Operation Shell Game

Dumbledore arrived two minutes before midnight. With him were the guards of the order, along with the people who would take part in the plan. It had been Dung to suggest the polyjuice trick. Seven Potters to move out in different directions would certainly confuse Tom. He looked over the people he had. Bill and Fleur would take a Thestrale to the Leaky Cauldron. Fred and Alicia as well as George and Angelina would take their Brooms towards safe houses south of Surrey. Ron and Hermione were to take brooms as well to get away. Hagrid would have a fake Harry in his side car, which he could ditch should Voldemort arrive, while having Moody and Kingsley as escorts. Dumbledore himself would protect Harry alone. Who would suspect the mighty Dumbledore flying with Tonks, who had a nearly public reputation for her clumsiness, and Remus, who as a werewolf was not trusted? Sirius would have helped, too, but he was in charge of keeping the Burrow defended.

Albus was shocked when he saw the hole in the house. "Wands out!" he ordered. The members behind him followed suit and charged behind him into the hall. The house was empty. Albus expected the worst when he saw blood splattered all over the wall. When he opened the door to the kitchen and the living room, a sight of horror greeted them. The heavy couch lied in pieces, the feathers lying everywhere. dented and ripped pieces of metal, remains of frying pans and other heavy things littered the ground. The killer had made short process with the man, toying with him. Especially Vernon's expression of pure fear and horror would burn into the memories of the charging order members. Albus could only think of one person being able to do this. The clue was in the ceiling. An eternal fire, forming letters: Rest in pieces! Moody shouted: "Potter is across the street!" Just as they scrambled out again, the vehicles parked hidden in the driveway sped away. The emergency lights cleared the way of any one left on the streets. Dumbledore shouted. "Follow them! They will draw the Death Eaters' attention with this! We have to protect Harry!"Immediately he swung onto a broom he conjured and took off behind the convoy. In his rush with his senior order members he missed his decoys staying behind with their escorts. A Striker rolled out of the shadow of Privet Drive No.4. The eight entered and the APC sped away into another direction.

The Order followed the convoy above them. They had small encounters with Death Eaters, but they quickly disappeared after they found out that Harry wasn't with them. Then, they spotted the convoy. Diving, they shot spells at it. One car got a hit and nearly crashed into one of the Humvees, but the vehicle simply pushed its way through the blockade. The soldiers began to fire back from their turrets. How they could spot the Death Eaters in the dark was a mystery to him, but he guessed it was one of the advanced inventions Erik once mentioned. The convoy disappeared into a tunnel. Breaking pursuit all parties headed towards the exit of the structure. They fought each other, exchanging jinxes and curses while defending themselves. Then, a loud, cold laughter filled the area. Lord Voldemort had appeared on scene. His curse tore the ground open. The first Humvee fell into the gaping earth while the other skidded to a narrow halt. The last two didn't make it as they collided with cars on the side, flipping over their convoy and pluming down the gap. The Death Eaters landed on the ground and attacked. The Order member landed a little behind them and cornered the Death Eaters between themselves and the convoy. It was a classical stand-off. Voldemort and his goons threw killing curses, but the highway had enough space to evade them and enough wreckages to give cover. Then, blue lines came out of the sky. Instantly, three large helicopter hovered in. One sank down and got the surviving soldiers in. Dumbledore caught a glimpse of a ravenhead among the soldiers but he wasn't sure. It simply had to be Harry who else would have black hair and was smaller than the soldiers? The helicopter lifted off and an explosion erupted within the circle of Humvees. The Death Eaters swung into the sky again, chasing behind the escaping squadron. The order followed and disarmed a lot of Death Eaters from behind. Still there were about fifteen followers left. Voldemort shot a killing curse back. Moody saw it and knocked Tonks to the side before throwing his wooden leg into the path of the curse to protect himself. "Constant Vigilance!" He bellowed. In front of them the helicopters released bright glowing sparks and smoke, leaving their pursuers in a thick cloud. When they got out again the helicopter split up. One continued to head north while the other two banked east and west. Voldemort kept chasing the northbound helicopter. It kind of made sense. The westbound was heading towards the Burrow, the eastbound towards King's Cross. The northbound one was heading towards Hogwarts, the presumably safest place in Britain apart from Gringott's. Then, one of Voldemort's spells connected. The helicopter spun out of control, descending at a rapid rate. Dumbledore watched helplessly as it barely missed the Tower Bridge and crashed into the Thames. It quickly sunk into the water, disappearing from them. With shock he watched as Voldemort laughed and disappeared with his followers.

