Thanks so much to: Colin Creevey, laceyowens50 and Guest for reviewing!
Questions:
Are they (the visions) meant to contradict each other?
Yep
Will every chapter with visions show a sequel of sorts to the last one?
Definitely not
Have we met the man of many souls that Scorpius just doesn't know is needed to help defeat Sal yet?
Sort of. Too spoilery to say anymore then that
What's the point of getting out of the country?
Because the ones under conquest are the most dangerous, especially when they were/are part of the group the Shadows are actively hunting
Is that (Voltur) Rojer's first name?
No, Voltur is the last name he uses, Rojer is his first name
What will the Ministry do with suspects?
Temporary holding in the shelters for the time being
Which futures involve the Ministry falling?
All of the ones in Molly's visions, they have to fall for the Shadows to win
Are the damaged souls completely immortal or are they just to killing curses?
They're not immortal, its just killing curses because the spell is designed to evict whole souls and doesn't know how to react to broken ones
Could damaged souls kill using other methods without going into strange limbo, or is any killing basically bad for a broken soul to do?
Any killing has the risk of that as any killing rips the soul but the killing curse has the most risk because you're using the soul directly to kill (since magic is part of the soul) its the most damaging
Will Sly and Lawson have any significance?
Its not spoilery to admit that yes they have significance, can't say what it is though
Is Mo the American guy who Magnus sees defeat the shadow master if Scorpius or Oathan fail?
Yes actually, he is. Good catch
Lawson sat there, gazing into the darkness trying to make out what was happening from the brief illumination the flashes of azure light granted and having little success. He could still hear screams and crashes, occasionally see things flying overhead, he wasn't sure where the rest of the prison even was. He shivered, the night air was very cold but that was okay, it was nice to be able to breathe fresh air again before he died and the pain was receding too. Mostly anyway, his head still felt like someone had hammered nails into his skull.
"Dammit!"
Lawson looked back over his shoulder at the muggle left to guard him, he was bald – seemed shaved rather than naturally balding – and pacing frantically. He wondered if the muggle was planning on abandoning him, after all he was free to try save himself whereas Lawson was still chained to the table in a chair bolted to the ground. He wondered if dying was painful.
"Of course it's painful, it's dying," his dead daughter's voice informed him firmly, he just nodded.
"Atoll!" the muggle guard barked and Lawson flinched as the man stopped in front of him though Lawson avoided eye contact, "You told the Aurors you're not a Shadow."
"I'm not," Lawson insisted determinedly and jolted again at a particularly loud crash near them, near enough that some fragments of rubble rolled down into the 'room' with them, "Why dwould I still be here if I was?"
The muggle grunted and moved away, Lawson let his eyes follow and saw him crouch by the dead Auror. He was confused why for a second before he saw the man picking up a thin stick, the wand Lawson realized and had a fleeting moment of fear before remembering the muggle wouldn't be able to do anything with it. He carried it back over to him anyway and held it up in front of him.
"You see this wand, huh?" the muggle questioned, wiggling it to draw his attention for some reason and Lawson nodded. He wasn't blind, "You can use this, right?"
"Erm… theoretically," Lawson muttered and the muggle lowered the wand, he wasn't sure where he was going with this.
"And you say you're not a Shadow?"
"I'm not!"
"Okay," the muggle took a deep breath, "You see, Atoll, my dilemma is I'm supposed to be guarding you and I don't know when – or if – any of the Aurors are coming back but the city is under attack and I have a family out there who I need to get to so… I can either just leave you here – and if you are telling the truth about not being a Shadow you'll probably die – or I can take you with me, which means trusting you with this wand because I can't break you free on my own."
"He's going to leave you to die," his daughter snickered and he looked to the left instinctively, logically she was long dead but she sounded so real right now. He rubbed his head, it still hurt a lot, "Don't worry about it, you'll be dead soon enough."
"Atoll!" the guard snapped again and Lawson shuddered as he looked back to him, "What's it going to be, huh? Are you going to be good? Do you want to come with me? Do you want to prove you're not a Shadow?"
Lawson nodded his head quickly in rapid response to the slew of questions. The muggle took another breath before reluctantly holding out his wand to him, Lawson could only stare at the short stick in shock. It felt like forever since he'd held a wand, he swallowed and shakily reached out for it. The muggle didn't let go, he caught his eye.
