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Stand Tall - The Rise of Harry Potter

Chapter IV

A Weasley Summer


Artaire Rutus, or the artery rotting curse was a painfully dark curse, used almost exclusively on muggles by European dark wizards during Grindlewald's attempt to conquer magical Europe in the early 20th Century. Fantastically painful if untreated, Voldemort's Death Eaters picked it up several years into the the First Wizarding War when Voldemort began recruiting on the continent in order to expand his power base. Death Eaters used similarly to Grindlewald's followers - to attack muggles and muggleborns who wouldn't be able to perform the counter-curse, or even recognise that they had been cursed at all.

The counter-curse, Hermione had been told, was taught to healers as a matter of course. During the conflict with Voldemort, the Ministry had even begun to put out pamphlets with the instructions for the counter curse printed on them, just in case. It was rarely ever needed however, as most people cursed with it didn't even realise they had been hit with it as they were muggles. Hermione Granger was of a higher than average intelligence, and was more than capable of making the connections the adults who were helping to repair the damage the curse had done to her arteries were unwilling to make out loud.

As a muggleborn witch, she had been specifically targeted with a curse that she wouldn't have been able to cure if she hadn't received help at the campsite. Arthur Weasley, God bless him, had thought to check for dark curses when he had arrived to find her, Ron and Harry all unconscious and worse for wear after being attacked. The artery rotting curse had knocked her out, but the truly dark effects that would have caused her arteries to slowly decay over several weeks might not have been detected right away. If she had gone home, muggle doctors would have been able to do nothing. She would have died.

Ignoring the childish prejudices of someone like Draco Malfoy had been easy. Mentally marginalising people like Malfoy because of the fact that they were children and stupid had allowed her to avoid considering the idea that their actions were the symptoms of a wider problem in the society she was becoming a part of.

A fully grown adult using the only potentially deadly attack on her because of who she was, was a touch more difficult to ignore.

Quite frankly, Hermione Granger was scared. There was a subset of wizarding society, a minority large enough to have helped Voldemort wage a guerrilla war, that viewed muggleborns like her as subhuman. As an invasive species that needed to be culled. What's more, as Harry's friend, she was well aware that the creature these people had been led by in the last war was still out there, trying to regain a body. If Voldemort were to return, her and her family's safety would be in serious doubt.

It was a tricky position to be in, not in the least because Hermione wasn't sure she had a choice anymore. She was a known muggleborn - already a target for these people. All trying to leave the magical world behind would achieve was making her even less prepared than she had been at the World Cup. Moreover, Harry and Ron were her first and only real friends. Ron was a pureblood wizard in a family aligned to Dumbledore's cause, and Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived - a person already targeted by Voldemort. When he returned, both of her best friends would be unable to avoid the conflict, and the idea of abandoning them absolutely sickened her.

So the only option was to stay. Stay, learn, and if it came to it, fight - though Hermione was really hoping it didn't. For all of her knowledge and supposed magical talent, a duel was a very different thing, and she was about as inexperienced as it came. Even Harry, who had instincts about as good as they came and unnerving habit of being able to keep a cool head and overcome dangerous situations, had been handily defeated. Quite honestly, she was very certain fighting was as far away from her skill set as you could possibly be, apart from something ridiculous like Quidditch.

But this was now her situation. She and her two best friends were in hospital beds recovering from a brutal attack by potential Death Eaters, so what choice did she have?

She only hoped that she had what it took in her to really be able to help her friends when they needed it, like she knew they would be able to do for her.


It was after visiting hours, and St. Mungos Wizarding Hospital wasn't exactly as secure as Hogwarts' corridors after dark. After Filch, Mrs Norris and the prowling Professor Snape, dodging the sparse patrols of night healers was pretty close to child's play for the now-mobile Ron and Harry. Several adventures through the darkened corridors of Hogwarts had prepared them well for this, and the pair moved together with a practiced efficiency, communicating mostly through head movements and vaguely amusing facial expressions.

