The Potion Princess

Vance

The room explodes into chaos, a mix of yells and flying spells and shattering crystal falling around them like sparkling rain.  It catches at her clothes and hair and digs into the open skin on her hands and face, but then Vance projects a shield above her head, and it all slips around her like the pieces are sliding down from an umbrella. 

She slips away before the fighting starts in earnest, backing away from her tiny group, trying to ignore the pang of guilt she feels when Vance calls after her into the darkness, looking around wildly for where she disappeared to.  Then she starts to run, moving towards the sound of the fighting and pounding feet, following the tiny group through the sound of Ron's voice and the glimpses of Luna's hair streaming out behind her. 

"Sorry, Vance,"  She murmurs, her lit wand held aloft in her hands.  There would be time to deal with that later, but for right now she has no time to spare.  Audra was not clever enough for this, not when she didn't have Clary to puzzle through problems and the twins to balance her out.  Not when she was trying to make her way through this twisting hallway that was filled with dangerous inventions and invisible voices and the people she loved like family were about to be murdered and tortured by her actual family.  And definitely not when she turns the corner to see Neville and Ron backed against the wall, faces contorted with the effort of fending off the attackers.

"Hey!  Over here!"  It's not the smartest thing to do, but she does it anyways, stepping out of the shadows and into the fray, firing spells back at the two masked men.  It's going good, but then the one in the front pulls his arm all the way back and lets loose a spell that Audra doesn't know, something that came in a flash of purple and yellow and hit Ron right in the chest.  He's blasted backward, hits the wall and falls down in a crumbled heap. 

He doesn't get back up.

Right around then is the time that Neville seemed to give up on actually fighting and just blasted the shelf behind them apart, knocking the two masked men to the ground, where they disappear under the dust and debris.  Audra doesn't take time to check on them, other than to make sure that they're out of the fight for good, then stows her wand in her robes and reaches out to Ron.  Which is when Neville seems to forget that he's a wizard at all and throws a punch, sending her staggering back with blood streaming from her nose.  He doesn't seem to be satisfied, just comes at her again.

"Neville!"  She gives up on warding him off and just curls into a ball, one arm raised to block him as the other rummages in her pocket.  "Stop it, it's me, it's Audra, I'm on your side!"

"Like Hell you are."  He hit surprisingly hard, and it seems to be calming him down, even as she cries out in pain.  "Give me on good reason I shouldn't leave you hear for the aurors to find."

"This."  She pulls the old DA galleon from her pocket, holding up so the light glinted off it.  "Hermione gave it to me, so I can stand watch for the DA.  You don't trust me, that's fine, but you trust Hermione, don't you?"

"Yeah."  He deflates a bit, like he's actually disappointed, then sticks out a hand to help her up.  "Sorry about the nose."

Audra just glared at him, then stared around at the mess of dust and broken glass and Ron, who was now sitting up and giggling, like he found the whole thing very amusing.  the giggling was alarming in itself.  Ron just doesn't giggle.  "Don't worry about it."  She pushed down on it, hard enough that she thinks she either made it worse or forced the bone back into place.  "We've got bigger problems."

Audra had intended to grab the two of them and take them to the top floor of the ministry, because from there Neville and Ron could floo to the Burrow or somewhere else that was actually safe.  She wants to go and find the others, but Ron was in bad shape and she wasn't sure that Neville could manage him on his own.  At least, that was the plan until she heard a high pitched scream coming from the darkness that cuts over all the other noise, the kind of scream that only happens when its ripped from your mouth without you thinking about it.