Alastor Moody is always watching. (sapience) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-05-31 00:00:00 |
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Having managed to by-pass any Death Eaters on patrol in Diagon Alley and Caterwauling Charms as well, Alice Longbottom busied herself with getting the wards on The Daily Prophet's headquarters. They were, of course, complicated -- the Death Eater's surely appreciated that the Prophet was their right arm, the one that kept the population under control, assuaged the public's fears and spread the purists's lies. They were not, however, impenetrable, especially for a team with huge experience in wards, including three trained and seasoned Aurors. The plan was simple, really. Get in quickly, clear the building quickly, and get out quickly. Patiently, though, she, with the others, fiddled her way through the many layers of magic, knowing that to rush and miss something would mean disaster. "I think that's about it," she said in a low voice to her companions. The last of the wards were coming down. "Once we're in, Tabitha, Remus, Marlene, search the offices for anyone working overtime, then join us in the presses. Remember to Stun anyone you find and place the portkeys on them so they can be transported out. We don't want to risk any accidental casualties." She gave the rest of the Order-members an appraising glance. Once he felt the layer of wards that he was working on dissolve, Frank tested the actual door they had assembled before with a careful push of his hand. Nothing unexpected happened: it opened, no alarms went off, and so they were free to enter. Before he stood aside for the others to pass, he rounded off Alice's instructions with a level, "Patronus if you run into any problems." They didn't want any casualties. With his point made, he nudge the door a degree further open and slid into the building. Though he was far less concerned with the possibility of casualties than his counterparts (at least, so long as they weren't on his side), Moody grunted in affirmation as the others passed he and the Longbottoms. In truth, he cared mostly about success -- this was going to be a black eye on the face of the Death Eaters' whole regime. And even if they found a new mouthpiece in place of the Prophet, this would at least tick them off and he knew first hand that there was nothing that made people stupider than anger. The Order could certainly benefit from some purist stupidity beyond that which was already implicit in their being purists. While Frank slipped in behind them, Moody quickly tried to survey the building -- while he was still getting used to using his eye for less obvious purposes, he figured he would at least be able to detect if something was drastically different from what they'd expected to find. Nothing he saw caused any immediate alarm, so he glanced at the Longbottoms and mumbled 'come on, then' before lumbering off in the direction in which Patty's floor plans had shown the presses. Leaving the Aurors behind to guard the door and tend to the wards, Marlene grabbed Tibby's arm and waved for Remus to follow her inside, ducking through the opening and keeping close to the walls. They'd gone over the plans for how this was supposed to unfold back at the safehouse, they had the floorplans for the Prophet itself with them to make sure they knew where to go and what to do where, and Marlene was excited. It seemed like it had been months and months since something went there way, since they'd done anything to put a damper on the death eater's plans, and she was tired of losing. This was going to go off spotlessly in a blazing inferno of glory and payback. First, though, they had to make sure that no one accidentally went up with the fireworks on accident. "Okay. We don't split up until after we're back with Moody and the Longbottoms," Marlene whispered as she hoisted her backpack full of replacement-newspapers and portkeys onto her shoulders and inched down the hallway, wand out and ready as she peeked around corners and into the windows of offices. "Remus, would you mind watching the back, and then I'll go in first? Then Tibby, if we spot and stun anyone, you can grab the portkey out of my bag and tag them. Is there anything I'm forgetting?" "No, I think that's it," was Remus' hushed reply. He felt a little worried about Tibby being there, considering what he saw of her abilities during the attack on Hogwarts -- hopefully, she had been training and, hopefully, there wouldn't be a need for fighting. They'd managed to get in alright, so things were looked well so far. With Tibby walking in between the pair, Remus kept a lookout from the back, his wand out and ready just in case they did run into some Death Eaters -- or vice versa. Marlene continued to creep through the halls, nearly holding her breath to stay as silent as possible. She hoped that there wouldn't be a need for the portkeys that were filling her bag at all, and that after a quick sweep of the premises the three would be able to run to meet the Aurors to let the real fun begin. The three neared the small area with a coffee pot and a water machine, and Marlene let her hand drift briefly to a small coffee stain that still lingered on the wall from the coffee pot she smashed on the wall the day she over-dramatically was allowed to quit working undercover for Smith. Her thoughts were interrupted, though, when she thought she heard a voice mumbling further down the hall. Marlene stopped short, then dashed across the aisle-way, pulling Tibby along with her and waving Remus to follow, behind the barricade provided by one of the cubicles. "You hear that?" Tabitha's stomach tightened, and she held onto Marlene's hand as the sound of the voice trembled through the air. She was nervous, but with a bit better resolve than she had at the fight at Hogwarts. Her wand was out though she kept back an inch or two; it might have been 'brave' of her to be here, but she rarely felt