One more chapter after this to go. Sorry this is a really long one. Probably should have split it. Enjoy.

Mistress

Chapter 10: The War and The Battle

We had been married a little over five months and together for a little over 19 months and everything was normal. Well as normal as it can get in the middle of a war.

It had been my idea for the twins and Lee Jordan to start the radio show filled with the real information of what is going on, but also to make light of certain situations and try and bring light back to Britain's Wizarding World. After the shop was closed because of the war it was like the only bright spot in the world faded to a pin prick. We needed to get hope back in to the fight or we would lose the battle before it started.

Ginny had been telling us what had been happening at Hogwarts and what they had been doing by restarting Dumbledore's Army. It was like another extension of that. We even thought that we could reach Harry, Ron and Hermione and lift their spirits and let them know what was happening in the world and that they weren't the only ones fighting and that they had support. Of course we knew that they would need access to a radio and to be able to tune in and get the passwords and things.

We knew it would be difficult and that we would have to move around a lot to avoid getting caught by the Death Eaters. I even tried creating a spell that would bounce our signal around so that it would become difficult or even impossible to trace.

It worked to a certain extent. We could stay in places longer, sometimes even four or five times as long as before the spell, but eventually we would move on to a new location to be on the safe side. We never stayed in the same spot very long a month at most.

Anyway I taught the boys – mostly it was just Lee – how to set it up and bounce the signal and run sound checks and change the password and the business side of how to run the channel and the importance of using a code or stage name. I even came up with Lee's name, because of the Jordan River. He handled the talking.

I know what you're thinking, if you already knew all this stuff and you were already on radio then wouldn't you have been better to do this. No I wouldn't have. Lee had a great standing with the audience and he used to be part of the DA and was now a member of the Order. It was better having someone that people new the credentials off even if they were supposed to be in disguise. It was the one reason we never disguised their voices it gave them credibility. More than an anonymous radio talk show host and guests. While I am a member of the Order my alter-ego the radio show host was on the fence because that's how I had to play it. To keep my family safe. My parents were still working for the ministry. My dad was in the Order my mum refused to join but she supported it trust me.

Anyway that's not important. they learnt the tricks of the radio from me. And I helped them run it a lot of the time. I was the manager for that show. I knew that if we bounced around; locations, channels, times, days, everything we could confuse the death Eaters and make it harder for them to find us. We changed the password for each show and told you what the next one was going to be, but not when that show was. It was a great system if I do say so myself. We could even produce it and then run it on a record so that if the Death Eaters or their minions got particularly savvy during the show, and found us, they would only find the recording that was being sent out and we would be long gone. We were very precautions for that show and had backups with in backups and escape plains A through Z.

Several times a month we would be sent out on missions for the Order. It was a very trying time. We were all under constant pressure not to get caught. We were put in positions where we had to fight our way out of it. We were under constant pressure of injury or death. We were scared that the next name we would hear on the ever growing list of dead and missing would be someone we knew, someone we love, someone we liked, someone we disliked, even someone we hated.

War is awful no one wins despite what they tell you. If you fight in a war you will come home scared weather it is physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. It will affect you. There is nothing that anyone can do. You will never be acclimatised to war. Nor should you ever want to be.

The longer the war went on the more mission we got and the harder they became. It eventually became clear why. We were losing members whether to illness or injury and even death it remains to be seen. It was taking a toll on everyone. Peaceful sleep was a thing of the past. Without Fred sleeping beside me on most nights I don't know if I could have survived. I was terrified that I would go to sleep and wake up and he'd be gone or someone we love would be dead or we'd here that the war was finished and that You Know Who had won. I knew that they were all distinct possibilities. In fact, losing someone we love was a probability. It was more about who, when and where more so then if.

It was dark days. Fear ruled over all. Our enemies seemed to be endless and growing in power. While our allies seemed to dwindle in numbers and strength.

Then May First came and it was time to take up arms and take the fight directly to them.

As I have previously said it was this day when I found out I was ten weeks pregnant having conceive sometime late February and I was due sometime in late November. I hadn't gone to the hospital to get it checked out yet. I just did an at home test. Both magical and muggle. Magical to confirm I was pregnant and muggle to get an estimate of how far along I was.

I had been waking up nauseous and tired for the last several weeks. I had just assumed that it was an effect of the war, the increased pressure and stress on me and the decrease in my sleep quantity and quality when I got it. They may have been contributing factors. I only started to suspect when I started getting cravings for weird food like Nutella on cheese and chocolate with pumpkin pasties. So I did the spell when I was alone in the house and it came back positive. Well that was a bit of a shock. Just to prove it to myself and to get a date I went in to muggle London and got a pregnancy test or two. They confirmed my suspicions.

