Comfort in the Chaos

3:39am

July 22nd

Rookwood Castle, Scotland

Daphne

"Left side! Left side!"

Moody's shout proceeded the tell-tale whoosh of a spell flying past her head, harmlessly splashing against something behind her. They had been forced on the defensive almost immediately, only being able to take down two people in the first volley. From behind her cover, she lashed out with her wand in the general direction of her attacker, smirking when she heard a grunt and a thud.

'We need to take the initiative…' She peaked out and saw the fires they had lit were still burning, a testament to the chaos they had caused in those first few seconds. Unfortunately, the man she had taken hostage had been recaptured the moment she wasn't looking and now she had no way of confirming if his words were true. 'More pressing matters are ahead.'

The death eaters were either eager to see them dead or exercising what passed for tactical sense in their ranks by surrounding them, the man she had taken down would not be the last to outflank them. Already she could see two people trying to move to the position, their flowing black cloaks giving them away.

'Confringo,' she silently cast, the (insert colour) hex connected with the half wall the men had moved to but caused minimal damage with only a few stones coming undone. The wall's protections seemed to have been extended to the inner structures, just not inside the keep, a fact that had gotten one of her teams killed.

The numerous death eaters weren't about to let her get away with attacking their allies either, for the moment she peaked out to cast, her position was illuminated by the sheer number of killing curses thrown. Fortunately, avada kedavra held little destructive power, so the stone protecting her held, but it did eliminate the ability of counter attacks from her mind.

"Moody you coward! Is this how you killed my father?" Through a hole in the pile of stone, she tried to identify who was speaking. A man, clad in death eater regalia, had stepped out into the open and had his arms spread out. "Truly 'the greatest auror of all time' a man who hides in the destruction of another man's home."

"Rosier…"

'Felix Rosier? He was prefect a few years before I started, no surprise he followed in his father's footsteps.' She glanced over at Moody to see his normally grim expression in full effect, although she didn't imagine someone wanting revenge against him was all too surprising. "Mad eye," she whisper-shouted, "make it slow."

"I'll try lass," Moody drank a potion and tapped his eye with his wand, "escape if you can."

He stepped out from the cover, the metal stump clacking against the paved floor as he entered the middle courtyard. Felix Rosier stood out from his peers now, having taken the ivory mask off to reveal his face. "I had no idea my father had left you so hideous," Felix taunted to the appreciation of his comrades who uproariously laughed at Moody, "be comforted in the fact I plan to leave you with nothing left."

"Your father was a uniquely competent duellist, lethal with his wand," Moody looked Felix up and down with both his eyes, "you are neither."

"You've never faced me before."

"Laddie, if you were half as smart as your death eater shit stain of a father, you'd have kept us pinned behind the rubble."

"I've trained my whole life for this," Felix angrily retorted, "this is how it has to be."

"Then your family will weep for the Rosier who wasted his life in pursuit of vengeance."

Rosier could no longer hold it in, the anticipation of a lifetime of pursuing one goal boiled over the top and he attacked. He swung his wand over his head like he was cracking a whip and an arc of jagged purple lightning burst from his wand, heading straight for Moody. Mad Eye, demonstrating both how mad and how talented he was, had anticipated such a strike during the wand movement and had already begun turning to the side. For the outside viewer, it had seemed like Moody had managed to dodge lightning on a solely reactionary basis. As the lightning passed by him he raised his wand arm to eye level and fired, a stunner flew for his opponent straight and true. Daphne knew, had she not asked for him to draw it out, Rosier would have been tied up, stunned or dead had Moody wanted it. Rosier twirled from the jinx and the fight began.

She turned her gaze to the death eaters fanned out behind Rosier, all of whom had taken the chance to witness the infamous Mad-Eye Moody in action. Their complacency would need to be exploited if they were going to escape, 'disillusionment could do it, but if I get caught out in the open I'll not survive a second.'

"Shut it! Ruddy beast!"

