TW: Injuries, torture (Cruciatus curse) and unkind language.
xXx
Before Bess could turn her arm to fire the next spell over her shoulder as Daphne had taught her, she felt a long fingered hand close around her throat, and she was pulled viciously forward as her wand arm was pulled magically behind her back.
"You want to fight then?" Voldemort whispered, his breath flowing uncomfortably over her lips. "A last stand?" He paused for a moment and stared at her, and Bess felt sick at the look in his eye. "I will say, I admire your tenacity. It is more than I can say for some of your kind. Intriguing... I daresay I will enjoy this all the more... a Muggle with magical powers? I will be even more of a darling to the upper echelons of Wizardkind for murdering you... for making an example of you. But I see regret in your eye." His thumb twitched and moved to her jaw where it flexed and turned her head to the side. "Look," he whispered.
Bess dragged her eyes away from his. She shook when she saw the students inside the shop, and they stared back at her. Voldemort's grip tightened and she stopped moving.
She recognised one boy in the shop as the now-Fifth Year Slytherin boy she'd saved from Sirius and James way back in her early days at Hogwarts. He stood in a cluster of students in the window. From their stances, she could tell they were readying themselves for a fight.
She felt Voldemort's breath against her cheek now as he whispered, "You will use everything that old fool taught you to put on a good show, and together we will symbolise Pureblood superiority in action. In return, I now promise you a long and arduous death, as it seems you would reject a quick one. I promise that I will allow you to go down in the history books as the most pathetic excuse for a Muggle-born there ever was."
Bess couldn't help but feel cheated by that one - she didn't really want to become an old song of stupidity, like the one Sirius and Regulus were made to learn about Ravan the Horrid.
"If you do not fight," Voldemort continued, raising his wand towards the shop. "I will have to entice you further, and you will watch as they burn."
Bess saw the Fifth Year students move, pushing the younger students around them further back into the shop, preparing to put themselves in front of Voldemort's spell. The boy she knew nodded to her, and she tried to speak. She knew that her decision would have been fight whether or not Voldemort had issued this ultimatum. He hadn't needed to threaten the children - his Death Eaters and Voldemort's presence was already doing that enough.
A garbled noise came out rather than her words, and Voldemort released her slightly, his hand still tight, and he touched his wand to her sternum.
Bess looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "They're... Pu- they're pu-"
"What?" he asked, shaking her slightly.
Bess grimaced and wheezed out, "You wouldn't hurt them. They're Purebloods."
Voldemort smiled and whispered, "It is of no consequence to me whether they die at my hand, or at the hands of another."
Bess blinked and averted her eyes from his, which were now gleaming with malicious intent.
"And... and if I refuse and you kill them all," she whispered, "you'll make everyone think it was me."
Voldemort smiled and nodded slowly.
"Fight," Bess said without hesitation. "I choose to fight."
"Good," Voldemort grinned manically. He moved his wand-tip from her sternum and twirled it around in the air. "No one will interfere!" he shouted to his Death Eaters, who remained in front of the shops, some laughing and taunting the children and adults within, some watching Bess and Voldemort closely. The Death Eaters' faces were all covered, and she wondered for a moment if any of their brothers, sisters, or children were in the shops, unknowingly terrified of their own kin.
"The Aurors will be here soon," she wheezed.
Voldemort laughed and continued to twirl his wand. "They are here already."
"Fish?" she asked, and she winced as the hand tightened around her throat again.
Still, she looked out of the corner of her eye, straining herself to see. There, in the far corner of the street stood Horace Fish, his expression unnaturally calm considering the circumstances. Bess whimpered. He was still under the Imperius Curse. How could no one see that?
A Wizard in black Auror robes moved forwards and Fish flicked his wand. Ropes burst out from nowhere and restrained the Auror who had moved. Fish's voice carried across the otherwise silent street. "STAND DOWN! I SAID STAND DOWN! AVOID BLOODSHED. UNLESS YOU ARE ATTACKED, STAY WHERE YOU ARE."
Bess looked away and down, her hand firming around her wand. There was not much she could do apart from ready herself now. Her arm was still magically constricted behind her back, and she couldn't shoot any useful spells from this angle.
