CHAPTER 23
9:37PM
THUMP.
With a grunt, Bradamante slipped into Gliding-On-the-Breath-of-Zephyr, barely evading the mighty swing of Fenrir's clawed paw as the beast howled in a rage. The Knight had utilized more evasive tactics in the past half hour than she could recall, already flagging in strength thanks to the incapacitating effects of the Scarlet Letter Curse. Her linked Dilation with Cador gave her a much-needed boost, although that was starting to wane as he slowly approached the cusp of exhaustion.
THUMP.
She was forced to dodge another swing, a claw just barely brushing against the ends of one of her pigtails. Bradamante ignored the ratcheting volume of terror-stricken screams of frightened schoolchildren, solely focused on cutting down the enemy before her. It's what made the Bradamante Personality so lethal; created to function at a constant 11% Capacity for Empathy, she was completely divorced from the emotional attachment of Lily Evans, thus making her all the more vicious than her psychic original.
Miss Demeanor had learned that the hard way that fateful day in Falmouth.
THUMP.
Finally, an opening presented itself. Aiming her wand low the Knight hissed "PEDISsS OFFENDA!", blinking in response as Fenrir tripped and attempted to catch his balance.
"SsSECTUMSsSEMPRA!"
To her surprise Fenrir sharply (and very quickly) twisted his hulking form to the right whilst bending just so to successfully avoid the curse.
Unfortunately, he failed to account for his left hand, which was cleanly sliced off in a gory spray of blood and bone.
The lycanthrope unleashed an unholy bellow of pain and rage, clutching the mauled limb to his form whilst whimpering like a pitiful dog. Due to the dark nature of Severus' vivisection curse, the severed hand would not regenerate. Snarling, Fenrir's amber orbs zeroed in on Bradamante's eldritch green pair, burning in pure hate.
THUMP.
In a seeming blink of an eye, Fenrir did something…unexpected. He shifted from his full lycanthrope form into his human-hybrid body, his wand - 14 ¼ chestnut with dragon heartstring - seemingly appearing in his hand.
"MACTASSES! SAGITTA OPPUGNO! IMPEDIMENTA!"
THUMP.
Bradamante blocked the first, parried the second, and dodged the third…only to end up in the crosshairs of an unforeseen (and non-verbal) Tripping Jinx and Seize-and-Pull Charm, which caused her to stumble and be reeled into Fenrir's arms. The moment she got close enough to him the werewolf smacked her down with an audible thump, successfully snapping two ribs as he used his right knee to press down hard on her sternum. He used his good arm to push painfully against her throat as he added more weight to her sternum, slowly crushing her windpipe. Fenrir smacked her wand out of her hand, knocking it some feet away as he leered at her.
"Well, well, well, not so tough now are we, little bitch!" The wolf-man sneered hatefully as Bradamante sputtered and choked, scratching like an enraged cat against the offending arm asphyxiating her. Black spots were starting to dance in her rapidly blurring eyes as she rapidly approached the cusp of unconsciousness.
Fenrir only laughed, before extending his longer-than-normal tongue to lewdly lick the side of her face. "Hmmm…scrumptious. And just the way I like it…still breathing." He leaned in closer, once more licking at the side of her face as his glowing amber orbs savagely drank in the choking witch's struggles.
Just as Bradamante felt her consciousness slip, three pulses burst from the cobra, basilisk, and boomslang symbols on her cuff, jolting her conscious mind with much needed energy. With renewed determination, the witch took a much of a breath as she could whilst she stuttered out:
"S-S-SsSTRIKE!"
The silken red ribbons tied around her pigtails unfurled and launched at the gloating werewolf's neck, who reared back in shock.
"YEEEOOOWH!" he howled, jerking his body off the witch and giving the witch some much needed breathing room. She chokingly grasped for air, coughing and sputtering past her nigh crushed larynx and the splintering pain of broken ribs. She ignored the still yowling wereman, who struggled to pull the serpents off his neck. Due to the morphological similarity to their real-life coral snake counterparts, the ensorcelled red-patterned ribbons each released enough neurotoxins to cause the beginning stages of paresthesia, the intense burning and prickling sensations racing down Fenrir's neck and arms. Though the troll-like regenerative abilities of the Lycanthrope Curse would inevitably purge the poison from his system, it caused enough of a distraction for Bradamante to feebly scoot away from the raging beast.
