I forgot to put in the disclaimer in the last chapter, so I am putting it here.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and associated characters, they belong to JK Rowling and Warner Bros., and I am making no money from this story.
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Three things happened quite suddenly while I stood there in the shadows with my back against the brick wall. First, I spotted someone I recognised in the crowd; Hermione appeared, walking beside a woman I assumed to be her mother, and laughing, passing quite close to me and stopping across the street. Second, the headache I'd suffered throughout the first half of sixth year returned with vengeance, so strong it almost blinded me for a moment. Third, there was a sickly red light at the other end of the street.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Someone screamed, a scream of pain and fear, and I slammed up my shield quicker than I had ever done before. The world slowed down to a snail's pace, and I could see Hermione spin around, shove her mother behind her and pull out her wand, all in the same motion. I was half-way across the street before I realised my legs were moving. Shouted curses erupted in red, blue and white light around me, a sick stroboscope of magic, throwing people aside like discarded dolls. A zigzagging jet of red light hit the wall of Flourish & Blott's, just above Hermione and her mother.
The building stones fell like rain, and I could do nothing but watch as they descended on the people of the street. Through some miracle, they avoided Hermione and her mother, who were closest to the building, and gave what looked like minor wounds to the rest: the largest stones didn't fly far, and thumped down on the pavement to heavily that I could feel the street vibrate beneath my feet. The woodwork over the doorway of Fortesque's ignited into roaring flames with one word from a dark-clad man. I could hear the screams from inside the ice-cream parlour, and over the roaring of the fire, the enraged curses of Florean Fortesque himself.
Someone slammed into me, taking me by surprise and sending me sprawling to the ground. I barely had time to brace myself to keep my face from hitting the pavement. Pushing myself up again with some difficulty, I got to my feet and tried to see what the hell had happened. My eyes widened as they lightened on the Leaky Cauldron, reduced to burning rubble. On top of the brick wall that had once been the entrance to Diagon Alley, stood an all too familiar red-headed woman, wand held high and laughing wildly.
My attention was brought back to myself and the people around me as a child, no more than eleven, crashed into me trying to escape from a man in a black robe. With a wand pointed at me, my world narrowed down and a subconscious personality, bred and perfected through weeks with the Lucas' brothers, took over. A quick shake of my wrist left me with my wand in my hand and magic burning just underneath my skin, ready to be used.
"Termino Inhalo," I said, a lot more calmly than I felt.
The man began to choke, unable to breathe out. It was one of the curses I'd found in the Compendium, which would disappear as soon as he passed out. The little boy who had crashed into me was sitting on the ground, screaming for his father to find him, but I didn't have time to help him. The single coherent thought still in my head was to get over the street and find Hermione.
People were never more like a herd of sheep as when they were under attack: they milled about screaming, while only a few had actually taken up their wands and countered the attack. Pushing through the panicked crowd, I fought to get to the ruins of Flourish and Blott's. Bewildered shoppers who didn't know what had happened or what to do hurried out of my way like frightened animals, and with some difficulty I arrived at the burning ruins, out of breath and with a firmer hold on my warded shield than before, more angry than afraid.
Through the fire and the fallen building stones, I managed to find her, fighting one of the black-clad attackers. They had to be Death Eaters, it was the only explanation I could think of for them to attack innocent people like they did. Affirmation arrived as Hermione blasted off the man's sleeve with a well-placed curse. She fought like a cornered lioness, snarling and baring her teeth even as the felines did, fighting with the ferociousness of a mother protecting her cubs. Curses and hexes I hadn't expected even a member of Potter's prestigious little club to know blasted forth from her wand, not disabling or killing the Death Eater, but keeping him busy enough not to reach her.
But this was no time for idle contemplation. Pulling up some of the tricks Frederic had taught me from the recesses of my memory, I approached the Death Eater from behind, even as he gained a little on Hermione. I was almost there, almost had my hands around his neck, when an arm as slung around my shoulders and I was dragged backwards. Cursing myself for standing still for as long as I had, I didn't hesitate a moment before I brought my wand up over my shoulder and stabbed backwards as hard as I could.
I must have scored a hit, because the arm that was holding me stiffened and convulsed, then let go as suddenly as it had appeared. Whatever screaming or shouting the arm's owner had made were lost in the sounds of the fires burning in most of the buildings along the Alley, and the din made by the crowd and its attackers. Not bothering to turn around and check if my desperate attack had been successful, I lunged forward, gripping the Death Eater's hair with one hand and jerking his head back and at the same time bringing my knee up to connect sharply with his spine. I needn't have bothered, since as he went down I had to duck out of the way of a nasty hex, courtesy of Hermione.
