A/N - Hello everyone. Here is the next chapter of Lightning, Part 2 coming a little late as I said might happen. Well at least it isn't too late. What this means for future chapters is that I can't post according to a regular schedule now and they'll come as they come but hopefully they won't take too long since this story has really taken a hold of me since I began it. I estimate there are about 3 more chapters to go after this one and then we're done with Part 2.
One more thing, I've never been the best fight writer and large battles are especially difficult for me. I hope this chapter turned out relatively okay. Not everyone gets to shine in it but I did try to at give everyone a mention at least once.
Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.
41) TIME TO FIGHT
"The gate is down" said Dumbledore, "here they come."
He turned to the guest defenders and cast a specialized disillusionment spell on them so that all of the defenders could still see each other but any invaders wouldn't see the guests.
"Let's make your presence a surprise" said Dumbledore, "they'll be more likely to come closer if they don't know you're here. We'll reveal you soon."
None of the X-Men or Avengers said anything to this as they could see the sense in what Dumbledore said. Dr. Strange and the Ancient One both nodded their acceptance of this as well. Instead they looked toward where the attackers would appear. As they and the other defenders looked on they saw a crowd of Death Eaters appear in the distance marching toward them.
The crowd of Death Eaters was pretty large. Lightning wasn't sure if it was larger than the crowd they'd fought at the Quidditch World Cup but he wouldn't be surprised if all of Voldemort's Death Eaters were either here now or on their way.
"Voldemort isn't with them" Lightning muttered to his teammates, "I wonder where he is?"
"Maybe he's not expecting resistance" said Cyclops, "after all they're trying to attack the castle early in the morning. Look, they're stopping where they are. I think they're surprised to see anyone out here."
"Indubitably" said Beast, "and that's prior to their receiving visual evidence that there are defenders of whom they were not informed."
"He's sending others to do his dirty work" muttered Thor, "he's no warrior no matter how powerful he is. Otherwise he'd lead his people into battle himself instead of hiding behind them until he has to show himself."
"Some would say that's being prudent" said Iron Man.
"Aye but there's little honor in it" said Thor staring at the Death Eaters in their robes and masks as they stopped some distance away from Dumbledore and his people.
"Dumbledore!" yelled one of the Death Eaters, "what are you doing out here?" Lightning recognized his voice at once. It was Lucius Malfoy.
"I might ask you the same question" said Dumbledore, "by your manner you seem surprised to see me and my colleagues here."
"We weren't expecting anyone to meet us" Lucius conceded.
"I'm the headmaster" said Dumbledore, "I know when hostile groups try to invade the school."
"You can't have had time to gather all the people with you since we tripped the wards" shot back the Death Eater.
"You're right" said the headmaster, "we knew you were coming."
"Who told you?" demanded Lucius.
"That will remain my secret" said Dumbledore, "however I would advise you to leave. You won't find it easy to seize Hogwarts."
"The Dark Lord wants this school" said Lucius, "you're foolish to oppose us."
"Or maybe you're foolish to follow him" was the reply, "where is he anyway? Why doesn't he show himself? Or was he expecting to just stroll in here and claim the place following what you hoped would be little to no resistance?"
"Do you think you can stop us?" sneered Lucius, "there are a good deal more of us than your staff and that group of aurors you have."
"Maybe" said Dumbledore, "but we're not alone. We brought friends to help us."
"Really?" asked Lucius, "I don't see anyone else. Where are they?"
"They're here" said Dumbledore and he dropped the disillusionment spell revealing the two teams and the two sorcerers, "allow me to present to you Dr. Strange the Sorcerer Supreme and his mentor the Ancient One. I believe you all know who they are. Next to them are the X-Men whom I've heard quite a few of you have met before. Last but not least is their fellow superhero team the Avengers who have also come here to help."
The reactions from the Death Eaters were almost comical. They all knew who both Dr. Strange and the Ancient One were. Dr. Strange on his own was formidable enough but the Ancient One's power was legendary. He had lived for several centuries and was one of the strongest magicals in the world, even stronger than Dumbledore and, although he'd never admit it, Voldemort too. If the Ancient One was here that was bad for Voldemort.
