InsaneJournal

Molly and Rhys vs Amycus.

Molly Carmichael was stuck somewhere near the prefects’ bathroom, all alone and trying to keep her head. With the exception of Cal, she had sighted most of her friends during the ceasefire, and of course had stuck to Nathan like glue, but Nathan though he‘d seen Terry up ahead and ran to help him, then things had got busy once more and Nathan was...gone. Cursing frantically in the biblical sense, she hauled herself to her feet, spitting out dust and brushing off her knees with palms that she distantly noted were riddled with shallow cuts.

Now standing, she deliberated. Should she Disillusion herself? Sneak along until she found her friends, or at least some potential allies? But if the enemy couldn’t see her, then no one else could either, and there was always the risk that she’d get caught in the crossfire. The thought of lying alone in the castle, bleeding to death from a Slicing Hex intended for someone else chilled her, and she discarded the idea of invisibility as quickly as it had come to her. Instead she produced a Shielding charm and cautiously inched forward.

Ahead of her was a sight that at first chilled her, then made her boil. Amycus Carrow. Their Dark Arts teacher, that monster who had tortured her friends, who had plagued them from an entire year. Something dark, something ugly was rearing up inside of her. At the moment there was no room for fear. All she wanted to do was to cause him a fraction of the pain he had inflicted upon others that year.

Raising her wand, she summoned a curse and pushed every fibre of her being behind it. ”Crucio!”

Amycus was still stewing over Longbottom and that girl. The ones who’d humiliated him by dangling him upside down and then dropping him unceremoniously. He hadn’t told Alecto, not wanting to see the shame in her eyes. Shame for him. No, he’d do something great, something she could be proud of. He spotted the girl coming toward him from the corner of his eye. One of Corner’s friends. Perfect.

The cruciatus was nothing more than the sting of a bee to him and he laughed, raising his own wand.

“I see I taught you nothing, girl,” he said, casting his own torture curse.

“Argh!” Molly launched herself to the side, ducking the curse. Now she was on the ground. She needed something – something quick to give herself time to get back on her feet. “Deprimo!” she shouted, causing a strong gust of wind to blast towards Amycus. She knew that with two curses in conjunction, the first had to serve its purpose on its own, otherwise by the time she responded, she may be out of the fight. “Reducto!” Large chunks of stone broke off the wall, joining the melee to fly towards her professor.

Amycus was immensely irritated that his cruciatus had not hit its mark. These were children. What did they know about duelling? He let the wind hit him, biding his time. “Impedimenta,” he said, stopping the stones in midair, letting them hover lazily for a moment before another flick of his wand sent them back toward the girl.

She knew enough about duelling to know that being hit with an Impedimenta was bad, really bad, even if her now-impaired reactions weren’t enough to tell her that. Her wand arm seemed to be moving through water as the rocks flew towards her, so instead once more she threw herself to the ground, the rocks crumbling over her head. “Finite Incantatem,” she whispered, and the terrible sluggishness stopped, but she was on the ground and had lost Merlin knew how much time and was scrambling around desperately for some way to get herself back onto the front foot. Since it had worked so well with the other Death Eater, she flicked out her wand, sending a Conjunctivitus Curse his way.

As he advanced on the girl, Amycus lazily threw up a Protego and her curse bounced harmlessly away. He flicked his wand, intending to sweep her feet from under her. Then he’d give the cruciatus another try. After all, if at first you didn’t succeed, you were to try, try again.

Battling the person who had tormented her friends all year, whose presence had hung over the school along with his horrible sister, was quite different when you were doing it face-to-face. Do something, do something her mind was urging her, but her body seemed horribly inert, and just what to do at this moment was escaping her. Her facial cuts from earlier had reopened, and distantly she could feel her face sticky with blood and plaster.

After the ceasefire and seeing some of the bodies in the Great Hall, and then Harry Potter...Rhys really started questioning why he was here. This wasn't his fight. Not at all. But if Neville could pull a bad ass out of nowhere and killed a snake, well, that just meant he had something to prove now. Not that he was sure who he was trying to prove himself to.

Pointing his wand he directed his broom dragon toward Amycus Carrow. It was a fancy bit of spellwork that came out of an assignment from Transfiguration, but it was effective too, acting a lot like a real dragon. The broom dragon let out a roar and darted toward Amycus breathing fire at him. As the dragon flew toward their former professor, Rhys ran toward Molly. “C’mon lets do something to make Beery wish he were here.” He offered her his hand to help her up. “Fucking beat the snot out of a shit professor.”

For a moment Molly was similarly bedazzled, stunned by the sheer force of Rhys’s entrance. A dragon. A dragon? And though the situation was very far from being amusing, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Right,” she said, and the sheer coldness of terror was gone from her veins. The dragon just needed something to go along with it, something that was at least as spectacular. “I didn’t learn this from you, professor!” she called out, and leveled her wand much more firmly at him. “Expecto Patronum!”

It was perhaps not the ideal spell to use at the moment, but she had wanted to do something showy, something that signified she knew what she was about. And while she was still coming to terms with the spell, her mood at the moment was such that it could not fail her now. A mermaid shot out of the wand, one very unlike the mermaids at the moment of the lake, and advanced towards Amycus, raising its hands threateningly.

Amycus was startled for a moment by the dragon. Just as he recovered, the girl cast a...patronus at him? Was he supposed to be impressed by that? Shaking his head, he sidestepped the mermaid. “Sorry to disappoint, little girl. But I’m not a Dementor.”

This entire charade had gone far enough, he decided, eyes narrowing. He threw a stupefy at the boy, hard enough to throw him back. Pointing his wand at the girl, he shouted, “Imperio!” What better way to take care of both of them then to let the girl dispose of the boy.

