Disclaimer; Same as always.
Ooooooooo
When Harry woke up in a dark hole, his initial thoughts were nothing that could be repeated in polite company. At the same time, he was singing the praises of whoever made his glasses. When he asked that no one other than himself be able to remove them, he was only thinking of its uses in a duel. Right now, the night vision charms were making the price worth it.
Without getting up Harry could see that he was not alone in his captivity, his friends were with him. Whether because of power, luck, or just because he had been hit with stunners enough, Harry was the first one awake. The Death Eaters had apparently been honest about the intention to use them as hostages. They had thrown them into what basically amounted to a stone pit with sheer walls. Harry could not see any guards around the top but that didn't mean they weren't there. His book was still stuck to his chest and mostly unharmed since he had been hit in the back, which hurt like the devil himself had laid into him. Somehow either during the fight or after being taken captive, his left arm had been wrenched from its socket.
Ron looked the worst of his friends; he had several small cuts and a wide variety of bruises. It appeared that he had been given the bare minimum first aid needed to keep him alive before dropping down here. Ginny had two vicious looking bruises and a cut near her hairline that had dripped blood down her face. It looked worse than it was. Hermione was nearly unharmed, a simple stunner had taken her down, but he didn't doubt there were injuries he couldn't see.
He heard footsteps from up above and his scar burst to life with pain. It was all he could do to roll over and curl into a ball, his face away from the open top of the pit. With his eyes clenched shut he could see the doors open as Voldemort stepped into the room. The tiles in the room above were filthy and bloodstained. The opening to the pit was against the back wall, an uneven lip of broken tiles and bricks in what was clearly a dungeon somewhere. As Voldemort looked down he could see himself and others laying on the bottom. He twitched a little from the pain of having Voldemort not only so close, but in his mind feeling such sick pleasure.
"Can you see this Potter? Your friends need you, Potter. I'm going to make you watch as I kill them one by one. One more will die every twelve hours Potter, you better hurry if you want to save them. I wonder which one will finally break your spirit? Will it be the mudblood? The ginger tart? Or are you bent as a three galleon coin? Perhaps you need to watch the other Weasley die. But first, I'll give your brother a taste of what awaits him. Crucio!"
The cruiciatus curse struck Harry and he watched himself writhe and scream through Voldemort's eyes and felt the curse both from within and from without. His world was pain as his blood boiled and burned. He barely noticed that his screams and thrashing roused the others who watched horrified as the most evil man in the Wizarding world tortured their friend. After what felt like an eternity of pain, Voldemort lifted the curse and began his rant again.
"In six hours I will kill the first one unless you turn yourself over to me. Give up Potter. They say you would die for your friends, and this is your chance to do just that. Submit to me and I will release your friends. I will even ask my Death Eaters not to attack them unless it is self defense. Their fate is in your hands alone now." Voldemort left the room cackling like the mad man he was. In spite of the pain he was in Harry had to admit that if he weren't already in deep he might have fallen for the guilt trip.
Ooooooooo
As Ginny, Ron, and Hermione stirred to life, Harry gulped air into his burning lungs and tried to recover from the unforgivable. It had been awhile since he last felt the curse, but no one ever got used to it. Because of his great need and the situation he found himself in, he recovered quickly only to hear his friends panicking.
"Oh no, how could he say that to Harry? After what happened to Sirius that is exactly what Harry will do!" Hermione fretted.
"Shut up Hermione! This isn't the time to worry about whether or not Harry will come for you." Simon snapped at her.
"But if Harry shows up he will die!"
"And if he doesn't you will!"
"Oi! Harry has saved our lives before. He gave me back my Sister. He gave me back my Father. And he gave us all more time together. If this is going to be him or me, I won't ask him to die for me." Ron sounded as if he were resigned to his fate. Ginny looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding her agreement.
"Merlin, he really doesn't deserve friends like you. Alright if you all will stop panicking for two minutes, the only people dying will be Death Eaters."
"We're trapped in the bottom of a hole, with no wands and no way out. How are they going to be dieing again?" Ron asked sarcastically.
