Firebird's Fury: Book III of the Firebird Trilogy Chapter 10: The August War, a harry potter fanfic

A/N: This chapter brings us back to the events of Chapter 1. Foreword ho! Review responses are in my forums as normal. Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Chapter Ten: The August War

With a little girl's voice ringing in his ear, Harry woke earlier than he wanted and realized with a sense of melancholy that the bonding period had ended.

He looked over at Ginny sleeping beside him. Her brows had furrowed slightly in her sleep—she too felt the end of the bonding period. Harry knew from bitter experience that the morning after the bonding period ended was uncomfortable at best. So, rather than risk another fight, he left the house entirely and went to Potter Covenstead before Ginny even woke up. As part of the dowry of his taking Ginny to bride, the other Weasleys all agreed to help with the restoration of the home. Materials were purchased from Muggle suppliers using money gained by selling de-charmed gold Galleons.

Despite the early hour, the house was swarming with workers.

Harry did not realize initially that when the wedding contract specified the Weasley Coven would help, that meant the entire coven. Almost a hundred witches and wizards were hard at work on the covenstead when he arrived. With the Weasleys came the coven's two client families, the Prewitts and Darlings, and all the branches associated with them. He began to understand for the first time just what it meant when people spoke of the Weasleys having political power because of all the children they bred. Dame Molly and Elder Arthur commanded a virtual army.

He found Hermione on the second floor, directing the restoration of the family suite, which consisted of a master and four smaller bedrooms to provide each of them their own private living space. The master suite was not particularly large, but then again Harry supposed it didn't really need to be. He knew he'd be sharing it, so in a real sense he was the only one not to have his own private living space.

Fortunately, she was working with the Quarts, as everyone called Angelina, Fred, Georgina and Lee. With them was an older cousin Harry had never met, but who evidently was very good at restoration charms.

"This is amazing," Harry said as he joined her. "I can't believe how much you've all done."

"Well, we've had a lot of help and spent a lot of your money," Hermione noted. She pointed to where Lee and Georgina's painting job had turned into a duel. "Despite that, things are getting done. Come on." She took his hand and led him out of the master and adjoined rooms. "The library and office is going to be up here, along with several rooms for later expansion."

"Expansion?"

Hermione blushed. "At some point we're going to start having kids, Harry. It's just a matter of time before Tori manages to switch the birth control potion and we don't catch her. I think we should wait for a few years, but it's going to happen eventually. We might as well plan for it now."

Harry blushed too, and was thankful for the fact that Hermione agreed they should all wait. The idea of being a daddy was almost as terrifying to him than Voldemort.

She led him into one of the rooms. The floor was covered in a grey Berber carpet and the walls were covered in new white plaster. When they were alone, Hermione closed the door and charmed it shut. She turned to him and looked up with brown eyes brimming. "I'm sorry I've been such a bitch this summer, Harry. I know I've been making you miserable."

"That's not you, love," Harry said. "Believe me, everything else has been making me miserable, not you. I miss her too."

Hermione bowed her head against his chest. "Is the bonding over?"

"Yeah, ended this morning."

"How are you?"

"Fourth time's a charm. The buzz is gone and everything is back to normal."

"And Ginny?"

"I left before she woke up."

Hermione nodded. Then, without preamble, she said, "Harry, will you make love to me? Like you did before everything fell apart?"

Leaning down, Harry kissed her gently. "Hermione, I love you too, you know. I know we don't say it much, but I do. You're beautiful, and incredible, and I'm a teenaged boy, so of course I want to make love to you."

Hermione chuckled, and then laughed freely for the first time that summer before kissing him. "I've missed you, Harry."

Before they could say anything else, Sybil Trelawney burst into the room with the Hogwarts student scroll in his hand. "Harry, we have a new problem!"

Hermione sighed, but Harry just turned and looked at the woman. "Yes?"

"We have spies at Hogwarts and the Ministry," Sybil said. "The Dark Sabbat pulled in several Hogwarts professors to help repair the ward matrix the DMLE used to detect accidental magic in un-warded areas."

Hermione blinked. "What happened to it?"

"Standing orders from Dumbledore to the Order was that if the Ministry ever fell, it was to be destroyed," Sybil said. "Tonks told me Moody did it right before he died. They fixed it, and are actively monitoring accidental magic. As soon as a new student shows up on this scroll, the Ministry will know who and where they are as well."

