A/N: This is a revised version of the chapter, containing a few corrections of blunders in the who-what-when-where department and a couple of slightly more substantive changes near the end.
x. Promises
7 June 1998
"Expecto Patronum!"
Prongs burst out of the wand, larger and brighter than ever, and looked back at Harry with a kind of patronal pride that brought a catch to his chest. Then the stag stiffened, tossed its head as if trying to shake off some attacker, and quickly dimmed and faded to nothing. Harry sighed in frustration and turned to his friends in the Room of Requirement.
"This is what happens every time. I start off thinking of the adoption, and it's the most powerful memory -- like I told you, I really see it as if I were there. But then I can't stop the memory from going on to Jack and Eileen being killed. I've tried, but once the memory starts, it won't be held back."
Ron expressed confidence that Harry had the willpower to pull it off. Neville asked about partial Obliviation. Hermione said this would be a tricky business, but she could look into it. Ginny said this would violate the pledge to remember each other, Ron argued that pledge was only binding for the ones who took it the first day at Hogwarts, Ginny asked if the Belfords weren't still supposed to be their comrades.
"Ginny's right," said Luna. "And I don't think Harry should try to forget their deaths at all."
"I'm not trying to forget their deaths, Luna; I'm just trying to get the image, of their ghosts crying, out of my mind for when I do the Patronus."
"You shouldn't try to do that either," Luna responded.
"Well, maybe I just have to find another Patronus memory," Harry said.
"No, I don't think so," said Luna. "This was a magical gift. It came to you at the right moment, to be used for exactly the task you need most. It wants to be used against Voldemort."
"Luna," Hermione said, "A Patronus is by definition invoked by a happy memory--"
"That's the definition, yes. We obviously need to rewrite it."
"...and you can see what happens to it when the memory is contaminated by unhappy thoughts; it fades."
"Or maybe it's fading because Harry is struggling so much."
Harry invoked the Patronus once more, this time trying not to struggle. The result was the same.
"Maybe you need to stop trying so hard not to struggle," Luna suggested.
"You sound like Professor Bandhit," Harry grumbled. Nothing was going to be settled that day so the officers cut the practice short and went out to the Quidditch Pitch, six on three brooms.
----------
An idea had belatedly occurred to Neville about how to slow the Dementors' recovery process. Dementors, though apparently indestructible, were after all solid: they couldn't pass through barriers as ghosts could. Why not bury the bodies of those who had been knocked out by the Patronus Pills? Hermione was furious with herself for not thinking of this, but consoled when Neville said it was too simple an idea to take root in her subtle brain. And so the A.F.F. flew above the field of fallen Dementors and dropped loads and loads of soil on them, went back for more and repeated the mission, again and again, until no bony finger or hooded face was visible anywhere below them. Then they did their best to transfigure the soil to stone, knowing the transfiguration wouldn't be permanent but hoping it would still lengthen the time needed for the creatures to escape.
It did. Whenever the squads had finished driving off the immune Dementors, they checked back on the 'graveyard'. It was mostly quiet, but every now and then they would see a dark hand struggling up through the crusty ground from below, and they would pile on more soil, transfigure it again. Now there were mounds growing on the field, some almost shoulder-high, they were rumbling from the inside and nobody wanted to get too close to one to check out how sturdy the containment was. It seemed the Dementors' 'tombs', like themselves, were becoming magic-resistant, refusing to accept any further Transfiguration spells, until one by one they cracked and yawned open for their occupants to come forth.
There were forty of these escapees in the air on June 15th for the A.F.F. to drive away. Harry's was feeling pretty close to full strength, which seemed a stroke of good fortune for all since roughly one out of three days now found him in the Hospital Wing. The twelve dance teams went out to do their jobs, spread out in their usual pattern, then paused for one shocked moment as all forty Dementors instantly flew in straight, swift vectors whose arrows pointed right down Harry's throat.
