Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…
Placing: The beginning of sixth year.
Written for the GTS's Challenge 'Summer Reading List – Homework Time.' Exactly 2500 words text. All prompts, even all locations (meaning 67 points, plus 10 for all, plus 5 for story; 82 together). Prompts in cursive. Ebenbild, Hogwarts, Gryffindor.
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sSsSsSsSs
SOLO MISSION
sSs
It was the first Saturday in October after their return to Hogwarts for their sixth year and Harry was standing in front of the newly assembled crowd of DA members. They were located inside the Room of Requirement, but they could have been located in the Upper East Side of New York, for all Harry cared as long as they finally would stop talking!
"Silence!" He finally roared when he couldn't take it anymore. The noise stopped instantly. Harry took a deep breath, then he started his speech.
"I called you here, so that you can decide," he said. "You all know now that Voldemort is back – and he's the same thread to our world that he has been before the most of us have been old enough to remember. You now have a choice: You can fight, or you can hide. But don't forget: A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended. If you choose to hide, there might come a time when everyone else around you – your family, your friends – will fall, because you choose to do nothing, because you choose to sit by and hide."
The others in the room looked at each other nervously.
Harry's gaze grazed different students within the crowd. Collin Creevey wearing a purple parka, a seventh year Hufflepuff hiding his Mickey Mouse costume – Harry did a double take at that – beneath his school robe and Harry's own knight in shining armour: Luna Lovegood who was the reason why Harry was currently standing in front of the DA, talking.
The girl smiled down on him from her hide-out between the wooden beams just beneath the ceiling of the current room. The room itself looked like the attic inside of a wooden, two story country house in the middle of nowhere in Australia. Harry could imagine that beneath the wooden floor of their feet was another floor with bedrooms and a bathroom, and beneath that floor might have been the ground floor with the kitchen, the living room and the entrance. He could imagine the crooked tree in front of the house, the wooden fence around the house and the lake hidden behind the house…
He shook his head inwardly and returned to his speech.
"It is your choice from now on," Harry continued. "You can wait and hide, or you can come forward and fight with me. You are the ones who can do everything! The adults have already decided to sit by and do nothing! They hide behind their politics, their marriages, their fear of the unknown! They call themselves active just by sitting at the same table as Headmaster Dumbledore! They call their coffee party 'a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix' just because they want to be seen as being active! They aren't!"
He took a deep breath at that, and then carried on.
"It is your choice now!" He cried. "Will you help to get those murdering bastards who call themselves 'Death Eaters' arrested? Will you have a stake in the future? Or will you sit by and play mouse so that your children will have to be ashamed of your inactions when they find out that their world succumbed to ashes because of you?"
The others frowned at that. Uneasy glances were exchanged by the students. Then their faces hardened with determination.
"I won't sit by and do nothing!" One of them roared. "I don't want my children to be forced to fight my fight like we are forced to fight our parents' fight thanks to their inactions!"
"I will fight if it means to get even with those bastards who killed my mum before I could even remember her!" Another one cried. Others exclaimed similar things, everyone seemed to be out to make their willingness to fight known to everybody else.
"I was born into this world – I will fight for this world!" Susan Bones exclaimed fiercely.
"I'm a Gryffindor! I won't shame my House by hiding!" A fifth year screamed.
"I might be a raven by crest – but in the eyes of our enemies, I will be a mocking-jay!" A Ravenclaw cried.
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Ron shouted. "It's time that I become one!"
That stopped the shouting instantly. All eyes were on Ron now, a lot of them looking at him in confusion or amusement.
"Er… Ron," Hermione finally said hesitatingly. "You are a man…"
Ron looked at her in obvious confusion, then he recollected what he said and he flashed red in embarrassment.
"I meant 'man'," he said, still beat red. When the others just looked at him silently, he reddened further. "Honestly," he said. "I meant 'man'! I'm aware that I'm a boy!"
Harry snorted and suddenly everybody else started laughing. The serious atmosphere of before gone thanks to Ron's little mishap.
"Alright," Harry said finally, still fighting to stifle his giggles. "Let's continue with the meeting –"
"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." Luna said dreamily, interrupting him. "It would have been a sad year if we didn't have this meeting tonight. We should do this more often. Maybe we could call it a school camp? I'm sure that if we promise Professor Snape to play match-maker for him and Harry, he'll allow it. With his help getting the Headmaster to agree should be easy!"
