Altruistic

The landscape between our previous position and Nottingham was a study in slow decay.

We’d been walking for three days, and each one brought subtle variations on the same theme: nature reclaiming what humanity had left behind, corruption twisting what nature touched, and the ever-present purple auroras painting it all in shades of wrongness.

The first day took us through what had once been farmland. Fields stretched to either side of the crumbling road, but instead of crops or even wild grass, I saw thorny vines thick as my arm sprawled across the earth in chaotic tangles. They had a waxy, almost translucent quality that caught the aurora-light and reflected it back in sickly greens and yellows.

Here and there, skeletal remains of farming equipment jutted from the undergrowth— a rusted tractor collapsed onto its side, a harvester with its blades seized and corroded, an irrigation system that had become a twisted sculpture of broken pipes.

We gave the vines a wide berth. I’d learned enough about this world to recognize when something looked actively hostile, and those thorns gleamed with a wet sheen that screamed poison or worse.

“It brings back a few old memories.” Draco said quietly as we passed a collapsed barn. The structure had folded in on itself like a house of cards, roof beams splayed outward at impossible angles. “On the way to visit some distant cousin, we’d pass a few fields, always shining like gold with wheat.”

I glanced at him. He was staring at the ruin with an expression I couldn’t quite read— not quite grief, not quite nostalgia. Something hollower than either.

“Sounds nice.” I offered.

“It was tedious.” He corrected, but without any real heat. “Endless countryside, my parents making small talk about family politics I didn’t care about, and a cousin who I wouldn’t have looked twice at before the world ended.”

He paused. “But yes. It was nice, I suppose.”

We walked on in silence after that. What else was there to say? The world had taken nice things and ground them into dust and thorns. Remembering them didn’t bring them back.

The second day brought us through the remains of several small villages whose names I didn’t know and couldn’t read— the signs had either fallen or been stripped for materials. The destruction here was more intimate than in larger towns. In cities, the scale of ruin created a kind of numbing distance. But in these small places, I could see individual lives more clearly.

A children’s playground, swings hanging by single chains, the slide bent nearly in half. A corner shop with its windows smashed and shelves picked clean, but a hand-painted sign still visible above the door: “Marsh Family Grocers – Est. 1967.” A row of cottages with their roofs intact but doors hanging open, the darkness inside absolute and uninviting.

We’d learned not to enter buildings unless we absolutely had to. Too many ways to get trapped. Too many things that might be waiting in the dark.

But we did stop to check a petrol station on the outskirts of one village, hoping for supplies. Oftentimes, these places had convenience stores attached with overlooked goods.

This one did, though someone had beaten us to it. The interior was a wreck— shelves overturned, floor covered in broken glass and the dried remains of spilled drinks that had attracted and then killed insects in sticky pools. Draco checked behind the counter while I moved carefully through the aisles, power ready beneath my skin in case something lurked in the shadows.

I found three things worth taking: a half-empty bottle of ibuprofen that had rolled under a shelf, a lighter that still had fluid, and a folded road map of the Midlands that was water-damaged but legible.

“Anything?” I called to Draco.

“Cigarettes and lottery tickets.” He replied dryly. “I don’t suppose you’ve developed a smoking habit in your little vacation?”

“Afraid not.”

“Pity. Could’ve been our currency if we find other survivors with worse vices than ours.”

We left the station and consulted the map, confirming we were still on track. Nottingham was roughly thirty miles northeast from our current position. Another day and a half of walking, assuming no major obstacles.

We encountered one that evening.

The road we’d been following crossed a river— or what had been a river. Now it was a sluggish, black-green flow that looked more like oil than water, moving with an unnatural thickness that made my stomach turn just looking at it. The bridge that had once spanned it was gone, reduced to broken supports jutting from either bank like broken teeth.

“Well.” Draco said, staring at the gap. “That’s inconvenient.”

I studied the riverbanks, looking for alternatives. Upstream and downstream both curved out of sight, and the banks were steep and slick with something that might have been algae or might have been the river’s corruption spreading onto land. The water itself was about twenty feet across— not impossible to jump with magic, but the landing on the far side looked treacherous.

“We could go around.” I suggested. “Follow the bank until we find a crossing.”

“That could add hours or even days to the journey.” Draco frowned, clearly weighing options. “And there’s no guarantee we’ll find anything better.”

“Then we jump?”

He looked at me, then at the gap, then back at me. “I hate that this is the sensible option.”

We backed up to give ourselves running room.

Ascendio!

I went first, pushing off with magically-enhanced momentum that sent me sailing across the gap in an arc that would’ve been exhilarating under different circumstances. I landed hard on the far bank, boots skidding on slick stone, and had to throw my weight forward to avoid sliding backward into that foul water.

Draco followed a moment later, his landing more controlled than mine. He straightened his robes with a small grimace. “I’m adding ‘long jumper’ to my list of post-apocalyptic skills.”

“Right next to ‘rabbit butcher’ and ‘expert fire-tender’?”

“Exactly.”

We continued north as the false day faded into the slightly darker false night, the auroras overhead shifting from lighter violet to deeper purple. I’d stopped thinking of them as beautiful somewhere around the second week. Now they were just the sky; eternal, writhing, and vaguely threatening in ways I couldn’t articulate.

We made camp that night in a cluster of pine trees that had somehow remained relatively uncorrupted. The needles were the wrong color. more gray-green than they should have been, but the trees stood straight and didn’t exude that wrongness that characterized truly corrupted flora.

Draco took the first watch while I tried to sleep— ‘tried’ being the operative word. My mind kept circling back to the giant we’d seen, to the watching figure that might or might not have been real, to the Drake essence coiled in my magic like a serpent waiting to strike. Sleep, when it finally came, was thin and restless.

We reached the outskirts of Nottingham early on the third day.

The city announced itself gradually— first through an increase in abandoned vehicles along the road, then through the appearance of suburban housing developments, and finally through the skyline itself rising from the haze ahead of us.

Or what was left of it.

Nottingham had been a decent-sized city, I knew. Not London-scale, but substantial. A proper urban center with high-rises and shopping districts and all the infrastructure of modern civilization.

What I saw now looked like something had taken a massive hand and simply crushed portions of it flat.

The destruction wasn’t uniform. Some buildings stood mostly intact, their windows dark but their structures sound. Others had collapsed completely, reduced to rubble that spilled across streets and created artificial canyons through the urban landscape. And some— the worst ones— looked like they’d been torn apart from the inside, walls exploded outward, floors pancaked, skeletal frameworks exposed like anatomical drawings.

