Harry Potter and the Siege of Hogwarts

by ajarntham

Cut off from the Order, the teachers and the Ministry, Harry and his friends make a last stand at Hogwarts against everything the Dark forces can throw at them. 7th year, AU [ignores HBP, DH]. HG, RHr, NL

6. Advances and Retreats

A/N: Thanks to those of you who have reviewed or placed the story on your alert lists; even one such acknowledgment is priceless encouragement.

In case my editing did not correct the slip ups from last chapter: the URL for one version of the Welsh song "Rachie" is www (dot) melbournewelshchoir (dot) com (dot) au (slash) ourmusic (slash) mp3 (slash) fromtheheart (slash) rachie (dot) mp3; Harry's taunt to Malfoy will probably be recognized by most readers as the song of Sir Robin's minstrels in Monty Python and the Holy Grail; and Fred and George's shocked reaction is because Hermione has just cried out "Oh, for f#$'s sake!" (dashes didn't register).

Harry's "My Ass Belongs to Ginny" is, naturally, to the tune of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy"

In this as in other chapters, please assume that any apparent blunders in Latin are actually the result of fine distinctions between Classical Latin and its Wizarding counterpart.

Names of the defenders and besiegers, if not from canon, come from some of my favorite fanfics (from this and other sites).

Bruce Springsteen's performance of "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" can be found on You Tube. There have been numerous settings of the Robert Burns poem, "A man's a man for a' that."

vi. Advances, Retreats

When the A.F.F. marched, dragged, and levitated the prisoners into the castle, they expected a universal shout of victory that would rattle the windows. But the first sounds were more like mutters of astonishment and yelps of nervousness, as many seemed to fear that in a moment the captors and captives would exchange places and faces. It had taken until almost the entire army had entered for the hall to come out of its dazed and silent state and start daring to believe the evidence of their senses. "Do you want to pinch them to see if they're real?" Ron had suggested, and that opened the hall to roars of laughter and approval and exclamations of gratitude and relief that lasted several minutes. By the next day, students were indulging their glee in the traditional way:

"So Lucius comes crawling to Snakeface, and after he's rolled over and piddled a few times he says 'My Lord, about the assault on Hogwarts, I have good news and bad news.' Voldie says, 'What's the good news?' And Malfoy says 'Our troops are now inside Hogwarts!' So Voldie says, 'That is good news, now what's the bad news?' And Malfoy says, 'They're all locked up in the dungeon'."

There actually were over a hundred Death Eaters confined in the dungeons. The officers had decided to keep them stupefied for most of their stay so they would have less opportunity to plot escape and less need of supervision, or food. (Food supply was not a problem for the forseeable future, since the grounds and gardens were within the wards, but there was no point in being extravagant.) Seven of them were dead, five on the spot and two whom Pomfrey was unable to save. Some of the students objected to providing any medical attention to Death Eaters, but when Lieutenant Ginny Weasley went directly from her own examination to Madame Pomfrey's side, their arguments subsided.

"You don't have to help them, you know," Harry told her. Ginny shrugged and said, "They need treatment, and I'm the one who's had the most training."

"Well... you've already saved one life today, thanks again for that."

"That was my sworn duty, Captain Potter," she said with a quick, weak smile, and Harry saw for the first time one of the unanticipated consequences of the oath: some people would feel that the value of their bravery had gone down because the oath pushed it on them. He gave Ginny a mock salute and a pat on the shoulder. Later, he realized that what he should have said was something like "but you don't have any sworn duty to these people, they were trying to kill you and you're still helping them."

Still another reason for Harry to have Ginny on his mind was all the talk he heard on the general theme of Ginny's claim on his posterior. Harry tried his best to laugh along with everyone, even submitting to swallowing a singing candygram from Fred and George which caused him to burst into a number in front of the student body:

When I fell off my broom

Took a plunge to my doom

'Cause I froze like a first-year ninny;

If I didn't go splat

There's a reason for that:

'Cause my ass belongs to Ginny

If some girls take a no-

tion to slip me a po-

tion, it might make my head go all spinny;

But I'd still have to say

At the end of the day

That my ass belongs to Ginny

Yes my ass belongs to Ginny

And you poachers never can win;

Oh my ass belongs to Ginny

G-G-Gee G-G-Gee G-G-Gin

So I'll give all you lasses the skinny

You can write it down as a fact

Oh my ass belongs to Ginny

'Cause my Ginny, she kept it intact!

