Happy Friday!

Chapter 72

The room was a literal bloody mess when Sirius tumbled through the backroom door. It took him a moment to take in the gore the front room had become and then proceeded to dry heave on the tile at the sight before him. As much as Jasmine wanted to go over and comfort him, she didn't think he'd appreciate it. There were some things a man had to do in private. Not to mention that she had quite a bit of blood on her and didn't fancy being vomited on. She already smelled fairly horrendous, she didn't need anything else splashed on her.

She pinched the drying blood on the sleeve on her robe. The stains were never going to come out. Jasmine saw Mikhail grimacing at the state of his clothing as well and gave him a weary sigh. He responded with a lopsided grin.

At least no one had gotten hurt that hadn't deserved it during their little brawl.

Five Death Eater bodies were littered on the floor and only two were alive enough for Auror questioning, if the local law enforcement ever show up. She could hear fighting a little further north of their shop. Jasmine supposed that there could have been more Death Eaters spread throughout the area to draw focus away from the intended kidnapping that hadn't occurred.

Jasmine was sorely tempted to cast some charms to abate some of the stink the room had taken on, but then she could get in trouble if they attempted to figure out whose magical signatures were all over the crime scene. Of all the times to need to be careful about wandless magic would be the time that Jasmine would need to use some kind of freshening charm. Jasmine and Mikhail were splattered here and there with blood. Mostly on their arms, but Jasmine had a bit in her hair from when she headbutted the man that had grabbed her and put her in a headlock. Mikhail had blood splatter on his arms and a streak on his face that was slowly drying. Jasmine had a feeling that was from the man he had used as a human shield for most of the tussle.

Jasmine would be sore in the morning, maybe have a few bruises, but it wouldn't be anything major.

Mikhail turned towards Jasmine a bit out of breath. The two of them were breathing hard, and solely out of practice. They used to be able to do this for hours.

Their weapons were covered in blood and still dripping wet, occasionally adding another drop to the already drenched floor below them. Jasmine was wiping her blade off on one of the Death Eater's robes. Might as well get ahead on cleaning it. There was no use in letting the metal get damaged.

"How is Regulus doing, Sirius?" She asked as he finished retching onto the pink tinted tiles. The poor guy just wasn't cut out for this kind of violence. Then again, most teenagers aren't supposed to be comfortable with stabbing someone and murder.

"He's awake, but he needs medical attention." He croaked out, his grey eyes wide at the sight of two of them. He scrambled to his feet as best he could with a hurt leg and backed tracked towards the room Regulus was half conscious in.

Jasmine felt a cold hand settle on her shoulder as Death made its presence known to her. She could almost see Death's fingers curl around the joint. The deity went to the nearest dead body and plunged his arm straight into their chest. He pulled out their souls, white wispy things. Jasmine could hear them screaming as Death blew on the top of the soul and stored it in his robes. Death was never gentle with Death Eater souls, there was a bit of righteous indignation the deity had for them. As Harriet she had always figured that he enjoyed tormenting those that joined with Tom, connected themselves with an abomination. Death did love capturing and destroying monsters.

Mikhail sheathed his sword, flicking a wayward piece of hair from his face. "We should-" he began right as a contingent of Aurors entered the shop. Their wands were raised anticipating some kind of fight.

Instead they got three tired looking teens, three dead Death Eaters and two unconscious ones, who at the end of the day more than likely wished they were dead.

A sharp whistle of appreciation drew Jasmine's attention. Amelia and Bellatrix were amongst the group of law enforcement pushing their way into the building. "Out of the way!" Bones snapped as two lower ranking Aurors skittered to the side.

Bella was in her unspeakable robes, a dark layered robe with silver sewn runes etched into the sides, it had a hood attached the back, but it was pulled down at the moment. Bella looked at the scene and then back at Jasmine and Mikhail. "Did you two…do all of this?"

Jasmine's eyes glanced at the body of the man killed from the Avada Kadavra. "We don't take credit for the spell damage done. Neither Mikhail nor I are old enough to preform magic outside of school and Sirius was making sure Regulus regained consciousness in the back room."

At the mention of the younger Black brother Bellatrix dashed towards the back room, careful of the blood and bodies. At least she made sure not to disturb the scene the Aurors were trying to piece together.

"You really can't stay out of trouble for a minute, can you? How did you even manage this?" Amelia asked, a wary grin on her face.

They both shrugged. Harriet had never had an answer for this question. She could never figure out why fate liked to throw so much her way. "Trouble tends to find me. We," she motioned to her and her friends, "Sirius, regulus, Mikhail and I, just came to the alley to spend some time with each other. These men followed us and attempted to abduct Sirius and Regulus. As for how we managed this, well, this isn't the first time that Mikhail and I have found ourselves fighting without magic. So, we did what any good pit fighter would do and take away our opponents' ability to use magic easily." All five of the Death Eaters had some kind of damage done to their wand arms, which had caused them to drop them periodically during the fight.

