To Thwart The Darkness {Book 3}

No One Wants to Clean Up

The Burrow

Nico narrowly dodged a spell before flipping the table in front of him. Glasses smashed to the floor but he ducked behind it, pulling Will down with him.

"Have you seen Harry?" Nico asked. Will shook his head. They had to find Harry, make sure he was safe. "What do we do? We're sitting ducks without magic." There was a crash from the other side of the room.

"I have my wand but I can't remember any spells," Will said, bringing his wand out of his pocket.

"You think I'm supposed to help with that? I lost my memory last year!" Nico thought for a moment. "Try Expelliarmus."

"Expelliarmus?" Will repeated. The magic in the wand acted accordingly and Nico's ring was flung off his hand. It landed across the room and skidded under another table.

"Will!"

"Sorry!" Will stood up and started shooting the spell at the death eaters. Nico, grumbling under his breath, looked around the table. Deciding it was safe, he half-crawled, half-ran to the other side of the room. He had only just grabbed it and slid it onto his finger when someone yanked him to his feet by the scruff of his neck. The buttoned collar tightened around his throat. 

"Where is he?" The hooded man demanded. Nico didn't answer, instead swinging his elbow back into the Death Eater's stomach. The man released him and he fell to the floor. Nico didn't even take the moment to gasp for breath before he spun around, his ring morphed into his sword.

"Enough!" A booming voice put abrupt halt to the chaos. Nico turned his head to the familiar voice. Piper was standing on one of the only tables which wasn't broken. Jason was holding his knife out, protecting her, but it was unnecessary. Every Death Eater and remaining guest - mainly the Weasley's - had frozen, all their attention drawn to the daughter of Aphrodite.

"All Death Eaters will leave this property and never come back," she commanded. "Get out!" Her voice was drenched in charmspeak, and the guests watched in awe and surprise as each and every Death Eater apparated away in a cloud of smoke.

There was a long silence.

"Damn," Fred broke it. The air breathed a sigh of relief. There were a couple of chuckles. Piper stumbled, almost falling off the table, but Jason caught her and set her down. Nico scrambled to his feet and sheathed his sword back into the ring.

"Where's Harry, Ron and Hermione?" Mrs Weasley asked, looking around at the different faces. The only people who weren't Weasley's were the demigods, Luna and her father. 

"Where's Percy and Annabeth?" Nico asked, realising that they were also missing.

"They must have left together," Jason said.

"Do we have any drachmas?" Will asked.

"Any what?" George asked.

"I don't think so," Jason ignored George. "But there might be some in my bag somewhere."

"You go check, I'll look after her," Will assured Jason, nodding at Piper. Jason ran out.

"What are we supposed to do in the meantime?" Ginny asked.

"Clean up, I guess," Fred gestured at the mess.

"Dibs not!" George called and apparated into the house.

"Neither!" Fred did the same.

"Those two," Mrs Weasley sighed. She flicked her wand and the glass and tables started to fix themselves.

"We'd better be going," Mr Lovegood said suddenly.

"I'll see you at school," Luna said lightly, giving the demigods a smile. She took her father's hand and they apparated away.

"I almost forgot," Nico mumbled. "We were supposed to all go with Harry, Ron and Hermione to find the horcruxes. What do we do now?"

"We go to school," Will said, feeding Piper a small nibble of ambrosia from his pocket. "Hogwarts is the safest place to be. And we can use the resources from the library. Surely they have something about horcruxes in the restricted section, I mean, how else did Voldemort learn about them?"

Nico groaned. "I don't want to go to school!"

"Neither," Ginny agreed, turning a chair over.