It received a standing ovation and three encores. But Harry wasn't going to get pushed into starting anything, however many crude hints got dropped -- those just got his back up...

"You can scarcely call it 'starting,' Harry; you two were very clearly going to give things a try as soon as the term began."

Harry couldn't deny this, of course, but that wasn't the point anymore. "That's the thing, Dad," he responded. "This isn't the time for 'giving things a try'."

"Really? Looking around at the sleeping arrangements, I'd say--"

"Don't be flippant, James."

"Sorry, Lily, but if his friends of the same age are finding comfort in one another, why should Harry feel he has to be alone?"

"I'm not going to make Ginny my comfort woman."

Harry felt he had ended this conversation decisively, but his father continued.

"And everybody else who's in a relationship is just using the other person? Ron and Hermione? Luna and Neville?"

"They were already in relationships when this started, of course they weren't going to break up now. But if I started something in the middle of all this, what am I going to do after it's over? I mean, if I don't want to stay with her, how could I break up with her? After she was by my side when it was life and death? And another thing, isn't this supposed to be -- isn't she, if she is, if we are going to be together, isn't that supposed to be the most important thing in my life? But it isn't, not now. But I'd have to act like it was--"

"Nonsense, Harry!" said Lily, and James said something along those lines as well.

"Well, that's what I've always read about it, that it's supposed to come first, didn't you come first for each other? Please don't tell me you didn't, please don't..."

"Shh, Harry, it's alright--"

"And after I've been cool to her for this last week, now when she's saved my life, if I start now, it'll seem like I'm saying this is her reward--"

"Wait dear, slow down. Why did you start being cool in the first place?"

"I was going to be in charge, what happens if, I don't know, I needed to, tactically, to put her someplace less risky, will everybody start thinking I did it because we're together? Or--"

"Harry, why do you have to talk to us about this," James interrupted. "You know how we've warned you--"

"I can't talk to Ron, he's her brother, and I don't really feel like asking Hermione--"

"No, we think you should talk to Ginny," Lily said.

Harry was taken aback. "I couldn't. How could I bring any of this up without sounding like... like I'm so full of myself I have to console her for not getting this 'prize' right now?"

"We can't tell you what to say," Lily replied; "but if you're an adult, you're expected to be able to find a way to talk with the people who matter most to you about your relationships with them, whether they're romantic or not."

"Well then that's another reason I shouldn't be starting any relationship with her, I'm not mature enough."

"Harry, you're already in a... Harry!"

"Don't turn away, Harry, don't go off sulking, please."

Harry took a breath and offered his embarrassed apologies. "Sorry. Sorry, Mum, sorry, Dad." James and Lily sighed.

"Harry, it will work out. Don't force anything."

"Thanks, Dad. That's all I wanted to hear, really."

"I know, son."

----------

The Army of the Forbidden Forest went back to drilling, Ron giving urgent warnings that the next fight wasn't going to be nearly as easy as the first. Harry found his concentration lapsing from time to time as he indulged in fantasies about showing Draco a thing or two. Curiously, these daydreams did not take the form of outdueling the ferret in a life-and-death air battle, but of outflying him in a 7th-year Quidditch match, the crowd applauding as Harry forced the Slytherin seeker to the ground again and again, thousands laughing as Draco tried to dust himself off and get back on his broom, then glared up at Harry, who cockily waved to him from above... He was prevented from finishing one such fantasy when the radio static once again coughed, stuttered, and resolved itself into a song:

