Chapter 7

Saturday July 12.

Nearly three weeks had passed since Alastor Moody had informed the dentists that eleven Death Eaters had destroyed their home in the middle of the night hoping to murder them at the same time. Dan and especially Emma had been saddened by the loss, but all three of the Grangers were grateful that they were alive. They were even more grateful that several days earlier they'd had an hour to remove their important papers, photos and their keepsake possessions from their home. The local authorities could find no evidence of arson. As such, it was being handled as an accidental fire insurance claim rather than an act of war.

At Hermione's pleading, her parents had temporarily closed their surgery, and were safe at hand staying at Grimmauld Place helping out as they could. In reality, they were three more refugees of an undeclared war.

The subgroups of the Order that Harry had created had begun meeting in earnest that week. Flitwick and Hermione began their searches for information about Horcruxes in their respective locations. Flitwick scoured the Hogwarts restricted section, the staff library and even went through Snape's private quarters. Flitwick had found several references regarding Horcruxes, while Hermione hadn't found anything in the Black library.

Bill had used his contacts with the Gringotts cursebreakers to find that the horcrux objects themselves need only be destroyed to release their contents. No special ritual would be needed. None of them had found conclusive documentation that indicated whether Riddle would know if one had been destroyed or would be somehow weakened when it happened. Bill told them that once bound to an object, there was no known means of reattaching the soul piece back to the person.

The rest of the research team had begun their training in battlefield healing. Poppy worked with Luna, Molly, and Diggle. Mrs. Figg had been given lists of potions to brew. Harry was somewhat shocked to find that she was quite skilled in brewing potions. While growing up he had always thought that her home smelled of cabbage. In fact, it was the cauldrons brewing potions in her cellar that gave off the different aromas. Harry directed her to develop some stock of blood replenishing potion, pain relief potions, skele-gro, veritaserum, polyjuice potion and the felix felicis potions. Tom the bartender helped her quietly obtain the more difficult to find ingredients. She was shocked but grateful when Harry had given her five thousand galleons to get everything that she had needed.

The Horcrux team started out with good luck. Aided greatly by the photos that Harry had been able to provide, Arthur and Sturgis had located the Hufflepuff cup within a week. They had been cataloging the contents of the Malfoy estate when they had come across the fabled cup. Podmore had stolen it from the warehouse and the next day it was sitting on one of the tables in Harry's library.

After that, the trail had grown rather cold until Hermione took a look at the Black family tapestry as it was being taken down a week later. Regulus Allen Black, Sirius' brother had been a Death Eater, but had been killed by Voldemort himself in 1980. Again aided by the photo that Harry had provided, Remus found the locket along with a pile of photos and other trinkets that Kreacher had squirreled away.

Thus far their list looked like this:

Horcrux 1 – Diary – Destroyed

Horcrux 2 – Unknown

Horcrux 3 – Ring – Destroyed

Horcrux 4 – Locket – Found

Horcrux 5 – Cup – Found

Horcrux 6 – Nagini – Presumed to be with Riddle

Piece 7 – Tom Riddle

They had no plans to go after the snake until they had at least located the others. Holding out some hope that Riddle was still unaware of their quest, they wanted to find the unknown piece before going after Riddle's pet snake.

The fighting team had been given instruction during the days by Moody. Kingsley and Hestia gave them practical exercises during the evenings. Cadet Alyx who was invited into the Order a few days after the Gringotts fight soon joined Tonks, Fred, George, and Harry.

Harry was surprised to find that after two years, Alyx's fighting skills weren't much better than the DA members. She was initially a bit insulted by his remark, but justified herself saying, "Harry, mostly we've covered the law and principles of investigation so far. The practical exercises will be largely covered in the third year."

Gred and Forge mostly took turns volunteering to duel with the very pretty young woman. Her good looks generally worked to her advantage as both Fred and George invariably hesitated for a split second before attacking her.

