Chapter 29 - Tenebris Part 1

Notes:

Extreamly heavy and long chapter, take your time with it because it's 59 pages long

Primary Trigger Warnings:

Torture and Physical Abuse,

Kidnapping/Abduction,

Graphic Violence,

Blood and Gore.

The Raven Order had been dispatched again under the cover of dusk, summoned like wraiths from the edges of civilization to perform the kind of work that left no legacy except silence and the stench of blood drying in cold air. The assignment had come through in the usual way—a coded message delivered by flame, flickering on parchment that turned to ash before it could be read twice—and though the mission was stripped of all sentiment, all unnecessary detail, it carried a weight that tightened around Draco's ribs the moment he saw the names attached. He didn't flinch, didn't speak, didn't even blink when the orders were divided and the four of them split off in pairs, Theo and Blaise assigned to the surveillance perimeter while he and Titus moved toward the old industrial district on the outskirts of the city, toward the place where steel met rot and the ghosts of his past were waiting in the dark. To the others, it was just another clearing operation—track, identify, eliminate—but to Draco, this was a pilgrimage. A reckoning. A return.

They approached the warehouse just before nightfall, shadows stretching long across the concrete, the skeletal remains of the building rising like a tomb against the bruised horizon. The place was massive—rusted, ancient, half-forgotten—but Draco knew it instantly. Not from blueprints or intelligence briefings, but from the way his skin recoiled the moment he crossed its threshold. The air here was different. Stale. Heavy. Saturated with something too old to name. This was where they had brought him. Years ago. Chained and bleeding, his name stripped from his mouth, his identity torn from his body. It was this building, with its rotted rafters and broken skylights, where he had learned what it meant to be unmade.

And now he had come back.

He didn't speak as they entered. Titus moved beside him, scanning corners and marking threats, his presence solid and reliable, but Draco heard none of it. The pounding in his ears was louder. The pulse in his neck heavier. His breath dragged through his lungs like smoke. The warehouse was almost empty now, deserted save for the flicker of lanterns far at the back, dim glows casting long, warped shadows over exposed brick and cracked tile. Somewhere in that darkness, the last remnants of the faction that had dismantled his life were hiding. And they didn't know he was here.

He hadn't come for orders. He hadn't come for honor. He had come for them.

He moved through the space with lethal control, his boots silent on the broken floor, wand in hand but his magic thrumming so violently beneath his skin it felt like a second heartbeat. Every rusted pipe, every scorched wall, every metallic creak of old machinery pulled memories from his mind like fishhook after fishhook—his own screams echoing through the beams, the burn of hexes etched into his spine, the sound of laughter in the dark while his body bled out inch by inch. They had done more than torture him. They had tried to erase him. And they had almost succeeded.

But they hadn't.

He had crawled out. Dragged himself back through fire and ruin. Learned how to rebuild from ash. And now he stood in their temple of suffering not as a victim, but as executioner.

Mercy had no place here. He no longer remembered what it was to feel softness toward those who had weaponized cruelty into an artform. Empathy had been cauterized out of him in this very building, and all that remained now was vengeance in its purest, sharpest form. These men were not targets. They were not obstacles. They were debts. And tonight, he had come to collect.

He could feel the magic pulsing in his fingertips, wild and barely leashed, as Titus signaled their position and began moving to flank. But Draco didn't need backup. He didn't need strategy. He didn't need a clean shot or a tactical plan. All he needed was a doorway, a name, a face. All he needed was to look into the eyes of the men who had ruined him and watch the moment they realized he had come back. Not broken. Not silenced.

But furious. Alive. And unwilling to leave until every inch of this godforsaken place was painted in retribution.

And as the sound of muffled voices drifted from the far end of the warehouse, and the creak of movement betrayed the presence of those long hidden, Draco Malfoy stepped into the dark, a weapon made of vengeance and memory, and knew that before the hour was done, the floor would remember every drop of blood it had stolen from him—and drown in what it would return.

They had tracked the last surviving members of the cell through a tangle of dead ends and half-whispered leads, the kind of trail that felt deliberately left to decay, like breadcrumbs dropped not to lure but to test who was mad enough to follow. It ended here, in the bowels of a derelict warehouse crouched at the edge of Knockturn Alley, a structure long forgotten by city records and far too familiar to those who dealt in death. The place rose like a carcass against the brittle glow of moonlight, its bones cracked and sagging, windows shattered into jagged teeth that let in just enough silver to cast distorted shadows across the ruined floor. The building breathed rot—thick, cloying, metallic decay that stuck to the tongue and seeped into the pores—and the air inside was dense with the smell of mildew blooming unchecked across wet concrete, rusted beams creaking under the weight of long-silent screams. It was a place that had been soaked in violence for too long, and it knew what was coming.

The scene was already primed for carnage, though the men hiding inside—the last two, the ones who had run far and fast but never quite far enough—had no idea the reckoning crouched just beyond the threshold. They didn't know that the warehouse itself had chosen this moment, had curled in on itself like a living thing welcoming the slaughter it had been starved of for years. They didn't know that the storm had already arrived, not loud and explosive, but quiet and lethal, shaped in the form of two men moving through its corridors like death given form.

Blaise and Theo moved without sound, their steps gliding across the damp, fungus-stained concrete with a precision so surgical it felt inhuman. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. There was nothing left to say. Dressed in black that swallowed the scraps of moonlight whole, they became part of the shadows, indistinguishable from the rotting pillars and crumbling scaffolding, their presence more felt than seen. Their wands remained at their sides, not raised—yet—but humming with the quiet pulse of magic poised on the edge of violence. The warehouse was not silent in the way quiet spaces are; it was silent in the way graveyards are before the dirt is disturbed, in the way forests fall mute when a predator arrives. It was a silence that pressed into the ears like water, thick and wrong, a silence that carried with it the weight of things that were waiting to die.

And it wasn't just silent.

It was still.

Utterly, unnaturally still—the kind of stillness that prickled beneath the skin and made the breath hitch in the lungs, the kind that didn't belong in any place inhabited by the living. It was the pause before the scream, the inhale before the blade. It was silence as an omen, pregnant with inevitability, with blood not yet spilled but already promised. Even Blaise, whose face so rarely betrayed more than a smirk or a sneer, felt something ancient crawl across the back of his neck, raising the fine hairs there like some buried instinct was trying to warn him. Theo's eyes narrowed, sharp and cold, tracking movement that hadn't yet come, his magic curled so tightly in his palm it throbbed against the skin.

This was no longer just a mission. This was no longer just a hunt.

It was ritual.

And the warehouse, soaked in memory and mildew and blood long since dried, was ready to bear witness.

Theo's wand was already drawn, his fingers curled around the carved handle with a steadiness that belied the tension coiling low in his gut. His grip was precise, practiced, an extension of a body that had long since surrendered to the demands of warfare, and his breath moved through him in measured, calculated rhythm—inhale, exhale, listen, move. Every nerve in him had already sharpened to a knife's edge, attuned to the warehouse's language of ruin and neglect, to the subtle shifts in the air that whispered of movement, of secrets, of imminent violence. He noted everything—the faintest creak beneath the worn leather of his boots as the damp wood groaned its protest, the flickering stammer of a dying bulb overhead that cast fractured halos on rusted scaffolding, the acrid tang of mildew hiding beneath something far more distinct, something unmistakably metallic that clung to the back of his throat like a memory he couldn't purge. Blood. Old, dried into the floorboards, embedded into the porous walls of this forsaken place, but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

Beside him, Blaise moved like shadow incarnate—fluid, elegant, and entirely devoid of hesitation. His steps barely registered against the ground, and yet every movement was deliberate, coiled with lethal purpose. There was a grace to him that bordered on the unnatural, a kind of stillness in motion that felt almost serpentine, like watching a predator that didn't need to roar to remind you it could kill. His posture remained deceptively relaxed, his shoulders loose, his body draped in dark combat robes that moved like ink around him, but underneath that smooth exterior was a man who had long since made peace with the thing he had become. 

There was something cold in him, something ancient and refined, as if Blaise Zabini had shed the last traces of softness long ago and replaced them with the quiet inevitability of death. He wasn't like Theo, who had been trained for war, who understood strategy and terrain and psychological warfare like a language written in scars. No, Blaise was something older. Something purer. A blade not forged in a forge, but honed in silence, dipped in poison, and left in the dark until it gleamed so bright you could only see it when it was already inside you.