She lowered her wand when she saw it wasn't just another Death Eater, giving me time to take in the scene in front of me. Hermione, her cheek grazed and trickling blood, and her robes torn beyond recognition, stood with wand in hand, facing the open Alley. Her mother was sprawled on the heap of building stones that had until twenty minutes previously made up the outer wall of Flourish&Blott's, looking frightened out of her wits. Poor woman: a trip to Diagon Alley had come with a full-scale Death Eater attack.
"Are you alright?" I asked, a bit redundantly.
"I'll live," she said shortly.
"Any idea how it started?" I asked, holding out my hand to help her mother up, at the same time looking around behind me.
The fallen wall had made a small hiding-spot between the shop and the street, open in the direction of Gringotts. The rubble-piles were easily high enough to hide us, if I stood in a bit of a crouch. We were as safe as anyone could be in this pandemonium, and with a bit of luck, they wouldn't even know we were there until it was too late.
"No," she shook her head, helping her mother stand as well, "But I know where: over at the leaky Cauldron. That's where the first spell was fired."
"We need to get everyone out and call the Aurors," I said, thinking aloud, peering over the top of the stones down the street, looking for any sign of that redhead. "Where's the closest Floo-connection we can easily reach?"
"Gringotts," was the answer I got, as Hermione took over the helping of her mother. "They've got Floo-connections behind the counters."
My attention was divided between the chaos of the street and keeping myself from breaking down and kissing her out of sheer relief that she was alive. Kisses and spontaneous professions of adoration would have to be kept for later, if I ever got around to it. The more pressing issue of getting out of Diagon Alley alive and unscathed took first seat to my repressed emotions. While listening with half an ear to Hermione trying to calm her mother down, I measured the distance between where we were and the doors of Gringotts. There were a good number of people between us, engaged in fighting or merely cowering in corners, but the goblins had come out of the bank and were defending it. Against goblin-magic, ordinary wizards were nearly useless, so the path inside was still clear.
Calculating the number of Death Eaters against the number of defenders still in possession of their wands, I realised no one would get out unless a good portion of the attackers were distracted by something.
Or someone.
It was a risky and foolish plan, to the point of being Gryffindor in its quality, but it was the only one I had at my disposal, and I had advantages most people didn't. Closing my eyes and praying whatever deity that cared to be forgiven for breaking the conventions of my House, I turned to Hermione to tell her of my plan, since she had an instrumental part in it. I found she was speaking quickly to her mother in a hushed voice, who was looking from me to the street and back again, white as parchment.
"I think I know how to pull this off," I announced as quietly as I could, while still being heard over the din.
"I hope to hell it's a good plan, because we'll only get one chance," Hermione said, looking grim. "Those Death Eaters might have used simple curses to start off with, but they've got us cornered now, and they've never known how to spell mercy."
"Time they learn how to spell then," I mumbled, once more distracted by a hasty movement not far away.
"What's the plan?"
"Get to Gringotts with your mother, tell the goblins to evacuate everyone they can, and go in after them." I spoke quickly, clutching my wand so tightly my knuckles were turning white. "As soon as people start arriving through the Floo bleeding and sooty, the distress call will go up and the Aurors will Apparate here, unless someone's already alerted them. Either way, go through the Floo after the others: the goblins will be fine on their own."
"And what are you going to do?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'm going to give them something to aim at," I smiled, a smile devoid of any happiness.
Her widened as she realised what I had in mind, and was just opening her mouth to protest that I was being stupid when I pushed her out of our hiding-place and towards Gringotts, spinning on my heels and firing hexes at the Death Eaters, trying to cover their retreat. I heard shouting behind me, and the scraping of stone on stone that signalled another falling wall, but I was much too concentrated on the Death Eaters to pay attention.
Once more, I slipped into the focused, cold state of mind and my world narrowed to the mind-mouth-hand coordination needed to fire spell after spell, hex after hex at the Death Eaters. There weren't as many of them as I'd first thought: perhaps they'd thought Diagon Alley would be easy to take in broad daylight, but they weren't the students I'd duelled at school. These were grown, hardened Death Eaters, servants of Voldemort, who had either escaped arrest by being exceptionally cunning, or spent the last fifteen years in Azkaban, and had lost all their inhibitions about killing without mercy.
There were people next to me, the ones who were still in possession of their wands, and they were fighting with the same grim determination that I was. I didn't have time to look at their faces, but on one side of me was someone in a patched, green robe, with scars on his hands, while on the other side someone wearing the glittering family rings of ancient Purebloods, dressed in the latest fashion in robes. The Death Eaters, their blank masks hiding their expressions, still managed to seem surprised at the resistance they met.
