IV. Bringing Down The House
Spellfire blasted through the hallways of a football stadium on a Sunday afternoon.
Per Auror Office operating procedures when engaged in a Muggle high-traffic, high-visibility area, Harry had laid down multiple Muggle-Repelling Charms of different kinds so Muggles suddenly found themselves wandering outside for a stroll, engrossed in chit-chat with colleagues, and generally keeping away from the west side of the stadium. CCTV screens went on the blink – high concentrations of magic always interfered with electronics – but security officers merely slapped at the screens, shrugged, and rolled another cigarette.
"Give it up, lady!" shouted Harry. "You're only making this harder on yourself!"
"Fuck off, pig!" The woman sent another curse flying down at them.
"You're all so bloody original," muttered Ginny, rolling her eyes. "Hey!" She brought up a Shield Charm just in time as a Reductor Curse destroyed the pillar behind which she had been sheltering.
Harry sent down a series of sparks that exploded loudly but harmlessly in the vicinity of their opponents. "Keep your head down, Ginny," he said under the cover of the noise, "all we have to do is keep them busy; they can't get away, and we have reinforcements coming."
She nodded, and sent back another hex.
I've never seen Apollonia Sagana so angry, or so mad.
She spits out curses in her native Sicilian, and something green and sticky spews out of her wand, covering the floor and walls. Smoke rises up as whatever it is starts corroding the tile and brick, and I shudder to think what it could do to human flesh.
"Get up and start fighting, you useless lump!" snarls Polly at me.
Yeah, well, I know I was one of England's best Beaters in my youth, but I broke the mould in more ways than one – unlike say Gwenog Jones, or the Broadmoor Twins, I was never aggressive, either on or off the pitch. I did my job and did it well, but I never committed any violent physical fouls, I was sportsmanlike, and I always stood a round for the other team afterwards. Players and fans alike loved me for that – or used to, anyway.
Besides, what the hell is Ginny Weasley doing here?!
This is the first time we've come face-to-face since that interview in February last year. The last I heard, she'd been promoted to the First Seven after that season ended, an honour which singled her out as a rising star and one of the names to watch out for in the British and Irish Quidditch League. But I gladly stopped following Quidditch news when I fell in with Polly in January, and she convinced me to quit Sports Enchanted and join her caper instead – a decision I began regretting in short order. Did she join the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol or something?
And Harry Potter – well, who doesn't know him? Boy-Who-Lived, Chosen One, celebrity, Auror.
In a way I have him to thank for fucking up my life – no. No, I did that all on my own. I once tried to help him – maybe I should have asked him for help.
"Come on, Polly," I say instead. "They've seen us, they'll know who we are. We can't possibly hope to get away. Just surrender and take our lumps."
"Like fuck I will!" She whips her wand right and left; Reductor Curses blast away more pillars.
I don't know what's in her past. Maybe something a lot more sinister than bilking Muggles of their cash. Aggravated assault, Snatching – perhaps even murder. Whatever it is, she's not willing to surrender. In fact, she's – what is she doing?
Above our heads, there's a creaking, a series of crackling pops – the stone and steel of the stadium suddenly shifting. Polly backs further down the hallway, blasts another pillar. There's a louder groan from the structure. Glass windows crack and shatter as they become the focus of humongous forces and the steel frames begin flexing under the pressure.
"Hey! Stop that!" It's Weasley, running out from behind cover, throwing a hex.
"Make me, girlie!" Polly blocks it, reduces another pillar to rubble.
She's bringing down the house.
I can feel myself blanch. There must be, what, as many as ten thousand Muggles in the stands directly above us, standing, cheering, jumping.
Harry gets it the same instant I do. Instead of attacking, Harry begins conjuring, forming big, roughly-hewn blocks of stone in place of one of the pillars Polly destroyed. It's crude and ugly and like all charmed objects will disappear in a couple of hours, but it's a quick-fix that'll stop the roof – and the Muggles in the stands above – from collapsing.
