InsaneJournal

Confusion. Chaos. It only took a second for Emmeline to feel just like she had stepped back in time. And not in a fun way either. The war was officially back. As much as she might have tried to deny it, telling herself that this wasn't going to go that far, she knew it wasn't true. This only proved her point. The whole thing had been a catastrophe, and she barely understood what had happened, much less what was going on. Everything had gone from somewhat civil to chaotic in two seconds flat. There had been a rush and soon spells were flying everywhere. Curses of all shapes and sizes were being hurled at one another. Death Eaters weren't giving up easily, but neither were the Order.

Emmeline was no exception. She had her wand out and had found herself exchanging blows with a Death Eater that wasn't too far away from her. Her body was partially hidden by some of the fallen debris but she didn't know how long it was going to hold up. This whole thing was kind of ridiculous. All she could think about was the things that she'd heard from her family. She had a daughter, one who was only nine and she needed her mother. And yet here she was, fighting for her life with someone she couldn't stand. She had already come into this 'meeting' wearing a charm that would disguise her face, but who knew when that was going to go.

With her wand raised, she let out a sharp jolt of a exploding spell.


Chaos was not a factor of confusion for Hallam. He was amused by the change of events. The sudden clash of the Order with the ex-Death Eaters played to the song of the past. Each shout of a spell and light display that followed as purity and impurity battled was music to Hallam’s ears. The man was patient in life, but had a taste of violence always lurking in the depths. Many choices made Hallam the man he was today and more choices had given him the tarnish metal mask he wore over his features to cover his identity. Swirls of silver created scale like engravings and jagged teeth in a cross between an alligator and death face. His long dark robes held threads of silver that were hardly seen in the low light of the moonless night..

The exchange so far had been Hallam sending very defensive spells toward his dueling partner. He tested their boundaries and how they fought with his technique. It helped him gage the power level and whether he should bother with such a fight or find someone closer to his level. For all the brutality Hallam displayed as a Death Eater, he did have a mind for fair fights. It was only proper.

As the burst of magic flew toward him, Hallam planted his feet and shielded himself. The ward sigils tattooed into his skin blazed underneath his robes as they took most of the impact of the spell. Hallam regained his composure quickly, targeting the other with his wand and sending the simple yet effective spell to knock the woman back, quickly followed by confusion curse.


The thing about all of this fighting was that if you worried too much about what was going on with anyone else, than you were going to fail. You’d get your ass handed to you or worse. While Emmeline was worried in a general sense about the others, she knew they could take care of themselves. And truth be told, her worry didn’t go very deep with most of them. Not like they would have done with worry about her family. Whatever it was, she was solely focused on the problem in front of her. She too was sussing out the person in front of her. It didn’t matter who it was underneath the mask, it only mattered that she could take them down or give them good enough to get the hell out of here and not get herself killed. She wasn’t quite sure which it was going to be just yet. It was clear that the person in front of her was doing the same thing. Only using defensive spells. Neither one was fighting for their lives. Not yet.

While Emmeline had been expecting the retaliation, it only very nearly missed her. She had thought for certain that it was going to get at her legs, try as she might to get the hell out of the way. It was enough for her to be hit once by the confusion spell. It washed over her, disorienting her. Her heart pounding in her chest, she shook her head and ducked back under cover to get some composure. She kept her wand out though, shooting spells out willy nilly without aiming or looking at what she was doing. It was so hard to keep her head on straight. What was going on? Dammit.


Hallam rolled his eyes. Cover was, of course, important in a duel, but also annoying when someone did not have the never to look death in the face. The tall lean man walked forward slowly, moving out and around to put her in view.

Raising his wand, he rounded on her. Hallam was not a man to use silly quips in his fight, talking could be used as a distraction, but was unnecessary if you were good at the fight to begin with. Sending sparks from his wand, his curse was under his breath to keep it from being identifiable.

Willing forth a force that would slice through its victim, he sent it at the smaller figure. He had had enough toying with her.


The change in the fight wasn’t unexpected. He was taking advantage of her being hit with the confusion spell. Emmeline wasn’t the kind of person to quip with someone else unless it was the kind of fight where she was beating up her brother. There was nothing she could say to anger or freak him out, so she didn’t bother. Instead when he came around, she scrambled up to her feet and tried to scamper back as to avoid being hit again.

The spell sliced through her, causing her to cry out as she crawled on her hands and knees. Fuck, that hurt. Instead of throwing a curse at him, she raised up her wand to lift a piece of giant log and hurled it at him as hard as the spell could possibly manage. Hopefully that would give her enough time to get up and to her feet.

Emmeline finally got up to her feet, ready to let out another exploding curse no matter if the log hit him or not.


Blue eyes narrowed, waiting for the curse to come from her wand. Instead a log flew off the ground and slammed into his lower back, taking him to the ground. Hallam growled as he immediately pushed to his knees to keep from being flatfooted.

Hallam put up another shield to take her explosion spells that the other seemed to like. His body settling the physical hit first before he could put force into the shield enough to not take more damage.


Once up onto her feet, she decided to go more on the offensive and start shooting spells in his direction. Exploding spells, slicing spells, it didn’t matter as long as it hurt him. Even if the spells didn’t hit him, as long as he wasn’t going on the offensive towards her. There wasn’t anywhere for her to hide, so it was just the two of them going head to head.

Her back was seriously hurting her though, so she couldn’t go after him as relentlessly as she wanted.


The exploding spell hit him with a force that blasted him back, but put him in the position to stand. Her assault of spells did keep him on the defensive. For a few moments, he let his wards on his skin recharge by using his shield spell. Time passed in a blink of an eye in a fight and he dropped the shield spell to attack her back with a barrage of curses. He took the his of the shoving spells, his blood spreading through his robe.

The man appeared unaffected by the amount of pain he should have been put through. Hallam had a tough skin for pain, because to accurately use it someone had to know what it felt like.

Finally he spat out a Cruciatus curse.


This time it was her to put up a shield spell in order to avoid being hit by his curses. The blast of them was making her shield waver. There wasn’t too much for her to do but take it until the spell finally broke. Emmeline was bleeding and wounded by the end, when the shield finally crumbled. This time she went for defensive spells, trying to knock the wand out of his hand. It wasn’t really working, the spells seemed to be bouncing off each other.

Well except for the last one. She dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. There wasn’t anything she could do except hope that she was going to find a way to not die in the next five seconds. To get away and go... anywhere but here.


Keeping the concentration on the spell was easy, but as Hallam watched her move like a worm caught on a hook the devious smile underneath his mask faded. As her glamour faded revealing the woman underneath, the joy he felt seeing someone in pain was clouded. Even in the dark, he could see that she looked like his daughter. Recognizing her from the journals, Hallam let out an audible sigh and knelt down beside her. His own wounds had to be tended to. “Come back to me when you are not afraid of properly cursing someone,” his whispered.