Chapter 6
"RISE AND SHINE SLEEPING BEAUTIES!" Lily's voice came in loud and clear causing Harry and Ginny to spring up in bed in confusion and grogginess that came from a mix of sleeping and being hungover.
Ginny groaned, pulling the bed's blanket up to cover herself, looking around in confusion. Harry glanced around seeing that their room was empty. Lily's voice was echoing through the walls.
"Your mum is evil," Ginny said, flinging herself back onto her back on the bed.
Harry was about to agree when the flap to their room flew open as the woman in question walked in. Ginny squeaked and pulled the covers up high as Lily took in the pair of them and smirked.
"No son or daughter in law of mine is going to come home completely drunk, causing a racket and causing us all a lot of worry and expect to sleep the day away, no matter what dimension you come from," she said, looking smug.
"Uh, mum, a little privacy please," Harry said, beyond embarrassed and shocked, using the covers to shield himself and Ginny.
"I expect you and your friends to be at breakfast in thirty minutes, no excuses," she said sternly, "or you'll find that I can be far more creative with my punishments."
She then walked out calmly. Harry turned to Ginny wide eyed.
"I'm usually all about trying to toe the line and push the boundaries," Ginny said hesitantly, "but uh, I'm not sure this is the time."
Harry nodded. "We've got half an hour."
"Well, that is a lot of time," Ginny said, giving Harry a wicked smile.
**HP**
Jason and Alicia walked into the Potter Cottage for their breakfast, with Ginny and Harry on their tail, just barely hitting the thirty-minute time limit to find Sirius, Marlene, Madelyn, Rebecca, Remus, Dora, and James sitting at the table chatting while Lily finished up with breakfast.
The adults all grinned wickedly when the four travelers walked in.
"You're looking better than I thought you would this morning," James said, smiling wide. "Truthfully, I'm glad to see you all seemed to have had a fun night out. It looks like you all needed it."
"It was nice," Harry admitted. "Though it was a little depressing how hard it was to find a bar that was lively."
"The dancing was good at the one we found though," Jason said, smiling at Alicia.
"Yeah, nice little muggle tavern in London," Alicia agreed. "We'll have to see if it exists back in our world when we finally get back."
Lily walked over and dished everyone's plates up before sitting down and joining them.
"So, what's on the docket for today?" she asked curiously.
"Tonight, the rest of the Order who has a corporeal patronus will learn the destruction patronus, if they haven't been taught yet," Jason said in between bites.
"We will be killing vampires today," Harry said casually.
Everyone around the table except the travelers froze, their eyes widening in surprise. Madelyn and Rebecca shot Harry a look of awe.
"Why does it sound like you four will be the only one's participating?" Lily asked slowly.
"Because that was the plan," Ginny answered, smiling after she finished her plate. "This was really good."
"I'm glad dear," Lily said almost like she couldn't stop herself before getting back to the point. "Why are you doing this without help?"
"Not sure we need it," Alicia said with a shrug. "There was a small vampire insurrection about a year and a half after the war ended, back in our world that Aurors from around the world were called to help with by the ICW, and others were basically deputized to help with it, so we all have some experience killing vampires. In this case, we know the location, we know roughly how many there are, and we can attack at day. Plus, Jace and I can do elemental magic, so we can basically change the weather in the short term to help us with the fight. Shouldn't be too difficult."
Sirius, Marlene, Remus, James, Dora, and Lily just gaped, unsure how to process that statement. Madelyn and Rebecca's looks of awe intensified.
"Shouldn't you take help, just to be safe?" James asked hesitantly, with Sirius, Marlene, Remus, Dora, and Lily nodding in agreement.
"We could," Harry said, nodding, "we just might have things we want you guys to do instead, things that we can't do. It's more of a multitasking thing. We can't fully trust the Order in this world because it's obvious there are enough changes that we really don't know everyone here, and while many of them are probably still true and faithful people, it's possibly you have a spy, and we don't want what we're doing getting out. Which means, when it comes to people we trust, it's pretty limited to the people in this room and Albus, and probably Kingsley and Mad-Eye. That means, that we want to keep our plans hidden from the Order when possible, except for this small group who can do things in this world we can't or know about things in this world that we don't."
"To successfully execute this war," Jason jumped in, "we need to be thinking at least five, six, or even seven moves ahead when possible if not more, which means even if we're only on step one or two, we need to start the preparations for the next five steps while thinking up the next steps after the one's we've already planned. That's where you all come in."