Harry and Tonks consistently worked together against Hestia and Kingsley who were both good fighters. After three weeks practice, they typically were able to fight to a draw. That was a substantial improvement over their starting point. Harry had regretted not continuing with the DA group in the last year, instead wasting countless hours practicing Quidditch moves against now meaningless opponents.

… --- …

The addition of nearly four million galleons to the Ministry coffers had taken a considerable amount of stress off of Scrimgeour's shoulders. The capture or death of three Death Eaters had provided proof that the Ministry, if not actually winning the war was making visible progress. Scrimgeour had quietly freed Stan Shunpike and at Harry's insistence provided him with five thousand galleons in compensation for his eleven months of false imprisonment.

Scrimgeour had managed to keep the firing of the Granger house out of the wizarding press, and as no one had actually been actually hurt, rationalized that it didn't really matter.

His only unpleasant bit of business had been attending slain Auror Dale Dawlish's funeral. Aside from his fellow Aurors, there had been an uncomfortably small crowd in attendance. Only the other Auror Instructor Bob Mann had spoken at the funeral. Apparently Dawlish hadn't taken the time to make friends outside the department.

… --- …

Voldemort was delighted when all eleven of the Death Eaters had returned back from the raid at the Granger home. It had been a while since he'd had good news regarding an operation. He had greeted them briefly upon their return, but sensing something amiss, quickly dismissed them.

That evening he asked Bellatrix when she had the other raid planned on the mudblood wizard boys, the Creeveys.

"Saturday the twelfth. The first group took too long, but everyone did their job. I want to get the second group in and out much quicker. We will do better, Master," she said certain of herself.

"I'm certain that you will," hissed Riddle. "What time do you expect to start the raid at the Weasley wedding?"

"Eight PM on the nineteenth. The ceremony will be over and the guests will still be seated for dinner. Since they won't be moving around, we will have the best opportunity to focus on the main targets."

Riddle could find no fault in her plan and replied, "Good. Since the dementors can't move too quickly, after your initial attack it will be your job to keep the victims pinned down for a minute or two until the dementors can get in place and begin feeding. They will arrive from three sides then close the circle around them. Use Wormtail to your best advantage."

Bella nodded.

Voldemort continued. It was obvious that he had other plans as well. "While the dementors are finishing their work, the Death Eaters will return here to regroup and we will liberate our imprisoned Death Eaters the same night. I anticipate that the Dementors will inflict over a hundred deaths, and no one will be available to answer the call to reinforce the pitiful guardians of Azkaban fortress. By morning, the remainder of the Ministry will sue for surrender."

Bella was stunned by the boldness of the plan, and equally nervous over the logistics of carrying it out. The Dark Lord was obviously relying on incurring few, if any casualties at the wedding. It would be difficult enough to train the twenty newest recruits to survive the first raid, let alone a raid on the great wizarding prison. Half of them still required portkeys, as they couldn't reliably apparate.

Voldemort continued. "I will have Severus and Draco plan the raid on Azkaban Fortress if you're overtaxed with the wedding." He knew that she would rise to his goad and accept the extra challenge."

"No, Master. I will carry it out as well. Perhaps Snape could teach some of the recruits how to apparate. He does have teaching experience. At least a dozen or more need additional practice."

"I will have him work with them. Are there any other tasks that you'd like to delegate upward?"

Realizing that his good grace was rapidly wearing thin, she said in a very respectful tone, "No Master. We will report back late early on the morning of the thirteenth."

… --- … ---

Harry wanted to spend some time alone with Ginny and knew that Hermione and Ron felt the same. None of them had left the Burrow or Grimmauld Place since Gringotts except to go to Hogwarts once for an Order meeting. As much as he liked Hermione's parents and Ginny's family, he just wanted some time alone with Ginny.

Remus and Tonks came to the rescue. Harry told him what he wanted and they complied. On Friday the eleventh, two ministry cars arrived at five PM. The drivers took each of the young couples on a leisurely ride for an hour before arriving at side-by-side restaurants.

