"Squad! We've got hostiles!" Black shouted. He brought up his shotgun,
but Shepherd stepped in front of it.
"What is your malfunction, maggot?" Black screamed. "Aiding the enemy! Get out of my way right now if you don't want a court-martial!"
"They aren't the enemy." Shepherd said evenly. "The enemy is the anti- American asshole who ordered us to wipe out a school. And even if they were the enemy, they're just kids."
"You think I like killing kids?" Black screamed. "I hate it! But that doesn't matter! They're called ORDERS for a reason, dirtbag! Only my life debt is stopping me from citing a court-martial on you right now! Excuse me now while I act like a soldier should!"
Black stepped around Shepherd and took aim with the shotgun. Shepherd fired at point-blank range. Black's head exploded, and he crumpled to the ground sideways.
"Is he - dead?" the witch asked, brown eyes fearful. She stood up, her invisible shaking magnified into visibility at the tips of her bushy hair.
"No, he's only pretending." Sean scoffed sarcastically.
"I'm not bothered that someone trying to kill me is dead, to be honest." one said.
Brian took the treachery somewhat harder. "You shot your CO in the head." he stated in awe.
Shepherd knelt down beside the man whose life he once saved and checked his pulse. As he expected, there was nothing. Then his training came back to him in a rush.
"Fuck, they'll have heard the signature." he realised aloud. "Take up positions for a last stand, men." Shepherd overturned a heavy oak table and got behind it. He took all his magazines out of his pockets and put them on the floor next to his knee. He set the safety catch to full-auto. Sean and Brian did similar preparation, after Brian retrieved the fallen shotgun and threw his full Desert Eagle back to Sean.
"No, don't worry, nobody's coming!" the boy with the glasses announced. "The room's soundproof."
"The room's soundproof?" Shepherd echoed. "How can it be? There's no seal on the door." Next second he could have kicked himself for such a stupid statement. It's a magical school, genius, anything can happen.
"The room you've accidentally found is the Room of Requirement. It only appears if you walk past it three times wishing for something. When you do, what you wish for appears in the room, which can also change for your tastes. When we got here first, I wished for a comfortable, soundproof room the creatures couldn't find, so it should be soundproof."
"And I kept wishing for a place to hide while I turned this way and that in the hallway." remembered Shepherd. "Well, we've forgotten to introduce ourselves. I'm corporal Shepherd, and these are privates Sean and Brian. We have just become a pro-American splinter group within an anti- American splinter group within the US army."
"I'm Harry Potter," said the boy with glasses, "and this is Hermione Granger - "he indicated the girl with the bushy hair, "- this is Ron Weasley - "he waved at a lanky boy with fiery red hair, "- and this is Dean Thomas." The last guy, busy cleaning a Desert Eagle, grinned weakly. "We're some of the only survivors of this violent massacre perpetrated by Death Eaters."
"You aren't the first person to call those masked freaks Death Eaters." noted Sean.
"I think those assholes are responsible too." added Shepherd. "I looked into that massive dining hall and saw piles and piles of corpses, plus some nasty mythical creatures patrolling alongside those wizards."
"What I saw, about half an hour ago, was swarms of mythical creatures, soldiers, and Death Eaters marching up to the castle." Harry put in. "As we debated before you came in, it has to be Lord Voldemort's work."
"God damn it, you're on about Lord Voldeperson too!" Brian complained. "Who is he?"
Harry shuddered. Hermione broke in. "He's the most evil wizard in all of history. Many years ago he started using killing and intimidation to get power in the wizarding world. He succeeded for a long time, too. He killed anyone who stood in his way. He killed Harry's parents, then tried to kill Harry, because a prophecy foretold that Harry would be his greatest foe. But Voldemort's curse rebounded off baby Harry and turned him into a shadow."
"So you're afraid of a dead wizard?" Sean asked, confused.