Ginny shoots Polly a glare, and turns towards the nearest destroyed pillar, and starts putting it back together with a series of Reparos. That's probably an even better idea – the crumbled masonry and severed metal rods flies together and begins reassembling itself, growing upward like a concrete tree in fast-forward.
They're distracted, Polly's got her window of escape now – except she doesn't choose to escape, and instead aims her wand directly at Ginny Weasley.
And purely instinctively – I think – I'm on my feet, and lunging forward, arms spread wide. "NO, DON'T!"
Polly yells something in Sicilian.
The blast throws me across the concourse, and when I land, the crunch and thud sickens me even as stars explode in my skull and the world turns soggy and fuzzy.
"GINNY, LOOK OUT!"
Ron darted out of Staircase F, behind the witch, just in time to see her take aim at Ginny, who suddenly realising the danger, started to duck. Then a big round bloke – oh, he does look like Ludo Bagman, thought Ron – jumped in front of the curse; there was a loud bang! and he went flying something like fifty yards.
Ron's wand was up in an instant, and he snarled, "Stupefy!"
The witch barely knew what hit her.
Harry came running up. "Ron, Hermione, the pillars, quickly before the whole place falls down!"
Working together, they repaired as much of the support pillars as they could, conjured up stone blocks or steel support beams where the curses had caused too much magical damage for a Repairing Charm to put back together. It took them several minutes of frenzied casting, and it would only hold very temporarily, but they were all powerful wizards and witches, and when they were done, they could be sure the stadium was safe until Ministry experts could come in and do a proper restoration.
Panting slightly from the effort, Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione exchanged tired grins.
"You okay?" asked Harry, putting an arm around Ginny. She nodded, half-smiling, as the post-battle shakes began to make themselves felt. "Situation stabilised," said Harry, activating the magical communications spell built into his Auror badge. "We'll still need Obliviators, and a cleanup crew from the Magical Disaster Response And Damage Repair Team. But I guess you can stand down the tactical response."
"Noted, Potter," said the operations officer dryly.
Ron wandered over to pick up the witch's wand, and checked on her. Out cold. He resisted the urge to give her a kick in the side.
Hermione was tending to Ludo Bagman, who was lying in a puddle of blood. "He's broken one or two ribs, his left collarbone, and probably his arm as well," she said, as Harry, Ron and Ginny came over. "I cleared up his concussion and splinted his arm, but he's got a nasty head wound, and all that needs seeing to by a proper Healer."
She had also conjured up a big squashy pillow for Ludo to rest his head on. He looked up at them. "Hello, Miss Weasley," he said groggily. "Hello, Harry. And you... I don't know you, but I'd guess from the hair and freckles, another Weasley."
"Right. You were the informant, weren't you?" Ron guessed.
Bagman nodded. "I was."
"Why'd you do it?" asked Ginny.
"I don't know," said Bagman. He tried to shrug, and winced. "I suppose it got too much – the scrimping and grovelling, being the butt monkey wherever I went. Then here came Polly with her big idea – a spell she'd developed to subtly nudge the Muggles just a bit into spending too much, and us disguised as a betting shop. Easier to get away with than food and trinkets – who wins these things anyway? You're supposed to lose, gambling. I should know..."
"Oh, Mr Bagman, how could you?" chided Hermione.
"Got greedy." Bagman nodded at Polly's prone, unconscious figure. "She too. Couldn't stick to the small amounts we took at the start. Wanted all the golden eggs, right then and there."
"I meant, why did you tip off the Auror Office?" said Ginny.
Bagman didn't meet her eyes. "I... well, Polly said think of them as 'just Muggles', and that worked for a while, and then it didn't. I started seeing them as people. As myself. I'm sorry. I'm not proud of what I did – I suppose you'd be justified in throwing the book at me."
"I should," growled Harry. His grip around Ginny tightened. "You swindled them, and you nearly got a lot of people killed today."
