AN: Oh boy oh boy oh boy. HERE WE GO. FIRST BATTLE OF THE STORY (and it only took nine chapters to get here. (I am SOOO psyched right now…actually maybe that's the sixth cup of coffee. WHATEVER WE'RE GONNA DO THIS. I'M GONNA WRITE LIKE I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME CAUSE DAMN THIS DAME IS NON-STOP (three guesses what's on my playlist).
Disclaimer: I'll keep all my claims close to my chest. I'll wait here and see which way the law will go. I'm biding my time watching the afterbirth of a genre watching the view count build… (da da da, da da da da)… um… I mean just refer back to chapter one please and thank you.
Last Time on Sailor Moon H: In the aftermath of Death Eaters making themselves known just beyond Hogwarts borders, The various factions of the light side met to consider the state of their missions – and The Order of the Phoenix planned their first major offensive of the year against one of the Death Eaters strongholds – Now the members of the Order's Sailor-Wizarding Operations Squad and their friends at Hogwarts are making their way to the Irish Sea…
The H.O.M. Fronts
The Time Doors disappeared from the small town near the Welsh coastline, leaving Sailor Mars and her team behind. The three figures crouched behind a stonewall and waited: Five seconds… ten. Sailor Mars snapped her eyes open. "Saturn says they're ready."
To her left, Mad-Eye Moody grunted. His magical eye whipped around the dark fields around them. "Copse a trees up there has the first of 'em... disillusioned." His normal eye glared towards her. "Can't you douse that spear?"
Ron Weasley, gamely standing along with them, flicked his eyes to Mars, who hadn't taken her eyes off the trees where the first giant lay in wait. The amethyst flame on her spear was the only light, save the crescent moon, in the clear night. He wondered how well giants could see. Pretty well if they're using them as guards, he wagered.
"They won't be on their feet long enough to alert anyone," Mars said. "Pluto's ready as well."
Moody flicked his wand. The patronus that emerged from it shot off too quickly for either Gryffindor to tell its shape, though it looked positively beastly. It raced up the west coast of Wales and England, to a road just south of Liverpool meeting the three other Gryffindors waiting in the bushes.
"I can't believe Dumbledore agreed to this," Moody said when Sailor Pluto picked up the rest of their team from Hogwarts' Astronomy tower. "The six of them, sure, but the six of you."
"I'm not sure it's the best idea," Remus agreed.
Harry Potter, in the middle of the group of students who'd followed the scouts to their rendezvous point bristled. "You and Sirius were fighting at our age – and Mum and Dad."
"Yeah!" Ron chimed in "If we could fight at the ministry we can help now."
"You and Potter fine," Moody said. "Longbottom, you only fought well enough to put your last wand out of its misery."
"And this one's made my spells a lot better," Neville replied, standing a little taller between Jadeite and Luna. "I can fight too."
"Yeah!" Jadeite said, "he's as good as Ron is."
Moody seemed about to counter, but Sailor Pluto (lingering in the swirls of fog behind the scouts and the other Order members) spoke up. "Mr. Longbottom will do fine. In fact, he may be an asset tonight."
Moody's patronus was a hippogriff, one who looked just as imposing as its castor as it glared down Neville, Sailor Moon, and Venus on the roadside south of Liverpool. "We're ready – CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" This last, though a whisper, was still biting enough that Neville and Sailor Moon jumped. Venus shook her head.
"He uses that phrase like a punctuation mark," she muttered. "Right – let's go." They headed towards the trees that bordered the road ahead. Hominem Revelio had detected least three giants lingered at different distances within the un-encroached strip of forest. All they needed to do was take down one, like Moody's team and Mercury's team across the channel: Just enough to be sure their shield would go down.
Venus mentally kicked herself that her own team did not have a psychic amongst them, and that Mercury's team was all the way across the sea.
They'll be fine. Mercury's as good a tactician as you are. They've got Saturn. She relaxed her grip on the blackthorn handle of her whip as she led her trio forwards. She stopped after a few minutes of walking and nodded to Neville.
"Hominem Revelio" he whispered as he had when they'd emerged from the time doors and onto the road.
The first of the looming orange figures that was illuminated within the trees was now within striking distance, and its head was turned towards them.
"Sailor Moon," Venus whispered.
To her left, the Moon Sceptre was already spinning.
"You've got it!"
Across the Irish Sea, Hominem Revelio wasn't needed to detect their giant foes. The Mercury visor and computer worked as well as ever here, so far from Hogwarts.
"They're all up and down the coast," Mercury said, standing slightly above the height of the jetty. "At least ten kilometres"
She scanned down the cliffs again, against which the invisible giants were pressed. There was something different about one of them… "That one's the leader."
"The Grog" Hermione Granger answered.
"Does that mean if we take him down the others will abandon ship?" Jupiter asked, cracking her knuckles.
"Doubtful," Luna Lovegood pondered. "But they might all break formation… either to avenge the leader or to determine a new one."
"Somehow I think it'll be the first one," Jadeite said. They stood up to look over the top of the jetty alongside Mercury. "They're all spaced out right? How many can we hit at once?"
"Hmmm…" Mercury narrowed her eyes behind the visor, which was lit up with enough lines and numbers to make Harry Potter's head spin. He noticed Hermione watching with rapt attention and wondered if she were making any sense of the readings. Mercury turned to Jupiter and looked at her through the lit-up visor. "The Grog is there," she said, pointing down the thin strip of beach towards a point along the high cliffs. "That place where the rock juts out."
"Want me to hit him now?" Jupiter asked; the lightning rod was extending from her tiara.
Mercury held up her hand. Her blue, alder-wood staff (capped by the bronze eagle) appeared in the air. She held it as surely as she would the wand in its untransformed state. "Give me a moment." She directed it towards the still water of the sea. "Mercury!" she called. "Aqua Rhapsody!"
The notes of a harp filled the air as the staff glowed an icy blue – just like the water in the sea as it was drawn together in a wave, rising up sixteen feet and crashing against the cliffs all along the shore. All of them heard the giants roar: strong enough to send stones cleaving away from the cliff faces.
Jupiter summoned her hammer, swinging it outwards in the direction of Mercury's staff. At her call, lightning struck her tiara, making Harry and Hermione scramble back. The lightning shot out of Jupiter's hammer and struck the soaked cliff that still jutted out into the sea. Branches of the energy raced through the cold seawater, electrocuting not just the Grog, but six of his clan-mates. Their disillusionment fell as they stumbled out into the surf. One fell face first in the water. Another two fell over themselves and keeled over in the sand.
But the fifth and sixth giants recovered, baring their teeth and raising their giant axes and halberds. They stepped on the backs of their fallen comrades, charging towards the Hogwarts students. One of them, with a gleaming metal helmet protecting its head, raised its axe and roared.
"I think that's the Grog," Hermione said.
The ground began to shake. Harry turned around as Mercury transfigured stone steps up one of the cliffs, providing the seven of them an escape. He saw sand bursting into the air all down the beach – and bursts of seawater too as disillusioned giants stormed towards their position.
"Come on!" Mercury said, leading the way up the beach towards her transfigured staircase. Harry lingered at the back with Jadeite. The invisible giants were a ways off still. The Grog and its companion (who was waving a halberd) were close enough that he could see their pupils. Their crashing footsteps were causing all the stone in the cliffs around them to tumble down in a small avalanche.
"Hermione!" Harry shouted up to her. "The rocks – remember the troll!"
Hermione stopped near the top of the stairs, biting her lip. She whipped her wand up and to the side. Harry couldn't tell if she spoke or not. Her Wingardium Leviosa was as fast as it had ever been, catching three medium sized rocks and flinging them at the giants. But the projectiles were too slow, easily batted away.
"Levitate one in front of me!" Harry shouted, raising his wand.
Hermione cast the spell again, catching a large boulder that had fallen onto the beach. Harry stood still in the middle of the rock staircase, Jadeite a few steps above him. He adjusted his glasses and trained his wand on the floating boulder.
"I tell yah if I ever had a good thing to say for my mother, it's that we were learning latin from the time we could speak," Sirius had told him over the summer when Harry'd found his old practice book in the library. "Your dad learnt it too. Course he went to one of those charm schools my mother absolutely despised. Came in handy a couple times – like when we ran into that giant Acromantula one of the full moon nights. You ever needed a spell modification, James could do it. And boy did we need it then. See, one of the bloody bugs had Peter strung up by his tail and I was about to be either Spider food or Moony food, just couldn't decide which way I'd rather go. We were pretty handy with the punching hex, see, but that's worth squat when all that's around you are boulders and trees. I admit I'd resorted to stinging hexs. James was the only one with the brains to save our arses. Brilliant spell too…"
"Oppugno Maxima Celeritate!" Harry shouted, stumbling from the force of the spell. The magic whistled as it sped straight into the boulder Hermione had levitated, punching clean through the middle. Five large chunks spewed out the other side, straight at the two remaining giants. It pierced the Grog through the eye. The twenty-foot enemy grunted once, dropped its axe, and toppled over into the sea. The second deflected two stones with its halberd, but the fourth struck it in the hand, the fifth in the groin. It roared and stumbled, falling towards the cliffs.
"Harry!" Jadeite shouted. They grabbed Harry's hand and dragged him up the rest of the stairs faster than he could have run himself. They both felt the moment the giant's body hit the cliffs as the step under their feet cracked, those below it crumbling along with sheets of solid rock all up and down the coast. They reached the top of the cliffs and kept running across the cracking ground until they met Mercury, Jupiter, Luna, and Hermione at the edge of a forest. Behind them, ten feet of land including a road had followed the avalanche and collapsed down into the Irish Sea.
When the sounds of cleaving and crashing had faded, all that remained were the roars of their enemies.
"They're coming to us," Mercury said, eyes trained on her computer.
"They'll be more aggressive," Hermione warned. "They'll want to prove one of them is the most powerful – to replace their Grog."
"Too much to hope they'll attack each other and not us?" Harry asked, he scanned around, a ways off the trees were rustling – signalling the approach of their still invisible foes.
And out at sea, mist was rising off the frigid water, rising up into a dense, grey fog.
"It's starting," Jadeite whispered
~SMH~
Pluto's team exited the time doors once the three teams had broken the giants' defensive formation. The doors swung open onto scant shore at the base of the false island amid booms of thunder echoing from the Irish side of the sea.
"That will attract attention before long," Pluto said. "Let's get moving."
The narrow shore they stood on was little more than ice, surrounding what appeared to be a rock face. However, upon examining it, Rigel and Neptune determined it was little more than wood.
"Would take a lot of work to make so much stone float," Rigel said, squinting up towards the top of the face. "It looks like there's an apparation point up there."
Sirius snorted. "Knew she was too prissy to sail her way across." He scanned the tall black cliff face. "Something tells me we can't bore our way through."
"Or climb up," Remus said. "Don't touch it," he advised them all, sniffing the air. "They're not without their own defence."
"As long as we can get up there and in the front door," Tonks said, buttoning and unbuttoning one button at the chest level of her severe looking black robes. A bedraggled black cloak (which hung at her elbows) trailed behind her as she paced the threshold of the Time Doors.
"Never knew you were so concerned about your appearance," Sirius teased.
"Shut it," Tonks said and scowled at the button, leaving it undone at last. "Is six too many?" she asked. The unbuttoned top of the robe left quite a bit of the skin beneath showing, and revealing how Tonks had already altered her appearance. Her collarbones stood out much more prominently than they had at Grimmauld. And the robe was cinched tighter around her than her frame normally would have allowed – as though she'd sucked in a breath and never let it out. Or like she spent twelve years in a cell, Uranus noted, a bit unnerved as Tonks closed her eyes and her hands became gnarled and scarred.
"Six is fine," Sirius replied. "We're fooling a lacky, not Voldemort." He crossed his arms as she drew the black cloak all the way on and checked the look of the dark mark on her arm. "Though if you want not wind up in a cell with these two," he jerked his thumb towards Rigel and Remus. "You'll need to do a bit more to that rosy face of yours."
Tonks smirked, "Hers isn't exactly a face I like to wear."
She raised her hands to her pink hair, running them through the spiked strands. Uranus shivered as first the roots and then the tips darkened to black and grey, and grew out into long, still matted locks. Tonks flipped her head, giving the new hair a more wild look, and when she brushed it out of her face her complexion had turned pale, her features gaunt. She blinked and her eyes had faded from rich brown to a pale grey. She smirked full, red lips and giggled, in a voice decidedly unlike her own.
"I can't change my voice," Tonks had warned them as they'd planned this. "But as long as I'm not speaking for long, I can do a damn good impression."
"Hmm…" the woman who now appeared to be Bellatrix Lestrange glared at her black nails until they'd all lengthened and narrowed into sharp points. "Nearly perfect," she extended her right arm palm up and nodded to Sailor Neptune. "I need one more accessory."
"I can't go," Sirius had snorted, "You think our dear cousin would ever capture me alive? I'm the only thing standing between her and head of the family."
"It has to be me and Rigel," Remus said.
"And me," Neptune said. "They might know what we look like, but they don't know my other form."
As Neptune took Bellatrix's hand, her arm stretched out, the fingers of her glove merged together as her body warped and shrunk, until a three foot blue-and-aqua-striped snake was twined around Bellatrix's arm. They all raised their eyebrows as the snake looked at them. A bright aqua symbol, like a trident, was imprinted on its head, the prongs curled around its eyes.
To the west, heavier thunder boomed and continued, the sound of miles of rock crumbling into the sea.
"Let's go," Bellatrix said, as the snake animagus settled around her neck.
Pluto raised her Garnet Rod. The gem flashed.
All around them, fog began to curl off the water and the ice, rolling up the sheer face of the island and over the top, creating a thick cloud that shrouded the fortress above.
"The guard will remember a fog clearing charm in 65 seconds," Sailor Pluto said.
"Then lets get us up there," Remus said.
"Won't he wonder why he hasn't heard us Apparate?" Rigel asked.
Sirius and Remus smirked.
"Don't worry," Sirius assured him, as he helped Uranus and Pluto levitate the four of them up to the grounds of the fortress. "Mssr. Moony's got a spell for that."
~SMH~
Aldebaren Aldermaston Jr., former Senior Under-Secretary in the Ministry's Department of Sanitation shivered as a bitter cold wind tickled the hems of his black robes. He sneezed and wrenched the mask off his face. The bloody dementors made the damn heating charms useless.
The stipend he was getting from the Dark Lord's coffers for all this full time work was not worth guarding this miserable rock from whatever dangers most certainly couldn't reach it. He'd seen the birds that got batted into the sea by those giants clubs. No broomstick was getting past that, certainly not enough of them to stage a prison break.
That Evercreech brat is doing this tomorrow, he decided. And perhaps the next time Madam Lestrange visited and was in a good mood, he'd bring up the matter with her. No one as senior and loyal to the cause as himself ought to be sharing the scut work rotations with some kid who'd barely been outa Hogwarts four months.
He shifted from foot to foot as the wind swept a dense fog over everything. It made the air seem colder still. He fumbled with his wand. Surely he could remember that defogging spell.
He jumped when he heard a soft pop from out within the fog and straightened up, casting the spell. The wisps of clouds ebbed away as three pairs of footsteps walked towards him from the apparition point. As he noted one set sounded like heels the fog cleared away from the figures.
"M-madam Lestrange!" He said, bowing slightly as she prodded two prisoners up to the steps. "Wasn't expecting you tonight." He looked to her side. "Thought you said you were injured."
