Chapter 26 ~ Burn It To the Ground ~ Part 2

"Enemies make you stronger."
~ Frank Herbert


ECOTS


Hinges screeched as the door to Number 12 Grimmauld Place swung open, a battery of sounds slamming through the opening and into Order Headquarters in an instant. Wind flew into the hall, pounding against the Black family portraits that were mounted to the walls lining the entry, Tonks short pink hair ruffling violently around her head.

Outside the doorway, not three meters away from Number 12 Grimmauld Place's front stoop, was pure chaos, and Harry was visibly bracing himself, his grip hard around the doorframe, green gaze darting back and forth as he looked for an opening.

Tonks wanted to scream.

Before he had a chance to move she'd darted forward, grabbing Harry by the arm and forcibly pulling him back, away from the open door that smoke was filtering in through. The Auror's gaze flew to Dumbledore, mouth falling open as she utterly gapedat the leader of the Order. She even made a half-attempt at a sputtering sound until another explosion sent the edifice they stood within shaking. Swearing to Merlin and Morgana she ducked her head under pieces of drywall that flaked down from the ceiling, the chandelier overhead swinging so violently that the chain holding it groaned with strain.

Harry was going to walk out into the middle of the Death Eater rampage on the street as bait! Normally she was the first to think Harry deserved freedom, deserved to make his own decisions and choices, and deserved to help, but this?

Tonks managed to get a snappish shout out, tightening her grip on Harry as she all but shook him. "You're going to what?" Watching Harry's mouth open half-furiously, Tonks dismissed this and rounded her attention on Albus, trying to stay upright despite the shaking of the entire world around them. "Albus! Those are Death Eaters out there! Harry's the Boy-Who-Lived! Them wanting a prophecy won't stop them from hexing his head off if he goes out alo-"

Something slapped over her mouth, hard, silencing her. Sputtering beneath the magical duct tape in realization, Tonks made a furious sound from beneath what was now plastered over her face.

Regulus was looking distinctly pleased with himself as he twirled his wand, debris flaking down around him. The glare she sent him could kill. Regulus merely twirled his wand carelessly, as if he were standing in the entry hall of a Tuscan villa, rather than within the Order of the Phoenix's shaking hideout whilst the outside world was lit up like a barn fire.

"If the boy," Regulus intoned easily, "wants to play at suicidal hero, Nymphadora, then I suggest that we let him."

Tonks sputtered beneath the duct tape silencing her, her back digging into the wall that she was pressed up against with Harry.

A sharp pain in her arm had her yelp a second later, and she found herself staring at Harry with significant indignation. Harry, who had wrenched away from her grip in a move worthy of a Manticore wrangler, now had a hardened gaze upon his expression as another loud sound ricocheted from outside.

He grimaced, as did everyone else in the room, but his tone was no less determined. "I think it's my decision what I do, Tonks." Harry had taken a step back, away from her, nearer to the door.

Trying to open her mouth, Albus was the one to silence her this time. "Protecting Harry, Nymphadora, has always been my priority. I understand your concern, but in the past we made the mistake of thinking of him as a child to protect. And that...was a mistake." Normally twinkling, now resigned blue eyes turned upon her, and every hair on her pink head practically vibrated with shock, "If he is to fight eventually, how can he be prepared if we never allow him the chance?"

Kingsley grunted unhappily from the opposing wall. "Not that I like it, but the boy's plan is valid, and the only one we have. Unless you are planning on allowing them to continue with their Muggle torturing some more?"

Tonks sputtered at them both. She didn't care that Dumbledore and Kingsley had a point. She didn't care that Harry needed to fight. She just didn't want him playing bait and getting his head taken off before he had the chance.

And wait...Harry needed to fight?

Confusion crossing her face, something fearful flew through her, leaving Tonks to do the only thing she could.

She made a flabbergasted gesture with both of her hands.

Regulus sighed with displeasure, his wand waving a moment later, removing the duct tape from her mouth.

Tonks heaved a furious sigh, tossed a malevolent look between Regulus, Dumbledore, and Harry, before saying, "What do you mean he needs to fight?" Because of Voldemort? Because of..." Then it hit Tonks like a brick wall tumbling down onto her. Just why Dumbledore could be saying that Harry had to fight, because Voldemort wouldn't stop. Because-

"I don't think now's the time for this."

