Charon

by LF74

No one knows what happened that Halloween night, but Jack Potter is named the Boy-Who-Lived. But what will happen to his brother, Harry, when he is sent to the Dursleys for 'safety'. What will he become? Powerful, Intelligent, Grey Harry. 3 years older than Canon. Alive Potters, Good intentioned but manipulative Dumbledore, AU, graphic in parts

22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

As Voldemort had expected, the Order of the Phoenix had imploded into near nonexistence. No one wanted to be lead into dangerous situations during a war against one of the most powerful Dark Lords in history by a man who had so willingly discarded two families that made up some of his most ardent followers, including their three young children.

Not another word had been spoken during that Order meeting before everyone silently trooped out to leave Dumbledore sat motionlessly in his chair. He had remained that way until Sirius had had the wards force him out, at which point he had shakily pushed himself from the pavement of Grimmauld Place, returned to his office and drank himself into a stupor. The familiar doubts had crept in accompanied by their unfamiliar friends, their silky whispers becoming louder and louder the more he drank, and as their words began to ring in his ears the urge to drink had only strengthened. Was he a monster, he had asked himself, just as Gellert had said when he had dragged him up the steps of Nurmengard? Was he fit to call himself the Leader of the Light? Was he worthy of the power that he wielded? Was he even worthy of the headmaster's office, or of any of the other positions that he held?

He came to the conclusion that no, he wasn't. A sound tactical decision leaking those two lines of prophecy may have been, but it was far from a good one. He should never have been made. He should have found another way, should never have authorised the deaths of, in all likelihood, at least one set of parents and possibly even a child who had barely seen their first year. But that did not mean he was going to relinquish his position as headmaster or as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Doing so would only give Tom the opportunity to gather more influence, and he knew that his presence at Hogwarts made Tom more hesitant to attack Hogsmeade, as close to the school as it was. It would only be a very slight hesitance now that he knew the contents of the prophecy, more for his forces than for himself, but it would likely still be there.

He mourned the loss of Sybil, eccentric and trying though she was, and not simply for the information that Tom had gained from her. It was just another time that he had failed and someone else had paid the price for it; first Ariana, then young Harry and now Sybil. It seemed his once golden touch had become black.

The Potters and the Longbottoms had been quite understandably… upset. All four had owled back the Order pendants that they had been given during the first war to allow them access to Hogwarts at any time. That wasn't the case anymore – whoever had repaired the wards had severed every unconditional entry connection that they could – so the pendants themselves were largely pointless. It was a purely symbolic gesture that said that they had left the Order, nothing more. It still felt like a knife to the gut.

James, Frank and Alice had all returned to work in the auror corps the a few days after and, if the rumour mill around the Ministry was to be believed, all three of them had been irritable, snappish and looked as if they hadn't slept in weeks. Neither Lily nor Jack had been seen for the next week, and with the war raging outside Hogwarts the disappearance of the Boy-Who-Lived had not gone unnoticed. Questions were being asked and whispers were being spread that he was being trained in secret, that he had been captured by Death Eaters or that he had fled in fear.

Dumbledore wished that Jack had not heard the contents of the prophecy the way he had but there was nothing to do for it now. He would be needed and would need to receive further training, if not from him then from others. Jack's nature would not allow anything less, certainly not to hide or to flee. Dumbledore hoped that he was not reading too far into the prophecy, particularly the line about neither being able to live while the other survives. That line was so cryptic that Jack's thoughts could run in rampant circles for days and still be no closer to deciphering it and with his worry increasing with each cycle of possibilities. Hopefully Jack would know what his power was, and if he didn't maybe it would strengthen his resolve and fan his hope. At least, Dumbledore hoped it would.

They had both returned to Hogwarts eventually and both had stayed as far as humanly possible from him, but he had expected as such. Jack seemed to be staying away in a mixture of anger, betrayal and disgust but Lily, she seemed to be avoiding him because she wasn't sure what she would do if she saw him. He had almost expected her to quit, maybe withdraw Jack from the school, but with the wards now restored and being strengthened even further almost periodically by the mystery heir Hogwarts was the safest place to be at the moment. Dumbledore doubted Lily was going to allow Jack out of her sight for longer than absolutely necessary now, especially with Jack inhabiting the same castle as him.

That had been nearly a month ago and still things were just as dire as they had been then. He wasn't really sure if the Order even truly existed now. There had been no communication since the meeting, though that may simply that he was being excluded from it, and without communication there had been no Order members attempting to intervene in the attack on an outlying muggle village the night before or in any of the other attacks in the past weeks. The village had been razed to the ground and dead littered the streets. The sight had brought tears to his eyes, both of sadness and of anger; such needless murder was an atrocity, and it could have been prevented if only the Order still lived. The only members of the 'core' group that had spoken even a word to him were Arthur, Molly, Dedalus, Elphias and Alastor, and even then it was not a particularly friendly conversation. All five had expressed understanding – though he didn't think any of them but Alastor truly did – of why he would do what he did, but none of them were able to fathom even considering actually doing so. None of them had had so many decades of experience removing their emotions to make difficult decisions, not even Alastor who was so often ruled by them. It sounded weak and cliché, but it wasn't personal. It was a purely tactical and mathematical decision to minimise the number of casualties, but while they could see that they still saw it through the lens of sentiment. None of them would ever fully understand why he did it, just as he would never forgive himself for doing so.

Elsewhere, Harry was far from pleased. He knew just as Dumbledore did that with Voldemort now aware that only one person could defeat him the attacks would increase and the casualties would increase along with them, even if he had the identity of that one person wrong. How Voldemort discovered the prophecy's contents had been a mystery to him until the news that all Divination lessons at Hogwarts had been cancelled trickled out of the castle. He wasn't sure how he had kidnapped her – he had strengthened the wards around Hogwarts enough that it would be almost impossible for anyone unauthorised to get in – but it could have happened elsewhere. There were rumours that she was an alcoholic so it was entirely possible she had been ambushed on her way back from the Three Broomsticks, but still he told both Sirius and Dora to keep their guard up around Snape. He didn't trust a supposedly reformed Death Eater, something that he doubted given what it was that Death Eaters did.

