I, London Man, did NOT write this story. This was written by Frosty. I am just hosting it because EF was going to cancel their account. EF allowed me to have them on my site so people can read or reread them if they wanted.

I did NOT steal this story. Also, I want to thank Frosty for letting my host their stories.

Chapter 37: Reunion, Part Three

Harry Potter and the Setting Sun

Disclaimer: HarryPotter by J.K. Rowling, the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer and all related materials belong to their respective owners. This is non-profit fanfiction.

Warning: This story contains slash.

Chapter Thirty-Six – Reunion, Part Three

Albus Dumbledore looked unconvinced by Harry's lie. It didn't really matter, though. The boy had no intention of revealing that he'd been living in a town filled with vampires and shapeshifters, let alone that he'd married one of the aforementioned vampires. As far as Harry was concerned, the ancient wizard could believe whatever he wanted to.

"So what's your grand plan? Just going to hold me captive? Throw me at Voldemort when the time is right and hope that he's the one of us that dies?"

"No, Harry. We plan on teaching you. With hard work, you'll be able to rejoin your classmates by the time classes resume after Christmas. It will make this fall exceptionally busy, but I have every confidence-"

"I will not cooperate," Harry interrupted firmly.

"Harry," Sirius began. "You don't mean that."

"I do," the dark-haired boy replied. He didn't spare Sirius a glance; he was still very put out with the animagus.

"Then let's just obliviate the boy and be done with it," Professor Snape suggested venomously.

The man's words caused cold fear to seep into Harry's heart as though the words had been the fangs of a snake. He clenched his jaw so as to prevent his face from betraying his fear openly, but the triumphant look in the potions professor's eyes revealed that the man knew he'd struck a blow.

Fortunately for Harry, most of the other occupants of the room were quick to shout down Professor Snape's suggestion. The headmaster, however, looked like he was actually giving the idea some serious thought.

"There's no way in hell I'll allow you to erase his memories," Sirius snapped at Professor Snape furiously.

"What do you care if we just get rid of his memories from the past two years? He can go back to being your little godson. It's not like he'll forget anything of value," the greasy-haired man replied before turning to the headmaster. "He'll forget this ludicrous marriage of his and be just as eager to do whatever you want as he was the day he left Hogwarts."

Headmaster Dumbledore's silence was really beginning to unnerve Harry. The man had always been someone that the boy thought of as a moral compass, but everything he was doing now just seemed so very wrong. Trying to force Harry to participate in war. Considering altering his mind to remove his opposition. The idea of it all was barbaric.

The disagreement between Sirius and Professor Snape soon drew in the other participants of the room. While the majority of the room had tried to shout down the man's idea when he'd first suggested it, they now took part in actually arguing with the man.

Finally, the headmaster decided to end the debate. "No, Severus. We will do no such thing. Using magic in such a way to make free people into slaves is Voldemort's way. Not ours."

"But Voldemort's way in the one that is working," the man countered.

The headmaster fixed his subordinate with a hard glare. "I believe, Severus, that your ferocity and determination to see this war to a, how shall we say, 'desirable ending,' has clouded your judgment."

The potions professor shrank back from the headmaster's softly spoken rebuke, but did not openly concede the point.

Although Harry watched the interaction, his mind was elsewhere. He was desperately trying to figure out how to escape the house and return to his husband before the headmaster was convinced to engage in a course of action that would be detrimental to Harry's marriage and freedom. Had he been confronted with only the Weasley family and Hermione, the situation wouldn't have been so hopeless. Harry could have found a way to excuse himself to the bathroom or something and then flee through the window. But such a simple trick wouldn't work on the headmaster. He had to come up with something more cunning. Something, for lacking a better description, more Slytherin.

He was also concerned about the possibility of Aurors bursting through the door at any moment. It had been several minutes since his mobile phone had vibrated in his pocket. If either Aurors or Death Eaters were present, they could be preparing something devastating. They could be attacking Edward while Harry was stuck inside the house.

"So what is your plan then? I'm not going to cooperate and you're not going to force me. That seems to put us at a bit of a stalemate, wouldn't you say?" Harry asked after the headmaster silenced Severus Snape.

"I intend on you staying right where you are. You've been cut off from our world for two years. I trust that, in time, when you see the suffering of your people, you will come around," the ancient wizard explained.

Harry couldn't help but laugh. "That's it? That's your plan?"

"I fail to see what is so funny, Harry," the old man said.

"Your plan is to hope that I'll fall prey to Stockholm Syndrome?"

"Stockawhat?" Sirius asked.

