Title: Harry Potter: Four In One
Author: Joshua
Disclaimer:J.K. Rowling created Harry James Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Hogwarts, the whole gosh-darn HP-universe and wrote the 7 "Harry Potter" books that we all love and enjoy. Spoilers for Book 1, and Book 7. In fact there may even be some direct quotes from Book 7, so be warned. I'm not writing this for profit, I may not even let anybody but my dearest and closest friends even read this and they'll get it for free, so thankfully this won't get me sued or anything. Everything AFTER Chapter Nine in Book 7 is going to be changed anyway and even those chapters that I do quote, they won't be quoted very well or for very long as I'm changing EVERYTHING after those points. Assume, for Wizard-Harry, that everything between the stated timelines in Book 1 and Book 7 is identical to what happened in the rest of the Books and the HP-universe.
Summary:A mysterious stranger interferes in the timeline and in Harry's life, splitting the young wizard into four and giving each a different magical education. Wizard, Warrior, Priest, and Spy.
Story:
Two weeks later
Saturday, July 25
Evacuation Day
The past week had seen many changes for Harry Potter. Although outwardly one couldn't really tell the difference, to Harry himself, things were far far far different from what they had been before. He had been two people, two entirely separate, individual, unique people for a good portion of their lives, and then WHAM! Those two people, with different pasts, different choices, different lives and whole identities even, were now one. One person with the memory, the experience, and the combined power of two very powerful wizards. In one body.
Needless to say, there was an adjustment period.
At first, Harry found himself waking up in his bed wondering if the whole thing was just one more weird dream in his long running list of them, but then Uncle Vernon started ranting about the terrorists, the IRA, gas explosions, and everything else that news was saying about a mysterious phenomenon the night before. Shortly after getting away from breakfast, Harry started to notice things. Small things at first, but as he began to notice them more, and became more and more emotional in response to them, they turned into bigger and bigger things.
First, everything metal or plant based tended to... bend towards him, like paper clips to a magnet, and then things started to float. Usually whatever he was thinking of at the moment, from the remote control, the milk, the door, his coat, that kind of stuff. Then, after he actually took notice, things started to... spark. Usually just a sprinkle here and there, then a little spark, and by the point he got very paranoid, arcs of raw power began to shoot between him and, well almost everything else!
By the time he got to the distant park several blocks away, where he did a lot of his thinking most of the time, the flashes had started. Not flashes of light or magic, flashes of memory. At first he was just trying to remember what Hagrid had told him about stuff he'd done or had happened to him as a kid to convince him he was a wizard. Then, he started thinking of the time that he'd been training in the lower forest and his magic control was still at the beginner level. And then he confused himself trying to differentiate how he could remember things that he hadn't done, until he remembered that he had done them.
While he spent the day at the park, he very quickly came to realize what was happening to him. He was fusing everything that the two Harry Potters had learned and lived through individually into himself, the Harry that he was now. There was also to consider that both of who he had been were very powerful wizards in their own right, and neither had even started learning magic until after they'd split.
So in other words, on top of memories and experiences, his magic just got doubled beyond anything he'd... previously been accustomed to, so once more, like when he was younger, his magic was exploding all over the place. Well, not necessarily exploding, more like overflowing.
And while half of him only cared so long as his wand still shot out the right spell, the other half of him depended on his magic control and everything he knew about Battle Magic was completely useless without it. So while the first half of the first day there was spent figuring out what had happened to him, the remainder was spent in that park going through every single one of his magic control exercises and meditating until he was first of all no longer shooting off magic all over the place, and secondly, no longer making himself confused with memory flashes. A full integration of memories and experiences would take much longer, and both sides of him agreed, in this time of war, that learning and gaining back his control of his magic was the top priority.
Each and every day after that was then likewise employed in meditation and magic control exercises until Harry felt that he had enough of his mastery back that he could survive an actual battle using his spells. Which, for anyone else in the world is like saying that he was at 101 out of 110.
