Chapter Text
Misaki was looking over all of the data being displayed on the stupidly large screen. Calanthe, in what was in Misaki's opinion an absolute stroke of genius, had thought to add onto the magical AI the ability to use the Patronus Inventiones and had installed the locket Horcrux in such a way that the AI could destroy it with Patronus fire when the time came, but she'd also put it under strict orders not to do so until the spilt second between when it was obvious that Riddle wasn't escaping death that time and when he actually died. There wasn't any chance of it missing the window, given that much like non-magical AI, it thought a hell of a lot faster than a person did, and on top of that, since it could do multiple things at once, it could even use the Inventiones to see what he was doing all the time.
Unfortunately, despite how careful she'd been about it, Riddle had started getting suspicious about how often they'd caught up to him and started switching bases more regularly and was deploying all sorts of spells to obscure where he was. The AI could still work through it, but while they have no idea which spell, or possibly combinations of spells, that was doing it, it takes so long that he's always switched bases before it can get a lock despite the zoom out function of the Inventiones, which skips locations randomly when he's under his spells.
Other than that though, they all felt that things were starting to wind up to the end, so she'd requested some time off, as well as cited a policy regarding soulmates having important things going on to get as much as she can but also explain that she may end up coming back early and why. It made her feel a little guilty not to be doing her job catching criminals and contractors that abuse their power back home, but given the stakes, both in general and personally for Calanthe, she'd made the decision anyway, and even her guilt regarding her home country couldn't make her totally regret it. Besides, Voldemort and his band of terrorists were criminals too, so she was still helping catch dangerous criminals…
With the extra time, she's taken to not just helping as much as she has time for in putting together what intel and clues they get into a picture of what Riddle is doing, but dedicated herself to it fully.
Which was why she was in the Potter Ancestral Manor, that she and Hei had moved to temporarily since it had the space for the Order, which had denounced Dumbledore but was still working though now under Calanthe and Moody, to come and go as needed, and also put up some of them that were in more delicate positions. It was certainly a much better base than the Black Ancestral House, which was rather cramped even with very few of the Order actually staying there. They'd temporarily moved both of the Vanishing Cabinets Calanthe had in her London apartment as well as the one going to Hogwarts there for now.
She can't really help with the fighting, she's a great shot with a gun, but she can't do much else in those regards. She just wasn't all that good at combative magic. What she is good at though, is taking what information the AI can get -which is less then one would think given Riddle's suspicions have made him even more tight lipped and the Inventiones can't read his mind-, as well as the intel Hei, the Order, and the Ministry in general gathers and sorting through it to piece things together.
She sighs in frustration, pushing her glasses up to rub at her eyes. The info the AI has been spitting out lately indicates Riddle is gearing up for something big, but she hasn't been able to work out what yet.
She drops one hand and stays rubbing at the bridge of her nose as she moves over to the window for a brief break. As she gazes out, her eyes drop down to the fountain in the middle of the circular walkway and her lips twitch a bit towards a smile. She'd learned very quickly that most people were either too busy taking in the admittedly gorgeous manor itself or just entirely focused on whatever they're at the Potter Ancestral Manor for to notice what's the most overt of Potter's decorations that make their fondness of the Grim Reaper clear. The fountain had four tiers with water cascading down from the second highest all the way to the bottom. The very top though, had a statue of the Grim Reaper proudly displayed.
It was the most overt of the Potter's tendency to decorate with things related to the Reaper, but far from the only one. If one was paying attention, they'd notice details like the little vertical pillars holding up the railing on the banisters and staircase weren't just arches at the top. They were each a scythe, with each of the little pillars being made of two back to back so there are the blades of scythes arching both ways. Or the fact that every painting in the house, if one took their eyes off the beautiful artwork itself and looked at the frames, always had two skeletal hands holding opposite upper and lower corners, which of the two varied, but they all had them. The rugs had skulls hidden in their patterns too. The curtain rods were scythes, with their blades tucked down behind the edges of the curtains. Even the curtain holdbacks were in the form of skeletal hands. Such designs were hidden all over the place. Subtle, barring the statue out front, but present to any who pay attention.
It honestly makes her think the entire Potter lineage have been low-key goths. And honestly? Calanthe doesn't entirely dissuade the notion herself, given how much she also adores all of that.
Misaki genuinely found it all more than a little hilarious, especially with the juxtaposition of their knightly nobility. When one thinks knight, like their famous in general but not as their ancestor Godric Gryffindor, one does not think goth. It wasn't even just all Reaper things either. There was all sorts of Gothic scroll work around too, decorating the scythes and the skulls themselves, in the case of the rugs, being more overt and being what hides said skulls, or maybe just side by side with it, like with the cutlery, which are scythe handles with the blade just quietly etched on, and all of it, handles and etched blades alike looked just like gothic scrollwork at a glance. All of it only reinforces her impression.
She sighs and drops her hand from the bridge of her nose and steps back towards the screen as a beeping noise indicates that the AI has flagged something it observed as important.
