War, Part One

A/N: Disclaimer's in the first chapter. LOTS of action in this, folks. You're going to see some creatures that weren't mentioned in the Harry Potter series, but only a couple. Fair warning, the first bit is NOT for arachnophobes. Many apologies on the lateness of the update, but my much-beloved cat had to be put to sleep, and my desire to write dried up for a while.

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April 15, 1996, Hogwarts

Hagrid, of course, had moved back into the castle for safety's sake. He was rather vulnerable, being the only person who lived outside of the castle. Not much of anyone got any sleep on the fourteenth, though most tried. In the end, a few hours before dawn, fully three-fourths of the castle was awake. The young children and other noncombatants (mostly a handful of elderly Hogsmeade residents who'd survived the town's destruction) huddled together in their heavily-protected corner while the defenders ended up having an impromptu gathering in the Great Hall over various drinks and edibles as they were all too wound up to sleep. For many of the adults, the sight of goblins, werewolves, and wizards/witches of all ages sitting together and talking amiably was ... more than a little strange, but most of them took heart from it.

Then Hagrid abruptly got to his feet, staring at his hand, where sat a tarantula-sized acromantula. Even though the thing was too small for its voice (if it even had one at that size) to be audible, the meaning of its presence was clear. The Forbidden Forest had been invaded.

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Forbidden Forest

Aragog, despite what anyone else might have thought, cared deeply for Hagrid. The concept of Hagrid being in danger from invaders had enraged the elderly acromantula when Hagrid had spoken to him, and the old spider had lost no time in deploying his children to watch the edges of the Forest. The smallest and youngest, those the size of large tarantulas, had that job, as at their size they'd not draw any notice to themselves to speak of.

The invading army was spotted by six of these smallest and youngest acromantula. Two of them promptly raced off towards the main nest, where Aragog and a handful or so of his oldest children waited to spread word through the rest of the colony. A single tarantula-sized youngster waited with them, to bring word to Hagrid that the enemy had come. Within seconds of the scouts' arrival, the nest was empty. Aragog himself headed for the invaders while his older children raced to the groups of their siblings that had been stationed at various points to allow for a swift reaction no matter where the enemy chose to enter the Forest. The youngster made tracks for the castle and Hagrid, escorted by the two scouts as protection.

The Death Eater attack force, comprised of Fenrir and his pack (some thirty or forty strong),and about two dozen each of trolls, vampires and Death Eaters (most of the latter being school-age 'new recruits'), was completely unaware that they were being rapidly surrounded by a legion of acromantula within five minutes of crossing the forest boundary. Every acromantula with a two-foot legspan or larger (and roughly a pound in weight), converged on the invading army. The acromantula were careful to move silently, and stay out of sight until the last and largest arrivals managed to complete the noose around the Death Eaters and their creature minions.

The first any of the attacking army knew of their danger was when some two dozen bulldog-sized acromantula dropped into their midst from the trees. Lucius Malfoy, the group's 'leader' alongside Fenrir Greyback, was the first to start throwing curses when one of the acromantula almost landed on his face, but he was soon followed by Crabbe and Goyle (senior and junior in both cases) and the rest of the Death Eaters. Of course, the acromantula that had dropped into the middle of the invading party had been a decoy. Something to garner the attention of all and sundry and get them to stop staring into the depths of the forest proper. It helped that in their eagerness to be rid of the 'decoy' acromantula, the Death Eaters were hitting their own army with spells far, far more than they were managing to connect with an acromantula in the confusion.

The moment the invaders' backs were turned, Aragog and his oldest children descended on the army from all sides. Even with magic on their side, the invaders were no match for the sheer number of acromantula that descended on them, and within a few short moments, despite a sudden hailstorm of spells, all of the invaders had disappeared, most of them screaming in agony, under a sea of very angry ... and very hungry ... acromantula.

