Chapter 15: The Meatgrinder
A/N: A poll is up about my next story. Please vote, it will close when this story is finally copied up (which is two Chapters away). If I was well I'd say around two to three weeks… now? Probably a month to six weeks.
A/N 2: As I am still ill and the screen hurts me and causes my vision to blur after a time, I have used speech to text for portions of this chapter… if you see mistakes please pm me and they will be corrected.
The first few steps onto England's shores were quiet and peaceful for the nearly ten thousand strong army that was led by Lord Commander Neville Longbottom and included Lady Fleur Delacour, Lord Sirius Black and Lady Hermione Emrys.
Then, as half-expected, all hell broke loose once again on British shores.
Thankfully, over the years, Hermione had grown in skill just as much, if not more so than her husband. Although she didn't have the power and likely never would of Harry, she was still well above average for her witch or wizard that had at least one muggle parent (pure-bloods were weaker to a degree thanks to inbreeding) and of her generation.
She had even begun to experience if only slightly the same hardening of magic that Harry was experiencing, though hers was only the barest suggestion for now. Both she and Harry wanted to be proactive about it though and so they had taken steps.
Channelling combat magic was harder for her these days, almost akin to forcing a square block through a slightly larger triangular hole or putting out a candle with several droplets of water. It could still be done, but it would cost her more magic and concentration with the trade-off that, even as that ability grew more difficult healing magic came easier and was more effective.
She was essentially having the reverse issues of her husband, though he had trained her well enough, even as she trained herself, to minimise that flaw with her magic for the time being. She called on that training now, without thought, as her body and mind reacted to the threat of attack.
Where Harry was quicksilver, a fluid economy of motion made flesh and always moving with no gesture or energy wasted from the breath that he took to every single twitch of his muscles. He struck like a coiled snake and even used part of that motion to move back into a more defensive and neutral posture.
Hermione, on the other hand, knew that this method would not work for her and so hadn't even tried. She couldn't maintain that physically or magically and therefore her method was different from his.
When she fought, like now, her magic anchored her like roots into the ground even as her wand was a blur as she fired spell after spell. She was an ocean of calm in a sea of violence and her attacks, often medical spells used to creatively destructive effects, even as enemies seemed to explode from the ground all around her and the people she was fighting with.
Within the first few seconds, she realised that the majority of her enemies were Inferi as their grey and rotting skin was a dead giveaway. She also could see that the enemy included rogue Vampires and small seething pockets of werewolves as well.
These were at least adequate trained men and women that were fighting on her side though, with some (like hers) being very well trained and capable of adapting to this development. The almost solid wall of fire that sprang up was evidence enough of that fact and, if it was only the Inferi that they were dealing with, even the sheer number of the rotting corpses against them would be nothing more than a dangerous inconvenience. This was despite the fact that she roughly guessed that they were outnumbered fifteen to one.
The Werewolves and the Vampires complicated the issue. They were more effective individually and, more important than that could think and reason which made them harder to stop.
Worse for her was the fact that her enemy had not been stupid. The tide was beginning to turn against them under the weight of numbers because, not only did you have Werewolves and Vampires attacking and weakening their line but wizards were sending the Inferi in waves.
They didn't tire and didn't stop for any wound save a killing blow. They were also covered and protected by enemy spellfire that often took even the most well trained by surprise. It was difficult for even the best of them to switch between the best attacks against an Inferi, to Werewolf, to Vampire and then finally to Wizard.
The combination of physical attacks and magical volleys was having a devastating effect on the force that she was fighting with and she knew, once she was able to finish this, she would have a very busy day or days treating the wounded.
Hermione herself had to sway out of the path of several spells and some missed her by literal millimetres even as she returned with her own fire and hoped to make a dent in the enemy forces. It was a seemingly endless hoard though and, even after less than two minutes, she was covered in grime blood and small amounts of blood. She smelt the coppery tang in the air and her mouth felt like the only thing that she could taste was ashes.
"Retreat, do you think?" Sirius asked even as he span a firewhip through a mass of enemies, killing many and wounding even more. It wasn't as damaging as it would otherwise have been due to the fact that magical shielding sprang up and deflected it away from critical areas.
"Sure, I'll get right on that, when I'm not fighting to stay alive," Flyers biting and sarcastic reply was almost lost in the sounds of fighting, bleeding and dying. Her voice was showing the strain as much as the rest of her was though, given the fact that it was clearly a struggle for her not to turn into her more animalistic avian form and her voice had a distinct shrieking bird-like tone.
It did give her the advantage of launching an enhanced version of her fire and casting spells from her wand with the other.
They were succeeding in holding the enemy back by their skill and against increasing odds until, as was bound to happen, something changed. Unfortunately for them, it was not something beneficial to them and it was Sirius that noticed the change at first.
"Shit. Dementors," he cursed.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," Neville growled out as everyone that was capable of doing so sent out a Patronus before returning to the fight. His sword was bloody and well used and his pouch was nearly empty of runestones already. Those happy beings would not fight back the darkness for long, there were simply too many Dementors for them to deal with for any length of time and there was still no sure way of destroying them.
That distraction did cost them many however as, to do so, they had to take their concentration away from whoever they were fighting if only for less than a second. "Someone cover me!"
Harry had given them him something, as a sort of last resort, just in case.
Hermione was momentarily puzzled, as she couldn't spare the moment it would take to think through what Neville might do but, as evidenced by the pouch at his waist (and certain volatile plants carefully stored in charmed glass to act like grenades of natures wrath) it was only active magic that he couldn't use. He had taken steps, save for potions which he was still quite bad at, to do everything that he could still do. That task only gained more importance when he knew that he would be commanding this army.
Even as both Sirius and Fleur nodded, wordlessly turning to give him some breathing room, he turned to Hermione. "Activate your portkey tether after thinking of a place that we can go. I know I'm asking you to take a lot on trust but, please, do it and do it now…"
As he said that final word, they both reach into the pouches at their hips. She was reaching for the portkey tether (one that activated not only itself but others at the same time) and he for his surprise.
This was one of the first ideas that had occurred to him when he had put his mind to it. It was a dodecahedron shaped piece of marble that had been painstakingly been carved with runes and then both bathed in his blood for three days and left to absorb magic in the centre of the islands leylines for a full day.
