An Incomplete Potter Collection ch Collection 8
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The Will to Dream
Marriage Contracts
A Martyr's Distortion
Dark Lords
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
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Story: [The Will to Dream]
Summary:When he's seven, Ron stumbled into a different world by accident, he finally made it back home a few months before he received his Hogwarts letter, and he's a little bit different than from what he used to be. Technically an X-Over.
Genre: Friendship
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Harry took a deep breath to try and quell the nervousness blossoming in his stomach as the redheaded boy he'd seen on the platform took his seat in their compartment.
He really didn't want to risk screwing this up. This would be the first time he'd ever had friends, this was the moment of truth.
A conversation started, where Harry deftly avoided both mentioning his relatives, as well as asking the boy why his mother had looked so awfully distraught at letting him get onto the train – she'd kept making him promise that he wouldn't suddenly disappear 'again'.
Still, the boy seemed nice enough, and was more than happy to tell the muggle-raised boy everything he could ever need about the Wizarding World.
Until finally, they happened upon the subject of Houses.
"Dunno where I'll get Sorted, honestly." The boy admitted, chewing on the candy that Harry had traded for his sandwiches. "I mean, the family pretty much always get Sorted into Gryffindor, but well... I don't think he would've ended up there, and we're pretty alike."
"'He'?" Harry asked, curious to learn who the boy was referring to.
"Ah... well, I kind of got... 'lost', I guess, a couple of years ago. Took us some time to find a way back, so I stayed with this guy for a while. Kind of crazy, really loud, always up for a laugh."
"So where would he have been Sorted, do you think?" Harry wondered, not wanting to accidentally dig too deeply into that 'lost'-business in the case that the boy was sensitive about it.
"Anywhere but Ravenclaw." He admitted bluntly, before snorting a laugh. "I can't see anyone calling him clever. I've met rocks that were smarter than him."
"Ravenclaw is for the smart people?" Harry guessed.
"Oh yeah, you wouldn't know. Hmm... Ravenclaw tends to be for people who like to know stuff, but doesn't always care to do something with that knowing, you know? They can research stuff, and they can figure out all kinds of things, so they can be really scary if you get them mad, but they like to learn because learning is... 'fun', I guess."
Harry nodded, showing that he understood the explanation, and motioning for the boy to continue, because this was much more informative than what Hagrid had told him.
"Right, Gryffindor I guess would be for people who're reckless and brave and goes out there to do stuff. They don't have a reputation for understanding stuff though, so sometimes they just kind of run into walls because they didn't bother learning how to open the door. Uhh... I guess they could be called 'cannon-fodder', because they fight for their beliefs and stand up for things, but can be too reckless to live through the consequences. They're good people though."
That was a lot different from what Harry had heard about Gryffindor, but it made a certain amount of sense, since his parents had been in Gryffindor and had been killed by this You-Know-Who in the last war because they'd fought him.
"Uhh... then there's Hufflepuff, which says all this stuff about hard work and loyalty. Which is good, because without hard work, you won't get anywhere in life. But it's sometimes bad because they kind of follow the rules, even when the rules aren't good. So... they kind of just 'bend' because they don't want to fight. That's not true for all of 'em though, and they're really nice, I think." Ron fumbled, looking a bit uncomfortable about the thought of talking badly about the Hufflepuffs.
Harry could understand though, why people wouldn't fight. Fighting had never done much for him at the Dursleys, there was simply no point in fighting something that you couldn't possibly defeat.
"And then there's Slytherin, which has... a bad reputation." Ron frowned. "I think he would've liked that House the best, but would've hated the people in it the most. It's complicated, they have this stuff about ambition and being cunning, but instead of just having big dreams and enjoying pranking people, they go on about this 'blood purity' and tripe like that. Not sure why though."
Harry nodded, willing to accept this boy's much more sensible explanation to why a House was 'Evil' than Hagrid's far too simplified version of the Sorting putting all the bad people in one House.
