Waverly Place

"It is so cool when you do that!" Max was always excited when I used magic, and he liked seeing me take advantage of the cabby.

I grinned and looked down at him. "Don't tell your father I did that."

"Are you joking? I like you being around. I tell him you do that, and he'll probably try and ground us both. Or just me twice." I laughed. Kid was funny. We walked up towards his apartment, and something just didn't feel right. I dunno what it was, but something wasn't right. He was walking towards the door, but I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Max," I said very quietly, "I want you to listen to me very carefully. I want you to stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you run. You don't look back, and you don't worry about me." His expression took on one of fear and confusion.

"It's just my home." At least he knew enough to keep his voice down. I nodded, but didn't say anything. Look, things didn't feel right to me, and that was good enough for me. I wasn't going to scare this kid half-to-death though over just a feeling. A quarter-to-death was just fine.

I took my wand out and slowly turned the knob. Carefully, I opened the door and peered through the crack. Nothing. I kept Max behind me and opened the door more widely. Still nothing. When the door was fully open, and I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, I stepped inside, still keeping one arm on Max.

"Hello? Mom? Dad?" Max called out as we walked inside. "I thought you said they were here."

I closed the door behind me and took another step inside. I steered Max towards the kitchen as we examined the place, looking for his family. He looked up at me. "Where's everybody."

Before I could answer, something moved in my peripheral vision. Normally, I'm not this jumpy, but normally Dumbledore doesn't send me a message that a hit squad might be coming to town. I pushed Max down behind the counter and ducked. Behind me, the wall exploded in green light as a killing curse slammed into the wall.

"Looks like we've got company, boys." A black robed wizard started forward, wand level with me. Two more came from upstairs. This was going to be fun. "Looks like a Muggle's come home with the boy." Okay, so he apparently didn't see my wand and didn't know who I was. Fine by me.

"Woah, what did you just do? Was that magic?" I said rather convincingly. One of the Death Eaters laughed and pulled out his wand.

"Let's show this Muggle a little bit of magic." The short, fat Death Eater raised his wand towards me. First rule of dueling – wherever your opponent is about to fire, don't be there. Max was crouching behind the counter, and the three were focused exclusively on me. Time to not be here. Using a technique that had basically won me every single fight, I quickly dodged the ensuing curse by Rapid-Apparating right behind him. I pulled out my wand and nestled it up behind his forehead and shot a quick stunner into him.

The other two had their wands out and were eyeing me carefully. One tall and one medium. "This guy's no Muggle." The tall one said.

"Well, no shit, Sherlock." I fired off two quick stunners, not really intending either to land. I wasn't disappointed either. Both were quickly parried. I had two basic points – one, show off how quickly I could cast. Two, see their reaction time. The tall one was a little bit slow to parry the stunner. Either he was trying to fake me out, or he wasn't used to actually having to work in a fight. Probably the latter. The medium one looked pretty solid though. There'd be no quick win with him.

So, rule two, evaluate the situation. Working for me was Tally was slow, and I probably had more recent dueling experience than either of these guys. Plus, they knew nothing about how I fought, and I could probably guess that they were both used to just using killing curses to end fights before it could go most anywhere, although Medium definitely knew how to handle himself against someone like me. Working against me was that it was two against one now, I was trying to protect a kid, and I'd really rather not kill anyone if I didn't have to. My odds had been worse, but not much.

We were trading minor curses and parries now. Tally wasn't just slow on defense, he was abysmal, but Medium was looking out for him pretty well. That meant he wasn't stupid either. He knew that keeping his buddy up and moving, even if he was terrible, gave him the best chance of taking me down. We were circling each other. I guess Medium was in charge, because Tally was just following his lead with a few tests. They were trying to feel me out. Well, rule three was formulate a plan based on rule two. Basic plan in a 3 vs 1 is knock one guy out, engage the other two, try and knock the second weakest one out and then you're in a 1 vs 1. I had already done step one. Time for step two.

Tally and Medium fired two killing curses at me in quick succession. One Rapid-Apparation later I was behind Tally and away from both curses. I pointed my wand at Tally's back and, just as he turned around, a loud bang and flash of light were emitted from my wand, leaving him screaming in pain on the ground.

Two down, one to go; time to find Medium. I looked behind me in horror as Medium had Max in his arm with his wand pointed at the boy's head.

"Drop it."

"You touch one hair on that boy's head, and you're not going to live to see the inside of Azkaban." I would have probably just alerted the authorities, but if the boy died I was going to make Medium hurt a lot before I finally killed him.

"He'll still be dead. Now drop the wand." I'm not stupid. I drop the wand and Max dies. I do nothing and Max dies. I shoot a curse, and it's too slow, Max dies. I'm really fast but miss, and Max dies. I needed to be really fast and accurate to save his life. Apparently, today was my lucky day, because as I pulled my wand up shot my curse towards the Death Eater, it hit. Not quite quickly enough, but, thankfully, Max had the presence of mind to bite the Death Eaters' hand, forcing him to shoot his killing curse harmlessly wide.

The Death Eater fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his thorat and Max ran towards me, clinging to my waist. I don't blame him. That had to be a hell of an ordeal. I had forgotten Tally though. Tally, wanded again, darted past me, grabbed his two fallen comrades, and Disapparated all before I could stop him. Terrible in a fight though he may be, but slow at running he was not.

Waverly Place – Aftermath

I sat Max down on the sofa. He was still shaking terribly and wasn't speaking. My first inclination had been to go to his room, get his stuff, and then leave this place. The scene in his bedroom wasn't what I had expected though. Apparently, after killing the rest of the Russo's, the Death Eaters had moved all the bodies to Max's room. Further, they had decided to make the killings look Muggle by taking a knife and stabbing each of them. The scene was enough to make me gag. Before I could stop Max though, he had seen it too.

He hadn't cried, although that might have been better. He just sat there on the couch, eyes not moving, mouth not opening. Just shivering, as if he were only cold.

"Max…" I stopped. Max what? Max, I'm sorry that your parents were brutally murdered and then their bodies desecrated because I opted to go and get you first? If I had come here first though, could I have even saved them? Now I'll never know. Jerry, Theresea, Alex, and Justin all dead because I wasn't fast enough. Damn it, but life just wasn't fair. They didn't deserve this. Max didn't deserve this. I growled.

I guess Max thought I was angry with him, because he yelped and jumped backwards. He had seen me use magic before, but nothing like what he had seen there with the Death Eaters. I guess he had never really realized what could be done to a person. And then seeing his family after all that, well, if the boy talked again I'd consider myself a miracle worker. But I didn't have time for miracles now. I needed to lie low and contact Dumbledore.

"Max, it's too dangerous to stay here. I'm going to pick you up, and then we're going to hit the street. I'm going to get us as far out of the city as possible, alright? We're going to stay in a hotel for a few days." I took his silence as consent to touch him. With one arm supporting his weight, I left Waverly Place, wand out and ready to use in case any Death Eaters came back to finish the murder of the Russo family.