He didn’t, but the dark magic effecting his brain, shadowing his own wants and feelings on the matter, was stronger.
Clay had lost his mask in the opening skirmishes of the battle, and he was favouring his leg in a bad limp. Blood had stained through his pants, but still he pressed on, wand flashing and sending spells at various enemies of the Death Eaters, students and adults alike.
“Percy,” he called out as he recognized one of the men still in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, “you should have stayed at the Ministry. I don’t want you to get hurt.” That was at odds with the blasting curse he sent the ginger’s way.
Percy turned just as Clay spoke his name and had just enough time to erect the shield charm which kept him from falling back several steps. (Though, the truth was Clay’s curse did manage to skid him back several inches on its own.) His lips pursed.
“Then maybe don’t try to blast holes in me, Clay!” Percy gave a swish of his wand, going for a neat little flipendo.
“Don’t fight the Ministry, then!” retorted Clay, who sounded calm despite the battle raging around them. Percy’s spell shoved the ministry security guard back without resistance. Clay smacked into the wall behind him, hard. No one had programmed him to defend himself in these fights, merely to cause as much harm as possible.
Smarting from the blow to the back of his head, Clay nonetheless pushed forward without so much as an outward flinch. “Diffendo!”
The truth was, Percy felt wounded already. Fred’s loss made his limbs heavy. He felt weak with the grief of his beloved brother, who he’d never have the chance to reconcile with (again), completely taken from him. So much so that the slice that ran up Percy’s shoulder and stole across his cheek seemed nothing.
He locked eyes with Clay.
“You do not want to count yourself as one of them, Clay. Stand down.” A pause. He waited for any inkling of the guard he knew and appreciated.
Clay’s wand-arm trembled at those words, or possibly because of the blow he’d taken to the back of his head moments early working on his body. The Imperius curse was unforgiving and cared not; it pushed the body beyond normal limits. “You need to stop before you get killed.” The wand twitched again, and then he slashed it to ignite a whip of flame.
Percy could feel the desire to hurt Clay well up in him. He wanted to make people like him pay for all of the loss they’d experienced. He wanted to see him … but he shook his head. This was not the mild-mannered security guard he knew. And finally, he again believed that the poor man found himself under Imperius.
But before he could go much further, that tongue of flame whipped across his cheek, searing a gash into his face. It was Layla’s words that brought him to bear, though. He remembered her suggestion (that this, a Death Eater favourite, had an easy countercurse). Shouting it then, he attempted to disarm Clay.
Not feeling any sympathy towards the former colleague from the Ministry, at least not outwardly, Clay brought the whip around again for another lash… before it disappeared altogether, extinguished by the counter curse. A second later his wand was flying out of his grasp.
But that meant nothing to a man under Imperius whose freewill had been stripped away and replaced by a singular urging: harm vigilantes. So what did Clay do? Clay took off at a run towards Percy, intent on beating him with his fists if he didn’t have his wand.
Thanks to Dedalus, Percy’s reflexes were far quicker than that. He caught Clay’s wand and used it to cast the body bind curse. With scant few moments left, he stopped to consider his next course of action.
And soon, he had his stratagem. With a swish of his own wand, Percy uttered the spell go Transfigure Clay into a small brown mouse. Bending to pick him up, he placed him in the pocket opposite to Minister Thicknesse and turned for another foe who needed safekeeping.
Nymphadora Lupin & Remus Lupin v. Dante Avery
“Duro!”
Remus had no intention of allowing Death Eaters to gain purchase, not after the hope that Harry afforded them when he leapt up and showed himself for living. So he sent that Curse to the first Death Eater he saw, intending to turn them into the stone and rubble that littered the Great Hall and the Courtyard.
Tonks, he knew, was close. And he trusted her to react in kind or find her own Death Eater to duel into submission. This one, though? For all the children who’d died, for his friends, for his own wasted life. He wanted this one to pay.
Dante didn’t see who cast the spell at first. He deflected the spell and spotted it hit a target off somewhere to his right, though he didn’t care much what it was as long as it wasn’t one of his friends. The castle was in disarray, and he had no idea where his father was or if he was even okay. He didn’t know where Vic was, or Clem.
A cold shiver ran down his spine. He had to find them.