It was this that Hermione saw him draw even as she struggled to still fight and do the same. She felt the magic that was in it and that was both unusual in one of its kind and made her more frantic to reach her portkey. She may not quite understand what was coming but, from the look of satisfied glee on Neville's face, she knew that she had to hurry.
She hoped that the others in the army hadn't lost their portkeys and understood that, if it wasn't needed, she wouldn't have drawn them away from the fight to free what was (to many at least) their original homeland. She also hoped that she sent them all to the right place or all of this would mean nothing as they went from one death to another.
During this time the average life expectancy for a wizard on both sides of the divide was measured in seconds as both continued to fight tooth and nail in their quest to kill the other.
Her last sight, as the portkey activated, was a glowing ball of red magic arching high into the air in a strong throw. She along with their troops (those still alive anyway) were almost mesmerised by the sight as they were whisked away.
Neither she, Neville, Sirius, Fleur or anyone else from their force was there to see what happened next and Voldemort's forces either paid the red glow no attention as they were dead and incapable of it or barely paid it any attention given the sudden shift in the battle.
When it went off, it exploded into a rapidly expanding wave of cursed fire that reached high into the sky and even hurt the Dementors that had been floating in the air, confused as their food escaped.
Sixteen times it pulsed out, sixteen huge outpourings of magical flames. Magical shields were limited in the amount that they could hold against and, given that the dodecahedron had been bathed in Neville's blood, it had been imbued with the Lord Commander's hatred and hunger for the flesh of the man's foes.
Each one burned almost like a living thing. Each was hungry for them and shared its creator's desire to leave no one alive who would threaten who and what he loved. Though it couldn't kill them, the sheer violence of it did send the Dementor's running and they weren't the only ones.
Most werewolves died in agony as they were burned alive, about half the Vampires shared the same fate and those that didn't would crawl back to their holes nursing burns that challenged even their exceptional healing abilities so much that years later there would still be some that were recovering and bearing very visible injuries.
In the history books that would eventually be written this moment, this battle would be considered a turning point despite its ambiguous conclusion. This would be famous for being the first true fight against Voldemort in Britain for years and it would be called the Battle of Fire and Blood.
Of the almost 28,000 I.C.W. contingent (armed forces plus supply personnel) that landed in England almost twelve thousand of them were lost or incapable of fighting for the foreseeable future.
-HPCOD-
Unbeknownst to Ron Weasley Alpha Three, under the assumed identity of Barnabus Cuffe, had been busy and done their job well.
Using encoded messages and later book codes, the Prophet's back pages had passed information to those that wanted freedom from the abusive regime of Parkinson and Voldemort. Using this they had quickly built up an underground network that only increased as time went on even as they (at least on the surface) produced exactly the propaganda that the Ministry demanded of them.
As far as he was concerned, up until this day, Cuffe had been a good little dog that respected his betters. He barked when they told him to, exactly as loud as they required and he never peed on the carpet.
Until now.
He knew that, after the latest headline, the Ministry and therefore the Dark Lord wanted to reassert their control and remind Cuffe of what happened to bad dogs. Both of his masters had sent him notes expressing their displeasure in words and he was more than keen to pass that to the Editor in a physical way before he was punished for failure. He shivered at the very idea of facing that punishment himself.
The I.C.W is coming, read the headline, do not fight them...resist Voldemort.
He was flanked by twelve of the finest Aurors that the D.M.L.E. could spare. They were some of the best that they had and it showed in the firm resolve and professional detachment. It was something that he did not share, but then he was a Lord and they did not work for others in his mind.
Added to that, his brother was dead and that grief and anger fuelled him. This new threat to the Golden Age that both he and Percy exemplified and believed in and the only thing that Cuffe had done was give him an outlet to vent his feelings on.
They had never found his body but, the Goblin's had informed him that he was dead as they, through means unknown to any wizard free to speak of such things, tracked bloodlines even more than the most fanatical Ancient House. Percy had simply disappeared without any fanfare so it wasn't like Parkinson or Voldemort had been responsible for it.
He didn't know if Cuffe had been involved in the death of his brother but, that was hardly the point. To him, it was Cuffe or people like him, that were the cause of his brother's death simply because they were resisting what had to happen to make everyone's lives better. The Goblins couldn't even tell him how his brother had died, only that he had and he was now the (contested) Lord Weasley within the borders of England.
The I.C.W. only recognised that title for him as a separate branch of the Lordship (rather than what the British Ministry did) that was technically his older brothers and separate to the one that his twin brothers held rather than what he thought of as his due, as he knew in his heart that he was the Lord Weasley and he should have it all.
It should be noted that, by tradition and law, titles went from father to eldest son if there was one (or daughter if not) down the generations and by that measure the title that the twins held was a new creation. Though, by that same measure, it was considered as ancient as the oldest of France. In short, there was no legal or ethical reason that he should have their titles and the basis of his title was theft (morally at least, even if the British Ministry had made it legal for him) so he should have no room to complain.
This was Ron Weasley though, he wanted what he wanted and should get it, not because he worked hard or was born into it but rather because he did want it and thought that he deserved it. The new, black and shiny tattoo on his forearm merely enhanced his own idea of his importance far beyond what it ever was before.
'Cuffe will pay for his arrogance and learn his true place in this world before he will e allowed the small mercy of death'.
The irony of that thought, that Ron was thinking it about someone else never occurred to the idiot boy and make no mistake, that is what he was. He could grow into an ancient man, be named the King of The World and have a harem filled with the begging women that appeared in his dreams and Ron Weasley would still just be a self-absorbed boy.
He and his people only had time to open the door to the offices of the Prophet and widen their eyes in shock before the whole building exploded. The blast showered all involved that didn't die with magically cursed shrapnel that would not only leave scars but also (in some cases) amputate limbs beyond all recovery and it was an event that everyone involved would remember for the rest of their lives.
Ron found himself screaming moments later on the floor.
One of his eyes was ruined (as it was little more than a bleeding wreck of flesh), three fingers from his left hand and all but his thumb from his right was also gone. His body was peppered with the same explosive debris that was littered around him and, if not for the intervention of others he would have died right then and there as he bled out on the ground.