very confident in her abilities, and it was only through sheer nerve that she agreed to come. She wanted to do something worthwhile and since it seemed everyone else had a far easier time throwing themselves into the action, she figured it couldn't hurt to follow along with them. Letting go of Marlene's hand, now, she hovered a palm near the other girl's backpack. "Ready when you are, captain," she whispered lowly. The voice hadn't come from a worker who'd stayed late, nor a security guard checking the premises. The mumblings that the three had heard had come from the overnight janitor, singing an off-key song from the fifties to himself as he pushed along his cart of cleaning supplies. He hadn't expected anyone else to be in the building because... well, no one else ever was this late. And unless it was someone willing to give him a record deal, the janitor had no qualms about sounding the alarm on anyone who happened to be about causing a ruckus. Remus moved ahead of the girls to peer around the side of the cubicle, relieved to see it wasn't a Death Eater -- unless they had started to employ them as janitors. Well, no matter who it was, they couldn't be here when they began to set the fires. He moved out from the hiding spot behind the cubicle walls, wand in hand, and muttered a stunning spell in the direction of the janitor. The spell hit him in the back, and Remus winced when the janitor fell forward onto his cart before sending the whole thing tipping over, spilling the supplies and dumping the janitor's body onto the floor. Marlene winced as the janitor crashed into his supplies, finding herself futilely shhing the clattering noises as if that would help. A few moments passed and no one else came running to investigate the noise, which Marlene took as a good sign that the rest of the building was abandoned. Figuring they'd waited long enough, she allowed herself to breathe again before waving to the others to fall forward, keeping her wand out and ready in case anyone tried to sneak up on them. "Man down," Marlene giggled quietly as moved to keep watch while Tibby stuck the portkey on the unconscious fellow. Tabitha had jerked the portkey out of Marly's bag as quickly as possible, but held back at first while Remus dealt with the knocking him out part. She felt rather bad, but was inwardly relieved to have found someone, as she would have felt forever neurotic that someone had been accidentally left in the building and died. She smiled grimly, knowing that the Prophet wouldn't be around to make up lies about what went on here. Moving forward once he was on the ground, Tabitha pushed the portkey beneath the man's robes and into his trouser waist. "Sorry sir!" She whispered before finding Marlene's side again and giggling nervously as well. They were incredibly fortunate -- the janitor seemed to be the lone person in the entirety of the building. Once their sweep was complete, the three ran back to join the Aurors in the room with the printing presses, ready to begin what they had actually come for. Marlene ran back to join the adults at the printing presses, where it appeared that things had already gotten started. At least they hadn't completely finished having all the fun without them. "Everything's all set and clear and empty and we're good to go. Bombs away!" Marlene reported, pulling one of the Molotov Cocktails they'd made back at the safehouse from her bag and lighting the end of it with her wand. She tossed it up in the air and hit it with a blasting spell from her wand, sending it whizzing through the air and crashing into one of the presses. The machine and all the area around it went up in an eruption of noise and flames, and Marlene had to keep herself from giggling from excitement. This was incredible. Tabitha gave a small shriek of malicious delight, and then launched a bomb of her own towards the paper-cutting station further down the line. Wood and metal burst towards them, and she flung it back against the wreckage with a crisply barked spell so that the blade of the cutter embedded cleanly and violently into the wall, surrounded by splinters of aged wood. She glanced around, eyeing the cubicles behind them. The quilling pool. Remus, on the other hand, was making his way to the individual offices, opening doors (and double checking to make sure no one was inside the rooms, just in case) before lighting one of the molotov cocktails, tossing the bomb into the first office -- there was a desk stacked high with papers, which quickly caught fire and burst up into flames. Remus stepped back and out of the room, moving on to do the same to the next office beside it. With several of the presses already in flames, Moody turned his attention toward the cubicles and reached into his pocket for another of the cocktails only to find that he'd used all of the one's he'd brought already. Oh well. The great thing about being a wizard was that he didn't need bombs to cause damage. Sweeping his wand across that end of the room, an Incendio sent the desks and, more importantly, the documents on them up into flames. With a quick flick of her wand, Marlene drew a string of fire in the air with a flagrate spell and connected it to her wand, whipping the blazing string of embers at a row of cabinets that promptly went up in flames. She was about to turn her attention to another of the printing presses when she suddenly remembered exactly where it was that she was in the Prophet building. With a quiet cackle of glee, Marlene moved down the hall, stopping in front of an office that read Jeremiah Smith on the door. Excellent. A blasting spell was jabbed at the door, which shot open. After a quick sweep of the room to see if anything in there was worth stealing (the Newton's cradle that bastard had talked about in his earlier entry, for one), before stepping back out of the room and letting the flames fly. The Order was running out of time to keep setting off bombs, judging by the heat licking around her