Avalon was exhausted.

Physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. Her legs felt like jelly—and not from a jelly-legs curse. They simply ached from the sheer amount of running and spell-casting she had been performing. The Ravenclaw had just departed the Great Hall, where she had gotten a particularly nasty gash on her arm (thanks to a rogue Neo-Alliance member catching her with the back end of a spell) mended by a healer. Her feet dragged as she made her way through the Entrance Hall, prepared to head back out to the grounds to help her classmates.

But it seemed she was not alone. Ducking instinctively at the noise and the sight of the followers infiltrating the castle, she made to crouch behind the staircase, but was blown back by the explosion instead.

Eyes stinging from the debris, she managed to find her wand. "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" she shouted, flicking it pointedly toward a particularly mangy-looking follower. While she was at it, she put up a quick shield charm around herself and sent nonverbal expelliarmus toward one of the followers—winking at Aboli after she did so. Thank goodness they had practiced nonverbals earlier in the term. They had definitely come in handy for Avalon today.

They had to keep them from getting too far into the castle. There were too many vulnerable people in here—those in the Great Hall, her younger classmates in the upper part of the castle. Merlin, she hoped that more would be coming to help, because by the looks of it, there weren't enough of them in here to hold off the Neo-Alliance group.