Chapter 21: Ernie
My name is Ernie.
The Ninth floor turned out to be a bust, not that I was too surprised. While You Know Who gave a damn enough to keep the Muggleborns alive in this place to further torture, most other prisoners here were open game to the Dementors' whims. Nine out of ten cases of Death had involved the Dementor's Kiss. It was another reason why there were so many Dementors crowding around the few prisoners on the tenth floor. The ninth floor's horde had to get food from somewhere.
It did work in our favour though. Claire's owl patronus proved to be more powerful than we thought. Taking advantage of the smaller space that was the opening of the stairwell, she had it circle around it constantly, effectively blocking the path of every Dementor up there. The distance would have drained it into non-existence by the time we'd gotten halfway down the ninth floor corridor, but by then...
"AAAAHHHHHH!"
"HHHHHRRRAAAA!"
"BBBBAAAAACCCKKKKGGRRR!" Needless to say they found easier prey. And a lot more of it.
/Well, that was beneficial./ I commented happily, knuckle running alongside Hermione.
"What in the name of Merlin is that?" One of the men cried, caught between covering his ears and pointing his wand back the way we came. "What is up there? And on top of that, why are they up there in the first place?"
"Don't know, don't care." Ron shrugged, flinching as another scream or twenty echoed down the halls. "Let's just be thankful they distracted the Dementors and leave it at that!"
"Agreed." Claire said sharply, quickly recreating her patronus. "There will be plenty of dark creatures to worry about below without wasting time wondering what's accidentally helping us above."
/Truer words were never spoken./ I muttered to my friends as streaks of black seemed to appear out of nowhere only for the silver otter and terrier to drive them back. It wouldn't help much though, not in here. Anywhere else, they'd flee with their tails in between their legs, but here, in their territory, they just regrouped and came right back. There was nothing we could do to stop it and eventually they'd all team up on us at once and seal us...
That's it! /Hermione, Ron, seal them away!/ I called, jumping up and down excitedly with a laugh.
"In case you're forgetting, you're an ape right now." Gale said softly from Tobias' back, staring down at me curiously. "If you have something to tell us, would you please change back and inform us?"
"Oo, oo, ya, yah!" I shook my head. I couldn't do that, it would give away too much, both with our secret and my dignity. So, ignoring the mix of frustrated and confused looks the others were giving me, I walked over to a cell, forced the door open and pointed to the Dementors and back to the cell, repeating the movement three times.
"Seal away the Dementors!" Hermione exclaimed, smiling widely as she repeated my line. "Of course, it's the only way to deal with them here. Great idea E...Errol." Her smile turned a little awkward as she caught herself and Ron raised an incredulous eyebrow at naming me after his family's old owl, but fortunately the freed prisoners were paying it no mind. On the contrary, Claire and the fierce looking men were smirking quite darkly at the long line of cells before us, opening them all with a swish of their wands.
"We'll need a few locking spells to neutralise their ability to reopen the doors." The first man we freed, who'd told us his name was Alfred, mused, grinning down at his wand. "Maybe a few warding spells too. My specialties. You get them in, I'll make sure they stay there."
Everyone, even Tobias, looked overly keen and in some cases, a little evil as we kept going, not letting our pace slip even slightly. The Hork-Bajir's horrific wailing wasn't getting much softer, meaning that they were managing to make some distance against the ghouls, so we couldn't take full advantage of the empty floor as we would have liked, but that didn't stop us from putting our plan into action right away.
More Dementors sensed our presence from down below and a moment later we had another ten surging hungrily right for us through the air. Moving with a synchronicity that came from years at each other's side, Ron and Hermione flung their wands up and directed their patronus right into the line of fire. The terrier instantly brought the Amortal beings to a nervous halt and before they could flee the otter circled around right behind them. With two directions covered, the Dementors stalled in action, gathering together in between the two silvery apparitions. On either side of them was a cell, but none of them would move even an inch towards either one. They knew full well that they'd be trapped if they did.