"I'm fine!" she said coolly. Her tone gave him goosebumps. It didn't help that she whipped a knife out of her sleeve, twirling it. She pointed it at the taller of the two men. She was smirking. "Some opportunities are better medicine than the best potions in Mungos." She prodded the knife at the taller man. "Take this one," she said. "He's one of the Order's."
Aldermaston's eyes widened and he cast lumos to see their new prisoners better, grabbing the tall young man and hauling him up the steps by the neck of his robes. "You catch them by yourself, then?" he asked. He pointed his light at her and the other prisoner and gasped. "Wait – Lady we can't take the likes of him!"
"Excuse me!"
"Th-that's Lupin, in'nit?" He said, holding his wand at the ready in case the werewolf decided to pounce. "I mean, he's to go right to My Lord, isn't he?"
Lestrange glared at him. "You think I didn't consult our Lord about it before I brought the man before someone like you?" she giggled. Oh he hated it when she giggled. It sent shivers up his spine. "The Dark Lord's already rewarded me." That was when he saw the brightly colored snake coiled around her neck. It hissed. It had an aqua mark on its face. Bloody thing's probably poisonous! "Ah – right of course," he bowed to her again, hand still holding the other prisoner's robes. "W-will we be keeping him past the full moon then?"
"What's the matter?" Lestrange smirked, dragging Lupin up the steps with her. "Afraid he'll sink his teeth into you," She chuckled harshly. "I'm counting on him to draw out that mud-blood loving cousin of mine." She pointed her knife at the taller prisoner. "That one's got ties to that Meioh lady."
He grinned. "Finally!" They'd been searching for months for those others in her classes with no luck. They'd all gone to ground it seemed. And getting the Abbott brat to say anything useful had proven as hard as pulling teeth. "Maybe he'll do more talking." Thinking of it. "Were you wanting to have another go at Abbott tonight?" He asked as he followed Lestrange through the front doors. "Think we're wearing him down,"
Lestrange frowned. "Just put them together."
"Will do, he got a wand?" He asked, casting a body bind on the prisoner.
Lestrange raised her eyebrows at him. "Do you have brain?" she taunted,brandishing two wands between her fingers.
"Er…"
"Just get him processed!" she snapped, her voice sounded a bit coarse. Her eyes looked red for a moment.
Evercreech had better do this for the next month, Aldermaston thought as he took a step back. Lestrange's new pet snake was glaring at him too. I'd rather have Pettigrew's assignment, he thought. Least the Dark Lord didn't have her temperment.
"Yes, Lady Lestrange," he said, remembering to salute her with his wand only as he reached the threshold of the right hand corridor. He elbowed his prisoner, who was shuffling since the conjured ropes bound his legs to the knee. "Go faster or I'll levitate yah," he snapped, slamming the door lest Lestrange opt to follow.
Back in the entryway, Bellatrix Lestrange's lookalike smirked and stowed her knife. She passed one of the two wands in her left hand to Remus. "That went well."
"And he's taking him to Abbott," Remus murmured.
The snake rose from Tonks shoulder, slithering down her arm. Tonks jumped and wobbled on her heels.
"Fucking hell, don't do that." Tonks shivered. The snake rolled her eyes.
"You're going down then?" Remus confirmed as Tonks set the snake animagus on the ground.
The snake nodded, and darted towards the left hand corridor, disappearing into the pitch-dark halls.
"Dementors probably make keeping torches lit impossible," Tonks muttered.
"This should hold up," Remus said, and a green flame flared to life in his palm, brighter than lumos. It was enough light to see the whole, stone, low-ceilinged room.
Across from them was another set of double doors – made of metal that was frosted over entirely with ice. Tonks and Remus approached them together, the only sound the heavy clack of Tonks heels against the stone floors.
Hopefully, Remus thought, she would not to interact with many more of the guards up close. "Can you hold that disguise much longer?"
Tonks snorted (a decidedly unnerving sound coming from Bellatrix Lestrange's face). "Puh-lease." She put her hand to the iron door handle and nodded to him. "Hear anything?"
"Two guards pacing the hall," he said. "Sounds like there are stairs not too far beyond."
"Guess we're going up then," she said. "On three."
"One, two."
"Three," they said together, and threw the doors open wide, striding in-step into the depths of the prison.
~SMH~
"Move it," the Death Eater said behind Rigel Fawcett, the man's patronus, a large cat, ran around Rigel's heels. His name's Aldermaston, the Ravenclaw alum thought. He remembered him by his nose; he'd seen his face in the paper a month prior in a resignation notice. They kept all those, tacked up on the suspicious board. The flow of Ministry officials slipping out of the more menial office jobs had increased from a trickle to a steady stream in the last month. Not an auror, Rigel recalled, which served him well. He carefully slid his wand out of his sleeve in the dark hall. His arms, bound in front of him, were out of Aldermaston's sight.
"These may not be seasoned dark wizards," Moody had warned them the night prior. "But some of 'em are, and some of 'em are itching to be." His magical eye had seemed to stare right through Rigel's scrawny frame. "We made exceptions in the Auror office in the last war, and I'm going to tell you the same thing I told my trainees."
When they were halfway to the end of the corridor, and no other guards had appeared, Rigel pretended to stumble. He turned just enough to aim the tip of his wand at Aldermaston.
"Death Eaters don't hesitate. Don't you either."
"Imperio," Rigel whispered. He shivered as Aldermaston froze. The man's eyes glazed over. His patronus gave a silent yowl before it vanished on an unseen breeze. It left the hallway pitch dark.
Rigel took a breath. "Undo the body bind, please," he whispered, and Aldermaston raised his wand. The ropes around Rigel's arms and legs disappeared. He stood up straighter, keeping his wand on Aldermaston.
"You mean like… unforgivables?" His reply to Moody last night had been barely a squeak.
Moody had fixed him with an even more intense stare. "You do what you need to do, boy."
Rigel took a steadying breath. "Cast Lumos," Rigel said.
Aldermaston did. He had a pot-belly, now that Rigel could see well again, and looked the same age as his father.
"At some point or another, we all get our hands dirty."
"Take me to Timothy Abbott," Rigel told his captor-turned-captive.
Aldermaston nodded heavily and moved forwards.
"Wait," Rigel said. The Death Eater stopped short, nearly tripping. Rigel gulped. "Give me your wand," he told him.
The Death Eater did, as casually as a friend would have tossed him a sickle. Rigel took the wand in a shaking hand. It still glowed just enough to see a few feet down the hall.
"Right, keep going," he said, and followed the Death Eater further into the prison.
~SMH~
The fortress was still covered in plenty of fog, masking the three people and the Time Doors that now stood on level with the grounds. Uranus gaze was turned upwards, tracking the black shadows that occasionally ghosted past.
"How long before they realize we're not the guards," she asked, glancing down at Sirius who had taken his animagus form as soon as they'd set foot on the level of the building. She didn't blame him. Even this far away, she could feel the influence of so many dementors: The roars and booms echoing from the battles on both sides of the sea had begun to sound very much like the sounds of exploding helicopters, or like Pharoah 90 when he'd at last been set free… And the memories the sounds dredged up brought with them the same despair that had filled her back then. Uranus clenched her hands tighter around her swords. A patronus would be easily spotted through the fog. She could outlast the stupid things. "They should be inside for a half hour," Pluto whispered beside her. "I believe we have ten minutes before we're spotted." She looked at the garnet gem on her staff. "Assuming Lestrange is still out of action from Mars' arrow, Friday evening."
"I think you can trust Mars aim on that," Uranus assured her. "This will go exactly like you're predicting."
"Even so," Pluto trained her eyes back on the building. "If she cannot be here to respond to our threat, I don't need to see her to know she will have left something in her steed. And I believe we will be unfortunate enough to discover what that is," she looked to Uranus and to the black dog standing with his hackles raised beside them. "Be ready."
They were, eight minutes later, when Sirius growled and whirled round at the same time Uranus heard something odd from behind them: a large splash.
Uranus put herself in front of the others. "Black – keep an eye on the building."
The dog animagus barked, his ears perked up now just like the fur on his back. Uranus nodded to Pluto.
"Think we can vanish your fog now."
"I believe so," Pluto said. She raised the garnet rod high, it flashed.
The fog covering the Irish Sea seeped back into the water and the ice, revealing as many as ten giants wadding towards them.
"Was wondering when they'd wake up," Uranus muttered as she began to spin her swords.
~SMH~
"Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss!"
The rainbow of power beamed down from above and connected solidly with the Halberd wielded by the second Giant they'd encountered. It must have been charmed somehow, because the attack only melted half of the blade. And the giant was able to reflect it back at her. Sailor Moon dove out of the way, soaring over the trees.
She could see fire in the south. And at least one visible giant lumbering through it. Sailor Moon bit her lip. She'd hoped when Hermione said these were fire resistant that might not include Mars.
I'll get down there soon, Sailor Moon decided. She heard a whistle below her and dodged left, avoiding an arrow with a shaft as wide as her torso. She glared downwards. Whichever giant had shot it was invisible. All of them it seemed, were invisible. Venus was having some luck cancelling the charm with the love whip, but she could only manage one at a time.
"Sailor Moon!" Venus shouted up to her just before she heard another whistle of metal cutting through air – from the opposite direction. She folded her wings in, dropping towards the trees. Another whistle. How many of them have arrows! She turned around.
There were another two projectiles arcing down towards her – fast. Whether she banked right or left they'd still catch her. And the treeline had to be close at her back. Sailor Moon brought her sceptre up, ready to cast.
"Protego!" she shouted. A white shield sprang up in front of her, blocking both projectiles. But the giant arrows slammed into it with such force as to increase the speed of her descent. She crashed through the top layer of trees then vanished her shield just in time to reach up and grab one of the branches. She jerked to a halt.
"Phew." Sailor Moon sighed.
Then the branch snapped.
"Molliare!" two voices called below her. She heard a whip crack.
And landed softly on the ground, caught by two cushioning charms.
"What happened?" Venus asked, stepping forwards and offering Sailor Moon her hand.
"Some of them have arrows," Sailor Moon said. "Like – ah!"
"Protego!" Neville Longbottom's shield formed right over their heads and he grunted as the arrow glanced off it with a clang. It ricocheted into the trunk of an oak tree, piercing it all the way through.
"Like that," Sailor Moon said, turning all around.
Venus heard still more whistles above and grabbed both of them by the arms. "Come on," she said, running southwards. "They're aiming for our –" there was a thud and a rumble behind them as another arrow pierced the ground, then several crashes as snapped branches fell around it.
Sailor Moon was able to match Venus' pace easily. Neville, she half carried. Though for all he wasn't up to running, his aim was ever steady. He cast hominem revelio over the approaching trees twice more, showing them another silhouette twenty feet ahead. Venus noted this one looked to be holding one of the long bows.
They dropped down into the cover of a dried up stream, still muddy from the last rain shower that had flooded it. Large tree roots poked through the dirt all around them.
"We've got to get more than one visible at a time," Venus said. "And – Protego! Depulso!" Her shield was stronger than Neville's, and the banishing charm she threw in with it halted the fast-moving arrow in its tracks. It thudded harmlessly into the dirt nearby.
"And get the arrows before we get skewered." Sailor Moon wrinkled her nose. "Giant Shish Kebab – not the way I wanna go."
"But hominem revelio only works for a few seconds," Neville whispered. "And Finite Incantatem… you have to have a target." He frowned. "Or a way to hit them all at once."
"Even the power of love can't cut through all these trees," Venus scowled. "Could have Mars burn them all," she mused, lifting her communicator.
"Wait!" Neville said.
"Protego!" Sailor Moon shielded them this time, as two more arrows closed in. Venus briefly stood up from the riverbed and cracked the whip in a circle.
Her hominem revelio unveiled the orange silouhettes of the three nearest giants, all turned towards them, though none of them appeared to be approaching. Venus groaned.
"Something tells me their eyesight's been enhanced somehow," she said. "They're looking right at us."
"We need to make them visible," Neville muttered. "And distract them." He tapped his forehead.
"Should have asked what spell Mcgonagall used against the Erklings last year," Venus whispered. "The way Harry tells it, that was plenty distracting."
"I know it," Neville said. "Sprout showed me – she uses it in the greenhouse when she's re-potting." He looked at the wand in his hand. "I couldn't do it with Dad's wand."
"You couldn't cast a decent stunner with that wand," Venus snapped back. "Can you link a finite to it?"
"I've – I've." Neville brought his wand up alongside Moon's sceptre and Venus whip as all three of them cast Protego in tandem. The next arrows that met their shields shattered. "Never linked a spell before," Neville looked at his wand.
"You can do a lot of things you couldn't before," Sailor Moon pointed out. She squeezed his shoulder. "Come on – you didn't think Transfiguration would go well either but you keep doing well in class." She gave him a lopsided grin "Or I guess – you're doing better than me."
Neville nodded. He closed his eyes and turned towards the roots that jutted out of the riverbed behind them.
And flinched as Venus deflected another arrow off a shield.
"Sorry," he said. "It's complicated."
He tried again, taking a deep breath. These trees were a lot larger than anything in the greenhouse, and he was no Mcgonagall.
But the cherry wand felt as warm as it ever had in his hand, nearly as warm as Sailor Moon's hand on his shoulder.
He tapped his wand against a gnarled tree root.
"Dunsinaine."
Sailor Moon and Venus gasped as a white pulse of light raced through the root and up into the tree. The whole evergreen shivered, and the root flexed, lifting out of the dirt,
And so too did the tree trunk it was attached too, and through the forest, every tree that they could see, whose roots touched each other's, began to move. The forest shook as old-growth trees pushed themselves out of the ground.
And giants to the west and south roared as the roots wrapped round their ankles. They saw a tree trunk twenty yards ahead go flying, and two more constrict their roots and branches around the invisible foe.
Neville's wand still touched the original root, and his mouth was gaping.
"Neville! Link the spells!" Venus shouted.
This time he didn't second-guess. His finite incantatem travelled through the enchanted trees.
And eleven giants became visible across the dancing forest. They watched as one had its long bow wrenched from its fist by two sturdy evergreens.
"Alright!" Sailor Moon clapped Neville on the shoulder and then took to the air, sceptre raised. "See how well you dodge now!" she taunted.
"Come on!" Venus said. She leapt out of the riverbed and beckoned to him. "Those won't distract 'em for long."
Neville tripped on the shaft of an arrow as he clambered out, now also covered in mud. He turned around twice just to look at all the trees – moving thanks to his spell.
I did that, he marvelled, looking at his wand with knew eyes. Did Ollivander give me the Elder Wand by mistake?
"Neville!" Venus whip wrapped around his waist, jerking him forwards, as a broken tree trunk crashed into the place he'd been standing. "Keep your head."
"R-right!" he gasped, doing his best to keep pace with her as they followed Sailor Moon's path southwards.
Venus opened her communicator. "Mars, Mercury: Status."
"Three down," Mars reported. "Fire gets them just fine if you shoot them in the eye."
"Noted." Venus waited, used the whip to topple an advancing Giant under its own weight, and then spoke into the communicator again. "Mercury?"
There was static on the other side, then a crash. Finally: "Fine!" Mercury shouted. "Busy."
Venus frowned, turning to the west towards the sounds of thunder and fighting that echoed across the sea.
Mercury's busy did not mean it was going badly… But Mercury's version of busy was decidedly not good.
Mars answered again: "Saturn says they're handling it," the psychic told her. "They're plan's going… a little too well."
