The small rural Irish muggle pub stank of stale beer and cigarette smoke.
Hestia sat opposite Kingsley in a secluded corner of the facility, but even there, hiding away in their own little booth in the half-empty joint they had still attracted a fair amount of attention from the local Omagh villagers.
She supposed they probably did look quite odd to the local Irish muggles. They were both wearing smart-casual sports-wear, opting against the muggle police uniform that Robards, Savage and their crew had gone for. Kingsley had reasoned that it probably wasn't the best idea to wear the police uniform if they were going to be camped out in a pub for an hour or so, and they'd want something that they could run well in should the need for them to leg it to the Selwyn Manor present itself as the evening drew on.
"Don't mind them," Kingsley said softly, sensing her noticing the suspicious glances they were getting from the few muggle-men that were in there and looking their way. "We're black and have English accents… the worst of both worlds… don't forget, that's quite the novelty in these parts."
Hestia supposed they were not the most inconspicuous couple. Kingsley was over 6 feet tall and towered over most men, muggle or wizard, so he naturally attracted attention in whatever room he was in regardless of who else was in it. She supposed that the locals must assume they were Father and Daughter, which made her laugh a bit.
"Sonus Rejicio," she heard him mutter quietly under his breath, as he slyly cast the spell that would prevent any of the muggle men from overhearing their conversation.
"What's so funny?" Shacklebolt asked nonchalantly as he noticed her grinning to herself, before he took a small sip of his gin and tonic.
Hestia had opted against drinking whilst on the job, instead nursing a pint of coke, which had so much ice in it that it hurt her teeth. Kingsley's rationale for being allowed to have some alcohol, aside from the fact that he wasn't officially working, was that muggles could drive cars after having a couple of drinks – and he also reasoned that if anything, he actually duelled better after having a drink, or two.
"I was just thinking how they must all think that you're my Dad," Hestia replied, braving another sip of the coke, which, due primarily to the copious amounts of ice in it, actually reminded her of the somewhat flat kind of taste you would only usually get from a McDonalds coke.
The Minister for Magic chuckled.
"I don't know," he mused, before smiling and raising his eyebrows. "Maybe they think I'm your sugar Daddy. That would really boil their blood."
"Oh God," Hestia laughed before putting her head in her hands.
"How is your love life these days? Maybe if Percy manages to recruit Kushal Shafiq to our cause and we get his Father on board too you'll be able to find a Magical Match," Kingsley said, before taking a large sip of his double gin and tonic, which, to his credit, had consisted of far more gin than it had tonic.
"I spent most of the last twelve months in the middle of nowhere in Wales with only Dedalus Diggle and the Dursley family for company, how do you think my love life is these days?" Hestia joked, doing her best to duck his question.
"Yeah… sorry about that, my bad," Kingsley chuckled.
"My Mum keeps on at me to find a man to settle down with too," Hesta began in an irritated tone. "Maybe get married… and pop out a few kids, I just don't know if I'm ready for that kind of commitment… or if I ever even want to do that sort of thing at all."
"I didn't say anything about finding a man," Shacklebolt corrected softly, before raising his eyebrows suggestively. Hestia flushed instantly and laughed off his remark as if nothing had happened, although she noticed a tone of surprise and embarrassment on her mentor's face. It was as if a sudden realisation had dawned on him, and he felt guilty about having made his joke.
"Well, I'm definitely not one to talk about finding someone to settle down with anyway!" Kingsley added, quickly changing the subject, to which she was very grateful for.
Hestia had always wondered why Kingsley didn't have a wife and children. He was in his forties and with a good job, looks and money she would've thought he would be a fairly decent catch for most witches. He was even the bloody Minister for Magic now, so you would have thought that women would be queuing up to date him.
"Why haven't you settled down with someone yet?" she asked cheekily, feigning slight disinterest, although really she was actually rather intrigued.
"I guess I'm not really the settling down kind of type," Kingsley replied, before taking another drink from his glass. "I still date quite a bit though, so don't you go feeling too sorry for me… I had a lovely little fling with a muggle civil-servant when I was working with the last muggle prime-minister."
"Well, that's very interesting," Hestia said. "How come it was only a fling and it didn't become anything more serious?"
Kingsley shrugged.
"It fizzled out I guess," Kingsley sighed. "When I got re-assigned it was harder for us to meet up with each other as regularly – and being married to my job at the Ministry, as well as all of the Order missions we had going on probably didn't help things. All of that stuff wasn't really conducive to maintaining a long-lasting relationship… and besides, I've never really been a wife and two kids kind of guy anyway… I always joked to Xavier that it was his job to do all of that and provide an heir for the family."
Hestia watched Kingsley take another swig of his drink. He look nonplussed by what he had just said but she was quite taken aback, as he very rarely, if at all, ever mentioned his Quidditch protégé younger brother, who had been killed years ago in the last war, most likely by Death Eaters, although it was never proven.
