Blurred Lines Mods (blurred_mods) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-08-31 17:24:00 |
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THE FINAL BATTLE [01] [02] [03] [04] [05] [06] [07] [08] [09] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
The greenhouses TRAPS Kate Proudfoot was ready to end this war, but she was not so foolish as to believe that it was going to be easy to do so. As they had waited in the Castle, waiting basically for Death Eaters to show up and begin to fight, she had pushed away nervous butterflies in her stomach. She didn't want to die, she didn't want to think about Gawain dying, and last time she'd been in a battle with Death Eaters she hadn't, but she also didn't want to think about how close she had come the first time. In a certain way, it was all fate and luck. One could do one's best, one could be an amazing fighter or dueller as Alastor Moody was, but even Albus Dumbledore had been bested, and Kate was for certain no Albus Dumbledore. She approached the Greenhouses now, waiting to see whom she might encounter. Her wand was grasped tightly in her hand as she came around the corner and into the line of sight of a masked Death Eater - why did they always have to wear masks? It wasn't as if it would have made that much difference, she supposed, perhaps it was even better that she didn't know who she was fighting. "Stupefy, Incarcerous!" The two spells shot out in quick succession aimed straight at the Death Eater's chest. Adjusting his mask so it was secure, Lucius waited for his prey to come to him. Standing by the side of the Greenhouses, he pushed his worry about Narcissa being on the battlefield from his mind. She wasn't fighting; no doubt she would be fine. Now he was ready -- wand held in battle stance, ears straining to pick up the sounds of footsteps from any direction, eyes flitting from side to side beneath his mask. Aha. Attention focused on the woman who was suddenly in front of him, he had no trouble batting away her spells with quick movements of his wand. Child's play. Confringo and Incendio were his spell duo of choice, sent wordlessly and accurately as Lucius settled into what he thought would be an easy fight. The time for stunning and capturing Death Eaters had without a doubt passed. Even if they did manage to take one hostage, the enemy was in control of the prison and the Ministry, and Gina felt as though keeping them in the dungeons of Hogwarts would end up much more welcoming to the purist Slytherins club than they deserved. It had taken some time for Gina to get used to a new wand on top of a month and a half at the rehabilitation clinic, but she had spent the majority of her time since then preparing herself for something like this. Spotting the Death Eater (who was actually still wearing a mask; it seemed like months since she last encountered one who bothered with secrecy) near the greenhouse, Gina cast "Deprimo!" followed by a blasting curse, hoping to blast him straight through the glass exterior of the building. Rita could not believe she was actually here. Nothing but the chance to cover an almost uncoverable story, and the promise of a very substantial bonus would have been able to convince her, but the heads of the Wizarding Wireless Network were desperate for coverage, and so here she was. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to die. Spells were flying all around her and she was sure she was going to die any second now, and she would never be able to spend all the glorious gold she had made from the sale of her books. She would not die. She wouldn't let it happen. She had money to spend and purses to buy, and this battle was not going to get in her way. With that boost of confidence, she stepped towards the greenhouses where it looked like a battle was about to begin. After a brief survey of the situation, she began to speak into her wand, "This is Rita Skeeter reporting for the Wizarding Wireless Network live from the Hogwarts Grounds where a battle is in progress. I'm standing by the Hogwarts Greenhouses where it two women, one the notable terrorist Catalina Proudfoot, are fighting a masked man in striking black robes. The masked man batted Miss Proudfoot's stunning and binding spells quite easily, but the second woman has just sent two very heavy blasting curses his way! Will he deflect them? Or was he all too distracted by this woman's mind boggling outfit. What is the Velvet Underground? Who would ever cover the underground in velvet? It would be a poor interior design choice indeed." Kate was startled by the ridiculousness of a woman on the battlefield who was reporting? Well, of course, Rita Skeeter wasn't it? And what in Merlin's name was she wearing? The distraction meant that Lucius' incendio shot past her so close to her arm that she could