Chapter 56 – The Battle of the Forbidden Forest
With the giants scattered and vulnerable to the broom squadrons and dragons and the acromantula colony on the way, Harry was able to turn his attentions back to the south battlefield. He found the noose tightening around the dark forces. He continued to evacuate captives and the injured, occasionally now finding dead bodies for both sides. As he shuttled back and forth between the castle and the battlefield, he learned that the students' army had met on both sides with the goblin army, so that the dark forces had become completely encircled. This was confirmed to Harry as he more and more came across goblin casualties; these were evacuated to the castle where Melony's goblin clinic was fully equipped with the supplies needed to treat the particular needs of goblins. A number of goblin healers were also brought in from Gringotts as the workload increased. As the morning and then the afternoon wore on, the students and the goblins slowly and carefully confined the dark forces into a smaller and smaller area.
On one of his return trips to the castle, Harry found Ron sitting on the steps, being tended to by Hermione. He immediately ran over.
"Ron, are you okay?"
Ron nodded shakily, and then gave a huge shudder.
"The acromantulas arrived," explained Hermione, as sympathetically as she could while suppressing laughter. "He freaked out over them."
"I HATE SPIDERS!" growled Ron, suppressing his desire to scream it out.
"Ron, why did you develop a strategy that required you to call spiders in to the battle where you would be?"
"Because it was the best strategy, Harry. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. The spiders would be slaughtered if they tried to attack the wizards, but they're tearing the giants apart – literally. The whole reason for the squadrons was to fight giants. We knew when we formed the squadrons that we'd be target practice if we tried to fight against wizards. I may only be a passable Keeper, but I fly well enough, so I took the squadrons. Ernie isn't so good on a broom, so he had the army. They needed back-up from a magical force, so that's where the goblins were asked to help. I just had to stuff my fear and get on with the giants and deal with the spiders as long as I could take it. By Merlin's beard, I hate spiders! But I'm grateful for the help. When I spied Hagrid arriving at the head of the column, I could have kissed him, until I looked at the host behind him – then I nearly puked."
For a while, the larger ones were finding the giants that had been first knocked out. Four of them could kill a giant and place him or her on the backs of a team of medium-sized spiders, who started returning them to their lair. But as they cleaned up the scattered giants, they were closer and closer to the squadrons. On a pass about ten minutes ago, I had to dodge a giantess's club and I hit a tree. I went spinning right into the center of about forty spiders the size of Hagrid. They came at me with their nasty wiggly legs and picked me up. They set me on my feet and I could swear they waved at me. I didn't care. I almost lost it right there, but I kicked off on my brrom and got out of there as quick as I could. I knew I had to get back here; I had nothing more to give as a leader"
"Is anybody in charge of the squadrons now?" asked Harry.
"Yeah, we had a fallback plan all along. I knew I would only be able to take so much. Ginny took over for me and my squadron. She's not too shabby on strategy herself, and we had already set the plans."
"Yeah, she's quite a soldier," grumbled Harry. "Anything for the victory."
"She said if I saw you to say thanks for the tornado and what an awesome job that was," said Ron, clearly not understanding Harry's tone.
Harry just nodded. "I've got to go evacuate some more people. I'll check on you in a bit."
"Do that, Harry," said Ron. "It's good to see you bearing up so well – and not thinking you have to take all the danger yourself."
"You people picked the fight. I'm just clean-up," said Harry with a smirk.
"Yeah, right, Harry," said Ron grinning, "like you wouldn't jump right in if you saw someone to fight."
"See you in a few minutes, Harry," said Hermione.
Harry made another ten evacuation round trips, then checked on Ron again. A potion to relieve his heebie-jeebies had been brought out, which had him back to his usual self.
"Feeling better, Ron?"
"Oh, there you are, Harry. Of course. Never better. Getting the best care possible," said Ron, affectionately patting Hermione's hand. "How about a lift?"
"Where to?" asked Harry.
"Fortescue's – I fancy an ice cream cone right now! The battlefield, you gnome! I can't fight the giants, but I can make myself useful with Ernie's platoons."
"No need to get snippy," laughed Harry. "Ready?"
"One second," said Ron, who turned to give Hermione a lingering kiss and hug. Harry didn't begrudge them this, but it made him feel all the emptier that he didn't have anyone as he had thought.
"Ready, mate," said Ron, extending his hand.
Harry grabbed his wrist quite abruptly and disapparated to the hilltop rill from which Ernie was directing the tightening of the cordon.
"Hi, Ron, Coach," greeted Ernie grimly, then grinning. "I take it the spiders have arrived."
"Like the cavalry in a cowboy movie," replied Ron.
"You've been to muggle cinemas?" asked Harry.
"Sure, Harry, muggles are good storytellers. I love going into town to catch a flick when I can."