/More are coming!/ Tobias, braying loudly as he galloped right into the thick of it. His actions immediately caught the attention of the adults and had the stronger three running after him in a second, a silver eagle owl and two bright walls ahead of them, moving to box in the latest batch. However, Tobias stopped right beside the first, spun around and gave them a powerful kick before they could so much as turn to him. The blow sent them all piling on each other and flying right into the cell, Alfred immediately coming up and closing it before they'd even disturbed the dust on the ground. Raising his wand, he muttered a few words I didn't catch, but had three different looking flashes coating the bars as the Dementors flocked at them. Too bad for them, by the time they reached the bars, Alfred was already backing away cheerfully and though they pushed, pulled and ploughed themselves against them, the cell door didn't move an inch.
"Added an unbreakable charm to the bars while I was at it. Not too bad for a withered, old man." He mumbled, looking pleased with himself. To be honest, it was amazing how stable these people's minds were. To be actually be able to smile so much already! Then again, maybe the prospect of being free is overwhelming the damage. I don't know, either way, it's great.
Not willing to stay out of it, I broke another pole off a cell we wouldn't be using and jumped in with a battle cry, slamming the metal into the second batch of scum. Moving aside as one of the other guys closed the door and cast his patronus shield to block the doorway until Alfred could get to it, I charged forward again with Tobias and Ron as another group of six shot down the corridor, all of them easily suffering their brethrens' fate as a terrier ran in circles around them and our raw muscle crashed into them. And with the terrier bounding back and forth by the closed cell door, they had no hope for escape.
"Now this is how the Ministry should had dealt with removing the Dementors from society." Ron stated proudly with a dramatic nod of his head. "Seal them away in Azkaban."
"Very true. But the Ministry would never have done it." One of the men said gruffly, the tallest of us all with black and grey curly hair and beard. "That so-called 'honourable government' was buried under so much corruption that you couldn't tell which way was up, even without You Know Who! Using Dementors was a way of terrifying people into staying under their control."
"Despicable." Hermione snarled from her place behind us, using her patronus to shield us from the effects of the captured Dementors. "When this war is over, I'm joining the Ministry and I'm not going to stop until all the corruption is stomped out of it!"
"Normally that would take more work than you could pull off in a lifetime." Claire commented as her owl singlehandedly drove another three Dementors into a cage for Alfred to seal. "But, taking into consideration just how much damage our world looks like it will take, political reform might come easy simply because most of the old Ministry officials will be gone, one way or another."
"I promise, it'll happen." Hermione stated fiercely, her face set. I believed it. I knew Hermione. Once that fire appeared in her eyes, get on board or head for the hills. Claire on the other hand, was perfectly happy to stare her down just as fiercely. However, after a few moments, something happened that almost froze me still. She smiled.
"Then I shall hold you to your claim, future Minister of Magic."
Hermione merely stared at her gobsmacked for almost a minute before beaming brightly. "Head of the Ministry. I could do a lot with a title like that."
Oh boy. I thought to myself, shivering at the thought. Don't get me wrong, Hermione would be a great choice. The problem was that she was probably too good a choice. Anyone around during her S.P.E.W phase would have a perfect understanding of what I mean. We may have to flee for our lives and sanity.
...
By the time we'd reached the stairs, half the cages from where we'd started using them held at least three Dementors. We were pretty proud of ourselves and actually managed to relax a little. Don't get me wrong, the floor looked like something out of a horror story with an uncountable number of rotting arms flailing through the bars, but to see them behind bars instead of crowding and consuming us was a pretty sight in comparison and this meant that there were a lot less to deal with on the next level. And, even if the Hork-Bajir managed to get passed the still free Dementors above us, well, they'd be at the mercy of the prisoners' influence through here. That ought to slow them down.
