Late that night, Rhiannon awoke in the dark tent. Her friends still breathed deeply, indicating they’d likely been asleep for a good couple of hours or more – but something was off. She wasn’t quite sure what, but she’d been woken by something, and for lack of anything better to do she wrinkled her nose and took in a deep lungful of air. Almost immediately she began to cough, and a cold, leaden weight settled through her bones and blood as she recognised the scent. Smoke. Smoke, everywhere, thick and cloying, it was as if she were surrounded by its source.
Rhiannon turned to wake her friends, struggling to fight down the blind panic that fizzed in her gut, and in her rush she collided with Dudley who awoke suddenly, his crooked nose twitching and amber-brown eyes wide and fearful. “That’s – that’s not campfire smoke,” he whispered, his voice a little fuzzy with sleep. He rolled over and began to prod Ginny, while Rhiannon tore herself free of her sleeping bag and shook Luna’s shoulder fiercely.
“Rhi?” Luna murmured, interrupted by a yawn as they woke. “Wha’s goin’ on?”
Rhiannon shook her head, she had no idea – all she knew was that it was wrong. She gestured to Dudley and moved on to Hermione, asleep with her head on Luna’s stomach. Hermione tended to be a heavy sleeper, and for a ridiculous moment Rhiannon strongly considered licking her awake, before Hermione finally grumbled her way into consciousness. She didn’t even get as far as questioning, though, and went very stiff and still as she drew her first wakeful breaths in. “Oh, god – that’s not normal smoke,” she whispered, and Rhiannon lurched back to let her sit upright as everyone now fumbled into wakefulness and disentangled themselves from their sleeping bags, either picking up on the situation themselves or informed of it by a more functional Dudley.
Someone put a hand on Rhiannon’s shoulder as she stood, swinging anxiously from side to side and wringing her hands in a completely disoriented state of unresolvable fear, and in her terror Rhiannon whirled to face them, striking them in the chest as she would an attacker by simple reflex.
“Oof – Merlin, Rhiannon, I’m sorry,” Remus gasped, as he was sent sprawling onto the threadbare carpeted floor. Rhiannon blinked owlishly, and it took a moment to register who he even was before it all flooded back to her and she shrank from him, guilty and embarrassed. Behind him she could identify Sirius, Mr. Weasley and the twins in the entrance along with the rest, but Bill and Charlie were nowhere to be seen.
“Good, you’re all awake – of course you are, wolf noses. Everyone, get up, shoes on, get out. Heads down and follow me.” Remus told them all as Rhiannon slunk forward to huddle under his arm, his voice pitched low and soft in the night-time quiet, but fragile with a strong undercurrent of fear.
“What’s going on? I woke up and smelled smoke,” Dudley asked, his voice tight with nerves as he struggled to pull his boots on. Ginny, now awake and ready, swatted his shoulder gently and he gave up in the fruitless task to let her help.
“We’re not sure,” Arthur whispered back. “Something’s wrong – fires over in camp two, marchers spreading this way, chanting. Amos thinks it’s just rowdy Irish fans but my gut tells me otherwise, same with your godfathers here. Bill and Charlie are off trying to warn others, get a suppression team together.”
There was a scream from outside, and Sirius flinched, half-covering his face with his hands. Remus edged away from Rhiannon to comfort him, and the teenagers shared an anxious glance – even the human ones could sense the genuine terror in their caretakers’ manner, and that frightened them, so used to seeing adults as strong and unmoving. They finished getting ready as quickly as they could, still clad in pyjamas but with coats or cloaks about their shoulders for warmth.
“Sirius, Remus, boys,” Arthur addressed the twins along with the two adults, encompassing the group in a gesture. “I need you to look after everyone else, I trust you to take it seriously. Get out of the camp-ground and into the woods, get to a stream – any source of water, really. Go quiet and careful, ground’s still soaked and slippery, keep your heads down and whatever you do, whatever you see, do not engage. Stay together, stay out of sight. Clear?” he told them, all of the group flinching as the sounds drifting from outside grew wilder, more frightening. Screams and shouts, laughter – but not the laughter of a celebrating party, and under it all a sick rhythmic chant... Arthur was right and something had gone terribly wrong. Rhiannon’s nose twitched and a numbness began to spread through her veins as she caught a deep lungful of fresh smoke, carried straight through the open doorway on the wind. Dudley was right – it was different, even the choking smoke of the forest fire had smelled clean while this was... filthy, polluting, dragging her under with clawed hands.
Arthur hurried from the tent, leaving Sirius, Remus and the twins to shepherd the six younger teenagers. Outside the night sky was heavy with smoke and lit by scattered firelight, looking like some war-scene from the Lord of the Rings, and Rhiannon stumbled as she tried to follow on after the others, her instinctive terror growing from so deep a root in herself that it knocked her consciousness off-kilter.
