AN: Apologies in advance as I haven't proofread this yet, but didn't want to leave you lot hanging any longer.
ECOTS
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
~ Sun Tzu
Chapter 73 ~ Is That Blood in Your Spittle or Are You Just Happy to See Me?
ECOTS
January 2nd, 1997 ~ 12:03 a.m
It billowed out into the mausoleum with a snake-like hisssssss.
Harry had about three seconds before he realized his eyes, nose, mouth and lungs were all burning.
His first thought was to grab Kally.
Choking he was on his knees, having already snagged Kaylens by the arm to jerk her up, but she was already moving, feet beneath her-
The cloud exploded around them, and even though he held his breath it didn't help.
It didn't help because everywhere the gas touched exploded in pain. White hot knives burned against his skin, as if acid were being dripped across every centimeter of his face, neck. His eyes screamed, watering, that only making the agony worse. Despite his efforts to not breathe he made a pained sound, the gas leaking into his throat and unleashing a whole new form of torture on his tongue, mouth, throat.
A second later the inside of his chest lit up with the most excruciating pain he'd ever known.
Harry was distantly aware that he'd collapsed, Kaylens not far behind, only where she was on all fours he was on his side. McGonagall was shouting through what sounded like a tunnel, Harry barely able to hear her above the tea kettle-like whistling.
It took his brain another two seconds to realize that the whistling sound was him trying to breathe.
Kally collapsed alongside him, her face smashed against the concrete ground, her nose and mouth appearing amidst the toxic smoke. Harry spasmed, choking, seeing her do the same.
It looked like there was less smoke up. Unthinking he reached out, grabbing her wrist, trying to get her to move. Hell, he was trying to force himself to move. They needed to get up, to get higher. The air was fresher near the roof. And fuck he was trying, trying to clamber to his knees as his eyes practically bled-
Something hard and unyielding and unforgiving snared Kaylens ruthlessly by her coat, jerking her away, out of sight. She disappeared amidst the thick blue-green smoke, it a stench like pineapple and pepper mixing with cleaner his aunt Petunia had over-used in the bathroom again, and Harry tried to scream after her.
He failed. All he succeeded in was coughing until literal blood sprinkled the concrete.
A force bashed into his back, sealing him in a crushing grip and jerking him off the ground, the smoke swirling as he found himself hurtling through it, rushing in mid-air-
Everything spun and he smashed into something strangely soft and cold.
Harry didn't realize that he was being hit in the face with a stream of water from McGonagall's wand until he was well and truly soaked. Outside. In the middle of winter.
Harry's vision swam. It was like looking through a hazy sheen, but if he wasn't mistaken McGonagall had a bubble around her head.
"Regulus!" she crisply, calmly - too calmly for someone that had just been dive bombed by what looked suspiciously like a very large gray bird, though perhaps he was just hallucinating - demanded, "What's next after flushing the skin?"
"Flush all of it! Shocking as it might be if there's a zipper it can infiltrate! And knowing Potter he'd have found a way to get sweat on him so it'll react!"
That didn't make a lot of sense to Harry, but hell, what did he know? Around him everything appeared to be bathed in a strange blue light, and he swore to something unholy that he could hear scratching overhead. Then again his ears were still buzzing; he could be hallucinating.
A shadow swept past, then disappeared, Black shouting profanities and demanding that his 'infernal cousin finally prove useful and remember that erecting shields had been her daft idea to begin with.'
Harry's breath rattled like it was being squeezed through a mucus-filled straw. "Kal-ly," he choked, trying to sit up only for McGonagall's surprisingly large foot to smack down on his chest, knocking him back down.
"I will say this once and only once Mr. Potter: hold still until I can get this off of you. Unless of course you want hydrochloric acid to devour you down to the bone?"
He rasped something incoherent, McGonagall clearly losing her patience and snapping, "Ms. Kaylens is fine." She paused, and Harry thought she might have glanced over her shoulder and winced. "Relatively speaking."
Instantly he wanted to fight something, but instead got hit with an immobilization charm, eyelids forcibly yanked open, the rather terrifying sight of a wooden tip being shoved dangerously near his corneas his only greeting.
A second later water blasted out its end and he found himself incapable of screaming, because the sadistic witch better known as their Transfiguration Professor had also hit him with a silencing charm. This lasted a lot longer than he thought necessary, and he was no longer certain what hurt worse – his burning everything or the steady stream of pressurized water assaulting his eyeballs. The water was so high powered he felt like his eyes would be blasted right from the sockets.
Mercifully it stopped, and though Harry still couldn't see properly – everything was a screwed up blur of water and fog – he was very well aware that someone was unzipping his coat and spraying his chest with water, yelling at him. "Where is your shirt, Mr. Potter?!"
Considering he was still immobilized and silenced he wasn't afforded the opportunity to answer. Had he been able to, he'd have formulated some crass sort of comment about teacher-student boundaries.
Something – or rather someone – smacked down into the snow besides his head, grabbing his jaw and thrusting it open. Harry was beginning to feel a bit like a marionette doll at the mercy of his professor-overlord's whims.
Only then did it occur to Harry that he wasn't exactly breathing right, a high-pitched and deoxygenated buzz ringing in his ears as the distinctive voice of Black began shouting spells in between liberally sprinkled profanities dark enough to make a port-side whore from the seventeenth century blush.
Then he shoved his wand's end into what Harry was certain was his carotid artery, right as something overhead screeched.
Now Harry was certain he was hallucinating, because he'd just witnessed a blurred vision of Dumbledore flying past astride a writhing, growling gargoyle.
