"I still can't get through to my friends on Earth... should I be concerned?" Harry wondered as he packed up the last of his possessions in his dorm.
"Maybe... maybe not. Lots of people don't always answer their phones." Aki shrugged.
"I'm the only one who'd be calling them though. Why would they possibly want to avoid my calls?" Harry raised an eyebrow at the phone.
This time, he'd tried calling Ron, but he couldn't get through.
"Maybe they wanted to avoid looking at your scrawny self. The new glasses help the look, but you're still not all that pleasing to look at." Aki teased.
"Sod off, Aki. I'm not scrawny anymore. Besides, how the bloody hell would you know that I'm pleasing to look at? Should someone tell Athena that her boyfriend's not playing for the team he says he is?" Harry retorted.
Aki responded by throwing a pillow at him, but Harry quickly retrieved his wand and banished it back at the other teen, knocking him over.
Harry chortled.
"So... going to spend some more time with your girlfriend this summer as well?" Aki teased.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Naturally. I'm going to be spending time with my friends back home too. Now that they're free of Hogwarts, perhaps we could put some more work into destroying Voldemort. They're adults, they're fully qualified... Nobody could legally stop them."
"Would anybody actually want to stop someone who was trying to beat Voldemort?" Aki raised an eyebrow.
"Besides Death Eaters and their sympathisers? Overprotective friends and relatives, among others..." Harry pointed out.
Aki blinked. "Good point."
"Anyway," Harry swung his backpack over his shoulder and hoisted up Hedwig's cage, the owl safely contained within. "I'd better get going. I promised that I'd meet Roxy and we'd go together to meet Queen Nebula before I go home. See you next school year!" he waved as he left the dorm.
Harry hadn't been in Tir Nan Og for five minutes when Dobby appeared in the meeting room, looking distressed.
"Dobby is sorry to be disturbing youse meeting, he is, but he is be hearing some bad, bad news from Master Harry's home..." Dobby tugged at his ears lightly, something that Harry had noticed that the House Elf tended to do when he was nervous. "He would be telling you sooner, but he is just finding out, he is and he does not know how to get to Magix, you see..."
Harry glanced at Roxy, then at the queen, who had looked mildly irritated at the interruption at first, but then her expression softened upon hearing the reason why Dobby had interrupted in the first place, becoming a more concerned one.
"What kind of bad news?" Harry asked, swallowing down his anxiety. Perhaps this was why he couldn't get through to Ron and Hermione earlier...
"The bad wizard... the big bad wizard sent his minions out to attack. They be attacking the Ministry of Magic and the Hogwarts Express right now!" Dobby cried out.
It was lots of practice that made Harry remain in his chair and not immediately get up and bolt off to the rescue.
"What do you know about the attacks? How many attackers were there? How far along in the journey was the Hogwarts Express?"
"Dobby does not know much about the attacks!" Dobby wailed. "He heard numbers from Headmaster when he is sending Patronuses for help, but he does not know what they mean..."
"Numbers..." Harry paused. "Co-ordinates! Of course! Somebody must have found the position of the train when it was attacked and relayed them to him!"
"Dobby, do you remember the numbers?" Nebula asked, standing up, and motioning for the Warrior Fairies present in the room to come closer. "We need to know them!"
"Yes, he does!" Dobby immediately recited them.
"Fine. Harry, you may go with these warriors to assist wherever possible. Some of them have healing talents so they may be able to help in that regard as well. Roxy, you stay here with me." Nebula instructed.
Roxy looked ready to protest, but the fairy queen cut her off with a look as Harry and the Warrior Fairies sent with him left.
"We're calling your mother and others to help us out with this one. Voldemort sunk to the low of attacking children specifically. This isn't like Hogsmeade where anyone there was fair game to the Trix. Children, the weak spot. The ones who would be least likely to be able to fight back." Nebula's eyes hardened. "We need a total evacuation of our kind from that place, British Fairies or anyone else who was visiting. It's no longer safe there for anyone if he feels confident enough to attack the government itself or he thinks he can get away with attacking the young ones."
