Chapter 49: Recipe for Disaster

It was—Langley? No, Ben thought as he looked at the Ministry hack's face. It might have been Langley's face, but that wasn't Langley upstairs. Especially not with the glowing eyes and freakish double face, as if something had been overlain on it.

"I should've expected you would find your way up here. Morgan was an interfering whore, and you are her all over again."

"Hey! Vivianne's not a whore, and neither was Morgan, you—" Zach, who had stepped in front of Vivianne, broke off.

"Lack-witted pencil dick? Boner-biting bastard? Uncle-fucker? Or no, no, in the spirit of the discovery, perhaps he's a son of a silly person or a Saxon pig-dog?" Ben offered.

"Are you ever any help?" Vivianne asked over her shoulder.

"Once or twice in a blue moon," Ben said blandly. "In this case, being helpful – or 'serious' might be the more applicable term – would be to take that machismo-overdosed, Limbaugh-worshipping rosy-palmer far more seriously than any man descended of a father who smelt of elderberries and a hamster deserves."

Ben wouldn't have guessed that Langley or whatever was possessing him really knew what Ben had just called him. But he'd have had to be dumber than a brick not to get the insult in Ben's tone. Unfortunately, Langley did have more than two brain cells to rub together, and the air suddenly crackled with energy around them.

"You idiot, Moore!" Vivianne stabbed her wand at Langley, whose eyes had gone past glowing straight to "fucking hairy ass of the devil" red.

"You really think this dude was just gonna step aside and let us in there to get Rowan back? Be serious," Ben retorted.

"Why? You obviously can't be!" Vivianne did something that opened several deep cuts in Langley's chest and shoulder.

"Because it's better to be the better person," Ben reminded her.

"You are disarming, Moore. I don't want to like you, you know."


"Relashio!" A jet of sparks came from Langley's wand.

"Protego!" Ben might have been annoying, but at least he was quick with a Shield Charm.

Vivianne slashed her wand again, Sectumsempra! screamed in her thoughts. A gash opened up on Langley's forehead—not too deep this time—but even a little blood on the face could be so helpful for them—

"Confringo!"

Langley aimed that spell right for her—

Zach pushed her out of the way and the two fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs and robes. Behind them, part of the wall exploded.

Ben started swearing, quite a creative string of curses that Vivianne might have paid more attention to if they had time. As it was, she slashed her wand again, but her Sectumsempra flew wide—or else Langley (or whatever was controlling Langley) blocked it.

"Expelliarmus!" Zach shouted as they scrambled to their feet.

Langley—no, that wasn't Langley—whatever it or he was, he laughed as he performed a complicated gesture with his wand. Zach's spell bounced off, and Zach had to duck to avoid the rebound. "What is this? A Disarming Spell? What do you think that will do to me, you foolish children?"

Just for that, Vivianne pointed her wand directly at Langley's midsection and thought, Slugulus eructo! A slim line of green light shot out of her wand and hit Langley square in the stomach.

Langley stumbled back, holding his stomach, "What—"

He didn't get farther than that before he started retching.

"Furnunculus!" Vivianne shouted. Langley's skin erupted in boils as he continued to retch. "Come on, while he's distracted!"

"Expelliarmus!" Zach tried again.

This time the spell hit. Langley's wand flew from his grasp and into Zach's waiting hand.

And Ben and Vivianne—in a unison that was almost frightening—pointed their wands at Langley and shouted, "Stupefy!"

Two jets of red light shot from their wands. Both hit Langley square in the chest, just as he belched up his first slug.

Langley flew backward, hit the wall, and collapsed in a heap at the bottom of it.

Vivianne barely had a moment to pant and try to remember if she knew any spells to conjure ropes when—something happened.

Langley's face was shifting, and not because of the boils. As Vivianne watched, something like a mist exited through his mouth and nostrils and—yes—even his ears. Langley's face – unconscious, boil-covered, and dripping with slug slime – turned into Langley's face again.