Tobias, once again carrying Gale and Alfred and this time, me, swooped down the stairs ahead of the rest again, immediately followed by the otter and terrier. Not that they were necessary, we seemed to have already captured all the Dementors in this quarter of the floor, there were none in sight.
/This has gotten so much easier./ I cheered, quickly jumping off Tobias' back as we approached the ground and ripping a cell door open and letting out an excited cheer as I found three people inside.
"AH!" Ok, not the response I was expecting at freedom, but then I was pretty loud I guess.
"Nothing matters, everything's meaningless. Grey skies, always grey skies, robed monsters."
/Um guys, these three seem mentally broken./ I called staring at the three worriedly as I slowly entered the cell. The one that screamed was holding her head, muttering 'please end it or go away' over and over again. She was shaking far worse than anyone from the higher levels and on the rare case that she actually opened her tightly clenched eyes, the look she gave me was wild, desperate and fearful.
That was much better than the others though. Her sitting cellmate hadn't even seemed to notice that I was there. She was simply sitting against the wall, muttering randomly to herself about everything from the eternally grey sky, no hope, to salted fish. And the third...well, she had the a look that reminded me of Justin's favourite Muggle saying: the lights were on, but nobody was home. I didn't think that she'd been kissed, the Dementors would have offed her if she was. They can't feed on the soulless, the torment the person offers is eternally festering inside the belly of the one who kissed them. It looked like she'd gone catatonic, another way people frequently died in Azkaban. Their minds couldn't handle the constant misery inflicted on them and shut own. The Dementors didn't care, so they wouldn't give the victim any assistance in gaining the food and water they needed to survive into their systems and they died of dehydration and starvation. A very sad ending.
Landing, Tobias eased his passengers off and both ran straight into the cell, only to stop right beside me. For about a split second, then Gale moved slowly to the terrified woman while Alfred gently patted the muttering one on the shoulder, whispering words of reassurance into her ear. That left me with the catatonic one. Moving slowly, so as not to set off Gale's woman and ruin her calming attempts, I gently picked the third woman up and carried her back to Tobias.
/Looks like you're going to have to play pack mule for the rest of the mission./ I told him apologetically, raising her securely onto his back. /She's completely unresponsive. I don't know what we're going to do with her after we leave here though./
/Hopefully someone else will have a solution./ Tobias muttered, though I doubted it. On the run, forever having to move and dodge the enemy, no one would ever have the time to bring her back to reality. The truth was, we were probably only wasting time and energy and risking our safety taking her along, but there was no way I could leave her. If there was any hope for her, I had to try and save her. No matter the risk. She deserved just as much as anyone else and I refused to leave anyone behind.
The others had already caught up to us by the time we'd gotten the other two prisoners out of the cells, but Hermione and I were both hesitant to give either of them a wand. Gale's girl wouldn't be able to keep it in her grip even if we did while the other was simply not resisting as Alfred guided her out, still spouting out random lines and not really paying attention to her surroundings. None of them would be of any help to us, they were only going to make things more difficult.
"Help all three up onto the Thestral." Claire decided, already moving to Gale's side as the shorter guy moved to help Alfred. "Gale, you go and stay up there too. Your friend here and the Thestral will need the help keeping the other two in place, especially down stairs and with our deteriorated bodies, the size and weight of the four of you shouldn't be a problem."
Gale nodded simply in reply and did as she was told just as a group of eight Dementors appeared and shot right for us, three from the staircase we'd just come down and five from around the corner leading to the next quarter of this floor. Fortunately, eight Dementors were no match for three corporeal Patronuses and within a minute all eight of them were residing irritably in the cell we'd just cleaned out.
"That's bad." I hadn't seen that grim, foreboding look on Hermione's face since the night Umbridge discovered the DA and it filled me with dread as I watched her stare back at the stairs. "The Dementors and...whatever they've been attacking above must be drawing closer to us. We're going to have them coming at us from both sides soon."
