"It's another fight! Several death eaters have been located! Everyone, quickly!" Edgar Bones cried, bursting into the headquarters. All the people in the comfortable great room were immediately on their feet. "We need back up, right now! There's no time to spare!" Edgar exclaimed franticly, already striding to the hearth.
Shooting terrified glances at one another and yet all too hauntingly familiar with this scene, everyone hastened to follow him. "Please hurry!" He sounded almost desperate, as if he wasn't sure he could handle the situation. Elphias Doge came to stand silently behind him, taking a handful of floo powder and casting it into the flames. Edgar nodded once and then stepped into the grate and vanished. The others had formed a kind of straggling line and disappeared into the fire in quick succession.
Wands drawn, the members gathered into a subconscious circle, looking about them and covering each other intuitively. Sirius could feel the blood rushing through him, his heart pounding loudly. He was almost excited by the prospect of a battle, having missed the last one.
Of course, he had seen the aftermath and he wasn't eager to face his doom, if that was what was to come. Still, however, he felt ready, prepared, and almost impatient for the attack to come.
They were in a sort of cave, dark and damp with the smell of decay in the stale air. The ceiling was high and there were many jagged boulders and slanting cliffs, as well as several tunnels, none of them with any visible light at the end. Though it was dark, the cave was filled with flickering shadows, but there was no source of light to be seen. The whole effect was incredibly eerie. The floor they stood on was made of the same grayish rock as the walls, but it was rutted and filled with crevices, all of which were overflowing with murky pools of muddy water. The ground was covered in a thin film of algae or mildew which made it quite slippery and difficult to balance on.
Sirius turned to see where they had come from. It was the only sign, besides the rough, man made tunnels, that any human had ever visited the cavern before. It was a tall, arched, fireplace with symbols and runes carved into, though it did not appear that any fire had ever been lit in it.
The air was cool and clammy and the room was utterly silent. As Sirius moved slowly around within the circle of people to face the opposite wall, he registered that their footsteps certainly should have made at least some kind of noise. From the emptiness of the place and the towering domed ceiling above them, he would have expected every tiny sound to be projected and echoed a hundred times louder, and yet there was not even a whisper of any kind.
Someone lit their wand a few places to the right and Sirius could see now that there were runes etched into the cavernous roof as well. He could feel the weight of ancient magic in the air and nearly taste the heavy enchantments that lay over the inhospitable grotto. Suddenly there was a scuffle and the light went out.
"Do not light your wands," Edgar Bones whispered in a strangely muffled voice.
"Where is everyone?" asked James. His voice too, was oddly hollow and muted.
"Shhh," Emmeline hissed.
"Emmeline? When did you-" Sturgis's voice was cut off abruptly. Sirius's heart skipped a beat. He was certain he'd seen, or rather felt, movement in one of the tunnels. Had they walked straight into a trap? However, when he turned it was gone and Emmeline had only covered Sturgis's mouth with her hand, stifling his voice.
Suddenly they were doused in utter blackness. A dark so impenetrable that Sirius couldn't even tell how far away the floor beneath his feet was. He didn't quite hear, more felt, Stell gasp beside him and he instinctively reached out a hand toward her. The second he found her wrist, the darkness vanished and he found himself once more in the cave, though this time there was certainly detectable movement in all of the passageways. Stell gripped his hand tightly and reached out for Claire's hand beside her, indicating to Sirius that he should do the same.
Sirius turned to find Remus staring blindly at the ceiling, a look of terror on his face. Sirius firmly grasped his arm and Remus immediately found his bearings.
Sirius turned his attention back to the formerly deserted tunnels. They were too grey and shadow-filled to see anything properly, but Sirius thought he could make out several robe-clad figures. Suddenly there was a spark of red light from one of the passages and for a split second Sirius could clearly make out the horrifying skull-like mask of a death eater. When the light was hastily extinguished it left spots in Sirius's vision, preventing him from seeing any more, but he was absolutely positive that he knew exactly where the death eater had been. He made to grope for his wand but with a terrifying jolt he realized that he was unable to reach for his wand or perform any magic while he still clutched Remus's and Stell's hands.
