Of course, it's not unheard of for an occupying force to dominate a population they are outnumbered by five-thousand-to-one — there are numerous accounts of inhabited worlds of hundreds of millions of poorly-equipped residents being pacified by a single Imperial-class Star Destroyer, carrying only 40,000 crew members and 10,000 soldiers. However, there are just as many accounts of such an occupation failing, catastrophically. Millennia of military history have proven time and again that, while it may difficult to overcome a disadvantage in raw firepower, it is hardly impossible.

And the peoples of Dimitra had a number of unexpected advantages on their side. Their technology was relatively primitive, only at the tail end of primary industrialization, but the populace was surprisingly well-armed. Due to the split between the Liberal and Communist spheres previously discussed, and the enduring tensions between the two camps, the planet had seen a build-up of military equipment unusual on most modern planets. And, luckily for Dimitra, Yuuzhan Vong weaponry and armour were designed to counter their own technology, with some more recent adaptations made to accommodate the energy-based weaponry and shielding used by all major galactic powers — they were not optimized to fight a military using relatively primitive slugthrowers and combustion missiles. Advanced automatic slugthrowers, spewing out hundreds of projectiles a minute at supersonic speeds, were shockingly effective at cutting down masses of Chazrach, the energy-ablating properties of voduun armor useless against such a thick storm of simple bullets. A coralskipper might be able to pluck a single rocket out of the air, but fire a dozen all at once, while peppering it with hundreds of bullets from multiple directions, and the craft will be overwhelmed just as easily as it might with modern military-grade lasers and proton torpedoes.

And, naturally, there are very few defences against atmospheric fireballs fueled by nuclear fission.

3rd September 1995 (63:5:17)
— Contact plus 00.00.00:21.00

Beth was completely exhausted.

The feeling wasn't entirely unfamiliar to her. She'd had occasional trouble with nightmares as a kid — which, of course, the Dursleys hadn't been at all understanding about — and after she was woken up it could be very difficult to get back to sleep, so there were days she'd only get maybe three hours or so. And she'd still be expected to keep up with all the usual chores, because obviously. The Christmas season could be particularly bad, because not only was Petunia even more particular than usual that the house look at its best, but they'd also be baking and making various other sweets, all kinds of shite, fucking constantly, there was no day in those couple weeks when the house didn't smell of something they'd whipped up. (No fucking wonder Dudley had ballooned the way he had, honestly.) During the school break, Beth was working pretty much constantly, between the cleaning and helping with the decorations and sometimes a little yardwork and the baking and the cooking, Jesus, she hardly got a minute when she wasn't expected to be doing something. Beth didn't actually get Christmas dinner, of course, shut up in her cupboard, but by that point she was exhausted enough that getting a few hours to rest was a relief.

(No matter how hungry she was, only egged on by the smell of dinner wafting into the cupboard, but she got pretty good at ignoring hunger over the years.)

As much as Ron might complain about all their homework and stuff at school, Beth was actually less busy at school than she was at home on the breaks — enough that first year had almost been like how she imagined other people felt about going on holiday. Quidditch could be rough, especially when Oliver got particularly obsessive, but it wasn't that bad. (Oliver had said, in private, that he appreciated that Beth was the only member of the team who'd never once complained to him about their practice schedule, and she hadn't had the heart to tell him that was because her chores at home were worse.) When exam season came around, it could sometimes get a little bit much, but Beth was pretty sure that was just because Hermione got about as obsessive over exams as Oliver did over quidditch, she probably wouldn't bother nearly as much left to her own devices. And it'd only really been bad the first year, Hermione had left off once they understood that revising out of books and notes wouldn't do any good for her — instead, Hermione resorted to the three of them explaining things and quizzing each other verbally, which still took a fair bit of time, Beth guessed, but was much easier on her eyes than trying to read for hours and hours straight.