"Oh Morgana!" Hermione whispered. "What are we going to do?"

Harry, though, merely nodded to Sybil. "We're going to save them. All of them."

~~Firebird~~

Thinking of the difficulties they had earlier that summer when they lost Demelza Robbins, and almost lost the Creevey sisters, Harry went into overdrive trying to organize retrieval teams to save any newly identified Muggleborns. He Floo-called all his friends involved from the first round of retrievals, briefed everyone on what was happening and asked if they would help, and when they agreed, he settled down in front of the Hogwarts Scroll to wait for the first names to appear.

Two long, boring days later, he realized that things were, once again, not going to work out exactly as he expected or wanted.

The DMLE used a massive network of ward stones throughout England to detect accidental magic, which because it was not funnelled through a wand had a dispersive effect that was easily distinguished from wanded, intent-driven magic. Moody would never have been able to destroy the ward stones themselves. Instead, with his last breath he destroyed the runic array which was able to receive and interpret the magic from those stones.

While the Order of the Phoenix did not have access to that network, it had an artefact dating back a thousand years, created by some of the most brilliant magical minds to ever breathe in England. With everything set up, it was only a matter of time. A lot of time.

An amused Sybil Trelawney said: "Considering the small number of Muggleborn, it's not surprising we wouldn't have a huge swarm of them all at once. Chances are that the names will come in one at a time, over the course of weeks and months. From what Filius told me, they often appear in clumps, right around school's starting, or after a large sporting event. There was a record number that appeared when Charles and Diana married."

Harry looked around at the much smaller circle of friends who remained following the long wait—namely Hermione, Neville and his two wives, and the Weasleys. "What do you guys think?"

"We should use the Army coins," Hermione suggested. "We've had a lot of time to talk about what we do if we see a name. We sneak in, grab the family, and Apparate here in a four-person team. No one who doesn't know how to Apparate goes." Hermione seemed pleased that, among the lessons Sybil provided to the younger order members was Apparition training.

Georgina yawned and stretched. "Yeah, sitting around all day stinks. Maybe we take shifts watching the scroll?"

As the days continued on, they settled down, taking shifts to watch the scroll in teams of four people, with at least one of the four always being an adult. Sometimes they would take the scroll with them down to the large cellar which Professor Flitwick and a horde of Weasleys converted into a duelling room/Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and practised with Tonks overseeing their progress.

Things settled quickly into a routine again; the Light Covens with Amelia in their midst continued their efforts to get acknowledged by the ICW, or at least be seen, while Professor Flitwick continued teaching those Muggleborns they already saved.

It was late on Tuesday night, as Harry was about to finish his shift, when a name suddenly appeared on the scroll. At first, he did not even notice it. He'd taken to glancing at the scroll occasionally, but the scroll itself was a huge roll they only left partially undone at the end. So when the name of Linda Peterson appeared, Harry did not immediately notice. It wasn't until Angelina came into take her shift and he started to hand the scroll over that he saw.

"Merlin, there's a name!" he shouted, overcome by the realization of an event he had begun to subconsciously think would never happen.

Angelina saw it too, eyes widening in surprise. The two friends looked at each other for a moment in mutual surprise before they both turned and ran up the stairs from the duelling room. "Sybil!" Harry cried as they burst onto the ground floor of the manor. With the late hour, the younger kids were already asleep in their rooms on the second floor, while Flitwick was in his office and a few of the older Muggleborns sat around a table in the kitchen. Sybil sat with them, sipping firewhisky while talking to Tina Middleton, the former Greengrass slave. Tina still looked too thin, and carried with her a haunted look in her eyes, but she was eating better at least.

All of them looked up when Harry and Angelina burst into their midst. "We have one!" Harry said, holding up the school. He ran to the table they were gathered around and laid it out before her. There they saw the new line: Linda Peterson, Age 9, Hogwarts First Year Class of 1998. Second bedroom, 13 Hargate Way, Peterborough.

Sybil looked around the table. "Terri, you up to joining us?"

Terri Boot gave a determined nod. "You bet! I even know how to Apparate now!"

