The sounds that broke up my early-afternoon makeout session with Mathilda were coming from Hogsmeade, and from our vantage on a small rise near the Shrieking Shack, I could make out faint flashes of spells and the smoke of buildings just recently on fire. The yells that carried from town sounded like fear but not like pain, and it sucked that at not-quite-17 I was able to make that distinction.

Since I was putting as much effort as possible into listening, and my hearing is, I am told, unusually effective, I also heard people talking from nearby, in the direction of the wood that contained the rath my godmother showed me how to use nearly a year before. Men's voices, trying to be quiet, one hissed, "Remember, the pureblood isn't to be permanently harmed."

"But you just need enough of Dresden for his blood, right?" another growled, and even trying to be quiet I could identify Marcus Flint. I'd certainly gotten used to his whispered threats in classes we'd shared the previous year.

"Technically living and able to bleed, yes," the first voice confirmed. It sounded older, thinner, higher class, but I didn't recognize it. I thought I saw motion against the trees that was all too similar to the stealth effect in Predator: disillusionment. In the shadows of the wood, I wasn't willing to gamble that it was only two people. And I knew Flint and his friends wouldn't be able to manage veils.

Mathilda had noticed me concentrating, and didn't interrupt. If we weren't in danger, I could have kissed her again for that. I used the arm I still had wrapped around her to turn her in the direction of the threat and whispered, "Flint and at least one other wizard. Veiled. Against the wood. Not just a prank."

She nodded and growled, noticing like I was that there was at least a hundred yards between us and the town over rolling but unobstructed terrain. The people standing against the wood would have plenty of time to fire at us if we made for the town. We could go for the gate into Hogwarts, but it was a little further and we'd have the outer wall at our backs most of the way, limiting our room to run. "Try for the shack?" she asked.

"Get your wand," I said, reaching around to hug her, hoping I was being nonchalant and giving her cover to draw. I took the opportunity to use my right hand to make sure my shield bracelet was free of my sleeve on my left wrist. "Start running when you're ready, I'll cover behind you."

I turned around her so my left arm was to the wood and I was facing the shack and then let my right arm drop into my robe for my blasting rod. It was a bad day to figure I didn't need my staff. I thought I could make out a stifled guffaw from the wood, probably Flint assuming I was reaching into my pants and he was going to get to interrupt us going for third base.

Hopefully he misunderstood what was going on when she broke into a run away from me as soon as I had a hand on my rod. The focus. Sexual euphemisms in magical culture are way too easy.

There were at least three shouts of surprise as Mathilda started running toward the Shrieking Shack, and I yelled, "Protego!" as I started my own run, holding the shield in between me and the wood and trying to run and watch at the same time without falling down the hill.

Three figures in black cloaks, probably uncomfortably warm to fight in on this sunny day, materialized from beneath their veils. Two were wearing white masks—a tall, thin figure holding a wand and a much burlier one wielding a two-handed axe with an enormous blade—and the third was burly and wearing a simple black balaclava mask. I assumed the third was Flint. It was all but confirmed when his voice yelled, "Stupefy!" and launched a stunner that splashed off my shield before he started running.

The thinner figure seemed disinclined to run, but yelled, "Crucio!" and I had to duck and roll as the red light of the curse streaked with excellent aim through where I'd been going. I hated it when the bad guys were quality marksmen.

While Flint and the thin man had been shooting at me, the guy with the axe barked, "Ascendio!" and managed to launch himself into the air like his weapon was Thor's hammer or something. He seemed to be on a ballistic arc in my direction, aiming at trying to get up close and personal. And the axe was probably spelled to go through my shield.

Impressing myself with my ability to aim my blasting rod while I rolled to a stop on the ground, my shout of, "Confrigo!" released a coruscating line of fire at the guy. Somehow, he swung the axe in midair and parted the blasting curse from hitting him, but that also triggered the explosion and sent him screaming like a comet away from me. He was cussing the whole way, so I doubted he was out of the fight for good.

Mathilda had made it to the house while I was rolling to a stop on the ground and she hit the door with a grunt of pain, "It's locked! Alohomora! No good, spelled shut!"

