A/N - Hi. I know you probably all thought I had forgotten you, but no. I had to take some time to raise kids, write books for publication, and, to be honest, to deal with all the mixed emotions that the final HP book caused me. JKR has made things hard for me as well. I just want to say that despite writing in this fandom, I support the trans community and detest everything that she's been saying and doing. If you are trans, know that I love you, you are beautiful, and Kathryn would hex the balls off of anyone who said anything vile to you. 3
Chapter 56 – For Harry, God, and England
Severus looked around at the Death Eaters and realized that if they broke and ran, he would have to continue spying for Voldemort, possibly for years to come. The thought of that was horrifying enough that he glared at the others in fury and contempt.
"What's wrong with you all? Lord Voldemort and all our allies are more than enough to deal with one single dragon!" he shouted at his wavering allies. He had to get them moving, get them forward and into combat.
"It's too late to change your minds now," Lucius spat at them, his gaze coldly contemptuous. "It's win today, or die!"
It was not the most glorious and inspiring pre-battle speech, but it had the benefit of being brutally honest.
Voldemort strode forwards then, sweeping them all with his reptilian gaze.
"Of course you're nervous about the dragon," Voldemort soothed. "Anything that comes to you so unexpectedly is bound to make you pause. It is no surprise to me though, as warning was given to me already." He eyed Severus, who bowed low before him. They both knew that Voldemort had known nothing about the dragon, or the angel. Severus had kept silent about Thomas and Thumiel's true natures. He was gambling on Voldemort being unwilling to look anything but omniscient in front of the troops, but he knew that for himself most of all, it was win or die today.
If Voldemort survived this battle, Severus surely wouldn't.
Above them the dragon roared a challenge and the lesser dragons screamed their defiance back.
"Hold them!" Voldemort shouted, but it was too late, they strained against their leashes, shaking off their handlers with ease, chains snapping as they fought free, and then they surged upwards to attack like a swarm of bees.
Voldemort watched them go with a furious expression, but Severus knew that he had no choice now. If he hesitated, all was lost, the others would break and flee and that would be it. He'd never have another chance to rule the Wizarding World again.
"Forward!" he shouted and they began to move towards the wards, as Fenchurch and Miss Mangle flanked him.
"The wards will hold, right?" Madame Pomfrey asked Dumbledore softly, her wand hand trembling a bit.
"They weren't designed to keep out the Elder Dark," the headmaster replied, his eyes grave. "The demons can break through, though it will drain them."
"When they do, boy, that will be the cue," the sword murmured to Harry. "Once they have drained themselves with the exertion of breaking the wards, the Potions Master and the angel will be able to move, so we have to make sure that there is sufficient chaos for them to work unhindered. After that, it will be up to your soldiers to keep on top of the enemy, while you fight through to Voldemort with me, understood?"
"Sounds like a plan," he agreed and relayed it to the headmaster.
"See? I told you something would come up," Dumbledore replied in a placid tone, but with an intent look in his eyes, and it occurred to Harry that he was deliberately being flippant.
"It always does," Professor Leblanc agreed, also sounding cheerful. He knew that she had to be terrified for Snape, yet she was standing at her ease, wand hand steady, a slight smile on her face.
"They cannot show fear or dismay where the others can see it," the sword commented and Harry nodded.
"True," he chimed in, making himself smile back. "I just prefer knowing the plan before the battle, rather than figuring it out as we go!" He kept his voice light and teasing and saw Dumbledore smile in approval at him.
"Oh you're just being picky," Professor Leblanc bantered back and some of the nearer teachers and students chuckled nervously. But, Harry thought, at least they were chuckling rather than trembling in fear.
The dragons across the way exploded upwards, chasing after Thomas, who was bellowing a challenge at them. The sight of the erstwhile dragon handlers being knocked over like tenpins made the students laugh aloud and Harry glanced upwards at the dragon above them and nodded slightly. He saw the strategy now, the reason that Lady Freddy had sent Thomas and Thumiel to them. Layers of Voldemort's attack were being stripped from him, negated by the angel and the dragon before they could really get involved at all.
A lot of lives would be saved. He just hoped it would be enough.
Allegra strode through the halls, her boots clicking on the stone flooring, her wand already in her hand. Voldemort was attacking the castle, the man who had been the instrument of her family's pain and suffering was getting near enough that she would soon be able to hex his balls off.
Fauna Broomworthy fell in beside her and several more of the Slytherins. She paused and looked at them.
"I'm going out to fight beside the teachers and against that monster, you know," she told them and they all looked back at her with faces filled with resolution.
"After what he did to me... to Draco... I owe him about a zillion hexes," Fauna replied, frowning fiercely. The other Slytherins nodded.
"For Draco and Fauna," murmured one.
"For the Leaky Cauldron and all the other places he's burned down," said another.