People trying to kill her could be very exhausting. Often not the incidents themselves, those tended to go by pretty quickly, but she'd definitely be tired in the aftermath. And nearly dying, no matter how relatively calm (or at least focussed) she was during the thing itself, had a nasty habit of triggering the nightmares again — so, despite being fucking exhausted, it could be a few days before she could get a proper night's sleep. She'd often still feel it dragging at her weeks afterward...not helped at all by the big incident often falling at the end of the school year, so she'd soon be back at the Dursleys' and expected to pick up her chores again.

(Even if the nightmares hadn't been back before, going back to the Dursleys normally triggered them anyway.)

The Dursleys part, at least, wasn't a problem anymore, but this last year had been especially exhausting anyway. Last August, Sirius hadn't had Grimmauld Place fully cleaned up by the time she got there, so she'd needed to help with that a bit — which, he'd expected rather less out of her than Petunia did, so that wasn't that bad, really. They'd also taken time to teach Beth spells and stuff, both from him and Dora (who made a point of visiting now and then), which could make her brain-tired, quickly copying a bunch of information from someone, but it was fun, and would also make it less likely she'd get killed in the next dangerous incident, so she didn't mind. And once the Triwizard Tournament started, Beth had been getting as many lessons as she could. Trying to learn shite out of books never did her any good whatsoever — especially magic, for whatever reason — but it was relatively easy to just sneak out of the Castle and meet up with Sirius somewhere in the Valley. And their play duels tended to involve a lot of running around and dodging and shite — the most powerful spell in the world didn't do any fucking good if it didn't hit the target — so she'd get body-tired as well as brain-tired. And, of course, all the dangerous shite going on meant she'd been getting a lot of nightmares, so she hadn't been sleeping great either.

The graveyard hadn't helped the nightmares issue, obviously, and the lessons had continued once she got home — they'd only stepped up, since she didn't have to worry about not getting caught sneaking out. Which Beth wasn't complaining about, since the more Sirius taught her the less likely some random Death Eater would manage to kill her, but it was still a lot of work.

But this was worse. Beth didn't know if she'd ever been this tired in her life.

The fighting had just gone on, and on, and on. Beth had no idea how many different cities in how many different countries they'd been to — Sirius had kept apparating them around, a call for help from a friend here, or word passed along through third parties that they were in trouble there, one after another skipping all over the place. She'd never left Britain before, not until tonight, though she didn't know exactly how far from the islands they'd gotten. She was positive she'd stepped foot inside the Soviet Union at least once, and she'd seen the Mediterranean a few times, but she didn't know how far they'd gone in miles, exactly.

It seemed like the aliens had hit all the big metropolitan areas, and some countries' militaries hadn't reacted as quickly, or had too many cities to defend all at once, especially with the bombings from space knocking out communications and transportation making everything a whole hell of a lot more complicated. And the longer the aliens had to attack a city unopposed, the harder it was to dig them out, and the more people they killed. Beth and Sirius had actually helped stop aliens from taking prisoners on three occasions, Manchester the first but not the last — they thought a couple transports might have gotten away with people, in poorer countries who couldn't respond as quickly (or didn't have many mages helping, who were much better at taking out the ships), but Beth hadn't heard for sure yet. Not to mention they had no idea what the aliens wanted with captives, they'd sure seemed ready to just kill them all when they saw they weren't going to get away...

The night had dragged on, Beth and Sirius popping over to one fight after another, between the actual fighting parts helping with evacuations, clearing rubble to free people trapped in collapsed buildings. Beth had stopped noticing the dust and ash clinging at her skin, the blood soaked into her clothes, human red and alien green and black, the smell of burning bodies coating her throat. The mangled alien bodies had been disgusting at first, Beth vaguely remembered a pall of horror at all the dead people all around, but at some point she'd just kind of...stopped. Feeling any of it, she meant. Which sounded kind of shitty, she knew, but she couldn't sit back and freak out over it all — people were dying out there, so many people. She could help, but if she slowed down, if she gave herself even a second to, she didn't know, cry or panic or whatever, more people would die, she had to keep going, and going, and going...