Venus eyes narrowed as she noted the black and purple lightning dome of a Silence Wall reflecting off the dense clouds. As she watched, the light from it flickered.
"Let's finish off this side ASAP," she said. Just then the Silence Wall faded and another color lit up the underside of the clouds: large plumes of brilliant orange…
~SMH~
Dunsinaine, it seemed, was a spell known to more than just the professors at Hogwarts. Indeed, a copy of the spell had been had left in the basement of the original Wizarding manor that had used it as a defence. Furthermore, its creator had bound the spell into a necklace, so that even a lord as weak as a Squib could still manage to raise an adequate army.
The backstory of the spell mattered little to the group of senshi and Hogwarts students currently battling thirteen giants a kilometre from the Irish coast. What mattered to them was that at some point, that manor had made its way into Death Eater hands, and so too it seemed, had the necklace.
"That one's controlling the trees!" Mercury called, her visor at last isolating the magical item that had turned ever plant larger than a shrub against them. The quartz necklace thumped against the chest of the giant who wore it, as he brought his mace down on the Silence Wall for the fourth time, in tandem with three others. Saturn winced, the heels of her boots dug further into the sandy ground.
"Jupiter Coconut Cyclone!" Jupiter conjured the ball of green energy and thwacked it hard with her hammer, it raced around the inside of the Silence Wall, splitting the plants that had burst through the ground in two. More rose up instantly to take their place.
And the earth beneath their feet rumbled and cracked, a rift splitting right between Luna Lovegood's and Jadeite's feet. Jadeite stabbed their sword into the crack in the ground.
"Jadeite Noble Flame!" their bright, red fire surged into the roots that were shooting from the ground. The attack travelled outside the shield, Hermione noted, catching and burning up several of the plants beyond, and tripping two giants who did not expect the sudden heat under the soles of their feet. "More of that!" Hermione shouted to Harry and Luna. Three incendios shot from their wands in unison. Harry's and hers followed Jadeite's into the ground. Luna's burnt up the branches that had sprouted up behind Mercury. But their attacks did not reach nearly as far as Jadeite's. They did not even travel outside the bounds of the Silence Wall.
Then the giant with the necklace roared. The quartz crystal in the necklace flashed. All the plants attacking them glowed blue.
"That looked like a fireproof charm!" Luna shouted, and was right: Jadeite's next attack did little more than char the new roots bursting out of the ground. One they'd tried to burn stiffened to a point and would have stabbed them through the gut had Harry Potter not hacked it in two with a fast cutting charm.
"Thanks," Jadeite gasped, moving their sword back into a block position.
They were all back to back now, around Saturn who looked increasingly worn from the unrelenting barrage of axes, maces, and one flail against her shield.
"I can't hold it much longer," she grimaced; the next volley of blows made her knees buckle.
"I could freeze the plants," Mercury said. "But the giants would shatter right through them.
"Cover enough of them with water and I'll see how much electricity they can stand," Jupiter said.
"But that might affect us as well," Jadeite added.
"Decide something!" Saturn snapped.
"If we could beat the fireproofing we could take out the plants." Mercury said, speaking rapid-fire. "That might distract them long enough for us to get an opening. We take out the one with that necklace and this fight will be much fairer."
"How do we beat fireproofing?" Harry shouted.
Mercury bit her lip.
"Um," Hermione squeaked. She raised her hand too, Harry noted, as if they were still in the classroom. "There's something."
"Anything."
"But…" she looked at Harry. "It's a dark spell."
"You save our arses from giants Hermione, I swear I'll tell everyone you did it with a cheering charm," said Harry.
"If the aurors can use that stuff, so can we," Jadeite added.
Hermione still looked unsure. "Its – oh its incredibly stupid."
"You've never thought a stupid thing in your life, Hermione," Harry said, slashing through a wall of roots that had just tried to encircle them. "You're not about to start now.
Hermione nodded. "Right." She looked at Saturn. "Let down the wall on three."
"Fine," Saturn squeaked.
"Aim away from the giant with the necklace," Mercury said, "We'll run towards him."
"On my count!" Harry said, nodding to Jadeite. Both of them stepped up to Saturn's side, prepared to help her run if she faltered. "One, Two, Three."
Saturn gasped. The wall vanished as she jerked the glaive down. Harry and Jadeite hustled her forwards, running behind Jupiter and ahead of Luna. Mercury remained back with Hermione and watched as she pointed her wand at the largest of the roots, holding it in both trembling hands.
All of them heard her shout.
"Fiendfyre."
~SMH~
"Expecto Patronem!" The great, canine spectre beat the dementor back as the witch and wizard advanced down the hall. Remus Lupin's patronus had always been exceptional and had only improved in the past year of extra practice. While he dealt with the dementor, Tonks deftly, stunned, silenced and disillusioned two more death eaters who had just raced around the corner. She jerked her wand up, sticking both of them to the ceiling. She still wore the disguise of Bellatrix Lestrange, which had garnered her precious seconds in their past three hostile encounters. Only one thing differed from when she'd entered the building: she'd ditched her high heels on the second floor landing.
The prison, they believed, was five stories high. They'd been found out heading up to the third floor. A dementor had sounded the alarm, recognizing nothing of Bellatrix in Tonks' thoughts.
Remus ears could easily recognize the sounds behind the wood doors that lined the hall: the kinds of cries and half-mad murmurs that still plagued many of Sirius' nightmares. "This hall has prisoners."
Ideally they'd have stayed and ushered those captives outside.
But they had two floors to go, and if Pluto's guess held true, precious little time.
Tonks pointed her wand at the ceiling of the hall, casting six silent disarming charms at the spots she'd stuck her disillusioned Death Eaters. Remus raised his eyebrows as each spell hit the exact spot she'd stuck them and wondered if she didn't have a magical eye like her mentor's.
And as he thought that, Remus waved his own wand in a wide arc, and voiced a different spell. "Termites Maxima."
The walls might have been made of stone, but the doors of the cells were wood. And while they were fireproofed and no good to an alohomora, he had found one thing Bellatrix had not thought to guard against.
The spell immediately began to eat away at the wood of the twenty cell doors, chipping them away from the bottom up, until the handles, locks, and hinges all clattered on the stone floor.
Six wands. Twenty prisoners. Hopefully, that many had enough sense to lead this group down to the ground floor.
"Behind you!" Tonks snapped. And he cast another Patronus charm, the teeth of the animal bit into the dementor that rose out of the floor. It retreated back down the hall, towards the east wing – towards Rigel Fawcett.
"They run scared quick," Tonks murmured, as she scanned around for the next staircase up, stunning another death eater in the process. If only I could be official about this, she thought, definitely worth more than rookie pay.
They hustled to the fifth floor, seeing only six more dementors on the journey, though Michiru'd said yesterday the island was surrounded by as many as thirty.
The whole fifth floor was comprised of thirty empty cells and five with half-blood wizards who'd been captured last week. There was no hint of where any of the prisoners wands were. "Damnit," Remus said as they checked the final door. "If Neptune or Rigel doesn't find them, then they're being stored somewhere else."
"Who would use them?" Tonks wondered, "given they have their own wandmaker… unless someone else has rescued him."
Remus hoped someone had, for they'd found many missing persons inside these walls – even Florean Fortescue – but not a sign of Garrick Ollivander.
Having checked the final cell, Tonks dropped her disguise and looked down at her feet, she'd put a warming charm on them once they'd gotten uncomfortable running across the chilled stones. And yet… She knelt and touched her hand to the floor. "If the dementors have all run scared," she asked. "Why's the floor getting colder?"
Remus scanned around by the green fire still burning in his palm. "Might not be a dementor," he murmured. "Or they could be concentrating somewhere below…" His ears picked up several screams on the lower floors. "Let's double back," he decided. "Make sure everyone's left the cells… find…" he frowned.
"Fawcett or Neptune?" Tonks wondered with him.
Remus closed his eyes, concentrating.
Dementors didn't have a smell exactly, but the cold they left behind them did. The wolf in him found it especially irritating: decidedly different from a normal winter chill.
The trail left by the dementor who'd just run showed it had raced off in the direction Rigel'd gone in when they'd entered, but the highest concentrations of the cold were headed down further below. Even now, Remus noted, the dementor who'd just run was turning around, the trail of cold that it left behind it headed ever downwards.
"Check that everyone's got out," Remus said, "And head for Neptune."
Tonks nodded and matched his sprint as they left emptied fifth floor.
~SMH~
Two levels below the ground floor, it didn't take the touch of a hand or the nose of a werewolf for Neptune to notice the change in temperature. The stone and then wood that made up the sub-levels of the island had turned to ice several corridors ago, as dementor after dementor raced ahead of her.
They hadn't glanced twice at the snake slithering quickly along the floor, and she inwardly smirked. It made it worth the frost gathering on her scales.
Thank goodness I'm not quite as cold blooded as a normal snake.
Just be careful, Pluto reminded her, mental voice strained. Neptune took it that the giants above were proving hard to blast through.
I'll be careful, Neptune told her. I haven't forgotten.
The Mirror had said there was someone down here, when she'd asked if there was anything important she should find.
"And if they are important they'll almost certainly be guarded," Uranus had cautioned her before the missioned started.
Pluto'd emphatically agreed. "Lestrange has designed the entire island. If there's a danger down there, I won't know about it."
"I'm still investigating myself," she'd said. "You know I've the best chance to face whatever danger she's put there and live.
She sensed there was an illusion up ahead, and saw a dementor turn not through the door at the end of the corridor, but straight through the wooden wall. She followed it through the false barrier and hissed as she slipped down two narrow, iced over steps. "Neptune Planet Power," she thought. The trident over her face lit up the pitch darkness. Even that went unnoticed by the dementors who had led her down here.
They were not subtle creatures, they led her right to their quarry: for nearly twenty hovered around and inside of one unremarkable, wooden door. She darted beneath the frame, warped by the extreme cold.
Inside, one final prisoner cowered in the middle of the cell. His thin, blue fingers clutched his dirty, golden robes as close as possible.
He jerked his head up as the light from her planet's sigil filled the cell. His brown eyes widened. He raked matted, bleached hair out of his eyes and spoke through chattering teeth.
"Anata wa Sera Senshi desu."
The upper half of her body reeled back. She hissed. It took her a few extra moments to gather her happiest thoughts close. Once she had, she transformed. The dragon patronus burst, roaring, from her trident even before she was fully human again. And the patronus coiled around the edges of the cell, its blazing light had no trouble keeping the dementors back.
Neptune directed her attention to the man on the floor. She helped him to his feet, noting that his skin was incredibly frostbitten, yet he kept a strong grip on her arms with his bony fingers.
"S-s-sera Neptune-s-sama!"
~SMH~
Rigel held fast to the Aldermaston's arm as the imperioed man led them both down the stairs. His guide wasn't the steadiest on his feet, especially not with the ice.
"How much further?" Rigel asked.
"Three doors down," Aldermaston said in a neutral tone.
Rigel took an unsteady breath. "Almost there."
It had been a long walk. They'd stopped at every door along the way. Aldermaston using a single, bronze skeleton key each time. It did not even chime as he moved: for he held the key stiffly in his equally stiff arm, further proof that he currently couldn't move without Rigel's order.
They'd slipped by every dementor and several other death eaters on the trek by Rigel simply hiding his wand and requesting Aldermaston grab his arm. Even this close to his goal, Rigel kept looking over his shoulder. It all seemed too easy.
At last Aldermaston stopped at the proper door. And waited.
"Open it," Rigel ordered, just as unnerved to watch the man follow through as he had been fifteen minutes ago when they'd begun their walk.
And then the wood door creaked and swung inwards, revealing the wizard passed out in the corner of the cell.
"Abbott!" Rigel pushing past Aldermaston and grabbed Timothy by the shoulders, he gritted his teeth. "How are you this heavy?" he seethed. His boots slipped on the floor, but he did manage, with some effort, to drag Abbott outside. He prepared to cast renneverate and stopped midway through waving his wand.
He was still actively using it to maintain the Imperius curse.
Rigel turned to Aldermaston (whose wand he'd tucked in his pocket when the lumos had faded one floor ago). "Give me the key," he told him. "And go inside."
Aldermaston stretched his stiff arm out, and dropped the keys into Rigel's palm. Then he turned sharply around, marching inside the cell and standing stock still in the center.
Rigel slammed and locked the door as quickly as he could, and dropped the Imperius. He stepped back from the door as the man inside came to his senses, cussing and shouting.
"Your lot ain't supposed to do that!" Aldermaston's voice cracked.
Rigel Fawcett walked across the hall, braced his arms on the cold wall, and threw up.
"You gonna leave me for the dementors!"
"No," Rigel whispered, though Aldermaston wasn't listeoning. He'd begun to shout for his friends. "No, I'm leaving you for the aurors." He wiped his mouth and moved back to Timothy Abbott's side. "We'll send them around soon." His hand shook as he cast renneverate over Tim, but it worked none the less. His former classmate gasped and scrambled off the stone floor. Rigel thrusts the Death Eater's wand at him. "Here."
"What's happening? Who're you?" Abbott asked.
Rigel could barely see Abbott in the dark. He flushed. "Sorry," and waved his wand. It was three tries before he could get his patronus to appear anything like his usual, sleek mongoose. Once he had, the spectral animal hoped up on his shoulders. The warmth was comforting.
"Fawcett?" Abbott realized, blinking rapidly to adjust to the light. "What?"
"OI!" Aldermaston hollered. "THERE'S A DAMN PRISON BREAK!"
"Silencio," Fawcett muttered and the hallway was briefly as soundless as an empty graveyard.
Then in the absence of the shouting, Rigel heard echoes from above, dozens if not more pounding footsteps. He hoped it was other prisoners.
"Come on," he said to Abbott, pushing Aldermaston's wand towards him. "Take it." Not that he thought Abbott would be much help, but Rigel was absolutely sure he never wanted to hold that wand again, much less command it. His stomach rolled at the mere thought.
"Is that Lestrange?" Abbott asked, eyes darting back and forth across the ceiling to track each new sound.
"No," Rigel said. I hope not. He grabbed Abbott's arm and dragged him back the way they'd come. "Hurry up!"
They stopped a few times along the way to hustle along others whose cell doors Rigel had opened on the way down. Casting cheering charms got them moving the fastest, and as they moved towards the stairs that lead to the main floor, Timothy was even able to help with those.
But, Rigel noted, they hadn't met a single dementor on the way up either.
By the time they reached the main floor, Tim and four others were jogging with them down the corridor, and all of them skidded into the main hall, where a steady stream of people were shuffling, sprinting, and scrambling out of the double doors on their right, they were making a large crowd at the exit. But none of the liberated prisoners were coming from the corridor across the hall.
"What's down there?" Rigel asked.
"I don't know!" Timothy said. "Wasn't given a tour – Hey! Fawcett!"
Rigel had elbowed his way through the crowd at entryway, until he could see the empty western corridor clearly. It was freshly iced over. The mongoose patronus on his shoulder seemed to react with him: it let out a silent hiss and dug its claws into his robes.
"Wait – are those giants outside!"
He looked out the doors, standing on his toes to see over the crowds that were amassing near the exit. There were giants outside and several Death Eaters. But the giants were being held back by a bright pink shield that Sailor Pluto had conjured with her staff. And Sailor Uranus was keeping the death eaters at bay with cyclones from her swords. Left in the space defended by the two of them were the Time Doors: wide open, waiting.
