Same Time,
Outside The Slaughtered Lamb,
Lambstead
"Weasley! You magnificent cunt, I could kiss you!" Sirius called, firing a pair of cutting curses and an exploding curse at their pursuers as the group of aurors hustled their way down the alley away from The Slaughtered Lamb. He was more than a little surprised that he didn't receive a tide of invective for his crass compliment. "Weasley? Everything alright?"
He knew it wasn't Wilkes, they were all well trained to compartmentalise the loss of a comrade long enough to deal with the crisis at hand, time enough for grief when they were away alive.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just thought I saw something." She was staring into one of the small side-alleys branching off from the one they were currently engaged in retreating down.
"A Death Eater something?" Sirius asked, transfiguring the cobblestones behind them into a thick granite wall and reinforcing the change with an Imutius Charm to prevent anyone from reversing the change. It wouldn't stop a witch of Bellatrix's calibre long, but it would help.
"No," Weasley answered slowly, vanishing stone in the shape of the same runic array she had used outside the pub and bending down to tap it with her wand, charging it. "It was white, white and red. Like bleached bone and freshly spilt blood."
Something about her description struck a chord in Sirius, as if he had heard the same description somewhere before. This was neither the time nor the place to try to chase down a memory, however.
"It doesn't matter, if it's not a Death Eater it's not an immediate threat. We need to keep moving." Apparently, Weasley had been thinking the same thing. Together, they continued their retreat, covering the rear of their comrades having taken over the rear-guard from Mad-Eye and Thomas, allowing the former to take the lead.
"Do we know where this alley goes?" It was a legitimate question, the fact that it probably irritated Moody was only an added bonus.
"Away from Lestrange and her lackeys, that's what's important right now, Black." Moody sounded irritated, but, then, he always sounded irritated.
"She might be a psycho bitch, but she isn't stupid. She was right about them overwhelming us if they manage to get us into the town square, Mad-Eye." Good old Nymphadora, Merlin he was so proud of her, sassy and tactically sound at the same time. And he'd thought she wasn't listening to his lessons.
"These coven-towns are rabbit warrens, only a handful of streets lead all the way in to the town centre, what are the chances that we're on one of those instead of one of the dozens of alleys that go..." Thomas' voice trailed off as their pounding feet lead them around a corner into a large square with a statue of a handsome wizard -the long-departed Lamb for whom the village was named, presumably- holding a staff in the centre. "Somewhere else." Thomas finished lamely.
"Pretty fucking good, apparently." That was his Nymphadora again, he wondered if Harry would've picked up his bitterness so easily, or if he would've been sunny, like his mother. Shaking his head, Sirius locked the thought away with all the others. Harry was gone, had been even before he'd escaped from Azkaban in a misguided attempt to save him from Pettigrew.
"Alright people, we have 90 seconds tops before the Death Eaters come pouring out of that alley and straight up our arses." If Wilkes was still here, he'd have probably made a comment about not minding a chance to get up Bellatrix's arse, he'd always been one for frank appreciation of an incredible set of tits and a finely sculpted bum, even if they were attached to a psychopathic mass murderer. Sirius shook that thought off too, now wasn't the time for grieving for comrades or godsons.
"Do you hear that?" It was Bell, first word she'd spoken since warning them the Death Eaters were coming down the street toward the pub. Sirius stopped, listening hard, debating transforming into the grim to make use of his animagus form's superior hearing. It would be able to tell definitively if there was anything there, but it would waste precious seconds they could use to prepare.
"No time for that now, focus on transfiguring as much cover and as many traps as you can, Bell, Thomas, if you haven't reloaded your Grangers yet do it now, everyone else, high explosive rounds, aimed at the mouth of the alley. Whatever this shadow is that's hiding the town, it's stopping apparition, so at least we don't have to worry about them coming at us from all sides." Moody's gruff orders made the decision for him, the older man was right, immediate survival was more important.
Despite this, he couldn't help asking, even as he transfigured a series of staggered barricades opposite the mouth of the alleyway, "What did you hear?"