"Oh well… I guess the Shacklebolt line will die with me," he said calmly, before raising his half-empty glass to Hestia in a toast, presumably for his fallen brother. She raised her icy cold glass of coke and clinked it against his.
"How did it go with Harry?" Hestia asked, trying to change the subject as she sensed a somewhat awkward silence.
"Pretty good," Shacklebolt replied in a much happier tone. "The boy's a damn talented young wizard. Pretty much picked it up in an hour."
"An hour?!"
Hestia almost choked on her drink.
It had taken her weeks of practice after first mastering a corporeal patronus to learn to be able to use it send messages to anybody else.
"Yeah," Kingsley laughed. "He took to it like a duck to water… here's hoping he won't have to use it though, I'm sure Gawain and Rhea will have it all under control without the need for any reinforcements."
The mention of Savage's name made Hestia's blood boil.
"You really don't like that girl, ehh?" Kingsley said with a very knowing wry smile. As he was a fairly in-tune legilimens, whilst she had hidden the anger from her face, she knew her mentor would have sensed her anger and frustration at the sound of her rival's name.
"She's just so full of shit!" Hestia spat, unable and unwilling to control her temper any longer.
"Oh come on, Hestia, that's a little strong, no?" Kingsley replied as he carefully stroked the stubble on the bottom of his chin.
"She has the nerve to call me a liar or a fucking idiot for saying I wasn't that worried about the Death Eaters," Hestia ranted angrily. "And to not let my pride get me or my staff killed… but then for this mission her and Robards won't let me, you or Arthur Weasley go along to help them. The Taoiseach of the Irish Ministry offers Aurors and Hit Wizards to help, but her and Robards say no. What an absolute hypocrite!"
"I am sure that most of that was more Robards than Savage," Kingsley said softly, trying to calm her down. "And, after all, neither you nor Arthur are Aurors or-
"Oh and Dominic McCabe and Octavian Addington are?!" Hestia answered incredulously. "I must have forgotten when Saskia Marlowe and Venice Morgan joined the Auror ranks as well! She let Charlie bloody Weasley join in too, no wonder Arthur was so keen to get involved with one of his sons there. I'm not even really sure that the younger boys should be getting involved in missions like this yet either."
"Harry has done more-
"I'm obviously not talking about Harry, he's different," Hestia said, rolling her eyes. "But Neville Longbottom and Ernie Macmillan, you can't seriously tell me that they would have been drafted in so quickly if their parents hadn't have been well-respected Aurors too?"
"Longbottom by all accounts played as big a role in the war as just about anyone," Kingsley replied in a somewhat defensive manner. "Macmillan too is a fighter, just like his Father was, he fought bravely in the Battle of Hogwarts – and Minerva vouched for him as well, his grades were exemplary at school. In the best of times, of course, they wouldn't have been fast-tracked so soon, but the Ministry is on its knees. And besides, I thought you said you weren't worried about the Death Eaters?"
Hestia huffed and frowned at him.
"I didn't mean that I wasn't worried about the Death Eaters full-stop," she sighed. "But Savage was trying to put me down and make it sound like I was too weak to protect myself should it come to it! I can handle myself just fine, but the way Rhea went on you'd think I couldn't fight my way out of a wet paper bag."
"I'm sure that can be arranged and put to the test," Kingsley responded.
The smile that had just appeared on his face soon turned into a very concerned looking frown.
"HELP!" Hestia thought she heard in a dull whisper.
"Harry!" Kingsley announced urgently to her, as he abruptly raised up in his chair.
Hestia jumped up too, as several of the suspicious muggle men eyed them up even more curiously as they quickly paced towards the exit door without finishing their drinks, although Kingsley had certainly made a much more valiant effort at seeing his drink off than she had with her own.
The Minister for Magic flung open the door and Hestia quickly rushed out after him.
"Check point's not far from here," he said loudly, as they darted onto the pavement and down the hill towards the Selwyn Manor. "But it'll still be quicker to apparate. Hold onto me!"
Kingsley reached out his hand, indicating for her to grab on, but she hesitated.
"We can't!"
In the corner of her eye she had spotted one of the men from the pub who had seemingly followed them straight out of it.
They couldn't apparate with him peering over at them.
"I guess we shall have to run then!" Kingsley sighed, before dashing down the hill at a fairly rapid pace.
Hestia was obviously much younger than her mentor, but he was a little bit taller and his longer strides initially gave him an advantage despite her being a naturally quicker sprinter.
They ran past a few houses, then reached the front of the old-fashioned muggle church, which led onto a path in-front of the brick wall separating the street from the graveyard.
"We're almost there now!" Kingsley shouted, as Hestia began to catch up with him, spotting what looked like another hilly path which she thought must lead out onto the Selwyn Manor.
