"What's going on?" Harry asked as I returned to the Great Hall.

I had to remind myself that it wasn't five minutes since I'd left, and I was now returning from the opposite direction. They all looked uncertain, although at least they all had their wands out.

The sounds of the carnage upstairs were still going on, and so I was a little distracted. Murdering men while having a genteel conversation wasn't all that easy.

"Voldemort is attacking the castle with two hundred men," I said. "And they're coming out of the Prefect's bathroom."

Tonks stared at me. She might have thought I was joking except that the evidence was all around her; spilled plates from where aurors had collapsed, the sounds of death and dying from above, and the fact that I rarely joked with anyone in authority.

"I'm assuming you sent a message to the Ministry?" I asked her.

Out of all of us, she was the only one able to manage a corporeal patronus. Harry could manage a noncorporeal one, and Hagrid wasn't exactly the best wizard.

"To Dumbledore," she said. "Or at least I tried. I also called the Ministry. But Dumbledore is apparently off dealing with MACUSA in America, and he's too far away to get back anytime soon."

"And what did they say?"

"Moody and the ones who are with the actual delegates are moving them to a secure location. The rest of the Ministry is busy guarding the Ministry proper and guarding St. Mungos. They're afraid that this is a feint and that Voldemort has plans to attack somewhere else."

It fit his previous method of operations. However, I doubted that he had the kind of manpower left to pull something off like that. Dumbledore and the Muggle resistance had been bleeding his people for more than a year, and they'd lost a lot of manpower to me as well.

I'd listened in on the odd security report given to Bones when I'd happened to be in the Ministry, and the impression I'd gotten was of a failing, dying institution.

"Are they sending anyone here?" I asked.

"They will," Tonks said. "But they're waiting until enough aurors are conscious to actually be effective. St. Mungos only had a certain amount of the cure for the Draught of Living Death; certainly not two hundred vials worth."

"Then have them scour the potions shops in Diagon Alley," I said. "Knockturn alley too."

"They've got people out looking everywhere they can find, and they've got others brewing the potions as we speak."

I nodded.

It didn't sound like I was going to get a lot of help. This would have been much easier with Drumbledore on my side.

"I want you all to leave," I said. "Don't go upstairs for anything; I've trapped the castle and you might not survive."

They all glanced up at the ceiling. There were still screams coming from various parts of the castle. The question of just how quickly I'd been able to trap the castle was on all of their faces, but none of them asked.

"Yeh want us to leave the castle to him?" Hagrid asked incredulously.

He was a Gryffindor after all. I should have realized that running would be offensive to him.

"Do you really want to fight an army of wizards?" I asked. "It'd be suicide. He'll have to abandon the castle once the aurors wake up; Dumbledore would be back and we could trap him inside."

He frowned but nodded. He had a high opinion of the former headmaster. It wasn't as though manipulating him was all that hard. Despite that, he was a good person.

It was refreshing in its way.

"Sticks in the craw to leave it to him though." he muttered.

"Oh, he won't get to enjoy it long," I said.

"All right," Harry said. "Why are we standing around then?"

The sounds of guns had stopped, but screams were echoing from up above. All three of them glanced toward the ceiling.

"I'm staying behind," I said. "Going to give Harry a chance to get away."

They all stopped and stared at me.

"I'm not going," Harry said. There was a stubborn expression on his face; I'd seen it directed toward the professors before, but never toward me.

I shook my head.

I should have realized that he would refuse; despite being a part of my army, he was still a Gryffindor too.

"Why did you train me all this time, if you're just going to leave me on the sidelines?" he asked, his voice rising. "I'm supposed to fight him. It's my destiny."

"Nobody has a destiny," I said. "They have choices. Sometimes those choices aren't very good, and sometimes you can't escape the choices made by others. I'm making this choice for you. If you won't go, I'll stun you and have Hagrid carry you."

He stared at me mulishly.

"Because there's worse than Voldemort coming," I said. "And I can't afford to lose any of you. Any one of you could mean the difference between the world surviving and it being destroyed."

He stared at me.

"If I'm busy trying to protect you, there's a chance I won't get away," I said.

"You plan to run?" Tonks asked.

"Yes," I lied.

Turning to Harry, I said, "But there's one thing I need for you to do for me," I said. I hesitated. "Would you consider me your friend?"

He nodded, without a moment of hesitation.

"For today only, could I work for you?"

"What?"

"How many people do you have working for you?" I asked.

"None?"

"One," I said. "There's a prophecy that says neither you nor Voldemort can die unless it's by each other's hand."