practically feel the heat of the thing. Shit she needed to pay attention! Forget this foolish reporter and whatever she might be saying. Kate stubbornly turned her attention back to the Death Eater in front of her, snapping off a Reducto, and then, if he wanted to play with fire, she could do that. She had, after all, gotten very good at spells dealing with fire and explosions in the past year. "Incendio!" With the distraction of Rita Skeeter, who Lucius recognised as the woman who always reported on society events, he almost didn't get out of the way of the blasting curses. Forgetting all semblance of dignity and leaping out of the way, the blasts shattered the wall of the greenhouse and threw up clumps of earth from beneath his feet. Fortunately, the leap also helped him miss Kate's first spell, but he was off-balance enough to catch the second in his sleeve, which immediately went up in flames. After a quick muttered "Aguamenti" to douse the flames -- thank Salazar it hadn't been his wand arm -- a quick swish of his wand caused the shards of glass to lift from the ground, while another swish sent them flying towards his opponents. If Skeeter wasn't going to be a direct threat, he would deal with her later. Gina took a moment to shoot a glare in Skeeter's direction -- how dare she speak ill of the Velvet Underground; she didn't know what she was talking about -- before turning her attention back to the death eater. Aside from her irritating commentary, the blonde had been harmless (so far). There was no reason to waste time nor resources on a reporter. A quickly tossed up shield spell took the brunt of Lucius's glass-attack, but a few shards still managed to scrape through, knicking up Gina's arms and catching in the fibers of her jeans. The pain was ignorable enough, though, especially considering there were now quite a few new possible plans of attack presenting themselves inside the blasted frame of the greenhouse. A jab of her wand and an "Oppugno!" sent several of the gardening tools shooting through the smashed-in wall straight toward Lucius. Kate had followed Gina's lead and snapped a shield charm into place keeping most of the shards of glass far away from her. And in the moment that it hit her that the greenhouse wall had exploded she wondered what had happened to the plants that had been kept inside? There were any number of them that might be useful in a fight, but even if they were not automatically - like a Devil's snare - useful, they could still be used. She pointed her wand to the greenery behind Lucius Malfoy and cast a charm that would with any luck at all cause it to snake towards him from behind and to cover her tracks, distract, and force him further back towards the greenhouses, she cast expulso! It was at this point that she noticed there was -- lava? -- moving towards them and her eyes widened slightly, stepping forward towards Gina to hiss "careful of the road." Aha, so that was their game. Thinking quickly, Lucius weaved a simple piece of transfiguration (so McGonagall was good for something after all) so it was not gardening tools he was pelted with, but flowers. Well, mostly. One untransfigured plant pot grazed the side of his face, knocking his mask to the floor, while a trowel hit him a nasty knock in the shin. He could fight without his mask, though, and an ugly snarl appeared on his face as he snapped up a shield charm to deflect Kate's second spell. The lava didn't escape his attention, and as he quickly hissed out "Serpensortia!", Lucius attempted to calculate how exactly he could use the situation to his advantage. A huge black snake exploded from the end of his wand and advanced towards the girls, at the same time as the plant extended its tentacles towards his back. Yelling out loud when it grabbed him, he used a couple of severing charms before conjuring a knife and slashing madly at his leafy bindings, hoping that the snake would buy him enough time to regain his composure. Gina was careful not to let herself forget that there was a river of lava snaking behind her from further up the courtyard, although she found herself momentarily distracted in her amusement at the death eater getting thwapped with a barrage of flowers. The amusement quickly drained from her face when Lucius's mask slipped from his and to the ground. She shouldn't have been surprised, all things considered, but it was the first time she had actually seen her former yearmate fighting as a death eater rather than simply an annoyingly political purist. She slashed her wand through the air, shouting a stinging hex followed by a silent Conjunctivitus Curse. Her drive to see Lucius personally on the receiving end of attacks, however, left Gina distracted from defending herself, and the snake Lucius had transfigured slithered through the grass and sank its fangs