AN: Sorry about the massive delay but the real world and writers block is a bitchy combination.
This first chapter is merely a set up chapter that I decided to post now instead of leaving chapters one and two combined as one big chapter, I just couldn't figure out how to connect the two. After a little more than eight months since I finished The New Order, I felt I had to post something as soon as possible.
Chapter two is already almost finished since I have had it typed up for a while now, the middle and end are finished I just need to finish the beginning which is what has been giving me trouble for several months now.
As to my other stories, Rise of Azkaban and Set Me Free are worked on as it comes to me since my other two fics are my priority. Chapter eight of To End All Wars is probably about half finished.
Finally I'd like to thank everyone for their patience and apologize to everyone for taking so long, especially to those that e-mailed me with questions concerning this story, I gave many of them set dates of when this would be posted and I made none of them and for that I apologize.
Now, on with the show.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DOGS OF WAR
By
Padfootjr24
Chapter One: The Capture of Gringotts
Jacob Williams/Potter sat nervously on the Hogwarts Express as he waited to begin the long ride from London to the north of Scotland. Despite having very little to do to keep himself entertained, as any boy his age should, he had enjoyed his childhood but unfortunately, growing up secluded in the mountains of a far off country didn't give him much grounding in the social arts of English witches and wizards.
For a little over a month now, he had inter-acted, or rather, watched his parents, inter-act with a few different people but thus far he had not yet had to do much of it himself, for which he was extremely grateful. Simply being completely surrounded by hundreds of strangers, most of them in high states of emotion at being separated from their loved ones as they depart for school once again, made him severely uncomfortable and slightly edgy.
The looks he was drawing wasn't helping matters in the least. While Hogwarts was not a small school, it did seem that a new face stuck out like a sore thumb, especially those that were obviously not first years since transfers between schools of magic was not a common practice.
"Hello!" Jacob was pulled out of his thoughts as he snapped his head away from the window he had been staring out to find a girl around his own age, maybe a little older, sitting across from him. He mentally cursed himself for being caught unawares like that. As jumpy as he had been all morning, he couldn't possibly understand how this girl could have entered the compartment, closed the door behind her and taken the seat directly across from him without noticing her presence.
She was about his height, about five foot six, with very long dirty blond hair and large silvery grey eyes. She had a sort of detached or surprised look on her face as she read from a magazine, which, strangely enough, was upside down and he noticed that her wand was sticking out from beneath her hair from where it was tucked behind her right ear.
"I'm Luna Lovegood, and you are?" She asked as she stuck out her hand, never taking her eyes off of her copy of The Quibbler. Jacob looked at her oddly for a moment before taking her hand.
"Jacob Williams!"
"Have you met your brother yet?" Luna asked in an offhand manner.
"What?" Jacob choked out as he looked at the girl in surprise and even a little fear.
"Harry Potter, of course!" She looked up and elaborated, as if it were obvious. "I'm not particularly sure how it is possible, but the relation is obvious." Jacob covered up his shock, and fear, quickly and was prepared to deny her statement in a confused manner when the door to the compartment opened revealing Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley.
"Hello, Ginerva, Neville!" Ginny cringed at the use of her full name but didn't say anything about it. She had long ago learned that doing so would do no good, Luna had her own way of doing things and no one was going to change her. Dumbledore decided that all the students that had been training at Hogwarts would still travel back to London to catch the Hogwarts Express to help throw off any suspicion that would be caused by several students from each house being missing. Though he never spoke it out loud, he also felt that it would add a bit of extra security for the journey to Hogsmeade station.
"Luna!" The two greeted in return as they sat down. Jacob felt very uncomfortable as they seemed to scrutinize him closely.
"You have been around Hogwarts this summer, right?" Ginny asked curiously. She had seen him a couple of times but when asking about him, she always received the same answers. Either they didn't know who he was or, for those that obviously knew, they refused to give any details, claiming only that he was the son of two Order members.
"I've been there a few times."
"I'm Ginny Weasley," She introduced herself with a bright smile. "And this is Neville Longbottom."
"I'm Jacob Williams."
"Are you just transferring here, what year are you in?"
"I'm going to be in fifth year." He answered a bit uncomfortably. Technically, he should be in his forth year but he was already well trained in the forth and fifth year syllabus but since he had not yet taken his OWLs he had to complete fifth year instead of moving right along to sixth where he could actually learn something new.
XXX
"MERI!" Cho shouted as she rushed to her best friend and embraced her in a tight hug. "Where have you been? I was so scared when I heard about your parents, why didn't you contact me?"
