Chapter 19

There was darkness.

And silence.

Then, slowly, there came sound.

The heavy sound of breathing. With every breath, the light grew more and more firm. Ruddy red, it painted the rises and valleys of a poorly brushed set of gums, ruddy red and inflamed meat. Bone spurs jutted from where teeth would be, curving inwards like talons, while the walls themselves were ribbed and flexed with slow, steady motion. The breathing grew deeper, steadier, as the red light finished painting out the exits - sphincter shapes, esophagus passageways, and the gleaming white of the eyes. All the eyes.

But what drew Minerva’s attention most was the dead man. He wasn’t the Ars Magicka official who had been dragged away, begging for death. He was dressed in an unfamiliar suit and tunic with a disturbingly jaunty cap set atop his desiccated, withered brow. Dark pits that had been eyes looked right at her. He was suspended from the wall by meat - bubbling growths that wrapped around grayish wrists, bone spurs digging into his once nice clothing, boots left dangling off the fleshy ground.

Minerva lowered her submachine gun, then turned to Kat. “So,” she said, quietly. “At least ... whoever this is has turned on the-”

Kat screamed, sprang backwards, and snapped her MP-18 up. Minerva jerked her head around and snapped her own submachine gun to cover the dead man. Because the dead man had lifted his head and was looking at the small shimmering shield of magic.

“Ah,” the man said, his voice distinctly Midland accented. “You ... are some very unfortunate people...”

Minerva lowered her gun as Harry stepped over to stand by the shimmering wall. He placed his palm against the shield, craning his head as he peered out at the seemingly dead man. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Secret, that,” the man said, chuckling. “The Ministry would have my head if they knew ... I was spilling secrets to Magisters. Of course, you all look like you’re not quite ... on time.” He cocked his head. “Those guns. Those are German? MP-38s?”

Kat frowned. “38s?”

“Definitely early,” the man whispered, then sagged his head to the side. “Welcome. You’re in the belly of a very nasty beast.”

“What is it?” Minerva asked. “And how do we get out?”

“To answer the pertinent question first: You don’t,” the Ministry Man said, chuckling quietly. “First. It hurts you. Then it goes on hurting you. And then you learn the horrible, horrible truth.” His black-pit eyes glittered. “Do you want to know the truth, Magister?”

Minerva gulped.

“It keeps on hurting you,” the Ministry Man said, his voice growing edged, tight, as if his vocal cords were being dragged along razor blades. “Heh. Hah! They said it goes on forever. But it really does go on. And on and on and on.” His eyes closed and he leaned his head back, laughing to himself - the laughter of someone who had no choice but to laugh. Minerva turned around to face the others.

Melissa was frowning. “Wherever we are ... whatever we’re in ... I don’t particularly want to learn what it is,” she said.

“So, you have no idea?” Minerva asked.

“Not a clue,” Melissa said, her cat’s tail twitching with agitation.

The Ministry Man laughed. “Hah! Magisters at a loss. I ... auh! Auh!” He started to scream. Minerva swung around and saw that the bone-spur was shifting inside of his chest. She lowered the weapon, frowning.

“Okay,” she said. “We break this down into steps. Step one? We ... we...” She snapped her fingers. “Gina!” She turned back around as the man’s screams faded into whimpers and sobs. She knelt down and smiled at Gina, who was looking at her gamely, despite her face gone ashen and her eyes sunken, full of pain. The grayness that had spread from the glancing curse-hit that had slashed her forearm was now all over her arm, up to where her sleeve covered her.

“Oh Gina,” Minerva whispered.

“Don’t you mind me, love!” Gina said. “I’m right chipper.”

Minerva gently drew Gina’s hand away from her arm. “Let me-”

The arm, which Gina had been clinging too, snapped off at the shoulder and hit the floor like a porcelain doll. It shattered into gray dust. Gina clenched her teeth, her eyes closing. “S’fine! It’s fine!” She exclaimed, while Kat immediately rolled the sleeve up, revealing the gray dusty stump was, fortunately, not bleeding. Melissa got to work, pressing her wand to the wound and snarling healing spells so fierce and fast that her wandtip glowed. Gina sagged against Minerva, her voice somewhat loopy.

“Oh that’s better,” she said. “Mmm, i’ll just get a new one.”

Her eyes closed and she lapsed into unconsciousness.

“Will she be okay?” Minerva asked, looking at Melissa, who drew her smoking wand from Gina’s shoulder.

“She’ll never have an arm again. But she’ll live.”

