a-glasshalfempty:
What had changed? It was a good question. One that Fabian didn’t have the answer to. “I don’t know,” Fabian admitted, somewhat disappointed in himself. Of course, there was no way he could reasonably know, if even the leaders of their organisation hadn’t seen this coming, but still, it felt like some kind of failure.
He nodded in agreement with her hypothesis. “Probably a bit of both. They’ll have a goal, but if I were them, I’d want to cause as much chaos as I could to disguise it.” Which wasn’t a particularly reassuring thought. Were you wasting your time if you got distracted patching up the small wounds all whilst there was some huge internal haemorrhage going on? But how were you expected to ignore the little wounds when they could be Death Eater’s torturing innocents, killing them. An impossible situation, and one that did not get easier the more you thought about it. In times like this he had to rely on instinct and hope for the best.
“Good.” He glanced down at her again. Merlin, she was so small. Over a foot shorter than he was, and whilst he knew that was no indication of how powerful or competent she was, it still made his heart constrict to think of her in danger. “Good.” He repeated. He was glad she was safe, at least for now.
With her question about elsewhere he was reminded of his personal quest to find Gideon. “I didn’t catch too much trouble on my way here. The atrium was struck pretty hard, but whatever they want, it’s not there.” He hesitated for a moment. “Do you know the way to the Department of Mysteries?” He asked. For a moment he considered being transparent with his wish to find his twin, but it felt too selfish to say out loud. “Lot’s of dangerous stuff there. Powerful things. It could be the target.” It wasn’t a lie, just not the whole truth.
So they were all going in blind. Hestia’s objective for the day expanded; the first priority was still to stay alive, but if they could find out what the Death Eaters were after, why they had decided to move from the shadows… If she could go back to headquarters with anything more useful than battle stories, that was a win.
It felt like one of the riddles her father had used to give her, only with lethal consequences. The prize was no longer a candy bar or a new book, and failure would be met with more than a disappointed look. And Fabian was right. If they were clever, and unfortunately they were, they’d sow enough chaos to keep the Order from putting it together. “They wouldn’t attack just to do so,” she agreed. “Make one area chaotic enough, people will flock there, leaving other places undefended. The rest are free to move as they please.”
The atrium was a clever landing spot. It was always populated enough that it was where the collateral damage would be the hardest, and those coming to help would get stuck in the fighting. Part of her wanted to go help, her mind immediately going to the civilians, but Fabian was right. Hestia had no idea what was at the Department of Mysteries, but whatever it was – she didn’t want it in the hands of the Death Eaters.
“I can get us there. Shouldn’t be too far, actually, but if that’s where they’re going, it’ll be defended.” For once, she was grateful for having spent the past year running errands. The countless runs had left her with a feeling for the maze. She considered the quickest route. “This way.”
They barely made it a few twists before she saw the tell-tale sign of flashing silver. Had it been a few months ago, Hestia might have frozen. But now, she surprised both herself and the masked Death Eater by going on the offensive. The curse came out a bit too loud and a bit too frantic, but she mustered enough momentum to hit him, sending him stumbling.