He spent as little time as he actually could during the week with the Dursley's, but unfortunately they couldn't be avoided forever. In fact, given some of their conversations, Harry had to wonder about the intelligence, let alone the sanity of his closest blood relatives. Petunia and Dudley were easy to manage in point of comparison, although Dudley kept asking Harry where he went every day when the wizard went to the park to train, while Petunia was oddly silent in the face of everything going on.
No, the real question of sanity and intelligent thought originated no further than Vernon Dursley himself. It seemed that from the day that he fused together, Uncle Vernon was continuously flip-flopping his position and his decision to believe anything that Harry and the Order of the Phoenix had explained to him. On the days he did believe, he had everybody packing up the car so they could leave early and at a moments notice, and he also kept overfilling the petrol tank at the same time. On the days he didn't believe, he had everybody unpacking the car and doing chores around the house to make it seem as though it were just a bit of late spring cleaning. Usually Harry just had to walk back up the driveway at dinnertime, after a full day of training, to get Uncle Vernon to change his mind all over again.
On the magical front of the world, during the last week of Harry's life at number 4 Privet drive, besides his own training, quite a few things were happening. The war had taken an ugly turn, not that it was out in the open or anything. And of course there were the reactions to the news that Professor Dumbledore, "the one wizard You-Know-Who was afraid of" was dead, killed by one of his own and most trusted teachers.
Speaking of which, Rita Skeeter, a reporter for the Daily Prophet that had made half of Harry's lives miserable for the past few years, was writing a book; The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore. Half of Harry was outraged at the affront to a man he considered to be a great wizard and a true hero. The other half tempered his reaction, knowing that there wasn't anything he could really do about it, not without making it a lot worse anyway. Besides, it was the politics and popularity game and both sides of him absolutely hated that.
So, rather than waste his time reading the trash rag wizards called a newspaper, Harry was spending his last few hours meditating in his room. It was probably the fact that he was doing it while floating four feet off the floor and various objects were floating around him in an orchestra of movement and magic, some going to the trash, some reorganizing into something the next owners of the house might find convenient, and a precious few going into a knapsack/pouch/duffel bag that would be going with him when the Order arrived.
Since Harry was still 16, and not yet 17, according to the Wizarding World, he should not be allowed to do magic and if he was, the Order had it on good authority that he would be whisked off to Azkaban or to Voldemort himself faster than the owl delivering notification of his expulsion from Hogwarts could arrive. It was absurd how easily he'd discovered the way around that.
Part of Battle Magic is masking your signature so that anybody aiming a spell at you can't detect you to cast it, and thus an entire branch of cloaking spells had been trained into Harry from the time he was 13 years old. Well, since half of him was 13 years old...
Anyway, another thing to note is that the Trace, the tracking spell that the Ministry of Magic uses to monitor underage wizards, cannot differentiate between ambient magic and raw magic. Meaning the magic floating through the air, or that is present in the blood ward protecting him and the Dursley's from Voldemort, and the magic that leaks out of all wizards that don't know how to control themselves.
So once he had flooded the entire house with enough raw magic that Voldemort himself could've had a duel in the middle of it with every underage wizard in England and the Ministry wouldn't know it, he cast a few cloaking spells and thereby allowing him to once more use magic unimpeded and without consequence. Hence why he was using it to pack while he concentrated on meditating instead.
While meditating, he did a quick scan of the surrounding area. Hmm... That's interesting.
Another part of Battle Magic is the skill of finding your own target for spells,despite their own means of masking their presence. Harry wasn't the greatest tracker in the world by far, but that didn't mean he couldn't detect more than two dozen magical signatures closing in and taking up search and holding patterns in mid-air.
Then... on the edge of his consciousness, a too-familiar dark presence, broken, weakened and mutilated. Good god! How the hell could such a magical signature belong to one of the most powerful and feared Dark Wizards of all time?! It was like he barely had even a seventh of his own power. And what he did still have was barely an illusion of itself. It spoke to Voldemort's strength that his soul was even still capable of maintaining his body, let alone his magic!
The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs and a voice yelled, "Oi! You!"
