Twilight was falling as the old man flipped the shingle around on the shop's window to read "Closed" before walking out through the door. He turned to lock the door of the narrow, shabby-looking shop that appeared as dry and dusty as he himself did. The bolt slid into place and he started to turn around again, but froze as the tip of a wand dug into the side of his neck.
"Dirk Gibbon," he rasped without so much as glancing at his assailant. "Yours is the wand of a warrior, capable of great things, but easily swayed to the dark. Twelve inches long, rigid, made of blackthorn and dragon heartstring. One of the most powerful I've made, regretfully. It always was rather temperamental."
The slender dark-haired man frowned but otherwise did not react to Garrick Ollivander's statement. "The dark lord wants to see you," he replied instead.
Ollivander sighed. "So he does," he said. "Best not keep him waiting then." Gibbon's tone and attitude did not allow for any debate on the matter, and the half-dozen men gathered around sealed the "invitation." The old wandsmith surrendered his wand and disappeared with his captors a moment later.
***EoD***
The elderly lady stepped from the green flames with the practiced grace and ease of decades of experience. The tergeo charm she cast as she left the marble fireplace was done unconsciously, almost as an afterthought. She took off her hat, a curious piece with a stuffed vulture adorning the crown, and hung it on a rack near the fireplace before turning to the Jacobean sideboard. Removing a tumbler from the upper cabinet and a smooth glass decanter from atop the server, she poured a generous measure of gin and tossed it back.
The stern but bloodshot eyes of Augusta Longbottom stared off into space as she contemplated the future of her house. What future? she bitterly laughed to herself. Her son Frank was in the permanent spell damage ward at St Mungo's, incapacitated beyond hope of recovery by the sadistic tortuous curses of that mad bitch Bellatrix Lestrange. Worse, her grandson Neville…
Tears pricked her eyes at the thought of her beloved grandson lying in the family mausoleum. The Ancient and Most Noble House of Longbottom was effectively extinct now. Barring a miracle allowing her son and daughter-in-law Alice to revive while they were still of child-bearing age, that proud line would die with them, yet another family line destroyed by that rabid beast Voldemort.
Knowing that the three last Lestranges had also met their end on that terrible night at the Department of Mysteries was small comfort. Witnessing the end of that wretched line was not worth the extinguishing of her own.
She knew there would be pressure in the Wizengamot to go ahead and officially declare House Longbottom extinct, thereby opening their Gringotts vaults to the Ministry, but she was determined to block any and all attempts to do so, just as she was determined to block all attempts by the Dark faction to gain any more of a foothold in their government.
"I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hacked," she whispered, quoting that famous play Minerva McGonagall had introduced to her. Through Macbeth she had grown to love the works of Shakespeare as a whole, but as with Minerva, the Scottish play held a special place in her heart.
Her bitter musings came to a halt as the wards of Longbottom Hall suddenly went on high alert. An anti-apparation shield and an anti-portkey shield slammed down around the manor house, preventing any escape by those means. At the same time, a ward breach was activated and quickly joined by a second and a third. She knew that the wards would be drained in a matter of minutes, so she turned to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of floo powder, tossing it into the flames. Her lips narrowed in anger as they flared red instead of green, indicating that the floo had been taken offline.
Realising she was trapped, the elderly regent shrugged off her outer robe, grabbed a pair of scissors from the needlepoint bag resting on a side table beside the settee, and proceeded to cut the skirt of her gown off at her knees for freedom of movement. Her mid-calf low-heeled boots were snug enough to support her in the impending fight, so she elected to keep them on. As soon as she tore free the remainder of the portion of her skirt, she left the receiving room and pulled a decorative shield off the wall at the rear of the main hall and tossed it aside before snatching down one of the twin rapiers that had been crossed behind it. She gave it a few practice swings as her fencing lessons returned to her mind. Brandishing her wand in her left hand and the rapier in her right, she awaited the intruders.
It was scant seconds later when she felt the wards collapse with the accompanying gong like that of a massive tolling bell.
"Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane," she quoted to herself, "and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last." It wasn't perfect, as she was not the one overthrowing the legitimate government, but villain or not Macbeth had one of the best lines for fighting to the bitter end. "Before my body I throw my warlike shield," she continued as the front doors of the hall exploded in from a barrage of reductor curses. "Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'" A flick of her wand sent the discarded shield hurtling towards the entrance, where its edge shattered the first intruder's mask and took off half his head. The impact flung the corpse back into the next two death eaters, knocking them off their feet.
They turned out to be some of the fortunate ones. A brace of piercing hexes flew out through the doorway over their heads, dropping three of their comrades behind them.
"Fuck!" Thorfinn Rowle called out from behind his men. Half of his cell was down already and they hadn't even stepped inside yet. "Get your shields up, you sons of bitches!" He summoned the metal shield that had killed the first of his people, heedless of the clotting blood mixed with bone fragments and brain matter congealing on its surface. A quick tergeo followed by an imperturbable charm later and he slid his arm through the leather straps and took hold of the hand grip.
