Chapter Text
A crack echoed across the grassy field as she appeared, and she winced. With any luck, no one had heard it. She didn’t trust her luck.
Carefully, she crept forward, her small feline form obscured by the tall grass. All her senses were on alert; not only was she listening for the sound of someone approaching, she was feeling for the edge of the protective wards around the place.
She poked her furry head up for a moment to get a better look at where she was headed. A wooden cottage was situated on the far side of the meadow. It looked welcoming enough with its gently-sloping roof and white door and purple shutters, but knowing the truth of what it was… Of course, this would be where he’d choose. Ah, the irony. She ducked back down again.
She could feel the wards, now, fifty feet in front of her. Approaching slowly, she tried to feel out what they were. New animagi wouldn’t know how, yet, to distinguish between spells, but she was no new animagus. Fianto duri… an intruder charm… repello muggletum… an altered version of protego dibiolica… a (now irrelevant) fidelius charm… salvio hexia… an anti-apparation charm… and - blast it! - a blood ward. The rest of it would be of little issue, but that - that - was a problem. And to think, even a few years ago she would not have thought him morally capable of magic widely considered to be the epitome of dark. She knew better now. (Should have known before now.)
She didn’t bother even attempting to take the entirety of the wards down. Not only would that alert everyone inside to her presence and malintent, it wouldn’t even work. These protective enchantments could only be brought down from the inside, she knew, and that blood ward… well, that she certainly wasn’t doing anything about from the middle of this grassy field. No, the wards were staying up and, with any luck, they were also staying right where they were.
Recently, she had found a little-known and seemingly rather useless enchantment-freezing charm and, after many extensive tests, determined it to be quite functional. This meant, after casting said spell on the protective wards, she could simply dig under them without the enchantments warping to fit the new ground shape. She just wasn’t sure if it would work on the blood ward.
As it turned out, it did not, and so she found herself jumping backwards out of her small hole with hardly an inch to spare. Frustrated, she couldn’t help herself from letting out an irritable hiss as she prowled in a circle before dropping down on her haunches. Of course it didn't work. That would have been far too easy.
Idea after idea of how to get through drifted into her head before being swiftly rejected and sent right back out. None of them would work. Except… perhaps, with the combination of her enchantment freezing charm, an overpowered flexeo duri, a pseudoseverability spell, and the notice-me-not charm Poppy had taught her… maybe she could slice right through it.
Her knowledge of blood magic was not extensive; she had never felt the need to learn copious amounts about a magic rarely used and widely considered to be among the darkest ever discovered. However, necessity and dealing with the Malfoys and Blacks for upwards of fifty years had taught her enough to get by. Hopefully, that would still be enough.
Carefully, she set about casting the multitude of spells needed, and she was quickly reminded of how much she disliked performing complex magic in her animagus form. It was monumentally more difficult and time consuming thanks to the way an animagus interacted with magic while in their animagus form. She only bothered with it now because she knew she couldn’t risk transforming back lest she be spotted. So, she resigned herself to casting as a cat, grateful she was one of few animagi who taught herself how in anticipation of just such occasions.
With a final flick of her paw she conjured a knife and her spellwork was complete. All that remained was to cut the hole in the ward.
The first three times she attempted to grasp the knife between her paws she didn’t get it more than an inch from the ground before it tumbled back down again. The next seven times were marginally more successful. Try twenty-three saw her having relatively decent control of the blade; by twenty-nine she was almost ready to cut her hole. She was about to plunge the blade into the ward on her thirty-second time before it slipped from her paws, prompting a growl as she batted it with her paw. Oh, how she missed her opposable thumbs!
Finally - finally! - she managed to stab it through the ward, carefully guiding the blade in a circle. The now-disconnected ward inside the loop then fizzled away, leaving a hole just big enough for her to slip through.
Tail held high, she gave the cat equivalent of a wry grin and leapt through the hole. But she didn’t have time to celebrate long; she had to get moving, the others were counting on her.
She took only a moment to clean the dirt from between her paw pads and she was off. She bounded through the tall grass, wind rushing past her, her paws touching the ground only long enough to push off again. Had the circumstances been different, she might even have enjoyed it.
All too soon she was crouched in the flowering bushes around the side of the little cottage. She edged towards the back, hoping to find an unattended entrance, though she didn't expect to get that lucky.
