Hey guys, I'm really curious what was wrong with last chapter 'cause it looked like nobody liked it cause only a few reviewed it. What was fail about it? In other news, update day again!
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~~HP~~
Harry woke up the next morning and ran around the castle grounds three times to make up for his canceled riding exercise.
He walked up the Hogwarts steps, still breathing heavily, his shirt in hand as sweat poured down his back. He gave a brief thought to the first-years he was flashing before he walked into the stuffy, hot air of the heated castle and wished he could be thoughtless enough to strip the rest of the way. He walked quickly toward the Griffindor tower, looking forward to a cool shower before he went to his first breakfast.
"Are you getting paid for that display or are you donating it to the school's decor, Mr. Potter?" Snape's drawl came from behind him.
Harry turned and saw Snape frozen at the top of the steps to the dungeons, a book in hand.
Harry grinned and purposefully whipped his head grandly back to flip his hair over his shoulder before he faced his professor.
"I suppose it depends on who starts offering me ones and fives, Professor." Harry said, raising an eyebrow and struggling to keep his serious tone.
"I believe it is wise to find a market before you start advertising a supply, Mr. Potter," Snape replied, raising an eyebrow back at him.
"Of the two of us, you're the one who began bargaining prices, Professor," Harry replied feeling his grin widen and his mood lift.
Harry thought he saw Snape's cheeks flush slightly and almost expected him to sputter.
"I was curious as to whether you were higher class than Ms. Umbrage, Mr. Potter, and I'm afraid I'm beginning to doubt it." Snape enunciated clearly, flicking his eyes up and down Harry's body.
Harry forced back his grin and raised his eyebrows fully.
"And I'm curious as to how you know her price, Professor," Harry replied.
"And I why you want to know," Snape returned, his mouth twitching.
"Well apparently the public want to know how I compare," Harry replied, raising his eyebrows.
"Anything for your public, Mr. Potter?," Snape asked.
"Apparently," Harry said as he smiled, spreading his arms widely.
The sound of a sudden explosion roared right beside his ear. He heard a distant scream behind a din of shouts and pained cries and what sounded like the crackling of a large fire. Harry was casting a wandless protection charm around himself and Snape before he'd even drawn his wands, throwing himself in front of the man as he drew both his wands and turned toward the sound to fight.
It's too late, Voldemort's come for us at Hogwarts, Harry thought, cursing his idiocy for staying even as he dodged his eyes back and forth, searching for a target.
It was a moment before he saw Charlie's Patronus fox, roaring all the noise through it. He struggled to make out a voice through the cacophony of battle, before he heard.
"HARRY! THE BURROW! THE BURROW!"
Harry ignored the feeling of blood dropping out of his face as he rose further protections around himself and prepared to apparate. He saw Snape's eyes widen and realized he had to trust the man, there was no time to run outside of the Hogwart's wards.
"POMFREY, there's battle, get beds prepared!" Harry ordered clearly into his own Patronus before allowing it to canter out toward the wall.
He apparated before he'd even seen the Patronus disappear and landed in chaos.
The Burrow was on fire. Weasleys and Order members fought everywhere, spells dashing back and forth and Harry barely had time to see them before he was casting new shields around himself to block the three hexes already headed toward his chest. He shielded two and dodged the last, spinning toward where he felt them cast and saw Charlie headed toward him, his face twisted in an excited grin.
The hell-
Harry jumped out of the way of the killing curse Charlie sent at him, seemingly without a thought, and rolled back onto his feet.
"Charlie!" Harry shouted, not understanding.
He saw Charlie, another Charlie, attack the identical man, and suddenly what looked like identical twins were battling together.
Polyjuice. Damn it Voldemort!
"Harry! They're polyjuiced!" The second Charlie shouted.
"They're polyjuiced!" The other shouted at the same time.
The first Charlie attacked me, but he could have thought I was a polyjuiced Death Eater too. Shit! Charlie would never look that pleased by killing. Right? Shit.
