Bellatrix's heart pounded as she ran through the forest. Hoping that escape could be as simple as apparating away, she drew her wand and made an attempt. Unfortunately, her spell was cancelled by the Hogwarts wards. They were in the Forbidden Forest but not quite far enough from the castle to escape the wards. She supposed that since the meeting had not required Voldemort's presence, the Lestranges and Malfoy had not felt the need to leave the ward boundaries. "Damn!" she whispered, resuming her rapid pace through the forest. Occasionally, she could hear yells signaling that she was being pursued.
Various strategies for coping with the situation immediately presented themselves to Bellatrix, but before choosing one she focused on what her ultimate goal should be. Get back the castle, barricade yourself in Harry's quarters, she instructed herself. Hopefully he didn't get himself killed tonight .
Now with the goal in mind, Bellatrix began choosing her strategy. She would need to move toward the castle, but her Voldemort-supporting classmates would undoubtedly anticipate that move. After all, their futures essentially depended on stopping her from returning to the castle and ratting them out to Dumbledore and the Ministry authorities. Bellatrix began plotting how to get past any sentries left behind, but then realized she should probably find a way to neutralize the classmates pursuing her first. She couldn't keep running forever.
Bellatrix began to examine her surroundings carefully as she ran. Eventually she came to a small stream. Though it did not carry much water, it had through time cut a path into the terrain. Quickly looking behind her to ensure that none of her pursuers had her in sight, Bellatrix jumped down to the stream bank and picked her way to a position beneath a small ledge. Realizing she'd need a decoy to keep them moving, Bellatrix scanned the bank of the river for something with which to work and found several medium sized rocks. She then transfigured them into deer and shooed them away from her position. The pursuers would undoubtedly frighten them into running. It was her hope that the movement made by the startled deer would be mistaken for her running.
She didn't have to wait long. Within less than a minute about half a dozen of her pursuers arrived at the stream. Their loud yells and lumos spells served to startle the deer into leaping across the stream and running through the wood on the other side.
"There she is!" Crabbe yelled, shooting a stunner toward a tree behind which one of the deer had dodged. "She's running scared!"
Bellatrix smirked, the adrenaline-induced action making her feel braver, though she would have preferred to laugh in Crabbe's face. This dark lord apparently had not realized quite how stupid his new followers were-or at least the leaders of his new followers.
"Go, go!" Crabbe commanded those with him.
Mindlessly, some of the students jumped across the stream and began tearing through the forest, hot on the trail of the transfigured deer. Bellatrix frowned when she realized that only a few had crossed the stream. There were still some on her side of the bank.
"Aren't you going to go?" came a voice-Bellatrix recognized it as belonging to Rabastan Lestrange.
"I was waiting for you to go," Crabbe retorted angrily.
"I'm not going," Rabastan said. "I'm going to wait for Lucius and Rodolphus to catch me up. We need to coordinate."
"Then I'd better stay and coordinate, too," Crabbe said stubbornly.
Bellatrix ground her teeth silently. Moron!
There was silence for a brief moment. "No, I think you'd better go," Rabastan said. "Those wieners won't know what to do if they do find her. Might lose their nerve, you know."
"Lose their nerve?" Crabbe questioned.
"We can't just let her get away with our secrets, idiot!"
"You mean, we're going to kill her?" Crabbe wondered.
Rabastan let out a frustrated sigh. "Only if we have to. A memory charm or Imperius will suffice. Just keep in mind that Rodolphus will be very… annoyed if you kill her without cause. Now, GO!"
Deciding not to continue being stubborn, Crabbe jumped across the trickling stream and huffed away through the forest, following the trail of his comrades.
At this juncture, Bellatrix began to silently consider whether taking Rabastan out of commission before Lucius and Rodolphus caught up with him might be the wisest course. He was what was keeping her pinned to her location. If she could take him down before anyone was the wiser, she could get off and back to the castle. Bellatrix strained her ears to catch a hint of where Rabastan might be standing. The occasional rustle of cloth and crackle of dead branches told her that he was pacing or walking around trying to get a better view.
Bellatrix smiled. He was nervous and jumpy. It would be easy to startle him from one direction and come at him from another. Carefully, she picked her way along the stream's bank until she could see Rabastan's dark figure by the faint moonlight. He was indeed pacing, stopping occasionally to crane his neck and try to catch a glimpse in the direction from which he seemed to expect Lucius and Rodolphus. Suddenly, Bellatrix felt the urge to giggle. Crabbe may be a coward, but so are you, Bellatrix thought.
A quick wave of Bellatrix's wand and a very dark and barely noticeable streak of light shot toward a tree opposite of her position. The streak of light hit the tree and made a loud pop. Rabastan immediately spun toward the sound, wand drawn. Bellatrix wasted no time. A reducto zoomed toward Rabastan's back. Suddenly though, a voice screamed. "Rabastan! Behind you! Duck!"
Rabastan spun, but it was too late. The spell caught him in the shoulder with a sickening crunch and bit of splat before knocking him to the ground. If Bellatrix was any judge of injuries, Rabastan wouldn't be getting up soon-not without medical help.
Bellatrix had just enough time to register that the one who had shouted the warning was Rodolphus Lestrange before she dodged a pair of stunners from him and Lucius who was not far behind his comrade. The stunners had been shot slightly apart, so her only chance was to throw herself to the ground.
"Blood traitor!" Rodolphus screamed, shooting several spells and kicking up dirt while Bellatrix rapidly cast jinxes on several points of the stream's bank. Anyone who tried to jump over would find themselves flat on their face in the muddy water.
"You may as well give yourself up, Bella," called Lucius Malfoy. "You can't escape the servants of the dark lord."
The pressure of the situation and the absurdity of Lucius's statement threw Bellatrix over the edge. She shot up and began rapidly firing spells at Lucius and Rodolphus, giggling wildly as they took shelter behind a nearby tree. She finished with several reducto s toward the branches over their heads, crossed the stream, and ran downstream toward Hogwarts. Unless she missed her guess, the stream would take her to the lake. She giggled quietly as she ran along the stream, waiting to hear the distinctive splat of the two morons falling victim to her jinxes and being thrown into the river.