I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters.
Revolt
Alex's wand snapped up a moment too late. His stunning spell failed to stop Carrow from warning Voldemort, but it did stop her from doing anything else, as did Luna's, which blasted into her at the same instant from the other side. Carrow spun on the spot, then dropped, crashing unceremoniously to the ground. Harry, shaken and disoriented from his scar, hurriedly threw his Invisibility Cloak back on as the sound of running feet approached. Alex crossed the room to Luna, both retreating to a corner, and after a moment, Harry bumped into Alex, who caught him and guided him out of the arriving Ravenclaws' path as they crouded around Carrow, careful to give her a wide birth, as though afraid she'd wake up at any moment.
One brave little first-year darted up to her and prodded her backside with his big toe. "I think she might be dead!" he shouted with delight.
"Oh look," whispered Luna happily, as the Ravenclaws crowded in around Alecto. "They're pleased!"
"Yeah...great..." was Harry's reply, equal parts pained and distracted.
There was a rap on the common room door and every Ravenclaw froze. From the other side, Alex heard the soft, musical voice that issued from the eagle door knocker: "Where do Vanished objects go?"
"I dunno, do I? Shut it!" snarled an uncouth voice that Alex guessed was that of the Carrow brother, "Alecto? Alecto? Are you there? Have you got him? Open the door!"
The Ravenclaws were whispering amongst themselves, terrified. Then without warning, there came a series of loud bangs, as though somebody was firing a gun into the door.
"ALECTO! If he comes, and we haven't got Potter...d'you want to go the same way as the Malfoys? ANSWER ME!" the brother bellowed, shaking the door for all he was worth, but still it did not open.
The Ravenclaws were all backing away, and some of the most frightened began scampering back up the stair case to their beds. Then, just as Alex was weighing the benefits of opening the door to greet the Death Eater with a Stunner of his own, a second, more familiar voice rang out beyond the door.
"May I ask what you are doing, Professor Carrow?" McGonagall's voice asked.
"Trying...to get...through this damned...door!" the brother shouted. "Go and get Flitwick! Get him to open it, now!"
"But isn't your sister, Alecto, in there, Amycus?" Professor McGonagall asked. "Didn't Professor Flitwick let her in earlier this evening, at your urgent request? Perhaps she could open the door for you? Then you needn't wake up half the castle."
"She ain't answering, you old besom! You open it! Darn! Do it, now!"
"Certainly, if you wish it," Professor McGonagall said with awful coldness.
There was a genteel tap of the knocker and the musical voice asked again. "Where do Vanished objects go?"
"Into non being, which is to say, everything," replied Professor McGonagall.
"Nicely phrased," the eagle door knocker comented, and the door swung open.
The few Ravenclaws who had remained behind sprinted for the stairs as Amycus burst over the threshold, brandishing his wand. Hunched like his sister, he had a pallid, doughy face and tiny eyes, which fell at once on Alecto, sprawled motionless on the floor. He let out a yell of fury and fear.
"What've they done, the little whelps?" he screamed. "I'll Cruciate the lot of 'em till they tell me who did it...and what's the Dark Lord going to say?" he shrieked, standing over his sister and smacking himself on the forehead with his fist, "We haven't got him, and they've gone and killed her!"
"She's only Stunned," Professor McGonagall said impatiently, who had stooped down to examine Alecto. "She'll be perfectly all right."
"No she bludgering well won't!" Amycus bellowed. "Not after the Dark Lord gets hold of her! She's gone and sent for him, I felt me Mark burn, and he thinks we've got Potter!"
"'Got Potter'?" Professor McGonagall repeated sharply. "What do you mean, 'got Potter'?"
"He told us Potter might try and get inside Ravenclaw Tower, and to send for him if we caught him!"
"Why would Harry Potter try to get inside Ravenclaw Tower! Potter belongs in my House!"
Beneath the disbelief and anger, Alex heard a little strain of pride in her voice.
