Moody has betrayed Harry, and Harry is cut off from everyone, facing thirty Death Eaters and Voldemort himself. Harry is not happy.
Completely Serious Disclaimer: I didn't do it, I'm not responsible, It's not my fault, I wasn't even there at the time, Nobody saw me do it, and without videotape, you can't prove it anyway.
Although, if anyone can find a way to prove I own Harry Potter and all related rights, please, let me know.
(Did you really believe I was going to print a serious disclaimer? If so, I have some ocean front property in Montana to sell you.)
Harry Potter and The Shades of Grey
Chapter Nine.
Betrayals, Death and Reactions.
Harry froze for a second as one thought ran though his head. Moody had betrayed them all, and he had all of Harry's closest friends in that place.
The wave of magic that exploded from Harry then dwarfed anything he'd ever done as he cast a shield between him and the Death Eaters raising their wands. Harry turned and ran for the forest behind him. He could not exchange spells with this many people and win. He had to divide them, take them down one at a time until he could find a way to escape and find Moody.
Moody was going to pay for this. Harry kept returning to that thought as he ran into the woods and then he stopped thinking as Professor Snape rose up in front of him, waving an ugly red stump. "Take my hand, will you? Keep it as a trophy? When we kill you, Potter, I'll keep your tramp as my trophy."
Harry and Snape leveled their wands and Harry was just a shade faster, not having wasted time speaking. "Serpensortia," he called and a three meter snake appeared close to Snape. "Kill him," Harry said in Parseltongue, even as he dropped to avoid the red dart of a Cruciatus that lanced out from Snape's wand.
Snape looked at the snake contemptuously. "Is that all you have, Potter? A make believe snake? You are even more pathetic than I had imagined."
Harry finally said something, even as he leveled his wand at Snape again, waiting for him to turn his wand on the snake. "No, it's merely a visible example."
Snape frowned but the snake was getting closer quickly and he turned his wand to destroy it.
Harry had been waiting for that, that second when Snape's attention wasn't on Harry. He cast the Cross-Species Transfiguration and a pale green light washed over Snape, who screamed in pain as he was changed, mutated into a one meter long version of the bigger snake. Harry grinned savagely. He had not been sure that spell would work on a human, although it should, since it worked on other mammals. Harry spoke again in Parseltongue, hoping Snape could understand him now. "Eat the little one, my friend. Feed yourself on him."
Snape could hear and understand, Harry had to assume, as he slithered away, with the other snake in rapid pursuit. Harry grinned as they disappeared into the woods only to lose the decidedly evil smile as voices came closer. He looked around and stepped behind a tree.
Harry thought quickly, trying to think of something that would occupy them long enough for him to think of a way to get back to the Inferno and a memory from first year surfaced. Harry looked around and found a rock. He cast three spells on it in rapid order and turned from the clearing.
He was fifty metres away when the screams started. He had an errant thought then. "I must remember to thank whoever made the giant chess set for the traps around the Philosopher's Stone."
Behind him, the man sized pawn continued to try and kill Death Eaters, only to be met with a hail of concussive spells and blasting spells. It would take them two minutes to reduce it to rubble, and by then it would have crushed two Death Eater's skulls.
Harry came around a tree and literally ran into a Death Eater, knocking both of them to the ground. Harry rolled over the Death Eater and sprang up, his wand tracking on Her?
He stopped as Bella grinned at him. "Be nice, Harry. I can't hurt you since you accepted my request, nor can you attack me." She cocked her head, listening. She grinned again. "I would hurry if I were you though, or I'll be needing a new second." She stood up and considered him for a second, and then kissed him full on the mouth. "Pity you're so nice. We could have such fun together." Bella disappeared, leaving Harry blinking rapidly.
The crack of a branch brought him out of his Bellatrix induced stupor and he whirled, leading with his wand. He saw only another Death Eater and cast a stupefy at him. The Death Eater fell and Harry touched him with his wand and cast another spell. When he was done with that, he hit the Death Eater with another stupefy and left him there. Harry took his wand and broke it as he left.
"Potter, how nice of you to come my way." Voldemort's voice was still high pitched and filled with the menace of insanity. Harry dropped and rolled as soon as he heard Voldemort speaking and it was a good thing. The twisting putrid green spell Voldemort had cast at him passed over his moving body and struck a tree. The spell exploded into a clingy goo when it hit and the goo began eating though the tree at a phenomenal rate. In mere seconds, the tree was gone.
Harry ducked the red beam of a Cruciatus and jumped behind a tree. He couldn't kill Voldemort yet, so dueling him when Voldemort could kill him was the height of stupidity. He grinned suddenly and peered around the side of the tree.
Voldemort was looking in another direction and Harry poked his wand just past the edge of the tree and took careful aim. He got ready to run and cast his spell. He didn't stick around to see what happened after it, but took off running, trying to keep a tree between Voldemort and himself, counting on Riddle being too busy to hit him with a spell.
He listened to the impassioned cursing behind him and wished for Colin and his camera. At least the bat bogeys would keep him occupied for a minute.
Harry's luck ran out a few minutes later, after he'd resorted to Reducto when three Death Eaters came around a tree together. He beat them, leaving pieces of them scattered across the landscape, but they delayed him long enough for the rest of the Death Eaters to show up, led by a very angry Voldemort. The Death Eaters surrounded Harry, and he realized that there were still nearly thirty of them, despite the casualties he'd been inflicting. His despair and anger grew as even more of them came out of the woods.
"I am going to kill you, Harry Potter. For your insult, I will kill you slowly, causing all the pain I can before you die, and you will die knowing that every person you know will die the exact same way."
Harry looked around, searching for a way out of this one and came up blank. Death Eaters were continuing to pour into the clearing, nearly one hundred strong now, and all of them pointing wands his way.
In front of them was Voldemort, his red eyes gleaming with anger, malice and madness.
Harry could feel Death Eaters surrounding him, and an unbidden thought came to him. The only magic he'd ever heard of, that had a circular effect was some types of accidental magic that children did.
Harry sighed, put his wand away and concentrated on his friends and their fate if he failed. He thought about Voldemort's threat to kill them all and then Harry stopped thinking and started feeling. Anger, despair, fear, love and joy, everything he felt for his friends, Harry let flow into him. Harry didn't know how to do accidental magic, but he knew how it happened.
Not enough control, and too much feeling. That, Harry could do easily.
He let everything that Voldemort had done to him and his friends flow, feeling the loss of his parents, of Cedric, of Sirius, years of abuse at the Dursley's hands and everything else that could be laid at Voldemort's door.
When Harry was quivering with suppressing the emotional overload, he looked up at Voldemort.
"Bugger off, you bloody Mudblood." Harry quit controlling himself and screamed his defiance of the enemy.
Raw magic, unformed and uncontrolled exploded from Harry, covering the clearing in less than a second, racing though everything and everyone there. The entire clearing and the other people in it wavered and vanished, leaving a spent Harry Potter to collapse to the ground, blood pouring from his nose, ears and eyes.
OoOoOoO Mad-Eye Moody,The Inferno. OoOoOoO
Mad-Eye watched as Harry put his hand in the box and froze. The box was designed to measure the amount and power of a Wizard or Witch's magic. It did so by making the test subject think they were in the worst possible place for them to be, and that they had no options left but to use all their power.
With most people, the test was over in seconds, ten at most. Mad-Eye frowned as Harry passed a full minute in the box. An amazing range of feelings passed across his face as Moody watched him.
Fear, anger, fury, a whimsical smile? Finally Harry's face settled into a rage so profoundly disturbing that Moody took a step back.
An instant later the box began glowing as the test ended, but at the same time, a wave of magic exploded from Harry, blowing Moody across the room and destroying everything in the room except Moody, the box and Harry.
Moody's last sight before he faded into the blackness that overwhelmed him was of blood erupting from Harry's head as Harry fell to the ground, limp and still.
OoOoOoO The rest of the group, The Inferno. OoOoOoO
Hermione was laying on the floor while Pansy massaged a cramp out of her leg. "I knew I wasn't in the best shape, but oh!" Hermione stopped to gasp as Pansy pressed on the knot in her thigh. "I'm going to be hating life for awhile," she predicted mournfully.
"Please remember that," Miranda said smugly, "when I'm trying to get you to do something besides study."
Ginny rolled over and looked at the others. "I thought playing Quidditch was supposed to keep you in shape."
Ron sighed. "I hate to say this, but I have to agree with Ginny." Ginny was too tired to respond to that with anything except a baleful glare.
Luna was standing by the wall of the empty office Miranda had led them to while they waited to begin the magical tests. "I think you should help me hunt Crumple-horned Snorkacks next year. Climbing over rocks and up and down mountains seems to work better than sitting on a Broomstick and flying around."
Before anyone could respond to that there was an explosion from down the hall and a wave of magic they were all familiar with rushed though the room. Miranda was the first to move, crossing to stand over Hermione. "Get up! We have to go see what happened!"
Luna and Ginny were closest to the door and Luna beat Ginny out the door only because she'd been standing up. Ron and Pansy were close behind them, followed by Miranda and Hermione who had to wait for Pansy to get off her.
Three of the trainers were rushing down the hall with Neville and the group poured into the room Moody had taken Harry into.
There was a jam up at the door as each person stopped for a second to register what they saw before the press of people behind them pushed them into the room.
Luna had been the first one in the room and she went to her knees by Harry. Her dreamy expression never changed as she pulled back an eyelid and examined Harry closely, casting a spell over him.
"Harry has used all his magic," she reported calmly, making the Wizards hiss in dismay and horror. Hermione frowned. She hadn't studied much Wizard medicine beyond the basic first aid that any friend of Harry's seemed to need to know.
Luna went on. "Someone check on Mr. Moody. Ron, please get me the case I brought with me. Neville, come here." Neville came closer, wondering what the Witch wanted. Luna reached up and kissed him on the cheek. "I've heard that a kiss is considered lucky, and we're going to need some luck."
Hermione and Pansy stared at Luna in disbelief. Ginny was on her knees beside Luna as soon as there was room. "How do we stop the bleeding?" she asked.
Luna shook her head. "I can't, right now. Harry has no magic. For all intents and purposes, right now, he's a Muggle and no magical treatments will work on him." Luna considered that. "Maybe I should look into some Muggle treatments."
Ron came back in the room with Luna's carpetbag, a strange bag with small moving pictures of strange creatures running around on it. Luna reached inside and pulled out a potion Ron recognized. "Luna, is it safe to give Harry that right now? That stuff nearly made me bounce out a window, and I was in far better shape than Harry."
Luna shrugged. "I don't know. I do know that no normal potion will work since potions all require that the user have a touch of magic in them to activate it. A Squib, with just enough magic to see magical sites could use a Pepper-up Potion, but Harry doesn't even have that much magic right now.."
One of the trainers frowned at Luna. "How can your potion help him then?"
Luna carefully poured a bit of the potion into Harry's mouth,massaging his throat until the potion trickled down. "Because this is a self activating potion,with a bit of my magic in it. Hopefully that will be enough for Harry to be able to use it."