"And the reprieve we had on the last floor will be over by the time we make it halfway to the next turn." The tallest guy stated, already opening every cell near us, two of which immediately had groups of four men and two women stumbling out as fast as their shaky legs would carry them, the two women being followed a minute later by another lady crawling out of the cell beside theirs. "Every Dementor on our way will sense and flock to us, like they did on our floor." He continued as the newly freed people, all looking from mid twenties to mid thirties and looking less ragged and malnourished, made a beeline for the circle made by the slivery creatures. Excluding the crawling woman of course. It gave me a little hope. Obviously they hadn't been there too long, maybe a week or two. They could very well be a great help.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
"Please tell us you can get us out of here?"
"What do we do now? How do we go? Where do we go?"
"What is the plan?"
"Please, get us out of here! I don't want to stay here anymore."
"Quiet down, all of you!" Claire exclaimed, instantly calming the group as Hermione and I offered them wands, something they thankfully, but greedily grabbed for. "Everyone that has any talent with the Patronus Charm, get prepared, strong casters up front, weaker casters bring up the rear. If you can't cast it at all, be ready to open cells, help out prisoners and seal in Dementors."
"We're heading down to our allies attacking the lower levels." Ron declared as the newly free followed Claire's orders, two moving to the back of the group with Hermione and the stronger two guys from the tenth floor and one moving up beside him and Claire, casting his patronus immediately. The resulting racoon was very dull and darker grey than the real animal, the price of casting with a wand that hadn't chosen you, but it would still provide more help than the silver mist barriers. The healthier woman not moving to the back aided her crawling companion to her feet and healed some of the infected wounds over her body. It didn't do much, but it did allow her to put more weight on her legs, so she wouldn't slow us down as much. "Once we get out the main entrance, we'll head into the water. From there you can apparate once we pass the wards or you can swim out to the boat we have a little ways out."
"Just bear in mind not to use magic on the first floor." Hermione added as we moved on, picking up the pace as much as we could. "You'll bring Aurors and Death Eaters down on us."
Bracing ourselves, we pushed on right around the corner and had a few precious seconds to open the cell doors before Dementors about halfway down the corridor noticed us and shot right for us, more following behind them from the turn into the next corridor. There were so many that it looked almost as horrifying as the tenth floor did.
However, this time, with four corporeal Patronuses and four silver shields, all of which were stronger than Alfred's, we felt nothing more than a near-constant cold chill, just enough to be deemed unpleasant as we set about locking more of the ghouls away.
We ran out of cells before we ran out of Dementors, but by the time we made it around the corner, the chill had been successfully removed and we had an all new line of cells, complete with five more people to save.
"Now this is what I'm talking about." Ron cheered as the bar doors were all opened again, the raccoon and terrier already setting about corralling dark Amortal creatures. "A little strategy and a decent supply of Patronus Charms and this place is a piece of cake."
"Only because the Dark Lord never replaced the wards he destroyed when he saved his followers." One of the men shook his head. "The Ministry didn't see the point when he'd done it twice."
"The Dark Lord only bothered to place new spells on the maximum security floors and they are very different from the original wards." The woman at the back added as I moved to the five freshly surrounded in the protective embrace of the otter patronus and held up my bag of wands. The looks of sheer wonder on their faces made me let out a happy laugh as they each chose one and immediately pointed it at the dark throng, one actually supplying a dull seal patronus while another created more silver mist, albeit a bit dull, and the rest started ripping bars and stone from the walls, taking great pleasure in thrusting them fiercely into the Dementors' heads and cheering for joy at the impacts.
"What do you mean by different?" Hermione asked, though she seemed to already know the answer. So did Ron and I for that matter. Judging from the stiffened form of the Thestral, I guess Tobias had a dreaded inkling too.
"Dark spells." Was the simple answer. He didn't need to say anymore, we all knew what he meant. The old wards were put in place to block access and either fling away or capture those who tried to escape or cause a breakout. Voldemort's versions would be a lot more painful and likely lethal.
