Disclaimer: Harry Potter, associated characters and setting belong to JK Rowling and whoever she chooses to share the rights with, which does not include me. This is for entertainment purposes only, with no copyright infringement intended, or profit made.

Chapter 7: Complication

The day after Halloween, notices were posted about apparition lessons. Hermione checked learning off the Hunter checklist with a smile.

When Fred and George heard, they sent a basket of fake wands and a well aged bottle to the Ministry's Apparition Tutor, as preemptive thanks for making sure their younger siblings would be safe.

ooo

Oliver Wood called in on the radios during Harry and Hermione's designated tinkering free period.

"Mysterious Death Eater hunters?"

Harry dropped the denuded quill he was working on transfiguring. "You have a spotting to report?"

"Yes. Lucius Malfoy is touring the Puddlemere Pitch. It's an owners tour, he's a major owner. There are other owners wandering about.

"Do the owners have a time frame for leaving?

"It will be after 4 at least, we're having a tea with all the players and owners. Malfoy always stays to talk after that."

"Thanks, Oliver."

"I... I don't remember giving my name."

"Don't worry. I remember that fondness in your voice when you say the word 'pitch' from when you taught me about the game..."

"Ah... Good luck. You have help to take the bastard down, right?"

"Whole teams of it."

"Right. I have to go smile at the owners."

ooo

Fred and George met Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Neville in the Shrieking Shack. Luna had decided to stay behind, and make loud noises in the Room Of Requirement. Harry gave her an enchanted radio that could pick up muggle wavelengths. Luna's new addiction to AC/DC, Pink Floyd and the Beastie Boys was their planned alibi for the night.

Fred and George apparated them in shifts, which led to them playing a very quiet game of Marco Polo to find each other and line up. Even Hermione was invisible, having added another layer of cloak over her red one, this on disillusioned.

It was cold, It was wet. It was winter, and dark was settling down fast.

Three hours later, it was still cold and wet. The dark had settled down so hard it was suffocating the stray beams of light from the stadium and town. Which was good. It would make it harder for anyone to notice the snow settling down onto the disillusioned people. Not that it stayed long, since fine snow melts when it encounters warming charms, but still. Snow outlines are tacky.

As Harry blew snow around to cover up their melted bare spots, Fred complained. "We can't even cuddle for warmth, as it would mess with the spacing."

Ginny replied, from her spot. "Given the line, I've got you or Ron for snuggling options, but I'm still considering it because I'm that cold."

Finally, the door of the offices opened. And Lucius Malfoy did indeed come out, behind the general manager and the team captain.

"Come on down to the pub, and we can have a celebratory drink. They have a decent wine selection, and we can get pints, and raise them to full stands and trophies to be lifted."

"Well, that's disappointing Bystanders. Let go home." Ron whispered over the radio.

Harry whispered loudly back over the same frequency, "We're damn well going to follow him!"

"Harry, he'll likely just floo him from the pub." Hermione chattered.

"If there's a chance of us getting an inner circle Death Eater, we have to try. What if he decides not to get his outfit dirty with soot?"

"What if we all get frostbite?"

"Warming charms." Harry was terse.

"We're going to do this?"

"Someone will notice we're missing."

"We'll have all been working on a surprise transfiguration project for Flitwick's birthday, with loud music. I'm going to get him. We need to get him."

Ron's disembodied voice nodded. "If we're going to go after him, we want to do it now. Once he's in the pub he becomes unpredictable."

"...but he's not alone." Hermione objected.

Harry was getting louder "Alone or not, he's not aware. We're not going to get that again."

Ron piped up "We could just stun them..."

"Stun the manager of Puddlemere, just because you're cold? Are you trying to help the Cannons win, Ronny dear?" Fred asked.

Ron defended himself. "We all stun each other all the time, with little to no ill effects. Either the fight comes off clean, and we send off sparks so someone retrieves them, or the fight makes noise, and people will come see."

"-or it goes wrong, they fall down, hit their heads, and get frostbite. They're innocents." Hermione objected.

"They're walking, alone at night with a known Death Eater. They're stupid and should know better." Ginny added.

"So we're making people afraid of Death Eater's because we're not going to bother to protect people from crossfire?" Hermione wanted to clarify.

Harry interrupted. "If it makes it worse to be a Death Eater, yes. Ginny, Ron, stunners. Everyone else not shielding, stunners on Malfoy. Don't let him have time to blink."

Ron interrupted, "Harry, mate, if I may... hold back half. He'll dodge the first. He'll even dodge on instinct, because he's used to random hexes from Riddle, but he's not expecting rounds of mass stunner fire."

Hermione played with the hem of her upper cloak, glad for once to be layering cloaks. "Should he see red?"

"Since we're purposely leaving people, yes. Lets have you in red walking towards them."

"Ok, then, We're popping to the other side, and walking back up?"

"Got it" Fred and George said, in unison.

"Everyone thawed their fingers and wands?" Ginny joked.

"Ready. " Neville replied.

"Ready." Ron chimed in.

"Born ready." Harry added. "You good to go, Hermione?"

"I'm ready to stun, let me arrange my hoods, though."

"Girls, always thinking about fashion at the worst times, eh, twin?" George started.

"Ah, but fashion is important, when you're trying to match your stunner to your cloak."

"That it is, that it is."

"Apparating in three."

Everyone grabbed their twin, and they popped to the bottom of the hill.

Hermione spun off her overcloak of disillusionment, trying to look like she just spun in. Her wand was in her sleeve. She started walking at a slow, cold trudge through the loose powder up to the stadium. Past the pub, and past the unofficial souvenir shop, with it's windows full of scarfs and jerseys.

