Chapter Two: Offence and Defense

I spent the following twenty-four hours recuperating my strength. If I was going to be fighting solo against two Death Eaters, I would need all the energy I could find. After filling the cauldron I kept in my undetectably extended purse - the bag, which had been a birthday gift from Hermione Granger last year, had recently become one of my 'I-can't-live-without-this' possessions - to the brim with water, I drank until my stomach was bloated and sloshing, then gingerly cleaned and healed the wound on my face, washed the debris from my hair, and scrubbed away the layer of caked-on mud from my blotchy skin, all the while formulating a plan of attack.

Once I was hydrated, clean, and in a fresh outfit, I sorted through my pitiful food stores. I'd been losing weight pretty rapidly, and had already had to magically tailor my clothing down three sizes to adjust for my withering frame. The Savernake Forest, which I'd determined to be my current location based on some Muggle-made signs I'd happened upon recently, was lacking severely in sustenance. My only food source had been a scarce fruit or berry tree which, when I ran into one, I would completely strip of all its bearings to stash in my bag. In addition to three apples and a handful of strawberries, I had a few unopened packages of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, two and a half Chocolate Frogs, four Peppermint Toads, and a third of a box of Pumpkin Pasties leftover from Hogsmeade Village trips, though I tried to spare those goodies for emergencies when I ran out of fruit. Tonight, however, I splurged, allowing myself to have an apple, an entire Pumpkin Pastie, and one bite of a peppermint toad, though I felt slightly ill afterwards as my stomach protested the sudden adjustment in meal size.

I was already feeling like brand new. The only thing left for me to do was get some sleep, though I knew truly restful sleep would be unattainable. There's a certain survival instinct that kicks in when you're sleeping outdoors. It's an instinct that protects you from becoming too vulnerable, never allowing your mind to fall into a deep enough slumber to become completely closed off to reality.

I'd never known it before, but the forest seemed to awaken with magic while the rest of the world slept – fairies twinkled and hummed, Bowtruckles skittered around the woodland playfully, and curious gnomes giggled impishly, causing all sorts of trouble and mischief. (One night, I'd even run into the ghost of Hester Hebblethwaite, a horsewoman so cleanly headless that Sir Nicholas would have been very jealous – or, rather, she ran into me, galloping clear over my own head as I laid on my back, nibbling some blackberries and tracing the lines of constellations between stars. I'd been so severely alarmed that I screamed, thew my handful of berries in the direction of the apparition, and rolled away straight into a muddy water spring that soaked my hair and clothing. She hastily turned back to – by my interpretation – apologize, flailing her arms frantically as she shoved a translucent handkerchief that was stitched with her name in my direction. Poor woman – cut off at the neck as she was – had no way of knowing that her transcendental offering was of no use to me.)

Enchanting as the midnight forest was, however, it made sleep all the more difficult. Every minute happening charged my senses into overdrive, so by the time the glow of dawn began to peek through the misty morning air, I was lucky if I'd managed even one solid, continuous hour. Of course, the parchment-thin throw blanket that was the only separation between me and the rocky, uneven ground did not offer any help in the matter; I awoke feeling stiff and tingly in one arm, yet reasonably functional.

After a limited, fruit-filled breakfast, I repacked most of my meager belongings into the impressive abyss of my bag, leaving only a few food wrappers, my maroon and teal Fitchburg Finches t-shirt (it was torn beyond repair anyway), and an old pilly wash cloth (I had several more) – just enough to make it appear as though I may be coming back. I was stamping my shoe print into the dirt, forming obvious prints leading up to my campsite, when a short hoot sounded from somewhere above. Reflexively, I snatched up my wand and jabbed it in the direction of the noise, only to discover that it was merely a fist-sized owl who had perched on a full round shrub just outside of my protection charms, a blank brown envelope clutched in his hooked beak.

"Pig!" I yelled to Ron Weasley's owl. His head cocked to one side as he scratched an ear with his talon.

Lowering my enchantments, I offered out an arm to greet the cute gray puffball. "Hey there, clever little guy. Those spells never fool you. Got something for me?" I asked. He hopped down onto my forearm and gave an affectionate "tu-whoo" as I took the letter. Popping him onto my shoulder, I tore it open eagerly.

B&F wedding was a disaster.

Attacked by mugwumps.

The owls escaped to unknown location.

Mom infiltrated.

DANGER.

Be safe.

