15. First Blood
The first result from the group's surveillance came from an unexpected place: #4 Private Drive.
"So, all these cats around my aunt's house are in reality kneazles, or at least half kneazles, which means that dear old miss Figg is a witch, or at least a squib."
"Yes. And that means that she has some connection with Dumbledore, because he was the only one to know of your whereabouts in the muggle world."
"Uh… So, if I didn't return there in the Summer, the old goat will immediately now. Well, that's good to know."
"It's going to cause some impact to your plans, isn't it?"
"Not much, I hope. Borkh had studied the wards there in deep. He estimates that if I sleep there for 20 nights the wards will be fully recharged. As I had planned to sleep during the holidays, it doesn't seem so bad."
"How good you had planned to sleep! Harry, my family has decided, they would move during Summer."
"That's great news, Morag. People, Morag's family had decided to get out of here, and they would move to South America. They were thinking to go to Australia originally, but she was able to convince them to go to a place near the selected spot to our nation, this way they will help us with the construction of the modules and will be in an easier point for relocation when the needs arrive."
"As you all know, the plans for the modules are completed in all details. All we have been doing for the last three weeks is check and recheck them, adding some little details more of preciousness than real necessity."
"When you expect your family to be relocated, Morag?"
"The transactions must be concluded around mid-June. The group, under the name of one of the less known families Harry is the head, is buying 4 square kilometres near the city of Cruzeiro do Sul, in the state of Acre in Brazil. My family is buying the land around it, to protect our installations from curious neighbours. This is an area of the Amazon rainforest that has been illegally deforested. We could buy it because we agree in reforest most of the area. Iris and Thalia have visited the region and think it wouldn't be a difficult task."
"Well, as long as no other 'accidents' occur around, it wouldn't be too difficult. We would protect all the area as soon as the contracts were signed, to avoid invasions and illegal fires, two common practices in the region."
"Our estimative is to start the construction of the modules by July 1st. Even with the extensive use of magic by some fifty wizards and witches, we expected to conclude the first module only by mid-August, as we'll be exhaustively checking everything and gaining experience with the processes involved. Subsequent modules would probably be built in half or less of this time."
"Each module will be able to home some 120 people. After the first, we can build up to 8 simultaneously in our land, if we have enough people to work on them. Aff… it's terrible that we don't have more information about exactly what kind of problems we will face and when. We can't plan efficiently how to distribute our efforts and resources this way. The worst is that we don't know when we need to move to the modules. What if we build a lot of them and fail to move the people there in time?"
"You can go crazy thinking like that. We're doing our best with the information we have available and we're ready to adapt our plans as more information comes. There's nothing more we can do for now. Playing 'what if' is of no help."
.o0o.
"Thank you for coming, Harry. I'll go direct to the point. You're good, better than anyone your age has the right to be. You took control of the castle, put the great Albus Dumbledore in a corner, hide the changes from almost everybody and was able to control your hormones and basic instincts by not killing any of the boys nor getting any of the girls pregnant. You're playing to win the long game, that's good and wise beyond your years. But I'm an old impatient curious man. I don't know if I'll have time to see all the seeds you've being planting coming to fruit."
"Professor Moody, I've already told you..."
"Call me Alastor in private. And I know, you want a vow from me. I'm telling you that I'm surrendering. Let's negotiate the terms."
.o0o.
"Wow! We have the great Alastor Mad-Eye Moody in our team now!"
"Yes, and soon, according his words, all his family down to his great-grandchildren."
"They want to survive whatever is coming. Did Moody have any new information for us?"
"Not much. Albus didn't trust even him with all his plans. Moody only knows that he is putting a huge bet on the WWW tournament to bring Voldemort back and in the open, and that I'm involved in these plans. The tournament will be restricted to of age participants, but Albus is willing me to be an exception to this rule. Next Halloween would be the 13th anniversary of his demise. Albus thinks that 13 is a powerful number and would catch Voldemort's attention as a promising date for starting his new journey to power."
