Surpassing Danger
Chapter 24: The Battle of Hogsmeade (Year 6)
By Anne B. Walsh
Author Notes:
BYOT. This chapter contains character death and other forms of great evil.
George knelt in the front entrance of Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, sweeping his eyes back and forth across the street in front of it. Behind him he could hear the whispers of the half-dozen little witches who'd been enjoying an evening tea party to celebrate the birthday of one of the group when the explosions and screams had started in the street outside. He, Fred, and the girls had stopped only to engage the security charms on their own shop before spreading out to find businesses and homes less well-guarded.
Voldemort's mad if he thinks this is going to get him and his Death Eaters any kind of popular support…but then, that might not be what he's after any longer, might never have been, not if he thinks he can take the Ministry. Which, if Percy's right, he may be awfully close to doing, and then what happens to the Muggleborns? More than that, what happens to the straight-up Muggles who live in our world, or who know about it? And what about the ones who don't know anything?
The question hit home in a way it never had before, thanks to the person snugged into a small alcove on the opposite wall from the one George was leaning against, occasionally peering with one eye around the corner, her potion piece ready in her hand.
Crystal can defend herself, probably all the better because they won't expect it. Her parents can do the same. George had to stop himself from laughing aloud. Given what her dad's got in his back shed, he could've done that even if we'd never come along! But that's only if he could see the attack coming, and that's another place we can help, giving out things like Sneakoscopes, tuned to only go off if there's Dark magic in the vicinity…
But only those Muggles who had magical friends or relations could be trusted with such things, or even to know that they existed, and the Death Eaters had an entire country from which to choose their targets. The Red Shepherds could take out any stronghold or warehouse that they could find, stop any attack about which they knew in advance, but the information which leaked out of Death Eater camps was frustratingly spotty and inconsistent, and Percy steadfastly refused to allow any missions on targets the Shepherds had not personally confirmed as being used by their enemies.
Which is smart, as much as it burns me to sit and wait. George tracked his wand towards the sound of shouting near the end of the street. All it would take is one miss on our part for the Ministry to put some teeth in those accusations of "wild vigilantes" they like to throw our way, and there's our credibility blasted to bits. We can only help people if they're not trying to kill us.
The source of the shouting rounded the corner—five robed forms, all but shapeless in the thick twilight over Hogsmeade, spells shooting thick and fast from wands, bouncing off shields and blocks, shattering glass and pockmarking wood as they ricocheted.
"Light," George breathed towards Crystal. "Get ready." Raising his wand, he aimed it at a point above the center of the street. "Lumos libera!"
The resulting silver ball of light lit up the scene beautifully. The three Death Eaters currently battling Roger Davies and Selena Moon yelped and shaded their eyes. Roger dived to the ground and fired a spell along the way, knocking one of his opponents to the ground, encased in rope. Selena's and Crystal's sprays of yellow potion overlapped, soaking the other two and dropping them to the street before they could articulate the spells they'd been starting to cast.
Tapping his hand to the butt of his potion piece, activating his antidote patch to be sure he wouldn't go down with the potion fumes himself, George checked both ways before ducking out of cover. "All right?" he asked, crossing to Roger and Selena at a trot.
"Good enough." Roger winced as he accepted George's hand up. "One of them got me a little, but it's under control." He pressed a hand to his upper arm, where a few spots of blood were growing on his sleeve. "Or it will be, in a moment," he added, wincing again as Selena briskly ripped the sleeve open and snapped her piece over to a white healing-potion cartridge. "You?"
"Holding the fort." George nodded to Madam Puddifoot's, where Crystal still stood in the doorway, scanning back and forth along the street. "Getting bits and pieces of news on the Galleon." He shook his head, baffled, as he swirled his wand around the Death Eaters, adding his own ropes to Roger's and stacking the resulting cocoons out of the way along a wall. "What are they hoping to accomplish here? What are they even after?"
"Power," said Selena briefly, holstering her piece and drawing her wand to conjure a bandage around Roger's arm. "The power of fear, of letting everyone know they can attack anywhere, anytime they please. That there's nothing we can do to predict them, to hold them back, to stop them." She grinned, her teeth very white in the silvery light from above. "Except we can, and we are." A bit of dust was brushed fastidiously from her embroidered Slytherin crest. "All of us."
"Power to the DA," George agreed, slapping hands with both of them. "Everyone's out here who's of age?"
