HEEEEEEYYYYYY! Second Part should be in as you read this. Title: Hallowed Ground. By the way, 106 reviews thank you all so frigging much!

This is the final chapter of part one. There WILL be a part two so keep checking up. Thank you for 87 reviews so far. I love all of you so much. As always, enjoy!

"Mr. England?"

"Yes my boy?"

Arthur had looked up from his reading and down at the child. Alfred was very pale and visibly shaking. His caretaker was out of his chair in a second flat.

"Alfred, what happened!?"

He felt his son's forehead with the back of his hand: it was burning and the boy's nose was dripping blood.

"I feel really yucky…wh-what? What are they d-doing" The blue eyes got round with fear as he stared off into nothingness "G-goody Good? But what is she, what are they doing no no stop STOP!" He began to scream and the nosebleed got worse. Eventually it stopped when young Al cried himself to sleep.

It was a powerful bond, that between citizens and their nation. When magic or mass executions or things of the sort were in play, it got even worse. Even at the time, Arthur couldn't help but think of the first time the national magic had plagued him…but that hadn't been relevant. Three days after Alfred's initial attack, it was evident that the trials were not simply a short span and would continue. Arthur couldn't bear to see his favorite son hurting so badly.

"Alfred?"

"F-father?"

It wasn't what he wanted to be called… better the child didn't know the truth at this point…but if Alfie's fevered brain decided he was his "father" there was no getting around it.

"Here son, drink this."

The smell didn't go over well and the boy struggled to keep his mouth closed.

"ewww!"

"Good, it's nice to know you can be difficult even in sickness. Come on, open up there's a good boy."

"Nuh uh!"

"Alfred, why would you refuse your auntie's yummy medicine? It's not as bad as it smells."

The toddler opened a single eye from where he was flopped half out of England's grasp.

"Auntie Brigit made this?"

"Yes."

"So… you didn't make it?"

"No-"

"Okay!"

He downed the entire mug in one gulp and Arthur tried to not be to peeved about the comment on his cooking. All things considered, it had been a miracle that the wench had complied to make the draught. She was still a bit… miffed… from well… Anyway he was glad she had agreed to it, even though the drink wasn't important in itself.

"Okay, have you drunk it all?"

"Yes sir."

"Now, I'm about to give you something that… an old friend…gave me long ago. It is very special and I want you to promise you'll take good care of it."

"Yes Sir!"

He looked excited; England smiled a little. All right, close your eyes and open your hands…

England sat bolt upright and put a hand to his forehead. Cold sweat again: how surprising. And the dream wasn't frightening or even shocking. It was his realization that woke him. Now he knew what he was going to do. But first….

It was the beginning of the end. Feliciano stared numbly at the form in the grass. A thousand years of war and death and the sight of a boy clinging to a corpse still stopped his breath.

Ivan ran up to the Italian: blood gushing down his forehead and staining his overcoat.

"Some of them got away, I think."

"What about-?"

"Still I cannot find them," He grimaced, "The bear is badly hurt. Mat-hew will not be being happy."

"Kuma!?'

"Zat wolf man did it. They fought. Little bear was very brave. He is safe with the kind nurse lady. You yourself are needing to be seeing her as well."

"Not before you go I mean… if you want to…"

"Hmm?"

"You're… uh bleeding?"

"Oh?" He swiped the back of his hand across his face and finally noticed the blood "Oh. So I am. Your arm is more important though, go get it fixed."

"But-"

"That was not a request, Italy."

"V-ve? Ok, umm, just… take care of yourself…. Eek!"

As Italy backed away from his intimidating almost friend he felt something soft and hot brush the top of his head. The large scarlet bird nearly took off his head in its swoop to rest on the ledge directly above its master. Fawkes was only the first of a trickle of Hogwarts residents coming to inspect the horrible scene under the astronomy tower. Harry was eventually pulled away from his dead mentor and taken to the hospital wing for shock, but Ivan stayed behind to watch over the headmaster. It was his duty. He would carry it out until the bitter end.

The bitter end being, in this particular case, when he passed out from blood loss.

The day had started out normal for the most part. The one strange thing was Dumbledore's request of Matthew to guard the door to the astronomy tower until midnight. Then the order changed to "protect the students." That was for all four of them to follow. As Alfred would have said, the shit was about to go down.

