An: *Insert huffy disclaimer here*
An2: Let's just get to it shall we? I've made you wait long enough. A fair bit of swearing in this chapter and violence, and some gore… You've been warned.
-:-
Chapter Six: Hitmen
They had carte blanche in this city but it still felt like there was a harsh gaze of an underhanded nature observing them as the group of eight dashed out of the airport. Mad eye was doing a credible job of appearing to run whilst actually using subtle magic to propel himself along.
They had left a trio of corpses in their wake. There was no time to conceal the bodies, or dispose of them in haste. The only option was flight. The group couldn't stand and fight in a city unfamiliar, with no intelligence, and potential assailants hiding behind the faces of ordinary men and women.
The teenagers moved like the soldiers they were trained as. Their lean bodies dropping into a flat sprint as they reached open ground. Mad eye kept up, somehow, and Fleur loped along with the same grace that she carried herself with always. Lucrezia and Victor made do, he in his bulky armour and she short of stature and length of leg.
The airport was modern enough, many square kilometers of carparks and carriageways stretched out radially from the terminal. Offering little cover and there were travellers aplenty thronging to and fro. Leaving and arriving from the national airport of Poland. It was into this morass that the eight dashed. Civilians scrambled away from them, already somewhat cowering from the gunshots that had sounded within.
It was chaos, Tracey darted her gaze left and right as she followed close on Susan's heels. The crowd scattered before them and, even as they pressed towards a low wall on the edge of a road, a shot rang out from high above, followed by the clash of metal. She didn't hesitate even for a moment to raise her weapon to shoulder and fire a shot in return, wildly and in the dark. But the damage was already done; Harry sprawled to the gravel, his weapon skated across the ground with a horrendous screech.
Hermione's pained scream of fear and disbelief rolled over her like a wave. She dashed to him and hauled him back against the wall even as they took cover and Lucrezia propped her weapon up and began to stare through the scope. Tracey moved to bring her own rifle to bear but another shot rang out and she swore harshly, ducking behind the concrete. She closed her eyes, desperately trying to control her breathing so as to avoid looking at Harry beside her. She could feel the ever present warmth of his body pressed against her flank.
Tracey fully expected to hear sobs from her friend behind her. But Harry's soulmate was not one to break down at such a time. She instead heard a rallying call.
"Mad eye! Have you located the shooter?"
The returning negative grunt wasn't well received.
"Well find the arse quicker then, we don't have the time to screw around here Mad Eye!"
A soft murmur came from Tracey's left and she glanced at the lithe merc who was still staring down her scope.
"Air control tower, he's moved on. We need to as well."
None of them hesitated; Victor burst through the low concrete wall they were sheltering behind and charged across the carpark, shards of concrete blasted out and a thick cloud of obscuring dust billowed out, shielding them from further fire. Tracey was hot on his heels with a sleeve held tight to her mouth to stave off the cloud of dust. Hermione was right beside her with a somehow conscious and swearing Harry slung in a fireman's carry over her shoulders. Finally Susan and Lucrezia brought up the rear, both women clutching their bulky weapons across their abdomens as they bulled through the cloud.
Another shot rang out and Tracey flinched from the metallic peal that echoed around the carpark as a high caliber bullet skated off of Victor's shoulder guards. The man didn't even pause and as far as Tracey could tell the bullet hadn't even scratched his armour.
Lucrezia paused briefly to raise her weapon but after a half moment of staring through the scope lowered it again and resumed her pell-mell dash across the tarmac. A clipped report shouted in haste explaining her actions.
"Another one, roof of the concourse, he ducked before I could fire. There will be at least two more."
The, apparently ubiquitous, slate grey jeep the two mercs had arrived in squatted in the carpark like a caged animal next to the relatively maudlin commuter cars parked in the lot. The eight of them piled into it; Lucrezia, Harry and Hermione in the Jeep's tray with the other five filling the seats. Tracey piled into the side of the car, Fleur ahead of her and Susan on the other side.
They pealed out of the carpark with Victor performing some somewhat impressive driving, smashing through wooden barriers and shouldering smaller cars aside. Shots pinged around them initially but quickly fell away as they made it out onto the main roads. Harry's still swearing voice could be heard over the engine's roar, the sharp tenor of his anger a clear counterpoint to the more explosive sounds of the Jeep.
"Fucking pricks shooting me in the bloody knee, who the fuck shoots someone in the fucking knee?"
Tracey glared at him over her shoulder.
"If it's not fatal then shut up a bit you great lug. We need to focus."
His reply honestly shocked her a little.
"Fuck you too Tracey with your stupid hair and your stupid eyes, telling me to shut up."
She glanced at Hermione who was looking at her mate with exasperation. The brunette met her gaze and shrugged apologetically.
"Pain killing charms make him a little loopy. Especially when they barely affect him. Right now he feels like he's got the worst itch of all time in his knee while at the same time being completely stoned. Typically I try to avoid using them on him but he'd probably be screaming without them. I've done a quick patch job but we don't have the time for the serious work he needs."
She raised an eyebrow at the girl before turning back to the front, she had no idea how Hermione of all people knew what being stoned would feel like, maybe casual drug use was more common in the muggle world.
Susan, despite the situation, met her gaze across Fleur's back who was seated between them. The redhead's eyes were filled with amusement and a bit of jealousy. She mouthed 'hair' and 'eyes' before rolling her own and facing the side again.
Tracey couldn't help but giggle happily under her breath and suppress a joyous grin. Apparently Harry wasn't completely immune to her charms.
-:-
"Amelia, what the hell is this?"
The minister for magic sighed in exasperation as her lover slapped the paper down on the desk between them. The headlines proudly proclaimed that 'Peace returns, this time for good?'. The article directly beneath that fallacious headline speculated on the lack of hostilities in Britain after the defeat of You Know Who's forces at the battle of the ministry.