Finding out that both her and Sirius had given themselves away was frustrating, especially as Sirius wasn't forced into doing so like Dora was. His lack of impulse control was his most irritating character flaw, in Harry's opinion. It would make Dumbledore more suspicious and less likely to share significant information with them, so it was almost fortunate that the old man didn't have many allies to choose from right now anyway. The description of Dumbledore being attacked had also amused him in such a way that Dora had called him 'insensitive to the Longbottom's pain'. It hadn't gone unnoticed that she had excluded the Potters from that statement, knowing that he was perfectly sensitive to their pain only that he thought it well deserved. Really though, that was what they got for putting their absolute trust in someone, and especially in someone like Albus Dumbledore.

The fracturing of the Order though, that provided a problem. The aurors were understaffed, undertrained, overworked and possessed a debilitating fear that reared its ugly head every time they saw a bone white mask. Their response time was too slow and they were ruled by the politics of the Ministry, and that was without even considering Voldemort's spies and sympathisers that did all they could to make them even more ineffectual. Naïve though the organisation may have been as a whole they were still the only ones other than him who were countering the Voldemort's forces with any degree of success. Ultimately there was nothing he could do about it though; that letter had been a masterstroke on Voldemort's part.

Just then a regal black owl swooped in to Harry's living room and fluttered elegantly to perch on the back of his chair with an envelope clutched in its talons. The owl dropped the letter into Harry's outstretched hand and immediately flapped away out the window without even waiting for a reply. He broke the familiar seal with the Gringotts insignia stamped proudly into the wax before he began to read and felt a small grin work its way onto his face. Bulstrode, Selwyn and Carrow had tried to send him yet another letter with an obscure tracking charm on it, this time through a rather distant associate in the hopes that he wouldn't block it. Unknown to them, however, the goblins checked every piece of mail he received before it was forwarded to him for precisely that reason. It still surprised him how many potential 'clients' tried to send letters with various curses on them, especially given his reputation.

He had decided to set a trap for them by diverting the letter to some other property and covering every inch of the grounds with heavy duty explosive charms, the kind usually used by miners before the goblins gained their monopoly over precious metals and gems, at least in the wizarding world. He thought it was a rather good idea; it was likely that the heads of the indebted families would bring a group of Death Eaters with them to attack him so he would be able to easily erase a portion of Voldemort's army from existence, small though that portion would be. It would be a largely insignificant loss for the Death Eaters, but it could still do some significant damage depending on who they managed to convince to come with them.

Granted, it would probably paint a target on his back if there wasn't one already, but the chances of even Voldemort finding his home when he had the wards at full strength was slim. There were no records in the Ministry, no nearby towns and villages that could point them towards him. And besides, even if they did find his house, he had others.

~Scene Change~

It was the penultimate weekend before the Hogwarts students would board the Hogwarts Express to return home for the holidays and many of those that lived in the magical world had opted to stay behind the safety of the castle wards for the holidays, while the majority of those that lived in the muggle world were planning to leave the insanity of the wizarding world for a while. In their minds there was a much higher chance of Hogwarts being attacked than a perfectly unassuming house in muggle suburbia.

Jack Potter was going to be staying at Hogwarts along with his mother and his father who would be staying with them when he wasn't working in the auror office. They hated to stay so close to Dumbledore and behind the wards which he controlled but it was the safest option. Strong though the wards around Potter manor may be, they were weak when compared to those that surrounded Hogwarts. The last month had been the most trying of his life as he struggled to equate the grandfather like figure who had been doing his best to prepare him for Voldemort's return since he was nine years old and the man who threw his family to the wolves, quite willing to risk the deaths of him, Harry and his parents. He didn't know what to think, how to act or what to do, but he just knew that while he still respected Dumbledore for his defeat of Grindelwald and his record of opposing the dark forces in their world, where he once felt affection for him he now felt only anger and disgust.

And then there was the prophecy. His parents had long since told him that it would be him that defeated Voldemort and he had accepted that, both when he was first told and as he got older and understood the implications of the task a little better. But he had never thought for a second that it would truly have to be him. What if he failed and Voldemort killed him like every other wizard who had tried to halt him, most of which were considerably more skilled than he was? Would Voldemort then be as immortal as he claimed to be, free to slaughter as many people as he wanted in his crusade for power, toppling countries until there was nowhere else for him to conquer? If that happened then the world would crumble, both the wizarding world and the muggle one. All-out war would scar the earth and kill thousands or even millions of people.

And it was entirely up to him to stop it.

He had desperately racked his brain and searched within every inch of himself to determine what his power was, only to come up empty. He didn't have any special powers. He wasn't an elemental, he wasn't a beast master, a seer, a metamorphmagus, parselmouth or a prodigy in any particular branch of magic. He was powerful, yes, but not in the extreme. There were still students at Hogwarts who were more powerful than he was and he was dwarfed by the power someone like Dumbledore or Voldemort had wielded at his age. The not knowing was agonising, but there was nothing he could do but hope he somehow stumbled across it; not even his parents had any ideas.

And so, he had snuck into Hogsmeade with Ron and Hermione against the orders of his parents in an attempt to relax and try and feel like a normal kid, even if it was only for a second. He was currently hidden under his invisibility cloak and would remain under it until he knew that neither of his parents would spot him. He couldn't imagine the amount of trouble he would be in for this if they caught him. They had both come to the village along with the vast majority of the professors to supplement the already stifling auror contingent that was guarding them. It made him feel a little safer knowing that both of his parents were close by to protect him and the other students.

