the Horcrux Thief, james potter

xxiii. unpredictable magic

"Shush, Pettigrew," she told the rat before turning to the boys, her eyes landing on Sirius, whose face was contorted into hatred. "I'll give it to you, cousin, this was a nice little trick. Well played."

Sirius glared at her, and dryly answered, "Thanks, Bella."

"The thing is, you're outnumbered. And these two little gingers you have here, are surrounded." Her voice was taunting as she walked around the circle, where Fabian and Gideon stood back to back, each of their wands pointed at a Death Eater, a fierce look in their eyes. And just as she finished speaking, five more Death Eaters apparated inside.

"Fucking arseholes," Marlene muttered, "Gideon was supposed to raise the wards."

"I'll do it," Amaya said in a whisper, closing her eyes as she did. She felt the overwhelming magic in the air, the darkness of it, the madness, and fought through it as she raised an Anti-Apparition ward that wouldn't allow the Death Eaters to apparate but would let her and the others escape should they need it. Then she raised an Anti Animagus ward.

And then, as the three of them got out of their hiding place, wands raised—even Amaya's—everything went to chaos. The twins blasted a Diffindo to the ground and got out of their circle and then everyone was fighting someone. And magic was flying everywhere.

The wards she'd raised were still strong, Amaya could feel her magic holding them up as she charged at the Death Eaters, but her magic was being called by everyone's and in turn, it was calling theirs. She was trained to be in sync with the magic surrounding them, and she couldn't turn it off. Not when she had to focus on fighting.

Amaya's wand quickly flew out of her hand, not that she needed it, and that proved to be enough of a distraction for a sneering Death Eater to think he won against her. Amaya knocked him out with a flick of her wrist. However, with the amount of magic in the room, calling her from everywhere as it was thrown around, she picked up a bit more as she threw the spell and accidentally ended up blasting the bastard to the other side of the room, where he broke through a wooden box.

That made her stop for a second. Her breathing was heavy. She didn't want to lose control. She didn't want to kill anyone like she had in the flat. But right now she didn't have a lot of time to think.

Avoiding a curse flying her way with a shield, Amaya perused the room. Bellatrix was the only Death Eater with superb dueling skills, and that explained why there were so many of them for a mission that was supposedly not important—they send quantity not quality.

But Bellatrix was aiming to kill. Amaya saw too many of her friends barely scrape by her curses, and her heart stopped when she nearly got Sirius with the killing curse.

Through the mess of magic, Amaya was able to get close enough to the cackling woman to get a hold of her magic and take it away. It wasn't a permanent solution, it was hardly a solution but Bellatrix fell to her knees with a scream, and that allowed Sirius to knock her out.

Looking around, Amaya saw Peter, who by now had let go of the useless box, retreating as James charged towards him, his body waving off wrath. Amaya was able to shirk off a few curses and knock out one of the Death Eaters and was almost next to James when he was surrounded by two others.

She went to help him but he shook his head as he fought. "I'm alright. Go catch the rat."

Amaya hesitated for a second and then ran after Peter who'd slipped out to one of the back rooms.

Her magic had mingled with the one in the warehouse, and Amaya could feel it coursing through her veins, powerful. She swore she could hear it crackling in the air as she followed Peter.