I shouldn't be blasé about watching three men murdered in a gruesome fashion not ten feet from me. I was covered in bits of their blood and tissues. I should be screaming or vomiting, unable to focus, but I was steady, if grossed out. Maybe it was adrenaline, and I'd fall apart later. Maybe I'd seen enough deaths that I had a strong stomach. Maybe it was just that I didn't particularly know or like the victims, for all that I wouldn't have wanted them dead.

But maybe having my mentor's death on my soul had broken something fundamental in me. There was a good reason not to commit murder with magic, and the prime examples of it had us surrounded.

I chanced a look at my godmother out of the corner of my eye. It was hard to make out her features, backlit as she was by the only light source in the alley where it shone from above the door behind us, but I suspected she was trying to play it cool. No matter how good she was, people got lucky in a fight, and given the three separate spells while "Dawlish" did nothing, they had to have four wands on us from the darkness.

"Now that we have your attention," Crouch continued, "I'd like to talk about what you're up to, and whether you killed the Dark Lord."

"And I order you to answer him," one of the other assailants, the one that had managed the cutting curse, shouted from the darkness.

"Is that you Roddy, dear?" she called into the shadows. "I supposed that means the others are Rabby and Antonin, yes? Sloppy, using your signature curse, Tony. You never taught it to anyone else."

"Enough passing information to the boy," Crouch told her, now that I knew our friends in the dark were the Lestrange brothers and Antonin Dolohov. In particular, Dolohov was supposed to be a champion duelist, and there was no telling whether he'd recovered his skills after half a year out of Azkaban. "Way I see it, you have four outcomes: we kill you both, you run with auror deaths on you, we don't turn you in and just kill Dresden, or we leave both of you alive. That last is contingent on having a really good explanation for this faerie nonsense and cutting us in."

"But Barty," she argued, "if I'd wanted you in, I could have invited you at any time."

From the shadows, Rodolphus insisted, "Bellatrix Lestrange, I am your head of house and you will cease this nonsense and share your plans."

"That's not very progressive," I told him. "Might as well order her into the kitchen to go make you a sandwich."

"It was an arranged marriage," my godmother assured me. "Not even consummated. Were I beholden to a head of house, it would not be you, dear."

"Good time to ask them about the thing?" I asked her.

"Go ahead, Harry."

"What did you do with the cup?" I asked, to the shadows on the left where the Lestrange brothers seemed to be lurking.

"How the hell do they know about the cup?" Rabastan asked.

"Shut up!" Crouch ordered. "I know you're both skilled fighters, but you're surrounded so you need to start taking this seriously and explaining!"

I thought back to Percy's invented term from earlier in the summer and argued, "You see, that's where you're wrong. We're not surrounded, you're inverted. Constant vigilance!"

Then all hell broke loose.

I had thought exactly two seconds ahead, and managed to pull off my clever plan to not die: shield charm with my left hand, levitating the body with the exploded head with my right, and moving quickly to the side. I caught two lesser curses on the shield and managed to intercept the green light of Crouch's screamed, "Avada kedavra!" on the body. I didn't love using a murdered man as mobile cover, but he couldn't get any more dead, and I certainly could.

To my right, my godmother was backing my play. We'd never actually fought as a team, but she knew what I was capable of, and that I was basically mobile armor to her heavy artillery. After the initial salvo that I managed to absorb, the four of them were having to take the effort to shield against Bellatrix's attacks around the edge of my shield.

If we'd been alone, they would have been able to spread out and probably take us down, though my godmother might have killed a couple of them in the process. But we had backup, and more of it than I'd expected. It was hard to make out what was going on across the alley where it was pitch black and lit only by spellfire, but I heard voices that weren't just Moody's. The paranoid old man had grabbed additional backup of his own.

I also heard even more voices that weren't the four Death Eaters in front of us, so they'd probably brought some additional backup as well.

While it would superficially seem like we should have kept them all flanked between us, we had no cover but my shield and a dead auror, and you really don't want to be completely opposite your allies in a firefight anyway. I'd given half a thought to falling back into Borgin and Burke's, but early in the conversation I'd heard a faint click that made me suspect the old man had locked up specifically to avoid a battle spilling into his place of business.

I wasn't sure how long it took before we had curved back around to the left, meeting up with our allies. "Wotcher, Dresden!" Tonks managed around spells fired downrange. I thought I made out Kingsley Shacklebolt, skin so dark he was really only visible by his clothing in the spell light. That made five of us against what sounded like six of them. Even with Dolohov on their side and the extra fighters, we were probably better overall, and were slowly pushing them back, landing telling hits on some of them. But my godmother seemed off her game due to fighting on the opposite side she'd usually find herself on, and she couldn't actually use Unforgivables with aurors watching. The opposition had no such limitation.