They parted and let someone through. At first, I couldn't see who it was because of the smoke and odd lights cast by the fires, but I could see that she wasn't wearing a mask, or even a regular Death Eater's robe. I caught a flash of red hair as the smoke cleared for a moment, and a chilling realisation gripped me, running down my spine like ice. It was the veela- like woman who had been standing on the ruins of the Cauldron, laughing in madness at the chaos. My mind went from ice-cold defence to white-hot rage in a matter of seconds, realising with utter certainty that she was the one to start this attack, and without thinking I let my magic out stronger than I had previously.
A thin line of fire appeared before her feet, running from one side of the street to the other, but the fire was green. The flames, edged with the deep emerald colour of the Slytherin banner, whipped up as if in the middle of a storm, when there was no wind to feed them, and soon burned as high as my chest, barring the way between the Death Eaters and Gringotts. At first, the notion of burning the Death Eater's themselves had presented itself neatly to my mind, but I pulled back at the last second and decided to just hinder them instead.
"Run," I told my fellow defenders, never looking away from my line of fire. "Save yourselves: get the other people and run."
But they didn't: the wands did not waver, the hands did not shake, and I knew it would be pointless to ask them again. From the other side of the green flames, the red-headed woman smiled at me, a twisted smile, so demented it frightened me. Whatever pleasure she could find in burning innocent people just because they were there was lost on me, and I stared back as blankly as I could, raising the flames just a little higher. At times like these, I didn't have a conscious control over my magic: it seemed I just instinctively knew what to do, and it happened. It wasn't until afterwards I realised I'd chosen the most effective way to do what I needed without thinking.
Over the roaring of fire, magic-fed and otherwise, I couldn't hear what the woman said, but she gave me one last, lethal smile and Disapparated with a sharp popping sound. The rest of the Death Eaters hurried to follow her, leaving the street barren and burning behind them. I extinguished the green flames as quickly as I had ignited them, feeling light-headed and slightly nauseous. A hand caught hold of my elbow, steadying me, and I whispered a quiet thank-you, though it was doubtful it was heard over the crackling fires. I turned away from the street, walking on shaking legs to the stairs of Gringotts.
There, on the last step, Hermione was waiting for me, sitting with her wand still in her hand. Some time during the attack, she'd gotten soot streaked across her forehead, and she was clutching at her left shoulder with a grimace of pain. Not bothering to put on the practised blank face, I sunk down wearily next to her, putting my wand back in its wrist-sheath and massaging my fingers, fingers that felt as if I'd just stuck them in a fire. I could feel the blisters forming, and tried my best to straighten out stiff joints before it became unbearable.
"You're not supposed to be here." I told her quietly.
"Neither were the Death Eaters, but that didn't stop them, did it?" she answered dully. "Mum is not going to let me out of the house for the rest of the holidays."
"You're going to St. Mungo's in any case." I shrugged awkwardly. "We all are."
"Why? I'm not hurt." she protested.
"You've been inhaling smoke: you of all people, being as bleeding intelligent as you are, should know that's bad," I sighed, taking the first reason I could come up with.
She nodded without a word, and seemed to sag a bit, as if all her energy dissipated when I finished speaking. Not even realising what I was doing, I unclasped my cloak and threw it over her shoulders, staring blankly down the street, searching for something to set my eyes on. Picking their way through the demolished remains of the Leaky Cauldron, Aurors were finally starting to arrive, in company of green-clad Healers and a pair that looked suspiciously like Anja and Basil. There was no mistaking the electric blue scarf Basil had chosen to add to the sombre Unspeakable uniform.
One arm across Hermione's shoulder under the forgotten pretence to be giving her my cloak, I watched them walk down the street towards us and the few other stragglers. One of the people around Gringotts I recognised: the man Vincent had visited the day he came to pick me up from Diagon Alley six weeks ago, the one I'd thought was a Muggle at first glance. He was kicking at a pile of rubble, his wand still in his hand. Another stately looking wizard, with signet rings on his hands and a long, dark cloak, was glaring down the street towards the approaching Aurors. He was fairly vibrating with anger, though I was too exhausted to figure out why, or even form a coherent thought any more.
The head of the Auror squad, a brown-haired man with a thick moustache, cleared his throat as they finally arrived at the stairs of Gringotts. Most of the rest of the squad were scouting the permitier of the destroyed Diagon Alley, looking for survivors and left-over Death Eaters. Anja spotted me, and her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, but she kept her peace as the head-Auror spoke to the man in the dark robe.
