AN: Author's notes at the end of the chapter
Chapter 1: Blood
"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."
With that line, Harry's entire world exploded into pandemonium. Well-wishers and partygoers immediately panicked and began trying to escape, but Kingsley's warning came too late. Anti-apparition wards immediately fell over the area and the spells started flying.
It was a bloodbath.
Trapped and with nowhere to run, the assailants didn't even have to aim as they fired their spells; they simply pointed them at the crowds and watched as blood sprayed in their wake.
Harry himself stood stunned at the chaos that reigned around him, only to be brought back to the present by an errant spray of blood that splashed across his face. He quickly hunkered down behind an overturned table and began to evaluate his surroundings. There were a few pockets of resistance that were attempting to fight back but they were at too much of a positional disadvantage.
He urgently moved to take action, as he spotted Hermione and Ron fighting a two-on-five battle against a group of death eaters, but their resolve was weakening dangerously quickly. In an attempt to buy them some time, Harry threw a few blasting spells their way.
He was too late.
He watched in slow motion as a weakness in Ron's defense appeared for just a moment, a weakness that was quickly capitalized on by one of the death eaters immediately. Hermione, in an attempt to cover for Ron's blunder, shielded him against the opportunistic strike of their opponent but consequently left herself open and was swiftly cut down, a spray of blood jetting from her throat as she fell.
Harry saw red and his spells finally reached them, striking true into the chest of a Death Eater, slamming him one after another. The first hit and the man's body, at least externally, held. Internally he fared much worse though and his ribs shattered as one with a splitting series of snaps. The second spell, however, hit the exact same location and punctured, blowing the man back and sending pieces of his midsection spraying onto his comrades. Two of the four remaining men turned towards Harry and both began casting at him, sending rapidly moving blue spells his way that gouged out chunks of the ground where he had been moments earlier as he rolled out of the way.
Opting to return the favor, he banished the leg of a table from the ground beside him and snapped off an overpowered stunning spell followed instantaneously by an additionally overpowered bone-breaking curse, it was a tactic that Moody had taught him; it served to mask your real spell behind a decoy spell of similar color.
The one Harry had fired on immediately shielded to block the projectile, something Harry had counted on, while the other immediately set to work casting at a breakneck speed at Harry, forcing him onto the defensive as he dodged around the Death Eater's clearly rehearsed and practiced chain of spells.
The man's compatriot who was shielding was not so lucky. His shield easily held at the impact of the table leg but the overpowered stunner that connected next was purpose-built to overpower his shield and it hit home, shattering the man's barrier under the extreme magical power of Harry Potter. This shattering left him vulnerable to the spell he had failed to discern behind the stunner; the bone breaker. To his credit, he nearly dodged it, and a typical bone-breaker hitting your shoulder shouldn't have done much more than shatter the bones in the shoulder; an experience which, while painful, is decidedly not fatal. This typical experience, however, failed to take into account the effects of an overpowered bone breaker. When powered sufficiently it would break not only the bone that it hit nearest to but also all connected bones, each 'tier' of breakage requiring more and more power.
Harry was a particularly powerful wizard.
His entire skeletal structure fragmented, sending bone shards out of his body and taking his companion by surprise when one of the man's vertebrae lodged itself into his eye, puncturing through the silvery mask and swiftly burying itself into the man's frontal lobe.
With no time to even consider the ramifications of his actions Harry quickly moved to assist Ron, only to watch in horror as he too fell to the onslaught of the Death Eaters.
With a scream of rage and both of his best friends dead within minutes of each other, Harry began casting the powered up version of the exploding charm, repeating the words "Bombarda Maxima" until the Death Eaters that had taken his friends were reduced to little more than some mist in the air and some crimson paste on the ground.
Hands shaking, Harry stared down blankly at the bodies of his best friends for a moment before shoving his grief aside and looking around himself once again.
Most everyone was dead; near him, however, was Fleur in a bloodstained dress crying over the body of her husband of only a few hours.
Harry set his jaw and grabbed Hermione's beaded bag off her body, swallowing his guilt as he remembered her telling him that she was carrying his cloak in it. After this, he immediately ran to Fleur and grabbed her arm.
She looked up at him, pain beyond any he'd seen lingering in her eyes.
"We need to go." He said firmly. "Come with me and I can promise you, we'll make every single last one of them pay."
The look in her eyes eased just slightly, a small fire seemingly taking root as she nodded mutely, allowing him to pull her to her feet.
