A/N- Death Eaters! Oh No! ;)
Magus dragged Paige through the hedge with him to take cover on the other side of chest height, bricked garden as the Death Eaters attempted to flank the pair. The hedge shredded around them with the weight of spells upon it and the surrounding buildings shuddered from multiple impacts. The overwhelming terror of it all held Paige paralyzed and a scream involuntarily escaped her throat.
"Send something back at them!" Magus ordered irately, his own wand firing away. He swung it in whirling, carving arcs like he had used on the boxing bag, creating a flurry of movement around his body that batted away incoming hexs and flung out his own at the peak of every swing. But his casting was significantly slower than his opponents was, for every three spells he deflected, Magus would fire only one well aimed spell. It seemed to be an effective defence strategy though.
One of the Death Eaters was suddenly crushed to the ground under the weight of his cloak as it was transfigured into solid lead, a grey beam of energy had slipped under his guard.
Another copped a jet of light in the face and promptly began screaming in high pitched tones as his mask became red hot. In panic he stripped it from his burnt face revelaing flat brutal features that Paige didn't recognise. He lashed a green whip from the tip of his wand at the pair and it cut a mark an entire foot deep in the brick where it barely missed.
Leaves burned and rained down, as the hedge above them wilted from the onslaught of offensive spells. The air was transformed into a whirling chaos of multi-coloured light and explosions.
The flash filled sky seemed to choke all the air from Paige and she huddled behind the bricked cover, fighting to control her breathing. Focusing on the determined tableau of her mentor fighting for his life with a furious expression, Paige managed to slow her hyperventilating lungs. With numb hands she clasped her wand tighter and reached up to fire her first ever stunning charm. The un-aimed spell soared harmlessly over the top of the Death Eaters, who didn't even bother ducking. The ferocious defensive put up by her mentor dominated their complete attention to avoid getting hit.
The leaden cloaked Death Eater had shrugged out from under his overburdened item of clothing and sent something horrible and purple at Magus where it slipped under his whirling arms and grazed past the side of his face. Magus growled in pain as a slice opened up all the way from his cheek to his ear, blood streamed from the wound.
Something hot burnt at the shoulder of Paige's robe as it brushed by and she yelped in pain: a lucky near miss that carved a deep chunk out of the brick planter box the pair were huddled behind.
Pain turned into indignant anger and Paige returned fire with vengeance, hurling rapid fire spell after spell at the three opponents. The spells started landing closer as she became more practiced at aiming.
"That a girl!" Magus called encouraging, dashing from the low cover to a nearby arched doorway and batting a blood red spell into the ground at his feet, before cracking his wand out again like a whip.
His pale blue light hit one of the Death Eaters, who at first seemed unaffected, but abruptly started furiously tearing at his robes, bellowing in agony.
Magus crowed loudly in triumph and laughter, from her own cover Paige couldn't help but snort in amusement too. As they watched the Death Eater somehow frantically ripped his own underpants off, which appeared to have been partially transfigured into some kind of bulbous purple jellyfish. Long blue tentacles had trailed raised, angry red lines all up the unfortunate villains legs and even as he hurled away the horrific offending pair of monster briefs that continued to sting his limbs.
She hated to think what disfiguring injuries it had left elsewhere.
His fellow fighters paused in horror momentarily in disgust at the pulsating purple, half-formed underwear creature that was slung in front of them.
They were snapped back into the battle as a stunning spell struck the burnt faced Death Eater. He slumped to the ground like a marionette with the strings suddenly cut.
Paige almost whooped with elation at having actually hit something, her first successful stunning spell.
"Keep down, Kid!" Magus reminded her, somewhat hypocritically as he leaned from his doorway to keep up the barrage.
The jelly-fished fighter limped in agony and fought back with sadistic fury; in a violent wave of his wand the building Magus was sheltered in the doorway of explosively began to collapse and slide on its foundations.
"Magus!" Paige cried in terror as her plucky mentor disappeared from sight in a thundering mushroom cloud of dust. His voice didn't answer and cold hands closed around her heart.
With only one target left, the two remaining Death Eaters focussed their withering fire back on Paige. Bricks tore free from their mortar and exploded, peppering the terrified girl with shards of brick. Dust caked and choked every surface, reducing the visibility in the street to mere metres.