Frowning, Harry let go of his meditative trance and slowly lowered himself back to the ground. Around him, everything quickly tidied itself and his bags and Hedwig's cage trailed after him as he left the room for the last time ever. To be quite honest, he would be perfectly happy if he never even had to see the house ever again, let alone his tiny little cupboard of a room.
"BOY!"Uncle Vernon yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
"You took your time!" the giant red-faced man roared as Harry appeared at the top of the staircase. "Get down here, I want a word!"
Shrugging, Harry strolled down the stairs, keeping his hands in his pockets. His bags and Hedwig's cage remained at the top landing so he didn't make Uncle Vernon even more enraged than he already was. Having kept track, Harry knew that today was one of his uncle's 'don't believe' days and was prepared with a counter-argument, seeing as the Order would be arriving in less than an hour by now.
When he reached the living room he found all three Dursleys, dressed for traveling; Uncle Vernon in a fawn zip-up jacket, Aunt Petunia in a neat salmon-colored coat, and Dudley, Harry's large, blond, muscular cousin, in his leather jacket.
Stopping before them without saying anything, Harry listened as Uncle Vernon commanded, "Sit down!" Harry raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Please!" Uncle Vernon added, wincing slightly as though the wind was sharp in his throat.
Considering for several long moments, Harry just smirked, pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed them before his chest as he sat on the arm rests of Aunt Petunia's couch. Watching with mild amusement as his uncle went from red-faced to an unhealthy shade of purple, he waited.
"I've changed my mind," Uncle Vernon pronounced.
"No," Harry countered instantly.
"It—what?!" Uncle Vernon practically began to foam at the mouth like a rabid dog.
"First of all," Harry continued as though his uncle hadn't even spoken, "we're short enough on time as it is, so when I say we don't have time to debate this, I mean it." The very first lesson worth learning in studying Battle Magic, is that during war, Warriors have to take command, which means sounding and acting like you know exactly what you're doing all of the time and expecting everyone to do everything you tell them to do, all of the time. Harry had taken this to heart very shortly after his first very real battle.
"It doesn't matter if you believe what you've been told or not," Harry continued, speaking louder when Uncle Vernon tried to interrupt, "Itdoesn't matter if you've changed your mind or not. It doesn't matter why you think we're doing this for you, and it most assuredly does not matter what excuses you've come up with to argue for staying. All that matters,ALL that matters from here on in, is your wife and son. If nothing else, believe that Mister Vernon Dursley!"
"After we leave here, we wash our hands of each other. I don't care if you think of me, I don't care if you even say my name even once after today, I don't even care if I ever see the lot of you ever again! But for right now, and when the Order gets here, we are family and that means that all of us have to do what we can to ensure our family's survival. Whatever that might mean for each of us."
"For you, that means no more changing your mind or wasting my time! For you two, that means sitting there, being quiet, and doing what you're told, when you're told! And for me, well, for me it's a LOT more complicated, so until the Order arrives here, I want you to go through this house one final time to make sure that there is absolutely nothing that would make you come back here, for any reason. Is that understood, Mister Vernon Dursley?"
Staring in mute shock, the now pale-faced Dursley nodded his head and quickly went about his task, while Aunt Petunia and Dudley remained where they were seated and sat quietly.
At five till ten, Harry stopped his uncle from rummaging through the house anymore, announcing, "They'll be here in about five minutes," and when none of them replied, he left the room to retrieve his bags and Hedwig's cage from the top landing and placing them at the back door.
Hedwig was not currently in her cage anyway. After merging, and despite that her cage had been sparking as much as everything else that morning a week ago when he woke up, the familiar owl could quite easily detect the change in him and was thrown by it for several days, until he finally managed to confront her about it and discussed things with her.
Once upon a time, the concept of "discussing" anything with an owl would have been a foreign concept to Harry, no matter how intelligent Hedwig was, but besides learning Battle Magic, half of him had learned quite a bit of what he knew as Legilimency, but learned it as telepathy. Something more that he'd done for Hedwig, was that he fully made her his Familiar.
