Not needing to be told a third time with the wand pointed so close, Miranda stepped over to the table and placed the mug down. When Musgrave finally reached for it and began to take it to his mouth, she watched intently, nervous and anticipatory. Just a few sips and he’d soon be sleeping on their kitchen floor. Miranda would then have completed a job the aurors couldn’t manage with all of their training.

“Just chocolate then?” Years ago when she’d began researching legilimency, Miranda had stumbled upon an article about lying and the tricks. She’d never been any good at it, quite terrible in fact. However, one thing had stood out in what she’d read. Never answer a question with a yes or no when lying. That was the way to make it the most obvious. And with Lawrence Musgrave watching her like she was prey, Miranda certainly needed to be careful.

“Hot chocolate.” She said quietly, pulling her small dressing gown tighter around her body. Lawrence’s presence brought a chill to the otherwise warm house and she felt decidedly vulnerable in nothing more than the small piece of silk material that barely covered her.

More thoughts of violence and his suggestion made the witch take a step back towards the kitchen counter.
“What am I supposed to suggest, Lawrence? You won’t let me use legilimens to help you, you’d never accept a potion either. All you have left is chocolate.”

---

---

“Drink it.”

The demand was uttered with a rasp.  Lawrence stared at Miranda, the mug of hot chocolate on the table between them.  Behind him the owl hooted angrily and fluttered, pecking and clawing at the back door.  The tatty wizard ignored it.  He watched Miranda’s body language through a paranoid gaze while the mug steamed into the cooling kitchen air.

“If I can’t trust you to make hot chocolate,” Musgrave explained, “then how do you expect me to trust you in my head?”
“I can bring them here, right into this homely little kitchen of yours and make you beg.  You will cry for everything you hold dear.  I have made men thrice your size call for their mothers just for being close to them.”  Lawrence’s hand, complete with wand and fingerless green glove gestured out in the direction of the kitchen window, where a mile or so away a dementor was approaching.  “And they are in my head constantly.  Why am I not insane?  How am I still able to hold conversation? Why have I not been robbed of my magic?”
More of them now, not just the one.  Lawrence could feel the hairs of the back of his neck prickle.
“Come on Andy!” Her former classmate exclaimed, kicking the kitchen table leg forcefully, some of the hot chocolate spilling onto the table and the legs scraping noisily across the stone floor. “Not so fucking clever now are you?!”

“Drink it.” Lawrence’s gaze bore into Miranda’s as she stood against the countertop. Moving into a house with such a small kitchen suddenly seemed so ridiculous to the witch that couldn’t put enough space between her and the wizard she’d stupidly invited past Ignan’s defences and into her home.

He wouldn’t bring them close. He’d not risk it and being caught. Miranda tried to hold these thoughts in her mind as she stared between him and the hot chocolate. She’d learnt since last time and his attitude now that his threats were quite empty. If Lawrence wanted to hurt her he would have already. Yet Miranda was stood uninjured and simply nervous.

The kicking the kitchen table did make Miranda jump before she scowled at Lawrence. She found herself more angry than scared and as he questioned her intelligence, her eyes narrowed.

“You’re the fucking idiot, Lawrence. You know you can’t trust me and yet you show up to my house because you are desperate. Perhaps you haven’t got to trust me and you can’t because you know as soon as I get the chance I’ll get the aurors here. But you have no choice. If you want help you won’t lay a finger on me.” Miranda took a careful step forward, “I am a healer, Lawrence. Not a poisoner.” Her hand came forward to push the mug towards him. “You can’t trust me but you knew that when you skulked behind the bushes waiting for my husband to leave.”

Professor Storm made his way steadily down Fawley Lane, his breath condensing before him. His grey coat was suitably muggle to avoid him a second glance back in Godric’s Hollow for this trip, and despite them now living in Hogsmeade, he’d not thought to put on anything different. Of course he could apparate to the nearest shop which also stocked Muggle newspapers in the village, but it was a routine. Sunday morning which allowed him time to stretch his legs and see what had changed in the fresh air, and Miranda time to smoke and finish another cup of coffee without him under her feet.

