The final match was, indeed, short.
The plays were as fast and chaotic as any of the previous matches, seriously hard to follow — Liz would definitely be putting the memory in her pensieve later to get a better look. It also helped that the two teams were quite evenly matched, the teams that couldn't keep up with this level of play eliminated throughout the tournament. The Irish were somewhat better coordinated, Liz thought, but both teams just as quick and graceful and tricky, the quaffle game a fluttering twisting mess. And the match was rather more violent than the previous ones Liz had seen, both teams eager to exploit any advantage to win the Cup, even if that meant beating the shite out of their opponents — and the Bulgarian chasers were rather larger than the Irish, setting up those collisions took some serious nerve.
Fouling was a calculated risk: the opposite team might get a penalty shot over it, but getting the quaffle past the keeper one-on-one was very difficult, so it might be worth it anyway. Playing at school, the Slytherin team rules were basically to break the rules whenever they wanted, if it seemed convenient...except when playing Gryffindor, whose chasers were good enough to sometimes make penalty shots. Part of the reason professional games got so violent was because the teams were confident no penalty shots would get past their keepers anyway, so the risk–reward analysis was heavily weighted to one side.
Except in this game, the Irish kept making penalty shots. The first was probably less than ten minutes into the game, when Tricia Mullet (after nearly being pulled off her broom when Dimintrov linked their elbows in a collision, which might have been an accident but counted as fetching regardless) slipped a hook pass around the keeper, the curving path of the throw taking it neatly straight through one of the hoops — and that applause was definitely deserved, aiming a hook pass that precisely was absurd. (Liz could get a pretty good curve out of a quaffle, but getting it to go into one of the hoops while moving at speed like that, no, that was probably beyond her.) Over the next fifteen minutes or so, Tricia took another four penalty shots, while Aibhínn got two and Troy and Lynch one each — Tricia was tiny, Liz assumed the Bulgarians were trying to injure her badly enough to take her off the field — and of the eight attempts six of them actually went in, Troy's, both of Aibhínn's, and three out of four of Tricia's. Meanwhile, the Bulgarians got roughly the same number of penalty shots...and only landed one of them.
It didn't take very long before the Bulgarians got wise, and stopped intentionally fouling the Irish. They were still mostly able to keep up, though they might have quickly fallen behind without Krum. He somehow managed to keep up with the quaffle game, and also make an occasional grab at the snitch — a catch wouldn't end the game until after the bell, of course, but each catch before then got the seeker's team a neat thirty points. Normally it didn't do any good to try to go after the thing, because it meant leaving the chasers on the quaffle outnumbered, Liz had only ever tried it a couple times...but obviously she wasn't as good of a seeker as Krum was. Throughout the course of the match, he'd pull away from the quaffle game seemingly at random, the Bulgarian beaters reacting quickly to keep the rest of the pack distracted, slashing across the field at top speed, plucking the little golden ball out of the air hardly before anyone realised what was happening. While the dinging to mark the catch filled the air, he'd swoop past a section of the stands dominated in red and yellow, triumphantly holding the snitch over his head to the cheers of the crowd, before releasing the thing and jumping right back into the quaffle game without missing a beat. He managed to catch the snitch four times before the bell, the boost to their score allowing the Bulgarians to keep up. Which was ridiculous, Liz had never even heard of someone pulling that off — the occasional chance catch here and there, sure, but doing it this many times just wasn't something that happened.
(She guessed they didn't call Krum the best seeker in the world for nothing.)
The Irish team got visibly more frantic as the bell approached, Krum's repeated catches of the snitch making it very, very clear that he could end the game at will — they needed to be ahead before the bell rang, or they would lose. In close succession, the bell only minutes away, one of the Bulgarian beaters took a nasty hit from a bludger in the head — his limp form falling dozens of metres to the ground, he was rushed away to the hospital, leaving the Bulgarians down a beater — and then there was a hard collision between Quigley and Ivanova, the Irish beater's bat slamming into Ivanova's arm — by complete accident, Liz was sure. Ivanova was still flying, but when she took her penalty shot it was immediately obvious she was injured, as the game continued her passes were shaky, her manoeuvres not quite as smooth as they'd been a moment ago. To the furious jeering of the red half of the crowd, the Irish now dominated the bludger and the quaffle game, starting to inch ahead.
And apparently they were confident enough that they had this covered that, the moment the bell rang, Lynch peeled away to search for the snitch. Three against three (and a half), the Bulgarians gained a little ground, but by the time Lynch spotted the snitch and started tearing after it they were still ahead by enough that, even if Krum snatched the snitch away from him, Ireland would still win. And for a moment it looked like this was the end, the screaming from seemingly the whole stadium all at once absolutely deafening, Liz leaning over the railing as Lynch closed on the snitch, his arm outstretched, only inches away from—
Coming out of fucking nowhere, Krum dove right into Lynch — Krum barely managed to recover, passing close enough to the ground that Liz imagined the grass scraped against the bristles of his broom...but Lynch wasn't so lucky, slamming against the dirt at speed and tumbling arse over teakettle for some metres before finally coming to a stop. A time-out was called immediately, Moran and Connolly swooping down to check on their captain. After a bit of faffing about, Lynch climbed back onto his broom, and the game continued — but he obviously wasn't at a hundred per cent, hanging more toward the outside of the quaffle game, flying slow and unsteady, taking an occasional pass but for the most part staying out of it. He was probably bruised all to hell, and the way he was flying, either he'd taken a hit to the head in the tumble or his broom had snapped bristles...or both.
But, with Ivanova already struggling, Lynch's injury meant the quaffle game was back to three (and a half) against three (and a half) — and the Bulgarians were still down a beater. It didn't take very long, the margin opening up a few more goals in Ireland's favour, before it was obvious to Liz that the Bulgarians weren't going to be able to catch up. And that was before Dimitrov took a bludger hit in the arm in mid-throw, that was definitely broken. (Dimitrov, naturally, missed his penalty shot.) This match was over, at this point Ireland was just running up the score.
Krum clearly agreed. Shortly after Dimitrov's injury, he gave up on the quaffle game, focused on hunting down the snitch. Barely three minutes later, he had it, ending the match — and Ireland had won the World Cup, three thirty to two ninety-five. A high score for a match that had barely taken an hour and fifteen minutes, they'd averaged a goal every one and a half minutes, which was ridiculous.
But, yeah, short match — told you, Daphne...
In the aftermath of the match, the camp was wild, noisy chaos. Sirius had led their group — Liz and Severus, Daphne, Hermione, Dora Tonks and her dad, and Dorea plus Mandy (Dorea got to invite a friend too, but Liz already had Hermione) — into one of the open market areas in the Irish part of the camp, arguing that that was obviously where the best parties would be. And there was a hell of a party going on, a lot of food and drinks being passed around (plus other drugs, most of which Liz didn't recognise, magical stuff), music coming from multiple directions mixing with shouting voices and laughter and singing (mostly in Gaelic) into an incomprehensible mess. The place was pretty packed with people, but there was still room to move around, Liz didn't get jostled too badly. Mostly it was just really, really loud.
And, of course, so many people around meant the press of their minds on her was kind of a lot...but it wasn't that bad? Liz didn't know what it was, exactly. Maybe she was in an up mood to begin with — the match had been exhilarating, even after it was over Liz left twitchy with excitement — or maybe it was just that the things people were feeling were pleasant, all warm and smooth and energetic and ticklish, overwhelmingly loud and everywhere but not really offensive at all. It was infectious, like, it almost reminded Liz of her dream-walking ritual, magic too powerful to resist sweeping through her and carrying her away, the feelings from outside making her giddy and giggly, she couldn't stop smiling.
The alcohol probably helped. Liz had noticed before that she tended to find the feelings of too many people around her less overwhelming if she was intoxicated at the time — or, maybe less overwhelming wasn't the right word? Being a little drunk didn't make it any easier to focus through everything going on, she was actually way more prone to distraction by any random thought or feeling, but it just didn't bother her as much. Where, in ordinary circumstances, foreign feelings coming in and sweeping her away might be extremely disorienting and unnerving, at the moment it was just kind of fun. She might be more neurotic about it if she were on her own, but she could feel Severus and Sirius nearby, nothing bad would happen to her while she was lost in her head, it was fine.
