Chapter 15
“So are people coming to fight here too?” asked one of the Weasley kids, bouncing anxiously at her elbow while she leaned out of the living room window.
Sirius glanced at him quickly between spells. “I don’t know, but better safe than sorry,” she said, and kept casting.
The kid kept bouncing. “Do you know when they’ll come?”
“I don’t.”
“Do you know what they’ll do?”
“I have some ideas.”
“Do you-?”
“Percy, stop bothering the lady and come here!” Molly Weasley said from where she was wrangling her children, along with Harry, into a circle in the middle of the room. “Now, all of you need to stand very still for a moment. This is special magic that will keep you safe, alright?”
“Yes, Mum!” they chorused.
Sirius tuned them out and focused on her notebook, checking and double-checking her work before she moved on to the next set of protection spells. She could hear McGonagall moving around upstairs, the grinding and shifting of stones in the walls as she altered them so that the very fabric of the house would ward off damage. Arthur Weasley was in the front yard, walking in circles and probably looking very strange to the neighbours as he cast further wards and traps into the ground in front of the house.
Behind her, Molly finished up with the kids and left them to scatter. Sirius glanced back to check on Harry, reassured when she found him wedged between two of the smaller Weasley kids as the older ones wrangled them into some kind of clapping game. She returned to her notes, but paused when she felt Molly come up behind her shoulder.
“That’s impressive work,” Molly said. “Do you often build your own spells?”
Sirius shrugged, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. “I’m not really making anything new, just combining some stuff. Makes it harder to get past if you kind of lattice it, you know?”
“Hm.” Molly scanned over the pages and shook her head. “Well, whatever it is it’s beyond me. You must be very good at defending yourself.”
“I’ve picked up some tricks.”
She erased a section and re-wrote it just for something to do with her hands. Molly was still standing there. Renewed tension was starting to seep into Sirius’ shoulders. “Can I help you with something?”
Molly seemed to pick up on her mood and eased off to the side, turning to keep an eye on the children, but still not leaving. “I’ve heard a lot about you in the past few weeks,” she said. “There was a good while there where we all thought you were trying to get that child killed.”
“Well. Seems like you’ve all woken up a bit since then.”
“We have.” Molly folded her arms and watched her carefully. Sirius tried not to hunch under her gaze. “My brothers mentioned you a few times. They were both still alive when you first joined the Order. Fabien and Gideon Prewett?”
Sirius nodded slowly. “I remember them. Fabien helped me out a few times, finding a place to live and that. I used to talk music with Gideon. They were good wizards. I was sorry when they died.”
“So was I.” Molly’s face was unreadable. “Dolohov had something of a vendetta against my family. It was the reason I didn’t get involved with the Order until now. I was hellbent on keeping my children safe, even if it meant not getting to see my brothers for four years before they died. They never got to meet the twins, let alone Ron or Ginny. These days I have a hard time remembering what they even looked like.”
Sirius bit her lip and said nothing. Molly wasn’t finished.
“Now that Arthur and I are involved, it’s the beginning of the end. Or so we hope.” She pursed her lips. “I’m terrified. I keep imagining what will happen if the Death Eaters find us, if they manage to get past our defences. What happened to the Potters… I have nightmares about the same thing happening to us.”
The notebook started to crumple in Sirius’ grip. “I won’t let it,” she said quietly.
“But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I’m sure your friends would have said the exact same thing about their boy.” Molly focused on Harry, giggling at the twins making funny faces, and smiled sadly. “but there’s no way any of us can guarantee their safety. And there’s no way we can guarantee we’ll survive long enough to keep them safe. The only thing we can do is try to ensure we’ve got enough precautions in place. James and Lily Potter entrusted their son to your care. We’ve both entrusted that same care to Minerva. Until this is over, I think all we can do is try to trust enough of the right people, and hope that eventually the line can end somewhere.”
Sirius swallowed hard. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying… if it comes down to a fight today, I hope you know that I will protect that child as one of my own. I’ll see him taken care of. And I hope that I can trust you to do the same for mine.”
She looked away from the kids to catch Sirius’ eye and held her gaze for a long moment. Molly couldn’t have been much older than thirty, but Sirius suddenly felt incredibly young in comparison. She gave a hesitant nod.
“You can.”
Molly smiled slightly and patted her on the arm. “Thank you.”
“Get up,” was the first thing Peter heard, snarled somewhere above as he blinked his eyes open and found his vision filled with flashes of colour and blinding sparks.
