Chapter 3
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
-Sun Tzu
Sometime Later – Hogwarts Court Yard.
##### now called Harry James Potter sat on a pile of rubble in the Hogwarts courtyard rolling his new wand between his fingers trying to ignore the blood that was slowly dripping down his hand from several deep cuts as it mixed with the rain before slowly dripping onto the courtyard stones.
Mental note he thought to himself tiredly, as he watched the blood dripping off the tip of his finger with detached interest; Remember to clean up any traces of my blood before I leave. I don't want anyone doing something, funky with it. A simple ritual should do it, he was sure there was quite a lot of his blood splattered all about the castle from all the fighting. Not to mention what could have been easily picked up over the years from all of Harr... no his escapades. He reminded himself. Even with all of Harry's memory's it was difficult not to think of himself as #####, he guessed he would get used to it in time.
Sighing he looked up into the starless night's sky. Closing his eyes as he let the rainfall on his face so he didn't have to look at the several body parts laying about the courtyard, or what looked like someone's arms trapped in one of the walls. Thankfully the dark hid everything else, he had more than enough images to haunt him in the coming years. Absently he noted that only two of the body parts laying about seemed to belong to human beings.
The rain felt cool, relaxing against his face and brought some small comfort to his soul. Harry hoped the rain could wash away some of the blood and grime on his face. He'd never felt so tired in either of his lives, even with all of the training he had done in that space between worlds to prepare for coming here. Even with all that hard work, planning and training. Voldemort and his army hadn't gone down easy. Several broken ribs more cuts than he could count and a bad burn on the back of his right arm attested to that.
3hrs earlier
The screaming is the thing that stuck with him the most. Everyone was screaming, some were screaming in fear, some in pain but everyone seemed to be screaming.
He had followed the script whispered to Narcissa about Draco. Managed to break free at the right time helping Hagrid get back into the castle while Neville killed the snake. Everything got very confusing at that point. Voldemort was going insane at the death of his soul jar and throwing curses at everything around him. They had only just managed to get everyone inside and close the doors before Voldemort, had managed to pull himself together and launch a stream of fire at the castle so hot that he could feel the heat even through the thick doors. Thankfully the protections woven into the castle held. Though he knew they wouldn't for long against that level of attack. Several more attacks shook the whole castle in quick succession, by the time he managed to get everyone to the walls to launch a counter attack he could feel the magic in the old castle starting to fail.
Fire and counter fire from the walls held the attackers back for a time. But Voldemort quickly grew angry when the walls, wouldn't fall to his, or his follower's attacks quickly enough. So next he brought in several giants to attack the walls. Even with more than thirty witches and wizards launching focused attacks on them they weren't able to bring them all down fast enough before they managed to cause several breaches in the walls. And from there it degenerated into a general melee as Voldemort's forces poured in through the breaches. Quickly he'd pulled everyone back, and organised them into groups to hold the upper floors at choke points. Moving from group to group helping where he could to hold back the tide.
He knew that he had to hold back on his magic, anything too overt might send Voldemort running if he felt like he was losing control of the situation. Harry knew this battle was going to be a long slog, even as much as he knew he could overwhelm any group he was fighting alone fairly easily if he tried. So he held back, and grit his teeth as people died around him, knowing there was nothing he could do till he could find Voldermort, and put him down like the mad dog he was.
He knew Voldemort wouldn't show himself until he thought he held all the cards. Letting his slaves wear everyone down before he'd risk himself in direct battle, so he knew he had to grit his teeth and not go overboard with his magic or Voldemort might run.
an hour or two later, he wasn't sure he looked out one of the windows as he was running down a corridor chasing what he thought was one of Greybacks werewolves when he noted the sun was just setting. The cloudy sky turning a blood red, as he paused for a moment at the feeling of dread that the sunset brought. As the light quickly faded things really kicked off. All of Voldemort's dark creatures that never showed up in the books/movies came out of the forest and started attacking everyone, vampires fed without fear he saw several dementors attacking whoever was closest uncaring which side they were on, hags grabbing the youngest to eat, dozens of inferi roaming about soaking up attacks for the wizards behind them so they could lunch there own attacks without fear.
Moving through the castle as quickly as he could looking for Voldemort. Knowing it was the only way to end the fighting. Harry came upon a group of his classmates who had been trapped in a classroom and were trying to fend off a large swarm of Inferi. Several holes had been blown in the walls, and half a dozen students were trying to cover them all. Death Eaters and several Vampires stood further back down the corridor watching the students struggle to hold back the Inferi laughing as one of the students was dragged screaming through one of the holes and torn to bloody pieces and eaten by the undead creatures, while his classmates nearby could do nothing as they tried to defend themselves against the rest of the horde of undead.