Their movements, though distinct, were perfectly aligned—silent choreography built on years of navigating this grim world together, a partnership so seamless it no longer required speech or gesture. Every pivot, every pause, every breath they shared was an act of mutual understanding, an extension of survival not born from trust but from bloodshed. They had killed side by side too many times to count, had buried pieces of themselves in missions they didn't talk about, had walked through fire, through interrogation rooms, through war zones and cursed vaults and battlefields littered with the dead, and come out the other side still breathing. Theirs was a synchronicity that required nothing but presence. No words passed between them. No signals flashed. They didn't need them. The mission pulsed between them like a heartbeat, like a spell cast long ago that had never fully dissipated, binding them in something unspoken and final.

They were weapons, sharpened and sheathed in human skin.

And their targets, still nestled somewhere in the rotted belly of the warehouse, hiding behind shadows and false confidence and whatever crumbling barriers they thought would protect them, had no idea what was coming for them—no understanding that death had already entered the building, quiet and precise and dressed in the shape of two men who did not miss, who did not forgive, who had long since stopped believing in mercy.

At last, they found them. Tucked away near the farthest recesses of the warehouse, the two men were hunched low over a battered steel table stained with years of rust and the ghosts of former crimes, their heads bowed beneath the flickering light of a single bulb that dangled precariously from a frayed wire overhead. 

The light buzzed faintly, stuttering in protest as it spilled weak illumination across the disarray before them—scrolls curled at the edges with moisture, ink-smeared documents covered in frantic scrawl, half-burned maps marked with red slashes and desperate routes, contingency plans drafted in haste by men who already knew they were running out of time. It was the kind of table that might have once served command, that might have once held strategy and structure, but now it bore only the evidence of panic—an altar to survival in the heart of ruin. 

The light caught their profiles in disjointed intervals, rendering them grotesque in silhouette, their elongated shadows thrown high across the cracked brick behind them like some nightmarish theatre where even the walls bore witness to their failures.

Theo didn't speak. He didn't signal. He didn't breathe for a full second. And then—quietly, deliberately—he stepped forward into the perimeter of the dying light, the sound of his boots scraping against the grit-laced floor ringing out like a death knell in the otherwise suffocating silence. The effect was instantaneous. The men froze, all movement halting as though time itself had fractured in the presence of something ancient and unforgiving. The air shifted. Not just metaphorically—physically—as though the atmosphere could sense what was about to happen and recoiled in dread. The taller of the two straightened with a start, his posture stiff, his eyes wide and confused; the smaller one—pale, twitchy, his face drawn tight around a hooked nose and darting eyes—made a sound low in his throat, a strangled half-breath, as if he knew that recognition was a death sentence.

Theo's voice, when it came, was not loud. It didn't need to be. It was cold and smooth and sharp, like a blade drawn slow across skin. "You don't get to run this time," he said, and each syllable dropped like iron. "We've come to settle an old debt."

The rat-faced man swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing like a caught fish as he backed up instinctively, his hands trembling, his eyes skimming the edges of the room for exits that no longer existed. "You don't—look, listen—you don't have to do this," he stammered, his voice cracking under the weight of fear, his tongue scrambling over desperation that came too late to matter. "It wasn't—it was never personal, just business, you understand? Just business."

Blaise, who had appeared just behind Theo's left shoulder like a shadow unfolding itself from the deeper dark, let out a soft, almost amused sound—a breath of a laugh that carried no warmth. He tilted his head slowly, his gaze raking over the two men with something that could never quite be called sympathy, more like morbid curiosity. "Unfortunately for you," he murmured, his tone quiet and conversational, almost friendly if not for the glint in his eyes, "it's very personal to us."

The taller man moved then, not with confidence but with the blind aggression of someone who knows he's cornered and has only seconds left to act. His hand inched toward the wand sheathed beneath his coat, fingers twitching with the kind of shaky resolve that only comes when death is already brushing its lips against your spine. But Theo didn't blink. He didn't flinch. His wand flicked through the air with the kind of reflex born from war and ruin and the kind of training that makes the body faster than thought. The man's wand flew from his hand with a snap of expelled magic and clattered to the floor, where it spun in a slow, mocking circle before going still.

"You're not in a position to negotiate," Theo said, his voice level, disturbingly calm, the words sliding from his mouth like polished steel. "So do us both a favor and—"

But he never finished the sentence.

The smaller man lunged forward with a suddenness that shattered the fragile stillness, his palm slamming flat against the surface of the table with a sickening thud, and the table responded. It pulsed. Once. A ripple of dark magic bloomed outward from beneath his hand, thick and malignant, carved not from spellwork but from something older, something primordial, a trap nested deep within the steel, forged with desperation and drenched in blood. A resonant crack exploded through the warehouse as the rune-lined metal detonated, and the room screamed with energy—a shockwave of force so violent it tore through the air like a scream.

The magic hit them like a wrecking ball.

Theo and Blaise were thrown backward, their bodies flung like ragdolls against the cracked support beams and rusted shelving that lined the walls, the impact loud, bone-jarring, violent. Shards of debris burst into the air, a storm of splintered wood and curling metal, the lantern above them exploding in a shower of glass and fire. Darkness rushed in to fill the space as dust and soot and raw energy settled into the cavity left behind by the blast. The table, the men, the paper—all gone beneath a rising wave of smoke and ruin.

And somewhere beneath it all, something was still moving.

Theo didn't remember the precise moment his body left the ground, only the sickening disorientation of the world tilting violently on its axis, the flash of crackling magic colliding with air, and the awful, gut-deep certainty that he had misjudged something—that this wasn't just resistance, wasn't just two desperate men trying to defend themselves, but a trap carefully laid and violently sprung. His back slammed into the unforgiving concrete with such force that the impact seemed to detonate inside him, reverberating through bone and marrow like a shattering bell. The back of his skull cracked against the ground a split second later, a dull, sickening thud that sent white-hot pain splintering through his vision. His entire field of sight tilted sideways, the periphery going soft and dark, filled with floating black motes that danced like ash against the flickering ceiling lights. 

He blinked once—twice—but the room refused to steady. His limbs, once fluid with muscle memory and battle-hard instinct, now felt alien, disconnected, like they belonged to someone else. He tried to move his arm, to push himself upright, but his elbow refused to bear weight and his fingers curled in slow, confused spasms. Something was wrong—not just the pain, not just the disorientation, but a deeper, more primal wrongness humming beneath his skin.

His magic.

The familiar thrum that had always existed just beneath his awareness, the steady, vibrant pulse of power that answered his will like breath answers lungs, was gone—or not gone, but muted, buried beneath something suffocating and heavy. It didn't respond to his panic, didn't rise to meet the threat. It sat still inside him, silent, as though shackled from within. Not a stunning spell. Not a concussion. This was different. This was invasive. This was intentional.

He ground his teeth together against the nausea and rolled, only half-conscious, onto his side, his movements molasses-slow, and through the blur of dust and smoke, he caught the sharp, struggling silhouette of Blaise beside him. Zabini was down, too—his sleek precision dissolved into stuttering motion, his body convulsing in short, sluggish bursts as if his joints had been stuffed with wet sand. His wand lay just inches from his fingertips, close enough to taunt, too far to reach. Blaise's voice came out broken and slurred, laced with both fury and confusion, his tongue thick with the weight of magical suppression. "What the fuck…"

Theo could hear it in his tone—this wasn't disorientation. This wasn't recovery. Blaise Zabini, the man who had walked through ambushes with a grin and killed with a whisper, couldn't even get his legs beneath him. His magic wasn't working either. That's when Theo knew.

A suppression charm.

Not a hex. Not a trap. A curse, old and precise and calibrated down to the spell signature. Something designed not to kill them, but to break them. Something cast into the room like poison into water, clinging to the air, soaking into skin, burrowing through their veins and silencing the core of what made them dangerous. It was warfare by a different name—an attack not on the body, but on the soul.

And then—footsteps.

Slow. Measured. Echoing across the warehouse floor with the cold arrogance of a man who had already won. Theo's head lifted with what little strength remained, his spine screaming in protest, his temple sticky with blood. A figure stepped through the smoke, backlit by the stammering light overhead, casting a long, jagged shadow that stretched across the floor like a wound. Theo blinked through the blur, eyes narrowing, trying to force focus, but the shape remained indistinct, limned with menace. The man came into view one agonizing step at a time, his boots silent on the grit-strewn floor, his posture easy and insufferably confident.

He wasn't familiar—not by name, not by face—but he looked the part. Pale. Sharp. The kind of face that smirked by default. His eyes sparkled with the smug glee of someone who thought cruelty was clever, whose pleasure derived not from power itself, but from the helplessness of those beneath it. He stood above them now, casting his gaze between their sprawled, twitching forms as if weighing how best to carve them open. He knelt slightly, tilting his head like a child admiring a ruined doll, and then—softly, mockingly, with a sneer curling his lips—he spoke.

