DISCLAIMER: I do not own Negima or Harry Potter. Negima is the property of Ken Akamatsu, and Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling, and any other series belong to their respective authors.
Italics text = character thinking to themselves.
Underline+Italics = character communicating with telepathy
Bold text = shouting
Bold+Italcs = Casting Spell/Ability
Chapter Thirty-nine
Going on the offensive
It was the middle of January and, only a week since the beginning of the new trimester, several members of the staff were beginning to crack under the pressure of the continuous pranks.
Dumbledore had stopped attending meals in the Great Hall altogether – which only meant that the scale of the pranks had increased to the point where the effects could be either seen, heard, felt or smelled all the way from his quarters… they had to send him to St. Mungo's once when he nearly broke his neck while running down the stairs from the illusionary Nundu that he had seen talking to Fawkes when he had opened his office door.
Snape had somehow gotten a 'disease' that made him lose bones in various occasions… such as when trying to write on the blackboard, he lost the bones in his thumb, index and middle fingers… or when avoiding the trick-step in a certain stairway he suddenly lost all bones from knee-down.
Umbridge herself showed up a few times that week only to end up leaving by the way of hopping in the form of a pink toad… only to be caught by Fang and get thrown into the Black Lake a few times.
But all that amusement ended on January 15th when the Daily Prophet arrived…
"A MASS BREAKOUT! What is that imbecile, Fudge, doing?" Harry's roar was heard all over the Great Hall.
"The Ministry of Magic announced late last night that there has been a mass breakout from Azkaban." Asuna read. "Speaking to reporters in his private office, Cornelius Fudge,Minister of Magic, confirmed that ten high-security prisoners escaped in the early hours of yesterday evening, and that he has already informed the Muggle Prime Minister of the dangerous nature of these individuals. "We find ourselves, most unfortunately, in the
same position we were two and a half years ago when the murderer Sirius Black escaped," said Fudge last night. "Nor do we think the two breakouts are unrelated. An escape of this magnitude suggests outside help, and we must remember that Black, as the first person ever to break out of Azkaban, would be ideally placed to help others follow in his footsteps. We think it likely that these individuals, who include Black's cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange, have rallied around Black as their leader. We are, however, doing all we can to round up the criminals and beg the magical community to remain alert and cautious. On no account should any of these individuals be approached."
"Okay… Fudge is a greater imbecile then we thought." Chao rubbed her forehead.
"It was just two weeks ago when we told him Sirius is innocent and that he should schedule a trial for him." Hermione groaned.
"Can I just kill him and get it over with?" Eva muttered darkly.
"Get in line, Aunty." Harry replied.
"Well, at least he increased the number of Aurors after that stunt." Haruna reminded them.
"We have to do something about this though…" Neville said while starring hatefully at the picture of Bellatrix Lestrange.
"Oh, we will…"
"You can be certain of that." Fred and George said.
"Dolohov is ours, though." Ginny finished darkly as she tossed away the image of their uncles' murderer.
"I have nothing against that." Negi agreed, remembering his fight against the demon that petrified his entire village. "But we need to organize ourselves."
"We'll talk tonight." Eva decided.
That evening in the Room of Requirement, the entire Order of the Twilight – even the adults – were discussing strategy, battle plans and possible hideouts. The members outside of Hogwarts had arrived through a secret passage that went from the Room to the establishment of their newest member, Abeforth Dumbledore, who joined if only to piss his brother off.
"So we need to hit them fast and hard, without leaving evidence of our involvement." Setsuna was saying.
"Since we don't know for sure where they are, we'll have to strike in more then one place." Kaede mussed.
"It's most likely Malfoy Manor or Riddle Manor." Narcissa pointed out.
"Yes, I don't see Tom lowering himself to live in a regular house even when he's in hiding." Harry agreed. "I'm a bit surprised they're not under a Fidelius Charm though…"
"Arrogance… he believes that even if someone finds out his location they won't dare attack." Mana shook her head in disgust.
