Disclaimer: We own nothing.Though I did purchase Neverafternon's eyebrows from a gypsy. For the most part, this will be a word baby produced by the two of us. Don't be surprised if it ventures into crackish waters.

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Blood Rising

A Change in the Winds

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Harry Potter felt like someone had taken a wand and scrambled his insides with a well placed disemboweling curse. His head pounded with unformed thoughts and sensations as adrenaline roared though his body. Sirius tipped toward the Veil, and Bellatrix screamed like a harpy with success every second his godfather slipped toward the arch. Harry saw all too clearly the stunned look on his godfather's face as he fell towards the Veil. Confused and puzzled– as though he could not fathom how a psychotic bitch had managed to get the best of him– Sirius fell toward the Veil like he was already dead and gone.

Harry heard whispers and words he could not quite understand, and in that moment he realized he was angry. Voldemort and his batch of merry sociopathic henchmen had taken everything from him. Everything he'd ever loved and cared for. They'd taken his mother and his father, his life,and his clear and unblemished forehead. That damn scar had caused ninety percent of the crap in his life he had dealt with since his first step years ago into Diagon Alley. Now they were going to take Sirius, the only family he had left, the only person to offer him some semblance of a home.

His eyes met Voldemort's across the room. Oh hell no. No one offs the dogfather.

He couldn't say later how he'd managed to move that fast. He honestly couldn't say he'd moved at all. But somehow he managed to get to his godfather in mere seconds; he flew across the room like a small comet and bowled over several Death Eaters in the process. By the amount of swear words, he must have smashed a foot or two in his mad dash to save his godfather from entering the deathly curtain. Harry viciously hoped he had crushed more than a few toes; that would teach them not to wear expensive elf-made, silk-lined slippers in a brawl. That lovely pain filled soprano that was pitched above the others could be none other than Mr. Malfoy. He should know, Draco squealed just like it.

Sirius had already lost his left arm to the Veil by the time Harry had gotten to him. He quickly grabbed two fistfuls of his godfather's filthy robe and heaved backward. No way in hell was this happening again, not if he had anything to say about it. He was done having his life shit on whenever Voldemort felt particularly dastardly. He was fed up with the entire ordeal. In fact, when he looked back at the situation he was in – playing tug-of-war with an inanimate object – he could not help but believe that his life had to be the plot of some badly written dime store novel. It wouldn't be too hard to imagine. The Veil might not have be as innocuous he originally had thought; he could swear it moaned as it gave a few hearty tugs he felt through his hapless godfather stuck in the middle.

Harry straightened and pulled for all he was worth. Not only was this the shittiest day of his life, it was also the most ridiculous. Not only had he single handedly brought about near destruction on his friends and allies, but he was in a dirty tug-of-war with a freaking curtain.

The image of what he looked like, tugging on the arm of what might have looked like a homeless man to an ordinary muggle – against a ghostly piece of drapery, seemed quite close to what had happened on some of those soaps his aunt would watch in the middle of the afternoon. There was even an amusing musical accompaniment of profanity in the background, provided by a bunch of squealing wizards. It fit quite well as Sirius had gone limp; a glazed expression with an addition of drool dripping down his scruffy chin. While that would have amused Harry to no end, the whimpers and moans that came from the man had him grossed out. Creepy and unnecessary. What the hell was that stupid curtain even doing to Sirius? This needed to end now.

He tugged to the left; the Veil yanked back. Harry planted his feet on the stone dais the Veil was set upon he pulled as hard as he could. Sirius' body inched slowly towards him, like he weighed hundreds and hundreds of pounds instead of the mere 160 that his exile at prison and Grimmauld Place had reduced him to. Harry grunted. The Veil did not want to lose its prize.

By this time Sirius had started to wriggle a bit. Obviously, whatever state he was currently in, the man found being tugged by both arms less than comfortable. His eyes popped open and lost that vague and slightly stupid expression Sirius had finally realized that he had become the taunt rope between two opposing forces. Harry idly wondered what the hell was going on around him; no Order members were offering help, and no Death Eaters were attempting to kill him while he was busy.

Harry dug his heels in and bellowed; Sirius' arm, covered in gelatinous slime, finally slid free of the whispering fabric with a wet 'squeelch'. Harry had not expected the sudden release of tension; they fell to the ground at a roll, where he found himself pinned by his godfather.

Sirius moaned and looked around with a dazed expression, eyes roving around until they met Harry's face."I think I reached Nirvana."