Under one arm was a paper bag, the newspaper stuck out the back behind his elbow, loosely rolled up. As Miranda would tease, he wouldn’t be able to do half of it, but he enjoyed the challenge. A lot of what was written in the Muggle newspaper was very strange, but he found the more he read the more he understood some of the references both students and staff made. All in all, he was feeling rather optimistic that morning. New house, new start, time away from the castle...

His foot slipped on the cobbles, and he stumbled, looking down in surprise. These were good, comfortable boots he wore when he taught outside in the winter because of their grip. A slick of ice had caught him out, which was strange since he’d been reflecting on the journey out only twenty minutes before that it would be spring soon and the ground was thawing.

The Professor’s gaze followed the lane towards Kaldfjord, where frost was bright white upon the front wall. His rare optimism was rapidly retreating, and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

Dementors

He gingerly and swiftly negotiated the last fifty yards to the door, passing through the front gate with the newly carved runes either side of it, glistening under blue white frost. The front door opened with little resistance to the right hand on the wood and the door pulled itself open, the back door causing a through-draft despite every door in the house being closed. The paper bag hit the floor, muffled by a yell from Miranda and the sound of a bang from the kitchen.

Lawrence approached, sucking a cold breath into his aching lungs in anger at Miranda’s description, wand poised to attack. The click of the front gate caused him to stop, and he looked from the direction of it to Miranda and back again.

He’d considered all manner of possible end games for this situation before getting here. Hurting Miranda, just enough to force her to help him, unthinkable violence against her which he had ruled out as an unlikely win of any efficient help, or abducting her. Not realising the woman before him was an attuned legilimens, able to see that sudden flash of decision from Lawrence, the image of her being dragged out of her own back door, he did not anticipate her hex at close range.

One of the kitchen chairs went over as his handless arm scrambled for balance, and at once the kitchen door sprung open. The thoughts from the dementors now right upon them were mixed with his own as to how to get away from the kitchen table which flew at him with all the force of a dragon’s tail across the kitchen. The table legs snagged upon the flagtone floor, tipping it up, providing Lawrence with a fortunate cover for just enough time to spring the back door open, booting the angry post-owl in his lurch out of the door. A plume of feathers and wings attacked him just outside the back door, hooting angrily.

With a crack the bird lay motionless, but the curse from Miranda’s husband threw him to the frozen ground beside its bloody body. The world spun around him and his lungs ached, winded. He couldn’t breathe, but his cavalry had arrived, drifting either side of him were two dementors, closing in on the tiny back door of the cottage.

The current state of Musgrave’s mind meant that so many of his thoughts escaped, floating like cloudy wisps into Miranda’s as she stood in such close proximity to him in the previously cosy kitchen. These thoughts had been voices, dementor voices, Lawrence’s own voice. Yet when the gate to their front garden creaked open and Miranda’s gaze met her visitor’s, vivid images shot into her mind of him taking her down and dragging her from the kitchen.

A split second to react meant the first spell to come to mind was blasted towards Lawrence. She yelled the incantation and pointed her wand, sending not Lawrence, but the kitchen table flying towards the kitchen door which he dived out of. The table slammed against the wall and Ignan sprinted past her outside as the fearsome chill began to engulf the house.

Hairs on her arms and neck sprang to attention and tiny goose pimples formed as the barely clothed witch felt the familiar dread of the dementor. She quickly followed Ignan to the door, nearly tripping over the upturned chairs, to see Lawrence on the floor protected by two dementors.