"Well, not much really. I was expecting more..."
"But there is more… For example, Moody knows Azkaban as good as his own home. If Voldemort comes near to regain a body it would be quite useful to dispose of most of his followers while they are together and helpless in a cell than in combat. He also has free pass in the Ministry."
"This would be could murder… but I like my loved ones alive and safe."
.o0o.
The Dark Mark was an ingenious invention. It was much more than a mere tattoo. First of all, it was a brand of loyalty. This means that those who received will not harm the other members of the group. You can be jealous of them, you can even hate some of them, but you can't harm them in any direct (and most indirect) ways. Second, it granted their leader basic means of communication with those branded. Voldemort could call all of them, only his inner circle members or a single individual through it. He could also fell where they were and what, in general terms, they were doing and how they were feeling. Third, it was also a web of shared magic, able to give some of them a burst in magic to accomplish their orders when needed, but this was especially true to Voldemort, the only one who full access simultaneously to all of them.
With full knowledge about the Dark Mark extracted direct from his creator, and with his own clues on how they could use it in their benefit, the group was able to spell maps (a World map and a Britain Isles map) to show the location of each one of the marked Death Eaters and their master.
They were happy to discover the Dark Lord was alone, wandering in Albania, none of his servants near him. They were also happy to confirm that many of his followers were together in a point between the Orkney and Shetland Islands where they know Azkaban prison to be located. But they were angry to see so many others walking around in freedom. So angry that even the most kind and sweet of them agreed that at least one of those could be used as a test subject.
.o0o.
It is more beast than man. High, ample chest and biceps thicker than their thighs, from afar he seems like some athlete, a weightlifter perhaps. But closer he stinks more than the trolls in Harry's first year. His eyes pointed to madness, and a cold desire to kill. His clothes were no more than rags, his hair was mixed with dry mud and dry leaves, his nails and teeth were dirty yellow by carelessness with black spots of dirty.
"Want his blood?" Harry asked Edelweiss, already suspecting her answer. She didn't answered aloud, her eyes were enough to transmit her disgust with the idea. The two were in a loose hug, acting as a couple of lovers in small talk in a corner of Knockturn Alley, while waiting for their victim to come to them.
"Oh, what a beautiful bird to entertain me! Hey, boy, if you're smart just run. I think I'll show this beauty what a real man can do for her."
Harry separated from Edelweiss, taking two steps ahead and to the centre of the Alley, giving both of them enough space to fight freely.
"If you think you're man enough to defeat me, come meet your end."
"Such bravado from a little boy! Do you know who I'm, kid?"
"A shadow of a man who forgot to lay down for his last and eternal rest."
"Grrr! I'm Fenrir Greyback, the most feared werewolf of all time, and you'll be my next meal, kid."
The man changed before their eyes. It wasn't the full moon, they had checked it before planning their attack, and still the man was able to partially transform before rushing for Harry. When he was almost reaching the boy with his claws Harry took a step to the side, bent down to let the arm pass over his head and did half a turn, kicking the man's balls from behind. The half-werewolf howled hard and turned to Harry just to see a sword passing through his neck, separating his head from the rest of his body. The sword vanished first, then the couple. Their first mission was a success, and Harry had his baptism of fire.
.o0o.
"It's strange. Such strong man, and it was so easy to kill him. And I feel no guilty or regret at all!"
"You're being too gentle calling Greyback a man. And I think I wouldn't feel guilty doing it myself."
"Hestia! How… Sorry, for a moment I let 'a man' replace 'Greyback' in my mind. Good riddance to hell."
"We must always remember why we do such things. An unrepentant criminal is a menace to all good people."
"I don't know. It seems so callous… Do we have the right to judge, condemn and execute?"
"We live in an unbalanced society. Male purebloods making laws to their benefit. Who gave them the right to judge, condemn and execute the others? Laws only make sense when they only affect those who create them. When they are used to rule over others who had no participation in their creation, they are meaningless, mere tools of subjugation. With so many criminals posing as the cream of society, the actual government lost its legitimacy."