"We was told he might come in here!" Carrow snapped. "I dunno why, do I?"
Professor McGonagall stood up and her beady eyes swept the room. Twice they passed right over the place where Alex, Luna, and Harry stood.
"We can push it off on the kids," Amycus said, his pig like face suddenly crafty. "Yeah, that's what we'll do. We'll say Alecto was ambushed by the kids, them kids up there," he looked up at the starry ceiling toward the dormitories, "and we'll say they forced her to press her Mark, and that's why he got a false alarm. He can punish them. Couple of kids more or less, what's the difference?"
"Only the difference between truth and lie, courage and cowardice," said Professor McGonagall, who had turned pale, "a difference, in short, which you and your sister seem unable to appreciate. But let me make one thing very clear. You are not going to pass off your many ineptitudes on the students of Hogwarts. I shall not permit it."
"Excuse me?"
Amycus moved forward until he was offensively close to Professor McGonagall, his face within inches of hers. She refused to back away, but looked down at him as if he were something disgusting she had found stuck to the lavatory seat.
"It's not a case of what you'll permit, Minerva McGonagall. Your time's over. It's us what's in charge here now, and you'll back me up or you'll pay the price."
And he spat in her face.
Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, "You shouldn't have done that."
As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, "Crucio!"
The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor.
"I see what Bellatrix meant," Harry said, looking half excited and half ready to pass out. "You need to really mean it."
"Potter!" Professor McGonagall whispered, clutching her heart. "Potter...you're here! What...How..." She struggled to pull herself together. "Potter, that was foolish!"
"He spat at you," Harry justified.
"You dumbass!" Alex hissed, his and Luna's Dusillusionment Charms dropping. "You should have Stunned him in the back!"
"Pruitt!" McGonagall gasped. "Lovegood!" She shook her head, staggering backward and sinking into a chair, clutching at the neck of her old tartan dressing gown. "Potter, I...that was very...gallant of you...but don't you realize..."
"Yeah, I do," Harry assured her. Somehow her panic seemed to steady him. "Professor McGonagall, Voldemort's on the way."
"Oh, are we allowed to say the name now?" Luna asked with an air of interest.
"Well, they just summoned him, so I doubt it matters now," Alex shrugged.
"He already knows where I am," Harry agreed.
"You must flee," Professor McGonagall whispered. "Now Potter, as quickly as you can!"
"I can't," Harry said, "There's something I need to do. Professor, so you know where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?"
"The d-diadem of Ravenclaw? Of course not. Hasn't it been lost for centuries?" She sat up a little straighter "Potter, it was madness, utter madness, for you to enter this castle!"
"I had to," Harry pressed. "Professor, there's something hidden here that I'm supposed to find, and it could be the diadem! If I could just speak to Professor Flitwick..."
There was a sound of movement, of clinking glass. Amycus was coming round. Before Harry or Luna could act, Professor McGonagall rose to her feet, pointed her wand at the groggy Death Eater, and said, "Imperio."
Amycus got up, walked over to his sister, picked up her wand, then shuffled obediently to Professor McGonagall and handed it over along with his own. Then he lay down on the floor beside Alecto. Professor McGonagall waved her wand again, and a length of shimmering silver rope appeared out of thin air and snaked around the Carrows, binding them tightly together. Alex stunned Amycus with a flick of his wand, his charm quieter than Luna's, which had been what woke the Ravenclaws before.
"Potter," Professor McGonagall said, turning to face him again with superb indifference to the Carrows' predicament, "if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named does indeed know that you are here-"
But here, she stopped. Harry had gone pale and sagged slightly, Alex catching him and holding him up.
"Time's running out, Voldemort's getting nearer, Professor, I'm acting on Dumbledore's orders, I must find what he wanted me to find! But we've got to get the students out while I'm searching the castle! It's me Voldemort wants, but he won't care about killing a few more or less, not now..." Harry spoke rapidly.
"You're acting on Dumbledore's orders?" she repeated with a look of dawning wonder. Then she drew herself up to her fullest height. "We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while you search for this...this object."