Then the subject was abandoned and they returned to the interesting sport that was quidditch.
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"Hmm, difficult, very difficult." A voice murmured in Harry's ear. "Could be great, with a mind like that. Plenty of bravery too. Now, where should I put you?"
Harry thought back to his conversation with Ron, and found himself wondering what he actually wanted.
He didn't want to be walked all over like what had happened to him at the Dursleys. He'd had more than enough of that kind of attitude. He wanted to be someone... 'higher' than that, someone that nobody would succeed in forcing to kneel. And that probably excluded Hufflepuff, because nobody seemed to treat those like being too 'high' to bully.
Still, the culmination of that desire was a pretty big ambition, now that he thought about it, and perhaps that meant that Slytherin wouldn't be bad, but at the same time he'd heard of the children of the many Death Eaters being in that House, and Malfoy was there too, so it wasn't really something he wanted either.
But he wasn't very curious, didn't enjoy learning simply for the sake of learning, like a Ravenclaw might. He didn't even have any real interests to bring out his curiosity like that. No, Ravenclaw just wasn't for him.
So that left Gryffindor, the House of the brave and reckless and possibly cannon-fodder, which didn't sound at all like it'd be a good place to end up in, since he was quite certain that he wanted to live, not get himself killed for doing the right thing.
So... it was really between Gryffindor, who'd treat him like a hero and might start expecting that he should throw himself into danger in order to keep them safe and happy. Or Slytherin, who'd either bully him for 'defeating' You-Know-Who, or try and force him into their way of thinking somehow.
Frankly, neither of those options appeared especially likeable to Harry.
Sure, one was a death-sentence later, and the other was a death-sentence now. But Harry had honestly been hoping that he'd live a long and good life and not have to worry about these kinds of things now that he'd gotten away from the Dursleys.
"Very well, better be..."
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"SLYTHERIN!" The hat shouted, causing McGonagall to nearly have a heart-attack, and making several of the staff-members pale in horror.
There were quite a bit of gasping and exclamations from the student-body too, most of which weren't especially supportive of the boy's Sorting at all.
So Ron grinned happily and started to applaud loudly as his friend removed the Sorting Hat, his own face quite pale too.
Ron got a lot of funny looks from several people for applauding, but those looks meant that there were people not staring oddly at Harry, who was rather obviously uncomfortable with attention in general, let alone this kind of thing.
It took McGonagall a while to finally get on with the Sorting, but continue it did.
And then, finally, it was Ron's turn to don the Hat.
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Harry, sitting uncomfortably by the Slytherin table, as far away from people who were glaring at him as possible – whilst still staying away from Malfoy, because he didn't like the snotty little blond – watched as the redheaded boy who'd been his first friend, straightened at his name being read.
There was something a little odd about how he'd straightened, a kind of gleefully smug confidence exuding from him as he started walking towards the Hat.
Then he sat, and the Hat was placed on his head.
It didn't take much time at all for it to decide, easily less than it'd taken for Harry. "SLYTHERIN!"
Harry jerked into awed applause at the realization that his friend was going to be in the same House as himself. That they wouldn't get separated.
Maybe... maybe Hogwarts was going to be kind of nice, after all?
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The twins whistled softly as they watched their elder brother gape in horror at their youngest brother's walk towards his new House.
In all their years of pranking Percy the Prefect Prat, they'd never managed to coax that kind of expression out in the boy. And now, to see it being done so casually by their happily grinning little brother, they could do nothing but take off their hats.
In fact, speaking of hats...
The twins met each other's eyes, grinning madly, before leaping up on to their seats and applauding madly. "Go Ron! Prank the world! Shatter their feeble little minds!"
It should perhaps be noted, that a Weasley being supported fully and with honest, actual awe, by the twins of all people, was nearly enough to make the staff turn as pale as they'd done when the Boy-Who-Lived had ended up in the House of the Snakes.
