Chapter 36: Preparations for the Final Battle

September quickly bled into October and with it the training schedules Harry and Hermione had developed were working well. When the DA was not in normal classes, they were working on battle tactics that were designed by Ron, Remus, Kingsley and Mad-Eye.

Kingsley was also running the Aurors thru their paces at the Auror Training Academy. With the alliance between Hogwarts, the Ministry, Gringotts, and the Magical Creatures of the forest, everyone had benefited. The Aurors were now carrying goblin made swords and protective armor that came the hides of many creatures including dragons and the remains of Ursula.

Everyone knew the fight was coming soon. It had been two weeks since Severus' disastrous meeting with Voldemort. Severus only survived thanks to Apollo and Mercury flashing in at the last moment.

Flashback

Severus and Blaise Zabini were working on more offensive potions in one of the private labs when Severus fell to his knees clutching his right arm. The dark mark was burning once again. The two men quickly left the office and headed to the war room; along the way, Blaise reached into his pocket and pressed his finger to the coin Harry had given him. It would alert everyone to meet in the War Room immediately.

The war room was the latest rediscovered secret inside Hogwarts. In times of old, when Hogwarts stood alone to defend itself, Salazar and Rowena created this room so that all information could magically come here. Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Ron updated the room and brought in new wizard technology and also magically aided Muggle technology like real time satellite images thanks to Flat screen TV monitors and other things.

When the Potions Masters arrived, all of the Army of Light's Leadership was in the castle was already seated. "My arm is burning, the dark mark has returned, he is calling me." Everyone knew what this meant, all of the work they had done would be put to the test soon enough.

Albus, who no longer had any twinkle in his eyes, spoke in a calm voice, "Are you ready Severus?" Severus held his breath for a moment before he nodded once. Blaise summoned a house elf who would get Severus' Deatheater garb while Ginny and Luna escorted Severus over to a stone chair.

In order for Voldemort to fall into this trap, it had to look convincing that Severus had been working for him. In order to facilitate this, Harry, using the power of Hogwarts, would place an ancient form of the memory charm on him. It was preloaded with everything that the group wanted Tom to find out. It also contained a broken Memory Charm, which would make the bullshit Severus was going to tell Tom even more believable.

Once the charm was in place, Severus took the floo connection to the Three Broomsticks where he could disaparate. When he arrived, he realized instantly that it was a setup. Voldemort stood before him, looking my snakelike than ever. His head and neck seemed to be one piece with no joint. His eyes were blood red slits, and his aura was visible.

After Voldemort raped Severus' mind for every bit of information he could glean, he was tossed to the new improved Bellatrix Lestrange. She was now reptilian like Voldemort, with black slits for eyes and snakes replaced her hair. The biggest change was that she no longer required a wand. Severus knew she had an affinity for wandless magic, but not to this magnitude.

During her 'lessons' with Snape, Severus discovered that while in their deep sleep both Voldemort and Bellatrix had wand materials inserted into their bodies. Voldemort had tree from a Yew tree along with the heartstring from a Vipertooth Dragon. Along with the mix was unicorn blood, dragon's blood and potions that made all the part of a wand balance out and work together. Bellatrix also had Vipertooth Heartstring, but her wood was from an American wood called sequoia. The sequoia wood was very strong.

Because of these enhancements, Bella and Tom were not technically doing wandless magic but rather had wand pieces imbedded into their bodies. After hours under the Cruciatus Curse Severus never snapped; because of this, Tom thought Severus had been telling the truth. However, with the raids on his safe houses, Tom wasn't taking any chances. He had the information he needed so Severus had fulfilled his usefulness.

Severus had been left alone in a cold damp room after Bellatrix had finished with him. As he lay on the ground, thinking of death, Apollo appeared silently in flash of black flames. He landed on Severus' shoulder and flamed to the hospital wing.

End Flashback

With Severus back, plans were in full swing around the castle. With Harry and Ginny's help, as well as the Founder's Tome, Filius was able to transform the Chamber of Secrets into a fallout shelter for the younger students. He also created an emergency escape route that led into the Forbidden Forest. The centaurs and goblins had assigned their young to protect, and if needed evacuate, the Hogwarts students.

The junior DA members would defend the interior of the castle while the Order of the Phoenix, the Senior DA, the Hogwarts staff, the goblins, centaurs, and other forest creatures would attack Tom's forces head on.

Harry had also sealed the Owlery and erected wards that sent all of the incoming mail to unused classroom where the house elves would scan the mail. It wasn't the best thing, but Harry was taking no chances.

The Minister had the Aurors, Hit-Wizards and other capable fighters on ready alert, ready to floo out in a moment's notice. The plan was for them to cut off the Deatheaters' escape route.

Like what had been done with the Press Conference, Bill had erected two sets of strong wards all over Hogsmeade, including one that would shutdown the floo network once the Ministry had arrived. The first one would be the diversion, just strong enough that the Deatheaters will have to use a little bit more power then normal. The second set of wards would be activated at Harry's command would be just as strong as the old Hogwarts Wards.

Harry, Ginny, Fawkes, Apollo, Mercury, and Albus had weaved Phoenix magic into the Hogwarts Wards making them almost impenetrable. This was a requirement of Harry's; the safety of those in the castle would be his largest concern.

Severus and Poppy had readied the Hospital Wing for the brutality that it would have to endure as the battle went on. Poppy had also contacted a number of Healers and Health Care Professionals that would floo in when the fighting began. Each one of these people was vetted by Poppy, Harry, Albus, Kingsley, and the Minister herself under Veritaserum. After a discussion, Harry gave these 6 people special portkeys that would automatically activate when the fighting began.

