Disclaimer: All characters, names, settings etc belong to their respective copyright holders, only much of the convoluted plot, Night Wolf and a few other things are of my own creation (but inspired from many things under copyright, which aren't mine).

Chapter 24 – Ablaze; the sea of fire set upon the world

The fire had started…no one knew, there was a centre of the blaze and it had radiated outwards in circle…but there were also analysts in the fire services that said it had to be directed…some how.

The blaze had been burning for 4 days straight until it was brought to UNIT and then Night Wolf's attention, they had after all been busy…

The survivors of the attack on 9 and 3/4 were slowly being moved from UNIT London's primary facility, either home or to regular hospitals since having their more esoteric injuries seen to by 'specialists' brought in to treat UNIT's patients.

The patients had been free to leave…however some of the wand users couldn't help but notice that they were unable to cast even a simple illumination charm whilst inside the building where they were being treated.

They failed to notice the devices on tripods that were in each corner of the room and in some cases in the middle of the large rooms where they were being…held for treatment.

UNIT had no intentions of holding them against their will…but Night Wolf had other problems thus the job of 'monitoring' the patients was delegated to regular UNIT personnel under Brigadier Bambera's command.

Colonel Jones swung himself down from the cab of the large troop carrier as it came to a halt in front of…a wall of flame.

It was an impressive and worrying sight, this wall of flame…the fire services were still trying in vain to fight it as they had been for the past 5 days.

It had already many areas of outlying Northampton if it continued at this speed and this ferocity it could take out Luton.

A man ran over to the him and the truck, it was one of the UNIT trucks which left no questions about it, with a large UNIT logo on the side, proclaiming who they were.

"UNIT…if anyone can help us…" The fire chief said.

"Parkin?" Jones turned as Lt Parkin came up to him.

"Sir got everyone out…should we…"

"Standard search pattern…take down anyone who might be controlling this." She nodded running back to the back of the truck where a set of canisters were being unloaded.

"Colonel…?" The fire chief turned as he heard another noise, two UNIT what appeared to be fire trucks drove past them up close to the fire. They weren't actually fire trucks, more; bio-hazard trucks, but they had large tanks filled with a concoction of water and several other things thrown together by the Sorcery Department which was currently in force dealing with the effects of the ash from this blaze…the ash appeared to have an affect on buildings and people; destroying the building, making them crumble away, the ash in significant qualities dehydrated the body until death.

Jones and his men and women of his team had been assured that it would protect them…except it was untested, their batch even more so.

"They can't…" The fire chief was saying as the UNIT troops reeled out their hoses and begin dousing the flames; one truck had an orange foam the other a blue tinged water.

It didn't seem to be having much affect, but slowly the wall of flames seemed to be changing…into more of a bent wall.

"That's all very well and good what about my men…"

Jones looked over to the fleet of trucks and smiled.

"Your lucky day chief, back of my truck; an additive…will probably work, instructions on the canisters…be careful with it…"

The fire chief was already barking instructions at the top of his lungs.

Jones cast a gaze upwards at the sky, it was dark despite the fact that it was 11 am, the sun was struggling to shine through the smoke and ash in the air.

He and his team, which had been significantly enlarged for this operation were searching the area, they suspected that their had to be a wand user, and most likely more than one maintaining and directing the blaze.

They'd been briefed, however getting people on the ground with so much of Night Wolf battling different elements of this blaze…plus the after affects of 9 and 3/4's, then there was the assault on Cardiff castle, a seemingly pointless attack…were it not for the bones of a large dragon they found in the courtyard.

Jones shook his head and turned as he heard gun fire…and saw wand fire.

Jones motioned to the two others on his side and took off at a run.

Jones, Jackie and Sam threw themselves behind a car, they could just about see two other Night Wolf troops firing and taking cover around a post box.

"Covering fire!" Jones yelled out as Same, Jackie and himself took off towards the other two, flicking the safety off he started firing in the general direction of the spells.

The two troops under fire made their way crouched backwards as bright green, red and various other colour spells were shot from.

As they made their way to the group they all formed up, continuing to fire, all 5 of them walking slowly towards the house where the two wand users were.

The sound of the fires was drowned out by the sound of 5 P90s being shot off in a suburban area at an unknown wand hostiles.