into Gina's leg. A quick Oppugno spell sent the snake shooting off her leg through the air and into the lava river, and Gina sat dizzily down in the grass in the middle of the courtyard, hoping that Kate could keep Malfoy distracted while she tended to the poison from the snake's teeth before it spread. "And Miss Proudfoot sends two blasting curses at the man in a mask. Both were artfully dodged, but unfortunately he was caught by her burning curse and now his robe is on fire! Good thing he thinks fast and the fire is out before too much harm could be done! His robes must be incredibly well made as they hardly seem to have burnt a hole through them. I wonder if they have a layer of dragon hide weaved in, perhaps. You know, they say dragon hide layers will quickly become next season's must have given all the house burnings as of late. Oh my! It seems he is sending shards of glass from the greenhouses at his two opponents. Now! Miss Poor Interior Decorator has decided to send gardening tools at the masked man! What an interesting maneuver. But it seems her creativity was lost on the masked man as he quickly transfigured the tools into flowers. How pleasant, but oh my it seems his mask has slipped. I'm trying to get a better look, yes, the masked man is Lu" Rita stopped herself. Lucius Malfoy. Well it wasn't a surprise by any means but it posed the question: should she really announce this man's name over the WWN? If the Death Eaters won, she could be in serious trouble for that one. "Look there as he conjures a snake to attack the girls! Ouch! It has bitten the interior decorator in the leg, and she is down. Perhaps you should go back to school and learn to correctly decorate instead of battle, dear." Smirking over at the girl on the ground, Rita did not manage to notice the lava flowing to the floor. A bit grazed her leg and without thinking, she cursed. "Fucking fuck!" It was only a moment later once she had jumped on a large rock that she realised that the high pitched curse was into the microphone. "That horrible language came from one terrorist, Catalina Proudfoot. You can see what sort of things she has learned in the wilderness." Kate slashed finite incantatem at the snake, hoping that it would do it end. She could not turn around to bother with Rita Skeeter, but if she wanted language Kate could certainly give her language and from the sound of things it wouldn't actually surprise the woman. She should have always known that Rita Skeeter would have a mouth like a sailor - somehow it just seemed likely. "Go ahead and say it," she yelled at Rita, although it was not in the direction of the woman as Kate's attention was on Lucius. "It's Lucius Malfoy on the other side of that mask." And with that Kate moved forward towards Lucius, her wand just barely visible it was flying so quickly across the grounds - "Furnunculus! Confundo!" And she really hoped that last one hit Lucius Malfoy's smug face - because seeing him confused would just be fun. She glanced over at Gina then - hoping that she'd be all right and decided to add a blasting curse at Malfoy in the meantime. Managing to escape from the feelers of the plant just in time to snap up a shield charm to fend off Gina's spells and the majority of Kate's, Lucius was under the impression that the barrage of spells being thrown his way had subsided. Yet the blasting curse threw him backwards, once again into the plant which again happily wrapped itself around him. The damage he caused to it earlier meant that it was not terribly difficult to escape, but valuable seconds were lost while he struggled, muttering some choice words of his own under his breath. Having had quite enough of Skeeter, and unwilling to have his identity broadcast to the nation, Lucius now pointed his wand at the reporter. Avis. A flock of birds streamed from it, and hoping that it would be enough to send her packing, Lucius turned his attention back to Kate Proudfoot. A silent finger-removing jinx was sent her way, but he was bored of these standard duelling jinxes. It was time to bring in the big guns. "Saevio Verbera!" -- Antonin's speciality, and verbal this time, caused bright purple flames to snake towards Kate. Lucius had been practising this spell after seeing his elder use it so successfully, but noticed that it didn't look nearly as strong as it should do. Hopefully it would still hurt. Gina had also had her fill with Rita Skeeter and her obnoxious, out-of-place commentary, although she clearly was feeling slightly less violent towards the reporter than Malfoy. There was a difference between wanting to cause the (probably bottled blonde) bodily harm and just wanting her to shut up, and Gina fell into the second catagory. She paused for a moment in attempting to tend to her leg and shot a "Silencio" at Skeeter before turning her