"I'll tell you once we find a compartment, I don't particularly want to talk about it where everyone can hear!" Merietta replied nervously as she glanced around. Cho certainly didn't seem to appreciate having to wait but instantly grabbed the other girl's hand and pulled her on board the train.
As they searched for an empty compartment they came across one that had both of them sneering, but for different reasons. Luna Lovegood wasn't well liked, even within Ravenclaw, due to her 'eccentricities' and many went out of their way to make sure that she knew that she was unwelcome. Cho and Merietta had been among them but after spending so much time with Harry and hearing his opinions about the girl, Merietta now felt differently, Cho clearly didn't.
Instead, she was glaring at the boy sitting across from her. While she knew perfectly well that he was in no way responsible for his parent's actions, she couldn't help allowing a small bit of her anger at the elder Potter's be directed at him as well. It was completely illogical, she knew, but ever since she was made fully aware of the situation she couldn't help but feel contempt for everyone involved, though she was trying her best to overcome that.
After finding an empty compartment, Cho practically threw her into a seat and sat down opposite her as she slightly bounced in anticipation, waiting for her friend to begin. Merietta looked at her friend in amusement, and a little relief, seeing her appear truly happy again for the first time since Cedric had been killed. The previous year had been a nightmare for just about everyone in Ravenclaw. Everyone tried to be understanding but dealing with the girl's drastic mood swings was very difficult, her unfounded jealousies regarding Hermione Granger while she had briefly dated Harry didn't help matters any.
"Well, are you going to tell me or not?" 'Meri' simply raised an eyebrow at her friend's impatience, an act she had picked up from both Snape and Blaise, before casting every privacy shield and charm that she knew.
"First, you must swear an oath that you will never pass this information on to anyone without my expressed permission. I'm sorry, Cho, but you'll understand once I'm finished." At first, the Asian girl looked angered and offended that her friend felt such precautions were necessary but then that turned to curiosity and anticipation.
Merietta was greatly shocked when, instead of the standard oaths, Cho instead chose to cut her wrist and perform a blood oath. This differed greatly from a witch's oath as in it would result in the witch's death if she were to break it willingly and if the information was forced from her, through Legillamency or Veritaserum, it would be wiped from her mind before it could be passed on. After the oath was given and the wound healed, Merietta just looked at her friend in shock for several moments before getting to the point.
"Um, right, well, as you know, we were attacked in Diagon Alley last month but what you probably don't know is that it wasn't just a simple raid, in fact my mother was the primary target."
"What! Why would the Death Eaters target her? What did she do to them?" Cho shouted in anger.
"She didn't do anything to them, it was what she did FOR them!" The other girl sighed quietly. "Lucius Malfoy blackmailed her into giving them access to the Ministry in June."
"Harry!" Cho gasped after she thought for a moment.
"Yes! She used her position in Floo Network Office to get the Death Eaters into the Ministry while also making sure that Harry and his friends could get in without setting off any alarms. She covered her tracks perfectly but she turned herself in anyway and was going to cooperate with the investigation. However, her testimony would have certainly led to a conviction of other Death Eaters that were not present during that attack so they made sure she couldn't testify.
"Anyway, during the attack, when those guys in green robes beat the Death Eaters, Harry Potter was also in Diagon Alley. He saved my life and had me portkeyed away to receive treatment."
"But, everyone still thought he was guilty at that time, why would he be walking around were everyone could see?" Cho asked with wide eyes.
"Apparently he doesn't think too much of the Ministry's chances of catching him. I still thought he was guilty as well, of course, when I woke up I saw him there and naturally I was terrified, I thought he was going to kill me and I asked him that." She continued with a chuckle. "He just looked at me as if I were completely stupid and said, 'Yes, I'm going to kill you. I saved your life and sent you here to get healed up because I like my victims to be in perfect health when I kill them.' Then he just rolled his eyes and left the room."
"He said that?" Cho roared with laughter. "I take it you thought he was innocent after that?"
"No, not really." She admitted before telling the story that they had decided on. "Not long after that, Susan Bones came to see me."
"The Hufflepuff?"
"Yeah, apparently she had been there since her family home was attacked a few weeks earlier. Her aunt asked Harry to protect her so I figured that if the Director of Magical Law Enforcement would trust him with her niece's life then there was a lot more going on than what Fudge was telling. I stayed there for the rest of the summer, training and learning everything I could. I was actually surprised that he was willing to help me, especially after I turned the DA in to Umbridge."
"What?" Cho asked in surprise as she looked at her friend with slightly wide eyes causing Merietta to laugh lightly.
