Chapter 10 A Fight To End All Fights

The professor walked out of the woods, her wand leveled at Taal. "You don't want to talk. Your kind never wants to walk, just destroy, and kill, and burn. You rip apart families and laugh. And you don't deserve Azkaban."

"But we're not Death Eaters!" cried Taal. "I'm not even human, you can see that!"

"A result of a polyjuice potion gone wrong." McGonagall said though gritted teeth.

"No!" said Taal, throwing up her hands. "I'm a cat person! I was born almost five billion years in the future! I lived on New Earth all my life until the Doctor saved my life! My fighter was crashing, and he saved me. Do you really think that a Death Eater would have saved me?"

"If it served his purpose, yes." said McGonagall, but her wand seemed to waver a little bit. Hope flared in Taal's eyes. Maybe she could talk her out of this. Then iron hard resolve flared in McGonagall's eyes, and the wand seemed even steadier. Taal backed away slowly, instantly terrified.

"I'm not going to harm you! I'm not dangerous, look at me!" she spread her hands wide. "I've never even done magic before, I know nothing about it except for what I've-" she broke off before she could say 'what I've read.'

McGonagall stared at her. "Except for what you've… what, exactly?"

"Heard…" said Taal, lamely. "The spell's I've used are only the spell I've heard someone do. For example…" She flourished her wand a bit more than necessary, causing McGonagall to point the wand even more directly at her, "Lumos!"

Her wand tip lit up weakly, casting flickering shadows over her face. "See? Not exactly a dangerous spell, that one." She extinguished her wand tip with a whispered "nox," and stowed the wand away in her jacket.

"You will come with me." said McGonagall, motioning with her wand in the direction of the castle.

"Hmmmmm…" said Taal, sighing. "I was afraid that we'd hit this little snag."

"Snag? I see no snag! You are the companion of a convicted Death Eater, you will submit to at least questioning by the Ministry, and very likely, a sentence in Azkaban!" McGonagall was shaking slightly now with anger, her wand pointed directly at Taal's chest.

"There's the snag. You see, you seem to be laboring under the delusion that I'll… what's the phrase… come quietly? You see, I'm here to help, to make sure that everything happens that should, that must. And I have no intentions of wasting my time with you, now that it appears that there's no chance of having you as an ally." She sighed, regarding McGonagall almost coldly.

"I've heard such good things about you, Minerva. A dedicated teacher, member of the, well, at the moment, ex-member, 'cause there's no point to it at the moment, ex-member of the Order of the Phoenix, second in command of Hogwarts, and, of course, head of Gryffindor House and close friend of Mister Potter himself! I would have thought that someone like you would see a Death Eater when she saw one. And I know you don't see one in me."

Taal turned, deliberately leaving her back un-guarded. She reached into her jacket for her wand to defend herself, and wasn't surprised when, just as she cleared the trees at the edge of the clearing, there was a shout from behind her.

"Stupefy!" a jet of red light flew past Taal. She managed to duck at the last moment, and the spell hit a tree behind her, causing some of the dry bark to burst into flames that quickly sputtered out.

"Oh, yeah, never mind that I haven't made a single hostile move against you, go ahead and stun me!" she poked her head out from the tree she had hid behind, and quickly pulled it back as another jet of red light whizzed past her face.

"No witty comeback, then? Pity. I expected more of you!" she jumped out from behind the tree, holding out her wand, she racked her brain for the least damaging spell, but didn't have the chance to use any offensive spells.

"Stupefy!" McGonagall cried again. Without thinking, Taal cast the first spell that came to mind, slashing her wand.

"Protego!" the spell dissipated in a large invisible shield that had appeared. Her face split in a massive grin. "Hey, I didn't think that that would work!" her grin vanished in an instant when McGonagall behind attacking her wordlessly, yelling at her instead.

"How do you know about the Order?" she shouted, casting an odd orange-y looking jet of light at Taal, who managed to deflect it at the last moment.

"Oh, come on! You say 'how do you know about it' instead of denying it? Sheesh, you must subconsciously believe that I'm not a Death Eater then. Let's see, who else was in the Order- this should convince you that I'm on your side!"

"Not likely." Growled the professor. "Petrificus Totalus!"

"Longbottom!" cried Taal, furiously trying to keep her focus long enough to ward off the professor's last attacks. "Dumbledore, yourself. Edgar Bones, the Potters!"

"You could have just heard those names. You're just guessing. STUPEFY!"

"Hestia Jones! Remus Lupin! Tonks! Vance! Shacklebolt, Podmore, Fletcher, Dodge, Fenwick, McKinnon! I can name them all, if you want!" She braced herself for another attack, but none came.

"How can you possibly know that? Know so much about us, about me?" McGonagall said, she wand lowering slightly.

"I just do, I'm really sorry, but I can't explain." Taal said, lowering her head slightly.

"Tell me." McGonagall said, her wand starting to rise again.

"Alright, alright!" cried Taal. Her mind raced as she tried to think of a lie that was close enough to the truth that it would work, and sound true. "I'm from the future!" she blurted. He eyes immediately went wide and she clasped her hands over her mouth. That was true. It was so, true, and it would work.

"The… future?" said McGonagall. She wasn't buying it, Taal could tell. "How far?"

"About… five… billion years?" she said, her tone sounding almost apologetic.

"Not likely." said McGonagall. "What happens at the end of this year then?"

"Umm…" Taal deliberated how to answer. If she answered honestly, then all that the Doctor feared would come to pass. If she lied, bad things would happen to her, but she assumed that that would happen. That was why she had given the Doctor the chip, so he'd know what she had done. If she didn't answer, other bad things would happen, but they weren't as set in stone.

"I can't tell you, I really can't. Because if I told you, you would try to prevent them. And these events must happen, there's no way around them. If you try to prevent them, Harry Potter will die within the next three years in order to kill Voldemort-" she broke off at McGonagall's wide eyed stare that a Death Eater would dare to say his name, "-yes, I say his name. As the Doctor said, names are just titles. Never fear a title. If you allow events to come to pass as they must, Harry will live, and Voldemort will die when the time is right. In three years."

"You will tell us. EXPELLIARMUS!" Taal was caught off guard by the spell, and the wand that Dumbledore had given her flew off into the forest. She felt it suddenly return into her pocket, but she didn't pull it out. Instead, she ran full pelt into the forest, dodging spells left and right. But she knew it was only a matter of time.

"Stupefy!" came another yell from behind her. The red jet of light hit her square in the back, and she collapsed onto the ground, unconscious. The last thing she saw was a jet of red sparks in the sky, and McGonagall's footsteps behind her. "You'll come quite quietly now."

Another cliffhanger! Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but the next chapter is from the Doctor's POV and I wanted to split them up. I'd like to take this time to please ask more people to review this story, and to give a special thank you to The10thDoctorRocks, deeforever, LordDalakMort, NoodleGurl27, KyokoHonda49, and darkikill for reviewing!