Sirius had seemingly been volunteered for the night shift of their hastily thrown together magical defence — Beth was aware Sirius was something of an insomniac, so he was a natural choice. She suspected that whoever had volunteered him for the job hadn't realised that Beth was with him, but she wasn't complaining, she doubted she would have slept much anyway. The Ministry knew Sirius was working with them too, they'd come across Aurors or Hit Wizards several times. They were under orders to leave him alone, something about the UK giving him amnesty (which they had, technically, when he'd shown up to help the government evacuate), but there'd been a few tense moments. Anyway, as the night had gone on, and the landing parties had all been dealt with, they'd been increasingly shuffled to evacuation teams, occasionally called over to fly cover when bombing runs came around. The bombing from bloody space hadn't slowed, and there were still occasional attacks from their weird rocky fighter planes, but things had calmed down a bit — whether they were focussed somewhere else, or simply starting to run out of ships, nobody had any idea.

After a long night that seemed to go on forever, Beth noticed the sun rise over the sea (they'd been in Barcelona at the time), and not long after that Sirius finally got a message telling him to go ahead and take a break — they'd try to give him at least eight hours, to eat and sleep, but if there was an emergency they might have to call him earlier than that, you know the drill. Sirius had been shuffling evacuees over to Black and Potter properties, but there was still room at Rock-on-Clyde, so that was where they went. Beth didn't really feel like eating at the moment, maybe in the morning (or afternoon, she guessed). She was sure Hermione and the Weasleys were worried, but she, just, didn't have the energy to talk to anyone right now, all she wanted was a shower and to just go to bed.

So one of the elves brought her straight to the Lord's apartments — warm, rosey wood everywhere, the floors carpeted and the walls littered with paintings and shite, upholstery on the furniture finely detailed, gold glittering here and there — Beth peeled off her filthy boots, trying not to touch anything with her equally filthy fingers. She felt kind of bad about leaving her boots on the carpet, that was definitely going to need to be washed out, but whatever. She stumbled her way toward the bathroom, stiff and unsteady — fucking everything hurt, she could barely keep her eyes open, but she didn't want to go to bed without washing up first, as fucking miserable as she was she could make it that long...

The private bathroom was bigger than you might expect, if you weren't used to silly magical nobles. It was split into two parts, the area with the toilet and stuff and the bathing area separated by an interlaced divider made out of polished ceramic, decorated around the edges with carvings of flowering vines and prancing hippogriffs. (The Potters had a thing for hippogriffs.) Beth stumbled her way to the bathing side, shelves set into the walls with towels and empty spaces for clothes, a long bench along the barrier for whatever reason — like in the quidditch changing room, though Beth wasn't a hundred per cent sure what that was for in the first place. It belatedly occurred to her that she hadn't brought a change of clothes with her, but that was fine, the elves had put her trunk in the bedroom and nobody was supposed to come in here. Everything was done in red and white ceramic, Potter colours, clean and gleaming, this bathroom probably hadn't been used since...

Er, a couple years before Beth was even born, maybe? Her grandparents had lived here until they died, in '77, but James had never moved into the Lord's apartments, staying in his childhood bedroom on the other side of the family rooms from here. Lily had been from a super poor family, and according to Sirius hadn't been comfortable with all the ridiculous opulence everywhere — not to mention how huge and maze-like the place was, too easy to get lost — so they'd moved into the cottage in Godric's Hollow instead, a muggle-built house they'd had converted for their use. It was very likely that the last people to use this bathroom were her grandparents.

