Chapter 4: Poland
An: *Insert huffy disclaimer here*
An2: Sorry this took so long to produce, but here it is anyway.
-:-
Chapter Four: Poland
On a commuter plane bound eastward for Central Europe a teenager and his companions took their seats in various states of nervousness and excitement. There was a muted roar of semi-private conversation surrounding Harry as he sank reluctantly into his aisle seat, Hermione on his right and Fleur sitting in the window seat. He hated planes, there was a confinement about them that made his burgeoning sense of paranoia spike horrifically; there were no easy exits, and soon they would be tens of thousands of meters above the ground.
Hermione's warm, soft hand settled over his on the armrest and he settled slightly back into the seat. There was little choice, travelling overland after a sea journey was out of the question, not least because of the time involved. Already they were looking at at least a week of travelling, maybe more. Magical travel of course was impossible, they'd never make it over the channel without being apprehended by border wards.
His lover bussed a kiss against his cheek before getting herself settled in when she felt his mind calm from the high torsion nervousness it had been projecting through their bond. This whole operation felt wrong to Harry, his gut twisted into knots at the prospect of what they might be walking into.
Moreover he was already having second thoughts about bringing Fleur with them. What the fuck was he thinking when he said they'd train her on the go? She was a liability till then. Thank Merlin they had nearly a week's travel ahead of them to get to Poland. They'd have some time to train Fleur in the basics before they were embroiled, but nothing more detailed. Fortunately she still knew something of combat from her time under Valmortis' thumb. As distasteful as it was to think about the man had saved them some time in that respect.
He glanced to his left to see Fleur looking at him with a shy gaze, caught, he grimaced before speaking.
"I'm surprised how calm you are Fleur. I can't stand planes and I figured this might almost be a bit too new for you."
She tilted her head to the side and smiled, it was such a reminiscent gesture from… before that he felt his heart leap in his chest at the memory.
"I'll be alright Harry, I do worry about you though, you look like you could rip the hand rests right out of the chairs you're so tense."
From his other side he heard Hermione's chuckle, as well as felt it reverberate around his mind. A moment later her small, soft hand rested against his, lightly caressing the backs of his fingers, gently requesting that he relax.
He wasn't sure if it was just the security aspects of the plane that were bothering him or if it were also being up this high with zero control over his flight. Either way his muscles were almost vibrating with the tension packed into them as they crossed the English Channel.
His lover's soft voice reached his ears and he turned to her, smiling tenderly at the sight of her despite anything else.
"Calm Harry, we'll be fine, I promise. I'm here sweetheart."
It was almost magical, the way her simple words made him relax, like she had imbued her voice with some spell. Taking a deep breath and shaking the tension out of his arms, he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, letting her voice wash over him.
"That's it love, we'll be in Switzerland before you know it."
That was one thing he was still unsure about, their travel itinerary. The four teens and Fleur wouldn't simply be able to fly straight into Poland, they'd be picked up at the airport and executed just for being magical. The witch hunters in the country were viciously in control of the ex-communist country and magical people weren't even allowed to enter.
They couldn't land in France, the country was on alert to pick Harry up and detain him, Germany was out for similar reasons. But Switzerland, as always, remained neutral in this conflict, and would allow them temporary passage, if they even registered that the five of them were magical at all.
So they would fly to switzerland, secure a vehicle, and then travel overland through Austria and the Czech Republic. There was an Order contact in Prague who would give them their instructions for crossing the border into Poland, and then they would continue their trek to Warsaw. All things going well they would be able to fly out of the country, but they were prepared to flee via land routes if needed.
That meant six days of travel overland just to get to the country they were looking for. Two days in Switzerland as they acquired a vehicle and retrieved their weapon drop, and then two days in each of the other countries as they travelled onwards. It would be the longest journey Harry had ever been on, though Tracey and Susan had arguably experienced worse in their trek to the nest for their attack on the Knights.
Either way it was going to be at least a week, probably two, before they were home. Anything could happen in that time.
Grunting in discomfort at the very thought he did his best to settle down and sleep through this abhominable flight.
-:-
Nearly five hours later the five Regimentals checked into two rooms in a middle-of-the-pack hotel in central Geneva. Harry immediately set about lining both rooms with magic deadening runestones that would prevent any magic from leaking out, allowing them to cast within the rooms without being detected by the Swiss Ministry. They for all the world appeared to be four teenagers on holiday with a twenty-something tagalong/chaperone. But they were witches and a wizard, and as such needed to prep their living spaces.
Harry tended to release magic absent mindedly when he did a number of activities, including simply just relaxing, and even such emissions as that would be enough to trip any magic detectors the Swiss Ministry had primed. During travel out and about Harry would wear a runestone around his neck that would encase him in a deadening shell. In times of danger he would need to take it off but for just wandering around it would prevent any magic escaping his body.
The other side of the need to deaden magic was that they had to prep their weapons on this side of the flight, including adding the enchantments that the Weasley twins normally applied. The five rifles, and five pistols had been sent ahead of them in a sealed case via freight with the appropriate documents for transporting arms between two countries. It was done at the corporate level and they would have to collect the weapons and modify them themselves.
That had been three hours of training from the twins as they instructed Harry and Susan (arguably the second best enchanter of the group) how to transfigure the weapons and apply the enchantments before doing a secondary transfiguration to lock the patterns. The pistols were the single shot, high caliber experimentals the twins had been working on, and each was hand crafted for its wielder.
Finally they might have to significantly alter their appearances at each country change. They had four sets of different documentation; passports etc, one for each country, with a different picture for each. The plan was to get as far as they could with their current disguises (Harry even had blond hair) and only change them if they were caught.
When Harry's task was complete Hermione set about converting both rooms to their needs, expanding them internally and creating workbenches for Harry and Susan to work on. Finally a 'Do not Disturb' sign was put on each door to deter housekeeping.
