The first change he felt was the change in the magic in the air. As he had come to realize with his Aura sight, magic was more profoundly affected by emotions than anyone could imagine. Just like the fake Moody had told Harry, most people would not be able to cause more than a nosebleed with the killing curse, because they do not put the needed strength of emotion behind it. Similarly, the Cruciatus would not actually affect the enemy much if it stemmed from righteous anger, you needed to actually mean it.
So, Darius felt the negative emotions and the dark curses linger in the air and immediately realized that the Death Eaters were on the move. The rest of the people in their group had all slept by now and he rushed out of his room to wake them.
“Up! Up! Up! Everyone get up now! The campground is under attack and I suspect it’s death eaters.”
People started to poke their heads out of the rooms and the adults were out in a flash.
“What do you mean? What Death Eaters? Where?” Amelia immediately asked.
Being the Head of the DMLE, it was her job to crack down on any dark wizards and the Death Eaters were on the top of her shit list. After all, her brother and his wife had been killed by them, leaving behind an orphaned Susan to be raised by her.
“I sensed some disturbance in the magic somewhere nearby and scryed to area to find people in complete Death Eater regalia apparating into the campground.” Darius quickly replied.
Scrying was a relatively simple yet at the same time very difficult magic to practice. Darius had only just begun learning it last year. It was a convenient excuse to explain away his knowledge about the Death Eaters.
The process itself was easy. He could take any decent sized vessel to do it. In case on was not at hand, he could either conjure one or just gauge out the earth with defodio and harden the sides with a duro. Then fill it with the water charm aguamenti. The final step was slightly magic intuitive. It required the caster to reach down beneath the earth’s crust with their magic and connect the water’s magic to that of the ley lines. With this done, depending on the amount of the magic put into the bowl, the user can scry any area except those with specific anti-scrying or otherwise extremely powerful wards. The art was initially practiced in Egypt and had gradually spread to many parts of the world. Some people even like to do it using mirrors but using water makes it easier to make the connection and keep it stable.
Amelia didn’t bother to ask any extra questions now and immediately pulled out her Auror badge and tapped on it with her wand and started speaking.
“I want a full contingent of Aurors to be here in the Quidditch World Cup campground asap. There are assailants suspected to be Death Eaters present here.”
Having said that, she immediately turned to the others. “Sirius, I need to head ahead now. Keep everyone safe.”
“Ah hell no! You aren’t going into the thick of it alone. Absolutely not. Even the best Aurors always work with a partner. I may not be an official Auror now but I sure as hell am not letting you walk into this alone.
Remus and Kaela stay with the children and keep them safe. I’ll go on with Amelia and see if we can’t round up some of these arseholes.”
The two of them rushed off into the night immediately. They could easily follow some of the screams coming from the center of the campgrounds. Problem was that the screams were getting closer. The Death Eaters were likely getting closer or they ad split up into splinter groups to terrorize more people. It sees Remus came to the same conclusion a moment later.
“Everyone gather around, we will be retreating back into this copse of trees to avoid the fight. I don’t want any of you hurt if I can help it. Darius and I will cover our retreat as we are the most accomplished fighters. I don’t know about you power of fighting style Kaela so you are free to assist as you can. Kids huddle up together and keep moving at a slow but constant pace. Now, move!” Remus had swiftly given out orders to keep the party safe.
“Just a moment, professor! Let me disillusion everybody so that we are even safer. I know a variant of the spell that will let us see each other so that we can stay together.” Darius quickly spoke up.
“Very well, do it. I know only the normal one and that would have made it hard for us to stick together properly.”
“Obscuratur Alternando!”
The disillusionment charm variant worked perfectly, and everyone was visible to each other in a ghostly shade of blue. They begun to move quickly and had almost made it to the edge of the tree line when they heard a loud scream from somewhere close by. It was a female and seemed to be in immense pain.
“Everyone keep moving. Remus, keep them safe. I’ll meet up with you guys as soon as possible. I’ll take a detour to check things out.” Before the others could protest, he rushed back towards the battle. He headed directly towards where he heard the scream from and the others could only keep moving on. Kaela was extremely worried about her son but managed to calm herself down. She was one of the few who knew at least some measure of his true abilities. She also knew that he had his emergency portkeys on him, so he shouldn’t come to any harm.
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Darius rushed in the direction of the screams as fast as he could. He knew it was not his fault at all that the Death Eaters had attacked. But he couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty at being unable to stop it in the end. He drew his wand, his actual wand, the yew and unicorn hair wand, not the one he used at Hogwarts. He was going to go full power right from the start. No pussy-footing around with these scum.
He reached a burning tent near which he spotted a group of 5 Death Eaters torturing a few muggles. Before they could take notice of him, not that he thought they would be able to see through his disillusionment, he fired off the piercing charm, pecutio at the back of the nearest Death Eater and watched with a sort of grim satisfaction as it pierced right through his spine and he dropped to the floor like a puppet that got its strings cut.