They also appeared to be spinning out of control, like a plane with one wing shot out.
Not far off something large and solid crashed, snow and dead roses and chunks of grass suddenly falling down from the sky.
"Was that Dumbledore?" McGonagall hissed, clearly alarmed.
"Sure looked like him." Tonks sounded cheerful. Far. Too. Cheerful. Harry instantly decided he was giving Remus a sympathy card and noise cancelling wizarding headphones as a wedding gift.
"POTTER!" Black snapped. Harry's eyes darted to the self-proclaimed Healer and found the man looking furious. "Potter you insufferably useless excuse of a ward, speak!" The man's eyes practically spun, darkening exponentially.
Naturally, given McGonagall had hexed him, he managed to only gape at him like a goldfish.
Black smacked him solidly across the face.
"BLACK!" McGonagall's hand shot out over his face and stopped Sirius' ghost from delivering another blow. "What in the founders' names are you doing to him?!"
"Keeping him awake. His throat and lungs may be bleeding and if he sleeps he will be unable to clear it. He's already passing out and gone mute!"
"I immobilized him to keep him from fighting his way to Miss Kaylens, Regulus!"
Black's hand paused mid-air, the wizard looking somewhat put out. "Ah. Pity."
The Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts looked like she rather wanted to slap Black herself, and Harry idly wondered one, if a slap could puncture the bubblehead charm on Black's head and two, if he'd personally gone insane. Then again it was quite possible that he and Kaylens had been crushed to death. Regardless someone – he wasn't sure who at this point – aimed a wand at him and unfroze him, Harry wasting no time in rolling over to spit and cough up blood, wheezing like an asthmatic running a marathon in peak pollen season.
His entire body also seemed to be jerking, as if officially too cold to shiver and only capable of over-exaggerated movements. Then again, getting soaked, thrown in a pile of snow, then laying there for a few minutes on a freezing cold night with ice water shot at you, after being virtually immobile for hours probably had something to do with that.
Hypothermia was a real bitch.
Drying and multiple warming charms swirled around him, it taking him a second to actually breathe, wiping the blood off his lips as he wheezed, "What the fuck, Black?"
"Healing really is such a noble, appreciated profession," Casper deadpanned. "Do remind me to leave you to drown on your own blood next time Potter."
McGonagall had already launched to her feet, Harry barely registering through his still blurred vision that she, Hermione and Tonks had their wands in the air with shields of some form cast over them. They were glowing blue. All three of them also wore bubblehead charms. Another shadow swooped past in the night, the sound like that of a rabid nundu stalking a camp, and before Harry knew it he'd rolled over and grabbed Black violently by the lapel, practically spitting blood as he talked. "Kaylens. Where's-"
The wizard smacked his hands away, and they peeled off surprisingly easy. "In better shape than you, on account she had the good sense to hold her breath longer." He paused, as if dissatisfied with the exchange, adding for good measure, "You cretinously incompetent dullard."
Harry stared at him for exactly ten seconds.
Then he choked on what he swore to dark fucking gods was a clot and hacked it up right on Black's shirt, ignoring the ex-Death Eater's drawl of, "Charming." Harry didn't give a shit. He was looking for Kaylens.
He didn't have to look far. Kally had collapsed on a pile of snow not three meters off. Her jacket was torn clear down the back, hair tangled and covered in snow and soot, blood smeared beneath her nose. Unlike him, who now at least felt dry from his soaking down, the ends of her long hair still dripped, slowly freezing in the night air, while a torn strip from her jacket flapped in the frigid wind, hanging like a flag from the animated statue's hand.
Ah, so that was who'd pulled them out of there.
That made sense. Statues didn't need to breathe.
The angel loomed over Kaylens like a bodyguard, McGonagall shouting orders at it to not let anything near her. Harry could see why. She was pale, wheezing loudly, bent over on her knees and supporting herself with one gloved hand. Her other was missing its glove, her fingers weakly gripping her wand in the frigid air and rapidly turning white.
Harry realized that she – as much shit as she looked right then – had at least had the common sense to grab hers.
Then he wondered what the hell he looked like if Black had said that she'd fared better.
He groaned. "What," something screeched in the night, "was that?"
"Chlorine gas," Casper said humorlessly, casting another spell that swirled around his body like an angry bee before glowing viciously orange and eliciting a patented Black-family-frown. "Highly concentrated judging from the amount of blood you were spewing."
Harry didn't have to ask who had booby trapped the thing. He could only close his eyes and wait for the stinging to stop. "So," he croaked, "good thing Kaylens and I," coughing, "waited to open that coffin then."
"Ah yes," Black drawled, "because it is of course your first instinct to open a coffin suspected of housing a dangerous dark artifact prone to fighting back whilst alone and trapped in a sealed concrete tomb. Indeed, you are a bright one."
"Congratulations, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, overhearing, "perhaps some of our teachings regarding situational awareness have sunk in." The Transfiguration Professor spun in place, drawing fast and furious wards in the air, the symbols glowing bright and burning yellow before dying out. "Though given your past impulsiveness I am shocked you were able to hold off."
"Yeah well," he choked, "rather like my head," coughing, "where it's at." Breathing hard, trying to shove himself up on an elbow and failing, he grated, "Be a bit suicidal," hacking, "to go after it without backup."
McGonagall nearly tripped in shock, whilst Hermione backpedaled past his position, her brow fretting worriedly, wand movements never ceasing. She too was drawing wards in the air. She did, however, cast him a somewhat shocked glance, clearly expressing her disbelief that he'd ever shown a modicum of common sense.
