Unfound

Chapter Forty-Three

"Dean?" Sam called out. The two of them had crouched as far away as possible from where the explosion would be, but it had pushed them back and slammed Sam into the wall. He was assuming that he had then passed out, but he had no idea for how long. Currently, there was dust in the air and he couldn't hear or see anything. Including his brother.

He stumbled to his feet and tried his best to steady himself, his ears ringing.

"Dean!" He called out as he clumsily moved towards the war room. The lack of air was getting to him and moving was difficult. He collapsed to the ground just as he reached the front of the Bunker, unable to move anymore.

Just as he thought that he was taking his last gasp of life, the lights of the Bunker came back on and he could feel the fresh air rushing in.

The door creaked open and through it came Dean. He was grinning ear-to-ear.

"Sammy!" He called out as he saw his youngest brother struggling to get to his feet.

"You made it," Sam said, still a little out of breath.

"I did, and I brought the calvary," he said as he came down the stairs.

Streaming through the door behind him came Ron, Ginny, Luna, Charlie, and Bill. Sam was astounded.

"Where did you all come from?" He asked, wondering if his mind was still a little fuzzy from oxygen deprivation.

"They were working on busting us out," Dean said. He clapped Sam on the back when he reached him. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Just – trying to wrap my mind around it all." Moments ago, he was sure that he was seconds from death and now half the Weasley family was there.

"Looks like we weren't really needed at all," Bill said, amused. "Dean was telling me about his…grenade launcher? It sounds bloody brilliant I'd love a demonstration later."

"No!" Sam and Ginny said at the same time. They looked at each other, blushed, and then looked away.

"Spoilsports," Dean muttered, but he gave Bill a slight nod to show that he would be more than happy to demonstrate.

"How did you know we were even here?" Sam asked.

"Asmodeus told Harry," Ron said as if that were a totally normal thing to say.

"Woah, woah," Dean said. He had been so excited to see them that he hadn't asked any questions about how or why they were there. Dread that he had just let go started to spread through his veins again. "You let Harry hand himself over to Asmodeus?"

"What?" Sam asked in wide-eyed horror.

"No, no, of course not," Ron responded. "Kind of," Ginny said at the same time.

Sam and Dean exploded in anger. "What were you thinking?" "How dare you?" "How could you?" "What the fuck?" It was unclear who was shouting what at the volume that they were at.

"CALM DOWN!" Ginny yelled over both of them. Miraculously, they both stopped shouting.

"You want us to calm down when you sent our brother on a suicide run?" Dean asked lowly and dangerously, which was far more threatening than when he had raised his voice.

"First, no one sends Harry anywhere," Ginny said. Ron snorted at that.

"Second," Ron picked up, "he wasn't going to turn himself in, he was going to kill the bastard."

"Oh, so you sent our without-magical-powers brother to one of the strongest demons in the world and just expected him to be able to kill him?" Sam asked, barely keeping his irritation and worry under control.

Ron and Ginny exchanged a glance.

"He's not without powers," Ginny said. "Surely you two know this."

"He said that he had gained some of them back…" Dean started and stopped when he noticed the looks he was getting from the Weasleys. "That son of a bitch."

"Yeah, he said it was like when he was a wizard. And he was strong as a wizard, but not strong enough to take on and defeat Asmodeus," Sam said, thinking of the last time Harry was in the demon's sights. He wasn't sure Harry-as-an-angel was strong enough.

"Typical Harry," Ginny sighed.

"Understating his abilities?" Sam guessed.

"And lying," Dean added.

"Spot on," she replied, tapping her nose.

"Well, shouldn't we be heading out then?" Dean asked, not one to want to just sit around and talk about it. He would kick Harry's ass. After he saved it.

Ron shook his head. "No. He took Castiel and Jack with him. I'm sure they're all the backup he needs. We'd just make things worse."

"He took Jack?" Sam demanded, not pleased. "I thought half the point of having Jack at Hogwarts was to protect him. Not throw him into the fire."

"I don't know," Dean said, "I feel better knowing that he had a little more firepower."

Sam glared at his eldest brother. "Does Jack even count as firepower? When he left here he was progressing through the Hogwarts curriculum, but he couldn't hold a candle to an angel or Harry when he was at his strongest.

"From what I've heard, he's progressed a great deal past that," Ron said, not knowing what Harry had or wanted to share with his brothers, but deciding that he didn't care. He really shouldn't be surprised that Harry was still keeping secrets from them, but he had thought that his best friend had moved past that. Ron didn't feel the need to conceal anything from them and he trusted and liked them far less than Harry did.