When they finally made their way into the entrance hall of the house they located three bodies two men and one woman, all in black cloaks, though devoid of the white masks that they were used to seeing in Voldemort's forced.

Jones crouched down tucking a small red tag onto each of the bodies, the tags contained small radio tags that would be used later when a UNIT clean up team arrived on the scene.

"Sir…what about their wands?" Jackie nodded.

"Snap them. Clean up will deal with the mess."

"Sir."

There was a buzz in the air as the wands were snapped, almost like static electricity but it subsided.

Outside they continued their search for others, it wasn't until about 10 minutes into their search that Jones received a radio signal from the UNIT troops manning the blaze.

"Repeat…under heavy attack from wand'rs…using some sort of heat…fire…bullets hardly getting through…."

"Jones to all teams, converge on fire fighting point, switch to S/K-1s."

Jones arrived on the scene to see…a dragon.

That wasn't all, there were death eaters around it, and at least two atop controlling it, through the smoke he could see the seemed to have something on the skull of the dragon.

The death eaters were firing off spells, some were shooting jets of flame from their wands around at anything that wasn't already alight.

Jones was briefly glad that the fire chief and the fleet of fire fighters were too concerned with the battle behind him, rather than the dragon in front of him.

"Take any cover you can, take them down!"

"The dragon too?" Someone called.

"Yes the frigging dragon too!" Jones shouted out.

Green energy shot out from more than 15 different points at the encroaching death eaters who were laughing and celebrating as they approached the 'stupid muggles, trying to fight a wizard's fire'.

They were…perhaps not surprise, shocked when two of their group collapsed as a bright green light hit them.

Despite the roar of the fire they had heard no one utter the killing curse.

"Dumbledore's order must be here." One death eater yelled from atop the dragon as he concentrated on another Cruciatus curse on the dragon bone that his master had affixed to the brain of the dragon he was atop…it allowed them control of the dragon. While its flames were lethal it wasn't the main cause of the blaze…but his master had insisted they use it as it was more efficient than them…

The fire chief turned back to see what was making such a racket…a racket above the roar of the fire that his men and the two UNIT trucks were slowly pushing back.

What he saw…he couldn't fathom…it was…a dragon, with men atop it.

The UNIT guys were hiding behind various bits of…whatever firing…something at the attackers…and the dragon…it was like some science fiction movie he's seen with his kids.

"Sam what have we got in the truck?" Jones said as he tried to aim through the haze of smoke, fire, spells…and the fire that the dragon was spitting everywhere.

"We had to pull a lot of the stuff from it to fit the fire fighting gear."

They were holding a position just in front of the back of their troop carrier, the death eaters…despite their losses still had more people…they could have been apparating in more people to hold up their fight.

"You, Steve and Williams grab everything that's in there, we're falling back…" The Jones added "And prepare to blow the fuel tanks."

Sam Parkin raised an eyebrow at him.
"Sir with all due respect…we're in between the biggest blaze…since…I dunno, and you want to blow up the however many gallons of diesel in our truck?"

"Get on it Sam…we're running out of space to manoeuvre." Jones grabbed at his radio, but all he got was intermittent bursts of static, with the spells and the heat both from the fire and the dragon he was glad he wasn't wearing anything that could melt.

"Everyone…fall back!" He shouted as Steve, Williams and Sam rushed past him, carrying several cases and various other pieces of equipment, as Jones and the rest of the tem were walking steadily backwards, Parkin ran back towards the truck.

"Parkin!" She came back a small back pack on her back.

"Sorry Sir, extra rounds, grenades and a back up radio…thought before you blew up the truck…sir."

"Good…very good…put everything somewhere…Jones was already going threw his pockets and withdrew a small slab of what most would assume was clay…if it were not for the large letters emblazoned on the side which read 'C4 Explosive'.

Jones looked around at the blackened buildings, the advancing death eaters…and the dragon and his team which were falling back, as he'd ordered around him.

Pressing the time into the C4 he shrugged to himself and chucked it close to the troop carrier.

"Let's finish off Dumbledore's group…then the muggles."

The lead death eater in charge of the main assault on the muggle and mudbloods houses yelled for them to charge.

The dragon and their riders lumbered forwards, but not as fast as the death eaters leading the charge.

When the C4 went off, and took the truck, the diesel it took much of the first wave of death eaters were incinerated…

Unfortunately for the UNIT troops it didn't take out the main force of death eaters, but did provide for a challenge.