He tried to move and found that his hands and feet were bound. Terror plunged in his gut and he started to struggle, but something was already slashing against his wrists and ankles. The ropes fell away; he made to haul himself up, but someone grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him halfway to his knees, keeping him off-balance and flailing for purchase.
The masked face leaned in close. Peter stopped struggling and gulped, knees shaking. He could feel the cold emanating from the metal, see the glinting eyes through the slits.
“We’re not finished yet,” Bellatrix said, low and far too calm under the cacophony surrounding them. “You will help fight for the Dark Lord’s vengeance, and you will help us find the boy.”
The blood ran cold in Peter’s veins. “I still don’t know where he is.”
“Then you’d better start thinking, Pettigrew. My patience is wearing thi-”
Something slammed into them from the side and knocked Bellatrix to the ground, sending Peter sprawling as well. He staggered up and away from her towards the nearest hedge, breaths coming short and sharp as he crawled through the mud and grass, searching frantically for his dropped wand, praying someone hadn’t grabbed it. A hex whizzed over his head and he ducked instinctively, felt his hair curl and singe with the rush of heat, keep low, keep low, they’ll kill you, keep – there!
His fingers found polished wood among the damp soil. Unable to believe his luck, he scooped up his wand and rolled to his feet, backing up against the hedge, staring around frantically as he tried to get the lay of the land. The Death Eaters were easy to make out in their uniform robes and heavy masks, contrasting against the mismatched Order members and maroon-dressed aurors on top of the scattering of men that must have been recruited out of Knockturn Alley that morning – only five or six, in tattered robes, missing teeth, pockmarked skin, a couple recognisable as regulars from the Newtcatcher’s Arms. Fighters for hire, cheap and mean. Peter cringed and diverted himself to singling out the biggest threats. Mad-Eye Moody was up and across from him, barking orders and firing off curse after curse, spitting with rage as he duelled Rodolphus and Crouch at once. Crouch Senior was nowhere to be seen, thank Merlin. Both Shacklebolt siblings were there, back to back in the middle of the field and almost obscured behind a whirlwind of defensive and offensive magic. He couldn’t see Dumbledore or McGonagall, but that didn’t mean much. He was scanning for Emmeline Vance when another onslaught of aurors burst onto the scene and his eye caught a flash of something familiar – a loping stride and a mass of dishevelled hair he knew far too well.
Remus was on the battlefield. Remus was staring at him with cold, lethal fury.
For a moment, the roar of battle quieted to a muffled drone. Peter’s blood was thundering in his ears, and his whole body was trembling with panic-induced nausea. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple. Remus was walking towards him, wand clenched in her one free fist, she was injured and bandaged, why was she already injured?
Of course – the full moon. Must have been a bad one. He slid further along the hedge, the bare twigs catching in his hair and scraping the back of his neck, unable to take his eyes away from Remus as she stalked closer and closer, paused as if to take a breath, and then –
“Confringo!”
The flames exploded half a foot to the left as he threw himself out of the way, heat searing up his side and ears ringing with the force of the blast. He staggered, whirled –
“Fumos!”
The cloud of smoke pouring from his wand gathered to cover him as he moved back even further towards the far corner of the field, feeling for somewhere to duck and transform, he could – no, he couldn’t, Bellatrix would find him if he ran, she’d kill him,
“Immobulus!” Remus shouted, closer now, but the spell didn’t hit. He kept moving, kept low, maybe she’d be attacked by someone else, maybe he could wait it out.
A sudden blast of wind whisked away his smoke shield and he barely restrained from crying out, left exposed and only a few feet from where he started and Remus was on him now, her wand slashed and a curse slammed into his ribs, knocking the wind out of him, his skin burning with horrible, sickening cold.
“Stupefy!” he tried, but his aim was off and Remus ducked it easily as she closed the last of the distance between them.
She yanked her wand across before he could get a shield up, not even bothering with verbal spells anymore, and Peter felt his legs fold underneath him.