But not all of them died. As much benefit as the huge group of acromantula was in overwhelming the invaders, it also allowed some few Death Eaters on the edges of the group to escape their wrath, slipping under and around the massive bodies that couldn't exactly stop on a dime to nail them when a good dozen or so of their kin were behind them, pushing them forward. The werewolves, trolls and vampires fared a bit better, being possessed of above-human strength and durability, but not by much. Of the original hundred-plus strong army, less than half survived the acromantulas, only five of them Death Eaters. The rest were werewolves, vampires, and trolls. Bloody, bruised, and shaken, the surviving wizards made frequent use of 'incendio' as they and their decimated 'army' beat a hasty path towards Hogwarts. Every now and again, a badly-wounded member of the army would fall behind, unable to keep up with the rapid pace, and get swarmed by the acromantula.

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Hogsmeade

Voldemort had sent the Forest group ahead several hours before the bulk of his army went on the move, as they would require a bit more time to work their way through the Forest than the rest of them would require to arrive at Hogwarts. Eventually, the time was right, and he sent the dementors and inferi on their way, followed by the Rocs, Harpies, and Stymphalian birds. The vampires, giants, trolls, banshees and most of his Death Eaters portkeyed straight to the edge of Hogsmeade. They did not see Voldemort keep quite a few of his best and most frightening aside and stay behind himself ... and he, in his turn, did not spot Draco Malfoy grabbing a portkey at the last second. Indeed, Voldemort didn't even realize Draco's absence until a good five or ten minutes after the Hogsmeade group had left. He was very much not pleased, but did not feel he could call attention to the boy's actions, lest someone wonder why. He could not afford that. Ahh well, he could get the boy later, if he survived.

The main attack group met up just outside of the burnt-out remains of Hogsmeade and made their way through. While they knew (thanks to Pettigrew) about the tunnel entrances in town, no one attempted to make use of them as they were bright enough to realize the things had probably been booby-trapped to heck and gone with both Sirius and Remus inside the castle. Instead they made their careful way through the town.

But the Hogwarts defenders hadn't bothered trying to booby trap the town itself. They'd concentrated all their defenses inside the ward boundaries, since they realized the wards could be attacked at quite a distance. One way or another, Voldemort's crew would get inside the wards. There was nothing they could do to stop that, so they concentrated on making the rest of the attack as close to impossible as they could manage. They did, however, rig magical motion detectors to warn them when the army reached the town.

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Hogwarts

The Great Hall went utterly silent for a moment after those closest to Hagrid spotted the young acromantula, then, nearly as one, everyone shot to their feet and raced for their assigned positions. There was little to no confusion, though everyone was grim-faced. Within minutes, the best of the blinds both inside and outside the castle were inhabited, as were the roof catapult stations. A spell activated the color-spell orbs, and McGonagall performed the spell that activated all the suits of armor and statues scattered throughout the school. The armor twitched as one, but stayed put on McGonagall's order, to provide 'surprise' assistance when the attackers managed to get into the school (they were very sure that would happen). The statues made their way to various points throughout the school and just beyond the doors, but stayed well clear of the booby-trapped zone on McGonagall's orders.

Just beyond the school wards, the Death Eaters in both parties were busy. Copying the actions that had worked so well in obtaining Dumbledore's wand, they excavated large tunnels well under the wards. As soon as these were completed, the attacking armies began marching through. Unfortunately for the Hogsmeade group ... the Hogwarts defenders had anticipated such a tactic. Devil's Snare, as well as several other subterranean and highly lethal plants had been planted at intervals around the ward perimeter. Tentacles and roots shot out into the tunnels and wrapped themselves around whatever got in reach, yanking the victims back to wherever the plant itself happened to be, folding and mutilating the bodies in the process. Some dozen or so of the inferi were captured this way (they'd been sent through first) before the wizards and dementors managed to thwart the plants through spells and freezing cold, enabling the rest of the army to get through unmolested.

The moment they were through, the rocs, stymphalian birds and harpies took wing, and were met by a hail of spellfire and explosive orbs of various kinds from the roofs. Moments after that, Buckbeak, a quartet of other hippogriffs and the thestrals arrived, swarming the flying menaces in a fierce aerial battle.