She knew that the three pops of Apparition she'd heard had been from people on her side - Sirius and the others would have heard her plea for help and alerted the Order, and then come to her aid. But still, it made sense now that no one had done anything to help her thus far - Sirius and the others (and any Order members she knew) would be waiting for the moment she was out of Voldemort's way - he was too close to her, and could kill her instantly if he wished. And the Aurors under Fish's command couldn't do anything now that Fish had told them to stand down.
Bess concentrated on Voldemort again. She felt some kind of magic pass through her, emanating from his wand. A silver shimmer moved quickly, pushing outwards until it covered most of the street around them, stopping on the edges of the road to create a barrier between Bess and Voldemort and the people around them.
She was terrified now, but she knew that if she could just get her arm back round to her front, she'd be able to fight. She had to believe that he would honour his own terms of battle.
The hand around her throat tightened and then she gasped as a spell hit her in the chest and she felt herself flying through the air. She landed flat on her back metres away, the breath knocked out of her. Still, she came to her senses quickly enough and rolled to the left, narrowly escaping a jet of red light which charred the ground where she had just been.
She rolled over again and held out her wand, ready to cast another spell to protect herself, but it was too late. Another spell hit her, and the pain which erupted throughout her body made her back arch. She screwed her eyes shut and screamed out into the unnaturally quiet street. She dropped her wand as she writhed, and heard it roll away behind her.
This was worse than before, but then she supposed she hadn't been plagued by horrendous brain-splitting visions for the past months, and she wasn't under the influence of a pain potion. She knew now why everyone had been so surprised when she'd walked away from the battle of Covent Garden and refused a pain potion mere hours later.
Where are they? she screamed in her head when the pain continued, trying to figure out why Sirius wasn't there to help her. She needed him, and she knew it was selfish, but she wanted him to come to her aid now. She wanted him to save her. To walk through that stupid shimmering ward, punch Voldemort in the face, and tell her she was trouble and- WHERE ARE YOU PUP?! WHERE ARE YOU?!
After too long, after too many seconds, after too many minutes, the pain finally stopped and she found that she was lying on her front now, the right hand side of her hot face pressed flat against the unnaturally cold cobblestones. She braced her forearms against the stones, panting. She looked up and saw that her wand was lying just a metre away from her. Tantalisingly out of reach.
She heard a high pitched laugh behind her, and with a renewed energy she began to crawl on her belly away from the evil Wizard, trying to get to her wand.
His laugh rang out again and he called, "No one can help you," as another spell hit her and she felt herself slammed into the ground, her face hitting the floor forcefully.
Bess whimpered as the pressure of his spell left her and she raised her head again, feeling blood trickle from her nose. Through watery eyes she saw her wand still just out of reach.
She knew Voldemort was right - her choice to fight had been a choice to leave the protection of other Wizards and Witches behind her. She was on her own out here. Surrounded by people, and still alone. The pain of the Cruciatus curse had made her shout for Sirius, but she knew he couldn't help her, only it took her an unclouded mind to admit it to herself.
And then Voldemort laughed again and said, "They will watch as you die at my hand. They think this is the end, but it is only the beginning! They will watch a new era dawn where Muggles like yourself will crawl at the feet of our Wizardkind!"
She couldn't help herself. As she lunged forwards and reached out towards her wand, she shouted back, "You don't even care about blood status! You just want power!"
A spell hit the ground in front of her hand before her fingers could close around her wand, and she pulled her arm back hastily.
Her wand remained just ahead of her. Just out of reach. If she could just stretch her arm a little more...
Again, pain flooded her senses and she thumped her head into the ground and pulled her legs and arms into her chest, trying to stop herself from reacting outwardly to the pain of the spell. She bit down on the excess leather of Sirius' jacket to keep her screams muffled. Defiantly, she thought this would make Voldemort less satisfied with the torture and potentially make him eek out the fight a bit more, giving her more time to come up with a plan.
"Look! Look at them!" he shouted. "They will watch you die and then join me!"
Bess gasped and, felt herself magically lifted up by her hair, forcing her even under the pain of the Cruciatus to look up. There, standing ten metres away and just outside the shimmering silver dome, was Sirius. And James. And Lily. Remus, Jasper, Kingsley, Alice, Frank, Moody... The list went on. Aurors mainly, but Order members all the same. People she knew all the same.