"Geeze," he rasped, "thanks." Then a cough seized him, Harry having no choice but to wait it out. His seizing lungs were far from calm.
Black sniffed grimly. "Next time wait for me, Potter. Had you been a Muggle you'd both be dead and your lungs would be permanently damaged."
"Good thing I'd be already dead then," he quipped darkly. Spotting Black's look, he clarified, "Damaged lungs…no thanks."
The dark wizard sneered. "The second it hit your mucus membranes it reacted with particles of water, creating hydrochloric acid. I trust that even you could not be dense enough to not realize the downside of having that poured into your lungs?"
Harry winced. "Least it explains the burning."
"Either that or venereal disease, Potter. Really, do get yourself checked."
Harry began choking, from either the blood pooling in his lungs or the fact that Black implied he had an STD. Black merely fixed him with a far too calm and calculating look, before glancing towards where Kalliandra now sat coughing heavily beneath the statue, the angel's stone wings spread out to protect her from whatever it was flying overhead.
Harry had a sneaking suspicion of exactly what that was.
He also figured he should be a lot more concerned about it, but right now his lungs were still burning. Not to mention that Hermione, Tonks and McGonagall were all darting in different directions, their feet pounding down the cemetery aisle and around two opposite corners, effectively disappearing from sight.
Harry finally looked up.
Over where they lay was a translucent blue dome. The part of the cemetery they were in was recessed; he recalled that he'd had to descend a staircase to get down into it, and mausoleums and crypts lined its winding walkway. That walkway was a good eight feet below the actual grounds, and the dome stretched out over their heads, covering the top of it, random rune drawings burned into its translucent surface. Harry could see snow piling up on top of it, the fluffy white particles from the winter storm not able to breach and reach them.
It looked oddly like a shield charm.
Harry grimaced. "What is that?" he rasped, pointing.
"Your betters' attempt to prevent more highly evolved creatures from relocating your head. DADA prodigy indeed. Can't even recognize a bloody domed shield." By the end Black had been muttering the words, Sirius' shadow casting another spell, this time at his chest. It glowed a dull yellow rather than bright angry red or orange. The wizard frowned, looking only partially satisfied, before his dark eyes snapped back to Harry's face. "Gargoyles do not take kindly to grave robbers, Potter. Now hurry up and breathe because we, thanks to your wandering teenage hormones, will have to run out of here. The whole cemetery is rampant with anti-apparation wards."
In the background the stone statue creaked, moving to conceal Kaylens from the sky as she began coughing. Black's head snapped between her and him, a disapproving look tainting his face, like he wanted to say something.
Harry was too tired to give a shit. He tried to drag a leg underneath himself, blood dripping into his eye. "Spit it out, Black," he muttered, too tired and too annoyed to bother with subtlety.
The wizard scowled, snapping his wand and erecting a privacy dome to keep Kaylens from hearing. Then the bastard inclined an eyebrow at his lack of shirt, Harry's leather jacket torn wide open. "We presently lack the time for this, but I would be remiss in my duties, Potter, had I not taken note of certain…states of attire. Notably how your shirt appears to be on her." His head tilted towards where Kaylens was, now shielded from view beneath the dutiful animated statue. Its wings had formed a sort of shelter around her form, and it was a mark of how exhausted she must be that she wasn't trying to pummel her way out.
Through a gap in the wings Harry caught sight of her. She appeared to be tiredly leaning her back against one of the wings, chest rising and falling as she desperately caught her breath.
Black wasn't done, cutting in, "I also cannot help but notice that you were both imprisoned, alone, with a horcrux most likely embodying lust."
Harry's attention snapped back immediately. Right. That.
Black fixed him with an impatient look.
Harry couldn't help it; he groaned and willed the gargoyles to swoop down, break through the shield, and kill either him or Black on the spot. Preferably Black, but he wasn't picky.
Black hissed and continued. "Having observed that, please tell me you did not…"
He trailed off, and when Harry did not say anything, Regulus' brow contorted into something resembling a wrinkled shar-pei hound's face. "This is the part," he encouraged, "where you interrupt."
Harry remained silent. He instead wheezed.
"Potter," Casper hissed, keeping his voice down, "I cannot believe I am saying this, but please tell me you did not deflower her in an old crypt?"
Harry drug a hand over his face and it came away bloody.
Black looked ready to kill him.
Harry was spared, barely, by pounding feet crunching on ice and snow. Hermione and Tonks were back, whipping around the corner, wands still in hand, looking exhausted.
"We spread the shield to the stairs on either end of the walkway, Minerva," Tonks said cheerfully, spinning her wand like a high school cheerleader playing with a sparkly baton.
"Good," McGonagall stated, sounding distracted as she looked at the mausoleum, both hands held out flat in front of her as she murmured spell after spell. "That ought to buy us some time."
"At least until they claw their way through."
The Deputy Headmistress shot the pink-haired Auror a withering look. "Let's aim to be finished by then."
"What do you mean," Kaylens coughed weakly, "by claw?"
Tonks fixed her with a gleeful look and began making miming gestures.
Harry outright sputtered.
Imminent demise aside, Hermione had ignored all of it, her attention having darted immediately to him. His best friend dropped down into the snow beside him and she opened her mouth, no doubt to spew concern, so Harry decided to spare her their usual routine.
"I'm fine," he said, ignoring the raw grind to his voice.
