Breaching Hogwarts defenses was never going to be an easy task, but Evelyn was rarely interested in easy tasks. If this could truly be the night they ended the Potter boy's life and crushed the spirits of those who still pinned their hopes on a seventeen year old, well, that was worth the sweat and blood.
When the wards finally came down, she was one of the first through, firing off spells at the hopeless 'defenders' who placed themselves on the grounds of the school. With her mask secured (branding was important!), Evelyn's initial attacks went for everyone and anyone who stood in their way.
Maddie had been one of those who had positioned themselves on those frontlines, doing what she could to reinforce those wards. But the silvery charms were failing fast under the battering they were receiving from the superior numbers of the Death Eaters.
As soon as they fell Maddie started slinging spells, searching for a target that would give her more of a challenge than some of the miscreants falling over themselves to prove something. A slight figure caught her attention, the adept nature of her attack deciding it for Maddie. Whoever it was, they needed to be taken out. She slipped through the crowd, coming up behind to fling a version of the arrest charm at her — this one a magical net rather than the more traditional chains.
The netting tore apart under Evelyn’s slicing spells, but the move left her focused on one target instead of many: a determined-looking woman who reminded her, in the smallest ways, of her daughters.
But that trait alone was not enough to get Evelyn to ease up, so as the last of the netting separated and fell aside, her slicing spells continued against their new target.
Maddie immediately brought up a shield to take the brunt of the spells, a few slipping past to slice at her Auror robes while she parried with a flurry of fireballs.
"Isn't this a bit low, even for you?" Maddie called out to her opponent. "Attacking a school full of kids?"
"If the school's done its job well," Evelyn countered through her shield, "Then it won't be full of kids right now, will it? It's just another building." If her opponent prefered fire, Evelyn decided to try for ice, shooting shards back.
“Just a building that’s been a bastion of wizarding tradition for a thousand years. Don’t you care about tradition?” Maddie poured heat into her shields, before taking a moment to fling that scalding heat out in a wave.
It singed Evelyn around the edges, and the mask against her face grew too hot to ignore. She pulled it away and transfigured it quickly into something not unlike those bullets Muggles seemed so fond of. She shot them, still burning hot, at her opponent with a sneer. "Anything can be rebuilt."
“It’s fine as it is!” Maddie countered before she brought up a new shield to block the bullets, but not quite as quickly or thoroughly as she might have liked. She let out a yell when two of them hit, one in her shoulder and the other her leg.
But she could also make the identity of her attacker now, and the pain of her sudden injuries was eclipsed by the rage that bubbled over as she faced the person who had killed Dedalus. She hadn’t known him well, but he’d always been so damn kind. He hadn’t deserved to die that way.
“Confringo!” Maddie flung another blast of fire at Evelyn before her leg gave out and she collapsed down to one knee.
The chaos stretching out all around him was overwhelming, but Leon knew it was exactly where he needed to be. He’d been scrambling to find the injured - there were so many young people, far more than should have been there - when he heard Maddie’s voice and saw her fall.
Maddie was too important to lose.
He aimed his wand at the Death Eater and shot a face-blinding spell her way, in case Maddie’s blast didn’t stick.
Evelyn fought through the flames. They hurt, but she'd dealt with worse, and her side had some of the best healers in the business. Eyes closed to protect from the fire, she missed the blinding spell. Then, using her own ancient connection to the mask she'd used for so long, she summoned back each of the pieces she shot away at the younger woman—including those currently embedded in her opponent.
Maddie bit back a scream when the pieces ripped out of her, tearing open her wounds further. The hex she’d been preparing to shoot at Evelyn failed as she collapsed further, her focus turning inward as the pain and blood loss threatened her consciousness. And something else that just didn’t feel right.
His friend didn’t need to say anything for Leon to know something was very wrong. He could see the blood seeping out of Maddie’s wounds. He was at her side in a flash, kneeling. “It’s Leon,” he whispered, “we gotta get out of here, Maddie.”
He wasn’t a natural fighter - not like some of his friends were - but he knew he didn’t have a choice here. He aimed and shouted, “depulso!” and hoped that their opponent went flying into something so they could get out.
