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Chapter 44: Into the Fire
The silver glow of that night's quarter moon cast a ghostly sheen over the concrete rooftop. That pale light, bright this high above the city, carved tracks of shadow along the scars on Moody's face. The man's wand was raised and levelled toward Harry's chest. "What part were you playing the first night we met?"
"I was pretending to be James Potter," Harry replied. "Is that good enough for you? This fucker's heavy."
"What have you done?" Moody growled.
Harry dropped the limp body he had been holding up face-first onto the concrete. "Expediting things."
"You were to wait!" Moody barked at him. "You were to breach the fucker's house, then wait!"
"There was only him and two guards inside the room, plus one outside. They were better odds than we would have had once Anton's men broke through Ramses's wards."
"Ramses is still holding and we'd have been there by now," Moody retorted.
"Still holding?" Harry wiped surprise from his face. "I couldn't bank on that; you undersold how many guards there were, I counted dozens."
Moody stepped toward him. "You listen real close, boy." The man paused just inches from him. Their noses almost touched. "I've been doing this for longer than you've been alive, you hear me? When I tell you t—"
"The runner was a child."
"The—"
"A child, Moody! The boy who this worthless prick had right on the outskirts of a battlefield was a child!" The High Martial remained deathly still. "What was I supposed to do? Wait for you lot to turn up and risk a firefight?"
"Where's this runner?" The bite had fled from Moody's voice.
"In an alleyway behind an unyielding shield that will go down in four hours. That's my best guess as to when he'll wake up."
Moody exhaled a hot breath against Harry's face, then stepped back. "I don't like what you did. It was reckless and shows you don't trust that I know my business." The accusation gouged into Harry. He held his tongue. Anguish would not reduce him to the blubbering defiance of a new recruit. "I get why you did it, though, and it was a good thing to do. Stupid, reckless, and thoughtless enough to make me tear my hair out and shove it down your throat, but it says good things about the man I've saddled myself with. I can live with that."
A new shadow cast by moonlight appeared with them on the rooftop. Harry turned to see Ramses with his sandalwood skin, black beard, and broad nose.
"What mission did you aid my team in the first time we met?" Moody growled at the newcomer.
A sharp smile sliced across Ramses's thick lips. "That's a trick question."
Moody was unmoved. "Keep talking."
"Your team's mission was to stop me and the other raiders I was working with." Harry stiffened. Other raiders?
Moody grunted. "Report."
"Over half the guards are dead." Ramses said it the way one might discuss a business meeting. "They all started fighting one another." The man turned his black eyes on Harry. "Your work?"
"Yes. I could tell force wasn't going to end well and couldn't afford a flashy spell. I'm also still drained."
"Confundus Charm?" Ramses asked with both eyebrows raised.
"Memory Charm on the first guard I came across that wiped all knowledge of his colleagues from his mind. As far as he knew, he was the only guard on duty."
"Ah." Ramses nodded. "Clever."
"Cheers," Harry returned. "How did y—"
"We're not here to share stories," Moody interrupted. "Let's get Andrei to Krum and find out how the rest got on." The High Martial reached up and touched his cloak pin, then they were soaring through a swirl of shapeless shadows.
"The first words you ever said to me?" Krum asked without inflection once they had appeared in the large conference room. Four of his men had their wands trained.
Moody allowed himself a vicious grin. "Shame you were a lousy recruit in your day or I'd have scooped you up and we'd both have been better off."
"I take it this is Andrei?" Krum gestured to the motionless body floating alongside Morison, whose wand was out.
"Yes." Ice crept into Harry's voice. "I made sure of that before taking him with me."
"Good lord, man." Morison looked up from an examination of Andrei with wide eyes. "Did you torture his name out of him?"
"What's this?" Krum asked.
"His right petilla's shattered, there are three broken ribs, a splintered hand, and bruises everywhere I look."
"He tried to pull a runner," Harry said simply, remembering the crack Andrei's right side had made against the hardened wall he had been slammed into. "Then he tried reaching for his wand after I had already warned him." That had been a grave mistake.
"The prick deserved it, by the sound of things." Moody leant against the backrest of the nearest chair. "What's happening out there?"
"You're one of the last back," Krum told them. "Rookwood's team was first. No drama. Quick in, quick out."
"And no mishaps from the others?" Morison asked.
Krum shook his head. "None."
"Are we done, then?" Ramses was digging grime out from underneath his fingernails with a short, bronze knife.
Krum's expression hardened. "No. You will join the others."
"Others?" Moody straightened. "I thought you said they were all back, or most of them?"
"They were, and then we got word from Scamander, I think the man's name was, and they rushed off again."
