The roar from the stadium echoed and rose through the air as another goal was scored, cheers filling the wide space that appeared to be heavy, buzzing with excitement and exhilarating chants. The Quidditch world cup managed to gather so many people in one place, each sporting different colors for the teams they continued to support, jumping up and down, laughing, the entire structure appearing to shake from its very core.
The winds blew in all directions as players stormed on their brooms, a rumble of voices and sounds mixing together.
With both hands behind a perfectly straight back, Talbott barely blinked despite the elements hitting his face. He breathed slowly while keeping a trained eye on the over energic crowd, walking through the stands with practiced ease, stepping out of the way of enthusiastic people with far too large hats on their heads and face paint dripping from the sweat forming on their skins.
His badge was kept on display, people who noticed him glancing a bit too long, whispering between themselves at how intimidating his alure was. Not that he cared much for their words.
Feeling anxious in such chaos was easy, especially for someone as overly alert as him, however nothing betrayed the rising uneasiness in his stomach. Whenever so many people gathered something bad was bound to happen, however it was not his mission to ensure people followed the rules and behaved. He was there due to the increasing number of reports for dark wizards and witches gathering. He was there of his own accord.
"Talbott?" turning his head slightly, a few stray hairs brushed across his forehead, falling in his eyes, him not bothering so much with taming the hair that had grown longer. The source of the voice calling out to him came from a familiar face, once he had not had to chance to see much of recently, especially not in England.
"Charlie." Talbott replied dryly more out of curtesy resulting from knowing him since his school years "What are you doing here?"
The redhead blinked a few times in confusion, pointing to his attire as it was rather obvious why he was in the middle of the stadium, almost losing his voice in the process of cheering on the teams. He did not expect this attitude coming from Talbott, especially not after he himself reached out to him sending a letter to be delivered to Talia. But it irked him, he was just trying to help, even then staring each other down, he greeted him because they knew each other, because they went to the same school, despite being in different houses "Why are you giving me grief?"
"I'm not. I'm just busy patrolling." Talbott replied in a short and concise manner "Did you give her the letter? I haven't heard back."
"I did." Then something inside his mind clicked "Wait, didn't Moody tell you?" both stared each other intensely as if just then realizing they have found the missing pieces.
Lifting his chin, cold eyes blinked once "He mentioned Death Eaters started gathering in Romania right before letting everyone know he's retiring." Talbott spared a few more words in that regard given Charlie's incredulous gasp. Truth be told no one actually thought he would be the one deciding to quit the job and take on another as a professor at Hogwarts. All the Aurors thought Moody would go out in a mission with fire and glory, not have cake and tea at the Ministry as he said his goodbyes "Is there more I should know of?"
Nodding his head, Charlie pulled him a bit further away from the crowd so they could talk more in private. As they passed the stands, Talbott greeted each of the Weasley members, eyes locking with Harry's, a curt nod being directed at him.
As they made their way outside of the stadium, Charlie turned upon hearing the crowd roar once more, a hint of regret shinning across his face since he missed that moment. He would surely hear everyone gather a bit later on to wildly recreate the maneuvers inside the tent they had.
But he had another mission to do, despite missing the end of the match. He needed to let Talbott know what had been going on. Buying a few refreshments from the nearest stand they sat down at a small table, Talbott being thankful for escaping the large crowd, for being further away from all the noise, although he still felt his ears were ringing.
"I honestly thought Moody told you about Talia." Charlie began, leaning in his chair, chest touching the table "Death Eaters were searching the nearby village, waiting on Felix to leave the Dragon Sanctuary. Me and Talia knew, she went ahead to assess how bad the situation was."
"I know all that, what happened?" he knew from the start that Charlie had absolutely no good news to share, it showed in how his brows drew together, how his eyes narrowed, nose wrinkling, pressing his freckles together, Talbott himself gripping the bottle in his hand.
"Talia decided she wanted to return to England, went for several days in a row to the portkey office, but it was always closed, so we figured the Death Eaters must have done something to cut off transport from that point in Romania." Locking eyes with Talbott, he continued "One day, her and Felix were out in the village. Felix got ambushes and Talia saved him." he noticed how his friend's eyes hardened around the edges, lips pressing in a tight line "She Obliviated them, but one got to escaped, spread the word Talia" leaning in he whispered "Crane is in Romania."
"Where is she?" Talbott immediately asked.
