With a chorus of harsh, grinding snarls, the first rank of weird reptile things poured into the ticket hall...and then immediately fell as their feet were yanked out from under them, slamming hard against the tile face-first. Now that they were closer, Beth could see they were actually bigger than she'd thought — some had to be as tall as Ron, and much thicker, their size at least rather more intimidating than Beth had thought from a distance. She heard a few of the muggles cursing, Ron hissing through his teeth, yeah, they were ugly fucking things, weren't they. She waited a breath for the next rank to come through, the first lizards still picking themselves up off the floor, before beginning a circular swirl of her wand, "orbem solarem," a little sizzling ball of bright yellow-orange fire gathering at the top of her wand. An underhanded flick sent it sailing through the gap, flying in a shallow arc to drop right in the middle of the pack of reptilian aliens.
Boom-fwoosh!
The second it hit something the ball of fire immediately burst, flinging liquid fire in all directions — splashing all over the pack of aliens. At least five of them were practically coated with the stuff, flailing and screeching, a couple others only got a little bit of it, slapping ineffectually at the flames. One was smart enough to drop and roll — he managed to spread it out enough that the remains were easier to choke off — and the other was hit with a...blob of...goo? A greenish-blueish colour, it splatted against the burning lizard-person's back, and kind of...spread over him — stretching out little runners and dragging itself forward, almost like it was alive. It hissed and shrivelled a little where it touched the fire, but in the process also suffocated the flames, in a few seconds both of the lizard-people that'd only gotten a little fire on them were fine again.
The ones that'd gotten a lot of fire on them were still screeching and flailing, though — Beth could barely hear the muggles muttering curses under their breath.
There was some more chatter from the things, in a low, harsh, barking language — she got a vague impression that they were passing back details about the barricade to someone in charge, getting back orders to proceed — after gathering themselves together (leaving their swiftly dying friends to burn) a pack of lizard-things spilling out of the stairway and sprinting toward them. Jesus, they moved fast — as big and awkward-looking as they were, Beth wouldn't have expected them to be able to move like that. "Cumigne lacera!" The bright yellow-orange spellglow zipped away, striking one of the lizards in the chest, burst with a boom and a roar into a cloud of flame — a good chunk was blown out of the lizard's chest, spraying greenish-blackish blood, the damage bad enough to nearly take off the arm, the fire searing the two just next to him — spells from the others cutting into the group at more or less the same time, blowing them back or stabbing into chests or snapping bones. "Orbem solarem," Beth tossed off another ball of fire, the lizards scattered out of the way, the spell sailing over to land at the base of the stairs, coating the area with bright hissing flames — there was some shouting from over there, but she didn't seem to have hit anyone, the rest of the attackers hanging back for now — more spells laying into the lizard-people, a few harsh bangs as their muggle friends put carefully-aimed shots into heads.
Beth noticed a couple odd, bright pings, bullets ricocheting, lizard-people rearing back as though smacked over the head. Were those shots just blocked by the rocky growths sprouting out of their heads? Were those supposed to be armour? The lizards didn't seem to be wearing any, just simple knotted loincloths, the only protection they had these shiny colourful panels strapped to their shins and forearms...and it didn't look like the growths covered enough to be useful as armour, just bad luck the muggles had hit those spots...
Whatever, they were bloody aliens, don't think about it too hard. They didn't seem to be carrying any guns or anything at all, just those short swords Beth had noticed before, so killing the pack of eight or so that'd rushed at their barrier was very easy. A piercing curse to the head finished off one crawling toward them — despite its legs already not working due to a distona from Ron, pulling itself along with its arms, letting out a long hissing snarl, black reptilian eyes cold and empty — and that was it, they were all down already. The results were kind of gross, their already ugly bodies torn apart, showing misshapen innards, greenish-black blood pooling on the floor or sprayed onto the walls. And the smell was bad too, a sweet-sour that was already making Beth vaguely nauseous, ugh...
Hermione cast some kind of wind charm, blowing the smell away from them, which Beth definitely appreciated. Glancing that way, Hermione looked rather ill, pale-faced and shaky, cold sweat visible on her forehead and her neck — she wasn't even looking out into the ticket hall, turned to lean against one of the tall parts of the barrier, one hand covering her mouth. Beth didn't think of Hermione as particularly squeamish, but it was pretty gross, she guessed...
There was some more chatter from over there, but with all the noise of the battle over the city and the fires more nearby she couldn't really hear much. Beth waited, her wand held ready to start another Sunflame, and waited, and waited, George muttering under his breath and some of the muggles shifting in place, fuck, what was taking them so long?
(Beth realised they'd just killed a bunch of their people with literal magic, but they were bloody space aliens, they didn't get to be freaked out about that..)
After what felt like far too long, there was a little commotion over there, flopping out of the stairwell... They kind of looked like that strap flung over one shoulder carrying grenades that some action hero Dudley liked wore in this one film series — Beth had no idea what they were called. These ones might even be made out of some kind of leather, though a more greenish-orange colour, she could— Oh hey, some of the lizard-people they'd already killed had these things too, she hadn't noticed. The straps flopped to the floor, sliding across the tile a little, four or five of the things. A couple seconds, and then with a deep buzzing sound — like a bee or a fly or something, but much deeper — dark blots lifted off of the straps, floating up into the air...
What the fuck...
Beth was squinting through the gap, trying to make the things out — some kind of bugs, maybe, with hard glittering green or blue-purple or red shells — but then, with sharp little zip noises— "Down!"
Moving so quickly she could barely even see them, the small cloud of objects darted across the several metres from here to the stairs in a blink — a few hit the barrier, some with deep thumping noises, the metal set to ringing, one with a harsh blast of fire, but most of them found the gaps, flying right through. Beth hadn't gotten down fast enough, she felt a tug at her left arm, and then a slicing white-hot pain, she grit her teeth but ignored it, glancing around. One of the muggles had gotten nailed right in the chest, knocking him off his feet — he was winded, gasping, but Beth didn't think he was hurt — but the rest of them had missed.
...Or, maybe not — as she watched, the buzzing colourful blurs slowed, wheeling around right at the top of the stairs toward the platforms— "Shields, now! Steðjinn detti!" Ron, Hermione, and George all cast shield charms more or less simultaneously — Ron's and Hermione's, overlapping, would cover the three of them, George had spread his out to cover a couple of the muggles — Beth's stonehammer charm slashing through the air to blast the ceiling. The energy released in a gust tearing through the room, Beth's hair whipping almost painfully around her head, one of the muggles even lost his balance — but the weird bug-things were thrown off course, spinning away to plough into walls and the floor, some splattering themselves against the stone, shells shattered and guts colouring the tile in blotches, but others just bounced and skittered. One landed near one of the muggles and exploded in a gout of fire, his clothes catching, the man yelling in pain and diving into a roll. He was only on fire for a couple seconds before George hit him with a fire-suppressing charm, but it looked like he'd been burned pretty badly.
"Transige, transige, transige," Beth rattled off, stabbing her wand at the still-living bugs — the pale white piercing hexes hit one after the next, punching through them easily. "Hermione, help him!" She was the best of them at healing magic by a long shot, so. "Transige, trans—" The last she'd hit burst into flame, intense enough Beth staggered back from the heat, thumping against the barrier. Fuck, stupid... "Transige!" George and Ron had been picking some off too, she thought that was all of them...
"Beth, you're bleeding!"