Head whipping around, Tonks found herself staring at the girl Harry had been snogging moments before. The nearly-Muggle girl, Kalliandra, who for all intents and purposes looked afraid, her gaze fixated out the open doorway.

The girl's entire form flinched at the sound of a taunting woman's voice drifting through the doorway. "...iittle wittle Order darlings! I have a wittle gift for you and your wittle friends! A few of your wittle Muuuudblooooods!"

And that voice...was so familiar...

Tonks chest pounded, her head whipping towards the open entrance of Grimmauld Place, the doorway hanging open and ponding against the wall in the wind, revealing a fiery scene upon the street outside of it, like an entrance to hell.

"Aw! The ittle wittle Mudbloods are the only ones who want to play aren't they? What do you think little girl? Do you want to-"

Another explosion drowned out the rest of the woman's words, but even as Tonks ducked by sheer reflex, her breath catching in her throat, she realized she recognized the voice.

But that was impossible. She was dead.

Something blazed within her, and Tonks found Harry's gaze hard on her, every feature upon him tense.

He wasn't a child. She knew that.

"There are more important things right now," he said seriously, "than me." A raucous laugh echoed through the doorway, Harry's expression grimacing as he said, "Voldemort's been trying to kill me since I was an infant, Tonks. I don't think he's going to stop now just because I'm getting closer to his size."

The laughter continued to chill her, and the thought of Harry running out, alone, unprotected for even a moment into thatmealy...

It occurred to Tonks that she seriously disliked this sudden, protective, maternal like instinct that she'd suddenly developed in regards to Harry's head and its approximate location to his neck.

"I think," came Albus' calm directive, "that we have waited long enough."

Tonks gaze flew between them all, finding Kingsley's unwavering stare. How she wished it was Remus' there instead. But oh no, the fool man that she was going to hex for leaving her, again, had been sent back to Hogwarts with Arthur Weasley to inform Ginny and Ronald of their new role in the Order of the Phoenix.

Ginny would be supportive, until she was old enough to fight. Ron...

Was already capable. As soon as his leg healed.

Swallowing, managing a nod, Tonks glanced at Harry's still firm face, his jaw set in a manner she had not seen before. Swallowing, she forced, "Good luck." Green eyes glanced back at her, briefly.

Then Harry nodded, his gaze already turning, directed out the open front door.

Then Harry darted outof it.

Muttering something under her breath, Tonks was out the door right after him. "When Molly Weasley kills us for this it'll be your head!" She wasn't entirely certain which of the idiot men she was shouting at. All she knew was that she had flown out the door after Harry.

She didn't make it farther than the front stoop.

The chandelier just inside #12 Grimmauld rattled violently, as one of the adjoining houses was bashed into by a thrown light pole, the force nearly knocking her over. Tonks skidded on the stoop, grabbing at whatever she could, her fingers snaring onto the silver door knocker, its metal twisted into a serpent, and clungto it as the world around her vibrated.

She, an Auror, had nearly been knocked over by a spell that hadn't even hit the house she was in. Not that this surprised her entirely, given her balance...

A shout, one so filled with hatred and such familiaritythat it sent the blood congealing, erupted from the street. Acrid, thick smoke coiled outside, Tonks gaze flying from where she was to try to peer through it.

The black smoke cleared, but only for a second, only long enough for her to get a glimpse just past the small, enclosed yard, and to see the spell flung from that un-masked figure's wand, only a thin layer of smoke obscuring the face. Lethal red it lit up the night, its trajectory slamming directly into #13 Grimmauld with such force that even the cement stairs leading upto the homes shook.

Tonks let out a yelp, her foot slipping on one of the three steps that had led up to #12 Grimmauld, her gaze sweeping the lawn for Harry, finding him crouched just the edge of the lawn. Just barely inside the zone protected by the Fidelius Charm. And beyond that...

Was hell.

Tonks breath caught in her chest.

A vehicle's once blue paint was peeling off of it, peeling as the metal became warped from the flames engulfing it. Noxious smoke and stenches of burnt wood, plastics, and metal filled the air, the wind blowing it into her face. Fiery tendrils writhed violently within windows along the street, serpent-like wisps of smoke coiling out from the home's windows. Pieces of wooden and metal debris littered the street in spots where homes had clearly had the front walls blown out, a turned over television set laying face down in the road.

