From the Ashes
Chapter 6: Opening salvos.
Amelia looked over at the three Unspeakables as they finished putting up the final wards around her brother's house. All three of them were magically exhausted from casting so many demanding spells in such a short amount of time. They were leaning against the fence while trying to regain their strength.
Drawing her wand, she summoned some refreshments as she walked over to join them. As she handed out the butterbeers to her colleagues, she asked, "What wards do you still have to erect?"
Taking a pull from his ice-cold butterbeer, Agent Johnson swallowed and said, "Just the Fidelius, ma'am. Who do you want the Secret Keeper to be?"
Before Amelia could answer, Juliette had stepped down from the porch and said, "I'll be the Secret Keeper." Seeing their surprised looks she ploughed on, "No one would suspect me because everyone knows that I'm barely above a squib when it comes to magical power."
"Are you sure?" Amelia said concernedly as she gazed at her sister-in-law.
"I've never been surer of anything." Juliette said determinedly as she stared right back at Amelia.
Amelia nodded towards the Unspeakables in agreement and stepped back to give the man some room to complete the spell work.
When the charm was complete, Amelia walked over to the three Unspeakables and Obliviated their memories for everyone's safety.
Turning to her sister-in-law, Juliette said, "Let's head inside, it's getting late, do you want to stay for the evening?"
"Thank you for the offer, but I really need to be getting home." Amelia said tiredly as she trudged up the steps next to Juliette to retrieve her cloak before returning home.
When they entered the living room, they found Alexander asleep in the recliner with an open book lying on his chest and a line of drool running from the corner of his mouth. Grinning, Amelia drew her camera from her pocket and quickly took a couple of pictures for use later on. Smiling, she glanced over at Juliette and mouthed, "Blackmail."
Juliette smiled back in response before waving goodnight to Amelia. Before she headed off to bed, she gently removed the book and covered him with a light blanket while gazing tenderly at her husband.
~AQ~
It was nearing midnight in Scotland and up on the highest Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts castle there was a lone figure looking out over the Forbidden Forest. Unable to sleep properly due to his nightmares from the events in the Department of Mysteries, Harry had grabbed his father's old cloak, one of Hermione's photo albums, and the Marauder's Map and headed out for a stroll to clear his thoughts.
Ending up atop the Astronomy Tower, Harry sat down on the cold stone floor with his back against one of the ramparts for support. Absent mindedly, he conjured a blue bell flame for some light and opened the photo album. As he was flipping through the pages, he was forced to blink back his tears a few times as the photos evoked memories of happier times.
The first part of the book covered Hermione's childhood before Hogwarts. The picture of her wearing a pink ballerina outfit at the tender age of three brought a wistful smile to his face. There were a few other precious photos from her childhood and they made him realize that he would never get to hear the stories behind them.
Once he reached her Hogwart's years, he found many of the photos were some of the same ones that he had in his own album. However, there were a few gems that he hadn't seen before and they brought a rare smile to the troubled teen's face.
~AQ~
Voldemort casually strode up to the modest townhome a few blocks away from the Muggle Prime Minister's residence under a Disillusionment Charm. Gazing at the unimposing wooden door in front of him, he silently began casting detection spells to check for wards. He nodded to himself as he found what he expected before he stepped over to check the window to the left of the door.
Quickly, Voldemort ran through the detection charms again and a predatory grin broke out on his face at the results. Easily bypassing the protections on the window, he climbed inside the home and closed the window behind him.
Standing still for a moment, Voldemort let his eyes adjust to his dark surroundings before moving over to the front door where he began casting his own set of wards that would trigger the moment that the occupant entered. To be safe, he repeated the process on all of the first floor windows so there would be no easy escape.
While he waited, Voldemort reflected upon his mistake of being seen in the Ministry and his plan to rectify that error. He had deemed certain influential individuals would either join him or die.
Instinctively, he knew that this particular target would have to die, quickly and quietly. Voldemort wanted to send a message with this particular death while at the same time leaving people to wonder what had really happened. There would be no witnesses and he was counting on the lack of information in a vacuum to ensure that panic would arise.
Unsure of when his prey would be returning he settled into his hiding place for what he hoped would not be a long wait.
~AQ~
Amelia was trudging up to her modest brownstone not too far from 10 Downing Street after a magically exhausting day securing her brother's house. Having spent her entire adult life working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she had honed her situational awareness and a healthy dose of paranoia to a razor's edge. Even in her tired state, she was keenly aware of what was going on around her as she scanned the area for signs of trouble.
With a small sigh of relief, she noticed that the wards on the front door had not been disturbed. Turning the key in the lock, she discretely removed her wand before pushing the door open and stepping inside. As she flicked on the light, she noticed that one of her Warning Charms had been set off. Someone stepping on the item, in this case her living room rug, activated a simple Color Changing Charm and her once cream-colored rug was now a lurid orange.
Her heart was thundering in her chest as she struggled to maintain her weary façade. The moment that the door clicked shut, Amelia sprung into action; she snapped off the living room lights and rolled to her left taking refuge behind the couch.