"For all the people they've killed who never did anything to us," a third added.
"We side against that jerk," a fourth agreed.
Allegra nodded and then swept onwards once more, marching to battle. So many people had lost so much and now it was payback time.
Even with Professor Dumbledore beside him, Harry knew it was up to him. The sword was strangely quiet now, just a warm supporting presence in his mind. It wasn't trying to override his arms anymore, or tell him what to do; it was just obeying his actions with a clean strength that shocked him. In one hand, he held his wand, hexing the enemy with an almost unconscious awareness, while in his other hand, the sword was moving under his control, blocking incoming hexes and shielding him from physical attacks.
He wondered if he ought to be attacking with the sword as well, but it didn't feel right, so he kept to defense.
Above him the huge black dragon was diving into the midst of the lesser dragons. A snap, a scream, a quick shake of that massive black head, and another lesser dragon corpse was tossed into the lake.
"Thomas is only killing the dragons, while Thumiel will only take on the Dementors and demons," Dumbledore told him with a calm tone, as he tossed hexes with a skill and power that would have awed Harry, if he'd had time to think about it. As it were, all that mattered to him was this step forward and the next one after that.
From a corner of his eye, he saw the Giants moving forwards, their heavy tread shaking the ground beneath them.
A flash of pale light and he saw Nearly Headless Nick sally forth on a ghostly steed, the other House Ghosts flowing behind him as they charged forward, headed towards the Giants.
"The Ghosts?" Harry asked, not even sure what he was seeing.
"Giants can do little damage against something they can't touch. They're also painfully stupid," Dumbledore replied, his voice lowered, despite the cacophony around them.
"Should at least keep them busy for a bit, while we take care of the Death Eaters," Kathryn added, in between hexes.
Having seen her in action before, Harry had thought he'd known how dangerous she was, but he was realizing that he'd underestimated her by a lot. Between her and Dumbledore, he was sandwiched between two deadly forces of carnage and mayhem.
He only hoped he could live up to their level of destruction.
"Maybe in a century from now," the sword teased. "Till then, just do what you need to and don't worry so much."
"Easy for you to say," Harry grumbled as he stupified another Death Eater. "You only have to worry about failing. I have to stay alive."
"Oh, if we fail here, Lady Freddy will probably melt me down and make a chamber pot out of me."
Harry barked a laugh, which he suspected was what the sword was aiming for and slashed an incoming spell to shreds with the blade.
"I didn't know that swords could do that!" Neville called, looking at him wide-eyed as they advanced across the fields.
"They can't!" Harry shot back and then there was no more time for words.
Bolts of light were sizzling through the air, the smell of smoke, burning clothes, and flesh, was rising up all around him. The frustrated howling of the Giants as they tried to fight the ghosts, who jeered and taunted them, but remained intangible and elusive, the screams of the dragons as Thomas used his greater size and strength to rip through them, the shouts of pain and fury as the Death Eaters and the army that Dumbledore had quietly assembled clashed and waged war upon each other, it all became one huge deafening din so loud that Harry could barely think.
So, he didn't.
He hexed and thrust without thought. A hex came towards him, Kathryn deflected it, and he turned his attention to the next threat, the next task, his body moving of its own volition, his years of training making it all automatic. He blessed the teachers who had drilled him so hard for so long. All the resentment and anger he'd ever felt towards the amount of schoolwork he'd been forced to do melted away as those lessons kept him alive moment after moment.
They were marching across the fields of the school and he was watching as people fell on both sides, but he had no space in him to feel anything, to think about anything, but what he had to do.
He had to stop Voldemort.
Once and for all.
Snape was casting spells so quickly that one blurred into another. He prayed that no one was in a position to see the non-lethal nature of those spells. He petrified a young Hufflepuff and watched as Brinna kicked his body under a bush, out of sight of the other Death Eaters.
She had kept her form as a human, but as he watched, she grew taller, older, her hair turned red, and she was now the girl that Ron Weasley had been dating. He raised a brow, but she just turned to put a body bind hex on a Ravenclaw that was creeping up on them, trying to be stealthy.
He had never asked her about her feelings for the young Griffindor and it was too late now. He had always assumed it was some game of hers, but he was suddenly unsure about that. Still, the middle of a warzone was probably not the best place to broach the subject.
He slung a spell low and close to the ground, watching as the very grass reached up to grab at ankles and hems, tripping combatants up and tangling them together. He was being as careful as he could, but in the confusion and the chaos, he knew that he'd be forced to make some hard choices.
He dreaded the necessity of what fate and random chance might force on him.
Kathryn was hexing with the fierce precision of her years as an Agent. She was a cold eyed killer, dispensing death to any that threatened her charges.
She'd kissed Orion goodbye as Winky had vanished with him, the port key whisking them off to Lieu D'Asile, serving double duty as a warning to the family, as well as taking him to safety.