Casting shields of arcane energy before them, the remainder of his men charged up the front steps of the manor, leaping over the bodies of the fallen as they forced their way inside. Their shields absorbed the old woman's spellfire as the scattered in different directions and took cover behind various pieces of furniture and pillars before their spells overloaded and failed. One failed to take cover in time before his shield flickered and fell, and paid for it when a cutting curse severed his jugular less than a second later. The death eater collapsed as his breath escaped in a wet gurgle, his lifeblood spilling out in a rapidly-growing crimson puddle.
Augusta knew that she was in serious trouble as she crouched behind the head table on the raised dais at other end of the hall. She'd barely paused long enough in her initial bombardment to flip the table over and cast an imperturbable charm on it, but it offered a measure of protection for the moment. She kept her head down as spells impacted the other side, hardly giving her enough time to peek over the edge. She ducked her head back down as the light-blue energy sphere of a reductor curse sailed through the space her head had just been before slamming into the wall behind her and spattering her with a rain of wood splinters and chunks of crumbling stone. Ignoring the dust and debris, she lunged forward with her slender sword as the death eater she'd seen a moment ago rounded the table in an attempt to flank her. Not expecting a physical weapon, the blade slipped through his arms and pierced his heart before he could bring his wand to bear. She flung herself back down but her sword arm was still nicked by the edge of a light-green diffindo.
A blur of movement caught her eye and she lashed out with a reducto of her own that caught another death eater on the knee and blew his leg off in a bloody shower of ruined flesh and bone. Before she could recover, the hard toe of a boot caught her in the kidney, sending her sprawling as her sudden cry of pain joined the screams of the death eater with the mangled leg. Rolling over, she tried to raise her wand but that same boot stomped down on her arm, crushing her aged bones with a loud crunch.
Blinking through the tears of agony, she saw a giant blond-haired man standing over her, his face twisted in rage, the Longbottom shield on his arm. Gathering the last of her strength, she spat up at him. Her effort was not strong enough to actually connect, but the death eater took its meaning as intended. Raising his arm, he brought the edge of the shield down on her face with all his might and she knew no more.
***EoD***
Ever since he'd been ambushed by Barty Crouch Junior and Peter Pettigrew, and subsequently kidnapped, Senior Auror (Ret.) Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody's legendary paranoia had reached unprecedented (and arguably unhealthy) heights. Moody's house was in an unremarkable nonmagical neighbourhood in West Liverpool within easy walking distance (even with his peg leg) of both Croxteth Park and the local Tesco. When Crouch and Pettigrew had ambushed him, Crouch had charmed the dustbins outside his house to violently spew their contents at passersby, causing several of the locals to call the police. He'd been captured by the death eaters during the chaos, and the Ministry still levied a fine against him despite the fact that he'd not been the one causing the problem. After being set free from the trunk in which he'd been held prisoner for the better part of a year, Moody decided that living in a nonmagical neighbourhood was not as secure as he'd like, not to mention the much higher potential for collateral damage should he be attacked again.
The old auror had always lived a frugal life, with Glenfiddich single-malt whisky his one indulgence. Even then, he never drank to excess, just enough to savour a single glass in the evening. Aside from that, he drank nothing but water he conjured himself using the aguamenti spell, and only from his flask. Thanks to his Spartan lifestyle he had accumulated a sizeable amount of gold in his Gringotts vault, and when he combined that with several decades of shrewd investments, he now held an impressive nest egg.
When he decided to move, he felt that a more isolated location would serve him better. To that end, using an estate agent who also happened to be a squib, he discreetly purchased the ruins of Tioram Castle, a twelfth-century fortification built upon a tidal island near the centre of Loch Moidart on the west coast of Scotland, at the mouth of the River Shiel. He set a similar series of wards around the island to those that surrounded Hogwarts, preventing nonmagicals from seeing the castle as it truly stood after its extensive renovations. Instead they saw the crumbling ruins as it had always appeared in recent memory. Another layer of wards designed to enhance disinterest prevented the nonmagicals from conducting any further investigation.
The castle was built atop the highest point of the small, rocky island, which at high tide was barely a thousand feet in length. At low tide it was connected to the mainland by a narrow muddy causeway less than four hundred feet long. It was an isolated location, difficult to reach, and offered a commanding view of Loch Moidart all the way to the sea. On clear evenings, Moody enjoyed relaxing in a comfortable chair with his glass of whisky on top of the southwest tower as he watched the sunset.
It was on just such an evening that his routine was interrupted by anti-portkey and anti-apparation wards dropping down around his warded property. The old warrior growled as he tossed back the rest of his drink (there was no sense in wasting good whisky, and it wasn't near enough to inhibit him in any way) and stood. He was trapped here as far as magical means was concerned – besides the hostile wards blocking his preferred avenues of escape, he had elected not to have a floo connection for security reasons, and trying to fly out on a broom would simply make him a sitting duck. He had no idea how he'd been found, but that was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was that he had been found.
As he was unable to apparate within the enemy ward, the retired auror had to settle for clunking down the flagstone stairway as quickly as his peg leg would allow, cursing with each step. As he reached the first landing, the outer wards collapsed with an earth-shaking gong as they were successfully breached. Fortunately, his destination wasn't the ground but the walk atop the high curtain wall surrounding the courtyard, protected by a crenellated parapet. He made his way around to the eastern battlement, the likeliest vector of approach.