Nebula paced up and down the room, thinking.
"We should probably call some of the fairies who are talented at healing here to help, shouldn't we? I mean, St. Mungo's is bound to be full to bursting with an attack like this..." Roxy suggested.
"You're right. I will talk to Sibylla and her group, plus a few others I know who are talented in the art. The Springsteens will have to be involved in this as well. The wards around the island will have to be adjusted to suit..." Nebula stopped pacing and straightened up herself.
"Roxy, you need to stay. If Morgana and I leave, you'll be the only other one who is able to tap into the wards. Only royal family members can do it and since you're the Crown Princess..."
Roxy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well, if this is the way that I can help, I'll do it."
"Good." Nebula nodded. "I'm still not entirely comfortable letting you go into fights like this anyway and I'm sure your parents feel the same."
"I'll go get started." Roxy stood up.
With a nod from Nebula, she walked briskly out of the meeting room and headed straight for the throne room.
Stepping on the right side of the throne and putting her hand on the wall there, Roxy muttered an incantation, her magical energy flaring up for a bit as she did.
An archway opened and she stepped through, it quickly closing up behind her.
The room lit up, revealing soft yellow walls with various inscriptions on the walls in runes she had yet to fully learn and understand.
A permanent spell circle was etched in the floor and it was this that Roxy stepped into.
Once she was precisely in the middle, she transformed and knelt down, touching the floor with her palms.
She closed her eyes and focused.
As she did, the inscriptions glowed white, the circumference glowed white and its glow spread to her, her wings glowing particularly brightly as she tapped into her realm's magical energy.
Harry arrived to a scene of pure and utter chaos.
Debris littered the valley, smoke filled the air, the train was on fire in various places and looked more akin to a piece of Swiss cheese...
He spotted Dumbledore fighting several metres away from him and tossed a curse at a Death Eater who was about to attack him from behind.
"Much obliged, Harry!" Dumbledore called out to him as they fought.
"I got here so late... I didn't know..." Harry noticed several figures laying prone around them, many completely still and some with parts of them missing.
He fought back nausea.
"Neither did I. The loss is great here today..." Dumbledore incapacitated one of the few remaining Death Eaters as the Aurors rounded up the living ones.
Above them, aboard and around the train, Aurors, students, other fighters and Warrior Fairies alike, wrapped up the fight.
"So many people lost today... All because of Voldemort..." Harry growled.
Dumbledore bowed his head.
"Queen Nebula has offered her assistance in helping the injured from this attack. Roxy stayed behind to adjust the wards to allow anyone who needs to get in for help to pass through the protections. The Springsteens are there, with their knowledge of both Muggle and Wizarding medicine, willing to help. Other fairies are being called in to help as well..." Harry spoke quietly as he took in the devastation around him.
"She has been quite helpful to you and to us." Dumbledore said. "However, not everyone can be saved, no matter how hard you try to or who you have helping you. Nothing that occurred here is your fault. The blame lies at the feet of Voldemort and his Death Eaters alone."
Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
"I'm going to walk... go and see if... I need to know." Harry managed to get out.
"Understandable."
As Harry kept his eyes on the ground, Dumbledore put a hand gently on his shoulder.
Harry removed it gently and began to walk.
He spotted familiar faces amongst the figures laying on the grass, although many of them he just recognised by sight, rather than knowing them personally.
As others came to the living and to cover the bodies of the dead with white sheets, Harry heard a scream from above him.
"HARRY!"
Harry nearly cast a curse out of reflex before he realised that it was Ginny calling out to him, having spotted him from the sky.
She guided the broom towards him and landed abruptly, nearly falling of the broom- forgivable, since she was flying with one arm heavily bandaged and a bandage that went from the top of her right temple all the way down to her right jaw.
Anybody would be disoriented if they'd had to fly a broomstick like that...