The other squads, and Harry's also, were quick to send out their Patronus charms, and ordinarily these would have been even more devastating against a set of targets so bunched together. Now, however, though giving off shrieks of pain from the contact with their nemeses, the Dementors only retreated a small distance and returned on the double, like famished animals scenting a huge feast. They surrounded Harry in a sphere which blocked him from the view of his friends and comrades, who tried desperately to peel off the outer layers while Harry called on his memories for aid in pushing back the closest attackers.
Seven photos, Christmas at Hogwarts. "Expecto Patronum!"
Your friends showing up by portkey at Grimmauld Place, Potter, the moment you saw you had brought them to their death
"What?" Harry cried out. He knew that voice, of course, but it had been so long since he had heard it in his head while fully awake.
The connection, Potter. It is strong enough now that you cannot keep me out. Look, they're coming for you again! My memories of your memories, projected back at you, it lights you up like a beacon for them, Potter. There -- your godfather, falling through the veil.
On the broom with Ginny. "Expecto Patronum!"
Weak, and getting weaker. 'Either must die at the hand of the other,' that was useful to learn. Here are my forty hands, Potter, grasping for you. You remember Colin being told by Dumbledore how I had killed his brother, he couldn't believe that Harry Potter, hero of heroes, had kept in his room rather than going out to save him? Of course you remember that, it came to you the moment he fell dead five feet from you, doing for you what you wouldn't do for his brother.
They were all around him now; his Patronus was only a fraction of its accustomed power, and their presence was having its accustomed effect.
The last sounds you will ever hear, Potter, your mother begging for mercy, and my wiping the mudblood off my feet. I don't even need your memories to relive the moment I took her.
The Dementors were almost upon him. "She wasn't at your feet, you lying turd!"
Yes, Harry, I was. There was no room there for salvaging pride. There was only keeping between my child and his death.
"Mum?" Was this just another of Voldemort's projections, there to taunt him by confirming the story of his mother's degradation, or was this actually the Lily Potter of his own mind, the mother of so many of his interior conversations? "Mum, is that really you?"
And as he said the words, Harry recalled the answer his imagined mother had given him earlier to the same question, and heard the voice repeating it now: '...certain of nothing, except for the truth of the imagination, and the holiness of the heart's affections.'
With the Dementors now about to take him, Harry found mental breath for a last bit of spitting at his nemesis. "So maybe she was at your feet. She wasn't there because she was afraid of you, she was there because she loved me."
He waited for the hooded face to cover his and take away his soul, and looked up to see the hooded face was hovering still. If anything it was moving slightly backwards, like a fish struggling against a strong current and losing the fight. All the Dementors seemed to be struggling like that, and Harry felt a bolt of strength go through him as he realized what that current consisted of.
An inspiration came to him and he acted on it instantly. He ceased struggling against the tormenting image that the Dementors and Voldemort were eagerly forcing upon him now. He fixed it in his mind, as firmly as he could, that vision of his mother crying out for mercy then falling to her death. He added to it one thought, and let Prongs feed on that image and that thought together, and go on feeding, until he couldn't hold either back anymore and released them:
"That's how much my mother loved me! Expecto Patronum!"
Harry only caught a tenth of a second's glimpse at the head of the stag emerging from his wand before being forced to shut his traumatized eyes. The light was so bright, after all that darkness, that he actually yelled out with the pain, then the sound of that yell was completely washed away by the screams of Dementors. He heard what had to be dozens of the high-pitched shrieks, but each one would end after a second or so, then another one would begin. When he finally felt able to open his eyes he could see Prongs chasing down another Dementor and goring him, and with this touch the Dementor simply crumbled to dust.
Harry let out a high giggly whoop and a yell of "GET THEM, DAD!" There were only a few Dementors left, but Harry noticed that Prongs himself was becoming a little smaller with each goring, as if the contact was baneful to him as well. His brightness was undiminished though, and stayed that way until a much diminished stag, almost a mouse-sized version, came cantering back to Harry's wand, bowed proudly in acceptance of Harry's grateful thanks, and disappeared.