The fading sunlight cast the long shadow of the castle halfway across the small island towards the bulge on the northeast side. The muddy causeway, currently accessible with the low tide, was illuminated by the red and orange rays of the sinking sun, along with the thick green trees growing up Dorlinn Cliff behind on the mainland.
Movement along the narrow isthmus immediately caught his attention. Using his magical eye as a telescope, he magnified the land-bridge and immediately cursed again.
A full two dozen or so scruffy, feral-looking men charged through the muck and lake grass towards his home. They had not yet reached the inner wards, so he decided to make things interesting for them. A growled incantation later and a glowing blue-violet ball of crackling energy shot forth from his want towards the near end of the causeway four hundred feet away.
Most of the time it was pointless to try to cast a spell at someone more than thirty feet away unless the target was facing away from the caster. It was just too easy to dodge an incoming spell beyond that distance. If the target was stationary, though, and the caster had sufficient skill in aiming, then an effective range of several hundred feet was not at all unattainable.
Moody's aim was exceptional, and while his target area was four hundred feet away, it was also fifty feet wide.
The brilliant sphere of energy, blinding white at the centre, impacted the end of the causeway and erupted in a series of rolling explosions down the length of the isthmus, shaking the entire island to its foundation. Geysers of mud and water exploded fifty feet into the air and rained back down, coating everything in the area with a thick spatter of foul-smelling sludge and leaving wide craters behind.
Just because he was a werewolf, regular humans of the wizarding world automatically assumed that Fenrir Greyback was little more than a savage, feral beast – especially the arrogant entitled pureblood arseholes he was forced to endure. In all honesty, it was an image he was happy to cultivate. So long as everyone focused on his savagery, they would naturally overlook his intellect and cunning.
Most of the same bigots assumed that he followed Voldemort because the dark lord promised his pack the opportunity for slaughter and possibly equal rights under the new regime, but that as soon as his victory was clenched and the werewolves' usefulness was at an end then the beasts would be "put in their place." Greyback was in actuality one of the few who knew that Voldemort was a pseudonym for Tom Marvolo Riddle, that Riddle was in fact a half-blood, and that Riddle didn't really give a shit about the pureblood cause, only the power and money associated with it. Greyback had actually been a classmate and fellow Slytherin of Riddle's until his sixth year, when he'd been attacked and bitten by a werewolf not long after returning home after completing his OWLs.
While students together in the late '30s and early '40s, they were as close friends as was possible in the toxic atmosphere of Slytherin house. Both were half-bloods and suffered the same condescending if not outright hostile attitudes so prevalent amongst the purebloods. When Riddle began spreading proof that he was a direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, the pureblood attitudes shifted dramatically in his favour. As he gained standing amongst those students who would later become his first Death Eaters and members of his inner circle, he made sure to include Greyback as his right-hand man until he was forced to drop out of school after being bitten.
None of their former classmates were still alive, and so none of Voldemort's current inner circle remembered that Fenrir Greyback was in the top five percent of their class before his departure. Not just Slytherin House, but the entire school.
While the opportunity for slaughter was certainly one of the benefits of following Voldemort, the simple truth of the matter was for the most Hufflepuff of reasons: loyalty. Riddle had taken care of him when he began to gain influence, and so Greyback in turn helped insure Riddle's rise to power and helped eliminate his enemies. He could care less about rejoining or otherwise having anything to do with the culture that had persecuted him for decades for something that wasn't even his fault, and his pack was equally like-minded. They had all embraced their feral nature and were happy to live on the fringes of civilisation instead of being active members. The pureblood assumption that the beasts wanted to live as equals in the society that had spurned them for so long made him laugh every time he thought about it.
Greyback would never acknowledge it to anyone else, but Riddle was the one person he absolutely respected. As cunning as he was ruthless, the dark lord also possessed a level of patience, attention to detail, and strategic aptitude that earned him the right to rule, at least as far as the old werewolf was concerned. It was just sheer bad luck that he'd gone after the Potter whelp and was subsequently defeated.
Despite how long he'd known him, he still marvelled at how his old friend's mind worked. Even without a direct plan to utilise the information, Riddle had still tasked several of his cells with surveilling certain key adversaries soon after his resurrection, including Alastor Moody. Maintaining discreet distances, tasking ordinary-looking and unmarked subordinates who knew how to blend into the muggle world more effectively than the average magic-user, and even using nonmagical surveillance tools like binoculars, one of the cells successfully followed Moody to the squib estate agent. After a dose of veritaserum and an obliviate charm, they knew the location of Moody's new home within days of him moving in.
When he received his assignment from Riddle earlier that day, finding the grizzled old auror was the easiest part. Taking him down, on the other hand, was a different story.
The wily old werewolf knew the moment it left Moody's wand what curse the paranoid man cast at them. "Siege engine!" he bellowed. "Scatter!" Heeding his own advice, he turned, ran a few steps, and executed a shallow dive into the loch, resurfacing a moment later as the first explosion erupted.