The blast sent Evelyn flying just as her own Confringo left her wand. It landed just shy of her opponents, blasting a crater into the earth and shooting debris. The Death Eater landed hard and stayed down, momentarily unconscious.
“Tell me about it,” Maddie replied to Leon. “Hope you’ve been working out, I’m definitely not going to be able to walk without help.” She attempted a smile and instead just blacked out for a moment, unable to keep herself conscious for any longer.
Some of the debris from the Death Eater’s spell hit Leon hard, and he knew instantly that he was both bleeding and bruised, but he could deal with that later.
“I got you,” he murmured, sliding an arm around her to brace her as she slipped into unconsciousness. He cast a quick spell to slow the bleeding, and then lifted her, using magic to help carry some of the weight as he hurried away towards relative safety. He wasn’t going to let Maddie die, not here, not now.
Fred Weasley & Percy Weasley v. Pius Thicknesse
Fucking Percy, Fred though as he rounded a corner and spotted him battling a Death Eater. Alone. His duelling teacher had died, there was no way he believed that Percy could take on someone on his own and, mad as he was, he wasn’t about to let his brother be murdered.
“Pedafiggo,” he shot at the Death Eater, giving him time to reach Percy’s, barely acknowledging his brother even as they stood shoulder to shoulder to face off their common enemy.
Percy followed up Fred’s hex with a stinging jinx aimed at Pius Thicknesse’s hands. Still believing him under the Imperius Curse, he knew that the Minister needed to be apprehended. He wanted him to stand trial. And to do that, he needed his wand.
“I’ve got this, Fred,” he said out of the corner of his mouth, side-eyeing his brother. “You don’t have to rescue me.”
Through the fog, Thicknesse knew his instructions, and despite the pain in his hand, he could not let go of his wand. His spellwork was entirely offensive, with little thought given to defending himself from injury. Though his movements were impaired by the younger man's jinx, he was not deterred, aiming a sharp suffocation curse at a redheaded enemy.
Fred deflected the curse aimed at Percy without giving him a chance to defend himself, determined to prove Percy wrong. “I'm sure you thought that last time you almost died too,” Fred shot back, with a light blinding curse aimed at the minister.
Trying to blink away the bright flashes before his eyes, Thicknesse sent a wildly-aimed Depulso.
“Gonna have to do better than that,” Fred mocked, easily dodging the poorly aimed spell and countering with a fireball.
A strong gust of air from the Minister's wand collided against the fireball, sending flames out in every direction as the man held on.
Percy didn’t sneer at his brother, not particularly in the midst of a battle. But he surely wanted to sneer. Instead, he chose a spell that would hopefully distract Thicknesse enough to get him to a place where he could simply figure out what could be done with him.
“Anteoculatia!” he intoned, then upon realizing he couldn’t help himself, decided to make a comment.
“That was a while ago and I didn’t die! I’m here! Let me fight!”
“I am letting you fight!” Fred shot back, extinguishing the flames that had caught him and sending a tongue-tying curse back towards the Death Eater. “I’m just fighting with you so you don’t die.”
Both spells hit, and suddenly the Minister had antlers and an inability to speak clearly. A mangled attempt at a spell left multiple colors of sparks shooting out of his wand and a very confused man staring at it, wondering what was going wrong.
Percy had another nice retort for his brother, but it died with Pius Thicknesse sporting horns and without the ability to speak. Damn. Maybe they did make a good team. “Expelliarmus!” he growled out. Pius needed to be put somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone else.
Thicknesse tightened his grip on his wand, but without the freedom to speak clearly or think critically, it flew out of his hand. He scowled.
Percy caught the wand deftly, placed Thicknesse in a body bind, and then turned to his brother with a smirk.
“We need somewhere to put him.”
Fred rolled his eyes. Smug Percy was the worst Percy, even if Fred didn’t mind being proven wrong if it meant Percy had remained alive. “I bet the vanishing cabinet is still around here somewhere,” he suggested.