"By the way, Unspeakable Broderick Bode, who was in St. Mungo's after a 'work accident' was found dead, strangled by a Devil's Snare." Susan informed them.
"Yeah, it was to be expected." Hermione frowned. "Now that he had Rookwood to supply him information, Bode could be silenced without consequence."
"In that case, Tom will keep him on hand in the near future to learn more of the Hall of Prophecies." Harry mussed.
"There isn't much to learn, really. The rows are ordered by the date the prophecies were made at, only those who they are about can lift them while they are on the shelves, and any prophecy broken in the Hall is instantly copied into another glass orb held in storage, which will replace it on the shelves as soon as possible." Penelope explained.
"I see…" Harry mussed.
"Well, we'll attack Riddle Manor and Malfoy Manor at the same time… and let's do Snape's house as well, hm?" Asuna smirked.
"Hm, okay, but let's try to get as many alive as possible." Harry mussed. "I want to try out some of the spells needed to help Eva with her vampirism. There's no way I'll be using them on her without being certain that they're safe."
"And how exactly do you intend to have them capture them? 'Cause if you even mention Stunners…" Daphne asked skeptically.
"I… have something for you to use during these attacks." Harry admitted as he took out an ordinary looking bag and revealed that it had an Undetectable Expansion Charm on it as he began take out identical objects that would not have fit in otherwise.
"Are those…" Asuna began, her mouth dry.
"Master Keys? Yes. I made a few. I'm not experienced enough to make Grand Master Keys though." Harry revealed.
"So you want us to use them to immobilize the Death Eaters?" Negi asked.
"Yeah. The Petrification Darts seem the best way to achieve that. Apparently, they can be customized to make them useless on anyone using a Key. That way, we wouldn't have to worry about hitting each other with spells." Harry explained.
"Sounds good to me. But we will need alibis for our absences though…" Tonks began.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure we can cover that quite nicely…" Chao began with a grin.
It was 12:00 a.m. on January 18th when the operation took place.
Riddle Manor…
"I don't know whether I should be insulted or glad Tom did such a bad job in warding this place." Harry commented as he kept manipulating the dozens of wards placed all over the property and creating a wide pathway through them straight at the Manor, all the while under the invisibility of his ring just like the others.
"True. While powerful, they are nothing any competent ward breaker from Gringotts can't handle if they have a bit of time on their hands." Fleur admited, the charmed contact lens she was wearing allowing her to see magic just as well Harry could now see it naturally.
"I think it's also because this is a muggle area. The ministry can track down magic in muggle areas to a certain extent. So by not making the wards too powerful, he's staying under their radar." Hermione pointed out.
"I don't know… I'm pretty sure there were a few wards that hid the use of magic in their area of effect. Couldn't he just cast that first and then erect the others under it?" Remus pointed out.
"True, but that would require common sense, which is nearly extinct in the Wizarding World." Hermione shrugged. "I mean, we're talking about the society that creates various enchanted objects just to show that they can, while not even considering what they NEED to have."
"Sad, but very, very true." Fleur muttered.
The group of twelve, which also included Moody, Fred, George, Luna, Angelina, Katie, Lee and Alicia, reached to imposing house before circling around it a few times to clear all wards that could affect them as well as placing a few traps for any runaways.
"Okay, let's move in." Harry ordered and the group entered through the windows on both the first of second floors, after checking for anyone in those rooms and levitating themselves to the needed height.
Soon there were sounds of explosions as the fighting began. Harry himself was dueling a surprised and enraged Voldemort who was not pleased by the sudden interruption of his conversation with Nagini when the snake had been hit by a dart and turned to stone.
"I don't know who you are, but I will make you beg for death soon enough." the enraged dark lord hissed while throwing unforgivable after unforgivable at Harry who was using his speed to mostly dodge the curses while summoning a Death Eater in the path of any Cruciatus that was too quick for him or conjuring a block of granite in the path of the Avada Kedavra – he wanted as many Death Eaters alive as possible, after all, for his experiments in soul magic.