A feeling of calming, floating warmth stole through Molly, the way she imagined she’d felt as a baby when being rocked to sleep. There was a soothing voice in her ear, telling her that it would all be all right if she only listened to it and did what it said, and she nodded and smiled, listening for further instructions.

Hurt the boy.

Well, that was a reasonable request, the majority of Molly’s mind had decided. She half-raised her wand, a Cruciatus on the tip of it, but a smaller part of her was questioning, nudging at the request. Why?

Hurt him. I want you to.

I don’t think so, she retorted back, but there was a question to it. She felt irrevocably nudged forward and raised her wand once more. But there was a window, a break in the summons, her only chance that the remaining sliver of her will that still belonged to her had a chance to push against. Instead of a curse, a bunch of flowers fell harmlessly from the tip of her wand to the floor.

Flowers? That was strange, Rhys thought. But he really didn’t have time to consider the flowers, not with Carrow controlling with Molly. “Shit, making a girl fight your battle for you?” He directed the dragon back at Carrow, letting it fly close enough to knock him over. While Molly could be a threat, Amycus was his bigger concern. He was the one causing it all. In an attempt to stop him, Rhys cast a jelly-brain hex his way. It wasn’t his usual flashy thing, but the dragon was taking considerable focus.

The spell on her slipped for an instant as a spell was flung Amycus’s way. Molly fought against it with renewed panic, but eventually this was distilled and the calm and safe feeling – possibly because it had been so long since she felt that way herself – rode to the top, squelching all others. She aimed a jet of fire at Rhys, only at the last minute able to rock back on her heels and sent it smothering against the ceiling instead, blackening out the stone above them.

While the brunt of it hit the ceiling, the flames didn’t miss him entirely, singeing his arm. It was a brief moment of panic before he remembered he was a wizard. Rhys dosed his arm with water and then jetted some at Molly for good measure. He didn’t think it would be enough to snap her from the curse’s hold, but she was setting things on fire. Water was the logical response and if in the process her shirt got a bit wet well, just because it was war didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the view.

Unfortunately at this point, the dragon was more of a distraction than an aid. So, Rhys would lay it to rest properly. With a renewed sense blast of determination he set his broom dragon into a variation on the Wroński Feint. Only instead of pulling up at the last moment, it kept going at Carrow until it would explode into little wooden pieces.

“Yargh!” It was only water, true, but it seemed to have a fiery effect when combined with the spell Lestrange had cast on her cheek earlier, and the burning sensation forced Molly back into herself. She’d had some experience fighting an Imperius curse before, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she completely succumbed. So she did the only thing she could think of to release herself from the fight. Her fingers unclenched from around her wand, allowing it to fall to the floor.

The jellybrain jinx hit Amycus, disorienting him for a moment and breaking his concentration on the girl. He could feel her will strengthening. He’d just reversed the jinx when the wooden dragon made a beeline for him. Showered in bits of wood, he threw up a shield that protected him from the bulk. However the cut on his thigh reopened and he could feel blood running down his leg. He stanched the flow as best he could, but knew he needed to get away in order to properly attend to his wound.

Grasping his wand and focusing his attention, Amycus tossed off a shattering hex at the boy, hoping that it would hit a bone. Preferably a large one. As for the girl, he decided that since she’d given up her wand, he’d help her along by making it roll away. Preferably under a pile of rubble. That ought to keep them both busy for a while so he could make his escape. Alecto could help him.

Distracted with the fire and then the water, there wasn’t a thing he could do about the shattering hex that slammed right into his chest. Far worse than the bludger to his side earlier, this actually knocked the wind right out of him. Rhys fell backwards to the ground, unable to catch his breath with big throbbing pain in his chest. Bruised ribs from were one thing, this felt like ten times worse. No, this was something all together different.

“Shit.” Molly scrambled for her wand, blasting “Finite Incantatem! Finite Incantatem!” all around until the melee their Dark Arts teacher caused had disappeared, fortunately along with him. Rhys was lying on his back, and something about the angle of his fall told her that it did not look good. If he had died because she had been foolish...if...

“Rhys!” she said, hobbling over to him as best as she could. “Rhys, what was it? Where does it hurt?” She couldn’t see any blood pulling around him, no sign of any obviously twisted limits or broken bones.

His heart was racing, pounding away. Rhys couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and any attempt at words immediately came out as a dry hacking cough. Instead he tried to focus on Molly, to stay calm as best he could, and communicate. He put a hand over his middle where the curse hit. “Worse,” he said with a strained exhale, “six bludgers.”

“Cracked ribs,” said Molly vaguely, wondering just what she could do about that. “Anapneo,” she said, pointing at his airway, which seemed a bit constricted. Doing one thing to help Rhys, no matter how minor, cleared her mind a bit, and she turned her attention back to the rest of his injuries. “I only know the Episkey spell, which is for minor breakages, but may help? And then I’ll summon over a broomstick and we’ll get out of here, okay?”

Her spell gave him a breath of air, but it didn’t ease the pain entirely. Cracked ribs were one thing, a punctured lung was a whole other issue. Rhys nodded. “Fuck,” he said, “let’s go.”



Anthony and Morag vs Crabbe Sr.

The emotional ride from seeing Harry ‘dead’, Neville tortured and Voldemort the winner and then the rapid about turn, had taken Anthony from deep depression to an odd sort of elation, causing him to forget his wounds received in his earlier battle with Yaxley. He and Morag had reunited during the brief interlude and now the battle had started again, he was ready to plunge back in when she pulled him back into an alcove, muttering over his wounds. It was then he recalled his injuries and reluctantly agreed to pause so she could attempt to heal the worst, so he was fighting fit again.