"Today, we'll wipe out the vampires in this country, or at least the ones in service to the Death Eaters, and the Order will become proficient in the destruction patronus," Alicia said. "Tomorrow night, we'll hit the Dementor sites, and the next night we'll hit the giants, and then the following night we'll try and hit some Death Eater homes again before we take a break in striking You-Know-Who's forces in the UK. In that time, we'll travel and strike at his forces abroad."
The rest of the group save the travelers all gaped in surprise.
"If we can take some places and raise international magical defenses, You-Know-Who will have to pull some of his forces to mount full attacks in order to retake those places, or he'll have to give up on them for the moment. If all of our attacks here go as planned, he'll already be forced to pull some of his troops back to reinforce what he lost. This will hopefully allow the resistances or alliances spread around the world to start making ground in retaking their own lands or taking back other conquered countries, like the Alliance in South America is trying to do," Jason said.
"What are international magical defenses?" Madelyn asked, looking confused.
Harry smiled at her. "Basically, think of wards that instead of being placed around a home or even a city are placed around an entire country. All they really do is limit magical methods of entering. If international magical defenses are raised, you can't apparate, portkey, or even ride a broom into the land the borders protect, and if you try to enter the muggle method whether that be walking, flying on a plane, or riding a bus or train, the wards detect witches and wizards entering and will alert the Ministry. They're only generally raised in times of war or great upheaval, but if we raise them on a place like Iceland for instance, You-Know-Who would only be able to retake Iceland by sending his Death Eaters and creatures by boat or plane, which he's less likely to do. Granted, if the population of the country is unwilling to fight and hold their land, the borders will only really be a small annoyance, but it will still take time and forces for You-Know-Who to retake those areas, since he wouldn't know the people weren't going to fight. It's why Australia and New Zealand have remained free. They basically know when Death Eaters are trying to get in and can send their own Aurors or other fighters to ambush the Death Eaters when they get off the boat or plane. In order for You-Know-Who to actually take those countries, he has to commit a large number of troops to basically overrun the defenders. He doesn't have the troops to do so with his forces engaged in battles all across the world, not including those he needs to be the enforcers in the places he's already conquered."
"Oh," Madelyn said before she smiled. "That makes sense."
"So, what does all that have to do with us not helping with the vampires?" James asked with a frown.
"Well, you guys will know whether you have the abilities to arrange transportation for us to travel by muggle methods to the places we can't reach by magical ones," Harry said. "The coordination will take some work and it needs to be precise."
"So, you want us to work on the logistics of getting you around to different places?" Lily clarified.
"Correct," Ginny said with a smile. "We can make the portkeys where needed, but we'll need coordinates to do so, and for places outside of apparation or portkey distance without multiple of each, it might be easier to travel by muggle plane, in which case we'll need that planned out. While we also can obtain funds, by stealing from Death Eaters, we probably don't want to rely on that. We don't want to presume that you can support our ventures, but we would hope that you know where we can obtain the funds needed for our travels."
"Next, we also want to try and set up a network that gets information out, but possibly is also able to get into contact with different resistances," Jason said. "We know that there's some connection to the French resistance. We want you to coordinate with Bill Weasley to see if the French have any contacts with other resistances in the countries surrounding them, and then if so, if those resistances have any connections and so on. If luck is with us, then perhaps we can let other resistances know when it's time for them to start launching attacks."
"Ambitious," Sirius said, looking impressed.
"We need to be ambitious to try and set us up for success," Jason muttered.
"We should go deal with those vampires soon," Harry said with a sigh. "That'll leave us the rest of the day to rest up or plan for the next couple operations."
The other three travelers nodded, and got up from the table, nodding at the rest of the group who were giving them sad looks. Harry and Ginny quickly went to the room they'd been staying in and threw on their Shadow Robes before walking back out to where Alicia and Jason were waiting for them, also in Shadow Robes, with their swords on their belts.
"Let's get to it then," Harry said as the rest of them nodded.
They were about to apparate away when two voices drew their attention.
"Wait!"
Harry turned to see Madelyn and Rebecca running out to them. Sirius and Marlene were both in the doorways, shooting encouraging looks at their kid's backs. They stopped and waited for the two girls to reach them.
"If-if you've got the time," Rebecca said breathlessly looking at them all beseechingly, but glancing at Harry and Ginny more, "would you be willing to try and teach us some new magic this afternoon?" She shot them pleading eyes. "Mum and dad say you're some of the strongest and most knowledgeable witches and wizards there are, so my sister and I were hoping you'd teach us something new, something our parents won't teach us."