Up until this point he had been holding back as much as he could, trying not to kill anyone, but when he saw the looks on the Death Eaters faces as they watched a child being eaten alive. Well At that point he stopped holding back. Harry's memories were screaming at him that he should charge in and unleash his magic on them not giving them time to respond.
Thanks to his Occlumency training, he pushed that first impulse to one side. He was unseen in the flickering shadows of the corridor at the moment and the smell of blood and screaming was covering him from the vampire senses for the moment.
Taking a deep breath at what he was about to do, knowing it would change him forever but knowing that this was war and he couldn't afford to keep going easy on the opposition. And more importantly, this is what he had signed up for. There would be far worse things he would have to do in the future.
Using one of his own special spells he had created using the Eldar from Warhammer 40k as inspiration while training in limbo. Aiming for the most dangerous threats first he let his magic flow through his wand while letting his imagination and will shape it to his desires. Pulling back his wand and making a whipping motion dozens of black threads quickly snapped out of the tip of his wand, almost invisible in the low light. Making the threads have a cutting edge of only one micron. The black threads following his will quickly flowed down the corridor wrapping lightly around the Inferi and vampires unnoticed in the shadowy corridor as they laughed at their sport. With a thought and a pulling motion, the threads constricted tightly around their bodies. Slicing them apart with almost no resistance. To everyone else around it looked like the bodies had simply fallen to pieces, the Death Eaters, looked on in shock as they had seen their allies suddenly falling to pieces right in front of them. While the vampires and Inferi didn't have much blood in them, but the smell from having there internal organs slopping out of their bodies onto the floor caused everyone to pause for a moment trying to figure out what had happened. Several of the Death Eaters retched when they saw what had happened to their allies.
Not stopping as the Death Eaters gaped at what had just happened, another sweeping motion with his wand and a wave of absolute zero flowed down the corridor turning the walls white with frost as the magic dropped the air temperature to a little below -183 kelvin (liquid oxygen temp.) Breathing heavily as he struggled to keep the magic under control and contained to his will and not harm any of his classmates. The wave of invisible cold hit the Death Eaters freezing them in place like statues before they even realised what was happening to them. Only one lucky Death Eater at the back of the group survived the attack with only his arm in the area of effect.
The young man looked at his frozen arm in horror, turning to try and run he tripped over his robe falling down. His frozen arm, shattered into a hundred pieces as his arm hit the ground. A high pitched shriek echoed down the corridor.
Without a word, Harry left his shadowy hiding spot, (Ignoring the screams that were coming from the classroom, as his classmates had felt the cold even if it only just brushed past them.) Moving quickly down the corridor to the screaming Death Eater. A simple cutting curse across his neck ended his pitiful wails. looking around he checked that all the dead body's on the ground were still and not still moving. Noting that most had been frozen solid by his second attack.
As he moved down the corridor Harry Checked around making sure that he had got all of the attackers in his surprise attack. Several Death eaters were frozen in place like statues since they had frozen so quickly, looks of surprise/shock on all of their faces. Looking around at the frozen statues it took less than a moment to decide what to do with them. Another flick of his wand saw the statues shattered into tiny pieces. He didn't want to risk someone reviving them somehow.
Moving towards one of the holes in the wall he called out who he was not wanting to get a spell in the face from the terrified students within. Calling out again into the silence, who he was and that he was coming in. Peeking around the corner of the hole he saw his classmates standing there with their mouths open at what had happened in less than twenty seconds.
All of their attackers were dead, and it had been Harry Potter who'd done it. Looking around he quickly noted a couple of students at the back of the room who were out cold while only four remained on there feet, though he noted one of the girls seemed to be bleeding pretty badly from her side. Quickly moving to check on the two unconscious ones showed they were suffering from magical exhaustion. He was quite surprised when he saw Daphne Greengrass tearing a large strip of material from her robe to making a bandage for the other girl.
"How is she?"
Harry asked. He knew they couldn't stay here for long more would be coming soon. Daphne looked up from where she was badging the girl's side. She looked a mess and had several shallow cuts that were bleeding, and her face was covered in soot. But even then she looked like she had everything under control.
"Not too bad now that you've shown up."
Both boys took the opportunity to slump down in exhaustion.
"No time for that! Back on your feet, this isn't a safe spot. You need to get up to the seventh floor and take the room of requirement out of the school. You're all on the verge of magical exhaustion, I'll come with you as far as the secret passage to the sixth floor and you'll have to make your way from there."
Harry barked. One of the boys looked like he was going to complain. A sharp look from him shut that down. Motioning for them to go and get their unconscious classmates. Turning to the bleeding young woman he could see that the makeshift bandage didn't seem to be doing much to stop the bleeding. Trying to think of who she was he couldn't find anything more than a vague memory of her at meal times in Harry's memories.