As it happened, luck wasn’t not on her side: The back door was guarded by only one person. She was, however, a former student. Ellalouise Paradime, Huffelpuff, sat in the corner of the second-to-last row… a student during the First Wizarding War. She hadn’t shown any of her students her animagus form during the War; the fewer people who knew what she looked like, the less likely she was to be recognized on a mission. So, unless someone had told Ellalouise to watch for her (which wouldn’t be a huge surprise, but it would be a surprise if she remembered), she should come off as just another cat.
That left only the problem of how to get inside. She couldn’t stun Ellalouise without revealing her presence. Instead, she supposed, she could go be friendly and cute and hope to earn her way inside, but that entire prospect sounded horribly unappealing, not to mention potentially dangerous. Or she could attempt to sneak in (and risk being caught or suspected), or she could walk in like she owned the place (different idea, same problem). She opted for the last.
She stuck her tail in the air and strutted for the door. It wasn’t too far, maybe she could make it without Ellalouise noticing…
“Oh! Who’s a cute little kitty?”
Apparently not.
She sighed, grudgingly allowing Ellalouise to stroke her cheek.
“Aren’t you beautiful,” the woman cooed, and she bit back a hiss. “Where did you come from, kitty?”
Deciding it was time to move on, she expertly (and reluctantly) wove around Ellalouise’s ankles before slipping through the doorway. A glance behind her showed Ellalouise’s indifference.
So Ellalouise hadn’t recognized her… apparently, not showing her students had paid off, just a little later than expected.
The room she entered into was lavishly furnished and decorated with garish colors and an excess of pillows. She wrinkled her nose a little. Doing her best to ignore the ridiculousness of her surroundings, she made a bee-line for the stairs in the back corner of the room.
The staircase was steep and, as she descended into the darkness, she felt the air getting colder. The fur raised on the back of her neck and she could sense something was wrong but she pressed on anyway. It was far too late to turn back now. This war, this battle, was everything. They could not lose.
When she finally reached the bottom, she was instantly alert. Someone was behind her, she could feel it. Every muscle in her body tensed; she readied herself to spring away at any moment. She took one step forward, ears swiveling for the faintest sound that would indicate her adversary noticing her presence. Another step, then another, and-
A spell whizzed past her side, followed by the sound of laughter.
“You shouldn’t be here, kitty.”
Another spell flew by, closer this time. She started to run.
Now there were footsteps behind her. Her muscles arced as she bounded away from her pursuer.
Another spell. She felt it ruffle her fur as it passed.
Then another, so close it would have hit her had she not leapt into a roll and emerged in her human form, flinging spells at her attacker.
She advanced on him, magic crackling around her. She easily deflected each curse he sent her way and returned then with spells of her own. It was less than a minute before he fell, struck down by a combination of her jinx and his own curse ricocheting off her shield charm.
She didn’t go back to check on him, she knew he was dead. She couldn’t bear to find out if he’d been her student.
Instead, she cast a disillusionment charm over him and turned away, transforming back into her animagus form with a soft pop and continuing down the dimly-lit corridor. The dank air seeped through her fur like molasses and it set her teeth more on edge then they already were. Stone walls rose on either side of her, seeming all the taller for her small stature; cobwebs graced the ceiling. The air smelled of must and darkness.
She had only a vague idea of where she was headed. Their spy was rarely at this location and had never been to the ward room, and reliable directions otherwise were difficult to come by. And, of course, this place being a maze of look-alike tunnels didn’t make finding it any easier.
The original plan for locating the room had been for her to polyjuice into someone who was actually supposed to be there and ask for directions. Unfortunately, however, their supply of polyjuice had been needed a week prior, so the plan for finding it had turned into figure it out as you go .
And figure it out as you go had turned into wander around and hope for the best .
Two rights, three lefts, and one (thankfully unknown) person later and she felt something poking at the edges of her awareness. Her nose twitched. She could tell this was coming from quite some ways away, and for her to still feel it in these proportions here meant it had to be coming form an exceptionally powerful magical source. Therefore, this was the magic of a spell or a magical object; no magical being could be felt from this far away with the possible exception of a zouwu, and she was quite certain she would have noticed if there were a zouwu in the building. After all, they weren’t exactly the most subtle of creatures.