"Plus possibly a few who aren't," said Roger. "Though I think they managed to get your sister to stay at the school this time. Something about not wanting Harry to come back and find her dead." He frowned. "Where's he gone? Aren't they getting—"
Crystal hissed, jerking her potion piece towards the end of the street, and Roger nodded. "Not the time," he said, drawing his wand again, Selena taking a moment to swap cartridges in her own piece before re-arming it with a quick jerk of her hands. "Catch you afterwards?"
"Party at our place." George nodded in the approximate direction of the Hogsmeade WWW branch, then sprinted back to Madam Puddifoot's, snapping his wand at the light to put it out once he was back in cover. "Thanks for the reminder," he murmured to Crystal.
"Somebody has to take care of you," she returned, tweaking a bit of his hair.
They returned to their watch of the street.
Percy dodged right, threw a Shield Charm around Fred and Danielle, and ducked as a spell passed over his head close enough to singe his hair. He'd come through the Vanishing Cabinet from his rooms over the Pepper Pot as soon as Fred's hastily cast fox Patronus had panted out its message, stopping only long enough to fire off a few messenger-Patronuses of his own to the rest of the Red Shepherds, and rousing the Gryffindor leaders of the DA in the same manner on his way through Sanctuary.
Not that the other Houses are any less, but the vast majority of the Gryffindors are DA themselves by now, and they know how to summon their own from the other dormitories without arousing too much suspicion.
Since then, his memories were sketchy, but he rather thought he'd downed at least two Death Eaters with his own wand, not counting the ones he'd distracted or pulled out of hiding for his brothers and colleagues to take on. He'd never thought of himself as terribly capable with dueling spells, but fighting for both his own life and those he held dearer than his own seemed to have sparked unknown abilities in him.
I couldn't save Penny that day at Diagon Alley. He dodged another spell and fired back, a yelp of pain letting him know he'd scored a hit. But I can fight in her name today, and every other day of this war. Two spells in quick succession, one flashy and low-powered, designed to do nothing but splash harmlessly off a shield, the other invisible, silent, and—
"Awwwwkkk!" complained the Death Eater who'd just become an oversized chicken.
Fred laughed aloud. "Percy, you're joking!" he shouted, setting the chicken's feathers momentarily aflame. It screeched and fled up the street, lighting its two compatriots' robes on fire as it passed. "I haven't seen you joke since—"
"Not now!" Danielle doused both burning, screaming Death Eaters with a blast of water so powerful that they sailed backwards and crashed into the building on the other side of the street, sliding down the wall to lie in a stunned heap. "Save it for afterwards!"
"Right, sorry." Fred saluted off-sidedly with his wand, twisted it briefly at the Death Eaters to conjure ropes around them, then jerked his head around at a fresh burst of yelling and spellfire. "Let's go!" He and Danielle took off running, Percy pausing for a moment before turning the corner to make sure they wouldn't be followed. The three Death Eaters they'd been battling were down or fled, that was true, but he thought he'd seen—
A spell crashed into the wall beside him, the shockwave knocking him down. He clutched desperately at his wand and managed to retain it, but his shoulder hit the pavement hard, half-winding him, and stars danced in front of his eyes. Fighting for consciousness, he managed to regain his hold on it just as a red spell struck him in the chest, driving what little breath he had out of him and sending his wand flying from his hand.
Two robed and masked figures, both hulking but one shorter than the other, stepped from the shadows around the side of the building by which Percy lay and advanced on him slowly. "Look what we found all by itself," snickered the taller of the two, bringing his wand down to bear so deliberately as to be an insult in itself. "A spotty little red-haired rat!"
"We'd bring you home to play with, but you're a nasty beast," the shorter added, glancing up and down the darkened street as though to make sure no help was within call. "Look what you did to poor Antonin, and he was only trying to have a bit of fun."
Percy's instincts shrieked for him to scrabble backwards, get some distance, anything to hold off death for one more instant, but the battle training the Red Shepherds had received overrode this, forcing him to lie still and work to get his breath back—there was still a chance, depending on how stupidly confident these two were—
"So we'll just have to finish it here." The taller Death Eater continued his advance, his wand now lining up with Percy's chest from a distance of about half a yard. "Avada—"
His recitation of the Killing Curse broke off in a panicked yelp as Percy swept his feet around, knocking his would-be murderer to the ground. A follow-on kick sent the Death Eater's wand spinning away, and Percy rolled twice, dodging a spell by the man's compatriot, feeling frantically for his own wand—
A red spell shot out of the darkness from across the street, slamming the still-standing Death Eater into the corner of the wall with a sound like a melon being dropped onto a kitchen floor. Percy fumbled his own wand back into his hand, started to bring it around, but it was too late, the fallen Death Eater was already up to his knees with his companion's dropped wand coming to bear, he'd never manage to block in time—
From another direction entirely came a flash of green, accompanied by a sound like a roaring wind. The kneeling Death Eater shuddered once and collapsed like a puppet with cut wires.