"Siri... technically there is peace. We're in something of a cold war at the moment."
Bones manor was a beautiful place, far more open and airy than Number Twelve. They'd both agreed it'd be a happier place for them both to reconnect than the Black family seat. Sirius had regained a lot of the vigor of his youth under the vaulted ceilings of the ancient manor. It had been wonderful to have him close, and safe, again. However it was times like this that she was reminded of the many arguments of their mid-war courtship.
"I know that, you know that, but the papers seem to be ignoring it. Can't you make them print the truth or something?"
She eyed him with no small amount of annoyance.
"If you mistake me for Cornelius again I'll show you to his home and you can warm his bed instead. I'll not use the power of my office to dictate over what should be a free press. They know the facts but they're refusing to print them. "
He growled in frustration and swept a scarred and tattooed hand through his, now clean and straight, hair. She loved it when he did that, it had a certain boyish charm that she couldn't help but adore.
"They're barking, absolutely barking. Wait no that's…"
She cut him off before he continue one of his appalling puns.
"No, don't you dare, not in this house. If you want to make those awful jokes you can go back to Number Twelve and share your brand of humor with that despicable mother of yours."
He pouted at her before firming his mouth into a firm line of disapproval.
"The public is going to be utterly unprepared for what's going to happen."
She flicked her quill she'd been writing with to the blotter, the ink long congealed in the nib, and leaned back in her chair. There was no easy way out of this mire.
"We can only hope they won't have to be. Your godson is accumulating his forces around him, the auror corps is finally up to scratch after nearly nine months of training and we've had word from our allies in the colonies."
The magical world was strange in that respect. The magical enclaves in New Zealand, Australia, India, and even America, were still under British rule. They governed themselves, but were subject to the whim of the Queen more so than their muggle counterparts, and even the Ministry of Magic in Britain had some power over them. While the American muggles had wished emancipation from their British overlords, the magical divide had never been so sharp. The magical world shared one currency, had had a central watchdog government in the ICW for over a millennium and communication had been swift between continents even hundreds of years ago.
Sirius looked rather startled at her last statement.
"I thought they weren't able to help."
Amelia made a so-so gesture with one hand.
"They can't officially. Her Majesty hasn't called for a domestic task force to eliminate the threat so they can't send an army. But the MANZACS have sent two squads on a 'training exchange' and the American Mage Corps has dispatched an Archmage detachment under a similar cover."
He smiled slightly, nothing more than an upturn of the corner of his lips. It wasn't one of his laughing grins, or a sly smirk. It was just a smile, an acknowledgement that all hope wasn't entirely lost.
"Do we have any idea when to expect them."
"Five days from now, Friday."
-:-
Darkness, endless darkness. Since the Dark Lord had falled to treachery all she had known was darkness. His mind, like rusted razor wire, had shredded hers with his legilimency and she barely had enough of herself left to know that she was, in fact, a self. Her memory was broken, shattered, fleeting. Memories of strange, happy times occasionally flitted through her mind. Images of halcyon days now long past in the shadows of the past.
She lived in a cupboard. It was cramped, dingy, dark. But it was relatively comfortable. More comfortable than the times before when the boy had taken her body. That was almost worse than what happened to her mind. He made her enjoy that.
She remembered those moments. It seemed that while the mind couldn't remember pain, it could remember horror, fear, misery. And it remembered it better than happiness. Far better. She clung to those memories, though it was like gripping a white hot poker, because they were her. Not a happy time of her, but definitely her.
If she twisted she could put her eye up to a crack in the boards of the cupboard door. The boy occasionally shoved food around the door to her. It certainly wasn't regular, or very much. But she got far more information by simply watching.
He clutched a strange disc of burnished copper. Muttered to it occasionally, sometimes she would swear she could hear it mutter back. But her mind was like a sieve, leaking information almost faster than she could gather it. For everything she witnessed she forgot a dozen more tiny instances of use.
Like how he sometimes stopped what he was doing abruptly and walked from 'their' chambers and into the main part of the building. Like how sometimes his voice seemed far too chaotic for one person to speak. Like how on occasion, he collapsed to the ground, and didn't rise for days at a time.
Her stomach growled weakly, she hoped he would feed her soon, before he had another fit.
-:-
Draco hated the old Riddle house. It's musty curtains and dark hallways were a prison of his own making. He'd been offered freedom; Valmortis certainly didn't have need for him. But where was he to go? His mother was dead, his father was dead. The Dark Lord had fallen. He needed to be here, where magic was thick and the food was adequate. Better than a cold jacket on a wet alleyway.
He did fear however that he was slowly losing his mind. He was certainly losing time, he'd go wandering down a corridor and arrive abruptly at the end of it without noticing the journey. He'd begin eating, only to find himself waking up from a deep slumber. What escape was there for a broken, amateur terrorist? Where was he to go when the pureblood powers had been thrown down and obliterated under the jackboot of light dictatorship?
There was no where to go. So he'd stay, he'd take orders from his master… what a wonderful nap...
-:-
Potter Manor felt horribly empty without Harry and Hermione around to fill it with their presence. Hermione was often the easiest one to find, cursing often at the inconveniently scaled stairs, door handles, cupboards, chairs and so on. Or curled up in the immense library with a similarly immense tome of knowledge.
Harry was trickier to find, oft he would be in his study, which was warded from entry and required him to deliberately allow entry to those other than himself and Hermione. Should he be in that room it would be nearly impossible to engage him in conversation. If for some reason he wasn't in his study the young Potter patriarch could be found striding from place to place about the gargantuan home.