“Dragon fire.” Draco said quietly, pointing to a cluster of buildings on our left. The structures were scorched black, metal beams melted into twisted sculptures, stone walls cracked and shattered from extreme heat. “Similar to what we saw in London.”

He was right. This wasn’t random destruction. Someone had targeted this city deliberately, systematically breaking its back.

We moved carefully into the urban sprawl, keeping to side streets and staying alert. Cities were dangerous in ways that the open countryside wasn’t— too many blind corners, too many places for threats to hide, too many ways to get trapped. My power stayed ready beneath my skin, responding to my heightened wariness with an eager restlessness I was learning to manage but never quite suppress.

The streets were empty. No survivors, no corrupted creatures, not even the small scavengers we’d occasionally seen in other ruins. Just silence, broken only by the wind whistling through broken windows and the occasional groan of settling rubble.

“Southwest, you said?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

Draco nodded, consulting his memory rather than any physical reference. “There was a settlement here. Small, maybe thirty or forty people. They’d fortified an old community center or something similar. The intelligence we got mentioned it six months ago, but then nothing. No further reports, no communication.”

“That’s not unusual though, is it? Communication’s been spotty everywhere.”

“No.” He agreed. “But this was one of the more reliable groups. They had a few former Aurors, decent defensive wards, regular supply runs. The kind of settlement that should have survived.”

Should have. Past tense. The implication hung between us.

We navigated through the city’s corpse, using the Four Point Spell— small mercies that we could still find True North with it— to orient ourselves southwest. The map I’d found helped, though many of the street signs were missing or illegible.

It took us nearly two hours to reach what we thought was the right area. The buildings here were lower, more residential than commercial. Row houses and apartment blocks, most of them damaged but not completely destroyed. The streets were narrower, creating a more claustrophobic feeling than the wider avenues we’d traveled earlier.

“There.” Draco said, pointing to a squat, brick building at the end of a cul-de-sac. “That’s the kind of structure they’d use. Defensible, limited entry points, solid walls.”

We approached carefully. As we got closer, I saw what Draco had spotted— signs of habitation, or past habitation. The windows had been boarded up with what looked like professional work, not desperate scrambling. Reinforcement beams had been added to the entrance. Defensive positions had been built up around the perimeter— low walls made from rubble and scrap metal, creating a barrier that would slow attackers.

But the entrance itself gaped open, the reinforced door torn completely off its hinges and lying twisted twenty feet away.

“That’s not good.” I murmured.

“No shit?” Draco agreed grimly.

We stopped at the edge of the defensive perimeter, both of us scanning for threats, for movement, for any sign of what had happened here.

I focused, using my enhanced vision. The world sharpened slightly, shadows becoming more defined, subtle variations in light and texture more distinct. It was like switching from standard definition to something clearer— not perfect, but better than normal human sight.

That’s when I saw it.

Magic. Or rather, the ghost of magic.

It was faint, barely perceptible even with my enhanced senses— a shimmer in the air around the building’s entrance, a distortion that reminded me of heat haze but felt wrong in a way I couldn’t quite articulate. It clung to the doorframe, to the broken door lying nearby, to the defensive positions.

“There was magic here.” I said, still staring at the traces. “Strong magic. But it’s gone now. Dissipated, or…”

I trailed off, uncertain how to describe what I was seeing. “Consumed, maybe?”

Draco moved closer, though I knew he couldn’t see what I could. “How long ago?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Days? Weeks? It’s too faded to tell.”

He was quiet for a moment, his expression cycling through several emotions before settling on something resigned. Not quite defeat, but close. “So we’re too late. Again.”

The weight in those words was heavy enough that I felt it in my own chest. Too late. The story of our journey so far. Too late to save these people, too late to change their fate, too late to do anything but bear witness to what had been lost.

But we’d come this far. We might as well see it through.

“Let’s check inside.” I said. “Maybe there’s something that explains what happened. Information we can use, or pass along to other survivors.”

“Or whatever killed them could still be lurking.” Still, Draco nodded, drawing his wand.

We crossed the perimeter and approached the entrance. Up close, the damage was even more disturbing. The door hadn’t just been torn off— it had been crushed, metal bent and compressed like someone had wadded it up like paper. The doorframe was cracked, chunks of brick and mortar missing where something impossibly strong had forced its way through.

The interior was dark. My enhanced vision helped, but not enough— the building’s interior was just too far from any light source for even my improved sight to penetrate completely.

Draco cast a small light spell, a soft blue glow that illuminated the entrance hall without being bright enough to advertise our presence from a distance. The light revealed a scene of controlled chaos: furniture overturned and positioned as barricades, scorch marks on the walls from spell fire, and dark stains on the floor that I tried not to look at too closely.

But no bodies. Whatever had happened here, the dead had either been removed or had removed themselves.

We moved deeper into the building, checking rooms one by one. A common area that had been converted into sleeping quarters, bedrolls still laid out in neat rows. A kitchen where supplies had been organized with military precision, though most of the food was gone now. A room that had served as an infirmary, medical supplies scattered across tables and floor.

And throughout it all, those same traces of faded magic. I saw them on doorways, on walls, concentrated heavily in what looked like a command center with maps and supply manifests pinned to boards. The magic had been everywhere here once. Strong defensive wards, detection spells, probably communication enchantments.

All of it was gone, as if something had simply erased every spell in the building at once.

“This was recent.” Draco said, examining a calendar on the wall. It was marked through early November. “Within the last few months, at least. They were still active, still organized.”

I stared at the faded magic traces, trying to understand what I was seeing. The void had taught me things about magic that I was still processing— how it worked on levels deeper than spells and wand movements, how it could be shaped and twisted and unmade. These traces felt like that. Not dispelled. Unmade.

“Something destroyed their wards.” I said slowly. “All of them at once, I think. Whatever came through that door, it didn’t break through the defenses. It erased them.”

Draco’s expression tightened. “That shouldn’t be possible. Not without inside knowledge of the ward scheme, and even then…”

“Yeah.” I felt cold despite the relative warmth of the building’s interior. “I know.”

We continued searching, but found nothing else useful. No journals, no notes, no convenient explanation for what had happened. Just the empty building and the ghost of magic that had failed to protect the people who’d cast it.

We were making our way back to the entrance, both of us lost in our own dark thoughts, when I felt it.

A prickle at the back of my neck. The sensation of being watched, of eyes tracking our movement. The same warning sense that had saved me countless times in the void, that had been honed by predators who hunted by observing their prey’s patterns.

My power responded before I could consciously process the threat, surging beneath my skin.

“Draco.” I said quietly, not turning my head. “We’re not alone.”

He didn’t question me, didn’t ask how I knew. He simply shifted his stance slightly, wand held ready but not raised. “How many?”