Percy sat in the center of the street, clutching his wand, trying to get his breath under control. One thought pulsed in his mind, in time with the frenetic drumbeat of his heart.
Who do I owe my life to this time?
"Percy!" The whispered shout was terrified—and familiar. Percy wrenched his head around towards the direction from which the Stunner had come in time to see—
"Ron?" He was on his feet without any memory of getting up, stumbling towards his younger brother, only to be met halfway there. "Ron, what are you doing here—"
"I'm of age," Ron shot back, looking straight into Percy's face—they were the same height now, Percy realized, and wondered dimly when that had happened. "Have been for nearly two months. And I saved you, didn't I—"
His voice cracked on the last word, and Percy cursed under his breath and hauled his brother into a hug. "We have to stop meeting like this," he said in as close an approximation of his usual dry tones as he could manage, and felt Ron's shoulders quiver in what was probably a laugh. "But…thank you."
"Don't mention it." Ron shuddered once, all over, then pulled away. "I was aiming for the second one when you—" He stopped. "No, that wasn't you, was it? Wrong direction."
Percy shook his head. "I never got a spell off," he said. "So it was you, and someone else."
"Wonder who." Ron looked past Percy at the two downed Death Eaters. "I didn't think we had anyone on our side who—" He stiffened and breathed a word or two which made Percy just as happy their mother wasn't there. "But I didn't," he said almost plaintively, looking back at Percy. "It was just a Stunner I threw, you saw it—"
"What are you talking about?" Percy brought his wand around towards the Death Eaters, preparing to bind them.
"Don't bother." Ron's voice was flat, with a biting edge on it Percy identified after a moment's search through his memories. He'd heard it most often in his own voice, in the weeks during late summer and early autumn when even founding the Red Shepherds while maintaining his Ministry job hadn't been exhausting enough to keep away the nightly replay of Penny's death, of Ron's injuries, of his own failure to save them both.
But what does he think he's done—
Then the stillness of the Death Eaters, exactly similar, sank in.
"You did throw a Stunner," he said, kneeling to check for pulses but finding, as he'd expected, nothing, first on one thickly-muscled neck, then on the other. "But his head cracked the wall on the way down. You never intended that, did you?"
"No." Ron stood uncertainly in the street, looking at his wand, then at the Death Eater. "But that didn't stop it happening."
"No," Percy agreed. "It didn't."
Some part of him ached for his brother's lost innocence, the childlike belief that only the things one intended would ever happen. He swept that aside without compunction. Innocence, as he'd learned to his cost, was what got people killed in a war.
"I didn't think it would be like this." Ron weighed his wand in his hand, rolling it back and forth from palm to fingertips. "I didn't think…" He laughed once, without humor. "That's just it, isn't it? I didn't think. I never do."
"You fought," Percy corrected, standing up again. "You fought, and that means I'm alive. We both are." He squinted into the darkness, in the direction from which the Killing Curse had come. "But I wish I knew…"
Movement in the shadows of the alleyway brought both Weasleys' wands up for a heartbeat before Ron lowered his with a half-voiced oath. "Just an animal," he said, shaking his head. "Something small, a rabbit or a squirrel maybe…"
For one instant, as "something small" lingered at the edge of the light, Percy thought he saw a gleam of silver. Then it turned and scuttled away, breaking Percy's momentary trance.
"We should keep moving," he said, stepping away from the two dead Death Eaters. "They're not finished yet."
"They will be soon." Ron's voice held a new note of cold, sure promise.
"So they will." Percy traded one cool smile with his younger brother. Then they started down the street side by side, wands sweeping around and behind them, keeping constant watch for flares or shouts of battle.
Clearly, despite all the efforts of the Order and the Red Shepherds to the contrary, the Death Eaters still thought they could attack when and as they pleased, dealing out doom and destruction without any meaningful resistance from the people they targeted.
It was high time, in Percy's opinion, for them to fully learn the error of their ways.