It was good timing too, as Fenrir finally succeeded in ripping the serpents away from his form as he stumbled about almost drunkenly, attempting to get to the downed redhead.
"IGNEORBIS! DEFODIO! EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Fireballs from above slammed into the lycanthrope as the Gouging Spell struck him dead-center, pushing him back a distance. Bradamante's eyes turned sharply to the direction of the spells, feeling a touch of relief at the sight before her.
It was the aurors, a five-man squad flying in hot in wedge formation. To the witch's mild surprise, Sirius led the pack, gray eyes flashing in determined fury. Rodney and Robards flanked his right and left respectively, as Proudfoot and Varens brought up the rear. A loud growl redirected her attention, just in time to see the glowing form of Snuffles latch on to Fenrir's leg and bite down viciously. The flesh smoked as the werewolf screamed in agony, attempting to shake off the embodied canine Patronus. A few more vigorous shakes later, he succeeded as Snuffles dissipated.
Auror Black smoothly dismounted from his broom, spruce wand a blur as lethal magicks rained down on the lycanthrope. Rodney and Robards joined in as Proudfoot and Varens flanked the creature's rear, unleashing an unrelenting barrage of spellfire. More auror reinforcements poured in with Shacklebolt, Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Pius Thicknesse, and John Dawlish, gathering around a rampaging Janos in attempts to bring the beast down.
The Knight spotted a flash of willow some feet away, pleased to see her wand intact. With a mental 'Accio wand' it sailed back into Bradamante's hand, relieved that she could still perform the only wandless spell she'd successfully mastered.
"SAGITTA ARGENTI!" Five matching cries saw several silver arrows lodge themselves into Fenrir's hirsute body.
Contrary to popular muggle belief, silver was not capable of defeating a werewolf.
What it was capable of was acting as a mild allergen, resulting in a rash that would, at best, be distractingly irritating. Copious amounts of silver in an already injured lycanthrope would incur a serious allergic reaction to slow the wolf down significantly, allowing just a small enough window for further incapacitation.
"CARPE ARGENTI RETRACTUM!" Silver ropes shot out of four wands and wrapped themselves around a struggling Fenrir's body, slowly (and with great difficulty) bringing him down to his knees. Reaching into his uniform pocket Robards withdrew a shimmering silver net and tossed it in the werewolf's direction. It expanded mid-air and landed on Fenrir, contracting around him whilst restraining his body. The aurors retracted their silver rope spells as the orichalcum capture net further constricted around Fenrir, forcing his hulking form further down into the ground. The alchemical nature of the net reacted quite adversely to the lycanthrope's curse, causing the wolfman to start growing lethargic.
"LILY!"
A still-wheezing Bradamante turned at the sound of Sirius' voice, and with as deep enough breath as she could muster, retreated back to psychic dormancy and allowed Lily to resume control.
"Bloody hell woman, what in Merlin's saggy balls happened here?!" His eyes grew wide at the state of her, casting diagnostic charms to gauge the extent of her injuries.
"BRACKIUM EMENDO." She exhaled in relief as she felt her ribs mend, before sterile bandages wrapped around her body to provide further stability. "CARTILAGUM EMENDO. MUSCULUS EMENDO." Lily felt a sigh of relief as the injured cartilage and muscles in her larynx were mended. Sirius instructed her to swallow a phial of liquid murtlap essence, fully healing the injuries incurred on her voicebox.
"Thank you, Sirius." She grasped his arm gratefully, chuckling when the man enveloped her in a tight hug.
At this point, more aurors had poured in, all aimed at further restraining the remaining two werewolves and helping to calm the crying and distraught students. Lily blinked at the incomprehensible sight of Marcellus Frump leading the healing efforts, before a thrum of understanding washed over her. With a surge of bile she saw the small piles of child-sized bodies in the pews and near the stage.
A rush of maternal fear set in.
"My boys?! Where are my boys?!"