"That makes four of us," Sybil said. "Maybe we can sneak in before they even know we're there. Come on, I'll make the Portkey for us."

Minutes later, the four of them—Sybil, Harry, Angelina and Terri Boot—appeared on the edge of a nice greenway between rows of two-story homes. The moment they landed, Harry bent over and spun around from the others fighting back an urge to be sick.

"Not the time, Potter!" Angelina said.

"You just don't want him puking on you again," Terri snickered.

Harry stood up and took a deep breath without being sick. "Laugh it up," he muttered.

He turned to Trelawney and said, accusingly, "How come it doesn't make you sick?"

Sybil smiled. "I'm drunk, of course. Remember, high-functioning alcoholic." She looked over the row of comfortable brick houses. "There's number 13. Let me do the talking, okay? And keep an eye-out for wards or hitwitches."

She started to walk across the street but stopped and looked back at the four of them. With a blink of an eye, she suddenly looked completely different. Her pale skin and brilliant eyes shifted to a more Muggle skin tone while her eyes lost their vibrancy. "Veils," she reminded them.

Harry blinked in surprise at having forgotten. Since returning from America last September, he'd not once used his Veil and didn't even think about it. But, looking at his companions, he tried to see them through a Muggle's eyes. Angelina's dark skin had a shiny, almost plastic quality not found in normal Muggles, while he, Terri and Sybil were all deathly pale. In the night lit only by occasional streetlamps, their eyes all shone brightly with their magic.

In the blink of an eye, all four of them looked perfectly mundane. Thus Veiled, they continued on to Number 13 Hargate Way. They could see lights coming from both floors. With a last look back at the three teens, Sybil knocked on the door.

A moment later, a tall man with a receding hairline and expanding paunch dressed in slacks and a button-up opened the door. "Yes?" he asked, obviously curious at the odd collection.

"Hello, Mr Peterson," Sybil said with her most gracious smile, which most would describe as a smirk. "My name is Professor Sybil Trelawney. I represent a school for gifted children. These are some of my older students. We were hoping to speak to you a moment regarding your daughter Linda."

Harry felt a pang when he noticed the man instantly become defensive, and Harry suddenly realized that whatever event of accidental magic that made the daughter appear on the scroll had obviously disturbed her parents. "We don't know anything about it! Good bye."

As the man started to shut the door, Harry heard a distinctive pop in the distance, followed by three more. He and Angelina shared a glance, and before Mr Peterson could finish slamming the door the two rushed past Trelawney and into the home, taking Peterson down with them. Trelawney and Terri followed quickly and shut the door behind them.

"What is the meaning of this?" a heavy-set woman with dark hair demanded as she emerged from what was probably a kitchen.

"Terri, get the windows in front," Sybil ordered. "Angelina, go check the back."

Angelina scrambled to her feet and rushed past the stunned, frightened Mrs Peterson.

"Get out of my home!" Mr Peterson shouted.

"Mr Peterson," Sybil said, "right now there are at least four people outside your home who intend to kill you and your wife and abduct your daughter. We're here to try and save you."

Harry let Peterson up, but instead of gaping in wonder or shock, he sneered at Trelawney. "Bollocks! You're drunk, I can smell sherry on you!"

"So much for being a high-functioning alcoholic," Harry muttered.

"They're taking position in front," Terri reported.

"I have two back here," Angelina called from the kitchen.

"No wards or jinxes so far," Harry noted.

Trelawney nodded. "We don't have time. Take him. We can explain when no one is trying to kill us all."

"Now see here, I…" Peterson began. Harry grabbed the man and Disapparated on the spot right to the ground floor of the manor.

Moments later, Angelina appeared with the mother, while Sybil arrived holding a startled, wide-eyed girl with dark, curly hair and shining brown eyes. Terri followed seconds later. Not surprisingly, Mr and Mrs Peterson were both violently sick from the unexpected magical teleportation.

When they recovered, Harry dropped his veil, brandished his wand, and vanished the sick from the floor. "Welcome to the Sanctuary School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he said dryly. "Congratulations, your daughter is a witch."

~~Firebird~~

With their first successful rescue of a pre-Hogwarts Muggleborn witch, the whole Order celebrated by throwing an impromptu party for nine-year-old Linda Peterson. With their daughter as the centre of a crowd of children who had the same odd light in their eyes and the same pale skin as Linda, her parents had little choice but to admit the truth their own eyes presented.