"Nothing brilliant coming to mind," said Hermione distractedly, looking around the room as though trying to place it, though as far as Harry knew she hadn't been back here before. "We've got a little time, though, I don't think they'll try to break in here right away. We could just sit it out…"
"Not with that along." Draco's eyes were half-shut, but his finger pointed unerringly at the cup in Harry's hand. "We already know Horcruxes can possess people. I don't want to find out too late they can also tell their maker they're being stolen if they're not under some kind of shield. But I don't think we should kill it right away, either. Not if we can help it."
"Why not?" Harry drew his dagger, looking consideringly from blade to Horcrux. "We've got the basilisk venom, and then we can Vanish the cup itself, or bury it in the junk in here, nobody would know what it was even if they did find it…"
"You two are the Arithmancers, so correct me if I'm wrong here." Draco was sitting against one of the inside walls, head tipped back and palms planted on the floor, in what might appear to anyone else to be a pose of relaxation but Harry knew as Fox in full-out think-fast mode. "But isn't there some way of finding things under certain enchantments, hidden things, if you have at least two of them? Some pulse spell, that you set it off at the same time from two locations, then track the bounce-backs you get on a map with circles—"
"Oh, oh!" Hermione's face lit up. "Harry, fourth year! When we went on that treasure hunt, that the Muggle Studies class set up for us because they were studying Treasure Island, and Hagrid lent us nifflers to do the digging once we had the spots pinpointed! Remember?"
"Vaguely. Most of that year's buried under the Tournament for me." But Harry could recall, now that Hermione had given him the pointers, dividing into teams with his classmates, checking their watches against each other to be sure they set off the spells at the same moment, doing the calculations to convert the time it had taken the spell to bounce back into the distance they should draw on the map as a circle around their location, finding the spots the two charted circles intersected and translating that into the corresponding places in the real world… "What about it?"
"We've got that." Draco indicated the cup once more. "And we've still got the locket, because Padfoot said he didn't want Kreacher getting a reward unless he could go a full week without insulting anybody, and he hasn't made it yet. Couldn't you use them that way, to find the other Horcruxes?"
"You know, I think we could." Harry considered that long-ago class assignment. "Brush up on that spell again, then take them to spots a certain distance apart, say fifty or a hundred miles, so we'll know which bounces are from them and which are from the ones we don't have yet. Synchronize with the Zippos to be sure we're doing it at the same time…"
"We'll get a lot more results than we did from the assignment, though," said Hermione doubtfully. "There's two Horcruxes out there still, the snake and the brooch, plus Voldemort himself, the spell would probably respond to him—if they're all in different places, that could be nearly twenty results we'd have to look through—"
"Still better than not having the first idea where to look," said Harry. "All right, it gets to live." He cast an unfriendly glance at the cup in his hand. "For now. But that still leaves us with the original problem. Getting out of here. The Red Roads need time to reset once they've been used in a certain direction at a certain spot, don't they?"
"Almost fifteen minutes." Hermione looked balefully at the red-painted boards. "It's one of the problems with the spell being so new, is Percy hasn't had time to work all the bugs out of it. Anybody could still come in on that Road. We just can't go out, not until the spell's recharged enough to let us change the way it's pointed." She switched her look to Harry. "I don't suppose you'd consider Apparating out of here. We know you're capable, and Fred and George won't have put any spells against it on this room…"
"But the Death Eaters will have, if they're smart." Harry circled a hand. "A general suppresser over this whole area. Stop people from getting away from them, or reinforcements from getting in easily."
"Are you honestly supposing Death Eaters are intelligent?" Draco inquired, still in his thinking pose. "Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"
"Some of them are," Harry shot back. "Maybe not many, but some. And I don't want to find out I was wrong about which ones are here tonight by splinching myself all over Scotland, thank you very much!"
"For heaven's sake don't start fighting right now," said Hermione irritably before Draco could answer. "Just don't, all right?" She paused, biting her lip, looking somehow younger than she was. "Don't," she repeated in a half-voice. "Don't…"
"Which ones are here tonight." Draco opened his eyes, and Harry frowned. There was a bleak, bitter edge in his brother's expression he didn't like at all. "That's what it's all down to, isn't it? Who's here, and who's not. And what that means for us. For you."
