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Wednesday May 27, 1998 - Evening

When I was a boy, I had a dream

All I wanted was to be free

Free from the Dursley's and under the stairs

Free from being punched and yelled at.

When I was a boy, I had this dream.

Attr Jeff Lynne.

Early version

The fist salvo of three jets of green lights screamed right over Harry. Or rather, the three green lights of an Avada Kedavra spell hit the location where Harry should have been if he had not bent over to get the last brownie. At the same instant Hagrid pulled Harry down to the ground and kicked him hard in the small of the back and yelled, "Roll and find cover. I'll draw their fire."

Hagrid let go of Harry and began to use his umbrella as a shield while firing back spells as fast as he could. Each spell was meant to kill. This was not some practice at Hogwarts, this was a premeditated attack, meant to kill or cause as much harm as possible. If it weren't for Hagrid's boot in the back and yell, Harry would be dead.

The split second Harry started rolling there was a scream of pain and someone dropped into the space Harry had just occupied. Harry rolled hard and as fast as he could. He was past scared, he was petrified by the suddenness and senselessness of it all. He was using his elbows, knees, and feet to keep rolling, rolling and rolling. There is one major problem with rolling over flat and rocky ground, it's relatively slow. As he rolled, Harry's clothes quickly took a beating and soon he was bleeding here and there.

The sudden noise of the spells zipping about: the yells to loved ones: the constant swearing: screams of warnings: and the rushing of people struggling for basic survival became the backdrop of the maelstrom that picked Harry and everyone else to participate in.

Two blue and one yellow curse exploded inches to Harry's left side. A reddish globe burst right behind him. Realizing he was moving too slow, Harry tried to pick up the pace. As he rolled over the ground, he was looking for some place he could use to flick up and use some of his new Hogwarts skills of jumping up and down tall places. As Harry rolled, he realized this terrain gave all the advantages to the attackers as Harry and the others were in the shallow bowl of the theatre.

Kicking hard with his right foot, he flipped over. As he did so, a particularly nasty hex came flying by and cut off the sole of his shoe. It spun Harry about. He regrouped got steady and quickly moved his other foot as the second hex came zooming by, narrowly missing its target.

Harry gave a quick glance about and saw nothing of the attackers. All he could see was a constant barrage of all sorts of magical spells, hexes, curses and other nasty things being thrown at the defenseless people who were watching the play.

Harry pulled his legs in tight and did a high back flip to gain elevation and find a better protected spot. As he kicked up three curses came in from three different directions and obliterated the spot he was just in. Someone had the measure of his abilities and location. A thought flashed across his mind wondering is someone was playing with their meal.

The very moment he had two feet on the ground a yellow flash of light came screeching at Harry. Harry just had time to lean back as the spell cut across his forehead and blood immediately started to drip onto his glasses.

Harry's heart was thumping hard and wild as he pulled out his wand. As Belatrix would say, "you have to mean it." And Harry was meaning it this time.

Harry leapt up at least ten feet and elevated several large stones so he could use them as platforms from which to stand. As Harry moved about the stone had to be in the right place and elevation at the right time. This is what they had practiced only a few days ago at Hogwarts. With the stones constantly moving, Harry could continuously be on the move to avoid the incoming attack.

Since defense was pointless, Harry went on the attack. The problem was, he could not see the attackers. All he could see was when a spell came his way. Obviously, the spells must have originated from a witch or wizard's hand. That is what he concentrated on: where he thought the spall came from. The only problem with that was, there were too many attackers, and they had the high ground. Between defense and attack, attacking was his only option if he wanted a chance to survive.

Rather than be nice, Harry went straight for Avada Kedavra, the non-verbal version as it is quicker. It was hard to say if he hit anyone as the sky was thick with spells coming and going.

Whosoever was tracking Harry quickly caught on to the new game. They followed the stones and simply blasted the spare stones into smithereens reducing Harry's options, thus tipping the advantage their way.

Now Harry had some idea where the spells were coming from he began to concentrate on one location. As he did so his heart kept pounding away. Harry kept on ignoring the thumping as he was already in a life and death struggle.

Coming clearly to his mind was all the nasty stuff he read in the Half Blood Prince's Advanced Potion Making book. Honing in on Professor Snape's writings, Harry changed spells as he thought that would give him an advantage. He was right, it did. Again the trouble was, he could not see the damage he was causing. The problem remained; Harry could not see what he was firing at. It looked like there was some one, some person, some creature high up shooting down causing maximum death and destruction.

