the Severely Incompetent but Sincerely Determined Rescue Squad

Evander wasn't entirely sure he knew what he was doing, but so far everything was going as well as he thought it could be. Well, maybe. He was really hoping at least one of the potions was going to help Declan in some sort of way.

He really didn't need to see one of his professors die like that. Or at all, really.

The man might not have been his professor anymore but still, Evander wasn't one to ever want to witness death, in one way or another. The thought of death wasn't one that he was afraid of, per say, he just wasn't really into thinking about it too much. The farther away it was from his mind, the better.

He'd started getting lost in his thoughts again, oops. The Ravenclaw stopped stirring and looked into the cauldron for a moment before turning toward Kit, focusing back on the task at hand, "I think it's done. What do you think?" he asked the girl softly.

((So I read through but the likelihood of me missing something or contradicting something is high considering how long it's been. I can totally edit though, just give me the head's up))

While the activity on the other side of the shield had erupted into a flurry, Dom's entire world had slowed down. Somehow, she was on her knees. At first, her hands had fastened around his wrists and were trying to force him still before some scrap of forgotten knowledge slipped into her mind, reminding her that a seizure was meant to be left alone. Her hands slipped from him and she murmured his name over and over, trying to call him back.

It was crazy what you began to realize about people when you were faced with losing them.

The world jolted back into the present, and she lifted her eyes to see these children taking charge. Baker was heading off students that were pouring out of the castle, trying to turn them back into the castle. Her cousin has hefted her makeshift poker-weapon and was circling the gathered crowd protectively, eyes turned towards the darkest points in the surrounding wilderness, quietly alert and ready to defend.

Tears welled in Dom's eyes. They had found them. But they were quickly growing up.

She looked down. Declan had finally stopped thrashing but he was not stirring. She dropped her head onto his chest and listened, finding a heartbeat that was somehow racing but faint. She propped him up, cradling his head in her arms as she held him tight.

"Hold on, love," she whispered. "Hold on."

The students looked like they were having enough troubles as it was. She didn't want them to have much more. She had known that, at some point, someone would come, but she hadn't counted on it becoming all of this. So far, the damages to people were minimal. She wasn't counting, though, that it would continue. Now, if she could keep the man at her window at a low roar, then perhaps no one would die.

"Let's see if I remember some of the castle defenses from that book you have," he said absently to her. He aimed his wand out the window. "Defend!" He fired his wand at the outer walls of the castle.

The ground shook. Gwen found that even the castle was shaking. It felt like an earthquake. She and the man at the window seemed to struggle for balance as the artwork on the walls clattered against the stone. Artifacts fell from the shelves and from her desk. Furniture seemed to rattle and dance as everything seemed to lose its place. She looked out the window and gasped.

The earth was indeed shaking. Outside the outer walls of the castle, another wall was rising. It was made from steep, rugged rock. It ran in a complete ring around the castle.

"What have you done!" she was frightened for the students, not the ones on the inside of the castle, but moreso for any of them who had been caught either outside the rock wall, or, worse yet for any caught between the two walls.

Gwen understood enough about castles and medieval architecture. The space in between an internal and external castle wall was often referred to as the "killing field," because it was where most of the defenders and the opposition fought the worst of the battle. It was where most died.

If those who were in the killing field did not go inside the
castle walls now, she couldn't predict if they would survive at all. She raised her wand, poised to warn them in a sonorus, but the man at the window pushed her wand down, out of the ready position.

"No," he said. "They might as well figure out now if they're wise enough to get the hell out of the way or not. Let's see who has their wits about them and who does not."

Katherine looked over at the salve that Evander felt was finished and nodded fervently. "Yes, definitely. Let's put it in something and get back out there."

Once a container was found in the cabinets, Kit quickly dumped as much as she could and closed it, then turned off the flame under the cauldron so they could leave without stressing about it later.

