Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoat Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

AN:

Thanks to all reviewers – your comments are what keep me motivated!

To make up for that cruel cliffhanger from last chapter, here you have a very quick update.

Enjoy! ^_^

Part I: Chapter 33

It took them five hours to get to the meatpacking district where the Leaky Cauldron was located in, when before it had only taken them two. It was clear that the whole business of London only having 'Emergency Line' buses in operation was a drag.

The pub, unlike the first time they had seen it, wasn't filled with all sorts of wizards and witches having lunch or cheerfully partaking of drinks. It was nearly empty instead.

The young bartender, Tom, even glanced up at them hopefully, only to look downcast when they kept going until they reached the side alley that led to Diagon.

Harry wasn't that surprised by what he encountered in the commercial wizarding street: there were some people here and there, hastily dragging their children along as they shopped as fast as they could, shooting nervous, apprehensive glances over their shoulders as if expecting Grindelwald to suddenly pop in with his full force of Germans, Hungarians, and new type of Inferi, like he had done in Czechoslovakia.

The mood was certainly a tense, fearful one; not even the colorful window displays and moving, eye-catching store signs managed to put harried shoppers at their ease or entice them.

Furthermore, business must have been very dire as of late because in all the stores they went into, the attendants looked vastly relieved and grateful to have two clients at least.

They bought new clothes for themselves, since Tom had grown in height several inches, and Harry was proud to see that he had grown a bit himself - not as much as his brother, to his misery, but still, something was something.

When only their textbooks were left to buy, Harry halted Tom in the middle of Diagon Alley.

"Go buy our books, I have something else to do," he said hastily, shifting on his feet a tad nervously, "and give me one of your pouches of galleons."

Tom arched an eyebrow at that. "One of my pouches of galleons?" His eyes narrowed to slits, as he demanded sharply, "For what?"

"It's none of your business," snapped Harry impatiently. "I just need some galleons to buy some stuff." He huffed crossly. "It's not as if you don't have plenty! You've made a fortune selling essays and giving tutoring lessons!"

"It's still my money," hissed out Tom poignantly. "I'm not giving you a sickle unless you tell me what you want it for."

"You owe me," retorted Harry pointedly.

Tom shot him a sneer. "I brewed the potion for your eyesight, didn't I?"

"That was in exchange for me learning German!" snapped Harry, crossing his arms over his chest as he scowled at him. "Which I've been doing." Then he glanced around before he lowered his voice to a mere whisper, "You still owe me for looking for the Chamber of Secrets."

"Your search has yielded no results yet," bit out Tom acidly. "I'm not going to pay you for that, when you've been failing-"

"But I'm going to keep looking for it, aren't I?" said Harry heatedly. "Look, just give me the money and I'll explain later what my plan is!"

Tom narrowed his eyes at him, before he said in a low, menacing tone of voice as he handed over a small leather pouch, "Very well, but you will tell me what you're up to, or else."

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Harry as he yanked the pouch from his brother's hands. He instantly spun around, saying in parting over his shoulder, "I'll see you in a bit!"

And with that, he rushed down the street. Soon, he arrived at a second-hand clothes shop he had caught sight of before.

A bell jingled as he entered the store. It was gloomy and dusty, with racks filled with hanging garments, barely leaving any room in which to move along the small, narrow aisle. At least, though, all the attires he caught sight of looked very old fashioned.

"May I help you?" said a solicitous voice as the shop attendant suddenly appeared before him.

She was a very plump witch, wearing a very ugly dress filled with lace and frills, with three sets of shawls thrown over her shoulders, with colorful beads, dangling and flashy.

Harry stared at her, boggled at her attire, before he squared his shoulders and said hurriedly, "I need a complete set of clothes of the fourteenth century, or that look from those times."

The witch's eyebrows shot upwards at that, as she asked with curiosity, "Is it for a costume party?"

"Er, yeah, exactly!" said Harry instantly. "Do you have something like that?"

The shopkeeper eyed him from top to bottom, probably taking his measures with a discerning eye, before she beamed a smile at him. "I believe I do!"