Relief filled her features, the bushy haired witch shaking her head swiftly, her hair bound in a tight ponytail. "Thank Merlin, Harry. Chlorine gas is awful. I mean, it makes sense why he'd use it. It's Muggle, so completely undetectable by wizarding magical means and it was popular amongst Hitler's armies at the time of that poor girl's burial." Her words were tumbling out. "The materials would have been easy enough for a wizard to gather as well. And to rig it so that it would only be set off if someone opened her coffin? That is what happened right? Rather clever actually, but-"
Harry didn't hear anything else. He just shoved himself up on his elbows and fixed her with a look. "Did you just call Voldemort clever?" He felt he needed this clarified.
Hermione stopped mid-sentence, her mouth snapping shut.
He groaned. "Thought so."
Black rolled his eyes, and with a wave of his wand the privacy charm dropped from around them. Only then did Harry realize that Kally was now half-standing half-leaning on the statue, arm hanging limply at her side, her wand still in hand. She looked shockingly unsteady, but her eyes found his, Harry offering her a weary smile.
She looked, for an instant, relieved.
Then her eyes darted towards the sky. Every muscle in his girlfriend's form tightened. She looked ready to fight, and Harry would have bet his Firebolt on her winning.
Black's fingers snapped in front of his face. "If you could trouble yourself to pull your attention back to the problem at hand, Potter. There is the trivial matter of a horcrux. Did you find it or is it still in there?"
He distractedly shook his head, eyes still on Kaylens.
Black cursed. "She's a fighter, Potter. She'll be fine without you looking at her for ten seconds."
"Regulus, I don't think that's really proper for you to scold him. You know what he's just been through…" His best friend said this tactfully, taking a firm hold of his arm and practically dragging him into a sitting position. "Oh Harry, it must have been horrid."
Black snorted derisively. "What he's been through," he parroted dourly. "I'm sure it must have been incredibly taxing." Once again he shot a suspicious look towards Kaylens.
Hermione hissed an annoyed breath, snapping her wand and sending her hair magically winding up into a bun frighteningly reminiscent of McGonagall. Opening her mouth to no doubt argue, Regulus snapped his wand, sending her silent.
Hermione gaped, mouth flapping like a goldfish.
Harry grunted, wheezing out a laugh. This must be what it felt like for a hippogriff to sit on his chest.
Black was far less amused. "Potter, the horcru-"
"Still inside," Harry rasped, jerking his head towards the mausoleum – what was left of it. He then reached for his own wand to hex him on Hermione's behalf, but didn't get the chance. Black had flicked his wand again, yet another spell hitting Harry's chest, the end result a strange burning that sent him into another coughing fit.
"Damn," Black drawled, "thought I got it all out of your system…Granger, watch him. I'll have to ask the other one."
While Harry was doubled over the bastard undid the charm on Hermione and left, stalking towards Kaylens and not paying the sky a single bother – as if they weren't under attack. Instead he could hear Black snapping off rapid-fire questions at Kal, all about the horcrux and what they'd seen.
Hermione reached out and patted his back consolingly, distractedly murmuring comforting things, but her eyes were sharply aimed up as if afraid of attack.
Harry took a second to take stock of their situation.
He was sitting in a pile of snow, a lot of blood covering it. He had a suspicion that it was what he'd coughed up. He and Kaylens had been trapped in a mausoleum for hours. He'd tried to suffocate her. He'd had sex with her. He'd fucking proposed to her. His head screamed like a hammer-drill had recently been taken to it, and he could take his pick as to the real cause: the horcrux in the mausoleum, the horcrux sharing his skull-space, or the acid-bath his lungs had just taken. Really, next time he heard Pavarti babbling about a spa cleansing treatments he'd suggest a bit of good ole fashion World War II tech. His eyes felt like they'd had a cattle brand taken to them, and given that Black had been his healer he couldn't rule that possibility out. A gargoyle had buzzed past overhead, flying through a snowstorm, and at some point in Dumbledore's long life the Headmaster had clearly taken up 'stone-magical-creature-rodeo' given Harry was fairly certain he'd seen the Supreme Mugwump riding it.
Overhead there was a pale blue dome protecting them from this insanity – for now. Tonks, meanwhile, was brandishing her wand whilst shouting out fencing calls, and appeared to be herding blue-green smoke into a small area whilst McGonagall barked orders about 'corralling fatal fumes.' Hermione hadn't left his side, but she was muttering Latin-sounding words he didn't understand beneath her breath, drawing runes with the tip of her wand over their heads. Each time she drew a rune the blue shield glowed just a little brighter. Kalliandra simply looked like it was taking all of her energy to not fall over, and the mausoleum he'd just fucked her in was barely standing. It seemed to have collapsed in on itself around the door.
Oh, and there was a stone angel now holding a sickle.
Yeah, he probably had some form of head injury. All signs pointed to it.
Coughing up another clot he grabbed onto Hermione's arm, his best friend proving she actually was that given she didn't recoil. Instead her nose wrinkled politely, and Harry grasped onto the one question that seemed easiest. "How-how'd you find us?"
Hermione fixed him with a look that openly questioned his intelligence. "Kally's bracelet."
He fixed her with a bleary look, eyes watering so fiercely that it looked like there were two of her. "Bracelet?"
Overhead something swooped, smashing into the barrier. It screeched, the entire barrier glowing a vicious red in the night. Black cussed at the women to do something about 'the oversized bird' while McGonagall shouted that it would hold.
"Um…" Harry had his doubts.
Hermione somehow ignored all this and managed a sigh. "For Merlin's sakes, Harry." She rolled her eyes. "I helped you put the locater charms on that phoenix wristlet. Honestly…"
"Oh. Right."
