Chapter Two: Tripping the Taboo

She awoke back in the woods where the Quidditch World Cup had taken place before her fourth year at Hogwarts. For the past week that she'd been alone her day always started the same way. Waking up it took several seconds to remember what had happened, why she was alone and constantly moving. It was getting harder to leave her bed in the morning, she spent who knows how long staring at where Hermione and Ron had slept. Their deserted bunk's left how their recipients had left them. Messy in Ron's case, and neatly tucked with Hermione's pajamas on top of her pillow, a book on the nightstand. Just like back in Gryffindor's dormitory. They're gone. The daily reminder had her head landing back down on her pillow.

She dragged her hand over to underneath her pillow to grab her wand and waved it lazily through the air, turning the radio on without having to physically get up. Music blasted through the tent, clearing up her head and making it impossible to get back to sleep.

Through familiar repetition she swung the covers off herself and jumped off her bed. She dragged her feet over to the tent's bathroom and fixed herself up in the mirror, splashing water in her face and making sure her teeth were brush. Now she was presentable to the outside world. Not bothering yet to change into clean clothes she cracked some eggs in the frying pan and made herself some scrambled eggs for breakfast, alongside some toast. The muggle radio presenter began to speak about the news and she vaguely listened as she tidied up after herself and finally got dressed. No longer having any excuse to dawdle she stepped outside with Hermione's bag by her side and swept the tent up and sent it back inside the enlarged space. She stood taking in the view, remembering how simple life had been back then the first time she'd traveled to these woods. Where the biggest worry had been the weird dreams she'd started to get during her sleep, and whether Sirius would ever return to her and if the Ministry would pardon him.

With a sigh she brought down the enchantments she'd placed the previous day. The air rippling as the magic disappeared. Then before she could linger she disapparated to another forest that Hermione had taken them to.

A heather-covered hillside greeted her, looking at the ground she was reminded of laying on the heather with her two best friends, enjoying the sunlight on their faces. She blinked away the tears that threatened to escape. Right, stick to the schedule. Nodding to herself she picked a random direction and headed off to find a new campsite. It was going to be a relatively lazy day today. She was going to devote herself to studying and practicing magic again. After, finding somewhere safe to stay the night.

She couldn't help herself but spotting potion ingredients as she began walking off. Picking them up and placing them in her pockets for potion practice at some point. It would help to have some healing potions handy, now that she was on her own without someone to lend a helping hand.

She hummed some of the sorting hat's songs as she wandered off, taking a brief delight in this time by herself. She'd never really had the chance to go off without someone else's say. It wasn't until she started feeling hunger pangs that she looked down at Fabian Prewett's watch to check the time which then confirmed that it was a little passed lunchtime. Finally stopping she looked around the meadow she'd found herself in, seeing a river not too far away.

She then summoned the tent back out and charmed it to set itself up. Once everything was in place she picked up a stick and drew a circle along the ground with herself and the tent inside it. She brought out her chisel from Rune's class to draw her protective runes into the dirt. Following the angular symbols with her wand, and drawing her magic to the wand tip, letting the magic sink into the ground. Yawning she brought out a premade sandwich from her pocket and practically inhaled it. Rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck she stepped back up and onto her feet, brushing her auburn curls over her shoulder and out of the way as she brought her wand into the sky.

"Salvio hexia… Protego totalum… Repello Muggletum… Muffiato… Erecto… Cave inimicum…" She weaved her wand through the air chanting incantations around the small area that now held the tent. The air rippled and she knew from experience that the enchanted circle would now be invisible to anyone else's eye. Looking up at the sun she decided to take advantage of the relatively warm day, it had been getting colder over the past week. She plopped herself down and chose a book at random from Hermione's bag.

"Hmm… Book of Spells by Miranda Goshawk, we meet again." She opened the book to the contents page and ran a finger down, seeing if there was anything she could brush up on. "Oh! Ginny's favourite, Bat-Bogey Hex." She smirked before finding that page. The thought of casting it on Voldemort and making his bogies turn into bats that could crawl out of his nostrils was an image that made her feel slightly hysterical. Oh well, this alone time had made her introspective on a lot of matters, and made her dwell on a lot of past memories.

Wandering around by herself was surreal. It made her wonder if this was what holidays were like for hikers and campers like Hermione's family. Would her family have done something similar if her parents had lived? Or would they have taken her to other magical areas in the world. Perhaps if she somehow survived despite all the odds, she would travel. See what was beyond, learn about other aspects of magic. Maybe there was a magical equivalent to Muggle university.

She walked around Muggle villages in the daytime, always under her invisibility cloak. She would spend hours in their libraries, reading books about nature, what was safe to eat and what she needed to look out for. She found the computers and attempted to teach herself how to use them. Researching for other places she could camp, studying their images and storing them in her memory for later.

She would go into the supermarket and raid the back storage for anything she needed. Reasoning with herself that not all of it would be sold anyway, it would be thrown away and wasted. But what she could find in the wild she didn't take. It was a much better method than what Hermione had come up with. Perhaps if she'd done this earlier Ron wouldn't have left. She shook her head to get rid of that thought. He would have found something else to complain about. It wasn't her fault, there was nothing she could have done. She just had to keep reminding herself of that.

During the afternoons she would explore the new location she ended up in. She enjoyed finding things off the beaten track. It was fun finding a waterfall or a field of sheep or even a colony of stick creatures. She found more magical creatures than she expected, finally putting the knowledge Hagrid had taught them to good use. It felt less lonely when she was interacting with them.