She looks it over, brows furrowing as her lips purse. Riddle doesn't say a whole lot out loud, being secretive even with his own followers, but apparently the AI observed him asking how many of his forces had gathered of one of his followers. They'd responded that they were just waiting for the arrival of some of the reinforcements they'd managed to convince to join them from other countries. She has no idea how the hell they convinced anyone to join them given how horrible things were going for them. Regardless, when he'd asked why he was gathering them all together, Riddle had shaken his head and simply said ‘soon’, but refused to say anything more.
He was definitely gearing up for something big. But what, exactly, she doesn't know. An attack of some sort, certainly, but where, and what was he trying to achieve? Was he just trying to change the status quo and make people think they weren't all that safe, like when they'd lived in terror during the first war? Or was he after something else?
It wouldn't be much of a question if the AI was able to pin down their location before they make their move, and it was certainly doing its best, but given all the spells he'd put in place to obscure and confuse his location, it was taking time.
Time they may not have before he makes his move.
At this point, it had practically become a race between him getting everything in place for whatever he was planning and the AI tracking him down.
It was a race with all too high stakes. Often in the past, she's had to team up with Hei or others like Remus and Sirius to gently bully Calanthe into taking a break. But having something like this more in her face than her previously more distant help… it makes her wonder, sometimes, how Calanthe doesn't completely lose her mind. How she doesn't buckle under the pressure. She's a strong young woman, that's for sure, to constantly have the stakes so damned high but to keep pushing forward and not let it slow her down or cow her in the slightest.
She sighs as she gets back to work sorting through every scrap of information they have to try to help in whatever way she can.
Calanthe tilts her head at Lucius, “I'm honestly surprised you managed to get away, given how paranoid he's getting and the way he's gathering his forces.”
He gives her a tense smile in return, “Some of us more… prominent public figures have convinced him that disappearing from the public eye entirely will tip people off to the fact that he's building up to something soon.”
She nods, “So, anything new?”
He nods, “He seems to have convinced a vampire coven to join him.”
She gives him a bit of a confused look, “How the hell did he manage that? Most of the traction and support he got with them last time was because of the anti-creature laws. Most of them are as happy as a House Elf with a family that treats them well nowadays with the changes I pushed through.”
He sighs, “This group of Vampires is apparently unhappy with the new laws actually. From my understanding, they'd been king of an underworld blood trafficking empire for the vast majority of the other vampires, and your clinic and generally more accepting laws had basically put them out of business. Business which, from my understanding, Riddle has promised they could take back over via things like having control of your clinic once he gains power.”
Shr barks a laugh, “How pathetic. They're throwing in with that psychopath, a psychopath who will never keep his promise at that, just because they're losing money and need to find a different business?”
He hums, “That's the gist from what I've gathered, yes.”
She shakes her head, “They are not going to like how things turn out for them, one way or another. Because yeah, sure, if by some miracle Tommy-boy's wins, he'll definitely undo my creature laws, but given he'll undoubtedly see such an organized group of vampires as a threat, he'll snuff them all out after such an unlikely victory.”
Lucius nods, “Precisely. And your victory would not be kind to them either just for aligning with Riddle.”
She hums, “Very much so. Them not being human won't mean anything, but they'd still be aiding and abetting a terrorist group, which makes them criminals with some pretty hefty crimes.” Lucius hums back and there's a beat of silence. One where he seems a little nervous. She turns her gaze back to him, “What?”
He looks up at her, eyes going a bit wide before they drop back down to his tea as he takes an attempted subtle deep breath, “I know our original… deal, as it were, was basically information in return for not letting it get out that we- that I got the diary destroyed and taking him out as quickly as possible to lessen the risk that he'd find out on his own, but I was wondering if I could possibly ask you for something else?”
She places her elbow on the arm of her chair and leans her face against the backs of her curled fingers, pointer extended and resting against her temple, “You can certainly ask, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll agree.”
He nods in understanding, “I was hoping that after everything is said and done that you may be willing to testify that we the Malfoy's have been serving as spies for you?”
She hums, “I'd be willing to testify that you've been spying for me, yes, but I do hope you know that if I did I'd be entirely honest on why you made that choice as well. Would also be willing to testify that you did give me warning about the world cup when you could've easily just left and pretended not to know anything, and while we both know it's because I know full well that they wouldn't have let you get away with not participating and you didn't want to piss me off, technically you never actually said why and that's entirely speculation on my part. Whether you can twist things or not would entirely be on you. Though I do warn you, if the Malfoy's do manage to slip out of things, if you try to go back to your old sh*t with the threat of your old master out of the picture I will not go easy on you.”
Lucius gives her a tense smile, “I wasn't expecting you to lie about the reasons. You agreeing to testify that we were spying alone is enough for me. And besides,” He pauses slightly to take a sip of his tea, and she notices his hand is trembling slightly, “we Malfoy's aren't foolish enough to rile you. You've made it more than clear how idiotic of a choice that is by now, regardless of whether it's more directly or in the political arena…”
She snorts in amusem*nt, then waves her other hand as she straightens up and drops the one she was leaning her face against to pick her own tea back up, “As long as we're clear on those points, but yes, Lucius, I'm willing to testify for your family on your spying.”
He nods, murmuring out a quiet, “Thank you…”
Calanthe rubs tiredly at her temples, “Hermione.”
The girl looks up at her from her book at their library table at her uncharacteristic whining, “What do you need Calanthe?”