"Harry had the memory charm that an Auror placed on me removed so that I could remember everything we did in those lessons." She could certainly understand the need to keep those secrets safe, especially after Umbridge used the DA as an excuse to force Dumbeldore out of Hogwarts but she doubted that she would ever forgive Granger for misleading everyone and having them sign a magically binding contract without letting anyone know of the consequences. Once again, she understood the need for secrecy, but the disfigurement that was the price for speaking of the group was both painful and cruel. The only thing that kept the girl from being charged for the illegal use of such a contract was her 'heroics' in defending the Ministry against a Death Eater attack, her friendship with and Harry Potter, and Dumbledore speaking on her behalf, something that had caused the Ravenclaw to loose a lot of respect for the man considering he seemed so concerned about Granger's wellbeing but he made no attempt to get her to cancel the contract.
The Aurors only asked her about it once and she told them that she couldn't cancel it because she had lost it, which everyone knew was a lie but they didn't push it any further. She had spent quite a bit of time in Saint Mungo's trying to get the large pulsing blisters that spelled out the word SNEAK removed from her face, but although Granger had 'graciously' told them what spells she had used, the healers were unable to do anything as long as the contract was still in effect. Finally she had to use liberal use of a combination of muggle cosmetics and glamour charms to hide them so that she could walk around in pubic once again without having to wear some form of hood or mask to keep people from staring or pointing at her.
"So you know who those Raiders are?" Cho asked, pulling the other girl from her thoughts.
"No, I never saw any of them, except the ones that everyone already knows about. Susan and I were staying in a cottage that Harry owns and everyday Harry, Snape or the Auror Tonks would come and help us with our training."
"That greasy bastard actually helped you?" Cho asked with wide shocked eyes. Snape was not well liked among Ravenclaws. Not because of his attitude, strictly speaking, but because of his unwillingness to impart his knowledge to anyone other than his Slytherins.
"Yeah, he was Dumbledore's spy in the Death Eaters but now that he can no longer operate as such, he is a much better teacher when he doesn't have to worry about letting something slip that could expose him to any of the Dark Lord's followers that he might have in Hogwarts. It was actually kind of fun. I'm sorry I couldn't contact you but owls can be followed or tracked easily and we couldn't allow that." She lied. In truth, she never once even thought of Cho or her other friends over the summer and now that she was back, on her way to her final year of Hogwarts, she felt guilty about not remembering them. But truth be told, she'd rather be back at Potter Manor, helping in any way she could, but as things stood, her Ravenclaw nature wouldn't let her abandon her formal education when she had only one more year to go.
"So, how was your summer?" Merietta asked, mostly because she wanted to find out about her friend's drastic change in attitude from the year before but also partly because she wanted to change the subject. Cho was not stupid, she knew perfectly well what her friend was doing, but chose to humor her anyway.
"Apart from worrying about you? Well, we went to Nanchang for a family reunion of sorts. It was nice, I guess, for visiting but I certainly wouldn't want to live there."
"Why not?"
"Well you know how many of the muggleborns tell us how far behind the magical world is from the muggles? Well it is the same in China but more extreme. Wizards and witches there hold to their old traditions with an iron fist and have no intention of moving forward. To their way of thinking a woman's place is in the home, serving her husband and looking after their children, there is nothing else. If I lived there I wouldn't even be allowed to play Quiditch and getting a decent job would be impossible.
"Hell, most of the trip was spent dodging one family member or another that was trying to marry me off to a 'respectable young man' of their choosing. Thankfully neither my parents nor my grandfather would allow that to happen."
"Your grandfather doesn't hold to tradition then?"
"Oh no, he is about as traditional as you get, but he also realizes and respects the fact that I was not raised in that culture. No matter where you live, children are raised to think and act a certain way and he feels that forcing another into a life that they neither understand nor want kills a part of the person and he finds that unacceptable. While he doesn't completely agree with my upbringing, he wants me to be myself and not what others force me to be.
"Anyway, I spent a lot of my time talking to him and after a while he helped me through a lot of problems I have been dealing with since Cedric died. He made me realize that I had been going about things all wrong and that the way I was treating people was childish."
XXX
Harry Potter sighed in resignation as he walked towards his bedroom to change into a nice set of robes that he had to wear for the welcoming feast at Hogwarts that very evening. He had always loved the feasts that the Hogwarts house elves prepared, but in truth, he would prefer to be anywhere else at the moment. The idea of seeing and speaking in a civil manner to people that wanted him dead just a number of weeks before just seemed wrong in so many different ways. The fact that there would undoubtedly be people present that were under orders to detain and question him made the evening's prospects equally unappealing.
