Chapter 57

The Return to Hogwarts

Jason

The burglary of Gringotts would go down as one of the great unsolved crimes in the wizard world. Gringotts was quick to announce that nothing had been stolen and that only one of the oldest vaults had been vandalized, perhaps by the elder wyrm that was there to protect it. Kingsley Shacklebolt was in charge of the investigation which had very few leads. One of them was a group of young wizards, believed to be from one of the other European schools, had been having coffee but left suddenly just as the dragon had busted out of the bank. This wasn't much of a lead as everyone in Diagon Alley had done pretty much the same thing. Dragons have that effect. He inquired of Dumbledore if he knew this group of children so that they might be interviewed and statements taken, but alas his friend the professor knew of no such children. The students at his school had been partaking of the hospitality of their American counterparts at the time and several of the professors confirmed this.

Leo, Hazel and Nico were the heros of that quest, it would not have succeeded without them, in fact, no one else could recall anything that the rest of us had done. Annabeth, Percy and myself, the folks usually in charge of such things had literally done nothing. Well Percy retrieved the cup, but Leo or Nico could have done the same. The story was retold several times at the debriefing with Jennifer beaming more and more over Leo each time it was retold.

We met in the library while the Hogwarts students returned to Hogwarts. For the most part they were living in the barracks in the Leodis now anyway, only Slythrin House was still in the castle, so the total movement was basically nil. Hazel was elated at the success of the quest, as were the Order and the professors. Even Snape grinned a bit at its retelling.

"Moving on though, we now are faced with locating the Diadem. Has there been any progress on researching its whereabouts?"

"None, except to confirm that it was last in the possession of Helena Ravenclaw, who of course has been dead for centuries, so even that information may be clouded by myth." Dumbledore replied. "The myth continues that, overcome with grief at the death of her mother, she returned with it to Hogwarts where it remains to this day. However, it has never been seen in all these centuries."

"Let's increase our efforts there. If anyone can think of a place it might be hidden don't ask, just look. I can't help but feel this quest is quickly coming to a head." Hazel said.

"Indeed I fear you're correct. I have learned that when the cup was destroyed the Dark Lord stirred and his healers feel he may be returning to consciousness. In the interim LeStrange has gathered his forces. On his awakening it is the plan to seize the Ministry, which might as well be under his control already, then launch his army against Hogwarts to face down the two wizards he fears most, the Headmaster and Mr. Potter." Snape said.

"What do we know of their attack doctrine?" Frank asked.

"Their what?" Snape asked.

"Their order of battle, their, well, if they are going to attack Hogwarts, how exactly? Where will they attack from, what ranks will they utilize, that sort of thing."

"Ah, well, none. I expect they will apparate in mass, probably to the forbidden forest, then attack like a mob across the open field and the two bridges." Snape replied.

"Good luck with that." Leo said, causing Slughorn to chuckle.

"How so?" Hazel asked.

"Well Horace and I, while you kids were goofing off at Disney, we have had the aerials building and laying mines all over that area. We have enough ordinance buried there to take out ten armies. Plus we've lined the stone bridge with concealed claymores and rigged the wooden bridge with both claymores hidden in the ceiling and AmFO under the pinnings." Leo grinned.

"Uh, what keeps it from going off during Magical Creatures?"

"Oh, they are not armed yet. We've set up a control room to monitor and activate them from. I wasn't going to turn any on until they are well into them, otherwise we might have to burn the forest down to kill them all. Oh, and the shape of the layout should funnel them down to a nice killing zone just off the plaza where arrows and spells can hit them from hidden positions while the infantry closes in. We can just use the air cav to wrangle them in like cowboys. Er, or cowgirls as the case may be Ginny." He said with a twisted little grin.

"Can you show us on the map? Reyna asked.

"Why don't we go to the control room and we can show you everything. Horace and I are quite proud of our work." He said as Professor Slughorn put his hand on Leo's shoulder and grinned.

The control room was yet another new room to the mansion located just off the study room we were in. The walls were lined with screens thats showed a 360 view of the castle and Leo explained that he could switch to thermal whenever he wished, but that since some monsters we expected to side with Voldemort were cold blooded, namely the "acromantulas" as Hagrid called them or "giant ass spiders" as they were commonly known, a system of motion sensors and sound detectors had also been installed. The information was updated into an Archimedes sphere that acted as a central control unit and was updated by miniature drones that constantly circled the castle and woods feeding their observances back.