I focused, trying to pinpoint the source of the sensation. It was difficult— the ruined building created acoustic dead zones, and whatever was watching us was being careful to stay hidden.

“Multiple.” I said finally. “At least five. Maybe more. They’re surrounding the building.”

“Inside or outside?”

“Outside. For now.”

Draco’s jaw tightened. “They let us go in. They’re waiting to see what we do when we try to leave.”

Smart. Tactical. Not the behavior of corrupted creatures or mindless threats.

We were dealing with people.

And they’d just turned this building into a trap.

I didn’t wait for them to spring their ambush.

The moment we stepped through the entrance back into the open air, I felt the shift— the watchers moving from observation to action, magic gathering in the air around us with the distinctive pressure that preceded spellwork.

My chains erupted outward in every direction.

They burst from my outstretched hands like striking serpents, silver-black metal wreathed in shadow. The void had taught me to fight on instinct, to let my power flow without conscious thought, and that education served me now as the chains whipped through the air toward threats I could sense but not yet see.

I heard the first spell cut off mid-incantation as one of my chains wrapped around an attacker’s wrist, jerking their wand arm violently to the side. The spell discharged harmlessly into a wall, blowing a chunk of brick into dust.

Then they were on us.

Seven of them, emerging from cover positions behind rubble and around corners, wands raised and spells flying. The air lit up with curses— Cutting Hexes, Stunners, something that burned bright orange and left scorch marks where it hit stone.

Draco moved the instant the first spell flew, his own wand already bursting with a Shield Charm. The barrier shimmered into existence just in time to deflect a purple curse that would have taken him in the chest. He returned fire without hesitation, his spell— something I didn’t recognize, pale green and crackling— catching one of the attackers in the shoulder.

The man didn’t go down. Didn’t even flinch. Just kept coming, wand raised for another curse, and that’s when I realized something was deeply, fundamentally wrong.

His eyes were glowing purple and looked wild. Not with fear or battle rage, but with something that looked almost like madness. Spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed something incomprehensible, the words dissolving into animal sounds.

“What the hell?” Draco’s voice, tight with shock, confirmed he was seeing the same thing.

I didn’t have time to answer. Two more attackers were converging on my position, both of them moving with the same unhinged aggression. A woman with matted hair and robes that had once been fine but were now torn and stained. A younger man, maybe twenty, with scratches covering his face like he’d clawed at himself.

Both of them had that same look in their eyes.

My chains moved to intercept, wrapping around the woman’s legs and yanking her off her feet. She hit the ground hard enough that I heard the impact from twenty feet away, but she didn’t stop. She thrashed against the chains with strength that seemed impossible, screaming words that weren’t words, foam gathering at the corners of her mouth.

The young man got closer, close enough that I could smell him— sweat and dirt and something sour that made my nose wrinkle. He raised his wand, and I saw his hand shaking, trembling so badly that the tip traced erratic patterns in the air.

But the spell came out anyway.

It was a cutting curse, recognizable by the silver shimmer, and it flew toward me with the same wild imprecision as his wand movement. I dodged left, feeling the spell pass close enough to my shoulder that I felt its heat, and sent another chain lashing out.

It caught him across the chest, striking like a whip. The impact lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling backward into the rubble. He landed badly, I heard something crack, but he was already trying to get up, still making those animal noises, still completely focused on attacking.

“They’re not stopping!” Draco shouted, deflecting another spell and responding with what looked like a modified Stunner. It hit one of the attackers square in the chest, should have dropped him instantly, but the man just staggered, shook his head like clearing water from his ears, and kept coming.

I sent my chains spreading wider, creating a perimeter of writhing metal that forced the attackers to keep their distance or risk getting entangled. It bought us seconds, maybe, to process what we were facing.

“We need to contain them!” Draco called to me. “Figure out what’s wrong with them!”

“Contain?” My voice was incredulous. “They’re trying to kill us!”

“They’re sick!” Draco said as I pulled my chains back, reconfiguring them from offensive strikes to defensive. “Or cursed, or— I don’t know, but they weren’t like this before. Something happened to them!”

Even as he said it, we both knew how naive it sounded. These people were beyond reason, beyond help, probably beyond saving. But I figured he had to try.

The woman I’d knocked down earlier had gotten back to her feet, my chains still wrapped around her legs but not holding her completely. She was dragging herself forward, inch by inch, clawing at the ground with her hands, her wand forgotten somewhere behind her. The noises she made were worse than any corrupted creature I’d encountered— at least animals sounded like animals. This was a human voice twisted into something that shouldn’t exist.

I sent more chains toward her, wrapping them around her arms, her torso, creating a cocoon of iron that should have immobilized her completely. The chains tightened, responding to my will, holding her secure.

She kept struggling anyway. Thrashing with such violence that I felt it through the chains themselves, transmitted back through the magical connection. And then I heard it— a wet crack, followed by a scream that was somehow even more terrible than the ones before.

She’d broken her own arm. Snapped the bone against my restraints in her desperate attempt to free herself.

And she didn’t stop. Didn’t even pause. Just kept fighting, her broken arm flopping uselessly while she strained against the chains with her remaining limbs, foam and blood now mixing at her mouth.

“Merlin’s fucking— ” Draco’s curse cut off as he was forced to deflect another spell, this one coming from the man I’d hit with a chain earlier. The young man had gotten back up, despite what had sounded like broken ribs, and was casting again with his shaking hand.

I made a decision.

My chains shifted configuration again, moving from restraints to weapons. They lashed out with lethal intent this time, not holding back, not trying to preserve life. Because whatever these people had been, whatever they might have been before— they weren’t those people anymore. They were just suffering.

One of my chains caught the young man across the throat. He went down hard and didn’t get up again.

Draco’s spells shifted too, I noticed. From stunners and shields to cutting curses and blasting hexes. He’d come to the same conclusion I had, probably faster— even his newfound compassion had limits, after all.

The real battle, if it could be called that, lasted another three minutes.

Three minutes of systematic killing. Of ending people who couldn’t be saved, who wouldn’t stop coming, who were so far gone that death was the only mercy left to offer them.

When it was over, we stood in the cul-de-sac surrounded by seven bodies. The auroras overhead painted them in shades of purple and black, making the blood look darker than it should have, making the whole scene look like something from a nightmare given physical form.

I stared at the twisted expressions frozen on their faces.

My chains slowly retracted, sliding back beneath my skin, leaving me standing with empty hands that were covered in blood up to my elbows. Not all of it was theirs. Some of it was mine— I’d taken a cutting curse across my forearm at some point, though I barely remembered when.

Draco lowered his wand slowly. His breathing was controlled, measured, but I could see the tension in his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes. He was just as affected as I was, just better at hiding it.