He smashed to the floor, landing heavily on his shoulder, and was momentarily transported back to the last time Remus had cast a jelly-legs jinx on him. The four of them had been messing about by the lake in their last week of seventh year – exams done, term ending, one last chance to blow off some steam before they left for the real world. He had been trying to splash her from the shallows and she’d tripped him right into the drink with a flick of her wand, laughing as he shouted indignantly through a mouthful of pondweed. James had grinned at him and hauled him up, only for Sirius to tackle them both right back down again, hair plastered against their heads, robes sopping wet, the hot July sun shining down on them and the smell of the grass and trees and water, probably one of the last times they were all together like that, happy and carefree and…
Remus’ shadow fell over him as he tried to wrest his wand arm free from where it was trapped under his ribs at an awkward angle, fighting to push himself up only for his lower body to slide about under the weight of his own torso, unable to support it. He shrank away from her and felt the prickle of fur up his back as he instinctively started to shift, but then – wham! She kicked him in the temple and sent him sprawling, stars dancing before his eyes, and then her knee was pressing into the space where his ribs met, her full weight behind it. He gasped and choked, unable to take a full breath. The tip of her wand pressed against his jugular, sharp and splintered. Her eyes found his.
“If you try to transform,” she said. “I’ll kill you.”
Peter believed her. His head was smarting and pounding from the kick. He tried to breathe in.
“R- Re-”
The shadows in her eyes darkened still, and Peter could see the end. He was about to die, he was dying and all of it had been for nothing, nothing, stupid, stupid, stupid, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,
“Crucio!”
The weight disappeared. Peter blinked dazedly, and it took him a moment to register that he was still alive before he registered that Remus had landed on her back a few feet away. Her whole body was bowed and rigid, her face contorted in a silent scream.
Bellatrix was focused on her, mask gone, hair mussed and eyes wild with malice as she watched Remus’ bones twist, a dead auror at her feet. Peter tried to lurch back, struggling to move and unable to look away as Bellatrix drew back briefly, allowing a brief respite for Remus to gasp and sob before again, “Crucio!”
Remus screamed aloud this time, that haunting, drawn-out howl that had kept the shrieking shack safe from prying eyes all those years, far too familiar to Peter. He was taken back again, to the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, curled up in his other form, trying to block out the wailing, Prongs huge and imposing as he barred the way with his antlers to stop Padfoot charging in too soon while she growled under her breath, claws scraping the ground, fur standing on end with every new cry.
Tears spilled down his cheeks. He couldn’t – he couldn’t focus, he couldn’t think, his head was pounding, the battle was clamouring from every direction and Remus was keening with pain, her spine arched so tightly it looked like it might snap, and Bellatrix was grinning, closer now, kneeling to bend over her.
“You’ve been keeping the boy hidden, and you’re going to tell me where,” she said.
Remus slumped to the ground as the curse died off again, panting and wheezing. Peter watched as she stared up at Bellatrix, working up to something, mouth tightening. For an instant, he thought she would talk.
She leaned up and spat in Bellatrix’s face. “Fuck you.”
“So be it,” Bellatrix said, and with a flash of her wand Remus was screaming once more.
“Shit Lupin!” someone yelled, and Peter dropped flat to avoid the hex that flew past Bellatrix’s head.
She barely glanced up from Remus, who was straining against her bandages as she writhed in agony, face red and streaming with tears. “My cousin has the boy, we know that much,” she hissed, leaning in closer. “Where would she have taken him? Tell me, and the pain stops.”
Remus tried to say something, but no words came out. Peter stared and stared, unable to move, unable to do anything. He was vaguely aware of Catriona Murray turning her wand on Bellatrix in his periphery, only to collapse to the ground when one of the hired thugs hit her with something from behind.
“She wouldn’t have gone home,” Bellatrix continued, either not noticing the chaos at her back or not caring. “Who would she go to? Andromeda? Dumbledore?”
Remus choked on her own heaving breaths, but her eyes remained fixed on the cloudy sky above. Bellatrix grabbed her chin and forced her to meet her eyes. “She went running to Dumbledore, didn’t she? Hiding behind an old teacher to protect her, that’s precisely her style. So where would Dumbledore be? Where is he hiding?”
“Fuck… you…” Remus rasped.
Bellatrix sneered and raised her wand once more. Peter couldn’t take it any longer.
“Wait!” he cried, and flinched when Bellatrix’s gaze snapped to him. “She – Sirius wouldn’t have gone to Dumbledore, she doesn’t trust him, not really, she, um-”
He was babbling, he didn’t know what he was doing, his head was ringing, the horror of seeing his friend broken on the ground clashing with the fear, that deafening fear that clung to him wherever he went, they’ll kill you, they’ll kill you, he’ll kill you-
Bellatrix dropped Remus with a thud and strode up to seize Peter by the throat, waving her wand impatiently to dispel the jinx as she hauled him up. “Have you thought of an alternative, or are you just wasting more of my time?”
