The roof crashed around James, Annalee, Sean, and his Grandmum, the protego maxima slowly closing tighter around them, the weight of the rubble coming down against the magic so that it became harder and harder to uphold.

James's face broke into a sweat, red from the strength being exerted, his legs bracing his body weight as he struggled to stay upright. The magic shield coverer them like a shimmery cloche, only just barely over James's head, so that Annalee was crouched and Sean had brought his Grandmum to kneeling on the floor, adding a second layer of protection over her with his own body. The whole house was down all around them, collapsed under the foot of the Gurg, and even as the giant walked on, the rubble itself was heavy and James was only able to lift the protego up slightly.

Annalee gasped looking up at James as he strained to keep the roof from coming down on them.

"Do - do either of - you - know - how - how to send - a message - with - a patronus?" James asked, the words broken by grunts, his face contorted.

"I can barely cast one," Annalee admitted.

Sean shook his head, keeping his hands 'round his grandmum who was sobbing, hiding her face from the house's ruins. He was shell-shocked - if they'd been even a few minutes later...

James glanced about as much as he could without losing his concentration, his heart thumping. If he let down the shield to cast the message, it would mean the roof collapsing in and crushing the lot of them. But honestly, he couldn't hold it much longer anyway, which also would mean it collapsing and crushing them.

"Okay. Okay um. Annalee, can you try to dig the way out? Just - just blast that stuff over there - that way - I reckon if you - aim for where the window was - and - you three go out that way -"

"What about you?" Sean asked.

"I'll get out after you lot are through."

Annalee crouched as low as she could to get the angle she needed to send her charm below the umbrella of James's shield. She drew her wand from her blazer, taking aim, and hissed, "Depulso!" White light jetted out from Annalee's wand, pushing the rubble back a bit. She blasted at angles, creating a triangular space beyond James's shield and she aimed directly at the center of it. "Reducto!" she cried and red sparks flew out, blasting the wall out. There was a quick sight of the grass and field beyond before it was quickly filled in with more rubble tumbling from the top of the shield charm. Annalee turned to look at James.

"More of the banishing charm," he directed.

"Depulso!" she yelled again, several times, pushing the bits of rafter and roof away so that it blew out across the grass. Again, a small glimpse of the outside showed, and she looked to Sean. "I think I'll have to banish the stuff and cast a second charm to hold more from falling down. Then you and your gran can crawl through there and you can move the stuff from the outside to unbury James and I."

"No," Sean said, "I'll cast the charm and you and me grandmum will go out and unbury me and James."

Annalee looked at James. 

James winced, his biceps felt like they were on fire, "I don't bloody care, just get the hell out of here however you can," he said, his voice trembling with the effort of what he was doing. He didn't have much left in him for it. 

Annalee said, "Sean, I --"

Sean let go of his grandmum, who covered her mouth with worry as he took his wand from his sleeve and before Annalee could argue further, he shouted, "REDUCTO! PROTEGO MAXIMA!" and the wall blasted out, a tunnel blowing through and held up by the shield. "Go grandmum - go," he said.

Annalee guided Annie Buckner to the tunnel and waved for her to go ahead. She looked up at her grandson with worry, but she went through, her palms touching the beams and rafters that had been the cottage she'd lived in for over fifty years of her life by then - the house she'd made her own after marrying her late husband, where she'd watched her daughter grow, where she'd watched her daughter pass but took on her grandson, and the years he'd spent there, becoming the young man who now protected her...

When she'd got through, Annalee looked at Sean, eyes wide. She looked as though she had something to say - but she held back, and went on through the tunnel after Annie Buckner, leaving Sean and James alone.

"Go on James," Sean said, "Come down here and start on through... once you're under my shield you can drop your own, and we can both get on through, yeah?"

"Alright," James could scarcely breathe from the force of the fight to keep his magic up at this point. He normally would never agree to let down his shield before Sean was out, but he didn't have the strength to fight him on it, and the charm was starting to wear thin, the edges of the umbrella of the shield were lifting up, growing closer to the pinnacle of the charm as the roof pressed down more and more...

Sean was on his knees where he'd been with his grandmum, just covered under his own charm, and James dropped to the floor carefully, keeping up his shield as best he could, bits of stones and wood fell into the sphere of safety he'd upheld. He slipped under Sean's shield and lowered his arms down at last. They felt gelatinous and pain shot between his shoulders as his arms dropped the strain - the muscles in his back knotting up. Over their heads, the magic hissed as the spell released. 

"Jaysus and the donkey," Sean swore like his grandmum as the heft of the rubble dropped from James's broken shield and onto his arm, "How the bleedin' heart did you hold this so long?"