Harry stretched his magic out, and felt the second Charlie's magical signature in all his spells, and the other man's, a stranger's, flaring through the others.
Harry killed the stranger who'd first attacked him with Charlie's face, and spun his eyes around the confusing scene of brothers and fathers and friends fighting each other or themselves.
"Follow me!" Harry ordered to Charlie.
Harry ducked just as an exploding spell hit the back of the burrow, where the kitchen was, and heard a scream as the glass and metal flew. Harry jumped up and saw Tonks pull herself up from it and send a patrificus totalus killing hex at a version of Ron. Harry saw Ron fall and pushed the image from his mind, running instead toward Tonks.
"TONKS, change your hair color!" Harry ordered. In an instant Tonk's hair went from purple to blue and Harry nodded.
"Defend the house, anyone who attacks it is a Death Eater to be killed on sight!" Harry shouted to the two of them.
They nodded and Harry didn't wait to hear any arguments about the ethics of killing.
He saw Mr. Weasley scrambling over a kicking woman on the ground, grinning wildly.
"You're gunna be just fine, baby," sneered the man out of Mr. Weasley's soft, kind voice and Harry killed the man without distracting himself from his desperate attempt to get a handle on what was happening, what needed to be done.
"Hello, Harry," a sickly familiar voice called.
Harry looked over and saw Bellatrix, standing and smiling almost shyly at him. She curtsied and sent a stunning spell at him.
Harry didn't waste time wondering who was sick enough to polyjuice a dead woman. He knew an Order member wouldn't, and that was all he needed to know. He killed the Death Eater and looked up to find himself surrounded by duels. Order members and their counterparts fought in what had once been Mrs. Weasley's carefully tended garden, transfiguring the ground up into walls, into trenches and barrier to distract their opponents and give them the small second they needed to get in a killing hex. Harry watched a man fall against his own transfigured barrier and slide to the ground, the bones sticking out of both of his arms and bleeding with little care over Mrs. Weasley's young tomato plants.
Tomatoes don't grow in January.
And that's a sick thought to have right now, Harry told himself, throwing his concentration back into the battle as he backed up back to the house. He killed a copy of Bill, not recognizing the man's magical signature and finally got his back to the magically burning home. He didn't time to save it, he knew, and ignored it to try and find more faces amongst the crowd he could definitively join or kill.
He watched a man run past him at a full sprint before a spell hit him from behind. Harry winced, knowing the spell. The man spun with the impact of the hit as his stomach burst open and Harry identified Ron in the pale, pained face. Ron fell, gripping his bowels as they poured out over his hands and onto the stone path leading to the Burrow's smoldering back door.
Ron's at school. This must be a Death Eater, they'd make us fight him, of course.
Harry sprinted up to the dying man, telling himself he'd be okay, that Ron's face was nothing but a mask over an enemy, and that he'd be able to put the man out of his misery and re-enter the battle.
"Harry," Ron whispered, staring up at Harry with his dilated, unfocused blue eyes, "I panicked with the Devil's Snare, do you remember? It hurts," he said, half of his mouth dripping horribly. "It's me, it's me, I don't want to die. 'supposed to use fire with the snare," he said, and Harry could barely hear him over the battle.
It's Ron, Harry thought, feeling his stomach start to shake with the thought. There was no time, and apparation would kill him.
Tonks was suddenly kneeling under his sight, next to the choking boy.
"Harry, I've got him, I've got him," she said
"I told you-" Harry started, shaking his head.
"There's nothing to defend now, is there? There's no time, Harry," Tonks said, already pouring a blood replenishing potion into Ron's agape mouth.
Harry nodded and backed away from them, back toward where the Burrow was billowing smoke into the air, and stepped over half a corpse with its face crushed into the same stone walkway.
I'm going into shock, Harry thought, and he punched himself in the face as hard as he could with the awkward angle. He spat out what felt like hard tooth, and felt his mind return to its usual, rational self.
We need to risk polarization. Get who we trust on one side here and see who fights with us and who needs to die. And damn it!, why don't I have those damn fighting potions with me? They're useless in Gringotts!