Hermione frowned as all the Wizardborn around her stared at Luna and Ron flushed several shades of red. "Would someone tell me what's wrong with that?" she asked when no one said anything. They watched Luna pour a bit more into Harry before Miranda spoke.
Miranda was in her Defender mode, blank faced and with the toneless voice that Hermione was learning covered emotional turmoil. "Miss Black, most Wizards and Witches will only share magic with another person once in their lives, when they marry. It's closer than anything you can do, even more intimate than making love."
Ginny took over the potion from Luna as Luna turned to rummage around in her bag again. "Talking is a sharing of the mind, an offering of the intellect," Luna said as she put her arm into her bag nearly to the shoulder, fishing around for something. "Making love is an offering of the body. Sharing Magic is an offering of everything that makes you what you are. I think it's an offering of Love."
Everyone was diverted then as Moody moaned and the trainer that had been looking after him helped him stand up. Moody shook his head and looked at Harry. "Mr. Potter continues to surprise me," he growled as he rubbed his neck. "Only two other people have managed to overload the wards on the box, and neither of them overloaded them to the point that their magic affected anything outside the box, it merely shut down and threw them out of the scene."
Ron sighed. "That's Harry for you. He can't do anything normally." Ron looked at Luna. "He is going to be alright, isn't he?"
"Of course he is. This can't kill him, you know." Luna was serenely unconcerned.
Pansy stared at her. "How do you know that? Most Wizards die when they lose their magic. Our immune systems depend on it, as well as the rest of our system. That's why Wizards live longer than Muggles."
Luna finally pulled a beat up old stuffed dragon from the bag and tucked it under Harry's arm. "The Prophecy says that Harry can only die at Voldemort's hands. This didn't have anything to do with the Mold Lord of Many Capitals, so it can't kill him."
The other people stared at Luna and then at each other.
Hermione was running though the prophecy in her head, and it looked like some of the other were also.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..." (OotP, JKR.)
Hermione frowned. The prophecy didn't actually say that Harry couldn't be killed by anyone except Voldemort, but the wording was strange.
"And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ..."
Hermione frowned. Honestly, that didn't make any sense. Both of them were alive now, so how could 'neither live while the other survives'?
Her thoughts were interrupted as Harry coughed and moaned weakly. Hermione and Pansy joined Ginny next to Harry. He opened his eyes, gazing unfocused at them. "Moody... betrayal," he said weakly, struggling to get up. "I have to stop him."
Ginny pushed him down. "No, Harry, it was a test. Moody didn't betray you, Harry," she said soothingly.
Harry tried to focus. "Everyone's safe?" he asked, staring at Ginny.
"Yes, Harry," said Pansy. "Hermione and I are watching over them. You let Ginny take care of you."
Harry looked at Pansy and Hermione and relaxed. His eyes closed and he was unconscious again in seconds.
Miranda sighed wistfully. "I could have made him the greatest Defender ever ten years ago. What a waste."
Moody grinned. "We are going to make him the defender of the entire world, isn't that enough for you?"
Miranda shrugged. "No." She looked at Harry. "He's too old for proper training, and I shouldn't do this, but you will set aside three hours a week for me to train him."
Moody blinked. "Any chance I could sit in on that training?"
"No."
Moody almost pouted. "Some people have all the luck."
Miranda looked down at Harry. "Ask him if he thinks he's lucky in a month."
OoOoOoO Mr. Sharpstar, The Wizengamot Chamber. OoOoOoO
"And so, my client is asking for the following law to be enacted." Nicholas Sharpstar watched the members of the Wizengamot closely as he laid out the proposed law Harry had asked about. On the surface, it was a mere clarification of an existing Dark Creature law. However, if this bill was passed the way Mr. Sharpstar had worded it, it would put Death Eaters on the same level as werewolves and vampires.
That would be seen with a few minutes thought, and Harry and Nicholas were not expecting the bill to pass yet. This attempt was about something else entirely. All they wanted right now, was to see who voted against the bill. It wouldn't flush out all of Voldemort's supporters in the Wizengamot, and a few that voted against it would not be Dark, merely unwilling to add to the Dark Creature laws on the books already.
It would give them a starting point to clean up the Wizengamot, however, and allow them to tailor future bills to negate the power of the people that would not like what Harry wanted to do.
Nicholas Sharpstar was a Pureblood Wizard, with hundreds of years of Wizard history in his family, and he'd never considered his opinions of Muggleborns, Half bloods or non-humans before Harry had come to him, burning with a desire to make things right for good people, no matter what their blood lines were.
Miss Granger-Black was an excellent case in Harry's favor. Honest, brave and smart, she was a person that any family should be proud to have, but she was considered less than many who had Pureblood lines, but nothing else.
Sharpstar had been looking at his own thoughts since Harry had made his wants and opinions clear, and to be honest, Nicholas was not entirely happy with himself. Granted, he'd never had much to do with non-humans, but that should have meant he simply didn't have an opinion, since he didn't have any facts to rest opinions on.
He finished his speech and watched as a couple of people spoke, both for and against the bill. He noted the arguments the opponents used, planning on refuting their arguments if he needed to speak again. He grinned as the Wizengamot broke for lunch before the debate was over. Harry was going to make being a Solicitor fun again, like it had been when Mary was helping him.
In his office, he wrote out his impressions of the people that had spoken against the bill, and made a Floo call. Twenty minutes later, a man came in the office and sat down without saying anything. Mr. Sharpstar looked at him.
James Henry Michaels was a Wizard of average height and very ordinary looking. He was also one of the best investigators in the Wizard world. Nicholas had been friends with him for more than forty years and a client nearly as long.
"It's been a long time since you called me for work, Nick. What's so important?"
Nicholas Sharpstar smiled. "I am representing Harry Potter, and we have a lot of work for you, with more to come. Harry has a desire to change the world, and I'm going to help him."
Michaels looked at his friend thoughtfully. Nick hadn't been this animated since Mary had died, nearly twenty years ago. Whatever Mr. Potter wanted to do, it had brought Nick out of his depression, and that meant it was a good thing. Michaels would help them, to the best of his ability.
"What do you want me to do?"
OoOoOoO Harry and his Ladies, The Inferno. OoOoOoO
Harry was laid out on a bed in the small infirmary in the Inferno. Hermione, Ginny and Pansy were sitting around his bed, using damp cloths to clean blood off Harry. "How does he bleed so much?" asked Ginny fretfully.
"Practice," Hermione said wryly.
Pansy rinsed her cloth and looked at the other two girls. "Do you remember our conversation of a few days ago?"
Hermione frowned at her. "It was just three days ago, even a Gryffindor doesn't forget things that quickly."
Pansy looked at them. "I told you that I talked Harry into our agreement, because I need him right now, and not because there was any feeling between us."
Ginny nodded. "Harry is protecting you, and giving himself a reason to continue to do so when we return to Hogwarts. You said that the two of you would continue to put off an actual engagement until after Voldemort was gone, and then you would break up."
Pansy nodded. "What I don't understand, is why you two agreed to share him for real."
Hermione and Ginny looked at each other. Hermione answered her slowly. "It's very simple. Ginny loves Harry, and she has for as long as she can remember. She used to love the Boy Who Lived, but she's had a chance to know Harry, and Harry is just as good as any myth."
Hermione sighed as she finished with Harry's arm and started on his shoulder. "I love Harry, and you know about that, you were there when I told Harry. Ginny and I talked about it, and to be completely honest, if we refused to share him, we think he'd walk away from both of us."
Pansy frowned. "Harry loves both of you. That's plain to anyone with eyes."
Ginny nodded. "He does, and that's the problem. What happens to his friendship and love for Hermione, if he chooses me?"
Hermione nodded. "Going the other way, what happens to his relationship with Ginny and the Weasleys, his only family, if he chooses me?"
Pansy thought about it. "So you think he'd make a choice by walking away?"
"It would be the only response that would allow everyone else involved to keep their friendships intact. He would be unhappy about it, but he would also do it. Harry has never let him getting hurt stand in the way of him doing the right thing. Leaving both of us would keep him from having to hurt one of us badly," Hermione said.
Ginny blushed. "Plus, Hermione and you intrigued me with that conversation we had, and I am not totally opposed to the idea of a female lover."
Pansy smiled at her. "But you'd prefer a Harry lover."
Ginny's blush deepened. "I would, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon." She sighed. "I think I made a mistake when we first started dating."
Pansy and Hermione looked at her. "What did you do?" asked Hermione.
"I told Harry I wanted to be a virgin on my wedding night."
Pansy groaned. "Why?"
Ginny sighed. "Because mum was, and she made it sound like a wonderful thing, but after sleeping with the three of you, and waking up with kisses, I'm beginning to think it may be overrated."
Hermione blushed. "I can still touch a Unicorn, I think. Ron and I never actually did that, we did other things."
Pansy shook her head, eyes lost in a memory. "No, you can't. Unicorns don't choose between types of sex. If you've done something you know is sexual, you can't touch one."
Hermione sighed. "Oh well. I did want to investigate some of the possibilities in their healing, but I can find something else."
Ginny was studying Pansy. "Sooner or later, we're going to hear your life story, Pansy. You have too many secrets that could come back to haunt us."
Pansy looked at Ginny. "You still don't trust me, do you?"
Ginny shook her head. "Too many years of hearing how dark you are, and watching you run around with Malfoy." Ginny shivered for a second but continued. "I know that you're a Windenmere, and that you people put your family before anything else, but I know what I saw, also. I will keep watching you until I am sure you will not hurt Harry."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ginny, she's had plenty of chances to do things to Harry, if she wanted to."
Ginny nodded slowly, watching Pansy. "Yes, she has. Hermione, you may not know this, but the Windenmere families have a reputation for incredibly convoluted Plans, that make take years to fully unfold, don't you Pansy?"
"Yes, we do," Pansy admitted freely. "We've always been Slytherins, in the true tradition of Salazar Slytherin. We are Purebloods, mostly, and ambitious as anything. Ambition, in and of itself, though, is not a bad thing. It's how you go about obtaining your ambitions that make you light, grey or dark."
Ginny nodded. "And while Harry says you are no darker than he is, we don't know about the rest of your family, and since they control you, and not Harry, I will watch you."
Pansy put on a mock pout. "Don't you trust me, Ginny?"
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Do you trust her, Hermione?"
Hermione smiled at Ginny. "Hold on." She leaned forward and grabbed Pansy's head just as Harry had, a day earlier. Hermione looked at Pansy. "Pansy," she said, and something in her voice had changed. She sounded firmer, more authoritarian, but somehow sexy at the same time.
Pansy struggled for a second and then quieted, staring at Hermione with a slight smile and dilated eyes. "Yes, Miss Black?"
Ginny watched in confusion. She knew something was going on, but she didn't understand what. Hermione smiled again and used her thumbs to caress Pansy's face while she held her. "You know what I am, and what you are, yes?"
