Mill "into the wild" Bagnold (faircop) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-02-20 15:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-02] february, frank longbottom, leoben yaxley, millicent bagnold (née macfusty), rabastan lestrange |
Who: Millicent Bagnold, Leoben Yaxley, Frank Longbottom, NPC!Rabastan Lestrange
Where: Lestrange Library
When: 10.45pm; 19 February, 1980
What: A fight.
Rating: A for Asplosion
Status: Completed!
Millicent was angry. She'd been angry for a while now, but she was old enough and experienced enough to know it, to recognise it, to channel it, to keep it locked up tight and use it. None of which didn't mean she hadn't leapt - metaphorically speaking - at the opportunity to blow shit up. Politics was complicated; this - creeping through the darkness, the thrill of action and the meticulous tick of planning - was simple. With the information their scouting team had gathered for them (and Mill was quite proud of the way young Amycus had matured in the past six months) getting to the library went just as planned. With the moon well on the wane there was little illumination to work by, but also little to give them away as they began - with gestures more than words - to go about their work. It was surreal. All of it. When Rufus disclosed the assignments, Frank's initial reaction was one of discomfort -- it had every potential of being awkward -- a feeling that settled into resignation as time drew near. Alice had called the operation petty, and maybe, given the timing of Dedalus' death, it was, but said resignation was soon replaced by a single-minded need to see the task through to its completion, with all the explosions and flaming debris that entailed. Still, it was weird to be in a purely magical village past curfew, this time as the fugitive rather than the enforcer of law, and it was weird to be doing this with Millicent, their ex-Minister, who most definitely was not his usual partner of choice. But he'd been doing this for too long to be phased by weirdness. Things were quiet between them more out of necessity than choice; he followed her soundlessly, making as much of a sweep of the area as he could in the almost-dark, picking out the shape of the building that was (if all things went according to plan) soon no longer to be. Concealed in a small pouch were the explosives they would be planting; it was heavy in his pocket and he ignored the momentary urge to just chuck its contents at the damned building, gesturing instead that the road was completely clear and that they could move forward. Across the road and into the shadow of the library, the stone black on black, cold and very real under Millicent's fingertips. As they huddled against the wall, she coaxed the faintest lumos from her wand, shielding it from the road with her body. Just enough light to show her gestures as she pointed, waved her arm, lifted an eyebrow at Frank. We start here and plant across to there, yes? She might not know how she felt about Frank - she had less uncertainty about his wife - but that was why they had training and procedure, to avoid vagaries. The unspoken plan of action was met with two short nods. Had there been a handful more people with them, splitting into two sub-groups and moving in opposite directions, planting until they met again at the other side of the building would have been his preferred plan; but they were only two tonight, and they needed each other's eyes and ears. Frank brought out the pouch, loosening its drawstring with a small pull with the tip of his wand. The wall against his back was cold and hard, the feel of it repellent to him, adding to the adrenalin that pumped through his body. Another nod -- Now. -- and he was sliding forward in the direction she'd indicated, into the darkness ahead, with nothing but the feel of stone to guide them. Leoben walked side by side with Rabastan, the pair of them sticking relatively close to the shadows. The point of patrols, after all, was to catch people who were out after hours. That was a difficult task if you were walking out in the open. Still, there was something about walking around on an abandoned street for a handful of hours that got exceedingly boring and Ben found himself consistently checking his pocket watch every fifteen minutes or so, despite the fact that he knew it'd been fifteen minutes and that time was in fact, constant. The two of them rounded the corner around Gladrags Wizardwear (again - tenth, eleventh time?) and headed down the main street. "You go check past the Three Broomsticks this time," Ben insisted quietly, motioning vaguely as he headed down the mainstreet. Rabastan rolled his eyes, but indeed headed off in the other direction. Salazar forbid someone was trying to rip off the best butterbeer in Hogsmeade. Ben was in easy sight of the library now, as close to the buildings as he was. He wasn't sure, but he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, a quick movement near the stone structure. He sank further into the shadows, squinting in the darkness. Someone crouching around the library. He glanced towards Rabastan again, who was coming around the other side of the Three Broomsticks now. Ben pointed. For a moment, Rabastan looking confused, but then he too saw the movement. He silently pulled his wand out. Ben followed suit. Rabastan stepped forward, a far more intimidating figure - he was a Lestrange