Finn Lynch lives a quiet, tranquil life in a rural village in the mountains. Her life may lack spontaneity and excitement, but at least it's peaceful. And if it's a little lonely too, then she can't complain too much - she's still happy, after all.
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Though Finn has fled into the darkness of the night, it doesn't stay dark for long.
No sooner has she begun to sprint out into the garden than there's a harsh shout behind her, and the night flares bright with violent orange light. Finn staggers, startled, her socked feet slipping in the wet grass as she struggles to keep her balance.
A panicked glance over her shoulder reveals that it's fire that has set the night alight. Scorching orange flames lick at the beautiful bright flowers of her garden, devouring the flowers that Regulus had preserved so painstakingly for her. She heaves a horrified, devastated sob as she pushes herself to run — away from her burning garden, from Evan's screams inside her invaded home.
"Come here, you little Muggle bitch!" The man, Rodolphus, roars behind her. Even over the rain, she can hear his pounding footsteps coming after her.
Finn flinches from the heat of the fire as she runs. The flames are almost alive, writhing and rising up as she ducks her way through the garden. She only just barely manages to escape without getting walled in by flames, though her hair is singed and her skin is reddened and tender.
She manages to dive out of the garden without falling flat on her face, though the sounds of her pursuer don't falter for even a moment. His footsteps are heavy and thudding, and Finn's imagination runs away from her — she doesn't look behind her but her mind conjures images of him gaining on her, reaching out to snatch her.
Light flashes past her shoulder, a spell just barely missing her. She takes a ragged breath, and promptly changes directions — she had been running towards the bottom of the hill, where her car is sitting, but her keys are sitting back on the the kitchen counter in the house. Abandoning the idea of reaching her car, she veers sharply left. Behind her, Rodolphus curses as he tries to adjust his own speed to keep up with her.
It's dark and the rain is blinding, and Rodolphus is bigger and stronger and undoubtedly faster than her. But Finn has one undeniable advantage over him — she knows the land around her house better than she knows the back of her hand. She'd be able to traverse it blind.
She reaches the familiar gate in the hedgerow and hurdles it without pausing, sprinting hard and fast as she leaps over the tree roots that erupt out of the mud. Behind her, she can hear Rodolphus let out a sharp shout of frustration as he blasts the gate clean out of the way. There's another flash of light as a spell flies overhead, but it goes beyond wide. His frustration has made his aim shoddy — the spells aren't coming close to her anymore.
Finn doesn't pause for even a second, unwilling to become complacent with her head start. A good thing too, because only a moment later the ground beside her explodes with a flash of light. Letting out a little cry, Finn stumbles to her knees as mud and tree branches nearly blind her. She feels a cut open up on her cheek from a piece of shrapnel, but her adrenaline is so high that she hardly feels it at all. Her fingers are still clenched tight around her stuffed rabbit, her fingers turned bloodless as she clutches desperately at the soft fur turned slick with mud.