"No. See, in the summer of last year, Voldemort's followers brought him back to life with a ridiculously complicated spell. Clearly Voldemort thought the first order of business would be to get rid of Albus Dumbledore, the only person he was ever afraid of, and Harry Potter at the same time, so it looks as though he somehow gained influence over the creatures who inhabit the Forbidden Forest and used them to attack Hogwarts. I guess his Death Eaters came along for the ride as well. But where do you soldiers fit in?"
"I'm still trying to figure that out myself." Shepherd told her. "Why would any senior army official want to take out Hogwarts?" He paused. "Unless - "
"They were being controlled by Voldemort too?" Ron chipped in.
"The Imperius Curse." Hermione said, at last bringing together some of the pieces. "It makes people do exactly what you want them to do. In this case, a witch or wizard loyal to Voldemort probably used the Imperius Curse on one or two generals to bring in all you soldiers with orders to kill us all."
"It's slight overkill, though, isn't it?" Dean asked. "Send in all the nastiest bastards in the Forbidden Forest, and a few hundred marines, and all his Death Eaters, and maybe even come in himself?"
"He obviously didn't want to take chances." Hermione said. "Which is ironic, actually, because the soldiers ended up attacking the creatures and Death Eaters more than the students."
Suddenly Harry fell to his knees on the floor, holding his head. When he looked up, he had fear in his eyes. "He's here." Harry gasped. "Voldemort's in the Great Hall."
"Are - are you sure?" Dean asked, scared.
Harry shook his head to clear it, then nodded. "I just saw out of his eyes. He's torturing Dumbledore in the Great Hall, and he's laughing, even though he knows I'm not dead yet."
"We need to help him." Ron said at once.
Shepherd laughed. As insensitive as it was, he laughed out loud at the thought of these four wet-behind-the-ears losers going out to take on hundreds of enslaved creatures from the Forbidden Forest, dozens of evilly competent Death Eaters and the most evil wizard of all time. Most likely they'd be dead before the doors of the Great Hall had even finished opening. Everyone stared at him, some incredulously, some with undisguised dislike. "You couldn't come close to trying to kill Lord Whatsisname. Nothing short of a dozen tanks supported by innumerable heavy machine-guns could get through his defences, and I mean it. He has way too many mythical creatures in that Hall." Shepherd clarified his reasons for laughter.
"So, the Hall is steeped in mythical creatures, eh?" Hermione said suddenly, a glint in her eye. "That's a flaw in the plan. If we can't fight Voldemort directly, maybe we can do some magic to disrupt his hold on the creatures."
Shepherd recalled the image of the Hall from looking through the stained-glass door. The mythical creatures far outnumbered the wizards in the room. "Good idea." he and Harry said at exactly the same time.
"How are we gonna muck up his magic?" Ron asked.
"When we formed this room I specifically asked for volumes on magical history." Hermione said seriously. "Let's have a flick through them and see if this kind of thing has been done before, and then see if we can do anything about it."
So everybody, including the soldiers, walked up to the bookshelves and picked out a promising-looking book. They then began reading through them all. Periodically people would get up and take a different book. The books which had been read through lay discarded on the oak table, which had of course been righted since Shepherd overturned it for cover. Shepherd chain- smoked while he read, eyes scanning book after book for any mention of wizards taking control of entire battalions of savage creatures.
When the sea of discarded books on the table was six deep, the room was like a smokehouse from Shepherd's constant puffing and the clock struck four, Brian whooped in victory.
"I think I got a winner!"
"What? What is it?" Hermione demanded, tearing the book away from him before speed-reading the two open pages.
"Sure, girly, keep it." Brian muttered.
Hermione looked devilishly happy. "Hah, this is it. It describes how in a part of the world which is now part of Germany, in 1436, the sorceress Windegelt the Worrywart invented and casted a hugely complicated spell, involving a day-long purification ritual, to indefinitely bring the creatures of her local forest under her indirect control to act as a search party for her son, who had gotten slightly lost while away on a solo hunting trip."
