Foreword
I don't own Harry Potter. This is a fairly AU but hopefully not radically so telling of the story with some dark imagery and themes. It isn't 'a slash fic', I'm not a shipper of any kind, and I don't want to write sex scenes. This is going to be focused on the characters, on the plot, and the world (with all its differences and similarities to canon) those other things are part of. Some of the characters will be doing things you might not expect them to, and some of the setting might seem a little strange. I really think (hope) that if you stick with it, it will be worth it in the end. I've planned out all the way to the end of Ynys Afal, and I know concretely what happens after that, too.
I said that this isn't a slash fic, and that I'm not writing sex. That doesn't mean there won't be any LGBT characters or that canon characters won't find themselves in homosexual encounters, but it does mean that if Harry ends up with anyone at the end, that person will definitely be a woman. This isn't going to be thinly-veiled porn and it's not going to be focused on romance and romantic relationships. These things will be there but they aren't the focus.
I'm interested in different cultures, and in ethics and morality and philosophy, and I also want to explore the nature of magic and prophecy and choice and agency and all that juicy stuff.
Everything changed has been changed for a reason, even if that reason doesn't seem immediately obvious. Some of the scenes may be a bit gory, especially in future chapters. It starts off quite slowly.
Thank you for taking the time to check this out, and I really hope you enjoy it. I can't promise everything is perfectly edited, although I have been through it a bunch of times. I'd love to hear any feedback, even if it's just to say 'you spelled that wrong'.
16/07/2015 Update: I shuffled around some of the content of the first few chapters (all of the pre-2011 content). I think it's better now. There's been no change to the actual content of the story, there are just a few more chapters now and some information is learnt at a different time. Chapters should be shorter now and a bit more focussed.
Harry Potter and the Unspeakables (I)
Ynys Afal: The Island of Apples
11th August 2011 – The Forbidden Forest
Ten years ago Voldemort had announced his return from death and invaded Hogwarts, killing many Muggleborns and enslaving the rest. Harry hadn't been there at the time. He'd been on holiday in Wales.
Albus Dumbledore, the greatest man Harry had ever known, had been murdered by a powerful Dark witch, an Albanian woman now known to be responsible for the return of the Dark Lord, and a powerful Dark Lady herself. The Ministry for Magic had been unable to mount any kind of competent response to the incursion, sending only a small team of Aurors to retake the school.
The team failed, and over the course of five long years the British Wizarding world fell to the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. Not that Harry had been part of the resistance: the Unspeakables had 'kidnapped' him early in 2002, along with several of his friends.
Since then, he and they had remained on the hidden island fortress of the Unspeakables, a heavily warded and guarded island off the coast of Wales. Now, almost ten years later, it was time to move against Voldemort again.
Far too long past it, if Harry had anything to say about it, but the Unspeakables had been firm. They had a timeline, and it was based upon solid evidence (or so they said), and all things would be done in their time.
Now was the time to infiltrate Hogwarts, the citadel of the Dark Lord even if still a school, and retrieve the List. The List tracked every magical child born in Britain, whether to magical parents or otherwise, and could be used to locate these children when the time came to invite them to Hogwarts.
Voldemort used it as a constant source of new slaves, conscripts and breeding stock for the future. The Unspeakables wanted it so that they could find these children and bring them instead to Avalon. Harry agreed with them on this, even if he had vocal disagreements on other things. This was important.
The Invisibility Cloak – which he now knew to be an ancient artefact, a so-called Deathly Hallow – would allow him entry to the castle where others would be detected. His intimate knowledge of the castle – complete with the Marauders' Map – should allow him access to the room containing the List, high up in the Headmaster's tower. Voldemort himself occupied another wing of the castle, one used in ancient times by the Founders.
He had befouled the castle, the Founders' legacy, and all mankind besides. With his Cloak wrapped tightly around him, and his person covered by layers and layers of protective wards, Harry stepped out of the forest and onto the grounds of Hogwarts proper.
He covered the ground quickly, pausing only briefly to gaze at the spot where Hagrid's hut had once been. A garden stood where his friend's house had once been, a garden filled with exotic and dangerous magical organisms, half-plant and half-animal, or perhaps something else entirely. Harry couldn't say.
Voldemort hadn't mistreated Hogwarts. For all his faults he loved – as much as he could love – Hogwarts. But even so his occupation had cast a dark pallor upon the ancient building, a foul miasma which pervaded the air.
He couldn't enter through the door, nor through any of the tunnels of passageways indicated on the Marauders' Map. The Unspeakables provided another tunnel: in a courtyard, beneath a fountain, was a chamber in essence a kind of Vanishing Cabinet, which would exchange him for the contents of a similar chamber within the castle itself. It was a highly classified route into and out of the castle, unknown probably even to Dumbledore.
The Unspeakables wouldn't tell him where the information came from. They usually never did, although they had been remarkably candid and free with other things. Hermione had had gone wild with the access she had been given, though it was nothing compared with the totality of the vast Unspeakable archives.
Soon enough Harry stood in front of the fountain in the courtyard, and spoke the old Scottish words – not Latin, which he thought was strange – which would open up the fountain and reveal the chamber beneath. Silently, of course – or else it would be a rather ineffective secret passageway.
Harry climbed inside and the fountain closed up around him, and he was tugged wildly to the side and spat out into a musty, abandoned room somewhere within Hogwarts. Inside Voldemort's domain.
Time to find the List.
11th August 2011 – The Ministry for Magic
Hermione hadn't left the hidden island of Avalon – honestly? Such a pretentious name the Unspeakables had given to their island fortress – in almost ten years. It had been galling at first, to be secreted away like an untried and untested child. Not that as a child she had been untried and untested, at least not since second year.
But they had explained their reasoning. Voldemort's amassed army was three times larger than anything he had been able to muster in the First War. The ranks of the Aurors had been literally decimated during peacetime, such that even those who remained after the First War were soon retired. The murder of Albus Dumbledore by Valmira, the so-called Dark Lady of Britain, and the subsequent invasion of Hogwarts, had almost destroyed the will of the British wizarding people to resist.
She had wanted to be out there, fighting. But in time she had come to see the point of view of the Unspeakables, even if she thought they were too cautious and too mystic for their own good. More transparency would have been nice, but they had given her access to a fair amount of literature and arcane science. Not nearly enough, but some.
But now was the time to step out of the darkness, if she were to speak figuratively. She was very much still within the darkness, cloaked by a Disillusionment Charm and a wealth of other protections besides.
Unspeakable cells had travelled the length of Britain for this. Harry had been sent to Hogwarts. She was to infiltrate the Ministry – or, at the very least, the War Office. The puppet Minister for Magic – the odious Malfoy the elder – had declared war upon the Irish Court of Magic in order to cleanse the British Isles of the 'heresies' of pre-Norman French Pureblood culture. Her time amongst the Unspeakables had shown her that there was a lot to magical culture she hadn't understood because the proponents of tradition and culture and history had devolved into rabid fanatics such as the Pureblood People's Party and the Death Eaters, or the dreadful Mudblood Integrationists. The Norman conquest had brought a great deal of strife to British Wizarding society, and had had repercussions even to the present day. The particular doctrine of racial supremacy advocated by the Death Eaters and their ilk was dangerous and a corruption of ancient practises, supported by centuries of oppression.
