An Alarc'h
The spell of normalcy in the end should have been recognised for what it was. But normalcy had a very real spell to it. It was a kind of magic so subtle, and yet more evil than any spell of the Dark Arts. It whispered ‘complacency’ to those ensorcelled by it. It was easy for Narcissa to think about marrying her handsome young Dragon to some Beauxbatons graduate, to even start looking. To lean back on the wealth stashed at various country-houses in France, and start to rebuild life for the two of them.
To never, ever, ever think about what they had done to her poor Lucius. About what the Dark Lord had done to him. To think about it anyway. To cry herself to sleep, because she could very much remember exactly what had been done to Lucius, in those days before she had met up with her sister.
To be thankful that she had her sister and to hate the fact that a respectable pureblood marriage for Draco required her to keep her sister at arm’s length. To wonder if it was really worth it, if they could perhaps just move further afield and find a part of the world where a half-blood cousin for Draco would be overlooked by the family he was marrying into.
No, she was never quite back to normal. Never would be, without the man she loved in her bed at night, a feature that she shared with Andromeda, for all Narcissa had despised the man who had taken her away. No, they were united in loss now. Loss, and the knowledge that over there, over on the other side of the lines, was their third sister, their eldest, the one who had protected them when they were young.
The right-hand woman of the monster who had now caused them both so much suffering. The right hand woman of the man now invading Europe. She nodded to the warning image in the fireplace which had triggered her reverie. “We will be there at once.”
All wizards within Bretagne must report to the centre of Brest at once. All wizards within Bretagne must report to the centre of Brest at once…
Narcissa remembered messages like that from the drills in her childhood. “Draco, come to me at once!”
She wasn’t a Frenchwoman, and she wasn’t under the orders of the French Ministry, except as a resident foreigner. By rights, she could just as well flee, and Narcissa felt a deep unease, for that message, that mandatory message, could only mean one awful thing.
When all wizards come together this can be stopped, in a local area. The nightmare scenario. The one which had given Bella nightmares all those years before when she was a little girl first growing up.
“Mother?” Draco was pale in the best of times. He was, indeed, like a perfect statue in hues of white. Pausing at the bottom of the stairs in their manor, he looked composed in black robes, but her haste had given him a electric shock—a feeling of fear spreading.
She stepped over to his side. “We must apprate to Brest, and quickly. The Dark Lord has begun his attack on the muggle world, I fear.”
“Mother…” His eyes widened, senses sharped.
“My dragon, be brave,” Narcissa turned to her son and took his hands. “We are facing a muggle weapon. It’s a thing only the muggles could come up with. You can face that, can’t you?”
Draco stiffened, and squeezed his mother’s hands with a firm nod. Then, she slipped loose her wand-arm and drew it. They apparated a moment later, straight into the heart of the city of Brest.
For the first time in centuries, in France or anywhere else, magic was practised openly. Some quizzical gendarmes were blocking traffic. In the cool night of spring, the climate only moderated by the Bay of Biscay, a group of wizards and witches had gathered.
A knot of two French Unspeakables stood in the middle, with others around them. They raised their wands:
“Protego Totalus Magnae… Elektra interruptus!” They began to chant, performing what was almost a synchronised dance, as blue energy rose from their wands… Narcissa, with the others there, simply cast Protego and the magic of their Protego was drawn up, was gathered together. Around the Recouvrance, the Breton quarter just across the river Penfeld from the Chateau de Brest, the energy and power of many witches and wizards was being drawn together by the intense activity of the two unspeakables.
A horrible, pulsing noise—a siren—was echoing through the city from end to end. People milled about in confusion, not believing that this could happen, not in this day and age, not a decade after the ‘end of the cold war’, wasn’t it supposed to bring peace? Who was responsible? Was it to be a conventional attack, or nuclear? There were not enough bomb shelters, there was not enough guidance on where to go.
A wizard could not actually defend, effectively, against what came next individually. It was travelling at 7.5km/s, a speed at which it required less than twenty seconds from reentry to impact the city. Nor did they have enough power to physically shield an entire city.
What they did, simply, was neutralise the detonator. Conventional explosives, timers, impact sensors, altitude sensors, these were all part of the nuclear warhead. Without energy coursing through them…
There was simply a flash in the sky from the intersection of the shield and the reentry vehicle, and a terrible thud of an impact to the east. But no nuclear hellfire. No bright flash, not like those which could be seen further away. The flashes which were now beginning to appear, impossibly bright, on the horizon throughout Europe.
Then came the second. The third. The forth. It only went on for ten minutes, there was no more than that, two groups of two each. That was what Brest had been targeted with. By then, the roar reached them, from the naval base at Lorient to the south.
They stood ready, in the cold and bitter night. Other than the momentary reports of the reentry vehicles slamming into the ground at a very great speed, this war was flashes in the night’s sky, and distant roars of thunder.
Around them, electricity was useless, and the city had gone dark, until slowly and fitfully, some emergency generators were coaxed to start, and dim lights formed, as it would have had in a time before muggle technology, candles and lamps in the places that lacked generators. Still they stood, uncertain as to what would or would not again come.
After the first hour milling around in the darkness, some old people brought to them a thermos filled with coffee, and another one filled with cocoa. They crossed themselves, and mumbled their thanks, as many in Brezhoneg as in French. Narcissa, herself, offered them thanks in term, in Cumbric and French. There was enough of a dim sense of comprehension for another round of thanks.
The Tour Tanguy sat above them, dimly recalling ‘An Alarc'h’, the Swan, the days when this land was different from France. The sky was charged with strange energies, and even the muggles could see them, like the Northern Lights, but plainly magical—as the world was wounded, its energy responded in ways too blatant to ignore.
“What have we done?” Draco whispered, looking up at the sky.
His mother shrugged tiredly. “Saved Brest, my Dragon.” We did this, the Wizarding world did this, she thought, but there was no point in humouring a foul mood in Draco. Stay focused on what matters. Now I pray to the Gods that Andy came through all right.”
“Are those…” Draco trailed off, looking sharply in the distance.
“Cities,” Narcissa whispered. “Those are cities, Draco.”
Around them, in the night, the bells of the churches began to ring. The people who had gathered were singing Ave Maria. The wide world was dying, but tonight, in a straight moment of peace, a subdued, quiet, and anticlimactic battle had been fought—and yet oh so momentous, for the simple outcome. The utter ruination of this place had been averted. Brest lived.
And Narcissa silently prayed to Gods older than the one of the Cathedrals, that she should see her sister again. For her second sister, somewhere at Voldemort's side? She wasn't sure if she should pray that she had lived, or pray that she had died.