Chapter Thirteen
Confronting the Faceless 💀 CompleteMid November, 1997
"There are spots that don't come off"
The Hogsmeade train platform is too crowded. Matangi notices that immediately as the train pulls up. Normally it's just Hagrid, standing off to one side, ready to herd the first years to the boats while the rest of them go the opposite direction to where the self-pulled carriages are parked.
She glances over at the only other person in the compartment - really the only person she can stand at this school most days - to see if she's noticed the odd situation as well.
Hazel Onayemi catches her looking and grins. "What? You're not still worrying about the papers are you Tangi?" Her tone is light, teasing, and it nearly convinces Matangi that she's overthinking things again.
"Maybe." She says instead, because she can still see people lingering on the platform, just outside the circle of light cast by the lamps. "Does the platform look different than usual to you?"
Hazel frowns and looks out the window, tilting her head so the point of her hat isn't in her face. "I... maybe? Now that you mention it it does seem different."
"We'll need to be careful." Matangi decides firmly. "Stay close, those papers definitely weren't for nothing and I'm willing to bet we're about to learn their purpose."
Hazel nods firmly, pushes her hat back out of her eyes, and grabs Matangi's hand. "Okay, no separating." She agrees, giving Matangi a smile.
Matangi squeezes her hand and turns towards the hallway to hide the blush that's creeping up her cheeks. "Right then, let's go."
There's the usual jostle to get off the train, and then they reach the platform and Matangi's suspicions are immediately proven correct.
"You two! Back on the train!" A gruff voice commands, and Matangi feels a tug on her hand as a cloaked figure tries to shove Hazel back through the door they'd just exited.
"Hey! Hands off creep!" Matangi shouts angrily, tightening her hold on Hazel's hand and swinging the other fist towards where the figure's face ought to be.
The cloak jerks backwards and Matangi misses, but it gives them the space to move away from the train and towards the carriages - and the woods.
"Come on, we've got to run before they catch us." Matangi urges. She hates running, would far prefer to try that punch again and actually connect with flesh this time, but she has to think about Hazel. Hazel who is far kinder to the world than it could ever deserve, and who needs Matangi to not get into a fist fight with a full grown wizard right now.
So she turns and drags Hazel down the platform, dodging the strange figures and trying to blend in with the other students, which is proving harder than it should be.
They're almost out - Matangi can see the edge of Hogsmeade, where the forest begins - when a spell strikes her in the side and she's sent sprawling.
Hazel is dragged down with her, and the other girl releases their hands so she can turn Matangi over and frantically check for injuries.
"I'm fine, go! You have to-"
Matangi is cut off when two figures bear down on them, wands out. She loses sight of Hazel in the ensuing chaos, and part of her brain is definitely panicking over that but most of it is focused on taking down the two figures and booking it the last few meters into the shadowy cover of the woods.
She stays close to the platform for over an hour after that, dodging searches and watching the train leaving the station, hoping Hazel will appear.
She never does.
That had been September. Matangi can't keep track of time out here but she assumes it must be November-ish because it hasn't snowed yet, but the chill in the air is threatening to do so sometime soon.
Roughing it in the woods on her own hasn't been the worst experience in the world - she learned quickly how to make fires, how to fish with her bare hands, and most importantly how to apply her martial arts classes to real life situations when the Muggleborn Hunters started showing up and trying to drag her off to their concentration camps.
She delivers a very satisfying roundhouse kick into the face of the most recent idiot who decided to try his luck with her. He goes down hard, clearly unconscious, and Matangi starts rifling through his jacket to see if there's anything of use.
Unfortunately he only has his wand, so Matangi leaves him on the ground and heads off back into the forest. She hasn't eaten anything yet today - the guy had jumped her while she was searching for food in fact - and the energy she'd just spent taking him down has caused her vision to start swimming slightly.
So food is the number on priority - no more head-on fights until she's eaten. She can practically hear Hazel lecturing her on her tendency to think with her fists first, and she can't help but mumble aloud in response.
"Technically I thought with my foot this time."
Despite how soft her voice is thanks to weeks of disuse, the sound is uncomfortably loud in the still woods and she clears and picks up the pace, scanning the area around her for any sign of suspicious movement.
Her wand is sitting in an inner pocket of her robe, utterly useless to her because of the Trace but left unburned because some part of her - probably the Hazel part - is being stupidly optimistic about being able to go back to school. That this will blow over sooner rather than later, as if any massive conflict ever takes less than several years to resolve itself.