If I could, I surely would

Stand on the rock where Moses stood

Pharaoh's army got drown-ded

Oh Mary don't you weep

But this time the army didn't fly out; they took up posts in the towers overlooking the front, set themselves behind the "archers' slots" in the castle and saw through Omnioculars the Death Eater battalion. They were scattered in the air this time, having obviously learned a lesson from the last encounter. (Harry wondered whether Lucius had survived long after delivering his report.) There were actually fewer of them now, maybe a hundred twenty-five, and the students took heart from this: maybe the occupation of Wizarding Britain was not going so smoothly for Voldemort and his resources were less than they had feared... Or maybe, Harry thought, by sending a smaller army to do what the larger army one couldn't he was trying some odd form of psyche-out, implicitly mocking the students' first win as sheer luck in having an utterly incompetent enemy commander to deal with. That thought sharpened Harry's talons as he prepared to give the next order.

Oh Mary don't you weep no more

Oh Mary don't you weep no more

Pharaoh's Army got drown-ded

Oh Mary don't you weep

The Headmaster of Hogwarts was traditionally in control of its wards, and had the authority to lower and raise them. With Professor Dumbledore gone, that authority had passed by default to the portrait of the previous Headmaster, Armando Dippet. Professor Dippet in turn had been persuaded to declare a state of military emergency by virtue of which control of the wards and the rest of Hogwarts' magic went into the hands of its highest-ranking defender, Captain Harry James Potter.

Moses stood by the Red Sea shore

Smote the waters with a two-by-four

Pharaoh's army got drown-ded

Oh Mary don't you weep...

Harry looked at the enemy army, casting their dissipation spells, then glanced at Ron. "Sixty?" he asked. Ron considered. "Or a few more," he answered. The Death Eaters sent another series of spells against the invisible wall, spells which splintered into colorful fragments then died out. Harry stood and incanted "Deponeam Custodia" (let the barrier go down). The Death Eaters cast "Dissipio" again, and this time the spells met no resistance. They yelled triumphantly, certain it had been their efforts which had overcome the castle's magical protection, and flew forward to crush the resistance of the students now cowering behind stone. Ron silently counted, saying to Harry "Wait, wait... now!"

"Surgate Idem!" Harry called, and as the barrier went up again some dozen or so Death Eaters flying towards him suddenly were flying away from him, but not on their own power. Harry had expected them to knock themselves silly against an invisible wall, but it seemed more as if they had been grasped by invisible giant hands and flung away with titanic force; unable to stay on their brooms, they tumbled end over end and disappeared into the distance somewhere in the Forbidden Forest. Their panicked shouts caused the first invaders to look back and slow down, not yet certain exactly what had happened but clear enough that it boded some sort of trap. A few tried to retreat, but when they met the other face of the ward they found themselves slowed and then held motionless as if stuck in fast-flowing amber. Their comrades inside the wards flew about indecisively for a second, then heard the order to go forward and attack the walls screamed out by their commander on the other side.

Bellatrix. She wasn't too far, he could fly down and...

"Keep your mind on the plan, Harry!" Ron shouted, and Harry snapped back to attention. The Death Eaters inside the wards were casting Reducto at the walls defending the students, and those walls -- though still holding firm -- were starting to murmur in complaint. The students took aim and started sending the turbulence spells which had worked so well in the first battle, but the enemy (starting as they did with higher speed, and with more room to maneuver than they had earlier) were better able to evade these. Still, two were knocked off, and three more were Stupefied when they approached the walls to cast their reductor spells and took too long to turn around. But it looked like a near-run thing, whether the students could down the fliers before they did significant damage to the castle, so Ron requested that Harry perform the third spell on the wards.

"Minimus!" Harry called, and the wards shrunk dramatically until only yards separated them from the castle itself. Two dozen more Death Eaters were caught in amber, and the rest hastily flew back towards the castle, looking over their shoulders at the invisible opponent approaching them. Now they were packed in close to the walls, close enough perhaps to destroy them with their spells if they could coordinate them, but they never got the chance; at that range, and with hardly any room to retreat or maneuver, it scarcely mattered what spells the student used, Stupefy, Impedimenta, or Ventus, anything would hit, and any hit would disable. In seconds, every Death Eater who wasn't mounted on the invisible moth cloth was down on the ground, unconscious or worse. The Counting charm gave the toll as sixty three.

