He ran straight for the ward room, wand ready. The castle was deserted, no sign of any attackers. The stone statues that guarded the corridor remained intact and inanimate, no sign that anyone had intruded. He skidded through the doorways, and found his mother standing alone in the centre of the wardroom. The stone was untouched, the shimmering gold shield projected by Hermione's device was still active. For all intents and purposes nothing was wrong.
'A rat.' His mother informed him dryly. She twirled her wand and a small carcass levitated into the air by its bald tail. 'Hermione's ward seems to have dealt with the threat more than adequately.'
Gellert pursed his lips, more than a little suspicious. His dream suggested that there was a far greater threat than just the rat, but so far nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If danger was coming, it wouldn't be from here. They headed back upstairs just as Hermione came dashing down, narrowly avoiding a collision as she used a stone cockatrice to halt her descent. She'd picked up her crown and had Mordred's sword strapped between her shoulders, the wizard in question followed behind her at a safer pace.
'Something's not right. There's rats everywhere!' The young witch panted.
'Rats everywhere?' His mother confirmed, concern heavy in her voice. Hermione nodded and the matriarch spun, hurrying back down the staircase to the wardroom where they'd left the rat carcass.
The room was full of them, seething in the shadows and darting across the open floor. Hermione had gone white as a sheet and she screeched when one darted through her skirts. She kicked desperately for a moment, stumbling over her own petticoats and entangling both herself and the angrily squealing rat in yards of fabric. Mordred come to the rescue before Gellert could, lifting Hermione off the ground until the rat fell, squeaking, to the floor and scurried away into the shadows.
In the following silence, the pattering and scraping of claws sounded very loud.
'Disease?' Mordred finally asked dubiously. That hardly seemed likely; perhaps it would have worked if they were muggles, but magic tended to make wixen less vulnerable to the kinds of sicknesses rats carried.
'Or, they're not really rats.' Lady Grindelwald's wand twitched and one of the rats came soaring out into the light. She snatched it out of the air where it began to fight ferociously, drawing blood in moments with sharp claws. The matriarch held on grimly, levelling her wand at it once again and twisting the tip in a small, anti-clockwise circle.
One minute there was a rat fighting for freedom in her vicelike grip, the next she was holding what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be a glass jar, filled with dirt and rubbish with a piece of string hanging out the back like a tail. It was, perhaps, designed to make the transfiguration easy because it did bear considerable resemblance to a rat. Hermione peered over his shoulder at the strange item and his mother passed it to her, perhaps wondering if Mordred could shed any more light one the matter.
Hermione and her knight looked just as mystified as they were, and the young witch turned the bottle over a couple of times, shook it twice.
'Look, there's a rune!' Gellert snatched at the string, holding it up to see.
'Kenaz.' Mordred said, 'but not powerful enough for more than a spark.'
'Doesn't it have to be accompanied by a Nauthiz to do anything?' Gellert asked, rolling the string between his fingers incase there was a second rune hidden on the other side. There wasn't, so he turned it back to the single, arrow shaped Kenaz rune he'd spotted earlier.
'It depends what you're hoping to achieve. Futhark is a very diverse language.'
'Futhark.' Mordred sniggered, Hermione snorted in a very unladylike manner.
'I think I'm going to do a Futhark.' Hermione giggled. Lady Grindelwald glowered at her and Hermione made a valiant effort to straighten her expression, then Mordred leaned over and whispered into her ear and Hermione choked, her face going bright red as she turned away to regain control of herself. Gellert glared at Mordred; the castle was under serious threat and those two were busy making jokes.
'As I was saying,' Katerina Grindelwald continued, 'Futhark is a very diverse runic language, but each rune individually will have a minor effect, which may or may not coincide with the overall effect of a runic sentence. It's what makes using it so complex.'
'So we have a spark.'
'The question is, what does the spark do?'
'Does every rat have the same rune? Might they be part of some larger spell - each so minor that they wouldn't trigger the wards, but combining into a bigger spell?' Hermione asked. Her eyes looked a little watery but she seemed to have regained her composure.
'Risky. Even a single missing article could ruin the enchantment.' Mordred pointed out.
'Alice would have expected the castle to be empty; up until recently, she would have celebrated Ostara with us at Fort Stark.' Gellert pointed out. His mother nodded slowly, considering the idea.
'If that is the case, the more rats we can prevent from reaching their goal, the less likely the enchantment is to work as intended. Let's destroy as many as we can.' Lady Grindelwald decided.