"Voldemort simply ripped off Windegelt's idea." observed Dean.
"Now, all these creatures, while not directly controlled by Windegelt, did exactly what she wanted them to do. They acted as a search party, and when they found her son, they did not attack him, but participated in a cumulative roar to tell Windegelt where he was. But the son got spooked by this collective yell, and he started firing his crossbow at the beasts. He slew ten of them, and still they did not fight back or stop yelling. Windegelt had mounted her broom at the start of the yelling and sped towards it. She caught sight of her son on the top of a hillock and was about to shout for him to not be frightened, when he did something which he could not have known how catastrophic it would be. He fired a crossbow bolt into the leader of the wolf-pack, an infamous wolf known as Blue Fur because of the strange midnight-blue lustre of his fur. This wolf was undoubtedly the most powerful and influential creature in all of that part of the Germanic wilderness, and because the most powerful and influential creature who had been enslaved had been slain, the magic abruptly broke. The creatures looked around at each other, realised they were standing next to their mortal enemies, and instantly attacked in a mad frenzy. Windegelt's son was also slain in this, so Windegelt committed suicide, yada yada yada. Don't you see?" Hermione cried. "All we have to do is identify the most powerful creature in the Forbidden Forest and kill it, then all the creatures in Hogwarts will kill each other and the Death Eaters, and hopefully even Voldemort!"
"No." Harry said. "Voldemort will survive. It was foretold that either I would kill him or he would kill me. There is no other way. Once all the creatures are gone, it should just be us and him, and because of the Hogwarts enchantments he won't be able to Disapparate if he suddenly starts to lose. This is the best time there will ever be for me to try and take him down. The final showdown will occur today."
"You'll have to be quite close when the monster is slain, or else Voldemort will run away before you can return to the Great Hall." Shepherd said thoughtfully.
"How do you know that this monster isn't in the room with Voldemort?" asked Dean.
"Because there weren't any really huge creatures in there." Shepherd replied. "I'm sure your Forbidden Forest must have some worse things in it than manticores."
"Do you think maybe Ronan or Bane count as powerful and influential?" Ron asked.
Hermione shook her head. "Influential, maybe, but certainly not powerful. Grawp, maybe?"
"Not even slightly influential." Harry rejected. "Oh no. I know who it is."
Ron snapped his fingers. "So do I."
"Well, who, then?" Hermione demanded.
"Aragog." Ron said grimly.
"Yep." Harry said. "Listen up, corporal. Aragog is this absolutely massive spider, with hundreds of children, that is, the giant spiders we've seen patrolling around the school. It shouldn't be too hard to find him, you just follow the spiders. He's too old to move, but all his children are mindless thugs for him."
"So to stop this Voldemort person and save England, I'm gonna have to break out of this school, get into the Forbidden Forest, find the biggest spider the world has ever seen, get through his bodyguard of dozens of huge spiders, and kill it. Then you lot are gonna have to wait for the fighting in the Hall to finish, walk in, and mop up?"
"That sounds about right." Hermione concluded.
"The main problem with this plan is that my men and I have almost no ammo, and our weapons aren't nearly big enough." Shepherd said. "Wait, what's that?"
A glint of light in the corner caught his eye. It was the reflection off a ridiculously large mound of small arms, heavy arms, explosives, and ordinance. Shepherd's jaw hung lower than a playground swing. "Evidently while we were turning around outside the door, somebody was wishing we had more guns."
"Not me." Sean piped up.
"Nor me." Brian added.
"Then it must have been colonel Black." Shepherd said indifferently. "Okay, men, load up with only the heaviest of weapons. We're gonna be killing things as big as small elephants. You, wizard-people, get near enough to the Hall that you can hear it if hundreds of magical creatures start killing each other. Possibly the fate of the world rests on our shoulders, gentlemen. Make your forefathers proud."