They congregated in the girls' room, as it was larger, and sat around the coffee table, finally able to relax for a moment. Once he had calmed from the tension of the journey Harry spoke up.
"Right, we've got four hours of daylight left. Susan, Tracey, Fleur, you three need to establish a better connection with each other. Our cover has all of us being friends for years, we all need to be able to maintain that. Go see a movie or something. Hermione and I are going to go and eyeball the drop site and act like a couple on holiday for a bit. Above all else we have to appear exactly as we wish, a group of friends on holiday. Meet back here in…" He checked his watch quickly, "Three hours exactly, we'll go out as a group and get dinner before returning back here."
He patted his pocket, making sure his wallet was still there and watched four others do the same motion around the table.
"Everyone got your wands?"
Even Fleur nodded, she'd apparently had her wand with her when she was captured but she knew little of how to use it. Most of her magical talents were innate now, rather than learned.
"Mobiles?"
Sirius had managed to secure a set of blackberries for them with international zoning. No one was exactly sure if they'd work as intended but it was worth a shot, worst came to worst…
"Medallions?"
Finally each of the four raised a thin copper medallion that was attached to some body-part or other. Hermione and Harry both wore theirs about their necks, Fleur had hers on her belt and Susan and Tracey both had bracelets. They were a panic button, if shit hit the fan they could activate a number of functions on them including portkeys or emergency messages.
Harry personally checked that he had a disc shield from Sirius sitting within easy reach on his pack. They had done some testing with the devices and found them capable of stopping even a main gun shell from the Tyranny. Though only one. They were a valuable piece of protective equipment and he would be loathe to leave it behind.
"Okay then, good luck and…" He got up, hugging each of them as he did spoke
"Be safe"
-:-
Geneva was a rather beautiful city. The lake was glassy smooth on a calm day like this and the gentle hum of civilization was far apart from the hustle of London. Hermione laced the fingers of one hand with one of Harry's, revelling in the simple pleasure of touching her love, as they wandered around the city. The streets were mostly quiet at this time of day but soon they would be flooded with foot and road traffic as the majority of jobs closed for the day.
But for the meanwhile it was like they had the city to themselves as they made steady progress towards the office building where they would be able to pick up the weapon drop. The weapons would be broken down to their component parts and stored in separate cases each having come from a different 'company'. They needed all four cases for any of the weapons to work.
All of the squad would have to participate in reclaiming the drop tomorrow, for now Harry and Hermione were just getting an idea of the local layout and what their ingress and egress routes would be. It was the first time the two of them had done anything remotely similar and both were a little caught up in the glamour of it all. They were still teenagers after all. Hermione, in her own way, was being a little too enthusiastic, making a map of the place in her head with so many coloured lines Harry couldn't follow them all.
"Love, we should all go in together as a group, five young people going into the same office building at different times would look sketchy as hell. But if the give of us go in together as a group, acting like the teenagers we are, we can just pass it off as going to see someone there, or some other normal activity."
She deflated slightly at his side before darting up to press a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw.
"You look after me so well."
His tender, loving smile took her breath for a moment, sometimes it took her aback when she felt the full force of his love on her.
"Always sweetheart."
She might just have to reward him for that tonight.
-:-
"You know there's a village in this country called Grindelwald?"
Susan cocked her eyebrow in disbelief at that tidbit from Tracey.
"You're kidding."
The brunette shook her head merrily, Susan thought she was enjoying the experience of travelling a bit too much.
"Nope, it says right here; 'Grindelwald', there's even a Grindelwald hotel."
Susan huffed in exasperation. Of course Tracey would find the one village on the map that shared a name with a dark lord.
"You know we're on a mission right? We need to be focused."
Susan's rebuke was meant to mollify the petite brunette and Tracey's merry laugh was unexpected.
"At the moment we're meant to be acting like teenagers, and getting to know Fleur better. That's our mission Susy, you need to lighten up and relax a bit. You're more tense than Harry."
Susan winced, there was the rub, Harry. Neville had said something similar before she left.
Tracey didn't miss the wince, or the downcast cant of her eyes, the soft, concerned tone that came from the normally bubbly brunette was full of solicitation.
"What happened Susy? You're not normally this tense, did something happen before we left?"
She was vaguely aware of Fleur, looking slightly lost, walking beside them with a concerned expression on her otherworldly beautiful face. How the unshackled nosferatu could feel concern was beyond Susan but there it was.
"Neville broke up with me. He gave me an ultimatum, either stay in Britain with him, or go on this trip with Harry."
She couldn't hold back the sob that wrenched it's way free from her chest. She couldn't help loving both of them, she couldn't help that Harry trusted her to fight by his side, or that Tracey needed her here, or that Hermione trusted her with Harry's life. She couldn't help that she had a purpose in this war, or that she wanted to keep Harry safe.
She had to be here, and when Neville had forced her to choose it had ripped her heart out.
Tracey's arm wrapped around her waist and she leaned into the shorter girl with another chest-heaving sob. Fleur closed ranks with the two girls and her warm embrace was surprisingly welcome.
"I didn't want to lose him, but I couldn't not be here."
Tracey's hand moved up and down her back in little circles as she cooed soothingly into Susan's thick locks.
"You'll be okay sweety, he'll come around."
She shook her head angrily
"No, he left."
"What?!"
Susan nodded with tears now streaming out of her eyes.
"He gave his resignation to Harry this morning, spat at him too. He… I don't know, there's so much resentment there I can't even wrap my head around it. He left us Tracey, he left with all the others. I love him, I was with him, I… I gave myself to him, and he just left. Like it meant nothing."
Tracey's voice had a tinge of wisdom that Susan couldn't place.
"Harry and Hermione are special Susy, in that Hermione can let us love her man from afar without being jealous, and Harry can support us and love us without, you know loving us. They're older than their years, mature beyond what any boy can compete with at this age. And Neville is just a boy, a prejudiced boy who grew up believing purebloods were superior. Even if he didn't follow the dogma he had to have seen your love of Harry as a smack in the face."
