A/N - JKR owns the idea, all of these characters etc.
Chapter 30 Prison Preparations
Everyone went their own direction that night to make preparations for the next day's events. After saying a quick goodnight to Dumbledore, Lupin, Sirius, Hagrid and Mr and Mrs Weasley the eight new arrivals went to the Gryffindor common room with all their belongings. Morgan, Joan, Sully and Tiny were each given their own room. Apparently the house elves knew that the visitors had special needs because in each of their rooms only one bed remained and it had grown to three times its normal size. Krum slept in Neville's bed.
The group of eight must have been tired because no one awoke until Sirius came in the next morning. Sirius entered the boys' bedroom and surveyed the situation before deciding on a course of action. He hit Harry in the head with a pillow.
"Hey! What gives?" Harry said still only half awake as he was reaching for his glasses.
Sirius chuckled while shaking the other two occupants awake. "Come on now. Remember we're all meeting downstairs in fifteen minutes. Today's the big day for the good guys." He didn't leave until he was sure that none of the three would be trying to go back to sleep.
As the boys made their way to the common room they saw all three of the girls already down there waiting for them. The eight of them said their good mornings to each other and went to the Great Hall looking like they hadn't even been to sleep yet. The Great Hall was almost empty when they got there so they didn't feel badly at all about going straight to the table with the breakfast spread. As they were eating, the room started filling up again.
While they were eating, Ron was keeping an eye out for his parents when he saw a different pair of familiar people. "Bill, Percy --- what are you two doing here?" Ron asked of his two older brothers. Ron was glad that it was Bill who spoke up first because he never knew when Percy would turn preachy on him.
"Dad said they needed our help today. We know that we won't have a big role in this. I'm sure we'll just be guarding one of the escape routes or something like that but we've got to do what we can. Meanwhile, I hear you lot have been rather busy this year. I don't mind telling you that mum has been in rare form ever since the start of the holidays. There has been no settling her down."
Just as he, Harry, and Hermione started to tell Bill and Percy about some of the things they had seen and done lately Dumbledore walked in and they could all tell that he was in a hurry to begin this morning's session. Ron was upset that he hadn't had a chance yet to tell anyone about the ten-foot hotdogs or the colossal candy store filled with gigantic candies. As he was finding his seat, Ron's thoughts were only of the massive chocolate reindeer he had seen back in the giants' village.
"Good morning everyone. Please help yourselves to the refreshments and take your seats." He waited for a few minutes for everyone to get settled in their places. Harry was busy staring at the three-dimensional map of Azkaban sitting in the space in between the four tables. It was remarkable. The walls were all a milky transparent color. You could see through all the walls but they were solid enough that you could tell that walls were there. Harry could see all the cells with the prisoners inside of it as well as all of the guards. Every single one of the teenage wizards and giants were all but mesmerized by the map. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Sirius were all focused on the cell that seemed to be made up of four walls instead of three walls and one set of bars. Inside of that room was a single tiny rat. Apparently Pettigrew had realized, like Sirius had, that the effect of the dementors was less severe in his animagus form.
Dumbledore once again stood up and addressed the group. "Again I bid everyone a good morning. Today is the big day so let's get straight down to business. Azkaban has anti-apparation spells on it like Hogwarts, which means we're not sure how the Death Eaters are going to get in. My guess is that at least some of them are going to use the same cover that some of us are going to use which is pretending to visit prisoners for the holidays. The aurors aren't letting any of the visitors leave who go in today because everyone that goes in will know that the aurors replaced the dementors and we don't want to tip our hand too early. Are there any questions so far?"
Harry had the impression that everyone except his group had heard this part before. He didn't care; he was glad that Dumbledore was telling them the whole story and treating them more as adults this year than ever before. It was only fair; Voldemort had been treating him like an adult since he was one year old. And besides he knew that he still had some role to play in this Order that they kept speaking about even if he didn't know exactly what the Order was or even what his role in it was supposed to be. Surely that fact alone justified his headmaster treating him as an adult wizard. Dumbledore's voice brought him back from the various places that his mind had wandered off to.
"Good, since there are no questions we can continue. Now the seven of you that I already talked to yesterday about this will be the ones pretending to visit prisoners and hiding inside the prison." Although Harry couldn't see their faces, he could see seven tiny little figures appear on the map inside the prison halls. These new figures were obviously representing the wizards on our side that Dumbledore was speaking to.
