Chapter 44 No Safer Place

The line of children for the basement of Honeydukes went back to the Floo. They were of all ages, some clutching a few prized possessions. All of them were looking frightened and bewildered. To the extent there was any order, the older children were trying to look after and reassure the younger ones. There was a babble of children's voices, some crying, some plaintive.

The older students of Hogwarts were shepherding them through the tunnel to Hogwarts in parties, keeping them together so that none of them would get lost. The semi-darkness and the uneven floor of the tunnel did not help make that task any easier.

"Why are people sending their children here?" Was the plaintive question of one of the older students, looking harried and worried as he watched still more young children brought into the Great Hall.

"The Realm is in danger." Minerva McGonagall replied, never taking her eyes from the parties of children being brought into the Great Hall. "Hogwarts is the oldest and strongest keep of the Realm, defended by the best the Realm can muster. If there is safety anywhere, it is here. The families of Britain are trusting us with their children, with the future of the Realm."

He looked still more worried, then moved off toward yet another group of children entering the Great Hall.

Ron Weasley gathered the teams of Dumbledore's Army on the Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts. They had taken the Floo to Hogsmeade and their brooms through the narrow route through the wards around Hogwarts. It had taken time. He hoped that it not taken too much of that time. There were no dragons in sight, but he was morally certain that it would not be long before there were.

"All right. We don't have much time, people. They're coming. This isn't Canada. This is tougher than Canada. There's no Seeing Eye here to give us directions, so we're going to do this old school. Ginny, you've got Team Six. Team Leads, you've got wireless, so I'm going to be the top cover and call the plays."

He swept his look around the group of people who were standing on the stone floor, as the twilight began to gather. "This one is on us, people. Harry gave us this, he trusts us with this. Hogwarts is, Hell, you all know what it is. Half the families in Britain have sent their kids to shelter here. That includes some of your kid brothers and sisters."

There was an undercurrent of voices. Some were surprised, some were not. All of them were determined.

"We start up high. Height is advantage. Speed is life." Ron continued, reminding them of the hard lessons learned during the Battle of Canada.

"There were over two hundred dragons in the Reservation when the Russians let them out. Hogwarts is the first place they'll hit. They'll get here. The wards and protections that prevent Hogwarts from being found all assume that what's looking for Hogwarts has a brain to be fooled. You all know what happens when you assume. Dragons run on raw instinct. They home on sources of magic. The wards will slow them down a bit, that's all."

He looked around. "The airspace around Hogwarts is divided into sectors based on this tower, like a clock with two hours per zone. To begin with, it's one team per zone."

Ron flicked his wand and drew a diagram in the air. "Team numbers for each zone as you see here. I'm calling the plays. If a Team needs help, call me and I'll allot the Team to help. We're playing Keeper on this, people. Hogwarts is the goal hoops. We have to make sure that we shut out the other team altogether."

"Sir, the Headmistress sent us." The voice came from the leader of a group of students, third and fourth years if Ron was a judge. They were not much younger than Ron himself, though he and the DA were much older in grim experience. "We volunteered to help. She said we could be lookouts."

Ron frowned, thinking before he spoke. His immediate reaction was to tell them to get themselves to safety, but the cold cruel fact was that there was no such thing as complete safety here or any where in the Realm. Everyone doing their part made for as much safety as could be found. Professor McGonagall had chosen well, which was not much of a surprise. Sensible and reliable people, as he would have expected from the Headmistress, who knew every one of her students.

"Do you have a Wireless set?" He said, trying not to speak too roughly at being interrupted when he had a dozen things to think of and little time to ensure that he had not missed something vital.

"No, sir." The leader, a Ravenclaw prefect, replied.

Ron made himself think carefully. He had learned to do that. The Commander of the DA couldn't just react. Minerva was right. They had learned that, too, in Canada. All the eyes you could get searching the sky for dragons was none too many.

"All right." Ron gestured at the diagram hanging in the air. "You're in charge, Mr. Jenson. What you have here is a clock, based on true north. Each sector is two hours, based on 12 o'clock at North. Divide up your people evenly among the sectors. Use Supersensory to scan your sector continuously for dragons. When you see one, have him call you and you confirm it."