The bathtub was also bigger than you might expect, if you weren't used to mages — magical neighbourhoods (especially in poorer areas) had big public baths, like swimming pool -size shite, and even private baths were oversized, more like a jacuzzi or something. One of the weirder thing about the magical world was that they didn't think anything of single-sex groups bathing together, part of why the bath tubs were so big was so multiple people could fit in them. Including the ones in the dorms at Hogwarts, but most people didn't really use those, Beth thought it was going out of style...though, her impression was that was more of an upper-class thing, poorer mages still did it. Beth didn't like baths, much — she'd always had showers, and she wasn't entirely comfortable just sitting around naked, honestly — and doing it with other people was especially, just, no. A couple times total, she'd showered in the quidditch team changing room (which didn't have any barriers or anything between the stalls, just out in the open), but only when she was super filthy and didn't want to track mud into the castle, and it was always very uncomfortable. Katie and Angie and Alicia being super pretty didn't exactly make it any easier.

Of course, there wasn't a shower in here, just a bath, so she'd have to settle for that, she guessed. And ugh, as filthy as she was she'd probably have to change the water multiple times, bloody pain...

Beth staggered over to the tub — it was set into the floor, but not all the way, the rim level with a platform to put your shampoo and shite like a foot off the floor — and crouched down to look over the controls, grimacing a little as something in her back protested. (Not an unfamiliar ache, something in there often got strained from long quidditch practices, bending over her broom.) Tired eyes refusing to focus properly, it took her a moment, squinting down at the panel...

She didn't know how any of this worked. There were a few different switches, and buttons, and dials — not like a normal faucet, but like a gear or something set into it, drawings on the faces, and... She didn't know what to do, none of this made any sense.

Frustration burning in her throat, her chest tight and hot, she'd have to go all the way back out and find someone to explain it, and she didn't want to talk to anyone, she, just— Why couldn't this place have a normal fucking shower? She was just so tired, moving hurt, she wanted this to be done so she could go to bed...

As stubborn as her eyes were being about focussing properly, she didn't notice she was crying until she felt the wet heat at the top of her cheeks. She idly wiped at her face, the ash and blood speckled over the back of her hand smearing.

Well, now she definitely couldn't go out and ask for help. Even if she could get over how embarrassing needing help using a bathtub was, that she was crying over something so bloody stupid would just make it worse. Not as bad as it used to be, at least — Vernon used to punish her for crying, she'd had a whole thing about that, but Hermione had helped her get over it back in third year (hormones were a bitch, Beth hadn't been able to help it) — but she still didn't want to, she was too tired to deal with that right now. The thought of having to leave here, the tears smearing the junk sticking to her all over the place, and people would be all concerned, and, just, she didn't want to deal with all that. She was too bloody tired already, sounded exhausting.

But she didn't know what to do, and the frustration just kept mounting thicker, her chest burning, her vision swimming. She plonked down on her bum, tried to control her breathing, to fucking stop, but it wasn't working, her chest clenching tight and her throat aching, her eyes burning. Stupid fucking thing, sitting here crying over a bloody bathtub, what was wrong with her...

There was a sharp pop! of house-elf apparation — Beth scrambled to wipe her eyes and cheeks dry, but she was probably just smearing stuff around and making it even more obvious, cleared her throat, vainly trying to shake it loose. "Hello, Beth. Are you needing help?"

She glanced that way, her vision a bit distorted and watery, the elf little more than a colourful smear. The Potter elves dressed differently than elves she'd seen before, their clothes a patchwork of different colours and fabrics, as though pieced together from spare bits of cloth, the borders between them sometimes with tatty fringes left in places, the threads plaited together and sometimes decorated with colourful glass beads. Except, it looked like it was made from spare bits of cloth, but Beth was pretty sure it wasn't — she'd asked Sirius, and he'd said this was how elves tended to dress themselves if they were left to do as they liked (and were allowed the materials to do so). Beth's grandparents, and great-grandparents and so on, hadn't actually supported rights for nonhuman beings, but they had been especially good to the elves for a noble family, and no, Sirius had no explanation for the contradiction.

(Of course, Sirius did support rights for nonhuman beings, but had been a huge arsehole to Kreacher until Beth had nagged him out of it...but that might just be personal history, because he was perfectly fine with the other Black elves. Beth didn't know...)

