[A.N.: Hi! I'm sorry I got back a bit later than I thought I would. We got COVID and had to quarantine for a week, so we ended up returning home late. We're both fine now, though, and our animals are happy to have us back. Well, the dog is happy. The cat is still yelling at us for leaving in the first place.]
Chapter 6: I Thought I Was Stronger
Tori and Draco were already in the foyer when Daphne and Harry hurried down the stairs. Both of them were trying to push Narcissa back into the parlor with minimal success.
"I will not let my son go out there without me!" she was saying as Harry stepped down the last step.
He sighed, drew his wand, and aimed it straight at her head. "Narcissa," he said, affecting a tone that was calm almost to the point of 'bored,' "I know Draco won't body-bind you even for your own protection, but I promise you I will. Get back on that couch now."
She shot him a murderous glare. "Draco, you wouldn't let-"
"Do it, Potter," Draco said.
"Fine, fine," she said. "We'll discuss this later."
Somehow, Tori managed to shoot him a genuinely appreciative look despite having more limited facial muscle mobility and the countenance of a horrifying monster. Draco just gave him a nod, which he returned.
Baby steps.
Daphne snorted in amusement. "Tori, did you check the wards?"
Tori nodded. "They're still up, and someone came about three minutes ago, then left and returned under a minute ago. Whoever it was probably tested their access first and is now bringing in friends."
"Damn it!" Daphne said. "I thought I got all of the Death Eaters. My control of magic is so bad in this form that it takes ten minutes to erase a single name from the wardbook, so I just tried to get all of the arseholes off the list."
"Hopefully it's the Aurors, then," Harry said. "If not, though, Draco, silence us. I'll Disillusion us while you do it. Whoever it is may know about you two, but they won't know you've got wizard backup now, too."
Draco nodded and started on the charms, and Harry did likewise. He had a moment of claustrophobia when the rope-tightening sensation of the Disillusionment Charm met the muddy sensation of the foot-silencing charm, but both passed quickly.
"Ready?" Daphne asked impatiently. "They'll be nearly to the house by now."
"You two go out first," Harry said, slipping back into old habits from his year on the run. "Daphne, flank them to the left, Tori flank right. Draco, you and I will stay to the side of the doorframe away from the hinges till the count of three. I don't want either of us to be hit by spells aimed at the girls. Once we're out, you flank right and I'll flank left. Don't open fire till you've put distance between yourself and Tori. We don't want them ever having two targets in the same field of fire."
They all stared at him. "Damn, Potter," Daphne said. "Where did you learn to do that?"
"War," he said simply. "Does that plan work?"
"Yes," they all replied.
"Good," he said. "Ladies?"
The girls nodded and hurried to the door. As soon as Draco and Harry told them they were in position next to the door, Daphne swung it open, charged out, and all hell broke loose.
Screams of fright and anger erupted from outside along with shouted curses. Harry was glad he was counting to three before going out, because on "two" a sickly white Sectumsempra blasted through the foyer and cut a baluster in half.
On 'three', Harry let Malfoy go first (both to avoid tripping if they went simultaneously and because he didn't mind a moment of extra meat-shielding), then charged after him out the door. Two seedy-looking young men, a tall, thin grey-haired man Harry recognized as the Death Eater Travers, and the portly, sharp-dressed Lord Selwyn stood in a tight group around a bony, elderly woman with her grey hair drawn up in a tight bun. The five of them were only about twenty yards from the front door.
The old woman was just as involved in the curse-slinging as the men, and the sheer volume of spells was forcing Daphne and Tori back. Like werewolves, their current forms seemed to regenerate spelled damage quickly and resist some of it entirely, but Daphne still roared in pain when a curse connected and a line of blood spurted from a gash on her chest and arm. Fortunately, she still managed to dodge a follow-up Killing Curse from Travers.
At that point, Harry decided he'd flanked far enough and decided to make his presence known. Unfortunately, Draco had the same idea he did, and Travers went down with two stunners to the chest. That undid their stealth, though, and now the Death Eaters turned some of their fire on Harry and Draco.
Harry focused on staying mobile, leaping rows of flowers and shielding whenever he felt his movements might be predictable. He never let up his attacks on Selwyn, trying to keep the more dangerous wizard on the defensive and generally succeeding. Draco focused on the two young men, blocking curses hurled at himself with surgical precision while hurling his own at whichever one seemed most focused on the vulpine monsters hunting them.