Ron paused again, thinking furiously. Spotting dragons was fine, but how could they tell him about them without a Wireless? Then he remembered the Triwizard Tournament. In the maze, if someone wanted to signal distress, they sent up sparks from their wand. He thought for a few moments more, then nodded. He could make that work. He flicked his wand at the diagram and assigned each sector a colour, a bright visible one.

"When you have a confirmed dragon, or a flight of them, you send out a stream of sparks pointed right at them, as nearly as you can. You do that as many times as there are dragons. The stream of sparks is the colour for your sector. All right. Repeat that back to me." Ron said, and pointed at Jenson.

"Sector spotter sees a dragon, calls me to confirm it, then we signal, colour of the sector and one stream for each dragon." Jenson said immediately.

"That's right. Make sure you remember it. Steady is the word. This is going to be a long one. Mr. Jenson, you're responsible to ensure that each sector is covered at all times. Rotate people out for a rest if you can. Got it?"

"Got it, sir." Jenson said eagerly. He turned to the others and started assigning sectors.

Ron turned to his comrades in arms, brothers and and sisters whether they shared parents or not. "Our orders are to hold until relieved. Take your sectors. Watch for dragons. Good hunting."

The DA mounted their brooms and took to the sky. The diagram hung in the air where they had left it.

Ron took his broom higher and higher still, with a small version of the diagram in front of him because he didn't trust his memory. He topped out above the castle, over the wards that protected it. He had just had time to set himself going in a narrow circle above the castle when his eye was caught by a stream of bright blue sparks, repeated three times. He cast Supersensory Ocularis and scanned the area. There they were, three dragons inbound in Sector 3. Jenson's skywatchers had gotten it right. With a hastily thrown together scratch organization, that was not a given. Panicky people saw what they feared, not what was there.

"Beater." He said coolly, to the Lead of Team 3. "You have trade. Three inbound, middle of your sector."

"Trade inbound, Keeper." Came Seamus Finnegan's unmistakable Irish brogue. "Copy that, moving to engage."

Ron's augmented sight saw Team 3 moving to make the intercept. He swept his gaze around the outer wards of the castle, and saw a quartet of dots emerge from the eye-tricking swirls of the outer ward.

He glanced down and waited. It took about a minute before he saw the streams of sparks in the colour of Team Six's sector. There were three rather than four, but it was close enough for Ministry work.

He should have given the order at once, but he had to take a deep breath and collect himself, think of this as a chess game on a huge scale played for deadly stakes, as it had been long ago in the chambers under the castle when they had gone down in search of the Philospher's Stone. He had never told Harry or Hermione that he could have played differently, put one of them in harm's way instead of him.

He had to put on one side that Ginny was his kid sister, who he had always been fiercely protective of, and treat her as the Lead of Team 6. Every order he gave, every move in this deadly game, would be putting the lives of people who were family or as close as family to him at hazard. If he let himself dwell on that, that hazard would get much worse.

He took a deep breath and forced his voice to be calm and level. "Redhead, this is Keeper. You have trade. 4 inbound, right edge of your sector."

"Keeper, Redhead." Came Ginny's voice, filled with controlled tension. "We have them in sight. Engaging."

Ron took a moment that he could ill spare to curse Harry Potter for putting him here. "Like being a Team Lead, but less fun." Harry had said. Right, and Voldemort had some minor bad habits.

Ginny watched as the flight of dragons headed towards Hogwarts. There were four of them. Hungarian Horntails. Even by the standards of dragons they were a nasty piece of work. There were two large ones, and two medium sized ones, which made them a mated pair who hadn't yet kicked out their hatchlings. Which of the large ones was the Alpha was a tossup. Ginny decided coldly that the way to deal with that was to take out both at the same time.

"Thing One, Thing Two, take the right big one. Rest, with me, left big one. Push over ... Now!"

Fred and George were the best flyers on the Team, and they operated together like the fingers of a hand. Trying to separate them was a pointless waste of time. Team 3 came down on the dragons in an almost vertical dive, wands at the ready.