"I have an invisibility cloak, I'm going to cast smoke around us and then we'll get under it, after which we'll run to the edge of the wards and apparate out." She merely nodded her affirmation of the plan, but that was enough for him.
"Obscurus" He muttered out, as a thick blanket of fog surrounded him. The spell itself was a bit of a double-edged sword, it prevented people from seeing you but if they hadn't already seen you they sure as hell now knew you were there.
Harry reached into the bag; feeling around for a moment before encountering the cool, silky-smoothness of the cloak. He immediately pulled it out and open as he and Fleur quickly ducked under it. They both had to crouch to fit under it without being seen but it was much better than nothing.
They maintained their crouched stance until the edge of the wards, some 200 meters out, after which Harry grabbed Fleur's arm and immediately apparated them out.
They landed in the middle of a lightly forested area with a soft 'pop' and both Harry and Fleur immediately collapsed into a sitting position, backs resting against the same trunk as their minds struggled to comprehend what had just occurred.
It was all Harry could do to hold back the tears. He clenched his jaw and held his eyes closed as he remembered all the times with his friends, that look of pure energy that Hermione got when she found a new topic to research, that pure passion and love of knowledge simply for the sake of it.
Gone.
Never again would there be another late night snack in the kitchens with Ron and never another meal-skipping study session with Hermione, there would never be another heart-pounding adventure with his two closest friends.
They were gone, and he didn't even get to say goodbye.
"It's not fair." He whimpered out, as the tears finally broke loose despite his best efforts.
He looked over at Fleur and through blurry eyes saw her sitting next to him, her face puffy and red as well, her own tears flowing freely. She was, after all, mourning the loss of the love of her life.
She looked up at him and they locked eyes for a moment. A look of silent understanding passed between them and they both reached out, desperate for someone and simply held each other in their arms and cried until there was nothing left.
Harry wasn't sure how long it was that they spent there, huddled together at the base of a thick pine tree but at some point, a slight clarity returned to him.
"I have a house that I believe we can use. It may be a bit run down but it's shelter and it should be safe." He said shakily as he attempted to get up.
"I have a mission. There are objects in which Voldemort has hidden pieces of his soul. Until they are destroyed, he cannot be killed. It's my responsibility to end this once and for all, and if you'd like to you're free to come along. You don't have to you're free to return to France should you so wish but…" He trailed off while looking at her. He didn't want to sound too hopeful, didn't want to force her into following him out of some misplaced pity but he certainly didn't want to do this alone.
She drew in a shuddering breath and looked up at him, eyes full of anguish. "Those salauds took my husband from me on the day that was meant to be my happiest. I will do whatever it takes to see them cut down in front of me. I want to make them suffer and bleed for me."
Harry was admittedly not ready for her level of ferocity but he was certain that he would need her help in the coming months if he was to have any hope of finding the Horcruxes.
"You remember Grimmauld Place, correct?" Harry asked her.
She nodded her assent, "I went there a few times for order meetings. Isn't it no longer safe?"
"Normally that would be true, but I own the property from Sirius so I can revoke the Fidelius currently around it and with your help another can be placed."
She had a thoughtful look in her eyes for a moment before nodding. "This plan is acceptable. I assume this will be our base of operations?"
"Of a sort. I know that Hermione…" He trailed off at the stab of pain he felt even just talking about her. "… Hermione packed a magical tent in her bag as well so any smaller missions that need to be taken we can stay in that. I'll side-along you to Grimmauld. As the magical owner of the building, I can simply apparate people in." It was nifty the things that magical ownership would allow you to do with the warding of a house but Harry realized that it had to be necessary, otherwise some random person could just come and Fidelius your house while you were away and you'd never be the wiser.
He offered his hand out to her and she took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet, after which he extended his arm. She grabbed on and they were off with a resounding crack.
AN: Hello and welcome back. I've decided to pick up the writing game again and this time we're going for a full bore Harry Potter story. It's worth mentioning a few things before we get started, however. My punctuation and grammar is admittedly not amazing and I don't have a beta reader so please bear with me. If someone has any recommendations or resources to learn how to be better on that front please let me know! Secondarily, my writing style often gets technical as I enjoy expanding on some fun ideas with magic so apologies in advance if I explain some weird shit for no reason. Third and finally, I hate writing accents. Maybe that makes me a poor writer, I don't know. But to avoid that, I'll instead just be throwing in little French phrases and words as a bit of a reminder of Fleur's heritage without having to resort to the tired 'HON HON HON UNE BAGGUETTE" routine.