Professor Flitwick was quite possibly one of the most knowledgeable people about certain subjects in the entire world. At the same time, he had trouble with stressful situations. Hannah felt like she was mainly there for moral support, but that was fine; she was familiar with feeling useless. Somehow the situation felt even more desperate than when they lost the Burma base and basically the whole country after that. It was something of a victory for the idea of doing the right thing when they managed to get the Death Eaters driven out of it, but after all the people they lost it hardly felt like a victory. There were hundreds of things that she would have asked Remus Lupin if she had the chance. It was bizarre, the way that chances past her by so frequently, and so frequently it came in the form of people dying.

"I took one chance," she said to herself, remembering what she and Ron had done together. Why am I thinking of this now? Why, when I'm trying to work on the warding.

Making it impossible for the enemy to return was itself impossible, but they were not even trying to keep the entire force away for ever, just part of it, and just enough to give them the time to make more strategic gains in the city. It was a runaway train where they were currently, and the minions would have everyone sooner or later, but as it was still a matter of time and they still needed everyone they had available, only the two of them had been asked to keep the other Death Eaters from rejoining them prematurely. They had never had the opportunity to mess with the warding when they left after the water horse because they had no idea how long it would take the enemy to either recover it or kill it, as it had not been part of the plan from the beginning. Hopefully, the change in the warding would be more unexpected as a result.

"Miss Abbott, that's a Gallic blood rune. Dark for the dark."

"Yes, sir," she said, correcting her mistake quickly. It was annoying and made her feel useless that he was having to check over what she was doing, but as long as it took him more time to actually do it himself, she was technically not useless. Technically not useless, Jesus-

"The Old Norse is rather like a waltz set three by three," he advised, the squeaking in his voice easily mistaken for uncertainty. In context, however, she was perfectly certain he knew what he was saying, since they were replicating some of the more commonly understood wards that protected Hogwarts. There was nothing, and there never had been, anything that entirely prevented the use of dark magic, but ever since the dark shield had been developed for use by their enemies, a certain someone had worked on understanding it.

"I don't know how you were able to focus on learning this sort of thing," she admitted as she worked. Please, we only need a few more minutes, please-

"I'm something of an academic by nature," he explained. Perhaps it was breaking his concentration; perhaps he was one of those who focused even better when he had something mindless to do at the same time. "I am aware you and Mr. Weasley are not the same way. You were always good students, but unlike Miss Granger, when circumstances were dire, you responded by acting. I responded with deeper study."

"I see. I never knew what happened to most of the teachers after we lost Hogwarts. I know a few of them found new teaching jobs elsewhere-" She looked over at him. "For some of them, though, teaching at Hogwarts wasn't just a job, I imagine."

Professor Flitwick responded with the softest of smiles.

"We're done, dear. There's just one thing that it needs."

She studied the wards trying to figure out what it was. The Gallic blood rune had to have been sated; there had already been more than enough death in the city to sate the blood wards for eternity, or at least that was what the theory indicated. The Elder Futhark, however, implied there was a cost to be paid.

"Will it take our own deaths?" she asked. "Do people on our side have to die in order to-"

"Not people on our side, Miss Abbott. Me."

"No!" she objected suddenly, pointing a wand at him.

"Whatever do you mean to do with that, dear girl?" he asked. "When you dropped everything to learn combative magic and fight, you precluded yourself from learning the perfect charms for diffusing a hostage situation. Did you know that there is one commonly used in Italy and Switzerland where everything around you freezes for a moment and wards cannot be activated?"

"You can't do this," she insisted, realizing he was probably right; there was no way of looking at it where she had anything she could do to stop him. "Please, Hermione loved you; you were her favorite teacher, I think-"

It was the wrong thing to say if she wanted him to think of some other way. She had no idea how that was supposed to happen; he was not doing this because he was suicidal; he genuinely wanted to continue-

"Use me instead," she offered. "I'm already dead inside."

"I am afraid not all of us see it that way. Your use of dark magic does not supersede the natural order of things, however hard it seems to be trying. The old will still fall before the young, and the fact that I have lost my best student means we have already passed on into a world gone mad. Miss Granger was the brightest witch of her age, and a heroine besides, and the fact that she died is a testament to the failure of proper adults to step in and duel. I have passed on what I hope to pass on, and one day or another, my work will continue. What will never happen is that I ask you to die for me, not when you have an even greater chance at living happily than my own student, if anyone in the Order is to be believed."

Of course they knew. All they had to do was watch us interact.

There was so much to unpack, but as with the rest of the friends and allies she had lost, she would have to unpack it later. At the very least, her teacher deserved someone bearing witness to his death, and bearing witness to it in the moment. As the warding lit up all at once it was like electricity coursing through him. Did he have his knowledge written down somewhere? When did he know he was going to die here?