Harry had barely lifted his neck to shout to where he saw Bill fighting before he felt a powerful exploding hex hit the Burrow, and the building burst.
Harry felt pain claw up his back and barely kept himself from screaming out in pain.
He forced his wincing eyes open and settled them over the scene as Order members and enemies alike ducked and screamed with burns. Shrapnel and dust was still flying through the air, making the air musty with burnt flesh and metal and Harry quickly transfigured the smoldering, billowing mass that used to be a home into a metal plate on the ground to get it out of the way so he could see. He needed to see.
"Bill!," Harry shouted running up to the Weasley and killing the Mrs. Weasley he saw fighting him.
"Thank you!" Bill shouted over a series of explosions Harry saw Fred casting.
Harry turned and saw a Mrs. Weasley cast a stunning spell on a Charlie. The young man fell immobile toward the ground just as one of Fred's explosions hit beneath him. The ground exploded upward and Mrs. Weasley screamed.
"NO!" She cried, running over to the billowing dust.
"Bill, that wasn't Charlie, protect her!" Harry shouted.
"Yes, Harry," Bill said, already rushing toward the woman.
"Mum, it's not him," Bill shouted as he grabbed onto Mrs. Weasley's flailing arm.
"Bill, just protection wards!" Harry shouted, turning around before he knew if Bill had heard him to face the battlefield again.
Harry heard a single crack of heavy thunder and felt the heavy humidity welcoming a storm.
Shit, visibility will be even worse. Harry cursed aloud, watching as a Ginny was hit with a cutting hex and apparated out of the battle.
"Order members, apparate out!" Harry shouted.
He didn't know whether no one had heard him or had simply chosen to ignore him, but the duels continue unstopped.
"We will not win this!" Harry shouted again.
Harry looked around and he didn't know who was who, and then he saw a group of robed Death Eaters striding toward them from the farm beside the Burrow and Harry realized that the last of the Burrow wards had fallen.
This could be bad, Harry thought, glancing around the fighting Order members who hadn't even seen the approaching group, and had little chance of fighting them.
And Harry felt an apparation ward settle over them all, and felt damned. There had to be fifty Death Eaters approaching in the mass, and all the Order members were occupied, likely fighting each other as much as they fought the Death Eaters.
Damn it!
He grabbed the galleon around his neck, and made it burn, made the Protean charm force all the galleons to burn, and he had to watch the Death Eaters march closer and closer up the hill with no one to stop them as he made a portkey, and activated the replacement magic, and called his untrained, random followers to him.
Ten arrived, dressed in a variety of formal and casual robes and looking instantly bewildered and scared by the noise and stench of blood and dust around them.A few of the random fighters looked firm and angry at the duels behind him, but Harry saw far too many blanch and widen their eyes with fear at a battle they hadn't even joined yet. Harry found only Nathan Hill gazing steadily at the battle, looking prepared to keep his head about him and join it.
"MEN!" Harry shouted, demanding their attention over the din of the explosions and shouted curses behind him.
They're terrified.
"You are untrained! There is no time! There is a group of Death Eaters coming that we cannot take without you. Get ready! Attack before they ever do! As soon as your spell has a target, cast it, and be prepared to protect yourselves immediately! We will fight together, remember that! Do not flinch at Voldemort's name! Do not flinch at anything!"
Speech, speech, speech, think of a damn speech. Fighting and victory and bravery.
"We will fight with our lives today, and I can tell the reason: It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival!" Harry shouted to them, "we risk nothing this day, we have nothing to lose in fighting that we will not lose in submitting, and so we will fight, you will fight without training, without full leadership and without knowledge of what you are building, because you know that there is a better life beyond this battlefield. We WILL fight for victory!" Harry roared, lifting up his wand and turning to reveal the robed men marching toward them in loose ranks up the hill.
"FOR VICTORY!" A voice shouted back, and Harry turned, surprised, to see Nathan Hill with his wand in the air, glaring at the troops.
