Reconstruction of a Death Eater

Warnings: Character death, blood and gore.

The Inner Circle arrived well spread-out and ready to fight for their lives and their Lord. Each had their wand out and a curse on their lips as they spun on the spot, doing a quick reconnoitre of the area they had landed in, shooting off curses if any of the enemy troops were too close. They all noticed that their Lord's Throne had not arrived as yet, but their attention was quickly engaged by the arrival of the Order of the Phoenix and their mixed allies -- both Aurors and ordinary wizards. One of the most prominent by his omission was Harry Potter who was nowhere to be seen, much to everyone's disappointment.

Bellatrix Lestrange turned around again, casting random hexes at anyone in her vicinity, searching for an opponent worthy of her talents and her notice. A head of bright pink hair caught her eye, and she giggled wildly as she loped across the field, ignoring the fighting around her as she zeroed in on her chosen target.

Tonks cast an overhand whipping spell and neatly removed the Death Eater from the argument, removing his eyes at the same time. He shrieked in horror as his eyeballs exploded, groping blindly, horror written on his face. Tonks shook her head and moved away, wincing as her victim fell afoul of a stray hex. Being blinded on the battlefield was not a good fate. She managed to take a sip of the fortifying potion she kept in a hip flask before the hairs on her neck stood straight up. The insane giggle was her only real clue, and then her Aunt Bella was there in front of her in all her tattered glory.

"If it isn't little Nymphadora, how you have grown, child? How is that mudblood father of yours? Dead, I hope."

Tonks shrugged, her wand clenched tightly in her hand. "Dad is a Muggle, not magical at all, Aunt Bella," she said with a slight smirk, allowing her features to flow into their natural shape as she did not have magic to waste in this encounter.

"Why, Child, you look just like Mama!" Bellatrix exclaimed in genuine surprise.

"No need to be insulting," Tonks replied, her smirk widening as Bella seemed to be put a little off-balance by the family resemblance. "I had heard that Grandmother Black was a complete bitch, a bit like you really."

Bella threw her head back and roared laughing, countering the cutting hex Tonks threw and using a whip spell of her own. The pure magic lash curled around Tonks' shield but did not hit her skin; instead it pulled her off-balance. Always a little clumsy, Tonks fell but rolled handily, coming up with a Jelly Legs jinx closely followed by Sectumsempra. Bellatrix hissed angrily as he legs collapsed and the cutting hex opened a shallow gash in her arm. The sight of her own blood seemed to drive Bella to new heights of madness, the curses and hexes no longer accompanied by a stream of inane chatter. Tonks had been fighting for the last four hours and her exhausted state was no match for her mad aunt. She held her own for almost ten minutes when a stray Stupefy from someone else's battle caught her in the back of the head and Tonks went down.

Bella pounced like a cat on a mouse, her wand tip grinding into Tonks' throat as she gloated for a moment. "Say good night, sweetie," she giggled as she cast Crucio on her niece. Tonks arched in agony but it only lasted as long as it took to say Avada Kedavra and then she was gone.

~~*~~

Lucius and Narcissa nodded to each other as they split up; there were a few people they both wanted to deal with personally before their Lord joined the battle. Lucius conserved his strength as the people he really wanted would be hard to deal with. He surveyed the battlefield and grinned tigerishly as he spotted a head of grey hair to his left. Alastor Moody had been a pain in his side for more years than he wanted to think about, and he planned to take some repayment for the suffering the old Auror had caused him over the years, especially for his incarceration in Azkaban.

Alastor was pitted against a black wizard who seemed shocked that the skinny old man had not fallen to his superior power as yet. The old Auror continued to play with the contemptible young pup until he saw Malfoy creeping up on his back with his wand drawn. Moving with an agility that belied a wooden leg, Alastor jumped out of the way of his opponent's curse, allowing it to go over his shoulder and cause Lucius some inconvenience as it whizzed over his head. Cackling wildly, Alastor put pay to his current foe and turned to meet Malfoy head-on in what he hoped would be a decisive victory for the Light.

