Chapter 21
I'm terribly sorry for the long update, I've been so busy with stage crew, religion, school, art, guitar, and other things that I've hardly had the time and energy to write more than the essays I had for school. With finals coming up essays will be more sporadic. This should be rectified in September. I will, however, attempt to update as much as humanly possible. Thanks for the positive response. Remember to review, it encourages me to keep writing, and helps make my stories better.
"What is he doing here, and helping Death Eaters none the less, never mind what are you doing here, you're supposed to be in the Minister's office?" Hermione cried.
"Not now Hermione, we'll deal with conspiracy theories later, how do I take him out?" Harry screeched into his watch.
"I don't know," Hermione was definitely panicking now, "Put a shrinking charm on him? Transfigure him into a mouse?"
"Thanks," Harry said, "Over and out," Harry looked up at Grawp.
"Hermy?" Grawp bellowed, beating on the hospital wards.
"Novare mus," Harry shouted. A beam of blue light hit the giant. It worked, err sort of. The giant was now indeed a mouse. He, however, was still around twenty two feet tall. Harry gulped. Luckily Grawp seemed distracted, he brought his nose to the air, and flicked around his whiskers. Soon he was bounding down the street. Harry followed at a rapid pace. Grawp was, as it turned out, much faster on four legs. Eventually he reached Grawp's destination, which turned out to be a rather fragrant luxury cheese shop. Shaking his head in amusement Harry locked Grawp into the shop, only to be met with the screech of a young woman on the street.
"Eep! Mouse," Harry just shook his head in amusement. Some things would never change.
"Mam, do not be frightened, we're filming a movie, a parody of Godzilla if you will, this mouse is merely a very advanced suit of robotics with several people inside manning the controls. Please leave it alone." The woman nodded and hurried off on her business.
"They should totally pay me for this," Harry mumbled, before running back to the hospital.
Things at the hospital were surprisingly quite. The death eaters had mysteriously left after Grawp was defeated, the acromantula had never came. With the patients and healers all gone the only people left in the nine story building were the Dec Ace, and muggle special forces. The silence was oppressing. Brook jumped as her watch gave out static.
"Brook do you copy?" Blaze's muffled voice broke through.
"Copy, what is it,"
"The giant has been turned into a rodent of unusual size, ROUS that is, and locked inside a shop specializing in gorgonzola. What's the situation?"
"Everyone left as soon as the giant ran off. It's just us and the air force now," Brook said.
"Rodger. Station a select number of the muggles there permanently with a pager connected to you to let us know if anyone comes back. Don't bother cleaning up. Have the rest of the Dec Ace come to our room, and wait for a further debriefing, for now just dillusion my desk. I want to deal with why Hagrid's half-brother, who is also on Dumbledore's side, was here with the suckers." Harry ordered briskly.
"Rodger," Brook said shortly, "Should I send someone to check on Neville?"
Harry cursed he had forgotten about Neville.
"No, I'll get him myself. If all of the healers are healed they can take over until someone like Clark can arrive."
"Rodger, Brook over and out," Brook changed the channel on her watch. "Attention Dec Ace, we are to reconvene in my rooms at the department. The battle is over." Now if she could only find the person leading the muggle forces.
Harry used the floo to arrive at Neville's place and immediately let out a low whistle. The place was luxurious, and easily as big as a feudal manor, with, if the view outside the window was any indication, four fields of wheat, corn, oats, and apples surrounding it. And Harry hadn't even mentioned the three greenhouses which rivaled those of Professor Sprout. All in all it was the perfect safe-house. Shaking out of his reverie Harry left in search of Neville.
"Hello?" Harry called out, "Neville?" suddenly a figure rushed towards him.
"Sir tell me where you are injured and we'll get to it immediately." The squat graying man said franticly.
"I'm not injured," Harry growled in annoyance, "Do you know where the healer who owns this place is?"