The shockwaves rolled through the black waters with each successive peal, stunning scores of trout near the shore and causing a few to float to the surface belly up. Greyback's head breached the surface seconds before the first impact but he still felt the concussive waves hit him solidly in the chest. Some of his pack were less fortunate – he could see at least three of his company stagger to their feet with ears bleeding from burst eardrums. At least they were alive and in one piece, unlike that one poor bastard who was knocked off his feet by the first blast before he could leap out of the way, only for the second to erupt right underneath him as he struggled to get to his feet.
The siege engine hex was designed to pulverise hardened fortifications. The effects on a living creature, even one so hardy as a werewolf, were devastating. Fortunately, death would have been immediate as the man's body was ripped to shreds in an instant and sent flying in dozens of different directions.
Greyback got to his feet and waded back to shore in great lunging strides. "Keep going!" he roared as he splashed back up onto the muddy bank. "We've got a job to do, damn it! By Mordred, if any of you sons of bitches turn back now I'll eat your fucking heart myself!" As he looked around at his pack, though, he was secretly pleased. Not a one looked ready to turn tail and run – on the contrary, to a man they looked more pissed off than ever.
The werewolves collected themselves before resuming their run, once more leaping aside as another siege engine tore through their ranks, this one managing to blast apart four of their number.
The alpha wolf growled deep in his throat when he saw the state of his fallen pack members and cast sonorus on himself. "You can't keep that up forever, old man!" he called out. The siege engine was a powerful curse, one that sapped a lot more energy from the caster than most spells. "You'll burn through your reserves in no time, then you'll be ours!"
Moody cast a sonorus of his own. "Bring it, ya fookin mangy cur!"
The first of the surviving werewolves reached the island and fanned out, taking cover behind various outcroppings and rises. Greyback himself grabbed the arm of Farkas Molnár, a were even larger than himself, and pulled him towards the striated rocky bluffs on the south side of the island. Yet another siege engine curse erupted behind them as the last of the pack reached the island, leaving another two mangled bodies of their brethren in its wake.
In accordance with their plan, the surviving pack members began casting low-powered spells towards the castle from behind what cover they could find. The brightly-coloured magical energy splashed harmlessly against the inner ward layer, with the incidental effect of showing where said wards stood.
Once he saw where the inner wards should be, Greyback low-crawled through the bushes bordering the top of the south outcrop at the water's edge, followed by Molnár. As Moody was distracted along the east rampart by the rest of the pack launching spells at the wards, Greyback and Molnár approached from the southeast, where they would be hidden from the auror's view by the northeast gable of the keep.
The two crept up to a grassy footpath that wrapped around the east side of the castle and stopped before crossing. Completely hidden from Moody's view at this point, Greyback risked casting the mage-sight spell on himself, as the distinctive blue-white flash of his enhanced vision would surely have given his position away if cast earlier.
The ward line was less than ten feet away.
He did not know where the wardstones were, nor did he have time to try to find them. After crawling to the shimmering red curtain of energy, he removed a platinum ward tap from a pouch on his belt and stuck it into the ground. Once it was firmly implanted he ever so slowly tilted it forward until the large crystal imbedded in the end intersected the ward field.
He motioned Molnár to crawl forward, and when the other man joined him, he simply pointed to the activation rune engraved on the stem. Molnár was not an exceptionally intelligent man by anyone's standard, but he had the most sheer raw power than anyone Greyback had seen – aside from Riddle himself. That meant that while the big man did not know many spells, those he did know were devastatingly effective, to the point that it often required no fewer than half a dozen people to dispel his magic.
Molnár nodded his understanding and touched the rune with his thumb, activating the tap. Pushing his magic into the rune increased the energy flow from the wards into the earth, so Molnár increased the flow as much as he could stand. It was barely thirty seconds before the inner wards drained away until they popped like a soap bubble.
"Go, you bastards!" Greyback called out.
Without hesitation, the pack broke from cover and charged. Though the cover before the castle was scant, the weres utilised what little existed in their mad dash towards the castle, spreading out as much as practical to avoid too man getting caught in any area-effect spells cast by the old auror.
The only entrance through the thick stone walls was in the northeast rampart, up a flight of uneven steps carved out of the native stone that provided the foundation of the castle. The gate was not much more than an oversized doorway, barely wide enough for two men to pass through shoulder to shoulder. During the restoration, Moody had installed two sets of oaken doors, an inner and an outer pair, and strengthened them with runic arrays.
As the werewolves attacked the outer door, half of them erected overhead shield charms while the others cast synchronised blasting hexes at the door. Moody cast a confringo down on the group underneath, only for it to be deflected off the layered shields and into an outcropping behind them where it impacted with a violent orange explosion. Shards of gneiss went shooting in all directions, peppering the werewolves with the rock fragments and even bruising or cutting some of them from the debris. Thinking quickly, the old man adjusted his aim and cast the same spell on either side of the attackers. It wasn't as effective as a direct hit would be but it still had an effect, if the sudden jumps and renewed cursing of the weres was anything to judge by. He was a little tired from the three siege engine hexes, but he'd fought tired before and reckoned that he still had a good fight or three left in him.
