WHO: Dedalus Diggle, Ignatius Travers and Bellatrix Lestrange WHAT: Just a couple of DEs chilling with their fave vigilante classmate WHEN: 29 December, evening WHERE: The Diggle house WARNINGS: Fire, death
From just beyond the property line, where the walkway began, Bellatrix sneered at Dedalus Diggle’s house. In the dim light from the streetlamps, the home looked almost as sinister as the Death Eaters’ intentions for it. Her eyes slid over the high arched windows and the ornately carved trims, considering for a moment — beyond her contempt — the man who lived inside.
“You know,” she said, glancing at where Ignatius was taking down the last of the protections, sending a flicker across the sky above them. “This is almost exactly the sort of place I’d imagine he lived. Maybe if it were constantly surrounded by a dense fog to add a more theatrical touch.”
“Interesting,” Ignatius remarked as he dropped his arm to his side, the last of the protections out of the way. “I always envisioned garish colours and a disgusting amount of glitter, but perhaps that’s just the interiors. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”
He took a few steps forward as a test, to make sure the wards were as down as he thought them to be. He seemed to be correct on the matter. “Shall we?”
She nodded.
“You have to admit though,” she said, starting toward the house. “It’s the tophat of houses.”
She was only halfway up the walk when she raised her wand and gave it a flick toward the the house. The row of windows across the front of the building shattered at once and Bellatrix case a grin over her shoulder. “That should get his attention.”
“I certainly hope it does. Otherwise things might be boring,” Ignatius replied with a grin of his own. At the top of the walk he raised his wand and blasted in the door before taking a few steps inside.
“Ho ho ho!” he boomed loudly.
Marjorie’s clabbert had given Dedalus just enough of a warning to instruct her to gather up as many pets as she could and portkey to safety before he headed downstairs alone to investigate the commotion. He was looking decidedly boring in his pyjamas and bathrobe, though his eyes were sharp and determined behind his reading spectacles. He quickly descended the frontmost stairwell, wand at the ready despite the presence of his fluffy slippers.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the small wizard demanded, trying his best to keep his voice from wavering when he realised that he was facing not one, but two, masked figures.
“What does it look like we’re doing, Dedalus?” Behind her mask, Bellatrix couldn’t help smirking as she stepped through the doorway behind Ignatius. “Or does the Order of the Phoenix have a special name for you?”
Ignatius didn’t wait for an answer before aiming off a bolt of electricity in Dedalus’s direction. “Perhaps his code name should be christmas lights.”
Dedalus’ expression was one of resignation rather than astonishment. So they’d figured it out. It was pointless, he decided, to play dumb when this had likely always been inevitable. “Took you long enough,” he said crisply, quickly whipping an ornate mirror from the wall to bounce the electricity back at his assailants. Whatever had been haunting the mirror shrieked as it shattered. Marjorie was safe, he told himself; if he had the chance of dying tonight, he was prepared, at least, to put up a fight.
Dedalus shot a blasting curse at the ancient chandelier dangling from the high ceiling of the entranceway, sending it crashing down.
Rather than dodge the chandelier, Bellatrix lunged forward at the sight of movement from his wand. It was from this closer proximity that she sneered, “You’re going to take all the fun out of destroying the place if you do it for us.” She marked her words with a flick of her wand and sent a splay of fiery tendrils whipping toward the vigilante.
“And I was so looking forward to this,” Ignatius added, having side stepped the chandelier himself and dodged the reflected bolt of electricity, though he’d felt it singe his robes. Aiming his wand at the chandelier, he formed a small tornado with the broken glass and metal before sending it careening towards Dedalus.
It happened too quickly for Dedalus to properly react; before he could raise a shield, a fiery tendril caught him by the arm and yanked him into the path of the ex-chandelier tornado, causing him to catch on fire and get showered with sharp and violently fast debris all at once. He blindly aimed his wand in their general direction and conjured a flock of knives, then made a mad dash up the stairwell, hoping to gain the higher ground. He desperately patted out the flames as he did so, leaving a trail of glass in his wake.
“You two need to get better hobbies!” he snapped at them over his shoulder.
The glass pelted Bellatrix as the tornado swept past her to pursue Dedalus and she raised a hand instinctively, shielding her face despite the mask already protecting it. In the onslaught, one of their enemies knives buried itself in her arm. With a hiss, she withdrew it and considered the weapon. “It’s not even cursed?” She glared up the stairs and shook her head. She held the knife by the blade, and before she threw it, she added, “That’s childsplay.”