"Pleeeeeaaaaassseeee," Madelyn said, drawing out the word.
Harry felt the corners of his lips twitch towards a grin before he turned to his wife and friends who were all looking amused.
"Alright," Harry said with a grin. "We'll teach you something this afternoon, and anytime we have free time if you're willing."
Both girls nodded eagerly causing the four travelers to smile. They nodded at the girls and then disapparated.
They appeared in a dreary area in the far north. It was cloudy, and in the not too far distance, there was a dark, foreboding looking castle, which was oh so cliche. They started moving in a relaxed manner towards the castle, knowing that as they got closer, the vampires would come out for them.
When they'd made it about halfway, they saw twelve dark shapes fly out from the castle and start speeding along towards them at an extremely fast pace.
"Here we go," Alicia said with a sigh, drawing her wand as the others copied her.
"Jason, get the sunshine spells," Harry said. "Ginny and I will conjure barriers to prevent their escape. Licia, you take care of the killing blows."
The three nodded. The dark shapes continued to get closer until they were swooping down in preparation of striking. Jason raised his wand and conjured an intense blast of sunlight that swept up to the clouds.
The twelve dark shapes formed into distinct bodies that screamed as they dropped to the ground. Ginny and Harry swept forward and conjured barriers of sunlight behind, above, and to the sides of the group of Vampires causing them to scream in pain. The conjured sunlight wouldn't kill the vampires, but it would hurt them greatly, and weaken them, removing their superhuman strength and speed. Vampires were really only dangerous when they had the element of surprise on their side, or in close quarters.
Alicia quickly conjured dozens of wooden stakes which she launched into the twelve vampires causing them to gasp in pain before their skin turned grey and they melted into ash. From the distance of the castle, they could hear screams of anger and sorrow.
Harry grimaced, and he noticed his expression mirrored on his friends and wife's faces. He and his friends rushed forward, running towards the castle as four more dark shapes took to the sky. Jason and Alicia started making complicated motions with their wands muttering under their breaths until finally they pointed their wands up to the sky and two powerful jets of light rushed towards the clouds, blasting them away and causing natural sunlight to pour down onto the castle. The four shapes that had been flying in the air, heading towards them screamed as the natural light hit them, causing them to shift to their normal bodies, their skin to turn grey, and finally for them to melt into dust.
They reached the castle and Ginny blew the door in. They entered quickly, Alicia and Jason pulling out their blades. Ginny and Harry homed in on the two figures at the head of the Entrance Hall, standing tall, glaring at them with hate, radiating power, death, and timelessness like only a vampire lord can.
Harry heard the clash and out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Jason and Alicia, locked blades with two other vampires.
"I'd ask who you are coming here killing my minions, but since you're about to die, it doesn't matter," the lead vampire growled out.
Harry rolled his eyes and raised his wand quicker than the vampire lords could move towards him. "Lumos solem maximum!"
The sunlight spell lit up the room, causing the four vampires to flinch in pain. The momentary lapse was all Jason and Alicia needed to run the vampires through the heart with their swords, causing the vampires to gasp in pain and surprise, not probably realizing the blades could kill them. Being magically enhanced blades, they easily killed the vampires. Ginny and Harry launched a bunch of conjured stakes at the two remaining vampires. One of them faded into dust as he was destroyed, but the remaining vampire faded into shadow avoiding the stakes, appearing off to the right. He snarled and snapped his fingers causing the room to go pitch black.
Harry went to a ready position, prepared for an attack, but it didn't matter. Harry heard a gasp of pain as the darkness faded away. He turned to look and saw Alicia's blade sticking through the vampire lord's heart, a look of surprise on his face.
"H-how?" he gasped out as his skin started to turn grey.
Alicia shook her head. "Just because we can't see doesn't mean we can't Sense you. You're less careful and precise when you think you have the upper hand, and you wanted to revel in the kill. That cost you," she told him quietly.
The vampire's skin completely turned grey and melted into dust.
Jason walked over to the wall and using his wand, carved a message into the wall that the Death Eaters and vampires would read when others came to find the missing vampires, and then charmed the walls with two different traps. As soon as he was done, they left without a word, apparating away.
**HP**
"Alright, Maddy, Becca, Gabby," Harry said with a smile, looking at the three girls who were giving them all their focus. "I'd like to know what your parents and sister have you all study for your schooling and what your best subjects are."