"Is that possible?" Harry asked.
"I think so," Professor McGonagall said dryly. "We teachers are rather good at magic, you know. I am sure we will be able to hold him off for a while if we all put our best efforts into it. Of course, something will have to be done about Professor Snape-"
"Let me-" Harry began.
"-and if Hogwarts is about to enter a state of siege, with the Dark Lord at the gates, it would indeed be advisable to take as many innocent people out of the way as possible," McGonagall cut across him. "With the Floo Network under observation, and Apparition impossible within the grounds-"
"There's a way," Harry said quickly, and he explained about the passageway leading into the Hog's Head.
"Potter, we're talking about hundreds of students."
"I know, Professor, but if Voldemort and the Death Eaters are concentrating on the school boundaries they won't be interested in anyone who's Disapparating out of Hog's Head."
"There's something in that," she agreed. She pointed her wand at the Carrows, and a silver net fell upon their bound bodies, tied itself around them, and hoisted them into the air, where they dangled beneath the blue-and-gold ceiling like two large, ugly sea creatures. "Come. We must alert the other Heads of House. You'd better put that Cloak back on."
She marched toward the door, and as she did so she raised her wand. From the tip burst three silver cats with spectacle markings around their eyes. The Patronuses ran sleekly ahead, filling the spiral staircase with silvery light, as Professor McGonagall, Harry, Alex, Luna hurried back down, Alex applying his and Luna's Disillusionment Charms as they went.
Along the corridors they raced, and one by one the Patronuses left them. Professor McGonagall's tartan dressing gown rustled over the floor, and Harry, Alex, and Luna jogged behind her, Harry once again under the Cloak.
They had descended two more floors when another set of quiet footsteps joined theirs. Harry, whose scar was still prickling, heard them first. He felt in the pouch around his neck for the Marauder's Map, but before he could take it our, McGonagall too seemed to become aware of their company.
She halted, raised her wand ready to duel, and said, "Who's there?"
"It is I," said a low voice.
From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape. Alex readied himself instantly, and stepped in front of Harry, backing into his wand arm to keep it down. He had improved his Disillusionment Charm considerably over the years, and as he moved, Snape's eyes didn't so much as flick to him. He was dressed in his usual black robes, and his wand was also out and ready for a fight.
"Where are the Carrows?" he asked quietly.
"Wherever you told them to be, I expect, Severus," Professor McGonagall said.
Snape stepped nearer, and his eyes flitted over Professor McGonagall into the air around her, as if he knew that Harry was there. Harry held his wand up too, around Alex, ready to attack.
"I was under the impression," Snape said, "that Alecto had apprehended an intruder."
"Really?" Professor McGonagall asked. "And what gave you that impression?"
Snape made a slight flexing movement of his left arm, where the Dark Mark was branded into his skin.
"Oh, but naturally," Professor McGonagall said. "You Death Eaters have your own private means of communication, I forgot."
Snape pretended not to have heard her. His eyes were still probing the air all about her, and he was moving gradually closer, with an air of hardly noticing what he was doing.
"I did not know that it was your night to patrol the corridors Minerva."
"You have some objection?"
"I wonder what could have brought you out of our bed at this late hour?" Snape mused.
"I thought I heard a disturbance," said Professor McGonagall.
"Really? But all seems calm." Snape looked into her eyes. "Have you seen Harry Potter, Minerva? Because if you have. I must insist-"
Professor McGonagall moved faster than Alex would have thought. Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance. She brandished her wand at a torch on the wall and it flew out of its bracket. Alex, about to curse Snape, was forced to pull Luna out of the way of the descending flames, which became a ring of fire that filled the corridor and flew like a lasso at Snape. Then it was no longer fire, but a great black serpent that McGonagall blasted to smoke, which re-formed and solidified in seconds to become a swarm of pursuing daggers. Snape avoided them only by forcing the suit of armor in front of him, and with echoing clangs the daggers sank, one after another, into its breast.
