Chapter 10: Interference
Scorched Earth (or Diagon Alley)
Rookwood's enemies all moved to attack him, but the Unspeakable screamed, "Fus Ro Dah!" again, and they all went flying back a second time.
The second landing hurt even more than the first.
"Son of a fucking bitch!" groaned Moody.
"What's the matter, Moody?" mocked Rookwood. "Afraid you're gonna have two wooden legs by the time I'm finished with you?"
"You talk too much," Moody said. "Confringo!"
Rookwood lazily cast a shield. The Blasting Curse was absorbed by Rookwood's Shield Charm with no effect.
Shield Charms weren't supposed to do that, Mandy knew. They weren't that powerful. Whatever that Founder's Artifact was, it must have been giving Rookwood additional power, if it really was the reason that Voldemort's enemies had never been able to kill him.
Mandy both hoped and believed that Rookwood was wrong when he said that the Cup could raise Lord Voldemort again. How, after all, could Rookwood raise an insane, catatonic, gibbering vegetable (as he was when the Resistance had finally finished with him) back to his former power?
On the other hand, Rookwood had defied the odds before, as evidenced by him following her back in time.
Mandy was jolted out of her reverie by the sight of Rookwood advancing upon Moody, John Dawlish Sr., Scrimgeour, and Amelia Bones. Despite the fact that they were four and he was one, Rookwood was winning. He cast spells so quickly and with such incredible power that they were hard-pressed to defend themselves properly.
Aberforth Dumbledore moved to intervene in the battle. He hurled a bolt of lightning right at Rookwood, who contemptuously flicked his wand. The lightning arced around Rookwood without touching him, and then headed towards Moody. Mandy cursed as she realized she could not pull the Aguamenti trick that she did with Rodolphus because Rookwood had never touched the lightning, and so couldn't fall victim to the water-electricity collision backlash.
The four Aurors swore as they all put up shields against the lightning. The lightning struck the shields with a thunderous BOOM. The shields held, but the Aurors were all forced back several steps.
Rookwood, sensing weakening prey, continued to advance, hurling rapid-fire Blasting Curses. Mandy attempted to summon Rookwood's shoes to trip him, to no effect. Ah well; she didn't really expect that it would work anyway. Rookwood was one to prepare battles beforehand and so would probably have charmed his shoes with Anti-Summoning Charms.
Another tactic, then. "Lumos Maxima!" Mandy yelled, shining the light right at Rookwood.
Unfortunately, the Unspeakable was prepared for that, too. He cast a physical shield and charmed it completely opaque, and nothing shone through. The Aurors all stumbled back from the light, wincing.
"Don't do that again," Scrimgeour said. Mandy didn't hear him, instead continuing to attack, as forcing Rookwood to defend himself against Lumos Maxima had cost the Unspeakable valuable time. Mandy followed with two Patronuses, against which Rookwood's physical shield was completely worthless because Patronuses are incorporeal.
It was at that moment that Moody wondered whether to recommend this newcomer to the Ministry Hit Wizard Squad, the Order of the Phoenix, or the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. "Forward!" he roared to his Aurors, and they hurled spells at Rookwood to complement the attacking Patronuses. If the Patronuses harassed Rookwood thoroughly enough, the spells could hit him.
Rookwood scowled as the Patronuses and the curses flew at him. He cast his time-shield, and all the spells flew into it and vanished into twenty minutes ago.
For a man who had so thoroughly studied time paradoxes in the Department of Mysteries, Rookwood seemed completely unconcerned about having caused two Patronus Charms, five Blasting Curses, three Cutting Curses, and a Stupefy to suddenly appear out of nowhere, with no apparent casters, 20 minutes into the past.
"What-" uttered John Dawlish.