“Wait …”
But Percy was thinking of his lessons from Dedalus. The wizard had been so smart and capable when it came to creatively dealing with his foes. So, he gave a quick flick of his wand and Transfigured Thicknesse into a sea urchin. He then levitated the creature - the Minister! - into his waiting palm and dropped him inside his pocket with a bubble charm full of water.
“Okay.” Then, he softened just slightly. “ … thanks Fred.”
Fred couldn’t help but laugh as Percy transfigured the death eater into a sea urchin, surprised at both the creativity and Percy’s ability to do something like that to the Minister of Magic.
“It’s fine,” he said, the laugh still on his lips as he turned to his brother. “Just don’t get yourself killed, you and Oliver owe us a proper wedding still.”
Percy nodded. “See you soon?”
“Yeah, of course,” Fred replied. “Enjoy having the minister in your pocket for once.” And with that he slipped into a connecting corridor, looking for the next Death Eater to defeat.
Jasper Williamson v. Corban Yaxley
Jasper had just fended off an acromantula attempting to break into the castle via a smashed window (the smell of burnt giant spider was disgusting, he'd only just now discovered) when his eyes locked onto a very familiar, very loathed gentleman sprouting a man bun.
Who was also heading up the staircase — before he had the chance to disappear from sight, Jasper fired a slug-slime spell at his Cousin Cockface Yaxley at long-range, hoping to track him down with the trail he left behind.
It took Yaxley a while to notice the slime trailing after him and Jasper’s footsteps were lost to the general din of the castle. He shouldered open the door to Myrtle’s loo to check inside for any sign of the Potter kid and happened to glance down at his feet. A trail of goo led from his feet to the cousin mounting the staircase.
Lip curling, Yaxley pointed his wand at the slime and flung as much of it as he could at Jasper before ducking inside the loo.
The slime flung straight into Jasper's eyes and throat; he coughed, hacking the disgusting taste and just as off-putting consistency out of his mouth, missing which stall it was that Yaxley had ducked into. Trying to hold back the urge to vomit, he leaned down and spotted a pair of men's trousers and shoes peeking out from beneath on of the doors.
Aha!
He threw a slashing curse at what he could see of Yaxley's legs.
As the curse sliced across Yaxley’s shins and the porcelain of the toilet he stood in front of, he hissed low under his breath and blasted the door in Jasper’s direction. “I wish I could say I was surprised to see you here,” he said, almost boredly.
The door almost flattened against Jasper, but he shielded himself just in time for the wood to smash into a couple of the sinks instead, spraying water everywhere. While Yaxley had water and porcelain to contend with, Jasper ducked behind the stalls out of his line of sight.
"You know me, I don't disappoint," he replied at last, freezing the spouting water and then sending it Yaxley's way. "Unlike you, how's your brother, by the way?"
“Why?” Yaxley asked, a slash of his wand melting the ice before it could smash into his face. “Have any last words you’d like me to pass along?” A fire whip crackled outward from the tip of his wand next and he snapped it well above the water in Jasper’s direction.
The whip stung Jasper, branding him across the side of his torso, but he didn't give Yaxley the satisfaction of screaming. "Sure, you can tell him I'm the reason you're haunting his loo forever," he snapped after he cast a bombarda.
Yaxley only barked out a short laugh, flinging the toilet roll dispenser from his stall in the spell’s path. It exploded, peppering him with bits of metal and shredded loo roll and leaving his ears ringing. “I’ll be sure to let Luca know,” he said as he shot a Killing Curse at Jasper and followed the curse out of the stall finally.
Luca was the magic word — Jasper's anger flared up from 0 to 100; he didn't even note ducking out of the way of the Killing Curse just in time for it to narrowly miss his right shoulder. He just saw Yaxley and his loathsome face with that godawful man bun, and how because of him Luca didn't have a mother, had to be cared for in a foreign country away from Jasper to keep him safe.
He cast an explosion at Yaxley's feet.
It was clear to Yaxley that his words had hit their mark. Even if his Killing Curse hadn’t. He smirked at Jasper, but quickly threw a shield charm between him and the explosion, taking a few steps back, water sloshing in his boots.
