Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
Despite Alexander's desires, and his fellow Muggle-born's, they did not go on the offensive against the Death Eaters immediately. No, after a restless night of sleeping, Alexander decided on a much better course of action.
He woke up before the sun and immediately set to work, using magic to shape and carve rocks into shallow bowls. They were simple, ugly Pensieves, but they didn't need to be beautiful to do their job. Alexander handed them out to the others as they woke and told them why.
"The Wizarding World doesn't have a phonebook or census that's available to the public. As much as I would love to mount an assault on the Ministry to access their records until I know more about your capabilities, we cannot. So we're going to need to find the Muggle-born who are in danger in another way."
Alexander had each of the witches and wizards deposit their memories of their Sorting Ceremonies, all the ones they could remember. They entered and exited the memories multiple times, writing down all the names they could, and tried to build a census of their own. The results were mixed, the years had been long and unkind to some, but slowly they built up the names and what details they could remember.
Unlike the Wizarding World, the non-magical world did have phonebooks and census records. Using the little details they could remember, they began to track down the Muggle-born living in the non-magical world, buying the information they needed, or copying it magically when bribery was unavailable to them. It left a sour taste in the mouths of some of them, but Alexander was unyielding on his orders, they needed to be proactive.
Their results did bear fruit. Slowly they contacted the men and women on their lists, finding them in all walks of life. The Wizarding World may have turned their backs on them, discriminating against them in every aspect of life, but Alexander was unwilling to leave them ignorant of the danger they were in. He called, he went door to door, and some he even posted letters to, and he told them all what they needed to do.
Some were foolish and ignored his warnings. Others had stayed in touch with the Wizarding World and knew some of the dangers they were in. These ones thanked him, willingly sharing any information on Muggle-born that they knew before escaping the country, to less dangerous lands.
Every few homes Alexander visited would be empty, usually damaged, and cursed in some manner. The bloodstains and broken furniture told him all he needed to know, and he hoped those lost souls had an easy death. Somehow Alexander always doubted it, and he would undo the damages as best he could before leaving.
There were two reasons why Alexander did this task alone. The first was for security, should any of the Muggle-born be caught by Death Eaters or Aurors, then they would only be able to give up his face, his name, and not anyone else's. Their little resistance would continue, no matter what.
The second reason had to do with the magical ability of the other Muggle-borns. Only Cassandra, Leo, Peggy, and James had any prior magical combat experience, and all had lost, resulting in their capture. And of those three, only Peggy had taken a life, killing two Aurors when they arrested Theodora in Hogsmeade.
So he had them practicing, fighting one another. At the end of the first day, he had returned to find them dueling of all things, bowing to one another and politely waiting for fallen foes to stand. Alexander had lost his temper.
He launched a curse at the sand beneath their feet, causing it to blast up in a cloud. As they cried out, startled at the sudden attack, Alexander caught the sand with a wind charm, causing it to whirl around in a violent circle, blinding them further. Two curses, from Cassandra and Douglas, did lance out in his general direction, but both missed Alexander by a wide, unforgiving margin. He lashed back with two Bludgeoning Charms, throwing them back.
The remaining six, Alexander demolished, cutting their limbs with weak Cutting Charms, making their legs dance uncontrollably beneath them, and causing their clothes to grow stiff, restricting their movements. Eight, vicious stunners, leaped from Alexander's rebar wand and slammed into their faces, knocking them out. He tied them up with ropes before awakening them.
"Pathetic," Alexander growled, pacing in front of the battered witches and wizards angrily. "Why the hell were you dueling one another?"
"You said we needed practice," James growled, struggling with his ropes futilely. "So, we were practicing."
Alexander sneered. "And you think the Death Eaters are going to bow to you? That the Aurors are going to care about letting you get off the floor if you've been knocked down! Morons! They're slaughtering innocents, cutting them down in cold blood, and you think they give a damn about rules!"
He dropped their wands in a pile before them, well out of reach. "You need to become vicious. You need to be violent. You are not just fighting to keep yourself safe, me safe; you're fighting to keep everyone else safe! If we fail, that's it! The world is screwed, and it will be because you bowed to a damn Death Eater instead of cursing his face off!"
"I don't want to be anything like them!" Mina Finkton protested. Alexander glared at her.
"Then, don't be! Don't torture people because you view them as animals. Don't kill them because you think they're lesser beings, unworthy of magic. But do not be so pacifistic that you'll allow them to do that to others!"
"But you do," Oscar whispered. "You tortured that Death Eater in the warehouse."