She was gone in a flash, surprisingly moving very fast for a woman of her girth, and came out of the depths of her store proudly holding an outfit hanging from a perch.

Harry gaped at the garbs, utterly horrified. He couldn't even figure out what it was, exactly. It was so filled with humongous frills layered one on top of the other that it looked as if it only consisted of puffs and ruffles.

"Not something like that!" he said aghast, taking a step back from the frightening thing. "I need something dignified!"

The witch glanced from Harry to the attire and back, looking nonplussed. "It is dignified. I don't see what's wrong with it."

Harry shook his head disparagingly. "I need something a nobleman could have worn."

At the woman's blank stare, Harry reminded himself he was speaking to a witch and not a muggle, and swiftly amended, "Something a dark pureblood could have worn back in those days."

"A dark pureblood," echoed the witch, abruptly going stiff. Her eyes narrowed, as she snapped very suspiciously, "What kind of 'party' are you attending, boy?"

She looked ready to whip out her wand and cast ropes at him to hand him over to Aurors, or something of the sort.

"I didn't mean dark pureblood as in a dark wizard!" interjected Harry quickly, fretfully carding his fingers through his hair. "I just meant…"

He trailed off, and then bit out peevishly, "Look, I'm just going to some costume party as you said." He pointedly brought up his pouch of galleons, making the coins inside jingle. "I have money to spend. So do you want to sell me some clothes, or not?"

Apparently, he stopped looking dangerous and suspicious to her at the sound of gold, and the witch nodded, albeit still a bit stiffly.

The second outfit she brought back was much better. It was a curious ensemble, but quite complete, consisting of a linen shirt, a dark blue doublet, a cape-like thing, and puffed out, short pants that came with a set of white stockings. She even had a pair of heeled shoes with golden buckles to go along with it. The problem was that the attire was stained all over and clearly moth-eaten, given the many holes in the clothes.

"If you want me to clean and mend it for you," said the witch briskly, "and adapt it to your measures, it will cost extra."

It was evident that his mention of 'dark' had cost him any traces of lingering amiability from her part, but at least she seemed satisfied by the number of galleons she found in his pouch when he tossed it at her.

Fifteen minutes later, he left the store, carrying his new purchase stuck inside his rucksack.

He met Tom outside Flourish and Blotts and helped his brother by carrying some of the shopping bags bulging with everything they had bought for their second year at Hogwarts. Thankfully the bags had been cast the Feather-light spell, by one of the shopkeepers that Tom had so thoroughly charmed with his politeness and smiles.

"We have to go to Knockturn Alley now," whispered Tom as they made their way towards the end of Diagon. "We cannot be seen entering it. We must be careful."

"Yeah, I know," mumbled Harry, not forgetting how the witch of the second-hand clothes shop had treated him.

As they stood under the sign of Knockturn Alley, waiting for the secret message to appear so that they would be able to speak the key phrase in order for the stores' true wares to be revealed before their eyes, Harry caught sight of a couple striding into the archway across the street from them.

There was a flash of blue and the pair disappeared as the walled archway swiftly began to close itself up after them. Harry had only been able to catch a brief glimpse of the street the archway hid away.

He knew what it was. Alphard had told him about Leisure Alley and the age-line in the archway that forbid the passage of underaged wizards. Nevertheless, for a second, he had seen that while Diagon Alley was quite empty, Leisure Alley wasn't. He had managed to glimpse several couples strolling by and groups of adults chattering amongst themselves as if they hadn't a care in the world, coming out from shops, pubs or restaurants.

"Hurry! Don't stand there like an idiot," snapped Tom at him, yanking him by the hand and pulling him into Knockturn Alley.

Harry felt chills as they quickly moved along the shadowy and labyrinthine alley. The piled up roofs of the shops ensured that they were cast in darkness, and it only made him feel uneasy since it seemed that everyone was out and about in Knockturn.

