Nothing is mine.
Another happy chapter. I mean filler scene. What am I saying, nothing happens in this story, right? xD
Un Endroit Étrange
Half a dozen corpses sprawled amidst chunks of broken marble and scattered iron barbs as tall as Vert; beneath them, dark dried blood clung to the cracks in the ground. A red-haired wizard and two short witches paced the square in dark, tight robes.
Mithras's followers are all still here.
Vert watched them exchanging brief, anxious looks from her perch upon the roof.
But still no Mithras.
'Do you think something's happened to him?' One of the twin witches asked. 'Charlie?'
Charlie shook his head. 'My little sister's a good duellist… Better than I was. And Bill. But she's not that good, Flora.' He stared down into the dried blood between his boots. 'I really do wish I'd gone back and said goodbye before joining Grindelwald. She'd probably have tried to kill me, but still…'
'I'm Hestia,' Hestia said.
'Sorry.'
'Where did he go, then?' Flora demanded. 'And what are we meant to do? Go back to Atlantis?'
Atlantis? Vert poked at the dark sea sitting at the centre of her thoughts, but nothing stirred beneath its black surface. Why there?
'I don't think he tells us everything,' Charlie replied. 'But we should stay here, where he expects us to be.'
Flora and Hestia sat upon a toppled column away from the corpses and blood, watching the handful of grey clouds drift across the pale blue winter sky and across the sun.
Novimagus and Belgium are undefended now. Vert pulled the long pale wand from her pocket, studying the shimmer of wards hanging over the abandoned island town. If Grindelwald wants, he can sweep right through into France.
A loud crack tore across the island, sending ice flashing through Vert's veins.
Ten figures in red, British auror uniforms and mirrored visors appeared on the far side of the square, raising their wands and casting a thick glimmering dome of magic over the island. The twin witches leapt to their feet, fumbling their wands from the robes.
'Neville.' Charlie raised his wand. 'I didn't expect to see you and your lot across the Channel.'
Neville's mirrored visor melted away. 'Charlie Weasley. Things aren't looking so great for us and when Ginny didn't check in this morning…' His gaze strayed to the corpses. 'We assumed the worst.'
'My little sister's almost certainly dead.' Charlie eyed the wards. 'You should go back to Britain. Go home.'
'Susan has told us that we are to make sure Grindelwald makes no further progress and to put an end to whomever survived the assault. She was confident Ginny wouldn't have gone down without taking a few with her.'
'Here we are,' Charlie said, sweeping a bright wall of white magic across the square. 'But I think we'll be leaving.' He shot a pointed look at Flora and Hestia.
'You did this?' Neville frowned. 'You and the Carrow twins killed an entire auror squad without getting so much as a scratch?'
'We did the wards.'
'Mithras…'
'You heard the name?'
'Tsarina Bugrov warned us of him,' Neville said. 'Flora. Hestia. You are British citizens. Minister Bones believes, in the light of what has been done to you and your family, that you are owed a debt. We will escort you back to Britain and no further action will be taken against you.'
'Never,' Flora hissed.
'Minister Bones, can burn,' Hestia spat. 'She can join her fucking aunt wherever monsters go after death, and I hope all those fucking dementors Mithras destroyed are there waiting for her!'
Neville winced. 'Charlie…'
'What would you like me to tell them, Neville? I had five brothers and one sister and they're all dead. I joined Grindelwald in despair that he turned out to be right after all.'
'He is not right.' Neville's hands balled into fists. 'There is no reason good enough to justify the slaughter he wishes to perpetrate, to - to—'
'Take away so many dreams?' A strange smile spread across Charlie's face. 'I don't disagree—' he held out his arm, showing a black ink rose and its glowing golden petals beneath his skin '—I'm not wearing Grindelwald's mark. And neither are Flora or Hestia.'
They are already divided. A flash of triumph seized Vert. I just need to give them a nudge and Harry Potter will come crumbling down with whatever ritual he has planned.
Neville clenched his jaw. 'What difference does it make which mark you commit genocide under?!'
'Mithras said it best,' Charlie replied. 'Better to fight for hope than despair. If everyone here's going to keep trying to kill each other, I want it to happen for something worth it all.'
'Like what?' Neville demanded, raising his wand. 'Nothing is worth this. It has to end.'
'So you'll kill us to end it? And then anyone else who doesn't agree with you?' Charlie snorted. 'That's not much of an end, Neville. There're always going to be more of us who don't want to be smothered into extinction by the muggle world. Will you just keep killing them all until our world is gone anyway?'
Neville growled. 'I stop wizards and witches who risk our safety and commit serious crimes.'
'You should have arrested my little sister. Her aurors. Amelia Bones. Team fucking Ice Cream. But you didn't, did you? You sat there in Britain blathering about how we need Harry Potter to come back to life and replace Dumbledore while they dug and filled mass fucking graves and now it's safe to say it, you want to speak up and take the moral high ground.' Charlie waved a hand at the line of British aurors. 'How many of them are members of The Resplendent Sun? There's probably blood on the hands of all of them from throwing families to the dementors. I saw the graves on Azkaban, Neville.'
'That was not us.' Neville made a sharp gesture with two fingers at the glowing white wall of magic and his aurors drew their wands. 'You know all of us, we worked with your brother, Bill, to try and keep Amelia in check and then to get rid of her.'
