White Heather for Protection

The Fall

Watching Severus walk away was painful. Yet she could not look away, not until the door clicked shut behind him, taking away all the warmth in the room. Who knew if she would ever see him again? As much as she knew that he was a formidable wizard, anything could happen in the heat of battle.

It hit her then, that once she stepped out of the room, they would be enemies.

Heather shook her head roughly. No, they each had their own roles to play, and it was time she got back to hers. She whipped out her copy of the Marauder's Map, something they had finally been able to replicate with some subtle inquiries to Sirius. One difference they had made was that students were coloured red on the map and everyone else was black. It was easy to pick out the black dots running around the place. At the current count, there were about sixteen intruders, though she would not discount the idea of more arriving.

Her observation of the map showed that the black dots seemed to be appearing on the seventh floor, near the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, to be exact. Of course, she should have figured that Draco would use the ROR for the invasion. The wards around Hogwarts were much too powerful for him to overcome on his own. Although she wasn't sure how the room was helping to smuggle intruders in, that wasn't the main issue at the moment.

She quickly sent off patronus messages to the teachers letting them know where the concentration of Deatheaters was the highest, as well as where they were coming from. That way they wouldn't be running around blind trying to fend off the attackers.

With that done, she called for Dobby.

"Mistress Heather!" the elf exclaimed, his ears flopping in excitement.

"Dobby," she spared a smile for him before getting straight to business, "are all the students accounted for?"

Dobby nodded eagerly. "Oh yes, Mistress! All the students be safe in house rooms! None of them been hurt by the bad wizards!"

She breathed a sigh of relief at the news. "That's great, thank you Dobby. You and all the other elves have done a great job." She was quick to continued speaking when she noticed Dobby's eyes start to water. "How- how about Draco Malfoy?"

Eyes narrowing at the mention of one of his former masters, Dobby said, "Dobby has been following Little Malfoy, like Mistress says! Little Malfoy is with bad wizards!"

She ignored the clear disdain in Dobby's tone. That was the house elf's prerogative. For now, however, she asked Dobby to teleport her to the corridor left of the Charms classroom. There was a trio of Deatheaters there which she should be able to handle, even on her own.

With a snap of his fingers, the room around her disappeared.

~~~

Heather didn't know how long she had been fighting. It all mixed into a blur of duck, shield, disarm, stun, rinse and repeat. Most of the Deatheaters she had encountered were little more than cannon fodder, easy enough to defeat on their own, but overwhelming in numbers.

At some point, Fred and George had joined her. They had been able to alert the Aurors once they received the signal.

She panted heavily as she watched the twins tag team the last Deatheater in the area. Even with her large magical core, she was tiring. She had been right when she assumed more Deatheaters would be arriving. She couldn't even keep count of how many she had faced in the past hour.

When Fred finally knocked out the stubborn Deatheater, she sighed, preparing to ask a house elf to pop them to the next group. Just then, the locator charm she had on her brother pinged.