“Rather unfortunate, that!” The Ministry Man shouted at them, his voice raving, desperate. “Rather! Unfortunate, I would say!”

Minerva stood. Her face was set. “All right,” she said, then turned to face the cowering Ars Magicka officers who had made it into the shell. They were both pressed into the corner as far from the rest of them as they could manage. She swung her MP-18 around, aiming it roughly in their direction. “Where the hell are we?”

“I-I don’t know!” one of them exclaimed. “This is further in the astral than we’ve ever traveled - we don’t even recognize the structure here.”

“We just wished to cast the damn Nacht!” the other said, glaring at her. “To stop the Bolshies before-”

“Shut up,” Minerva snapped, turning away from them in disgust. “Well, if we’re all in the dark, then any idea I have is as good as any other, eh?” She nodded. “First objective? We get him...” She pointed at the Ministry Man. “Off the damn wall and into this shell.”

“Are you sure?” Kat asked, grabbing her arm. “Whatever we’re in may not have even noticed we’re here yet. But if we start yanking its toys away...”

“I won’t sit around while a man’s tortured right next to me,” Minerva whispered back to her. “Besides ... you want to try and formulate a plan while he’s screaming?”

“She has a point,” Harry said, his voice tight. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the man, who had stopped screaming - but his body trembled from head to toes with barely repressed agonies. Minerva and Kat stepped to Harry’s sides as Harry played with the carabiner clasp that kept his MP-18 attached to its leather shoulder strap. “We work fast. Minerva drops the door, Kat blasts the flesh off him, and I pull him in with a Carrien spell.”

They all nodded. Minerva took her wand, readying herself.

The door opened.

The fetid stink of rotting flesh, the warm breath of air, rushing past Minerva. The sudden sense of awareness became overwhelming - unstoppable. She wanted to slam the door shut, to leave the man to his fate. The urge was overpowering. Minerva forced it down, and watched as Harry and Kat’s wands flicked and their words overlapped. A bolt of greenish light shot from Kat’s wand and scored along the man’s wrists. The walls convulsed, and a distant, almost subliminal rumble came through her feet as he fell forward, tumbling into the shield, bringing with him the scent of rot, of decay, of quiet flesh. His hat remained outside the dome as the shield snapped back up, cutting off that horrid, horrid smell and that awful foetid heat.

The man lay on his back, wheezing, and up close he looked all the worse. His skin was ravaged with desiccation, like a man kept from water and unable to drink far past the point where he should have died. His thin, bony arms reached upwards, and he grabbed onto MInerva’s collar with an iron hard grip. “Thank you,” he whispered, his breath carrying the scent of rot. “But you’re going to want to shoot yourself. Now. Before it’s too late.”

“No one’s shooting anyone today,” Minerva said, squeezing his hand gently. “Don’t worry, Ministry Man. We’ll get you out of here.”

She lifted her head up, looking at Harry and Melissa, who were both kneeling beside her. Kat had taken her SMG and was aiming it at the shield wall, frowning intently as she did so.

“Harry,” she said. “Melissa. If we’re far in the astral, enough to be in this bugger’s belly.” She jerked her thumb at the fleshy wall around her. “Then that means we need to start by finding our way out. How do we do that?”

“We don’t,” Melissa said, frowning. “We could maybe make the Gloaming. But to reach the Shallows from the Gloaming, let alone any realm of man?” She shook her head. “The Gloaming is equally far from the realms as it is from the Deeps - and any realm we end up in? We may arrive in a world without light or air or ... or gravity, for God’s sake.”

“Then, we make the Gloaming and we decide from there,” Minerva said, rubbing her chin.

“How?” Harry asked, frowning at her.

She paused, then turned to the Ministry Man. “You were being ... digested, right?” she asked.

He nodded, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged.

“It feeds on pain. Loves it. Let me know, to make it worse...”

“Then we give it indigestion,” Minerva said, firmly. “Whatever this thing is, it feeds on pain and agony. We stuff it full of joy and pleasure - and it does what we do when we eat a spoonful of motor oil.” She smirked. “It throws us up.”

“Or it kills us,” Kat said, dryly.

“Well, would you rather die having fun or not?” Minerva asked, flashing a grin at her. Melissa snorted, loudly, while Kat laughed, shaking her head.

“It’s ... not fair, though, to Gina,” she said, gesturing to the unconscious girl.

“We’ll make it up to her!” Minerva said, smiling back - trying to be as cocky as her friends needed her to be. From the sidelines, Gregory snorted and raised his hand.