"You got it?" James asked, though even if Sean didn't, he did not reckon he could very well cast another shield himself with the way his arms felt.

"Aye. Go -" Sean nodded to the patch of light at the end of the tunnel.

"Alright. Hold on mate, you've got this. It'll be just a moment longer," James swore and he crawled as quickly as he could through the tunnel of the rubble out into the sunlight. It was blindingly bright after being in the dark of the collapsed cottage and he tumbled over the grass.

Annalee was up and saving her wand, banishing bricks and stones as quickly as she could away from the collapsed cottage, the bits littering over the valley beyond as she moved with speed rather than accuracy. James hurried to join her, lifting up the larger bits - whole beams, chunks of the chimney, casting it off side to side, working at moving everything as fast as they could.

Suddenly, the center of the cottage rubble shifted and a big anount of it dropped down.

"SEAN!" Annalee screamed, and she threw herself to the mouth of the tunnel and looked in. "James, oh god, it's collapsed."

"A leanbh!" Annie Buckner cried, "Mo mhac!" 

James started moving faster, sending things off as fast as he could, his heart slamming in his chest.

"Sean!" Annalee cried out again.

Suddenly a burst of power shot great chunk of the roof up from the ground, flipping it up and off the opposite way from where they stood, and in the clearing the explosion made was Sean, half-buried still, gasping, dust-covered, and glassy eyed with shock at his own power.

James hurried to climb over the rubble, pushing what remained on top of him with his hands, rushing to get him out. "You've done it, Sean, you've done it, you're bleedin' incredible, mate," he was muttering as he threw stones and bricks. He was joined a moment later by Annalee, who grabbed Sean's face and started kissing his cheeks and forehead feverishly. 

Sean laughed, punch drunk, as she kissed him and kissed him and kissed him --

"I should have near death experiences more often," he muttered, delirious as James finally gave him a hand-up, yanking him out of the rubble. Sean winced, his ribs bruised and leg twisted a fair bit in a sore direction, but not broken. James pulled his arm up over his shoulder, balancing him up so he could lean onto James as they climbed back over the stones, hardly any of which stood atop of one another by this point.

"Grandmum," Sean said as they arrived to the edge of the pile, and James slid him down to the grass, "I'm sorry we couldn't save the house, I --"

"I'm thankful for you only!" cried Annie Buckner, "I'm thankful for you alone, mo mhac!" she clutched him, pulling his head into her as tears fell over her cheeks in great rivers.

James stood, sweeping his hand over his forehead, his whole body jelly-like and weak from what he'd just been through, but he looked over the landscape in the direction that the giants had been moving, and he could see smoke and dust rising up all over the place - more homes, more people who were probably in similar situations, and his heart swelled up and he said, "You lot stay here - I've got to --" he dashed off before he could be stopped, disapparating from where he stood - across the valley toward the next house.

"Hello?" James yelled toward the rubble, "Hello? Anyone there?" He started waved his wand "Homenum revelio!" 

There was a vibrato of sound deep in the rubble, and James climbed up over the stones toward the sound, launching himself quickly, sliding over wall that lay at a broken angle, and hurried to blast away wood and stones as he'd done at the Buckner's cottage, sending things away into the grass around the edge until he'd unburied a woman, knocked unconscious and bleeding at the temple.

James carefully moved a large cross beam that had come down onto her and he bent, slipping his arms beneath her and lifting her up from beneath the remains of the house, struggling to climb out himself, pushing himself along with his legs, hugging her to his chest until he'd gotten to the edge of the house's plot. 

He gently lay her on the grass and bent over her, "Enervate," he whispered, and she awoke, gasping for air, her wide brown eyes staring up at him in shock as she wheezed and fought to orient herself with what happened. "Wait here," he said gently, "Wait here, alright? Someone will be along shortly. I'll see to it. Wait here."

She looked so confused. He didn't want to leave her without any hope, so he quickly cast a patronus, sending a shimmering white stag off to St. Mungo's to get a mediwitch. 

He disapparated to the next house - there, he saved an old man and his wife from their kitchen, where they'd been drinking tea.  Another patronus was sent off to Mungo's. The next house had two children and a mum, and even a cat, who mewled as he was climbing out of the rubble after helping the second child, and he'd plunged his hand down to catch the kitten by the scruff, dropping it into the hand of the boy in his arms.

He fell onto the grass himself after that, dizzy and looking across the rest of the village - guilt welling up in him because he couldn't go on - and he closed his eyes, feeling the grass on his cheeks, his glasses fogged with dust. 

"The others," he murmured, and he cast one last patronus. "Tell Underhill," he murmured. "The other houses --" but he couldn't even finish the sentence as he closed his eyes, blinking out of consciousness himself as his exhaustion overtook him.