With the volume of curses being hurled at them massively reduced, Daphne and Tori were now making serious forward progress toward the Death Eaters. Selwyn recognized the danger and responded unexpectedly: by kicking one of the other two men hard in the arse. He stumbled forward, presenting a target too tempting for Daphne to ignore. She lunged and, with one vicious swing, took the young man's head clean off.
Selwyn perfectly anticipated her movement and shouted "Imperius" as Daphne killed his man. She spun around and ran jerkily at Tori.
The old woman cackled and whipped a Sectumsempra at the younger vulpine monstrosity as she tried to dodge her sister's first swing, and Tori screamed in pain and stumbled as the spell gouged her leg. That was all the opening Daphne needed, and the older girl slammed her down onto her back and was on her in an instant.
"Tori!" Draco screamed and focused his attacks on Selwyn. The man's defense was impeccable, though, and they couldn't get through. However, in the course of fighting him, Harry noticed the older witch was getting sloppy in her defense, since all of the attacks were focused on the men. Harry spared a stunner for her and was gratified to see her drop.
Preoccupied with his target, he didn't realize Narcissa had come outside until she screamed, "Draco!" and unloaded several stunners on the other young man. He went down before he could even turn to face the witch.
Selwyn tried to hit Narcissa with a Sectumsempra, but Draco shielded her. That bought Harry a moment to try to help Tori, so he used an Expulso to blast Daphne off of her younger sister and about five feet away. Not to be deterred, Selwyn used the same spell to blow up the stairs on which Narcissa stood. His spell came in below Draco's shield and the resulting explosion tossed Narcissa several feet back into the foyer.
Draco screamed, "No!" as his mother went flying. Harry had heard that tone before out of his own mouth back in the Department of Mysteries and, going with his gut, decided to pin Selwyn in place with a trio of stunners. As he expected, the man shielded all of them as well as the spell Draco roared at him. The other boy's spell was the Killing Curse, though, and it passed through the man's shield as if it weren't even there. Selwyn collapsed to the ground wreathed in tendrils of sickly green light.
Draco didn't even stop to confirm his kill before racing toward his mother. Harry didn't want to risk even waiting the time he'd need to get close to her, though, and hit her with a Stragulum Immutabilis from where he stood.
"What the hell, Potter?" Draco shouted, leveling his wand at him.
Harry didn't aim his wand at the other boy, but he was ready to shield in an instant if necessary. "The Medical Stasis Charm freezes every aspect of the target," he said, as calmly as he could. "If she's bleeding out or has a punctured lung, that will buy us some time."
Draco stared at him. "Th...thank you."
"Check on her," Harry said with a nod in the woman's direction. "I'll see to the girls."
The other boy dashed off and Harry hurried over to Tori. She had pulled herself up to her knees, and was covered with slashes and blood. Her shoulders shook, and as Harry approached he realized she was sobbing. "Just stay still for a moment," he said, and cast a series of Episkey charms that, slash by slash, began to put her back together.
"I'm sorry," she said as her pain subsided. "I barely did anything and now you just need to heal me. I'm useless."
"Don't say that!" he said. "I'm the coward, letting you run out and draw fire."
"And I'm the one," Daphne said, panting, "who wasn't strong enough to fight off that Imperius Curse." She'd snuck up on them while he was working on Tori's injuries.
"It's not your fault!" Tori said.
"I shouldn't have gone for that idiot Selwyn kicked in front of me," Daphne said weakly. "I just...the beast inside me wanted him. I couldn't resist." She hung her head. "I always thought I was stronger because I could use the beast better than you. It was just using me, though, wasn't it?"
"You are stronger than me, Daph," Tori said. "You always have been."
Harry finished up with the large cuts and started working on the swelling around Tori's throat. "You're both incredibly brave. You charged a whole group of Death Eaters and faced a lot of pain without backing down. I haven't always done that well."
"It's not like we had a choice," Daphne said. "We can't let them have the mirror."
"There's always a choice," Harry said. "You could have hidden or run away, but you fought without a second thought."
"It was probably just the beast inside," Daphne said darkly. She panted as she spoke.
