And Hope to Die

I think I re-planned how this story was going at go at least a million times but in the end this became even more than the simple one-shot I was thinking of. Ironically I started this chapter the night before Retrace 53 came out and finished the day after I read it, which definitely affected my direction. Read and please review, I'd love to know what you think.

Cross your heart

Liam could taste blood in the back of his throat, as raw and coppery as a fistful of muggle pennies shoved into his throat. He had his back to a tree now, clutching his wand so tightly that at his knuckles the pale outlines of bones showed white through his skin. He was breathing hard, trying to get his breath back; trying to ignore the pain of one the spells the Death Eater had landed on him, the one that had sliced a wound, so preternaturally neat that only magic could do it, from his shoulder to his hip. His other hand -two fingers dangling limply and uselessly because the Death Eater had snapped them in that brief nasty moment when she had managed to pin him- was held across the wound, trying to hold it closed, trying to use the pressure of his arm the stem the bleeding.

He was listening hard, trying to pick out the sounds of the Death Eater's movement from the other rustles and creaks of the night forest. It wasn't likely that he would get lucky enough to hear her before she slipped into a different shadow for cover but at this point there wasn't much Liam could do but hope. And not for a rescue because he was alone, and no one was going to look for a low level Auror who had been stupid enough to get separated from his group and ambushed, not while a Death Eater of the level of Charlotte Baskerville somewhere loose in the woods. Maybe after the main contingent had neutralized the threat someone might realize that he was no longer scouting ahead and raise the alarm. However by then help would be no help at all because Baskerville would have already dealt with him.

Slowly, considering her behavior before. When she had hit him with a clever curse that had temporarily immobilized him she had taken her time about gloating, taken her time about casting the Cruciatus curse, taken her time about beginning to break his fingers. She had taken so much time with her torture, in fact, that the first curse had worn off and Liam had been able to toss a hex at Baskerville that had thrown her ten yards away while he scrambled to cover.

Which he hadn't reached, damn that wide clearing, before she sent a curse at him that had slashed him across the chest like a blade. Luckily she had hit the ground hard enough to be momentarily stunned and he managed to crawl away, into the shadows of the trees and hide. But when she realized he had taken cover she did the same and they had been firing random spells at each other for some time now.

It was a standoff, and Liam knew it. There was no way he could even Disapparate away, he had never been very good at it -he'd splinched himself more times then he liked to think about- and now that he was distracted and in pain he had no doubt he would never manage to do it.

There had been no curses coming from the opposite side of the clearing for some time, perhaps Baskerville had realized the same thing he had, that the chances of either of them hitting each other in the darkness were slim. He wasn't sure what she was going to do now, but he was going to try to catch his breath while he had the chance.

Something, a feeling that didn't bother to check in with his brain, made him throw himself to the side, just missing the curse that cut a deep rent across the tree he had been leaning against. Somewhere in the darkness Baskerville made a sound of annoyance and Liam cast a curse in the vague direction it had come from.

Not bothering to wait and see if it had hit he scrabbled back to his feet with some effort and stumbled further into the forest, feeling blindly for trees because the moonlight was blocked by the leaves of those same trees. He didn't dare cast lumos, that would give his position away like a beacon but that meant he was next thing to blind in the night time woods.

"Lumos!" the call came from behind him and light was cast over his shoulder as a wand lit up. Baskerville, apparently, wasn't worried about being spotted. "There you are, little Auror. Impedimenta!"

The spell hit him squarely between the shoulders, freezing him in place mid-step and he fell. Unable to move, even to catch himself, he impacted hard on his face, a dull crunch and a searing pain telling him he had broken his nose. A second crunch, this one external instead of internal, said that at least one of the panes of glass in his glasses had broken.

He lay, face down in the dirt, trying desperately to breathe past the new blood in his mouth, until a boot inserted itself under his side and rolled him over. Coughing blood Liam looked up into the twisted grin of Charlotte Baskerville. "You're quite the quick little mouse, Auror." she said. "But I doubt you'll manage to scamper away again." She was a beautiful woman, with generous curves and long flowing hair, but her smile and the cruelness in her eyes was ugly. With deliberate force she rested a boot on his chest -he winced, her heels were very sharp- and leaned down so her smile was inches from his face. "Well, Mouse Auror, I'll clip your ears, cut off your tail, rip away your fur and leave what's left for your friends to find. And I'll enjoy it so…" chuckling she reached down to pluck the glasses from his nose, which sent the world into various shades of blurred color. The boot removed itself from his chest and Liam heard glass shatter. Even though he hadn't seen what she had done he knew she had crushed the lenses, which left him almost blind in the darkness.

He knew then he was out of depth there and then.

This was beyond anything he had ever trained for, anything he could have every prepared himself for. Baskerville was known for taking great pleasure in hurting her victims, often without magic at all, making her unusual in the magical world, and the bodies they had managed to find of her last victims had made even Xerxes, who had been an Auror for enough years to have seen almost everything that could be done to a body, turn dead white. Liam himself had had to go away and be sick at the sight of those poor twisted bodies, so broken and abused, and as they hunted the Death Eater those bodies had stared at him from sightless eyes, accusing, demanding to know why the one who had done this still walked free, every night in his dreams.

