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Out of the West
Chapter 50- The Tightening Gyre
Thorfinn Rowle cast a Tempus spell. 9:45 PM it was; at least an hour too early for any of the potential victims to show up for their painful demise. The information they had gotten from their Ministry agent had been that it would take at least two and a half hours to clear the maze, and the Champions had only been let in something over half an hour ago. He glanced around at the other Death Eaters lounging about and chatting with each other. In another half hour or so they would get in position around the Portkey arrival point to greet their surprised, and temporary, guest. Then, say, a half hour to have fun, and then take the body somewhere it would be sure to be found and make the morning edition of the Prophet. He hoped the French bint would be the winner; more fun to be had with a pretty girl, after all.
Meanwhile, it was a chance to renew old acquaintances, have a bit of a nosh, and wet the whistle before the show began. A few were taking a bit of a lie down, all-in-all as peaceful and quiet a scene as you could imagine for a landscape filled with over thirty men and women dedicated to murder and enslavement. Their surprise when the Portkey arrival point suddenly was filled hours too early by four people, rather than one startled traveler, was total. There is no-one quite as confused as a would-be ambusher who is ambushed themselves. If their early visitors hadn't been totally surprised also things would have turned into a violent farce, but the Tournament contestants took a few seconds themselves to get their heads around what was going on.
As the Death Eaters started to jump around and all yell at the same time, like a Goblin Fire-Drill, an English voice ranged out from near the Cup: "Hit the dirt, fire to my front, Cedric protect the rear!"
The few Death Eaters who had managed to pull themselves together in time for a quick attack were suddenly firing over the heads of their prone targets. A high pitched voice began shouting out: "Expulso, Expulso, Expulso!" as purple bolts of magic swept out at waist height from prone figures. One of them cost Travers his left hand as he reflexively tried to swat the spell rushing toward his chest. His screams of pain did little to improve the morale or organization of his friends.
One of the masked men felt his wand leave his loose grip, and then saw four young athletes jump to their feet and rush him. He barely avoided getting trampled, and being wandless decided that he had no place on this battlefield, and began a brisk trot in a basically North by Northwest direction.
The four Champions broke through the loose gaggle of Death Eaters and began to dodge their way through a graveyard filled with old leaning stones and weathered monuments. Behind them their enemies began to organize themselves, only to have their grouping suddenly dissolve again as they discovered that Bulgarian Horned Vipers made a decent substitute for mobile landmines. While the snakes were being taken care of the distance between the two groups grew, the students slowed their pace so that they wouldn't get winded, and began to take stock and make plans.
As they passed their auto Leo reached in through the window and grabbed his shoulder bag. In it he had the bare necessities of life: flares, inflammable gases, a medical kit, a folding Glock entrenching tool with razor-sharp edges, a bag of marbles, a powerful electric torch, and an apple (for a balanced diet). The sounds of distant violence were now matched by flickering lights becoming visible as the dusk slid into proper night. They maintained a stiff trot. Remus had some of the unmatchable vigor of a werewolf even in his human state, while Sirius and Leo were both in more than decent shape.
Leo drew his pistol (again he regretted not having gotten around to naming it) and chambered a round. Moving at a trot he was able to push his Sie out to his front about twenty yards, so as they entered into a clearing in the light woods he was the first to notice the two bodies lying quietly on the ground. He called out to alert his teammates, and he stood guard while they approached the bodies.
"Deader, someone blew his hand off. Good piece of work, he's got a Death Eater's mask hanging from his belt," Sirius remarked.
"Mask here too, breathing heavy, strong scent of snake. If we hurry we might be able get this one to a Med wizard in time to save them."
Sirius and Leo turned their heads to Remus, incredulity written large on their faces. Off to their front there was a sudden burst of sound, and flickering lights.
"On to the sound of the guns?" offered Leo.
"Wands," corrected Sirius.
"Whatever."
Remus squashed his normal compassion and followed the others as they increased speed to where someone else was already engaged in fighting Death Eaters. Behind them Felice Denoys slowly felt herself breathing slower and slower, until she passed out, and died.
