Chapter 2:
Interception
Harry sat in in the shadow of an old oak tree, head down and eyes closed. It had been three weeks since he had killed Draco, and he had only just recovered enough from the ritual to move about without pain. Scratch that, it was nearing sunset. Make those eight days.
Even with the aid of potions he brewed beforehand his liver still had not regrown. Apparently, livers do that. It was the reason he chose that amongst the internal organs available. A routine of nutrition, metabolizing, detoxifying and blood filtration potions would ensure he recovered within another week, instead of the months it would take unaided.
The fact that they all tasted like feces, with a similar consistency, did little for his mood. The inane conversations he was eavesdropping on didn't either.
"Do you think he's dead? Or is it just psychological warfare?"
That one was Colin's voice. He was talking to Dennis. From what he could gather they were in the long-abandoned parts of the dungeons of Hogwarts. The ones used for interrogating enemies back when it was exclusively a fortress for war and now used for detention. The Death Eaters in charge of the school had taken to using them for detentions.
He turned the dial on the Deluminator and a new voice erupted from its mouth.
"He's dead. I'm sure of it." This one was a woman. An older one by the sound of it. "If he were alive, he'd have saved us by now. Look what happened to our home! The Harry Potter of legend would never..."
Click.
"Oh yes he did! I've seen the sword. It used to be on Dumbledore's desk."
"What do you mean used to be?"
Click. Harry already knew that story.
"Until I see a body, he's alive."
Harry perked up at this one. This girl's voice sounded vaguely familiar.
"Are you just saying that, or are you trying to console me." Cho asked, almost defensively.
Oh. Cho is still friends with the sneak.
"It's the truth. If they had killed him, they would be parading his crucified body down every street. They didn't even mention a cause of death." Mariette Edgecomb explained.
Harry chuckled. The Daily Prophet's front page headline was about how Harry Potter was dead and that the martial law was ended. They seemed quite sure about the former, and for the life of him Harry wasn't sure why they thought this. His best guess was that they calculated he was surely dead from the withering curse by now, meaning he was now a ghost and could work freely from the shadows.
"So don't you be worrying, Cho. You'll have the chance to go past first base with him yet, this time without all the crying."
Click. He'd heard enough.
Again and again, he flipped the Deluminator to new conversations. Somehow none of his trio had ever thought of taking advantage of the device's hidden function. It stunned Harry that Hermione didn't make the connection when Ron told them it shared their conversation with him when they said his name.
"Such a terrible power, wouldn't you agree?" The shade of Dumbledore offered from where his shade floated.
It took being outright told by the old man how to use it to start actively doing so. This device explained so many of the mysteries surrounding Dumbledore. How he knew so much that he shouldn't.
To think he could eavesdrop on any conversation about him, whether his name was outright mentioned or not. He could think of several conversations he was mortified to know the deceased headmaster had heard firsthand. Sure, it was totally his loyalty to Dumbledore that had summoned Fawks to the Chamber of Secrets.
This revelation had brought a whole new wave of shame, both for him and his deceased friends who had been there when Dumbledore explained he had planned for them to figure it out near the start of their journey and use the device to gather intel. He had put much more stock in their abilities than they deserved, clearly.
At this point the Gaunt ring, and by extensions, resurrection stone never left his hand. His left, unmarred hand. He wore it on the ring finger, figuring it made sense for him to be symbolically wed to the deceased.
"It is." Harry confirmed, eyes still closed. "I liked it better when I could take people's views of me at face value, as they expressed them."
It was so much better to simply assume people's opinions of you, but to truly know them beyond a doubt hurt. A lot. It could make any man cynical.
"He wouldn't even LOOK at me." Romilda Vain complained, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. "What's wrong with me? I dieted for weeks before working up the courage to speak with him. Is it my face? Are my boobs too large? Pansy always teases that guys find large ones gross. And now he probably hates me after I gave him..."
Click. He didn't need to hear Ramilda's friend rant about how Harry preferred brooms to Quaffles. He'd already heard the same argument given to the girl he'd rejected for the Yule Ball. He didn't need to hear it again.