"Stay focused!" growled Moody. "Rookwood will have surprises and unknown spells up his sleeve, so don't let your guard down because you've never seen the spell before." He sent a Shield-Breaking Charm at Rookwood, followed by four Bone-Breaking Curses. Rookwood was too quick though, dropping the shield in response to the Shield-Breaking Charm, and putting a Protego Maximus up a fraction of a second later to take the Bone-Breaking Curses. He didn't move or even flinch as the Bone-Breaking Curses struck his shield. Mandy didn't like the implications of that; even above-average wizards like Rodolphus Lestrange would be forced back a few steps if their shield took four Bone-Breaking Curses from Alastor Moody, but not Rookwood.
Rookwood had, however, when resuming his shielding, chosen Protego Maximus rather than his time shield. Perhaps he was wary to cast the time shield too often after Potter had turned Rookwood's temporal manipulation against him in 1999 by using time-delayed explosive spells.
Orion Black moved to Avery's corpse to grab his wand so that he also could attack Rookwood. Rookwood turned and cast a few Blasting Curses in Orion's direction, forcing him to back up and move away from Avery's wand. However, two seconds later, a very annoyed Rookwood found himself forced to turn his attention back to the Aurors, who had not let up their spellfire. Aberforth moved with Orion Black, casting a precautionary shielding charm in front of him in case Rookwood attacked again.
Mandy cast another Patronus Charm and sent it in Rookwood's direction. Rookwood swore and cast a Patronus of his own before turning his attention back to the Aurors. The two Patronuses grappled and wrestled with each other, raven against eagle. Orion Black grabbed Avery's wand, and he and Aberforth added their spells to those of the Aurors when attacking Rookwood.
Rookwood's Patronus defeated Mandy's and charged in her direction. Mandy sent the Patronus twenty minutes into the past with a time shield.
Mandy switched tactics and added her spellfire to that of Aberforth, Orion Black, and the Aurors. The Aurors had spread out, most of them heading into the village to look for and handle the other Death Eaters, if any were present. One of them, Auror Angela Smith, had hit the wandless Bellatrix with a Stunning Spell before moving on to check out the rest of the town.
Moody would later commend Smith for being constantly vigilant and realizing that wandless people could still be dangerous in fights and also chastise her for not breaking Bellatrix's arms too in case the Stunning Spell wore off.
Rookwood's shield was buckling. The Unspeakable was finally showing some signs of exhaustion from having to fend off attacks from Mandy, Orion Black, Aberforth Dumbledore, Abernathy, and the four Aurors all at once.
"He's slowing! Keep going, we've got him!" Dawlish shouted as encouragement.
Rookwood scowled, looking positively feral. Mandy knew and feared that look from the old timeline – it usually meant Rookwood had some ace up his sleeve to use against his enemies when they thought they had him.
Rookwood dropped the shield and threw himself down onto the ground. Everyone's spells flew over him. They adjusted their aim to hit Rookwood on the ground, but in the split second that it took to do that…
Rookwood threw out an area-wide Supersensory Charm.
Oh shit, Mandy thought, knowing exactly what was going to happen next. She hastily cast a Deafening Charm on herself.
Just in time, too, for Rookwood then cast used a spell that simulated the noise of outrageously loud thunderclaps.
Almost everyone dropped to the ground holding their ears. Rookwood's outrageously loud thunderclaps would have been startling enough under normal circumstances, but when everyone was in the radius of the area-wide Supersensory Charm? Even worse. Mandy was only safe because she was quick enough to have cast a Deafening Charm on herself.
Rookwood grinned ferally, rising to his feet. He threw a Lumos Maxima at Mandy, and when Mandy responded by using Rookwood's opaque physical shield, Rookwood threw Patronus Charms in her direction, correctly supposing that Patronus Charms would be nearly blinding to someone under the influence of a Supersensory Charm.
Rookwood also knew that Mandy would not risk casting a Blinding Curse – even a temporary one – on herself to avoid being affected by the light of the Patronus spells. After all, if she did that, she wouldn't be able to see his next spells. She would be a sitting duck. And if she didn't do that, the Patronus added to the Supersensory Charm would blind her anyway. She would still be a sitting duck.
So instead Mandy spun around 180 degrees until she was facing the other direction. Knowing she would be a sitting duck with her back to Rookwood, she hurled a Banishing Charm in his direction while spinning.
