Crumple Horned Plot Bunnies
By Andrew J. Talon
Disclaimer: I do not and probably never will own Harry Potter or any other copyrighted works mentioned in this story. I am not writing this for profit.
Year 7...
Dan and Emma sat in their VW van, commiserating a bit over the fields of Ottery St. Catchpole.
"Of course she'd take off without us," Emma sighed, "she has to try to be independent, despite our offer."
"Children shouldn't be fighting a war," Dan agreed, "but I guess she's gotten used to the Wizarding World relying on children to fight their battles for them."
"It's sad, really, when an old man will sacrifice everything, including himself, for the ravings of a seer," Emma mused, as she sharpened a knife. The radio abruptly sputtered into life, and Dan put on the headset.
"Franky?" Dan asked.
"Yeah, we got you Mister Steed," Franky replied. Dan rolled his eyes as Emma giggled.
"Just because I enjoy the finer things in life... Anyway, news?"
"Yeah. That tracking device you planted on your daughter is working," Franky said, "as I knew it would!"
"Yes Franky, thank you, you do your Ravenclaw house proud," Emma teased on the other headset.
"Bah! Bugger Ravenclaw and bugger the entire Magical World!" Franky growled, "I had a mail order bachelor's degree in physics AND engineering when I was a sixth year, but did that impress those hidebound inbred ignorant backwards-?!"
"Franky, our daughter," Dan and Emma said in eerie unison.
"It's scary when you two do that," Franky stated, "anyway, they seem to be in the Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire. MI6 and MI5 have mapped out the grounds so you can get in. What the defenses might be, well... We don't know. We did find a layout from the Ministry's records, faxing it over now."
Emma and Dan waited for the fax to come through, and read it over.
"Can you tell us how many combatants we might face?" Dan asked.
"No clue. My tracking charm does tell me Hermione's still alive, and so are Harry and Ron," Franky reported, "but the amount of magic they're enduring..."
"Get us there. Now," Emma ordered.
"Going in without support might be suicide-!" Franky sputtered. "Let me get a response team put together-"
"There's no time," Dan stated.
"You might have to face every Death Eater in the Inner Council AND Riddle himself!" Franky cried out. "You'll die-!"
"Franky," Dan said, his usually cool and collected voice cracking with emotion, "please."
Franky was silent. They could hear his sigh over the radio.
"... I figured you wouldn't back down. All right. Just press the fax paper to the dashboard of your van. That will trigger the Portkey." He paused. "I'll give you what support I can over the radio. We're scrambling an armed response team, but soonest they can arrive is thirty minutes."
"Then we'll last for thirty minutes," Emma stated firmly.
"Anyone else? I'd call that bravado," Franky stated, "let's do this."
Narcissa Malfoy looked out the windows onto the estate's grounds, trying to not think about their prisoners. Trying not to think about their Master torturing her son, her husband. Trying not to think about what that monster had done to her sister... Trying to be anywhere else.
She watched the gate of Malfoy Manor, a few birds resting on it. Carefree in the late summer sun.
Which is when she heard a growling sound. Narcissa frowned. It sounded... Mechanical in nature. What was it?
Her answer arrived in the form of a Muggle automobile driving up to the gate. Narcissa frowned.
"Dinky," she called, and a House Elf appeared at her side.
"Yes Mistress?"
"Why are the Anti-Muggle Wards not driving them away?" Narcissa asked.
A well dressed man stood up out of a hatch in the top of the vehicle, and hefted up a metal tube of some sort. An extremely loud explosion erupted, and Narcissa instinctively ducked. She peeked back up: The gate was gone, and the Muggle vehicle was racing down the dirt road for the manor. The well dressed man was
"Trigger the defenses!" Narcissa cried. At once, several stone statues leaped to life, charging the little van. The well dressed man calmly fired off his tube again and again, reloading each time, while the driver evaded many statues. Those it couldn't, she simply ran over, and they were crushed under the deceptively fragile-looking vehicle's superstructure. The vehicle smashed through the hedge rows, past the ornate fountain, and right up to the main doors. Two Death Eaters, new recruits, started throwing curses at the vehicle. The spells hit all right, but they didn't do anything to the vehicle save for exploding some of the paint off-Revealing what appeared to be armor plates.
