Chapter Text
"BOMBARDA MAXIMA!" Sera hit the deck hard enough to smack her forehead on the black marble flooring.
Covering her head to protect it from the falling glass, her body incidentally had become a perfect obstacle for the wizard running after the kids cornered in here. He met a similar fate as her, hitting his head on the marble and shattered glass.
"AHH-" As Sera scrambled to her feet, she'd finally noticed her predicament. That being a young witch and wizard pointing their wands directly at her. "Wandless! I'm wandless!"
The girl, shorter than Sera by a few inches with hair so curly it seemed to fan out from her head like a mane, considered Sera with a serious scrutiny.
"You're not one of them?" She gestured to the older wizard thoroughly incapacitated on the floor.
"I work here- Unspeakable Frey, Department of Magical Phenomenon."
"W-What are you doing in the Time Room? You just...appeared." The boy asked. He looked sweet, with wavy blonde hair and rounded eyes that spoke of both innocence and troubles beyond his years.
"Look, I'm not entirely sure. I just know this isn't when I'm meant to be. I swear I mean you no harm." The boy lowered his wand, seemingly willing to put his faith in this new stranger.
"How do we know we can trust you?" The girl didn't lower her wand for a moment as Sera looked on the floor for the thing that got her into this mess.
She picked up the Time Turner, cracked and golden with veins of red along it's orbits, and handed it to the girl. "This is my only chance of getting home. I have nothing else. But I know these halls and I can get you and your friend out of here. You just need to trust me." She handed the time turner to the girl. It wasn't a great idea but it was all she had to offer as collateral. The girl pocketed the turner as she lowered her wand.
"We have friends with us. We need to find them first. I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger. This is Neville." Sera nodded, turning to check on the man incapacitated on the floor. Victoire was right, she really should've paid more attention in History of Magic, especially since she seemed to be living it. It freaked her out a bit, seeing Victoire's aunt and Professor Longbottom so young, but there wasn't a ton of time to have a panic attack if she was right about the time she'd landed in.
"As I said, I'm Unspeakable Frey. Did you see where your friends were headed?" Hermione shook her head.
"Wait, I saw them going further down the hall, great big silver doors I think?" Fuck.
"We need to get to them NOW." Sera stepped over the glass, running to the silver doors down the hall.
"Why?! What's in there?!" Hermione shouted as they hurried to keep pace with Sera's now frantic sprint.
"The Veil."
As Sera and the younger wizards busted in, the smell of sulfer and spellfire already had permeated the air. From what she could see, it was at least 2 to 1 in terms of Deatheaters to Students. The Order had already arrived for backup.
"Stay low and try to get your friends OUT of here- See that thing?" She pointed to the large stone arch on the dais. "Get too close and it's game over. Done. This is the DEATH Chamber."
"What about you?!" Neville asked, "You're unarmed!" Sera dug in her pocket, pulling out her finger cuffs. They'd been damaged in the travel it seemed.
"Don't need one. Like I said, lay low." If Sera played her cards right, she should be able to get to the other side of the chamber and activate the Ministry alarm. It would seal off the Veil and at the very least scare off what was left of the Deatheaters.
Truth be told, she was scared shitless. Her dueling experience was slim to none, she'd never learned properly due to her little wandless problem, but she DID play as a Beater back in school, which gave her serious reflexes. Sprinting straight across the chamber was a no-go given the rogue spells flying, her best bet was to skirt around the room and try not to get caught in the middle of a fight.
Securing her cuffs, Sera started sprinting round the perimeter of the room, giving her a good view of who was where and doing what. A trio of wizards and a cackling witch (who frankly looked insane if you'd asked Sera) were slowly but surely getting closer and closer to the Veil. From the glasses and scar on the youngest one, she'd bet fifty galleons on THAT being THE Harry Potter. She'd only ever met Mr. Potter a handful of times. Mostly at Weasley family barbeques in the summer when Vic and Ted let her tag along. He seemed like a quiet man, mostly speaking with his wife or the other two members of the "Golden Trio" as they'd been referred to in the Prophet.