The doors were designed to withstand a sustained magical assault, but like anything else they would eventually give way in time. The attacking werewolves were smart about it as they synchronised their attacks. Not even those doors could cope for long with a steady barrage of multiple blasting curses hitting at the same moment over and over again. After seven or eight volleys, the doors could be seen weakening and bowing inward. The next impact shattered them and blasted them inward – only to reveal an identical set of doors on the other side leading into the courtyard area.
The angry howls of protest were music to the old auror's ears.
Cackling to himself, he made his way back to the eastern parapet, casting several more confringos as he went in order to try to drive as many of the attackers into the gate tunnel as possible. Once he established a safe distance, he activated a contingency chain he'd set up for just such an event.
Greyback watched in mute fury as the ground in front of the gate erupted in an explosion of stone, soil, and grass. At the same time, out of his line of sight, explosive runes on the inside walls and ceiling of the tunnel detonated, filling the entryway with a deadly spray of jagged rocky fragments. Even as the clumps of dirt, rock, and bodies began to fall, the northeast curtain wall blew out in a directed blast angled down, ensuring that anyone in the area would be pulverised by the falling stonework. It wasn't silver, but despite the legends, Greyback was well aware that enough physical trauma could destroy anything. Being crushed by multiple tonnes of rock at force certainly qualified.
Only three of his pack reacted quickly enough to run and dive out of the way when the ground erupted, rolling down the slope leading up to the castle. Even then, it was obvious they had sustained more than a few injuries.
As the dazed werewolves attempted to regroup, Greyback grabbed Molnár's arm to prevent him from attacking Moody or at least joining the attacking survivors. "Not yet," he growled. "He still hasn't seen us yet."
"How do you know?"
"He hasn't attacked us," came the reply.
The two werewolves watched as their three comrades recovered their senses and scrambled up the embankment. They could not see the retired auror from their position, nor could they see the gap in the curtain wall, but the pile of rubble in front of what used to be the gate was plainly visible. Even as they watched, purple jets of light rained down upon the attacking weres only to be dodged at the last second. The confringo blasts hit the fallen stones instead, blasting razor-sharp splinters of rock in all direction. Nevertheless, the three werewolves ignored their injuries and tattered garments as they leapt up and over the rubble as if it was nothing more than a flat, level surface, disappearing into the small courtyard on the other side.
Several blue, purple, and golden energy blasts shot up over the parapet from inside the courtyard, followed by the faint sound of a slamming door from up near the north gable of the keep. Muffled impacts and explosions from within were the next sounds to be heard.
"Come on," Greyback ordered as he broke cover and dashed towards the southeast wall. Moody was most likely making his way down through the keep to deal with the weres trying to break through the door. Greyback knew that the auror's peg leg would hinder his speed, which in turn would give Molnár and himself extra time to move into place.
The two weres stayed as close to the wall as they could while they sprinted around the corners towards the rubble-filled V-shaped gap. As they scrambled to the top of the debris, they could see their three packmates taking shelter behind the first retaining wall of the multi-level courtyard. From there they maintained a steady barrage of blasting hexes upon the oaken door of the keep built against the southeast curtain wall.
Greyback and Molnár hurriedly scaled the crumbling gap and clawed their way to the parapet before sprinting towards the keep's upper entry, out of sight from the lower entry. Instead of following Moody down through the keep, though, they stayed atop the parapet waiting for Moody to emerge.
A couple of minutes later, Greyback's keen ears picked up the faint sound of the oaken door of the keep creaking open. A blast of blue energy hit the door a second later, quickly joined by the sound of Moody yelling a string of profanities. His tirade was punctuated by borderline dark curses spewing out from his wand, each spell as dreadful as his language.
The two werewolves hidden atop the rampart watched in stony silence as their comrades were slowly worn down and picked off. Moody, still hidden behind the doorframe of the keep, aimed his exploding curses at the top of the retaining wall just visible at the edge of the grassy middle tier of the courtyard. Though outnumbered, from his vantage point he was able to rain down death and destruction on his attackers despite their cover. Each explosion gouged out gaping holes in the turf and blew hundreds of fragments from the other side of the stone half-wall. Eventually all spell-fire from the courtyard ceased. Catching Molnár's eye, Greyback silently drew the wicked-looking dagger he always carried while raising his index finger before his lips. The other werewolf followed suit and waited for their next move.
It was a full ten minutes before they heard a quiet scuff-thunk as Moody cautiously stepped forward, wand extended. Greyback watched without so much as twitching a muscle while his quarry crept out and slowly moved down the flagstone steps towards the lower retention wall.
When he judged the distance to be sufficiently near, he nodded to Molnár and silently launched himself off the rampart.
Alastor Moody was not one to question his "danger sense" when it warned him. Rather than waste precious seconds looking around, he jumped to the side as fast as he could.