She couldn't see very well, but she did make out big, bright orange eyes. "Tisme?" They'd met, a couple times — her job had been to take care of James when he was little, and also do her best to keep him out of trouble, which predictably hadn't gone very well. She'd stuck with him after he'd grown up too, but had stayed at Rock-on-Clyde after Beth's parents had moved to Godric's Hollow, because Lily hadn't been comfortable with being waited on by elves either (and preferred doing all the cooking herself anyway). So she hadn't been there the night Voldemort showed up, but even if she had gone with them she would have been on a break anyway — Tisme had a daughter, right around Beth's age, so she would have been busy with her instead.

Beth had met Nilanse too, shy little thing, but also really excitable sometimes...

Tisme gave her a floppy-eared little nod, and might have been about to say something, but Beth got there first. "I'm sorry," she muttered, pointlessly wiping at her face again. "I don't know why I'm... I don't know how to..." She trailed off, waving vaguely at the bathtub.

"It's okay, Beth. I can be drawing the bath, while you're getting ready."

Slumping in her seat a little, Beth let out a shaky sigh. It was still pathetic, but she was tired enough, too overwhelmed from the frustration and whatever else burning in her chest and swirling in her head, that she didn't really have the energy leftover to be too embarrassed. So she just nodded. "Okay. Thanks."

Beth peeled off her socks — relatively clean, thanks to her boots, but stiff and stinky from sweat — before clumsily pushing herself to her feet, taking way more effort than it really should, stiff and achy. Water was already pounding into the basin out of somewhere just under the controls, and apparently it was perfumed — something sweet, maybe orange, with edges of spice and...something vaguely earthy, not sure what that was. Beth picked at the button of her denims for a second, glancing at Tisme, before deciding, just, fuck it. She normally was not comfortable taking her clothes off with other people around (or even when she was alone, honestly), but she was just too tired to care at the moment.

Getting her trousers off wasn't really a problem (though she did nearly lose her balance and fall over like a clumsy idiot), and her shirt kind of hurt, muscles in her back and shoulders twinging in protest. What was a problem was her bra. She didn't really need the damn thing in the first place, most of the time — she didn't exactly have much there, especially standing right next to Hermione — mostly only bothered when she was wearing tee shirts and stuff, so nothing poked through or anything, and when they were doing duelling practice. (The whiplash from moving too quickly was uncomfortable, and distracting.) As stiff as she was, aches flaring harder as she reached, she couldn't fucking get the thing, more tears of frustration burning in her eyes, fuck...

There was a sharp finger-snap, a tickle of magic, and the clasp undid itself. Muttering a rather strained thanks, throat not quite cooperating properly, Beth flung the stupid thing away. She shot Tisme a glance, but she wasn't even looking at Beth, idly poking at a loofa-looking thing and some glass bottles of stuff she'd retrieved from somewhere — didn't look like she was actually doing something, probably trying to avoid making Beth too uncomfortable. Beth must be seriously out of it, because she managed to peel her knickers off. Though she did rush into the bath pretty quick...

...and ended up slipping and plunging into the water quicker than she'd meant to, coming up spluttering and pulling her hair out of her face. Because of course.

The water was hotter than she'd expected, probably hotter than she'd go with if she'd been running it herself — but it felt really good, some of the stiffness immediately disappearing. Though, she didn't know why, loosening up a little immediately had her almost shivering — didn't make any bloody sense, starting to shiver because she got into hot water — and she'd barely been in here for a few seconds before there was a startling wrench through her chest, a thick sob grinding through her throat. She'd been taken by surprise, hadn't felt it coming, her hand jumping up over her mouth, and then there was a second one, her eyes burning, fuck, why was this happening...

Beth managed to stammer out an apology — she always felt like she had to apologise for crying, which Hermione insisted was very silly — but Tisme just brushed it off, voice soft and...something, Beth didn't know.