She flops forward stretching herself across the table, chin on the table, elbows resting on it with hands pressed together as though in prayer above her head, “I can not for the life of me remember what the other property of Sopophorous Beans are other than inducing sleep? And to be honest, I only really remember that because it's in the Draught of Living Death.”
The older girl shakes her head in bemusem*nt, “The juice has the ability to remove a person's memory if drunk straight.”
Calanthe all but slams her hands down as she shoves herself back up, though she is careful not to bring them down too energetically, not wanting to be loud nor slam down on the table, which could draw Madam Pince and her ire, “Thank you! I was completely blanking on it!”
Hermione shakes her head again, amused at her, “Well, you may be able to focus more if you weren't trying to juggle dealing with the Riddler and his brown nosers and completing your last year at the same time. I mean, yes, your NEWTs and all that are definitely important, but Headmistress Vector probably would've been more than willing to let you suspend your schooling for a year or however long it takes to wrap this up and just come back for the final year your parents already paid for when you're done.”
She snorts, “Tommy-boy and his little groupies are a threat to the masses if they figure out a way through the defenses set up, I'll give you that, but honestly, with the way he keeps running away, I'm starting to think people hyped him up and made him out to be a bigger problem then he actually is.”
Daphne, who was with them, let out an uncharacteristic snort of her own, “No, they really didn't, you're just a whole other beast.”
She rolls her eyes, muttering a bit low, “If you say so Daphne.”
She tosses some hair over her shoulder, “I do! If we're breaking the silence and asking questions though, let me ask you one Calanthe, how by the name of Merlin are you supposed to deal with a Manticore again? Because I distinctly recall that their skin is practically impervious to magic.”
She hums, “They are. They aren't entirely impervious unlike the common belief, but their hide unravels and absorbs what it can to temporarily strengthen itself as the energy runs off of it like water off a duck. I actually thought about using it instead of Nundu hide for part of Hei's new coat, but the ability is actually infused into their hide by their magical core rather than a property it itself possesses, so it disappears after its death. Anyway, they do not have similar physical resistances, so the usual response is just to drop something heavy on them, and anvil would easily snap their back or cave their skull in if you can hit it since they're actually damned fast, but you could just as easily just levitate a sword and hurl it at them. Whether or not it kills them would be dependent on how skilled you are and if you hit something vital, which is part of the reason the default response is to drop something heavy, since that's not really reliant on skill in the same way, though it would be faster than physically swinging a sword at them yourself, so theoretically you could. Still, you could probably get extra points for pointing that or other methods like it out.”
Daphne makes a noise of understanding and flashes her a smile, “Thanks Calanthe.”
She smiles back, “No problem Daph. And thanks for the help with the Sopophorous Beans Hermione.”
Hermione smiles back as she swings her head back towards her to direct her smile that way, “You're welcome.”
Then she goes back to reading as she and Daphne go back to their own studying.
Calanthe is discussing possible places Tommy-boy may be looking to hit and weighing each of them with Moody, Shacklebolt, and Hei when Misaki comes rushing in. She looks up at her girlfriend, stamping down on the way her heart flutters at the title that flits through her head since it's not appropriate at the moment, “Misaki? What did you need?”
The woman grins widely, “Me and the AI managed to pin down where Riddle is gathering his forces.”
There's a heavy beat of silence before Moody and Shacklebolt, who had taken over as head of the DMLE after Amelia became the Minister, immediately get into a flurry of asking questions. Misaki's head pulls back a little, eyes widening, and she quickly silences them both, “Then we need to strike preemptively and try to get them all, Tommy-boy included, once and for all. Moody, gather the Order and have Remus send out word to the werewolves that agreed to fight with us, Shacklebolt, get the Aurors. I'll start getting everything in place to transport everyone and erect a temporary ward the moment we get there before they can flee.”
They both nod, then quickly set off to gather their people. She turns to Misaki and smiles, “Hopefully, he won't slip through our fingers again.”
Just the mere thought has her shoulders slump slightly as frustration flickers through her and her gaze drops to the map on the table as her mind drifts to the people that occupy the lands they're depicting and the threat to them if he gets away again. She's yanked from her thoughts by Hei slipping an arm around her and tugging her back into his chest a beat before Misaki cups her face. She looks up and meets Misaki's slightly worried gaze.
Misaki flashes a smile at her, “Don't worry about it so much. Even if he gets away, there's not a whole lot he can do given everything you've done to cut him off and secure people's safety.”
Hei hums in agreement, “Exactly. And he won't get away forever. You'll get him eventually, even if he slips away this time. We'll hunt him down as many times as it takes.”
She gives Hei a somewhat lopsided grin, “You just wanna stick a knife in him.”
Hei laughs, “Can't say I don't!”
She shakes her head as a laugh is dragged out of her and she reaches across her body and over her own shoulder to shove at his. Hei snickers and she looks towards Misaki to roll her eyes and jerk her thumb towards him. She laughs lightly herself, then leans forward to press a quick kiss to her mouth before pulling away, “Well! I think we have things we need to do quickly to get everything in place for when the rest get here, right?”