She made it halfway around the chamber when a stray knockback jinx sent her flying forward and right into the wall. Her head was spinning from the impact and she felt something warm trickling down her face. The ringing in her ears had begun to dissipate when she stood up, finding the source of the jinx not far. A little blonde girl was dueling with a man at least twice her size. The younger girl already had a nasty bruised eye and a slice down her arm. Sera looked to her and back at the alarm rune less than a few yards away. She dared glance back at Harry and his allies. It was going to be close.
She scrambled to the younger girl, grabbing her good arm and pulling her behind her, covering her smaller frame with her own as she held her cuffed hand out to the older wizard behind her. "BOMBARDA!" The whole chamber began to shake, taking several people off their feet as the man she'd aimed at was blasted clear across the room, slamming into the wall on the other side. She looked back at the damage she'd done. Her spells had never had that kind of impact before...
She let go of the girl with shaking hands, at a loss for what to say. "Ok?" The girl studied her for a moment with a moony expression, then nodded. Sera tried to give her a reassuring smile, but the adrenaline and terror at what she'd just done probably made it seem more like a grimace.
There wasn't much time for pondering the weight of potentially killing a man with her bare hands, she needed to activate the alarm QUICK. She scrambled to her feet and slammed her shaking hand onto the emergency rune. Sending a piercing shriek throughout the chamber. The whole room stilled for a moment, all eyes on her. It was the longest moment of her life before the sound of footsteps and yelling began coming from the hall. The people in black quickly gathered themselves, apart from the man she'd sent into the wall, and apparated out in a blur of black smoke.
The chamber flooded with Aurors and emergency personnel. Relief flooded through Sera, sagging into the wall and sliding onto the floor. Her vision was a bit blurry, but she was just glad she'd managed to uphold her vow. Secretum et Silens. Secret and Silent. She'd protected the Veil AND the Order...At least she'd managed to do something right that day. The last thing Sera could make out was a man with black shaggy hair running up to her, and something about a concussed girl? Oh what, that was her.
What was that smell? Like smoke and rotten eggs, sulfer? Sera groaned as she tried to sit up, her head pounding from the effort.
"Whoa mate, hold on-" Who was that? "Take this, Mum said you'd have a nasty headache when you woke up." She blindly reached out for whatever the strange voice was offering. It could've been a Draught of Living Death and she'd taken it, just to take the edge off this headache.
Knocking back the vial, it tasted like a pain potion. And her head instantly began to clear. "Bloody hell, that's magic..." That got her a laugh from a different voice.
"Well yeah, that's the secret ingredient you see-"
"No muggle could brew one like us-"
"Not in a million years, we're wizards you see, or did that concussion knock the magic out of you?" Sera let out a light laugh.
"Now boys, let the girl breathe. Are you alright, miss....?" She finally dared to open her eyes. The boys in question were on either side of her, with cropped red hair and brown eyes. Twins, identical it seemed. The man in question was their father if she had to guess. Same dark eyes, same red hair, less freckled though.
"Sera? Seraphina actually but no one uses that but my mum." She sat up, getting a sense of her surroundings.
The room was horribly dreary. Everything draped in shades of green, black, and more black. It was downright depressing. A drawing room of some sort, reminded her a bit of Malfoy Manor if she was honest. Her, Teddy, and Vic used to camp on the grounds in the summer and Mrs. Tonks and Mrs. Malfoy would bring them snacks so they wouldn't starve. But while Malfoy Manor had this airy, elegant feeling about it, this place was distinctly darker. You could practically feel the dark magic oozing from the walls.
"Where am I?" The twins looked to their father.
"You're in the Head Quarters of the Order of the Phoenix. We brought you here because several of the students vouched for you."
Sera scrunched her brows, "Why didn't you just leave me for the authorities?"
"Hermione told us you'd appeared out of thin air. Holding this-" The older man pulled her Time Turner out of his pocket, the cracks having grown in severity. "Albus told us it was best to keep you here until he was able to come and speak with you himself." She folded her legs against her chest, folding her hands under her knees.
Her head jerked down to look at her hands. "Where are my cuffs?!" The twins looked apologetically at her, the one in purple dug what seemed like metal scraps out of his pocket.
"Sorry, you'd been clutching them when Dad brought you in...They fell apart when we got them off you." He placed what was left of them into her palms.
Her only tool to use her magic. Gone. Looking back up at the older man, the cracked Time Turner still in hand, she began to cry.