"Beasts don't follow battle plans," Harry shot back. "You knew what you faced and you faced it anyway. Only a thinking being can be brave like that. Now shut up and accept the compliment. I have more healing work to do."
Daphne lowered her snout in submission and didn't respond. Tori arched her fuzzy eyebrows at her sister but stayed similarly quiet.
Harry took a deep breath and relaxed a bit once he was done working on Tori's throat. "There you go. How do you feel otherwise?"
"Better than Daph," Tori said. "You need to check her now."
"I'm fi-" Daphne was cut off by a growl from Tori.
"I'll judge 'fine,'" Harry said. He ran a diagnostic charm. "Ouch. I'm sorry about the cracked rib. That was probably my fault. I underpowered the spell a bit, but I couldn't make it too weak and risk Tori being hurt more."
"You were helping Tori," Daphne said. "Don't worry about it."
After Harry fixed Daphne's bone, he turned his attention to a few gashes on her. "You two are lucky these forms heal so well," he said. "Sectumsempra cuts are much harder to heal on a human."
"Don't remind me, Potter." Draco's shaky voice made Harry jump with surprise.
"Draco!" Tori said. "How's your mother?"
The other boy had clearly only recently forced back some tears. "Multiple broken ribs and lung punctures. If Potter hadn't put her in medical stasis, she'd be dead by now."
"I'm so sorry!" Tori said. "I hope they'll be able to save her at St. Mungo's." She turned to Daphne as if daring her sister to gainsay her, but Daphne only nodded.
"The Aurors may have St. Mungo's watching out for me," Draco said. "They know I'm missing, and I don't want to do anything to lead them here. Potter, will you take her? You'll have to remove her from stasis to apparate."
Harry nodded. "Yes. I'll be honest: I'm still not the best at recovering from apparition, but I'll put her back in stasis as soon as I can."
"I'll add him to the wards so he can Apparate from the house," Daphne said. "Before he goes, though, what should we do about those Death Eaters? I killed one and Draco used an Unforgivable on Selwyn. Death Eater or not, there will be repercussions for doing that to a Wizengamot member."
"Not if the bodies are never found," Harry said.
They all stared at him.
Harry stared right back. "Do you know how sick I got during the war fighting people who treated the gates of Azkaban like a revolving door? These Death Eaters came here to murder two orphans. They can rot for all I care. That we keep Draco out of prison is just an added bonus...or disincentive. I'm trying not to think too hard about that part."
Daphne snorted. "We won't tell anyone you helped him. Harry, get Narcissa to St. Mungo's. I'll kill them all personally, especially Euphemia. I'd forgotten she was as nasty a piece of work as her husband and son, and she visited my parents a few times a year. That's how they snuck through the wards."
"Thorfinn and Herewald Rowle are in Azkaban," Draco said, "the latter on my parents' testimony. They won't come looking for her."
"Excellent," Daphne said. "We'll have Flopsy excavate some dirt for us before repairing the stairs and bury them down there. Vanishing spells won't work on intelligent creatures, the only spell that would leave no real trace is Fiendfyre and that is not allowed near the manor, and Draco doesn't know the area within apparition range well enough to take both bodies somewhere hidden in the time we have to work with."
"I don't know how I feel about this," Tori said. "Are we sure there's no other way to handle them without Draco getting in trouble?"
Draco shook his head. "I'm a former Death Eater who used an Unforgivable Curse. I don't like my odds if the Ministry finds out, but I don't want you to get in trouble for something I did, Tori."
"What about me?" Harry asked, faking (or possibly not, he wasn't sure) annoyance.
"You can go to hell," Draco replied evenly.
Harry shrugged. "As long as I know where I stand." This casual sort of loathing was so much less work than active hatred. He wished they'd figured it out years ago.
"Hurr, hurr," Daphne gave that bestial laugh again. "Don't worry about us, Draco. We'll be dead not long after nightfall."
"Oh." The blonde boy looked down at his feet. "Right."
Harry felt a bit of tightness in his chest at that comment, but ignored it to focus on their current problems. "I'd better get going. I'll tell St. Mungo's that we were attacked by some Death Eaters over lunch at my house, but they apparated away before I could stop them."
"That'll have to do," Draco said. "Be careful with her, Potter."
"I will," Harry responded.