Emma often wondered what business he dealt with, when she looked in on him in his study those few times when he allowed access to all and sundry, she found him deeply absorbed in contracts and papers of the legal and economic lean. The Potter holdings were, according to Hermione, enormous and required full time management most of the time, though Emma had no specific understanding of what exactly those holdings were.
She wondered if Harry retained an aide to manage the day to day running of his various business, or if there was a more local element of management on a location to location basis. Regardless there were a great many mysteries surrounding him and his family's wealth.
The house was beautiful however. It's frescoed ceilings and magnificent design often led her to simply wandering about the Potter family seat. Little John often accompanied her, swaddled up in a wondrous cloth that Harry had given her which kept her child perfectly warm at any given time. Magic was such a fantastic thing. The elder Granger woman held few of the troubles her daughter had with the scale of the house and furniture. Hermione rushed about much like her father, flitting from project to project before settling down to some serious research. This frequently led to the girl running into, and tripping over, perfectly ordinary objects. It made her appear frightfully clumsy, though Emma knew that her daughter was ordinarily nothing but elegant.
Emma on the other hand was a more reserved soul. She preserved to meander from place to place, taking in the full detail of the beautiful home. As a result she rarely skinned her knuckles on the highly set doorknobs, or tripped on steps deeper than they might ordinarily be.
But she would give anything to have her typically elegant but selectively clumsy daughter nearby. She missed Hermione dearly and knew that she and her beloved were moving from danger to danger. It was hard to be the one left behind while her daughter, essentially, went to war.
As she pushed open the door to the white room, a sitting room for casual conversation that was rarely used in the modern age, she stopped abruptly in her tracks. Before her was Parvati Patil, hunched over and keening with stress or grief, Emma couldn't tell which. Swiftly she swept over to the distraught girl and wrapped her up in a hug. She didn't know the Indian witch very well but both her daughter and Harry trusted her enough to lead the Regiment in their absence so Emma imagined that she would be a reliable sort.
From the little she'd seen of Parvati the girl didn't seem prone to waterworks, and the scene she'd walked in on reinforced that. The girl had been keening but her eyes were strictly dry. Desperately she tried to comfort the girl, shushing her and rubbing a motherly hand over the girl's back, lost as to what to do.
Hermione had never been a crier, or a wailer, or one prone to any kind of grief or distress at all. She snapped at those around her if her nerves frayed, but rarely, if ever, did she outright collapse or break down. As a result Emma had little experience dealing with a distraught teenage girl, despite having a daughter of a similar age.
Eventually Parvati hugged her back and buried her head into Emma's shoulder, nuzzling close against her cashmere sweater. Not for the first time the non-magical woman wondered how the kids were doing without their parents around to guide them.
Clearly not very well.
At last the girl seemed to recover herself and pulled away, clutching at her arms as if ashamed at her outburst of emotion. From what Emma had gleaned of the girl's home culture that mightn't be far from the truth.
"What's the matter Parvati? Are you hurt?"
It was a weak question, but little else was coming to mind and Emma felt that expediency was more important than eloquence at this point.
"I'm being left behind!"
Emma started, she'd been certain that the girl was reconciled with the fact that Harry and Hermione had left her in charge whilst they went to the continent. Perhaps that wasn't the case? The girl still held loosely in her arms sobbed then, a raw harsh sound that tore at Emma's heartstrings.
"Father and Mother are taking her back to India with them as they flee. They've had enough of Britain… and I can't go with them. I can't abandon this, Harry and Hermione need me here. And even though I know they'd both rather I flee whilst I can too. The regiment is a volunteer unit. I have every right to be here."
Emma was shocked, she couldn't even begin to imagine abandoning her daughter in another country to fight a war whilst she fled for safer climes.
"Would you prefer to go with them?"
Parvati moaned in distress and shook her head.
"No, no I know, I know that this is where I need to be, where I want to be. But it hurts, it desperately hurts to just be left behind."
Emma crooned to the girl and pulled her back into a hug, letting her express the tension from her frame as she simply held her and stroked the girl's long black hair.
"Be happy that they're safe. And take heart that you are doing the right thing, you're such a good person and I can't thank you enough for looking after my two."
A soft chuckle sounded against her shoulder and muffled speech filtered up to her a moment later.
"I'm pretty sure they can look after themselves. But you're welcome anyway Mrs Granger."
Suddenly a thought struck the elder woman and she asked somewhat blithely
"Why couldn't I hear you until i opened the door?"
"Magic"
She sighed, right, magic.
-:-
It would have been too easy for them to simply escape. They were wending their way out of the city when a sharp crack echoed through the vehicle and without warning the jeep span out of control, drifting and fishtailing wildly. It spun fully around and came to a grinding halt facing the way they had come. Harry grunted in pain as his whole body was jostled in the tray of the vehicle. Hermione was almost thrown clear of the tray but managed to hang on grimly. Only Harry's prone stance saved him from a potentially fatal roll across the pavement. Lucrezia on the other hand, leapt clear of the vehicle and dashed for the alley nearest their crash as soon as they came to a halt, and not a moment too soon.
Barely had she left the vehicle when, almost out of the blue, another four by four vehicle slammed into the side of the jeep. Harry rolled involuntarily from the shock and Hermione was finally loosed from her hold and tossed bodily from the vehicle. His head smacked into the side of the tray and his ears rang from the impact. A bear-like roar came from the driver's seat and the staccato barks of Victor's shotgun ripped out, the sound of tearing metal, and shattering glass came from what Harry could only assume was the vehicle that had rammed them.
He wasn't given any time to recover however as he was hauled from the tray of the Jeep, his body twisting violently as a man hauled him up, and then over the lip of the tray. The hands that had grabbed the back of his jacket were not huge, but clearly great strength was behind them. He expected to be thrown but was instead wrapped in a crushing hug from behind; not one of affection, but grim fatality. He felt his ribs begin to creak ominously and lashed out with his good leg, crashing the heel of his boot into the man's knee. Abruptly the man crumpled with a yell and Harry fell with him, landing awkwardly on his good leg and twisting away from his injured one.