"Well," Rebecca said. "We study Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History, Potions, Runes, and Arithmancy. Dad doesn't make us do Astronomy since his parents made him learn it and he hated it, and no one we know is very good at Herbology, so we studied it up to the OWL level, but then stopped, though all three of us stopped History at the OWL level as well. I would be in my seventh year at Hogwarts, if we all went, but because of being homeschooled, and because of the danger, we were all pushed a bit, so I'd have the knowledge to have graduated and achieved NEWTs in all the subjects I mentioned except History and Herbology, obviously. My best subjects are Charms and Arithmancy."
"Brilliant," Harry said with a smile. "Maddy?"
"Well, I'd be a fifth year right now," Madelyn said brightly, "but like Becca said, we're all advanced, so I'm pretty much halfway through all the sixth-year material. My best subjects are Potions and Defense."
Ginny grinned and rubbed her hands together eagerly as Harry glanced at her. "A girl after Ginny's heart."
Madelyn shot Ginny a bright smile.
"Gabby?" Harry asked, moving on.
"Roughly the same as Maddy in knowledge," Gabrielle said. "My best subjects are Transfiguration and Arithmancy."
Jason and Alicia's eyes lit up, and Harry smiled.
"Well, we talked to your parents, and your sister, Gabby, and they've agreed to let us take over your educations whenever we have the time, which should be fairly often, I think, since a lot of the stuff we're doing needs to be done in the evenings," Harry told the girls.
The three girls' eyes brightened, and they all smiled happily.
"So, with you two," Harry said, looking at Madelyn and Gabrielle, "we'll continue you with Runes, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Defense, Charms, and Potions, and then you will get the choice of two electives to start taking with one of us if you want to, which we'll talk about in a moment."
The two girls nodded eagerly, looking excited about the concept of new courses for them.
"Becca, being that you'd have technically graduated from Hogwarts, you'll have the choice of whatever courses you wish to take, including some of the electives we're going to offer, but we are going to require that at least one of those courses be Defense."
Becca nodded, agreeing to the terms.
"Now, we'll cover four classes a day, which will be between four and six hours of classes a day, and doing another four the next day," Harry said, causing the three girls' eyes to widen in surprise. "With you two," Harry said looking at the younger girls, "you have six classes that take up six of those slots. The last two can be filled with one or two electives if you choose, or they can be filled with extra doses of your best classes, if you'd rather work on getting even better at your best subjects." Harry turned back to Becca. "With you, the more courses you fill those hours with, the less time you have to really dig into those classes, since you could take doubles of certain electives to get more work with us on them"
"Does that make sense?" Ginny asked, and the three girls nodded.
"Alright," Alicia said. "The elective options are the Mind Arts which includes Occlumency, Legilimency, and Sensing, Healing magic, wandless magic, tracking magic, and what we'll call world magic, in that it's things we've picked up in our travels around our world."
Madelyn, Rebecca, and Gabrielle's eyes glanced to each other, smiling eagerly.
"So, what would you all like to learn?" Jason asked with a grin. "We'll start with the two sixth years."
"I think I want to take two electives," Madelyn said, hesitantly, almost like she thought they would tell her 'no', but they all shot her encouraging smiles. "I'd like to take Healing magic, but before I decide on my second elective, can you explain a couple of them and maybe advise me which one I should take?"
"Sure," Harry said. "Which ones?"
"Uh, the Mind Arts, world magic, and tracking magic, and I'd like advice on wandless magic," she responded.
"Well, the Mind Arts is broken up into three categories," Jason explained. "Occlumency which deals with defending the mind from external attacks, as well as organizing the mind which better helps your memory and retention of new knowledge. Legilimency is the opposite of Occlumency in where it is about penetrating the mind to divine thoughts, emotions, and memories, but this doesn't just involve getting people's secrets from without them knowing or by force, it can also be used for mind healing people who've suffered traumas or injuries of the mind, and a legilimens will almost always know when someone is lying to them, unless the person is a better occlumens that you are legilimens. Sensing is a magical branch that involves learning to feel and detect the presence of magic without needing a wand. This manifests in being able to tell when magic is present, possibly even identify the magic that is around, and even being able to see the magical potentials in people. If you get really good, you'll be able to Sense when magic is even being cast at you, which helps your dueling abilities."
"World magic is very broad," Alicia said, continuing from where Jason left off. "In that class, we'll delve into the magic or dueling styles used in different countries around the world, or at least places that Jace and I have traveled to, so that is several African nations, several Asian countries, the United States, and a couple countries in South America, among others. They almost all have different ways of doing things, or they've developed spells we don't know or use here in Europe that still can be very useful, especially since they aren't known or used here."