"The rest of us are going to be hiding in various locations thusly." As he spoke that last word many more figurines appeared on the outside of the prison. Harry found a group of eight members that was unmistakably him and the other seven teenagers. They were farther back than anyone else. Harry wasn't even sure what his group's role was except maybe to backup the backup groups. There were groups of two or three wizards standing almost as far back as his who were obviously going to be guarding exit routes and just as Bill had said, he and Percy were one of those groups.
"Now perhaps the most important thing to remember tonight may be the numbers we assign to your group. Harry Potter will use these numbers to summon you when you are to engage in the battle." Harry felt his jaw drop open in surprise. He stared at the headmaster.
"He and his friends will have the best vantage point and also a --- er --- a special map that will help. Sirius, Minerva, Remus, Molly, Arthur, six security wizards from the ministry and myself will make up the first wave of the attack. After that Harry will summon your group as needed by the numbers. Here are your numbers." Now everyone could see a red numeral appear on top of each group on the map. The number "1" hovered over the group inside of the prison. The number "2" hovered over the group that would make up the first wave. There were ten such numbers in all with the teenagers being assigned to the last number. After pausing long enough to allow everyone time to find their numbers, Dumbledore continued his speech.
"Harry, I'll need a word with you after this. Does anyone else have any questions at all about today?" He paused waiting to see if anyone was going to ask a question. "All right then we'll meet back here in thirty minutes so that we can all depart for Hogsmeade together." Harry followed Sirius and Dumbledore out of the Great Hall.
Sirius was asking about his trip but they didn't have much time to talk before reaching their destination. Harry was starting to wonder when he was supposed to find the time to be telling people about the giants and what nice beings they were; he was still mulling this over when they entered the now familiar office of the headmaster. Dumbledore went over to the other side of his desk and pulled a piece of parchment out of the top drawer.
"Harry, besides having a good tactical mind, you better than anyone else know how to use a map like this." The teenage wizard smiled as he took the parchment from the older wizard. Harry was glad to finally get the Marauder's Map back. Only it wasn't the Marauder's Map, it was different. It was the same type of magical item except it was done for Azkaban instead of Hogwarts. That explained why it had to be Harry to help alert the groups when trouble was coming.
Harry looked down at the map again. Although he knew that now wasn't the time, he did make a mental note to ask Dumbledore if he ever got the real Marauder's Map back from Barty Crouch --- Harry missed that particular item. Even though he didn't really need it any more he knew his dad helped to build it and he liked looking at it.
"Harry," Dumbledore said, "You realize of course what this map is don't you?" Harry knew exactly what the map was.
"Yes." Harry risked a quick smile to his godfather. "This map tells you anyone and everyone who's on the premises no matter how they might be disguised." Harry figured that Sirius and Lupin had spent some of those days when they were mysteriously gone creating this particular map. He hoped that someday he and his friends would be able to create a map like this.
When he told the two adult wizards that he didn't have any questions about today, he went back to the Great Hall leaving the two men to finalize their battle plans. Harry wanted to spend some time studying the map anyway. He really wanted to know for sure who built it and how they went about doing it but he barely had time to even look at the map much before the thirty minutes was up and he entered the Great Hall.
Before long, the time limit Dumbledore initially set had passed and everyone was departing the Hogwarts grounds for Hogsmeade so that they could apparate. They were dressed warmly and were packing enough rations to last for the entire day. The group reached the park where Harry and his fellow fifth year Gryffindors had first learned how to apparate (well most of them had learned by now anyway --- you couldn't really in all good conscious say that Neville had learned how to apparate.). Except for Krum, all of the teenagers paired up with a wizard of legal age to apparate with them.
Everyone arrived at the location outside of Azkaban as planned. Dumbledore told them all to make their way to their assigned locations before he would let the seven wizards go inside the prison. After Harry's group made there way to their assigned location, he watched the map so he could know when everyone was where they were supposed to be. Within an hour everyone was in place.
Dumbledore was right about the view that the group of eight had. They could see everything from where they were but because of the angle of the terrain and the foliage it would be difficult to spot the group. While Ron and Hermione were surveying the view, Harry was showing the rest of his group the map.