The world spun around him as he fell but by throwing out his hands he managed to arrest his fall in time to see his assailant retch onto the road from the pain of having his knee reversed from Harry's savage kick. Another man, wearing a woollen balaclava, strode up and aimed a vicious kick at his abdomen. Left with little choice Harry pushed off from the pavement, throwing himself into a roll to avoid the military style boot heading for his kidneys. With his leg injured as he was he had no way of rising to his feet to meet the man in open combat, so decided to level the playing field.
A quick motion with one hand wielded his burgeoning wandless magic to yank the man's legs out from under him. He capitalized quickly, grabbing the man by the throat with both hands and leveraging himself atop the hitman. He didn't have time to draw a weapon or he would have, this method of attack was hardly ideal but he had little choice against a stronger, taller, uninjured opponent.
The man threw a sharp knee into Harry's own and he saw stars as his shattered knee cap flared with pain, grimly he held on though, ignoring the man's hands scrabbling at his wrists. Deciding he'd wasted too much time already Harry reared backwards, dragging the man with him and then shoved forwards, using gravity and his body weight to slam the back of the man's head against the ground. A sharp crunch of bone was heard and he went immediately still.
But Harry wasn't out of the woods yet, a kick impacted into his side and he realized belatedly that there were far more than just a handful of assailants. In the mere ten seconds that had passed since he had been hauled from the Jeep two more men had entered the fray. He twisted and threw himself away from them, rolling painfully on the road even as a staccato burst of shots rang out and one of the men fell to the floor, his head a bullet riddled mess.
The other man was not to be deterred however and he reached Harry and without giving the boy a chance to fight back, hauled him up with startling strength and tossed him a clear five meters further into the road. Being thrown like that was one of the most disorienting things Harry had ever experienced and as his instincts kicked in, his body trying to use the muscle memory built up over hours of training, he slammed both feet against the ground in an attempt to move into a controlled roll.
Of course that was just about the dumbest thing he could have done as sharp agony lanced up his flank as his ankle and knee both protested violently at the rough treatment. He pitched to the ground, red lines swimming across his vision as he desperately sought to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand.
He only got a brief thought out that Lucrezia, for it could only have been her weapon that produced the rapid fire burst of bullets from before, got to this bear of a man who was advancing on him rapidly but it was not to be. The man, easily over six foot tall, reached down and plucked him from the ground like an athlete would a tennis ball. Harry found himself held him out in front of the man, his feet a clear foot off the ground with the man's hands wrapped around his throat. Already groggy and disoriented from his encounter with the ground Harry quickly found his vision greying over, his hands scrabbling at the man's wrists, as the other assailant's had at Harry's not moments before.
With the last of his energy he flicked his legs backwards, and then swung forwards, his shorter stature letting him fold up entirely under his opponent and kick out at the man's head. The hitman let out a surprised, but not overly pained, grunt as Harry's boot smashed into his nose. The shock of it alone forced the man to stumble back and let go of his prize. Once again Harry crashed to the ground, he honestly tried to scream but he didn't have the air to manage it, his leg had folded under him in the fall and he could feel his knee protesting at being stretched so harshly then crushed under his own weight. Immediately he sucked in a harsh breath and the grey at the edges of his vision receded enough for him to focus. Almost on instinct he whipped his pistol out from the holster at his hip and squeezed out a shot from the enormous handgun.
The recoil of the shot forced his arm back, as he'd only had the time to pull and fire, rather than brace the shot with his other arm. His aim was off, but he still hit his target. Where he had been aiming for the man's chest, instead the massive bullet hit him in the thigh. The result was horrifying, the man's entire leg spun away from the sheer force of the shot, muscle bone and skin ripping and snapping in one violent motion.
The man screamed from pain and shock as he tumbled to the ground, blood fountaining everywhere and spraying across the ground from the arteries that Harry had just torn open. Harry, unable to move in his current state, could do little more than watch in horror as the man screamed in gut wrenching pain before whimpering, gasping, and then finally falling silent, his face frozen in a rictus of agony with eyes bloodshot and staring wide open. It was a violently sudden death and Harry wondered how much of it had been the shock of the impact and actual blood loss.
He began to reload the weapon held in his suddenly shaking grip and looked around, searching for his next opponent. He locked eyes with the man he had kicked earlier, the one whose knee was currently inverted and they shared a moment of understanding between them. Hatred mixed with regret and rage passed between them and the man raised a handgun to shoot but another, sharper, shot rang out and the man's head exploded violently and his body immediately slumped to the ground, the handgun clattering away. Looking up he locked eyes with those of his concerned lover, who had somehow kept her rifle with her when she was thrown from the jeep.
Her head was bloody, obviously she'd been injured when she fell, and her extremities were grazed and bleeding. But she was alive, gloriously alive, and judging by the wisps of cordite smoke still drifting from the barrel of her rifle she'd just saved his life. He sent a burst of love through their restricted bond before turning his attention to the rest of the street.
Lucrezia was crouched in the alley, breathing heavily but otherwise without obvious injury, two bodies were slumped next to her. Victor was prowling around the perimeter, his enormous armoured frame a sufficient deterrent to the curious civilian population. Moody and Tracey both seemed unconscious in the back of the car being worked on by a frantic Susan. Fleur was on the ground, several bullet wounds in her abdomen were leaking blood, but she mostly appeared winded rather than severely injured. The benefits of serene immortality he supposed.