The man's shouting was loud for her to hear over the clashing of spells and shields in the courtyard, so she tracked the noise to the stables where a death eater was trying to subdue the protesting abraxians with no luck at all. 'If only we could ride them out, they'd take us the whole…' one of the abraxians had moved to get away from the death eater and had revealed something she hadn't considered before, brooms.

Daphne moved to speak to Shafiq, but he was already looking at her. "I see them too," he said, "the question is, how do we get to them?"

"Summoning charm?" She doubted it would work but, with fifteen odd death eaters in between them and the stables, she couldn't come up with any alternatives.

Shafiq didn't look as though he liked the chances of that working either. "Risky," he commented as he squinted his eyes, "but I can think of no other option."

"We wait until something significant happens in the duel, accio the brooms, then take to the skies and try and give Moody an opening."

"Slight problem," Shafiq remarked, refusing to look her in the eye, "I'm middling on a broom at best."

'You're kidding, senior auror, pureblood, member of the sacred twenty eight and he can't fly a broom properly.' She, of course, said none of that, concealing it with a quiet sigh. "That's fine," she returned her gaze to fight, "just avoid the spells and try to collect Moody, I'll cause the distractions." She wasn't a revolutionary flyer either, but she was confident she had the skills to do this task.

The fight was going how she had expected, Felix Rosier was trying to overwhelm Moody to no avail, his spells were absorbed or reflected, and his insults wholly ignored. Mad Eye would return fire occasionally, just enough to try and keep up appearances so as not to end the fight too soon. Rosier was beginning to become infuriated; his wand work was harsh and aggressive, and his face had a distinct red hue to it. Spell after spell collided with Moody's shield charms with sparks of magic ejecting at every contact, despite the assaults, Moody held firm.

"That's enough!" someone shouted to her right. A tall death eater stepped from the crowd and pushed Felix to the ground, the man was incredibly strong for in that one push he had practically thrown the boy five metres.

Rosier stood up angrily and got in the big man's face, "how dare you take this opportunity from me! Do you have any idea— "

"He's playing you, boy, you're too blind to see it." The larger death eater grabbed a fist full of Roster's cloak and held him in place, "you had your chance, now, remember your place." Felix seemed to be warring with two voices in his head, his eyes flicking left to right as though he were tracking a conversation. In the end, he shrugged off the man's grip and stepped back, a sneer slowly solidifying itself on his face.

"Care for a go?" Moody asked, still following along with the plan.

"Not all of us are so easily fooled," the death eater squared off in front of him and put his hands behind his back. "As much as anyone would want to claim they had killed the great Mad Eye Moody, I know that, alone, few would stand a chance." His eyes flicked upwards for the briefest of moments, only one as observant as Daphne would've caught it, and so she followed where he looked. To her surprise, peaking over the roof of the keep was half a wand, aimed at Moody's back, tip glowing green.

With thinking, she launched her hand out and pushed with her magic, desperately relying on the energy inside her to respond to her intent. She didn't even need to see the result as the moment her arm was outstretched completely, she felt the flow from her chest to her hand. The edge of the keep's roof exploded with chunks of rock and stone flying upwards and falling down.

"Accio!"

Shafiq' s sense of timing was perfect, the brooms dislodged from their hanging place on the wall and sailed towards them across the courtyard.

"Arresto Momentum."

"Confringo."

The brooms came to an unnatural stop, followed by being reduced to splinters and just like that their plan was in tatters. She could hear shouts of confusion and authority above her, suggesting the assassin wasn't alone and what's more, their position was now completely encircled. There was nowhere to retreat to, the keep meant death, staying where she was meant death and going forward the same. 'When the histories look upon me,' she figured, 'it will not say that Daphne Greengrass ran.'

With her decision made she stood and stepped over the debris that was her cover. Wand in hand, she sprinted across the courtyard, dodging curses and redirecting them as she moved. From the sound of things, Shafiq had followed her into the fray until finally they made it Moody, forming a quasi-triangle with their backs to each other.

"It's a good day to die, Ice Queen," the main death eater commented, mocking her with the name the papers had given her as he circled the group. "I know you won't make this easy, but only the Dark Lord can live forever."

