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Author: Eressea Story: Of Mirrors and Wishes Rating: Teens Setting: Pre-DH Status: WIP Reviews: 7 Words: 13,400
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended. A/N: Many thanks to my beta Lisa for helping me out with this fic. July 1997 “Heaven help us,” Molly whispered. After several seconds of silence, Hermione spoke up. “How are we going to take down two erumpents?” “Aren’t they just big rhinoceroses with explosive horns?” Zhara asked. “Much worse,” Hermione answered. “Their hides repel practically all known charms and curses.” “You mean charms and curses from a European wand,” Juanita corrected her, taking a long rod with an obsidian spear-head from the corner where her purse and the rest of her belongings lay. It hummed deeply in her hands and the spear-tip glowed white-hot like molten metal. “An Aztec tepuztopilli can deliver a much stronger blow. It’s not much use in the kitchen, we use wandless magic for that, but on the battlefield it’s quite effective. I’ve used it against dragons, I’m sure it can work now.” Percy raised an eyebrow. “Why did you feel the need to come to a Christmas celebration armed?” “I’m just used to always having it on me. After the two Peruvian Vipertooth dragons, a lethifold, and fifteen feathered serpents, each and every one of them attacking anyone who came too close to the Aztec temples they guarded, I’ve become accustomed to carrying it wherever I go.” Bill nodded understandingly, but several of the others continued to eye her suspiciously. “Okay, Juanita, you head upstairs,” Fabian said, taking charge. “Make sure the kids are safe and then shoot down at the erumpents from the windows. If they get too close, head back downstairs. Leave Ginny in charge of the other two children. Tell Grace that they she is under no circumstances to try to join the fight. Same goes for you,” he said, looking sternly at Ron. “You two,” he said nodding to his wife and daughter in turn. “We’re going to head out towards the garden and meet the Death Eaters head on. Gideon’s right in the kitchen where they’ll be entering, so we have to get there before they do. Angelina, you come with us. “Harry, Rachel, and Charlie, go through the front door and surprise them from behind. Harry’s in charge. Keep an eye out for the erumpents. “The rest of you, stay here. Finish translating those runes on the mirror and use it if they reach the hallway outside the room. Protect the mirror and the children.” Ron, looking wide-eyed at everyone rushing about, went over to his mother who was throwing the curtains shut and covering them with protective charms. “What am I supposed to do?” “I have a very important job for you,” she said wrapping her arms around her son and pressing his head to her bosom. “Go take the babies and hide behind the bookshelf in the corner,” she said, motioning towards the food table where Charlie’s daughter Alyssa had the turkey stuck on her head and Percy’s baby was sitting in a pumpkin pie, contentedly licking the filling off her toes. ~*~*~ Rachel lifted up a branch, making sure that the erumpents were still a good distance away. “We’re clear,” she whispered to Charlie, who lay in the hedges in front of her. The three of them proceeded to crawl between the wall and the bushes lining the house. First Harry then Charlie rounded the corner to the garden door where the Death Eaters were entering. Rachel was a few feet away from the corner when her pants leg snagged on a branch. She opened her mouth to call to them, and then closed it when she spied two sets of bodiless footprints moving through the grass. She gently tugged her foot to see if it would come off the branch, but the whole bush rustled far too noticeably. “I’ve got it!” Rachel could hear Bill exclaim from the living room. “The charm locking the mirror is Aquaespeclora. The inscription is a bit misleading but. . .” Rachel stayed stock still, hoping Bill would shut up. Unfortunately, her fervent wishing had no effect on him, as he continued. “Not what I expected from the Mirror of Desire, but unpredictability is probably what the wizard who charmed it was aiming for.” The footprints stopped, and Rachel could practically feel the wizards straining their ears under their invisibility cloaks. After several minutes, someone finally closed the window, but it was too late. One set of footprints continued down the path towards the road leading up to the Burrow, and the other hurried back to the garden door where the Death Eater’s comrades were waiting. Unable to allow him to take the mirror’s secrets back to the other Death Eaters, Rachel threw a red jet of light towards the man’s retreating back, ripped her leg free, and sprang out of her hiding place. The Death Eater, dodged sideways, spun around, and launched his own curse at her, as he leaped behind the corner of her father’s shed, continuing to shoot curses. She was almost hit when an explosion sounded somewhere down