"Expecto nuntius!" I incanted, then ordered Mouse, "Tell Tonks: Black, Crouch Jr, Mavra, at least one other Death Eater and two Black Court at the movie theater. They're summoning something. Audience full of muggles. Malfoys in danger too." I released the silvery dog to go get help. Like most of the times I was out these days, we'd briefed a selection of adults about where we'd be. It was annoying how often it was necessary.
"You didn't mention us," Thomas raised an eyebrow after I'd sent the patronus off. I assumed he could see it, but wasn't sure.
"I only mentioned the Malfoys because the aurors might move their butts faster when it's them in danger," I explained. "I'll go warn the other wizards. You tell your family and check if it's safe to go out the emergency exit?"
"Take charge attitude," he nodded, seemingly impressed. "Will do."
I didn't bother to try to lock the doors, since they'd just blow them open or kick them down. Instead, as Thomas slipped toward the front where his sister and cousin were sitting to the side, I waved to catch Mathilda's attention, pointed out into the lobby, and made a "fangs" gesture by holding my index fingers down in front of my mouth. Even in the darkness toward the back of the theater I could make out a long-suffering sigh and a nod. She slipped into the aisle to warn her uncle and sisters, while I crept up to the Malfoys.
"Dresden, what?" Lucius hissed, embarrassed that I was squeezing my imposing height in the way down the middle of the theater, nearly stepping on feet of his row-mates to come talk to him.
"Death Eaters in the lobby with Black Court and a big black dog," I whispered as best I could into his ear. It was a calculated risk, but he was either working with his old pals and this would break his plausible deniability about me getting hurt, or he would be pissed they endangered his family to get at me.
"I'm going to murder Cantankerous," he swore, quietly.
"Nott let you used the theater?" I asked. That would have been nice to know earlier.
I started extricating myself in a mostly-ungainly fashion from the row and glanced over to where Thomas was trying the emergency exit door, only to find it blocked. At this point, with all the wizards and vampires in the audience moving in various kinds of worried ways, the muggles were starting to catch on, especially with the Grimblehawks forming up defensively in the aisle near the exit into the lobby. I moved over and explained exactly what was going on again while the Raiths tried to force the door on the other side of the theater.
I didn't know how good Mathilda's sisters were in a fight. Abraham was fairly powerful, but got winded quickly based on the fight I'd seen him in previously. The Malfoys were probably pretty good, if they were willing to help out. So we slightly outnumbered our opponents, but they weren't likely to care about collateral damage and about the only cover we had inside the theater was hiding behind bystanders. "We need to try to push into the lobby," I suggested. That would let us control the fight and keep them from just setting the theater on fire.
"They have to come at us down the vomitorium, though," Edith, Mathilda's oldest sister, argued.
"But if they do, they'll hit muggles," I tried to explain. Honestly, the strategizing would also be easier if we weren't having to whisper loudly at each other while the students nearby looked on at us in confusion.
Before she could offer a rebuttal, one of those students loudly said, "I didn't know this was a 3D movie!"
I turned to see what he was talking about, and the black-shrouded killer from the movie did, indeed, seem to be emerging from the screen. The trick of perspective fooled me for a moment, but I suddenly realized what they'd been trying to summon by getting me and Sirius Black into the same place. I sighed and explained to the Grimblehawks, "It's Voldemort."
Give the White Court vampires their due, they were on the ball. From the still-locked emergency exit door, Lara yelled out in a voice that was honestly better acting than she'd managed for the movie, "Oh no! It's the killer! And the door is locked!" She took on the posture of her character, cowering from the apparition (who actually wasn't focused on her at all).
"Permission to cut loose and play along?" I asked Abraham. As the senior Ministry representative, I'd need him to speak up if Dawlish came after me for using magic in front of a theater full of muggles. He nodded, so I turned around, drew my unicorn horn focus and announced, "Don't worry, ma'am. I'll b… banish this ghost!" I almost said "bust," obviously, but discarded the idea at the last moment as too hammy. Lara's acting was better than mine, at least. I followed it up with, "Hoc est corpus!"
Wraith Voldemort, unfortunately, was more agile than I gave him credit for, narrowly dodging the spell in midair as the blast of phoenix light seemed to cause some of his trailing smoky essence to dissipate. I didn't know if he could sense what I was doing, or had figured out during his stints in the castle that I was researching a way to destroy his wraith form. "Dresden!" he howled, raising up into the ceiling to try to give himself more room to maneuver.
"I didn't know this was a multimedia show!" one of the theatergoers explained to his friend.
The film projector started to sputter above as I unleashed magic in the room, creating a strobing effect in the theater and probably making it hard to follow the actual murder scene happening in the movie. Voldemort's smokelike form was difficult to make out in the dark above, visible more as a wispy shadow in the flickers of projector light. The soulfire charm took a lot out of me, so I couldn't just volley it repeatedly at the wraith of the dark lord. "'Thilda! Can you herd him with your patronus?" I asked her.
"On it!" my girlfriend agreed, and snapped out, "Expecto patronum!" to send Mini to fly up to the ceiling. With her being 17 now, she didn't even have to worry about the Trace, though it might be nice to have aurors show up to investigate underaged magic in a city center. I wondered what the muggles were actually seeing, since they didn't normally see patronuses or dementors. Obviously they were seeing something where Voldemort was, so his wraith form wasn't that much like a dementor.