"Because if there is anything I know, it is that whatever happens you should never panic. You are all panicking! Do you think Harry panicked when he was alone with Quirrel? Or when he was in the Chamber with Ginny? Or how about when he was in the Graveyard? You were there last spring. Did he panic in the Department of Mysteries? When you panic or say that there is no way out, you sign your own death certificate."
"You're right! No prison is perfect we just need to figure out how to escape. Then we can warn Harry." Hermione's logical brain was starting to work and she began to come down slightly.
"Ok, are we agreed that we are going to try to escape and not die in a hole?" Simon asked them.
"Mate, if you've got a plan, I'm waiting to hear it. I don't want to die anymore than you do, but stop playing with us. We need to get moving before Harry gets here." Ron spoke for the group.
"I'll get you all out of here or die trying, but first I need you to do one thing for me. If we are going to get out alive I need you all to swear a wizard's oath not to reveal anything to do with me to anyone outside us four. The other option is to let me knock you out again so you can't reveal anything."
"Are you serious?" Hermione nearly shouted, "What could possibly be that important that you are trying to protect it even when our lives are on the line?"
"There will be time for questions later Hermione. Now do I brain you with a rock or do you let your magic seal the secrets? The American Department of Mysteries would be very upset if what I have to do gets out and I seriously do not want to be here when Moldy Voldy comes back."
The three friends reluctantly swore their oaths. "Good, I'm going to need to reinforce that with some more secrecy spells when we get out, but that will wait until we are well away from here. Now I've got my glasses with more charms than Moody's eye, four wands, an invisibility cloak, the book of invisibility, body armor, and a few weapons. I just need to be able to get to them. Someone help me take off my shirt."
"Why do you want someone to do that?" Ginny asked.
"First of all, my arm is not working right now. Secondly, am I the only one who has noticed the large book I have stuck to my chest? I need that book for reasons that will be abundantly clear in just a few moments." Simon worked to shuck his outer robe.
"I think you're the only one who can really see. It's pretty dark down here." Ron told him.
"Unnng!" He grunted. "Just shut up and help me. As soon as I can get in this book, I can get you wands and emergency medical supplies. I know I need at least a pain potion and someone to put my arm back where it belongs. I can see that you could all use a little help as well."
Hermione helped him get his shirt off and Harry started flipping through his pages looking for the one with his wands. He found the page and opened it with a finger tap instead of using a wand with the password. He dug around for a few seconds before pulling out the general use wands. Deciding that using a simple light spell like Lumos would give them away, Harry cast a night vision charm on his each of his friends, and a silencing spell around the lip of the pit.
"Hermione, you are on medical detail. Do what you can please, here's a first aid manual if it will help. Give me a moment and I can find you some potions. Ginny, you know the ward revealing spells from Runes, right? Tell me what wards we are going to have to break through to escape. Ron, I hope you know charms to enhance your hearing because you need to let us know if anyone is coming. I'm going to get us anything I have that might be useful."
They set to work in their various jobs. Harry searched through his collection for anything they could use on the fly. The first thing he did was to refresh the dopple juice that had worn off while he was unconscious. He pulled out his invisibility cloak, the book of invisibility, and some healing potions he was lucky to have. It turned out that he did not have anything for pain, and the potions he did have were going to be slow to work. He pulled out his set of body armor, a blend of Kevlar and dragon hide with strengthening charms and strategically placed steel plates. Also in the pile was his cattle prod and something Yuri had called a Raiden unit. The Raiden unit looked like a black leather glove with metal finger tips and wires sewn into the cuffs. When active it turned the user's magic into a deadly and damaging lightning bolt that danced across the fingertips. Also added to the pile were smoke bombs and flash bang grenades. Looking through the rest of the gear from Yuri raised an interesting question.
"Hey guys, I need some input here. Are we going to sneak out with stealth or are we going to kill everything between us and the door? Stunning and playing nice isn't an option anymore. If we fight at all we need to fight to win. So fight or flight?"
"Are you joking? We are not going to kill anyone!" Hermione nearly shrieked.
"Hermione, where are you right now? Do you feel the cold stone? Did you hear anything Voldemort said other than asking Harry to turn himself in? They are going to kill you. They are going to kill your friends. If I have to I will kill every living thing between here and Hogwarts to keep you safe, but if we just stun them they will get back up and kill you. Everyone keeps talking about loving someone enough to die for them. Now it is time to love your friends enough to kill for them." Hermione fell silent.