That left about fifty Death Eaters hovering outside, plus a dozen more who were probably dead in the Forbidden Forest either from the impact of the crash or the attentions of the fauna, but who couldn't be counted out with certainty. They couldn't risk manipulating the wards again: too many such spells too close together might damage them irreparably. So the officers looked at one another, each silently considering: stay in, or go out and attack? Then they heard Bellatrix screaming:

"Potter, you think you can stay in there forever? You think hiding behind walls and wards makes you a fighter, you mudblood bitch's bastard? I'll tell you what I've just decided, little boy; for every day you make us wait for you, I'm going to add a long, hard Crucio for every one of the other little boys and girls you brag that you're protecting, once we drag you out of your hole and take this school. Every day, two hundred extra Crucios, you think I won't? Let the kiddies know what it feels like, you owe them that much, don't you, Captain?" And the radio sang:

Well, old Mr. Satan he got mad,

Missed that soul that he thought he had

Pharaoh's army get drownded

O Mary, don't you weep ...

Everyone looked to Harry. Struggling to hold in his rage, he shook his head and declared:

"We don't let a fight end like that. We don't let anybody come flying in here, threaten our students, and just... fly away preening her feathers. Either we shut her up, here," Harry demanded, "or we send her back shrieking."

The officers nodded, and at the signal the Army of the Forbidden Forest took to their brooms to mount a follow-on attack.

The general tactics for the A.F.F. remained constant: stay on top, literally; look for opportunities to cut off small groups of enemy fliers and set up five-on-two or seven-on-three contests. And so, like a dog pack snatching the prey from the grasp of a lion pride, the students sniped, and snapped, and taunted, and feinted, until Alphonse Nichols and Daisy Furuncle were separated from their allies and brought to the ground by Hannah Abbott, Ernie MacMillan, Hull Huntington, Ross Doylan and Cole Kerry. Then it was Dean Thomas, Parvati Patil, Maureen Knight and Cassie Robinson who snatched and bound Allegra Blackburn and Abel Kilroy.

But the Death Eaters were more disciplined now, and such opportunities were few, so the squads had to fall back on their practiced sequences when forced into an even-up fight. In one such sequence, squads would use a type of spell almost never taught and even more scarcely used, which had been researched by Hermione. It was called a "blanket" spell, and as the name suggested, it covered a wide area so it could strike several of the enemy without needing careful aim. The reason such a miracle spell was thought worthless was that the area covered had to include that occupied by the spell-casters themselves and all allies near them. A "blanket" Stupefy, therefore, cast with enough power, would probably stun an opponent five yards away, but would certainly knock out the hexer.

For this occasion, Ron had asked the fliers with Seeker experience to form a special squad for a new tactic. Harry, Ginny, Zacharias and Su Li were one such squad, and when they saw Anthony Goldstein, Terry Boot, Firoza Newland and Ann Belaurus pressed by the superior power of Death Eaters Gerald van Haven, Felice Harrington-Smythe, and Francis and Geoffrey Coldwater, the seekers approached the fray. At a signal from Terry, he and his squadmates each incanted the blanket version of Expelliarmus!, and eight wands flew away out of Accio range. The Seekers flashed after their comrades' wands as they fluttered downward and snitched all four. The squad of Justin Finch-Fletchey, Anne Fairleigh, Emma Bumgardner and Marty Gudgeon took up the pursuit of the wandless Death Eaters and soon had them stunned and bound. Meanwhile the Seeker squad flew back towards Terry's group, and saw them being harried by another group of Death Eaters hoping to scavenge a quick victory. Harry, Ginny and Zacharias intercepted and delayed the attackers while Su Li quickly restored her comrades' wands, and within seconds, instead of facing four wandless foes the four Death Eaters were up against eight armed flyers. These four, also, were soon in the bag.