Paige screamed as a half dozen loud cracks sounded nearby.
A sudden realisation crossed her mind; this was how she was going to die, pinned down by dark magic behind a lousy brick garden box. Tears escaped her eyes before she could stop them and her throat heaved with emotion. Part of her wanted to throw her wand down in surrender, to beg for leniency from the dark wizards. She was running on autopilot, her trembling hand tentatively reaching out from her cover to fire un-aimed spells at her attackers in an attempt to ward them off. Her defence and resolve was crumbling though; her one woman offensive held no candle to the heroic last stand her mentor had taken.
Suddenly more voices yelled and called through the swirling dust.
Ministry robed wizards emerged in the shroud, rapidly casting in the direction of the Death Eaters. Paige's heart leapt in gratitude as a tall strongly built wizard threw a shield charm over her and then promptly tripped over a loose brick and face planted.
My hero! She thought derisively watching the clumsy man quickly find his feet again and move to crouch beside her, his green eyes sharply focussed back towards the danger, despite his swollen bleeding nose and streaming eyes.
One of the witches that was advancing on the Death Eaters fell to a toxic dark brown coloured hex, her whole body writhing and contorting in agony. Her screams simply blended in with the chaos of background noise that assaulted her ears. The man beside her was yelling something, but it all sounded quiet and muted, Paige couldn't make sense of it.
In the smoke and dust, wraith like figures danced, throwing multi-coloured streams of light at each other, until finally a true silence descended.
Paige tentatively looked up from her point of cover and saw all three of the Death Eaters were gone, having apparently apparated.
She almost jumped out of her skin, at the large hand that clasped her bicep and insistently urged her to stand. Trembling, she found it difficult but not impossible.
Paige found herself looking up in the broken nosed face of the young wizard who had shielded and stayed with her. He had dull friendly features that were slurred from his recent fall, his short dark hair had a sharp widows peak to it and was streaked with dust.
"Episky" She murmured, feeling the words rather than hearing them and she straightened out his rather large nose and reduced the swelling that had begun to start. The ungrateful recipient yowled mutedly in pain and clutched his face.
Volume had just started to fade back in and she finally heard what he said.
"Your partner is asking for you, he needs help." The low baritones told her again and gestured towards the battle field.
Help! That one word rung in her head and she nodded to follow him, dreading to see what sort of help her mentor required.
Faint pops and cracks issued from all around as more ministry officials transported in to provide support. She walked past the collapsed building where several wizards were levitating away rubble to search for victims.
Suddenly there he was; Magus McIntyre, her eccentric Irish mentor. He was down on one knee over a prone young wizard, her robes stained thickly with blood and cut away to the hip.
Her mentor was working spells frantically with one hand and splashing dittany with another. Paige blanched as she saw the horrific wound on the witch's thigh. Her pale skin was flecked with blood and it pooled heavily underneath her, a gruesome open wound the size of a grapefruit took up most of her femur. The skin had been eaten away like acid had been spilt on her and the striated bands of muscle underneath twitched and pulsed whenever her leg moved. Most startlingly as Paige watched, the wound started to creep and stretch, expanding like it was a living thing trying to consume more skin. Fighting hard against it, was Magus who dripped sweat and poured dittany generously, growing skin back almost as quickly as it disappeared. His job was made more difficult by the constant restless movement of the leg; a response to the excruciating pain by the nearly unconscious witch.
Magus was so focussed on his task he didn't even look up, when she called to him. The large cut on his cheek still bleed freely down his face and he was covered in so much dusk he looked like a blood flecked old man.
"Necrotising curse!" He hissed in disgust, clearly fighting a losing battle.
"Quick, take over here, Paige. I've got something I want to try and it might just save the leg." He roughly shoved the dittany in her shaking hands and she continued pouring the smoking liquid.
"Tiny Tim, hold the patient still." Magus sharply ordered the tall wizard who had led Paige over.
Looking uncertain, the large wizard knelt to pin the wounded witch's body to the ground and lessen the struggling she did.
The wound and treatment were no doubt agonising to the patient who was partly conscious, her eyes shut but moaning and writhing weakly. Her skin had a horrid dusky tinge to it and all three people working on her kneeled in the sticky growing pool of blood.
