Title: Retrograde
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Nothing Specific, general for first few books.
Rating: M
Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Luna, or Ginny, or Cho, or... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: Harry's trial before fifth year goes differently because someone knows more than they should about Harry. Time Travel Fic.
A/N: There seems to some confusion about the 'That which holds the image of an Angel' comment, and people thinking Harry created actual Angels. Firstly, this only applies to images of actual Angels, not likenesses. A photo will form an Angel, a statue carved to look like an Angle will not. Secondly, it takes a decent amount of time, a minimum of eight to ten hours, for an image to form an Angel. As Harry conjured the likenesses just prior to the Class and dispelled them directly after, he did not create two Angels.
Lord Voldemort prodded the body of one of the electrocuted Death Eaters with his bare foot in fascination. The corpse's head flopped away as he probed with his toes.
"Humm. War Wards." He mused.
"My Lord, they have put up extended Anti-Apperation and Anti-Portkey Wards." One Death Said. "Both entrance and exit version."
When they had arrived the had set up the same wards inward of their position, but they had only been set up to prevent exit. Lord Voldemort looked around and saw a few of his men holding their emergency Portkeys or had the shaken look of someone who had tried to Apperate and bounced off the Wards.
"Obviously." Voldemort said, drawing his wand while catching the eye of two of his Inner Circle. "Of course, you tried to flee. Avada Kadavra."
Rowle and McNair proceeded to kill all the others who had their Portkeys out or were shaken from Ward Bounce.
"Spread out. Cover all entrances." Voldemort ordered.
"You're sure she is here?" Rowle asked.
Suddenly the sky darkened and rain started to fall heavily.
"This is Bones' way." Voldemort replied. "The War Wards activating alone should have told you she's here. Cruico."
As Rowle rolled on the floor in pain, McNair proceeded to organise the remaining Death Eaters into small teams to cover the perimeter. Yes, that bitch Amelia Bones was here. The rain storm would cover her and allow her to get close. She was second on Voldemort's personal shit list, ahead of Dumbledore and just behind the Potter brat. She and Potter were the only ones who had ever seriously injured him. Bones had once shoved one of her damn daggers into his thigh, when he had made the mistake of letting her get too close. He would still have the scar if his various rituals had not removed all scars from his body.
A gurgling sound pulled him from his introspection and he looked down to see Rowle still under his spell and he let it go. Rowle was foaming at the mouth and thrashing. If the man did not recover in two minutes, he would just kill him. Putting Rowle from his mind, temporarily, Voldemort started to study the War Wards. Interesting work that. If he could break it down, maybe he could use them to protect his Horcruxes.
A scream, some shouting and more screaming sounded at the edge of his hearing, just discernible over the rain. Very male screaming. So, a group had run into Bones. Oh well, all the Death Eaters he had brought with him were expendable anyway. They were just there to wear Bones down until he could kill the bitch personally.
Amelia used the rain as cover as she got close to a group of Death Eaters. They did not see her.
"That thunder?" one Death Eater asked.
It was not. It was Harry and his pistol firing from nearby. She did not give any of the other Death Eaters a chance to respond as she was amongst them. They were not used to fighting at such close quarters. She sliced open the throat of one Death Eater with her knife as she fired a blasting hex right into the gut of another. That one would die slower but he would be out of the fight and his moans would unnerve his comrades. Ducking to allow a killing curse to fly over her head and into the face of another Death Eater, she kneed one Death Eater in the stomach, buried her knife into the armpit of another before rotating to remove the knife. As she rotated she grabbed the neck of the Death Eater she had kneed earlier and used the motion to snap his neck. Another blasting hex, this time to the face, and the group of Death Eaters was down.
Taking a look around, and letting the rain wash the blood off her face and clothes, Amelia turned and began hunting the next group.
Voldemort had planned on many of his 'loyal followers' being spent to wear Bones out, but when she and a younger man emerged from the rain they were not worn out. Sure, they were a bit tired, covered in blood and drenched but they looked fine. Voldemort was not wet. He had cast a shield to prevent the rain from touching him.
"Hello Bones." Voldemort said smoothly. "And who is your young friend?"
"More trouble than you can handle." The man said.
The man raised his arm and Voldemort recognised the gun immediately. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Voldemort took to the air and left his remaining Death Eaters to die. As soon as he was out of the wards, he apparated away.
The loss of Rowle and McNair would be a loss, but in the end every Death Eater was expendable.
"Sixty-three!" Senior Auror Shaklebolt exclaimed. "All dead."
"Voldemort got away but yeah, that sounds about right." Harry said.
"Honey, let's not psychologically scar my Aurors any more than necessary." Amelia mock scolded.
"Sorry Lia." Harry replied absently earning him a whack over the back of the head.
"How did you manage it?" Shaklebolt asked
"War Wards, a rain storm and a lot of close in knife and wand work." Amelia replied.
"Got more than a few with my pistol." Harry admitted.
"Right." Shaklebolt said shaking his head. "Go. We'll take care of this."
Harry and Amelia were laying on their bed in their apartment, with Amelia laying on top of Harry, nose to nose, with her dark red hair undone and draped down covering both their faces.
In the darkness behind the curtain of her hair, Amelia could almost believe that it was before… either in their days at Hogwarts or those wonderful years in this very apartment when they had both been young. Almost. She could still feel the years of loneliness and hardship pushing down on her, but here in this moment she could push it aside. Be the young woman again and not the weary traveller who had to take the long, lonely path.
The hardest part had been when Harry Potter had been around, but it had not been her Harry. Those years where 'The-Boy-Who-Lived' was 'missing' from the Wizarding World had been a struggle not to go to Privet Drive and pull him out to live with her. When he had gone to Hogwarts, she had even tortured herself by going to two of his Quidditch Games and hiding in the crowd. Seeing the joy on his face at playing the game. Joy that she remembered him expressing just from her entering the room. But he was not the same. She could have done so much for him but she had not. Every day she had wanted to and every day she had stopped herself.
Harry had told her about his life before Hogwarts. She knew every horror, every crushed dream and, to her eternal shame, she had let him endure them. She had done so because without those struggles he would never have become the person she had run into in that bookstore in 1965, the man she had come to love. The man who could possibly defeat Voldemort. Was it selfish or was it fate? Was she a ruthless manipulator or a slave to the prophecy of Harry's own past?
Harry reached up and wiped away the tear that was running down Amelia's cheek.
"I don't blame you. You did what you had to and I had to go through… deal with my relatives to become the man I am today." Harry whispered.
"How did you know?" Amelia asked softly, her voice cracking.
"Lia, I know you. I know you better than anyone else in the world." Harry replied. "You're like me. You'll do what is right no matter the cost to yourself but, in this case, you knew you couldn't act without changing everything. To preserve what was, you couldn't change what happened. For the benefit of the many, and the happiness you remember."
"I hate myself for it." she replied. "They all think I am so strong, but most days all I wanted to do was lie down and let it all pass, maybe even let myself pass. The only thing that stopped me was that I didn't want to disappoint you. I missed you so much."
"Lia, you are the love of my life." Harry reiterated. "You are stronger than you give yourself credit for."
The rest of the night they reaffirmed their commitment to life and each other, even in the wake of all the death.
TBC…