Tom calmly and self-assuredly strolled along as if he fitted right in, though he had taken his wand out. Harry had immediately followed suit, even if they knew they couldn't use magic because of their Traces, and unlike Tom, the fact made him nervous and jumpy given their surroundings.

He saw clutches of very dodgy characters maliciously staring at them from shadowy corners, and hags haggling over some wares openly sold in the middle of the alley, along with some dark creatures that he recognized from Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons but had never seen before in person.

Indeed, they encountered a woman writhing against a wall, with her dress bundled up to her knees, as a very pale and thin man was plastered against her, making sucking noises as the woman loudly moaned.

Harry lost all color at the sight, and stammered, "That's a – a – a vampire…"

"It is," said Tom coolly, as he swiftly pulled him away from the pair. "It seems that Knockturn Alley's inhabitants have become more confident with the news of the Dark Lord's triumphs."

Harry swallowed thickly at that and was vastly relieved when they finally reached Borgin and Burkes.

They both said the key phrase out loud, and the shop's previously nearly empty window display became filled with all sorts of artifacts and scary-looking shrunken heads or cut off skeletal hands that twitched, and the like.

"There it is," breathed out Tom, his dark blue eyes gleaming covetously as he took a step forward. "The auction for it hasn't ended yet."

Harry shot a glance at Slytherin's locket before he murmured under his breath, "What do you want to do now?"

At that, Tom turned to face him as he bit out poignantly, "What do you think? This part is up to you. What are you seeing?"

Harry shot him an incredulous look. "That's why you brought me here? To see if I saw the store's wards? I can't even fully see the ward that Dumbledore cast on our orphanage! What made you think that I could see this one?"

"Can't you?" snapped Tom impatiently, before he sneered. "At least try, you simpleton!"

Harry scowled at him, and with a huff turned to face the shop again. He even took off his eyeglasses when he thought he could see something fuzzy, like happened in their room in the orphanage, but it was to no avail. Whatever magic he saw was too faint to puzzle out, and it appeared and vanished before his eyes intermittently and too quickly.

"I can't," he said shortly, shooting his brother a glower. "And even if I could see the wards clearly I wouldn't understand them. I told you that wards are filled with Runes, and I don't understand Runes, do I? For that, I'll have to wait until third year, for the elective course."

"We don't have to wait until third year to learn about Ancient Runes," sneered Tom acidly. "We can teach ourselves by studying the subject in the library."

Harry stared at him, utterly horrified, as he echoed disbelievingly, "Study. in the library."

The two words he hated most in the world were 'study' and 'library', and his brother just had to put them together. Moreover, he wouldn't be caught dead in the library! Dusty, gloomy, and enclosed places that they were, where one was boxed in by shelves at all sides and couldn't even speak loudly like a normal person! Granted, he had gone a couple of times to Hogwarts' library to fetch books on Charms, but he always got in and out as fast as he could.

"Are you sure you cannot see them?" pressed Tom, looking highly irked. "We could write down the Runes and then look them up in Hogwarts' library."

Harry gave it another shot, glancing again at the shop, but then vehemently shook his head. "I can't."

"You're useless," hissed out Tom angrily. "I was counting on you for this!"

"Well, it isn't my fault, is it?" said Harry hotly. "I cannot force my stupid ability to become stronger at the drop of a hat, can I? And even if I could, I wouldn't! I don't fancy going around seeing things flashing all over the place!"

Tom shot him a contemptuous, disgusted look, before he spat in a whisper, "Then let's go. It's useless to plan the theft now when we don't even know what wards Borgin and Burkes has."

Tom gave the locket a hungry, lingering look before he briskly marched off, while Harry was more than glad to leave the place, even when he knew that his brother was seething given the ache in his scar.

Nevertheless, he happily followed at Tom's heels as they made their way out of Knockturn.

Just as they stepped into Diagon Alley, a series of very strange, high-pitched whizzes resounded, one after the other in seconds.

"What's that?" said Harry utterly puzzled, glancing around. "Did you hear-"

There was a strident, deafening sound and all went suddenly white.