Rookwood, who had supposed that Mandy would be too disoriented to cast anything under the onslaught of the Patronus and the Supersensory Charm, was too surprised and shielded himself too late. The Unspeakable time-traveller was hurled backwards by the Banishing Charm and crashed backwards into the unconscious Bellatrix Lestrange.
Although Mandy had bought herself some time by using the Banishing Charm, Rookwood's Patronus had not been dispelled. The incorporeal Patronus passed through Mandy, sending unnatural ghostly chills down her spine.
An extremely annoyed Mandy Apparated several feet away, out of range of the Supersensory Charm, so that the Patronus was now at a safe distance.
The Patronus advanced with blinding – albeit less blinding now that Mandy was out of range of the Supersensory Charm – speed.
The seven others – who had caught all the full effects of Rookwood's deliberate sensory overload – had still not gotten up. Mandy wondered why, and then it hit her.
When Rookwood cast the spell to simulate outrageously loud thunderclaps, he never stopped it. The spell, as Rookwood cast it, would continue making outrageously loud thunderclaps until the Unspeakable himself chose to stop it. The seven others, who were still in the range of Rookwood's area-effect Supersensory Charm, were still hearing the loud thunderclaps – if their eardrums hadn't already burst, that is. Consequently, they were unable to concentrate enough either to dispel Rookwood's Supersensory Charm or to deafen themselves.
The Rookwood of 2011 had come back to 1981 and outplayed them all.
Rookwood said something, forgetting that Mandy couldn't hear him. But Mandy knew enough about Rookwood to know that he was being smug, that he was gloating, that he was taking sadistic satisfaction in knowing the torture he'd inflicted on seven good people. He was laughing, because Mandy had gone back in time to make the world safer from Voldemort, and Rookwood had just undone it all in less than fifteen minutes.
He was laughing, just as he had when he'd murdered Justin Finch-Fletchley, when he'd murdered Terry Boot, when he'd murdered Bill Weasley.
And Mandy whirled when Rookwood's Patronus was almost on top of her, and spoke the one curse she'd once sworn to never, ever use again: "CRUCIO!"
The Patronus flailed and screamed, despite being incorporeal and not truly alive.
The Cruciatus could affect incorporeal targets as well as corporeal ones. That fact was generally not known – not even by Rookwood – because who the hell would be stupid enough to try casting an Unforgivable at something that was incorporeal? The idea made no sense.
Behind the Patronus, Rookwood too was flailing and screaming. He thrashed and writhed, even though he wasn't directly under the spell, screaming and rolling around in pain, because cursing his Patronus with the Cruciatus also had the effect of indirectly cursing him with the same spell.
The Patronus dissipated. Without a Patronus through which Rookwood could be indirectly cursed, Rookwood's screaming stopped. He staggered to his feet, only to be hit with a second Cruciatus Curse.
The screaming started again.
Had Mandy gone unstopped, it would have only been a matter of time before she cursed Augustus Rookwood into insanity and, in so doing, rendered Voldemort's most valuable asset completely insensate for a second time.
But that isn't what happened. Rookwood, despite being under the Cruciatus Curse and screaming his lungs out, shakily pointed his wand at the unconscious Bellatrix and managed to scream out, "Ennervate!"
The Unspeakable wasn't thinking clearly, which made sense because he was under Cruciatus. How would Bellatrix be able to take the heat off of him and attack his tormenter without a wand? It wasn't like she would jump in front of him and take the spell, right?
Of course, such considerations are not taken into account when under Cruciatus.
Bellatrix blinked, opening her eyes, and took in the scene. She noted that Rookwood had felled almost everyone he had been fighting against. She also heard a consistent, repeating, annoyingly loud thunderclap. The thunderclap was made even worse by the fact that there was a Supersensory Charm. And there was Rookwood, being held under Cruciatus by that filthy blood traitor witch who had rebounded Rodolphus's lightning spell against him.
That thunderclap noise! It was terrible! It was deafening her. And clearly, Rookwood had failed in his promise to kill all the enemies of the Dark Lord in Diagon Alley.