She took a breath and Susan nodded against her shoulder
"Nevermind all of the blood politics he probably just couldn't handle the fact that you loved Harry as well. I don't know if anyone will ever be able to Susy. I leveled with that a long time ago, maybe you need to as well."
Susan's sobs redoubled as the three of them stood in the middle of a Genevan promenade, lamenting her loss.
-:-
Tracey hated the way she was feeling right now, her friend was heartbroken and the dominant emotion running through her head was satisfaction. For her there would never be another man. She couldn't imagine loving someone other than Harry. Susan had tried, and she'd been burned, it felt like karma to Tracey who had quietly disapproved of Susan's actions.
It was strangely vindicating to know that Neville had been unable to handle Susan's complex feelings, that he was a lesser male. Which was weird and discomforting, never before had Tracey thought she was a spiteful person but the proof was in the pudding as they say.
She masked her discomfort by keeping Susan close and maintaining a constant stream of supportive chatter through her fuge of conflicting emotions.
It would be a long night as she tried to sift through these feelings. Hopefully the movie would help.
-:-
They collected the weapons drop without a fuss in the morning and returned to their rooms in the hotel to organize their haul. Meanwhile Fleur and Hermione had gone to the nearest auto dealer to purchase themselves an inconspicuous hatchback.
As Harry spread the four cases out on his and Hermione's bed in their room he did a mental catalogue of the implements stashed therein: Two service rifles, one sniper rifle, one minimi, and a handgun for Fleur if they should get the chance to teach her how to use it. Two magically expanded magazines of ammunition per weapon. It was enough for their mission, but only just. The minimi probably wouldn't be used except in dire circumstances, neither would the Sniper rifle. Realistically speaking only the specially crafted sidearms they brought with them had any strong chance of usage.
The weapons were in perfect condition and only required minimal assembly, the muggle repelling and notice me not wards sewn into the lining were just enough to have the various security measures the muggles could concoct ignore the priceless enchanted weaponry. Now that the unit had their weapons, and hopefully transport, they could get on the road.
Susan and Tracey quickly reclaimed their weapons and assembled them without delay. Each girl was near anxiously checking their respective rifle for any kind of imperfection from the freight. Fortunately the oil that Fred and George had developed for the regiment maintained the metal of the weapons, automatically sealing nicks and scratches, burrs and sprags. And the weapons were too well secured for anything harsh to have happened to them.
Harry's own weapon, a fairly standard service rifle, honestly hadn't seen much use. Aside from training he had fired only a single magazine from the rifle. He preferred to wield his wand in combat, feeling far more comfortable firing spells than bullets. He had an ocean of power floating between Hermione and himself, it was hard not to give in and draw upon that power at any given moment, it was potent, addictive and seductive. Very little chance to control it would he have had without his soulmate.
If he didn't have Hermione, and this power was his alone, he would easily be seduced by the intoxicating, visceral energy of it. He felt almighty when it was flowing through him. If Voldemort had even a fraction of this kind of power as a teenager Harry could understand how quickly he fell foul of the dark arts. This kind of power was usually only wielded by those of a dark persuasion, or partners in magic who could compliment one another and remain in the light.
Shaking off the introspective mein Harry turned back to the task at hand. He hoped Hermione and Fleur had the same level of success with their goal.
-:-
Switzerland was a strange country linguistically. In the north French and German were both spoken fairly interchangeably, but in the south italian was also thrown into the mix, creating a strange verbal hodgepodge that could be a challenge to wade through. Fortunately however for Hermione, the vast majority of the Swiss also spoke English.
"Are you kidding me? Six thousand? For this hunk of crap? I can barely tolerate FIVE!"
The surprisingly suave Swiss salesman shook his head and wagged his finger in a sort of 'naughty naughty' motion that made Hermione's hackles rise.
"Little miss, you look like you can afford a lot more than six for this one, I'm coming down from seven already you're not taking me any further."
She could pay six, hell she could pay ten if she had to, but Hermione was inherently competitive and bartering just came naturally to her.
"Look, five and a half, and you fill the tank. Or I'm walking away right now."
She knew this car was only worth four, three after purchase. The markup on this lot was insane but it was out of the way and, annoyingly, the cheapest for miles around. The size didn't matter, they'd be a tight fit anyway and Harry, being the largest of all of them, would be driving. She would ride shotgun and the three girls would go in the back. So the little Peugeot 405 was just enough for them.
They'd found a sweet spot with this salesman, he was still making a profit on the car, not as much as he'd like for sure, but a profit nonetheless. What she hadn't counted on was Fleur. Hermione still hadn't gotten around to teaching Fleur about her Veela heritage, something to be done on the road, but all of a sudden she regretted that selective reticence.
"Sir, please understand that I am rather fed up with you, my friend is offering more than enough for this… car. And you are being quite piggish about it."
The words would have been a dealbreaker on their own, the price would have ratcheted way up and they'd have had to pay more for offense alone. But it was the subtle layer of magic that her voice held that did the real damage. Abruptly the suave and confident salesman was a remorseful mess, nearly on his knees he was on the verge of grovelling when Hermione clamped her hand down hard on Fleur's upper arm.
"Sir"
The single word was spoken sharply and with no small amount of impatience, the spell was abruptly broken and he looked up, now wary and confused.
"Five thousand? Cash?"
He nodded, understanding that something had happened then, but was unsure how to address it. Perhaps he just wanted to get the transaction behind him and was willing to ignore the gift horse's mouth.
She drove them away from the lot a few minutes later with a lighter wallet, but a heavier heart. Fleur was subdued and looked a little scared at what she had done.
"Hermione?"