His face was completely hidden by his dark greed hood along with the rest of his body, while his voice had been altered using a voice Voldemort himself had created in his youth, when he was still hiding his identity while committing various crimes.
"Death… it has such a mysterious ring to it, does it not? A fate that no living being can escape… not even you, you old fool." Harry said in what sounded like a young woman's voice while using a Master Staff, currently under glamour charms to look like a wand, to send a wave of Petrification Darts at the group of three conscious Death Eaters and Voldemort himself.
Taking a page out of Harry's own tactics, Voldemort used one of his servants as a shield but he underestimated the sheer number of darts and their homing ability. True, a good number of them impaled the Death Eater, but a few avoided him and shot towards Voldemort, faster then he could cast, causing him to raise his left had as a shield which was quickly hit by the five darts.
Showing a surprising presence of mind, Voldemort used his wand to slash as his left shoulder even as his left arm was turning to stone, though far slower then his Death Eaters because of his ritually enhanced body. He then took a swift look around the room and saw his last remaining servants fall to the ground while a couple other hooded figures darted into the room. Recognizing his disadvantage, he swiftly Disapparated using his personalized black mist version.
"How many did we get?" Harry asked Moody and Luna, the two that had just arrived.
"Counting these seven…" Moody used a Petrification Dart on each of the unconscious Death Eaters for good measure "…we got twenty five. Among them there are Dolohov, Greyback, Rookwood, Noot and Pettigrew."
"Oh yeah, I can just see Fudge's face when this blows over." Luna chuckled as she tapped all of the statues with the globe part of her Master Key, sucking them into storage and earning looks of disbelief from Harry and Moody.
"Girly… what did you do to them?" Moody asked warily.
"I just stored them into the Key." Luna shrugged.
"We can do that?" Moody asked Harry.
"Um… I think so… yeah, it's possible… how did you know that though?" Harry blinked in confusion.
"Oh, it just felt right." Luna shrugged with a smile as she went downstairs.
"Don't ask me, Moody. That girl will always be a mystery." Harry shook his head in amusement on the look on the retired Auror's face.
They went downstairs and found out that the only one injured was Remus who had gotten lost in the moment and tackled Greyback, earning a few scratches before the other werewolf had been petrified.
At the same time at Malfoy Manor…
The assault had started in a similar fashion, with Eva, Negi, Asuna and Bill leading the way creating a pathway through the wards, though they were having a significantly harder time then the group at Riddle Manor as the ancestral home of the Malfoys had hundreds of wards placed over it in various time periods. Some of them were truly impossible to remove or even find a way around without alerting the current Head of House through the House Ring, or at least causing significant injury to themselves.
That was where Asuna came in. Her Hama no Tsurugi was the perfect weapon for tearing down barriers and wards, so she occasionally took the lead and dispelled the wards that were getting in their way. They knew that they could have let her cut down all the wards, but since this was a covert operation they didn't want to draw attention to her Magic Cancel. Sure, Negi's artifact sword had similar powers to her own, but that would still draw attention to their group. It was slightly uncomfortable for them, but with Narcissa giving them instructions when she had some insight about what they had stumbled on they managed to reach the house and clear the entrances of any wards before entering like a wave slams into a sand castle. All twenty-three members of the Order of the Twilight assigned to this operation, Negi, Asuna, Eva, Bill, Molly, Arthur, Tonks, Daphne, Blaise, Narcissa, Penelope, Susan, Neville, Hannah, Chao, Setsuna, Mana, Kaede, Yuna, Haruna, Yue, Nodoka and Ku Fei, dashed in and began raining Petrification Darts on anything that moved.
Luckily, or unluckily considering the point of view, the first person they ran across was a bored looking Bellatrix Lestrange. Before she could do more then widen her eyes, she had been covered in Petrification Darts, so many that they were sure that it would take even Konoka a few hours to reverse… unless they wanted too keep her in that state – her surprised expression made her an intriguing garden ornament.