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Ron didn't understand why anyone was surprised. He was after all a lot like him, though obviously neither as prank-happy nor as lucky with gambling.
He wanted to become the greatest there'd ever been. Surpassing everyone, to the point where he would never be 'just another Weasley'. That was what he wanted, that was what he needed. And that need was very similar to the full-blown obsession belonging to his 'adoptive' big-brother.
He would never be as strong as he'd been, he would never be as skilled as he'd been, he'd never be able to do half the things that he'd seen him do over the years, but he would never lose to him. Because 'the greatest' didn't lose. And there was no doubt in Ron's mind that he was going to become the greatest.
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Story: [Marriage Contracts]
Summary: Harry has, after all, always looked at the world a little bit differently than a normal person.
Genre: Drama, Friendship
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Harry stared at the contract that Gringotts had given to him.
The contract that declared that he would apparently not even be allowed to pick a girl like a normal person, but that he was going to have to have some kind of marriage-arrangement-screening with multiple wives being chosen.
The punishment clause, that was magically enforced and bound to his blood from birth, was death.
He had to marry several women, or die.
Which was why Hermione was raging over men oppressing women, Ron was glaring longingly at the contract, Ginny was throwing a tantrum over how unfair the world was, and most others were a mixture of outraged, envious, or intrigued.
Except for Luna.
Luna was just looking horribly horribly sad.
Sighing, Harry got to his feet and walked over to her, sitting down next to her on the couch.
"It'll be alright." He tried to reassure her. "The world is a big place, filled with interesting and amazing people."
Luna threw a hurt glare at him, before reluctantly allowing him to wrap his arms around her, then she clutched him desperately and started to sob.
Ginny continued on with her tantrum, adding a few mentions of how her childhood friend had stolen Harry's heart from its destined place with herself. Hermione looked kind of sympathetically confused, having never before noticed any romantic undertones to Luna and Harry's relationship. Ron just continued to sullenly glare.
Harry just continued to hold the sobbing Luna in his arms, not particularly in the mood for interrupting Ginny or explaining himself to the rest of the people in Gryffindor Tower.
Finally, however, even her tears waned, and Harry found himself a quill and some parchment, before beginning to write. He didn't leave her side though, allowing her to cling in silent misery to his shirt as he wrote.
He prodded the girl next to him a few times before she finally drew her wand and hit him with a spell that seemingly did nothing at all, and then allowing him to continue with his writing.
A seeming age after he'd first started, he finished with whatever he'd worked on, and then got up to hand what was apparently a letter to one of the school owls. Luna never left his side, trailing behind him in a silent sadness that seemed so at odds with her usual boundless optimism.
When he returned to the Gryffindor common room, most of the initial shock had calmed down, and there were quite a few girls who tried to casually mention their interest in applying for one of the positions as his wife.
Harry was polite about it, but shot them all down, though he looked rather chagrined when Luna's eyes once again clouded from tears.
She didn't cry however, and Hermione spotted her chance to demand an explanation to when they'd actually started dating.
"'Dating'?" Harry blinked stupidly at her.
"We're friends." Luna told the girl, as she would a child.
Hermione opened her mouth to immediately argue against that, but decided that with Luna in the picture, she might need a bit of additional information before saying something that might hurt the unusually sad girl. "Then why are you so sad?" Was the question she finally settled on.
"Because Harry has been a very good friend to me." Luna explained, her voice hitching slightly.
Hermione made to demand a more sensible explanation, when Neville interrupted her with a question of his own.
"'Has been'? Why shouldn't he be able to continue be your friend?" The brave young man asked, feeling a brief sting of apprehension at the wording.
"Because I have about a month left to live." Harry declared bluntly, wanting to spare Luna of trying to explain that particular part.
Understandably, his declaration caused a bit of a ruckus, as the entire house of lions started yelling at the same time.
Rolling his eyes at them, Harry fired off a loud 'bang' from his wand.