"Goodbye," she whispered as he collapsed, moving his small body into a nearby house and out of the way. She could hate him for not being practical and sacrificing himself rather than someone less valuable, but there she was ensuring that a dead man was comfortable when time was the most valuable thing in the world. As she ran back into the fray, reviving the fallen minions that anyone who was still thinking was trying to keep alive, she could not help but consider the idea that the older must die before the younger.

It was practical, in a sense, as long as the difference was great enough, since the old would not enjoy life much longer, and however ridiculous it seemed to expect them to lay down their lives, it seemed even more ridiculous to expect the same of the young, except if it was one of those cultures where old people were always more valued than the young, and that seemed to be more common whenever there were a ton of younger people around, and continuation was not an issue. Am I a young adult, though, or am I a kid?

Rather than revisit the question as she fought with a pair of older wizards who were trying to deal with a crowd of her minions, she ducked behind a corner as they sent killing curses after her. They were good enough at basic shielding for the minions to have a hard time with them, but she was saved from having to actually deal with it as another minion got them from behind. They could have put up another shield, she supposed, but they could have killed the minions as well. They can't do that to their friends and relatives, though.

Hannah was not entirely over the basic nature of what they were doing. Even if the residents of New Mississippi were not neutral, and even if they had invited the Death Eaters to live inextricably among them, knowing what they were, they were civilians, and the Order had basically decided to put them in the ground. What was their intention? Maintaining a hold in Central America? Victory? They had already evacuated the children.

Countless ways of dishonestly representing the situation ran through her mind as she looked around for minions to revive. No, that one's dead. They could claim that it was absolutely necessary, or that the children they were harmlessly stunning were being forced to fight by the enemy, or really anything else, but she could not even see it happening, much less see it working. As the voice of the Order, as the Phoenix herself, she guessed that if anyone cared to ask, they would turn to Wahde for an explanation as to why this turn of events had come about. Let's hope McGonagall survives at least. We need someone who can keep a level head after this.

There were four Death Eaters keeping watch over each other in a tight square. She could not have identified them, but one was a witch. I can't deal with this many, least of all myself. They're not going to be stunning anyone. As she imagined, they put down an apparently lost minion as soon as they saw him. What do I do? Even if I had like a dozen minions on my side, they would still win, they would pick me out instantly and then just move. As long as they're together they basically can't lose.

Right as she was wondering what to do about four of them, two more showed up, joining the others as they made a sort of hexagon. She wanted to cry, but her tears had more or less run out, so the feeling just hurt her eyes. The new arrivals, however, turned around and stunned two of the old, and she jumped at the chance, hitting one with a body-bind right as the last one tried to deal with two minions at once, succeeding for a moment before being stunned by a red jet of spellfire from the sky. Andromeda-

Hannah wasted no time in enlisting their help in torturing the four Death Eaters into giving into the Imperius Curse.

Remembering the communication was down for the moment, she found what looked like a distressed Luna hiding in some building that she could not be bothered to identify. Her palms and fingertips were pressed hard against the side of her head.

"Luna?" she asked. "Are you-" Why am I even asking? "Luna, I'm sorry. I'm- we're all trying to win, and we've- we've got a good chance, please, just hold on-"

"It's not the Legilimency," she said.

"What?"

"They're just using it to communicate with each other now. They know what's going on, but they can't reach anyone else. Professor... Professor Flitwick's sacrifice worked, I think..." It seemed Luna still had some tears to cry. "It's something worse than that. There's something going on that I can't even understand. Everything is out of balance now, and it's worse than before."

"It's worse than- I don't understand either. I don't know how to help you. Is it okay if I come back for you? Is it okay if I keep fighting until I... I'm going to try not to die, okay?"

There was no response. As long as Luna could or would not explain what was wrong, there was nothing she could do to address it, and as long as she was hiding somewhere, she would most likely be safe until the end of the battle, one way or another. The minions were almost entirely mindless with all the minds they had to put under the Imperius Curse and with how little time they had to do it, but they would not attack their masters, and they would not lethally attack anyone.

Guiding the six masked minions forward, she stayed out of sight as she gave them new orders; there was no way the Death Eaters would not be expecting disillusioned enemies at this point, but because of the trick Professor McGonagall employed, they could not do the same themselves because they would not be able to identify each other. That was one of the weaknesses with the masks from the very beginning. At some point you're meant to be able to tell the masks apart, but if you don't have any other way of identifying each other, you'll either hit your own or someone else will have a chance at getting close to you.

There was a building that was being protected by visible warding; though she was not terribly familiar with the way cities were laid out, it looked important and she decided some amount of the enemy had to have pulled back and decided to secure themselves until their allies could return. In her mind it guaranteed the rest of the city would be taken, more or less without a hitch, but if in their belief that was a guarantee, then holding out was the right move. With another contingent of Death Eaters coming to hit the Order members, wherever they were, in the back, they really only had to hold out.

Andromeda landed next to her.

"You're aware of the situation," she went ahead and supposed. Hannah nodded. "We've got a good start, but if we're going to break through this, we need more of us."