"Harry, wait up!" He turned around to see Dung jogging towards him. "I picked this up for you, I thought that it might prove useful." He said as he caught up to him and handed him a small bag. Harry looked at him in confusion for a moment before reaching in and pulling out an eye patch. It was about a quarter of an inch thick of black leather and had three steel studs on it, two at the top and one at the bottom. He was certain that the studs would give the impression that it was nailed to his face rather than held on by magic.
"Consider it little extra intimidation. The scarf you use now is fine but if it ever gets knocked off during a fight then your eye will become common knowledge and that is one advantage that you want to keep secret. The patch, on the other hand, can only be taken off by the wearer and the more timid of your enemies might think twice about attacking you when it looks like you have a piece of leather 'bolted' to your face."
"Um, thanks!" Harry half asked, half stated, a bit uncertain about this 'gift'. Dung just nodded and the two went their separate ways.
As he stepped through the doorway to his room he was able to use his seeker reflexes to bring up his right hand just in time to catch what appeared to be a deep glossy black 'torpedo' before it impacted against the side of his neck. With all the trashing about it did, it didn't take him long to come to the obvious conclusion that it was a living creature of some type, or more specifically, some breed of serpent. Using his left hand, Harry took hold further down its body from his right in an almost vain attempt to subdue the creature without hurting it or getting himself hurt in the process. Or at least find out if it's poisonous or not.
While it was restrained for the time being, Harry took the opportunity to get a better look at the snake and was almost immediately enchanted by its beauty. It was roughly three feet long, though rather thin, and its scales were so deeply black that they almost seemed to smother all nearby light. Along its body were a number of thin dark blue markings. Despite its beauty, the fact that the snake appeared to have a thin pair of bat like wings held most of Harry's attention. After a few brief moments of inspection, Harry quickly turned towards the shelf that he had placed the egg Hagrid had given him only to see the thin pieces of the shell itself.
"So, this is an Eadoch." He mumbled softly to himself. "Oh for crying out loud, hold still!" He snapped, unconsciously speaking his demand in Parseltongue. The snake's trashing all but ceased as it snapped its head to the side to look at him as it almost seemed to yelp in surprise.
"A speaker! I always believed your kind to be a myth!" Harry blinked in surprise at the snake's words. The snake had only just been hatched, how would it know what a parselmouth was, much less come up with its own theories on the existence or lack-there-of of such an ability in humans?
"Riiiight! Well, I'm going to put you down now if you can agree not to bite me, alright?" After getting a quick agreement, Harry placed the snake onto his bed before voicing his earlier thoughts.
"When a female Eadoch is near death, we lay one final egg that contains all of our previous memories and experiences." The snake explained with great sarcasm, as if it were speaking to an infant, but Harry took no notice of her tone.
"So, theoretically, it's much like the phoenix? You die and are reborn in this, final egg? So you have the memories of many different lives before this one?"
"No, my memories go back only three cycles of life. I was hatched from an ordinary egg at that time. How did I come to be here, I remember laying this egg in a well forested area?" She demanded.
"A friend of mine, who loves various animals more than humans, no doubt, bought your egg from a man in a far away land. Unfortunately he had gotten in trouble with our leaders in the past for raising other, so called dangerous creatures, so they are keeping a rather close eye on him. Since I speak the serpent tongue, he gave me your egg to protect."
"What are your intentions for me?" The snake asked in a suspicious manner
"Hmm, didn't really have any, really. I just..."
"Harry, Sir?" Harry jumped slightly at Twinkle's sudden appearance. He had gotten used to the elves just popping in or out of various parts of the house without warning, even Fawkes arriving in his bursts of flames, but with his mind otherwise occupied, he was taken by surprise. The snake coiled up tightly and reared its head back and hissed, causing Twinkle to move as far back as she could.
"What is it?" He asked quickly as he saw the small creature looking a bit nervous.
"The goblin, Dankit, is on the floo sir. He says that he must see you in person right away."
"Alright, let him through, I'll meet him in the sitting room." Twinkle didn't bother to give a response, she simply vanished with a snap of her fingers as Harry ran down the hall and nearly threw himself down the stairs to avoid crashing into Tonks who was apparently on her way up to tell him to get a move on. The aforementioned metamorphmagus slowly looked back and forth between the top of the stairs and the wizard's rapidly retreating back in confusion before turning quickly to follow Harry when a flying snake appeared to be following the same path. She had no idea where the thing came from or why Harry appeared to be trying to run away from it without warning her but she was hoping to get some answers soon, and god help him if she got all worked up and worried for nothing.