“What…” He started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. Tried again. “What the hell was that?”

I shook my head. I didn’t have an answer. Couldn’t even begin to formulate one.

We’d killed seven people. Seven wizards who’d been part of the settlement, who’d been survivors trying to hold out against the apocalypse, who’d done nothing to deserve whatever had reduced them to the mindless attackers we’d just put down.

The thought made me feel sick.

“We should…” Draco paused, looking around at the corpses, the destroyed perimeter, the ruined building behind us. “We should check them. For… I don’t know. Evidence? Something that explains this?”

It was the smart thing to do.

“Yes.”

I forced myself to move toward the nearest body— the young man I’d killed first, the one with the shaking hands. Up close, he looked even younger than I’d thought. Maybe eighteen, barely older than I appeared. His eyes, still open, stared at nothing. The wildness and the purple glow were gone now, replaced by the empty gaze of death.

I knelt beside him, trying to ignore the blood soaking into my knees, and began checking his robes. Looking for… what? A diary explaining what had happened? A convenient note detailing the curse or poison or whatever had done this?

What I found was more disturbing in its mundanity. A wand— ten inches, looks like oak, well-maintained until recently. A few sickles in a pouch, worthless currency in a world without an economy. A water flask that was empty. And in his inner pocket, a photograph.

It showed a young couple standing in front of what looked like Hogwarts. The boy in the photo looked healthier, happier, whole. The girl beside him was laughing at something off-camera. They were both wearing Ravenclaw scarves.

I stared at the photo for longer than I should have, then carefully tucked it back into his pocket. He deserved to have it with him, even in death.

“Adam.” Draco’s voice was quiet but urgent. “Come look at this.”

I stood and moved to where he was crouched beside another body— the older wizard who’d been casting with such precision. Draco had pulled back the man’s sleeve, revealing his forearm.

At first I thought I was going to be shown a Dark Mark, the skull and serpent tattoo that marked Death Eaters. But as I looked closer, I realized it was something else entirely. The skin was covered in what looked like thin, dark veins, spreading from a central point near his wrist and branching out like a tree’s roots. The pattern was intricate, almost beautiful in a horrible way, and it pulsed slightly even in death.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Draco’s tone was carefully neutral, but I could hear the unease underneath. “But look at this one.”

He moved to another body— the woman with the broken arm. Her sleeve was already torn, revealing similar markings on her forearm. The pattern was slightly different, but the overall effect was the same. Dark veins, spreading, pulsing faintly.

We checked the others. All of them had the markings. All of them showed the same corrupted pattern spreading beneath their skin.

“A curse?” I suggested. “Some kind of magical infection?”

“Maybe.” Draco stood, wiping his hands on his already-filthy robes. “But I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve studied a fair amount of dark magic.”

I thought about the traces of unmade magic in the building, about how all the wards had been erased at once. About how these people had gone from organized survivors to mindless attackers.

“This settlement was targeted.” I said slowly. “Something came here, destroyed their defenses, and did… this to them. Turned them into whatever they became.”

“Why?” Draco’s question was sharp. “What’s the point? If you want to kill them, just kill them. Why turn them into…”

He gestured at the bodies, unable to find words.

“I don’t know. But we need to find out.”

Draco looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. “We should move. Whatever did this could still be around. And I really don’t want to end up like them.”

That was putting it mildly.

We moved away from the cul-de-sac. I wanted to do something for them— burn them properly, at least, give them some kind of respect in death. But we didn’t have time, and fire would attract attention we couldn’t afford.

So we just left them. Added their deaths to the growing list of things we couldn’t fix, couldn’t undo, couldn’t even properly honor.

The blood covering us started to dry as we walked, stiffening our clothes, making every movement uncomfortable. I should have cleaned it off with magic, and vanished the evidence of what we’d done.

Should have, but couldn’t. I didn’t want to. The discomfort felt appropriate somehow. Like penance.

We walked in silence through Nottingham’s ruins, neither of us quite able to process what had just happened. The city felt even more oppressive now. Every empty window was a potential threat. Every alleyway could hide another group of crazed wizards. Every sound made us both tense.

We’d been walking aimlessly for maybe twenty minutes, lost in our own dark thoughts, when I realized we were being surrounded again.

The awareness came slowly this time, filtered through emotional exhaustion and shock. But it was unmistakable— the sense of eyes watching, of movement in our peripheral vision, of a net closing around us.

I stopped walking. Draco stopped beside me a moment later, his hand already moving toward his wand.

“Again?” He asked quietly.

“Again.” I confirmed. “But different. These ones are… cautious. Observing more than preparing to attack.”

“How reassuring.”

We stood back-to-back in the middle of the street, waiting. I let my chains rise just beneath the surface, ready but not manifested. Not yet. Not until I knew what we were dealing with.

They emerged from alleys and from behind rubble, from doorways and from around corners. More than the last group— at least fifteen, maybe twenty. Men and women and even a few children, all of them armed with makeshift weapons and a few precious firearms.

Not wizards this time. Mundane survivors.

And unlike the crazed attackers we’d just killed, these people had clear, focused eyes and expressions that mixed fear with determination. They moved with clear coordination, spreading out to cut off escape routes while keeping their weapons trained on us.

A large man at the front— bearded, wearing what looked like a repurposed police vest— raised a hunting rifle and pointed it directly at my chest. His voice was steady when he spoke.

“Don’t move. Don’t cast. Don’t do anything except tell us who you are and what the hell you’re doing covered in blood in our territory.”

I looked at Draco. He looked at me. We were both still covered in gore from the last fight, both clearly armed with magic, both standing in the middle of a city we had no real claim to.

This was going to be a difficult conversation.

I raised my hands slowly, deliberately, keeping them visible and non-threatening despite the blood crusting on them. Draco mirrored the gesture after a brief hesitation, though his wand stayed in his hand— not pointing at anyone, but ready.

“We’re passing through.” I said, keeping my voice level and calm. “We’re not here to cause trouble. We’re just travelers heading north.”

The bearded man’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, the other survivors shifted nervously, weapons still trained on us. A woman with a crossbow called out. “Passing through? Covered in blood and gore? Do you think we look stupid?”

“You look sensibly cautious.” Draco said, his tone carrying just enough diplomatic smoothness to avoid sounding condescending. “Which is wise, given the circumstances. But he’s telling the truth. We’re not a threat to you.”

A younger man— maybe mid-twenties, holding a cricket bat wrapped in barbed wire— laughed without humor. “Not a threat? You’re bloody wizards. That makes you a threat by default.”

I felt Draco tense beside me at that, his pride bristling, but I spoke before he could respond.