Years of being inside the minds of the tortured had never prepared her for the onslaught of paralysing fear and torment that the dementors brought. Her body began to shake in the cold, Maya’s screams mingled with those of Jonathon Elliot torturing her ears. The screaming didn’t stop, Jonathon’s yells now joined by her own, drifting from Ignan’s mind. Lawrence’s own thoughts engulfed her, causing a tirade of screams, of fear, of hate overpowering her mind.

It was too much, the noise in her mind blinding her. Against the wall, Miranda sank down to the floor, hands over her ears, tears streaming down her face as she silently begged it to stop.

Ignan Storm didn’t think, he just acted. There was nothing good about this situation. Miranda was threatened, she had thrown a (rather well aimed and effective) hex, there were dementors in the garden, a dead owl and Lawrence Musgrave. He stepped out onto the stone slabs beyond the back doorstep, aware of Miranda sinking down behind him. What little Sunday morning light had been there with the rising sun, was now gone. The cold bit at every inch of exposed flesh though the adrenaline prevented Ignan feeling a thing.

The wordless disarming spell sent Musgrave on a roll over his wand arm to keep a grip, and the first of the dementors moved in straight for Ignan, who would have dodged instinctively would it not leave the back door and his wife exposed to the dementors without him between them. Gritting his teeth, Ignan conjured his patronus to push them back, trying his best to visualise their wedding day, laughing with Miranda about terrible, verging on socially impolite jokes, lying in each other’s arms, her laugh-

Lawrence had made it back to a crouch, and the curse hurled at him took deflection, and ricocheted back off Ignan to the owl’s carcass, exploding and covering the garden with a bloody spray of bird innards. The next blast came forwards as a great fireball, and Ignan threw up a shield, his other hand raising to protect his face and balance against the force it landed. He was forced inside, stumbling beside his wife as he held the barrier between them.

“Miranda!” Ignan snapped urgently, although well aware his wife was in great distress behind him, his mind had noticed the shattered mug and the puddle of hot chocolate on the kitchen floor. “He’s vulnerable, how?”

Lawrence peeled himself up off the cold ground, head pounding, whole body aching as he dragged in a breath, and then another. Miranda’s husband was fighting three sources, Lawrence could hear Miranda sobbing. The moment her husband was there she had dissolved into a weak puddle of an excuse for an intelligent and rather beautiful witch. The fact delighted Lawrence far more than was polite.

The second curse at the wizard forced the older man back into the cottage, and lit the edge of the thatched roof above them. The sight was enough to bring back fond memories of when he’d set light to the Three Broomsticks down the road. Shufflebottom had pulled him away that night, told him he’d done enough. Willy had been gone weeks now, and Lawrence had no conscience to interrupt him. No patronus to protect him from the direct thoughts of the dementors who came to him.

“What are you waiting for?!” Lawrence shouted at the two dementors who approached the doorway, their voices hungrily braying in his thoughts feast, feast, souls, feed. He regretted shouting at them as he folded double, falling back to one knee as he coughed. His own blood joined that of the owl’s on the frozen turf.

Miranda had said he was desperate. Perhaps he was. Men close to death were always desperate. Perhaps he had so few ‘friends’ in the world he had to resort to those he knew. His old classmates who he knew enough to manipulate if he could. Bridges burned so try to cross a few never built.
“Ugh.” His head was filled with more and more braying voices of hunger and rattled breaths. He was so cold, so fucking cold. More of them were coming. More than he could control.

Overwhelmed by the continued screams flooding her mind, Miranda was somewhat oblivious to what was happening around her. Her whole body was shaking under the onslaught of the fear and depression brought on by the dementors and the agonising screams in her head. She’d come across dementors before. Back in Norway she’d been useless against them but their effect hadn’t been this strong. Lawrence Musgrave hadn’t been there with his mind open to her.

“Miranda!” the voice shot through the screams and the healer tried to focus her mind on her husband’s voice. But she could hear the dementors. She could hear their need to feed. She felt Lawrence.

“He…” she desperately tried to shut out the screams, not realising she was shouting. “He can’t control them.” Her breathing was laboured as she tried to focus on what was happening around her and not what she could hear.