I managed to roll back onto my feet quickly and without serious injury—it was much nicer to fight on grass than on cobblestones if I was going to keep making hard landings—and my shield back up before the thin man started shooting curses back at me. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have the power for an unforgivable every volley, but the ones he was sending were potent and I didn't know for sure how long I could hold the shield. I also didn't recognize most of them, so definitely didn't want to get hit.

While I backed slowly away from the threat, I realized I'd lost track of Flint and the guy with the axe. Apparently realizing on her own that I was much further behind her, Mathilda started tossing spells at my attacker. "Flipendo! Glacius! Tarantallegra! Petrificus Totalus!" While they were mostly weak spells, she was getting them off at a good clip and with decent aim. My assailant had to break off his own attack to shield against any of them inconveniencing him with a hit, and that gave me a moment to drop my own shield and book it.

With the door spelled locked, I was worried that the entire shack was still a solid bastion to house a werewolf. But you could hold a werewolf in a metal cage, and the exploding charm could render that to nothing. "Bombarda!" I yelled, aiming at the boarded-up windows on the side of the house that wouldn't throw Mathilda off her own attack. Thankfully, with a shudder that sounded like old spells unraveling as much as wood shattering, my blast put a sizable hole in the side of the Shrieking Shack. I got close and then turned to put my shield back up, then told her, "Get in!"

Not waiting for any other direction, Mathilda sprinted to the side of the house and nimbly leaped over the detritus that was once windows and wall. "Death Eaters now?" she yelled at me. "How many enemies do you have, Harry!?"

"And I'm so likeable!" I answered, dodging another cruciatus curse from the thin man and letting a few others splash against my shield as I moved carefully into the house.

Turning to look where I was going, I caught movement to my right and realized what had happened to Flint: apparently he was in good running shape even though his sport was on a broom, and he'd managed to flank me. "Stupefy!" he yelled, sending a stunner into my unprotected right side while I kept my shield up on my left against his ally.

Fortunately, I'd had time over the summer to fix my protective vest after it burned out fighting Quirrell and the magic rolled off. Honestly, his fully-powered, point-blank hit wasn't much worse than Quirrell's silent cast from down a hallway that my vest had stopped the previous year. "No wonder you always need backup," I snarked at him as I hopped into the building and out of his line of fire.

While blowing in the wall had disturbed things, my first impression of the house was that it otherwise hadn't been touched in the decade-and-a-half since Remus was a student. Clouds of dust were kicking up into the sunlight from outside, and the otherwise unlit room was full of smashed furniture and peeling wallpaper. I wondered if Mathilda would notice all the claw and chew marks throughout, but she just said, "Where's the passage?"

"See if there are stairs down?" I suggested, not honestly having any clue. "Be careful. Floors may not be safe." Some more curses from the thin man slapped against my shield and I moved to use the edge of the wall as cover as soon as Mathilda was out of the room. I wanted to send more spells out, but a lot of my energy was getting used up shielding against the onslaught.

I thought I saw movement in the distance, and it quickly resolved itself into the guy with the axe charging his way back toward the fight, stumbling slightly so at least I'd probably hurt him a little. His partner was still peppering the side of the shack with spellfire, barely having moved during the fight, so even if I had the reserves it would be hard for me to get a clean shot. And Flint was still somewhere off to what was now my left, probably maneuvering to make his own attack. I had no idea if he was strong enough to blow his own hole into the house, because, in fifth-year, the only class I'd had with him other than potions had been history, and we hadn't tried anything really powerful in DADA yet. Fortunately my tactical concerns were interrupted by Mathilda shouting, "Found it!"

Waiting for a break in the spell attacks, I retreated backward with a shield up and then ducked out of the room. I'd have loved to lock the door behind me, but it was mostly clawed apart and barely hanging onto its hinges. Moving to where I thought I'd heard her while trying to watch for attackers coming in now that I wasn't covering the exit, I spotted her out of the corner of my eye in one of the other rooms down the hallway. It really was a small house, though it had an upstairs; probably not nearly enough for a werewolf to roam around in.

"It's just a hole, not stairs!" she said, "But it seems to go back toward school." I noticed as I rushed into the room that the opened door to this one had lasted better, possibly spell protected, and looked like it had some relatively complicated latches that a transformed werewolf would have trouble undoing. And, true enough, there was a large earthen hole in the floor that wasn't exactly goblin craftsmanship but which had been worked into the floorboards as if it wasn't just a sinkhole.

