There are few things in Human history that transcend geography, time, race, religion, and revolution.

Recognition of death is easily one of them.

Religious belief of life after death, and the ways of burial and embalming, such as the ancient Egyptians and the huge burial lands come to be known as pyramids millennia later.

Geographic differences, ranging from setting the dead out to sea, cremating them, or digging them deep into the ground.

But everything remains. Every culture has a way of recognizing that death is a present, and that something must be done to, and with, the dead.

But sometimes, there is too much death for even those aware of its inevitability, to be able to cope with easily. When there just isn't enough space in the crematorium. When there isn't enough wood for the boats to set the dead out into the ocean for their final journey. When there isn't enough land for burial plots.

When the dead must litter the streets. And everyone must become aware of the imminence of their demise,

Prepared or not.

---

Luna had come to realize, as she walked with Harry across London, that his stride was abnormally long for someone of his height. Long, but purposeful. He had come into some accidental information on the location of Death Eaters, and something in his eyes had…shifted.

They turned onto a road labeled as "Grimmauld Place", and Harry came to a dead stop. Obscuring their path a distance down the road, was a literal road block of Death Eaters.

The cloaked figures had yet to see them, but that had a lot more to do with the horde having something else to focus on, rather than any level of stealth on the pair's part. No, there, in the middle of the street, the Death Eater who appeared to be in charge was shouting out to the street, as another Death Eater to the figure's side held a woman down on her knees, his wand pressed to her temple.

"We know you are in there, and it would be advisable that you all come out. We have set Muggle-Repelling wards at both ends of this street, no one without magic will be entering, or leaving.

"Unless you reveal yourselves, we will kill every magic-lacking swine on this street, before we move to the next street over."

Luna had no idea what was going on, but it only took a partial glance at Harry to tell her that he knew more about what was happening than she did, and he liked it a good deal less than she, which was saying something. His hands were tightening around the wands in them, and he had tensed up as he began inching his way forward toward the large group of Death Eaters.

Luna put her hand on his forearm, but it was less of a restraining touch, and more of one to alert him to the fact that she was there. He turned and looked at her expressionlessly, however, the pause seemed just enough to knock him out of whatever mindset he was in that was leading him to charge into a large group of Death Eaters, with nothing but the two wands he held, and the hope of getting out alive.

He allowed her to lead him just a bit back off of the street and around the corner, where they were able to stop and think for a moment. There were something like fifteen to twenty Death Eaters there in the middle of the street, and under the assumption that every house on the street had at least one person in it, then there was the possibility of over 30 people being dragged out in the middle fo the street and killed. The odds didn't look good for Luna and Harry, the former realized, and it didn't help that time was definitely not on their side either.

"I have an idea. But I need your help." Luna nodded as Harry's voice washed over her, even as he stood with a faraway look in his eye, peering down the street toward the scene they had just come on.

"Anything."

"I need you to make some of those small statues you created back in Diagon. We will need quite a few of them," Even as he spoke, Luna had begun casting, and soon, there were quite a few small, human-shaped statues, sitting on the ground in front of them. Harry turned away from her, and she couldn't make out what he was saying as he finished his sentence, but she wouldn't need to. He began levitating the statues out into the street, and setting them down. He made rows of them, spacing them quite far apart, given their minute size. The next thing he said when he turned back to her, made everything make sense.

"I need you to enlarge them. That group of morons is much too focused in their attempts at terrorism to notice anything going on here, so it should be enough time. Make them roughly human sized, if possible, please."

"Harry, their construction is very hollow, even in their small forms. If you enlarge them, they'll look solid, but won't be anywhere near it. A slight amount of force, and they'd fall right over, never-mind their intended purpose of exploding and dissipating any magic used on them. They won't stand up to any spell cast on them, Killing Curse or Tickling Charm."

"They won't have to be."

"But I don't understand, why not just make them yourself, your constructs tend to be completely solid, and reflect at least moderate spells…" Luna trailed off as Harry looked at her in such a way that she immediately complied. Harry began walking out slowly as soon as the first row of statues were enlarged, and when Luna was completely finished, he was in the middle of the group, toward the far side from her, hidden from clear view by the large figures she had created.

Luna turned to look back at the Death Eaters to find that they were watching as a woman and a large bald man made their way out of seemingly nowhere, their wands trained forward in preparation of what might come of the stand-off.

Both groups however, were forced to cease their glaring contest as Harry's voice echoed out quite loudly down the street. "So Malfoy, taken to petty attacks on the innocent and defenseless? Now I know where your spawn gets it from."