But at least Xerxes had been there, rubbing his back in a comforting manner while he was being sick, handing him a canteen of water after he was done, and later shaking him out of his nightmares, away from the accusing dead. Then again, Liam would have, and had before, done the same for his friend.

"Pay attention, little Auror."

Pain cut through his drifting thoughts and yanked him back to the present. A line of fire cut itself across his cheek, a newer, sharper than the duller, deeper, ache of his broken nose and Liam tried not to wince. He would be the same as one of those pitiful bodies they had found soon.

"I wouldn't want you to miss a moment of this!"

She was lifting her wand, likely to recast the spell that had sliced him open before, when Liam came to a sudden, wonderful, realization. His wand was still in his hand.

He had been frozen by the spell so thoroughly his fingers had been unable to drop it and somehow it hadn't been snapped when he'd fallen. Just as Baskerville said the curse Liam cast a shield charm. The spell hit his spell and rebounded right back into her. She screamed and he saw the blurry crimson sprout from her shoulder.

The spell that had been holding Liam frozen chose that time to wear off and Liam whipped his wand up and was shouting, "Stupefy!" before he was even sure he could move the rest of his body. Too distracted by her rebounded spell Baskerville never even saw the stun spell coming. She dropped like a log and he scrambled upright, swaying.

He raised a hand to the cut on his cheek, feeling the blood pouring enthusiastically from the deep cut, cautiously touched his broken nose, winced and didn't try to touch it again. Besides, there were other wounds he was more worried about. The gash from shoulder to hip was not so deep it would have hit something very quickly fatal but it was bleeding out in a way he didn't much like.

On the ground Baskerville groaned and twitched. The spell should have knocked her out for a good hour but she was shaking it off it the amazing quickness that had made her so hard to catch before this, in fact, her eyes were already opening.

Her hand rose, wand pointed toward him and he didn't do what his training told him to do. It was swamped by the little voice, screaming panic into his ear.

Liam forgot all about trying to subdue Baskerville, who was a monster, who wouldn't stay down, turned and ran.

He ran with the senseless panic that overrides training, overrides common sense, stumbling from tree to tree, groping blindly for the next trunk because without his glasses, in the dark, he was practically blind. Without ever seeing it he ran right into a dangling branch, which smacked into the wound on his chest and made him yelp with pain, but he just felt for the branch and ducked past it.

Finally his foot caught under a root that he hadn't seen and he toppled forward, this time, since he wasn't frozen, he caught himself before he hit the ground, but his wand was lost somewhere between falling and the ground.

For a moment he lay there, trying to blink the little colored lights from in front of his eyes. Not that it mattered, he couldn't see much even with his vision clear. Then, from some remote corner of his mind, a dusty memory sprung up.

"Never just sit there when you're on a hunt," Barma had said, tapping his fan, he was never without the thing, on his podium, "Cover is always your friend. Cover means survival, ladies and gentleman. And survival means fighting Death Eaters another day. So never just sit there!"

The memory jerked him into action, made him push himself up, reach for a nearest tree, and scrabble behind it. He had no idea what direction Baskerville might come from, he probably had been running in circles, but having his back to something solid was progress.

Hopefully Baskerville was still recovering from the stunning spell, or perhaps she was wandering around a completely different part of the forest, right into the arms of the other, better prepared Aurors. He didn't dare hope for a rescue, but he did hope that Baskerville didn't manage to escape-

There were footsteps coming through the forest toward where he hid.

Baskerville was coming.

Huddled behind a tree, breathless and bleeding and next thing to blind Liam Lunettes faced the fact he was about to die.

This was it, this was the last fight he would ever end up in, he would never cast another spell, fill out another report, grumble to Gil about how bad the Auror filing system was, go out drinking with Xerxes and sleep embarrassingly late the next day, no more, never again. This was the end.

He was about to die.

There would be no more missions, no more terror, no more pain, but there would also be no more yelling at Xerxes, no more researching with Gilbert, no more quiet cups of tea with Sharon, no more… anything.

A twig snapped nearby and he flinched, his arms wrapped around his drawn up legs, his face pressed into his knees, making himself as small as he could beyond disappearing completely. If he could have cried without giving himself away he might have just then. She was here, she was looking for him, and it wouldn't take her long to find him.

And when she did…

No.

The single word dropped like a stone into his mind, hitting the surface and sending out ripples of thoughts. He did not want to die, not like this, not huddled in fear, waiting for his fate to fall on him. And even if there was no chance he was going to survive this… then he wanted to at least go out fighting.

Pulling himself back to his feet he kept himself there with a hand on the tree trunk. "Lumos!" he called, and dove toward where his wand lit up, snatching it and pointing it toward the figure advancing on him.

The spell that would do a great deal more than stun Baskerville was already half formed in his mind when his blurred vision finally adjusted enough to see that the person who had crept up on him had white hair, so pale is shone in the light from his wand.

Charlotte Baskerville did not have white hair.

"Liam?" The voice was so painfully familiar, so completely unexpected that he swayed as if struck by the shear impossibility of it.