"It's nothing, go help him." She hadn't actually looked, as Hermione rushed past her — shuffling over bent in a low crouch, the aliens probably wouldn't be able to see her from the other side — she pushed the sleeve of her tee shirt over her shoulder, prodded at her arm. Yeah, this wasn't so bad, just a cut — it was bleeding pretty bad, deep, a little torn and ragged at one end (which stung like hell, but she'd had worse), would definitely scar, but it wasn't an emergency. Waving her wand over it, several mutterings of, "ĭoto," and the bleeding trickled down to practically nothing...though she should probably get someone who knew what they were doing to look at it later...
Beth jumped at the sound of gunshots, painfully loud in the enclosed space. "We got more incoming!" Shite, of course, don't just sit around like an idiot, Beth. She lurched around to one of the gaps in the barrier, another Sunflame had the pack of lizard-people diving out of the way, she threw blasting curses and a couple castings of distona at them before they could recover, backed up by more curses from Ron and George, those ones weren't getting up again.
And Beth heard a buzzing noise from behind her, they'd missed one of the bugs! Before she could spot the thing, a white blur was slashing across the air — the bug's momentum made Hedwig wobble a little, but she still managed to catch it, a second later crushing it against the tile floor. Thankfully, that wasn't one of the ones that fucking exploded when they died, that would have sucked. Hedwig started picking at the dead bug, its shell crunching in her beak...
...which, Beth maybe shouldn't let her eat that? It was an alien bug, it might be poisonous. It was kind of too late now, but...
They'd barely put down all of the reptile things when there was another chorus of buzzing — they must have thrown out another round of bug-grenade-belt...things, while Beth and the others had been distracted. Major Tim actually put it together before Beth did, shouting for cover, Beth banged her elbow on the floor this time, hard enough her wand actually went clattering out of her hand, she summoned it back. (One of the few wandless spells she could cast, Sirius considered being able to summon your wand back to your hand to be a basic self-defence skill.) Thud-thud-thump-bang-clang, thud, once the noise of the bug-things hitting settled down a little Beth popped back up to her feet. The ones that'd missed were wheeling around again, "Deprime!" her wrist burned as she pushed as much power into it as she could — the bugs were all slammed down against the tile, hard, the reddish ones bursting into flame on impact, thankfully far enough away nobody was caught in it. "Adure!" The scorching hex, a blast of flame scouring that side of the hall, took care of about half of them, a few piercing hexes from Beth and Ron finishing off the rest.
It wasn't until after they'd cleared them all out that Beth realised more of their people had been hit — at least two of them, George and one of the muggles. At a glance, Beth had a feeling the muggle wasn't going to make it.
After two rounds of the bug-things, Beth thought she'd figured out how they worked pretty well. Once they took aim, they moved stupid fast — she didn't think real bugs could move that fast, must be some weird alien technology or magic or something — and were smart enough to circle around to take a second shot if they missed. (Maybe even keep trying again and again, but none had survived taking two shots so far.) They were kind of beetle-looking things, with hard colourful shells, coming in three colours — dark reddish, a dark blue-purple, and bright green. It was the red ones that blew up as they hit, sort of like a blasting curse. The greenish ones kind of seemed similar to a bludgeoning hex — they made a hard, deep thud when they hit things, they'd just winded one of the muggles the first round, one of them had probably clipped George and pitched him to the floor. (He was fine, rubbing his shoulder and grimacing.) But the purple ones, flatter and more jagged-looking than the others, were like a slicing curse — Beth had barely dodged one in that first round, just getting clipped had dug into her arm pretty bad.
One of the muggles, the one in uniform, had gotten a much more direct hit than Beth, right at the join between his neck and shoulder. There was a spray of blood across the tile, gushing out of the wound to pool around him. Hermione was already there, free hand fluttering panicky over the man — leaning back with a shout, a banishing charm flinging away a purplish bug, must have still been caught in the wound (one of the muggles exploded the thing with a single brilliantly-aimed shot) — her wand flicking and swirling, incantations spit out one after another after another.
Part of Beth kind of wanted to tell Hermione not to bother — Hermione was the best of the four of them at healing spells, but she was still just a student. Beth was pretty sure he was going to die no matter what they did. But part of her could only stare, the breath stolen out of her lungs, the sight burning into her.
(She didn't know if she'd ever seen someone die before. Quirrell, she guessed, and according to Snape one of her stray curses, running for the Cup, had killed one of the Death Eaters in the graveyard — meaning she'd actually killed two people, though she hadn't known it at the time, either time — but...)
There was more harsh growling and screaming from behind the barrier, startling Beth out of her daze. Lurching back around toward the wall, Beth nearly cast calōre vindicāns before breaking off with a hiss, she couldn't cast that through such a narrow gap. "Cumigne lacera! Sectumsempra, distona, transige transige..." They only had Beth, Ron, and one of the muggles at the wall (Major Tim), but they still managed to hold the wave off, the bodies strewn across the few metres leading up to the barriers starting to pile up. (Very gross, and Hermione had let off the wind charm, ugh, the smell...)
Just as the last dropped, Beth noticed they were tossing more of the bug-belts out into the ticket hall again — oh for fuck's sake. They couldn't hold off the bug-things and the lizard-people forever, at this rate they'd be overwhelmed eventually. Maybe not before the aliens ran out of people, at least the ones on the three weird-looking landers she'd seen up there, but...
Fuck it. Beth dug in her heels and apparated out into the ticket hall. "Adure." The bright white scorching hex struck the belts, exploding into flames — a rather larger explosion than she'd expected, staggering back from the heat slamming into her, the red bugs must have gotten caught up in it too. There were at least a dozen lizard-things in the stairwell, waiting their turn to charge, along with a trio of the slender, jagged aliens she hadn't gotten a proper look at yet. She didn't pause to gawk at them, though, sucking in a breath, "Calore vindico!" A stream of intense blue-white light poured out of her wand, quickly broadening into a wave of hissing flames, easily wide enough to fill the whole stairwell. The slender aliens moved shockingly quickly, but the lizard-things were slower — it didn't help that they were carrying some kind of equipment, a tube with a sack attached to it that... Maybe a gun? Like one of those lava-spitting things they apparently had on their ships, carrying it down so they could melt the barricade.
Oh well, it didn't matter now — Beth couldn't see exactly what was happening, the fire blocking her view, but most of the lizard-things definitely hadn't gotten out before the spell hit. She pushed even more power into the spell, her wand arm sizzling with hot-cold sparks of pain — calōre vindicāns wasn't necessarily lethal, but it could be if she wanted it to, just took more power — hot wind surging through the ticket hall, stinging at her skin and yanking her hair back, fluttering noisily around her head, she squinted her eyes shut and shielded her face with her free hand. She kept the spell going until the harsh screeching of burning aliens stopped, the fires splitting into swirling white wisps before quickly dissolving away, a quick wind spell chased off the lingering smoke.
The lizard-things had been burned so badly they were hardly recognisable, misshapen masses of black and ashy grey, only a few wetter glistening spots here and there (ugh), and they were all definitely dead. Their big gun was still there, though, a bit scorched but otherwise fine — if it spat out fucking lava, yeah, she'd guess it was meant to withstand heat. "Transige." The piercing hex struck the sack, which Beth assumed was holding whatever the hell the thing used for ammo, a little circular divot appearing in the surface, but it didn't seem to have done much damage. Let's try the Lance of Modestus, then — one of the spells Sirius had taught her this summer, a multi-stage piercing curse originally designed to punch through steel armour, like muggle knights used to wear — that should do the trick...