"Uaithne Caractacus," the Auror said, sounding as if he wanted to sneer but didn't dare to, "I should have known I'd find you at the root of the trouble."
"The Death Eaters were the root of the trouble," the man addressed as Uaithne snapped angrily, "I live just down the street: I couldn't leave them to their own devices!"
"The Death Eaters? Why should a disbanded group of servants attack Diagon Alley? Their master is gone," the Auror told him, though he was no acting superior.
"Don't be silly, O'Connor," Anja said, tapping him in the small of his back with her wand, "Voldemort's back; you might as well admit it. Caractacus, why are those two children here?"
It was a clever way to distract an impending squabble, as well as finding out what I was doing in the smoking ruins of Diagon Alley when I should be at home. I would have admired her cleverness, but my brain wasn't working like it should. Sounds, broken up pieces of conversations filtered through, but none of it made sense. All that still made sense was that I was alive, that Hermione was alive and that we were going to stay that way. And my head hurt. It was throbbing in time with my heartbeats.
"That young man is the reason why the Death Eaters didn't run roughshod over all of us," Uaithne snapped, every inch a Pureblood patriarch. "That line of fire was a brilliant idea, boy: without it, I don't know what we would have done."
"Thank you sir," I said, my throat so dry that my voice cracked. "It was a split-second of inspiration. It could have happened to anyone."
"You don't sound too well," Basil remarked, looking up from where he was rummaging around in one of the piles, "Let one of the Healers take you and everyone else to St. Mungo's."
"There's no one else." Hermione piped up, looking up from her lap.
"What?"
"There's no one else: they all got out during the fire." she repeated. "Unless there's someone injured closer to the Cauldron, we're the only one's left."
There wasn't much I remembered clearly after that: the few things that I remember stand out clearly in my mind, like beacons in the darkness, but they were all disconnected and out of sequence. The surprised and slightly admiring looks on the faces of the Aurors and Anja, Basil wandering away, shouting enquiries about injured people, someone in a Healer's green robes asking me to breathe slowly, the sickly yellow walls of St. Mungo's, and the chill of fresh linen in a hospital bed. The welcome darkness of sleep and the dreams that followed.
They were confusing, the dreams: a jumble of burning buildings, smoking ruins and flashes of red hair. Above the crackling of fire, the sound of a demented laughter echoing in my ears, and a beautiful face smiling at me before disappearing. Repeated over and over, I saw the wall of Flourish&Blott's explode in a shower of stones, shattering and raining down on the crowd below. Screams that rang in my ears, shouted curses, jets of red light and screams sharply ending, the sickening green light of the Killing Curse, lighting up the other end of a dark street.
The flickering flames of a green fire, burning right before my eyes.
I jerked awake, bathing in cold sweat and with a racing heart, breathing as if I'd just run a marathon. At first, I didn't recognised the room, bathed in moonlight like it was, but then my mind made the connections and I remembered I was in St. Mungo's. I sat up in the thin bed, pulling the blanket up with me, staring around the room dazedly. I still had my clothes, the trousers and the shirt I'd dressed in that morning, and my cloak was thrown over a chair nearby, my wand and wrist-sheath on the bedside table.
Yet it felt as if something was missing.
I ran down my mental check-list again but my sleep-slow mind couldn't find anything missing. Even my books, which I'd thought I'd dropped when the Death Eaters came, was on the bedside table, a bit worse for wear but whole. Only after the third time or so, I got the feeling that it wasn't something, but someone missing. Someone I clearly could remember holding onto on the way to the hospital. Another two times and I arrived at the conclusion that it must be Hermione I was missing, remembering how close she'd been to me on the steps of Gringotts, shivering despite the cloak I'd loaned her.
There was a clock at the bedside table, which told the world it was three- thirty in the morning. Much too late to get up and search for Hermione without being stopped by the night-nurse, and much too early to get up an claim you couldn't sleep, I reasoned, and closed my bleary eyes once more, preparing to sleep. I was tired, on a bone-deep level, though my headache receded slightly. There were blisters on my fingers and my hands felt stiff and sore.
Some half hour later, I finally slipped into sleep again, having counted the cracks in the ceiling to distract myself from the remembrance of the nightmares. As oblivion claimed me, the last thought I had was that I was going to go and look for Hermione the first thing in the morning.
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Ending Notes: And so he winds up in a hospital again, though it's a real one this time and not the Hogwarts infirmary. I haven't had much practise with writing action-scenes, but I'm pretty satisfied with how this chapter turned out, even if I burned down half of Diagon Alley and blasted away the rest. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and associated characters, they belong to JK Rowling and Warner Bros., and I am making no money from this story.