"We know what they did, and we have the power to make them pay for their crimes. I think this give us the right to judge. In the end, what matters most is the power. You can put the better person in the world making good laws and they will still be useless without the power to enforce these laws."
"But… our nation… will it be in need of force too? Isn't there a way to avoid force?"
"Laws don't really block someone from doing something stupid. All they can do is condemn the action and put a punishment on the perpetrators. If you're good catching the culprits and punishing them, this can be publicized to convince others to obey out of fear of the consequences..."
"We're in better position than the zero-mags as a magical oath is binding. The half-mags rarely used it, but we're thinking in asking every citizen of our nation, when they come to age, to vow to obey our laws, or at least our most important ones which will be in our Constitution. This way, magic itself would be the power enforcing our laws. Those who opt to not give the vow will have to leave, I think."
"Isn't it still some kind of violation of individual rights?"
"Only the most basic rights and duties will be part of our Constitution and enforced this way. Every one will have the choice of accepting them, and be one of us, or depart to live as they please elsewhere."
"It's more freedom than most people have now. I think it's inevitable to have some discontented. Instead of put them in jail, we'll give them freedom to search for a place they like, or to build one for themselves, but we need some basic laws to protect those with us from being abused by others."
"Remember, this is all still under discussion. If you think you have a better alternative, let us know."
.o0o.
"Hi, Harry! Have some time? I need to show you something."
"Sure, Morag. What is it?"
"Well, we have been thinking..."
"Sure you were, you're Ravenclaws after all."
"Shut up and listen, Harry, this is serious."
Harry almost made a bad joke involving his godfather, but wisely decided against it. "Sorry Padma, I'm listening."
"We have this amazing way to follow the steps of the Death Eaters through their Dark Marks but, when you finish Voldemort, we will likely lose this information. As it's so useful, we have being thinking on alternatives."
.o0o.
"It's the alarm! Let's check it!"
"Harry isn't here, he went to Gringotts! Must I call him?"
"Not yet! Let's see what is happening first."
"It's McNair! He apparated to a muggle area in Cardiff. Get me the city map!"
"Just a sec! Cardiff… here it is!"
Rosalyn performed a spell to link the city map with the Britain Isles map and found McNair with more precision.
"That monster is near a playground! It's an emergency! We must protect the kids of whatever plans he has!"
"Hinata and I can enter his house while he is out and break his wards." said Edelweiss. At one nod from Rosalyn the two departed.
"Twins with me! We're going to the playground now!"
"What about Harry?"
"Don't disturb him unless necessary!"
"I'm going with you. Here! Milly, will you go with me?"
"Sure!"
"I..."
"Two groups in different locations will put him under crossfire. It's safer!"
"Okay, let's go! We need to be fast!"
.o0o.
"A stuffed pup? What is he doing?"
"He put a contact-activation portkey spell on it and is now enchanting it to act like a real pup. I think he's trying to kidnap one of those girls."
"Those girls are too young! He is a monster! I want to kill him with my bare hands!"
"Take your place in the row, you can have whatever I left of him!"
"Remember, don't use your wands! Daphne, you'll vanished the pup as soon as we put the monster down. Milly, you're our backup. Twins, on three… one… two… THREE!"
.o0o.
"He thinks so high of himself and lives in a pigsty like this?"
"All bigotries and prejudiced are hypocrites, didn't you know?"
"Here! It's veritaserum. I brewed it for an occasion like this." said Daphne, who was becoming a talented potions mistress.
"Let's extract whatever secrets he knows and them finish this monster!"
The girls had McNair chained to his own favourite armchair, in the middle of his living room. They had left Millicent guarding him while they searched the house. They were shocked by what they had found, especially his collection of 'souvenirs' from his young victims. That discovery had sealed his fate, and they already had discussed what to do with him. They only want to extract all possible information before.
Unfortunately, he didn't know anything of value. Even the other Death Eaters didn't like him much, and avoid his presence whenever possible.
