A/N-The aftermath. It's hard to follow up a chapter like Chap 11, but this one was necessary to set the stage for what is coming.
Chapter Twelve: Asylum
Harry never knew that charms could be cast like the one Flitwick was performing. He understood in a way he had never understood before just how little he knew of magic when he saw a true master working it.
When Amelia updated the Fidelius Charm on Potter Cottage, there was a flash of light and a surge of warmth in Luna's chest, since she was the secret keeper. When she renewed and changed the secret keeper of the magic at Grimmauld Place, Harry did not even feel warmth.
He realized just how much more difficult it was to create a whole new charm, and his respect for Flitwick knew no limits. The ritualized portion of the Fidelius charm involved a sacrifice of a few drops of Harry's blood on the mantle of the door as the secret keeper, and the small cut over his heart had to be kept open during the entire ritual. It felt as if he were being cut the entire time, but even so it was nothing like being held under a Cruciatus, so he accepted the pain in silence for the security it represented.
The work on the ward stones was so far beyond him he did not even try to understand; it wasn't until Flitwick began walking around the entire grounds of the manor that the charm portion began. It began as a chant in Latin. Harry knew just enough Latin from his studies to recognize it as a prayer to magic itself to hide and protect, but the prayer itself was the charm, and Flitwick's magic output was so strong as he walked along casting that Harry could feel the little man's wand beginning to heat from the constant release of magic.
At the very end, having circumscribed the entire estate, Flitwick was visibly trembling and coated in perspiration as he struggled through the rest of the charm. He shouted the final verses of the chant and thrust his wand forward.
Harry watched in shock as the whole manor wavered before his eyes. A superimposed image rose up from it, almost like some strange, platonic idealization of the whole, and began to blaze into a stream of white light that streaked down like lightning that struck his chest, right where the cut was.
The whole finale lasted only seconds and yet felt as if it took hours. When it was done, Harry felt as if his body were about to explode with the magnitude of the secret housed within his magic and soul. "It wasn't like that with Grimmauld Place," he gasped between breaths.
Flitwick collapsed onto the ground, panting himself from the effort. "Yes, well, Albus was the original secret keeper and Amelia just strengthened the old spell and transferred it to you, so it wasn't the same thing." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm afraid that has quite done me in, Mr Potter. Can you help me…Mr Potter?"
Harry, though, trembled as a sudden, intense vision struck him like a fist to the face. He saw hundreds of witches in bright blue robes popping all around him with the fey green light of a killing curse on the tips of their wands.
Without even thinking about it, Harry levitated Flitwick through the ward line of the estate, which responded to his magic and intent regardless of the Fidelius and allowed Flitwick's entrance. He spun back around and shouted, "Bombarda!" with his wand pointed at thin air.
A split second before the spell left his wand a blue-robed ICW enforcer appeared with a pop just in time to receive the blasting spell to the face. Her head exploded in a plume of red mist that showered over the hundreds of other Enforcers who arrived right behind her.
Harry, though, didn't stay to watch the effects of his spell. As the newly arrived Enforcers stumbled and received the bloody mist of one of their sister hitwitches in their faces, Harry spun and dove through the ward line. The Enforcers, all highly trained, recovered almost instantly from Harry's perfectly timed attack and responded with death.
Because of the Fidelius, the curses struck the wardline and disappeared, only to appear instantly at the back of the estate where they slammed into trees and rocks. The Enforcers followed their own curses, rushing toward the wardline and likewise disappeared the moment they touched it. Harry knew that they would appear instantly on the far side of the estate just like the curses, which to their perspective were only inches from where they started. To them, not only was the covenstead not visible, it did not exist at all, as if the space around it had been folded closed.
"Magic is incredible," Harry whispered. He sat beside a speechless Flitwick as the Enforcers began a detailed search of the countryside which now bore no sign the Potter Covenstead. He looked up over his shoulder as Neville and Hannah walked out with Deanna Thomas and Terri Boot, the two oldest Muggleborn students from the dozen they saved.
"Morgana's baps," Hannah whispered. "Harry, what happened to that Enforcer?"
Harry blinked, and only then did he focus on the witch he'd killed. Three other Enforcers knelt around the all but beheaded body, and at least one of them was weeping in loss. "I…I did that."
"Can they see us?" Neville said, trying to derail that particular train of thought.
"No, Mrs. Longbottom," Flitwick said weakly. "Thanks to Mr Potter here, we were able to finish the Fidelius in time. An interesting bit of timing, to be sure. I'm still not sure how Mr Potter was able to time his curse so effectively. International Enforcers are competitively selected and are among the best fighters in the world."
"I had a vision," Harry said dully as he continued to stare at the dead witch beyond their ward lines. "Sybil calls it battle precognition."