What that meant is that besides just having her with him all the time, or as a favorite pet, he had actually shared his core with hers and vice versa, and now their magic was linked for the rest of their lives. They also didn't need his clumsy attempts at Legilimency anymore to communicate, as they could speak mind-to-mind without it. That Harry had done this once before didn't seem to matter to Hedwig, but given that his first Familiar had given its life to save his at the time, he felt that she understood the honor he bestowed by doing so with her.
He'd sent her out to hunt earlier in the morning and she had yet to return, but given the number of Death Eaters he was detecting now circling the sky, he could understand how she might be hesitant in possibly leading them right to him. He silently assured her that once the Order had arrived, it wouldn't matter anymore, so she could go ahead and get back.
Then Voldemort moved a little closer and he sent her in the direction of the Owlery at Hogwarts instead. She'd be safer there until the fighting was finished anyway, and after the Order had moved him to the safe house, she could join him there much easier.
The doorbell rang. Harry glanced towards the living room and then went to open the door himself. It was too much to expect Hestia and Dedalus to cope with the Dursleys on their own this soon.
"Harry Potter!" squeaked an excited voice, the moment Harry had opened the door; a small man in a mauve top hat was sweeping him a deep bow. "An honor, as ever!"
"Thanks, Dedalus," Harry said, bestowing a small and generous smile upon the dark-haired Hestia. "It's really good of you to do this... They're through here, my aunt and uncle and cousin..."
"Good day to you, Harry Potter's relatives!" said Dedalus happily, striding into the living room. The Dursleys did not look at all happy to be addressed thus, and Harry half expected to see another outburst. Dudley shrank nearer to his mother at the sight of the witch and wizard,while Uncle Vernon resumed that unhealthy shade of purple.
"I see you are packed and ready. Excellent! The plan, as Harry has told you, is a simple one," Dedalus explained. "We shall be leaving before Harry does. Due to the danger of using magic in your house—Harry still being underage," Harry suppressed a smirk at this, "it could provide the Ministry with an excuse to arrest him—we shall be driving, say, ten miles or so, before Disapparating to the safe location we have picked out for you. You know how to drive, I take it?" he asked Uncle Vernon politely.
"Know how to...? Of course I ruddy well know how to drive!" spluttered Uncle Vernon.
"Very clever of you, sir, very clever, I personally would be utterly bamboozled by all those buttons and knobs," Dedalus complimented the man. The purple-faced man muttered several things Harry didn't even bother paying attention to.
"You, Harry," Dedalus continued, "will wait here for your guard. There has been a little change in the arrangements..."
Harry frowned, interrupting, "What d'you mean? I thought Mad-Eye was going to come and take me by Side-Along-Apparition? What happened?"
"Can't do it," Hestia answered tersely, "Mad-Eye will explain."
"Hurry up!" Dedalus' pocket watch suddenly screeched, prompting the witch and wizard to hustle the Dursleys out the door. "Quite right, we're operating to a very tight schedule," Dedalus exclaimed as he shoved the device back into his pocket and helped Hestia in getting the Dursleys moving. "We are attempting to time your departure from the house with your family's Disapparition, Harry; thus the charm breaks at the moment you all head for safety." He turned to the Dursleys, "Well, are we all packed and ready to go?"
None of them answered, so Harry took the opportunity to add his own changes to the plan. "Dedalus, I'm afraid that you're going to have to go a lot further than ten miles before Disapparating. Uncle Vernon, since you'll be driving, drive immediately and as quickly as you can for downtown London. Take the highways, and no sooner than when you reach the third exit in, that's when you pull over and Disapparate to the safe point."
"But... but... but..." Dedalus spluttered.
"All that matters is them. Remember that," Harry ordered, looking Uncle Vernon in the eye. "You," he turned to the magicals, "will not take them anywhere until Uncle Vernon stops and turns off the car and tells you that they've actually stopped. London is about half an hour from here at the longest. That should give me enough time."
"Enough time?" Dedalus exclaimed. "Enough time for what?!"
"After this is all over, you'll find out. Now go!" Harry ordered.
He left them there, going to the back door, not even glancing back as he heard the door slam shut as the last of them got in the car and he heard it drive off. "Goodbye," said Harry to the empty house, and his relatives now driving away. His voice dropped dead at his feet and he felt now more than ever that things had changed beyond what they should've been.