"I don't know, it sounded like... horses." Bell shrugged helplessly, "Ponies maybe? I'm not sure. It doesn't make sense, whatever it was."
"Unless Bellatrix's fetishes have gotten even more fucked up since Azkaban," Weasley muttered, busy vanishing her runic arrays into the stonework on the walls surrounding the alley, the Death Eaters would be watching where they put their feet now after all.
"Jesus, Ginny." Thomas muttered, shaking his head as he focused on transfiguring a pack of dogs with too-large teeth, "You're certainly a lot less innocent than you were when we dated in Hogwarts."
"You know what they say," Weasley quipped back, "always the quiet ones."
That got a scoff out of Bell, "When the fuck were you ever quiet, Ginny? Certainly not when you were on the Quidditch team that's for damn sure."
"Whoever said I was talking about me, Katie?" Sirius and Nymphadora both wolf-whistled in unison while Bell grinned and Thomas just shook his head, Sirius knew he liked Weasley for a reason.
"I was unaware we were hosting a Merlin-damned ice cream social!" Moody barked, his concentration on layering a series of proximity triggered curses onto the front of the foremost barricade, designed to take out anyone who tried to leap over it. Or anyone who got too close to any shrapnel that might come from it.
Sirius was about to make a sardonic, and possibly borderline insubordinate, remark, when the Death Eaters arrived. Unfortunately, it would seem Bellatrix had had enough of walking her troops into ambushes. The walls of the cottages to both sides of the alleyway exploded, showering the courtyard with shrapnel, mostly chunks of shattered masonry, although Sirius had to duck as a Wizarding Wireless almost took his head off before his shield charm had time to snap into place. Behind him, he heard a snatch of the aged witch who had been hosting the Magi-Muggle Classics Station since he'd been in Hogwarts. She must be almost as old as Dumbledore by this point, if not older.
"And now, for all those lost loves-" He didn't hear the rest as Death Eaters were now pouring into the square from both ruined cottages, spell-fire flaring from their wands and crashing against the hastily erected barricades he and his comrades had managed to erect. They came on like a wave of darkness, an indistinct mass of white masks, black cloaks, and blacker intentions, vomiting forth an orgy of death and dismemberment in a sickeningly sweet rainbow of colours.
The Order hunkered down, weathering the storm and returning fire with their own, less grisly, but equally effective tools of death. Cutting Curses and Bombardas mingled with magical bullets and the eerie green of the Killing Curse.
Sirius grinned in savage satisfaction as another Death Eater went down, his skin scorched from his bones by a particularly nasty fire curse his Great-Grandfather had been rather fond of. Nearby, he saw two more Death Eaters falling with their throats a crimson mess from the teeth of Thomas' dogs, even as they turned to find new victims. But then both dogs collapsed back into stone. Turning, he saw Thomas falling, blood gurgling in his throat, his eyes wide and white against his dark skin in shock at the suddenness of his demise. Continuing his turn, Sirius prepared to bring vicious death upon the Death Eater scum who had killed such a talented young man, only to freeze.
It wasn't a Death Eater that had killed Thomas. It wasn't even human. The bleached white blade stained with blood that had erupted from Thomas' chest was attached to the arm of a monstrous creature. His subconscious swiftly catalogued the creature's characteristics, even as his conscious mind desperately tried to come to terms with what it was seeing.
The creature stood a little under 2 meters tall at the shoulder, bipedal, powerful legs built for explosive movement tapering off into clawed hooves, with the hips connecting perpendicularly to the spine. From nose to tail it looked to be roughly 4 meters long, with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth at one end and a dart-like spike tipping the other. The creature's arms both ended in the meter-long blades that had just gutted Thomas like a freshly caught fish. But there were plenty of horrific creatures stalking the dark places of the Wizarding World, it wasn't the beast's armament or monstrous appearance that had his mind struggling to process the sight.
It was as if the world had been leached of all sound, as if he and the creature had been caught in a bubble of perfect silence. Broken only by the song drifting from the Wizarding Wireless laying on the ground between them.
"Why does the sun, go on shining?" The creature was covered in a white exoskeleton with red armoured plates running from its head down its spine and covering its joints.
