Chapter 26
It had all gone too smoothly, Ros would later reflect. Something was bound to go wrong sooner rather than later. Maybe there were no easy solutions when it came to wizards, but with any luck she'd never find out. When all this was over, wizards and non-magical people could hopefully go back to ignoring one another. She would never admit to this aloud, but this magic bloody well unnerved her. This was too far out of her comfort zone.
The battle was still raging on when they found Julius, tied to a chair. He did not even acknowledge that he was no longer alone. He just sat there, staring into the distance. West had muttered a curse under his breath. It was almost as if he knew what was the matter with Burke. Ros wasn't sure she wanted to know. For the moment it was more important to get the hell out of this warehouse. The raid was not exactly going to plan; the resistance the Death Eaters literally conjured up was far stronger than anticipated, Ruth reported in her earpiece. The Aurors had a very hard time of breaking through their attacks and defences. So, the sooner she got her temporary colleague out of this hellhole, the better it would be.
Julius didn't need support as much as he needed dragging out. Ros felt like she was practically carrying the young man away. Robert was taking a lot of the weight, face twisted in a combination of concentration and rage. The Senior Case Officer felt the anger too, but if she let that take over now, that wouldn't be any use to anyone, this young man least of all. And she had seen enough of wizards to know that she did not stand a chance against them in a fight. No, she'd let the Aurors deal with the job of catching them and she'd take her revenge in the interrogation room. Men in general seemed to react badly to scalding hot coffee in their laps. She was in no way opposed to vengeance at all, but there was a time and a place for it. And she would be the one to laugh last.
Of course that would be when disaster hit. There was shouting behind them and when Ros turned around, she saw two Death Eaters running after them. How they had gotten away from the fight was beyond her – she had been assured that such a thing could not possibly happen – but it had happened all the same and now she needed to deal with it. West didn't have his wand – bloody stupid idea not to let him have it – and it was visible to anyone with eyes that he had no idea what to do with the gun he had been given. It would be up to her.
In this line of work it was often a matter of doing whatever it was that needed to be done and Ros Myers understood that better than most. She had even given up on her own father when that was the best for the country. It still hurt, especially now that she knew he may never come out of that prison alive, but it was not important in comparison with her job. Job first, everything else later. Tonight it was her job to ensure that Julius Burke got out of here.
She let go of Burke and gave him a good shove in the right direction. 'Go,' she ordered.
Robert's face was a study in shock. 'What?'
This was more like the obnoxious wizard she had seen for the past couple of days and it triggered her own anger. She stubbornly refused to admit that the anger was only a way to mask the fear that was trying to make itself known. 'Get him out of here!' she snapped, hoping her tone of voice would make it clear to him that this was not something that was up for discussion. There was no time for that.
It seemed to have done the trick. 'Good luck.' He didn't sound like he believed she could make it out alive.
That was a thought she could not allow into her head. And at least she had her gun. It may not be too much of a weapon against those bloody magical sticks, but it was something at least and they would have trouble aiming their spells while they were still running. Ros could tell they weren't used to physical exercise. It was no long way from the main part of the warehouse to where she was standing, but both of them seemed to be panting and out of breath. Probably they didn't need to run a lot when they could appear and disappear at will. Who needed to walk then?
But she was not about to let them anywhere near her and she sure as hell wouldn't give them a chance to curse her. She fired a bullet at the wizard she recognised as Antonin Dolohov. According to Ruth he was the one with the longest criminal record in wizarding society, and therefore the most dangerous Death Eater. Best take out the most dangerous one first before he tried to send her to an unplanned meeting with her Maker.
The bullet didn't miss and wasn't bounced off some magical shield, but it wasn't bull's eye either. It grazed the wizard's side. The result was a howl of pain of which any wolf could be jealous. He even dropped his wand, which was lucky. That was something that was in general hard to come by in this line of work, so she was grateful fort small mercies.
She didn't get the chance to take advantage of it though. Andrew Simmons, Dolohov's companion, still had his wand and the fact that he was currently pointing it at her could not mean well for her chances of survival. And she was proven right when he shouted that Avada Kedavra at her.
