Cracks of apparition pierced the air as soon as the alarm went off. Harry and Daniel were the only 2 left, their backup having already gone back to the safe house as soon as the house had been cleared. Harry swiftly put the box in his undetectable extension bag while Daniel went to the door to keep watch. The first death eater up the stairs was dispatched with a killing curse before Daniel even knew he was casting the curse. Feeling intense shame due to his father always teaching him and his sister to fight non-lethally if possible, he refused to look back at his father's probably stunned face. The next death eater was felled with a stupefy by Harry. The father and son raced down the hall to the stairs to try and make an escape. Turning at the stairwell they came face to face with 5 more death eaters on their way up the stairs. A fast stupefy from Daniel took one out of the fight, while Harry cast a reducto at the ground to cause the remaining death eaters to scatter.
"Patronus Daniel, distract them!" yelled Harry, before casting his own Patronus charm. Daniel cast his as well, his Hippogriff joining Prongs in attacking the death eaters so the two Potters could escape. Dodging cutting and killing curses, they made their way to the front door and out into the yard. Harry quickly sealed the door to slow down the attacking Death Eaters and ran for the edge of the wards so they could apparate away.
"Dad, wait, I have a faster way" Daniel yelled, and almost before Harry could turn around, a deep brown Hippogriff stood where Daniel had just been.
"Well this is new", Harry joked. "Do I still need to bow?"
The hippogriff looked annoyed and tossed its head toward its back, indicating for Harry to get on. Harry climbed aboard and they took off into the sky, dodging the green jets of the killing curse from the Death Eaters that had finally gotten through the door. They flew at full speed until they were well past the wards. When they finally landed, Daniel transformed back and tey apparated back to Grimmauld Place.
Harry and Daniel were immediately wrapped into a tight hug from Hermione. It had apparently taken everyone currently at Grimmauld to keep her from apparating back to the raid site to find out what was taking them so long.
"Your son has been keeping secrets it seems" Harry laughed, and Daniel transformed again to astonished gasps from the group before transforming back.
Harry dropped his bag with Hermione, telling her about the box and asking her to take a look, then went with Daniel upstairs to get looked over by the Order's medics, and have a father son talk about what had just happened.
After they had been cleared by the medics, Harry and Daniel sat quietly. Now that they were safe, the tension and shame had resurfaced.
"So, where did you learn that little trick?" Harry asked, trying to delay the inevitable conversation.
"Found some of Uncle Siri's old notes from his school days in the library. Been working on it for a while, thought it could come in handy considering everything."
"Well, it sure was bloody useful today" Harry remarked, and sighed. This wasn't going to be an easy conversation. "Daniel listen… about what happened back there..."
"Dad please don't lecture me. I know you think I shouldn't have killed him. But we needed to get out of there and simply stunning the enemy doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore if we want to end the war" Daniel interrupted tightly, with a hint of shame to his voice.
"I know" Harry conceded. "I just wanted to say I'm proud of you. I may not agree with your stance on lethal vs non-lethal force, but I'm proud that you were able to stand up and keep you and me safe. I'm also pleased as punch that you were able to get the animagus transformation down at such a young age. I know the marauders accomplished it early, but most wizards take almost 10 years to learn the skill. I know I was never able to accomplish it. We don't have to talk anymore about what happened back there if you don't want to, but if you find yourself having a hard time with it, your mother and I are here, and we understand."
Harry clapped his son on the shoulder and went downstairs for a cup of tea, or perhaps a large glass of firewhiskey. Daniel stayed behind, the thought that he had taken a life really crashing down on him. He sat like that, thinking, for quite a while, before exhaustion finally took over and he wandered to his room, deciding he needed some sleep before he really thought about what had happened.
The next morning saw the remains of the Order gathering at Grimmauld place. Normally meetings were held only once every 2 weeks, and attended just by the leaders of the different safe houses, but the mystery of the box Harry and Daniel had recovered on the previous night's raid brought all members to Grimmauld, mostly out of curiosity. Once breakfast had been served, courtesy of Molly Weasley of course, the box was placed on the table between Harry and Hermione. Harry had Bill come double check that the box had no curses on it and, after receiving the all clear, had opened it.
No one had expected what they would find in the little box, so no one was quite sure how to react when there sat a simple bracelet. Understated in its beauty, it was a simple silver band encrusted with small sapphires and rubies. Not ostentatious by any means, but definitely valuable. Harry reached a hand out to pick up the bracelet, only to have it quickly slapped away by his wife.
"Harry are you nuts? We have no idea what kind of enchantments are on that thing. You can't just reach out and pick it up willy nilly." She chastised.
"Right, sorry. Wasn't thinking clearly. Bill could you please do the honors?"
As Bill set to work it was apparent that it was a good thing Harry hadn't touched the bracelet. Bill seemed to be in intense concentration, clearly sweating with the effort of not only running scans to see what kinds of enchantments were on the bracelet but also trying to identify each individual spell, and break it. Breaking was clearly becoming quite an effort, so bill called over his son, Louis, who had trained in the ways of breaking curses to help him. Having a second set of hands made things slightly easier, though both were becoming visibly fatigued. With a look from Harry, Hermione went over to the restroom and grabbed a few pepper up potions, knowing the curse breakers would need something to restore their energy when they were finished. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Bill and Louis sat back, wiped their brows, and informed Harry that all curses and hexes had been removed and the item was safe to be picked up.
"The only thing you need to be wary of Harry, is that it seems to be a phrase activated portkey. With a couple complicated spells we can tell where it's keyed to go, and we believe this one is keyed to Malfoy Manor, it could be something You-Know-Who uses as an escape route in case a raid goes pear shaped."
"Do you happen to know the phrase?" Hermione asked.
"No, that wouldn't come up in our scans. The only reason it wouldn't show up would be if it's in a language we're not familiar with. Given who the owner was, I believe that this one is set to a phrase in Parseltongue. Harry, I know you and Lillian are Speakers. I would be very careful using Parseltongue around the bracelet until we have time to sit down with you and teach you the spells to decode the activation phrase."
"Thank you Bill, Louis. I think we should put this in the vault in the library until we decide what to do with it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can use this to our advantage?"
Most of the order stayed silent in thought, when Ginny, who had made one of her rare appearances at Grimmauld, spoke up.
"If it goes to Malfoy Manor then it goes straight to snake face's hideout. If we could get a team together to perform a raid, we might be able to get to Nagini and destroy another Horcrux."
Harry and Hermione shared a glance, the idea had merit, but was incredibly risky.
A/N: Sorry this update took so long. Been incredibly busy. Would love a review or two, to know what people do and don't like about my story so far.