Peter couldn’t help but look once more to Remus. She was still prone on the ground, possibly passed out. Bellatrix shook him and he squeaked in terror.
“M-McGonagall!” he managed, landing on the first instinct that came to his head. “If she’d go to a teacher, she’d go to McGonagall!”
“Better.” Bellatrix released his throat and grabbed him by the hair instead as he broke away to cough, twisting it hard in a cruel fist. “Do you have a location?”
“Almost, I know – I know the village but I never got the secret out of her brother, I don’t know exactly-”
Bellatrix sighed as if he’d just told her they were out of milk. “Then I suppose we’ll just have to go and search the place.”
Remus was drifting. She couldn’t tell where she was. Her mind danced from thought to thought, muddled and skittering like a spider trapped under a glass. She was cold, she was so cold, and there were dark shapes moving around in her blurred vision, seeming to echo and drift and jump suddenly from one place to the next – dementors? She should cast a patronus, she should – her hand jerked, was she still holding a wand?
Happy memory. She tried to focus. Happy memory. They flickered through her brain like a film reel. Hazy images of the garden she’d played in when she was very little, her dad making a football fly around her head like an orbiting planet, both of them laughing and laughing as she spun in circles trying to catch it. Her mum holding her on the floor of the cellar the morning after a full moon – the smell of her perfume, her soft blouse under Remus’ cheek, the faint vibration as she hummed some pop song off the radio. The Gryffindor common room at three in the morning one random Tuesday in fifth year, rubbing sleep out of her eyes while Sirius dragged her down the stairs, her friends clustered around her, giddy with excitement, telling her they had something to show her and each in turn transforming, a rat, a stag, a dog.
Sirius still, tickling baby Harry’s tummy on the rug in James and Lily’s living room, grinning as he shrieked with laughter, blowing a raspberry on the sole of his tiny foot, looking up at Remus when she came in with a mug of tea in each hand and smiling so widely it made Remus’ heart ache with some warm unfurling thing, so unbearably happy she was almost sad…
Someone was yelling.
“-pin! Lupin!”
Things rushed into focus. Ursula Shacklebolt was leaning over her and tapping her cheek, shaking badly, burned up the side of her face and neck. “Hey, look alive! You alright?”
Remus tried to swallow and tasted iron. “No,” she managed.
“Yeah, ask a stupid question. Valerie, I need your help!”
“What’s…” Remus broke off to cough. The air was thick with smoke, and it caught and burned in her raw throat.
“They’re retreating, Pettigrew’s led them somewhere. It’s not over but we need a minute to regroup, Henry – Henry’s dead, so’s Harriet…”
Remus heaved herself onto her side and vomited. She was vaguely aware of hands on her back and in her hair, supporting her injured arm so she didn’t put weight on it. Someone was sobbing nearby. Someone else was shouting in pain. She could hear fire crackling and a rush of water and steam.
She coughed hard and took a breath, followed by another, and another. In and out. In and out.
“Do we know where they went?” she asked when she could speak again, her voice scratchy and weak.
“Eleanor thinks she heard one of them say Arwick,” said Valerie.
“That’s where McGonagall lives.” Remus made to sit up, and the other two rushed to help her.
“We know,” said Ursula. “We don’t think they have the fidelius, but that just means they’ll tear up the whole town looking, they’re getting fucking desperate. Kingsley and Mad-Eye went to sound the alarm, they’re going to try for an evacuation.”
“Is that going to be possible?”
Ursula looked grim. “We’ll just have to see. You alright to move? We need to get you to a healer.”
Remus shook her head. “No, not yet, I need to-”
“Merlin’s taint, Lupin, you’re literally vomiting blood, can you just-”
“No. I really can’t.” She grasped Ursula’s shoulder and lurched to her feet, stumbling as they sprung up after her. “Sirius and I were talking about maybe going to McGonagall for an ally. We got separated yesterday. If she needed help, that’s where she’d have gone.”
They stopped at that. “So that means…”
“Harry might really be there. If they get to him, they’ll kill him.”
Valerie cursed quietly and Ursula sighed. “Just try not to pass out,” she said, and whisked them all away without another word.