They ran up the hill, causing blood to pump through Hestia's body as she felt her heart beating a little faster with the exertion caused by the sudden intense exercise. An unfortunate knock on effect of spending almost a year in hiding in the middle of Wales, with very limited opportunities for any form of sporting activity, was that it wasn't very good for staying in shape.
"It's just up there!"
Kingsley led them through a fairly deserted looking path and in the distance she thought she could see the large figure – and unmistakable red ponytailed hair of Robert Williamson.
"Williamson!" Kingsley stammered out, a little short of breath, as a surprised yet all the same elated looking Robert Williamson turned to face them.
"Kingsley! Thank Merlin you two are here!"
"What's happening down-
But Williamson was in such a hurried panic he didn't even let his boss finish his sentence.
"They blasted into it with no problems… but… but four Death Eaters blasted their way out-
"Four?!" Hestia cried in shock.
"Where are they now?" Kingsley asked urgently.
"Savage just sent me a Patronus. Two on the ground… two in the air… I have Ernie circling low in the sky just in-case they need-
"We should still have a big numbers advantage though, presuming none of ours fell in the initial shoot-out?"
Hestia agreed with Kingsley's assessment.
Whilst four Death Eaters was more than they had dreamed of finding in the same place, they still had quite a lot of people on the ground and in the sky.
"We're outnumbered on the ground and in the sky!" Williamson shot back in a very nervous fashion. "There's... there's…INFERI! Inferi… they're everywhere down there!"
"INFERI?!" Hestia exclaimed. "Jesus!"
She had never seen an Inferius in the flesh before, only ever in text-books or wizarding fiction novels, which would have gruesome illustrations of the horrifying corpses reanimated by dark magic on their front covers.
"I would have left my post to help them," Williamson began in an apologetic sounding tone. "But Gawain was very exact in his orders to-
"You did the right thing staying in your post," Kingsley shot back quickly. "I'll head down there to assist them. Hestia can stay here with you to-
Kingsley was interrupted by an absolutely deafening explosion that came from the Selwyn Manor.
All three of them quickly turned towards it and were greeted with the sight of a blinding orange and yellow light. Hestia looked away quickly and could still see little dots of bright light in her peripheral vision for a few seconds, such was the ferocity of the brightness.
It was like when you accidentally look at the sun or a really bright spot-light for too long by accident.
Williamson violently swore under his breath.
"COME ON!" Kingsley ordered to Hestia, instantly abandoning his previous impromptu plan to leave her posted at the check point with Williamson.
Without another word they left the worried looking Robert Williamson almost as soon as they had found him, as they darted off manically in the direction of the Selwyn Manor.
Kingsley once again had a little head-start on her, but his longer strides couldn't keep him too far ahead for very long this time around as she pushed hard to keep up with him.
"Looks like we'll get to find out if you can fight your way out of a wet paper bag," he shouted across to her as he noticed her catching up.
They were somewhat fortunate that they were running down-hill rather than up one, although Hestia still had to be quite careful she didn't lose balance and fall over, as the ground was not entirely flat or even due to the heavily dried mud and uneven patches of dying grass. There was one particularly uneven spot which very nearly had her over.
"What do you think that explosion was?!" she cried back, as they saw remnants of the blast still raining down in the distance.
"I don't know," he hollered back. "Looks like damn near half the house has been blown up!"
They ran carefully in silence for at least a minute after that, as they gradually made their way down the hill and towards the Selwyn estate.
Hestia was distracted briefly by what looked like a shoot-out in the sky. She strained to look up, trying desperately to work out who or what was going on up there, but they were so high up it was very difficult to tell.
"We can't help them from down here!" Kingsley roared back, also having noticed the events occurring above them in the air. "The best we can do for our guys in the sky is to secure the ground first, come on, we're almost there!"
They made one last push down the hill for another minute or so and could now see very clearly the Selwyn Manor, or at least, what was left of it.
It was unclear what had happened, but whatever it was some kind of spell or hex had near on flattened at least half of the property towards the left hand side of it.
The grounds in-front of them and towards either side of the lake that surrounded it was in absolute chaos.
They could see what unmistakably looked like a big battle going on, but it wasn't easy to work out what exactly was going on.
Hestia could see several more people in the sky, who she assumed must be Saskia Marlowe and the other ex-Quidditch players, but they weren't alone in the air. What looked like hundreds of small birds were also in the sky – and all of them seemed hell bent on attacking Marlowe and her motley crew. They seemed to be having some success in shooting them out of the sky over and into the lake, but they didn't seem to have much chance of supporting anyone on the ground.
The ground itself was absolutely chaotic, with what looked like a fire-fight of a duel taking place on the left hand side of the grounds nearest the Manor, whilst on the right hand side it looked like the battle was between wizards, witches and hordes of Inferi.
It was a battle that it looked like the Inferi, with the much larger numbers advantage, were winning.
They briefly halted in their stride at the bottom of the hill, finally there.
Kingsley gave her a very grave look.