Daphne made use of her alias and gave the man a cold stare. She didn't reply, there was no need for it, instead she raised her wand high and spoke the words "circumdata igni."

Immediately, a ball of flame rose into the sky and as it reached its apex height, burst out into several balls of flame in an umbrella shape. The flames landed and created a ring of orange fire around the trio, wide enough to give them plenty of room to move. The large death eater had to jump back as the fire sprung to life, through the flames she spotted more coming in from the eastern ramparts, illuminated by the flames from earlier. 'More fun for us,' she told herself as she returned to a defensive position, win or lose, they were ready.

3:46am

July 22nd

Rookwood Castle, Scotland

Harry

The trek up the path to the castle was one of anticipation. Whether it was his own or the wand's he couldn't rightly say, perhaps a blend of the two, that made the feeling no less real though. The closer they got the louder it became, the flames, spells, the shouting, all of it overloading his senses. He hadn't even noticed they had reached the front gate before a voice broke through the chaos.

"Potter," Kingsley stopped him, "this way, I know a more discreet entrance."

Harry didn't speak his affirmative, he couldn't, the world around him was too much. He just nodded and focused on the path Kingsley was leading them down, mentally berating himself for being so unbalanced. 'Come on Potter, nothing you haven't handled before.' Of course, that's what worried him, for one of the most frequent occurrences of his life was the death of someone he cared about and that wasn't a battle he could win where Daphne was concerned.

The four person team turned the corner around the castle's south wall to western side. "Just up ahead, we used it to enter the castle in the attack."

"—opportunity from me! Do you have any idea—"

The fighting seemed to have come to a stand still, he didn't recognise the voice that was speaking and so assumed the man was a death eater or mercenary. If there was a response, they didn't hear it, so they continued their approach without delay. The fires on the inside of the castle cast long dark shadows over the grounds and plateau below, even if a death eater was watching their flanks, they'd be hard pressed to see four people hugging the outer wall.

"Here," Kingsley whispered, although it was unnecessary, a large hole in the wall was difficult to miss.

It was a little bit of a climb, but just as Harry had gotten his footing, the walls shook from an explosion on the other side of the castle. His foot slipped as the weak stones loosened, only the remnants of his quick reflexes saved him from a face full of cobble.

He may have not made it through the breach, but his head was high enough to see the courtyard in full. Fanned out with their backs to him, a dozen death eaters stood with their wands in hand. A few of them were taking cover, the more foolish were standing out in the open. Were it not for their significantly superior number, they'd have been wiped out without trouble. A further three were solidifying a position on the far side, the roof of the keep providing them with a favourable height advantage.

Amid the sea of black cloaks, only one thing caught his attention. Daphne Greengrass, sprinting headlong into the enemy, spells rebounding randomly making men and women dive to avoid their own attacks. It wasn't a strategy he'd ever think she'd employ without his insistence and so only served to worry him further.

"Harry, go."

Tonks' urging broke through his shock and he regained his footing, climbing through the breach and dropping into the courtyard on the other side. A dollop of sweat rolling down his face made him very conscious of the flames that surrounded him. Not only did they present a physical danger, they also limited their ability to remain concealed. In the centre of the courtyard, his allies became encircled by a ring of flame, their own doing he imagined, as there were no tortured screams to follow.

A series of thuds behind him alerted Harry to the team joining inside the castle, each of them moving into position behind anything they could find to hide.

"Take aim and call your mark," Kingsley whispered, "I've got the big fellow in the middle."

"I'll take the one beside him on the right," Remus inserted.

"Left for me," Tonks added with a serious tone belying her natural state.

Whilst they all decided which Death Eaters were about to experience the shock of their lives, Harry scanned the courtyard and made up his mind on something slightly more ambitious. "I'll hit the roof," he said with false confidence.

"Good idea," Kingsley complimented, his and all the other's wands raised, "on me."