Someone caught her hand, waved theirs in front of her face, but Rhiannon could barely breathe let alone respond, she wasn’t really in her body, she was running like a scared pup, and even that nudge startled her. She clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes closed as tears poured from them, too-quick shallow breaths stinging her lungs though felt at a distance as she dragged in smoky air.
“It’s no use, you know how she is about fire,” Dudley said, his hushed whisper echoing from somewhere nearby, but Rhiannon heard him only distantly and barely recognised the voice as she shook and sobbed and fought against the firm grip on her wrists. “You know her usual jinxes, there’s one we can use on her eyes as well, you add totalus for this – shut up, George, I can’t cast spells but I’m fairly sure I know more about these ones than you do. Hermione, can you do it?”
There was a rustle of movement, and someone spoke in a low voice. Rhiannon saw a flash of green-and-violet light for a brief moment, before three of her senses were snuffed entirely. She was alone, in the dark – no. No, not alone, someone had her hand and she forced herself to ground from that, anchored to her body by the warm hand in hers. They stumbled along, and Rhiannon had to hope they were quiet because she had no sense of sight or sound. Eventually, they must have reached the forest, as warm hands motioned for Rhiannon to stop before she collided with anyone. Her vision was returned to her, as was about half of her hearing, and she shook herself in disgust. By no means could she be considered fine or well, but she was at least only sniffling quietly now and a little dissociated – a far cry from what she saw on the faces of her friends around her.
“Wha- wh- what was it?” Rhiannon asked them, her voice a rough croak that sounded too loud in the dim woodland.
Sirius shook his head, visibly rattled, and Remus answered for him. “Death Eaters – or people that used to be,” he said grimly, with an anxious look at the teenagers. “Nothing they should have had to see. It’s... well, maybe you learned about the Klu Klux Klan in school... think, one of their rallies. They’ve all got drunk and gone marching, setting things on fire, people... I’m sorry. I... You’ll probably see the aftermath when it’s safe for us to leave, but for now... we’ve got to find somewhere to hide, and keep an ear out for help or for trouble. Hermione left the nasiminus totalus in place, it all stinks of smoke – wind’s blowing straight through the camp-ground and out into the forest, and we need you as sharp as we can manage... I’m sorry, I really am.”
Rhiannon’s heart lurched and she thought she might be sick. She’d learned only the ‘age appropriate’ material about the KKK in school given she’d been eleven when she finished with Muggle school, but being an avid reader, she’d found the rest in the library. If that was what was happening here then... It felt as if she were swamped in a rising tide of blood, the smell hot in her nostrils despite being entirely imagined, images of dead bodies hung and torn scattered across her mind. That was what happened when the KKK got drunk – and these ones were Death Eaters instead. They had magic, not just knives, guns, ropes and torches.
Since she had come to Hogwarts, Rhiannon had been relatively aware that prior to the event that orphaned her, the magical world of the British Isles had been gripped by war and terror. She’d even been terrorised herself by the man responsible for all that darkness and fear. But this was the first time she truly got a sense of what that might have been like, an inkling of how fragile that decade of peace had been – how fragile it was now, with Peter Pettigrew loose and seeking to revive Voldemort. Maybe the Death Eaters knew and were celebrating his impending resurrection, maybe they were simply drunk and throwing their weight around, but either way this was the first time the war had felt real to her. Like it could reach out and touch her, pull her headlong into its deadly chaos. And for all the fear Rhiannon had suffered in her life, she’d never felt fear like that.
Hermione huddled between Rhiannon and a glassy-eyed Luna, shaking and crying silently, tears flooding down cheeks smudged with soot. Niniane stood ash-faced and still, staring into nothingness with the twins on either side, while Ginny turned her face into Dudley’s shoulder so that nobody might see her cry, and Dudley himself rested his face in her hair while his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Rhiannon had no idea how to comfort them, not having seen what they did, all she could do was offer the comfort of her presence and touch to Hermione in the dark forest while her mind began to wander, seeking out information about the horror they’d left behind them. Firelight coloured the night sky even with the camp-ground concealed behind a ridge, the scrubby trees of the thin forest stood like scorched skeletons against the hellish red-orange.