Trying not to focus on the gruesome flesh eating curse, Paige poured liberally and cast furiously as her mentor had done, she tried not to watch what he was doing.
From his dusty dragon hide vest, he had drawn a small kit. From inside of the sterile packaging he took out an ordinary looking surgical scalpel.
"Keep going no matter what; I have to keep ahead of the curse with my cutting." He explained grimly and made the first incision. Dark blood fully immersed his hand but he carried on anyway, deftly cutting in quick slices around the outside of the affected tissue. Moments that felt like hours later, he pulled away with a basketball sized hoop of flesh that was still rapidly shrinking. In disgust, he Frisbee threw the flap of flesh away and incinerated it in one movement of his wand.
Paige looked down at the wound site or what was left of it and saw a giant pulsing red clot forming up over the hole. It was lucky too, since they were both completely out of dittany and the patient was nearly out of blood. Paige slapped a large bandage over top the raw wound and her wand made it wrap and tighten itself.
The patient had stopped struggling and now lay still, her breathing settled and less laboured.
Magus breathed a big sigh of relief and sent his charge a very forced grin.
"They don't show you that one on orientation." He joked, scouring his bloody hands with his wand.
Paige shook her head words still not coming, she recognised Unwin Doit making his bandy legged way over.
The lofty wizard who had protected Paige turned his head and vomited violently into the nearby scorched bushes.
"Weak stomach huh, Tim?" Magus heckled the queasy young man, who was now wiping his mouth on his sleeve in embarrassment.
Magus finally stood, rubbing his stiff knees and pausing over a new rip in his jeans. He was now covered almost head to toe in blood in various stages of drying, some of it was his own, most of it was not.
"Bollocks!" He exclaimed, either at his own state or about the sudden appearance of their boss.
"Any significant event you'll notice every manager and his dog turn up for a nosey." Magus irritably told Paige in an undertone before their manager made it to them.
A clearly flustered Unwin started to say something to the pair, but Magus roughly shoved his med bag into the man's arms.
"Package that one up Unwin and take them straight across to St Mungos. She just became the first person to survive a necrotising curse intact." He ordered the department head and the stammering man had no choice to reply, the steely tone in which it was delivered left little room for argument.
Paige looked uncertainly between the two and looked to stay and help the boss, but Magus called to her.
"Come on Callamari, we've got other patients to attend to." He beckoned and the junior reverser gave Unwin an apologetic look, before hastening after her stumbling mentor.
Limping further into the maelstrom of chaos that was the scene of the battle, the pair worked quickly; mending minor cuts and fractures, examining injured muggles who had been in the hostel or nearby. There were at least two dead muggles among the rubble by their last count. Muggle ambulances had turned up and were being held back until their mind wiped patients could be loaded.
Paige saw Dawn standing in front of a group of four young muggle men and speaking to them in a slow commanding tone. The dulcet expressions on their faces suggested she was busy modifying their memories. As soon as she was done with the group, Dawn madly dashed over to her friends.
"You scared the hell out of me!" She accused an unwary Magus who had just finished inspecting an old muggle lady with a scalp laceration. He sealed it shut with a permanent sticking charm and then directed her over to another one of the waiting Obliviators. He had just been explaining the merits of the simple spell to Paige for closing minor cuts and that it even worked on muggles because it wasn't really healing magic.
Dawn tackled him into a fierce hug that left him wincing and gasping for air. She was obviously not put off by his filthy appearance or the fact that now she was covered in blood too.
Paige was astonished to then receive the same treatment from her new friend, she winced as her shoulder was lightly brushed and one side of her face stung hotly.
With a worried expression, Dawn brushed dust out of Magus's hair and turned his face to inspect the cut that had finally stopped bleeding.
"You're never far from trouble, Magus." She scolded him.
"Not on purpose!" He grumbled back in his light Irish lilt.
"What the hell happened?" She demanded to know from the pair.
"I think we would all like to know that." An unfamiliar voice chimed in at a low gravelly tone.
The trio turned to see the head of magical enforcement, Rufus Scrimgeour looking like an expectant, regally aged lion. He was accompanied at his right side by the stoic Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt and a third older man that Paige had never met.
Magus merely nodded in exhausted greeting to Scrimgeour and gave Kingsley a tight smile.