“We were attacked.” I said, putting as much honesty into my voice as I could. “Southwest of here, near an old community center. By people who’d completely lost their minds.”

That got a reaction. Several of the survivors exchanged glances, expressions shifting from pure hostility to something more complicated. The bearded man’s rifle didn’t lower, but his finger moved slightly away from the trigger.

“Explain.” He commanded.

“We were searching the building.” I continued. “Looking for information about what happened here. When we came out, seven people ambushed us. But they weren’t… right. They were attacking mindlessly, screaming, foaming at the mouth. Like they’d gone completely insane.”

“And their eyes were glowing.” Draco added, his voice quieter than usual. “They wouldn’t stop. We tried to subdue them so we could talk to them. One of them broke her own arm fighting against restraints. Another kept fighting after taking something that should have dropped him instantly. They were beyond reason.”

“So we put them down.” I finished, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. “We didn’t have a choice.”

The silence that followed was heavy and tense. The survivors were processing what we’d said, weighing it against their own knowledge and experiences. I could see the calculations happening behind their eyes— deciding whether to believe us, whether we were a threat, whether this was worth whatever resources it would take to deal with us.

Finally, the bearded man spoke again. “Where exactly did this happen?”

“The community center on Ashwell Street.” Draco said. “Or near it. The cul-de-sac with the defensive perimeter.”

More glances exchanged. A woman near the back— older, gray-haired, holding a machete that looked well-used— spoke up. “That’s the Ashwell group. We lost contact with them about three months back.”

“Thought they’d just moved on.” Another man added. “Or gotten wiped out. Happens often enough.”

The bearded man lowered his rifle slightly. His expression had shifted from pure hostility to something more like wary concern. “Describe the people who attacked you.”

I did my best, giving details about the attackers— their ages, their conditions, what they’d been wearing. As I spoke, I saw recognition flickering across several faces in the crowd.

“That’s David.” Someone murmured when I described the older wizard. “And Sarah— that was definitely Sarah.”

The speaker was a younger woman, her voice thick with emotion. “She was my cousin. Muggleborn, they called her and off she went. Things were good before everything went to hell.”

“I’m sorry.” I said, meaning it. “I’m so sorry. But whatever happened to them, they weren’t those people anymore. They were…”

“Gone.” The gray-haired woman finished for me. “We’ve seen it before. Not here, but close enough.”

That got my attention. “You’ve seen this before?”

The bearded man— clearly the leader of this group— studied us for a long moment, then made a decision. He lowered his rifle completely and gestured for the others to do the same. Not everyone complied immediately, but gradually the weapons came down or at least pointed away from us.

“My name’s Bob.” He said. “Not short for Robert. Just Bob. And if you really did put down the Ashwell group, then you did them a mercy, whether you knew it or not.”

“What happened to them?” Draco asked.

Bob gestured around us.

“Not here. Too exposed. You want answers, you’ll come with us. But first…” He looked pointedly at our blood-covered clothes. “You do anything— anything at all— that makes me think you’re a threat to my people, and I don’t care what magic you’ve got. We will put you down. Clear?”

“Crystal.” I confirmed.

“Good. Then follow me. And keep your hands where we can see them.”

The survivors formed a loose escort around us, maintaining enough distance to react if we tried something but close enough to ensure we didn’t bolt. They moved through the ruined streets, taking routes that clearly avoided certain areas while sticking to others. Safe passages, probably, mapped out through hard experience.

We walked for about fifteen minutes, winding through increasingly residential neighborhoods, until we reached what looked like an old school building. Three stories, brick construction, with most of its windows intact and reinforcements added to the ground floor entrances. Defensive positions had been built up around it— not as extensive as what the Ashwell group had created, but substantial enough to slow attackers.

Guards at the entrance checked us over thoroughly, patting us down for weapons despite our obvious magical abilities. They were about to take Draco’s wand, but Bob shook his head when one guard moved to confiscate them.

“Let them keep the sticks.” He said. “If they wanted to kill us, they’d have done it by now.”

We were led inside, through corridors lined with more guards and civilians who stopped to stare at us with expressions ranging from curiosity to outright fear. Children peeked around doorframes before being pulled back by cautious adults. The smell of cooking food drifted from somewhere deeper in the building— something with onions, making my stomach clench with sudden hunger despite the circumstances.

Bob brought us to what had probably been the school’s staff room. Mismatched chairs were arranged in a rough circle, a table in the center covered with maps and supply manifests. He gestured for us to sit, then took a seat himself across from us. Several other survivors filed in and positioned themselves around the room— not quite guards, but not quite casual observers either.

“Right.” Bob said, leaning back in his chair and studying us with shrewd eyes. “Let’s start with the basics. Who are you, where are you from, and what are you really doing in Nottingham?”

I glanced at Draco, silently asking permission to speak for both of us. He gave a tiny nod.

“My name’s Adam.” I said. “This is Draco. We’re from London— the settlement in the ruins there. We’re heading north, toward Scotland, and Nottingham’s on the route.”

“Long way to travel.” The gray-haired woman commented. She’d positioned herself near the door, machete still in hand. “Especially for wizards. Why not just fly?”

“The sky isn’t safe anymore.” Draco said flatly. “Hasn’t been since the world broke; monsters everywhere. And our old methods are out of the question— the magic doesn’t work anymore.”

Bob grunted. “Fair enough. So you’re walking to Scotland. Why?”

That was a more complicated question, one that touched on things I wasn’t sure I wanted to share with strangers. But these people had offered us shelter despite every reason to turn us away or kill us outright. They deserved some honesty.

“We’re looking for people.” I said carefully. “Friends, family. People we lost when everything fell apart. We have reason to believe some of them went north.”

“And you think they’re still alive?” The question came from a younger man standing near Bob, his tone skeptical but not unkind. “After six years?”

“We have to try.” I said simply. “Even if it’s a long shot.”

Bob nodded slowly, as if that reasoning made sense to him. “And the Ashwell group? You really were just passing through?”

“We heard there might be magical activity there.” Draco admitted. “Before we left London, there were reports from months ago about a settlement in Nottingham. We thought we might find information, maybe supplies, possibly people who’d know something about the routes north.”

“Instead you found madmen.” Bob said.

“Yeah.” I agreed quietly. “But you look like you know something about them, yourselves.”

Bob leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and his expression grew more serious as he nodded towards the gray-haired woman. “Tell them.”

She spoke up. “About two months back, some of our people went north. Toward Arnold, the next town over. We were running low on certain supplies, thought we might find salvage there. It was supposed to be a simple run— get in, search a few stores, get out.”

She paused, her grip on the machete tightening.