The giants, of course, were the last through, other than the wizards themselves, being chivied along by a combination of spellfire and insistent commands. The ground forces ... really weren't prepared for what they were marching into. This was no school of frightened, defenseless children. Just beyond the range of the plants lay the rest of the outer defenses. Many of the inferi toppled into the hidden pits, and the caltrops, soaked in various poisons, raining down on them from Hogwarts' roof were taking their toll.

A signal went around the school, and a few seconds later, a bunch of half-grown mandrakes, planted at intervals in the middle of the booby-trapped zone, suddenly rose into view from out of the ground, screaming their displeasure. Almost instantly, half the surviving army collapsed, unconscious. The defenders, forewarned of that particular defense, were unaffected, as they had all donned earmuffs.

Unfortunately, the banshees responded in kind, and for a few long moments there was one hell of a screaming match going on. Doubly unfortunately, the mandrakes didn't affect the inferi, giants lethifolds or dementors, and several of the wizards managed to shield their hearing before they collapsed, and were thus able to re-awaken those that had collapsed. Still, the attackers were badly disorganized now, between trying to duck and dodge both real spellfire from the blinds and fake spellfire from the orbs, avoid caltrops both on the ground and in the air, and avoid the other traps that lay in wait for them. Eventually, they managed to kill the last of the mandrake plants.

At that point, they were finally close enough to the school to begin attacking it ... not that they got to do this with impugnity, as the defenders hidden in the many blinds rained spellfire down on them. The statues got into the act now as well, whaling on anything that got in range ... including the dementors. The things might not be killable, but they had bones that could be pounded into powder, and their power had no effect on stone defenders who had withstood a millennium of Scottish Highland winters.

The giants got the furthest. Big, strong, and all but immune to spellfire and poisons, they shrugged off everything that got thrown at them and started trying to take Hogwarts down stone by stone with their clubs. The goblins, armored and armed to the teeth, swarmed them, roaring nearly as loudly as the combined banshee-mandrake yelling had been as they brought the giants down one by one.

But there had been holes made in the outer walls, and the rest of the invading army began to pour through the holes. The first group that got in had the misfortune to arrive near the blind that McGonagall and a quartet of seventh year Hufflepuffs were using as their base. Within seconds of their arrival, they were being chased and beaten up by chairs, desks, bookcases and pretty much everything else that wasn't nailed down that had been animated by McGonagall, and trying to dodge a fierce volley of spellfire from the Hufflepuffs.

The next group had the misfortune to encounter Snape ... and assume he was still on their side. What followed was a vicious no-holds-barred beat-down as Snape showed exactly what he was capable of and took out a lifetime's worth of rage on his (at least at first) unsuspecting victims.

The third group encountered Flitwick and a half-dozen of his sixth and seventh year Ravenclaws. This bunch at least had the wits to know they were in deep trouble (Flitwick's standing as a dueling champion was fairly well known, after all). Within moments, the entire group of invaders was either unconscious or so much ash in the wind (the vampires and inferi).

The only beings that failed to get inside were the giants and the dementors. In the case if the giants, they were just too big. The dementors were being hounded ... and herded. Some of the outside defenders had seen the statues pounding the dementors into paste, and the word had gone out to herd the dementors at the nearest statues to be dealt with. Though they were very much not dead, the dementors that tangled with the statues found themselves unable to move at all, and were thus neutralized rather effectively in the ongoing battle.

One of the larger groups that got in met up with the Marauders (new and old). Draco, Macnair, Fenrir and two of his surviving pack, two vampires, a troll and a half dozen inferi against seven kids and two adults. The invaders had no clue what they were getting into.

"Fenrir's mine." Remus growled, glaring at the ... thing ... that had made his life a living hell.

Fenrir just bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. "You don't have what it takes to kill me." He snarled.

"We'll just have to see about that, won't we?" Remus said, his voice quiet and cold. The two men lunged at each other, Remus forgoing magic in favor of beating Fenrir to paste with his bare hands.