Before she got off the spell, she saw a crouching figure cautiously but steadily pick down the stairs, hard boots clacking against the tile: one of the slender aliens she'd noticed before, but hadn't gotten a good look at yet. These one were more human-shaped...though they only seemed like it compared against the lizard-things, they definitely weren't human. The proportions were wrong, his (she was pretty sure) body too long and narrow, skull sloping back in a weird curve, making his forehead look too small. The ears were longer and pointier, almost goblin-like, eyes disproportionately large, but somehow still looking narrowed, slanted, surrounded with tiny little ridges of bone (protection from glancing blows?), extending up from the outside corners back in two little trails across his curved forehead, just over his ears. The nose was a tiny little stub, two little gashes for nostrils, the mouth completely lipless. Also, his skin was a sickly, ashy grey, nope, definitely not human.
He was wearing some kind of armour, stiff boots and panels over his legs and arms and chest...though they didn't look like metal — the colour a blue-ish purple, and the sheen it took in the light reminded her of the grenade-bug-things, actually, which was bloody weird. Was their armour made out of some kind of shell? There were jagged little hooks and spikes sticking out, at his knuckles, from wrists and elbows and knees, Beth first thought those were pieces of his armour, but there were little gaps in the shell(?) around the joints, so maybe the spikes were actually part of his body? or maybe implants, like the craggy stone bits coming out of the lizard-people? Where his skin showed, it wasn't only the plain grey, there were also plenty of tattoos, practically covering his face and framing the edge of his armour, black and purple and white, jagged switchbacking lines and curlicues...
Also, the bloke was scarred to hell — Beth could only see his face, but there were little slashes of paler scars here and there...and one of his ears was mangled and misshapen, his bottom not-lip had multiple holes in it — not like a lip ring or anything, just, holes, for no apparent reason? — she noticed his eye sockets weren't symmetrical, like he'd fucking broken his face and the bones hadn't set correctly, making him look noticeably lopsided...
Huh. And Beth had thought the lizard-things were ugly fuckers.
Beth adjusted her aim upward. "Fixam iaculor." The yellow-white spellglow, longer and thicker than most point-spells, lanced across the air between them in a blink, the alien barely had time to rear back in surprise before it struck him right in the chest. The first hit knocked the alien back, falling as his heels hitched on a stair, the spellglow shifted to a bright pinkish colour before piercing through the rest of the way — the shout of surprise was quickly choked with his own blood, the alien, now laying sideways on the stairs, shaking with a wet cough.
Her second Lance of Modestus successfully pierced through the sack thing, and it burst, spraying orangeish liquid all through the stairwell — fuck, that was hot, Beth grimaced and reared back a step even from this far away. The alien's coughing and angry, strangled growling cut off immediately, Beth assumed he'd been caught with some of the lava stuff. It was dribbling down the stairs, spreading across the tile, right, that was enough for now. She jogged back toward their barricade, once she was close enough to see through one of the gaps Beth apparated over to the other side.
"What's going on out there?" Major Tim asked as soon as she appeared.
"Um...I killed all the lizard-things in the stairwell, maybe another dozen of them. They were bringing down some kind of big gun, but I broke it — that lava stuff is the ammo they use for it," she said, pointing out through the gap. It was already slowing down, turning a cooler red, Beth wasn't worried it'd spread all the way over here. Turning back toward Major Tim, she belatedly noticed that the uniformed man was definitely dead. Someone had conjured a sheet over him, a patch of it already stained red. She twitched, turned back to Tim. "I'm pretty sure there are still more of them out there, but unless they have a way to cool off that stuff they're gonna have to take a different staircase."
Major Tim nodded, gave her a quick, hard clap on the shoulder. "Good work, kid. Some of the civilians broke into the vending machines and brought up snacks, go ahead and take a breather. I'll keep watch."
...Beth wasn't hungry, but it had to be well after the time the train would normally have left, she should probably try to eat something. "Thanks," sounded like a kind of odd thing to say, but she couldn't think of anything else — she lingered there for an awkward moment before lurching into motion, heading for...Ron and Hermione, huddled up by the stairs back there.
Hermione looked like she was kind of in shock, face blank and eyes wide, sitting stiff and hardly moving. Beth noticed there were spots of blood on her blouse, a patch on her skirt — didn't see any injuries or anything, probably that muggle man's. Ron was sitting close, muttering to her and offering a packet or something, but as Beth approached he stood up. Once she was close enough, he tugged her closer, arms wrapping tight around her. "Don't do that to me, Beth — I can't apparate out after you if you get in trouble, I about had a heart attack when I saw you out there."
"...Oh." She hadn't thought of that, honestly, she just knew they had to stop the bugs from coming in. Slowly, a little reluctantly (still not comfortable with this stuff), she hugged him back. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking about that."
Ron let out a little huff, then let her go. "Come on, you've had a hard go, you should eat something."
"You know you just sounded like your mum for a second."
He rolled his eyes. "Drink something, at least, it's getting hot in here."
As Beth took the last few steps toward their corner, the lights flickered out, plunging the area into darkness, lit only by the weak sunlight and glow from the lava stuff slashing through the gaps in their barricade, muffled shouts of surprise and fright rising up from the platforms. She guessed the aliens had finally managed to knock out the nearest power station. Before she could even draw her wand, the emergency lights clicked on — they were a different colour, a cooler orange, and didn't fill the whole space as well, shadows clinging to the ceiling and in corners, but she could see well enough. "Hey, Tim, can you still see out there?"
"Yes, we're all clear."
Right, good. Beth took the last couple steps toward Hermione, awkwardly sank down to a seat — her legs felt too stiff, but at the same time too shaky. Food didn't seem very appealing just now, but she summoned a bottle of water from the row set out between the stairs, quick drained maybe half of it before stopping for breath. "You alright, Hermione?"
Hermione blinked at her for a moment, uncomprehendingly, as though she hadn't heard — Beth was just about to repeat herself before she finally spoke, her voice low and thin and absent. "Sam didn't make it."
Must be the uniformed soldier's name — Beth wasn't sure if she'd ever caught it, too focussed on their preparations. "That hit was pretty bad, I don't think you could have saved him. It's not your fault."
"It's not about that. I don't... How many other people are dying out there, do you think?"
...Beth had no idea. That announcement seemed to be saying that the whole world was getting attacked at once, so...probably millions? Hermione was obviously freaking out about that a bit, but, honestly that just didn't... It didn't quite feel real, to her. It was too big. This tube station, the hundreds of people down on the platforms, their little group of defenders here, that was about all she could deal with, she couldn't think of anything else just now. And, sure, they'd lost one of their people, and it'd been pretty brutal and bloody, but...
Well, maybe she was just a heartless bitch, but, she didn't know the bloke, so. It was shitty that he'd been killed, and it was kind of wild that there was a dead body sitting just over there — a man who she'd talked to only a few minutes ago, and he was gone now — and Beth was a little rattled by all this, sure, she hadn't missed how stiff and twitchy her own legs were, her fingers shivering just a little. But she wasn't, like, she didn't know. She couldn't freak out about this, the aliens might attack again at any moment. Maybe cold, but that bloke was dead now, he didn't matter anymore — Beth was more worried what might happen to Ron or Hermione or George, and all the people downstairs (dozens and dozens of little kids) if she didn't keep her head in the game. So.
(Of course, she'd never freaked out in emergencies, like Hermione did sometimes, and most of their classmates seemed to all the time. Even going all the way back to that troll first year, and Beth was even better at it than she'd been then. She didn't know why that was.)