"We'll split up. I'll deal with the Inferi first," he said swiftly.
"Look after yourself, Hestia."
"You too!" Hestia said back, as her mentor conjured a flame from his wand and both bravely and recklessly charged into the melee to their right.
Hestia ran towards the wrecked remains of the Manor to her left, her eyes darting back and forth trying desperately to analyse what exactly was occurring ahead of her, trying to find both friend and foe.
What looked like a small animal, maybe a dog or a fox came running towards her. At first she felt awful for it, thinking maybe that Kit Selwyn had a pet that had been caught up in the chaos, but as it got closer towards her she could see that it too was nothing more than a puppet of death.
It looked like something out of a zombie movie and the horrifying, dead reanimated beast was her first sight of any kind of Inferius in the flesh.
"Fucking hell," she swore to herself.
"Exardesco!"
The small, but very hot and pin-point precise ball of flame that she had cast quickly overwhelmed the helpless beast and it fell to the ground, engulfed in the magical fire. The smell of burnt flesh and smoke went up her nose and she almost wretched at how bad it was.
She could not dwell on the foul smell for very long though, as almost as soon as she had recovered her senses she heard some screaming in the distance.
"Get away from me! Get away from me!"
Hestia recognized Podmore's panicking voice screaming out not that far away from her. She quickly hurried towards it, soon seeing the reason for the frightened tone in her colleague's hoarse cries.
There, not much more than 10 meters in front of her, stood a pair of humanoid Inferi, both looking to mount some kind of attack on the helpless Podmore, who was armed with nothing more than the shattered, splintery remains of his broom, which he was using as a makeshift battering ram against them. He was giving it a good go, but it seemed like a fight he was doomed to lose.
"Sturgis!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Get back a bit, I'll get them off of you!"
Podmore chanced a glance in her direction, clearly very surprised, but simultaneously very relieved to see her.
Yet his sudden smile soon turned to a frown.
"Hestia! Look up!"
Just as she heard his warning Hestia noticed something dart down at her from the sky.
It was a stray Inferi beast of the bird variety.
With one eye still watching over a relatively defenceless looking Podmore, she shot a fire-ball straight at the head of the zombie-bird, but much to her dismay it managed to instinctively dodge her first strike, much like a living breathing bird would do.
It got closer towards her, chancing an attack run on her, but she repelled it with a quick shield charm, flinging it backwards in the air, yet it soon regained its composure and came charging back towards her.
Hestia shot at it again, but again it managed to avoid being hit.
"Get back you bastards!" Podmore cried, as in the corner of her eye she saw him whack one of the Inferi over the head with the broken broomstick, although despite his best efforts it failed to halt it much in its tracks, as Inferi cannot feel pain.
He needed her help, and fast, as the other Inferius grabbed onto his right arm, making him scream out in panic and terror in the process.
"EXARDESCO!" she screamed at the top of her voice, causing a large ball of fire to finally down the flying Inferi bird that had evaded several of her strikes.
It was only when it was burning on the ground that she managed to work out that it had once been a pigeon in a past life.
She never liked pigeons anyway.
Hestia thought she saw the two humanoid Inferi flinch at the sight of the fireball, as she cast a flame at the tip of her wand and charged towards the deadly duo who now had Sturgis Podmore well within their grasp, with the Inferius closest to her seemingly trying to strangle him, as one powerful looking, dead hand was already clutched onto his neck as he struggled to breath.
"Stupefy!"
The two Inferi were pushed back slightly by the stunning spell.
They quickly turned their attention to Hestia, her spell not harming them in the slightest, although it served its purpose in getting them off of Podmore before they could inflict any serious damage onto him.
"Incendio!"
Hestia's fiery spell instantly caught both of the two Inferi alight, but only one of them fell to the ground.
The other one charged straight for Sturgis, who in a desperate bid to avoid further damage to his person, threw the broken broom as hard as he could full pelt at his rival.
The Nimbus did little damage to the Inferius, falling to the ground soon after, but such was the impact with the enflamed Inferius that the broom soon caught alight, with the wood burning quickly and helping to intensify the speed in which the Inferius burned.
"INCENDIO!" Hestia cast once more, burning the zombie with even more intensity, finally causing it to fall to the ground, singeing the grass to smithereens as it did so.
"Bloody hell, Hest," Podmore sighed heavily in relief, exasperatedly running his hands through his hair.
He looked as though he felt very lucky to be alive.
"Am I damn glad to see you?!"
"Don't mention it," Hestia replied quickly. "You should get back to the check point, Sturgis, I take it you lost your wand? This is no battle to be without your wand for God-
A small explosion went off not that far away from them, causing Hestia to forget about Podmore's seemingly unfortunate predicament as she rushed to see the fallout.
"Proudfoot!"
Hestia ran quickly to where she'd heard the initial blast, unsure on who had called out his name, but she soon found the flattened body of the Auror, Conrad Proudfoot, laid out on the grass.