Sirius launched a spell at Macnair, taking the only adult Death Eater out of the equation as Macnair returned fire and concentrated his attacks on Sirius. Hermione, Ron, and Harry gave each other an amused look before Ron repeated his first-year triumph over a troll (this time under far less uncertain conditions). That left eight rather flammable beings ... and Draco.

Unfortunately, Harry and company soon discovered that while inferi were, on the whole, slow-moving and stupider than a troll, the vampires were the exact opposite. Fred, George and Hermione made short work of the Inferi. The entire group of New Marauders ended up back-to-back, though, as they tried to nail the insanely fast-moving vampires with a spell ... any spell, nevermind something that would light them afire. Harry tried desperately to keep an eye on Draco, who, so far, had not joined in the fight. Harry was wondering what the blonde was waiting for.

He found out soon enough. Remus got thrown halfway down the hall by Fenrir. Dazed, he didn't get to his feet instantly, and that's when Draco, showing once again just how much a coward he was (hitting a man in the back, waiting until a man was down and mostly defenseless to act), yelled 'Avada ... "

That, however, was as far as he got, because Harry instantaneously, instinctively, shrieked a spell in response to hearing the start of the killing curse, aiming at Draco's arm. "Reducto!"

Draco cut off his own spell when he heard Harry's bellow and tried to dive out of the way. Unfortunately, he moved the wrong direction ... straight into the spell's path. The results were ... messy, to say the least. And fatal. Half his chest got blown away, and he was dead before he hit the floor.

Remus managed to shake off the daze at that point, got to his feet, and launched himself at Fenrir again.

In the end, it was Neville, of all people, who finally managed to nail the vampires. Frustrated and angry at their inability to catch the two fast-moving targets, he bellowed out a spell that Harry'd never heard before that shot a huge net out of his wand. One of the vampires ran straight into the net, unable to stop, and quickly discovered there was no getting back out. The second vampire was caught less than a minute later in similar manner.

"What the heck is that spell, Neville?" Harry wanted to know.

"Containment spell that Professor Sprout taught me. Gets used a lot by Herbologists, to contain aggressive plants without hurting them, so they can be transported."

"Nice. You gotta teach us that one, sometime." Harry said. Privately, Harry was ... well, not quite sure how to handle what had happened with Draco. Part of him was glad the cowardly ferret was dead, part of him was wigging out both at the way he'd died and the implications when it came to 'the wand', and part of him, despite having known this sort of thing was going to happen, was freaking out at having killed someone, even accidentally. Oh, he'd killed Quirrell, but he'd been eleven at the time, and the impact had sort of passed him by, between being out of it for three days, returning the Dursleys, and the lingering thrill of saving the day.

The parts of him that were freaking out didn't last long, though. They got pushed to the side and ignored pretty damn fast, as they always had in the past, in favor of dealing with the current emergency. So far, the defenses were holding remarkably well. The enemy may have gotten into the school thanks to the giants, but by the time they had, the invading army had been cut to something like a quarter of its initial numbers thanks to the outer defenses and defenders. Not a one of the dementors or lethifolds had managed to make it into the school, the former all getting pounded to paste by the statues while the latter fell to overpowered fire spells. The goblins looked to be having the time of their lives taking down the giants and trolls that hadn't made it inside. a largeish knot of people, all fighting hand-and-teeth, rolled past, and Harry recognized one or two of the older werewolves that had taken refuge in the castle in the melee.

The knot came apart about the same time Fenrir launched Remus again, and the two groups faced off against each other for a few seconds before Ginny huffed.

"Oh, enough of the posturing. Reducto!" And the wall behind the enemy werewolves exploded, huge chunks of stone raining down on them and taking most of them out.

Remus blinked, gave Ginny a look, then shrugged and pulled out his wand for the first time, spitting out a spell that launched what looked like half a hundred silver flechettes at Fenrir. Fenrir shrieked in agony and collapsed, his body seizing violently for a few moments before he went still. The few remaining werewolves that hadn't been buried under rubble and or knocked unconscious took to their heels in the face of people wielding wands.

