to tell.

That was the person she needed to save from a fate the same as her father's.

She wrenched open the front door to the manor and ran into the living room, where a fireplace stood cold and empty of flames. She pointed her wand at it.

"Infernio!"

A fire sprang quickly to life in the fireplace. She grabbed a handful of floo powder from a jar sitting on the mantel and stepped into the flames.

"Dumbledore's summer home!"

And with a flash of emerald flames, she disappeared.