Sirius was finishing the very last layer of her wards when she saw the first explosion, downhill from the house amidst the scattering of rooftops that comprised the small village centre, a shocking burst of flame against the clusters of brown treetops and grey slate. A black shape whipped in and out of sight. Glass smashed in the distance. Something froze over in her chest, and she felt herself sliding back into the war-driven mindset she’d been trying to shed ever since she went on the run with Harry and Remus.
The kids had gone quiet. Molly was shushing them gently and shepherding them into a corner. Arthur shut the front door behind him and went straight for the baby’s basket, picking her up and cradling her in his arms like it was the only thing keeping him calm.
McGonagall came striding down the stairs. “They’re here,” she said. “Close to the town centre for now, I think it’s safe to say they don’t have our exact location.”
“That just means they’re going to start slaughtering muggles until they do,” said Sirius.
“I know. That’s why I’m going to meet them. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome to.”
Sirius automatically went to do so, but she paused when she heard Harry make an anxious noise. He was still squished in with the Weasley kids, but appeared to be picking up on the tense energy in the room, because his face was starting to crumple. His eyes found hers and he reached for her, stretching out his arms as if to summon her across the room. Sirius’ heart broke a little. She knelt down to meet him as Molly let him toddle out of the group and into her arms. She cuddled him close and closed her eyes, pressing her cheek against his hair, feeling his fingers curl in her collar.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, as if saying it enough would make it true. “I’m going to keep you safe. It’s going to be okay.”
She could already hear people starting to yell and scream in the distance. Someone was using a charm to project their voice, booming instructions through the small cluster of buildings that echoed off the surrounding hills. She thought she recognised Kingsley Shacklebolt’s particular cadence. She shut her eyes tightly and breathed in Harry’s smell, baby wipes and porridge and quiet.
“Black,” McGonagall said. “Are you coming?”
A hand landed on her back, and she looked up to find Molly, standing tense but unafraid. “We’ll look after him,” she said, and Sirius knew she meant more than just the battle.
Part of Sirius wanted nothing more than to change her mind, to take McGonagall up on her earlier offer and whisk Harry away to France, never to be seen again.
But this had to end today. If any of the loyalists made it out, then Harry would never be safe. She had to see them all taken down, she had to be there to make sure it happened.
Harry had already had two parents die in front of him. She would stop them reaching this house if it was the last thing she did.
“I’m coming,” she said.
She kissed Harry on the forehead, tried to smile when he blinked up at her. Lily’s eyes. James’ face. But also just – Harry. Her godson.
She squeezed him tight once more, and picked up his plastic elephant from the couch. He pressed it happily between his palms. She took in the smile on his face and tucked it away next to her heart. Then, with effort, she passed him into Molly’s arms and followed McGonagall out of the house. She didn’t let herself look back.
They stepped out of the wards and looked down on the village from the slight vantage point the hill allowed them. Smoky shapes were blasting through the rooftops, tripped by sudden flashes of colours and brought down out of the sky only to take off from a different location an instant later.
“I think they’re working their way out from the middle,” McGonagall said, eyes sharp as she tracked the bursts of movement. “If we come from the south, we can try to batter them back along the main road out of town.”
“I’ll follow your lead,” Sirius said.
McGonagall nodded, grabbed her arm, and apparated them right into the thick of it.
Sirius had barely an instant to take in what she could – small shopping street, smashed glass, bodies on the ground, screaming people hightailing it away from the chaos, Kingsley Shacklebolt doing his best to direct them while also popping off shield spells with every other breath. A cloaked figure bursting out of the upstairs window of a pharmacy only to be tackled out of the air by a hex from Eleanor Johnson, people lobbing spells up and down the street like bludgers. She could see Bellatrix facing off with three aurors, the force of her spells cracking against the road underfoot, three other Death Eaters in loose formation at her back engaged with a host of aurors and Order members, a few haggard men who seemed to be taking orders from one of the Lestranges, some of them smashing windows and scaring people out of their houses, one of them –
-running straight for Sirius and McGonagall, “Protego!”
The shield went up an instant too late and exploded with deafening impact against the curse rather than absorbing it. Sirius threw her arms up over her head to protect herself from the blast and hurried to regroup as McGonagall shot something at the man that seemed to vanish his arm from inside his sleeve, leaving his wand clattering to the floor. He lunged for it with his other hand, giving Sirius a split-second to cast a body-bind that by some miracle hit the mark. His remaining limbs snapped together and he crashed to the ground with a yell, freeing Sirius up to focus on the Death Eaters while McGonagall stunned him and took his wand.