She set off in the direction the feeling originated in, checking up and down the corridor again. It was more than likely the magic was coming from the ward room, and even if it wasn’t the ward room, anything that powerful would be a worthwhile target.
Right number three led to another deserted corridor, this one somehow even dimmer and danker than the last. The slope of the floor told her she was going deeper underground.
Two more turns and the lighting was starting to get better again. This must be a more used part of the compound, she decided, and either the way she had come was not the only way to get there or was meant to dissuade people from traversing it.
Another left. A few steps into the hallway and she heard the faint sound of footsteps that were not her own. She returned to the previous corridor she’d been in.
The source of the feeling was becoming more distinct as she moved closer. It was most definitely not a zouwu.
A seventh right had her turning into the brightest hallway she’d seen since she came down the stairs and, even though better lit, it was long enough she couldn’t quite make out the far end.
Frankly, this corridor was the last place she wanted to be. The likelihood of someone noticing (and therefore recognizing) her was much greater here, but she knew she didn’t have much of a choice: The feeling was coming from almost straight ahead now. She let out the feline equivalent of a sigh.
Some half a mile later the sound of people chattering suddenly gushed into the hallway. She jumped. A quick survey of the nearby area yielded no results; there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and, by the sound of things, the people were getting closer. Turning herself invisible would take more time than she had. Running would give her away immediately. She would not fight until she had to.
They were coming around the corner; she was out of time.
She continued winding her way forward, settling for acting like any other cat and hoping they wouldn’t recognize her.
The chattering quieted as she approached.
“Hello, my friend,” said a voice she recognized but couldn’t quite place. The owner of the voice reached down to stroke her head; she tilted her head backwards to get a look at his face.
Ah, Eric Ericson. That explained it. He’d been a student in Slytherin starting her fifth year of teaching. Middle seat, back row, surrounding his friends. He’d been a good student, though admittedly with a penchant for turning things into slime.
She grudgingly rubbed against his hand before continuing forward.
“Wait, Er, get back!” someone shouted suddenly. Her heart dropped. “It’s McGonagall!”
Everyone was gathered around her in an instant. She sat back on her haunches and looked up. “Mraw?”
“Are you sure it’s her?” someone else asked quietly.
“I mean, it looks like her…”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It has to be her!” another cried, drawing his wand and waving it around wildly. “It has to be!”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Hey, that you, professor?!”
She flicked her tail and continued staring at them. Surely she’d taught them better than this…
“Whaddawe do?”
“I don’t know!”
“White Knight said-”
“Yeah, yeah, we know what he said! But that doesn’t help us, now, does it.”
“Plus, we don’t know if it’s her, do we?”
“I do!”
“You don’t count.”
She narrowed her eyes and flicked her tail again. Apparently, she hadn’t taught them better. She filed that away under To Be Processed Later .
“So what do we do?”
“I dunno.”
“Oh, just give me that!” one of them snapped, wrenching the wand from his neighbor’s grip and shooting a curse at her. She side-stepped it easily.
“It is her!”
“OPEN FIRE!!!”
Wands came flying out all around her and she hissed. People could be such barbarians sometimes. Firing on a cat? Honestly! She should have taught them better.
“It really is her?” someone asked again, but his query went ignored as they started shooting spells at her.
She evaded the first found of curses by leaping upwards as high as she could, and the moment her paws hit the ground she jumped again, hoping her attackers would take the bait and fire on her momentarily-airborne form. Some of them did, and while their spells missed their moving target, they did not miss the stationary targets on the other side of the circle around her. She inwardly winced at their stupidity; dithering over who she was was one thing, taking out half their allies by accident was something completely different.
“Everyone, over here! Back her against the wall! Stop cursing each other!”
She snorted. At least one person here had paid attention in class or at least retained half a brain cell.
They sent another barrage of curses her way, and in the chaos of colliding spells, she slipped out from the semicircle. Then she conjured a long, thin flame and dashed with it around her assailants.
“Someone stop her!”
“She’s trying to set us on fire!”
“I can see that for myself, thank you!”
“Aquagamenti!”
“RUN!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!”
They were shooting spells at her left and right but none quite managed to hit her. She would have been disappointed she had not taught them to aim better if they hadn’t been stumbling trying to avoid the fiery rope.