"Xerxes?" his voice was a broken rasp, quiet and chocked. He had not dared hope for rescue and he was not sure if he exactly believed it.

A hand rose to shield the other person's eyes as they cautiously walked forward. "Is that you, Liam?"

"That's exactly what I want to know." a catch in his throat and he had to pause to cough blood into his free hand, continuing when he caught his breath, "You could be anyone, no matter who you happen to look like."

The figure paused, just three yards away. "I suppose that's a reasonable suspicion. But you see, I can prove I'm Xerxes Break because I know you were the one who cast that charm on my desk that makes every sweet I put in the drawers vanish. Moreover I know why you did it. It's because you like sweets even more than I do, you just hide it better."

Relief made Liam lower his wand, squinting toward Break to try to define him better from the darkness. "Then… it is you." he said. "How did you know I was here?"

"I didn't." Break said, simply. "Gil came back from scouting ahead and told us you had vanished. We started looking for you. I got lucky and-"

Again Liam failed to stifle the urge to cough, and this time he almost doubled over, he would have fallen for the fourth time that night if Break hadn't quickly stepped forward to grab his shoulders. "What's the matter?" he demanded, "You're hurt?"

Still coughing Liam tried to shake his head, but Break didn't appear to believe him. He held up his wand lit the end.

Liam winced as the sudden light struck his eyes. Break held him away enough to look him up and down, giving a pained hiss between his teeth as he took in his blood stained robes. "How much blood have you lost?"

" …what?" he managed to choke the word out between coughs.

"Here, sit down," Break guided him to the same tree he had huddled behind not too long ago and sat him down. Then he undid the clasp of his cloak and took it off, spreading it over him he asked gently, "How long ago did this happen?"

"I don't know," Liam said, wiping the blood from his mouth the back of his hand. "It's… hard to remember how long."

"Your nose is broken." said Break flatly.

"I fell."

Warm fingered traced edge of the gash on this cheek and Liam winced. "And this is deep. I can see bone. How did this happen? -No, that was a stupid question, it's obvious." An expression flickered across his friend's face, he was close enough Liam could just barely see it. His tone might have been carefully controlled but Break was angry. "Do you know where Baskerville is?" he demanded.

"No. I… I ran, Xerxes. I couldn't capture her, I was too-"

"I understand." Break said.

"I let her get away, she's still somewhere… that way," he waved vaguely in the direction he had run from, "I think. I got a little turned around in the dark and I couldn't see very well once my glasses were broken."

Very carefully Break caught his hand and inspected it. Liam saw rage cross his friend's face for the first time he could remember."Two of your fingers are broken." The force with which Break said it, the pure anger behind the words made Liam wince.

"I got caught by Baskerville." he offered up, as an explanation. He didn't need to say anymore about it, they had both seen the bodies, they knew what Baskerville did to her victims. "And I got away."

"She's over there, you said?" Break glanced over his shoulder in the direction he'd indicated before. His body was tense, as if all he wanted was to run off into the darkness after Baskerville. But he glanced back at Liam, then off into the distance again, clearly unsure if he should leave him to catch the Death Eater or to stay and help him.

"She'll get away if you don't go," Liam finally said. "That's more important."

That seemed to make up Break's mind for him. He sighed. "At least let me mend your nose before I go, I can do that much. Now this is going to hurt some," he pointed his wand at Liam's nose and said, "Episkey."

He missed the usual feeling of heat and cold that came with that spell because a bright light flashed in front of his eyes and the next thing he knew Break was frowning over him from very close by, tapping him on his uncut cheek. "Wake up, Liam. You need to wake up. If you don't you might not- wake up!"

"I'm… awake." he managed, surprised at how weak his voice sounded. He must have lost more blood than he thought because he didn't remember feeling so cold before. And he didn't remember being so tired either. "What was…"

"I've never been very good at healing magic but I'm not quite that bad." Break's frown deepened as he watched Liam struggle to keep his eyes open. "You need a real healer and you need them now."

"No."

"Yes."

"Baskerville will get away."

"Damn Baskerville!" Break shouted, throwing his hands in the air in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. "If I leave you here to go after her I won't get back in time to get you to help! I don't think you're in any condition to be Apparating, and I'm not leaving you!"

"You're… an Auror, Xerc." Liam murmured. "…grow up… and do your… job."

With a sigh Break got to his feet. "If I leave, you have to swear that you won't… that you'll still be… that you won't die before I get back."

"Promise." Liam said.

"I mean it."

Liam traced an 'x' over his heart with a shaking finger. "Cross my heart, Xerc." he said.

"You had better." Break leaned down to pull his cloak higher over his friend then rose, already looking into the darkness. "I'll catch her for you." said the Auror who many claimed was the best since old Mad-Eye Moody had retired, the Auror who hadn't even let getting his eye ripped out by a Death Eater stop him.

Liam had no doubt that he would do what he said he could. "Thank you." he murmured and watched the blurry form of Break disappear into the trees. Shakily he retraced the 'x'. "Cross my heart and hope to die." he whispered.

End of Part 1