Disclaimer: Harry Potter, associated characters and setting belong to JK Rowling and whoever she shares the rights with, which does not include me. This is for entertainment purposes only, with no copyright infringement intended, or profit made.

Summery: Death Eaters have come out as the 'things that go bump in the night' for the magical world. Hermione, Harry and the gang decide it's time to bump back. Post OotP. Some grit, some humor.

Warnings: Language, sparsely. Violence (including possible triggers, warnings to follow), throughout. Odd humor. Typos, although I'm re-reading and re-uploading now (Dec-11).

Bogeymen

Chapter 1: Inspiration

1) The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative

It was after lunch at the Burrow, and Molly had left them alone, not wanting to take any of them out of the wards to go grocery shopping. This left a house full of unsupervised teenagers supposedly under the watch of the twins. They somewhat promptly assembled at the diner table, following Hermione's instructions.

"What do we know about Voldemort?" Hermione asked that assembled teens, her quill poised to write above a sizable stack of parchment.

Ron, across the table from her, winced at the name. "He's You-Know-Who, what else do you need to know?"

Hermione gave him a look. "Presenting all the information at once, in an organized fashion may help us find weak spots, or areas where we are lacking information. Being organized can't hurt, and your other option is gnome duty…"

Ron nodded and looked thoughtful.

Harry addressed his mid-afternoon toast as he started his contributions. "Tom Marvolo Riddle, Hogwarts class of '52. He's scary looking, snake-like, with red eyes and no nose. He likes to make his followers bow to him, and send them out to torture and kill for him. It's not anything good."

Hermione dipped her quill, then talked. "He's distinctive, and doesn't blend, or try to blend. He sends out Death Eaters without him for most missions. He'd be less deadly without his followers, right?"

Ron nodded at this, and swallowed to clear his mouth. "Right. But he's still plenty evil. And deadly. He went on the important raids last time... and this time. The Potters, Madam Bones, just last week…"

Hermione looked around. "I was just thinking, if we start now, before he starts public recruiting... while he's still only got the remnants of his old Death Eaters, we could figure out a way to make serving him less appealing."

Harry looked interested "What, like publishing the Death Eater death and Cruciatus rate in the prophet?" Fred and George both smirked at that.

Ron huffed, "They'll never allow that."

"Plus, people will dispute your facts. Death Eaters don't tend to share their membership rolls." Fred was at least paying attention.

George was staring at the ceiling as if it had the secret to avoiding his mothers wraith. "Quibbler."

Harry spun his toast absentmindedly while sitting up straighter. "It would be out there, though, that you're signing up to be tortured by a madman and chased by Aurors. If even one person decided not to join, it would help."

George was still contemplating the ceiling when he responded. "Aurors aren't that scary to them. They only really risk being stupefied, and their buddies will revive them, like you lot noticed at the Ministry. Aurors have to follow their rules of engagement, and there's no Crouch this time around to allow Cruciating the suspects."

There was silence for a moment, while Hermione dipped her quill. "So what else do we know about Death Eaters?"

Harry studied the now disorderly pile of toast Molly had left for him, in her most recent attempt to plump him up. "They like anonymity- they wear masks. They work together on missions, but back-stab each other elsewhere. They attack at night."

Hermione wrote while she asked. "How do we know all that. Who's our source?"

Harry gave a little smile. "I can vouch for the masks. And the backstabbing comes from Snape and Moody. Although Snape called it 'vicious politicking.'"

Fred nodded. "We know the masks and attacking at night from the last war, too. Even at the height of it all, they preferred to not attack during the day." "They prefer to be the things that go bump in the night, I think you'd say." George added.

Hermione put her quill down. "Blank faces, attack at night, without warning, and with the mark there to show off what they've done. It's like they decided to become people's worst fears."

Harry nodded. "They have to -really- have to keep people afraid. They are outnumbered- by a lot- and if people though about it, they could fight back. But afraid, most wizarding folk keep their heads down, and Voldemort wins."

Harry was now dissecting his toast into perfect fourths. "So we need to make them less scary."

Ron gulped. "But, there's a reason they're scary. They're deadly."

"Or..." Hermione paused . "Or we give people hope, like the ministry has been trying to do with Harry. Or we give the death eaters a reason to be afraid of the dark..."

"How, though? By planting boggarts all around our houses?" Ron looked skeptical.

Fred sat up out of his slouch. "You know, that's not a bad idea at all, ickle Ronniekins. It would disturb them, and if they happen to scream like little girls at their worst nightmares, then we would have warning that they're coming."

Harry and Hermione were looking at each other across the table. They'd caught each others eyes, and were both looking serious, although Hermione had a glint of an epiphany in her eye.

"If you were to manufacture a Death Eater's worst nightmare, what would it look like?" Harry asked the table.

"Failure, and reporting back to Voldie." Fred pondered aloud.

Hermione shook her head. "What does that look like?" Fred shrugged.

Ron suggested "50 Mad-Eye Moodys."

Ginny smiled at that. "With enough polyjuice potion... But they'd notice which Mad-Eyes weren't vicious enough, and they'd pounce."

Hermione had stopped to shake her hand, when Fred charmed her quill to take dictation. "Fear of the unknown is supposedly the strongest fear, right? According to Muggle psychology, at least. Could we have invisible fighters? Wait, then how would they know to be afraid of us?"

George smiled "Could we mix visible and invisible. It would make the visible folks seem like super fighters. Symbolic, like Harry-who-lived, over there."

Ginny smiled. "Maybe if we gave them a bright Phoenix red cloak, so people couldn't help but look at them."

Harry was looking up, but still serious. "They'd have to be able to dodge like hell."

George spoke up. "Dedicated invisible shielders."

Hermione shook her head. "It wouldn't work in close quarters, people would notice the extra bodies. and how do you coordinate with your invisible helpers without giving them away...?"

Harry smiled. "Guerrilla warfare, attack from a distance, then fade away. and if they fear the red clock, once you take it off, you're not longer the hunter."

"Hunters... we're designing bogeymen for the Death Eaters to fear, aren't we?" Harry smiled at Hermione and nodded.

Hermione nodded. "Lets take the time to do this well, though, every type of shield charm we can on the cloaks. And, Fred, George, can we stick the hoods down without making people unable to see? The bogeyman NEEDS to be faceless, no matter how much they dodge or even is someone tries to summon the hood."

"We can work on that-" "-We already have the shield charm perfected from the stuff at the shop."

Hermione waved her hand over the table, then was silent. The others waited for her new brainstorm to form fully enough to be shared. "Harry, you know how it was annoying when Death Eaters revived each other? What if we fix that. What if Death Eaters just disappear around Hunters?"

Everyone at the table shifted and frowned. Harry exploded "Hermione, we're better then them! We can't go about killing-"

"Harry!" Hermione interrupted. "I was thinking of charming unbreakable jars ahead of time..."

Harry broke into a smile, then Ron joined him.

"Hermione, you truly are a genius."

Fred, George and Ginny looked confused. "Talk to us, littlest Bro-" " Tell us the secret."

"Well... It's Hermione's tale to tell..."

Hermione looked up from checking on the notes. "Oh wise, older twins, do tell me..." she smiled sweetly "how long can a non-animagus survive living as a transfigured beetle?"

"Mice would be better. They're still mammals..." Fred stopped talking to think and did a double take. "What did you three do?"

"We discouraged an unregistered animagus from spying."

"Using a jar?" George asked, looking surprised.

Ron looked proud. "You don't mess with Hermione."

Harry nodded. "Now we just have to teach the Death Eaters that."

Unbetaed, but hopefully edited enough. Please feel free to point out remaining errors I missed.