Reconstruction of a Death Eater

Warnings: Character death, blood and gore.

With werewolves on both sides patrolling the grounds, the hours of darkness had been noisy and bloody. Individual skirmishes between werewolf factions or trolls and werewolves had been short and messy resulting in some horrendous wounds. Teams of Order Members and some students had crept out under the cover of darkness to retrieve their wounded, the phosphorescent stripes on their werewolves making them easy to recognise. Casualties were not heavy but the death toll was rising as the savage encounters rarely left wounded behind. The wounded were ferried into the infirmary for Madam Pomfrey to treat as best she could, the werewolf metabolism coming to their aid in the rapid healing of even the most horrendous wounds. The dead of both sides were decapitated and left where they lay as there was no time to treat them with anything approaching dignity as the skirmishes continued all around them.

As moonset came closer the Dark wolves began to withdraw, the Light wolves also drawing closer to the castle wall. In the antediluvian darkness a few cries of pain came from the Forbidden Forest's margins heralding the transformation from wild killing machines to human once again, the watchers shivering on the wall. Below, the Light werewolves glanced at each other, one or two twitching as ghost pain tugged their nerves and sinews but the change did not arrive, the wolves retaining their shape and deadliness. Moony raised his head and chuffed enquiringly, the old grey Alpha yipping agreement and the first contingent of the werewolves streaked off, back into the forest with deadly intent just as the first fingers of dawn lightened the skies. While they could not turn werewolves, they could certainly injure or kill them while they were still exhausted and vulnerable after their transformation. It was not fair but it was expedient, and in this very real battle for survival, fair was a very early casualty.

"Well, that worked," Snape remarked quietly as he watched the wolves disappear, then stiffened and pointed as the first of the mixed trolls and giants began the assault. The battle was on!

~~*~~

Terry Boot knew he was a dead man. He had come out as part of a patrol to collect two injured werewolves, but a party of Death Eaters had ambushed them. The others had got away when Terry set up a withering wall of hexes and jinxes to cover their retreat, but that left him out in the open with nowhere else to go. The hedge he had slid behind was no real barrier to the ugly curses the remaining three Death Eaters were firing at him, more a sop to his intellect which was screaming at him to get the hell out of there immediately! He was a Ravenclaw not a bloody Gryffindor, and what the hell did he think he was doing?

He spotted some cover over by a large rock formation partially disguised by the bindweed growing over it and made a run for the new cover. The jeers and taunts of the Death Eaters were getting closer, and the hexes were more playful as he ran like the proverbial rabbit. As he almost made the cover a tangling hex caught his ankles and he measured his length on the short springy grass, banging his chin on a chunk of granite. He was dead; he knew he was dead, or worse, caught! Feet pounded up and the three Death Eaters panted as they laughed, one kicking him over onto his back.

"Caught you now, little boy," a female voice said with manic cheerfulness as the three wands pointed at his prone and winded body. A curse hit him and he screamed, arching high as his bones seemed to try to escape from his skin. He wasn't sure how long the curse lasted, but it seemed like hours before he was allowed to slump, panting and whimpering, back onto the grass. Terry kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see the gloating faces of his captors, then snapped them open as screams rang out; not his this time, he noted almost clinically. Lean grey and sandy coloured bodies were arching over his, werewolves coming from nowhere to tear out throats and snap off hands before hexes could do him further harm.

He struggled up into a sitting position and shook his head to clear the stars, the large black leader of the pack sitting in front of him and licking the blood off her muzzle before her tail slapped once. "Thanks," Terry muttered, tentatively reaching out a shaking hand to brush his knuckles over her shoulder. She leaned into the touch and wagged her tail harder before nosing him solidly until he used her shoulder to lever his protesting carcass up. "What now? Back to the castle?" he asked, but the wolf didn't seem too keen on that idea. "Or do you fancy some more Death Eater baiting?" he asked, something wild and exhilarated welling through his usually sedate and well controlled soul.

The wolf chuffed and wagged her tail madly, the rest of her group jumping to their feet and almost dancing on the spot in eager assent. Terry giggled, rubbing the blood off his chin and taking a firmer grip of his wand as the circulation returned to his extremities. "Let's do it," he agreed recklessly, and they were off again.

~~*~~

Neville and Luna shared a bowl of muesli for breakfast, adding fresh strawberries straight off the runner as they sat behind the palisade of potting benches. Professor Sprout passed a couple of mugs of tea over with a grin, and they continued to share their breakfast as they waited to see if anyone was going to try and take the greenhouses. The waiting was the worst part of any engagement, the troops were finding. Waiting behind their bulwarks and listening to the screams and cries that punctured the silence of the grounds at odd intervals. Once they all became hyper alert as a party of Death Eaters and a Giant lumbered past their hiding places, a fast moving pack of wolves hard on their trail. None of that mobile combat engagement even looked toward the tense row of heads on the barriers defending the greenhouses as they concentrated on their own battle.