I was getting ready to take another shot at the wraith as Mathilda's patronus limited his ability to dodge when spellfire washed out of the hallway for the rest of the Grimblehawks to shield against. "Master!" Crouch Jr. yelled from the vomitorium, as Edith had called it. That might only apply to the entries into stadium seating, but this was no time to dither over architectural terminology. "Master, it is not time! Come with us!" the skinny Death Eater exclaimed, then ran back out into the lobby before anyone could return fire.
With the two distractions, I very nearly landed my second soulfire charm on Voldemort, causing the projector to flicker even worse. Taking the better part of valor, he floated into the ceiling just before my spell struck. "Intangibility is cheating!" I yelled. I looked at the Malfoys, who had at least gotten out to the aisle and were dithering over what to do, and I told them, "Protect the bystanders!"
Abraham nodded, "Good show! Let's try to capture some of them!" and then pushed forward with his nieces. I wasn't far behind them, though I was a little winded from multiple Apologies in a short period. They weren't any less energy-intensive than the Unforgivables seemed to be.
We did a somewhat-tactical entry into the theater's lobby, Edith managing a decent-looking shield and the rest of us breaking left and right as soon as we cleared the door in case someone threw a killing curse our way. The concessions stand was up a short set of stairs to our right, the ticket counter across the lobby from us, and the doors out to our left. There wasn't a ton of cover other than a few armchairs and the columns supporting the middle of the building.
Fortunately, the bad guys were in the process of evacuating, not waiting in ambush. Up by the concession counter, the giant snake was curled up and spasming as the last of Voldemort's black smoke was absorbed into it. Always with the possessing snakes, that guy. Nott was looming nearby, next to Black (as usual, in his dog form). Crouch turned and threw some kind of dark curse at us that Edith managed to deflect with her shield. "Time to go!" Nott echoed from behind his Death Eater mask.
To the left, behind the ticketing counter, Mavra was overseeing her undead himbos as they were drinking from the girl Crouch stunned on the way in. "Leave her, you idiots!" she grated at them, before turning and firing her own curse our way that I just lifted one of the plush chairs into the path of.
"Confringo!" Abraham launched his favorite spell at Mavra, and she barely got a shield up in time to cancel out the blasting curse. Fortunately she didn't deflect it into the walls. The old guy was too used to fighting creatures in open terrain.
"Excorio!" I tried, Apologies focus still in hand and hoping that any of the targets on the right would be seriously inconvenienced by the exorcism charm. I was honestly hoping to hit Black or the snake, but Crouch jumped in the way, shield up (for all the good it did him).
His anguished scream was at least gratifying as the magic connected and ran celestial fire along the cracks in his soul.
Behind him, Nott scooped the snake back up and tossed a, "Crucio!" my way, forcing me to duck back behind the chair that was smouldering from Mavra's spell and breaking the spell on Crouch. "Grab the dog and move!" the senior Death Eater told him before spinning in place and disapparating with Voldemort and his new host body.
Meanwhile, Mathilda had hit one of the vampire minions with a fire-making charm. Between me and her uncle, she was learning some really bad lessons about spells that are appropriate inside non-warded structures. Fortunately, the screaming vampire turned and rushed through the nearby doors to find a place to put himself out without catching the lobby on fire.
The second minion was charging for us, giving Mavra a distraction to run out after her immolating spawn. Seemingly confused by the whole thing, Black was bounding out the door after them, with Crouch, still messed up by the exorcism, staggering after them yelling, "No. You moronic dog! Come back!"
Abraham's second blasting curse was more than adequate for an immature vampire charging straight at us, and flaming chunks of the creature got spread around the lobby. Bob had suggested to me that Black Court probably got more magic resistant as they got older, but young ones were only so much kindling if you could light them up before they could get their hands and teeth into you. "That's me tapped, I think," the elder Grimblehawk wheezed.
The room free of opponents, Giselle was running across to try to save the girl who'd had her throat torn open by the vampires. Hopefully veterinary healers knew magic that worked on people, too. "C'mon, Harry!" Mathilda insisted, rushing out after the fleeing opponents. As she'd expected, I was right behind her.
"Bloody Gryffindors!" Edith swore, bringing up the rear. I wasn't sure where she'd been sorted, but she struck me more as a Ravenclaw.
Mavra had managed to extinguish her surviving minion, though, with only his swim trunks for clothing, he was obviously badly burned. Black was turned and growling next to them, with Crouch still semi-drunkenly charging across the street after them. They weren't in the best spot for physically running from us, with a high fieldstone wall along the length of the road on the other side, broken only by the occasional driveway. It looked like the students at the theater had mostly walked from their various colleges rather than driving, so there weren't even too many cars down the street to provide cover.
Before they could figure out whether to try to flee or fight, Mathilda snapped off a spell she'd been working on as part of her animagus training, "Homorphus!"
The animagus-reversal spell managed to nail the black dog, and in moments he'd transformed into a crouching human. Still wearing his Azkaban prison clothing, the emaciated figure was, as expected, clearly the Sirius Black of the wanted posters, including the long, unkempt black hair and beard. He shook his head in confusion, the hair flopping about.
Before anyone could react to the transformation, he stumbled to his feet and moved away from the vampires and Crouch. I really wasn't expecting him to shout, "Wait! I want to talk! I'm innocent!"