From his place close behind Ron and Hermione who were both whispering loudly enough that he could still join in the conversation he saw Tonks stood stiffly outside one of the many shops that had closed down that had once sold pets and pet things, for lack of a better term. He still remembered Hermione buying Crookshanks a knitted red and gold jumper from there in third year, and the darkened windows and eerie silence that now replaced the low meows of kneazles and the bright torches caused the increasingly familiar jolt of loss in his chest. It was only a shop that he had only been to once or twice, but it represented the freedom and the joy that was being sapped from them.

He still couldn't believe that she had found out something that neither Dumbledore nor the Unspeakables could. He supposed she really did have a friend who was an expert in coming back from the dead. Though he was slightly annoyed at her for keeping it secret when she told him he would tell her if it wasn't too sensitive but he couldn't really fault her much for wanting to keep a way of coming back from the dead quiet. Jack doubted his parents would have been particularly pleased that he gave her a copy of the memory when he wasn't allowed to but they had been far too occupied with the rest of the night's revelations to pay that fact any notice.

He put her out of his mind as he felt the warm air blast against him as they entered the three broomsticks and tried to push through the crowded pub to find a table. It was much harder to do so while invisible, but he really didn't want to give away that particular advantage when he was being hunted by the Dark Lord.

Outside, Tonks renewed her warming charms for a sixth time and continued to survey her surroundings for anything suspicious. She was always tense when she was on duty with Death Eaters lurking around every corner but now she could feel every one of her muscles quivering in preparation to react to those black cloaks and white masks. Her apprehension was not helped by the fact that she had yet to see any of the children of known Death Eaters in the village. They might be disgusting excuses of human beings but even they didn't want their children to die. She had already catalogued six possible areas that she could use as cover depending on where the attack came from and was constantly going through scenarios of what she would do should there be an attack as her eyes continued to scan the streets.

She still couldn't believe the students were even allowed into Hogsmeade at all. Why the board or even Dumbledore hadn't cancelled the visits was totally beyond her, and it was beyond Harry and Sirius as well. They just deemed it as even more evidence that Britain was the 'stupidest country in the magical world'. Having never been outside Britain as the two of them had she wasn't sure if what they said was true, but given how the Ministry and Wizengamot had acted ever since she could remember she certainly wasn't discounting it.

The crowd suddenly parted further down the high street as almost every male and the occasional female fell into a daze as a silvery haired woman dressed in jeans and a thick muggle jumper walked gracefully across the cobblestones. Fleur easily noticed her trademark bubblegum pink hair and began to glide towards her as Tonks looked at her in confusion. What was she doing here? Yes, she and Bill were still together but even then she would have thought she would have gone back to France. Obviously she had her job at Gringotts but she could quite easily ask to be transferred to the Paris branch or simply quit. Why would Fleur stay in a foreign country where there was a civil war raging between an ineffectual Ministry and a group of dark wizards who didn't even consider her human? It was a completely unnecessary risk.

"Fleur, what are you doing here?"

"Buying Gabby's present," she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver necklace from which a small orb that seemed to have an entire galaxy captured within it dangled, swaying in the wind, "Granted, it isn't as of high quality as the shop in Diagon Alley but it has closed down, annoyingly, and certainly not as good as what I could get in France but that won't matter to Gabby. She will love it."

"No, I mean why are here? I thought you would have gone back to France."

"And abandon my job that I enjoy and all the friends I have made in this country to the mercy of psychotic dark wizards? Would you do that?"

Fleur was looking at her intensely, as if daring her to answer. She probably thought that she was calling her a coward, albeit in a nicer way, and was expecting her to admit that no, she would have stayed. Tonks looked away before she answered and continued to scan her eyes across the groups of students who bustled from shop to shop with their heads bowed against the wind.

"If you'd asked me that a couple of years ago I would have said no, but I've had most of my naivety forced out of me by now. So yes, if I was you I would leave. They don't even see you as human, Fleur. You're just a creature to them, and we both know what they would do if they got a hold of you."

Fleur shivered slightly at that, and not because of the iced winds that knifed at her exposed skin. She was all too aware of what men like that did to veela and it made her want to run back to the relative safety of France. Her father had told her several times in an attempt to make her do just that. But she had made very few friends in her time at Beauxbatons due to her heritage and the haughty mask that she had used in her later years to hide the hurt that the sneers caused her, and that served only to make her cherish the few friends she had made in Britain all the more. She didn't think she would ever be able forgive herself if she abandoned them.

"It seems rather stupid to allow these visits to go on." Fleur said with a gesture towards the students who were still arriving in an attempt to move the topic away from such unspeakable horrors, a move that Tonks allowed.

"Stupid is the understatement of the century." She replied dryly even as her eyes continued to rove across the street.

Ever since she had first met Tonks Fleur had thought there at least a possibility of the metamorphmagus being a kindred spirit of sorts. They were both skilled witches in a wizard dominated profession, and veela and metamorphamagi had a somewhat similar reputation. That is to say people said they were sexual deviants who used their abilities to attract an endless list of lovers, which was normally the complete opposite to the truth. She was one of the few who might have a chance of understanding what she had gone through. Granted, she didn't have to deal with the allure but she would have experienced the constant sexualisation that was inflicted upon them by every wizard they passed.

They had only spoken briefly a handful of times after Order meetings but most of the time she and Sirius had left at the first possible opportunity. It was clear even to an idiot that they held a great deal of hostility for many of those in the room so their quick exit was understandable. It did have the effect of making it much harder for her to talk to the metamorphmagus, though.

Just as she was about to open her mouth to reply cracks of apparition echoed across the howling wind as countless Death Eaters appeared at either end of the high street in dense clumps of black cloaks and white masks. Immediately they started casting curses at the defenceless students who were dashing from shop to shop or setting the buildings in which they had taken shelter from the cold aflame, gleefully yelling as they did so. She could see one witch skipping along as her wand flashed green and another student dropped dead, her all too recognisable laugh sending shivers down Fleur's spine. At that very same moment the two witches felt strong wards snap into place around the village, far beyond the abilities of the average Death Eater, and they knew that there was no chance of getting out until the wards fell.