Pretty early in the party, after they'd gotten some food and Liz had found the gin — she was a little tipsy, but not that bad yet — they gravitated toward a spot where music was coming from, where people were dancing. Sirius already found himself some random woman to dance with before Liz realised what was going on, of course, and, well. This definitely wouldn't have been Liz's choice, she wasn't great at the dancing thing. Always felt too bloody awkward about it, you know. Which Daphne thought was silly, because she definitely had the coordination for it, it was hardly any more complicated than some of the things she did duelling, but that was not at all the same thing. Daphne tried to teach her the steps for a little bit — distracted by Daphne's hand in hers, watching her colourful dress shift as she moved, beads clinking musically, and also Hermione nearby getting her own lesson from some Gaelic boy, blushing and stuttering her way through it (to his amusement, he thought she was cute) — but it wasn't going well, something about it just wasn't clicking for her, feeling way too clumsy and self-conscious.
When it became clear Liz just wasn't getting anywhere with this, Liz and Daphne decided (by silent, mind-magic mediated assent) to use the opportunity of everyone being distracted by the dancing to sneak away. Liz did actually need to use the toilet anyway, there were public washrooms set up nearby, when she came out Daphne had removed her leggings, transfigured into a bandana in Irish colours wrapped around her arm. (Though she'd left her cloth-wrap 'shoes' on, who knew what shite people might leave on the ground here.) On the way back, ducked behind a row of tents, finding a spot nobody was looking, further shielded with a couple privacy charms from Liz. She didn't think it super likely anyone would recognise them, or snap pictures that would later find their way into the papers, as noisy and chaotic and distracting as the party was, but just in case.
As super overwhelming as everyone was at the moment, they weren't kissing for very long before Liz needed to take a break — it seemed like crying for no reason would ruin the mood, so. Once Liz was composed again, she broke down the privacy charms and they returned to the clearing, quickly tracking down their group (with mind magic). They hadn't been gone for very long, as far as Liz could tell only Severus had even noticed. He seemed slightly exasperated with her for sneaking off without a responsible adult escort, but he didn't actually say anything about it...or try to stop them the second time.
(Severus was dancing with a woman when they got back — the dumbfounded looks Hermione, Dorea, and Mandy kept giving him when they didn't think he was watching were very funny — but...no, that wasn't her. Liz wasn't sure how she knew, she just did. She was still certain that tonight was important, Severus was going to meet someone, but that wasn't her.)
Liz probably had too many fried sausages (these were good, okay) and too much gin over the course of the night, but she was hardly paying attention, everything a pleasant, colourful blur. She knew they ran into various people over the night, this was apparently party central, all kinds of people Liz knew from Hogwarts sweeping in, saying hello, and then disappearing again without rhyme or reason. She remembered at one point Susan, halfway holding up a rather tipsy Hannah with an arm around her waist, very snuggly (not trying to hide it at all), noticing Liz and Daphne were holding hands — on Liz's part mostly just to keep track of her in the crowd, but the alcohol was making Daphne more, er, affectionate than usual (Liz kept catching her reminding herself to not get too handsy, which Liz appreciated) — and Susan just came out and asked, grinningly. So, Susan and Hannah knew about them now.
Liz was very awkward through that conversation, she still wasn't comfortable talking about it, but she probably hadn't needed to be — it wasn't as though they'd reacted badly. Hannah actually let out an excited squeal and almost knocked Daphne over with a leaping hug. Which seemed like a bit much to Liz, considering this had literally nothing to do with her, but she decided to just be relieved that Hannah had gone for Daphne and not her.
As messy as it was in the clearing, nobody really noticed when Liz and Daphne snuck away a few more times over the course of the night. Daphne kept distracting her with sexy thoughts, which before long led to them going off for another kissing-until-Liz-almost-started-crying-again session — she was definitely doing that on purpose. And that wasn't speculation on Liz's part, she'd caught the explicit thought that Daphne meant to do that every time, but it was fun, so it wasn't like Liz minded, or anything. As they both got more intoxicated over the course of the night, their private moments got...sillier, a lot of fumbling and almost tripping over each other, one or the other breaking into fits of giggles. As overwhelming as everything was, even while it was happening Liz was conscious of how she was hardly acting like herself at the moment, but she felt great, light and warm and tingly, and she found it entirely impossible to care.
(She wasn't sure how much of it was the alcohol, the giddiness bleeding in from the minds all around, or that she was just having fun, but it didn't really matter.)
Apparently at least some of the difficulty she'd had with the dancing early in the night was being a neurotic fucking mess, because after she was drunk enough not to care anymore they did actually do that, for a while. Liz didn't remember very clearly, but she had the feeling she was clumsy as all hell about it — but she was hardly the only one, pretty much everyone around was at least somewhat intoxicated on something by that point, so. After going at it for a while, breathless and giddy and warm, Liz and Daphne ended up kissing right there, in the open (relatively speaking, surrounded by other dancing couples). Hadn't really meant to, it'd just...happened. She would keep an eye on the society pages in the Prophet over the next week or so, but it looked like they'd gotten away with it without anyone noticing.
Which was good — it was a pretty nice memory, she would have been annoyed if mages sticking their noses into her business yet again ruined it for her.
There was a lot of kissing over the course of the night, but it didn't really go anywhere. She meant, the same thing as always, they didn't even work up to proper snogging — which Liz wasn't in any rush to do, honestly, that still seemed kind of gross to her. (Of course, her first impression of sex stuff in general had been that it seemed pretty gross, and now she touched herself on the regular, so who knows.) Liz did work up the nerve to— The way her dress was wrapped left that patch of skin over her hip showing, Liz couldn't stop herself, smooth and cool from the evening wind, the giddy thrill her touch raised carrying through Daphne's mind into hers, making her shiver, her hand slipping further back as the kissing went on, Liz's arm disappearing under Daphne's dress nearly to the elbow, the hot skin of her back interrupted at regular intervals by the line of piercings following her spine, Liz's fingers unthinkingly tracing the unseen jewellery, Daphne's breath catching in her throat, her back shifting and twitching under Liz's hand—
Liz had to take a breather pretty quick, plopping down to sit on the grassy ground, flushed and twitchy, chest choked almost painfully tight and blinking against the prickling in her eyes. Stupid fucked up brain, ugh...
Since Liz was kind of in Daphne's head pretty much the whole night, she was aware that Daphne was getting a little frustrated with her. She meant, the sexy kind of frustrated, Liz getting her, er, worked up and then not doing anything about it. Which, Daphne wasn't holding it against her at all, she was fully aware of why — well, not really, but she knew Liz wasn't ready for anything else, which was the point — but hormones could be a bitch, Liz knew what that was like. Picking up on it during one of her breathers, Liz tried to apologise for her fucked-up-edness, which Daphne shot down immediately, Liz didn't even manage to finish the first sentence, so, it clearly didn't bother her that much.
(Liz nearly said that, if Daphne was really getting that frustrated, she could just go ahead and get herself off quick, but even drunk-Liz realised that was crossing a line.)
They must have been out here for several hours by now — full dark had fallen a while ago, but it wasn't like there were any clocks around, it was impossible to tell — Liz starting to get a little tired. Hermione had tracked her down, hungry, since she'd already blown through all the money she wasn't saving for school shopping next week, and obviously Liz still had some. Except it turned out Hermione needn't have, at some point people on the square selling food and whatever had stopped bothering — or maybe some rich family or priesthood or something had agreed to cover the bill, who the fuck knows, they weren't bothering to take payment for things anymore, was the point. As long as they were here, Liz grabbed another fried sausage — they were good, okay — trying not to make a face at the cakes Hermione and Daphne had gotten — they even looked syrupy, very gross. (Daphne thought loudly enough for her to hear that she'd make sure to clean up before kissing her again which, um, more cautious than she probably had to be, but appreciated.) Liz also grabbed another shot of gin — Hermione made a face at her, thinking the combination of the spices in the sausages with the gin sounded really terrible, but Liz's taste was just like that — which maybe wasn't the best idea in the world, because she was already pretty drunk (and she was tiny), but it was fine, she didn't have to drink all of it.