Then Padma Patil, Sally Ann Perkes, Liam Quirke and Orion Pierson met Rodney Jeffries, Eric Jameson, Dmitri Topanov and Sacha Tsarnikov in another dogfight. The Death Eaters struck first, and Liam was wounded across the torso by Topanov's cutting curse while Sally Ann, struck full-on by Jeffries's Confundus, was about to walk down off her broom mid-air; luckily, Orion reversed the hex in time. Regrouping, Padma signaled her squad to cast its own blanket spell: "Umbram!" A field of darkness swallowed all eight combatants. While the four students went upward and away from one another in a practiced blind maneuver, two of the the Death Eaters panicked: Tsarnikov was so anxious not to blindly pilot his broom into the ground that he overcompensated, pulled up too sharply and was carried by his own momentum backwards off his broomstick, to plummet to his death; Jameson, not wanting to swerve into Jeffries (who was close to his left) swerved as sharply right as he could and instead blundered directly into Topanov. The Russian was knocked off his broom, while Jameson hung on. When the darkness lifted, though, he was too dazed to fight and fell quickly to a concerted attack by the four students. Jeffries, now alone against four, soon followed.

Now another squad, led by Susan Bones, performed the blanket "Expelliarmus" against their pursuers, and once again the Seeker squad dove after the wands. Harry dove after the one belonging to Justin and was drawing a quick bead on it when the wand was literally swept away in another direction by a broomstick in full flight. Harry had to perform an instant reversal and a full-speed dive before seizing the wand mere meters from the ground. When he pulled up, Harry could see enemy flyers breaking away from their dogfights to point and yell in his direction. The Phoenix masks were designed to keep identities hidden, but that dive had unmasked him: it was clear to the Death Eaters that there was only one young wizard at Hogwarts who could have pulled it off.

Now the whole battle seemed to pause and pivot in a new direction: the Death Eaters en masse took off after Harry, with Bellatrix leading the pursuit. There was a strategy in place for such a turn of events: as Harry fled pursuit, the other squads were to take up two long lines, and Harry would then lead his pursuers back directly through the gauntlet created by those lines. It was a strategy which required that Harry execute precise flying under the guise of panicked flight, and that in turn required intense concentration.

"Ohhh, Potter, I know what you were thinking; one last piece of showing off won't kill me, will it? And now you know it will, yes it will!Come on, Potter, I know what's next, you're going to put on a high squeaky voice and say I'm not Potter, I'm Ginny Weasley, please don't kill me, I'm pregnant, Potter thinks it's his!... we'll cut her open lengthwise and make sure she's not producing any heirs..."

Twice Harry pulled himself back from turning back and doing his best to spear Lestrange through her foul throat. He made his turn far too wide, leading the pursuit not between the lanes of the gauntlet but off to the east of both lanes, so that only half the students were anywhere near enough to cast their hexes. Six more Death Eaters were struck, but virtually all of them would have been easy targets if Harry had been able to keep his head, and he knew it. The thought added even more fuel to his fury, and with Bellatrix still after him, still ten lengths behind and never a bit closer than she had been the moment she started the chase, Harry threw his head up at the sun behind him and pulled the Firebolt into the tightest, most reckless backwards loop he had ever attempted. He finished the loop only meters behind Lestrange and gaining fast. He never thought of using his wand, and never even consciously thought of performing the partial Animagus transformation; it just poured down.

Bellatrix looked back and saw something in a Phoenix mask astride a broom coming at her with foot-long talons outstretched. She opened her mouth to cry out her shock, twisted down and to the right, then screamed out her pain as the two clawed feet gouged the flesh out of her left shoulder, where her face had been an instant before. She held desperately to her broom with her one good arm, passing out from the pain and bleeding out rapidly, but as the Potter-raptor readied another dive he heard the signal to return. The raptor wanted to finish its kill, and made the beginning of an attack, when the signal came again. With that, Harry pulled himself together, and flew back in the direction of the signal.

The Death Eaters had retreated, leaving many of their wounded behind, but the A.F.F. had its own casualties. Ruth Pelta and Tony Perugia were both hexed badly, but conscious. Ernie Macmillan wasn't moving. The three were immobilized and levitated quickly in to the castle. Harry didn't want to ask how they had been injured or when, didn't want to know whether it had anything to do with his own loss of control.