The harsh snapping of something off to the side had Tonks jerk, her eyes widening at the sight of an upper story balcony on Grimmald Fourteen breaking away, falling to crash to the ground.

Where it stuck the wooden and metal pieces burst out, flying in every direction like shrapnel from a launched grenade, a piece whizzing past her head, embedding itself into the wall of Grimmauld.

Tonks breathed, just breathed, shaken at how closely it had come to being embedded into her head.

A Muggle woman ran past on the sidewalk, and Tonks stared at the sight as a Death Eater let out a vindictive laugh, slashing their wand out and tripping them.

That was when Tonks saw it.

The child, hung from her ankles by a levicorpus hex, dangling over the street. At this distance Tonks could not make out the youth's face, but she could hearher.

She was crying, whimpering, and the Death Eater was throwing back her head of long black hair, laughing through impossibly red lips.

Smoke billowed past once more, obscuring them from her view. Tonks breathed a shocked breath. "She can't be...that's..." Impossible.

A hand fell on her shoulder, the sudden nerves of standing within a yard in the middle of a war zone, right in front of Death Eaters that could not see them finally taking its toll.

Tonks actually jumped.

Kingsley's resolute face did not meet hers. His eyes were directed upon the riotous scene, a third masked figure skipping through the scene, flinging spells while humming. "Take the right flank, Nymphadora. I'll take the left."

Swallowing dryly, Tonks nodded, her gaze meeting Harry's where he crouched. He was looking back at them, as if waiting for them to get into position, but his gaze...

Was not on her.

Glancing back, she saw Albus and Kalliandra framed in the doorway, Dumbledore's expression hardened. "A trick of our reptilian friends," he stated slowly, voice bellying none of the concern that Tonks saw warring within his eyes, "may now prove useful."

And with that Albus Dumbledore twirled his wand, its tip touching Kalliandra upon her head, Tonks only catching the look of surprise upon her face as the girl's entire body slowly became invisible. A chameleon charm.

Tonks gave a wicked grin, and in a moment, twirling her own wand, she and Kingsley had also disappeared.

From behind them all, as Dumbledore's figure disappeared as well, she heard Regulus' clear disdain. "I'm just out of hiding, and already you deprive me of the chance to shock my former allies with the return of my good looks."

Tonks flat out snorted as her cousin placed the charm upon himself as well, disappearing with the rest of them.

The next instant Tonks was darting out of the year, and the safety the Fiedlius charm afforded them, as silently as she could.

She had her eye on an overturned and shockingly orange looking car.


ECOTS


A blood red finger waggled back and forth in the night, the haunting, raucous laugh of the Death Eater digging at Harry's ears, his pulse pounding with ferocity. With each move of the bitch's finger the young girl, a student at Hogwarts, was thrown back and forth in the air.

Bile rose in his throat, his knuckles grinding around the worn wood of his wand. Blond, disheveled hair hung in the students face, one he did not recognize as a witch by anything other than her discarded wand upon the road's cobblestone surface.

Barely able to, he forced himself to wait, to wait for Dumbeldore, Tonks, and the others to get into position, even as the young girl was bounced up and down by the taunting Death Eater. Grip tightening on his wand until his knuckles turned white, anger rising within him, he counted to ten.

One.

The girl's form was abruptly wrenched through the air, like a child's sadistic play thing.

Two.

The girl's shrill whimpering, something he thought could not grow any worse, did. Her hysterical sobs cutting through the night as the Death Eater let out a taunting, "Oops!" nearly dropping the child to the hard ground, stopping her only centimeters before the top of her skull struck.

Three.

Acrid smoke wisped against his face, Harry jerking his arm, shoving his sleeve against his mouth to breath against it, to avoid coughing heavily and attracting the Death Eater's attention before he was ready.

Four.

The little witch was yanked back into the air, her form hanging three stories high, a height that had Harry's teeth gritting until enamel ground off.

Five.

A sound to the right alerted him to Tonks or someone elsethat was camouflaged darting past the wrought iron gate surrounding the pathetically tiny front yard of Grimmauld.