"Sirius, get up, you're flattening me!" Harry shrieked, He jerked his body forward in an attempt to remove Sirius' boot from places it did not belong.

"There may have been tentacles," Sirius blankly stated to the empty ground a foot to the right of Harry's head, "I'm not exactly sure."

Harry's panicked attempts to remove himself from pain upset the slight stability his Godfather had gained in balance when the man had shakily attempted to stand. Harry ended up with his face in the man's under arm.

He choked. Sirius' robes smelled like old people, death, and mothballs.

A small part of his brain not wholly focused on the battle, muttered that it was what he got for allowing Sirius to be kept in what surely was meant to be a place of evil. Especially if the House of Black seriously lacked some kind of clothes laundering device.

Bellatrix shrieked something unintelligible, and Harry felt the hot sting of a spell shoot past them where it shattered on the wall with a muffled explosion.

"Ickle baby Potter has a boo boo, does he want a binkie before beddy-time? Is he bwoken into itsy- bitsy num-nums?" Bellatrix babbled amidst the clash of Order members and Death Eaters.

Sirius scrambled off Harry and stepped on him before he tore after his mad relative. Harry stumbled to his feet and glared at the Veil, who rustled its curtains at him in a mournful manner. It wasn't perfect but it was a start, Harry smiled through the pounding pain. He had a feeling like he'd dodged some giant cosmic bullet, and that somehow things were going to go differently.

"Confringo!"

The spell caught him in the shoulder and knocked him straight into a wall, dislocating the arm that hit first. The Veil sent out a tendril towards him when Harry shot by, in an attempt to defile him. Harry found himself joined by Remus when he regained consciousness after his wall smash.

"Geroff," Harry muttered as he shoved at the werewolf. His eyes frantically roved the battle field for a glimpse of his wayward godfather.

Lupin jabbed him with his wand. "You'll sit here while I pop your shoulder back and watch for incoming spellfire."

"Nergh! I'm fine! Leave off!"

"I think not Harry. Some of your ribs are bruised if not cracked," Remus said after he swished his wand in a clockwise figure eight. "It was too short notice for me to grab any pain potions, you are going to have to wait until a better healer arrives. So either you sit there and behave, or I'll sit on you."

Harry sighed. Remus took that as compliance and began to rummage through his pockets as muttered something about chocolate.

Harry's stomach roiled and his face turned green at the thought of ingesting anything but a pain potion. Even if they did taste like mold gym socks – but the pain that spread outward from his shoulder begged for relief. He refocused back on the battle that took place around the nook in the broken wall Harry had smacked into and caught the form of Sirius. His godfather had better survive or Harry would– Harry would turn to dark magic, raise his godfather, and kill the man once more. Damn, Harry felt exhausted.

He watched from his spot near the wall as Sirius turned into his black dog form and worried at Bellatrix's mutilated corpse. Harry wished he could have seen the spell that had caused that; all he had to go on currently was that Sirius might have mauled her to death in human form.

A loud bang drew his attention, and many of the Order's, to Voldemort who now dueled his nemesis on the center of the floor. Dumbledore spun like a dervish coated in a whirl of silver fire and lightning; the headmaster sent out spell after spell. Spells Harry had no name for but that the boy vowed to learn from here on out. No longer was he going to sit in the shadows –and always be a day late and a dollar short. No more. 'Yes' Harry had decided woozily as the pain and possible blood loss went to his head. Harry would out smart Voldemort's minions, and he would do it with style, he would no longer depend on luck alone.

His eyes slid from Ginny and Hermione lying unconscious, to Neville taking deep shuddering breaths while trying to get the muscle spasms left over from the cruciatus curse under control. He would protect them better, he vowed to himself. He would learn, and he would win. Together they would succeed.

"Sirius should really stop eating his cousin; while I'm slightly worried about any future jobs he could possibly get with cannibalism now added to his record, he'll probably get rabies or something from eating her." Remus muttered around a mouthful of chocolate.

They both sat on the cold stone as the battle grew quiet, Order members quickly incapacitating any Death Eaters still on the scene of the battle. He'd done his bit and the battle was won.

The last thing Harry recalled from the battle other than the crunch of candy as Remus continued to eat his bar of chocolate was the sound of Fudge's high pitched squeal as he sighted Voldemort's pale face as the dark lord left the battle. The smell of smooth milk chocolate floated in the air, melding into the odors ozone and magically melted and charred rubble.

Everything faded to black.

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TBC

A/N- Urk. That needed a lot of editing. It flows a bit better now, and because this is on my account, I think I'll give myself commanding power over its future. - Qilin