“Me.” His vulnerability was his desperation. But she needed to stop the screams. “He needs my help.” She winced, screwing her features up and hands on her head as more screams overwhelmed her mind.

“You have to stop them!” Miranda suddenly yelled, trying to move to stand up. “I am the only person alive who can help you, Lawrence!” Her voice was so loud, loud enough to compensate for the screams in her mind. “Call them back!”

It might not have been exactly the line Ignan had been hoping for, but the information was far more interesting as Miranda yelled. Ignan reached out, pulling his shorter wife to her feet with his left hand and arm, drawing her close as he had back in Norway. He hated to see her like this, but he wasn’t going to win against Musgrave and the dementors without help. Miranda wasn’t a competent witch when it came to defenses, but she could raise help in some form, and she knew Musgrave. He’d been in the cottage long enough for her to make the hot chocolate. Miranda was a talented, very observant healer. Despite her moments of dim witted consideration, he trusted her judgement without question. The offer she made was not one he had considered, and if he questioned it, there was no chance of her succeeding.

“Listen to her Musgrave, if you call them off she can help you. No aurors… we’ll help you.” He called to the figure on one knee in the garden. Ignan itched to strike him down, whatever was wrong with the other wizard was robbing him of strength to duel, though there was little wrong with his individual strikes at Ignan. Lawrence had clearly been a very capable auror in a duel, and even incapacitated could hold his own.

Ignan’s augury patronus flickered into shape again, though not a clearly as before. Its long wings extended to either side before them, pecking at the dementors, keeping close.
“I can choke him,” Ignan muttered quietly to Miranda, left hand gripping her, “he doesn’t deserve your help.” He gritted his teeth.

Lawrence’s hood had fallen back onto his shoulders, so as he raised his head from his crouched position, he regarded Miranda and Ignan in the doorway through a veil of his unkempt curls.

“You won’t help me. You want to get in my head.” His wracking coughs bent him forward again, his arm stump pressed to the ground for support as he gasped for breath, shivering uncontrollably. He had to get up, had to get out of their garden so he could escape. He was exhausted. Throwing spells in his state had taken more out of him than he’d realised.
“They’re in my head. I don’t need anyone else in - my - head.”
”You’re out of your head, Musgrave. They’re going to overcome you. Miranda can heal you enough to control them.”

The bird-like patronus swooped at both the dementors, one after the other. He could feel the others approaching. If he called them back, he might be able to escape behind them, slip away. The longer he stayed here, the more likely it was that aurors would come.
“Why?” He asked in a ragged voice, dragging himself back to his feet clumsily.

It was intolerable to be in need of someone. The thought of being weak and reliant on another human was horrific. Right now Miranda had no choice but to rely on her husband’s defences. But what she was also relying on where her own wits, as incapacitated as she was. The screaming wasn’t lessening but perhaps her tolerance to it improved as she gripped onto Ignan and yelled at Musgrave. To her surprise, Ignan joined in but her mind barely registered his suggestion to strangle the wizard. The screams were too loud.

Why help him? Miranda gripped Ignan’s hand, willing herself to come past the screaming and impending doom that was racking her body.
“My…my OATH!” The witch screamed. “You know I can’t lie, Lawrence!” Ignan could. Ignan would.

There were more dementors further away. Mira could sense it. She dreaded it.
“Kill him,” she croaked. “please.”

“Lock the door.” Ignan instructed, clasping Miranda, making intense eye contact. “Lock the door and use your badge to summon aurors.”

He let go of her suddenly, stepping out, knowing full well that she might completely disobey him. There were garden pests to deal with. A glance up and above him, as his augurey circled wider, confirmed the thatched roof was on fire, and that only gave him a better idea than the first. A year ago, dementors had approached the Hogwarts walls a Branwen Strangely had directed students to dress rowan branches along it for protection. Several had fought them with patroni, but Ignan had gone with fire in the end. Dementors, direwolves, fire destroyed all, fire cleansed.