"If you make me regret this then I'll make you regret this, do you understand?" the muggle growled and Lawson nodded again, he finally let go and moved away muttering something under his breath.
He swallowed and turned the wand over to take the handle, it was shorter, sleeker and thicker than his own had been and didn't feel as good to hold but hopefully that didn't matter. He wasn't very good at spellcasting to begin with, after all it required precise articulation of the spell as well as precise wand movements to go with it. Both were things he inherently had difficulty with and he'd flunked out of Hogwarts before they'd started learning non-verbal magic, he couldn't apparate either.
He practiced the Severing Charm movement a few times before giving up with his right hand - it was just too awkward an angle when he was trying chained to a table and he was aiming at said chains – and switching to his left, it wasn't his dominant hand but he had a better range of motion - this also contributed to his struggles with spells – and he managed to get the movement correct with that. He was so out of practice though, spellcasting was always hardest if he hadn't done it in ages and naturally they didn't allow prisoners wands.
"Would you hurry up!?" the muggle snapped at him which made him jump.
"Diffdindo!" Lawson attempted and heard snickering inside his head at his failure, out of the corner of his eye he saw the muggle pausing to gaze at him in confusion, "Diffinfo! Diffindo! Diffdon- Doffin- Fuck."
"Are you a wizard or not?"
"Shup ut!" Lawson snapped without looking, momentarily forgetting who he was speaking to as he tried to focus and slowly practiced the wand movement in time with the spell pronunciation, "Diff. Diff-in. Diff-in-do. Diff-in-do. Diffindo. Diffindo. Diffindo!"
Finally there was a snap and a flash of light as the chain was severed, he turned his wand to the chains on his ankle and cut them as well. He got up shakily, finding himself a bit unsteady on his feet after the torture.
"Come on," the muggle urged him impatiently as he headed for the steps, grabbing his arm to get Lawson following him.
They ran up the steps and the muggle released him, probably recognizing they'd need both hands to climb the piles of rubble surrounding them. Lawson winced as he stepped forward, the sorry excuse for shoes the prison provided had soles so thin he might as well have been wearing nothing to shield his feet from the broken pieces of rock they had to walk across. He tried to ignore it as he climbed up after the muggle, trying to be careful as it wasn't secure, more than once he felt the concrete shift beneath him and pieces of rock occasionally rolled down that the muggle dislodged.
Reaching the top, he pulled himself back to his feet and finally got a good look at what was happening. He could make out fragments of roads with fallen buildings strewn across them, cars crushed beneath rooves and lampposts skewering windows. There were houses half caved in, craters in the streets and beyond the flatter areas he could see high rise buildings. Some of them lopsided and leaning against each other while others had holes ripped out of them, some had straight up been ripped in half and other places just had empty spaces where the building had been uprooted. He saw one rising like the prison and slamming into the ones on the opposite side of the road, he could hear the shattering of the windows and watched them crumbling into ruin.
And there was fire. The crimson of the flames clashing against the azure light the Shadow Master had high up above, bolts of blue kept crashing down into the city leaving holes as if the ground had been punched by a giant's fist and sparks from that seemed to spawn the blaze. It varied in severity, ranging from in places small pockets that died quickly due to lack of fuel but in others buildings were ablaze in their entirety, being consumed by the ravenous inferno. He could hear the crackling flames amidst the other sounds, coming across like a low ominous growl while thick black smoke bled into the sky.
Lawson was by no means religious but the scene struck him as reminiscent of how he'd always envisioned hell or maybe the apocalypse, the Shadow Master even hovering high above it all like some kind of twisted angel of death, watching in the safe sanctuary of blue while the world below burned. Maybe this was why what actually surprised him the most was the people, he would have expected desolation but instead he saw life. He could hear the screaming but he could also see them, from his perspective they were like ants scrabbling across the rubble and moving rapidly – probably running in an attempt to flee the destruction - through the streets, stepping over or even trampling the prone bodies of the dead or possibly just injured.
"Is this how you died, Sly?" Lawson asked of his dead son sorrowfully as he surveyed the scene, he'd been told his son had perished when Hogsmeade had been attacked by Shadows but he didn't know the specifics, "Screaming through the streets as seven kinds of hell reigned down upon you? Running in terror as the world burned and everything came crumbling down around you?"