This latest war was an extension of that. The Unspeakables had reason to believe that Voldemort had begun setting up disgusting breeding camps, places where Muggleborn men and women were forced to create new life, only to have it taken away and raised by proper Purebloods. Her mission was to find the location of these camps in the War Office.
A task easier set than completed, she was coming to understand.
Hermione Granger had been stood hidden in a disused stairwell deep within the Ministry Building for several hours. Since the Unspeakables had absconded, the puppet Ministry established after Voldemort's victory had set up a new suite of offices in the repaired and redecorated former Department of Mysteries. Due to their being a current and active war of Britain's choosing, the War Office was understandably quite busy.
When it wasn't filled by Lucius Malfoy and a number of other known Death Eaters of the Inner Circle it was staffed by – more or less – innocent civilians, people whose lives had been upended by the Dark Lord and Lady. She couldn't hurt them. Some others wouldn't be as scrupulous, but Hermione hadn't abandoned her principles when she'd joined the Unspeakables in their mission.
There. An opportunity.
The War Office had quietened. Emptied. She moved quickly and entered the room, bypassing the security wards using a spell she'd been taught by the Unspeakables' chief ward architect. Inside she found a great map of the British Isles. A war simulator, a magical device similar to a muggle computer if Hermione were to make an analogy, which could be used to craft tactics and strategies.
She gazed upon it, committing what details she could to memory. Wizarding communities – some ancient, some new – dotted all across the island. Which of these were new communities, and which of these were the breeding camps? It didn't matter. She memorised as much as she could, and then turned her attention to the cabinets and desks that occupied areas of the room.
"Who left the door open?" muttered a tired-looking woman in the doorway. Hermione froze.
Astoria Greengrass – no, Malfoy – stood in the doorway. As Undersecretary to the Minister, and his daughter in law besides, Astoria Malfoy was a powerful figure in the puppet Ministry, though not a confirmed Death Eater. It would still be bad news for Hermione to be caught by her, even if she could outmatch the woman in a direct fight. She wasn't supposed to be caught.
Astoria Malfoy took out her wand and muttered an incantation, and a cabinet drawer opened rapidly. A sheaf of parchment whizzed out of the drawer and she flicked through them. Satisfied at something, she left the room and closed the door behind her.
Silently thanking the woman for providing her with somewhere to start, Hermione tapped at the cabinet with her wand, willing the drawers to open. She could override the locks. Alohomora was not the only unlocking spell she knew, nor was it the most useful or the best.
Soon enough she was left with far too many scrolls and dossiers to properly search, and set about finding the ones she was sent to retrieve.
11th August 2011 – The Shrieking Shack, Hogsmeade Village
Neville Longbottom had always been part of something bigger than himself. In school it had been Gryffindor at first, and then it had been his friendship with Harry Potter, whose life had been … eventful, to say the least, even without the threat of Voldemort. He'd become fire-forged friends with Harry, and Ron, and Hermione – and others besides. Then out of nowhere the Dark Lord, the man who had ordered his parents tortured into insanity, returned from the dead to invade Hogwarts.
Now, he was part of the Unspeakables. Not that he worked for the Ministry for Magic, or even the Department of Mysteries. The Unspeakables were something else entirely, a group whose primary interest – for the moment, at least – was the termination of Dark Lord Voldemort and Dark Lady Valmira.
To that end Unspeakable cells had been sent all over the country today, on the 11th of August, exactly ten years after the murder of Albus Dumbledore and the Invasion of Hogwarts.
Harry to Hogwarts, the Dark Lord's citadel, to save the Muggleborn children.
Neville, to Hogsmeade, to provide a distraction for Harry.
Hermione, to the Ministry, to retrieve vital information.
A dozen other cells, almost the full number of Unspeakables, doing something else, somewhere else. It was an announcement, a declaration of war. It had to be now, before Voldemort conquered Ireland and turned his gaze towards the continent, which had never been so fractious and almost ablaze.
Neville's job had sounded easy at first. Get to Hogsmeade. Make a fuss. Give Harry time.
And it was that simple. Except that Hogsmeade contained the largest concentration of Death Eaters in Britain, at least outside of the new villages that had been set up outside of Muggle communities. Hogwarts stood as the primary magical school in Britain still, but also as the personal domain of the Dark Lord. Hogsmeade had been expanded greatly to house the many young men who swelled the ranks of the Death Eaters from all over Europe.
Two Unspeakables accompanied him. Good men, and with the Department since before the First War. Despite their age, Neville wouldn't want to face either of them in a fair fight.
"Longbottom."
It was Whitehall, the elder of the two Unspeakables, a man whose knowledge of obscure and ancient charms and hexes eclipsed most people's knowledge of basic household magic.
"What?"
"Remember your Nullification Charm. We will split when we enter the town proper, and neither myself nor Unspeakable Thomas shall be there to remind you."
Neville snorted.
"I can do a Nullification Charm."
And he could. Properly, even. He hadn't been a nervous wreck since he was at least fourteen. That Neville had been gone long before the Unspeakables had intervened, and in the years since had been all but banished as Neville had become someone else, someone he was proud of being.
"Restituo praesidium," he said, carefully and slowly. The charm would dissolve most protective wards, although not all, and was a highly guarded Unspeakable secret.
"Good boy. We'll make a proper Unspeakable of you yet, I'm sure."
Neville nodded. He wasn't sure being an Unspeakable was what he would have chosen, all other things being equal, but that was what he was, now.
"Let's get going," he said. "I bet Harry's already inside by now."
Together the three wizards moved through the town of Hogsmeade. Neville wasn't really prepared for how much larger it had become – rows and rows of streets branched off from the Hogsmeade he remembered, and it seemed a populous place. The edifice of the Death Eater headquarters rose above the other buildings and dwarfed them, a great black tumour in what appeared to be an otherwise normal town.
Then Neville veered off alone, in the direction of the Death Eater compound. The old Unspeakables were to do something else, something to do with an elderly Romanian inventor the Dark Lord had brought over from Europe. Not his mission. He was supposed to break the wards surrounding the Death Eater building.
Not with the Nullification Charm, although it would be useful. He'd spent nine years, near enough ten, with the Unspeakables. He hadn't just sat on arse doing nothing in that time. They'd all trained. Neville was now something of a ward-breaker, although not of quite the same sort employed by the goblins of Gringotts.
Death Eaters patrolled the streets of Hogsmeade at night. Tonight, on the night marking the tenth anniversary of the Invasion of Hogwarts, almost every witch or wizard in Britain would be at Stonehenge to celebrate the occasion – and those who didn't go would be safe inside their homes.