In the sudden silence, Harry started speaking again. "I don't want to a lord, I don't want to live the rest of my life catering to the whims of my wives, I don't want my children to grow up in the cut-throat politics that has always plagued the harems around the globe, and I most certainly don't want to marry some woman that I don't love."
"But that contract will kill you!" Ginny shrieked in a voice that would've made her mother proud.
Harry smiled, looking disturbingly cheerful at the notion. "And then I'll be able to meet my parents, my godfather, and pretty much everyone I have ever loved. Do you honestly think there's even a choice necessary here?"
The entire Gryffindor Tower turned eerily silent as everyone stared with wide eyes at their savior, the young man who'd killed Voldemort, the kindhearted, brave, handsome, and powerful young man who was apparently suicidal.
In hindsight, considering his life and the risks that he'd taken in his many attempts to protect as many people as possible, that should've probably been obvious.
Luna most certainly thought so.
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Story: [A Martyr's Distortion]
Summary: A brief reflection from Voldemort's point of view, over his philosophy, and over his death.
Genre: Spiritual
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Voldemort had always been an avid believer in that as long as there was life, there was still something left to lose.
A madman might finally drag his way back to sanity, a cripple might miraculously heal, a tortured soul might find some rest.
As long as there was life, there was hope. As long as there was life, there was something that could be lost.
It was the reason that his first action had been to make sure that no matter what horrors he experienced by his enemies, they would never be able to kill him. The horcruxes might risk corrupting him into madness and turn his flesh inhuman to reflect his soul, but he would remain alive, and that meant that he had nothing to fear in death.
His life could never be taken from him, and so the worries of the world ceased to matter to him, because in the end there was always hope to be found as long as he lived.
Dumbledore said that he feared death, and that was true. He feared it, so he prepared for it. He prepared for it so that he could never truly die, so that he could continue on with his crusade against the Wizarding World and its populace.
He wasn't exactly sure when his crusade in itself had become the reason for the crusade, but that was probably the madness kicking in. It didn't matter in the end, since as long as he survived there was still hope to regain that reason for first starting the crusade.
It was this absolute belief that there was hope as long as he remained living, that made what Harry Potter did take him completely by surprise.
He'd understood Harry's mother sacrificing herself so that her child could live. It was a protective instinct inherent in parents, that made them act irrationally in the attempt to protect their own version of 'immortality' as the continuation of their genes.
But Harry himself... he took Voldemort by surprise.
It'd been the same confrontation that they'd always traded back and forth over the years. 'The same' with a slightly new twist, true, but still so alike that it was nearly enough to make him want to gag on the ironic nostalgia of it all.
Then Harry had just... given up.
Not given up as in surrendering to Voldemort's inherent superiority and the inevitability of his own demise and simply decided to stop struggling and get the whole bloody thing over with. No, that wasn't the way in which the young man had given up.
Harry had looked him in the eye and said that he'd stopped caring.
Then he'd just sort of... imploded, almost. His body somehow collapsing in on itself in a way as if his very flesh turned to evaporating mist.
It took Voldemort a brief moment before he realized that the Boy-Who-Lived had taken his own life, and used the power of his sacrifice to kill him right back.
So, as his fragmented soul was violently ripped from its anchors, Voldemort turned to ask one final question of Harry James Potter.
"Why?"
Harry, barely there, less than even a ghost despite the state of imminent death that they both shared, turned to look at him, eyes confused.
"Why not?"
And it was at that moment that Voldemort realized that some people are born without the belief that their life is their most precious thing. That some people were broken down so thoroughly by the circumstances around them, that they forgot that they themselves had value.
His greatest enemy, his killer, could simply not comprehend why a suicidal attack that was guaranteed to work, would ever be considered a last resort when it could be used from the start.