the path to the Burrow, raising up a large cloud of dust. Hoping that Juanita was the cause of it, she forced her attention back to the Death Eater attacking her. “Reducto!” Rachel shouted, blasting off a corner of his shelter. She heard him howl as chunks of wood flew in all directions and a moment later she was rolling away from a flash of green light he had hurled at her. “Reducto! Stupefy!” she shouted, aiming the first spell a foot to his right so that he would jump toward her, causing the second to hit him square in the chest. Breathing deeply, Rachel crept towards the corner of the house. She didn’t notice the erumpents approaching until a bang louder than any Apparition she had ever heard sounded from upstairs. She looked towards the upstairs window and saw, if such a thing is possible, black light soar from the tip of Juanita’s tepuztopilli. What looked like a black liquid sphere with a silver glow arced across over Rachel, and one of the beasts howled in response. Rachel whipped her head around to see what looked like two large rhinoceroses running down the path towards the house. The larger one was limping with an odd, somewhat jerky gait, but the other charged with grave determination. With its rhythmic stride and the smooth but explosive liquid sloshing in the long, clear horn, the erumpent could have almost seemed beautiful if viewed from a distance. But it was far too close for admiring. If the creatures were to hit the house, it could plough straight through the walls, blowing up the building and everyone inside it. There was another bang, and the bigger one stumbled. Ginny looked up to see Juanita preparing for a third shot. She turned her gaze back to the beast and smiled grimly as it fell to its side. The next moment, her smile quickly disappeared. Evading the bigger creature about to fall on it, the second erumpent altered its course so that it was heading straight for her. A small shriek and then a thump from the upstairs window told Rachel that she was on her own. With the Death Eaters right around the corner to the right and the pile of cauldrons, boots, and toy broomsticks that Grace, Ron, and Taylor left by the door, blocking any movement to the left, Rachel had nowhere to go. “Stupefy! Reducto! Stupefy!” she shouted. The red beams hit the erumpent and bounced harmlessly off, one streaking over her head to hit a trellis on the side of the house, burning a hole through a bundle of the vines creeping up its lattice. As the creature crashed through the far wall of the shed and the explosive liquid in the horn blew it to pieces, Rachel leapt on the trellis faster than she ever knew she could. The trellis gave a violent shake and began to tilt forward when it was hit with bits of flying wood as the erumpent came running through the second wall. “Stupefy! Petrificus Totalus!” she shrieked blindly, squeezing her eyes shut as the erumpent drew up beneath her, mouth opened wide. She felt something crack as the nose of the erumpent crashed into her shin. She clung to the trellis for a few seconds and then looked down. The erumpent was frozen beneath her with her wand shoved down its throat. After waiting for her heart to slow down, Rachel muttered “Mobilicorpus” directing the erumpent away from her. Without the beast pressing up against it, the trellis tipped and fell straight for the ground. Twisting herself around to avoid the horn and its explosive power, Rachel slammed face-first onto the ground. She sat up, checking for injuries. Her head, wrist, and shin all throbbing, she slid backwards on her bottom toward the house. When she was halfway there, Harry and Charlie came sprinting around the corner. Charlie hefted her up over his shoulder and ran into the winding front hall, Harry close behind him. Harry cast a quick impermeable charm on the front door. “That won’t hold them for long,” Charlie said, as he helped Rachel to stand on her good leg. “There were eight of them in the kitchen, and two of them were behind us when we ran. They’ve got Grace, Taylor, and Ginny. One of them managed to run off with a folder full of the Order’s plans, but Angelina, Uncle Fabian, and his family went after him; they can probably catch him before he reaches the borders of the property and can Apparate away. Dad was putting up a good fight when the Death Eaters in the kitchen saw us and started throwing Unforgivables. We tried to fight back, and I don’t think one of them will be waking up for quite a few hours, but we couldn’t even make it inside the kitchen. That’s six left, plus the one who went to set the erumpents on us. Though I see you’ve taken care of those beasts.” “Do you think we can get to the sitting room without them noticing?” Rachel asked. “No way. They’re ready for a fight, and they’ll be listening out for anyone passing that kitchen,” Charlie said, peering around the corner of the crooked hallway towards the sitting room door. “Well, it can’t be worse than when you faced Lord Voldemort