"Still have to creep up like an assassin in the night then, Malfoy?" he taunted, weaving a figure of eight pattern with his wand tip.

"Merely awaiting a moment of your time," Lucius sniffed disparagingly. "After all, I didn't want to cut in on your last partner; you were having such fun with him."

Alastor laughed and parried the simple testing hex with an equally simple protection spell. Both men were versed in the Dark Arts and each knew the other was a wily and dirty fighter. Almost as if the tiny skirmish had started an avalanche, magic began to pour from both wands; curses and hexes that would have them both clapped up in Azkaban if used in any other circumstances. Lucius was the younger of the two men by more than half a century, but Alastor had the experience at using both Dark Magic and Dark Artefacts in real battles. When Lucius pulled out a Ring of Night, Alastor cast Bergen's SunWold. When Alastor threw Zinklamon, Lucius countered with Heluhenestrua, both men staggering at the power drain the spells caused and three wizards in their vicinity dropping dead in sympathy. Both men paused to exchange disgusted looks at such a poor showing then were back into the fray as if undisturbed.

Such levels of output could not be sustained and a stone did Alastor an injustice, twisting under his foot and tossing him to the ground. He landed awkwardly, his head contacting the dirt with sickening force, a trickle of blood seeping through his hair to stain the grey a deep crimson. Lucius, panting hard, was about to cast the final killing curse when four Order members tossed an assortment of hexes at him, driving him away from his victim. Damn Alastor Moody, he had more luck than the very Devil! Lucius cursed as he fled to another part of the battlefield and looked for another target.

~~*~~

Battles and individual combats were taking place all over the lawns and gardens of Hogwarts, men and women dying without quarter given. Ron and Draco stared over the carnage, a deep sigh shaking the redhead to the core.

"What was that for?" Draco asked, flicking a curse at a Death Eater that got too close.

"Such a waste, so foolish when we are all wizards, no matter what our origins," Ron replied gruffly.

Draco laughed. "Bit late to worry about philosophy now, Weasel."

"True. Duck!" Ron pulled Draco aside as a curse sliced through the space the blond had occupied a few seconds before.

"Thanks. Who tossed that curse?" Draco demanded, spinning on his toes and firing back a curse that would never do for school use.

"Ouch! Did your Daddy teach you that one?" Ron taunted as more curses came their way.

"He certainly did." Draco smirked and set to work with a will, guarding Ron's back and yelling orders to their various components of force.

When mapping a battle on paper, it was easy to control the elements but in the field, the melee was just that, a stinking rush of spells and blood soaked adrenalin that swirled through the brain and the heart and drove soldiers past their best efforts or froze them solidly in place, unable to move. Ron came across one of Rosmerta's barmen crouched on the ground with not a mark on him, trembling and sobbing and unable to move another step. Shaking his head, he kicked the man hard in the thigh to get his attention then ordered him to get back to the wall and stay there. The man rose gratefully and began to run, panic guiding his flight until a spell cut his legs out from under him. Ron sighed again.

Draco found himself up against Goyle senior, father of one of his lieutenants. For a moment he didn't know if he could fight with someone he had called 'Uncle' for years, someone whose home he had stayed in and whose son he had known most of his life. He found it was not difficult when the older man snarled at him and called him a Blood traitor as he cursed him darkly. Ducking wildly, Draco cast Crucio on the man, making him writhe before he cast Avada Kedavra with never a second thought until someone started to clap slowly.

"So you finally found a backbone, did you?" Lucius asked his son with a fine show of contempt.

Draco stiffened. "I always had a backbone, I just refused to bend it to that piece of mad filth you grovel and sniff around," he snapped furiously.

Lucius drew himself up to his full height, intimidatingly taller than Draco. "The Dark Lord is not filth, he is..."

"A Half-blood, witch mother, Muggle father," Draco supplied with equal contempt. "Oh come on, Father, be honest with yourself, if no other. Your Dark Lord is a complete nutter and you have picked the losing side. You forget, I was forced to attend those horrendous meetings and watch fine old pureblood families grovel and fawn over his filthy feet, listen to the complete rubbish he was dribbling from his misshapen face and cringe when his grasp on reality slipped so far as to make him attack the total pillocks who hung on his every utterance. It was sickening!"