"Why does the sea rush to shore?" Like bleached bone and freshly spilt blood, just as Weasley had seen down that alley.
"Don't they know, it's the end of the world?" Like the creature that Bones spoke of when she crawled into a bottle every Halloween.
Suddenly, reality snapped back into place, "CONTACT! FUCKERS COMING IN BEHIND US!" Sirius roared, wand coming up and firing a killing curse directly into the creature's face. He waited for the beast to deflect it with its blades, just as the monster Bones had spoken of had, but it didn't. The curse connected and the beast dropped dead, its glassy eyes hateful, even in death. Sirius let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, whatever resemblance these monsters bore to the creature that had attacked the Ministry all those years ago, they weren't as dangerous.
His relief was short-lived when more of the monsters started flooding from every alley surrounding the square, first trios, then tens, then tens of dozens, and then hundreds. The aurors clustered together in a tight group, firing Blasting Curse after Blasting Curse into the seething mass of teeth and blades, finesse abandoned in favour of frantic speed.
The Death Eaters were faring little better, their greater numbers meant little against the seemingly endless horde of creatures now swarming the square. Soon, only Bellatrix, her three intricately masked lieutenants, and a handful of the more skilled plain-masked Death Eaters remained, huddled together in a tight ring, not far from the aurors. Separated only by the tide of seething monsters that threatened to carry away both groups.
For a moment, it seemed as if both groups would be able to weather the onslaught, then Boot went down, screaming and tearing at a series of bloody holes in his robes, thrashing on the ground as if he was being held under the Cruciatus Curse. Two of the plain-masked Death Eaters went down as well, writhing in agony just like Boot until Bellatrix silenced them by banishing their still-living bodies into the crowd of monsters bearing down on them.
Instinctively throwing up a physical shield spell to give himself time to discover what had happened to Boot, Sirius started when it rang from a rapid series of impacts, almost like a volley from a squad's worth of Grangers. Looking down, he saw half-a-dozen writhing creatures, like a cross between a leach and a termite with far, far too many teeth. Looking in the direction the creatures had come from, he saw more creatures had started to filter into the square. They looked like the creature that had killed Thomas, but the arms ending in blades were much smaller and were placed high on the shoulders, displaced by a single arm that ended in something that looked like a living version of the Grangers he and the other aurors carried.
"What the fuck are these things?" He heard Weasley snarl as she blew ten of the creatures that had originally attacked them to pieces, taking out two of the new monsters in the process.
"They're going to be our fucking death!" Bell half-sobbed, her shield barely turning away the blade of one of the creatures that had leapt at her, sensing weakness.
"We're not going to-" Moody began to roar, only to be cut off by a flash of fire. Albus Dumbledore, one hand clutching the tail feathers of his phoenix, the other already swinging his wand down to incinerate fifty of the swarming beasts in a single conflagration, stood in the centre of the knot of aurors. Flanked by Amelia Bones, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Expert Field Healer Hannah Abbott. The latter slid to Boot's side in an instant, her wand weaving a complicated series of diagnostic charms over the stricken auror as the others leapt into the fight, strengthening the ragged knot of aurors that had been coming close to fraying to pieces.
"Come out to play, Old Man!?" A deranged voice cackled in a sickening approximation of a mother's cooing tone to her baby. Turning, Sirius saw Bellatrix, her wand coming down to press against the Dark Mark tattooed on her forearm, her eyes rolling back and body jerking slightly in seemingly orgasmic bliss at the sensation. A spell lanced from Dumbledore's wand, scything straight through the creatures that crowded the space between the aged sorcerer and the dark witch, aiming for her arm. But before it could connect, it was swallowed by a shadow that seemed to wrench itself up off the ground in defiance of the ordinary laws of light and darkness.
"Now, now, Minister." Came a high, cold voice, the last word dripping with venomous derision. "I thought you were supposed to be better than attacking a defenceless woman? But I suppose your sister wouldn't agree with that either." Lord Voldemort said silkily, stepping from the shadow of his most faithful servant. Having appeared from thin air without a sound.
