In Every Darkness
Chapter Thirty Six: Attack
2.9.1996
Harry paced around the room, muttering to himself as he waited for his friends to come. Soon people from Hufflepuff appeared. It seemed that their common room was closest.
"What's happening? DE attack?" Ernie McMillan looked confused and tired.
Some of the Ravenclaws stalked into the room. "I have you have a very good reason for waking me up," – Cho was in the least bit pretty or nice when she's been sleeping.
"Is a Death Eater attack a good enough reason?" Harry snarled back, in no mood to be patient. The Gryffindors, walking into the room in time to catch the last, gasped and hurried over.
"Death Eaters?" Hermione whispered. Her fingers were stained with ink, and Harry assumed it had been she – up doing homework – who'd woken the rest of the tower.
"Yes, Death Eaters. They are attacking the school. We are going to help – I don't know how, just yet, Dumbledore won't want to put you in danger, but we're going to need to help," Harry replied.
"Ah, Harry!" Dumbledore's voice exclaimed from the doorway. "You've got your friends here?"
"Yes, Professor," Harry replied.
Snape entered the room. "Well, there's little of use that you can do," the Potions professor sneered. "Unless … how many of you can produce a Patronus?"
Every hand in the group went up immediately.
"Let me rephrase that," Snape said, sounding a little surprised. "How many of you can produce a Patronus with a form?"
Less than a quarter of the hands went down. Now Snape was openly surprised. "Harry's a good teacher," a seventh year Hufflepuff boy said, then ducked his head down when Snape glared at him.
"Well, there is something remotely useful you can do then," the man drawled, making Harry want to kill him – slowly. "You can deal with the Dementors for us."
"Go to the corridor on the third floor," Dumbledore said, with a reproving glance at his potions master – Snape wasn't watching. "Use your Patronus's from there. If you see a Death Eater, please, do try to stun him or her."
"We'll do our best," Harry replied with a faint smile.
Snape gave a derisive snort, but Harry and his friends ignored it, already heading out of the hall.
"Wasn't that the corridor that was forbidden in our first year?" Ernie asked, curious.
"Yeah. There was a giant three headed dog in here," Harry replied, calmly. "It was Hagrid's – I'm not sure where it is now, but it's not in the school, that's for sure."
"Otherwise we would have run into it," Ron said in agreement. Hermione gave them both a disapproving look, but said nothing as they stepped into the corridor.
"This way," Harry murmured, voice quiet so as not to alert anyone outside. "Stay close and stay quiet."
Creeping into the once out of bounds corridor, Harry led his group over to the windows and motioned them to stand in front of them – two people per window.
Luna Lovegood turned up at Harry's side, but now Harry by no means minded being left with her. Using a softly spoken spell, Harry opened his window. They'd learnt this in charms, back in second year, it was very like the wingardium leviosa charm.
All along the corridor, the others opened their windows too. Harry held up his hand, raising one finger, two fingers … three fingers and letting his hand drop.
Immediately every person who had a Patronus with form whispered the words 'Expecto Patronum.'
Harry concentrated on a memory of him and Sirius duelling with each other, and Sirius praising what Harry had done. A giant stag erupted from his wand. To Harry's surprise it was momentarily followed by a large, shaggy furred dog.
"What the?" Harry whispered, so quietly that no one but Luna heard him. She didn't even blink – then again, why would she? She was used to doing odd things herself, so why would she wonder about the same behaviour in others?
Outside, lights were flashing from the windows downstairs, and Harry could see figures moving in the darkness below them. The teachers, some of them at least, were out there, fighting the Death Eaters head on.
In a way, Harry longed to be out there also, but at the same time, he was scared that someone would ask him to go out there.
His lips twisted in a wry smile. Why couldn't he make up his mind what he wanted? Then saw a Death Eater creeping up on the group of teachers.
"Stupefy!" he whispered, and the spell streaked forwards, a blaze of red in the night sky. The Death Eater fell without a word, but Harry dropped and motioned his friends to do the same.
Spells rocketed through the open windows from below. "Stay down," Harry stage whispered. "At least until the spells stop, and even then, be careful."
Each person nodded. They would have seen pictures of some of the Muggle attacks in the newspapers, but Harry knew that it was one thing to read and shudder about attacks, and quite a different to live through one.
Slowly, Harry raised himself again. The Dementors had fled, but the giants were proving to be something of a problem, being very destructive by nature.
Whenever one of the professors managed to corner and trap a giant – they were very difficult to kill – a Death Eater immediately undid the job.
Harry saw that Dumbledore and McGonagall, back to back, were having a hard time facing ten opponents. Harry muttered a few choice words, and his companions shot spells down to help with it.
They were all tired, Harry included. Grypis, on his shoulder still, gave him a suggestion. "Couldn't you sleep in shifts? We've no idea how long this could go on for, and you might need to keep this up for sometime."
"Good idea," Harry replied, then spoke aloud, passing Grypis's suggestion on to his human companions.
"Who sleeps now?" Ernie asked, covering a yawn.
"We'll draw straws," Harry replied, fishing through his pockets to find something to use. He found a ball of wool, which he must have pocketed without meaning to in DA.
Using magic, he cut eighteen threats, nine short and nine long. Holding them so that no one could ends, he offered them to the group. "The ones who draw short straws sleep," Harry said.
The group nodded and gathered around him, drawing one thread at a time until only one was left in Harry's hand. He checked it, and was happy to see that it was a long thread.
He was also happy to note that many of Cho's friends had drawn short threads – good, that meant he wouldn't have to deal with them now. He was less happy when he realised that Ron and Hermione both had short threads too.