McNair awoke to find himself naked and suspended by chains attached to his wrists to a ceiling beam. Before he could say something Daphne pointed a finger to his bits, freezing them. Rosalyn followed by smashing them with one of his axes. They hadn't silenced him, they just put a limit to the noise he could make. He screamed in pain for nearly ten minutes before he could regain some control.
"I'm a Minister Officer! Release me at once!"
"How predictable!" said Hestia, raising an axe.
"As you wish, sir!" said Flora, raising another axe.
The two sisters then freed the man from the chains, and his arms, cutting them at the elbows.
"Oh! Let me cauterized it for you! Incendio!" and Milly gladly burnt his right upper arm to ashes while Daphne did a more restrained job with his left counterpart and Rosalyn dispersed the fumes. Still, some smell of burnt meat was inevitable.
"We decided you don't deserve to live, Walden McNair, not here in this world nor even less in an afterlife." said Edelweiss, downing on the man to transform him in a soulless vampire. Hinata finished him trespassing his chest with a wooden stake.
.o0o.
"McNair's dot vanished from the map! Did you..."
"We did. We can tell you all why, but then you'll be wishing you never knew."
"That bad?"
"Worse!"
.o0o.
Harry slowly woke up in Heaven. Millicent was spooning him from behind, while he was spooning Daphne. The two had requested him for the night. They had expected bad dreams from what they had done during the day. Either a monster like McNair didn't deserve their remorse, or Harry's magic had protected them. Either way, they were fine with it.
What had woken Harry up was Daphne slowly turning to be face to face to him. She then kissed him for a full minute at least, so tenderly and sweet!
"I love you, Harry. And you don't need to say the same to me."
"Oh, but I do. I love you too, Daphne. You're not the only one I love, but you're definitely one that I love."
Her smile was so bright! He could have expended the rest of the day just looking at her, bathing himself in her happiness.
"Don't you mind that I'm not ready for more intimacy than we have now?"
"I think we have enough intimacy as it is. It could not be complete in the physical sphere, but the physical sphere is just one of them together with the emotional, mental, magical, spiritual and any other that there may be."
"This New Harry is wiser than his age, I like it. Would you let me pass the rest of my life with you, if we remain so united?"
"I would be crazy to let you, any of you, go without a fight. I want to be part of your lives for as long as you all let me be. I already have convinced myself that I would rather share you with whoever else you want in your lives than let you walk away from me because I'm unable to share."
"WHAT?! But Harry, I always thought that share a woman with another man was the hardest thing to expect from a male!"
"Oh, it is! It really is! But… it's only fair. You've all sharing me these last months, and you're able to do it without serious disagreements! I know this is a situation that could not last forever. I'm just one guy, while you're so many. And soon many others will join us. I don't want to miss any of you and I want every one of you to be completely happy. This is only possible if I don't try to keep you all just for me. I couldn't… mustn't be so selfish. When I saw this I started to accept it. I love you all too much to ruin your futures just to satisfy some possessiveness of mine."
"Wow. I didn't expect it. But be sure, if I ever decide to share my life with another man, he'll need to accept that you'll always be there too. Only that each day you make more and more difficult that I ever accept another guy in my life!"
.o0o.
Moody put some privacy spells around before turning to the boy seating near his desk in the classroom.
"Greyback and McNair. Were they your work?"
"Greyback died by my hand. I never saw McNair, but he died by work of some associates of mine. Are you aware of his crimes, past and present?"
"The DMLE found his trophies in his secret room, and the bodies buried nearby his house. Unfortunately it would never reach the newspapers with Fudge in office. 'Can let the Ministry's image be tainted by the sins of a single black sheep' he said. McNair was planning something?"
"He was caught in the act trying to kidnap young girls from a muggle playground with aid of a transfigured pup portkey."
"More murders expected soon?"
"None while new crimes aren't committed."
"So you're checking the possibility that they redeemed themselves. Pity. Oh, it's fair and all that, but I think you'll end killing them all eventually. Do you need some help, boy? Anything at all?"