"Great. So now Harry has Jack and Cas lying to us too," Dean groused.

"We don't know that," Sam countered. "He might have wanted to be careful about what he said. Don't assume anything, Dean."

Dean didn't respond.

Sam was trying to give Harry the benefit of the doubt, seeing as he had failed to do so many times in the past. He wondered if Jack was powerful enough to open the rift again and if so, why Harry hadn't started a full campaign to get their mother back. Sometimes he felt like the only one of them that cared that Mary was currently stuck in another dimension with Lucifer.

Ginny touched his shoulder. "He wants her back too," she said to him quietly.

He had forgotten how good Ginny was at reading him.

"So, what? We just sit here and wait?" Dean demanded. But even as he said that he could feel the wear and tear from the last couple of days start to hit him.

"No," Bill spoke, surprising everyone. "But I do think that we should spend some time rebuilding the wards on this place. Charlie's made some breakthroughs and we want to make sure that the Bunker is never used against you in this way again."

Sam nodded with approval.

Dean could see the merit too. "Alright. But I need like two hours of sleep, at least," he said. "It's kinda hard to get any good shuteye when you're worried that you'll run out of oxygen."

"Agreed," Sam said.

"We'll start by assessing the damage," Luna said. "You two get some sleep."

"If you hear from Harry – wake us up," Sam said.

"Will do," Ginny agreed.

III

"You can feel it too, can't you?" Gabriel asked Lucifer.

"Yes," his older brother confirmed. "We're close."

Gabriel was confused. For the last couple of weeks, the two of them had been working together (contentiously) to try and figure out how to get out of there. Well, working together was a strong term for what they were doing. Lucifer was trying to find a way out and Gabriel played along and pretended he was helping when he was really trying to foil him at every turn.

Gabriel wasn't naïve enough to believe that he had fooled his brother. He knew that they both knew that they were just humoring each other, and, at some point, that would come to an end and they would face each other as enemies again. But for the time being, the truce wasn't the worst experience Gabriel had ever had.

However, what confused him is how the hell they could both be feeling that they were close to where a rift was opened from Limbo into another dimension, presumably Earth. It had been opened recently. And Gabriel had been sure that they had permanently destroyed the possibility of anyone else passing through.

It made him worried about what was happening on Earth. Even though what was happening here in Limbo was concerning enough.

Lucifer stopped suddenly and sniffed the air.

"It was here," he said, no question in his voice.

Gabriel looked at the area. "Are you sure?"

Lucifer shot him an annoyed look. "I know what a rift out of this realm feels like, Gabe, seeing as I'm the one who created them in the first place." He spat the nickname as if it were something dirty. Something shifted in Lucifer's expression. "Or have you lost more of your abilities than you've been letting on?"

Gabriel scowled. "I've lost just as much as you, Lucy," he said.

"But I had more to begin with," Lucifer countered. "So, I'm still superior to you in every way."

"But I had more to begin with," Gabriel mocked back at him. "Have I ever told you that you're a great big bag of dicks?"

"Many times," Lucifer replied, dryly. "But this proves it, doesn't it? You said that spell would seal us away forever, and yet…"

"Maybe it's a fluke," Gabriel said.

Lucifer stroked the air where both of them could feel the tear.

"It's not."

"Well, then, how do we open it?"

"I thought you were the genius behind locking us here," Lucifer snapped. "Shouldn't you know?"

"Maybe I do know and I just don't wanna tell you."

"Maybe you do know but you know that I'll kill you the second you give up the how and leave your rotting corpse here."

"Well, with motivation like that, it's a wonder…"

"Gabriel," Lucifer interrupted, exasperated. "This was opened using your…boy toy's grace."

"If Harry were here, you'd be dead already," Gabriel said.

"Ha. You always were the funny one. The question is why would he come here and leave without Mommy dearest? She is still with your people, isn't she?"

"Only because they were clever enough to get her away from your monsters."

"Yeah, they're clever alright," Lucifer said darkly. "Have you figured out a way into their camp without going kaboom yet?"

"If I had, you would be the last to know," Gabriel snapped. He hadn't. Although he had also not really tried. He had never needed to figure it out. He had given the information on how to create the wards to Sirius Black himself. The man was a natural at warding and had picked up the techniques in no time at all. He could slip in and out of camp easily. But he didn't want Lucifer to know that. "It was Asmodeus, wasn't it?"

"That went through?"

"Yeah."

Lucifer looked troubled. "Yeah, this has traces of him all over it. And your boy."

"He's not a boy," Gabriel corrected. "But I see it too."