He was flying, flying through the air, as his ears rang with a high-pitched noise. Suddenly, he painfully crashed against the cobblestones of the street, and he instinctually brought his arms over his head as things started to pelt down on him, hitting him hard and painfully.

He cried out, in fear and shock and utter confusion, as he heard screams and yells and shouts of horror and frenzy all around him.

As debris stopped raining down on him, he started to cough and choke, his eyes watering with the clouds of smoke and dust that were billowing up into the sky.

"Tom!" he cried out haggardly, scrambling on hands and knees over rubble and pieces of bricks and shards of glass and who-knew-what.

Everywhere he looked, parts of the facades of buildings seemed to be crumbling down, store signs crashing to the street, and what was left of windows finishing to crash down. There were wizards and witches, and children too, looking dazed and disoriented, tripping and walking around like headless chickens. Some storekeepers were outside, frantically waving their wands, preventing the front of their buildings from collapsing altogether.

Near him, Harry saw his rucksack lying amidst debris, with its strap snapped, and their shopping bags torn open, the things they had once held scattered all over the place. But he didn't see his brother.

"TOM!" he yelled desperately at the top of his lungs, so frantic and panicked and fearful, as he had never felt before in his life.

He didn't even care that every part of him was throbbing painfully, that he could feel bruises and aches all over his body, or that his hands and face were covered with cuts and small bleeding wounds, as he moved forward.

Then he suddenly caught sight of his brother, lying several feet away amongst debris, unmoving and white-faced.

With a scream of horror lodging in his throat, Harry rushed forth, tripping several times over pieces and chunks of things before he managed to throw himself at his brother's side.

"Tom! TOM!" he cried out frenetically, as he took the boy by the shoulders and shook him with violent despair and anguish.

"Stop, you're hurting me, you imbecile," said a weak yet infuriated voice, and Harry halted and stared and let out a powerful exhalation of relief as he saw his brother's dark blue eyes cracking open to glower at him. "Get off!"

Harry instantly pulled away, haphazardly landing on his behind, as Tom slowly sat up, glancing around with narrowed eyes as he demanded crisply, "Where are our wands?"

At that, Harry jumped into action, thankfully catching sight of both of their wands lying amidst shards of glass two feet away.

Yet, as he pulled himself to his feet and scrambled in their direction, he halted to a screech at what he saw right in front of him. It was then that he finally understood what had happened. It wasn't Diagon Alley that had been directly struck; the main street had only felt the repercussions of it.

Indeed, where once he had seen the walled up archway, there was nothing left, giving him an unencumbered view of what remained behind.

Gone was the street he had caught a glimpse of. Leisure Alley was now nothing more than piles upon piles of rubble. There wasn't a single building, store, pub, dancing hall, or restaurant standing.

And he froze, his eyes wide with horror, as he saw blood seeping and flowing from the mounds of debris, hands and feet, and half faces sticking from under the wreckage, as muffled cries and screams sounded from the depths.

For a moment, which felt like an eternity, Harry could only stand there, staring at the spine-chilling, gruesome sights of carnage.

Nothing had prepared him for it, not even Old John Bryce's stories about the Great War. Hearing about it was nothing like seeing it.

Abruptly, he was yanked out from his horrified stupor when Tom appeared by his side, handing him his wand as he pocketed his own and said sharply, "Let's get our things and leave."

Harry stared at his brother as he mechanically took his wand, blinking dumbly at him for a second, thinking he couldn't have heard correctly.

"What?" he croaked out.

"Let's get going!" hissed out Tom impatiently, as he started to turn around, searching with his gaze for their purchases.

"We can't leave!" roared Harry, as much as infuriated as he was incredulous. "We must help those people! They are buried alive beneath the rubble!"

Tom swirled around and instantly clutched Harry's wrist painfully, as he snarled furiously, "We can't do magic, you half-brained idiot! Or have you forgotten about our Traces?"

"Bugger our Traces!" bellowed Harry, violently attempting to free himself from his brother's hold.

"I'm not getting expelled from Hogwarts," spat Tom at him, seething, "just because you want to play the hero!"