One was an Italian restaurant, the other a Chinese restaurant. Tonks met them at the door. She was wearing a white linen shirt and jeans that looked like they'd been made for her. She said, "One couple has a reservation at one side, the other over there. You pick. We will meet up at nine and go to the muggle movies across the street."

Ron wanted to go to the Italian place and order pizza, so they parted ways. Harry took Ginny's hand and led her into the Chinese restaurant. Helping her to her chair, Harry said, "I've never been to a Chinese restaurant before."

"Me neither," replied Ginny.

The server was very nice. He suggested that they order the sampler platter for two. They brought out huge portions of cream cheese wontons, hot and sour soup, lemon chicken, beef and peapods, soft noodles, fried rice, and desert cookies.

Harry and Ginny tried everything and had fun trying to pick up their food with the two pair of wooden chopsticks that the server had given them in addition to their other utensils.

After dinner, Harry paid the server and they met up with Tonks and Remus who had been sitting outside the Italian restaurant eating their own dinner.

A few minutes later Ron and Hermione came out bickering as usual. "It should have been obvious that it wasn't a wizarding restaurant. Obviously they wouldn't convert galleons to Sterling. It was just lucky that mum had given me some extra money just in case."

"I didn't…"

"Don't worry about it, Ron." said Remus gently. He had been poor too much of his life to let his newly inherited money change his outlook. "Plenty of wizards have gone out on dates without their moneybags."

"Mad Eye," smirked Tonks and Harry together. They walked across the street and got in line to see the new film, Titanic. Harry bought everyone popcorn, pop and two extra treats for Ron, who was delighted with them.

The film had something for everyone. Ron kept muttering, "Why didn't someone just do a Reparo charm?"

Hermione just shook her head in wonder. Ron was generally fun to be with, but with the exception of money issues, he could be every bit as arrogant toward nonmagical people as Malfoy.

On the way back Ginny said, "Thanks for arranging this Harry. I had a great time." She snuggled as close to him as possible.

Remus said, "It was good for all of us to get out and have a fun evening."

Harry nodded. He'd had a great evening like the others, but had a very early morning ahead of him. He sent Ginny back to the Burrow several hours before she wanted to go.

… --- … ---

As Ginny was drifting off to sleep, Thomas Creevey and his wife Elsie heard the sound of voices in their front yard. Thomas, a milk deliveryman, managed to get four rounds fired from his side by side double barreled shotgun before his family was engulfed by the flames. Pansy Parkinson's cousins Ester and Pat were crumpled in the yard, while Crabbe's older brother Rutt had lost an arm at the shoulder. He would die several hours later from blood loss.

… --- … ---

At 4AM Tonks got up and put on the dragonhide pants and vest that Harry had bought for everyone in the Order. The armor offered considerably more protection than anything that the Ministry had purchased for its employees. It was obvious that Harry was willing to spend his way into safety to give them any extra measure of protection, and she was grateful. She went down to the kitchen and met Harry who had made coffee and some toasted muffins. A few minutes later, Kingsley, Fred, George, Hestia, Moody and Alex joined them, having used the floo.

They were going to snatch the two Death Eaters that Moody had tagged at the Granger house. As planned they divided up into teams. Fred, George, Hestia and Moody were on the team that would go after Theodore Nott. Harry, Tonks, Alyx and Kingsley would go after Blaise Zabini.

Moody checked everyone's gear. Each of them had a spare wand, anti-apparition manacles, an invisibility cloak, emergency portkeys, a transport portkey and an owl. In each case, they would apparate to a spot a quarter mile from their home, get into position and wait until 7AM. They would release the owl and hopefully draw the target out of their home. Then the plan called for the raiders to stun the targets, capture them and use the portkey to take them to the Auror holding cells.

The Nott team left first. They quickly covered the distance between that apparation point and Nott's home. Fred, George, and Hestia found places to hide near the back door while Mad Eye scanned the house to make certain that Nott and his mother were home.