"It's all... Everything's going to be different. Everything."
"...Yeah." Shitty response, maybe, but she didn't know what else to say. Hermione wasn't wrong — there was a bloody alien invasion going on, supposedly world-wide, and Secrecy was pretty much done for, so. Yeah, everything's going to be different pretty much covered it. Hermione was definitely feeling something about that, was saying it for a reason, but Beth didn't really get what or why? Personally, she was more concerned with making sure they got through this mess in one piece, she didn't have time for all that...
A few minutes passed in awkward almost-quiet. Some low muttering here and there, the battle over London still ongoing in the near distance, the roaring and cracking of a hundred fires. Beth was halfway through a packet of crisps Ron had forced on her and nagged her to actually eat — she was struck with a random memory of Ron bringing snacks up from the kitchen when they were studying for exams, badgering them into taking a break, he did just do shite like this, didn't he? She heard Major Tim shuffling in place, was already looking that way when he spoke. "Look alive, we've got movement out here."
Pitching the half-finished crisps aside, Beth leapt up to her feet (staggering a couple steps before getting her balance), rushed toward the wall. "Another attack?"
"...I don't think so. And damn, those are some ugly sons of bitches."
Peeking through one of the gaps, there were several of the slender, spiky, scarred aliens, backlit by the sun peeking through the vents behind the ticket counter, the angled shadows from the emergency lights making them look even more asymmetrical. Two, four, six...eleven of them, ten in a line through the ticket hall — curved, blocking off the over-wide hallway leading to their barricade — and one in front. As Beth watched, he took a few last sauntering steps before coming to a sharp halt, roughly halfway between their line and the barricade. Standing straight and rigid, his hands folded behind his back, he glared across at the barricade, and—
"Ukh-itcnar vīnich, al-plzhālodgu. Imak du, zh tcali rr-si-rr."
Beth blinked — that was definitely speech of some kind, but she wasn't getting anything. She must be too far away. "I'm going out."
"I don't think that's a good idea, kid."
"I think he's trying to talk, but I need to get closer. It'll be fine, just, leave this spot right here open, I can pop back at any time."
Major Tim gave her a very sceptical look, but after a moment of thought gave a reluctant nod. "Alright, go see what he wants, then. Doesn't sound like he speaks English, though..."
Well, no, but that didn't really matter for her, did it?
Beth apparated through the barrier — the aliens twitched, a few in the line hissing and...presumably reaching for weapons? She didn't see any weapons on them...besides some of the weird bug-grenade things, she guessed. The one waiting at the front hardly reacted, though, his eyes maybe narrowing a little.
She'd only walked a couple steps before there was a crack of inexpert apparation, she glanced over her shoulder to see George had followed her. "Figured you could use some backup, just in case." She shrugged, and continued walking.
Not that she had very far to walk, only maybe ten seconds later she was stopping, not quite within arm's reach of the lead alien. And fucking hell, they were ugly bastards — Beth thought this one was even more scarred up than the last. This one's ears were completely missing, fleshy lumps of scar tissue left at the base, and his skull was indented just beneath the little bony ridges running back, making his head seem even more jagged, his jaw was crooked, as though broken and improperly set. This one also had dark blue-ish bags under his eyes, but the other one might have had those too, she might not have been close enough to tell. Just, Jesus, that was all.
She was vaguely curious what their women looked like (assuming they had women), but she probably didn't want to find out.
"Ux-dzhaqor mu junɦo bus-si forqā plzhālodgu-m. Tcurok, al-dzhēdaj, zh tadzi mu-nar i ɦakh."
Beth frowned. She was getting...nothing. Huh.
Back in second year, Beth had discovered she was an omniglot, which was some kind of special inherited magical ability that she still didn't entirely understand, honestly. It could be kind of neat sometimes, it was one of the best (if confusing) things about being her. Basically, omniglottalism was an ability to copy knowledge from other people's heads, automatically. It didn't take any conscious effort, or anything, it just...happened, by itself.
Beth had always done kind of shitty in school, for no particular reason she could put her finger on. For most of her life she'd just thought she was stupid. She could follow what was going on in class...sometimes, but she always had a terrible time actually learning things out of a book — most likely she wouldn't retain anything at all, and when she did remember stuff she didn't necessarily understand it. It wasn't until after she'd started at Hogwarts that she'd started to realise she wasn't just stupid. Well, Hermione had noticed first, and only managed to convince Beth after some badgering. See, Beth might not get much out of lessons, and practically nothing from the reading, but when Hermione went over the material with her one-on-one — or one-on-two, including Ron — then she would almost always understand it the first time she was told, and would remember it, seemingly forever. As far as she could tell, she remembered practically everything Hermione had re-taught her and Ron, huddled up together in the library or the common room, she never forgot any of it.
Which meant her homework and test scores had seen a massive jump starting in the second half of first year — a couple of her professors had even suspected she was cheating at first, it'd made that big of a difference.
And she learned it, and remembered it, because she was unconsciously copying Hermione's understanding of it straight out of her brain, and then sort of permanently burning it into her own mind. There was some kind of complicated magical memory-storage you could do with mind magic, which omniglottalism technically was — supposedly Barty Crouch, who was also an omniglot, spoke over two hundred languages, which Hermione insisted was physically impossible. Mind mages could do that sort of thing on purpose, but had to be careful not to hurt themselves doing it, but omniglots just did it automatically. There were some limits to it — the person she was copying from had to have a certain level of proficiency in whatever the thing was, and it worked best if she had the person's undivided attention (which was why she didn't get much out of classroom lectures) — but basically, she could learn things to mastery just talking to someone about them.
Once she'd had it explained to her, it had kind of made sense, when she thought about it. She already had the experience of suddenly understanding their schoolwork once Hermione explained it to her, and also Cambrian class was dead easy. (For whatever reason, omniglots learned languages the quickest, often going from nothing to fluency in the space of a couple weeks — hence omniglot, "all-tongue".) Also, Petunia had never had to tell her how to do a particular thing more than once, even when she'd been very young...and she knew now that some of the chores she'd been given had been rather complicated for someone her age — she'd started helping with the baking when she'd been literally four — so that probably had something to do with it too...and one of the "freakish" things about her had supposedly been that she'd started speaking really fluently really early, but she'd always assumed Dudley was just slow...
Also, there was that time she'd overheard someone speaking Parseltongue — Gin, possessed by the diary — and had abruptly had an entire language crammed into her head in the space of maybe two minutes. It'd been way too much, she'd actually passed out...and been found a couple hours later lying unconscious next to Sophie Roper and Nearly-Headless Nick, both petrified, which had taken some explaining. Thankfully, when she explained what happened Dumbledore had believed her immediately. It might have helped that, when Fawkes chirruped his opinion on the matter — that her confusion was natural and not due to being mentally dominated by something else, he didn't feel any echoes of anything foreign still clinging to her, because apparently Dumbledore had suspected it would be something like the diary from very early on — she'd suddenly had a second language crammed into her head in the space of maybe two minutes, the strain once again knocking her unconscious.
Apparently, having that happen twice in one day was bad for you — Beth had woken up in the Hospital Wing two days later, and hadn't been let out for another three after that. While getting an explanation of what exactly omniglottalism was — from Snape, who hadn't seemed any happier about getting the job of teaching her all this than she'd been — she'd been told that could happen with magical languages, basically the magic in the language and the ooh-thing-I-don't-know-yet-must-copy-it-now part of Beth's magic kind of plugging into each other, making a self-reinforcing loop. It takes a lot of magical and mental strain, copying that much information that quickly — Pomfrey had been surprised that Beth hadn't also hurt herself from channelling too much magic, but yeah, pretty much anyone would be hospitalised doing it twice in a row like that.