He looked to his left and inexplicably saw his son standing there, untouched by the chaos and looking completely identical to the last time he'd seen him. Which was exactly why he knew it wasn't really his son, he'd have aged in two years. Regardless, Lawson reached out to him as Sly shrugged with a sad smile before fading into nothing. He lowered his arm again and hung his head, suddenly feeling the urge to just sit there and wait for death. Like you deserve. He wiped at his eyes and pinched himself to make sure he was still awake, apparently he was.
"Atoll!" the muggle guard barked and he jumped fearfully, expecting to be hit. Instead the man grabbed his arm to pull him to the right, "Come on, I said this way!"
"Ididn't hear you," Lawson muttered as he was pulled along to the right.
The muggle didn't release his grip as he led him in that direction, forcing him into a run through the rubble as they descended into the main city with the rest of the populace. Some were going in the same direction as them while others ran towards them, even more were just running past them which was probably because that just happened to be the opposite direction to the Shadow Master. Their clothes were all torn and they were dusty from the debris, he caught glimpses of injuries and eyes wide with terror, he even saw a few clutching crying infants to their chests. They were all on foot, cars wouldn't get them far when you had to hurtle across piles of rock and step over still bodies every few feet but evidentially some had tried as they passed many crashed lumps of twisted metal, other cars were squashed beneath rubble while more still had just been abandoned in the middle of the streets, their headlights still serving to light up the chaos.
Incredibly within a few minutes he found himself distracted from it though, the screaming and crashing of disaster just blurring into background noise. It dawned on him very quickly that the muggle was athletic, he was a fit, healthy guy… and Lawson was not, he was so weak he might as well have been made out of papier-mache in comparison and was running on empty as he tripped over his own awkward feet. He tired quickly and lost his breath, a stitch stabbed at his side and hunger clawed at his empty stomach, darkness teased the corner of his vision and the muggle yanking him along was the only thing stopping him from collapsing. He was quite sure of this because when the muggle did finally let go of him, his body buckled beneath him and he grabbed on to something nearby to stop himself falling.
He heard the muggle say something along the lines of 'wait here' so he lowered his shaking body to the ground gently, gasping down much needed air and continuing to lean against the support. He hadn't realized his eyes were closed until he tried to see what it was and saw only darkness, though he could hear the man calling out some names that weren't his, probably the names of the family he was looking for. The next Lawson knew the muggle was shaking him awake, he forced his eyes back open with a feeling as if he'd been asleep for ages but in reality had probably just been a minute. Lawson whimpered fearfully as the muggle slapped him across the face, apparently he hadn't come to fast enough.
"Wake up!" the muggle snapped, "How can you sleep at a time like this?!"
"Hungy," Lawson muttered still breathless and rubbed at his stinging cheek, the muggle hauled him back to his feet so roughly that Lawson noticed he was starting to bruise.
"My wife and some people from our block are trapped in the debris but I'm not sure where, I want you to use the magic spell that finds people to locate them," the muggle told him clearly while Lawson searched his brain for such a spell, he thought the man might be talking about the Human-presence-revealing Spell, "I know it exists! The Aurors mentioned it would be used to locate hiding prisoners."
"I'll try," Lawson agreed reluctantly and the man dragged him away from the car to what looked like a building vomiting rubble, he wasn't that keen to help his captor but he didn't think refusing would go well for him and he wasn't entirely sure it'd even work for people under rubble. He supposed he'd see. He switched back to his right hand, he was a lot more familiar with this one – making sure you were alone when dealing illegal substances was a fairly smart precaution – and could manage it with his dominant hand, "Homeniu- Fuck. Homenum Revelio."
Instantaneously lights started to spring up across the pile of rubble like candles on a birthday cake, he was quite shocked by how many there were. There was a cluster of several quite close together at the far right but there were several more scattered across besides that, he could definitely see how a wizard could be useful on rescue missions.
"Well?!" the muggle demanded, forceful but anxious, "Is it working? I don't see anything."
"Only the spellplastor sees it," Lawson muttered and gestured with the wand to the cluster, he had said the wife was with several others. The muggle started clambering over to where he was pointing and trying to shift the rocks, Lawson thought that would take forever though… unless he used magic to help. He sighed and switched the wand back to his left, after all the Levitation Charm had been the very first time he'd realized his right was physically incapable of making the required movement and he'd have to use his left sometimes. The incantation still sucked though, "Wingrar- Fuck. Wingardian Levia- Fuck. Windguard- Goddammit me. Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, it's a gar, a long gar. Wingardium Leviosa!"