Harry gritted his teeth before he stuck his wand inside a pocket. "Fine! I don't need my wand, anyway. There're wizards all around who can do magic and be of help!"

And with that, he spun around and began to run down Diagon Alley, in search of as many grownups as he could find.

Some people seemed to have recovered from their shocks, but to his confusion, they weren't running towards what was left of Leisure Alley. Instead, they were taking their children and wives and husbands, and hurrying towards the exit of Diagon Alley.

"What are you doing!" yelled Harry at them, disconcerted and furious. "You must help – stop, stop!"

"They think the bombing was just a prelude," he heard Tom's voice saying sneeringly behind him. "It's everyone for themselves in circumstances like these, little brother, as you should already know! They think the Dark Lord is about to appear."

Harry stood, stumped at that, gripped by a sudden rush of stomach-churning apprehension, before he shook his head.

No, Grindelwald wasn't going to show up. Whatever the Dark Lord's plans were for England, it clearly didn't involve conquering them that day.

The wizard hadn't done what he had in Czechoslovakia: he hadn't first invaded the country with his muggle Nazi forces and surrounded the Ministry of Magic with them. He couldn't have, or there wouldn't have been any people in Diagon Alley to begin with. Everyone would have been too terrified to even go out.

No, Grindelwald had clearly given orders to throw bombs on Leisure Alley and just that - to inspire fear and panic, evidently. To make them know how vulnerable they were.

Harry clearly remembered what the Prewett twins had told him. Dumbledore had foreseen this, had even tried to convince the Wizengamot and Charlemagne McLaggen that new wards should be created, to protect them from muggle weaponry.

Dumbledore had tried. Apparently, the wizard had indeed been doing his best, but was thwarted by cowards and idiots at every turn.

Harry clenched his teeth as he saw more wizards and witches fleeing without sparing a second glance backwards, and didn't think he had ever felt so crushed or disappointed by people.

"Let's go," said Tom's voice acerbically and with much fed-up vexation. "Aurors will take care of this, brother."

Harry snapped around to yell furiously at him, "Do you see any Aurors around, eh? EH?" He threw his hands up into the air. "Who knows when they'll turn up! And in the meanwhile, people could be dying over there!"

He didn't waste any more breath on his brother and ran back towards what was left of Leisure Alley.

Midway, he only paused when he caught sight of someone familiar.

Only some storeowners seemed to have remained in Diagon Alley, frantically casting spells on their stores so they could finish repairing them as quickly as possible before fleeing themselves. It was one of those, looking as if he was nearly done, who caught his attention.

Quickly remembering the wizard's name, Harry frantically ran up to him as he cried out desperately, "Mr. Ollivander, please, you must help!" He gestured frenziedly at Leisure Alley. "There are people stuck there and I can't do magic. Please!"

The thin, old man halted mid-motion of casting a spell and gazed down at him with those strange moon-like eyes. His glance then shot towards Leisure Alley, the wizard's forehead crinkling, looking hesitant, as if he didn't want to get involved yet was mulling matters over.

"Please, sir!" insisted Harry imploringly.

"Very well," said Ollivander grudgingly in a low, quiet voice.

Harry shot him a look filled with gratefulness before he rushed out urgently, "Get more people to help us, while I do what I can!"

And with that, he moved as fast as he could towards Leisure Alley.

He started climbing mounds of debris, prying off with his bare hands as many blocks and bricks as he could. His fingers were soon bleeding raw as he kept trying to unearth someone who was buried under the wreckage.

He had managed to clear a whole arm, and it was bleeding and thankfully twitching -he could even hear the owner of the limb screaming from under the rubble- but he wasn't managing it fast enough.

Frantically, Harry glanced around and caught sight of his brother, as cool as you please, picking their things up from Diagon Alley.

"Tom, come and help me, damn you!" he bellowed furiously. "We can get our stuff later!"

From a distance, Tom stood straight up and shot him a contemptuous look as he stuck a textbook into a shopping bag. Though, with a thoroughly annoyed, dark expression on his face, his brother set the bag to a side and began to grudgingly make his way towards him.