He was lying in a big heap on the ground and looked to be in a very bad way.
She quickly sank to the ground to check for a pulse.
It took a couple of seconds of stumbling around, but thank God, she was eventually able to find one.
"Is he dead?!" Podmore cried, having stumbled on after her.
"No, he's still breathing," she replied. "I think he's just knocked out."
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Vindicio!"
The sound of a vicious duel was coming from not that far away, near the front courtyard of the property where parts of the house had caved in on itself in a blast.
Hestia was unsure who it was that was duelling, but she guessed from the sound of the deep, Irish voice uttering the killing curse that it was most likely one of theirs against a Death Eater, most probably Kit Selwyn.
"Keep an eye on Conrad, I'll go and help," Hestia instructed to Podmore, who had just spotted the Auror's discarded wand on the ground, which he would now be able to use to fend off any further Inferi attacks on himself and the prone Proudfoot.
She rushed towards the sound of the duel, glimpsing another glimmering of green-light following the casting of another killing curse.
"WHY WON'T YOU DIE, BITCH?!" Hestia heard the Death Eater cry in out in frustration, as she finally stumbled upon the scene of the fight.
"INCURSITO!"
Rhea Savage's violent red curse flew towards the owner of the property, Kit Selwyn, having not indulged him in the taunting that he had tried to lure her into.
Selwyn cast some form of defensive blocking charm, soon chewing up and spitting out her effort to best him.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Hestia attempted to blind-side the Death Eater from behind, and she very nearly pulled it off, only at the last moment did Kit Selwyn react with sufficient time to deflect her spell with the skin of his teeth.
She caught a brief look of surprise and confusion on Savage's face at the sight of her arrival on the scene, but Rhea soon focused her attention back on Kit Selwyn, who looked slightly wary now that he was outnumbered.
"DIVERSIO!" Selwyn quickly cast, not directly at Hestia or Savage, but rather directly in-front of him, as the cloaking spell conjured up thick, black smoke to disguise their field of vision.
"Sicco Mundus!"
Savage's quick thinking saw her air filtering charm soon disperse Selwyn's cloaking smoke, but not quickly enough to avoid him fleeing the scene in an unknown direction, although the wreckage surrounding them dictated that he could have only really exited the way that Hestia had come in.
"Come on!" Savage shouted, as she began sprinting after him, with Hestia in hot pursuit in her wake.
"Did you see Proudfoot on your way in?" Savage asked desperately as they turned the corner back out into the open. "Was he alright?!"
"He was alive when I left him with Sturgis," Hestia answered quickly, as their eyes desperately scanned the open grounds for any sign of the fleeing Death Eater.
"Famous last words," Savage sighed to herself, still focusing most of her attention on searching for the man who had just evaded their capture.
"There he is!"
Hestia had spotted him about twenty metres away.
He was hexing his way through a gathering of several Inferi, it seemed that whoever had enchanted the Inferi, Selwyn or otherwise, had not managed to reanimate them to such a level of control that they did not also attack Death Eaters.
Such was their enchantment to kill and maim, they did not seem to discriminate in their targets.
It appeared to be simply a case of the dead versus the living.
Savage sprinted over in Selwyn's direction, conjuring a flame at the tip of her wand to fend off any Inferi that braved getting in her way.
A lone Inferi bird, that looked like it had once been a crow, immediately darted down to Rhea's direction.
Hestia spotted it, perhaps before Savage did, and so she blasted it out of the sky with the fire-ball spell she had gotten some practice with earlier.
The enflamed bird dropped to the ground just in-front of Savage, who shot a quick glare back at Hestia.
"I had that covered," she spat rudely, at which point Hestia momentarily forgot that they were on the same side.
"You said that you had this raid covered," Hestia shot back, as Savage shot down what looked like a small dead dog hurtling towards her from their right hand side. "How's that working out for you?!"
Another bird dive-bombed out of the sky in their direction, as Hestia's Exardesco hex narrowly missed it.
"How dare you question my authority?" Savage shot back angrily, as she shot an Exardesco of her own, this time vaporising the bird into smithereens on impact, as they darted towards Selwyn, who Hestia could see in the distance still battling his way past several humanoid Inferi.
"On who's authority are you even here?!"
Rhea had not liked her last jab one little bit.
There was real anger in her voice now.
"Kingsl-
"Of course," Rhea laughed mockingly, before sending a viciously fiery spell in the direction of a humanoid Inferius that was heading their way. "You know Hestia, sometimes I wonder whether you even have a Mum and Dad, or whether you just crawled out of Shacklebolt's arse one day."
Hestia stopped in her tracks immediately, frozen in rage at Rhea's remark referencing her Mum and Dad, or lack thereof of the latter.
She tried desperately to overcome her emotions, but such was her anger that all she could think about was hexing that bitch Savage in her stupid, ugly little face.