Besides, the self-demeaning complaints these girls screamed on about always made his heart ache, while simultaneously annoying the shit out of him.
A lot of the people talking about him were girls, or women. Oddly enough, romantic fantasizing made up the minority of these conversations. Most were cursing his name or just pondering his safety. Maybe men had more important things to do than gossip about a supposedly dead teenager? Still, he'd listened to Mrs Weasley break down in worry over him no less than three times that day and...
"We've found his family."
Harry's eyes snapped open, and he nearly injured his neck as he turned his head a little too quickly to share a surprised look with Dumbledore.
"They're under constant guard, taken in shifts." Dumbledore said.
"How many guards?" Harry asked.
"Just two. A man and a woman. Order members who haven't gotten the memo yet, if I'm not mistaken. Daedelus and Hestia are formidable, nigh undefeatable together." Albus consoled. But the man hadn't become a leader without a healthy dose of realism. "But taking shifts means one will be exhausted and unprepared for a surprise attack. Especially a well-planned one."
Harry nodded and stood up, ready to go grab his other half.
"Where are they?" Harry demanded.
"If I'm not mistaken, they should be in safehouse seventeen, located in Sheffield. Call on me when you get to the city, and I will guide you there."
Harry nodded before canceling the magic of the resurrection stone, twisting the ring off his finger and putting it back on. He'd yet to figure out how to dismiss the dead save by ending physical contact with the stone.
With the flip of a switch, he activated the Deluminator's most miraculous function. A ball of light erupted from it and pierced his chest. With a twist he disapparated and reappeared in the park adjacent Grimmauld place.
Small world. So, they were using the Black family home as a base of operations to plan attacks on Order safehouse. Good thing he'd stationed a pair of spies to watch it.
"Do we have orders to attack it?"
Harry kept the Deluminator close to his ear, the other tuned to the fluttering of metallic wings.
"No. A team is already being assembled. There are debates on whether to send an Auror team to make it look legitimate."
His Horcrux flew from a tree where it had been spying. It opened to reveal Moody's eye, a modification it's former owner insisted Harry make. It was a good thing he had performed the Horcrux ritual right next to the tree he had buried the old Auror's greatest tool, as he doubted he could apparate during the early stages of his recovery. He'd barely managed to walk the ten feet to dig it up, but it was paying dividends.
His other half flitted about his face attempting to make eye contact. It was clearly intent on speaking to him through the mind.
Communication through legilimacy came easy to those who shared a soul, or fragments of one, and when they spoke through eye contact they almost felt complete again. But now wasn't the time.
Harry held up a finger to his lips and the Snitch closed.
"Why would they care if it's legitimate?"
"The Dark Lord wants to show the world what kind of people raised their savior. From what I understand they're rather repulsive, even by Muggle standards. Putting them on display would be a deathly blow to his followers."
Followers? Harry didn't have any of those. It was an oversight he needed to remedy soon if he was to win this war and allowing these psychopaths to take out five readily available to him would be a poor start to his recruiting efforts. It didn't help that their plan, to show the wizarding world his early life, would indeed cause irreparable damage not only to his reputation, but to the morale of those who put their hope in him. It would seem Voldemort's abilities in psychological warfare were as great as any other of his powers.
He turned his attention back to the Snitch.
What's the situation?
Harry answered the question written on its surface by motioning for it to open. Soon they were filling each-other's minds with the other's most recent memories, and he immediately regretted seeing what was going on in that house.
The Snatchers and low-tier Death Eaters were not merely loitering and using the war room to make plans but had also turned the upper rooms into a prison. Their disregard for the humanity of Muggles was never more blatant or disgusting than with the display of chained women and children in the bedrooms. In HIS bedrooms. Some of them were actively dying with fever due to infections from the wounds of their manacles, which he only knew because apparently Moody's eye had thermal vision as well.
He needed to put an end to this right now.
"Sirius Orion Black." He spoke into the ring, and his godfather appeared.
"Regulus Arcturus Black." He spoke again, and behold, he had possession of the entire set Slughorn could never possess.
"Walburga Black."