and the general roar and crackle of fire swirling around Alice in the room with the printing presses. Merlin, she knew that paper burned easily, but she hadn't realised how easy. After a moment spent watching the flames, Alice sent a melting curse into the flames, towards a press that seemed relatively unharmed by chance. It hit, and glowed red-hot for a second before the smell of iron wafted towards her and the press slid into a shapeless lump on the floor. It was far too hot in here, though, and stepped out into the hallway, to get a breath of cooler air. From the corner of his eye, Moody saw Alice leave the room and after a few moments of internal debate, he stepped out into the hallway behind her. He wasn't one for emotional coddling and he couldn't have cared less if she were upset, but if she was hurt or physically overwhelmed by the fire, he wanted to be sure that she got out of there, now. Once he was beside her in the hallway, he leaned his walking stick up against the wall and stood up straight -- he was far more intimidating that way than when he was hunched over a crooked little cane. "We can handle it from here, Alice," he said before motioning at her stomach. "You probably shouldn't be here anyway." Alice shook her head, freeing a bit of soot from her hair. "I'm fine," she assured Moody. The baby was kicking merrily, as he or she so often did during these more exciting moments, but Alice couldn't help wondering if it didn't partly have something to do with all of the smoke she'd just inhaled. Don't panic, she told herself. Everything will be fine. "The baby just wears me down quicker than before. And the heat doesn't help. We don't look far off from done now, anyway." "Which is exactly why you don't need to be here," Moody said, keeping his tone firm. There was no sense in arguing, though, so he fixed her with a stern look before returning to the room housing the presses. He had to take a deep breath of the clearer hallway air before entering where the smoke was so thick he could hardly see the others. He hoped that Alice would leave -- he didn't want to think about anything happening to the Longbottoms' child when they had everything covered here as it was. To rid his mind of the thought, he sent a blasting curse at the desks he'd set on fire earlier, just to be sure they were completely destroyed. It was cathartic, almost, this destruction of the purists' means of driving their hateful propaganda. Frank had quickly gone through his own set of bombs, and once the glass bottles had exploded from the heat and flames within, he set his wand to the presses, adding to the fiery wreckage with a single-minded determination to raze this place to the ground in a heap of ash. It was quick work -- fire was a hungry beast of a thing -- and soon the building was filling up with a thick, choking haze of black smoke. With an upward snap of his wand, Frank cut through it as best as he could as he crossed the room, just able to make out Moody's shape. "We're done here," he said, almost yelling over the roar of flames and the explosions that were still going off. The acridity of burning chemicals assaulted his nose, made his voice hoarse. "Everyone, safehouse." A pause, as he quickly swept a look around the premises, his eyes already stinging. "Where's Alice?" "She's in the hallway," Moody said. He didn't need to look up when Frank entered the room to know it was him, so instead continued feeding the flames in the room with a jet of warm air coming from the end of his wand. He finally stopped after a few moments and straightened up to look around at the others in the room. He agreed that they needed to leave immediately -- there would be nothing left of this place. They were finished, here. "Make sure she gets out all right," he said to Frank. "I'll make sure the rest get out." A nod, and then Frank was ducking into the hallway, heading straight toward Alice. "Hey," he said, his voice emerging as a croak that he had to cough out of his throat. Rather than ask her if she was all right, he looked her over closely, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder as he went straight to the immediate matter of leaving before they got trapped in their own mess. "We're finishing up. Can you get back to the safe-house and let Hestia know we're coming in?" Alice turned and looked at her husband, having put a Bubble Head Charm up in the few intervening moments between Moody's departure and Frank's arrival. She smiled, even though she was feeling a little light-headed. "I can go tell her. We should have thought to use charms before we started burning," she said. "Is everyone else getting ready to leave?" "Clearly we're still trainee arsonists," he replied in a wry tone, pausing and throwing an involuntary look back as he heard the sound of something hard (metallic?) crashing into something equally hard in the press room. "-- yeah, we're pretty much set. Moody's going to start rounding up the kids. I'll help him once you've left; shouldn't take long." "If we ever decide to do something like this again, we'll know, I suppose," Alice sighed. She felt very tired, and hot, and being hot made her feel all the more tired. At the moment, all that she wanted was to Apparate back home and lie down in bed, but everyone had to get out, and she was sooty and dirty and would at the very least need to wash up first. She took a deep breath in spite of these thoughts and straightened her shoulders a bit. "I'll leave in a moment. I want to make sure we're really done." "We're really done," Frank said firmly, another distant crash underscoring his words. Her shoulder was given a brief squeeze, as though to say he knew that Alice wanted to stay until the very end -- but now there was little Hippo to think of too, and as much as he wanted Alice the Auror at his side, he wanted his wife and unborn child out of here even more. "We won't be much longer. Twenty minutes." Alice nodded briefly, torn between wanting to stay and