Mikhail rolled his right shoulder, stretching a slowly forming knot out of it. "Then we made sure to use cover, whether it was an overturned table or one of our opponents. The rest came down to the fact that Jasmine and I have fought together for four years and trust each other implicitly."

"How did you even manage to garner the attention of five Death Eaters in Diagon Alley in the first place?" Amelia questioned as Bellatrix came out of the back room holding a barely conscious Regulus Black. Mikhail looked torn as he bit his lower lip. Bella was speaking to Sirius in hushed tones before disapperating out of the shop with the youngest Black brother in her arms.

"These five," Jasmine motioned to the men bleeding out or dead at her feet, "followed us and attempted to capture Sirius and Regulus or that's what they stated they were trying to do."

Amelia's brows knit together. "They wanted to the Black brothers? Kidnapping isn't usually how Death Eaters handle their raids. Are we positive they are actual Death Eaters and not imposters?"

Mikhail scoffed and rolled up their arms, revealing dark marks. The magical Russian national gave Amelia a very unimpressed glare as he motioned their tattoo. He even went so far as to wiggle his fingers for emphasis. "They are enemies of your country, yet you are making excuses for them? They mentioned taking Heir Peverell to their Lord. I think they are who we assumed they are."

"Yes, but that doesn't tell us why."

"Do their motives matter that much when they are already guilty. They distracted you to kidnap the Black brothers. You're lucky that we were here to stop that from happening. It isn't everyday that you find two well trained fighters willing to defend their friends against terrorists," Mikhail snarled, his accent thickening towards the end. His fists were clenched and his breathing was fairly erratic. He was a hairpin trigger away from a full-blown panic attack. This might have been his first life or death fight since the they had been under the Patron's thumbs over a year ago.

Jasmine put a calming hand on his arm, hopefully grounding him. "We're free, Mikhail. Regulus is going to be alright."

He shuddered and thunked his head on her shoulder.

Sirius cleared his throat, hobbling forward on his injured leg, drawing the attention away from Mikhail while he composed himself. "This is more than likely because my father doesn't want anything to do with this Dark Lord, but this madman wants my family's money and loyalty. By taking my brother and I our father would have to fall in line or risk the entire main branch of the Black Family. Sadly, this Dark Lord underestimated Jasmine and Mikhail's fighting abilities. I don't think I could have stomached to watch what they did to them," Sirius explained holding back a gag at the end as he once again surveyed the scene in front of him. "But, they protected the two of us. They risked a lot for us and that is admirable all on its own."

Jasmine could honestly say that she has seen worse battle aftermath as Harriet and as Jasmine, but she had lived through the rise of the second wizarding war quite a few times, so her perception of gore is a bit off. Though, she is glad for the recognition, if not for her, then for Mikhail. He didn't need to help fight today. He's more than likely going to need to speak to a mind healer after this, Jasmine too…even if she's fought before, it has been a while since she's seen dead bodies like this.

"Yes, I'm aware that both Medvedeva and Peverell were gifted fighters. They were rumored to be the best in their divisions, but it just seems odd that the Death Eaters would target you now. How did they know that you were going to be here today? That's what I'm concerned about. It isn't everyday that they set up a distraction to cover a kidnapping. This was premeditated. Who knew that you were making these plans to go out with these two today?"

Now, that was a great question. There could only be handful of people that knew where Sirius and Regulus were going to be today.

One of the Aurors pulled Amelia away from them, leaving the three teens to themselves for short while.

Jasmine cast a silent cleaning charm over herself, it didn't do too much. The blood was going to need to cleaned off with special potions and it's not a guarantee that would come out. She went to stand next to Sirius, Mikhail was still breathing a bit heavy, but he had pulled himself together admirably and slowly joined them. She put an arm around Sirius shoulder and let him lean on her for a bit so he didn't put any pressure on his leg.

They were all safe, someone would let them go eventually. Hopefully, Jasmine and Mikhail wouldn't be arrested for murder charges.

She had enough of those as Harriet.

Now that the Aurors had flooded in and had started making a racket Jasmine felt it was just about time to leave, but she had a feeling that she was going to be here for a few more hours answering questions about motive and murder before she got to go home and tell James about what he missed.

"Let me take a look at your leg. Is it still bleeding?" Jasmine asked, moving Sirius to one of the few tables that were still standing in the rear of the front room. It was away from all of the blood and gore.

Sirius shrugged, unbuttoning the front of his robes and showing the gash in his trousers. It wasn't too deep and it wasn't by any arteries, but it was still sluggishly oozing.

Since her robes were completely ruined anyway, she ripped a strip off and deftly wrapped his leg in full view of the Aurors who hadn't asked if anyone had been hurt yet. Sirius wasn't hiding the fact he was injured either, which goes to show that either the Aurors were purposefully ignoring the fact that they had three kids there or it wasn't standard protocol to send for a healer when civilians were injured.

It took another forty minutes worth of questioning before they were allowed to really go anywhere. Amelia had been pulled away from the proceedings quite a while ago. Apparently, they needed her elsewhere, which left the three teens with Auror Markson. It was making Jasmine twitchy that they weren't allowed to contact their guardians or leave the scene which smelled about as good as it looked, even with the freshening charms being cast.