It was right after a raid. We had just gotten home after an order sanctioned raid on a suspected Death Eater base. The intel we had gathered was deceptive and there were more enemies then we were prepared for. there was only a group of ten of us. There were fifteen of them. Thankfully everyone made it out with only one person sustaining serious injuries. We did end up dismantling that base, taking out a few of them and capturing plans for a raid on one of our bases.

So we now know that they knew where this base was. We magically copied the plans and left them were we found them. So that we could set up an ambush at that base. We also knew we had to move the base and any and all important documents it contained.

We had just finished delivering the report back at HQ, and had just made it home. The adrenalin rush from the raid had worn off hours ago. We were tied and hurt. While neither of us had sustained major injuries just a few cuts and bruises and I had rolled my ankle but we would be fine in a day or too if we healed the muggle way and a few minutes the magical. We both decided we were too tired to perform the healing spells that night so we decided to grab something to eat and go to bed.

By the time we finally got in to bed an hour late we both knew we wouldn't be able to sleep. We tried anyway. And well one thing led to another and we conceived a baby.

So I confirmed my suspicions ten weeks later on the first of May. I was going to tell Fred that very night. But the war got in the way.

He had sent a patronus message saying that he had big news. I couldn't but think so do I. so he came home and it was much later then he usually does. He burst in about 7:30pm and starts telling me how he was over at Shell Cottage and how Bill was telling him that he found out through his connections with the goblins at the Bank that Harry, Ron and Hermione had broken in to one of the deepest vaults and busted out again on the back of a dragon. He even said that it was the Lestrange vault. We briefly puzzled over what they had wanted in Bellatrix's vault. We had known they were safe for several weeks. Bill had patronus messages everyone as soon as they had been tended to. I think there was a great sigh of relief that could be heard from the order when they heard this particularly at the Burrow.

I was just working up the nerve to tell Fred I was pregnant when his coin went off. By now it was around 9pm and we went straight to the Hogshead. Apparating straight into the pub. Much to Aberforth's displeasure. We weren't the only ones.

It seemed like in the space of fifteen minutes the whole place was filled with the old DA that had already left of been in hiding and the order member. We all made our way through the tunnel behind the portrait of Ariana Dumbledore.

We left the tunnel and entered in to the Come and Go Room, the Room of Requirements and it was already full of students and others who had come through the tunnel before us. People were embracing and calling out. They were talking and reacquainting with family and friends. The students didn't look so good they were all different years and houses, but all of them were scruffy, and thinning. They were all scraped and cut up and patched with bruises. But they were smiling and laughing. But through it all you could see a missing piece of innocence in all of their eyes. It was heart breaking that one's so young should be subjected to the horrors they had.

We greeted some of the older kids. I went off to talk with some of the kids I recognised from my house. I healed what I could. A lot of it seemed to be several days old at least. I taught the older one the simpler healing spell and together we set up a little make shift hospital tent in the corner of the room and got to work. They handled the little stuff like shallow cuts and scrapes and minor bruising and sent the deeper and more serious ones to me. I also started in on healing fractures and concussions and even a few broken bones. Soon a few Order members were there helping me and we patched and fixed up the students and some of the DA as best we could.

The Twins were entertaining the people across from us and there were groups just milling around talking. None of us was really very sure why we were here. We knew that Harry, Ron and Hermione are here and that they were searching for something important. But we didn't know why that required them to put out a call for the DA.

Then we discovered that someone else put out the call and that they weren't planning on fighting. I was a little disappointed. I thought that we were going to end the war tonight.

We were all getting ready to leave when something happened. I don't know what and all of a sudden we were going to be fighting after all. We had a mass evacuation of the Room of Requirements. We flooded the halls of Hogwarts going down and in to the Great Hall. The Battle for Hogwarts had begun.

It was around 10pm by this stage and we were just waiting. The Carrows and Snape had been over thrown and the students had been divided thous who didn't want to fight and were younger than 17 where being escaping using the tunnel in the room of requirements to get to the Hogs Head. A few of the years were kicking up a stink about this stating that they were in the DA too and were told that they couldn't help as they weren't advanced enough to battle the Death Eaters. A few of the more advanced students in sixth and seventh years were chosen to learn healing spells and to brew healing potions. It was soon quite obvious that they were going to need a great amount of healing supplies before this was done. Toughs of us with prior healing experience from the order was chosen to help the students and to protect them we possible.

By 10:30 the fighting had begun. People were running left right and centre. Attacking in every direction and countering as if their lives depended on it. Which they did. It was utter chaos.