Hitting the rats turned out to be far more tricky than they'd bargained on. They were small and moved quickly and they had to be careful not to hit the wardstone or Hermione's little device. Mordred was the first to succeed; decapitating one with a clang of steel against stone as it made to run beneath Hermione's skirts. Gellert got one a moment later with a flash of red. The spark rune ignited on the rats tail, and slowly the transfiguration unravelled. Gellert was already trying to hit the next rat.
'There's got to be a better way.' He hissed as his mother caught one with a blue spark. Three rats down... Hermione was staring at the one he'd stopped a moment ago, something akin to horror on her face.
'It's a bomb.' She said numbly, then she suddenly seemed to animate. 'Run, run, get out of here!' She charged for the doorways, but barely managed three steps before the bottle erupted into flames. Shards of glass and metal blasted across the room in a deadly wave, setting off a chain reaction. Gellert didn't think, he just dove on top of his mother, bowling her to the floor and shielding her with his smaller body. His shoulder burned as fire washed over them, but that was the only pain, Hermione's ward coated his skin and protected him.
His mother was less fortunate and she kicked and writhed in pain beneath him, screams that would haunt his nightmares lost to the rattle of explosions and roar of flames. He flexed his hand, his bellowed incantation merging with his mother's cries. His conjured shield billowed out, then collapsed, his concentration ruined. He tried again, failed, then his mother stilled beneath him. Horrified, Gellert pulled back slightly, then saw Mordred, ghostlike and insubstantial with flames coiling disconcertingly through his form. He held Lady Grindelwald's hand, a silvery sheen covering the high witch's skin. Gellert close his eyes and buried his face into warm stone, waiting out the fire.
It felt like hours, but perhaps only lasted minutes. Thousands of thoughts flew through his mind - Hermione must be okay, despite having been near the epicentre of the first blast. Mordred would never have left her side otherwise. His mother wouldn't be able to walk, he was certain of it. He was certain he'd managed to protect her torso and face but her wand hand - the one that Mordred held had looked red and blistered, even beneath the silvery glow of the dark knight's ward.
The flames died quickly; there was nothing flammable inside the wardroom beyond whatever had caused the initial ignition. Gellert pushed himself up as soon as the light faded from behind his eyelids, searching for Hermione.
She was unharmed, her silver dress bright against the soot-blackened walls as she summoned three wands from the debris. Shards of glass and metal were scattered across the floor, blackened and warped by heat. The wardstone was ruined; perhaps with time it would be salvageable, but right now they didn't have that luxury. The fire may have died in the wardroom, but distant explosions still echoed through the castle and smoke was already thickening the air.
He turned to his mother, then instantly looked away again. He took a moment to steel his nerves, then looked back. As he'd hoped, his warded body had shielded her torso and head. Her hands weren't in too bad shape - the skin was red and blistering slightly, but her legs were another story.
Despite all he'd been through, despite having seen his own body in graphic state, he found himself emptying his stomach across the floor.
'Get Hermione out of here.' He ordered Mordred quickly. The knight looked up at him, dark eyes taking in the determined set of Gellert's chin. Finally, he nodded, ghosting across the room and leading Hermione up the stairs, returning his wand as they passed and shielding Hermione's eyes. Gellert was left alone with his mother, still unconscious under Mordred's spell.
With practiced movements he conjured bandages and began wrapping them around his mother's legs from toe to thigh. It was a mess, with charred dress stuck in clumps and shards of glass and metal that worryingly weren't bleeding. He pulled out the worst pieces of shrapnel, but left most in. He needed to be able to move his mother as soon as possible and the coven's healers could tend to her better once they were safe.
With her legs and arms wrapped in clean white bandages, he cast a levitation charm and manoeuvred her up the long staircase, careful not to hit her legs or head against the stone walls of steps.
As he got higher the smoke thickened, until he literally crashed into Hermione at the top of the stairs.
'The whole castle is on fire.' Hermione gasped. She had a scrap of her skirt wound about her mouth and carried one of the extendable book bags from the library. Mordred followed behind, sword out and glinting, ready to defend his High Priestess from danger.
'Would any of your spells work?' He asked quickly, Hermione's eyebrows moved as she pulled a face but with most of her features covered by a makeshift mask, he didn't know exactly what she was trying to say.
'We could get rid of the air. That would put out a fair few flames.' Mordred suggested, 'but it will be hard, more than you've done before.'