Harry looked at his godfather for moment before explaining. "In the 1970s, two ex-convicts attempted to rob a Swedish bank. In the course of the robbery, they took four individuals as hostages and then kept them for almost a week. After the ordeal was over and the hostages were liberated, the hostages actually defended the robbers' actions. Two of the hostages even married two of the robbers.

"There are many theories about why the hostages came to identify with their captors. Some researches think that it has something to do with fear. Perhaps the hostages misunderstand the minor breaks in the terror to be acts of kindness by the captors. Others believe it is a simple survival mechanism. Either way, the psychological phenomenon whereby the hostages develop emotional attachments to, and begin to identify with, their captors is now known as 'Stockhold Syndrome.'"

"We're not holding you hostage!" Sirius protested in a desperate attempt to make his godson see reason.

"How would you describe this situation?" Harry challenged the man.

Sirius struggled to find an answer. "You're just a child. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into. Or what needs to be done. We're just making sure you make the right choices."

"Let's put aside for a moment the fact that you just called me a child yet still expect me to do your fighting for you. You can try to use good intentions to disguise the truth, but in the end you're just like the hostage takers in my story. I'm seventeen and, therefore, a legal adult by your laws."

Harry's use of the phrase, 'your laws,' did not go unnoticed by the other individuals present.

"I have every legal right to leave this place. You're holding me against my will and against the law. I am your hostage."

Sirius was about to try another argument against the teen, but was silenced when the headmaster raised his hand. The old wizard had never looked so weary to Harry, not even on the night of Voldemort's resurrection. Headmaster Dumbledore's blue eyes seemed dull and grey to Harry.

"You are correct, Harry. We will be holding you against your will. And against the law. We can try to disguise our actions with good intentions, but those attempts are mere obfuscation. You've grown into a very keen young man; you are not quite the brash boy I remember. The boy who always jumped in without thinking has been replaced. While I am happy to see how you have grown, I am saddened to see that you have lost all empathy and sense of connection to your own world."

"This was never my world," Harry said as he closed his eyes. When he reopened them, he fixed a glare at his former headmaster. "I'm seventeen. I've spent less a third of my life in the magical community. About a year after I was born and four years of schooling, minus the summer holidays."

"Even considering your limited involvement with our world, I do not believe that you can remain so resistant to the idea of helping us when you realize what we are up against."

Remus Lupin took over at this point. "Things are not going well, Harry. The Ministry spent over a year dragging its heels. It didn't acknowledge Voldemort's return until after Madam Bones and many others who could have rallied the opposition to the Death Eaters were murdered. And they only admitted the truth then because Voldemort committed several of the murders himself and then cast the Dark Mark into the sky above the scenes."

Harry really didn't want to get sucked into this, but he needed to buy more time to figure out how to escape. It was becoming increasingly apparent that whatever had caused his husband to call his phone, it was not an attack. He likely realized that he was unable to get through the house's magical defenses and thought to warn Harry of that fact.

He decided that he needed to keep Remus Lupin talking. "Why not go ahead and take out Fudge with these other potential leaders, Professor?"

"I haven't been your professor for many years, Harry. Please call me Remus. And in answer to your question, it was because Fudge was so inept that they wanted to keep him in power for as long as possible. And they did. Even after Voldemort's public return, his forces within the Ministry managed to keep Fudge in power for an extended period of time. And Fudge was not a man suited for wartime governing. If Lucius Malfoy hadn't died in attempt to murder the headmaster, Fudge would likely still be in power."

"Now that last part just sounds plain stupid. Why would Voldemort send one of his best lieutenants on a doomed mission that would cost him direct control of the Ministry?"

Mr. Weasley answered that question. "We think that Malfoy failed You-Know-Who somehow and that he was sent on a suicide mission as punishment. You-Know-Who had already damaged the Ministry as much as he could have without actually putting Malfoy into the minister's office."

"Malfoy had outlived his usefulness then," Harry concluded.

"Precisely," Remus Lupin confirmed. "Fudge was sacked, but the Ministry was in tatters. It has been forced to rely on very draconian methods to remain intact since that time. If the headmaster wasn't here . . ." the werewolf trailed off.

"The Ministry has all but fallen. The major figures, other than the headmaster, who could have rallied the opposition are all dead. And you think a reluctant seventeen-year-old with a fourth year education is going to sweep in and turn the tide," Harry said whimsically with a flourish of his hands. "I'm not heartless, I'm realistic. Unless I happen to be standing in front of a mirror when Voldemort tries to curse me and I trip at the appropriate moment so that he gets hit with his own spell, I'm not going to be any help. If anything, your people will get themselves killed because there's a civilian on the battlefield."