"You know, I would have thought you'd have shared how to use that locator charm with Regulus at least. You're staying with him! He's the only other person who knew you were time traveling! Now to mention Kally spends half her time with hi-"
Harry smacked a hand over Hermione's mouth before she could really get going, already starting to feel like he could move. His breath still whistled as he breathed in, his lungs aching, but he could at least breathe without feeling like the equivalent of a wildebeest stampede's roadkill. "Mione…save it."
She glared at him over his thumb.
A second later she was helping him clamber to his feet. McGonagall – who had resumed running around and firing off spells to presumably maintain the shield charm overhead – snapped her attention back to him. "Mr. Potter," she greeted, "so kind of you to join us. Now if you wouldn't mind there are some somewhat pressing matters to attend to."
The Transfiguration Professor stated all of this calmly, crisply, as if discussing an incomplete homework assignment. Only instead of removing house points she gestured up, Harry following her hand-
Directly over her head, illuminated against the night sky by the aberrant glow of the barrier, was a giant, stone dog. Or rather, it was a dog with wings. It was perched on the glowing blue barrier not a meter above all of their heads. All four of its legs were sprawled out, Harry able to see an oversized dick swinging back and forth between its legs as it stalked back and forth over his professor's head, snarling and taking experimental swipes at the shield.
The gargoyle's stone dick thunked audibly against the barrier each time it leaned down to swipe.
Tonks tilted her head curiously. "Hrm…rather anatomically correct, isn't it?" She gave Kally an elbow. "What do ya reckon Kally-Kal? I'm chasing the wrong species, aren't I? I mean I've heard that Remus is hung but…."
The metamorphmagus was drowned out by the distinct sound of his girlfriend gagging.
McGonagall levelled a look so full of disbelief on Tonks it was a wonder she didn't revoke her Auror license and stick her back in seventh year detention.
Hermione ignored all of it. She'd had enough practice ignoring ludicrous things being around him and Ron for six years. Her brown eyes darted around swiftly. "We need to move. We still have to get rid of the horcrux and get out of here in one piece. We can't leave Dumbledore, Dobby and Professor Lupin alone for long-"
Kally blinked, choking, "Dobby?"
"-and now those things know we're here."
"They wouldn't if Potter hadn't saw to locking himself inside a stone prison requiring us to literally detonate the door to get him out." Black levelled an annoyed look in his direction.
"Hey," Kaylens wheezed, "at least we found the horcrux."
"And a lot of good that has done us. Now we have to not just remove and kill it, but we have to do so while dodging these," he leveled a look up at the gargoyle, "simple minded things."
The gargoyle resting on the bubble barrier ceased scratching and snarled, as if offended. It then resumed glaring hatefully down, as if analyzing the best way to get to them. It resembled a cat trying to break into a fish tank.
Tonks visibly shuddered. "I don't like the way that thing is looking at us."
Harry choked, leaning heavily on Hermione. "Makes two of us," he croaked. It felt like his lungs had been filled with water, drained, then beaten with rocks.
As if in response it began stalking across the top, circling.
"Please tell me," Kalliandra said from by the stone angel, "that there's only two of them?"
"Three, actually," Black cut in. "Though one is fortunately on our side."
Harry stared as if he'd gone mad. Hermione, spotting his look, clarified, "You know the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office? He came with us." Off in the distance something exploded, Hermione wincing. "Apparently his name's Goliath."
Harry choked. "Goliath?"
In the direction of the explosion flames began to shoot sky high.
Tonks bounced on her toes and clapped. "Oh good, they survived the crash." Spying the looks from everyone she hastened to add, "What? It's date night. That'd be a bit difficult if Remus were crushed."
Harry choked again, Black joining him. "Of all the punishments for my various crimes, being regaled with the details of my cousin's sex life seems by far the worst."
"We haven't actually had sex yet, Reggie," Tonks said amicably. "In fact we haven't actually had a proper date per say…."
"Then what do you mean by date night?" Black looked as if he instantly regretted expressing any interest in his cousin's love life. Harry's head buzzed loudly, but he at least realized that it was the beginning of January. Tonks and Lupin weren't together yet. Black, time traveler or not, had clearly missed that point.
He nearly choked on a laugh.
"Well," Tonks said, giving her wand a carefree twirl and causing McGonagall to duck, "Remus is a bit shy and seems to favor the running from love approach to-"
Black, who had approached the half-destroyed mausoleum with all the caution of one approaching a pissed off cobra, stopped in his tracks. "That's called rejection, Nymphadora."
"That's a rather pessimistic outlook, Reggie. Besides, I'm wearing him down-"
"That's called stalking."
"Well you're from the future right? So tell me, how long does it take? A week? A month?" Tonks paused, the gargoyle's shadow falling over her face. "Please tell me it doesn't take a year?"
"Your over-confidence and breaks with reality are absolutely astounding."
"Harry, Kalliandra," McGonagall cut in, "were either of you able to get eyes on the horcrux?"
Harry wheezed, shaking his head. Kaylens answered for them. "There's a coffin with the name Hazel Ross on it." She sounded hoarse. "That's where the smoke leaked out from, so I think it's in there."
McGonagall stood alongside Regulus Black eyeing the mausoleum dubiously. "Alright then. We cannot expect them to keep the gargoyles occupied for long." Casting a glance up at the perched gargoyle that appeared to be studying them, she added, "Particularly since it seems they are having trouble with only one…"
As if to punctuate her point something else exploded.
"Professor," Hermione spoke up, "I think something may have been done to this one. Gargoyles are guardians, not hunters. They typically attack and then hold someone prisoner for invading. But this one looks like it wants to actually harm us. Based on my reading-"
"That's good enough for me, Ms. Granger," McGonagall interrupted, sparing everyone the dissertation and just assuming Hermione was correct. "Everyone, we're operating on the presumption that these are not normal gargoyles. We cannot assume they will not kill us if caught."