attention back to her fight. Pain was seering up her leg, and Gina's jeans were making it difficult to do much in the way of healing without being able to see what she was doing. She shot a desperate, frustrated look in Kate's direction, hating that she had to abandon her fellow Auror and the fight, but she had no way of know what sort of poison had seeped out of the snake's fangs when it had been conjured out of thin air. She shot one last Incarcarous at Malfoy before shoving herself up to her feet, and after one last shield charm in Kate's direction began attempting to hobble off toward triage. Kate was not pleased by the purple flames that suddenly were flying towards her. Lucius' birds had distracted her and now she was pushed backwards by a spell that absolutely bloody hurt. "Protego Horribilis," she snapped, but it was one moment too late, it seemed, to do any good. Her entire body ached and although it hadn't pushed her backwards or knocked her off of her feet, it certainly had felt like someone had slammed her against something hard. It looked as if Gina wasn't doing well either, Kate thought to herself, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. Perhaps if she could distract Lucius long enough, she could help get Gina back to the castle and heal her up. They had too few people to lose anyone this early on. "Confringo!" Kate shot a different blasting curse at Lucius, following it with a simple Confundus and a silent Expelliarmus and tried to make her way over to Gina, so that she could offer assistance - or at least to cover her friend's back as she moved back towards Hogwarts. At this very moment, even Rita hated the sound of her own voice. She could not believe she was actually here on the battlefield reporting. People were throwing around spells that could harm her and she was just jabbering into a microphone. But Smith was here. She'd seen him as well, and if that shite was going to be on the battlefield and get this story, then damnnit so was she. "That person you heard identifying a masked man was again, terrorist Catalina Proudfoot" She was about to continue her running commentary and mention something about Kate's hair, because really, someone needed to tell her the colouring was a mess, when a flock of birds were sent her way "Holy sh--" quickly followed by the silencio, forcing her to mouth the rest of her stream of curses. Birds. She hated birds. And she hated not being able to scream about it, whether or not it would be broadcasted over the WWN. What could she do now but dodge spells? And then she felt a warm liquid seep through her hair: bird shite. That was it. She was so done. With a huff, Rita jumped off her rock, stumbling a bit as she landed, catching some lava on her ankle, but she didn't even care. Her hair needed to be cleaned this instant. There was shite in it. She'd go and wash it in the lake until the silencio wore off. At this moment, she really hated her life. Lucius was tiring of this fight. There was two of them and one of him, and they knew who he was. At least Skeeter wouldn't be annoying him any more. Snapping up another shield charm, he watched as Gina hobbled away. He could have hit her in the back, but he wanted to regroup with his colleagues; make a plan. The shield charm held, but he let it down for a counterattack before the disarming spell hit, sending his wand flying out of his hand. Immediately he leapt for it, again cursing the fact that he had been made a fool of. Clambering to his feet, Lucius decided it was definitely time to get out of there. Perhaps he could at least get rid of Proudfoot before he left. Wouldn't want to lose face, after all. With a cry of "AVADA KEDAVRA!", he slipped around the back of the greenhouses without waiting to see if the beam of light hit its target. He didn't seem too badly injured -- a few bumps and bruises, some cuts and scrapes, nothing serious. Hopefully the next person he came across would come off much worse. Merlin dammit, Kate thought as she attempted to run - but whatever spell Lucius had hit her with had done a number on her chest and abdomen and it was sore and making it difficult for her to breathe in despite the training she'd done in the morning. But Gina was making her way back to the castle and Kate thought perhaps she'd best as well - she could always come back out and fight when she felt a bit better - and it was with that thought that she turned around, almost instantaneously falling to the ground at Lucius shot the killing curse at her. She turned around to see him disappearing behind the greenhouses and she pulled her aching body to her feet and clamoured after Gina. The battle was hardly won. There was nothing reassuring about watching the grounds of Hogwarts be transformed into a battlefield once again. This is where she'd grown up, where she'd