"In the operating room sir, trying to restart a man's heart, lost cause I you ask me. I'll lead you to the infirmary." The man crowed. Harry frowned; he didn't like this man at all.
The infirmary was full to the point of choking; all of the beds were filled with moaning people. A little girl with some sort of spotted illness keened piteously.
"Dragon pox," the healer answered casually as he saw Harry looking, "highly contagious, deadly, parents couldn't afford her vaccination,"
"Why isn't she quarantined?" Harry demanded, "she could get others sick, they could all die," the smell of rotting flesh was making Harry dizzy.
"The healer who owns this place told us to, but they're all just going to die anyway."
"How short staffed are you?" Harry asked.
"Hardly," the man snorted.
"What's your name?"
"Head Healer Antonio Puttenesca,"
"Alright Mr. Puttenesca, get out."
"Excuse me?" Puttenesca frowned.
"You heard me, get out."
"You can't do this, you don't own this place,"
"But I do," Neville stepped around the corner, "he'll live, but his heart will be weak for the rest of his life, increased risk of stroke, heart attack, the works. Now Healer Puttenesca, get out," a surge of magic flowed from Neville and Puttenesca disappeared.
"Thanks mate…err, that is Mr. Longbottom," Harry just realized he was still dressed like Blaze.
"It was nothing, the man was a menace, but be warned any other man trying to assert authority in this house would have met the same fate." Neville brushed off, "Now we can speak after I rectify his mistakes Mr. Blaze. I'll be right back, that little girl needs help."
It took Neville thirty minutes, and several air freshening charms, to assure that everything was taken care of.
"Now, how may I help a man such as you?"
"I come as a simple messenger," Harry cracked a small smile; "Mr. Potter would like to see you and the others in his rooms ASAP. Something came up at the battle. Have someone take the reins here until Clark can come, or maybe Crawley. Just find someone trustworthy to take over for you when you're not here, preferably on a permanent basis."
"Yes sir," Neville saluted, "I do hope we can meet again,"
"Oh I'm sure we will," Harry smiled, "it won't be nearly as long as you think."
With that statement Harry jumped back into the floo.
Once Harry arrived in the sitting room of the department he put his glamour gauntlet back on, straightened out his hair, and prepared to head into his room.
Inside, the entire Dec Ace, sans Neville, was seated.
"Hey," Harry greeted them tiredly.
"Hello Harry, how's the minister?" Susan asked.
"Fine," Harry blushed, he had forgotten about the minister.
"Don't give me that," Hermione snapped, "Why were you at the battle, taking on a full grown giant alone?"
"Hermione calm down, all will be clear in a moment. I just have something we need to talk about first. We're just waiting on Neville now." A few minutes later Neville stumbled into the room.
"Healer Johnson, Angelina's mother, is heading the proxy-hospital now." Neville panted, " I got here as fast as I could."
"Excellent," Brook said, smiling. Harry nodded.
"The giant at the battle was Grawp," Harry said bluntly.
Ginny, Luna, and Neville gasped. The twins and Susan just looked confused.
"Who?" Susan asked.
"Hagrid's younger brother, who, up until this point, we were positive was fighting for Dumbledore."
"I see," George frowned.
"Why?" Hermione asked sadly.
"That's what I'm asking you. Any ideas?" Harry asked.
"Maybe the Death Eaters have Hagrid," Ginny cried softly.
"Unlikely, easily verified, we would have known." Brook shook her head, "a spell perhaps,"
"No," Hermione disagreed, "It would take more Death Eaters than the ones there to maintain the spell."
"Isn't it obvious?" Luna asked.
"Um, what?" Neville asked.
"Grawp is working for Dumbledore." Luna responded.
"Worked," Fred pointed out, "obviously not anymore."
"No," Luna said calmly, "He is still working for Dumbledore,"
"I get it," Harry said suddenly, noticing where his friend was taking this, "the Death Eaters were never there, those were Dumbledore's men."
"Dumbledore's trying to frame the Death Eaters?" Brook asked, "It makes sense."