Fleur hardly had time to take in the sudden chaos before she was yanked into an adjacent alley, an orange curse shattering the glass where her head had been a second before. She saw a silvery rabbit bound away from the alley towards the school and swiftly had to back further into the alley to avoid the sudden hail of spellfire that appeared from all sides at the sight of it, crumbling the corners of the stone walls that they had hidden behind to dust. It wasn't a dead end, they could quite easily retreat and come back up in another alley to catch them unawares, but judging by the look on Tonks face running away in any form would never be an option.

"You take the ones on the left, I've got the right."

As soon as there was a slight respite in the curses that were peppering their hiding place they were both peering around their corner and returning fire with every curse they knew. All the spells her father had taught her when she was younger in case she needed to protect herself flowed easily out of her wand in a stream of vibrant colours and in those first few seconds almost a dozen Death Eaters fell lifelessly to the floor. The sight was almost enough to make her hesitate. Almost.

Some of the spells she was using were illegal both in France and in Britain, but her father's position first as Head Auror and later Minister gave him access to the spellbooks, and so he taught her them. 'Those who attack you will be breaking the law,' he had said, 'there's no sense in limiting yourself by not doing the same.' He had refused to tell her the effects of the spells until she had already mastered them, some of which had made her look at her father as if she hardly knew him. If ever there was a time to use such spells, though, it was now.

Despite the slowly growing numbers of lifeless Death Eaters that crowded the street the attacking force seemed to be hardly smaller than it had been minutes ago. There were aurors fighting desperately against the tide of Death Eaters that continued to swarm from all sides, their stunning spells and shields futile against the sickly green of the Killing Curse, and there were teachers and the rare few students doing what they could to defend themselves. Out of the corner of her eye she could see James and Lily Potter duelling in tandem against a group of at least six attackers and, somehow, winning. Others she recognised from Order meetings were doing the same – Mad Eye Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Emmeline Vance – but she didn't think it would be enough. Not when Voldemort had sent out his A-team, as proved by the incessant cackling of Bellatrix Lestrange as she duelled with Frank and Alice Longbottom that sent a continuous chill down her back.

Eventually the two witches were forced panting and bleeding back into the alley by the sheer volume of spellfire they were being held under. Her left arm had been clipped with a cutting curse and she had countless scrapes from the flying brick fragments that exploded every time a curse hit the wall and Tonks looked to be much the same, her face cut and her leg weeping from a nasty looking burn.

"Where the hell is Dumbledore!" she hissed.

Bastard he may be, but the appearance of Albus Dumbledore would undoubtedly scare a good number of Death Eaters scampering back to their master, but there was no sign of the old man's stupid beard or his equally stupid robes. They must have somehow warded against phoenixes to keep him out, something Fleur didn't even know was possible.

"Fuck it." Tonks muttered to herself as she cast yet another patronus, but instead of running towards the school it sprinted away.

When she looked back towards the metamorph she looked a little more at ease, as if she knew that this attack would soon be over. How she could be sure Fleur had no idea, she just knew that if Tonks was right that patronus must have been to someone damn special.

Bare seconds later the curses that had continued to shatter the stone of the walls behind which they hid stopped and the cries of the students were suddenly joined with another, altogether more satisfying melody: Death Eaters dying. Screaming, choking, shouting, crying. Fleur hated herself for finding it comforting, soothing in a way that she had never felt before. If they were dying then it meant that she wasn't.

Her eyes widened when she looked out from the alley, not at the slaughter, but at the man in the centre of it. Blonde hair, icy blue eyes, sharp features. She vividly remembered that same man stood in the ballroom of her house in France years ago, surrounded by corpses and covered in blood but yet with an almost disappointed look on his face, as if he had expected it to be more difficult. Her father had hired him in the weeks before he was elected as Minister after he was attacked in the middle of the French Ministry in broad daylight and it was only his own skill and a healthy dose of luck that kept him alive that day. The purebloods knew that he would win the election and they knew that he would champion the rights of those they considered vermin – veela, werewolves, vampires – so they had tried to have him killed to make sure that didn't happen. Knowing the huge influence that the purebloods possessed her father had turned down the ministry protection detail and hired a ghost story instead, a man many believed to be a figment of the underworld's imagination. Her father had said his name was Louis – a lie, though one that their defender never bothered to refute – and in those few weeks their home had been attacked on five separate occasions, and on five separate occasions the attackers had failed. He had disappeared as soon as the results of the election were read and her father was named Minister and neither her nor any other member of her family had ever seen him again. Until now, that was.

Where before she had only seen the aftermath she now watched him at work, ducking, weaving, cursing, killing. It was mesmerising, like watching the Reaper himself dance through the streets, and she almost forgot to continue casting against the scattered Death Eaters that were still cursing anything that moved. Where most wizards kept their distance from their opponent he did the opposite, getting in close and only killing them when he could see the whites of their eyes through their masks. Every curse he swerved to avoid hit another Death Eater and every bolt of light that left his wand or slash of the knife that was gripped in his left hand hit their target. Every single member of the battlefield that had once been a village turned to watch and many of them visibly shuddered.

The shout of one of the unmasked Death Eaters had most of the Death Eaters that had rushed to engage their attacker retreating to instead engage with the aurors and teachers that were still standing while he and two others strode forwards. As they got closer Fleur recognised them from the newspapers after Azkaban was raided: Rodolphus Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov and Augustus Rookwood. All fanatic followers of Voldemort and all among his most powerful. Louis or whatever his real name was was powerful and skilled, but against three of the most feared wizards of the last few decades?

