Sleep was a deceptively thorn filled rose. It was enticingly beautiful, calling out with soft penetrating fingers to be answered, but Harry knew how very vicious it could be. Dreams and nightmares would linger just beyond the golden song of rest; a promise of terror lurking just past the lull of peace.
Green eyes peered out into the darkness, attempting to pierce the utter blackness of the room unsuccessfully. The lack of light played cruel tricks with his mind as false visions of monsters and movements swam insistently. This would be a sleepless night.
With a sigh he shifted his weight to the right, rolling more onto his side, facing the edge of the bed and allowed his hand to dangle freely, feeling the chilled, silky sheets. The cool air of the room felt smooth against his skin, the light breeze from beneath the door playing with the light spatter of hair upon his uncovered arm.
Heavy thoughts loitered in his mind, circling round and round in an endless trail of strategy and death, spitting forward images of an unerringly repulsive nature. The War was a horrid event. It had been upon the Wizarding World for just short of three years, by far not the longest war to be waged, but it was brutal. And to Harry, it had gone on for far too long.
Lives were lost daily in the raids and attacks made by opposing forces, and as the death toll rose so did the panic and despair looming within the Wizard population. It seemed to be a cancerous growth within the Magical community, metastasizing rapidly. The longer this was allowed to continue, the more difficult a recovery would be. If there was one.
The Order of the Phoenix strived to overcome the growing number of Death Eaters and supporters of Voldemort's cause, but they found themselves overcome. Too many of the people had been bribed, promised freedom in a world of slavery.
The bed creaked softly from a place behind him, and Harry inhaled sharply as a calloused hand brushed across his shoulder, trailing down his clavicle before settling around his chest. A warm body pressed tightly against his back, the naked skin of their bodies moulding easily together.
Reaching up to caress the hand with his own, the dark haired man inwardly winced as he encountered a puzzle of interwoven scars. They played gently with the pads of his fingers.
"Are you alright?" The voice was hoarse, whispering close to his ear. Harry shivered as warm breath graced the edge of his neck, ruffling the short hairs there.
Pushing back into the embrace he muttered, "Yea. Can't sleep."
The arm wrapping his chest tightened briefly than loosened, and Harry was momentarily disappointed at the loss before it was back, the nimble fingers brushing against his nipple, tweaking lightly, before running down his sternum to rest on his hip. Pleasant tingles prevailed where the hand had been.
A small smile spread on his face, and Harry turned into the hold, pushing his hands tenderly across the planes of flesh, rubbing small circles with his thumbs as he went, up and over strongly built shoulders and down a shapely back.
In the dark he could not see, but that did not matter as Harry instinctively reached forward, pressing his lips against the other man's. Moving languidly together, they moaned into the intimate touch, loving the feel of slightly chapped lips, warm breath and slick tongues. Massaging lightly within the hot cavern before him, Harry deepened the kiss, nibbling and nipping as he went.
Pulling back a little, Harry took the full bottom lip of his partner within his mouth, sucking softly, and then bit softly as he broke the contact in time to gasp. A hand was snaking down, settling on his navel before slowly sliding down, caressing his stomach, going lower.
A sudden flash of green light lit up the room, shocking the two men apart as they jumped, grabbed at each side of the bed respectively, and were out of bed, wands in hand.
"Moody," Harry said, staring at the bodiless head within the fireplace, which was staring back grimly.
Magical eye whirling rapidly, Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody grunted, his scarred face pulled into a fierce mask of deadly calm, fury writhing beneath the surface. "Get dressed, Potter. Voldemort has assembled his army, they will be upon Hogwarts within the hour." And than he was gone, succumbing the room in darkness once again.
Fear sunk a skeletal hand within Harry, wrapping around his insides slowly, drawing out a moment of pure panic, and Harry knew that this might be the end. But the end of what was the question. He also knew that this might very well be the beginning of an era without Voldemort, and the determination that grew at that thought battled with the trepidation.
Harry stole in a deep breath, pulling it past the tightening of his chest, and was at once in action.
"Lumos," he commanded, and the tip of his wand lit instantly, glowing brightly in the blackness. His clothes were at his feet, crumpled unkemptly, and as he bent to grab them he caught the glinting eyes that stared at him from the other side of the bed. Golden brown and filled with a lifetime of sorrow, they pulled him in.
It took five steps to cross the room, and as he did, a choking emotion filled him. It was clasping his heart and paralysing his lungs, making it hard to breathe, hard to see, and impossible to fight. When arms surrounded his shoulders he wrapped his own around the slim waist before him, tugging them chest to chest.
Harry twisted his eyes shut and buried his face into a stubble-roughened chin, then against a smooth neck, where he rested and felt the body around him. "I love you," he whispered, the words muffled.
The other man rested his chin on the wild dark hair, nodding. "I know." A pause. "I love you too."
Again they pulled apart, eyes meeting in the light of Harry's wand. A silent message passed, and Harry turned away, back to his abandoned clothes.
