Chapter 4

Previously:

As Lily and James Potter finally enter to room Will turns to the headmaster, "Sorry we're late sir. Won't happen again."

Dumbledore just smiles, "Don't make promises you can't keep Will." He says eyes twinkling, "But no harm done, why don't you take a seat and we'll continue."

But Will had stopped paying attention to Dumbledore and was staring directly at me in shock.

"Harry?" he asks.

I lean back casually, "Sup Will. Haven't seen you in a while."

Ha, now he's pissed.

"What are you doing here? I thought you said you weren't coming." Will looks almost apprehensive. His posture is tense and he keeps glancing back at our parents.

I follow his gaze.

My father looks startled like he just swallowed something spicy. His handsome face is scrunched up painfully. His light brown eyes show apprehension like he thinks I'm going to call him out on being a shitty parent; well… I might actually. He looks like he's going for the Stephen Strange look with his graying brown hair and goatee, although I doubt he knows who that is. I guess he can't decide if he's happy to see me, or guilty that he barely knows me anymore.

I shoot my mother a quick glance as well.

She looks older now, more like her own age instead of the everlasting youth from when I was growing up. Her fiery red hair has lost some of its former luster, even though her face shows she still has the same fierce determination and willpower. I glance into her green eyes and immediately see the swirl of emotions. Love, regret, fear, pain, so many feelings that seem to be fighting for dominance on her face, it's actually difficult to look at.

I turn back to Will, "Well, certain circumstances have forced me to reconsider your generous offer." I say snidely.

My father takes the opening, "Harry, what are you doing here? This is no place for a non-magical. I don't want to see you hurt by association."

I roll my eyes and ignore him, "Look Will, you asked me to come here and help out, so stop complaining."

"What! Why would you ask him to come here Will?" My father interrupts. "You know his condition, how could he possibly help us."

Will looks at his father disgustedly. "Dad how could you say that, just because he doesn't have magic doesn't mean he's useless."

James looks slightly ashamed, but, like a true Gryffindor, stubbornly doesn't back down. "I'm just saying Will, without magic how is he going to defend himself against Death Eaters?"

I clear my throat loudly but Will is already talking.

"Merlin dad, how do you even know -"

"If I could interrupt this little conversation for a minute," everyone at the table turns to Dumbledore, startled, "I think we should focus less on personal feelings and more on the problem at hand." His stern face catches James', "James, while I completely understand your natural inclination to protect your children from harm, I believe that both Mr. Potters are of age and should be treated as such." He turns to me, and I find myself staring straight at his beard covered mouth, I can feel his gaze on me but my brother has complained more than enough times about his legilimency for me to make the mistake of eye contact.

"Now, as we have heard numerous times today, this is most certainly a dangerous world for a non-magical, especially with the current blood-purity war," Dumbledore looks slightly disgusted by this, "that being said, young William here, seems to think that you may have something to offer our group. And I'd like to know what that something is." His stare somehow turns even more evaluating and stern.

Man, I'd really hate to have him as a commanding officer, way too much of a politician, not that it looks like I'll have much of a choice.

I look around the room, everyone is watching me expectantly.

I sigh loudly and ignore the slight apprehensive feeling that flutters in my chest.

"Fine." I mutter, as I slowly slid my hand into my coat, I can see Moody narrow his eyes, and grip his wand a little tighter, "You all want to see what I can do?" Ha, now he's practically growling. I withdraw my hand clutching a crumpled up piece of paper, "Consider this my resume." I slam the paper on the table as everyone climbs over each other to catch a glimpse. Bunch of bloody animals I tell ya.

Sirius seems to be the first to process what he's looking at, "This is just an article from this morning's Daily Prophet." He says sounding confused.

"Ya," says a witch I don't know, "a bunch of Death Eaters got killed by someone using the piercing curse."

"What does this incident have to do with you Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore's voice cuts through the annoying chatter of the room.

I look towards him, his brow is furrowed like he just smelled something bad, I can tell he's in deep thought.

I roll my eyes, "Well, if anyone thought to actually do a closer check on the bodies, and maybe, I don't know, run an autopsy or something, they would have discovered that those weren't piercing curses." Now they all just look confused.

"What do you mean?" The red headed woman asks stubbornly, "What else could it have possibly been?"

I look over at her annoyed.

"They were actually 5.56 mm bullets fired from an SA80 assault rifle." Most of the wizards still look confused, I bet they didn't understand two words out of the sentence.

However, my mother suddenly looks shocked and scared, "How do you know that Harry?" She asks in a strangled voice.

I meet her eyes, "Because I'm the one who fired them."

Silence.

"YOU WHAT!?" My mother looks like she was plugged into an electric socket.

My father just looks on with a pale face, like he's seen a ghost.

I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion as I look at my mother. "What? I thought I told you when I left, I joined the military."

Now they both look faint, "You said you joined the Royal Military Academy," She says with heavy emotion, "I thought it was a joke and you were just threatening to go join the military."

I stare at her incredulously, "What the fuck! Why would I joke about something like that?"