Two of her five remaining adversaries fell quite quickly, though from her fire or the other’s ill-directed spells she wasn’t quite sure. Another screamed and fell backwards into the flames; she cringed, but continued her offensive. The fourth was taken out as his own stunning spell ricocheted off something. And the last attacker, still shouting (“Save yourselves! Run! RUN!!”), bolted down the corridor.
She abhorred striking a retreating enemy, but she knew she couldn’t afford to let him get away. Along with a silent apology, she sent a stunning spell after him.
The new silence in the hallway caught her off-guard, reminding her all too much of what had driven her so far apart from her former students. She longed for the days without the war.
With a soft pop she transformed back into her human form. A few flicks of her hand extinguished the few remaining flames and vanished the debris from their fight. Then she sighed, wishing she had time to mourn her fallen students properly, to honor the memory of them before this war.
But she didn’t, so instead she conjured a single white lily she left floating in the hallway. Giving a nod, she headed off down the corridor.
The magic she had sensed before was now very near, and she could tell it was more powerful than she had ever imagined. Anyone who put this much power into their wards seriously wanted to keep people out. Not that she was overly surprised, but still.
Only one person was guarding the door she could feel it coming from. Parvati Patil, recent graduate, one of hers… she sighed. This war was going to split their world at the seams.
“Professor,” the woman greeted, swallowing hard.
“Miss Patil. I trust you’ve been well?”
“I- I have been, how about you?”
“As well as possible.”
Parvati nodded carefully.
“Miss Patil, if you wouldn’t mind, I must enter this room.”
“I’m sorry, professor, but I can’t let you do that.”
“I understand.” She sighed, hating what she knew she had to do. “Forgive me, Parvati.”
Reluctantly, she raised her hand.
“Professor, please…”
Her heart ached at the words. She cast her spell anyway.
Parvati collapsed into a heap on the floor, and as she gently shifted her out of the doorway, she ensured her pulse was steady. Then, she stepped into the room.
Again she found herself longing for the days of peace, when she wasn’t fighting her students, when no one had to kill or be killed. Things were better then, happier then. The only thing she’d had to worry about was when the Weasley twins would strike next and whether or not Severus was unfairly taking points from her lions for the third time in the last month.
Now, it was hard to believe those days ever were. Now, she spent her days devising battle strategies and her nights wondering when everything would come apart, when, finally, their world just wouldn’t be able to take it anymore. She mourned for her students that would never know a normal, non-war-ridden life. She longed for the fight to be done.
But it wasn’t, and it wouldn’t be until she ended it.
She quietly shut the door behind her, effectively snapping her train of thought. After casting a plethora of spells over it to keep anyone from coming in, she set to work.
She was definitely in the right place; she could feel the wards converging in the center of the dark room.
“Lumos,” she whispered, allowing the ball of light to float up towards the ceiling and cast its soft glow over the walls.
She could tell, now, the wards must be anchored to the small red octahedron hovering in the middle of the space. She sighed; he always did have a flair for the dramatic.
Carefully, she took another step forward, holding out her hands and sensing for any protective enchantments around the ward crystal. The magic whirled around her, more powerful than anything she’d felt in years. The main wards were obviously designed to protect against an army; she was rather surprised she’d made it through them. The feeling was terrifying, yet somehow refreshing at the same time.
Her attention turned to the area around the octahedron. There was definitely something around it, she decided, though it was hugely overshadowed by the wards it was protecting.
Popping into her animagus form, she reached out again. Repello inimicium, she could feel, and something else… ah, yes, protego totalum… which meant there was likely a fianto duri around it as well, though she couldn't quite distinguish it…
She transformed back; those would have to be dealt with, and she’d had enough feline spellwork to last her quite a while.
There were only so many things that could dismantle protective enchantment, seeing as their purpose was generally to keep people from doing precisely that. She could attempt a shield penetration spell, but somehow she got the feeling that would be a terrible idea. She could try her enchantment freezing charm again, but with a stone floor and no reliable way to dig a hole without flinging things everywhere and thereby setting off the wards, it felt a little like trying to thread a needle with a rake.
She sighed. That left - and she hated the very thought of it - taking the wards apart piece by piece. It wasn’t that it was a particularly troublesome spell, and it wasn’t heinously difficult (though the meditation wasn’t really her thing), it was just… well, no time for that.