"Now we're really between a rock and a hard place." Parkin said before adding "Sir."

"What the blood hell do you think you're doing Colonel, trying to make our lives harder?" The chief came over during what could be considered a brief respite from the battle.

"Look chief…that fire…is just that…it'll give us 5 maybe 10 minutes breathing space. But it's just fire, not like that fire." Jones jabbed his thumb at the wall, now more of a fence of fire that was still roaring around them.

"Get back to your fire and I'll try and keep all of us alive."

"Without killing us all with any bright ideas I hope." The fire chief muttered before heading back to his truck monitoring the water from the hydrant and is mix with the stuff the UNIT troops had brought.

Jones walked back to his team.

"Right what weapons have we got?"

"6 ATRs, 2 bazookas, a couple of shot guns, and a case of grenades." Williams said in a rough Northern accent.

"Divvy up the ATRs, bazookas and grenades…go for a joint assault and take down the dragon…then we can deal with the death eaters on more even footing." Jones glanced back at the fire from the truck, it appeared to be being doused at the sides by something…or someone.

"Can we take down a dragon? Sir." Someone from the back of the group asked sceptically.

Jones looked back.

"We haven't got any choice…from what I remember they're impervious to a lot of wand user spells."

"Which raised the question of how they're controlling it." Jackie said.

"A ponderance for a time when it isn't trying to kill us perhaps." Williams muttered.

"Good…form up, everyone try to take down the death eaters that come through, we'll use all the grenades for the dragon."

Jones crouched behind a still steaming piece of masonry they were though inside the burn line, Jones looked around, the fire trucks were moving slowly forming a V pattering beating back the flames.

The heat both before and behind him was still intense like being blasted by a furnace from his front and back.

"They're moving!" Someone cried out, and indeed they were, the diesel and whatever else that was fuelling the remains of the fire was being dampened, steam rising from around the blast radius, much quicker than it should have in 'normal' condition, not that UNIT ever dealt with normal conditions.

"Wait for a target!" Jones shouted, while they could in theory start firing blindly through the smoke haze and spot fires, it would be best not to alert them that they were still alive, and had weapons.

Then the death eaters started to move through the gap made by whatever spell was dampening UNIT's own fire.

"Fire!" Jones shouted out. "Take em down!"

Green light shot from various places where Night Wolf troops took cover from the barrage of spells that were flung back towards them.

Reds, Greens, Gold, Yellows, varying shades of primary colours shot back, sometimes missing, sometimes impacting on the pieces of cover.

Jones forced himself not to jump up and run when he heard a shout from one of his team, it was just a flesh wound…he knew the screams of torture and the cries of death…

Jones didn't know how long they had been firing at the death eaters, his finger was almost twitching on its own hitting the trigger on and on taking aim at what seemed to be an endless supply of death eaters.

Many of them were more spry than most, ducking and weaving, some of their shielding spells even diluted their weapon's effect, it took sometimes 2 or 32 shots to take one down.

Or it could be the residual magic in the air in the form of ash and dust thrown up by the fires raging, Jones thought with a glance behind some distance away.

Jones was pulled back into reality, not that he wasn't concentrating on the battle, just his focus was momentarily drawn, making sure a pair of death eaters stayed down and dead, they had been irritating him for the past…Jones wasn't sure how long as he shifted his crouch to the other knee pressing himself closer against what remained of an oak tree, it's stump that all remained of what would have been a large old tree, his cover of the masonry abandoned some time ago.

Jones stared as the dragon lumbered into the kill zone, Jones's mind flared for a second at the size of it, before snapping back into place.

"All teams ready!" Jones paused holstering his weapon and grabbing for the grenades around his person. "Fire in 3, 2, 1!" Jones screamed out and lobbed his grenades.

Around him the rest of his team, injured and not lobbed their assortment of explosives, there were thumps and flashes as ATRs and bazookas launched their payload at the lumbering dragon before them.

Jones grabbed at his tactical vest and found another 2 grenades.

"Every little bit…" He muttered to himself and lobbed them as well as the first set were exploding around the foot of the dragon.

It's roar was…it was outside any normal person's experience, despite working for Night Wolf, despite seeing alien worlds, despite working and helping to defend a space ship, the roar of anger that the dragon before him was something else.