They were so exposed here, there were eleven dead Hitmen sprawled around including four in the four by four that Victor had annihilated. The front of the car had been smashed in, the windscreen shattered and the seats and dash torn to shreds along with the hood of the car. Victor's combat shotgun seemed to either use extremely high calibre slugs or explosive ones because giant holes had been torn out of the metal and upholstery.
He raised his voice somewhat before speaking, aware that they were still very much at threat, but horrendously exposed.
"Lucrezia, we need to get everyone out of here."
The youthful woman eyed him for a moment before jerkily nodding and rising to her feet, swaying somewhat from the effort. Clearly she wasn't as uninjured as she let on.
"We need everyone conscious, can you wake Moody and the girl?"
Hermione shot her a dirty look that amused Harry to no end, especially because the merc didn't see it.
"Her name's Tracey and yes, we can. Or at least we should be able to, Tracey knows the same first aid spells as the rest of us."
She frowned and looked at the battered jeep before also rising to her feet, wincing at the pain. She shot Harry and apologetic glance but he just sent her a burst of reassurance. He was in pain, but it wasn't life threatening, he could wait. The two in the car might be significantly worse off.
The car itself was a wreck and Harry catalogued it's damage for lack of anything better to do. The most obvious scar was the deep deformation of the metal panels on the right side of the vehicle where the four by four had smashed into it at speed. The two cars were next to one another to the side of the relatively deserted street. The fact that the street was relatively deserted was concerning. This was an arterial route in and out of the city; it should be teeming with traffic. But they were the only ones there in vehicles. Victor had scared off a half dozen civilians and had confiscated the phone of another. They didn't need civilian doctors involved in this. They'd be holed up in hospital for months with the kind of injuries Harry had, let alone Fleur who would simply raise too many questions. To speak nothing of the dozen dead bodies lying on the street and butchered inside the four by four.
The windows were all blown out. The front windscreen had smashed outwards from the compressive force of the four by four hitting the side of the Jeep. the side windows facing the four by four were blown in and those on the other side outwards. The rear windshield was also smashed out but it was a jagged hole rather than a complete shatter. Harry figured Fleur had dived through the rear window to get to the battle quicker. There were bullet holes peppering the sides of the vehicle from where they had taken fire escaping the airport. One of the wheels had been broken off completely and a thick rent had been torn in the metal near the rear bumper, it was charred and blackened as if burned.
Finally there was a bloody smear on the rear of the jeep accompanied by a large dent in the panel work. There was no body nearby so Harry suspected Victor had side swiped someone on the way out of the airport. He couldn't bring himself to care because at that moment his knee decided to make itself known again and he groaned in distress at the shooting pains that ran up and down his flank. Mental note; don't shift, even a little bit.
He was dragged abruptly from his agony by a cool hand on his cheek. He looked up to see Hermione looking down at him with concern and he simply nodded, indicating his readiness to depart the scene. Lucrezia placed a hand on his shoulder and offered the other to open air where it was joined by six others. He glanced around to see Tracey and Moody upright but groggy, clearly they'd taken heavy shocks from the impact and were only barely conscious, which said more about their mental state than it otherwise would because Hermione's reviving spells were exemplary.
He glanced around and noticed Lucrezia looking at him in askance, realizing she was waiting for instruction he grimaced slightly and asked;
"How far can you take us?"
She cocked her head and frowned.
"I'm unsure of the upper limits of my talent, but for the sake of safety in that we do not test the consequences of those limits today, say a hundred kilometers or so."
His grimace turned to a frown, equalling hers in furor.
"Have you a safehouse outside the city we can reach?"
Abruptly both she and Victor looked extremely uncomfortable, Harry looked askance at them but they had eyes only for each other, after a moment Victor nodded and all eight of them simply disappeared.
-:-
Under the ashen skies of London, made so by banks of clouds, strode hundreds unnaturally beautiful women. If the pedestrians walking to and fro in that grimy city could gaze upon them they would have knelt in shock and adoration at the very sight. However these were not ordinary women, as their beauty attested. They wore shrouds over their faces, magical shields powered by rune encrusted circlets that made their faces appear as ordinary as any other.
They swept through the city like an inconspicuous tide, information was gathered, sites were reconned and, eventually, they made their way to the center of the city. Behind a dishevelled building was an overflowing tip that made their noses wrinkle and a painfully conspicuous scarlet phone box. The single, tiny, entry point was… unexpected. Very few witches and wizards travelled abroad, even heads of state rarely travelled anywhere other than embassies and as such the locations and natures of the world's ministries of magic were shrouded in secrecy.
They shared glances at one another, the crowd of them appeared like a swarm of shimmering fishes in the dull light, their hair shining unnaturally. Before shaking their heads in unison, they were not ready to infiltrate the seat of government, not yet. It would not help them find Potter quicker. What they needed was a way to gather intelligence. For now at least they would disperse and infiltrate the wizarding world of Britain, they would wait, and they would learn.
The crowd of Veela dispersed in but an instant, disapparating with a rattle of muted cracks. Where not even a second ago there was a vast number of ethereally beautiful women. Now only was there the stench of rotting fruit, and a rapidly fading haze that accompanied such goddesses through the world. None had seen the Veela enter Britain, and now that they were there, none would know their purpose.
Until they were ready to execute their assassination.
-:-
The eight of them materialized in a warm room panelled in a richly colored wood. There were sparse decorations about, but it was obviously lived in. There was a well worn couch in the center of the room positioned opposite a hearth. The ashes long dead fire sat grimly in behind the grate; Hermione tried not to let them be an omen.
Four doors led from the room, one was ajar and she glimpsed the ceramic tiles of a kitchen, or bathroom, through the crack. Another was wide open and showed a darkened hallway with more doors leading from it. One was clearly a door outside. It was a thick lacquered wood as opposed to the lighter doors made of panelboard that were identifiable as interior portals.