The five officers (Ginny of course being inside with Madame Pomfrey) waited together outside the hospital wing. Silence ruled for the first few minutes until Hermione said, "I wonder why it was only Madame Pomfrey who wasn't affected by the homesickness spell."

"Lucky for us she wasn't," Ron said.

"Actually in this case I wouldn't credit Luck," Luna suggested, looking apologetically at Harry as if she regretted disrespecting his personal magical guardian. "I think it was Hogwarts' choice. Perhaps she only had the power to call one of the staff back, and took the one who was most needed."

Nobody tried to dispute this, and the silence returned. Neville took a glance at Harry, then looked down. Then he repeated the motion, and Harry raised his eyes to Neville's in query. Finally Neville cleared his throat and asked:

"What happened out there, Harry?"

Ron ("Come on, mate, you expect him to be perfect?") and Hermione ("Neville, do you think this is the right time?") both jumped in to quash the questioning, but Neville waved them off and persisted. "You aren't the only one who wanted to tear that witch's face off, Harry. I was in my position, though. You were about half a kilometer out of yours. What were you thinking?" After a moment, Harry replied:

"I wasn't. I'm sorry."

That seemed to end the discussion. After a while, Ginny came out to report that Ruth and Tony were OK, but Ernie was still critical after an uncushioned fall. She went back in to the Hospital Wing and the others sat and waited some more. Ron reported seven more Death Eaters were confirmed dead, twelve (the ones flung into the Forbidden Forest) were missing and probably dead, and seventy more had been captured, meaning thirty or so had gotten away.

As Ron was making suggestions for the next defense or counter, Harry suddenly found his mind under attack; a series of images raced before his eyes, on and on, crowding out all the sights and sounds of the world around him. Before he even had time to start putting up mental defenses, though, before he had time to do much more than bring a hand up to his forehead, the attack was over. The sudden gesture, though, was enough to bring his friends up around him, asking if he was OK. As Harry was waving them back to their seats, Ginny came back out into the waiting room, and Harry knew what she was going to say.

"We couldn't save Ernie. He's gone." First Ron, then Hermione, then Harry went to put an arm around Ginny, who was pale and shaking. "I'm OK," she insisted, though she accepted comforting gestures from the trio and from Luna and Neville. "It's your first," Luna said, "you can't really be prepared for it." The six took a silent moment to remember their friend -- Brother, Harry corrected himself, Comes Contectum, and that of course brought back the thought of Ernie pledging continued brotherhood to the ghosts of the Belford twins, a memory which Harry now experienced both from the magically enhanced perspective which came from his birthday wish, and from Ernie's perspective, which came from...

Harry recognized now what all the images were: they were echoes of Ernie's memories, thrust upon him as if he had been taking huge Pensieve injections direct into the brain. He didn't know why, though, and he desperately wanted to, so he overcame his reluctance to reveal yet another oddity about Boy-who-lived-Parseltongue-Chosen-One Harry Potter and let his friends know what had just happened.

"What do you remem-- what did you see?" Ron asked.

"The first thing I remember is Ernie's first accidental magic; he was about six, at some family gathering, and one of his little cousins, four or so, kept crying for more cake."

"So he Silenced the kid?"

"No, he levitated a piece to him."

The friends seemed to smile simultaneously with the same thought: a Hufflepuff from the start.

"He's probably here, at Hogwarts -- the cousin, I mean," Hermione said. "You could check to see whether it's a true memory."

"But why did this happen?" Neville asked.

"I think it has something to do with the pledge we took," Ginny suggested. "The promise that we wouldn't let anybody be forgotten."

"Yes, that makes sense," said Hermione. "But then, why isn't this... parting gift being shared with everybody? Why just Harry?"

"Harry is our standard-bearer," Neville pointed out, and Harry wasn't completely sure there wasn't an implicit reproach there for not keeping up the standard.

"Not just that," Luna added, and turned to address Harry directly. "You're the one who has to survive, if this fight is to be won. So you're the natural choice of Magic to carry the memories of everybody else."