Given how his scar was throbbing, Harry knew his brother wasn't at all pleased with the demands he was making on him, but at least Tom was complying.

With Tom's help, which wasn't as effortful as Harry would have liked, he nevertheless went much faster with his task of clearing stuff off from the buried person.

They soon saw that it was a witch, in fact, and her screams had become mere faint gurgles that abruptly halted.

Fraught with distress and panic, Harry used all the strength he could muster to tear off a block of stone from her, and then went still as he stared down.

Both of her legs had been blown off, leaving nothing but gory stumps of hanging flesh and flaps of skin from which blood seemed to have been pouring out endlessly. But now, only trickles were rolling down, and her unearthed arm had stopped moving.

He saw Tom pressing his fingers against the witch's wrist, before he shot Harry an irked look and stated acidly, "She's dead."

Harry stared at him, mute, for a second, before he croaked out weakly, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," bit out Tom churlishly as he made a move to stand up, with every intention of leaving.

Harry instantly seized his arm, pulling him back, as he roared, "Then onto the next one!"

And he yanked him along towards a half buried torso he saw a few feet away. Just as they began working on rescuing that wizard, Ollivander suddenly appeared with a whole bunch of other people.

It seemed he had done as Harry had asked and had managed to convince other storeowners to show a thread of human decency, solidarity and compassion, since they all instantly jumped into action and started casting spells to levitate the rubble.

Harry saw that Tom stood up at that, and left, standing to a side with no intention of being of any further help.

Nevertheless, even though he cursed his brother's uncaring and selfish ways under his breath, Harry kept at it, helping as much as he could with his bare hands.

With the use of magic from the adults, it all proceeded much faster than before, but the results weren't good. They rescued a tiny old wizard who gave his last dying breath just as Harry gently tried to pick him up, since an iron window frame had pierced the old man's chest. There was a young witch with half her midriff blown off, a wizard with a crushed skull, and a young man who had bled to death from a missing arm.

It was when they were almost done unearthing a witch who was still coherent and breathing, screaming herself hoarse due to the mangled foot that was hanging from a thread of skin from her ankle, that something suddenly happened.

Before his eyes, Harry saw sheets of magic slowly crumbling down all around them, but given the frantic cries of dismay from the storeowners that had been helping, it was evident that he wasn't seeing it due to his ability.

He shot Tom a frightened look at that, thinking that perhaps he had been wrong and Grindelwald was somehow bringing down the wards in order to make an appearance.

Tom must have thought the same because he clutched his wand, though his brother didn't look nervous or highly agitated and worried as Harry was, but giddy with expectation and anticipation.

All of them, except Tom, jumped when a series of cracking sounds echoed loudly, and Harry stood still, his eyes wild and wide, before he caught sight of the new arrivals.

He recognized them only due to the clothes they wore: there was an army of Aurors in their red cloaks, along with a bunch of witches and wizards in green tunics – Healers, from that wizarding hospital the Prewett twins had told him about, St. Mungo's.

They had all apparated at the same time and there was a tall, burly Auror who was barking out instructions. They all moved with extreme efficiency and in an orderly manner, rushing towards the mounds of rubbles, managing to do very fast and swiftly what had taken Harry and the storeowners a long time.

They were rescuing people left, right and center, commanding the storeowners to help them along to move the wounded towards their shop's fireplaces to floo them to St. Mungo's, or to grasp objects that vibrated and turned blue, making the holder disappear with the injured person – portkeys, Harry realized, since Professor Tilly Toke had described them in Charms class – or just disapparating with the most serious cases.

And then, Harry suddenly caught sight of a wizard who was standing at the sidelines, donned in rich, pompous clothes, with a blonde moustache ridiculously curled at its tips, glancing around like a stranded fish, his mouth hanging open, looking like a stupefied idiot who didn't give credence to what he saw.