“Might I beg off?” he asked. “A gentleman doesn’t step out around behind his lady’s back.”

“Right,” Minerva said, feeling a deep sense of relief at the idea. Her eyes flicked to Harry and Harry snorted loudly.

“I’m not doing this again,” he said, dryly.

Minerve felt, once more, the yawning gap of those missing memories. Sometimes, it felt like she had stolen from herself the only normalcy she was ever going to have in the magical world - but as she tried to find words to make it okay - to say that Harry could join or stay aside as he wished, Harry stepped forward, flicked his wand, and spoke three words: “Kemb Man Wif.” And as he spoke, his wand slid from his temple to his ankles and, with a flash, he stepped from himself, skin sloughing aside and clothing dropping around him like a snake shedding its skin. In his place stood a slender, beautiful woman with deep brown hair, bright blue eyes, and the very same jagged scar that marked Harry Arthur-Perry’s features. Her hands brushed through her hair, tying it back into a ponytail, while she smiled. “There we go.”

Kat, Minerva and Melissa gaped at her.

“What?” the girl asked.

“Y ... You just...” Kat stammered, pointing at her.

“Doesn’t that feel ... wrong?” Minerva asked, her eyes wide.

“Oh come now!” The girl said, laughing as she finished her tying, her blue eyes sparkling. “Every boy’s wanted to be a girl sometimes.”

All three - Minerva, Melissa and Kat - exchanged a glance with one another.

“What should we call you?” Kat asked, slowly standing up. SHe set her submachine gun aside - while Minerva turned to Gina and Gregory and the MInistry Man. She knelt down and risked some of her strength - whispering soft nothings into her wand to craft a glass of water and a small curtain, and a cushion as well. She laid it beneath Gina’s head, and then tucked the MInistry Man next to her. She spoke, softly.

“Do try and be comfortable. Your pain fed it - so, not feeling pain would help,” she said.

“I am already in heaven,” the Ministry Man whispered, softly.

Gregory flashed her a smile.

“You wizards are odd folks,” he said.

“Thank you,” Minerva said, then ducked out from the curtain. She could hear the faint, subliminal rumbling. She turned back to face Kat and ... and ... the girl that had been Harry. Hariette? She frowned as she saw that Kat had not wasted any time. She was squeezing her breasts, gently, her fingers rolling the hard nipples that jutted from the girl. Minerva smiled, then touched the wall of her shield and whispered quietly.

Let it be gentle.

The purple darkened to an opacity that cut out the realm beyond. Not safe. But nothing was safe down here. “So, what’s her name?” She asked as she stepped over to Kat. Kat’s grin was wicked, while Melissa undid her collar, rolling her shoulders and letting her clothing drop around her.

“You will never be beliving this,” Kat said, her wolfish grin fierce. “Raven Darkling.”

“ ... you call yourself Raven as a girl?” Minerva exclaimed, looking at the familiar, but now much more fetching, features. Raven blushed and smiled.

“I didn’t want to ever be anything like Harry when I’m like this,” she whispered, then gasped as Kat’s squeezing grew more insistent. Her moan was soft. Needy. “I want to be something new. And ravens are so pretty.” Her eyes sparkled.

“I rather like it,” Melissa said. “Though, if you want to stay a girl, you’ll be needing the hormones that Kat there uses.” She stepped over, cupping Raven’s cheek, turning her head so she could lean in to kiss her. Minerva slid to her knees, her hands sliding along Raven’s hips, leaning forward to see that Raven’s bush was as dark and welcoming as her eyes. She buried her nose against her, breathing in the familiar-but-better scent while Raven and Melissa’s tongues played together. Kat stepped back, just enough to swing her SMG aside and then start to tug her clothing off.

Melissa broke the kiss, leaving Raven panting as Minerva cupped her ass, then licked her - sliding her tongue between her thighs. She tasted Raven and a flickering flash of memory that shouldn’t have been accessible tingled through her. She had tasted Harry like this - yes, yes she had.

Raven was much better. She squeezed as Raven moaned and bucked her hips, answering Melissa’s question with a giggle: “But I like being a boy. Ah. And Robert would miss my cock if it was gone forever.” She was grinning, shyly. “Who says you can’t have both?”

“Most people?” Kat asked, laughing as she moved back up against Raven’s back. When Minerva peeked between Raven’s thighs, she could see that her girlfriend’s eager cock was grinding between Raven’s ass cheeks. She reached between Raven’s thighs, her other hand grabbing onto one of Raven’s knees. SHe pushed up, so that Raven was supported by her hand, by Kat’s body, by Melissa’s gripping arm, her sex spreading as Minerva took hold of Kat’s cock, feeling it throb against her palm.

