"Alright, everyone, time to move out." Potter held out a large hoop and waited for those going to the Ministry to take hold of it. "Ready?" He asked.
"Ready!" They replied.
He said the activation phrase, "WEA exams" and the portkey whisked them away.
Harry and Hermione studied the treeline around the burrow, they knew that Riddle and his DeathEaters were due to turn up sometime after midnight but neither were prepared to take the chance that Riddle wouldn't get impatient and arrive early.
The sound of feet on stairs reached their ears. "How's Snape?" Harry asked, not even looking over his shoulder.
"Weak." Remus answered. "Andi insisted that he go back to the island."
"Didn't he protest?" Hermione asked.
"Not really." Remus replied. "Just shows how bad he felt."
"The only other option was not acceptable." Harry said. "Letting Riddle drain his core via the DarkMark wasn't going to happen."
"No, it wasn't and he wasn't complaining." Remus reminded them. "Just thankful that Bill told us what it was doing to him. And that you agreed to remove it."
"I know." Harry smiled at his honorary Uncle. "I'm just glad that he and Andi worked out how to 'cure' your lycanthropy."
"I'm still amazed at how simple it was." Remus said, looking up at the full moon.
Harry laughed. "Do you know how hyper you are as a four-year-old?"
"Bad…?" Remus grimaced.
"Siri said you were worse than I was."
"Oh, dear…" Remus sighed. "Who do I need to apologise to?"
"Andi, Snape, Dumbledore and Bucky." Harry smirked.
"Oh, crap…"
Movement caught their eyes.
"He's early." Remus muttered.
"I told you he would be." Harry twitched his head. "Check the map, please, Remus."
"Nothing between the inner and outer boundaries. All of his people are inside the curse wards."
"Let's do this." Harry causally walked out of the house, knowing that Riddle would want to monologue on before they got down to the business of fighting.
"Harry Potter…" Riddle drawled as he walked up the path towards the multi-story house.
"Tom Riddle." Harry replied.
"Do not call me that." Riddle snarled. "I am Lord Voldemort."
"Illegitimates can't take a Lordship in the wizarding world." Harry said clearly. "And your parents weren't married."
A few DeathEaters blinked at that.
"It matters not, I shall-"
"Doesn't work like that, titles are given by magic not by wizards." Harry said. "No magical bonding, no title." Nods came from the DeathEaters. "Not that it matters. After tonight, you'll be what you should have been years ago."
"And what, pray tell is that?" Riddle seemed a little less confident.
"Dead, of course." Harry said. And 'dead' was the signal for Bill to activate the Unforgivable wards, along with the anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards. Riddle's people were going nowhere.
"I shall not be the one that dies, Potter." Riddle snarled again. "Avada Kedavra." He thrust his wand towards Harry.
But nothing happened.
"Oops." Harry shrugged.
"Avada Kedavra." Riddle tried again.
"You really think we were going to let you use the killing curse on me?" Harry asked. "Again? How many times does that make? And how many times has it failed?"
"At least three." Sirius was glamoured to look like Sirius, instead of Cyril.
"Black." Riddle snarled. "Impossible. Bella killed you."
"Well, you do know she was always a liar, don't you?" Sirius replied. "Doesn't surprise me that she lied about that. She does like to make claims she can't back up."
"I'll kill you!" Bellatrix screamed. "I'll kill you!"
"Oh, shut up, you stupid bitch." Alice stepped out of the house, flicking her wand as she went. "Much better." She turned to Riddle. "How do you put up with the hag's screeching?"
Riddle seemed to snap out of whatever stunned state he was in and flung a cutting curse at Harry, who took a step to the side and let the curse impact on the Burrow's stone-walled ground floor. He gripped his wand and took a deep breath.
Time to fight.
Spells went in all directions, but quickly a space appeared around Harry and Riddle, no-one stupid enough to get too close to either of them. Cutting curses and blood boiling hexes were followed by flaying curses and entrail exploding hexes. The light around them became a veritable rainbow of colours.
Dum-dum and Morita rolled out of second floor windows and into a mess of DeathEaters, not bothering with guns, just getting in down and dirty and having fun beating the snot out of a bunch of pureblood whingers. Goyle and Crabbe were knocked out by Dum-dum's fists, while Flint and Montague fell to Morita's feet.
Sirius stepped to one side and let Alice, Frank and Neville take on Bella and the Lestrange brothers, while he went after Pettigrew. And Remus went after Fenrir Greyback.
