Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or any of it's characters, so don't sue me!
Pairing: hmm…not sure, but will be slash if anything…
Warning: Some spoilers from OoTP. (order of the phoenix - for mere mortals)
Plot: A weird thing which I just thought of this morning (I don't think I am copying anyone, so…shrug)
Basically, my theory on how Harry could get out of the war (kind of), and still manage to save all the people whose lives 'supposedly' depend upon him. Afterall, Harry's a teenage boy…if it were you in his place, don't you think the pressure would have some…unforeseen consequences?
"Fight the Good Fight"
For weeks after the night 'Harry Potter blackmailed Albus Dumbledore there was no sight or sound from the boy wonder, and everybody, Voldemort in particular, began to suspect the bargain wasn't going to be kept. As a result, on the third week, Voldemort finally let his Death Eaters retaliate in the skirmishes engineered by a very pissed off Dumbledore.
However, unbeknownst to Voldemort, but fully known to Dumbledore, several documents had mysteriously appeared in the Hall of Laws at the Ministry - which would grant the Death Eaters' their land, and make it illegal to attack them on said land, without justification.
As Dumbledore was fully aware of the appearance of these laws, and the fact that they were irrevocable, he was also aware of the strange time activation included in the laws. This time activation meant that the laws, whilst already registered, were not put into effect until after a certain date and time - as listed - and until that date and time, the new law was not formally introduced to the public. Meaning nobody in the wizarding world was yet aware of the law's existence.
This particular law was not active for another month after the date it had turned up, and Dumbledore desperately wanted to make a dent in the Death Eater numbers before they were 'untouchable', so to speak.
For three long weeks the old wizard had taken full advantage of Voldemort's protégé's absence, and poured all of his energies into hunting down and attacking the Death Eaters. Not because he felt he himself could stop Voldemort, but so he could hopefully goad the other side into a full-on battle, during which he and the Order of the Phoenix would have the opportunity to take out as many of the buggers as possible before Harry could put his plan for peace into action.
Yet, for some reason, Voldemort had proven rather difficult to provoke, and Dumbledore had to resort to kidnapping the known-Death Eater's children to get the Dark Lord to finally give free reign to his followers.
As Dumbledore was busy provoking Voldemort, and the Dark Lord himself fast losing his patience, Minister Fudge was receiving a large number of anonymously written articles about the contract - with explicit orders on which magazines/newspapers he had to have publish them, and when - not to mention a variety of reports informing him of the progress of the builders (muggle and wizard) he had hired, and the lists of materials he had also procured for the 'project'.
Fast getting tired of not knowing what was happening in his own office, Fudge had made several enquiries, and discovered somebody had accessed the Ministry's coffers (supposedly himself), and dispersed the money economically, in such a way as to get the land ready for Voldemort and his followers to live on in the optimum amount of time. Just where that piece of land was, was currently undisclosed, and none of the people who had apparently been there had any memory of where it was - or what it was like.
As Fudge got more and more frustrated, not to mention knackered - doing more actual work than he'd done since being elected Minister - Voldemort and Dumbledore had gathered the majority of their forces together in preparation of a battle.
Two days before the end of the month - when the law was to go into effect - the two opposing forces clashed just outside of Hogwarts. Dumbledore's forces came from within the castle, and its surrounding land, whereas Voldemort and crew apparated in just outside of the wards of the castle.
Narrowing youthful brown eyes at the scene that greeted him upon arrival, nobody could mistake the young man before them as anybody other than the powerful 'Lord Voldemort'. There was something in those hazel eyes that hinted of age beyond his looks - possibly the mingling of emotions; hatred, sadness and despair, which glinted in his shrewd gaze. Or maybe it was the way all of the Death Eater's looked to him for orders.
Dispatching half of his troops to keep Dumbledore and his people occupied, Voldemort directed the others to get to the castle, and free the children being held there.
Nobody but Dumbledore and Professor McGonagal knew the Death Eater's children were being hostage - not even Snape, for the simple reason that the Potions Professor regarded most of those children as young versions of himself, and tried to protect them from the choices and prejudices that had been forced on him in his youth.