"I need to destroy a dark object that Bellatrix Lestrange is keeping in her vault at Gringotts. Any idea how I can take it from there without starting a war with the goblins by robbing their bank?"
"Ha, ha, ha! You've balls, boy, I like it! Hm, let me think… Maybe…? Yes, it could work. Can you convince Sirius to take the headship of the Black family?"
"He already did it, more than a month ago."
"Good. Then I've a plan with good chance of success."
.o0o.
Neville Longbottom was a shy and quiet boy. So, it was a huge surprise to all at a breakfast when he suddenly shout "YAHOO!", danced a jig over Gryffindor table and then let the Great Hall in a mix of skipping, jumping and dancing.
Harry took the abandoned edition of The Daily Prophet and couldn't help but smile with the headline: 'Lestrange brothers Rudolph and Rabastan killed while trying to escape Azkaban'.
Harry subtly glanced at the staff table and received a blink from Moody's normal eye. The plan was going well.
.o0o.
Three days later Neville Longbottom entertained his peers with another display of radiant joy. Bellatrix Lestrange had hanged herself with a rope made of her own clothes. Another three days and Sirius Black visited Gringotts, where he took legal ownership of the assets of the Lestrange family as next in kin. He transferred everything to the Black family's vault, except for a cup that he took with him.
.o0o.
A group reunited in the Chamber to witness the demise of Voldemort's last horcrux. Another, mainly the younger ones, stay in The Room, their eyes on the map at the point marking Voldemort's presence in Albania. Alastor Moody was invited as an honour guest. After all, he was crucial to acquire the last horcrux. Ginny asked to be there too, she wanted to see that monster gone.
The cleaning of the horcrux was fast and easy, they have experience by now. Soon those in the Chamber with the communication jewellery were trying in vain to make those in The Room to talk one at a time. They were too happy and excited for that: Voldemort had vanished from the map!
.o0o.
"It works! You're amazing! Thank you all!"
Harry was really happy to see the map still showing all alive Death Eaters and their location. He had worried a lot about losing this wonderful tool. Such an advantage!
"How did you do it?"
"Morag and I had the basic idea: if the mark can be used to conduct spells from Voldemort to his minions, calling them to his presence, causing pain and so on, what other spells could be transferred this way?"
"Yes! We started to check, and we didn't found any limitation except some attenuation. Padma and I then called some of the older girls to check our discovery."
"They confirmed our discovery, so we start to plan what do to! We had two aims: put a false Dark Mark in the place of the original, so they wouldn't know of their master's demise, and keep tabs on their location."
"Soon other girls knew of our project and we received many suggestions and help. Lisa was the one to come with the idea to put a crystal connected to the lay lines here in Hogwarts as the new hub for the fake Dark Marks."
"But it was Rosalyn who gave us a lot more to do. She asked us why just replicate the Dark Mark? Why not take advantage of our discovery to improve on it so we could collect much more information and even had some level of control over the Death Eaters?"
"It was a wonderful moment! We were all quiet for a moment, ruminating the idea in all its implications, then we explode in activity with so many ideas of what to do!"
"After we calm down a little we did as we always do: list all want, then all we need to learn to do what we want, and finally we divide the work between us and started to work, and here is the fruit of our efforts!"
"Fantastic! You're all really amazing!"
.o0o.
Author's Note:
1. Please consider giving me a review or favouriting this story. These are the ways you can incentive me to continue and keep me in the right track or correct any of my faults.
2. I apologize for any mistakes in grammar and vocabulary. English isn't my first language (nor the second) so they're kind of inevitable. Also, my experience with English is almost restricted to its written form, so I'm afraid my dialogues are a bit too formal, especially for teenagers.
3. An anti-climatic end for Voldemort. It wasn't predicted in the general storyline I started with, but it became necessary. He was only a minor part of the plot, and keeping him alive would interfere with Harry's fights with the real villains of this story.