"Good night, gentlemen."

The words fell like a lullaby dipped in venom, and before Theo could muster a spell, before Blaise could reach for his wand, before either of them could scream, bite, fight, or breathe—

The world disappeared.

Swallowed by black.

°°°

Pain didn't crash into him all at once. It came slowly, deliberately, like an old friend returning to reclaim what it was owed. It slithered through his ribs, coiling deep inside his chest, radiating outward in throbbing pulses that made his breath hitch beneath its weight. A steady pounding bloomed at the back of his skull, each heartbeat echoing like a drumbeat against bone, too loud, too slow. His skin stung in a dozen places—split lips, flayed knuckles, the raw throb of bruises flowering beneath his clothes—and beneath it all was the deep, sick ache of something torn. Something not healed. His body didn't feel like his own anymore. It felt borrowed. Ravaged. Ruined.

Consciousness pulled at him like a hook buried deep in his sternum, dragging him up from some thick, endless blackness where time didn't exist, where silence had weight, and light was a foreign thing. He surfaced slowly, inch by inch, his senses returning with agonizing clarity. First came the cold—biting and unrelenting, curling its fingers around his limbs, seeping through his skin until it felt like he was frozen from the inside out. Then the pressure—sharp, unforgiving pressure against his wrists and ankles, where enchanted iron cuffs bit into his flesh with mechanical precision. He shifted slightly, only to be met with the cold kiss of resistance. The manacles were tight. Inescapable. Layered with enchantments that sucked at the core of his magic like leeches, leaving him hollow and pulseless. Every movement scraped bone against metal. Every breath felt earned.

The air was wet, heavy with rot and time and something metallic that clung to the back of his throat. Blood. His own, probably. Maybe Theo's too. It was impossible to tell. The scent of mildew swirled with rust and the distant sting of copper, and beneath it all was something older—decay. As if the room had been steeped in agony long before they were dragged into it. The walls were close, cracked and grimy, pockmarked with moisture that oozed slowly in glistening trails down the concrete. In the dimness, he could make out the smear of old blood baked into the crevices between the floor tiles, faint drag marks that told quiet stories of what had come before. The walls didn't echo. They swallowed.

Above him, a single bulb buzzed with a low, electric hum, flickering in and out like it couldn't decide whether to illuminate or let the dark swallow them whole. Its light cast long, jagged shadows across the floor, breaking the room into crooked angles that seemed to breathe with each shift of the bulb's flicker. The light was the wrong color—too yellow, too sickly—and it made everything look jaundiced, diseased. The space wasn't a cell so much as a forgotten wound in the world's skin. Somewhere people were meant to disappear.

Blaise didn't react right away. He sat perfectly still, his breathing slow and deliberate, chest rising and falling in the kind of rhythm forged in control. His head was bowed, dark curls clinging to the sweat on his brow, his expression hidden in the shadows cast by his own body. He could feel the blood—thick and slow—trailing from a gash just above his right eye, following the curve of his temple before disappearing into the mess of his beard. It tickled, but he ignored it. He ignored everything. The pain. The blood. The cuffs that had already rubbed raw against his wrists. He ignored it all because reacting would mean acknowledging it—and that, he couldn't afford yet.

He needed to think. To wait. To listen.

There was movement beside him. A sound—soft, broken, barely more than a breath. A low, guttural groan that came from deep in the chest, like someone trying to wake from a nightmare and failing. Blaise didn't turn, but he knew the voice. He knew it the way you know your own heartbeat.

Theo.

Theo stirred beside him, and though the movement was subtle, Blaise felt it like a jolt through the fog of pain that had settled over him. The scrape of Theo's shoulders against the floor, the shallow rise of his breath, the small, sharp wince that escaped when his bound limbs were forced to shift—Blaise recognized every sound, every instinctive twitch, not because he was watching, but because he knew him. Knew him down to the muscle memory and fractured discipline carved into them both by years of survival. He didn't need to look to know that Theo was already in motion—not physically, not yet, but mentally. He would be cataloging every point of pain, every torn muscle and cracked rib, every metal restraint and magical drain currently working to subdue them. His mind would be spinning, silent and precise, building a map of the room without ever opening his eyes, marking every crack in the walls, every flicker of light, every breath of stale air that might conceal something sharp.

They had done this before.

Not exactly this—not in a place quite this bleak, with magic ripped from their bones and the scent of rot already thick in their nostrils—but close enough that the rhythm of survival came back like a muscle flexing under the skin. There was no need for words. No whispered encouragement, no fragile reassurances. There were rules. Unspoken, unbreakable.

Assess. Calculate. Do not panic.

That was how you stayed alive.

And then the silence cracked.

A door creaked open somewhere beyond the flickering radius of light, the rusted hinges groaning like a dying thing as it gave way. The sound didn't echo—it settled, thick and low, slipping into the space between their heartbeats. Blaise's head didn't lift. His lashes didn't so much as flutter. But his entire body went still, every nerve drawn taut, coiled not in fear but in the kind of violence that simmers beneath the skin when a predator is forced to wait. He listened.

Footsteps.

The deliberate kind.

Leather soles against concrete, sharp and confident, unhurried and heavy with intention. Not the steps of someone uncertain, not the steps of someone curious, but those of a man who believed himself safe. Powerful. A performance of control echoed in each footfall, arrogance expressed in the rhythm of his approach. Blaise's jaw twitched. He knew that sound. He'd heard it before—on battlefields, in interrogation rooms, at boardroom tables where blood was replaced by ink and violence signed in parchment. The ones who walked like that thought they couldn't bleed.

Then the figure came into view.

He stepped into the halo of sickly light like an actor taking center stage. Tall, lean, perfectly composed. His suit was immaculate, sharply pressed and tailored so well it seemed to resist the filth clinging to every other surface. The lapels shimmered faintly with a glamour spell meant to repel dust and damp, and it worked—he looked untouched by the rot around him, untouched by the world entirely. His hair was slicked back with surgical precision, his face pale and elegant in a way that suggested careful breeding and a deep familiarity with mirrors. Everything about him—his posture, his clothing, his smile—reeked of calculated charm. But it was his eyes that gave him away.

There was no warmth in them. No madness, either. Just vacancy.

"Ah," he said, his voice as polished as his shoes, smooth and casual and dipped in amusement. "You're awake."

Blaise didn't react, but beside him, he felt the tension roll off Theo like a thundercloud—hot and immediate, the slow rise of fury held in check by effort alone. Blaise didn't need magic to feel it. He could feel it in the shallow drag of Theo's breath, the sudden rigidity in his shoulders, the way his fingers curled slightly even as the cuffs dug deeper into the bone of his wrists.

"If you wanted to die," Theo rasped, and his voice was little more than gravel ground between bloodied teeth, hoarse and dry from dehydration, "you could've just asked."

There it was. The old Nott—sharp-tongued and steel-spined, a threat even when bound and drained. But Blaise heard the cost of it in his tone. The strain. The pain. Still, it didn't matter. Words had always been one of Theo's deadliest weapons.

The man in the suit merely smiled.

He clasped his hands behind his back with the lazy grace of a man strolling through a garden, and crouched slightly, lowering himself to Theo's level with the fascinated curiosity of someone examining a curious insect behind glass. "I admire the bravado," he said lightly, his tone almost affectionate. "Truly, I do. But let's not be dramatic. You're in no position to make threats, Mr. Nott."

It was a performance. A well-practiced one. The voice, the posture, the measured amusement—they were all designed to bait, to prod, to erode control.

And that's when Blaise moved.

It wasn't much—not yet—but the shift in Blaise's posture was deliberate, a slow, calculated tilt of his head that allowed his gaze to finally rise and meet the man's. It was an unspoken challenge, one made all the more powerful by its restraint. His eyes, dark and unreadable beneath the flickering overhead bulb, didn't narrow in anger or spark with overt hatred. No, they remained flat. Quiet. Empty in that dangerous, unreadable way that only truly lethal men could manage. But beneath that still surface, something churned. Something slow, glacial, terrifying in its control. Not rage—rage could be anticipated, contained, used. What lived behind Blaise Zabini's eyes in that moment was colder than rage. It was the eerie calm that came before a storm. The tension in the air just before a predator pounces. That simmering, bottomless cold that whispered you've made a mistake.

And then he spoke.

The words came out rough, scraped raw from the bottom of his throat, but steady—controlled. Sharp as broken glass, and twice as cutting. "You have no idea what you've just done," he murmured, and though the sentence was quiet, it struck like a blade slid between ribs. Not a threat, not a boast—just a truth spoken aloud by a man who had spent his life measuring consequences in blood.