Harry was calling up more stones to create more platforms to jump from and to. A moving target is harder to shoot down. Therefore, Harry kept moving as fast as possible.

The foot without a sole slipped and Harry landed badly. He fell to the edge of the stone, glancing down, he let go and went into a forward roll dive.

Harry did a triple summersault on the way down landing on one of the pipes. Not stopping, Harry leaped for the top platform on the stage and with a flick of his wand set all the fireworks off at once. He was hoping this could throw some illumination on his precarious situation.

As the fireworks started going off the sudden bursts of light allowed Harry a quick glance of the scale of destruction. Bodies here and there. Men, women and children in unnatural positions. Constant fire power coming inwards and very few outward spells.

This was supposed to be a celebration; no one was expecting this mayhem. As he leapt onto the stage, Harry landed near his play double: dead with a look of pain on his face.

A blast hit the spot where Harry had landed. He had moved, as being in one place for one second was now a death sentence.

As Harry glanced up he noticed a shimmer in the light caused by a firework. The shimmer registered with Harry. That shimmer comes from only one thing, a cloak of invisibility. Harry racked his brain for an anti-cloak spell. Nothing came. Invisibility cloaks are not on the official Hogwarts list of things to buy for school. Rather than go for an anti-invisibility spell Harry went for a fire spell. Cloaks burn so why not these. The first flaming spell shot out the end of Harry's wand like a shooting star. The flaming spell hit home bursting into flames and engulfing whatever it was. Harry got several more flaming spells out before the attackers turned to concentrate on him. The problem with a flaming spell was the tail: it pointed right back at the point of origination. So Harry ran across the stage firing flaming spell after flaming spell. A moving target is harder to hit, so is firing off flaming spells with a high degree of accuracy.

Slowly Harry came under intense attack. As good as Harry is, the shear concentration of firepower meant Harry was running out of options and running out fast.

Changing it up again Harry tried a few Diffindo spells to see if that would reveal anything, Again, he was overpowered by the shear volume of spells heading his way.

Harry rolled, leaped, and sidestepped his way back to the pan flutes. At least they offered some protection. As he took a breath, a spell zipped between him and the rock of the flute. The spell cut across he shoulders from left to right. The pain caused his back to arch. A second spell cut across the back of his legs causing him to crash to the ground on his knees. The pain was excruciating. He tried getting up and another hex came flying from somewhere and neatly took off his other shoe sole. Things were not looking good for Harry as his strength, ability to move, and willingness to extricate himself was ebbing.

Harry looked down at his wand hand. There was a deep gash across the back. He didn't remember when that happened. His glasses were more red than clear. His back was slashed across and now he could not stand. At this moment, all Harry could think of was Ginny's apple crumble. All he wanted was a taste of what she had made for him.

Fumbling with his moleskin pouch he pushed his left hand in to pull out a small morsel of crumble. In so doing, he pushed the wands aside. And that was all the room they needed.

All the wands poured out of the moleskin purse and formed up on Lily Potter's wand. They immediately commenced on one of the most destructive battles known in the annuals of the forest dwellers.

With a vicious vindictiveness the velite wands spun, twirled, formed circles, boxes, came in high then low while letting loose a withering barrage of the worst spells, hexes, jinx's possible. While they took the battle to the attackers Lily's wand stayed close to her prostrate son.

Of all the wands, none was more destructive than Professor Snape's was. Since Professor Snape was from the Slytherin camp, he was particularly skilled in the dark arts. Spells long read over. Spells long ago giggled about but never done. Spells that now could be unleashed upon attackers who used cloaks of invisibility to hide behind.

Even the wands that Mr. Olivander said were duds were imbued with a sense, purpose and ability none thought possible.

The battle raged on and on. The surrounding firepower was still concentrated on Harry's location, particularly the pan flutes. The aim was to blast the stones causing them to fall onto Harry. His mother's wand did not allow that to happen. She cast protective spell after protective spell over her son so that the rocks just bounced off.

As fast as the spells came in the pirouetting wands were constantly sending back spell for spell, curse for curst, hex for hex, jinx for jinx: but they did it better and faster since they were only wands without a hand.

Then the wands formed a tumbling circle inside a larger tumbling circle. Because of the compactness of this formation, extremely high firepower could be brought to bear on one attacker at a time. Because of this constant change, the attackers didn't have a clue what was going on.