Hermione barely hesitated, her hands flying out to either side and powerful magic billowing from her fingertips as she began the process of casting one of her area effect spells. He stood, turning to Mordred.
'Can you protect her?' He asked, hating that he needed to do this, but his mother was injured and he needed to get her to a healer urgently. For now there was no physical attack on the castle and he hoped he could be back by her side in minutes... in the meantime, as much as he hated him, Mordred was a powerful and experienced warrior. Hermione would be safe. Predictably, Mordred nodded.
He hurried the rest of the way up into the castle proper, bursting through the doorway into hell on earth. Flames licked up tapestries and ate away at wooden furniture, carpets smouldered and books popped and sparked as their covers warped. Smoke lay heavy in the air and he pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth, stumbling along with muscle memory alone as a guide.
He was about to pass the foyer when he heard the voices - cries of aguamenti in the familiar tones of the coven. He called out to them and a moment later six shapes emerged from the smoke, shimmering bubbles cast over their heads. Frau Kollmann tapped him over the head and a bubble appeared, allowing him to breathe clean air.
'What happened?'
'Are you okay?'
'Where's Hermione?'
He was bombarded by questions and for a moment he felt a little shell shocked, his brain blending half the words into a blur of sound.
'Hermione called it a bomb, transfigured into a rat, it set off a chain of explosions. Mother needs a healer, urgently.' He sent her drifting forwards with a wave of his wand and the spell was taken up by a concerned Herr Freidl.
'Where's Hermione?' Arika Fleiss asked, Gellert frowned at her in puzzlement. He could feel exactly where the younger witch was, her magic saturated the air with a potency so heavy he almost felt he was touching her. Not knowing where she was would be like looking into the sky at midday and not being able to see the sun. None of the other adults seemed surprised by the dark witch's question, and Gellert wondered if any of them could feel her. Was it not as normal as he thought to have such a clear visual representation of magic?
He answered without thinking and tension melted from the group of adults - it really was remarkable how quickly Hermione had wound them around her fingers. He was assigned to return to her with Berg and they would all retreat through the floo whilst the adults got the fires under control - could they not feel that Hermione was already working on that? - and searched the castle for any second assault.
As they split up, he called a warning to be ready for attack to the group going to check for other intruders. He was incredibly glad that he'd confided his dreams with Hermione. Without that lingering doubt that he'd ben imagining things, he was confident that he knew what was about to happen - there would be intruders but he would reach Hermione safely.
The fires had fully taken hold by now and it took a long time to make their way back to Hermione, fighting the fire with water spells as they went. The moment Hermione's spell took effect was incredible - one minute the fires raged, then next they winked out leaving not even an ember still burning.
The explosions had blown the glass out of almost every window and the smoke cleared quickly, so they could see Hermione, unconscious in a pool of silver skirts at the end of a long corridor well before they reached her. Mordred was still standing over her, sword drawn but he kept flickering in and out of focus like he was struggling to remain on the physical plane. Gellert called to him and he looked up, relief evident in every line of his body. He nodded to them, then disappeared.
'Was that Mordred?' Berg asked, surprised. 'I expected someone older.'
'What?' Gellert asked, mystified. Berg didn't answer, he was too busy checking Hermione for injury with a host of detection charms which glowed and flashed in a series Gellert couldn't hope to understand. The other boy had come a long way from their simple bruise healing charm in the desert.
'She's just exhausted, not even close to burned out.' The boy shook his head in amazement, 'it's terrifying what having a sect lets her do. I can't wait to join her coven.'
'What if I decided to form an Order?' Gellert asked, half joking. Covens were more traditional and he'd always planned to let Anneken form a coven anyway, and Anneken had already decided that Hermione should take the position. Gellert was more than happy with the arrangement.
The two boys tucked an arm each under Hermione's limp ones, and hefted her up onto their shoulders. She was incredibly light and much shorter than either of them, worryingly light, Gellert decided. Was she eating enough to sustain the amount of magic she frequently expended?
'I hope I'll be in her coven at least. I'm not very strong.' Berg's voice trembled and Gellert looked at him in surprise.
'I thought you didn't care if you ended up in the coven?'
'I didn't...' Berg hesitated 'Can we talk about this later?'
'Sure.' Gellert agreed easily. There was a moment of awkward shuffling and annoyed grunting as they manoeuvred down a short flight of stairs and through a narrow doorway. Berg, whose old manor hadn't had a single doorway without enough room to get a woman in a crinoline through.