“Five people went. Three came back. And those three…” She shook her head. “They weren’t right. Glowing eyes, aggressive, attacking anyone who got close. We had to lock them up, and even then they kept trying to break free. Screaming, foaming at the mouth, exactly like you described.”

“What happened to them?” I asked, though I could guess the answer.

“We tried everything we could think of to help them.” Bob said, his voice heavy. “Thought maybe they’d been poisoned, or hit with some kind of gas from pre-war stockpiles. Even considered rabies, though that didn’t quite fit. Nothing worked. They just got worse and worse. Eventually…”

He trailed off, but his meaning was clear.

“You put them down.” Draco finished.

Bob nodded. “Wasn’t easy. They were our people. But we didn’t have a choice.”

“The other two?” I asked. “The ones who didn’t come back?”

“Never found them.” The gray-haired woman said. “Sent another group to search after things settled down, but there was no sign. Either they wandered off or something got them.”

The room fell silent for a moment, everyone processing the implications. Whatever had affected the Ashwell group, whatever had turned them into mindless attackers, it wasn’t isolated to that one settlement. It was active, spreading, potentially affecting anyone who ventured into certain areas.

“You said they went north.” I said slowly. “Toward Arnold. What’s there?”

Bob and the woman exchanged glances. “That’s the question, isn’t it? We don’t know for sure. But the people who came back, before they lost their minds completely, they kept muttering about being charmed. About beautiful voices calling to them. About not being able to resist.”

A cold feeling settled into my gut. I looked at Draco and saw the same realization dawning on his face.

“Veela.” He said quietly. “Or something similar.”

“Vee-what?” The younger man asked.

“Magical creatures.” I explained. “Seemingly human, but they’re actually something else. They have an enchanting ability— a kind of charm that’s incredibly difficult to resist. If you’re exposed to it without protection, it can overwhelm your mind, make you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

“And if the exposure is prolonged.” Draco added, his tone grim. “Or if they’re corrupted like everything else in this broken world, the damage might be permanent. The mind breaks under the constant strain of the enchantment.”

“That would explain the symptoms.” I said, thinking out loud. “The aggression, the mindlessness, the physical deterioration. If their minds were being constantly battered by enchantment magic, unable to process anything else…”

“They’d go insane.” Bob finished. “Slowly at first, then all at once.”

The gray-haired woman had gone pale. “You’re saying there are these Veela things in Arnold? Just sitting there, charming anyone who gets close?”

“Possibly.” Draco said. “We can’t be certain without seeing them ourselves. But the pattern fits.”

“We also saw markings on the people who attacked us.” I added. “Dark veins spreading from a central point, pulsing even after death. Does that match what you saw?”

Bob nodded slowly. “Yeah. Our people had the same thing. We thought it was just part of whatever sickness they had.”

“It might be a physical manifestation of the magical corruption.” I suggested. “The enchantment literally getting under their skin, spreading through their system like an infection.”

The room digested this information in silence. I could see the fear on several faces— the understanding that there was a threat to the north that could turn people into mindless attackers, that could break minds just by existing.

“Well.” Bob said finally. “At least we know what we’re dealing with now. We’ll post warnings, make sure everyone knows to avoid Arnold, set up better patrols to catch anyone who might wander too close.”

“Or.” I said, the idea forming even as I spoke. “We could eliminate the threat.”

Every eye in the room turned to me. Bob’s expression was carefully neutral. “You’re suggesting going after these Veela things? Deliberately?”

“We’re heading north anyway.” I pointed out. “And this is directly in our path. If we go around, we’re adding days to our journey, possibly running into other threats. If we go through but don’t deal with the Veela, we’re just leaving a danger active that will keep affecting survivors.”

“You’re also risking getting charmed yourselves.” The gray-haired woman said sharply. “Ending up like the people you just killed.”

“We can prepare.” Draco said, and I heard the careful consideration in his voice. He was actually thinking about this, weighing the options rather than dismissing it out of hand. “Take precautions. We know what we’re facing now, which is more than the Ashwell group had.”

“You’re actually considering this.” Bob said, though it wasn’t quite a question.

I met his eyes. “Look, we’ve seen what happens when threats like this are left unchecked. We’ve walked through towns that were destroyed because no one dealt with the danger early enough. This isn’t just about us getting through— it’s about making sure other people don’t end up dead or worse.”

“Noble sentiment.” Bob said. “But you’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical. Most wizards we’ve encountered don’t give a damn about regular people.”

“Most wizards are trying to survive, just like you.” I said, keeping my tone even despite the accusation. “But you’re right to be skeptical. We don’t owe you anything, and you don’t owe us. But if we do this, if we clear Arnold, your people will be safer. That has to count for something.”

Bob studied me for a long moment, then turned to confer quietly with the gray-haired woman and the younger man. The conversation was brief and hushed, but I caught enough to understand they were debating whether to support us, ignore us, or try to stop us.

Finally, Bob turned back.

“You do this— you go into Arnold and deal with whatever’s there— and you do it successfully, we’ll owe you. Supplies, information, whatever we can spare. But more than that…” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “We’ll spread the word. To other settlements, other survivors. That there are wizards out there worth trusting.”

It wasn’t much, but in a world where wizard and mundane relations had deteriorated to the point of mutual suspicion at best and open hostility at worst, it was something.

“Deal.” I said.

“You’re insane.” The gray-haired woman muttered, but there was something almost like respect in her tone.

Bob stood, extending a hand. I shook it, feeling the calluses and strength in his grip. Draco followed suit, though his handshake was briefer and more formal.

“You’ll stay here tonight.” Bob said. “Get cleaned up, eat something, rest. You look like you need it, and if you’re really going to Arnold in the morning, you’ll need your strength. We don’t have much, but we can spare a meal and a place to sleep.”

“Thank you.” I said, and meant it.

He nodded. “Just don’t make me regret this. I’ve lost enough people already.”

We were shown to a small room on the second floor— a former classroom, now converted to temporary housing with bedrolls laid out in neat rows. Only two were occupied when we arrived, and the occupants quickly found reasons to be elsewhere, leaving us alone.

A guard brought us water and soap, and we took turns washing off the dried blood in a corner washbasin. The water turned dark red, then brown, then finally ran clear. I watched it swirl down the drain and wondered how many more times I’d have to do this before we reached Scotland.

Dinner came an hour later— a thin stew with vegetables and what might have been rabbit meat, plus bread that was more grain than flour but still counted as bread. It tasted like the best meal I’d had in days, which said more about our circumstances than the quality of the cooking.

We ate in silence, both of us too tired and too emotionally drained to talk.