Ginny cursed mentally. She hadn't called the pushover very well. The angle was bad and they couldn't go for a clean kill as she had hoped for. She shifted her aim to the right wing joint and watched as it came closer and closer with what would have been terrifying speed if she hadn't been totally focused on making her cast.

"Reducto!" Ginny didn't see where the cast went. She was too busy pulling up to miss the trailing edge of the wing, then pulling up a lot more to turn her dive into a climb. There were some advantages to being small. She could pull up just a little bit faster.

As she climbed back above the fight, Ginny considered the pass a qualified success. She'd hit the right hand wing joint where it went into the body, and the same for the left hand wing joint by her wingmen. It wasn't dead, but it couldn't maneuver and would be a sitting target for a second attack.

Fred and George had just had to put a flourish on it. They had, as far as she could see, split their pass past their dragon's head and each gone for an eye. They'd got them, too, or close enough for Ministry work. The Horntail wasn't dead by a long way, though. It was writhing in agony, throwing random blasts of flame in every direction, with eerie screams mixed with the roars of flame and rage.

As she watched, one of those blasts of flame hit its own hatchling, sending it reeling off into the sky with smoke rising from it. She mentally demoted that to last on the priority list, and the blinded one to first.

"Thing One, Thing Two, take the blinded one. The rest, on me. We've got the cripple."

This time, Ginny could take her time and set up the attack from a good angle. Ginny and her wingmen came down the the dragon from behind. Ginny's Supersensory vision showed her the raw bleeding pits at the wing roots where the casts from the first attack had struck. She saw the head moving around, trying to see them, but it couldn't look directly behind itself even though it knew that danger was on its tail. It couldn't evade, either. With its wing joints crippled, all it could do was lock its wings into a glide.

They still had to be very damned careful. The Horntail, more than most dragons, could use its tail as a weapon, and that could kill you just as dead as a blast of dragon fire.

They came down at a good angle in a steep dive, and all of them cast at once, aiming for the hunter's triangle. Which of them actually hit it she never knew, or cared. The Horntail crumpled up like a crushed paper airplane and tumbled toward the ground in an irregular spiral.

Ginny pulled up out of her dive again and looked around to orient herself. Fred and George had actually played it conservatively for once. They had come around and hit the wing roots. The Horntail was still dangerous, blindly breathing gouts of fire in random directions, but now it was in a glide with its wings crippled. She considered leading her element over to help them, but checked first to see where the scorched hatchling had gotten to.

Well, dragonshit. Ginny thought disgustedly. The scorched hatchling was running for it, in a shallow dive that would take it to the Forbidden Forest. A dragon, particularly a young one that had lost its Alpha, could decide that it was time to bug out and find cover. She'd been told that in Canada, but had never seen it.

Ginny bit her lip for a moment, then shook her head. The hatchling had too long a head start, and by the time pursuit caught up to it it would have found cover, following its instinct. The other hatchling had followed its dead parent down and was circling around where it had fallen.

"Thing One, Thing Two, finish off the cripple. Rest, on me." She snapped, and leaned over into a dive. They had to get the second hatchling before it, too, decided to bug out and find a hole to hide in.

While they were diving down on the second hatchling, Ginny had time for the thought that she really, really was not going to enjoy the after-action on this. This engagement had been about as orderly and well managed as a drunken brawl in a Knockturn Alley pub.

One pass was enough to send the hatchling down beside its parent. She led her people back up into the sky.

"Thing One, Thing Two, report." Ginny said.

"Cripple's down." Was the reply. She wasn't sure if it was Fred or George. They were supposed to identify themselves by callsign, and if they made it to the far future of tomorrow she'd grump at them for that. For now she would take what good news she could get.

"Keeper, this is Redhead. Three dragons down, one squirter, injured hatchling, headed for the Forbidden Forest."

"Copy that, Redhead." Came the reply in Ron's familiar voice. "Take station in your sector and stand by."

She glanced at her watch as they climbed toward the centre of their sector. The engagement had taken less than ten minutes. Hopefully they would have a chance for a breather. They had a whole long day of this in front of them.