Using the loofa-looking thing and some of the stuff out of one of the bottles (definitely a liquid soap of some kind), Beth scrubbed all the ash and blood and shite off her skin — Tisme needed to help a little with bits of her back she couldn't reach, because apparently there was a greenish blood smear back there (didn't remember that happening), which was embarrassing, especially since Beth was still crying, her throat burning and her nose leaking. But she was so tired, head light and fuzzy, she kind of noted it was embarrassing, a distant thought, but didn't really feel it that much.

Tisme had to drain and refill the bath multiple times before the water stopped being absolutely disgusting from all the shite stuck to her. Beth mumbled something about being sorry for wasting the water, Tisme giving her a funny look — apparently the water was purified and recycled somehow, magic, it was fine.

After she was mostly clean, feeling very raw and exhausted — her skin scratched up from scrubbing the blood off, the heat seeming to lull her even closer to sleep, could barely keep her eyes open, and also emotionally raw, harsh and jagged (though she couldn't put a word to what the feeling was exactly) — Tisme decided she was going to take care of Beth's hair. The stuff was a fucking mess, after flying around for hours and all the smoke and dust and splatters of blood — she'd been considering just chopping it all off, honestly. But if Tisme thought she could handle it, sure, they could do that, she guessed. (In large part, Beth went along with the suggestion just because she didn't have the energy to argue.) Tisme grabbed something on the side of the tub Beth hadn't noticed, and pulled — there were a couple clunks, and a section of the tub was pulled out, a sink-sized basin sort of thing extending out from the rest of the tub. Poking at it, Beth noticed the rim on this side, visible under the water, even had a cushion for your neck to rest on, which, that was wild, how the hell had they gotten this in there?

Beth turned around and laid back, limp, her weight mostly supported by the cushion thing against the back of her neck. Well, mostly by the water, she guessed, though she wasn't really floating — she was a skinny bitch. But she floated enough that the pressure on her neck wasn't really bad, the surface of the water lapping against her skin in some places, kind of tickled. Tisme gently worked out the tangles, an occasional tingle as she used magic to cheat. She said something about tying it up next time, so it wouldn't be as bad, and yeah, she knew, Beth normally did that before quidditch practices. By which she meant Hermione normally did it for her, because it wasn't as though Petunia had ever bothered teaching her frivolous stuff like that — she could plait hair now, but just because Hermione had taught her — and doing it herself was a huge bloody pain, since her hair was all big and long and curly and impossible. She hadn't bothered just for the trip to school, and there hadn't been time to stop and take care of it.

...Getting ready to leave for Hogwarts felt like it'd been bloody forever ago. Less than twenty-four hours still, she was pretty sure, if not by very much, but it seemed like way longer than that.

For some reason, laying here with Tisme's fingers running through her hair had her crying again. Worse than before, even. She had no idea why, she didn't know what she was feeling, her head a numb fuzzy mess, she was so tired, but the sobs kept shaking their way out of her, the water lapping, she covered her face with her hands, she didn't know what the hell was wrong with her. She managed to stammer out something about being sorry for being a mess, which she realised was stupid — that impulse to apologise for crying, she was well aware it was just because Vernon and Petunia were abusive bastards, Hermione hadn't spelled it out that explicitly for her but Beth wasn't a complete idiot — but she couldn't help it, she didn't know what was going on, ugh...

Tisme was mostly quiet for a time, just letting out little soft shushing noises, focussing on Beth's hair. Beth calmed down, eventually, or at least mostly — she was still sniffling a bit, her chest and throat fucking hurt, but at least she wasn't actively sobbing for no fucking reason anymore. (She hated crying, it always hurt, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.) Silence dragged for a bit, Tisme still gently working at her hair, the edge of spice from the water and the smooth sweetness in the shampoo tickling at Beth's nose.

Finally, Tisme said, "It's okay, to not be all well. Warriors have a hard job."