More than standing back and granting him and his followers free reins, more than their by now instinctive discrimination and corruption; for them to have allowed a person such as him to be born, to be created... Perhaps that, Voldemort mused to himself as he entered the afterlife and whatever punishment or peace that he'd find there, was the Wizarding World's greatest sin.
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Story: [Dark Lords]
Summary: During the summer before Fifth Year, Hermione is arrested and sentenced to Azkaban in a kangaroo trial. Her friends decide that enough is enough.
Genre: Horror
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The first thing one needs to become a Dark Lord, is not followers, it's not a casual disregard for human life, it's not power, it's not money, and it's not political clout.
The first thing one needs to become a Dark Lord, is motivation.
A cause, a reason to push for that extra mile that would take them from being just another wizard with an addiction to Dark Magic, into the terrifying monsters that could turn the world upside down and leave it a gibbering wreck of what it once was.
Not a lot of people really considered this.
Harry had learned early on that magic could be both wonderful and horrible, and that the opinions of the Wizarding World at large was a fickle thing. People were still people after all, and a mob was only as intelligent as the dumbest person in them.
Being a parselmouth had given him the 'power' that everyone assumed was needed for becoming a Dark Lord, and so they had avoided him and spoken his name in hushed whispers as the Heir of Slytherin roamed the halls of Hogwarts once more.
Harry wasn't a Dark Lord, he didn't want to be, he wanted to live his life and be peacefully ignored except by these most wonderful friends that he'd found for himself in the life away from the Dursleys and his cupboard under the stairs.
What did he care about politics? What did he care about his fame and fortune? He was an orphan that had finally found a home worthy of the name, and friends to stay by his side. He was content.
Not to say that he would let Voldemort roam free. He was after all, both the murderer of his parents, and a powder keg to a second war that would have his friends and himself labeled as 'blood-traitors' to be hunted down and made an example of.
So, if he could ruin Voldemort's plans, he would go out of his way to do so. It was only common sense.
But he was still just an orphan who wanted to live a peaceful life with his best friends by his side.
Which was why he was currently slumping down next to the friend that had desperately buried himself in books of law in an attempt to force the Ministry to rescind their verdict.
Hermione was in Azkaban.
A trial she was never informed of, for crimes that she'd only committed on a technicality, held in silence by the Ministry, and declaring her guilty and in defiance of the court.
Hermione was in Azkaban. And she would remain there until her bones had long since begun to wither away from the passage of time.
So, Harry slumped down next to Ron – pale, half-starved, silently shivering Ron – and knew from the start that they would find no relief in those books. There would be no release for their friend to be found amongst the Ministry's laws.
And as he realized this, instead of falling into the growing pit of despair in his gut, Harry latched onto something that the Ministry, and in fact the entirety of the Wizarding World, would in hindsight hope that he'd never even considered.
He found a cause.
What did he care for the people? What did he care for the innocents?
He wanted his friends. That was all he'd asked. All he'd ever wanted. And now one of them had been stolen from him, and the other was slipping into a fretful living nightmare in her absence.
They'd stolen Hermione, and were on the verge of breaking Ron.
And he would not let this stand. He would not allow this. Never this. Not ever.
If it meant walking over the ashes of half of Britain, then let the world burn. If it meant killing the Minister in cold blood, then he would slit the man's throat without remorse. If it meant that he would have to become a despicable monster beyond their wildest nightmares, beyond anything Voldemort had ever attempted to become, then so be it.
The Ministry would burn for this.
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Albus stared in horror as he watched Hogsmeade burn.
Voldemort's mark hung in the sky, but he knew from Severus that Tom was not ready to move yet. No, this wasn't Death Eaters. This was someone else, and they were shifting the blame.
There hadn't been many casualties thankfully, apparently someone had simply released Fiendfyre in multiple location around the town at once.
There had most certainly been deaths, but whoever it was that had caused the fire, they'd seemed more interested in making sure that the houses were turned to ash without interference than in killing the inhabitants.