Rhea defeated the Inferius that had approached them from ahead on the right, but soon stopped as she noticed that Hestia was no longer flanking just behind her.
"Oh get over yourself, for fuck sake!" Rhea shouted back, urging her to join her once more. "Hardly the time for this, is it? This is why I didn't want you on this mission. You're not competent enou-ARGHHHH-
Savage was abruptly cut off as the reanimated corpse of what had seemingly once been a woman violently grabbed hold of her, causing her to fumble and drop her wand.
It then began wrenching at her left arm through her leather jacket, presumably trying to break it and snap it like a twig.
Rhea shot the zombie with a harsh elbow to the face with her free arm, but the blow did very little to damage her foe.
"Close your eyes!" Hestia shouted at Savage, as she suddenly churned into action.
Savage reluctantly obeyed, after which Hestia cast a blinding light at the corpse, briefly blinding it and allowing Savage enough of a distraction to wrestle her way out the zombie's tight, relentless grip on her arm, but not before it had ripped right through her leather jacket and white buttoned up muggle-police shirt.
Hestia instantly shot a fiery curse at the hideous looking beast, as Savage retrieved her wand from the grass just beside it.
The enflamed zombie seemed to initially look like it was going to try to grab onto the Head Auror once more, but Rhea shot it down with a curse of her own before it had the chance to do so.
"You almost got me killed," Savage raged, as Hestia spotted Selwyn suddenly surrounded by Inferi not far from them.
"Not now! He's there!" Hestia shouted back, as Savage's shocked eyes turned to face the missing Death Eater.
Kit Selwyn had blasted his way through a crowd of many zombies, but now he seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the large numbers he faced in-front of him.
He mercilessly blasted them with fiery curses, but the numbers game was seemingly too strong for him.
"We want him alive," Savage cursed, as they jogged urgently into the imminent danger that stood in-front of them.
Hestia was not quite sure whether they should try to disarm him or not, as to keep him alive they may well have to let him fight off some of the Inferi surrounding him before they could consider capturing him.
Selwyn spotted the both of them, cursed under his breath, before conjuring the beginning of what looked like a ferocious flame from his wand.
Fiendfyre.
If they let him unleash that then it might well not just be the Inferi who he burned to smithereens, but Hestia, Savage and the entire estate and grounds with him.
"Expelliarmus!"
Hestia's disarming spell caught a furious Selwyn off guard, who suddenly had an army of Inferi raining down on him.
Savage quickly began firing down fiery curses at the dead who fast approached him, but she could not take them down quickly enough.
Kit Selwyn, sensing the very real danger he was now facing, hit out at the Inferius nearest to him, that had already began clawing at him.
Selwyn's shot knocked the Inferi back a little bit, for long enough that he managed to reach into his jacket pocket, although Hestia did not notice this as she had begun to assist Savage in striking and burning down the Inferi.
"DIE, YOU BITCH!"
In the corner of Hestia's left eye, she saw Selwyn lunge towards a completely preoccupied and unaware Savage with a very sharp and sinister looking dagger.
"PROTEGO!"
Hestia's shield charm instantly protected Rhea from Selwyn's desperate attempt to stab her.
He bounced nastily against the invisible safeguard, the impact of which caused him to hurtle backwards into a crowd of several Inferi.
Rhea looked lost for words.
She was evidently aware of the very near miss and potentially fatal stabbing she had avoided.
The Head Auror looked very relieved, and maybe even there was a look of something that somewhat resembled gratitude towards Hestia in her eyes.
"NO! ARGHHHH- FUCKKKK!"
Rhea and Hestia exchanged a sudden look of dismay and disgust, as they watched the zombie-horde begin to overwhelm and tear apart the body of the helpless Kit Selwyn.
It was too late now.
One of the zombies had already began to tear out his eye sockets, causing blood to mercilessly pour out of his face and head, with another Inferius furiously choking him to death.
As Hestia and Rhea witnessed his last, hopeless, dying screams, completely powerless to stop it, they exchanged a knowing look, as they wordlessly decided what to do next.
"INCENDIO!"
The two young witches cast the powerful flaming curse in unison at the horde of Inferi and their dying victim, with the hope that they would destroy as many of them as possible, whilst also preventing any further prolonged agony of Kit Selwyn as he died, a fate which was unescapable for him now.
After around a minute of the intense, burning fire blasting against their victims it looked like the last of the Inferi in the surrounding area had been downed.
The dead body of Kit Selwyn too, was now, regrettably, completely indistinguishable from the rest of the burned, charred corpses.
The air now smelled of burnt human flesh and there was a really rather horrible smoke all around them, which made Hestia cough slightly. It was a warm day as it was already, yet such was the ferocity of their Incendio curse that she was sweating profusely from head to toe.
"Fucking hell," Savage sighed at the remains, as they let the flames at the tips of their wands gradually peter out.
"I'm sorry," Hestia said. "If it wasn't for me we might have brought him in alive."