Leo turned a knob and what looked like a few hundred red dots lit up on the screens.

"These are the mines we have installed, and here," he said as he turned another knob "are the ones in the woods. Now those, in order to preserve the woods, are not explosive or even deadly. The release a skunk oil and ammonia based gas that is particularly noxious and irritating to the eyes, nose and throat. Think pepper spray or tear gas, except when this breaks down it helps feed the plants. So its environmentally friendly."

"Oh, that's good" Rachel said.

"I thought you might like that. All the chemical explosives we used are nitrate based so, to that extent anyway, environmentally friendly. Except, you know, for the big freakin' holes they will leave in the environment. Now, as you can probably see, the mines are laid out in such a way as to drive them from the woods, and then funnel them down all the way to this exposed area in front of the castle. They have no cover there, nor a way to enter, and we could pound them with bows and ballista without recourse. Of course, this is more Frank and Reyna's thing than mine so if we need to make changes just let us know. We have the aerials working on it practically full time since the barracks got completed."

"What about by the stadium?" Harry asked.

"Good question. Since it might occur that the attack could come during a match and some might land there, we only planted non lethal mines here. Mostly knock out and love potions, but as you can see, we went heavy." Leo said as hundreds of green dots lit up that area and connected up to the red dots by the bridge. "So we have it surrounded and the end result is the same. Also we can blow the wooden bridge from here, leaving any that land by the pitch only the front of the castle to go to in order to avoid mines unless they want to run into the protective spell wall, and of course we would have the air cav and archers funneling them that way anyway, and the routes away are heavily mined. Once there"

"Once there, the infantry kills whatever is left." Reyna said.

"Or the brooms bomb them out." Frank said.

"You've done our job for us." Reyna said. "Excellent work. Could Frank and I run some scenarios against it to test your defenses?"

"Absolutely! I've built in a simulation program to do just that."

"Leo... you're a genius and a safe cracker. Who knew?" Hazel grinned.

"Well, uh... me? But I had a lot of help from Professor Slughorn and the air servants." Leo smiled.

"You thinking of bringing the ballista from Camp Half Blood over?"

"Uh, no, the servants found a couple of scorpions from the Argo II that they were able to reassemble so we don't have to reduce the camp's defenses and we've made some explosive bolts for them. Between that and the archers we should be able to pin down about any sized force for the infantry. I think. Since Hermione is packing a shotgun these days it got me to thinking that along with the ballista we could place a couple of Barrett .50 teams on the towers and use them to encourage the flow of traffic as well. Maybe use a few folks from the Air Cav before they take off. It seems like the sort of work Fred and George might enjoy."

We talked about this and discussed the castle defense plan at length but other than adding a few layers of protective spells for the attackers to deal with no one could come up with anything. Of course it would be necessary for the air cav to have clear routes through the protection so they don't do a Percy and slam into an invisible wall mid air, and it was figured the routes would need to be done by varied altitudes which would need to be practiced.

"So you no longer plan to eliminate the horcruxs then hunt the Dark Lord and his minions, but just wait for them to attack?" Snape asked.

"Oh, we need to find the horcruxes first, obviously, but after that, our enemies are scattered, they are not in one central location. If we attack Voldemort some might rally to him, but probably not all. If he is dumb enough to attack us here, we can wipe out all or most of them and not spend the next several years tracking them down. So, we let them attack, take the advantages of defense, and after we kill all the ones here, we attack the ministry and take it back. Its faster and easier that way." Percy said to everyone's general agreement.

That night we took off from training but gathered all so that it could be announced that our training schedule would begin again the next. We also went over the communications system we had devised to alert students to report to stations should the school need to be defended. As they passed through the doors back to Hogwarts the students, other than DA1 and 2 were touched by a spell that caused them to forget Artemis and any other gods they had contact with, as well as information they may have learned about the half bloods relationships to the gods. After dinner in Hogwarts we had a social gathering on the lawn of Jennifer and Leo's mansion. The big subject for discussion was a change in teaching positions.

At dinner Dumbledore announced that as Professor Slughorn had agreed to return to his old post of potions master, Professor Snape would be teaching Defense against the Dark Arts and Madame Weasley would be both assisting Snape and serving as advisor to Dumbledore. She would take over the responsibilities of head of America House, and Professor Slughorn would be assisting Professor Snape with Slythrin, whose academics and House Cup performance were both found wanting at present.

