"Try to surround them!" Harry commanded. "Prongs can hurt them but you have to keep them together!" The others changed their tactics and directed their Patronus' to force the Dementor's towards Harry's Patronus who was maiming and killing Dementors at a shocking speed. Every fifteen seconds or so another Dementor would fall to Harry's overcharged Patronus, but with dozens of Dementors around it didn't seem to be enough. Suddenly two new Patronus' showed up and began helping fight off the Dementors. Harry looked towards where they came from and smiled when he saw Tonks and her fellow Auror with their wands out directing their Patronuses. With their additional help Harry could sense the tide of the battle was turning.
It was then that several loud cracks were heard, a sound Harry knew meant people were apparating in. He desperately hoped they would be on his side, but expected otherwise. They were indeed Death Eaters, a fact confirmed by the long black robes and skull masks. Not all of them were wearing masks, however, and those willing to show their faces Harry recognized as people who were already known to be Death Eaters. There were ten of them altogether and the group included all three Lestranges, Barty Crouch Junior, five masked Death Eaters, and a feral looking man that Harry did not recognize. They began firing curses indiscriminately as soon as they arrived, clearly looking to cause as much panic as possible. The Dementors, however, took their arrival as a signal that their job was done and immediately began to leave the area and their fallen brothers behind.
"Sirius!" Harry yelled, "Do you have a way to contact the rest of the Order?" The Death Eaters apparently had not seen them yet and were still firing at random targets. It was only a matter of time before they started killing people and Harry was having a hard time restraining himself from running into the middle of the battle.
"No." Sirius answered sadly. "We're on our own." Sirius growled as he saw the first Unforgivable of the day cast by one of the masked Death Eaters no more than fifteen feet away from them. It was a Cruciatus curse used on an elderly witch who was now screaming in pain. Sirius could stand no more and in an instant had transformed into his Animagus form and was running towards the unaware Death Eater. Without warning the huge black dog leapt on the man, knocking him down and ending the curse. Padfoot closed his powerful jaws on the man's hand and in the process broke his wand along with several bones. Having defeated his opponent, Sirius transformed out of his Animagus shape and prepared to face a new threat. The screaming Death Eater did not attempt to rejoin the fight, but instead used a portkey to escape. Remus ran to assist his friend, knowing that his attack would not go unnoticed.
"Stay here with the Weasley's!" Harry shouted to Daphne. "I'm going to help them!" Daphne nodded and began looking for a defensible position to fire from near the Weasley's. Neville followed her lead and soon they were both crouched behind a low brick wall that surrounded the patio of the ice cream shop. After a few moments they fell into a pattern where one of them would concentrate on shielding them while the other fired curses at the Death Eaters. It was a wise tactic and before the battle was over they would catch more than one of their enemies unprepared for it.
"Cousin Sirius! So nice to see you again!" a crazed looking Death Eater with long black hair said happily. Harry knew from pictures that she was Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the people responsible for sending Neville's parents to St Mungo's among other heinous crimes. Her greeting came along with a bone shattering curse which Sirius was able to shield against.
"Hello Bella, it looks as though Azkaban was worse for you than me." Sirius answered as he sent a blasting curse back her. She gracefully danced out of its way and began laughing maniacally again before sending a huge ball of fire at Sirius, which luckily for him was stopped with a flame freezing charm from Remus. "Thanks Moony! I knew you'd have my back."
"As always, Padfoot." Remus answered with a grin. Harry was only seconds behind him and soon the three were standing back to back to back, making sure that all angles were covered. Six of the remaining nine Death Eaters had decided that they posed the greatest threat and were focusing on them, while the other three were battling Tonks and the other Auror. Being outnumbered six to three placed them heavily on the defensive, but they were still able to hold their ground. Harry had quickly come to the conclusion that the best use of his opportunities to strike back would be to transfigure and animate different object and command them to attack the Death Eaters. This way they would be able to fight and distract the Death Eaters while he still had his shield up. A bench that had been transfigured into a tiger was able to pounce on Rodolphus Lestrange before his brother Rabastan was able to use a severing charm to slice of its head. In doing so, however, Rabastan lowered his guard and was hit in the leg with a powerful curse from Daphne which snapped his femur in two. He howled in pain but was not willing to let that take him out of the battle.
"Gotcha!" Remus yelled as one of his Reducto curses blasted a masked Death Eater into a brick wall. The man moaned in pain as his body hit the hard surface and evidently decided he had had enough of the battle because he too used a portkey to escape.
"Good one, Moony!" Sirius commented between curses. "Just like old days, isn't it?"
"Confringo!" Remus said. "Almost Padfoot, but Harry isn't Prongs."
"Of course not - Expulso!" Sirius replied. "But remember Hogsmeade, March 1980!"
"Ha! Reducto! I remember, the three of us huddled up just like we are now. We were lucky to survive that one."
"Not lucky, just good!" Sirius laughed. Harry had to shake his head in amazement. In the middle of the battle they were still able to stay calm enough to joke with each other. "Levicorpus!" Sirius' spell hit Bellatrix and she was lifted off the ground and suspended in the air upside down. Sirius sent another curse at her but she was able to dispell the effects and as she painfully crashed to the ground Sirius' follow up spell flew harmlessly over her head.
"Help!" a familiar voice called from the other side of the street. Harry glanced over and saw that Tonks' partner had been knocked out of the fight and she was now facing three Death Eaters by herself. A stunning spell from Neville and Daphne's direction hit a masked Death Eater in the back and knocked him to the ground, unconscious.
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