Fifteen minutes later
4 Privet Dr
Backyard
Harry was still standing on the back porch, straight as an arrow, his arms at his sides while his hands folded together at the small of his back. He kept his eyes closed and his head bowed, taking these last few moments to meditate and to further his magic control as much as possible without a full extra month to further practice. Breathing steadily and softly, he reached out with his senses, tracking and identifying all of the magical signatures that was swarming the skies over Little Whinging. The calm before the storm.
As a surprising number of signatures made a rather roundabout method of circling the entire hamlet once, back tracking twice, and then doing multiple loop-de-loops and zigzags before splitting up going in completely random directions, before finally at a precise moment made a straight shot for his backyard. All the other signatures, aka the Death Eaters, flying around were much, much higher and thankfully didn't see the rather useless aerobatics, despite all of those in question being under Disillusionment Charms.
The second that the majority of them had landed and removed the not-very-effective-invisibility spells, Harry looked up and plastered a genuine grin on his face. He stepped out calmly, but excitedly into the back yard and joined the greeting of friends and might-as-well-be family. They all gave a great shout out to him and Hermione flung her arms around him as Ron clapped him on the back. Hagrid, in his usual gruff manner, said, "All right', Harry? Ready fer the off?"
"Change of plan," growled Mad-Eye, who was holding two enormous, bulging sacks, and whose magical eye was spinning from darkening sky to house to garden with dizzying rapidity, "Let's get undercover before we talk you through it."
Shrugging, Harry led them all back into the kitchen where, laughing and chattering, they settled on chairs, sat on Aunt Petunia's gleaming counters, or leaned up against her spotless appliances. It was probably the most full the kitchen had ever been, even counting all the times Uncle Vernon had guests over. Ron, redheaded long and lanky young man, who came up to Hagrid's shoulder in fact; Hermione, her bushy brown hair tied back in a long plait; Fred and George, grinning, looking, hell even dressing identically; Bill, badly scarred and long-haired; Fleur, Bill's wife, slender and beautiful, with her long silvery blonde hair; Mr. Weasley, kid-faced, balding, his spectacles a little awry; Mad-Eye, battle-worn, one-legged, his bright blue magical eye whizzing in its socket; Tonks, whose short hair was her favorite shade of bright pink; Lupin, grayer, more lined, and yet with a content smile on his face; Kingsley, bald, black, broad-shouldered; Hagrid, with his wild hair and beard, standing hunchbacked to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling; and Mundungus Fletcher, small, dirty, and hangdog, with his droopy basset hound's eyes and matted hair.
Grinning at each in turn, Harry felt incredibly fond of all of them, and as such his heart swelled with the sense of family, unity, and purpose. He was happy. And a bit concerned by this change of plans.
"Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the Prime Minister?" he asked the Auror from across the room. He practically had to shout given how filled the place already was.
"He can get along without me for one night," the large black man replied. "You're more important."
Smirking and trying not to laugh out loud at that statement, he turned his head down in attempt to hide it.
"Harry, guess what?" said Tonks from her perch on top of the washing machine, and she wiggled her left hand at him, where a lovely diamond ring glittered from.
"You got married?!" he yelped, looking from her to Lupin in open shock and pleasant surprise.
"I'm sorry you couldn't be there, Harry, it was very quiet."
Harry just shrugged, still grinning like a loon, "Yeah, well, makes it more romantic I hear."
"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch-up later!" roared Moody over the hubbub, and silence fell in the kitchen. Moody dropped his sacks at his feet and turned to Harry. "As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon Plan A. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He's made it an imprisonable offense to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out. All done in the name of your protection, to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother's charm does that already. What he's really done is stop you getting out of here safely."
"Second problem: You're underage, which means you've still got the Trace on you."
Harry just nodded, accepting these facts, although it was good to know what the Wizarding World called the spell finally. Mad-Eye grinned when Harry kept silent and quickly continued. "Unfortunately, that's the charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out about underage magic! If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thinknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters."