first learned about magic, where she'd met most of her friends... Watching it turn into the setting for so much pain and death was heart-wrenching. But if there was anything that was a relief for Lily about this fight on the school grounds, it was that she wasn't attempting to fight off Death Eaters while seven months pregnant. Not that Lily had much time to think about it. She barely heard the footsteps running up behind her before she was shoved to the ground, smacking hard into the grass. Lily kicked against the body on top of her, attempting to twist around so that she would be caught on her back rather than on her belly. It was impossible to fight back at all like this. She could tell, at least, that it was a woman on top of her rather than a man, and attempted to reach up behind her, winding her fingers into Tabitha's hair and pulling as hard as she could to the side, doubting that would be enough to pull her off, but perhaps it would be enough to make her release her hold. Tabitha's claws found flesh before the pair of them hit the ground, drawing red lines along Lily's arms as her teeth sought out the back of her neck. The sharp tug on her hair jerked her head back away from her with a snarl, but instead of releasing Lily she only held on tighter, trying to pin down the squirming body beneath her. "Bitch." She tried to pull her hair out of Lily's grip, moving one of her hands to the back of Lily's head and shoving down as hard as she could, pushing her face to the ground. Lily's face smashed hard into the ground, her nose cracking as Tabitha thumped her head downwards, although she momentarily froze in her struggles when she realised that she couldn't breathe. She could taste dirt and blood, but instead was choking on her fear in her inability to push herself up out of the ground. Lily knew she was neither strong enough nor skilled enough in physical duelling to be able to properly protect herself against a werewolf with only one hand, and that knowledge terrified her. After casting a silent and poorly aimed jelly-fingers jinx at her, Tabitha's hair was released in exchange for a free arm to help Lily push herself off the ground, shoving herself upwards with all her might in an attempt to flip Tabby onto her back. The sudden shove upwards caught Tabitha off guard, her chin cracking against the top of Lily's head and sending her toppling over -- but she grabbed at Lily, pulling her with her as they rolled over in the grass, and once Tabitha was on her back she latched onto Lily's shoulder with her teeth and bit down to keep her in place. Her claws raked across Lily's front, over her chest and abdomen and stomach -- and then she dug her claws in as hard as she could, tearing at her belly as she released Lily's shoulder. "-- I'll show you what it's like not being able to have kids," came the breathless snarl, lips curled to bare her bloody teeth. Turning over had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Lily could breathe again, but it came at the cost of hardly having any control or hold within the fight. Struggling and screaming beneath Tabitha's grasp, Lily tried to force herself away from the werewolf's teeth and claws, only finding herself unable to do so without causing herself even an greater amount of pain. When her claws moved towards Lily's stomach, though, stabbing into the skin of her belly, Lily began to flail as wildly as possible in attempts to escape, shoving and beating at Tabitha's hands with her own, and finally abandoning protecting her stomach to claw her fingers upwards and behind her own head, trying to stab her fingers towards Tabitha's nose and eyes. At the sharp jab to her eye (thankfully, the already blind one), Tabitha shrieked, and she immediately shoved Lily off of her as she rolled away, ripping the flimsy eye patch away from her face to rub at the injured eye (which only seemed to make the pain worse). Vision blurred from her watery eyes, she was up on her feet again in an instant, lunging toward Lily again. Anastasia was running along towards the school, more interested in the building itself than in the duelling going on around her. She had never seen Hogwarts up this close before, and as it was the place that her husband and son had both spent so much of their lives. When Demetrius had been in school, she would have given her left hand (not her right -- she needed it too much) to see the place where he lived, studied, and made friends. She was innocently looking at the castle when suddenly, she felt something tugging at her shoulders. What was -- she looked up and screamed in terror. A great, ugly stone thing was lifting her up off of the ground, flying of its own accord. She screamed louder and flailed her legs, which were hovering far off the ground, but with no broom to support her. She clawed at the gargoyle's