Harry's eyes widened at that in horror.
"Luna!" He shrieked. "I'd prefer to eat mouldy cheese for the rest of my life to even thinking about Snape and – ew!"
It was thanks to the fact that they were inside the Room of Requirement that Harry managed to find a bucket in time. Even after dry heaving he still looked rather green in the face.
"I know," Luna said simply. "You still hope for a marriage with Draco Malfoy."
Harry turned even greener and for a moment it looked like Ron was about to join him at the bucket. Then Harry's best friend guffawed.
"Harry and Malfoy," he cried amused. "Harry and Malfoy! I so wish to see Malfoy's face when we tell him that Harry wants to marry him!"
Regretfully, that exclamation made sure that everybody else started to laugh as well.
Harry was not amused!
He reached out to smack his so-called best friend when Hermione stopped him.
"Don't," she said. "This will just end in broken glasses and tears."
Harry sighed.
"I guess you're right," he said, shaking his head, half-amused, half-exasperated with himself.
Luna snickered.
"Don't worry, Harry," she said. "We love you anyway!"
"Yeah, mate," Ron said. "And we'll definitely don't sell you to Snape – or Malfoy, even if you would beg us to do so!"
Harry rolled his eyes again.
"You're an idiot, Ron," he snorted.
Ron nodded earnestly.
"Definitely," he said.
"Could we return to the matter on hand, now," Hermione asked in that moment. "Or do you need more time to mock each other?"
"I didn't mock anyone!" Harry objected immediately, but carved at the look Hermione send him. "We're done," he assured her instead. "Really, we're done!"
The rest of the students nodded, looking for all that is worth like little ducklings mirroring their mum.
Hermione huffed, but finally motioned for Harry to finally continue with the meeting.
He turned to the crowd in front of him.
"Who's with us?" He cried.
The answer was thundering applause from all sides.
"Alright," Harry said. "Now here's the plan!"
sSsSs
Dumbledore frowned and stopped on his way from his sleeping quarters to his office. There was something different in the corridor. It was nearly as if there was another person hiding near him…
Dumbledore's frown deepened and he activated the charm on his glasses that would make it possible for him to see through invisibility cloaks.
Nothing.
In the end, Dumbledore decided that he was just starting to feel a little bit paranoid with the return of Tom Riddle, shook his head and continued on to his office.
The moment he rounded the corner, Hannah Abbott removed the mottled cloak from her person and entered Dumbledore's sleeping quarters.
"The Ranger is inside," she whispered nearly silently into a silver leaf brooch adorning her mottled cloak.
"Roger that," Harry's voice answered back through her left pearl earring. "Search the fiefdom. We're looking for memories, or a diary or whatever. Basil out."
"Roger that," Hannah replied. "Ranger out."
An hour later Hannah Abbott would return to their base with a lot of books, Dumbledore's pensive and all the memories she could find.
sSsSs
Tom Marvolo Riddle, also known as Voldemort was confused. Something felt different, but for the life of him he couldn't say what had changed inside Malfoy manor. It was as if something in the air was suddenly foreign but neither he nor anybody else inside the manor could tell him what. The only one that might have been able to was his snake Nagini – but she was out hunting as far as Voldemort knew.
Neville Longbottom pressed himself deeper into the shadows, in his hands the stunned body of a very large snake and his mottled cloak wrapped tightly around himself.
"How far are you along, Mocking-jay?" He whispered nearly silently into his brooch. It was in the form of a round shield with a star in the middle.
"Another two minutes, Cheese," Susan Bones' voice answered him through the star earring in his left ear.
"Hurry up, the snake-head is on his way, Mocking-jay!" Neville whispered.
"Roger that," Susan replied.
A minute later, she spoke up again.
"Gone," she said. Not even another ten minutes later, Malfoy manor was void of any oddness that had entered the building that day.
"Do you have anything, Mocking-jay, Cheese?" Harry's voice asked through their earrings.
"I've got a diary, Basil," Susan said, her face showing a disgusted look. "It's pink and frilly – but it's got the name 'Voldemort' inside, so I guess that it's the right one."
Neville turned green at that exclamation, but he spoke up bravely.