"FOR VICTORY!" Nathan shouted again, and a few of the more resolute fighters began to almost smile and joined him in the next call. "FOR VICTORY! FOR VICTORY!"
Seriously? Just shouting helps?
"Nathan Hill, you are my second, keep them together but make sure you have enough room to maneuver," Harry ordered.
The man nodded, and Harry ran back toward the other dueling couples, feeling out magical signatures and killing as he ran.
"Follow me!," Harry shouted to those he identified as Order members.
He ran, and gathered the fighters behind him as they leaped over the corpses and smoldering land made their way to the other side of the hill. The men who tried to attack them died quickly, and Order members slowly joined them, until they were a man of men together again, and the duels had stopped.
I should have done that before, Harry realized, cursing himself as he realized they could have ended the battle long before.
"Holy hell," Moody breathed from behind him as they looked down and saw another group of Death Eaters approaching. "They were going to surround us with a hundred men,"
"A hundred fucking men?" Fred asked, blanching.
"There's probably another fifty at the other side of us," Moody grunted.
"Moody, lead this half, I'll grab the other," Harry ordered, glancing around at the exhausted, desperate looking Order members gathered together.
"Are they polyjuiced?" Tonks asked quietly from behind them.
"They're robed," Charlie said, sighing and shaking his head.
"Can we apparate out?" Mr. Weasley asked.
"Run away?" Bill scoffed, "this is our home,"
"I could get you out," Harry said firmly, looking over the number of people on what had become a broken battlefield.
"No," Mr. Weasley said, "Bill's right. We will win this day,"
Against a hundred men? That's foolish.
"This is the only chance I'd have at getting you out," Harry said.
"Good, then we won't be tempted," Charlie said, smiling slightly.
"We vowed to kill the bastards, Harry," George said, "it's only polite to kill them when they so kindly come to us,"
"We need to retreat," Harry said, shaking his head.
"No, we need to fight. It's always been like this for odds, Harry, it always will be," Mr. Weasley said.
Damn it.
"It doesn't have to be. We gather more men, we come back later," Harry pleaded, glancing at the approaching force of black-robed Death Eaters.
"We can fight this, we've done it before," Mr. Weasley said.
"The odds say we all die," Moody grunted, shrugging.
"Be that as it may, we stay?," Mr. Weasley asked glancing around at his family.
"Indeed, roll out the welcome mat, we're staying," Fred agreed, nodding firmly.
"Or, you know, explosions," George replied, opening his palm to reveal a bunch of blue rocks.
"That would work too," Fred replied, grinning.
"What are those?," Harry asked quickly.
"Tell everyone," George said quietly.
"Alright, everyone!," Fred shouted, getting their attention, "we have one advantage. These are Fred's Flintstones. They explode on contact and throw shrapnel that can get through most wards. Fred and I will be using them, because if you accidentally crush them in your hand or you will no longer have one,"
"Give me some," Harry ordered, nodding.
"And when Fred said him and I, he meant Fred Harry, and I," George said, pulling a handful out of his pocket and giving it to Harry.
"These are Instant Darkness powder chips," George said, holding up a handful, "Fred, Harry and I will be using them as well," he said, handing them to Harry.
"Be careful mate, this chips have to be thrown before the Flintstones or they won't work, and these are all we have to give you," Fred said.
"Alright, now everyone, wake the hell up and get ready to kill people," Moody barked as the Death Eaters got closer to target-range.
"We're not killing anyone!," Lupin shouted from behind Charlie and Harry ran across the yard, jumping over Molly's half-intact picket fence to join his new fighters.
They were already throwing spells down the hill and missing wildly.
"Hold all fire!" Harry shouted, impersonating the movie commanders Dudley had cheered on as a kid as he pushed in front of them.
Harry waited, holding his wands out to the side to keep the wizards from wasting their energy. A man shot a spell down over his shoulder and he shouted again.
"HOLD ALL FIRE!"
