The closer Theo got, the clearer the children's sobs became from inside the besieged shop. Flashes of spell-light burst from its windows, beating the Inferi back a step at a time.
So even eleven years after Voldemort's first reign, the witches and wizards who'd lived through it still had the grit to stand against dark creatures. The problem was… graduation had been a long time ago. Most people hit their theoretical peak the year they left Hogwarts, then promptly forgot half of it. Add in decades of abysmal Defence Against the Dark Arts instruction, and it was no wonder the adults were throwing all the wrong spells.
Was Voldemort's "curse" on the DADA post actually one giant metagame? Theo thought grimly. Tank the whole world's defensive literacy so your Death Eaters hit like raid bosses?
He inhaled to shout a warning—when a bright, clear girl's voice rang out from inside:
"Those spells don't work on Inferi!
Use fire—it's the only way to destroy them!
Incendio!"
A thin lance of flame jetted from a window. Inferi recoiled in animal fear. Jostled awake, several adults finally switched to Incendio as well, slowing the press of corpses.
Theo's mouth tipped in approval.
Hermione.
Ravenclaw's hunger for knowledge, Gryffindor's spine in a crisis—the dependable constant of every disaster.
Theo dropped behind the horde. The closest Inferi scented the live, abundant life in him and turned as one—clouded, corpse-pale eyes starving for blood and heat. A half dozen lurched into a run.
A razor gust scythed past.
They hit the cobbles harder than they'd charged, bones crackling like kindling. Copper Skin & Iron Bones plus staff-work was overkill on dead flesh; vertebrae shattered, limbs folded. The few still moving could only crawl.
Theo flicked his staff.
"Incendio."
Three tight, ping-pong-sized orbs—condensed fireballs—shot out, kissed the fallen Inferi, and bloomed white-hot. Each corpse ashed in an instant.
Staff angled across his back, Theo strode through human-shaped cinders. More Inferi—ten, twelve, fifteen—pounded at him. His answer stayed brutally simple.
A staff like a steel beam howled through air. Wind wailed; space buckled. With Copper Skin & Iron Bones behind practised forms, even a glancing blow maimed; a clean hit ended things. Nothing dead got inside his reach. When he passed, the lane was littered with broken bodies.
Then Smooth-Fire, At-Will did its tidy work. Incendio again—tight, surgical orbs—and the shattered Inferi turned to drifting ash.
In heartbeats, his tally passed twenty.
Salvos of flame from the shop ahead, a lone juggernaut hammering from the rear—panic turned to disarray. Inside, Hermione and several adults glimpsed the rout and brightened.
"Someone's attacking them too!"
"Reinforcements!"
"Hold a little longer—we'll make it!"
Even the untrained kids waving wands at random settled a fraction. The tiny courage bumps mattered.
That was when Florean Fortescue stepped through the ice-cream parlour door, wand in hand and eyes vacant.
Drunk on hope, no one clocked the wrongness—until several scarlet bolts flashed.
The adults still casting at the windows crumpled, stunned. Ropes—conjured in thick, snaking coils—lashed from the back room, binding children into tight bundles, even blindfolding them.
Only Hermione, already on edge, reacted in time. Pale, shaking, she levelled her wand at the shopkeeper.
The dazed face. The mechanical gait. Theo's warning lectures tumbled through her mind.
"Imperius," she whispered. "Mr Fortescue—please fight it!"
Her plea did nothing. Fortescue's wand snapped up; a stream of spells hammered the shop. Hermione dodged and rolled, sweat and plaster dust stinging her eyes. She'd grown stronger this month—far stronger than the Hermione of canon—but she wasn't yet a match for a trained adult. And Florean Fortescue, descendant of former Hogwarts Headmaster Dexter Fortescue, had no small well of power.
Only the Imperius's drag kept him from overwhelming her in seconds.
With the shop's fire cover gone, the leading Inferi surged, keening blood-hunger, and thundered at the door.
Their orders were simple: bleed the children to pin the Aurors.
"Don't waste pure-blood," their master had added. "Mudbloods are expendable." The free girl in the shop smelled like one of those.
The door shuddered on its hinges.
A stray Stunner caught Hermione across the ribs—she smashed into a table, wand skittering away. She stared at the quivering door, despair and tears rising despite herself.
Outside, Theo felt the change like a slap.
Something had gone wrong inside.
Dozens more Inferi clogged the street ahead. A knot of ten already battered the door. There was no time to carve his way one by one.
Theo drew a breath, eyes turning hard.
He raised his staff high.
Magic surged, maxed. Smooth-Fire, At-Will flared. His own Incendio, every scrap of battlefield flame, even Hoohoo's blazing column from the creature-pouch—all of it bent like rivers toward a single point at his staff's tip, a furnace pulled to a singularity.
Then Windriding roared awake.
"Scourgify!" The Scouring Charm snapped the air into a howling conduit—clean, hungry, and perfectly shaped for what came next.
Theo struck the staff down and bellowed:
"FIRE-GOD'S PATH!"
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