Of course, Gabriel figured that Asmodeus may have had a little bit of the grace that Harry had willingly given him to open the rift. Although it didn't explain how it was possible at all. He also knew it was only a matter of time before Lucifer concluded the same if he hadn't already. Neither one of them was willing to say it out loud at this point.

What he did realize was that he was going to have to get to Mary and quick.

"I should check with my people. You want to check with yours?" He asked, casually.

Something flashed in Lucifer's eyes. "And reconvene here?"

"Of course," Gabriel lied.

Lucifer knew it too. But he wasn't going to call him on it. They both understood what this discovery meant. Their "truce" was over and it was back to war for them.

There was a little sadness in the air. But more than that, determination.

"See you soon," Lucifer said, almost threatening.

"I'm counting on it," Gabriel said, matching the menacing tone.

They went their separate ways.

III

Harry couldn't quite believe that Asmodeus was dead. He stared at the corpse and had a bit of an out-of-body experience. He had done this. He had killed the demon that had nearly killed him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped.

"Are you alright?" Castiel asked him gently.

Harry shook his head. "Yeah. Of course," he said, and then he stood up a little taller.

"Are you hurt?" Jack asked, his eyes big.

"No," Harry said. "I was pretending to be more hurt than I was. He – he didn't have the same sort of power he had over me the last time."

"I wouldn't think so," Castiel said.

"What now?" Harry asked. He honestly hadn't expected this to work and was kind of astonished that he was alive. He hadn't allowed himself to think beyond this.

"We should get back to Sam and Dean," Jack said. "They'll be worried."

Harry looked up at the young man. "They won't even know that we were here. And hopefully, they know that we would have kept you safe." Castiel had been under strict instructions to take Jack out of the situation if things went south for Harry.

"They won't have been worried about only Jack," Castiel frowned. "I'm afraid they'll be quite angry with both you and me for this plan."

"Why?" Harry asked. "Because we put Jack in danger?" He hadn't thought about it that way, but he supposed he could see it.

Castiel shook his head sadly but didn't respond to that specifically. Harry wouldn't believe it coming from him, in any case. "I don't think that we should just leave here," he said. "This is Asmodeus' lair. Maybe we can figure out what his plans were."

"It hardly matters what his plans were now," Harry said. "He's dead."

Castiel couldn't believe that Harry was being this short-sighted. "But that doesn't mean that his plans weren't direct orders from Lucifer."

Harry shook his head. "If they were direct orders from Lucifer, don't you think that it would be him, not Asmodeus who came back through? Do you really think that Lucifer would let someone else come back in his place?"

"I guess we'll just see," Castiel said. "Let's start looking around."

Harry tried not to look too smug because he felt like he had just won the argument. Or as close to winning an argument with Castiel as possible.

While Harry and Castiel went to work, looking around, Jack just went about it half-heartedly. They had planned the argument that they had in front of Asmodeus, of course, but he couldn't help but think about his father. Spending time away from Sam, and, more specifically, Dean, had given him a lot of space to think in a way that he would never have been able to when he had been under their watchful eyes 24/7.

Lucifer had often talked to him when he had been with his mother. He had whispered plans, hopes, and dreams. And most of them were horrible, now that Jack realized what they were. But he also knew that Dean believed him to be bad – to be evil like his father, and he wasn't. No matter what the archangel continued to whisper to him in his dreams. He wondered if his father could be made to see the light.

It was a deep longing that he never would have allowed himself to think of before his time at Hogwarts. Castiel was his father in all but blood and Jack had learned a great deal from him. He wondered what else he could learn from his true father.

And, of course, there was his connection with Harry.

It was a strange relationship, even at the best of times.

Sometimes the middle Winchester felt like a father figure to him as well. Especially when he was spending time with Ted and Harry simultaneously. It was hard to not look up to the man who had done so much and was so incredibly humble. Jack had seen Harry through both his mother's and Castiel's eyes and knew that the man was deeply troubled but one of the most selfless and heroic people on this Earth.

But knowing that they were equals made Jack ponder his own goodness. Were they equal or two sides of a coin? Where Harry was selfless, was he, Jack, selfish? Where Harry had sacrificed himself for the world, was Jack doomed to destroy it?

It was troubling. And it overwhelmed him.

"I found something," Castiel said from one side of the room, where he had a stack of papers.

"What's that?" Harry asked, abandoning his own search to go see what Castiel had found.

Castiel's face was ashen.

"What's wrong, Castiel?" Jack asked, but the angel couldn't keep his eyes off of the papers and he continued to flip through.

Harry looked over his shoulder.

"Is that…"

"Yes," Castiel confirmed. "I can't – I don't want to…this is…"

"This is bad," Harry said.