They quickly came up to the edge of battle. In front of them was a line of robed figures, their silvery masks taking on brief glints of colored light as various spells shot out of their wands. There were several small patches of fire scattered around near them, and a patch perhaps forty yards away. Sirius and Remus lifted up their wands to begin their part of the battle. Leo called out lowly: "Start from the middle, work right." Then he sprinted to the right end of the Death Eater skirmish line, passing behind the backs of those who were due for a surprise. As he ran he shifted his pistol to his left hand, and reached to the small of his back to draw a hunting knife with a six inch blade.
Evidently Sirius and Remus had been watching him; as he drew the edge across the throat of the kneeling figure at the line's far end he heard their voices starting to call out the spells they began to cast. This drew the attention of those nearby, letting him reach the next Death Eater. As that one was standing it was easier to just punch the blade into his back four or five times before letting him drop.
The grunt of pain was enough to alert the next wizard in the line, five yards away. As he lifted his wand at the new target he felt his wand hand knocked aside by some unseen force, just before the running figure ran into him and jammed the knife into and through his breastbone.
Leo felt the blade get caught in bone and let go of the hilt. He dropped and rolled to his left, and came up on one knee with the pistol back in his right hand and braced with his left. He aimed two feet below the shiny mask of the nearest and rattled off two shots. The wizard took a few staggering steps backward and dropped. Leo flattened and rolled four feet to the right, coming up to a braced, prone position for firing. It seemed every metal covered face in sight was looking back at him.
Harry Potter looked quickly around the small depression in the ground that was the temporary, and perhaps terminal, refuge of the Triwizard Champions. Cedric was finishing tying off a bandage made of a ripped portion of robe around Viktor's leg. His injury had slowed them down a bit, especially as he had become weaker due to blood loss. It probably didn't matter that much, though. Trying to fight four to thirty was too heavy odds, even in their athletic shape. Their physical and magical efforts were bound to wear them down faster than their enemies.
The Death Eaters seemed to have gotten reinforcements, there was a burst of yelling and there seemed to be an increase in the number of flashes from spells going on by the enemy group. Then Harry heard a sound like the one he had heard the last summer at Otto's place, but deeper and more powerful. Some poor Muggle must have gotten himself involved in the affairs of Wizards; Harry hoped that he wouldn't suffer long.
The shots seemed to come in sets of twos, off on the left. Oddly, the whole left of the Death Eater firing line seemed to have stopped casting spells at the students. It was probably too good to be true that some of the criminals had given up, but it at least allowed the tired Champions to concentrate their efforts on a smaller section. Then the gunfire stopped. Poor bastard must have run out of luck.
Suddenly the whole sky was illuminated by a searing bright blue-white light coming from a spot several hundred feet up in the sky, and the sound of a firearm joined back in the increased volume of spells being cast. A line from one of the strategy books Luna had Ron read came to Harry's thoughts. 'In death ground, attack.' Well, this was a close to a killing field as they were going to be seeing today.
"Ced, grab Viktor and go to our left, it seems we have friends there. Fleur and I'll distract our not-so-friends. On the count; one, two, three!"
Harry bolted out, dodging back and forth, casting "Bombarda!" every fourth or fifth step. He wasn't expecting to hit much of anything, but the constant explosions and flashes of light should be distracting as all get out. After a second's hesitation Fleur followed; by now using Expulso had become second nature to her, she just pushed it out at reduced power to save her energy, and dodged in the evasive patterns Ron (after consultation with Viktor) had drilled them in for the last few weeks. Knowing that they had only limited reserves left the two Champions began spending their magic as if they were fresh come to the party.
For the Death Eaters, suddenly faced with their prey turning into their attackers, this was an unpleasant surprise at just the wrong time. They had already lost almost half their number, now it seemed that the arrival of the whole Triwizard group at once had all been part of a trap; now that the reinforcements had arrived the bait group was springing the trap's other jaw.
