Dark Days

(_)(_)(_)

1974

Much to everyone's relief, Eileen made it through Christmas. She did not however live to see the new year. She died quietly in her sleep on the thirtieth. Fortunately, school did not begin again until the seventh. Since she was, if distantly, related to the Blacks (as were pretty much all the pureblood families) and the Prince burial grounds were denied her, she was laid to rest in a small corner of the Black Family grounds on the fifth.

Severus was determined to return to school on time, despite repeated reminders from everyone that they didn't expect that of him. Septimus had a feeling that Severus' determination to return had more than one cause. It would provide a distraction from his grief being the main one. The other reason was Lily.

Lily, upon discovering that Eileen had died in the night, camped out at Severus' elbow and in his bedroom and point blank refused to be removed from his presence for more than about five minutes. Septimus wasn't all that sure why she was glued to him. Since she knew him better than the rest of them did, having been friends with him since they were about seven, Septimus was willing to allow that there might just be a valid reason for it. Or at the very least, there *had* been a valid reason, before Severus had caring adults in his life, and Lily hadn't quite adjusted to that change enough to not default to old habits in the face of something so dire.

It was kind of telling that Severus made no demur about her hounding him. Septimus hadn't even caught him looking exasperated or anything like that. At any rate, Severus was probably worried that if he stayed out of school, Lily would try to as well, so he was going to go back. Whether that was a good idea or not, Septimus wasn't sure, but Harfang seemed to think Severus would manage. Since Harfang knew the boy a bit better than the rest of them did, he was willing to trust Harfang's judgment on the matter.

Less than a week after the kids had returned to Hogwarts, Voldemort finally made the move the elder Marauders had been waiting for. Though it had to be said that the move was larger than they'd been anticipating.

In the wee small hours of the morning, ten of the warning devices the Marauders had set up as close to the homes of Muggleborns as they could manage without arousing suspicion started shrieking fit to wake the dead. The monitors, and relay alarms that would allow for everyone to be alerted within seconds of an attack had been set up in Potter Castle. The Castle had the most room for such an endeavor, and the Potter elves were by far the most idle of the trustworthy elves available to them, as they only had three people to serve currently. The Potter elves then scattered to inform the Marauders of who exactly was being attacked.

When the alert blared, Septimus was out of bed and half dressed before he'd even woken up sufficiently to comprehend what the heck was going on. Cedrella wasn't very far behind him either. Right about the point they realized what was happening, one of the Potter elves - not Jinx for once - popped in.

"There is being lots of attacks!" The elf said. "Ten! Master is saying you is needed to go to this address. There is two houses being attacked on same street." The elf then rattled off the address.

Septimus didn't demur. He was the heavy-hitter of the Marauders - the one most able to defend two places from attackers, especially in this case, when the houses were literally separated by only one or two houses. Especially with Cedrella at his side. Less than a minute later, he and Cedrella both were fully dressed and armed. They disillusioned themselves and apparated to where they were needed.

Septimus had opted to apparate to a spot between the two beleaguered houses. Hopefully the attackers would be so concentrated on their victims that his arrival would surprise them. Cedrella, he knew, would opt to apparate in somewhere behind where attackers outside the houses would be likeliest to be standing, so that they were caught between her and Septimus.

The street was eerily quiet when they popped in. Septimus could see flashes of color from a window on one of the houses. This swiftly made it apparent that the Death Eaters hadn't wanted to have to leave quickly, and had opted for some small measure of stealth by not setting fire to the homes and garnering the attention of muggle forces.

There was no one visible on the street. Septimus narrowed his eyes, then accio'd a clod of dirt as big as he was. He broke it up into fine particles and then sent it swirling around the area. If anyone was standing around, whether under disillusionment or some other means of invisibility, they'd be revealed by the dirt moving around them.

Sure enough, two disturbances were revealed, one tucked down beside a bush near the one house under attack, the other standing in the middle of the front garden of the other. Both got nailed by Cedrella before they'd even realized they'd been discovered.

They wouldn't be getting back up again, either. That decision had been an easy one to make, and unanimous. Death Eaters and Voldemort got no quarter, no mercy. None of the Marauders trusted that the bastards would end up in Azkaban where they belonged. Even if they did, the Marauders weren't going to take bets on how long the convicted would STAY in Azkaban. None of the Marauders were willing to stun a bunch of murderous lunatics only to have to repeat the procedure two or three or six months or a year or whatever later. And then again a few more months or years after that. No, if they were going to do this, they were going to do it right and make sure that Voldemort suffered as many permanent losses as humanly possible.

That dealt with, they immediately split up. Cedrella headed for one house, and Septimus the other. Septimus was relieved when he discovered that there were no alarms or sealing spells he'd have to deal with. There was, however, a silencing spell in place, which Septimus had figured from the relative silence on the street. The moment Septimus slipped through the door, he passed its boundary.

He had to squash the urge to race upstairs and put a stop the screaming as fast as he could. The chances of ending up dead or badly injured doing that were very high. First, he gave the ground floor a fast check, making sure no one was down here to hex him in the back once his attention was elsewhere. The ground floor cleared, he slipped up the stairs, keeping his wand up and at the ready and a curse on his lips, just in case someone was watching the stairs.