And the mist—

The mist—it didn't solidify, but it became more substantial. Before them stood … well, it was a bit like a ghost, only somehow more vague and not as bright. Whatever it was, it was dressed like the illustrations Vivianne had seen of Saxon wizards, with trousers and a tunic, a long blond beard, and a very angry expression.

The three of them pointed their wands at it—Vivianne trying to think of spells she knew that would work on a ghost—

The Saxon wizard-ghost's mouth opened—

Then—terror swept across his face.

The mist was—not dissipating—swirling away, vanishing, like it was being sucked out of the room.

The Saxon ghost screamed—it was a scream that Vivianne didn't think she would ever forget—Zach grabbed her and held her close, clearly ready to throw them both to the ground—

A bright light filled the room—

The ghost vanished.

There was no sound but three teenagers panting—and Langley, still unconscious, retching up another slug.

"The … hell was that?" Vivianne asked.

"No clue," Ben said.

"We should probably take the spells off Langley," Zach murmured. "At least the slug one. He could—he could choke."

Vivianne nodded, then, grateful Sybilla had taught her this, waved her wand and muttered the counter-curse.

Langley burped and was silent.

"Maybe the boils too?" Zach added.

Vivianne rolled her eyes and cast, "Finite."

The boils disappeared.

Then, "Petrificus totalus!" Vivianne glanced at Zach. "We have no idea how … whatever that was got into Langley. I'm not taking the risk of him being a willing accomplice."

"Fair 'nough," Ben nodded.

Zach looked between the two of them, shook his head, but didn't argue. Then, of one mind, the three of them looked across the room, to where there was a second door.

There was a slim line of light coming from under the door.

"Right," Vivianne said, rolling up her sleeves. "Shall we, boys?"


Vivianne was making a habit of kicking in doors. Zach seemed to appreciate it. And Ben? Well, he couldn't complain; he was hardly the type to come in quietly.

"Tsk, tsk, Mademoiselle, such poor manners! What would your mère think to see such a display?"

Ben wished he could be surprised that it was the skunk, still crusted in stale cheese, who occupied the room with the sword and armor. But really—it kinda made sense.

"Leave my mother out of this," Vivianne snarled and brandished her wand at Mr. Bellerose.

"Wait, wait, wait! This is very alarming, Mademoiselle. We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, would we?" He used Rowan's hair—if Ben could, he was totally chopping that hand off before they were done—to haul her to her feet. Ben felt his eyes widen briefly.

Unsteady and dazed, Rowan was dressed—if you wanted to call it that—in some pretty racy lingerie: a pair of lacy panties that dollars to donuts probably sported a thong in the back. (because what would an ensemble like that be without some butt floss?) a sheer mesh-and-lace babydoll over the top, one of the straps falling down her shoulder. There must have been enough underwire in that thing to patch the Hindenburg, because while Ben wasn't overly familiar with Rowan's boobs, they were not naturally that … perky in anything he'd seen her in. It was shimmery, almost iridescent, like spider silk, maybe?

Zach was blushing six ways to Sunday; even his ears were scarlet. And Vivianne? Vivianne looked pissed.

Mr. Bellerose's shirt was unbuttoned almost to the waist – and there were chest hair and man nipples involved in that situation. Classy.

Rowan wobbled on her feet, a spaced-out expression on her face.

"Speaking of alarming and my mother, however – did you raid her lingerie closet, or did she just leave that number on your floor one night?" Vivianne said, choking up her grip on her wand.

"Charming."


Vivianne snorted. Her wand hand twitched.

And that was all it took for Bellerose to jerk Rowan closer to him, holding her in front of him like a shield. Rowan mewled, but other than that barely reacted and didn't try to resist. She looked … not even frightened. Confused, dazed.

What the hell did he do to her?