His attempt at a freezing curse (something reversible, he thought, thinking of what Violet wanted from him) went awry and he grumbled under his breath.
Tonks turned a corner, her breath catching as her eyes landed on Remus. Her sense of relief was fleeting, however, as watched a spell just miss him from a Death Eater’s wand. Swiftly drawing her own wand, Tonks announced a presence with a spell aimed squarely at the mask.
“Defodio!”
He should have known better than to drop his guard, but before Dante could do anything about it, the spell hit his mask and sliced it deep down one side. It cut into his skin before he could fling it off, leaving a deep gash down his cheek.
He didn’t need that, anyway. The mask, that was. He still wanted his face.
He aimed a volley at the one who’d cut his mask, a slew of fireballs that didn’t quite make it and a curse meant to pummel her.
Remus’ shield, however, was quick and it defended Tonks from his stilted onslaught. When Dante unmasked himself, he smiled. A well known foe, one who’d evaded them for far too long. He wanted blood. When he was sure that Tonks was safe, he slashed his wand at a jut of masonry to distract Dante whilst he then aimed a blasting curse at his chest.
The distraction worked: Dante was working on severing the masonry headed his direction when he spotted the next curse. His shield came up in time, just barely, but he couldn’t make it strong enough to withstand the power of the explosion. Instead of deflecting it, he absorbed the impact and went flying into a nearby window.
Tonks hesitated for a breath of a second; the blow seemed as though it could be incapacitating, but her combined years in the DMLE and the Order alike made her reticent to grow complacent. Arm still outstretched, Tonks sent a stunning spell in Avery’s direction, sparing Remus a quick, tense glance as her wand cooled.
The landing stunned Dante for a moment, and his vision swam. He saw a spell headed his direction, but there seemed to be multiples, so he took a chance with his shield in hopes that someone was looking down on him for a change.
On the other side of the window, Dante had landed on shards of glass and wood, piercing his back in places he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach. He groaned and tried to sit up, slowly. Blood trickled down his back. If he didn’t leave now, he thought -- a shiver ran down his spine, and he tried to cast episkey as best he could. It’d have to be enough for now; he didn’t have time for anything else, and he didn’t know where Isobel or Mitzi were.
Dante knew the Lupins wouldn’t stop until he was dead, so he stood. “Bombarda maxima!” he shouted, aiming for the wall standing between him and the Phoenixes.
Remus had ran forward, intent upon following on and ending this for good. But before he could find Dante and tell him a stiff and eternal goodbye, the explosion shook him and he found himself sprawling back on the floor, ears ringing and expression dazed.
“ … Dora?”
Where she had been upright only a moment ago, Tonks was alarmed to find herself now flat on her back, head throbbing, staring up at the cavernous ceiling of a Hogwarts hallway. Remus’ voice came to he muffled and dulled over a persistent ringing in her own ears.
“I’m here--I’m okay,” Tonks said through gritted teeth, though as she attempted to bring herself into a standing position, she quickly found that “okay” was rather generous as a shooting pain in her ankle made her gasp.
Stumbling back down, she observed, “I think I broke my ankle.” Anxiously, Tonks looked around at the debris, now vulnerable and without a good hold on the target.
“Where’s Avery?”
When no more spells followed -- he waited one, two, three seconds -- Dante tried to disapparate, but the spell was blocked. He groaned. Of course Hogwarts would still have that up. For the second time that night, he ran. He didn’t look back. He tried not to think about where his father was, or Clement, or Victoria. He tried not to think about who he was leaving behind. Blood dripped down his back and the more he moved, the more dizzy he felt, but still he ran. The Forbidden Forest loomed up dark and tall in front of him, and if he could just get in there, if he could just get far enough away from the castle -- maybe he still stood a chance at the life his father wanted for him.
Dragos Lupescu & Charlie Weasley v. Evelyn Mulciber
After everything that had happened, Evelyn, still singed around the edges from earlier battles, was in no mood to suffer fools. As two fools rushed in as some kind of reinforcement, she aimed a lightning curse at them to stop them getting any closer to whoever it was they were so keen to protect.
The white flash of light created dark spots in Dragos’ vision, but it wasn’t enough to throw the auror off. Even if it did slightly mess with his aim.