She screwed up her face as the pain intensified and stared back at Sirius. He was on his knees, his hands in fists by his sides, his upper body bound by Fish's ropes. He stared back at her, his eyes filled with anger and fear. His left arm was no longer in a sling, but through the ropes, Bess could see that his arm was bandaged, the white fabric snaking its way from his shoulder to his wrist.
Why aren't they helping Sirius? she wondered through her haze of pain. Were they just going to watch as she died here? In the middle of the street? Like Dumbledore?
"Pup," she screamed, and Sirius' mouth dropped open, his shoulders moving as he heaved in breaths. She was trying to tell him that he needed to go, needed to survive so he could do what she couldn't now, but the pain was too overwhelming to get more words out yet.
Voldemort gave her a reprieve from the pain and she collapsed against the floor once more, gasping. Before she'd caught her pattern of breathing again, he cried, "Crucio!" once more.
This time, she rolled onto her back, her screams echoing throughout the deadly silent street as she failed to control herself this time. The torture spell went on for what felt like hours, and when it stopped, she placed her head back against the cobbles and sobbed.
"GO! DON'T HELP ME!" she screamed out, her eyes screwed tightly shut, but no one answered.
Except for Voldemort.
His cold laugh rang out again and he said, "They cannot help you even if they wanted to. No one can help you until I allow you to move. If any one of those TRAITORS," he yelled, "tries to interfere, they will go the same route as him."
Bess felt her head turn involuntarily by Voldemort's magic again and opened her eyes. There, just a metre away from where Sirius knealt, but within the dome this time, someone lay in the street, their body half obscured by a cart with a sign which read, 'Madam Eleanor's Crystal Ball. You may not see it coming, but I can'.
Despite her upset at the poor Auror's death, she couldn't help the small dark humoured laugh that bubbled up and escaped her lips. She sure as hell hadn't seen this coming.
But, she thought, sobering, the ward Voldemort scared her more now and she realised that the ropes around Sirius weren't from Fish at all, but probably from James, Remus or even Lily. Maybe one of the other Order members, but probably from one of their closest friends - Sirius couldn't come to help her at all without dying.
She thought back to what Daphne had told her and prepared her for - Bess tried to think but it was hard through the pain-filled brain fog. She'd heard the three warning signals, and then she'd begun her fight. Daphne was wrong, she thought. Unless... Unless this wasn't the time that Daphne had Seen. What if this wasn't the time she'd been warning Bess about.
Bess shifted slightly and heard something next to her head roll against the cobbles. Her wand. Slowly, careful not to draw attention to what she was doing, she rolled onto her front and began to crawl towards Sirius again, this time smiling slightly when she felt her hand pass over her wand. She picked it up and sighed with relief.
Hunching over and scooting her knees up, she ducked her head down and watched Voldemort's black robes swish as he walked near-silently towards her.
She knew that he wanted to be up close and personal to kill her - he had shown his hand already. This was a power play, pure and simple. He was going to show the future of Wizarding society that he could and would put Muggles in their place.
But her mind went blank as he came closer, and then suddenly, she remembered the first spell she'd ever cast.
She shoved her hand out through the gap between her arm and her knee, and rolled onto her back, yelling, "Aguamenti," picturing a large crashing wave of water. She found her arm shoved backwards into the cobbles she was lying on, and an intense jet of water flew out of the tip of her wand. The jet was so powerful that Voldemort was pushed backwards by the shock of it, before he screamed in anger and began to slash at the air, stopping her spell in its tracks.
The water became ice which fell heavily to the ground, smashing into a million pieces. But by the time Voldemort had stopped her spell, she was yelling, "Alarte Ascendare" and concentrating on Voldemort's robes which flew upwards, showing off long pale legs, the black fabric of his robes obscuring his vision.
Another roar of anger rang out as Voldemort counter-acted the curse, and Bess knew that her luck would soon be over.
She tried one more spell, yelling, "Telum Mitterent Maxima!" as she got to her feet and began to run towards a cart just opposite the one with the dead Auror behind it. She didn't stop to see if the spell had worked, but she could hear a multitude of clangs and thuds as metal thumped into the ground and so assumed that it had.