"That'll do, let's go," I told her. As she hopped in, I closed the door behind me. With the increased security, and feeling some of my magical stamina coming back, I finally tried something I'd been practicing, held my mother's silver amulet, and incanted, "Expecto Nuntius!" The variation on the patronus caused my dog imago to form in silver light and look at me as if waiting for a command. I told it, "Tell Dumbledore: Ms. Grimblehawk and I are trapped in the Shrieking Shack by two Death Eaters and Marcus Flint." The patronus then raced off in the general direction of the school, passing through the walls.

I absently wondered if it was heading straight for him and whether that would give enough direction to to triangulate the recipient's location.

From outside, I thought I heard the voices of our attackers, probably coordinating whether they would go into the "haunted" house and risk me nailing them with a spell from an angle they couldn't anticipate. For all that they'd apparently loved attacking people in their homes during the war, from what I'd heard the Death Eaters mostly attacked the defenseless from surprise, rather than using SWAT tactics to clear floors. Sure enough, a few moments later, I heard Flint shout, "You're trapped, Dresden! Come out or we'll burn the whole place down. Grimblehawk doesn't have to die, too!"

As much as I wanted to snark back, it would give away my position so I held my tongue like I actually had a brain in my head that could be used for something other than quips.

I moved back and started to hop into the hole before I noticed a rug shoved to the side that would be big enough to cover it. Grabbing it, the whole thing had been stiffened, probably with transfiguration, so it would cover the hole without just dropping into it as soon as any weight was placed on it. Perfect. I pulled the covering over the hole as I jumped in, so hopefully even if they started searching they wouldn't immediately notice this was a possible exit.

Mathilda already had her wand lit and was moving down a long, rough-hewn tunnel that was not nearly as nice as the one that led to Honeydukes. Dumbledore had probably just used magic to dig it and reinforce the earth so it wouldn't collapse. He also hadn't worked to make the ceiling very high, so it was going to be an annoying crabwalk squeeze for my frame.

"We warned you!" Flint shouted again, very distant, and I thought I heard the all-too-familiar growl of a fiendfyre imago set loose. While we were probably safe in an underground tunnel, I didn't want to risk it and started hustling down toward Mathilda.

Realizing I didn't want Dumbledore to take risks thinking he was saving us from fire, I sent another quick messenger patronus to him, "We're safe in the tunnel. I think they cast fiendfyre into the shack." I then had to slump against the tunnel as I got lightheaded. "Woah. Okay, that's enough powerful magic for the day."

It probably took five minutes to reach the end of the tunnel, which was obvious from the sunlight streaming in and picking out all the willow roots running around it. "Uh. Harry. How are we going to avoid getting whomped?" Mathilda asked as she realized we were stuck under the most ornery tree on campus.

I was about to tell her I had no idea, when a silvery phoenix flew through the tunnel wall and said, in Dumbledore's voice, "Things are under control here. There's a knot on the willow that you can press to halt the branches."

"Well, there you go," I told her.

"Found it!" she said, a few moments later. I pulled myself out of the hole behind her and noted where she'd pressed. The branches did seem still in a way that wasn't just malevolent anticipation. We still watched them warily and hurried out from the eaves of the tree and back toward the castle.

As soon as we were clear, the last of both of our adrenaline wore off, and we kind of collapsed together, my arm over her shoulder and hers around my back. It wasn't exactly clear which of us was using the other for support. "You alright?" I asked.

"I think so. That's getting easier," she complained. "I feel like it shouldn't get easier."

"Stick with me, and you'll be the most blasé new recruit the magical creatures department has ever had," I told her. "Or... you'll die." I said the last as enough of a joke that we both started giggling uncontrollably about it, though in the back of my mind I was worried about how much danger she'd been in because of me.

Apparently the headmaster had sent a message to McGonagall to make sure we were okay. When she found us, stumbling as if drunk and laughing uncontrollably, she gave us a once over, seemed to realize we were just exhausted and loopy but not hurt, and gave one of her classic affectionate scoffs of, "Gryffindors."