Clearly Tonks knew him and when she turned to look at her Fleur was expecting to see some sort of worry on her face, but instead there was an anticipatory gleam in her eyes even if it was marred by the slight frown on her lips. Clearly she didn't like watching her friend, or maybe he was more, kill so many people, even if it was unavoidable. For split second they caught eyes and Tonks said one simple sentence before she turned her attention back to the Death Eaters that were now running towards them.

"They have no chance."

They watched out of the corner of their eyes as he smiled to himself as the three unmasked Death Eaters approached, his wand twirling happily between his fingertips, seemingly completely at ease. It was Lestrange who cast the first curse, a rippling brown spell that was swiftly swatted aside, and then his two companions joined him, casting spell after spell that forced Louis behind his shield by their sheer volume. A split second later a long, pink spell erupted from his wand and twirled like a ribbon along the floor, arcing around his shield and separating Dolohov from his ankles. A blasting curse smashed into his falling body and sent him skidding across the floor even as blood splashed in every direction. She hadn't even seen him move.

He spun out from behind his shield and summoned a table into the path of a Killing Curse and banished its splinters straight back towards Lestrange and Rookwood who were forced to conjure sheets of rock to stop the slivers of wood that would have undoubtedly gone straight through them. He didn't let up though, walking towards them even as he ducked below curses or swatted them back towards their casters. Rookwood had disappeared from beside Lestrange beneath a disillusionment charm, presumably in an attempt to attack from two angles and catch him unaware, and Louis didn't seem to have noticed.

Fleur wanted to shout out a warning to him but couldn't before there was a flash of orange from the seemingly empty space behind him, a spell that he noticed too late to avoid completely. The skin on his neck burnt as if sprayed with acid and he turned, snarling like a wounded animal and a fiery chimera burst from his wand, roaring as it pounced on the invisible wizard and turned empty space to ash. The Fiendfyre ceased with a flick of his wand even as fragments of stone and wood continued to jump into the path of the curses that Lestrange had continued to cast and the green gem on the butt of his wand glowed eerily as he turned to face his last opponent. Even from her position Fleur saw Lestrange's eyes widen as a bulging purple curse sped from his wand and he hastily raised his strongest shield in front of him, an opaque silver dome that stretched at least three feet either side of his body. It wasn't enough. The spell seemed to stick to the shield for a second, pushing and pushing until finally Lestrange's shield buckled and snapped inwards. His body compressed in on itself as if pulled into a black hole, his joints and bones snapping as his legs and arms were pulled into his torso until he was nothing but a chest and a head, a head whose mouth was agape as what looked to be his liver was forced out.

It was the most disgusting thing Fleur had ever seen.

Many of the Death Eaters tried to apparate but couldn't, the aurors clearly having raised their own anti apparition wards over theirs, and so they started to run towards the edge of the village. At the sight of her husband's death Bellatrix's laughter became a rage-filled screamed and she cast an overpowered blasting curse into the floor in front of the Longbottoms, sending them flying through the shattered window of Scrivenshaft's storefront. She looked ready to storm down the street towards Louis, who looked as if he would welcome such a thing, but before she could a gloved hand grasped her arm and started to pull her after the retreating pack. Her tip of her wand was glowing green and half way to his chin before she recognised him and she struggled for a second before following, though she continued to cast curses over her shoulder as she did so.

Louis cast one last bright blue spell into the clouds that instantly began to darken and squirm together as thunder growled from above until suddenly he flicked his wand downwards and countless bolts of lightning struck the group of fleeing Death Eaters as they reached the edge of the wards, the bright red flashes of the auror reinforcements' stunning spells and the rainbow of Death Eater retaliations visible even from here.

Louis's face was completely expressionless as he surveyed the slaughter around him, seemingly unperturbed by the blood that trickled through the crevices in the cobblestone street or the corpses that were sprawled haphazardly around him. His wand flicked through the air as he cast a human revealing spell, causing a pale glow to surround eight bodies – the Death Eaters who had been stunned and left by their brethren, all lying motionless on the floor. Eight jets of light sped from his wand and the glows vanished into nothingness, the men they had surrounded now each with a coin sized hole in their forehead. His expression hadn't changed in the slightest.

He looked momentarily thoughtful, his head tilted sideways slightly, before his face twisted into a sneer and he pressed the tip of his wand against his neck, causing a cold, flat voice to echo through the silent village.

"Valkyrie, Terminus, I know these wards are your work. Run."

The wards fell immediately.

The moment they felt them fall dozens of aurors appeared in a series of cracks as Dumbledore appeared in a flash of flame. Many of them looked to be having trouble keeping control of their stomachs at the sight of the body-littered high street, and some couldn't as there were scattered sounds of retching and heaving amongst the group. Dumbledore was staring, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, at the man stood quite calmly in the middle of it with the fingers of his left hand twitching seemingly at random and his wand spinning in his palm, though he was clearly ready to repay any attack on him in kind. No attack came; no one was willing to curse the man who had just done what he had.

"Who are you?" a strong voice demanded, but a waver could be easily heard in even her voice.

"Come now, Madam Bones. You know exactly who I am, you just didn't think I existed before. I would expect a bit more gratitude, if I'm honest," he said, gesturing towards the dozens of wands that were still pointed at him, "I did just stop an attack that would have cut your population by a pretty sizeable percentage."

"You are wanted for murder and a whole host of other crimes in multiple countries, including this one. You're under arrest." The newly arrived Minister Scrimgeour growled as he forced his way pale-faced through the crowd. Moody, Madam Bones and Shacklebolt gave him dark looks as he approached that he studiously ignored.

Louis simply raised his eyebrow at the Minister as his fingers continued to twitch, something that seemed to infuriate Scrimgeour, until the twitching ceased and a small mocking smile appeared on his face.

"Good luck with that. I've still got things to do."