Dread wound tension throughout Harry's muscles. "Rushed off after what?"
"Dragons," Krum said as if it was of no consequence.
"Fucking fuck!" Moody cursed, reaching for his cloak pin. "Brace yourselves."
Morison released his spell and let Andrei's body flop against the floor, and then they were off again.
Harry swayed out over the high drop of a small ridge overlooking a steep mountainside rolling down into lush, green fields. Far off in the distance were the outlines of innumerable trees, their silhouettes like the faint rippling of shadows across the sea at dusk.
"Alastor." Standing on the ledge alongside them was the traitor, Rookwood.
"Don't you Alastor me. What's happened?"
"Several dragon reserves came under fire at the same time," Rookwood explained. "The wards were still holding here when we arrived and I've heard similar reports coming from the other teams."
"They wards still up, and you seem to have things handled." Having cast a wordless super sensory charm, Harry could see the top ledge of a stone wall rising past the distant treeline, plus the telltale shimmer of an unyielding shield enclosing the entire area.
"The attackers retreated," Rookwood replied. "It was a stalemate when we first arrived. We didn't want to rouse the dragons and their group was small, so they didn't want to risk a straight up fight."
Morison grimaced. "Dare I ask how you drove them off?"
Rookwood shrugged. "Let's just say I took a less impressive page from Kalloway's handbook and struck fear into them the best way I knew how." Morison shuddered. "That held them off long enough for us to be keyed into the wards. After that, it was academic. They lacked the coordination to fight a foe who could apparate around them."
"And you said the others have been checking in?" Moody asked. "All's well?"
"As well as can be expected, last I heard," Rookwood confirmed. "One of Kr—"
There was a loud crack. The Eastern European man from Moody's squadron appeared among their ranks and then fell onto his knees. "H-High Martial," he gasped, sucking in sharp breaths. A patch of his brown hair had been singed off and the smell of burning flesh clung to him like putrid perfume. "The eastmost reserve is almost lost. Dozens of men. The wards are down and the dragons have been riled."
"Get the fuck back there!" Moody said, already reaching for his cloak pin. "We're right behind you!"
The smell of burning grass and wafting smoke hung over the valley they appeared in. There was a large forest about a mile to their right from which the smoke was rising, and high hills some distance to both their front and rear. Far off sounds of fighting reached them.
"Th-three dragons," the Eastern European stammered, pointing to the plumes of smoke rising out of the forest. "We've g-got two warders caging them in for now, but they won't hold long and the others are going to catch on soon."
"Reinforcements!" Moody snapped at the singed man. "Go and get them. Check every reserve and see who can spare the men. Go to Krum, too." The Eastern European saluted and then vanished with a sharp crack.
"Anton's guards," Harry said once he was gone. "They must have all come here once Ramses's ward went down."
"Not Anton's," Rookwood corrected as Kingsley, the Frenchman, and one of Krum's warders appeared in a circle around him. "His in name alone."
Realization dropped like a lead weight into the pit of Harry's stomach. "Andrei's. They're all Andrei's."
"And fiercely loyal, if Krum's right." Moody was staring at the high hill ahead of them. "This must've been their backup plan. If they couldn't take the city, they'd bust out the dragons and let them cause all the chaos."
"Why?" Harry asked, biting off the word as if it were a captor's finger. "What the hell do they get out of that? Revenge?"
"A distraction," Rookwood answered. "If we're busy chasing dragons, they can flee the country and maybe even spin this to harbour some support."
"Kingsley, Kalloway, Ramses, Marcel! There!" Moody pointed a finger at the hill in front of them. "Kingsley, Kalloway, reinforce the defenders. Ramses, work on restarting the ward scheme before the dragons all fly the nest. Marcel, cover him. Augustus, Emolov, Morison, with me!" Moody, Rookwood, and the warder from Krum's squad vanished with a series of sharp cracks.
Harry turned on his heel and stepped into the middle of a firefight. Six men were being herded over the hill's crest by a force of about twenty. Broken bodies were strewn across the sloping hillside. Most wore the ragtag robes of Anton's guards or were adorned in common clothes. Only five he could see from his current vantage point were venators.
Two men whirled on him with their wands raised.
He turned and vanished, appearing some ways down the hill's far side, right between two corpses. Bone jutted out of one man's neck and the other's head was half caved in.
Harry poured his will into the air between the advancing semi-circle of rebels and the reeling venators, then brought it crashing into the larger force. They were tossed backward down the hill toward him. Eight of them tumbled into the crater he tore open with the Elder Wand. Kingsley stunned one and fired a bludgeoning hex into a second's temple. Six scrambled back onto their feet and four disapparated.