The ward that the third member of their team was located was up a flight of stairs, reflecting her more serious condition. Though on the mend, Hermione was not yet on her feet like Harry and Ron and though they had been to visit with the Weasleys and Grangers present, they hadn't truly hadn't had a chance to talk. So of course, as soon as night fell, and their families had been forced to return home (the Dursley's had been notified of Harry's injuries, but had not come), Harry and Ron had met up to visit their injured friend.

Finally, they came to Spell Damage Ward 3; a large room with rows of beds separated by blue hospital curtains. It looked remarkable like a muggle hospital ward from the 50s, without any of the medical instruments and the addition of an animated mop and bucket casually cleaning the floor with perhaps a little more water than necessary. It strangely reminded Harry of a younger supermarket employee with an attitude problem. Their friend's bed was about halfway down, and Harry had noted through the day that the curtains had silencing charms on them so that the patients could have some privacy.

Thoughtful, and incredibly useful when it came to a stealthy night time visit.

"How are you feeling Hermione?" Harry was the first to ask. The bushy-haired with smiled tiredly at them, but in truth, looked miles better than she had even yesterday. The colour had returned to her skin, and her eyes held something of the life and determination they had before the attack.

"Better, quite honestly. Mr Weasley performing the counter-curse right away really saved me a lot of pain. I'm more just tired now than anything else." She finished with a smile at both of them.

"I guess us coming this late isn't exactly the most helpful thing then." Ron was joking, but all of them heard the touch of guilt and worry his voice held.

"Really Ron - don't be silly! You're my best friends, and in my opinion seeing you guys is the best thing for my recovery. I really do appreciate it you know." Harry couldn't help but smirk at how quickly the red flush blossomed across his friend's face from Hermione's words. "Besides," she continued matter-of-factly, ignoring or not noticing the effect she'd had on the Weasley. "I would think we need to talk about what happened at the World Cup, if only to get it out of the way."

Hermione's ugly habit of being inconveniently right was rearing it's ugly head again, and the silence that fell after she mentioned the world cup indicated that none of them were particularly happy about that, regardless of how right she was.

Naturally, Ron's lack of tact stopped the silence from getting too uncomfortable.

"We got our bloody arses kicked." He said flatly.

"Ronald! Watch you-"

"He's right though, Hermione, putting the language aside." Harry jumped in. If you let Hermione build up a head of steam, she took quite some stopping - sometimes moving the conversation along was the best way of dealing with their passionate friend. "I spoke to Sirius about it not long ago. After everything we've faced - everything we've done-"

"You thought we should have stood a chance." Hermione finished, face set in a gentle frown. "Quite honestly, me too."

Ron looked unusually pensive. "I guess..." he started, trying to work out how to proceed. Ron generally took longer to weigh in on serious matters than either of them, but when he did, he often brought a perspective that neither Harry or Hermione had considered as the only one of their group raised as a wizard. "It's difficult if you weren't brought up with stories of what it was like with You-Know-Who and everything. They- the death eaters I mean - were just too much for most ordinary people. When they came for you, most people just thought it was over. I mean, you saw how everybody just ran even though there were only five of them. I think it's easy to forget that even without You-Know-Who, his death eaters were deadly enough. It was only really Dumbledore's lot that could fight them."

It was an interesting point. From the stories, and the fact he had always heard the Malfoys were death eaters and were now just seemingly normal, if rich, people, Harry had always assumed death eaters were just normal people in masks being awful.

"Sirius said the same sort of thing." Harry chimed in, remembering his Godfather's words. "The people that became death eaters, by the end of it, had spent a good ten years fighting Voldemort's war against Dumbledore and the Ministry. Thinking we had a chance was stupid."

"But we couldn't not try - Hermione's Dad-"

"I don't think Harry's saying that, Ron." Hermione chimed in, quietly.

Frustration was written across all of their faces. In the three years they had known each other, they all knew full well that none of them were the sort to stand by and do nothing in those kinds of situations. Harry had as strong a sense of justice as Hermione had ever seen, and Ron had his back through all of it. Hermione was somewhere between the two, equally willing to defend those that needed it, but also wholly loyal to her friends. They were all people who thrived on doing - seeing a problem and doing something to fix it. Now they were being confronted with a problem they hadn't been able to solve. They had been roundly thwarted, still alive by complete chance, rather than their own smarts or skill.