"I'm not sure we should break through."

"It might be a good idea to worry about the ones who are coming back, but if we do, then it will just be these monsters cursing us in the backs as opposed to those. We have to solve the problem that lies in front of us and put ourselves at risk of dying in a pincer rather than trying to fix the problem that is not yet here and facing the certainty of dying."

"That sounds like a lot of decisions I've made recently. One way or another, we still need more of us."

As if on cue, she saw Ron and Luna walking up to them from behind.

"Podmore's dead," the wizard said. "Found his body back that way."

What she wanted to know was how he got the younger witch to get up and move when before it seemed like she was going to hide until the end of the battle. She was looking between the four of them over and over. I can ask later.

"We might survive," she whispered.

"I think the rest of 'em are holed up in there," Ron said, pointing with his wand. "I reckon you figured that, though."

"I actually saw about ten of them going in there," Andromeda said. She's had to be judicious with the times and places she's attacked; only tipping the balance when absolutely necessary.

"I have an idea," Hannah offered. "If we use these six, we can infiltrate and wipe them out before they see it coming."

"Six of them together should have a chance of-" His beginning of a response cut off as he seemed to be thinking about it. "There's no way they wouldn't-"

"It seems you're worn out," the older witch said.

"Just give me-" He stared off into the distance for a moment. "It'll work. Hannah, did you curse them yourself?"

"I can be certain they're not resisting," she said.

"Luna, you'll be controlling one of them at a range. That one's Bellatrix Lestrange; it's believable she'd be doing all the talking."

Andromeda moved forward and removed the witch's mask, seeing the face of her long-lost sister. She was having a hard time imagining what was going on in the mind of the witch who had become their ally, whose path had at last crossed again with the other. A moment later she put the mask back.

"You can never be too careful," she explained, not really explaining anything. "Luna, are you up for this? We really need to know if you can handle this. If you force yourself to do this and-"

"I can do this," she managed. "I... I haven't been fighting. I've just been listening."

Hannah was not sure whether that was better or worse.

"How can the rest of us help?"

"Can you- Merlin, I don't know anything about this- Can you join minds with Luna and help her?" He looked over at Andromeda. "We'll need you too if you can help."

"What will you be doing?"

"I'm going in with them. It'll look like they're bringing in a prisoner."

"No, you can't- why would they bring a prisoner with them? Just stay here with us- It doesn't really matter if we only manage to get three or four of them; we'll have plenty-"

"We have to win, Hannah. We'll need the ones we've got left to fight the Death Eaters who get back once they realize Voldemort didn't call them."

"Why did Bellatrix remain here?" Andromeda wondered. "She was supposed to be one of the most loyal-"

"Luna, get in her head."

Grabbing her hand, the younger witch entered both her mind and the mind of the loyalist.

"The loyalty worked against us," she explained after a moment. "She could never believe the Dark Lord would order them to leave the most critical battle of our age."

I guess we can't expect all of our plans to work.

"We should all stay outside," Hannah said. "Luna and I are going to be defenseless whilst we're focusing on manipulating Bellatrix. We need someone to look out for us."

He immediately looked to Andromeda, but she shook her head.

"I pretended to be my sister on behalf of the Order. I grew up with her. If we join minds, I could fool anyone."

"We don't have long," Ron decided. "We need to take the rest of the city first. If they're shoring up their defenses and waiting for reinforcements, they're not going anywhere."

She had difficulty imagining a contrary case. If Podmore were really dead, that was two of whom she knew, though there had to be more. Someone sent up a dark mark elsewhere in the city and she almost found it odd that she was relieved, even though they had agreed that a dark mark would mean that they were in the clear. It was an intentional trick to confuse the Death Eaters, who used the dark mark sometimes, but really only to claim credit for an attack, so they would probably realize it was not one of their numbers casting it, but the second most likely thing was that they would think the city was under their control once more.

"We should at least have a ward up that will tell us if they move, even if it's not likely," she decided, turning to take care of it herself. "The rest of you can go ahead."

"No. We should stay together." It was Luna again.

"Okay, well, I'll be done with this in just a minute- is there any way of estimating how much time we have until the other Death Eaters come back?"

"Reckon we'll just have to ask whoever just cast that dark mark," Ron decided.

When at last they were clear to leave the important-looking building where it seemed the Death Eaters were holed up, they went across town to the epicenter of the dark charm where they found Ernie, Professor McGonagall, Diggle, and Roger Davies, who seemed to have made a stand together from their surroundings. There were a few dead Death Eaters and several random objects that appeared to have been transfigured. There was even a chicken with large ears, though her imagination led her to believe it was Diggle's doing.

"Is this all of us, then?" the former Deputy Headmistress asked, looking at Ron of all people.

"No reason not to hold out hope. Shore up the defenses and help us get the rest of the city under control. If my brother and Tonks really are dead, we've got a lot of work to do between the rest of us."