The moment the lights went out, Voldemort knew that the cagey old witch had detected his entrance somehow. He fired off a quick Killing Curse towards the floor in front of the door hoping that she had ducked down the moment the lights went out.
Silently cursing his bad luck and overconfidence, Voldemort crouched down and moved towards the open doorway to his left. The bright red of a silent Stunning Spell splashed into the wall right where he had been standing moments before. Careful not to stand in the light of the doorway, he stayed low to the ground and backed into the next room while never taking his eyes off the dimly lit room in front of him.
Amelia knew that there was at least one assailant in her house. What she didn't know was that person's identity or if they were alone. Silently, she cast Homenum Revelio and watched as a pinkish mist lit up from the next room indicating only one more person in the house with her.
Needing to act fast in case they had reinforcements coming, she called out, "I know you're alone. If you give up now, I promise that you won't be harmed."
Realizing that the element of surprise was lost, Voldemort sent a Signal Flare Spell into the living room in the hopes that he would catch Amelia off guard. When he heard her gasp of surprise, he conjured a solid silver shield on his arm emblazoned with Slytherin's Crest before boldly stepped into the living room with his wand at the ready.
Temporarily blind, an involuntary gasp escaped Amelia's lips before she could stop herself. Knowing that she only had seconds before her attacker was upon her, she tried to Apparate away only to discover that there were wards in place preventing her escaping that way.
Her blood ran cold when she heard a high-pitched laugh coming from the area of the kitchen. It was a wheezing laugh that sent shivers down her spine. Only one person had a laugh like that and she had been unfortunate to hear it once during the last war. Fortunately, Voldemort never knew that she was present when the McKinnon's were murdered or she would have joined them in their eternal slumber.
Unable to see, Amelia waved her wand and sent the couch that she was hiding behind hurtling towards the doorway followed closely by a silent Blasting Hex.
Voldemort's eyes widened in surprise as the huge sofa in the middle of the room came flying towards him at a tremendous rate of speed. Hastily, he flicked his wand to send the sofa back at his opponent as he dove back through the doorway into the other room.
Milliseconds before his spell connected, Amelia's Blasting Hex destroyed the sofa in a shower of debris. Voldemort's spell was unaffected by the change of composition of the sofa and instead of sending the large object back, it sent the shrapnel hurtling back.
Still seeing spots from Voldemort's curse, Amelia watched in horror as the remains of the couch were heading right back at her. With no where left to hide and not enough time to erect a shield, she quickly turned away from the blast and curled into a ball.
Her screams of pain were music to Voldemort's ears as the pieces of the shattered sofa tore into her back. With a feral grin on his face, he picked himself off the floor, checked his shield, and stepped back into the room.
Fighting through the pain in her back and legs, Amelia struggled into a standing position with her wand held shakily in front of her. Her worst fears were confirmed when Voldemort himself stepped into the room with a predatory look on his face.
Desperately trying to ignore the feeling of dread welling up in her chest and the pain in her body, she angled her body to present a smaller target while franticly trying to figure a way out of her current predicament.
"Hello, Madame Bones." Voldemort said pleasantly as if they were talking over afternoon tea. When she didn't answer after a few seconds, his voice took on a mocking tone, "Tut, tut. For such an upstanding witch, you have terrible manners." Without any warning, he snapped his wrist sharply and sent a spell rocketing towards her.
Amelia had been slowly working her way towards the window behind her in hopes of escaping while Voldemort taunted her. She was wholly unprepared when his silent Bludgeoning Charm connected with her ribs.
The force of the impact lifted Amelia off her feet and sent her bloody body careening through the window behind her. Screaming in pain from her wounds and being blasted through the window, Amelia Apparated away with a thundering pop. Unable to focus properly on her destination due to the intense pain, she ended up splinching herself as she made her escape.
With a scowl on his face, Voldemort casually strolled over to the window that he had just inadvertently blasted his prey through. There was blood spattered all over the window sill and the floor. Based upon the amount of blood, he knew that she would die shortly from her wounds if she didn't receive medical help soon. Glancing outside, he noticed a bloody appendage lying on the ground beneath the broken window.
He summoned the mangled body part, vanished the blood outside, and repaired the window with a casual twirl of his wand. Smiling in triumph, he tossed Amelia's bloody arm, with her wand still clutched in the hand, into the fireplace and quickly incinerated them both. When the arm and wand were just a pile of ash, he vanished the ashes and turned his attention to the house.
Voldemort was surprised to find the house a mix of magical and muggle items but didn't let that deter him from his search. Stretching his senses to their fullest, he began searching for the telltale signs of magical concealment.
It wasn't until he reached the study that his search yielded positive results. Beneath the desk there was a magical safe hidden behind a minor ward. Proving why he was one of the most feared wizards of the age, he quickly overwhelmed the protections and opened the safe.
The interior of the safe had been expanded magically so there were quite a lot of items to sort through. Not willing to risk taking unnecessary time, Voldemort conjured a bag and charmed it to be larger and lighter before he began transferring the contents from the safe.