She glowers at the thought. Wherever they're keeping the Muggleborns they've rounded up probably isn't somewhere anyone would want to be for several years. Heck, chances are most people won't even make it out - Matangi was in Muggle school long enough to learn about World War Two; she knows how these things go.
She forces her thoughts away from going down that road - she has to focus on eating. That's something she's learned out here in the forest - if you lose focus you're liable to get killed. Her martial arts have kept her safe so far, but one slip up is all it takes to end up coyote food. Wolf food? She can't tell the difference, they're all big hungry dogs to her.
She manages to find some mushrooms during her wanderings, and more importantly she finds a small cave. There's not much room inside, but Matangi is barely five feet tall so the space is comfortable enough when she's seated. Plus, less room means it's more easily defendable against possible late-night visitors.
She settles in the cave and sets her mushrooms against the back wall, covering them with the ratty coat she'd stolen off one of her attackers a few weeks prior to hide them from any nosey wildlife that might happen by. The sun is starting to dip past the tops of the trees, so she needs to gather firewood now or it will get too dark and she'll have to stay up all night to ward off predators - she's found animals stay clear if there's a fire going, no matter how tasty and unprotected she looks.
Luckily there's a lot of broken underbrush around the cave and Matangi has a decent haul going when it's officially too dark to risk going out again. She gathers a few stones and sets them up in a circle (one out-of-control almost forest fire is more than enough to learn how to make a proper barrier) before piling up a few stick and some leaves.
Her wand weighs heavily inside her robe as it always does at this point of the evening. It's always tempting to just pull it out and spark up a fire in two seconds, easy as pie. But that would bring hoards of Hunters down on her head and she can't deal with that when the sun is nearly gone and she can't see more than two feet away in the moonlight.
So she grabs two sticks and gets to work on making sparks the Muggle way.
It takes forever, and she swears her wand gets heavier in her pocket in an attempt to coerce her into using it, but eventually she has a cheery little blaze going near the mouth of the cave and she picks her mushrooms back up.
She does pull out her wand now, but just uses it to spear the mushrooms and hold them over the little fire to roast. Not the tastiest or healthiest meal, but it's better than having nothing. Sleeping on an empty stomach is not something she'd recommend now that she's tried it a few dozen times.
She finishes off the mushrooms quicker than she'd like, and she probably should have saved a few for the morning - rookie mistake, but it's been a few days since she's had much to eat so she hadn't thought ahead like she should have.
Well, it's a problem for the morning - for now she needs to sleep. It's the only energy recharge she gets somedays.
So she piles up the fire with the rest of the brush she'd collected, pushes her wand back into her robe before she gives in to the urge to chuck it on top of the flaming pile, and curls up with her back to the cave wall so if she's woken in the night she'll be facing whatever is coming.
She could probably write a survival book with everything she's learned recently.
She drifts off pretty quickly considering the cold, hard floor she's lying on, but it's honestly better than the forest where there would be dirt in her hair and twigs jabbing her side. At least this makeshift mattress is flat.
She wakes up just after dawn, the fire now long-cold ashes in the rock circle. Matangi sits up and stretches, quietly thankful her night hadn't been haunted with the gruesome dreams that often interrupt her sleep these days. Images of her family dead and Hazel tortured by Hunters stalk her more nights than she cares to admit.
They're worse when she hasn't had food though, so as always the first order of business is breakfast.
But as she's exiting the cave she hesitates. Maybe first order should be making sure she can get back - it really is a great spot to hunker down a few days, at least until the Hunters compromise its location.
So she grabs one of the bigger rocks from her fire pit and hammers a few marks into the nearby trees. It's slow going but it's worth it to be able to re-find this location later.
When she heads out she makes sure to stay cognizant of which direction the cave is in even as she scans for mushrooms or other wildlife. Or possibly even a stream - some fish would be nice to have, it's been a while since she's eaten any meat.
However, her food hunt comes up fruitless, and she circles back to the cave to scout out the other direction. Maybe she can find something in time for a light dinner.
What she does end up finding proves even better - an abandoned Muggle hunting lodge. It's locked up, but it's easy enough to smash one of the windows and let herself into the house.
It's unfortunately mostly empty - clearly it's a winter getaway and hasn't been touched in months, but she does manage to find some bottles of water in one of the cabinets and a closet near the front door that has bars of soap (thank goodness, she's been able to smell herself for far too long at this point), proper fishing equipment, and - most excitingly for her if she's honest - a box full of tactical hunting knives.
