Running AIAOY 7

Chapter 15

Half of Rebecca hang over the edge of the bridge.  She had connected a line of the explosives she'd made to the wooden framework below, and had already attached her detonation cord to Seamus'. 

"It'll do."  She said, climbing to her feet.

"With the time constraint."  Seamus added, smiling at her.

Neville looked down at the meters and meters of damage they had laid out and connected.  "You both need help."

"Help?  I don't need any bloody help, I need-"  Seamus was interrupted by a distant clamour growing nearer.  The noise was discernible as it crested the hill beyond the bridge.  Death Eaters flowed out of the Forbidden Forest like ants out of a disturbed ant hill.

The tidal wave of enemies halted as the first to try and breach the shield around Hogwarts were disintegrated.

"Throw these."  Rebecca said as she pressed two small bags of powder into Seamus and Neville's hands.  "Throw them up to the grass if you won't make it." 

Neville held it even tighter.  The Death Eaters swarmed wider as they realised that they couldn't pass the barrier, screaming and howling in rage.  "Your army isn't much now, is it?!?"

Rebecca shook her head, a stone twisting in her stomach.  "Neville..."  

A piece of burning cloth floated from the castle out towards the Death Eaters.  It got closer to the shield and, instead of being reduced to nothing, floated through.  The Death Eater at the front plucked it out of the air and grinned.  He took a step forward, and then another.  The barrier was failing.

Neville's breath caught in his throat as the Death Eater let out his war scream and the charge began again.  The army behind him following on his heels.

Rebecca didn't waste time telling the two boys to run, she only pushed them on.  The bridge rattled under them, swaying from side to side as it grew accustomed to the sheer amount of weight on it.

The Death Eaters sent jinxes and curses ahead of them, but Rebecca had a few more tricks in her pocket.  She pulled out the icy marble she had been saving for the right occasion just as a curse hit the bridge besides her head--way to close for comfort.

Rebecca threw the Ice-Maker on the ground behind her, a square metre of ice pouring out over the boards of the bridge.  The first Death Eaters to hit it slipped and piled on top of one another, those behind them climbed over and continued their pursuit, but a little bit of a gap had been made between the three students and their attackers.

Seamus threw the RJ's Rocket off to the side, the one that they had already charmed to guide itself to the fuses.  The explosions were almost imminent, starting at the lower levels of the framework of the bridge and spreading up to where they had laid the last of the bombs.

The top part of the bridge began to sink in segments.  Death Eater bodies fell into the darkness below, their violent screams ending suddenly as they found the bottom.  Ginny and a few others appeared at the end of the last bend of the bridge.

"THROW THEM!"  Rebecca shouted, pushing herself harder.  "NOW!"

Both boys threw their bags of powder ahead, instantly apparating into crumpled piles onto the ground.  In the last second that there was any bridge below her feet at all, Rebecca launched herself into the air.  For a moment, she was weightless.  She soared as if she were on her broom and reaching for the quaffle instead of the ground that was just barely out of her reach.

Then she was falling.

A hand shot out an caught her wrist, Rebecca's downward momentum pulling her and Ginny towards the ravine.  Rebecca's body slammed into the stone and dirt the bridge had once been anchored into, the bridge that was now no more than a memory.