stone hands, but found only stone, and it gripped at her tighter, until its hold was painfully tight. Then, as soon as it had picked her up, it dropped her, and with a shriek of fear, she plummeted to the ground, hands shot out to try and break her fall, but all that resulted from this was a resounding crack as she landed half on the grass, half literally on top of Lily Potter. Just a moment of distraction on Tabitha's part was all that Lily needed, rolling in the opposite direction to get away and attempt to gain the upper hand. She fired a blasting curse at the werewolf as soon as she was far away to manage the wand-work, desperately needing to put some space between the woman and herself so that she'd have a chance to think. As long as Tabby couldn't get her claws into her again, she'd be fine; Lily had a wand and Pryce didn't. Almost as soon as she'd gotten to her feet, though, Lily was pummelled to the ground again as a body crashed down on top of her, and she felt one of the bones in her arm break with a disgusting sounding snap. Apparently the death eaters had moved beyond owling newborns; now their mothers were falling out of the sky. Anastasia rolled off of Lily, winded, one of her arms broken, too. She'd taken the fall a lot harder than she would've liked, and tears of pain were prickling at the corners of her eyes. She wasn't used to experiencing pain -- her entire life she had been sheltered from it as much as possible. She'd never broken a bone before. She'd never been in the midst of a duel before. What's more, she didn't recognise either of these ginger women, so she didn't know which was on her side. Not able to do of anything of appreciable usefulness, she clutched her wrist, panting heavily. Tabitha stumbled backwards, the blasting curse striking the ground right in front of her as Lily attempted to put distance between the two of them -- and before the werewolf could try to run after her again, a large shadow passed over her, and she squinted up into the sky to see the gargoyle flying overhead. She wasn't entirely certain whether the new arrival was on her side or not, but if she were to judge the way the other woman dressed compared to Lily Potter... as soon as Anastasia rolled away from Lily, Tabitha was lunging for her again, grabbing at her legs to sink claws and teeth into her ankles. Lily frantically peddled herself backwards on the ground, kicking with her free foot at Tabitha's hands as one of them wrapped around her ankle, pulling herself along with her uninjured arm. She needed to get out of there and to one of the Healers. There were so many spells that she couldn't attempt without also potentially hurting herself worse in the process if Tabitha dragged her into the spell's path. And then Lily remembered who she was married to, and all the ridiculous spells she'd learned from James (and Sirius, by proxy), and shot the most powerful itching spell she could think of at the werewolf (it was like she had fleas!) before crawling up to her feet and dashing to take cover behind Anastasia. Anastasia very much did not want to be used as a human shield. Especially because the dirtier-looking ginger woman did not smell very good. She was lucky enough not to be hit by Lily's itching spell, but nevertheless, she was quite terrified. She didn't know any defencive spells, but she held out her wand anyway, not sure of where to point it at. "Don't hurt me!" she shouted at Tabitha. "I'm not here to fight with anyone, just heal!" Unfortunately, she couldn't even heal her own arm. She couldn't help but wonder why she was even here. The werewolf stood up as Lily scrambled away from her, flinching back as the spell hit her, only to feel... nothing? She had expected to get cut or blasted off her feet, and so at first, she did not feel the spell's effects on her; and then it began along her arms and legs, that itching feeling that felt not unlike the moment during the full moon nights before fur began to spread over her body, and Tabitha scratched at her arms in frustration. Anastasia's actions did nothing to convince Tabitha which side she was on, especially as she was now holding her wand out toward her and remaining in front of Lily as if to protect her. With one last drag of her claws over her arm, she went after Anastasia this time, swiping her claws out for any flesh she could sink them into. Anastasia yelped and tried to shove Tabitha off of her. She did not want to be attacked by this woman... woman? thing. "Don't hurt me!" she shrieked. "I'm on your side!" She didn't really know this, and she was very well risking the woman behind her hexing her in the back, but right now, having her skin torn at by Tabitha's nails (which she was very certain had lots of dirt under them) seemed like the worse alternative. "I'm just a faithful wife. My husband