Matangi has never handled a knife before, but she's seen them used in the past and so figures she can probably handle one well enough against the Hunters. It at least will give her an edge over their ability to use wands.
There's a huge assortment of different styles for Matangi to try, and she can admit she gets a little caught up swinging them around the empty front hall of the cabin. There are a few that are way too heavy to justify bringing with her even though she's pretty sure driving them into a Hunter's gut would be a lot of fun.
She eventually puts aside most of the knives with serrated edges as well, only selecting a small one to keep with her in case she ever gets lucky enough to catch a deer or something - a flat-edge wouldn't be able to cut through the hide very well.
She returns all the curved blades as well, unable to think of any real use for them that she couldn't use a regular straight knife for as well. That still leaves a good twelve knives to choose from (whoever owns this house might be a serial killer, what else would one need so many different types of hunting knives for?), not counting the one she's already grabbed.
She ends up trying out all of them, swinging them around and stabbing at the air to see which feel the most comfortable. Eventually she chooses two more blades and puts the rest back roughly as she found them. She then sheathes the three blades (thankfully those were already on all the knives - picking these has already taken more time than she likes, searching for coverings would have been a waste of time she doesn't really have) and rifles around in a few more closets before finding what she's looking for - a small backpack. She also finds a lighter, which is a massive bonus.
She drops the knives, the water bottles, the soap, and the lighter into the bag, grabs the fishing equipment she'd found before, and then climbs back out the busted window to head back towards her cave. The sun is already dropping, so she resigns herself to not having any food today. At least she has some water, which she knows is more important anyway, and her new equipment will hopefully help on the food front in the future so the overall worth of the day is probably positive.
She makes it back to the cave with just enough time to gather some wood for a fire, and she uses her new lighter to start it. She settles back against the cave wall, taking small sips from one of the water bottles as she listens to the nocturnal creatures waking up and makes plans for the next day.
She falls asleep with one of her new knives resting just next to her hand.
The next day she wastes no time - she needs to find a stream. She takes her backpack and the fishing rod and tackle box and heads off in a new direction, still keeping an eye on where the cave should be relative to her location.
She keeps walking determinedly - she can't afford to not find a water source today. So she keeps her eyes and ears peeled for any glimmer or rushing that might give away her quarry.
Her heightened focus does turn up some non-forest-critter sounds, but not the ones she was hoping to hear.
The distinct crack of several people Apparating into the forest far too close to her current location than she likes has her darting for the nearest tree. She places the fishing equipment down and covers it with leaves as quickly and quietly as she can manage before shimmying up the trunk and resting on the lowest, thickest branch she reaches.
She pulls out one of her new knives and crouches down, ready to drop onto the head of whatever unfortunate arsehole walks under her tree first.
If she's honest with herself, she's kind of excited to see what kind of damage her new weapons can do. She's gotten out of every encounter up to this point simply because her enemies always underestimate her - without magic how can she be any sort of threat? And as satisfying as their faces are when she kicks their noses in, she thinks it'll be that much sweeter if she can do a bit more damage than an easily, magically, fixable broken face.
The group appears on the opposite end of the clearing from her tree, and she mentally curses. There's a better chance now that they'll spot her before she can get the drop on them - the trees are almost completely bare these days so she's not exactly well hidden if the Hunters just look up.
Luckily for her the Hunters so far have all been pretty stupid, and these ones are no exception. The three men scan the clearing at eye level and wander out into it with no sense of self-preservation. Of course, they don't know she's here, and they aren't expecting their quarry to be able to fight back.
Matangi grins to herself as one finally moves into range. Time to correct them of that particular misconception.
She lands on the guys shoulders and knocks him to his knees, sending her to the ground where she quickly rolls and gets back onto her feet. The other two shout in surprise and raise their wands, but this is old hat to Matangi at this point and she's already moving out of the way, kicking the guy she'd dropped onto in the head just to ensure he's staying down.
A few spells flash past her and she rushes forward, knowing she has to finish this quickly before they regain their balance. Right now they're confused, and confusion causes mistakes.
And mistakes leaves openings.
She gets one of the guys in the side with her new knife, and it's then that she realizes pulling knives out of flesh is harder than pushing them in. She tugs hard a few times before the blade finally slips free, and swears as she barely dodges a blast from the last Hunter standing. The unanticipated delay has eaten up the last of her element of surprise.