Harry waited, and the tension built again, but no one fired as the Death Eaters walked almost casually forward, up from the base of the hill, until they where Harry had seen the untrained wizard's spells failing.
Harry threw the chips as hard as he could, and magically pushed the wind to carry them down to where the Death Eaters were marching unhurriedly up the hill.
He threw down a small pile of Flintstones, and the land beneath the Death Eaters exploded upward before the area went instantly, blindingly dark.
"CAST!" Harry ordered, throwing his own killing hexes down into the darkness. He heard the crunch of grass and gravel as the pounding sound of the explosion's cleared and he heard the Death Eaters start to run toward them.
Harry cut a trench into the ground in front of the darkness and saw a Death Eater fall into it and one of the new fighter's hexes kill the man swiftly.
"Well shot, keep on!" Harry shouted as the darkness cleared and Harry saw the Death Eaters quickly transfigure the trench away, and keep running, and hexes started flying up the hill.
It won't be this polarized for long.
Harry threw the last of the darkness chips and Flintstones and cut trenches into the earth, quickly transfiguring spikes inside them, and he heard a full-throated scream of a woman as a nameless Death Eater found the trap.
Harry pulled up the land in front of them, trying to create a barrier, but he saw a spell cut right through it and into a man at his left, and Harry realized the barrier was only hurting them and lowered it.
The darkness cleared, and Harry counted a full twenty still running toward them, forcing up hexes, and Harry ignored a horrid scream at his side to kill the first robed Death Eater he saw, and he focused on the next, and the next, and Death Eaters tripped over each other's corpses, but kept coming, and Harry heard a horrible explosion behind him and ignored it as well as he looked for a way, any way to slow the approaching Death Eaters down.
"FALL BACK!" Harry ordered, and his people began tripping over themselves to step backwards, so Harry turned and ran, so they would run with him, and he blessed them for obeying as he turned again and found them all stopping in front of him and turning, ten meters from the crest of the hill, and he prepared for yet another battle.
"FALL BACK!" He heard Moody shout behind him, but he didn't have time to turn and look. He saw a man at his side begin to turn and grabbed him.
"Face forward, spread out, prepare yourselves to fight!" Harry shouted, forcing his way to the front and running to the side of them all so they could shoot freely.
He saw the first man crest the hill and a spell shot out from beside him and landed soundly, burning through the dark robes, and the Death Eater pitched backward to roll back down the hill.
Robes are not good to fight in, Harry thought, before he saw a mass of black-robed fighters crest the hill and another man in his ranks died without a sound.
Harry forced the ground beneath the Death Eaters to explode upwards with a popping bang, and watched a Death Eater lose a limb and scream and he killed the woman before she'd fallen to the ground. Death Eaters fell and rolled forward back on their feet, still fighting, and Harry barely dodged a killing curse in time and heard something smash behind him where the spell had landed.
Then the battle petered out, the last Death Eaters charged up the hill and saw the pile of corpses at their feet and positioned themselves to run before they were in turn hexed and killed and landed amongst the others. Harry turned his men to help the others behind them, only to see Moody throw a potion that burned heavily through the last Death Eater's robes that set him to screaming on his knees, and Moody took him out with a satisfied grunt.
Their battle didn't seem to have gone as well. The Order members were cut and bleeding, and Charlie was bent over a form on the ground. Harry saw Fred and George whiten and run over, and Harry followed, dreading what he was sure to see. It was only a matter of time before he lost someone he loved to the battles they joined. He'd always known that.
The fighters all grew quiet, and the wind passed over the grass heavily, making a scraping sound that couldn't cover the horrified gasp of Fred as he bent over Charlie's body to see what he was holding.
Harry jogged over lightly and put his hand on Fred's back. Fred looked up and grimaced, and moved out of the way.
Bill was lying on the ground, a open slash bleeding heavily and his eyes furious and open.
"He's alive," Harry gasped in relief, drawing his eyes down the man's wounds and seeing nothing fatal.
"I'll live," Bill nodded.