The loyal Healers of the Ministry were there in moments though and, like all supporters of the new regime and pure-bloods the world over, they moved to treat him first because he was one of them and a Lord irrespective and uncaring of the severity of the injuries in others around him.
In their minds, saving a Lord of the Wizengamot was not only politically expedient, but it was also a good way to stay alive and was simply the right thing to do. They could not have cared enough to count the people that they ignored to treat Ron first because, to them, those people simply were not worth the effort to think about. Not when another, more important person was in the slightest bit of danger.
When Ron had full use of his mental faculties again, he wouldn't thank them for their kindness nor would he ask about the other people that were injured. Instead, he would be in a rage because the very Healers that saved his life would be unable to fully heal his wounds. His anger and disappointment left no room for their logical and reasoned arguments as to why they could not heal him, given the nature of the shrapnel.
Ironically, he would not be the only one to be disappointed and angry by the time that he awoke. The difference was, that the people who would be as angry as him and as upset as him were the very people that set the bomb in the first place.
They would be angry that he survived at all.
-HPCOD-
The Ministry was more active now than it had been in many years. While many would be wary and nervous about moving among so many that were his enemies and tensed up. Harry was not that person, in disguise or not, as his training spoke against that as it would draw attention to him.
It was more than that though, he revelled in the chaos and though he may not have enjoyed killing he did enjoy combat. He liked how the adrenaline sharpened his senses, how his muscles were ready to move even if he was seemingly as panicked as the rest of them but unlike them, he moved with purpose.
The face that he was wearing, though obviously not his own, was carefully chosen from those that he had seen over his time in England. It was the face of a non-descript sandy-haired Muggle that had struck Harry as so bland that, if he wanted to the 'donor' would have made a supreme character actor.
More than that thorough, if anyone had suspected that he was someone other than he claimed to be, they would check his magical signature the moment that he cast even the simplest of spells against those that they were looking for.
It would not match Harry Potter (as he still was on their records) even if they thought to do so.
His new wand muddied his signature enough that they would not discover the truth of him until he wished it, or until he was submitted to a very thorough medical examination. This was time-consuming and very expensive, they had no reason to do that and it could even be considered a waste of resources if they were to do so, especially with what was going on at the moment.
Plus, the person that was posing as his wife would have confused the picture even further if they were looking for a lone Harry Potter. The person would have even confused him, if he gave it any thought, as he wasn't even sure that the person next to him was a woman and all that he did know about the person was that this was the member of his team that had recently been posing as Barnabas Cuffe.
They, almost imperceptibly, nodded to each other before moving off to their tasks, without a word spoken between them. This separation was helped by the fact that many of the pure-blood members of the public (and other Voldemort loyalists of all types) were loitering and running around like headless chickens in the lobby of the building.
'Useful chaos equals useful distraction,' Harry thought.
As Alpha Three moved off towards the Minister's Office and the de facto war room of Voldemort's entire effort, led by Parkinson and his other underlings, Harry headed down instead.
Towards the bowels of the Ministry and where the former Department of Mysteries used to do their work.
Where else would a megalomaniacal bastard, who thought that magic was the be-all and end-all of creation call home? Voldemort had always been someone that like a fortified position and was always firm in the belief that magic was more than a powerful force. It was, to him, the answer to every single question worth asking and he truly believed that he alone was the master of the greatest aspects of it.
It was no surprise to Harry that his enemy chose that former department to be where he based himself as it would have appealed to his ego to not only live in the one place he had found the most resistance. It was also where they had studied the highest intricacies of magic and, as a bonus, it was already situated in a highly regulated and easily defensible area of what had become the seat of his power.
-HPCOD-
'The blood of Kings is a funny thing,' Voldemort thought whimsically. 'Not only were the muggle Kings and Queens of the past often disturbingly promiscuous but, they preserved certain relics containing that key to life and showcased them. Oh, those ignorant fools called them historical artefacts in their folly but, there were so many of them and they were so easy to find if someone knew where to look. I, the greatest sorcerer in the world, am nothing if not determined and intelligent enough to get around any protection a filthy muggle might put up'.
It was, after all, even easier to get royal blood than it was to get samples from Britain's current politicians and many things could be done with such a valuable resource in the right hands. Blood Magic was (and always had been) a favourite of his since his first clumsy attempts in childhood at the orphanage.
Dumbledore was many things but, he understood that better than most. Where Harry Potter (or Emrys as he preferred to be called, though it didn't matter to Voldemort in the slightest what he called himself) was largely ignorant of it thanks to the slow sanitisation of magical learning over the last few centuries and Dumbledore baulked at it thanks to his twisted morality, Voldemort revelled in it as he did so many other Forbidden Arts.
Even outside of mainland Europe, where at best it had been watered down to a mockery and shadow of what it once was, it was fading into history. It had taken him years and travelling all over the globe to piece together the knowledge that he had gained over that dying form. To him, it was one of the Arts that he adored and not least because, aside from certain wards and rituals, its best used was to completely and utterly control people.
Which was why he was prepared when the door to his private apartment was blown open and he found himself facing his enemies once again.
'There are many powers that still escape me in this world. that doesn't mean that I can't use them even if I don't understand fully how they work. that is, after all, one definition of something I know not.'
-HPCOD-
Minister Parkinson was grudgingly impressed by the actions of his enemies and, if it didn't anger him so much, he would have been more than a little impressed over what they had achieved.
All of the remaining Heads of Department, the higher-ups of Voldemort's Government, sat around an ostentatious and gaudy looking table inlaid with semi-precious stones and metals like gold and Goblin silver. It was, in and of itself, a testament to the pure-blood mentality and their childish desire to equate wealth with power.
They thought that he did too but, nothing could be further from the truth. After what happened to him he had learnt the hard way that wealth did not equal power, not when it really mattered, and he kept the table to remind himself of that hard-won lesson even though he now despised what it truly represented and cursed himself sometimes for once having been the person who bought it.
Less of a statement of his power then and more of a warning to himself not to fall back into his old ways. The table was all about showing wealth and ignoring substance and he was not that person anymore.
'Mudbloods and blood traitors do have their uses,' Parkinson thought as he looked towards the far wall of his meeting room and into four floor to ceiling mirrors based on the now infamous Marauders designs. These mirrors weren't really mirrors, as they enabled him to watch the battle unfold in real-time and, thanks to that, he was already barking orders even as he watched Longbottom's vaillant defence of his people.