Harry started a countdown when she was a 30 meters from Malfoy. They were both walking, so they closed fast. When he was at 6, Malfoy turned to better address the coach, and Harry yelled over the radio, "Bollocks, go now, Go!"

Ron shot on time, as did Ginny. The two spares went down hard.

Harry shot on time, which was easy, since he was the one who knew when he was going to yell go. Hermione, who had been busy looking nonthreatening and cold didn't get her wand out of her sleeve for a full three heartbeats. Neville aimed at Lucius, and would have hit him, if he hadn't dropped.

Both Harry and Neville had shot at chest height, the largest target. Both missed when Lucius dropped right and to his knees.

Hermione's shot, three seconds later, was on target, but hit a shield.

They were now facing an awake, aware high caliber Death Eater who knew there were multiple shots being fired. He looked utterly shocked, but his shield held.

Harry's voice came over the radios. "Again, Hermione and Neville late, in case the shield drops."

Lucius Malfoy's shield did face three stunners, and reflected them all. Hermione and Neville's deflected less brightly, but still deflected.

Malfoy used the lull in between round to recast.

Hermione spoke, quietly. "Free for all, I'm going to be shooing green, so he'll come out of turtle to dodge."

Hermione's green curse did seem to rattle Malfoy, as did the now seemingly endless stream of stunners and acid green curses coming his way. Malfoy stood, dodging and sheilding, and started to back off.

Hermione whispered again. "Fred, grab Neville, pop behind him. Take him down."

One of Neville's green hexes bounced off of a corner of Malfoys shield. His eyes opened wide, but he kept dodging all the green shots.

Fred swore. "Shit, he knows. We can't let him leave knowing."

Ron added. "Behind and the to stadium side. We'll try to miss the other way. We don't need friendly fire."

Hermione drifted to her right, to be closer to her only shielder, Harry. Lucius's eyes didn't leave her for a second.

Harry had his elbow out, to help with spacing, or at least prevent her from running him over.

George apparated Neville back behind Lucius, close enough to be in the fight. The noise of the the apparition startled Lucius, making him miss Hermione just to the left. Unfortunately, just to her left was Harry, who took the cutting curse to his cloaked elbow. He grunted over the radio, and dropped, showing off a huge shimmer against the fresh snow. The cut cloak was also soaking from the inside, deep red bleeding trough the weave and the charms.

Lucius's eyes grew wide, as comprehension hit, and he started to look for other shimmers.

Just as he fully realized what was going on, thought, he was hit from behind with a bolt of red as Hermione hit him from the front with green. She didn't have a jar out, so she ended up with a stunned small fuzzy Malfoy summoned to her hand.

She got him into a jar just a George got Harry up and supported.

"Harry, are you okay to apparate?"

Harry was focused on breathing. "My arm hurts" Breath. "Bleeding." Breath "Cut the muscle, too bad to fix ourselves."

"Harry, if you jerk around while we're midway, you'll hurt yourself... Mom always said, worst case, to stun somebody first..." Fred was approaching fast.

"... Do it. Hogwarts. Neville found me in the halls. We'll play dumb."

The team was serious as the went about their plan, planting a bloody Harry in the entry hall, near the main stairs. Neville gave them a five minute head starts, so they could be notified in their dorms, or in Hermione's case, her library chair, and then he sent a patronus for Madam Pomfrey.

ooo

The teachers didn't believe Harry's excuses of not remembering a thing. Ron muttered loudly about Death Eater sympathizers in the castle. Hermione checked every weapon on a suit of armor within 50 meters of where Harry was found. Dumbledore called the incident 'Curious.' Snape glared at Harry and Ron, and slightly less so at Hermione.

Professor McGonagall worried.

Hermione spent her Saturday night scrubbing blood out of invisible cloaks. Harry's, both of hers, and George's. Harry sent a note with Ginny. He wanted her to leave the blood on her red Cloak. 'I know you'll hate it, 'Mione, but it's psychological warfare."

ooo

Harry missed the first Apparition lesson It was purely about the theoretical and licensing aspects, and they attended in clumps, seated by year.

The second lesson, in the afternoon on a Saturday, w,as a practical. They were placed in hoops in the Great Hall, each with a target hoop two meters in front of them. With the background reading Hermione made them do, and the multiple side-alongs they'd been doing, Harry Hermione and Ron all succeeded on their first tries.

Neville popped hoops on his third try.

Luna, somehow, accidentally landed standing on Dumbledore's chair, which was much farther away from her then her target hoop.

Ginny splinched two inches of her left ponytail laughing at Luna's antics while trying herself.

Any of the others who had managed to get from one hoop to another had literally jumped. Spinning and falling towards the other hoop was also a popular method.

Snape glared, looking from Hermione, to Ron, to Harry. He stood directly behind Neville, suspiciously watching, as if watching closer would make him slow down and reveal the trick. Perhaps he was hoping to cause a splinch through fear and panic. Neville calmly kept popping back and forth, the small smile on his face growing each time.

Hermione, during the fifteen minute brake, talked with the tutor, listing the sixteen most useful books she had found, and asked if he has others to add to her suggested reading. He admitted her list was longer then his.

Professor Flitwick, who was walking past, awarded Hermione twenty points for academic excellence. When he added 3 for every student who'd succeeded so far, Snape swept from the room in a fit of anger and confusion.

AN. Chapter 8: Miscalculation is longer, and has a scene that make me smile every time I read it. Reviews, also, make me smile. Tempe, I'm glad you liked the Luna moment.