Harry looked around. There were no Dementors left. Most of his friends were staring in various poses of shock, his closest ones were coming up to him with hugs and words of relief. The thought, If I can't keep him out, maybe he can't keep me out, occurred to Harry and he tried projecting this scene at his enemy: the sights, the sounds, the feelings of warmth from the two Weasleys draped around him. To his satisfaction, Harry could 'hear' a wrench of pain at the other end.
Well, Tom, it looks like I've torn off forty of your hands.
----------
For the next two weeks the Army of the Forbidden Forest did as much r&r as was possible and practicable inside a magical castle, while trying as well to anticipate what Voldemort had left in his quiver. (Hermione's guess was vampires, and all who were briefed on the countermeasures she had devised agreed that the creatures' fate would be swift and gruesome.) For Harry and Ginny there was a lot of time in the air, on two brooms or in tandem. Every square foot of the Pitch, air and ground, was now covered with hovering charms to slow a fall and softening charms to deaden the impact of one, in case Harry experienced a sudden attack while in the air. Harry said he rather hoped they would fail, so he could experience Ginny's rescue method once more instead.
On June 29 the attack came. Voldemort hadn't used the portkeys for some while now, and it was clear now he had been saving his energy for a mass invasion. That was one of the scenarios the officers had anticipated. They had not anticipated the invaders being McGonnagal, Moody, Lupin, Shacklebolt, Snape, Tonks and Hestia Jones. At first there were cries of rejoicing at the return of familiar professors and Order members, but then the glazed-eyed adults began hurling curses around the Great Hall. Next they grabbed some of the unconscious and semi-conscious students and made human shields of them. Then they looked around the Hall and quickly focused in on Harry.
"Finite Imperium! Finite Imperium!" Hermione's counter-curse had no effect on the adults. Harry began running, as per the invasion plan, hoping to draw attention away from the rest of the students and give his friends a chance to find the best-defended spots. His friends tried to keep between Harry and any curse from their teachers and seniors. The plan in such a situation was for the other students to find cover and snipe at the intruders, who would be torn between pursuing the fleeing Harry and defending themselves and thus less effective at both. But the students would be less effective now also, held back as they were both by fear of hitting a hostage and reluctance to harm an ally acting under Imperius.
Harry bluffed a dash around a corner and stopped to peak back around it using a 'periscope' charm. He could see the fighting between the elders and the students trying to slow down their pursuit, and itched to go back out, but remembered the other officers saying that the more visible Harry was, the more Avada Kedavras would be thrown around. The adults were slowly forcing back the students. Why didn't Hermione's spell break the Imperius, Harry thought frantically. Then he realized he could 'consult' with the one who was guaranteed to know the answer.
The Gryffindor is capable of thought. I'll indulge you, Potter. It won't make any difference if you know.
Bullshit, Tom, you can't stop me from reading you. He read that Voldemort was actually performing, not the ordinary Imperius which was one command after which the victim was 'released,' but active, ongoing, long-distance mind control. He hadn't known such a thing was possible.
Of course not, Potter; you don't know a fraction of what I can do, and you never will. I'll give you some idea, though, in the ten minutes or so you have to liveAnd Voldemort began to project some of his most creative methods of torment and destruction at Harry.
Harry was able to ignore these. He had the answer, how to break Voldemort's hold on the Order members. He didn't think he could do it himself, though. "Ginny!" he shouted, "I need your help."
"Cover me," Ginny called to her allies, and zigzagged her way through the curses to Harry. The two started running down a hallway. "We have to find a room we can lock them out of," Harry said. The Room of Requirement was too far... "Defense classroom," Ginny said, and they made their way there. It was reinforced to prevent casual entry, given all the spells that could fly out and hit a thoughtless intruder.