Besides, Hermione and Daphne both got mugs of spiced wine with their cakes, so...though while they were both rather tipsy, Liz suspected neither were quite so intoxicated as she was. Maybe Daphne, but Hermione didn't seem that bad. Whatever. They found a spot they wouldn't be in the middle of everything to have their snack — not that there were really any open places in the square at all, but huddled close to one of the tents along the edges at least no one was walking over them, which was something. Sitting cross-legged on the grass had the shorter side of Daphne's skirt pushed way up there, showing most of the outside of her thigh nearly up to her hip, which was very distracting, Liz had to struggle to pay attention to what they were talking about...
(Hermione definitely noticed Liz's staring, smirking to herself, an odd warm bubbling in her head, but didn't comment.)
Distracted as they were with their conversation, huddled off by themselves at the edge of the noisy crowd, the three of them all tired but still giddy and giggly, they didn't notice anything was wrong, at first. The disturbance(s) did start some distance away from the square, any noise that might have come of it could easily be covered by all the talking and the music and whatever else, the crowd dense enough in this part of the camp that anyone trying to flee would naturally go around them. As huge as the campgrounds were, there could be thousands of people rioting in other sections and they might never notice.
A swath of the tents around the square suddenly bursting into flames, though, was rather hard to miss.
Theoretically, creating a magical firebomb wasn't particularly difficult — Liz could design one herself with a little bit of thought...though figuring out a delivery mechanism that wouldn't catch herself in it would take some experimentation. With all the different, weird, complicated shite potions could do, making one that set anything it touched on fire was very, very easy. That wasn't the sort of thing they taught in potions class at magical schools, of course, since encouraging teenagers to play around with explosives was generally a bad idea, but once you knew the basics of how potions worked, it wasn't difficult to figure out from first principles. Hell, you could find a way to integrate a fire charm as an ingredient, add elements to amplify the effects several times to create something way more dangerous than an ordinary mage could manage with a single spell, Liz could literally formulate that in her head in five minutes, it really wasn't complicated.
When the DLE eventually reconstructed what happened here to the best of their ability (as explained in interviews in the Prophet), they would determine that someone — naturally, the perpetrator(s) hadn't been caught, because the Ministry couldn't possibly be competent for once — had built the bombs ahead of time, the accelerant an unknown concoction including dragon's blood and ashwinder dust, and somehow snuck them onto the grounds. The "somehow" was rich, considering Liz certainly didn't remember being searched when they'd arrived, but whatever. Since making the things and orchestrating the attack would have required coordination, it was assumed this had all been planned ahead of time, but nobody really knew by whom or why. The Gaelic camp had been a target, obviously, but not the only target, it was all very complicated. There was a lot of talk in the aftermath about certain Brits being offended by the Irish team being celebrated, even that the Gaels had their own national team in the first place, had decided to do a bit of terrorism to stop them from getting any ideas. That was definitely how a lot of Gaelic mages took it, whether that was really what'd happened or not, it'd make the politics around the national question inside Britain extremely complicated over the next months — and that was without even getting into foreign countries throwing up a fuss about their citizens being injured or even killed in the violence, it was a huge fucking mess.
Of course, at the time, Liz knew absolutely nothing about that. She happened to be facing the east when the firebombs went off, so she saw the flames suddenly erupt into existence, orange chased with white and green and strips of vibrant violet, four, five different spots a good five metres wide each, stretching up into the sky — the fires tapered off, toward the tops dissolving into glittery sparks, wafting in the wind, silver and red and blue and gold, shifting and swirling in the firelight. Liz's first thought was ooh, pretty...and then the hard, frigid wave of shock crashed over her...and then she heard the screaming.
Liz scrambled up to her feet, spilling the remainder of her gin over her leg — nearly falling right back over, her head spinning — her hand going for her wand, Hermione and Daphne only a second behind her. The screaming was spreading as the fires continued to burn, the glittery sparks drifting toward the ground, the crowd shifted and surged, Daphne started casting some kind of spell, and—
Cold and hot and jittering so hard it would shake her apart, too much in all directions all at once, fear from a hundred minds tearing through her as fast and hard as lightning, she couldn't hold it—
—she was batting at hear arm, her flesh melting before her eyes, screaming for Eoghan to get—
—she tripped, hit in the side by something hard in the hip as she scrambled for her feet, grabbing onto someone's arm as they pushed past to pull herself up and—
—ducked, the hex flying over her head to hit someone past her, falling to her knees, fumbling for her wand, the fires dazzling her eyes—
—wet cloth clinging to her chest, Muirne's crying was quieting as she went still, but she couldn't stop, she—
—she grabbed for Liz as she collapsed back against the tent, her wand falling from limp fingers, but she overbalanced, falling against the canvas, sliding down to—
—her clothes caught alight, she tried to– her wand, where was her wand—
—pulling the charmed cloak over her head she ducked and ran through the gap, the inside of the tent bright with unnatural flames and the air thick with smoke, coughing, she followed the crying to—
—she yelled, reaching for where Mum had been a second ago, but someone bumped into her, she nearly fell, shoved this way and that and turned around, she didn't know where—
Liz gasped, hard enough she coughed, shivering. Her head was spinning, she could hardly see anything but smears of colour, fear and panic and confusion still clawing at her skin like all of Mrs Figg's cats all at once, but she couldn't feel Hermione and Daphne's thoughts anymore, where were—
She jumped at the hand gripping her arm, but she relaxed when she saw the bushy brown hair, Hermione. "Liz! Can you hear me, we need to move!"
"Yes, I..." Without really thinking, her free hand went to her chest, quickly finding a cool disc of metal — Hermione's mind-shielding amulet, the one Severus had made to stop her from wandering into Hermione's head in her sleep. Clever. Grabbing her arm with both hands, Hermione started helping her up, she— "Wait! Where's my wand?" She was pretty sure she'd dropped it...or was that someone else, it was hard to remember...
"I have it," Daphne said. Taking Liz's wrist, she turned her hand, slipped Liz's wand back into its holster. Mirroring the way Hermione was holding her, one hand around her wrist and the other behind her elbow, "Come on, up, the fire is spreading."
They managed to get Liz up to her feet, which was way more difficult than it should be, feeling unreasonably weak, her head still spinning. The square had largely emptied while Liz had been out of it, still some people around, pushing their way through between the tents, Liz could hear shouting and spellfire in the near distance, the colourful flames roaring and snapping, the air overhead filled with glitter— "The sparks! Don't let them touch you, they'll melt your skin."
Hermione gasped, her hand clenching tighter around Liz's. With a flash of something cold and hard (what was...?), Daphne said, "I've got it." She pulled out her wand, traced a cut in her wrist, she drew a pair of runes with her own blood directly on their skin, first on Liz, then Hermione, and then herself — turn and wind — the spell taking with a sharp snap, Liz's skin crawling with pins and needles for a second before fading away. "That should do it, don't wipe off the blood. Let's go."
Still dizzy from whatever the hell that episode had been, not to mention numb and tingly from the alcohol, the intense feelings of everyone around her like a thick soup, making it hard to breathe, thousands of needles slashing through her skin and burning as they went, hard enough it hurt, tears stinging in her eyes, she— She hardly took in much of what was happening around her. While she'd been out...Daphne, she thought, had cast some kind of charm, orange spellglow connecting herself to Liz and Liz to Hermione, wrapping around each of their waists. Liz grabbed at it, a little surprised that she could actually touch it, it had a bit of give but seemed pretty firm, probably meant to keep themselves from losing each other in the crowd. And there was a crowd, they were pretty close to the back, people pressing through the path between tents, jostling each other, the panic thick, the near sides of the tents getting nudged and trampled, people getting trampled, Liz nearly tripped over someone. And through it all her skin kept burning and her head spinning, she could hardly breath, could hardly even see, Daphne and Hermione both with a grip on her arms, it was all Liz could do to just keep walking — and she wasn't managing that very well either, kept stumbling...