"What?" Jack asked.

Castiel wasn't sure that they should tell the young man, but Harry didn't see the point in trying to hide anything from him. Because they were going to have to get back to Sam and Dean as quickly as possible, in any case.

"He's done it," Harry said. "He's created a demonized soul from a wizard."

"He's created more than one," Castiel said, "if these notes are to be believed."

He looked up at last. "We can't let anything get through from Limbo."

"This must have been what Billie was warning us about," Harry said. "This – this is more than just one. This is – "

"Dozens."

"Dozens?" Jack asked, getting frustrated that Castiel and Harry seemed to be speaking a language that he couldn't understand.

"Of demon wizards," Castiel said. "And he had planned to bring them here."

"We can't let that happen," Harry said.

Castiel nodded in agreement and had a grim expression on his face. "No, we cannot."

They looked at each other and knew what they both meant by that. And what might have to be sacrificed. But they were, at this moment, in absolute agreement. Now, they were just going to have to tell Sam and Dean.

III

"I'm just saying, we're already out here, we've got the Impala, let's just go get him," Dean argued with Sam. The two of them were at a Gas 'n Sip just a couple of miles away from the Bunker. They had to vacate for the wizards to do some repairs. Dean had been more than happy to leave, while Sam, the nerd, had wanted to stay and watch.

Sam suspected that they didn't actually have to leave but Dean was driving the Weasleys nuts and they needed an excuse to kick the two of them out.

"We would have no idea what we were walking into."

"We never have any idea what we're walking into," Dean countered. "That's never stopped us before. What if he needs backup?"

"If he needs backup beyond Cas and Jack, that's going to be beyond our abilities," Sam said dryly.

"I thought you were supposed to be the optimist of the two of us," Dean said darkly.

Sam didn't respond.

"Plus, you're Mr. Wizard now so…"

Sam scowled. "Even as a wizard, you know that I'm just average, right? And that Harry's not a measuring stick we should even use. Compared to him, most magical people are practically Muggles."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Sammy," he said, unhitching the Impala from the gas pump.

Then he jumped a knocking sound from inside the Impala, which had been empty when he had passed by just moments before.

"Ah!"

Sam reached for his gun, only to see what had startled Dean. He rolled his eyes.

"Dramatic much?" He asked as Harry stepped out of the Impala. But his words didn't have any weight to them and he immediately hugged his middle brother.

"Dean told me not to appear while he was driving," Harry said with a sparkle in his eye, which both Sam and Dean knew meant that he was aware that he was being a little shit.

"You just love an entrance," Dean said, thumping him on the back. "Glad to see you're in one piece."

"Where are Cas and Jack?" Sam asked.

"They're back at the Bunker," Harry said. "We went there first but Ginny said that they kick – er, had you leave so they could finish the wards."

"I knew it!" Sam exclaimed. "Dean, you've got to stop annoying our friends."

"I'm not annoying," Dean protested. "You're annoying."

"It's alright. This is for the best. We need to talk," Harry said. "Is there a good place to eat around here? I gotta say, I understand your need for burgers a little more now Dean, killing demons makes me feel like I could eat a horse."

"You killed him?" Sam asked in a low voice.

"Yeah, I did. Cas helped."

"Cas?" Dean asked, looking at Sam.

Harry looked at him like he had lost his mind. "You know. Dorky angel. Wears a trench coat?"

"Yeah. Just – you usually only call him that when there is a sarcastic "Uncle" in front of it," Sam said.

"Oh, well, I guess that's a part of the story. Dean – a diner?"

Dean shook his head wondering what in the hell could have happened over the last couple of months that took the frost out of Harry's relationship with Cas. "Right. Yeah, Sandy's – just a couple miles up the way."

"Great, I'll get us a table," Harry disappeared.

"Son of a bitch," Dean said. "I didn't miss that."

"I did," Sam did. "Dean – I think he's back to normal. I haven't seen him look this good since before Asmodeus kidnapped him."

"He still needs to eat," Dean pointed out.

"Yeah, but so does Jack," Sam said. "Also, he killed Asmodeus? How do you think he managed to do that? We don't have the Colt anymore. It's damn near impossible to kill a Prince of Hell. He must have some serious firepower."

"Well, clearly he has some 'splaining to do," Dean said, but not as darkly as he might have. Seeing Harry and knowing that Cas and Jack were back in the US (ok, more Cas than Jack) made him feel lighter than he had in a long time. And it, at least, seemed that Harry was going to actually tell them what was going on for once.

"Do you think that he knows a way to get to Limbo?" Sam asked.