Six.

"Oh Albus Mudblood Lover! It's been terribly long since we've played! And I found a sweet little friend to play with us! Come play with us and Tiffany! She loves it!"

The words, something in them striking a familiar cord in him, chilled his pounding blood.

Seven.

The bitch clad in the robes of a Death Eater finally turned, finally so that Harry could see her profile in the dark. The skin stretched over the witch's face like a pale mask.

Eight.

Harry's damn chest stopped pumping for a second, a cold fury flying through him as his breath stopped. The sight in front of him...

Screw ten.

Harry rose from his crouched position, stepping out from the security of the Fidelius Charm surrounding Grimmauld.

He stepped out into the street, walking steadily into the middle of it, seemingly appearing out of thin air to the five Death Eaters that were enjoying themselves.

The one nearest was still waggling her blood red fingernails, making mock tisking sounds at the girl she was levitating. "Ah, ah, ah, your Headmaster is being most discourteous, don't you think wittle bittle witch? He hasn't come out to play, and tardiness sets such a very poor example for his wittle bittle babies."

"Oh, he knows how to play, little bitty baby Potter.

The memory of Lestrange's words were burned into his memory as deeply as any physical brand, and hearing another Death Eater using the same tone of voice, the same words, had something in him near snapping.

Harry's fist tightened at his side, so hard the wood of his wand dug deeply against his skin. "Dumbledore's not here right now, but perhaps you and I could partake in a little chat." Fingers grinding harder, he caustically, casually bit, "Or is this not recess?"

The Death Eater's finger waggling ceased immediately, her back still to him, yet he saw the woman's form going very still, as if suddenly overcome with rapt interest. Solitary finger still frozen mid-waggle in mid-air, the Death Eater made a keening sound that was unnatural upon the ears of anyone sane.

Not once did Harry forget about the other Death Eaters present though. The other ones that were all ceasing what they were doing, for the moment, their attentions turning upon him. Varying murmurs of sadistic delight rolled through their ranks, the swishing of a deadly cloak signifying the approach of the one. A second lowered their wand, dropping the mail post box that they had been levitating around to frighten the few remaining Muggles that tried to make a run for it, and also approached.

They slowly crept towards him across the pavement, steadily, like shadows crawling across the night. Overhead a gas burning street lamp buzzed, and Harry forced a grim smile, finding another comparison more suiting as they closed in around him, faces contorted, twisted with both delight and restraint.

They were like hyenas surrounding a kill, one that a lion, their dear Lord Voldemort, had already claimed.

Remaining tense, Harry made no move to move. Instead he slowly swiveled his head and his gaze between those Death Eaters gathering around, tendrils of smoke slowly rolling overhead with each gust of wind. Death Eater robes billowing behind them, it sounded like the flapping of dementors swooping in upon the soon-to-be-soulless.

But their attention was entirely fixated upon him.

The Order members already there would surround them without a problem. It was just waiting until more Order members could arrive. He just had to distract them long enough.

It was the second time he was playing bait in the spans of a week.

Harry gave them all a big smirk.

Hell, might as well stick with what he knew.

"Well?" he questioned them bluntly, "Or are none of you interested in the bit of a riddle I have for ole Riddle?" The look of outrage that flew across an unmasked man was almost laughable.

And Harry recognized him. Broussard's brother, the one that had seemed less than pleased about Harry's improvements to Broussard's throat via glass shard. "You dare to defile our Lord's name, Potter?" Broussard's brother's lips turned cruelly. "I would see you bleed for that alone."

"Just for that? Take it you and your brother weren't particularly close then."

'The stench of burnt plastics from the burning interior of a house coiled around his nostrils, but the burning stench could have been stemming from the Death Eater's anger. The man made to lunge at him, only for a second masked figure to swiftly grab a hold of his arm, forcing him to a halt. "The boy, Broussard," the masked one sneered, "belongs to our Lord. You know this."

So Broussard was their surname. Interesting. Broussard's face contorted into something loathsome, his dark gaze fixated upon Harry. "I only," he darkly growled, "was going to play with him, a little."

Harry's teeth could have ground, too aware of the motionless body laying in the yard beyond, his words practically spat, "Like you played with the Muggles?"