wanting to go. "If there's so much of a whisper of trouble, send a Patronus," she said, trying to restrain her voice to prevent it from becoming a plea. She hated when she and Frank weren't together in these things these days, it did a number on her nerves. "I'll go prepare the safehouse with Hestia, everyone will probably need some treatment for smoke inhilation." With that, she gave Frank a reassuring smile and turned out of the hallway and down a flight of stairs. She wanted to see the damage they'd done before she left for good. And get some fresher air. Twenty minutes. Frank lingered for one of them, until he was sure that Alice was no longer on the premises. Then, steeling himself for heat that awaited within, Frank ducked back into the blazing room, blasting the wall behind him with a quick spell before he bypassed Moody, a short nod signaling that Alice was out and that it was time to round everyone up and get out before the end result of their own intentions turned on them. Tabitha felt somehow invigorated by the mayhem. She helped Marlene crack one of the printing presses in two even as it burned and then turned to search for more of the special parchment the Daily Prophet used for its papers. She wished they could have gotten there earlier and disrupted today's paper, but that was a small bump -- this was real victory. With a rush of exhilaration, she turned her wand on the wall and wrote, in big fucking sparkling letters, END THE PROPAGANDA MACHINE. "I'm gonna get these cabinets opened," she yelled to her friend over the roar of fire, and she dodged a bursting splinter of wood to force open one of the locked doors near the entrance of the room. It was there that a figure in black caught her eye. Shit. Kicking the door closed, Tabitha didn't run, but worked harder to pry the cabinet off its hinges. "MARS WE'VE GOT COMPANY!" She yelled. "Shit," Marlene cursed, thinking that once, just once, they were going to get away with something without having their plans spoiled by the fucking Death Eaters. Wiping her brow and pushing her hair out of her face, Marlene shot one last Incendio at the machine before turning her attention to the door her friend had slammed shut, locking it shut with a quick spell, knowing that there was someone on the other side wanting to put a stop to their little party. Spotting a large plank of wood that had been shot off of one of the desks, Marlene accioed the board to her hands and moved to the other side of the door, ready to bash the Death Eater over the head with the slow-burning beam if they blasted their way inside. Why did this shit always happen to her? Alecto was supposed to be on the winning Merlin-cursed side, and yet somehow she's still in a flaming building with brats dying to do her harm. Fuck all this for a lark. Alecto lifted her wand and summoned her ire, but had a last-minute rethink, and with a smirk cast her blasting hex not at the door, but at the wall beside it. Being predictable just gets her a bed in St Mungos, and she could always blame the vigilantes for the damage, after all. Rubble still settling and dust still hanging in the air, she barged through the hole she'd made, wand at the ready. Remus' focus shifted away from the door to the newly formed hole beside it, and he pointed his wand in its direction -- although the dust was obstructing his view -- he sent a blasting spell where he hoped the arriving Death Eater might be. If nothing else, it would distract the Death Eater long enough to allow Marlene and Tibby to move away to a safer distance to fight back. Tabitha gasped and jerked backwards, wand at the ready, though it trembled. She grabbed one of the portkeys from Marlene's purse, ready to stick it on Alecto at the first opportunity -- but then she realised that sending the death eater off to wherever they'd sent that poor janitor would only end badly. Damn. She threw it over her shoulder, summoned as much strength as she could, and then lashed her arm out, a gold smear of magic flying across the room in an attempt to transfigure Alecto into something significantly smaller and chicken-like. The blasting hex that smashed into the other side of the wall sent Marlene flying off of her feet and skidding across the ground. "FUCKER," Marlene yelled at the anonymous death eater as she coughed, attempting to catch her breath in the heat and the smoke, despite that she should have been grateful that being knocked to the ground actually spared Remus's blasting spell from crashing into her. She didn't wait for the Death Eater to start retaliating against the spells being pelted from her fellow Order members, shooting a slicing spell at the Death Eater's face. Though the force of the blast had nearly caused Moody to lose his balance on the prosthetic he was still not entirely used to wearing, his walking stick kept him upright and with a whirl of direction, his eye saw the Death Eater before she had even made it entirely through the new opening. This was not exactly indicative of the smoothness with which he envisioned the Longbottoms' plans unfolding. Narrowing his other eye with impatience, Moody sent a Stunning Spell in the intruder's direction -- they'd had a plan and he wasn't about to deviate. Shit. SHIT! She'd thought there was one, maybe two, not a whole ravening fucking playgroup of them. A desperate lunge got Alecto under the first spell, but the toe of her boot caught on a chunk of used-to-be-wall (motherfucking OW) and she went sprawling (fortunately, just as something sizzled over her shoulder with a faint scent of... burnt feathers?). Alecto threw out a hand to break her fall, but still landed hard, barking her shin on more masonry and feeling the breath forced out from behind ribs that were still slightly more sensitive to this sort of treatment than usual. Something else flashed her way, and Alecto rolled hurriedly, away under a half-collapsed table into actual clear space, and it was only as she heaved up into a wheezing crouch