and son have served the Dark Lord for years. I'm sure he would be very displeased if you hurt me!" While this was not strictly true (in fact, she didn't even know that the Dark Lord knew who she was), perhaps it would make one of the two protect her. Just because Lily was fighting for the other side didn't mean that she wanted to be attacked by Tabitha any more than Anastasia did. She felt somewhat guilty for hiding behind this woman when she clearly didn't know what she was doing there, but if her purpose at the battle was to heal up those who the Order were attempting to defeat, then she was against them too. Taking one step... two steps back away from the dark haired woman and the werewolf, Lily pointed her wand at Anastasia's back and cast a blasting curse to shove her in Tabby's direction before spinning on her heals and high-tailing it the opposite way. Whatever misgivings Anastasia had had about Lily hexing her in the back turned out to be true. Sudden pain seared through her back and she crashed back onto the ground again, this time knowing better than to throw out her arm to break her fall. Bleeding from the back, winded, and feeling increasingly useless, she just lay there, hoping to Merlin that the gingers hadn't been having an in-fight and that Tabitha was on her side. This was not going as planned. Lily booked it toward the school, running in the direction of the front steps when she was tackled from behind for the second time, her legs yanked out from underneath her by the whole of Tabitha's weight. Her chin scraped on the ground and her head bounced backwards, the wind knocked out of her. "Incarcerous! Levicorpus!" Lily twisted onto her side and to aim in the werewolf's direction as she continued struggling to get away. Anastasia raised her head to watch Tabitha run away, and rather than being particularly interested in what was going on in the fight, she flopped back down, ungracefully, into the grass, listening to the incantations she didn't know and the scuffling. After several long moments, she managed to get up and, with Lily and Tabitha otherwise preoccupied, run off towards the healing tents. Sharp teeth tore at Lily's leg, blood and flesh filling Tabitha's mouth and wishing for nothing more than to eat the woman while she was still alive. The struggling only made it that much more fun. Something wrapped around her head, obscuring her vision, and she released Lily with a snarl of frustration as she grabbed at the ropes wrapping around her. There was a tug on her ankle and she was hoisted up into the air, hanging helplessly upside down as ropes continued to bind around her. She couldn't concentrate on trying to get down, fighting with the ropes instead, coiling around her face and arms until one snaked around her throat, constricting until she was gasping for breath, clawing at the ropes strangling her. Blood was pooling around Lily's feet and legs as Tabitha was yanked up into the air, taking some of her skin along for the ride. She breathed a short (although still pain-filled) sigh of relief that Tabitha was finally out of the way and away from her, and for all Lily cared, the werewolf could stay up there where she wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else. Finally after limping up the front steps of the castle and practically crawling into the safety of the school, Lily turned back to the hovering werewolf, casting "liberacorpus" to send Tabitha dropping unceremoniously to the ground to continue fighting with the ropes. Tabby wouldn't be able to get back into the school to finish her off. Tabitha's claws were leaving behind dark red welts as she continued to pull at the ropes in her desperation for air, unable to help but whimper pathetically in her fear that this would be how she died -- and then she was falling, hitting the ground hard on her shoulder and feeling the bone dislocate with a painful wince. It was then that, finally, her claws tore through the rope and she gasped in desperate gulps of air. She struggled back up to her feet and, as disoriented as she was, spotted Lily vanish into the castle. Tabitha stumbled to give chase, but she was unable to come close to Hogwarts before a familiar shadow passed over her again -- the stone gargoyle descended upon her and grabbed her shoulders before slamming her down into the ground, weight crushing against her before it took flight again. There was a small moan of pain before Tabitha slipped in and out of darkness for several seconds, somewhere in the back of her mind registering that the Death Eaters were calling for a retreat. It was only a few minutes that passed until Tabitha found the strength to move again, back up to her feet once more as she made to find the Death Eaters and, hopefully, someone to heal her.
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