Smiling reassuringly at the girl as she looked up at him with a face pale from blood loss. Weaving his wand above the girl leaving several bright lines above the girl with his movements.
Less than a minute later the diagnostic spell was complete. Asking the girl's name in a soft tone, and with a gentle smile as he could manage at the moment. As he waited for the results from the spell. He had to fight to keep a straight face at the readings he was getting back. Healing wasn't his strong suit, not enough time or the right mind set for it he had been told. But he had made sure he learned as much as he could while in Limbo, it was too useful not to know at least the basics of magical healing. But this was way beyond his skill level to fix.
Looking at the young girl's barely conscious face. She told him her name was Melody from Hufflepuff. Coughing up some blood as she spoke, he could see she was trying to keep a brave face but was terrified. He still couldn't remember anything about her. But Harry had never been what you would call social around the school.
From the readings, he was getting back from his spell if he didn't do something quick the girl would be dead in less than five minutes.
Something must have shown on his face as Daphne scowled at him, in a low voice.
"What's wrong with her?"
Trying to think of a way to help the girl within the limited time he had. He quickly realised that he was wasting time, he looked at the three still awake students and the two floating ones behind them. Looking at Melody, with a serious face, he tried not to sigh, knowing there was only one thing he could do to save her and it could seriously harm him if he messed it up.
"I don't have time to explain, but you've been cursed it's called Confracta Ossa. It's a nasty spell. The spell is winding around your bones and feeding off your magic, in a few minutes at best all your bones will shatter like glass. I'm going to have to purge the foreign magic from your system before it kills you. I need all of you to stand watch, this is going to take all my concentration."
Ignoring Melody as she went even whiter, and Greengrass, as she got the others to stand watch he looked at Melody, taking both her hands in his own. While giving a reassuring smile he dove inwards following the flow of his own magic and then into Melody's looking for the foreign magic that was slowly winding itself around the young woman's bones. Less than two minutes or less he guessed till all her bones shattered.
Noting the lack of time he knew he didn't have time to be gentle about this so as soon as he found what he was looking for, he quickly began to pull the curse into himself. Distantly he could hear Melody screaming, and someone shouting but he was too focused inwards to pay any attention. As quickly as he dared he pulled the spell into his own body. Once he had the whole curse inside himself he felt Melody's body slump unconscious only his hands keeping her upright against the wall. The spell he had drawn into his own body quickly tried to attack his own, trying to full fill it's purpose. Standing Harry quickly moved over to one of the windows in the furthest corner of the room. Using his own magic to break down the spell structure, by the time he reached the far corner, he had broken down the spell's structure, and all that he was left with was a malevolent formless ball of magical energy, in his body trying to kill him. Fighting to hold the formless spell energy with his own magic, so it couldn't consume him. Harry couldn't help but remember his teacher, who had warned him of the consequences if he didn't control the foreign spell energy. Taking a deep breath and blew out the foreign magic from his system.
Daphnes Pov
Daphne watched as Harry took Melody's hands in his own while saying a few quiet words of encouragement to the girl. Getting both the boys to watch the corridor while they waited she watched them both and wondered what had happened to Harry Potter. She had been watching him closely for several years now, trying to see if there was any way she could use him. But the longer she had watched him, over the years the less impressed she was. While she had found out that several of the more outlandish, stories over the years were true in one form or another. He always seem to fade into the background unless there was something incredibly dangerous to deal with. Though it seemed if there was something which most full grown wizards would run from then Harry would be front and centre to deal with it, a not so typical Gryffindor she had thought since he never seemed to want his fame, despite what everyone said about him. Over the years she had grown to respect his bravery and obvious power (no matter what Malfoy said.) But his circle of close friends was small barely a handful thanks mostly to that red-headed weasel chasing everyone away. And it was obvious to anyone that looked for more than five minutes that he hadn't been trained in even the basics of the Wizarding world for some reason.
So she had thought to try and help him in the first and second years while creating a connection with him. She had tried several times, but every time Ron had chased her away whenever she tried to approach him, after the second time she had decided to wait till after school before trying to approach him again.
Thinking over what she had seen while firing a firebolt at one of the Inferi, she hadn't seen what he had done to destroy all of them so easily. But the elemental attack that followed was like nothing she had seen before, and her family had dealt in Ice Elementalism for generations.
Whoever had dealt with those wizards and vampires was a very different person than the one she had been watching for the last several years. She had to wonder if the year he had been on the run could change him this much. There was no hesitation, no thought to save their lives like those who followed Dumbledore always did. This was an interesting turn and would require a lot of thought later, she mused to herself. The castle shook slightly from some distant explosion. Causing all of them to look for the source. Assuming any of them survived the day Daphne thought.