Her skill had improved and soon Anthony was in better shape, standing on his feet without fatigue and smiling at her. However, he knew they couldn’t linger for long, as much as he wanted to. Morag might have already been fighting, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to be in more. “We better get moving,” he said, taking her hand with his free hand, his right holding his wand ready. The castle was rocking, echoing with the sounds of explosions and yells, and there was the heavy sound of masonry falling.

Dust clouded the air as they emerged back into the corridor, Anthony fought the urge to sneeze, his breath catching when he saw a figure up ahead, features obscured by the dust. Friend or foe?

Marcus was mad. Angry and all he wanted to do was break something pretty. His son was gone and nothing was going to bring him back, but he could take other people’s sons, make them feel how he did right now. “You’re not going anywhere.” Normally he would have left the girl alone, but right now no one would be spared.

Hell, he was going to take care of her first. Marcus raised his wand and shattered a the fallen brick around him into little, sharp pieces before casting an oppugno, sending them right at the girl. She was weak. He could take care of her quickly then take his time with the boy.

“Counter!” Anthony said to Morag as he quickly stepped in front of her, casting protego to lessen the effect of the little pieces of brick. Even so, some sliced his limbs - not deeply, but enough to bleed and hurt, causing him to wince slightly. However, his objective was to draw the Death Eater’s attack while Morag cast the conjuctivitus curse, sending it towards their attacker.

Marcus managed to only partially dodge the spell, which left his vision a bit fuzzy in one eye. Rather than slow him down, that just fueled the rage. “Oh lookee here, I got me a hero.” Maybe he would have to change the plan about going for the girl first. Or maybe she could just be a bonus for taking down the boy. “How about this hero?” He said aiming his wand to cast a blasting spell right through the boy’s middle.

Anthony didn’t respond to the taunts, his dark eyes just became more intense as he focused at the task at hand, rapidly thinking through the options. A tag team was their best chance, and he had more skill with the shield spell thanks to the extra training he’d done with the DA. So it made sense for him to cast the spell again as the hex hurtled towards. Morag, understanding what she needed to do without Anthony having to tell her, once more cast a counter-attack with a bat-bogey hex followed by rictusempra.

Unfortunately, even though Anthony’s shield was strong enough to keep him from getting a hole in the torso, it couldn’t completely mitigate the effects. It hit like four fists in the stomach, breaking ribs and sending him flying back so hard that he hit the wall hard, an involuntary cry of pain escaping. He sagged against the wall, momentarily stunned immobile.

While Crabbe managed to block the bat-bogey hex, he wasn’t so lucky with the rictusempra. But then again him joyfully laughing sort a strange sort of mood to the whole ordeal. He descended upon the two children, more like gnats or worse house elves who thought they were worth anything. “I think you should watch,” he said turning to the girl. Marcus cast a spell to immobilize her, hoping to lock her in place, helpless to stop what was coming next.

And boy that was going to be fun. Tapping his wand on his non-dominant hand he assessed the boy up against the wall. Marcus didn’t quite like the idea of hurting someone who looked so pathetic. It took the fun out of it. “Levicorpus,” he cast at the boy. “Now, I think a hero like deserves something to honor him by. A nice scar perhaps.”

Anthony might be up in the air, dangling upside down, but he still had a grip on his wand and the pain from Crabbe’s actions woke him out of the stunned stupor. His eyes narrowed. “You first,” he hissed and slashed at Crabbe’s torso with a diffindo, his anger and hatred for all the Death Eater stood for lending power to his spell.

Marcus had not been expecting that. The child wasn’t supposed to be able to fight back! The severing charm slashed right through his rather round middle. Distracted by temporarily being bested, Marcus lost his concentration meaning that Anthony would hit the ground hard and head first. “You’ll pay for that!” Growling, he made a sort of slashing motion with his wand, sending out a streak of purple flames. Anton Dolohov had taught him this one and he quite liked it - far less messy with only internal injuries, but still quite effective. Only he didn’t aim it at the boy on the ground, but rather the girl who the boy seemed intent to protect.

The satisfaction of wounding the Death Eater was quickly over-turned by being dropped to the ground. Anthony had just enough time to twist in order to prevent his skull from getting cracked, but it meant he fell hard on his left shoulder and the resulting crack, along with the accompanying pain, told him he had a broken shoulder to add to the broken ribs. But despite the agony, it was nothing compared to seeing Morag being attacked and watching her crumple to the ground when her shield charm failed. She lay so still that he could only think she was dead.

“NO!” somehow Anthony was on his feet, broken but enraged. Unconsciously he echoed the first Death Eater he’d encountered, sending several slashing hexes at Crabbe Senior, along with the same nasty stinging ones that Goyle had used on him months back, charging towards the man. It wasn’t enough to just make him bleed, Anthony was filled with an overwhelming desire to wrap his hands around the man’s thick neck and choke the life out of him.

Marcus laughed at the boy’s anger. Good. Let him feel what he felt. Let them all suffer. He rebounded some of the spells thrown his way, but not all of them. A few tore through his robes and some just went wide toward other people fighting not far off. He cast a series of hexes to blast the boy away from him and off his feet.

“Incarcerous,” he said rather calmly. Once the boy was bound, then there was the question of what to do with him. Rather than think too much about it, he went with an old faithful. With another flair of his wand he cast incendio and set the boy’s clothes on fire. “What a hero you are now!” Marcus crossed his arms, watching his handiwork for a while to make sure that it was working to plan. But really this could be a rather long drawn out process and there were so many other people to hurt.