She ran towards the main fight right as Rodolphus Lestrange took down someone she vaguely recognised from the London office; he raised his wand as she approached, but Sirius was quicker. The duel was fast and vicious and Sirius managed to fend off everything he sent at her, her mind sharpened into a single point and flying like a javelin. She got in a lucky shot with a stunning spell and barely paid attention to Bellatrix’s enraged shout when he went down. McGonagall had taken over from a felled Proudfoot and was engaged with another Death Eater, this one shorter than the others, a mass of reddish-blond hair spilling over the top of his mask where it was starting to slip. He was chaotic and unfocused, but unpredictable for it, and McGonagall was having to put as much effort into keeping clear of his explosive curses as she was in her retaliating blows. Sirius concentrated and managed to slip in a particularly well-timed freezing jinx, looking on in satisfaction when the guy tripped over his own ankles and crashed to the ground, unmoving.
McGonagall gave her an approving glance, but before she could say anything there was a flash-boom that sent Kingsley and a few others flying backwards through the air, landing with a sickening crunch. Sirius glanced back long enough to see Johnson take care of the one who had done it and focused instead on Bellatrix, who had whittled the trio of aurors down to Savage alone. He was red in the face and duelling his absolute hardest, but Bellatrix’s frenzied laughter still rang down the street. Sirius didn’t waste another second before jumping back into the fray.
“Cousin!” Bellatrix screeched, her face blazing with mania, easily blocking Sirius’ initial blow and knocking Savage down almost as an afterthought. “This means the Potter scum is nearby! The task is nearly-”
“Shut the fuck up, you deluded bitch,” Sirius snapped, and blew up the ground underneath Bellatrix’s feet.
She grinned in spite of herself when Bellatrix was flung almost comically through the air to crash down on the hood of a nearby car, the windshield already smashed and leaving streaking cuts on her hands and arms as she scrabbled to right herself.
Bellatrix snarled and leapt back into stance, bloodied and smoking, and Sirius should have been ready for the hit but something streaked past her line of vision, a small shape moving fast from underneath the car Bellatrix had landed on, a rat, Wormtail, Peter-
The curse hit her right in the chest, some tight, sickening pain that momentarily blinded her and sent her bending double before the initial burst of agony eased off. Sirius was left with the feeling that something had reached into her chest and seized something behind her sternum, dragging her upright and forward, her feet dragging on the ruined road, scraping through her boots as she desperately dug in her heels to resist. Bellatrix was laughing again, a terrifying fervour in her eyes, dragging her wand in tandem with the force pulling on Sirius’ insides.
People were yelling in the background but Sirius could barely hear them as Bellatrix pulled her in close.
“Now,” she purred. “Show me where the boy is.”
Sirius’ feet began to move without her permission, marching her back up the road towards the hill where McGonagall’s house was partially visible even now. She groaned and strained with the effort of trying to stand still, just fucking stand still, but her muscles forced her onwards and fuck, there was the panic, lurking in the bottom of her stomach for the right moment, leaking up her spine and the back of her skull, shivering and sickening and Merlin, she needed help –
And then there was a shout and a clang, and the clenching fist in her chest vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Sirius whipped around and just barely managed to register Remus smashing a fallen, dazed Bellatrix in the face a second time with a stolen Death Eater mask, mustering enough force to send a spray of blood and teeth across the tarmac, barely pausing to catch her eye and point.
“Don’t let him get away!” she shouted, and kept hitting.
Sirius followed her finger and caught once more that same streak of grey, vanishing up the street in the direction Sirius had been heading.
“Protego!” she bellowed, and her aim was just right, Wormtail ran straight into the shield and crumpled, his alarmed squeak audible even over the clamour of the fight behind her. Sirius was onto this, she was ready, she was fucking ready, she shot off another spell and there, at long fucking last, was Peter Pettigrew, snivelling on the ground.
“Sirius,” he gasped. “Sirius, please.”
“No,” she replied.
The first curse sapped the strength from his limbs. The second glued his legs together. A third spell to replenish the shield keeping him cornered, to leave it standing so she could free up her concentration for the fourth.
She breathed in. Behind her, the battle was slowing. She wasn’t sure who was winning. Something cracked – another apparition. Another metallic clang.
“Please, please,” Peter sobbed. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die!”
She breathed out. Raised her wand.