Returning to Grimmaud Place, which was the closest safe house, he was surprised to find Sirius and Catherine. "Your men lost Harry!" Dumbledore shouted. She held up her hand. "Don't throw a fit."

"Not a fit! Harry is dead because your people failed to protect him. Voldemort just killed him and then people who tried to rescue him. We were prepared to lead Voldemort away, but your flashy exit made it easy for them to spot you!" Albus accused the soldiers. Many Order members agreed.

"You really don't know what we did, do you?"

Flashback

The convoy skidded to a stop in the tunnel. Harry and Ginny quickly got out. The soldiers followed, only Catherine remained. The cars shot off again, this time without drivers. Skidding to a halt, the turrets were set on full automatic. Bill, Fred and George arrived on brooms, having the disguise of helicopters up. The illusion was perfect. They shot up and after a short chase they used the Peruvian instant darkness powder to cover them disapparating and the arrival of the drones. These had holographic cloaks, pretending to be the helicopters. They split up and headed to the obvious points. One got hit and was abandoned.

At the same time Erik met up with Harry, Ginny and their escorts. With another stealth helicopter they disappeared into the night.

Flashback end.

"Where are they now?" Dumbledore demanded. "Won't tell ya. They are safe with us. But I assure you they will be on the train in time." Catherine said before she walked backwards and sunk into the shadows. Albus sighed. Again, Harry was out of his reach with trained killers. He had to admit that the soldiers were effective, but the world couldn't be just soldiers, could it?

"Training, my arse. You are just using me as your weight." Ron complained. Ginny had asked them to sit down on a bench and had disappeared. Then, the bench had begun to move up and down. Looking down they found her doing push-ups with only one finger on the ground and the other balancing the bench. Across them, Erik laughed at the antics. He only pointed on the tarmac. On a specially reinforced area Catherine was doing the same with a tank on her back. "Only problem during everyday action is that the soil is usually too weak to support that weight focused in the size of a regular foot."

"Stop whining, Ronnikins. Think of all the jokes we can pull on her expense!" George laughed while patting Fred on his shoulder. Harry barely looked up from Snape's potion diary. "You do know that Ginny just has got THAT time of the month, do you? She lost it when she found out how Vernon treated me through my childhood." he calmly remarked while turning a page. "Usually, a bottle of blood keeps her civil, but I think I forgot to restock over the term." "Is it really that bad?"

Erik came over and propped himself on the bench. "The first time Catherine had them when we got together she practically raped me and nearly killed everyone else."

"And yet, you live." Ron said. Erik laughed. "Only because of our bond. You should know, a soul bond should never be broken. It naturally only does when one of the partners die. The surviving one will eventually fall in deep desperation and sorrow. What follows is untamed hate for the world that took the partner. They will start to randomly blame people, but mostly the blames are justified. The path of revenge follows and they will begin to destroy the world they hate. Now with Ginny and Catherine you should be worried, should either Harry or I die an unnatural death. They are really strong and practically unstoppable by normal means." The Weasley boys gasped at the very thought. They already knew Ginny as a prankster. She was a real master with her Bat-Bogey-Hex when she was young, but combined with her supernatural gift the result would be dooming the world.

Dumbledore sat in his office again. He read the reports on failed Death-Eater-Attacks. The response time of the Task Force Cobra was abnormal fast, as if they somehow knew where they had to be. They couldn't have a spy. Snape had not reported him this. As far as the potions master was informed, there was no follower with the back ground to deflect. Nor the abilities. Nearly no one but Bellatrix had the necessary occlumency shields to protect their secrets. He definitely didn't like how they worked, killing people, not protecting innocent younglings from the gruesome sight of a killed man. They were far too aggressive with them. He had tried to get the ICW to interfere, only to learn that it was part of a global operation to take out Voldemort's terror organization.