He felt the spell connect and the guard jumped back as Lawson successfully levitated a large chunk of debris, moving it aside very slowly and carefully as he wasn't particularly adept at this spell nor had he ever levitated something that big or heavy before. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and went to recast it, the muggle was gesturing at him enthusiastically as if saying to continue. He succeeded on his second try and slowly lifted up another chunk, an even larger section of wall which seemed to be enough as he saw the muggle reaching into the hole to help someone out. Lawson just focused on moving the concrete even farther from them, nice and gently. Since that seemed fine, he moved onto where there'd been some closer and levitated up a large beam, some people started climbing out of there so he made to levitate the next-
CRASH!
Lawson instinctively threw himself away from the deafening sound as azure light temporarily blinded him, maybe not an instant too soon as he felt a scattering of stone raining down upon him as he rolled and the screams around him intensified, a baby's high pitched cries joining the terrified symphony. He stayed curled up protectively when he hit something solid, frightened as more nearby bangs could be heard and he felt the ground rumbling violently beneath him. Presumably this was how it felt to be close to Shadow Master's magical-lightning strike thing, either that or some other horrible thing he didn't really want to think about.
He risked opening his eyes, blearily seeing the road beyond them was now blocked by bounder-sized chunks of concrete speared by rebar. Sitting up, he realized that was only part of the building beside them as the rest of the building was slowly rising into the air despite the chunk that had been knocked out of it. He scrambled to his feet to run, seeing the other people already one step ahead of him in fleeing and- A stroller. There was a stroller near the rubble in the road where the baby crying was coming from, no parent in sight, not unless that was an arm under the rubble beside it…
"Accio stroller!" Lawson cast as he started to run, the stroller zipped over to him and he grabbed the baby out.
He hugged it to chest protectively as he started to run away from the levitating building, he glanced around frantically to catch sight of it and caught it just in time to see it hurled horizontally into three apartment blocks still mostly standing to the right. Breathlessly he took a sharp turn to the left, pelting as fast as his weak wobbly legs would let him and trying not to trip over the occasional bricks littering the road. He heard rather then saw the buildings collapsing behind him, the deafening yet somehow still low grumble of stone breaking with sharper shattering of the windows. He staggered as the dust cloud it emitted reached them, falling to his knees as he choked on it momentarily and trying shield the little one from it, the baby was continuing to cry.
It was a black child, he realized, with a proud afro-like mop of dark hair. He – or she, he wasn't entirely sure of the gender - seemed about a year old and was in a white onesie with some little anchors and boats on it, it was bloodstained but he didn't think it was the baby's blood. From the smell, he did think the baby needed a diaper change however. He healed a small cut on its forehead and started rocking it gently to sooth it, it worked to some extent but not completely. He wasn't surprised, after all he was a random stranger and this was a major disruption to whatever was normal for this kid.
"Atoll! You need to stay wi-" a familiar voice barked and he turned fearfully to see the muggle guard approaching, his scowl turning to confusion, "Why… Where did you get that baby?"
"Found it…" Lawson answered truthfully, keeping the child cradled protectively in his arms.
"Where's the parents?" the muggle asked and Lawson shrugged, the muggle gave an exasperated sigh, "Well give it here, criminals shouldn't have hold of a child."
Lawson got to his feet irritably, resisting the urge to ask if next time he'd prefer he just let the baby die. He handed over the little one who immediately started bawling, not happy at being given to a new stranger. A woman nursing an injured arm was following behind the muggle, a little boy around six or seven clinging to her dress with tearstained eyes filled with terror. They looked like they'd just climbed out of bed, she was in a nightie and slippers while the boy had a soccer shirt and pajama bottoms, he wore sneakers but the laces weren't tied. Their clothes were torn and covered in dust, it also covered their faces and was embedded into their hair. The muggle's family, presumably.
"Dant me to fix that?" Lawson asked of the woman and gestured to her arm with the wand, she looked startled he addressed her but hesitantly nodded. He took her arm carefully and waved the wand over it, he was quite familiar with healing magic. The incantation for minor fractures sucked though, "Epsiksy! Dammit. Epsiskey. Sepsiskey. Nope. Ephissky. Episkey!"