"Simon, I've got the wards here." Ginny broke the argument before it could gather steam. "It looks like we are someplace unplottable. There are wards against apparition, portkeys, magical creatures, and a variety of wards to keep people out. I've never seen most of these before."
"Crap, that means we definitely need to get out of this room at least. So the question is real now. Do we fight our way out or do we try to sneak out?" Harry turned to his friends.
"I say we fight. Not that we go looking for death eater to fight, but we might need to backtrack if we choose the wrong way. If we just run from them a wrong turn could get us all killed." Ron was stubbornly practical.
"Fight," Ginny said.
"I don't like the idea of killing, but I guess we need to fight." Hermione reluctantly agreed.
"You may not need to kill, but we cannot afford functional death eaters rejoining the fight. I am not asking you to use the A-K. You know bone breaking curses, the reductor curse, explosion hexes. Use them, put them down and keep them down." Harry returned to his open vault and pulled out two handguns with laser sights. "Hermione, can you shoot? These are silenced and hold three hundred bullets each, do you want one?"
She shook her head and he replaced one of them in the vault. With a yank and a twist, she helped put his arm back where it belonged.
"So who wants what for equipment? I've only got the one invisibility cloak, and only one set of body armor. The same person shouldn't use both. There is an invisibility spell in the book but I haven't practiced it. The smoke and flash grenades are very simple, just pull the pin and get rid of it. I will take the Raiden unit which means one of you can have my stun rod. If they are close enough just press the red button and hit them with it. The sides and top both work."
"Whoever is in the lead should take the cloak so they can check out a room without being seen. If the room is crowded they can use the flash and smoke to provide a distraction while we enter the room. Whoever is in the rear should wear the armor in case someone sneaks up on us." Hermione used her logic to sketch a quick plan.
"I'll take the front." Ron volunteered.
"And I'll take the rear," Hermione added.
"Good. Ginny take the stun baton. Use it if they get too close for spells. Do we want to risk the invisibility spells or do we just disillusion ourselves?"
oooooooo
Reluctantly it was agreed not to waste time with a spell they may not be able to use, but they all wanted a chance to study it later. They disillusioned each other and then levitated each other out of the hole. Ron hurried over to the door and peeked outside after dropping low. A curse flew where his head should have been. His hand came out from behind the cloak to indicate that there were three of them before Harry saw one of his grenades roll across the floor. When the bang and flash went off; Harry kicked the door open and fired an explosion hex into the center of the room. He managed to knock two of them over and the girls fired on the third. Harry cast cutting curses at those that were down, slicing them across their throats. The girls settled for breaking all the limbs on theirs and silencing him.
Harry started rifling through the pockets but found nothing interesting. He summoned the wands and added them to the pocket with his book. Looking back towards the door Harry noticed Ron was still on the floor rubbing his eyes.
"Ron, when you use the flash bangs do not look at the grenade! Besides, there were only three of them. I only had three grenades save the other two for emergencies when we are outnumbered. Are you alright?"
Ron grunted his agreement and got to his feet. There were two entrances to this room and the exit behind them.
"Which way guys?" Simon asked.
"The left way smells fresher, just a little bit cleaner." Ginny told him.
Opening the door they found a short hallway leading to a set of stone stairs going up. They climbed the stairs and Ron put his ear to the door.
"There's a lot of them being there. It sounds like they are celebrating their success after the raid." Ron whispered.
"How many?"
"I don't know for sure, but at least five of them."
"How in the world did they not hear us already? That grenade was loud." Hermione chipped in.
"Who cares, lets just take advantage of it while we can." Harry brought them back to the present.
"So I should use another one of those flash cans?" Ron asked.
"Yeah, be sure to throw it into the middle of the room. We want it right in the middle of them and away from us."
"Got it, I'll throw it and hold the door closed this time until the bang." Ron followed words with actions and soon the group heard the bang and once again knocked the door open expecting an easy sweep.