"You'll be fine!" Rigel told Abbott, pushing him towards the crowds who hesitated at the threshold of the prison. "Go outside – EVERYONE: go outside. Yes," he shouted in response to their protests. He heard barking. "Head through those doors – just listen to the black dog."
"That's a Grim…" Abbott said. "I've… I've gone mental. I've really gone mental."
"Well would you rather stay in here," Rigel snapped.
Timothy cocked his head to the side and then shook it.
"Then go outside." He gave him one more shove towards the exit and then turned back to the iced over corridor.
"Wait – wait you're staying?"
"Yes!" Rigel called as he sprinted onwards. "Want to see what's here!"
He didn't hear Abbott's reply, only the pounding of his own feet.
And, as he skidded down the icy halls, the rattling echoes of many dementors breathing somewhere below.
~SMH~
As the liberation of the prison fortress out on the sea got underway, on the British coastline, the giants who'd provided its first line of defence had grown wise the senshi's tricks. They had stomped through the forests and over the roads near the coastline, one bashing through a hill with a metal club rather than walk the three steps over it. Then again, it had been in a hurry at the time, running from the whip and the flying witch that had trapped most of its fellows. The vegetation had not been kind either. Periodically during the giants' retreat whole groves of trees would drag at their heels, or cinch roots around their wrists until their weapons were hard to hold.
It hadn't figured out which feeble, mutton-brained human was magicking the trees, but it had decided three close calls with an oak tree ago that the Grog-brained Lady Lestrange would just have to deal with it crushing these enemies itself. She could appreciate a good crushing, and it was tired of all this "reforming" business. Even those humans with good ideas like granting them back their ancestral homes had such dreadful ideas about leadership skills.
The giant roared as the rainbow blast from the flying witch turned its club to ash. Oh yes. Crushing would happen.
It was this giant among others that Venus, Moon, and Neville were trying to keep pace with as they headed south. Mad-Eye Moody had already apparated the southern team to the spot the giants would end up: the shore of a lake in Snowdonia National Park. The giants they'd been fighting were on their way here, just like those Venus' team gave chase to.
Mars looked towards the south to check that the giants they'd apparated ahead of were still running here. The two visible ones had easily spotted brass helmets while those that remained invisible could be found by the intense rustling of the trees.
"Getting them all together will make them easier to hit," Ron whispered. "But… Exactly how many are there left?"
"Eight," Moody whispered. "And yes, you'd better be nervous Weasley, they're harder to fight when they're in a group." He spun his wand idly in his hand. "Thankfully, We don't need to kill them."
"We don't, do we?" Mars raised her eyebrow.
"Just tell your friends get them all into the water," Moody said. "Spell I have won't kill them – but it sure as hell gonna take 'em outa commission. Just in time too." And he pointed his wand off to the west. "Death Eater just apparated over onto that shore. She sees what's going on, you can bet she'll be right back with reinforcements."
As Ron gulped, Mars grabbed her communicator and relayed the message to Moon and Venus. She saw the flash of Sailor Moon's attacks in the north – Good – and sent another, psychic warning to Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto: Time's up.
~SMH~
Harry Potter'd had time to cast one reducto at the necklace the giants had used to control the plants before the sight of Hermione's Fiendfyre sent them scattering. The sudden lack of anything to fight had left the seven of them on the Irish side more than a little twitchy, especially once Mercury had ascertained how to manage the dark fire. Her team was now on a marsh, grouped in a circle as they scanned the whole area. And Mercury was midway through containing the raging fire to one soon-to-be-charcoaled acre of the marshland, when Saturn received Mars warning.
"Death Eaters coming!" she shouted.
Mercury tapped her visor, one hand on her staff maintaining the icy barriers that contained the fiendfyre. She scanned quickly around and the visor screen lit up with data. "There's broomsticks flying at us from the north," she said, hurrying to finish her work with the fire. Putting it out would have been best, but they'd had little luck with that – and the flames were a bright orange beacon to their approaching enemies.
"I can put up the wall again!" Saturn said.
"No," Harry said. "We should attack them first."
"We're in the disadvantaged position!" Jadeite said. "Unless you brought the cloak."
"It won't fit seven of us," Harry said.
"We need the disillusionment charm – hang on." Mercury turned towards them all. "I've been practicing."
It was difficult work. Hermione had been attempting to fully disillusion Crookshanks with it for weeks with little success. Mercury'd managed it before, but only just.
All of them jumped when Mercury did the spell to them. Her casting felt like having ice dropped down your robes. By the time she'd finished disillusioning Jupiter and then herself, she was biting her lip to maintain her concentration. But her spell-work was sound.
They seven of them were invisible by the time the death eaters circled over their heads. "I see ten," Mercury whispered, staring up through her visor. "They're too high to cast Hominem Revelio." One tried, she believed, when her visor detected an array of energy overhead. But no other spells were fired on their position.
Beside Mercury, Jupiter cracked her knuckles.
"Wait," Mercury cautioned. "I can't tell who they are."
"What's it matter?" Harry asked. "They're still Death Eaters."
"But they could be imperioed too," Hermione whispered.
The death eaters circled lower – until the beastly flames across the marsh lashed out and bit at the bristles of their brooms. One burnt up in the air and the rider dove and grabbed the handle of the broomstick beside theirs. They could see the death eater frantically trying to shuck off their burning robes. Harry, Jadeite, and Jupiter snickered. As they did, the death eaters flew higher once more, and then dove towards the trees and the township far across the marsh.
"They're headed back this way," Mercury whispered to her invisible allies. Her visor was now tracking the Death Eaters every move. "Wait until you have a clear shot. Stay sharp."
They waited together on the marsh for a few minutes, invisible to the Death Eaters and each other.
But when the Death Eaters were halfway across, Saturn gasped.
"Finite Incantatem!" she said. And they all turned towards her as she became visible once more. A green light shot across the marsh and hit her shoulder. She didn't even flinch. Her eyes were trained back towards the coast a kilometre to the east. "Mama's in trouble." She said. "I've gotta get over there."
"You shouldn't go ahead alone." Mercury said.
"Protego," Jadeite whispered. And a shield rose up and blocked the red spell that had been aimed at Saturn's back.
"But we need to get there fast!" Saturn protested. "It's dementors."
Another two spells shot at them and Jadeite deflected both of their sword.
"I'm going ahead." Saturn told them, and she pointed her glaive towards the sky and grabbed it with both hands. The blade carried her up as if it were her broom.
"Wait!" Harry called up to Saturn, and cast Finite Incantetem. He, too, became visible once more. And Jupiter and Jadeite blocked still more spell fire aimed at he and Saturn. "I'm going too."
"He has the best patronus," Hermione said.
Saturn dove down and Harry jumped on the back of the glaive, the two of them racing off towards the east, where the clear night sky had filled with heavy black clouds.
"Right," Mercury said. "Let's finish this." She parried an oncoming stunner with her own spell and read the readings on her visor. "They're in range."
Jadeite sent Noble Flame streaking across the marsh, creating a firewall that startled the death eaters. On its heels, Hermione cast another spell that liquefied the marsh mud. Mercury saw in the visor all ten figures sink down several feet.
"That won't hold them long." Mercury said. "We should leave them here and go ahead." She cast finite incantatem on herself and heard the others do the same.
"But we don't have a way to cross the sea." Hermione whispered.
Mercury lifted her hand, a ball of freezing magic appeared in her palm. "Leave that to me."
~SMH~
As Mercury dealt with death eaters on the Irish Coast and Mars team with their own problems in Wales, Pluto and Uranus tag-teamed the largest and most brutish giant who had come out of the sea. He'd stepped onto the false island, the weight of his foot smashing part of the wood-and-dirt structure into the sea. It had forced Pluto to bring down her Garnet Ball shield to assist Uranus. But the giant was one of only two left. This would be over soon.
And yet... Pluto frowned. While reinforcements were making their way to the coastlines, she foresaw none coming up to the island. But we are destroying their operation, she thought. Why wouldn't they defend it? She dodged a swing of a giant's flail and sent Dead Scream racing towards it. It broke the weapon, the ball of the flail dropping into the sea. Unless whatever defence Lestrange left in place is dangerous to them too…
Neptune, she thought, get out of there.
"In a minute."
~SMH~
"You're Japanese," Neptune said to the wizard, noticing the crest sewn onto his golden robes. "From another wizarding school."
"Y-yes," he said, his teeth still chattering. "As-assistant pr-professor," he tightened his grip on her forearms. "I am sorry."
"For what? Who are you?"
"That d-d-d-doesn't m-matter," he said, his eyes wide and haunted. "Sh-should have realized," he giggled. "Sh-should have guessed-d-d the reason he k-kept asking to borrow my robes – s-s-saying he couldn't get the p-p-potions stains out of his. Should have. Should have"
"What do you mean?" She asked.
But the man continued rambling as if she hadn't spoken. "S-sorry. Should have known. Should have known."
"Should have known what?" Neptune snapped.
"I sh-sh-should have known." he muttered. "Sh-sh-should have noticed," he rambled on. "All th-those ideas. I l-l-laughed off as jests and fantasies."
"Who is he?" Neptune stressed, nodding to her dragon patronus. It flicked its tail, clearing a path for them back into the hallway. She dragged the half-mad man along with her. Once they'd pushed through the crowd of dementors, she asked him again. "Who is he?"
"My r-r-research partner," the man said, the chattering of his teeth now fading. "We s-studied together all those years, earned our col-lors at the same t-time. Never once th-thought he'd turn d-dark. You know how long he fooled me?" he said, stumbling as she rushed him through the hall, her patronus racing along at their side. "I'm sorry!" he said again as she began to haul him upstairs. "I told him – I told him everything I knew. Everything – these creatures – they make you see things! He could make them leave. I had to tell him. I had to! I'm sorry!"
"Tell what? To whom?" Neptune demanded through gritted teeth. Her patronus appeared to be wavering. She redoubled her efforts, thinking of memories: the first Christmas with Haruka, Hotaru's first steps, Getting lost in Nehelenia's nightmare realm. That's not a happy one. Neptune shook her head and pushed more of her magic into the trident and her patronus. Happy thoughts.
"Now I've helped him," the man giggled as his feet slipped on the stairs. "It's my fault. All my fault."
"Whatever it is," Neptune muttered, "You're going to tell me all about it later." Happy thoughts: Setsuna's return to them after she'd been lost in the battle at Mugen. Sunny summer days on the beach; her first violin solo; her first battle, fought without anyone to help – that's not happy! Neptune slipped on the next stair and scrambled to maintain her patronus' intensity. Happy thoughts! They had not been hard to think of on the way down. And… she looked down the stairs, most of the dementors were keeping well away from her dragon. This shouldn't be half so difficult, she chastened herself.
"I've doomed everyone," the man she'd rescued was crying now. "Doomed, all doomed."
"No one is doomed," she snapped at him as she continued to drag him up the stairs, then through the false wall. Now on the level ground of the corridor, she raced them the short way to the next staircase before looking behind her again: the dementors were even farther back now. She waved her trident so the dragon would weave behind them as they ascended. Its form was still hazy. What is making this so hard?
"Doomed, doomed."
"We are leaving the dementors behind," she said over his words, the echoes of their voices muted by the rattles of the many dementors breath "Whatever dark thoughts are stuck in your head won't stay there. You're not doomed."
"Not me – you," he said, feet slipping as they climbed the wider stairs. She slipped as well and cursed. But there was only level left after this.
"I am not doomed," she told him. Why is he still so addled with the dementors at least a level below?... And why am I still feeling their effect?
The man had resumed his constant string of mutterings. "Should have known. How long was he researching? How long did I not see… It could have been in the very beginning, he never was the best about remembering his uniform. They could have turned white while we were stu –"
White what? Neptune wondered as they reached the landing that turned into the final staircase. The dementors were far enough back now she couldn't see them. And there were footsteps racing down from above. It could be Death Eaters! she thought, suddenly full of panic. It would be difficult to cast Deep Submerge and maintain the patronus.
"It's Rigel," Pluto assured her. "And Tonks and Remus. They'll be there in two minutes."
Good! Neptune tightened her grip under the man's shoulder and hauled him up a step, then another. Would they be down here forever? No! she thought. Happy thoughts.
"What turned white?" she asked the man. "What does that mean."
"Our robes of course!" he exclaimed.
Her eyes widened. "The Wizard in White," Neptune said. "You know him. Who is he?" She hastened her steps, noting the tail of her patronus had turned to mist again. Happy thoughts. Happy. Thoughts.
"His name…" the man murmured. "His name's," he froze on the step below her and so suddenly that she nearly wrenched his arm out of the socket. He didn't make a sound. Neptune turned, drawing her dragon closer.
"Come on," she said, grabbing the man by the neck of his robes. But he didn't respond. His eyes stared far past her. "Come on." She dragged him forwards by his robes.
And fell back onto the stairs. Her fingers passed straight through the fabric. It was translucent. Neptune gaped. Staring as the golden robes disintegrated, along with the man who wore them, into ash that settled on the steps. A black cloak hovered over it.
In the man's place, a large dementor had risen up through the floor. Its hood was drawn back, revealing its twisted, rotten mouth. It raised its hand and uncurled its fingers from around something small, crystalline, and faintly pink…
A star seed.
For a moment, Neptune could not recall whether it was the dementor or Galaxia looming over her, but that moment was all it took for her Patronus to vanish.
The dementor drew in a deep, rattling breath and sucked the star seed into its mouth. It swallowed.
As everything turned dark, she saw it turn its head down towards her.
~SMH~
Mars and Ron covered Neville and Venus as they skidded down the embankment, a giant right behind them. Venus turned once she had her back to a rock and used the Love Whip to trip the seventh of the eight giants stumble into the lake. Then, above them, Sailor Moon knocked the final giant in with her own attack, and no sooner had she than Moody had launched down the steep slope towards the lakefront, dodging a large axe as he ran.
"They're gonna flatten him!" Ron said. "Look they're getting the rocks." Those giants who had thrown or lost their weapons were now grabbing large stones and trees to chuck towards Mad Eye. All of them burnt or crumbled under the combined power of Mars and Moon's magic.
Venus heard Ron squeak and walked closer to him. She clapped the gaping red head on the shoulder. "Got it covered."
Mad Eye Moody had reached the edge of the water. And they watched him touch his wand tip to the lake. A blue light raced across the still, black water.
The giants looked confused for a moment. And so did the senshi and students. "Um," Neville frowned. "Did that… what did that do?"
Out in the water, one of the giants yawned, then two more. The sounds made the loose pebbles on the ground shake.
Then the giants swayed. In ones and twos they crashed into the lake, creating a wave that would have crushed Mad Eye, had Venus not jerked him back with the Love Whip.
"Just in time for those Death Eaters to get here." Moody said. "Look up."
They did. They couldn't see more than the five lights from lumos spells approaching from across the water.
"They're too high to do Revelio." Moody said. "All of you get back under the trees – her most of all." He said. His magical eye jerked up towards Sailor Moon. "Get her down here."
Venus and Mars looked at each other and smirked. "Can we handle five normal sized ones?" Venus asked.
"I handle you, don't I?" Mars said. Then together the two of them leapt into the air, getting nearly as high as Sailor Moon was flying. They each outstretched a hand.
"Mars Snake Fire!"
"Venus Love and Beauty Shock!"
The three wizards on the ground stared as the attacks combined. "They made a flaming bludger," Ron marvelled.
The burning orange and red ball crashed into the five broomsticks, breaking all of them in half. The Death Eaters splashed into the lake.