One knife sliced through the fabric of his robe, while another sliced along his arm, but it wasn’t enough to give Ignatius too much pause. Too much pause might lose them the upper hand. “It matches his retorts,” he said with a glance at Bellatrix, currently unimpressed as he sent a fireball at the stairs that Dedalus was climbing.
Dedalus had only just managed to halt the glass tornado, freezing it in mid-air, when the fireball hit the stairs he’d only just been on, causing them to burst into flames and for some of the enchantments on the stairwell to go haywire—it writhed and undulated as though the spreading fire had hurt it, and Dedalus clung to the bannister to avoid being thrown from the stairs.
“Fuck!” he shouted. He’d have been the first to admit that he was not a master of retorts. He frantically conjured a stream of water in an attempt to put out the flames, but the damage had already been done; they began to collapse in on themselves, dropping—one by one—down into the basement of the house.
While Dedalus busied himself with desperately trying to keep himself from plummeting into the abyss, one of the house’s other denizens emerged from a closet and approached the intruders. The resident hat golem—an 8-foot tall creature consisting entirely of hats—seemed irritated to have been woken from its slumber and grumpily took a swing.
“Some bodyguard you’ve got here,” Bellatrix said, furrowing her brow behind her mask as she swerved the golem. She hit it with a slicing curse and watched an armful of hats tumble to the floor. With a smirk, she picked one up and tossed it to Ignatius, ignoring Dedalus’ plight for the moment. “That one might actually suit you.”
“I can’t say I think much of Diggle’s tastes,” Ignatius replied dryly as he caught the garish fushia top hat in his hand. A quick charm later, the hat flew towards Dedalus and attempted to land on his head with the intention of squeezing tighter and tighter and tighter.
“You killed my hat golem! You monsters!” Dedalus shouted. “I’m going to—”
He was cut short by the fushia top hat landing on his head, obscuring his eyes (it never had fit quite right) and squeezing.
Tighter, tighter, TIGHTER.
He blindly, desperately fumbled to try to get it off, and in the process, accidentally let go of the bannister just as he’d tugged it off. He hovered in the air for a beat before tumbling down into the hole with a shriek.
Dedalus reappeared a few moments later, ascending from the chasm held aloft by a floating umbrella. Exasperated, he aimed a wand at the carpet beneath the Death Eaters’ feet, transfiguring it into a bevy of bats in an attempt to sweep them toward the basement instead.
The shriek of bats cut short Bellatrix’s peel of laughter and she stumbled a few steps closer to the hole. She reeled backward just as several floorboards crumbled into the basement abyss. Her irritation piqued again, she whipped her wand out, sending another flare of fire toward the vigilante. “What a hospitable host you’ve been, Diggle. Moving targets are always more fun.”
While Bellatrix focused on the vigilante, Ignatius aimed small fireballs at some of the bats (who had nearly knocked him to the ground already — he didn’t think he liked bats very much). It missed nearly as often as it hit, but he wasn’t particularly fussed about it as the fireballs lit stairs, walls, and bannisters on fire. He didn’t think this particular phoenix would rise from the ashes.
Dedalus attempted—and failed to dodge the flames as they landed on him as well as everything around him. As one of the fireballs engulfed the umbrella, there was little the Phoenix could do but flip them the middle finger as he plummeted back down into the murky depths of his burning house.
Bellatrix smirked behind her mask before joining her friend in spreading more and more fire throughout the house. She set the sofa, window dressings and ceiling on fire, all while keeping an eye on the hole that led to the basement, lest their opponent reappear to catch them off guard. “I still think you should’ve kept that hat,” she teased Ignatius over the roar of the fire. “Anna would’ve loved it.”
Ignatius just laughed, aiming a final fireball at the hole in the floor. “Anna would’ve loved to use it for target practice,” he said as he paused to observe the rapidly spreading fire. It wouldn’t be long now until the whole thing started collapsing and this time he didn’t intend to be inside when it happened.
“We should go. Let the phoenix burn.”
“Let’s just give him a little extra help him on his way,” Bellatrix said before feeding the fire with more fire — some she ironically gave the shape of a phoenix and sent swooping down into the basement after the other wizard. The house seemed to groan around them. Satisfied, she turned her attention back to her partner. “Shall we?”
“Let’s.” A moment later the Death Eaters apparated away with a pop, leaving only the flaming ruins of Dedalus Diggle’s house.