And so he'd opened Hogwarts's gates to the surviving wizards and witches who'd suddenly found themselves without a home. All the while, his innocent students stared in the same horror as himself at the burning ruins of Hogsmeade.
This wasn't Ministry sanctioned, this wasn't something Dumbledore could ever forgive, this wasn't the work of Voldemort.
A new player had entered the game, and they were willing to play big.
They were willing to truly leave naught but ashes in their wake.
If he'd turned around, searched the eyes of his students, perhaps his horror would've reached new heights. Because four pair of eyes stared at the ruins, not with horror, but with something akin to morbid satisfaction.
Harry broke off from the crowds, sharing the briefest of glances with the ones who'd allowed him to make this first move a possibility, before he donned a mask of horror and righteous anger as he began to play his role.
It wouldn't do to be found so early on, after all.
Neville took his cue to don the mask of blank determination. Ron hurriedly hid away Luna's slowly breaking mask of serene innocence by grabbing her into a hug, keeping others from seeing that it was not sobs but muffled laughter that wracked her frame.
Hermione was their friend, and perhaps they were never entirely sane to start with.
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Someone had dared to use his Mark, someone had dared to imply his presence in the Hogsmeade Fire, someone had signed their own death warrant.
And the moment Voldemort found out who that 'someone' was... They'd be too busy pleading for death to ever consider defying him again.
Hatred burning in his eyes, Voldemort abandoned his torture of his pathetic subjects.
"It wasn't Dumbledore, he wouldn't even try to do something like this... No, it seems as if someone else wishes to take on the title of Dark Lord, except, they're too terrified of me to be upfront about it." He sneered. "Find them. Find all of them. And then bring them to me." He hissed dangerously.
His Death Eaters hurried to obey.
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It was a lot easier than you might think to find the floor plans to Azkaban, all they'd needed to do was Imperio one of the guards into acquiring them.
Child's play, really.
Not that they could spring her, at least not yet.
It hurt to leave her there, even for a moment longer, knowing that her sanity was most likely being eroded by the Dementors surrounding her. But if they didn't time it properly all it would accomplish was let them join her in there.
Or, if anyone even suspected that they might've had a part to play in the Hogsmeade Fire, receiving the Kiss instead of merely jail-time was a perfectly plausible outcome. So planning was a priority.
An attack on Azkaban as it was right now, would lead the suspicions towards the four of them too quickly. They needed to make the entire Wizarding World forget her crimes, underneath the horrors that had assaulted them in the form of 'Voldemort', so that when Azkaban was finally assaulted, everyone would only remember the Death Eaters lingering within its walls, and not the muggleborn friend of Harry Potter that had been convicted by a kangaroo court.
Because if the Wizarding World realized who was behind the assault on their prison, it would make their escape from the country a lot trickier.
From the start, there would've simply been no way to both recover Hermione from Azkaban and then actually manage to escape from the country. But after the first step of their plan to succeed in doing just that, they couldn't afford to be exposed, because it was one thing for a country to welcome a famous person running away from politics along with a wrongfully convicted young girl and their friends. It was another thing entirely to welcome a group of potential mass-murdering terrorists into their homes.
They all knew that, which was why they made sure to always keep their hands clean.
It's amazing how many ancient wands you could find when searching through a pureblood family's belongings, and with that many, it was only a matter of time until one of them reacted well enough that you didn't have to worry about Priori Incantatem when their suspicions finally brushed across you.
Of course, nobody that was actually in the know would believe that Voldemort was truly attempting to burn Wizarding Britain to the ground, but as long as they hid behind his Mark they could prolong that realization from the regular people. And those same regular people would be hysterically demanding that someone did something about Voldemort, until not even the Ministry – corrupted as it was – would dare to go against it.
Their attack on Azkaban was a matter of timing, but so were every other attack. It needed to happen quickly enough that none could truly react until Fiendfyre had already claimed their target, it needed to happen anonymously enough that none of them ran the risk of being identified as involved, and it needed to happen to enough well known 'safe' places that the Wizarding World wouldn't even consider remembering the scandal of the muggleborn in Azkaban.