Harry didn't even notice Tonks as he passed her on the stairs as he tried to get himself into the right frame of mind he would no doubt need for this conversation. He had no idea what Dankit wanted but if a goblin pushed for an unscheduled meeting you could count on it being a serious matter and he doubted that it had anything to do with the Black family accounts. He entered the sitting room at a swift pace, with Tonks right behind him who slammed the door shut loudly, causing Harry to spin around, wand in hand..
"For Christ's sakes, Tonks!" Harry shouted loudly as he lowered his wand.
"There's a, a, a mini dragon out there." She replied, more as if it were an explanation than a warning.
"A what?" He asked stupidly before realizing what she must have seen. Harry simply raised an eyebrow before walking over to the door to open it.
"What are you doing?" Tonks demanded as she tried to push it closed once again but once it was opened just a bit she tore across the room and threw herself behind a nearby cabinet. Apparently she had no love for snakes and took that dislike to great lengths. Harry just looked at her as if she were insane as he held the door open. He only stood there for a few moments before the expected 'dragon' flew in.
"Behave!" Harry almost snapped at the serpent as it made its way over to Tonks' hiding place, no doubt to see if she could make her squeal again.
"I wasn't going to hurt it. Only you hairless monkeys kill without cause, oh, and baboons. Smelly creatures, your relations I understand. I was just going to nip at its heels and watch it jump but it is proving to be far more entertaining than I had imagined."
"Tonks, calm down. This is the snake that Hagrid had given me, she appears to have a rather creepy sense of humor and you suited her needs perfectly." At the sound of someone clearing their throat, Harry spun around to find a goblin standing near the fireplace looking quite anxious as a small amount of blood ran down the side of his face from an open wound on the left side of his forehead. Yes, this was definitely a very serious matter. Despite their physical appearance, Goblins were extremely neat and well organized. If he left that wound untreated for any amount of time it clearly meant that he either didn't have the time or he hadn't had the opportunity to even think about, neither were very appealing options to Harry's way of thinking.
"Dankit, what can I do for you?"
"Lord Potter," He greeted with a short bow before quickly righting himself and getting to the point. "I have been instructed by Lord Bullgluk to ask for your assistance, as you offered precisely that after your fight in Diagon Alley back in July."
"In what way do you need my help?" Harry asked in confusion, wondering where this was going. He certainly wasn't going to put himself in the middle of a conflict between the different factions within the goblin nation since that was the only thing he could think of at the moment. It would take a supreme act of both desperation and stupidity for anyone else to make the goblins their enemies.
"The Dark Lord Voldemort has attacked Gringotts just fifteen minutes ago. Thus far we have held his forces at bay but we are slowly being pushed back. Many have already retreated into the tunnels to begin laying the wards necessary to protect both themselves and the vaults." Without hesitating for a second, Harry pulled out his wand and summoned his battlerobes along with the dragon scale coverings before ripping off the robes he had planned to wear to Hogwarts.
"Hogwarts, Headmaster's office!" Tonks shouted into the fire after summoning her robes as well. It took a few moments until the face of Albus Dumbledore appeared in the flames.
"Ah, Ms. Tonks, what can I do for you?"
"Gringotts is under attack, Sir, and we could use all the help we can get..."
"How are we getting there?" Harry asked as Tonks spoke with Dumbledore.
"We will take the floo network to one of the lower offices where Lord Bullgluk is overseeing the placement of the extra wards. The password is kardach." Dankit explained before stepping into the fire immediately after Dumbledore gave his word to the goblin that he would offer any assistance that he could.
"He said that it shouldn't be too hard to find enough people to help and he will meet us there in ten to fifteen minutes."
"Alright, I'll go ahead and go through now, I want you to round up as many of the Raiders that you can find and get there as fast as you can. Oh, and tell everyone to leave that snake alone." Tonks nodded with a grim look on her face before she asked Twinkle to gather everyone that was currently in the house while she tried to track down the others.
Not wasting any time, Harry threw a handful of floo-powder into the fire and stepped in before calling out 'kardach'. He had no idea what the word meant, it was probably some word in Gobbledegook, the goblin's native language. However, he didn't have much time to ponder this as he was whisked away at an incredible rate, even by floo travel standards. He had never cared for this method of travel but this specific connection seemed to be particularly harsh, it probably had something to do with goblin magic but he wasn't sure and he didn't care, all that he knew was that he despised it.