So only a token force of Death Eaters would patrol tonight, and the Dark Lord and Lady would not be at Hogwarts. Still, it wouldn't do to be cocky or arrogant. He was one man. A well trained man, but still just one man.
Then again, he was Neville fucking Longbottom. How could anything go wrong?
Hogwarts
Harry found himself inside a part of Hogwarts he had never seen before, which wasn't even on the Marauders' Map. That in itself didn't really surprise him, since the Unspeakables had warned him that Hogwarts was not a building one could simply map; it was larger on the inside than on the outside, and its interior layout did not necessarily match what one would expect from the interior. Even weirder, or at least Harry found this the most odd thing, was that a whole section of the castle appeared to be under some sort of bizarre time-related spell.
Knowing that wasn't exactly helpful in his current circumstances, though. He looked around.
This part of the castle had remained seemingly unchanged in centuries, although with Hogwarts it could always be difficult to tell. The portraits were older, more sluggish, and less realistic – some didn't even move, and maybe never had.
What ghosts wandered this part of the castle? Harry wondered that, and a number of other things, before deciding that he was definitely not anywhere near to the Headmaster's office. It made him sick to think that Voldemort alone controlled the castle now, him and his Dark Lady, the woman who had brought him back and unleashed him upon the world again.
What he would give to fly again, properly.
"But where the fuck am I?" he wondered aloud, hoping that his words would catch some long-forgotten ghost or portrait and produce some sort of useful response. With portraits, though, you could never really depend on anything.
The ghost of a small child drifted up through the floor in front of him.
"Hogwarts School," it said helpfully. "How did you get in here if you didn't know where you are?"
Harry took a closer look. The child was young – almost too young to discern its sex, since the poor thing had apparently died many centuries ago in clothing Harry had no idea was meant for boys, girls, or both.
"What's your name?"
The child drifted lazily up towards the ceiling.
"I don't remember," it said eventually.
"Are you a boy or a girl?" he decided to ask after a few moments of silence. He felt rude referring to the ghostly child as 'it', although he supposed he did have more important things to worry about. Such as where, exactly, they were.
"I don't know."
The child drifted back down towards the ground, although remained at about eye-level to Harry.
"Does it matter?"
"No, I don't suppose it does," conceded Harry. "Do you know where in Hogwarts, exactly, we are? Only, it's just that I need to be somewhere else in Hogwarts."
"I think this is where I used to live, a very long time ago." The child seemed sad, but it was a distant sadness—half-remembered, mostly forgotten. Like the echoes of a memory.
A strange magic lingered in the air around him. Old magic. Time magic? What was it the old Unspeakable, Whitehall, had said about the taste of time magic?
Harry couldn't remember, and suspected it wouldn't very useful even if he could.
"I can show you a door I can't go through," said the child. "Follow me."
So Harry did.
He wasn't quite sure what he had expected, but when Harry saw the door, the door was not it. It was a simple door, plainly built and undecorated. Except… something about it was strange, didn't resemble a plain, simple door.
What was it?
And then he saw it.
All around the door, knotted into an intricate, complex weave, were powerful wards. Spells that linked the magic he could feel, the ancient and strange magic, together, and bounded it. Trapped the child, and perhaps other things, inside this part of the castle?
"I can't go through the door," said the child. "Can you go through the door?"
"I'm not sure that I can."
He took out his wand and placed it upon the door.
"Revelatio praestidium," he said, and the network of wards flared into sight – true sight, not the magical sight he had learned to use with the Unspeakables. Some of the wards he recognised, but others didn't even look like spells. Nothing that seemed like it might hurt him if he tried to open it, or even if he tried to break the wards…
"Restituo praesidium," he said, and watched as none of the wards flickered out of existence.
"I was supposed to do magic," said the child. "But then I died."
Ghosts were always so morbid. Harry supposed it wasn't their fault, not really, but it made him feel more than a little uncomfortable. What were you supposed to say to the ghost of a dead child who would never be able to do magic, but remembered that it was supposed to?
"I'm going to go through the door," he said. "Goodbye. Maybe I'll see you again one day?"
The child floated away. Harry wasn't sure it would remember their meeting; very old ghosts sometimes didn't. Gingerly, Harry turned the doorknob and opened the door.
Much to his chagrin, nothing at all happened. The wards didn't flicker. None of the tell-tale signs of activation. Nothing. The door was just a convenient nexus point, then. He frowned. Hermione would know why it was a convenient nexus point, not only that it was. Maybe she would even know what some of the wards did.
It was only when Harry had left the strange, forgotten part of Hogwarts that he realised the ghost child had been able to see through his Invisibility Cloak, which he had not removed since entering the castle.
The Ministry for Magic
Hermione had taken all that she could from the War Office, and had retreated to the Atrium. She wasn't technically supposed to do what she was about to do, but she had been stuck on that god-damned island for a decade, trapped behind an Unspeakable time-locked fortress ward, and so she did not care.
The Unspeakables would get bent out of shape about it, but at the end of the day they would do nothing. She was one of them now, sort of, and insubordination was part of how the Unspeakables functioned as a group. Fiercely independent, yet staunchly collectivist, the Unspeakables would be angry at her but would expect her actions to have produced some useful consequence.
She only hoped Ronald would turn out to be helpful. Or at least connected to whatever kind of anti-Voldemort resistance remained in Britain. The Unspeakables had ways of watching certain things, certain places, and much of what they knew – or assumed – about the current situation in Britain came from those sources of information.
Hermione didn't have a slavish devotion to the tools of the Unspeakables. For one thing, she had never gone through the Department of Mysteries and so had never had to rely on their traditions and training. On top of that she knew that the witches and wizards of the Britain she remembered had more spirit than the Unspeakables thought. There would be a resistance of some kind, and if Ron Weasley was not a part of it, Hermione would take back everything she had ever said about the Unified Magical Field Theory.
And if she had some personal motive for her actions, well, that was her prerogative as an Unspeakable, wasn't it?
The Atrium, unlike the War Office, was busy. Busy for what tonight was, which was meant to be a celebration of the death of Albus Dumbledore. The tenth. Ten years since Voldemort had come back to Britain. So why was the Atrium so full?
Hermione could see several reporters and a number of mid to low-ranking Ministry employees. She could see the benefits of not allowing the entire apparatus of state to disappear for the celebrations. Even Astoria Malfoy had remained at the Ministry, although Hermione assumed the other woman had left by now.
Except she hadn't.
How to cross from where she stood to where she needed to be? She couldn't apparate from where she was now, but the Disillusionment Charm was not as good as Harry's Cloak. What Hermione would give for instructions on how to perform a proper Phase Shift Charm – not that anyone could give her those, as the spell was considered purely theoretical.
She absolutely couldn't cause a scene at the Ministry. Not that a scene would be a bad thing per se, as the Unspeakables were announcing their 'return' tonight, but a scene wasn't explicitly part of the plan. Not for the Ministry. For Hogsmeade and Stonehenge, certainly. For Harry to steal the List and for her to retrieve important information relating to the Irish War and the Muggleborn resettlement camps, yes.