"I suppose that's what Defense is for at Hogwarts. Realistically, we were in a situation that even fully trained wizards would find difficult. Holding ourselves to the standard of adults is probably being unfair." It was a good point, and Ron looked somewhat appeased by Hermione's point, but she couldn't help but notice that Harry's countenance had darkened further.

"It's not good enough anymore, though." Harry started quietly, his mind racing to come to terms with the events and revelations of the summer. He had known before the World Cup that he had to improve because of what was on the horizon, but now he had an idea of what was coming. The first idea as to level he would have to reach magically to be able to realistically survive.

In all honestly, it was only the first milestone on the way to the level he had to get to - being able to compete with the rank and file death eaters. His real goal was so much farther that Harry couldn't even begin to imagine getting there.

"Sirius told me earlier this summer. I had been meaning to talk to you guys about it after the World Cup anyway but..." Harry trailed off, running his hand through his hair anxiously. "Dumbledore thinks Voldemort's close to coming back. That he might actually manage it very soon. Sirius says he's started gathering his old allies to get ready for the next war, and that some of Voldemort's allies are going back to him already." Emerald green eyes fixed upon those of his friends in the dim hospital light, startling in their intensity.

They recognised the look from the most dangerous parts of their time at Hogwarts so far.

"We don't have the luxury of saying well, we're not adults yet so of course we lost anymore. Very soon, losing is going to mean we or somebody we care about not making it. Very soon, the war and death eaters won't be stories from before we were born anymore. It will be our reality." Harry let out a tired breath, before regarding his friends again.

"I guess what we really have to ask is are we really okay letting other people fight and die to keep us safe while we finish at Hogwarts? Or do we decide here and now to be ready? To commit to getting ourselves to the point that when it comes down to it, we can keep each other and whoever else we want to protect safe from what's coming?"

A heavy silence hung in the air, weighing on each of them as they thought about Harry's words, despite already knowing what their answer would be.

Fight or flight? For them, it was never really going to be a choice. They had, and always would, fight together.


The three of them never did vocalise a consensus. Nonetheless, their final two nights at St. Mungo's were spent plotting for the coming year at Hogwarts. Hermione took the lead, planning out areas of study for them to focus on in order to be prepared, and Harry gave her the notes he had already made based on his extra-curricular summer reading to kick start their preparations. They all agreed a solid grounding in practical defensive magic was their first port of call, and Hermione vowed to make a start on learning all she could about the tactics and strategies used in the First War in order to be as prepared as possible.

It was, in reality, a baby step forward; but Harry already felt a pressure lifted from him as his friends took to applying themselves to a problem he had been shouldering alone for several weeks. Hermione had already found ways to streamline and prioritise his own reading, and several new angles on what he had already covered. Ron on the other hand, had several ideas for places they could practice, and offered to tutor Hermione in riding a broom - arguing that they would all need to be fairly competent as a broom was too useful of an escape option to pass up on.

All three could feel their excitement grow in a very familiar way as they made plans and preparations, and it was quite easy to see why it was an exhausted but excited trio that were returning to The Burrow on a pleasantly crisp Tuesday morning, rather than well rested and ready to return to normal life.

"Oh Ron, it is so good to see you up, about and at home!" Molly Weasley was a touch louder than any of them were ready for, and Harry couldn't suppress a slight wince as she rushed her youngest son before gathering him into a tight hug. Mr Weasley, who had escorted them back grinned at Ron's embarrassment but developed a full blown chuckle as his wife turned to Hermione and Harry and did the same to both of them at once. "I was so worried - for all three of you."

The hug was more gentle and her voice lowered, and Harry felt a familiar warmth spread through him that he could only really associate with Mrs Weasley. He knew that he more subdued show of affection was on his behalf. The first time she had hugged him, it had been with all the gusto that she had for any of her children. Harry, unused to the physical contact had gone rigid, panicking slightly.

Molly had never said anything, but had simply eased off until he was comfortable, understanding without words that he enjoyed the motherly attention, but couldn't handle the intense physical contact - even now.