This time nothing happened. Weird. That was the first time he'd called for somebody and they hadn't come.
"Harry..." Sirius broached, but Harry wasn't interested in a heart-to-heart.
"The ancient and Noble house of Black is being occupied by enemies." Harry informed the two brothers. "Pathetic servants of Tom Riddle who have desecrated its halls with their sexual degeneracy."
He had never seen Sirius change from concerned to pissed so fast in his life, and with matching expressions the Black brothers were nearly as indistinguishable as Fred and George.
"What do you need of us?" Regulus demanded.
"Any information on activating wards or protections to expel them, or how to circumvent them and execute the trespassers myself."
The brothers pondered for a moment, but a moment was all it took.
"That they are even able to remain in there is impossible without the permission of a Black Patriarch or Matriarch." Regulus explained. "They are being helped by somebody else with the authority to grant passage."
"That's impossible." Sirius countered. "I left headship to Harry; he is the only person alive with the right to claim authority over the property and it's protections."
A lightbulb went off in Harry's head.
"It's possible that Cissy or Bella, or both, working together, could have tried to take ownership as Matriarchal heads." Regulus suggested. "Or there could have been a marriage contract for one of us, or Harry, that we didn't know about."
"Impossible, and impossible." Sirius said. "Authority given to heads by marriage is not accessible until the marriage is made legitimate by ceremony and subsequently consummated. Which we know is not the case because all three of us are virgins."
Gee. Say it a little louder why don't you? Wait. All three of them?
"You two have never...?" Harry broached.
"A gentleman of a Noble house waits until their wedding night, Potter." Regulus defended.
"That, and Azkaban wasn't the best place to court a wife, despite my incestuous, and willing, cousin being in the cell beside me and offering to shag through the bars." Sirius half-joked.
Ew. You learn something unexpected every day. For better or worse.
"Maybe that was why she killed me. Woman scored and all that." Sirius pondered aloud.
Regulus to the rescue.
"I understand you were a drinker though, Sirius. Are you sure you never hooked up with any order women who might have turned?" The younger brother suggested.
The look Sirius gave him was a mix of derision and amusement.
"Oh yes, I'm sure Molly secretly divorced Arthur and took advantage of me while ripped out of my mind on vodka. All that bitching she did at me was her way of trying to express the deep, dark desires she just couldn't..."
"Okay! I get it!" Harry finally interrupted when the mental imagery became too much for his empty stomach to handle.
But his original idea came back to him.
"What if a former head of the house was still around?" Harry suggested. "A lady of house Black with Matriarchal privileges."
The brothers didn't even bother considering this.
"That's impossible." Said Regulus.
"The last Matriarch of house Black was our mother, and she... Ooooooooh."
Sirius had apparently figured it out.
"What? What am I not getting here?" Regulus asked confusedly.
But Harry and Sirius were too deep in thought to answer.
All the evidence supported it. She had Matriarchal privileges and had full authority while Sirius was imprisoned. She supposedly died a few years after his wrongful incarceration, and they were a dark family. After all, he hadn't even needed to explain Horcruxes to Sirius like he had with his own parents and Moody. And Regulus had figured out Voldemort's secret independently.
It explained why Kreacher followed orders from the accursed portrait and might be why he lied to Harry and got Sirius killed. Because she had ordered him to.
Most importantly, it explained why she hadn't come when he summoned her through the resurrection stone.
"Our mother isn't dead." Sirius concluded.
Realization didn't dawn on Regulus until after Harry withdrew Gryffindor's sword.
"Looks like we have an unexpected Horcrux to destroy then." Said Regulus. "I'm going to enjoy watching this far more than I should."
They waited the last hour until nightfall before making any kind of move.
Being so close to the Snitch allowed Harry to watch through its eyes, er, eye as his other self examined the activities going on within house. The information splayed all across the drawing room table and walls were a gold mine, and Harry couldn't be certain that he'd have the chance to peruse them later.
They had information on most, if not all, surviving order members and their safehouse, including Shell Cottage. Though the only ones with active raids planned were for the Dursley's safehouse and the Tonks home.