Berg halted suddenly, throwing Gellert of balance as Hermione's arm almost slipped from his shoulder. 'D'you hear that? Fighting?'
'Yes.' It was distant, but he could clearly hear incantations and explosions and the crash of curses against shields.
'You're the better dueller. Let me take Hermione, and lets get to the floo room before something goes wrong.'
'You just had to say something.' Gellert remarked dryly as Berg shifted Hermione into his arms.
They jogged through the corridors, Gellert leading with his wand already drawn and a shield charm lighting the tip silver - he needed to learn that offhand shield charm if they were going to keep fighting battles.
The fighting was near the back of the castle, where the smaller doors opened onto the rolling back lawn. He decided right then that if he ever built a castle, there would be no back gate into the gardens. He'd have front gardens only, and one big front door and no other entrances.
They hurried past the burnt tapestries and charred furniture, puffs of ash billowing into the air with every step. The sounds of fighting grew louder, pressing closer to them as they reached the entrance hall.
Gellert's reaction was spectacular - his shield flared just in time to block an unrecognisable pink curse.
'Brother.' Their opponent's voice was intimately familiar to him, one that he'd grown up hearing.
'Alice.' Berg replied coldly. The enemy witch stood at the top of the opposite set of stairs, dressed in her pristine white battle robes. Not even a smudge of soot obscured her immaculate skin and hair and he knew there was no way she'd been fighting.
'Come now, be more respectful to your matriarch.' Alice pouted and Berg's expression flickered as if he couldn't decide whether he was sad or angry. If he wasn't carrying Hermione slung across his shoulders, Gellert would have been willing to bet he would be kneeding his trousers between his fingers - a nervous tic the boy seemed unable to tame.
'I do not acknowledge your claim.' Berg eventually said, his mouth settling on defiance. His posture straightened as much as it could with the young witch over his shoulder.
'The magic has acknowledged me, you should too. That is, if you're as loyal to the old ways as you claim.' Alice called across the room. The signet ring flashed on her finger, catching the light and glowing amber. The sight of it made Gellert irrationally angry; such a small thing that held such power and certainly did not belong where it currently sat. His fingers clenched around his wand and he was about to try and curse the ring off her undeserving finger when Berg called out.
'You would not honour the old ways enough to allow a dispute.'
'You shouldn't need to dispute my claim. I am the eldest, I was the heir. I am powerful and educated in the role.' She snapped, and neither boy missed that she didn't deny Berg's words. The ring, Gellert noticed, was a male one - big and bulky on her slender fingers. That meant Alice hadn't actually been before the family magic to stake her claim as matriarch, or the ring would have been reformed to suit her. He didn't know why, perhaps she hadn't had time or didn't know the ritual or, perhaps she was afraid that her claim would be rejected. His mind buzzed; there had to be some way they could use that.
'You work against the very values of our family. You trample over traditions as you trample over lives.' Argued Berg
'Traditions? Values?' Alice reared backwards, her expression turning thunderous. 'How dare you speak to me of traditions and values when you stood by whilst our own parents brought shame on our family?'
'It is you who shames us, it is you who has brought our family to it's knees.'
'I have taught a lesson to those who would disrespect our status as an ancient house.' The witch screeched, spittle flying from her lips as she jabbed her off hand in the direction of Gellert. 'I was the heir to the ancient house of Tunninger, one of the oldest and most noble houses in the world, and a mudblood upstart, with no inheritance and no name was given the position of channel over me. Yet not one of you even acknowledged the sleight to our honour.'
'There was no sleight.' Berg said, his voice cold and terrible. 'The ancient ways place power over individual honour. You should have been honoured to become a member of such a powerful witch's coven, as have generations of ancestors before us. You have placed your own pride above the good of our people, of our family and of the covens. It is you who have shamed us with your selfish actions. Now, you will not be at the side of Hermione of Gorlois, your name will be a speck on the tapestry of history whilst those who held true, who put the greater good before themselves will rise with her, and our names, our honour will become cemented in glorious legends.'
'She wields the fancy name of a dead family, but it will not be her name that goes down in history. It will be the revolution, who tore down the decayed parody of the old ways and restored us to our former glory. Today, today the Grindelwalds will fall; their castle, their legacy, and now their children. You among them, former brother!'
Alice brandished her wand and Tunninger family magic roared out in a brutal arc. Gellert threw a hasty shield up between them and her and the powerful magic buffeted against it. Berg spun sideways and through a doorway, Gellert dove after him and they slammed the door behind them, locking it.