She dives across the clearing to get back out of range of the last guy - the one she'd stabbed is on the ground wailing and yeah, she's proud of that - and quickly analyzes the clearing to see if there's anything she can take advantage of to take out the last aggressor. She really doesn't like having to improvise - she'll need to practice more with the knife obviously before she brings it out in combat again, it was sloppy for her to have not done that to begin with. She was just so excited about it.
No time to dwell on that though - she spots a low hanging tree and jumps for it, getting over top the last Hunter standing. She doesn't give him a chance to register her new location as she immediately turns and launches herself directly at him. Backup plan number seven - one she's used a few too many times now to be anything but sad, but that means she's able to judge the distance properly and land on the guy safely, probably cracking a few of his ribs with her knees.
She's fine though, which is all that matters. She's back on her feet in a heartbeat and she books it away from the clearing as fast as possible, running the opposite direction from her cave. She doesn't want it compromised if she can help it.
She has to leave the fishing equipment, which is too bad. She'll have to go back tomorrow - with luck the Hunters won't find it and she can get it back.
Once she's gotten a decent bit of distance she slows down and carefully listens for any indication that she's being followed. She stands stock-still long enough that her muscles start to ache, but she needs to be sure she's shaken them off. Once satisfied, she turns to start heading back to the cave - once again without food - but then another sound catches her notice.
She moves towards it cautiously, still tensed in case of another attack, but speeds up as the sound becomes clearer.
Running water.
When she finds the source it's not a full stream, but more of a creek, something that will be frozen over within the next few weeks. But for right now it's something of a small miracle to Matangi.
She fully refills the one water bottle she's emptied since yesterday (the water is moving so there's a lower chance of it making her sick and she doesn't know when she'll find another source, so the benefits outweigh the risks) and then pulls out the knife and washes it off as best she can, scrubbing her own blood-stained hands at the same time. She then crouches on the bank with the newly cleaned weapon, hoping her luck will hold and she'll be having fish for dinner tonight.
She does manage to catch a few small swimmers before the sun starts to dip down and she packs up and hurries back to her cave. She roasts the fish over her fire and while it's definitely not enough to be considered a healthy meal, she's gone long enough without food at this point that it satisfies her shrunken stomach enough that she sleeps very soundly that night.
The next day she makes her way back to the clearing to search for her abandoned fishing equipment. To her absolute delight it's still buried under the leaves where she'd left it.
Idiot Hunters. She thinks smugly as she collects her stolen goods and eyes the red patch still staining the middle of the clearing. Right, she should schedule in knife practice for this evening. But the bulk of the day has been dedicated to following the creek in hopes that its source will have some bigger fish to offer.
It takes the better part of an hour to relocate the creek, and from there Matangi follows it in reverse of the current, praying to a god she doesn't believe in that she isn't headed for an inaccessible underground spring.
But there had been fish in the creek yesterday, which is usually a good sign as far as the source also having food. At least, in the one experience Matangi has had so far since going on the run. Which yes, is terrible data statistically but logic is also on her side here so she's taking the risk.
In the end, logic and luck win out - the creek feeds off of a much larger stream, and Matangi sets up shop next to the bank and begins figuring out how to bait the fishing line. Like with the knife, it turns out to be harder than movies make it look.
She eventually figures out how to properly tie off the bait so it doesn't fall off as soon as the line hits the water, and then she leans back and waits.
Unfortunately, the movies and books are right about fishing being incredibly boring, but Matangi decides to take advantage of the time to set up some noise traps in the surrounding area so no Hunters will be able to sneak up on her while she's fishing.
It gives her a chance to scout the area as well, learn where the good hiding places are and plan out a few retreat options should she be forced to run like she had yesterday (she hates running though - then she can't take any food the Hunters have on them). Crossing the stream is ideal of course, but considering the angle of the sun she'd be forfeiting her cave for the night - there's no way she could get back before dark if she has to take off in the opposite direction.
Luckily for her she never has to take off. Unluckily she also is apparently terrible at fishing - she sits by the water all day and not one bite.
That's what I get for trying to use old white guy survival techniques. She thinks to herself dryly as she heads back to her cave. Well, at least she'd taken some time to properly scrub herself off with her new soap - she's actually feeling sort of clean for the first time in a while, which is nice.