"This is bad," Hermione frowned, "Even with our aging potions some of them may have recognized us, our hair coloring charms wore off about halfway through the battle."
"Hermione, I feel like that's the least of our worries." Neville said nervously.
"How will we deal with this, technically this is Control's job, but if we don't have a way to discern Death Eaters from the Order of the Phoenix…" Fred mumbled.
"It was our war from the start," Harry said, "We always knew that we had to take out Voldemort first anyway. Now we just have an extra motive. Taking out Voldemort publicly will force Dumbledore into the open."
"This is bad, really bad…"
"Everyone calm down," Susan said, "We have no proof of this yet, and Hermione your problem is easily solved."
"Yes?" Hermione asked.
"You can make a drastic change to your appearance, like dying your hair, and claim you had it done right before brake. You technically can't use magic outside of school so no one will suspect you. Neville doesn't have to worry. Ginny can get a tattoo of some sort on her neck, and Luna can get some sort of piercing that will come out. The twins are honestly in the most danger here."
"No we're not," they chorused, "we reapplied our hair charms."
"First we should worry about getting proof," Harry said.
"I'll get Control on it," Brook responded, "For now let's just work under the assumption that this is the gospel truth."
"Fair enough." Harry sighed, "This is a much better explanation for why I never got a vision."
"It's not your fault harry," Hermione sighed, "it's not like your Blaze of anything." Harry seemed to deflate, Brook frowned at the girl.
"We can deal with this later, let's do something fun now," Neville suggested.
"How about something fun, and practical," Ginny countered, "to prevent Hermione's issue from happening again, why don't we use codenames?"
"Doesn't that go against the Department's rules or something?" Fred and George asked.
"No," Brook said slowly, "the trainees pick their own code names, we just never got around to doing that,"
"Let's do something simplistic, something that Represents who we are," Luna said, "Nothing too long."
"You could just call me Sage, it means wise," Hermione said softly. Harry smiled at her encouragingly.
"I want to be Ike, it means laughter," George said.
"And then I'll be Puck, which means trickster." Obviously Fred was the next to respond.
"Are we all just going to choose names whose meaning represent us?" Hermione asked.
"I think we should, using legitimate names helps to disguise us even more," Harry decided.
"A valid point," Brook agreed, "but never the less a moot point when pertaining to you. You will always stick out, sorry."
"I know," Harry sighed, "Your turn Neville,"
"Aspen," Neville said confidently, "My favorite type of tree,"
"Always the Herbologist Neville," Luna smiled softly.
"Am I next?" Ginny asked.
"Go ahead," Neville grinned.
"I hereby dub myself, Lexi, meaning helper, defender, and teacher." Ginny gave an award winning smile.
"That leaves Harry, Luna, and me," Susan said, "I'll be Cassidy, it means clever."
"And that means that I am Penelope, the dream weaver." Luna said with finality, "of course we will all go by our real names when we're not in battle. I do like the way Luna sounds."
"Of course," Ginny agreed, "I like my name too Luna. Now Harry aren't you going to go?"
"No," it was Luna who answered.
"No?" Hermione asked.
"It's obvious. The way he's acting detached, shifting slightly as if he's guilty, he already has a second name." Luna said.
"Don't lie Luna, it's not becoming of you," Harry sighed, "you've known of my alter ego from the beginning, you are a seer, it's what makes you such a wonderful spy. You see the present. You know things about people, you've known from the beginning, but have said nothing, in order to protect me,"
"You always were good at seeing through my masks Harry Potter," Luna's voice was clipped.
"So who is your alter ego?" Hermione asked.
"Before I show you," Harry took a deep breath, "Just don't get to upset, alright?"
"Why would we be upset?" Susan asked.
"Just," Harry seemed to deflate a bit. "You'll understand when you see." Here Harry paused, glancing apprehensively at his glamour gauntlet. Sighing he lifted the small bracelet from his wrist. The effect was instantaneous.
Susan fainted.