The wind brought the sparks in their direction — not very many, just a few twinkles in the air, they weren't quite upwind. Where the sparks landed clothing burst into greenish-orange flames, screaming, people scrambling back away, the three of them suddenly tipped back a few steps by the force of the crowd. It took unreasonably long for anyone to help, water cast here and here after too many seconds, she— Oh right, wands were expensive, a lot of ordinary people didn't have them, forgot. Anyway, the fires were being put out, the crowd starting to move again, even more eagerly than before, they—
Liz winced at the sudden harsh chill sweeping over her, just for a second before the hot needles were at it again — someone nearby must have just died.
...She'd had no idea she could feel it when people die, must be a Seer thing.
"Look!" Daphne was pointing up at the sky, somewhere to the left. Someone had projected an illusion in the sky, an image in white-gold light — cupped hands, holding a little stylised flame. "That way, let's go."
"What is that?" Hermione asked, but she followed along anyway. The crowd had reacted to the illusion too, streaming more to the left now, weaving at random between the tents, the fear surrounding Liz dulled a little, chased with a nudging tingle she didn't know how to read. Obviously this was the way to go now, but Hermione being Hermione she still had to ask.
Daphne said only "Sanctuary," but Liz guessed that was enough.
They weren't even quite out of the main path yet — the gaps between the tents over here were narrower, a bottleneck, the press of the crowd stubbornly squeezing its way through (and trampling tents a little in places) — when Liz jumped at a heavy hand falling on her shoulder. She was startled, a little, but she couldn't help feeling a little relieved Severus had found them.
...Liz had no idea how she could tell it was Severus. She couldn't feel his mind at all, she just knew.
"Good, you're together." The words came through perfectly clear despite the noise of the crowd, but it didn't sound like he was raising his voice at all — he did the same thing in classes, heard by everyone despite speaking in a whisper, or in Slytherin House Meetings, she still didn't know how that worked. "Is anyone injured?" He didn't pause for the answer, his hand on her shoulder gently but firmly pushing her forward, still moving with the crowd.
"We're okay, what's happening?"
Severus didn't answer the question, which Liz guessed was fair, he probably didn't know either. Daphne held up the wrist she'd cut to do her spell, the hand holding on to Liz moving her arm so he could see the runes over their shoulders. A flash of something she couldn't read over the panic of the crowd, he sighed, his wand appearing from behind her, tracing over Daphne's wrist — he didn't heal it, it didn't look any different to Liz. "Tell me if that begins clotting."
"I will. What about Dorea and Mandy?"
"Oh no, I forgot—! Professor, what if they're still back there? We have to find them!"
There was a brief pause, and then an unpleasant stinging cold washed over her, like stepping out in the dead of winter — at the same time as the hot scraping panic, which felt very weird. "Idiot mongrel. I have Liz, Greengrass, and Granger. I'm missing your daughter and Brocklehurst." The chill faded, his patronus presumably flying off to find Sirius.
It was kind of funny that he was apparently addressing the message to idiot mongrel. She was aware that Severus and Sirius were only playing nice for her benefit, but the confirmation that they still hated each other, such a little simple silly thing, still had her breathlessly giggling, her head swimming.
"Elizabeth? Are you alright?"
Liz couldn't breathe at the moment, the air too thick with fear and hatred and death, Hermione got there first. "I think it's the crowd, she almost passed out earlier, I gave her my necklace, but I don't know how much it's helping."
Severus reached around, his hand passing by the side of her face to find the medallion hanging from her neck — which was a little awkward, Liz was certain she'd be very uncomfortable with that normally, but she was a little too out of it at the moment to care, too busy trying to keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other, her head spinning and her stomach lurching. Dropping the medallion, letting it bounce back against her chest, he said, "Just keep breathing, Elizabeth. We're almost there."
That was easy for him to say, he was just a normal mind mage, not some weird—
Oh. Her mind was shielded right now, but she definitely still could feel shite from people around her. She guessed Severus had been right about the psychometry thing, then...
Distracted by that thought, she didn't notice sparks were wafting their way again before she heard the screaming, jostled around, people trying to scramble for cover. His hand tightening on her shoulder a little, Severus cursed, a sharp pulse of magic bursting out of him. There was a flash of light, it was hard to tell, her head still spinning — almost worse now, and she was really starting to feel sick — but he thought she'd cast some kind of paling over the crowd, keeping the sparks from falling on them. He didn't cover everyone, of course, Severus was powerful but not that powerful, there were still flickers of fire in the near distance, agony and terror crawling across the air—
Liz twitched at another blast of cold, a shout of, "OH THANK GOD, I was looking for them and I couldn't— Right, I have Dorea and Mandy, they're fine. Call me when you're clear." The patronus dissolved again, leaving only the harsh panic clawing at her, Liz cringed. But she also felt the relief from both Hermione and Daphne, still sizzling with fear and confusion but not so pressing now, now that they had Severus with them and the others were okay, and there was a glow ahead, under the symbol projected into the air — huge up close, but still at the same viewing angle somehow — a glow near the ground, wards, maybe? The crowd was bottlenecking a little again up ahead, but she could make out a clearing over there, tents smashed out of the way to make an open safe space, they were almost there...
The crowd pressing in on all sides, Liz couldn't see shite, too damn short, so firmly she swore her feet left the ground for a moment, carried along with the crowd, passing under a golden, scintillating shimmer, some kind of wardline, before loosening again on the other side, Liz stumbling as people spread out a little. It was noisy in here, people shouting, the air so thick with magic she could taste it, an edge of song at the edge of her hearing, but Liz couldn't see anything, her head spinning, her vision swirling into colourful nonsense. There were people waving the crowd on, in duelling stuff, maybe? yelling what she thought were directions but they were in Gaelic. Liz just followed Hermione and Daphne, Severus still pushing her along, presumably someone knew what was going on...
Liz nearly stumbled when they reached a hole in the ground, a flight of stairs, just...going down into the dirt, out of nowhere. Okay, then? They were still surrounded by people, tight enough that if Liz did trip — which, as numb and dizzy as she felt right now, was not out of the question — she'd probably just hitch up against the people right in front of her (a family, the parents and an older teenager all carrying smaller, crying children) and not actually fall very far anyway. After a bit going down, down, the air turning warm and smooth and fragrant with burning herbs, they came into a wide open area. There was a lot of low chatter, people all over the place, children crying, people yelling for help, people in robes running around, healers maybe? Liz didn't know, she still couldn't see shite. It looked like they were in a big wide hall somewhere, the floors and walls wood panels all of a sudden, which was bloody weird, what was this doing here?
Someone near the bottom of the stairs, Liz didn't understand a word but gave off the impression of being in charge anyway, was waving the people coming in this or that way, presumably giving them some kind of instructions. They were directed to the left, Liz didn't know what was going on, but Severus kept pushing her on so kept walking, legs numb and stiff. On through packs of people sitting here, and here, and here, fear still sizzling on the air but much calmer than things had been above ground — the relief was thick enough from some people that Liz felt tears sting in her eyes, very convinced that nothing would happen to them now, they were safe. There must be some reason they thought that, what the hell was this place, who had put this here...
Eventually Severus stopped, in an open patch of floor that was apparently their spot. Some flicks from his wand, he conjured some armchairs and a bed, simple metal frame and plain white sheets. "You can break the tether now. Do you need me to heal that for you?"
"No, I have it. Liz really isn't looking too good."
"I'm not surprised — she is a Seer, and I imagine wearing that amulet in the present environment is exceedingly uncomfortable. Here, Elizabeth, sit down..."
Liz was directed to the edge of the bed, her stiff legs protesting, tingling as she gingerly set herself down, half-supported by Severus and Hermione on either side. Despite the intensity of the fear clawing at her not being nearly as bad anymore, she still kind of hurt — not any specific thing, couldn't say where it was coming from exactly, just in general. Also, she was really starting to feel sick, for some reason sitting down had her stomach twisting even worse, aching, bile crawling up her throat, her head swimming. "Ooh, I'm gonna be sick..."
"I'd be surprised if you didn't." The strap of her bag was lifted from her shoulder, passed over her head, let flop down to the floor. A large bowl was pressed into her lap, the smooth ceramic tingling against her fingers, conjured. "The removal of the amulet is going to feel very unpleasant, like tearing off a plaster, but it won't do any permanent damage."