The Death Eaters foolishly stood their ground... Only trying to evade when it was far too late.
SMASH!
Narcissa winced, unable to bear watching the two recruits get run over by the vehicle as it slid to a halt in front of the main doors. Another explosion rocked the house, the doors behind blown out.
She could see the driver now as she got out-A shapely, athletic woman in a black dress. It took her a moment to place the faces of the two people. She recalled seeing them in Diagon Alley... And the Dark Lord showing off images of them in a meeting, describing them as "helpless Muggles".
Her eyes widened.
The Grangers?!
It was accuracy and positioning, not speed and firepower, that won most gun fights. Dan ducked under a volley of sickly yellow curses cast by some Death Eater, before he put a bullet from his Steyr AUG assault rifle through the man's forehead. He took cover behind a marble staircase, as curses rained down upon him. He threw a grenade up, arcing it up over and behind the two wizards. The grenade went off a second later.
KABOOM!
"AUUUGH!"
The two Death Eaters fell from the second floor, ripped and torn. Another appeared out of nowhere, raising his wand to blast Dan in the back.
"Ava-GURK!"
Emma flicked the blood from her long knife, and let the man drop to the floor, blood gushing from his throat.
"Beautiful house," Emma commented, "tacky decor."
"The tackiest," Dan agreed.
A wisp of darkness flew up to the top of the staircase, and reformed into a pale, unhinged looking woman with wild hair. She grinned.
"Oh my! A few Muggles traipsing about like rats? Whatever are you-?"
She vanished into Apparation, narrowly avoiding being perforated by bullets from Dan's rifle and Emma's SIG Sauer pistol. She reappeared on the ground floor, sneering.
"How impolite of you to-"
She vanished again, the bullets whizzing through where she'd once stood. She finally appeared back above them, having the sense to cast a Shield Charm before she spoke. Two bullets ricocheted off the barrier, as she smirked.
"No manners whatsoever! Right to killing!" Bellatrix grinned hungrily. "Just how I like it!"
"Then you'll love this," Emma stated, firing multiple rounds at the witch. Bellatrix swung her wand like a sword, unleashing a flurry of deadly purple curses. Emma ran, zig zagging and dodging about as Dan dove into the next room. Emma reloaded her gun with a fresh clip and resumed firing on Bellatrix, cartwheeling out of the way of another nasty looking hex.
"This all seems rather desperate!" Bellatrix taunted, "here to save your daughter? Pity, I should have tortured her longer!"
Emma responded by firing at the chandelier overhead, making it fall towards the insane witch. Bellatrix contemptuously waved her wand and sent it flying at Emma. She leaped like a cat, flipping off her hands to narrowly avoid the chandelier as it smashed into a hundred pieces behind her. She threw three shuriken, one of which got through Bellatrix's shield and sliced across her cheek. Bellatrix gasped, and Apparated out of the way as Emma fired more rounds from her pistol.
"Enchanted throwing weapons?!" Bellatrix sneered from above, floating in the air as though she was on strings, "you rats are resourceful!"
"One should study the ways of one's enemies," Emma replied. She opened fire again, Bellatrix letting the bullets bounce off her shield.
"Too bad you didn't study enough, you rodent," Bellatrix cackled. A white grenade flew up to her shield, and exploded... With loud noise and light. Bellatrix cursed, covering her eyes with one hand while flinging hexes and spells at random with the other. Emma got a slash across her ankle from one such spell as she tumbled, and she hobbled to an overturned table for cover. Bellatrix tapped her head, casting counter charms to regain her sight and vision.
"FOOL! Did you really think that might stop me?!" Bellatrix roared.
"No, but this might," Dan called out. Bellatrix had just enough time to look as an RPG slammed into her shield. Her eyes widened as she spotted enchanted runes glowing on the rocket itself, just as the weapon pierced through her shield.
Which was the last thing Bellatrix ever saw, as she was obliterated by 440 grams of high explosives going off right in her face.
Emma scowled at Dan.
"Next time," she stated, "I get the rocket launcher!"
Dan chuckled.
"Anything for you, my darling..."
Because Buffy showed that a rocket launcher is effective against the resident archmage.