"Hey, Ernie," said Harry, "I always pictured Neville with the basilisk wand – why'd you have Dean carry it?"
"Shh, don't say the 'b'-word – only the leadership knows what it is. We didn't want to panic people. As for who's carrying it, we talked a long while about that. There are two things that turned it. Thomas is much better with his hands: more coordinated and ambidextrous, so he could handle the basilisk wand with one hand and still fight like a wizard with the other. He's gotten confused a few times and petrified some dark witches and wizards, but none of are too fussed about that. Also, Longbottom's not very tall, so when he holds it up, one of us could accidentally look into it. Thomas is nearly two meters tall, so with it angled upward, there's not a chance any of the rest of us would be looking down the wand, but the dementors are plenty tall to get petrified that way. I'm sure you've seen them around – he's been a busy fellow..."
"Yeah, they're lined up almost to the edge of the forest from here," said Harry, "first time I saw one of them, I conjured my patronus before realizing it was petrified. There must be hundreds of them."
"Yeah, we haven't seen any in over an hour now. We think we've got all that were here. I wonder if that's all of them."
"No," said Harry, "He's got a contingent guarding the island where he makes his headquarters."
"Wow, it's good to have you as a spy, Harry," said Ernie.
"I'll trade," said Harry.
"No, thanks, I've enough to deal with."
Just then there was a massive boom and they saw an outbreak of extremely intense fighting to their far left. It appeared that the remaining dark forces had massed to punch a hole through the weakest spot they could find and try to regroup with the giants, either for a last stand or an escape.
"Harry," shouted Ernie, "Ron and I will take care of things here. Get back to the castle and mobilize the adults to meet them if they break through to open ground."
"Right. Be careful," said Harry as he disapparated.
Arriving at the castle steps, he found Moody, Dawkins and Snape discussing the battle thus far.
"They're trying to break through. There are only a few hundred left at most," shouted Harry to them, "but it's their best. They're headed northwest toward the castle, around the southwest shore of the lake, but Ernie thinks they're headed up to the giants!"
Moody reacted first. "We've already assembled forces out in the heath, Potter, and we can get some more forces to go out to meet them. You call Lupin and let him know. Then head back out to where they had been and gather some forces to comb for any stragglers – the goblins and centaurs will be excellent for that."
Snape and Dawkins had already run to raise additional fighters. Harry found a relatively quiet spot and called Remus and told him.
"Thanks for letting us know, Harry. If they get here they won't find many friends. The giants are nearly all mopped up. As soon as we're done here, we'll be there to help."
Harry apparated to Ernie's makeshift headquarters to report.
"Good. They'll meet plenty of fresh fighters there. I'm sure all the aurors want to get involved in the fighting to earn rank. Ron, you and Harry get with the goblins to start the mop-up of the forest. We don't want any surprises while our backs are turned. Let the centaurs know what's up if you meet with any of them – Moody's right, they'll be just as interested in clearing out the forest completely. They probably want to survey the damage to their home anyway."
With that Ernie took off to the northwest, where most of his platoons had already gone in pursuit of the remaining dark forces, picking them off from the rear.
"It's gone well, Harry," said Ron.
"I suppose, but there have been a lot of casualties."
"Are there many dead?"
"I've recovered at least three dozen students' bodies and about the same of goblin bodies; I've passed by ten times that number of enemy bodies, after making sure they were dead. I've found a couple of dead centaurs, as well. It's grisly business."
"Nobody said it was going to be pretty. But letting them pick us off slowly would have been ten times worse, and there'd be no end in sight."
"Oh, you're right, but is there any end in sight?" asked Harry.
"He's not coming, is he?"
"No, he doesn't really mind sacrificing pretty much anyone he had sent here. There's only one wizard that matters to him."
"It must be sorry to live like that," said Ron. "I can't imagine living without my family and you and Hermione and, you know, all our friends."
"Trust me, it is, and he doesn't even see how sorry it is. He thinks we're all idiots to care."
"Well, let's go find the goblin forces."
"I can feel their concentration of magical powers – I'll apparate us there."
"Leave a little distance, Harry, I don't want to surprise those guys – they're meaner than a teased hippogriff in battle. I'm betting we'll find hundreds of dead wizards on that side of the battlefield. They don't believe in taking prisoners."
"I know. They had a few issues with Voldemort. Let's go."
And with that Harry grabbed Ron and apparated a good distance behind the goblin battle lines. They called out from behind a tree and proved who they were. They were then greeted jubilantly. The goblins agreed on the importance of scouring the woods, and even said they would not execute wounded enemy fighters. This went against traditional goblin practice, but they had agreed the year before to work within the Ministry and its rules, and accepted the necessity. The goblins went about the operation as systematically as they pursued banking.