A sympathy that Dumbledore had felt made him unreliable in this particular plan. McGonagal however had always been loyal - she alone appeared to understand that such sacrifices had to be made in a time of war. Granted, she was unaware of the law about to be put into effect, but Albus was sure she'd have agreed with his reasoning in any case.
As the Death Eaters sought to occupy and detain their opponents, Dumbledore's side put their all into the fight - recklessly flinging their lives away for the chance to kill even one of the 'bad' guys.
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had been allowed to join in the fight, as had the Weasley twins, and a variety of the older students at Hogwarts, who were proficient enough at their subjects to have been approached by the Professor's and offered the chance to fight.
They lunged and dodged as the curses flew thick, mingling in with the adults, as they fell to the ground. Dead. Just as often, if not more so, than the adults whose cause they felt they shared.
None of the members of the 'light' seemed to notice the Death Eater's defensive method, nor did they notice the majority of people who fell did so because of their own side's spells - as the chaos of battle shoved all precision out of the window. All they did was redouble their efforts - determined to die rather than be captured.
Hermione Granger fell over half way through the battle - as a weak shrinking spell, hastily flung by a sixth year Ravenclaw, hit her in the back - instantly crushing her heart to the size of a peanut.
As her death scream was cut short, a strange pulling sensation began to emanate from the middle of the battlefield.
A few staggered slightly before they managed to resist the tug, but the fighting paused entirely as the middle of the field began to grow darker. Stepping back as one, everybody's eyes were fixed on the swirl of blackness growing in the centre - and as such nobody noticed when Dumbledore cast the killing curse on a few Death Eater's turned backs.
Ignoring the strange phenomenon occurring, in favour of going round and hexing as many of the enemies as he could whilst they were distracted, Dumbledore failed to see the blackness coalesce into the form of Harry Potter. A pair of dark brown eyes did notice the occurrence though, and a spark of amusement momentarily flickered to life.
Only a few minutes had passed, but it was enough for Dumbledore to have knocked off three Death Eaters. He was raising his wand to kill the fourth, when a hand politely tapped him on the shoulder.
Spinning round, his aged blue eyes widened in brief surprise, before a fist to his face sent him to la la land.
"That, is called 'cheating'."
Harry's voice was slightly rusty sounding, but the fierce expression of anger that had been on his face seconds ago was quickly replaced by a mildly chiding one.
The Death Eater's looked at one another in confusion, but a hex from a quickly recovering member of the Order soon had the fighting back in full swing. Members of the 'light' instantly labelled Harry as a traitor, but other than a few heading over to defend Albus in his unconscious state, the rest of them returned their attention to the fight in general.
One person who headed over in particular was Ronald Weasley, and the grief he had felt at Hermione's death had very quickly morphed into anger and hatred for his once-best friend, as he saw that Dumbledore had been right when he'd told Ron and Hermione that Harry had changed sides. Hermione had defended the bastard until the end, but Ron had just known it to be the truth! After all, Harry had always shown the signs of being dark - parseltongue, Slytherin tendencies, psychotic episodes - add that to the way he'd soaked up people's adoration of him, and it was obvious, looking back, where all that would lead him. Voldemort.
Looking round with a vague expression of bewildered alarm on his face, Harry suppressed a wince, intuitively knowing he should have waited. Something was going to go wrong for him today, and yet, he couldn't just sit back and watch as they all tried to kill each other. How could Dumbledore have pushed things to this, when he knew a truce was in the works?
Watching the delusional old fool manipulate events and people over the past couple of weeks, Harry had longed to wipe the smug twinkle out of the wizard's eyes - and now he had done that, he felt it was worth the effort it had taken, as well as any consequences that got met out.
Scanning the body-strewn field with a critical eye, Harry noted the majority of deceased were from Dumbledore's faction, and another wave of anger washed through him at the number of people who'd thrown their lives away for no reason other than Dumbledore's say-so. Seeing Voldemort daintily picking his way over to him, Harry waited to catch Tom's eye, then gave him a slight smile and nod. Knowing full well how the Slytherin had doubted Harry's word the past couple of weeks, Harry felt a rush of relief when the other man didn't hesitate to reciprocate the acknowledgement.