"If it wasn't for you I might not even be alive myself," Savage answered begrudgingly. "Don't sweat it… although you do look pretty fucking sweaty to me."
Hestia suddenly burst into tears.
"I've never seen somebody die… not like… not like that."
It was true, she hadn't.
She had thought she had the stomach for it, but watching Selwyn get mercilessly ripped apart, limb from limb, blood, guts and gore and all by the dead and then burned alive had been utterly horrific.
She felt sick and weak and horrible, filled with guilt and remorse, nobody deserved a death like that, not even a Death Eater.
Hestia felt embarrassed and weak, especially breaking down like this in-front of Savage, but she couldn't stop herself.
It was too much.
"Don't beat yourself up about it," Savage said matter-of-factly. "There's nothing you could have- Proudfoot!"
Rhea's sudden excited cry came as Conrad Proudfoot emerged on the scene, helped along by Sturgis Podmore, who was helping support him as he walked along quite haphazardly.
"I'm alright, Rhea," Proudfoot mumbled, although he certainly did not sound alright – and looked to Hestia through her tear-stained eyes like he might very well be concussed, and quite heavily concussed at that.
"What happened to the Death Eater?!" Podmore asked urgently, reminding Hestia of the demise of Selwyn once more.
"Selwyn's toast," Savage said sardonically, gesturing with a fairly repulsed expression towards the pile of burned Inferi corpses, which of course also included Selwyn's corpse.
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Proudfoot whispered, as a horrified Podmore struggled to maintain grip onto the Auror to prevent him losing balance and falling to the ground.
Then, in the distance, towards the check-point, Hestia noticed something in the sky.
At first she thought the red hue was signalling the setting of the Irish sun, but on a second glance she could see some other colours in the sky, not ones that you would often find in a sunset.
She couldn't quite make out what was happening up there, as it was quite far away, but it looked like some kind of aerial duel was taking place in the distance.
"Look, up there," she said urgently to Savage, who joined her in looking up towards the sky.
"It must be Rowle and Travers," Rhea replied. "They managed to escape on brooms. Come on, we have to help the others to stop them getting away!"
They left the still weakened Proudfoot in the care of Podmore and began to run back towards the apparation check point.
Try as they might, the two of them simply could not make the same sort of pace Hestia and Kingsley had made earlier when they had first arrived at the scene.
Hestia and Rhea were both slightly exerted from the fighting they had done, with Rhea's left arm, now somewhat visible beneath her torn leather jacket and fake muggle police-issue white shirt, clearly troubling her when she ran, even if she did not say so.
It also did not much help that they were running up a steep hill, rather than down one.
Despite her injured left arm causing her some problems, Rhea still comfortably outpaced Hestia who found herself lagging behind as Savage ploughed up the hill as quickly as her small legs would take her.
When they were about a quarter of the way up the hill they heard a loud cry coming from behind them.
They looked round in unison having somewhat of a vantage point from the amount of hill that they had gotten up, this brief stop gave Hestia a welcome respite, as she let herself catch her breath again.
On the right hand side of the Manor, opposite to where they had been fighting Selwyn and the Inferi, they saw a large flame and what looked like Kingsley leading a charge against what must have been the final rounded up Inferi humanoids and beasts.
"I hope none of ours fell in the fight against them," Savage sighed. "Come on, let's pick up the pace!"
They jogged up the hill with a renewed sense of vigour, there were no more words exchanged for a minute or so, as Rhea began to really outrun Hestia, who was embarrassed to be lagging behind her so much.
"Come on," Rhea nagged, briefly glancing behind her to look down at Hestia. "We're almost there-ARGHH
Savage's lack of attention to the ground in-front of her caused her to violently trip on an uneven patch of dead grass, possibly even the one that Hestia had nearly tripped over earlier.
Rhea landed awkwardly onto her left arm, which was the one that the Inferius had tried with all of its might to snap like a twig earlier on.
"Shit!" Savage swore from the heap she was lying in on the dried mud, as she awkwardly tried to pull herself back up.
It seemed she was struggling to put much weight on her left arm, as she could not quite manage to pull herself up the first time.
"Here, take my hand," Hestia offered, reaching out her arm on Savage's second attempt to pick herself up, which was how long it had taken for Hestia to catch up with her even after her unfortunate trip.
Rhea waved away Hestia's offer of help, instead stubbornly deciding to try and pull herself up again, but this time she almost fell flat on her face – if it hadn't have been for Hestia grasping onto her flailing arm and holding it up, then she would have fallen down like a sack of shit.
Hestia used her strength to hold the smaller witch up and prevent her from falling, before their combined strength managed to get the black haired Auror back on her feet.
"Thanks," Rhea mumbled awkwardly, as she grimaced in pain as she tried to move her left arm a bit.
"You're hurt, aren't you?" Hestia asked, although she didn't really need Rhea to reply to know the answer to that question.