Something was out of place, and even with her dulled hearing and lack of olfactory input Rhiannon caught the faint sound of someone’s out-of-place footsteps hurrying from somewhere behind them, and she whirled to face them, a growl already rising in her chest, her lips already curling back as she sought for who might be approaching them. In that moment her wand was the furthest thing from her mind – Rhiannon would have torn an enemy apart with her bare hands before she let them touch her family. But she recognised the figure, his hair greyish in the tainted moonlight, face streaked with soot, hands and clothes spattered with something that, had Rhiannon still had a sense of smell, she would have recognised as blood. His grey-blue eyes were wild and white-rimmed as he ran full-tilt into the trees, and even with dulled hearing Rhiannon heard the panicked rasp of his breath, catching in his chest as he skidded to a halt before them.
“Malfoy?” Dudley asked, raising his head from Ginny’s hair and curling his lip at the blond youth. “What’re you doing? Would’ve thought you’d be right up in it, or at least safe from them.”
Draco growled, sounding almost feral with fear, and he cast an anxious look back over his shoulder. “Leave the thinking to those better qualified,” he spat, though the venom in his voice wasn’t really aimed at Dudley. No, he’d been truly terrified by whatever he’d seen in the fire-torn campground as well. And Rhiannon didn’t need her sense of smell to guess that the blood – now he was closer, she could recognise it as blood – on his clothes wasn’t his.
Rhiannon put a hand out, gesturing for Dudley to calm, and left Hermione to Luna’s quiet comforting as she approached Draco, as carefully as she might have done a cornered dog. “You – y-y-y-your father,” she said, hardly even needing to ask. If it was former Death Eaters terrorising the camps, his father must have been involved – oh, he’d been acquitted at the end of the first war, claiming he’d been under the Imperius curse, but Rhiannon didn’t believe that for a moment. “He’s out there, isn’t he?”
Draco shook his head, but it wasn’t a denial – it seemed more that he wished he could deny it. “He – he had his wand, he was hurting her – he – he told me to run and I did, and I turned back, there was this awful red flash and – he killed someone, right in front of me. He wasn’t t-t-t-t-telling me to run so I’d be safe.” he whispered hoarsely, and something in his pale eyes looked broken, almost dead even. Perhaps his innocence – if he’d had any left. Perhaps his belief.
“He just didn’t want you to see what he’d do,” Remus finished grimly, shaking his head. “Best not be wandering alone – either someone’ll see you and assume you’re with your father, or there’ll be some Death Eater too drunk to tell who you are. Stick with us – assuming you’re alright travelling with a werewolf, that is.” he added, with a bitter jab as an afterthought. Rhiannon winced – she’d forgotten to tell Remus that Draco had been alright so far since their confrontation at the end of the previous school year.
Draco shook his head and snorted, sounding wryly amused despite himself. “I- I’m b-beginning to realise werewolves are preferable to Death Eaters,” he replied. “Uh – unless you’re both. Greyback, he’s -”
“Nothing like us,” Dudley cut him off sharply. Had he been in his lupine shape, his hackles would’ve been bristling as he glared at Draco, but he cast an anxious eye back at a cowering Remus – he wasn’t being defensive just for his own sake, but for the most vulnerable member of their pack. “He – he takes an animal, and makes it a monster, it’s fucked up, we’re – we’re nothing alike.”
Draco shook his head and let out a pent-up breath. “Takes an animal and makes it a monster, that’s – yeah, I think that’s – maybe the best way I’ve heard him described. They’re good at making monsters.” he replied quietly, as he fell into step with the small party moving deeper into the woods. There was no question in anyone’s mind about who he meant by ‘they’.
This time it was Sirius who motioned them to a halt deeper in the woods, tilting his head back and forth anxiously. In the holidays they’d spent together, Rhiannon had learned his hearing was almost as sensitive as hers thanks to bleedthrough of traits from his Animagus shape – and his hearing was untouched by audiminus like hers was. “What is it, Sirius?” Remus whispered, clearly concerned for his partner. Sirius shook his head and closed his eyes, then carried on trying to find whatever sound had caught his attention. Then, moments later, his eyes flew open and he whirled around, pointing through the brush toward where now Rhiannon too could hear a soft dragging sound, like unwilling feet through leaf-litter, accompanied by oddly high-pitched grunts of exertion.
Rhiannon limped forward, a little slower and weaker than usual without the cane she’d left behind in her hurry but determined to find the source of the sound. Dudley was hot on her heels, and Sirius had shaken off Remus’ concerned embrace to follow them both. Rhiannon growled softly, frustrated at the slow going, and felt for her wand she’d stuck in the waistband of her pyjama pants, intending to remove the nasiminus and audiminus jinxes, but to her horror she found nothing but cotton and elastic. She stopped so suddenly Dudley ran into her back and the pair of them went sprawling, and she was so panicked she almost bit him in fury at the sudden touch. Her wand, her wand, the comforting conduit that channeled power like a deep river – but it wasn’t in the leaves, and it wasn’t in her pyjamas, it hadn’t fallen into her underwear or even her boots – it was just gone. Her throat began to choke up, breath coming too fast and stinging her lungs with smoke she couldn’t smell as panic overtook her. She didn’t have her wand, she didn’t have her claws – she was defenceless against the terrorists rampaging and setting fires less than a kilometre from them – and that meant one less person to defend her pack.