It stuck the brunette abruptly that Fleur's accent was gone, she spoke English flawlessly like she had been all her life. That wasn't the concern here though, the concern was Hermione's negligence.
"Fleur I'm so sorry."
"Hermione?"
Fleur's voice was laced with worry now, a touch of fear even. Hermione soldiered ahead, hoping to push through this as painlessly as possible.
"When you came back… as you are. We weren't sure if your heritage would rear it's head or not."
She glanced sideways to see a look of horror on the young woman's face, this wasn't going to get any easier.
"Before you… Before you died you were, are, a veela. Veela are magical creatures, technically speaking, that have powers of persuasion over men specifically. They… you, can infuse your voice with your innate magic to bend men with weak minds to your will. You'll be happy to know that Harry is utterly immune to that and any other kind of persuasive magic."
She took a breath, utterly unprepared as she was to explain this Hermione was beginning to digress a bit and she wanted to remain on track.
"You did that just now, instinctively, with that poor man. He really had no hope of resisting and you made him putty with your power."
The next bit was a little harder to explain.
"But… you shouldn't wield that power just because you can, firstly it's cruel, he had no comprehension of what you were doing, or how to resist it. Secondly he's a businessman, he needs to make some kind of a profit on those cars to make a living, if you'd continued talking to him like that he'd have given it to us, and that's not the road to him being able to feed himself.
You might wonder why I even care that he has something to eat, that his business continues despite that absurd markup. I care because it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing not to cheat him out of his profits, especially when we're not poor at all. If we don't consider the lives of other people we might as well just join Krum and get it over with."
The confusion was evident in her voice as Fleur asked;
"But you were arguing with him, demanding a lower price. You wanted it for four thousand, not five."
Hermione fought the urge to growl in frustration, explaining bartering to Fleur was not at the top of her to-do list. It was so strange; on the one hand Fleur knew how to be a human, she walked, talked fed herself, maintained her hygiene unprompted. But in some key aspects of understanding she was woefully lacking. Were these the things that made up a personality? Or was some other magic at work here? Hermione had no answers.
"I was bartering with him, working him down from his markup down to a price we could both agree on. I might have been slurring his product, but he and I both knew that there was a price I wanted, and a price he wanted, and the only way for both of us to get even half of what we wanted was to meet halfway, to compromise. It's more of an art than a discussion honestly, some people who are very skill can argue someone up or down from what they considered a hard limit…"
She trailed off at the eager but mostly glazed look on Fleur's face. She wanted to learn, to understand, but the girl with the displaced identity just didn't have enough context to make sense of what she was saying. It would be a long road towards any kind of definite resolution here. Why on Earth Harry had decided to bring her along Hermione would never know, and she spent most of her time inside his head.
"Sorry, we've digressed a bit… Veela. You have these powers of persuasion, but at the same time you can be… are… were, bound to someone… to Harry. Ordinarily a Veela can voluntarily bind herself to her mate, it creates a powerful and instinctual bond that promotes trust and fellowship between the two parties, it can even allow thoughts and emotions to pass between the bonded pair, similar to how Harry and I are bound. It helps Veela keep their mates over the course of their lives. But Krum… Valmortis, perverted that bond, he forced you to bond with Harry by means of a spell. We've protected you from that now but at the time it caused both you and Harry a great deal of pain."
Now Fleur looked deeply uncomfortable, there was a furtiveness about the expression that Hermione didn't fully understand.
"There's something else to consider. The ritual I cast on you so frequently only broke the shackles of Krum's control, and Riddle's soul. But it did not return you from the dead. You are still a nosferatu. You could exist, as you are now, for the rest of your life. But the desire to claim the power of others will be strong, especially if you go into combat again, there are going to be a lot of broken souls floating about on battlefields that you have to resist the urge to claim."
She grimaced, aware that she was literally asking the girl to deny her nature.
"That way leads darkness, and none of us want that for you. That kind of power is addictive and toxic, you can't be you, with that kind of violence within you."
God help her it was going to a long drive back to the hotel.
-:-
Drama aside they quickly got everything packed into the boot of their new sedan and within the hour they were on the road to Liechtenstein. Hermione was sitting shotgun with a map-book spread across her lap as she fed directions to Harry who was hammering down the Swiss motorways with a natural calm that she imagined he must have on his broom. Driving was a little more complex than flying but from what she understood Harry found the same simple joy and freedom in both acts.
She'd seen plenty of people drive over the years. Her mother and father both had very different styles; Her mum tended to drive very carefully and with exacting precision. It was always a mechanical process, her father on the other hand was quite an aggressive driver, taking gaps in traffic that would make her gasp with fright or push the boundaries with acceleration and speed limits. Harry's driving was like his flying, smooth and shamelessly adept. He made flitting between the multiple lanes of traffic look like an art form. Hermione privately thought that he could be a professional race car driver if he wanted to. Though she suspected he'd quickly become bored with anything other than off road.
Her thoughts flashed unbidden back to that morning however, when he had needed her again to aide him through the paralysis that habitually struck in mornings, especially after he travelled. He paid a great deal for the grace he displayed in life; to this day he still had horrors locked away in his mind that she wanted to help him with but he refused to let her see. Even to her his barriers were still so fortified that she could, to this day, barely see his emotions without their link.
That thought made her frown, even before they had this link, when she had to use her insight and intuition to divine Harry's mood, she hadn't ever been precise about it. They both liked to joke that she could read him like a book, but it had never been that simple, it was always more of a guess and a hope, never a definite understanding.
Her train of thought was abruptly derailed when, out of the blue, Susan spoke;
"Harry has this thing got a radio? We could have some music at least."
Hermione reached for the radio's controls and started fiddling with the dials.
"What do you like Susan?"
"Get us some rock'n'roll"
And just like that they were teenagers again, enjoying a trip across a foreign country together. For a while at least, Hermione could leave dark thoughts behind.