Harry tuned them out, his attack needn't be as coordinated. The wand in his hand seemed to sense that battle was imminent, thrumming in glee as it read his intentions. He bright the wand close to his face and could swear he heard it singing or rather he just knew its feelings as it did him. In his peripheral vision he saw the three beside him unleash their attack, the light from their spells flashing as they crossed his vision. As if in slow motion, he watched the spells travel whilst his body moved subconsciously with his gaze. Eventually, the spells connected, and the targets crumpled to the floor. It was then, as the light fizzled out through the Death Eaters' falling forms, his gaze continued onwards, higher and higher until he was looking at the three men slinging spells from the roof. He hadn't noticed his wand arm raise as he turned, he hadn't noticed the crackling blue sparks at the tip of his wand nor the way none of his senses seemed to be reporting anything to his brain. He spoke no words, conjured no tangible intentions, there was only the need to protect and avenge, then the sky became white.

3:59am

July 22nd

Rookwood Castle

Daphne

The men on the roof were becoming more dangerous by the minute. Already she had taken a gash to the face and arm, as they adapted to her defences. The ring of fire had provided enough visual clutter for the grunts on the ground, but those three were free to capitalise at their own discretion.

"What the bloody hell?" Shafiq exclaimed.

She quickly cast her eyes to the side he was covering and only saw spell fire heading their direction. 'Focus you foo–'

She gasped as the sky flashed a blinding white light, followed by the loudest explosion she had ever heard. Her ears were still ringing as her eyes readjusted to the world. She immediately cast her eyes to the pesky roof assailants only to be incredibly stunned. The roof was gone, completely obliterated by, presumably, whatever that flash was. The hole she had made earlier seemed trivial compared to the utter annihilation of a magically fortified structure. There were very few capable of such a dazzling display of power, two in fact.

"Reducto!"

The foolish pronunciation of the spell gave her the time she needed to react, swiping her wand at the oncoming spell and redirecting it directly back at the caster. The man was still regaining his footing from the blast and so in an attempt to catch her off guard, he had caught himself unprepared. The magic was too weak to cause irreparable damage but still served to take the man out of the fight and his attack made her remember the situation she was in as three death eaters were just finishing getting back to their feet.

She readied her wand and her opponents did the same but before any spell could be cast, a scream was heard to her right, growing rapidly louder. She flicked her eyes to the side and they widened as she saw a man flying through the air only to land in between herself and the man's allies. He didn't stop screaming as he landed and the reason became exceedingly apparent, his whole midsection was impaled with six-inch nails, an attack she had seen only used by herself and one other.

'Harry?'

Her wand snapped up faster than ever, chains bursting from the tip and wrapping around the man on the right's neck. The middle man recovered from his shock first and scrambled to assist his comrade, only to be caught with a glacius, freezing his entire body in place.

By then, the third had the time to attack, "serpensortia, engorgio, duro!" The man's quick and skilful casting summoned a snake and enlarged it before it had touched the ground. The third spell duro turned the snake's scales to stone but did nothing to inhibit the snake's abilities.

It rose high, eight metres at full height, hissing angrily at her. Its first strike came predictably, she read the beast's intentions as one would a book, but she doubted she could keep it up forever. Her wand moved faster than she could think, blasting curses, hexes and jinxes ejecting from her wand, chinking the snake's stone armour. However, with each successful strike, the snake grew more violent, its instincts likely screaming at it to kill. It coiled around itself and bared its fangs, preparing for another strike. Strike it did, lashing out in a straight line for her. Daphne had no time to dodge, the snake was too fast, and so at the very last moment she erected a shield. The shimmering bubble around her protested as the strong attack bounced off of it, she had used a lot of magic that morning and it was beginning to take its toll.

The snake pulled back and shook its head, confused but undeterred.

"Kill! Kill her!"

The death eater seemed to take the snake's respite to study her as an unwillingness to kill, he was dead wrong. The snake took one look at him and chomped down on the stationary death eater, swallowing him whole. The morbidly hilarious scene had given her a moment to consider her options.

'The scales offer good protection,' the snake gulped and bared its fangs to her once more, 'a luxury it does not possess internally.'