This blood traitor witch was a blood traitor worthy of death, but was clearly unusually powerful. She had trounced Rodolphus and trounced Rookwood. Now, this would be a true test of Bellatrix's loyalty! Where Rodolphus and Rookwood had failed, she would win, beat this bitch, and win glory for the Dark Lord!
And then Bellatrix realized she didn't have her wand. Rookwood had it! She grabbed Rookwood's pockets and started rifling through them.
And in doing so, she inadvertently moved in front of Mandy's curse.
Bellatrix screamed in terrible agony. Her screams were even louder to her own ears because the Supersensory Charm was still up!
In that moment, Bellatrix got a small taste of what it was like to be one of her own victims. She writhed and thrashed, accidentally punching Rookwood in the eye in her Cruciatus convulsions.
Rookwood staggered to his feet. He grabbed Bellatrix and held her in front of him to protect himself from any additional Cruciatus Curses. He was exhausted and weary.
"CRUCIO!" repeated Mandy, who had lost all semblance of self-control. Bellatrix screamed again, twisting and flailing, but held into place by Rookwood. Rookwood drew Orion Black's wand to freeze Bellatrix, standing, in place, while he backed up to give himself additional breathing room.
The Cruciatus Curse continued to strike the immobilized Bellatrix.
Rookwood backed up further, still rattled at having been outplayed by that damn bitch Brocklehurst again. That mistake could have cost him his mind. But he still needed to finish this, see this through to the end. If Brocklehurst won today, the Dark Lord's cause was doomed, Rookwood was certain.
The Unspeakable grabbed Hufflepuff's Cup, gazing at it reverently. Only he, as far as he was aware, knew the Cup's true nature: a Horcrux.
"Master, Lord Voldemort," Rookwood whispered, "give me the strength to finish this."
Incredibly to Rookwood, the Cup seemed to answer him.
Mandy Brocklehurst wasn't paying attention to any of this. She was lost, lost in the thrill of the Cruciatus Curse, reveling in torturing Bellatrix Lestrange to the very depths of insanity, in turning her into a brain-dead body that hadn't realized it was a corpse yet.
Rookwood wasn't paying attention to Brocklehurst, either. He was still gazing at the cursed Cup with reverence as it seemed to answer him and grant his request.
With a primal yell, Rookwood blasted Bellatrix out of the way, sending the immobilized tormented Death Eater's face into the dirt. A huge chunk of stone rose out of the Earth and took Mandy's next Cruciatus Curse.
Another Crucio impacted Rookwood's physical shield. The curse hit the shield and then rebounded, flying back in the direction of its caster. The rebounding Crucio hit another Crucio that Mandy was casting at Rookwood's direction. The two Cruciatus Curses rebounded off of each other.
"Fus Ro Dah!" Rookwood screamed. The area-wide Banishing Charm sent Mandy flying backwards.
Mandy crashed down on the ground, and clarity returned. "Oh my God," Mandy whispered in horror. She vomited on the ground. I cast the Cruciatus five times. I tortured, I laughed at the Death Eaters' screams. I tortured; I reveled in it. Why didn't I just kill him and be done with it? I…
Rookwood walked up to Mandy's position on the ground, raising his wand.
"Expelliarmus," Rookwood snapped. Rowle's wand – which Mandy had been using all fight – flew to his hand. He paused. "Accio backup wands," he decided.
The wand taken from the prophecy-induced insanity Rookwood, as well as Mandy's true wand, flew into his hand. Wands that Mandy had taken from five other Death Eaters that she had killed also flew towards Rookwood. Unable to catch them all, Rookwood simply disintegrated most of the wands that flew toward him with an Incendio.
"You're going to pay for that," Rookwood snarled. "I'll make sure you do."
Beyond pissed about how he had almost lost this fight, Rookwood was in no mood to play games with his opponent before going in for the kill.