Their captor didn't so much as blink. Instead, he chuckled—a light, amused sound that was far too relaxed for the gravity of what had just been spoken. He seemed genuinely entertained, the sort of man who'd spent far too long at the top of his own mountain to recognize when the ground beneath him had begun to rot. "Oh, I think we knew exactly what we were doing," he replied easily, standing to his full height and rolling his shoulders in a stretch that reeked of disdainful nonchalance. He looked like someone who had just finished a round of chess, not someone standing in a room with two trained killers bound and bloodied before him.

His voice was polished, smooth as a blade honed to perfection. "You see, we needed leverage. And you two?" He gestured lazily between them, his smile widening into something smug and serpentine. "You're the perfect bargaining chips."

The words landed with all the force of a blow.

Blaise didn't react—not outwardly. But inside, something inside him shifted. Broke. Not with fear. Not with pain. But with a bone-deep understanding that crystallized like frost across the surface of his mind. This wasn't just about them. This wasn't a random act of cruelty or a message sent to the Raven Order or even revenge for past missions. No—this had always been about someone else.

And in that moment, he understood exactly what kind of game they'd been dragged into.

This wasn't a capture.

This was a move. A calculated, surgical strike in a war that had already begun.

This was bait.

His stomach turned to stone. His thoughts flew—to Ginny, to the way her laugh lit up rooms, to the stubborn line of her mouth when she was angry, to the weight of her sleeping beside him, to the scent of her hair in his pillow. And then, as if one knife weren't enough, another followed—Valerius. Their son. Their baby. Just beginning to walk, just learning words. His small hands always reaching. His eyes always searching for his parents.

This wasn't about Blaise or Theo at all.

It was about those who loved them. It was about who would come looking.

Beside him, Theo's breathing changed—sharpened, caught. He was already arriving at the same conclusion, his razor mind slotting the pieces together like falling dominoes. Blaise felt the briefest twitch of movement beside him—the subtle shift of Theo testing the bounds of his restraints, the muscle memory of fight seeping into the edges of every breath. Neither of them could summon magic. Not yet. But the look that passed between them—brief, flickering like static in the dark—said it all.

We're not pawns.

The man—whoever the fuck he was—watched them for another moment, as if gauging whether the weight of his revelation had landed properly. Then, satisfied, he turned on his heel, his polished shoes clicking softly against the concrete. His tone remained light, too pleased with himself to notice the change in the air. "Get comfortable," he said with a smirk in his voice. "This will be over soon."

And then he was gone.

The door slammed shut behind him with a heavy, metallic finality, the sound of the bolt sliding into place echoing across the stone walls like a gunshot. Silence descended. But it wasn't still. It was thick with energy, with adrenaline curdling in the bloodstream, with unspoken words vibrating in the air between them.

Blaise didn't move. Didn't speak.

Neither did Theo.

The silence stretched, pulsing, alive with fury barely held in check.

And then—finally—Theo exhaled. A long, low sound, somewhere between breath and a growl. "We're not waiting for rescue," he said, his voice flat, as though even speaking aloud cost him something.

Blaise's lips didn't smile exactly—but the curve at their edge was something worse. Something promised.

"No," he murmured, voice like the first crackle of fire catching on dry wood. "We're getting out of here."

His fingers twitched against the cuffs.

His eyes burned.

And when they did—when the time came, when they stood once more, bloodied and unbound—they wouldn't simply escape.