All too quickly, Molly released them and took a step back, allowing the smells that often graced Mrs Weasley's kitchen to assault their senses for the first time. Bacon sizzled in the pan, a spatula charmed to push them around and turn them over when they needed. Toast was ready made and waiting on the kitchen table, with a hot chocolate made for all of the present Weasley children. Dishes and pans were being scrubbed in the background, and in the front room, Harry could spot a broom sweeping at some errant dust in front of one of the sofas.

The Burrow was truly a magical place to him - the only magical home he had ever been in; and quite frankly, he doubted any of the others held as much love and affection within their walls as this place did.

A few practiced jabs of Mrs Weasley's wand and suddenly the table was laid, and bacon was levitating itself onto plates.

"No having to set the table on a welcome home breakfast, I think." She smiled back at them, before summoning an octave that it seemed only Molly Weasley could and bellowing a single word.

"Breakfast!"

Harry grinned as the Weasley hordes upstairs began to stir. He knew the Burrow would never be his - it never could fill the space left behind by what he had lost. He'd be damned though if it didn't just feel like home.


"Harry, come short!" Harry leant forward and felt the Cleansweep Bill used to use accelerate towards Ron, who made to throw a straight pass at him. Fred made to intercept, but Ron's pass had been a dummy - he lobbed it instead, looping their battered quaffle over the twin straight into Harry's path. He caught it slightly behind him one-handed and all in one motion threw it with a slight outwards spin, completing the give and go with his best mate.

Ron was in clear, bearing down on goal from the right hand side - only George standing in his way, covering the centre. Ron made to shoot at the nearside, but instead reversing it across goal. Too obvious. George saw a second feint coming and managed to beat the quaffle away with an outstretched palm - straight into Fred's waiting hands. Ron was too far across, and Harry, too used to a seeker's role of not being directly in play hadn't re-positioned himself quickly enough to track Fred's movement and was now too far removed from play to defend in time.

Ron made it across to meet Fred, only for the twin to square it 20 yards to the other to shoot at an open hoop. Somehow, Ron nearly made it back, grazing his fingertips against the ball, but only managing to redirect it as far as the inside edge of the hoop, adding a neat sound effect to the twin's all to easily scored counter attack.

Harry palmed some sweat away from his forehead. They had been playing for hours, and he was about ready to call it quits. "Ginny! Swap in?" Even from the air he could see the youngest Weasley grin in response, and he returned to the slightly overgrown grass that made up the Weasley's makeshift Quidditch pitch to hand her the broom.

Ginny took to the air with a kick of a foot clad in ratty white muggle trainers, the force of her upward momentum causing a puff of dust to fly upwards, and Harry slumped to the floor where she had been, reaching for the drinks Mrs Weasley had left out for them.

"Ron keeps saying it in his letters, but man you really can fly." Bill Weasley spoke up from beside him, an easy grin on his face. The eldest of the Weasley's, Bill had struck Harry as being the most laid back out of all of them when he first met him. Charlie was mad on dragons to a scary degree, Percy had his thing with rules, Ron and Ginny were all about Quidditch. The twins were... Well, they were the twins.

Harry had heard Bill talk about curse breaking only once - Mrs Weasley didn't appreciate the direction those stories apparently tended to take - and sure enough, Bill got that glint in his eye, and the Weasley madness bubbled to the surface. Most of the time though, he was easy going and friendly - good for a joke, and more than good for keeping the piece between his siblings. Harry enjoyed the man's company greatly, the few times he had been in it.

"Absolute pants as a chaser though. Thank merlin Wood never attempted to make that disaster happen. They'd have never let you on a broom again."

"Does the same rule apply to girls Bill? Might explain why they don't let you near them." Harry shot back. That was something that only Bill ever tended to draw from him. Ron and Hermione were his much loved best friends, but they could be awfully sensitive - and he'd have gotten a clobbering from any of the Dursley's if he'd tried that. In fact, the first time he slipped in front of Bill and shot back without realising he thought the older wizard would do just that.

Luckily, Bill just laughed, and banter became a part of their scant conversations.

"Even if my count was only at one, it's still one higher than you Potter. The way you and Ron go on, I'd wager that you're more interested in Draco Malfoy than girls."