But the explosion hit the floor instead of his shield and the floor — already weak from the castle’s onslaught — shook and then gave way in rain of debris and water. Surprise briefly registered on Yaxley’s face and then he was falling through to the first floor.
Jasper raced towards the hole — but was held back from peering over the edge by the crumbling stone floor. Water cascaded over the edge, draining the bathroom of the unintended flooding. The laceration on his side made it harder to run out into the hallway, down the stairs, and to where Yaxley was. But it mattered not. For when Jasper had finally reached the room directly beneath Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Yaxley was gone. And the trail of slime tapered off into nothing.
Hestia Jones v. Divya Vaisey
Sometimes, between attacking children who looked as old as her oldest, Divya Vaisey's hazy outlook wore off and she panicked internally, fighting against the compulsion to keep going. She should have known. She was stronger than this. She was better than Yaxley's Imperius Curse —
And then the haze slipped back in place, clouding over her mind and only one singular agenda cut through the fog. Attack the Phoenixes. Attack their friends. Kill anyone who gets in the way.
"Angor," Divya shouted, despite herself. A beam of orange light headed straight into Hestia's direction.
Hestia was lucky — Divya’s aim was true, and her shield was barely up in time to send the curse bouncing off it. She made quick strides towards her opponent, brandishing her wand.
“Deprimo,” she barked out, forcing Divya towards the floor. “Aren’t you lot supposed to be masked?”
Even if Divya had an answer, she couldn't give it. The force of the spell pushed her downwards, pressing on her lungs as she struggled to right herself. Caving in, Divya remained where she was, reaching around while she was trapped on the floor to fire off an arresting charm.
Chains began to wrap around Hestia’s wand arm and she pulled at them desperately, only making it worse. Thinking quickly, she swapped her wand between her hands and aimed a disintegration curse at the chains.
Finally free, she stepped on Divya’s wrist, trying to keep her wand down. This didn’t feel right. No mask, an arresting charm? What kind of Death Eater was this woman?
“Stay down or I’m really going to hurt you.”
Divya couldn’t obey that request. She struggled, trying to shift her weight to upend Hestia. “Ascendio!” she managed at last. The wand work was shaky with her hand pushed down to the floor, but she rose at least a foot upwards. Enough to scramble to right herself to a standing position.
Hestia furrowed her brow. She wished Divya would have listened to her, but she wasted no time. “Expelliarmus!”
After that, she sent the other woman flying back against the wall, knocking her head hard enough that the woman slumped to the ground and didn’t get up. Grimacing, Hestia made her way over to check her pulse. Breathing a sigh of relief, she used the arresting charm on Divya. She didn’t miss the irony.
Rolf Scamander v. Fenrir Greyback
In a corridor on the third floor, Rolf had his wand at the ready as he rounded the corner, a jarvey trotting along beside him. He wanted to get to the grounds — he knew more about taking down creatures than he did about taking down Death Eaters. He kept a shield up as he advanced through the hall, his knuckles whitening as he approached someone — something — he hadn’t expected to see.
A snarling Fenrir Greyback loomed before him and, before he had time to second guess himself, he hurled a stunner in the werewolf’s direction.
The lumbering werewolf showed surprising agility as he side-stepped the vigilante’s spell and continued advancing on him. He wore no mask, hid behind nothing but the sharpened fangs in his smirk. “You don’t look so fearless now, do you, Scamander?”
He didn’t give him time to answer before a flash from his wand and a muttered incantation sent an earthquake spell at the ground and a repulsion charm at Rolf.
The ground rumbled beneath Rolf’s feet as he attempted to deflect the charm. But his unsteady footing threw off his aim, and the spell sent Rolf flying backward into a nearby wall. Something in his chest cracked on impact, but he pushed past the pain in order to cast a volley of fireballs.
The werewolf’s shoulders hunched forward, his arms hanging just above the ground as though dropping to four legs. He dove from the path of one of Rolf’s spells and directly into another, which pitched him backward and singed his robes. When he righted himself, a red welt grew along his jaw and half his hair had been burned away.