“Immobulus,” he shot towards the target, trying to blink his eyes clear to verify that this was one of Britain’s Death Eaters that needed stopping.
Charlie didn’t stop to think about that. He just knew he wanted her caught. He wanted her alive. He wanted — “Incendio!” To set her on fire?
Evelyn had dealt with more than enough fire that day already (what was it with these vigilantes and their fireballs?). She doused what she could with a jet of water, though bits of the spell still nipped in at still-raw flesh and she winced. That her own lightning spell had missed its mark completely was disconcerting, but then, one couldn't land every spell one aimed. Surely a "Diffindo!" would do better.
Dragos threw up a shield charm around Charlie. “I’ll cover you so you can get a good shot in,” he suggested. Two against one, they should be able to handle this.
Charlie nodded once, clenching his jaw so tight he thought he could feel his teeth grinding, but then — "I'll knock her over, keep her distracted," he instructed in Romanian, remembering something they'd watched together on some police procedural between beers back at home.
And then threw a blast of smoke in the direction of Evelyn's eyes to cloud her vision.
Dragos followed up Charlie’s spell with a mostly harmless but distracting flock of birds, who flew towards and pecked at the woman.
"Is this a joke?" Evelyn called in through the smoke as the tiny birds landed and pecked at her. "Just because we're in a school doesn't mean you've to duel like children." Her responding flaying curse lit up the cloud as it shot somewhere through the smoke until she could find them again.
Charlie ignored her taunts and barrelled straight into Evelyn, knocking her off her feet.
"Oof!" She fell backwards, thoroughly surprised by the physical attack. But at that distance, even unlucky curses couldn't miss, and the slashing spell she pushed into the man's midsection met its mark.
“SHE STABBED ME! THE BITCH STABBED ME!” Charlie shouted back to Dragos in Romanian, struggling to hold her back from slashing at him again while pressing down on the wound.
“Hold on. We’ll get you help soon,” he spoke back to Charlie in Romanian, moving his wand to send a confundus in Evelyn’s direction, careful about spell choice when she was still so close to Charlie.
But Evelyn, still splayed out on the ground but stronger than she looked, took advantage of the closeness and kicked to trip Charlie and put him just in the confounding charm's path.
Jostled into the direction of Dragos' attack, Charlie panicked in the ensuing confusion. His shirt was blooming with blood, his torso hurt every time that he tried to move -- he was feeling woozy already, losing focus on the task at hand. Maddened by this, he fired an incendio behind him.
Dragos’ robes erupted into flames, the smell of burning flesh filling the air. “You’re not a dragon, Charles,” he grumbled when he got the fire under control, skin now red and already starting to blister. “Cool it with the fire.”
The distraction of the fire had given Evelyn a chance to get back up but even though the burned skin seared with every movement, Dragos wasn’t going to give her a chance to get away. “Vinculumus.”
Evelyn's shielding managed to break some of the chains, but even that magic seemed to be failing her. Her left arm wound up chained to the railings of the stone staircase behind her. She tugged at it but her whole left side was singed and raw, and she cried out in pain through her gritted teeth. In her anger, she fired off a poorly-aimed fireball of her own.
The fireball zoomed past Dragos, landing somewhere in the distance that didn’t concern him. They almost had her now. “Petrificus Totalus!”
And then, totally petrified was Evelyn.
Charlie didn’t want the spell to wear off on them, given how wonky magic seemed to be at the moment. So he did what any animal handler would do in this circumstance. He transfigured her into a tortoise.
Amos Diggory & Parvati Patil v. Corban Yaxley
Arriving just in time to see the destruction the Death Eaters wrought on a school (a school, filled with children), Amos was eager to jump into the fray. And once things started up again, he quickly found his chance.
When he saw one of the Death Eaters bearing down on a girl no older than Cedric had been, he threw a strong blinding hex to give the girl a chance to escape.
The flash had Parvati bringing an arm up to protect her eyes, but she made no move to back down from the Death Eater she’d been engaged with. Someone with hideous hair that really needed to watch some vids on male styling on Wiztube. She twirled on the hell of her boot to avoid another curse coming from a duel to her left, and then flicked her wand to send a blasting charm at the mulleted’ man.