She nods, then tips her head back to rest against Hei's shoulder to look at him, “Can you head out and take those temporary ward stones and hide them around their base for me?”
He nods, leaning down to brush a quick kiss of his own to her lips before he lets go, seemingly reluctantly, and heads out. The temporary ward stones were something else she'd come up with. They were kinda like her marbles, except they were about the size of a basketball. They were connected to the magical AI, and on a signal from it, they would link together and snap a ward up in seconds. She'd made them recently out of the frustration of Tommy-boy and his followers feeling the rising magic as the temporary wards start to go up and fleeing immediately. It was her solution to the problem. They couldn't get any warning and run away if they snapped up in seconds. The only potential way for them to get any forewarning was if they saw whoever was placing them slinking around, and that alone was part of why she'd given the job to Hei. He was already sneaky as f*ck from the get go, but adding in all the enchantments she'd laid on his gear as well as the relevant spells he's managed to learn himself… Well. It should say enough that he managed to get the drop on Moody during one of their practice sessions.
She shakes the thought off, trusting Hei to get it done and turns to Misaki, “Well, easiest way to do this is just long portkey ropes. Need to get the coordinates from the AI first, but then we can head out and start spelling them.”
Misaki, who since she wasn't great in a magical fight had turned her crash course lessons to support things like that and had learned the portkey spell, smiles and nods as she slips an arm around her own, hooking their elbows together as they head out themselves to start preparing that part of things.
She feels a burn of determination as they head towards the room she'd set up with the large screen for Misaki to sort through everything.
It was time to end this little game of cat and mouse Tommy-boy was playing.
She looks over at one of the golems that will be accompanying them, and speaks to the AI through it, “Active the temporary ward as soon as the portkeys do, alright?”
The golem nods, “Yes Creator.”
She nods then turns back to the large group of people, all of them already debriefed on what sort of forces they're looking at and the basic layout of where they're headed, or at least as much as the AI has been able to learn, calling out, “Everyone ready?”
The ones placed in charge of each group, just to simplify communication, all indicate their readiness, so she nods, “Then I'll be activating the portkeys in three! Two! One!” Then she calls out the password they'd all been set to, in Parseltongue just to make sure no one triggered them on accident, “Victory.”
The portkeys all activate, taking them away, and in moments, they're landing in front of the newly erected temporary wards. Hei, the only one portkeying with her specifically, quickly moves away from where their portkey landed them a little away from everyone else, just to make sure she had the space she needed.
She waits a beat for him to move, then transforms into her Animagus form. As tempting as it was to just incinerate them all with her breath, if she did that, there wouldn't be anyone alive to question to try to see if they got them all and where the stragglers they missed were. So while she does breath out Patronus fire, she only blows out enough to melt through the base's original wards protecting people with harmful intentions from her.
The moment they crash down, the forces start to rush in, fanned out enough as planned where they won't all be taken out by a well placed explosion or something else that's area of effect, but still close enough to serve as backup for each other. As they do, she transforms back and takes hold of the remnant of her Patronus fire via the spell, rather than its more natural fire-like state, and stokes it up into a Patronus fire dragon.
She's not sure if they realized there was no out unless they defeat them, or just a defense desperate enough that they don't think to try to use the more enclosed spaces of the house, or maybe just that there's not really enough room given how many of them there are, but within moments, forces start pouring out of multiple doors, quite possibly installed just so they wouldn't get bottlenecked, given how many there are. Most of them seem to be human wizards, but she does see Fenrir and his pack, as well as the coven of vampires Lucius told her about.
For the werewolves, Remus and some of the more combat capable werewolves he'd drummed up -all more than happy to volunteer to help her of all people given everything she's done for them from her understanding- immediately peel off to engage before they can get close to the humans and potentially wreak havoc with what advantages they have over humans.
The vampires, on the other hand, Hei and his group of golems cut off from zipping through the battlefield at blur inducing speed. Hei himself wasn't inhumanly fast, but his golems were more than capable of keeping up, and with him in the center… honestly, the vampires are damned lucky they're so hard to kill and heal so quickly, given that section of the battlefield very quickly begins resembling more of a meat grinder than anything with Hei and the golems she'd made him tearing through their ranks. There had been a brief debate about having Bai join him, but the siblings had quickly come to the conclusion that having one contractor at full throttle was better overall than two with limitations, so she was actually in the Potter Ancestral Manor sleeping off the Obeisance for Hei so he could go all out as long as he needs.
The rest of the groups quickly clash with more reasonable opponents in the human wizards and witches. They do seem to have gotten less intelligence than they thought, given that even with their high estimates of Tommy-boy's forces number, they were still a little outnumbered, but between Moody whipping the Order into shape and the Aurors being put through the wringer in the re-training she and Amelia had come up with after the Siege of Hogwarts… Well, it was quickly shaping up to be quality vs quantity, and the Death Eaters were losing. Badly.
It probably doesn't help that she sent her Patronus fire Dragon skyward to connect to her via Picturam and give her a bird's eye view of the fight as well as be readily available to swoop down when necessary.