Minerva and a number of Professors tried the best they could to calm down the younger student were getting worried about the war preparations. Molly spent many a night sitting up with scared students. Eventually Fleur, Angelina, and Alicia all floo'd into the castle and worked with their future mother-in-law to help calm the students. Because of this, Harry asked the four of them to be the adults in the bomb shelter when the time came. This didn't go over to well at first, but Molly soon saw this as the reason she existed, to help children.

Harry and Ginny also used their combined magic, thanks to the soul bond, to charge all of the automated spell casters that were hidden through out the grounds. Using muggle and magical means, every single spell caster blended into the background to the point that Remus finally had to have Harry and Ginny show him where they were so that he could add them to the Hogwarts map in the War Room.

As the preparations were being finished, Drills were run 3 times a day to drill into everyone's head exactly what needed to done and when. These drills were based off of Severus' personal experience and Ron's understanding of the book, 'The Act of War' which Ron was so engrossed in, he missed an entire day's worth of meals and Hermione's attempts to distract him until she finally summoned the book from his grasp and banished him to their bed in their room where Hermione reminded Ron of a lesson that he had taught Hermione a while ago, 'There are some things that are more important than books.' Ron had to agree with that lesson as Hermione had her wicked way with her husband.

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It was the end of November when news came about Voldemort. As was tradition now, the entire Great Hall was filled with people talking and chatting away about anything except for the war. Harry and Ginny were speaking to Daphne and Blaise and about marriage, Blaise had proposed the Daphne before they entered the Apprentice Program, and life in general when the school wards alerted by Harry and Albus that an animal had entered the wards and that it was a messenger. Harry used his bond with Hogwarts to allow the animal to enter the Great Hall.

Ron and Neville both stood quickly and leveled their wands on the large serpent that entered. Harry recognized the animal at once. It was Voldemort's familiar, Nagini. She hadn't been seen since she attacked Arthur Weasley almost a year ago.

Harry stood from his table and made his way over to the snake that had coiled itself up. When Harry approached, she raised her head and hissed at him in parseltongue. "I come because the one that is my controller has ordered me too. He wishes me to deliver a message to you, Phoenix."

Harry quickly cast a protective dome around himself and Nagini and spoke to her in Parseltongue, "What is this message Nagini?"

The hissing from Nagini changed into the voice of Tom Riddle, "Harry Potter, I challenge you to a duel for control of Hogwarts, as the descendant of the Noble Salazar Slytherin. Two days time at dawn on the grounds of Hogwarts."

Harry knew that Tom was not the Heir of Slytherin; Salazar had told him when he became the High Lord of Hogwarts. But this did give Harry the chance to get Tom onto the Hogwarts grounds. "Tom, Tom, Tom, I know that you are not the Heir of Slytherin. He told me when I became the High Lord of Hogwarts. Your family stole family heirlooms that belonged to his family; you are just a natural parseltongue like me.

"So as the High Lord of Hogwarts, I decline your challenge to a duel on the grounds that you are the Heir of Slytherin."

This seemed to piss off the piece of Tom that talking thru his snake, "Very well Potter, DIE!!"

The snake struck, but Harry was ready for him. He dodged the attacked ad froze Nagini in mid air. He then used his Legilimency to invade Nagini's mind. As soon as he entered, he felt Nagini fighting something that was not him. He quickly realized Nagini was fighting Voldemort, her master.

Harry quickly helped the snake push Voldemort from her mind, but the damage had already been done. Nagini was dying from Tom possession, but Nagini seemed to not care. Harry was pulled into a vision within the snake's mind. It looked liked the Forbidden Forest to Harry. As he took in his surroundings, he spotted Nagini, hanging from a nearby tree branch, hr eyes level with Harry's.

"Harry Potter, you have freed me from the control I spoke of. The one you call Tom Riddle possessed me long ago when I was newly hatched. Since then I have had him controlling my body while I have been patient and learned all I can. As you know, I am dying. Being sustained by pure evil for so long has taken its toll on me. I give you two gifts Harry Potter. The first one is that Tom Riddle plans to attack your home in two days. He has amassed an army of almost 800 wizards, inferi, giants, werewolves, vampires, and other creatures. He has on top of that over a thousand Dementors in his service.

"My second gift is everything Tom knows. Because of his possession of my body, I was able to enter his mind undetected and have learned everything there is about him." Harry quickly used his powers to see that Nagini was indeed telling the truth about this.

Satisfied that Harry was willing to listen to her Nagini slithered down from the tree and approached a nondescript rock and nudged it over to Harry. Harry picked it up and suddenly gained the contents of the rock.

Nagini was right; this was Tom Riddle's life. He placed the information in the Divination Tower of his mindscape and then turned his attention back to Nagini.

"Snake speaker, I have one last request of you. When you leave my mind, I wish for you to put me out of my misery and end my life. I wish to be released from this life that I have been forced to live. Please tell the one with red hair whom I bit, that I am sorry for what I did."

With that, Harry was pushed from Nagini's mind. He blinked his eyes and saw the snake disintegrating right before his eyes. He pulled out his wand and caste a flame spell at the snake, incinerating it.

He turned and met the eyes of his mentor and spoke in a somewhat strained voice, "Tom is bringing an army of 800 with 1000 dementors. They will be here in 2 days." Without another word, Harry turned, banished the ashes of the snake, and walked out of the Great Hall. Ginny, Severus, Albus, Remus, Hermione, Tonks, and Moody following him while Minerva and Molly tried to regain order in the hall.