Ginny swatted him lightly on the chest. "Oh, pish. He did call in the tip, didn't he?"
"I guess he wanted to turn himself in," said Ron.
"And threw himself in front of Ginny," put in Hermione, "and took that curse. I saw. What was that all about then?"
Bagman didn't answer, and looked away.
"You did the right thing, Mr Bagman, at last," said Ginny gently. "We'll get the Wizengamot to see that."
But Bagman had passed out.
And now came a squad of DMLE Patrolwizards running towards them, and Obliviators and Restorers, a whole Ministry task force led by Aurors Mavis Laird and Alex Fawley. Mavis had thrown her red Auror cloak over mum jeans and a baggy old shirt. There were a few streaks of yellow paint down her front.
Ron gave her a jaunty wave. "Hello, Mavis! Called you away from the children?"
"We were painting Daisy's bedroom," said Mavis. "What are you doing here, Weasley? And Miss Weasley, and Miss Granger?"
Harry shifted uncomfortably, but Ron said cheerfully, "Came to watch the match, and wouldn't you know it, we bumped into Harry here, and this lot."
Mavis snorted, but didn't press the matter.
Suddenly there was a roar of sound, and all the wizards looked up in alarm. Thunderous cheers erupted overhead. Someone had scored another goal.
"There's still half a match to go," said Ron, checking his watch. He took Hermione's hand. "Come on. I don't think Mavis will need me," he said cheekily, "we can write our statements later."
"I'll need to stay," said Harry gently. He pulled Ginny into an all-too-brief hug. "Go on up with Ron and Hermione. I'll be a while sorting things out."
Ginny put her arms around his neck and kissed him, full and deep. "I'll have dinner waiting when you get back," she said softly.
V. Epilogue
At the trial, the Wizengamot makes stacks of hay of my old life, saying a former professional sportsman and Ministry Head of Department ought to have known better, and I should be hanged, drawn and quartered for the public good.
Why yes, I do happen to owe a couple of the bastards gold.
But the Auror Office sends a memo asking them to go easy since I called in the tip-off, and to make sure the point is made, a couple of observers from the Office of Wizarding Law get up and talk about how the Wizengamot has always gone light on informants, pour encourager les autres, and they should stick to the practice. One of them's Miss Granger, who says nothing as befits a lowly intern, but is busy as a bee supplying her leader with thick rolls of parchment citing dozens of historical precedents to throw at the enemy. She tips me a wink and a grin as the Wizengamot grudgingly gives me two years in minimum-security Azkaban, the best I could have hoped to get away with.
Polly goes down for life on a thousand counts of attempted murder.
Azkaban's changed. There are no Dementors now, thank Merlin, and the amenities have become a bit more humane; insulated cells, better food, owl post. Chaps like me in the minimum-security wing who aren't escape risks, hard cases or banged up for more serious crimes get to enjoy more time outside of our cells, which we spend in a common-room equipped with books, board games, and a radio.
Which of course is tuned to Quidditch matches every weekend, by nearly-unanimous consent. I think I'm the only one who spends more time on weekends in my cell than in the common-room.
Come October, I'm playing chess with friendly Mrs Coatsworth who got six months for jinxing her brother " 'cos 'e shouldn't 'ave said that about our Reen", as Holyhead go down hard to Falmouth. As my rooks are being forked, the radio broadcasts an interview with Chaser Weasley, apparently well in the running to be picked for England's team in next year's World Cup. I prick my ears up as the interviewer asks her how she thinks the team will cope wth the Harpies' continuous tumble down the standings this season.
I can almost see her eyes rolling.
"The team's disappointed with today's match of course, but the season's not over yet. As I learned recently from an old player – whom I can only hope is listening – it's never ever too late to turn things around. In life and in Quidditch. Excuse me, I have to dash..."
The interviewer moves on to another player, but I can just hear her begin whistling as she walks away.
Once a jolly swagman, camped beside a billabong...
END
A/N: Thank you very much for reading and commenting. Stay tuned for more!