When he was blasted away, arms flailing, Anthony hit the floor hard and the shock, along with the added trauma of his broken bones, rendered him unconscious. So he was unable to move and therefore couldn’t stop Crabbe from binding him. The fire cast on him, greedily took hold, eating through his robes and it was the burning sensation that roused him, just after Crabbe had left. At first, Anthony was to groggy to fully comprehend, but then the smell of burning cloth, burning flesh, and the accompanying pain brought him completely to his senses. With a yell, he rolled, attempting to smother the flames, the only bonus being that the fire had eaten through the ropes and freed him.

It was the yell that brought Morag too. Still hurt from Crabbe’s spell, she was still able to push herself off the floor and when she saw Anthony’s plight, she forgot her pain. Immediately she was using her wand to dowse him in water, snuffing out the flames, but he was in bad shape, losing consciousness again as soon as the fire was out. So Morag, through some effort, dragged them both to the side, casting as many healing spells as she knew on him, and herself, knowing that the battle was over for the both of them and all they could do was wait and hope.



Susan and Padma vs Mulciber.

Padma's hair was sticking to her forehead, with blood or sweat or some mixture of both, she didn't know. She pushed it aside with her free hand, keeping her wand hand carefully at the ready. She was looking for an opponent to battle, but a voice in her head was also persistently nagging: Where is Parvati? Her sister needed her, and she'd let them get separated again. She'd told her to stay exactly where she was, that she'd be right back, and then Parvati had been gone. Why was she always so flakey? Why had Padma let her out of her sight for even a second? And what would her parents say, if they knew she wasn't looking out for her sister?

But her parents would probably be speechless if they knew about any of this, the sight of their daughter sweaty, bloody, and bedraggled, having just battled the Minister of Magic and now looking for another fight... Their reaction would certainly be interesting. Padma just had to get herself and her sister safely home, to see it.

She shut her eyes a second, to focus just a moment on the image of her family and then push them from her mind, and that one second was all it took for a spell to come hurtling her way.

As the ceasefire ended, Phineas Mulciber found himself, once again, surrounded by teenagers who thought they were heroes. When he spotted a familiar, black-haired girl, he couldn't believe his luck. He'd been unsatisfied leaving his opponents after the last battle but now, it looked like he had a chance to make up for that. Before she saw and recognized him, he took the chance to send a Furnunculus hex her way. She was a pretty girl but it was nothing a few boils couldn't fix.

She wasn't with her boyfriend anymore, he realized. The boy was probably dead; he couldn't believe she'd willingly separate from him. He could certainly use that little taunt to his advantage.

Padma tried to block the hex with a shield charm but she was too late; the Furnunculus hit her right between the eyes and she staggered back, letting out a shout of pain. Her face was swelling rapidly and impeding her vision, but there was no time to try to deal with that; who knows what other spell he might send her way while she was dealing with the effects of the first? Inspired by what was happening to her, she quickly shot a Stinging Hex in his direction, hoping her aim was true despite her blurred vision.

Mulciber was caught off-guard; the girl seemed to have gotten quicker in the last hour. With her vision impaired, the spell's aim was off by it still hit the Death Eater in the shoulder, causing him to cry out. To give himself a chance to recover and send back another hex, he called to her. "You've gotten better," he taunted through gritted teeth. "And cleaned up a bit. Last time I saw you you were covered in blood. What happened? You need to wash your boyfriend off of you or something?" His arm still stung fiercely but he'd recovered enough to send back another spell. "Incendio!"

Padma allowed herself a moment to cast a spell that seemed to diminish the boils slightly, but a salve would work better. Distracted by this task and then his words, she hesitated a moment. Having been a twin her whole life, she was quick to realize the reason for his confusion, and as the thought clicked into place in her mind a rush of angry adrenaline flowed through her. Her robes burst into flames as his spell hit her in the arm-- fortunately not her wand arm-- and for an eerie moment she almost seemed not to notice. “Deprimo!” she shouted, aiming the blast at the floor below him. “Expulso!” she added for good measure, aiming now for a nearby statue. “And fuck you!” she finished. He hurt Parvati, he hurt Cal, was running through her mind, and she felt white-hot with anger. No, wait, that was the fire on her arm, too... She blasted it with a quick Aguamenti, which wasn’t enough, and tried to beat it out, feeling dizzy with pain as she struck her own burnt flesh.

Susan was ducking around people left and right, trying to make it to the Hospital Wing as quickly as possible without getting hit herself. She wasn’t thinking very clearly anymore. She was hurt, and tired, and completely blown away by all that had happened thus far, but she couldn’t allow herself to slow down and give into the exhaustion. After witnessing Neville’s stand against You-Know-Who she had lost Ernie and Hannah in the crowd, and she had no idea what was even going on now, whether they were still alive. She tried not to think about it. The Mediwizards and volunteers who had gathered were trying their best to help the injured, and it was up to her to find more supplies, their collection of Potions diminishing far more quickly than they could brew new ones. Every minute that she was away from the Great Hall could mean another death, and she wasn’t going to let anyone die on her watch.

From the corner of her eyes she spotted a bright orange flash of flames, and as she turned towards the light she recognised - was it Padma or Parvati? - facing a Death Eater, her robes on fire. Shit. Susan had no time to lose, but it wasn’t like she would just leave another DA member in trouble. Aguamenti,” she yelled, adding to Padma’s spell with a more powerful charm of her own, as she quickly rushed over. “Are you okay?” she asked hurriedly, knowing how horrid burns could be. She threw a Freezing Charm at the Death Eater, hoping that it would buy them some time. They needed to get away from here.

Mulciber was still recovering from the barrage of spells the black-haired girl had hurled his way when another Heroic Teenager appeared. What was with these kids? Didn't they realize they were impeding the greater good? Apparently the Carrows hadn't been the teachers the Dark Lord had hoped they would be. Between the castle and statues exploding around him and the freezing spell holding him for a moment, Mulciber wasn't able to do much. "The hell is wrong with you two?" he shouted at the girls, willing himself to break out of the freeze so he could fight again. "The boy died, didn't he? That's why you're such a crazy bitch," he spat.