By 1:30am Voldemort was calling a ceasefire for an hour. He was calling on Harry Potter to come and give himself up. Telling him that he would be waiting in the forbidden forest.

We gathered the injured and the dead and we put them in the great hall. We lined up the dead and so many face I recognised I felt my heart clench when I saw Remus and Tonks side by side hands almost touching. I thought of their infant son who was only eleven days old, and I couldn't help but touch my only slightly protruding stomach and think about the life I carried in me and what could happen to me, and it this very night, then I put it out of my head. I stopped looking at the dead and instead concentrated on the injured. Those I could help became my refuge for my pain. I didn't notice the looks I was receiving until someone asked me if I was feeling ok. I look at them confusedly and they said after what happened to Fred.

Panic engulfed me and I frantically started looking for the red head in the line of injured. I need to find him. He had to be alive. Soon I had existed the injured and I started to scan the line of the dead. Only five up from Remus and Tonks there he lays, Surrounded by His family.

My scream ripped apart the hall. I run to him headless of those in my way. I through myself on top of him and start shaking him begging him to wake up. He had to wake up. He had to. He had to know about the baby and he had to be their daddy. He couldn't leave me! How could I survive without him? So he had to wake up. I just kept yelling at him to get up! To be their Daddy! To not leave me! Eventual one of his brothers Charlie I think drags me of off him and out of the hall. We are all so distressed, and I kept fighting to get back to him so that I could wake him up.

"Cass … Cassie … Cassandra!" Charlie thundered at me. "You need to stop this! You have to go on for him, for you, for your baby! You can't just fall apart. We need you. George won't be able to cope. We need you to be strong for him. And for you. We can't lose you too." He tells me when I eventually stop screaming and fighting him enough to listen.

"But he didn't even know about the baby. I didn't tell him about the baby. I should have told him about the baby. Now he will never know. Why didn't I tell him?!" I cried in to his shirt. Eventually we go back into the Hall and sit by his side. I look around and George is in a bad shape, Percy who they only just made up with looks awful and Molly just looks so sad. I can only imagine how she must feel.

I go and sit between Molly and George. Knowing that they are going to need me the most. And I them.

Eventually the hour Deadline passes and we hear nothing. We move the dead and injured in to different rooms so that the injured can try and rest and don't have to look at what could have happened to them, and see the lifeless faces of their friends and families.

Half an hour or so after the deadline had past, Voldemort again makes an announcement. "Harry Potter is dead. He was killed trying to sneak away and now there is no one to save you. Your fighters are tiered and week, my Death Eaters are strong. You cannot win. Give up and join me and I will let you live. Refuse and die." Everyone slowly files out of the castle into the courtyard. We are meet with Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters and Hagrid holding Harry as gently as he can.

I can't believe it. We lost. Fred died for nothing. We are doomed.

Neville Longbottom stands up to He who must not be Named, and tells him to stick it. That we will keep fighting because it is what's right, that we've lost to much to give up now. That we will win because we are fighting for what's right and you will lose because you are wrong.

I know he is right and I start to feel anger and rage curling in my gut. These are the people that killed my Husband before his time, before he knew about his child! They would pay.

Then Harry was alive and challenging what Tom Riddle believes to be true. And the fighting has started again and I am on the war path. Non who crosses my wan gets away unscathed. Dimly I am aware that we are moving back in to the entrance hall and the great hall. And I recognise the smart decision to move the injured and dead. They would have been trampled otherwise.

I vaguely remember seeing the Malfoy's running around screaming for their son. I would have gone after them but I can't. I couldn't stop a parent from reaching their child. Not anymore anyway. They just looked so desperate to find him, to make sure that he was safe and sound. I hoped they find him.

Soon the middle of the hall empties and there are only three battles going on. Molly Weasley is battling Bellatrix. I am battling her husband Rodolphus Lestrange. And the newly resurrected Harry Potter is battling the Dark Lord.

I am the first to defeat my opponent my rage and grief over Fred's death causing my morals to shift temperately. And it was like it had a domino effect. Soon Bellatrix was gone and Tom followed not long after.

The war was over we had one. But I couldn't feel pride or joy. Only loss. He was gone and he wasn't coming back. My husband was lost to me. I turned and left the hall. I walked up the stairs. I kept going till I couldn't go anymore. There was a big hole in the wall right in front of me. I could see that it was just before dawn.