The others noticed their companion drop down and immediately became vigilant. They hadn’t seen where the spell came from but even those stupid louts knew that there was an enemy in the vicinity. Darius muffled his footsteps with a localised muffliato and quickly circled around to a slightly different location.
The second Death Eater was to get an overpowered reducto to the chest, but he managed to move at the last second. Instead of hitting his chest and caving it in and ending his life immediately the spell took his entire left shoulder and the hand off in a splatter of blood and gore. Darius knew this would give him nightmares later but managed to center himself with his occlumency for now. It would be very dangerous to lose focus in the middle of the battlefield and he was not going to make such a rookie mistake now. Luckily or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it, the man passed away seconds later due to loss of blood. Meanwhile, he employed the same muffling tactic to change his position again. He might have frozen up if this was his first time on the field, but this is what he had practiced dozens of times in the RoR. In fact, he had practiced something very nearly the same scenario once, where he had the advantage of surprise on his side and he had to ambush a group of 4 death eaters, these practices stood him good stead now.
Darius realised then that he would need to capture some of these scum alive as well. He could hand them over to Madam Bones and she would wring out as much information from them as possible. So, he switched tactics from incapacitation to capture.
“Flamma Flagella!” The fire whip spell neatly caught two more of the bastards but the third one managed to apparate away just in time.
“Fulmen!” The lightning spell promptly shocked them unconscious. He didn’t release it at high power or the spell would be capable of frying them into charred husks. It was a powerful spell which was considered borderline dark. But from his studies he knew that wasn’t true. This misconception came up because like the unforgivable, it was assumed that this spell required a strong sense of hate and destruction to power it. But that was not true at all. Ancient wizards did not understand the science behind lightning and electricity and just powered their spells with raw power. If he used his understanding of lightning, he could use the spell with half as much of the power required with twice the effectiveness.
He wisely summoned the portkeys they had on their person and destroyed them with the blasting curse, confringo. Both the Death Eaters had two each. One was some small object on their person and the other one, to his surprise, were the silver masks they wore. It seems each Death Eaters mask served as a portkey as well. That was pretty important information.
With no surprise, the two faces revealed were of the dark families and long suspected Death Eaters who escaped using the Imperius defence. Darius had long since familiarised himself with the faces of his probable enemies and recognised them easily. The first was Caracticus Nott, Lord of the Noble House of Nott and father to Theodore Nott. The other was Avery Jr, another Death Eater who escaped using the Imperius defence. Though slightly morbid, he checked the faces of the dead bastards too. Might as well know who else bit the dust. They were Jugson and Yaxley, two more Death Eaters. Darius had to sigh at the incompetent ministry that let so many Death Eaters roam about free just because they had deep pockets and were able to call in favours. But at least he had rid the world of some of these scum. He released them from the flame whip and tied them up securely with an incarcerous.
Just as he was done with these people, he sent up a shot of red sparks, universal sigh for a call of help for magicals. The Aurors should be here at any moment. He conveniently left the dead and unconscious bodies lying there for Bones’ Aurors to find in their Death Eater regalia and their silver masks lying nearby. He also left a vial with a copy of his memories of them torturing the muggles with the Cruciatus. This was so that they could slip by easily. They may still be able to do it if Lucius exerted his connections hard enough. But with the memories, it should be clear shut and closed case. And he quickly made himself scarce before the Aurors arrived. He was sure they would have some way to detect his disillusioned form, at least the competent ones.
Darius hurried back towards the tree line to track down the rest of his friends when he saw a small girl stumble out of the forest, crying and sobbing. Before he realized what he was doing, he ran towards her at full tilt. He though she had been tortured or something worse and rushed in her direction. As he got close to her, he could make out her features and she was a real cutie. Even though she had tear marks staining her face, she had a sort of ethereal beauty and her long silvery mane of hair only increased the effect. With a shock, he realized that this must be a Veela or at least a part-Veela.
He released the disillusionment on himself so that she would be able to see him as he approached instead of being shocked at his sudden appearance. She already looked a bit dishevelled and panicked a bit at his approach but calmed down soon after, likely because he wasn’t in the Death Eater robes.
“La sauver! S'il vous plaît la sauver! elle m'a protégé.” (Save her! Please save her! She protected me.)
And that was all it took to piece it together. Somebody close to her, likely her mother or sister, had tried to send her away and buy time for her to escape by fighting the Death Eaters on their own.
“Ne pleure pas, petite fille. Je vais la sauver! Peux-tu me guider?” (Do not cry, little girl. I will save her! Can you guide me?)
“Oui, allons-y!” (Yes, let’s go!)
“Obscurato Alternando!”
Darius used the same variant disillusionment charm he had used earlier to protect the girl. Even if he needed her to track the other victim, he didn’t particularly want her drawn into the fray. Darius took the girl and slung her across his back easily and loped along the woodland trails as he followed her directions. It was time to save someone else. The more he saved form those bigoted terrorists, the better.