"She fled to Lisbon with Felix. It was too dangerous to return to England." Sighing, he lowered his head "Last I heard was a bit over a month ago when she mentioned she didn't know how much more she can remain there. They're everywhere Talbott, they're regrouping in large numbers."
Sounds drowned somewhere inside his mind, color leaving his face as he sat back in his chair, the motion feeling as if it set his lungs on fire "I put her there." He slowly spoke, hand gripping the bottle in his hand tighter, shaking on the surface of the table "I knew Rosier had ties to Death Eaters and I still left her there."
"Mate it's not your fault." Charlie tried to reason with him, however Talbott just shook his head as if his words did not even reach him.
"She turned into what she is because of me." Sequence by sequence, images of him and Talia rolled in his mind.
Her smile, he did nothing to preserve it, instead stained her pale cheeks with tears.
The blood on his hand as she sacrificed herself to save him, her last breath in his arms.
It was because of him that she slipped through the cracks, igniting the fire lying dormant within her veins.
"I did nothing to save her."
Smashing his closed fist against the table, Charlie yelled "Damn it Talbott you couldn't have known this would happen!"
Sunset colored eyes appeared to look at him, however it felt as if he was not truly there in the moment "But I did and I still failed. I have gone through every possible scenario inside my head and I still did everything wrong. I never trusted Rosier and it only"
"No" Charlie cut him off viciously "he did nothing wrong. We don't get to chose the family we are born into. If he is the bad guy here because his parents were Death Eaters then that makes Talia as much of monster as hers, right?" Talbott shook his head, Charlie losing his temper "Well it's your bloody logic." Pointing a finger at him, he got up "Don't you dare say another word about them. One thing you're right about, you did nothing. You weren't there, we were. We helped each other, not you. And in that moment, we all came to the decision that they should leave." Running a shaky hand through his hair, he huffed "Sod off Winger."
Marching back into the stadium, Talbott remained at the table, grounded by all the heaviness threatening to break apart his chest. Finally taking a swing from the water bottle, he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment to just rearrange his thoughts.
He had always known her to be resourceful, having travelled through so many countries, keeping her head low and intentions close to her soul. She surely still held the means to stay hidden and the heat off her. However Talbott knew that having Felix with her would slow her down and no matter how much he wanted to deny it, it did not sit well with him at all.
Charlie was right, they were there, not him. And while Talia had not reached out to another man, his confession that he did fail on waiting on her might have been the last thing she needed to tip the already delicate balance. Running a hand through his hair, he opened his eyes, noticing the match was over and people were leaving the large stadium, heading toward their tents in order to celebrate, spirits still high no matter who won.
A fact that Talbott could not care less of.
Getting up, he too retreated towards his own tent, trying to push back any thoughts on Talia. She had to be left to her own battles, as Talbott had his own mission in England, a job he needed to do and no one would hinder him, not even her. Especially not the memory of her.
However as he tried to place his head on the pillow and rest, trying his best to ignore the cheer happening outside, he found it hard to fall asleep. Once his mind finally began to drift, the smell of smoke brought back memories of her fire. How she could conjure it, the warmth of it never hurting him. Wide eyes searching his face as embers danced inside of her orbs, enchanting him no matter how many times he had seen it manifest. The image of her face became clear in her minds eyes as the dream materialized, Talia's image screaming in pain.
Talbott's eyes snapped open, cries of panic happening all around him. Stepping outside, fire erupted, setting tents ablaze, people running all over the place, stepping on each other, pushing past as they tried to escape the ongoing attack. Helping someone up, his wand was at the ready, eyes desperately searching for the source of the attack as Incendio was cast upon the tents.
Transforming into his eagle form, Talbott flew above the rising smoke trying to regroup with other Aurors and Hit Wizards, those few in numbers, quickly noticing there were several groups moving in the campsite, screams of pain and grief erupting below him.
Landing close to a more concentrated group, he quickly joined the fight, wand casting spell after spell as the sound of their chants made the Death Eaters appear to come from every corner. He yelled out spells, retaliating with all the anger and fury he had been concealing up until that point.
He would not cower away once more at the sign of Death Eaters, no, he had been preparing for this moment for a long time and he was ready to be the soldier he had promised to be. To be there right in the middle of it, fight and come out on top.
On August 18th 1994 the dark mark was cast once more upon the dark sky.
For those who knew, those who have survived the first war knew what was coming. Voldermort was coming back and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. The only question that remained was when the event would take place? And why wasn't the Ministry doing something about it?