The reality was far less appetizing, judging from the smoking scorch mark and ten angry Death Eaters, the flash bang landed under the table they were gathered around. Both sides stared at each other for a few moments. The Death eaters could barely notice their disillusioned opponents, but the attack left little doubt what was about to happen. Harry pushed into the room and began casting. He used cutting and explosive curses, but the death eater he was aiming at dove out of the way. The table was soon reduced to splinters and the battle began in earnest. Harry jammed the fingers of his left hand into the mask of the closest death eater. His metal coated fingertips actually pierced the eyes of his opponent while his thumb grabbed the roof of his mouth. The Raiden unit kicked in and Harry felt the magic being sucked out of him. His opponent clamped down before his muscles relaxed and he slumped to the floor dead. The Raiden was a powerful weapon, but it really took it out of him disproportionate to it's damage. At the same time Harry used the Death eater as a lightning rod, Harry cast a bone breaking curse at another. The curse connected and caved in the chest of the poor bastard. A cutting curse hit him across his shoulders and he fell. When he came back up he punched out with his gloved fist and wasted some more magic in a lightning bolt that leapt from his hand before he ever made contact.
When he was able to think straight again Harry was able to see a death eater hiding under an invisibility cloak taking a shot at Ginny. Since Harry was the only one able to see him it was his job to deal with him. He pulled the pistol and used the laser to help shoot both of his knees before summoning his cloak. He turned and saw Hermione dueling with a female death eater. Hermione tried to stun her, but she batted it aside with a laugh that was too familiar to Harry.
"Aw… The little baby wants to play!" Bellatrix taunted. "Try this, Avada Kedavra!"
The green bolt of death sped towards Hermione and impacted her in the center of her chest. She was knocked back and lay still. Harry's vision ran red and a primal scream tore from his throat. His hands worked independently of his brain.
"You utter bitch! You tortured the Longbottoms! You killed Sirius! You killed Hermione! DIIIIEEEEE! I'll kill you! I'LL KILL YOU!" He just kept screaming.
"Simon, stop, she's dead. She's dead. Simon stop!" Someone knocked him over and he saw what was left of Bellatrix Lestrange. Apparently he had shot her many times and she was also covered in several electrical burns. He didn't remember doing it really but the smell of hot blood was undeniable and made him sick.
"Ginny, you get Hermione and I'll get this bastard to tell us the way out. She may be dead, but I'll be damned if I'm not bringing her back home to her family." Harry walked over to the man who was hiding beneath the cloak. He ripped of the mask to reveal Severus Snape. "Professor, you better start talking quick or you're a dead man. You tried to curse us and that tells me quite a bit about your character. Now tell me where the kitchens are!"
"Kitchens? Why do you want to know about the kitchens?"
"Killing people makes me hungry Snape, now where are they?" Harry made lightning dance across his fingers.
"Downstairs, the other door!"
"Good, now give me your hands you worthless git!" Harry grabbed Snape's wand. "I said give me your hands!"
Snape reluctantly held his hands out in front of him. Harry cast a reductor curse to shatter the bones before shooting them for good measure. "Good luck with your potions, Professor!" Harry finished with kick to his professor's head, knocking him unconscious.
"Mate, why didn't you ask for the way out? What good can the kitchens do?"
"Trust the fuckhead! Now is not the time for questions, now help Ginny with Hermione and let's get moving."
Harry summoned all the wands and spotted something that caught his interest. He saw a familiar looking cane and a lock of silver blonde hair, Lucius Malfoy was dead, bleeding from two empty eyes. Harry grabbed a souvenir and joined the others at the door. As they made their way down the stairs Hermione jerked and gasped.
"She's alive!" Ginny squealed. "How could she survive that?"
"Ennervate!" Harry woke her up fully, "I guess the steel plate in the armor acted as a physical barrier. Thank God you're alive Hermione!" Harry and the others crushed her in a group hug.
"Why are we going back downstairs?" She asked.
"The kitchens are downstairs. In the kitchens we'll find house elves, which mean we won't find wards against magical creatures or their methods of travel. I can summon a phoenix and get us out." Simon explained to the group. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me earlier, but we didn't have a prisoner either. I need to keep moving before I collapse."