"Yes, Miss Black." Pansy was smiling wider now, and leaning into Hermione's caresses.
"And you know what will happen, if I decide I can't trust you, or that you might hurt Harry, don't you?" Hermione's voice had changed again, causing Pansy's eyes to open wide. Hermione sounded cold, impersonal, and her thumbs were digging into Pansy's skin, leaving red marks in her cheeks.
Pansy shivered. "I do, but I will never give you reason to do anything to me."
Hermione stared into her eyes for a minute and then smiled slowly. She leaned forward and kissed Pansy, much as she kissed Harry. Pansy happily submitted to the ministrations of the other Witch until Hermione sat back, giving Pansy one last caress with her thumbs. "See that you don't."
Hermione looked at Ginny smugly. "I trust her."
Ginny shook her head. "Right. You two are going to explain all that to me right now. The three of you are playing some freaky game, and I can see it, but I don't know the rules, the object or how to tell who's winning."
Hermione and Pansy smiled at each other. "If we play the game right, we both win," Hermione said, "just in different ways." She blushed. "If you ever tell your family that I told you any of what you're about to hear, I'll create a new Hex, just for you."
Ginny blinked. "Why would I do that? Every time any of my family think about me growing up, they have hives and try to make me ten years younger."
Hermione blushed again. "Pansy and I are into a sexual lifestyle called BSDM. Specifically, I am a Dominant, commonly called a Top and Pansy is a submissive, commonly called a bottom."
Hermione looked at Ginny. "Despite what uninformed people say, this is just another way of expressing trust and love. It is not freaky, Miss Weasley, nor is it perverted. It is different, but the first rule is Safe, Sane and Consensual. This means that everything we do will be safely done, so that there is no danger of anyone getting hurt," Hermione was interrupted.
"At least, not any more than they want to be hurt. I love a good spanking." Pansy smiled dreamily.
Ginny blinked at Pansy. "That's different, for sure. I've never liked them myself," she said neutrally.
Hermione cleared her throat. "If Miss Potter over there can keep the asides to a low roar, I'll continue. Sane means we don't do things that are nutters. We don't suspend the bottom from a broomstick at five hundred metres, for example. Consensual means that everything we do is between adults, and agreed on by all the parties involved before we do anything. Pansy may or may not be into edge play, which involves using a knife, but I am not, and I doubt Harry will be, so there will never be anything like that. Since they are unable to consent, children and animals are out as well."
Hermione and Pansy told Ginny some more about the D/s lifestyle and when they were done, Ginny just shook her head. "I know you don't like this word, Hermione, but it still sounds freaky to me. I'll stick with kisses and regular sex, thank you."
Pansy shrugged. "It's not for everyone, or it wouldn't be an alternate lifestyle, as Hermione calls it." She looked at Hermione. "You never did explain what that meant."
"It means that D/s is something different, that it takes an open mind to accept, much like the morals of your Windenmere families."
The three girls jumped, as they hadn't expected Harry to join their conversation. "Harry, how do you feel?" asked Hermione and all three of them waited for Harry's answer.
Harry turned his head to look at them. He looked terrible, with a reddish tinge around his eyes, where the blood vessels in the eyeballs had popped. Moody had assured them that that effect would fade away after a few days. "I feel like I've just gone head to head with Voldemort."
Hermione nodded. "You should, because in your mind, that is exactly what you did." She frowned. "You've been unconscious for nearly five hours, Harry, and Moody showed us the recording of your fight in the Tester."
Harry was about to say something when Ginny crawled up next to him and cuddled carefully into his side. "That was a beautiful use of the Bat-Bogey Hex, Harry." She kissed him on the cheek.
Hermione crawled up on his other side. "I thought what you did with Snape was a bit over the top." She kissed Harry. "But it was a well done Cross-Species Transfiguration."
Harry smiled at her. "Does that mean I can get away with more, if I do very well?" He looked at Ginny. "I don't suppose you could ask Moody if we can save the image of Voldemort fighting the Hex. That picture in the paper would infuriate Moldywart." Ginny grinned at him as Harry looked at Pansy. "And what did you think?"
Pansy looked at the other girls. "You want my honest opinion, or the public one?"
Harry looked at the other two girls. "They already know we're playing a game for the rest of the world, as long as it's just us four, be honest."
Pansy nodded. "What the hell were you thinking?" she demanded. "You could have killed yourself there, and then where would the rest of us be? Voldemort would not have died, you would be gone, and with you goes all hope of killing Voldemort." Pansy came to stand at the foot of the bed staring at Harry. "We need you, Harry. Without you, we cannot win. You absolutely must live until Voldemort is truly dead."
Ginny and Hermione were staring at Pansy. Harry spoke up with a slight smile on his face. "Ladies, meet the real Pansy. She needs me, and she never forgets what is important to her. That we can work together is good, but if it would help her family more to jump ship, she'd be gone in an instant." Harry smiled at Pansy. "I like it. It's a refreshing bit of honesty from someone who doesn't really care if I live or die, except as how it affects her plans."
"Admire my morals later, Harry," Pansy said, frowning at him. "Right now, I want you to remember that you are the most important person in our campaign to destroy Voldemort, and I will do things to you if you keep risking your life before we can kill the enemy."
Harry sighed. "I didn't have a choice just then, Pansy. You saw what I was facing. Death Wankers all around, and Voldemort threatening everybody I know." Harry thought back, to the instant that he'd made his decision to do whatever he'd done. "I didn't have any choice but to try and take out as many of them as I could. I was also hoping to reduce Voldemort back to his bodiless state. If I did that, it would give you time to find a way to contain him since you can't kill him."
Pansy crawled up on Harry, straddling him, a position he normally liked. It was not as much fun with her holding him by the hair and staring intensely at him. "Listen to me, Harry Potter. That was a test, but if you ever find yourself in a simular situation in real life, I expect you to find a way to live, not just destroy the enemy, do you understand me?" She looked at him. "Right now, Harry, there are more than three hundred people counting on you to keep them out of Voldemort's mercies. You absolutely cannot die before you kill him."
Harry nodded and pulled Ginny a bit closer. He'd felt her tensing up as Pansy berated him and he turned to look at her. "Calm down. Pansy is offering her outlook on the matter, an opinion motivated only by her needs, not by like or dislike of me, and not influenced by her feelings. It is an honest viewpoint, and it balances out the opinions of my friends."
Hermione frowned. "I hate to say it, Ginny, but Harry and Pansy are right. We're so used to Harry coming out of everything he does alive, that we forget that some of the things he does are impossible for normal people."
Harry looked offended. "I am a normal person."
All three girls just looked at him, as if he'd announced that he was going to marry Snape. Harry looked stubborn. Ginny ran her fingers through his hair. "No, Harry, you're not, and you never will be normal. You're special Harry, to all of us, for different reasons, and to the public for yet more reasons." She moved closer to him, looking up in his face. "I know you, Harry, and you've saved my life and my soul, in first year. You're far more than normal."
Hermione was the next one to speak. "She's right, Harry. You are special, not for what your mother did, but because of who you are, and what you do. Very people would throw themselves on a Troll, fight a Basilisk, prevent Pettigrew's death, or battle Voldemort repeatedly, and you have done all of that and more." She smiled at him, no longer hiding the love she had for him. "Plus, you're warm and caring, willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, until they prove to be untrustworthy, and you forgive amazingly easily. You are so much more than most people, that you are special."
Pansy had shifted so she was laying comfortably across Harry and Hermione's legs. "As much as it pains me to admit it, Harry, they're right, and for the average person, who doesn't know you, like me just two weeks ago, you're a legend for so many other reasons. You stopped Voldemort at one, battled him again, escaped, bringing back Cedric's body, battled him again, and this time, he fled. People keep watching you do the impossible, and soon, you're going to be as much a legend of the Wizard world as Dumbledore was."
Harry laid there quietly for a long time, mulling over what the girls had said and enjoying the ladies curled up around him. "I'm never going to have a quiet, normal life, am I? Even after Moldywart is gone, people will be bringing me other things they think I should deal with."
Hermione sighed. "You're going to be the next Dumbledore, Harry. I think you may even be greater than he was someday."
Harry frowned at her. "What do you mean?"
Hermione sighed again, brushing her hair back and looking at Harry earnestly. "Harry, I trusted him, I won't deny it, but the last year or so, I realized that he'd forgotten that people are just that, people. He was locked in a mind set that said everyone would come down on one side or the other of any question. He trusted Snape to change when Snape came to him, and set him up as a spy, never dreaming that Snape would betray him." She looked aside. "And that's not mentioning leaving you with the Dursley's and never checking on you. He assumed they would take good care of you. He trusted people too much."
Harry frowned. "I will grant that he made mistakes, but how will that make me better than him?"
Ginny was still running her fingers through his hair. "Because Professor Dumbledore kept all his great plans to himself, and didn't have anyone to give him other viewpoints, but you actively seek out other views and people that don't automatically agree with you. Ron does, except in matters that concern his specialities, but the rest of us will tell you when we think you're wrong." She grinned at Pansy. "Especially the Slytherin over there. She's more than willing to give you a piece of her mind when she thinks she's right."
Harry sighed again. "Why me? What did I do, that everybody has to depend on me?"
Pansy shook her head. "Nothing. You were chosen by fate before you were even born. In every generation, there are a few like that. If Binns would teach something besides the goblin rebellions, you'd know that. Dumbledore, and before him, there are a line of names that stretch all the back to Merlin and beyond. Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, to name the ones you know, and dozens more. In every generation, there are those who want to rule and those that want to stop them. They are heroes, not because they want to be, but because they can't walk away when someone abuses another person."
Hermione nodded. "You didn't choose this life, Harry, but it's what you have. You can spend it griping about your lot in life, or accept it and make the best of it." She hugged him. "It could have been better, and Ginny and I will do our best to make sure that it is far better in the future."
Harry pondered their words for a long time, until the girls thought he'd fallen asleep. "Well," he said finally, "if I'm going to be the great hero of this era, I think I'd better get up and start learning how to be a hero."
The girls didn't move. "Sorry, Harry," said Ginny, sounding not at all sorry, "but we've been ordered to keep you lying down and quiet until at least dawn, when Moody's healer will examine you again."
Harry sighed. "Why do healers always want to keep you overnight?"
Ginny pulled his head around. "Because you nearly died, you stupid prat," she said, tears starting in her eyes, "and we care about you."
Pansy nodded from her position across Harry's legs. "Why do you think I jumped on you with both feet, Harry? You used more magic than anyone I've ever heard of. You used so much, in fact, that if you didn't have a friend that loves you, loves everyone, you would be a dying Muggle right now."
Harry blinked at them, his face going through an amazing range of emotions. "But, I'm not feeling that bad," he protested weakly.
Hermione led him through what had happened from their viewpoint, and what she'd learned since then about using your magic. "Magic is like any of your body's other resources, Harry. If you use your muscles too hard, you tear them. If you put too heavy of a load on your heart, it stops. If you use too much of your magic, it can't replenish itself, and it's gone."