"Potter! Where are you, show yourself!" The man who appeared to be Lucius Malfoy shouted, causing all the rest of the Death Eaters who were with him to turn to the direction he faced, as they all looked down the street toward where Harry and his group of statues were.

In the waning light of the evening, it looked as if Harry had arrived with a large group of backup, when in fact he was standing in the middle of the street with the only thing protecting him being a large group of man-shaped, hard-shelled, magical balloons. Spell fire rang out, and the distraction was all that was needed. The large bald man began firing spells, dropping Death Eaters left and right, as did the woman to his side, both moving in opposite directions and taking out anyone they could.

The discharge from the large statues being attacked and subsequently exploding in showers of magically created sparks was a large distraction, and Harry ran to the side and dove over a hedge, before pointing his wand out from under the bush, and firing severing charms, one after the other, as he moved the wand he fired with to the side every fire, effectively sending a wide blast of magic that served to cut 4 Death Eaters off at the ankles, leaving the landing on their backs, while their feet remained upright on the pavement.

This took quite a few of the Death Eaters out of the fight, however, it alerted the ones still standing to Harry's presence. This served a double purpose, as it not only drew fire onto him, but also drew attention away from the two apparent allies who had appeared from nowhere, the bald man and the woman who had arrived with him.

Harry noticed this, and instead of staying down under the cover of the hedge and possibly losing the cloaked minions' aggression, he jumped up and ran across the lawn, allow them to take shots toward his location to stay distracted. As he ran, he used his natural running movements of pumping his arms to assist him, as he would summon one of the small terracotta pots in the lawn as one arm went back, and banish it when his arm would move forward, sending it careening toward the Death Eaters, and even as one would fly forward, another would be picked up, as he showed surprising dexterity by using both wands for the spellwork.

The pots intercepted some spells, but the Death Eaters remaining weren't in the fight still after the opening volley because they were stupid, and soon they began aiming their spells, instead of at Harry, but where they suspected him to run, after watching one too many hexes slam right into pots, only to blow them up in a cloud of dust, obscuring their view for moments. Harry used this adjustment by his enemies to make some of his own, as, after every banishing of a pot, he would follow it up with cutting curse, disguised behind the pot. So even as the Death Eaters would send their own spells to destroy the pot, the cutting curse would cut right through the dust-storm created, and several Death Eaters met deep slices to the face or upper body as a result of thinking it better to banish or destroy the incoming objects, instead of dodging them.

Harry dispatched one Death Eater by banishing the pot, only to levitate it right before a spell was to hit it, just to banish it again into the face of a completely different Death Eater, shattering the pot into his mask, causing the shards of both to cut into the face of the man. Luna flinched at this as she could make out the blood from where she was, but she also saw that doing so had caused Harry to falter, and the return-fire was getting much too close to his running form, so Luna chose then to dive out from her cover.

She knew she didn't have the raw power to put too many Death Eaters down, and still be able to take the fire should they all turn to pursue her, so instead she opted to support Harry, mainly by means of distraction. Running forward, she targeted her wand at a street lamp nearest the Death Eaters. First she fired a bludgeoning hex, which slammed into the thick glass casing covering the bulb, and with the combination of the blunt trauma, as well as the magical interference, this led to a shower of glass and sparks showering down on the Death Eaters. This caused them to move forward from where they had been, but in doing so, they didn't keep their eyes on the lamp, too intent on watching Harry.

This led them right into Luna's next course of action, which was to, taking a page from Harry's book, sever the base of said lamp. Three Death Eaters fell prey to a large post of metal and wiring falling right down on them. The ones nearby turned to look to their fallen comrades, leading to Harry nailing two in the back of the heads with flower pots, and the large bald man crushing one's face in with a harsh bone-crushing curse to the mandible.

The man identified as Lucius Malfoy chose that time to Apparate himself out, along with what was left of his forces. He did so without a second to spare, as Harry's cutting curse made a gouge in the pavement where the man had been milliseconds after he disappeared. But it seemed he didn't make it as well as he could have, as there was a spattering of blood on the ground parallel to the gouge, as well as something the man didn't intend to leave behind.

The woman stared down at it, her hair flashing from the dark color it had been when she appeared, to a bright, almost day-glow pink. "Is that a…"

"A bit sad if you think about it. Lucius Malfoy, Apparating for decades now, and managed to splinch himself." The large bald man stated, before bending down and prodding the offending item with the tip of his wand. "Guess all those years of sticking it up to people, this was just begging to happen."

