Chapter Two
The Mirror to Another Place

A half hour later, we were rushing to get all the students through the door to my hideaway. We could hear various shouts, explosions and sounds of pain from all around us by that point. The shield covering the school had dissipated ages ago letting the Dark Army onto the grounds. I could only hope that our professors and other older students were doing well defending themselves, and our school. A large suit of armour had joined us along the way, he would be both the guardian of the door and the marker for the teachers should we succeed in this battle.

In case I was completely wrong, I gave Ernie instructions to keep the children safe. In the far corner of the large room, there was a secreted tunnel out of the school. When I first found this room, it had been caved in, but perseverance and stubbornness in this last year, I had made it a goal to safely tunnel it back to where it went. It was almost done and, honestly, it was probably safer for now that I had not finished it. Ernie and I working together would be more than capable of opening it up.

That was when the trouble started. A loud girlish cackle was heard not far away. I looked to Ernie, we had to make a decision. The students were in the room. A random hex blew out a nearby statue. Whoever was coming was coming soon. I shoved Ernie into the room and slammed the door shut.

"Protego Maxima. Fianto Duri. Repello Inimicum. Colloportus," I cast, followed by the room-sealing spell.

I then gestured to the suit of armour to guard the door and bolted down the hallway. A stinging hex flew past my head. I stumbled out of the way, turning to see who was shooting at me: Bellatrix Lestrange. At the very least the younger students would be safe if I could distract this psycho long enough. I cast a shield charm and started running. Luckily for me, she took the bait, unluckily for me, she took the bait.

I kept running further away from the safe zone dodging and countering the jinxes and hexes Bellatrix threw my way.

"Stop running dearie so I can kill you," she sing-songed at me.

I chose not to retort and instead ran into a room I hadn't seen before in the last seven years at Hogwarts. I shut the door behind me and cast the locking charm. I knew it wouldn't hold for long, so I looked around to see if there was anything I could use to help me.

At the other side of the room, there was a large mirror. I walked towards it curiously, nothing ever happens at Hogwarts without some kind of planning. Maybe it was something Dumbledor had cooking before Professor Snape killed him, then again maybe it was just a normal Muggle mirror. The thing certainly didn't look enchanted. We would sadly, probably never be privy to the answers to my questions.

It was then that Bellatrix blew the door in. I had my back against the strange mirror hoping that she wouldn't suddenly decide to cut me to ribbons with shards of glass. Bellatrix smiled darkly at me, I heard a sound from behind her and I prayed it was reinforcements that could deal with the crazy witch. I knew that my shield charm would only last so long. And the moment she cast an Unforgivable, nothing would stop that short of dodging it. She starred at me smiling, I stared back holding my shield up giving my energy to it.

I dodged to the right as she shot a curse my way. It hit the mirror behind me and was absorbed by it. The two of us were momentarily stunned that the mirror hadn't exploded. I recovered first and sent a non-verbal stunner at her. My stunner was deflected towards the left wall. Clearly, I was under prepared here. Against a dark witch with years of experience above me, my paltry seven years of education may as well have been my first week.

A second spell shot from Bellatrix's wand. I dodged to the right and once more, the mirror behind me absorbed the shot. I rapid fired anything I could think of at her, from the jelly-legs jinx to a spell to turn her into a newt. She deflected everything I was able to throw at her.

A strange wet sensation started moving down my back, I glanced down to see that the mirror behind me was in motion. I jumped forward, towards Bellatrix and ducked the curse she threw at me. It hit the mirror, which started to bubble behind me. Whatever hexes and curses she was throwing at the thing was either damaging it, or making it angry. With Bellatrix standing in the doorway, there wasn't anywhere I could run off to. Eventually, she would hit me with something, but not if I could get a lucky shot on her first. The chances of me doing that were slim to none though, everything else thus far had been deflected from her. I had been aiming at her core though.

Taking a chance I cast a stunner at her feet. It like all the rest was deflected. That seemed to anger her more than she should have been. She glared at me and started her own rapid fire volley. I dodged to the sides and deflecting what I couldn't dodge. The shield spell and the other spells I had already cast to protect the younger students and Ernie were draining on my magical core. It would not be long for me to simply run out of the needed energy to keep the spells up, and when that happened, the younger students would pay the price for my choices and mistakes. If she killed me, the children would still be at risk because the spells protecting them would die with me. I was in a lose-lose situation, and I had no one to blame but myself. It was then I realized just how unfair everything was.

The two of us kept firing at each other, Bellatrix was able to get a cutting curse to hit me. It wasn't a deep wound luckily, her curse had cut up my wand arm, it wasn't deep but it was bleeding freely. I switched my wand to my non-dominant hand so it wouldn't slip out of my grasp. The mirror behind me was still bubbling and the glass was moving in and out of its frame. Was it as senescent as the castle? If so I hoped it could tell I was a student and would help to protect me.

That was until a tendril of whatever was coming out of the mirror attached itself to my cut up arm. Distracted I turned my attention to it and was immediately hit with a Knockback jinx. My back was then stuck with tendrils of the mirror coming out and wrapping itself around my torso and hips. I started to pull at the tendrils; it was like trying to take hold of smoke, or water. I struggled with the mirror in a panic then, knowing that Bellatrix wasn't going to wait forever. I could hear her cackling even now, the mouse caught by a viper that was playing with its food. My wand and the hand that was holding it got stuck in the mirror next. I could get stuck in it, but getting out was another thing all together.