Slowly, he drew his pendants out of his robes by the chain, then set them on his open palm. "I can get you out," he said, looking at Harry and Hermione over the small pile of gold. "It's the oldest trick in the book. A diversion. Pull their attention one way, set off a few explosions and make sure they see who did it. Keep as many of them as possible looking at me. The famous face, the kid who got away from them. And meanwhile, you two Disillusion, go Animagus, and haul arse over to the Shrieking Shack, or Honeydukes, or even that one fountain that lets out behind the mirror on the fourth floor. They won't know that's cleared, not unless someone from the year's broken their oath, and we'd have felt that, wouldn't we? Known about it?"
"Most likely," Harry said slowly. "But then how do you get away?"
"That's the beauty of it." Draco smiled, sharper than splinters of broken glass, and closed his fingers around his pendants. Blue light flashed, then settled into a steady, pulsing flicker. "I don't."
"What?" Harry hauled his voice back from a shout just in time, overlapping with Hermione's horrified "Draco, no!"
"It's your best chance." Draco spoke in a slow, measured tone, watching the light shine between his fingers. "They won't expect it, because we've never done anything like it before. We've always worked as a team, unless they did something to pull one of us out on our own, and even then we scrambled to get them help right away. So they'll think you're somewhere nearby, ready to back me up. They'll never believe I'd be willing to do this, because usually I wouldn't. But tonight isn't usual. It can't be. Tonight we have something at stake we literally can't afford to lose. And by the time they realize that, and how it changes the rules, you'll already be safe."
"And you won't be!" Hermione shook her head frantically, her eyes welling up. "No, don't do it, Fox, there has to be some other way—"
Harry held up his free hand, and almost to his surprise Hermione bit back her next word, though her face was still filled with pain. "You're sure about this," he said to Draco, obliquely proud of how steady his voice remained, despite the silent howls Wolf was voicing in the back of his mind.
"Positive." The blue light flickered once more and went out, and Draco tucked his pendants back inside his robes. "Thanks for the jewel," he said to Hermione, trying to keep his tone light. "I had it pull some of the memories out of my head. The ones that could be used against us. Things they don't know we know." His smile flashed and was gone. "Which means I don't know them anymore either. But I do know we've been awesome." He held out his hands to Hermione. "Because aren't we always?"
"Oh—" Hermione flung herself at her twin and latched on tightly, as though she could keep him safe if she just held him close enough to her heart. "Why do you have to be right?" she whispered brokenly. "I could hate you for that."
Draco said nothing aloud, but Harry could see his hand on Hermione's arm and knew they were probably speaking silently, exchanging the goodbyes they'd thought they would have another month and more to say.
Nothing ever happens quite like you think it will in a war…
He shoved the cup back inside his robes just in time as Draco lifted his head to meet Harry's eyes over the wild tangle of Hermione's hair. "Sorry about tomorrow," Draco said lightly. He could have been apologizing for having to miss a Quidditch practice, if not for his scent, mingled sorrow, fear, and resolution. "Here you went and hurried it up for me, and now I won't be there after all."
Harry shrugged. "Still makes a good way to…wind things up," he said, self-censoring about the year at the last second. "We'll miss you."
"You would've been missing me in a little over a month anyway. And…" Draco leaned down to Hermione, laying gentle fingers on her cheek until she lifted her face from his robes, tear-stained but determined. "This is what the vision was for," he told her, speaking with such quiet earnestness that Harry couldn't help but nod in agreement as he caught what his brother meant. "This is why it was sent to us. So I wouldn't be afraid to go, to do this. Because whatever happens to me, it won't last. It can't. But this…" He drew one of their conjoined hands to rest against his pendants, hidden under his robes, and turned to include Harry in the statement. "This lasts for always. As long as we stay faithful."
"Keeping faith by breaking faith." Hermione wiped the tears from her cheeks even as more spilled from her eyes to replace them. "Why does everything in our lives have to be so backwards?"
"I could tell you." Harry joined the twins in their little circle, taking each of their free hands in his own, feeling the wetness on Hermione's fingers, the tension under Draco's skin. "But then you'd hurt me."
"Not everything's about you, Potter," Draco drawled in his best imitation pureblood tone.
Hermione giggled, Harry snickered, and for one instant the fear was gone. They were the elder cubs of the Pack, strong enough together to handle anything the world could throw at them. This battle, like all the ones before it, would pass, and they would go home, hug their Pack-parents and their baby sister, laugh with their Pridemates in their Den…
Only we won't. Not the way we used to.
Not ever again.