But for a scene at the Ministry created by a lone operative? That was dangerous. Hermione was a Gryffindor, and prone to acts of rash bravery, but she wasn't stupid. She could have been in Ravenclaw. Not that House affiliation seemed all that important, twenty years out from first year and in the middle – at the beginning? – of a brutal existential war.
During the time Hermione had taken to think over her problems the Atrium had cleared, leaving Hermione alone with Astoria Greengrass. Malfoy. A girl Hermione knew only by association, and from the Unspeakables' scrying tools.
"I know that you're hiding there. Do you think me a fool?"
Hermione went still, and stopped a breath in her chest. She knew that there was somebody hidden, but not where there was somebody hidden. Or so Hermione hoped.
Caeco. A minor blinding curse. She cast it silently, carefully, but it went to nothing as Astoria calmly deflected the spell.
"Mulco."
A bludgeoning hex. Hermione rolled out of the way as the hex smashed into the wall behind her. Another quickfire spell saw her Disillusionment Charm shattered.
A scene had definitely been made.
"Sercore tempestas!" she said, flinging the foulest, most disgusting hex she could think of at the woman – the shitstorm hex.
Waiting only a moment to ensure that Astoria Greengrass was indeed fighting her way out of a literal storm of faeces, Hermione bolted in the direction of the Apparition chambers. She stopped only because a new figure had entered the Atrium.
A figure she recognised.
"Hermione?"
Across the Atrium, standing where a hallway met the grand chamber, was Sirius Black.
Hogwarts
Harry had emerged somewhere on the fifth floor, and from there he made his way to the Headmaster's office. The office of Severus Snape, a traitor, who had eagerly returned to serve at the Dark Lord's feet. He had been made Headmaster of Hogwarts for his trouble, and under his reign the school had become the premier Dark Arts academy in Europe, even the world.
Harry would have liked nothing more than to simply end the man, but that wasn't what he was here for. Snape wasn't meant to be at Hogwarts tonight, anyway – only a token force would be left here. After all, who would dare attack the great and powerful Dark Lord in his personal domain?
His mission was simple: retrieve the List. Rendezvous with Neville and Whitehall and Thomas, and from there travel to Stonehenge to announce their return, and to issue a challenge to Voldemort. If everything went to plan the many operations conducted by the Unspeakables that night would deal a serious blow to his activities, and he wouldn't even realise the true extent of the damage until too late. Or so the plan said, but Harry spoke with a wry kind of experience when he'd said that plans usually went to shit.
Maybe the Unspeakables were better at planning than he had ever been. They were more meticulous, certainly.
The Unspeakables had a rather large dossier compiled surrounding the man Harry knew as Professor Snape. A genealogy, a personal and professional history, everything. Their central focus was the man's obsessive and long-lasting love for Harry's mother, Lily. The password to the chamber with the List would be there, as it would be guarded by Snape against this very situation.
Or, perhaps not this exact situation because as far as the world was concerned, Harry Potter was either dead or a coward who had run away to the Americas. But a situation like it.
Merlin, he had been locked away on that island far too long.
Soon enough Harry found himself where he needed to be, and uttered their best guess at the room's password. If it came to it he would break the ward – he'd been shown how to do that, even though ward breaking was more Neville's thing, and Hermione could get through nearly any magical lock – but he'd prefer not to.
Unlike Hermione or Neville, Harry couldn't break the ward or trick the lock without tripping its alarm. He could probably do better than Ron, though. Ron, who he hadn't seen in a decade, but who was mercifully still alive.
"Lily."
It worked, and Harry didn't have to ply his dubious skills to the system. He entered the room and looked around it for the List, which was not he had expected.
The largest piece of parchment Harry had ever seen hung between some sort of mechanism, and a green quill hovered in the air in front of it, waiting for the birth of a new magical child. He couldn't steal the device, and nor could – would – he destroy its magic. They couldn't afford to lose such an ancient magical spell, not when they would have no reliable way of recreating it. He was to steal the List only, and not the methods for producing the List.
It rankled to leave such a thing in enemy hands, but there wasn't really another way. Part of him missed the Harry-Who-Was, the one before the Unspeakables, who would have destroyed the device and damned the consequences. He would have deprived Voldemort of his primary means of obtaining more Muggleborns and counted it as a win.
But the Unspeakables had taught him to think differently. Tactically. He wagered he could now beat Ron in a game of chess. Destroying the apparatus would only give Voldemort and his Dark Lady cause to seek another source of Muggleborns, and deprive future generations of a piece of living history. That was important, too – the world they would live in after they won. If he fought this war as if that world did not exist, then that world would be unlikely to form in the ashes of the old one.
Eventually, Harry extricated the List from the apparatus and placed it inside a Dimension Bag Hermione had charmed for him. He exited the tower swiftly and quietly, remembering for a moment the time he had done so during his fifth year, when the Court of Fools had infiltrated the school.
When Harry got to the base of the tower he came to face to face – or face with magically-clear air – with Severus Snape, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the highest ranking living Death Eater.
"There is no need to hide, Potter. I could smell your distinct stench of arrogance and lack of class in a Turkish whorehouse."
Hogsmeade Town, Death Eater compound
"Mulco! Mulco! Mulco!"
Neville shot off bludgeoning hex after bludgeoning hex. He'd come across a larger patrol than he'd expected – three men, all British by the sound of their voices – and had to dispatch them quickly. The mission was distract, not get killed by random Death Eaters. Unfortunately for him, these Death Eaters were well-trained and highly skilled opponents, probably even minor veterans of the so-called War of Pureblood Freedom.
He had no choice but to roll away from an unknown curse, a curse which careened into the house behind him and shattered the bricks and mortar, bypassing whatever wards had been placed on it. Probably a Dark curse.
Neville grimaced.
"Abundo vomo," he said slowly, casting it with the inflection which would make the Death Eaters begin to uncontrollably vomit, resulting in their deaths if nobody cast the counterspell. Other variations of the spell would cause someone to inflate dangerously, or become grotesquely fat.
"Incido."
Then he turned and ran, heading towards the fourth and final corner of the building. He had almost destroyed the outer wards. When that was done, he would set a wardbomb and meet up with Whitehall and Thomas.
When he arrived, he was almost relieved to see that finally, finally, the citizens had Hogsmeade had gotten curious about what was happening. Almost, because he was the enemy here. Even locals afraid of You-Know-Who wouldn't stop to help him. He didn't mind.
He just wanted them to see. There was a point in fighting.
"Longbottom?"
Neville whirled around in the direction of the voice. He recognised it. Who? When he saw the speaker, however, he knew instantly.
Theodore Nott. Confirmed Death Eater.
Neville didn't waste time.
"Occumbo!" he said quickly, casting a rapid Falling Hex at the other man, the Death Eater he had known from school.
"Protego maxima," said the tall, thin man lazily. "A Falling Hex, Longbottom? Fight like a proper Pureblood."