"No idea, but if we want to find out, we're gonna have to go."

"Oh right," Sam said, getting in the car. "Let's go."

III

"Now seems like a really bad time to be meeting with Gabriel," Mary frowned at Peter.

Holding down the camp had become a challenge that had required almost all of her time and attention. She was exhausted. And exhilarated. This work felt right in a way that she hadn't felt since she had come back to life.

"I know," Peter said, "but you know how he is."

Mary crossed her arms. "Do I?"

"Unpredictable," Peter practically squeaked.

"I just saw him two days ago. He said to stay here. That he was doing what he could to reinforce the wards from the outside."

"You didn't tell me about that," Peter said a tone of voice that Mary found to be a little too critical.

"I don't have to tell you everything," Mary said. "It didn't matter. You've hardly been available, have you? You've missed the last three war councils."

"I told you, Mary," he whined. "I was…"

"Trying to save more wizards from Asmodeus' camp. Yeah. You've mentioned that. But you've not come back with anyone since… well since you saved me. And you never told me how…"

"Gabriel helped," Peter explained.

Mary narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Gabriel hadn't seemed overly eager to help them with much of anything except defenses.

But that wasn't all when it came to Peter. No one in camp had known Peter when he was alive. The few witches and wizards that were in Purgatory and from his time at Hogwarts had been the first ones taken by the demons. Now that she had time to think about it, something felt very…off about that situation.

Also, if he were really a friend, Gabriel would have told her to trust him, and he had explicitly told her not to. Gabriel was hardly Mary's favorite angel, but she knew that, at the end of the day, he was Team Henry, and in that, he would be acting in her best interest as well. She had no such illusions about Peter. In fact, Peter always seemed uncomfortable when the subject of her middle son came up.

"I think I'll wait here for Gabriel. You can go get him and tell him that I'm not comfortable leaving the wards of camp. I'm sure that he'll understand."

"Mary…" He said pleadingly.

"Peter," she said, not budging.

He drew his wand.

But Mary was prepared. She should have known to trust her gut. "You sure you want to do that? You know what Gabriel will do to you if you hurt me, right? And that's not to mention what my sons will do."

"I'm not worried about Gabriel," he sneered. "I've got someone far more powerful in my corner. And Harry was given the opportunity to see me dead once already and he couldn't stomach it. I'm not scared of him either." He pointed his wand directly at Mary's head. "Now, come with me, quietly, or you'll never see any of your precious sons again."

Mary pushed the words he said aside, she could dissect those later. In one quick, smooth, movement she rushed him, grabbed his wand, pulled it out of his grip, and hit him with a left hook.

The wand burned her hand and she immediately dropped it on the ground.

From the slightly turned position Peter was in from being punched, he turned and looked at the wand, but Mary had been in a lot of fights and she knew that he was about to dive for it.

Not wanting to touch the wand again, she used her foot to kick it just out of his reach. She then used her boot to break it into two.

"No!" Peter called out. "You bitch."

"Oh, did I break your little weapon? Come on Peter, if you can get the better of me in one-on-one combat then you deserve to haul me off." She put up her fists.

For a second, she thought he was going to lunge for her. Instead, he ducked down and ran. She hadn't been expecting that. For a second, she wondered if she should run after him.

Then, she realized that he knew all the secrets of how to get into this camp. And that was a far more pressing problem. She ran up to the war tent, praying to Gabriel the whole way. Peter was on foot but she didn't think he'd have far to go. They needed to start preparing now.

III

"Wizard demons," Dean repeated back to Harry as if he couldn't quite believe what he had just heard as Harry got to the end of recapping what had been happening since they had last talked. "Wizons? No, no – Dezards."

Both Sam and Harry groaned.

At the diner, they had ordered their food (a bacon cheeseburger for Dean, the same, without the extra onions for Harry, and, to Dean's disgust, a veggie burger for Sam). Harry cast some spells to keep their conversation private.

"I thought that it wasn't possible to demonize a wizard soul," Dean said with a frown.

"It's not that it wasn't possible," Sam said, sounding equally concerned. "It's that Chuck wanted to prevent it, so wizards who don't get into Heaven go to Purgatory."

"Right," Harry said. "But, from what Cas and I could glean from Asmodeus' notes Limbo is close enough to Hell, and magic was sufficiently dampened there that it was an ideal breeding ground to create them."

"So, what are we dealing with here?" Dean asked. "Extra-strong demons?"

"Worst, we think," Harry said.

"Dean – we've seen one of them," Sam said suddenly, putting his hand on Dean's shoulder.