Venus and Mars landed on their feet atop one of the large rocks and then hopped onto the ground.
"Close your mouth Weasley," Mad Eye Moody growled. He pointed his wand up. "What's she doing?"
Venus and Mars frowned and looked up. Sailor Moon had not followed them down. She remained hovering in the air, face turned towards the coast.
Venus got her communicator out first. "Any trouble out there?"
"They look like they're almost done with the giants… but… I have a bad feeling."
Venus looked to Mars. The other senshi closed her eyes for a moment and immediately snapped them back open. "Neptune's in trouble," she said.
"I'm going ahead!" Sailor Moon told them. She shot off over the trees, her bright form soaring towards the sea like a comet.
"We need to get out there too." Venus said.
"And none of you can apparated can you?" Moody grumbled. All four students shook their heads. "None of you brought brooms." He groaned when this too got a shake of their heads. "What do I keep telling you lot," He muttered. "And apparating into a battle's as good as killing yourself." He glared at Ron and Neville. "You," he said, and both boys stepped back as he reached into his heavy cloak. "Do not tell any ministry busybodies I have this."
Ron and Neville gulped, but all Moody took out of his cloak was a heavy, rolled up bit of shabby looking fabric. He threw it up into the air and it unrolled.
"Bloody hell." Ron gaped, watching the carpet smooth out and hover at knee height. "But they banned these."
"And they've got no business telling me how I can and can't transport myself – these hold up better than brooms. An my legs prefer em." Moody stepped onto the flying carpet and stomped his peg leg on the fabric. "Get on."
They did. Mars and Venus each on one knee in the front – ready to jump down into battle at a moment's notice.
It didn't go half as fast as a broom, Mars was annoyed to find, but it did get them moving over the pitch-black water of the sea.
The clear night was quickly growing overcast, the clouds thickest over the fortress that they could see Sailor Moon now circling around. Below her, great, silver shapes were darting through the fortress walls.
"Expecto Patronum," Venus whispered, the spell erupting into a flurry of orange sparks that quickly formed her signature flock of birds. "Go help whoever needs you." She told them, watching them race on ahead.
Four other voices copied her. And soon enough Mars phoenix, Ron's terrier, Neville's rabbit, and Mad Eye's hippogryff were soaring ahead towards the island too.
~SMH~
"Neptune! Neptune!"
She hissed as she opened her eyes, though it was still dark now. She uncoiled, noting the frost on her tail.
"Neptune!"
That was Rigel. He sounded close.She lifted her head in the dark. Were they dead?
No… that doesn't make sense.
It felt like they should be. Everything felt numb and weighted, and everything in her thoughts was of a similar cast… every fight she'd ever lost had felt much the same.
"N-neptune!"
She squinted, there was light ahead, up the stairs: A weasel-like animal barring its teeth on the landing. She moved towards it. The only thing to tell her she was not dead was her heart beating double time in her ears.
If I am not dead then I have not lost, she thought.
As she moved up the icy stairs, she became aware she was slithering, moving one frozen coil at a time up towards the ground floor. And while the spectre of the mongoose cast the stairs ahead in eerie greys and blues, everything behind her was pitch black, as if it absorbed the light. She looked up.
Rigel's patronus highlighted the black, cloaked form looming above her, the dementor which was now following her up.
Can it see me? She froze, and moved back several steps.
But this one, like the others it seemed, did not notice her animagus form. It kept moving up the stairs.
Towards Rigel.
She raced ahead, up to the landing and past the mongoose, coiling around Rigel's boot. She hissed.
"Got it!" he said, turning and running backwards. The mongoose remained behind.
More footsteps echoed down the halls, and two figures emerged from an ajoining corridor.
"Wotcher!" Tonks shouted, a small lizard patronus at her feet. A giant canine was pacing at Remus side.
"Dementors back there!" Rigel said. "It's – ahh!" He shouted and Neptune hissed, the sigil on her forehead glowing brightly as the rotten hand of the dementor emerged from the floor. It batted the Mongoose aside with a flick of its wrist.
Remus patronus charged at it, headbutting the dementor in the gut. But it barely moved back a few paces. And when the dementor raised its hand, the guardian spectre turned wispy.
"It can fight them?" Remus whispered.
Tonks pointed her wand down the hall. "Look there!"
Two more dementors had just risen out of the floor, smaller than the one fighting them. Others appeared too, blocking all the exits to the hallway.
"Ignore that one: Let's get through these!" Tonks shouted, directing her small patronus towards the wall of dementors.
They ran after it, watching the dementors shift aside, forced back by its light. They were nearly past them.
Neptune looked around and hissed. The larger dementor had raised its arms, black energy encircling its hands.
It raced ahead of them, exploding in the hallway into a wicked wind that blocked their advance. All the dementors in the hallway soared into it, joining with the wind and creating a cyclone, entrapping the four of them within it.
When Rigel's mongoose met the barrier, it tore the guardian spectre to shreds, and after a fight, Remus' dog as well. Tonks lizard curled around her shoulders, becoming wispier by the second.
"We need more power!" Neptune called out.
In the yard, Pluto pivoted away from the final giant, a great white shape racing out of the Garnet rod and into the building. "Neptune needs help!" She called to Uranus.
It was a rallying cry to the tiring senshi. She ran at the giant, blocking one swing of its axe on both her crossed blades. She barely flinched. "Space Turbulence!" She shouted. The attack tore the axe from the giant's grip and sent it pitching backwards. She lept at it, pushing off the fist it tried to swing at her and throwing one sword clean through its eye. As it fell backwards into the sea, she was already flipping back towards the ground.
"Expecto Patronum!" she shouted.
The dragon that emerged from her wand looked defined enough to be solid as it raced into the building. At the Time Doors, ushering the rescued wizards through, Sirius Black took his human form once more.
"Expecto Patronum." His own did not have an animal form, though it was a more impressive cloud of mist than he'd managed before. That too raced after the senshi's patronii into the fortress.
From the east, they saw three more white animals diving towards the island, following a flock of bright orange birds, and from the east, a powerful stag and a small butterfly raced ahead of two riders bend over the Silence Glaive.
Uranus looked up, another patronus – a hare – was circling the building too, shining as the crescent moon had earlier in the night, and illuminating the winged figure circling overhead. She grinned, and looked at Pluto.
"Tell her help's here."
~SMH~
The cyclone of dementors tore up the wood and stone of the fortress, making an even more impenetrable wall of debris. As the creator of the cyclone passed through the wind, its hooded head looming over them, the three order members and one snake animagus kneeling on the floor cringed.
Their last patronus had long since been shredded by the wind.
"It's going to kiss us," Rigel squeaked.
"It would have done it by now," Remus said, trying to find a happy thought and failing. It was like coming up on a thick fog. "It probably… wants to take us to Lestrange."
They ducked their heads as the wind intensified, making frost appear on their robes. The large dementor's rotten hands glowed.
It'll apparated us away, Neptune thought, Like Bellatrix in the forest.
No it won't. Pluto said. Get ready.
Beyond the black cyclone, white light glowed in the corridor. Neptune hissed as it approached, catching the others attention.
"What…?"
Two dragons burst through the whirlwind, circling the group of them on the bottom and forcing the dementors back. The wind slowed.
And more patronii joined them: circling into a cyclone of their own powerful enough to disrupt the wind, Neptune uncoiled from Rigel's boot and transformed, smiling at the growing menagerie of Patronii around them.
"Expecto Patronum." She said at last, and was successful this time: her dragon rejoined the frey, driving the dementors higher and higher. Above, orange birds dove in and shredded many of the normal dementors.
But the largest one simply howled when they approached it, and did little more than tear its cloak. It batted them away, moving its hands to intensify its own whirlwind. Dementors that had been shredded reformed, more emerged from the whipping winds.
"Is it creating them?" Remus gaped.
Neptune frowned. It bore the distinct signature of Lestrange magic.
High above, it had emerged from the top of the dementors cyclone, coming face to face with an unassuming hare, whose only notable feature was the crescent moon on its brow.
"You are one ugly mug." Sailor Moon said, raising her glowing sceptre. "Take – that!" She brought it down, the hare advanced, running straight into the dementor's ribs. It screeched.
"Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss!" she shouted. The hare grew blindingly bright.
And the dementor exploded, wisps of its dark cloak burning up in the night, leaving only one thing behind.
A shard of glass, Sailor Moon thought at first. She flew towards it.
And then reeled back as it glowed black, warping and twisting as it screamed like the dementor had, growing larger and larger, into some amorphous enemy. It raced towards her.
And jolted to a halt in midair, stopped by the blade that had just pierced through the dark form.
"Silence Glaive Surprise." The attack sent a shock through the enemy form, evaporating it. Leaving only Saturn's glaring face and a gaping Harry Potter, flying atop the Silence Glaive.
Sailor Moon beamed. Overhead the clouds shrank back, revealing the crescent moon once more.
"Its done," she said, looking down through the hole in the fortress at the four people staring up at them, and then out towards the Time Doors where many liberated wix were cheering.
Then she turned to Saturn and frowned. "What was that dementor."
Saturn shook her head, brow furrowed. "I don't know."
~SMH~
Most of those rescued elected to wait at Grimmauld, until the Order found their families and then found all of them a safe place to go. But one boy, who'd been living on his own, agreed to accompany Professor Meioh back to school. It was fine if he stayed at Hogwarts, she said, until he decided on a safe place to go.
They returned from the Irish sea well after dawn had begun to tint the forbidden forest and the grounds purple and blue. It was an exhausted crew of students who followed Professor Meioh and the recent alum into the Great Hall. They were the first ones down to breakfast. Professor Meioh moved to her usual seat at the staff table, and all of them sat with the boy they'd rescued at Hufflepuff.
The moment they sat down, coffee appeared on the tabletop.
"Oh Merlin I could kiss Dobby," Harry Potter said, while Ron Weasley dove for the tray of biscuits that had just appeared beside the coffee.
Mcgonagall appeared just after six and raised her eyebrows at the group as she walked past. She sat down next to Setsuna and hummed.
"I'm quite sure I did not approve students going on that little venture."
"Then next time you can be the one who tries to stop them." Setsuna said. "They did a good job."
The group of them was so big, that while they drew plenty of attention, none of those students who slipped into the dining hall as the morning wore on noted anything else peculiar about their number. At least not until Susan Bones sat down across from Makoto and immediately stood again, shrieking and pointing before glancing around, noticing the stares, and sitting down again.
And then everyone who'd made it down to breakfast saw who she had. Before long the rumor was spreading across all the tables and people who'd barely sat down were standing up on the benches to see if it was true. A group of Ravenclaw seventh years even ran over when they were told, and hounded their former classmate. "Come sit with us!" They said.
He shook his head. "I'm waiting for someone."
Hannah Abbott shuffled into the Great Hall at 11, having lain awake in bed for several hours wondering if she wanted to get up yet, wondering if there'd be any news in the Prophet today.
She frowned as the doors swung closed behind her. All the chatter in the Great Hall had hushed, everyone trying and failing not to stare at her.
She rubbed her eyes, hoping Ernie had not taken all the coffee again, and made her way over to the Hufflepuff table. She saw Makoto stand, stepping away from the bench. It looked extra crowded.
And then, as she turned down the aisle towards the seat, the person who'd been sitting behind Makoto stood too, and Hannah froze in her tracks.
He raised a shaky hand and waved at her.
"Timmy!"
He was not as strong as he'd been when he'd carried her trunk through Kings Cross for her last month, and couldn't lift her as he could have then. She could feel his ribs when she squeezed him.
But her brother was alive.
Neither sibling heard the whoops and applause that broke out around the great hall. But the senshi did, and their friends, all of them grinning into (in many cases) their second or third coffee.
Up at the staff table, Dumbledore wiped his eyes.
And Setsuna grinned properly for the first time in months. She nodded to Sailor Moon down at the Hufflepuff table.
For certain they had not faced Lestrange, or Voldemort. And whatever the dementor had been concerned her.
It was, nonetheless, a wonderful victory.
~SMH~
Monday, October seventh began with Amelia Bones rubbing her eyes as she signed off on the last death eater who they had thrown into the Holding cells yesterday.
It had amounted to thirty, total: Five who'd been found sleeping in a lake in Wales, buoyed by an equally dormant giant: one in Ireland whose wand had been burnt up by fire and who'd been unable to apparated out of the marsh that had swallowed him, and twenty four in a ruined bunker floating in the Irish Sea where no structure was supposed to be. They'd been stuck fast to ceilings, floors, walls, some simply stunned and one locked in a cell.
Before she'd even had a chance to sign their statements, she'd had to approve the obliviation requests: for Giants, dementors, fiendfyre. And a girl with wings of all things. That had taken her the bulk of yesterday.
She signed the final death eater's paperwork and threw it on top of the stack, stretching at last.
Macnair, Goyle, Rowle: old names who'd probably find their way out of Azkaban in a few weeks despite her new security plan.
Aldermaston, Evercreech, Fawley: New names to add to a growing list.
Her head jerked up as the door of the main office banged open, followed by a curse as two steel-toed boots tripped over each other.
"Wotcher," her youngest auror yawned as she passed.
"Auror Tonks," Amelia said. "A moment."
Tonks nodded, covering another yawn, and shuffled in.
"You're late," Amelia said. "An hour so."
"But I sent an owl – I am sorry." Tonks said, her hair turning briefly blue. "It's hard coming off a weekend assignment."
"And your ongoing struggle with dragon pox," Amelia said. Only last week, Tonks had still had a few patches of them on her arms. She did a convincing job of scratching, Amelia thought, convincing enough that she'd sent her home on every day she'd asked.
"Ah…yeah – those might be going away finally."
"And it doesn't help that you and Kingsley are always out so late on your assignments." Amelia said. "Which is why I gave you yesterday off.
"Err."
"So I am a little curious, presuming you used that day off to recuperate, how it is you appear so fatigued today.
Tonks groaned as Bones waved her wand and the office door sealed shut with a click. It wasn't the mission that was going to come back and bite her in the ass then, it was the clean up they'd done relocating all the liberated prisoners yesterday. "Right – I'm gonna work on that, boss. I know you and Kingsley can spend a day off sleeping but I gotta say," she yawned again as she shrugged. "I'm just not that old yet."
Amelia hummed, and waved her wand. The silver kettle on her desk floated up and poured a cup of coffee into the mug that had just soared off its shelf. She settled the kettle on the desk again and grabbed the mug. "Yes, well," she reached into her desk and pulled out a vial. "This is pepper up potion," she said, adding it to the coffee. "Do perk up please, Thickness is here for a review of practices today."
Tonks frowned as she took the mug Bones levitated to her. "The Head of the Security office?"
"Wants to ensure our cells are adequate to hold 24 death eaters until they can be tried." She said. "He seems… empty headed as usual," she commented. "But he saw your desk empty. He might pass that off to Scrimgeour if he's meant to report on personnel slacking off."
Tonks stiffened. "Empty headed…still"
Amelia nodded. "So unfortunately we must conclude his appearance last week was not an isolated anomaly..."
"You still deciding what you want to do about that."
"I know exactly what I'll be doing about it," Amelia Bones said. "Scrimgeour might be floundering but my office still runs as smooth as a printing press. Now," she reached into her desk and pulled out a broken sneak-o-scope. She tossed it at Tonks, who fumbled it. "I told him," Amelia said, "that you were down in Evidence. So you can tell him I sent you to fetch this. And you're to spend the morning examining it."
Tonks frowned. "You don't need to cover for me."