She draped an arm across him. "When that happens, you become a Muggle, unable to do magic at all, and you start to die, because Wizards are born a slight bit differently than Muggles. Our immune systems, every part of your body uses the magic somehow, and without it, you're missing an essential element. You will begin to die, like a Muggle not getting the right foods."
Hermione sighed. "You have no idea how much that thought makes me want to put a dozen Wizards and Witches through a battery of tests," she said, dreamily staring at something only she could see. "DNA, to start, MRIs, CAT scans."
Pansy and Ginny were staring at Hermione in confusion, and Harry, who knew vaguely about such things from the news, was smiling. "Hermione, I think that might violate the Secrecy laws just a bit."
Hermione sighed again. "I know it would," she said wistfully, "but just one Kirlian photograph would tell me so much, I think, especially if it was taken during casting."
Harry just smiled at her. "I'd rather talk about something else. For example, on my birthday, I'm leaving the Dursley house forever. Where are we going to live? I need to get it warded before then, if I can."
Ginny smirked. "Well, Mr. Potter-Black-Montrose, Slayer of Dark Wizards and All Around Hero," she said, the capitals plain in her title for Harry, "I think we'll just have to built a place that matches your magnificence. I'm sure Dobby would be glad to built you a House to match your stature in his eyes." Ginny was laughing by the time she finished.
Hermione grinned. "I can see that house now. Five hundred metres long and twice as high, floating directly above the Ministry of Magic, with a private Quidditch Pitch and stands big enough to hold the World Cup in."
Pansy snickered. "Let's not forget the greenhouses, private lake and anything else Harry Potter Sir could ever need or want."
Harry sighed. "I'd never get the Weasley's off my Pitch, and Dobby would add a library with every book ever written in it, so I'd never see Hermione." He looked at Pansy. "And what would you want in this Magnificent Manor? What do you like more than anything?"
Pansy blinked, and blushed. "I don't know. I don't have obsessions like these two."
Harry pulled her up, searching her eyes with his, sympathy plain in his eyes. "Everyone has something they would rather be doing. You just never had a chance to find out what yours is, between Dark Twits and hiding your true allegiance. We will change that, I promise."
Pansy was caught in Harry's eyes, green and caring, no magic in them at all, except the magic of a good person, who cares about people, and the thought came to her mind that it would not be a bad thing to wake up to those eyes every morning for the rest of her life. She shook her head, pulling back. It was a nice thought, but Harry was just another task for the family. She could pretend, but there were two Witches who loved him already, and who were more than capable of protecting their claim. "We'll see, Harry."
OoOoOoO Ron Weasley, Omega Hall, Monday Morning. OoOoOoO
Ron had been given a Portkey that brought him to the same small room Shacklebolt had brought him to. A minute later, the door had opened and Algernon had beckoned him into the hallway beyond that. "Good morning, Ron. You will start your training today. I know you spent yesterday at the Inferno, so you understand that we have ways to test you and train you that are far quicker than books."
Ron looked at him, thinking hard. "If you keep following Harry, he's going to catch," Ron trailed off at the look Algernon gave him. "You're not following Harry." They continued down the hallway while Ron thought about it.
They reached a small room with a table and four chairs around a table. Ron was still thinking about how they knew that Harry had been at the Inferno. "If you're not following Harry, and Moody believes the Inferno is warded, that only leaves the travel. You have to have a way to detect the use of the Floo, or a spell on a destination."
Algernon smiled. "Not bad, considering you don't know about even half of our capabilities yet. We have a trace on certain destinations, that records the magical signature of every person that goes to that place. While we don't know everyone that was with you, Mr. Potter, Miss Granger and yourself have your auras recorded, simply because you've been too highly visible not to take that precaution, especially since you have a high probability of running into Death Eaters."
Ron nodded. "So, anytime we go to one of your tagged destinations, you'll know it."
"Correct. Now, before we start your training, I need to get a few things straight with you. You will be given a great deal of information during your training. You may not tell anyone about it, although you can use it in making any plans you make with Mr. Potter. I will give you a sheet of information you can tell Mr. Potter. You could just give him the sheet, although you may prefer to tell him some of it and hold other things back until they are needed. That is your decision."
Algernon sat down and invited Ron to sit with a gesture. As they sat down, a box rose out of the table in front of both of them and Ron sighed. "Not another Magic test."
Algernon shook his head. "This is not the same thing that Mr. Moody used on you. This box is similar, but it changes memories. This time, I want to see about your learning curve, so we will be using one of your memories. We're going to relive the Ministry incident Harry led you into."
Ron winced. "Not one of my better scenes."
Algernon shrugged. "Given the restraints the six of you were under, the lack of training and your youth, you did quite well. That was why we agreed to take you on." He pointed at the box. "You will be seeing this from Harry's eyes, and anything you tell your team to do, that they are capable of doing, they will do. At the same time, I'll be running the Death Eaters, making changes based on your actions, just as the enemy will in real situations."
He rolled his neck. "You don't have to win this time. I just want to see how much you learned from the experience. If you put your wand hand in the box in front of you, we will begin."
Ron took a deep breath and put his hand in the box.
He blinked to see himself standing in front of him, until he remembered that he was seeing this through Harry's eyes. The six of them were trying to mount the Thestrals. "Hold up one minute," Harry/Ron said, remembering that trip. "It's going to be cold, we need warm clothing or spells that will last the entire flight."
Ron began thinking about what they had done from this point, and what he wanted to change.
OoOoOoO Ginny, The Shades of Grey office, Monday Morning. OoOoOoO
Ginny was reading the mail that had come in just two days. It was her job to read it and sort it out. Some of it would go to Harry, some to Mr. Sharpstar and the junk was hers to do with as she wished. Most of it was junk, in her opinion, other businesses welcoming them to Diagon Alley and offering their services.
She looked up as an owl swooped in the special window that was charmed to open automatically for any owl. She smiled at the owl. It was one of the solid black ones that the Parkinson's seemed to have a never ending supply of. This one came over to her, holding its leg out and waiting patiently.
Ginny unhooked the small message and pointed at the owl perches lined up against the wall. "Water is over there," she informed the owl, using the tone she'd heard Harry using with Hedwig so often. "You may rest and have an owl treat." The owl flew over to the perches and appeared to survey them, finally choosing the one closest to the door.
Ginny looked at the message. It was from somebody named Eustice Parkinson and Ginny opened it.
"Miss Weasley,
It has been decided that the Shades of Grey company needs one of the special owls we breed, to be used for correspondence relating to a certain project. The owl's name is Tammarrion and he will stay with you at the office.
You may note some odd things about him over the next few days, but do not be alarmed, it is simply the result of breeding owls specifically for carrying Wizard mail. He is far more intelligent than a normal owl and will accept a great many letters that normal owls could not deliver. He can, for instance deliver a letter to any of the families currently involved in this project, despite the normal problems of delivering to a protected person."
Ginny looked at the owl again. Eustice Parkinson was claiming that this owl could deliver mail to a person hidden by a Fidelius Charm, something Ginny had never heard of. The owl looked at Ginny and hooted softly. Ginny smiled at it and went back to the letter.
OoOoOoO Harry and diverse others, Harry's room, Monday morning. OoOoOoO
Harry was eating at his own table,something he was very thankful for. Moody's healer was an older man, and he'd been an Auror healer during the first half of the Voldemort war. He was good at his job, but his bedside manner was a bit rusty, to say the least. "Damn fool idiots trying to destroy themselves and everything around them," had been one of the nicer things he'd said while he examined Harry.
Harry looked up at his companions. He grinned at the Weasleys, taking up most of one side of his table, interspersed with the ladies several of them were dating. Ron was already gone, off to where ever he was going, but Bill and Fleur were chatting quietly with Katie and Angelina while Fred and George looked at some papers they had.
Harry looked past them to Shacklebolt and Wilkes, chatting with Moody and one of the trainers from yesterday, who Harry vaguely remembered as Mrs. Jeanne Jemappes, a Dark Arts teacher from Beaubaxtons. She was a tall blonde woman that Fleur respected greatly, and that even Moody listened to with respect.
On the other side of the table were Lee Jordan, Neville, Luna, Hermione, Pansy, Diggle and Miranda's boyfriend, Lukas Montrose, who sat with two empty seats between them. Harry frowned at those seats. He saw the plates in front of them and watched as a glass was suddenly half empty.
"Would someone mind introducing me to the two guests at my table?" Harry asked mildly.
Fred and George grinned at the rest of the table. "We told you he'd catch on without any problem."
Fred grinned at Harry, saying "You know Miss Tonks and Mr. Lupin, I think."
As he spoke, they faded into sight and Remus looked at Harry. "How did you know there was somebody there?"
Harry explained how he'd noticed that the Fidelius Charm didn't hide the results of your actions. "I saw one of the glasses suddenly drain, without me seeing it move."
Remus nodded. "We'll have to remember that, if we're using the Charm against Voldemort. That might save a few of our people."
Harry looked around. "Speaking of Voldemort, Fred, tell the rest of us about your group yesterday."
Fred looked at the group. "Narcissa and Draco were in Diagon Alley yesterday and the day before. They appeared to be scouting the Alley. One of our group saw them, using a new thing we have invented, that pierces illusions. By the time they got us and we got back, they were gone. That happened twice, once each day."
Moody frowned. "That's not a lot to take to the Aurors," he said dubiously. "They might not do anything."
Harry thought about it for a few minutes, wishing he had Ron here for the planning. "Shacklebolt, take any of our people you want for the main force. Your job is to respond to their appearance and destroy them."
The Auror frowned, thinking about his orders, and decided that he'd worry about it later. After all, Harry would take care of his people, and he was one of them. "Who do you want with you, Harry?"
"Hermione, Pansy, Luna and" Harry frowned. With Ron gone and the twins in charge of the Diagon Alley group, he didn't have anyone to watch Luna as she healed. He couldn't take any of the experienced fighters, or any of Moody's as they might be more important fighting, depending on how many Death Wankers showed up. "Neville."
Pardon me, Arry," Fleur said, "but I will stay with you, I think. I am not familiar with ze Alley, and I would like to help."
Harry nodded, and smiled. "If you would stay with Luna and Neville, and watch her back, please? She is our only healer right now." Harry looked at Moody after she nodded at him. "Moody, would you and yours care to join the fun?"
Moody snorted. "As if you could keep us out of it."
Harry grinned. "I didn't think so, but I have to try and pretend I'm in charge here. If you would gather in the Leaky Cauldron, we'll gather the other half of our forces somewhere else. I will be in Mr. Sharpstar's office, after we get Ginny."
Pansy frowned, biting her lip. "Harry, we can get a few more fighters, and a dozen healers." She held up a hand. "The problem is, all of them are duellists, and the healers are not trained for combat."
The three Aurors winced, and Harry frowned. Duellists would fight one on one, which would not be good. "Send for the healers. Fred, George, we'll put them in your shop with three of your people to protect them, and they stay there until someone comes to get them. We don't need them running around in the middle of a fight. If any of your people have to have a healer right then, we'll send Luna, or if possible, get them to the shop."