"I stopped him from uttering the Dark Lord's name, from triggering the Taboo that would have brought more of them upon us," Alexander argued. "Yes, I did it in a violent manner, and to be honest, I'd do it the same way again. I cannot look at the Death Eaters, their ideology, their methods without feeling hatred and horror. I refuse to allow them to destroy this world, and I will do anything to stop them."
Alexander let them ponder his words for a moment. He could see how one by one, they accepted them as truth, no matter how distasteful it might be. Alexander could see how determination settled upon them. He nodded.
"Now what?" Cassandra asked softly. Alexander smiled.
"Well, right now, I'm a Death Eater, and all of you are my prisoner. How do you escape?" he asked.
Leo eyed the pile of wands at Alexander's feet. "We need to get our wands."
Alexander raised his boot above the pile of wands threateningly and looked expectantly at them.
"We need to get him away from them first. We need a distraction," Douglas said.
James fell from where he sat and began groaning. "Ah, my side. My side hurts so bad. Help me."
Alexander rolled his eyes as he approached. "You need to work on your acting," he said, before lashing out with a vicious kick into James' side. "You also need to remember that the Death Eaters are not going to be kind. So what do you need to do?"
Privately, Alexander was surprised and pleased by the sudden kick to his knee that Theodora lashed out with, especially since it was hard enough to drop him flat on his back. James and Peggy wrapped their legs around his arms, pulling them out and away from their bodies. Douglas and Mina ran to the pile of wands, awkwardly cutting the bindings from behind their back. To add suspense to the situation, Alexander fired a few curses from his rebar wand into the air, to remind them he still had it.
"Point it away, you stupid bastard," Theodora ordered James. He awkwardly tried to shift Alexander's wand away with his legs.
Douglas and Mina stood over Alexander's head, their wands glowing with red energy and pointed at his eyes. He looked them squarely back in the eye. "This is the moment," Alexander softly whispered, "where you need to act. You cannot wait; you cannot hesitate. If you have a Death Eater at your mercy, you cannot give them any."
Their eyes steeled, and they raised their wands, their mouths moving with the beginning of the Stunning Charm. Alexander flicked his rebar wand, still in his grasp, and sent all eight of the witches and wizards flying back with a non-verbal bludgeoning charm. Eight groans could be heard a moment later.
"Good effort," Alexander said as he rose, dusting himself off. "You all made the mistake of letting me keep my wand. As you might have noticed, wizards become useless without their wands. If you can take it, you can kill them."
He turned toward James, who was trying to cough out all the sand he had inhaled. "James, my wand hand was within reach of your mouth. If you're ever in that position again, sink your teeth into my wrist. Don't awkwardly rub your legs up and down my arm in the hope of restraining me, as you can tell it didn't work."
"Still, good effort overall, everyone. We'll try again tomorrow."
Eight groans answered him, making Alexander smile.
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
Alexander never considered sharing his many secrets with his fellow Muggle-born, not a single one. Each was far too dangerous to be shared, and while wandless magic would no doubt have served them well in their efforts, Alexander knew they would not be able to learn it proficiently in a timely manner. Instead, he would teach them to be dangerous with their minds and their bodies.
It wasn't easy, but slowly they began to work as a team, using simple spells to cause devastating effects. Individually they weren't magical powerhouses or combatants, but for how Alexander intended to use them, they didn't need to be. They just needed to be enough.
The next two months passed by quickly, a mixture of training combined with rescue attempts in the non-magical world. They got more and more Muggle-born out of the country each week, helping as many as they could. Every once in a while, Alexander would go into Diagon Alley disguised to buy a newspaper, keeping up with the news. The first time he found something amusing.
"Rogue Mudblood At Large, Undesirable Fifteen," Alexander read the article's title out loud one evening. Underneath it was a sketch of himself, scars and all. Alexander threw the newspaper at a grinning Oscar, who immediately began to read it out loud to the group as they ate dinner.
"Alexander Dantes, known Muggle-born, escaped lawful custody in September and is wanted for questioning concerning the razing of Azkaban and Welsh Campsite 1234, blah-blah-blah. I see they're no longer calling it the Mudblood Relocation Camp. Anyway, Dantes is dangerous, and all sightings should be reported to the Auror Office post-haste. He is the Fifteenth individual to be named Undesirable, and the second youngest, after Harry Potter. The rest of the article is about Potter."
"Better you than me," Douglas said, rubbing his tired face with his hand. His arm was in a sling after James had broken it during training that day.
"Still don't know why you won't let us use our names when we're out," James muttered angrily from beside Douglas. Alexander gave him a hard stare.