"Cullen, get those useless Muggles to send out that mongrel army and police force of theirs. You can't hide that many people without someone noticing. Macalber, marshal the inferi and the remainder of the other beasts. Yaxley, ready our remaining men for a rapid response to this threat as soon as we find it".
"Yes, my Lord," came the three almost simultaneous responses even as the men rose from the table that they all sat around only seconds before. Given their orders and their focused state of mind, none of those present saw the door to the room softly open and closed while seemingly admitting no one.
Before they could move to obey, four small stones, the runic equivalent of flash-bang grenades, scattered across the room and caused almost everyone to turn and try and locate the source of this soft tapping on the expensive floor.
Parkinson did not get to where he was by being completely innit however and his previous poisoning had made it much harder to catch the now paranoid and bloodthirsty man by surprise.
His wand was out and forming a shield before the first noise had truly finished and he reflexively shut his eyes even as he dived to the floor.
The rest of the room erupted in a sea of blood, pained screams, shouts of anger and death. These were things that he could not see from his current position but he could hear (and in the case of the blood feel as it splashed across his clothes and body). Oddly, the thing that he was aware of the most was the pounding of his heart and the raggedness of his breathing.
Feeling death brush him so recently had not made him comfortable with it. Far from it in fact, as he still woke up often in a cold sweat and remembering the life slowly ebbing from his body as he choked out one laboured breath after another.
The terror of his own impending demise almost froze his entire body and the image of his family, his beloved wife Celia and his perfectly adorable daughter Pansy, rather than adding any sort of comfort to man, only increased his fear.
'But I am more than my life. I am Lord Parkinson, the Parkinson of an ancient and unbroken line. Neither my will nor my Masters will be denied by anyone... not ever'.
Snarling, he rose even as he opened his eyes and his wand is glazed with power only to be met with chaos and destruction all around him.
"You will not succeed. You are noth- " Parkinson's words ended in a gurgle as he choked in his own blood, courtesy of the pinpoint accurate casting of a cutting curse impacting his throat.
"Yeah," Alpha Three replied to the dying man with disdain laced throughout their voice even as they saw the ruins of the room and, in a very real sense, that of the Ministry itself. "You can shut the fuck up".
-HPCOD-
The Channel Tunnel was currently out of use. The official story being that certain structural irregularities (likely caused by sea pressure) had meant that it had to be shut down for the foreseeable future as repairs were made, checked and rechecked.
The real reason was, of course, that through some unknown magic or ritual Voldemort and his people had an iron control over the Muggles.
They had used that control to make it as hard as possible for Muggleborns and their families to leave the country. The I.C.W. may have been almost as corrupt as any other magical institution but, they did take their general mandate very seriously as failure could lead to the deaths of every single one of their kind.
This meant that they were aware of the tightening restrictions on non-magical travel and could guess as to why that was, even if they had no idea how it was actually being done. The thing that people often forgot about magic was that it was as diverse as it was powerful, as wonderful as it was deadly and its limits were still as ill-defined by the races that used it today as it was when mankind first crawled out of their caves.
Still, it did mean that the very long tunnel was the perfect place for the now battered and bruised remnants of the force led by Neville Longbottom to tend to their injured and regroup.
"Status?" Neville asked his commanders after they had managed to use magic to both make space for the remainder of the army and set up a place to coordinate the war effort without trying to return home.
Most answered with the usual responses that ranged from being ready, to most of their unit being dead or injured and needing to be reassigned to support roles as they either recovered or we reorganised into groups that would be placed into other units to restore now undermanned divisions.
Not everyone was either happy about this or as professional as they should be and one of them waited to be the last to speak and voiced his opinion.
"Status?" Dumont, a thin and ill-looking man who was the current leader of the Belgian contingent, bitterly replied. "Seriously? After one fight, one, we have lost thousands of our troops and you really need to ask our status? I think that we need to call for reinforcements and fortify our position here".
"I didn't ask what you think, Mister Dumont. I asked you what your troops status was. I'll take your words to mean that you stand ready for action and merely forgot your place...this time".
"I have a point and you can't deny it," Dumont answered, obviously making a play to be the new leader of the I.C.W.'s force after the losses that they had sustained. Neville merely stared at the man, knowing full well what he was.
Alexander Dumont was the worst sort of political climber. The meant that the man was usually good at saying the right thing and giving the appearance of honesty and earnestness but, he was a political animal to his core and a coward to boot. His easy smile and bright eyes hid a multitude of flaws and sins and he also had no combat experience or training at all.
"Let's play that thought out shall we, Commander?" The use of Neville's title, the contempt that shone through Sebastian's tone at what Dumont was suggesting (and likely him as a person as well) left no one in any doubt about what he thought of Dumont when he made his 'power' play. "In theory, that wouldn't be a problem...but we don't live in a theoretical world. Let's talk about facts for a moment, shall we? First, you are correct, we have troops ready to resupply us with a simple message but how can we get the message out? With the near-simultaneous nature of the explosion in Diagon Ally, our army and the attack on the Ministry standard lockdown protocol will be in effect, as it would be in any of our home countries. That means no messages in and no messages out".
"So we send someone physical down the end of this…" Dumont glanced around himself with contempt. "Contraption".
"Voldemort is not a complete idiot. The lockdown will doubtless include the end of this tunnel and I doubt that a team of Cursebreakers could unravel them in a month, let alone a few hours. But, if you want to kill yourself trying to cross deadly and unknown wards then, by all means, feel free".
Dumont's hate-filled silence spoke more eloquently than words could. "No? Moving on then, even if you could do that in, say six hours, the attempt at a breach would be registered and the way would be firmly shut behind us or a ready ambush waiting for our return. That would be a massacre and all your fault for causing the damned thing.
Sebastian smiled at the man but, there was no warmth of humour in the gesture and there was even less as Sirius moved to them, having been checking on the most wounded, and catching the gist of the conversation up to this point.
"Which leads me neatly into what I consider to be one of the most important points… timing. Even if we, by some small miracle, manage what you are suggesting it would close this theoretical vulnerability forever. It would also give them time to repair the actual vulnerability that our assets have made in the enemies upper ranks in the Ministry. It would leave those same, brave people, without support and firmly stuck behind enemy lines. It would doom them, gain us nothing in the long term and give them a hint of our plans and tactics. A very bad idea indeed".