"I do when I believe someone has you under suspicion," Amelia said, "The same someone whose got Thickness as empty-headed as he is. And, I would bet, several others in the other offices."
"And Scrimgeour isn't sounding the alarm."
"He believes he has tabs on everyone he needs to – including you." Amelia said. "May I be blunt, Auror Tonks."
Tonks nodded, and Amelia sighed. "I don't know what it is you and Kingsley get up to when you're off the clock, or on it for that matter, but I can appreciate that it's played a hand in decreasing the muggle baiting incidents we've been seeing."
"We just happen to be in the right place at the right time," Tonks repeated as she had when Amelia'd commented about it before.
"But Scrimgeour is still not convinced you're doing us any good with whatever vigilanteism is going on," Amelia said. "And he has other officials close to him who are not so neutral on the matter – there's only so many times I can cover for you." She passed her wand between her fingers. "Now, on to another matter," she said. "If you had anything to do with the eleven death eaters I found stuck to a ceiling yesterday morning then I must also congratulate your ingenuity." Auror Tonks couldn't quite mask her smirk. "And I appreciate it." She sighed, her hand touching the scar on her face she'd gotten over the summer. "When all this dies down I'll make sure you're given a proper promotion."
"If you were sure it was going to die down," Tonks said. She sipped her coffee and moved to the edge of the desk. Her hair thinned and changed to grey, her frame grew taller, and in a moment, Amelia was looking at someone who would have appeared very like Rufus Scrimgeour from the back. Someone the office wouldn't want to interrupt.
"I know, I know – you said I wasn't allowed to use this one," Tonks carried on. "But I have a question."
Amelia poured a coffee of her own.
"What is your plan for investigating Thickness office."
"I'll be having it audited next week – as part of an internal review of the DMLE," Amelia said. "Routine enough procedure. We've had a high turn over of late, Scrimgeour will be happy to see some order getting passed down."
"And you can weed out other empty-headed spies," Tonks muttered.
"Put another way."
They both sipped their coffee.
"You know," Tonks said. "That if people are suspicious of Kingsley and I, they're suspicious of you too."
Amelia snorted.
"No I mean it – the people Thickness is… associating with, They'll want to get into the Auror office more than anything. It's the heart of the DMLE and it's more than just Kingsley and I causing the other side problems.
"The other side being the disorganized violence we have been trying to reign in of late.
"Oh come off it!" Tonks said. "What ever line Scrimgeour is feeding the Prophet is bull – you know we're at war."
"That is a heavy word for a Dark Lord who has done more hiding than attacking the past few months," Amelia snapped. "This is hardly the level we were fighting at in '78."
"I know," Tonks sipped her coffee. "But you know, the Headmaster thinks he's gotten smarter since then. He might not be relying on impressive offensives anymore." She set the mug aside, "And Thickness might not be his only way in."
Amelia crossed her arms. "That's hardly news to me, Auror Tonks. Or have you noticed the minister has a full security detail on him nowadays."
"Why don't you?" Tonks said.
"Because that would be highly unorthodox," Amelia said. "This isn't a war. There's no need for us to escalate before the other side does."
Tonks frowned. And she watched her reach into her robe and pull out something that had been pinned to the inside. She set it down on Amelia's desk.
A Phoenix pin.
"It's also not smart assuming they've got other targets."
Amelia took the pin, turning it over between her fingers. There was an O.P. carved across the phoenix's left wing. It was the first hint she had of any of her aurors being involved in anything organized. "Say I believed we were at war, not simply dealing with a weakened dark lord or an imposter… what would you tell me?"
~SMH~
I'd tell you there's more fronts in that war for you than against you. Hogwarts for one…
The excitement of Sunday faded quickly for the sixth years, evaporating in the first five minutes of Monday morning Transfiguration.
"The first exam of the semester will be on Friday," Mcgonagall announced as a piece of chalk wrote the same on the black board behind her. "It will be split 50% percent theory and 50% percent practice. For those of you here on a probationary basis, you will need at least an "E" to remain in the course.
All the scouts turned to Usagi, who was sitting next to Ami in the second row. She looked at Neville, who'd turned pale and was furiously searching for his notes, and sighed.
"I knew I should have slept in today!" Usagi cried.
She had worked herself up into a right mess by the end of the period, sure she was going to fail."
"Everything I transfigure always ends up pink and lacy – even the rat," she mourned as they walked out.
"But she won't take so many points off for that," Ami said. "Remember I still turn most of my transfigurations blue – as long as you've got a solid basis of"
"The theory," everyone else muttered and Usagi wailed and pulled at her pigtails.
"It's going to go just as well as the entrance exam," Usagi mourned.
"But you passed that!" Ami insisted.
"After failing three practice ones," Rei muttered.
"Hey – hey," Mina said, throwing her arm around Usagi's shoulders. "You've got a week – we need to pass it too, remember we'll help you study."
"Now?" Usagi asked.
"Er… no," Mina floundered. "I've…got… Divination now."
"I'm free!" Makoto said. "Come on – Maybe Winky can bring us snacks to the library."
Makoto studied with her until she remembered she had a Captains meeting before lunch. "We've got to decide who's playing game one – But I'll sit with you at lunch time. – And I can help you study after dinner!" she waved her hand as she left the library. "I'll meet you there!" she called as Mme. Pince shushed her on her way out.
But Usagi did not appear at the start of lunch nor did she appear by the start of third period. "Do you think she's still in the library?" Ami asked as they all made they're way out.
"She must be really worried if she forgets when lunch is," Rei muttered.
"If she's not back by dinner we can talk sense into her," Mina sighed. "If we go now we'll be tardy – I am not getting detention with Slughorn again."
Usagi had indeed stayed in the library through lunch, persistently practicing the spell that would turn her chair into a pig and back. The chair was still reappearing covered in pink and lace. And now so was the pig. Usagi groaned.
"That's better than last week," Neville's voice said as he emerged from the stacks, laden down with transfiguration books. "You're getting it,"
"Not well enough to answer all Mcgonagall's questions about it!" Usagi complained, and both of them jumped when Mme. Pince ordered them to "Be Quiet" in a harsh whisper that carried through the empty library.
Not many others were free in third period to study here. Most that were didn't bother.
Of course, Usagi thought glumly as she turned the pig back and flopped into the very lacy chair, most of them didn't need to pass to stay in their classes.
"Hey," Neville said, pulling up a chair beside hers. "I know it's five days, but I've got a lot of the same free periods you do. So if we study together – like when we do the homework – then we'll both pass. Right?"
Usagi sighed. "Maybe."
Neville looked at her chair. "You can turn yours into an animal and back really quickly – that's where I'm gonna lose points, I know it." He opened one of the books on the table. "I can teach you the theory if you can help me make my spells faster." He smiled. "Then we'll both pass.
Usagi beamed. "Okay!"
By the time they arrived in the Great Hall for dinner, joining just as rumors reached the Gryffindor table that Snape must have cursed his own arm over the weekend given how he'd clutched it all day, the both of them seemed much less stressed about the exam. And both opted out of their normal boisterous study group in Gryffindor Tower in favour of the quiet in the library.
So it was that they missed the gossip in Gryffindor that Snape had torn out of the castle once everyone was at dinner, but they certainly caught up on it the next day when Dumbledore was the teacher running their defence class.
"Snape isn't back?" Harry Potter asked multiple times throughout the day to multiple professors. And each time the response was a shake of the head.
By Tuesday evening, going over the proper procedure for vanishing a vertebrate verses and invertebrate, Snape's name had made it to Usagi and Neville's study group in the library as well.
"Here," Sora Kaioh announced, ushering a gaggle of first years from across the houses up to their table. "He can explain it."
And after an intensive day pouring over transfiguration notes, it was a relief to both sixth years to get to explain a subject that came much easier to them. Usagi herself listened with rapt attention. For the subject of Defence came to her as a matter of instinct. It was far different for Neville, who'd put weeks of practice and study into every spell he'd ever learned to cast.
"Oh! This one was a tricky one," Neville said, pointing in the book for the first year. "See it doesn't say it in this book, see, but Quirrell used to explain it like you needed to practice imagining it first – that's a lot of how defensive spells get power. If you can visualize it, that's a trick to make it more powerful."
"Why doesn't it say that in the book!" the first year pouted.
"Snape doesn't teach that?" Neville frowned.
Sora Kaioh snorted. "All he says is that you've got to want to defend yourself. Which works sometimes."
"Well I've never had to defend myself before!" Another first year said, pushing to the front. "How do I do the visualizing thing?"
They put their own studying on pause until lights out, helping the first years until Mme. Pince shooed the lot of them out of the library.
"Maybe Snape just isn't good at teaching Defence," Neville speculated as they walked back to the Gryffindor common room together. When the reached the seventh floor, the portrait hole had already swung open. And Harry Potter was climbing through with his invisibility cloak thrown on haphazardly, his wand lit, and his face on the marauders map.
"Hey Harry!" Neville exclaimed. "D'you have a minute."
The Fat Lady's Portrait interrupted. "Only if you're about to tell him he's breaking curfew."
"Mind your own business," Harry snapped. "I, um, what's up Nev?"
"Nothing I just – I know you said you weren't gonna run the D.A. again this year, but see."
"Look – it's great. I know. I thought it was great," Harry said in a rush, eyes flicking back to the map. "But I'm really busy. I mean really, really busy. With like Quidditch and NEWT and stuff." He ran his hand through his hair. "But maybe if enough people want to do it, they could – just need someone else to run it." He skipped his eyes over to the same place on the map as before and his eyes widened. "Sorry – I've, um, I've got to go?" And he raced off, throwing his cloak all the way on. All they could see were his heels as he sprinted down the seventh floor corridor.
"Wonder where he's going?" Usagi asked, leaning over the railing and watching his feet as he ran down stairs.
"Dunno," Neville said, looking through the still open portrait hole. There were not many people still milling about inside, save for Ron and Hermione preparing for their patrol and Ginny leading an Exploding Snap game with Sora, Rei, and Mina by the fire. "What's up with Harry?"
Hermione frowned. "Didn't you hear?" she asked. "Snape came back after dinner."
"And he's in the Hospital Wing," Ron added. "Harry's been itching to investigate since seven."
"What happened to him?" Usagi asked.
All of them looked at eachother, and the few others still studying at the tables.
"I heard it was Death Eaters," Cormac McLaggen said, tossing a gobstones piece between his hands in one of the plush armchairs. "Six of em sicked him at an Apothecary or something."
"I think you are confusing gossip with news." Hermione said. Then lowered her voice. "But yes," she told Neville and Usagi. "They think it was… well you know he's got the…" she motioned to her left arm. "They think what happened Sunday – Voldemort's blaming him for not knowing."
"But he went back into the castle before Setsuna even told us that," Usagi whispered. And her eyes widened. "Oh!"
"You think he left himself out on purpose?" Ron asked Hermione as they left for patrol. "Blimey…do we bloody owe the git now?"
Harry certainly thought so, having dreamed of Snape's questioning by the Dark Lord the night before, then again when he'd dozed off in Charms that morning.
And according to the Map, Snape was in the Hospital, and Mme. Pomphrey had finally left.
"I just want to see if he's alright, you know," he'd told his friends when he left.
And the closer he got to the immobile dot on the map, the more he felt he might like to apologize as well. For he'd been wondering if Snape weren't up to something with Malfoy since the year started. And he's actually on our side… even when Voldemort… Harry swallowed the lump in his throat. He felt sick whenever he thought of the dream: of Voldemort lashing out at Snape for not warning them about the attack… Snape gasping out that he simply hadn't known inbetween Crucios.
"It is your job to know!" Voldemort had said. "If you do not then that means that Dumbledore and his like do not trust you, and if they do not trust you than what good are you to me? Well!"
Snape had rolled onto his stomach and spit blood out of his mouth before answering. "Trust is a de-delicate game, Milord." He'd rasped. "Sometimes, it is better if I fulfil my duties as a teacher… Forgive me, I did not th-think they'd learnt the prison's location."
"And I have said it is your job –" but Voldemort had been cut off by a knock on the door, and the death eater stationed there pulling it open, revealing Bellatrix Lestrange. "Forgive me, My Lord," she'd bowed. "As it was my prison, would you permit me to deal with Severus."
"Please," Voldemort had waved his hand. "And next week –"
Harry had woken up then, both times he had dreamed of it, grateful he did not have to see what how Bellatrix would handle things and guilty for feeling it.
Surely that is not what he has to handle every week, Harry thought, as he neared the corridor of the Hospital Wing. I mean… but his thoughts trailed off, as did any notions about guilt and apologies for every time he'd called Snape a git, when he saw the figure on the map approaching from the opposite direction. Harry Looked down the end of the corridor as a door creaked open.
"Nox," Harry whispered, and crept forwards as Draco Malfoy scanned the hall, before unlocking the hospital wing door, and slipping inside.
Harry followed him. Draco had gone to the end of the wing, and was standing at the end of the last bed, waving his arms. He looked like he was shouting.
He must have cast a muffling charm, Harry thought, and he crept closer, until he could clearly see Malfoy's angry face and Snape, glaring at him as he pushed himself up on the bed. His arms, Harry noted, were shaking.
He considered outright punching Malfoy when he stepped past the border of the muffling charm.
"Cause clearly you're not handling it!" Malfoy was exclaiming. "Everyone's talking about it! They're spreading rumors around, you know, that you got beat up by Evercreech and Pansy's sister like they're some kind of threat to you! They're making you sound like a laughing stock."
"Let them," Snape said smoothly. "Better than them suspecting I have private audiences with the Dark Lord."
"And that makes me a laughing stock!" Malfoy exclaimed. "And I'm the one with the important mission here, not you. So how's anyone supposed to trust me if you're the one supposedly helping me! Is it true you didn't even know? Does Dumbledore suspect? Is that why you keep telling me –"
"Not to do anything," Snape finished. "No."
"Then."
"Shut up." Snape spat. "I have told you, repeatedly, it is not the time to act yet."
"But – but I should show I'm trying."
"And if you try to impress with any of your hare-brained schemes you will end up sharing future assignments with Greyback."
"But my father,"
"Is not the pawn in the current situation." Severus said. "You are – and if you want to survive that, you will continue doing exactly as I saw." He said. "Focus on your long term project. Not on whatever imbecilic plan you have decided to try for Task two. That is not about brash actions. That is about patience. You want to survive, you wait for the right moment."
"Cause that's working out so well for you," Draco muttered. "What about Prof – "
"Draco!" Snape snapped.
"Sorry," Draco rolled his eyes. "Task 3."
"There are ears everywhere," Snape said. And Harry glanced down to check that his cloak was covering his feet. "I am still handling it… now go back to bed."
Draco swore and turned away from the hospital bed. Harry had to move aside to get out of his way.
He hesitated by Snape's bed, watching him curse under his breath as he tried to lie back once more. Every move made him wince.
Only once he appeared to be asleep did Harry risk moving his trainers across the open, echo-friendly room.
~SMH~
Snape's stay in the Hospital wing, for what many of the upper years got from one source or another was cruciatus exposure, did not have the same impact for the younger students of Hogwarts. In the first and second year especially, most only cared that for the first time all semester, they had a class that had given no homework all week.
For Chibiusa and Hotaru, that meant time after dinner Thursday to see Setsuna, who never had any of their free periods free.
They raced out of dinner after barely a half hour and headed for Setsuna's chambers, finding them depressingly empty.
"Does she ever leave her office?" Chibiusa exclaimed as they hustled over to the North Wing.