The Zabini team left a few minutes later. They took considerably longer to get into position as there was much less cover to hide with. Tonks and Alyx waited on the side of the house so they could see the front while Kingsley and Harry waited in the back on either side of the back door. Kingsley was under Harry's cloak while Harry was behind a bush right next to the door.

At 7:00 Alyx let the barn owl loose. It tapped on the back window. As if on cue, Blaise opened the door and reached for the owl. As he looked at the owl's leg, he picked up a famous wizard card. It was Dumbledore. As Blaise looked at the card, Harry took careful aim and stunned the young Death Eater. The card fell to the ground, and the owl flew back to Alyx. Moments later, Kingsley ran up, slapped the anti-apparation manacle on Zabini and activated the portkey. Harry made eye contact with Tonks and Alyx who were acting as backup, and activated his portkey. The two witches did the same a moment later. From the time of Harry's stunner until Tonks and Alyx activated their portkey was twelve seconds. Moody would say that they had taken too long, but they would work on it.

As Harry was walking to his back door, he saw Fred and George appear a few feet away followed by Mad Eye a moment later. They all nodded at each other, and Harry said, "Come in. Let's have breakfast."

They were met inside by Hermione, Dan, Emma and Remus. The Grangers looked to be a mixture of both worried and relieved. Remus knew that they were on a grab mission, but hadn't said anything to the Grangers.

"Good morning," said Dan. "Winky has breakfast ready." Harry and the others went inside and set their packs down. After they had all sat down at the table Emma asked, "If it's possible, could you tell us where you were all night?"

As Fred and George were beginning to mouth ahh… and umm… respectively, Moody replied, "We managed to capture and arrest two of the Death Eaters who were responsible for burning down your home and trying to murder your family."

Dan and Emma were starting to say something when Hermione cut them off asking, "Who?"

Moody replied, "Nott's son, Theodore and Blaise Zabini."

Hermione nodded sadly and Emma said, "Thank you. Thank you all. We don't know what else to say. The house held a lot of good memories for us, but we still have the ones that matter."

Tears were running down Hermione's face. She had worked on an arithmancy project with Zabini in her fourth year and last week he had tried to murder her. It frightened her that Voldemort and Lestrange could inspire such misguided hatred.

An hour later, they were finishing breakfast when the news owl came to the window. Remus took the paper from the owl, put the Knuts in its pouch and unfolded the paper to look at it. A moment later, he put it down and said, "Bad news."

… --- …

Harry had taken the deaths of Colin and Dennis quite hard. He smiled as he remembered little Dennis telling Colin, "I fell in." on his first trip across the lake at Hogwarts. Neither boy had ever hurt or crossed anyone. Harry was certain that Malfoy or Snape had selected the target believing that they would be absolutely defenseless. Harry was glad to read that Mr. Creevey had taken two or three of the cowards out before succumbing to the fire.

… --- …

Harry's thoughts were interrupted the next morning by Hermione saying, "Harry look at this."

Reporter Missing

Story by Cheri Mitchell

Famed investigative reporter and writer Rita Skeeter has been reported missing according to Daily Prophet Editor Reggie McDonald. McDonald is quoted as saying, "Ms. Skeeter hasn't been seen since the morning of 15 June, although it's not unusual for her to go missing for a week or more at a time. Skeeter had gone missing for over a month several years ago, so who knows."

McDonald offered a fifty galleon reward for anyone who could provide information about Ms. Skeeter's whereabouts.

Harry snorted a laugh and said, "It doesn't sound like this McDonald bloke is too anxious to get her back."

Hermione looked at him and asked, "Harry, what's so funny?"

Harry replied, "There was a beetle in Director Hammer's office the day that I captured Borgin. Tonks accidentally squished it."

Hermione's eyes grew wide. "You don't suppose?"

Harry nodded and replied, "Right in one. It looks like snooping around like illegally finally caught up with her."

Hermione looked worried and asked, "Oh dear. Did you tell Tonks?"