He shook his head. I'd told him about the prophecy, of course. It's not the kind of thing you keep a friend from knowing.

"If I am your chief employee, what does that make me?"

He was silent before saying, "My strong right hand?"

I grinned, and he grinned back at me, although he seemed uncertain.

"Pay me," I said.

"What?"

"It's got to be real," I said, "Or it won't work."

He frowned then went through his pockets.

"Will a slightly sticky chocolate frog card do?"

"Cheapest assassination in history. So do you want me to kill him for you?"

He stared at me, then nodded.

"I feel uncomfortable about this," Tonks said. "Are you seriously hiring her to murder Voldemort?"

"Yes?" Harry said.

"Right in front of an auror. Me."

She was staring at us both incredulously, as though assassination for hire wasn't a common thing in both the muggle and the wizarding worlds.

Or maybe it wasn't, and I was just a little jaded. At this point, who could tell?

"Yes?" Harry said. "He's going to murder you too."

"I'm not doing my job very well," she muttered.

I took the card and shook his hand. I had bugs that would welcome the chocolate.

"Hagrid," I said. "I need your help."

"Oh?"

"Stack the tables up like this," I said, "on edge."

"They won't fit," Hagrid said. "The Hall's too narrow."

"Then break off a chunk large enough that it will," I said.

He stared at me for a moment, and then he gestured for us to step back. We all backed up judiciously, and he smashed the table beside him. At my direction, he pushed the professor's table over and set the segment of the other table on top of it.

A sticking charm joined them together, and I cast an unbreakable charm on the whole thing. I then disillusioned all of it.

Harry was the one who got it first. He grinned at me.

"Killing curse won't go through that," he said. "Isn't much that will."

"All he'll have to do is disenchant it," Tonks said critically. "And then a single bombarda will turn the whole thing into shrapnel. It'd be more dangerous then than nothing."

"If he disenchants it, then he can't see me," I said. "Which will be a problem for him."

They had no idea how much that was true. I had no illusions about how my skill at magical combat could compare to his. It was like a middle school basketball player trying to challenge Michael Jordan to a game of one on one.

I was a gifted amateur, while he'd been doing this for at least fifty years, less whatever time he lost after being killed by a baby.

"It doesn't have to last for long," I continued. "Just long enough."

"How will you attack through it?" Hagrid asked.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Worry about getting Harry to safety. Disillusion yourselves and make your way to Hogsmeade. I don't want to know where you go after that."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"Because she can't reveal what she doesn't know," Tonks said grimly. "Why don't you come with us?"

"The moment that he realizes we got the aurors out, he'll know where we took them. Where do you think he'll be going next?"

She stared at me, and her face went white.

"I'm buying the aurors time," I said. "Time to wake up, time to be on their guards."

"You shouldn't have to do this," she said. "You're still a kid."

"I haven't been a kid in a long time," I said. "Not since before I was a Witch."

"Even you can't face Voldemort," she said. "He's almost as good as Dumbledore."

"I can't beat him in a fair fight," I said. I looked at Harry. "But what's the first rule?"

"Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line?" he asked.

I grinned.

"Yeah, and for today I'm the Sicilian."

Hopefully that wasn't true, considering the outcome in the movie. Fortunately, Harry hadn't seen it as often as I had, and didn't seem to understand the irony.

"Also, there are no fair fights," Harry said.

I nodded.

If you could afford to fight fair, then you could afford to talk it out. Fighting was what had to be done when there was no other good choice.

Unfortunately, people rarely offered me good choices.

Tonks and Hagrid looked like they wanted to argue, but I shook my head.

"The longer you stay the more likely one of you will be caught up in everything, and I'm pretty sure that you'd die. For the next thirty minutes or so I'm killing anyone who enters the castle."

They stared at me, and then Tonks nodded.

"I've never had a better hand," Harry said. "Good luck."

I didn't actually expect any of that to actually help. The future could be changed, and depending on prophecies blindly could get you killed.

The prophecies of this universe were easier to work around than the predictions of my own in any case.

However, if it gave Harry the sense that I would have a chance, then it would get him away quicker. I needed that, because I was out of the less well trained mooks.

"Disillusion yourselves before you go out there," I said. "You don't want them passing by an open window and sniping you."

Tonks nodded. She disillusioned Hagrid, although it took a couple of tries since the magic seemed to slide off of him the first time. I'd have to look into magic resistant creatures and ways to gain that for myself.