"It's the horcrux," Harry said without thinking. "He's done this before. Taken animals and twisted them to have blood lust." The sharks at that island had been a perfect example.
McGonagall's lips pursed. "Wonderful. This was precisely how I anticipated spending my evening."
"Please," Black said, "like you have any semblance of a social life." Now he was slashing his wand at the mausoleum's remnants, casting what appeared to be dark magic diagnosis spells. Moody had taught Harry enough for him to recognize them.
"Aw come on Reggie," Tonks chided. "She does more than potions brewing and drinking wine at least! You know Minerva here was quite the dish back in the day?" Seeing the rather alarmed look McGonagall shot her, the Auror gave an unconcerned shrug. "What? Your locking charms on your desk were a bit lax when I was in seventh year. Not that we expected to find pictures of you dancing in a barn in a stringy thon-"
A swift wave of McGonagall's wand shut Tonks up, the silenced metamorphmagus grinning and waggling her eyebrows. "Thank you for the information Nymphadora," the Transfiguration Professor stated evenly. "I'll ensure my private memories have traps rigged post haste. Now…" McGonagall scowled, directing her attention back to him. "Mr. Potter, are you capable of standing?"
Kally's head shot towards him with a concerned look, comical given the way her torn jacket hung from her. Black simply did the counter curse at his cousin, leveling his wand at her nose like she were a bad dog that needed reminded to behave. Hermione, who until now had seemed impervious to the sensory assault going on, now stood immobile, staring at their professor, mouth flapping as if all her mental paradigms had been shattered. A gargoyle stood above them and snarled down, drool dripping and snow swirling around it. And McGonagall wanted to know if he could stand?
"Could have sworn that's what I'm doing," he managed.
McGonagall crooked an eyebrow at where he leaned on Hermione. "On your own?"
In response he shoved himself off Hermione, wavering only slightly. Kally took a step towards him, only for Tonks to grab her and begin gesturing at the gargoyle overhead, which had begun to walk across the barrier, following the recessed walkway they stood within. Perhaps stalk was a better word…
McGonagall glanced towards the gargoyle as it wandered off. "How about flying?" Before Harry could even ask what she meant she'd reached into her pocket, unearthing something small and twiggy, an enlargement charm muttered at it.
The tiny stick billowed out into a full-sized Firebolt. His Firebolt.
Then the Deputy Headmistress threw it to him, Harry catching it and doing his best not to fall over. Standing there in the snow, blood dripping down his face, he blinked. "You want me to fly?"
McGonagall barely blinked. "We will need a distraction from the obvious, Mr. Potter, if we have any prayer of retrieving the horcrux and escaping unscathed. Play to your strengths and that just may work."
Harry's stomach reeled as he glanced at the gargoyle. It outstretched its wings and gave them a large flap, as if considering taking off. He gulped. Loudly.
"That-that-you can't be serious?" Hermione practically squeaked. "You can't expect Harry to take on-"
"I can and I do, Ms. Granger."
"But there's two of them!"
"He took on a dragon that could breathe fire," McGonagall said patiently. "These are far smaller."
Hermione's brown eyes had gone wide as saucers. "It's the size of an SUV…" she said numbly.
"And Mr. Potter is a far superior flyer to them both."
"As partial as I am to shutting Potter up on a permanent basis," Black drawled, as if bored, "Granger has a point. He can barely stand."
"Exactly," McGonagall agreed. "Sitting will be far easier." With that she gave him an encouraging nod. "Mr. Potter, if our shielding charm falls for any reason, and I suspect it will soon enough, I trust that you know what to do?"
Despite himself Harry nodded. From twelve paces off Kally caught his eye, her brow furrowed as she incredulously mouthed 'Dragon?' at him.
Harry could only shrug sheepishly.
His girlfriend stared at him for a count of three, before a vague smile touched her lips, her eyes sparkling despite the dirt and ash and blood streaked across her face. Kaylens shook her head, mouthing unbelievable from across the walkway.
A tension he hadn't known he'd had abated. Kally was okay. She was okay and still talking to him, for now at least. He held her eyes, mouthing innocently, What? Like you've never done anything reckless?
She shot him one of those looks only females could master, Tonks grabbing her by both shoulders before she could quip something back. "Sorry to interrupt the googly eyes," she said guilelessly, "but I need her. Kally-Kal, you know how to kill things." She pointed up at the gargoyle. "Think you could-"
"We are not killing an innocent creature, Nymphadora!" McGonagall cut in instantly. "It's just doing its job. Besides, it is not its fault that a mad man decided to curse it-" the gargoyle's oversized testacles drug against the barrier, the professor correcting, "-him into desiring to cause physical harm!"
"As opposed to what?" Black drawled. "Some slight maiming?"
"I think she just means," Hermione interceded, "that they'd usually hold you till morning…"
"Indeed," Black said. "It's not like gargoyles are prone to considering common things such as shrieking and attempts to flee as resisting arrest. And they most assuredly do not take that as permission to remove limbs."
Hermione was looking increasingly horrified, Harry reaching out and patting her consolingly on the arm. At some point he'd planted the end of his broom in the snow and begun to lean on it, using it as a crutch. His best friend shot him a look that he ignored. There were only so many things he could focus on at any one time, and right now standing, wheezing air through his damaged trachea, and keeping an eye on the gargoyle sniffing for blood were about it.