They would burn this place to the fucking ground.

~~~~~~

Ginny stalked back and forth across the living room, her bare feet soundless against the worn floorboards, but everything else about her radiated noise—restlessness, exhaustion, unraveling. Her hair was a mess of tangled red, shoved into a loose knot that had long since given up the fight, strands clinging to her cheeks damp with sweat and tears she refused to shed. Her face was drawn, pale beneath the freckles, frustration carved into every tense muscle. The wand jammed into the back pocket of her jeans bounced with every sharp, erratic turn, threatening to tumble free—but she didn't notice, or maybe she didn't care.

In her arms, Valerius screamed—not a sharp, angry cry, but that relentless, hiccuping wail of a baby overtired and overwhelmed. His tiny fists flailed, his cheeks flushed and wet, head turning stubbornly away from the spoon she kept trying to coax between his tight little lips.

"Please, Val," she whispered, her voice cracking beneath a paper-thin veneer of cheer. She tried to smile, but it faltered at the edges, brittle and half-formed. "Just a few bites, sweetheart. Just one for Mummy. Mummy's so bloody tired."

But Val wasn't having it.

With a sharp jerk of his hand, he knocked the spoon from her grip again. It hit the floor with a loud clatter, scattering flecks of mashed apple across the rug like a small, stupid explosion. Ginny froze—just for a second—then let out a ragged sound somewhere between a sob and a groan, a quiet kind of heartbreak that lodged itself in her throat.

Her shoulders trembled as she sank to her knees, pressing the heels of her palms hard against her eyes, willing herself not to cry. Not again. Not in front of him. But the tears burned hot anyway, threatening to break free.

She had no idea how it had come to this. Just her and her son and a bowl of uneaten breakfast and the kind of exhaustion that sank into her bones like rot. The meltdown. The sleepless night. The creeping, suffocating sense that something terrible was approaching—just outside the edges of her awareness. Something that had been building for days, maybe longer. Something she hadn't let herself name.

And now, it was closer. She could feel it. In her chest. In the air.

Something was wrong.

°°°

The sudden, unmistakable crunch of footsteps on the gravel path outside jolted Ginny upright. Her breath caught as her head snapped toward the door, every maternal instinct going taut in an instant. Valerius stilled in her arms, his sniffling quieting as if even he sensed the shift in the air.

Then the floo door opened, and a hush swept through the house like a cold draft.

Hermione stepped through first, her features pale and tight, lips pressed into a thin, unreadable line. Beside her was Draco Malfoy, a step behind but unmistakably leading in presence—his expression carved from ice, composed but strained, as though keeping something inside on a very short leash.

Behind them came Luna, her usual floaty energy replaced by a sharp-edged stillness, eyes scanning the room like they were expecting to find it on fire. Then Titus entered, his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack, followed closely by Pansy, who swept in with her baby at her breast and a don't-fucking-touch-me aura that radiated like smoke. Neville brought up the rear, pale and visibly shaken, his wand twirling anxiously between his fingers.

Ginny blinked, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the people crowding her doorway. "What—did I forget something?" she asked, voice pitching higher with each word. "A lunch?"

No one answered.

Her eyes flicked from Hermione's drawn face to Draco's glacial stillness, then to Luna, who looked like she was vibrating beneath her skin.

Draco was the one to speak, his voice low but firm, like he was trying to pad a blow before it landed. "Sit down, Ginevra."

She stiffened. "What?"

"Please," Hermione added softly, stepping closer. "Just… just sit, yeah?"

The quiet urgency in their tone made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She moved to the sofa on unsteady legs, lowering herself slowly and adjusting Valerius against her chest. He gave a soft whimper, but she barely noticed. Her heart was starting to pound, wild and uneven, something feral waking inside her.

"What's going on?" she asked, voice trembling as she stroked her son's hair. She didn't want the answer. She already knew, somewhere deep and primal, that it was bad—worse than bad.

Draco hesitated, his eyes flickering to Hermione, who gave a small nod, a silent command. He drew in a breath—slow, deliberate, like someone steeling themselves before walking into fire.

"Blaise and Theo are missing," he said.

The words landed like a blow to the chest.

Silence crashed over the room. Heavy. Suffocating. The kind of silence that made your ears ring and your stomach drop. Ginny stared at him, wide-eyed, her mouth open slightly, like her brain hadn't quite processed the words.

"W-what do you mean missing?" she managed at last, her voice thin and fraying at the edges.

Titus stepped forward then, arms crossed over his chest like a shield. His usual arrogance was nowhere to be found—what remained was grim, controlled, and dangerous in its own right.

"We split up," he said. "Two teams. Malfoy and I were on one side. Blaise and Theo were on the other. We had a fallback point." He swallowed. "They didn't show."

Ginny didn't move.

The words echoed in her mind, over and over—They didn't show. They didn't return. Blaise is missing. The room tilted. Her fingers fumbled for the spoon she'd dropped earlier and picked it up without thinking, but the moment she tried to close her hand around it, her grip failed.

"They never returned," she repeated, barely breathing, her voice hollow. It wasn't a question. It wasn't even disbelief. It was the beginning of something else entirely—rage, maybe. Or panic. Or heartbreak.

Luna's hand slammed against the edge of the table with a crack loud enough to startle the room, knocking a wilting vase of flowers perilously close to the edge. Her eyes were wild, burning with a fury so uncharacteristic it silenced even the background noise of the children. "My husband," she hissed, her voice trembling with rage so sharp it was almost brittle. "If you two—any of you—let him die, if you let him leave me a widow…"

Her gaze swept across them with the intensity of a curse mid-casting, no longer the ethereal woman they knew but something fierce and feral, stripped of softness. "I will kill you both. Slowly. Miserably. Do you understand me?" she snarled at Draco and Titus, and there was no question she meant every syllable.

The air thickened.

Pansy, who sat cross-legged with Seraphina still nursing, met Luna's glare and gently reached out with her free hand, pressing it to her friend's trembling shoulder. "Love," she said softly, though her voice held a tight edge of nervous tension, "nothing is going to happen to them. They're too stubborn to die." But even she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

"They're not going to die," Draco cut in, his voice crisp, eyes cool as he met Luna's rage head-on. "So calm—"

"Calm down, Ferret?" Ginny exploded, her voice rising into something raw and dangerous. She stood so quickly Valerius gave a startled yelp, and she immediately passed him to Neville, who caught the infant with wide, unprepared arms.

She took a single, measured step toward Draco, fists clenched at her sides. "You don't get to tell me to calm down. You're not my boss. You're not anybody to me," she spat. "You think just because you walk in here with your cold, polished tone and your fucking jawline you get to start barking orders? My husband is missing. And you dare speak to me like I'm the one being unreasonable?"

Draco didn't flinch, but his jaw flexed—once, tightly. Hermione moved to Ginny's side, reaching out with a gentle hand, but Ginny shrugged her off with a shake of her shoulder, never breaking her glare.

"We need to find them," Ginny said, voice trembling now—not with fear, but with the fury of helplessness. "I don't care about your protocole, or your bloody plans. Blaise is out there. He could be hurt. He could be dying, and you want me to sit here, sipping tea and knitting fucking baby booties, waiting for an owl?"

Hermione stepped forward, voice even but taut, slipping into the cadence that had once led armies. "We're not waiting, Gin. We're preparing. You know what happens when we don't. We go in blind, and we lose more."

She turned slightly, her gaze catching on Pansy, still calm, still tits out, utterly unapologetic with Seraphina tucked against her. "Everyone needs to be ready. Properly ready. We don't know what we're walking into."

Then, a pause.

"Pansy," Hermione added, hesitating. "Maybe… you should… cover up?"

The room tensed. Even the baby seemed to stop nursing for half a second.

Pansy arched a brow slowly, a wicked grin crawling across her mouth as she patted Seraphina's back. "Oh, come on, Granger. Is this really the time to be scandalized by tits? You lot act like you've never seen a pair that didn't belong in a textbook. Get over it."

Her tone was light, but her eyes glittered with provocation. "Honestly, I thought we were past the part where modesty mattered more than men being alive."

Hermione opened her mouth, but—

"Pansy."

Neville's voice cut through the room like a blade. It wasn't loud. It wasn't angry. But it was steel. Cold, calm, resolute in a way that froze everyone mid-breath.

She turned her head slowly, ready to retort, her smirk already half-formed—until she saw his expression. Not soft. Not teasing. Just firm. Just final.

With one fluid, no-nonsense motion, Pansy adjusted her robe, snapping the fabric shut with a sharp flick and fastening the buttons with precise, irritated flicks of her fingers. Her movements were brisk, but she handled Seraphina with the kind of careful efficiency that could only come from practice—a woman who'd trained herself to be both warrior and mother without dropping either role. She crossed the room and lowered her daughter gently into a makeshift bassinet nestled in the corner, a large wicker basket lined with soft blankets charmed to regulate warmth. Seraphina gave a soft sigh, already drifting back into sleep, unaware of the storm building around her.

The moment stretched, taut and electric. No one spoke. The weight of what they were preparing to do—what they might already be too late to stop—hung like smoke in the air.

Ginny let out a long breath, her hand raking through her tangled, sweat-dampened hair. Her eyes—fierce and bloodshot—flicked toward the hallway as she called, "Twinkle!" Her voice rang down the corridor like a flare shot into the sky.

A small pop echoed in reply, and a wide-eyed house-elf appeared, dressed in a pristine tea towel adorned with a stitched lightning bolt. He bowed so deeply his nose nearly skimmed the floorboards.

"Yes, Missus?"

"Please look after Seraphina—Mrs. Longbottom's baby girl—and the others." Ginny gestured toward the sleeping child in the basket and her own son, who was now curled beneath a soft blanket in a second bassinet, his tiny brow furrowed even in sleep. "Keep them warm. Keep them safe. Don't let anyone near them who doesn't belong here."

Twinkle straightened with a jolt of purpose, his ears twitching with fierce devotion. "Yes, Missus! Twinkle will guard them like a Hungarian Horntail, Missus! No harm will come to these little ones while Twinkle breathes, Missus!"

Ginny gave a tight nod, her voice rough with unspoken gratitude. "Good." She turned back to the others, sweeping her gaze over Luna, Hermione, and Pansy, her expression hardening with every second. "It's time. We need to be ready. Now."

And with a collective inhale, a silent agreement passed between them—there was no more time for tears, for chaos, for indecision. There was only action now.

As one, magic shimmered across their bodies in synchronized flashes of light and color, robes twisting and reshaping around them like living fabric.

Hermione's practical robes cinched and darkened into a streamlined tactical ensemble, sleek and durable, laced with hidden pockets designed for potions, healing salves, and enchanted tools. Silver embroidery flared briefly along the seams before fading—protective wards woven into every stitch.

Luna's robes, which had once been layers of whimsy and softness, rippled into something more functional. The pale blue collar remained—a small echo of her unshakable self—but the rest darkened into soft, armored fabric with enchanted flexibility, subtle sigils woven along her sleeves like constellations.