Seeing the state Harry was in, his mother's wand knew help was needed and needed quickly. That's when all the wands switched to Harry's flaming spell.

Not many people can withstand a barrage of flaming spells. To add a little zip to the action Professor Snape's wand sent out his Sectumsempra spell. That spell was very useful in cutting through the hardened cloaks of invisibility.

The tide had changed. The attackers now became the hunted. Without their cloaks of invisibility, they became mere mortals riding their animals into an easy, one sided, fight. They had not counted on Harry Potter and his collection of wands. While the wands were shooting out flaming spells at an alarmingly high rate, Lily's wand was shooting rockets high into the air where they exploded into a myriad of white stars that gracefully arched over and fell back to earth. She was trying to attract attention, and succeeded. Neville Longbottom saw the white stars from far, far across the forbidden forest Feeling trouble was afoot he pushed Harry's broom as hard as it could go to get there as fast as he could. The speed the broom reached made everything a blur. Struggling against the wind Neville reached into his pocket and started turning his DA coin to summon the others.

Everyone knew Harry had entered the Forbidden Forest with Mr. Weasley to do his Harveture interview. No one knew that Hagrid was with them. Everybody knows the interview is supposed to be between potential son-in-law and the father of the potential bride. Nobody knew a third person was present. Then again, no one was thinking Mr. Weasley would combine a Harveture interview with fetching a feral Ford Anglia from the forbidden forest. In addition, no body had ever thought that they would get mixed up with forest dwellers.

Back at Hogwarts, things were slow since all the guys, except Neville, had decided to head over the Hogsmeade for a wander about, do some shopping and have a bite to eat at Aberforth's Hog's Head Inn. Since no one was supposed to know the boys were at Hogwarts doing all sorts of things, everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing. It seems some Glasgow girls took it upon themselves to pop over the Hog's Head on the off chance of seeing the boys.

Rather than join the others, Neville felt that this excellent opportunity to mess about at Hogwarts comes once every blue moon and he didn't want to loose the opportunity. He stayed behind to practice new and exciting stuff.

Since the Battle of Hogwarts Neville was a reborn person. The flood of owls carrying proposals of marriage was phenomenal. It got so busy that the owlery had to start taking reservations and turned away every owl that didn't have one.

Then there were parcels. They came in all shapes and sizes. Neville contacted the post office and requested all parcels be redirected to his aunt's house. He thought she would have fun going through all the stuff sent to him. As much as he appreciated the attention, he was still the same old Neville with two parents in St Mungo's and a feisty aunt.

Neville was interested in the trick Snape had used to leap off the higher floors and landing safely on the flagstone floor at the entrance hall. Many years ago, Neville remembered seeing an old muggle movie of people leaping over a first floor bannister and landed safely on the ground floor by doing the splits. Snape did it a whole lot better without resorting to the splits.

Neville had found several reasonable spells after some deep searching in the forbidden section of the library. Neville loved the forbidden section just as much as Herminie loved the restricted section.

Neville had achieved first and second floor leap pretty quickly. The third floor was a bit more tricky and required several spell modifications.

Sitting next to the left armor by the front door was Madam Pomfrey. She had popped into Hogwarts to get her list of medical items needed for the upcoming school year. She was aghast that Neville was trying these foolish tricks without any medical personnel nearby. She promptly sat by the large oak doors, pulled out some knitting she was working on and kept muttering to herself, "Glad this one's graduated." Then she would glance up at Neville balancing on top of one or the other stone banisters, looking at his cheat sheet, and muttering the spell before leaping off.

Leaping from the first and second floor was easy for Neville. The leap from the third floor was tricky, but Neville got it. The fourth floor required Madam Pomfrey to quickly cast a pillow spell or else Neville would have smashed into the floor at too high a rate of speed. After profuse thank you's Neville sat on the pillow to work out what went wrong. His next attempt went awry and Madam Pomfrey did her pillow spell again. Neville nailed it on his next attempt.

The fifth floor leap was fun as now Neville was getting the hang of it. On his fifth floor repeat, he did a forward roll then landed comfortably on his feet. Even Madam Pomfrey was impressed but kept that fact to herself. She did not want all this praise going to Neville's head.

Sitting cross-legged up on the sixth floor Neville did some serious review of the spell. He was getting up there and needed to adjust the rate of retardation to safely land on his feet. A slight error at this height could get Madam Pomfrey into too much action: not good for Neville's recently found do-or-die reputation.