Soon enough there were explosions all over the house as the majority of the Death Eaters were trying to escape. Unlike Riddle Manor, the Malfoy's had an Anti-Apparition ward inscribed in the central wardstone itself, making it impossible for even Voldemort or Dumbledore to tear it down effectively – in fact, it was likely that even Asuna's sword couldn't take it down permanently, but merely for a few hours if she tried since it would regenerate through the wardstone.
Since Voldemort wasn't there to demand them to fight for him, they took the opportunity to attempt fleeing, though it became obvious after the first ten fell to the ground petrified that it was a bad idea to turn their backs to the attackers.
Eventually, after nearly half hour of battle – which was annoying Eva beyond what she thought possible since tuning the whole damn Manor into a glacier would have blown her cover – the battle ended with only Molly getting injured in the form of a broken arm, while the Death Eaters lost over thirty, only a dozen managing to escape using their comrades as distractions. Malfoy and many other influential Death Eaters were among them, but it was still good as their disappearance at this point would draw unwanted attention from the public. All three Lestranges were accounted for as well a most of the other Azkaban escapees, so the operation was deemed a sounding success… especially when Narcissa, with Bill's and Negi's help, managed to open some of Lucius' hidden stashes of various artifacts, mostly dark, before gleefully emptying them along with anything deemed valuable including the entire library, after Narcissa had revealed her knowledge of the secret unbiding password for the charm that made it impossible for certain items to leave the Manor or at least tracked their location.
As a farewell gift, Haruna had left one of her drawn magical grenades attacked to the central wardstone, which detonated just as the group left the grounds and teleported away through Eva's shadows. All wards and protective enchantments ever placed on the ancestral home of the Malfoys was thus lost.
At Snape's house in Spinner's End a similar robbery was taking place, as every book or potion kept in stasis was taken. Unlike the Malfoy's however, Snape's possessions did not have the charm that prevented theft, so it was easy for Nodoka, Kazumi, Chisame, Chachamaru, Astoria, Ginny, Zazie and Anya to remove them before setting the time for the muggle bomb Chisame had acquired for this event. When asked by Mana where she got it from, the #1 Hacker in the word replied in a voice that suggested the answer should have been obvious.
"I bought it through the Internet."
The spectacle of the house exploding in a shower of debris too fragmented to really damage the surrounding muggle homes when the bomb detonated in the now empty basement was a sight Kazumi made sure to record every second of.
The Daily Prophet that came the next morning only mentioned the destruction of Snape's house, with the attacks on Malfoy and Riddle Manors not even being hinted at. Obviously, Lucius and the few other politically influential remaining Death Eaters were working overtime to cover it up, though one had to wonder how long it would last as most of their liquid assets had been taken away already.
A.N.: Finally, I have returned!
Yes, I know that it's been nearly six months since the last chapter. For that I apologize. I admit that while I have been busy with both schoolwork and my other story, Naruto Chaos Mage, I have also been lazy when concerning this story. There was also the fast that I couldn't really decide in what direction I should go with it.
The reason for that is that I don't rally have much to go on in the 'Order of the Phoenix' book, since most of if is tied to Umbridge's reign at Hogwarts. Without her and with Harry telling Dumbledore to fuck off while stealing a number of his Order members, I only have a few cannon events to focus on before the OWLs and the Department of Mysteries chapters.
So I will be coming up with events of my own. One will be the object of the poll now on my profile, which I'm asking you to vote on: Should I raise the Rating of the story to M by writing a lemon for Harry and his girls? Possible members in the lemon have been voted over a year ago when I entertained the idea of a possible lemon, but it was a "what if" situation. So please decide through the poll.
Until the poll has been voted on satisfactory I won't be writing another chapter as I have a plot in mind for a lemon fitting that time of the year, so I'll be waiting. No more then a few weeks though, as I want to post the next chapter before New Years Eve.