She looked wildly around her for a few moments, sagging in relief when she spotted Jim's roaring lion-covered head. Her panic ratcheted up when she couldn't find Harry as she frantically looked around, not willing - not wanting - to look in the direction of the slain children in the desperate hopes of not seeing a bloodstained Obi-Wan Kenobi costume among their number.
"POINT ME HARRY POTTER." Her wand spun rapidly before pointing directly north, in the direction of Hogwarts. With a whispered "OCULUS NOCTEM" and "OCULUS MAGNIFICA", Lily screamed in horror at the sight of her son and Amy Wilkes being hotly pursued by two hybrid werewolves on brooms. Sirius - with the aid of Padfoot's superior night vision - turned bloodless at the sight, before running to remount his broom and taking off as Mad-Eye screamed at him to "get your skinny arse back here NOW!"
Of course, the bad news didn't stop there as two distinctly disastrous things happened at once.
BOOOOOOM!
A thunderous clap of a sonic shockwave reverberated in the space in front of Harry and Amy, hitting them like a wrecking ball and dislodging them from their broom to fall screaming to their deaths. One werewolf raced upwards from his downward position and wrapped a burly arm around the two, activating his Portkey as they disappeared with an uncommonly loud POP!
Naturally, both Fenrir and Janos had recovered just enough of their wits to rip their capture nets off their forms, howling infernally before twisting an unseen ring on their respective left pinkies and disappearing with two loud pops.
Exactly Eleven Minutes Earlier…
"Why the hell isn't this thing going faster?!"
Harry swallowed back the first three rude retorts that sprung on his tongue.
"Because Amy, the broom is still in Seeker-mode! Most of the custom acceleration Charms are disabled because having two riders throws off the balance! If it were in Standard-mode, we'd be going a lot faster. And if it was in Seeker-mode with just me, I'd already be at Hogwarts by now!"
"Well, can't you switch modes?!" Once more, Harry swallowed back his rude retorts.
"Not without landing!" he replied tightly. "Maneuverability Charms are fine, so we'll just have to dodge until we get back to Hogwarts. Like now!" Harry jerked the broom sharply in response to the sound of spellcasting behind them, and two red flashes shot by, missing them by just a few feet.
Snarling, faux-Amy unholstered her wand - 12 ⅓ inch ebony with dragon heartstring - and unleashed a torrent of offensive spells.
"VENTUS! DEFODIO! REDUCTO! DEPULSO!"
The modified wind spell missed Channon by a few feet but not the Gouger, growling as he felt a portion of chest contract upon the spell's impact. He was able to block the Reductor Curse and swerve the modified Knockback Jinx while cursing under his breath at the viciousness of the little Second Year witch.
Harry was of a similar mind, though he was by no means complaining. He noticed the second werewolf closing in from their left and just slightly ahead to box them in. With coordination Harry would have never thought a werewolf capable of, Stavros deftly turned enough of his body around to bellow "MACTASSES DUO!"
"HANG ON!" Harry jerked the broom handle up as hard as he could to evade the double Bludgeoner. Instantly, the Firebolt's velocity was redirected vertically, causing them to rapidly accelerate upwards. Amy didn't scream, but if she'd had her arms around him any tighter, he'd have probably broken some ribs. More Bludgeoners followed, causing Harry to do some wild evading whilst maintaining their vertical trajectory.
At almost 4000 feet Harry whilst turning in a graceful parabolic arch, before redirecting the broom downwards as Amy's grip grew incomprehensibly tighter. Some choice Laceros flew their way courtesy of Channon, who recoiled back with a scream as a cry of "SERPENSORTIA!" from the Second Year's wand saw him with a faceful of angry rattlesnake. Harry thought of unholstering his wand to help, but decided that focusing on safely maneuvering the broom was a better option. Stavros was rapidly pulling up and rearing to cast some more offensive spells, before having to divert his efforts as faux-Amy's "INCENDIO!" set his tail twigs aflame. The two students breathed a preemptive sigh of relief, thinking it would be enough to keep the werewolf at bay.
It would not.