Meanwhile, far off in the valley beyond, Underhill was fighting along side the aurors against the giants, freezing their arms from swinging the boulders. One giant's boulder had been exploded by a well aimed reducto from Fabian Prewett. One giant was down, his wrists bound in big irons, and another was about to fall as Frank Longbottom and McKenna blasted at his ankles. 

Edgar Bones was on the shoulder of one, having used a retractum to pull himself up onto the giant, aiming his wand into the giant's temple, "STUPEFY!" Edgar shouted and the stunner went flying through the ear of the giant and with a great cry he spun, and down the giant came, Edgar gripping onto his hair and swinging to the ground as the giant landed with a crash that sent tremors through the ground.

Two of seven down, and the Gurg thoroughly engaged, the remaining four giants were fighting with less assurance of winning. And then it was three down as Frank distracted the giant he was fighting and McKenna shot a spell that buckled the back of the giant's knees, sending him to the ground where Frank stunned him and Chase Volsung hurried to fit another pair of the big irons bout his wrists before he could recover.

"BOMBARDA MAXIMA!" bellowed Fabian, pressing his wand to the ground and sending a shockwave through that was a bit like pulling the carpet from beneath the feet of the two giants ahead of him, sending them backwards with a good pushing spell and a blast from his palms. They fell onto their backs as the other aurors fighting with him sent spells that knocked the two giants' heads together, and they fell completely down.

The remaining giant held up his hand in surrender, dropping his boulder to the ground as Fabian Prewett turned to face him, giving up the fight as a bad cause. The aurors descended upon him, the big irons wrapping themselves around his wrists.

And all that remained was the Gurg himself.

Underhill had been going up against the Gurg, along side Mad-Eye Moody, the sword of the roaring Forimir slicing through the air, cutting into the earth as he plunged it downward through the grass. The spells Underhill sent reflected off the giant's shin guards, and he kept having to dodge his own magic as he tried like hell to get the shots cast between the links where the knees bent. The Gurg swept his boulder weapon along, forcing Mad-Eye and Underhill to jump backward.

Edgar joined him, and then Fabian, and the three of them faced the Gurg, the best armored of the seven. It was Fabian who ran 'round the back of the Gurg, his wand raised, blasting off the ties that held his shin guards in place, and Edgar had to leap back as the monolithic shields fell from the shins of the Gurg. With a quick whiplike lash of his arm, Mad-Eye Moody sent a jet of white-hot light that broke across the Gurg's shins that sliced the skin, and the Gurg let out a roar of anger as he banged his boulder down hard, shaking the ground and knocking Underhill back from the force of it.

"Concutrar!" Edgar shouted and the Gurg danced out of the way before his knee caps could be blasted, and  with an almighty roar he whipped his boulder hammer across like a croquette mallet, whacking Edgar aside like one of the balls, slamming him away so that he fell several feet away in the grass, and he did not get back up.

Fabian rushed to Edgar's side in the grass.

"BOMBARDA!" Mad-Eye Moody blasted the boulder to bits, large bits of it flew out like huge meteors across the landscape and he had to duck a particularly large bit as it dropped down and nearly crushed him.

Underhill, a few steps behind Mad-Eye, whipped his wrist, and he sent the stones flying directly back at the giant, and the stone that had nearly crushed him slammed into the Gurg's face, directly between his eyes, and he stumbled backwards with surprise at the force with which the stone had struck him. He growled even louder and mightier than he'd done when he swung at Edgar...

Underhill sent a blast at the Gurg's upper thigh, and when the Gurg reacted there, Mad-Eye Moody was there to send another jet of fierce red light directly into the Gurg's eyes. Then a thick rope of white light cracked the air as Underhill drew his wand through the air, wrapping the light around the Gurg's ankles, bringing him down in a ferocious tug and the Gurg tumbled forward - top heavy, just as Underhill had told his aurors - his own golden sword getting caught under him, and with a great shout and a horrible noise - the Gurg was dead, his chest pierced on the golden sword.

Underhill stood, breathless. He looked across the body to where Mad-Eye Moody stood, also breathless, and they stared at one another, then Mad-Eye laughed, "Yer a bonnie mess, Harry!"

"But still looking' better'n you, ya doaty arsehole!" Underhill yelled back.

Mad-Eye chuckled, "Ain't a hard thing ter do."

Fabian was helping Edgar Bones up from the grass as Mad-Eye Moody thumped over to him. "Prewett One - where's Two?" Moody looked about in concern at the others around him, in the valley, not seeing Gideon.

"Gone to see his girls, ain't he?" yelled Fabian - "Man's just found out he's a becomin' a father today, Mad-Eye!"