McGonagall heaved a frustrated sound. "As much as it pains me to say this, Nymphadora-"
"Swear I'm changing that infernal name…"
"-is correct, Ms. Kaylens. You two stick together. If it somehow breaks through do your best to slow it down so as to give Mr. Potter a head start. You seem to have a knack for hurting things." She now turned to face him. "Mr. Potter, your job is to lure it off and provide aerial distraction, particularly since I understand you cannot use magic at present."
"Not unless you want to embrace your inner arsonist…" he muttered under his breath.
"Given that it will be best," she continued pointedly, not missing a beat, "to keep you mobile. Ms. Granger, I'd like you to continue strengthening the shielding charm while Regulus and I retrieve the horcrux. We are delayed enough as it is. We cannot expect Albus and Remus-"
Tonks whistled. "Don't forget Goliath."
The Deputy Headmistress looked like she was praying for patience beneath her breath. "Harry, Kalliandra, asides from not accessing the horcrux did you learn anything else in there?"
"Besides that Voldemort's a sadistic fuck?" Kally replied, closing her eyes and concentrating, clearly getting ready to draw if needed.
McGonagall frowned. "Language aside that statement requires clarification."
Kaylens took a deep breath.
Harry decided to spare her. "Well," he dryly spewed, "if you mean Tom has some disgustingly kinky turn ons and that one eventually killed his chick, then yeah, learned a lot. Then again might have just been the fact that he was a serial killer before he was even eighteen." He paused. "With that level of psychopathy it gets hard to tell. Either way that one's pretty insidious. It'll make you want to snog someone then kill them when they least expect it."
"Or make you insecure as hell," Kaylens muttered.
McGonagall was looking between the two of them with increasing alarm. Black settled on shooting a malevolent look his way. "Now can I kill him?"
Tonks shoved him aside, wide eyed. "Oh ho, Harry! You don't mean to tell me that you two-"
Harry practically growled. "Tonks…"
"-were in there all alone, so-"
Kaylens had cracked one eye and appeared to be contemplating Auror-cide.
"-got to play with Voldemort's turn ons-"
Harry looked longingly at a tombstone and wondered if there were any recently dug and unoccupied graves to crawl into.
The Auror let out a loud whistle, popping her bubble gum and clapping Kaylens on the back. "Don't worry snoggers! Nothing a bit of couples counseling can't fix!" She paused, looking suddenly horrified. "Or…oh my, Kally Harry isn't…" she paused, whispering quietly, "impotent?"
Harry shot her a look so dark it was a wonder she didn't burst into flames on the spot.
Black snarled, grabbing Tonks by the literal ear and hauling her away. "Cousin, a word?"
The insane Auror simply giggled as she was drug through the snow, pointing back and forth between he and Kaylens and making kissy faces. It left him with naught to do but stand there, a gargoyle overhead and drooling down, the snow storm swirling around it, with Kaylens standing awkwardly alongside him.
It didn't help that it was quiet as hell and that they could hear Black berating Tonks about 'trivial things like boundaries.'
McGonagall simply gaped as if unable to comprehend that this was occurring on her watch. "And here I thought tonight would be straightforward…"
"Things are never simple," Kally muttered.
Harry grunted agreement.
The three stood there, watching the two cousins bicker for a moment, Harry feeling distinctly like he was trapped in an elevator.
A second later Black yelped, Tonks prancing back over and twirling her wand, blowing then popping a bubble. "Wotcher Harry, Kally. Reggie there," she hooked a thumb back, "has informed me that teasing you is impolite. So I'm supposed to apologize." She fixed them both with a totally gleeful, non-contrite look, saying, "Sorry. Now, Kally spill, how good a snog actually is Harry? I think Ginny might be interested in-"
Now Kaylens was shooting her a black look.
"Right…" McGonagall drew the word out, clearly at her limit. The witch spun back to the mausoleum and cast a swift spell, moving the stones aside. A second later, bubblehead charm still intact, she waltzed in, followed by a limping Black. It took Harry a second to realize that the acrid smoke had been spelled into a bubble of its own, it herded away but Tonks so there was no risk of them breathing it in, but the two were clearly taking no chances.
Hermione had begun drawing runes at the shielding charm again, distracted. That left Harry standing with Tonks and Kaylens. The former was bouncing up and down on her toes in an attempt to keep warm, the Auror casting a quick warming charm at them both. Harry shivered, wheezing less and less as Black's healing charms slowly did their work. "Thanks."
"No problem, Harry-Har."
He grimaced, claws scraping overhead. "Please don't call me that."
"Spoilsport."
Kally had remained oddly silent, Harry glancing at her as he leaned heavily on his broom. She had closed her eyes again, appearing to be thinking, so he decided not to interrupt. Inside the mausoleum he could hear rubble being moved around. "So Tonks," he asked, more to fill the silence, "how'd you wind up here?"
"Dumbledore didn't think it was a good idea to go horcrux hunting with only," she paused, lifting her finger and counting them, before tapping her finger twice at the mausoleum and twice in the direction of the far off flames, "five people. Eight seemed better odds."
"Ten," Hermione called.
Tonks frowned. "Ten?"
"You aren't counting, Dobby or Goliath. House elves and gargoyles are perfectly sentient. In fact-"
Harry didn't hear the rest of it. He was too busy gulping. He had some rather concerning memories of that gargoyle, namely it threatening to rearrange his limbs for threatening to screw Kaylens on Dumbledore's desk. Somehow it being out there wasn't reassuring. "Uh huh," he muttered, turning back to Tonks and changing the subject. "They're going to have to obliviate you for helping us though, aren't they?"