Pansy's already tailored ensemble morphed into high-collared black combat robes, the hem sharpening, the bodice reinforced with glinting protective spells that shimmered briefly under the light. Her boots restructured themselves, laced high and enchanted to silence every step.

And Ginny—Ginny wore war.

Her fraying jeans and loose jumper vanished in a rush of fire-magic, replaced by a leather vest etched with intricate runes that pulsed faintly with crimson light. Her black trousers flared slightly at the ankles for movement, while her belt cinched tight, holding twin daggers at her hips. Her wand slid into a newly conjured sheath strapped against her forearm, visible and ready.

The room had changed.

No longer a family space, no longer a nursery—it had become a war room. And the women in it? They weren't just mothers, wives, and friends anymore.

They were soldiers again.

°°°

Draco chose that moment to step into the hallway, his robes already shifting with fluid precision. They darkened and restructured around his frame, transforming into a sharply tailored military-style ensemble—black on black, with subtle silver stitching at the seams that gleamed faintly beneath the overhead light. Every detail was intentional, from the reinforced shoulders to the rune-lined cuffs that marked his preparedness not just for battle, but for command.

He surveyed the room like a tactician assessing a battlefield, his pale gaze gliding over the now-armored women, the children tucked away under protective wards, the sharp-edged silence hanging in the air.

"Ginevra," he said evenly, his tone neutral but steeped in authority. "Gather Blaise's weapons. Guns, enchanted blades, smoke runes. Everything in the top trunk and the drawer beneath the bed." He didn't wait for affirmation—just turned his gaze sharply toward Luna. "You—start collecting potions. Every last one you've brewed. Healing, offensive, anti-venom, sleep inhibitors. Prioritize speed. Time is not on our side."

Titus, who had been lurking too close to Luna's shoulder, stepped forward, bristling like a cornered dog. "Malfoy," he said, voice sharp and simmering, "you can't just order her around like she's your private house pet."

Draco's expression didn't change—if anything, it hardened further. He turned to face Titus fully, his gaze sliding over him with cold precision, every syllable of his reply dipped in venom.

"Nott," he said, his voice low and lethal, "you're already walking on thin ice. Say one more word, and I'll break it beneath you."

His lip curled faintly, eyes glittering with disdain. "They are my family. Every single person in this house has bled for the ones we're about to risk our lives to save. You, on the other hand?" He offered a shallow shrug, glacial and unbothered. "You're a footnote. A contingency at best. So unless you plan on making yourself useful, I suggest you shut the fuck up and step back."

The silence that followed was thick with heat and tension. For a long, pulsing moment, no one moved. No one breathed.

The crackle of magic in the air was nearly visible—charged like a storm waiting to break.

Neville, who had been lingering near the hearth with furrowed brows, seemed to sense that wands were seconds from being drawn. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he summoned a weathered parchment map from the bookshelf and floated it to the center table. It unfurled with a whisper of old magic, revealing layers of ancient topography and shifting ley lines.

"Everyone," Neville said, his voice louder than usual, steady despite the tremor of nerves behind his words. "Focus. This isn't about ego, it's about Blaise and Theo. Ginny. Luna. Use the bond. Try to find them."

Luna stepped forward first, silent and fluid, the ends of her transfigured robes whispering across the stone floor. Ginny followed, pushing aside a chair with a scrape that echoed like thunder in the room's stillness.

The two women stood shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the map, their fingers grazing the ancient parchment. Luna's hands were steady, her blue eyes glowing faintly with concentration, while Ginny's jaw was locked with tension, her breath catching in her throat as she laid a trembling hand along the edge.

Together, they began.

"Uruz," Ginny intoned, her voice firm but quaking beneath the weight of the moment. "Mother of manifestation, blood of memory and mirror of truth—show me where Theodore Atticus Nott and Blaise Orion Zabini are."

The words hung in the air, crisp and electric, reverberating like a spell cast in stone.

A faint shimmer flickered across the surface of the map, like water rippling beneath moonlight. The runes etched around its edges flared with soft blue light, one by one, responding to her invocation. For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then—motion.

Lines began to shift, rearranging like puzzle pieces. Mountains flattened. Rivers disappeared. The parchment pulsed faintly beneath their hands.

But then… something stuttered.

The light dimmed.

The runes sputtered.

The magic faltered, like a signal lost halfway through transmission.

Ginny's heart slammed against her ribs. "No. No—come on, come on—Uruz, I'm asking you, please—"

But the glow faded to nothing.

Only silence remained.

Meanwhile, the runes on the map pulsed, but the glow began to fade. Ginny's expression clouded with concern. She drummed her fingertips against the table impatiently, eyes locked on the map. "Come on, Uruz," she whispered, voice carrying a desperate edge.

Luna rested a gentle hand on Ginny's arm, offering what comfort she could while still exuding her usual calm. "Give it a moment," she murmured. "Sometimes the bond takes time to focus, especially if they're far away or... obscured."

Neville shifted his weight, glancing anxiously at Draco. Titus, who had been quietly fuming since Draco's insult, hovered near Luna, crossing his arms in barely contained frustration. The entire group felt poised on a precarious balance, with alliances and animosities layered thick in the room.

Draco, meanwhile, stood slightly apart, his arms folded tightly across his chest. "This isn't a parlor trick," he said, breaking the tension in his own aloof way. "If Blaise and Theo are hidden by certain wards or dark magic, it could take more than a simple incantation to pinpoint them."

"Yes, I'm aware," Ginny snapped, not bothering to hide her irritation. She pushed a stray lock of hair from her face, her free hand clenched into a fist at her side. "But this is what we have, Malfoy. Unless you have a better idea? One that doesn't involve intimidation and snide remarks?"

He gave her a slow, measured look, not deigning to respond. Instead, he exhaled quietly and gestured for her to continue. This—his silence—was perhaps the first peace offering he'd made all day.

"Let's try again," Luna suggested in her soft, melodic voice, stepping closer to Ginny and resting her wand against the map. "Uruz, mother of manifestation," she repeated, "hear our call."

Ginny nodded, drawing in a slow breath and placing her free hand on Luna's wand, adding her magic to the incantation. A renewed spark of light shimmered across the parchment, lines crisscrossing rivers and mountains, searching... searching.

For a moment, it looked as though a tiny pinprick of light flickered in the far corner of the map. Ginny leaned in, heart pounding. "There," she breathed, excitement flaring in her eyes.

But as quickly as it had appeared, the spark vanished, leaving the map blank once again. Ginny let out a frustrated cry, her fists clenching at her sides before she slammed one down onto the table. The chairs rattled with the force, the sound reverberating through the tense silence of the room.

"I'm so close," she hissed through gritted teeth, her emerald eyes blazing with a mix of anger and desperation. "Why can't it just stay long enough to tell us where they are?"

The room felt suffocating, tension hanging thick in the air. Everyone exchanged uncertain glances, unwilling to speak and risk setting Ginny off further. They were out there, somewhere, and every second spent fumbling with incomplete leads felt like a dagger twisting deeper into her chest.

Draco, who had been pacing like a caged animal, suddenly stopped mid-stride. His grey eyes were sharp, calculating, as they swept over the cluttered table. "We need a bigger map," he declared, his tone leaving no room for argument. His voice was calm, but there was an urgency behind it, like he was trying to suppress his own panic.

Without waiting for a response, he reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and pulled out a map that was much larger and more detailed than the one already on the table. With a flick of his wand, the furniture was pushed aside, and he spread the map out on the floor. It unfurled to reveal not just the immediate area but the entirety of England, Scotland, and even parts of Ireland.

Hermione knelt down beside him, her sharp eyes scanning the map. "Are you sure this will help?" she asked, though her hands were already smoothing out the parchment, her fingers trembling slightly.

"It's better than what we're working with now," Draco snapped, his nerves fraying as he crouched beside her. His tone softened slightly as he added, "This map is enchanted to detect magical imprints. If they're anywhere on these islands, it'll show us."

Ginny didn't need any further encouragement. She knelt beside them, her wand already out. She took a deep breath, steadying her shaking hands, and repeated the incantation. "Uruz, mother of manifestation, show me Theodore Atticus Nott and Blaise Orion Zabini."

For a moment, nothing happened. The silence in the room was deafening, broken only by the sound of Ginny's shallow breathing. Then, like a spark in the darkness, a faint glow appeared on the map. It flickered weakly, like a dying ember, but it was enough to send a collective gasp through the room.

"It's Scotland," Hermione whispered, her voice trembling with relief and dread. "They're in Scotland."

The glow steadied, and as the group leaned closer, they saw it pinpoint a location nestled deep within the Highlands. Ginny's breath hitched as her eyes locked onto the spot. It was remote, isolated—perfect for keeping captives hidden.

"Glencoe," Luna murmured, her usually serene voice tinged with unease. "That's Glencoe."

Pansy, who had been leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, straightened, her brows furrowing. "Glencoe? That place is cursed. The massacre, the old wards—people have been avoiding it for centuries."

"We don't have the luxury of superstition," Ginny snapped, her voice sharp as a blade. "They're there. That's all that matters."

Draco nodded, already standing. "She's right. Cursed or not, we're going. Grab what you need—this isn't going to be a simple retrieval."

Neville, who had been quietly observing the exchange, stepped forward. His usual calm demeanor was replaced with a steely determination. "I'll get the healing supplies. If they've been there for days, they're going to need more than just potions."

Luna gave him a grateful nod before turning to Ginny. "We'll find them," she said softly, her words carrying a quiet assurance that seemed to cut through the chaos in Ginny's mind.

But Ginny couldn't find it in herself to respond. Her focus was entirely on the map, her fingers tracing the glowing mark as if committing it to memory. The thought of Blaise and Theo out there, possibly hurt or worse, was a weight that threatened to crush her.

Draco's voice broke through her thoughts. "Ginny, you're coming with us, but you need to be focused. No distractions. Understood?"

She met his gaze, her eyes hard with determination. "I'm ready."

He didn't argue, recognizing the fire in her eyes. "Good. Then let's move."

As the group began gathering their supplies, Ginny's mind raced. Glencoe. The name alone sent chills down her spine. She'd read about the massacre that had taken place there, the blood that had seeped into the land, the whispers of vengeful spirits. But none of that mattered now. Blaise was out there, and she would walk through hell itself to bring him home.

The glow on the map dimmed slightly, but it remained, a beacon guiding them to the unyielding Scottish Highlands. Time was running out, and Ginny knew one thing for certain: she wouldn't stop until she found him, no matter what it took