After a few days, Remus Lupin escorted the Peterson parents back to their home where they found the house ransacked. Looking at the mess, Mr Peterson shook his head and said, "It's all true, isn't it?"

Remus nodded sadly. "I'm very sorry. We hope that when things settle down, you'll be able to see Linda again, but for everyone's safety, you'll need to leave her with us. I promise we'll take good care of her, and we'll let her write as often as she wants. Just don't be surprised by owls bearing letters."

Remus, because of his own hard life and upbringing, did not appreciate the true tragedy implicit in just how easily the Peterson's let their daughter go.

~~Firebird~~

Over the next week, two more names appeared, and because a team was always on watch, they were able to get out to the family just moments before the hitwitches. In both cases, they were able to get the family out before any curses were cast. But then, toward the end of August, five names all appeared at once.

"Get everyone in," Harry said to Hermione, who was with him that day. "It's going to be a long day."

They drew straws, and Harry's group picked the Dibbles.

~~Firebird~~

Later that night, after Shirley, Tom and Nancy Dibbles were settled into a wizarding tent on the ground floor along with the other recovered families, Harry walked up the stairs to the first floor and walked down the length of the manor until he reached what was supposed to be a library, but now served as their infirmary.

Healer Mary Carlisle lounged in a comfortable, conjured plush chair, her mouth open with a gentle snore as she slept off an exhausting night. Beside the bed that held her husband Fred, also sleeping exhaustedly, Angelina looked up and smiled tiredly at Harry.

He made his way over and took a look at mangled lump of Fred's ear. "Cartilaginous Potion," Angelina whispered. "Mary cut the whole thing off since it was curse-scarred, and we're re-growing it with potions and poultices."

"He'll be fine," Harry said.

"He was an idiot," she said, though not unkindly. She took the boy's hand in hers and stared at him intently. "He's not a fighter, he never was. He tries to keep up because of Georgina, but he's just not a fighter. He shouldn't have been out there. Hell, I shouldn't be either. I should be playing Quidditch, or shagging my husband or…" She stopped with a sigh. "This isn't right, Harry. What they're making us do."

Harry wished he could disagree, but he couldn't. "No it isn't," he said. "Amelia should have been out there with Emmeline Vance and Shacklebolt and all the other Order members I've never seen, but who I've been told exist. They should be out saving the Muggleborns, but they aren't. But there wasn't anyone else willing to do it."

Angelina nodded. If he didn't know her better, it would look as if she was a piece of stone, expressionlessly holding Fred's hand. But he knew from personal experience how upset she was. "I think tonight taught us something," he said softly. "We're not soldiers."

Snorting, Angelina said, "You just figured that out?"

"But we won anyway," Harry continued, pointedly staring back at her. "And because of us, five families are alive who would be dead. That's worth fighting for, Angie. At least for me."

Looking down at the sleeping form of her husband, Angelina said, "Me? I'll fight with you till everything falls apart. You forgave me after I almost killed you, back first year when I didn't understand what bonding meant. But Fred…"

"I understand," Harry said. "Hang in there, okay?"

She gave a heart-felt nod and then slipped deeply back into her own thoughts. Harry made his way down the row of beds until he saw Tonks on the next bed. She was injured rescuing the Mackaby family from Edinburgh.

Without her strange collection of Muggle and magical clothes, the witch actually looked…quite beautiful. He couldn't help but notice that Carlisle had to strip her down to treat her curse, and with only a blanket to cover her Harry saw a voluptuous woman grown, with none of the lithe slimness that his girls still possessed.

"Like what you see?"

Harry felt his cheeks burn as Tonks smiled tiredly up at him.

"You're beautiful, that's for sure," Harry said with a frank honesty he'd never have had before being bonded to four separate girls. "Too bad they didn't send you to Privet Drive back last summer."

Tonks had to stifle a laugh. "Yeah, too bad. It would have been neat to be a Dame. But Luna's a good girl, she'll grow into it."

"How'd you get hurt?"

