A/N - Happy Sunday everyone. Here's the next chapter of the story. Rather nervous about this one because I've never been a very good fight writer and I know some of you have been anticipating what happens in this chapter. I redid parts of it several times so hopefully it's at least a little decent.
Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.
"Normal Speech"
"Telepathy"
Quotes taken from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
5) MIDNIGHT MADNESS
"Harry" the voice seemed to be calling Harry from a long way away.
"Harry" the voice sounded closer now.
"HARRY!" the voice sounded almost on top of him now, "WAKE UP!"
Harry shot up into a sitting position.
"Wha – ?" he said as he looked around his room. It was empty. He rubbed his eyes thinking it must have been a dream – at least until he went to lie down again.
"Oh no you don't" said the same voice and now Harry knew it was Jean contacting him, "you get up and get dressed right now! And hurry!"
"What's going on?" asked Harry as he quickly pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt before ramming his feet into his trainers.
"There's trouble" said Jean, "come to the front of the tent." Harry nodded even though Jean couldn't see him. He grabbed his wand and headed out of his room. As he got near to the tent entrance he started to hear loud noises coming from outside. It sounded like people were screaming.
Harry found everyone gathered just outside the front of the tent. He pushed his way through the small crowd until he reached Sirius and Remus. Scott was standing next to them.
"What's going on?" he asked the two Marauders.
"Look over there" said Sirius as he pointed to where he was looking. Harry turned to look and his eyes opened wide at what he saw.
By the light of the few fires that were still burning, he could see people running away into the woods, fleeing something that was moving across the field toward them, something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated the scene.
A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. Harry squinted at them. . . .They didn't seem to have faces. . . . Then he realized that their heads were hooded and their faces masked. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air. Two of the figures were very small.
"Hold on a second" Harry heard Scott say, "that man who's floating there. Sirius, didn't we meet him when we first got here? Isn't that Mr. Roberts, the guy who manages this campsite?"
"Yes" said Sirius grimly, "and I'm guessing the other three are his family."
"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side to side. "That is really sick. . . ."
"Why are they being treated like that?" Jean asked.
"Because they're muggles" said Sirius.
"So?" said Jean sounding indignant, "no one should be treated like that."
"You're right" said Sirius, "but look closely at the wizards in that crowd. Notice anything unusual about them?" Harry looked at the masked marchers. They were all wearing skull masks. When he said this Sirius nodded.
"They're Death Eaters" he said to Harry, "followers of You Know Who. They've never had any problem with attacking muggles. They think it's fun!"
Everyone now ducked back into the front room of the tent to decide what to do. Mr. Weasley pointed to himself, his wife, Sirius, Remus, Bill, Charlie, and Percy.
"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. "You lot - get into the woods, and stick together. I'll come and fetch you when we've sorted this out!"
"We'll help too" said Scott as Mr. Weasley's group prepared to go out.
"But you're muggles – " began Mrs. Weasley in an almost reflexive manner before Scott cut her off.
"We're the X-Men Mrs. Weasley" Scott reminded her and before she could respond he turned to Harry, "Harry if you would?" Harry nodded and raised his wand only to have Sirius stop him.
"Let me" said Sirius, "we're back in Britain and you're still underage."
"Good point" conceded Harry as he lowered his wand. One by one Sirius cast the switching spell on the X-Men changing them into their uniforms. He also released Angel's wings from their harness and he changed Iceman into his shorts and boots letting Iceman finish the process of icing himself up. Finally when all of Harry's teammates were suited up he turned the spell on Harry and got him into his own uniform. When Sirius was done Lightning took his own wand and stuck it into his right boot where he and Professor Xavier had made a slot for it earlier that summer. He didn't usually use it on missions. He was getting pretty good at wandless magic by now with all of the practicing he'd done and he hoped to eventually be good enough to get a staff but right now he wasn't at quite the same level as when he used his wand and he liked to have it available if he needed it without it being in the way.
"Okay, let's go" said Cyclops, "Sirius, you're with us." Sirius nodded and moved over to join the team.
"Lead on fearless leader" said Beast.