And with that he disapparated soundlessly as several of the more enthusiastic aurors cast stunning spells at him, leaving an infuriated minister, several unconscious aurors and a street full of corpses in his wake. Tonks gave her a significant look as she and the other aurors were reposted around the village in case any Death Eaters still remained or in case there was another attack trying to catch them while they weren't expecting it, unlikely though it was. Voldemort's forces would be too busy licking their wounds to attack for a while. She gave a small nod in response; she wouldn't tell anyone that it was Tonks who called him here, but she was certainly going to be talking to her about it at the first available opportunity.

Ministry house elves appeared to remove the bodies before anyone was forced to see more than they already had; the dead civilians, aurors and students would be returned to their families and the dead Death Eaters, well, no one cared enough to ask what happened to them. Medics weaved from building to building to treat injured students, teachers and civilians alike while the uninjured and those with slight scrapes and bruises were herded towards Hogwarts. Small groups of people were huddled together as they trudged up the now clean street, be it for comfort or simply to talk about what they had seen.

Through it all Dumbledore stood in the middle of the street, surveying the wreckage with blank eyes. He felt an immeasurable amount of guilt crushing down on him; students, civilians and aurors all died because he wasn't here to protect them. Had he been here he could have saved at least some of them, but he wasn't, and so they had died. The moment Nymphadora's patronus reached him he was grasping for Fawkes tail with his wand in hand, ready to do all he could to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, but yet Fawkes had been unable to do anything. The only thing that could stop him was anti-phoenix wards, and they were extremely difficult to cast and just as obscure; few people knew they even existed. Fawkes had taken him as close to the village as he could but even then he had been unable to do anything but futilely attempt to get through. Never before had the wards surrounding one of Tom's raids been this strong or this extensive, and so he had been forced to watch as his students were murdered. He had never felt so helpless or so immensely angry in all his life.

And then their saviour had come. It was not the knight in shining armour that Dumbledore would sometimes consider himself, instead this was a demon in the form of a man. A savage who could so easily scythe through dozens of people, awful though they were, without even hesitating. The sort of man who Dumbledore would have once despised and had once considered the very epitome of evil. But now he was forced to consider, had he gone in there with his mercy and his morals, would more innocent people have died? He was forcibly reminded of what Lord Nightshade had said to him at the end of that Wizengamot session: "you don't kill when it is needed because of your perceived moral superiority that you cling to so desperately, and you let innocent people die because you aren't willing to do what needs to be done."

Was he right?

~Scene Change~

The very moment that she was relieved of duty Tonks apparated to Harry's house with a dark scowl on her face. Yes, he had come when she called and saved her life as well as many more by doing what he had done and she couldn't begrudge him his methods in doing so; the Death Eaters were casting Killing Curses at children, and that made any spell he used to stop them acceptable to her.

But what she couldn't and wouldn't accept was what he did afterwards. Those men were unconscious and defenceless, and even if they were to miraculously wake up they were hopelessly outnumbered. Their fate was sealed already; trial followed by imprisonment in Azkaban. But instead, Harry had killed them when they weren't even awake to defend themselves. Objectively, she knew that had those men gone anywhere near Harry while they were conscious she would have had very few problems if he put a piercing hex between their eyes just as he had done, but they weren't conscious. There was something about killing someone when they couldn't defend themselves that was just so inherently awful to her, something that only Dark Wizards like Grindelwald or Voldemort would do.

She stormed into his office, catching a sliver of surprise on his face as the door banged against the stone wall.

"You didn't need to kill them! They were already stunned, they couldn't do anything!" she yelled and Harry stared at her like she had grown another head.

For several seconds he continued to stare before his face melted into a disappointed expression.

"Yes, they were stunned," he said with a sneer in his voice, "and they would have been interrogated for information that they wouldn't know. They were grunts, cannon fodder; if they weren't they wouldn't have been left and they wouldn't have been dropped by a stunner in the first place. They knew nothing of any importance. And then they would have been sent to Azkaban, the very same prison that Voldemort has already liberated on one occasion, and now without the dementors it would be even easier. And then they would be back on the street, killing more people, raping more women and burning more villages.

"But let's say for the sake of argument that Voldemort never broke the prisoners of Azkaban out again and they stayed there. You can't possibly think that they should ever be released – I know you are not so stupid or naïve that you think such people can be rehabilitated – so they would remain incarcerated for the rest of their miserable lives. How is that any worse than dying? If anything I saved them from decades of suffering and loneliness."

"They were defenceless!"

"And so were every one of the muggles they killed, every one of the children they murdered and every one of the women they raped. Don't make them out to be innocent people. Personally I'd hardly call them people at all. Anyone who can get such pleasure from killing innocents is not human, not really. They're nothing more than animals masquerading as human beings. You think I killed them in cold blood, which to be fair is true, but I didn't do it for the sake of it. I did what I have been doing for years: I replaced evil with death, and the world is better off for it."

She was scared despite herself by the glimpse into the persona he had kept so well hidden. It was the side that she had pretended wasn't truly there and she had almost convinced herself that it wasn't. She had thought she had known what he was. Even after he had shown them that memory all those months ago she hadn't thought that he was like this. Those men were knowingly defending a building where kidnapped girls were being imprisoned, and they were trying to kill Harry and stop him from rescuing them. Those murders were justified, the lives of those men were snuffed out by necessity so that innocent people could live. This was not like that.

"Your stubborn sense of right and wrong just blinds you to seeing the truth." He continued, "What I did was not an honourable killing, I'm not saying it was, but that phrase is an oxymoron anyway. Life is the most precious gift of all and very rarely is it honourable to snatch that away from someone, but that doesn't mean that it is not necessary to do so."

"But you don't get to choose if they should die or not! That isn't your decision!"

"Why not me? It's the right decision and one that neither the Wizengamot nor the Ministry would make because the people with power are either sympathisers, light wizards who would rather harp on about rehabilitation and sinking to their level or people who just don't have the guts to do what needs to be done."