She dove behind the second cart and landed heavily on her side as a jet of green light smashed into the wooden vehicle, blowing it up.
The wood of the cart hit Bess across her left side and whacked into her head. She felt a trickle of hot liquid run down her face and she groaned and lay back against the ground as the contents of the cart, and hot burning wood and ash, buried her and her vision blurred. A heavy weight of wood slammed down onto her stomach and more settled over her legs and arms.
Her hand tightened around her wand, ready to fight until she couldn't anymore. But then another jet of green light shone through the ash and she closed her eyes, turning her head towards the remnants of the cart before she involuntarily fainted from the pain, injuries, and the wood which lay across her stomach, constricting her breath.
xXx
She slowly opened her eyes, blinking slowly as she came round. Her arms and legs felt uncomfortably hot, and her cheek felt heavy, as if something was lying across it. It took her a moment to realise that she'd woken up because someone was shouting nearby, and not because she'd done so naturally.
Her hand tightened around her wand as much as it could, but she was weak and had intense pins and needles, stopping her from getting a proper grip. Fear rose from her belly when as she tried to decipher the voices until at last she realised that they were James, Sirius and Remus arguing, their voices closer to her than they should have been if the wards Voldemort had placed around her were still in place.
She gasped out a breath, realising that this meant the wards were gone. Sirius was within reach. She tried to move but couldn't under the weights lying over her, and she was too weak to push them off. She gave up trying quickly, and listened to the voices of her friends, their angry words carrying over the top of a multitude of frantic voices.
"I said stop!" James roared, and suddenly silence descended, even the frantic voices nearby silenced by his shout.
"I have to go to her," Sirius insisted. "I have to-"
"No," James said, "I'll go. It was bad enough when you thought she was... And now? Just let me clean her up and I'll bring her over to-" But his voice broke and he didn't continue.
"Prongs," Sirius said, his voice cracking and breaking uncharacteristically. He sounded pained, and not just with worry for her. She wanted to stand, wanted to go to him, wanted to show him that she was alive and okay, wanted to be in his arms. "I need to-" he said. Bess felt sick at the sound of fear in his voice.
But the nauseous feeling could also have come from the fact that she was inhaling ash. She turned her head and let out a feeble groan at the effort she exerted.
"I'll go," Remus said firmly. "I'll go. Padfoot, just wait here. Let me do this for you. I'll check, okay?"
Bess wanted to shake her head. Wanted to shout out that she wanted, no, needed, Sirius. That she wanted him to pull the weights off her. But she was too weak. Tears sprang to her eyes and she sniffed quietly. She heard footsteps, and then the wood across her stomach began to move and shift.
"No," Lily called, and the movement stopped. "I- I'm just... Could you do it the Muggle way?" she asked, her voice thick. "She'd appreciate that."
Bess blinked and breathed in shallowly, and then she felt Remus begin to shift the weight of wood off her stomach. It was different than the first time - the weight of the wood pressed heavily against her side as it lifted off her stomach and her ribs moved unnaturally and crunched. By the pain in her side they'd already been broken, but this was making it worse.
She let out a long wheeze of pain but the sound was swallowed by Remus' own groan as he lifted the heavy weight. At last, she could breath a little better, but her chest was still constricted by her broken bones. She closed her eyes in relief and tried to catch her breath, sucking in shallow wheezing breaths.
"I can help," Jasper said as he arrived at Remus' side.
Too weak to do anything apart from breath, she stayed still, feeling little weights pulled off her one by one. Pain began to build throughout her body as injuries were uncovered. It was nothing as bad as the pain she'd had after her visions, or her werewolf slash, but her muscles ached still from the Cruciatus Curse and she was exhausted now, unable to focus on something else to try and numb the pain.
As Remus and Jasper continued to work to unbury her, the silence around them became unbearable. She wanted Sirius to say something. To come to her. But he didn't.
Slowly, achingly, torturously slowly, they pulled all of the remnants of the blown up cart - for Bess had finally realised what she was lying under - away from her, and then Bess felt a shaking hand gently move across her exposed cheek and then her forehead. She half-opened her eyes and watched Remus out of the corner of her eye. It took a moment for him to notice that her eyes were open, but then they made eye contact.
