Refuge Has Its Price

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CHAPTER 2: END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT


Hermione fought her way ever closer to Ginny, with Luna moving back-to-back with her, and following her every movement, each defending the other. Quite literally, they were all watching each other's backs.


"GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER, BITCH!" Molly Weasley screeched at Bellatrix Lestrange, bustling forwards to protect her only daughter, just like a rampaging mother lioness defending her only cub.


Molly Weasley fired off several nasty curses and hexes, furiously dueling against the insane dark witch with a power that they'd never imagined she had in her.


It allowed the three younger witches, watching her dueling with Bellatrix Lestrange, to finally understand just what a powerful and important member of the Order that the Weasley matriarch had been all along.


Molly had always been far more than merely the chief cook and den mother of the Order of the Phoenix. She'd always been a valiant and powerful warrior in her own right.


Anton Dolohov suddenly materialized near them in a swirl of Dark Apparation, and the three younger witches instinctively formed a defensive triad to better stand against him.


He was a bit amazed himself that he'd actually done it! He'd been desperate to break free from Flitwick's binding hex and, in his desperation, he'd attempted Disapparation.


Miraculously it had worked!


With the Dark Lord's final breaching of Hogwarts' walls, the ancient binding magic that for ten centuries had prevented Apparition within Hogwarts grounds had at last been broken.


Bellatrix used Dolohov's arrival as a distraction to purchase herself enough time to Apparate away from the avenging angel that was Molly Weasley.


Bella didn't care where she ended up, just as long as the elder Weasley bitch wasn't still pointing a wand her way when she landed!


Hermione shuddered involuntarily as memories of what Dolohov had done to her raced back to the forefront of her mind.


No one had even seen it coming, that hideous bolt of green phosphorescence that Dolohov's wand suddenly jetted at Molly Weasley when the evil bastard had turned her way.


With Bella's Disapparation, he'd whirled around with his wand aimed over the top of his head in a graceful movement that reminded Hermione of a matador's killing dance.


Ginny's mouth formed a soundless "O" and her pale honey-brown eyes suddenly widened, black pupils dilating, in her shock. Her face whitened to the color of chalk; the normally pale-marmalade of her freckles standing out in stark dark contrast to her complexion.


Her mother instantly stiffened and fell back, with Dolohov's 'Avada'; Ginny's horrified mind's eye seeing it happen as if in slow motion.


It took an eternity for Molly Weasley’s body to finally hit the smoking ground. All the while there was no sound anywhere in the universe for Ginny.


Nothing else existed for the traumatized sixteen year-old in that long moment but a forever kind of silence, and the endless eternity of her mother's slowly falling . . . falling . . . falling.


Ron screamed, "MUM!" from a short run away. His mother had barely touched the trampled, singed grass when he'd gotten there to scoop her limp form up against his grieving, heaving, chest.


Dolohov threw back his oily dark head and roared with victorious vicious laughter.


Ron softly kissed his mother's rapidly chilling forehead, and eased her dead body ever~so gently back to the ground.


Through his hot bitter tears, angry dark-red flames suddenly danced into life within the blue of Ron's irises.


Darkness, fueled by a deep primal rage, took hold of him.


When the very first 'Avada Kedavra' that Ronald Weasley had ever fired at another living thing sliced close enough past Dolohov's head that his straggly oily hair stood on end, he suddenly stopped laughing.


The evil dark wizard instantly Disapparated in a swirling black mist, quickly flowing out into the Forbidden Forest.


Ron Disapparated right behind him, effortlessly following him, as Darkness called to Darkness.


They paused here and there to fire off bolt after bolt of curses and counter-curses in brief, but intense, duels.


Ron silently blessed Hermione for all of her relentless prodding and pushing him to learn these life-saving spells. If he survived this battle, he was going to finally screw himself up and ask her to marry him.


He'd never really loved Lavender Brown anyway. She'd just been an easy shag.


It had been nothing, when compared to the depth of his feelings for Hermione Granger. How had he never realized it before today?


Dolohov nearly 'Avada'd him while his mind had been lollygagging in the clover with his daydreams of Hermione. Ron couldn't afford to make that mistake again; to do so would mean his death.


Ron spun away in a cloud of Disapparation, only to re-Apparate back exactly where he'd been standing the moment before.