It was Tiny's idea to take turns watching the map and the prison. "We don't know when this is going to go down. We all need to be ready and I know at least that I won't be any good when the time comes if I have to spend nine hours staring at this map. I didn't come all this way to be useless when it came to crunch time. Let's take one hour shifts."
It made perfect sense when everyone thought about it. Harry was slightly surprised that Hermione insisted on taking the first shift. "I'd like to look at the map for a while. Besides Harry should rest up for later and I know how to read the map as well as anyone." She walked over to Harry and took the map, settling the matter. Ron figured that she must just be beside herself having spent the last few weeks unable to study anything. It made sense to him that she would jump at the chance to study anything, even a magical map.
Harry had put a quiet charm on his group so they could talk freely while waiting for something to happen. Hours passed. Every hour someone else would take the map. While the rest of the group's members were sitting and talking most of them were facing the prison because it just seemed to make more sense than not facing the prison. Around midday most of the group ate. No one was really hungry but it felt better to be doing something even if that something was only scarfing down a sandwich.
The group spent the meal chatting nervously about their experiences. The giants were fascinated with some of the stories that Harry and his friends had to offer. For some inexplicable reason, they were especially interested in all the Snape stories, both the good and the bad. When that line of conversation degraded into nothing more than Ron calling the old potions master names, the giants had another line of questioning.
They had apparently heard the story of Tom Riddle framing Hagrid back when they were both Hogwarts students because they insisted knowing everything about that incident. Harry had the most to offer since he had "seen" the incident back in his second year through the dark magic of an old diary. The conversations were all strained because the group did not forget where they were nor why they were there.
Time continued to pass slowly. It wasn't until the mid afternoon that anyone noticed anything amiss at all. Sully was watching the map when he just happened to ask who some of the people were. Thinking he was mainly curious about the wizards who were on the same side that he was, Ron went over to help him out. "Oy Harry, come over here and look at this."
Harry walked over to where Sully and Ron were. "What is it?"
Ron didn't have to answer because the look on Harry's face told him that he had read the map for himself. Harry was looking down and reading some of the new names that had appeared on the map since the last time he had looked at it. But there were two names that caught his attention: Lucius Malfoy and Draco Malfoy. Harry didn't even realize that he was smiling.
A/N -Share your thoughts with me.
Chapter 30 Prison Preparations
Everyone went their own direction that night to make preparations for the next day's events. After saying a quick goodnight to Dumbledore, Lupin, Sirius, Hagrid and Mr and Mrs Weasley the eight new arrivals went to the Gryffindor common room with all their belongings. Morgan, Joan, Sully and Tiny were each given their own room. Apparently the house elves knew that the visitors had special needs because in each of their rooms only one bed remained and it had grown to three times its normal size. Krum slept in Neville's bed.
The group of eight must have been tired because no one awoke until Sirius came in the next morning. Sirius entered the boys' bedroom and surveyed the situation before deciding on a course of action. He hit Harry in the head with a pillow.
"Hey! What gives?" Harry said still only half awake as he was reaching for his glasses.
Sirius chuckled while shaking the other two occupants awake. "Come on now. Remember we're all meeting downstairs in fifteen minutes. Today's the big day for the good guys." He didn't leave until he was sure that none of the three would be trying to go back to sleep.
As the boys made their way to the common room they saw all three of the girls already down there waiting for them. The eight of them said their good mornings to each other and went to the Great Hall looking like they hadn't even been to sleep yet. The Great Hall was almost empty when they got there so they didn't feel badly at all about going straight to the table with the breakfast spread. As they were eating, the room started filling up again.
While they were eating, Ron was keeping an eye out for his parents when he saw a different pair of familiar people. "Bill, Percy --- what are you two doing here?" Ron asked of his two older brothers. Ron was glad that it was Bill who spoke up first because he never knew when Percy would turn preachy on him.
"Dad said they needed our help today. We know that we won't have a big role in this. I'm sure we'll just be guarding one of the escape routes or something like that but we've got to do what we can. Meanwhile, I hear you lot have been rather busy this year. I don't mind telling you that mum has been in rare form ever since the start of the holidays. There has been no settling her down."
Just as he, Harry, and Hermione started to tell Bill and Percy about some of the things they had seen and done lately Dumbledore walked in and they could all tell that he was in a hurry to begin this morning's session. Ron was upset that he hadn't had a chance yet to tell anyone about the ten-foot hotdogs or the colossal candy store filled with gigantic candies. As he was finding his seat, Ron's thoughts were only of the massive chocolate reindeer he had seen back in the giants' village.