Over on the left hand side of the barrier, nearest the school walls, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were playing the 'I Spy' game to pass the time. Lavender was stuck on something beginning with 'F' when the first curse slammed into the bench peppering the defenders with stone chips. A second curse burned a blackened swatch over the grey stone but caused little damage except to leave a fine grey fog over the area.

Luna screamed and jumped, the muesli bowl going straight up, to be shattered by a lurid red hex that flew overhead. She and Neville giggled reflexively as they were showered with cereal and milk, but both turned immediately to survey the oncoming attack force from their hidden peepholes. At least twenty Death Eaters, if not more - some well dressed, some wearing the ragged remains of Azkaban uniforms - were advancing on their position from the left, using the remains of the vegetation as scant cover. A second party was zigzagging their way from the Forbidden Forest, herding two trolls in their direction. As soon as the trolls met the outlying glasshouses their clubs began to mow a swathe of destruction through the fragile structures.

Neville sent a simple growing spell out towards the Venomous Tentacula and smiled in satisfaction as the plant attacked the nearest enemy with mindless ferocity. Who said Herbology was a useless sport? The Death Eaters were definitely slowed down but only the Devil's Snare seemed to be any use against the trolls and that was not much at all. The sunlight was causing it to wither and withdraw into the shade of the walls. Bubotubers had been used to mine the paths and beds, anyone standing on them was instantly covered in a thick layer of the sap. The unrefined sap raised some nasty, painful boils which of course made concentrating on spells and hexes very difficult, as more than one Death Eater found out to their shock. Fanged geraniums were more of a nuisance than a deterrent, but each diversion did its part, allowing the defenders to ready their spells and prepare for real war.

There had been quite some argument about allowing children to defend one of the most vulnerable places in the castle, but the trainee Aurors proved to be better trained than quite a number of the Order members so that spurious argument was shot down successfully. Besides, if they were in any way honest with themselves, there weren't enough adults to defend the castle anyway and the use of the younger members was vital, not a luxury. On the outer palisades, the older members of the Order were being mowed down like wheat as the trolls used their clubs to comprehensively smash anything in their path without fear or favour.

Luna saw a black-clad Death Eater smashed in two as easily as an Order member before she had to duck back behind her protective bench. That momentary lapse of concentration caused by surprise proved to be her undoing, an un-noticed hex slamming against the far wall and ricocheting into their foxhole. It caved in the protego shields they had raised to protect their rear and slammed into Luna. The hex wrapped around her, crumbling and crushing, then a secondary function began to dissolve the flesh from her bones. She did not even have a chance to shriek before the pain was gone, her lower spine and pelvis crushed and destroyed, leaving her stunned and disbelieving. Neville stared at her, his fear and love in his eyes, but there was nothing to be done, they both knew. Luna was mortally wounded, a slow mortality, obviously, but still fatal in the long run. Neville bent forward and kissed her passionately before turning away to concentrate on the loophole, firing with a renewed determination and hate.

Spells and hexes were slashing overhead, the light turning murky and making concentration difficult as it changed from vomit yellow to passion purple in an instant. Screams and cries of pain rang out from both sides of the conflict as spells or hexes, exploded, cut or simply dissolved flesh from bones or bones from the living. No one was safe, vapours and splinters adding their own measures of confusion to the mixed and fog shrouded melee. The cacophony of noise was as much a weapon as the light and the smells and the bone freezing terror.

Neville blinked hard when a particularly virulent flash left afterimages in his eyeballs. He was half blinded and did not see the slashing curse that lifted his scalp, making him fly sideways and slam into the crushed gravel path. A Death Eater took advantage of his uncovered state and sent a curse arrowing into his back. Luna snagged a handful of robes and dragged her prone fiancé aside as the follow-up curse hit, totally caving in his chest and spine. Neville screamed as the bones splintered, this injury painful and probably fatal. Fortunately, he seemed to lose consciousness in an instant.

Luna stared down dispassionately then cast a blood clotting charm and a pain relieving charm over the mess. She knew he was finished unless the attackers fell back immediately; his wounds were too grave to allow him to be moved. Making sure he was well covered by the stone palisade she sent her own particularly off-beat form of hexes out toward the Death Eaters. Her extensive injuries didn't hurt in the slightest, her back broken, her spine severed and her legs now totally vaporised by the acid etching spell that had continued to dissolve the stones below her. Still, there were worse ways to go, and she still had enough magic left to make a fair fight of it, although she knew her strength was waning rapidly.