A moment later the door blasted off it's hinges, Alice storming through the void. Gellert froze and he heard Berg's breathing hitch beside him. The older witch prowled further into the room, eyes sweeping over the ruined decor. Her eyes fell on a bulky, ornate cupboard and she jabbed her wand at it with a savagely snarled incantation and it exploded, splinters flying across the room and glancing off the statue they hid behind. Gellert reached up quickly and yanked on the babbling witches wand.
The grating of stone was undisguisable and Alice spun to see the tail end of Berg's coat whizzing away down a long, stone slide that had formed where the statue was. Gellert blasted a jinx at her, then jumped down the slide as well. A roar of fire followed him, licking at the protective rune but unable to take hold.
The slide was steep, blindingly fast and full of twists and turns but he managed to conjure... stuff. Most of it was illformed and random, but anything Alice hit at this speed would be sure to do some damage.
Then he whizzed out through a charred tapestry in a puff of ash and was hauled to his feel by Berg. The other wizard already had Hermione slung over his shoulder and this time he had his wand in his free hand.
'She didn't get hurt on the way down?' Gellert demanded. Berg shook his head.
'Not a scratch, the enchantments on that crown are pretty impressive.'
'Right, this way.' Gellert took off down the corridor to the left, just as Alice barrelled through the tapestry behind them. She was finally injured; blood streaked her robes and dripped from a cut on her cheek and Gellert guessed she must have blasted apart the obstacles as she reached them. When she stood, her robes were smeared with charcoal.
'Fight me!' She screeched as they whipped around the corner. A spell blew apart the carved stone trimming, and another shattered the mirror on the far wall. The boys swerved sideways again, darting into the ghost's wing, startling a pearly Englishman in a ruff. He spluttered indignantly as they dashed along the corridor, puffs of dust pluming from the carpets. The passed the stinking banquet hall, the music room which was blessedly silent and plunged straight through a mounted knight in the ballroom. The knight bellowed at them, assuring the young lords that the ghosts would hold her off as a pale young boy beckoned from another secret passageway.
'What...' Berg wheezed, 'can ghosts do...' They paused so that Gellert could take Hermione for a bit, allowing the other boy to catch his breath. '... to stop a witch?'
'We can perform a haunting.' The boy whispered from up ahead. A moment later, they found out exactly what a haunting meant as a terrible wail echoed through the passageway. It was accompanied by discordant screeching of instruments, banging of doors and drawers and the rattle of windows in their frames. As if the sound wasn't terrible enough, every light extinguished, including that of their wands and the air took on a distinctive chill. In the darkness, the boy glowed eerily, and by his light they made it to another door.
'I can go no further. The ghost wing ends here. You'll find yourself in the kitchen.' Then, with a slight bow, the boy dashed off back up the corridor. Gellert pushed open the iron-bound door and they emerged into the light of the kitchen. The elves were gone, meals half prepared on the benches. A cauldron stirred itself over an extinguished hearth and a tap was running, overflowing the sink and pooling on the floor to mix with a sack of spilled flour.
There was no real choice over where to go next. They scrambled over the splintered remains of the kitchen doors and climbed the narrow staircase into the courtyard. A battle had already been fought here, but had clearly moved on; stonework and glass was shattered across the courtyard and a pool of lava bubbled ominously, eating away at the foundations of the South Tower. They skirted around it and crunched across what had once been a rose garden and was now being grazed by a stone goat.
Up they went again, through the doors and along a hallway where destroyed suits of armour tried to reassemble themselves, then they skidded to a stop, peering cautiously through the doorway and into the massive entrance hall. It was empty, but in far worse state than it had been when they'd left it last. The chandeliers had fallen, massive metal rings heaped like coins in the four corners of the rooms as their chains hissed an spat like snakes; the result of some animation spell for sure. A deep crevasse rent the room from the colossal doors to the crumbling pillars that supported the soaring roof.
'The whole castle is going to come down soon.' Berg muttered. Numb, Gellert just nodded. It was a little like having his life flash before his eyes - the first time he'd managed to walk down the front staircase without touching the bannister, the spot where he'd stood with his nanny elf as his mother rode out with the coven to confront his father, where Hermione had met him before his first ritual as channel like an angel in her white dress.
'Let's go.' Gellert decided. He could reminisce later, otherwise they would be going down with the castle.