"Lacero. Fluo sanguis."
If Nott wanted some of the darker – not Darker, not really – things Neville could throw at him then Neville would give them to him. A ripping curse paired with a blood overflow curse would cause the other man to bleed out and die, at least if he didn't rapidly repair the damage and allow Neville the opportunity to either kill him or escape.
That was the theory. Neville hadn't had the chance to test it in the field, what with being stuck on a Merilin-damned rock for a decade.
Nott, however, proved too quick – the man moved like some sort of Dark creature, faster than Neville even thought was possible.
"Crucio."
He rolled away, and the curse didn't strike. The Cruciatus Curse. There was no spell in existence that made Neville angrier. He could deal with the Imperius Curse. He could even deal with the Killing Curse. He didn't condone their use, would never use them himself, but he could see situations where they could have some practical use.
But the Cruciatus Curse was a torture spell. A spell designed solely to cause pain. His parents had been tortured into insanity under the Cruciatus Curse.
"Abundo cruore." He intoned the curse carefully, through grit teeth. The Bloodletting Curse was the Darkest curse he would allow himself to learn: just on the edge of what the Ministry considered legal, if not particularly wholesome. The curse struck Nott dead in the chest, and Neville followed it with another ripping curse. "Lacero."
This time Neville was too quick, and Nott succumbed. Without really caring if his former classmate lived or died – Nott's crimes were well-attested – Neville broke the last of the wards on the Death Eater compound, set the wardbomb – a device carefully constructed by a number of Unspeakables for this very purpose – and fled.
The Ministry for Magic
Hermione froze. Fucking Sirius Black. She bore him no ill will – he always, always, always meant well, at least when it came to those he considered friends and family. But the man had the worst timing possible, honestly, and shouting out her name? She'd just attacked the Minister's daughter-in-law who was also the Undersecretary to the Minister.
"Somno maxima!" said Hermione forcefully, directing her spell towards Astoria Greengrass. It hit, and the woman fell to the ground, asleep. Or, more properly, in a deep comatose state. A skilled Healer could bring her out of it, Hermione supposed.
"Not now, Sirius," she said quickly. "I have to go—there's someone I need to—Harry's fine," she said. There wasn't enough time to explain anything to Sirius. Almost no time at all, in fact, and that was assuming everything everywhere went exactly to plan – which it wouldn't.
Nothing ever did.
"I think I get it," said Sirius simply. "I'll—contact you through the old channels, yeah? I think I'll 'rescue' Mrs Malfoy, if you don't mind?" He didn't seem to really be asking. Sirius had made a place for himself in British magical society; they had seen that much from their scrying. The Order of the Phoenix hadn't disbanded, merely gone underground. Hermione knew it to be true.
It was why she needed to get to the Burrow. To find the Weasleys. To see Ron. That reason, and another reason.
"Good. Something big is about to happen, Sirius," she said, lingering just long enough to tell him that. She couldn't tell him what, but he should know.
Then Hermione ran for the Apparition Chamber and pictured the Burrow in her head. With a loud crack Hermione disappeared and left the Ministry behind her.
The Burrow
"Arthur! Arthur! The wards are screaming! Get your wand!"
Mrs Weasley. Molly.
Hermione's heart stopped in her chest. A decade. It had been a decade.
"It's probably just a gnome," she heard Mr Weasley—Arthur—say.
"We can't take that chance!"
Hermione whispered a quick shield charm and stepped out into the light. She'd Apparated behind Arthur's shed, and when she appeared, she held her wand in both hands in front of her.
"Arthur, Molly – please don't attack me. It's me, Hermione."
"Hermione?" repeated Mr Weasley, wand held limply in hand.
"Expelliarmus!" declared Molly, snatching Hermione's wand from the air. "I don't believe you. What if this is a trick, Arthur? You know what he… what he did the first time."
"I promise you it's me, Hermione Granger. I was kidnapped by the Unspeakables. Harry and Neville and Luna, too."
"Everyone knows that!" snapped Molly. "How can we be sure it's you?"
Hermione knew it wasn't a case of the Weasleys being unfair. She had been gone ten years, kidnapped very publicly—at least, as far as the Weasleys were concerned. Most of Britain thought her dead. Ron had even been there at the time, as had Ginny – but Harry forced them both to escape so that the Order would not lose too many at once. Still, she and Luna and Harry and Neville had been enough for the Unspeakables at the time.
"I had my first period in the summer between second and third year," said Hermione flatly. "When I was here, visiting Ron with Harry. I didn't know what witches did, and you told me."
Arthur had turned red, bless him.
"May I have my wand back?"
Molly didn't respond at first, but then drew her up into a tight hug. Immediately Hermione felt at ease. It wasn't the same as her own mother, but Molly had been… Molly was supposed to have been her mother-in-law, one day.
Hermione felt her wand pressed into her hands after the elder woman withdrew from the hug.
"Do you know where Ron is?"
Molly's face fell.
"Well, about Ron…" she said, and then continued quickly after seeing the look Hermione knew was plastered across her face. "He's alive, heavens! No, he, I think we'd better go inside…"
Hermione shook her head.
"I can't. There's no time," she said, stressing the important words. A nervous habit she'd never managed to break. "Tell me now, please."
"He's married," said Arthur. "Three years, now."
That wasn't what she had expected. She felt crushed. Like her heart had withered and died in her chest, and all that remained was a dried husk.
But she couldn't be angry. Ten years. Ten fucking years.
And then Hermione didn't have to think about it any more because something more important was happening. Something real, something concrete, and something important. The coin in her pocket was glowing. A modified version of the Protean Charm allowed the Unspeakables one method of long-range contact. There were others, of course.
She withdrew the coin from her pocket. It glowed a bright, furious green. The colour of Harry's eyes.
"Fuck." She didn't care that she was swearing in front of the elder Weasleys. After the decade she'd had, nobody's opinion mattered anymore. "Harry's in trouble. Listen," she said, dropping into a tone they would find familiar, "this is very important. Gather the Order—the resistance, whatever—and tell them to Apparate at once to Hogsmeade. Harry is in trouble. We're fighting the Death Eaters. We're back."
Hermione paused.
"Arthur. Molly. Promise me." She couldn't go until they did.
"I—"
"We promise," said Arthur quickly. "Go."
She nodded, and then Apparated away. Harry needed her. Needed all of the Unspeakables, if he'd sent the message using the coin.
Hogwarts
Voldemort was here. Fucking. Fuck. Shit. Harry couldn't decide what to do: kill the traitorous Snape or run the fuck away from Voldemort (not that he was scared – he was erring on the side of caution here).
"The Dark Lord approaches, Potter," said Snape, his voice low but forceful, cutting the space between them like a knife. "Do not be here when he arrives." He looked Harry up and down. "You are not Albus. But perhaps you will do."
Harry merely gaped, and suddenly felt like an eleven year old boy again, and not the thirty year old man that he had become. Snape, offering him a chance to escape? A betrayal of the Dark Lord, his Lord? Or… no, perhaps Snape hadn't turned traitor at the last moment.