Then there were the X-Men whom many of the Death Eaters remembered from the Quidditch World Cup. As Lightning watched he saw many of them suddenly saying words and doing something with their wands. He wondered what that was all about.
The icing on the proverbial cake was when one of the other Death Eaters spoke to Lucius. Although he tried to speak softly his voice still carried to where the defenders were.
"Be careful leader" said the Death Eater, "I don't know who most of those Avengers are but I recognize the one carrying the hammer and wearing the armor and cape."
"Who is he?" asked Lucius.
"That's Thor, the Norse God of Thunder" was the reply, "I've seen his picture several times in books about the Norse gods in my library."
That made Lucius Malfoy and many of the other Death Eaters pause. Going up against powerful sorcerers and mutants was one thing. Fighting an actual god was another thing altogether.
"Maybe we should retreat for now?" another Death Eater said in a tentative voice.
"Are you mad?!" Lucius said turning on his comrade, "do you want to be the one to tell the Dark Lord that we retreated?!" Several Death Eaters gulped at that prospect.
"You should retreat" said Dumbledore, "there's no need for violence. All you need to know is that Hogwarts is defended."
For a long moment the Death Eaters stood there in silence as if they were unsure of their course of action. Then suddenly Lucius raised his wand and pointed it at Dumbledore."
"Never!" he yelled, "avada kedavra!"
The green spell shot out of his wand straight at Dumbledore who conjured a marble slab to block it –
– only for the spell to hit an invisible barrier a foot in front of the slab and bounce back toward the Death Eaters. They all hastily got out of the curse's way and eventually it impacted on the ground somewhere behind them and killed off the patch of grass that it hit.
There was a silence as everyone who saw the curse rebound on apparently nothing stared at this unexpected sight.
"Well" Lightning finally said breaking the silence as Dumbledore looked at him in surprise, "it looks like I can block the unforgivables."
That broke the stupor the attackers had fallen into. With a loud cry from many of them they began running toward the defenders.
"X-Men look sharp" called Cyclops taking command of his team, "don't let them get close if they can be stopped. Lightning, Marvel Girl, you know what to do."
Both Lightning and Marvel Girl concentrated on the wands of the approaching Death Eaters. This time the wands did not come flying out of their hands. Something was holding them back.
"It seems they can learn" said Marvel Girl.
"But what's doing it?" said Lightning, "anti-summoning charms don't work against telekinesis."
"No" said Mage, "but sticking charms might."
"Oh really?" said Lightning, "we'll see about that."
Both he and Marvel Girl increased the amount of telekinetic power they were using. They could feel a definite tug on the Death Eater wands now and the Death Eaters themselves seemed to be feeling it too as the affected ones were holding on to their wands more tightly.
Not for nothing had Lightning and Marvel Girl been training for close to two years. Their individual telekinetic strengths had grown exponentially and they could now both lift a few tons of weight each. It also meant that they could pull a few tons of weight each and against that kind of force the summoning charms eventually had to give way.
With ripping and squelching sounds wands began coming free from Death Eater hands. Unfortunately for the Death Eaters the skin of many of those hands that the wands were stuck to also ripped free causing those Death Eaters quite a bit of pain and leaving them with bleeding hands. The lucky ones were the ones who had worn gloves. The gloves ripped when the wands pulled free but the owners' hands were undamaged.
"Oh God, that's gross" said Lightning wincing a bit. This was a sentiment with which Marvel Girl agreed as she and Lightning both let the summoned wands fall to the ground at their feet, many of them dripping with blood from the ripped off skin. Both teammates refused to touch them but it wasn't necessary as Mage summoned them all and put them in a conjured bag which he then closed and shrunk before putting it in his pocket.