Hermione thought it was basically the coolest thing ever, and was very jealous. But she hadn't been so jealous that she hadn't wanted to help Beth get the most out of it — talking through whatever they'd just done in class was a regular thing now, which had quickly rocketed Beth from practically the bottom of their class to near the top. (It'd had a smaller effect on Ron's marks, but it was good for him too, so.) When they didn't have anything in particular to work on, they'd often just end up talking about whatever nerdy thing, so Beth also knew a lot more about, like, science and history and literature shite than she ever would have otherwise. Not just for Beth's benefit, she was pretty sure Hermione also just liked having an excuse to talk about nerdy shite, because she was a nerd.
Beth spoke English and Parseltongue and bloody phoenix, obviously, but she'd also weaselled enough one-on-one meetings with Professor Smethwyck over the last few years to pick up Cambrian, Gaelic (Irish), Latin, ancient bloody Greek (technically the Koinè dialect used by magical academia, but whatever), and also ǹKhēmi, the language used by Egyptian mages, because Professor Smethwyck spoke an absurd number of languages for someone who didn't have mysterious knowledge-copying abilities. Ages ago now, Hermione had taught her French — her father was French, she'd been raised bilingual, apparently. (It somehow hadn't come up until she told Hermione about the omniglottalism thing and she'd offered to teach her.) While the foreign students were at Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament, Beth had taken the opportunity to learn a bunch more languages, because why the fuck not. She'd already known French, but the Beauxbatons students also spoke provençau and lengadocian (which she thought were just dialects of Occitan?) and gascon and català and piemontèis (some kind of Italian?), and also both varieties of the veela/lilin language (which was more like how men and women spoke English slightly differently than separate dialects); and from the Durmstrangers, she'd learned whatever the hell they spoke in magical Scandinavia (the name in itself literally meant "northern speech," but she had no idea if that was Swedish or Norwegian or what), Bulgarian, Polish (specifically mazowiecki), Lithuanian, Finnish, and two different kinds of German (Platt and Boarisch), and a kind of Russian (novgorodske) which was apparently not the same Russian they spoke in muggle Russia, which was a pain, but whatever.
And yes, she realised that it was slightly insane that she'd already been fluent in twenty-three languages (twenty-two, if provençau and lengadocian didn't count as different things) before her fifteenth birthday — and she'd learned fourteen(/thirteen?) of them within eight months. It sounded completely absurd, but that was life as an omniglot for you.
She'd kept learning things over the summer, but not languages — Sirius had been giving her one-on-one lessons on everything he thought she might need to know to protect herself. And those lessons could be kind of overwhelming, because Sirius was really really good at using occlumency offensively (what he called it), so, when he felt her omniglot mind magic poking around (which most people couldn't feel at all) he could forcibly push information at her, meaning she picked it up way way faster than she normally did. It tended to give her a terrible headache after as little as a half hour, actually. Still worth it, though — it often took people hours and hours of practice to get passable with strong combat spells, but Beth and Sirius spent maybe five minutes on each spell, as long as a half hour for the really complicated ones, and also she'd learned how to apparate in literally two days. (Supposedly when they taught it at Hogwarts it took months?) He'd also taught her a fair bit of enchanting — she hadn't signed up for Runes back in second year, not yet having put together that being an omniglot would make that class stupid easy — a handful of important healing potions, even a little bit of hand-to-hand, and...whatever had seemed useful at the time, really. She'd probably learned more over these two months of summer than she did in an average year at school, but it was also useful, and Sirius kept it from being boring, so she didn't really mind.
Also, these lessons might save her life one day (like today), so.
After learning a tonne of languages all at once over the last year, and her intense lessons with Sirius, she'd gotten pretty good at feeling when the omniglot thing was happening, even if she still had absolutely no control over it whatsoever. Normally, she could kind of... It took her a couple hours, usually, to start remembering words (and a few days to be able to put sentences together at all), but, even if a language was completely new to her, she always got a vague idea of what someone was saying. Not the literal meaning of the actual words, you know, just the general idea. It got clearer and clearer as she heard more and more of it, but even literally the first time she heard a language, she'd still get something.
This alien, talking at her just then? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a vague feeling about what he was saying to her, just...
That was weird. Honestly, it was slightly uncomfortable — the only time she got absolutely nothing from someone was...maybe talking to Snape? He was a mind mage, in the can totally read your thoughts and poke around in your memories sense (omniglots were technically also mind mages, there were different kinds), and had enough control of his mind to shut out Beth's omniglot stuff. Which might have something to do with why she did especially badly in Potions class, but whatever. Even if she wasn't actively learning something it was still, you know, constantly going in the background, picking up random things people were thinking about, kind of...
But, no. Nothing. From the tone he said it in, she suspected plzhālodgu and al-dzhēdaj were insults, but that was literally all she had.
Huh.
Oh well, she guessed they wouldn't be negotiating. Her wand falling into her hand with a flick of her wrist, she flipped him the bird. "Yeah, yeah, go fuck yourself. Distona."
Once again, these ones moved shockingly fast...but not fast enough. The lead alien dipped, turning his shoulders to lean under and around Beth's curse — hands flying out from behind his back, something uncoiling from around his wrist and extending out from his hand (some kind of weapon, maybe?) — fast enough that the sharp orange-yellow spellglow nearly missed him, clipping him on the shoulder. Of course, even a near miss with this curse was still very, very bad — there was a harsh crack noise, and a big chunk of the alien's shoulder just disappeared, dissolving into a cloud of dust poofing up into the air. Spinning to the floor with a clinking clatter, leaking jet-black blood from the jagged and torn wound in his shoulder — the curse had managed to completely take his arm off, yeah, he wasn't surviving this one — the alien let out a vicious hateful snarl, almost sounded like a fucking lion or something, and after a second he was pushing back up to his feet. The length of something in his hand abruptly loosening into a coiling whip, he wound his hand back—
"Distona." Her second shot nailed him right in the head, crack — his face and most of his skull just disappeared, wafting down to the tile floor as a million little specks of dust, the body spasming for a second before limply toppling over.
The other aliens reacted to Beth killing their leader, obviously, things uncoiling from around their wrist into their hands — those were definitely a weapon of some kind, almost looked like a snake or something? — hands reaching for the bug-things at their waists. While Beth was finishing off the first one George threw a piercing curse at one of them — the force of the blow spun him around, but Beth was pretty sure it didn't punch through his armour, like with the ammo sack earlier. "Adure, desecetur, cumigne lacera!"
"Duck! Aigída!" Beth was just about to skip to the side, hoping to avoid the bugs some of the aliens were just about to throw, but she didn't question it, ducked her head and dropped, banging her knee on the tile a little. George was suddenly leaning over her, a silvery shield appearing ahead of them, so thick it was opaque. It shivered as bugs hit it, plonk plonk plonk, and then a boom-fwoosh as one of the red ones went off.
A quick wind charm to whip away the smoke, the aliens that hadn't been taken out with one curse or another — looked like six — were charging at them, bounding across the metres separating them inhumanly fast, she barely had enough time to get out, "Flammam impellens!" Her wand arm burning in protest, a wall of fire, bright red and white, filled the hall one end to the other, just a couple feet in front of them, hot enough to sting at Beth's skin. The wall of flames shivered, undulating like the ripples from a stone tossed into the Lake — she guessed one of the aliens had tried to jump through it, but these flames didn't work like that. A flick of her wand had the flames surging away from them, rearing and curling like a tall ocean wave about to crash down, over the hissing and crackling of the fire Beth could hear the aliens shouting in pain in frustration.