Pomona Sprout squeaked in anguish as her favourite student was mortally wounded; her determination to defend the greenhouses was beginning to look like a very bad decision on her part. Was the contribution of the area worth all the lives it had cost so far? Despite the cost, its safety was still not assured. All around them, the defenders were taking heavy casualties while more and more Death Eaters seemed to pop up out of the wood work to replace the injured on their side. A group of fourth-years crawled out and began dragging the wounded defenders back toward the castle but too many of them were taking fire and becoming casualties themselves. They were losing this encounter, and it was time for hard decisions. Professor Sprout looked around at the injured and dying and made the call she hated to have to make.

"Fall back, people, fall back and...." A slashing curse cut her head from her body mid-sentence, the defenders wailing as she slumped down.

"If you can fall back, do it," Luna yelled, sending a slashing curse to remove a Death Eater's leg when it was not pulled in far enough. "Lavender, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not badly hurt, but Parvati has ... gone," came the tear-laden reply.

"So has Neville. Get back inside and bring down the wall, that's an order, you understand?"

There was a gasp and a few stealthy scrambling noises as Luna continued to blast away at the attackers.

"What about you, Luna?" Lavender's small whisper sounded too loud despite the scream of hexes and jinxes overhead.

There was a distinct pause then a choked giggle. "I'm only half the girl I used to be, Lav, the rest of me has gone to vapour. Just get inside and bring down the wall, you hear?"

"I hear and understand. Good luck."

Luna looked down to where her legs had been for the last seventeen years then shrugged. It had been fun but nothing was forever, was it? She gathered the last of her strength and set a timed detonation spell. When the Death Eaters came to check on her and Neville, there would still be a few surprises to be had.

~~*~~

"We have to strike now. You can hear the sounds of battle out there, if we strike now we can turn the tide into our favour," Jud Longleat muttered grimly as he surveyed the rest of the Junior Death Eaters as they met once again in an abandoned classroom.

"We have to make our strike count," Pansy snapped back furiously. "Look, break up into pairs and threes, each of you take on the target of choice. If we wait for Draco's word, the war will be over before we even get to lift a finger."

"Do you think Draco's, well, changed his mind?" someone asked from the back of the room.

Pansy turned on the speaker with a hissed curse that made the girl's hair fall out. "Draco would never betray us, never!" she snapped angrily, gathering Goyle up with a glance. "We are going to open the small personnel door near the Quidditch pitch and let as many people in as we can. The rest of you spread out and cause havoc where you can. Come on, Greg, let's go!" The pair slipped out leaving the rest milling uncertainly in their wake.

"I think she's right, we had better see what we can do to help the cause," Romeo Zabini murmured to his brother Blaise, reaching for the door latch. It bit him. "Ouch! What the hell?"

"Sorry, children, we can't allow random acts of terrorism in the castle, so you lot just stay there and twiddle your thumbs, we'll let you out when the Aurors have time to deal with you," a muffled voice snapped gleefully through the keyhole before a silencing spell was erected from the outside. No matter how hard they pounded, what spell they used, the door remained solid and immovable for the rest of the engagement.

~~*~~

The thunderous crashing and crunching of stone made the whole castle shudder and jump. On the battlements Professor Dumbledore closed his eyes, McGonagall gripping his elbow as he swiftly wove wards over the solid stone wall where a few moments ago there were corridors and people and access.

"The greenhouses have fallen, but the inner walls have been put into place," he told them when concerned queries finally penetrated his concentration. "We have taken heavy casualties and lost a number of invaluable people during the defence. Someone will have to go collect a report soon, I assume, we will have to send a runner as I doubt they will have any joy to generate a Patronus or anyone physically to spare. Do we have a runner?"

"Yes, Sir, Michael Bones, Sir, Hufflepuff fourth-year," a small voice said fearfully and a hand waved uncertainly.

"Very good, Michael, run down to the greenhouse and see what you can see then cut along to Madam Pomfrey and give her a report on the casualties before coming back here to report. Can you do that?"

"Of course, Sir," he said clearly and ran.

Harry punched the wall, skinning his knuckles and little else. "Why doesn't the Dark Monster get here? Why are we just standing around waiting while our friends are being killed all around us? What can we do?" he demanded of no one in particular.

Hermione shook her head slowly and cast a healing charm over his skinned knuckles almost absentmindedly. "We are waiting because you need to be ready and able to kill the bastard when he arrives, not injured and diminished in some small, insignificant skirmish," she said harshly. "Sometimes the waiting is the hardest thing to do, but it has to be endured or we all fail and die."

"Been taking lessons from Malfoy?" Ron jibed almost by rote and nearly had his head removed for his cheek.

"And if I have? About time someone sensible was included in this idiotic mess. When it comes time to fight, will you be ready?"

Ron glared at his long time friend then nodded tightly. "Oh yes, to the death if necessary," he promised solemnly, all three of them nodding sharp agreement.