Her body protested more than it used to as she lowered herself into a cross-legged position of the floor to begin the process, and again she silently cursed the torture of getting older. Then she closed her eyes and began the lengthy task of clearing her mind, of allowing only the sense of the magic flowing around her to remain.
Gradually, the wards came into focus. The tangled strands of protective magic danced in a woven dome over a glowing, warm point that was spewing even more threads. She gently reached out to start untangling the threads and the familiar feeling of this shoved its way back into her mind, trying to pull her attention from her work, trying to break her meditation, and she shoved it back, hardly giving it a second thought until it returned in full force, bringing the army of memories with it.
“Minerva!” cried a painfully welcome voice.
“Minerva,” growled a much less welcome voice.
“No…” she breathed, her eyes flying open. It was only then she remembered she should have been floating, and she caught herself only just in time to avoid an unwanted encounter with the ground. “No…”
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she watched people long since gone. Her friend, crumpled on the floor… the monster himself advancing on her, even as she shuffled backwards… the knowledge help would not reach them in time (it never did)...
But she wasn’t there… he was in prison, her friend was gone, and she had a mission to finish. Shaking her head to rid her mind of the remaining images and dragging her finger quickly under her eyes, she readied herself to start again.
It took her longer than before to achieve the deep meditation necessary. Finally, she could feel the strands of magic again. She gingerly grasped the one nearest her and pulled; it allowed her to untangle it from the others, however resistantly. Then she untangled another, and another, working her way around the dome and beginning to find the process rather soothing.
As she let go of each freed strand, it drifted slowly downwards, dimming and eventually vanishing.
More strands fell, and the dome began to thin. Then, finally, the last one vanished.
A burst of magic surged through the room, radiating a burning warmth that was unlike anything else she had ever felt before, though it had the faintest roiling undertone she couldn’t quite place.
Her eyes fluttered open and she found herself floating back to the ground, much more gently than last time. Landing smoothly on her feet, she headed for the still-glowing crystal in the center of the room.
She was well aware dismantling the outer wards had been the easy part. In all her experience, she’d never encountered an enchantment anchor before, and her knowledge of such things was purely hypothetical. And the blood ward… well, that ought to be interesting.
Grateful for her forethought, she pulled several shrunken books from the small black bag she had been wearing on a string around her neck. She cast a quick spell to return them to their normal size and keep them floating around her and began leafing through the pages.
Only two of the books had information on enchantment anchors. As she cross-referenced the passages, her finger started tapping thoughtfully against the page.
Apparently, only one person could be responsible for the necessary upkeep of the wards, renewing them often as magic had a tendency to seep from the stone. Anchors with certain molecular structures were preferable for this reason, as they allowed less magic to be released…
Then it hit her. Animagus forms drew on ambient magic anytime they cast a spell while in their form, which was part of why they could feel magic so strongly. Maybe, if she transformed, she could siphon all the magic from the stone, leading to the wards becoming powerless. Perhaps that would even work on the blood ward.
Shoving the books back into her bag, she transformed and cautiously approached the stone. She could feel its power thrumming around her. She steadied herself, then began to draw from it.
Before long, it felt as though she were engaged in a magical tug-of-war with it. The resistance got stronger and stronger each time she got a bit more magic out of the stone.
Now, it was taking all her strength and concentration even to keep what she’d taken from being pulled back into the stone. She took a step back and planted her paws. Then she yanked on the magic with everything she had. A burst of magic slipped from the stone; she could tell it had almost nothing left.
But neither did she.
The stone pulled on the magic with such force she could feel every muscle in her body straining to hold it back. She couldn’t pull any harder, and that last bit of magic wouldn't budge.
Suddenly, her grip on the magic started to slip. The instant the smallest tendril flowed back towards the crystal, the floodgates opened. Magic rushed back to it, heedless of her desperate attempts to stop it. She could feel the magic complaining as it reached the crystal. The pressure was building under the sudden implosion of magic, but the flow wasn’t slowing.
By the time she realized what was happening it was already too late. The last of the magic slammed back into the crystal. Then, with a great pulse of light, it exploded.
An immense wave of magic threw her, yowling, into the wall. Then everything went black.