"I should be very careful, Mademoiselle Gorlois," Bellerose said, shoving his wand against Rowan's throat. "Very careful. I do not want to hurt la petite, but—"

Sectumsempra! Vivianne thought, and slashed, and Bellerose yelped when a cut ran down his arm.

First blood. That felt good.

"We already made short work of your friend out there," Vivianne said. "And he tangled with Morgan herself—somehow. Do you really want to see what we can to do you?"

"Just let Rowan go," Zach added. His wand was pointed directly at Bellerose. "It's three on one."

Bellerose raised an eyebrow, and without a word jabbed his wand against Rowan. Rowan yelped and her knees buckled. Bellerose grabbed her—right across the breasts—and kept her from falling. "Really? Three children against one adult? Do you young ones not know that I was chosen by Beauxbatons to have the chance to represent the school in the Triwizard Tournament? You have no idea what I can do. What I have done!"

Vivianne rolled her eyes. "Was that the year that a fourteen-year-old Gryffindork managed to sneak into the contest and win the whole thing? Because if so, I'm really not impressed."

Bellerose hissed, jabbed the wand toward Rowan again—

"Protego!" Zach and Ben shouted in unison. Bellerose's spell flashed against the shield and spots appeared in Vivianne's vision. Rowan yelped.

Bellerose looked from the boys to Rowan to Vivianne. "So. Is that how it is to be?"

He pointed his wand at Vivianne. "Sagittae!" A burst of arrows exploded from his wand.

"Conjunctivito!" Vivianne shouted in reply, before ducking out of the way of the arrows.

And so it began.


It took only a couple of back-and-forths – Vivianne's Conjunctivitis Curse had apparently glanced Bellerose, enough that he wasn't seeing well even if he was seeing – for Zach to know that they were severely hampered by Mr. Bellerose's use of Rowan as a shield.

It was painful to see the way Rowan was being manhandled by that fucker, and he was glad that Jon wasn't here – because if he saw Rowan, dressed like that, and Bellerose using her as a shield? They'd be burying Bellerose in a bucket, because nothing bigger than a scrap of confetti would survive the encounter.

"Ben!" Zach hissed, hoping Bellerose was more focused on Vivianne than on the two of them. She was, after all, the bigger danger, and Bellerose knew it.

"'Sup?" Ben drawled.

"We need to get Rowan away from him." Ben nodded, eyes never leaving their target. "But … short of …"

"Shooting her in the leg?" Ben asked. "Wait."

"No!" Zach said sharply, glaring at the Gryffindor. "We are not."

"No, no, I wasn't thinking of that. At all," Ben said. "He's barely taking his eyes off Vivianne, but a shield doesn't do shit for flank attacks. If I come at him from just enough angle that he's got to divide his protections between me an' her, he'll likely discard Rowan as a shield, because she'll have become more of a liability than a gain."

"Then I can get over there and get her." Zach said, biting his lip and tossing a shield charm between Vivianne and Bellerose. Ben nodded. "All right, let me get into place."

"Good luck." Ben said, moving himself, giving wide berth to the table at the center of the tower room. Zach took the same precaution as he worked his way around.

Ben's spells were flashier, more distracting than Vivianne's, even if hers did more damage. Her brows knitted, but she didn't look at Zach, even though he would guess she would come to the right solution quick enough.

The distraction was doing more or less what Ben had suggested. Ben knew his plan had worked when Bellerose threw—literally flung—Rowan to the floor, something that elicited one of those eerie snarls in tandem from Ben and Vivianne. Ben was glad for peripheral vision; he saw Zach creeping across the floor without having to take his eyes off Bellerose, whose own peripheral vision was compromised by his eyes being nearly swollen shut.

Ben worked a little bit more to the side, herding Bellerose from Rowan just a little further, giving Zach a little more space.

But good luck only went so far, because Zach hadn't gotten Rowan more than half a dozen steps when Bellerose's eyes and attention snapped to the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw trying to make their escape. His wand rose in a direction probably none of them was expecting.