"Bill that is just disgusting."

"Hey, whatever floats your boat. I've traveled Harry, I'm not one to judge what you get up to behind closed doors."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose trying to fend off unwanted mental images, and the definitely unwanted cackle of one Bilius Weasley.

"When do we manage to get rid of you, anyways?" Harry asked, trying to move the conversation swiftly on.

"Why? Trying to score some alone time with my little brother now?" Bill laughed again, and Harry just waited deadpan for him to actually answer the question. He had already learnt to keep quiet unless he had something good to fire back with. Finally, Bill recovered his sensibilities and answered the question. "I'm sticking around until tomorrow, when you guys head off to Hogwarts. Then, I'm off to Johannesburg on work."

"Anything interesting?"

Almost instinctively, Bill cast his eyes around for his mother. "Between you and me, the Goblins have dug up a former warlord's tomb heaving with dark magic. Undead, voodoo, the full works of assorted nasties. Interesting tidbit is, there is european ward work there, meaning interference from foreign wizards. I'm going in as the expert on the Norse and Celtic runes officially. Unofficially, I'm there for just about anything particularly nasty and to watch for signs of betrayal. Goblins don't trust the African curse-breakers, and aren't very good at reading people."

"Sounds pretty hairy." Harry answered back, absorbed in even the slightest bit of information about what Bill actually did.

"No Harry, sounds like fun."

Bloody Weasleys were all insane. No two ways about it.

Later that night saw Harry, all of the Weasleys besides Percy, who was 'busy' and Hermione around their family table, for a 'last supper' of sorts. The food had been fabulous, and Bill and Charlie had been dangling a 'surprise' at Hogwarts in front of those still attending all evening. It seemed that all of the adults were in on the joke, and only Harry had any apprehension at all about a 'surprise'.

It more than likely was as innocent as everyone seemed to think it was, but the idea of yet more secrets and unknowns at Hogwarts put him on edge. The stone, the Basilisk, Sirius - all had been kept quiet from him, and all of those things had come back to bite him in the arse in some way that could have been avoided if he had just known what was going on in the first place. Secrets it seemed, more than anything else, put people's lives in danger at school; and now there was another one, right when Voldemort was moving to get back to full power again.

Perhaps he was grasping at straws, but he thought it was just too much of a coincidence.

"Boys, perhaps it's time to let the matter of the school year lie." Mr Weasley injected himself into the conversation without any great show, but a pair of quizzical looks from Bill and Charlie aside, the 'surprise' was largely forgotten about as conversation went on further into the night. Later, during a conversation in the front room about the Chudley Cannon's prospects this season that Harry was largely tuning out, he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. "Come and walk with me for a while, Harry."

The evening air was pleasantly crisp on his face, and the moonlight meant that the Weasley's garden felt reasonably well lit, once his eyes adjusted. It was a nice evening for night-time stroll, he just wasn't sure whether to be peturbed or not that Mr Weasley had asked for one.

"One of the benefits of bringing up several young boys at the same time, is that you start to pick up the warning signs of a fraying temper."

"I wasn't going to-" Harry rushed in to defend himself before the man had even made his point, but a hand on the shoulder and a gentle smile forestalled his protest.

"No, I daresay you weren't going to lose it. In fact, I would say your control is one of the main reasons my boys didn't realise their teasing was upsetting you. Weasley's traditionally have short tempers - gauging someone a bit more subtle is a struggle even for the older ones. Ron would have pitched a fit much earlier if something was bothering him."

"I wasn't upset, it's just-" Harry paused as he wondered exactly how to put what he was feeling into actual words. "I suppose it's just that people always seem to be keeping things from me. I'm not saying I should know everything, but a lot of the things people tell me I don't need to know end up being dangerous. I mean, the Sirius thing from last year was exactly that. If somebody had just told me the whole story, not just the part they thought I should know..." Mr Weasley looked a little abashed at that, but that wasn't what Harry was trying to do. "I know you were trying to do what was right, but not knowing was far worse." He sighed quietly, taking a moment to gaze upwards at the waning moon, luminescent above them.

