The Ottery St. Catchpole Thread, <Xanthe, Luna L., Ginny, Sakura>

[Xira Halcyon]

Xira was out by the stream that led to the Lovegoods' house, catching tadpoles with Xanthe and Tawnos, when the first sounds of battle reached her ears. "Did you hear that?" she asked, turning her wide-eyed gaze upon Xanthe, the nominal leader of the group.

[Xanthos Fiedor]

The artillery barrage that hit the Fiedor household caught Xanthos by surprise, and not just because it was Muggle artillery that was being used. He staggered through the violently shaking house, moving as far to the rear as he could to avoid the incoming shells, and sent Patronuses to the Ministry and St. Mungo's. Hogwarts was out... the school was closed for the summer, and the staff members who were in the Order were scattered to the four winds.

Xanthos moved back to the front of the house to look outside, peering cautiously through a window. A very large group of heavily armed Muggle soldiers was outside the house, and interspersed among them at random intervals were masked Death Eaters. A distressing thought occurred to Xanthos... his son was out there.

[Hugo Cutter]

The newest neighbor of the Halcyons, Weasleys and Fiedors had kept to himself for the most part, and little was known about him. Now, the nozzle of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher protruded from the window of his house and rained destruction down on the advancing French soldiers.

Hugo dove back inside the house just in time to avoid the enemy's return fire, which seemed to consist of mixed bullets and curses. A Meteor Spell collapsed one of the house's outer walls, and another grenade hurtled out of the new hole in the house at several hundred miles per hour. Hugo could tell from what he heard outside that he had managed to sow some confusion in the enemy ranks. Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects me, he thought with some small measure of pride.

[Xanthe Chapel]

Xanthe looked around with her eyes as wide as Xira's. She scratched behind her left ear and looked around, frowning slightly.

"Yeah," she said softly, looking to Xira, to Tawnos and then out in the direction that the noise had come from. "It sounds like..." Xanthe broke off, it sounded crazy. "It sounds like this movie I watched at my Grandparents house, they're muggles, and my Grandpa likes war films. It sounds like bombs, but loads of them."

The explosions were getting nearer and louder.

"Lets take a vote," Xanthe said diplomatically. "Run toward the loud noises?" she pointed the net that she had been using to catch tadpoles towards the explosions. "Or run away from the loud noises?" she pointed the net in the opposite direction, and looked quizzically at Xira and Tawnos.

[Tawnos Fiedor]

"We should at least find out what's going on, and whether there's anything we can do to help," Tawnos said, gesturing toward the increasingly frantic sounds of battle. Now, in addition to the bombs shouts, curses and the occasional scream could be heard.

[Xira Halcyon]

"We're not exactly the most qualified people to help," Xira pointed out. "I've never attended a DA meeting, but don't you lot have a way to summon each other or something?"

[Luna Lovegood]

The violence of the shudder that shook her house snapped even Luna out of her daze, otherwise lost to the world surrounding her as she pondered some of the deeper meanings of numbers in her own private arithmancy study. She was sure there was something significant about 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42... but she just couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Looking out the window flashes of light burst from the horizon and rained explosions on her small hometown. Frowing, she removed her wand from her robes and shot an anti-gravity charm towards the source of the flashes of light.

[Tonia Fiedor]

Tonia, with Viktor Krum -- who had been visiting Reyana Lacy in her hospital room when Xanthos' Patronus came in -- Apparated into Ottery St. Catchpole and immediately sensed that something was wrong. It could have had something to do with the fact that the village was beneath her, and she was upside down viewing it from midair. Why would Death Eaters use an Anti-Gravity Charm? she wondered to herself. It didn't really give either side a clear advantage... it was just as difficult for the Death Eaters to fight upside-down as it was for the Order.

[Xira Halcyon]

"Bloody hell!" Xira blurted as she suddenly found herself suspended upside-down in midair. She glanced over to Xanthe and saw that she was in the same predicament. But above the treeline like this, Xira could see the Death Eaters' army amassing when she looked in the opposite direction, past Tawnos. "Well, that answers that," she said. "Death Eaters."

[Tawnos Fiedor]

Tawnos nodded. "We've got these coins, and... crikey!" He had suddenly been yanked up into the air, and had dropped his D.A. coin just as he was about to show Xira how to use it. "Well, I guess it's up to Xanthe to summon help," he said. He followed Xira's gaze as she pointed out the Death Eaters, and added, "This just keeps getting better and better."

[Rabastan Lestrange]

Rabastan gestured to the house the grenades were coming from. "Flutergork, take care of that," he said, and he watched the Russian -- taking two Death Eaters and four soldiers with him -- split off from the main group and head toward Hugo Cutter's house. One of the soldiers cocked his arm and threw a grenade through the hole in the wall, but in perfect unison with the explosion Cutter came flying out of the second-story window, somersaulted off the roof, and landed with the heel of his boot against the grenadier's throat, crushing his windpipe. Handgun in one hand and wand in the other, he took out one of the two Death Eaters and another soldier before Disapparating. Flutergork had not only failed to neutralize the target, but had managed to lose half his escort. However, before Rabastan could chastise him the entire army was suddenly flipped upside down and dangled in midair. You have got to be kidding me, he thought.

[Xanthe Chapel]

Xanthe fumbled in her pocket for her coin, clutching it in her grip for fear of dropping it. She pointed her wand at it, summoning all the members of the DA. MAin problem being that most of them were in America, Xanthe wasn't even sure that the coins worked across continents or oceans, or if they had remebered to take them with them.

"Well this is an unusual situation," Xanthe shouted through the blood that was rushing to her head, turning her usually fair skin an interesting shade of purple. "Shame all the bigshots in the DA are stuck in the good ol' USA really..."

[Tawnos Fiedor]

"Not all of them," Tawnos reminded her. "You got to do some teaching this year, so I'd classify you as a big shot now. And Luna Lovegood's right up the street there." He pointed to her house, which was now much more visible.

A thought occurred to him as he watched Xanthe and Xira's faces turn increasingly alarming shades of purple. "We're going to pass out if we stay like this. Does anyone know the counter-curse for the Anti-Gravity Charm?"

[Xanthe Chapel]

Xanthe shook her head, though immediately regretted it as it seemed to make even more blood shake to the site.

"If I knew it I'd have countered it already!" she called frustratedly in response. "I wonder what Luna's thinking about being upside down. Xira, you must know the counter charm, growing up with Kieran and all." Xanthe added, thee thought making perfect sense to her. She shifted her gaze over to Xira, wondering suddenly how people that wore glasses coped with being strung upside down, and indeed if it was just them or everyone.

"Hey," she said suddenly. "The bombs have stopped. Perhaps they're all upside down as well"

[Xira Halcyon]

Xira nodded, flicked her wand and muttered an incantation. Everything very suddenly and violently righted itself, and she found herself vomiting into the nearby stream. "I'm going to Cruciate Luna," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Off in the distance, a much more violent explosion occurred... it didn't appear to be the intentional firing of a bomb, and Xira realized that something had gone wrong with the soldiers' equipment as the Anti-Gravity Charm caused it to crash back to the ground. A fireball blossomed where the explosion had happened, towering over the trees briefly before burning itself out.