"We can't wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you'll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short: Pius Thinknesse thinks he's got you cornered good and proper."
Harry snorted. He could tell them now, but better to let Mad-Eye explain his plan fully before breaking the poor man's delusions. He owed the old Auror that much at the least for all the trouble he'd gone through.
"So, we're going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can't detect, because we don't need to cast spells to use them: brooms, thestrals, and Hagrid's motorbike."
Frowning, the Boy Who Lived considered that and could immediately detect more than a dozen basic flaws in the plan, not to mention the near hundred faults that had to do with information Mad-Eye clearly did not have at his disposal at the time. For example the near-fifty Death Eaters patrolling the skies above cloud level under Disillusionment Charms, and Voldemort himself. Still allowing Mad-Eye his time in the spotlight, Harry remained silent for the time being.
"Now, your mother's charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or," Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen, "you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going to separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you're never going to live together again, correct?"
Harry just nodded, struggling to keep his smirk off his face.
"So this time, when you leave, there'll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We're choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen. And the one thing we've got on our side is that You-Know-Who doesn't know we're moving you tonight."
Harry had to disagree there, judging by how close the Dark Wizard was to him at just that moment.
"We've leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: They think you're not leaving until the thirtieth. However, this is You-Know-Who we're dealing with, so we can't just rely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple of Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So, we've given them a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we're going to hide you, they've all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley's place, Molly's Auntie Muriel's... you get the idea."
"Forty-seven," Harry remarked.
Moody frowned, confused and blurted out, "What?"
"There are Forty-seven Death Eaters in a grid-search pattern and patrol in the skies over Little Whinging right now. And then there's Voldemort himself, but he's in a spiral search pattern," Harry explained to everyone's ever-mounting shock.
"How did..." started Moody.
"How did I know? You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Harry replied forthwith, "How did Moldywart find out about the right date? Two guesses."
"Snape!" Moody growled, incensed.
"Probably," Harry shrugged. "No way to be certain without Snape being here for us to ask him. Doesn't change the facts though. We've got Death Eaters and Moldywart circling above like vultures, can't Apparate or use a Portkey, but we do have several thestrals, brooms, and Hagrid's motorbike. What's the rest of your plan, just so I know?"
Several of those present were rather surprised at Harry's abrupt and commanding attitude, but Moody just grinned, figuring the boy was finally growing some backbone. "You'll be going to Tonks parents' place. Once you're within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we've put on their house, you'll be able to use a Portkey to the Burrow. Any questions?"
"Oh, where do I begin?" Harry mumbled. Harry was silent for a full ten seconds, his hand cupping his chin in the famous 'Thinker's pose' before speaking again. "I take it that not all of us will be heading towards the same location, hence why masking so many different locations, with each of them having a Portkey to the Burrow, correct?"
"Not bad boy," Moody cackled. "Now—"
"And just out of curiosity, how is it that all of us going to these different houses helps us confuse the Death Eaters? Because it doesn't matter if they know where I'm going or not, they see me, the Dork Lord is still going to be coming after me the second a single Death Eater lays his eyes on me."
In their corner the Twins were struggling not to burst out laughing, though their red faces and laughing eyes said enough. Others were equally amused while most were kind of horrified at Harry's cavalier attitude towards Voldemort's name.
"Ah," said Moody, "I forgot to mention the key point. Fourteen of us won't be flying tonight. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house." From inside his cloak Moody now withdrew a flask of what looked like mud. There was no need for him to say another word; Harry understood the entire plan immediately. Amateur.
An ominous silence reigned in the kitchen for several long moments as Harry looked Moody in the... eye. Finally, Harry asked quietly, "Still curious, but how many of us were you expecting to actually make it to the Burrow, keeping in mind that Voldemort himself is in the air as well?"
At that, every wizard and witch in the room visibly winced and even Moody kind of flinched back at the bland statement. "Yeah, thought so," said Harry. He turned away and started making his way to the back yard.
"Harry! Where are you going?" yelled Hermione.
"Oh, I was thinking I'd go up and clear the air, so to speak," he casually answered.