Lucius moved as fast as an adder, his backhand knocking Draco off his feet. "You have no idea of what the Dark Lord is, you ungrateful brat! He will preserve our way of life and allow us to conquer the whole world. I hoped you were just infatuated with teenage rebellion, but I see it was more than that. Did the old bastard cast Imperio on you or have you taken to following Severus' lead and biting the hand that feeds you?"

"Neither, I simply used the very fine education you have afforded me and the very agile brain you gifted me and made my own decisions based on facts rather than rhetoric."

"Draco Malfoy, will you recant and come back to us?" Lucius asked very formally.

"No, Lucius Malfoy, I will not," Draco replied with equal formality.

"In that case, Av..." Lucius lifted his wand and opened his mouth to speak, but blood bubbled out instead. A frozen look glazed his eyes before he slowly toppled forward, landing at Draco's feet.

Crabbe stood behind Lucius and listened to the conversation of father and son, heard the finality in Lucius' last words, heard the first syllable of the Unforgivable and knew he had to finish the man before he was allowed to disinherit or kill his friend. He knew he didn't have a reliable Killing Curse in him so he used his wand transfigured into a stout blade and simply plunged it between Lucius' ribs. It had been both easier and harder than he thought it would be but it was effective. He stared at Draco, who stared at his father then looked up at his friend with wide grey eyes.

"Bloody Hell!"

"You spend too much time with Weasley, Draco," Vincent remarked softly as he held out a hand to pull the smaller man to his feet.

Draco giggled slightly hysterically. "I know."

~~*~~

Ron saw the two Malfoys confront each other, but he was too far away to hear what was said between father and son. He knew it was going to end badly, but he was too distant to do anything effective as Lucius drew his wand. Before he could even yell a warning, a hex slammed into his hip and spun him on the spot. A high pitched giggle made his teeth gnash as he staggered and almost fell. The follow-up curse went wide and Bellatrix hissed furiously as the Weasley boy's counter hex opened her scalp from ear to crown.

"You little monster, look what you did to my hair," she screamed illogically and Ron shook his head in disgust as he automatically apologised. Bella heard him and burst out laughing hysterically. "Is the ickle widdle brain boy sowwy for cutting Aunty Bella's hair off, den? Isn't oo just so sweetums?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Why do I get all the nuts and fruits?" he asked the lowering sky in disgust, dodging a hex that came too close for comfort. Bella might be a complete whack job, but she was still as dangerous as a cut snake. He danced backwards, tossing anything he could think of at the enraged woman, hoping against hope he could score a direct hit, even if it was just with a bloody Stupefy, anything to slow her down! He could hear her constant stream of baby-talk and laughter, the babbling never impairing her ability to throw curses, some of which he had never heard said aloud, only read about in Alastor's special library. She seemed to absorb his best efforts with absolutely no affect at all! It was terrifying.

Bellatrix was enjoying playing with the red-haired boy, who was red faced now, too. He was so cute, spewing little schoolboy spells at her and jumping around like a demented frog. She wondered how he would jump with one leg and sent an exploding hex at his feet, a shriek of laughter breaking out as Ron's foot and leg disintegrated under him. He fell with a scream, agony lancing through him, sending spots before his eyes. Bella walked up and smiled down, watching him writhe with a greedy expression of enjoyment. Strolling in a circle as if she was in her own dungeon, she put the tip of her wand to her lip thoughtfully then cast a cutting hex. Ron screamed again as his fingers and thumb parted company, fresh red blood colouring her vision. Bella loved the colour red, loved the pumping, spurting effects of cut arteries and veins and could watch it for hours, but someone was calling her name.

"Hey, Aunt Bella!"

She looked up and smiled widely. "Draco! How nice to see you. How are you, my dear?"

"I'm well, Aunt Bella. I have something for you, a surprise."