The school books that had been packed were suddenly much more interesting. So, she ended up running through previous spells and learning ones that they would have apparently learnt in their seventh year. Dwelling on it too much made her miss Hogwarts so much more. She wondered what everyone there was doing, what they were learning. And most importantly how they were all getting on.

"Bloody Voldemort." She kicked a rock lying at the edge of her camp circle. Runes drawn into the dirt with a chisel, making a clear circle around the tent and hiding it from view.

Crack

Suddenly dark cloaked figures appeared. She blinked in a daze as they quickly looked around. Annoyance and frustration laced the wizards faces as they looked around the apparently empty area. She could hardly breathe as she watched them. Her heart thudded in her chest as her defences were tested for the first time.

"They've got to be around here somewhere. Fan out!" One of the wizards barked. There was a bit of grumbling from the others.

"I hope we catch a mudblood this time!"

"You reckon Potter will ever trip the jinx?"

"We can only hope!" He crackled. "Imagine how the dark lord would reward us then!"

Not taking her eyes off the wizards who were looking around the area she used her wand to take down the tent and placed it back in Hermione's bag, along with the book she'd been leafing through. Should she take these men down now or leave? But what if they went after someone else? Perhaps it would be best to make sure they couldn't hurt anyone else.

She palmed her wand, running through a list of spells at her disposal. What would be best to use on them? From their talk they had clearly signed up to hunting innocent witches and wizards.

Alright. Well this was a war, she couldn't be as forgiving as she'd been before. Not when the other side didn't think twice about killing babies.

Eyes narrowed she drew out her invisibility cloak and drew it over herself. She brought her spells down with practiced ease, making the area she was in visible again. She scrubbed the runes clean with a stroke of her wrist and cast her first onslaught of silent spells. It was devastatingly impactful. Snape's spell from the potions book that she'd previously used on Draco quickly sliced through the whole group. The thumps of bodies hitting the floor echoed through the otherwise empty forest. The wizards screamed in agony clutching at their fresh wounds that gushed with blood. Without anyone in the immediate vicinity that would probably bleed to death, unless they were quick minded enough to apparate to someone who could help them. But she didn't know whether the stitching spell Snape had used was a counter he'd created or whether any witch or wizard could save these lot.

They knew what they signed up for. If they didn't think that no one would fight back in this kill or be killed society they should have realised that sooner than putting the weight of the world on a teenage girl's shoulders.

Glaring coldly at the struggling wizards she turned around and walked away without letting have the satisfaction of knowing who had attacked them.

But what jinx were they talking about? She had to have tripped something for their immediate arrival. This was just like after bill and Fleur's wedding... Could it be? Could the fake name riddle had come up with be somehow jinxed? Well... There was one way to find out. Her eyes flickered back at the bleeding wizards. The cold breeze of approaching winter brushed her curls across her face. Maybe this was a different way to continue fighting. She spun on her foot and disappeared.

~oOo~

It had been a couple of days since the jinx incident. She'd ended up pouring through books, researching defence and offence. Why hadn't any of the adults taught her this stuff? She knew the bare minimum, was that planned or just their lack of foresight. Did they believe too much on her dumb luck to get her through this or... Did they believe she wouldn't survive so there was no point in teaching her anything? Was she raised as a lamb for slaughter? Did they believe the best thing would be to wipe out both her and riddle?

It hurt to think about, but that and Rita Skeeter's book just seemed to link too much. She had to bury those thoughts. Deep down, floating with the rest that had popped up over the years.

Shaking the thoughts away she concentrated back on expanding her battle magic knowledge. Defence against the Dark Arts had always been a speciality of hers after all. And now she could put it in use, to fight back against those adults who should know better. She wanted to show all those adults who'd been like Dumbledore and not taken accountability, who had shoved her aside because she was too young. She'd been eleven when she'd properly faced Voldemort for the first time, she'd been twelve when she'd killed a basilisk. She was thirteen when she expelled hundreds of dementors. Fourteen when she had to take part in the Triwizard tournament and faced a resurrected Voldemort. Then at fifteen she and her friends had fought the Death Eater inner circle of adults who were more than twice their elder. And last year they had been in the first battle of this war when Death Eaters had snuck into the school. And all of those other situations she'd been in throughout the years in the place that was supposedly the safest place in Britain.

Well she wasn't going to have anyone else die like Sirius had without having a say in it. She was going to kill Bellatrix and make sure she couldn't hurt anyone else or get put back in prison. That bitch wasn't going to haunt Neville or anyone else's nightmares for much longer.

And maybe if Hermione and Ron had stayed she might not have decided on fighting this way. They hadn't lost nearly as much as her, they couldn't comprehend what Neville and she suffered with every day. They probably would have preached Dumbledore's words of forgiveness, or had a one-track mind in seeing just the horcruxes destroyed. They wouldn't have taken advantage of a jinx to kill the people who were hunting down others.

But there was a reason that the sorting hat had nearly put her in Slytherin. One that came from living with the Dursleys. That when it came down to it her ambition to survive forced her to forget the rules that others imposed onto her and society. She would steal food if she was locked away. She would smuggle an illegal dragon for a friend. She would fight back against those who wished her dead. She would use her enemies' weaknesses against them.

With narrowed eyes she looked down at the spell work etched onto the dirt around her feet before her feet shifted into position. Her eyes alert and awaiting their arrival.

"Voldemort."

Author Note: Hello there! What's this… an update? Happy 3rd of December!