"Listen," he said hurriedly to her. "You're the best person for this, in one way, and in another way you're the worst person I could have asked for. I don't mean -- forget it, no time. Thing is, I'm going to have to hurt myself. You're going to have to hold my hand steady on my wand, so I can keep doing it as long as it takes. Then if it works you'll need to do the healing charms. This is how to get Voldemort off -- it's the connection, you see." Harry was relieved that Ginny seemed to sense there was no time to object or argue; she gave a small, grim, nod of acknowledgment. "So when I -- Oh, damn, damn, damn... Oh shit damn and fuck it... oh God..."
"Harry, what--"
"Luna's starting her collection of magical beast figures. She's telling the other Ravenclaw firsties about her father's paper. She's..."
"Oh no. Oh, oh oh no..."
There was no time to settle their emotions, and in fact Harry saw that the one sliver of good to come of this would be the doubling of rage he would put into the Unforgiveable. And how does that fit into my 'luck'? he thought he'd ask Luna if there turned out to be a next life. Harry pointed his wand at his own stomach.
Give it up, Potter, you can't bluff me. You may think you will, but nobody can go through with that
You don't know a fraction of what I can do, Tom. "CRUCIO!"
The pain ripped through him. Ginny, with her eyes closed and teeth grinding, held his wand hand firm and true, and the pain doubled and redoubled. I can hold on longer than you can, longer than you can, longer... And Tom was gone from his mind. Harry reached out and sensed him lying on the floor, half-unconscious and crying, and wondered through the ongoing agony if this was a trick, quickly decided no, there's no question it's real, it has to be real, and twisted his hand to turn the curse off himself. He suddenly realized in horror that he had given Ginny no instructions on when to hold on and when to let go -- what if she thinks I really 'want' to keep going and this is just a reflex she has to fight, this could go on for--? But Ginny quickly complied with his motion, and the curse was over.
Harry felt for a moment the unspeakable bliss of a cessation of unspeakable pain, then his body rebelled against the horrific abuse it had suffered under the curse and began quaking with remembered pain, almost as bad as the real pain from the worst injury he'd ever suffered... Ginny tried to cast the pain-relief spells, but her voice and wand were shaking too badly at first. She quickly and vigorously cursed herself, and that talking-to seemed to do the trick. The next healing charms went off perfectly, and Harry was able to lie down and relax some of the tension that had been crushing his muscles and nerves.
"Ought to check if the... oldies... are out of it," he muttered. Ginny performed a Lookout spell on the door, creating a one-way window, and reported that the fighting seemed over.
Ginny did some further healing charms, then lay down next to Harry and folded him into her arms. "How's this treatment supposed to work?" he asked. "Shut up," she explained.
After a few quiet moments, Harry said, "I wasn't complaining, you know." Then the banging started on the door, and Ron and Hermione were calling for them. Ginny opened the door and gave them the short-course in reassurances.
With the door open, Harry could hear Neville shouting something in a tear-choked voice, and a confusing rush of voices and footsteps responding to that. He seemed to be calling out orders... something to do with Snape... This sounded ominous, and Harry realized that with the four of them in here now, and Luna gone, Neville would be the highest-ranking person in the hall so far as the rest of the students were concerned. He'd better go out and see.
Harry was recovered enough to go out under his own powers, and saw the A.F.F. holding their wands on the confused and frightened looking adults, with Snape having been thrust forward and held roughly by Anthony Goldstein, Eleni Roil
Landon Fitz and Eleanor Branstone. Neville, injured and bleeding badly from his left arm, was cursing Snape and promising he would pay. Snape was trying to look down and snarl intimidatingly at Neville, but every sneer and sarcasm was being met by a sharp thrust of Neville's wand into Snape's stomach, to the shock and outrage of Professor McGonnagal who was frantically screaming at him to stop and come to his senses this instant. The students gave no heed to their Deputy Headmistress' orders, some even waving wands threateningly in her direction. It was this scene the quartet came upon.
"Harry, Ginny," Neville said, "I'm glad you're OK. You are OK, right? He, Snape, he killed Luna."
"This is madness," Snape cried, "why would I want to harm Miss Lovegood?"
