Sitting at a table in a small pub, Blaise looked outside at the dark street. A few dim lamp posts flickered on and freckled the sidewalks with circles of yellow light as the sun began to set. The infrequent pairs of people soon stopped walking by as the area cleared. Elpis stood behind a man at the counter as her spoke to a workers. Watching her, Blaise noted the way she crossed one of her legs behind her, nervously tapping the toe of her shoe on the floor. She was trying to reserving a room in the pub's second floor inn.
The two of them had left Zabini Manor that morning, and she still felt very anxious to get away. She had wanted to keep traveling that night until there was a safer distance between them and the Ministry, but Blaise had pointed out how she couldn't get through a conversation without yawning. Scanning the small room, he counted less than a dozen small circle tables, and only one other was occupied, the patrons having scattered themselves to leave proper room in between each other.
At one table sat a very tired looking woman, and three other people. Two boys, one with their head down on their folded arms and the other talking in a low voice with who Blaise guessed was his mother. The third child was little girl, standing beside them all, no one paying her any attention. A small stack of dirty plates sat on their table, leftover from whatever hot stew the pub had been serving for dinner that night.
The little girl had her eyes level with the tabletop and was whispering something. Blaise could see her lips moving but heard nothing. Studying them more, Blaise noticed the watch the resting boy wore. With the distinct movement of the watch hands and the way the face of the small clock moved, he knew it was a wizard's timepiece. Looking over at Elpis, she glanced back at him and smiled lightly before turning around to speak with the innkeeper. The man that had been in front of her walked to the small family, and Blaise could see the resemblance between him and his sons. Sitting up straighter in his chair, Blaise inconspicuously patted his pocket. Of course his wand was there, were he had left it.
"The room should be ready soon," Elpis said with a sleepy smile as she sat down in the chair beside Blaise. She reached out and took a sip from his cup of hot tea.
"Have you decided where you want to go next?" he asked Elpis, shaking his head with a soft smile. She had said she didn't want any tea, but he knew she would end up drinking his.
Sipping the drink with a thoughtful expression, she replied, "How about Italy?" Chuckling at his slight surprise, she continued, "I love listening to you speak Italian."
"What about Spain?" he asked. "I never get to hear you speak Spanish." The smile fell away from her face and though she kept her expression calm, Blaise could see the sadness in her eyes. Reaching across the table, he lightly held her hand.
"It would remind me of my father too much, I think," she told him quietly, pulling her hand away from his and wrapping it tightly around the warm cup.
"Forget I said that," her told her. "That was daft of me."
"I still don't know where we should go from here," she replied quietly, silently accepting his apology as she stared down into her drink. "I think going west would be…"
Blaise stopped hearing Elpis' words as he watched the little girl at the other table. He narrowed his eyes as she concentrated on her secret task, and with a beaming grin of delight springing onto her face, the napkin in front of her twitched into the air. Blaise's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and his expression quickly turned to a look of concern. In an instant, the child's father jumped out his tired haze and slammed the napkin down onto the table with his palm, shouting, "No!" In the next moment, Elpis jumped up from her seat in alarm and Blaise stepped towards her, just as two men apparated into the pub. The golden emblem of the Ministry for Magic was embroidered on the breasts of their dark robes.
Indistinct shouts came from the small family as the two men charged forward with their wands pointed at the parents. In a bright yellow flash, the father deflected a spell cast by the younger looking auror. Elpis held back the scream of horror that had instinctively built in her throat at the sight of the Ministry workers. Before she could back away, Blaise wrapped an arm around her waist and half carried her behind the bar, keeping himself between Elpis and the erupting chaos. The bartender had quickly escaped out a back door, fortunately.
The second auror, a severe looking older man in expensive robes and a cruel scowl on his haggard face, advanced towards the mother. She dragged her two frightened younger children behind her as her eldest son drew his wand. He shouted something that Elpis could not hear over the screams of his siblings, and Elpis was astounded at the ferocity in his and his mother's eyes. The older auror effortlessly deflected the teenager's spell, the energy of it sending a piece of the old wooden bar beside Elpis' head flying into the wall. She and Blaise both fell to the ground as they dived away from the explosion. Taking one deep breath, she turned and poked her head around the end of the bar. Wood was splintered everywhere. Blaise reached out and stopped her, desperately holding on to her wrist, but he knew immediately from the determined look on her face that they had to help. Steeling himself, they stood from where they had taken shelter and raised their wands against official government agents, something neither of them would have ever imagine doing only a few weeks ago.
Elpis' heart was racing so intensely that her hands shook, but she kept her aim steady just as the younger auror closing the father into a corner pointed his wand for what looked like a finalizing spell.
"Carpe retractum!" she commanded into her wand, sending a beam of red light towards the attacker. The glowing red rope gripped the auror around his leg and as Elpis drew back her casting arm, pulling with her entire body strength and groaning through gritted teeth, he was lifted into the air and flung across the pub into a stone wall. He had still cast a spell, but with the disruption the father was able to duck out of its path. Turning his attention towards her, the older Ministry man shouted an enraged curse at Elpis. She inhaled in shock and clumsily lifted her wand to deflect it. Unable to fully regain her balance from her last spell, she was sent crashing into the table behind her. She cried out as her back painfully hit the edge and she fell to the ground, her wand clattering just out of her reach. Blaise lifted his wand to attack the older auror as he advanced towards Elpis, but turned as he heard the beginning of a spell from the younger Ministry agent as he pulled himself up from Elpis had thrown him.
Shouting, "Impedimenta!", Blaise froze the man in place with hatred plastered in his beady eyes. As he turned back to Elpis, he saw her scrambling towards her wand as the auror grinned cruelly and reached down for her. A spell cast by the mother behind him burst past Blaise just as he sent a spell flying too, but the older auror turned and dissipated both attempts in a flash of smoke. Elpis took the opportunity to retrieve her wand and yelled "Alarte ascendare!"
The man rose violently into the ceiling before falling unconscious to the floor, and Elpis had to raise her arms to shield her face from the debris that fell down onto her. Blaise ran forward to her and the family hurried towards their father across the diner.
"Thank you," the mother called out to them. Blaise met her poignant stare and he felt a catch in his throat at the sight of the family crouched in fear together, just before the five of them disappeared in a swirl. Refocusing, he threw a piece of the ceiling off Elpis' leg and lifted her to her feet, but she grimaced as a bolt of pain ran through her right ankle.
"Where are you hurt?" he asked urgently, reaching down to lift her into his arms. She opened her mouth to reply, but her eyes widened and she pushed Blaise away as hard as she could, fighting the fire that spread through her ankle as she put her weight on it. He fell back in surprise and watched as a hex collided with Elpis and she spun backwards from the impact. Without hesitation, he reached out to her and the moment he felt her in his hand, he disapparated them to the first safe place that came to mind.