At least now he knew where to go after rescuing the Dursleys.
Sneaking through the alley between numbers Eleven and Twelve Grimmauld Place revealed two unexpected discoveries. First, Regulus shared Sirius' love for motorcycles was mutual. Second, number Twelve Grimmauld Place had a landline!
"You'd never catch our parents dead using the phone." Regulus had said. "But it made getting Muggle food a breeze."
Sirius nodded at that.
"Greasy, nasty, fattening Muggle food that no member of a Noble house should ever consume."
Harry couldn't fight the groan from that. They knew he couldn't risk eating real food until his liver grew back. It was damned cruel of them to throw that in his face right now.
He distracted himself by approaching Regulus' motorcycle.
It was draped in a dusty cover, but the shape of it was still rather obvious. With a single motion he flung the cover aside and gazed.
"Royal Enfield Bullet." Regulus explained as Harry ran his hands along the vibrant blue beast of metal and leather. "Whereas Sirius is a Triumph Fag."
"Hey now, it was a matter of what the used lot had, not of brand loyalty." Sirius countered. "I bought what felt best betwixt my thighs."
Harry shook his head at their antics.
"Any magical modifications to the Bullet?" He asked Regulus.
"Oh yes! It can fly, naturally, but it also has a magically expanded gas tank, every part needing oil is charmed frictionless - but I'd suggest checking on those charms and recharging them as necessary, though an oil change won't be necessary - and of course the cushion is enchanted to be extra comfortable."
"Oh no, I already performed all the maintenance it needs before I died." Sirius countered. "Still been sitting still for a good year and a half, so might need a little R and R, but it should be good to go."
"Just run of the mill maintenance, I hope." Regulus growled to his brother.
Sirius answered by way of an outright demonic grin. Looks like Harry would be having fun discovering the modifications Sirius made to it.
As they talked Harry examined a strange cavity near the handlebar and reached into it. Grasping something cool and wooden he withdrew it and blinked in surprise.
"And that would be my peace maker." Regulus said.
"But it's a shotgun?" Sirius observed.
And indeed, it was. A single barrel combat shotgun, shorter in length than Vernon's double-barrel, but sporting an odd revolver chamber with colorful symbols engraved into it.
"Your point?"
"Peace makers are pistols."
"Well, I decided my shotty was deserving of the moniker."
And oh, was it ever. The automatic shotgun was a sleek black and looked like something an overzealous SPC team would employ. If a scene wasn't peaceful before this dispenser of death was deployed, it would certainly be so afterwards.
Harry returned it to the holster.
"Not my style." He told his ghostly companions.
Just then his Snitch returned, bobbing and weaving to get Harry's attention. He opened their connection and realized why.
"The invaders are making a phone call, but my soul brother still hasn't mastered lip-reading. Is there a way to listen in?" Harry informed/asked the Black brothers.
Sure, there were the extendable ears, but even those were enough to trip the wards.
Sirius and Regulus shared a knowing look, then indicated the circuit box and a strange knob next to the circuit for the phone line. It was a receiver for an old wall-mounted phone, the kind shaped like a horn you had to hold up to your ear.
He lifted it and held it up to his ear.
"Thank you for calling Pizza Teepee(TM), may I take your order?" A cutesy girlish voice answered.
Harry shared a glance with the Black brothers. The looks on their faces perfectly expressed his internal question.
They couldn't be that stupid. Could they?
"Hello, it's us at Number 12 again, we'd like another one of your two large three topping specials."
Yup. They were, in fact, stupid enough to disregard all security protocols and reveal the magically protected location to an ancient and noble house to a Muggle restaurant.
"Stuffed crust again?" The girl on the phone asked.
At this point, Harry was doing Voldemort a favor by executing these morons.
The moment the Death Eater finished making his order saw Harry apparating to the nearby mall strip he knew the Pizza Teepee(TM) to be.
Donning his invisibility cloak he snuck inside behind a returning delivery boy - who looked eerily similar to Stan Shunpike - and waited for the order to be finished. Fifteen minutes later that same delivery boy was handed a large, square leather bag bound for Grimmauld Place and as soon as they were out the door Harry nailed him with the Imperius.