The snake's renewed, trying to strike at her from the side on account of the failure prior. Daphne was ready though, lashing out with an expulso to throw the reptile wildly off course. The stone snake stumbled and rolled away from Daphne, forcing itself up from its humiliation. Again, and again the snake would try to outflank her and time after time she'd simply push it away. It grew angry, furious even, and she knew it was fast approaching for her time to end it. It abandoned all strategy and attacked her head on once more, opening its jaws wide to consume the annoying little ape that dared to challenge it. Daphne had to be swift and so she was, the moment it had opened its mouth she cast confringo into the giant's maw, then brought her wand and hand up to cast a shield with all she had left.

Daphne refused to look away, to do so would only indicate a lack of confidence in her plan, something she wouldn't allow. Through the distorted wall that erected in front of and around her, she watched the ball of yellow light disappear down the creature's throat as the beast itself grew ever closer. Not even a moment later, the middle of the snake's body exploded outwards, spraying the courtyard in snake gutsy and stone scales, perhaps even a little bit of death eater. The snake's momentum carried onwards and still collided with her shield, the potency of the attack had faded leaving the body to glide off of the ward and grind to a halt beside her.

'Gods it's been a day,' she thought as she struggled to remain on her feet and not collapse under the intense use of magic. 'It's not done yet,' she reminded herself as though she had two opposing voices in her mind. As always, the one dedicated to 'the mission,' whatever that may be at the time, won out and she drove all thoughts of rest from her mind.

Next priority was to check on her compatriots, she hoped they had fared better than her so she could get to work on discovering who had been mimicking Harry's style.

"-yourselves or I'll consider you all hostile!"

"Mad Eye we just saved you!"

"Shut it trainee Tonks, if that's even you!"

"I'm not a trainee anymore you senile fu–"

Daphne made it around the huge snake to see her allies standing defensively in front of Remus, Tonks and Kingsley. Tonks seemed irate and whilst Remus tried to placate her, Kingsley wore the most diplomatic face he could manage whilst covered in dirt and some kind of goo.

"Alastor, ask us a question, we'll do the same," he said, sticking to the protocol they'd long since developed.

"What did you say to me before you received your order of merlin?"

"That's a good question, the answer, nothing." Kingsley recalled with a smile, "I told Harry to extend my gratitude to yourself and expressed my thinking that without the pair of you I'd have received an award in the afterlife."

Daphne nodded at him and reassured Moody with another. "Ask away," Daphne gestured with hand to do so quickly as standing in the middle of a recent battlefield was making her antsy.

"Oo I've got one," Tonks jumped in, "what did I say about your jacket?"

Daphne found the battle to not roll her eyes more difficult than the snake. "You said you thought it was 'cool,' but not colourful enough for you."

"Bang on, let's bugger off then?"

"Well, we need to fetch–"

A shift in some stones behind her had her spinning with her wand raised faster than anyone would be expected to react. It was no enemy she came face to face with though, at least they didn't wear the face of the enemy. No, they wore the face of the person who'd caused her more pain and grief than any other, but even more so, they had shared impossible triumphs and nights of laughter together. The face of Harry Potter was at the end of her wand, accompanied by his messy black hair that reached his shoulders from weeks of imprisonment, the wire frame glasses resting loosely on the bridge of his nose and mesmerising eyes that had been a frequent fond memory she had clung to in his absence. There stood the face of the man she had torn lives and limbs apart for and all she could do was stare.

"Never mind, maybe let's… uh secure the prisoners?

"Hmph."

Her mind fought a war, where one side would try to throw all of the horrors, she had committed in the name of this man at her guilt ridden moral compass, the other simply echoed 'Harry's back' in opposition. Her wand arm faltered at such a potent counter and lowered slightly. Harry took that as a sign, immediately scooping her up in a fiercely tight embrace.