He felt something pressed into his palm. A vial containing silver liquid. A memory. Memories?
"What?"
"Go!" hissed the dour Potions Master, Headmaster, and apparent spy. "You foolish man!"
"I need to get to a window," he said lamely, cursing himself for his sudden stupidity. The Harry he was being was the Harry he was more than a decade ago, not the Harry he actually was. Snape had unsettled him. Did Harry trust the man? No, he could not say that he did.
"I cannot provide a distraction. I will tell the Dark Lord where you have gone, and how he is to find you. You must escape anyway."
"Right."
Harry could do that. There was a Mission Protocol, after all. The Unspeakables were all very dutiful with their recordings, although for whom they were meant exactly Harry had never been able to guess. The Ministry was gone and there had been no Prime Unspeakable in nearly a thousand years.
Harry brushed past Snape and ran down the stairs, heading towards the nearest section of the castle with an actual window that went to the outside, and wasn't enchanted or charmed or warded.
Simple enough, except that he was in Hogwarts, and Hogwarts had always been tightly warded… Now with it being the Dark Lord and Lady's personal castle, too, it was packed in a wardnet tighter than Harry had ever seen. Probably the most heavily warded building in the world, Harry guessed. He fingered the coin in his pocket briefly, activating the magic which would send a call for help to the Unspeakables all across the island. They would come to Hogsmeade. This was where Voldemort was now, anyway, not Stonehenge.
All the while he could feel Voldemort drawing closer. The man had almost traversed the distance between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts by the time Harry managed to get himself along a corridor which eventually led to a window fit for his purposes.
Harry pushed it open and then, without a pause, flung himself from the window.
Hogsmeade
Something had changed. Something wasn't right. Neville could feel it in the air. In the ground. In the cold, still silence that wasn't normal, just couldn't be normal.
Voldemort was here. A feeling almost like a Dementor washed over him, so foul was the presence of the Dark Lord and his magic. Was his Lady here, too? Dark Lady Valmira, the woman who murdered Dumbledore and claimed allegiance of the fabled Elder Wand – or so intelligence indicated.
As dangerous as Voldemort, that one was, thought Neville. He shouldn't ever forget that.
He held his wand tight in his hand. Where the fuck were Whitehall and Thomas? They wouldn't have been killed. He couldn't believe that. He didn't think Mad-Eye Moody in his prime could have taken down Whitehall and Thomas, even now when they'd both never see the nicer side of a hundred again.
So what had got them sidetracked?
He paced.
Hogsmeade had erupted into chaos. The Death Eater compound had exploded, killing the Death Eaters inside and setting half the town on fire. Hogsmeade was a … necessarily casualty, Neville reminded himself. Its people were mostly safe – by design, not coincidence, which he thought made their plan better, if not wholly ethical still.
His thoughts began to pile up, to twist and snarl and tangle. He shook his head.
He took a coin from his pocket. Green.
"Nice one, Harry," he said. "Calling the cavalry."
"Yes," said Whitehall suddenly, "it is probably for the best that we confront He Who Must Not Be Named here, now."
"It is fortuitous, in fact," added Thomas, holding a large sack – no doubt charmed to be larger on the inside than on the outside. "The symbolism will not go unnoticed."
"Indeed. The power of symbols," said Whitehall, and paused, seemingly savouring the thought.
"And we do not have to get bound up in the tangle that is Stonehenge," added Thomas. "Though Hogwarts is not much better."
"Mm. The flow of magic is a complicating factor," said Whitehall absently. "But in any case, we are not going to kill the Dark Lord today. But a message loaded with symbols. Yes, that is what we will do."
"The She-Devil approaches, soft in her steps but quick of pace," said Thomas, setting the sack down onto the floor. Neville frowned. That could only mean Valmira.
"We should leave," he said. "Find some others, work out a plan. Support Harry. He should have the List by now."
"That is what we will do," said Whitehall. "When we have finished."
He rolled up the sleeves of his robe and together with Thomas began tracing the outline of a circle around where they all stood. Some sort of runic magic, Neville assumed. What good it would do he couldn't say – this wasn't his area, and even if it were, both men had had at least six of Neville's lives in which to study their craft.
He was a child here. A man over thirty and yet still a child next to these men, who were maybe even as old as Dumbledore had been when he died.
Whitehall began chanting in a strange, guttural language, and Thomas began a counterchant in, of all things, Welsh. Neville had picked up more than a little Welsh on Avalon, but this was something different, something older.
As far as he could tell nothing was happening. Had happened? The runic circle on the ground grew ever more complex as the two ancient wizards added more and more patterns, the 'ink' flowing as pure magic from the tips of their wands. This was Unspeakable magic. Neville couldn't think of another name for it, not really. It was ritual magic. It was runic magic. But it was so much more than that – it was all those things, and the unique knowledge and understanding of the Unspeakables, wrapped up into a new kind of thing.
Fascinating, in a lot of ways. Boring in many others – Neville knew what it took to prepare a circle such as this. Although the two men appeared to have simply started this work ad-hoc, the magic would have been prepared some time during the last decade, and would have required months of painstaking mathematical and arithmantic calculations.
Too much prior planning for him. He didn't say that out of laziness: he'd tried. Couldn't wrap his head around the numbers, let alone some of the concepts. Of all of them, only Luna had really taken to this kind of magic. She seemed uniquely suited to it.
"I hope this is going to be useful," he said, although didn't expect either of the two chanting wizards to answer him. Instead, he cast his gaze around their vicinity. Valmira hadn't arrived yet, and hopefully wouldn't – despite what the two old wizards felt about a chance to try their spell. That's all they wanted to do, and Neville would let them up to a point.
That point being their probable deaths at the hands of a Dark Lady wielding the world's most powerful wand.
Hermione hit the ground running. She appeared in Hogsmeade and wasted no time in pinpointing Harry, who was somewhere between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, and moving rapidly.
"Good," she muttered, and then tuned the coin to Neville. Alive and well, and also in Hogsmeade.
She didn't have a lot of time to feel relieved, though, because Hogsmeade was positively swarming with Death Eaters. The big black smoking building was no doubt Neville's doing, she noticed.
Hermione fought her way through a group of Death Eaters – young recruits, by the look of it – to find her way to Neville. The Dark Lord and Lady were obviously here – Harry would not have called otherwise, but even without that Hermione would have known.
Early reports had suggested that witches could feel Dark Lady Valmira's presence. All witches. Hermione had discovered why: Valmira was a practitioner of ancient magic, women's magic, and Hermione could feel it. The revulsion, the sickening corruption of life, centred around her womb. Dangerous magic, and old magic, and magic she didn't fully understand.
And that left the Dark Lord, whose presence cast a shadow the size of London and dampened all things around him.