that she realised-- Fuck. She'd dropped her wand. A quick glance under the table showed it sitting cheerfully alongside the pile of rubble she'd tripped over. It also showed the dust clearing, showing the legs of her attackers. One of the detached legs of the table was just nearby; it wasn't long enough to reach her wand, but Alecto hefted it like a cricket bat and thought about plan B. Marlene noted almost immediately that any sort of spell-fire from the Death Eater had stopped, even if the Death Eater itself was still up and coming at them. Noticing them grabbing for (what she assumed was) their fallen wand, Marlene cried out "ACCIO DEATH EATER'S WAND!", not wanting to give them a chance to start shooting out killing curses once it was back in hand. Once it sailed through the air and into Marlene's hands, she threw it as hard as she could in the opposite direction, straight into the fire that was roaring behind them from one of the presses. "Have fun getting that back!" Marlene called at the death eater mockingly, not noticing that instead of the wand, said Death Eater had been moving to pick up something better suited for bludgeoning than magic. With the loss of the Death Eater's wand, Remus took the opportunity -- following Moody's lead -- to throw a stunning spell at the Death Eater. Should they stay and keep fighting? Should they run? With the fires they had started, Remus didn't want to stick around for too long until they were trapped inside the burning building. "We have to get out!" he shouted to the others -- making sure that the Death Eater escaped safely was certainly not a priority. With any luck, she would get stuck inside. With the smoke billowing around them from the presses, which were far beyond salvaging, Moody was inclined to agree with Remus. If they waited much longer, there might not be much of a building left for them to escape from. Keeping one eye on the Death Eater, he turned to look at the other three. "Let's get out, then," he barked before turning to follow Remus' Stunner with a Blasting Curse of his own. The blast took out most of her cover, and the time for thinking was definitely over. Even as the splinters were still flying, Alecto was on her feet, pushing off the floor and the rubble to launch herself, bellowing even as she sprinted. She swung the table leg with everything she had at the nearest man, but she was already thinking past him. Two of them were girls, fairly slight, and if Alecto could just reach one of them, surely she had a fair chance of wrestling a wand off her while the others were too sodding frightened of hexing their own teammate. It was the only chance she had, with the flames climbing higher and the smoke starting to obscure the ceiling. The blow from the table leg struck Remus' shoulder, and he stumbled, falling onto his side -- he wand nearly slipped out of his hand, but he held on tightly. He scooted himself away from her, trying to get some distance to give himself time to scramble back up to his feet. There was some part of Moody that felt extremely protective on behalf of Remus, Marlene and Tabitha, so when he saw the Death Eater strike the former, he began to feel the some of the vigour he'd lacked over the last few months since his series of unfortunate and disorienting injuries. With a stomp of his walking stick, he used a levitation charm to move Marlene and Tabitha out of the table leg's reach. "Imperio!" he growled, pointing his wand back in the Death Eater's direction -- the stun-and-run plan was clearly forgotten. "You do not want to fight us." The fact that Moody had just pulled out one of the unforgivables on the Death Eater totally didn't register with Marlene -- all she could see were the flames rushing up on all sides of them and the fact that that bitch had just clobbered Remus with a fucking table leg. Maybe the spell would work so that she wouldn't want to fight them, but Marlene wasn't bloody done fighting her yet. Pointing her wand at a splintered, flame-ridden desk a few feet away, Marlene narrowed her eyes and shouted "OPPUGNO" and sent several shards of fire-covered wood shooting straight at the death eater at break-neck speed. She'd nearly had one of them, Alecto would swear her fingers brushed through the girl's hair as both of them were whisked out of her reach by unseen forces and, "Fuck!" she shouted, frustration boiling over as she turned into a flash of light-- --and why was she so bothered? She didn't want to fight these people. The table leg fell from her hand, clattering amongst the rubble on the floor, and she looked up disinterestedly as a cloud of burning wood-shards whipped into her. Alecto went over backwards, hit the floor in screaming pain; it was like an old friend, but that thought slid away behind the mask of the imperius, and why was this happening when she didn't want to fight? She dragged in a breath, but there was smoke in it, behind her mask, and she coughed and clawed at it, agony in her throat and her arm and her chest. When she pulled the mask away from her face, the fastening charms on her hood went with it, letting the material snag and fall away from her head as Alecto clambered up onto an elbow, onto one knee. She could taste blood, feel it running down her ribs, smell her robe smouldering, and she was so fucking scared. Tears in her eyes as she looked up, at the girl she'd lunged for (who looked familiar, but that was a long way away as well) and whimpered, "Help me." Marlene's wand dropped to her side as Alecto's mask dropped from her face, her eyes going wide in recognition. She knew her. That was Riley's roommate. That was Riley's fucking roommate, who had been at their joint birthday party the previous June when Marlene had taken every precaution in the world to assure that that was going to be a safe night for everybody. Fuck, she had let Alecto know where Riley was after she'd disappeared, thinking she was only a worried friend, and now in the blistering heat of the room she