"What, why is it affecting her so badly? I wear it all through the night, and I don't notice anything..."
"When I gave the amulet to you, what instructions did it come with?"
"Er, I'm not supposed to cast magic wearing it, but Liz hasn't done anything..."
"Oh, I get it," Liz muttered. She was always casting magic, basically, pushing magic through her mind and out — that was why she was so bloody loud all the time, why Daphne could feel her magic even when she wasn't doing anything at the time. Liz had no idea why casting magic while using this mind-shielding thing was bad, but Severus wouldn't have told Hermione not to if there wasn't a good reason. "Oops."
"If Elizabeth truly was incapacitated by the panic of the crowd, it was the only option available to you under the circumstances. You both demonstrated quick thinking under stress, you did well." Even through this thing, Liz could feel Hermione's surprise at actually getting a compliment from Severus. "But we must get this off immediately. Afterward, I'm going to put you to sleep as your mind rebalances — did you bring a calming potion with you?"
Liz nodded, and oooh, that was a mistake, she grit her teeth, trying not to sick up. "In my bag."
"If one of you could retrieve that for me." There was more magic, Severus conjuring...a little side table, that was probably a glass of water? Crouching in front of her, he pulled the medallion away from her chest again, holding it between a thumb and a finger. "They're calling for volunteers to help hold the wardline, I may not be here when you wake up. This area is being held by the Caoimhes and various priesthoods — it's perfectly safe. In the extremely unlikely event that someone attempts to harm any of you, go to any of the people down here with long hair and robes and ask for help. Understood?"
A couple noises of assent from the other two, Liz hesitated for a moment, biting her lip. If she weren't drunk and scattered from everyone's feelings battering her and whatever the fuck was going on with Hermione's mind-shielding thing, she probably would have stopped herself from saying, "Be careful."
There was a flicker from Severus, something squirming and sharp and warm-cold she didn't know how to read brushing over her for a second. "I'll be fine, Elizabeth." One hand on her shoulder, the other holding the medallion, "Ready?"
She grimaced — this sounded like it was going to be really uncomfortable, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been sick. Um, when she'd gotten in that fight with that piece of the Dark Lord trapped in her scars, actually she was pretty sure that'd been it. This was going to be miserable and painful and gross, being a mind mage sucked sometimes. But she really didn't have a choice in the matter, so after a few shaky breaths she muttered, "Do it."
፠
Afterward, Liz didn't clearly remember the mind-shielding amulet being removed. Severus had been underselling it with the comparison to a plaster being torn off — it reminded her more of that incident with that soul fragment of the Dark Lord, a piece of her being ripped away, painful in a way she didn't have words to describe. It hadn't lasted very long, thankfully. She was sure she'd been sick, but she didn't remember that either, too delirious from whatever the fuck to pick out any details.
By the time Liz woke up, this weird underground room had calmed significantly. There was still chatter going on, low murmurs making a low hiss of constant noise, but the general feel of the room was much smoother, cooler than it'd been before — someone had turned the lights down, Liz assumed the people who could sleep at the moment probably were. Someone had removed her boots, on the floor near the foot of the bed, her gloves and wand holster, her necklace and her bracelets, all set on the conjured bedside table. A little shaky, weak and sore, Liz pushed herself to sitting, wincing against a headache. Apparently her hangover was starting to kick in already. There was still water sitting on the table, so Liz drained some of that, which should help a little, hopefully...
Hermione was sitting in one of the armchairs, curled up with a book she must have had squirrelled away in her bag — Liz was not at all surprised — nervously fidgeting with the edges of the page, her hair, gnawing on her lip. Daphne was asleep, laid out on her back on the opposite side of the bed — it was bigger than Liz had thought, someone must have transfigured it wider at some point. There was a neat square of colourful cloth folded on a second, identical bedside table, Daphne's dress.
Liz fought off the urge to pull down the covers. She doubted Daphne would give a damn if she peeked, but Hermione was sitting right there...
Slowly and carefully, trying not to wake up Daphne, Liz got out of the bed and went over to the open armchair instead, bringing her wand holster and the empty glass with her. Flopping down with a sigh, she muttered, "Hey. Condensare," tapping her wand against the glass, refilling it with water pulled from the air. She wasn't at a point she could conjure a glass herself, but summoning water was trivial, they'd learned that in, what, second year...
Well, she'd learned it in second year — she thought it was actually a more advanced charm than that. Whatever.
"Hey. Feeling better?"
"Yeah. Other than mild hangover stuff, I guess." She kind of expected she would have to pee, but she didn't really. If she had to guess, Severus hadn't known how long she'd be asleep — she knew there were medical charms to get rid of stuff so immobile patients didn't need to struggle to the toilet, but.
There was a shiver of relief, warm and sticky, Liz rolled her shoulders. "I am sorry about the, you know," Hermione whispered, a bit sheepishly, low to avoid waking Daphne. "I had no idea the mind-ward would be so bad for you. Snape explained about how mind mages often instinctively channel magic, and you would have saturated the internal space, and I don't understand the mechanics, exactly, but..."
It sounded like Severus had told Hermione — or at least described it in such a way that Hermione inferred — that Liz's mind being bloody loud all the time was a general thing all mind mages did, and not just a problem particular to Liz, for fucked-up abuse reasons. That was nice of him, she guessed. "It's fine, Hermione, I didn't know it'd be a problem either. I know a charm that probably would have worked better, but I wasn't in any state to cast it at the time." And depending on what Severus meant by saturating the internal space, there'd probably be a similar problem if it was cast with someone else's magic, but she wasn't certain. "And like he said earlier, you had to get me out of there somehow. It's fine."
Despite not knowing it would be bad for Liz and having no other real options, Hermione still felt a bit guilty about it. Which was silly, but there was nothing Liz could do about that, so.
Apparently, Liz had been out for at least a couple hours — there weren't clocks in here, and Hermione had never thought to check with the charm, so she didn't know exactly. More people had continued streaming down here for a little bit after Liz had passed out, but it'd trickled off not too long later. There'd been some news from upstairs, occasional sounds of shouting and fighting making its way down, but for the most part it was pretty quiet, people just waiting for the fuss to be over. Supposedly the people who'd been firebombing the Gaelic camp had either all been killed or fled — a few of their potions-bombs had even been thrown at the little sanctuary here, but the wards and defenders had taken care of it before too many people got hurt — but it was still a bit of a mess up there.
It looked like the firebombers weren't the only group who'd decided to do a bit of terrorism...or maybe they were coordinating, at this point it was impossible to say. There'd also been violence on the British side of the camp starting at more or less the same time, mostly done with charmwork rather than the damn freaky fires they had over here. They didn't have a clear picture of who they'd been targeting — it was too early, she'd have to wait for the papers to get the full story — but it'd also spread into nearby camps, particularly the Saxons and the Scandinavians. Supposedly there'd been some pretty serious dark magic going on over there, but Hermione was somewhat sceptical, since nobody here had personally seen any of it, could just be rumour.
What wasn't rumour, though, was the Dark Mark floating in the air over the British camp — that one Hermione definitely believed, there'd been a bit of a panic, nervous chattering reaching them even safe down here. That was a thing from the war, Liz knew, an illusion that the Death Eaters would leave over a particularly noteworthy assassination or arson or whatever, a kind of calling-card. As far as she was aware, it hadn't been seen anywhere in the Isles since the last of the inner-circle Death Eaters had been captured in the summer of '82. (Most of the Death Eaters had surrendered or gone back to their ordinary lives with the Dark Lord's disappearance, only a few continued the fight but hadn't lasted very long.) It was possible those people and the firebombers were the same group, or at least coordinated, since the Death Eaters weren't big supporters of Gaelic independence either, but it was too early to say.