"Exactly how does one go about splinching their nose off?" The now pink-haired woman questions rhetorically, but Harry saw fit to answer as he walked up somberly, brushing grass off of the front of his shirt.

"By being a complacent moron, too used to sitting around letting others do the work to do anything themselves." He paused to spit at the gouge his spell had created, before slowly dragging his eyes up to meet the pair before him. "Sound like anyone you know, Kingsley, Tonks?" He finished with his own rhetorical statement, and Luna could literally hear the underlying insult in his words, despite her knowing nothing about what it was about.

"Now Harry…"

"Don't 'now Harry' me, Auror Tonks. How is it that the headquarters is under attack, people are being murdered in the middle of the street, and you all have the nerve to only send two people out to defend it? If that's not a surefire way to prove what I just said is right, I don't know what is."

He turned and looked to one side of the street, as Luna arrived at his side. She brushed her shoulder with his gently, letting him know she was there, before shifting her body weight away from his to allow him a measure of space between them. However, she was a bit shocked when she felt his weight near her again, as he leaned toward her. But she heard his voice in her ear, and then before her eyes, a house seemed to just appear in view, and a lot made sense to her, even though it brought up more questions.

"Actually Harry…we are the only ones here." The man apparently named Kingsley, stated.

If anything, this seemed to have done a lot more harm than good. Harry began walking, not toward the newly revealed house, but away from it. Luna stayed close, before jogging ahead of him a bit and turning around, shuffling to walk backwards so she could not only see Harry, but see the people they were walking away from.

"Harry, where are you going?" Tonks asked.

"Away from you all." Was his only answer, but it was followed by the pattering of feet, the heavier sound moving away from them, and the lighter one moving towards them, as Tonks ran toward Harry and Luna, and Kingsley ran toward the house.

"Harry, stop." Tonks stated, and when he kept walking, she reached out and grabbed his arm. Harry's reaction and Tonks' counter exchange was very quick, and before Luna knew it, Tonks had Harry's forearm in her hand, and he was pointing his wand right under her chin, as she had her wand pointed at his face. "Harry, I'm a trained Auror. It wouldn't do you any good to begin some type of fight with me, just calm down and listen."

"You may be a trained Auror, Nymphadora," The woman flinched as if she had just been slapped, "And you joined this fight voluntarily. Good for you. I've been dragged into this war, involuntarily, since I was an infant. I'd love to be done and over with it. Funny thing about having survival be all you know for your whole existence, eventually, not only do you know nothing else, but you eventually get tired of it. But moreover, you get instinctively unafraid of the opposition.

"I'm not afraid to die, Tonks. Can you say the same? Know why I was able to kill half of those Death Eaters? Not hurt. Not stun. Not even maim. Kill. Know why? Because I don't fear anything they could do to me. And I don't fear anything you could do to me right now. But can you say the same? Can you say, right now, that you honestly believe that if you don't release me right this moment, I won't leave you bleeding out in the middle of the street?"

The chill that ran through Luna at that precise moment, had nothing to do with the slight dusk breeze that swept across them, but it was born of the fact that she couldn't tell if Harry would behead the woman, or not. But what she did know was, the quicker she assisted in removing the woman holding onto Harry from the situation, the more likely she was to not have to find out. Removing her wand from its resting place behind her ear, Luna stepped closer to the both of them, before training it on the Auror. "Let him go, so none of us have to find out how serious he is."

Tonks did so, only as she released him did she become aware that he had his hand positioned in such a way that she hadn't noticed the other wand he held in it, but it had been trained on her arm the whole time. If he had simply said the words, he could have cast a severing charm that would have removed her hand from her body. She shivered as she stepped back, before looking to Harry. "Why, Harry? We're all on the same side, aren't we?"

As Harry went to reply, the sound of several people moving down the street toward them at a rapid pace drew their attention. Coming toward them was a group comprised of Kingsley, Mrs. Weasley, two people who could only be William and Charles Weasley and Remus Lupin. Harry looked away from the incoming group and right at Tonks. "Same side, Tonks? What would give you that idea? I'm out here fighting this war. You all are in there, sitting on your asses waiting for the war to come to you. I won't wait for it. I'm tired of walking over bodies in pursuit of those taking the fight to us. I will be bring the fight to them, and they can sort out their own dead in their own homes, on their own time."

Turning his back on them, he caught eyes with Luna for a moment, attempting to flash a brief smile of reassurance at her. It didn't work as well as she expected it was meant to, but she appreciated the attempt, but wasn't able to dwell on it, as he finished.