Mad Eye, despite his apparently battered head, immediately left the building and a moment later Hermione felt the thick, heavy magic of a War-mage level ward wash over the building.
Lucrezia moved abruptly away from the group and disappeared through one of the closed doors, quickly shutting it behind her with a snap. Victor brushed a hand across his head and collapsed, armour and all, in a heap on the couch. Clearly exhausted from the tension and exertion of their flight.
Hermione was numb, something about the abrupt transition of the female Heretic's magic always left her stunned, as if her prodigious brain somehow hadn't caught up to their sudden change in location. More likely her subconscious was trying to figure out what appeared to be instantaneous travel outside the realms of apparition or floo.
A harsh grunt broke her out of her reverie as Harry collapsed sideways and slid to the ground, bracing himself accidentally against the wall. His leg was a mess, the ankle he broke the day before was swollen and bloody, while his shattered knee lolled alarmingly to the side, uncontrolled by his body at an awkward angle. He had finally succumbed to unconsciousness, it wasn't hard to see why. Between the pain he must have been feeling from his mangled leg and the thick ropey bruises wrapping around his throat Hermione could sympathise with his exhaustion and battered state.
She didn't have the luxury of sloth however. Despite her burning curiosity about the house around them she sank to her knees and began the excruciating task of straightening Harry's leg and using his magic to coax his shattered kneecap back together. The biggest advantage of their bond in times like this was that Harry was unbelievably powerful, and his soul was eager to help her in any way it could. She barely had to imply what she wanted his magic to do before it began to wriggle the bits of bone scattered through the soft tissue of his calf and thigh back towards his knee.
She sighed as a wave of exhaustion swept over her, it had only been a handful of hours since they woke but already it had been a long day. Moreover she wasn't used to manipulating Harry's magic like this. He was far more gifted in the actual application of magic and it showed; while Harry's magic was eager to help her, like an enthusiastic puppy almost, it was also hard to control. It flailed against her commands in its enthusiasm. Not attempting to disobey her wishes, but sometimes taking her commands too far, or causing further issues from the speed with which it responded. Several times she had to repair damaged ligaments and muscles from where an over-enthusiastic bone fragment had torn through the soft tissue.
It reminded her starkly of the previous night, when she had been subsumed into his being temporarily, how she had lost her personality in his greater whole. Their bond was not one of equals, as much as they both wanted it to be. Harry had been through truly harrowing experiences in his life and it had forged in him a far stronger character than she could ever hope to be. She loved him, unconditionally, and they both knew that her brain was the superior organ in terms of sheer computational capacity.
But in many other ways he was simply… more. He had been forced to mature in ways she only understood because of her bond with him, but hadn't actually experienced. Truly there were parts of his mind, his history, his experiences, that she didn't know a single thing about. His mind was locked tighter than a bank vault, but instead of protecting himself from the memories, he was protecting her from them.
She loved him for that, truly, but it also separated them more than she liked to admit. Her worst experiences were second hand, usually waiting for Harry to return from whatever fresh horror he had been immersed into. Part of her wanted to be bitter about it, to resent that he had grown so much faster than her, that he was a… nearly finished product, if a broken one.
It was impossible to honestly hold that position though. To do so would be to wish some of the worst horrors humanity could inflict upon herself, rape, torture, murder and other lovely things that she could only imagine. Never mind the monstrous creatures Harry had gone toe to toe with over the years.
And here she was again, reduced to patching Harry up after yet another near death experience. It was a wonder he hadn't bled out to be honest; magic was a wonderful thing.
-:-
As Hermione knelt and began the arduous process of patching up her lover, Susan watched dispassionately from the sidelines. She felt numb, the barks of Victor's shotgun still reverberated in her mind. She'd watched in horror as the hitmen in that suv had been annihilated by the vicious weapon. She'd seen men die, she'd killed, but the sheer brutality of those deaths had forced her into what she understood was shock, but it was a self destructive spiral that she couldn't escape from on her own.
She'd killed before. The mercenaries in England were men and women that she'd cut down with her firearms, and sometimes even spells. But it was distant; she was removed the gory heave and flow of modern battle by her position at the rear of the forces, giving Tracey targets to move expediently eliminate. Today's events had been abrupt, raw and far too close for comfort.
She felt a nudge and stumbled slightly as Fleur, still holding Tracey aloft with an arm around her waist, pushed past her and staggered to a low slung armchair where she deposited her burden. Tracey was still obviously dazed but before Susan had a chance to shake herself from her funk, the female mercenary stalked back into the room with a first aid kit. She eyeballed the bondmates near the wall for a moment before turning stiffly to the girl slumped in the chair. Susan stumbled over so she could hear what the woman was saying.
"Tracey, listen to me, you've got a severe concussion. I need to you to stay awake and focus on me, can you do that? Victor, get over here."
The behemoth of a man heaved himself to his feet before moving with surprising grace over to the group of females.
"What can I do to help?"
The petite woman spared him a thankful glance before flicking a hand at the ajar door.
"Get me some ice, preferably in a dishtowel or something. She needs to be shocked a bit to remain awake. I don't have the kind of medicine she needs here so until one of the witches is free to magic her back to health we need to keep her awake and cognizant as long as we can."
A gruff grunt was Victor's only reply as he swept out of the room.
"Tracey, stay awake. And you, Susan? Get over here, you can help."
Still in a daze, the image of the gore splattered vehicle hovering in front of her vision, Susan did her best to stumble over to the merc.