In an impressive feat of athleticism, the Rat Pack's Beta Secundus gripped his broomstick with one hand and one foot hooked around the shaft, stretching his body whilst aiming his wand arm to put out his broom's flaming tail twigs.
"Starfish and Stick…" Harry murmured in soft amazement as faux-Amy gawked. It was fitting, since pre-infected Stavros Skorzeny (a proud Bogatyr) had been the most-scouted Durmstrang Keeper and the top pick for the Vratsa Vultures.
Their stalling had been another mistake, since Stavros succeeded in his task to turn around and bellow "TONITRUO MAXIMA!"
A clap of impossibly loud thunder reverberated like a sonic boom in the space directly in front of Harry and Amy. The sheer force of the spell smacked into them like a wrecking ball, successfully dislodging them from the Firebolt to now fall screaming to their deaths.
That gave Channon the perfect opportunity to race upwards and wrap a burly arm around the terrified pair, activating his Portkey (a spiked pair of brass knuckles) and disappearing them all with a loud POP!
Current Time…
A horrified Sirius could only stare at the space Harry and Amy had occupied, in terrified disbelief that his godson had been taken.
'No-no-no-no-no-no-no!' "HARRY!" His voice was raw with paternal panic. "HARRY, WHERE ARE YOU?!"
No response.
A blur of a broom caught his eye, eliciting a Padfoot-snarl.
It was Stavros, racing toward the Forbidden Forest. With renewed fury, Sirius directed his Firebolt towards the racing werewolf, wand flashing with lethal spellfire as his broom's speed allowed him to easily catch up to Stavros' less superior Cleansweep Eight.
"BOMBARDA! REDUCTO! DEFODIO HORRIBILIS!"
A startled Stavros' barely evaded the first and second spells, falling right into the path of the modified Gouging Hex, which caused his clavicle to break with an audible snap.
Leaving him no time to recover, Sirius screamed "EXPECTO PATRONUM!", expression contorted in savage satisfaction as Snuffles erupted from his wand to latch directly onto Stavros' jugular. He screamed bloody murder, causing him and his broom to spiral downward as a determined Sirius maintained his Patronus alongside the screaming man.
Still screaming, Stavros crashed into the ground some feet away from the forest, his broom audibly snapping as Snuffles finally dissipated. He'd had enough sense to cast Arresto Momentum and Molliare spells to cushion his fall.
Neck smoking, the wereman tried to hobble towards the forest line seeking cover, before stumbling at Sirius' Tripping Jinx. The vengefulness of House Black thrummed in Sirius' bones, like a physical force burning through his blood. It caused his teeth to sharpen and fingernails to extend to claws as an enraged Padfoot surged to the surface.
He'd have Stavros' life one way or another.
In a blink Sirius transformed into his Grimm animagus and howled to the night sky, the sound so frightfully portentous that the Seventh of the Eldest Gods, if he'd been so inclined, could have answered his canine avatar. With a running leap Padfoot crashed jaws-first into Stavros, the two beings nothing more than a cloud of gnashing teeth and claws as each fought to rip the other apart.
CRRRAACCCK!
The viciously scrapping canine pair jumped at the sound, as both witnessed the space almost 2000 feet above twist and warp, as through opening to Somewhere Else…
Before the forms of a bloodied Harry and a screaming Amy were spit out In a seeming blink of an eye. With incomprehensible speed Harry unholstered his wand and summoned both his broom and the girl, swiftly remounting the Firebolt as one before racing towards the center of the Forbidden Forest.
Sirius and Stavros - mid-chewing each other's heads off - had frozen in shock, both tilting their heads in perfect canine synchronicity almost as if to say: "What the hell?!"
Ten Seconds Earlier…
THUMP…THUMP.
Upon feeling the Portkey's displacement magic wash over him and a screaming Amy, Harry immediately activated his Secondary Personality, granting it just enough sentience to maintain a unique Dilation. He felt everything slow down to a near stagnant crawl.
Granted, this was the exact thing Tom had warned him against when teaching him this unique ability, if he found himself confronted by Scrimgeour, but Harry figured being kidnapped by a werewolf to Merlin-knew-where was the perfect situation for a bit of rule-breaking. Belatedly, Harry marveled by how calm he felt, before realizing that he had instinctively used his Occlumency to temporarily shut down his fear response.