The shock on Bellatrix's face when Alice sliced her arms off was beautiful to all three Longbottoms. When Rabastan hit Frank with a cutting curse, he and his brother learned just how quickly an Animagus can change forms, both froze when Neville went from teen to roaring lion in less than a heartbeat, that was long enough for Frank to hit them with silencing jinxes and knock their heads together, no reviving spell was going to wake them up. Remus and Greyback circled each other until Remus smirked and tossed a handful of powder at Greyback. The werewolf snorted as the powder coated his hands and face, then his eyes bulged and he began to shrink, when he was little bigger than a mouse, Remus picked him up and dropped him into an equally shrunken birdcage. He continued to fight, holding the cage in one hand, swinging it around as he moved.
Hermione and Luna shared nods and started throwing spells at Dolohov and Draco Malfoy. Dolohov discovered that without the killing curse, the two girls were easily his equals and that Draco had opted to throw his wand away and run to the dubious safety of Hermione Granger's shields. The blonde boy looked terrified of both sides, but he knew that at least with Granger, she wouldn't curse him in the back.
The twins sent a dragon load of spells at Lucius and Narcissa. Most of them, it must be said, were prank spells. Lucius' clothes turned to dementor robes, that tripped him up, as he fell, he saw Draco huddling beside one of Harry's people and he fired a cutting curse at his son, only to have Fred block it and hit him with a bomb of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder charmed to turn any spells he cast, back at him. He fell to his own cutting curse, losing a lower leg and a number of fingers. George turned Narcissa's hair into tiny snakes that were charmed bite at her face and shoulders. This was followed by her hands becoming fish flippers and her shoes, cement blocks. The snake's poison wouldn't kill her but it rapidly made her ill, she collapsed to the ground shuddering and shaking before rolling to her side and vomiting up bright green frothy liquid.
Each of The Unit's fighters chose their targets and entered the fight. Most had no idea who they were fighting, as faces were covered with the ubiquitous white mask. As they opponents lay twitching and gasping for breath… reverse bubbleheads were quite easy to cast and required only rough targeting… they would pull their masks off and claw at their faces, some drawing their own blood. Others tried to run, only to meet a hail of spells shot from some distance away.
Bucky was busy picking off the lower ranks with his charmed sniper rifle, working his way from the outer edges, inward. Flitwick had charmed the rifle's magazine to take spells instead of bullets and Bucky planned on using both of the magazines that he had with him.
It didn't take long before the watchers realised that Harry hadn't cast a single spell, he was just dodging whatever Riddle threw at him. But it wasn't until he started to retaliate that Riddle realised it.
And realised that he was in trouble. He didn't hesitate, just spun on his heel and apparated away.
Only… he didn't…
It surprised him enough that Harry's latest spell reached its target and Riddle was frozen. The Duro Maxima hit him square in the face and in the two second between realising he'd been hit and with what, it was too late, his brain and his tongue were stone. The spell took only another three seconds to convert his entire body to stone and it took Harry less than another second to cast an overpowered bombarda.
Riddle's body shattered into fragments, a couple of fist-sized chunks but most no bigger than a grain of rice.
Sirius took a breath and snorted. "That was anti-climactic." He was sitting on Pettigrew, who was laying facedown in the dirt, on the rat's shoulders, his wands jammed into the traitor, his left in an ear and the right in the seam of his buttocks.
But that wasn't the end of Riddle, the cloud of dust that rose from the shattered stone formed a face. "I will return, I am immortal."
"Not anymore." Harry said. "We destroyed you horcruxes. All seven of them."
The face-cloud laughed. "I didn't make seven."
"The Diary. The Ring. The Cup. The Locket. The Diadem. Nagini. And me. You screwed up and made me into one, the night you killed my parents."
The face-cloud screamed and began to dissipate, twisting and collapsing in on itself, fighting with every twist. The DeathEaters' eyes widened and they began to wince. The winces turned to grimaces. The grimaces to moans. The moans to cries. And the cries to screams. All the while, they clutched at their left arms.
One by one, they began to fall. One by one, they were rendered unconscious.
The weaker ones lasting only seconds, while the likes of Dolohov and Rookwood managed to hold out for nearly three minutes before they, too, collapsed to the ground. The only ones standing were The Unit's fighters and a couple of scared teens that quickly threw their wands away and held up their hands.
"We're clear." Bucky's voice reached them via the eavesdropping charm. "I'll bring the Minister and DMLE down with me."
Sirius held up a hand, thumb up, in agreement.