"Avada Kedavra," Rookwood said. Mandy rolled wildly to the right and the spell smashed into the ground where she'd been a split second before. "Avada Kedavra," Rookwood repeated again, and Mandy rolled back to the left. "Expulso," he tried. Mandy cast a Tickling Charm (another one of the few spells she could do without a wand or voice) at the explosive curse. The spells deflected off of each other and flew back in the direction they'd come. Rookwood leapt back, swearing, and raised a shield, which took his rebounding explosive curse. Mandy dispelled the rebounded Tickling Charm.
Rookwood narrowed his eyes. He'd forgotten this opponent was still dangerous without a wand. He deliberated over his next course of action.
Mandy was swearing at herself for fucking up in this duel. She'd cast Cruciatus five times, reveled in the torture, when she could have just ended it by simply killing the Death Eater. She'd fucked up, lost her rationality, even if that had been temporary. Now she had no wands or even backup wands.
Her jaw tightened. She'd beat Rookwood, whatever it took. Even without a wand.
Although, that would be really inconvenient. Mandy held out a hand, attempting to wandlessly summon Abernathy's wand.
Rookwood saw it coming and intercepted the flying wand. He set the wand on fire and then dropped it on top of Abernathy.
Mandy's eyes widened in alarm. With Abernathy as incapacitated as he was, too in pain from the still ongoing sound reverberation charm and the Supersensory Charm, that fire would surely kill him.
Rookwood must have been aware of this too, because he set Aberforth on fire next.
Without a wand, or any buckets of water, Mandy had no ability to put out the fires Rookwood was setting. Not only that, but Mandy and the others were on opposite sides of Rookwood and she would have to get around the Unspeakable Death Eater if they were to live.
Of course, there was Apparition.
However, Rookwood would first have to be incapacitated… somehow. If she just Apparated to Abernathy and Aberforth, Rookwood would attack her and the time that she would be forced to use to defend herself would be time in which they died from the fire because she couldn't help them.
Mandy Apparated right on top of Rookwood's head. Not having a wand, she couldn't use some of the more lethal spells in her arsenal, but Apparating on top of a Death Eater's head while casting a wandless Tickling Charm straight down could still be distracting, even if it obviously carried no threat of lethality as was the case with the Dolohov-Apparition.
Rookwood somehow anticipated this move and cast a Shield Charm, positioning it on top of his head. The Tickling Charm rebounded and hit Mandy, causing her to laugh uncontrollably. At the same time, the Shield Charm on the top of Rookwood's head forced Mandy upwards. She attempted to stomp on Rookwood's head, but the Shield Charm repelled the kick. Both of them flinched, Mandy from the force with which the Shield Charm repelled the kick and Rookwood from the force of the kick, even if the Shield Charm had deflected most of it. Mandy cancelled the Tickling Charm on herself before continuing in her attack.
Rookwood turned, spinning in place, attempting to throw Mandy off his head. He spun until he was looking in the direction of the flaming Aberforth and Abernathy again. Mandy fell off of Rookwood's head, landing on the ground behind him. Rookwood paused, and then set Orion Black on fire, too. He looked around for the four Aurors, but they were gone. He swore. The Aurors' emergency escape Portkey must have triggered when the magic of the Portkey deemed that they were too injured to go on.
Well, at least he killed Dumbledore's brother, the blood traitor Orion Black, and a Mudblood today. And should Magic favor him, he would kill Brocklehurst today, too.
Rookwood decided to finish the job started by his fire. Yes, they were dead men already, set on fire while already incapacitated, but why take the risk of having them live?
"Avada-" he began, pointing his wand in the direction of the unconscious forms of Abernathy, Aberforth Dumbledore, and Orion Black.
Mandy grabbed Rookwood's leg and pulled. Rookwood tumbled, off balance.
The two time-travellers crashed down onto the ground. Mandy recovered first, leaping on top of Rookwood's back, keeping him pinned to the ground. Rookwood's wand swung to point at her. Mandy grabbed Rookwood's wand arm.
Rookwood attempted to cast a Banisher in Mandy's direction, and she leaned wildly to the left, dodging the spell while still remaining on the Death Eater's back.