It was a good thing that Hermione didn't plan to die today, then, wasn't it? Because otherwise she was going to panic, and there wasn't any time to panic. Voldemort had ruined the plan: Stonehenge would have offered them protection, with ancient magic, and not even Voldemort could have broken that most ancient of magical oaths.
But here, in Hogsmeade? On ground the Death Eaters had prepared for a decade? The Unspeakables had no such advantage.
"Neville!" she said, her mind snapping quickly back to the here and now. "What are they doing?"
Whitehall and Thomas were… chanting. She could pick out the pattern, and could understand the counterchant in Welsh – but what was the lead, the primary thread? She didn't recognise the rune circle, which was a formation of concentric circles flanked by geometric patterns.
"Not a clue." He seemed—frustrated, Hermione thought, but then again… if he'd been here for a while he might be itching to do something.
"Valmira is here," said Hermione then. "Has anyone else Apparated in yet?"
Her question was answered not by Neville, Whitehall or Thomas, but by a loud crack to her left. Someone had Apparated in, someone with excellent timing.
"I hear Harry needs some help," said the figure—Luna. "Oh, look," she said, her gaze directed at the rune circle. "They finished the trap. How lovely." She seemed happy at least as far as Hermione could tell; but then, Luna had more of an interest in that area than Hermione. No doubt she actually understood what spell they were working, and although that would have irked her once—that Luna understood and she didn't—Hermione had trodden interesting paths of magic of her own, ones which Luna would struggle to even begin to comprehend.
It was irrelevant.
"We can leave them here," said Luna, her voice airy and detached. "Neville, be a dear and pick up that bag. We should get going. I believe Harry will arrive at any time now."
Neville picked up the sack near to where Thomas stood and tucked it into his belt.
"We should go provide a distraction," said Hermione. "For Harry, and Whitehall and Thomas, whatever it is they hope to do."
"They're building a trap for the Dark Lady," said Luna dreamily. "Only, it's not exactly a trap. It's really quite an elegant design."
"I'm sure it is," agreed Hermione, "but we don't have time for that. Let's go."
She moved away from Thomas and Whitehall and started down the road to the more populous part of town. Strange, that Hogsmeade was no longer a sleepy little village. Now, Death Eaters and regime sympathisers roamed the streets, raised families, and venerated the Dark Lord and Lady.
She was yet again pulled from her thoughts by the tell-tale crack of Apparition. Death Eaters.
Conturbo. A more powerful, more dangerous, application of Confounding. The spell arced through the air and hit her target, who immediately dropped his wand.
"Ignis flagellum!"
A whip of eldritch witchfire sprouted from the wand of one of the other Death Eaters, a squat man as far as Hermione could tell.
"Protego!"
The whip smashed against her shield and shattered it, but in doing so fizzled out.
Not enough time.
"Mulco! Reducto! Lacero!" She cast the spells in quick succession, then whirled away to cast more at the others. Neville and Luna were doing the same, and looked to be holding up.
Three against six—five, considering the man she'd Confounded into an agony of indecision and inner turmoil. The probability of success was high.
"I contacted the Order," she said in lull between curses. She sidestepped a killing curse. "Mulco!" The Death Eater fell. Six became five, which had now become—three, as Luna downed a Death Eater using an elegant charm Hermione was certain wasn't an offensive spell.
It didn't matter.
More and more Death Eaters Apparated in. Voldemort had called them home.
So where was the fucking Order, and what were the Unspeakables doing?
And then a great pillar of light exploded from the remains of the Death Eater headquarters—no, it wasn't a pillar. The shape of infinity, the symbol of the Unspeakables, had been raised. A great shining pillar of light, proclaiming to anyone who saw it – and it would be seen all across Britain – that the Unspeakables had returned.
Hermione allowed herself a smirk. Anyone who knew that the infinity sign meant the Unspeakables, at least.
Harry soared high above Hogsmeade, watching the battle below with the keen eyesight of the white-tailed eagle. It wouldn't be too out of place, his Animagus form, not in Scotland – although they'd been extinct in Britain for years, Muggles had gone and put them back. Voldemort was below, along with his Dark Lady.
Neville, Hermione and Luna would need help soon, but he couldn't help them. He had to wait. The waiting damn near killed him, but the importance of timing, of patience, of waiting until the moment had all been drilled into him on Avalon.
Fucking Avalon.
But then it didn't matter because the symbol of infinity, interlinked circles with no end and no beginning, shot up into the sky. Now it was time.
Harry lazily circled down, and down, and down, until he was finally back on the ground. He transformed in the shadows, not wanting to reveal the Animagus form he had worked to produce. He was unregistered, after all.
A series of loud cracks in the alley alerted him to the presence of others. He took out his wand and gripped it firmly.
"Harry?"
Oh, shit.
Shit.
It was Ginny. And Ron, and no doubt half a dozen others he knew—but Ginny. Not now. Not here.
"We don't have time," he said curtly. "We'll get to all that later."
"Okay."
"Follow me," he said, "and watch for Death Eaters."
Soon the air exploded with the loud, otherworldly cracks of Apparition as Unspeakables, Order members, and Death Eaters made Hogsmeade into a warzone.
"Stupefy!"
Ginny. She'd prevented a Death Eater landing a nasty curse on him, too—he smiled awkwardly. Not the time.
"Expelliarmus!" Ron, who now clutched a Death Eater's wand. "Stupefy."
Something was behind him.
Harry whirled.
"Mulco! Lacero! Cor ignis percutio!"
The Death Eater went down in a blaze of fire and blood, and Harry wondered when exactly his spells had become more lethal, more deadly, than his friends'.
Of course, he knew when and where, and why. But he didn't understand how, after a decade of war, the Order hadn't toughened up. War was war. People died. Magic could kill. Offensive magic wasn't all Dark.
He didn't look any of them in the eye, still. It was too early for the frank talk they would all have to have, after all, and Harry still had to confront Voldemort.
"We have to get to the square. Where the light's coming from?" Harry didn't stop to check they'd agreed. They would either come or they wouldn't—but he thought that they would.
Almost as soon as he arrived in the square Harry applied the Sonorous Charm. He needed his voice to carry—through Hogsmeade, at least. His voice, and much more, would be carried to the rest of Wizarding Britain through the pillar of light. Or so he'd been assured. That was a large part of the Unspeakable operation tonight.
It was why, although it frustrated him still, the bulk of Unspeakables had yet to arrive to answer his call. They hadn't finished the prep-work. It was basically not that important anyway, since Voldemort wouldn't be able to keep them here. They'd Apparate out. Portkey out. There was an extraction plan.
He hadn't learnt the extraction plan – but then, he hadn't been supposed to learn it. Luna was supposed to handle that part of the operation. As the only proper, initiated Unspeakable among his friends, Harry supposed it was fair that she get that responsibility. It freed him up to do 'recklessly foolish' things like drawing the full attention of the Dark Lord and Lady upon himself. Which was all part of the plan, of course.
"Hello, Tom. Do you recognise this voice? It's me, Harry. Harry Potter." He'd actually been given a script. Hermione had designed it with Luna and some Unspeakables based on a psychological profile they'd constructed for Voldemort.