There was someone in the hall, who was probably supposed to be on watch, but they had gotten caught up in watching whatever was going on in the one bedroom. Septimus was able to sneak up close enough to hit them with a lethal spell, then catch them before they hit the floor, thus preventing the other attackers from noticing they were in trouble.

That taken care of, Septimus went on the warpath. He stormed into the bedroom like an avenging angel - more or less literally. As he was still disillusioned, it looked a whole hell of a lot like the attackers were sprouting holes in their guts and spewing blood all over the place for no apparent reason. It all happened so fast in the tight space that it was over before the attackers were even wholly aware that they were in danger.

Now came the hard part. Septimus retreated out of the room, then cast a privacy ward so none of the family would hear or see and become even more alarmed, then called for Jinx. Jinx wouldn't come, but because he listened for all the Marauders as a matter of course, he would know that Septimus needed assistance, and send another Potter elf. Sure enough, a few seconds later, two elves popped in.

"Pack all their stuff. I want the house stripped bare as fast as possible." Septimus said, pointing to one of the elves. Then he pointed to the other. "I'll need your help transporting everyone to the Castle." He said. The parents were going to need a lot of care. They'd gotten here as fast as was possible, but magic could do a hell of a lot of damage in an extremely short amount of time. Septimus was just glad he'd gotten here before the damage was ... well, really bad. Both parents had been tortured, yes, but they were also still aware of their surroundings and torn between freaking the hell out and trying to comfort and protect their kids despite their injuries.

Now he was going to have to reveal himself and do some hellaciously fast talking.

He transfigured his battle gear temporarily into muggle-style clothing, the better to be able to approach without making matters worse. Then he removed the disillusionment and poked his head in the room. Once the alarmed screaming died down, he spoke.

"Help's here, folks. I know you're really hurting right now, and really confused, but I can explain what the hell just happened, and fix at least some of the damage." Septimus said.

The eldest of the kids, who was ten and possibly the one who'd be going to Hogwarts (Septimus wasn't sure) gave him a narrow-eyed glare. Thankfully, the Death Eaters had been more interested in the parents than the kids, and none of the kids was injured physically. Emotionally was an entirely different matter, given they'd all been forced to watch their parents get tortured.

"You're one of them!" The words were a scared-stiff, high-pitched near-wail.

"No, son. I'm not." Septimus said. "You know how there's bad people and good people?" He asked. The kid nodded. "Well, these are the bad guys." He pointed to the dead bodies in the room. "I'm not. I can bring you, your parents, and your siblings somewhere safe, and fix your parents up. And explain all this in far more detail."

The kid still gave him the stink-eye, for which Septimus didn't blame him a bit, but the state his parents were in tipped the scales in Septimus' favor, and the kid let him come into the room. Septimus made fast work of triaging the parents. The second elf then disappeared with them. Septimus tugged the two kids in against him and then apparated out, bringing them to Potter Castle.

To say the next few days were difficult missed the mark by a considerable amount. All of the families had managed to be rescued, with no lives lost or permanently debilitated mentally. Unfortunately, even explaining the wheres, whyfores, and such of the magical world and what the heck was happening hadn't made any of the rescuees very happy. None of the Marauders blamed them at all.

To make things even more interesting, the Auror Corps hadn't managed to show up at any of the homes until well after the Marauders and the elf defenders had evacuated the families and all their belongings. In every case, they'd left the dead bodies of the perpetrators where they'd fallen.

The Ministry threw a collective conniption. Nor did they seem to know what they should be reacting the most strongly to - that some group of idiots was attacking magicals (regardless of their blood purity), or that some *other* group was killing the members of the first group with extreme prejudice, and in the process killing off members of the pureblood community.

The Marauders alternated between putting out the Ministry fires or fanning them, depending on who was saying what and how. They also had to spend a lot of time smoothing feathers with the rescued victims, getting everyone at least started on healing, and getting them to agree to move in somewhere they'd be safer until this mess was over with. The latter was by far the more difficult.

Unfortunately, they weren't given much of a break. About two weeks after the first attack, there was a second. This one was much smaller. This time, only one home was attacked, and something like thirty Death Eaters were in attendance.

If it hadn't been for the house elves, the Marauders would have lost that family. As it was, the Marauders and their wives had to fight a pitched battle outside the home. This got the attention of most of the Death Eaters and allowed the elves to pop in and escape with the victims without getting themselves killed in the process.

There was no hiding that battle, either. There had been enough noise and destruction of property to bring what seemed like half of the UK's law enforcement community down on the area, and pretty much the entirety of the Auror and Obliviation corps. Thankfully, this caused so much chaos and confusion that the Marauders and company were able to slip away unnoticed by either side. The elves were even able to strip the homes of their belongings in the confusion without being noticed.

Due to the numbers involved, there'd been no deaths - on either side of the fight. There had, however, been a whole lot of injuries. More, thankfully, among the Death Eaters than among the Marauders. Having house elves on their side came in handy big time. The house elves were more than happy to help shield the Marauders from incoming spellfire, which meant they didn't have to waste their own time and energy on that - though none of them had abused the assistance by standing out in the middle of the road and not moving or such like.

The other good news was that the Marauders defending the second attack seemed to have helped with the survivors of the first attack. Seeing that the rescue hadn't been a one-off seemed to incline most of the first batch to calm down and accept that not everything about magic was awful, though they still weren't happy about not being able to return to their homes.