They all knew it and were on edge from lunchtime onward. Ivan was pacing restlessly and muttering back and forth in the headmaster's corridor. The students were scared out of their minds when he so much as glanced in their direction. Not to say, of course, that the students were usually comfortable around him. His presence in the school slightly dampened the post final high everyone but the four nations and many professors were experiencing.

And then there was Al. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't really see a change. Matthew was one of the few to realize that Alfred became more of a spaz with tension. And the tension in this case was so thick you could, "slice off a few chunks and put in on a ham and rye sand which as extra flavoring." Al's metaphors also got increasingly worse in a direct proportion to the situation.

Italy… well in truth Matthew didn't know him as well as the others. He was jumpier than usual though, and he seemed to dart out of a room as soon as the Lovegood girl entered. Matt just shrugged it off as nervous behavior but internally wondered if something was up between them. It WAS known that Italians were one of the most romantic groups in the world…. Er, no. Matt decided not to go there, even in his mind.

Being outwardly the most levelheaded of his small group, Matt was the natural choice to be on guard. As a consequence, when all hell broke loose, Matt was caught in the very middle.

They were heading towards the tower as he was heading away. He recognized the student right away and was about to say something when a flash of green light caught him in the chest and threw him backwards. There was a loud argument and Matt was vaguely aware of being lifted up and falling, but he couldn't feel anything else. It was an odd feeling… he could see but couldn't make sense of anything, or feel anything for that matter. That was about the time he realized which curse had been cast.

"MATTHEW!"

Alfred's scream woke the rest of Slytherin and debatably the kitchen staff in the next dungeon over as well. He was bolt upright and searched around for his wand before leaping from his four poster and nearly flying out of the dungeon, raving and calling his brother's name.

"Thank God for empathy links. Please don't be too late, dammit Matt."

His left eye showed him the location and his right the corridor through which he sprinted, ignorant of all surroundings but the ones that mattered. The garbage chute outside the entrance to the Astronomy tower. There were screams and crashes from over his head, but Alfred didn't give a shit. He grabbed the upholstery blocking the secret chute (he remembered it from when they first came: before modern toilets, this was where waste from chamber pots went to be collected) and jumped in feet first.

Ivan wasn't able to grab America before he jumped. He was, however, able to catch the first death eater to come down the stair and land a connection to his skull with old faithful. The sink pipe broke something (all Ivan knew was the satisfying crack of metal on bone) and the young man went writhing to the floor. Professor Severus appeared, glanced at the struggling body and took off down the hall. Ivan grinned, knowing that the good teacher was undoubtedly going to raise the alarm and get back up. In the meantime, he could go join the fun on the tower steps.

Feliciano coughed as the boot sunk into his gut again, with a cackle from its owner. He had been here, at the balcony beneath the tower top, all night and seen everything. At least, he had seen the old man's body fall past him as he stared out in the direction of his homeland. Now it seemed the world was filled with pain and laughing, masqueraders.

"That's right, squirm you muggle filth!"

" Maybe that'll teach you not to interfere with things you don't understand!"

"But Crabbe, isn't that everything."

"Don't be clever Goyle, it doesn't suit you. Crucio!"

Feliciano yelped at the jolt of pain that brought stars to his eyes and had to shake his head before it went away. He heard Crabbe curse and saw his reach out to slam him against the wall. So he ducked and the boy tumbled forward, nearly falling on top of him.

"Curse you!"

This time Crabbe was successful in grabbing Feliciano by the neck and lifting him into the air.

"What do we do with you?"

"You're very angry, want to talk about it? Ack!"

Apparently that wasn't going to work as well as it did with his brother which, come to think of it, wasn't very successful anyway.

Somewhere, on an Italian terrace, Romano sneezed. Too bad he was eating pasta at the time.

"Dammit-!"

"-You're in no position to talk! Do you know how many times I had to parade through the halls on Malfoy's arm? As a bloody GIRL?! And now we're finally about to get the payout and what am I doing? Arguing with a filthblooded Italian who doesn't know when to- SHUT THE BLOODY HELL UP GOYLE!"

"But Crabbe, The Order-"

"I don't care about the bloody order!"

"But they'll find us with him-"

"No they won't."

And with that he tossed Italy over the edge of the balcony and into the nothingness of the night.

"Matt! Matt wake up!"

"Ungh…."

"Oh thank the big guy!"