Pulling on his trousers, shirt and robes with ease, and then attaching his wand holster to his wrist, Harry looked over at his companion, who had just shrugged on a ragged cloak. "Are you ready?"
Nodding while walking toward the young man, Remus grabbed the pot of Floo powder, grasping some in his hand while offering the small container forward. Harry took it without a question, placing it back upon the mantel when he had a pinch of his own.
One last look at the room, a dark walled dwelling with a flat ceiling and shadowed corners, Harry pointed his wand at the fire, intoning, "Incendio." The fire burst into life, bright and flickering with colour. It reminded him of warmth and of death, of good times and of bad. Yet another contradicting object of remembrance in a world full of them.
Stepping forward he threw the Floo powder into the fire, causing it to blaze bright green. 'Not unlike the killing curse,' thought Harry as he stood in the flames and clearly said, "Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts."
Then he was spinning so hard and so fast the Floo Network blurred around him as he passed fireplace's, the green flames still swirling with him. 'I never did like travelling by Floo,' he thought, shutting his eyes to the dizzying array of images.
When he finally came to his destination he was tossed to the ground unceremoniously, landing with a painful 'thud' on his stomach. His rapid arrival caused heads to turn sharply, staring for only a moment before turning away. All but one.
"Bravo," Severus Snape hissed sarcastically, "your unending display of grace astounds us, Mister Potter."
Rolling his eyes and pushing himself up on his elbows, then to his knees and finally to his feet, Harry glared out of narrowed green eyes at the sallow man standing with his arms crossed, who was pushing just as much hate and anger into a single look as he was.
"Glad you think so, Snape," he snarked, scowling distastefully at the older man who sneered back.
Bright green flared up again within the fire, and a speedily spinning Remus appeared, who, after a moment in which he stopped turning, easily made his way to stand beside Harry. Placing a hand on the man's shoulder he leaned in. "Bad landing?"
Harry snorted, shaking his head. "How did you know?"
"Why else would Snape look so pleased at a time like this?"
'At a time like this, indeed,' he thought, looking around.
The Headmaster's office looked as it usually did, the windows drape free and surrounded by the portraits of Headmasters from years past. Spindle-legged tables housed trinkets that shone in the candlelight, reminding Harry of a night similar to this one, a night that he'd traipsed into the Department of Mysteries with the members of the DA. A night of which one of their numbers did not return.
The desk at the head of the room, with its highly polished surface and clawed feet, was covered with a map, a small crowed of people standing around. They had scarcely glanced up at him, their eyes hard and determined, before turning back to the paper, of which Headmaster Dumbledore was pointing to several locations with his wand.
He could make out the faces of Albus and Minerva, deep in conversation, sometimes interjected by Moody or Shacklebolt.
Remus walked up toward the group, brushing his shoulder against Harry's as he did, and Harry followed, barely noticing his feet moving as he found himself staring down at a layout of Hogwarts and the surrounding grounds in precise detail.
'It looks like the Marauder's Map. Except…'
The ink dots and labels that would have constituted as each person were left without a name, instead coloured according to the different forces. Bright red dots speckled the interior of the castle, some patrolling the area between the greenhouses and the Forbidden Forest. On the edge of the parchment, to the North in Hogsmeade, a convergence of inky black dots was approaching.
Albus looked up, catching his eye, and Harry felt a pang as he realized there was a distinct lack of the usual shimmer. The normal twinkling of the old wizard's eyes had died away sometime this night, maybe even before that, but it was so pronounced at that moment that Harry wanted to scream. It wasn't right. Dumbledore without his glimmer was like a Hogwarts without Dumbledore.
Moody shifted, pulling Harry's attention to the retired Auror. "We received information approximately an hour ago," he said, nodding at Snape, "that Voldemort plans to bring the battle to Hogwarts."
"To finish the war," Harry guessed, mouth pulling back in a grimace.
"Yes," Albus answered. "He has been building his forces for months for this." The fire crackled in the background. "This will be the final fight; this battle will decide the course of our entire existence."
The words left a thickness to the air, a kind of rotten taste that was not tangible, but strong. For a moment the small gathering stood in silence, lost.
"Will the Ministry send their Aurors, Albus?" Minerva was poised and straight backed, her black hair pulled tightly away from her face.
"No," Moody growled. "Cowards."
Dumbledore sighed. "We have sent out an alert. All who will fight for our world have come."
"But there are so few!" exclaimed Remus, examining the map.
Harry silently agreed with the man, his eyes skimming over scarcely two hundred beacons of red. "What are the tactics?" he asked, at the same time thinking, 'Ron should be here.' Ron always was the master of strategy.
"Members of the Order are leading groups of defensive and offensive individuals. Those who are competent in warding are placing the strongest spells possible around the castle, and the rest are gathering their strength for the coming battle," grunted Alastor. "We have blocked off all entrances to the school as best as we can except the front door. We have the upper ground from the staircase to the second floor, and the single entrance will bottleneck their numbers somewhat."