From a vantage point, that had been very carefully disillusioned and warded, Bucky emerged into the evening light, followed by a group of Aurors and Ministry personnel that were surrounded by the few Unit members that hadn't taken part in the fight.
"Mr Potter." The tall dour-faced woman nodded to Harry. "How many of your people are injured?"
"Count out injuries." Harry called over his shoulder.
"Colin and Angie got hit by debris from blasting curses." Fred called. "Nothing bad, just a couple of bruises and a cut or two."
"Any deaths?" Madam Bones asked.
"Only Riddle, ma'am." Fred replied.
"Two lower ranked, as well." Bucky said. "One fell wrong when I hit him, broke his neck and the other moved at the wrong time and my charm pushed him into the path of a cutting curse cast by one of his allies."
"Excellent work, ladies and gentlemen." Madam Bones gave them a curtsey. "This clearly demonstrates that The Unit is a viable force. Aurors, I want suppression cuffs on every one of these scumbags. And someone Accio up the remains of Riddle. We'll dump it in the sea near Azkaban, to ensure that he can't return again." She gestured and the Aurors behind her spread out and cuffed all the fallen DeathEaters with suppression cuffs. "I won't take any chances, that they might begin to recover, before we can sentence them."
"And what about them?" Hermione nodded to the few teens standing in the middle of the fallen DeathEaters and at Draco Malfoy who was still staying close to her.
"They'll be cuffed, too. Until we question them under veritaserum, we won't know whether they were here of their own accord or whether it was coercion and force, that caused them to fight." Bones replied.
"Fair enough." Harry saw Draco nod his agreement. "But they're to be questioned first, with Unit Director Shacklebolt as witness. School starts on the 1st, if they're not his, they should be allowed to finish their education."
"I agree." Madam Bones nodded. "We'll have Mr Ollivander come in and identify all the wands from today, depending on their questioning, their wands may be returned and they'll be assigned a mentor or a guardian, until they reach seventeen." She frowned. "Those that came willingly, will be punished accordingly."
"And so they should be." Harry nodded. "But those that never wanted to fight, like Draco, Daphne and Tracy, should be released."
"You know this for certain?" Bones asked.
"I've seen Draco with his father and it was clear that he feared the man." Harry said. "It doesn't take much to figure out why. Look at the way his hands shake, mine were like that for weeks after Riddle crucio-ed me, in fourth year."
"You think Lucius may have crucio-ed his son?" Bones' brows rose.
"If not himself, then he let someone else do it." Harry answerd.
"Him, Bella, Rabastan, Dolohov and the Dark Lord." Draco said. "I was told that if I refuse to take the DarkMark tomorrow night, I was to be given to Greyback."
"I don't think Fenrir has much use for you right now, Draco, unless it's to clean out his cage." Remus held up the shrunken birdcage with an angry werewolf inside.
"Obviously not." Bones managed to hide her smile but a few of her Aurors didn't.
"Yes, Mr Potter." Cornelius Fudge stood as tall as he was capable of, with backing from the right people, he'd begun to be an effective Minister. "Taking down a Dark Lord is no small feat. The Ministry set rewards for their capture and I will take great pleasure in signing the payment invoices for Riddle, as well as those that are questioned under veritaserum and are convicted. As per the last meeting of the Wizengamot, all those convicted via veritaserum will be executed via Dementor's Kiss." He shook Harry's hand. "And I now understand why The Unit must stay as an independent force. Fifty-seven DeathEaters…" He shook his head. "No even the Aurors and the hit wizard squad, between them, were able to arrest that many, during the first war."
"Well, as we told you and Madam Bones, without the Unforgivables, they're pretty poor wizards." Harry said.
"Indeed they are." Fudge nodded. "I understand that The Unit will continue to monitor the situation to ensure that no-one was missed, however, you will be not taking an active role in The Unit until you've completed all your NEWTs? Am I right?"
"That's correct, sir." Harry nodded. "There'll still be active agents, just that those of us that are underage will only be called out in a nationwide emergency or one that threatens the Statute."
"I was lead to understand that you and some of your… colleagues… have completed your NEWTs?" Madam Bones asked.
"Not exactly…" Harry corrected. "We've sat some of them. Charms, DADA, potions and transfig, only. We still have the other core subjects and our electives to do."
"Ah… Yes, that's true." Madam Bones said. "Well, I wish you good luck and hope that the rest of your time at Hogwarts is calmer than it has been to date."
"Thank you, ma'am." Harry grinned. "I'm hoping the same, too."