-:-
Liechtenstein was a minute principality couched between Austria and Switzerland. Magically speaking the country was owned by Austria but the Mundane half of the government liked it's independence. Strictly speaking though the Liechtenstein magical government was an independent entity and regularly flaunted any kind of control Austria tried to place on it. Internationally speaking that made it a political dead spot where anyone could get away with basically anything.
The ICW had tried repeatedly to enforce laws on the tiny country but because of its 'ownership' by Austria all the laws had to be placed there, and then extended to Liechtenstein. As one can imagine this only made Austria angry and Liechtenstein cared not one whit. Why didn't Austria crack down on the lawlessness that went on in the tiny country? Because many of the politicians who might action such crackdown were neck deep in the backhand dealings.
This all combined to create an excellent location for an ambush, well away from any kind of international attention the Knights Walpurgis would have free reign to attack and kill the five travellers. The opposite of course was completely true, they were anything but defenseless, and had every chance to repel any kind of attack thrown at them. Depending on size of course.
That did nothing to abate the general level of tension that was flooding the teens and Fleur as they drove through the minute country. Fortunately that took less than an hour and they were free with no troubles. Either the Knights were leaving them alone or had no knowledge of the op. The car's occupants were hoping for the latter.
-:-
Austria was a beautiful country and Harry almost regretted that they couldn't stay longer. There was a certain old world charm that made Harry want to stick around and explore. But as it was they were on a timer so they checked into a motel in northern Vienna at around eleven at night. It had been a long day of driving and no one was feeling particularly up to talking so they all turned in for the night. But even with Hermione's warm body curled up in the circle of his arms he couldn't find sleep, something inside him was restless.
He considered chugging a sleeping draught; he needed to be alert tomorrow to drive. But ultimately dismissed the idea, he didn't need to drug himself, he needed to get something off his chest. Gently shaking Hermione in his arms he coaxed her awake.
"Sweetheart, wake up love, I need to talk."
He genuinely envied Hermione's ability to sleep basically anywhere, when she was tired she would sleep. He truly struggled with that art, and was a light sleeper in general. But she had mastered it. When at last she rose from the depths of her dreams and game him a vaguely alert smile he started on his thoughts.
"This has been entirely too easy. We know the knights are chasing us, watching us, we know the German and French magical task forces are on our tails. Why have we gotten this far unmolested?"
She shook the sleep from her mind with a flick of her bushy head, waking up fully to his question so she could answer him properly.
"Maybe they're hoping we'll hang ourselves on this goose chase. One the one hand contact with the Witch Hunters is a breach of the statute of secrecy. One the other hand contact with them is usually followed by incarceration in their dungeons, followed by death. They may simply be avoiding getting involved unless they have to. The other possibility is that they have no idea where we are. We entered Switzerland by Muggle means, we travelled by car, we've used no magic. There's nothing that we've done that would have alerted them to our location. We might be in the clear."
Harry hemmed and hawed for a moment, her thoughts were logical, as always, but something was missing. The feeling in the pit of his gut that had served him so well in the past was flaring up now like a summer thunderstorm. Eventually he tried to put voice to his feeling.
"There's something going on here, I don't know what it is but I'm going to remain alert. Maybe that's all I can do."
Hermione hummed in agreement against his chest and, eventually, they both drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow they would cross the border into the Czech republic.
-:-
There were four major border crossings between the Czech republic and Poland, but from what information agents in Switzerland had passed to the Witch Hunters Victor and Lucrezia knew that their marks would be entering the country at one specific point. So the two mercenaries had staked out a hide atop a hill overlooking the crossing and had a pair of observation scopes set up on tripods, pre-aimed at the site.
Whenever any kind of car travelled that road they would carefully inspect it from afar to check its identity before returning to what was rapidly becoming a sullen silence. They had been camped for a day already and Victor's inner worries were rapidly getting the better of him; These children used firearms, guns. Victor and Lucrezia were used to fighting wizards and witches who had wands and, occasionally, melee weapons. There was a very real possibility that Lucrezia could be hurt in the coming confrontation and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.
They sat in silence for maybe another half hour before the slight young woman at his spoke with her characteristic bluntness.
"Are you worried?"
He grimaced slightly, hiding the action behind a hand as he feigned scratching his nose.
"Yes, I'm extremely worried."
He paused a moment, organising his thoughts before speaking again with that same slow measured tone, now tinged with a hint of fear.
"They're spoiling for a fight and with one false word you could end up riddled with those ridiculous high caliber rounds they use, or worse. I…"
He huffed, unsure of how to finish his mini rant.
"You've always been away from the fight, safe, I can't remember the last time you were actually in any real danger. It terrifies me to be honest."
He felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as if Lucrezia was watching him. But when he turned to look at his partner her eye was fixed resolutely into the scope. She did however shrug her shoulders, her tone matter of fact.
"Well, at least if that happens, chances are that both of us will die."
Now someone who didn't know her might think she was being passive aggressive or even outright superior about the whole thing. But he understood the ungainly message; She knew that living without her would be hell for him and on the off chance that she would be killed, he would probably have already lain down his own life trying to protect her, at that point there would be nothing either of them could do. It would be inevitable.
So he understood, that wasn't to say it was very comforting. He frowned, staring down his own scope, and spoke with a hint of annoyance.
"Who thought it was a good idea to give these kids guns in the first place?"
-:-
Training Fleur as they travelled was both easier and harder than anyone expected. On the one hand firearms training would have to wait, but she was still very intelligent and remembered all of the spells and forms she had learned… before.
As a result she was something of an auxilliary, very potent magically but she couldn't fight as the Regiment normally did with firearms. That was largely irrelevant on this mission as all five travellers agreed the combat, if any, would likely be in close quarters. But it would need to be remedied once back on British soil.