Ooooooo
They soon found the kitchen and the house elves scattered screaming about telling the masters. Harry opened his vault and pulled out a bag of galleons before casting the charm to summon Phoenix Airways for a pick up. He told the phoenix to take them to his flat in Atlanta. They needed a place to heal and get proper wands before they returned to Hogwarts. They definitely did not need interrogation and questioning. After paying the Goblins they arrived at magical customs and encountered yet another snag, admittedly a much smaller one, no one had a passport.
"Look, I know we're bleeding, broken, and have no papers. Please just contact the Agency of the Unknown and ask them to send Agent Green. Tell them that Simon Black's file needs to be updated again and he has something else useful for them."
After calling in his supervisor and Harry repeating his request, the customs official made the call. A few moment's later a soft pop signaled the arrival of Agent Green.
"Mr. Black, what in God's name happened to you all? You look as if you were in a war."
"Funny you should say that, we were. I'm taking on refugees temporarily at my Atlanta residence. Can we get through, get a healer and meet tomorrow morning about the how's and why's?"
"We will need to post an Auror guard outside your residence until you all can go through customs properly, but for now I will let you in on my authority. This had better be good."
"Oh, it is. We've got armor that can stop the A-K apparently. We'll be gone in a few days tops. We just need a healer, a place to rest, and we'll get new wands later."
"Interesting, we'll have one of the best healers at your apartment within the hour. You'll have to cover the expense of course but we can arrange someone discrete. They'll know it never happened and you were never there. Expect me around noon."
"Thank you sir. It looks like I owe your Agency again. One day I'll find out how to repay all this."
Green waved them through and the phoenix dropped them in the apartment.
Ooooooo
The healer arrived quickly and fussed over their various injuries. Harry and Hermione ended up with the most severe injuries. Harry's dislocated shoulder would need to be in a sling for a week, and the cut across his back would leave a nasty scar. Hermione had broken ribs, a concussion, and numerous deep puncture wounds from the steel plate when it exploded against her chest. The wounds were cauterized by the wash of the spell, but the shrapnel needed to come out and the wounds would take a while to heal properly. Ginny was suffering from a minor concussion and a few deep bruises. Ron was almost covered in bruises, scrapes, nicks, and cuts but nothing serious enough to incapacitate him. His eyes would recover on their own eventually.
That night sleeping arrangements were a non issue. They just cast an expansion charm on the bed and fell asleep still in their clothing. They slept through the night in fits and starts. Harry in particular had some horrible nightmares. The girls cuddled closer to him and he rested a little easier. Hermione had to be woken once when her screams woke the others. They helped each other through the night and tried not to dwell on their own demons. Breakfast was a very subdued affair, and later than usual because of the time difference. Potions could take away the physical pain, but some scars are deeper than the skin. They barely had time to shower and dress before they were to expect Green to appear.
Oooooo
Agent Green arrived at precisely noon. Apparently punctuality was a trait essential to government agents. He came in and began the lengthy process of rendering the entire apartment perfectly sealed off from the outside world. He then pulled out a dictation quill and indicated for them to take seats at the table in the dining room.
"Before we begin, may I offer you all some tea? This might take a while and I like something to drink while I work." Seeing their nods, Green conjured a tray containing a tall pitcher of iced tea, glasses and a bowl of lemons. He poured them glasses and added lemon to his own. The teens stared at him as if he had grown another head.
Harry decided to speak what they were all thinking, "Excuse us sir, the British have a different idea of drinking tea."
"Oh well, your loss," He made no move to replace it with proper tea. "Well we have managed to gather some intelligence from our contacts in Britain and we think we know some parts of your ordeal. The parts we do know have made our Government decide to offer you asylum in our country if you need it, at least until the current emergency subsides. We will however need to know the details between your abduction from the streets of Hogsmeade and your arrival here."
"Why would your government offer us asylum?" Hermione asked.
"We are given to understand that you were specifically targeted because of your association with Mr. Potter, and were possibly taken as bait to set a trap. If you return, it is likely this will not be the last attempt on your persons so we decided to be "good neighbors" as it were."
"Thank you for your offer, but we need to return home." She said.
"The offer will remain unless the situation changes. Well let's get down to the business of sorting out the details. We will begin with you Mr. Potter." Green gestured to Harry.
"MR. POTTER? HARRY?" The others rounded on him. Harry grimaced. This was going to be a long conversation.
"Um… Hi guys."