Fudge might not have been willing to prepare for this war, but Grand-mere had fought Grindelwald and knew precisely how bad this could all get.
A charm in her pocket warmed and she grinned fiercely.
"Here comes the cavalry!" She shouted about the fray.
Harry heard the cry and was confused for a moment and then he saw it.
Brooms.
Dozens of them filled the sky. A whole other army was bearing down on Voldemort from the rear. Hexes and curses rained down on Voldemort's forces from above and as one zoomed by overhead, Harry recognized Kathryn's father, face set and grim, tossing spells with a skill that shocked Harry. Michael Sr., so soft spoken and kind, was as deadly as his daughter in combat.
More familiar faces appeared above him, hexing, shouting, and flying with a reckless abandon that left him breathless.
He watched a Death Eater's hex knock a broom from the sky and he wrenched his eyes away, not wanting to see who had just been hit.
He'd been without a family for so long and now he couldn't bear to think about losing any of them.
So, he turned his focus back on reaching Voldemort and shut everything else out.
The sooner he killed the Dark Wizard, the sooner his family and friends would be safe.
Hermione was feeling out of her depth. She was as proficient with spells and hexes as any of them, but she found her mind was racing with too many thoughts and plans as she fought. She couldn't manage to turn off her brain and just fight.
A shout from overhead and a broom came crashing to the ground near her. She saw Death Eaters heading for it and she charged, wand sparking as she screamed out her spells. Someone had landed hard and she needed to get there before the enemy did and give them time to get back to their feet.
She skidded around a rock and had a frozen instant of realization that the young man struggling to his feet was Gabriel Leblanc.
The sight of Lucius Malfoy headed towards him, wand out, snapped something in Hermione's brain and without thinking about it she cast stupify and ran to put herself between the young Auror and Malfoy Sr. The older wizard dodged her spell and came back at the still groggy Gabriel.
"Get the hell away from him!" she shouted, sending a series of hexes at him in rapid succession, her brain just pulling the right motions and words from her without her conscious thought. The only thing in her mind was that Lucius Malfoy was not going to kill Gabriel while there was still breath in her body.
Fury blazing in her eyes, Hermione Granger savagely defended the fallen man behind her.
Lucius cast something dark, it moved in sinuous black lines towards her and she recognized the spell, casting the counter-curse with a growl. Even with the counter curse, she felt Lucius' cast slam into her side and she screamed as pain erupted from the impact. It was like having knives thrust into her and she staggered.
A spell erupted past her and hit Lucius square in the chest. Bleeding from a cut on his head and listing to one side, Gabriel had dragged himself up and was standing beside her, casting spells with an expression of cold hatred on his face.
"Don't you dare, you bastard!" he snarled and together they cast petrificus totalus, their combined spells crashing into Malfoy Sr with the power of a tsunami and he staggered and was flung backwards into another group of Death Eaters, who scattered.
She turned to look at Gabriel, his dirt smeared face looking utterly wonderful to her.
"You okay?" he asked and she rolled her eyes.
"I didn't crash my broom," she retorted. "Are you okay?"
He grinned at her and nodded.
"I'm great," he told her. "Let's go get some bad guys, shall we?" His eyes were soft on hers and she nodded, feeling a little light headed.
"Sure, can't let Harry have all the fun," she shot back and they turned together and waded back into the fray.
Harry saw Firenze race past him, a bow in his hands, firing at the Death Eaters with cool precision. His hooves were kicking up the turf and he caved in a Death Eater's skull with one powerful kick, even as he was firing arrows into another.
Harry whipped his wand around and stunned an enemy about to hex Firenze, but then the tide of battle swept them apart and he lost sight of the Centaur.
He caught glimpses of friends through the smoke and madness around him. Like his mind was taking quick snapshots, he saw Ginny and Neville, side by side fighting desperately, covering each other as they turned and pivoted, casting spell after spell. A moment later he saw Hermione and Gabriel, then Parvati and Dean beside Fauna Broomworthy, as she hexed another Slytherin with a fierce scowl on her face.
There were Slytherin students on both sides and he realized that the ones on his side had thrown their robes and ties away to show their allegiance.
Something landed near him sputtering and spitting and he was briefly blinded by the flame hex. The chaos around him was disorienting and he was following blindly as Dumbledore cut through the forces arrayed against them with a brutal lashing of spells so powerful it was like a wave of force bursting against a wall that crumbled and fell away before them.
Kathryn lacked the sheer power of the Headmaster, but she made up for it with a cool headed control that kept her head moving and her wand in motion. Two Death Eaters came at her at the same time and from nowhere she pulled a gun with her left hand, firing point blank at one, even as she hexed the other.
Harry didn't have time to be either impressed or frightened, he was too busy fighting for his life.
Everything was on the line and there was no more time for anything but doing what he had to.