She seems at a loss. Typical.

I'm honestly racking my brain here, even though it would explain a lot, like how they always treated my like glass, or tried to set me up with their wizard friends daughters or something. They must've thought I had no life outside of magic. Which is kinda majorly insulting.

I decide just to ignore them for now.

"Yes," I say to the room with exaggerated slowness, some of them are still trying to wrap their minds around what a bullet is, "I killed the Death Eaters."

Dumbledore's hard look bores through me with those killer grandfather eyes. "My boy, that is a serious claim you have there. Are you telling me that you shot four people?"

I look back unconcerned, "No, I'm telling you that I killed four Death Eaters, three arms dealers, and wounded another Death Eater who fled shortly thereafter." As Dumbledore's eyes narrow, I turn back to Will, "That's why I had to come in, I might have been ID'ed by the Death Muncher that got away. Figured it's only a matter of time before they trace the bullets back to me so why not?" My gaze turns mockingly contemplative , "Or maybe they won't be able to figure out what a bullet is and it won't matter."

Will nods and looks slightly relieved. Knew I could count on him.

Dumbledore still looks miffed.

"My boy do you realize the consequences of what you've done?" His eyes are definitely not twinkling anymore. "Now Voldemort will have a reason to take notice of the muggles, and we are spread much too thin already. We don't have the resources to protect the muggles against attacks if he decided to take revenge."

I raise my eyebrow at him, "And clearly you've been doing such a bang up job at defending muggles already." I say with some heat, "His muggle kill count is only in the hundreds." I pause and look around the room, "And if he does decide to increase attacks, he might be in for a little surprise."

Dumbledore regards me over his half-moon spectacles, "And what might that be Mr. Potter?"

I quirk my eyebrow at him, "Well you saw the way I took down those Death Eaters, didn't even get a scratch, I have a feeling that when there's eight thousand muggles for every wizard, it will go pretty similarly. Knock on wood of course." I said with a small smile.

The room falls silent.

"Are you trying to tell us," A man with an obnoxious violet top hat exclaims incredulously, "that muggles, of all people, actually stand a chance against fully trained bloodthirsty Death Eaters?" He seems to be half-way out of his seat in dissent as the rest of the room stare at me in apparent disbelief.

"Indeed young Harry," Dumbledore signs and gives me a patented patronizing gaze, "It does seem rather far fetched that people without the gift of magic could have any effect on this conflict." The others give me similar looks and start murmuring in agreement.

I sit back exasperatedly, and let my eyes wander up to the ceiling.

"Look," I start chancing a look at Will, his eyes are scrunched together in a frown and he seems unsure about the situation, great even my own brother's having doubts, "I didn't come here to get interrogated by a bunch of cut-rate volunteer vigilantes. If you want my help, great. If not, cut the overly concerned parent act because it's really pissing me the fuck off." I give everyone in the room my best death glare.

"Now listen," I say trying to calm down a little, "you're losing this war. Voldemort is cutting you down one by one and soon there won't be anyone left. You can't run to the ministry because he's infiltrated that too, and your backs are against the wall." I look around the room noting some outraged expressions at my summary. "Now believe it or not, I've actually got some experience dealing with terrorists and guerrilla warfare tactics. I've been to Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq and I've fought against people that use the same strategy as the Death Eaters." I glance at Moody who is looking thoughtful, Kingsley and the pink haired punk rocker lady also look less dismissive than the rest. "I can offer you my help and experience if you can remove the stick up your asses and acknowledge that magic isn't the answer to everything." I finish with smirk.

Hey, no one ever accused me of having manners.

"Be that as it may my boy," Dumbledore begins, "I cannot, in good conscious, allow someone as… limited as you are into our ranks." I can see his opinion is shared by many as murmurings of agreement break out again. "As Sirius has so graciously invited you into this house, I'm sure he can offer you a place to stay for the night. Tomorrow we can speak more about how to help you in case you have been identified by Voldemort for your actions." He turns to the rest of the group effectively dismissing me. "Now if there was nothing else, I believe we shall end the meeting."

I look around angrily but now everyone is standing up and getting ready to leave.

The mood is somber as people start walking out in twos and threes. I see several eyes glancing at my direction with something close to pity.

Fuck them. Useless tossers, they'd probably be bawling their eyes out before they got past the basic army training.

Moody pauses on his way out. "You're interesting kid, I'll keep my eye out." His magic eye starts spinning rapidly as if to accent his point.

I watch him walk out the door into the hall, at least there's one person who's taking me seriously.

A few others also glance thoughtfully at me on the way out, but most just ignore me.

I can hear Walburga Black's portrait out in the hall screeching as people congregate out there. What a harpy, someone should just bulldoze the entire wall to get rid of her.

I make eye contact with Dumbledore's beard once again but he is talking animatedly with some witch in brown robes. I turn the other way before turning to my parents. They're looking at my with imploring eyes. No escape now, great.

It's turning out to be a long night.

AN:

Sorry for the long wait

Not abandoning the story but very sporadic updates