In The Fight To Survive (Golden Trio Era) {4}

Life Or Death

CW: Mentions of Death, Severe Injuries and SA

Remus transfigured an empty table into a blackboard on wheels, walking over to it and putting a line down the middle of it, before scribbling the words 'Hogwarts Express' and 'Bishops Wood' on either side of the line. "Let's start with the difference in the pre-battle of them, stating the obvious that we had over two weeks to solely prepare for the attack on the Hogwarts Express, where we were summoned without notice to Bishop's Wood." Alicia voiced from her seat, knowing it was expected that everyone that recognises what went wrong is to speak up. Remus writes her point on the blackboard, while Kingsley nods in agreement with her.

"But what happened can't be written off as lack of preparation, we weren't prepared for the attack at the Merry Merrows and we were still a lot more successful when handling that than we were at Bishops Wood." Brian points out, making a rumble of whispers to pass through the room, "yeah but the Merrows fight was against lower ranked Death Eaters. Bishops Wood had the best of his rank as well as the Chief Death Eater himself, he wasn't on the train either." Audrey voiced, making Remus add her point of Voldemort's presence at each attack as a difference. "So what you're saying is that we crumbled under the pressure of our opposition and that's why people got hurt and Hazel died?" Roger Davis countered and he was surprised when Kingsley seemed to agree with what Audrey was insinuating.

"That's exactly what happened. Our system collapsed, there was no one pairing up to back each other up, people were breaking the emergency formations to play hero, and the quality of magic casted was outrageous. It seems that the Chief Death Eater's presence clouded the sharpest minds, and all the strategy we've worked endless to perfectly formulate vanished. We are all guilty of getting caught up in the Death Eaters' chaos, which they used to their advantage, and it cost us greatly." Those who were apart from both fights, looked at the ground ashamed of falling into Death Eaters' traps, which lead to Hazel Montague dying, and Bastien Monet to be in a medically-induced coma.

Hazel had died saving Mikayla's life, the blonde was too occupied battling the erratic fool, Thorfinn Rowle, when her ex-aunt, Cassetta O'Brien, tried to attack her from behind. Hazel had tackled Mikayla to the ground, feigning wrestling with her to make it look like she was trying to take Mikayla's wand. When Mikayla pushed back, Cassetta's killing curse that was meant for her, clipped Hazel's shoulder and the older woman collapsed lifelessly on top of the blonde. Mikayla got back to her feet, tears rolling down her cheeks as she stared down at Hazel's stiff body. Panic had started to make her heart race and her vision blur. She stumbled backwards away from Hazel, a second killing curse just missed her.

The jet of green light was sent from Thorfinn Rowle, who Disapparated when he watched his spell hit Cassetta in the stomach, he didn't even see her body crumble to the ground before he vanished. The panic settled into Mikayla's chest, flashes of all those she had seen dying flooding her mind, her hand clutching her shirt in its fist as she fought to breath. That's when she saw Rodney O'Brien in the flesh, fighting alongside Fergal with a sickening grin on his face. His eyes met hers, his wickedness gleaming at her shaking body, a disgusting smirk on his lips as her face lost all of its colour. "Mikayla didn't stop fighting in the middle of the fight on the Hogwarts Express, she completely shut down after Hazel went down, before going psycho and setting them on fire."

Heads rounded on Sergi Petrov as he placed blame on Mikayla for the Order's failures during the Battle of Bishops Wood, most of them looking at him in disbelief. "What? I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking." Sergi spat, glaring at those that were still staring at him. "Believe me, Petrov, no one was thinking that. And if anyone was, one person being out of commission shouldn't affect the outcome of a battle that drastically. No matter who that person is." George snarked at Sergi, jumping at the chance to shut him down in order to defend Mikayla's honour in her absence. "And she's not a fucking psycho you dickhead, you have no idea what you're talking about." Fred sneered at him, angry at this man's coping mechanism of blaming others when he was a coward.