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Three things happened quite suddenly while I stood there in the shadows with my back against the brick wall. First, I spotted someone I recognised in the crowd; Hermione appeared, walking beside a woman I assumed to be her mother, and laughing, passing quite close to me and stopping across the street. Second, the headache I'd suffered throughout the first half of sixth year returned with vengeance, so strong it almost blinded me for a moment. Third, there was a sickly red light at the other end of the street.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Someone screamed, a scream of pain and fear, and I slammed up my shield quicker than I had ever done before. The world slowed down to a snail's pace, and I could see Hermione spin around, shove her mother behind her and pull out her wand, all in the same motion. I was half-way across the street before I realised my legs were moving. Shouted curses erupted in red, blue and white light around me, a sick stroboscope of magic, throwing people aside like discarded dolls. A zigzagging jet of red light hit the wall of Flourish & Blott's, just above Hermione and her mother.
The building stones fell like rain, and I could do nothing but watch as they descended on the people of the street. Through some miracle, they avoided Hermione and her mother, who were closest to the building, and gave what looked like minor wounds to the rest: the largest stones didn't fly far, and thumped down on the pavement to heavily that I could feel the street vibrate beneath my feet. The woodwork over the doorway of Fortesque's ignited into roaring flames with one word from a dark-clad man. I could hear the screams from inside the ice-cream parlour, and over the roaring of the fire, the enraged curses of Florean Fortesque himself.
Someone slammed into me, taking me by surprise and sending me sprawling to the ground. I barely had time to brace myself to keep my face from hitting the pavement. Pushing myself up again with some difficulty, I got to my feet and tried to see what the hell had happened. My eyes widened as they lightened on the Leaky Cauldron, reduced to burning rubble. On top of the brick wall that had once been the entrance to Diagon Alley, stood an all too familiar red-headed woman, wand held high and laughing wildly.
My attention was brought back to myself and the people around me as a child, no more than eleven, crashed into me trying to escape from a man in a black robe. With a wand pointed at me, my world narrowed down and a subconscious personality, bred and perfected through weeks with the Lucas' brothers, took over. A quick shake of my wrist left me with my wand in my hand and magic burning just underneath my skin, ready to be used.
"Termino Inhalo," I said, a lot more calmly than I felt.
The man began to choke, unable to breathe out. It was one of the curses I'd found in the Compendium, which would disappear as soon as he passed out. The little boy who had crashed into me was sitting on the ground, screaming for his father to find him, but I didn't have time to help him. The single coherent thought still in my head was to get over the street and find Hermione.
People were never more like a herd of sheep as when they were under attack: they milled about screaming, while only a few had actually taken up their wands and countered the attack. Pushing through the panicked crowd, I fought to get to the ruins of Flourish and Blott's. Bewildered shoppers who didn't know what had happened or what to do hurried out of my way like frightened animals, and with some difficulty I arrived at the burning ruins, out of breath and with a firmer hold on my warded shield than before, more angry than afraid.
Through the fire and the fallen building stones, I managed to find her, fighting one of the black-clad attackers. They had to be Death Eaters, it was the only explanation I could think of for them to attack innocent people like they did. Affirmation arrived as Hermione blasted off the man's sleeve with a well-placed curse. She fought like a cornered lioness, snarling and baring her teeth even as the felines did, fighting with the ferociousness of a mother protecting her cubs. Curses and hexes I hadn't expected even a member of Potter's prestigious little club to know blasted forth from her wand, not disabling or killing the Death Eater, but keeping him busy enough not to reach her.
But this was no time for idle contemplation. Pulling up some of the tricks Frederic had taught me from the recesses of my memory, I approached the Death Eater from behind, even as he gained a little on Hermione. I was almost there, almost had my hands around his neck, when an arm as slung around my shoulders and I was dragged backwards. Cursing myself for standing still for as long as I had, I didn't hesitate a moment before I brought my wand up over my shoulder and stabbed backwards as hard as I could.
I must have scored a hit, because the arm that was holding me stiffened and convulsed, then let go as suddenly as it had appeared. Whatever screaming or shouting the arm's owner had made were lost in the sounds of the fires burning in most of the buildings along the Alley, and the din made by the crowd and its attackers. Not bothering to turn around and check if my desperate attack had been successful, I lunged forward, gripping the Death Eater's hair with one hand and jerking his head back and at the same time bringing my knee up to connect sharply with his spine. I needn't have bothered, since as he went down I had to duck out of the way of a nasty hex, courtesy of Hermione.