"He always does" snarked Iceman as Cyclops led the X-Men and Sirius out of the tent. There was a short pause after they were gone while the others took in what they'd seen. Remus, the five younger Weasley siblings, and Hermione, had all seen the X-Men suited up for action before but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, and Charlie had not. It was one thing to know who they were around the lunch table, it was quite another to see them dressed for battle and heading out to face danger without any hesitation.
"Arthur" said Mrs. Weasley, "should they really be out there? Surely they're too young."
"Molly" said Remus, "all six of them are fully trained and very good at what they do. Both Sirius and I have seen them in the field and in training. Sirius has even undergone some of their training himself. They'll be all right."
"But Harry – " began Mrs. Weasley.
"Yes, Harry too" said Remus cutting her off, "he's as much a part of the team as any of them. Remember that Professor Dumbledore has known this from the beginning and he approves of it." That seemed to mollify Mrs. Weasley.
"You can't blame me for being worried" she said.
"You wouldn't be a mother if you didn't" said Mr. Weasley who then turned to the others, "okay, let's stick with the rest of the plan. Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, Hermione get to the trees and get under cover."
"Why?" asked one the twins, "we want to help too. If Harry can – "
"No!" snapped Mrs. Weasley cutting him off and glad that she could at least reassert her authority over her four younger children, "Harry may be a fully trained X-Man but the rest of you aren't. Now go!"
"And stay together!" Mr. Weasley called as Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione all ran out of the tent and headed for the relative safety of the trees. Shortly after that the remaining adults left the tent to see if they could help against the Death Eaters.
The X-Men and Sirius moved around to where they were out of the direct path of the marchers and assessed the situation.
"Our first task" said Cyclops, "is to rescue that family. Let's get closer and I'll tell you my idea." They moved closer to where the marchers were but stayed out of their sight lines. Cyclops told the others what to do. Angel and Lightning took off and hovered nearby above the crowd although off a bit to the side to stay out of immediate sight. Marvel Girl crouched down ready to run at the signal. She could have flown up with the other two but decided to stay on the ground in case she needed to catch someone who the other two missed.
Cyclops opened up his visor and aimed his optic blasts at the wizards at the front of the crowd. He did a sweeping blast hitting a lot of them quickly. Caught by surprise the wizards in front were thrown back into the ones behind them who staggered backwards into the ones behind them causing a bit of a domino effect as a large section of the crowd briefly went down.
Of course this meant that the spells on the Roberts family broke and they would have fallen if the other X-Men hadn't been ready. Lightning stopped the four of them from falling and briefly held them all in place with his telekinesis which over the past year had grown strong enough for him to be able to do this fairly easily. Angel swooped in, grabbed Mr. Roberts, and carried him back to where Cyclops was waiting with Iceman, Beast, and Sirius. Marvel Girl ran up and telekinetically grabbed Mrs. Roberts from Lightning and briefly levitated her back the way she had come before setting her down on the ground and leading her over to the rest of the team. This left Lightning to follow after her while bringing the two kids with him, both of whom looked at him with very wide eyes.
"Are you all okay?" Cyclops asked the Roberts family members when they were all back on the ground again.
"I, I think so" said Mrs. Roberts in a dazed sort of voice.
"What the bloody hell was that?" demanded Mr. Roberts as he recovered from the experience. Before anyone could answer the young boy piped up.
"I know you people" he said looking around at the group in excitement, "you're the X-Men!"
"That we are young master" said Beast in a solemn voice.
"But if you're here" said Mr. Roberts, "is that a crowd of super villains who are holding a party or something?"
"You could say that" said Cyclops, "I think it would be best if the four of you stayed out of sight until this is over. The trees should give you cover." Mrs. Roberts nodded.
"Thank you" she said, "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't rescued us. I'm sure I'll be having nightmares about it for a long time!" The two kids echoed similar thoughts after which Mr. Roberts led his family away to take shelter in the trees. They all looked shaken by their ordeal.
"The Death Eaters are all back on their feet" said Lightning looking at the crowd, "what now?"