couldn't recall when the last time she'd heard from Riley was. Maybe it was because Riley couldn't contact anyone, because of this person masquerading as a concerned roommate. "You BITCH," Marlene spat out, forgetting the fires, forgetting everyone else, and diving at Alecto, grabbing her hair up with one hand and pointing her wand in her face with the other. "What the fuck. What the fuck," she said over and over again, not knowing what else to do but finding casting the spells that would've given her what street justice deemed she deserved impossible. They had trusted her. ...But she was begging them to help her and FUCK if her resolve wasn't crumbling by the millisecond. Remus was on his feet again in time to see Alecto fall, to see her pull off her mask and beg for help -- and then Marlene was on top of her, pointing her wand in the Death Eater's face... and then nothing happened. He understood Marlene's conflict, but he also knew the last time they had left Death Eaters alive, they had suffered a heavy price. But there was no time for conflicted feelings, and he strode over to Marlene and grabbed her shoulder. "Come on, we have to go, there's no time -- just leave her, or the fires are going to get us, too," he urged, trying to pull her away so they could get outside to safety. They could leave the Death Eater to the fires. Alecto barely had enough sensation left, enough breath, to gasp at the pain when the girl yanked her hair. Something in the back of her head was screaming - Get up! She's recognised you! Bite the bitch's sodding EAR OFF! - but it was so far from her, pushed away by pain and fear and the geas of the imperio. All Alecto could do was hold weakly onto the wrist of the hand that was knotted in her hair, try to get her knees beneath her. Blood on her hand, dripping from her robe, and her breath coming ragged as she whispered, "Please. I don't want to" die "fight you." Marlene paused for another moment, wand still pointed and eyes still narrowed. Marius had begged her to stop, and she was going to. She'd begged Marius to leave them alone, and she and Remus had nearly died for it. How many more people would die because of her, if she let Alecto walk out of there? Hell, how many people had she killed? The smoke was too much, though -- she was drenched in sweat and the heat was unbearable and Marlene could hear the supports around the room crackling in the fire -- and they needed to go. They'd lost enough. "I don't want to either, but we don't have a choice," she spat back, pulling her hand free of Alecto's hair and letting her head smack against the ground as she let Remus pull her away, not sure if she felt more disgusted with herself about not being able to go through with it or the fact that she almost had. Any headway Alecto had made towards getting up was undone when the girl (McKinnon, snapped the back of her brain) let her go. The heel of her hand skidded on the floor in a patch of her own blood and she was down again, stars dancing over her vision and the floor warm all down her side. At least the air was clean, down here, and Alecto gulped a double lungful of it. She slapped a palm against the floor, tried to lever up onto her elbow; bumped one of the shards of wood embedded in her side, and yelped in pain, her forehead knocking against the floor again. When she closed her eyes, a desperate tear sliced down her cheek, through the dust and ash grime. Tabitha had never felt more conflicted about anything in her life. Though she'd been afraid for her life as Moody'd pulled her away from her hair's breadth (literally) brush with death, she didn't know how to want someone who was begging and pleading with them to be dead. "Mars, no," she whispered, but she didn't have the strength to go on, too fucking confused about what was right and wrong here to speak up. Alecto was wrong. She was a bad person. She had probably killed. But did they have any more right to kill her back? Who were they if they weren't better? But she steeled herself against her wavering confusion. Her mother was dead, and her husband, her friends, could be too if even one death eater was allowed to go free. Heat was beginning to bristle the hairs on her arms and she had a bittersweet memory of the simplicity of life in her family rookery, where fire and dragons and food were all that mattered. "Somebody do it," she said through gritted teeth, in a voice that was far more serious than Tabitha had been in a long, long time. "Make it quick. Dying in a fire is too cruel. PLEASE somebody do it." Marlene backed away from the death eater, keeping her wand trained on her just in case, not knowing what to do. They weren't murderers. They were the people who were supposed to be stopping people from getting murdered, not the ones doing it themselves in cold blood. "Right," Marlene muttered, her hand shaking as kept her wand trained on Alecto, dozens of spells running through her head, knowing they needed to do this now or they were all going to die. ... A few seconds that felt like hours passed, and nothing happened. She couldn't do it. "UGH, fuck this; it's too hot," Marlene stomped as she turned around and away from her, shooting one final Incendio blasting into the nearest already-destroyed printing press, the remains of the machine exploding in a blast of heat and metal and fire. "Safehouse, now," she said to the other three before turning her wand on herself and apparating away, not wanting to wait another moment lest she change her mind. Grunting his agreement, Moody looked quickly over at his companions before wiping soot and sweat from his forehead and stepping closer to the fallen Death Eater. The other three might not have been able to do what needed to be done, but Moody had done this before and he lacked the youth that made the idea of 'living with the consequences of one's decisions' a heavy problem. Though he knew that his actions would most likely not be well-received by the rest of the Order, he needed to set