"You were under Imperius, Professor," Hermione answered, but Neville shook his head. "No, he's a Death-Eater, he was just pretending--"
As Ginny cast a temporary spell to stop Neville's bleeding, Harry put his hands on his shoulders, started to give him a hug of consolation but wasn't sure if it would be wanted or accepted now, or if he knew how to do it right, settled for a light squeeze. "He's not a Death Eater, Neville."
"Yes he is, the bastard, the murdering bastard, he -- LOOK AT HIM, still practicing his fucking smirk! You think I have to put up with shite from you now, Snape?" Harry wrestled Neville's wand-arm down. If there had been a smirk on Snape's face it had completely disappeared and been replaced by a mixture of disbelief and fear by the time Harry glanced at him.
"Neville, he's not a Death Eater. I know who Voldemort thinks is loyal to him, right? And who he knows he has to put under control. They were all under his control, everyone, including Snape."
Neville finally gave in to the logic of this. The other members of what was now the quintet of officers came over to support their friend, and the students stood down from high alert. After a quick diagnostic for Harry, Ginny left his side to take Neville more or less in hand, and pulled him away to sit somewhere quieter. From there, Harry could see Madame Pomfrey coming and leading Neville away, presumably to the Hospital Wing.
Snape apparently took Neville's departure as his cue to try restoring the authority of the adults. "Well, Potter," he began, "I see that you aren't completely devoid of sense after all." Harry gave a tired sigh. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You'd rather die than say 'thank you' to me. Just forget it." Harry had already started walking away from the Potions professor to talk to Moody, see if he had any advice on what to watch for now, when Snape drew himself up. "Very well, children. It's time to put an end to whatever schoolboy fantasy you have been living out and let the adults take over now. Perhaps it would be safer if I had your wand for safekeeping, Mr. Potter."
More than two hundred wands were instantly pointed at Snape. Harry felt a bit of captain's pride that nobody had cast an unauthorized spell yet. Professor McGonnagal spoke out now, angrily demanding that this threatening of instructors cease immediately, and dozens of wands turned on her.
There were angry shouts on both sides, until Hermione called for quiet, which was immediately granted. She took a moment's breath and addressed the adults, particularly McGonnagal and Snape. "Professors, when this is a school again, of course you'll be back in charge. But this isn't a school now, it's a fortress in a time of war. This fortress is holding the only army which is putting up a resistance against Voldemort, and Harry is the ranking officer in that army. He was confirmed in that position by Professor MacGregor, you remember. So until this war is finished, Harry's in command here. Nobody else."
There was a roar of "Hear, hear!" from the student body which seemed to goad Snape further. "Why all this loyalty to a bungling adolescent with a hero complex?" he shouted. "I didn't see him performing any grand deeds of military prowess just now, I only saw him and Miss Weasley coming out from a room where they had been closeted, for what purpose--" "SNAPE!" Ginny's voice cut through Snape's monologue, "if you don't want to have a flock of bats flying out of your abnormally large nose, you will shut your ignorant mouth right now." Snape's eyes blazed with resentment, but he followed the instruction. Ginny continued. "I don't suppose you wondered -- did any of you? -- how you broke out of the Imperius curse? Do you think you all did it yourselves, simultaneously? Well you didn't."
When she explained how Harry had done it, there were gasps all through the hall, from the youngest to the eldest, and expressions of gratitude. Lupin pushed his way over to check on Harry, and Harry realized he had been so caught up in things he hadn't had a chance to feel his own rush of gratitude at seeing the old Marauder again, and so many other members of his magical family. He let himself feel it now, and gave Moony a good long hug to confirm his presence.
Even Snape could not get out of offering that historic, first "thank you, Potter." "You're welcome," Harry returned equally flatly, but Ron had more to say.
"I don't think it's a good idea if you stay around us, professor. There's just too much bad blood. We all know that Harry can't concentrate while you're around always digging at him, and he can't afford that kind of distraction."
"What exactly are you saying Mr. Weasley?"
