Natsu Dragneel and the Order of the Phoenix

Beyond the Veil

Black shapes were emerging out of thin air all around them, blocking their way left and right; eyes glinted through slits in hoods, a dozen lit wand tips were pointing directly at their hearts; Juvia gave a gasp of horror.

"To me, Dragneel," repeated the drawling voice of Jiemma Orland as he held out his hand, palm up.

Natsu's insides plummeted sickeningly. They were trapped, and outnumbered two to one.

"To me," said Jiemma yet again.

"Where's Weiss?" Natsu said.

Several of the Death Eaters laughed; a harsh female voice from the midst of the shadowy figures to Natsu's left said triumphantly, "The Dark Lord always knows!"

"Always," echoed Jiemma softly. "Now, give me the prophecy Dragneel."

"I want to know where Weiss is!"

"I want to know where Weiss is!" mimicked the woman to his left.

She and her fellow Death Eaters had closed in so that they were mere feet away from Natsu and the others, the light from their wands dazzling Natsu's eyes.

"You've got him," said Natsu, ignoring the rising panic in his chest, the dread he had been fighting since they had first entered the ninety-seventh row. "He's here. I know he is."

"The little baby woke up fwightened and fort what it dweamed was twoo," said the woman in a horrible, mock baby voice.

Natsu felt Gray stir beside him.

"Don't do anything," Natsu muttered. "Not yet -"

The woman who had mimicked him let out a raucous scream of laughter.

"You hear him? You hear him? Giving instructions to the other children as though he thinks of fighting us!"

"Oh, you don't know Dragneel as I do, Seilah," said Jiemma softly. "He has a great weakness for heroics; the Dark Lord understands this about him. Now give me the prophecy, Dragneel."

"I know Weiss is here," said Natsu, though panic was causing his chest to constrict and he felt as though he could not breathe properly. "I know you've got him!"

More of the Death Eaters laughed, though the woman laughed loudest of all.

"It's time you learned the difference between life and dreams, Dragneel," said Jiemma. "Now give me the prophecy, or we start using wands."

"Go on, then," said Natsu, raising his own wand to chest height. As he did so, the five wands of Gray, Lucy, Gajeel, Juvia and Levy rose on either side of him. The knot in Natsu's stomach tightened. If Weiss really was not here, he had led his friends to their deaths for no reason at all...But the Death Eaters did not strike.

"Hand over the prophecy and no one need get hurt," said Jiemma coolly.

It was Natsu's turn to laugh.

"Yeah, right!" he said. "I give you this - prophecy, is it? And you'll just let us skip off home, will you?"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the female Death Eater shrieked: "Accio proph—"

Natsu was just ready for her: he shouted "Protego!" before she had finished her spell, and though the glass sphere slipped to the tips of his fingers he managed to cling on to it.

"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Dragneel," she said, her mad eyes staring through the slits in her hood. "Very well, then -"

"I TOLD YOU, NO!" Jiemma Orland roared at the woman. "If you smash it -!"