"Good morning everyone. Please help yourselves to the refreshments and take your seats." He waited for a few minutes for everyone to get settled in their places. Harry was busy staring at the three-dimensional map of Azkaban sitting in the space in between the four tables. It was remarkable. The walls were all a milky transparent color. You could see through all the walls but they were solid enough that you could tell that walls were there. Harry could see all the cells with the prisoners inside of it as well as all of the guards. Every single one of the teenage wizards and giants were all but mesmerized by the map. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Sirius were all focused on the cell that seemed to be made up of four walls instead of three walls and one set of bars. Inside of that room was a single tiny rat. Apparently Pettigrew had realized, like Sirius had, that the effect of the dementors was less severe in his animagus form.
Dumbledore once again stood up and addressed the group. "Again I bid everyone a good morning. Today is the big day so let's get straight down to business. Azkaban has anti-apparation spells on it like Hogwarts, which means we're not sure how the Death Eaters are going to get in. My guess is that at least some of them are going to use the same cover that some of us are going to use which is pretending to visit prisoners for the holidays. The aurors aren't letting any of the visitors leave who go in today because everyone that goes in will know that the aurors replaced the dementors and we don't want to tip our hand too early. Are there any questions so far?"
Harry had the impression that everyone except his group had heard this part before. He didn't care; he was glad that Dumbledore was telling them the whole story and treating them more as adults this year than ever before. It was only fair; Voldemort had been treating him like an adult since he was one year old. And besides he knew that he still had some role to play in this Order that they kept speaking about even if he didn't know exactly what the Order was or even what his role in it was supposed to be. Surely that fact alone justified his headmaster treating him as an adult wizard. Dumbledore's voice brought him back from the various places that his mind had wandered off to.
"Good, since there are no questions we can continue. Now the seven of you that I already talked to yesterday about this will be the ones pretending to visit prisoners and hiding inside the prison." Although Harry couldn't see their faces, he could see seven tiny little figures appear on the map inside the prison halls. These new figures were obviously representing the wizards on our side that Dumbledore was speaking to.
"The rest of us are going to be hiding in various locations thusly." As he spoke that last word many more figurines appeared on the outside of the prison. Harry found a group of eight members that was unmistakably him and the other seven teenagers. They were farther back than anyone else. Harry wasn't even sure what his group's role was except maybe to backup the backup groups. There were groups of two or three wizards standing almost as far back as his who were obviously going to be guarding exit routes and just as Bill had said, he and Percy were one of those groups.
"Now perhaps the most important thing to remember tonight may be the numbers we assign to your group. Harry Potter will use these numbers to summon you when you are to engage in the battle." Harry felt his jaw drop open in surprise. He stared at the headmaster.
"He and his friends will have the best vantage point and also a --- er --- a special map that will help. Sirius, Minerva, Remus, Molly, Arthur, six security wizards from the ministry and myself will make up the first wave of the attack. After that Harry will summon your group as needed by the numbers. Here are your numbers." Now everyone could see a red numeral appear on top of each group on the map. The number "1" hovered over the group inside of the prison. The number "2" hovered over the group that would make up the first wave. There were ten such numbers in all with the teenagers being assigned to the last number. After pausing long enough to allow everyone time to find their numbers, Dumbledore continued his speech.
"Harry, I'll need a word with you after this. Does anyone else have any questions at all about today?" He paused waiting to see if anyone was going to ask a question. "All right then we'll meet back here in thirty minutes so that we can all depart for Hogsmeade together." Harry followed Sirius and Dumbledore out of the Great Hall.
Sirius was asking about his trip but they didn't have much time to talk before reaching their destination. Harry was starting to wonder when he was supposed to find the time to be telling people about the giants and what nice beings they were; he was still mulling this over when they entered the now familiar office of the headmaster. Dumbledore went over to the other side of his desk and pulled a piece of parchment out of the top drawer.
"Harry, besides having a good tactical mind, you better than anyone else know how to use a map like this." The teenage wizard smiled as he took the parchment from the older wizard. Harry was glad to finally get the Marauder's Map back. Only it wasn't the Marauder's Map, it was different. It was the same type of magical item except it was done for Azkaban instead of Hogwarts. That explained why it had to be Harry to help alert the groups when trouble was coming.