"I can work my way through the curses, given enough time." Alfred said enthusiastically, eager to help. "Like I said, wards are my specialty. Naturally, I'd have some curse breaking talent for when I need them removed."
"I'm not too bad myself." Hermione grinned fondly. She was taking a liking to the man.
"Nor am I." One of the men stated, the weak woman and the one supporting her both nodding along with him. "Hopefully our combined talents will be sufficient."
"And if not, I am a healer." One of the newest five freed called back between war cries and a barrage of concussion type spells. They weren't doing any real damage, but it had to feel good bashing your jailors around the place. For a healer, she was really into it. "I can deal with plenty of wounds and after the first war, most dark magic sourced injuries are a piece of cake to me. TAKE THAT YOU SOULLESS PIECE OF CRAP!" She added as, with rapid snaps of her wand, a pole zigzagged brutally back and forth into five different Dementors before slamming two others into a cell that one of the men closed from a distance.
/Wow. It's Hermione in thirty years' time./ I couldn't help myself, amused and impressed. Beside me, Ron was nodding, watching on gobsmacked and a little nervous while Hermione looked unsure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. After a few seconds though, the look turned proud.
"I like her." She stated matter of factly.
"SSSCCCRRREEEEEE!" I knew that the good mood wouldn't last long. It was silly to get optimistic here at all. My blood ran cold as that screech met my ears, overlapping what sounded like a lot of legs running over stone and flapping robes. Tobias had tensed at it too, letting a shriek of his own leave his lips and terrifying the already tensing and nervous freed prisoners. And rightly so. There was only one creature I had ever come across that made a sound anything like that and only once.
/Beware, Taxxons have begun scaling the prison./ Ax shouted urgently. Yeah, you're a bit late Andalite. /And they appear to be ignoring the Dementors completely. After trying to eat them fails./ He added.
/Oh, of course they'd be unaffected! They eternally live their worst memories, never ending hunger. Of course they'd make an advantage out of that!/ Tobias groaned, visibly twitching. /And I can't fight with all these passengers!/
/Guys, Taxxons are a lot like giant centipedes that eat anything, meat, vegetation, even dirt and stone./ I warned Hermione and Ron, both of whom were worried, but confused. They'd never seen Taxxons before. /Be ready. They're hideous and according to Anthony and Seamus, they move fast./
"You guys, ditch the Dementor bashing and be ready to fight back here!" Hermione ordered as the alien cries grew louder. All five of the new, violent recruits quickly followed her order while those beside her raised their wands and cast their Patronus Charms again, backing up her otter while the others kept up their Dementor capture plan.
I stepped up right beside them, growling menacingly. I was itching to see just how tough the chimp was and I'd felt completely useless for a while now. This was the perfect opportunity for me to deal with both feelings.
One flicker of an orange pincer and I charged right at it, startled gasps following me from behind. Not slowing down, the first three Taxxons locked right onto me and let out excited screeches as the gap between us closed, the first one throwing its gaping mouth right down at me.
However, before it could even come close I leapt for it. Grabbing one of the lower pincers, I swung myself around and onto its back, breaking the limb off and leaving the beast screaming in pain in the process, and used it as a springboard on my way to the second, throwing a powerful fist into it right below the mouth. It let out a choked scream as I spun my body and kicked off it with both feet, sending it crashing back into its brethren and me somersaulting right back to my first victim, sending it crashing into the ground hard as I rolled harmlessly away and back to my feet, smiling cheekily as I wiped Taxxon goo off my hand, courtesy of braking through the blubber of the second Taxxon. Though, I had to look away, repulsed, a second later as both downed Taxxons were swarmed by their own and devoured. Even as a chimpanzee, I had the urge to puke at the horrific sight, one I knew would be in my next five nightmares. The creatures were eaten alive.