"Because of things exactly like this article. As of right now, the only name the Death Eaters have is mine. This is not a time for ego. We need to remain focused on helping as many people as we can, for as long as we can," Alexander said. James frowned but didn't reply.
"This drawing looks nothing like you," Mina said, turning the newspaper sideways. "Maybe they were drawing a particularly ugly baboon."
"Looks more like a dog's butt to me," Oscar said. His father gently decked his head. "Yeesh, old man, relax."
Leo smirked at his son. "You should be more respectful to the man who can curse you six ways to Sunday. Besides, the drawing looks a damn sight better than you."
"I take after you in looks, dad. What does that say about you?"
"Why, you!"
The father and son engaged in a brief scuffle, wrestling around the campfire. Mina absently stepped backward, avoiding the tumbling men, as she added more wood to the fire.
Leo finally managed to put his son into a headlock. "Help, man down!" Oscar cried.
"Then why is he still standing?" Peggy snarked, her arms wrapped around Theodora.
"Because I'm a," Oscar struggled with his father for a moment, "paragon of strength."
"You're a wizard, act like one," Alexander said, helping himself to tonight's stew. It was just what he needed after a long day. The two men finally separated.
"You're no fun, Dantes. Granted, if half of what I heard about at Hogwarts is true, I'm not surprised by that," Oscar said, moving back to the fire.
"That's right, you're only a year older than him," Leo said, joining his son. "Did you two cross paths before?"
Despite how innocent of a question that was, Alexander still gave the two men a blank look. Oscar gave him a grin.
"Not really. I was in Gryffindor. But we've all heard of Alexander Dantes, the black sheep of Ravenclaw. Rumor has it that he moved out of Ravenclaw Tower, not that anybody knows where he went. So, where did you go, Dantes?" Oscar asked. The rest of the group looked at him in curiosity.
Alexander slowing ate his stew, enjoying the simple taste. He threw the transfigured wooden bowl into the fire once he was done, and looked Oscar in the eye. "Hogwarts is full of empty rooms. It's very easy to carve out your own space."
Oscar leaned forward. "Yeah, but I've also heard of the other rumors. That the reason why you left Ravenclaw Tower was that you and Granger had a fling and that you were yearning for her. Any truth in that rumor?"
Alexander was displeased with how attentive everyone else was to his answer, but realized with such a small group such intense interest was unavoidable. They had no one else to talk to, so of course, they'd be interested in one another. He sighed.
"No, Granger and I did not have a fling. Do you remember the end of your second year, how the Ravenclaws, Robert Hilliard and Henry Duny, were expelled for cheating on their NEWT's?" Alexander asked.
Oscar's brow furrowed. "Vaguely, what does that have to do with anything?"
"I left Ravenclaw Tower because those two boys, and their friends, spent the better part of my first-year torturing me every night. It only stopped once I moved out and warded up my own little safe spot in the castle."
"But you were eleven, why would they care about you?" Cassandra asked.
"Why do the Death Eaters care about us? Because we're Muggle-born. Duny and Hilliard tortured me because no one would give a damn about some upstart Mudblood. But I guess they weren't expecting me to fight back."
"What did you do?" Leo asked.
"I got them expelled for cheating on their NEWT's," Alexander said. The group was stunned.
"As a first-year?" Douglas asked incredulously. The others echoed similar statements.
"Yes," Alexander stared into the fire for a long, quiet moment. "I suppose they had the last laugh, though."
"Why do you say that?" Theodora asked.
"Because four years later, they showed up at my house and murdered my family." Alexander stood. "Sometimes, I wonder if my family would still be alive if I hadn't spared those two. Guess I'll never know."
And with that, Alexander went to bed.
Magic Break Can't Be Seen
AN:
Attacking with magic over a distance: I'm not too eager for this to be honest. Because magicals can Apparate/Portkey/fly, I think they would use that to move into closer range for more accuracy. Combined with how refined the "art" of dueling is, I would think most magicals think of combat as a close to medium range concept (although not melee). But a magical sniper rifle/long distance bomb? I think it would run counter to their thinking.
I do think spells "fizzle" out after a certain range. Perhaps the magic becomes unstable and the spell unravels, or it just fades into the background magic. Of the two, I'm leaning toward the former, although I don't think a true magical cannon (long distance attack) will be created in this story for a long while. I do love the idea that a Death Star laser is just a giant Avada Kedavra, but since I don't intend for this story to ever cross over with Star Wars, that won't be explored.
And no, combining a wand with a gun will not be happening. The only reasonable combination I've ever seen are wands and daggers but I don't believe that will be in this story either.
I hope you're all enjoying the story!