Now everyone began to fight as the rest of the defenders began to act against the Death Eaters. Cyclops struck first by blasting them back with sweeping blasts from his eyes and causing a domino effect as the front Death Eaters went crashing into the ones behind them who fell on the ones behind them, and so on.
Lightning shot up high into the air and flew over the Death Eaters. He quickly summoned up his electricity and surrounded his whole body with it in preparation for a Full Blasting Attack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Thor flying up alongside him.
"Now young warrior" said Thor holding out his hammer, "is it thy intention to strike our foes with lightning?"
"Oh yeah" said Lightning.
"As it is mine" said the thunder god as lightning began surrounding Mjolnir, "on three. One, two, three!"
Lightning released lightning bolts from all over the front of his body and fired them down at the Death Eaters while Thor shot lightning out of Mjolnir. The two sets of lightning bolts mixed with each other and struck at many Death Eaters.
"Shields!" yelled Lucius as he pulled out his second wand after losing his first one. A lot of the Death Eaters who hadn't been struck down did the same, pulling out extra wands and throwing up magic shields. They combined them together to make the shields stronger. This stopped more lightning from coming through but neither the X-Man or the Avenger stopped their attacks. It took almost everything the shielding Death Eaters had to keep the shields going against the lightning.
With all of their attention focused on their shields the Death Eaters were vulnerable to other attacks. The aurors took advantage of this and struck at the Death Eaters themselves. These weren't run of the mill aurors either. These aurors had been training for the last two months in the new magical Danger Room under the watchful eye of Auror Moody. They were ready for the Death Eaters. Unable to counter the attack of the aurors many Death Eaters went down quickly. It looked like the battle might be won fast, especially when Beast, Iceman, and Giant Man got into the act and began pummeling Death Eaters left and right. In addition Marvel Girl helped out by mind blasting a whole bunch of them and Angel was dive bombing them and knocking them out.
"Did they really need all of us?" Captain America asked Iron Man who was watching from his place.
"Just wait" said Dr. Strange who was standing nearby, "it's far from over."
From his hidden vantage point not far away Voldemort was watching the battle along with the rest of his Death Eaters whom he'd held back. He was not pleased. This was supposed to have been an easy capture of Hogwarts. Instead his Death Eaters were getting trounced by the defenders, especially those outsiders that had shown up to help Dumbledore and company. He recognized the X-Men from having seen them in Runcorn's memory. He didn't recognize Dr. Strange and the Ancient One as he had never seen them before but he recognized their names when he heard Dumbledore introduce them. He also didn't know the Avengers but when one of his Death Eaters identified Thor he felt doubt that he could win for the first time. He shook off the feeling quickly.
"I won't put up with this" said Voldemort before snapping, "Pettigrew!" Peter Pettigrew scuttled over to him and knelt down before him.
"Yes my lord" he said in a shaky voice.
"Tell the other groups to attack now" snarled Voldemort, "we'll see how these 'friends' Dumbledore brought deal with them."
"Right away my lord" said Pettigrew and he darted away to obey his master's orders.
Down on the field the Death Eaters had been decimated badly and many of them were out of the fight. Lucius was still standing and was battling Dumbledore.
"You should have left Lucius" said Dumbledore throwing a curse at him, "you have no hope of winning now."
"That's where you're wrong Albus" said Lucius shielding from the curse, "we're not the Dark Lord's only forces."
"Even if that's so" said Dumbledore, "and it won't surprise me at all if it is, you can't beat me."
"I don't have to" said Lucius as he felt a change in the air, "they're coming now."
Everyone noticed the sudden change as it began to get colder and frost was forming down by the Forbidden Forest. Out of the Forest stepped many tall figures wearing full robes with hoods concealing their faces.
"Dementors!" yelled Moody. At the same time several giants appeared from the other side of the field and began stomping their way towards the castle.
"Still think you can win Dumbledore?" sneered Lucius as he disengaged from the headmaster and retreated from the duel before calling back to him, "and that's not all the Dark Lord has."