This reminded her a little bit too much of the ministry throwing people in Azkaban without a trial just because they felt they were guilty after the first war. Jasmine was getting the inkling that the Aurors were looking for something incriminating that they had done in order to hold them longer than necessary.

What finally got them away from the scene was Bella coming back fuming over the fact Sirius had never shown up at an apperation point she had set up for him.

"Why are they being held here? This is a crime scene for Merlin's sake. This is illegal! Two of these children are underage and should have a guardian present and of those two, one is a foreign national with very powerful ties to the Russian magical community. On what grounds are you holding them? They didn't use wands, these utter fool on the ground ended up hitting each other more than them. I need to take the heir of my family home to checked over for any major injuries!" She shrieked, loud enough to have Jasmine wincing.

She was exhausted and just wanted to get back home. All the questioning was getting old. There was nothing that they knew that could help them.

Markson squared his shoulders and peered down at Bella, obviously attempting to intimidate the much shorter woman. "They are witnesses to a crime, they are to be kept here until further evidence can be obtained."

Bella crossed her arms over her chest, her jaw clenched as she peered up at this man with murder in her violet eye. The Auror stepped back as she poked him in the chest with her wand, the tip glowing ominously. "No, what you're doing is attempting to pin the mess you lot caused on three teenagers. You have no evidence, so you'll question these three until they give you something to work with that could get them into trouble. I'm taking all three of them to a healer. They've been here long enough and at least one of them needs some kind of medical attention. I know that you lot obviously don't care about their health or safety, but I do. Come along," she motioned for the three of them to take her arm.

The Auror pulled his wand out as well, "You won't be taking these three anywhere-"

"Markson, what's going on? Why is Bellatrix Black here again?" Amelia asked, coming into view. Her eyes landed on Jasmine, who gave a tired wave. Her gaze traveled over the three of teens. She seemed genuinely shocked that they were here.

Markson's eyes widened at his superior officer's reappearance. Bella's eyes narrowed. "They aren't even supposed to be here anymore! You little shit, why were you keeping them here?"

Amelia put a hand on Bella's shoulder. "I'm going to look into this. I bet that the head of our department would love to find out why you were illegally keeping minors here. I thought that I told you to release them to their families on my way out nearly forty minutes ago. Heir Black is injured for Merlin's sake. If we needed to ask them questions I would have owled them in the morning."

Mikhail snorted with a roll of his eyes. Her old friend was leaning against Jasmine, his arms wrapped around himself. They really needed to get the blood out of their clothes and skin soon. "He wants us here because he either wants to blame us for something or he's working with the men that tried to take Sirius and Regulus."

Jasmine could believe that. Knowing her luck Voldemort himself was currently on the way. Bella snarled, wrapped an arm around the three of them and with a flick of her wrist, apparated them to the sitting room at Grimmauld Place. Regulus was quietly speaking with a man in his late forties, his salt and pepper hair was cut short, and was dressed in healer robes of pure white.

"I will inform your parents about your current whereabouts. Healer Jones will be seeing to you all. He has already patched Reggie up," Bella said before making her way out of the room.

Sirius hobbled over to the healer and motioned to his wrapped leg. The bandage had held up nicely, though a spot of red was slowly sleeping through.

"Barbarians. I swear the DMLE will hear about this." The healer grumbled as he banished the wrap off of Sirius' leg and examined the wound. He clicked his tongue and pulled out a potion bottle. He dabbed a bit on the cut and it started to knit itself back together.

Sirius hissed, fingers gripping his pants, but he didn't say anything else. Jasmine rubbed soothing circles into his back as the healer ran medical scans over both Jasmine and Mikhail.

"You two seem to be alright. You'll have some muscle strain, but other than that, you'll be right as rain in the morning. Though, I would suggest you wash up. It's never good to have someone else's blood on you."

He wasn't wrong about that…

"There are a couple bathrooms on this floor if you want to clean up. I'm going to check on Reggie, and I bet I can get Bella to replace your clothes before you finish."

And there we have it, the adults finally showed up when everything was already said and done. Next chapter we deal with the Black Family and the fall out from the fight. I know how much you all love Black Family drama.

Also, for those telling me that last chapter was really short...it was 500-600 words longer than normal. Usually you all get chapters that are 3k words long, that one was about 3.6k. ;)

So, I'm going to be honest, I almost forgot that it's Friday today. My work week sucked and my dog had a doctors appointment today and I've been giving her lots of pets and tummy rubs. Thank you all so much for wishing her well! She got her second shot of chemo today, this poor dog is part Siberian Husky and her legs are all shaved from the IVs they've had to use on her these past few weeks. She looks so silly.

Anyway, thank you all so much for the reviews, favorites, follows and PMs! You guys are really great and motivating me to keep going these past couple weeks. Writing really helps my anxiety, even though it can cause some...I have a habit of not letting myself enjoy things when I get anxious, so knowing I have some kind of "deadline" keeps me writing.

See you all soon,
~Animerocker