After dinner, lying on my bedroll in the dark, I stared at the ceiling and thought about what waited for us in Arnold. Veela, probably corrupted by whatever had broken the world. Possibly more than one. Definitely dangerous enough to drive people insane.

Draco’s voice came from the darkness beside me. “You don’t have to do this, you know. We could go around.”

“So could you.” I pointed out.

“True.” A pause. “But I’m not the one who made the dramatic speech about protecting survivors.”

I huffed a quiet laugh. “Fair. But I meant what I said. We can’t just keep walking past problems and hoping someone else will fix them.”

“Even when ‘fixing them’ might get us killed?”

“Especially then.”

Another pause, longer this time. Then: “You’ve changed. Since before. You don’t seem as cold now. More willing to take risks for others.”

I thought about that. About the void, about what it had taught me, about the person I’d been and the person I’d become. “I’ve learned that waiting for perfect solutions gets you killed. Sometimes you just have to act and hope it works out.”

“That’s a terrible philosophy.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “But it’s kept me alive so far.”

Draco was quiet for a moment, then said. “Get some sleep. If we’re doing this, we’ll need to be sharp tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” I closed my eyes, though I doubted sleep would come easily. “Goodnight, Draco.”

“Goodnight.”

Morning came with the familiar purple light filtering through gaps in the boarded windows, the auroras outside providing their perpetual false dawn. I woke slowly, muscles stiff from sleeping on the floor despite the bedroll, and found Draco already awake and sitting with his back against the wall, staring at nothing.

“How long have you been up?” I asked, my voice rough with sleep.

“An hour, maybe.” He didn’t look at me, just kept staring at that empty space. “Couldn’t sleep. Kept thinking about what we’re about to do.”

I sat up, working out the kinks in my neck. “Second thoughts?”

“Third and fourth, actually.” Now he did look at me, and I saw the conflict in his expression. “We’re walking into a situation we don’t fully understand, against creatures we’ve never personally fought, with minimal preparation and no backup. It’s stupid.”

“Extremely stupid.” I agreed.

“But we’re doing it anyway.”

“Yeah.” I stood, stretching, feeling my spine pop in several places. “We’re doing it anyway.”

“Damned Gryffindors— wait, no, you weren’t even one, so you don’t even have an excuse.”

“Neither do you.”

A knock at the door interrupted whatever Draco might have said next. Bob entered without waiting for an invitation, carrying a tray with what looked like porridge and some kind of dark tea. He set it on the floor between us.

“Figured you’d want to eat before you left.” He said gruffly. “It’s not much, but it’ll keep you going.”

“Thank you.” I said, genuinely grateful. The porridge was gray and lumpy, but it was hot and filling, and the tea was strong enough to wake the dead.

Bob settled onto his haunches, watching us eat with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

“I talked to my people last night.” He said finally. “About what you’re planning. Most of them think you’re mad. A few think you’re noble. One or two think you’re lying and this is all some elaborate wizard scheme to… I don’t know, steal our supplies or something.”

“And you?” Draco asked.

“I think you’re mad.” Bob said bluntly. “But I also think you mean what you said. About protecting survivors. So I’m going to give you something.”

He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and spread it out on the floor between us. It was a hand-drawn map, crude but detailed, showing the area north of Nottingham.

“This is Arnold.” He said, pointing to a cluster of buildings marked on the map. “Or what’s left of it. The main road goes right through the center, but that’s where our people said the voices were strongest. If these Veela things are there, that’s probably where they’re concentrated.”

He traced a path with his finger, showing an alternate route. “This way takes you around the east side, through what used to be industrial parks. Longer, but might let you approach without alerting them. Or…” He traced another path, this one to the west. “This goes through residential areas. More cover, more buildings to use for concealment, but also more places for things to hide.”

I studied the map, committing the layout to memory. “How many buildings in the main concentration? Where the voices were strongest?”

“Hard to say. The town center had maybe a dozen large buildings— shops, offices, a community center. But the voices could’ve been coming from any of them, or all of them.”

“And your people who went there.” Draco said. “How long were they exposed before they started showing symptoms?”

Bob’s expression darkened. “They were gone for two days. When they came back, the symptoms started within hours. By the end of the first day, they were completely gone— wild, aggressive, attacking anything that moved.”

“So exposure time correlates with severity.” I said, thinking out loud. “The longer you’re exposed, the faster and more complete the breakdown.”

“Which means we need to be fast.” Draco added. “Get in, eliminate the threat, get out before we’re exposed long enough to be affected.”

“Assuming your protections work.” Bob pointed out. “And assuming you can actually kill these things.”

“We’ll figure it out.” I said with more confidence than I felt.

Bob folded up the map and handed it to me. “Keep it. You’ll need it more than we do.” He stood, brushing off his knees. “One more thing. The people who came back— before they lost their minds completely— they said the voices were beautiful. Irresistibly beautiful. Said it felt like the most wonderful thing they’d ever heard, and they’d have done anything to keep hearing it.”

He looked between us, his expression grave. “I’m telling you this because you need to understand what you’re up against. This isn’t just about blocking sound. It’s about resisting something that your brain will tell you is the most amazing experience of your life. Something you’ll want to surrender to, even knowing what it’ll cost you.”

The warning settled into my gut like a stone. So it had evolved to gain characteristics of the Imperius Curse.

Just great.

“We’ll be careful.” I promised.

Bob snorted.

“Being careful and walking into a nest of hellborn sirens are mutually exclusive concepts. But I appreciate the sentiment.” He moved toward the door, then paused. “If you do survive this— and I sincerely hope you do— come back this way. We’ll want to hear about it. And…”

He hesitated, then said it anyway. “We’ll owe you. Really owe you. That’s not something I say lightly.”

“Noted.” I said. “And Bob? Thank you. For the shelter, the food, the map. All of it.”

He nodded once, sharply, then left without another word.

Draco and I finished our breakfast in silence, both of us processing what we’d learned and what we were about to attempt. When the bowls were empty and the tea gone, we began our preparations in earnest.

“So.” Draco said, pulling out his wand and examining it critically. “Veela allure. How exactly do we protect against something that’s designed to bypass magical defenses?”

I’d been thinking about that since last night. “You suggested a spell earlier. What did you have in mind?”

“A mental shield I’ve developed.” He said. “Occlumency-based, designed to protect against emotional manipulation and mind magic. I made it in case I need to fight threats just like this.”

“Like your—”

“Like my father and his companions, yes.”

“Will it be enough?” I pointed out. “The wizards at Ashwell would’ve been trained in basic mental defense. And it didn’t help them.”

“True.” Draco frowned, thinking. “Which suggests the Veela allure is either stronger than normal, or it’s working on a different level than traditional mind magic.”