himself, now can it,” Rachel said, smiling darkly at Harry as she prepared to fight. Charlie shuddered at the name, but gazed at Harry in awe. “Is it true that he has the face of a snake and eyes as red as blood?” he asked. “Yeah, he is pretty ugly. Must’ve had trouble getting a date in Hogwarts,” he laughed stiffly. No one joined him. “Okay, we need to head on down to the kitchen. Maybe if we perform Mobilicorpus on ourselves we can float—” The front door began to rattle ominously in its frame. There were two heavy thumps and then a terrible blast as the door flew off its hinges, two bodies falling onto the threshold. “I think we may be in trouble,” Charlie muttered. A tall silhouette appeared in the doorway, robes billowing. Harry stared at the figure, trying to make out a face. His eyes widened when he saw a glint of red, and he whispered, “No, I’m in trouble.” Trembling with fury, Lily Potter stepped over two unconscious Death Eaters and approached her son. “What part,” she growled, “of don’t leave the house do you fail to understand?” Her green eyes flashed behind the slightly graying red hair that had fallen into her face. Drawn by the explosion, a Death Eater came hurtling around the corner of the hallway. “Tepestrellatae!” Rachel shouted with a grand sweeping motion with her wand. “I’ll deal with you later,” Lily told Harry, reaching inside her robes and turning towards the Death Eater who was frantically trying to beat enormous bats off his face. Lily pulled a large, delicate bottle out of her robes. She gently placed it in into a sling and swung it in wide circles over her head. Just after the Death Eater began to stumble towards them, she launched it down the hall so that it shattered just behind him, splashing him with a deep purple liquid, which proceeded to creep up his legs and across his back to soon cover his body. After a few seconds he suddenly shrunk down to the size of the bats attacking him with a low pitched SHLOOP. “A variation on a shrinking solution,” she explained, seeing the shocked look on Rachel and Charlie’s faces. “I kept the last ingredient separated from the rest with a thin wall of glass so it wouldn’t mix until the bottle broke. And I added an enzyme to make it expand and reach full potency much faster than the usual six hours.” “Added a what?” Rachel asked. “It speeds up. . .” Lily snatched a new vial out of her cloak as a second Death Eater tried to sneak up on them, but before she was able to launch it, the Death Eater collapsed. “Come on,” said Gideon, running around the corner of the hallway. “Three of them left the kitchen a minute ago. Juanita was stupefied a while ago. They took the kids and might’ve gone to the sitting room. I took down the one who let the erumpents loose when they left him to guard me. We’ve got four down and five on the loose, one of them being chased down somewhere by Fabian and his group. We need to use the mirror right now if the others haven’t done it yet. Charlie, take Rachel. Let’s go.” They ran quietly down the hall and around the corner. Gideon was pulling his wand out to unlock the sitting room when they found the door lying at their feet, the sitting room alight with curses and hexes. “Charlie and Rachel, take care of the children. Lily and Harry, cover me,” Gideon commanded, leading them into the sitting room. The destruction inside was illuminated by the light of hexes and curses flying across the room. Gifts were strewn over the floor; the table they originally rested on was upside down with two legs sticking up in the air and the other two lying nearby. The glass pitcher of punch was shattered and the cake Molly had labored over for hours was smeared across the wall. Hermione, Bill, Penny, and George were trying to curse the Death Eaters while crouched behind an overturned couch with its upholstery transfigured into iron. The three Death Eaters, although outnumbered, were winning the fight. Two of them were launching curses at the Weasleys behind the couch while the other was casting protective charms around all of them. Arthur, Molly, Percy, Zhara, and Fred all lay tangled on the floor, the side effects of various jinxes disfiguring their bodies. The mirror, however, still stood tall behind the couch. Rachel sent a chair flying toward the masked Death Eaters from behind. Two of them ducked, but it struck the one who was casting protective charms soundly in the back of the head. He twisted around with a confused look on his face and fell to the ground before he could speak. One of the Death Eaters threw an orange jet of light toward Rachel which she easily dodged. “Stupefy!” Gideon shouted, running around the room with Charlie to the couch that hid the rest of the family. “Avada—” the Death Eater began, but he was stopped short when Penny took the opportunity to fire several curses at him. He and his companion got behind Rachel, putting her between them and Penny before shooting stunners that arced around her until Penny was