The Battle for Khaat Lupin

He had been hoping to get Khaat to tell him where the babies were, but she looked like she was fading to him. He wasn't sure how much more coherence he was going to get out of her. Hallie's idea was far more reasonable.

"Khaat, in the wall? Are they in the wall?" Marcus asked. She shook her head very slightly. "They're in the floor. And that's about all I'm going to get from her. We'll just have to trust that Jack can keep James busy," Marcus said. "Try the spell, Hallie. I'll keep looking. She's had to leave them air somehow."

He had to tend her first. He brushed the hair back from her face and looked at her. She needed a healer.

"Did you wrap the babies in your clothes?" he tried to keep her with him, hoping to get a little more from her. She slumped slowly against him. He sighed. He leaned her back against the wall and got up, shining his light on the floor, hoping to see something irregular. Some broken or uneven stones. Something. Anything.

Jack would not rise to his taunts. She had been fighting much too long to be affected in the least by such childish attempts to get her moving before she was ready. Jack was a trained fighter. Trained in PA, trained by the Order, trained by the Ministry, trained by the Unspeakable department, and trained by experience. If she could hold her own against poltergeists, she could surivive against a werewolf. She had before. She would live to survive again. This was an undeniable truth that Jack fully believed in.

Henry, however, rose to the bait. The boy was, in Jack's opinion, as safe an ally as one of the younger less experienced students. She threw up a charm to protect him and glanced back at him, giving him the quickest of glares. Robert was the second to break pack rules, and she gave him a glance as well. "Pack mentality," Jack quietly reminded, before turning to look at James. The wolf wanted a fight. And while Jack was not a fan of giving people what they wanted, they had bigger fish to fry.

"Alright, sir," Jack said, carefully loosened her jacket to provide some extra movement. She took a certain step forward and raised her wand. "Let's see what you keep trying to sell me, then, shall we?" She slashed her wand, crossing his body. "Incendio."


James - Incendio - creates fire

Nodding Hallie casted the charm, warming the wand in her hand. That was nothing more than she expected considering the amount of people in the building. She'd used the spell multiple times before but not in this sense, usually to detect people in a whole building for trying to find specific people in a building packed with people was different. 

Pacing around the room she felt heard the sound of spells somewhere else in the building. The battle had begone, that was good it gave them longer to search for Khaat without being detected. 

'Marcus.' Hallie gasped as her wand grew hotter and hotter the closer she came to where Hallie believed the babies to be. Waving the spell away with her hand Hallie stared at the stone where her wand tip was pointing. A cracked stone not perfectly placed. This had to he it, it had to be the hiding place for the babies. 

'Marcus, I think they're here.'

--


Henry flinched as James shot a stunning spell back in his direction. It was a good Jack Dyllan, who he recognised as the famed Quidditch player, was there to protect him as the death eater was nowhere near ready to defend himself. Reckless. 

That confused Henry. Sure they were allies for now but overall he was a death eater, she an order member. It didn't feel right to be protected, the only person protecting him lately was Scorpius Malfoy. It was... Confusing. Why was she defending him. 

Henry stepped back into the crowd behind Katrina-Carlotta. It was right. Someone, someone who should be considered an enemy had defended him. Perhaps he wasn't as worthless as he thought he was? Perhaps there was hope? He should have been stunned, probably become the werewolves supper yet here he was, alive.

Heart thumping Henry kept his guard, still behind his leader, but his guard was up ready to attack when the time was right. 

Marcus looked up from his own search. Hallie's spell was doing its job.

"Nice job," he said, coming over to her. She was a good young auror. She had good skills. When they had the time, he'd tell her so. "Let me help you with the stones." He loved them very carefully, one at a time, finding them to be heavier than he'd expected. It showed him how desperate Khaat surely was to have gone to this extent to hide them.

Below the stones was a hole in the dirt. It looked like an older hole but it had served Khaat well. In the hole was a bundle of her clothing--the only thing she'd had to keep her babies warm.

"Let's get them out of there," he said to her. He was saying silent prayers that her twins--her boys, as she'd called them--were still alive.

"If you can carry the babies," he said to Hallie, "I can carry her. We need to try to get out on foot, at least to the street. We need to let the others know we have her or they'll keep trying to distract to give us time. Once we're out, they can destroy this whole place for all I care." He was hoping there wasn't one stone still standing when they were done, and he was hoping James was dead.

The spell had set his clothes on fire. Well, now, that was just plain annoying. He hadn't had even a second to think of putting them out when a young, overly enthusiastic male from his pack fired his wand at James and blasted him with water, effectively putting out the fire, but now James wasn't sure whether he was more annoyed by the fire or by the water.

He rolled his eyes slightly in irritation.

"Ginger, Ginger, Ginger," he sighed. "You singed my fur. That's just not working so well for me." He pointed his wand at the ceiling above Ginger and the other "Confringo!"

confringo: blasting spell

It was a precious site to see, a precious site in horrible conditions. Khaat had done everything she could to protect her children. She'd left herself cold, left herself exposed and had gone through the terrible ordeal of giving birth in this cell. 