"Until the giants arrive," Shacklebolt said.
Moody made a noise of agreement. "Don't know how long the walls will hold once they have a run at them."
"Albus." McGonagall was pointing at the map, her hand trembling almost indiscriminately.
The army of black was moving, pouring through the front gates from Hogsmeade, encroaching toward the school.
"The wards have not fallen, have they?" asked Minerva, and Albus shook his head.
"No. Not yet. We must move and join the others." The elderly wizard pinned each person with a look. "Good luck, my friends, and let us hope that this will be the end of this awful era."
They moved toward the door, stepping onto the rotating set of stairs individually, Dumbledore and Harry in the back.
"Harry, wait a moment, would you?" Harry turned to his old mentor, casting a desperate glance at Remus at he moved out of the door, and then out of sight.
They were alone in the office, the fire flickering ominously in the otherwise still room. "Yes, Albus?"
"How are you, Harry? The truth, I might add."
Harry smiled, a hollow feeling resting in his throat. "Ready to end this."
Albus nodded at him. "Me too, my boy, me too." An age weathered hand reached up to stroke a long white beard. "You know what you must do."
Long accumulated feelings of anger rose within Harry, and he clenched his teeth hard together. "Yes," he ground out. "I've known for a long time what must be done." And he hated it with everything that he was.
"I'm," the old man started, but than paused, an odd expression crossing his features. "I wish it could have been different for you."
Harry knew then that his former Headmaster had been about to apologise. 'But it's not your place to do that, is it, Albus?' The fates had laid their path before Harry, filling out his life for him. 'You were only the vassal.' He nodded jerkily. "I wish it too."
Everything that he could say, everything that he had wanted to yell at the Professor over the years rampaged through his mind, tickling the edge of his tongue, and then disappeared. Harry closed the space between himself and Dumbledore quickly; pulling the man into a hug that was long overdue.
"Thank you," Harry mumbled into the surprisingly soft beard of the older wizard, and than pulled away and walked to the staircase, knowing he was followed shortly thereafter.
The walk to the main entrance of the castle seemed longer by an eternity, and yet not long enough. When he finally arrived, he saw the remaining advocates of light gathered, wands at ready. They would fight for a world that they loved, a world that they wanted to raise families in. And Harry knew he was among the bravest souls on Earth, that he would soon be fighting alongside some of the most valiant people that would ever exist.
He was proud to be there.
"Harry!" Hermione was running toward him, her frizzy hair flying behind her, and robes sweeping the floor. "Harry!" she cried again as she crashed into him, arms flung wide to accept him in a bone crushing embrace.
"Hey, Hermione," he said as he hugged back. "Are you ready?"
She took a step back, a trembling smile written on her face. "Y-no," she stuttered, the smile falling into a more serious line. "But there is no turning around now."
"No," he agreed. "There isn't." They stood together at the back of the ranks, observing as a deathly silence stole into the air of the high-chambered room. He could see various members of the Order standing interspersed within the other witches and wizards.
Molly Weasley's shocking red hair, more streaked with grey than he had ever seen before, caught his eye. She stood with the remaining members of her family grouped close, all in some sort of contact with the other. Ginny, Fred and Bill were the only surviving Weasley children. Another shock of pain hit Harry in the chest as he perused their faces.
Grief. Grief that was so powerful that it had sapped the years from each member of the Weasley family, leaving behind it a thin kind of frailty, surrounded by a bitter hard edge. Ginny, who had sprung into a beautiful girl of eighteen, looked far older, just as Fred and Bill did. They would never be the same without their father and brothers.
Harry could still remember every sob and wail of horror that spilled from Molly's chest as she bent over the cold, lifeless body of her husband six months ago. The same desperate cries she had screamed over the bodies of her sons.
George had been the first, falling to the killing curse during an attack in Diagon Alley, and then Charlie. Charlie had been captured in a raid, taken to the Dark Lord's headquarters and tortured. His body had been sent to the Ministry as an example. Percy had no chance to fight against the overwhelming attack that threw the Ministry into chaos, killing the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge.
The thought of Ron was painful. The deaths of George, Charlie and Percy had happened so quickly over a stretch of six months that they had prayed there would be a pause. Harry had preyed that Molly would never have to bury another child. But then Ron had done what he always wanted to do. He became a hero. He died for that title, saving the lives of tens in the process.
'Why did you have to be so brave?' It was the same thought that plagued Harry's mind endlessly, churning around until he felt numb.
A yell rose into the air.
Hermione, who was standing to his left and Dumbledore to his right, clenched their wands tightly in their hands. Harry jerked his wrist and his shifted into his own hand, the familiar feel of the wood welcoming.
A burning twinge spiked in his scar, and Harry set his mouth in a grim line, knowing what awaited him, knowing what was coming up, what would walk through the large oak doors to his home any minute.
The Battle for the Wizarding World had begun.
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