"I know it's silly - I just can't help but think 'Oh God, what is it now' when Bill and Charlie talk about a surprise at Hogwarts. Even things that initially had nothing to do with me cause problems, like the whole incident with the Chamber. The whole school pinned it on me just because I'm a parselmouth..."

The father of seven looked pensive for a moment, joining Harry in mutual admiration of the moon.

"Vows of silence mean that none of us from the Ministry can talk about Hogwarts too much. Bill and Charlie are involved, but have the same vows. They can tease but give no information. What I can tell you that the 'surprise' will be governed by a magically enforced age limit. As far as I can see, it shouldn't affect you too much - besides being an enjoyable spectacle. What I can do, is offer some advice Harry. I'm not the most eloquent, and this should probably fall to someone else, but I'll do my best.

"Regarding your other problem - the way people perceive you. It's seems to me that you're not the sort to revel in your fame, admirably and understandably so. But are you so sure that trying to pretend that your not famous, that people aren't interested in your comings and goings is the best course of action?"

The question gave Harry pause. He had never considered it before. The Boy-Who-Lived hated the fact he was famous - he couldn't even remember the cause of it, and it had the inconvenient side effect of making him an orphan. When people talked about him as a 'famous' person, they quite often forgot that last bit. Ignoring it seemed all that he could do.

"It seems to me, that people are going to talk and have their preconceived notions no matter how much you ignore it. What you have to understand Harry, is that the events that created your fame ended the darkest period in British wizarding history for quite some time. People were so grateful, so happy - did you know people toasted your name on that very night. Rightly or wrongly, the legend of Harry Potter began before you could even talk. People wrote stories, told tales. Merlin, I even told a few to Ron as he was growing up." Mr Weasley finished with a chuckle, though Harry was more embarrassed than anything else. For a boy raised in a cupboard under the stairs, just how famous he actually was in the wizarding world was outlandish.

"So what can I do?" He asked, genuinely stumped by the scale of the problem.

"Be more than the legend to them Harry. Show them just who the real you is. Make friends, talk to people - make the most of the fact that Hogwarts is the children of most of wizarding Britain all in one place. Ron forgot all about the story version of Harry Potter the very day he met you in favour of the real thing - I rather think most of us lucky enough to know you did the same, actually. The more friends you have, the more people willing to back you and believe you if anything happens. Besides having more friends never hurt."

It seemed insane to him that the problems he had with the rumour mill could be fixed so simply, but it made sense in a way. Harry recalled Hannah Abbott defending him in the library when others were spreading rumours, and wondered just how much better that would have gone if they had actually been friends. Or even if he'd had other friends in her house.

What if he had friends in all the houses? Just what difference would that make?

Of course , Harry figured that most Slytherins would rather eat Hippogriff droppings than be seen as friendly with him, but Malfoy's cronies aside, he certainly had no issues with making friends with people in the house that he was so very nearly sorted into.

Either way, it definitely bore more thought and it wasn't like making an effort to make more friends would do any harm, really.

What did he have to lose?


The following morning brought a frenzy of Weasley activity, as the large family battled to get organised, but before long Harry found himself in a compartment with his two best friends. Mr and Mrs Weasley were at the window waving them off, as the scarlet locomotive tumbled its way out of the magically concealed platform in London. A letter from Sirius was tucked securely into his pocket, to be read later when he could get a bit of privacy. Luckily, Ron and Hermione were usually pretty good at respecting his desire to read Sirius' missives in private, regardless of their eagerness to know how he was getting on.

He couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement and anticipation - the same one he'd gotten every year since the first. The Burrow felt homely, but Hogwarts was his home. It was most definitely the place where he belonged more than anywhere else on the planet; and no matter how the people treated him - no matter the dangers he faced whilst he was there - he loved it more than anything.

Voldemort and whatever 'surprise' was waiting for them weighed on his mind of course, but knowing he had the support of Ron and Hermione alongside him like they always had been, and Lupin and Sirius helping from the background like no adult ever had gave him confidence.

His gut told him this year something monumental was afoot. He didn't know what, or when, or even who would start it. But he did know they would be ready for it when it came. They would be ready for it.