Harry had the sudden violent urge to leap at Charlemagne McLaggen and strangle him and savagely bash his head until the Minister's brains were splattered all over the rubbles.

It had been the Minister's fault, for not having listened to Dumbledore, once more. It should have been McLaggen dying under the debris, like all those others, in Harry's infuriated opinion.

But there the wizard was, alive and well. It was just as Kathy Cole liked to say: 'A bad weed can never be plucked out'. Strangely enough, the times Harry had caught her muttering the phrase under her breath, she had been scowling at Tom from a distance.

It soon became apparent that Harry was just getting in the way and that he could be of no further use, and he dragged his feet, exhausted, until he reached his brother.

Before he could even open his mouth, Tom seized a passing-by Healer, and snapped commandingly, "Heal us. We live with muggles, we cannot return looking like this."

The old witch blinked at them, her gaze then zeroing in on Harry's face and hands, and nodded, briskly casting a series of spells on them.

Harry felt the effects immediately: all the aches that had been mercilessly plaguing him abruptly vanished, the back of his head stopped throbbing, his fingers tingled as their skin grew back, and his face twitched as cuts and small wounds closed together.

Nevertheless, Tom must have understood how worn and exhausted he felt because he didn't say a word as Harry slumped against a wall in Diagon Alley, while Tom went around picking up their purchases.

It wasn't until they reached the Leaky Cauldron that Harry mustered the energy to speak. "We need to use the bathroom."

Tom, the bartender, stared at them with wide eyes before he instantly nodded and indicated where the loo could be found.

Once there, Harry gazed at himself in the mirror. He was healed, with not even scars left behind, but he looked as if he had bathed in blood. There were even clumps of bits and pieces of flesh, hair, and skin stuck on his hands and fingers.

Feeling strangely detached, he opened the faucet, but when water started to pour on his hands, his breathing suddenly turned haggard and hitched, and he began to frenetically rub his hands clean.

It seemed to him that the blood and bits of others refused to come off, and feeling a sudden surge of frenzy and panic, he vigorously and frantically scrubbed harder.

"Stop! You're scratching yourself raw, you dimwit!" hissed out Tom, brusquely yanking Harry's hands away from the faucet. "You're already clean. What's the matter with you?"

Harry frowned, feeling a bit disoriented and nonplussed, until he stared at his own hands and realized his brother was right.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he turned away from his brother's piercing, narrowed eyes.

"Here," said Tom crisply, grabbing a set of newly bought and fresh clothes from one of the bags and pushing them into Harry's arms. "Change."

Harry complied as Tom stuffed their bloodstained, torn clothes in a rubbish bin.

They spent the four hours that it took them to return to the orphanage by bus in complete silence.

It was already nightfall when they stepped into the house, and the moment Harry crossed the threshold, he abruptly found himself tightly embraced by frantic arms.

"The sirens sounded!" said Alice frenziedly over Harry's head, as she clutched him tighter against her. "I was mad with worry! We all thought it was an air raid and you still hadn't returned!" She choked out a half-sob, before her voice turned marginally calmer as she added, "It was only a false alarm, thankfully, but I was still-"

"A false alarm?" echoed Harry, letting out a flat, mirthless bark of laughter. "Tom and I are lucky to be aliv-"

"Come!" snarled Tom, violently yanking Harry out of Alice's arms and pulling him up the stairs, nearly frog-marching him until they reached their room, shoving Harry to his bed.

Standing before him, Tom glowered and hissed out furiously, "Do you realize what you nearly told her?"

"She should know," whispered Harry, glaring up at him. "The muggles should know what is truly happening."

Tom shot him a disgusted look as he bit out, "Don't you realize what happened means? The Dark Lord just wanted to terrorize the English wizarding community. He wasn't conquering us! He was making us fear him." His eyes narrowed, as he added pensively, "For some reason, it's evident that he's leaving England for last. To be the crown jewel of his empire, the cherry on top of the cake… to be calmly savored at the very end… yet…"

He trailed off, pacing the room, before he turned around, frowning. "Yet, it can only mean that there's something in England that he wants and is leaving for last."