Ruth had used some of her time to research punishable crimes in the wizarding world and Ros, having "borrowed" her notes, had spent some time reading about the three Unforgivable Curses. The Avada Kedavra, the Killing Curse, was one of those. There was no defence against it. When one was hit by it, they were dead.
Ros remembered this and it was instinct more than conscious thought that made her throw herself out of the way. Her left shoulder acquainted itself painfully with the concrete floor when she landed on it, but at least the curse sailed right over her head and took out a piece of the wall on impact, it was that strong. And she still had her gun in her hands, which was something she supposed she could be grateful for.
Simmons growled in frustration as he aimed again, but this time Ros beat him to it. She was still on the ground, not the best position to take aim and shoot, but sometimes needs must and she might not be quick enough to get out of the way if that bastard if she gave him the chance to fire another spell. The bullet, true to expectations, missed the wizard by almost half a meter, but he was forced to duck out of the way all the same, which was a result. That was what counted most anyway.
'Go!' Dolohov shouted at his partner in crime. He was getting to his feet again, something she didn't like at all. There was no telling how long she could last without at least some form of help. If she was honest, she was glad that she was still breathing. When it came to a fight with wizards, she was clearly not all that well-equipped and she had a lingering suspicion that she had only managed to injure Dolohov because she had taken him by surprise. He would not make that same mistake another time.
Go where? Ros could not help but wonder about that. It became apparent soon enough though when Simmons made for the exit Robert had gone through. She fired a shot at his back; last thing she wanted was to let that man get anywhere near her colleagues, but she was in no position to do anything about it. Dolohov was obviously intent on dealing with her before he followed his comrade.
And soon there was no more time for thought. It was like a dance, although Ros felt more like a prey than a dancer. She managed to fire a few shots, but mostly she was just diving and ducking out of the way of the lethal spells the Death Eater sent at her. She heard a few of the ones she had been told were unforgiveable and was grateful to whatever God that Dolohov's aim was not anywhere near up to scratch.
'Control, I need some back-up here, right bloody now!' she snapped into the microphone hidden in her jacket. She only realised that nobody was coming when she noticed that her earpiece had gone missing and the button of the jacket in which the microphone had been hidden had been smashed by her fall. She was on her own.
It was a fact commonly known that Ros Myers didn't do despair. She came close then. But she was not the one to throw in the towel before she had been well and truly beaten and even then it was still debatable whether or not she would give up. Ros was a fighter and she had something to prove still. Yes, she had helped in bringing down her own father when he had been about to overthrow the government, but she had been involved in the conspiracy at first and that was not something people were anxious to let her forget. Some still thought she could betray Section D when the fancy struck her. She had betrayed her father on a whim too, hadn't she? Why would she give everything she had when it was clear she was still holding grudges? And so she kept pulling that trigger, kept ducking out of the way of spells. Somehow, sometime this must end. The fight could not last forever.
It didn't and when the end came, it came rather unexpectedly. Suddenly Dolohov, who as it was had been preparing to blast the nearest wall to smithereens, turned on his heels and threw up some kind of magical shield to protect him from the flash of red light that came at him, seemingly out of nowhere.
Ros got to her feet the moment it seemed Dolohov had forgotten all about her. Whoever it was that had come to her rescue, they were doing an amazing job of keeping that bastard off her back. It was a surprise however to find that the one who was doing this, was no other than Harry Potter.
Ros had not seen him often, but the times she had, had left her with the impression of someone who may be utterly devoted to the job and the welfare of his officers, but who was not very impressive or intimidating otherwise. To be honest, she had not thought he was particularly intelligent either.
It was only when she saw how he was duelling Dolohov that she realised that she may just have to eat her words. Harry Potter clearly knew what he was doing. Spell after spell was fired and it seemed that Dolohov had trouble keeping up. That was fine with Ros, but she didn't dare to take the risk to move and expose her back. It was fairly obvious that Simmons had gone after Robert and that he didn't want anyone except his own best friend following. If that wizard there got wind of her trying to go after Simmons, he might kill her before she had advanced more than three steps.