The hardest part, for Harry, was having her nearby. Sometimes he would lock eyes with her by accident and be struck with the full force of the betrayal she had inflicted upon him long ago. But the emotion was dull, blurred by time; this wasn't the same Fleur who betrayed him, but the wounds, however faded, still existed. Like the scars on his back the memory of the hurt she had inflicted was still very real and tore at him on a regular and brutal basis.
He thought back to that year. How, amidst the pain and trial, he had been happy. He and Hermione had found one another, had explored their relationship and grown together. He had grown as a wizard, and as a man. Lastly, he'd formed a friendship with Fleur, one so strong it had nearly threatened his relationship with Hermione. And then she had…
Sometimes just the thought of it threatened to break him. Hermione's presence in his mind, her soothing weight of thought, cleansed the pain from him and let him think clearly again. Glancing across to the front passenger seat he shot her a warm smile, she was always there when he needed her.
The Triwizard Tournament, farce though it was, had brought him closer to Hermione, and Fleur, but it had also taught him a great deal about his foe. Where Voldemort wielded fear like he wielded a wand and used his name like a weapon. Valmortis far preferred to work from a position of secrecy and deceit. In the first task he used a bomb to try and kill him outright, an action that would have thrown their world into a tailspin.
In the second task Valmortis staged Sprites of all things in the black lake. Ostensibly they were there to kill every single one of the hostages and champions but they had only managed to slaughter Cedric and his hostage before he, Harry, had wiped them out. Placing them there had necessitated the butchery of the mermish village, though honestly Harry had since learned that the mermish were something of a brutal race as it was. They probably gave as good as they got.
The third task… the third task he had turned one of his best friends against him. Had broken his mind, and very nearly broken his relationship with Hermione. Had returned the most powerful warlock on the face of the earth to life.
And then, scarce twelvemonth later. Valmortis had struck that warlock down.
What was his game?
Harry knew exactly what his game was. Britain had suffered under the shadow of Voldemort for decades. And, abruptly, that shadow had loomed over the isles, over a hundred muggles had died, Hogwarts had been attacked… but that was it. The one attack launched on the ministry had failed, thwarted largely because Valmortis and the Knights had struck down Voldemort themselves.
A pensive memory from their perspective could show them infiltrating the battle, positioning themselves around Voldemort, then slaughtering him, ending the battle, destroying the horror that had haunted Magical Britain.
Valmortis had put himself in the position of a benevolent liberator. Strategically speaking the next step would be for the Knights to come out of hiding just as the Veela or Germans attacked and repel those armies. The Knights would become a protecting force, until daemons started crawling out of the walls and floors to butcher the populace.
It was a disgustingly efficient plan, one made even more virulent by the way of making the one defensive organisation that could counter it, the regiment, utterly ineffectual. The sudden cessation of activity after Voldemort's demise had given the public a false sense of safety, of peace. Few, if any, knew of Valmortis' true identity, or even that he was a being to be feared. They couldn't even go public, because there was no evidence that he was a continued threat, they couldn't even prove that he had been a part of Voldemort's war effort.
In another time where Valmortis was a virulent threat Harry wouldn't have gone on this mission. He would've had Sirius set up a strike unit from the Order instead. But activity was so scarce in Britain that even he felt like he could be away on this mission without threatening the life of his friends back home by his absence.
The roads in Eastern Europe were genuinely terrible and he'd been battling with them for the last hundred kilometers or so. But the bump in the road felt wrong the moment the front wheel mounted it. Without even a second thought he let his magic loose and it formed a thick barrier around himself and the other occupants of the car as an anti-tank mine exploded beneath the car.
All of a sudden the world pitched and, while they were protected from the blast and shrapnel, the momentum of the car flipping over nose to tail was enough to pitch both him and Hermione through the windshield.
There was a brief moment as they hung in midair above the car where they had a bird's eye view of the carnage unfolding beneath, before they plummeted back to the ground. Susan practically exploded out of the left side of the car, the door skidding away across the ground, before it had even stopped rotating backwards through the air. Tracey executed a rather more elegant dive through the shattered window and rolled to a halt with her pistol in one hand and her wand in the other.
Fleur, who hadn't had the kind of training that the girls had, wasn't ready for the sudden evacuation and ended up trapped in the wreckage of the car as it slammed onto it's roof and began to slide down the embankment to the side of the road. None of the teens had time to go after her though, because the moment they all hit the ground a hail of bullets started to rain down around them, accompanied moments later by the sound of automatic weapons fire.
There was zero cover on the left side of the road which abutted onto farmland before merging with a wooded copse where Harry assumed their attackers were hidden. The right side of the road, where the car was currently drifting downhill, was a muddy embankment that ended in an irrigation ditch before transitioning to more grassy farmland.
Harry had landed awkwardly on his ankle before rolling onto his side. The angle he had been involuntarily launched from the car had made it impossible for him to right his landing, even with magic. As a result he was now swearing colourfully at his (he thought broken) ankle as it wrenched from side to side during his uncontrolled slide down the muddy slope. Hermione was not far behind him having landed on her side before rolling down the hill due to sheer momentum. Susan was better off having landed on the flat side of the road and was covering their 'retreat'.
Tracey was in an altogether worse situation. She'd dived out of the car's window while it was parallel to the ground, and so was now crouched on the open road. She'd managed to throw herself flat to the ground but was pinned down to either side by bullets sparking off the poorly maintained tarseal.
Harry grunted in visceral agony as he slammed into the side of the car, which was now wedged into the irrigation ditch. His ankle twisted violently and he nearly blacked out from the pain. Panting he twisted in place and just managed to grab Hermione's wrist as she tumbled onto the car, preventing her from rolling straight into the water. He could feel through their bond that she'd broken a rib or two in the fall and her whole head was roaring with pain.
Why the fuck were they being shot at anyway?
-:-
Victor was normally a very calm man, or at least he was on the surface. He'd perfected that 'there is literally not a fucking thing that can rattle me' mask that some mercenaries have. He still had that mask now, but internally he was panicking.