Draco squeezed both their hands once, then gently withdrew his. "I'd better go," he said. "Give me a chance to pull them in before you start, all right?"
"What about your pendants?" Hermione drew one last shuddering breath, then steadied herself, changing visibly from a grieving sister into a hard-eyed Warrior. "Shouldn't you leave them behind, if they have your memories in them?"
"They can't be taken forcibly—" Draco began, looking reluctant.
"But they can be given," said Harry, feeling his own transformation settle over him as he willed it, not unlike the mental sensations that accompanied his Animagus change. "Think about the way you were when that globe had hold of you. You'd have handed them over in a second if Malfoy had told you to. And what he did once, he can do again."
"Hadn't thought of that." Draco winced. "Gold star for you. But…" He paused, a hand against his chest. "That's a complicated spell," he said slowly. "He won't want to start it in the middle of a battle, not with all the concentration it's bound to take. And he's not going to want me unconscious for it, either. Not when he's finally got me back after all these years. He'll need me awake, aware, knowing what's coming next, if it's going to satisfy him." He smiled one-sidedly. "And wouldn't it help you out to see what Voldemort and his favorite Death Munchers are planning on doing with their latest prize?"
"Thinking in corkscrews again, Fox?" Harry asked.
"Just following the logic. Such as it is." Draco ran a finger along his pendant chain. "Remember, they already know we wear these, and that they're magical. They might get suspicious if they capture me and I don't have mine. But once they've got me, once they're sure I'm secure, wandless, under anti-transformation, probably even tied up…" His voice quivered once before he pulled it back under control. "Merlin's blood, won't this be fun. Anyway. Once they're certain of me, they'll stop watching so hard. At which point I just trip and fall somewhere, and—" He demonstrated, going to one knee and catching the pendants as they slid through his body to jingle into his hands.
"Set them for me when you do it." Hermione wiggled her fingers in Draco's direction as he stood back up. "Tell them to only let me pick them up again. That way even if they see you and put you under Imperius, they can't do anything about it."
"Good thought." Draco held out the pendants. "Touch them for me? It'll fix the magic better."
Hermione twined her fingers into the chain, and Draco concentrated for one moment, then replaced the pendants in their usual spot. "Important papers in the pouch inside my trunk's lid," he told Harry, studiously casual. "Glad I got them done sooner rather than later, now. And tell everyone…" He swallowed once, but his eyes were dry. "Tell them I love them, and that I'm sorry. For not being able to say a proper goodbye."
"I think they'll understand." Harry moved towards the rear exit of the shop, Hermione beside him, then turned back. Draco was inspecting the door into the sales area, wand in his hand. "Fox."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Draco smiled. "You'd do the same," he said, and slipped around the door, shutting it softly behind him.
Harry could feel Hermione quivering beside him, fighting back both human tears and a cat's yowl of pain, but they'd trained in the same school and he knew her control was up to the task. She wouldn't break down until they were safely under cover, their mission complete.
Just like I won't.
No matter how much I want to.
Double-checking the Horcrux to be sure it was secured inside his robes, he motioned for Hermione to Disillusion them both, then transformed into Wolf, Neenie tucking her semi-visible self neatly inside Wolf's front paw to wait. Her purr was ragged, but soothed him nonetheless, as he had no doubt it was meant to do. They'd need to stay calm and focused to make the most of what Draco was giving up for them tonight.
As if the thought had been a spark, a chain of three explosions went off in front of the shop. "Hello, Father," said Draco's coolest voice. "Looking for someone?"
Lucius Malfoy snarled a spell Harry didn't recognize, which rang like a gong as (he assumed) Draco blocked it. Neenie sniffed a brief cat-laugh and pointed her nose at the door. Wolf nodded, but paused for one instant to bow his head towards the street, where the hisses and shouts of a full-fledged duel were now resounding.
We will not forget, he pledged silently. And we will win.
Then he was out and moving, slipping from shadow to shadow, silent as the stars above, Neenie keeping pace behind him. People ran and shouted in the streets, some masked, others bare-faced, but no one had eyes to spare for the flickers of motion where no motion should be. No one had time to notice a pair of four-legged distortions in the air. No one gave it a second thought when an apparently solid stone panel on the side of a dry-basined fountain wavered, twice, as though it had been suddenly subject to a tiny bout of heat haze.
It was entirely possible, Wolf thought bitterly, running his fastest now that he was in the tunnel, that the chaos already boiling through Hogsmeade would have been sufficient. That three distortions would have gone as unnoticed as two. That three Packmates could still have arrived safely home tonight.