Yaxley didn’t have any qualms where these particular children were concerned. So, arm thrown across his brow to shield his eyes against some of the flash of the blinding hex, he deflected the blasting curse back in the girl’s direction and, casting his eyes about, found Diggory pointing his wand at him.
Yaxley sneered at the man. He hadn’t known or cared about the Diggorys before the Dark Lord’s return and he didn’t particularly care now, but he knew a sore spot when he saw one. So he sent the green flash of a Killing Curse at the girl, too.
Parvari’s original curse evaporated harmlessly into a shield she put up. Green flash of the Killing Curse that followed had her eyes widening while her feet clumsily side-stepped to get out of the way.
But it seemed too late, her movements too slow, and Lavender was waiting for her anyway—
The second Amos registered the green light, he aimed his own spell at the girl to pull her out of harm's way, though even as he cast, he knew he wouldn't be quick enough. She was going to die—
Except by some miracle, the Death Eater's spell flew just too wide, barely missing the girl's shoulder as it sailed past her and smashed into a pillar behind her. Amos took no time to process his immense (if fleeting) relief, hurling a powerful "Uncus Electrica!" the Death Eater's way.
Another flash of green meant for the girl left Yaxley’s wand at the same moment as Amos’s spell. There wasn’t time for a shield to catch the electric blue so he went rigid and still, his teeth grit in annoyance.
Blinking her eyes even as the battles raged around her, Parvati wasn’t sure how the Killing Curse had missed her. But it didn’t matter, ultimately, and she was on the move again as the follow-up flash of green whizzed through where she’d been — another near miss.
“Bombarda!” she intoned loudly, voice cutting through the mayhem in the Great Hall as the cannon spell blasted from the wand. He’d tried to kill her twice, and Lavender — Parvati Patil wasn’t playing around. Her teeth gnashed together in a snarl that faded into a determined look as she stepped forward beside Cedric’s father so they could cover each other more easily.
Amos could see he was never going to convince the young Gryffindor that she needed to leave, so he moved to shielding instead, weaving a series of defensive spells he used to only need against Category XXXXX magical creatures.
Still rendered stockstill from, the cannon blast caught Yaxley in the middle and sent him flying back into a wall with an “Oof”. His index finger twitched against his wand as he slid down the wall and within moment he could move his entire wand arm again. The girl’s proximity to Diggory might’ve seemed beneficial to her, but Yaxley saw his own advantage.
Sweeping his wand along the floor, Yaxley scooped up rubble and flung it at the two before aiming another Unforgivable at the girl, a murmured “Imperio.”
The curse settled on the Gryffindor girl, but only for a few moments. What should have made her tractable and compliant only seemed to confuse her, and she pressed her off-hand to her brow and frowned at the annoying voice in her head. She shook her head, ponytail swaying behind her. Her inaction gave the Death Eater time to regain his footing before she shouted, “Oh fuck off!” before her wand came back up, firing another blasting curse at the man.
"Let her go!" Amos screamed as his shielding switched to a muscle-killing curse aimed at the Death Eater's wand arm.
A shield charm bore the blasting curse meant for Yaxley handily, but like most of his magic since he’d stepped foot in the castle again, it quickly fizzled and the muscles in his forearm started to atrophy, pain screaming up to his shoulder. As he grit his teeth, his fingers started to go loose around his wand and it began to slip between so he snatched it up in his other hand.
With an angry snarl, Yaxley sent twin arcs of lightning at the pair.
With all his focus on holding the curse, Amos was left wide-open for retaliation. The lightning streaked through him. His back arched as electricity poured out of his fingers and down through his feet into the stone beneath him.
Nearly twice downed by Unforgivables left the Gryffindor girl seething, her anger and grief from the year bubbling over. She’d flicked a severing charm at the Death Eater’s good arm, but likewise caught the brunt of the man’s lightning. She screamed as her muscles flared and tensed, arching her body.
The lightning crackled out of existence as Yaxley switched to defending himself, a shield charm catching the severing charm before it could take off his arm. His other arm hung limply and uselessly at his side. He aimed a frustrated blasting curse at Amos.