Broussard, arm still firmly in the vice of the other Death Eater, licked his lips longingly. "If only you know, Potter, just what we did to these Muggles." Tilting his head at him, the man's scruffy dark hair falling to the side, he questioned, "Or perhaps you should just ask that little friend of yours, just exactly what we do to those who resist. If you get her back that is."

Hermione. Fist tightening further, he refused to attack him. He had to hold. His tone vibrated dangerously regardless. "What," he stated darkly, "did you do to her?"

A sudden, enlivened laugh cut into the night, Harry's blood going cold at the sound.

It too, was familiar.

And coming from the unmasked witch with the blood red nails, the one whose back was to him. Only now...

She was turning slowly towards him, her cruel red lips twisted into a sinister smile.

Any thought of anything else fled Harry's mind at the sight of her. A the sight of a witch that was supposed to be dead. A word flew from his throat before he could stop it. "You!"

If possible, Bellatrix Lestrange's sinister smile grew more evil, her gaunt, thin fingers giving a careless flick that sent the blonde girl she suspended bouncing in the air. Harry's gaze flew between the girl and Bellatrix, raw fury written in his features. Bellatrix. "Well if it isn't the wittlest, bittlest Potter. Still alive I see? Missing your wittle parents are you?" The vile woman's lips puckered into a pout. "Don't worry wittle, Harry. Our Lord will make sure you see them soon. Now..."

Staring at her, the epitome of evil, breathing hard, Harry tried to wrap his mind around the fact that she was alive, let alone threatening him. Tonks had killed her. There had been a body.

The body had disappeared.

Bellatrix was still smacking her lips in a macabre attempt to look sympathetic. "Aw look boys, the wittlest Potter seems to be in a wittle bit of shock."

Harry's fists tightened, ignorant of the mocking laughter of the Death Eaters circling them now. "You're supposed to be dead."

Her dark, heavy lidded eyes widened in mock surprise, her face inclining to look at herself as if just seeing herself for the first time. Patting herself with a single, gaunt hand, she made a shocked sort of mocking sound. "Am I? Oh dear wittle Harry." Her eyes lifted a moment later, the gaunt smile stretching across her twisted face once again. "I seem to be disappointing you. But that's okay, I may not be able to kill you, but I seem to remember promising you a wittle lesson on the Cruciatus back in that horrid Ministry, and I so loveto keep true to my promises."

With a careless flick of her wand Bellatrix sent the suspended blonde girl hurtling to the ground, Harry's eyes practically bulging out of his head at the sight. "No! Wingardium-" He didn't get to finish the incantation, but he'd moved so quickly that it flew forth from his wand anyway, the spell striking the girl an instant before the sickening crack of a human skull striking pavement would have been heard.

Wrist extended out, his entire arm vibrating, Harry breathed hard, lowering the girl to the ground beyond Bellatrix, his gaze never wavering from his godfather's murderer.

Bellatrix just smiled coyly, running a long fingernail down the length of her wand as she tisked at him. "Such a shame wittle Potter, such a shame. The Dark Lord would have lovedto have you on our side, but you just had to have such a wittle hero complex didn't you?" Shaking out her thick mane of dark hair, she clipped, "But no matter, tell me wittle Potter, did my dear wittle cousin Nymphadora tell you she killed me?" Widening her eyes as if waiting for response, she waggled her finger at him as he merely scowled back. "Ahwittle, ah, ah. It's so impolite to not answer a question, Harry. Your parents would be so disappointed at your lack of proper upbringing."

"Don't," he practically seethed, "talk about my parents."

A moist tongue flicked across Bellatrix's lips. "Shall I talk about your wittle Mudblood friend's then?" A cruel glint gleamed within her heavily lidded eyes. "I've had oh so much fun exploring with Muggle thresholds of pain."

Something heavy pounded within Harry's skull, something furious, a voice distantly echoing, encouraging his anger like a serpent. Yessssss. Usssse it.

Bellatrix tisked, then turned abruptly away as if dismissing him, her cruel smile lighting upon the discarded blonde student that lay upon the cobblestone. "I've found them woefully dull. So easy to break, these Grangers. Such a shame, I can barely play with them or I'll ruin my new toys too soon. I wouldn't want to break them into the Longbottoms state too quickly now would I?"