The death eaters that had been around the dragon, taking cover from Night Wolf's own assault had been wiped out, now there was only the dragon, which was lumbering in a daze, still roaring and some death eaters left on the periphery.

"Close in assault!" Jones shouted around to the teams. "Covering fire." He shouted to those injured though still trying to rise up to assist.

Jones and the many still standing moved closer to the death eaters firing off salvos of killing energy towards them as they tried to shout out Avada Kedavra at them, though many were resorting to shorter less complicated spells or looking around for orders.

Jones saw rather than heard some of them simply disappear.

Then there was just the dragon.

"Everyone open fire on the…" Jones ducked and rolled as a plume of fire leapt out at him, he rolled out of the way, but not before it caught him and two others on fire, he rolled along the wet sandy soil attempting to put the flames out, he could feel the flames, the hot liquid of them eating through his protective clothing as he rolled covering himself more so in the wet soil dousing the fire.

Jones rolled into a crouch hoping that the cool feeling was the water and not the assault on his senses as the flames licked at his nerves, he grabbed at his weapon and joined the shots of green that were being shot from different points, both at the dragon and the riders who were trying to stay on top of the dragon as they attacked.

Time seemed to flow from one minute to another, Jones felt the grip of his gun get warm as he continued to repetitively squeeze and fire his weapon at the large winged beast.

Jones wasn't sure how long he had been firing at the dragon, his hearing was drowned out by the steam train roar of the fire even though it was at least 1km away and the dragon's continued roars and movements.

Then, Jones wasn't sure when the dragon collapsed and he was being helped up by someone.

"Sir?"

"Williams…" Jones croaked and grabbed for his hydration straw, nothing came out, Jones felt at his back, that must have been the cool feeling. He looked down at the twitching dragon.

"Williams, you and…" Jones looked around and called out. "Jackie, go grab from the fire guys, or the UNIT trucks half a dozen fire axes."

"Fire axes…sir?" Williams regarded him questioningly.

"I want its head severed…it doesn't look dead and the last thing we need is a severely pissed dragon."

"Sir."

--//

It was several days later, Jones had been ordered to take a few days off after inhaling soot, smoke…and whatever the dragon spat out. Plus he'd also rolled around in the remnants of the fire, the additives to the water and who knew what else, despite the Sorcery Division's assurances that the additive probably wasn't anything to worry about.

He was currently in the Brigadier's office discussing the events, he'd given the Brigadier his report, but judging by the pile of reports, briefs and requests that littered the Brigadier's desk, Jones suspected that the Brigadier preferred to have these one on one chats to discuss what happened rather than read it on a piece of paper.

"When we had made it to the original ignition point sir…it was…" Jones shook his head and leaned forward and opened the the mission photos that he'd taken after the arrival of the second UNIT fire control truck which had brought a larger supply of the additive for the fire services that were on sight assisting them.

When they'd eventually made it to the ignition point of the fire…they found…

There were five people on standing perfectly still, what had been houses had burnt away from them, but they had been screaming.

Jones hadn't realised it from all the noise…but then they couldn't put them out…

Jones flicked over the photos showing the Brigadier them, their flesh charred their bodies broken…but their eyes stared out in anguish.

"I gave the order to…to put them out of their suffering sir…" Jones swallowed a mouthful of his drink.

The Brigadier nodded. "There was nothing you could have done David."

Jones nodded.

"When each of them were shot the fire around them stopped burning…and the what was left of the fires outside died back to a less intense…" He let out a racking cough. "…more manageable fire."

The Brigadier nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair.

Jones reach forward taking his report again and flipped through to another set of photos, taken later in that day when the smoke had cleared some what due to a northerly breeze.

It was a photo from a helicopter surveying the damage.

"When I was looking for something…their were five people…out initial search suggests that they were wand users…"

"But…?" The Brigadier supplied.

"Five sir…when you draw a line between them…"

Jones showed the Brigadier another photo where he'd drawn a line between the people who had been burned alive…

"A pentagram…" The Brigadier rose from his chair pouring himself and Jones another drink. "One of the victims was from the Order of the Phoenix." Lethbridge Stewart said as he sat back down and tapped a keyboard in front of him, changing the display to the side of his desk on the wall.

It showed the damaged area.

"It was all under surveillance."

"Of course, Jones. Watch."

There was a slight flare on the screen and then there were two people standing in amongst the detritus.