Minerva grinned. “Shift, puppy,” she purred.

“Oh being so dominant,” she said, quietly.

“Shh, puppy, do what Daddy says,” Minerva purred, letting the words come out without thinking. She blinked.

“Yes sir,” Kat murmured.

Oh.

Oh my.

Oh my was that how Melissa felt when...

Kat’s body shifted. Silvery light played along her as muscles grew and fur spread. Her paws rasped against the floor and she grabbed onto Raven’s hips with both hands as her cock grew even longer and thicker. The knot of it bumped against Minerva’s palm and Minerva was able to easily, easily guide the tip against Raven, who bit her lip, then squeaked as Kat bucked her hips. Minerva leaned back, watching as her lover claimed another girl - then squeaked in turn as Melissa took hold of her hands, drawing her away, then pinning her against the ground. The older woman was grinning down with her with a fierce passion.

“Don’t think a pretty new student can get you out of your lessons.”

“Oh definitely not,” Minerva murmured as Professor Stevenson swung herself around, then planted her thighs to either side of Minerva’s head. Raven’s moans filled the air as Minerva grabbed onto the delicious firmness of her professor’s ass. She squeezed and thrust her tongue into her, delving deep. She tasted her, and heard her moans as her hips began to rock atop her ... but Professor Stevenson did not simply leave well enough alone. She did not simply sit atop Minerva’s face. She reached back with one hand and her fingers found and thrust into Minerva’s eager pussy. Minerva’s hips bucked up and she moaned into her professor’s sex - but then Melissa added her thumb, finding and rubbing her clit.

Minerva quite lost focus then. Her back arched and her hips bucked as white pleasure burst before her, and rather than easing off, or giving her time, Professor Stevenson simply added another finger and thrust into her with more intensity, rubbing her own sex against Minerva’s mouth, her nose. Professor Stevenson’s sex dripped onto her mouth, her tongue. She was muffled. She was suffocating.

You wanted to die having fun, didn’t you?

But through it all, Minerva felt the buzzing, rumbling sensation of the room beyond the purple dome of force. It had grown more intent. More ... aware.

Raven cried out. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Kat! Oh god, oh god! Oh Christ!”

Professor Stenveson slid back, and used her knee to gently push Minerva’s head to the side - the pressure of her knee against Minerva’s cheek was shamefully arousing. “Watch that,” Professor Stevenson crooned. “Your lover is giving Raven a run for her money, eh?”

The sight of Raven’s high, firm breasts bouncing as Kat, in her full lycanthropic fury, pounded away at her sex was intoxicating. Sweat gleamed on her body as she cried out again and again, while Kat snarled and licked against her back, her full, silver-furred breasts pressing against Raven’s shoulderblades.

The rumbling sensation grew fiercer.

“We’re close...” Minerva panted, then moaned as she was fingered even faster. “Oh yes!” Her back arched and she trembled as she spurted her arousal. The touch of her juices to the floor seemed to only make the rumbling fiercer and more jagged. She gasped heavily - then pushed Melissa’s hand away from her. The professor did her best to look huffy, but there was no time. Minerva grabbed onto her, swung her legs around. Their thighs locked together, and Minerva felt her sex press to Melissa’s sex. She started to buck her hips against Melissa as her professor moaned and lookd into her eyes.

“Yes! Minerva! Oh yes!” She moaned.”I ... Minerva, I-”

“Love you too, Melissa,” Minerva breathed. She leaned in. Their lips pressed as Raven screamed in pleasure. Her body quivered and Kat howled as Minerva felt her own orgasmic peak and crest again. She ground back and felt Melissa trembling against her ... and felt, too, the room shuddering and trembling and ... and then ... there was a feeling of rushing. The dome became a sphere and all of them fell together with a cry. Minerva was flung against Kat, and Kat looped an arm around her as Gregory screamed, and Gina woke with a bellow of surprise. Then they were tumbling again, the sphere rolling around and around! Slam!

Then-

Crash!

Then-

Wham!

And then, finally, there was a few more moments of skidding and, at last, it came to a stop. Gina lay atop Minerva, while an elbow jammed into her back. She heard Gregory laughing raggedly. “Better than the Yankee Cannonball!” He said, sounding dazed as he sat up. Minerva knew that she had an even odds that they had been pushed deeper into the Astral - but she knew they had to know one way or the other. She flicked her wand and the purple shield dimmed as they started to sort themselves out.