Lucius gestured toward the middle of the field as he retreated. Straight up the middle between both the giants and the dementors came a large pack of werewolves in their transformed state.
"That's not possible said Remus to Professor Flitwick, "the full moon isn't for a few more days! How can they be transformed now?"
"That's Fenrir Greyback leading them" said Flitwick as he turned toward the werewolves, "perhaps he's learned how to do that and has taught his pack.
Flitwick and Remus both raised their wands but Dr. Strange motioned for them to stop.
"Leave the werewolves to us" said the Sorcerer Supreme, "my master and I will take care of them." He and the Ancient One stepped forward to meet the charging pack. As the werewolves closed in on them the two sorcerers held up their hands.
"By the power of Mother Gaea" intoned Dr. Strange and the Ancient One together, "and Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt we bid you halt! Our will is your will. You will not move until we say so."
All of the werewolves stopped where they were and none of them moved. They were clearly being held in place by a larger power and although one or two of them were struggling it was doing them no good. The two sorcerers looked over the group of werewolves for a long moment before the Ancient One spoke.
"Fenrir Greyback" he said, "step forward." The largest and meanest looking of the werewolves stepped forward a few steps until he stood in front of his pack.
"You have a sizable pack with you" said the Ancient One, "is there anyone in this pack whom you did not personally turn? If so point them out."
Greyback didn't move. It was quite clear that every member of this pack had been personally turned by him. The Ancient One nodded to Dr. Strange who looked at Greyback with a grim expression.
"Fenrir Greyback, you have abused your power and your pack for far too long" said the Sorcerer Supreme, "today I, Dr. Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, by the power and authority of Apollo Lykaios, Lord of Wolves, do hereby strip you of your power, release your pack from your domination, and leave you to their judgment and mercy. You are a squib werewolf now. So mote it be."
A yellow light surrounded Greyback and with a scream he transformed back into a human. At the same time all of the other werewolves looked as if they were waking up from trances. Silently the two sorcerers released the pack members who were able to move again. One of them looked at Greyback with loathing.
"You!" he yelled as he moved toward his former alpha, "you ruined my life!"
"You killed my family!" yelled another one, also moving toward Greyback. All of the werewolves surrounded Greyback.
"Stay back!" yelled Greyback looking at them all with fear.
"Or what?" said the first werewolf, "you'll hurt us? Torture us? Claw us to shreds? I don't think so!"
"You got that right!" yelled Remus as he ran forward to join the other werewolves who were all converging on their former alpha. All of the werewolves piled on Greyback who began to scream but was quickly silenced as he was torn to pieces. When the pack was finished with their former tormentor they all stood up and looked around, not sure of what to do next.
"You are free from your oppressor" said Dr. Strange to the werewolves who all looked at him, "if any of you wish to simply live your lives quietly and without trouble you may do so. No one controls you now. I wish we could do more for you but the cure for lycanthropy was lost over a thousand years ago and has never been rediscovered."
All of the remaining werewolves transformed back into their human selves.
"Thank you for freeing us" said the first one while the others all nodded, "Greyback was a very cruel alpha and none of us will miss him. None of us agreed with his aim of continued pack expansion through turning unwilling people nor did we want to serve the Dark Lord but we couldn't defy either of them."
"You're welcome" said Dr. Strange, "I'd advise you to go now before anyone can stop you. Stay out of trouble in the future."
All of the werewolves gave thanks to the two sorcerers and before anyone could stop them they all turned and made their ways out of Hogwarts as quickly as they could.
"That was well done my son" said the Ancient One.
"I saw their hearts" said Dr. Strange, "none of them were with him by choice. Now perhaps they can have some peace."
"I hope so" said Remus who had come back to them, "most werewolves are not like Greyback but he had an enormous hold on a lot of us. The world is a better place without him."
Up in the air both Thor and Lightning felt the presence of the dementors and saw the arrival of the giants.
"The Avengers will deal with the giants" said Thor, "giants are old foes of Asgard even though these are not Jotuns. Beware of the dementors. Do not succumb to their power. I will see you later."