Amos ducked away from the spell and kept going, putting more distance between him and the Gryffindor girl and splitting the Death Eater's targets so they'd not both be hit by lightning again. His next hex was a simple one, but it always entertained him: "Engorgio Skullus!"
Circling the opposite way to stalk their prey -- having realized her earlier mistake of getting too close -- Parvati launched a tripping jinx at the Death Eater’s feet timed with the assault on his skull.
Yaxley batted away the enlarging charm with a few seconds to spare, but found himself flat on his face. “It’s no wonder the Dark Lord killed your son,” he said gruffly, a shield charm between him and his opponents as he pushed himself to his feet, “if that’s how you taught him to defend himself.” It was slowly dawning on him that there was something off about his spellwork so he stepped towards the girl and summoned her to him with a silent Accio.
It wasn’t what Parvati was expecting, and her disarming jinx did nothing to stop her from being tugged forward towards the Death Eater.
"No!" With the girl now squarely between him and Yaxley, Amos froze. The moment spun out away from him as he thought through everything he could do. There was only one constant: he could not let this girl die. And no matter how quick he was, he would not be quicker than Yaxley's killing curse with his wand at her throat.
Instead, he raised his own hands up slowly. He did not drop his wand, but its aim was away from Yaxley now and promised less of a threat. "Let her go," he said calmly.
But Yaxley hooked his ruined arm around Parvati, pinning her to his side with his elbow, and pointed his wand at Amos. ”Sectumsempra.” The curse flew just a little too wide, though, and rebounded off a shiny suit of armor wrestling one of Yaxley’s compatriots behind their duel and slashed across the other man’s back.
As Amos fell to the ground, his wand clattered out of his grasp. He didn't know the spell that hit him but he was losing a lot of blood, and quickly. He tried to pull himself toward his wand, but he could barely move. And the Death Eater still had the girl.
But Parvati wasn’t sitting idle, and the arm the Death Eater was using to contain her was atrophied. She fought back, pushing, stamping her feet onto the other man’s, and then finally jabbed an elbow hard into his gut before wrenched herself to the side.
With a grunt as the wind was elbowed out of him, Yaxley released his hold on Parvati, but he hooked a foot around her ankle to trip her and turned his wand on her.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The curse came quick from the stone floor, where Amos finally grasped his wand. There wasn't any choice. He had to save her while he still could.
The green of the Killing Curse was so unexpected that when Yaxley saw it out of the corner of his eyes, there was only a moment for his surprise to register and for him to think ‘What the fuck is going to happen to my k—’ And then it hit and he crumpled to the floor, his wand rolling uselessly from his fingers.
It all happened so quickly that Parvati wasn’t sure where the flash of green had come from as she’d pushed herself away, but the Death Eater was down on the ground unmoving by the time she’d whirled around.
But she’d been too slow and Amos Diggory had undoubtedly saved her life. She looked over at him, and gasped at the sight.
Blood pooled around Amos, but at the sight of the girl, safe and alive, he smiled as consciousness slipped away.
Hestia Jones v. Adrienna Jugson
Something was wrong.
Aidy wasn't sure what that something was, exactly, but she wasn't appreciating the way that there was something about Hogwarts that was making all of her attacks not work how she wanted them too. Everything had been fine earlier! But now stupid Harry Potter was alive again -- why would he not die????? -- and there were children getting decent attacks in against some of the most skilled of the Death Eaters and this was ridiculous!
Maybe she just needed to look at this like a challenge. She'd have to be more creative. … And what better target to have fun with than Hestia Jones, who had been making Viv's life hell for years now? Taking careful aim, Aidy fired off a blasting curse and a cruciatus at the woman, already grinning behind her mask.
Hestia was so tired of fighting, but she had to keep it up. So up went her shield as she fended off both curses, the blasting curse rocking her back. She straightened her stance and aimed her own blasting curse at the Death Eater before summoning a flock of birds to distract Aidy, hoping their merciless pecking and clawing would give Hestia a moment of reprieve while she thought about how to strike next.