At the same time, if they waited too long, and Voldemort attacked the prison when they were still busy with stalling, Hermione would be at the Death Eater's mercy, which was unacceptable.
It was all a matter of timing.
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Knockturn Alley, most known for being a gathering-place for those dabbling in the darker aspects of magic.
Now they were known as the only part of Wizarding Britain's shopping district that still remained standing.
The goblins had only barely been able to stop the sentient flames from eating their way through their solid metal gates, and what was once the polished white of Gringotts was now a darkened a cracked black.
And above it all shone the green light of Voldemort's Mark, signaling the perpetrators to any who would look.
There'd been fewer casualties in the fires than in the Great Hogsmeade Fire, but the damage to the economy and the terrifying realization that someone was actually willing to turn something that was as inherent in the Wizarding Culture as Diagon Alley into a blackened and burnt out shell...
It'd really been fortunate that the Prophet's presses were not located in the Alley.
Having the image of such a cheerful place stare back at them as naught but ashes from the front page of the most well-spread newspaper in the Wizarding World, was a lot better than merely letting the trembling people within Hogwarts's walls hear of the horrors being inflicted upon everything they'd ever known.
All publicity was good publicity. Well... kind of, at least. This type of it was most certainly a boon for the four students under the current circumstances.
Terror is so much easier to spread when the media is quaking in their shoes at your deeds.
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Luna cried as she held the last copy of her family's newspaper in her hands, cradling it gently as if it was a child.
Neville was the one who pulled her into a hug this time, Ron being too busy staring with a pained expression at the empty husk of his childhood home.
Harry sat with Xenophilius, talking in a low voice to the man who'd suggested where they might want to strike next.
He was an eccentric man, lonely in the wake of his wife's demise and desperately clutching to the memories he held of her, but he knew that it was only a matter of time until Voldemort came after the Quibbler for the publications that it'd done on one Tom Riddle.
Xenophilius had considered it, and decided that it would help their cause to have this particular target burned down during circumstances that they could actually control.
Why would anyone think it strange that the eccentric and most likely insane man had decided to take a walk with a bunch of photo-albums, and thought that it was important that his neighbor came out of her house and helped him compare his organization methods for said photo-albums with her own? He was crazy, nobody tried to understand crazy people, no matter how lucky they got in their madness.
They'd been far enough away when the fires started that their rush to the location, had allowed them to immediately realize that there was nothing that they could do.
Molly was heartbroken, watching her home of many years burn down in front of her eyes, but she stood with all of her children safe and sound. And she was wise enough to know what truly mattered when the world was at war.
The only casualty of this entire attack had been Erol the Weasley's family owl, and it was more than the ancient owl's time to pass on regardless.
Buildings could be rebuilt, and the many precious frozen memories portraying their lives had been spared through chance and eccentricity.
The plan was a perfect success.
Even if that success tasted bitter.
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Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, and the magical residences of Ottery St Catchpole, had all been burned down with Voldemort's Mark shining coldly above the sentient flames.
Hogwarts, the refuge for so many, finally had Dumbledore close the wards against attacks in an attempt to keep its new residents calm.
It worked, but it also provided those same residents with another unnerving moment of knowing just how seriously they were being affected by the terrorists' attacks, which would distract them from remembering exactly who inhabited Azkaban.
Voldemort was going to hit the Wizarding prison sooner or later, because it held his subjects. And everyone were now convinced that Voldemort would want them back.
Harry smiled grimly, catching the eyes of his friends.
Finally, it was time.
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The prison of Azkaban was located on an island, carefully hidden away from the muggles.
An interesting fact to remember when dealing with Fiendfyre was that it didn't really leave any trace at all behind of whatever it had decided to burn away.