Auror Amanda Wilkes frowned. "What if the attack doesn't happen today?"
Harry shrugged. "We'll work something out. We need a fast way to respond to any Death Wanker attacks anyway. I want to hurt them every time they poke their noses out of their holes, and I want everyone to know who's doing it."
George grinned. "We can help you with that. The first half of your project is ready."
Harry smiled. "Beautiful. How much do I owe you, and how long will it take to teach it to everyone?"
Fred and George smiled innocently and Wilkes smirked. "Well, development costs, time invested, it just happens to come to two Knuts."
Harry stared at them and then looked at Amanda. "You're corrupting my partners," he said.
Nearly everyone at the table snickered, giggled or outright laughed at that. "Like anything an honest Auror could do would corrupt those two more than they are," Moody said.
Harry sighed. "Just get started teaching the spell, if you don't mind."
Fred stood up. "This is a fairly simple spell," he began as the rest of the people around the table sat up and watched him.
OoOoOoO Ginny, The Shades of Grey office. OoOoOoO
Ginny looked up as two people entered the office. "Hello Mr. Sharpstar," she said, looking at the other man.
"Good morning, Miss Weasley, this is Mr. Michaels, who will be looking for the victims of the war for awhile and using the office."
Ginny stood up and held out her hand. "How do you do?"
Mr. Michaels shook her hand looking at her curiously. "How did you get this job?" he asked, wondering how an underage Witch had gotten such an easy job.
Ginny smiled softly. "The company's owner thinks that he can keep me safe by putting me here, I think, but him and I will discuss that at the proper time."
Michaels nodded slowly as pieces began falling into place. "Well, we're going to be fairly busy for awhile," he warned her. "I have a lot of reports and back copies of the Daily Prophet coming in, and we'll be going through them for names of people still alive after Death Eater attacks. There will not be many of those, but after we're gotten that list, we'll need a list of the people left behind after an attack, and that's going to be a bit harder."
Ginny nodded. "We'll need a system. Would you mind if I got some help creating it?"
Mr. Sharpstar looked at Ginny. "Planning to get Miss Granger-Black's help?"
Ginny grinned. "Of course. She's the single most organized person I know. She'll have something in place in a couple of hours, instead of the days it would take me." Ginny looked over as the fireplace flared.
Miranda came out, stepping out quickly and to one side, watching the people in the room. She put the small vial of red powder back in her pocket and nodded at Ginny and Mr. Sharpstar. A few seconds later, people started coming out of the Floo. Hermione was first and Miranda reached over and pulled her out of the way just as Harry stumbled out of the Floo.
Pansy, Neville and Luna followed them and Fleur stepped out gracefully. Ginny already knew something was going on. Harry's magic was exploring the people around him again and everyone looked tense.
Harry looked around and started issuing orders. "Neville, Luna, take Fleur and go get the other healers from the Leaky Cauldron. If they need any supplies, stop at an apothecary and get them, I will pay for them later."
"Hermione, make a dozen Portkeys to St. Mungo's, just in case we need them." Harry saw the stranger and his eyes went out of focus for a second. He blinked, regarding the man. "I assume you work with Mr. Sharpstar, but we're going to need these offices for awhile. You can stay or leave, but stay out of the way."
Michaels looked at Harry again. His eyes were bright and a fire was starting to burn deep inside. Harry was dressed in the solid black he favored when one of the girls didn't make him put something else on and Michaels felt an involuntary shiver run down his spine. This was a man who knew what he wanted, and would accomplish it, no matter the cost. "I may not be a great duellist, Mr. Potter, but I think I can defend the office while you're dealing with the Death Eaters. How long do we have?"
Harry shook his head. "We don't know. It may not even happen today. I hope it does, and fairly soon, simply because I have a great many things to do today and promises to keep."
Michaels nodded. "Right. Miss Weasley, if you would make a pot of tea, and see about light foods for everyone, we'll settle down and try to wait calmly." He grinned wryly. "I am familiar with waiting, and I can help you, so that your nerves aren't on edge when the event does happen."
Harry nodded. "Take care of it then. Miranda, watch them please. Pansy, come with me, I want to check on Fred and George and see if Moody's group has arrived yet."
Harry kissed Hermione briefly and Ginny as well. Pansy was about to pout when Harry kissed her as well. Ginny and Hermione looked at each other. The difference between Pansy's public and private persona was a bit bewildering.
The two of them left as Hermione went back to making Portkeys and Ginny examined the supplies. She frowned. The kitchen here had not been meant to feed a group this large and if there were more people coming, she'd had to get some more food. She looked around. "Mr. Sharpstar, may I speak with you for a minute?"
She told him what the problem was and he nodded. "We have an account you can use right down the street." He gave her directions and Ginny looked around. Mr. Michaels was doing something with his wand and Hermione was busy making Portkeys. She told Hermione where she was going and Hermione nodded.
Ginny stepped outside and looked both ways. She didn't see anything strange and started down the street toward the shop she'd been told about. Ginny went inside and got enough food to feed a Weasley family dinner. She figured that should feed any ordinary group, and if they needed more, the store was not that far away.
Coming out of the store, Ginny hesitated and looked back. "If you hear a lot of loud sounds, you might want to take cover," she warned the storekeeper.
He looked at her curiously and then frowned. "I know you, you're one of the kids that was with Harry Potter, when he battled You-Know-Who in the Ministry." The man froze, staring at Ginny. "Is You-Know-Who coming here?"
"We don't know yet, but it's possible," Ginny admitted. "We have a few people waiting for him, if he does show up, so just stay under cover, OK?"
The man nodded. "Thank you."
Ginny hurried up the street, watching the people around her. If anyone tried anything, she was going to hex them first and ask questions later. She made it back to the office without a problem though, just a few minutes before Harry came in with Pansy.
Harry looked around, about to ask where Neville was when they came in. Neville, Luna and Fleur had a dozen people with them, and all of them had small satchels. Luna and Neville were carrying bags from the Apothecary. "Sorry it took so long, but we stopped to get a few things."
Harry nodded. "Moody's people are covering the Leaky Cauldron end of the Alley, and the twins have the other end covered. We're stuck in the middle, but Shacklebolt's people are moving to Mr. Sharpstar's office, and we'll hit the Wankers from two sides."
Harry looked at the healers. "You will stay here, and we will bring you any injured, unless they can't be moved. In that case, Luna, you and Fleur will follow Neville. Neville, I'm counting on you to keep them safe."
Neville stood a bit straighter. "You can count on me, Harry."
Harry looked at his ladies. "You three will do the same things you always do," he said but before he could go any further, Pansy interrupted him.
"You are not going to rush out there, Harry. You have things you have to do, and leading the battle is impossible from the inside of it. If Voldemort shows up, we'll need you to be fresh."
Harry looked at her coldly. "I will do what needs to be done to save people. My people first, and then everyone who is not a Death Wanker. You will not try to stop me. You can cover me, protect me, even scream at me, but you will not try to stop me." Harry was staring at Pansy, and Pansy felt a flash of fear. Not that Harry would hurt her, she knew he wouldn't, but that she would do something that caused Harry to reconsider their deal.
Hermione stepped up and placed a hand on Harry's arm. "Relax, Harry," she said soothingly, "Pansy doesn't know you that well yet. She doesn't know that you couldn't stay here while people were fighting for you."
Pansy frowned at Harry and Hermione, wanting to remind them that Harry had to live, and then she looked at Harry again. The fire was burning deep in his eyes again, banked, but waiting to explode, when it was needed. When Harry was needed. She thought about how Harry had been raised, and how it would give him both a burning need to prove himself and a fear of losing people he cared about, who cared about him.
Pansy would have an easier time convincing the sun not to rise than she would convincing Harry to stay behind. "You had better be careful, Harry," she said finally, "because if you allow something to happen to you, I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall about your secret crush on her."
Harry, Ginny and Hermione all looked sick. "That is just eww," Ginny said.
"I might have put it a bit differently," Harry said, shivering at the thought of waking up with the Gryffindor House head like he did the three girls, "but I agree with the sentiment."
Hermione frowned at Harry. "I hope you don't feel that way in twenty years or so. I fully intend on being the next Gryffindor house head if you're not."
Everyone turned to stare at Hermione, who looked back. "What? Did you think I was going to be a housewife? I want to teach, and the pinnacle of teaching in Hogwarts is being a House head. Harry will be Headmaster of course, after he's the DADA Professor for a few years, but he'll be a better flying instructor."
Harry smiled at Hermione. "And what will Ginny and Pansy be doing?"
Hermione blushed. "I have not yet factored them into the picture yet. I started daydreaming about this years ago, but it would be nice."
Harry thought about it for a second. "You know," he said in a surprised tone, "it's not that bad of an idea, really. I did like teaching the DA."
"And you were good at it," said Ginny thoughtfully, "but Ron was hoping you'd be the Seeker for the Cannons while he played Keeper."
Harry smiled. "I like Quidditch, but every time I play a game, something happens, and that would get old quick. I may play for a year or two, if someone offers me a chance after this current problem is over."
Before they could continue their discussion, Lee Jordan came in the door. He was tense, and he had his wand tightly grasped in one hand. "Fred says we need to work on a communication system. We have a dozen Death Eaters hiding at our end of the Alley, and from the way they're acting, they're waiting for something."
Harry grinned tightly. "Then let's give them something to see." He looked around. "Pansy, Hermione, Ginny, you three come with me. Lee, go back to the shop and tell them to be ready to move on my signal. We'll open the game this time."
Harry laid out what he was going to do swiftly and looked at Neville. "Floo over to the Leaky Cauldron and tell Moody what's going on. Tell him we're starting in fifteen minutes."
OoOoOoO Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Miranda and Pansy, Diagon Alley. OoOoOoO
Harry was walking with the three girls and having a great time. He had Ginny's arm on one side and Hermione's on the other side, with Pansy linked to Hermione. The four of them were doing, or trying to do, a Muggle dance called the bunny hop.
Hermione was directing the dance line, but not having a lot of success, mostly because they couldn't stay in step, and when they did fall into unison, usually by accident, Harry couldn't dance for anything.
They were having a great deal of fun though, ignoring everyone around them and laughing a great deal. Miranda was walking behind them, with the pained expression of a woman being forced to associate with lunatics. Harry was looking around occasionally, using the Charms built into his glasses and the Greysight to look for the enemy.
He found them finally, just a few doors down from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and passed that information to the others under cover of instructions and kisses.
Desmond Blackstone was watching Harry Potter acting like an idiot and smirking. The fool had no idea that they were about to lay waste to Diagon Alley, leaving only the Daily Prophet and Gringotts alone. The other teams would be in position in less than three minutes and then they would drop the illusions and be revealed in all their Death Eater glory. Panic and fear would begin, and then they were to destroy as much as possible.
Lord Voldemort wanted mass mayhem and destruction and Desmond was only too happy to provide it for the Lord. He was watching Potter and planning the attack when everything went to hell.
