"I won't be staying the entire five weeks we have left. I have a bad feeling that if I was to ride on the Hogwarts Express then Voldemort will attack Platform 9 ¾. I'm hoping that if I make a public appearance, and let it be known that I have left Hogwarts and won't be returning, then the attack won't happen." Harry explained to Elias and Dudley one morning in June.

"You want to give the idea that you're running scared? That's not the Harry I know." Elias responded, upset that his brother would run.

"It is part of the plan. I will give the impression that I am too fearful to fight in this war, hopefully that will lead Voldemort into a false sense of security and complacency."

"Are you asking Elias and I to leave with you today?"

"I am. You are free to refuse if you so desire, I wouldn't blame you if you did. You're still free to stay at Hogwarts, Dudley."

"I'm coming with you Harry, today and every day after." Dudley said as he kept eye contact with Harry, nodding and looking at Elias when he spoke.

"I'll come with you today, but I know I'm not allowed to go with you to war."

"We leave today. The rest of the Vipers are already waiting for us. We aren't going home, none of us are."

"This truly is the first day of the war." Dudley philosophised.

/^_^_/

"We'll be leaving today, I can't risk another attack by You-know-who. I need you to lead the Elemental sessions in my absence, Angelina, I know you will do a good job. There will be a few people around to help you but you are the leader now."

"I can do that Harry, as long as you promise to stay safe."

"I promise to do my best. Good luck."

"You're the one who needs the luck. Goodbye Harry."

Colin Creevey had waited for Harry to finish his conversation and made his way up to the sixth year, saddened that he would be leaving.

"Harry, can I talk to you for a moment please?"

"Sure Colin, what's up? I have to go somewhere so we will leave to walk and talk."

"As you are aware, I was put under the Imperius curse at the hands of my brother, Dennis, and suffered because of it."

"Right…"

"I wasn't treated for that, nobody ever checked to make sure that it was still there or not, and so I assumed that it must have been tested for when I was under the effect of the magic bind and memory lock. It turns out that it was still in effect even while I was back at Hogwarts."

"Is it still in effect now?" Harry stopped and asked, his wand already drawn.

"No it isn't. Do you remember the attack at Azkaban in which there were two casualties."

"I do…"

"Voldemort broke through one of the walls, killing a prisoner, and proceeded to murder Dennis in cold blood. That was when the curse ended, though it was too late, I fear."

"Why was it too late, what do you mean?"

"By that point I had already been made to disable the protection from the curse killing the headmaster, accelerating the symptoms and killing him." Colin saw Harry's wand move to aim at him but didn't react, pretending he hadn't seen it. "The feeling of being led around like a sheep, blindly following any order barked at me, is sickening and demoralising. I know you might wish to kill me for confessing this to you and I accept any justice you wish to dispense."

Harry just looked at him for a long moment, thinking back to Colin's first year and how much he had grown since then.

"I think it took a lot for you to come to me with this, there were no suspicions of foul play causing his death and so you really didn't need to do this. I think you have suffered enough in your life, I am sorry for your loss despite my feelings on Dennis. If you are able to prove that there is no lingering effect of the curse, and that you don't pose any threat to the students or faculty of Hogwarts, then I can see no reason to not trust you." Harry paused for a moment, before pulling out a gold pocket watch that Sirius had given him for his birthday, then added. "Wait in the common room and I shall test you there."

"No problem." Colin replied, nodding at the back of Harry's head as he jogged away from the fifth year. Knowing that every moment he lived from now on was because of Harry's sense of morality, and in essence owed to Harry, he walked down to the Slytherin common room and waited on one of the chairs for Harry to return, pulling out his Potions revision and getting it done as best he could .

/_^_^_/

It had only taken five years of regularly placing up posters every month for people to finally appreciate Luna's creations. Her latest informational poster was titled "Voldemort hasn't got a nose and five other facts about him that you may not know." and featured a hand drawn picture of Voldemort that switched to a drawing of him with a nose, with the caption "Where did it go?" which was apparently hilarious.

"You really need to do more like this Luna, they're amazing." Ron declared to her one day, pulling a neatly folded poster out of his bag, informing her that he was keeping it. Even people who hadn't spoken to her before would come up to her to inform her of their appreciation for the posters.

She privately considered doing a final poster on Bellatrix and her lack of limbs, as well as her imprisonment somewhere deep in the Ministry, but considered it to be in bad taste and decided upon one drawing into common knowledge the fact that "Vol de mort" translates to "flight from death" and calling him a coward.

As she set off to begin then her ring began to vibrate, to indicate that Harry was calling her, and she put the idea aside for another day, replacing the poster that Ron had taken with the stack in her bag, putting more up on her way to meet Harry, who spotted her placing her final one up.

"Luna, can you use those posters to hear everything that goes on in Hogwarts at any distance?" He asked her as she drew near.

"I can hear them at any distance, sometimes they have conversations with each other and it becomes distracting, why do you ask?"

"It may prove to be very helpful in the coming months."