Harry thought it was bollocks, but he wasn't going to deviate from the script unless something heretofore unforeseen should occur. He was allowed to do that much.
"Sorry about the Death Eater building. I'm sure you can understand why we broke all its wards and destroyed it. But don't you think our pillar of light is much more appealing?"
Ah, there we go.
Voldemort was on his way. Flying, although without a broom. Harry did wonder how he did that; he had tried to figure it out, and Hermione had tried to research it, but the magic seemed to be, as far as anyone could tell, unique to Voldemort. More's the pity, really.
He was supposed to be frightened. Harry, that is, not Voldemort – although maybe Voldemort was scared. Harry couldn't tell. He'd never, technically, faced Voldemort—this Voldemort—before. Prior to the kidnapping he'd only faced Valmira, and that had been with Order support.
But he'd been stuck on that fucking island for ten years. Ten years on Avalon did things to the people who lived there. It had done things to him and his friends, at the very least, and that was ignoring everything weird about the other people who lived there.
He could hold his own, with Order support, and Unspeakable magic, until their point had been made and their mission accomplished.
"Transfundo viscera!" snarled a female voice, heavily accented. Valmira. Harry rolled out of the curse: there was no shield that could protect against the Entrails Expelling Curse, and Harry didn't fancy his guts being spread all across the floor.
If for no other reason than he didn't have time to spend a month recovering, if he didn't die outright. Valmira wielded the Elder Wand, stolen from Dumbledore's hand after his murder.
Harry didn't think his phoenix feather and holly wand would really stand up, not even if he tried his most powerful healing spell, not next to that wand.
"Musculus ardens!"
"Stupefy!"
"Diffindo!"
"Lacero!"
"Sectumsempra!"
The curses all flew at once, although as far as Harry could tell, Valmira blocked them all.
Harry tried something else.
Wordlessly, Harry began to work on a transfiguration. The rubble of the Death Eater headquarters could be used for something. He just had to figure out what.
They'd managed to fight their way to the square, which Neville was glad for. Although it seemed like a classic case of moving from the acromantula pit into the goblin cave, he reckoned that on balance their situation had improved.
For one thing, they were all together again – those who had been kidnapped by the Unspeakables, and those who hadn't. Great. And there were some others too, Order members Neville either hadn't known or who had joined more recently. Good.
And Harry had done something interesting, which wasn't altogether unexpected. Although…
In the middle of the square, fighting the Dark Lady Valmira, was a cobbled together golem. Harry had obviously constructed it from the remains of the Death Eater chapter house.
"Marceo lingula!" The tongue-shrivelling curse likely wouldn't slip past Valmira's shield, but Neville had to try anyway. He saw that Hermione and Luna had something of the same idea, so perhaps it would distract her long enough—and yes, it had.
Harry's impromptu golem smashed into the Dark Lady with its gnarled, misshapen limbs. The beautiful, Dark woman was knocked back into a building, which collapsed upon impact.
The victory was short-lived as Death Eaters began to pour into the square. The Order peeled off and began fighting them, and Neville watched Hermione and Luna do the same. Neville didn't—he moved to help Harry and the golem. No prophecy said that Harry had to fight Valmira: as far as Neville was concerned, the Dark Lady was fair game and could be brought down by anyone skilled or lucky enough to do it.
And nobody else seemed likely to offer Harry any help, so it fell to him.
"Need some help, mate?" he said jovially, flinging a blood-boiling hex at the woman before animating some rubble to block her Cruciatus Curse.
"Could be useful," said Harry. It looked as if he were pouring all of his magic, all of his concentration, into the golem. How he wished he could take a look at the golem, see the threads of magic holding it together—it was powerful magic, even though Harry would be modest about it after the fact.
But there wasn't any time.
"Lacero!" he said, and grinned when he saw a wide tear rip through the Dark Lady's arm.
Then he frowned, because the battle had stopped.
Voldemort.
A great beacon of light shined in the distance—Thomas and Whitehall.
Wordlessly, Valmira sped off in the direction of the light, and all eyes turned to Voldemort—and then to Harry.
"Hi, Tom," he said, allowing the golem to relax. "What took you so long?"
Fucking finally.
Harry had been waiting for this. Tom. Tom Riddle. Lord Voldemort. He hadn't ever seen the man in person, face to face. The pictures he'd seen were old, taken during the First War. This was a different man entirely, one who more resembled the Tom Riddle of his youth.
The resurrection ritual, whatever Dark thing he had done, had restored his beauty as well as his body and youth. This Voldemort was a handsome man, and appeared far younger than he should for a man his age.
Harry gripped his wand, almost to reassure himself it was still there.
How long was he supposed to keep Voldemort talking, exactly? Heretofore unforeseen circumstances had definitely occurred, but Harry wasn't sure that everyone had answered his call yet.
Did it matter anymore?
"You are no longer a babe," said Voldemort. What emotion was that, Harry wondered? Although his face was more human than Harry had ever associated with the persona of 'Voldemort', the man was even more inscrutable, even more inhuman, since his return. Or that's what Harry thought, anyway, even if he didn't have anything other than newspaper reports and so on to compare it to.
"And yet, I think I shall not be so unsuccessful in killing you now."
"That's not true. I'm not dying tonight, Tom."
Harry had to believe that he wouldn't. He hadn't spent ten fucking years on Avalon only to die the first time he stepped foot of the island. This was dangerous, but war was dangerous. And this was still a war, even if most of the people involved had stopped fighting it.
The battle around them had stopped. Everyone was too caught up in listening to Harry and Voldemort talk, and while he appreciated it might be interesting to some people – it was being broadcast across Wizarding Britain, if the plan had gone right – neutralising Death Eaters was a more effective use of Order time.
"Such bravado. But then, you were a Gryffindor, were you not? And yet, and yet…" said Tom, pausing as if to consider something, something delicious and secret. "You could have been so much more, I believe. Oh, yes… but you turned it down, didn't you? Fix your mistake, Harry Potter. You will have but one chance."
Harry laughed. Despite himself, he laughed. He knew what Voldemort was talking about. He must have dragged the information out of the Sorting Hat.
"I will never join you, Tom Riddle, son of a Muggle."
And then the Unspeakables moved. In the still of the battle, with all attention focused on Harry and Voldemort and with Valmira elsewhere, the Unspeakables had moved into position. And then they pounced, rounding on the bewildered Death Eaters and dispatching them in droves. The plan was a success, even if the Order members looked a bit sick.
Even Voldemort seemed confused at first, but then enraged. He jerked his head in the direction of Valmira and the pillar of light, however, instead of rounding on Harry. In the chaos and devastation of the Unspeakables' attack – most of the Death Eaters lay dead or captured, or had run away – Valmira had stumbled upon whatever thing it was Thomas and Whitehall had been working on for so many months.
"Oh, I forgot to mention – the Unspeakables are back."
And then he Apparated away, as per the Plan.