Since Dumbledore and McGonagall tended to award points and punishments in lots of 50 and Weasley in lots of 5, this almost guaranteed that America House would lose, and lose badly even though we currently led the contest. We didn't care, that wasn't part of the quest. Well most of us didn't. Percy was going on about kicking Harry's ass at it for costing Half Blood the capture the flag game this year, but no one else was worked up about it, and I think he was mostly joking.

It would be our last quiet evening in a while and everyone was up to take advantage of it. Folks mingled and chatted, Will dj'ed and Jennifer served refreshments along with Annabeth, Ginny and Hermione. Some danced, but most just chatted and most talked about starting up training again. In addition to our normal training, our two lead groups, DA1 and 2, were committed to helping teach magic at Half Blood and Jupiter. At Half Blood the Hecate, Aphrodite, Ares and Athena cabins would be trained first, while at Jupiter the Fifth Cohort would. Frank and Hazel were both veterans of the Fifth, as was myself and Percy for that matter, so that selection was easy. Wands were to be fitted by Ollivander who would be paid by Hazel out of the silver and gems she had found as these seemed to be a necessity and neither the Greeks nor the Romans had funds allocated for them. The Romans were basically broke after the spending spree Octavious had last year. This also allowed Ollivander to stay in the US for a time as we still were not sure if Voldemort's escapees had recovered wands and we didn't want his shop open until they were defeated. Of course by this time it was believed that most had simply obtained wands from other suppliers in Europe as there were several, although Olivander was the best known and best stocked.

Even Nico seemed content and relaxed, although Will was a bit upset with him and berated him about shadow travel from time to time. It was during one of these that we caught our next break in the quest, from an unexpected source.

Piper, Will, Nico and I were seated at one of the tables set up for the occasion with Percy, Annabeth, Neville and Reyna. Hazel had gone to sleep already as it was late, and Frank never stayed up without her. A few of DA1 tagged along, Harry and Hermione and hung out. Rachel at one point joined us with her ever present followers, Seamus, Fred and George. Seamus these days had his own follower, Luna, which was obvious to everyone except Seamus.

We sat around drinking the concoction known as butterbeer, which tasted nothing like butter or beer, just making small talk until about midnight. Someone said something about the time and Annabeth said "I should be off too, we have to hit the library tomorrow for more info on the Diadem."

"I don't think its in the library." Luna quietly said.

"No, if it was, well, it would have been found by now" either George or Fred said with a giggle.

"No, I mean, I think you have found everything in the library that you will. You used magic to bring you the right books like you did before with the stone, right?"

"Yes, but we can't just give up. Voldemort found it, and we know its in the castle, or thats the last place anyone knew it where it was. Anything he can find, we can."

"Yes, but maybe he didn't find it." Luna replied.

"Well, its a horcrux Luna, he must have." Harry said, clearly tired and beginning to be aggravated with the round about way all Ravenclaws, but especially Luna talked. I remember one of the Greek kids complaining about how Chiron often taught by what was called the "Socratic method," named after Socrates, which was really just questioning the last answer one got until a new answer was arrived at. I had teachers like that and they drove me batty. Just tell me the freakin' answer already!

"Not if someone told him where it was." Luna replied.

"But no one alive has seen it Luna" Seamus snapped.

"Yes. No one alive." She replied, looking at Nico as she did.

A silence fell over us.

"Luna, who is the ghost of Ravenclaw tower? Is it Rowena Ravenclaw?" Annabeth asked.

"No."

"Oh," Annabeth said, her disappointment showing.

"It is Helena, her daughter." Hermione said. "Nico! You should go make her tell us where it is!"

"No, I think Harry should ask. See, Nico can threaten to send her on if she doesn't, but, well I think she would like to leave and cross over anyway. She's not very happy here you see. But I think Harry could convince her. I can take you to her if you want."

The group became quiet for a bit then Percy said "Someone should go wake up Hazel and Frank. I think we are about to start a war."

"Then first you should all go rest. If that is the case it is likely that tomorrow will be quite busy." Dumbledore said.

"How long have you been standing there?" I asked.

"Long enough to agree with Miss Lovegood." He replied with a grin that expressed neither happiness or amusement. "Now, off to sleep with all of you. We will meet here again an hour before breakfast."