Chapter 1
Renewal of Revenge



    Pant. Pant. Pant. The Disillusionment Charm I put on myself at the start of the battle was now wearing off. I was beginning to see the paled flesh of my hands. I’d better put on another one, I thought as I ducked behind a corner. “Occulto…” I whispered— but before I could finish the incantation I heard a voice.
    “Remus…Lupin. It will be my pleasure to destroy you.”
    “Professor Lupin?!” I silently gasped. The voice was eerily familiar; I know I’ve heard it before. But just as I was beginning figure out whom the voice belonged to, I turned towards the voices, seeing the face of a man I had grown a great hatred for. My third year teacher began to speak the exact name I had thought off when I saw the face of the unmasked man.
    “Antonin Dolohov. I am afraid you won’t get the chance!” I watched as they assumed the ready positions and began to duel. I stood there for minutes, feeling mixtures of rage and awe, rage for the Death Eater I wanted revenge against and awe for their nonverbal skills. The only sounds for the next ten minutes were that of the flying spells and Dolohov’s taunting. A few times I saw a Killing Curse miss Professor Lupin by mere inches. The next fifteen minutes were filled with blocked Disarming Charms and ricocheting Body-Binds that nearly hit my invisible body.
    Then a terror-filled scream came from my other side, “Remus!!” A woman with short and spiky pink hair, now slowly turning white, ran up to my professor.
    “Dora! What happened?” he asked as he embraced the woman I now remembered as Nymphadora Tonks, Auror, Metamorphmagus, and my favorite professor’s wife.
    The woman let out a muted gasp and pointed in the direction she came from, just as a taller woman with flyaway dark hair and ripped robes turned the corner. “There you are,” cackled the crazy woman who I knew at once was Bellatrix Lestrange, a deranged Death Eater and fierce warrior. She walked up to Tonks and began to talk in a mock-baby voice, “I see you’ve found your wittle werewolf hubby. He can pwotect you, wight?”
    “SHUT UP!” Tonks managed to yell through her sobs. She pointed her wand at the woman and spat on her as Professor Lupin aimed his own wand at Dolohov.
    “Well, well, well. Looks like we have a feisty one here,” said Bellatrix as she took a few steps back and pulled out her wand.
    “I like them feisty,” said Dolohov as he pointed his wand at the werewolf. Now if I was amazed by the two men’s duel, then I was blown over by what was commencing before my eyes: a team duel. Dolohov and Bellatrix were fighting side-by-side, shooting curse after curse at the couple and actually helping each other when needed.
The duel went on for a long time without words although Bellatrix and Dolohov were cackling like hyenas. Then suddenly the woman began to taunt Tonks, feigning worry and care. “Why would you marry a werewolf? He does not deserve you. You, of the noble house of Black? HA! He would kill you in a second if you were near him when he transformed!”
Tonks’ hair flared bright red in anger as she managed to get a spell past the female Death Eater’s guard, bellowing a simple but effective charm, “EXPELLIARMUS!” The dark woman’s wand flew away and landed seven feet behind the Death Eaters. The man with the twisted face quickly summoned the wand and pointed both of them at his opponents in turn, disarming them.
“Bella, their wands, quick!” called Dolohov.
“Of course, Antonin,” responded the witch. She hastily grabbed their victim’s wands and tossed them to him.
Dolohov pointed two wands at each Order member and calmly uttered, “Petrificus Totalus.” I watched, myself immobile, as two people I cared for were unable to block the double spell. Two wands produce a more powerful spell than one, I reasoned as the two fell to the ground.
Bellatrix was cackling again and happily dancing around the room. Dolohov spoke up after a few minutes of celebration, “Come now, Bella, let’s have some fun with them.” He looked around for a second and continued, reveling in the pain he was about to cause, “Prop the sad excuse for a werewolf against the wall… I want him to see us torture his lovely wife.”
The two mad Death Eaters stood my professor against the wall and the man handed back the woman her wand and the Auror’s as well. The two pointed their wands at Tonks and proceeded to cry “Crucio!” Tonks fell to the ground; the pain caused by the quadruple spell was visibly overwhelming, so much that she couldn’t even scream. The witch’s body began morphing and her hair rapidly changing length and color.
After a minute and a half of watching that sheer pain in silence, the pale man spoke up, “Bella, I think this isn’t enough, don’t you?”
“Why yes,” she cackled in response, “I believe a little more is needed…. What do you have in mind?” she questioned, noticing the odd look on his face.
“Something very… let’s just say “heartening” I think,”
“You couldn’t possibly mean—“
“Yes.” The pale-skinned man pointed the wands at the barely conscious Tonks, who was currently gripping her stomach in pain, glared menacingly at Professor Lupin and slashed the air in front of him, saying, “Pectoris Morbus!” From the tips of both wands came purple flames, which flew out at the Auror.
Suddenly a gut-wrenching cry filled the room, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
And then there was silence. When the light cleared I looked at them and knew immediately what happened. Lupin had broken the Body-Bind and jumped in front of his wife, thinking that he could take the curse instead. He had failed, though, as I could see the two of them crumpled on the ground, peacefully in each other’s arms, but unmistakably dead. Dolohov… How dare he! That’s three people he’s taken from me with that Dark Magic of his! My mind surged with hatred for the twisted man. Half of me wanted to kill him right now, but reason overcame me and I stayed hidden.
As the man who had taken so much from me made to throw aside his victim’s wands, Bellatrix whispered something, though barely audible to me, that sounded like, “Wait.” Cackling, I watched her snap Tonks’ wand in half then burn it to a crisp with a burst of flame from her own wand. “There,” she muttered as she let the ashes fall through her long white fingers.
“Come,” motioned Dolohov as he tossed Lupin’s wand aside, “let’s get going before all the good Order members are dead.” The two psychotics laughed and ran off, cursing anything that moved.
I cautiously stepped back into the silent corridor, wondering if I was truly alone before dropping my Disillusionment Charm. With my body reappearing, I ran over to the corpses of the great witch and wizard. “Lupin… Tonks…” I whispered as my eyes began to well up in tears, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you… I wanted to, but Dolohov… he… he…” I looked away for a minute, but then my gaze fell again upon my third year Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. I felt a single tear run down my cheek. “Professor… You-you were the best teacher ever,” I muttered in between sobs, “But… I failed you… even after all your help… I…” My voice broke off as I shifted my gaze. Are you aware that you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re crying from two dead people? I thought as I pulled myself together. I turned towards his wife, the Auror that I came to know in my fifth year. “Tonks… I met you only two years ago at Sirius’ house. We quickly became good friends. You taught me almost as much as your husband; you taught me loyalty and honesty; how to deal with rejection…” Hermione…
My swept across the calm bodies of the two and I started again to speak, my voice cracking, “I will avenge your deaths. I will…I will do what I should have done. Professor, what you and I worked on will not go to waste… I will give him what he deserves…” Suddenly, moonlight glinted off an object underneath a bench. “Your wand… That’s it!” I whispered as I picked up the wand, feeling a slight warming. I took one last look at the couple, choking back a sob. “I will. Your deaths will not have been for nothing. When I find him… I’ll….” Then I realized something. “Hermione! Ron! Harry! They should know!” I rapped myself on the head and muttered, “Occulto existum.” The Disillusionment Charm took immediate effect as I rushed down the corridor, in search of my three friends.