"Tracking magic is being able to trace objects, people, or animals' steps. You'll be able to find things that have gone missing and even learn how to figure who last touched the object. You also can learn to track apparation and portkey trails if you get very good, so you'll be able to possibly track where people disappear to," Jason finished.
"What advice did you want with wandless magic?" Harry asked.
"Do I have any shot of actually learning it?" Madelyn asked, seemingly resigned to being told no.
"Of course!" Ginny said. "Wandless magic is difficult, but it's possible for nearly anyone to learn it with varying levels of success. All three of you are magically strong enough that you'd all be able to learn it to high level, with a lot of practice. It does take quite a bit of time to learn, and even longer to get very proficient with it, but it's certainly doable for you to learn it."
"I think I've changed my mind," Madelyn said with a sheepish grin. "Instead of healing magic, I'd like to do wandless magic, and Sensing."
All four travelers nodded approvingly.
"Good choices," Harry said, "Gabby?"
"I think I'd like to take wandless magic, and I'd like to learn Sensing as well," she said with a grin.
"Alright," Harry said, "Becca, what do you wish to learn?"
"I'd like to take Charms and Transfiguration in addition to the Defense lessons," she said, "and I'd like to take wandless magic, Sensing, Occlumency, Legilimency, and World Magic."
"That should work just fine," Jason said. "You won't be able to start legilimency until a little bit after we've developed your occlumency shields, but there's certainly no reason you can't do all three mind arts."
"So, you'll do your classes with us one day, and then that afternoon, we want you studying for the next day's lessons," Harry explained. "For today and tomorrow, that won't apply since you won't know what we want you studying, so today and tomorrow you can practice whatever we work on with you, but after you've had at least one of each class, we'll have told you what to look into for next time, and that will be your homework."
"Not learning it," Ginny said with a smile, seeing the slightly panicked expressions forming on Maddy and Gabby's faces, "but we want you to have at least looked at the theory a bit, and be somewhat familiar with it, and even know the wand movement and incantation. We don't want your lesson with us to necessarily be the first time you've seen something, but we won't have you write any essays or anything like that. You'll have in depth discussion with us on whatever you're studying, and we'll work on it as long as it takes for you to get it down. If that's done in half an hour, then great we'll move on. If it takes three lessons, so be it."
They all nodded, understanding the purpose.
"Alright, today and tomorrow are going to be dedicated for us feeling out where you currently stand on your subjects, except for your electives where we'll obviously start you off with something new today," Harry said. "You having told us helps out a lot, but we want to get a feel ourselves for what you're able to do, and then we'll be able to better plan your lessons. Becca, you're going to be with me and we're going to do some Defense first."
She smiled at him and nodded.
"Madelyn, you're with me," Alicia said, "and we'll be doing the same thing."
Madelyn nodded firmly, looking eager to begin.
"You get me, Gabby," Ginny said impishly with a smile, "and we'll be doing the same thing," she finished with a chuckle, and Gabby beamed at her.
**HP**
"Those girls are quite brilliant," Ginny said proudly, as they all gathered after having done assessments in three courses for all three girls and then Jason started all of them on Sensing.
"Yeah," Alicia agreed. "Assuming we're here for at least a couple months and manage to stay available to teach them, they'll be on their way to becoming extremely powerful in this world."
"I've been thinking," Jason said, bringing a halt to their conversation, as they all turned to him. "I know we intended to wait on grabbing the horcruxes for a bit because we wanted to lure You-Know-Who into the false narrative that we don't know about his horcruxes, but couldn't we just do that by leaving fakes in every place? We get the locket, make a copy that we put in the basin and then refill it with potion. Same with the Gaunt Shack, just make a copy of the ring, and leave it wherever he left it before. I doubt he thoroughly checks to make sure they're the actual horcruxes. He'll probably just check that the protections are still working and look to see if he can physically see the object before moving on."
"That would probably work," Harry said hesitantly, thinking it through, "but I think we still wait until after the raids, just to give him the chance to check. I don't really want to take the chance that when he gets close to one of his horcruxes that he can actually Sense them or something. We don't really know if he can or not."
"That's true," Jason said with a sigh. "Just thought it would be nice to knock those two out. With Hermione's research on nullifying the effects of horcruxes, we can totally use the ritual to cleanse the locket unlike during our war, and I'd be a little interested to see what it does, other than be hard to get into."
The other three nodded in agreement.