While his instincts were as sharp as ever, though, his actual reflexes were slightly hampered by his age and his missing leg. Greyback's werewolf reflexes were significantly better, and he lunged forward with his knife the instant he landed. He was just able to catch Moody behind his good knee with the serrated blade, neatly severing the inside tendon behind the knee. The retired auror turned the air blue with his swearing as he collapsed, his wand flying from his grip as he flung out his hands in an effort to catch himself as he fell. He was just able to keep himself from falling flat on his face until Molnár landed square in the middle of his back, breaking his spine.
Exhibiting an amazing degree of flexibility born of sheer desperation, Moody twisted his arm around and successfully flung it around Molnár's neck. His legs no longer responded and his upper back was screaming in agony, and while his reflexes may not have been as sharp as they were twenty years ago, his strength had not diminished in the slightest. He grabbed his wrist with his free hand and squeezed, attempting to suffocate his assailant or perhaps even break his neck.
Molnár's struggle against the vice crushing his throat grew more frantic as his face began to turn purple. While the two grappled, each trying to do the other in, Greyback simply walked over, lay the bloody serrated edge against Moody's throat, and with a quick jerk laid the old auror's neck open to the spine. His grip loosened from around Molnár's neck as his lifeblood gushed out across the ground. The were gasped as fresh air flooded back into his starving lungs and he shakily arose to his feet. When he regained his breath again, he gave the old man a vicious kick in the ribs, hard enough to break the bones. Despite the pain, the look of defiance never left the former auror's good eye, even as the light faded away forever.
***EoD***
Upon leaving his lord at the Malfoy manor house, Corban Yaxley apparated to his own house before settling down in his favourite easy chair. Removing a gold pocket-watch from its pocket in his silk paisley waistcoat, he opened the back panel and tilted it over his hand. A single galleon dropped out into his upturned palm. He channeled a minuscule thread of magic at the appropriate points on the coin's surface, which in turn activated the alert function of the protean charm on the corresponding targeted coin. A few minutes later, the numbers of the coin's year stamp blurred and shifted to show the number 1930.
Yaxley nodded in satisfaction, glancing at the time on his watch as he did so. Excellent, he still had over forty-five minutes. He placed the galleon back into the rear compartment of his pocket-watch and closed both covers with an audible snap-snap. He arose to his feet and approached the fireplace, pausing at the mirror to straighten his tie before he flooed to the Leaky Cauldron.
Upon exiting the fireplace at the pub, he dusted himself off and made his way to the back, where the concealed entry to Diagon Alley lay hidden in a tiny courtyard. As he walked past the bar, old Tom the bartender (he never had learned the old man's family name) gave him a cool, steady look but otherwise said nothing.
Yaxley's face twisted into a sneer. He'd claimed the imperius defence back in '81 but was still dismissed from the auror force – Bartemius Crouch Senior, the head of the DMLE at the time, did not want anyone serving in the corps who was not strong-minded enough to resist the curse. Yaxley actually was strong enough, but acknowledging such would have landed him in Azkaban, which would have cost him his job anyway. While using that defence allowed him to go free, certain groups in society nevertheless refused to believe it and to this day retained a measure of hostility towards those who used it to escape a prison sentence.
He tapped the appropriate bricks and waited impatiently for the wall to unfold, revealing the portal to Diagon Alley. As soon as there was enough space for him to pass through, he stepped forward and entered the alley. He was immediately inundated with the noise, smells, and hustle and bustle of magical Britain's premier shopping district during its peak hours. Half-bloods and mudbloods primarily – any self-respecting pureblood would carry himself with much more decorum than this rabble, assuming he didn't just order his house elves to take care of his shopping instead. He managed to suppress his sneer at the teeming masses, but only just.
He turned down a narrow cobblestone walkway just past a magical photography studio – yet another useless affectation of the masses – and approached the ironwork arcade at the end. Carkitt Market was a small offshoot of Diagon Alley and didn't really see as much foot-traffic, but it also didn't have the sinister reputation of Knockturn Alley. It made an excellent location for small, discreet meetings, and the Hopping Pot pub served excellent fare. The wrought-iron and glass framework of the arcade, reminiscent of the Victorian-era construction of the Crystal Palace, provided an elegant framed canopy over the shops – at least it would have had the planners chosen an alternative colour scheme to the bold, eye-wrenching primary and secondary colours they had chosen instead.
Yaxley dodged the modest line in front of Eternelle's Elixir of Refreshment, a stand in the centre of the market that sold drinks popular with the younger crowd, and made his way to a four-storey wooden structure with an enormous ale tun hanging over the front entrance. The upper levels were covered with wood siding painted sea green – somewhat muted compared to the rest of the market, but still a particular hue that only someone like Albus Dumbledore could fully appreciate. He wasn't sure what the origin of the pub's name was, and to be honest he didn't really think he wanted to know. Strange name or not, the Hopping Pot's drinks were cold (or perfectly warm as appropriate) and the food was fresh.
The interior held the more neutral colours of stained and varnished wood panelling, creating a cozy, welcoming atmosphere. The taproom held small tables scattered around the floor, each one capable of seating four people comfortably, and raised booths around the edge. A rack behind the bar held several rows of casks stacked on their sides up to the low ceiling. A narrow corridor at the back led to the kitchen and the lavatories, as well as a wooden staircase leading up to the first floor.