Neville's first attempt from the sixth floor was a total failure and needed one of Madam Pomfrey's pillows. While Neville lay in the pillow Madam Pomfrey put down her knitting and walked carefully over to where Neville was thinking. She took one look at him and said, "Mean it or get out."

Neville could not believe what he just heard. He sat bolt upright and blurted out, "What did you say?"

"Do the spell like you mean it or quit." After a half second pause, she then added, "Which part of 'do' or 'don't' didn't you understand?"

Neville jumped off the pillow saying, "Okay… okay. Mean it or else."

"Good." was all Madam Pomfrey said as she walked back to her chair. She picked up her knitting and continued where she left off while Neville walked up the stairs repeating the spell over and over again.

Neville stood on the banisters of the sixth floor looking down. He drew in his breath and yelled out the spell at the top of his lungs as he did a swallow dive followed by a forward roll and landed with arms out with his right foot slightly in front of his left foot.

"About time," Madam Pomfrey muttered as she got back to her knitting. Neville used the newly discovered stone steps spell to go back up to the sixth floor to do it all again. This time Neville mixed it up. Rather than stand there and jump, Neville walked back down the corridor, turned, and came at the banister in a flat out sprint. Yelling the spell at the top of his voice, Neville leapt cleanly over the banister, put out his arms and nailed the landing. Madam Pomfrey nodded slightly to acknowledge Neville's ever increasing skill set.

Just as he began heading up to try a seventh floor leap, a small screechy owl came zooming in and crashed into a stunned Neville. The owl hit the ground with a thud. Neville quickly scooped up the tiny owl and began stroking it to make sure it was okay. Seeing a note Neville took it off the owl's leg and unfolded it

Neville: I have a bad feeling about Harry. It happened a bit ago. Can you have a look and make sure he is okay? I can't, I have to stay in the house. You are about the closest. Have a look about the forbidden forest and see if there is something going on. Ginny.

Neville knew of the closeness between people and did not doubt Ginny or her message. The problem was, the forbidden forest is a big place: where to start?

"What is it?" Madam Pomfrey called out.

Before Neville could answer a second, but larger owl came zooming in, did a tight circle about Neville and landed on his shoulder. Neville quickly retrieved the second message and unfolded it.

Neville: GO NOW! Ginny.

Neville ran, grabbed a broom and headed out into the late afternoon. He left Madam Pomfrey with the two notes at Hogwarts.

Neville flew high to cover more territory. The problem with flying high over trees is you can't see anything below the tops of the trees. Conversely, if you fly low to see the details below the trees, you miss the bigger picture. Between the two, Neville stayed high, hoping that would be the better choice. As he flew about he was constantly leaning to one side or the other straining to spot something down there.

While stooging about the forest, looking down, concentrating on the never-ending greenery, Neville saw something streaking across the sky. It was too faraway and going too fast to worry about. He was looking for people, not chasing streaks of something in the sky.

The searching continued. Neville tried to make it an orderly search. Without benchmarks an orderly search was tough to do. Thinking about it, Neville realized he should have called up some of the other DA's.

After a long while of getting nowhere, getting lost and getting sore from all the flying Neville decided to head back to Hogwarts. Without a better guide, there was not much else worth doing. It was about six in the evening when Neville called it quits. As he getting close to Hogwarts, a broom came zooming through the sky heading in the Hogwarts direction.

Neville put on some speed and followed the broom as best he could, but he was on an older and slower broom. Since he could not keep up, Neville fired a tracer spell at the fast moving broom. That way he could find the broom once it had gone to ground.

Unsurprisingly the tracer went all the way back to Hogwarts. Once off the broom Neville followed along on foot. The spell took Neville to Snape's office. Even with Snipe being dead, and all that, everyone was weary of Shape's office despite everything Harry had said.

Neville eased up to the door. Rather than use his hand, he used a simple door opening spell. The door opened and Neville peaked into the still cluttered room. Sitting resplendently on the desk was Harry's Firebolt Supreme VK-X. Rather than walk in and pick it up Neville used the simple Accio spell to summon the broom: he did not trust even a dead Snape. The broom came and once out of the room the door slammed shut causing Neville to jump and quickly move away.

Coming along the corridor at a high rate if speed was Madam Pomfrey. Once she saw Neville with Harry's broom she quickly said, "Well, aren't you going to follow it back?" The blank look on his face said it all. Madam Pomfrey sighed and then said, "A simple Retracto spell will take you back to the beginning."