One of the Witch Hunter's advance scout units in Austria had sighted a pitched battle between the Potter's contingent and an unknown assailant. Though judging on the territory Victor could guess who the attackers were. They were literally hundreds of kilometers away and had no way of aiding the teens. Well, there was one way.
Immediately Lucrezia spoke from his right, even as he came to this conclusion
"They can handle themselves."
He turned a gimlet eye on her
"Do the thing."
She turned a frosty gaze back at him.
"This is neither the time nor the place."
This time his look was one of exasperation
"Not that thing, the other thing."
Her frosty gaze didn't abate, and she repeated herself.
"They can take care of themselves."
His stare didn't abate.
"On the off chance that something goes hideously wrong, we need to be there."
She rolled her eyes, grabbed his arm, and replied with a huff.
"Ugh, fine. Let's go then."
And with that the both of them vanished from the hillside.
-:-
Susan was getting extremely annoyed.
"Harry, for the love of Merlin we need to fight back."
The answering growl was equal parts pain and frustration.
"If you poke your head over that hill it's going to get blown off, they've got range advantage on us and they clearly don't give a fuck about wasting ammo or the amount of noise being thrown around. That means they have either government sanction, or are very, very well organised crime."
She huffed angrily and eyeballed Hermione who was still working frantically on Harry's ankle with the first aid kit from the boot of the car.
"Tell your husband he's being an idiot."
The brunette didn't even look at her as she replied.
"I'm not quite Mrs Potter yet Susan, and he's not being an idiot, despite his pain, you're being stubborn."
Susan actually cussed then, she didn't often, but this situation deserved it. Fleur looked equally frustrated. There was literally nothing she could do at that range. Tracey however, looked speculative.
"How far you reckon they're watching?"
Susan looked up and realized immediately what her partner meant. The embankment extended for a good two, three hundred metres to either side. The two of them could crawl that distance and take shots from the angle where they wouldn't be watching. She glanced at Harry to see him looking at her. He nodded once sharply.
"Go"
The embankment wasn't high, maybe two meters at most, but it was extremely steep, making it almost impossible to walk comfortably along the face. Susan wasn't exactly enamoured of irrigation trenches, but it was their only choice right now.
They grabbed their weapons from the boot of the wrecked car and, after testing the depth quickly, slid into the freezing water. Susan shivered as it soaked her up to her knees before pressing forwards, sloughing through the mire with the ease of someone with a high level of fitness.
Tracey was right behind her and they made short work of the hundred meter walk they had quickly agreed upon and were soon crawling up the slope. Harry, now recovered apparently, had crawled to the lip of the embankment where he and the other two girls were hiding and fired a couple of shots from his rifle into the air. He was very good at being a distraction.
Susan used her boot to carve a wedge in the muddy slope which she anchored herself on and wrapped her arm around Tracey's waist, making sure she wouldn't slide backwards with each shot as she carefully inched over the lip of the hill. The metallic click of the bolt working alerted Susan to imminent fire. Her partner's soft voice reached her ears.
"Three seconds, two seconds, three seconds."
Susan held up three fingers for Harry to see and counted down in an exaggerated fashion to account for the distance between them, when she reached zero both he and Tracey fired, his gunfire masking the sound of hers to conceal her position.
Two seconds later they fired again, then three seconds after that.
This carried on for a couple more repetitions until, finally, the field was quiet. Susan ventured a quiet question.
"Any left?"
Tracey slid down to perch on the rough ledge beside her and Susan noted the ashen cast of her face.
"None"
-:-
"Christ on a fucking bike."
Lucrezia raised an eyebrow at her partner's cursing. It wasn't rare he exclaimed in any fashion, let alone so coarsely. She couldn't blame him though, there were three machine gun nests here, and all of them were filled with corpses. Neat golf ball sized holes in the front, big ragged exit wounds on the back. Now she understood his earlier concern, now she understood his stress. These were big bullets. Even if one of these only hit her in the shoulder she'd be dead in seconds.
That a child of sixteen was doing this was enough to make her stomach heave, these were just kids. This… girl, had killed twelve people, cleanly. None of these were wing shots, either chest or head shots. What in the nine hells was going on in Britain that children were turned into… her?
"I told you they could take care of themselves."
-:-
Harry fucking hated ankle injuries. He'd had a few of them over the years and the universally sucked. Even magic couldn't fix them properly, not quickly anyway, there were just too many tiny bones in the foot that all got screwed with when a serious ankle injury occurred.
So he hobbled, and didn't hobbling suck too. Susan and Fleur were both supporting him as they moved along the side of the road. They couldn't risk apparating, they'd managed to completely avoid using magic even in that skirmish. If they even so much as cast a lighting charm they'd have Austrian magical police bearing down on them before they could finish the incantation.
So they had to hobble. Hermione was being supported by Tracey who was helping the brunette keep weight off her injured side. Harry couldn't help but bitch a little at their situation, but only in his mind, where only Hermione could hear him. Out loud he said;
"We need to contact the order member in Vienna. Right now we need help, magical help."
"Well I'm not magical, but I can help."
The voice made Harry's head whip up so fast he almost injured himself again. Standing in front of him was a ridiculously tall early twenties man wearing very, very thick kevlar. The kind of kevlar that you see riot police wearing. Worse yet he was cradling a vicious looking shotgun.
His wand came up on instinct but the shotgun was quicker, it was aimed mid chest before he could level his wand. The giant was fast, very fast.
"Please don't do that, my employer would be rather frustrated if I had to wound you before escorting you to your destination."
Hermione had a flash of insight that made him tentatively lower his wand
"They work for the witch hunters."
Harry eyed the giant, wondering why Hermione referred to him as a 'they' before he noticed the slight female behind him toting an impressively long sniper rifle. He decided to go for broke, knowing that, fast as this giant was, his magic was faster.
