Saving Ravenclaw (Severus x Rowena)

3- The escape

Severus and Rowena advanced quickly, trying to get away from their pursuers. The death eater had heard the sound of the horses' hooves, so he decided to enter the narrow paths of the mountain, where the slope and the branches of the trees and bushes would prevent the horses from passing.

Rowena followed him, barefoot and dressed only in Severus' cloak, which she kept closed with the help of a rope around her waist. Although she was still weak and terribly pale, she was the one who most insisted on continuing to advance along the most tortuous paths to get away from her pursuers, always ascending in the middle of that region, sometimes arid and mountainous and other times covered by a forest so lush that it seemed to never end.

Severus was aware of the woman's limitations, so he tried to slow down when the terrain and the distance they were leading from the other men allowed it, but there came a time when the unaccustomed physical exercise and the dryness of the air seriously affected his asthma, so the death eater had to stop, putting his hand on his chest and struggling to breathe in the middle of the mountain dust. Rowena looked at him worried, knowing what the cause of his illness was.

"Let's go down to the forest," she suggested. "You will breathe better there."

"But they will find us... more easily," he gasped.

"If you suffocate to death, they'll find us too," she replied, taking his arm, and pulling him towards a slope that descended into the forest. Severus could not resist, and when they entered the trees again, he began to breathe normally again. In addition, Rowena was able to rest her feet on the softer ground, covered by the leaves of the trees.

They followed the flow of a small river, walking through the water to hide their trail, but soon they heard the voices of the trackers again, who were getting dangerously close. Severus realized that lord Siveon had sent all his soldiers in search of them, and that it would not take long for them to be found. In a last attempt to mislead them, he took Rowena by the hand and began to run with her through the forest, tripping over stones and roots, scratching himself on branches, and hearing the screams of his pursuers getting closer and closer. They had been discovered.

They headed back toward the mountainous area and hurried through a very narrow passage that opened in the stone wall and crossed to the other side of the mountain, where another forest stretched to the horizon. Those trees were farther apart, and their pursuers could see them easily before they could take refuge.

Rowena fell to the ground, exhausted, and Severus realized that they couldn't keep running, they would have to fight the trackers. He assessed the terrain with an expert eye and decided that this was the best place to fight, since the men would have to pass one by one through the corridor, and then they could be stopped if necessary.

Severus seriously considered using his wand to defend himself, but since there was a possibility that the other death eater was nearby, he decided that he would give the sword to Rowena, so that she could defend herself in case he couldn't protect her from the other men. He turned towards her with his sword in his hand, but he couldn't find her.

"Rowena?" he asked. Behind him the voices of men could be heard, approaching. "Rowena!"

"I'm here," she answered, leaving the forest. She was carrying a very long branch in her hand, and surprisingly straight, probably due to some spell.

"Take my sword, it will be more useful to you."

"It won't be necessary," Rowena replied. Then, a man came out of the corridor, lunging at Severus, who hadn't noticed. "Careful!" Rowena shouted.

Severus turned, following the intuition that had saved his life so many times, and raised his sword, parrying his attacker's. The clash of the two steels produced a metallic sound that activated a series of memories in Severus. He charged at his attacker, making movements with the sword more typical of a warrior than a 20th century death eater.