She lowered her wand when she saw it wasn't just another Death Eater, giving me time to take in the scene in front of me. Hermione, her cheek grazed and trickling blood, and her robes torn beyond recognition, stood with wand in hand, facing the open Alley. Her mother was sprawled on the heap of building stones that had until twenty minutes previously made up the outer wall of Flourish&Blott's, looking frightened out of her wits. Poor woman: a trip to Diagon Alley had come with a full-scale Death Eater attack.
"Are you alright?" I asked, a bit redundantly.
"I'll live," she said shortly.
"Any idea how it started?" I asked, holding out my hand to help her mother up, at the same time looking around behind me.
The fallen wall had made a small hiding-spot between the shop and the street, open in the direction of Gringotts. The rubble-piles were easily high enough to hide us, if I stood in a bit of a crouch. We were as safe as anyone could be in this pandemonium, and with a bit of luck, they wouldn't even know we were there until it was too late.
"No," she shook her head, helping her mother stand as well, "But I know where: over at the leaky Cauldron. That's where the first spell was fired."
"We need to get everyone out and call the Aurors," I said, thinking aloud, peering over the top of the stones down the street, looking for any sign of that redhead. "Where's the closest Floo-connection we can easily reach?"
"Gringotts," was the answer I got, as Hermione took over the helping of her mother. "They've got Floo-connections behind the counters."
My attention was divided between the chaos of the street and keeping myself from breaking down and kissing her out of sheer relief that she was alive. Kisses and spontaneous professions of adoration would have to be kept for later, if I ever got around to it. The more pressing issue of getting out of Diagon Alley alive and unscathed took first seat to my repressed emotions. While listening with half an ear to Hermione trying to calm her mother down, I measured the distance between where we were and the doors of Gringotts. There were a good number of people between us, engaged in fighting or merely cowering in corners, but the goblins had come out of the bank and were defending it. Against goblin-magic, ordinary wizards were nearly useless, so the path inside was still clear.
Calculating the number of Death Eaters against the number of defenders still in possession of their wands, I realised no one would get out unless a good portion of the attackers were distracted by something.
Or someone.
It was a risky and foolish plan, to the point of being Gryffindor in its quality, but it was the only one I had at my disposal, and I had advantages most people didn't. Closing my eyes and praying whatever deity that cared to be forgiven for breaking the conventions of my House, I turned to Hermione to tell her of my plan, since she had an instrumental part in it. I found she was speaking quickly to her mother in a hushed voice, who was looking from me to the street and back again, white as parchment.
"I think I know how to pull this off," I announced as quietly as I could, while still being heard over the din.
"I hope to hell it's a good plan, because we'll only get one chance," Hermione said, looking grim. "Those Death Eaters might have used simple curses to start off with, but they've got us cornered now, and they've never known how to spell mercy."
"Time they learn how to spell then," I mumbled, once more distracted by a hasty movement not far away.
"What's the plan?"
"Get to Gringotts with your mother, tell the goblins to evacuate everyone they can, and go in after them." I spoke quickly, clutching my wand so tightly my knuckles were turning white. "As soon as people start arriving through the Floo bleeding and sooty, the distress call will go up and the Aurors will Apparate here, unless someone's already alerted them. Either way, go through the Floo after the others: the goblins will be fine on their own."
"And what are you going to do?" she asked suspiciously.
"I'm going to give them something to aim at," I smiled, a smile devoid of any happiness.
Her widened as she realised what I had in mind, and was just opening her mouth to protest that I was being stupid when I pushed her out of our hiding-place and towards Gringotts, spinning on my heels and firing hexes at the Death Eaters, trying to cover their retreat. I heard shouting behind me, and the scraping of stone on stone that signalled another falling wall, but I was much too concentrated on the Death Eaters to pay attention.
Once more, I slipped into the focused, cold state of mind and my world narrowed to the mind-mouth-hand coordination needed to fire spell after spell, hex after hex at the Death Eaters. There weren't as many of them as I'd first thought: perhaps they'd thought Diagon Alley would be easy to take in broad daylight, but they weren't the students I'd duelled at school. These were grown, hardened Death Eaters, servants of Voldemort, who had either escaped arrest by being exceptionally cunning, or spent the last fifteen years in Azkaban, and had lost all their inhibitions about killing without mercy.
There were people next to me, the ones who were still in possession of their wands, and they were fighting with the same grim determination that I was. I didn't have time to look at their faces, but on one side of me was someone in a patched, green robe, with scars on his hands, while on the other side someone wearing the glittering family rings of ancient Purebloods, dressed in the latest fashion in robes. The Death Eaters, their blank masks hiding their expressions, still managed to seem surprised at the resistance they met.