Raven squeaked as the lewd pop of Kat’s knot withdrawing from her, while Gina punched Minerva’s shoulder. “You had a bloody orgy while ... oh...”

“We’re in the Gloaming!” Minerva exclaimed.

The area around the purple shield was vast and misty and dark. Huge trees rose in every direction, and a faint sunlight glimmered down from the heavens. The air felt thick and misty, and there was shadowy movement in the darkness - and an eerie sense of wrongness in every shadow and every line of faint sunlight. Melissa, tugging her clothing back on, nodded. “Not sure where in the Gloaming, but ... it’s far enough from our realm that the reflections of the Great War are relatively minor.”

Minerva stood and then looked around for the Ministry Man.

“Oh my,” she whispered.

The Ministry Man’s skin had gone from desiccated to merely sallow. His bright, bright blue eyes looked uncomprehending up at the heavens. He whispered. “I can’t be, I can’t be, I can’t be...” he breathed. Gina, kneeling beside him, frowned.

“What are you on about?” she asked, scowling. Minerva knelt beside him, biting her lip.

“If that thing fed on pain,” she said, slowly. “Then ... maybe it gave him respite from time to time? Pain just becomes boredom eventually, doesn’t it? So, he’s worried he’s just dreaming this.”

“Pff,” Gina said, shaking her head. “Boredom’s the worst pain there is.”

Minerva frowned. Gina’s flippant statement ... it hit a chord deep in her body. It goes on and on and on ... she thought. How long would it take before pain became boredom, and how long would it take before boredom became an even worse agony?

“I’m not sure if he’s ever had a respite,” she said, quietly. Then, smiling slightly. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I’m thrummed with enough healing spells that I can take on the whole world!” Gina said, lifting her good hand and giving her a thumbs up as Minerva took her wand and then stood. The purple sphere they stood in rolled a bit to the side as everyone else started to get to their feet.

“Shall we open the door?” she asked.

Everyone nodded.

Minerva felt a knot of energy flick away from her as she flipped her wand and shield dropped. The warm, rich scent of the forest beyond reached her nose and she almost sobbed in relief - to smell anything but that stink ... she shook her head and then turned to face the others.

“All right. We’re in the Gloaming. We don’t know what - if any - creature we’re in the domain of. So everyone stick close to me and we’ll make our way out of the Gloaming and into somewhere a bit more hospitable,” Minerva said, nodding slightly. “If you see anything odd, you call out. If you hear anything odd, you say it. And ... we leave behind the guns. They won’t do us any good down here.”

Everyone nodded.

Kat and Greogry, though?

She kept her gun. Minerva noticed. And she didn’t remark on it.

Minerva and Kat worked together to create a platform for the MInistry Man and Gina. Gina grumbled the whole way as she was laid down, and then the two platforms floated between Kat and Gregory. Gregory kept his hands on his MP-18 as looked around himself, shaking his head slowly. “So ... uh, Minerva...” he said as they started to walk through the woods - following a winding deer trail that cut past trees that felt only half there. “What is the Gloaming, exactly?”

“The Astral Plane is the name for, uh, the plane of existence magic comes from,” Minerva said, quietly. “But just as our universe is larger than just the Earth, the astral is bigger than the part of it near our, uh, Realm. The Realm is where we’re from. Below it is the Shallows - that’s where most of our astral travel takes us. Beneath the Shallows are the Gloaming Depths, which connect to the Shallows of all the other Realms. We’re ... not sure how many there are. They’re mostly theoretical at this point.” She squared her shoulders slightly. “Then there’s the Deeps. That’s where no one has come back from. Because once you’re in the Deeps, even if you get to the Gloaming, how are you going to find your way back to your Realm?”

“So, what happens to us?” Gregory muttered.

“Well, we-”

“Weird! Weird!” Kat exclaimed.

Everyone turned to look at what she was looking at.

There was a great silver deer, standing in the brushes. It watched them with intent, piercing eyes. And wrapped around its throat, like a fluttering sash, was a scrap of scarlet cloth. It turned and bounded away as they looked at it. Harry frowned. “It’s a chaser,” he said, firmly. “A fae creature, trying to draw us off the path.”

The scarlet, though ... the silver...

Minerva had seen that shade before. But where? She frowned as the others started to go - and then her eyes widened. “No,” she said, quietly. “No. It’s not...”