Toward Rowan, not Zach – Rowan. Time seemed to slow as it had when Ben had flipped the coin on whether Rowan would go to Igraine's funeral, but Ben was never going to get this Shield Charm off in time.

"Electrica cordis!" Bellerose shouted, and a bolt of blue-white electricity shot out of his wand.

"No!" Zach pushed Rowan out of the way, the bolt hitting him in the side, just above the hip.

"What the fuck did you do to him?" Vivianne screamed. "If he's not okay—"

"I'm—ow—okay, Vivianne," Zach gasped.

"Well, well, your boy toy is tougher than your grandmother, Mademoiselle," Bellerose mocked coldly. "She went down on the first hit."

"You fucking son of a coke whore!"

The entire battle stopped for just a moment. Just a single few heart beats. That was Rowan. Brandishing a wand—Langley's, maybe—that was shaking like a cheap vibrating bed—but that was Rowan.


Rowan's hand was shaking. The wand was shaking.

Everything was shaking.

But her gaze was trained on Bellerose.

He was aiming Merlin-knew-what spells at Ben and Vivianne. He'd hurt Zach. And he—he—

He'd killed Vivianne's grandmother.

He'd killed Rowan's grandmother. She'd never even had a chance to meet her grandmother, not properly, and he—

Bellerose laughed. "And what will you do, ma petite? That is not your wand, no? That looks like Monsieur Langley's. I would like to see you try to—"

"P-Petrificus—" Rowan started.

She never got a chance to finish. Bellerose howled as a bloody gash ripped across his stomach.

"Flipendo!" Vivianne shouted, and he went flying into one of the walls.

But it only slowed him for a second. He shouted, "Electrica!" and more blue-white electricity shot from his wand.

"Protego!" That was Ben; the electricity flashed against the Shield Charm.

"Furnunculus!" Vivianne shouted. She slashed her wand again, and this time a gash opened on Bellerose's side. Then, "Relashio!"

Bellerose had his wand up, doing complicated motions—

And Rowan realized she wasn't going to be able to help much in this.

She turned to Zach. "Zach? Are y-y-you ok?"

"I'm fine," he said. But he was pale and holding his side.

"N-n-no, you're n-n-not, let me—" Rowan lifted the wand and stopped.

The long stick of hawthorn in her hand just—didn't feel right. And healing spells weren't easy.

But it was what she—

Wait …

Rowan blinked.

Behind Zach was her school trunk, bag—and Darwin, somehow sleeping in his owl cage.

Could she hope?

"Accio my wand!" she shouted, pointing the wand at her trunk.

The wand didn't want to cooperate. She could feel that it was slow, sluggish. But the power burst out, and her willow wand flew toward her.

Yes! Rowan dropped the spare wand and kicked it away. "H-here—l-let me s-s-see."

Zach took his hand off his side. The spell had eaten through his shirt, and Rowan could see the angry red burn.

"Gelata," she said. A cool winter wind, followed by snowflakes that settled on Zach's skin, followed. What the wound really needed was burn paste, but for now … "B-b-better?"

Zach nodded.

Rowan flashed him a smile. "Accio c-cloak." Her cloak flew right to her shoulders.

And her own wand in hand, she turned back to the fray.


"Serpensortia!" The snake jumped from Vivianne's wand and slithered closer to Bellerose.

Bellerose aimed a Blasting Curse for the snake.

"Pugna intestini!" Vivianne shouted.

"Protego!" Bellerose shouted back.

Vivianne tossed off another hex. She barely knew what spells she was casting any more. All she could think was—

He killed Grandmother.

He killed her.

Killed.

Grandmother!

When she got her hands on him—when she had pummeled him into the dust with magic—she was going to—

Bellerose sent a spell at her. Vivianne didn't try to block, but it exploded in a flash of light three feet before her anyway.

"Incendio!" Vivianne shouted.