"What?" Dean and Harry said at the same time.

Then Dean's eyes widened. "That's what that thing was?"

"Yeah," Sam said, "it did apparate after us." He turned to Harry. "It was a purple-eyed demon," he said.

"Purple?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. We'd never seen one before. Those demons – they must have been trying to bring those things over from Limbo."

"How many came?" Harry asked. He had seen what these creatures could do.

"Just one," Sam said.

"That we saw," Dean added, unhelpfully.

"Crap. This – this is bad. We've got to warn people. Let's get back to the Bunker. Hermione's got to know. She can warn other world leaders, hell we might even need to get Muggle governments…"

"Woah, woah," Dean said. "I think you need to calm down. "We've dealt with things way worse than this without having to alert the media."

"He's right," Sam said. "I mean, they can't be worse than Lucifer, can they?"

Harry didn't respond, he just had his phone out and was typing away (awkwardly – he still didn't quite have a handle on texting).

"Who are you texting?" Dean asked, unhappy with the silence.

"Cas," he said. His phone dinged. "He thinks it would be best if we all went back to the Bunker. Now."

"Oh, and since when do you take orders from Cas?" Dean asked, annoyed.

"I don't," Harry stood. His phone continued to ding with responses from Cas and he would pause to send quick replies. "But he thinks that we should show you what we found. Sooner rather than later and I agree with him." He pulled some money out of his wallet and threw it onto the table. "That should cover it, right?"

It was a hundred-dollar bill.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Here, let me, I've got smaller bills…"

"No, don't worry about it. We've got to go."

"You could just fly," Dean said. "We can meet you there." He was hoping to use the drive back as a time to chat with Sam about this newest development.

"No," Harry said.

"No?" Dean said.

"If there are wizard demons out there, you and Sam are probably targets number one and two. Or three and four, depending on where Jack and I fall. I can't leave you defenseless."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

"We're hardly defenseless, Harry," Sam pointed out, but he also got up from the table and got ready to go.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said quickly.

"Sure, you didn't," Dean muttered.

"We just need to regroup. The wards that they're putting on the Bunker should help, but Cas and I have a couple more that we think we should add."

"Him and Cas," Dean mouthed to Sam as he stood to leave too. Sam shrugged. It seemed odd to him too, but clearly something had happened. They would have to ask about the story later. Now didn't really seem like the time.

The three of them went out to the Impala.

"I should probably make sure that the car is warded as well," Harry said. "You removed a lot of what I put on here before, didn't you?"

Sam made a sound of protest.

Dean glared at Harry through the rearview mirror. "I told you no magic on the Impala, and what did you go ahead and do?"

"Harry – don't get him started…"

"No, I will start. Do you know how long it took to scrub off some of those protections? They could have done serious damage to her if it hadn't been done properly. But you used your invisible wizard ink and so we had to…"

Harry craned his neck back to look behind the seats. "You didn't even get all of them," he said smugly.

"Son of a bitch," Dean swore. "No magic on the Impala didn't mean no magic on the Impala that I could see. It meant no magic. None."

"Whatever, Dean," Harry said.

"Don't whatever Dean me. I mean it, Harry. I will make you swear…"

"Guys, I think there are more pressing issues to talk about. Dean, concentrate on the road. Harry – did Asmodeus's notes have anything about being able to get into Limbo?"

"I haven't read them all," Harry said slowly. "But they probably do if they've managed to get one of those wizard demons…"

"Dezards," Dean provided.

"…and Asmodeus himself was able to get through," Harry said, ignoring Dean, "then I'll say the floodgates have been opened. We're going to have to figure out how to close them. Quickly."

"After we get Mom out," Sam said.

Harry's eyes snapped to Sam. "Mom?"

"Yeah. You know – our mother. Trapped in Limbo?"

"I know she's trapped, but Sam we've got to think about…"

"Uh uh," Dean said. "You can't be serious, Harry."

"You don't even think she's alive!" Harry protested. He didn't want to share the threats that Asmodeus had made against Mary. Harry had a nasty feeling in his gut that she was long dead and they would be walking into a trap.

"I don't think we're lucky enough for her to be alive," he corrected. "But we've got to at least look. Item of business one – figure out how to open a rift. Go see if Mom is there. Business two – closing them all again."

"Rowena is the one who gave us the spell to close them," Sam said quietly. "And I think, seeing as we haven't heard from her, that she really is dead this time."

"I don't know," Dean said. "She's made us think that before."

"We'll find a way," Sam said. "We've got to."

No one felt like arguing anymore so the rest of the trip went by in silence.