"Assets are just that," Dumont sneered at the man in front of him. "By their very nature, they are acceptable casualties of…"
Dumont didn't get to finish that sentence as, even though Sirius growled and Neville looked like he was about to shout the man down,m it was Hermione who stepped up and backhanded the man as hard as she could in his pompous and self-satisfied face.
"If you ever," she hissed, "speak about our people so disrespectfully again, I will use every single thing that I have ever learned as a Healer to make your death last months and so painful that it will feel like years".
The fact that Harry was one of those assets did enhance her reaction to Dumont's comment. She might not have hit him, but her feelings would have been roughly the same as these people were trying to correct a wrong that both Britain and the wider community had let fester at best and, at worst, refused to correct.
They did not deserve to be abandoned simply for expediency or to save a cowards life.
"You can't! Your Healer's Oath…"
"Protects my patients and those under my medical care. You are not, never have been and never will be my patient or under my medical care".
"Dumont's inevitable months of torture aside," Neville spoke, stopping the conversation dead and ignoring Dumont gaping like a fish at Hermione, even as he hid his own satisfaction behind a forced bland tone. It was a bad job though as not even Dumont was fooled by it. "We cannot do as Alexander suggests, nor can we allow the momentum we have built to fade away into nothing".
"Besides which," added Sirius, "Dumont here seems to think we have suffered a crushing defeat rather than a partial draw and partial tactical victory".
"And how exactly was this any sort of victory?" Dumont sneered at Sirius, forgetting in his anger that he wasn't a trained combat wizard but rather a political appointment by his country. Sirius, however, was well aware of this fact and so only smirked at the man and seemed to wordlessly dare the man to try something stupid against him.
"Do you think that controlling that many inferi is easy? I am a Black through and through and things like this are in my blood. Even for a member of my family though it would take years of practice to control more than five at once alone. It's not just about power you know and it's not even skill per se. In fact, if someone else prepares the corpses, you need little of either to control quite a few of them. What you do need is organisation, more than one controller and assigned protectors for them as well as a talent towards multitasking. My cousin got around that, I assume, with the use of a focus but...her control wouldn't have lasted long and I have no doubt that this tenuous link would have failed eventually. The only other way to use them for long periods is to set them to guard something, with wards or potions regulating them."
"So to control an army?" Neville prodded him as he noticed that everyone, even Dumont, was interesting in Sirius's unusually dry and factual delivery.
"Either you're controller would become a vegetable in seconds, which would be worse than useless, or many wizards working in concert and preferably in overlapping segments. Imagine how rare a wizard that must be, one who has delved into the Dark Arts years before it was made legal in Britain and someone who has a flexible and adaptable mind. Even if they had all of the Ministries resources (which they no longer did thanks to Harry and his team) it would take them a very long time to find more of them. I can't see how an army like that can easily be raised again, let alone used against us in a coordinated manner".
"But," Dumont interjected, "every member nation of the I.C.W. has had a Dark Lord who has used them in the past".
"Of course you have," Sirius said mockingly, "but they then released them. Did you never wonder why that was? Control, you idiot, it's all about control. They can turn on their masters as easily as they attack anyone else. Armies require more wizards, more effort, and they don't have that. If they were so easy to control and use, why would they need potions and wards to keep them guarding something you piece of…"
"Sirius, enough," Neville admonished quietly and, to his credit, Sirius settled down at Neville's tone. "The fact that you are right isn't helping matters".
"So," Hermione asked, moving the conversation along, "if there are any left they'll be small roaming batches? Maybe even defensive groups?"
"Yes," Sirius agreed, "but no unified army".
"And it only cost us nearly 12,000 lives," Dumont muttered rebelliously and quite incorrectly. Just under twelve thousand were injured and it was highly unlikely that they would all die especially with the capabilities of magical medicine.
"It seems our path is clear then," Neville said and, though he had heard what Dumont said, he chose to ignore the man and his ludicrous nature, for the moment at least. "We use the distraction and temporary weakness of our enemy and clear a path to the Ministry while we can. We have to take the system down while it is wounded and reeling and before it can take root again… not to mention reaching and supporting our people behind enemy lines".
As the group began to move off, no doubt to deal with all of the little things that tended to crop up when moving a large armed mass of fighters, Neville signalled for Dumont to stay behind. "You know Dumont, if the others don't hold you to account for what you said here today then when this is all over, I will".
The other man showed, once again, how stupid he could be by simply snorting as he gazed at Neville's less than stellar body and moved off. He seemed to be unaware of the number of hostile stares that he had received and the amount of people from member states that had either been part of or overheard the argument.
He was also thinking like a politician, not a soldier. He honestly believed that his comments would have been forgotten in a week and that everyone he spoke to might one day be an ally of convenience if he could convince them to use their names (and in some cases voting power) to aid in his endeavours.
He wouldn't think that by the time the war was over.
Besides, he had effectively just committed political suicide. There were far too many who now understood exactly what kind of man he was and would report that. They had all seen, in those few minutes of arguing, what kind of person Dumont was and that revelation of his character would never truly leave him.
-HPCOD-
Ron Weasley was uncomfortable, to say the least, but thanks to the donations of some unworthy mudbloods he had his body mostly stored in short order.
'This is the beauty of power and position,' he thought, 'no peg leg for someone of my station and my hands, while still twitchy and clumsy in places, are nearly whole again'.
The one thing they couldn't restore in this time frame (as they would need a specialist thanks to trauma to his eye socket and nerve damage on top of that) was his eye, though he had ordered one that was a newer version of the one Moody was famous for wearing and he made do with an eyepatch for now.
He hated the damn thing. In all honesty, the only reason that the selfish man wasn't that unhappy about the eye was the idea that he would be able to discreetly see all of the beautiful women that tended to move in his noble circle naked whenever he wanted and with them none the wiser.
He would also carry heavy scarring for the rest of his life, but that he didn't mind so much as there wasn't a whole lot of it and he thought it made him more appealing to the opposite sex.