-M

My chest tightened at the foreboding message. Ginny and I had exchanged only a handful of very brief letters, always written in a short sort of code that wouldn't give too much away in case the messages were intercepted, but none had been this ominous. From what I could understand, Death Eaters (code word: "mugwumps") must have ambushed her brother Bill's wedding, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione ("the owls") had escaped before being captured. So they were on the run now, too. "Mom" was a new one, though it wasn't hard to guess that she probably meant "MoM," the Ministry of Magic, was now under Voldemort's control. We always signed with our middle initials.

Pulling out a bit of parchment and my quill, I scribbled a quick reply. Pig nuzzled against my hair as I wrote.

Glad you are okay.

Hope those owls are too.

No activity here.

Be safe.

-V

Ginny remained under the impression that I was living with a family friend in Oxford. Snape aside, it was for the best that I kept her in the dark about my whereabouts. If she knew I had nowhere to stay this summer, she would have insisted I bunk with her. The Weasley family was already in significant danger thanks to their association with Harry, and I couldn't put them at an even greater risk by bringing them to the attention of my uncle. But that was the kind of person Ginny was: loyal and selfless, even at her own expense - which was why I couldn't even give her the option.

Sealing up the letter, I handed it to Pigwidgeon and thanked him with a few scritches on his tufty head before he took off for home. Seeing him always made me miss my own owl, Milo, who was probably still angry with me. To his dismay, I'd sent him back to Katie, my closest friend in America, before the summer holiday, figuring it would be safer and more comfortable for him than traveling with me.

If Harry, Ron, and Hermione were on the run, then that meant they were being hunted by Death Eaters as well. Snyde had hinted that my uncle had more important jobs to attend to, and I wondered if those "jobs" had anything to do with finding Harry or overtaking the ministry. Nevertheless, there was nothing I could do to help them now. I let all concerns for my friends disappear out of sight with Pig, and began to put my plan into motion by first gathering up a sizable collection of fallen branches, crumpled leaves, and dried brush, and displaying them in a neat pile aside my leftover rubbish.

'Incendio.' The bundle ignited with a small flame that grew quickly, releasing a thick, pungent smoke into the sky. Satisfied with the fire, I situated myself under a solid-looking tree limb and silently cast 'Ascendio.' The spell propelled me upward, and I landed precisely on a high-enough perch to have a convenient vantage of the lush forest below.

Balanced on the moss-coated branch, I waited for Snyde and Fellwood to notice the decoy campfire. They didn't strike me as bright enough to recognize a trap (in fact, they would probably gloat about my stupidity in allowing myself to become so findable), thus my hope was that it wouldn't take too long for them to come hunting in this direction – preferably before I would need to relight the fire.

To my great relief, no more than an hour had passed before the sound of faint rustling reached my ears from below. I'd been sweating profusely, the bones in my knees groaning from the effort of maintaining stability in the tree. It had been well worth it, however. My position could not have been better as they tiptoed toward the bait, passing directly under my post.

Morons.

'Expelliarmus!' I disarmed Fellwood, whose jaw actually dropped open, brows scrunched in a puzzled glower. "Incarcerous!" My well-aimed spell left him immobilized, entirely wrapped in knotted ropes as he hit the ground like dead weight and directed a rather rude obscenity at me. The scars on his face were turning from pinkish to a deeper shade of cranberry.

Snyde's comprehension was quickly catching up with his senses as he took in the state of his fallen comrade in a blink, then turned his wand on me. I no longer had the advantage of surprise.

"DO IT! DO IT, NOW!" Fellwood roared with a kind of hysteria, face wild and eyes positively bulging with rage.

Snyde was awkwardly tall, his clumsy legs seeming too long for his body, like a baby giraffe trying to find his footing. In his disoriented state, his first move of attack was so sloppily cast that a sooty puff of smog sputtered out of his wand and into the air, drifting away with the breeze.

I shot off a Disarming curse. He blocked my spell effortlessly, clearly back in charge of his appendages, and sent a glowing red blast at the tree I was attached to. The shiver of an earthquake rocked through the roots, causing my balance to waver. I vaulted myself to the ground, attempting to land with some sort of poise while keeping control over my wand.

Graceless as he was, I was glad I had not underestimated him. A rainbow of lights illuminated the forest in flashes as a sequence of blasts flew between us in all directions, unrelenting. With great concentration I followed each of his movements, flawlessly sending spell after spell bounding back into his proximity and responding with more Stunning spells.