The stony-faced Death Eater strolled inside and swept his raptor gaze around the pub. There was a handful of customers scattered around, most of whom ignored him. A couple of them glared at him but otherwise made no move to approach. Yaxley in turn pretended they didn't even exist as he made his way to a corner booth and waited for a server. He casually checked his watch and saw that he still had over twenty minutes. Plenty of time for a drink and a bite to eat. He placed his order and a few minutes later tucked in to a plate of fish and chips with a pint of Wizard's Brew stout.
At twenty-nine past seven, he arose from the booth and made his way to the lavatory, where he stood in front of a urinal while pretending to take a piss. Less than thirty seconds later the door opened behind him and a man entered wearing the burgundy open robe of an auror. He took the stall next to Yaxley and stared at the wall in front of him.
"Manticore is go," Yaxley muttered just loud enough for the other man to hear.
"Midnight," came the similarly-toned reply.
Yaxley flushed the urinal, washed his hands, and returned to the taproom to finish his meal.
The auror exited the lavatory a couple of minutes later and took a seat on the other side of the pub, not looking at Yaxley beyond letting his eyes slide across him as he scanned the room. A serving lady wearing a muslin blouse with puffy sleeves, a long brown skirt, and a burgundy waist apron approached after a moment. A quick wave of her wand ensured the table was spotless. "Good evening, Auror Fawley. You want the usual tonight?"
"Sounds good, Beatrice. I'd like a butterbeer with it, though – about to go on duty."
"I'll have the kitchen put a rush on it then," she smiled at him.
He nodded his thanks and watched appreciatively as she sauntered to the kitchen to place the order. He gave no indication that he noticed when Yaxley left the pub a few minutes later.
Horatio Fawley had known Corban Yaxley for almost twenty years now. A former Ravenclaw, he'd joined the Auror Academy as soon as he finished Hogwarts. Upon finishing the Academy among the top ten percent, he'd been assigned as the junior partner of Senior Auror Yaxley.
Fawley was one of Yaxley's first recruits, but as he had a promising future in the DMLE to look forward to, Yaxley deliberately held his new recruit back from participating in any Death Eater missions. Instead, he ordered the younger man to keep his record spotless, work his way up through the ranks, and to gain the trust of the entire department without being a sycophant. Thus, when Yaxley was outed as a Death Eater by Igor Karkaroff not long after Voldemort's defeat in 1981, Fawley was able to distance himself publicly. Due to some fast talking (not to mention a substantial amount of coin changing hands) Yaxley successfully claimed to have been under the Imperius curse.
Though Yaxley was legally pardoned, he could no longer work in the DMLE. Due to the Ministry's acceptance of the Imperius defence, fortunately, he was never interrogated about his associates and so Fawley remained completely undetected. Following hie recruiter's directive, he kept his hands clean and became one of the most dependable aurors in the corps, eventually earning a spot on the protective detail for the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. After saving Director Bones' life twice, he was promoted to one of the detail supervisors.
After finishing and paying for his meal, the auror left the pub and apparated to the Ministry of Magic, arriving at the auror bullpen a few minutes before his shift started. He clocked in and sat through the general briefing before taking the two-way portkey to Bones Manor with the other two members of the overnight protection detail, Aurors Dankworth and Gastrell. Once there, they relieved the previous shift, received the pass-down briefing, and handed off the portkey before taking their posts and settling in for their shifts.
As she usually did, Madam Bones finished a light supper with her niece Susan before making her rounds and speaking with each member of her protection detail prior to retiring for the night. Over the next few hours Fawley made his own rounds, checking in on the other two while ensuring the locations of everyone in the manor.
When the tall grandfather clock in the manor's formal sitting room tolled midnight, Fawley waited a few minutes more before making his move. Tonight's mission would certainly shake things up, and hopefully fill the Auror Corps with doubt and confusion. It would also out him as a traitor, ending forever his ability to so much as step outside in public. There could be no turning back.
He ensured that the left and right sleeves of his auror robe were loosened before leaving his post. Visiting Dankworth's post first, he engaged his subordinate in a few moments of small talk before suddenly looking out the window with a concerned expression. "What's that?" he said. As Dankworth turned to look, a nondescript wand covered with runes dropped into Fawley's right hand.
Available from a discreet if shady runesmaster who sold rare tomes of questionable nature in Knockturn Alley as a front for his real business, wands like this were preloaded with twenty-five spells of the buyer's choice. As they were runically-based and activated, at no time did the wielder's magic come into direct contact with the resulting spell – all it took was a thin trickle of magic into the activation rune to release the next charge in the sequence. The practical upside of this was that it was quick, silent, and left no magical signature.
Needless to say, these preloaded wands were highly illegal.
The piercing hex hit Dankworth at the base of his skull on the right side and passed up and diagonally through his head until it burst out through his upper left forehead in a spray of blood, bone fragments, and chunks of brain. There was barely a "pop" as much of his head was destroyed, killing the auror in an instant. A whispered evanesco and a few scourgifies later, every trace of the auror was gone.