"I'm afraid to say that creature beside you is neither defenceless, nor a woman, Tom," Dumbledore answered calmly, bringing a sneer to the Dark Lord's face.
Both wizards' wands came up, faster than Sirius' eye could follow, spells tearing from their tips and annihilating any of the creatures foolish enough to get in between the two most powerful sorcerers in the world. The Order members and Death Eaters were forced to go back on the defensive, even as their leaders casually dispatched the creatures like gnats wandering into a wood chipper. Dozens of the creatures died every second, and yet there seemed to be no end to their numbers.
Sirius did notice that the creatures had begun to give a wide berth to the duelling pair, however, so at least they had some basic level of cunning. He turned his attention back to the knot of monsters in front of him, only to stop as they scattered, clearing a wide space in the corner of the square almost in an instant. He only wondered why for a few moments. Then something slammed into the ground, pulverising cobblestone path and brick house alike and sending up a plume of dust that Sirius vanished with a quick wave of his wand.
Where there had once been only empty space, there was now what looked like a meteorite made of the same material as the creatures that still almost filled the square. The sound of the impact had silenced the myriad skirmishes that had been filling the area with a chorus of blood and death. Even the creatures had stopped attacking, and Dumbledore and Voldemort stood momentarily still.
In the silence, Sirius heard the song drifting from the Wizarding Wireless once more.
"Why, does my heart..." A single blade of bone inlaid with crystal stabbed through the shell of the pod, high on the upper-left side. Amelia Bones: decorated auror and beloved commander, paled, her wand shaking as she started slowly backing away from the object that had crashed into the square.
"Go on beating?" Another blade punched through the pod, this one on the upper-right side. Alastor Moody: practically revered as the greatest auror ever known, the man who had duelled Voldemort and live to tell of it, swore bitterly.
"Why, do these eyes..." Two more blades punched through the pod, directly beneath the first two.
"It- it can't be! It's dead, it has to be dead!" Amelia moaned desperately, like a child faced with the bogeyman.
"Of mine cry?" The blades moved, slicing a circular hole in the side of the pod before retracting inside once more. Amelia's breath heaved in her chest, the unhealthy wheeze of hyperventilation. Moody had begun a tide of invective broken only by his own ragged gasps.
"Don't they know..." The circle of sliced material shot across the square, flying down a corridor cleared by the creatures and caving in the front of a formerly elegant cottage. A hulking four-armed form was visible in the darkness of the hole left behind.
"It's the end of the world?" The beast stepped from the pod, it's hooves clattering loudly on the largely pulverised cobble of the square, it's swords shining in the dawn sun.
"It ended when you said..." The creature spun it's swords so fast it appeared to be holding a dozen blades in each hand. Then it charged, plumes of black smoke rising from the chimneys on its back.
"Goodbye."
End AN: Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I have to confess that, after I was about halfway through writing this chapter, I decided to check out the Harry Potter/Warhammer crossover section to see if anyone had ever done anything even remotely similar. To my shock, there was exactly one story which involved Harry and Tyranids, which was one more than I ever expected to see. It is a very different story, as it involves Harry summoning Tyranids through a ritual and basically acting as an individual playing Warhammer in real life, rather than Harry becoming a Tyranid as in my story. Not to mention that it's rated k, which I hope you've noticed this story most assuredly is not. However, it does share some basic similarities so I figured I'd mention it, even if I can't call it an influence or inspiration since I had already half-written and figured out the plot for my story before I even knew it existed.
The song used was End of the World, by Skeeter Davis. I normally don't use songs because I feel they instantly date the story and have the possibility of alienating some of your readership if they don't share the author's taste in music. I made an exception in this case because End of the World is already a classic, so it can hardly get any more dated, and I felt it gave the final scene a nicely eerie sense of dissonance. At least, I hope it did.
To those of you who are familiar with Warhammer 40K and may be wondering: the Genestealer Cult is not going to be a factor in this story, although I like the idea and think it is an excellent part of the Tyranid canon, it takes too much time for it to fit with the timeframe of my story, so I decided to leave it out.