"Oh," was all Neville said. On his way out Neville grabbed a couple spare brooms. Neville thought, "Since this was Harry's broom, what was Harry doing for a broom… that is, if he needs one."

Off Neville went letting the Retracto spell do its thing. Rather than taking the assumed western road through the forest, the broom took a more eastern route. This was all new territory to Neville.

He sped along through the sky flying high to take in a far and wide view. On and on Neville went. He saw nothing but the evening air and a cloudless sky.

Just as the sun was setting, Neville saw the first of a series of shooting stars far off in the distant. They came from the ground, shooting high into the air. They looked really pretty and gentile. Someone wanted to be noticed. That was when a sense of foreboding swept over him. Kicking the broom in to high speed, Neville took off like the proverbial rocket. While zooming off he reached into his pocked and started summoning the other DA's by using his coin.

Despite looking close, the shooting stars were not. It took Neville quite a while to get close to the stars. It was like the closer you thought you were, the further you had to go. Later, Neville would say there was a spell about the place that made distances stretch. No one, except Harry, believed him.

By the time Neville arrived at the spot of the shooting stars it was dark. Neville clipped his wand onto Harry's broom to get some forward light.

Without any force, the broom curled in on the pan stones. At that time all Neville saw were tall stones. It was much later he knew what they were.

At the base of a stone pillar was a small white light. It was resting on a blood splattered, crumpled up body that was sort of half kneeling with the head sort of between his knees and the stone.

Neville touched ground right next to the body and gently tried to roll the body over to see if it was Harry. The body was too crumpled up to roll over gently. Rather then mess about, Neville put two hands on the body and gave it a heave to get it onto the ground. With a flop the body rolled over. To properly check, Neville spat into his hand and gave the forehead a rub. That was the wrong thing to do. The renegade spell that cut Harry's forehead was eating into his flesh. The pain shot through Harry causing him to yell out in pain and thrash about. Not a pretty site. By looking at the glasses and the part of the face that was not covered in blood Neville knew it was Harry.

Summoning all three brooms, Neville spent some time strapping two brooms together to form a gurney. Once done he placed the brooms next to Harry and rolled him on. To keep Harry secure, Neville used a couple ducto bindo spells. After checking his work, Neville mounted Harry's broom and took off towing Harry behind. To get back to Hogwarts Neville used a Retro Retracto spell.

Because of Harry's precarious situation, Neville wanted to get back as fast as he could. However, he didn't want to too fast and drop Harry: So, he went as fast as cautiously possible. On and on he went; constantly looking back at Harry; incessantly scanning the tree line for Hogwarts, and wondering what on earth happened to Harry to get him into such a state as this. Time dragged by and Neville went on and on. Every now and again, he would reach into his pocket and give his coin a roll to let the others know what's going on.

The night air, the long distance to travel and having to do so much broom flying had combined to make Neville cold and because of being so cold he was shaking which made everything shake including Harry who was being towed behind. Neville tried all sorts of tricks and spells to keep worm. None worked. So he gritted his teeth knowing Harry was a lot worse off than he was.

Finally, off in the distance the recognizable shape of Hogwarts formed. Fortunately, someone had turned on all the lights to make Hogwarts stand out from afar. Neville rolled the coin once more and out tumbled all the DA's from between the large oak doors of Hogwarts.

The landing was not Neville's best. Once on the ground Madam Pomfrey immediately took command. She took one look and Harry and he was taken up to the hospital wing where Madam Pomfrey set to work. She kicked everyone out except Ginny. Madam Pomfrey did not want to get between a couple that had gone through the ring ceremony.

Madam Pomfrey spoke and Ginny jumped. After a quick scan of the damage, Madam Pomfrey yelled to the others to get an ambulance from St. Mungo's… and make it pronto.

Like the Knight Bus St Mungo's had a series of wizard ambulances called the Evening Star Line. They prided themselves in being there before you called them. A slight exaggeration, only a slight one.

Within a blink of an eye, two Evening Star attendants were entering the hospital ward. Madam Pomfrey glanced up and said, "This is a fast one Bert. Take him to the fourth floor – Spell Damage. They'll be waiting." Then pointing at Ginny she added, "This one goes with him." With that, Ginny quickly followed the Evening Star men down to the ambulance. The second Harry was secured they were off to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.