hit. “Expelliarmus!” the other Death Eater shrieked. Rachel’s wand rocketed out of her hand and she fell to the ground with the force of the spell. “I’ve told you before, child,” the Death Eater began, drawing up above her and raising her wand, “that I would see to it that—” Rachel spun around on the floor, tripped the Death Eater with her legs and then delivered a kick to the face before her head hit the carpet, breaking her clay mask along with her nose. “Bellatrix Lestrange,” Rachel observed. She made a lunge for the woman’s wand, but she yanked it away from her grasp. Rachel rolled to her feet and Harry rushed to her side. He and Bellatrix eyed each other with wands extended. “You stay away from her,” Harry growled. “I’ll make you a deal,” Bellatrix said to Harry, rising from the floor. “You come with us and we’ll see to it that your darling sweetheart lives to a ripe old age.” “What, does he look stupid or something?” Rachel spat, then turned to give Harry a look that said, Don’t fall for it. Bellatrix smirked. Harry opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped, feeling the tip of a wand was poking into the back of his head. “The Dark Lord believes that you have become far too much of a nuisance,” a smooth male voice said from behind him. Lily vaulted over the back of the couch and put a small crystal vial into her slingshot. “Don’t you dare touch my baby!” “You can do whatever you want,” Gideon declared, “because we have the power to undo it all.” He moved behind the mirror, which was facing the wall. “Hermione, perform the charm to activate it.” Bill turned around and aimed his wand at the back of the mirror. “Aquae—” “Don’t!” a child’s voice shouted. In the doorway stood Taylor, Ginny, and Grace. “Get back upstairs!” Hermione shrieked. “He used Polyjuice!” Taylor continued. “Uncle Gideon’s still tied up in the kitchen and told us. We found him there just now when we came down to help.” “Shatter it!” the male Death Eater shouted. With a jerk of her wand, Hermione lifted the mirror up and over them so that it stood just behind the couch and angled sideways so that Gideon Prewett could not reach its plane. She stood next to it and opened her mouth to curse the male Death Eater. He pushed his wand harder at the back of Harry’s head. “Avada—” With a swing of her slingshot, Lily silenced him in an explosion of blue smoke. When it cleared, the Death Eater stood encased in a smooth, thick layer of ice. “Despersonatus!” Charlie shouted, thrusting his wand at the impostor as he gazed at the frozen Death Eater. His features melted and bubbled into smooth young skin. Charlie’s wand slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. “Cassia.” “Mummy?” Alyssa asked, wriggling out from behind the bookshelf where she was hiding with Ron and the babies. Charlie stared at his ex-wife, who stood defiantly next to her young daughter. “How could you?” he asked softly. “Our relationship ended when you sided with these blood-traitors against me. A pure-blood like you should understand what we were fighting for. But it turns out you’re no better than a Mudblood.” “Alyssa is still your daughter! By coming here you put your own child at risk.” “I have my duties,” she said stiffly. “You have a duty to your family,” he insisted. “I am doing my duty to my family!” she shouted, almost hysterically. “The world is not made up of this one little girl. I’ve got aunts, uncles, cousins. I had a father. And brothers.” Her face hardened. “I am protecting the family I have left from the Muggle scum that taint this earth. There are necessary risks, but believe me, well before this war is over, I am taking my daughter with me and you will beg for forgiveness that will never be granted!” She turned to the mirror which now stood out of her reach, then looked at the children standing in the doorway. “Soon you and I will agree that it would be better if you had never been born. You’ll see what happens to those who get in the way of the Dark Lord!” She pushed past Bill, Charlie, and George towards the mirror, knocking them to the floor with a wide-arced wave her wand. Harry leapt over the couch and stood defiantly in front of the mirror, wand extended. “Harry, don’t!” Lily shouted. He worriedly glanced at his mother, but stood his ground as Cassia rushed forward. “Reducto!” Cassia shouted. Charlie jumped forward and pulled her backwards down to the ground. The red lance of light emitted from her wand hit the ceiling as Hermione tapped the face of the mirror with her wand, yelling, “Aquaespeclora!” ~*~*~ In the sitting room of the Burrow where the Weasley family was watching the consequences of their wishes, the mirror rippled and cleared to show the reflection of the onlookers. A/N: Okay, there’s just an epilogue left. Please review! (Really, I’m not just saying this to take up space. Go down to the little box and write something. Good, bad, whatever you thought of it.)
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