Ron heard Ginny's voice on the Wireless with a sense of relief. Ginny was all right, for now. He glanced down at the Astronomy Tower, and saw three signals in quick succession.

He snapped out orders. "Team 4, you have two plus inbound, right hand edge of your sector. Team 5, three plus inbound, left hand side of your sector. Team 3, move to support Team 5, engage second raid, two plus at right hand edge of 5's sector."

That was a gamble. If a raid showed up in Team Three's sector, he'd have to shift someone to cover. It would be nice if there was some sort of a pattern that he could figure out, but if there was he couldn't see it. Most likely, the dragons were just following their noses through the outer wards. All he could do was play the game as it unfolded.

Minerva McGonagall emerged on to the roof of the Astronomy Tower. The skywatchers were focused outward, and she noted with approval that they had entirely ignored her entrance.

Jenson did notice, and said, "Headmistress."

"Mr. Jenson. You seem to be doing well enough. Do you need more people?" Minerva asked. Like everyone else, she did not have enough people for everything that she wanted to do. For the moment, however, the flood of refugee children had slacked off, enough that they were all taken care of as far as food, water and older students or ghosts to see after their other needs. She had come up to see for herself how things went.

"We're all right here for the moment, Ma'am." He replied. "Some food and water up here wouldn't come amiss, though."

"I'll see to that, Mr. Jenson." Minerva replied at once. Hogwarts had been built to stand siege in the days long ago when that had been a real possiblity. Supplies, at least, they had plenty.

She glanced around at the four teachers here under the leadership of Septima Vector, with their wands out and standing by. The inner shield of Hogwarts had been raised, as she could see by the nimbus of power around the castle. They were ready to reinforce that shield at need. She had not had time to do the research about what dragonfire might do to that shield, so she had to assume that enough of it might breach the shield.

She cast Supersensory and swept her gaze around the perimeter. She could see the flashes of spells and the jagged white flames of dragonfire in the swirls of action around the perimeter. The DA was fighting, "heavily engaged" in the military jargon that the Wireless commentators had taken to using. If she was a judge, they were at full stretch. She had to assume that one or more dragons might get past them. Even the best of Quidditch teams allowed some goals against them.

What can I do if that happens? She thought. Well, there is one thing.

Minerva spread her arms wide, closed her eyes, and called upon a source of power that even Albus had never used. Albus was Warlock, so the power of the Realm was his. The Headmistress of Hogwarts also bore the ancient office of Constable of the Castle, and she could draw on the magical nexus that powered the castle itself and its defences.

Piertotem Locomotor! She shouted, and all through the castle statues and suits of armour jumped down from their plinths and began to move to the walls and towers of the castle.

Improbably, she smiled briefly. I've always wanted to use that spell.

The smile fell away from her face at her next thought. Just not under these circumstances.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. She had done everything that she could think of, made every preparation she could to defend the children in her care. Perhaps, if they all came through this in safety, she could grant herself the right to consider that she had made atonement for letting that creature Umbridge inside the walls of this keep.

I have done my duty. She thought. There is no safer place in the Realm.

Ron hung above the battle, fretting and wishing that he could go down and fight himself. Someone had to keep this whole chaotic battle in as much control as could be managed, and he had taken up that job. He had no cause to complain, really. Harry had all of Britain to worry about. He just had Hogwarts. That was his bit to do, and he would do it.

Things had quietened down a bit, and he was considering whether he could risk breaking off a team for a breather, when something caught the corner of his eye below him.

He glanced down at the Astronomy Tower, as he had been doing every half minute or so, and his blood ran cold. There were streams of sparks in the bright red of Team Six's sector, and there were more and more of them. He tried to keep count, but fell behind quickly and settled for many dragons.

He looked up and swept his augmented sight across Sector Six. Many dragons, indeed. How many he would be able to decide in the far and now rather unlikely future of being still alive after all of this.

"All Teams, Sector Six. All Teams, proceed to Sector Six and engage. We are under massive dragon attack."

Ron drew his wand and pushed over into a dive toward Sector Six. There was no more controlling this battle. There was only every wand in the fight and hoping that they would be enough.