He did not care that this procedure had already cost three people their lives. He didn't even care about those people who had died of more serious injuries while he was being treated and prioritised over them. He didn't even care, deep down about Voldemort's vision for the future all that much either. He barely even spared a thought for his family, living or dead, beyond a vague sense that he should and that they were not giving him his due.
That was what it was all about to him really, his due, and that was all that he cared about. He loved his wealth, his sense of power, his clothes and the fawning respect that he was given by many. That was all it took for someone to buy the soul of a manchild like Ronald Weasley.
In short, all Ron wanted to protect was his lifestyle and position and, in his brain, anything that got in the way of that was bad and anything that helped him protect it was good. Voldemort gave him those things, gave him his due, and therefore Ron was both loyal and convinced of the cause, at least on the surface.
Many could have argued that Voldemort was short-changed in the deal.
That was why, when he was leaving Saint Mungos, he took every supporter that he could find and who could still fight under his own auspices as Lord Weasley and in the name of the glorious Ministry.
He took them to bolster his own self-deception and the great lie that he was a true believer in the cause. He took them to protect his seat of power, one that he believed he had earned and had every right to.
But deep down?
He took them because he could, because he felt entitled to... simply because he was Ron Weasley.
-HPCOD-
As Harry exited the lift and entered what was now effectively the heart of Voldemort's domain he surprised himself by being, well, surprised.
Where he might have expected something like a magical library, stuffed full from floor to ceiling with rare magical books, denoting the organised chaos of the man's deceased intellect or waves of sycophants waiting like trained dogs for their Master's call, that wasn't what he found.
Instead, he found himself in an eerily empty hallway and noting that the only other exit (aside from the way that he came) was a stout and slightly oversized pair of double doors. He reasoned that those doors must lead to either an audience room or the man's private quarters.
'The man's ego probably could stand a simple and normal door,' he thought. 'I mean look at that thing! Not only is the door huge but it is decorated with a kind of mural to his victories'.
The walls reflected this as they were not encrusted with gems or expensive furnishings but, rather murals, tapestries and other hangings. They were horrible and twisted things, showing muggle-borns, goblins, veela and a myriad of other races being crushed beneath the oversized and strangely benevolent-looking Voldemort.
'The ego on the man. His foot is literally on a muggle-born's neck and he has the audacity to try and look kind and caring at the same time. Talk about having the subtle of a sledgehammer'.
The doors were decorated in the same vein, having been transfigured or chiselled and then charred into a colour image, almost like a stained glass window. Despite the subject on the door the artistry and the three-dimensional nature of it was impressive, if not a thing of beauty even as the image was split at the seam of the door and the top quadrants as well, forming a Y shape.
The left side of the image was a twisted and pitiful representation of the muggle world, the right a golden and idealised version of the wizarding world that faintly glowed from within even as the shadows cast by the torches added depth and shadow. The final image was as subtle as everything else in this corridor, Voldemort looking down at the images below him with his left hand balled into a fist and his right stretched out, as if in benediction.
'I know that this is a bad idea, it could go so wrong….but I have to take the chance now that I'm here'.
Harry mentally shrugged, even as he gathered his magic, going with shock and awe as a plan and he splintered the door with a wave of his pine wand. The splinters flew into the room at great force ensuring that if anyone was hit by them, they would be very injured if not dead.
Only for them to clatter against a conjured barricade even as he cursed lightly under his breath and moved quickly into the room and turning the barricade into water.
"Welcome Harry Potter, or is it Emrys? I've been waiting a long time for this moment".
Voldemort was standing in what appeared to be a largely empty room. The only thing that he did notice was a throne on a raised dais and like everything else he had seen it reelected the twisted man. Voldemort's personality was such that he couldn't help but always place himself above everyone else.
Still, to Harry's senses, there was something off about the man and it was just the horrid, scarred, small and twisted black glow that denoted Voldemort's soul nor the rather gargantuan magic that spewed from it.
It was something small and nearly indistinguishable against the background hum of the world and it made Harry pause for a fraction of a second.
Voldemort noticed and there appeared to be a note of grudging respect in his voice when he spoke again. "You have grown, haven't you? Let's see how much".
A volley of magic sprang from the yew wand that had been the instrument of so much suffering. The wand seemed to leap and buck with a mind of its own, eager for blood and destruction.
All of the curses that came at Harry were the darkest of the dark. Interspersed among the almost standard Killing Curses were ones that were designed to liquefy organs, shatter his heart, fill his lungs with acid and rip away all of the moisture that he had in his body.
Harry responded to that with elemental lightning, charms and transfiguration to rip up the flor and turn them into razor-sharp weapons that would target any ope area of Voldemort's body. He also used shields to great effect and dodged what he could.
"You'll have to do better than that," Harry snarled at the man, looking directly into the madman's eyes through his glowing defences.
"Not a problem," Voldemort answered, though his voice had an edge to it now, as if he was offended that Harry was still alive. "After all, they say life is a learning experience and, I have learned".
As he said those last words out of the corners of the wide room, hidden in the shadows made by the flickering torches, came two teams of eight muggle soldiers. They were fully armed and firing automatic weapons as they approached him at a quick pace.
Harry cursed the fact that there was no known magical shield that could block both physical objects and magic at the same time, it was either one or the other. Granted there were solid objects that he could use or create, such as granite, but it did limit his options. He also wasn't going to trust his life to conjured stone against a one hundred and eighty-degree area of fire, especially as he didn't know whether the bullets had been altered in any way.
Far too many magicals had died from that lack of knowledge or their own hubris so Harry did a very stupid thing but, it really was the only thing that he could think to do.
He shimmered right into the first group, nullifying much of the effectiveness of their rifles but, not as much as someone might think. The reason for this was that Harry could tell, even before he did that, that they were being controlled somehow as their glassy-eyed stare and deadened expression was a dead giveaway.
A small part of Harry wished that it made a difference to the situation, even as his knife was drawn and he went to work.
His first move was to plunge his dagger, left-handed, into one enemy and then swiftly backhanding another. He dodged the butt of a weapon after that and managed to sway to the side, avoiding a knife that one of the soldiers had somehow pulled out. He accepted smaller wounds to his back and legs in exchange and he already felt his ritually enhance body trying to heal those wounds.
He snarled and his wand lashed out, three more fell in a spray of blood.
"Duro," Harry spoke firmly but quietly as another enemy grabbed his throat, already dying as a small part of his throat had been turned to stone.