However much the dementors flanking them drew any sense of good out of him, he ignored. Despite the fact he could hear Miranda screaming his name, Katrine and Maya distantly beyond that (had he been more conscious to pay attention he might have noted), the shouts of family, of Johann and Camille, Gabrielle, joining a chorus of cries and pleading, calling his name, begging him to come away, he continued on. Lawrence Musgrave was weak, this was Ignan’s home. He had killed men greater than Lawrence Musgrave.

Six foot from the house, Ignan swung his wand in a steady circle about them, and fire sprung from the frozen earth, flames leaping three, four feet around them. Musgrave’s dementors were outside of it, they could not cross it unless they did so at his will, and Ignan very much doubted they or their master would be able to cross it easily.

The other side of the circle, fifteen or more feet across, Lawrence glowered, shoulders stooped, breathing heavily. The flames were swallowing up the oxygen in the atmosphere, and the heat and the smoke hindered his attempts to breathe against whatever infection he was plagued with.
“What’s this, old man?” Lawrence asked, gesturing outwards with both arms, buying time while he studied the foot of the flames nearby. The garden gate behind him was four feet beyond them in the opposite direction to the older wizard. Ignan did not reply. Lawrence felt the dementors keenly, though they did not cross to him, he could feel the rest arrive.

He showed no mercy to Lawrence, curse after curse, hex, parry, shield. The two of them threw each other to the floor, scrambled up, threw curses they both knew weren’t to be used without consequence. The Professor was soon sporting a gash down the left side of his face, Lawrence a bloody mouth, and the flames did not subside. Panting, sides heaving, Lawrence edged backwards, and Ignan read this as a reason to draw forward. His strikes were deflected aside keenly by Lawrence’s hawthorn wand until the older wizard rushed right at him and flicked his wand downwards.

The ground shook and the pair of them landed awkwardly, wrestling, bracing against each other. A hand short, Lawrence found himself throttled by Ignan Storm’s left hand locked around his throat. His bloody mouth opened and closed silently, unable to take breath or release what was in his lungs, burning. Ignan’s gaze from above him was still, calculated, cold and determined, and Lawrence felt his heart thumping in his ears above the cacophony of noise and delight of dementors sweeping over Hogsmeade. Their arrival would have the Ministry flooding in.

Fuck, the old bastard wasn’t going to give up. The edges of Lawrence’s vision were beginning to close in.

ATTACK HIM

There was a certain grip, just so that could crush a man’s windpipe. Ignan had tended to let his wand apply the pressure, but sometimes when he and Azorma had needed information, just enough pressure had loosened a tongue or two where veritaserum failed from occlumency and forced legilimency couldn’t quite break down the doors until the body was broken. It was a skill he had buried, not revisited, tried to forget when he realised how utterly horrific it was to take the life of another willingly. When he considered the consequences of those left behind, of what a life of wrong choices could lead to before one had a chance to repent.

“Kill him,” Miranda had said, even adding a polite please to her request, and here was Ignan knelt over this desperate, twisted, horrific excuse of a wizard, left hand clasped around his throat while right hand held left arm down, and left knee pinned Lawrence’s remaining right arm to the ground. It was a demented game of Twister really, only the older wizard had no idea what that was to compare.

Below him Musgrave’s expression had turned from defiance to shift to realisation that the pressure was not going to let up. For a split second, Ignan’s face twisted from effort into a smirk of delight at recognising a man who was beaten, and then came self realisation in the form of a hand on his shoulder. Cold, rattling breath against his sweating neck. Ignan felt his head nod forwards, and his grip loosened. He collapsed sideways, to Lawrence’s right, the world flickering out of focus, as if he had been thrown into the Hogwarts lake in the middle of winter, dragged under by ragged hands.

The flames around them puttered out.