Harry's musculature was beginning to vibrate, pulse beginning to thunder. Deep within his skull that voice he'd worked so hard to fight the hell back began to rise up.

The voice that sounded like Voldemort.

Harry jolted forward, to do what he didn't know, all he knew was that he wanted to hurt her. Kill her. Make Bellatrix scream with all the pain she'd caused him when she'd taken Sirius from him.

Hands snared onto his from all sides like a vice, Harry letting out an angered shout as he yanked his arms furiously, attempting to wrench them away from his captors.

But the Death Eaters held onto him like a viper.

Bellatrix walked slowly towards the blonde student, every inch of her sauntering until she stopped right above the girl. Hands coiling into fists, Harry strained against his captors as Bellatrix took the toe of her heel and jabbed it testingly into the young girl's side, like a maintenance worker checking to see if road kill was still alive.

The girl shrieked, curling up into a ball and shaking visibly. Broken, terrified sobs could be heard, not muffled by the pavement she cried into. Not even the crackling of the various fires could drown her out.

Smacking her lips, Bellatrix contemptuously hissed, "What a sniveling mess."

"That sniveling mess," Harry bit dangerously, ignoring the Death Eaters that had a hold of him, "is braver than you will ever be." Bellatrix let out a hiss, her head bolting back to glare at him. Harry merely smiled callously at her. "What's the matter big B? Or do you really think if you were tortured as a first year by big, bad dark wizards that you wouldn't sniffle?"

Bellatrix's eyes blazed a cold path onto him, her blood red lips saying nothing for a long moment. Finally, she gave a contemptuous tilt of her head towards him, "I will so enjoy when the time comes for our Dark Lord to snuff out your sniveling, inconsequential life, Potter."

Harry just smirked back. "And to think, I was enjoying thinking you were already dead."

Her lips merely curled, her long fingers resuming the caressing of her wand. " I did tell you, Potter. You have to meanyour curses. But you were such a poor student. Ittle bittle Potter didn't pay attention to his object lessons on curses." Her lips turned further, a sudden, furiously dangerous light flashing within her eyes.

"I'll show you."

In that instant her wand flashed out, "Crucio!"slithering off her tongue like a blade's caress, the spell flying out and striking him directly as his captors held him.

Screaming, pain rocketed through him. Like a thousand white hot knives daggering into his flesh, Harry felt his body writhing without his permission. Worse, he couldn't drop to the ground, suspended by his arms between the two Death Eaters holding him-

When it stopped his face was wet. His body hung limply, the tight grips of the Death Eaters upon his arms the only thing suspending him. Knees having buckled, Harry breathed fiercely, pain still daggering through him in the quest for oxygen. Trying to work his tongue, he didn't get the chance to.

Bellatrix was already talking, resuming her pacing before him upon the street. Off to the side a pained moan was heard. The Death Eaters had done quick work of incapacitating the Muggles who had lived in these homes. Then again...

He could have sworn there had been more Muggles laying on the ground a minute ago.

"Consider that a reminder to listen better to your superiors, Potter. As I was saying, you must mean your curses. But just in case, my Dark Lord took," her tongue slithered over her lips, "extra precautions to ensure I, one of his most loyal, would not be lostin his service."

Her dark, soulless eyes suddenly fixated on him, and Harry only wished she were close enough to spit on.

"Do you know what that is, Potter?" Abruptly she approached, stopping right before him, stooping down to where his head hung and shoving the tip of her wand under his chin. "He...improved me, he-"

Harry spat right in her face.

The sudden, shocked look of disgust that flew across her gaunt face sent Bellatrix reeling backwards, the vile witch staring at him in twisted fury for a moment. And as Harry looked at her, breathing hard in anger, he saw what she'd been subtly showing him the whole time.

Where her tongue had been slithering across her lips, was a fang.

Two fangs.

Seeing this, Bellatrix's lips twisted cruelly, then her eyes darted between the two Death Eater's holding him. "We're not meant to kill him, but our Lord did encourage us to play."

"In that case..."

A broken off piece of flooring appeared out of nowhere, slamming into Bellatrix's mouth. The impact sent his godfather's' murderer flying backwards to the ground, Tonks voice ringing out of midair a second time. "Can we play too? Auntie."