Experimentally Sirius pried his hands out of their grasp. The immense darkness instantly swallowed him again. He quickly retook his friends' icy hands in his.
"Remus," Sirius hissed, "I can't get to my wand like this!"
Remus nodded to show he understood. His face was rapt with concentration. He let go of Sirius's right hand. As Sirius still clutched Stell's sweaty palm in his left, the black abyss couldn't claim him and he was able to watch as Remus took his wand from his pocket and, brow furrowed with focus, he performed a complicated sort of spell, mumbling under his breath and careful not to release Lily's hand in his right.
When he had finished he at last dropped Lily's hand. He shook his head, his eyes oddly blank; it obviously hadn't worked. Yet, Remus didn't reach for Lily's hand again; instead he tried something else, working his wand around in a complicated pattern. Still nothing happened. Remus paused, apparently thinking, then whispered "Lumos maxima!"
Sirius was surprised, despite his doubts that a wand could penetrate the immense magical dark, to see that Remus's wand hadn't even shown the slightest inclination that a spell had been cast.
Remus quickly rejoined hands with Sirius. "Why haven't they tried anything?" Sirius asked, indicating the death eaters.
"I don't know…" Remus whispered back, utterly perplexed.
"Obviously we can't do any magic in this dark, but we can't do magic when we're holding each other's hands like this either…"
"Maybe they're hoping we'll just leave?" Sirius suggested.
"But that doesn't make any sense… Why would they-"
"They're going to kill us. All of us."
"What?" Remus and Sirius asked simultaneously.
Stell was staring fixedly at one of the tunnels. Sirius and Remus glanced at each other, bewildered.
"Are you alright?" Sirius asked her, obviously wondering whether she had cracked under the tension.
"Don't you see? It's an ambush and we've wandered right into it! They're just torturing us, holding us here like this! We can't apparate out-"
"Why not?" Sirius interrupted.
"Don't you feel it? There's spells on this place, strong ones. We couldn't apparate if we tried and we can't go to the fireplace either, or they'll kill us. We're going to have to stand here in the dark until they decide to attack."
Sirius studied Stell's face worriedly. She still had not looked at them; she was staring intently into the nearest tunnel.
"She's right…" Remus breathed as if he hardly dared believe it.
"But… but…" Sirius said, at a loss for words. He was so shocked by the sudden disappearance of happy, optimistic Stella that he could think of nothing to say. "But surely there's something we can do… We aren't just going to sit here and die are we?"
"No, of course not," Stell said, and suddenly she turned to him and smiled. She'd been thinking hard all along and now she seemed to have come up with an idea.
"It's stupid, isn't it? A tiny flaw, so obvious it's easy to pass over. They probably didn't realize we'd even think to hold onto each other. I don't even know if they realized that that could break the spell. Most wizards don't seem to have much common sense or logic, and I guess I haven't any either. I can't believe it took me so long to think of it!" Stell was almost laughing now, though she hurriedly subdued her giggles.
"All we have to do is split into pairs! Then we can hold onto each other and still have a hand free for our wands!"
"Surely they'll have thought of that?" Remus said skeptically.
"Perhaps, but what else can we do? Besides, Sirius and I could see perfectly well when it was just us."
"You're right. It's worth a try…"
"Claire, I'm letting go now, you can move over next to Remus."
"Be careful!" Remus cautioned, "If you move out of the circle they're sure to get you!"
"It's a risk we'll have to take," Stell shrugged, "We'll have to get them before they get us."
Sirius pulled away from Remus. He could feel the circle closing behind he and Stell. Quickly he drew his wand.
"It's worked!" he breathed, glancing behind him at the circle, all of whom were watching them with concern. No sooner had the words left his mouth when there was a terrible scrambling sound in a tunnel.
The death eater's confusion just barely gave them time to duck before a jet of red light flashed across the dungeon. "Stupefy!" Stell shrieked, whirling around to slash at the passage where the spell had come from.
"Kill them, you fool!" one of the masked figures screeched from the largest of the tunnels.
"Impedimenta!" Stell twisted around violently to meet a second attacker, nearly breaking Sirius's wrist.
"Confundo!" She shot another spell across the cave, hitting a death eater squarely between the eyes. Suddenly a hooded figure leapt out on their right.