"Bill-" Charlie started.
"I know, I know, I'm headed toward the infirmary," Bill said, starting to get up before his eyes grew wide.
"Where's Dad?" he asked.
"I'm here," Mr. Weasley said, limping forward toward the group.
Bill nodded, looking relieved.
"Alright," he said.
"Bill, it was Fenrir that got you," Charlie said heavily.
Bill nodded.
"We'll deal with that later," he said, pushing himself uponto his hands and knees to get up.
"Shit, Bill!" Fred barked as Bill suddenly gripped his chest. Blood poured through his shirt and started falling heavily on the grass with a horrible dripping sound.
"Bill, can you apparate?" Harry asked, pushing his way through to grab Bill's forearm.
Bill looked up and nodded strongly.
Harry gripped him and apparated to the infirmary, leaving Bill on the ground as he saw Pomfrey rushing toward him from another bed.
Harry apparated back to the battlefield quickly, and found himself faced with Order members slowly transfiguring sheets to cover the dead.
"He's okay?," George asked, looking pale.
"Pomfrey's got him," Harry said, nodding before walking up to Charlie.
"How many?" Harry asked Charlie grimly, looking over the quiet scene.
"Four definite from your group, two from ours, and Bill and Ron and two of yours at the infirmary," Charlie replied grimly.
"Whose the two?" Harry asked.
"Lucy and Sam," Charlie said.
Harry wasn't sure he recognized the names but forced himself to keep a somber expression despite his relief, seeing the difficulty etched in Charlie's eyes.
"Friends?" Harry asked, clamping a hand on Charlie's shoulder though he wasn't sure why that was supposed to help.
"Comrades," Charlie replied with a soft tilt of his head like a shrug.
"Harry," Tonks called softly, and Harry turned to see her as she gently gestured to where his group was standing, staring at the sheet-covered corpses.
Four out of ten and two in the hospital, Harry thought heavily, knowing he'd feel the emotion for that when his adrenaline settled.
Harry walked over to them softly, knowing there was nothing he could say.
"Men," Harry called firmly, keeping his voice strong.
The fighters turned immediately toward him, and Harry was glad to see Nathan Hill alive, though evidently wounded. Derrick Hoskins stood with his back straight and his eyes strong, seemingly ready to be there.
"All of you who have wounds to be tended must go to the infirmary." Harry ordered, before looking over all of their spell-shocked faces and realizing they were in no condition to go home.
"All others are ordered to go to the Leaky Caldron and get themselves some sort of drink. Get to know each other, calm down, then go home. Keep your galleons constantly on you, and check their serial numbers. That will give you the time of your training session. You'll be trained next time you'll called to fight, you'll be better prepared. I've seen today the bravery in you that will be a silent weapon against the Dark Lord that he will not know how to face," Harry said, feeling foolish even as he saw the few fighters left start to stand straighter.
As if I entirely planned for the training sessions, Harry thought, cursing himself. He'd find a time for them now.
"Alright, I'm going home," Harry sighed, wiping a hand down his sweat and dirt strewn hair. It felt chalky beneath his hands and Harry grimaced.
"No, you're going to the infirmary," Mr. Weasley said, appearing beside him and holding a hand on his shoulder gently.
''I'm not injured," Harry said, shaking his head though his brain seemed to whoosh inside his skull unhealthily, "and I'm beyond filthy." he added.
"Harry, your back is-" Mr. Weasley started to say, but Harry lost the rest of his sentence as his eyes unfocused without his permission and his head started to swim through the air. Black spots started in front of his eyes and Harry tried to focus on them instead, and heard Mr. Weasley saying something loudly before his stomach flipped beneath him.
~~HP~~
Harry woke up and found himself lying on his stomach, facing the clean white wall and pretty still-life flower painting of the second infirmary bed. His back still burned with pain and Harry remembered learning somewhere that the strongest salve to clean and heal burns was ineffective with pain killers, even muggle ones.