She had the satisfaction of hearing him yelp before he shouted, "Aguamenti!" and his jet of water met her fire.

Disappointing. She would—

"Entr—" Bellerose started, but he choked halfway through. He sent a shocked glance in Rowan and Zach's direction.

Zach—

He'd hurt Zach

"Deprimo!" Vivianne shouted.

Bellerose barely blocked it. She raised her wand again—

"Expelliarmus!"

That wasn't her. Or Bellerose.

The spell hit Bellerose in a flash of red light. His mouth opened in a silent yelp.

His wand flew out of his hand—

And into Ben's.

Vivianne's gaze whipped back to Bellerose.

He was pressed against the wall. He'd gone white. He scrabbled against it, as if by sheer will he could push a few of the stones loose and tumble out—

To his death, most probably—

Vivianne's eyes narrowed.

He wasn't getting off that easily.

Levicorpus! Vivianne thought.

Bellerose's mouth gaped like a fish's, open in a silent scream as the spell lifted him by the ankle and hung him upside-down.

"You," Vivianne said. Her voice was raw, rough even in her own ears. "You—you—bastard!"

She twitched her wand. Bellerose flew through the air—stopping in the middle of the room.

Right above the table that held the armor.

"You know what that armor will do, don't you?" Vivianne asked.

By the way Bellerose struggled—kept his arms well up—and stared terrified at the armor below him, Vivianne guessed he did.

"It's—it's been you this whole bloody time, hasn't it? Poisoning me. Creep—creeping on Rowan. And—and that tiger-thing, it was working under your orders, wasn't it?"

Bellerose shook his head frantically, but Vivianne didn't care.

"And then you—you kidnapped little Rowan. And you hurt Zach!" Vivianne shouted. "But that—I could almost forgive that—

"But you killed my grandmother!"

She dropped him—not all the way—just an inch. Just enough to see the terror bloom across his face.

"She—she was—" Vivianne didn't know how to say it. What came out was true, but it wasn't enough. "She was all I had! And you took her!"

Her hand was starting to shake. But that was all right. Bellerose was started to bounce up and down with the motion.

"Give me," Vivianne swallowed, "give me one good reason why I shouldn't drop you."

Bellerose was shaking his head, and his mouth was moving very quickly. He was—crying?

Good. Let him cry. Let him feel it—

"VIVIANNE!"

Vivianne started. She turned.

Zach was striding toward her. "Vivianne, stop. Put him down."

"He killed my grandmother!" Vivianne shouted back, and—was that a sob?

"It's not worth it, Vivianne."

"Not worth it? Zach! She was—" Vivianne stared at Bellerose, lost for words. "What would you do if it was your mum? If someone took her from you?"

"She wouldn't want you to do this."

"No!" Vivianne shook her head. "No! Maybe your mum wouldn't—but my grandmother would want revenge! She'd want him to pay!"

"And he bloody well will, but not like this! Vivianne!" Zach held her by both shoulders and stared into her eyes. "Not at the cost of you becoming a murderer! Like him!"

Vivianne stared at Zach. But she could see nothing other than earnestness in his eyes.

She looked at Bellerose.

She looked at her wand.

Then she looked up at Bellerose again.

Her wand twitched. The spell formed in her mind—

Bellerose went flying across the room and slammed into the wall. He tumbled to the ground. As soon as he hit, Vivianne shouted, "Petrificus totalus!"

She stared back at Zach, tossing her head. "You never said to put him down gently."

Zach didn't answer. Not at first. He looked over his shoulder.

Vivianne looked that way as well.

What she saw was mostly Ben. But there were hints of something else. Rowan's slim bare arms around his back, clinging to him. A hint of a leg draped mostly in a cloak.

And now that the blood wasn't pounding in her ears, Vivianne heard something.

Sobbing.

Rowan was sobbing.

Zach pulled Vivianne closer, kissed her forehead, and rubbed her back. "Who said I wanted you to put him down gently?"