Tonks let her head fall back and took deep breaths to calm herself. It was like arguing with a petulant child who was convinced that they were right and would never even consider any other viewpoint.

"Will you stop? You're not always right, you do realise that? Don't be so damn arrogant."

"I'm not arrogant, I'm confident. There's a difference. And I have earned every ounce of that confidence doing things that neither you nor almost anyone else could even dream of doing. I am not arrogant." he snapped back at her.

"You just think you're better than everyone don't you? Smart, powerful, skilled, rich. Related to some of the oldest and most notorious bloodlines to ever use a wand, blessed with not one but two of the rarest magical traits in the world. The perfect wizard. There's no way you could possibly be wrong."

She was almost snarling at this point as everything came to a head and the unbothered look on his face only infuriated her more. Harry's silence was answer enough and she resisted the urge to curse him with not inconsiderable difficulty.

"Fine. But someday you will be wrong and your arrogance will come back to bite you, and it damn well better not be me, Sirius or Anaïs that pays the price for it."

She knew bringing up Anaïs was a low blow, but maybe that would be the one thing that would make him see sense. The pissed off look in his eyes dashed that hope and she stormed out before he could retaliate while he sat and stewed, grumbling to himself internally.

~Scene Change~

"Who the hell was that, Mad-Eye?" Emmeline Vance asked.

They were all huddled around the familiar table in Sirius's kitchen, all wanting to know the same thing: who was the man who had so effortlessly scythed through the Death Eaters in Hogsmeade.

The Order had stopped meeting after they found out the truth behind Albus Dumbledore, but after today's attack an emergency meeting had been called. Dumbledore had, of course, been left out of that message. Moody was sat at the head of the table with the Potters and Longbottoms to either side of him, each licking their respective wounds. Frank's left arm was in a sling while the Skele-Gro worked its magic and Lily had a thick, foul smelling paste smeared across her leg to soothe the burn from a curse she had been unable to avoid. The Weasleys were huddled together in the middle of the table and the rest were scattered around the far end or leant against counters. Tonks was in the corner with Sirius, whispering to him about the possible problem of Fleur and deliberately avoiding looking in her direction where she was sat next to Bill, discreetly trying to catch her eyes.

"That was a ghost. Calls himself Charon, what the Greeks called the Ferryman of Souls. Damn edgy name, I bet all the other mercenaries laughed at him behind his back at first. Probably stopped just as quick as well. Best wand for hire in the magical world, so good that when the stories of what he's done started reaching the ears of the world's ministries we all collectively called it bullshit. Some of the stuff they say he's done, no way we thought. Nothing more than a ghost story. But then he starts taking more and more contracts, getting a name for himself, and then ministries started hiring him. I know for a fact that he took out a group of Dark Wizards in Spain that were really starting to get themselves a following. The fuckers killed over three dozen aurors, the Spanish Ministry hires him and they're all dead within days. If he's opposing Voldemort, well this thing might just be winnable."

"But the prophec-"

"Fuck the prophecy." Moody interrupted. "Divination is a sham, pure and simple. No way is a kid going to beat him, and even if it is true that doesn't mean he has to duel him. Someone else could beat him, have the snake faced freak tied up in ropes and then Jack just has to be the one to put the piercing hex between the bastard's eyes."

No one had anything to say after that and Moody surveyed the room with an electric blue eye before he nodded to himself and retook the seat he had jumped out of in his agitation.

"Now, I'm going to say something none of you are going to like but you're all going to damn well listen before you jump down my throat." He growled, and after a few seconds pause he continued.

"We need Albus back."

As expected much of the room erupted into shouting, not least from the Potters and the Longbottoms who were glaring at Moody with anger and not a little betrayal. Moody let them yell for a few seconds before he stood from his chair again and slammed his fist against the table.

"I said LISTEN!" he roared and the shouting instantly quietened as he began to pace.

"I hate what he did as much as you all do, but like it or not the man is a powerful wizard with just as much influence. He's been making connections with different people in different positions in countries across the whole magical world for decades. He always said that Voldemort was going to come back, what do you think he was doing while he waited for it to happen? Sat there with his thumb up his arse whistling a dotty old tune and eating sherbet lemons? He's been networking with people in every damn department to prepare. You all seriously think we don't need that right about now? And that's not even mentioning his ability in an attack. Half of those little twerps that attacked those kids today would have turned tail and ran as soon as he turned up! Like it or not we need him, and not having him in this group because of personal feelings is going to get a whole lot of people killed."

The Potters and Longbottoms had looks of loathing on their faces at even the mention of Albus Dumbledore, but they couldn't deny the accuracy of what Moody was saying. Dumbledore was a smart man and there was no way he would have wasted even a second of those years while he waited for Voldemort to come back, and there was no denying that Death Eaters would retreat at the mere sight of him. Even after sixty years Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwald carried a great deal of weight, as did his duels with Voldemort in the first war.

No more was said on the subject as the discussion moved towards the attack itself. Sixteen aurors, thirteen students and nineteen civilians had been killed and over seventy people had been injured badly enough to need a stay in St Mungos. Fifty two Death Eaters had been killed and another twelve had been captured far enough away from Charon that they weren't picked up by his revealing spell, otherwise they would have been killed too. Moody wished they had been a little closer; with the dementors gone Voldemort could raid Azkaban whenever he felt like it and those bastards would be back on the streets again.

The reappearance of Voldemort's most dedicated followers like the Lestranges, Rookwood, Travers and even Barty Crouch Jr was sure to wreak havoc on the collective mind of the wizarding world, especially considering that Barty Crouch Jr was supposed to be dead. If not only Voldemort himself but his followers could come back from the dead then there was going to be mass panic. They hoped that the appearance of this Charon character would give the general population a little hope that the Death Eaters could be beaten, and the majority of the group hoped that he would continue to help. The deaths of Rodolphus Lestrange, Rookwood and Dolohov were a welcome gift.