And, as always, when he reached his destination, he came tumbling out of the fire with all the poise and grace of an elk on ice skates. He stood up quickly and dusted himself off before looking around the room in surprise. He had been expecting an office that was ornately decorated in silver and gold as well as priceless gems just like every other office he had seen in the bank thus far but this appeared to be nothing more than a large box cut out from the rock. It was lit with the dim glow of several torches and candles with only a single plain wooden table positioned in the center of the room, surrounded by several richly dressed goblins that were quietly discussing the three dimensional map they were currently inspecting. Harry immediately recognized Bullgluk and he could only assume that the others were the other bank managers.
"Lord Potter, I'm pleased that you could join us!" Bullgluk stated as if they were merely there for afternoon tea. "Can I assume that you will not be the only one joining us?" He continued with a fierce light in his eyes. He, and every other goblin present, obviously felt a great deal of excitement in regards to the coming fight.
"Yes, My Lord, Ms. Tonks is gathering everyone she can as we speak and as I'm sure Dankit has told you, Headmaster Dumbledore should be here with his Order within the next twenty minutes, though I do have a question. If the attack started fifteen minutes ago, why haven't we heard anything before now and why are you coming to me and not the Ministry?"
"A few of the more recognizable Death Eaters used the personal portkeys to their vaults to gain access to the bank before taking the carts up to the main lobby while the others merely walked in through the front doors as if they were here merely for business purposes. They were able to quickly kill or subdue the customers and guards in the lobby before sealing the front doors which will not look at all unusual to an outside observer since this is the time we close the bank early for our monthly audit. We've found four Death Eaters hiding at various points within the tunnels thus far but it is unlikely that there are any more.
"As for the Ministry, even if we were able to get in contact with the Minister of Magic, himself, it would do us no good. Gringotts is sovereign soil, the Aurors cannot enter in an official capacity unless it is formally requested by the Goblin High Council and such a request could take weeks to process. We found a hole in the Dark Lord's wards that would allow for a number of floo calls from within the deeper parts of the bank so we opted to bring in the assistance we needed to push the invaders back." The word 'assistance' poured out of Bullgluk's mouth as if it were the most vial potion imaginable and Harry could understand whole heartedly. He didn't like asking for help either and the goblins were without a doubt the most stubborn race he had ever encountered.
"Any idea who arranged for that hole to be possible or how long it will last?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow though he had a pretty good idea. By the looks he received it was clear that Bullgluk and Dankit were thinking along the same lines but they were unwilling to speak of it. They both had access to the Black family financial records and possibly even helped Sirius make his 'arrangements' for his cousin. It isn't without reason that creatures more intelligent than himself could figure out on their own what he had to have explained to him, if they hadn't known about it from the start.
"Ok, what exactly are you going to need from us?"
"Our warders can keep the Death Eaters out of the tunnels, but with the Dark Lord himself present we are going need more fighters present to retake the bank itself. Though it may be a great deal easier if we could figure out what it is he is here for."
"It's a bank, what else would he be here for?" Harry answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Never mind, just a moment of stupidity." He continued quickly with raised hands after receiving several odd looks. Launching a full attack against Gringotts solely for the purpose of money was completely ludicrous since Voldemort already had access to the vaults of every one of his followers. Making the goblins his enemies would only serve to close those accounts to him so he was obviously looking for more than mere money, something that was currently unavailable to him.
"MY LORDS, THE WARDS ARE FAILING!" A small goblin shouted in a gruff voice as he rushed into the room. Every goblin present spun back around to inspect their map only to observe several areas flashing with a dim red light, showing those areas to be slowly draining of power.
"THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE!" One of the finely dressed creatures roared to no one in particular.
"Unless Voldemort has compromised one or more of your ward masters." Snape responded as he and four others approached after flooing in. This suggestion only served to enrage the goblins present. To accuse a goblin of betraying his own people was unthinkable, none within their ranks would ever side with a wizard over a goblin.
"You dare accuse our employees of turning on their own kind to support a human?" A particularly old goblin snapped angrily but he nonetheless sent the messenger as well as a few guards back out to check each of the warders and their respective equipment.
"I'm not necessarily accusing anyone of anything, My Lord, I'm merely stating the obvious that happens to coincide with the evidence at hand. The goblin nation has the strongest defensive magic known in the world, with your wards firmly in place it should have taken the Dark Lord at least two days of constant work to bring them all down. If his most powerful Death Eaters are working with him, let's be conservative and cut that time down to twelve hours. But it hasn't taken anywhere near that time, now has it? So there are only two possibilities. One; your wards are no where near as strong as you believed them to be, which is unlikely. Or two; someone is sabotaging them from the inside."
"But for a goblin to aid a wizard in an attack against their own people is absolutely ridiculous."