Harry could see the headmaster's frustration in the way that his posture became rigid. It wasn't the sort of straightening that accompanied a man raising himself up to redouble his efforts, but rather the action of a weary man desperately trying to keep himself upright. As he watched the old man, he could see some sort of conflict on his face. The old man was wrestling with something terrible and Harry greatly feared that, in the face of the younger wizard's resolve, he would resort to Professor Snape's plan.

Time was running out and Harry still hadn't figured out how to escape the Burrow. He turned himself back towards the window and tried to look into the stormy night beyond. Just as the last time he'd looked out, he couldn't see anything but his own reflection.

The entire room was silent. The various wizards and witches around the room, Harry realized, were hoping that his resolve was cracking. That he was thinking the headmaster's words over and would soon decide to stay and fight their fight.

A flash of lightning momentarily illuminated the scene beyond the window and Harry could see his husband just a few feet away from him. The vampire was soaking wet from the rain and looking at Harry in desperation.

A plan began to form in Harry's mind. Like most of his plans, it was ludicrous. Then again, ludicrous seemed to work for him.

The boy turned from the window and strolled across the room and around the couch. He made like he was going to the headmaster, but then turned on his heel and sprinted back towards his former place by the window. At the last possible second, he leapt at the window in an attempt to break through it. He used his arms to shield his head from the impact and any shards of glass.

His plan was a very simple one: leap through the window and then rely on Edward to get him to safety. He knew that jumping through the glass would cut his arms and cause him to bleed, but he had faith in the vampire's self-control. Edward had been with Harry while he was bleeding before and had resisted the urge to feed. And their recent activities demonstrated that the vampire's self-control was growing by leaps and bounds.

Unfortunately, Harry's plan didn't take into account the spells and enchantments that had been placed on the window to prevent it from breaking. He hit the widow and rebounded hard to the floor. There was shouting and a fair bit of shrieking when Harry fell to the floor. He was pretty sure he'd broken his left wrist upon impacting with the window, but managed to keep himself from crying out in pain.

Charlie was the first of the other occupants of the room to reach Harry's side. He took hold of the younger wizard by the shoulders and tried to help him sit up. As Charlie hovered over him, the boy saw a new opportunity to escape.

When Charlie moved in close to Harry, his wand became visible as it stuck out his pants' pocket. With his right hand, the younger wizard reached out, grasped the wand, and pointed it back at the wall in front of him. Charlie didn't realize what was happening until it was too late.

Although the window and the wall in which it was embedded in were strong enough to withstand a teenage boy crashing into them, they weren't strong enough to resist a blasting charm. The wand wasn't his and he was very much out of practice, but the spell worked well enough to blast away a relatively small chunk of the wall. A hole of a few square feet now exposed the living room and its occupants to the storm outside.

Several of the other occupants of the room reacted with shouts of alarm and anger at Harry's actions, but they quickly faded into cries of fear when Edward made his presence known. The vampire dove through the little hole that had been blasted into the side of the house.

Spells began to fly in Harry's general direction as Edward landed at his side. The vampire swatted Charlie Weasley away from Harry as if he was a red-headed rag doll.

Edward made several attempts to pick Harry up and remove him from the house, but he was forced back by the magic being cast in his direction. None of the spells actually hit the immortal, but the act of dodging the spells caused him to alternatively gain and lose ground.

Harry tried to defend his husband with a shielding spell, but found himself quickly disarmed. By whom, he wasn't sure.

Although the spellcasters were fast, the vampire was faster. He dodged the spells with the ease and grace of a dancer. But Harry knew that he couldn't keep it up forever. Although the vampire would not fatigue, the wizards would eventually get over their shock at his sudden appearance and start working together rather than just tossing spells in their current desperate manner; they'd eventually be able to box Edward in.

The spells slowly destroyed more and more of the wall to the point that the small opening that Edward had just barely been able to squeeze through was expanded into a gaping hole that even Vernon Dursley could have fit through.

Harry had another moment of inspiration. He did the only thing he could think of doing to help Edward: he stood up. The wizards were perfectly willing to hurl spells at and even attempt to kill Edward, but they weren't willing to risk hurting Harry. They had made it abundantly clear that they needed him, after all.

The boy's body provided Edward the cover he needed. Not only did Harry's body shield Edward from the spells, but it ensured that the wizards could only throw stunning spells at Edward for fear of accidentally hitting Harry. And, because vampires were incapable of sleeping or otherwise being unconscious, such spells shattered harmlessly against Edward's crystalline skin. It was like casting a tickling charm on a rock.

The only real danger of the wizards' spells having been neutralized, Edward was able to safely grab hold of his husband and move backwards out of the house.

The entire fiasco only took about a minute; less than sixty seconds passed between when Harry dove at the window and when Edward began to sprint away from the Burrow and towards the rented car.