"Oh nice of you guys from enforcement to finally show up!" He drawled sarcastically. Scrimgeour and the third man exchanged weary looks at his attitude.
"Paige and I were pretty much done with those three Death Eaters by the time you arrived." Magus decided in a derisive tone that earned him further ire from the three men. Paige blushed furiously, knowing that a degree of this would be aimed at her by association.
Dawn elbowed Magus hard in the ribs and shrugged apologetically at Kingsley.
"Death Eaters!? Preposterous!" A new voice exclaimed and a very pompous short man appeared behind the other three older men. He nervously clutched at a lime green bowler hat. Ostentatiously, he held a handkerchief over his mouth and nose in a concession to the still settling dust. It was still clearly identifiable who he was though.
Cornelius Fudge; the minister of magic himself.
"Or else it was one hell of a fancy dress party." The baritone ebony wizard dryly commented and he held up a Death Eater mask with skin still seared to the inside of it. The smell of sour burnt bacon lingered around it.
Several paces behind the group, Fudge's ginger haired lapdog of an assistant shot the Auror a reproachful look, which was promptly ignored.
"I'm surprised you could see anything of your opponents, McIntyre from underneath that building?" Rufus pointed out bluntly.
"You really had them on the ropes." The third wizard observed in a wheezy voice.
"Clearly you were mistaken, Mr McIntyre." Fudge agreed sternly.
"Nope. Definitely Death Eaters, three of them; had the spooky robes and kinky masks as you can see." Magus simply disagreed and indicated the mask that was still in Kingsley's large hands.
"I think one of them even shouted 'Voldemort rules' before Paige stunned him." He added in a sarcastic stage whisper.
"Do you honestly expect us to believe that the two of you fought off three Death Eaters?" The third man doubtfully proposed.
"Forgive me Mr Stake, we found that a preferable option to simply dying painfully like these folk?" Magus rudely directed his comment at the third man and waved his arms around at the destroyed buildings around them.
His rib cracked again as Dawn hit him with another sharp elbow.
Kingsley came to the rescue and defused the situation.
"I think we can agree it was a valiant effort by our two Reversers here. Mulis, you should be proud of the bravery of your officers." The last part was directed at the man Magus had referred to as Mr. Stake.
"Quite, even if their attitudes could be better." Rufus eventually relented.
"Magus, perhaps you would be so kind to tell us how things started here?" Mulis Stake patiently requested, tiredly removing a notebook and quill.
"Fine, but we have to make this quick. I've got a critical patient being packaged as we speak that needs to be seen at St Mungos." Magus sourly agreed.
Between him and Paige, they gave the report on all they had seen.
"Well I must apologise for the delay by my department, we were given the wrong address to back you up at." Rufus apologised once they had finished their account amid many derisive snorts from Fudge. Scrimgeour sounded angry and frustrated, not apologetic at all.
"There has been a rather large amount of disinformation lately." Kingsley growled in a low tone.
"What were the Death Eaters doing here though?" Dawn asked the head of departments and the Minister.
Paige noticed that in all the proceedings that Dawn had been pointedly ignored and even shot dirty looks by Scrimgeour and the others, this happened again when she asked the question.
"There were no Death Eaters, Ms Dennisoff! That is purely conjecture at this point!" Fudge snapped angrily and Paige noticed a muscle tighten in Shacklebolt's jaw.
"What these… dark wizards.. of unknown affiliation… Were doing here is classified, I'm sorry." Rufus growled slowly and deliberately choosing his words carefully, he eyed Dawn as if she was party to the wizards in question.
Behind Fudge a young burly wizard with a fully shaven head and a thick ginger beard, levitated a corpse on a stretcher down what was left of the stairs of the hostel. The body was covered in a sheet, but a single arm hung off the side, a faded dark mark burned on the inside of the bloodstained arm.
Lynx-eyed Magus couldn't help but notice this and folded his arms defensively.
If you didn't know the man like Paige or Dawn did, you would have missed how he concealed his wand on the inside of his forearm and hand. Somehow the corner of the stretcher became snagged on a non-existent obstacle and the whole vessel lurched forward. The corpse slid forward and the head lolled out from under the sheet, revealing the pale and tortured face of Igor Karkaroff.