Of course, a few small groups doing some terrorism had sparked off panic, really not helped along by everyone being keyed up from the match and in various states of intoxication. Further away from the centre of the violence, people didn't know what all the yelling and shoving was about, so then yelled and shoved back, which then just made people freak out more, and... Yeah, basically there'd been a huge fucking riot — except with magic which, as you might expect, made everything a whole hell of a lot worse. Hermione didn't know much about what was going on, exactly, since she'd been down here the whole time, but supposedly the violence had mostly ended, or had at least moved on from where they were. The priests were keeping the wards up for now — apparently this little emergency shelter had been thrown together mostly by the weird magical Gaelic clergy, who were here for whatever reason — but according to the last Saoirse person Hermione had talked to the danger was passed. Though who knew how long they'd be waiting, the Ministry would have to portkey everyone out, so...
"Saoirse?" Liz repeated, frowning to herself. Hermione had said that like Liz should know what it meant — sounded Gaelic...
"Yeah, apparently they came with the priests for security, or in case of an emergency." There was an odd feel to Hermione's head, and not just because there had ended up being an emergency. Something wary and...Liz didn't know. Liz didn't think she wished these Saoirse people weren't here — they were keeping Hermione and all these other people safe from the terrorist attack and the rioting, after all — but still not super happy about it, for some reason.
"No, I mean, who is that?"
With a flash of exasperation, Hermione gave her a somewhat baffled look. "Saoirse Ghaelach? The nationalist militia?"
"Oh! Is that how you say that out loud? I've only ever seen it in print." Cambrian spelling was...mostly regular — there were still some stupid things, you couldn't guess with complete certainty how something was supposed to be pronounced from the spelling — but Gaelic was bloody impossible. She actually knew Gaelach, since it was just Gaelic in Gaelic (in the sense of people or things, like Cymreig in Cambrian), but Liz would never have guessed saoirse was pronounced "sear-sha", fucking ridiculous. Not that she could even say that right anyway, fucking Rs...
Anyway, yeah, she was vaguely familiar with Saoirse Ghaelach — they turned up in the papers now and then. Liz didn't pay that much attention, but she thought they were...kind of like the magical IRA? Except they didn't send people letter-bombs, or try to assassinate the Minister. As far as she could tell, they didn't really do much of anything. They kind of acted in parallel to the DLE, you know, taking care of normal police stuff in Gaelic communities, on one notable occasion Liz had read about taking out a group of infamous vampire serial murderers. (Vampires were basically just people, but sometimes people were bastards.) There were Patrolmen posted in the Refuge, yes, but a lot of people could be kind of hostile to them, and the Aurors were hardly ever called in (except if the Patromen did it themselves), the locals very much preferring to rely on Saoirse. Which she guessed was something that could happen when you were occupying a people who didn't really appreciate it — it'd probably go smoother if the Ministry had the sense to recruit more Gaelic Patrolmen and Aurors, but the Ministry couldn't possibly be expected to be competent.
Liz had seen posters up with the local rules in the market near her house, how to call for help if they needed something, which was where she saw the name the most often. She'd seen members before, hanging around here and there, but she'd never actually spoken to one. She was pretty sure the militia was just part of Saoirse Ghaelach, and they had people doing other shite too, since they were the centre of the nationalist movement these days, but Liz knew basically nothing about it all. If a war for independence did break out, it was the militia who'd be directly fighting the Hit Wizards, but obviously the Gaels would need people doing other jobs too, she was sure they knew that.
Honestly, she was still learning about all this, so who could say whether this would change or not, but she didn't give a damn about whether the Gaels stayed in magical Britain or not. It just kind of didn't feel like her business? Like, sure, if they wanted to have their own country, let them, but she wasn't Gaelic, she didn't get an opinion. (She was English, her opinion double didn't count.) So she'd mostly ignored any of the nationalist stuff going on at the Refuge, just kept her head down. Hopefully, if they did try to secede any time soon, they'd decide she wasn't bothering anyone and let her keep her house — she did like actually having one of those...
Hermione hadn't realised just how numerous Saoirse Ghaelach's militia was, and how well-regarded among Gaels they must be for nobody here to think it was odd to find them taking charge in an emergency. (Which was a little silly, since there were always a couple keeping watch at the market, but whatever.) And that was concerning, because she didn't want to live through a civil war, which was fair enough. Liz didn't think that was super likely, at least not any time soon — the Gaels didn't have much political or economic power, but for the most part they weren't being actively suppressed, so long as the Ministry didn't turn up the pressure for the hell of it they'd probably be fine for now — but being a little nervous about it was understandable.
And that was pretty much it, Liz hadn't missed much. Hermione was a little anxious to get back to their tent, since she did have things in there and she didn't know how bad the damage was in the camp, especially since theirs happened to be right on the border between the Brits and the Gaels. But, other than that, just hanging around waiting for Severus to show up again...so then they could hang around and wait for the Ministry to start portkeying people out. Once Liz was caught up, there really wasn't much else to say. So Liz got out her own book that she'd stashed in her bag, to wait it out.
The magical British fiction she'd stumbled across that actually caught her attention had already run dry, for the most part — the ones printed in English, at least, her Cambrian wasn't good enough yet for that to seem like a good idea. There was maybe some more good stuff out there, but it was pretty difficult to navigate this stuff, since different publishers had different catalogues, and there was no way to tell what was good and what was shite, it was a mess. She was considering looking into finding some French magical books, should be relatively simple to just take the floo down and wander around a bookstore, hadn't decided if she wanted to bother yet.
Especially since she had a huge damn bookworm right here, so she could just ask what was good. Some of Hermione's first suggestions were fantasy books, but Liz wasn't really interested in those — ever since she started learning real magic, reading fantasy books by muggles she kept thinking to herself hey, that's not how magic works, it could be a bit confusing. After confirming she could read books for adults without any trouble — Liz assumed she'd absorbed stuff from people with mind magic somehow, her vocabulary and whatever else had jumped unnaturally quickly after it kicked in — one of the first authors Hermione had recommended was some American woman called Ursula LeGuin, had packed a few of her books to bring with her to Liz's house for her to read. She was starting with one of the shorter ones, The Lathe of Heaven, to get a feel for it.
And, um, this was certainly...a book. It was trippy as hell, Liz wasn't entirely sure she understood what was going on. She meant, it wasn't hard to read, it wasn't like it was super dense or anything, it was just kind of weird, and she didn't think she quite got what it was trying to say. Especially since she'd gotten pretty deep into it now, and things were going pretty well off the rails at this point — like, the main character was getting increasingly concerned that they were literally going to break reality itself — it was pretty nuts.
It was kind of amusing that the only way George could imagine world peace happening was if there was an alien invasion — Liz was pretty sure even that wouldn't work, since people historically fought in crises all the time, but it was still funny.
It was pretty slow going, not because the book was weird and trippy (though it was), but because it was late, Liz had hardly slept much, she was taking sentence by sentence slower than she normally would just to make sure she didn't miss anything. The room around them actually got quieter as she and Hermione read, more people drifting off to sleep, the air around her fuzzy and randomly shifting with dozens of people dreaming. Kind of like static, but smooth and cool, it was hard to describe exactly. It was weirdly soothing, no idea why, Liz kind of spaced out, absorbed in her book and all warm and comfortable, her headache thankfully not too bad, she completely lost track of time.
So she was a little startled when, some dozens of pages later, an armchair was conjured nearby with a crackle of magic and a low thump. Severus flopped into it with a wordless sigh, reclining at a somewhat awkward angle, hands hanging bonelessly off the armrests, head tilted against the back enough to mostly hide his face from Liz's angle (because she was so short). He looked exhausted, pale and strained — Liz was forcibly reminded of that one time last autumn, when he'd been teaching her to brew the nutrient potion and he'd seemed on the edge of just passing out at the table. It was late, and Severus had both gone to bed after her last night and woken up before her this morning, and there had been fighting and whatever going on, so Liz wasn't surprised, exactly...
"Was it really that bad out there?" Liz hadn't been that worried about it, honestly — before going to sleep she'd been too preoccupied to think about it, and after waking up, well, Severus was a very competent mage, and there were wards and other fighters covering him, right? Yeah, he'd be fine. But in retrospect, she... She wasn't sure what would happen with her legal stuff if he wasn't around anymore, that wasn't something she wanted to think about...
Severus let out a low hum, reaching up to rub at his cheeks with both hands. "Not so bad. There were a handful of attempts on the wards, but for the most part we were left alone. I volunteered to help with the injured."