"All right" said Lightning, "good luck."
"You too" said Thor before flying off. Lightning turned to where the dementors were coming from. Even though they were on the ground Lightning could feel the cold they radiated from where he was up in the air. As they got closer he began to hear voices.
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"
"Stand aside you silly girl...stand aside now..."
Lightning shook his head. He'd heard those voices before somewhere. He looked around to see if anyone else could hear them but it didn't look like it which meant that it was in his head somehow. The voices got louder as the dementors continued to approach.
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead–"
Lightning slammed shut his mental shields and blocked the voices out completely. He had just realized two things: 1) it was the dementors who must be causing the voices and 2) He finally knew whom the voices belonged to. They were his mother facing Lord Voldemort in the last minute before Voldemort killed her. Lightning hadn't known that he remembered the incident so well until now and he was seriously pissed off. How dare the dementors violate him like that!
"You #######!" yelled Lightning as he unleashed another full blasting attack and unloaded a whole lot of lightning on the dementors in an even more aggressive manner than he had on the Death Eaters. Whenever he hit one it gave a loud screech and began trying to get away from the assault. He hit a lot of dementors and the group lost its cohesion and began descending into chaos.
"Whoa!" said Angel who had flown up next to him and was looking at him with some concern as he could see the anger in Lightning's expression, "are you okay?"
"No" Lightning snarled but before he could say anything else he saw red beams shoot out below him. They slammed into some of the dementors before sweeping through the crowd as Cyclops used his power on them and blasted them back a long way. None of them landed on their feet. Lightning and Angel landed beside him.
"I see they don't like your optic blasts very much" Lightning said to Cyclops.
"They don't seem to like your electricity either" said Cyclops who then noticed how tense Lightning seemed, "are you all right?"
"I'll be fine" said Lightning taking a breath, "those dementors made me remember stuff I didn't want to and that got me angry. Thankfully it's fading now."
"Expecto Patronum!" yelled several voices and Lightning turned to see several brightly lit animals heading toward the dementors who began trying to get away from them.
"Round them up" Lightning heard a voice that sounded like Director Bones', "don't let them escape!" The animals obeyed and they split apart and moved in different directions. Soon they herded all of the dementors together and circled around them so they couldn't get away. Lightning saw that one animal was a phoenix, another was a wolf, a third was a big dog, a fourth was a cat and there were several more as well. These were patronuses, Lightning remembered. Sirius and Remus had demonstrated them when they first came to the X-Mansion in December of '93. Sirius' was the dog patronus and Remus' was the wolf. Lightning figured that the phoenix must be Dumbledore's and the cat was probably McGonagall's. He hadn't been able to fully learn the patronus spell yet but he was working on it with Sirius' help. So far the best he'd done was a white mist.
Dumbledore, Director Bones, and Remus walked up to the X-Men with their wands out and pointed toward the dementors. Lightning looked around and saw that Mage had his wand out too.
"This will do for the moment" Bones said to Dumbledore, "but we need something a bit more solid to keep them trapped until this battle is over and we can deal with them."
"I may have just the thing" said Dumbledore before turning to the X-Men, "Iceman, can you build something to pen the dementors in? They can't go through walls."
"Just watch me" said Iceman after getting a go ahead nod from Cyclops. He made an ice slide and slid over to where the patronuses were still circling the dementors. Iceman began throwing up a dome of ice that must have been about 15 feet high and several feet thick. He made his way around the crowd of dementors and shut all of them inside the dome. It was too thick to break through and there was no opening in the top through which they could've climbed out. When he was done he came back to the team.
"That should hold them for a while" said Iceman, "at least until the ice melts which will take a good deal of time."
"Probably longer than you think" said Dumbledore, "dementors radiate cold. Their own auras will help sustain the wall and keep it up even longer."
"By that time the ministry will hopefully be able to take care of them" said Bones grimly, "although I'm not sure what we'll do with them since they turned on us."
