It's the kind of place that seems gloomy even in the brightest light, where shadows seem to have a life of their own, where you might stumble upon a creature that you have never seen before. This is the place where hope fails and happiness dies, where trust and honor fall prey to fear. But there is something more powerful than the darkness that lingers over this quiet place, something that the men there do not feel or understand, something that is held only by their prisoner and the four boys who look on from some distance where they are crouched behind a fallen tree. It is love, for her, and for each other, love that makes each of them brave and strong, that holds them in place, without fear. And yet still they are running out of time. It is too late for many things, to warn the others, to get help, to plan a rescue. They can feel the mood in the air, they can hear the whispers. They watch and listen as the men below laugh and nudge each other.
"Have you heard, their going to kill the mudblood. It's about time too..."
"I hear she's one of the old man's puppets. We'll have to see how he likes it when we send her corpse to him in a sack."
"Do you think the dark lord is coming?"
"For one measly little mudblood, surely not."
By now their absence will have been noted but there is nothing they can do. They continue to wait, exchanging the occasional glance.
It is the tent that they watch most closely from their viewpoint above the clearing. Men go in and out, and each time they strain their necks to see within before the flap falls back into place. Once, the smallest of them thinks he sees a flash of red before the view is blocked once more but on further inquiry he is not so sure.
It is hours before anything happens. Once they hear screams from below and the leader is eager to reveal themselves then and there, to take their chances, but his friends hold him back as silence falls once more. They have to wait, to know for sure.
And then what they are truly waiting for is revealed. She is dragged from the tent by a large masked man, cheered and taunted by those who are gathered around them. Her hair hangs around her face, obscuring it, and she moves limply as though beaten. From the moment she appears it is all the three can do to contain their friend. They know it is time.
In the clearing the redhead stares down at her feet, letting them think that she has given up, that they have won, that she will go to her death meekly. They do not know that this is not her style, or that she has more to live for than all of them combined. They do not know that she will fight to her last breath, that this is not the first time that someone has attempted to break her.
The man who holds her speaks to his fellows but she does not hear the words. Laughter rings through the clearing and she knows she will soon be out of chances. If her friends have failed to find her than she will have to save herself.
She feels the point of the mans wand dig into her throat but she does not see it for her eyes are closed. She is taking what is possibly her last moment to think of the people she loves, to take strength from imagining them there with her, and then, with a deep breath she plunges forward into her captor. His wand scratches her skin but snaps as it meets her collarbone. The man cries out in anger but his friends are still laughing, laughing at the last bid for freedom of the lonely little girl they mean to kill, who won't make it more than three feet even if she does manage to kill this man who none of them particularly like anyway, and so they continue to laugh as she sinks her fist in his throat and her knee in his stomach, they laugh as he roars with fury, as she dances from his grasp. They stop laughing as sparks begin to rain down on them from every direction.