Matthew finally got the feeling back into his body only to have it squeezed out again in a massive bearhug from his brother.

"Crushing me-"

"Oh, whoops. You okay, bro?"

"I… yes. How did you find me?"

"Empathy link… Arthur put it on us years ago, don't you remember?"

"What?"

"…. Nevermind."

"Al-"

"Sorry, I spaced out, were you saying something?"

"I-Nevermind…"

'HA Ha! Guess you lost your thought! Oh well, lets see… where are we?"

Al looked around, ignoring his brother's annoyed looks. He was just glad the Canadian hadn't broken any bones in his fall. The chute had been disconnected centuries ago, so now it just dropped you on to the floor below.

Matthew knew where they were, he could feel the draw from just being in the proximity. The draft was obvious from where they sat.

"Al, I've been meaning to ask you, do you remember a door being at the end of this hallway?"

His brother turned around and narrowed his eyes.

"You… you don't remember that either?"

"What?"

"Come on. I guess the spell never wore off after all."

"Spell, what spell-"

He grabbed Mathew's arm gently and pulled him to the dead end of the corridor, looked it up and down then pulled out his Swiss army knife. He fumbled with it for a moment the jabbed the blade between a section of brick and cut a pair of bricks out. He did that again directly across from the ones he had taken out. Then he drop-kicked the section between the two and the whole thing shattered.

Russia only saw the last few moments of the conflict, but it was enough.

"Protect the students… but you didn't say how."

"How" translated into knocking them unconscious and tying them back to back. He left them on the balcony, locked the door behind him and made for the stairs. Something knocked into him, though he didn't see it, and he tripped backwards. Ivan only tumbled a few steps before he broke his fall, but things didn't improve when he stood up. There was someone on the landing above him who looked like he REALLY wanted to come down. So much so that he leapt at the Russian with bared and bloody fangs, sending both of them crashing down to the next landing, pipe against teeth. Fenrir Greyback managed to get in a good slash at Ivan before he was thrown off, yelping down the tower stairs. Ivan tried to follow, but a stupefy caught him off guard. When he next came to, (five minutes later when released by a lovely young woman with a heart shaped face) he made his way down the tower and out to the grounds as quickly as possible. Italy was his first concern, and he was incredibly grateful to find him mostly intact.

The room was set up like a theatre with benches surrounding the sunken stage.

"I don't like this, Alfie…Alfie?"

His brother was making his way down the steps and up to the veil before Matthew could finish his thought. He shrugged off his hesitation and followed his twin. Alfred ran around to the other side just as Mattie reached him.

"Hey-"

"Woah check it out! Someone left a pocket watch on the bench over here! It's got gems all over!"

"Really?"

Instead of taking time to go around the way his brother had, Mattie had grabbed the veil to pull it aside and go through the archway as a shortcut.

"I remember now… all the dead. They… came back. Everyone who had ever died within my borders. I saw them die and their shades. All at once. Even those who hadn't died yet."

He was sitting in the middle of the sloping, empty room. The whispers seemed to reach at him, even now.

"You were screaming and clawing at yourself. It was terrifying. I couldn't sleep for months. "

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask. At the time, Arthur told me not to say anything. You were happy not remembering and I didn't want to see you like that again."

"So he used a memory charm?"

"Potion, actually. It was hard to get you to drink; I had to hold you down. After you had your breakdown, they moved the room somewhere and sealed the door to keep out any residue. Apparently you overloaded it or something."

"And you knew."

"Yep."

"All this time you knew and still acted like you didn't believe in magic?"

"I've faked a lot of things for people I love. 'Sides, it pissed the crap out of Arthur. He thought I'd forgotten or something, which would be understandable since I was only a collection of colonies."

"Al."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

He rummaged through the chest in desperation. Part of him wanted to be caught but that part was dwarfed by the part that didn't. Finally, his fingers closed on the cold round metal. Arthur ran his thumb over the familiar grooves and felt the strength coming back to him.

"Hello old friend."

England slipped the amulet around his neck and stood. It had been over a thousand years since he'd worn it but that didn't matter. Now that he had it he would be protected from National Magic. Now that he had it he could do something to help.

He slipped the note into the old chest and closed it. It was unlikely Alfred would search for the old shield and even more unlikely he would find the note among all this clutter.

England turned and walked out of the shed.

"Good luck, Harry," He whispered to the wind, "We'll both need it."

And then he was gone.