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Chapter 22

The day after the Slytherin/Ravenclaw match was a return to parents week and Harry and Hermione were, as prefects, once more directing parents and trying to herd a bunch of people who didn't want to be herded. Wednesday was the fourth year's and it honestly wasn't much different from the third years. The only real difference this time was that two of the mundane parents of the first-generation students recognised him from when he bumped into them for their tour of Diagon Alley.

Thursday was the second Quidditch day and it was Harry's team's turn to play. This was a little different than any other game Harry had played because it was going to start with the players' families arriving. Harry wasn't sure who was coming to the match to watch him play but at nine o'clock he was lined up with all the other Quidditch players on both the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff teams.

Families started porting one after another in five minute intervals in three separate spots, one to the left of the gate, one to the right and one a little down the road. So with the first group arriving at nine on the bell everyone would be here in twenty minutes.

Molly Weasley was in the first group and had come to watch Ron play. She shot Harry a few hateful looks but her attention was soon only on Ron as she pulled her boy into a soothing motherly hug. A few of the Quidditch players had a chuckle at Ron's expense; only those whose own mothers saw them laugh immediately acted the exact same and pulled their kids into such a hug. Harry thought it was rather heartwarming and wished his own mother was there to embarrass him like that.

It was in the third group that Harry recognised his visitors. It was Sirius, Dan, Emma and Fleur. All of them had come to watch him play. They were just walking the distance between where they appeared and the school gates when there were suddenly multiple shouts from the nearby tree line.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Both Harry and Fleur reacted quick as lightning. They both acted to transfigure the ground into a protective wall. Harry was slightly faster and his wall was up first but the multiple spells quickly broke through it. Luckily Fleur's spell may have been a half-second slower than Harry's but it was also a thicker, stronger wall. Thankfully both Harry and Fleur had quick draw wand holsters, the spell to transfigure the wall was a lot shorter than the killing curse and required very little in the way of aim.

Everyone quickly scrambled into the school, parents and Quidditch players running up towards the castle as fast as they could to get away from the fighting. The only adults who didn't run were Madam Hooch, who was overseeing what was part of the Quidditch match so being the professor in charge had fallen to her, as well as Fleur and Sirius. They both refused to run off as long as Harry was still anywhere near the gate.

The reason Harry hadn't run was because he was considering going to see if he could capture one of the attackers. Especially as Harry had a suspicion that it was the Malfoys out there.

Then a voice broke through the silence. It was a feminine voice that was putting on an overly sweet high pitched affectation. One Harry remembered. "Oh, has the little baby Potter learned to play? Why don't you come out and Auntie Bella will show you a few new games!" It was Bellatrix Lestrange.

Harry said her name out loud, Sirius and Fleur both stiffened and Madam Hooch started to shake in fear a little. Sirius had plenty of history with Bellatrix. She was his cousin after all. Fleur however had heard what the deranged woman had done to Harry and Hermione the year before they met and that was more than enough to want to kill the bitch.

Hooch was clearly terrified. Considering Lestrange's reputation Harry didn't blame her but he had to give the woman credit, she didn't take even one step back from where she was standing. She was the only professor standing between a group of Death Eaters led by an insane psychopath and it didn't matter the cost, her position was clear, a wall between them and the students.

Harry wasn't feeling as afraid of Lestrange this time as he was the last time he had seen her and just called out. "Bella, lovely to hear from you again. Do you still have those lovely roast cheeks?" He asked, referring to the burn scars he had left her with after their first encounter. He had been able to get his burns treated immediately and it had prevented scaring. Lestrange hadn't had any such luxury and her skin had scarred a lot in response to Harry setting her on fire.

Bellatrix dropped the fake cutesy voice and when she shouted back, "Why don't you come and see for yourself." She sounded more like a female drill instructor.

"You must think I was born yesterday,"Harry shouted. Before he quietly said to Sirius and Fleur. "Keep her distracted. I'm gonna pop to the house and get something and try to sneak up behind her."

"No you are not Mr Potter, you will stay in this school where you are safe." Madam Hooch demanded obviously having been listening to what he said.

Before Harry could respond though Bellatrix called out. "But if you don't come see me then the only people I will have to play with are the mummy's and daddy's of your teammates."

Harry swore to himself. He tried to work out how long it had been since the last group arrived. It was longer than a minute but was it two yet? He didn't know. He didn't have time to explain to Madam Hooch so he just Stepped.