Tonks beamed and twirled her wand. "I'm remarkably okay with having my mind wiped." Blowing a pink bubble with her bubblegum, it popped loudly in the night. Then the Auror shot him a laviscious wink. "Won't miss it right?"
"You'd tell me if you'd had a recent head injury, yeah?"
She popped another bubble, the gargoyle stalking them stopping directly above her. It huffed down at them, its breath fogging the blue shield charm. "Not yeeeeet." She lifted her hand – her glove fluffy and annoyingly pink – and waved, waggling her fingers at the gargoyle's face.
Kaylens mumbled something about how they were all going to die whilst trapped in a snow globe from hell.
Tonks stopped taunting the stone beast long enough to look puzzled. "What's a snow globe?"
Harry and Kaylens exchanged a swift look.
And then the snow globe overhead began to crack.
ECOTS
Vicious red cracks crawled out like a spider web.
Kally backpedaled away from the cracking shield, tripping into a fence. It stabbed her quite literally in the ass. Later she'd wonder why people felt it necessary to put fences around mausoleums; the dead were already interred in coffins and urns, plus they had been sealed inside half-meter thick stone vaults. What was a fence going to do? Add a two second layer of protection from someone breaking in?
But right now she didn't think about any of that. She didn't think about the fact that her thigh was bleeding. She didn't care about her torn jeans.
No.
Her eyes flashed towards Harry's, finding that he too had backpedaled. The snow globe continued to crack, bright red lines forming in the shield…
"NYMPHADORA!" McGonagall shouted from within the mausoleum, spotting the danger from the red glow spilling through the destroyed bricks. "Strengthen it!"
"What do you think I'm trying to do!?" Tonks shouted, standing at the epicenter of the cracking, drawing runic symbols overhead as fast as she could. Her wand hand was flying so fast Kally could barely track it with her eyes, the gargoyle standing directly over the spiderwebbing pattern and pounding its claws down over and over.
Hermione was running to help, bushy hair falling free of its bun, flying wildly-
The gargoyle's face could barely be seen through the thick snow storm, but Kally swore to Merlin it looked as if it were smirking.
It slammed its claws down again, a tiny piece of shield falling inwards like glitter…
"Tonks move! You're going to be crushed!" Kally shouted. If the shield broke the gargoyle would fall right on top of her.
So concentrated was the Auror that she didn't even try to come up with something witty.
Hermione slid in alongside Harry, grabbing his arm for balance to avoid slipping in the snow. She wasn't foolish enough to stand at the epicenter, her wand flashing back and forth as she joined Tonks in trying to keep the shield in place.
Not a single one of them had moved away from it! Instead Potter stood resolutely there, refusing to more farther, his grip around his broom turning white. Kally's heart practically stopped as she realized why. "You're not seriously going to play cat and mouse with that thing, are you?!"
Her boyfriend was looking up, jaw set. "Open to suggestions, luv."
It was surreal, standing there, useless, while everyone but her and Potter did something productive.
And she was the only one backing away.
Kally felt her feet freeze in the snow, shouting erupting from the mausoleum. Her gloved hand trailed along the rusted railing as she stared at the display of magic before her. Tonks' teeth were gritted, the Auror shouting for them to move, to put more space between where the shield was clearly going to crack and where they stood, but Hermione and Harry refused to move. Hermione's eyes simply flashed with determination, the witch releasing Harry's sleeve and stepping closer-
No sooner had she taken that step then a large chunk of the shield cracked off, plunging down to the path, a swirl of ice and wind and snow infiltrating their snow globe. A paw with lethally sharp claws rocketed down, nearly taking off Tonks' head.
Tonks shrieked, slipping on ice.
It saved her life.
Sharp talons missed her head by inches, a long chunk of pink hair hanging from a sharpened nail.
Hermione screamed, Harry lunging and fisting a grip in her cloak, dragging her backwards out of the way.
Kally could only stare in horror, too far away to do anything as the gargoyle smashed its way through the shield charm, slamming down to the ground on all fours. The concrete cracked beneath it, snow scattering out around it like a tidal wave. Tonks disappeared in its wake, and for a second it was impossible to see the creature; it was like trying to look through a cloud….
And then the mist cleared.
It crouched on all fours, frozen saliva dripping from its mouth in a sadistic sort of icicle.
Directly beneath it lay Tonks.
Its front two legs straddled her, the Auror having missed being crushed by mere inches. Tonks' wand had been knocked loose, laying a meter away, too far to reach.
Everyone froze.
And the gargoyle…
The gargoyle didn't move.
It huffed, steam coming from its nostrils in the frigid air, as if triumphant.
Tonks' blue eyes stared straight up at it, wide and unblinking.
The winged beast merely inclined his head, like a curious animal scenting an easy kill.
Then it began to lower its head….
Kally couldn't breathe; she didn't dare. Her fingers simply gripped her wand, it somehow having found its way to her hand, hanging loose at her side. She needed to move, to run, to do something! Only she didn't.
But Harry did.
"HEY!"
Harry grabbed Hermione, shoving her behind him, his face a grim mask of determination. Kally's mouth fell open as she gaped at what he was doing, Hermione looking equally horrified. The brunette's fingers were digging into Harry's shoulder so hard Kally could see the Prefect's nails literally indenting it.
Harry didn't appear to notice. "Hey STONE BRAIN!" Harry lashed out with a foot, kicking a piece of ice at the thing's rear-
It snarled, head jerking up and away from Tonks, the thing snarling as it slowly swiveled its head in his direction.
And then it moved its claws, the thing turning and abandoning Tonks as it fixed its snarl on a new target.
Later on Kally was going to slap him.