Under his breath, George hissed, "Merlin's balls..." Which was fair, that was a hell of a spell for a barely-fifteen-year-old.
"Come on!" she shouted, turned on her heel and darted back toward the barrier. After only a few steps she tilted her head to peek through a gap, and quick apparated to the other side, digging in her heels to cut off her momentum. "I think I made them angry, and that fire'll only last a few more seconds." Major Tim seemed faintly amused, but not really surprised, shouting for the soldiers to take positions and be ready to fire.
"I thought you were going to try to talk to them?" George asked, having apparated over a second after her.
"I was, but I couldn't understand what he was saying, not even a little bit."
His mouth hanging open just a little, George blinked at her for a couple seconds — stories about omniglots were all over the place in magical culture (supposedly Merlin himself had been one), he'd know how weird that was. "What does that mean?"
Beth shrugged. "That they're aliens?" Honestly, they shouldn't expect magic to work the same on them as it did everything on this planet. They were lucky their destructive curses worked just fine — the aliens seemed to have a pretty high magical resistance, at least higher than humans, but it wasn't that bad, this could have been much worse.
"We've got movement." Beth twitched at the call, started moving for the barrier, and— "Grenade, hit the deck!" She turned right back around and dove, as she fell throwing a "gemmeam" over her shoulder for good measure, the orange shield flickering into place. And just in time, too — Beth hit the tile, rolled once with her momentum, even as their barrier exploded, a roar of fire filling the hall, debris bursting out in a noisy clattering and clanging. Laying on her stomach, her shield protected her from the few bits coming her way, sparking and shivering, but she saw Ron fall to a nasty hit from something, Major Tim slammed hard in the shoulder with a slab of metal, his gun knocked out of his hand to skitter across the floor.
Beth barely had time to shake the ringing out of her ears before lizard-people were swarming through the hole blown out of their barricade. "Sectumsempra," she gasped, wildly waving her wand as she pushed herself up with her free hand. Multiple aliens were clipped with the curse, greenish-blackish blood spilling out of wounds, slowing them down, but the rest kept coming, "Depelle, orbem solarem—" The banishing charm pushed a few back away from the whole, she tossed the Sunflame over that way, but she didn't pause to watch it go off, she spotted one standing over Major Time, clawed foot pinning him down and hand rearing back to swing one of the little swords they were carrying— "Lacera!" —but its chest burst in an explosion of gore before it could finish the swing, a silent banishing charm sending Tim's gun sliding back toward him, she was too slow to stop one from burying its sword in one of the muggles' stomach (that was two they'd lost), but a quick "distona!" would stop it from killing anyone else, one was advancing on Ron — scrambling backward, grimacing, his wand arm bending at an unnatural angle, broken — a quick silent tripping jinx had it slamming face-first into the tile, which was all she had time for at the moment, because one had run right through their group and was seconds away from Hermione, a sharp "Cumigne lacera!" blasting it apart in a burst of fire before it could reach her.
By the time Beth had turned around the lizard-person after Ron had a messy hole drilled through its head by a neat shot from Major Tim, the muggle shakily dragging himself up to his feet, wiping away the blood running down his chin with his free hand. (Badly bit his lip in the explosion, maybe?) He stooped over to pick up the gun dropped by the gutted muggle, kicked his way by the gasping man, hugging his blood-drenched middle. Hermione was already rushing toward him, though there probably wasn't any point in trying — the lizard-person's sword had gone all the way through him, and there were too many big arteries and shite in there, he was probably dead already...healing Ron's broken arm would probably be more useful, Beth didn't trust herself to do it right...
Though she barely had time to look around before another wave of attackers was announced by the bang of a gun — Major Tim was the only muggle standing now — a shout of a curse from George, Beth spun around to see another rank of lizard-people pushing through the hole in the barricade, "Cumigne lacera, distona—" She heard some more low buzzing of those damn bug things, she couldn't see any yet, but— "Stedjinn detti!" —she threw a stonehammer charm through the gap anyway, the band of distorted air whistling through to burst apart somewhere on the other side, the roar of wind half-muffling the surprised and frustrated shouts from the aliens. There was some more yelling in their language, she didn't understand it, "orbem solarem," a sizzling and screaming from behind her, she glanced over her shoulder but nothing to worry about — looked like Hermione had decided to slow down that bloke's bleeding with a fire charm, which was probably a bad idea — George had healed Ron's arm and he joined them again, sending piercing hexes at the bugs which had managed to bounce over here through the windstorm, Hedwig caught another one, snatching it right out of the air before it could wheel around and fly back at them, leaving the bugs to Ron and George (and Hedwig) Beth moved to fill in the hole in—
She was still a few steps away when one of the slender scarred aliens leapt through the hole, boots clacking against the tile, she reared back and fell hard on her arse. "Distona!" Aiming from below, the curse hit low between his legs and dissolved up and out, incinerating most of his hips, legs remaining attached to the rest of him just with thin strips at the outside, immediately collapsing under his weight. A couple more were jumping through, climbing over their dying friend, a bullet pinged off one's armour, rearing him back a step, a second shot tearing a messy hole through his face, a cutting curse from George nearly severing the second one's head, both falling limp on top of the one Beth had hit — which was somehow still conscious, shouting and flailing, trying to free itself, and—
Beth twitched, barely managed to snatch her leg out of the way — that was definitely one of those weapons, the ones that had uncoiled from around the aliens' wrists, a brownish-greenish colour with an almost metallic sheen. From close up, it was clear its surface was made of scales, and was also definitely, definitely a fucking snake. Or something similar to one, at least, odd little red flaps around the neck — almost like a cobra's hood had been slit into several separate pieces — and somewhat flattened, with a long sharp-looking edge on either side. Seriously, what the fuck? How did you even use a snake as a melee weapon? What the hell was with these aliens' technology, fucking weird...
Thankfully, a quick "distona" disintegrated the snake's head no problem, the rest of the body instantly going limp. "Their weapons are alive, blow their heads!" George shot a lightning curse of some kind at the clump of bodies, probably hoping to catch their weird snake-sword-whip things, there was a snarling and spitting from behind the barricade, at least four more aliens coming this way, Beth ducked, a greenish bug whizzing over her head — a second later she hard a crunch that probably meant Hedwig had gotten that one too — raising her wand, "Calore vin—"
The breath was stolen from Beth's lungs by a massive explosion, the shockwave rippling through the ticket hall, her head spinning, the walls seeming to shake around her. She and the aliens all staggered a couple steps, Major Tim and Ron (both still injured) tipping down to a knee. What the hell was that? From not so far away, Beth hard a sharp rattattatt-ing, her ears ringing, it took her a couple seconds to recognise it as gunfire — close gunfire — quickly followed by a spang-crackle of some kind of powerful curse going off. Her lips twisting into a grin — that had to be help coming, they'd made it — Beth spat, "Cumigne lacera!" the spellglow lancing across the few metres in a blink to explode in the middle of a trio of aliens. Two were just thrown to the ground and scorched a bit, but one was definitely dead, "Calore vindico!" The hall in front of her was filled with bright white-blue flames, she pushed, the aliens shouting and snarling, she thought they were retreating...