Up the stairs and out the door again, that was the key. But she was seriously starting to feel all that running in her legs, so she stopped just before the door to catch her breath from the staircases. As if the castle felt her hesitation, it shook horribly and made her lean dangerously forward to try and keep her balance. In front of them, the other students seemed so far away as they did whatever it was they were doing. She couldn't tell from the doorway. But the ground and the castle and the train and everything were rumbling, everything shaking.

"Evander," she breathed, taking his hand. "Come on. We should run."

She took off, regardless of if he came with her or not, but held on tightly anyway in hopes that he would hurry as well. As she made it partway across the green, she tripped over something painful and sharp. The salve flew out of her hand, rolling across until it came to land in the middle of the other students. Kit turned over onto her back, staring up as a wall unlike anything she'd ever seen before manifested itself out of the dirt and came to tower menacingly over her.

Her hair stood on end as a shiver came over her, and she reached naively towards her wand, half expecting the wall to do something all the more terrifying.

Scarlett had turned when Kit let out an unconscious sound of surprise, unable to help it. "Someone get that across the shield!" She demanded, pointing at it where it sat a ways away. "This castle's going mad, come on. The sooner the better. I don't think we'll get this shield down alone, so the more adults the better. Even," she added under her breath, "if there's only like two of them."

Dom flinched as the world shook, and she clutched Declan even harder, wincing against the tremors. Casey was yelling at Ducky to go back inside, for he was nearly caught in the space between the walls, and the almighty duck barely fell to one side as Kit and Evander fell free on the other side. Casey was running alongside, keen eyes searching for the source. She paused, staring up at the castle, at a window illuminated with light...

Dom's jaw slackened a bit when she realized what the students were about to attempt. The part of her that knew they were there to save the kids, and not the other way around, felt like she needed to call out and tell them it was too risky, that the shield could really hurt them... but she also could see their desperation to have some help, any help, even help from a pair as useless as Declan and herself...

And the thought of letting Declan go without any sort of help... she just couldn't.

So she tried not to flinch as the Slytherin girl turned the American girl to stone, and quickly moved to catch her as she was shoved across. Somehow, miraculously, it worked. Dom blinked in confusion and felt every spell she knew leave her mind. "Uh, uh, uh.." she stuttered. A spell burst into her brain and her heart attached all her hope to it as she raised her wand, wincing away as a jet of light hurtled towards the student...

She glanced back and saw the American girl come back to life. She gasped with relief. "Okay - what do you have to help him?!"

One of the students threw the salve container through the shield just as Dom managed to change Scarlett back. It hit her leg before she could even contemplate the fact that she was still alive. They hadn't messed her up. Thank Merlin. It took her a minute to really settle in and accept the fact that she was breathing again, but once that happened she scrambled around for the potions as well.

Holding each one out to the older woman, she explained that each one was meant to calm, soothe, and essentially get the man back to feeling himself. The salve was something of a longshot, because she didn't know where it actually needed to go. But taking the other two would be important.

"I need you to lift up his head and keep his mouth open. I don't think he'll start shaking again. But I can't say I've ever seen anything like this before," Scarlett told her. As wary as she felt on the inside, these two had shown up together, and the way the woman clung to him, it was pretty obvious that he was important. To her, anyway.

In truth, the blonde looked terrified. "Look, there are few things I'm particularly good at. But Potions is one of those things. I'm doing everything I can, okay? We'll fix him."

Scarlett waited until he was held securely before she unplugged the first stopper. It might have made the other woman feel better if Scarlett had looked up at her before tipping it over against his lips, but that didn't happen. It would've made her more nervous, so she just focused on the unfortunate man who had been put through something like this, probably to help the kids who had so suddenly appeared. Sure, she would've preferred if he had shown up for her, but the pair of them were almost definitely from somewhere in the United Kingdom, not from the States.

After the first potion was gone, had trickled down his throat as much as it was going to, she checked his pulse. Just in case. Not because she was terrified for him or didn't trust herself or anything. It was pretty quick, but not as scary as she had thought. She held there for a few seconds, and although she felt a slowing down of his heartbeat, it was entirely possible she had just imagined it.

Second potion it is, then, Scarlett decided.