Why is everything helpful always ineffective with pain killers? Harry wondered, forcing back an audible growl. I must have been dangerously badly-burned for Pomfrey to resort to this one.
His stomach rolled and Harry slowly pushed himself up with his arms and sat up.
He saw Madam Pomfrey attending someone in the bed next to him and waiting until she faced him. She ran her eyes over him appraisingly once before nodding.
"Very well, you can get up, but drink this. A letter arrived for you, it's on the table" she said, handing him a vial. Harry took it without checking its label, and grabbed the muggle letter lying pathetically on the bedside table, surrounded by empty vials and Harry found himself looking over at Ron as Madam Pomfrey moved away from the bed.
Ron's face looked sickly and damp with sweat, and Harry glanced down to see his stomach closed but streaked with lines of infection working their way out from the hard red scar over his bowels. If it weren't for magic the boy would be long dead, and still Harry didn't know the chances.
"The boy and Bill Weasley will live, but Bill is permanently scarred." Snape's voice sounded from across the room and Harry looked over, unsure why he hadn't noticed the man before. Snape was putting a rack of filled potion vials onto the counter below the main potion cabinet.
"Thank you," Harry said earnestly, forcing himself to stand even as his back screamed in protest.
"Hardly," Snape sneered, turning his back and leaving.
Harry started walking after him slowly, making his way toward Griffindor tower to start writing a report to Mr. Creevey about the Opposition's victory at the Burrow's hill. It was an hour later, when the letter was written and sent, that he realized he hadn't eaten either of his breakfasts and he was starving.
He went down to lunch on time and had barely sat down on a hard bench when Hermione came dashing into the Great Hall.
"Harry!," She yelled as soon as she was in earshot before stopping directly in front of him, "Harry, Ron's in the infirmary!"
"I know, he's with Bill, they'll both be fine," Harry reassured her.
"Then what are you doing in here?" She exclaimed, looking scared.
"I have to eat at least two meals a day," Harry explained.
"Oh, forget Pomfrey's orders Harry! Ron's really hurt, there was an attack at the Burrow, we don't even know if it's still there!"
"It's not, it was burned down and exploded during the battle," Harry said, remembering the rushing bang of noise as shrapnel and fire rushed past him.
"Oh my god, that's horrible? Is everyone okay? I heard about Ron and Bill, and there are two others in the infirmary but-"
"Hermione, calm down, we're all fine," Harry said when she stopped to breathe.
"Wait, we-, you were THERE?" Hermione interrupted, ending in a shout that drew looks from across the table.
"Hermione, it's fine, we're all fine," Harry repeated.
"It's not fine! You could have been killed!" Hermione yelled, looking terrified.
"Or worse, expelled?" Harry joked lightly, getting up and walking around the table quickly, ignoring the interested looks of the Griffindor's around them. He didn't know what to do when she grabbed his hand and pulled him to leave the room. He resisted.
"No, Hermione, I have to eat," he said, trying not to wince as her tugs pulled on his back.
"The hell with eating, Harry, we have to go see Ron," She said, quieter now.
"There's nothing we can see to for him, Hermione, Pomfrey's a better nurse than either of us will ever be," he explained carefully.
"Harry, it's about being there for him and his family," Hermione said, looking confused and hurt.
"That can't be more important than the war," Harry protested, shaking his head and glancing back at his food.
"It's only two hours Harry, what else would you be doing?" Hermione asked rhetorically, tugging on him again.
"Organizing a time to train, uniform and raise an underground militia," Harry stated, "I still don't have half of it even figured out."
"Then do that by Ron's bedside," Hermione said.
I can do that, Harry realized, feeling relief relax muscles he didn't know he was tensing.
"Alright," Harry said, nodding and grabbing his meal to finish it quickly. Hermione released him, nodding seriously and waited for him to put down his plate before she turned to lead the way out of the Great Hall.
~~HP~~
"Oh, Harry," Mrs. Weasley gasped, pulling him from the window seat into her arms. Harry winced and pulled an arm from the hug to place his notebook on the closest bedside table and returned her hug until she released his burning back.