"Unless he doesn't see it as betraying his people but see's it for what it truly is, at least from his own perspective. A business opportunity!" Harry commented with a thoughtful look on his face. "I don't know much about your race, in general, but I do know that most goblins cherish personal wealth and professional position above most other things. If a number of his superiors were to be killed in this attack, he could be in line for a promotion real quickly. Especially if he were instrumental in defending against an attack that saw very little of monetary value lost. Think of this in the context of one of your clan wars, where various clans routinely hired wizard mercenaries. He's not siding with a wizard against his own people, he is merely 'using' the wizard to eliminate his competition." Harry suggested and many of the goblins began looking back and forth between each other, never really having considered such an occurrence. "Could one of your human employees be the cause, or a Death Eater that is still hidden in the tunnels?"
"Absolutely not! Even if they were to kill the ward masters, their shields would still hold. I fear you may be correct, it must be a goblin that has engineered this failure."
"How long do we have before they're breached?"
"According to these readings, five minutes at most. If we can find the responsible parties within two to three minutes we could possibly repair the damage, but any longer than that and the wards will fall." One of the Raiders responded to Snape's question as he looked over the map.
"Weasley, is that you?" Bill looked up sharply as the goblin snapped before he sighed and lowered his hood.
"Forgive my deception, Lord Alikin, I meant no disrespect." Bill responded as he bowed low, exposing the back of his neck, a sign of both supreme trust and respect.
"We don't have time for this!" Lord Bullgluk snapped angrily.
"How do you plan to hold the tunnels?" Harry spoke up quickly, hoping to avoid unnecessary arguments. "Where would be the best place for us to position ourselves?"
"We have small pockets of warriors interspersed along the main tunnel. Should the shields be breached, they will engage the enemy for as long as possible before falling back to the next position. For you and your Raiders, I would suggest these two tunnels here." Lord Alikin replied while pointing out the different positions on the map. Both tunnels were situated on the opposite side of the cart tracks and would be difficult for the Death Eaters to cross due to the gorge that separated the two sides.
"Our warriors will engage the Death Eaters at close range while you distract them with your spell work. They will find it most difficult to fight in close quarters on the narrow pathways while simultaneously contending with your spells coming in from across the gorge. You, of course, will be obliged to eliminate any Death Eater that chooses to cross to your side."
"What makes you think they won't cross the gorge before they even reach your first emplacement?"
"Harry, this tunnel system is fairly new and the only one on that side of the tracks. It holds about thirty of the newer low and medium security vaults. Launching a full assault like this would be incredibly foolish since it would surely make the goblins his enemies. He's already managed to breach the security of a medium security vault on his own so it stands to reason that whatever he's after is very well protected." Bill explained quickly causing Harry to grimace slightly. If there was even a remote chance that Voldemort would be heading right to their position, Bill's assurance that he was targeting another location just multiplied that chance at least ten fold. Harry wasn't a superstitious person by nature but it did seem that once you discount a possibility, in all likelihood, that event would come to pass.
"Fine, lets get moving. If those wards go down, I want to be in place with at least some idea of my surroundings." Harry sighed after shooting Bill an annoyed glare, which seemed to confuse the older man slightly but he shook it off.
"Very well, Skullbreaker here will show you the way and we will send your other men along as they arrive." Harry bowed slightly to Bullgluk before he and the others followed the stocky warrior out of the office. The main tunnel outside was as dark as ever with several carts going back and forth at a rapid pace while groups of heavily armed warriors marched up towards the surface to cut off the Death Eaters should they break through.
"Follow me!" Skullbreaker growled as he leaned down and placed his hand on the ground. It glowed slightly before small sheets of steal, about eighteen inches square, seemed to jump out of no where as they connected end to end to create a narrow path across the gorge, using the cart tracks as additional walking space while not inhibiting the carts movements. Skullbreaker showed no hesitation as he stepped out onto the makeshift walkway and proceeded across, seemingly taking no notice of the carts two carts that miss colliding into him by mere inches. The Raiders were just a little bit more sedate about their crossing, carefully timing the passing carts and taking great care to keep their balance on the narrow bridge.
"Why are there only one tunnel on this side, I would expect it would be much easier and much more cost efficient to simply build on both sides?" Harry asked his redheaded friend as they were led into the newly constructed long and winding tunnel secondary tunnel.
"Under normal circumstances you would be right, however, you have to take the makeup of the rock into consideration. Despite their close proximity to each other, the rock on either side of the main tunnel, while technically the same type of stone, are remarkably different where quality is concerned. On one side you have granite that is as hard and strong as steel due to the vast amounts of raw magical energy that had permeated the area for centuries, while on the other side, that very same magic turned that very same stone into a brittle, crumbling mass. No one is really sure how that came to happen, really.