"I found the diaries of Bellatrix Lestrange and Malfoy senior, Basil," he said, still a little bit green in the face. "I also had to take the damn snake. It smelled me or whatever and I couldn't risk to be found."
sSsSs
A day later, the DA met again.
"Alright," Harry said. "The first part of our operation was done flawlessly. Now I need some brave men and women who will read those abominations –" He pointed at the stack of diaries they had gathered. "- and tell us the most important parts of them. The moment we're done, we will be able to stake the second part of our plan."
The students of the DA looked at each other uneasily, but in the end a few brave Ravenclaws and Hermione tackled the frightening monstrosities the leaders of the light and dark called 'diaries'.
Two weeks later, they met again.
"So tell me, Knights of the Round Table, what do we have?" Harry asked the readers of the diaries.
Hermione who had sacrificed herself and read the pink and frilly one belonging to a certain dark lord, grimaced.
"A lot of ramblings about power, dark rituals and his time possessing a circus horse," she replied. "Except of his way to immortality, nothing important."
One of the Ravenclaws snorted.
"At least you had some variety," she said. "I've got two thousand pages written about Lucius Malfoy's perfect hair – or not so perfect. He was quite agitated that you destroyed his hairstyle at the end of your second year, Harry."
The others snorted.
"Dumbledore has a lot of secrets," Luna said. She had looked into the pensive, the memories and the books of the Headmaster. "The most important things for now are the knowledge of Tom Riddle's immortality and how to counter it."
"Bellatrix rambles mostly about her 'beloved dark lord'," the last Ravenclaw said. "But she has hidden something for him inside her vault. Luckily she has hidden her key inside the diary as well, so we should have no problem getting it."
Harry nodded.
"So, snake-head's immortality – how long do we need to counter it?" He asked interested.
Hermione thought about it.
"We've got the key to the cup – Hufflepuff's cup according to snake-head. Luna knows how it looks. We've got the hiding place of the diadem and the means to destroy it beneath our feet. We've got the hiding place of the ring and know that the Headmaster already destroyed it. We will have to research how to get that thing out of you, but –"
"Out of me?" Harry repeated in disbelief.
"Oh, you've got one of those soul bits of Tommy boy stuck inside your scar," Luna said unconcerned. "The Headmaster discovered it. We might have to kill you to get it out, but we will get it out, I promise."
"Ah, alright," Harry said, nodding and as unconcerned as Luna. "Go on."
"And Hermione thinks she has seen the locket before, but she can't remember where," Luna added. "The moment she'll remember, we'll hunt it down. We've got the snake already, so we'll be able to get rid of two today, another one tomorrow… as for the rest… how about a week until we're done?"
Harry thought that over.
"Alright," he said. "But I'd prefer to die on a Sunday, so how about a week and a day?"
Luna frowned, then shrugged.
"Should be do-able," she agreed. "A week and a day, then."
As promised, they destroyed the diadem and the snake on Saturday, went to Gringotts on Sunday and destroyed the cup. On Wednesday Hermione remembered where she had seen the locket. On Thursday Harry called Kreacher to destroy it. On Saturday they decided 'what the heck, we just do it.' so on Sunday they killed Harry.
Ten minutes after his death, Harry woke up again with a headache.
"We're not doing something like that ever again!" He exclaimed. "Mum scolded me for the entire time I was there because I acted reckless! No! We definitely don't repeat that! I don't care what you say!"
Hermione, Luna and Ron exchanged a glance.
"Don't worry, mate," Ron said in the end. "That was a 'once in a lifetime' I promise."
"Good," Harry nodded. "Now that we're done – can we finally start the final part of our plan?"
The other three exchanged another glance, then shrugged.
"Alright," they agreed.
On Hallowe'en, Lord Voldemort followed Harry's invitation (alright, Harry had faked Malfoy junior's handwriting and written a letter claiming that he had heard about Harry's plan by chance) to Godric's Hollow.
Dumbledore, being notified by Hermione, rushed to the village as well, hearing that Harry had gone there to visit his parents' graves. He was just in time to see the end of Tom Riddle.
"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful." Harry cried, before putting a stake through Voldemort's heart.
Dumbledore fainted.
The dark lord died instantly.
Finally, it was Harry's turn to rule.
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I might have added some other references as well, not just the prompts. xD Not my fault that I needed a few more code-names and things… xDDD
Ebenbild