"Poppy said Ron will live," she said, gripping his shoulders as she turned to look at Ron worriedly.
"He'll be fine, Mrs. Weasley," Harry assured her.
"What was he even doing there?" Mrs. Weasley asked, shaking her head and covering her mouth with a fist.
Good question.
"Everyone who's not dead or dying, reconvene at Grimmauld today at 12:00," Moody barked from the middle of the infirmary room. Harry looked around and saw most of the Order gathered around the room and nodded with them.
"Moody, we need more than a half-hour," Mrs. Weasley started.
"No," Mr. Weasley refused quietly, shaking his head, "we'll be there,"
Mrs. Weasley sighed, glanced at Ron and nodded as Moody strode out.
"We have a lot to discuss," she said quietly, her face growing taut with worry.
Harry saw Mrs. Weasley purse her lips and looked to see Fleur rushing into the room, ignoring the scarf half-falling off her neck behind her.
Harry slipped back to his corner and returned to his plans. He needed to live away from Hogwarts and still find a way to keep his 'student' status, he needed to find a place to train recruits, he needed to get more recruits, they needed uniforms the Death Eaters couldn't copy, a way to know where the Death Eaters were and how to get to them, a way to gather and distribute supplies, and some name to gather under. They needed to be more than 'recruits', they had to be like Order members, but members who would listen to him and were willing to kill.
"How are the Militia plans coming?" Ginny asked, interrupting his lines of thought.
Militia. Simple, unassuming, official and militant.
"Well, I've decided on a name for it," Harry said.
"Oh?" Ginny asked, crawling up onto the windowsill.
"Militia," Harry said, glancing at her. She grinned fully, and nodded.
"Well, you know, I'm brilliant," she said, shrugging.
"Thanks," Harry said, nodding and focusing back on his plans.
"Hey, lemme help," she argued. Harry looked up and saw her pouting.
"I've really got to focus," Harry said, shaking his head.
"Yeah, and I'm smarter than you," Ginny said, shrugging. "What's problem number 2?"
"I need a way to live away from Hogwarts and still attend classes," Harry said without glancing back at his sheet.
"Take an apartment wherever and commute. We're wizards, that'd hardly entail a six hour train ride like the Express," Ginny said.
"Yeah, but the problem is more: where?," Harry said.
"That's trivial," Ginny said, shrugging, "next,"
"Alright, fair. Number 2, take 2, I need a place to keep and train recruits," Harry said, sighing.
"Isn't that the same problem? Find some huge mansion thing and buy it and use the ballrooms as shooting ranges," Ginny said,
"I realize these are mostly simple problems, Ginny, I'm just thinking about what all needs to be done," Harry corrected.
"Ah," she said, "than problem number 3?"
Harry passed over the list.
"I can probably figure out the uniforms." Ginny said seriously, handing the list back.
Harry nodded.
"What do you want the uniforms to look like?" she asked.
"Why would that matter?" Harry asked, scoffing.
"'Cause people don't want to join groups that make them look foolish. They like the dark, skulking, army look," Ginny replied, shrugging.
"This is supposed to be about a lot more than that," Harry said, looking at her carefully.
"Yeah well, appearances are always going to be part of it," Ginny replied, raising her eyebrows at him aggressively.
She has a point.
"Do that then, skulking strong uniforms" Harry agreed. Ginny smiled slightly and nodded.
"Alright, I'll try. Get Fred and George to help you with the supply, they have contacts everywhere," Ginny said, pushing herself off the window seat.
"I was thinking that. Their Flintstones probably saved all of our lives today," Harry said.
Ginny turned her head to gaze over the room's crowd.
"Good thing that," she said softly.
"Ginny!" Madam Pomfrey called, "go get me four limb straps, a cleansing potion, four AB blood replenishers and a bundle of bandages."
"Back to work," Ginny said, pushing herself off the ledge.
"You work here?" Harry asked but Ginny was already halfway to the walk-in supply room.
~~HP~~