We found that out when two green lights at once converged from separate angles and Shacklebolt could only dodge one of them. "Shack!" Tonks screamed in anguish as the big auror collapsed.

Before she and Moody could lose their minds, I yelled, "I've got him. Keep attacking!" Both of them poured their rage at their friend's death into their assault, while I knelt down on the grimy cobblestones next to the fallen auror. I took my staff in my off hand and tried to make sure I wasn't going to eat a killing curse of my own while I worked, drawing my unicorn horn focus with my right. I didn't exactly have the depth of emotion for Kingsley as I had for my friends, but he was a good man and I liked him. He'd been the first Order of the Phoenix member I'd met, and he'd called Dumbledore to get me out of Azkaban. I summoned up enough love to incant, "Hoc est corpus."

I was really hopeful when he was suffused with white light, but I didn't have time to make sure before I needed to keep moving.

The Lestrange brothers were visible by the light of their own shields as they were taking fire from both Tonks and Moody and pinned down, while my godmother had managed to fight a one-on-one duel with Dolohov. I thought I could make out Crouch trying to revive the other combatants after they'd been hexed unconscious. The brothers had strong shields, and were holding up against the auror assault, until I made use of the focus I had to hand and yelled, "Excorio!"

The exorcism charm ignored their shields and caught one of the brothers full in the chest. I couldn't actually tell them apart in the dark, but as I held onto the effect, lighting up the alley with the pulsing ray of white static that connected us, he began to wail in enforced remorse for all his misdeeds. That was enough for his brother to throw a, "Bombarda!" at the cobblestones, using the explosion to cover their retreat.

Dolohov was enough of a pro to realize it was over, and threw down a line of black mist to cover his own escape. By the time someone had managed a wind charm to clear all the obstructions, only one enemy body remained unconscious on the ground, left by his allies. We'd later find that it was Terrence Higgs, former seeker for Slytherin who'd graduated before I had. Tonks seemed prepared to give chase, but Moody cautioned, "No use, lass. Run off into the dark and they won't be the only threats further in."

"They killed Shack!" she argued.

"Only for a second," Kingsley groaned, sitting up.

With a high-pitched shriek of excitement, I was almost knocked over by the hug Tonks gave me. "You're going to teach me those spells!" she insisted.

"I thought all the aurors were learning them," I complained, as she skipped over to check on her partner.

Moody grumbled, still keeping an eye on the alley, "They were hard and most of them didn't want to. Part of the reason I went ahead and retired. Bet they'll make them mandatory now. Where are the rest of the them, anyway?"

We only had to wait a couple more minutes before the auror reinforcements braved the dark alley. I guess, to be fair, six of the on-duty staff were accounted for, and there weren't a huge number of people on the force.

All that was left was the boring rest of the process. I missed dinner. My godmother got to call both the Malfoy and the Black lawyers. Cornelius Fudge made a brief appearance to badly damage his bowler hat as he crushed it nervously while getting the report, but stayed as far from Bellatrix as possible. I finally got to meet Amelia Bones, the head of the whole department, who seemed grudgingly impressed and hiding it behind her monocle.

"We recovered John Dawlish," she explained to the assorted aurors present, most of whom were in mourning for the three that had been killed. The gray-haired witch looked sour about the whole thing. "Locked in his own home cupboard for months. We're instituting new security procedures. Vigil for Proudfoot, Williamson, and Fawley this weekend. Lestrange and Dresden, you're free to go."

"How much of that was planned?" I asked my godmother, as we were checked out and walking across the giant foyer of the Ministry.

She shrugged. "How was I to know that you could just polyjuice as an auror for months with no one noticing? Roddy and Rabby should have had the sense to be laying low. If they'd wanted to know what was going on, they could have just owled me."

"So, everything up until the confrontation, but you didn't actually know it would be a surprise family get-together?" I figured.

"Something like that," she shrugged. "Thank Moody for me, for bringing more backup than I expected. And tell him that if he had gotten my niece killed, I would have been upset."

"I'm sure it will be a lovely Black family Christmas," I smirked. "Let me know when Borgin gets back to you?"

"Of course, Harry. Have I ever kept secrets from you?"

I just rolled my eyes and stepped into the floo, "Goodnight, ma'am."

"Sleep well, Harry!" she called as I whirled off to the safety of my house. I knew I wouldn't, for a while yet, because Penny and Percy were going to need everything explained. At least I'd make them order my takeout, for the story.

I was just stepping out of the fireplace as I realized and slapped myself in the forehead in disappointment, groaning, "I forgot to quote Pulp Fiction at them!"