They made it half way down the staircase before everything went wrong. A line of fire roared in front of them and they skidded to a halt, turning to see Alice stepping out from behind a pillar. She looked mad, her hair whipped into a wild frenzy around her head, blood and scratches covering her arms and staining her sooty white battle robes.
'You're stuck now... no ghosts, no secret passages, just me and you.' She crooned. Gellert drew himself up, knowing that she was right. He laid Hermione on the floor, his gaze lingering for a moment on the young witch. Her silver dress was still clean, protected by the powerful warding that was etched into the glittering crown on her brow. Her hair was wild around her face, splaying like a thick halo of brown around her head. He readied his wand.
Alice struck, her family magic manifesting in fire as it roared towards them. Gellert slashed his wand diagonally, dissipating it with a powerful wind. Berg swished and flicked his wand in a blur of repetitive movements, flinging everything loose at his sister. Alice deflected them all with a white flashing shield, then brought her wand scything down. The air seemed to become heavy on his shoulders, Berg, who was carrying Hermione, dropped to his knees. Somehow, Gellert managed to drag his leaden feet out of the way of a crimson stunning spell and then he jabbed his wand, sending Alice stumbling backwards as if punched in the gut. He cast a quick finite, just as Berg reached the protection of one of the large pillars.
His friend, now relatively safe behind cover, leaned out and hit Alice with a dancing feet spell. Gellert dove to join Berg behind the protection of the pillar as Alice, fuming, cancelled the spell.
'You're both pathetic! The coven system would be doomed if you survived to take its head.' She taunted. 'Now, see what a real witch can do!'
Neither boy dared poke their head around the pillar to see what she was doing as she cast a long, wordy spell. Something roared and the ground shook as something massive took thunderous steps towards them, there was a moment of silence, then a crash as massive, flaming claws raked the stones to either side of the pillar. Berg whimpered and they pressed closer together. Then, the conjured beast took one step closer and the clawed foot wrapped around the pillar and tore it out.
The boys yelled and scrambled sideways to the next pillar in the line as the roof groaned alarmingly, dust sprinkling down from above. A massive jaw closed around the place they'd just stood, snapping on air. The dragon reared back and swung its head in their direction as Alice's mad laughter rang across the hall as she directed it from the top of the staircase, using her wand like a conductor's baton. With a whoosh, flames spilled from the mouth of the dragon and the two boys were engulfed in an inferno.
Their hastily conjured shield barely held as both boys poured everything they could muster into it.
'She's using it wrong.' Berg gritted, although Gellert didn't know if his words were meant to be a prayer or a reassurance.
'I don't think it matters.' Gellert spat back, 'We haven't got family magic. We've got no chance without Hermione.'
'She's forcing it.' Berg explained, 'Father said our magic was life magic, not death magic.' Then, to Gellert's utmost horror, the other boy suddenly stepped through the shield and into the torrent of flames. For a moment, Gellert expected to hear agonised screams, but Berg just stood there. Fire blasted around him, whipping his hair and curling in demonic trails behind him as he waded, unharmed and unseen, through the blaze.
The fire cut off so abruptly that Gellert was left blinking in the suddenly darker hall. Berg stood, head bowed over his sister's unconscious form, at the top of the staircase. He hurried up the staircase and barely restrained his sigh of relief when he saw the movement of her chest. Whilst Alice had caused problems, she had still been one of his childhood friends and she was not a dark witch.
For a moment, both boys just looked down at her. Unconscious, she looked far more like the Alice they had known, the twisted expression relaxed into blankness. He considered the ring on her finger briefly, confirming that it really was a men's signet then reached over for her wand which had rolled down a couple of steps. Whilst a part of him thought they should capture her, he also knew that doing so would leave her at the mercy of the coven's justice. He didn't know exactly what she'd been involved in, but it would be bound magic at the least and he just couldn't inflict that on her. Instead, he reached for her wand - a long, slender twist of ivory coloured wood. He snapped it with a decisive crack, trails of stringy unicorn hair resisting with slightly before giving way as well. Berg watched him with an impressively blank expression.
'Gregorovitch is in the castle with us so she'll struggle to replace it with anything better than a close match.' He explained, dropping the pieces over her splayed battle robe. The roof groaned alarmingly again and more dust rattled down. Both boys glanced upwards warily, then Gellert dashed for Hermione and scooped up her limp body. They dashed for the floo room, diving through just as the roof came down, blocking the doorway. A moment later they were stepping out into the afternoon sunlight of Fort Stark.