"We can't take them all on ourselves" said Angel, "there's too many of them."
"Maybe not" said Cyclops, "but look over there. Doesn't that look like a bunch of other people coming over to try and stop them? We can make things easier for them." It was true. There was another largish group of people gathering not far away to oppose the Death Eaters including a bunch of aurors from the looks of things. But it was more than just aurors. Remembering that the Weasley adults and Remus all intended to help Lightning suspected that a lot of that group would be made up of people who just wanted to help. The big question was if they had the needed skills to fight the Death Eaters or not.
"Okay" said Iceman, "what's the plan?" Cyclops took a moment and explained his next idea. The others agreed.
"Right" said Cyclops, "Lightning, Marvel Girl, Sirius, you all know what to do." The three named people nodded and turned to face the marching Death Eaters. Lightning and Marvel Girl both began concentrating while Sirius raised his wand. Suddenly, much to the great surprise and consternation of the Death Eaters, wands began flying out of their hands and soaring away from them into the darkness. Many wands were doing that and they flew over to where Lightning and Marvel Girl had telekinetically summoned them. This especially surprised the Death Eaters because many of their wands had anti-summoning charms on them so they couldn't understand what was happening not knowing that such charms didn't work on telekinesis. Sirius, meanwhile, was using the Accio spell to summon wands from anyone whose wand wasn't charmed that way (there were some) and that the other two had missed. He could only summon one wand at a time but he still managed to get several of them this way. Soon the three of them were holding a lot of wands.
"What are we going to do with all of these?" asked Marvel Girl.
"I'll deal with them" said Sirius. He conjured a sack to hold the wands and once he'd gathered them all and put them in the sack he closed it, shrank it, and put it in his pocket.
""I'll give this to one of the aurors later" he said, "now what?"
"Now we help the good guys" said Cyclops. It was clear that the "defenders" as Lightning thought of the ones who were opposing the Death Eaters had taken heart from seeing so many Death Eaters losing their wands and were now starting to fight back more effectively against them. Unfortunately there were quite a number of people in the Death Eater crowd who still had their wands as Lightning, Marvel Girl, and Sirius hadn't disarmed everyone. Also many of them had second wands hidden in their clothing and they weren't going down quietly.
"Okay" said Sirius, "but be careful everyone." He transformed into Padfoot and at Cyclops' signal all seven of them went on the offensive. Lightning and Angel both took off and flew over the crowd preparing to strike from above while the others attacked from the ground.
To say the Death Eaters were surprised when the X-Men showed up seemingly out of nowhere and began attacking them would be no more or less than the truth – even with the things that had already happened to them earlier. Due to the dim light on the field most of them didn't actually know who was attacking them. All they knew was that they had some unknown foes that they couldn't get good looks at and they had a hard time trying to strike back at their attackers.
Padfoot was the first to reach the Death Eaters and he jumped on the first one he came to and knocked him down before running past him and attacking another one, only this time he bit his foe's leg and pulled him down. Then he had to take a few seconds to spit out the taste of the Death Eater's dirty sock that had gotten into his mouth before he charged on to someone else.
Beast bounded into the crowd and began knocking people out left and right. He was probably the one who was in the most danger of all of them because he was in the middle of the whole crowd. But he was moving fast and it was difficult for anyone to get off a spell at him. In addition firing a spell at Beast meant that any Death Eaters near him were much more likely to be hit by friendly fire – and quite a few of them were as Beast leaped, jumped, ran, punched, and kicked his way through the crowd.
Up above the fight Lightning took a few seconds to summon up his electrical power and let the lightning surround his whole body in preparation for letting a lot of bolts fly at once from many parts of his body. This was a technique he'd been working on for months and he called it his "Full Blasting Attack." When he first tried the technique it had taken him over a minute to summon up the electricity to surround his whole body like a cocoon of lightning. With months of practice he'd gotten faster at this and now he could do it almost instantaneously. Naturally such a concentration of lightning in one place attracted attention from the ground but nobody could actually see Lightning himself. The amount of lightning surrounding him quite thoroughly shielded him from view. Not knowing what it was some Death Eaters fired spells at the concentrated lightning but it simply absorbed all of the spells. None of them touched Lightning himself. Now he prepared to release the lightning at the Death Eaters.