So she unstoppered the other, took a break, and gave him that one, too. And nothing changed. She started to panic, then. Turning away, she reached desperately for the salve container, trying to guess where to put it. His hands? He'd touched the shield, right? That made sense. But what part had been hurt the most? Scarlett just didn't know.

She reached in a scooped out a handfull of the stuff, still contemplating as she turned back towards them, her eyebrows pulled together as she swept her gaze over him anxiously. Just as she decided to put some on his hands and some on his neck - maybe on his temple as well if all else continued to fail.

She swallowed hard, finally glancing up at the poor woman who was waiting for her to do something at least half successful to save her man. Assuming Scarlett had understood it correctly.

Well, she didn't have to wait very long to find out for sure. Just as she leaned forward, sweat beading along her hairline, she stopped. Something had changed. Oh. His eyes were open, and he was staring up at her like he'd just seen a ghost rather than almost died.

Whoever he was, his lips parted like he wanted to say something but wasn't sure what, so she scraped the salve off of her fingers and back into the container and scooted away to sit on her bum a little bit away from the shield. She wasn't going near that thing unless she was transfigured again. Maybe they could get these two through as well, provided that man didn't take it badly.

On the other side of the shield, Katherine had made it to the edge and was watching through the barrier nervously. "Professor!" She breathed, seeing his eyes flicker and watching him try to make sense of things.

He didn't so much as turn his head, instead shifting his gaze upwards, towards the stranger hovering above him.

As if things couldn't get any worse, the castle had begun to shake and Evander made a hard attempt at keeping his balance so as to not fall as he ran with Kit, trying not to seem flustered as she pulled him along with her. Whether she'd taken his hand or not, he would have followed her, not wanting to be stuck in a place where any and everything could fall off the walls and pose a hazard to everyone near it.

Once outside, Evander's eyes found their way to his brother and Hit, both of whom were on the ground no doubt from the sudden movement the area around them had made and the walls that had suddenly surfaced, and they had been unable to keep their balance with nothing around them to hold onto. Hit seemed to have fallen, while Cronis seemed to be near her to make sure she was okay, something Evan made a face at, but his attention quickly focused back on Kit who had fallen. "Kit!" he called. "Are you alright?" he ran over to her side, having fallen behind, and looked at the salve another one of the students had picked up and had now thrown across the shield.

He blinked as he noticed a new figure on the other side of the shield, one who was working on getting the potions into the professor. So they must've found a way to get Scarlett across the shield while he and Kit were still inside, that was a relief.

Evander followed Kit to the edge of the shield and stood beside her, watching the professor's slight movements. "Thank Merlin, he's awake." Evan sighed softly, placing his hand on his chest as he did so. At least the little help they'd gotten in this entire mess was still almost completely intact. The Ravenclaw's gaze shifted to and from his brother who was now standing almost completely next to him and Hit who'd also found her way there, though she took a place next to Kit.

They both seemed slightly more shaken from the looks on their faces, though anyone would assume it was because of the sudden rising of the walls that had appeared. That had to have been what the shaking was about. "Are you two alright?" Cronis asked his brother, his head turned to look at Evander.

Evan nodded, returning the question, "How about you two?" He made sure to look at Hit as well when asking the question. She shrugged, "As good as anyone would be in this situation." she said softly, her attention focused on what was happening on the other side of the shield.

The sound of thunderous cracking woke Lux up from the daydream she was having. Although she was sitting with the other students who kept talking and planning in order to make this hopeless situation a bit better, she still managed to wander off with her thoughts. She got the information around her, though, and stored it into her brain, but currently there was absolutely nothing they could do.

She got up along with the others and when she saw some people rush towards the shield, she followed them quickly. Stopping there, she took notice of a man lying on the ground – shaking – from the spell that had hit him. Could that possibly be the reason of that sound? She did not know, but guessed it was a possibility.
Clapping her hands together, the blonde looked around, listening to the arguments and different plans the students made up, yet she did not participate in anything. Instead, she offered her hugs and nice, calming words to those, who around her were about to have nervous breakdown.