Harry shook his head and replied, "There's no reason to make her feel bad. What's to be gained by it? Besides, it was probably just a beetle."

Hermione nodded in agreement. "If not, there's one less person to write nasty lies about you, Mr. Potter."

… --- …

They spent quite a bit of time over the next few days helping prepare for Fleur and Bill's wedding. Bill had found Harry the Wednesday before.

"Harry, I wanted to thank you for the opportunity that you gave me at Gringotts."

Harry smiled, and replied, "Bill, I'm the one who should be thanking you. I wanted to have someone that I knew looking out for me."

Bill nodded and said, "Thanks again. I'm scheduled to start the first of August."

Harry smiled and said, "Let me know how I can help you."

Molly asked, "Did something happen at work, dear?"

Fleur said, "Zey have geeven Bill a beeg promotion. He is to be an account manager for zer beegest London account."

Harry winked at Bill and shook his head slightly.

Mrs. Weasley said, "That's wonderful news, Bill."

Harry decided to go look for gnomes out in the back garden. He didn't want to embarrass Bill. He looked around, worried that the hedges and trees which made the garden perfect for pickup games of Quidditch might make it easy for Death Eaters to sneak in without being seen. Based on his experience grabbing Zabini a few days earlier, Harry concluded that it would he an ideal location for an attacker to hide.

He went to go visit Director Hammer. She recognized the danger, but could only spare a few Aurors for extra security. She had received an anonymous tip that Azkaban would be attacked the afternoon of the 19th.

… --- …

Riddle had taken young Malfoy's advice and allowed him to plant the misdirection regarding Azkaban. With each fewer Auror on duty at the wedding, the chances for success of his plan increased, and the risk to his Death Eaters dropped. Voldemort realized that he could maximize the impact of his attack if twenty guests were killed without the loss of any Death Eaters or if there was a massacre regardless of his losses.

He couldn't afford a kill ratio below five to one. He simply didn't have enough potential followers, other than dark creatures. Unfortunately the Malfoy boy had been so abusive to the young witches that there was a highly unbalanced ratio of witches and wizard followers among his generation.

The attacks that Bella had led the new recruits on had been mixed at best. There had been no confirmation that any of the Grangers had been killed, and three Death Eaters had been killed in the raid on the muggle deliveryman and his mudblood sons.

Riddle needed a win.

… --- …

At the Groom's dinner Harry gave Hermione, Molly and Arthur, Ron, Ginny, Emma and Dan the cases with the proceeds of the reward money from the Borgin capture. He gave Bill and Fleur the case that he'd received from the Bulstrode capture. Each of them protested and insisted that he take the gold back. Harry simply said, "I don't need it. I don't want it. You've been my family and I want to share it with you. Will you deny me that?"

Arthur said, "Thank you Harry. Surely there are others who need this more."

Harry said, "I made Minister Scrimgeour take the other half of the gold that he tried to give to me to start the Dale Dawlish memorial Auror fund and also to offer some compensation to Stan Shunpike for false imprisonment."

George said, "So it was you who got him released. We saw him the Leakey Cauldron the other day. I don't think he'll ever smile again."

Harry said, "Maybe you could find something for him to do at the shop. He lost his job with Knight Bus."

Fred said, "I'll find him on Monday and see if he's interested. If not, we'll at least try out our new cheering charm products on him."

… --- …

The next day was partly cloudy. Molly had finally let Harry bring Dobby and Winky over to help. By noon everything was in place. The florist and other deliverymen that Fleur's wedding planner had made arrangements with were busy setting up their equipment. Many of the guests would begin arriving in a few hours.

… --- …

Thirty miles to the north, Voldemort was meeting with two hundred Dementors.

… --- …

A/Ns

Thanks for the e-mails regarding snakes and future direction of the story.

Thanks Steve.

Don't worry, Bob will make his debut in chapter 8.

Who is on the Wizengamot?

Have the Royals been mentioned in any stories? Aug 31, 1997 was a sad day.