"Cannibals." I barely heard Hermione, but I did see the green tint to her face in the light of her wand. Her brow and lips were curled into a look of disgust, but anyone could see the horror in her eyes and the struggle to hold back bile. She, didn't let it last long though. Closing her eyes, she took a few deep breaths before turning to those around her, all of them looking just as sick. /"Make them bleed. They'll do the rest."/ She ordered at the same time Tobias said it in my head.
By the time their wands were raised and firing Cutting Charms and Blasting Hexes, I'd already calmed myself with the help of the chimp mind and jumped back into it, grabbing my next opponent by the neck as it went to bite my head off and swinging it around before tossing it at its buddies, just in time to be cut to pieces and mauled. However, I got a knick myself as its pincer struck my side, just in the perfect place to make me flinch when I walked. And it was an open wound, matting my fur with blood.
/Oh crap!/ Suddenly, I had the still living Taxxons' full attention. Lucky me, the star of the carnivorous horde.
Grabbing the front legs of the one closest to me, I yanked up with enough force to have it falling back, screaming as the limbs broke off, and used the pointed limbs to pierce the next one, dividing the attention of the next five between the three of us while another four behind them were blown or sliced to pieces by the constant volley of spells. Not wanting to see any of the gore, I focused solely on the two Taxxons still coming at me, slamming one of them into the wall beside me with a jump and powerful backhand to the side of the head and threw an open palm into the other, sending it stumbling back into the three feasting on their own kind. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed two of its legs and ignored my screaming morality completely as I ripped them off and tossed them like javelins as hard as I could at another two Taxxons, piercing their blubber around the chest area. That made another three that would consumed by their own kind's mouths.
/Thank God for the ape mind./ I mused as I pulled back from the carnage, the others having no problem taking down the rest while the silver otter swam overhead, scaring away the few Dementors following them. The chimpanzee was far more ok with this brutal assault than me. They are peaceful, fun loving creatures normally, but anything that's seen as a threat was taken down with an aggressiveness that was scarily human. Hiding within the chimp mind did make the carnage and...killing a bit easier for me, but I think I was going to need a new morph for next time. I wasn't ready to face this with a mental animal shield that was so close to human. Maybe the warthog would have been a better choice for this.
/We need to keep going. There will be more of them nearby for sure./ Tobias called as the last pair of Taxxons started eating each other. /And if they're scaling the place, they may come in through the occasional windows and eat defenceless prisoners./
"Let's move everyone!" Hermione shouted, instantly taking command. Her face was still green and she looked like she could quite happily collapse into unconsciousness, but that didn't stop her from pressing on. "I for one, would like to make some more progress before the next unpleasant surprise!"
Everyone was quick to agree and picked up the pace. A good thing too, considering that the team up front had already exhausted their supply of free cells and more Dementors were still coming.
That being said, the rest of our journey along the eighth floor was pleasant, considering where we were and all that had happened within an hour. We didn't find any more prisoners on the floor until we'd almost reached the next set of stairs, the last cell right before them bearing two young men.
Unfortunately, that discovery didn't make anyone happy. These three had been there back before any of those helping fight back had been sentenced to prison. Gale, Claire, Alfred, the healer woman, everyone we'd freed noticed them on the way to their own cells. They remembered that a lot more of the cells around here had been full too, but it was known to all what horrid fate had befallen them, even if no one was mentioning it. A fate I was sure was about to befall these two.
Their minds were as broken as the three women Gale was helping ride Tobias, both of them sputtering random lines and whimpering, not even noticing that we were there. And Tobias couldn't carry any more passengers.
"What do we do?" The healer asked, biting her lip to contain her sadness and panic. "We can't just leave them."
"But if we take them, it'll cripple the carriers' ability to defend themselves. And there's too much on the way down, we'll need every fighter we've got." One of the men said sadly, glaring at the ground as a flock of Dementors tried to fly up from the next floor only for the owl, seal and racoon to block the way.