They parted and let someone through. At first, I couldn't see who it was because of the smoke and odd lights cast by the fires, but I could see that she wasn't wearing a mask, or even a regular Death Eater's robe. I caught a flash of red hair as the smoke cleared for a moment, and a chilling realisation gripped me, running down my spine like ice. It was the veela- like woman who had been standing on the ruins of the Cauldron, laughing in madness at the chaos. My mind went from ice-cold defence to white-hot rage in a matter of seconds, realising with utter certainty that she was the one to start this attack, and without thinking I let my magic out stronger than I had previously.
A thin line of fire appeared before her feet, running from one side of the street to the other, but the fire was green. The flames, edged with the deep emerald colour of the Slytherin banner, whipped up as if in the middle of a storm, when there was no wind to feed them, and soon burned as high as my chest, barring the way between the Death Eaters and Gringotts. At first, the notion of burning the Death Eater's themselves had presented itself neatly to my mind, but I pulled back at the last second and decided to just hinder them instead.
"Run," I told my fellow defenders, never looking away from my line of fire. "Save yourselves: get the other people and run."
But they didn't: the wands did not waver, the hands did not shake, and I knew it would be pointless to ask them again. From the other side of the green flames, the red-headed woman smiled at me, a twisted smile, so demented it frightened me. Whatever pleasure she could find in burning innocent people just because they were there was lost on me, and I stared back as blankly as I could, raising the flames just a little higher. At times like these, I didn't have a conscious control over my magic: it seemed I just instinctively knew what to do, and it happened. It wasn't until afterwards I realised I'd chosen the most effective way to do what I needed without thinking.
Over the roaring of fire, magic-fed and otherwise, I couldn't hear what the woman said, but she gave me one last, lethal smile and Disapparated with a sharp popping sound. The rest of the Death Eaters hurried to follow her, leaving the street barren and burning behind them. I extinguished the green flames as quickly as I had ignited them, feeling light-headed and slightly nauseous. A hand caught hold of my elbow, steadying me, and I whispered a quiet thank-you, though it was doubtful it was heard over the crackling fires. I turned away from the street, walking on shaking legs to the stairs of Gringotts.
There, on the last step, Hermione was waiting for me, sitting with her wand still in her hand. Some time during the attack, she'd gotten soot streaked across her forehead, and she was clutching at her left shoulder with a grimace of pain. Not bothering to put on the practised blank face, I sunk down wearily next to her, putting my wand back in its wrist-sheath and massaging my fingers, fingers that felt as if I'd just stuck them in a fire. I could feel the blisters forming, and tried my best to straighten out stiff joints before it became unbearable.
"You're not supposed to be here." I told her quietly.
"Neither were the Death Eaters, but that didn't stop them, did it?" she answered dully. "Mum is not going to let me out of the house for the rest of the holidays."
"You're going to St. Mungo's in any case." I shrugged awkwardly. "We all are."
"Why? I'm not hurt." she protested.
"You've been inhaling smoke: you of all people, being as bleeding intelligent as you are, should know that's bad," I sighed, taking the first reason I could come up with.
She nodded without a word, and seemed to sag a bit, as if all her energy dissipated when I finished speaking. Not even realising what I was doing, I unclasped my cloak and threw it over her shoulders, staring blankly down the street, searching for something to set my eyes on. Picking their way through the demolished remains of the Leaky Cauldron, Aurors were finally starting to arrive, in company of green-clad Healers and a pair that looked suspiciously like Anja and Basil. There was no mistaking the electric blue scarf Basil had chosen to add to the sombre Unspeakable uniform.
One arm across Hermione's shoulder under the forgotten pretence to be giving her my cloak, I watched them walk down the street towards us and the few other stragglers. One of the people around Gringotts I recognised: the man Vincent had visited the day he came to pick me up from Diagon Alley six weeks ago, the one I'd thought was a Muggle at first glance. He was kicking at a pile of rubble, his wand still in his hand. Another stately looking wizard, with signet rings on his hands and a long, dark cloak, was glaring down the street towards the approaching Aurors. He was fairly vibrating with anger, though I was too exhausted to figure out why, or even form a coherent thought any more.
The head of the Auror squad, a brown-haired man with a thick moustache, cleared his throat as they finally arrived at the stairs of Gringotts. Most of the rest of the squad were scouting the permitier of the destroyed Diagon Alley, looking for survivors and left-over Death Eaters. Anja spotted me, and her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, but she kept her peace as the head-Auror spoke to the man in the dark robe.