I stood there and watched the day dawn bright and clear. I couldn't enjoy any of it he was gone. It was over. What did I still have to do. I don't know how many more people were injured and killed in that last confrontation. I knew I could just take one more step forward and be relieved of this pain. I could end it now. I thought of my husband and I wondered if I did this if I would get to see him in the afterlife. I could spend eternity with him and the others who died last night and in the first war. I could spend time with Tonks and Lupin and they could tell me of their baby …

It was with that thought that I knew I could never do it. I hugged my stomach and sunk to my knees as I thought of Lupin and Tonks never getting to see their baby boy growing up. Of the Malfoys running through a battle screaming at the top of their lungs for their son even though they were both wandless. Of Lily and James Potter son being the saviour of the wizarding world. I thought of the Weasleys and especially George. I knew they needed me. I knew that they might even be people in the hall injured that need me. I knew I should go back down and leave this place. I knew I needed to go and help the wizarding world get back into order, but I couldn't move. I just knelt there with tears streaming down my face looking out of the hole while holding my stomach. I don't know how long I stayed there I was not conscious of the time.

All I knew was that the sun had completely cleared the horizon by the time that Percy found me. He sat next to me, hugged me to him and told me it was his fault. He told me how and why he abandoned his family. How he came back seeking redemption and how it was his fault that Fred die. How he was the last person to make him smile and laugh. How he was so sorry and how it should have been him and not Fred that died. How he gave me full permission to hate him and never forgive him for all he's done wrong.

I stopped him after a while. I didn't want to hear any more. I wanted to be angry at him for Fred's death but I knew it wasn't his fault. I told him so. I asked him to help me up because we needed to get back to the great hall. We needed to help thous who needed helping. We needed to not sink in to the pit of darkness and depression. We needed to be strong for Fred's sake. For Georges, for the Weasleys, for the Wizarding world.

Leaning heavily on Percy we picked our way down to the ground floor. We walked into the great hall and saw that the tables had been set back up. That the younger kids had come back and that no one was bothering with house tables. I saw the Malfoys huddling over on a table looking a little lost and a lot wary. No one was othering them and I was happy that they had found each other and appeared to be major injury free.

Percy started to lead me over to the Weasleys with one last look at the Malfoys I followed. I was glad to see that no one else had sustained to bad an injury and they all appeared to be fine, physically anyway. I knew emotionally and mentally they were all hurting. I told them about the baby. They asked me to check as it had been a stressful night. I knew they wanted some of Fred to be still alive. And it was. Safe and sound in my womb.

I kept looking over at the Malfoys. They were doing there upmost to be invisible and everyone was ignoring them even though they had some wounds that needed tending. I guess everyone figured that the Death Eaters get served last now. But it is that kind of thinking that led to this war in the first place.

I excused myself from the Weasleys and walked over to them. I took my wand out and they watch me approach. They didn't do anything. They didn't go for their wands or take a defensive position. The only sigh that they saw me coming other than them watching me was they all tensed and both Narcissa and Lucius crowded Draco as if to protect him. That hurt my heart.

I continued over to them after faltering slightly. "Here let me take care of that" I said pointing at a particularly deep gash that was on Draco's arm it was still leaking blood. I waved my wand and fixed the worst of is injuries and tended to some of the minor ones as well. I did the same to all of them. All the while talking to them in a soothing tone. They eventually relaxed and joined in a conversation. They apologised for what they had participated in and said they thought they were doing what's right. In as gentle tone as I could manage I said "Excluding people based on the heritage was never right, it just caused a rift to form in our world. It put people on different sides. How does having a Muggle born study magic affect you or your family. Hermione Granger was in your son's year and she is a Muggle born and she is possible the smartest person in all of Wizarding Britain. How is refusing her to study promote you or your family. It doesn't. Your argument was ridiculous. But it was how you were brought up I understand that."

"I know it is hard to see, but having a diverse nation and bloodlines can only benefit us. Who's to say that Hermione or some other muggle born might not create the cure for Lycanthropy or something. By denying them the right to study and in some cases the right to live you were just causing our world to stand still. I know this is hard to hear but eventually if we stopped accepting muggle born we would eventually become so inbreed that we would become deformed mentally like Bellatrix Lestrange, emotionally like Voldemort and physical. And eventually we may even become infertile. If the Death Eaters had of won last night, they would have been over thrown out of the necessity for our species to survive. Please think about that."

"I would also like to thank you. You pulled me back from the brink this morning. I was ready to throw my life away and remembering you rushing through a crowd of people that wanted to do serious harm to you looking for your son, helped give me the strength continue for my child. Have a nice day." And with that I left them looking very complaintive. I don't think anyone had just explained their flawed perception of the world and told them the facts.

I felt better after talking with them. I just wished that Fred was still here.

Please let me know what you think. Reviews and Comments are appreciated. Thanks for sticking with me. I'll try and upload the next chapter ASAP

Love Always,

Mistress XoX