Then he shimmered again as the remaining group turned and fired on their own comrades, uncaring at the loss of life. Up until he had dealt with the first group Voldemort had been content to watch them all try and kill each other, with a smirk on his face.
Just as clearly, that time had ended when Harry moved onto the second group. Maybe Voldemort was easily bored, maybe he had expected Harry to die quickly or maybe he simply didn't wish to see a repeat of what had just happened so the Dark Lord acted.
As Harry shimmered into place he didn't have time to react as he and the others in the mass of humanity were struck with a series of Bombarda Curses. The muggles died then and there, partially due to the power of the spells and partially because muggles magical resistance was near nil.
Harry however was not a muggle, nor was he hit with anything directly as the very group of men that he had just been about to kill took the brunt of the attack. That didn't mean that he wasn't injured and he was launched into the air from the explosive force. He also found out, very personally, how painful of a shrapnel human bone could make when it peppered his body.
It also didn't help that Voldemort used his own magic to enhance the violent nature of Harry's spin through the air and throw him into the nearest wall with extreme prejudice.
'I wonder if this is how the Roman's felt when they realised Hannibal had crossed the Alps,' was Harry's stray thought as this happened.
"This is the best that the Wizarding World has?" Voldemort half asked and half gloated even as he laughed. With a wave of his wand, he slammed Harry into another wall even as he spoke.
"This is the great hope of the I.C.W.?" Another slam into another wall but at higher speeds, this time caused more damage and Harry felt at least one of his ribs bruise (nearly break) as he was held in the air, removed from the ground. "And Dumbledore's?"
When Harry hit the next wall he felt a minimum of one rib break and, with all of the flying and slamming he was too disorientated to bring his wand to bear. His body might have taken care of his injuries if he was given half an hour and more than a few potions.
Voldemort wasn't giving him that chance, however.
Harry was distantly and silently mentally kicking himself.
He had forgotten that, for all of his training and power, not only was surprise a key factor that could work both ways but that it could win battles in a few seconds, the first time that it was used anyway.
Now he was paying for that mistake with his own blood because the serious curses had just begun.
-HPCOD-
Hermione gasped, shuddered and almost dropped her wand in the middle of the Battle for the Ministry. Such was the sudden and unexpected nature of the pain she was (somehow distantly) feeling that she would have died, then and there, if Sirius had not batted away a spell that was going to hit her and Fleur literally incinerated the bastard that had tried to do it.
"What's going on?" Sirius almost screamed even as they had to allow the majority of their attention to be with the fight to the death that they were currently facing. In his defence, despite everyone's best efforts, the fight was devolving into a running cluster of pitched battles in pockets that were stretched throughout the atrium.
"It's Harry," she almost moaned out and wordlessly pierced three enemies with a conjured spear of ice, "he's being tortured". She could feel the echoes of it, somehow, from deep inside of herself.
"How do you know?" He questioned even as he ducked a flame whip, span ninety degrees and responded to this physical argument in kind. He clearly won the disagreement as the man trying to kill him fell, courtesy of a piercing curse to the eye.
"I don't know. Maybe the level of magic that Voldemort is using? Maybe he wants me to feel Harry's pain to try and distract him or make us both suffer ?"
She knew that this was something that Voldemort, the sadist that he was, would enjoy. She didn't consider the connection that she shared with Harry as the cause, for two reasons. First, it was too weak for much, as far as she knew anyway, and second, she couldn't see how Voldemort would know about it.
On top of that, she was also in a life or death battle so, even her magnificent mind had limits when it came to multitasking. She simply didn't have the time to devote her mind to the puzzle especially as the next voice that she heard was one that she detested.
"Hello Herms," Ron called out mockingly to her from the enemy mass, even as both Fleur and Sirius were engaged in their own battles and he sent a vicious and dark cutting curse screaming for her head.
Thankfully for her, he had always been a poor student and not only shouted the incantation but telegraphed his wand movements. That gave her plenty of time to twirl out of the path of the curse and, using the momentum of the movement, spin and send her reply in the form of a withering curse aimed at his midsection.
He dodged that, though unlike her movements that were calm sure and wasted as little energy as possible, his footwork was appalling and he was barely balanced. He immediately cast every single dark curse that he could think of in much the same manner as he did his first one and, though he was very bad compared to her it would only take one successful hit to kill her.
She also didn't move like Harry and he was taking full advantage of the ebb and flow of battle to make up for his shortcomings, even using his own people as shields against her.
"You will not take everything that I deserve," he spoke as if it was as certain as the sun rising in the morning. He appeared almost manic to her and she would have been surprised to see him spitting as he spoke. His old jealousy had clearly reared its ugly head at seeing the best that the Ministry, that Lord Voldemort, had to offer being taken down by the unworthy.
That anger and jealousy did give his spells more power, empowered by the dark emotions as they were. It did make him more reckless though and what little skill he had was dissolving with every moment. 'The Dark Lord's best trained me. She doesn't stand a chance. It's time she learned which one of us is the better,' he thought.
He actually believed that.
Hermione was well tested by the arrogant man child as he threw every single curse, hex and cantrip that he knew against her, trying to kill her in the most gruesome way that he knew and could recall as his adrenaline flooded his system. Ron's greed was unending, his hubris as deep as the sea, his hatred a raging inferno and his envy a roaring beast in his chest.
All of which amounted to nothing at all. Sirius was free now (though Fleur was still busy) and they worked in concert to fight not only Ron but, also the three men around him. A ribbon curse from her and a flame whip from him bisected all of the men as they both swept the magic into the air, with Hermione aiming high at the collarbone and Sirius going low.
These were the last moments of Ron Weasley, lying in three pieces on the floor of the Atrium. He had lost against a witch that was once his friend, a former escaped convict and (very rarely) even Neville. The boy who had lost his magic and gained a shortened lifespan out of the bad deal.
This was the price of his betrayal. He died alone and friendless, trading that for wealth and station that was far beyond his ability to reach alone. Hermione hadn't even said a word to him throughout the battle.
Hermione's only regret? That it hadn't lasted longer.
-HPCOD-
Sprawled on the floor, after his fifth round of the cruciatus curse and having bit through his lip so hard that it bled, his entire body groaned under the spasms of pain that were hitting him in agonising waves Harry knew he was right… this had been a bad idea.