Susan’s charm extinguished the fire, but when Padma glanced down at her arm and saw the burnt flesh, charred pieces of robe embedded in it... between the grisly visual and the pain, she started feeling very weak on her feet. But her attacker’s words snapped her attention back to the fight. “What boy?” she snapped. Cal? Parvati hadn’t said... but Parvati had been in such a state, she hadn’t said much of anything... and Padma suddenly felt certain, with a leaden feeling in the pit of her stomach, that Cal was dead. As certain as if she’d been there to see it herself, instead of her sister. “Cal!?” she cried out, feeling Parvati’s pain and loss washing over her. She was so connected to her sister, loved her so deeply, that just knowing Parvati’s heart was broken was almost enough to break hers, too.

But she choked back a sob, and raised her wand in a hand shaking with emotion. “Confringo!” she yelled, aiming the blasting curse squarely at the man's chest. She followed it up with a slicing hex, for good measure; she wanted to see him bleed, for what he'd done. Oh Cal, oh Parvati. She didn't realize she was saying their names out loud.

Mulciber's taunts had bought him just enough time to push through the freezing charm and put up a short lived Protego, preventing at least the blasting hex from hitting its target. Something had definitely changed about this girl -- and how could she be asking what boy? Had she had multiple boyfriends bleed to death in front of her? And now she was muttering.

He was still slowed, though not stopped, by the freezing hex so he wasn't able to avoid the slicing hex entirely. It was a powerful spell, but he knew he could do better. It was something of a specialty of his. He didn't mind the pain. What was a duel without a few good scars for it? He wondered briefly if the girl would, again, be distracted if her friend was hurt, and rather than taking his aggressions out on her, he aimed a dark, fierce slicing hex at the light haired girl.

Susan wasn’t sure if Padma had even noticed her presence, focused as she was on the Death Eater that was facing them. The smell of charred flesh made her feel sick to the stomach. It had been horrible enough watching Ernie get burned earlier, though Padma seemed to be in an even worse state. Those burns needed help, and Susan didn’t really want to wait around to see what else this maniac would throw at them. Nevertheless, Padma showed no signs of going anywhere, and Susan gently gripped the other girl on the elbow of her unhurt arm, trying to steer her away.

The flashes of conversation did nothing but confuse her, not knowing what they were even talking about, but then Padma called out Cal’s name, and that was enough to make her realise that something was very much wrong. She didn’t pause to look if her spells had hit, instead curling her arm around Padma’s shoulder. Her grief was obvious, and Susan’s heart ached for her, knowing that any one of them could be next. “Padma,” she tried, trying to catch her attention. Her whimpering of Parvati’s name had been enough to successfully identify the twin as her fellow IS spy. “Padma, come on. We need to go.”

In her concern for the other girl, Susan had forgotten to pay attention to the Death Eater, and she paid for it dearly when his curse hit her full on, slicing right through her robes and the tattered pyjamas underneath and cutting deeply into her side. “Aargh,” she cried out, sinking through her knees as pain flashed through her upper body. She automatically moved to touch the wound, her hand coming away dark red with blood. “Expulso,” she choked out, her wand arm wavering as she lifted it. Her aim was off, but with any luck she would at least manage to hit something, anything around the corridor that would keep him away from them.

Mulciber ducked from the chunks of passageway now falling his way and froze a few of them in the air above him. With the blonde girl properly distracted, he could focus again on the other girl. He aimed an acid hex for her already burnt arm; if she lived, her scarring would likely never heal. He reveled in the screaming he heard, both from these girls and elsewhere in this godforsaken castle. These people would really need to learn.

After another moment, he suddenly felt bored. The chunks of castle hung over his head precariously, but an idea struck him and he spelled them to regain control, shooting them toward the girls with a fierce Oppugno.

If Susan had thought it was horrible to watch someone being set on fire, it was nothing compared to this. Padma’s screams were chilling, and the feeling of helplessness that washed over her was almost as bad as the sight of Padma’s beautiful tan skin being burned away before her very eyes. Retches wrecked through her body in response, but then chunks of debris were flying towards them, knocking her into the wall opposite and crushing her chest. Susan’s vision swam for a few moments as she gasped for breath.

We’re going to die. It flashed through her mind, no longer a possibility, but a fact. Looking over at Padma, she could barely make out the girl’s body beneath the debris, clearly having been subjected to the brunt of the attack. She wasn’t moving anymore, and Susan’s relief at the screaming having stopped fell away, being replaced by an icy fear. Was it too late already? Her breath came out in shallow pants, panic coursing through her veins, followed by a sharp wave of anger coming from Helga knew where, the feeling consuming her.

“You bastard,” Susan choked out, fixing her gaze on the Death Eater. “What did... she ever... do... to you.” She had to breathe inbetween words. “Stupefy.” It might be her only chance to get out of here, and find some help.

Mulciber deflected the spell and moved in toward the girls. His wand was ready but he didn't strike. Anger flashed in his eyes. "She. Didn't. Learn. What does it take for you children to just learn? He chose the Carrows, a bitter mistake to be sure, to teach you the truth and it leads to this idiotic rebellion. Look what happens! Your friends are dead and you're never going to win. Incendio!"