"Something like what?" said Harry, deeply frowning himself.

"I don't know," retorted Tom curtly. "But it must be something very valuable and important."

Harry stared at him at that, before he shook his head and muttered, "I think he was taunting Dumbledore. I think that with that attack, Grindelwald was forcing Dumbledore's hand. He wants to be confronted by Dumbledore, face-to-face."

Tom scoffed snidely. "Why? Just because people say that the fool is as powerful as the Dark Lord?" He shot him a scathing sneer. "I will believe that when I see it."

Harry didn't say anything else, but he was certain he was right. It all made so much sense now, what he had overheard in Hogsmeade: the conversation between Dumbledore and the owner of the Hog's Head pub – 'Aberforth', Dumbledore's brother, according to Alphard.

Everything indicated that Dumbledore and Grindelwald personally knew each other from the past, somehow. Moreover, given the harsh words Aberforth had spoken, their sister had died, and it had sounded as if Dumbledore and Grindelwald were to blame for that.

And why else would Grindelwald bomb Leisure Alley but not muggle London, if he wasn't trying to get a rise out of Dumbledore, besides the whole terrifying the wizarding community stuff?

It seemed to him that Grindelwald wanted wizarding Britain to become involved in the war, so that Dumbledore would be forced to, as well. After the attack on Leisure Alley, things would change in the Ministry of Magic, that was certain.

"We would know more if I had the Daily Prophet," said Tom acerbically, anger clear on his face.

Harry sighed at that. On their first week of 'holidays' in the orphanage, Tom had used Lord Horkos to send a letter, along with a generous pouch of galleons, to the Daily Prophet, expressing his wish that his subscription was extended for several years and to receive the newspaper not only at Hogwarts but during his holidays as well.

His brother had been answered by a very brief letter that stated that 'per new Ministry regulation' they were not allowed to send their newspaper to the homes of muggleborns.

Tom had been furious. "I understand that McLaggen doesn't want the muggle relatives of mudbloods to find out who is causing all the trouble-" he had sneered the word out as if everyone was being pathetically hysterical about the Dark Lord's rise for no reason "-but I told them I wasn't a muggleborn!"

"You gave them your address didn't you?" Harry had pointed out sensibly. "So they know you're in a muggle orphanage."

Tom had cast him a dour, seething look at that, but undaunted, had tried again, this time sending the headquarters of the Daily Prophet several pouches of galleons.

He had received them back, along with a letter saying exactly the same as before.

"Since when isn't there a worker who's willing to disregard ethics and laws in exchange for money?" had groused Tom darkly, as if his whole set of cynical notions of how the world functioned was being threatened and hanging by a thread, and thus would need to be thoroughly revised and perfected.

"I'm sure there must have been someone in the Daily Prophet dying to become corrupted," Harry had said soothingly. "But they must have been scared to do so. Scared of the Ministry and their punishment, if they were caught."

Tom had stared at him, looking utterly surprised, as if Harry had just spouted the most enlightening and wise words he had ever heard. "You're quite right, little brother. Fear is always more powerful than greed. I should have remembered that."

"Sure," Harry had muttered, rolling his eyes.

"Well, we won't know about the repercussion of the destruction of Leisure Alley," intoned Tom at present, his voice low and clearly vastly annoyed, "until we're back at Hogwarts."

Harry said nothing to that, still seated on his bed, his mind filled with images. It felt as if they were burnt with fire in his head, all those sights of people with blown off limbs, torn faces, crushed skulls, mangled and dangling feet, spilled entrails and whatnot. He didn't think he would ever forget.

He stared down at his hands, and whispered quietly, "It's war."

It must have sounded incredibly stupid to his brother, but Tom didn't say a mocking word in response. To Harry, though, those words encompassed everything he was feeling.

It had finally happened, what Tom had predicted all along: war was at their front step and they had just experienced its cruel savagery and ruthless brutally first-hand.

And it wouldn't be the last time, Harry knew. He made a decision right then.

That night he felt asleep, feeling hollowed.