Honestly, she too was feeling weak and emotional. She was afraid. It was cold there, they all were slowly starving and there seemed to be no escape out of this situation. What's worse – she could not make anything or anyone feel better. People around her knew how hopeless they were and now, having this one man dying just outside the shield, made the situation even harder to comprehend so she stood there, doing her best while simply observing the surroundings, but the vision was blurred.

When something went through the shield, Luxanna let go of the person she was clinging to, and stared out. This leap of faith had paid off apparently, and she held her breath as she watched how the Ilvermorny student tried to save the professor. And they succeeded. But she could not even bask in this victorious moment as the ground shook suddenly. Screams filled the air and she did not even know if she was among those who were screaming, but she backed away just in time to avoid the rising wall. She fell on the ground, gasping for air and shaking all over. It took her a moment, perhaps even several minutes, to regain her breath and lift her head. For the first time she was truly terrified.

What was to become of them? What was the purpose for all of this?

Groaning, she got up and pushed her blonde hair away from her face before looking around. Finally she saw a familiar face. Cronis, Evander and Hit were there. With her knees weak and body still shaking from both pain and shock, she stumbled closer to them. Although she tried to smile and appear as bright as ever – just for them – her lips only shook and her eyes were wide, a sign of her holding back tears. She had not cried for years and now she was truly on the edge.

“H-hi guys.“

Her voice was weak and she was stuttering. Gasping for breath once more, she extended her hands before embracing each one of them in a short hug. She did not have any energy for more. She barely even stood on her feet.

“Are any of you h-hurt?“

Once again, Dom found herself so disappointed in her own lack of... what? Was it strength? Knowledge? Were she Victoire, she would have know what these symptoms meant, at least to some extent, and which potions and salves and powders could help alleviate him, or at least understand and anticipate different options. Were she Louis, she would have reached down into a reserve of rational bravery, and thought only of trying to find solutions.

But here she was, panic-stricken, heart beating so fast it was likely to give out, fighting back tears by pinching her tongue between her teeth until it began to bleed, eyes watering and jaw clenching. A girl, a minor, a victim subject to a crumbling castle had to calm her down.

She really was useless.

But Declan's eyes were open. Her heart stopped for a moment and she barked out a strangled laugh, reaching up to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. "You... idiot..." She pulled him up and tightened her arms around his chest, right under his shoulders. "You scared me!"

Katherine looked up at Lux's approach, the sudden appearance shocking her. "How did you get past the wall?" She asked, eyes wide. Lux must have been right behind them. In the end, Kit just waved away the question as she realized how pointless it was. "Never mind. You're okay, that's the important thing. I think we're all okay. Unless someone is hurt on the other side," she added with a frown. "Maybe we ought to check."

On the other side of the shield, Scarlett was still trying to catch her breath - not that she really understood how it had been sucked out of her. But she was also watching the man she and the two Hogwarts students had saved. To be fair, she could and would take credit for it later, but now was hardly the time.

Indeed, the poor man looked quite confused more than pleased he'd been saved, and Scarlett tried to deny that she felt rather frustrated by that.

Declan was all but scooped upwards by the blonde woman he was trying so hard to place. He let out a grunt of sorts, solely pulled from his lips by the surprise. And the woman was insulting him? What for?? He leaned forward, pulling away from her hold so he could turn and frown at her over his shoulder.

"What're you on about?" Declan snapped, narrowing his eyes at her. His head ached, so he brought a hand up to rub at his temple uselessly. His gaze shifted to look past her shoulder and Declan blanched. "What the hell."

A barrier of some sort, students staring at them, and behind that? Well that definitely was not Hogwarts. Turning to the redhead in front of him, Declan shook his head in disbelief. "Where are we?"

Scarlett herself had to stare at him after that. "What? You- The pair of you came to help us. We're at Ilvermorny," she said, leaning forward and looking entirely baffled.

Declan turned to stare up at the castle again. He wasn't the rescuing type, Gryffindor or not. He had surely wanted to be. But that was Henry, not Dec. "That doesn't..." He looked back at the blonde woman again. "I don't understand."