It's dark when she arrives and she curses the shortening days, making a mental note to start gathering firewood before she leaves in the mornings. She'll have to sleep sitting up tonight, it keeps her on the edge of wakefulness and she'll need that since she doesn't have a flame to keep back the nighttime predators.
It's a rough night. Matangi has learned to go without a lot of things in the past few weeks - food, water, energy that isn't fueled purely by adrenaline - but ever since figuring out fire in her second week on the run she's at least been getting a decent, if occasionally nightmare-plagued, amount of sleep.
So when dawn breaks the next morning she feels like she hasn't gotten any rest at all, and it's messing with her mental alertness a hell of a lot more than she'd like or will admit.
Still, the plan for the day is to keep close to the cave. She has water still, and the human body can go a while without food. She can't remember exactly how long - and she's not going to test it - but she knows three days is well in the safe zone. She's gone a full week in the past. She can do it again if need be.
Today she gathers firewood first, and then pulls out her knives. She can spend her day off practicing, so next time she gets into a fight with the Hunters she'll be ready to gut them properly.
She stretches first of course - number one thing her martial arts teacher was constantly emphasizing was to stretch, otherwise you can ruin your muscles and joints. Hunter attacks aren't projected enough for her to stretch for them, but it would be ridiculous and embarrassing to hurt herself just practicing. So she takes a good ten minutes to warm up everything before grabbing her knives from her bag and assuming her usual fighting stance.
She holds up the knife she'd chosen and gives it a few swings, moving as she normally does when practicing her fighting in hopes the knife might move naturally with the flow of her body. For certain moves it works - punches turn into stabs quite nicely - but not much else lends itself to the new weapon. Matangi takes a short break to weigh the knives in her hands before she starts trying out some new ideas.
Slashing proves to mess with her balance quite a bit, which leads to her deciding that slashing is for when she's moving. Slashing practice is then had for the next couple hours until she decides to give herself a water break.
While she sits by her cave she eyes the trees around her and lets her brain whirl while she rests. Maybe she can Home Alone some warnings around her makeshift living quarters, make it a bit safer. She'll certainly sleep better knowing she'll be woken up should anything or anyone get too close.
So she turns her water break into a full-blown gear change, grabbing a stick to use as a makeshift pen. She scratches a rough layout of her surroundings into the dirt and then pauses to take stock of what material she has available to her.
She ends up deconstructing the fishing rod so she can use the line to jury-rig her alert system.
She covers the areas most likely to be traversed, particularly in the dark when lighting will be sparse, using items out of the tackle box to create makeshift bells. It's not like she'll be fishing with any of it again when she'd been more successful with her bare hands.
Once she's mostly content with her new security system she goes back to her knives and proceeds to continue practicing with those until the sun starts dropping and she packs it in for the night. She does make one last sweep of the area before she starts worrying about building her fire for the night - she needs to find a good stone to sharpen her knives with.
She doesn't find an ideal one which means she'll have to look for another one tomorrow, but she does get a decently smooth rock before she sparks up her wood pile and settles in for the night, sharpening all her knives before placing the one she'd felt most comfortable with during practice next to her head and curling up and waiting for sleep to come.
She isn't sure how much time has passed when she wakes up, but the fire is barely a smolder and the moon is peeking between the bare branches of the trees so she figures it must have been a few hours at least. It takes her a moment to pin point what had woken her up, but she realizes that one of her makeshift alarms had gone off. She's instantly on alert, sitting up and grabbing her knife, pulling her backpack on as quietly as she can manage and mentally being thankful she'd thought to pack everything up before falling asleep.
She crouches down, creeping forward slowly and steadily despite the protest her knees give at the position. Another alarm goes off, and this time she hears swearing - a man, and luckily for her he sound like he's alone.
Unluckily it's a person and not just an animal, so her cave is definitely compromised.
She inches closer to the opening, breathing shallowly, waiting for the Hunter to get close enough for her to lunge.
She's not going down so easily.
Author's Note: I'M SURE SHE'S FINE. *cough* Anyway, I'm pleased to announce that I not only finished writing this chapter ahead of schedule, I'm also over halfway through next week's chapter, which means either next week or the week after will likely feature a double update! I said I'd make up the concussion weeks and I will :P
Next Week: Fighting the Administration rarely works out how you'd like it to
So I'm thinking I might do a final 'afterwords' chapter to share my thoughts and feelings on writing this story, if that's something people would be interested in? I'm also open to answering any lingering questions people might have there as well!
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