"I'm saying, Mr. Snape, that we're giving you detention. Will you kindly confine yourself to the potions laboratory and try to employ your limited abilities towards something useful."
And the storm-faced professor finally walked out with as much dignity as he could through a gauntlet of silly smiles from the students.
Harry turned to Ron. "You've got to put that in a pensieve."
"Good idea, mate. I could probably sell viewings for a galleon a pop."
"Yep. I guess we can all die happy now."
"Yep."
----------
The officers (including a pale and red-eyed Neville) and the adults (minus Snape) were sitting around a table discussing how they came to Hogwarts. As Moody explained, they were all at Order headquarters, entering their tenth month of entrapment, when Dumbledore said he sensed a weakening in the wards.
"With all of Voldemort's illnesses," Hermione reasoned, "and all the efforts he put into the portkeys, I suppose that was to be expected." Moody nodded.
"Dumbledore couldn't break himself out," he continued, "the wards have a reflective property, the stronger the magician pushing to get out, the stronger they snap back. But if he put his power into pushing someone else out, he thought he could manage it."
"But if that would work," Hermione said, "then the thing to do is have the second-weakest magician liberate the weakest, the third-weakest liberate the second-weakest, and so on. Then only Dumbledore would be left."
Moody gave a crooked grin. "It took the eight of us about half an hour to figure out what you just took five seconds to see yourself."
"So who went first?" Ron couldn't help asking.
"Never you mind, sonny. I can tell you who was the last to be pushed out" -- Moody looked remarkably smug for a one-eyed man -- "but you've probably already figured that. Problem was, they were waiting for us, and coming out one by one we were sitting ducks. I was saying there should be an 'all-clear' signal from the first one out, but no, too much of a hurry, can't let this opportunity pass, et cetera. I think we were mostly too addled with cabin fever to think straight. So we got taken to You-Know-Who's layabout, and you know the rest."
"What I don't get," Ron said, "is why would he wait for you to come out, if he had the forces to overpower you anyway."
"That's the nature of the reflective ward, Ron," Lupin answered. "It gets its power to draw us in and keep us in at a price: it also keeps others out, even those who cast the ward in the first place. Every spell has some price, some drawback."
The exposition was interrupted when a student came to report that a Death Eater had been spotted just outside the wards, carrying a white flag. This messenger was disarmed and brought in, where he announced he had been instructed to deliver a letter from "Our Lord." The letter came out and spoke for itself:
Greetings to my once and future prisoners. I am delighted to hear that Severus has not forgotten his spellwork. I may be able to make use of him yet.
I have been lenient up until now with the Muggle population, even as they continue to provide a hiding place for many of my foes and for those who seek to escape my Laws. This will not continue. Thousands, tens of thousands, will feel my power, beginning the first of July. Potter can confirm this if you doubt it; I am forcing the plans upon his attention as I speak.
You ask how long I might delay this, whether you might beg still further lenience towards your pets. I am willing to grant this favor, if you send me Potter. Not as a bound prisoner, I know you would toss the Muggles' lives aside rather than give up all hope that way. I only require a duel. Myself and four of my servants, and your choice of opponents. You can delude yourselves into thinking you might win, can you not? At least, until:
Tomorrow, 30 June, 8:53 PM
Fortinax Rules of Dueling.
Your choice of location.
You will always have a place in history among those killed personally by,
Your Master,
Lord Voldemort
"What's 8:53 PM?" Tonks asked.
"I'm sure he's drawn up an astrological chart" said Moody. "But I don't see any centaurs around to give us any better idea."
"Yeah," Harry said, "He thinks the power of Jupiter will be strongest then, he thinks that's his planet. But never mind that; he's really going to do it, he's ready to kill thousands, more. Kill and torture. We can't do nothing."
"I know that, Potter. But why is he so insistent on doing it right away, though? He can't wait another day?"