“Learn what? How to torture innocent witches and wizards? How to force families apart and turn good people into maniacs like you?” Vaguely, Susan was aware that arguing with a Death Eater wasn’t exactly the smartest plan that she had ever had, not to mention insulting one, but she had had to bite her tongue all year and pretend to agree to this madness. She’d been locked up in the dungeons for days, questioned about her every movement, and she was tired, so very very tired. The cruelty that she had seen today, the sheer disregard for human life as a whole, made her blood boil with anger and disgust, and this was the very last straw.

His spell singed her shoulder as she tried to shift out of the way, not quick enough, her injuries impeding her movements. The pain only fed her anger even as tears jumped to her eyes, and casting a quick Flame-Freezing Charm to stop the burning, she raised her - no, Theodore’s - wand up high. “I hope you rot in hell for what you’ve done,” she snarled, Padma’s unmoving body still in her line of vision. She doubted that her fellow spy was his first victim today, and Susan would likely be next. Fear clutched her heart even through her rage, but she was a Bones, and she would go down fighting if she had to.

“Diffindo! Deprimo!” She wanted him to hurt, the feeling overwhelming her, and the unexpected strength of her spells nearly knocked the breath out of her.

The spells were fiercer than Mulciber was prepared for and the Deprimo hit him square in the chest, blowing a hole straight through. He tried to gasp for air but his lungs weren't working. He looked down, shocked at the turn of events and shocked at the injury he'd received. He couldn't breathe, so he couldn't hex. He began to fall, trying to grasp for anything close by, but the wall was all but gone and he collapsed onto the rubble behind him. If he didn't get help, and fast, he was going to die.

Susan stood rooted to the spot, a look of absolute horror on her face. There was a hole in the Death Eater’s chest, and she had put it there. Dark red spread through the fabric of his robes, gushing from the wounds that her spells had caused and spilling onto the floor. Blood, so much blood. She should do something, try to help, but her legs were unwilling to cooperate, and she didn’t know how or why or what. The anger had drained from her as quickly as it had come, leaving her shaking, and then he was collapsing and Susan almost choked on the realisation that he was dying at her hands.

The pool of blood was growing underneath him, and when he finally went still it was as if the entire battle had stopped around them. Susan could hear the rush of blood in her ears, her legs barely able to hold her up, and she leaned back against the wall for a few moments, gasping for breath. Then she remembered Padma, and her brain kicked back into action. Susan scrambled over towards the other girl, still holding on to the wall, and crouching down she shifted through the rubble. Her hand closed around Padma’s wrist. A pulse. She was still alive.

The relief was instantaneous, and Susan quickly pulled herself up. They couldn’t stay here. She needed to get Padma to safety. Her own injuries were forgotten as Susan gently levitated Padma’s body up. Still, she was unable to just leave the man there.

Leaving Padma for just a few moments, she moved over to the Death Eater. The sheer amount of blood was enough to tell her that he was dead, her hands coming away stained even as she retrieved his wand from where it had rolled out of his hand. She half expected him to open his eyes, stare at her through that terrifying mask of his, and suddenly she needed to know who it was, see for herself. Her hands shook when she removed it, and then she was no longer looking at a Death Eater, but at an ordinary man, his face still set in an expression of surprise. A man that she had killed.

It was too much. Pushing herself up from the floor, Susan’s hands slipped into the pool of blood, and she was only just able to keep herself upright. She wiped them on her robes, unwilling to look down and see the proof of what she had done.

Padma. Padma needed to live. Turning her back to the Death Eater, she raised her wand, beginning her way down the corridor. She couldn’t deal with what had happened. All she could do was try to control what happened next.



Lisa and Tracey vs Professor Blishwick.

Tracey’s heart was racing as she rushed with Lisa into the grounds of Hogwarts, her whole being trying to adjust to the chaos that was happening around her. She couldn’t believe she came back. She couldn’t believe she was here amongst it all. A part of her wanted to regret coming back, but she didn’t. She was here. She was going to fight. It was too late to go back.

All her senses felt like they were sensitive to everything that was happening, and yet she just stood there, a stoic look on her face, unsure of what she should do as she searched for people she knew in battle, for people that needed help, for any sign of danger that she was sure was going to hit her.

“What do we do now?” Tracey asked out loud to Lisa, noting the quiver in her voice. Her eyes continued to scan the crowd, soon noticing the very familiar blonde head of Caligula Blishwick. She couldn’t deny the fluttering in her stomach at the sight of her Care of Magical Creatures Professor, as momentary relief spread through her. Surely, he’d know what to do.

“I see Blishwick!” she said, pointing towards where the blond was. “He’ll know what to do, right?” she asked Lisa, her footsteps already starting towards her professor.

Lisa was as pale as a ghost and her heart felt like it was going to pound right out of her chest. She saw dark hooded Death Eaters zipping by, rogue hexes she had to duck, and screams echoed throughout the castle. She couldn’t believe she was running straight into this war when she had done her best all year to run away.

When Tracey suggested they go toward Professor Blishwick, Lisa was only half paying attention. Everything was a blur around her, and she had just managed to dodge an explosion before catching up to Tracey and soon after, Professor Blishwick.

“P-Professor?” said Lisa warily, attempting to wipe the dirt from the explosion off of her face with her arm. “Professor, behind you! We’re here to help!”

Professor Caligula Blishwick was in an excellent mood. It had been a while since he had really had a chance to hone a duelling skills, let alone in a real environment. Aside from the small hiccup earlier where those three girls had managed to get away from him, the evening was progressing quite satisfactorily. Potter was dead, and no matter how many of Dumbledore’s followers they sent at them, there was nothing that could change that fact. Caligula had no doubt that he would be rewarded handsomely for his support under the new regime.