"Let's go figure out what countries we want to try and retake or at least spark the fire in, in order to mess with good ol' Tom's plans," Ginny said. "Then we can give Lily, James, and the others exact locations or at least a list of possibilities of where we'll need or want to travel utilizing muggle means, and where we'll be able to either apparate or make portkey's to."
Jason, Harry, and Alicia nodded and started walking towards the Witcher tent, determined to spend tonight planning since tomorrow evening would be dedicated to destroying dementors.
**HP**
Jason was standing in a corner with Alicia and Ginny, watching Harry talk to Dumbledore to explain tonight's mission. Dumbledore nodded and started walking away to debrief the Order. Tonight's mission was similar to how they'd done it themselves in their world, but there were several key differences. One was that there were just a lot more dementors and they were able to be spread out over a great many more sites than in their world, and there also a lot more Death Eaters, and unlike in Jason's world where Voldemort was just starting to organize thigs like raiding parties that had dementors and Death Eaters together, in this world they were experienced, so there were a great many Death Eaters at every site, though Jason suspected they'd go down almost as easy as they had back in their world, since they wouldn't be expecting an attack. Lastly, at these sites, the Death Eater guards were augmented with some trolls, roughly one troll per every five Death Eaters.
In total, they needed to hit ten different sites tonight, two of which had more than ten Death Eaters and between two and four hundred dementors at them, which is why they were taking their eight teams from the raids two nights earlier and combining them into four teams, which would each hit two locations before they would all meet up at a staging ground and then combine to hit the two remaining locations with their full force, reducing the risk of deaths.
It was a couple minutes before the various Order members started splitting down into the teams they would be working with. Jason's previous team came over to him, and he and Alicia got a friendlier look from Juliana then they'd gotten last time. It had almost hurt a little to see the distrustful look he'd gotten from her upon meeting her, while shaking off the surprise to see her as a member of the Order. Also, among their group was Professor Flitwick, Madam Pomfrey, Rand Steel, who Jason had worked with as an Auror back in his world, and Sturgis Podmore, who had been one of the Order members who'd died during the Battle of Hogwarts.
Joining them was Amelia Bone's team, which had her, her two living brothers and their spouses, Edgar, Ruby, Alford, and Wendy, Kingsley, Joseph or Joe Joe as Jason knew him as an auror in his world, and Aran Cho, the father of Cho Chang in Jason's world, who was part of the Order after his wife and two daughters had been murdered.
Amelia leveled a stare at Jason. "I understand you're to be in charge of our group for tonight's missions," she said matter of factly.
Jason nodded. "We're going to hit sites A and H as we're designating them. There are ten Death Eaters at each site, two trolls at each site, and one hundred dementors at A, and one hundred and fifty at H. Our teams are going to slightly switch up, since I want eight people attacking the Death Eaters and troll, while seven more start dealing with the dementors. Amelia, Kingsley, Flitwick, Joseph, Rand, and Aran, you'll be with Alicia and I, while the rest of you will start dealing with the Dementors."
Alicia conjured a map of the first site, which had several places marked.
"Group 1, aka the Death Eater group is going to apparate here," she said pointing to a specific spot that was near where the Death Eaters were grouped, which was an open shack that was used for the guard shifts. Group 2 will apparate to this spot," she pointed at a different location far enough away that they wouldn't be engaged by the Death Eaters. "As you can see, the apparation coordinates are marked, so take note of your locations. Group 1, we'll creep up from our Apparation spot and hit the Death Eaters quickly. I'll take care of the shack, you'll all focus on those who are outside the shack. They won't expect us, so they should go down fairly easy if we make our initial spells count. Group 2 will obviously start taking care of the dementors, but your main struggle will be trying to stop any from getting away once they realize your patroni can kill them."
"What about site H?" Amelia asked, looking at the map. "And what if all the Death Eaters are in that shack? You can't take them all."
"Trust me, I'll take care of the shack, no matter how many Death Eaters there are in there," Alicia said grimly, and Jason reached out and grabbed her and rubbed with his thumb in a comforting manner
"We'll talk about site H after we finish up with A," Jason said. "One step at a time."
Amelia nodded, giving Alicia an appraising look.
"Alright everyone," Jason said. "Let's move out."
Jason and his group appeared in their apparation point, just a short walk over a hill from where the Death Eaters were on guard duty. They all crept up , peeking over the hill, observing the site they were about to ambush.