"Take that you bastards!" yelled Lightning as he spread his arms wide and allowed the lightning to shoot out of almost the whole front of his body at once. Many people were hit with his lightning and even where he missed he caused a lot of mayhem to the crowd. No one was killed by this, he made sure the lightning wasn't strong enough for that, but many people who were hit by him were knocked out. It threw the whole area his lightning impacted into chaos.
Angel soared nearby and, working in tandem with Lightning, focused on people that his teammate didn't hit. Angel swooped down and clocked such people from above and then disappeared into the night again before anyone could get a bead on him.
Back on the ground Marvel Girl started her fight by facing two particularly brutal Death Eaters who seemed to think that she would be easy pickings for them just because they were bigger than her.
"Well what do we have here?" sneered one Death Eater to the other, "looks like a little girl who's out past her bedtime."
"Yes it does" said the second one, "does your mummy know where you are? No? Well we'll see you get back to her – after we've had our fun of course – hey!"
The second one had exclaimed in surprise because he was suddenly lifted up into the air by Marvel Girl who then used her telekinesis to slam him into his companion causing both of them to fall over.
"I don't how you did that" said the first one getting up and raising his wand, "but you'll pay for – aah!" He toppled into unconsciousness having been mind-blasted by Marvel Girl who then struck at the other one in the same way and put him down too. The telepathic attacks took only a couple of seconds.
"This 'little girl' has fangs" said Marvel Girl to the two fallen Death Eaters. After that she split her time between lifting up some of the death eaters and slamming them on the ground again and telepathically attacking others to take them out of the fight.
"Iceman" said Cyclops from his place where he was standing next to the frozen mutant, "cover the field in front of the Death Eaters with ice. Make the sheet as smooth as you can."
"Okay" said Iceman and he did just that. Because of the dim light the Death Eaters couldn't see the ice very well after it appeared and when they stepped on it they began to slip and had to work hard to stay on their feet. This only lasted a few seconds before Cyclops fired his optic blasts in another sweeping blast that caused many of their foes to go sliding back across the ice, hit more of their fellow death eaters and bring them down too.
Despite how well the light side was doing the battle didn't come to a natural conclusion. It was interrupted by a flash of green light over in the woods that caught everyone's attention. When people looked in the flash's direction they saw a huge shape begin to rise up into the air above the trees. It was a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth. There was silence for a long moment as people watched and then screams broke out all over the field. A lot of pops were heard as Death Eaters began apparating away although many of them couldn't get away due to having been taken down during the fight either by the X-Men or the other wizard combatants. Lightning and Angel landed by their teammates as all of the X-Men along with Sirius, who had transformed back from his dog form, gathered together to stare at the skull and snake rising upward.
"What's that?" asked Marvel Girl voicing what all of her teammates were thinking.
"That's the Dark Mark" said Sirius, "Voldemort's mark" he explained seeing the blank looks he was getting from the X-Men.
"Oh" said Iceman.
"But he can't be here now" said Lightning, "and even if he is he doesn't have a body."
"He's not the only one to use that mark" said Sirius, "all of his Death Eaters know how to cast it too. During the war they would cast it over their victims. If you ever came home and found it floating above your house – "
"No need to finish" interrupted Cyclops, "I think we all get the idea."
"Should we try to find the person who did it?" asked Iceman.
"No" said Sirius, "you won't find them now. Death Eaters would cast the dark mark when they were leaving the sites of their killings. Whoever did it will be gone by now. Let the aurors handle it."
"I think the aurors are going to be very busy" said Angel, "when you consider how many people were taken down in this fight." He and the rest of the team looked at people from their side who were now swarming the parts of the field where the defeated Death Eaters were,
"You're quite right young man" said a stern voice from nearby, "we will be."
All of the X-Men along with Sirius turned to see that they had been approached by a stern looking witch with a monocle in one eye. They all recognized her at once.
"Director Bones" said Cyclops, "hello."