But we couldn't take that chance. Not with so many Death Eaters. Not when we're carrying a Horcrux.
We just couldn't take that chance.
He wondered how many times he'd have to tell himself that before he believed it.
Remus sat in one of the chairs the Hogwarts Den had obligingly sprouted in the main room, sculpting idly in the air with flames. Dumbledore's current restrictions on him meant he couldn't take part in the fighting in Hogsmeade—no matter how much I want to—but there were other ways to help than by battling Death Eaters wand to wand.
Like keeping the castle itself safe and sound. I don't care if it looks like all they want is the village, if they saw a weakness in Hogwarts's wards, they'd move on that in a heartbeat…
So he and Danger had headed for Hogwarts when the call had come into Headquarters, while Sirius and Aletha had gone straight to the village, along with the other Order members who'd been in residence or within call. Meghan was cuddled against his legs even now, humming tunelessly to herself, eyes shut and one hand linked with Neville's where he sat with his back against the main room's wall, legs tucked neatly under, an expression of concentration on his face. Across the room, Danger, Ginny, and Luna held a quiet, urgent conversation, which could have involved either the progress of the battle or the plans for the morning. Either way, Remus wasn't inclined to interfere.
As for the rest of the Pride…well, Ron is out with the older DA members, he was already gone when we got here and it's not as if we could have stopped him, but where in the world are our older three? Harry knows better than to go tearing off to a fight like this, at least I thought he did, and I'm positive Draco and Hermione do. There's nothing on the pendants, which doesn't necessarily mean they aren't out fighting, but it's a bit of reassurance at least.
Though all the ones who are still here seem to have something on their minds, but they either won't or can't tell us anything about it…
He felt Danger's twinge of surprise and fear an instant before Ginny stiffened. "No," breathed the Pride's alpha female, fumbling at her neck. "No, please no—"
"What's wrong?" Meghan asked, opening her eyes.
"Can't you feel it?" Ginny had her pendants out now, and was flipping through them frantically. "It's freezing—someone's going to die—"
"Ginny," said Luna softly, laying her hand atop her friend's, bringing Ginny's white face up from her breathless search through the golden medallions. "They won't have it. It's not for them."
"It's not for—" Ginny blinked at Luna for an instant, baffled, then looked down again.
Remus shut his eyes, swearing silently to himself. He knew what that soft, all-over glow of Ginny's first pendant meant. Judging by the little, choked cry from the direction of his feet and the soft murmurs very nearby, Meghan and Neville had come to the same conclusion.
Ginny had wanted all her brothers to attend her wedding.
Bride or not, it didn't seem she'd be getting her wish.
Not the sort of tears I was hoping to dry tonight, murmured Danger in the back of his mind, cradling Ginny against her and wisely, to Remus's way of thinking, saying nothing at all as the youngest Weasley wept in silent, wracking sobs. Behind her, Luna sat very still, her gaze fixed on the far wall where the green banners hung. Now I suppose we just sit and wait to find out which one it is?
Sit and wait, Remus confirmed, opening his own eyes to slide to the floor and stroke Meghan's hair where she leaned against Neville. And pray it isn't more than one of them. Or of us.
Danger's mental wince included an acknowledgment both of the callous-sounding nature of the words and of the impossibility of using any others.
A great scream of pain and fury and loss rose over Hogsmeade village, battering at the ears of all who heard, overriding lesser cries of fear and wails of anguish, wiping out what might have been a half-formed plea for mercy. No such quality lived, or could live, in the one whose heart was so tormented. No such favor was given.
The few Death Eaters who had been on the outskirts of the horror would speak, in hushed tones, of the scene of terror along that quiet street. Of the apparition which howled more terribly than any animal and dealt death, death impossibly fast and certain, from a tiny black object held between its hands, from which poured liquid red as blood.
They would call her, those who survived that night, the Mad Muggle of Hogsmeade.
Author Notes:
I would tell you that the evilness of this chapter is due to low review counts. But that would be a lie. Everything you're reading has been planned for quite a long time. Want to know how long? Go have a look at Chapter 30 of Dealing with Danger. Yeah. That long.
More on what just happened, and what's going to keep happening, including some resolution for Amanda's story, Harry and Hermione's return, and yes, another death, in Chapter 25 of Surpassing Danger: "No Greater Love". Stay tuned.