I'd have put this up a few hours sooner, but my internet went all screwy on me. Can't think of anything to say, other than I leave it off at a cliffhanger.
"Holy shit!" I yelled as I saw about twenty Death Eaters stand behind me. Seriously where the hell did they get this kind of manpower? Immediately realizing I had no guns, and there were no corners to conveniently hide behind (A/N conveniently located nooks, crannies, and corners seem to be a very big cliché in Hogwarts in fanon), I did what any self respecting ex spy who completely forgot how to do his job would do. I blasted the roof right above them, immediately causing chaos, thus giving me time to escape. I made a fast escape through the corridor which was still covered in a black shroud. I bumped into someone, and quickly pulled them with me as I ran to the other end of the corridor. When I got to where it was light enough to see I realized I had grabbed Luna. It looked like more Death Eaters had moved to this side. I quickly threw Luna behind a suit of armor and started throwing random spells to distract them. I fell back behind the armor I had thrown Luna behind. It seemed she was beginning to recover a bit.
"Accio Peacemakers!" I summoned for my guns, hoping they might even the odds. I looked out from my cover to see that two of the group had stayed behind to face me. They were hiding prone on the staircase, giving me a low profile to hit.
"You ok?" I asked Luna. She nodded her head.
"Where the hell did they get so many people?" I asked.
"That's a good question." Luna said as she began to clear her throat. "And another good question would be how exactly are those going to help us?" She said, pointing to the guns that I had summoned. They were quickly shot out of the air by one of the Death Eaters.
"Well there goes plan A." I said, realizing that it would be useless to summon the guns, and would be suicidal to attempt to run and grab them.
"Then what's plan B?"
I went around the armor and sent a blasting curse toward the prone figures. It didn't do anything. I did notice the smoke was starting to dissipate, leaving several confused students who were hacking their lungs out, right out in the open. However after seeing they were outnumbered about three to one the guards left. That or they saw that we would be distracted with our comrades and reasoned we'd be no threat for a moment or two.
"Good god you all are lucky, I swear they should have opened fire as soon as they saw you were all preoccupied hacking your lungs out." I said.
"Yeah, well we all drank some of the Felix Felicis Harry won earlier in the year. Still we would have been luckier if they all had goofed up." Ron said.
"Well it's like the saying goes, better good than lucky. And I guess they are just that good." I said. "Doesn't that sound a little deus ex machina?" I asked.
"No a deus ex machina would be some sort of fairytale we've never heard of coming to life and helping us destroy Voldemort, or you having somehow smuggled muggle weapons into Hogwarts, or you being a spy." Hermione said, looking at my guns as she said the last part.
"Damn she's on to us." I though, not realizing Talon was still away. Where was the little bastard anyways?
"We need to move, we can't let them get to the Slytherins, then there would be no way we could hope to fight back." Ron said, deciding to take charge. "Dale, I want you and Neville to go and find as many people as you can to try and fight back, everyone else follow me to the sixth floor, we'll try and push them down."
"We We Mon Capitan!" I said mocking a French accent and doing a fake salute. The humor appeared to be lost on everyone present. The rest of the DA ran down to follow the group that had us pinned down, while Neville and I ran off to the Gryffindor common room.
Talon san his talons into the fleshy eyeballs of the last attacker from the group that had originally attacked him and Dale. The spells they had used to attempt to keep him at bay had failed. He felt a strange compulsion of fate to head to the sixth floor. He headed down to the sixth floor. A group of death eaters were planning an ambush. He screeched out an alarm to divert their attention. The taller death eater threw a killing curse at him, which just went through him as if he were mist. The smaller one, for whatever reason decided to create a patronus. He had to dive out of the way as a black bear attempted to kill him. He just seemed to be getting everyone's bad luck today. But he knew better than to think luck was the only thing that determined a battle.
We rushed through the painting of the Fat Lady, screaming the password at the top of our lungs.