III

"You know, Crowley, if you're having trouble figuring it out, we could just call the Winchesters," Sirius was bored. And he was beginning to think that Crowley was stalling.

"No," Crowley growled. "If I wanted this whole thing to go tits up, I'd call the Winchesters. Otherwise, it's best to leave them out of anything that they could royally fuck up."

"It's been daaays, Crowley. Do you want me to take a crack at it?"

Crowley snorted. "As if you could. These are highly complex documents."

"I thought I was "cleverer than you gave me credit for,"" Sirius quoted back to the demon.

"Not that clever," he responded. "Gods, you're annoying. Can't you just – go play fetch or something?"

"Or I could just bugger off altogether," Sirius threatened. "Seems like you won't "need" me for ages so why would I waste my time hanging around here." He got up like he was going to walk out.

"Listen to me you flea-bitten, mangy, mutt…" Crowley slammed Sirius against a wall with a wave of demon magic.

Sirius laughed.

The stupid man wasn't even a little intimidated.

He fired a couple of curses off on the King of Hell and made Crowley drop the spell, and Sirius, to the ground. Infuriatingly, the man landed on his feet like a cat, not like the dog that he was. He threw a couple more curses his way until he was hanging upside down from his foot.

Under normal circumstances, Crowley would have been able to beat him back, but he was greatly weakened from doing the trials. And the smug wanker knew that.

"Do we have a problem here, Crowley?" He asked, putting his face into Crowley's which was currently upside down. "Because the last time I checked, you needed me, not the other way around."

"No problem," Crowley ground out.

"Good." With a flick of his wand, Sirius dropped the demon on the floor.

With as much dignity as he could muster, which was, admittedly, not much, Crowley pulled himself off the ground and brushed off the dirt on his suit.

"Now, why don't you let me help? The sooner I help you, the sooner we can never see each other again."

"Now, that is motivating," Crowley said. "I need some books. Could you be a dear and go see if that meddlesome godson of yours would lend them to you?"

"Harry's not at the Bunker," Sirius frowned. "He's at Hogwarts."

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Is he? Someone's not been in touch."

"Because I've been busy with you!" Sirius was panicking. He thought that Harry was fully ensconced in life in the UK again. Far, far, away from Sam and Dean and any real danger that he couldn't handle.

"Then going to see him won't be a problem, will it?" Crowley gave him an insincere smile.

It would be a problem. But not for the reason that Crowley thought.

Sirius wasn't an idiot. He knew that whatever he was doing to help Crowley was somehow a trick to get him to do something he wouldn't otherwise do. Or that the consequences would be something that Crowley hadn't told him about.

At the end of the day, Sirius didn't trust anyone outside of the wizarding world. Even Harry was on thin ice – but because his judgment was clouded, not because he was untrustworthy.

He could see how weakened Crowley was from the first two trials. And it seemed to be getting worse and worse every day that went by that the tasks weren't completed. When he was at his weakest, Sirius had planned on revealing the entire plan to Harry and allowing him and his brothers to take out the King of Hell, easily, if that is what they wanted to do.

Going to Harry now may put a wrench in it all, however. Because, of course, Harry was going to ask why he wanted those books, and Sirius wasn't sure that he would be able to bring himself to lie to his godson. Not after everything the boy had been through.

Crowley really wasn't leaving him much of a choice and was now looking at him expectedly, waiting for a response.

"Not a problem in the slightest," Sirius said with an easy smile. "Be back in a jiffy," he apparated out.

After he left, Crowley allowed himself to collapse onto the sofa of the room the two of them had been working in. All these years, he thought that Moose had just had a flare for the dramatic with how ill he had been during the trials, but Crowley felt so sick that he almost already felt human.

Sending Black to go talk to Dudley Do-Right was a test, of course. He knew that it wouldn't be too much longer before Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friendsfound out about his plans to close the gates and he imagined that they would have something to say about it.

Hopefully, by then, it would be far too late.

The books would help him with a couple of things.

Most importantly, they should help him confirm that the tweaks he was making to the spell would work. It was dangerous, changing the Word of God. But Crowley was the son of a witch and if he couldn't modify a simple spell then he wasn't worthy of his title as King of Hell.

Most important, when modifying, was keeping the balance.

It is why he needed a wizard to help him.

Demon blood destroyed angelic grace. It had taken him a while to get the whole story – but he knew that's how Sam Winchester lived so much of his life believing that he didn't have magical powers.

The third, unknown element was Earth magic. Which he, when he had been human, had a small affinity for. His mother hadn't stuck around long enough to properly teach him, but he knew that he had those abilities stored in whatever essence of him was within this vessel.