Everyone looked at her - but Minerva saw the beast was already getting smaller. “Come on!” She said, then surged forward into bracken. Into underbrush. She felt thorns tug at her and she waded forward - the others hurrying after her, Harry calling out.

“Minerva, wait!”

Minerva knew she was right. She also knew she had no time to explain. The silvery deer seemed to be further and further away with every second - but then she rounded a tree and would see it, just there, just at the edge of sight, bounding forward. Her friends kept on her heels, Kat panting, ragged, Gregory swearing under his breath, Melissa snarling and hissing as her tail became ladened with burrs. Minerva felt her thighs burning, and ... felt a fear tingling in her belly.

What if she was wrong?

What if it was just a trick of the light that made that silver fur seem so remarkably familiar? What if the scarlet was just the red of her blood, spurting in some future. She tripped on a root, fell forward, stumbled, crying out. She fell and rolled, and came to a skidding stop in a low delve. Mist roiled around her and the deer stood above her, brilliant and silver. It spoke to her, then, in a quiet, lilting speech.

“Dia duit, Minerva. The only covenant that ever mattered to me.” The deer bowed its head, then stepped aside, and revealed a stone arch, a flight of stairs, made of crumbling old stone. “Do not look back.”

The deer was gone, nothing but mist. Minerva stood as Kat came skidding down the delve, coming to a stop on her feet beside her. “Minerva, I-” she stopped, seeing the door. She turned back, shouting up to Melissa, Harry, Gregory, Gina. “It’s a stairwell!”

“How do we know it’s too our Realm?” Melissa asked as she carefully picked her way down. Gina and the Ministry Man came floating on their hovering gurneys beside Harry and Gregory, who guided them down with their hands.

“Because it was Titania,” Minerva said, firmly. “That silver deer. She had the same silver as Titania. She spoke to me, she knew me.”

“Titania?” Melissa asked, then looked at Gina. Gina pouted.

“She’s my family’s servant,” she grumped.

Then Kat exclaimed. “Oh that Petunia! I could kiss her!”

“Ahem,” Gregory coughed.

“With your permission, of course,” Kat said, grinning fiercely.

“She sent her!” Minerva said. “I-” She stood as the ground shuddered. “Did you feel that?”

The entire forest had gone very silent. Very still. As if every animal in the place was being as still as they could manage. Minerva opened her mouth - then grunted. It felt rather hard to speak, all of a sudden. Something had smacked her back. She blinked, looking down at herself and blinked as she saw the multi-bladed prong, emerging from her belly, dripping with her blood and her gore. She gaped, then grunted as she was wrenched off the ground. Screaming pain exploded through her and she clutched at the shaft of metal - only to find thorns piercing her palms. Agony screamed through her as the entire rest of the party screamed in horror and shock.

She didn’t know what stood behind her, but she felt it twist the bladed thing it had thrust through her. The agony was overwhelming - and the world around her was growing dark...

The roaring in her ear and the thunder flash of gunfire made her wince. Then she hit the ground and saw Kat standing atop something long limbed, black robed, hideously human despite its distorted proportions. She heard a hissing snarl - and then more roaring. Melissa rolled her onto her back, hissing.

“Stay with me, Golding! Don’t you fucking dare die on me!”

Warmth warred with cold as a wand pressed to her. Minerva tried to breathe. Couldn’t.

She closed her eyes.

Blackness.

They opened again. She was in someone’s arms, her body shaking, her head lolling. Screaming, hissing shrieks came behind her. Her eyes half closed.

“Don’t you dare fucking die on me!” Kat growled. “Harry! Shoot the fucking thing! Unload the entire fucking-”

Her eyes half closed again.

“Baruch ata Adonai...”

Her eyes opened. She was looking at familiar stars. She felt so cold. Kat looked down into her face, tears streaming down her face. “Minerva!”

“Eloheinu melech ha-olam, ha-gomel l’chayavim tovot she-g’malani kol tov...”

Minerva closed her eyes.

Petunia tapped her foot on the floor, her thumbs twirling over one another. Kat stood at the window, watching outside. The ornate wireless set out on the sitting room table murmured quietly, the voice wheezy and raspy - the Prime Minister was known to be in poor health.

“We shall use these powers, these remarkable magical abilities, in light now, rather than in shadows. For centuries, they have worked with our Empire’s many servants. From the days of the Cerberus Order to the spy network of our earliest Kings, magicians have ranked as heroes to the crown and to Britain to match our bravest sailors and our boldest soldiers ... now, they get the attention, the praise, the valorous glory they have earned many times over. This is the dawning of a new era of peace and healing, one that-”