"Everyone get up now!" I yelled, and then proceeded to grab one of the tools for the fireplace and make as much of a commotion as I could. People who had just gone to bed rushed out of their rooms, while the few who were doing various papers had immediately jumped up.
Various people asked things like "what's going on," and "what's the emergency," and "what's his problem, I haven't been able to sleep for two days and now he wakes me up" popped from the group of ornery, tired, confused Gryffindors.
"Death Eaters are in the castle, we need to fight back now, grab what you can, find a buddy and we'll pull a sweep of the castle to try and contain them." I ordered, trying to formulate a plan on the fly. Everyone gave me confused looks. Katie Bell quickly took command from me.
"Everyone stick together, we need to warn the professors, but we need a plan first." She ordered. Coming to the conclusion that trying to fight for power would create more chaos than I needed at the moment I quickly escaped out the portrait as they began to try and make a plan. I needed to join the fight now. I practically jumped down the flight of stairs in order to try and meet up with where I thought everyone else might be. A reductor curse nearly hit my head. A particularly skilled death eater seemed to be holding off Talon by creating his own patronus, while holding out against the ragtag group that Ron had assembled. The students seemed untouchable, while the death eater seemed to have enough skill to overcome whatever luck the DA had at the moment, but he was wearing down. I entered into the foray with a blasting curse. He appeared to be worn down enough, and his patronus disappeared, letting Talon attack his throat.
"We need to keep moving… regardless of whatever the bloody hell that is." Ron ordered. Talon flew away. "Dale where is everyone?" He asked when he noticed me.
"Katie Bell took charge and last I checked they're still making a plan. I decided to come and help you guys in the meantime." I explained.
"Alright our plan stays the same; we're going to clear each floor and go down until we back them into a corner and force them to surrender." He explained. Despite outward appearances he actually was smart enough to come up with a plan that seemed halfway decent. No wonder I couldn't beat him in a game of chess without Talon helping me out.
"Well while you do that I'm going to go down to the dungeons and try and push them up, you know try and create a little chaos."
"Dale, this isn't the time to be some sort of John Wayne cowboy hero, we need to stick together and push them down and keep them contained." Hermione said, quickly pointing out the illogicalness of my plan to get away from everyone. The reference to John Wayne received confused looks from the rest of the members of our little group.
"I was always more of a Clint Eastwood man myself." I said as I grabbed my guns, and made a mad dash for the stairs, running faster than forty three rednecks on a Sunday afternoon at Talladega. I swore I heard Hermione yell
"Damned Americans and their stupid cowboy heroics."
"Who the bloody hell are John Wayne and Clint Eastwood?" Ron asked in an agitated voice as they continued to search the sixth floor.
I hit the end of the stairs and realized I was at the dungeons. I realized how out of shape I must be in to be panting after the quick dash.
"Now I'm screwed." I muttered under my breath as I realized that Talon was nowhere in sight. I quickly ran through the dungeons with both guns locked and loaded ready to shoot anything that moved. I was beginning to feel fatigue set in. Damn I've really become weak haven't I? Maybe it was the adrenaline exiting my system, maybe it wasn't but I felt the need to sit down. I pushed on, missing Talon's voice pushing me to go harder. I wasn't going to let some idiots who thought that because they had sticks they were superior to everyone outlast me. The Bloody Baron quickly came from out of a wall.
"What are you doing here American?" He asked.
"Talking to a ghost. What are you doing?"
"I am telling professor Slughorn to come and join the fight against the death eater attack."
Now you're probably wondering why I didn't just up and break the damned fourth wall with the Deus Ex Machina line. Well it's primarily because I'd like to keep what little dignity this fic still has left. I originally planed to have Dale quote John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, but it just didn't flow well.
Also because the last batch of reviewers (to whom I am eternally grateful) pointed out that guns are vastly superior to magic, I must state there is a reason I decided to use guns that were well over a hundred years old. I didn't wantDale to become so excessively powerful that he could just kill all of the Death Eaters and hence destroy most of Voldemort's power by grabbing an M4 and deciding to play Rambo.
signed the good dr.