Four Death Eaters were grouped together outside, not far from the shack, but still separate, the other six seemed to be under the canopy of the small shack. The two trolls were separate from all the wizards, resting against each other in the field adjacent to the shack. Alicia took aim at the shack and started moving her wand in slow, steady motions, muttering a long chant under her breath, and their group felt the temperature start dropping around them as Alicia gathered elemental energy from around them. Jason took aim at one of the Death Eaters and he noticed the other members of his group hastening to follow his lead, though still glancing at Alicia unable to hide their interest in what she was doing.
Finally, Alicia built up enough power and she flicked her wand saying, "Expulso Inflamari Maxima!" and a jet of red light, surrounded by blue sped from her wand and went towards the shack.
Jason timed his release of his own spell with Alicia's casting a slicing spell at the same time she cast her spell, while the rest of their teammates faltered behind slightly, but still quickly enough. Alicia's spell sped over the half wall that made up the shack and hit one of the support beams holding up the roof and that was the last thing those Death Eaters saw was the flash of light before the entire shack went up in a massive explosion, the shockwave of which knocked two of the Death Eaters outside the shack to the ground hard and staggered the other two, though one of those two was already dead, his head having been separated from his body as Jason's spell cut through him effortlessly. The one Death Eater still standing didn't have time to even gape at the destruction as the rest of Jason's team's spell peppered him with a half dozen spells and he dropped bloody, never to rise again. The remaining two Death Eaters tried to stagger to their feet, shaken from the blast, but they were too slow and Jason and Alicia each hit one of them with a heart explosion curse, and they dropped back to the ground.
Jason didn't even turn to look at his team as he Shadow Traveled away, knowing Alicia would do the same. They appeared close to where the dementors were being decimated by Group 2. Jason and Alicia quickly added their destructive patroni to the mix, and it wasn't long before every dementor was destroyed. Jason turned to see that the rest of his group had already taken care of the trolls.
Their group gathered and the members of Group 1 were giving Alicia an appraising look, especially Amelia Bones, but Jason leveled a glare at them all that clearly told them to back off. Jason conjured a map of Site H.
"Alright," he said. "Here's the next site . . . "
**HP**
Jason and Alicia appeared back outside the Potter Cottage. Only seconds later several more cracks signaled the arrival of Harry, Ginny, James, Lily, Remus, Dora, Sirius, Marlene, and Rebecca, all of whom looked as worn out as Jason felt, though everyone after Harry and Ginny were looking pleased with how successful the mission had been.
Tonight had been a great success with all the dementors destroyed which according to Severus's reports should have been around fifteen hundred, which was half of all the dementors in the UK. In addition, they'd killed sixty trolls, which was sixty percent of the UK troll force in country and killed one hundred and five Death Eaters. But Jason wasn't extremely pleased with how bad some of the Order had botched some of their raids. Everything had ended in success, but there had been injuries when some people apparated too close to the Death Eaters or chose not to use lethal spells which allowed some Death Eaters to get back up to continue fighting and cause damage. Luckily, no one had died, but there had been a few near misses, and there were five members of the Order who would be on bedrest and potions for the next couple weeks recovering.
Jason sighed, pulling Alicia even more into his embrace. Grumbling wouldn't do them any good. They just needed to move on and get ready for the next missions. Hopefully no one would think that they would attack the giants the next night. With only ten spread out between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and England, he really wasn't worried, but if Voldemort added extra security, things could get nasty.
"That was a really good operation," James said with a tired grin. "You-Know-Who's going to have to either stop using dementors to harass the muggles or pull some back from other fronts which will take some time or weaken Azkaban."
"It was a good start," Jason agreed, doing his best to keep the grudging tone out of his voice. "I'm ready for some rest though," and Alicia, Harry, and Ginny nodded in agreement, "so I'll see you in the morning."
"Good night," Lily said warmly, as Jason, Alicia, Harry, and Ginny turned towards the Witcher tent. Harry had already told them they were going to start trading off where they slept depending on whether missions were occurring or whether they were in gaps or not, so he wasn't surprised that Harry and Ginny were in the tent with them tonight.
They entered the tent, and Jason and Alicia both sat down in a huff on one of their couches. Harry and Ginny did the same in a chair.
"It could have been better," Harry said, seeing through Jason's mask, "but it also could have been worse."
Jason nodded slowly. "I'm just surprised and a little frustrated that some of the injuries were because some of the people picked as fighters didn't launch lethal or at least duel ending spells. These people have been at war for nearly twenty years, and they still pull their punches."
Ginny snorted. "It surprises me too, but it's just something we'll have to deal with."
Jason nodded, rubbing his tired eyes.