It gives her more than enough warning of the Dementors swiftly closing in before her group even begins to feel the effects of so many Dementors in the same place and deploy a regular Patronus to emit waves of her righteous indignation, protective fury, and vicious glee at finally pinning down Tommy-boy to keep them away and shoot of Patronus energy lightning at any that try to push close. When that last one washes over her from her Panther, she feels glad she'd warned everyone that it may pop up in her Patronus, since it certainly saves her from some assumptions from people thinking she enjoys this war or combat or whatever they may have assumed otherwise. Regardless if her normal Patronus doesn't hold them back, push come to shove, she can always have her Dragon breathe some of itself at them. She's been wondering what would happen to them if they were attacked by Patronus fire anyway.
She's mostly standing in the middle of the battle, almost absently batting away any spells headed for her as she observes the battlefield through her Dragon and occasionally sends out whips of Patronus fire to catch unforgivables either headed for her or someone else. Each of the groups had the magicals capable of a corporeal Patronus as well as the golems spread out evenly among them just to counter the unforgivables as much as possible, but if one gets too close to a group, she'd rather be safe rather than sorry.
She had been gazing skyward as she focused on what her Dragon was showing her, but she lowers her head and meets the enraged slit red pupils glaring at her as their owner quickly makes his way towards her.
She grins as he gets close, “ There you are Tommy-boy. I was beginning to think you were so cowardly I'd have to storm the building after all of your forces were dealt with.”
He hisses with fury, though not in Parseltongue, “I am not a coward.”
Her grin widens even as she sends a mental command at her Panther Patronus to send a lightning bolt at an unforgivable careening towards someone on the very edge of the battlefield, where her fire wouldn't get there fast enough for her to be comfortable with. From experimentation, she'd found that her regular Patronus not meeting an unforgivable fully with its own body wouldn't cancel it, but its bolts would slow them and send them off course. With it hovering in the sky in the middle of the battlefield above her with the dragon circling above even it, that pretty much guaranteed it'd drive the killing curses it hits into the ground, and given how explosive that was, she didn't want to use it too much, given the high potential for injuries, but… Well, it was still preferable to getting hit with a killing curse. She'd use that if she had to, though it was more a last resort if it doesn't look like a golem or magical will both notice it and respond in time and her Patronus fire can't get there fast enough.
She shakes her head, “So you say. And yet, you were so quick to flee the Graveyard. To flee the attack on Hogsmeade. To flee every time I found you before. You even named yourself after fleeing… Really Tommy-boy, with that name, I'm starting to wonder, am I Death itself to you? You certainly live up to your silly little name with me.”
His lips pull back in a sneer, “Hardly. It was more… prudence until I figured out how to counter that irritating spell of yours.”
She snorts, “Sure Tommy-boy. Tell yourself whatever you need to so as to not feel like a total failure.”
He snarls and hurls a spell at her, but she easily catches it with her Patronus fire and starts lashing out at him with it. Unsurprisingly, that shield spell she'd seen at Hogsmeade comes out again. He seems to have gotten further with it, since it slows down her Patronus fire even more than last time, but it's still steadily being eaten through.
The skin where his eyebrows should be twitches and he hisses out enraged, “ How? How do you continue to get through my shields?!”
She tilts her head with a smile, sending another whip of Patronus fire out to save one of her allies as she does, “You made the same mistake as Dumbledore, Tommy-boy. You were so focused on what I was already capable of and countering me before, that you forgot one key thing.”
He snarls at her, “And that is?”
Her smile gets a bit wider, a bit meaner, “That I was still a minor who hadn't had my magical majority back then.” His eyes go wide and a bit of horror and terror flick through them, “Maybe you thought you'd perfected that shield, maybe you even had compared to what I was capable of before my majority, but now? You've progressed far enough with it to slow my Patronus fire down even more despite being more powerful, I'll give you that, but that's it.”
He lashes out, face twisted in anger on the surface, but he honestly seems more like a desperate cornered animal to her.
They quickly begin circling each other as spells fly back and forth, and while she's incredibly glad she'd thrown herself into training and studying more spells to use so hard, at the same time… she may have overestimated him and subsequently overprepared. Because… honestly, her allies had been warned to stay out of it and for the most part they were giving them a healthy amount of space, but Death Eaters do try to interfere and tip things in their master's favor every now and then. It's all too easy though, to almost absently burn off arms and legs and let some golems who's whole job it was to capture downed Death Eaters deal with them, even without faltering on protecting allies that may not have a killing curse screaming towards them countered in time, nor miss even a single beat of her fight with Tommy-boy.
Tommy-boy, on the other hand, was entirely focused on her.
She flicks Patronus fire at any spells she doesn't recognize even as she dodges just in case something does manage to get through her fire, but for spells she recognizes, she doesn't bother with either wasting stamina or magic in what may potentially be a protracted battle, choosing instead to catch them with her sword and at worse, deflect them towards a random unlucky Death Eater which the ones paying attention dodge rather than try to block since it's their oh-so-powerful master's magic, but if she can, right back at Tommy-boy.
Tommy-boy seems to have given up on unforgivables entirely, using more and more obscure spells. Whoever's house this is, if they weren't blood supremacists, she'd feel at least a little bad about the sheer damage they were doing to the landscape alone, given any deflected spells that don't find a target are demolishing the grounds.