THUMP…THUMP.
Opening a tertiary thoughtstream in his primary mind and a back-up thoughtstream in the secondary Personality, Harry began rapid-fire brainstorming on everything his mother had taught him about Portkeys.
'A Portkey is a magical object enchanted to instantly bring anyone touching it to a specific and predetermined location, chosen by its enchanter whilst casting the Portus spell. Portkeys can be enchanted to carry one or multiple passengers, though it requires significantly more magic to do the latter. It typically takes 5-10 seconds to reach the chosen destination, depending on the distance between the departure and arrival points. Save for traveling off the earth's surface into outer space, the distance a Portkey can carry its passengers is nigh unlimited. The first known Portkey was commissioned by the Ancient Kemetic General Djehuty to his Archmage Vizier, aiding in his campaign to successfully invade and seize the Canaanite town of Joppa.'
His view of the Forbidden Forest had started to warp and blur, signaling that he and Amy were being further pulled away. Channon's grip (bearing the lightly glowing brass knuckle Portkey) around them both was tightening, and by Harry's account, he had anywhere from 3-7 seconds before he and Amy were fully kidnapped. From the splitting throb in his head, his nose was more than likely bleeding.
THUMP…THUMP.
'Once cast, the magic of a Portkey cannot be reversed. It can, however, be subverted in four unique ways.'
Not only was his nose bleeding, Harry vaguely realized that his eyes and mouth were bleeding as the pulse-pounding pain in his skull increased. The warping and blurred vision of the Forbidden Forest was increasing, but at such an infinitesimal amount that Harry, under normal conditions, would not have noticed it.
'The first would be to destroy the Portkey, magically destroying the physical means upon which the locational magicks are anchored. It's safest to do this when the Portkey hasn't been activated, else you risk being trapped in metamagiphysical limbo whilst traveling from one destination to another.'
Harry immediately rejected that idea.
'The second means would be to transfer the Portus spell to another object, nullifying the magicks on the first. The integrity of the spell disintegrates when transferred to another item.'
While that sounded promising, that option required a unique transference in Ancient Kemetic that would take at least 3 minutes if Harry were lucky and didn't bungle the spell or worse.
'Definitely not an option.'
THUMP…THUMP.
His eyes were definitely bleeding as a distinctly red haze swirled around the edges of his ocular boundaries. He felt as though his skull were being split in two and he wasn't quite certain if he'd be able to survive this particular foray into psychic magicks. Amy's screams sounded even further away, which was definitely not good.
'The third option is to have another person cast the Portus spell over the same Portkey, channeling enough of his or her magic to overpower the original enchantment.'
That wouldn't work either, considering Portus was an O.W.L.-level charm that Harry had never learned and wouldn't have the means to learn within the last few seconds of his life as he knew it.
'The last option is…well…forbidden.' Lily's tone had turned conspiratory then, but with enough warning gravitas to ensure Harry didn't consider her words as child's play. 'It requires the direct use of blood magic, the practice of which is typically forbidden due to it…well…being blood magic. Using a few drops of your own blood, you can transcribe a runic spell that can create a direct link to the Portkey proper, using sheer force of will to override its preselected destination into one - and only one - of your own.'
'I can definitely do that.'
His heart was now in his head and was pounding with a keen vigor, as though being stabbed back of the head with an red-hot icepick as his nose, eyes, and mouth profusely bled. Only through a supreme act of willpower was Harry able to maintain both his bipartite Dilations and their respective thoughtstreams.
With a shaking (or was it seizing?) hand, Harry succeeded in pricking his forefinger on one of the spikes of the softly glowing brass knuckle, watching with morbid fascination as his blood pebbled. The scent of copper was intensely strong now, as was the increasingly red vision.
'Is it possible to drown in your own blood?'
Ignoring his own question and rising delirium, Harry painstakingly wasted another second he didn't have to review every bit of mental knowledge he possessed about Elder Futhark to trace the symbols across the limited space of the brass knuckles.
THUMP…THUMP.
Thurisaz - inverted merkstave to disrupt the integrity of the Portkey's magicks.