"I'm fine," Savage lied, before ushering Hestia to begin their chase back to the apparation point again.
Rhea ran in a much more awkward manner after her fall, but she still kept a steady pace, albeit one that Hestia was much more comfortable in keeping up with.
As they were just over half-way to the summit of the hill Hestia suddenly saw a flash of green light in the sky.
She looked up and could scarcely believe what she saw adorning the Irish sky.
It was the Dark Mark.
It was his mark.
"Fuck!" Hestia swore, as Rhea simply gaped wildly, stunned into silence at this new development.
Without further conversation they both snapped into an outright sprint up the hill, neither now heeding their body's warnings of pain or fatigue.
The adrenaline rush caused Hestia's brain to automatically override any feeling of exhaustion or tiredness, she felt her legs ache in sharp pain from the running, but what might usually have stopped or slowed her down, paled in comparison with her desire to reach the newly cast Dark Mark.
Rhea raced ahead a little, getting to the top of the hill towards the barn a few seconds before Hestia.
"THE DARK MARK IS OVER THERE!" Rhea shouted back to her. "I THINK I CAN SEE POTTER!"
The scene that greeted them was utterly shocking.
What had earlier been a fully erected barn was now a pile of rubble.
Rhea raced towards the Dark Mark, but Hestia only had eyes for the broken body that lay beside the barn.
"HARRY!" she screamed in horror, wondering if The Boy Who Lived had become The Boy Who Died.
She could not yet tell whether his eyes were open or not.
His leg looked utterly destroyed, and the rest of him didn't look up to all that much either.
"HARRY, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!"
As she got closer to him, standing just over him now, she saw a glimmer of light in his eyes.
"Whus threre?" he mumbled in a concussed sounding tone.
Thank God.
At least he was alive.
"Harry, are you alright?" Hestia asked once more, as an extremely concerned looking Rhea ran back towards her with a panic-stricken looking face.
The light in Harry's eyes suddenly went out.
Fuck!
Was he dead?!
Hestia grabbed at his wrist, frantically searching for a pulse.
Her heart skipped a beat when she found it.
"Thank God, he's alive," she sighed in relief.
"His friend wasn't so lucky," Savage said grimly.
"What?! Who was kil-
"Ernie MacMillan," Rhea replied. "Looks like the Killing Curse. There's no sign of Rowle of Travers. His death was one of, if not both of their handy work, no doubt."
"Fuck," Hestia cried out in horror.
Another young life lost.
What a horrid waste.
Ernie was years younger than her.
And his poor family.
They had only lost his famous Auror Father a few years previously, to lose him too now on top of all of that would be an unthinkable and devastating blow.
"Maybe Williamson went after them," Savage said somewhat hopefully. "I didn't see his body anywhere, he wouldn't have gone down without a fight."
In the wind Hestia thought she heard a murmur, like the sound of an elderly dog crying out one last time before it got put down.
"Did you hear that?" Hestia asked, but Savage had already begun running back the way that she had come from, presumably to the scene of Ernie MacMillan's murder.
Hestia was loathe to leave Harry, but he at least seemed in a stable enough condition where he was, a few moments alone was unlikely to hurt him too much.
They raced towards the sound of the horrible sounding noise, as Hestia soon saw the prone and lifeless body of Ernie MacMillan laying on the ground.
"Oh fuck!" Rhea roared loudly.
"WILLIAMSON!"
There, on all fours, drenched in what Hestia could only guess was his own blood, was a crawling and very injured looking Robert Williamson.
His muggle police issue white shirt was white no more, as the seeping crimson liquid had seeped out from his insides and spilled all over it.
Hestia was unsure if she'd ever seen so much of someone's blood in real life before.
It was so surreal it looked like something out of a movie.
He looked almost like he'd been shot or something!
What curse had possibly done that to him?!
Rhea crouched over him, first pulling off his shirt as much as possible, so she could get a better look at the wound.
Hestia felt a bit weak and sick just looking at it.
She could see his insides.
It was horrible.
She could never be a healer.
She simply didn't have the stomach for it.
"Ernie," Robert mumbled. "Help him first."
Savage ignored his pleas, quite wisely not letting him know just yet that his his young mentor was already dead, and with his shirt now removed she began desperately muttering some kind of healing charm that Hestia was not familiar with.
"Am I… am I going to die, Rhea?" Robert asked her desperately, as the fire in his eyes seemed to begin to fade away, as Rhea started muttering the enchantment more hurriedly.
"It's just a flesh wound you big idiot," Savage shot back after she seemed satisfied the bleeding was slightly more under control. "And don't you go thinking you're getting any days off work for this. I still expect to see you bright and early at work tomorrow morning!"
Although Rhea was obviously joking with her colleague and friend, looking at his hideously disfigured chest, Hestia wondered whether Williamson would survive the next few minutes, let alone make it through the night.
He would need a miracle.