"It's so good to see you," he whispered in her ear after a beat, his breath on her ear making it all the more real. Everything rushed at her at once, joy, pain, relief, pure disbelief, whatever emotion you can name, she experienced in a single moment so all she could do was laugh. She probably looked crazy, covered in blood, dust and guts, laughing her head off into his shoulder but she couldn't stop. "Daphne are–"

He didn't continue as she pulled away and launched into a kiss and, without complaint or hesitation, he reciprocated. She knew she was gripping his head too hard, she knew but she didn't want to let go even for the briefest instance for there wasn't much else besides euphoric glee going on in her head at that moment. The guilt for his disappearance that held such an unrelenting grasp on her psyche loosened into nothingness and a great weight lifted from her shoulders.

She broke away first to get a proper look at him. "Look at you," she said to herself in awe, "all in one piece. Never in my wildest dreams…" Her nose scrunched up in disgust despite her happiness, her body simply couldn't help it.

"What?" he asked worriedly, "what's wrong?"

"Your breath," she remarked with a small smile, "it's horrid."

Harry looked offended, she knew he had probably eaten the most disgusting things on the planet just to stay alive but that made her no less right. He raised an eyebrow and pointed at her waist, "you sure that isn't the snake innards hanging off your belt?"

She looked down and sure enough there was a long strip of tissue clinging to her belt. 'Hmm.' she nonchalantly realised, not much could kill what she was feeling now. "Fair enough."

His surprise was comical, eyes wide and mouth open in an 'o' shape. "You're going to let me win? Just like that?"

He spoke as if it were a miracle, but she couldn't be bothered mustering up any comeback or snarky comments, she merely wanted to be happy for the first time in weeks. "Just this once," she affirmed with a fully fledged smile before leaning in for another kiss, despite his ogre breath, because the smell didn't matter, they were returned to one another, and nothing would separate them again…

A/N Okay try not to kill me for leaving it for so long or if you want to, just loudly proclaim it so i can prepare to duel you all to the death… if there's enough we can do like a gladiatorial games type thing.

Here we go, ATFU CH6…

Most of this was action, so not a lot to break down. Felix Rosier's dad was the bloke who took Moody's nose so I thought it'd be cool to do a little western shoot out whilst Daphne planned their escape. Obviously that falls through but I feel like it made it more compelling than just duelling a faceless death eater. Gave the chance for Moody to be a stone cold mf as well.

Capturing Harry's fear and anxiety was admittedly a challenge as I found myself repeating what I had already written a couple lines before. On the flip side, the elder wand stuff comes out so smoothly from start to finish so you win some you lose some. The Elder Wand's lust for blood is something I've always liked to head canon and adds to the Deathly Hallows tale as well as speaks toi Dumbledore's strength to resist the urge to fight at every turn. It seems more natural now that I've been able to describe the feeling as to why Dumbledore looked to be 'scared' of direct confrontation. In case it wasn't clear, Harry uses lightning to just incinerate the tower and the people on it.

Daphne's fight with the Serpent was actually changed several times. First she dispatches the three with ease, I didn't like that. Then it was fiendfyre which felt too similar to the ministry fight. Then the snake was going to be larger and Harry came to parselmouth it, but she didnt save him so I didn't want to have him save her. So I did some research and discovered the hardening charm and basically created a budget basilisk.

Moody wasn't being a senile old cunt by the way, he was riling Tonks up to see if she was a metamorph. He knew questioning her worth as an auror would be the best way to do so. Had to go back and check the answers to these questions though lol.

Now, the long awaited reunion. I know some of you have been on the brink of war so I needed to ensure that it did the story, the characters and myself the justice it deserves. This is why it's taken so long. I truly hope I managed to impress upon the intensity of Daphne's side of things whilst also managing to show that, on the surface, they're still the same. Obviously this ordeal has fucked them up royally but for them, right now, being together fixes all of their problems. I'm content to let them have that for a little while.

Anyway, this AN took longer than expected. I've got a meeting in seven hours and haven't slept yet. Gotta keep moving forward though, this aint gonna write itself.

Next chapter teaser: Giving them mf's a break gods know they deserve it ffs

Hope you enjoyed!

RevanchistVII