Her babies were alive. They were tiny, the skin on their faces slightly pale out of the cold but the coat had served it's purpose. They were innocent, unaware of what was going on around them. For them this was the life they knew: a cold, damp cell living under a rock. Hopefully they would get to appreciate really what life had to offer. 

Stowing her wand in her robes Hallie took the babies, cradling each in an arm. They were heavy, overdue. But they seemed somewhat more comfortable feeling the warmth from Hallie's body. 

A tear brewed momentarily in her eye. Khaat would make an incredible Mother, she was ill and needed healing but after that she could raise them well. Raise them to be strong men who could one day become Ministers, Aurors, healers or maybe they would be happy owning a store on Diagon Alley. Khaat had created life and that was something Hallie had. She too could have a child become a dragon tamer or travel the world as a magizoologist. So what it mean't she wouldn't be able to devote as much time to her career. Being a Mother was a gift, a gift that could have been stolen from Khaat.

'Once I'm out where you I apparate? St Mungo's they'll probably need checking over?' Hallie suggested as she carefully walked towards Khaat, bending down so the scent of her babies hair would travel up her nose. 

'I've got your boys. They're safe. They're going to be fine.' Hallie told the witch passionately. 

((I'll help you out with te NPCs, Khaat))

Jack was hoping that the fire spell would catch Blood's clothing on fire, giving him a nice singe that would inhibit his movement a bit as the burns settled onto his skin. That... and, hopefully, it would get her own troops moving with the leader engaged. And now, he was irritated at her, hopefully making her his sole target. Once the other wolves were apprehended, Jack would feel better about letting some of her group help her with James. But she planned to keep him all to herself for as long as possible.

The Confringo came towards her, and she pivoted on her heels, pushing her hand back to block the people potentially in the way. A part of the stone ground exploded and rubble rained over her face and hands, leacing a nice little gash over her forearm. She turned towards Blood again and began slicing the air with Diffindo spells.

The wolves now jumped in, now that their leader was engaged. A large, lumbering man took to Katrina-Carlotta, deciding that she would be a difficult target to take out. He cast a Sectumsempra at her, whilst two small, twitchy wolves ran headlong at Henry. Elliot, Jack's white wolf, hurried to the man's aid, biting at their calves as they shot stunning spells at the dog and the man alike.


James Blood - multiple Diffindos - severing charm

Kat-Car - Sectumsempra - dark magic creating bad gashes

Henry - multiple Stupefys - stunning spell

((thanks, jack. our werewolves are missing. my apologies))

Marcus couldn't help but take a few seconds to see if the babies were alright. They were beautiful. Much bigger than he had expected. Bigger than his own twins had been. And, from what he could see, they were healthy. They were in good hands with Hallie.

He reached in his shirt and grabbed the chain that had the signal that was an alarm signal for Khaat's private staff. He knew they would understand that the only reason he'd be using the alarm, in this case, was if they had Khaat and she was safe.

"I'm taking you with me," Marcus told Hallie. "I need her in a secure location." Hallie showed the babies to Khaat. Khaat seemed to try to rally a bit with her babies near her. She heard Hallie say they were going to be alright.

"Home," she managed to say. "Please."

"I know," Marcus said. "We're going." He picked her up. "Hallie, let's get the hell out of here. The minute we hit the street, grab hold of me somehow, and I'll try to grab onto you somehow. I'd really like to not drop you or splinch you, but we need to port."

Robert received Marcus's signal. He had Khaat. As far as Robert was concerned, all bets were off. It didn't help that he'd been fighting to keep himself under some form of control from the curse, and he was tired of fighting against it.

The werewolves were now acting like the animals they were. The fight was on. Robert used a quick combination of spells to bring the rubble from the ceiling under his control and then to hurl the rocks right at Blood. With Jack trying to sever him into pieces, he could not possible dodge all of it.

In the other hallways, Michael and Edward and Brian all got the same signal. They came dashing back towards the main entrance and saw the battle down the southern corridor.

"Go with Belby if you can find him," Michael told Brian. "You're done here today. Go with your wife and your kids."

"But Robert..." Brian began.

"You can't help him anyway. You can't touch him. You have to leave him to me."

"Belby went north," Edward told Brian. "We'll catch up. Go." He and Michael turned and dashed down the hallway. Michael saw Robert hurling a boatload of rocks towards Blood.

"I hope to hell he can hit him with one of those," Michael sighed.

Jack's diffindo was trying to cut him in half. He took a couple of deep slicing wounds before he managed to defend himself against it and set up a protection spell.  

Then there was a ton of rubble and rock being hurled him by the Halloween costume.  As if he didn't have enough with the diffindo? The rocks too were just irksome.

"Who are you?" James frowned at the Halloween costume. "You have some serious anger issues, you know that?" A new thought crossed his mind. He decided to fire a sectumsempra towards the old woman.

The minute he began to aim his wand in the old woman's direction, the 'Halloween costume' apparated in front of her and shielded himself in order to protect her.

Then the "Costume" leveled his wand at the younger werewolves and began to march straight into the midst of them and pick them off one by one, like target practice, wounding them, aiming to disable them.  

Hm. Perhaps going after the old woman was a miscalculation, James thought. Maybe a big one.