When the flames cleared, a quick wind charm from George clearing out the smoke, Beth saw the ticket hall was a mess — stone scorched and pitted from stray curses, broken alien bodies laying here and there, the puddle of lava-ammo still fitfully glowing a deep red. Some papers behind the ticket counter must have caught at some point, that whole office back there was burning, the smoke turning the sunlight filtered through from above ground thin and weak. But besides the fires, nothing was moving — the aliens were gone.
Letting out a sigh, Beth sank down to her knees, and then plopped back onto her bum. They'd made it. Good, she'd been...kind of worried for a second, there.
The gun- and spellfire trailed off pretty quickly — it was still noisy with the burning of who knew how many fires around, the occasional booming or rattling of muggle weaponry in the distance, the floor under her shivering with more bombs hitting the city, but the nearby fighting was over already. Major Tim was crouched against a surviving part of their barricade, keeping an eye on the ticket hall with Beth, everyone else crouched around the injured soldier. Beth was a little surprised he hadn't died yet...though, how long did it take to bleed out from a gut wound like that? She guessed she didn't know...
It was a couple minutes before someone poked his head out into the ticket hall — not from the staircase, which was still filled with lava stuff, but from the hallways toward the entrances across the street — Beth waved at him. A small pack of armed muggles then flooded into the ticket hall, though they didn't look...quiet how she'd expected. In more modern pictures from combat zones their uniforms had a camouflage-like pattern on them, which Beth assumed must be mostly decorative, for whatever reason, since it wasn't like they'd actually do a very good job of hiding anyone. But these lads were in the same khaki uniform you saw on people wandering about now and then, like Sam under the sheet back there — Beth thought that was just for when, you know, they were on duty, but not really expected to be fighting.
But then, the attack had been unexpected, maybe they hadn't had time to change? They did have bulky armoured vests on, and helmets, and all their weapons and shite, maybe they'd just pulled all that stuff on, but didn't slow down long enough to change into the right uniforms. Or maybe these were the right uniforms, and she just had no idea what she was talking about, who the fuck knows.
It was slightly intimidating, seven or eight people swarming her way carrying big damn rifles — they were the good guys, though, and the guns weren't pointed anywhere near her, so she tried to ignore it.
Coming a little bit behind the muggle soldiers were three Hit Wizards — plain dark trousers and tunic mostly covered with a layer of shining black dragon-leather armour, accented here and there with runes stitched in silver, heavy cloaks a deep blue hanging from their shoulders. The mages and the muggles were both marked up a little, streaked with blood and ash, some with gashes or holes through their uniforms — the Hit Wizards rather less than the muggles, since enchanted dragon-leather was pretty tough shite, though their cloaks were rather worse for wear, one slashed into ragged strips. They were all moving pretty smooth and easy though, obviously nobody had been too badly injured...or the Hit Wizards knew enough healing to patch them up, she guessed.
Beth twitched, her back stiffening and her breath catching in her throat. Coming in behind the Hit Wizards, along with another few soldiers and some people in plain clothes (impossible to tell if they were mages or muggles), was Sirius. His clothes had been nicked in a few places, he'd lost his leather jacket at some point, his hair was a complete mess, scorched to one side. He was completely filthy with ash and who knew what else, coloured with sprays of dried blood (red and dark green and black), but none of it looked like it was his. He was fine.
Beth felt tension dribble out of her shoulders she hadn't even noticed was there, letting out a little sigh — good, that was...good.
(She was self-aware enough to know that she would not take it well if Sirius got himself killed.)
Pushing herself up to her feet, somewhat shakily, she stepped to the side a little bit, so she wasn't blocking the hole blasted through the barricade. She watched the men coming her way — their eyes were mostly on the alien bodies, their rifles loosely aimed that way, just in case something sprung up at them. Remembering nearly being bitten by that snake thing, Beth guessed they were worried about one of the aliens' weapons jumping out and attacking them on its own. They also seemed a little surprised, Beth thought, glancing at each other and pointing and muttering, but Beth guessed it was a bit of a mess in here.
The smell was pretty fucking terrible, really, Beth was trying not to breathe through her nose.
Sirius rushed forward, slipping around the Hit Wizards, waited for the soldiers ahead of him to file through the hole, bouncing impatiently on his toes. Major Tim waved down the first soldiers through, and they were chattering away, Tim telling them about what had happened down here and the soldiers answering his questions about what was going on above ground. It didn't sound great, to put it mildly — the landing parties were surprisingly small, there'd maybe only been a dozen like the one here spread all across London, but the bombing continued, and they'd send down aircraft which were a huge pain. Given it really hadn't been very long, shockingly large parts of the city were destroyed or on fire, nobody had even started trying to get a bodycount yet.
People had had some warning, most everyone had probably had time to get to some kind of shelter. But Beth guessed the death count was still going to be pretty fucking high anyway.
Sirius finally managed to squeeze his way through, and before Beth could hardly blink his arms were vise-tight around her, squeezing her against his chest. "Sirius," she gasped, "air!"
"Right, right, sorry." The death grip immediately loosened, Sirius retreated a step — he was still holding on to her, one hand on each shoulder, painfully tight, but at least she could breathe. "I'm sorry, I know the hugging isn't— I'm just— We heard there was a landing at King's Cross, and I came as quickly as I could — I was worried, you'd, well. I'm so relieved you're okay, that's all."
"Yeah, um." She felt like she should say something about being happy he was okay too — and she was, she'd been rather worried (she hadn't even said goodbye) — but she didn't really know how, so. "Um, it was kind of shaky for a minute there, but we did okay."
"I should say so!" Sirius said, turning a wide-eyed look around the hall. While Beth had been distracted with Sirius, two of the Hit Wizards had detoured to the injured muggle — hopefully one of them knew better healing than Hermione did, if he was lucky he might actually make it. "You did a hell of a good job holding them off, by the look of it. Was it just the...seven of you? Where's little Gin?"
"They're on their way back," George said, sauntering over with rather less of a bounce to his step than usual. "Hermione sent Fred and Gin and some of the muggles to block another entrance, they're all fine"
"Did they get attacked at all?"
George shook his head. "We thought it was better to leave them there, though. Just in case. Gin's a little annoyed she didn't get to help, but." He shrugged.
...Gin was pretty good with combat spells, for someone who hadn't even started fourth year yet, but Beth would just as soon keep her out of the fighting if at all possible. But she also didn't want to have to tell Gin to stay out of it, so, better Fred than her, she guessed.
"What's this, you're hurt..."
Beth blinked, confused, before realising Sirius was fingering her tattered shirt sleeve — right, almost forgot about that. "It's fine, just a scratch." She rolled up the remains of her sleeve, showing the fresh, half-healed reddish gash across her upper arm, one end rather jagged and painful-looking. It did sting a little, but not too bad, she'd barely noticed. "One of those bug things, you know, the purple ones."
Even as his wand fell into his hand, moving to heal the cut the rest of the way, Sirius grimaced. "Yeah, nasty buggers. Saw one of those tear out some poor sap's throat, not pretty."
"That's how Sam went," Beth said, pointing at the blood-stained sheet covering the dead soldier.
Sirius grimaced. "Sorry you had to, well..." He let out a sigh, focussed on the healing for a moment — it felt funny, kind of itchy, an occasional hot prickle as he fixed something. "I hoped we'd be able to fix this Voldemort shite before you were old enough to fight properly. We should have cleaned them all up back in the Eighties, it isn't... This shouldn't be your generation's problem, you know, it's my generation's mess, you shouldn't have to... Well, it didn't seem likely we'd get it straightened out before you were old enough anyway — Dumbledore's having enough trouble trying to keep you out of it already, if you haven't noticed — and now we're getting invaded by goddamn space aliens, so there goes that. Sorry, kid."