Dolohov's guard was only down for that single split-second, wrongly aiming his wand where he'd anticipated Ron's reappearance to be.


That was all the tall young red-head had needed, a single chance.


A quick 'Avada', and the mad dog that had once been Anton Dolohov would never hurt or kill another soul.


His mother had been avenged!


Ron's stomach did an immediate heave-ho, and he shook with the violence of retching up what felt like leftovers from three days ago. He hadn't realized that casting the Unforgivable would wrench his soul like this!


He weakly leaned against one of the ancient lichen-covered oaks of the forest like a cool, damp, old friend.


Ron pulled out the obligatory handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the clammy sweat from his face, and puke-stain from his lips, with shaking hands.


His mother had always insisted that each of her sons carry a clean handkerchief in their pocket at all times. She'd always said that a gentleman should always have one, for those just-in-case moments.


It had been one of Molly Weasley's cardinal rules ever since he'd come out of his nappies, right along with the 'clean underpants' rule of mothers everywhere.


Mother always knew best.


The returning anger that Ron's renewed grief brought him instantly settled his stomach right down.


Ronald Weasley pushed himself off the tree's strong support and straightened up to his grown-man's height. His spine erectly stiffened once more with righteous indignation, and he strode across the path over to where Dolohov's unmoving body lay.


At least he wasn't lost. This path was damned familiar.


He reached down and flipped the corpse over. Even frozen in death, the murderous gloat was still deeply etched into the evil older wizard's wicked face.


Ron stepped astride the body, slowly unzipped the Muggle jeans that had been a birthday gift from Harry, pulled out his dick and very deliberately pissed in the dead man's face.


As he did so he snarled, "And this is for torturing and slicing up my future wife, Hermione Granger." A grim dark smile curved the young wizard's lips as he tucked himself back into place and zipped up.


Ron returned to the path, not even glancing back at the body.


Many things were hungry in the Forbidden Forest.


That's all that Anton Dolohov was good for anyway; becoming animal shit.


Ron glanced around, getting his bearings and looking for the point where he'd first entered the forest.


The little hairs on the back of Ron's neck suddenly all stood on end.


An overwhelming feeling of imminent danger flooded the young wizard's psyche; his mouth went dry with fear, and his heart began racing triple time. This sense of danger was different from the feeling of an enemy's wand being leveled at you from behind.


This was an even deeper, primordial, 'fight or flight' kind of danger-sense flooding all around and through him now.


His brain went into survival mode, pushing every other logical thought aside except for the single instinct that had leapt to the forefront of it; RUN, NOW!


Ron immediately picked up his pace, disregarding the small branches and thorny overgrowth snagging at his jumper and hair. He heedlessly accepted the deep scratches they gave his face and hands as by far the lesser of two evils.


Where was the bloody fucking edge of the sodding wood any way? This damned path looked so bloody familiar!


As he ducked under a centuries dead, bent-over, tree trunk, the sickle suddenly fell for Ronald Weasley.


He clearly remembered just which path he was on right now, and exactly when the last time was that he'd been on it.


He'd only been a Second Year; he and Harry had "followed the spiders" down this very same path, on Hagrid's instructions, when they'd been searching for clues about the Chamber of Secrets.


That had been five years ago.


Just how big had the sons and daughters of Aragog all grown during the passage of those years?


Ron found out only a split-second later.


Silent and deadly, his own personal Boggart became an horrific reality as one of them suddenly dropped down from high in the tree canopy above him to instantly inject him with its deadly poison.


It was just as large as his father's old flying car, and its fangs were almost as thick around as a man's arm.


One fang completely pierced Ron's heart with its first bite. In that single, far too late second, he'd barely had enough time to think of that one word spell, "Riddikulus."


It wouldn't have helped anyway. This wasn’t a Boggart; he was dead instantly.


Perhaps the youngest of the Weasley sons had learnt something of the noble art of divination, after all, during Professor Trelawney’s useless, boring, classes on the subject.


Perhaps Ron had actually had some kind of precognitive ability. The one thing that he'd always feared above all others had finally been the agent of his demise.


Ronald Weasley was now dead at eighteen.


He'd not fallen as an honorable victim to the Killing Curse, executed by some anonymous Death Eater on the Field of Honour, during the heat of pitched battle.


No.


Ronald Weasley died from a single spider bite.