The next meeting of the Defense Association was rather funny. Snape gave his report on what both Voldemort and Dumbledore did. "He doesn't understand how you are able to react that fast. And personally I have to wonder, too. I might give you the information but some attacks are far apart, how do you manage to stop them?"

Erik leaned back and allowed himself a smile. "It's not only the 13th Platoon anymore. The 666th Battalion is in it. Also a few foreign units like the GIGN and the GSG9 help us. They are covering the southern area while the 666th is across the country and the 13th concentrates on important areas: Mainly London and other key areas."

Next Narcissa gave her report. "Sparks Armory is mainly visited by muggle-born wizards and witches. Armanda is working on a grenade, that release spells like incendio or bombarda. The plan is that they can be simply recharged by an Ennervate or similar spell."

Next was the list of Death Eaters. The Platoon gave a report on where they were and who had already been taken out. Due to the non-magical nature of the assasination neither the ministry nor the Order was any wiser. Some where caught abroad. Apparently international portkeys were only able to get them to the next country. And as France and Germany together formed a rather effective line blocking England off, the GSG9 and the GIGN captured Death Eaters easily with the Intel Snape provided. Most were taken by surprise but sometimes one or two would break through. Task Force Cobra Operatives kept track on them, negotiating with the other groups.

But Harry and Ginny were more concerned with their last school year. They knew, that they then would work full-time with the Task Force, but also as Aurors. One large problem was Fudge and by extend Umbridge.

Arthur looked over his reports as he gave them. Molly, along with Ron, had alienated from them. While neither was completely hostile, Ron reduced his interactions with Harry and Ginny to a minimum. Molly however pushed to get her family back to what it was. She hero-worshipped Dumbledore too much to blame anything on him. It was exactly this kind of worshipping that went over Albus' head. "Narcissa and Draco gave me pointers about a hideout with in Malfoy Manor. We found a lot of dark artifacts, enough to lock him up. The house of Malfoy is a Patriarchal clan, so as the sole heir, Draco is now Lord Malfoy. Although I have to wonder what happened, that the whole Tower collapsed." Erik coughed slightly. "The extraction team went in with the instruction to get Lady Malfoy out at all costs." The Lieutenant looked over his files. "We have the suspicion that Dolores Umbridge may be a Death Eater or at least in favor of their views. An Agent is keeping watch." At this point Bill added. "Fleur and I are working with the goblins to uncover possible bribery made by Fudge. When Perce smuggled a planned decree on limiting the goblins powers they were happy to assist, even more after we revealed that we worked for you, Harry." Fleur giggled. "I quote: We are happy be at Lord Potter's service." "That's much, coming from goblins."

Remus sighed. "The Wolfbane offer got us many werewolves who offer their help. They want to repay their debt by serving the Lord giving it to them." Harry shook his head. "I don't want their service, if it's to repay me. Tell them that I only accept..." Ginny interrupted him. "Give them jobs with in your companies, love. Those who really want can fight with us." Catherine smiled at the idea. "The Vampires in England are nearly extinct, most had joined Tom and died during the last battle. The ones on continental Europe don't care, at least the normal categories." She pulled a face of disgust. "However the Sub-Categories joined him. No doubt in believe to gain power."

They checked their supply lines and other rather small problems.

During the night Harry and Ginny got an uneasy feeling. This summer was to become rather interesting. She kissed him before relieving herslef of restraining underwear.

Erik went to the kitchen to get himself a mug of hot chocolate. He wasn't surprised to find Catherine already there with it. "What do you think?" "It will be nasty." Erik took a sip. Never had he have a really quiet life. There was always something and this time it would not be different when they were suddenly engulfed in bright white light. To an outsider who could look past the wards he would see two sets of windows lightning up in a blue glow.

The two soul-couples were gone. On a task to safe lives, something only they could do.

Note: Due to the T-Rating one scene has been edited. For those who are interested to see what Ginny also did to Vernon, look at the Ao3 "Edition". Same title, nearly same penname (It's RSC1995 on Ao3) I will work this way mostly to get past the limits of the rating system.

Also thanks to the reviewers out there. It really makes me happy to see people not only interested but supporting this story.

RSC-1995, over and out.