"Go!" Harry barked at Kingsley as he slapped aside a purple spell and threw up a silver shield. "They've probably gone to get the jump on Moody, or to break through in that forest."
"I'm not—"
"GO!"
Kingsley vanished without sound and Harry let his shoulders slump. Fatigue's ache was all over his body. Cracks and ripples snaked across the surface of his silver shield. It was fortunate few could muster blind hatred in high enough quantities for the Unforgivables or they would already have punched through.
"You're dead, bastard!" It was one of the six men hurling curses at him. "I'll rip your fucking heart out for what you did to Sergei!"
The spellfire pounded into Harry's shield. He could feel it beginning to unravel. "You'll have to be more specific!" he gritted out. "Sergei's just a name!" One of far too many he had killed. The things we do in war.
"Piercing hex through the throat!" The man had stepped out of line with the five others aiding him in their constant onslaught. "Sergei Joseph! Remember his name in hell! AVADA KEDAVRA!"
"PROTEGO AUREUM!"
The killing curse deflected off his gold shield and struck the caster in the chest. The man crumpled to the grass just as four of the six battered venators who had been fighting for their life moved in and took advantage of the distraction Harry had provided. Thank Merlin. The entire reason he had stood there behind his silver shield was to buy them a brief respite.
"Bouclier d'or!" Marcel, the Frenchman, had popped out over the hill and was making frantic gestures.
Harry tracked them and felt his breath hitch. Three wide-winged outlines the size of small houses were soaring through a shroud of smoke. The screeches they let out drowned out his sharp curse and were returned with loud roars coming from multiple directions.
"Fuck!" Harry spun, then stumbled along the smoking tree line he had apparated in front of. Smoke blotted out the light of moon and stars, and the crackling of snapping branches and glow of fire were coming through the foliage.
More shrieking overhead as more dragons took wing. He braced himself for the roars that would give answer. One drowned out the rest and shook the earth beneath his feet, deep and grating like the cackling of Fiendfyre.
Harry's heart froze. "Oh, shit." His legs were trembling and it felt as though he had crashed a broom at high speeds. Everything throbbed and a faint chill was running through him in spite of all the smoke.
None of that mattered — Harry apparated toward where that roar had come from.
The Hungarian Horntail matched his memories of the Triwizard Tournament's first task down to the thirteen long spikes jutting from each side of its forked tail. Each was longer than a medieval sword and sharper than a surgeon's scalpel.
"Hello, old friend." The dragon's scales were a deeper black than the surrounding darkness, like shadow that had solidified into nigh impenetrable armour. "I wonder if you're the same—" The beast belched a column of fire and he was forced to dive aside. Heat bore into his neck.
The horntail spread its wings. They spanned wider than three buses lined bumper to bumper and stirred up gusts of wind each time they flapped. The beast's clawed feet left the ground.
"No!" One Horntail was worth ten more common dragons; if this one escaped, it would level towns and ravage cities. "Sectumsempra!" Black blood spurted from the deep gouge slashed into its left wing as the horntail thrashed and roared. "Sectumsempra!" The second sliced into the right wing and the dragon tipped in mid-air, then crashed down into the grass.
The tremor knocked Harry off his feet. Then he was up again and on the horntail. Snape's curse flashed repeatedly from the Elder Wand, but the beast had wised up and had no weak points exposed. Each spell carved a shallow ditch into the dragon's scales and made no mark upon its flesh.
"Kalloway!" It was Kingsley, who must have come in search of him but whose apparition had been imprecise. There was about a quarter mile between him and where Harry had the horntail grounded. "Watch out!"
Harry conjured a blast of wind without thinking and was sent soaring up above the dragon's sweeping tail. The horntail seized the opportunity and rolled back upright. Harry's feet slammed into the grass and it spewed fire.
"PROTEGO MAXIMA!" called out close upon a dozen voices.
The dragonfire splashed against their combined shield and sputtered out. The horntail hissed and roared. Harry's knees trembled. This had to end or he would die.
I can't die. Riddle's smiling face slothed off his skull in the eye of Harry's mind, revealing the noseless, red-eyed thing beneath. No one can stop him if I die…
The Elder Wand sent fire pulsing through his veins.
"SGRIOSFÀILE!"
The horntail thrashed at the tempest boring down on it. Tatters of wing were torn away and the dragon flailed in pain. Scales snapped and its muscles strained as its head was wrenched around. There was a crack like splintered stone and the dragon toppled backward.
The ripple sent out when its huge corpse hit the ground knocked Harry off his feet a second time. His legs turned to water when he tried to rise and the wand slipped between his nerveless fingers. Black blood splattered the shredded earth around him as he heaved and gasped.
"…fayre into the fyre."
— Thomas More
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