"Minerva!" called a squeaky voice, and looking behind him, still shielding Luna from flying spells, Alex saw Professors Flitwick and Sprout sprinting up the corridor toward them in their nightclothes, with the enormous Professor Slughorn panting along at the rear.
"No!" Flitwick squeeled, raising his wand. "You'll do no more murder at Hogwarts!"
Flitwick's spell hit the suit of armor behind which Snape had taken shelter. With a clatter it came to life, grabbing him in a bear hug. Snape struggled free of the crushing arms and sent it flying back toward his attackers. Harry and Luna had to dive sideways to avoid it as it smashed into the wall and shattered.
Alex had ducked under the suit and now allowed his Disillusionment Charm to fade as he sent an Impetus at Snape. Snape blocked it and sidestepped several curses and charms from the others. Then, Snape was in full flight, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout all thundering after him, Alex just a few steps behind. He hurtled through a classroom door and, moments later, Alex heard McGonagall cry, "Coward! COWARD!"
"What's happened, what's happened?" asked Luna.
Harry dragged her to her feet, and they raced along the corridor, Harry trailing the Invisibility Cloak behind him, into the deserted classroom where Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were standing at a smashed window, Alex lighting a cigarette.
"He jumped," Professor McGonagall said as Harry and Luna ran into the room.
"You mean he's dead?" Harry sprinted to the window, ignoring Flitwick's and Sprout's yells of shock at his sudden appearance.
"No, he's not dead," McGonagall said bitterly. "Unlike Dumbledore, he was still carrying a wand...and he seems to have learned a few tricks from his master."
With a look of horror, Harry saw in the distance a huge, bat like shape flying through the darkness toward the perimeter wall.
There were heavy footfalls behind them, and a great deal of puffing. Slughorn had just caught up.
"Harry!" he panted, massaging his immense chest beneath his emerald-green silk pajamas. "My dear boy...what a surprise...Minerva, do please explain...Severus...what...?"
"Our headmaster is taking a short break," Professor McGonagall said, pointing at the Snape-shaped hole in the window.
"Professor!" Harry shouted his hand on his forehead. "Professor, we've got to barricade the school, he's coming, now!"
"Very well. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is coming," she told the other teachers.
Sprout and Flitwick gasped. Slughorn let out a low groan.
"Potter has work to do in the castle on Dumbledore's orders. We need to put in place every protection of which we are capable while Potter does what he needs to do."
"You realize , of course, that nothing we do will be able to keep out You-Know-Who indefinitely?" Flitwick squeaked.
"But we can hold him up," Professor Sprout countered.
"Thank you, Pomona," Professor McGonagall said, and between the two witches there passed a look of grim understanding. "I suggest we establish basic protection around the place, then gather our students and meet in the Great Hall. Most must be evacuated, though if any of those who are over age wish to stay and fight, I think they ought to be given the chance."
"Agreed," said Professor Sprout, already hurrying toward the door. "I shall meet you in the Great Hall in twenty minutes with my House."
And as she jogged out of sight, they could hear her muttering, "Tentacula, Devil's Snare. And Snargaluff pods...Yes, I'd like to see the Death Eaters fighting those."
"I can act from here," Flitwick said, and although he could barely see out of it, he pointed his wand through the smashed window and started muttering incantations of great complexity.
Alex heard a weird rushing noise, as though Flitwick had unleashed the power of the wind into the grounds.
"Professor," Harry said, approaching the little Charms master. "Professor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but this is important. Have you got any idea where the diadem of Ravenclaw is?"
"Protego Horribillis. The diadem of Ravenclaw?" squeaked Flitwick. "A little extra wisdom never goes amiss, Potter, but I hardly think it would be much use in this situation!"
"I only meant...do you know where it is? Have you ever seen it?"
"Seen it! Nobody has seen it in living memory! Long since lost, boy."