“Or both.” I said grimly. “If they’re corrupted like everything else, their abilities could be enhanced. And Veela allure isn’t exactly mind magic— it’s more biological, more primal. It affects you before you even realize you’re being affected.”

“Which brings us back to your suggestion.” Draco said. “Physical barriers. Blocking the sound entirely rather than trying to resist its effects.”

“That, and smell.” I nodded. “If we can’t smell or hear it, it can’t charm us. Simple, direct, and doesn’t rely on magical defenses that might be bypassed.”

“It’s also crude and potentially dangerous.” Draco countered. “If we can’t hear, we can’t communicate. We can’t coordinate. We can’t hear if other threats approach. We’re essentially making ourselves deaf in the middle of a combat situation.”

He was right, and we both knew it. But the alternative seemed even more dangerous.

“We need something in between.” I said slowly. “Something that blocks the specific frequency or type of sound the Veela produce, but lets us hear other things.”

“That’s theoretically possible.” Draco said, his tone suggesting he was already working through the magical theory. “A selective sound filter, keyed to block certain wavelengths while allowing others through. The problem is, we don’t know exactly what frequency the Veela allure operates on.”

“Could we make an educated guess?”

“Maybe.” He pulled out a scrap of paper and started sketching runes. “Veela allure is magical in nature but transmitted through the air. It would need to operate in a range that’s naturally appealing to humans— probably lower frequencies, something that resonates with the brain’s pleasure centers. If we assume it’s similar to other charm-based magic I’ve studied…”

He trailed off, muttering calculations under his breath and crossing out runes before redrawing them. I watched him work, reminded of the countless times I’d seen Hermione do the same thing— that intense focus, that absolute confidence in magical theory to provide answers.

“Here.” He said finally, showing me the result. “This is a modified silencing charm, inverted and keyed to specific frequency bands. In theory, it should block sounds in the range most likely to carry Veela allure while letting through normal conversation and environmental noise.”

“In theory.” I repeated.

“In theory.” He agreed. “The problem is we can’t test it properly. We won’t know if it works until we’re actually exposed to Veela allure.”

“So we’re gambling our lives on theoretical magic.” I said.

“Welcome to the damned apocalypse.” Draco replied dryly. “Where everything is theoretical and the rules don’t matter.”

I couldn’t help but crack a small smile at that. “Alright. Let’s say the spell works. How do we cast it? Will it last? What happens if it fails mid-fight?”

“It should last several hours if properly anchored.” Draco said, already moving into practical application. “I’ll need to modify it slightly for each of us— the frequency response will be individual, based on our specific hearing range and magical signature. As for failure…” He grimaced. “If it fails, we run. Immediately. No heroics, no trying to power through. We get out of range and reassess.”

“Agreed.” I paused, considering. “But we should have a backup plan. Something physical as a last resort.”

“Like what?”

I thought about it. “Earmuffs, like I said originally. Not as a primary defense— you’re right that going completely deaf is dangerous. But as an emergency measure if the spell fails. We keep them readily accessible, and if either of us starts feeling the effects of the allure, we put them on immediately.”

Draco nodded slowly. “That’s… actually sensible. We’d be vulnerable while deaf, but less vulnerable than if we’re charmed.”

“Exactly. So we need to find or make earmuffs. Something that will physically block all sound.”

We spent the next hour searching the settlement for suitable materials. The survivors were wary of us at first, but Bob must have passed the word around because people gradually became more helpful. We ended up with thick cloth— torn from old curtains— and wax from candles that the settlement had been hoarding.

Back in our temporary quarters, we fashioned crude but effective earmuffs, layering the cloth and coating it with wax to create as much sound-dampening as possible. They were bulky and uncomfortable, but when I tested them, pressing them firmly over my ears, the world went almost completely silent. I could hear my own heartbeat, my own breathing, but external sounds were reduced to barely-there vibrations.

I pulled them off. “These’ll work.”

“Assuming we have time to put them on before we’re completely charmed.” Draco said, but he was already making his own pair.

Next came the spell itself. Draco walked me through the incantation and wand movement— more complex than I’d expected, requiring precise control and clear visualization of the frequency bands we were trying to block.

“Sono Selectus Prohibere.” He instructed, demonstrating the wand movement. “And you need to focus on the sensation of hearing something unpleasant— nails on a chalkboard, whatever makes your skin crawl. That’s the feeling you’re trying to block, extended into the magical spectrum.”

“Would be helpful if I had a wand.” I said, annoyed. “But they all seem to reject me, now.”

Still, I practiced it in my own way several times, feeling the magic respond but not quite coalesce properly. The void had changed how my magic worked, made it more instinctive and less structured. This kind of precise, theoretical spellwork felt awkward, like writing with my non-dominant hand.

“You’re fighting it.” Draco observed. “Stop trying to force the magic into the shape you think it should take. Let it flow naturally through the structure of the spell.”

I tried again, this time letting go slightly. The magic twisted slightly, taking a path I hadn’t expected, but the spell cohered. I felt it settle over my ears like a thin membrane, not blocking sound but filtering it, selective in ways I couldn’t quite perceive yet.

“Better. Keep practicing.” Draco said. “Once we’re there, we’ll cast them on each other right before we enter the danger zone. They should last four to six hours, which should be more than enough time to find the Veela and deal with them.”

“‘Deal with them,'” I repeated. “You make it sound so simple.”

“Would you prefer ‘engage in lethal combat with potentially corrupted magical creatures while hoping our untested protective measures don’t fail’?”

“Not really, no.”

We gathered the rest of our supplies— what little we had. The smoked rabbit meat from before, wrapped carefully and stored in makeshift packs. Water flasks filled from the settlement’s stores. Our wands, cleaned and checked. The improvised earmuffs, secured where we could reach them quickly. And the map Bob had given us, showing the approaches to Arnold.

By midday— or what passed for midday in the eternal twilight— we were ready. Bob met us at the settlement’s entrance, along with the gray-haired woman whose name I’d finally learned was Margaret, and a handful of other survivors who’d apparently decided we were worth seeing off.

“Last chance to reconsider.” Bob said, though his tone suggested he already knew our answer.

“We’ll be back by tonight.” I said, hoping I was telling the truth. “Or tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“And if you’re not?”

“Then tell other survivors what we tried to do.” Draco said. “And warn them to stay away from Arnold. Permanently.”

Bob nodded, accepting that. “Good hunting, then. And try not to get yourselves killed. I’d hate to think I wasted breakfast on corpses-to-be.”

“We’ll do our best.” I promised.

We left the settlement, following the map’s directions through the ruined streets of Nottingham, heading north toward Arnold.