"I think we should just do the giants ourselves tomorrow morning, or maybe take along our trusted people from this world," Alicia said after a moment. "I don't really want to go through a giant operation to kill ten giants who are spread out over four locations. Us four with James, Lily, Remus, Dora, Sirius, Marlene, and possibly Rebecca since she fought tonight should be plenty. Chances are, news of these raids won't reach You-Know-Who till tomorrow morning when they do their shift change overs anyway, so let's go take out the giants before the Death Eaters have a chance to think of where our next targets might be. At most, we have to worry about five Death Eaters and three giants per site. With us ambushing them, they'll go down quick."
"That's not a bad idea," Harry said after a moment. "Maybe we augment ourselves with some Weasley's and Kingsley to remove even more chances of injury, but I like it. We can then do some lessons with the girls afterwards, and then rest for the rest of the day, and then tomorrow night we'll do some more raids on Death Eater homes. The loss of the dementors and giants will probably throw them off balance and we should be able to hit some homes without any major issues."
"We should set up a meeting with Severus sometime in the next few days," Jason said. "Get some fresh intelligence and see what moves the Death Eaters are making to try and counter us or lure us out," Jason yawned as he finished.
"Come on, love," Alicia said tenderly. "Let's get to bed. It sounds like we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." She nodded at Harry and Ginny and then helped Jason up and they walked cozied up together to their bedroom.
"After this is all said and done," Alicia said after they had stripped to their undergarments to sleep, "we need a nice proper vacation. Maybe get Izzy to join us, and possibly your and my parents. Somewhere sunny and tropical"
"That sounds absolutely brilliant," Jason said, smiling at her, mischievousness fighting through his fatigue, as he took in his barely clothed wife. Quickly he moved to her and picked her up throwing her over his shoulder as she squealed and then laughed at him, slapping him in his back, though not very hard, just putting on a show. He walked over to their bed and slung her forward off his shoulder onto the bed where she bounced, smiling wide. "We don't need a vacation to have fun though, do we?" he asked softly as he leaned in and kissed her, pulling back after he'd gotten a soft moan out of her.
"When have we ever?" she asked, her troublemaker smile on her face, as she eyed him up and down, and licked the bottom of her lip. "The war didn't stop me from moving into your room the first night we were on the run, and let's not forget the number of times we almost got caught at Hogwarts."
"Some of those times were less than amusing at the time," Jason pointed out, his lips twitching in a grin despite his words. "Like that time McGonagall almost caught us in the Mastery classroom. I actually think she knew you were hiding under the desk."
"Of course she did, love," Alicia said in fond exasperation. "I'm fairly certain she saw my bra which was hanging off the bloody chalkboard where you threw it. She just didn't want to deal with us that night. Your stammered excuses didn't exactly help matters."
Jason laughed. "I was sixteen! Nobody lies all that well when they're trying to stop their Professor and mentor from figuring out they have their half naked girlfriend hiding under the desk. You weren't helping matters."
Alicia grinned saucily. "I was just helping you test your Occlumency skills, dear husband."
Jason laughed. "That one didn't seem so funny at the time, but that one has nothing on when we almost got caught by Pomfrey in the hospital wing. She was not happy with us."
"Well," Alicia said with a shrug. "I'm sure she was happier to come back and find we weren't in our beds and yell at us the next day for that, rather than find us rounding third."
"The only reason she didn't find us was because you Shadow Traveled us to my bunk when you heard her office door open," Jason said dryly. "You then had to Shadow Travel us again because we woke up Seamus and Dean and they heard you and were about to open up my curtains to see what we were up to, though they already were fairly sure what we'd been doing, me having been teased by them the next day."
Alicia grinned. "I seem to remember you being very impressed when I did that."
Jason grinned, "Oh I was. It was very flattering that you couldn't get enough of me."
Her jaw dropped and laughter sprang forth as she snorted. "Me? Oh, please. I think you nearly cried the first time you got my shirt off, and after that time, you couldn't stop staring at me."
Jason chuckled. "Well, you were and still are the most beautiful thing I'd seen."
"Oh, don't give me that cheesy line," Alicia snorted. "You were just a randy sod."
"Well, if that isn't calling the kettle black, love," Jason said, softly, grinning, before leaning down, and kissing her again, and then moving slowly along her jaw line, back towards her ear, and as always, he felt smug, but happy to hear her breath hitch as she let out a low moan. After nearly three years of marriage, he still couldn't get enough of her, and he was confident he never would. As long as he had Alicia, he was confident things would turn out alright.