"Well, the goblins put up their own protection wards on the area to prevent any cave-ins and some specialized spells to gradually change that that stone until it becomes just like the rest of it. I'm not sure how long it took actually, but I do know that the spells were placed several centuries ago, a testament, I think, to the fact that the goblins are a very patient race. Anyway, this tunnel was just completed last year and houses roughly thirty vaults for the time being although only about twenty have been purchased."
"Um, right, thanks for the history lesson, Bill." Harry responded after blinking his eyes for several moments. He just asked a simple question and a simple answer would do, he didn't need a lecture as if he were some collage student. Shaking his head slightly, Harry was about to change the subject when a bright bluish light flared further ahead of them, accompanied by as sound very similar to a large gong being smacked with a sledge hammer.
"Shit, the wards have come down!" Bill shouted before breaking into a run with the others behind. Despite his short stature, Skullbreaker was able to keep ahead of him and the rest of the group. Harry didn't know if it was the anticipation of battle that had him moving at such a speed or his defiance against arriving at the scene of a fight after a human, but he suspected it was both. As they neared the mouth that reconnected them with the main tunnel, Harry's portkey vibrated slightly before Tonks' nearly frantic voice echoed in his ear.
'Harry, Harry, can you hear me?"
'Yeah, what's wrong, besides the obvious, I mean?"
'Dumbledore isn't coming, I think he sold us out!'
'WHAT!' Harry didn't mean to yell at her but unfortunately his shock and confusion would allow nothing less. 'What do you mean, 'sold us out'?'
"I mean exactly that! He told us all that he would come, he even gave the goblins his word, but I just tried to get him on the floo, and he was merely sitting behind his desk going over some papers. When I asked, he said that he was sorry but he wouldn't be able to make and disengaged the connection. I've been around enough liars in my time to know that his apology was completely insincere. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that he was actually pleased with the situation.'
'Where are you now?'
'I'm on my way to your position with the others.'
'Fine, I'll see you in a minute.' Harry ended the conversation while he was deep in thought as his head pounded in anger. Despite their problems in the past, Harry was completely sure, well, relatively sure anyway, that Dumbledore wouldn't purposely betray them in such a way. This train of thought was broken when he remembered the conversation he had had with the parchment Sirius had left for him, particularly something that he had said about Dumbledore.
"He would never advocate the use of lethal force and I suspect that if you were not THE Harry Potter, he would have distanced himself from you by now or taken steps to 'contain' you in some way." These words echoed throughout his mind as he thought things through.
Was it possible that Dumbledore became so concerned about his tactics that he would purposely withhold support in the hopes that he would be eliminated, ending the chance of him joining Voldemort? Or even strike out on his own to replace him as another Dark Lord? In a twisted sort of way, it actually made perfect sense. If Dumbledore believed him to be a threat then this was the perfect situation for him. Gringotts was under attack by probably all the Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself was leading the attack, and they were greatly outnumbered. The chances of coming out unscathed were unlikely. Now he had to deal with Voldemort once again and he possibly had a new enemy in the form of a former ally. The day was not looking up.
Another problem would be the goblins themselves. While it was possible that Tonks merely read Dumbledore's intention wrong and jumped to conclusions, the old man gave his word to Dankit that he and his Order would be there to help repel the Death Eaters. To their way of thinking, if he does not show than it could be viewed as a serious act of disrespect and honor causing the goblin high counsel to declare war on all of wizarding Britain, not just Voldemort.
"Crap, here they come!" Bill whispered as he peaked around the corner. "Uh oh! Um, Harry, it looks like they're coming this way." Harry narrowed his eyes at the curse breaker and took a look for himself. Further up the main tunnel, many Death Eater were casting spell after spell, trying to determine if there were any traps in place while many more were using levitation charms on their fellows to float them over the gorge.
"I'm going to kill you, Bill!" Harry all but growled.
"What? What did I do?"
"You jinxed us!" He stated matter-of-factly. "You told me that there was next to no chance at all that they would even come to this side of the gorge. And guess what, now their coming! You never, ever, speak of such things out loud."
TBC
As I said, this was merely a set up for chapter two which is already complete with the exception of the battle within the tunnels under Gringotts. Those of you who have been reading The New Order for a while now will know that writing fight scenes is certainly not a strong point of mine. I can usually come up with something decent but it usually takes me a while to get them done, so I apologize in advance incase it takes a little longer than I think it will to get it done.