Looking at Potter and Melody as they held hands. They had both been still for a few minutes, till Melody started screaming. Daphne looked at them both having no idea what Potter was doing or how she could help them. Both the boys ran back over from watching the corridor to see what was happening.
Having no idea what Potter was doing she told them both to shut up and be quiet, this kicked off an argument that she couldn't tell them what to do as they all started shouting at each other. Still watching Harry Potter as she shouted at one of the idiots in front of her she noticed the veins on the back of Melody's hand turn black and seemed to flow into Potters hands.
Shocked by what she was seeing in all the years she had been going to school here she had never seen anything like it. Harry was showing control of magic, unlike anything she had seen before. If she didn't know any better she would think this was a totally different person, to the one she had watched for the last several years.
Both the boys moved to try and separate them when they saw what she was looking at. While she didn't know much about healing she did know that stopping half way through any type of healing was very dangerous. So moved to stop the two knuckleheads before they made the situation worse. Less than a minute of shouting at each other and Melody stopped screaming and slumped over unconscious. Potter staggered to his feet his eye black as midnight, face covered in black veins. Pushing past them all and moved to the back of the classroom where he seemed to take a deep breath and blew out a massive cloud of black smoke which struck the wall and started to eat through the stone.
Everyone took several steps back away from the Black smoke that was pouring out of Potter's mouth. Coughing as the last of the smoke seemed to leave him, she watched Potter take several deep breaths as he pulled himself together.
Everyone looked at him with mouths agape for a second time in less than ten minutes. As he wiped some black bile with the back of his jumper. Absently she noticed his eyes and face had gone back to normal.
"What the hell was that Potter?!"
Daphne asked as she struggled not to shout at the incredible magic she had just seen. This could change everything perhaps even help her sister.
Potter looked over at them as he kept spitting out black a bile like substance that sizzled as it hit the stone floor, and simply said with a wry grin;
"Family magic, she'll be out for a bit but she should be fine now. Anyway, we don't have time to hang around here. Someone grab Melody we need to get moving."
Without another word Potter had his wand back out and was in the hall checking both directions. As the three of them levitated their unconscious classmates through the halls. As Daphne looked at Potter's back as he quickly moved them through the corridors she promised, she would find out what that magic was and help her sister.
Potters Pov
At some other point, he lost track of when.
Some random death eater had almost managed to sneak up on him during the battle. With all the magic flying about all over the place, he'd almost missed the random Death Eater launching some sort of purple flame attack at his back and only just managed to dodge the purple flames. His response had perhaps been a tad over the top. Between the fear and adrenaline of the battlefield he hadn't even thought about what he wanted to happen he just wanted him gone, the man had simply exploded from the surge of magic he had released. Before the blood and guts could move more than a few feet from the internal explosion. Another thought and reality danced to his tune, as all the blood and gore froze for a moment just hanging in the air. Harry swiped his wand like a conductor and reality danced to his tune, as what was once a person reformed into a long red spear. With a flick, it was then launched at high speeds towards the head of one of the giants that was attacking one of the school walls, the spear projectile slammed through one of it's eyes, bursting it like a balloon in a rain of gore to those beneath and slammed into it's skull knocking it back several paces from the wall it was attacking. Looking on at the staggering giant as it tried to keep it's balance. It let loose a blood curdling scream in pain. ##### who was Harry brought his wand down feeling his magic sing to him as nothing had before. Still holding on to the spear he had just launched with his magic. With a sharp cut, Harry transfigured the spears mass into napalm and with a thought ignited it while allowing the mass to flow free inside the giant's head. The screams of pain had risen quickly to a high pitched screech. The high pitched scream caused almost everyone fighting in the area to pause for a moment even the other giants stopped what they were doing and looked at there comrade with confused looks on their faces. The staggering giant carried on screaming clutching it's head. Within seconds it's whole head started to glow a ruby red. A few more seconds and it was unable to make any more sounds white fire licked around it's mouth for a few moments before it fell over backwards with a mighty crash.
Science for the win he thought to himself as the flames cooked the giant from the inside out. Several combatants had scrambled to get clear of the area after seeing what he had done. Looking at the cooking giant he had, to fight from being violently sick, from the smell.
Remembering something that one of his teachers had told him.
'Young one, I can tell you many stories of my travels, but there is no true understanding, of war until you have lived through it. When you do understand all I can say is remember why you are fighting. It is a difficult path you have chosen to walk, but as long as you remember why you fight you will not go far wrong as long as you remember that.'
Pushing down his thoughts for later he quickly moved on to confront Voldemort.
Well, those are the first battle scenes I've written hope you like them. see you next month :)