Flitwick's eyes widened comically. "Oh, good show, Mr Potter! Our own Rowena Ravenclaw was said to have that skill. It made her a most formidable dueller."
"I don't understand, though," Neville said. "Why are the Enforcers here in the first place?"
Harry pushed himself back to his feet and shook off the encounter. "Let's find out. We need to get to Grimmauld Place. Coming?"
"You two go," Hannah said. "I need to stay and keep Sally Anne and the rest of the kids from going insane."
The two wizards walked quickly back to the manor, leaving the stunned witches in their wake, and one sitting Charms Master. "Typical," Flitwick said with a long-suffering sigh. "Miss Boot, if it's not too much of a bother, could I have a hand up?"
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
Sybil was sitting in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place when Amelia's Patronus slipped through the wards to the kitchen where she and Arabella sat worriedly nursing cups of black morning tea. It was early for both to be up, but Amelia had woken them both up when she received a summons, and Harry's warning right after ensured they would stay awake.
"Something's wrong, I can feel it," Amelia had said, right before she left.
Sybil was half-tempted to break out her crystal ball in those harrowing minutes after her friend left, which given her talent was her most effective divination tool, but she feared what she might see. The tenuous political situation was such that Amelia would have to go regardless of what she saw.
The sudden appearance of the Patronus made both Sybil and Arabella spill their tea. "They know. ICW declared Potter apostate. Killed me. Warn Potter!"
The ball of magic did not even have a distinct shape, indicating Amelia was in a terrible condition when she sent it. "Oh Morgana," Sybil said. "Arabella?"
"I'll go to Potter's cottage. You go to…I can't remember where else he might be!"
Sybil paused and realized she could not remember the other place that Harry might be found. "They must have put up the Fidelius in time. Go check on his family, I'll start calling in the Order members."
Both women rushed upstairs to dress, and minutes later Arabella disappeared in a flash of fire. A moment after, just as Sybil was starting to bend down to send a Floo message to Remus, the fire flared green on its own and a wide-eyed, terrified Angelina Weasley stumbled out with her husband Fred in her arms.
"Professor Trelawney, they tried to kill us!" Angelina said the moment she saw who was there.
Behind her, Georgina and her husband Lee arrived followed at the last by a shell-shocked Ron. Angelina was still babbling, which was unlike her, and Georgina started babbling right along, causing the two to drown each other out. Sybil cast a loud popping charm. "Stop, both of you! Angelina, you start. What's going on?"
"Charlene Weasley and two other hitwitches came to kill me," she said. "Said we were all going to die because they knew about Harry."
"What happened?"
"Ron killed Charlene," Fred said, speaking weakly for the first time. "Burned out his wand, too."
Sybil turned to the youngest Weasley wizard and saw that indeed the young man burned his wand out and looked utterly shocked by it. "Was anyone else hurt beside the attacking hitwitches?"
"No," Fred said.
"How did you know to run?"
"It was Mum," Georgina said. "She warned Dad to get us out. I don't understand it either, but Dad was trying to get us all out when Charlene showed up. She stunned him, her own Elder and father."
Sybil's mind began to race, so much so she barely noticed the Floo flare again as Arabella walked back out with Harry's entire coven behind her. Luna shot out of the fire last and would have fallen if not for Hermione's catching her. As if the room were not crowded enough, the fire immediately flared again and Neville appeared.
"Harry's coming through!" he warned everyone loudly.
And indeed, Harry came shooting out like a cannon ball. This time, it was Luna and Ginny who cast a cushion charm to catch him. Like Angelina, he started babbling the moment he emerged. "Enforcers attacked the…Angelina? Ron? What's going on here?"
"Everyone find a place to sit down and shut up!" Sybil shouted. "I'm trying to think!"
Arabella, knowing her life partner better than anyone, quietly herded everyone into the kitchen except for Harry and Luna who ignored her to say with Sybil. "Amelia's dead, isn't she?" he asked bluntly.
Fighting back tears, Sybil nodded.
"I had a vision. We managed to get the Fidelius up before an army of Enforcers showed up. I killed one of them."
Again, Sybil just nodded as her mind raced. She almost jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder and a rush of magic. Blinking, she looked into Harry's eyes and only their mutual Occlumency prevented an immediate bond which only affected opposite-gendered Aethers. "I've been having these visions since the night Dumbledore died," he continued sombrely. "The first was Mum and Dumbledore playing chess. But as nights went by, it was just Voldemort at the table, waiting for me. Justine was there and told me I had to play, but in the vision I panicked and asked for Amelia. She sat at the table, but Voldemort took her piece and Justine said it was my turn to play. And that's not even mentioning the little girl asking for her mum."