Bellatrix laughed at my plight and raised her wand. She was about to cast what would surely be the Killing Curse when she suddenly paused. Someone had called out, we both heard a voice from the other side of the mirror. Having no context for where that was as the mirror was against the wall, I chose to assume that this mirror was something like the vanishing cabinet from my sixth year that Draco Malfoy had used to bring Death Eaters into the school the last time from a shop in Knockturn Alley. This scared me more than the dark witch in front of me that would no doubt decide she had toyed with me enough and would kill me; for the simple fact that I had no idea where the mirror would let out, or if it was even safe on the other side of it. If I had known I probably would have dived into it.

"Bellatrix," the smooth voice of my headmaster started, "you have been summoned."

Professor Snape then paused as he saw just how stuck and screwed I was. For a moment he looked a strange mix of incredibly tired and relieved. I starred in his eyes hoping to communicate something useful to him, and also to plead for his help. I could feel something strange in my mind and immediately remembered the younger students and tried to as him if they were still safe. His head twitched almost too quickly for me to catch. I would have to assume he was nodding. The sounds coming from the other side of the mirror were getting louder, probably closer to the place my corpse would be shot out of when Bellatrix killed me.

Bellatrix pouted for a moment, before raising her wand once more. Professor Snape put a hand on her wand arm, pulling it away from pointing at my face; which at that point was one of the few things still exposed from the mirror pulling me in.

"You have been summoned," Professor Snape repeated coldly, "best not to keep our Lord waiting..."

Bellatrix glared at Professor Snape and me before turning on her heel and flouncing away. We waited until we could no longer hear the sound of the Dark Witch in the hall, the younger students clearly forgotten in the want to impress the Dark Lord. That left my professor in the doorway looking at me sadly.

Couldn't he get me out of this?

"Professor," I started in a whimper, "please... Don't leave me here."

"Miss Brisker," he responded looking at the mirror and not me, "there is nothing that can get you out of that mirror. Are the younger students somewhere safe?"

"Yes," I answered, "how can I get out?"

"You don't," he said raising his wand at me, "but I can't leave you on this side for the next Death Eater to kill, any spells protecting the children would fail the second you were dead and they would be like lambs to the slaughter."

"Professor," I whimpered.

"I'm sorry," with that, Professor Snape cast a Knockback Jinx that sent me below the surface of the mirror.

For a moment, I was completely stunned. The next moment it felt as though I was drowning. The room that had been in front of me was gone. In its place was a rushing current of freezing cold water. I was carried away from where I had been quickly. I held my wand and pointed it at my face and tried to cast a bubble-head charm. A small bubble formed and I breathed in deeply. I then slowly exhaled and followed the bubbles to the surface.

My charm broke the second I surfaced from the water; I sputtered and struggled momentarily with the water. My uniform and bag were weighing me down, but I could see a bridge ahead. Swimming with the current, but towards the nearest bank I managed to finagle my way onto the grassy bank. Once my momentum stopped and I was mostly out of the river, I panted to catch up on my much-needed air and energy. Once I had rested for a bit, I dragged myself out of the river. Once out of the muck, I cast a quick cleaning spell and drying spell. It was then that my damaged arm made itself known once more. I put my wand into its holster and grabbed the worst of it with my other hand. I would have to seek medical attention soon.

I looked in the direction I had come from, I couldn't see if there was a second mirror anywhere near. Besides, it hadn't felt like I had been carried too far down river. That being said, with no sight on it and sight on a bridge, I had a choice to make. I chose the hopefully less likely to get me killed choice, and walked towards the bridge. On the way there, I contemplated what had just happened. With any luck I was close to the school, if not the school then still in the United Kingdom. I was having the hardest time believing that my professor would just send me flying into the unknown, but, those were the chips. I wasn't sure when, but I started to cry. I had no idea how the battle was going, but I could only hope that the younger students and Ernie would be alright.

The pain in my arm was getting worse and I was leaving a thin trail of crimson behind me. Hopefully, I wasn't in the Forbidden Forest though, if I was I had no idea where. I made it to the bridge and sat down to take a momentary rest. I leaned against one of the posts, and tried to collect a basic inventory. I was alone, I had my school supplies in my bag. Hermione had taught me last year how to extend my school bag, so I carried everything with me, plus an extra uniform for potions class. Having potions with students like Neville for seven years had trained me to always be prepared to need to change. What I did not have, was food and medical supplies. I did have a little bit of bruise paste, but there were very big warnings on it to not use on an open wound. At the very least, the wound wasn't deep, but my uniform would probably be stained forever.

My head shot up at the distant sound of bells. I wasn't sure where the sound was coming from, slowly I pulled my wand out. When nothing came out after a little while and the sound of bells faded away I relaxed. I suspiciously put my wand back away but readied myself to cast a wandless repelling charm. When nothing happened for a few minutes I cast a shielding charm around both myself and the bridge. Instantly I knew that had been a mistake. Between the wards I had been casting in my school and now the shield that I cast I felt that I had stretched myself too thin.

It was then that I noticed him. There was a tall man up in a tree not too far from where I was sitting. Green and brown scaled armor had kept him completely camouflaged. In fact, I was more than positive that had he not wanted me to see him, I never would have. As it was I was fighting the need to rest to refill my magical core. My spells would last, but I couldn't cast much else unless I rested. The man jumped out of the tree and slowly came towards me. I clutched my useless arm, and gave him a pleading look.

It was then that my reserves ran out. My vision swam momentarily, and then, there was nothing more.

This chapter is much longer than the first.

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