Harry desperately wanted to reject this idea, with its implication that he might be doomed to wander the world as the lone survivor of the great magical war, doing the full body bind on passersby to force them to listen to his tale and take in his memories of all the friends he had lost. It was an unbearable thought, and that made it seem like probable truth.

"We should have a memorial service tomorrow," Hermione reminded the group. "And Harry, you'll speak. This is something you've been given to carry, but I think it really belongs to all of us. Sharing the memories will help us all through this."

The next day Ernie MacMillan was buried near the Herbology shed where his head of house had taught for so many years, and the student body heard eulogies from those who knew him best. Harry overcame his strong qualms about the presumptuousness of placing himself in that class by virtue of a magical fluke, and explained to the listeners how he had come to possess so much knowledge of so many intimate moments. The gasps of awe from many students brought those qualms back in force, but as Harry told some of the more humorous episodes from Ernie's life (such as the one about the levitating cake) the looks of reverence gave way. Harry then turned the platform over to Justin Finch-Fletchey.

"The first time I really heard Ernie being Ernie, was five years ago -- Harry is looking away, I think he knows what's coming -- when the heir of Slytherin opened the chamber of secrets. Well, as we all know, Ernie was de--... was completely wrong about who the heir was, but I remember how he tried his best to stand between me and Harry, who he thought was coming after me. And of course I was thinking, 'go get him, Ernie, you teach that evil wizard a lesson, I'll be your witness if he does anything dark'."

A roll of appreciative chuckles came from the crowd, and Justin continued.

"Ernie was a great admirer of Cedric Diggory, and in the Triwizard Tournament he was sure that Cedric was going to bring back the trophy for Hogwarts and for Hufflepuff. And Cedric wound up being the first casualty, at Little Hangleton, where this war started. So I think it's fitting, that another Hufflepuff became the first casualty at Hogwarts, where this war is going to end. Our house has run last in the House Cup standings for quite a while now, but think of Cedric and Ernie and remember that when the games and quizzes are over, and the real test comes, the last shall be first."

For the next two weeks, no further threats appeared. Fred and George reported that Death Eaters were still periodically marching through Hogsmeade, but in smaller numbers, and without Lucius Malfoy. Stories had come from witches and wizards there (who had heard from someone who had heard from the barmen who had heard from low-ranking Dark enforcers who had come in for a firewhiskey or five) that the Dark Lord had literally eviscerated his servant, but restored his organs to him barely in time to keep him alive. Bella was rumored to have lost her left arm, and to have had it replaced either with a seal's flipper, which had to be watered every hour or it would dry up and fall off, or with a serpent who acted as Voldemort's messenger to her, constantly hissing reminders to her of her failure, and occasionally paralyzing her with a bite.

But there was still no news from or about the rest of the Weasleys or anybody else's families, or about the fate of Dumbledore, the teachers, the Order, or the Ministry. Fred and George had risked an apparation into the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole, and had made their way towards the Burrow in disillusioned state. To escape the effects of the homesickness spell they had worked their magic on another Slinky, connected one end to each brother, and then had taken turns going on ahead; that way, if Forge suddenly tried to run or apparate into the Burrow under the spell's influence, Gred (who had stayed behind out of range of the spell) would be able to snap him back. But instead of feeling the pull of home, they found themselves walking in circles, unable to approach the Burrow. The same had happened when they tried to spy out the Ministry and Order headquarters. This occasioned a great deal of learned debate about magical theory among the portraits, but no clear answers emerged. It was agreed that attempting to raise a resistance or adopt guerrilla tactics in Hogsmeade would not accomplish enough at this point, but the twins were to seek potential allies for a time when it would.

As the lull went on, partnerships were solidifying among the post-pubescent students, and a few young witches and one or two young wizards made their hopes known to Harry. He did his best without making a public announcement to spread the message that he was not open to any relationship until the fight was over. Naturally this brought the follow-up question "and then...?" Harry saw an opportunity, and told each of them that there was already someone, and that they probably knew already who she was. Their embarrassed looks showed that they did, and Harry placed his trust that the Hogwarts rumor mill would pass this 'declaration' around until it got back to Ginny herself. At least she'll know I'm thinking of her, Harry hoped, and at that thought he heard quite vividly a clucking tch-tch from his parents rebuking his cowardice.