'Stupefy! Stupefy! Impedimenta! Bombarda!

Stupefy!' At last, a green flash connected with the Death Eater. He toppled backwards, but had been fortunate enough to be slammed into a tree trunk, keeping him on his feet.

'Incarcerous!'

He blocked the spell, then roared "Cruci-"

'PROTEGO!' I cut him off in time before he could finish the spell.

Snyde growled loudly, oozing with contempt. "You're stronger than we gave ya credit for, pet. Where'd ya learn to fight, hmm?"

"Just naturally talented, I guess," I panted cockily. I redirected another handful of curses as we skirted around one another. He was growing more and more reckless in his anger, his casts becoming faster and more frantic but all the while easier to dodge.

The veins in Snyde's neck were throbbing. "ARE YOU SURE HE WANTED HER ALIVE, FELLWOOD?!"

If Fellwood replied, his words were lost in the boom of a deflected spell that had obliterated a skinny pine to my right, showering us with flaming debris.

I smiled a sideways smile, an idea springing to mind as we continued to sidestep around one another. Planning my movements more carefully, I edged him unconsciously towards the burning campfire that had lured them to my hiding spot. His feet inched closer and closer as showers of sparks exploded again and again between us. Then, at just the right moment, I dropped back on my hands and swung my leg out in a crescent sweep, kicking his feet right out from under him. I'd caught him entirely off guard with a physical maneuver. He was thrown off balance, landing his backside directly onto the fire. A wheeze left his lips as the air was knocked out of his lungs.

I couldn't restrain a laugh as he yelped, rolled off of the flames, and fixated on patting out the smoking fabric of his black trench coat. In quick succession I said 'Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!' in my thoughts before he could regain composure. Like his partner, he dropped to the earth like a rock, wandless and incapacitated.

"You'll pay for this, MUDBLOOD TRAITOR BRAT!" screeched Snyde, who was now squealing like a pig and rolling away sideways as he tried to snuff out his still-singeing jacket.

"That was so much easier than I expected," I said with a cold grin, trying to suppress the fact that I was battling to catch my breath. I gathered up both of their wands and slid them inside a concealed pocket on the thigh of my jeans. "In fact, I seriously regret not trying this approach ages ago."

Snyde, who had rolled himself into a sprouting beech while attempting to salvage his coat, seemed unable to think of anything better to say than a continued rant of insults and expletives. Fellwood, on the other hand, was bizarrely silent, though he had apparently given up on escaping from his binds. Unphased by the hateful comments, I retrieved both of the Death Eaters, dragging each across the dirt by the collar and sitting them up, back to back against one another.

"Now," I said deliberately, crouching down to their level and pointing my wand at each of them in turn, "I've been looking for someone, and you two are going to give me the information I need to find them."

Fellwood chuckled while Snyde's face went crimson, snarling as he retorted "or what, pet? You'll torture us!? YOU DON'T HAVE IT IN YA! You're weak, just like your mother. Did you know I was there when Carrow killed that traitorous bitch? SHE BEGGED FOR MERCY IN THE END LIKE A COWARD!"

Molten anger consumed me at once. "CRUCIO!" The spell erupted out of me, every atom and molecule of my body channeling fierce energy into the cast. The raging monster within me began to grin with pleasure as Snyde writhed and wailed, his contempt now entirely eclipsed by agony.

It was then that my moment of cruel triumph was interrupted by a slow, pointed 'clap… clap… clap… clap…' I promptly released the spell, leaving both Snyde and myself panting as I turned my wand towards the source of the noise.

"Well, well, well. Would you look at that," said an icy hard voice. "I knew you had it in you after all, niece. Very impressive. You do know how to make an uncle proud."

I locked in place, rage all but forgotten as a new terror took over. The temperature must have dropped forty degrees, and a sudden, chilling mist cascaded out from the shadows with so much force it was as though someone had just lifted a dam. Emerging from the shroud was a third Death Eater whose height rivaled that of the trees that surrounded him. He was pulling down the hood of his cloak as he approached, revealing unkempt hair a shade of charcoal gray so deep it was nearly black. It brushed his shoulders at the tips, merging into a bushy beard of the same hue. And his eyes, though similar in color to my mother's chestnut ones, were a dead and dull kind of brown. He was clad in a straight pressed, ankle-length trench coat that somehow made him appear even taller. I'd seen his face exactly once before, on a photo, and knew who he was without question. My grip on my wand tightened.

"Uncle Arawn?"