"Hello" said Amelia Bones, Director of the DMLE, "I thought I recognized your powers during the fight. I'm glad you remember me."
"Of course we do" said Cyclops "how are you tonight?"
"Well enough, thank you" was the reply as she shook his hand, "and better now that this attack is over. I'm not going to ask how it is that you X-Men come to be here tonight but I'm very glad that you are here. Thank you for your help. You've done more tonight than anyone has in years to help bring in Death Eaters who got away. And from the looks of things you did it all without killing anyone. I'm especially glad of that."
"We wouldn't kill" said Cyclops, "unless it's absolutely unavoidable and for self defense. We've been lucky that we haven't had to do that to anyone so far."
"Besides" said Iceman lightly, "we figured that they'd be of more use to you alive."
"Indeed" was the reply, "also thank you for defending Hogwarts this past April. My niece goes there and I'm thankful you were able to keep her and the other students safe." The X-Men all nodded.
"You're welcome" said Cyclops, "is there anything else you need from us?"
"No, I think we have things in hand now" said Madame Bones, "but is there any way I or someone in my department can reach you all again in the future if we need to?" Lightning had not expected to hear such a request but he decided that he shouldn't really be surprised by it. Because of its secretiveness the British wizarding world was unlikely to ever contact the Avengers or the Fantastic Four. Even approaching Dr. Strange was unlikely. Tonight, however, was the second time in just a few months that the X-Men had stepped in to help out in a British wizarding crisis. They were becoming a known quantity to the UK magical community. When one considered just how conservative, even reactionary, that community often tended to be that was saying a good deal.
"If you really need to reach us" said Cyclops, "talk to Professor Dumbledore first. He's old friends with our mentor so he knows us. He can get in touch with us if necessary. Other than him, Auror Moody also knows how to reach us." Bones' eyes went up a bit at that. She had not known that Moody knew the X-Men and wondered how and why that had come about. She knew he'd fought alongside them at Hogwarts back in April but beyond that didn't know that he'd had any contact with them afterwards.
"Yeah, they're really the only ones who can" added Lightning.
"Thank you" said Madame Bones who then looked over in surprise as Sirius stepped forward from where he had been standing.
"Amelia, you'll want these" said Sirius bringing out the bag containing all of the wands they'd collected and returning it to its normal size before holding it out to Madame Bones.
"Sirius?" Bones asked with a raised eyebrow, "what are you doing here? Are you with the X-Men?"
"At the moment perhaps" said Sirius, "but not really. We ran into each other at the start of the fight. They recognized me from when I fought alongside them at Hogwarts so I helped them out a bit. This bag contains a lot of wands that Marvel Girl and Lightning took away from the Death Eaters."
"I see" said Bones taking the bag from Sirius, "thank you for this. I'll get them all identified and if any of their owners got away tonight we'll be able to catch them later." With a last nod Madame Bones turned and began walking over to where aurors were rounding up the captured Death Eaters.
"Excuse me" said another voice and all of the X-Men turned to see they had been approached by a thin blonde woman. Cyclops, Lightning, and Sirius recognized her.
"Hello Ms. Skeeter" said Cyclops to the Daily Prophet journalist.
"You remember me" said Rita Skeeter sounding pleased.
"Of course I do" said Cyclops.
"Me too" said Lightning, "you wrote some good articles about us." Lightning remembered Rita Skeeter from when he had met her at Hogwarts after the fight with Magneto but there was something different about her now. She seemed less predatory, more serious in her demeanor and it might even be said more professional. She didn't make Lightning feel uneasy this time.
"I'm glad you liked them" said Skeeter, "like Director Bones I saw you during the fight but because of the darkness I didn't realize it was you until I followed her over here. Thank you for helping us again."
"It's what we do" said Cyclops.
"Tell me Cyke" quipped Iceman, "how many times have you said that to someone? Maybe you should come up with a new phrase."
"But it's true" said Marvel Girl.
"Indubitably" said Beast, "why should our leader invent a new verbal expression of our statement of purpose when the one he uses now is perfectly acceptable for the situation?"