"What?" exclaimed Ron.
"Well, you see, I've been making a plan or two myself. And I gotta say, it's considerably better than Plan B. So let's call it... Plan H for now. Thankfully, the only ones in danger in Plan H, are the Death Eaters."
"Oh, and just what is this Plan H of yours, boy?" Moody demanded.
Harry turned back and looked at them each in turn, enjoying the stunned and awed looks he was getting from each, and the annoyed look on Mad-Eye's face was good too. He just shrugged and answered, "I'm going to go wipe them out. Might try and kill Moldywart while I'm at it. Have to see how the mood strikes me."
The Twins couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out laughing, making it sound like a bomb had gone off in the otherwise quiet house. "Good one, Harry!" Fred exclaimed. "Yeah, good one! Can't wait to see what you have for your next joke!" George added.
Harry just smiled back at the Twins and continued towards the back door. Suddenly nobody was laughing. "You are joking, aren't you, Harry?" asked Fred, his voice losing its humor.
"Nope," replied Harry as he stepped out into the back yard and looked up at the darkening sky.
"HARRY!!" Hermione screeched loud enough that all the glass in the windows and kitchen shook from it. "You cannot be serious, now stop joking around and give us your hairs so we can look like you already!"
"No," Harry casually replied, continuing to look up at the sky.
With a growl, Moody swept outside, limping heavily as an outlet for how frustrated he was getting and then physically manhandled the Potter boy inside. At least he tried to. Every time he made a grab for the boy, he was just a touch shy of actually getting a grip, and then the boy started leaning back and forth and taking side-steps... slippery little devil.
"What are you playin' at, boy?!" roared Moody once all patience had been lost.
Finally, Harry sighed and slowly walked back inside to the back porch, with everyone gathered in the kitchen and dining room, and Moody coming in behind him, he said, "There are three basic plans. Details are details, and I'm not going to bore anybody with them. Plan H, my first choice, is that I go up there right now and have a nice little row with all the flying Death Eaters and Moldy-shorts himself. Then, while I have loads of other ideas, we'll call my second choice, Plan P. Plan P has us, instead of flying the skies, using brooms, Thestrals, and everything else we got, under invisibility or Disillusionment Charms, hugging the ground and roadways all the way to downtown London where we then go to a public place, like Diagon Alley, or maybe even the Ministry itself and use a public, non-restricted Floo to get to either the safe houses, or straight to the Burrow. Then, there's what I like to call Plan Z, which is the end plan, final option, last resort... see where I'm going with this? Anyway, Plan Z... is that we go back to Moody's Plan B, where every single one of us gets either maimed, murdered, killed, shot at, injured, or in some way become a casualty of this war in some way."
"And having you committing suicide by going up on your broom by yourself is better?!" screamed a hysterical Hermione.
Harry frowned in confusion and answered, "I'm not going up on my broom! What do you think I'm mental? My Firebolt, good as it is, is no match for outmaneuvering almost fifty Death Eaters and Voldemort himself!"
Hermione was surprised for half a second before that smug 'I-knew-I-was-right' settled in on her face. Harry couldn't help the grin on his face as his next words thoroughly destroyed that look.
"That's why I was planning on flying up there under my own power and attacking them behind their backs. As for Moldywart, he's really not that tough. Doesn't exactly have a lot of magic either. In comparison I mean," he quickly added as everyone's looks went from shock to outright disbelief.
"Uh, Harry, are you feeling OK?" Lupin gently asked.
Thinking over the question, Harry shrugged and answered, "Little anxious I suppose. A bit bored now. Still curious how anyone thought Moody's idea here was a good plan, I mean honestly, it's like something..." Harry went silent all of a sudden as several things suddenly clicked in his martial-oriented mind. As the full implications of everything washed over him, his bored expression began to slowly morph into one of frustrated anger. Meanwhile, as he was contemplating these revelations, everyone else in the room was trying to 'talk some sense into him.'
"Now, Harry, there's nothing to worry about, so let's just go ahead and get you into Hagrid's motorbike, all right?" Lupin tried to sweet-talk him as though he were some kind of insane lunatic. At the same time that Lupin was speaking though, so was everybody else, at high volumes as well.