"Hey! You don't talk to my family!" the muggle barked at him as the woman gasped from the spell working, Lawson backed off and held up his hands fearfully but the man had turned his attention back to his wife, "You okay, hun?"
"Yeah, he fixed my arm," the woman muttered distractedly as she was examining her arm with a look of amazement, "I thought it was broken but it feels fine now, wow- Oh give me the child, you'll never sooth it snapping at people."
"Criminals aren't people," the muggle snorted with a glare in Lawson's direction though he handed over the baby, "Come on, we need to get him back to the prison and find the Aurors. We'll be safer with them."
Lawson could only assume the muggle had a better sense of direction then he did because he had no idea how to get back to the prison, after all they had to navigate through a city half destroyed and half mixed up like a sliding puzzle to find a building that had been flying through the air last time he'd seen it and all the while they were still being attacked. It was so absurd he wanted to laugh, he pinched himself instead because he still wasn't sure he wasn't dreaming. Nothing changed. Damn, and his head was still hurting. He jolted as something crashed down near them, he saw a flash of blue through the gaps in the buildings on the other side of the street but the muggle had started to lead them in the opposite direction before he could see what damage it caused.
On the bright side, at least the muggle was going at a more reasonable pace so the kid could keep up, he also seemed to be giving a wider berth to the trampled corpses littering the road now. Or what was left of the road, it was pretty torn up and ripped apart in places or completely blocked by broken pieces of buildings in others. They also weren't all corpses, he saw an elderly man mangled beneath a crushed car still gasping for breath and a couple of others he passed were twitching. They passed more live people too though less than before, an elderly couple hand-in-hand were somehow managing to hobble along weakly and a woman holding a small dead child screaming for help – the guard actually tried to shield the boy's eyes for that one – plus a few more of the feeble or hurt, the stragglers he supposed.
BANG!
The kid screamed at the explosive sound to their right, a building seemed to have been thrown into one on the street they were on, coughing concrete all over the place as they crumbled into a cloud of dust across the road. Thankfully they were far enough away to not be in the radius of damage though the cloud still reached them, washing over them like a wave that wasn't wet and hitting them like a small gust of wind. It was like anti-air though since it had them all coughing on the dust that now engulfed their vision, even before it cleared the close by screams told him others hadn't been so lucky.
"We need to keep moving," the guard urged them into movement again, having to guide his son who was now in tears and trying to sob into his stomach, "Come on, son."
They continued onward and had to now clamber over the fresh debris, the road was blocked by the regurgitated rubble of a red brick building they had no choice but to climb over now. The guard and the wife would climb a bit before passing up the baby, they also helped the son up while Lawson was left alone in last. Or not really alone, he was horrified to see a few pale dust-covered arms poking out like plant shoots from people trying to claw their way out.
Some were succeeding and stumbling away, others seemed too hurt or too distraught to move. Some were crying for help, some were just crying, others were calling out names and yanking on protruding limbs or trying to claw weakly through the rubble. They barely even looked like people anymore, more like clay models because of the dust clinging to every visible fiber. Their blood was the only thing washing it away, the crimson stood out like when a child got the colors mashed together. He pinched himself again, the surreality of it making him question if it actually was reality again. Apparently it was.
"Or not," his daughter's voice offered, "How do we know that pinching thing even works?"
"True," Lawson nodded in distracted agreement, wondering when it had become so hard to tell the difference.
Guiltily as he watched them, he wondered just how many people were trapped beneath this rubble they were climbing over like the muggle's family had been before he came along, he wondered how many people in general were trapped beneath all the ruin they passed. He thought it must be horrible, trapped in absolute blackness unable to move with the weight of the earth bearing down on you and pressing into you so you couldn't breathe… rather like being buried alive. He jolted in fear at the thought, causing him to accidentally cut his hand on a piece of broken glass. Lawson shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself protectively, the thought was terrifying to him.
"The real question is how many have died already there, how many you could've saved, how many you could be saving right now but aren't," Whit's voice whispered into his ear, "You're a terrible person, Dad."
"Atoll! Hurry up!" the muggle barked at him, snapping him back to reality and Lawson shakily continued climbing to reach the top, "What's your problem?"
"Do dou think there's others people trapped?" Lawson wondered aloud, fidgeting uncomfortably and the muggle looked taken aback, "I could look… I could help."