for Salazar's sake! "Stop where you are! You are breaking curfew!" he barked, sounding louder than normal in what had been an almost complete silence before. Not all the training in the world could prevent you taking surprise at a sudden voice in the night, but it could at least prevent you showing it. So the only sign of Mill's startlement was her whispered, "Shit!" The faint light from her wand winked out and she planted the explosive in her other hand by feel and memory as she hissed, "Stay down. Keep going." Not waiting for a response - time was of the element - Mill slid along the library wall away from Frank, keeping her face to the wall to avoid a glimpse of pale skin. "Who's there?" she called, voice pitched to carry, and then scuttled a further few steps, turning now and ducking to scan the night street. Mill's whispered "shit!" covered everything Frank wanted to hiss out in response to being discovered. But his teeth were gritted too tightly and there was still the possibility that the uninvited guests that had stumbled into their operation had only noticed one source of movement; he kept silent, positioning one more explosive before doing just what Mill had said and moving forward, all but hugging the wall and feeling the scrape of stone against his face. There was no time to hesitate, not if Mill was going to cover his arse so that this library could be blown to kingdom come. As the yelled demand for identification reverberated through the silence, he planted another rune-marked knut and moved on. Ben stepped out of the shadows, eyes on the feminine figure hugging the wall. "I could ask the same of you," he said smoothly, taking several steps in her direction. "Step away from the building. Last chance," he said, this time pointing his wand at her. Leoben had had a very trying week and she wouldn't get another warning. Rabastan was moving across the road, wand also pointed at her. "We'll be asking the questions," he agreed. "Step away," he added, stopping in front of the library, reaffirming Ben's earlier command. If she wasn't busy keeping a very close eye on both figures, Mill might have rolled her eyes. Fucking amateurs. Both of them were now fully visible and neither had actually announced any sort of authority. If they were hers, she'd flunk them both back to repeat basic training. They weren't. She relaxed her grip on her wand, easing out the tension to loose battle-readiness. A twitch and a barely-aspirated word cast a shield. "I don't think so," she replied, stalking another step away from where she'd left Frank. Keep moving, keep their attention. "For all I know you've as much right to be here as I do." The little light in the sky hit her face and that was answer enough for Ben. What in Salazar's name was she doing here? Nonetheless, the time for questions was over. "I don't think so, my dear Minister," he said softly and silently cast a stunning spell at her. As luck would have, it rebounded and Ben stepped out of the way. A vicious smile pulled at his lips, despite her shield charm. "Traitors don't have much right to be walking around at all." "I'm sure you'd know all about that," Mill replied, not even flinching as the spell ricocheted off her shield. "How is the Dark Lord doing these days?" Even as she spoke, she settled more easily into a slight crouch, flicking a glance at her other opponent before returning her gaze - and a stunner of her own - to the speaker. Another shuffle sideways, a renew of her shield. Frank better be moving fast; they might be amateurs, but there were two of them, and who knew how long she could hold them off. Ben smirked. If there was anything he was actually truly proud of, it had been his ability to stay well and completely undercover since he'd joined the Dark Lord's ranks. No one knew. At least no one that was alive. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about that," he mused, stepping out of the way of her stunner just in time. It whizzed past his ear. Leoben cast a silent blasting charm at her. Thank Salazar he'd at least been paying attention to his mentor when they'd been learning nonverbals. Each of the rune-inscribed bronze coins had been given a tap by their wands before beginning, ensuring that they would all go off at the same time. All Frank had to do was plant them and move on -- plant, shuffle forward, plant, forward, and again. The pressure to get the entire building rigged and the pair of them out of here in one piece was on, and Frank worked in tense silence, picking up speed and by now just past the opposite point of the building, unaware of what was going on with Mill and the intruders. Mill ducked aside to let the blasting charm shoot over her shoulder, and ignored the rock dust that sifted down into her hair; one more weakness in a wall she hoped to rip down entirely. She stayed down in the crouch, bracing herself with one arm while with the other she cast: jelly-legs jinx (gets more hitwizard usage than the public might suspect) at the hitherto silent one, and a blasting curse of her own at the feet of her more active assailant, quietly spoken for extra oomph. Rabastan was quick with his shield charm, the hex rebounding harmlessly into the night. He was observing carefully, inwardly wincing as Ben's previous blasting hex collided with the wall of Rodolphus's library. Everything seemed fine though, and his attention had returned to the fight at hand. Ben