Harry looked down at the map again. Although he knew that now wasn't the time, he did make a mental note to ask Dumbledore if he ever got the real Marauder's Map back from Barty Crouch --- Harry missed that particular item. Even though he didn't really need it any more he knew his dad helped to build it and he liked looking at it.
"Harry," Dumbledore said, "You realize of course what this map is don't you?" Harry knew exactly what the map was.
"Yes." Harry risked a quick smile to his godfather. "This map tells you anyone and everyone who's on the premises no matter how they might be disguised." Harry figured that Sirius and Lupin had spent some of those days when they were mysteriously gone creating this particular map. He hoped that someday he and his friends would be able to create a map like this.
When he told the two adult wizards that he didn't have any questions about today, he went back to the Great Hall leaving the two men to finalize their battle plans. Harry wanted to spend some time studying the map anyway. He really wanted to know for sure who built it and how they went about doing it but he barely had time to even look at the map much before the thirty minutes was up and he entered the Great Hall.
Before long, the time limit Dumbledore initially set had passed and everyone was departing the Hogwarts grounds for Hogsmeade so that they could apparate. They were dressed warmly and were packing enough rations to last for the entire day. The group reached the park where Harry and his fellow fifth year Gryffindors had first learned how to apparate (well most of them had learned by now anyway --- you couldn't really in all good conscious say that Neville had learned how to apparate.). Except for Krum, all of the teenagers paired up with a wizard of legal age to apparate with them.
Everyone arrived at the location outside of Azkaban as planned. Dumbledore told them all to make their way to their assigned locations before he would let the seven wizards go inside the prison. After Harry's group made there way to their assigned location, he watched the map so he could know when everyone was where they were supposed to be. Within an hour everyone was in place.
Dumbledore was right about the view that the group of eight had. They could see everything from where they were but because of the angle of the terrain and the foliage it would be difficult to spot the group. While Ron and Hermione were surveying the view, Harry was showing the rest of his group the map.
It was Tiny's idea to take turns watching the map and the prison. "We don't know when this is going to go down. We all need to be ready and I know at least that I won't be any good when the time comes if I have to spend nine hours staring at this map. I didn't come all this way to be useless when it came to crunch time. Let's take one hour shifts."
It made perfect sense when everyone thought about it. Harry was slightly surprised that Hermione insisted on taking the first shift. "I'd like to look at the map for a while. Besides Harry should rest up for later and I know how to read the map as well as anyone." She walked over to Harry and took the map, settling the matter. Ron figured that she must just be beside herself having spent the last few weeks unable to study anything. It made sense to him that she would jump at the chance to study anything, even a magical map.
Harry had put a quiet charm on his group so they could talk freely while waiting for something to happen. Hours passed. Every hour someone else would take the map. While the rest of the group's members were sitting and talking most of them were facing the prison because it just seemed to make more sense than not facing the prison. Around midday most of the group ate. No one was really hungry but it felt better to be doing something even if that something was only scarfing down a sandwich.
The group spent the meal chatting nervously about their experiences. The giants were fascinated with some of the stories that Harry and his friends had to offer. For some inexplicable reason, they were especially interested in all the Snape stories, both the good and the bad. When that line of conversation degraded into nothing more than Ron calling the old potions master names, the giants had another line of questioning.
They had apparently heard the story of Tom Riddle framing Hagrid back when they were both Hogwarts students because they insisted knowing everything about that incident. Harry had the most to offer since he had "seen" the incident back in his second year through the dark magic of an old diary. The conversations were all strained because the group did not forget where they were nor why they were there.
Time continued to pass slowly. It wasn't until the mid afternoon that anyone noticed anything amiss at all. Sully was watching the map when he just happened to ask who some of the people were. Thinking he was mainly curious about the wizards who were on the same side that he was, Ron went over to help him out. "Oy Harry, come over here and look at this."
Harry walked over to where Sully and Ron were. "What is it?"
Ron didn't have to answer because the look on Harry's face told him that he had read the map for himself. Harry was looking down and reading some of the new names that had appeared on the map since the last time he had looked at it. But there were two names that caught his attention: Lucius Malfoy and Draco Malfoy. Harry didn't even realize that he was smiling.
A/N -Share your thoughts with me.