Forest

"I'd always thought some people were honestly pretty funny, spending all day opposing this and opposing that."

In the outskirts of Berlin, a sweat-soaked Johnny slowly walked out of the forest with a blood-drenched Joseph slung over his shoulder. Behind them, the women and children who had been rescued earlier fled in terror. Though they looked panicked, their formation still maintained basic order. Several wounded Wizards brought up the rear in the forest, and amid explosion after explosion, the woods that had once sheltered them collapsed in swaths, as if some savage beast—or a gold-medal lumberjack—was wreaking havoc among the trees.

The crowd stretched into a long line, withdrawing from one corner of the forest under cover of night. The Wizards guarding the edges of the group raised their arms as if holding an invisible shield, but from the way their hands were clenched, it seemed more like a piece of fabric large enough to cover the entire column.

Those Wizards were not lightly injured either, but no one stopped to treat their wounds. Instead, a small group split off and trailed behind, carefully cleaning up the bloodstains they left behind. The forest was silent, no different from any other quiet night, except for the great trees that occasionally collapsed without a sound, announcing that a fierce battle was taking place inside. Even the noise had been blocked, all for the sake of leaving no trace.

"Pure-bloods oppose half-bloods, half-bloods oppose Muggle-borns, Wizards oppose Muggles, humans oppose apes, animals oppose plants, living things oppose... damn it, I'm not educated, I don't know what comes after that." Johnny forced a smile into his furious eyes, jostled Joseph, and said, "Just because they're different? Damn it, I think the guy who says that isn't much like his own mother either. Why doesn't