Before they left, I checked on the positions of Voldemort and his minions. As far as I could tell they were all there; no one had slipped off and attempted to move forward invisibly to catch us by surprise and kill us while we weren't looking.

Despite the carnage that he had to know was happening he didn't seem overly concerned.

The mercenaries weren't his men, after all. Even if they were, he'd historically showed a marked unconcern for their well being.

He didn't seem to realize that he'd already lost. After this debacle, it'd be hard to gain new followers. It was likely that the coalition he'd betrayed by sending them against me would seek to take care of him on their own.

They didn't have to do it themselves; put the kind of bounty on his head that only governments could, and eventually he'd go down. Even if they couldn't kill him, they'd put a serious crimp in his plans.

I had made arrangements to have kill orders explained to Madam Bones or her successor if I should be killed.

It wasn't as though he had many supporters left. All that was left here in the castle was his core group. Lucius, Bellatrix Lestrange, Barty Crouch Junior, Crabbe and Goyle's fathers, and Fenrir Greyback,

I'd seen Greyback's picture on wanted posters.

There were six others that I did not know. Likely two of them were the Carrow brothers. The others I couldn't be sure of.

As soon as Harry and the others were on their way I sent for the Skrewts. I also had giant black widows go to my room to get my dragon skin jacket.

It was spell resistant, and it also made me look cool. The whole thing was a little oversized; it went down to my knees almost like a trenchcoat. I didn't mind because that would give me better protection in combat.

I suspected that Remus and Sirius had hoped that I'd grow up and it'd fit more normally, but I didn't mind.

I only wished that I had a dragonskin fedora, pants and boots to make the look complete. At least it was black.

It took the skrewts longer to reach me than I'd like, but there was still time for me to disillusion each of them.

Voldemort was a lot more cautious than his mercenaries had been, which was only to my advantage. The longer he waited, the better the chance that aurors would come as reinforcements.

He was stopping to examine any set of bodies that he came across, presumably to get some idea of my methods. Fortunately I was able to have my bugs hide some of the dead in side rooms and one group was still disillusioned on the floor out of his likely path to the Great Hall.

My giant black widows entered the room, and I set them to spinning webs as quickly as I could. They webbed down to the remaining tables; the tables weighed hundreds of pounds each, and so it took almost all of them to lift the tables up toward the ceiling with their webs.

At a command, they'd cut some of the webs, sending the tables carreening downward toward the ground below.

I disillusioned all of it and the spiders.

Hopefully this would create confusion in my enemies as they were attacked from all sides by things they couldn't see. Voldemort might be smart enough to disillusion things, but it was hard to do that while you were being attacked.

I needed to cut down on his support team before I had to face him.

The problem was that he wouldn't have lasted this long if he wasn't able to adapt to things quickly. Every trick that I showed him on the way here was a trick that he'd have a counter for the moment he got here.

To my surprise, he wasn't coming in this direction. Instead he was heading for the Room of Requirement.

What could he possibly want there?

I froze as I saw him pass by the entrance three times and the door opened into something I had never seen before.

I was almost overwhelmed by the millions of insects inside; the place was filled with the detritus of a thousand years; more junk than I'd ever seen in my life; even in post Leviathan Brocton Bay.

When he came out, he was wearing a strange jeweled headband with an oval blue sapphire on it.

"My birthright," he said. He was smiling widely.

"I thought you'd cursed it," Lucius said quietly.

"Not against myself," Voldemort snapped. "This will give me the wisdom I will need."

"For Hebert?"

"For the world," Voldemort said. "The muggleborn is merely a distraction. She will try to protect the aurors, and we will destroy her. It is inevitable."

He gestured and the door closed behind him.

"Let's get this over with," he said.

He was very confident; he didn't know that I'd already started my war against him.

Even now, I had insects biting all of them.

The human body had highly sensitive areas in the lips and the hands, and the rest of the body was much less sensitive. They were all wearing robes, which were easily accessible by bugs, and open from the bottom where they wouldn't notice it.

Unfortunately, no one bug could deliver all that much of either a potion or a curse, and I dare not use too many or they would certainly notice.

Using an anti-insect spell against me would be a disaster.

Still, the poison that was in their systems would slow their reaction speeds. They likely wouldn't notice; it would make me seem faster, and it would make it harder for them to avoid things.

I was saving the worst for the final confrontation. I'd been dealing with this for longer than I'd searched for the Slaughterhouse. This had been my life for longer than I liked to think about.

"Yeah," I muttered to myself. "Let's get this over with."