It was only his ritually enhanced body that was keeping him conscious and somewhat functioning. If it wasn't for that, then he did not doubt that he would have already gone the way of Neville's parents and succumbed to madness.
His wand had long since been lost, somewhere in the room and he knew that without it he was as good as dead.
He also knew that a few more rounds like this however then it wouldn't matter. Madness and vegetation or a painful death were not things that he would choose and that fate would have to be forced on him. Soon enough, it would be a distinction without a difference though as it would happen regardless.
"As fun as this has been for me, and it really has, this has to end now as we both knew it must. My victory was fated, not because of some prophecy, but because I will it so".
"You," Harry began, not speaking because he was arrogant or delusional but rather trying to buy time as his body worked hard on trying to restore basic functionality to his limbs, "are nothing. A frightened child that wailed so hard against oblivion that he sold his very humanity to escape it".
"I am immortal," Voldemort sneered.
"Your trinkets are gone, you psychopathic hoarder. There isn't enough soul left in that thing you call a body to make any more".
"A temporary condition," Voldemort conceded even as he brought his wand up and it glowed a baleful green. "There are other ways and, once you are dead, I'll have all the time in the world to find one of them and make it my own".
He towered over Harry's nearly prone form and clearly took joy in his enemy's almost completely incapacitated state. "Your parents would be ashamed at your poor showing here, they at least had spirit and skill. They weren't just a waste of potential like you… Avada-"
Harry's legs kicked out as he span his body around. They both began to fight each other then, a nasty dirty combat that was more street fighting rather than a skill or an art. They both scrambled for the one wand available to them and sought to outright kill each other.
All things being equal, Harry should have had the advantage. He was younger than the Dark Lord, he should have more raw power to call on and had been training since he was fifteen to kill Tom Riddle.
Magic however was the great equalizer here, as it was in so many other things. It gave the edge to the man that was recently reborn from almost nothing, that had an enhanced body before his rebirth (let alone after it) and was alive during the Blitz.
To Harry, Voldemort's skin felt like porous granite under his blows. The older man's reflexes were far sharper than any human's had any right to be, the lungs that had formed in the graveyard were far more economical than his and had a far larger capacity, improving the man's stamina beyond anything that Harry had faced before. More than all of this though, Voldemort had years of experience over him.
All of which were gaps that, in one way or another, Harry had tried to close. Those differences could never be fully equalized though and it was never more clear than in the confrontation that they were having now.
Thankfully, this didn't mean that Harry couldn't do any damage, even if he was far from his best and outclassed as he knew that he didn't need it to last all that long. Besides which, if nothing else, Harry was more knowledgeable than Voldemort in the actual act of physical fighting than Tom Riddle ever was.
And the longer that the fighting went on, the more that Harry touched the ground, he healed more.
In contrast, when Voldemort managed to create space between them and stand, it wasn't that much, more inches rather than the feet that he had clearly been hoping for. He also had a fractured arm, broken fingers, lost teeth and one of his eyes had swollen over.
In an ordinary man, this list of injuries would be damning especially considering that his wand was broken in the scuffle but then, Voldemort had never been ordinary. His body was healing even now and at a far faster rate than Harry.
The magical fight was not over though, as Harry wand was somewhere nearby and besides that, both were fairly skilled at wandless magic.
On the other hand, even with his healing, it would be easier to name the parts of Harry that weren't broken in some way even with his healing. His left arm, one eye and one of his lungs were functional at least. With everything else, he either felt the deep and dull ache of healing or a slow-burning agony and he wasn't honestly sure which felt worse.
"Perhaps it's fitting," Voldemort admitted to him, even as he knocked Harry down and started to savagely kick him in the chest. "You began beaten on the floor…" Harry coughed blood as tears of pain fell from his face, "and that is where you will die".
Harry looked up, in an effort of monumental will, as the Dark Lord began to swing his foot in his most powerful strike yet and he spoke a single word even as his good hand shot out and just barely touched Volemorts other ankle, focusing only on what he had to do to survive now with all of his being.
"No".
Then came a rush of power for Harry, even though he knew it was exceptionally dangerous and he felt his hand become glued to the man's leg.
For Voldemort, it felt different. It was like a gnawing emptiness was travelling slowly up his leg. It was like there was a wound in his body that he could not see though, instead of blood being lost, it was magic.
'How is he doing this?' Voldemort thought in panic even as he drew deeper on his magic and that of his followers to try and plug the breach that he found in his magic. It was a gaping black hole in him that he was trying to pinch closed.
Voldemort's thoughts, by necessity, turned inward to do this and so he missed the effect it had on Harry.
At first, it started with his wounds as they healed as his body greedily sucked the power in. His bones straightened and popped back into place while his deathly pallor regained the bloom of health.
And still, he continued to draw from the Dark Lord.
Both his hands now grasped the Dark Lord and dragged the rapidly weakening man down, breaking the concentration. Voldemort only then realised that his sluggishness of thought was likely a side effect of what was happening to him.
"Get. Off. Me." Voldemort screeched.
Harry's wand flew out of the darkness as the drain continued and he could have sped the drain up at this point, but he didn't do that. He wanted this monster to suffer, even if it was only a shadow of what most of his victims had suffered.
Harry began to glow as the amount of magic that he was pulling changed him even more and, on a fundamental level, he moved further away from human than ever before. Deep inside, he wondered, how much further from the human wizarding norm he would go.
A portion of that magic went down down the connection that he shared with Hermione, strengthening it and reinforcing its range as it went. It also enabled the magic to further change and strengthen her, if in a gentler and marginally more controlled fashion.
Harry said nothing as he watched Voldemort scream like a wounded animal, as the man turned into a withered and desiccated living husk under his unblinking gaze until, finally, the Dark Lord died.
Harry was, as of yet, unaware that the drain extended beyond one Dark Lord and to all of his marked followers. No matter what they were doing or in the middle of they fell in the same way, turning to husks as they went. Even the dead bodies of their fellows had the last of their magic drained and their corpses turned to fine white ash before drifting away in the air.
All over England muggle Lords, Politicians, Civil servants of all kinds and the Royal Family woke from their slavery.
The repercussions of that would change the world forever.