Raido - turned sunward to account for a journey overcoming an obstacle.
Mannaz - two normal and side-by-side, to account for him and his Gryffindor passenger.
And finally Laguz - turned sunward to represent his fully burning desire to get the hell away from a fucking werewolf Death Eater.
THUMP…THUMP.
'There is no wand needed. The spell is simple,' Lily's voice whispered in his mind like the softest of echoes. 'No complicated movement either. Just two words…and sheer force of will to succeed.'
Fighting against the red and black spots now dancing in his eyes, Harry drew forth the mental image of exactly where he and Amy had been: about 2000 feet in the air and racing towards the Forbidden Forest on his Firebolt in the hopes of getting to Hogwarts.
THUMP…THUMP.
Harry wasted ½ second he didn't have to draw a deep and shuddering breath as he hissed with the last vestiges of his might: "ELECTI DESsSsSTINATUM!"
Time stopped.
A keen burning raced through his pricked finger, up his arm, then spread through his chest and straight to his forehead. The pain was searingly hot, as though the center of his head were being branded with a molten poker. He faintly registered the blood runes glowing hot red as they singed straight through the brass metal.
Harry also realized that he was screaming at the top of his lungs as his Occlumency was no longer able to completely suppress his capacity for pain.
There was a soft ripple in the realm-space and the faintest sound of paper tearing…before a mighty CRRRAACCCK! sounded all around them as a nigh unconscious Harry and a screaming Amy were spat out whence they'd come. That action also resorted in Channon's arm (the one holding the two children hostage) being gruesomely shredded as the magical feedback from the hijacked Portkey tore through his body and rendered him into minced meat.
THUMP…THUMP.
"ACcCIO AMY! ACcCIO FIREBOLT!"
Amy rocketed right onto Harry's back, gripping him with strength that belied a measly little Second Year. He succeeded in maneuvering them both back onto the Firebolt, before zooming off into the Forbidden Forest as he thankfully remembered to lapse his Dilations and return his Secondary Personality to quiescence.
'Can't have Severus kill me for that.'
Upon realizing that she wasn't going to die, faux-Amy's screams wound down. Besides the persisting fear, shock and amazement lingered that Harry had done something - something seemingly impossible in the blink of an eye - to bring them back from the exact location they'd been kidnapped by a raging (and now dead) werewolf.
"Um…Harry, we're not slowing down."
No response.
"Um Harry, we need to slow down!"
"Trying…" his voice sounded quite weak. At that, faux-Amy finally took a good look at the boy who'd saved her and was shocked at his appearance. Harry was deathly pale and shaking violently. There was blood covering the bottom of his face from a nose and mouth-bleed, and his verdant eyes were glassy, unfocused, and also leaking bloody tears.
"Bloody hell! C'mon Harry, stay with me! STAY WITH-" Her eyes widened as she realized just how dire their situation was. Though they'd somehow made it into the canopy of the center of the Forbidden Forest, they'd unintentionally drawn the attention of a dozen or so Dementors who were racing towards them.
Before she could direct her wand to cast her Patronus, a swarming duo swept over them, bringing a crushing wave of despairing melancholy and a frigid blast of death-like cold.
The witch was shaken and terrified as all the awful memories of The Past bubbled to the surface, but Harry, who was already approaching shock, blacked out from the exposure.
Sending them hurtling towards the ground below.
At around 200 feet, Lady W. gained enough of her wits to cry out "ARRESTO MOMENTUM!" The slowed down enough for Amy to repeat the spell and add a Cushioning Charm, landing into a large yew tree with a hearty thud instead of a bloody splat. The Firebolt skipped and landed some 12 feet away.
Groaning, the witchling clutched at her head as she felt the world spin on its axis. Her left side throbbed like mad, her nose was broken and bleeding, and she was fairly certain her right ankle was broken too. Harry was a few feet away, still unconscious. Feebly casting Brackium Emendo and Ferula on her ruined ankle, Lady W. crawled over to Harry and began applying first-aid.