"All right, all right" said Cyclops, "are you working right now Ms. Skeeter?"
"Always" was the reply, "if you don't mind my asking, how is it that you come to be here tonight – not that I'm complaining, I'm just curious."
"Believe it or not" said Angel speaking up now, "We were simply here to attend the Quidditch World Cup."
"Really?" asked Skeeter with a raised eyebrow.
"Really" said Cyclops, "some magical friends of ours invited us so we came – not like this of course, but rather in our, I guess you would call them, civilian identities. That's why we won't tell you who invited us. We never expected a situation like this but when we found out what was happening we had to help."
"I see" said Skeeter, "well I'm also glad you're here. I need to go find out more information about who has been caught. Thank you for talking with me."
"You're welcome" said Cyclops, "good night."
"Good night" said Skeeter who then turned and walked off in the same direction as Madame Bones.
"What do we do now?" asked Marvel Girl.
"Nothing" said Cyclops, "our part's done. We should leave it to the aurors now."
"Never a dull moment" sighed Iceman.
Now that the fight was over the X-men and Sirius returned to the tent. They were the first ones back but shortly after their arrival Mr. Weasley entered with Bill, Charlie, and Percy. The others all drifted back not much later.
"Is everyone all right?" asked Cyclops. Nobody seemed to be badly hurt and many of the party sat down to recover. Mrs. Weasley went off to the kitchen and soon returned carrying a tray with extra mugs of hot cocoa for everyone as it seemed like they all needed something after the fight.
"Did they catch anyone?" asked Hermione.
"Yes" said Mr. Weasley, "actually they caught quite a lot of them although I don't know who yet. We'll probably find out in the morning." He turned to the X-Men.
"You were all a lot of help tonight. The aurors probably wouldn't have been able to catch nearly as many people as they did if you hadn't been there and I'm glad you were able to rescue the muggle family."
"We didn't do it all by ourselves" said Cyclops.
"No, but you were a big help" said Bill.
"We do our best" said Iceman, "thankfully they were nowhere near the level of Magneto."
"Or the Submariner" said Lightning, "that guy was strong."
"Not to mention Blob or the other members of the Brotherhood" said Marvel Girl.
"This time" said Cyclops, "that was true. But they didn't know we were here and they had no experience fighting people like us. Next time it could be very different."
"Next time?" said Mrs. Weasley, "hopefully there won't be a next time. There shouldn't even have been a 'this time.'"
"No, there shouldn't have" said Cyclops, "but there was. And it's best to be prepared in case there is a next time."
"I wholeheartedly agree" said a voice at the end of the room. Everyone looked over and saw an image of Professor Xavier appear, "please forgive my sudden appearance. What you're seeing is an astral projection of my thoughts. I decided it would be better if you could all see me when we talked rather than just hear my voice in your heads."
"Thank you professor" said Cyclops, "I'm sure everyone appreciates it. I take it you saw everything?"
"I did" said the professor, "I'm pleased with how the seven of you handled yourselves."
"Even me?" asked Sirius.
"Did I not just say 'the seven of you?'" said Professor Xavier, "yes Sirius, that means you too. I think you can officially consider yourself one of the X-Men after this if you want."
"It's about time" said Iceman, "now we just need to give you a codename. How about Canis? Or Fido?"
"Oh Merlin no!" said Sirius, "I'll just stick with Padfoot if that's all right with you."
"No" said the professor, "too many people know about that name. It will lead them straight to us. We'll come up with something for you later."
"One thing I'd like to know" said Marvel Girl, "Sirius you said that the dark mark was Voldemort's symbol. If that's true then why did so many of his supporters leave so quickly after it appeared?" Marvel Girl ignored the flinches that all of the Weasleys and Hermione gave at hearing the name. Having dealt with the likes of Magneto and other foes Marvel Girl, like all of her fellow X-Men, had no fear of saying Voldemort's name.
"I can probably explain that" said Bill, "if they really were Death Eaters, they worked very hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they'd be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they'd ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives. . . . I don't reckon he'd be over-pleased with them, do you?"