"Cazzo, you're no better off. What is it? Shock? I don't have the time to deal with you right now. Nosferatu, get her into warm clothes and bundle her in a blanket. Hold her and comfort her, give her water in small doses and whatever you do, don't leave her alone. Shock can destroy her mind if we don't keep her in a comfortable environment. There's a bathroom down the hall on the right to change her in. The rest of us probably wouldn't mind but Victor would have a stroke…"
The woman kept talking but Susan didn't get to hear the rest of her babbling tirade as she was ushered down the hall. It was dark, but not threatening or dingy. The whole house had an air of comfort and charm, despite it's obvious poverty. It was cold though. A fresh wave of shivers swept through her and she clutched at herself. Between the violent images flashing through her mind and the chill of the home they were in she couldn't help it.
Fleur tutted and, after a moment, Susan felt herself being smoothly undressed. She wasn't body shy normally but something made her clutch at her clothes, wet from sweat and the ever present drizzle in Poland. Fleur tutted again and abruptly she found herself naked. It was quite a shock and she shrieked a little before feeling warm clothes wrap themselves around her.
Magic was a wonderful thing.
-:-
Everything hurt. His whole body was a mass of bruises and pain, his leg felt like what he imagined having a leg filled with broken glass would feel like, and his head and back were both throbbing with agony. His head because of the multiple traumas it had suffered and his back because of it's usual abhorrence to being any kind of helpful.
Hermione was there though, that felt great. Her magic was swamped over him in comforting waves, she was using their bond in a way he'd never experienced before. He'd honestly not been seriously injured since they'd been together so she'd never had the chance to heal him with his own magic.
It felt… really odd, if he were honest. Like a soothing crawling sensation all over his body as his magic was pulled and tugged into position. He was the one who typically wielded their power in any kind of cooperative effort. Even when they… merged, for want of a better word. The resulting amalgamation of personality was decidedly masculine.
So to feel her magic caressing his, pulling it into place and coaxing it to her will was a strangely comforting, if extremely weird, experience.
It still hurt though, it hurt a lot. More than anything he had ever felt before, more than the tremors and seizures he felt in the mornings, more than even Voldemort's cruciatus. The Cruciatus was something of an overwhelming pain, it didn't leave any room to understand or comprehend what was going on, it just hurt. It was also somewhat distant from reality. There was no physical reason why a victim should be hurting, so it felt somehow disconnected.
But this… he could feel the shards of bone crawling through his leg. He could feel his body being crushed back into shape. It was real, present, and agonizing. It made him want to throw up just from the mental images, never mind the actual pain. He'd already thrown up in his mouth, twice; it sucked.
But she was there, and that kept him anchored to reality. Even when his entire body was rebelling, even when he was flickering in and out of consciousness like a faulty light bulb Hermione kept him locked to reality like a lodestone for his soul. In an uncharacteristically morbid moment he wondered what would happen if one of them died, would they both die? Or would one of them be drawn into the other like some kind of sympathetic wraith? He had no idea.
Eventually the pain began to ebb. He felt a horribly unpleasant sensation and then heard a completely audible crunch as his kneecap snapped back together. He groaned, releasing his first vocal sound in over a quarter hour. Hermione's dainty hand pressed lovingly against his jaw and he heard her whisper of comfort across their bond. It galvanized him into true consciousness and his eyes flickered open to gaze upon the face of his lover.
"Thankyou"
The word had passed his lips before he even made the conscious decision to speak. Once again the spoken word seemed to mean more, somehow, than their usual instantaneous method of silent communication.
"I love you."
"I love you too, can you stand?"
"Should I?"
She smiled wanly and the hand cupping his jaw stroked a thumb over his cheek. He couldn't help but nuzzle into the touch despite the headache raging through his skull. It was bliss.
"Probably not, just sit there and look dashing while I get you some water okay? Don't go to sleep, you've got a nasty head wound and I don't want you drifting off before I can fix you up properly."
He tried to sigh in exasperation but his mouth wasn't cooperating properly. In the end he settled for a huff.
"Herm… Hermione, I was unconscious."
She glared at him sternly, but there was little heat in the expression.
"All the more reason not to fall asleep. Focus on my arse if you have to, but stay conscious."
She smirked at him before turning and walking to a door, winking at him over her shoulder.
"Minx"
In his head he heard her loving tones.
"You love me for it."
-:-
Night fell swiftly over the cottage. There were a line of steep hills to the west of the house and because of them the cottage was plunged into darkness rather abruptly at the end of the day. It had always been something Lucrezia loved. The sharp definition between day and night, and conversely night and dawn, was something she had spent many nights watching in quiet contemplation.
It was marred slightly, even more than slightly, by the fact that she couldn't let her facade down and curl up with Victor on the couch. No, they had visitors, so such an event probably wouldn't be happening until they were given new accommodations in Wales of all places. At least Potter was rich. He'd be able to fork out for a decent room.
At the moment the Regimentals had occupied their living room, as it had the most space, and were treating one another's injuries. Victor was observing them as stealthily as his enormous frame would allow. It was almost adorable how he'd slink in the shadows, trying to remain stealthy, but knocking over every other object he came across like the enormous clutz that he was.
She walked over to him, to tired to strut, and simply leaned against him even as he blustered at her that she was blowing his cover.
"Shh, they don't care a whit about us. We allowed them into our home, it's a sign of trust even the British understand. Just… relax Victor, we'll evacuate in the morning."
He grumbled at her but acceded, trundling off towards their room with a beckoning flick of his hand in her direction. She felt a suppressed a smile and followed, maybe she did still have energy for some strutting.
-:-
"Silence that end of the house Harry? I don't really want to know who's the top in that relationship."
Harry sent her an amused look before flicking his wrist and releasing a small pulse of magic from his palm. His voice was filled with barely suppressed mirth as he responded.
"Not everyone has that kind of relationship Tracey."
She scoffed at him.
"Please, she's obviously far feistier than her size would suggest and he's a giant teddy bear. I bet it's her."