A heavy hand settled on her shoulder, and this time Rhiannon did bite it by reflex, frustratingly blunt teeth meeting on muscle and fat over bone. Its owner swore and prodded their thumb firmly into the hinge of her jaw, forcing Rhiannon to release their wrist, and belatedly Rhiannon realised the owner of the offending hand was Dudley. He flicked his hand, liquid falling free into the leaves with a soft chorus of wet spattering sounds, and she felt a surge of guilt – she’d drawn blood. “Christ, Rhi,” he hissed. “Settle the fuck down, you’re gonna jump out your own skin in a second, it’s just me. What’s wrong?”
Rhiannon shook her head, staring wide-eyed at him, her eyes wandering somewhere around his forehead unable to focus on anything in particular. She held up her empty hands, then shook her pyjama shirt to indicate that nothing fell out of it, and Dudley swore again. “Your wand?” he asked, to which she nodded wordlessly. “Shit. Shit, shit – not good – wait, sssssh, look – over there,” he whispered, pointing suddenly through the trees on an angle to where they’d been heading. In her panic, Rhiannon had entirely forgotten why she’d set off with him and Sirius in the first place, but the sight of the small figure just visible to her in the dim light reminded her.
With a low growl, Rhiannon scrambled to her feet and set off again, doggedly blazing a track through the scattered undergrowth and spindly trees toward the little figure. It was difficult to make out details in the moonlight, tainted with smoke as it was, but as Rhiannon drew closer she recognised the figure as a house elf – and at closer range still, one she had met before. Winky was forcing themself to walk onward into the forest, though some invisible force held them back and it was that battle against the binding magic that created the odd dragging sound Rhiannon had heard earlier.
“W-winky!” Rhiannon gasped, but the house elf carried on dragging themself onwards.
“No – no – there is bad, bad, bad wizards about – bad wizards – people high in the air, blood, biting flames, shriekings – no, no, this one must hide,” Winky muttered, flapping their hands anxiously – it looked as if they were physically having to claw their way forward through thei air.
“Why can’t it walk?” Dudley whispered to Rhiannon, as the house-elf continued hauling themself away. “What – what even is it?”
Rhiannon growled and bared her teeth, wordless still and unable to express how much it upset her to have Winky dehumanised the way they did themself all the time. Sirius shook his head and swatted her lightly, clearly indicating she should back down. He opened and closed his mouth several times, his throat bobbing as he struggled for words. “H-house, elf,” he replied hoarsely. Distantly, Rhiannon realised that was the first time she’d heard him speak all night. “They, must not – have asked p-permis-sion to hide. Magic holding ‘em back.”
Sirius’ speech was stilted and strained, much as it had been the night they’d first met him, but Dudley seemed to get the message clearly enough and he shook his head in disgust.
“That’s... all kinds of fucked up,” he murmured. “Should we – I don’t know, help them somehow?”
Sirius shook his head. “Can’t,” he replied shortly. “G-got to look after you lot first. Let’s – get – back.” he added, and gestured for the two of them to follow as he padded back through the trees, hunch-backed and with his head swinging from side to side as he tracked scents and sounds much like they usually would. As a result, he was again the first one to notice something off and he halted so quickly that the two werewolves almost slid into his back again. He held up his hand for silence, and Rhiannon saw his hands curl into claws, saw the tension spread through his shoulders and spine, and as a stroke of moonlight illuminated the side of his face in sharp relief, she saw the horrified disbelief on his face. “N-no,” he whispered hoarsely. “Yo- you’re d-dead.”
Rhiannon didn’t have time to ask him what he meant, as he whirled and knocked the two of them sideways and behind a larger tree with a strength she didn’t know he possessed. Through the sparse trees she saw what had caught his attention, and as Sirius’ rough, too-quick breaths echoed in her ears she watched as a figure, silhouetted black against the firelight behind the ridge on which he stood, draw something from his pocket and point it skyward. A great bellow echoed through the scrubby forest, “MORSMORDRE!”, and as Rhiannon watched in horror green smoke billowed from what she now knew to be a wand and spilled upward into the sky, forming a shape just visible to her through the thin trees – but she would have recognised it from her books anyway as a symbol that had not been cast in thirteen years. The Dark Mark, Voldemort’s sigil.