"Oh, is this tennis? Break point!" Aidy replied, a slash of her wand volleying away Hestia's returned blasting curse. The birds, however, were not nearly as easy to get rid of, as the flock of them came dive-bombing at Aidy's head. Feathers were flying, beaks came pecking towards her eyes, and Aidy was screaming in a mix of terror and disgust that these flying rats wouldn't bugger the hell off. "PISS OFF, TURKEYS!" she shrieked, swatting the last of them away. "You shouldn't play with animals you don't know how to handle." Her wand moved towards a pile of fallen vines down the hall, which she transfigured into a group of angry vipers that were sent snaking in Hestia's direction.
“Turkeys? Have you ever seen a bird before? They’re clearly grackles!” Hestia didn’t know why she was splitting hairs (or feathers, in this case), and she regretting her brief foray into banter when the vipers caught her off guard. Normally snakes didn’t scare her, but a pile of snakes heading straight towards you would make anyone a little uneasy.
She blasted the snakes to bits, save for two that escaped her barrage of spells. One bit into her boot, and the other tried to bite her ankle, managing to sink its fangs in. That wasn’t good. Transfigured or not, she knew the poison would take its hold soon. Nauseated and sweating she fell back against the wall. But she wasn’t quite done.
Aidy hardly had a chance to react before the spell shot her upwards, yanking her feet out from under her and into the air. Thankfully for her sake, years of aerial yoga practice kept her from getting as dizzy as many other people may have, but that still didn't mean that it wasn't frustrating to have been taken off guard.
She cast a few spells on herself to try to safely send herself back down to the ground, but nothing seemed to be working the way that she wanted it too. Letting out a frustrated huff, Aidy sent her attention back to Hestia. "You're looking tired, Jones. You should hydrate. Have some water," she smirked, casting an "Augamenti!" spell at the other witch. Instead of sending a blast of water into Hestia's face, though, the spell backfired, leaving Aidy the soaked, soggy mess instead.
Hestia couldn’t help but laugh, pushing through the searing pain in her ankle to do so. “Seems you’ve wet yourself. Let me help dry you off. Incendio!” Flames burst forth from her wand and towards Aidy, lapping at the Death Eater’s robes. Looking to buy herself some time to tend to her snake bite, she transfigured what was left of a nearby chair into a turkey and sent the poor fowl flying straight at the other woman’s centre.
“Now that’s a turkey,” Hestia remarked before using her very basic knowledge of healing spells to drain her wound.
"I am a vegetarian you uncultured carnivore!" Aidy shrieked in a frustrated rage over the vigilante's attempt to turn her into some sort of fried turducken. A blasting curse had the innocent transfigured turkey exploding into the air around them, raining down onto the castle floor. She then cast a rope spell to tangle around a half-destroyed bench to pull herself down out of the air, followed by a finite to end the floating spell once she was close enough to drop. "You have been exceptionally rude, Ms Jones," Aidy informed her opponent, then fired off a cruciatus curse straight at Hestia's face.
Hestia braced herself for the pain of the curse, but all she felt was her face tingling a bit. She breathed out, unaware that she had been holding her breath, and cocked her head in confusion. “I’m rude? You just tried to crucio my freaking face!” she shouted, before taking the opportunity to send a freezing curse at the other witch, aiming for her wand arm. “Also, bravo on waiting this long to mention your vegetarianism, you shrill herbivore!”
"Your face would look better for it!" Aidy yelled back, annoyed that not even the unforgivables seemed to be working, only to pause and shake her head gently. (The action looked exceptionally absurd from a sopping wet Death Eater whose arm was encased in ice like some sort of frozen crystal Thanos glove.) "Actually that's not true. We women shouldn't tear each other down based on looks; I apologize. You're very pretty. But you're a mudblood lover and a pain in the ass so you gotta go," she added, grabbing her wand with her other hand and shooting a slicing spell Hestia's way.
Hestia was confused enough by the Death Eater’s sudden burst of female positivity that the slicing spell landed, slashing through her shirt and leaving a rather long wound across her torso. She doubled over in pain but forced herself to stand straight, using her free hand to try and stop some of the bleeding.
“You know, in another life we probably would’ve gotten along. But you’re a Death Eater so it’s you who has to go,” she replied through clenched teeth. She took a deep breath, then sent a volley of blasting curses at the other woman. Hestia was done pulling punches; after giving the dust a moment to settle, she sent a bone-shattering curse at Aidy, followed quickly by a banishing charm.