Harry wondered how one called a house elf when one needed one. Suddenly one of the little creatures appeared beside him. That would be how, it seemed.
"How can Kilby help you?" The elf squeaked at him.
"Could you go to the Room of Requirement and bring nine sleeping bags here, please?" Harry said, phrasing the request politely, though he knew that if he'd been rude, the creature would still have been happy to perform his request.
"Immediately sir!" the creature was gone with a crack, and a moment later returned with sleeping bags heaped around it. "Here you is, sir!" the house elf said. "Can Kilby do anything else?"
"If you could bring some food in half an hour so, we would be very grateful," Harry replied.
The elf bowed and disappeared. "People who drew short straws, just arrange the sleeping bags over in the far corner of the corridor," Harry suggested. " That way you'll be easy to wake in two hours when we swap over. I'm sure you'll be tired enough to sleep through occasional bouts of noise."
He could see it in their eyes – they didn't think so. Harry smiled slightly. He could always cast a spell or something to help them on the way to sleep … he doubted that it would be needed, however.
He was right. With no action at their end of the battle, his friends drifted into sleep very quickly. Harry kept to the window with his remaining companions, watching the battle.
It had moved away from the castle, heading towards the forest. "They're trying to draw the teachers away," Harry hissed. Sure enough, a small group of Death Eaters appeared heading towards the steps of the castle.
"Get them," Harry ordered, pointing them out to his friends. Spells arched through the air, and several Death Eaters fell. "Keep going," Harry whispered, as the remainder of the Death Eaters turned towards their hideout.
A few more Death Eaters fell, and Harry grabbed the Marauders Map, checking up on where the Death Eaters were. Even as he watched, something happened. The Death Eaters all paused for a moment, then suddenly all of them turned and raced away, disappearing into the night.
Of all the people assembled there, Harry alone knew what had happened. Severus Snape had joined a group of the Death Eaters, and only then had they gone away, Snape accompanying them.
The teachers came hurrying up to the third floor corridor, and when they reached it, Harry slipped outside to meet them. "Some of them are asleep," Harry explained.
"We'll leave them here then," McGonagall decided. "Can you get everyone else out here please?" Harry nodded and disappeared inside fro a second.
When he returned, with the other eight people who were awake, they were discussing ways of checking the castle to make sure there weren't any Death Eaters.
"There aren't any in the castle," Harry said, and everyone turned to look at him. Harry offered the map to Dumbledore, and the rest of the teachers looked over it too.
"Amazing!" McGonagall said. "Potter, did you make this?"
"No, Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew made it," Harry replied immediately. "Back when they were at school."
"The Marauders," Sinistra muttered, with a slight smile. "I might have guessed."
"This shows anyone?" McGonagall asked.
"Yes, even in an Animagus form, someone using Polyjuice Potion … under an invisibility cloak or spell," Harry replied.
"This is amazing. It's a pity that those who knew how it was made are gone," Flitwick said. "I've never such charm work!"
Harry waited while the teachers spoke for a short time. Finally Dumbledore turned to him. "Harry, I wish to speak with you for a moment in my office, everyone else, you may as well return to your beds. We'll have to clean up tomorrow."
Everyone dispersed quickly, and Harry and Dumbledore walked slowly together towards Dumbledore's office. "I didn't see Tonks back there, or some of the other Professors," Harry remarked, half in question.
"That fight was not without its casualties," Dumbledore responded. "Tonks and the others are in the Hospital Wing, and several others will be going there also."
Harry nodded – this made sense.
"Do you know why the Death Eaters left, Harry?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes. They left when Snape joined them," Harry replied immediately.
"Quite right. They came for him, I think, but wouldn't have objected to killing any of the students who weren't going to join them. Severus won't be able to teach here until Voldemort is once more assured of his loyalty," Dumbledore said.
Yes, yes, yes! Harry thought in delight. "So who's going to teach Potions?"
"A man by name of Michael McGonagall, possibly Severus's best ever student. Yes, he is related in Minerva, her nephew," Dumbledore incorrectly read the look on Harry's face.
Harry had still never told anyone about what Michael had done for him. He didn't think he ever would either.
"Why did you want to talk to me, Professor?" Harry asked.
"I thought you might have seen Severus going with the Death Eaters. I wanted to ask you not to tell anyone but those who know the Order that Severus is on anything other than long service leave," Dumbledore replied.
"Right. I won't tell anyone, Professor," Harry replied.
"Good boy. Now, you'd best go and get some sleep. The Death Eaters did a fair amount of damage, Hagrid's house will probably need to be rebuilt from scratch – luckily the Hippocampi are alright," Dumbledore said. "Hagrid took them with him when he went into the forest with Grawp."
"That's good," Harry said, glad that Hagrid had made it out alright. "I'll see you in the morning, night professor!" he turned and trotted away.
Not bad, for the first day back, Harry thought, with a faint, cold smile.
***
That'll do for one chapter! I know some of you would have wanted Harry to go out and fight, but it's not that realistic – Dumbledore wouldn't want to put the students in danger. A few quick notes:
1) This story might slow down in updates or begin to have shorter chapters again – unfortunately I have to go back to school tomorrow *sighs* which means that I'll have less time to write. I'll still keep going, and update as much as possible, don't worry!
2) Please check out my website, and if you know of any good stories (particularly original fiction) please tell me (by email) and I'll put them up there!
3) If you have some pictures that are Harry Potter related, or directly related to my stories, please send them to me (if you want to) so that I can see them, and put them up on my site, if you like.
4) If you want to write a spin-off from this story or Deceptions, or a sequel to Deceptions or something like that, please tell me so that I can keep track of it *grins* I like to see what people make of my ideas!
~WolfMoon~