"You two work in Poland?"
It was as direct as he felt he could be. Acknowledging that they worked for the witch hunters in the open was tantamount to breaking the statute of secrecy. The giant seemed to understand because he gave a careful nod.
"I'm Victor, this is Lucrezia. We've been waiting for you two."
The man, Victor, looked down at the tiny woman by his side and asked her a question at a volume Harry couldn't hear. She huffed in annoyance and stuck her arm out.
"Grab my hand please, we need to get out of here."
Harry turned to the other and gauged their reactions; Hermione looked apprehensive, but he knew she agreed with his tentative idea to do as these two said for the time being. Susan looked skittish, as if being out in the open like this made her nervous. Harry understood, it made him nervous too.
Tracey was eyeing the sniper rifle like she wanted one which almost made Harry laugh, and when she met Harry's eyes she nodded briefly. Fleur looked the most nervous, but there was trust in her expression, for him not them. Huffing a little at the situation he slipped his pistol into it's holster but retained his wand and nodded at the girl.
"Let's go then."
He and the other girls put their hands on her arm somewhere, VIctor grabbed her other hand, and they all vanished.
-:-
They abruptly reappeared in a spartan living room, half a dozen chairs surrounded a low, chipped, table. The transition was seamless; one moment they were standing on a shoddy road in the middle of the Austrian countryside, the next they were standing in what looked like a cheap motel. Not even his apparition was that smooth. Who the fuck were these people?
Before he could ask any questions Victor spoke up in his weird accent.
"Welcome to Poland."
-:-
An3: Waaaaat? A new chapter? Heresy!
An4: So… At the time of writing this (27/03/2016) I realized that I'd made an enormous continuity error. ENORMOUS. LITERALLY ENORMOUS. In chapter 7 of Web Of Lies I claimed that the Bones Abbot MacMillan Davis and Greengrass families had been attacked. Leaving no survivors (Obviously the children were at school and safe. Except… Bones is minister. Daphne's family apparently disappeared towards the end of Web of Lies and Tracey's family are being pricks… but still alive. Now you understand my consternation. As a result I'm going to back edit the story and change that paragraph in Web of Lies. I'm not sure to what yet, but it'll happen. Gawd, can't believe I missed that.
Furthermore as of (30/04/2016) I want to talk some real talk for a moment about the future of this story, and some of it's past. I've made plenty of mistakes in the writing of this story, and that comes across in the reviews of people too uninterested or too impatient to read the author's notes where I edit out a lot of my bumbles, or give excuses for them. Normally I can handle salt, but the sheer quantity of people bitching about the same shit really brings my mood down and severely impacts my motivation to continue writing.
Ideally I'd do a re-write, chapter by chapter, and fix the major errors that cause people to bitch all the time, but the same bullshit that saps my will to write progressively also restricts my impetus to write retroactively. The other option would be a dedicated beta who would be willing to trawl through the previous forty chapters of this behemoth and spot fix the bits that have been left behind, but why lump that on someone when I'm not willing to do it myself?
Basically unless there's someone really eager to do so, it's going to remain in the state that it is, and this will probably be the last chapter for a while. I had/have big plans for this story, and at least another two installments (200K+ word installments) planned, but with Isaiah Strain getting such good feedback, and it starting in a place that I know I can maintain, I find myself unwilling to commit more effort to what is rapidly becoming a sinking ship, especially with nearly a dozen reviews in the last few hours, bitching about the continuity errors. And I really hate that, because I was so determined so very recently to finish this and now I feel no motivation to do so at all.
:/ Sorry.
An5: Review Responses:
Anotherboarduser: Glad you liked it, I'm honestly still not sure about the guns thing tbh. W/e it's neck deep in the story at this point and I'm being dragged along for the ride.
The Viking Stranger: I hope you enjoyed the smut when it finally turned up, as for the rest I'm glad you're so invested in this.
Vegasman: All questions you'll have to wait on to find out :D
Agentbrisbane: Thanks for the compliment! I think I replied to this in pm but I honestly can't remember so I'm doing it again here.
Beyondthesea: I find reviews like this hard to respond to when they're basically just a summary of what happened in the chapter, all I can say is thanks for reading!
Danielle596: It might be a little misleading given the fact that I am just using 'demons' as a word for these things. But the truth of the matter is that all of this magic was/is pagan magic that the church decried and destroyed a lot of references to. It's the same magic, it's just called a different thing. Sort of like how Christmas used to be saturnalias before it was taken over by the church.
As for more 'old school' stuff I'm sure Umbridge will bring some of it in, honestly though most of it is ritual based. Wands did a lot to speed up the casting of magic.
Morcheller: Thanks for your review!
Talonwalker: Great to hear! Thanks for reading.
Zzzzzz1002003: Thanks! Glad to hear it.
Friedrich: There's that update you wanted, and thanks for your support. As for your grammar? It's fine for an esol person.
BRUCE: Thanks for your thoughts! This is going to be (at minimum) a four part series. (assuming I actually end up finishing it) that is to say that I have this installment fully planned out, as well as one more.
Septimus714: Great to hear, and thankyou!
StarRose: As you've obviously spotted this is a major problem I'm going to have to go back and fix. Most of the reason why this happened is because it was so long between writing those two chapters that I totally forgot about that detail. BAd excuse for it but /shrug, it's the best I have r/n.
As for your quibbles with my titles? Seriously? You have quibbles with titles? . what's a man to do.
Galndrael: Sorry you've had to wait so long. Read the above author's note if you want to know why this was so late. But thanks for reading regardless.
Okay folks that's it for another chapter. Tune in next time for Chapter Five: Witch Hunters. Wherein Harry and co finally meet the brutal and uncompromising Witch Hunters, and we learn more about what's going on back in Britain.
As always thanks for Reading and other Shenanigans. See you next time!
LGreymark