With that out of the way he apparated back to the alley between numbers eleven and twelve where the shades of Sirius and Regulus still waited. Oops. Failing to dismiss them apparently leaves them stuck on this plane. Best to be careful of that in the future.
"All right. I think we have a plan." Sirius began.
And in the time it took for Shunpike Jr to arrive they'd finished sharing the strategy with him. It was much riskier, and much more violent, than Harry's plan to sprinkle a slow acting poison on the pizza and then sneak in under the cloak to silently slaughter the survivors, but he was feeling antsy and in need of proper excitement after so many days resting.
Little Stan arrived in record time, but due to the commands through Harry's Imperius curse parked quietly a few doors down and sneaked up to the alley.
While Harry dug through the Mokeskin pouch for the items they would need - something he should have finished prepping during their wait - the shade of Regulus walked behind the delivery boy and entered him as if putting on a skin suit.
The mischievous look in the Muggle's eyes was all the proof they needed to see that the possession was a resounding success.
"We can do that?!" Sirius exclaimed, echoing Harry's sentiment.
This changes everything.
"You can get the next pizza boy." Regulus mocked Sirius with a wink.
Regulus then helped himself to the assortment of WWW fireworks and rockets Harry had dumped onto the ground. He emptied the leather box of its contents and replaced them with said fireworks to the point that it was bursting at the seams.
Harry give Regu-pike the sword, which he tucked into the back of his belt in such a way as to conceal it from anybody he was facing. They were all ready to go, just as soon as Regulus finished stuffing his face with the first bit of food he'd enjoyed in over fifteen years.
"Well, here goes nothing." Regulus sighed as he walked up the steps and knocked on the door to his childhood home.
Harry stared at the remains of pizza and wastefully discarded crust left in the box at his feet. He would sorely regret it later when his body inevitably rejects the high carb sinfulness, but what was the point of immortality if you didn't live a little? Besides, the crust was his favorite part of pizza. Especially since that's all the Dursleys had left for him growing up on the occasions they ordered any.
Soon enough the hungry moron whose earlier phone conversation led to this opportunity stumbled to the door and answered it. The Snatcher didn't even finish opening the foor before Regulus hurled the leather bag over his head and into the hallway beyond and charging through after it.
The Snatcher's grunt at being bodily flung by a scrawny sixteen-year-old was immediately drowned out by the chaos of light and sound erupting from the black pizza carrier. A second later Harry initiated the second phase of the plan with a similar speed and efficiency to that of his God-uncle.
"Kreacher!" Harry bellowed over the sparking green and red Christmas fireworks smashing against the window just above his head.
Said house elf materializes and is immediately stunned. He was too much of a liability with his split loyalties, willing seditionist or no, but would be less so when Walburga's portrait was dealt with.
"Dobby!" Harry yelled again, still without fear of being heard over the sparkling gold dragon that just crashed through that same window and ascended skyward towards the roof with a mighty roar.
The second house elf appeared, and Harry wasted no time in dispensing orders.
"Take Kreacher somewhere safe and keep him sedated until I call you back here!" He yelled over the noise.
Dobby nodded eagerly and disappeared with his older counterpart.
Onto part three.
Harry donned the cloak and sent the Snitch skyward to give him a top-down view of the entire premises. Closing his eyes, he executed a technique they had long practiced and prayed it would finally pay off. He focused on all other senses except for sight and allowed the viewpoint of his Horcrux to take over. He could see himself from above as if in an out of body experience, while still possessed of his own sense of smell, taste, touch and hearing.
He stepped over the convulsing body of Regulus' first victim, the black mass of necrosticizing flesh due to basilisk venom all the more vivid through Moody's eye. Into the hailstorm of fireworks he went. The hallway was actively aflame, and he would have been blind were it not for his Horcrux and Moody's eye.
He cast the flame freezing charm and charged through to the kitchen where Regulus was actively blocking killing curses with Gryffindor's sword like a fucking Jedi. With one wave of Draco's wand the ceiling caved in, bringing with it six lower-level Death Eaters and Snatchers from the study above.