OoOoOoO Moody and crew, The Leaky Cauldron. OoOoOoO
Moody had listened to Neville's terse report and sent him back to his post. Moody filled the others in and they started slipping out, two by two, heading for the Alley. The first two were barely out the back door when the Hounds of Hades broke loose.
OoOoOoO Shacklebolt's team, Diagon Alley. OoOoOoO
Kingsley Shacklebolt was frowning at his team, examining them. He knew how Tonks and Wilkes would react, of course, as they were both trained Aurors. The Weasley brothers, Charlie and Bill, had the solid look of professionals, and given that one was a curse breaker and the other a dragon handler, he wasn't too worried about them. Remus Lupin was a good man, and would be an asset.
The others though, were from the old Order of the Phoenix, and they might be a different story. Diggle was a weak fighter at best, more suited for intelligence gathering, and the rest of Professor Dumbledore's people were the same way.
He wasted a second wishing he had Moody or Miranda here and then looked at the ones he did have. Molly Weasley was here, and after the incident at the Burrow, Shacklebolt wasn't going to worry about her. She would be looking for revenge. Arthur was a quiet man, and Shacklebolt didn't know him well enough to say how he'd do. The two of them would make a good team though, having been married all those years. He put Mrs. Jemappes with the older Weasleys, since she didn't know the Alley that well.
He was interrupted by a knock at the door of the office. He opened it and a dozen people came in. In front was a girl he recognized well. Susan Bones was his former superior's niece after all, and she'd been around the Ministry enough. "Hello, Mr. Shacklebolt. Hermione thought you might like to have a few trained people with you. All of my people were in the DA, and are trained by Harry."
Shacklebolt looked at the kids and was about to say something about how young they were when Susan spoke again. "All of us fought at Hogwarts, Mr. Shacklebolt, and acquitted ourselves as well as any. Don't look at our age, look at our experience. All of us have faced werewolves and Death Eaters without freezing or dying." She grinned at him. "Besides, who else is going to come help you?"
He sighed, looking at the group. Susan he knew, but the rest were students he'd never met. He looked at Susan. "Have you been told about Harry's rules about fighting?"
She frowned, staring at him. "Unless he taught them to the DA, no."
Shacklebolt grinned. "Harry doesn't like to lose people, so we're not fighting fair anymore. Gang up on a Death Eater, and keep hammering him until he's out of the fight for good. Incapacitated is good, dead is better. We don't leave any of our people behind. Understand?"
Susan looked startled. "Harry is ramping it up a notch, isn't he? I can live with that." She looked at the people that had come with her, standing there watching her. "Anyone have a problem with the rules?"
They looked at each other and back at her. "No." Stephen Corner, Michael's younger brother grinned at her. "In fact, I think I can live with those rules," he said, "even if they're against the Duelling code."
Susan looked back at Shacklebolt. "I've been thinking about what we're going to do since Hermione Flooed me. You know the people you have, and I know my people. What do you say we each take a side of the street, and clean up our own side? That way there is no confusion about orders." She saw his look and shrugged. "Aunt Amelia spoke often enough about the job, I had to learn something."
Shacklebolt smiled sadly at her. "She was a great woman, and she will be missed."
Susan looked up, and her eyes were fey, as was the smile she wore. "And avenged."
Shacklebolt looked at the strange smile she wore and was about to say something when multiple Apparation cracks sounded outside, and screams started.
They were headed for the door when the inhuman wail sounded outside.
OoOoOoO Harry and the girls, Diagon Alley. OoOoOoO
Harry waited a few seconds longer and then the four of them acted. Four wands came up and two voices shouted curses while the other two put up shields over the four of them, and then joined the other voices in cursing the enemy.
Desmond went down in the first wave of Hexes, as Ginny showed off a new spell she'd learned from Charlie. 'Concussion' was a high powered spell, designed to knock out or stop a dragon. What it did to the thinner skin and smaller bones of a human was ugly, as Desmond was literally and liberally splashed over his associates.
Ginny shuddered as she saw the results, but her voice didn't change as she targeted the next Death Eater. She did use a different spell though.
The Death Eaters, not used to being attacked, and very surprised by having the remains of their leader strewn over them like so much strawberry jam, hesitated for an instant before bringing their wands up, and that was long enough for Harry's spell to land among them.
"Bite them," Harry called in Parseltongue to the snake he'd conjured in the middle of the Death Eaters, and the snake obeyed, biting the nearest one. Harry had been imagining a poisonous snake when he cast the spell, and that was exactly what he got. The Australian Sea Snake is accounted to be one of the most poisonous snakes in the world, and Harry had conjured a forty centimetre one.
The first Death Eater bitten started screaming as the poison ate at him, and the confusion grew in their ranks as some tried to fight the Wizards and some of them concentrated on the snake. Three Death Eater fell to their own people as curses flung at the snake in haste missed.
It took less than nine seconds from the first curse for the Death Eaters to lose half their number, and the defenders in the WWW were barely starting out the door when the snake bit the second of its victims.
With the odds changing dramatically, the Death Eaters tried to show discretion and flee the snake and the exploding curses Harry was sending their way now. They quickly found out that someone had put up wards against Apparation and suddenly, there were only two Death Eaters standing. They'd finally gotten the snake, and they were hiding behind a rapidly weakening shield. They looked at each other and one of them dropped his wand. "I surrender," he called, and the other followed suit.
Harry looked at them, his wand pointed at them, and the two Death Eaters paled. Harry was not lowering his wand at all. Hermione looked at Harry and years of watching him allowed her to almost read the thoughts he was having.
Harry looked at the two scum sucking evil things in front of him and seriously thought about cursing them anyway. He was stopped by a warm hand on his arm and a voice in his ear. "Harry, you have to give them one chance, and there are people watching us that are not our people."
Harry looked around. Nearly thirty Diagon Alley storekeepers and shoppers were standing around, frozen by the violence that had erupted in their midst. The whole fight had lasted less than two minutes and none of Harry's people had so much as a scratch.
Fred and George were baring the arms of the Death Eaters, showing the Dark Mark off to the entire alley.
"You have changed, Harry." Rita Skeeter was quiet, almost subdued for nearly a whole minute as she looked at the scene, and then she turned to Harry. "Care to give me that interview now, Mr. Potter?" She directed her photographer to take pictures of the scene and turned back to Harry.
Harry was holding a shaking Ginny and barely registered the reporter. Hermione stepped up. "Your last article was not bad, and Harry is willing to grant you some limited access, provided that your writing continues to be honest, as regards Harry and his friends."
Harry looked over Ginny's head. "It wasn't? I haven't even seen it yet," he said mildly.
Hermione waved him off. "I read it this morning over breakfast, and while it was slightly speculative at the end, it was factual, except where she had questions she didn't have answers to. I'll handle the press, Harry, you worry about Ginny right now."
Harry nodded. "Thank you, Hermione."
Fred and George looked at the crowd gathering and at each other. George looked at Harry. "Harry, you forgot to sign your work."
Harry turned his head and regarded the twins and the line of Death Eater bodies, some of whom were still alive, and the two prisoners. He looked down at Ginny. "Would you like to be the first?"
Ginny looked up from Harry's chest, having had started to recover from the first effects of seeing one of her spells turned a man into a fine red mist. "The first to what?"
Harry whispered something in her ear and they spoke for a second. "Remember, this is an easy spell according to Fred and George, so I know you can do it."
Ginny nodded. She raised her wand and cast the spell Harry had gone to the twins for a week ago. "Electricus."
A massive green lightning bolt, the same shade as Harry's eyes erupted from Ginny's wand with a loud thunderous roar, to hang over the scene.
Harry rolled his eyes. "I thought I said something tasteful and decent, to cover and destroy the Dark Mark," he chided the twins.
"Harry, you may be"
"the best fighter in"
"the world, but we"
"are the best at"
"attracting attention"
"and this will be"
"a better image for"
"people to remember"
"in the long run."
Harry looked at the people coming out of the stores and shops along the Alley, gathering to gawk at the scene. "I hope you're right," he muttered.
OoOoOoO Moody's crew, The alley behind the Leaky Cauldron. OoOoOoO
The first two people that Moody had sent toward the alley and the brick wall that was the entrance to Diagon Alley had opened the door to find a mass of Death Eaters on the other side, with one of them just opening the wall.
Surprise didn't help anyone this time, as both sides were completely taken aback. The two retired Aurors reacted as they'd been trained, stepping aside and using the doorway for shelter as they raised their wands.
The Death Eaters in the rear had been just as surprised, but the sight of rising wands triggered their reactions, and they jumped aside to raise their own wands.
The Aurors had the advantage of partial cover, but the Death Eaters had numbers, and the two Aurors were soon down, only to have two more take their place. Moody saw what was happening and snarled. "Monroe!" he barked. "Get up here and make some space for us!"
A thin man, shorter even than Harry, and very nearly as skinny, wormed up to where he could see. "Not a problem, mate," he said gleefully. He rummaged around in his bag for a second and pulled out a strange cannister. Moody had no idea what it was, but he knew he didn't want to be caught in its effects.
Monroe giggled madly as he tapped the cannister with his wand and rolled it out among the Death Eater's feet and pulled back inside the door. The two Aurors that had been throwing spells at the Death Eaters were familiar with Monroe as well, and they pulled back, one of them putting a shield over the open door
"Pusht!" A strange thumping pop sound came from the alley, followed shortly by a hissing sound. Shortly after the hissing, the screams and cries of Death Eaters sounded. Monroe listened to the sounds coming out of the Alley, including a lot of thuds and banging as Death Eaters apparently ran into the walls and each other, trying to escape the effects of the strange cannister. He giggled and raised his wand, acting as if he was conducting the discordant sounds coming from outside.
They stopped shortly and Monroe cocked his head and cast a spell. "It's safe now. They're in no condition to bother us."
Moody stepped up to the door and looked out. All the people that had been in the alley were laying around, their bodies twisted in strange ways as if they'd been convulsing when they passed out or died, as Moody could see at least one of them with blood pouring from his mouth. "Why didn't the Ministry want to use your gadgets again?"
Monroe frowned and then pouted like a child unable to play with his toys. "They said a forty percent mortality rate was too high."
Moody stared at Monroe with his normal eye while the magical eye inspected the people in the alley. "These are Death Eaters." He looked around at his friends, the Aurors who the Ministry said were too old, too damaged or too insane to work anymore. "Anyone have a problem with a few dead ones?"
The only response he got was from the old healer that had worked on Harry at the Inferno. "I do. It's not high enough. We lost Dianne." He looked up from the Auror who had been the one to find the Death Eaters. "Have Monroe roll a few more of those things out there. Maybe we'll get them all."
Moody restrained Monroe as he giggled and reached into his pouch. "Not this time, lad. Too many witnesses."
Just then, they saw a green lightning bolt appear through the open Alley entrance. Moody stepped inside Diagon Alley and responded with another before returning to his friends.