They banged through the classroom doors together and raced up to the office. Locked. "Alohomora!" Chibiusa demanded, pushing it as soon as it clicked. "Again?" She sighed.
Setsuna was asleep at her desk again, just like last month when Chibiusa'd come round for tea. Her face lit in green by the annoying silver gadget that was flashing and whistling in the corner of the desk again. It stopped when Chibiusa put her hand over it.
"I thought she'd stopped doing this," Hotaru muttered. "Mama," she said, walking around the desk and nudging Setsuna's shoulder. "Wake up."
She did, shaking her head to clear it. "Shouldn't the two of you be studying?" she asked as Chibiusa walked around the other side of the desk. Something cracked under her feet. Setsuna straightened up. "Careful." She said. Chibiusa lifted her shoe.
There were bits of glass sparkling on the wood floorboards, and a dark red stain as well.
"Is that blood," Chibiusa gaped.
"No," Setsuna scoffed, "Don't be ridiculous, it's…" she rubbed her eyes. "Wine," she said at last. Goodness she had to stop napping in the office. "I knocked over a glass earlier," she said as she vanished the stain and glass from the floor.
"Are you getting clumsy like Mama?" Chibiusa asked.
"Hardly," Setsuna assured her. "I believe I was simply in a rush." She looked down to the paper she'd put on her desk. "Professor Slughorn came by for dinner," she said, "to relay some information. And I ran out of ink as we were talking, I think I turned a bit to quickly," she reviewed the information she'd jotted down earlier.
"You had dinner with Slughorn," Hotaru wrinkled her nose.
"I had dinner with a colleague yes," Setsuna smirked. "One who has very useful information." She showed them the parchment. On it were a list of organizations and names.
"What's the Ancestry Preservation Fund?" Chibiusa asked, reading the top most one. "And – hey Flora and Hestia's parents are on here.
"And a Keelan – do you think that's Ida's mum? Why's she here with the Sacred 28 Society?"
"Because she donates to it," Setsuna answered. "Or, is presumed to run it," she unrolled more of the long roll of parchment. "These are all certain organizations that Professor Slughorn believes may be donating to Voldemort's cause – or else are fronts for funding it." She picked up her quill and ink to circle several that they'd discussed earlier as being particularly suspicious. "Not even Death Eaters can fight a war without money," she said. "And I believe, by looking into who funds these, we might uncover those who would be willing to do more for Voldemort than simply hand him a few Galleons."
"You can find the Death Eaters this way?" Chibiusa asked.
"Or their strongholds," Setsuna said, looking out the window. "Which is another thing Professor Slughorn has volunteered to look into."
"What's in it for him?" Hotaru muttered.
"That remains to be seen," Setsuna shrugged. "In any case, his help is still appreciated."
~SMH~
Rumor had it that Severus Snape had been released from the hospital wing sometime Thursday evening as confirmed by the Slytherin couple who'd been unlucky enough to get caught necking in the broom closet on his way back. Setsuna had hoped to see how he was faring at breakfast, only to discover that he did not join the school in the great hall. He did not join the students and faculty for lunch either, though by then there was a whole cohort of students able to attest to his foul mood.
"He broke the inkwell," Akira said. "He picked it up, and his hand twitched, and he dropped it." So confused was she, that she didn't notice the fork she was stabbing into her lunch had begun to glow red hot and warp in her fist. "But instead he blames me." She sighed. "And he gave us a quiz too – a pop quiz! I think even the Ravenclaws failed."
"Sometimes you study and you still fail," Susan Bones said across the table. "For instance – sometimes you study all week and you still blank on half of McGonagall's test." She perked up a little when Makoto extended the basket of biscuits towards her. "I don't know about Snape, cause he's always a bit grumpy. Maybe he'll be better after the weekend." She looked at Makoto. "How'd you think you did?" She asked.
Makoto made a face. "I… definitely didn't get the highest marks on the practical." She said. "I did the transformation spells fine…then I conjured a tea cup."
"What? That was simple!" Susan exclaimed.
"And I was still thinking of the transformations," Makoto grinned sheepishly. "So mine had a tail."
Susan snorted. "Nice." She looked over to the next table. "How'd Usagi and Neville do?"
Makoto followed her gaze. "Don't know." Neville had worried on and off since morning… Usagi hadn't spoken a word since first period. "She has to have done well enough – I mean she studied more than I did… that never happens." She frowned. "You know I don't think she's ever had classes she cared about so much."
"I hope she passes then." Susan said. "Right – give me the whole basket – I'm gonna eat my worries…"
"I don't know why they all think it was so hard," Mcgonagall complained to Setsuna Saturday afternoon as they walked out to the Quidditch pitch. Hooch had passed along that Ravenclaw was playing Hufflepuff in a practice round and she was eager to get a headstart on her research for her usual bet with Filius about who would be winning the cup this year. "It's always the same – I give them material, they take notes. Assuming they copied down exactly what I said that's all they need. And that's if they're like Weasley and only open their textbooks once in a blue moon – ah!" She grinned and Setsuna looked up. Little Orla Quirk of Ravenclaw had just sent a bludger ricocheting off the hoops and into the unprepared Ravenclaw keeper. "Now that is good strategy."
They wound up in the announcer's box, packed with students who had gathered to watch, and to see Luna Lovegood practice her announcing.
"OH! NICE SHOT BY… OH DEAR, I FORGET HIS NAME… BUT THE BOY IN MY HOUSE WHO MADE OUT WITH PAVARTI LAST WEEK, THAT WAS AN EXCELLENT SHOT." Luna thought a moment. "AND I THINK YOU AND PADMA MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO DISCUSS." She turned to the watching crowd, many of whom had broken into raucous laughter. "How was that?"
"Interesting…" Mcgonagall said with a straight face.
Hermione was biting her lip. "You might do well to have, um, a list of the players names."
Seamus, howling in the back row, sat up and wiped his eyes. "Luna, I bloody love you."
Setsuna looked around. The first years were here, cheering on Hotaru, no doubt, as were the scouts and their friends save for… "Did Usagi come with you?"
Mina shook her head. "We asked… but she said she wanted to take a walk instead." She looked down. "She's been really stressed about the test."
"She isn't the only one." Neville added, leaning around Ron and Ginny to look at Mcgonagall. "You um… wouldn't happen to have graded them yet professor?"
Mcgonagall raised her eyebrows. "I have not finished grading them, Longbottom. As there are nearly twenty of you in the course." She tapped her chin. "That said, I have graded a few." She took out her wand. And saw all of the students present who were in the course leaning out of their seats. "How many of you cannot wait until Monday's lesson?"
Eleven hands shot up.
Mcgongall rolled her eyes and smirked. "I appreciate your dedication. Not all of yours are graded," she said. And she waved her wand. "Several are." Seven pieces of paper appeared overhead, flying to Susan Bones, Ron Weasley, Ami Mizuno, and Neville Longbottom among others. The last flew back to Mcgonagall, much to Hermione's disappointment.
"Mine's not done."
Mcgonagall chuckled. "Miss Granger, if you got anything less than 100%, I swear I will root for Slytherin in the next match." She considered the last paper in her hand. "If anyone knew where she was, they could save Miss. Tsukino a weekend of worrying as well."
The senshi jumped up. "Did she pass?" Mina demanded, moving down the row so she might see over Mcgonagall's shoulder.
"It can only be viewed by the person it is meant to go to," Mcgonagall said, and lifted her wand to vanish the paper. "And I can certainly give it to her on Monday with everyone else, unless one of you would like to deliver it."
Neville looked up from his own results. "I… I helped her study," Neville said. "Can you just tell me if she got an E or not?"
Mcgonagall raised her eyebrows. "If you and Miss. Tsukino studied together, then perhaps you want to give these to her yourself. Given you are in the same house." Mcgonagall smirked. "I expect, she will want to thank you.
Neville stood up, "Really!" He stuffed his test into his pocket. "I-I-can, yeah." He turned around and looked at the others. "I can give them to her now – where she is?
Ginny leaned over and whispered something to Hermione and Rei, that made both chuckle. Then she cleared her throat. "I might have an idea."
~SMH~
Usagi sighed, walking under the thick trellises of roses that wrapped around the astronomy tower, eyes looking at all the blooms that were fast wilting as winter approached. "I wish I'd gotten out here sooner," she whispered, brushing her fingers against one of the few, still-vibrant blooms. "I bet these are beautiful when it's warm." She pulled her hand back as one of the fragile petals fell onto the lightly frosted ground. She sighed, stuffing her hand back into the pocket of her cloak. "I wonder if you could make them bloom again?"
She heard footsteps crunching across the stiff grass outside, and saw the trellises pull aside, letting a new person in.
"Hey," Neville Longbottom smiled at her, his cheeks extra rosy from the chilly air. "Ginny said you'd be here." He looked round. "She says Endymion made this place… was he a gardener?"
"He was a knight." Usagi said, "But I bet he'd have been a gardener if he could – he's as good as Mako." She reached out and plucked one of the dead buds off the vine. She touched her wand to it and for a moment, it glowed silver. Neville's eyes widened as the grey bud turned vivid green again, and a small pink flower sprouted from it. Usagi turned it over in her hands. "He was going to be a doctor too… in this life." She frowned. "His past life." She sighed. "This is still so confusing."
"Doctor's like… like a healer right?" Neville said. "Professor Meioh says they don't actually chop people up.
Usagi giggled. "Of course not," she closed her eyes and smiled. "I wonder if he'll be a healer now."
"He'd have to be good at potions," Neville said. "That's why I can't be one – mum says maybe if it weren't Snape, I'd do better but I think she's saying that to be nice."
"Oh I don't know," Usagi said. "Mamo-chan said when he didn't have good teachers he did pretty badly – even at math." She looked at Neville. "And from the sound of it, all the first years think Snape's awful at the basics." She smiled. "And you're good at explaining… even if I don't get an E on Monday, I still undertstand it all a lot better now. Only Ami's ever explained anything so well.
Neville flushed. "Um." He pulled his hand out of his pocket, holding out a piece of parchment. "About the test… Mcgonagall graded ours."
Usagi's eyes widened, and her hand darted forward to snatch the test out of his. "Did you look at yours yet?"
"Yeah." Neville cleared his throat. "I passed." He shifted from foot to foot. "If you don't want to look now, you don't have to but… better to know, right?"
Usagi looked down at the parchment and nodded. She passed him the pink rose she had restored and closed her eyes, squared her shoulders, and unfolded it. She took a deep breath. And slowly, peeked one eye open.
Her shriek sent all the birds roosting in the tower scattering.
"I PASSED!" She flung the parchment up in the air and launched herself at Neville, who stumbled as he caught her. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" When he set her on her feet she was beaming. Her eyes, Neville thought, sparkled like the lake in the sunlight. "I never could have done it without you."
Neville flushed. "Well you helped me a bit too." He said. "And besides," He said. "I'm sure Ami and Rei need some credit too."
Usagi gasped. "Of course. Oh! We should celebrate!" She clapped her hands. "I get to stay in Transfiguration." And then her eyes widened and she grew pale. "Oh no… I haven't done the homework yet."
"Well it's only Saturday," Neville said.
"And it's twenty pages!" Usagi scrambled passed him and out the gap in the trellises. "Oh wait!" She ducked her head back inside. "You know," She said. "Maybe if we study together for the next one, we'll do even better – and you probably need help explaining Defence things to all the first years"
Neville grinned. "Yeah… We make a good team."
"Yes – okay. Sorry!" She ducked out of the old rose garden again, and he saw her tear off towards the pitch.
Neville looked down at the pink rose still in his hand. Her smile had put a warm feeling in his chest. He supposed it was the reason he couldn't stop grinning. What if Ginny notices? He thought and then groaned. Ginny noticed everything. He sighed. As long as she didn't think it had anything to do with Usagi.
"I wonder if she's dating Colin still?" Neville murmured, scanning around for a place to put the rose. He saw a still-green vine growing up around the tower's base and settled the base of the flower against it. Colesco, he thought, pleased to see the rose respond to the silent spell. Sprout had been pushing him towards silent casting for weeks now though he'd never had the courage to try it until now.
The rose joined seamlessly to the new vine and the petals uncurled even more in response. It was the liveliest thing in the otherwise waning garden.
"I hope you're still here next time she visits," Neville told the rose. "I bet it'd make her happy." And then he shivered. It was getting towards evening and the temperature was proof of it.
He turned to walk towards the exit too, wondering if Usagi's Endymion visited this garden in his current life. Neville certainly hadn't seen evidence of anyone else's care in his six years here. "If you haven't found it yet, I hope you do," he said to the empty rose garden. "It really is beautiful."
"Hufflepuff's qualities like ours are more widespread there than you'd think. You should see how hard they work. They know it's they're future they're fighting for. And I know you don't want to think about it, but those kids in the upper years, like Susan, they're itching to fight, and they're already choosing sides. They're gonna decide who wins this. They're as good as Aurors some of em…"
~SMH~
"And there's more than just Hogwarts who're with you. There's another front… an Order of people out there, Let's say, who'll stand up and fight before our guys even apparated out of the office…"
"This is supposed to be the easy lesson," Michiru said on the third Wednesday in October, glancing sceptically between Morgana Avery, and the Dementor the Weasley twins had herded off Diagon's streets last week "for research purposes." Avery's lion patronus was currently prowling around it, in the basement where they had trapped the thing.
And Avery was perched on one of the boxes in the corner, watching Michiru "Well this will be easier than putting your mind up against a Legilimens for starters," Avery said. "It involves the same kind of discipline." She frowned. "I won't let it kiss you if that's what you're worried about."
"I'm sure I could transform or conjure a patronus to beat back one before that." Michiru crossed her arms over her chest. "I simply dislike the memories they tend to dredge up."
Avery sighed. "Me too…" she frowned. "We can do the lesson without it. I just thought, if you're trying to learn mental magic quickly, this can help with the first step." She looked at Michiru. "Working through Imperius, or a vampire's thrall, or a Legilimens…they all require the same thing… you've got to focus on what you want, or on what's true, especially with a Legilimens because if you know what's true, then you can practice leaving out what you want to hide." She waved at a Dementor. "Thinking through an encounter with one of these… It helps you focus on what's true too. But it's way more benign."
"I wouldn't go quite that far." Michiru muttered, and turned to face the dementor.
"I know given last Sunday…"
"All the more reason to face it now." Michiru said. "I can't always rely on happy thoughts."
"It can take those, but it can't take facts." Avery said. "Try to use Protego as long as you can."
"And focus on what's true." Michiru glared at the dementor, holding her wand out in her right hand, and the Aqua Mirror in her left. "Okay – let it out."
Avery hesitated a moment, but let the patronus fade.
And in an hour's practice, she only had to cast it three more times. By the end of hour, Michiru had stopped glancing at the Aqua Mirror entirely.
~SMH~
Not using the Patronus on the Dementor had been exhausting. So much so that Michiru flooed back to Grimmauld place that evening rather than chance apparating. She finished off her third hot chocolate as she stepped out of the flames. Fred Weasley had appeared after they'd entrapped the dementor again, declaring both she and Morgana Avery "absolutely mental."
He's just saying that cause he can't do it, Avery had said. And that had perhaps cheered her a little bit, because at least this brand of magic appeared to be something she was good at.
Even so: mental fortitude did not feel like magic. It simply felt like a headache.