side-stepped again, though was sent stumbling for a few feet as the blasting hex exploded to his side. Enough. This was only serving as a distraction and he had no idea what was actually going on here. Back up was never going to hurt. He waited for Ben to throw another hex at their fugitive before slinking quickly away (as possible as it was for a man of his size to slink anyway) to call for help. Just in case. One never knew, after all. Leoben however, was busy with the former Minister, growling Incarcerous and another stunning spell in quick succession. In her crouch, Mill's shield charm only had to cover half as much. She let it take the brunt of the flung spells as she flung her own in response. She settled into the pattern of defence and offence, regular and unthinking, almost like breathing. When a stray hex went sizzling into the night, Mill realised her assailant was alone; his associate had left. Shit. Was he flanking her? Mill kept her back against the stone of the library, her shields tight, and spared a fleeting thought for Frank's progress between jinxes. Through the hissing and cracks of spells as they hit (or didn't) their intended targets came the sound of pounding footsteps. The explosives were planted; the entire building was rigged to blow; and it was time to get the hell out of here. Frank had shoved himself away from the stone building, a silently-cast shield well in place as he sprinted to where the fight was, aiming a blasting spell at the feet of Mill's assailant in order to ward him off as they made their hopefully speedy get away. "It's done," he bit out -- time to go, the clock's ticking. Ben was doing his best to hide just how out of breath he was by now. He wasn't used to long, drawn out battles like this and it was wearing him down far quicker than he would have liked to admit. Which was not at all. He was bruised and bleeding from several slash marks, and he couldn't be entirely sure but his barely healed collarbone might well have been broken again, too. He threw up another shield charm a second too late as an apparent rogue blasting spell blew at his feet. Where had that even come from!? Were there more of them now? Salazar, where had Rabastan gone? It was then that Ben saw the fleeing form, sprinting from behind the library. There was no time to think. Leoben was startled into casting the first spell that popped into his head. "Avada Kedavra!" he growled viciously at the retreating figure, green exploding from his wand and bathing the streets in bright light for a moment. The sound of Frank's voice knocked Mill out of her battle-trance, and every tiny injury she'd sustained - the strained muscle in her back from throwing herself aside, the knee she'd banged, the nicks and cuts from flying shards of stone - presented the bill for her exertion. The breath she drew in was ragged around the edges, but almost done now. She could follow Frank, turning to cast one-- SHIT. The colour of the light, the look it illuminated upon the face of the caster, the fell dread that clamped itself around her heart: all of this told Mill that while she'd never doubt an Auror's shields, they would do no good against this. She threw herself after Frank, shouting, "Down!" even as she shoved his shoulder towards the ground, stumbling as she tried to get under the spell herself. Tried and failed. A splash of green light threw her forwards, but when her body hit the library wall, head rebounding sickeningly off the stone, it was already too late. Frank was already instinctively recoiling at the dread sound of the curse when Mill pummelled into him, ramming him to the ground. He stumbled, fell, the pavement coming up to smash against his knees, then scrape against him as the basics of combat training kicked in and he rolled -- only to see Mill collapse like a broken toy, the remnants of green fading into the black of night as she fell. "MILLICENT." On hands and knees now, he lunged forward, reaching for her blindly, wrapping an arm around her body -- lifeless; rationally he knew it was lifeless and that taking these precious seconds to pull her against him could mean his death too; but he wasn't going to leave her here to be engulfed by an inferno of stone and fire -- clenching her to him as he threw his other arm up. Light cracked out from the end of his wand, hissing through the air as it made its way toward the Death Eater, giving him the seconds he needed to focus -- And then they were gone. The spell hit Leoben square in the chest, throwing him backwards several metres. This was all happening very fast. The bright green had all but burned a spot in his vision and he was sure he'd broken something else as he crashed against the side of the Three Broomsticks. He had just enough time to register that the voice that had hexed him was distinctly male and that the figure that his Killing Curse had hit was distinctly dead. The Minister. All that, and when Ben blinked, they were gone. Ben started to push himself to his feet when he noticed just how charged the air suddenly felt. With no further warning, the Lestrange Library blew itself wide apart, sending shrapnel in all directions. The force of the blast sent Leoben back to the ground. And when the dust settled (or at least, things weren't flying through the air any longer) flames were engulfing the library, licking happily at the stone, fuelled by what had to be millions of books. |