Alex shook his head. He hated to do this, but he couldn't help Harry, but Luna could. "Luna, help Hary. I'm going to call my family and help prepare defenses."
Luna nodded, kissing him hard for several seconds before Alex tore himself away, sprinting from the room, only Mouse remaining with Luna of their pets. Alex sprinted out the door, brandishing his wand. At his side, a bowl of water appeared, and he waved his wand again, a letter appearing before him, a hasty explanation of the situation appearing on the page. Then, the letter dropped into the bowl and vanished in a flood of bubbles. A moment later, a reply popped out, promising help from the lake. He let the bowl fall, sprinting outside of the castle and brandished his wand again, going deaf to all else as he focused on the enchantments.
This time, as he directed it skyward, all of the remaining miniature pets took flight, passing over his wand and began to grow rapidly. Within seconds, two full-sized dragons, one a pale blue and the other an emerald green, alighted on the roof of the school, unleashing bellowing roars. A full-sized Heliopath cantered to a stop before Alex, its wings folded up along its sides, a double-sized hipogriff landed beside Alex. A full-sized Thunder Bird began to circle the courtyard he was in, flying opposite circles with an Occamy that was currently twenty feet long.
Alex took a long, slow breath, then began to chant as he waved his wand and free hand both in intricate patterns in the air. As one, all of the animated figurines around him blurred, then solidified, then glowed, then flashed, pulsated, blurred again, and then solidified again. A moment later, the Heliopath's flanes engorged, becoming very real, but charmed not to damage the ground. The Thunderbird let out a piercing cry and soared skyward, turning blue before a massive storm began to form, rain pelting the ground. As it did, Alex brandished his wand once again, and a cluster of small, black figurines appeared before him. He waved it again and they scattered around Hogwarts' grounds, a dozen Sea Wraiths ready to be animated, engorged, and slaughter anything around them with a single charm. He conjured another note with a warning to his family about them and used a rain puddle beside him to send it, and a moment later the paper returned with an aknowledgement scrawled hastily on the back.
"Alex!" Ron called over the roar of the rain around Alex. "We're assembling in the Great Hall!"
Alex nodded and turned, striding into the school with Ron, drying himself with a wave of his wand before pulling his Hungarioan Horntail gloves out of his pocket and pulling them on, arriving in the Great Hall to see that Luna was just doing the same, Fred and George quickly passing out dragonskin jackets and Shield Charm robes, gloves, and hats to Hogwarts students, the entirety of the Order of the Pheonix, minus Tonx, present and wearing their Dragonskin Jackets and waistcoats. Alex walked over to Luna and kissed her, Luna kissing him back.
"Our pets?" Luna asked.
"And a dozen Sea Wraiths," Alex said. "The pets can be repaired and reanimated. The people they protect can't." He looked around again, noticing for the first time how few students were present, all of age and none of them Slytherin. "What'd I miss?"
"Everyone who is underage or doesn't want to fight is evacuating," Luna said. "Voldemort gace us until midnight to turn over Harry Potter, so we have that long to prepare. Kingsley said to send you to him."
Alex nodded and jogged over to Kingsley. "What'd you need?"
"You went to add defenses, right?" Kingsley asked.
"My pets are out there, my family's going to help, and there are Sea Wraiths ready to be activated," Alex listed. "Also, it's storming."
Kingsley nodded. "You'll be helping Fred and George organize defenses of the entrances and corridors, and you'll be with Luna."
"You don't want me on the front lines?" Alex asked.
"Not right off," Lupin spoke up. "Perhaps later. First, you're to aid in coordinating. I'd rather have one of our most skilled duelists ready for when the Death Eaters arrive than send him out front to greet Voldemort's horde of beasts."
Alex nodded and turned, walking over to the twins as they passed out the last of the protective gear. Like Alex and Luna, both wore their dragonskin jackets, waistcoats, and gloves. Both nodded solemly to him as Luna joined them, slipping her hand into his, and together, they set off with a large group of students, including many of the D.A. members, to set up defenses.
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