Everybody prepared. All the soldiers took off their bergens, and any other equipment which wasn't absolutely necessary for the impending assault. Shepherd kept his M16/M203, and picked up several more magazines and 203 bombs. He also picked up seven 66 fire-and-forget rocket launchers, and a grenade belt, and took a sidearm Desert Eagle for good measure. Sean immediately dropped all of his Desert Eagles and picked up a box-fed M60 heavy machine-gun and three spare two-hundred-round boxes, plus several satchel explosives. Brian dropped his shotgun and sidearm and picked up a high-powered sniper rifle and a drum-loading grenade launcher, along with as much spare ammo for the both of them that he could carry, and a Colt .45 with several clips as a sidearm. Dean Thomas nipped over to the stack of guns & ammo and nicked an MP5 submachinegun and two thirty-round clips. He met Shepherd's stare.
"Hey, I'm Muggle-born. I know what a gun is and how to use it, look." He set the safety-catch to full-auto and sprayed the entire clip up and down the walls. Then he reloaded efficiently and picked up another clip. "Childhood spent playing violent computer games, a kid gets to know how to use firearms." he explained to the shocked occupants of the room.
The wizards then began preparing. Their preparation was merely a very quick revision session on Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"Just like you did in the first year, Ron; if you want to levitate something, swish and flick, swish and flick." Harry told Ron. "And don't forget Hermione's pompous correction in Charms class the week before."
"Win-GAR-dium, lev-i-O-saaaa!" Harry and Ron chorused, then laughed. Hermione's expression turned sour and she looked away.
"Oh, come off it, Hermione, you're not that self-important brat on the train telling me I had dirt on my nose anymore!" Ron soothed unsoothingly. "We like you now!"
"Hmph." Hermione responded; a thousand words couldn't have said more.
"Don't you have more important things to worry about, kiddies?" Sean snarled, trying to fit all of his equipment onto his person in a way which wouldn't result in instant medical complications. In a few minutes everyone was ready to go.
"What is your malfunction, maggot?" Black screamed. "Aiding the enemy! Get out of my way right now if you don't want a court-martial!"
"They aren't the enemy." Shepherd said evenly. "The enemy is the anti- American asshole who ordered us to wipe out a school. And even if they were the enemy, they're just kids."
"You think I like killing kids?" Black screamed. "I hate it! But that doesn't matter! They're called ORDERS for a reason, dirtbag! Only my life debt is stopping me from citing a court-martial on you right now! Excuse me now while I act like a soldier should!"
Black stepped around Shepherd and took aim with the shotgun. Shepherd fired at point-blank range. Black's head exploded, and he crumpled to the ground sideways.
"Is he - dead?" the witch asked, brown eyes fearful. She stood up, her invisible shaking magnified into visibility at the tips of her bushy hair.
"No, he's only pretending." Sean scoffed sarcastically.
"I'm not bothered that someone trying to kill me is dead, to be honest." one said.
Brian took the treachery somewhat harder. "You shot your CO in the head." he stated in awe.
Shepherd knelt down beside the man whose life he once saved and checked his pulse. As he expected, there was nothing. Then his training came back to him in a rush.
"Fuck, they'll have heard the signature." he realised aloud. "Take up positions for a last stand, men." Shepherd overturned a heavy oak table and got behind it. He took all his magazines out of his pockets and put them on the floor next to his knee. He set the safety catch to full-auto. Sean and Brian did similar preparation, after Brian retrieved the fallen shotgun and threw his full Desert Eagle back to Sean.
"No, don't worry, nobody's coming!" the boy with the glasses announced. "The room's soundproof."
"The room's soundproof?" Shepherd echoed. "How can it be? There's no seal on the door." Next second he could have kicked himself for such a stupid statement. It's a magical school, genius, anything can happen.