~~~~~~

They arrived beneath a blackened sky, the moon their only witness—a cold, watchful eye that pierced the canopy in fractured beams, casting pale, unnatural light across the forest floor. The trees loomed like skeletal sentinels, their twisted limbs clawing at the heavens, as if trying to snuff out what little light remained. The air was thick, stagnant, pressing against their lungs like something alive. No wind. No sound. Only the rhythmic crunch of dried leaves beneath cautious steps, each one impossibly loud in the suffocating silence.

Their wands glowed dimly, flickering like dying stars in a sea of shadow, and for all the light they offered, it felt as though the darkness was swallowing it whole, inch by inch. The path ahead was narrow and winding, the kind that twisted without logic—like the forest had rearranged itself to confuse and contain them.

Pansy's grip on Neville's hand had turned iron-tight, her nails cutting crescents into his skin. But he didn't flinch. He said nothing. The tremor that ran through her palm told him everything—this wasn't just fear. It was dread, deep and primal, the kind that blooms in the gut when something is profoundly wrong.

"Something's here," she breathed, her voice thinner than mist, barely audible above their footsteps. "Something bad."

Neville swallowed hard, the chill of her words settling into his bones like frost. But he'd already felt it too—the way the air clung too closely, the way the shadows pressed inward like they were listening. "I know," he whispered. His free hand hovered over his wand, twitching toward it like muscle memory. "It's like the forest is holding its breath."

At the front of the group, Luna walked without pause.

Her pale hair caught the moonlight in odd flickers, making her look half ghost, half goddess—an ethereal silhouette slipping silently through the trees. But there was nothing soft about her now. The dreaminess she once carried like a second skin was gone. Burned away. In its place was something harder. Something old. She moved with a purpose that teetered on the edge of desperation, her strides too quick, too sharp. It was as though she believed sheer force of will could rip back the veil between her and Theo.

She had become a specter of resolve—beautiful and terrifying.

And still, beneath her breath, she whispered.

A mantra. A hymn. A spell.

"I will send out an army to find you," she murmured, her voice thin but cutting through the thick air like a thread of silver. "In the middle of the darkest night, I will rescue you. I will never stop marching to reach you…"

Her words rippled out like ripples on a cursed pond, quiet yet heavy, drawing the others behind her as if bound by invisible thread. It was more than a promise. It was defiance. It was mourning dressed in armor.

Behind her, the others moved in silence, every breath shallow, every footstep deliberate. The deeper they went, the more it felt like the forest wasn't just watching—it was waiting.

And still Luna walked, whispering her vow to the shadows.

The haunting rhythm of her vow was the only sound that accompanied their tense journey, echoing in the hearts of those who followed her. Each word was a reminder of her unwavering love and her refusal to yield to despair. Luna Lovegood was no longer the gentle, whimsical woman they all knew; she was a force of nature, a beacon of relentless hope burning.

Ginny, who had been trailing just behind Luna, came to an abrupt halt mid-step. Her breath hitched. Her nose wrinkled sharply, and she lifted a hand to her face, eyes narrowing as the first tendrils of something wrong slithered into her senses.

She turned slowly, her voice tight and brittle as glass. "Do you smell that?" she asked, though the answer was already written across every face.

The question cut through the silence like a knife, and in its wake came nothing but stillness—thick and choking. The others had smelled it, too. They just hadn't dared speak it aloud.

It was metallic. Sharp. Wet.

Thick as blood, heavy as rust.

It curled low to the ground, clinging to the damp earth and rotting leaves, seeping into their clothes, their throats, their lungs. It wasn't just a smell—it was presence. Something saturated the forest around them.

A living thing had died here.

Many of them.

Ginny's hand went to her wand without thought, her fingers trembling as she tightened her grip.

Neville swallowed audibly.

The air was suddenly too still.

And then, all at once, the group answered—each voice hushed, unwilling to disturb the weight of it.

"Death."

The word hung there like a specter. A curse. A truth.

And death it was.

As they rounded the next bend, the trees thinned—and the sight that met them tore a gasp from their throats.

They froze.

The gallows rose before them like a grotesque monument to savagery, its skeletal frame assembled from jagged iron and rusted wood, each mismatched section fused together in a crude display of violence masquerading as structure. It was not just a place for execution—it was meant to haunt, to display suffering as spectacle. The ropes hung low, swinging gently in the stale breeze, their nooses coiled like vipers waiting to strike again. There was no pretense of mercy here, no illusion of formality; this was a place built for terror, and every inch of it reeked of cruelty.

The smell, thick and putrid, hit Hermione with the force of a curse, tearing through her senses with merciless precision. Her stomach turned violently, bile rising in her throat, her vision doubling as tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. The stench of blood, sweat, decay—it invaded her mouth, her skin, her mind. Her legs threatened to give out beneath her as the sight registered fully—bodies hanging limp, faces obscured, the grotesque sway of death moving in rhythm with the forest's stillness. Her fingers, clammy and trembling, found Draco's arm and clung to it with desperation, her nails digging into the fabric of his robes as she choked out a sound—half-formed words, half-sob.

"I—I can't…" she gasped, her voice barely audible over the roar in her ears. "Draco—"

Without hesitation, his hand moved to the small of her back, grounding her, holding her firm against the rising tide of horror that threatened to drown her. His voice cut through her panic, firm and focused, not harsh but unyielding in its steadiness. "Look at me," he said, his tone threaded with urgency and quiet strength, the sound of it like a tether pulling her back from the edge. "Breathe. Focus on me. Just me. Right here."

His eyes held hers, pale and unwavering, and she held on to him like a lifeline, her shaking breaths slowly—painfully—starting to steady, drawn in rhythm to the calming cadence of his voice, though her body still trembled as if it knew something her mind couldn't yet bear to accept.

But even as Hermione's breath began to even out, Neville's attention shifted sharply. His gaze moved past the gallows, past the row of silent corpses, and narrowed on a darker shape approaching along the far path—something moving, dragging, alive. He reacted instantly, turning toward Pansy without thought, his hands gripping her shoulders with an intensity that startled even her.

"Get down," he said, his voice low but fierce, not a request but a command forged from terror. "Lie flat on the ground. Don't argue. Don't look. Don't move until I come back for you."

She stared at him, startled and confused, but the look in his eyes—the sheer fear buried in the steel of his expression—left no room for protest.

And then her gaze followed his.

The moment her eyes registered the shapes emerging from the gloom, everything inside her shattered. Time collapsed into sound—raw, piercing, inescapable sound—as a scream tore from her throat, wild and unrestrained, ripped from a place deeper than fear, deeper than rage. It was a sound born of recognition—the kind of scream that only came when love and horror collided at full force.

Two figures, dragged mercilessly across the clearing, their bodies limp, bloodied, barely clinging to form. Their faces were swollen and broken, shadows concealing the worst of it, but not enough—not enough to mask who they were. Not enough to protect her from the truth.

Even battered and half-unconscious, even with their heads bowed and limbs trailing uselessly across the dirt, she knew them.

Her breath caught violently in her chest, and she fell to her knees without knowing she had moved, her hand pressed to her mouth, her other clawing into the ground as if anchoring herself to the earth might keep her from crumbling completely.

°°°

Ginny surged forward as if pulled by some invisible force, the ground beneath her feet blistering with heat—not metaphorical, but real, scorched and pulsing with a raw magic that seared through the soles of her boots and licked at her skin. Each step forward felt like walking through fire, the path before her alight with something ancient and furious, something that responded to the white-hot rage rising in her chest like a tide that refused to recede. The pain didn't slow her—it fueled her. Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out everything except the distant, labored groans of the men she loved being dragged toward death.

Draco and Titus exchanged a single, loaded glance—a look honed by war and blood and things they didn't speak of—and vanished together with twin cracks of displaced air, their Apparition muffled by decades of practiced silence. They reappeared in unison at the base of the towering metal structure, their movements smooth and precise, predators slipping into place. The gallows loomed above them like a beast made of steel and shadow, and yet it was the executioners—two masked figures tightening ropes around bruised throats—who seemed suddenly vulnerable.

There was no sound of warning. No shouted spell or dramatic flourish.

Draco moved with the cold efficiency that only someone forged in darkness could manage, his wand cutting the air with a brutal snap as he cast a curse that sent the first executioner hurtling backward. The man slammed into the metal beam behind him, his spine cracking audibly, his body crumpling to the ground in a heap of shattered bone and convulsing limbs. Draco didn't flinch. He didn't pause. He simply turned, already moving toward the next target as though nothing human had just broken at his feet.

Titus chose blood over magic, his wand forgotten in favor of a silver blade that gleamed like moonlight before it disappeared into the neck of the second man. He approached from behind, silent as death, and in one smooth, practiced motion, drew the blade clean across the throat. The man jerked once, a spray of red misting the air, and then collapsed forward, gurgling into silence. Titus let the body fall without ceremony. His eyes were fixed upward, already searching for the ropes that bound Theo and Blaise, already calculating how to get them down.

There was no attempt to be clean. No care for elegance. No mercy. The green light of the Killing Curse would've been too kind, and neither man was in the mood for kindness.

Before either could speak or catch their breath, another crack split the night—and this one did not creep in quietly. Luna appeared like an explosion, her magic roaring around her in waves that rippled through the air and trembled through the earth. Her hair whipped about her face in the sudden wind, eyes wide and wild, her wand raised not as a tool but as a weapon born of fury and desperation.