an example. Even if not every situation they encountered was kill-or-be-killed, there was obviously a reason that the Death Eaters were flourishing while the Order's numbers dwindled. For Edgar, the Prewetts, Agnes, Caradoc and everyone else who had died in the last year, Moody wasn't about to let another killer go or count on the building collapsing before it could escape. He wanted to be sure that they'd never confront this one again. A few unsteady steps brought him close enough to see her clearly through the smoke. With his mouth drawn into a stern line, Moody pointed his wand at the girl in spite of her pleas. "Avada Kedavra!" A jet of green ignited from the end of his wand, casting the smoke and flames around them in a nauseous shade of ash. The flash of green caused Remus to flinch; the only time he had seen that spell used before is when it was being cast at him or other Order members. As much as Caradoc had tried to tell him that the Unforgivable curses were becoming necessary, that he should learn them -- Remus had always been too hesitant, trying to shy away from the dark arts as much as he could. He was dark enough -- but hadn't he been using dark magic, anyway? He had tried to justify it to himself that the spells he's cast weren't Unforgivables, but the fact of the matter was, he had already resorted to using spells that the Death Eaters never hesitate to use themselves. And, given the circumstances, wasn't using the Killing Curse far more merciful than letting the Death Eater burn alive? Perhaps he shouldn't be trying to avoid dark magic anymore -- but it was something he would think about later. With a crack, Remus apparated away. Tabitha gave a little moan of horror and then stepped forward to wrap her hand around Moody's elbow. "We should go," she urged, voice a mixture of fear and ... well, fear. Moody hovered for a moment over the girl's body before he nodded. The roar of the flames was almost deafening now and he knew that the place would likely collapse at any minute. "Go, now," he said, glancing down to where her hand was on his elbow and moving it out of her grip so that she could Apparate. Once she was gone, he followed suit and left the burning building for the safehouse with a loud crack. Leoben was finding these patrols more and more tedious. Nothing since January. And tonight, he expected the same. It all simply meant he would be out far too late and that tomorrow would be absolutely miserable. So it was, perhaps, a moment before he realised that something was, in fact, wrong. He could see the warm glow of a fire, far too close for his liking. Automatically, he drew his wand and headed for the source of the flames. Toward the end of the Alley. Leoben ran, heart suddenly in his throat. The Daily Prophet Office. He rather thought there was something fundamentally wrong with the fact that this was the second time this year that he was running into a burning building. It was sweltering, walking into this oven. Charred paper floating almost peacefully in the air, it was a caricature of laziness as Ben coughed on a mouthful of smoke. Salazar. With a flick of his wand, he put out anything immediately around him. The jet of water hissed as it met with flames. Was anyone even here any longer? It was only then, almost on cue, that he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Immediately, he snapped his wand around. "Locomomtor Mortis!" he barked. The cough betrayed Ben. Annoyance flashed across Frank's expression, grim already though it was in all of this smoke. He'd just finished his last sweep through the place, checking for stragglers. He had paused only to cast a final blasting spell, directed at a final machine, causing it to crack in half before flames leapt up; the spell left his wand just as he heard the hoarse incantation -- and he was ready for it, dragging up that one half of the press he'd just destroyed with a flick of his wand to block the curse. Another twist sent it flying at Ben. Leoben felt a rush of panic. He couldn't be blamed really. Getting flaming printing presses thrown at your head hadn't been covered in terms of training yet. But after a quarter of a second, he got his wand up. With a silent reducio, by the time the machine got it him, it was hardly larger than a ball and Ben batted it away almost irritably. Mindfully, he put a shield charm around himself and growled "Ossisverso!" Aiming for anything, really. Bone twisting was nasty business and he would cripple this man before he killed him. The thickening smoke ate up the blue vibrance of the curse, but there was just enough for Frank to recognise it for what it was and turn away, preferring to let his arm -- the left one, much abused as it already was -- to catch the brunt of it. Instantly he felt the head of his humerus begin to twist, and with a growl that was half pained, half angry, he bit out a relashio and a disarming spell in quick succession. Ben felt a stab of satisfaction as his curse hit, and he kept his concentration as well as he could before he was forced to let the magic go. His shield charm protected him from the first spell, though he stumbled, but he had to physically get out of the way of second. He managed, if only barely, throwing up another shield charm just as large section of the ceiling came crashing down near the doorway he'd come in. Soot and smoke covered him, and for a moment, Leoben could do nothing but cough, his nostrils and throat burning from the invasion. A silent confringo followed, aimed at the next section of ceiling that stretched above the wheezing Death Eater. To say that he himself was having no problem at all with the smoke would be a lie, but Frank was more intent on getting the man out of his way than getting a proper lungful of air. The pain that shot up and down his arm, the scratchiness of his throat and the burning of his eyes -- all things he shoved from the forefront of his mind as he worked to incapacitate his attacker so that he and the