Eventually the meeting came to an end and, despite not actually achieving anything, all the members felt a little better now that the Order was alive and kicking once again, even if only just. The Potters and the Longbottoms would spend long hours thinking about what Moody had said, trying to separate the benefits and drawbacks of having Dumbledore in the Order for the entire wizarding world from their own personal feelings of hatred.

As everyone trooped out Fleur made eye contact with Tonks who made an imperceptible flick of her head upwards before she walked out. She stayed in her chair for another minute, hardly listening to Bill's conversation to his mother and his half-hearted attempts to draw her into it. She couldn't stand the woman anyway and she was sure that the feeling was mutual.

Once she was sure that there was no one in the entry hall she stood and bent to give Bill the expected kiss on the cheek before she left and walked straight up the stairs. All the doors were closed but for one on the third floor where she could see flickering light stretching out of the half open door and she quickly slipped inside. The room itself was completely bare but for three chairs around a small table, two of which were already occupied.

"He was your friend that told you about the ritual?" she breathed as the pieces clicked into place.

Sirius gave her a heavy look and pointed towards the still half open door that clicked shut with a flick of his wand as privacy wards sprung into place around them.

"Yes, he is," Tonks said warily, "but now that you know that, what are you going to do? Obviously if it gets out that I know him then they could try to get to him through me, or capture me and use legilimency to find out about him. As I'm under oath it would kill me, and then they would know everything about him. We don't want to have to memory charm you, but we will if we have to."

She was a little unsettled that they would be willing to memory charm her, but then she would likely be willing to do the same if she were in their position.

"Oh no, I just want to meet him. My father hired him once, when he was running for minister," she continued at their strange looks, "and while he was there he saved us more than once. We didn't really see much of him even when he was staying in our house so I've never had the chance to say thank you. If the men attacking us had succeeded my father would have been killed and my mother, my sister and I would likely have been kidnapped and sold."

Neither Tonks nor Sirius were entirely sure what to say to that. Harry had never mentioned her, even when Fleur herself was mentioned when talking about the Order.

"We'll ask him, but he's not really that… friendly, I guess." Sirius said finally.

Sirius honestly doubted that Harry would say yes, but he would ask at least. It might do him some good to talk to someone other than him, Tonks or Anaïs. Fleur simply nodded as she stood and made to leave, but paused just before she reached the door.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone that you know him. I owe both you and him that much, at least."

And then she left, leaving two thoughtful yet relieved cousins. They wondered what Harry would say.

~Scene Change~

Voldemort was livid. His attack had failed, his true re-emergence ruined and over sixty of his followers had been killed or captured, all because of a single wizard.

Antonin, Augustus and Rodolphus, all dead. Bellatrix had been in a rage when she returned, sending blasting curses in every which direction as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Rabastan had been in a similar state and they only quietened when they kneeled before him, and even then he could hear their heavy breathing and see their fingers twitching in anger. The loss of Rodolphus and Antonin would be keenly felt, but not as much as Augustus. The man had been a virtual goldmine of information he had gathered during his time in the Department of Mysteries, and now all that was lost.

To make matters even worse, each and every one of the witches and wizards he had hired to aid his cause had left, along with almost all of those he knew to be intimately familiar with the wizarding underworld. The warders, the curse breakers, the beast masters and the skilled combatants that he needed to be victorious, all gone. The few that remained told him stories of the man who had slaughtered his Death Eaters in Hogsmeade, tales of the Ferryman who had spilled more blood and felled more men than almost anyone alive or dead. Tales of butchery on a biblical scale and with an almost unattainable skill. It was impossible. Even he, Lord Voldemort, would struggle to do some of what they said. But they said it was true, that they had seen him, and the vacant terror in their eyes told him they spoke the truth.

One of the hired wands had been caught before he could escape, and he had held him under his cruciatus until the man's vocals cords had begun to bleed, and then he had asked if he truly feared this Ferryman more than he feared Lord Voldemort.

The man said yes.

When asked why the man had replied with something that Voldemort didn't think he would ever forget, the blood that spilled from between the man's lips and the broken look in his eye making it all the more chilling. It had sent a sliver of a near forgotten emotion trickling down his back, one that was becoming more and more familiar to him. Fear.

"You are controlled by hate and by rage, and no matter how much you try you will never be able to rid yourself of that weakness. But him, he is the opposite. He controls it and lets it fuel him, and there is nothing more terrifying in this world than a man whose own hate gives them purpose. You kill for your own enjoyment, he kills for the sake of killing. You are a monster, but him, he is Death."

Death. He had already beaten Death, just as he would beat this Ferryman and drag his corpse through the streets. There was only one who could beat him, and Jack Potter would never be more than an insect compared to the might of Lord Voldemort. But still, this man would be more of an opponent to his cause than Albus Dumbledore ever was should he continue to thwart his attacks and butcher his Death Eaters. He would have to be dealt with, but not killed. Not straight away, anyway. Some of the magic that he wielded even he, Lord Voldemort, had never encountered, and he wanted access to that knowledge. Once he knew, though, then he would kill him in the most painful way possible for interfering in his plans.

The great oaken door creaked as a lowly Death Eater entered his chambers with his head bowed towards the ground. He had left specific instructions not to disturb him and the boy gulped at the malice in Lord Voldemort's red eyes as he hurriedly dropped to his knees and kissed the hem of his master's robes.His Death Eaters always looked terrified when they were sent to retrieve him and it never failed to send a satisfied tingle along his spine even despite his annoyance at being disturbed. They were right to fear him; he was Lord Voldemort, an immortal who walked amongst mere men, a wolf amongst sheep. But this time there was an extra note of dread in the boy's eyes that belonged to another, and that angered him as much as it troubled him. How could this wizard fear someone more than him?

"My Lord, there is someone here to see you. It… its Felix Dirlewanger, my Lord."