This was especially interesting when they were planning on burning the whole place to the ground in their wake, both to hide Hermione's disappearance as well as actually deprive Voldemort of the servants that everyone would assume that he'd acquired. And with Fiendfyre leaving no traces of what exactly it'd been that had been burnt, nobody would be able to tell which prisoners had been killed and which had been rescued.
A bare few months ago, all of the four friends would've been horrified by the thought of burning so many alive. Especially people that – like Sirius – might actually be innocent.
But those months seemed like a lifetime ago, and snuffing out so many lives without mercy was better than the alternative.
Ron sometimes worried that Hermione would renounce them once she learned what they'd done to distract the Ministry enough that they'd be able to pull their plan off. Neville had joined them mostly at the realization that their government was too corrupt to allow to remain standing, even if it meant destroying their entire society, and so her renouncing them didn't really hurt his already distant relationship with the girl. Luna had sort of just always been there and none of them could figure out her motivation beyond that she wanted to help her friends, but it was hard to tell if she would really be affected or not by Hermione's sense of justice.
Harry knew that Hermione renouncing them was a very real possibility, but that it was just as likely that she'd already succumbed to the Dementors, and wouldn't emerge as the Hermione that they'd come to know.
In the end, her reaction didn't matter to them. They would free her from that hell on earth, and then she could curse them as much as she wished. But she would remain free, if it was the last thing that they did.
Neville took a deep breath, before signaling with a nod that it was time.
They'd studied the wards intimately ever since they'd first hatched their plan, and by now knew it well enough to navigate it blindfolded.
Four Patronuses spread out against the dark backdrop of the prison's dull walls, as four figures rushed towards the cell where they knew Hermione was kept, stopping at intervals to make sure that they kept an escape route open.
The Dementors were easily driven away by the four Patronuses, and the only actual guards were easily dispatched. Voldemort wouldn't have left any survivors had he attacked, and they couldn't afford to leave witnesses, so there was really no need to be anything but lethal in their selection of spells.
All that was left were the bars to the cell containing a small and heartachingly frail form with bushy hair that had long since become tangled from neglect. She looked so different, and yet it was definitely her.
Ron knelt beside her and tried to get some manner of reaction out of her, as Harry focused himself on making sure that there weren't any shackles that would get in the way of their escape.
A few seconds, that was all it took before Ron gave up on getting a definite response from her and simply swept her up in his arms, letting them hurry out to bring her back to consciousness at a safer location.
By the time Ron and Harry made it back to the boat, Neville and Luna had already started the fire on the other side of the prison, and had nearly made it back to the boat themselves.
Pushing off from the rocks after they'd all climbed aboard, Harry slung his own string of Fiendfyre at their exit point.
Azkaban would burn until there was nothing left, and perhaps even go as far as dragging its inhabitants down to the murky depths surrounding the foreboding prison after its walls collapsed.
What exactly it was that happened from here onwards didn't matter.
Hermione was free, the plan was a success, and they'd already made the arrangements to get the hell out of Britain to keep everyone from discovering Hermione outside of her convicted prison.
In comparison to most of their plans about moments like this, it felt both nice and unnerving that things were going so well for them.
The only problem would be when the Wizarding World realized that Gryffindor's Boy-Who-Lived had decided to run away rather than face the resurrected Voldemort. It was sure to cause a lot more complications, though of what sort Harry couldn't even begin to guess.
And where Harry and Hermione went, Ron would follow, and Luna had already made the arrangements with her father to meet her – through a most roundabout way – at their destination.
As for Neville? Well, he suspected that he'd end up spilling the beans on what they'd actually been doing if he didn't get the hell away from Hogwarts, and had therefore decided to stick with them until he could figure out where he wanted to spend the rest of his life.
It was a sombre but contently victorious group who finally activated the international portkey long after they'd passed Azkaban's wards.
Far enough away that it wouldn't be searched for magical residue until it would've long since faded away completely.
XXX