He also knew that the universe, at least according to the now-dead Billie the Reaper, demanded balance.

He figured if he was going to regain his humanity, he needed to get to a neutral place. Demons weren't meant to be able to do this spell at all, but from the information Kevin gave him, he was confident that if he destroyed the demon in him at the same time that he destroyed the angel in a wizard that this would create that balance. One less demon. One less wizard.

He was hoping that the spell wouldn't kill either of them. They would both just be…human.

But Crowley realized, early on, that he also needed Sirius Black very specifically. Pureblood witches and wizards were so proud of their heritage that they were sloppy enough to never hide the information, but rather boast about it. By using Sirius'…essence (Crowley smirked to himself, disappointed there was no one to share the dirty joke with), it might give him a little extra something.

Worst case scenario, they both ended up dead.

But Crowley wasn't too worried about that. After all, he was brilliant.

He needed to pull himself together though. If he got much weaker any passerby would be able to take him out before he finished his task. And that wouldn't do at all.

Hopefully Black would get in and out quickly enough. He just needed to fly under the radar for a little longer.

III

"Surely not!" Laurence protested after Mary told him what had just happened. "That little rat wouldn't dare…"

"Wouldn't he," Griffiths said. "It's not like we didn't all know that he wasn't above betraying his own."

"What does that mean?" Mary asked, sharply. If they all knew Pettigrew wasn't trustworthy, why would they have allowed him in this camp at all?

"You know what got him sent to Purgatory, right?" Griffith asked, incredulously.

"Shh," Cynthia tried to silence him.

If Mary hadn't already been paying rapt attention, she would have been then. "What do you all know that I don't about Peter?"

"Mary, you have to understand, we all assumed you would know. I'm sure that Harry Potter told you…"

"Henry Winchester," Mary insisted, hating her son's adopted name.

"Right. Well, him. We assumed that he would have told you about Peter and that you already knew when you were working with him. It became obvious, more recently, that you didn't know, but we didn't know how…"

Whatever she was going to finish that sentence with never came to be. Alarms blared.

"They've gotten past our first set of wards," Laurence said with urgency. "Everyone – arm up! To your battle stations."

They had prepared for this. Mary immediately let all thoughts of what Peter had done to end up in Purgatory leave her mind. It wouldn't matter if they were all dead.

Since Mary was a Muggle, her tasks were slightly different than others. (She hardly thought it was fair – many of the witches and wizards here had become so weak that they were practically the same as her, magically. But reminding them about this tended to hurt feelings and make tempers flare, so she just agreed to her role.)

It was important, in any case. Certain wards were triggered by magic and she was the only one (even with others in weakened conditions) who could sneak past them without getting hurt or setting them off.

Her movements were done by muscle memory – her body automatically performed the tasks because she had practiced so many times. She finished securing one part of the camp before she started to move to the next.

The center of the camp was empty as she ran across it.

This was a bad sign. It meant that it was taking everyone to hold the demons back.

She didn't let herself pause and think about it.

Mary was so focused that she didn't even register what the whooshing sound meant until the more tell-tale sound of an explosion came from her right.

Are they fire-bombing us? She thought as the impact of the explosion pulled her feet from under her and she fell as if pushed to the side.

This was not something they had prepared for.

Never in her life did she wish that she had a gun more than right now.

Ringing in her ears, she stumbled to her feet. Her head hurt. She touched a hand to her hair and then pulled that hand in front of her eyes – blood. Concussion? Mary shifted her focus to the camp around her. There was dust everywhere and she thought, in the distance, that she could hear yells and shouts.

She looked up just in time to see another ball of fire coming toward her. She closed her eyes. This was it. I love you boys, she thought.

However, more she was once again consumed by flames, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her and hold her close and a sensation of floating.

Not floating. Flying.

"Henry?" She croaked. Her vision was blurry and she was seeing double. But no dark hair.

Someone answered her, but she couldn't make out the words before the whole world went black.

AN - I'm loving all the theories y'all came up with! Of course, many of you are right that Crowley is never to be trusted. Otherwise, I'll stay silent because some other guesses were right and no one caught on to one very specific plotter.

Of course, Peter is still the bad guy. At one point, I considered giving him a redemption arc, but it was going to take soooo much time with him to get there and I have too many characters already.

Crowley and Sirius are pretty fun to write together. I've been tempted to give them way more scenes because I think they're funny, but we've got a plot to follow, and there is no time.

As always, thank you so much to everyone who is reading. Especially those who comment/review/like/kudos. I can hardly believe that we're about a month out from the finale of this entire series. It would not have been possible without all of you!