It was time to try my plan to escape from the knife-wielding psychopaths before they could use my blood to revive Lord Voldemort. The important thing I'd realized was that, while Lockhart had seen a lot of what I could do in his classes, we'd mostly been practicing silent casting this year. As far as I knew, none of the Gryffindor tutors had shared with him that they'd also been teaching me to improve my focusless casting.

"Diffindo," I muttered. Using the cutting charm bare-handed had become second nature, after months of using it for crafting work, but I had, specifically, originally learned it for just this kind of situation. After all, the first time Voldemort had come after me, I'd splinched myself trying to get out of being tied up. This was way safer.

I felt the ropes slacken holding me to the snake column and rolled away from the approaching possessed professor, managing to tag the ropes on my legs with another cutting charm as I went. On one rotation, I caught a look of surprise on his face. I was really pleased that he had a knife in hand rather than his wand, which gave me a chance. Sure enough, rather than going for his wand and just stunning me, he made an untrained lunge with the knife while cursing, "Dresden!"

Maybe neither Lockhart nor Riddle had actually done much stabbing or maybe the copied version wasn't running on the full competency set of Voldemort Prime. I was hoping for the latter, honestly. But I had been doing a fair amount of work to account for my long, awkward limbs after the last fight with a Voldemort-possessed professor. I managed to turn my sideways roll into a kneel and kick to my feet, jumping forward like off of a runner's starting block and getting missed by the flailing knife attack.

Rather than trying to get fancy with wandless summoning, I just juked around the boxes and snapped up my bracelet, amulet, and "wand" from the chair. Macnair was only starting to react to the unexpected change in circumstances. He honestly didn't seem to be that quick or smart. The possessed professor had finally switched his knife hand and drawn his wand, so I dove to the ground with a grunt (adding ground-delivered damage to my left shoulder on top of my frequent knee batterings), used the chair and boxes as cover, and aimed the unicorn horn focus at him.

"Libero!"

He got a shield up, and I was extra grateful that the Apologies were just as unblockable as their dark magic counterparts. It flew right through and hit him in the throat, the tell-tale cerulean and silver spreading out and glowing out of his eyes. Honestly, the hard part had been summoning up pride in Lockhart, who may have been repeatedly memory charming me rather than admit he didn't know what he was doing. But he'd been an okay teacher despite that, and I was still a fan of his writing.

With a look of shock in his eyes as the glow faded, Lockhart dropped the knife and used his hand to rip the diadem from his head and fling it as far away from him as he could. I heard it clatter against a wall closer to the front of the chamber. "What is…" he began, before Macnair wound up body checking him.

I was dubious that the Scottish Death Eater had realized his ally had become an opponent, or if he just wasn't paying attention on the way to retrieving a weapon. Either way, he wound up knocking Lockhart into the crates and grabbing for his axe.

Now the magical beast executioner getting his weapon was cause for concern, but I also realized that I was dangerously close to a snake so big it looked like it might be able to swallow me whole. I risked a glance and it still had its eyes closed, but seemed to be getting agitated at the noise. Did the Voldemort homunculus have enough awareness in the cauldron to give it orders? At least the version in the diadem hadn't thought of just telling the snake to stop me while it had the chance.

Though I guess if they needed my blood, most of what the basilisk could do to me would rather ruin it for the purpose.

Macnair had a crucial moment of realizing he'd just tackled what might well be a copy of his own boss, and Lockhart was still stunned by everything that was going on, so I used the opportunity to get some distance, retreating across the chamber and behind the columns. Before Macnair realized he needed to chase me, I managed to get my bracelet buckled around my wrist and my amulet back around my neck. I slipped my Apologies focus back into my belt pouch, which they didn't seem to have noticed; not that there was too much in there that would be useful.

"Professor, get the Death Eater!" I shouted as I peeked out to see the foppish adventurer obliviously picking himself up and dusting his robes off as Macnair charged me.

"Mr. Dresden, what… Oh dear! What a large snake!" he practically squeaked. If he'd lost all memory since he was possessed, this was going to be a lot harder to handle. I didn't have the time to catch him up, and he had the only useful weapon between the two of us.

"Macnair, now, snake, later!" I screamed, grabbing randomly into a pocket on my belt and flinging a handful of iron nails at the Death Eater in question, which at least got him to shield his face while I broke cover and ran.

I was really beginning to regret leaving my staff and rod at home.

"I think it's coming back to me!" Lockhart shouted at our backs. "Oh! I have a great hex a man in Italy showed me for hunting dark wizards! Nolite tenebris!" I didn't hear the sound of a spell firing. "Maybe it was a different wand motion?"

"Just use a stunner. Or a knockback! Something simple!" I yelled back, the big Death Eater having trouble keeping up with my long legs as we raced around the damp stone floor.

"Fine. Tarantallegra!" he fired off a dancing jinx, which was at least something Macnair had to worry about a little. He turned to shield, opening up my lead a little more. And, importantly, getting me further from the snake who was writhing around, trying to understand what it was hearing.

And was the red light from the cauldron getting brighter and louder?

"Oh! I'm remembering more! Did I kidnap you? Sorry about that. Mind control. What can you do?" Lockhart blathered. "You're sure the snake isn't the biggest problem? Rictusempra! Glacius!" He managed to toss off a couple more jinxes, making Macnair realize he had a bigger annoyance to flatten.

"Not unless someone gives it an order, probably?" I answered, pausing behind a column opposite where I'd started and beginning to search my belt pouches for anything that would be useful to fight a person. I really should have made more erumpent potion. I hadn't thought I'd need holdouts like that once I was legal to cast magic without the Trace.

Lead shot and iron nails: not so useful without a staff to banish them at people. A couple of pieces of Remus' silverware: slightly promising, but not ideal. Snacks: at least I wouldn't starve to death. Girding and strengthening potions: they'd help if I could convince Macnair to wrestle, but didn't help against blades and spells. Various crafting cuttings that I was too broke to throw out. My money. Some kind of cloth bag or shirt that I didn't remember stuffing into the back left pouch. No help.

"Well, good, then. I think this will make a hell of a next novel! Impedimenta!" Lockhart began dancing backwards, circling the brightly glowing cauldron, Macnair gamely chasing him like it was an old slapstick sketch. "Of course, when I tell it, it will be me rescuing you, you understand? Flipendo! That's just what my readers expect."

"Happy to back your version, just stop Macnair!" I insisted, though I rather worried that maybe he'd been memory charming other people that had a contradictory version of the events in his stories.

"Right! My version! Obliviate!" he nailed the Death Eater with what might actually have been his only proficient higher-difficulty spell. Macnair slowed and went slack-jawed. "Okay! Great! Now, Dresden, oh, there you are! While I appreciate the approval, I'd rather tie up the loose end. You understand. Oblivi–"

I was already shielding against the incoming memory charm when the cauldron exploded.