"He might not live much longer than that," said Harry, and explained what Pomfrey and Nigellus had told him. The faces paled around him, and Lupin looked like he'd just been through the transformation. "Phineas said we had probably nine months, until end of July. Maybe Tom's worried about premature delivery. Maybe he's right, because we haven't half been tearing at each other."
Moody decided to get down to business before the atmosphere got too maudlin. "Alright, then, five against five, Fortinax Rules. That means simultaneous spells, so no advantage to the quick caster, don't know how that helps him, no restricted spells, that means Unforgiveables are in, does help him, spellwork only, no physical attack--"
"That definitely helps him," said the students, virtually in chorus, knowing that way Voldemort freed himself from the threat of Jatayu. Moody looked at them but decided to await explanation later. He continued:
"No attack on anybody but your direct opponent, so no ganging up, that cuts both ways--"
"Much better for their side," Ron said. "We know how to fight as a team."
Moody looked puzzled at the use of the 1st-person plural pronoun, but didn't stop to ask for an explanation. "All duels to the death, survivor of one duel to meet survivor of other until all are dead from one side or the other. That about covers it. So, five against five, their side will be You-Know-Who and, I'd guess Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix, who else?--"
"Dolohov and Draco," Harry replied.
"Draco?" Ron asked incredulously. "That's just... humiliating."
"Yeah, well, we've got pretty much everybody else with a pureblood name under wraps, don't we?"
"Yeah, but Draco?"
"Alright, that's their lineup," Moody said. "So the five of us, I'd make it me, Shacklebolt, McGonnagal, Snape, Tonks." There were groans and shakes of the head from the student side, and Remus Lupin cleared his throat. "I know you want in too, Lupin," Moody said, "but you're not one of the strongest five, you know. No offense."
"I'm not offended, Alastor, I just think you're forgetting something. Voldemort demands a duel with Harry. And even if he didn't, you know what the prophecy says."
"Of course. You're right Remus, stupid of me. So it's Potter, me, Shacklebolt..." There were even louder groans again from the student side. "Alright Potter," Moody snapped, "what's your suggestion?"
"It's me, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville. And it's not a suggestion."
"Damn right it's not," Ron said.
"And please, Professor," said Neville, "don't tell us you know how to deal with them, because we're the ones who've been winning all the battles while you've been getting yourselves captured by Voldemort."
"Not to mention the fact," Hermione went on, "that once you've been a victim of Imperius, you're particularly susceptible to the influence of the one who cast it. If any of you are there, and Voldemort stares at you, your ability to fight goes way down."
"She's got you there, Alastor," said Lupin. Professor McGonnagal was still pleading with her five Gryffindors. "Harry, what you've done here -- what you've all done -- is absolutely incredible and you must believe we are all bursting with pride and gratitude, but you are still students, you are still--" Hermione interrupted. "Professor McGonnagal, when we first got here and we realized what was happening, I thought Oh, if only we can just hold out until the teachers and the aurors and the ministers come, they'll come and save us. But that was a lifetime ago. It's our fight now."
"But Hermione..."
"Please, Minerva," said Lupin. "Leave it. None of us wants to see this, but these things have their own fate."
And so it was conceded. As the meeting ended and the adults left, Hermione came over to kiss Harry's cheek. "What was that for?" he asked, and Ron chuckled. It was Ginny, though, who answered: "Because, a year or two ago you would have taken Moody up on the offer; you would have said 'I can't put you in danger'..."
"I guess I understand some things better now."
"Some things," Ginny agreed.
A/N: HPATSOH started out as the long backstory of "The Flourish and Blotts Hour." That piece became AU after Half-Blood Prince, and this story is now going to be an AU of "Flourish and Blotts," because one character will die who lived on in the earlier work (one of the characters most of us very much don't want to see die). If you very strongly dislike that idea, please wait until a revised version of HPATSOH comes out on Phoenixsong dot net; again, that version will keep the "Flourish and Blotts" characters flourishing.
In any case, thanks to everybody who reviewed or listed the story and I hope everybody enjoyed Deathly Hallows as much as I did!