Sybil heard his words and, perhaps because of their similar talents and the touch of his magic, could see in her mind the dead Justine Finch-Fletchley—Potter at the end—standing by the board with a line of dead behind her.
"What do you think it means?" she said.
"No more proxies. I have to be my own Elder now. Mum made the Order for me, Sybil, and even if I'm not ready for it, I'm going to have to take control. But I'm going to need help."
Sybil broke eye-contact and turned away, only to see Luna staring at her. "We need to know why Augusta sent all the children of her coven to us if she was just going to turn around and condemn us to death," the young Potter dame said.
That was news! "She what?"
"You saw Neville come through with me," Harry said. "We have every child school age or below from the Croaker Coven and its affiliated families at our Covenstead."
With this piece of information Sybil's racing mind leaped forward. "And Angelina said it was Molly Weasley who warned Elder Weasley to try and get their kids to safety. Harry, I don't think the light covens really wanted you dead. I think they've been trapped by the law and had no choice but to kill Amelia."
"Even if that's true, what good does it do us?" Luna asked.
"I'm not sure. Someone's going to have to talk to Dame Augusta. Someone who hasn't been exposed as an Order member yet and can get in."
"Someone like Emmeline Vance?" Harry asked, guessing.
Vance was their only active member who retained her employment at the Ministry after the Covens took over. Though a trained Auror, with the dissolution of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she now worked as a Ministry Hitwitch.
"Too valuable. I'm actually thinking of one of our older members, an underground witch who would have no problem sneaking in to see Augusta. And she could easily take a charmed mirror with her."
Luna nodded firmly. "Then let's do it. We don't think we have much time."
~~Firebird~~
~~Firebird~~
Longbottom Manor sat empty—Augusta sent the client families home without their kids despite their understandable protests. She assured them all that the children of the Coven were safe, but only if they stayed where they were. "When the full Sabbat is reunited and the Dames are once more protected by the oaths of the Sabbat, we'll get them back," she told them.
The other matriarchs in the coven could only accept their Dame's orders, no matter how frightened they might have been for their children. She knew the other Dames were taking similar steps to see to the safety of their own children. Most of the covens had properties set aside as safe houses since the example of the Lloyds in June was too monstrous to ignore.
"Dame's guest is here," one of her elves said. Augusta sat forward enough to turn to see who had the gall to interrupt her thoughts. She found herself facing another ancient witch, possibly one even older than she, but of more humble bearing.
The ancient witch shared a toothless smile and made a parody of a curtsy. "Bathsheba Goldsmite, Dame Augusta."
"And why are you here, Madam Goldsmite?" Augusta asked, her normal courtesy completely absent.
"I know I'm not as pretty as the last enemy witch to contact you," Bathsheba said with a dry chuckle, "but then again I'm not as evil either, I reckon. I come on behalf of Order of the Phoenix."
Augusta gripped the armrests of her chair. "They dare?"
"Well, I suppose I'm old enough I won't be missed if you murder me. I didn't bother with a white dress. Muggleborn, you see. Never bothered to buy one." She pulled a mirror out of her tattered robes and handed it over.
A quick spell from Augusta's wand verified that it was not a Portkey, nor contained any dangerous charms or poisons. Once so assured, she took the mirror. The moment she did so, it began to buzz before the voice of Sybil Trelawney came clearly from the oddly empty reflection.
"Dame Augusta, the reflection of the mirror will remain dark so that you may truthfully tell anyone who asks that you have not seen me or any member of the Potter Coven."
Augusta almost dropped the mirror, but chose at the last not to. "This was a foolish mistake," she said.
"Foolish, yes: A mistake? I don't think so. Neville and the other Croaker Coven children are fine, by the way. We are intentionally not telling them anything for their own safety. I'm sure you were aware that a huge group of ICW Enforcers attacked Potter Covenstead, where those kids were seeking shelter."
"I am aware Potter killed one."
"Yes." A pause, followed by: "Augusta, she was one of my oldest, dearest friends. Did she suffer?"
"Yes," Augusta said, surprised at the grief in her own voice. "But not as badly as she could have. She was killed in the traditional manner for a witch who has been proscribed."
"The knife, then," Even without being able to see her face, Augusta heard tears in the younger woman's voice. "Please, Dame Augusta, what happened?"
Augusta pursed her lips as she looked not down at the mirror, but across her grounds at Neville's favourite greenhouse. Once upon a time, it had been Frank puttering about that greenhouse, and before that his father Bernard. Had it really been so long? She found herself speaking before her more cautious nature could prevent it. "The ICW learned the truth about Potter. We know he carries a male wand, and that he learned proscribed wandlore from Ollivander. And Neville's condemned as well—I saw he was using a different wand."