"...It's all right." It wasn't, obviously, but it wasn't his fault, which was the point. "So, what's next? We getting the muggles down on the platforms out of here?"
He gave her a shaky, humourless smile. "I don't suppose if I tell you to go back to Rock-on-Clyde and stay there with the rest of the kids you'll actually do it."
"Probably not." Maybe if she could convince Sirius to come back with her, she'd think about it. But she couldn't just sit at the absurdly oversized Potter family manor while everyone else was fighting, and just wait — especially since literally the whole planet was being attacked. Kind of seemed like an all-hands-on-deck situation, right? She might be only fifteen, but she could fight, she'd feel like such a fucking coward if she just sat at home and waited...
(And she'd spend the whole time terrified Sirius might already be dead. She'd rather stick with him, honestly.)
"...Fine. But you're sticking close to me, where I can see you — if you run off by yourself without a very good reason, I'm apparating you straight to Rock-on-Clyde and telling one of the elves to sit on you until the fighting's over."
"Agreed." She'd want to keep an eye on Sirius anyway, so that suited her just fine.
"Right. I don't know if you heard from Molly, but Old Town and Charing have both been hit a couple times, they're working on evacuating the residents — the floo's out, one of the bombs must have hit something important, so they're using portkeys, it's slow going. We might get called in to help convince the more stubborn folks in Knockturn to move it. The muggles are also evacuating as much of the city as they can, through the Underground. I'm told some of the tunnels move far enough out of the city, they can just take those the whole way — the power's out, so they don't have to worry about being hit by trains.
"Once I'm done here, I'm supposed to go back and help Moody evacuate the muggle government. They were going to move out on helicopters, but once the bombs started coming in, they decided that was a bad idea, don't want to get caught in the air, you know — when I left, they were trying to get together enough armoured trucks and the like to move everyone. I guess you'll be flying cover with me. Unless I can convince you to go home?" Sirius didn't sound like he had any hope of that happening, but like he had to try, just in case.
So she just didn't respond to it at all. "Flying cover? Should I get my broom?"
Sirius sighed. "Yes, right away. I'm going to help the twins apparate your friends to Rock-on-Clyde, and then we're moving."
Ron had left Remus's suitcase leaning against the wall by the staircases down to the platforms, and luckily it hadn't been hit in the fighting — Beth had no idea what would have happened if the expansion enchantments broke, but probably nothing pretty. While she was pulling out her trunk, Major Tim stopped by quick. Apparently, he'd volunteered to help the soldiers escort the muggles here out of the city. (They planned to use the tunnels for the Northern line all the way up to Barnet, just to get people out of the built-up areas of the city, someone in charge would figure out what to do from there.) He didn't seem happy that Beth was staying in the fight here — though much less sceptical than he'd been before, now that he'd seen her kick alien arse — wished her luck before moving on.
Good bloke, Major Tim. She hoped he didn't get killed.
Apparently, the muggle who'd been stabbed in the gut would make it. Hermione — her hands absolutely covered in blood now, shivering and pale — had slowed down the bleeding enough that he'd actually survive long enough to get treatment. As aggressive as the fire spell had been, a desperation move, one of the Hit Wizards had told her she'd probably saved the man's life — they'd apparated him off to a magical town in Ireland, where he'd get treatment from proper magical healers. They'd probably have to regrow organs and shite, but he'd make it.
(Some random muggle wouldn't normally be apparated off to get magical healing, but Secrecy was done for anyway...and supposedly one of the Hit Wizards said the healers would appreciate that he'd been injured fighting alongside the Girl Who Lived. Beth normally hated it when people made a big deal about that stupid shite, but if it saved that bloke's life, fine, whatever.)
Hermione was not happy that Beth didn't plan on going to safety with the rest of them, smothering Beth with a painfully tight hug...which meant she was probably getting blood all over Beth's back, but whatever. Accidentally slipping into French, she'd be fine, Maïa, Sirius would be watching her back. Besides, she'd be on her Firebolt, flying cover for the muggle government — she'd like to see any of these bastards try to catch her with their bugs and fireballs in mid-air, she bet she'd fly circles around them. Ron backed her up on it, but she could tell he was pretending to be more confident than he really was, not wanting to make Hermione even more worried.
Ron kind of wanted to stay to help, but he didn't trust his ability to fly and shoot at the same time, and his arm was still weak from the break. Also, his mother would murder him if she found out.
The twins, though, would be coming straight back to London once the younger kids were safe — they were of age, so Sirius couldn't stop them. They'd be going to Knockturn Alley to help there, though. Beth was not at all surprised to learn that the Weasley Twins had made friends down the bad side of town at some point, though all of them agreed to keep it a secret from Mrs. Weasley.
Gin also wanted to stay and help, but Sirius grabbed her and apparated out without even slowing to argue about it. (After all, Mrs. Weasley would murder him if something happened to Gin because he'd let her do something stupid.) Beth quick swapped out her trainers for her magic-made boots — for quidditch and duelling, better traction, and they had a few protective spells too — before shutting her trunk up, cramming it back into the briefcase. Hedwig she told to fly to Rock-on-Clyde on her own — Beth would be on her Firebolt, so Hedwig wouldn't be able to keep up, no matter how stubborn she was about it. (The cage was left on the floor, because fuck that thing.) A minute later, Hedwig, Hermione, and the Weasleys were all gone, leaving Beth alone in the Underground.
Well, not alone — pretty soon after the mages all left, there was a stream of harried-looking people coming through the ticket hall, past Beth and down toward the Northern line platforms. Apparently there were more soldiers directing people on the surface out of wherever they were hiding and into the Underground. Beth moved back into the ticket hall, near the bathrooms, out of the way of the worst of the crowd. Some people gave her funny looks on the way by — Beth was used to it by now, but she was aware that racing brooms looked very strange to uninformed muggle eyes — but nobody paused to talk to her, determined to get themselves and their families out of danger.
Oh, speaking of bathrooms, she should take care of that quick...
Before too long, Sirius was back. The ticket hall was pretty dense with muggles going through now, so he apparated her up to the street level instead. Woah, they had made a mess of the place — the three oddly-shaped landing craft she'd seen before were all reduced to twisted wrecks, the material shredded and blackened by fire, at least a dozen alien bodies scattered around. And the bombing had clearly continued, craters blasted out of the street, several buildings around smashed and burning, smoke even thicker overhead than the last time she'd checked. There were a bunch of muggle soldiers around — checking the buildings on the streets, waving people toward the Underground, a lot of shouting and running around — the big armoured trucks that'd carried them set here and there on the streets, some of them with big damn guns on the roofs, and that was a literal fucking tank, Jesus, she hadn't realised how huge the things were...
"Alright, kid." Unshrinking a broom he'd taken from somewhere, Sirius slung his leg over it, shot her a black sort of grin. "Keep your eyes peeled for fireballs, and stick close to me. Ready?"
"Yeah." Forcing a very fake-feeling smirk back at him, she drawled, "Let's go be heroes."
Sirius barked out a laugh, shaking his head. "Stop imitating me, Beth, it's creepy." Before she could figure out how the hell to respond to that, he took off like a shot, Beth darting up after him, arcing up toward the south.
Spreading beneath her out toward the horizon, London burned.