"Uaithne Caractacus," the Auror said, sounding as if he wanted to sneer but didn't dare to, "I should have known I'd find you at the root of the trouble."
"The Death Eaters were the root of the trouble," the man addressed as Uaithne snapped angrily, "I live just down the street: I couldn't leave them to their own devices!"
"The Death Eaters? Why should a disbanded group of servants attack Diagon Alley? Their master is gone," the Auror told him, though he was no acting superior.
"Don't be silly, O'Connor," Anja said, tapping him in the small of his back with her wand, "Voldemort's back; you might as well admit it. Caractacus, why are those two children here?"
It was a clever way to distract an impending squabble, as well as finding out what I was doing in the smoking ruins of Diagon Alley when I should be at home. I would have admired her cleverness, but my brain wasn't working like it should. Sounds, broken up pieces of conversations filtered through, but none of it made sense. All that still made sense was that I was alive, that Hermione was alive and that we were going to stay that way. And my head hurt. It was throbbing in time with my heartbeats.
"That young man is the reason why the Death Eaters didn't run roughshod over all of us," Uaithne snapped, every inch a Pureblood patriarch. "That line of fire was a brilliant idea, boy: without it, I don't know what we would have done."
"Thank you sir," I said, my throat so dry that my voice cracked. "It was a split-second of inspiration. It could have happened to anyone."
"You don't sound too well," Basil remarked, looking up from where he was rummaging around in one of the piles, "Let one of the Healers take you and everyone else to St. Mungo's."
"There's no one else." Hermione piped up, looking up from her lap.
"What?"
"There's no one else: they all got out during the fire." she repeated. "Unless there's someone injured closer to the Cauldron, we're the only one's left."
There wasn't much I remembered clearly after that: the few things that I remember stand out clearly in my mind, like beacons in the darkness, but they were all disconnected and out of sequence. The surprised and slightly admiring looks on the faces of the Aurors and Anja, Basil wandering away, shouting enquiries about injured people, someone in a Healer's green robes asking me to breathe slowly, the sickly yellow walls of St. Mungo's, and the chill of fresh linen in a hospital bed. The welcome darkness of sleep and the dreams that followed.
They were confusing, the dreams: a jumble of burning buildings, smoking ruins and flashes of red hair. Above the crackling of fire, the sound of a demented laughter echoing in my ears, and a beautiful face smiling at me before disappearing. Repeated over and over, I saw the wall of Flourish&Blott's explode in a shower of stones, shattering and raining down on the crowd below. Screams that rang in my ears, shouted curses, jets of red light and screams sharply ending, the sickening green light of the Killing Curse, lighting up the other end of a dark street.
The flickering flames of a green fire, burning right before my eyes.
I jerked awake, bathing in cold sweat and with a racing heart, breathing as if I'd just run a marathon. At first, I didn't recognised the room, bathed in moonlight like it was, but then my mind made the connections and I remembered I was in St. Mungo's. I sat up in the thin bed, pulling the blanket up with me, staring around the room dazedly. I still had my clothes, the trousers and the shirt I'd dressed in that morning, and my cloak was thrown over a chair nearby, my wand and wrist-sheath on the bedside table.
Yet it felt as if something was missing.
I ran down my mental check-list again but my sleep-slow mind couldn't find anything missing. Even my books, which I'd thought I'd dropped when the Death Eaters came, was on the bedside table, a bit worse for wear but whole. Only after the third time or so, I got the feeling that it wasn't something, but someone missing. Someone I clearly could remember holding onto on the way to the hospital. Another two times and I arrived at the conclusion that it must be Hermione I was missing, remembering how close she'd been to me on the steps of Gringotts, shivering despite the cloak I'd loaned her.
There was a clock at the bedside table, which told the world it was three- thirty in the morning. Much too late to get up and search for Hermione without being stopped by the night-nurse, and much too early to get up an claim you couldn't sleep, I reasoned, and closed my bleary eyes once more, preparing to sleep. I was tired, on a bone-deep level, though my headache receded slightly. There were blisters on my fingers and my hands felt stiff and sore.
Some half hour later, I finally slipped into sleep again, having counted the cracks in the ceiling to distract myself from the remembrance of the nightmares. As oblivion claimed me, the last thought I had was that I was going to go and look for Hermione the first thing in the morning.
''''''''''''''''
Ending Notes: And so he winds up in a hospital again, though it's a real one this time and not the Hogwarts infirmary. I haven't had much practise with writing action-scenes, but I'm pretty satisfied with how this chapter turned out, even if I burned down half of Diagon Alley and blasted away the rest. Thank you for taking the time to read this.