When the next assault finally came, it was not the radio that first announced it; a student looking out her dorm window saw some strange, shambling lumps pushing aside the trees. It took her a moment to register that these were crudely man-shaped, and a moment after that to realize that giants had come against Hogwarts. Soon the alert was sounded, and omnioculars showed some puny humans popping in and out from behind the legs of the giants. The thirty or so Death Eaters were approaching the wards leisurely, interspersed for their own protection among their allies, who numbered close to fifty. From the distance of Hogwarts, even in the omnioculars, it looked like a set of thin little toy wizards had gotten mixed together somehow with a different brand's set of large but cruder figurines. The enemy arrived in range and the dark wizards began casting their dissipation spells.

The officers gathered, seeking a way around their dilemma. To wait behind the wards would make their destruction inevitable; to try driving the dark wizards away would mean confronting the giants. Though no one looked forward to that, it seemed in the end the only choice. So, for the third time, the Army of the Forbidden Forest went out to challenge the dark. The radio declared,

What tho' on homely fare we dine, wear hodden gray and a' that

Gie fools their silk and knaves their wine, a man's a man for a' that

For a' that and a' that, their tinsel show and a' that

The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor is king o' men for a' that

Ye see yon birkie called a lord, who struts and stares and a' that

T'ho' hundreds worship at his word, he's but a cuif for a' that

For a' that and a' that, his ribband star and a' that

The man of independent mind, he looks and laughs at a' that

Then let us pray that come it may, as come it will for a' that

That sense and worth o' er a' the earth shall win the fight for a' that

For a' that, for a' that, it's comin' yet for a' that

That man to man the world o' er shall brothers be for a' that !

The students flew up, passed the wards and sighted their enemy beneath; commanding the Death Eaters now was Macnair, the former executioner. First the army of Hogwarts sent down their storm of boulders, but the giants caught most of them on the shields they carried, and Macnair could be heard cooing to the giants, "you see how strong these good weapons are that we made for you!" Another pass by the A.F.F. had minimal results again, and this time the Death Eaters, confident they were covered, took aim themselves and retaliated. Two students were unseated, but saved by levitation and cushioning charms from their squadmates.

The Army of the Forbidden Forest tried now to single out giants for magical attack. They were too tough for any one or two wizards to take one down with even their strongest spells, so Ron sent two squads at a time over giants on the wings of the enemy formation. Their combined Stupefy spells brought two crashing down, to the cheers of the flyers, but it took only a few seconds for the dark wizards to revive them. On the next attack, slicing and severing curses brought down four giants and a quick follow up brought down the wizards who attempted to come to their aid. But many more dark wizards were left to put up magical protection shields, allowing time to heal their comrades. With the giants protected against magical attack by the wizards, and the wizards protected against physical attack by the giants, the Hogwarts army was stymied.

Macnair then spared four of the wizards and four of the giants from defense and ordered them on the offensive. With the impunity given them by the double shield, the wizards hurled curses, and the giants hurled back the boulders which had bounced off their shields earlier. Most were dodged, but while Sarah Murphy, 6th-year Gryffindor, was rolling out of the way of a reductor curse, a boulder came on her blind side and hit her full. She was quickly taken back to Hogwarts and Madame Pomfrey, but nobody who saw the impact held out much hope. The students ran a few more attacks but they had almost no results, and the counters were becoming more and more difficult to escape. This is getting us nowhere, Harry thought, and after a quick exchange of glances with Ron, he gave the signal to return to the castle. For the first time, the Army of the Forbidden Forest had retreated with the enemy still on the field.

Harry flew back with the others behind the wards, not really hearing the Death Eater taunts or understanding those of the giants. Halfway back to the castle he almost fell from his broom, startled by the irresistible invasion of his mind by scenes from a young girl's life. The girl grew with inconceivable speed into a pre-teen, then an adolescent, then a fighter in an army confronting the forces of Lord Voldemort. Of the blow that caused her death she had no awareness and thus no memory. But Harry did.