Ah, right, that made sense — there wasn't a public floo here, and there were anti-apparation wards covering the camp, so they'd have to take care of anyone who got hurt as best they could without help. Supposedly a lot of the priests were pretty damn good healers, so Severus wouldn't have been working alone, but healing magic was pretty exhausting, supposedly. And they didn't even have potions on hand, so they wouldn't be able to lean on those for shortcuts...
"Any news on what happened up there?" Hermione asked. "We haven't really heard anything..."
"I'm certain the Ministry and the I.C.W. will investigate the incident, and we'll learn more of it later. As of now, I can tell you we know nothing about those responsible for the alchemical explosives — the perpetrators fled, and the bodies of the few who were killed or incapacitated were destroyed in the fires. I didn't see it myself, but I'm told the attackers in the British camp were wearing Death Eater regalia." Concealing black robes and white masks, Liz had seen pictures.
"So someone did cast the Dark Mark, then."
"Yes. It seems to have been used as a signal for the different groups to break off the attack — once it was cast, they all scattered and disappeared into the crowd. And of course I know even less of the unrest in foreign camps, but I assume that can be written off as confusion and the occasional common rioting."
"What does that mean? The Dark Mark and the Death Eaters, are they...?"
Letting out a thin sigh, an exasperated shiver brushing against Liz, Severus tipped his head down enough to give Hermione a look. "What makes you think I have the slightest clue?"
Hermione decided not to point out that Severus himself had been a Death Eater, and personally knew all the most important ones. He was even still friends with some of them, they might have said something? Instead, she said, "I don't know, Liz and I are both basically muggleborns, and you know a lot more about magical politics and the people involved. I just thought you might know something we don't."
For a moment, Severus just kept blankly staring at Hermione, making her increasingly uncomfortable by the second — she hadn't said the you were one of them, obviously part out loud, but Severus was smart enough to guess she'd thought it anyway. "It's possible we will learn more in the days and weeks to come, but until then I'm as in the dark as you are. It is notable that the attackers were able to dissolve into the crowd so easily. Perhaps the cloaks and masks were conjuration, or illusion, easily dismissed once they were no longer necessary. The enchantments on the true articles would have prevented transfiguring them into a more innocuous form. If they were imitations, the attackers needn't necessarily have been Death Eaters, though the use of the Dark Mark would suggest otherwise — only those the Dark Lord personally Marked were taught that spell. Perhaps they were former Death Eaters, and used conjured substitutes to more easily slip away; perhaps whoever cast the Dark Mark learned the spell by some other means, taught by a relative or associate. It's impossible to say."
"So this isn't, you know, a Death Eater thing."
"I suspect it was a Death Eater thing — not in the sense of a resumption of the war, but an outgrowth of the politics of the moment. As you are no doubt aware, there is a realignment in the Wizengamot currently in progress. The internal politics of the Allied Dark have become quite...difficult. I would not be surprised if a handful of families used the opportunity of the party after the final match to vent their frustrations with various parties. I don't believe the events of tonight presage further violence to come, but were rather nothing more than foolish stubbornness."
"...So Voldemort isn't back."
Severus's eyes tipped up to the ceiling for a second. "I assure you, Hermione, if the Dark Lord had returned, I would know."
"Are you sure? I mean, you're not, ah..." Hermione trailed off, glancing at Liz — she thought it was pretty obvious that his former comrades would be very sceptical of his loyalties, so might not keep him in the loop. "You're sure?"
"Yes." He hesitated for a second, then let out a long, weary sigh. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees, he quick cast a privacy paling — simple avoidance charm, Liz thought. Obvious revulsion and reluctance twisting and sparking in his head, he rolled up his left sleeve...showing the angry reddish scars on his forearm. The Dark Mark, though hardly recognisable, what had been a vivid black tattoo reduced to a blotchy red blot, like a half-healed burn.
Liz had known Severus had one since probably some point in first year, of course, but she'd never actually seen it in person — he always wore long sleeves, likely with the explicit intent of keeping it covered. The one exception had been when he'd done that ritual to heal her back, but she hadn't noticed it at the time, only spotted it going over the memory later. The only one she'd seen in real life had been on Peter Pettigrew. Hermione was as surprised as Liz was that Severus was actually showing the thing to them, her mind going cool and smooth, like polished steel, silently staring wide-eyed at his forearm.
"I assume you know what this is meant to look like, from textbooks."
It took a moment for Hermione to find her voice, feeling uncharacteristically numb and slow. "Yes. It's supposed to be black."
"The moment the Dark Lord was defeated, every single person bearing the Mark knew immediately — we could feel it, the violently interacting magics burning through his connection with his Mark, as though a fire burning beneath our skin. In the aftermath, it had been reduced to—" Severus's eyes dropped down to his own forearm for the first time, and he abruptly cut off, a harsh sharp flash of shock slashing through him. His head tilting, he leaned down a little closer, his right thumb rubbing along the edge of the mark, a creeping tingle crawling over Liz's neck.
When he just kept staring at the thing, Hermione's mind shifting with confusion and dread, Liz asked, "What's wrong?"
It took a moment, Severus distracted examining the Mark, debating whether he wanted to tell them. Finally, he admitted, "It's grown more red."
He was definitely freaking Hermione out, but Liz wasn't certain whether that actually meant anything. It was a dark curse scar, basically, and Severus had just done a bunch of healing, which had almost certainly required casting plenty of light magic — light and dark magic interfered with each other, and that couldn't be a good thing to have going on inside your body. That was basically why casting light magic was so unpleasant for Liz just, you know, more. That curse scars might get a little inflamed while doing light magic just made sense to Liz. But Hermione didn't necessarily have that context — and also actually seeing what was basically a Nazi tattoo on her Potions Professor was kind of creeping her out, and she didn't want to live through a genocide targetted at people like her any more than a civil war, okay — so that the Mark was getting darker was making her very, very nervous. "What does that mean?"
"...Very little, I suspect. Perhaps the Dark Lord has secured a temporary vessel, or is simply more magically active. I am certain that, should he be restored to a permanent body, the Mark would be fully restored as well." Slowly, Severus smoothed his sleeve back down — his voice was still mostly smooth and calm, but Liz could tell he felt rather more unsettled than he was playing it off for Hermione. "I will check with...certain contacts of mine for rumours of activity from the Dark Lord, but I seriously doubt that whatever he may or may not be up to has anything to do with the events of this evening. If the Dark Lord returned, I am certain I would know immediately, and you would learn of it not long later — dark lords aren't generally known for their subtlety."
Liz couldn't help letting out a little snort, Hermione shooting her a look. "What? He puts skulls on bloody everything, even his followers wear masks that kind of look like skulls, and he called himself Voldemort. He's trying so hard to be all dark and cool and dramatic, it's embarrassing."
Hermione kept giving her a flat, disapproving look, but Liz could feel the twitter of reluctant amusement in her head. So there.
There wasn't much left to say after that, and Severus had gone into a kind of broody, contemplative mood, so Liz and Hermione just...went back to reading. They'd still be waiting who knew how long for a portkey, and it wasn't like they could actually do anything about the firebombings or the Death Eaters (copycats?) or Severus's Mark maybe darkening — especially since any evidence around for the first two had probably been burned up in the fires or trampled by panicking people and the rioting or whatever, and the last one could be bloody anything, who the fuck knew, curse scars were unpredictable sometimes. Not like they had anything better to do, so.