An amused snort sounded from the direction of the kitchen as Hermione returned.
"Let me make it clear, if there is a 'top' in that relationship, it's Victor. Have you been paying attention to any of their interactions? She follows his orders, defers to him, even stays behind him whenever she can. Her aloofness and arrogance is probably a shield or a mask."
Shaking his head Harry gestures in a circle, calling everyone in.
"We've not really had a chance to talk since the meeting. But the long and short of it is that we need their help, the witch-hunters that is. Until we get reinforcements from our allies we need those two mercs in there to bolster our defenses against the various threats moving against us. Valmortis went to ground, all part of his 'big plan' of course. The veela are a close and present threat, and there's an unknown force that attacked us today and yesterday. Valmortis… maybe he's the one behind all of this. But I can't help but feel like we're missing something. Either way we need help, and they're it till we get some from other countries… Thoughts?"
Mad Eye stomped through the door and spoke as he did so.
"Supersensory charms are fucking fantastic. Good summary Potter, we need to focus on getting home to old blighty. We've got legalities on our side there, while we're in Poland we've got immunity, but the moment we leave we're going to be vulnerable. They, whoever it is that's attacking us, has no compunctions about breaking the law. But we need to stay aloof of them as much as we can because if they drag us down to the mud we'll be fighting on their home-turf, and the magical states of Europe don't have extradition treaties with each other, so if we get caught, we'll face the justice of whatever magical state catches us." He pauses, rolling his jaw in irritation
"That means Veela. They control this entire bloc, if only behind the scenes. Poland is the only exception."
Hermione leaned back against the chair where Harry was propped up and sighed.
"We can probably make hundred kilometer hops with Lucrezia's ability but we really have no idea how much it tires her out, or if it has permanent repercussions. We need to source a means of getting off the continent as soon as possible."
Susan, now somewhat recovered from her shock but still shivering on occasion, spoke with a thoughtful expression.
"They'll have all of the airports blockaded in the same way they attacked us this morning. The ports are off-limits. What we need is a portkey."
"I could create one, but it'll light up to the entire bloc that we were here." Hermione looked hesitant, but Harry could tell she liked the idea
"Does it matter at that point? We're leaving. Once we're in England, or Wales for that matter, there's nothing they can do."
Harry nods decisively, "Right, let's do it then. We need to get out of Poland first, to make it clear that we weren't interacting with the Witch Hunters, then we'll use a Portkey."
Tracey hauls herself to her feet, swaying slightly, but able to walk. "Mad eye, will your ward hold tonight?"
The old man nods "Well enough unless we come under attack. We shouldn't, as this is supposed to be a safe house, but if we do then we're fucked either way."
Shrugging Tracey lies flat on the couch, relaxing utterly. "Let's get some sleep then. No telling what'll happen tomorrow."
-:-
The day dawned red, but by the time it did the Eight travellers had already left the safe house. Victor and Lucrezia had easily acceded to the plan, confirming that they could in-fact travel by portkey, and Lucrezia shifted them outside the borders of Poland to a non-descript field in the middle of nowhere.
Harry's leg was splinted with a strap and length of transfigured steel. Tracey and Susan were both supported by Fleur who had healed overnight and Moody was nursing a headache, but they were all stable enough for travel.
Hermione pulled out a sock and cast the portkey charm with a decisive motion. Quickly they put their hands on the sock and, with a rush of magic, they disappeared into the aether. Seven seconds later a host of a hundred magical soldiers apparated into the empty field.
-:-
The world spun violently around them for several long seconds before disgorging them outside the wards of the Potter Estate. Moments later another host of soldiers appeared around them. But this time, they were friends.
-:-
An3: I won't give you some great speech about how the world was cruel to me and I couldn't find the inspiration to write. Mostly because it wouldn't be true. I've been working on a great many things and this was, unfortunately, somewhere down the list because I feel I've failed to keep the storyline constant and without major flaws. I've been laying out a firmer foundation for a complete re-write of the story. But I'd like to hear from you guys whether you'd prefer to just carry on with this limping wreck, or if you'd be patient enough for me to write the whole thing from scratch and use my new-found skill to improve it. Remember that I started writing this when I was just seventeen.
An4: As an aside I'm not at all happy with the 4th 5th of this chapter, it felt horribly contrived… ugh.
An5: Review responses
Guest reviews: Thank you for the reviews! But I've decided not to reply with detail until you decide to make the effort to review with an account.
Anotherboarduser: Thanks!
Bethanyrose: I'll definitely be doing post-Valmortis stories, but I can't do slice of life stuff. It needs to have conflict.
Mycrookshanks: Many thanks! I'm glad you think so.
Sarek: Many thanks!
Flowerchild: I'm glad someone thinks the writing is getting better x.x
Deathday party planner: Many thanks!
Izzygreen: Working on it (At last)
Old Crow: Thanks for your reviews. Few things to talk about here. First thing is your comment about hit wizards and aurors. The long and short of it is that there weren't that many of them during Fudge's reign, and it takes a great deal of time to train them, I've looked at the differences between stated canon training times for Aurors and the amount of time it takes to teach someone to shoot a gun accurately and the times are vastly disproportionate. It's no wonder that the Regiment is left holding the bag while Magical Britain sorts it's shit out.
As for the bird club, they're an intelligence organization, not a combat unit. Sirius, Remus, Mad Eye and Dumbledore are the fighters, and they've been present when they can.
As for the rest of your advice I'm taking it in stride. It was good advice.
Night-trollspz: Many thanks, as you can see I'm back into it at last.
Okay folks that's it for another chapter. Tune in next time for Chapter Seven: Return. Wherein events back in Britain begin to shift apace and the teens with their new allies re-integrate into the Regiment
As always thanks for Reading and other Shenanigans. See you next time!
LGreymark