But there was a simpler solution. It was also very non-magical, but who cared about that? Wizards were always convinced that Muggles were living in a positively medieval way – Ros rather thought the opposite was true – and that their weapons were not effective on wizards. She'd gladly prove them wrong.
And she had no reservations about blowing Dolohov's brains out either. True, she had been aiming for the shoulder rather than the head, but it was hard to aim right when the target was constantly moving. Officers were not supposed to kill suspects, but it would be easy to put this one down to an accident or just plain old self-defence. And it was not as if the world needed Dolohov alive. He would have killed her if she had given him as much as half a chance. There was something alarmingly satisfying about seeing his body fall to the ground.
Harry Potter looked at her over the corpse. He didn't seem too pleased about the killing – rather unhappy, more like – but he gave her a nod in respect. It was a strange moment, Ros reflected later, and she didn't know what to make of it. And she hardly had the time to think about that there and then. Robert was still out on a limb, with a known killer after him.
'Simmons headed that way,' she pointed, before she set the example herself by sprinting for the door, digging up her mobile while she was at it. Her comms were out of order, possibly beyond repair, but she still had her phone and she would never find her way in this maze outside without some directions to guide her.
'Ruth,' she acknowledged when the intelligence analyst picked up her phone.
'Ros?' Ruth sounded incredulous. 'You were off comms! We thought you'd…' The Senior Case Officer noted wryly that this must be the first time the other woman had shown any interest in her well-being.
Ros didn't let her finish. 'You thought wrong,' she interrupted. 'Where's West gone? It's a bloody maze down here.'
'We lost contact with him about five minutes ago,' Ruth replied. Some of the trademark nervousness returned to her voice.
Losing contact didn't mean that someone was dead. It didn't even mean that they were harmed. She was the living and breathing example of that. That didn't alter the fact that usually in this line of work it did mean the worst though and she was well aware of that. So, by the sound of it, was Ruth.
'Last place you had him?' she demanded.
'About five minutes away from where you're standing,' Ruth reported. 'I'll guide you there.'
'You'd better,' Ros muttered. The intelligence analyst either didn't hear her or pretended she hadn't when she started to rap directions in Ros's ear.
Harry Potter had caught up now. 'What's happening?' He certainly had a bit more exercise than the Death Eaters, because he fell easily into step with her.
'Burke is unresponsive, West was supposed to get him out,' she reported. 'Simmons went after them. They lost contact with West about five minutes ago.' She was being economic with her explanation, she knew, but Mr Potter seemed to have gotten the gist of it though. He gave her another nod to signal his understanding.
Ros had a good sense of direction, but it was a maze here and it was difficult to determine where they were going. At one point it was even difficult to tell where the warehouse was. The moment they had left the wards that had shielded the cursed thing from the outside world, it simply vanished. The Senior Case Officer was not too worried though. If she wanted to, she could always find it again. She had read the address and committed it to memory. According to Ruth and Amy that was enough to find it again. Ros simply took their word for it.
This part of town was not illuminated very well. There was only the bare minimum of street lanterns and the ones that were there did not work half of the time. The area breathed desolation. Maybe this had been booming business thirty years ago, but it wasn't so now. It was one of those places that seemed to have been forgotten entirely by the government when they renovated other parts.
'How far?' she questioned when she rounded another corner, left this time. It was too narrow here to be running next to each other, so Ros took the lead, since she was the one with the phone, and therefore the one who knew where to go. And it made her feel just that tad bit better. She had been running around after wizards figuratively and she had no ambition whatsoever to do it literally as well. Petty perhaps, certainly given the circumstances they were in.
'Almost there, Ros.' Ruth sounded as on edge as Ros felt, which was by no means good news. 'Second right and then the first left. Fifty meters ahead and then you'll come into some kind of courtyard. Robert said that it was closed off somehow…'
Which had given Simmons the chance to catch up to the fugitives. You didn't have to be a genius to add two and two and make four. No way of escape, one wizard in what looked like a state of shock and another who didn't know how to use a gun. Add one murderous Death Eater to the mix and the result was pretty much predictable. Ros cursed under her breath. 'That's where you lost him?'