Purple jets of light blasted out, crimson flashes following, from every direction, the spell fire slamming into the two Death Eater's keeping a hold of him and into the two that stood to the side.

Not one Death Eater managed to get off a single spell before they'd all been hexed to the ground.

An instant later the member of the Order of the Phoenix began to un-disillusion themselves, appearing out of midair all around him. Having dropped to the ground, on his knees, Harry gave them a weary look, but forced a tired smile all the same. "About time." Grimacing for a second as residual pain daggered through his nerves, he croakingly added, "Was beginning to think you were actually expecting me to live up to that Wizarding Savior bull the Prophet was spewing and hex them all by myself."

"You were covered, Potter. We were just making sure the injured Muggles were out of harms way as well."

Mad Eye Moody. He'd made it. The thought of the injured Muggles though had any relief in him short lived, Harry's gaze darting towards the fallen blonde girl.

Kalliandra was already dropping down onto her knees besides her. If her gaze flickered back towards him, with any sign of concern, he missed it.

Dumbledore's gaze was roaming around the area, as if scanning the circumference of their very vulnerable position, before his gaze dropped back down to Harry. The anger that radiated in the ancient wizard's face suddenly left, if it had been there at all, concern replacing it. "Are you alright, Harry?"

Nodding, he grimaced, waving off Kingsley as the man extended a hand to him to try to help him up. "I'm fine. Fine." Grimacing again, he dryly added, "Not the first time I've been hit with that. Certain it won't be the last." Gingerly he began to get up.

A gleeful sound erupted from Tonks as she hit her unconscious aunt over the head with the board again, stopping guiltily as they all turned to look at her. She gave a sheepish sort-of grin. "Just in case." Then, giving a gesture at Bellatrix, she added, "It's her fault for not dying the first time!"

Staring at the downed form of Sirius killer a second time, Harry felt himself able to suddenly move easier, though the bitch's words remained in his skull, ricocheting around it like a bullet. "You need to mean them, Potter!"

From over Broussard's stunned body, Regulus Black snorted. "I'm beginning to think the quality of Death Eater has been lowered. That was too-"

"Easy." Kingsley's agreement was immediate, Dumbledore's expression turning serious once more.

"Yes, I believe it was. I have had more trouble," he continued, turning his gaze back through his half-moon spectacles upon the burning wreckage of Grimmauld Street, "organizing my sock drawer."

Grunting surprise, Harry merely shot Dumbledore a look, whilst Regulus gave voice to his reformed-Death-Eater-induced-thoughts. "Right. And this is our leader?" Scoffing, he bemoaned, "I knew it. We're all doomed."

Dumbledore spared Regulus' sarcasm little attention. "Speed," he instead said, suddenly moving swiftly towards where Kalliandra and the young girl were at, "would be now be of the utmost importance." Fire from the homes the Death Eaters had set on fire continued to crackle, spewing smoke onto the streets, and with a swish of his blue mooned robes, Dumbledore had knelt down by the two, the young blonde witch still whimpering into the ground. As Dumbledore extended his hand the girl actually recoiled, yanking herself into the fetal position.

Harry wasn't certain, but he caught a glimpse of a tear in Dumbledore's eye. With a word he'd said something in a hushed tone to Kalliandra, her eyes glinting for a moment, something steely crossing over her face.

Then she'd bent down low, onto the ground with the young girl, whispering something half-soothing, half-not.

Harry was left swallowing. Something about this entire thing...it didn't-

Kingsley echoed his thoughts aloud for him. "This doesn't seem right." The large man and his ebony gleaming skin turned in the center of the street. "Why would-"

"They attack?" Dumbledore shook his head, already striding towards the lawn where he knew Grimmauld Place to be, disappearing for a moment. His dis-embodied voice carried out though, "Why when I have already made a deal with them to exchange myself for Miss Granger, and when they have offered Harry a chance to trade the Prophecy for her family?"

Harry would have balked at Dumbledore knowing that, but instead just grimaced, deciding that he didn't want to know how Dumbledore had his ways of knowing things right then.