Moody looked around at the gathering Wizards and lowered his voice. "It won't always be like this, though."
The answering smiles that comment got would have given a dragon pause.
OoOoOoO Shacklebolt and Susan Bones, Diagon Alley. OoOoOoO
The wail ended suddenly and the sounds of a voice screaming curses game from outside. Susan frowned. "I know that voice," she said and started toward the door.
Outside, a single small figure advanced toward the Death Eaters that had suddenly appeared in the Alley and the lone person was Cursing them continuously, spells flying as fast as she could draw breath.
She hit several, and actually knocked two down, but they recovered from being attacked quickly and a single Avada Kedavra flew at her.
Hannah Abbott died there, never knowing that she had managed to kill one Death Eater.
Susan and Shacklebolt rushed out in time to see her go down and Susan moaned. "Hannah," she whispered, recognizing the young girl who had lost her last family so recently.
Susan's team joined her and Shacklebolt took his people to the other side of the Alley. They looked at each other and started up the Alley.
The Death Eaters were starting the destruction Voldemort had sent them to cause, but because of Hannah's maddened attack, they were looking for trouble and the Battle of Diagon Alley began.
On one side, twenty people united only by compassion and a need to help their fellow man. On the other side, twenty people united by a desire to rule over and control others.
In a fantasy world, the good guys would win and live happily ever after.
Shacklebolt, Tonks and Wilkes were leading on the left side of the street, and managed to find cover as Curses and Hexes came their way.
Susan Bones, Stephen Corner and Dennis Creevy were leading on the right and Stephen took a second to push Dennis into cover, a second that cost him, as a cutting curse took most of his arm off. He dropped, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Dennis grabbed him and dragged him under cover. Charlie Weasley threw a Portkey across the road. "It will take him to St. Mungo's," he shouted.
Dennis nodded and set it on Corner's chest. He tapped it with his wand and the injured boy disappeared.
Susan and Cho Chang were alternating Curses as they tried to keep the Death Eaters down while Dennis dealt with Stephen.
It was a good idea for a minute, until the Death Eaters figured out that when one of them went down, the other one would pop up and throw a curse.
Cho Chang took a Killing Curse full in the face.
Shacklebolt and the two female Aurors were more cautious, popping up at random intervals and never from the same place twice. They had taken three Death Eaters down when a blood red beam caught Tonks full in the chest and she fell.
Remus Lupin saw his friend and love go down and cast a curse in the Death Eater's direction as he sprang up, rushing to Tonks. He dropped in front of her, sheltering her with his own body as he cast Curse after Curse in the direction of the enemy. Shacklebolt and Wilkes redoubled their efforts as Remus dragged Tonks back to cover, using the enhanced strength that was one of the few good things about his affliction.
He looked at Tonks, and his fear surged as he saw the hole in her chest and the blood pouring out. Remus scooped Tonks up and Apparated away.
Shacklebolt saw that and was relieved that Tonks was being looked after, but it dropped his effective forces by two. The Death Eaters were coming out on the losing end of the fight so far, but they were casting deadly curses while half of his forces, mostly the older Order of the Phoenix people, were not.
Bill Weasley was using a single Curse, and Shacklebolt didn't know what it was, but he wanted to. Anyone hit with Bill's curse simply turned to dust and drifted away in the slight breeze blowing. It was slow though and he missed more often then he hit, but he could cast it without fear of missing, as it didn't seem to affect anything not made of flesh that it hit.
Charlie was using the 'Concussion" spell Ginny had used just a minute ago in another part of the Alley, and between the two of them, the Death Eaters were beginning to concentrate on the attackers.
Explosive Hexes and deadly Curses rained down on the buildings and shields of the Light side Wizards, and the tide was slowly turning in the favor of the Death Eaters, who had far more experience in fighting than the other side. Susan lost another of her people when Jerry Bujold, fourth year Hufflepuff and member of the DA, pushed another person out of the way of a Killing Curse.
A thunderous roar caught everyone's attention, and they watched as a green lightening bolt appeared some distance away. "Yes!" cried Charlie. "Harry's won his fight."
A few seconds later, another roar announced the forming of a second bolt, in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron. "It appears Mad-Eye Moody won his fight as well."
Bill looked at Shacklebolt. "You know what this means, don't you?" he asked loudly, over the fighting. "We only have to hold the ground. The others will be coming any second now."
Lucius Malfoy heard the comment and he swore under his breath. If those things in the sky meant what they said they did, then he was about to be surrounded. On the other hand, if it was a trick, and he fled, Lord Voldemort would not be happy.
Worse yet, the fools fighting them had killed Nott and Goyle, and that crazy girl had gotten Rabin Lestrange as well. He looked around and brought his remaining forces closer together and had eight of them casting in turn at the two knots of the defenders that were here now.
That made them keep their heads down, able to get off only occasional shots, and Lucius looked around. The buildings on either side of him were burning, and there were a dozen or so dead Diagon Alley residents laying around them. They had done at least part of what they were supposed to do in the Alley.
He winced as that Weasley boy caught one of his people and the Death Eater simply vanished in a fine red mist, leaving only a pair of dragon hide boots standing in the street. The boots were filled with something red and gooey Lucius didn't want to know about.
Lucius had four of his people watching behind them, and suddenly one of them was down, gasping around a throat red with his blood.
One of the others swore and cast a curse. "It's Potter, and a whole bunch of others."
Lucius looked behind him. Potter was coming, darting from cover to cover as a dozen or more people covered his advance. With him was the Weasley girl, that Mudblood Granger, her Defender and Pansy. He sneered at the thought of that girl being anything but a man's play toy. Far behind them, he could see Mad Eye Moody leading another group this way.
Potter came closer and Lucius could see the smirk as Potter cast a curse. Lucius didn't hear the curse, but he knew what it was instantly, as a two metre snake appeared in the midst of his group. He heard Harry yell something in a sibulant language Lucius had heard too many times to mistake.
"Everyone retreat," he called, and Apparated away. Potter was here, that insane Moody was coming, and Lucius was not going to be trapped between them.
OoOoOoO The Order Without a Name, Diagon Alley. OoOoOoO
It had been nearly an hour since the last Death Eater fled, and Harry was finally getting reports on all his people.
Hermione came up with a list in her hands and a distressed look. "I have the final counts," she said slowly. "Moody lost Dianne, and captured nine Death Eaters, with five more dead."
She sighed. "Shacklebolt and Susan ran into more trouble. Hannah Abbott attacked the Death Eaters before they got there, and was killed."
Harry sighed heavily. Hermione continued. "With the Death Eaters alerted, they had the only pitched fight. They also had the largest group of Death Eaters to fight. We lost Cho Chang and Stephen Corner. He bled to death at St. Mungo's before they could help him. We also lost another young man, Jerry Bujold. Tonks is still unknown. She may or may not live out the night."
Harry paled and closed his eyes, remembering the woman he'd had a crush on and his first date with. Stephen Corner he didn't know as well, but Ginny did, and Jerry had been one of the DA. He wasn't very good, but he'd been willing to try and endlessly eager to be a part of the group.
Harry pushed all of that aside. One of his, one of his family was in the hospital tonight, holding onto her life with a thread.
Hermione touched his hand. "We have six dead there and two captured. We of course, captured nine and killed three."
"Total Death Eaters confirmed, forty-six. Of them we have twenty prisoners and eleven dead ones. The rest escaped." Hermione moved closer and wormed her way under his arm. "We lost four of ours and Tonks. Everyone else has been seen by a healer and will be fine within a week."
Harry closed his eyes. Four people that trusted him were gone. Moody looked at the young man. He had led Aurors, and he had lost Aurors, so he knew exactly what Harry was feeling right now.
He looked down the street. "Are you God, Potter?"
Harry looked at him. "No." he said, not understanding what Moody was saying.
Moody looked at him with his normal eye. "Only God can save everyone, Harry. The rest of us have to watch them go sometimes, and are left behind to wonder what we could have done to save them. Most times, the answer will be nothing. Sometimes, you will find something you could have done, and hopefully, you will learn from it." Moody looked at Harry for a second, using both eyes. "Most of the time,you'll just be spending wasted nights looking for something you could have done."
Harry stared at the bit of the Alley that had been destroyed. His people had fallen here. "Will it ever get easier?"
Moody shook his head slowly. "Only for those who are losing respect for life, Mr. Potter. Voldemort doesn't feel anything when he kills his own, but any human being with a shred of decency will always be hurt when someone they know is killed." Moody stared at the scene as the Aurors took the last of the bodies away and the Ministry cleaning crew set to work. "That they died for you, on your orders, or doing something you asked them to do, will only make it worse."
Harry watched as the Ministry erased the fight that had gone on here and had the irrational thought that Diagon Alley should look like the blasted lives of the ones that had died here for a few days at least.
Hermione was still holding Harry and she was the first to feel the tendrils of his magic. She looked up at Harry and followed his gaze. She watched as one of the Ministry people cleaned a part of the street. She looked back, finding Ginny with her eyes.
Ginny saw Hermione's look and started toward them. She understood what was happening as soon as she got close enough to feel Harry's magic exploring the people around him. Pansy saw Ginny heading for Harry and followed her until she felt the magic.
Harry ended up with all three girls clustered around him. "What's wrong, Harry?"
Harry glanced at Ginny, his eyes full of pain, guilt and a growing anger. "This is not right. People died here, gave their lives, so that all these other people can live in peace, and they are erasing everything, so that it can be glossed over or forgotten."
The three girls tried, but Harry's guilt over the people that had died for him and his anger as he watched their efforts being erased combined. "I have had enough."
Harry broke free from the girls and stood in the street, his magic a visible presence around him. He looked down and something changed in him as he stared at the parchment at his feet.
"Cho Chang, Student, Killing Curse."
Harry's feelings exploded as someone he knew and cared about was reduced to a name and three words. That parchment said nothing about her intelligence, her Seeker's skills or anything that had caught his eye, and made her a person.
He knelt, unsure of what he was going to do, but knowing he had to do something. He focused on what he wanted, and released his magic, as he had in the Inferno test.
Magic poured out of Harry in waves, freezing everyone in range where they stood as the magic touched them, examined them and moved on. Some of the people it touched it did not leave, and glowing bands of light soon connected Harry to Hermione, Moody and three others Harry didn't know. One of them was the senior Ministry person cleaning the scene and the other two were Diagon Alley residents.
The rest of the people watched in awe as Harry began glowing, a rich golden colour that soon grew too bright to look at directly.
Moody, Hermione and the others felt Harry's magic touching them, reading them somehow, and then Harry screamed.
The sound was filled with anger, guilt and defiance. The magic grew, changing the glow around Harry to a white light, causing even the people that had their backs turned to close their eyes against the glare.
It disappeared in an instant, leaving everyone blinking spots from their eyes. When their vision cleared, they stood there, looking at Harry's addition to the Alley.
It was a life size statue of a dozen people, nondescript people, until you actually looked at them. They stood there, and something in the way they stood made it clear that they would not back down from anything, no matter what the cost to themselves.