Tommy-boy tries to hurl some sort of fire spell at her, not Fiendfyre, presume because he's fully aware she'll meet that with her Patronus fire, but it still feels fairly powerful. Not powerful enough though, given her ripping the air around it away snuffs it out just fine. Once it's gone, she sends a bolt of electricity at him, but to her irritation, he does manage to react to the slower-than-real-lightning spell and deflects it hurriedly.
His response to that is to try to rip what she's heard is a move straight from Dumbledore's playbook and summon up a small tidal wave of water and try to encapsulate her. Even as she catches another killing curse heading for Shacklebolt's back nearby enough for her fire and tilts her head out of the way of some Death Eaters spell aimed at the back of her head, she freezes it and in the split second where Tommy-boy's hold over the water falters due to the change of state outside of his control, she rips it away from him, gathers the ice up into sharpened large shards and hurls them at him.
Tommy-boy almost frantically rips a huge gash of earth up and solidifies it into stone to catch them, and as he does she honestly… can't help but feel a bit exasperated, her gaze drifting over to Remus as she flicks some Patronus fire his way to shield him from a cruciatus while simultaneously sending an explosion curse at Tommy-boy's stone wall with her wand, ‘I… really did overestimate these guys. The Room and Trunk of Requirements were giving me harder fights then they are now. I suppose I was just a fourteen year old and that inevitably skewed my perception of how dangerous they were… but I definitely seemed to have overprepared.’
Through her Dragon viewing everything from above, she sees weapons launch into of the dust cloud made by the explosion, and she vaguely feels a dark power emanating from them. She's not entirely sure what's up with that, and not wanting any to potentially go astray and hit one of her allies, she casts an avis and intercepts them all midair. Each of them detonates as they find a target, making her even more glad that the people on her side had been firmly told to keep their distance, since the only people who get caught up in the explosions are Death Eaters trying to back up their pathetic master, and the man himself since she'd caught them with the birds closer to him than her. The blasts do kick up more earth, but they actually clear the air more overall, blasting what's left of the remaining dust cloud away, and in the process revealing Tommy-boy, a little banged up, apparently not having successfully blocked all the shrapnel and debris from her exploding his wall.
While he has shields up and they block him from being damaged by the explosions, they don't seem capable of countering the force of the blasts themselves, given the way he's flung back to roll over the ground.
He tumbles over a few rotations, but then seems to gather himself enough to kick off the ground, and to her bemusem*nt, he starts flying. She'd heard he was capable of it but, ‘Is he just trying to flee, or does he really think he'll have an aerial advantage? Against me? I'm a Merlin damned Dragon.’
With a shake of her head, she does a partial Animagus transformation, snapping out her wings without hesitation and pursuing him into the air. She'd been told a while ago about Tommy-boy's ability to fly, and it was exactly for that reason her top didn't cover the shoulder blade area of her back.
She's faster than him there too, and quickly catches up. He snarls at her as his body takes on that somewhat insubstantial smoky form she's been told was one of the tricks up the Death Eaters sleeves in the last war, and now she's more sure than ever that he's trying to flee, especially with the way he tries to hurry around her towards the ward boundary.
He forgets though.
Forgets that smoke is at the mercy of winds and that Dragons are masters of the air. She easily whips up a miniature tornado to capture him and hurl him back towards the ground, diving back down after him relentlessly.
Tommy-boy scrambles to his feet as she watches him idly from where she's hovering in the air above him, snarling with rage. He actually surprises her a little in the next moment. He seems to pour even more energy into his anti-Patronus shield, and to her surprise, instead of just being reinforced, some sort of… anti-Patronus’ peel out of it. Beyond obviously being some sort of energy creatures, they're nothing like a Patronus, that's for sure. They're pitch black, like spilled oil, for one thing, their forms seeming to suck in the light that hits them. For another, they are not proud and a little majestic looking like Patroni tend to be, looking like little more than drooling beasts. She has no idea in the slightest if they have any sort of application other than trying to counter her Patronus fire. But again, given that Tommy-boy had improved his spell to go toe-to-toe with her Patronus fire from before she'd hit her majority, they don't even get close before they're ripped apart by her now much stronger Patronus fire.
He snarls at her, “I haven't fully mastered it, reigned it under my control, but if it's come to this-!”
She's not entirely sure what he's going to try, but she gets her answer soon enough when he whips up another massive Fiendfyre serpent and wraps one of his anti-Patronus shields around it and sinks it into the Fiendfyre. The thing immediately turns jet black like his weird anti-Patronus creatures before, though some of the Fiendfyre is still visible in the glowing almost ominous looking cracks zigzagging its entire body.
She has a feeling that this one would be a bit more difficult for regular Patronus fire, so she commands her corporeal Patronus Dragon and it goes screaming by her to clash with it. It was definitely the correct choice to make, given that even with the condensed Patronus fire in her corporeal Dragon, the weird anti-Patronus powered up Fiendfyre doesn't dispel immediately upon clashing, the two tangling and tearing into each other.