"GET THEM OFF!" she screamed, and the sound tore through the clearing like thunder, shaking leaves from branches, scattering birds from the trees. It was not the voice of the Luna they had known—the soft-spoken, gentle mystic who whispered to stars and walked like her feet barely touched the ground. This was something else entirely. This was elemental. This was grief transmuted into violence. This was the voice of a woman who had come to reclaim what was hers, no matter what it cost the world around her.

There was no beauty in her now, no quiet strangeness. There was only rage. A mother's rage. A wife's fury. A storm that would not pass until it had drowned every last enemy in its wake.

Without hesitation—without even a flicker of awareness for the eyes that might be watching her, for the horror pooling thickly in the air—Luna hurled herself toward the twisted heap of bodies lying motionless in the blood-streaked dirt. 

Her boots skidded across the wet earth as she dropped to her knees beside the corpse, her breath catching in broken gasps that tore through her throat like glass, her fingers trembling violently as they fumbled for the blade tucked beneath the edge of her uniform. 

The dagger came free with a sharp whisper of metal, its gleam catching the moonlight just long enough to become something sacred in her shaking hands, something ancient and final and meant to hurt. Her vision blurred, not just from the tears streaking her cheeks, but from the heat behind her eyes, the furious, boiling grief that narrowed the world to a single, pulsing point.

And then she moved.

The first stab landed with a sickening thud, the resistance of flesh collapsing beneath steel as the dagger sank into the dead man's chest. And then again, and again—each strike more violent, more erratic, more unhinged than the last. Her body shook with the effort, her cries broken and wordless as she drove the blade down over and over, the blood rising in splashes that painted her hands, her throat, the sharp ridge of her cheekbones. It mixed with the tears already falling freely down her face, turned her hair dark and heavy at the ends, and stained the air with copper. 

Her mouth opened in a scream that didn't even sound human, a sound pulled from some cavern inside her chest where grief had given way to something uncontainable. It wasn't about vengeance, not exactly—it was about the unbearable weight of almost, about how close she'd come to losing him, how fragile it had all been.

She didn't stop—couldn't, wouldn't, because to stop meant acknowledging the storm inside her chest that had been gathering for days, weeks, a lifetime. If she slowed, if she let the blade rest, even for a breath, she would have to feel the unbearable weight pressing down on her ribs, the terror that had calcified behind her eyes, the reality that had hovered just outside reach every moment Theo had been gone. 

To stop meant looking up, meant truly seeing what might have been—the rope, the bruises, the stillness in his limbs, the silence in his chest—and there was no part of her that could survive that image, no strength left for the risk of discovering a world where she had been too late. So she kept going, letting the motion carry her through the grief, letting the blood and the sound of impact drown out the thoughts that scraped like knives inside her skull. The violence was the only thing that made sense, the only thing louder than the fear.

It wasn't until arms closed tightly around her from behind—familiar, warm, shaking—that she stilled, breath catching in her throat like a scream that never fully escaped. Hermione's voice, thick with tears and panic, spoke right at her ear, desperate and hoarse, her hands locking over Luna's wrists as if her own heart would stop if she let go. "Luna, stop," she begged, her words cracked and frantic, body straining to hold Luna still even as she sobbed. "Please. They're safe. They're alive. You don't have to do this. Come back. Just—come back to me, come back."

Luna froze, a shudder tearing through her chest so violently she nearly fell forward, the dagger still clenched tight in her trembling hands. For a moment, it seemed she hadn't heard Hermione at all, that she would lunge again, that the grief had eaten her alive—but then the blade slipped from her fingers and dropped into the blood-soaked dirt with a soft, wet clink. 

Her hands dropped limply to her thighs, her fingers twitching uselessly, her breath rattling in and out like someone surfacing from drowning. She didn't speak. Couldn't. Her silver eyes—glassy, too wide, unfocused—lifted slowly, unsteadily, toward the gallows where Draco and Titus were now working furiously to cut the ropes, Theo's unconscious body already beginning to sag into Draco's arms, Blaise crumpling into Titus's grip like a man made of glass.

Her lips parted, but no sound came out—only a trembling exhale, a wordless prayer wrapped in disbelief.

And all she could do was watch. All she could do was feel.

Draco worked with brutal efficiency, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked carved from stone, the muscles in his neck pulled taut with strain as he sliced cleanly through the rope coiled around Blaise's neck. The fibers snapped with a sickening tension, and Draco moved instinctively, catching his best friend's collapsing weight before it could strike the blood-soaked ground. Blaise's body was heavy in his arms, far too limp, far too silent. "I've got you, mate," he murmured, voice low and raw, more breath than sound, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile thread of life still clinging to the man in his arms. Blaise's head lolled against his shoulder, his skin the color of ash and streaked with grime and drying blood, but his chest—barely—rose and fell, each breath shallow and ghost-like. He was alive. For now.

Nearby, Titus mirrored his movements with grim precision, his hands slick with blood and rope fibers as he cradled Theo's body down from the gallows. Theo's weight sagged heavily against him, his head lolling at an unnatural angle, face swollen and nearly unrecognizable beneath layers of bruising and dried blood. His lips were tinged with blue, his pulse fluttering erratically beneath skin that felt too cold. He didn't flinch, didn't breathe. He lowered him gently onto the forest floor like he was something sacred, his fingers trembling as they brushed a matted curl from Theo's forehead. "Stay with me, Nott," he whispered, the words cracked and barely audible. "Don't make me bury you."

Then came the flash—sudden and searing—Ginny bursting through the line of trees, her wand blazing like a comet in the darkness. Her magic pulsed with such heat that the air shimmered around her, the ground beneath her boots smoldering with each step, her arrival less like a sprint and more like an eruption. She reached Blaise in seconds, collapsing to her knees beside him, her hands hovering, shaking, terrified to touch him and yet unable to stop. Her breath hitched, and her voice broke with it as she leaned close, brushing her fingers over his blood-matted curls. "Blaise," she breathed, barely more than a sob. "I'm here. I'm here, my love. Please…"

Neville appeared moments later, his arrival quiet but precise, the calm at the eye of the storm. He knelt beside Theo without a word, his wand already in motion, glowing with soft pulses of diagnostic enchantments that danced over both bodies. The eerie light flickered over their battered forms, casting shadows on the torn skin and sunken eyes, the jagged angles of pain etched into every limb. His brows furrowed deeper with each scan, lips moving in a steady stream of incantations and muttered calculations, his focus unshakable even as blood soaked into his knees.

"They're alive," he finally said, though there was no triumph in his tone—only grim urgency. "Barely. Theo's pulse is faint, and Blaise—" he paused, glancing toward Ginny, who was now clutching Blaise's limp hand with both of hers, her tears falling freely onto his skin—"he's losing blood fast. We have minutes. Maybe."

Ginny shook her head violently, as if denial could undo the damage. Her fists clenched at her sides, nails cutting deep crescents into her palms. She turned to Neville with a look of unfiltered desperation, her voice shaking and fierce all at once. "Then do something," she pleaded, her tone cracking with grief. "Please, Neville. You have to save him."

"I will," he replied without hesitation, his voice quiet but resolute as he placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "But not here. Not like this. We need to move now."

Draco, still holding Blaise against his chest, lifted his gaze. His voice was hard, clipped. "Luna. Hermione. Ginny. Get Pansy and the children out. Apparate back to the safehouse. We'll bring them separately—Theo and Blaise need stabilization before we risk transporting them."

But Ginny didn't move. Her eyes burned like coals as she tightened her grip on Blaise's hand, as though by sheer will she could force him to remain tethered to her. "No," she said, her voice flat and sharp as tempered steel. "I'm not leaving. Not him."

"Ginny—" Draco began, but the look she gave him was enough to stop the world.

"I said no," she snarled, the air around her flaring with magic, the leaves at her feet curling inward from the sudden rise in heat. "I am not leaving him."

There was a pause—brief but heavy—and then Draco nodded once, tight-lipped. "Fine. But you stay clear of Neville. Don't get in his way."

The group moved as one, a blur of motion and spellwork, their hands slick with blood and mud, their eyes hard with focus. Every movement was calculated, desperate, necessary. The forest still watched, silent and unblinking, the lingering echo of violence hanging in the branches above like smoke.

Behind them, the corpses of the executioners lay twisted and forgotten at the base of the gallows, their eyes staring into nothing, their limbs splayed at odd angles. The blood pooled thick and black beneath them, soaking into the roots of the trees like an offering. The forest would remember what had been done here—but the battle to pull Blaise and Theo back from death had only just begun.