"How wonderful! What is it?"

"Avada Kedavra!"

Crabbe turned with a raised eyebrow as his friend cast the curse with no trouble at all then stumbled back as a curse slammed into Draco's back, making him fly forward into Crabbe's arms. Vincent looked around wildly as a bludger flew past his head. A whack with his wand transfigured into a beater's bat bought him enough time to disintegrate it with a spell. Before he could further gather his wits Pansy Parkinson was upon them, slapping Draco hard across the face.

"You two timing bastard! I saw you with that whore, Granger, but I fixed her little game. She can't hook her claws into you any more, I got rid of the evidence for you but I forgive you. Head of Family now, aren't you? I always wanted to be the Lady of Malfoy Manor."

Draco's head was ringing but he managed to latch onto one thing. "What did you do to Hermione?" he asked fuzzily.

"I cast the Morning After Spell and killed the child, of course," Pansy said matter-of-factly. "And I..."

Crabbe hit her under the jaw with an uppercut that snapped her head back further than nature intended. The crack of her spine breaking was audible even over the sounds of the battle surrounding them. "Whoops," he muttered with a faint blush. "Er, sorry."

"That's alright, Vince, can you help me over to Weasel. Pansy has knocked my brain for six."

"He doesn't look so good," Vince remarked as he helped his smaller friend over to the badly injured Gryffindor. "What do you want me to do?"

Draco tried to clear his head, but he could see two of everything at the moment. "Go find Lavender and look after her, I'll Apparate Weasel and myself to St Mungo's, I don't think we are going to be much good out here today."

"Can you manage? You don't look so good yourself," Crabbe remarked candidly.

'We'll be fine," Draco assured him as he wrapped his arms around the comatose redhead and Apparated out.

~~*~~

All around them people were dying, the noise, the stench, the mud and blood and the sheer terror taking their toll of the combatants. Kingsley was amazed when he realised he had just killed Rodolphus Lestrange and Scrimgeour had taken out Rastaban Lestrange. It looked as if all the big name Death Eaters were either down or very hard pressed and, amazingly enough, the Light was winning the encounter at this point. He had stumbled across Alastor a few minutes earlier, or it could have been hours earlier, and sent his body off to St Mungo's with some portkey bandage. He had also come across Tonks' body and spared a second to mourn the quelling of her bright spirit before going on to remove some more Death Eater scum from the face of the earth. If all they had to worry about was the rabble they now faced, then he would have declared a victory for the Light but this was just a preliminary action, a warm-up to the main bout.

On the battlements above the mess of fighting, Harry stared down in horror and disgust, fury and sadness warring in him. He cast a few angry looks at Professor Dumbledore who still would not allow him to go and fight but the Professor looked every day as old as the hills, drawn and pale. His hands gripped his wand and the stonework so hard that the knuckles shone bone white through the old parchment skin, his fingers leaving dents in the stone. Oh no, Albus Dumbledore didn't like it one bit either, but he waited as patiently as he could for what was to come.

Professor McGonagall didn't look any better, drawn and grey with tears running freely down her face as she waited. Still, she conserved her energy and did nothing but watch and memorise and wait, as still as a cat at a mouse hole, the consummate hunter.

The only other occupant of the battlements was Professor Snape, standing at one of the openings as still as the older people, also watching and waiting. Occasionally he would mutter 'accio' and something indescribable would fly to his hands. It would then disappear instantly into a vial that was shrunk and hidden before Harry could get a proper look at its contents.

"You know, Severus, doing that is highly illegal?" Dumbledore remarked once, softly.

"'Gather ye ingredients where ye may'," he misquoted equally softly. "Besides, it fills in the time."

Harry snorted a laugh, shocked that he could laugh at a time like this, the Potions Master smirking back before they all stiffened alertly.

A storm was coming, localised, intense and approaching from the south. Harry strained his eyes to try and see what was causing it, but Professor Snape merely smirked as he sent all the vials away to his workroom with a wandless spell. "Tom was ever one to come fashionably late and of course make an entrance."