She was just about to feed Potter a Blood-Replenisher from her mokeskin pouch before she suddenly froze. Lady W. registered the powerful and disturbing impression of being covered in icy-cold worms that were burrowing into her mind, deep past the sanctuary of her Occlumency barriers. It was followed by web-like patterns of frost formed over the trunks of the moonlit trees as her breath condensed in icy puffs, a wave of crippling despondence falling over her like a shroud.
The potion phial tumbled from nerveless fingers as the mental image of Seamus Finnegan's flayed body flashed in her mind's eye, seizing as a frantic Hannah Abbott and Ginny Weasley attempted to heal him.
Corban Yaxley's sneering visage swam to the surface, the High Inquisitor gleefully lecturing about the "inferiority of the mudblood anatomy" in DADA whilst a projector emitted the images of the Creevey brothers' cadavers.
It was followed by the images of Tracey's horror-stricken screams, the last moments of her life in a Reappropriation Camp sent to the Greengrasses in a collection of memory phials.
A warning for the family to comply with the changing tides.
The Time Traveler panicked for ten whole seconds as the horde of nearly 30 Dementors continued to swarm, before Monsignor Lucardi's guiding voice broke through her despair-induced anxiety and forced her to focus. A rush of adrenaline filled her body as her floundering shields reasserted themselves, giving her just enough courage to cry out "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
A flash of bright light poured from her wand, before coalescing into a luminescent heron that flew straight towards the dementor horde and causing the creatures to recoil. She continued her onslaught, fighting against her encroaching exhaustion as Elpis buffeted the soul-suckers away.
As quickly as possible whilst the wraiths were distracted, Lady W. cast the Featherlight Charm on an unconscious (but still breathing) Harry and used a Sticking Charm to tack the boy's arms to her waist, hobble-running to the Firebolt and mounting with her passenger. Psychically repressing her acrophobia once more, the Time-Traveler kicked off with a grunt, gripping the broom as though her life literally (and it did) depend on it.
The Dementors continued to swarm, unencumbered by her corporeal protector. She switched to a Patronus mist shield, using it to smack the creatures away while maintaining the path towards Hogwarts. It was a less of a power drain, and quite frankly her fledgling core was on the cusp of snuffing out.
The pair flew over a thick net of spider webbing, which vaguely looked as though it was moving.
In a pique of desperate inspiration she pointed her wand and yelled "ARANIA EXUMAI!"
In response to her incantation and a sharp flick of her wand, a 500-pound acromantula flew out of the tree in an arc over the two to crash into the Dementors, breaking their formation. She fired the same spell off thrice more, before switching back to her mist shield and ratcheting the Firebolt's speed.
Approaching exhaustion-induced unconsciousness as her shield began flickering, Lady W. could've cried out in relief when she spotted Hagrid's hut. Increasing the Firebolt's speed to its maximum threshold, she sped right past the hut, through the castle's gates, and almost crashed through the entryway doors that had opened of their own accord. Lady W. skittered to a violent stop, nearly crashing into a wall as she cancelled the sticking charm on a still unconscious Harry.
Thinking fast, the Time Traveler ingested a phial of Invisibility Potion, before setting off a loud Caterwauling Charm that was certain to draw the attention of the Prefects to attend to Potter.
Skittering into a hidden alcove, the witchling sighed in relief at the sight of a tight-faced Marcus Flint and Percy Weasley racing towards Harry.
Satisfied, she hobbled her way towards the Room of Requirement, hoping Cher Ami had survived to fight another day.
Later That Night…
Mr. Lycan,
How the HELL does a damn WEREWOLF PACK fail to sequester and kill three measly humans?!
Mr. Arachne
Arachne,
FUCK THAT! I lost three of my best tonight, including my fucking bonded mate! All thanks to your shitty little plan! Who the HELL is this kid?!
Lycan
AN 1: Lily vs. Fenrir was the most realistic face-off I could conceive where Lily stays alive LOL. Fenrir, admittedly, was toying with her. He has a bad habit of playing with his food before consuming. More on that later.
AN 2: Lady Witherington is pretty bad ass, can't wait for her big reveal! Her Patronus is a heron, which symbolizes transformation, good fortune, patience, and persistence. Elpis is the Greek goddess of hope, fitting for our Time Traveler