"The room you've accidentally found is the Room of Requirement. It only appears if you walk past it three times wishing for something. When you do, what you wish for appears in the room, which can also change for your tastes. When we got here first, I wished for a comfortable, soundproof room the creatures couldn't find, so it should be soundproof."
"And I kept wishing for a place to hide while I turned this way and that in the hallway." remembered Shepherd. "Well, we've forgotten to introduce ourselves. I'm corporal Shepherd, and these are privates Sean and Brian. We have just become a pro-American splinter group within an anti- American splinter group within the US army."
"I'm Harry Potter," said the boy with glasses, "and this is Hermione Granger - "he indicated the girl with the bushy hair, "- this is Ron Weasley - "he waved at a lanky boy with fiery red hair, "- and this is Dean Thomas." The last guy, busy cleaning a Desert Eagle, grinned weakly. "We're some of the only survivors of this violent massacre perpetrated by Death Eaters."
"You aren't the first person to call those masked freaks Death Eaters." noted Sean.
"I think those assholes are responsible too." added Shepherd. "I looked into that massive dining hall and saw piles and piles of corpses, plus some nasty mythical creatures patrolling alongside those wizards."
"What I saw, about half an hour ago, was swarms of mythical creatures, soldiers, and Death Eaters marching up to the castle." Harry put in. "As we debated before you came in, it has to be Lord Voldemort's work."
"God damn it, you're on about Lord Voldeperson too!" Brian complained. "Who is he?"
Harry shuddered. Hermione broke in. "He's the most evil wizard in all of history. Many years ago he started using killing and intimidation to get power in the wizarding world. He succeeded for a long time, too. He killed anyone who stood in his way. He killed Harry's parents, then tried to kill Harry, because a prophecy foretold that Harry would be his greatest foe. But Voldemort's curse rebounded off baby Harry and turned him into a shadow."
"So you're afraid of a dead wizard?" Sean asked, confused.
"No. See, in the summer of last year, Voldemort's followers brought him back to life with a ridiculously complicated spell. Clearly Voldemort thought the first order of business would be to get rid of Albus Dumbledore, the only person he was ever afraid of, and Harry Potter at the same time, so it looks as though he somehow gained influence over the creatures who inhabit the Forbidden Forest and used them to attack Hogwarts. I guess his Death Eaters came along for the ride as well. But where do you soldiers fit in?"
"I'm still trying to figure that out myself." Shepherd told her. "Why would any senior army official want to take out Hogwarts?" He paused. "Unless - "
"They were being controlled by Voldemort too?" Ron chipped in.
"The Imperius Curse." Hermione said, at last bringing together some of the pieces. "It makes people do exactly what you want them to do. In this case, a witch or wizard loyal to Voldemort probably used the Imperius Curse on one or two generals to bring in all you soldiers with orders to kill us all."
"It's slight overkill, though, isn't it?" Dean asked. "Send in all the nastiest bastards in the Forbidden Forest, and a few hundred marines, and all his Death Eaters, and maybe even come in himself?"
"He obviously didn't want to take chances." Hermione said. "Which is ironic, actually, because the soldiers ended up attacking the creatures and Death Eaters more than the students."
Suddenly Harry fell to his knees on the floor, holding his head. When he looked up, he had fear in his eyes. "He's here." Harry gasped. "Voldemort's in the Great Hall."
"Are - are you sure?" Dean asked, scared.
Harry shook his head to clear it, then nodded. "I just saw out of his eyes. He's torturing Dumbledore in the Great Hall, and he's laughing, even though he knows I'm not dead yet."
"We need to help him." Ron said at once.
Shepherd laughed. As insensitive as it was, he laughed out loud at the thought of these four wet-behind-the-ears losers going out to take on hundreds of enslaved creatures from the Forbidden Forest, dozens of evilly competent Death Eaters and the most evil wizard of all time. Most likely they'd be dead before the doors of the Great Hall had even finished opening. Everyone stared at him, some incredulously, some with undisguised dislike. "You couldn't come close to trying to kill Lord Whatsisname. Nothing short of a dozen tanks supported by innumerable heavy machine-guns could get through his defences, and I mean it. He has way too many mythical creatures in that Hall." Shepherd clarified his reasons for laughter.