Mandy twisted the Death Eater's wand arm, preparing to break his wrist. Rookwood Apparated, rematerializing into existence on top of Mandy's head. He cast a fire whip straight down, but Mandy Apparated again, rematerializing behind Rookwood. Rookwood's fire whip hit empty ground.
Mandy was not terribly happy right now. If she killed Rookwood, she would be able to save the three he set on fire, but every second Rookwood remained alive was a second that they were dying. She had to kill him, and fast, but she also had to avoid tactical errors at the same time.
Rookwood turned in the direction that Mandy had Apparated – and was promptly met by a fist to the face. He attempted to cast the Killing Curse, but Mandy bowled into him, interrupting the spell before it could be fully articulated. They both crashed to the ground.
Rookwood screamed, releasing out wild, uncontrolled, accidental magic. Mandy was bodily hurled several meters away by the spell that was not a spell.
The Unspeakable staggered to his feet. He had promised himself he wouldn't use Fiendfyre, as there were parts of Diagon Alley that he would have preferred to remain standing – Ollivander's shop and Fortescue's Ice Cream, for example – but fuck that.
If he needed to sacrifice those wonderful, wonderful places for the Dark Lord, he would.
"FIENDFYRE!" roared Rookwood.
"Oh shit," breathed Mandy. "Oh shit, oh shit, oh damned fucking shit." She turned and ran in the opposite direction, still not having a wand.
"Oh no, you're not getting away," Rookwood said. He disappeared in a whirling of robes and reappeared, four meters in front of Mandy. "You'll die in flames, Brocklehurst," he promised.
"FIENDFYRE!" he screamed. "Oh, and by the way," he continued, and added Anti-Apparition wards. "You won't escape that way, either," he said. "I thought of that."
"The Dark Lord will win, and you won't be there to stop him," Rookwood continued. "And you'll be pleased to know that the work you've done in electrocuting Rodolphus and Cruciating Bellatrix has all been for naught anyway. I Portkeyed them to Malfoy Manor," he said, "although the option of escape by Portkey is no longer open to you." He put up anti-Portkey wards too. "They're alive, and they'll be back, and without you in the picture, no one will ever bring them so low again."
"Hey Rookwood," Mandy said, "you shouldn't have taken my wand." She pretended to sound angry at this. The more obliviousness Rookwood was to the set of explosive runes on Mandy's wand that would go off if she said a certain password, the better.
"Why not? It'll be a fantastic prize of my victory. Years from now, I'll remember that as part of the battle that eliminated one of the Dark Lord's most proactive and dangerous enemies. I will-"
"Squiddly-doodlefluffer." It was a stupid "word" to have for an explosive runes password, but Mandy needed the password to be something that no one could say by accident.
Rookwood was hurled backwards by the explosion. His right arm was vaporized and he lost control of the Fiendfyre, which now also moved in his direction, not just Mandy's.
Unfortunately, Rookwood, it seemed… knew how to fly. Without a broom.
"Fucking impossible," Mandy breathed, as Rookwood self-levitated away from the scene fast enough to escape the Fiendfyre, which was now burning everything. The only other person she'd seen who could fly like that was Lord Voldemort in the original timeline. That Hufflepuff's Cup, whatever it was, really did seem to give Rookwood some of Tom Riddle's abilities.
"Goddamn it," the time-traveller swore. Rookwood had fucking done it. He'd outplayed her; he'd outplayed everyone. Voldemort would have his victory, he would have his cake and eat it too.
And here she was, surrounded by Fiendfyre, about to die. Her time-travelling plan had failed.
Except for… Mandy nearly laughed when she realized it.
Oh, Rookwood had slipped up, the fool. In the excitement of finally having had his victory over her, with surrounding Fiendfyre and escape by Apparition and Portkeys blocked, he'd forgotten one thing.
Mandy Brocklehurst, time-traveller extraordinare, ripped a hole in time that went twenty minutes into the past, and then jumped through the time shield.
And promptly passed out from magical exhaustion, because Rookwood's time shield was not meant to be cast without a wand, and she'd forgotten that she didn't have one.