Everyone who saw the statue saw different things, according to their own nature. Harry saw his parents, Cedric and Sirius, standing side by side with Cho, Stephen, Jerry and Hannah, while you could feel the presence of someone standing over them, someone that was not there. Harry thought it felt like Albus Dumbledore.
Hermione saw Cho and Hannah, Stephen and other members of the DA that were fighting the war, and she could feel Harry's presence watching over them.
Ginny saw Gideon and Fabian, uncles she'd never met, killed in the first phase of the war, along with the other people she'd known that had died. She also felt Harry standing guard over them.
Moody would never admit who he saw in the statues, but Harry suspected that he saw the Aurors that he'd buried. Moody did say he could feel Albus sheltering the statue.
Hermione broke the spell the statue caused and looked at the small silver coloured plaque in front of it. It bore just two words.
"Never Forget."
Hermione looked at the statue for a minute and then went to Harry. "How?"
Harry looked at her. He smiled sadly as he went back to studying it. "I don't know. I wanted to make sure that people remembered the cost of their freedom, and to make something that would remind them of everything that our people paid. My magic went from there."
Hermione nodded as another piece of the Harry puzzle fell into place for her. She resolved to do a bit of experimentation. This would have to resolved before Harry let loose with a less benevolent use of magic. Hermione had wished many times since viewing the Inferno test that the wards on the Inferno box had lasted long enough for her to see what Harry's magic would have done to the Death Eaters and Voldemort.
She suspected it would not have been pretty, whatever it was.
Hermione looked at the statue again and realized that it was reacting to her emotional state. She went around then, talking to everyone looking at the statue, and by the time she was done, she was certain that there was some sort of magic on the statue, that interacted with a viewer's emotions, making them feel the personalities of whomever they saw, and the price they paid for the rest of the Wizarding world.
She frowned at Harry for a minute, knowing that he had no idea how he did this. Hermione was a logical girl, far happier with the precision of Arithmancy and Runes than with Charms or Transfigurations. She could do those things, but Hermione wanted to know why and how you got a result, and it was easy to see in her preferred arts.
Harry though, was not as worried about how or why, merely about results. Hermione was certain that Harry had just pushed his magic out and said something like, "Do this," never worrying about how it would be done. That was the only problem he had in Transfigurations, as his emotional state of the moment would infuse itself in whatever Transfiguration he was doing.
Now, with the information she had, Hermione was very upset at herself for not seeing the signs of something different about Harry's relation with magic from first year. As she thought about everything they'd done, it was obvious that Harry was an Aestuomagius.
Harry was as driven by emotion as Hermione was by logic. She had made the comment about his 'saving people thing' but it wasn't about the heroics, it was just Harry, able to feel for anyone, even those that he'd never met. Hermione sometimes regretted that comment, but Harry had never held it against her, and she knew better now.
She jumped, reaching for her wand as a flare of light and a sharp report sounded. She looked up in time to see one of the Ministry cleaning crew blown across the street to lay in a moaning heap.
"Stop!" Moody's voice was urgent and the Ministry person about to cast another spell on the statue froze, staring at the old Auror. "I know that shield, sonny, and you won't like what happens to you if you cast a spell on the statue."
Harry smirked and looked around. "If my people would come with me, we have things to do today."
The senior Ministry man looked at Harry and Harry just stared at him, daring him to say anything. The man wisely passed on that, continuing to check on his injured worker.
Moody stepped up close to the man. "That statue is protected by an Auror's spell, a shield called Retribution. It returns any spell cast at it as a stinging hex. The stronger the spell you cast on it, the stronger the stinging hex is." Moody regarded the statue thoughtfully. "I would like to know how he made it self sustaining though. I always thought you had to concentrate on that spell."
The Ministry man sighed. "He's Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. What makes you think there's anything he can't do?"
A few seconds later, only the spectators and the clean up people were left.
OoOoOoO Voldemort, Somewhere in England. OoOoOoO
Voldemort held Lucius's limp body as he thought about the scene he'd just torn out of Lucius's memory. He dropped the unconscious man and stalked around the room, only vaguely aware that the remains of his strike force was scrambling to stay out of his way.
Harry Bloody Potter had done it again. He'd defeated his Death Eaters, and this time, it had been decisive. In the Ministry, none of the Death Eaters had died, and Voldemort had gotten them all back.
This time, at least a few had died, and fully two thirds of them were captured. He swore and continued to think. He should have seen this coming. Albus Dumbledore had been unwilling to escalate the fighting, but Potter had no such compunctions.
Well, Voldemort had known that sooner or later, the fighting would get heavier, and he'd been planning for that time for over a decade. "Lestrange, go to the Baron, and tell him that I want to see him. Then go to the Den and tell the werewolf the same thing. After that, you will go to Lucifer in Hades and tell him that our time has come."
Bellatrix smirked as the last Lestrange brother went pale. Voldemort just looked at him. "Lucifer will not kill you, since I am stronger than he is, and I would kill him for depriving me of a good tool. Now, go."
Rudolph Lestrange bowed, with the look of a man going to the gallows, and disappeared.
Voldemort looked at Bella. "You have a meeting and a duel tomorrow. I think you should retire to your rooms alone tonight. I want you to destroy that woman tomorrow, and I don't want you tired or drained when you meet her."
Bella smiled at Voldemort. "Thank you, My Lord." She turned to go.
"Oh, Bella?"
She turned,watching her master. "Take Lucius with you and leave him in his room. Lock the door on your way out."
Bella looked at the other Death Eaters that had returned from the failed mission and smiled. Someone was going to pay for their lord's anger, and Bella only wished she could watch. She grabbed Lucius by a foot and dragged him out, making sure to hit a corner or two with the body she was dragging.
She locked the door and waited a minute. When the first screams rose from the other side, she smiled and dragged Lucius down the hall, her insanity supplying pictures to go with the screams.
By the time she reached her rooms after dropping Lucius on the floor of his room, she was nearly in tears. Her clothes disappeared as she fell on her bed and tried to relieve the ache of pleasure, imagining the scene in her Lord's chamber right now.
In her mind, her Lord stood over everyone that opposed him, and Bella knelt at his side. She drifted off to sleep on the aftermath of a dozen orgasms,dreaming of the fight to come, her fingers working even as she slept and dreamt of a tall dark woman in leather armour.
OoOoOoO Harry and crew, The Montrose Seat. OoOoOoO
Harry and the rest of the party had been met by Blaise and Daphne when they arrived at the Montrose manor, and Blaise had been more than willing to show Harry around the huge house, but Harry was more interested in the people in the house, and he'd soon been surrounded by people he'd met just once.
Most of them were young women, with a smattering of children of both sexes and a very few men. Each of the men that had come were attached emotionally to one of the women, and Harry was not surprised to find that none of them had the same last name as the woman they liked.
He anticipated a lot of requests to marry one of his people coming in the near future. Mostly from another of his people.
Blaise and Daphne had been talking to the new people, and they treated Harry with the respect due the head of their family, but without the awe that he hated so much.
Violet had been the first to treat him differently, running up and jumping in his lap to touch his scar again, and ask if he needed a kiss. Harry had held her and been about to say no when he looked at her again. He nodded, and she put her little arms around his neck and laid a light kiss, like the fluttering of a butterfly's wings, on his scar.
Someone else started to scold Violet and Harry stopped them. "Let her be."
Violet smiled at Harry. "You're my," she frowned, trying to remember the word,"House something, but I don't understand that. I think you're my big brother, aren't you?"
Harry smiled at the small girl, enchanted by the purity and innocence of this small girl. "Yes,Violet, you're my little sister."
Violet smiled and hugged Harry. Harry kept an arm around her as he looked up. The crowd around him had started murmuring as soon as he spoke, and he looked at them, wondering what he'd done now.
Hermione leaned over. "I love you, Harry, but I wish we had a bit of time to teach you the customs. You've just made that girl your heir, if something happens to you."
Harry looked at her and Hermione sighed. "Since all of your family is adopted, and you have no blood relations here, they will get their place in your families by your word. Naming her your little sister makes her your closest relative."
Harry sighed. "Today, I don't care. I just want to spend some time with a few people that don't have battle and death on their minds all the time. Is that so much to ask?"
Hermione shook her head. "Not from me, but some of them have fears that may need assuaging."
Harry sighed. "I'll deal with that as I need to," he said, looking at Violet, who was fussing with his Wizengamot pin. "For now, I'm just going to enjoy the day."
Hermione frowned at Harry. He was far too happy, given the events of the day and she didn't understand it. She looked at him and watched as he talked gently to Violet, and then it hit her. Harry was responding to the emotions of the little girl. She knew nothing of pain or fear and the idea of worrying about tomorrow had not intruded on her world view yet.
Harry was responding to that, and Hermione nodded. If Harry could pick up on ambient emotions around him, that would explain why he'd been miserable at the Dursley's forever and why he'd exploded in anger almost as soon as he'd entered Grimmauld Place. The place was Dark and full of years of anger and hate.
She watched then, as Harry opened up under the admiration and gratitude of these people, who knew only that Harry had saved them and didn't care about anything else. They had lunch in the garden, and for a few scant hours, even Hermione managed to forget what waited for them.
Harry's carefree time ended though, when a ghost approached him. "You are the one who would be the Montrose."
Harry looked up, and Hermione could feel the change in him as he studied the ghost. The man was dressed in the simple robes of an much earlier time. Hermione studied him, comparing him to pictures in her history books and decided his fashions had been made sometime in the fifth century AD. The ghost was an older man, in his forties by his appearance, which for a wizard meant he could be anything from forty to eighty. Hermione wasn't sure, but she thought he might have had dark hair in life, although the pale shades of a ghost made that hard to determine.
"I am the Montrose," Harry said then, interrupting her thoughts. "What do you want?"
"I am Emberic, first of the line that would become the Montroses, and I have some information for your ears only, unless you have a Lady Montrose."
Harry looked at Hermione. "Miss Hermione Granger-Black will be Lady Montrose in a year or so."
The ghost examined Hermione, much as she had examined him a minute earlier. "That is good. The line will continue." He looked at Harry again. ""You have the blood, supposedly. We shall see." He looked at Hermione again. "Would you please hold Mr. Montrose's hand?"
Hermione stood up as Harry did, setting Violet down. She crossed to him, wondering what was going to happen now. When they were holding hands the ghost spoke again. "Harry James Potter-Black-Montrose claims the Montrose Seat, and the responsibilities thereof."
The people watching froze in horror and panic. Where Harry and Hermione had stood a second ago was absolutely nothing. They had disappeared without a trace. Pansy groaned and Ginny sighed. "Here we go again."
OoOoOoO The Author, Here and Now. OoOoOoO
Hehe... Harry just can't do anything normally, can he?
More coming, after a chapter of BoB and one of PoE. Have fun until then.
On another note, I am amazed at the sheer numbers of you that love this story. Y'all are starting to make me nervous... I hope I don't disappoint anyone with what's going to be happening.
Raven