Dumbledore re-emerged immediately. "I would think it would be obvious. Regulus." His gaze turned to the man that had been Sirius' brother in blood, but not in any way that mattered. "You are our Healer. The Muggles in our care need tending." It occurred to Harry then that while he had been distracting the Death Eaters, that the Order members had been pulling Muggles to safety, inconspicuously, before any impending fight could break out.

The sudden crashing of an upper story floor in #15 finally giving to the flames greedy tendrils slammed through the night, loud enough to cause half of those present to jerk their wands in that direction. Harry's did not move. Instead his gaze was scanning the rest of the street. Only the homes immediately near #12 Grimmauld had been attacked, and the others...

Were unnaturally dark, and that...

Had his blood chilling. "There has to be more people to help."

He did not miss the sudden, sad look that Dumbledore gave him, and that, perhaps more than anything, shook Harry to his core.

"There is nothing more we can do for the others, Harry."

And then he understood, with sudden, hostile clarity.

The Death Eaters had crept from home to home, using the killing curse on the occupants, quietly killing. Quietly killing before they had decided to make noise.

His grip hardened around his wand as the little girl let out another soul shattering sob, Kalliandra shoving a frustrated hand through her hair, looking at a loss.

There was nothing more they could do for the other Muggles upon Grimmauld Street.

"That's not good enough."

The normally benign smile upon Dumbledore's face was gone, only resignation there. "Sometimes, Harry, we have to accept what we cannot change." Half-moon spectacles turned down the length of Grimmauld Street. "No matter how strongly we desire to be able to change it."

Somehow Harry knew he was talking about more than the casualties of this night. Sirius. Seamus. Cedric. His parents. Neville's.

His chest rose and fell hard, a slow burning anger turned upon Dumbledore as he sought out the only source he had to take it out upon. "What good," he darkly demanded, "is being in the Order if we can't even protect people on our own street?" He waited, but Dumbledore's head remained averted away, peering off down Grimmauld street, seeing something only the Headmaster could see.

He followed his gaze, gaze landing upon a leg. It was all he could see of the body, the leg hanging over the street's curb, the rest obscured by the overturned wrought iron fence on top of it.

No one had yet answered him. His skull pounded, a niggling fury rising within him.

Harry exploded.

"Well?" Rounding around, Harry glared at all of them. "Will one of you TELL me? Because I would LIKE to know what it is! What good are we if we can't even PROTECT the people NEAREST us!" Like Sirius. Hermione's parents. Seamus. Shaking off a hand that was suddenly on his arm, he furiously reiterated, "What good is it!"

The grip was right back on his arm, re-tightening, and this time Harry wasn't able to shake it off.

It was Tonks, her gaze staring at him sadly. "I'm sorry, Harry, but Dumbledore is right." For a moment their gazes locked, anger at their failure radiating through him, sorrow through hers.

"We'll search the remaining homes, just in case." Kingsley. Merlin charm the man. Harry breathed heavily, but he nodded stiffly, finding that his gaze was stinging behind his glasses. It was stinging heavily.

He didn't like it. Not one bit.

And then someone gave voice to a thought that ought to have been at the forefront of all of their minds. "We're exposed here, I don't like it." Kingsley again.

And that was when a far more chilling sound drifted through the smoke filled air, the fires having slowly begun to burn down in the absence of continued spell fire to reignite them, and the sound...

Came from Moody.

It was a low, hissing laugh.

Moddy had been far too quiet until then.

Stiffening, Harry, along with every other one of them, slowly turned towards the retired, reknowned Auror.

His eyes were gleaming an aberrant red light, the face twisting, contorting into something flatter, the nose sinking into his skull in a way wholly unnatural, the skin's tissue paling to an impossible white hue amongst the living, and the eyes...

The eyes had turned into snake-like slits.


ECOTS


Authors Note: If anyone is curious about why Dumbledore is allowing them all into the Order, its because of this quote from the books:

"Harry, I owe you an explanation," said Dumbledore. "An explanation of an old man's mistakes. For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of the failings of age. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young...and I seem to have forgotten lately."

Dumbledore's characterization, to me, seems to have realized at that point in the books that he needed to do something different in regards to Harry. Dumbledore's a smart guy, so I think he'd be intelligent enough for the Department of Mysteries debacle to have made him realize he can't continue to keep trying to control Harry by forcibly protecting him with ignorance.

Quote from the Harry Potter books.