As these things usually do, the problem started at the rear where people had a little too much time to think, and the best opportunity to escape. One by one those still collected enough to do a proper Apparition began to disappear; those too flustered to properly concentrate tried, Splinching badly. When the disembodied head of Peter Arnow rolled in front of the dithering person to his right it broke the last restraint before full panic set in. Those in the front rank turned and began to run, leading Remus and Sirius to switch to Stunners. One runner went down with a .45 slug through his leg, someone else reached into their robe and grabbed a Portkey, vanishing just before a team-mate could reach him and leave in safety.
When the dust had settled there were three plain surrenders, two stunned, two wounded prisoners, and a solid dozen dead mask wearers. Sirius had a deep bleeding gouge on his left thigh, Remus' face was half covered in second degree burns, and Leo had a dozen small nicks and cuts on this shoulders and legs. Harry was bruised over his entire torso. Viktor would need a serious bit of medical work done on his right leg. Cedric was just banged around a bit, and having no trouble supporting Viktor. Fleur, despite a bleeding cut on her right cheek and being sweat-soaked and smudged, looked like Odin's prettiest (and slimmest) Valkerie.
On seeing who their rescuers were, Harry began to introduce them to his fellow winners of the Tournament. On reaching the shortest of them, Harry was quickly cut off by an American accent saying, "Hi there Harry, bet you didn't expect to see old Otto showing up in the middle of Sussex, did you?" Followed by that person taking a gadget out his coat pocket and going over to despoil and tie up the prisoners. Remus, the least exhausted and injured, took a pain-handling potion and did an Apparition jump to the nearest place he knew that had a good Floo connection to contact the Aurors and a medical team.
Leo (officially Otto) walked back to the group, tucking a wicked bladed knife back behind his back, and handed over a sheet of paper to Sirius.
"Here is a list of the names of those you have secured, Sir. Also, I have taken the liberty to separate out magical items, indicated which one goes with each enemy, and made sure to take their wands, and where appropriate their back-up wands. If you will notice the small pile to the left; those items each seem to be Portkey, according to the prisoner's statements and their uniformity of appearance. Each squad leader had one, the others of the team was dependent on their leader for a safe and secure exit if things turned out poorly. One way to ensure loyalty, if you don't deserve it, I suppose.
"Now, if I may, I would like to go back to our transportation and return the results of our folkloric and antiquing jaunt home to await your proper examination and disposal. I will, of course, prepare my statement for the Aurors and have it properly authenticated and registered. If I may be excused, Sir?"
At Sirius' imperious nod the young man headed off into the dark, back to where an auto had a luggage compartment that was magically protected against spells, curses, and even someone having the desire to break in to it or steal the car it belonged to.
Harry wondered what game Sirius and Leo were playing. Hermione had told him about her conclusions, and Leo's taking control of the introductions was proof both that she had been right, and that Leo was still using a nom-de-guerre. Were Sirius and Remus in on it, and what was the 'faithful servant' act supposed to be about tonight? Leo had shown a tendency to play a role just a tad short of parody when they were fooling around last summer; this time it had been a good deal more low-key and believable. Harry looked back to Sirius, who was kneeling down and giving Viktor a blood replenishing potion.
Sirius saw his godson's attention was on him, and showed he had a good idea what the questioning look was about.
"This spring I had a chance to visit the States, checked up on some old friends, saw Annette, and met Cousin Leo. Someday I'd like to introduce him to Remus. Young Hahn was there too, and looking for something to do for a bit, so I hired him as my private secretary. He seems to be taking it a bit too seriously now, but in private he's the same old carefree Otto.
"Now that the family place is finally fixed up right I've been looking for some good antiques to furnish with; something in the Kreacher style, you know. Remus and Otto have been great helps in that."
Harry nodded; this explained almost all he needed to know. The secret letters he had been getting during the year from Sirius and Remus had told his group all about the Horcrux situation, and what had happened to the one Kreacher had been holding at Grimmauld Place. Evidently the three of them were going out and looking for more. Harry was glad that someone, at least, was doing something more than waiting for the next shoe to drop.
Sirius continued: "In fact it was just chance we happened to be in the neighborhood, found a wonderful piece just this afternoon. When we heard the explosions, well, how could we resist joining in?
"And here's Remus, back with a fine collection of Aurors and enough medical types to stifle an epidemic!"