His jaw clenched and fangs bared, he lunged for the wizard with a slash of claws and gnash of his sharpened teeth.
The werewolf’s claws caught Rolf on his shoulder, opening five deep wounds in a diagonal down his chest. Blood dripped from the gashes, and he clutched at his injury with one hand as he swished his wand with the other. Rolf cast an ascension charm and an ice spell in quick succession, desperate to put some distance between them.
Fenrir was mid-slash when Rolf’s spells hit, immediately reeling him backward. But with his center of gravity already low as it was, he was able to recover quickly and charged again.
Rolf had encountered several dangerous creatures throughout his life, but none could compare to Fenrir Greyback. The werewolf was practically a grey blur as he rushed toward him, and his claws connected with Rolf again. Bright red slashes appeared on his arm so quickly Rolf barely saw the strike.
“I’m still not scared of you,” Rolf said between pants. He aimed his wand over Greyback’s shoulder, sending a large marble bust hurtling toward the back of the werewolf’s head.
The werewolf closed his hand around Rolf’s throat and snarled, “You should be, boy.” But before he could make another move, the bust hit him and for a moment, he slumped forward against the vigilante.
Rolf struggled against the werewolf’s weight, raising his wand to fire off a spell—
But Fenrir came to before he had a chance. The Death Eater knocked his hand aside and went for his neck again, pressing his nails into Rolf’s skin.
With a cruel grin, he asked, “Scared yet?”
The flash of fear in Rolf’s eyes made the answer obvious. His grip on his wand slackened as he struggled to breathe, and he let out an anguished cry as it clattered to the floor. He kept his eyes trained on Greyback as he reached in his pocket, fumbling for the gift Robin had given him.
“No,” he replied, just as he slammed the silver-coated blade deep into the werewolf’s side.
Fenrir hissed in pain and a glance down at the hilt in Rolf’s hand let him know everything he needed. He slammed an elbow into the side of Rolf’s head and snaked a hand around his wrist. He knew the consequences of pulling the knife out, but it was already burning him, making his insides feel like they’d been set on fire. With a jerk, he sank his teeth into the young man’s shoulder and removed the blade.
Rolf tried to bite back his scream and failed, struggling against the werewolf’s grip to no avail. He was used to animal bites, but this was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Pain radiated from his shoulder, and he still in a daze from the blow to his head. He kicked wildly at Greyback, desperately hoping one of them would land.
The werewolf’s strength was nothing compared to the blood he was rapidly losing. He tightened his jaw, biting down harder through tendons and muscle. It wasn’t until one of Rolf’s knees struck him too close to the wound that he let go, jerking backwards.
A low growl turned in his throat as Rolf crumpled to the ground. Pressing his hand to his side to stanch the bleeding, he turned and left his victim for dead.
Fred Weasley v. Graham Montague
“Weasley!” Graham hollered, the shout giving away his identity despite the mask he wore. He shoved aside the kid who was standing between him and his quarry, throwing stinging jinxes wildly as he charged towards Fred.
Both the shout and the stinging hex that hit his back made Fred pivot, wand at the ready to face down Graham. “Montague,” he replied, shooting a fireball at him before throwing up a shield to stop the flurry of further stinging hexes. “Surprised you’re still alive. Thought even a firstie might’ve gotten rid of you by now.”
Graham ducked behind a statue to let it take the brunt of the fireball, before throwing a bone shattering curse at Fred. “Haven’t you figured out by now I’m impossible to kill?”
Fred deflected the curse and sent a blasting curse at the statue Graham was hiding behind like the coward he was. “You're like a cockroach in other ways too.”
Graham dived away, the statue exploding when the curse hit it, Graham being sprayed with debris. He floated one of the larger chunks up off the ground, before driving it towards Fred.
“Takes one to know one!”
Fred vanished the chunk of rock just in time, following up with a flurry of mostly harmless but annoying jinxes — ear shrivelling, head enlarging and slug slime.
“Also explains why your only friend is a slug. Was.”
“Don’t talk about him like that!” Graham ignored the effects of the jinxes thrown at him, instead hurling a “Bombarda Maxima!” at Fred. How dare he fucking talk about Willy like that! … and he had other friends as well!