'Who's left?' Charlie's frown deepened. 'Alicia Spinnet. Hannah Abbott. Padma Patil. Justin Finch-Fletchley. Millicent Bullstrode. Wayne Hopkins. James Stebbins. Megan Jones. You, Neville Longbottom. Who did I miss?'
'Sally-Anne Perks.' The shortest auror waved from the far end of the line. 'Everyone always forgets me.'
'Just kids shoved into uniforms by Amelia Bones.' Charlie glanced over his shoulder.
Flora and Hestia shook their heads.
If there is no clever way through the wards, they are going nowhere. Vert pulled the thin pale wand from her pocket, poking her magic at the thick mesh of wards. Charlie is the one who knows the most. He is the one I need.
'If you won't come back…' Neville's mirrored visor crept back down and his voice distorted into a metallic rasp. 'We have no choice.'
'We're not coming back.' Charlie thrust his wand at the ground, sweeping the centre of the square up into a thin wall. 'Go,' he snapped at the Carrows. 'I know those hair pins aren't just decorations. Get out of here!'
Flora and Hestia snatched the copper needles from their hair and vanished in a flash of golden flame. Vert disapparated, jabbing her wand into Charlie's back and stunning him, and apparating back atop the roof.
Bright blue spells punched through the glowing white ward and shattered the thin stone barrier; they streaked through the red brick houses and struck the river in showers of sizzling water and puffs of steam.
Vert disillusioned Charlie and held her breath. These are just temporary wards. They will want to cast new ones if they intend to stay here and when they do…
'Shit,' Neville swore, the mirrored visor melting away. 'He must have had one of Grindelwald's portkeys as well.' He twisted on his heel. 'Megan, are the wards still up?'
'Barely touched,' one of the aurors called back. 'Someone nudged them, but it was nothing.'
'Portkeys.' Neville stuffed his wand into his jacket. 'Everyone but Megan, Padma, and Wayne help get the bodies back to Britain. Bring everything else here on your way back. We're not going home. Minister Bones and President Desrosiers have decided that defending is just letting them chip away at us, so from here on out, it's our turn to go on the attack.'
'Wards?' one of the aurors asked.
'Every ward you can think of,' Neville replied.
The shimmer vanished and Vert wrenched at her magic, apparating back to the Sunshine Room and heaving Charlie into one of the chairs. She forced magic through the long pale wand, binding him tight to the chair, and pulled his wand from his fingers.
'Maybe you are a better fit.' Vert conjured a small iron knife, wrinkling her nose at how her magic dragged and stuttered through his wand. 'A little better.' She tossed the pale wand into the brazier. 'Ennervate.'
Charlie's eyes snapped open. 'Nev—'
'Non.'
'I can see that.' His blue eyes swept over her. 'I don't recognise you at all, but that ring hiding your face and distorting your voice means you're one of Les Inconnus.'
The Unknown. Something in the darkness stirred, a little ripple sweeping across that dark sea in her mind. So many secrets are not known to me. Only Vert.
'I am Vert.'
'Of course you are.' Charlie snorted and shook his head. 'So you're the last of Les Inconnus then. Why did you let the wards fall?'
'I am Vert. If I was one of Les Inconnus, I am not any longer.' She grabbed his hand and twisted it over, staring at the glowing golden petals beneath his skin. 'You follow Mithras. I need him to die.'
He sighed. 'Well, good luck with that.'
'You said you fought for him, not Grindelwald.'
'Eavesdropping, were you?' Charlie stared deep into the rose upon his arm. 'Yeah, I do. Or did, I guess, since I know how this is going to end and it's not going to be with me going home.'
'Why?' Vert demanded.
'Because sometimes, when you hear someone say something, you just know it's true. I turned to Grindelwald in anger and despair and when that ran out, I didn't believe in anything anymore.' He dragged his gaze from the mark on his arm and glanced around the room. 'Mithras told me we would do something that would make it all worth it.'
'A ritual? Sacrificing dreams?'
'I didn't ask,' Charlie replied. 'I don't really know anything, Vert. I just… believe.'
'Will he believe Grindelwald is the reason you're dead?' she asked.
'He'll think it was Neville. Flora and Hestia will tell him it was Neville.'
'And when he learns it was not?'
'Then he'll probably blame the Greengrasses, Grindelwald's Walküren.' Charlie shook his head. 'It won't work, you know. I've seen and heard about all the amazing things Grindelwald has done, but he's old now. And Mithras… I've watched him do the impossible. I know that the dawn he spoke of will come. He'll make it happen.' He stared deep into the golden glow of the rose blooming upon his forearm. 'When you think about it, it's really kind of beautiful. Something great enough it was worth all the pain.'
A bitter burning fury bubbled from the darkness at the well of her mind and Vert raised Charlie's wand. 'He betrayed us and joined Grindelwald.'
'He killed my brother. And my little sister.' The white flames of the brazier danced in Charlie's eyes, bright and hot as Vert's fury. 'But it doesn't matter, because we were all killing each other over nothing anyway, and this way it will all be worth it in the end.'
'Avada kedavra,' she hissed.
A flash of emerald light struck Charlie and he slumped in the chair.
It will work. Her anger drained away, trickling back into the blackness beneath her thoughts. Another little nudge and Mithras and Grindelwald can be made enemies. But first, I need allies.
'I cannot trust the Duforts,' Vert whispered. 'And the British and American wizards in the Pyrénées are too far from Nurmengard for a portkey.'
But Neville Longbottom is close enough. A squad of aurors should be enough to kill Mithras after he has faced Grindelwald.
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