Her hands trace over the thick wood that lines the window, her nervous fingers knotting together whilst her eyes focus on the horizon. In the distance, she can see the army dancing towards them, their spells and shrieks of glee lurking across the to-be war barren plain that for now remains as the untouched grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The world is not right anymore, the line between good and evil, the balance, it has shifted, and now it takes on a new form. The line is curving and fading and she is no longer sure where one side meets the other. They are so close now that their heads collide with their foes, fighting to shift the curve back to a straight line where everything is clear. She cannot bear it. She feels as though she is being watched permanently these days, the small hairs on her back forever standing on end. Her books are not enough comfort anymore, she can no longer relish in their knowledge. Fear haunts her every waking moment and when she dares to rest her heads it creeps into the corners of her slumbering mind.

She yearns for the curve to reform and straighten, for things to be how they used to be, simple and not tampered. It had been so much easier when those who now fought had been her students or classmates, their minds still innocent, free of the ties that now strung them together so tightly. They had never dreamt of it coming to this, a man so close to her own age playing them all like puppets. She wonders if she squinted tightly enough, if she could see the strings. He has brought them into a war and played them against each other on his own bidding, his control is so vast that they had not realised each of their own moves was his own bidding. Some have died already, the Potters and Longbottoms alike, but did they died as heroes or in vain? Had they been as simple as another obstacle the dark lord had planned and overcome? Were any of them really heroes at all?

She knows the end is coming, and whilst she fights to keep the hope in her eyes and the hardness of her lips, deep instead her she aches and shakes with fear. She knows they have little to no chance of pulling through and remaining a united force, surely the darkness would prevail. The curve will twist, circling around them and it is closing in. Her students and those who have aligned themselves with her and the boy who would save them all, will slowly pledge their allegiances to the other side, if not die in protest. Their hope for survival and for setting things right was slowly dying, fading, slipping from their grasps. She could see it in their eyes in classes, even in their exams. No longer was it the nervousness of failing that worried them but the dark corridors and the war that had begun to cling suffocatingly to the gates of the school that safe harboured them. They knew that they would not be safe forever. The curve is twisting.

In the distance there is a torrential boom and she sees the ribbons of a emerald green curse snake up into the sky, twisting and changing until they form his sign.

The war is here.