...That wasn't the word Beth would use, but she was aware of how it was used on the magical side, sometimes. She guessed it wasn't completely inaccurate. Especially with what she'd spent the whole last day doing — that was pretty characteristic warrior stuff, the way mages meant it...

"Jamie and Lily were not... They wanted things to be better, for you. The Dark Lord, and his people, and all of it, Jamie and Lily wanted the war to end with them. They didn't want you to have to fight. It's a hard job, it takes a lot. It hurts, body and soul. A good job, we are needing someone to do it, always, but hard. If they are seeing this now, I'm thinking, they are being very sad." A short pause, Tisme's hands coming up to cup her cheeks — light and gentle, fingers warm and smooth and delicate. "And, they are very proud. I know this."

...

And Beth was crying again, because of course.

Tired and sore and warm, weirdly comfortable despite all the aches everywhere, Beth didn't remember a whole lot about the rest of the bath. She knew Tisme, still working at her hair, filled the silence with soft babble, stories about James as a kid, or James and Lily, some stuff from the latter end of the pregnancy and shortly after Beth's birth. Beth was vaguely aware that she'd actually been born at Rock-on-Clyde, she'd heard that somewhere — her parents had decided it was the safest place, with the wards and the family magic and the elves and stuff. (Supposedly it was preferred that children likely to inherit the title always be born at the family manor, for family magic reasons she didn't know the first thing about.) Tisme hadn't, like, personally delivered Beth or anything, but she had been there, and had helped take care of the baby, so she had stories. Which was a slightly surreal realisation, that the hands just now running through her hair had held her within a couple hours of her birth, didn't know how she felt about that.

(Annoyed, maybe. She hadn't known there were Potter elves until Sirius had brought her here last summer, or even that she owned multiple houses, including a huge fucking manor, with greenhouses and extensive grounds and everything. She didn't know why Dumbledore hadn't just stuck her here, and had the elves take care of her — they definitely could have. Honestly, as weird and overbearing as house-elves could be sometimes, if she'd been able to pick her family, she definitely would have picked the elves here at Rock-on-Clyde above the Dursleys.)

(Beth barely knew her at this point, but Tisme obviously would have been a much better aunt than Petunia.)

An indeterminate time later, Beth was woken up by a messenger charm, from Sirius — saying to come get some breakfast if she was moving, he'd need to leave in an hour or so. Which, he could have just not woken her up and left without her, so despite how groggy she felt she pushed herself up to sitting anyway. She was in an oversized bed, sheets deep red and black, smooth and soft and warm, matching the room around her, which she only vaguely recognised as the Lord's bedroom. She'd looked in here before, but just in passing, had never had any intention of staying here.

She didn't remember getting here. She belatedly realised she was naked, she must have fallen asleep in the bath, Tisme just floating her into bed instead of waking her up. (Slightly embarrassing, but she had needed the sleep, so — she made a mental note to thank Tisme for last night later. Or this morning, whatever.) Her wand, still in its holster, was sitting on the bedside table, her boots standing nearby, leather shiny clean. A fresh set of clothes were sat folded on an armchair, waiting — not her clothes, the black cloth faintly glimmering, magic-made, but she had the feeling they would fit perfectly.

For a moment, Beth sat in bed, rubbing at her face. Memories from yesterday flicking by in her head, helped along by the stiffness in her limbs, low pain from bruises — blood and fire, eyes glassy in death, too many to count...

She forced out a sigh, shivering a little as she ran out of air. People were dying out there, she knew, more and more every minute she sat here. There was a part of her that didn't want to go back out, just stay here, under the wards, with Hermione and the Weasleys, where it was safe. She was just one fifteen-year-old girl, it wasn't like she could stop a bloody alien invasion herself or anything. Nobody would judge her for it.

Nobody except herself.

Her hand steady, unwavering, Beth reached for her wand, summoned the clothes to herself with a silent flick — she had a job to do.