Making his way down the grounds in hopes to catch any approaching reinforcements unaware, he found himself pausing to observe some impressive wandwork from one of his colleagues, looking at the fresh corpse beside his feet with something approaching morbid fascination. It wasn’t that he was in favour of killing as a rule, but he knew that there would have to be death to restore the new order, and if it had to happen it might as well come about in an elegant way. There was still much that he could learn from those in the Inner Circle, and even as he weaved through the spells shooting across the grounds, he filed the new knowledge away for further study.

At the sound of his title - and it had taken a while to get used to being called “Professor” - Caligula looked up, casting a half smile at his approaching students. Both were from proper families, and he had to wonder what the girls were doing here now. He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Ladies, what a surprise! And just when your father has decided to join up with the right side, Ms Davis.” He was not quite as exuberant as usually, the battlegrounds not exactly making the best place to hold a conversation, but his smile was charming nonetheless, even with his hair in disarray and what was quite possibly dried blood on the side of his face.

Tracey was looking concernedly at her battered up Professor. Although, she felt relief at seeing him, there was something about the way he had looked so war beaten that made her feel uneasy. But as the older male spoke - and despite the fact that Tracey normally felt calmed and excited by his cool voice and charming smile - the uneasiness in her only heightened, especially at the mention of her father.

“The right side? You mean he’s here? He’s fighting for Potter’s side?” Tracey asked, an anxious look on her face, as she began to hopelessly look around for any possible signs of her father. She couldn’t believe it. Did her father actually say no to the Death Eaters? But then why did her mother seemed so anxious in her letters? It almost didn’t seem to matter, because knowing that her father was here somehow made Tracey feel secure in her decision to come back and fight.

Potter’s side. Well, that was enough to answer his question as to why his students were here. Caligula felt a wave of disappointment. They had done so much this year to try and convince them of the right cause, but apparently even those of the right background no longer knew or appreciated their place in the Wizarding World. It was a pity.

“That would be the wrong side, Ms Davis,” Caligula said, his voice going cold. “And here I thought you would know better.” Snapping out his wand, he added, “Diffindo!” If they didn’t wand to adhere, they would bleed for it.

“Protego!” said Lisa instantly, shielding both herself and Tracey. Her blue eyes were wide with fear. Blishwick, their professor was fighting them! She always knew there was something slightly off about him, but not to the extent that he would turn on his students. But this was war and it often did show the worst sides of people, including those she trusted.

Narrowing her brows, she held her wand out in front of her, holding Tracey back. If he wanted a fight, a fight he was going to get.

“It takes a special type of professor to turn on his students,” said Lisa angrily. “I’m suddenly glad I never took Care of Magical Creatures after it was required! “Stupefy!”

Tracey was shell shocked, only fortunate to have Lisa to pull her back and protect her, as Blishwick’s words repeated like an eerie bell in her head. And here I thought you would know better. Blishwick was a Death Eater. Her father joined the Death Eaters.

“And here I thought my father knew better,” Tracey found herself murmuring, before gripping her wand tight, disappointment now rising within her. Lisa’s loud cry was enough to remind her that she needed to act because despite her emotions, despite her want to just now run away from all this, an actual Death Eater was now in pursuit of both her and Lisa.

“Petrificus Totalus!” Tracey cried, her wand now pointed to the Professor she’d actually thought was attractive.

It seemed that Amycus’ Duelling Club had at least succeeded in installing some proper reflexes among its IS members. Caligula could respect a proper opponent, even as he was spurred on by the thought of how ungrateful these children were. “Pity,” he sneered, deflecting both spells that were thrown in his direction. “Or else you might have known what to do with this.” During his time here, he had admired the gargoyles seated among the rooftops, looking like they might move with the slightest breeze. Now, he pointed his wand towards one at the nearest side building. “Draconifors!”

The creature shook itself as if getting rid of the dust and wear that had gathered around it over the years. Caligula grinned proudly as the dragon spread its wings, giving a high-pitched roar and setting off into the air. It came blasting in their direction, not as big as the average dragon, but fast, and as he had meant it to be, deadly. Claws out, it aimed right for Lisa’s shoulders, sharp, ready to sink into her skin.

To say Lisa was unprepared for this moment was a severe understatement. A dragon was coming straight at her, screeching and roaring, about to impale her with its gigantic scissor-like claws. A look of sheer horror overcame her. Faster and faster it was diving down until it was a mere moment away from attacking her.

“REDUCTO!” she screamed, hitting one of the dragon’s claws and, blowing it off entirely. The dragon screamed in pain, but not before digging its second claw into her left shoulder, piercing her skin and roughly throwing her onto the ground.

“LISA!” Tracey screamed, as she ran to where the girl was on the ground. By instinct, she had immediately backed away in the opposite direction when the gargoyle came after them, soon realizing that it was Lisa and not her that the gargoyle was aiming for, and now feeling helpless that she didn’t do anything to stop it. Fear and reality overcame for a moment. They were fighting someone much more skilled than them and the thought seemed much too overwhelming. Maybe coming back wasn’t such a good idea.

But she can’t just do anything now. She had to do something or else both her and Lisa were done for.

She immediately pulled herself back up to her feet, soon shielding her friend now injured on the ground. Lisa needed help and they wouldn’t be able to do this with Blishwick out to get them. And so with her wand out and her hands trembling, she sent a Conjunctivus Curse towards Blishwick, hoping to disrupt the man’s vision enough to maybe give her time to get her and Lisa out of harm’s away.

That was more like it. Caligula had been hugely disappointed when the Gryffindor girls had gotten rid of the snake he had conjured earlier, but this was better than anything it could have done to them. The one thing he did agree on when it came to that big oaf that had called himself Professor, was that dragons were absolutely fascinating and should, in some form, be part of the Hogwarts curriculum.