"So, the Hall is steeped in mythical creatures, eh?" Hermione said suddenly, a glint in her eye. "That's a flaw in the plan. If we can't fight Voldemort directly, maybe we can do some magic to disrupt his hold on the creatures."
Shepherd recalled the image of the Hall from looking through the stained-glass door. The mythical creatures far outnumbered the wizards in the room. "Good idea." he and Harry said at exactly the same time.
"How are we gonna muck up his magic?" Ron asked.
"When we formed this room I specifically asked for volumes on magical history." Hermione said seriously. "Let's have a flick through them and see if this kind of thing has been done before, and then see if we can do anything about it."
So everybody, including the soldiers, walked up to the bookshelves and picked out a promising-looking book. They then began reading through them all. Periodically people would get up and take a different book. The books which had been read through lay discarded on the oak table, which had of course been righted since Shepherd overturned it for cover. Shepherd chain- smoked while he read, eyes scanning book after book for any mention of wizards taking control of entire battalions of savage creatures.
When the sea of discarded books on the table was six deep, the room was like a smokehouse from Shepherd's constant puffing and the clock struck four, Brian whooped in victory.
"I think I got a winner!"
"What? What is it?" Hermione demanded, tearing the book away from him before speed-reading the two open pages.
"Sure, girly, keep it." Brian muttered.
Hermione looked devilishly happy. "Hah, this is it. It describes how in a part of the world which is now part of Germany, in 1436, the sorceress Windegelt the Worrywart invented and casted a hugely complicated spell, involving a day-long purification ritual, to indefinitely bring the creatures of her local forest under her indirect control to act as a search party for her son, who had gotten slightly lost while away on a solo hunting trip."
"Voldemort simply ripped off Windegelt's idea." observed Dean.
"Now, all these creatures, while not directly controlled by Windegelt, did exactly what she wanted them to do. They acted as a search party, and when they found her son, they did not attack him, but participated in a cumulative roar to tell Windegelt where he was. But the son got spooked by this collective yell, and he started firing his crossbow at the beasts. He slew ten of them, and still they did not fight back or stop yelling. Windegelt had mounted her broom at the start of the yelling and sped towards it. She caught sight of her son on the top of a hillock and was about to shout for him to not be frightened, when he did something which he could not have known how catastrophic it would be. He fired a crossbow bolt into the leader of the wolf-pack, an infamous wolf known as Blue Fur because of the strange midnight-blue lustre of his fur. This wolf was undoubtedly the most powerful and influential creature in all of that part of the Germanic wilderness, and because the most powerful and influential creature who had been enslaved had been slain, the magic abruptly broke. The creatures looked around at each other, realised they were standing next to their mortal enemies, and instantly attacked in a mad frenzy. Windegelt's son was also slain in this, so Windegelt committed suicide, yada yada yada. Don't you see?" Hermione cried. "All we have to do is identify the most powerful creature in the Forbidden Forest and kill it, then all the creatures in Hogwarts will kill each other and the Death Eaters, and hopefully even Voldemort!"
"No." Harry said. "Voldemort will survive. It was foretold that either I would kill him or he would kill me. There is no other way. Once all the creatures are gone, it should just be us and him, and because of the Hogwarts enchantments he won't be able to Disapparate if he suddenly starts to lose. This is the best time there will ever be for me to try and take him down. The final showdown will occur today."
"You'll have to be quite close when the monster is slain, or else Voldemort will run away before you can return to the Great Hall." Shepherd said thoughtfully.
"How do you know that this monster isn't in the room with Voldemort?" asked Dean.