others could leave. After the ceiling came crashing down, Frank, cushioned against the debris, accioed the man, ducking out of the way just in time to prevent being sandwiched between Death Eater and wall. Leoben heard the crash of another section of the roof being blasted away. His eyes were watering and he couldn't quite get a full breath, and before he even had time to think about getting away from the roof, he was pulled. He landed with an undignified grunt on the ground at his opponents feet. As fast as he could, he threw up a shield charm and aimed upwards. "Angor," he rasped, hoping to distract this man long enough to get to his feet. And there went his airway, throttled shut -- but what matter, when there was precious little air here anyway? His throat burned, his lungs, but he strode forward anyway and gave Leoben a single kick in the gut. He really was trying to get back up, but his feet betrayed him, and before he got half way, what little air he had was forced out in a rush. His concentration on the spell broke and Ben was laid out on his back, gasping for air as he looked up at his attacker. The face he saw, perhaps coupled with the environment in which he found himself in, reminded him forcibly of Lestrange's library. In the recesses of his brain, he remembered a cry of Millicent! and it all flooded back. This was not the first time he had encountered this man. As the realisation dawned on him, Leoben laughed, hoarse and slightly weak, but a laugh none the less. A vicious smile twisted his face, interrupted by a fit of coughs, but a mindless sort of amusement still drew a shadow on his face. "What did you think, when I killed her, I wonder," he spat out. "Who cares," came the flat reply. Disgust, hatred, but certainly not regret, glinted in his eyes, and without much ceremony, Frank summoned Leoben's wand. Ben didn't fight. This was over, he knew. Part of him was angry, but most of him was simply... resigned. The Dark Lord would be displeased. Leoben would deal with that when it was time. His wand was torn from his hand, and Leoben laid still, almost curious as to what this man's next move was. His next move was to snap his wand and toss the bits away. They were little better than kindling now, and if a Death Eater's wand helped fuel this inferno, so much the better. And then, his wand aimed true as he began to walk slowly backwards: "Ossisverso." Leoben almost winced as he watched his wand snapped in half and tossed into he fire. This was problematic. But as the spell hit him full in the chest, his mind was focused on slightly more pressing matters. He could always get a new wand if he had to. A pained cry tore itself from his throat as his ribs and sternum were twisted like wet rags. Instinctively, he curled up into a ball, as if the position would somehow lessen the pain. It did no such thing. Ten feet, twenty -- Frank maintained the spell until the thick black smoke shrouded Leoben from his sight. The curse was ended by simply directing his attention elsewhere: another bit of machinery that needed blasting, another foundation that could be torn down. The recent memory of Leoben, crying out as the bones of his body contorted unnaturally, was already far from Frank's mind as he threw out another series of blasting spells, then turned and got the hell out of this inferno. For Leoben, the memory was far more clear. He coughed and sputtered, desperate for oxygen even as the very structure of his body twisted and contorted on itself. And then quite suddenly, it stopped. Or at least, he could no longer feel his bones wringing themselves out. He lay panting heavily on the ground for several long minutes, willing some of the pain away. He didn't want to look. He wouldn't look. His ribcage had taken beating after beating over the past several months. He would recover from this as well. Just as soon as he escaped this death trap. His throat felt swollen and tight, absolutely raw and as he tried for another breath, another fit of coughs wracked his body, sending lightening bolts of pain through his already damaged rib cage. Just a swallow of air, that was all he needed. Just one. Just enough to get to his feet. So focused on this task was he, that he didn't hear the roar of nearby flames, the crack of timber as the beam divorced itself from the rest of the building. The only thing that he was aware of was the blinding pain that enveloped him when it landed squarely on his lower back with a sickening crack. And quite suddenly, any hope he'd had of moving was gone. The feeling leaked out of his legs, left his toes and when he even attempted to move them, nothing happened. And slowly, he realised: so, this was it, then. The heat baked off of everything around him and he was left... here. Broken, wandless, with no means to call for help. His head pounded, deprived of the precious oxygen that had been eaten away by the flames. He couldn't breath and he was aware of an acute, constant pain in his body. It was everywhere, not quite emanating from any single source. Leoben laid his head down in flat defeat. His vision was dark around the edges, blurred as it was. It occurred to him then, sometime in his last few conscious moments, how futile it all really was. The money, the manor, the duties that he had sworn himself to in the name of culture and preservation of blood. What was it all for? None of it mattered here. Leoben coughed weakly, spat (almost black in colour), and then couldn't help but laugh softly, almost inaudibly. It was all for nought, and here his body was, still trying to save itself. Slowly though, the pain faded and his vision was dim at best. He rather felt like he was floating, even as he watched the flames eat merrily at a stack of newspaper. He could smell (he thought) ink, as it burned away. His face felt sun kissed, as if he'd spent too much time outside. He heard nothing but the roar of flames as something, somewhere else in the building collapsed. And then there was nothing. |