Busy admiring the effects of his work, for Caligula did like to pat himself on the back for a job well done, he didn’t have his wand up in time to respond to Tracey’s curse. He made a sound of pain, his eyes immediately beginning to swell shut, but peering at her through the slits he quickly cast, “Crucio!” He didn’t need to see Tracey in order for his pain and frustration to fuel the curse, eager to pick up on any screams.

With his attention diverted from his dragon, however, the creature was now free of his control and turned in the air, shooting back at the group of them.

Tracey’s scream pierced the air as her whole body fell back down to the ground, as Blishwick gave her her first taste of the curse that had caused torture to many of the people she now considered friends. Her whole body writhed in pain, as she gritted her teeth, trying to fight back the urge to just give up and pass out. No, she couldn’t, not when Lisa was...

“Li... sa...” Tracey managed to say with gritted teeth, as she tried to reach for the girl, if only to hopefully get the girl up, hoping her Conjunctivus Curse was enough distraction before Blishwick had a chance to do anything else.

At this point, Lisa had slowly gotten to her feet, clutching her bleeding shoulder. She saw the dragon coming toward them again, but this time it was no longer in Blishwick’s control. Pointing her wand at it, Lisa screamed: “INCARCIFORS!”

The dragon shook its head for a moment, stopping mid-air. It then focused its beady yellow eyes on Blishwick, diving straight toward him at incredible speeds.

Caligula’s vision was far from perfect thanks to the swelling, and with his attention on maintaining the Cruciatus on Tracey, he was unaware of the dragon now coming towards him. Its remaining claw aimed right at his face, tearing at the skin of his cheek, and Caligula let out an almost inhuman howl at the pain now spreading through him. His wand fell out of his hand as he was knocked backwards with the force of the dragon’s attack, and he scrambled for it desperately, the creature’s roar indicating that it was far from done.

“Expulso! Deprimo!” he yelled, aiming wildly in the direction of flapping wings. An explosion, then fragments of stone raining down upon them as his own creation was blasted apart. He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, before aiming at his own face and casting a spell to reduce the swelling, enabling him to see once again. Once his gaze settled on the two girls, he fixed them with a frightening glare. “So, now we are clear about which side everyone is on... which one of you wants to die first? Avada Kedavra!”

Tracey scrambled on the ground for her wand, her breathing heavy and her body still writhing and recovering from the effects of Blishwick’s Crucio. Her whole body strained to reorient itself to what was happening, as she took hold of a big piece of rubble nearby in attempt to raise herself up. And as her hearing processed Blishwick’s words, she didn’t need telling twice to know that it would lead to the very thing she knew would possibly be the end of them.

“Engorgio!” Tracey said, wand pointed to the rubble she was leaning onto, as she was forced back to the ground, the rubble expanding to covering and blocking both her and Lisa from the jet of green light heading straight towards them. Tracey covered her head, crouched down on the ground, as a loud blast emanated in the air, the green light colliding harshly with the large stone rock, breaking it into pieces as dust and rubble scattered across them.

She scrambled around the ground again, heart beating much too quick, as she tried to find sight of Lisa against the smog of dust filling the air. “Lisa! We have to leave! We can’t fight him off!” Tracey yelled, fear gripping her voice, as the reality of possibly dying filled her. They could only hold him off for so long and now, he was throwing the death curse. They needed to leave, run, get out or else they were done for. But as her weak body attempted to even get up against the rubble all around them, she couldn’t help but fear that death was right around the corner.

Blishwick clearly was no match against the two of them. He showed no mercy, just like Juliet said. But she couldn’t die. She told Juliet she would be back. She had to - Juliet!

“Expelliarmus!” Tracey called out to the general direction of where Blishwick was, remembering the run down of spells Juliet had given her right before she left the girl. Disarming can come in handy, if you’re quick enough. She just hoped Blishwick was distracted by the rubble and dust - and possibly her fearful call - enough that the disarming would actually work.

Finally, they had realised that this wasn’t a game. This was very much real, and Professor or not, Caligula would not hesitate to do the Dark Lord’s bidding. He was pleased by the fear he heard in Tracey’s voice - it made him feel powerful, and he found he didn’t care about his missed curse. There would be other chances.

Caligula stepped forward, fully intending to attack again, his wand raised. Before he could do anything, however, it was almost knocked out of his hand. His reflexes enabled him to grab onto it again seconds after it slipped from his fingers, and the next moment ropes emerged to wrap themselves tightly around Tracey’s body. He wouldn’t allow her to interfere again.

Moving his attention to Lisa, he whipped his wand through the air, aiming right at her. “Confringo!”

“No... No... LISA!” Tracey screamed, as she ran to Lisa only to be shot back to the ground, soon struggling fruitlessly against the bonds of the ropes that wrapped around her. Panic was overwhelmed her then, her senses heightened by pure fear. She could feel the suffocating tightness of the ropes around her body, see the frustrated tears now filling her eye sight, hear the sobs coming from her throat, smell the mix of rubble and dirt near her face, taste the drying blood from the gash on her lip.

It was as though death was ready to consume them.

“Please don’t kill her... Please,” Tracey pleaded out loud, as she wriggled on the ground helplessly, feeling as though she was now bargaining with death itself.

Lisa's arm was blasted right off at the shoulder, and as she sank to the ground not far from where Tracey lay tied up, Caligula smiled. He revelled for a moment in the screams, the pleading, the blood. Then he moved towards Tracey, pushing his wand against her cheek. They were pathetic, the both of them. “I will be speaking to your father,” he said, moving his wand down in a way that was almost gentle, but no less threatening. “I trust you will... reconsider your position.”

Let it not be said that Caligula Blishwick did not give second chances. Stepping back, he cast one more look at the other girl, the shock and pain on her face, and then he turned to leave. He was done here.