B.Q Book Four: The Black Queen's War

Chapter 34: Cage Match

"DUMBLEDORE. BONES. YOU HOLD THE FATE OF OVER FIVE THOUSAND SOULS IN YOUR HANDS. YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO DECIDE. CHOOSE WISELY."

Those words echoed in Albus's head. He stood in the Great Hall, watching the Ministry and the students and even people who had no connection to the war other than being displaced from their homes slowly make their way through the carnage and lay out bodies. Far, far too many bodies. A swath of solemn black and blue and scarlet for the Hit Wizards and Aurors who fell. A sea of various colored clothing for the students and volunteers who perished defending the school. There was even, to his shock, a small and deliberately untidy pile of bodies wearing silver masks with their black robes. Death Eaters, though he expected it was the least trained among them who had perished here.

Alastor stomped over to him. "I assume you have numbers you wish to share," Albus said with a sigh.

"Nothing firm. They're still counting the bodies, but it was bad. Here, but also in the camps around the grounds. Looks like the bunch of werewolves Tonks killed stopped in one of them first to have a little snack." The other man's bright blue eye swiveled around to look over the Great Hall again. "I want to say Voldemort's little speech was a bluff. That he's only giving us an hour because he needs that time to get his forces back into position for another strike. But looking at the number of people we did manage to take down? There aren't many, and he's had near a full year to gather anybody who sees the Death Eaters as the winning side. He probably did more damage to us than we did to him."

That was about what he had figured out himself. "Just between us, old friend, do you think he would follow through on his promises? That if Amelia and I surrender ourselves, everyone else would be safe?"

"Have you lost the plot?" demanded Alastor. "You aren't actually thinking about going through with it, are you? We both know he's lying about that. He wants the leaders of the opposition to deliver themselves to him so he can kill you, and after that there will be no one leading the people here. He'd sweep through and slaughter everyone!"

"That was my expectation as well." Alastor's glare lightened slightly at Albus's soft reassurance. "I would not trust any guarantees or offers he made. Unfortunately, I believe we have recently seen that my ability to divine the motives behind people's actions is…" His smile was lopsided and scathing. "Less reliable than I once thought it to be.

"Don't worry. I have no intention of walking to my death. Perhaps, once, I might have considered it a worthy exchange. If Danny were still whole and hale. As he is, though—"

"He's dead, too." Albus whipped his head around to stare at Alastor. "Heard a mention of it from Connery, swung by to check it out myself before I came here." The Auror scratched his head. "Wasn't a Death Eater that did it. Best I can figure, Voldemort put a trap in that mess he called a rune scheme. I think the plan was to transfigure Danny's body into a replica of his own and then get him killed by friendly fire, but something went wrong. It tore his body apart."

"Human transfiguration through runes." Albus shook his head, still shocked by everything he had just been told. At least this part he could focus on, his own mastery of transfiguration taking him for just a moment out of the real world to the realm of academia. "Why would he even think that was a good idea? He should know better. Human transfiguration is the most complicated application of the art, and even a minor mistake with it can potentially be fatal. Trying to do so through runes is all but guaranteed to fail. He should know better than to try it, but there is no way to know if he simply forgot about it or if he wanted it to fall apart."