"No. We just need to focus on ourselves right now," the muggle told when he'd recovered, "We can't save everyone, trying is just going to get us killed."
Lawson nodded in understanding, he wasn't sure he agreed but he understood and as he was in this man's custody he had to obey. He'd offered so he'd tried, it was on the muggle now if anyone died now. He felt a bit more at ease as they started to climb down on the other side, apart from his injured hand it wasn't as bad as climbing up but it was still pretty precarious with the loose bricks underfoot. They pressed on, leaving the fallen survivors to their fate but were still forced to go at a slower pace because of all the debris as even beyond the main ruin there were stray lumps of concrete and knocked over telephone poles. The streets were getting harder to navigate the longer the attack went on, more destruction meant more mess. He shivered.
Abruptly, the boy screamed and Lawson looked up. His eyes immediately widened and his jaw dropped as he saw a dragon swoop down, if the boy hadn't reacted first he would've pinched himself again. It was as black as the night, as sleek as a blade and it was massive, it was also shooting streams of flames down at groups of survivors.
"Move!" Lawson snapped at the gawking group, throwing himself down behind a car and the family – except the boy who was instead grabbed by his father – followed suit.
Lawson shivered again, cold seeping strangely through him. The street rumbled beneath them from the force of the dragon's roar as it rained fire down, further up the sound of screaming told him other people hadn't reacted as fast as they had. By the time they got up and turned back around, the other side of the street was an inferno. Some people must have rather stupidly not hid out of sight as they were now fleeing, looking from a distance like little flames themselves. The screams were terrible, as was the smell of searing flesh surging into his nose. About now, he found himself wishing he had ever learned the spell to not burn.
"Hey, Atoll," the guard urged him and Lawson was glad to tear his eyes away to look at him, "Isn't there a spell to avoid being hurt by flames?"
"Yeah," Lawson confirmed with a lamentful nod, he went to move his eyes away and realized the muggle was giving him a hard stare. He then gestured at the people as if giving him permission to use it on them, "Oh, I don't know the incancation for it."
"What about a spell for water then?" the woman asked, looking very distraught and trying to shield both the boy and the baby – who she had calmed by now – from the sight at the same time.
"To fill a small glass sure, not enough for that," Lawson insisted and gestured to the burning people, the muggle sighed heavily, "Do you know I failed Woghorts?"
"I could believe it," the muggle guard growled, "Let's keep going then, we should be almost there anyway."
Lawson would have to take his word for it, he wasn't entirely sure that or it was just wistful thinking anyway. There were less people as they started moving further away which was probably good considering that was what the dragon was going for but there were also less intact buildings, he was reminded of a ship graveyard but for buildings or London after the Second World War bombing blitz. If it was like this for a city, he thought a small village like Hogsmeade must have been ground into dust. No wonder there had been no survivors.
"Huh?"
He almost walked into the wife who had stopped in front of him and heard the boy scream again, now clinging to his father in front of the wife. They were reacting to something silvery, a strange luminescent light quickly streaking across through the ruins and rapidly approaching them.
"Don't worry!" the muggle guard assured them, "It's just something the Aurors use to communicate!"
"A Pratonus?" Lawson realized to himself, making it out to be a rat as it ran by them. He'd learned about them in Hogwarts, Harry Potter himself had come to give a special talk about it. His Patronus had been a stag not a rat though, it had been cool… until Lawson had gotten the impression he didn't like the Slytherins much. They hadn't actually been taught or expected to cast it though, let alone use it to communicate.
"Probably a good thing," Whit's voice pointed out in an acidic tone, "If you succeeded you'd be consumed by maggots."
"It came from this way, we've almost back to them," the guard was saying, snapping Lawson back to reality and he saw him wiping the boy's eyes, "They'll keep us safe, I promise."
"I don't like this," the boy whimpered, clinging to his dad's arm fearfully as they started moving again.
Lawson couldn't tell where they were going though, the destruction all just melded together and he hadn't seen where the Patronus had come from. He didn't have to know though, he was just trudging along at the back with the wife. In fact, he didn't even want to know. He wasn't in a hurry to get back to the Aurors and New Azkaban, he didn't know why he was even going along with these people.
"Yes you do," Whit's voice told him.