The mirror was silent for a moment before she heard Trelawney take a deep, shuddering breath. "Dame Augusta, listen very closely. I'm going to tell you about a vision that a powerful young Muggleborn seer had years ago. It was a vision of a future utterly without magic—no witches or wizards; no dragons or centaurs or goblins. It was a vision of our future, and it's coming true even as we speak. And it is all because of wands…"
Augusta listened in silence as Sybil Trelawney detailed every aspect of Lily Potter's vision of the future—both what she feared was coming and what she hoped to be able to do to stop it. She felt at various points terror, horror, revulsion and confusion, until by the time Trelawney stopped speaking, all Augusta felt was numbness.
In that numbed state, she remembered her own youth, and the many wizards she went to school with. Poaching was less an issue when she was a youth because there were more wizards to choose from. On the other hand, very few Muggleborns were accepted into Hogwarts in those days. Now, there were so few children at all, much less wizards, it seemed a wonder how any of them were going to survive.
It came as a shock, then, when Augusta realized she believed Sybil, because she remembered Lily vividly from years ago, and how things have changed from her own youth. "And Neville?" she asked.
"His magic is already healing," Sybil explained. "He has no more feedback from his wand. It's like feminine wands chisel at masculine magic until a bond comes along and acts like a vacuum to pull the shards of it away. But with a fitted wand, his magic is no longer being weakened and so does not drain as badly. In a few years he'll be recovered enough to form a coven. Most wizards would, in fact. And that's why Lily also foresaw a change in our government. The coven system is broken, Dame Augusta. Any system that depends on Dark Lords to maintain a balance is by its very nature broken."
Nor could Augusta argue that point. "You're talking about attacking the very foundations of our society."
"Yes, I am," Sybil said without hesitation. "That's why we never told you everything before. You weren't ready. But Dame Augusta, when a plant is diseased, the only thing to do is pull it up by its roots and plant anew. And there's Harry's prophecy to remember as well."
Augusta shuddered at that reminder of Amelia's last words. "Covens will fall."
"And elders shall perish," Sybil continued. "It's coming true. We all know that the Malfoy Coven is one of Voldemort's central supporters. Elezeta assisted Voldemort during his rebirth, and Dame Delia has been working with the Dark Lord since the last war."
Augusta knew all of that—they were facts that everyone knew but none could afford to voice in the open circle. "What are you proposing, Sybil?"
"Nothing to compromise yourself or the other light dames," came the response. "At least not openly. If Neville is already proscribed, you have nothing left to lose, but the others might. Even so, the Order of the Phoenix remains. If you know of any other light covens who want sanctuary for their children, send them to us. We have at least two former Hogwarts professors with us, beside me. And there's a good chance we'll have more once the true ruler of the Ministry shows himself. And if you have hitwitches who are willing to risk proscribed status to fight for the good, we'll take them. After the appropriate oaths, of course. And finally money. Anything that you can think of that would support our mission."
"And what is your mission?"
"To destroy the Sabbat as a functioning government," Sybil replied readily. "To stop the selling of young women to the goblins, and finally, to destroy Voldemort. It's a lot to do, but there is one thing that sets us apart from Voldemort or any other dark lord in history."
"And what's that?"
"We have the Firebird's son as our leader," Sybil said. "Harry is already showing signs of battle precognition. He foresaw Amelia's death and the Enforcer attack an hour in advance and managed to hide his home in time to save everyone. He's young, but he has a good heart that all the evil of the Sabbat has yet to destroy. Moreover, unlike Voldemort, he does not hate witches. He has very genuine feelings for all of his wives, and values my advice and the advice of the other witches in his life. If he wins, it will not be the magical apocalypse that Voldemort would bring about. He's not perfect, but as you said at his fourth bonding, he is a young man of honour and integrity. He's a champion."
Augusta nodded to herself as she stared far into the back garden. For the longest time she sat in utter silence with the mirror in her hand, and the silent, ancient Muggleborn witch standing nearby. Finally, she said, "Is it possible to meet?"
"We'll need to set up a rendezvous, but yes, we can meet," Sybil said. "I'll send you the contact information and instructions."
The mirror buzzed and became once again just a mirror. Augusta placed it on the table and looked at the ancient Goldsmite. "Thank you."
Bathsheba curtseyed again. "Just doing my part, Dame Augusta. I sold Harry his wedding rings. He bought three of them—two for those first two wives of his and a third for that poor Muggleborn child whom the Covens poisoned. For a lad who's suffered as much as he has, it's a miracle of magic he hasn't gone dark. Will that be all?"
"Yes, thank you. My elf will show you out."
When Augusta was at last alone, she summoned the elf again. "Parchment, quills, ink and wax, Stimmy."
"At once, Dame Augusta."
She turned and stared out into the distance, again losing herself to her racing, dark thoughts.
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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.