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Back at the castle, a deathly pall slowly descended over the carnage of the ravaged battlefield.


Here and there through the drifts of smoke rising up all across the blood slickened, body littered, curse-cratered ground, moans rose up of those still desperately clinging to whatever little remained of their lives.


From every quarter the unearthly wheezes of death rattles emanating from the throat of yet another body, as the soul fled its' pain, could clearly be heard.


The heart-wrenching sounds came equally from fallen black-robed Death Eaters and the struggling defenders alike.


At this point, the battle could go either way.


Sweet Merlin, please give Harry the strength that he needed!


A ripple of great power draining away from them, like a vast tide going out, had suddenly shimmered across the battlefield only moments earlier.


Every wizard and witch battling for the side of Light had simultaneously felt the loss of its presence, but few realized what it had truly meant.


Only those fighting closest to Harry's position at the time had seen him fall to Voldemort that last time, on the secondary battlefield that had begun right there inside of Hogwarts itself.


Harry fought hard and valiantly, just like the brave Gryffindor he truly was, dueling Voldemort to the death.


The Dark Lord had just been quicker and more powerful than the improperly prepared teenager.


Harry Potter had just become the martyr for the Cause that Dumbledore had always planned for him to be, when he'd left him as a baby at the Dursley's.


The Boy-Who-Lived had finally died.


The loss of their sole hope of victory tasted as bitter as gall in the mouths of the defeated.


Not one of them had even considered the possibility of defeat, or exactly what it would mean to each of them that managed to survive.


They were all now left behind to somehow live within Voldemort's concept of a new Wizarding World Order.


Here they stood on the precipice; on the very brink of the abyss. What would happen to them all now?


Dear gods! Far better for them had they died swiftly, in the heat of battle, as the great silent swathes of their fallen comrades had done.


The living were angrily jealous of the dead in that moment.


What mercy could they expect from a madman?


How quickly would Voldemort allow them to beg for death? Certainly not before they'd all endured extended and prolonged tortures of every kind.


Slavery, rape, and buggery were a given, if they were allowed to live at all.


A few intrepid members of the Army of the Light tried to break away, to save themselves to fight again; far too few actually achieved it. The remaining rogues, swiftly and without mercy, instantly became examples of how the Death Eater’s dealt out retributions.


All across the battlefield, the conquered slowly began to kneel, place their wands on the ground before them, and submissively lower their heads in defeat.


First, one knelt down here, two over there, and then maybe six or seven further out. Within fifteen minutes time, the overpowered had all unconditionally surrendered to the Dark Lord.


Thus ended the Great Battle of Hogwarts. It ended with a whimper, not a bang.


Voldemort sent his youngest, most inexperienced, Death Eaters out to collect the wands of the defeated in the flush of his victory.


To the older survivors that was merely Voldemort's not-so-subtle way of showing both his contempt for them, while at the same time quite physically reminding them of their new position in life.


To the younger of the defeated, their fearful imaginings of the very real probability of rape, and worse, leapt immediately forwards from thought into the realm of definitely now about to commence.


They were already beginning to be divided and herded around like cattle in the stockyard pens prior to being branded or butchered.


Voldemort ordered all of the defeated to be sorted first by Blood, and then according to their sex.


Strictest orders were given the still adrenalin-pumped up young Death Eaters to leave all captives unmolested, at least until their Lord had taken his census and had rendered all of his judgments and dispensations.


The Dark Lord had been most specific; if his new recruits couldn't keep their cocks in their pants by their own volition, then he, personally, would curse it off them and stuff it down their throats until they'd literally choked to death on their own sex.


All of the galleons in Gringott’s vaults couldn't have tempted even one of them to lay even as much as a lascivious finger on a single survivor.


But then again . . .


Their Master hadn't specified whether or not to heal the survivors' wounds. He certainly hadn't given them any orders to administer pain potions, or instructions to give any food and water to the injured captives.


Let the bastards all suffer until the Dark Lord finally rendered his judgments and rewards.


It was no less than what all of the damned Blood traitors deserved anyway.

END CHAPTER 2


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A/N: Have you ever heard the phrase: "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"?

JKR murdered the man I love with a snake bite. I murdered hers with a spider bite.

Now, we're even. (No hard feelings, right Jo?) **snickers**

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