"As usual" muttered Angel, "the worse the criminals are the less honor they have. Always save yourself even at the expense of your partner. Typical Prisoner's Dilemma behavior."
"What's the Prisoner's Dilemma?" asked Ron but Angel waved him off with a "later."
"So... whoever conjured the Dark Mark. . ." said Hermione slowly, "were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?"
"Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione," said Mr. Weasley. "But I'll tell you this... it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I'd be very surprised if the person who did it hadn't been a Death Eater once, even if they're not now. . . ."
"I suggest you all get some sleep" said Professor Xavier, "it's after midnight where you are. We can talk more about this and what it may mean later. Good night everyone."
"Good night Professor" said Cyclops while the rest of the X-Men all nodded or waved.
"Well you heard the man" said Sirius, "the excitement's over. Time to go back bed."
"I agree" said Mrs. Weasley as she shooed her children (and everyone else) back to their bedrooms.
Once he was back in his room Lightning pulled off his mask and was removing his gloves when Ron came in.
"Hi Harry" said Ron.
"Hi Ron, "said Harry, "are you okay?" He sat on his bed and pulled his wand out of its slot in his right boot and put it aside. Then he began taking off his boots.
"I guess" said Ron, "crazy night, huh?"
"Yeah" said Harry, "did you see any of the fight?"
"Yes" said Ron, "me, Hermione, the Twins, Ginny – we only went just inside the woods and then looked back to watch. It was hard to see a lot of it but it looked like you were really beating up on the Death Eaters."
"Not all by ourselves" said Harry as he went about taking off his uniform and changing back into pajamas. Ron picked up Harry's uniform shirt and inspected it, running the material over one of his hands before putting it back down.
"What's your uniform made of?" he asked Harry, "I've never felt anything like it."
"Huh?" said Harry as he finished putting on his pajamas, "oh, it's something called 'unstable molecules.' Don't know exactly what they are but among other things my uniform changes its size as I get bigger so it doesn't need replacing."
"Like magic charms to resize clothing?" asked Ron.
"Kind of like that," said Harry, "although it's not magical. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more about it but that' s all I really know. Professor Xavier could tell you more."
"Oh" said Ron as Harry sat down on his bed.
"Is something wrong?" Harry asked him. Ron shook himself.
"No" said Ron, "I just wish I had been out there with you. All of our group do."
"I'm sorry to hear that" said Harry, "it wasn't a party you know."
"I know" said Ron, "but it's just, well, I don't know. Hermione and I, we were your best friends at Hogwarts and then you had to leave. Now, a year later we watch you with your teammates. You all work really well together, and you have a closeness that we wish we still had with you."
"Ron, I don't know what to say to that" said Harry, "my teammates and I, well obviously we're a close team. It's the kind of friendship and closeness you get from sharing danger and being able to rely on each other to get through it. You know what I mean. When you hear me and the X-Men telling stories of our adventures it's not like you can't relate. You have a few stories of your own to tell. There was the troll in first year. I'd like to remind you that you were the one who ultimately knocked it out. Then there was the Philosopher's Stone. You sacrificed yourself in that chess game so Hermione and I could go after Voldemort. And we went to the Chamber of Secrets together."
"We got separated that time" said Ron.
"That's not the point" said Harry, "you were prepared to keep going with me and it was only bad luck that separated us. You see? You and Hermione have done things with me that our classmates haven't. We're still friends and I hope we always will be even if we don't see each other as much as we used to."
"You really know what to say" said Ron, "just like when you gave me that pep talk back in April."
"I try" said Harry, "you should probably get back to your room. If your mum finds either of us still up she won't be happy."
"You're right" said Ron, "good night Harry."
"Good night Ron."
Ron left Harry's room to go back to his own. Harry lay down on his bed and fell asleep again pretty quickly. It had been a strenuous night and it was not how he'd expected his birthday to end although, he reflected as he drifted off, if it was already after midnight when Jean had woken him up then none of the fight had technically happened on his birthday which was a little comforting.
(To Be Continued)
A/N - And that's all until next week. Please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. Stay safe ad well everyone.