'Comms went down,' Ruth reported. 'We think there was shouting, but we can't be sure.'
Shouting there would have been, Ros imagined, what with spells being shouted all around today. There was a fairly large chance that when she came into that damned courtyard, she would find two corpses and one living Death Eater cackling manically over them, but she increased her pace all the same. Harry Potter followed suit. He hadn't said anything since he had requested to be brought up to speed and Ros was grateful for it; she was not in the mood for idle chatter today.
They were closing in and now she could hear sounds as well. The night was silent and sounds carried here. And she heard shouting. No, that was not the right word for it. What she heard were cries, furious and sad cries at the same time. It was impossible to make out to whom the voice making them belonged though. She'd bet a month's salary that it wasn't Simmons though.
She skidded to a stop when she entered the courtyard properly, almost causing the head of the Auror Department to collide with her. Her initial assumptions about what she'd see here were not even that far off the mark. Strangely enough that was the first thing she noticed before anything else registered in her mind. Two corpses and only one still alive. It was as she had feared. Ros Myers didn't do emotion, but she came dangerously close now.
A second glance taught her that she was not entirely right though. One young man was lying on his back, eyes staring unseeing up to the lantern right above his head. There was not a mark on him, no wound that could have caused his demise, not even a scratch. He could have suffered a heart attack for all Ros knew and have died of it. That would not be what had happened though. Victims of a Killing Curse would look exactly the same.
There was another corpse in the courtyard. Or he may still live; it was difficult to see from where she was standing. One thing was certain though: even if he was still alive, he wouldn't be for much longer. Andrew Simmons was not moving, either dead or passed out from the violence that was being inflicted on his body. His wand was lying on the ground, a few meters away from him, unnoticed by the young man who was kneeling on Simmons's torso as he landed blow after blow on the Death Eater's face. He was crying as he did that, bitter tears of anger and grief. There were no words though; Ros suspected he was beyond them. She had seen many a colleague go to pieces in the field and knew she was witnessing it in the young wizard now.
'Merlin's beard,' Harry Potter whispered. For once, Ros completely agreed.
She forced herself to get a move on and approach the grief-stricken wizard. Andrew Simmons was still one of their suspects. If he was dead, the blows he landed now were useless and if by some miracle he was still alive, they would need to bring him in for questioning, once someone had put his face back together. There was not much left of it now by the looks of it.
'Enough,' she told the young man, grabbing his upper arms to turn him towards her. 'It is over.'
The eyes that now turned to face her did not seem to take any notice of her. The hands still pounded on the dead man's face, because up close there could be no doubt about that. 'He's gone.' It was more of a growl than anything else and for some reason Ros didn't think it applied to Andrew Simmons.
She wished Ruth was here, who was altogether much better suited to deal with situations like this. Ros could pull it off if she was on an op, when it was only pretence, but she failed spectacularly when it was real. She had never been any good at it either, but there were not many other people now to do the job for her and her companion didn't count; Harry Potter was seemingly in a state of shock.
'You can't do anything for him now,' she pointed out, rather unnecessarily in her own opinion. Her words sounded wooden and formal, even to her own ears. How was she even supposed to make this young man believe her? 'And Simmons is dead. He can't hurt anyone ever again.'
The wizard blinked and another few tears rolled down his cheeks, which told Ros exactly how bad things were. She'd only known him for a couple of days, but that was long enough to establish that he'd never cry in public, not unless something had gone very, very wrong. Like it had gone today.
'He's gone.' The strength went out of his blows and his voice was no more than a whisper. 'He's gone, Ros.'
I know. I bloody well know. 'It's over now,' she repeated, desperately wishing that someone else could have taken care of this.
Unlike the first time she'd said those words, they made an impact now. The fists unclenched and the shoulders began to shake with the force of his sobs. Before Ros knew it she was holding the young man in her arms as Julius Burke succumbed to the tears.
Next time: Julius reflects on the operation. Please review? This was a very difficult chapter to write and I'd really like to hear your thoughts!