"Because there weren't any really huge creatures in there." Shepherd replied. "I'm sure your Forbidden Forest must have some worse things in it than manticores."
"Do you think maybe Ronan or Bane count as powerful and influential?" Ron asked.
Hermione shook her head. "Influential, maybe, but certainly not powerful. Grawp, maybe?"
"Not even slightly influential." Harry rejected. "Oh no. I know who it is."
Ron snapped his fingers. "So do I."
"Well, who, then?" Hermione demanded.
"Aragog." Ron said grimly.
"Yep." Harry said. "Listen up, corporal. Aragog is this absolutely massive spider, with hundreds of children, that is, the giant spiders we've seen patrolling around the school. It shouldn't be too hard to find him, you just follow the spiders. He's too old to move, but all his children are mindless thugs for him."
"So to stop this Voldemort person and save England, I'm gonna have to break out of this school, get into the Forbidden Forest, find the biggest spider the world has ever seen, get through his bodyguard of dozens of huge spiders, and kill it. Then you lot are gonna have to wait for the fighting in the Hall to finish, walk in, and mop up?"
"That sounds about right." Hermione concluded.
"The main problem with this plan is that my men and I have almost no ammo, and our weapons aren't nearly big enough." Shepherd said. "Wait, what's that?"
A glint of light in the corner caught his eye. It was the reflection off a ridiculously large mound of small arms, heavy arms, explosives, and ordinance. Shepherd's jaw hung lower than a playground swing. "Evidently while we were turning around outside the door, somebody was wishing we had more guns."
"Not me." Sean piped up.
"Nor me." Brian added.
"Then it must have been colonel Black." Shepherd said indifferently. "Okay, men, load up with only the heaviest of weapons. We're gonna be killing things as big as small elephants. You, wizard-people, get near enough to the Hall that you can hear it if hundreds of magical creatures start killing each other. Possibly the fate of the world rests on our shoulders, gentlemen. Make your forefathers proud."
Everybody prepared. All the soldiers took off their bergens, and any other equipment which wasn't absolutely necessary for the impending assault. Shepherd kept his M16/M203, and picked up several more magazines and 203 bombs. He also picked up seven 66 fire-and-forget rocket launchers, and a grenade belt, and took a sidearm Desert Eagle for good measure. Sean immediately dropped all of his Desert Eagles and picked up a box-fed M60 heavy machine-gun and three spare two-hundred-round boxes, plus several satchel explosives. Brian dropped his shotgun and sidearm and picked up a high-powered sniper rifle and a drum-loading grenade launcher, along with as much spare ammo for the both of them that he could carry, and a Colt .45 with several clips as a sidearm. Dean Thomas nipped over to the stack of guns & ammo and nicked an MP5 submachinegun and two thirty-round clips. He met Shepherd's stare.
"Hey, I'm Muggle-born. I know what a gun is and how to use it, look." He set the safety-catch to full-auto and sprayed the entire clip up and down the walls. Then he reloaded efficiently and picked up another clip. "Childhood spent playing violent computer games, a kid gets to know how to use firearms." he explained to the shocked occupants of the room.
The wizards then began preparing. Their preparation was merely a very quick revision session on Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"Just like you did in the first year, Ron; if you want to levitate something, swish and flick, swish and flick." Harry told Ron. "And don't forget Hermione's pompous correction in Charms class the week before."
"Win-GAR-dium, lev-i-O-saaaa!" Harry and Ron chorused, then laughed. Hermione's expression turned sour and she looked away.
"Oh, come off it, Hermione, you're not that self-important brat on the train telling me I had dirt on my nose anymore!" Ron soothed unsoothingly. "We like you now!"
"Hmph." Hermione responded; a thousand words couldn't have said more.
"Don't you have more important things to worry about, kiddies?" Sean snarled, trying to fit all of his equipment onto his person in a way which wouldn't result in instant medical complications. In a few minutes everyone was ready to go.