"I'm so glad to see you! I lost Hermione, Luna, Neville and my brother in the fight. I don't know where they are! I can't find them! I haven't seen them since..." Ginny's rambling stopped in its tracks when Harry grabbed her shoulders and looked her in the eye.
"Ginny, calm down. We'll get through this together and find them." Harry reassured her.
"Yes but... Ron! Last I saw him, we were up in the air, surrounded by Death Eaters, attacking us from all angles! He fell off his broom and I tried to save him, but..." Ginny began to panic again.
"We'll find him... Ginny, we'll find him. We have to." Worry began to seep into Harry's voice with those words. "He's your brother, my best friend... he's like the brother I never had... we have to find him..."
"We have to find him... Maybe someone is helping him already! Maybe he got taken to St Mungo's!" Ginny exclaimed. "Maybe the fairies... are they taking people to Tit Nan O to help? He could be there!"
"They are taking people there to help. Roxy probably stayed behind to help from that end as well..." Harry reassured her.
"Good. We can use all the help we could get. Voldemort attacking the Hogwarts Express... I'm not going to ask how he could do something like this. We all know how. But... but..." Ginny sniffled. "I'm sorry. I'm just being such a big, bloody baby about all this!"
"You're not being a baby about this, Ginny. People older and more experience than us have..." Harry trailed off when he saw what looked like a red-haired figure, laying prone on the ground, several feet ahead of them.
Ginny followed his line of sight when she noticed that Harry had stopped speaking.
She let out a little scream and ran towards that spot, Harry close behind her.
"Ron? Ron, RON!" Ginny shrieked when she got close enough to the figure to identify it as her brother.
"Ron? No, no, no..." Harry fought back the sickening feeling threatening to engulf him.
Pulling out his wand, he cast several spells on his friend, in an effort to help him.
"He's still breathing, but barely. We have to do something. We have to- we have to try!" Harry's voice sounded shaky as he reached into his pocket for a vial of a light yellow potion.
"Come on, Ron. Don't you bloody dare die on me..." Harry muttered as he worked feverishly, trying to save his best friend's life.
Ron opened his eyes, looking straight up at Harry and Ginny.
He made a sound, as if he was trying to talk, but Ginny shushed him.
"Save your energy, Ron. You'll need it!" Ginny fought back tears as she did her best to help Harry help her brother.
Ron's eyes started to flicker open and shut.
"Don't you dare, Ron! Don't you dare!" Ginny spoke shakily. "Your family needs you. Your friends need you. Hermione loves you too!"
A Healer ran over and took charge, sending Ginny aside, but allowing Harry to help them.
Ron's eyes closed and his breathing slowed, until they could no longer see his chest moving even slightly.
Tears began to run out his eyes and behind him somewhere, he could hear Ginny starting to cry and he fought the urge to be sick, even as he conjured a white sheet and began to pull it over his friend.
"No, Ron, no, no, no..." Ginny suddenly moved and cradled Ron's head in her lap.
Harry crouched behind her and hugged her tightly, now not bothering to hide his own tears as memories of his friendship with Ron and the Weasley family in general passed through his mind.
Later, when Harry and Ginny could finally muster the courage to step away from Ron and allow his body to be removed, Harry made a portal to The Burrow and escorted Ginny through it.
As they approached the house, Mr and Mrs Weasley came running from it and not only engulfed their daughter in a hug but Harry as well.
"The hand... Ron's hand..." Mrs Weasley held out what at first looked to Harry to be a small piece of wood but then it clicked.
Ron's hand on the Weasley Family Clock.
"Please... tell me it was the clock's magic malfunctioning. That he's really alive somewhere. Perhaps at St Mungo's?" Mrs Weasley's voice quavered. "Tell me that the hand came off by mistake!"
Harry bowed his head.
"I'm sorry, Mrs Weasley. I... Ginny and I saw it. We tried to help him. We really did. But... it just wasn't enough!" Harry broke down as the other Weasleys came out of the house and gathered around, finally registering in their minds that they had lost one of their own.
Even though none of them wanted to believe it.