He knew the remaining forces were descending the stairs to flank the intruders at this very moment, so he needed to finish cleaning up here. Fortunately, the two surviving snatchers from the cave-in were rather stunned from seeing one of their companions reduced to clothed puddles of marinara sauce, and the three surviving Death Eaters still hadn't picked themselves up from their fall regardless.
"Accio!" Harry bellowed, willing a particularly sharp pipe to fly towards him as Regulus cleaved the Death Eater closest to him shoulder to crotch with the poisonous blade.
Sadly, a thoroughly injured Death Eater stood up then and directly in the path of the copper tube and it never reached Harry. As he had intended. How was he supposed to get any of the plumbing repaired if Voldemort's followers kept getting in the way? He really needed to start a workplace safety seminar or something.
By now the entire pile of debris was soaked through from the massive spouts of water coming from above, hence the need for plumbing repairs.
Likewise, the third Death Eater had drawn his wand and the two surviving Snatchers had trained theirs on Regulus, who still hadn't raised the sword back up from the earlier downswing. The noise of fireworks around them and seizure-inducing flashes of lights were still masking all hints of Harry's presence and he fully intended to use that to his advantage.
"Fulgur obsidian!" Harry bellowed again, still not loud enough to be heard above the roaring of the dragon firework that had somehow made its' way back inside.
The bolt of black lightning surged past Regulus, who was now backing away from the soaking pile of wood, metal and flesh that was Harry's target. Not only did it react with the water as intended, but it dispatched all three of his enemies in a gruesome display of sparks, spasming muscles and bursting flames that were once eyeballs. That last gruesome display he had not expected, but he turned his gaze away from the hollow cavities where the trio's eyes used to be as their smoking bodies fell to the wet ground and focused his attention on Regulus.
"Ready?" Harry asked.
Regulus nodded and, with an upward flick of hawthorn and unicorn hair, he was sent flying upwards into the study.
He didn't quite make it high enough to land on his feet, so he flung the sword onto what little of the floor remained and grabbed hold of the ledge. Harry watched as he hoisted himself up with a grunt, overcoming what must be an extreme amount of pain as railway spike sized splinters tore into his arms and legs with his every movement.
Phase three, fast and hard assault, was complete. Now for phase four, stall while Regulus destroyed the portrait.
Harry turned his wand on the pile of debris and limbs. With a wide sweeping motion, he covered the kitchen door with it. A few twists and turns of his wrist saw the jagged mass melt into a solid, vining barrier. It was ugly and wouldn't hold off his fast-approaching attackers for very long, but it would give them a sense of having the upper hand. After all, when somebody barricades themselves, it means they're on the defensive. Right?
Wrong.
Harry raised his wand into the air and started a series of small s-curve motions. It was a specialized version of the summoning charm Fred and George had programmed into their fireworks. A trade secret known only to the two owners and their sole investor.
Every single firework in and around the building came to him through the collapsed ceiling and coalesced into a sphere above his head. It pulsed with life like a red and green disco ball of fire and lightning with a steady heart rhythm. It was ready to be unleashed onto the first few fools to burst in through his barricade. The trio of fools he could see from the Snitches vantage point would breach in 3...2...1.
With a roar the dragon firework led the charge with a boar, hummingbird and reindeer following close on its tail. They rammed into the oncoming Death Eaters and blew right through them. Literally.
The stamped of smoke and gore continue up the stairs lighting all in its path aflame, stopping only when Harry redirected it back downwards into the Death Eaters who were smart enough to cast protections on their person.
Harry charged out after it and, for the second time in his life, cast the killing curse. The Death Eater fell to his curse and the second met the same fate when he failed to recognize it as such due to many of the harassing fireworks sharing a similar hue of green. The third caught on and bolted over the railing to the first-floor landing, charging through an adjacent door before Harry could paint said railing with her brain matter, leaving a hole in the ceiling instead.
He followed the mop of stringy blonde hair into the downstairs drawing room and unleashed a second bombarda at the burning curtains, behind which he knew she was hiding with the use of a self-fire-proofing charm. How was she to know he had seen her hide there?