Tonks jerked her thumb at Fred. "Saving him. Angie's a tough witch and a damned good fighter for someone with no training. She'd make a great hitwitch. But Fred just stumbled around trying to make jokes until the Ministry hitbitches started throwing curses. I bought them time to get Fred and the family out, but took a cutter to the stomach."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, just another scar to add to the collection. I'll probably look as ugly as Moody soon."

Harry couldn't help but chuckle. "Tonks, I don't think anything short of Polyjuice could make you look as ugly as Moody. That man was scary. Brave and strong, but scary."

"Best wizard I ever knew," Tonks whispered. "His wives hated his guts, so he never saw them. I swear, as ugly as he was, if he wasn't already bonded twice over I would have given myself to him, I loved him so much."

Harry sat down on one of the folding chairs by the bed, and took her hand. "Tell me about him."

She spoke to him about growing up listening to the legend of Alastor Moody, to discover the real wizard even more amazing than his legend. She continued to talk until the potions dragged her down to sleep.

Only then did Harry pick himself up and leave the manor for home where his family waited. On his way to the fireplace, he saw the last person he expected to see.

Amelia Bones stood speaking quietly with Sybil. She looked up when he entered the room and waved him over. "I came to check up on Tonks," she said.

Only then did Harry remember that Tonks and Amelia were close friends. "She'll be okay. I just got her back to sleep."

Amelia nodded. "It was a rough night, sounds like."

"But we saved a lot of people," Sybil noted.

"You did." Amelia regarded Harry intently for a long moment before she said, "You were right, Harry. About what you said those weeks ago. What you're doing is exactly what Lily formed the Order to do. You're saving people who had no one else to save them. Your mother would have been proud."

Though it should not have mattered at that point, Harry couldn't help feel a surge of gratefulness at the older witch's words. "I don't know, I think she would have just taken it for granted. She seemed rather hard to please."

"Morgana's tits, that she was," Sybil said with a sigh. She appeared to be a little drunker than normal, which was saying something. He knew the night had been difficult for her as well. "But she would have been proud of what you did tonight, and early this summer."

"Thanks." He ran a hand through his hair, surprised at how long it was. "Err, any word on the ICW?"

"No, they've been in a closed session since they visited," Amelia said darkly. "And the Light Covens are starting to get worried. We did everything we were supposed to, and proved we had a quorum of covens. By law and tradition, the ICW was supposed to give us a hearing. The fact that we've been completely ignored is worrisome. The Patil Coven is on the verge of doing a runner again."

Harry shook his head. "They don't seem like good allies."

"Enemies of enemies," Sybil said, ever the professor. "The Patils are a dark coven, Harry. For all that one of their daughters ended up in Gryffindor, they practice a branch of ancient Hindu magic that is classified dark for a reason. I understand the wards on their house are powered by a blood sacrifice. But because they're foreign born, they've never found easy acceptance with the other Dark Covens. That's why we targeted them as a potential ally."

Harry shrugged and tried to picture the Patil twins using dark magic. It was hard to imagine, really. "What happens if the International Confederation doesn't respond?"

Amelia deflated. "Things get complicated. Dames don't like fighting each other. You ever wonder why the Dark Sabbat hasn't gone after Dames directly? It's not like they don't know where every Covenstead is. No, they haven't because there's a long-standing tradition of Dames coming back to the greater Circle. Even Molly and Augusta would rather be a part of the larger Sabbat, Dark Covens and all, than wage an actual conflict against their sisters. And so far the Dark Covens have been sticking to that tradition. That's why they've targeted Muggleborns alone."

"If the International Confederation rebuffs the light covens, then most will re-join the whole Sabbat," Sybil said. "Better to be a minority political power than be dead or rogue."

Harry stared at the two women in shock. "After all the Dark Covens did?"

"It's not to that point yet," Amelia said. "We just have to wait and see. In the meantime, we all need sleep. I'm going back to Grimmauld Place."

"I'm going up to bed too," Sybil said. With the influx of students, she and Arabella moved out of Grimmauld Place and now lived full time at Sanctuary like Flitwick.

"Good night," Harry said numbly, watching as the two women went their separate ways. He took another look at the tents that housed their newest refugees, and shook his head. "Even the good guys are barmy."

He slid into nothingness as he Apparated home.

Author's Note: Very special thanks as always to Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading. If there are any major faux-pas, they are entirely of my own doing.