Disclaimer!

These characters do not belong to me nor do I make any money off this story. I am merely writing Fan Fiction. The characters belong to their respective author. I hope you enjoy Joining Forces.

Harry POV:

After a long and thrilling game, the two teams stood at the end of the Quidditch field shaking hands with each other. "Not a bad game," Ron remarked. "It's not quidditch, but it's still pretty fun," After some conversation, we had helped clean up after the game before Percy, Harry, Hermione and I decided to take a stroll around the school. Percy said Annabeth had things she had to check up so it was possible that she might join us later, but at the moment it was just us four.

"We should do that again sometimes," Percy said. We walked around the school a few times joking, laughing and discussing. We had been walking around the grounds for a while now, and had chosen to go back and see if Annabeth wanted to still go out since curfew was approaching in an hour or so. Just as we passed by the forbidden forest, the light of a spell had suddenly flashed. It had appeared for a very brief moment, and was incredibly faint that it was barely noticeable. "Should we investigate?"

Before someone could answer, another flash of light emerged. It was just as brief as the first one we noticed, but the light was slightly brighter. Whoever was in the forest was likely coming closer. In the end, we all headed into the forbidden forest together. As usual, it was still as dark as night. The main light coming from the tips of our wands as we wandered around in a more or less straight forward direction. Every once in a while there'd be a small flash of light in the distance, but not enough for us to use as a compass. We continued navigating the forest only using the distant flash as our beacon.

After more searching, Hermione suggested we find our way back and go to bed. At the sound of her remark, a muffled voice had suddenly cried out before the sounds of rustling started to reverberate. A hunched figure near a far tree rose, a dark cloak obscuring her face from our view though from her figure I guessed she was female. My heart thumped in my chest, my palms felt sweaty as I took a step backwards. It was—She was—

The figure walked slowly towards us, her hood still covering her face from us. Her hands were shaking from out of the long sleeves she wore. They were thin and frail, with dirt under her fingernails. "Defodio, it won't work," She murmured, "I have to dig," Now she was only 5 feet apart from us, the distance slowly decreasing. The four of us each were tightly gripping our wands unaware if she was friend or foe. Nonetheless, the shout of a spell was on the tip of my tongue to be called out in preparation. From a feeling I had, out of the two possibilities, she would be the latter.

"I must find it," By now she was no more than about 2 feet away. She lifted her head a bit, "It is you three," She remarked, bringing her hands up to her hood. They brought it down showing us the woman we had fought before. Her movements seemed slower while walking as though she had just woken up from a nap and wasn't too coherent. Without hesitation, I called out. "Expelliarmus!"

Despite her slow moments from earlier, Bellatrix wasn't as slow as to stand there unmoving after noticing a spell come here way. She immediately cast a shield spell which helped her cover as she moved to one side, firing back other spells at the rest of us while dodging. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, this was the second time we encountered her in battle. Nevertheless, it was still crucial that she didn't escape again. From recent events, having her interrogated would be something that could be significantly helpful.

Through our efforts along with the numbers advantage soon Bellatrix was panting her only protection, her weakened shield. Despite that, the tiredness and slowness that she displayed before was evident seeming making her reactions less fast. Perhaps there were also other factors that we didn't know about as well. However, she should know about this more clearly than we did. If so, then why would she come to a place like Hogwarts? And the Forbidden Forest at that.

"So," She asked, "it seems you have been practicing?" Even then, her eyes still held that glint of madness and craziness that I've never seen vanish.

"What are you doing at Hogwarts?" I demanded, taking a step forward. My arm was arched in a way that when I noticed any attempt of attacking or escaping I could stun her on stop.

"None of your business," Bellatrix snarled. "Little Harry Potter certainly has grown up, but of course, some things will never change,"

"Can you just stop with this and let us end this quicker," To the side of me, Ron spoke up, his eyes betraying no kindness either. "How about we bring you to Dumbledore, and he can interrogate the information all out of you? I think it's a good plan, whoever agrees say I."

"I." All of us echoed. In a moment's time, four wands were stretched out and the same stunning spell was cast. Bellatrix's arm moved upwards and a shield charm was created. Without hesitation, each of attacked again using different spells. A flurry of colors headed towards Bellatrix who made a few movements with her arm, her wand moving at twice the speed from before. Suddenly, the wands were given a great shake from our hands, most of us almost dropping them. The spells however were the ones that seemed to have dropped out of our control. All four of them, lowered to the ground like Hagrid's motorcycle when landing before completely vanishing.

"I take back what I said about you practicing. You've always been so reliant on those around you, now that Dumbledore returned this is reinforced even more," As she spoke, no one present ever stopped moving. Spells darted back and forth between all of us. Although she wasn't able to dodge them all, many of them were caused to disappear as the ones before through some way I wasn't familiar with. "You are needy, Potter, weak! Let's count off those who died because of you! Dumbledore was after all, just one of many. There was that Weasley boy, Madeye, Andromeda's daughter, the werewolf-"

"Dumbledore's returned!" Ron said, his voice slightly croaking, but more so furious at the mention of our fallen comrades. "And you lost your allies as well!"

"You know Dumbledore is back," Hermione murmured. "What about the others?"

"Do you think I'm stupid, you filthy mudblood? Of course I know,"

"Watch your mouth," Another few steps were taken.

"As for how many of our forces have been brought back from the grave? You don't know." Bellatrix said, her face resembling one that was either laughing or snarling.

"It doesn't matter," Ron stated. "They'll all be gone sooner or later,"

"Hmm, not so much, but for you that's another situation," Slowly, the expression crept into a large manical grin. "Unfortunately for you, people like Dumbledore nor Snape will not be around for much longer. And they may just be joined by some other as well. I bet Dumbledore's on his death bed, right now, don't you want to visit him? I'll help send you off to meet him in the underworld!"