"Holy Merlin fuck!" Aidy exclaimed as it felt like 20 spells hit her at once. (It wasn't that, of course, but it felt like it, and that's what counted. She was slammed back into the wall by blasting curses, tumbled even further down the hall under the banishing charm, and let out a scream as her hand were shattered, the spell breaking through the ice and smashing straight through to the bones.
This wasn't going to work. "You know what, you're right," Aidy agreed with Hestia. Not that in another life that they might have gotten along -- though that may have been true as well -- but that she was the one that had to go. She wasn't going to wait around in hopes that the spells she was casting would start working properly again; that was how Death Eaters ended up getting caught. "Exit, stage right!" And with that, Aidy cast a spell at a curtain that had fallen from one of the windows to drop it on top of Hestia to block her vision, and then went running in the opposite direction. "BYE! HOPE YOU DIE!"
Jeremy Dearborn v. Rabastan Lestrange
Moving the wounded to the hospital wing had only done so much. There was still the nagging knowledge that the battle had started up again, that more people were still getting hurt, that someone important might be a spell or two away from death. There might have been plenty to do where he was, but Jeremy couldn’t shake the feeling that someone needed to be back in the thick of things to help.
He was already making his way to the great hall by the time he’d realised he’d apparently decided.
His injuries had been fairly minor so far, more from stray debris than any spellwork, but Jeremy couldn’t say the same for the figure he spotted down the hallway. By the time he made it closer though, he wasn’t focusing so much on the sword the man was impaled with as he was the identity of the man impaled.
Jeremy had never quite expected to find Rabastan Lestrange tied up and at his feet.
The Death Eater could hear his own heart beating in his ears, weak but steady. Vaguely, he was aware of someone towering over him, but it took a moment for his eyes to focus, for recognition to dawn on him. His mouth curved into something resembling a smile. “Dearborn,” was all he managed to get out. It was a struggle to breath.
All the injuries were mentally catalogued as Jeremy scanned the Death Eater’s body. Unlike so many people in the past few months, it seemed like there were things he could do. He’d know more after a few diagnostic spells, but his wand remained at his side. Spells remained uncast as he looked back down at the man’s face. “Looks like someone really fucked you up.”
Rabastan’s injuries left him gasping and clawing for oxygen. His head was spinning as he looked up at the Healer. “Your brother.” His words were more of a wheeze than anything else. “He got lucky.”
“This looks like more than luck,” Jeremy said with a twinge in his stomach that he thought might have the tiniest hint of pride. He shifted, taking a couple of steps closer and placing a hand on the hilt of the sword before looking back down at Rabastan’s face. The face of the man who’d helped kill both his parents.
“I could help you, you know.”
“But you won’t.” The Death Eater didn’t look scared or fearful. If anything, he looked resigned to his fate. Death, he thought to himself, was better than life in Azkaban. Death in the service of the Dark Lord was glorious.
But still, he felt a pang of regret as he thought of Lucius and Narcissa, Noelle and Eddie. Bellatrix. His brother.
Rabastan tilted head as much as he could. He was fading fast. “Get it over with.”
Jeremy knew that whatever he did now was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life. That he was supposed to treat everyone equally, that he was supposed to treat everyone. It didn’t seem fair that there had been so many people he’d wanted to save but couldn’t only be confronted with the ability to save the one person who didn’t deserve it in the least.
A part of him knew that he was supposed to show that he was a better man. But Jeremy didn’t want to be a better man. He was just a man. “If I take this out, you’ll bleed out faster,” he said finally, before taking his hand off the sword and crossing his arms across his chest.
“I’m not giving you anything you want.”
Rabastan looked up at Jeremy with bloodshot and too-bright eyes. His head was swimming and his voice was barely above a whisper. “Coward.”
Jeremy just stared back at him silently.
Gasping for breath that still felt just beyond his reach, Rabastan closed his eyes. He was not going to beg Jeremy Dearborn to save his life. He was not going to beg him to end his life, either. A Lestrange never begged. But the temptation was there as he reflected on his family. His family and the Dark Lord.
He was devoted to the Dark Lord above all else, but his family was the last thing on his mind before darkness poured over him like tar.