"Ellie, now." She pours more strength into her Patronus, which joins the thestrals in harassing the nearest Dementors.

Fine.

Onto the thestral. With Anathema.

The cloak slips a bit as they climb up - Anathema's shaking - but they can get it in place, and the thestral takes off as soon as they're settled, running a few paces at a gap in the Dementors steadily circling them before taking off into the air with a few powerful wing beats.

Their Patronuses stay behind, at least, following their creators' last orders.

Riding a thestral bareback is a lot different than a broom. Not as uncomfortable as she would have thought, though.

Maybe they can- get Dumbledore, or something.

Behind them, in the tightening circle of Dementors -

Speaking is too slow for this. But Legilimency happens as fast as you can think, and requires only a connection, and permission if your target is good at keeping you out -

She meets Fay's gaze again.

'They'll keep chasing me. They can fly. They just don't like to.'

(Layered in with the thought, because Legilimency is nothing like speaking at all, nothing like clean telepathy, it's melding into someone else's brain so you know where you begin and they end but you're as exposed to each other as you'll allow, and Bellatrix doesn't have the trick of hiding herself - layered in. Fear. Memory. Shadows. Anathema. Diving into her sister-in-law's mind - )

'I know.'

Her thoughts are happy. Gloriously, determinedly, angrily so, pouring into the brightest Patronus she's ever conjured. The ghostly reflection of Ellie is holding the Dementors at bay, for now, keeping the rolling tides of despair merely lapping at her walls.

Ellie. Anathema. They're the greatest things in her life. Right now. Ever. Laughing in the snow, not far from here. The girls turning into Animagi for the first time, playing in their yard. Ellie's first Quidditch game. Anathema mastering a hard spell.

Love turned aside Death, once. She stares at non-existence, emptying her mind of anything else.

They need to get out of here.

'They'll chase my daughter if we Apparate out. If I'm not here. They're faster than that thestral's going.'

And Apparation requires so much focus - so much hard, hard focus. Nearly impossible, with Dementors bearing down on you, panic and despair rising howling in your mind.

'I know.'

It hasn't been even a heartbeat, but the answer is obvious - don't Apparate out. Flee in the opposite direction. Get enough distance the girls can make it back to Hogwarts before the two women remove themselves to safety.

Or at least hold on long enough the girls are farther from danger. There's adult wizards in Hogsmeade - there's more students in Hogsmeade, and she's briefly unsure - a crack in her walls, despair slipping in - she's briefly unsure whether the Dementors, this many, this worked up, so far from the control they were supposed to be under, might threaten the village too.

The other professors need time to get here. The Aurors need time to be alerted to the problem. Back up's pretty far out.

Any back up won't tolerate Fay playing fast and loose with the rules around Bellatrix.

'Can we really last until back up?'

She hadn't known there were this many Dementors in the Isles. Hadn't dreamed of this much horror in the world.

'We can try.'

She firms up the cracks in her walls, forces the despair out. Forces the thought of lying down - of giving up - out.

Death is better than the Kiss. The Kiss is better than losing.

She will not lose.

Joy's getting harder. But anger's still the opposite of despair, still a potential twin to a fiercer love.

Her heart finishes its first terrified beat.

'They're chasing me. Not you.'

How can Fay possibly care enough to risk herself.

(It's easier to build your walls when you have someone else's - ones like you'd build, a mind that's a near perfect match to yours, the same metaphors, the same twists, the same dark corners and potential - )

(Easier to push off despair.)

'I don't like Dementors.'

And Anathema wants to get to know Bellatrix, as baffling as that thought feels to Fay - she doesn't remember her birth family. She doesn't want anything to do with them. To even share their blood or know their names.

And Bellatrix was - someone in her orbit, once, for a brief exhilarating moment.

And Fay has never been afraid of anything except losing. Except failing those she loves.

She sometimes shows the shape her boggart takes to the third years, when it's deciding to be less of an asshole. To share their vulnerability. It was - Ellie, gaze vacant, mind empty, when she went to test it this year. She didn't share it.

She's not like Anathema or Bellatrix. She has worse things to be afraid of than her own mind.

'I don't either.'

Ellie and Anathema aren't very far. It hasn't been long.

The problem, of course, with drawing the strongest Patronus away to protect the bait -

Is that the girls will be left vulnerable. And Bellatrix knows Dementors, knows them as painfully well as she knows the twisted screaming corners of her own mind. They'll pursue their prey relentlessly... But they're opportunistic, and a cloud of them doesn't tend to mind scattering, bringing down everything they can reach.

And it'll be just as bad for Fay's ability to protect them long term if Fay's caught defending Bellatrix as if Fay dies here. The punishment for Bellatrix if she's caught is no kinder than what faces her here. An appointment with one, instead of many, not even a slim opportunity to kill herself at the last second. Her opportunity to survive lies in truly escaping - Apparating away without splinching herself fatally - hard when her mind's screaming so much - turning into a cat - she hates that form, hates how small and weak it is, Voldemort used to smile about it and it was honestly just his bizarre moods that kept her as his favorite, he saw being attacked as amusing, and of course he didn't die when Lily killed him - the one time Bellatrix got annoyed enough to hit him with a Killing Curse he was back three days later in a different body, pouting at her -

Her thoughts are screaming into irrelevancy. Focus. Borrow some of Fay's walls.

The Dementors might ignore her if she's a cat. They might not. Not something she can count on. Probably she can Apparate. Worse that happens is it kills her. Better than staying.

'You're sure?'

Thestrals are mercurial. The darker ones - the easier ones - are kinder, generally. Slower. Safe to put children on - at least ones not already looming on Death's door.

The pale ones are fast and silent and as likely to take you to your death as your destination. It'll take longer to be caught.

Wizards as a whole don't know a lot about thestrals, but Fay's been able to see them since she was eight years old, before she even knew what magic truly was.

(They hang around people like us.)

'Not at all.'

There's nothing else layered in. Her mind's nearly empty, now, a cold clarity.

'Go.'

(You're not trapped, if you've made a choice.)

Her house - vivid detail, love and comfort and joy - enough to Apparate to.

Time feels like it speeds up.

Fay strengthens her Patronus, catching the mane of a grey Thestral and swinging herself on, taking off in the girls' wake.

And Bellatrix turns to the palest there.

She can't actually see it. Not really. Not properly. But she took a hair from its tail in one delirious moment she's still not sure if she hallucinated, wove the gossamer strand into her homemade wand -

She can feel it.

She slings herself up, and it takes off without any direction from her, swooping over the Dementors' heads and then curling out over the snow, just fast enough - just low enough - to present the juiciest target around.

Fay's Patronus provides additional incentives, viciously attacking any Dementors who try to split off from their siblings.

She catches up to the girls over Hogsmeade.

"Professor?" Ellie's voice comes from the apparently-empty back of the thestral.

" - Where's Bella-"

The thestral's wings beat once. Twice.

"She's going to Apparate out once we're clear."

That doesn't seem likely but Ellie will decline to voice this thought aloud.

"We're making for Hogwarts, then?"

"You two are. I need to make sure they don't attack here."

She's sent (easier, weaker, near invisible mists) extra messages to Hogsmeade already - they know to be wary, to try to get the other students back. But there aren't many Professors supervising on Hogsmeade weekends, even on a year like this.

"Okay. Stay safe."

"I will."

She wheels off, swooping down to the village below.