He shivered. It was colder here, he wasn't sure if it was the lack of fires or just the slower pace but he felt the ice inside his veins, even for him it seemed a strange kind of cold, like it had been with the dragon. It was quieter here as well, the only people he saw were the dead and the Shadow Master seemed to be further away, probably because this area was already totaled. Nothing was left intact here. He wondered if it was because the area around the prison, it hadn't been this bad when they'd left. Or it was the wrong area. Or it just got more destroyed in time.
"Hey!" the muggle guard called suddenly.
Lawson flinched so violently he almost fell over and wrapped his arms protectively around himself, he hadn't fallen behind this time. The guard wasn't speaking to him though, he was speaking to people further up ahead, Aurors. His eyes hit the ground, afraid of incurring their wrath again somehow. He ambled along shakily, he hoped they wouldn't be mad he took the dead Auror's wand, it had been the muggle guard's idea.
"What are you doing here?" Arnett's voice answered, sounding surprised.
"Couldn't just wait around," the guard responded unapologetically, "What happened here?"
Lawson lifted his head a crack, curiosity getting the better of him. He wasn't surprised to see a collection of Aurors and muggle guards around, he was however surprised by the state of them. Three Aurors were scattered around in the debris, dead, they and the actual survivors were all sporting injuries as if they'd been in a duel. Arnett's right arm was limp and he had blood down the right side of his face from a head wound, his Auror robes were now singed and bloody, he also looked a little out of breath. The other survivors were a lone muggle guard standing around shaking with shock and a burned female Auror who was tending to another Auror, that guy was unconscious.
"Specters," Arnett admitted, his voice shakier than usual, "Once I got the other staff – the ones that survived anyway – out of the prison, they possessed some of them and attacked the rest of us so we've been fighting. We kept banishing them but they kept coming back, just now the Shadow Master seemed to get fed up and… well… she killed them."
"Damn," the muggle muttered, gazing at the corpses with a look of solemn surprise.
"Yeah, I was finally able to send a Patronus out for help though but I don't know how long it'll take."
"I healed the head wound, I don't know why he won't wake up," the female Auror said briskly, seeming to give up and stood, "Hopefully he'll last until the Medi-Wizards can get here."
"Idiot," Whit's voice scoffed, "Why does no one know anything about biology?"
"Yeah," Lawson agreed with a shake of his head, "Wounds can be more than just skin deep, you have to treat the whole injury not just the surface."
"The convict can help, he knows how to heal," the wife volunteered and Lawson jolted fearfully, "He was just talking about it, he fixed my arm up as good as new earlier."
"No…" Lawson whined as he drew the Auror's attention, averting his eyes fearfully and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. He had been talking to his dead daughter not offering to help… though not helping would probably make them mad now, he didn't want to be tortured again. His head was still hurting.
"What have you got to lose?" the wife questioned, Lawson wasn't sure whether it was directed at him or the Auror. It was aimed at him then he thought he had a lot to lose, he already seemed to be running low on sanity if his dead daughter had anything to say about it.
"Damn straight," Whit agreed.
"Alright," the female Auror agreed begrudgingly, his gazed flickered upward and he saw her wand trained on him with her good arm, "Heal him or hand over Boris' wand, try anything else at your own risk."
"Kayo," Lawson sighed, not feeling like he had much of a choice now as he knelt by the body. It was rather uncomfortable, they were actually on some rubble right now and there was a kind of massive pit to the right. He put aside wondering where the prison was to focus on a diagnostic spell, switching the wand to his left hand because diagnosis needed a lot of wrist movement, "Hoopn- No. Hippo- No. Hup-"
"Oh for fuck's sake, useless," the female Auror barked irritably and he swore he heard her lower her wand, he didn't risk checking.
He successfully landed his diagnostic spell and guided the wand over the man's head, as he suspected it vibrated immediately picking up on internal damage. Thinking the skull might've cracked, he cast a quick spell to heal a fracture and it landed so he'd been right and now it was fixed but it was probably worse than that. He tried again but it still vibrated, trying to remember the movements he flicked his wrist to check for bleeding and it buzzed again. He sighed.
"What?"
"Brain jamage," Lawson explained as he cast a spell to stop the bleeding, or more like freeze it, "Brains are complicated. I can't just heal it, I'd need to make a potion. I temborarily stop the bleeding to buy him time but that's all I can do."