The force of his overpowered spell sent her mangled body crashing through the window and onto the small patch of grass that passed for a front yard.
She was fortunately still within the wards so the Muggle neighbors wouldn't see her, despite now flooding the streets in search of the horrific noise. There were a dozen more Death Eaters and Snatchers in the topmost floor, who were now trying to fill their bags with as many of the Black family tomes as possible in anticipation of escape.
But they were too late.
Regulus was upon Walburga's portrait and Harry barely made it to the first flight of stairs in time to witness him plunge Godric's sword into her breast, burying the blade into the wall all the way to its hilt.
Her agonized scream was the first thing to have overpowered the sound of the fireworks, aside from the crashing debris Harry had dropped on the Snatchers of course.
The death scream of the Horcrux dying sent a ripple through the air that killed all light and sound thereafter. It even temporarily deactivated the fireworks and lamps and all other charms in the building. But not the wards or enchantments. Harry had broken contact with his own Horcrux in order to witness her demise with his own eyes so couldn't check if the other Death Eaters had escaped yet, but he still wasted no time.
He withdrew the same silver knife he had used for a very different ritual just a week before and slashed open his good hand with it.
"I am Harry James Potter. Godson of Sirius Orion Black and patriarchal heir to the most ancient and noble house of Black." Harry bellowed into the silence as the floor drank in his blood where it landed. "I declare all Muggle and underage guests to be under my protection and all magical guests to be intruders. So, mote it be."
The entire house creaked and moaned as the very space within it warped in recognition of the change of authority and it searched its premises for any person matching the newly defined terms of intruder.
The screams echoing from the upstairs library told Harry that, no, the Death Eaters had not escaped. And they never would.
Grimmauld place has a special way of dealing with intruders. Trapping them in place and slowly squeezing the life out of them as the space around them warps to crush them. It was a slow process that takes hours, long enough for a head of house to personally check on them and decide if they want to deal the killing blow themselves or leave them to die.
"The battle is done." The shade of Sirius said as it approached from behind Harry.
No. Not yet.
"Dobby." He called.
The elf appeared a few seconds later with a newly conscious Kreacher. He was clearly just woken up, as per Harry's earlier instruction.
"Kreacher, Dobby, you are to do your best to heal the children and women in the bedrooms before releasing them. Or at least provide them with any first aid materials to do so themselves. If we do not have any, go purchase some in secret using any money belonging to our prisoners." He told them. "They are not to see you, And I want you to keep the away from the surviving Death Eaters and snatchers."
They both nodded but waited for further instruction. They were able to sense when he had more to say.
"Ensure that, once they are made unconscious by the wards, that you dose each and every one of them with what remains of my Draught of Living Death." Harry instructed. "If we run out, go buy more or the ingredients for such."
They both nodded, Kreacher doing so with an evil grin, before disappearing.
"Kreacher!"
The elf reappeared.
"You are not to allow our unwilling guests to harm themselves or one another, nor leave the premises until I return. Am I understood?" He clarified.
The elf had the nerve to grumpily kick at the ground at being found out before nodding and disappearing again.
"Ah, good old Kreacher." Regulus chuckled as he descended the stairs to join him and Sirius, nearly slipping on the puddles of gore and pulverized flesh.
Harry looked him over to find he was utterly covered in the black sludge he associated with a destroyed Horcrux. Along with no small amounts of burns and ash.
"Switch." Harry ordered.
The dark specter of Regulus fled from the teenager's body and, before the poor Muggle could catch his bearings, Sirius entered.
"Sirius, you stay here and watch over things. You're really good at peopel skills. Regulus, you're riding bitch on the Bullet."
"I'll make sure they're all showered, fed and well-rested." Sirius nodded as Regulus sputtered indignantly.
Harry ignored the younger brother's objection and walked through his incorporeal form to the front door, stepping over the now still Snatcher at the doorway.
"I need a crash course in motorcycle riding, and seeing as it's your bike, you will be my teacher. Now come on, we have to get to Sheffield yesterday."
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