"I had the clean up crew leave the bodies…just in case."

"Sorry sir." Jones added…when the clean up crew had arrived he'd ordered them to get the death eater bodies and then get the bodies…carefully from the houses, then he'd gone to look after the wounded of his team.

"You were following protocol Jones…"

"Isn't the order Dumbledore's gang?"

"It appears so, Harry mentioned something about dealing with Dumbledore…"

Jones nodded watching the screen as a camera zoomed into the two people.

Jones stared at the taller of the men, he was wearing tough hide of some sort, and was massively scarred.

"What…?" Jones muttered as the man drew his wand and muttered a spell, along the bottom of the screen a word came up Incendio.

Then the picture went blank.

"Sir?"

"Birmingham suggested we place various cameras, including in all of the houses. Linguistics has just finished going over their lip patterns, Birmingham thought they might pick up a mic if we placed it."

Jones just nodded as he watched the screen flick to another point of view, and another as the two men made their way around the houses, their conversation was minor at most, it wasn't until they reached house 3 that he'd listed on his report, though it was the last for them, then the subtitles picked up into something more interesting.

Well Moody, what do you think? Scurgify. (???) mutters

What do I think Kingsley? It's Vance.

Emmeline, how can you be sure?

The screen flared once more switching to a higher point of view.

You're the active auror not me Kingsley.

The heat must have been intense…do you know how she died?

Muggle weapons. suggestion; man known as 'Moody' spits/comments in disgust.

The order said Harry was using weapons like that at the station. man known as 'Kingsley', statement is curious and doubting.

Yes… man; Moody trails off muttering to himself.

Moody?

Do you know the term euthanasia Kingsley? man; Moody – suggestive of query / rhetorical question.

A muggle term for killing someone.

Someone in incurable pain.

But they…we could have.

You aurors, shouldn't have let the fire get this far! man; Moody shouting.

But sir…that doesn't excuse…had they…we couldn't even get through the fire…all means failed…

Then…? man; Moody – query to Kingsley

Then how did the muggles get here?

Yes…and when they did, they probably did the only thing they could for Emmeline…would you have had the courage to do the same?

Jones watched the man; Moody look around what used to be the room before reaching under the rubble and pulling out a small blackened glass plant, like a rose.

Emergency portkey? man; Kingsley asks

I've seen enough, do you have the names?

I'll need to check with the department in the Ministry…some of them were in muggle areas…

So?

Yes sir.

There was a camera flare and they disappeared.

Jones leaned back into his chair.

"Was there any further action sir?"

"The man, Kingsley returned yesterday. With two others, the clean up crew had been through, they departed after a quick reccy. They didn't find anything."

Jones nodded again.

"What about the dragon?" Jones asked changing subjects smoothly.

"Sorcery is going over it with a fine eye, they're saying its an excellent specimen, despite the battle damage…and the severing of its head."

"Sorry…sir…just wasn't sure how to kill it."

Lethbridge Stewart chuckled.

"Nothing to apologise about Jones, I'd much rather had a dead and decapitated dragon than one flying around London under the control of Voldemort."

"Have they got any idea how they managed that?"

Lethbridge Stewart shook his head.

"They're still carving it up, we haven't got a storage locker large enough to store it all in one piece…you did a good job with it, they said you're more than welcome to assist them Jones." The Brigadier said with a chuckle.

"I think I'll take those few more hours off sir…"

"Very wise Jones…I'm having the whole workspace cleaned from top to bottom…who'd have thought dead dragon would have such a pungent smell.."

'Who'd have thought?" Jones thought with a chuckle to himself.

--//

This chapter I wrote whilst thinking about the Victorian bush fires which have been burning for the last 50 days or so, hence the theme of fire in this chapter.

There is also a link to Sorcery, UNITed, Independence, Space with the death of Emmeline Vance, mentioned in chapter 39, however this happens before ch39 as in that chapter these events are spoken in retrospect.

There was going to be an extra scene, which never existed further than a few sketched out ideas, but it was going to involve a ship transmatting up treated water and then back down over the hot spots of the fire.

There was going to be some crew making jokes about Star Trek and whales amongst other things.

However, after thinking for a while about how various bits of technology work and other things I felt it worked better with the fire being fought on the ground, by people.

Thanks for reading, I will most likely try to respond to all reviewers.