Though this time they weren't left alone for very long — she'd only managed to make it through a few pages before someone was walking up to their little group. Liz had seen people dressed like that enough to immediately recognise it as the uniform Saoirse Ghaelach's militia wore, light duelling leathers in brown edged with yellow, half-covered with sashes and a cloak in green and white. She was a little messy, ash and dirt streaked across her clothes here and there, and even spots of what Liz was pretty sure was blood. Black hair pulled back in a long plait, her head and face were uncovered, but it could be hard to guess how old mages were sometimes — definitely too old to still be in school, but beyond that Liz couldn't really guess. As she got closer Liz could better make out the designs in the leather, here and there along the hems of the sashes, sunbursts and wands...no, the pointy wedge at the tips, those were spears, in a couple places wolf heads with gaping, snarling jaws. More little abstract details than you'd expect from what was basically a military uniform, but the mages had different—
Liz felt herself tense in her chair, blinking. As the woman got close, into conversational distance, the air around her turned thick and tingly, prickling at her skin, pleasantly cool like a clear spring day, fluttering in these odd little pulses, in and out and in and out. That wasn't the woman's mind Liz was feeling — her occlumency was very solid — no, that was her magic. The capacity for people's bodies to channel magic increased with each spell cast, by tiny degrees accumulating over time, a small percentage of powerful mages getting to a point that they channelled energy so efficiently that they were basically pushing magic out into the environment all the time — technically, all mages were always doing that, that's what an aura was, but in these especially powerful mages the intensity was great enough that other people could actually feel it. With how mages could be about magical power, it shouldn't be a surprise there were all kinds of cultural stuff around sorcerers, as they were called, it was a whole thing. Liz's mind magic was getting thick enough people were starting to notice it — Daphne did, at least, it didn't happen very often yet — but that was a different thing, and technically didn't count. This woman, though, was definitely a sorceress.
She wasn't the first one Liz had met — Severus, Flitwick, and Dumbledore were all sorcerers too. Just, they kept themselves contained enough as a matter of habit that she only rarely noticed. This woman didn't seem to be bothering to hide it at all.
She seemed...kind of familiar. Liz had the vague feeling that she'd met this woman before, but she couldn't place her...
Coming to a stop standing over Severus's chair, the woman said, "You're the British healer? The one who was helping out above, earlier." She had a noticeable Gaelic accent, but it was pretty subtle, enough that it could easily be mistaken for a muggle Irish one.
Liz noticed a slight hint of wariness from Severus, didn't know what that was about. "I am. Is there a problem?"
"No problem, I simply wished to pass on thanks from na fáithe for the help. I'm told you did more than your fair share of healing up there."
"No thanks are necessary," Severus said, sounding weirdly awkward — Liz wondered how often people he helped actually thanked him. (Liz thought she only had maybe a couple times herself.) Or, she guessed there could be political stuff going on here she wasn't aware of, Saoirse were big-time nationalists and everything. "We could hardly take advantage of the sanctuary being offered without contributing to the defence."
"All the same, na fáithe feel we owe you a debt. You know how religious people can be, it's easier to just humour them." Implying this woman wasn't herself religious, Liz guessed — she thought that was actually kind of rare for Gaelic mages, but she was hardly an expert. "I'll pass your name on, we'll remember what you did here. Síomha Ní Ailbhe," she said, holding a hand down toward him.
There was a little mental flinch from Hermione, her breath catching for a second, Liz's eyes drawn her way. The name was vaguely familiar to Liz, she was sure she must have heard it somewhere — or, maybe it was just that Síomha was a common name, and there were plenty of Ailbhes — she assumed Hermione actually remembered who this was. Severus didn't seem surprised at all, so either he'd already known or this Síomha person wasn't actually anyone important. Shifting into a somewhat less awkward sitting position (Síomha was kind of blocking him from standing up), he shook her hand, in the way the mages did, gripping each other's wrists. "Severus Snape."
A shiver of surprise leaking through Síomha's occlumency, she froze, one eyebrow ticking up. "Really."
"Yes."
For long seconds Síomha stared down at him, her face mostly blank but faint hints of surprise and confusion slipping out of her head. Severus was well-known, after all — first because of the scandal around his being exonerated at the end of the war, and then again with all of Liz's custody stuff — that he'd been a Death Eater was definitely not a secret. Since Death Eaters also happened to be hardcore British nationalists, Liz guessed Síomha would never have expected to find one helping out a bunch of Gaels (even if he was a traitor). Belatedly, she released his arm, eyes jumping over Liz, Hermione, and the bed.
Severus must have noticed her attention wandering too. "My ward Elizabeth Potter, and her classmate Hermione Granger. And Daphne Greengrass," he added, with a prickle of exasperation. Liz glanced that way to see Daphne had apparently been woken up at some point — she was sitting up, hair a scattered blonde halo around her head and the blanket hugged to her chest, blearily blinking at Síomha. The exasperation was probably because Daphne was hardly properly dressed, but she had been asleep a minute ago...
(With the way she was holding the blanket she was covering everything important, but at Liz's angle she could see her side all the way down to where her leggings, which she'd apparently put back on while Liz slept, started at her hip, and Liz forced herself to look away before she could get distracted.)
Síomha paused for a moment, clearly taken aback, before giving them all a quick nod; Daphne said something in Gaelic, slurred and half-asleep, Síomha said something back. "My uncle told me about you meeting the team, a few days ago," she said to Liz.
After a couple seconds, Liz realised there wasn't more coming, Síomha had just inexplicably stopped there, silently staring at her. Liz noticed her eyes were green — not the same green, Liz's were an unnaturally vibrant green she assumed someone had made with blood alchemy at some point, but a normal person green. Anyway, she wasn't really sure what the point of saying that had been. "Um, yeah? What about it?"
"So, you supported na Gaeil, then."
...She was still wearing the scarf, so that was kind of obvious. It seemed like Síomha was kind of subtly trying to make a point about the independence question, but she didn't get an opinion on that. "Well, I do live in Ireland now, so why not? Tricia and Aibhínn were incredible." And they were also super pretty, but Liz wasn't about to admit that out loud.
"Hmm." Síomha watched her for another second before, finally, turning back to Severus. "I'll pass your name along. Ádh is sláinte ort." And then Síomha just turned and walked away, without waiting for a response to...whatever that was.
Once Liz thought the woman was well out of earshot, she asked, "What was that about?"
"I'm certain you're familiar by now with how the nobility can be about debt and favours. In this area, the commons are often little different." Severus was playing it off smoothly enough, that nothing had been going on there except for Síomha informing him that Saoirse and the priests owned him a favour, but she didn't believe he believed that. He felt weird, though she couldn't put her finger on how exactly — if she had to guess, he was as confused by Síomha's behaviour as she was.
"Okay. And who was that? I get the feeling you all knew her already."
Severus's head shivering with exasperation, one hand raising to rub at his forehead, Hermione got there first. "Liz, that was Síomha Ní Ailbhe."
"Obviously I heard her name, I just don't know who that is."
Now Hermione seemed just as exasperated as Severus. "The radical separatist activist? She's kind of infamous."
"I wouldn't call her radical," Daphne said, though not very firmly — probably aware that most Brits would think Gaelic independence a radical position to begin with. "She is well known, though."
"Oh." Frowning to herself for a moment, Liz dismissed it with a shrug. "She did seem weirdly familiar, I was wondering if I would have met her somewhere. Probably just saw a picture in the papers or something." With a little flicker in his head, Severus gave her a very odd look, but the conversation moved on before she could ask. Oh yeah, Liz probably could get the house-elves to pop them to her house — seemed like it'd take ages for the Ministry to get their shite together, maybe a good idea — though they should go back to the tent to get their things first...
(Quickly distracted with other matters, that odd look completely slipped her mind. She wouldn't figure out what that'd been about until months later.)
Out of curiosity, I looked up the etymology of "saoirse", checking if there's a cognate in Welsh Liz might be familiar with, and holy shit, that was a trip. It's apparently from a contraction of Indo–European *h(1)su, meaning "good" (origin of Greek prefix "eu-"), and *wiHrós, meaning "man" (origin of the term in many languages, including old English "wer", and also the Greek word for "falcon" for some reason), probably originally meant to refer to some kind of nobleman or something. Then it got used for freemen in general (i.e. not slaves or serfs), which isn't an unusual development cross-linguistically, so the abstract noun came to be used for the quality of being free. So, "good-man" (*su-wiros), "nobleman" → "freeman" (sóer), and then finally "freedom" (saíre → saoirse). I think that's interesting, don't you think that's interesting? Languages are neat.
There are things that I could say about this chapter, but it's getting late and I haven't started dinner yet, so I'm not going to bother. Liz is a useless lesbian, mind magic can be a liability, of course there's not any foreshadowing in this chapter, that's crazy talk. Okay bye.