"Harry! This is serious! Especially now that... V-v-v-v... You-Know-Who is here as well!" Hermione was screeching.
"Cor blimey, Harry!" Ron shouted just as loud. "You can't be serious about all that rubbish are you?!"
"Harry, I miss'em too, but that ain't no reason fer you to go off and get yerself killed!" yelled Hagrid.
"Harry's lost it, Twin Number Two," Fred said to George, who replied, "I must agree, and I thought I was Twin Number One!" "No, I am," "No I am!" "No, me!" . . . Eventually the Twins argument got to be the loudest out of everybody.
"ENOUGH!" Mad-Eye Moody finally screamed out, silencing everybody, including the Twins. "How insane Mister Potter is will be a discussion for later, as we're already taking longer than I expected. The Dursleys are almost to the Disapparition point..."
"Actually, sorry," Harry interrupted, coming out of his silent contemplation, "There's been a change of plans there as well. They won't be Disapparating for another 12 minutes by now. So we actually have almost seven minutes still left to argue. At least I hope we do. I'd hate to have over-estimated Moldy-shorts and his jockey crew up there."
Pure silence once more.
Finally, Moody shook himself out of his stupor and growled at the boy that he still saw as a boy, but was quickly becoming a very annoying man. "What do you mean, change of plans and twelve minutes? What did you do boy?"
"I had Uncle Vernon drive into the outskirts of London on the highways, instead of going just over ten miles away on back-roads. And that type of journey usually takes about half an hour to forty-five minutes, depending on the flow of traffic, and I didn't hear about any accidents, so they should be reaching the Exit pretty soon by now. Uncle Vernon won't stop the car until they're that far away, and Dedalus is under orders from me not to try and Disapparate anyone until the car is parked and everyone out of it. And we're down to ten minutes now, so I guess I'd better get ready to go up there and kick some def-eating ass."
"BOY! Are you absolutely set and determined on giving YOU-KNOW-WHO everything he wants!? You on a silver platter and screwing with all of my plans—!"
"First of all, your plan itself was designed to practically serve me up on a silver platter to Voldemort," Harry angrily retorted, "Secondly, I am NOT, I repeat NOT more important than any one of these... decoys that you've got here! Willing to risk their lives or not, your way will only get valuable members of the Order killed or worse today!"
Moody fumed for several seconds before coming back with an entirely different tact; logic. "If what you say is true and You-Know-Who really is up there, which is pretty unlikely if we're lucky," Moody ignored the Twins making comment over 'Since when have we been lucky?' and continued on, "and while we can't count on it, it doesn't change the fact. They might not be able to get at you or this house while your mother's charm holds, but it's about to break and they know the rough position of the place. Our only chance is to use decoys! Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into seven!"
Raising an eyebrow at that comment, Harry shared a quick glance and knowing grin with Ron and Hermione. Both looked down and flushed, but didn't really react beyond that.
"So, Potter—some of your hair, if you please."
Harry just glared in absolute defiance at the old Auror. "Now!" barked Moody.
"You know what?" Harry suddenly asked. "I don't think they'll mind if I'm early. Plus it'll give me some time to play around with a few of them. And that's always fun." Then he turned and walked back out into the back yard.
"Harry!" Lupin tried one last ditch effort to get the wizard he still saw as a boy to see reason. "Don't be foolish! Sirius considered himself to be invincible too, and look where that got him!"
Harry turned back and answered with a calm logic that nobody knew he possessed, "Actually, Sirius considering himself invincible is why he went after Wormtail, and that got him into Azkaban. What got him killed is Dumbledore locking him up in a place that he hated more than Azkaban for months on end. And I don't consider myself invincible Mooney. I just know what I can do. I know what the Death Eaters can do, individually and collectively. And I know what Voldemort can do. I don't think it will last much longer than five minutes really. I'll see what I can do about expanding that though, if you'd like."
"POTTER! Come back here and... and..." Moody started to rage but faltered as everyone else stared in mounting awe as Harry Potter began to cast.