"Then get away from him, you worthless idiot," the female Auror snapped and Lawson immediately backed off fearfully with his hands up, though he thought she was being a little unfair. He'd done more then she had after all, "And drop that wand, you don't need it anymore."
"Shouldn't we get out of here?" the guard was saying to Arnett as Lawson threw down his wand, he hadn't been paying attention to their conversation and the wife was now consoling her son, "Or do something?"
"We can't," Arnett answered through gritted teeth, his face twisting with annoyance, "Our first priority to keep the prisoners secured, even if there's not much left of them, we're obligated to stay here."
"Now kick it over to me," the female Auror ordered him and Lawson tried to comply, aim was difficult to carry out though and he accidentally kicked it into the pit, "Idiot! The ruins of New Azkaban are down there!"
"Are all the prisoners down there?" the muggle guard asked, looking somewhere between surprised and confused.
"Except the Shadow prisoners," Arnett admitted irritably, tightening his grip on his wand, "They had already vanished from their cells by the time we got there, Specters no doubt."
"We secured the rest though, for all the good it does," the female Auror added as Lawson was momentarily distracted by Arnett casting the Patronus Charm, summoning a rat like the one they'd just seen that raced around them. Likely a precaution against Specters, "They didn't have wands so they couldn't protect themselves magically like we could and got fucked up royally when the prison got smashed into the ground. Almost all of them are dead, dying or still severely injured down there, none of them are in a state to actually do anything."
"I can't believe I'm stuck guarding that worthless garbage when the Shadow Master is here."
"Do you think Mother is down there?" Sly's voice queried and Lawson's eyes drifted to the pit they'd said was where the prison was, he realized she had to be down there but he found it hard to muster up concern. She'd been the one who actually killed Whit after all, she hadn't even tried to save her. She'd never cared, "Good riddance."
"If they're secure, why can't we just leave them here?" the other muggle guard spoke up for the first time, his voice desperately pleading, "Why can't we just leave them here to die and save ourselves?"
"I just said-" Arnett started to say through gritted teeth, trying to fold and failing to fold his arms due to the injured one, but was interrupted.
"This city is nothing but ruins now!" the scared muggle shrieked, "We can just say we lost track of where the prison was, they're not going to be able to prove whether we did or not!"
"He has a point," the female Auror agreed, looking thoughtful as she tapped the bottom of her chin with the tip of her wand while Arnett's mouth snapped shut, "They can't blame us for leaving the prisoners if we didn't even know where they were."
"Hmm… it would be good if we could leave them," Arnett admitted, scratching his chin and Lawson felt an uncomfortable feeling beginning to squirm in his gut, "You could get them to safety and make sure help arrives if the Patronus didn't make it thanks to more Shadow bullshit and we could go after the Shadow Master while we have the chance. And if we didn't know where the prisoners were their health wouldn't be prioritized over the more deserving survivors, they're just a drain on our resources anyway… there's not many negatives to this plan."
"Exactly!" the scared muggle cried.
"But we have a prisoner with us already…" the guard with a family pointed out and at once, all eyes and were suddenly on Lawson.
"H- Hey, you don't have to worry about me!" Lawson insisted shakily, desperately, continuing to hold up his hands in a gesture of innocence, "I'm non your side. I've been good- I even helped! And who cares about bhe other prisoners anyway? Mot ne! I'll be good, I promise. Please. Please, believe me. I won't tell anyone, I swear I won't."
"Don't worry, Atoll," Arnett smiled, moving his wand, "I believe you."
Lawson gasped – and heard the boy scream – as a sharp pain shot through his stomach, he staggered at a sudden weight. He looked down in horror, heart beating in his ears. Some kind of bar was now sticking out of him, sticking through him, and it was completely coated in a sheet of his own crimson blood. His mouth continued to hang open as he looked back up to see if anyone was going to try helping him, Arnett flicked his wand again and Lawson screamed as he felt the bar twist inside him. He could barely breath at the agony it caused, he struggled to stay on his feet as he teetered closer to the pit.
"Looks like another inmate was killed in the attack," Arnett stated coldly, Lawson noticed none of the muggles would even look at him, "Died from his injures. Oh well."
With that, the female Auror pushed him. It was such a gentle push, he wouldn't have thought it would be enough to do anything but his balance was severely off from having a thick bar speared through him. He felt like everything was moving in slow motion as his feet fumbled and he toppled, toppled right over the edge and fell, plunging him into painful darkness…