Sirius finally managed to knock Macnair out of the fighting (Harry didn't look to see if he was dead or just knocked out.) and they all headed off to deal with the next group of invaders, since their part of the castle seemed to be clear for the moment. The werewolves joined them.

They made their way down to the main entrance hall ... and utter chaos. Dobby, Kreacher, and what looked like every house-elf in the castle had joined in the fight. Some of them carried knives, but most of them seemed to be content using their own peculiar brand of magic against the invaders. Considering that they could blast people off their feet, they were meeting with a great deal of success, as they were aiming the people they were knocking around at walls. They were also coming to the assistance of any of the defenders that seemed to be in trouble, popping in and out to attack and confound the invaders so fast they were impossible to keep track of. Two or three of the most ingenious (Dobby among them) had grabbed lengths of wood, set them alight, and were wielding them against the remaining inferi.

From the look of things, the vast majority of the invaders had been chased into the main entrance hall from the various corridors, and were now facing an intimidating hail of spellfire from all sides. Harry managed to snag one of the house-elves that passed.

"I need you to take some of your fellow elves and check the castle for invaders. Make sure no one's still roaming around where they don't belong." The elf gave a fierce nod and popped out.

That taken care of, Harry took a few moments to survey the chaos and frowned. Voldemort wasn't here. Damnit. Clever bastard. Harry glanced at the Marauders. "Cover me for a minute!" He told them, then pressed himself into a corner where he could concentrate on something other than the ongoing battle without worrying too much about getting his head taken off.

It took a minute to swim through the morass that was Voldemort's mind, but Harry finally figured out where the bastard was and what he was doing, and snarled in frustration before shaking himself back into the waking world.

"Bastard's raiding the Ministry. Took some of his best folks to do it, too." He told the others. There were a lot of grim looks, but there was nothing they could do at the moment ... they were needed here. The Ministry was just going to have to fend for itself for a little longer. Fortunately, Amelia Bones was no one's fool, so hopefully, it wouldn't be a bloodbath.

They flung themselves back into the battle. The New Marauders, who'd spent the best part of a year training together, were putting one hell of a dent in the enemy compared to other groups of students ... but then, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione especially, they knew each other like the backs of their hands long before the training, had faced dangerous situations before, had had an idea of what each other could do, was capable of when the chips were down. The training had just magnified that, taught them how to move and fight as a cohesive unit so they didn't trip over each other in the heat of the moment. They trusted each other and depended on each other ... and that made all the difference. While other groups of friends might have known and trusted each other, they hadn't had as long to train together, so they weren't quite as effective. As for the Death Eaters that were stupid enough to assume the New Marauders were easy prey ... well, most of them didn't get much of a chance to realize their error before they got knocked on their butts and/or killed in the crossfire created by the other invaders, who had clearly never been taught to fight together, or simply didn't trust each other (hardly surprising).

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity or three, all of the invaders save a handful or so of werewolves (who had all surrendered after Fenrir was killed) had been soundly defeated. Harry glanced over at the others.

"We've got to get to the Ministry to help." He told them.

Ron nodded. "We can fly out ... that'll get us past the traps without getting caught in them. Then once we're past the wards, we can apparate."

Harry nodded in agreement. "Right. Meet you at the boundary." He concentrated for a moment and then blurred as he shifted to his hawk form, then took off like a bullet.

Hermione huffed, but then accio'd some of the school brooms (which had all been brought inside the castle) and soon the rest of the group was on their way, meeting Harry just past the ward boundary, where he stood with a mischievous smirk. Despite the situation, the whole flying under his own power thing was still (and probably always would remain) very, very cool.

"Where should we apparate to?" Fred wanted to know.

"Visitor's entrance. There's an alley nearby we can use." Harry said. "Too dangerous to try to apparate into the Atrium, even if the wards are down."

"Yeah, things are going to be a bit crazy down there." George agreed.

"Good luck, everybody." Harry said, and then almost as one, they apparated out.