Tom Riddle had just lifted his foot up again, in preparation of stepping over a mangled body in his way, when he happened to look over at Harry again and an expression of alarm contorted his face.
Harry was about to ask what was wrong, when a strange tingling overtook his entire body, and a familiar tinge of green enveloped his vision.
Shaking off the death curse, Harry ignored the gaping Dark Lord, and turned around to confront his would-be 'killer'.
"Ron?"
Watching as the redhead looked from his wand to Harry, an open-mouthed look of bafflement seemingly rendering him speechless, Harry very nearly felt amused. As it was he only felt a distant sad resignation - which he knew would later transform into full-on despair. Thankfully though, everything was currently rather distant, and the numbness within him was spreading out long tendrils to encompass his entire body.
"…Why did you try to kill me?"
On the basis of the fact that the boy had tried to kill him, it probably wasn't a very good question to ask. Still, Harry had never been known for his tact, and as he watched Ron scream then scramble to run away, Harry had to admit he was actually quite pleased with the reaction. Come on, the guy had just tried to kill him - the least he deserved was to get slightly freaked out!
"Er, Harry…? You okay?"
Tom's strangely timid voice made Harry turn around, eyebrow arched with surprise at the question, but that soon disappeared as a shiver of cold darted through his limbs.
"For the moment - but I do need to get out of here soon, otherwise I won't make it."
If Tom was curious about that remark, his face didn't show it, and he quickly gestured over his shoulder.
"We can go now if you want. My men found the kids, and got them away safely. We could always stay and finish off Dumbledore, but judging from your presence here I'm guessing the contract is still going ahead, and you'd probably say no anyway. Right?"
"Ha, right now I'm so pissed off with Dumbledore I'd probably encourage you to kill him - if not for the fact he is also included in the contract, and probably shouldn't die until its gone into effect. So…two days, then you can try to scare him into having a heart attack or something. But no actual 'killing' - that's against the rules."
Looking mildly surprised by Harry's dry sense of humour, Tom nevertheless eased his arm across Harry's back. Sending the signal to the remainder of his Death Eater's, Voldemort then apparated away from the battlefield - taking Harry Potter with him.
Landing smoothly, in the stone foyer of Tom's hideout, Harry shrugged the man's arm away and stumbled backwards into the shadows lining the walls.
Tom hid the flash of pained resignation he felt at the gesture very well, but Harry's senses still managed to pick up the faint trace of emotion. Any other time the fact that he could hurt the 'Dark Lord's' feelings would have caused him great amusement, but the killing curse Ron had cast was taking too much of his attention for even a flicker of a grin.
A sharp burst of pain washed through his system, following the path of coldness, and Harry doubled over, gasping, as the killing curse attempted to break down his genetic makeup.
"Harry!"
Coming to his senses, Voldemort cursed himself for assuming the other man would be alright - sure, Harry could handle a hell of a lot of things, but that didn't mean to say there wouldn't be any kind of repercussions.
Reaching into the shadows, he drew the pain-ridden body to him, cradling the writhing form in his arms before taking off down the corridor on the right, yelling for aid as he ran.
Swinging into his own bedchambers, Voldemort eased the trembling figure down onto the red velvet covers, brown eyes taking in the beads of sweat running down Harry's face with concern.
Only vaguely aware of the comforting hands on him, and the murmur of voices as people tried to figure out what was happening to him, Harry's mind was suddenly thrown wide open, overloading him with visions as his newly transformed body struggled with the curse.
Gradually the tremors slowed down, and the medics in the Dark Lord's camp breathed a sigh of relief, but then Harry's body began to take on a strange white luminescence, and they cursed their premature reaction.
Bolting upright, Harry's eyes snapped open - the green glow of sight illuminating the small chamber, and creating shadows on the walls. However, his body's white hue gradually grew brighter and brighter, eventually encompassing the green, and all present watched with dread as his eyes frosted over with white.
Horror filling his very being, for the first time since he was a child Voldemort felt true fear. The last thing he saw was white light.
Sorry this took so long to get out! In fact, the only reason it's out now is that I wanted to give you all a little christmas treat - so I'm sorry if it's not as good as the previous chapters, but I did it under pressure! Here, have a cookie offers plate
R&R, please - and I hope you like it!