"It looks classified!" Dawn snorted in amusement, nodding to the displaced body. Paige covered her mouth in shock, she recognised the face from the Tri-wizard cup last year.
"Smooth moves, Angus!" Magus smarmily taunted the square jawed wizard who had been levitating the corpse, who was now hastily moving to cover the body back up again.
"Shut up Magus, ya stupid Squib!" The furious wizard on corpse detail growled back.
"Says the guy who can't even levitate a dead Death Eater." Magus returned fire with his mouth mockingly and further infuriating the beleaguered young wizard.
Fudge went purple and looked minutes away from a brain aneurism.
Mulis raised his voice to be heard over the bickering as Kingsley, Percy and Rufus hurried to help the man named Angus.
"Enough!" Mulis Stake roared. "McIntyre, you and Ms Calamisi here…"
"Calamari." Magus incorrectly corrected him, while somehow keeping a straight face, Dawn snickered, but hastily turned it into a cough. Paige was stunned by the audacity and outrageousness of her mentor and couldn't find a sound to make in amendment.
"Whatever!" Growled Stake in reply. "You are both on stand down for a couple of days, get cleaned up and go home." He ordered. "Bryce and Ben will take your patient across to St Mungos."
"Sweet, day off!" Magus crowed raising his hand to Paige for a high five that she was too petrified of her department head to return. Fudge had been hailed by another wizard and gratefully looked ready to leave the stressful conversation. His flashed glare at Mulis said that there discussion wasn't done.
"Not a word of these.. Death Eater.. conspiracies to anyone. Do you understand me?" He hissed vehemently to the gathered group.
As a whole they nodded except for Magus who of course had to make one last smartass comment.
"But what am I supposed to write about in my monthly article with the Quibbler?" He whinged and Paige was fairly certain he was joking. Although if he was a regular contributor that would not overly surprise her.
Fudge continued his beetroot impression and his eyes seemed to flicker with barely contained indignation and fury, but he managed to suppress it, storming away instead. Percy shot the Reverser a final dirty look of his own, before striding off after his boss. No one was amused, except of course Magus who appeared not to give a shit.
Rufus took over things once more.
"McIntyre, I expect a report on my desk by the end of the week about what you saw and what happened." He demanded sternly.
"I'll use my best crayons." Magus promised with a smartass grin, unperturbed by the glare that was being sent his way by several managers.
"Ms Calamisi, I would also request a meeting with you on Friday to get your account of events and to check on your how you are managing after the encounter." Kingsley Shacklebolt added in his low slow tone.
It took Paige a moment to realise that she was being addressed by the formidable man.
"Friday? Yes of course…" She nervously agreed.
Dawn started shepherding the two Reversers away, when she was stopped by Mulis Stake.
"Ms Dennisoff, don't you have more muggle minds to alter?" He coldly reminded her and effectively stopping her from leaving with the others.
"So you are right, Stake." She grated in irritation and gave her departing friend's one last lingering worried look. Absently she grazed a finger gently across the cut on Magus's cheek, the dust had seemed to stem the bleeding, but not before it had coated one whole side of his rugged face.
"Yeah come on Sweets, get to it; someone has to make sure everyone forgets the bitching firefight we had just had." He teased her, indicating that he couldn't be mortally injured.
Dawn appreciated the reassurance and transformed her expression of concern to a long suffering one instead and headed back towards where the remaining muggles were congregated.
"I'll find you after this and take the rest of the day off too." She promised the pair with a conspiratorial wink.
As the two Reversers limped away, Paige faintly heard Rufus talking with Mulis.
"Are you sure you want that impertinent, jackass of a wizard in charge of training your new impressionable staff members?" Scrimgeour inquired with poorly disguised doubt and dislike.
Mulis sighed heavily, like what he had to say next hurt to escape his lips.
"Yes. McIntyre is a grade A asshole, an unstable alcoholic and his grasp of magic is bizarre and stunted, but it is true what everyone says; he is the best damned field medic we have. That girl from your department today, Robins was it? Like many other of our Law Enforcement team, owe that man their life."
Magus smirked silently and pretended not to have heard either.
His smirk faded when Mulis added that he would also personally make sure that Magus was put on report for insubordination after the mornings antics.