Fred’s shield took the brunt of the curse, but it bounced off and hit the wall beside them, the old stone castle walls cracking. Not that Fred paid that any attention.
“Why not? He was a slimy, disgusting muggle hater. No one liked him and no one likes you,” he shot back with a gouging spell.
“Fuck off!” Graham tore off his mask, the head enlarging jinx making it suddenly incredibly uncomfortable to wear. “I have other friends!” He protested, deflecting the spell into the wall near him, chunks of stone of flying.
“Crucio!”
Fred’s laugh at Graham’s insistence that he had friends turned into screams as the crucio hit, his knees buckling underneath him in pain and all his focus on not letting his wand fall from his hand.
Graham laughed, enjoying watching his rival crumple in pain. He threw a "Reducto!" at Fred's feet, sending chunks of stone flying everywhere.
Small pieces of debris fell on Fred, but the relief of no longer being under the crucio was enough that he could refocus on Graham. He wanted him dead, and this was the best chance he was going to get. “Bombardo Maxima,” he aimed at Graham.
“Get your own spell!” Graham yelled, dodging the charm and let it crash into the walls, stone cracking further. Graham paid it no mind, countering Fred’s attack with a disintegration curse.
“Diversa!” No more Weasley.
“You don’t own the spell,” Fred yelled back, dodging Graham’s curse, the wall behind him disintegrating into dust. “Reducto!”
"You could try something original," Graham taunted, ducking the spell and letting it smash it a column, the ceiling above them starting to shower dust and small chunks of rock. "Volnero!"
Fred’s hastily thrown up shield weakened against the strong slashing spell, a few shallow gashes opening up on his body as the surrounds continued to rain down on them. Fred was too focused on killing Graham to care about that though. “Uncus Electrica!” the blue light shot towards his nemesis.
A gouging spell Graham had been about to send Fred’s way went wild as the attack hit, Graham looking ridiculous as he froze in place for a few brief seconds as his muscles refused to do as he wanted. He tried not to panic as he realised he was stuck, how vulnerable he was to both Fred’s next attack and the chunks of falling stone. It seemed an age until he was able to wrench at least his wand arm back into motion, to focus back on his nemesis.
“Avada Kedavra!”
Graham’s paralysis gave Fred enough time to throw up his strongest shield, deflecting the green light into a wall, heart hammering as he realised how close that had been. He considered himself more skilled at magic than Graham (he considered himself more skilled at everything than Graham), but the other boy had an advantage that he didn’t — Fred couldn’t and wouldn’t use the Killing Curse. Not even at Montague.
But the gravel that continued to rain from the ceiling gave him another idea for how to kill Montague. He sent another strong blasting curse at the already failing walls.
“Problem with your aim?” Graham taunted, throwing another reductor curse at Fred as he finished shaking off the paralysis.
“Nope,” Fred replied, deflecting Graham’s curse into the wall and following it with a violent cannon charm. “Just more creative than you.”
“Lol sure,” Graham sneered, casting a concerned glance at the crumbling ceiling. “You still haven’t figured out how I blew up your shop, have you?” He flung another crucio at Fred, dodging more falling stone.
This time he managed to shield himself from the crucio, flinging a fireball back at Graham. “Been too busy with business, actually,” Fred replied. “Blowing up the shop isn’t enough to stop us.”
“Oh well. Good thing I don’t have a problem with killing you then.” After a moment of consideration, Graham conjured a flurry of knives and threw them at Fred. At least one of them had to hit.
One of them did hit, sending the blasting curse Fred had aimed at Graham flying off course and into the ceiling barely supported by the crumbling walls. He didn’t have much time to register the pain from the knife as the ground beneath them seems to shake with the force of their surrounds collapsing around them.
“You—“ Both the insult and curse Graham had been about to fling Fred’s way failed to materialise when one of the stones that made up the ceiling collapsed onto him, further pieces burying him completely.
Fred’s victory grin was short-lived, the ceiling above him collapsing seconds later, burying him in the same rubble as Graham, neither able to escape.