She paused as she vanished the flames in the fireplace and looked up, there were fast-paced clangs echoing down from the drawing room. Hmm… Michiru smirked as she made her way to the stairs. That might be a better fix than hot chocolate.
She slipped through the door in time to see Haruka and Hamish lock blades, Haruka's muscles straining under her shirt as she tried to push back Hamish, who had a lot more weight to throw into a fight than her.
And she had ever so thoughtfully left it unbuttoned as well. Hamish, for his part, didn't have a shirt. Michiru looked around and chuckled, spotting Rigel staring at Hamish from further along the wall. She sidled up to him. "Enjoying the view?" She whispered.
It made the skinny young man jump. "No!" he squeaked and then flushed. "Maybe." He turned back to Hamish. "It's not my fault if he's so fit."
Michiru hummed, watching Haruka duck and sidestep as she danced around the room. "Not your fault at all." She checked the mirror. "I think he might win today."
"Really!" Rigel whispered
"Hmm." she nodded. Watching for Haruka to turn towards them. "Right about… now." She stretched.
Haruka glanced towards her, just long enough for her sword to be in slightly the wrong place. Hamish's blade swept down in a perfect arch, hitting Haruka's sword near the hilt and wrenching it from her hand. It echoed as it clattered against the floor.
Hamish Stebbins gaped at it, and at the blade in his left hand. "What?"
Haruka chuckled, shaking out her sword hand and glaring over at Michiru. "Told you you'd beat me eventually," she said.
"Oh I'm sure I just got lucky," Hamish assured her as she walked over and picked up her sword.
"That's one way of putting it," Michiru said, clapping as she and Rigel walked up to them. Hamish hugged Rigel as he grinned and considered his sword, which he was turning over and over in his hand. "Maybe I'm ready to try spells," he whispered. "Say…" he looked over at Haruka. "You think they'd work on this."
Haruka shrugged and set her own blade down on a table. She scratched her head. "Not sure of the mechanics of it, but yeah," she said. "Give it a go."
So Hamish spun the blade, grinning. He pointed it at one of the chairs that had long ago been pushed against the wall. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he cried.
Light raced through the blade, towards the chair, and the wooden seat lifted off the ground.
"It's working!" Hamish cheered.
"Uh," Rigel stared at the sword. "Is it meant to do that?"
The sword had turned bright red, and Hamish frowned, the leather hilt was fast growing hot in his hand.
"No. No, no, no. Wait!" he cried. "I have it, I have it." There was a thud, the chair falling over on its side.
And then a squelch, as the sword quivered and liquefied, collapsing into a puddle of metal goo all over Hamish's shoes.
"So…" Haruka said after a few minutes. "Can't just be any old sword."
Hamish sighed, shoulders slumping, and dropped the useless hilt on the ground. "Figures," He muttered. "I'm going down to the war room," he said. "I'm at least useful there."
Michiru, Haruka, and Rigel glanced at each other and followed him. It was best not to let him get too despondent on a bad day.
"You're more useful than you think!" Rigel said. "I mean – the spell did work. You said last week you bet magic wouldn't work from your left arm."
"And you beat me today," Haruka said. "That was a first."
"Oh come on," Hamish rolled his eyes as they all made their way down the stairs. "I saw you look at Michiru."
"You still won," Michiru told him as he led the way through the ground floor and to the basement stairs. She smirked at Haruka "You used your enemy's weaknesses against her."
Hamish snorted. He held the basement door open for all of them. "Alright." He sighed. "I guess I'm just hoping to be better than this, you know," he said. "Strategizing's useful, I mean, but I want to be back out there fighting with you." He clenched his fist. "Last week waiting was bloody awful."
"You'll get back out in the field in due time, Mr. Stebbins," Setsuna's voice startled them as they walked into the kitchen (between the residents of Grimmauld now often called the war room). "It will simply take patience," she looked up from where she'd been considering the map. "And perhaps a more carefully considered blade."
Hamish flushed. "We didn't have another one of those did we?"
"Don't worry about it," Haruka said, clapping him on the shoulder as she passed. "What have you got for us, Suna?"
Setsuna gestured to the map, overwhich lay two pieces of parchment, as she made a small circle over part of the map with her wand. "Professor Slughorn has come through for me," she said as they leaned in.
"He has a contact in the Ministry," Setsuna said, "Who passed along all the locations which were registered as "unplottable" in the last few centuries. And he was able to get a partial list of several that were bought off the books as well." She gestured to the longest piece of parchment. "I cross referenced that with his list of those who've been known to donate to suspicious charities.
"It always comes back to money," Michiru murmured.
"Exactly," Setsuna nodded. Pointing her finger at the map. "Now I can't "plot," the points obviously but I have marked them down to within a five kilometre range." She tapped her wand over the map. "Selwyn, Rowle, Black, Lestrange, Crabbe, Malfoy, Shafiq, and Rosier." She looked up at Hamish. "These are a partial list, granted, but I am curious…" She crossed her arms. "If you can riddle out more from them than me."
Hamish braced his hand on the table and scanned across the map. "Are you thinking this will be another prison like Lestrange build," he said. "There's no more high concentrations of defences…" his eyes widened. "Wait – these might all be private residences. Old, private pureblood residences."
"Oh hell," Rigel said as Setsuna nodded. "We're trying to smoke out Voldemort."
"That is the ideal outcome," Setsuna said. "I cannot see where Lestrange moves him." She tapped the map. "But these would be potential places he might stay."
Hamish drummed his fingers as he thought. "They're not near anything." He said. "Which I guess makes them good candidates. See here – " he pointed to five of the new circles. "These are all close enough for those giants in York to get to in a pinch… definitely the vampires here…" his voice trailed off. "That's funny." He said.
"What?" The others asked.
"Well… all the locations have something within that five kilometre range… so they're not remarkable but…" he zeroed in on one red circle Setsuna'd drawn near Oxford. "Most places we know of on this map have Dementors," Stebbins said. "Why doesn't this one?"
"Could be it's not important," Rigel said.
"Or perhaps whoever lives there doesn't like them," Michiru said. "And has the power to decide whether or not they guard it."
"Are we going to ambush it?" Haruka asked, cracking her knuckles.
But Setsuna shook her head. "Too risky… but we can see what's being kept there." She waved her wand. "I know for sure Voldemort will be joining an attack himself on this day, and he'll put most of his forces with him for protection." She looked at the map. "We can see what or who he's keeping at that location then."
All of them felt a thrill run through them as they looked at the date.
October 31st.
"Three guesses what he'll want to make a big show of on that day," Hamish muttered.
Setsuna nodded. "Godric's Hollow will be subject to an attack that day," she said. "And most of the Order will go there to ensure the residents are safe." She looked down to the map. "It is one of only a few things Dumbledore and I believe Voldemort has a personal enough stake in to visit himself." She tapped the circle on the map. "And that will leave us free to see what he keeps here." She closed her eyes, perhaps she could see…
It would be an imposing manor house if they went there, all the curtains closed and the gates locked tight. She saw a white peacock dart through the hedges.
She would perhaps have to take Slughorn up on his dinner offers more often if this is what a bit of academic conversation could garner her.
But if this was their next move, and she was certain it was a good one, there was one more person she needed to see.
She travelled to him with the time doors as soon as she left, letting them materialize in front of his chamber doors. She rapped her knuckles on the unassuming stone face.
"Enter." Severus Snape's voice called from inside. His door groaned as the stone moved aside.
He was in his sitting room, she noticed, marking his students' essays with a red-inked quill.
"It's good to see your hands have stopped shaking," Setsuna told him.
"Hmm," Severus shook his head. "I don't have any new information," he said. "The Dark Lord has not permitted my company at the more recent meetings."
"That won't be a permanent situation." Setsuna said. "Let him see the Order is very capable of thwarting him without your help and he will come to trust you again."
"That is not quite the problem," Severus said impassively. "I assure you I have talked my way out of that conversation several times." He set the quill and essays aside and leaned back in his chair. "That is, simpltons' espionage," he said. "Alas, it seems the current problem is that the dark lord believes I am loyal to him, and thus that it is the Order who do not trust me."
Setsuna looked away, not that there was much to look at. Snape kept his chambers quite Spartan, save the wall-to-wall array of books and the single table where a small cauldron simmered.
"You're remarkably good at the job you've elected to do," Severus said. "Do not go doing a worst one on my account."
"I would never," she said. "But I wonder if I do so good a job, perhaps it's time you retired from yours."
Snape was silent for a moment.
"Unfortunately," he said. "I am still more an asset to this war than I am a pawn." He reached up and rubbed his forehead. "I've no doubt it's going to kill me," he smirked. "Though I naively hope it will not be due to the Dark Lord's or Bellatrix's temper."
"That does not have to be the future though," Setsuna whispered. "You have a choice Severus."
But he shook his head. "There is a debt I have not repayed, amongst other less desireable vows that bind me to this war." He scowled at his left arm. "And as well, there's Draco," he confessed. "Who is stubborn and pigheaded as any boy has ever been." He looked at his hands. "He's not going to end up like me."
"You'll be successful in that regard," Setsuna said. "One way or the other."
Severus nodded, still looking at his hands. "Was there something else you came here for?"
There was. "Does Voldemort like dementors?" she asked.
Severus frowned. "I can't say that anybody does," he looked around the room as he thought. "Though those with unhappy pasts tend to enjoy their company less than most."
Hamish Stebbins assumption had been correct then. Setsuna carried on. "And he is planning a large attack at the end of the month."
"Godrics Hollow," Severus said. "That's spread all through the ranks. Most major players will be going, just after midnight on the 30th, and they will be focusing most on destroying the memorial statue there." He paused for a moment. "You may not know… Lestrange will be out of the country that day."
"On what business."
"I was not privy to that," Severus said. "But she is helping her wizard with something."
The Wizard, whose former colleague they had lost at the prison. Setsuna had still not had time to investigate that. After Halloween, she decided.
"Whatever you're planning," Severus said. "Which you feel will be detrimental to my well being… do not tell me what it is." He shifted in his chair again. She remembered how difficult recovering from the Cruciatus had made it to sit still. "Whether the dark lord questions my loyalty and my effort or not, it is safer if I do not know."
"And if I am, while most of the dark lord's forces are distracted," she said.
Severus thought. "Be careful of blood wards," he said. "Is all I feel it is safe to say."
"Thank you," she said, "I'll let you rest." She turned towards the door.
"Wait," Severus said as she reached the exit. "Whomever does go to the Hollow," he said. "I assume they will prioritize the residents." She looked towards him, he met her eyes. "Do not let him disturb the cemetery."
Setsuna swallowed the lump in her throat. "I'll relay the message," and she ducked out of the room, striding towards her chambers.
Halloween fell in two weeks time. And they would need all of it to plan.
"All of them could lose their lives every day, some more so than most… You know, still hypothetically and all."
~SMH~
"So don't get all despairing yet, Bones. The Ministry isn't the only front in this fight. Good that it isn't too."
"Because it's on their side too."
"You said it, not me," Tonks motioned to the Phoenix pin she'd removed from inside her own robes and set on Amelia's desk. "Keep that close."
"Why are you trusting me with this, Nymphadora?"
"Oi, just Dora if you're gonna use first names to throw me off guard." Tonks looked behind her as a shadow moved past the glass window of the office door. "Because trust has to start somewhere… and even with all my lame excuses you still keep covering my arse."
Amelia Bones cursed as the tip of her quill broke off for the fifth time. She raised her wand in her right hand "Reparo," she muttered, and moved her left to put the quill back on the paper.
She paused though, and set it down, sighing.
"Wotcher," Tonks had said, striding into her office bright and early that morning. "D'you get what I asked for?"
Amelia remembered watching the hesitance on her face change to glee, and the tips of her hair to orange, when she'd taken the blood-red potion out of her desk.
"Am I trusted enough to know what this is for," Amelia'd asked in a biting tone. "Because it has very limited uses, hence why you need a prescription for it."
"And you know that's why I couldn't just go to Mungos and ask."
"Hence, why I brewed it myself," Amelia'd snapped. "Why do you need a bloodline potion, Auror Tonks?"
"Can't trust work both ways?"
"Nymphadora!"
Her auror had wrinkled her nose. "What did I say about the name? Look… it's better if you don't know for now."
"What's that mean."
"It means I can't work overtime tonight – I know, I know."
"It's the anniversary."
"And you're instincts about certain hotspots are on point about that. But I can't work late tonight – don't tell the top, they won't approve my promotion."
"I haven't given you a promotion." That was when a brass instrument on her desk had chimed – someone else had just clocked in.
"Yet," Tonks had said, and turned to the door, shaking the vial as she walked away. "Ta."
She'd stood from her desk. "Dora," Tonks had paused at the door. "Be careful."
Tonks had smirked at her. "Always am."
Now, Amelia watches the lamp light glance off the carved golden wings on the phoenix pin as she turned it over between her fingers. "What are you doing?"
The brass instrument on her desk whirled and turned red. She tucked the pin into her sleeve and picked up her quill again as the fireplace in the corner lit up the putrid green of the internal floo connection.
"Hem, hem."
Oh for Merlin's sake! Amelia thought, she was not in the mood to deal with Dolores Umbridge tonight.
"Working late, Amelia?" Umbridge asked in her usual saccharine tone. Some days Amelia wondered if a cheering charm hadn't backfired in her throat.
"It's the anniversary," Amelia said. "Everyone's working late tonight… unless you're here on a social visit. She leaned forward, very aware of the pin pressed against her arm as she crossed them atop the desk. "And it's Madam Bones, Madam Under-Secretary."
Oh that always did irk the woman, Amelia thought. But she tried to reign in her mirth. It would not do for Dolores Umbridge to feel too irritated tonight.
Not when she was on the list Amelia kept charmed, locked, and spellotaped to the underside of her desk drawer.
"Well not everyone it would seem," Umbridge said, cocking her head to the side. "I saw that Auror Tonks and Auror Kingsley are not on their normal patrol roster tonight?"
"Undercover assignment," Amelia said. "Aurors Tonks and Kingsley both achieved top marks in their stealth and disguise training and are more than qualified to do that work every now and again."
"Oh but surely, given all the emotions that run high this time of year, they'd be better served out in public, you know." She'd given Amelia her widest smile. "For the public's peace of mind."
"Which is why I doubled the patrols of magical hubs this evening, or did you miss that detail when you peeked at the Minister's memos?"
Umbridge glared. "I simply wish to know why it is the two most qualified members of this office are not out deterring any of the violent outbursts that might go on?"
You mean battles, Amelia thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She knew exactly where every one of Fudge's lines had come from.
Just then she was startled, feeling the phoenix pin hidden in her sleeve grow hot.
"Well?" Umbridge insisted. "The Minister would like to know."
Amelia shrugged. "I'm afraid that's above your clearance level, Secretary Umbridge," she said. "Tell the minister, if he wants details about my Aurors assignments, I invite him to come himself."
Umbridge had frowned for a moment, before replacing it with her usual wide smile. She tilted her head. "I'll let him know when he gets in tomorrow."
Bullshit, Amelia thought but held her tongue, bidding Umbridge a good night as she'd stalked over to the floo and left the office.
The moment the flames had died down, Amelia fished the hot pin out of her sleeve and put it in her palm. The front remained the same. She flipped it over. The smooth back had a pair of numbers scrawled in Tonks handwriting across the top, Coordinates, Amelia realized. And beneath them were two words that made her heart stutter, for she recalled them from this very date (before it had been an anniversary of anything) decades ago graffitied across Hogwarts walls:
Mischief Managed.
~I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good~