Bess didn't expect his reaction. He paled suddenly, the colour draining from his face, and then he gasped and turned away from her, promptly throwing up on the ground next to her.
She averted her eyes, staring upwards into the dark grey clouds which now sat heavily in the sky, obscuring the blue that had been there before, and didn't move. She wanted to respect Remus' right to privacy, and also didn't want to see the vomit on the floor - she knew that if she saw or smelt it, she would throw up as well. And with her ribs the way that they were, she didn't want that extra pain.
Turning her gaze to stare through a small gap of the rest of the upturned cart which lay next to her, she saw the hems of a multitude of different coloured robes - lots of them school robes - but Voldemort's black ones didn't seem to be there. She sighed with relief and felt a single tear fall from the corner of her left eye.
If the students were still there, it meant that they were safe. She'd done her duty to them.
"Evanesco," Remus whispered, his quiet voice breaking through her thoughts. "Sorry."
"S'ok," she whispered back, but her voice was drowned out by Jasper's kind but firm voice.
"It's okay," Jasper said. "Go back to the others. I've got this."
"I wasn't expecting..." Remus replied.
"Her eyes to be open?" Jasper asked. Remus must have nodded, because Jasper replied, "I know. I'll close them before Sirius sees, okay?"
And then Bess heard Remus' uneven footsteps travel away from her, and Jasper's fingers slowly closed her eyes. She didn't open them yet - for some reason it felt like she could hear better with her eyes closed.
"Sirius, stop!" James shouted again. "Moony threw up for Merlin's sake. You can't handle-"
"I can!" Sirius shouted.
"What're you going to do, bleed on her?" Moody asked loudly. "Stay where you are unless you want to add amputee to your widower title."
"Stop! Just stop!" Lily shouted, her voice wobbling. Bess could tell she was crying, but her voice still carried the weight and strength of a leader, and even Bess stopped breathing for a second. "Sirius, James is right. You're injured even more than you were before. You need to let someone heal your leg. Right now you wouldn't be able to lift her if you went over there, and all she'd want would be to be... she'd want to be in your arms. So just let Jasper bring her over. Please?"
Bess' eyes filled with tears. Did they think she was dead again? She couldn't think of what Sirius was going through. And he in a bad way. She knew his arm had been injured yesterday and was healing thanks to Perenelle's balm, but if his leg was so bad he couldn't even come to her side? He must be in pain.
She needed to know how bad it was. But for the life of her, she couldn't move. She was too weak even now, and the pain was overwhelming her again.
She let out a whimper and her lips turned down and began to wobble as more tears began to fall, trailing from the corners of her eyes to pool uncomfortably by her ears or down onto her neck.
She wanted someone to see that she was still alive, but no one had noticed. She felt alone, terrified, and overlooked. She just wanted to shout at them all and tell them to stop messing around and get her to Sirius.
Lily continued, her voice sterner now. "And Moody, whether you're upset and angry or not, those are two of my best friends. Have some respect!"
"I just need to shift her. Wouldn't forgive myself if this bloody cart fell on her again," Jasper said kindly, calling away from her, and then he turned to Bess and said, "Okay, Coulson, just like last time, I'm going to pick you up and we're going to go for a short walk okay? Now... This time is both better and worse... Last time you were screaming your head off and covered in blood. But this time? This time my heart's breaking. So go easy on me okay? I don't want any hauntings or random undead jerks, okay? Keep it clean."
He sighed deeply and there was silence for a moment before Bess felt his hands start to slide underneath her, one under her shoulders, the other underneath her knees.
He tried to pick her up but then he slipped slightly from her weight and let out a grunt before he readjusted quickly.
"Sorry Coulson, you're a bit heavier than last time," Jasper said. "But I've got you now."
Bess stopped crying and instead tried not to laugh as Jasper turned and she was moved a few feet. He carefully placed her down carefully on the cobblestones, and put her wand in her hand.
And then, finally, she felt Sirius' hand brush her arm as it travelled over the leather of his jacket which she was still wearing, and settled at her face, his fingers splayed across her cheek. She knew it was him without looking, and felt comforted immensely that he'd repeated Voldemort's action, as if trying to wipe away the stain of the evil Wizard's touch on her skin.