As she watches, the glow in the cracks begins to steadily brighten, and so does her Dragon. Realizing that things are about to get dangerous, she quickly flicks come Patronus fire to encase the two in a bubble and also to wrap each herself, every one of her allies, and even the golems in its flaming aura just in case. She hadn't done it from the very start of the battle because it took a hell of a lot of concentration to keep it around moving people like they inevitably would've been, and with everything else she'd need to focus on, namely the Dementors she figured were around as well as Tommy-boy and his followers and any attacks they launch at her, it was a bit too much, so when it came to protecting her allies, she'd opted just to back them up with her Patronus fire as needed.
She's definitely glad she'd deploy it a moment later though, given that there's one hell of an explosion from the two opposing energies being forced together like that, scattering both her Patronus fire and Tommy-boy's anti-Patronus Fiendfyre amalgamation across the battlefield, and while the bubble catches the vast majority of the scattering flames, more than a few flares escape, and the only reason it doesn't hurt anyone on her side is because of the additional aura-like wrap around them all.
Of course, given how self-centered and selfish Tommy-boy is, he doesn't do anything remotely similar for his side, and quite a few of what's left of his people that haven't been taken into custody by the golems are killed in the flaming chaos. She supposes in fairness, there wasn't a whole lot Tommy-boy could've done for them, given the explosion had eaten through all of both the shields he already had up and the ones he tried to hastily deploy, shattering them like glass and throwing him back again. That in and of itself doesn't kill him, but it lets her Patronus fire, the stream that she's kept up this entire time through to burn him away like autumn leaves before a flamethrower.
Her wings flap almost lazily as she watches where he was for a few moments, double checking just to be certain that the chaos hadn't made the magical AI miss its moment to destroy the locket's Horcrux, but when there's no smokey ghost, she nods firmly, “The AI destroyed his last Horcrux on time then. Guess that's curtains for you Tommy-boy.”
She's a bit surprised by how loudly her voice seems to echo out, but it's easy enough to understand why when she turns her gaze towards everyone else. Her allies were all sort of gaping at her with wide eyes, and what had survived of Tommy-boy's forces was just as surprised, but also visibly terrified. Even the golems aren't fighting, though that's less in surprise and more due to the fact they seemed to have been adding another layer of defense from the explosion to her side and were now quickly and quietly going around scanning people for injuries. The dead silence has her voice ringing out like a funeral bell. Someone drops their wand and holds their hands up, and like a wave rippling out, what's left of Tommy-boy's forces start surrendering without a word. Some of them look pissed, a couple keep flicking their eyes over to where Tommy-boy used to be looking genuinely upset, and she can only assume they were people obsessed like that psycho Bellatrix that Hei had caught, but most of them are practically trembling in terror.
The golems seem to be finishing up with the last few health scan checks and the majority of them start shifting to capture mode, which seems to kick the rest of her side in the proverbial butt and get them moving.
She almost absently calls up another Dragon to circle and keep an eye on things for her as her own gaze seeks out Hei to make sure he's alright. He's perfectly fine to her relief. Splattered in more than a little blood, presumably from the… excessive amount of vampire corpses around him, but otherwise he seems fine. He reaches up to pull his mask off, revealing the smile that's a mixture between bemusem*nt and exasperated humor as he gazes at her fondly.
Without hesitation, she turns in the air and starts over towards him, drifting down then dropping the last couple feet gracefully as her wings retract into her back. He tilts his head at her, “Mm. While what they were capable of wasn't quite on the same level, I've been thinking that Voldemort was kind of your Syndicate lately. So what was it? Have to alter it a little but this is where I'm supposed to say something like, hi Calanthe, it's nice to see you won and are in good health. Been a hot minute.”
She laughs as she walks the couple more feet over to him, “Don't go stealing my lines!”
He laughs as well as he catches her hips in his hands when she's within grabbing distance and tugs her that little bit closer, “Never. Well. In fairness you kinda took out the Syndicate as well, so…”
She snickers, “Yeah I did. If Tommy-boy was my Syndicate, shouldn't you have taken him out for me?”
He laughs, “Unfortunately, between being a little busy with the Vampires and how chaotic things got near you two at the end, I did not, in fact, get to stab him. I may never recover from the disappointment.”
She grins at him cheekily as she pats at one of his cheeks, “Poor, poor Hei, however will you get over it?”
His grin turns a bit predatory as his eyes get a gleam and his hands slide off her hips and over her back as he wraps his arms around her to tug her against his chest even tighter even as her own drop to loop around his waist as well, “I can think of a couple ways…”
She laughs, her stupid heart fluttering again, still not totally used to actually being able to have relations of the less innocent variety with her soulmates. Then she grins at him mischievously, “Down boy, we need to stick around long enough to make sure none of these morons get any ideas just because we're not here.”
He makes an exaggerated sound like he's dying, “Do we have to?” She shoves at his shoulder and he chuckles a little, “Fiiiine.” Then his gaze flicks over her shoulder and she turns her attention more firmly to what she's seeing through her Dragon rather than just absently taking it in. It seems to be nothing more than someone having a meltdown as the golems take them into custody though rather than any sort of threat though, she she quickly turns most of her attention back to Hei as he also turns back to her, “Though, admittedly, given that most of them were too busy with their own issues, I don't think most of them were really aware of what I was doing with the Vampires and it's more that you need to stick around.” He chuckles again, “It's definitely more you they're terrified of then us in any case.”