"Behind you!" Sirius cried, Stell turned and aimed another jet of red light at him, sending him flying across the dungeon.
"You can do magic as well, you know!" she gasped, dragging him around to fell another death eater. To his horror, Sirius realized that he had quite forgotten this fact and he immediately tried to shoot a spell at another of Voldemort's masked henchman who seemed intent upon brutally murdering them.
However he missed by a long shot and narrowly avoided being blown to bits by an oncoming curse. Sirius took a split second to look down at his wand, puzzled. Something was not right…
"I'm left handed!" Sirius called to Stell, "I can't hit anything with my wand in the wrong hand!"
Stell rolled her eyes, "Well, then hold my shoulder or something with your right hand, but do it fast!"
Sirius quickly switched hands, careful not to release his grip on Stell's hand until he had firmly planted his other hand on her shoulder. Everyone had taken up their example now; pairs whirled across the dungeon, locked in fast moving deadly duels.
"Levicorpus!" Sirius exclaimed, flicking his wand at a death eater who had crept up behind them.
"Expelliarmus! Petrificus Totalus!" Stell screamed, blasting the death eater they had been dueling out of the way.
"Sectu-" another death eater had jumped in to take the first's place.
"Relashio!" Stell exclaimed.
"Rictusempra!" Sirius added. The death eater fell to his knees, laughing uncontrollably.
"What the… What did you do? Wait a second, is that…?" Stell correctly identified his use of the tickling charm.
Sirius shrugged, "It was effective, wasn't it?"
"Not for long," Stell said skeptically, turning back to the death eater "Locomoter Mortis!"
"Densaugeo!" Sirius fired a curse at another death eater who Claire and Remus had been fighting. "Furnunculus!"
"You're a very creative dueler," Stell commented, watching as the death eater on the receiving end of Sirius's hexes sprouted a large number of painful-looking boils and a pair of rapidly growing buck teeth.
"I'm a very creative person in general," Sirius nodded, leaping around to attack another unsuspecting death eater. "Tarantallegra!"
Suddenly a new robe-clad henchman leapt in front of the pair. "Avada Kedavra!" he cried in a bone chilling screech. Sirius swore his heart had literally stopped. A jet of green light shot across the cavern. It seemed to be moving a whole lot slower than it ought to. Stell was frozen, her lips parted, eyes wide. Sirius could see the reflection of the spell speeding toward them in her eyes. There was no time to think of anything. But that wasn't really a problem. Sirius didn't generally spend a whole lot of his time thinking over his ideas before he acted on them. Usually it got him into trouble. Not today. Today he had less than a millisecond to do something. Sirius discovered that his brain had somehow analyzed the situation for him while he'd been busy concentrating on his heart, which seemed to have ceased to exist and on the curse that was currently going to hit a spot about six inches to his left. What his mind had come up with was that a death eater was about to succeed in destroying the one thing that Sirius loved more than anything in the entire universe. For once that thing wasn't Sirius himself. It wasn't even Sirius's own gorgeous face. It was something located about six inches to his left.
With less than a moment to go, Sirius leaped violently to his left, blocking the spell's progress. Sirius knew he would die. Yet for some reason this didn't really bother him. He felt satisfied, almost happy. Because Stell was going to live. She was safe.
Suddenly the words of someone he loved and deeply admired rang through his numb brain. "I'll always be there…" The words were his own. He had made a promise.
At that moment Sirius lost his balance on the algae covered floor. He slipped and fell with a sickening crunch, landing on top of Stell and narrowly avoiding the curse. He felt it whoosh past above him. He painfully rolled over. Stell slowly sat up. Hesitantly she reached out a hand and touched his face.
"You… you saved my life… You were going to die. But you saved me anyway…"
Sirius tried a weak smile. It hurt. "I'll always be there," he gasped. Stell squeezed his hand. Sirius just had time to register that the darkness spell had stopped working with no one to operate it. She hadn't been touching his hand before. Then he blacked out.
A/N: A fast update and a long chapter, impressive, no:) Well keep reading, the next chapter follows this one immediately but they were too long to keep as one chapter. Also, I think the next one may be the best...