His smile grew as when he discovered a small bag that was full of gold based upon the jingling noises inside. Looking quickly inside the bag to confirm his find, he was pleasantly surprised to find that there must have been thousands of galleons and even some pound notes in the bag. As he continued to transfer the contents of the safe he realized that this was Amelia's emergency supplies if she had to disappear in a hurry.
Finished gathering his loot, Voldemort stood up from his spot and headed down to the kitchen looking for the microwave. He knew that the Aurors were fond of saying that certain attacks by his Death Eaters were actually gas explosions or some other tripe. For once, he was going to give them their wish.
He pulled out an aerosol can and placed it into the microwave and closed the door. Turning to the oven, he levitated it away from the wall before locating the gas line. As the newly severed line began spewing gas into the kitchen, Voldemort punched in ninety minutes on the cooking time and activated the microwave before leaving the house.
Voldemort knew that there would be chaos with a gas explosion this close to the Prime Minister's house. The muggle authorities would be all over the place making it that much harder for the Aurors to do their jobs properly.
Accepting that everything didn't go exactly to plan, he consoled himself with the minor victory. Taking one last look around the neighborhood, he apparated back to his safe house to go through all of the items that he had pulled from Amelia Bone's safe while contemplating his next move.
~AQ~
Alexander Bones was dozing in his favorite chair by the fire in the lounge when he was startled awake by the pop of apparition. Quietly, he extricated himself from his chair and drew his wand before making his way over to the window. Peering out onto the porch, he spied a crumpled form lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood.
Instinctively, he knew that the person had to be his sister but she had drilled the necessity for caution into him. Easing open the door, he scanned his surroundings before moving to the prone body on the ground.
As he felt for a pulse, Amelia gave out a low moan of pain. Relieved that she was alive, he shouted into the house, "Jules! Bring the kit, Amy's hurt pretty bad!"
Juliette Bones had been sleeping lightly but at her husband's call, she bolted upright, snatched her wand from the bedside table, and ran to the pantry to grab the medical kit. The site of her husband frantically working on the bloody body of his sister caused the bile to rise up into her throat.
Pushing her own discomfort aside, Juliette moved to her husband's side and knelt down and began pulling out necessary bandages and a Blood Replenishing Potion.
Alexander was methodically removing the shards of wood from Amelia's back and legs while Juliette administered the potion. "It's going to be okay, Amy." Jules whispered as she held the red tinted potion up to Amelia's lips. "I need you to drink this to help with the blood loss."
Amelia was lost in a haze of pain but the soothing voices were familiar to her and she complied automatically. As she tried to spit the vile tasting potion out, an authoritative male voice said, "Swallow that, Amy. It will help you heal faster."
Alexander relaxed a touch when his sister began swallowing the potion. As the potion continued to do its work, he was able to focus more on removing the remaining debris that riddled her body. As he worked, he wondered who got the drop on his sister.
After waiting for the first potion to take effect, Juliette grabbed the Pain Relieving Potion and began to coax Amelia into drinking some of it. "This one will help with the pain." She said softly as she tipped the potion into her sister-in-law's mouth.
Amelia could only manage a small nod as she began swallowing the helpful brew. As the effects of the potion began to take hold, she sighed in relief when the world began to return into focus. Carefully, she raised her right arm only to discover that it was missing from the bicep down. She knew that she had probably splinched herself when she escaped but seeing the stump where her arm used to be was still alarming.
"What happened, Amy?" Juliette asked while she applied bandages to the wounds that Alexander had finished cleaning of debris.
It took a moment for Amelia to answer while she collected her thoughts through her haze of pain. "He was waiting for me when I got home." She managed to rasp out. "I got the first spell off but he was faster."
"Take it easy right now, Amy. We need to get you healed up and then you can tell us everything. Should I attempt to reattach your arm?" Alexander asked while pointing to the stump.
"Don't bother." Amelia said bitterly. Taking a deep breath, she ploughed on, "I'm sure that 'He' either destroyed or cursed it."
It was impossible for the married couple to miss the bitterness in her voice or that the 'He' mentioned was none other than Voldemort himself. They had no doubts that he would happily do something horrible to her missing arm.
Alexander placed a hand on her left arm and said warmly, "The good news is that you're alive. Everything else can be dealt with." Looking into her eyes, he saw her grim determination to get through this new hardship. "Can you stand?" he queried as he checked her vital signs one last time.
"I'll need some help up." Amelia said as she winced and fell back onto the front porch when she couldn't gain her balance due to her missing limb.
"Come on, up you get." said Alexander as he and Juliette hoisted Amelia up to her feet between them. They led her into the sitting room on the first floor where Alexander proceeded to transfigure the furniture into a complete bedroom set.
Turning to his wife, Alexander whispered, "While you help Amy get ready, I'll go and clean up the porch and put everything away." Before he stepped out of the room he said, "Get some rest, Amy. We'll take care of everything."
Amelia sighed in exhaustion while Juliette cleaned her up and got her ready for bed. By the time her head hit the pillow, Amelia surrendered herself into Morpheus' welcome embrace.