In Gryffindor Tower the windows that faced the front side of Hogwarts were crowded with students watching what was going on in front of the school. Ron and Hermione, since they knew beforehand what was happening, had both gotten a good view of the battle before anyone else. Several of their year mates had muscled their way up to them and also looked out the windows.
"Whoa!" said Dean Thomas, "are those the Avengers standing near the X-Men?"
"Yes" said Hermione, "and those two people near them are Dr. Strange and the Ancient One."
"Really?" asked someone from behind her, "why are they all here? Are we being attacked again?"
"Yeah" said Ron, "look over there. Aren't those Death Eaters?"
They were indeed. The students all watched enthralled at what was happening outside in front of the school. The jaws of many of them dropped when they saw Lightning and Thor team up to blast the Death Eaters while the aurors also began to attack.
"I wish I could be down there" Ron whispered to Hermione.
"So do I" she whispered back. She was watching superheroes defend Hogwarts for the second time. This time she knew that Harry was one of them. Seeing him fighting alongside Thor brought home to her just how far her friend had come and how far away he had moved from them. He was still their friend but she and Ron couldn't help him in his battles the way they once had. Despite how sad that made her feel she was still very proud of Harry and what he had become.
While the dementors were being dealt with Thor was flying over the field towards the giants.
"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!" he called and the rest of the team followed him towards the giants. Iron Man and Wasp both flew after him while Captain America and Giant Man ran.
There were about ten giants and all of them were between 20 and 25 feet tall. They might not have been the frost giants, or Jotuns, that Thor was most familiar with but they were still giants. While they didn't recognize the other Avengers they all immediately knew Thor.
"Thunder God!" the leader giant yelled in both fear and anger and raised a club to strike his enemy. The other giants followed his lead and tried to surround Thor but he evaded them by flying up above their heads. He turned around and hurled toward the lead giant and struck him right in the head with his hammer, immediately putting him out.
At the same time Iron Man activated his repulsor rays on their highest setting and blasted them at the face of another giant who, taken by surprise, stumbled and fell over backwards. Thor then dove down at him and dealt him a blow with his hammer too.
So it went. The giants were big and strong but not very bright and although they knew who Thor was they didn't know the others and didn't know how to fight them. The Avengers were faster and harder to hit. Captain America hurled his shield at the knees of a couple of them, causing them to stumble, while Giant Man, even though he was only half as tall as the giants themselves was more maneuverable, faster, and quite strong. When he took down one of the giants it was a lot like a young kid defeating an adult in a martial arts match.
Last but not least even Wasp was effective with her approach. She was so small and fast as she flew that the giants couldn't even see her. She summoned up a large swarm of wasps and used them to attack one of the giants. Despite being very big and having tough skins even giants can feel it when wasps sting them. Soon the giant she had targeted was dancing and jumping around trying to avoid getting stung even more before he finally threw down his club and ran away from Hogwarts as fast as he could. The giants who hadn't yet been beaten all followed him leaving the Avengers victorious.
Thor and Iron Man both landed near where the X-Men were. Wasp and Giant Man joined them, both returning to normal size and Captain America arrived immediately after them. The two teams greeted each other.
"Is it over?" Wasp asked her teammates.
"No" said a voice from nearby. Both teams turned and saw Professor Dumbledore and Dr. Strange approaching them.
"We've beaten the first wave" said Dumbledore, "but another one has just passed the gates."
Everyone turned to look toward the Hogwarts gates. Another large crowd of Death Eaters had arrived, and was charging towards them. All of the defenders got into position to meet them but before the two sides could clash Dumbledore had gone over to speak to the X-Men.
"This is it" he said to the X-Men, "Voldemort's here. Look."
They did. There, in the middle of the charging Death Eaters but more towards the back, they got glimpses of the one person who wasn't wearing a skull mask.
It was true. Voldemort had finally arrived.
(To Be Continued)
A/N - That's all for now. Next time Voldemort joins the fight. See you then.
Thanks for reading. As usual please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. As always stay safe and well everyone.