"Lucius Malfoy is to Voldemort, what you all are to me, at the moment. Dumbledore died, we all understand that, but this war doesn't end with him. You can't stand by because someone was killed, and let it get you killed. Voldemort may have started the first war with Dumbledore, but it ended with me. He may have started this second war, with Dumbledore on the other side; once more, but I assure you. This will all end with me, one way or another. Either help me, or stay out of the way. Ineptitude only get's people killed." As he said this, he pointed his wand to the side, at one of the many dead bodies on the street, this one was obviously one of the non-magical people dragged from their home to be killed to make a statement.

"How long were you two in there before you decided to come out and prevent those idiots from killing these people?" Their silence was all the answer he needed, as he tensed up. "People are dying outside, and you all sit inside, twiddling your thumbs, waiting for instructions. This is precisely what I mean." And with that, Harry began walking away, not looking back. Luna trotted up to catch up to him, walking somewhat sideways to keep her eyes on the group they had left, all standing there speechless. Something she did notice before they turned the corner and left the group out of their eyesight was, apparently Mrs. Weasley wasn't as speechless as she appeared to be, her lips moving as if shouting, as she pointed at her throat, but no sound came off.

Apparently someone had the idea to cast a silencing charm on the woman.

Luna revised her mental assessment that no one in that group possessed any good sense.

Her newly revised belief was, most of the group lacked any good sense at all, and someone in the group possessed some, but not nearly enough to be considered a contributing member of society.

She just hoped they all would find enough sense to either get their acts together and help, or stay out of the way.

---

Voldemort was of mixed emotions.

On the one hand, he had lost a good many men, and to hear Lucius attempt to give a recount of what had occurred, as blood poured down the front of his face from his missing nose, had been a truly trying exercise of his patience.

On the other hand, however, his test had been a success. It had taken much too much energy from himself, but he had been able to push Harry Potter's aggression to amazing proportions, and from what he had been able to make out, as well as the many bodies that had been returned to him, he could see that, when given the proper…motivation…the boy had deep potential for causing pain.

In that case, it was a worthwhile attack, and they had ascertained the location of that "Order's" headquarters. Making it a successful, although border-lining on Pyrrhic, victory.

However, the self-styled Dark Lord hadn't missed the fact that it had taken a lot more energy than he had thought it would. Which caused him to realize something. The boy's mind was developing a…tolerance to the mental manipulation. When Voldemort first entered, he seemed to find the boy's ability to feel depression nearly gone, as he seemed to have replaced all guilt and depression with a feeling of determination and resignation.

And on the same note, as he had begun to withdraw his influence from Potter's mind the most recent time, he had found that the bloodlust and the sadism he had awakened in the boy, was being replaced by righteous fury and vengeance. His body began healing itself, and developing an immunity to further such manipulation. It was truly a remarkable thing to behold.

Voldemort realized that his trick wasn't going to last much longer, as the boy was adapting much too quickly for his own good. Something was going on, and the Dark Lord previously known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, didn't like it one bit.

As he settled in to another ransacking session of Lucius' mind to view the memory of the dark-haired boy besting him, Voldemort found one positive. Even in his screams, at least now, with his missing facial appendage, Lucius no longer sounded quite so…nasal.

---

Remus Lupin sat quietly in a chair in the front room of the now Interim Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, more commonly known as the Staff Lounge of Hogwarts.

Fenrir Greyback had infiltrated the previous Headquarters with little more than brute strength.

The Death Eaters had forced them to leave the safety of their own hiding place, by using means of terror. And it had taken Harry Potter arriving through what appeared to be sheer serendipity, for them to survive it.

Harry…

Fenrir had arrived, not for help from the Order. Not to kill anyone there, either. His words had been simple. Stay out of his way, if any of the Order's people wished to survive, because the fight against Voldemort had become personal to him.

And just that day, it was as if the same sentiment, echoed from Harry, albeit in different words.

Reflecting, Remus realized, based on Tonks' and Kingsley's reports of the battle, Harry had done a vast more work than either of the two trained Aurors. And they were getting reports of Death Eaters being stalked down and hunted, and Remus knew it could only be Fenrir.

The war was passing by the little group of like-minded individuals following the guidance of Albus Dumbledore. It had become a playground for those with personal vendettas to settle, and they didn't let silly things such as awaiting orders, or bureaucratic decrees prevent them from being in the fight, stop them.

Remus realized, he was in deep need of remembering what made the war personal to him.

Because if he didn't, the war would pass him by, and he would have missed his chance to gain his revenge for his fallen friends. Or the chance to fall in battle himself, and join them on the other side.

---