He moved his hand to her neck and did the same thing, repeating Voldemort's movements and making sure that the last touches those parts of her skin felt were of Sirius' hands, not Voldemort's.
"Didn't know dead people could cry," he whispered, and she felt his breath on her lips, comfortable, homely, safe, as he carefully wiped away her tears with one hand, and placed a kiss to her temple, cheek, nose...
He was so close now, and she didn't have the strength to lift her head to kiss him, not with her ribs feeling so broken, so she did what any immature wife would do, and when he placed a kiss to her chin, she stuck out her tongue, moved slightly, and licked his nose.
"Merlin!" he cried, moving back.
She opened her eyes and stared up at him and he stared back, and then she blinked and he let out a surprised and relieved laugh.
"I know you hate the Hospital Wing, love, but I think you might need it this time," he muttered, moving closer again.
"I think so too," she whispered, gasping in a short breath. "Don't..."
"I won't leave you," he said. "I'm not going anywhere anyway, my leg's buggered."
"Looks like saving the world's cost you an arm and a leg already," she whispered, and was rewarded with another loud bark of laughter.
"Why's he laughing?" Lily asked worriedly. "James, why is he laughing?"
James said something which sounded like, "Bess said that he laughed after... after we... maybe he's lost it?"
Indignance sent a wave of protective strength through Bess and she moved her arm, pointing at James, whose arm was bleeding. "Oi, rude! We can hear you, you know."
Sirius turned and raised an eyebrow at James, a small smile on his face. "Yeah, James, we can hear you."
Shouts, cries and laughter filled the air around them, and then Sirius turned back to her and asked, "Where does it hurt, love?"
"Ribs."
"Right," he said, and then he began to twirl and move his wand around, pointing non-verbal spells at her ribs. Almost immediately, the pain began to ebb away from her chest and the tightness began to ease.
"Better," she whispered, smiling up at the sky. "Thank you."
"Been practicing my bone healing. My wife has a tendency to get injured a lot," he replied cheekily, and Bess simply grinned back. "Think you can stand?"
"Not yet," she replied honestly. "Quite weak."
"That makes two of us then. Fancy a stag ride back to the castle? James owes us that at least for his insensitive words."
Bess laughed and marvelled at her newly healed ribs when she didn't feel any pain from the movement, but shook her head. "Chocolate and a good stretcher please. I don't want the students to think the fame's gone to my head."
"What fame?" he countered, shaking his head. The smile dropped from his face and he placed his hand against her cheek again. "It's going to happen again, isn't it? This wasn't the battle you were expecting. It wasn't the battle Daphne told you about."
Bess shook her head. "No. It's coming again."
"When?"
"I have-"
"No idea?" he asked, finishing her sentence for her.
"Dumbledore knew though. He knew this was coming," she admitted.
"I know. About five minutes after you left the house earlier, Fawkes turned up with a letter saying to get ready for another fight. I'll tell you about it later. But for now we need to get out of the street, okay?"
"Pup?" she whispered, closing her eyes. "I'm really tired."
"I know. Sleep, love, we'll be in the Hospital Wing when you wake up."
As she drifted away she felt lips press against her forehead.
xXx
I know it's disappointing that she didn't have the fight scene, but I promise, it is coming! Just at (hopefully) a more epic moment! I went through loads of iterations of this ending for the chapter, and I think this works best. Other endings included comedy value (Bess finding a bar of Remus' favourite chocolate), sad (her not waking up until she'd been placed in a room at the Order headquarters and then surprising everyone with being alive) etc, but nothing really worked better than this. I hope it's okay!
Questions about what happened after Bess was hit by Voldemort's spell, and more will be answered next chapter.
Hope you're all well and safe, and thank you for bearing with me while I write!
Thank you to my reviewers for the last few weeks: CharlotteGryffindor, Guest - (Yes! Elvendork is from that! I didn't feel like it needed to be completely added in, but hoped someone would have a good smile from it, so I'm really glad you did! And for Chpt. 97 review, Nagini isn't around yet, but the locket issue will be solved! I had to rejig and kill Dumbledore off earlier than I thought thought, though his death being in Hogsmeade was always planned), Ghost Claw 001, Momochan77, Elcee1992, One Moonlit Unicorn, and AvalonRivers. Thank you to everyone reading and following and favouriting as well!