"We can't leave them here and we can't carry them down. That leaves us with only one choice." Ron stated, his face hardening. As rest of us watched, he let his patronus fade away and glared hard, raising his wand to the wall. "Have your Patronuses ready. Chances are a lot of Dementors are about to try to get in."
"You're not really-"
"Reducto!" Before Hermione could even try to dissuade him, he fired, blowing a large dent in the wall. For a second we all just stared at it, stunned by just how little the destructive spell had done. However, as soon as that second past, the faces of Ron and three other people hardened determinedly again and four wands were aimed right for the dent. "REDUCTO!"
The four of them fired spell after spell, forever deepening and lengthening the dent for a good minute until it finally exploded into dusts, leaving a hole more than big enough for Tobias and his passengers to pass through.
"Hurry!" Hermione snapped, thoroughly miffed as she guided Gale off of Tobias and took her place. Not that she was the only one. They'd just created a freaking door close to us for all the Taxxons and Dementors to come strolling through! And like all those bangs weren't going to draw enemy attention? "We might as well get all five of them out of here now, so this will take two trips and we need to go as fast as we can."
"We'll guard the hole until you're done. Then I guess we'll just have to put some wards on it." The oldest man with us stated, caught between exasperation and resignation at the stupidity of this move while two others were already firing stinging hexes at Taxxons swarming the hole and sending them falling to their deaths. "Though nothing will keep the Dementors out once we leave it."
/No point worry about that now./ Tobias grumbled to me and the Gryffindor duo as he jumped through the hole and into the sky, a silver otter swimming circles around him and Taxxons that had tried to enter when he left plummeting below. The rest of us simply watched on and fired at whatever we saw while Claire continuously berate Ron and his helpers for doing something so foolish.
Still, as I slammed a fist down on a Taxxon's mouth and pushed it off the side of the tower, I had to concede that I probably would have done the same thing eventually. I would never leave the people who need me behind and this was the only chance any of us had. If the consequence to guaranteeing that at least five prisoners from the upper levels escaped was more enemies finding us, then it was a price I was willing to pay. What's a little more hard work with a steadily growing army by your side?
...
It didn't take as long as I thought to get all five mentally broken prisoners to the boat where they were already being cared for by the gentle Chee and the woman who couldn't walk on her own, seeing as she decided that she was more trouble than worth wandering the prison and it proved to be a leg up. While it was true that more Dementors coming from behind us now, the wards successfully prevented all Taxxons from coming in, though they could get out, and without the other six, we were moving much faster. On top of that, Tobias was back in action on the battle front and was striking terror of his own in the hearts of Taxxons wherever we went. With the addition of our jailing method and finding eight more kinda healthy and very vengeful people, four of which actually managing to cast dark, corporeal Patronuses and the others appearing scary beyond belief with their offensive spells, moving through the seventh floor proved to be a cinch. There was the drawback of another five people babbling and comatose though and with great sighs of defeat, it was decided by all of us that we'd have to repeat the hole through the wall method if we wanted to save them too. Thus, we were once again throwing punches, hexes, Patronus Charms and everything else we had in three different directions while waiting for Hermione and Tobias to come back from their second trip.
"You realise of course, that, among many other things, the Dementor numbers are going to triple once we go down to the next floor, right?" One of the new rioters asked, scrunching her face up in extreme disgust and rage. "And there will be a lot of people mentally broken for sure. How will we handle all that?"
"With help from the group attacking below." Ron answered as a few loud bangs and screams of multiple types of vocal cords echoed from below. We were getting close now. The halfway point of the prison and by far the most dangerous location of all. If we managed to get past the next two levels, then we were practically home free. And if not...
Well, I wasn't going down without a fight. Even if we couldn't all escape, I would make sure Tobias got my friends and as many other people out as he could while I held back our foes. Even if I had to demorph and seal my fate to do it.