Auror Gastrell was murdered less than five minutes later and disposed of in much the same way.
With his two subordinates removed, Fawley immediately went to Madam Bones' bedchamber and cast a silencing charm on the door. Easing it open, he could see her sound asleep in her bed. Quickly but quietly, he crossed the room to her side and without hesitation sent a piercing hex from his preloaded wand through the side of her head. She didn't so much as twitch before it was all over.
He decided that he may as well take advantage of the opportunity since no alarm had been raised. He walked down the hall to where the director's niece slept in her own room, and a minute later the Bones line was extinct.
***EoD***
It was close to 2:00 in the morning when Corban Yaxley apparated to the backyard of Riddle Manor. Almost immediately he could feel the dread chill of the dementors as the nightmare creatures drifted through the night skies above. The former guardians of Azkaban had defected to the dark lord's side the same night that he'd broken his most faithful followers out of the prison. They had also stolen the medallions worn by the human guards of the prison that warded against the dementors. All of the inner circle Death Eaters had been given one to avoid the detrimental effects of the soul-sucking demons. Yaxley's hand unconsciously went up to tap his own medallion as if to reassure himself of its presence, but otherwise he made no indication that he was even aware of the dementors floating overhead.
The former auror strode up the path to the main back door of the manor house, where he noticed a dim silhouette lurking in the shadows off to the side. In fact, if it hadn't been for his trained auror senses it was doubtful he would have even noticed the figure standing there. "Gibbon," he nodded as he reached for the door handle.
"Yaxley," came the gruff reply. "He's still up and waiting. Best hurry, now."
Yaxley nodded and went inside. The large sitting room still had most of the furniture still covered with dusty white sheets. A silver candelabra holding three bone-white candles rested upon an end table, the light from the candles doing little to diminish the oppressive gloom. Exiting the room took him to a dark hallway that opened up into an entry hall with the manor's main doors on the far end and two curved staircases leading up to the first floor.
He walked straight through the entry hall and into the formal receiving room off to the side where he knew his lord awaited. Also there, he found, was Thorfinn Rowle, Fenrir Greyback, and that stinking rat Peter Pettigrew. Greyback lounged indolently in a comfortable wing-backed chair, a muddy boot propped up on a threadbare ottoman, looking every bit at ease as the dark lord himself. Rowle sat in a chair on the other side of the room, arms crossed and an impatient scowl on his face. Pettigrew sat off by himself, ill at ease and looking as if he'd prefer to be anywhere else. The dark lord himself sat comfortably in an overstuffed upholstered armchair, a glass of red wine in his hand. The gigantic snake that was never far from his side lay coiled on the floor near his feet.
Without once breaking stride, Yawley crossed the room before kneeling before his master.
"Rise, my friend," the dark lord hissed. "Is all prepared?"
Yaxley arose, the faintest smile upon his face. "Milord, I am pleased to announce that the Bones line is extinguished," he said. There was not the slightest hint of pride or gloating in his voice, just respectful obeisance.
Voldemort arched a single hairless eyebrow. "Indeed," he observed.
"What?" Rowle exclaimed as Greyback smirked at him. "I thought your man was going to lower the wards from the inside so we could launch an attack!"
Yaxley gave the powerfully-built Swede a look of contempt. "Mordred's lance, you bloody Viking! You really are a thick sort, aren't you? I'm sure if you needed a slice of bread you'd take your fucking battleaxe to the loaf, wouldn't you?"
"Enough," Voldemort said, stopping the argument before it could escalate to wands. "What happened?" he asked the newcomer.
"One of my recruits was the head of Madam Bones' nighttime protection detail," Yaxley answered. "Why risk lives, exposure, and failure in a frontal assault when the man on the inside can quickly and discreetly accomplish the entire mission instead?"
"Your reasoning is sound," Voldemort agreed. At his words, Rowle settled back into his seat with a just-contained indignant huff. "What of your recruits?"
"Most are still in place with none the wiser," came the reply. "The bodies of the protection detail were disappeared, and I had a portkey to Hong Kong waiting for my man tonight. He is too valuable to dispose of, so I sent him there to work with my cousin who lives there. I've no doubt he will be profitable for us there."
The dark lord nodded. "You have all done well," he said. "Ollivander is now my permanent guest, and three of my most powerful enemies are no more. I am pleased."
"And there's still no proof that that idiot Fudge will believe that you've returned," Greyback laughed.
"Exactly. As long as he keeps sitting on his hands, we will let him be. His complacency will allow us to rise up at a time of our own choosing." He trailed off, thinking. "Send Parkinson to keep close to him for now. With Malfoy no longer with us, he is best suited to keep the minister under control. We will also need to keep a close watch on our enemies and take special care to see how they all react to today's culling. It doesn't matter who we send so long as they are discreet. The information they bring back will help us choose our next targets."
***AN***
Assault on Longbottom Manor – Hoar Frost by A Tergo Lupi
Assault on Tioram Castle – Ragnakamp by Danheim
Assassination of Madam Bones – The Serpent by Myrkur