She shrugs, “Maybe, but you are kinda surrounded by Vampire corpses so… they may be more than a smidgen terrified of you as well.”
He shrugs, “Guess that's possible, though it does require them to tear their gazes from you enough to actually see the corpses.”
She shakes her head and rolls her eyes in amusem*nt. There's a comfortable beat of silence before she comments as she glances over at a nearby golem, “We probably skyrocketed Misaki's blood pressure though, didn't we? I mean, she said she was going to be watching through the AI's connection to the golems, so she definitely knows what happened…”
He hums, “May have given her a bit of a fright regarding our safety, yeah, but Misaki's made of some pretty hard stuff. She'll probably have mostly calmed down by the time the golems are done and we get back.”
She sighs, “...I kinda hate that she had to calm down on her own.”
He lets out another hum, “Yeah, me too, but Misaki's a cop. She's familiar with people having to stay on the scene for some reason or another.”
She tilts her head, “I guess. Still don't like it.”
He sighs, “Yeah. Me neither.”
She leans her head forward to tuck it under his chin, which he promptly lays on her head as they just lean against each other, basking in what calm they can get in the middle of the clean up. After a few moments, Hei murmurs out, “So how's it feel to have Voldemort and his followers dealt with?”
She snorts, “It's a bit of a relief to have ended the threat, but honestly? Now that they're gone, all I can think about is the relief that it was out of the way a month and a half before my NEWTs. I have time to do some last minute studying to make sure I didn't miss anything because they were distracting me.”
Hei lets out an exasperated laugh, “You never take a break, do you? Most people wouldn't blame you in the slightest for taking some time just to enjoy that burden being gone before you pivoted your attention back to schooling you know.”
She grumbles, “ I would blame me.”
He sighs and quiet descends on them again. She honestly doesn't know how long passes before Hei lifting his chin and turning his head a little draws her attention again. Pulling away from him a bit, though not fully, she turns to see a golem approaching. It stops a few feet away, “All injuries dealt with and criminals in custody Creator. The sweep of the buildings is also finished.”
She nods, “Then we may as well take the wards down and head out. Take the golems back to the DMLE.”
The golem nods, “Understood Creator.”
The golem promptly activates its portkey along with all the others.
Slipping out of Hei's hold, she takes a step back, “Come on then, I know you know how to apparate. Let's get back to Misaki.”
He nods, and without another word, she turns on her heel to head back to the Potter Ancestral Manor. She reappears on the walkway up to the door, Hei only a couple feet away. As they start up, she notices Misaki standing in the shadows on the porch waiting for them to get closer. She seems to run out of patience when they're almost at the foot of the stairs though, given the way she practically flings herself down them and her arms around their necks, “Thank the gods you two are ok. That last explosion if nothing else-!”
She cuts off with a choking noise, and they wrap her up between them, Hei pressing a kiss to her forehead as she lays a peck to the side of her neck on top of the Mark she'd made on her girlfriend. With the arm she has wrapped around her, she can feel Hei rubbing at her back a bit above her arm, “We're alright Misaki.”
She nods, “It's over. No more of Tommy-boy's insanity.”
Misaki pulls back, running her pointer fingers along the bottom of her eyes, “Yeah… Yeah it is.” Then she smiles one of her beautiful smiles at her, “That's gotta be a weight off your shoulders, huh? And at that without dropping out of school or before finishing your final year!”
She laughs, “Oh definitely!”
Misaki giggles a little, and there's a few moments of them just calmly basking in being together with the storm Tommy-boy and his sycophants were kicking up behind them, then Hei gives her a grin as he loops his other arm around her waist. “I do believe someone was supposed to be helping me get over the disappointment of not being able to stick a dagger into that megalomaniac that was threatening you.”
She laughs, “Definitely a megalomaniac, but honestly? Not much of a threat. Didn't really occur to me that the last time we really fought, since that time we clashed when he tried to attack Hogsmeade was more of a scuffle than a real fight, that I was only fourteen and my perception of how dangerous he was inevitably got skewed. Honestly, the only thing I could think of when we were clashing was that I way overestimated him and also way overprepared… I mean, in general for other people, all the crap he was pulling was dangerous, but the man himself for me… he was more annoying than anything at the end.”
Misaki tosses her head back with a laugh, and Hei looks away like that'll do anything to hide his huge grin and chuckles. Misaki tightens her hold on her, “Honestly? Megalomaniacs like that deserve to have been little more than an annoyance and not anything worth noting.” Then Misaki tightens the arm she's got wrapped around her neck, “But, you know, after the scares you two gave me while I was watching that, while I certainly don't have any disappointment, I do think I could use a bit of help myself in getting past things…”
She laughs, but doesn't protest or resist as Hei starts practically dragging her and Misaki back towards the house eagerly.
She honestly couldn't be happier. Tommy-boy was dead, the vast majority if not all of his little friends were dead or captured, they hadn't managed to do a lot of damage to the general public, and since she'd turned seventeen a few months ago, she was totally allowed to have a full and complete relationship with her soulmates.
She brushes off thoughts of Tommy-boy and his group of psychos as they reach their bedroom door and a grin stretches over her lips. She has far more important things to turn her attention to right at that moment.