In his house he just called out. "Dobby, I need a few of the goblin portkey coins now." Not ten seconds later the little elf was putting a stack of them in his hand looking worried. He tried to ask Harry what was going on but Harry Stepped away before the little guy could finish even a single word. Harry would have to apologise for being rude to the little guy later but for now he was on the clock.

Harry appeared in the forest surrounding the school walls about a hundred feet back from were he had seen the killing curses flying from. He had to be careful as he didn't have time for his invisibility cloak and he hadn't thought to disillusion himself before he stepped and he couldn't do that spell nonverbally yet.

Harry made his way slowly towards the road, one eye watching in front of him looking for Death Eaters the other watching the floor. One snapping twig would tell the Death Eaters exactly where he was and he didn't think that would be good for his health.

Harry saw one of them, he was facing away from Harry and hadn't even thought to watch out for someone sneaking up behind him. Harry could hear Sirius and Lestrange getting into it. Apparently, Sirius was a traitor to everything the Black family stood for and Lestrange was nuttier than squirrel shit.

Harry considered how he was going to get the coin onto the Death Eater. His first instinct was to just run up and slap it on his back before stepping away but if he did that there was a good chance one of the others would see it coming and get a shot off. Harry had no intention of leaving his survival up to chance versus a Death Eaters aim so that plan was out. Harry thought about throwing it and banishing it. Harry however settled of a far simpler spell. A first-year classic, that meant Harry was confident he could cast the spell nonverbally.

'Wingardium Leviosa.' the thought thundered through Harry's head and with a swish and a flick of his wand the coin was flying.

Harry whispered the activation phrase to the coin and then making sure that nothing else touched the coin first Harry floated it into the back of the Death Eater who was facing the road. The robed figure disappeared in a flash of wind.

It had been laughably easy to sneak up on the first one. The Death Eaters never learnt to be cautious around Harry. Despite how many times they had come off worse than him they still thought their blood made them better than him. They just couldn't accept the reality that Harry was a threat. So they hadn't even thought about watching their backs. However, portkeys, even goblin ones, weren't stealthy. They created a lot of wind, that wind made noise and blew things like fallen leaves and pine needles everywhere. That sort of thing was difficult to miss.

Harry immediately Stepped back to where Sirius and Fleur were waiting because he knew that at least Bellatrix's response would be violent. Harry was correct as the first thing he heard when he Stepped back was more killing curses being cast and while the walls that blocked the killing curses were blocking Harry's view of the Death Eaters he did have the angle to see a few trees suddenly drop all their leaves as they died after absorbing the killing curses.

Harry had to think quickly though, the next group of parents would be here in seconds and if he didn't do something quickly then the Death Eaters would suddenly have hostages.

That's when there was a series of loud cracks of apparition from the other side of the temporary walls and shouts of "D.M.L.E you're under arrest!" There was then the unmistakable sound of a magical fight until a few seconds later when the rush of wind told Harry and the others that the Death Eaters had retreated.

The next set of families arrived only seconds later and were a little put out to have Aurors pointing wands at them. What followed was a relatively standard and completely boring question-and-answer session with the Aurors that Harry was getting way too familiar with. The Aurors of course wanted to know everything from everyone. Harry on the other hand wanted to know why they arrived when they did. It turned out that the Aurors that were stationed at the school who didn't feel like there was enough of them to tackle the problem themselves and who had seen the disturbance from the top of one of the school towers had called it in to the D.M.L.E knowing that a response team could get there faster than they could because of Hogwarts anti apparition wards.

It was not the best start to the morning but after about three-quarters of an hour, they were allowed to go and Harry took everyone to where they were going to meet up with Hermione. The players had a bit of time with their families as the match start was pushed to after lunch by Professor McGonagall to give all the players a chance to calm down and recenter themselves for the game.

Hermione was of course frantic by the time Harry arrived with everyone, she was convinced something had happened and when Fleur explained what happened confirming Hermione's fears she immediately became clingy needing some time to convince herself that all of the most important people in her life were fine.

"Oh and I managed to capture one of the Death Eaters," Harry told them once Hermione had calmed down to clingy rather than on the verge of a panic attack.

"What!?" A few people said at the same time. That question was quickly followed by a mix of "who was it?" And "why didn't you say so before now?"

"Well I don't have any clue who it was. They were in their Death Eater robes so no way to tell. I'm sure the goblins will send me a letter soon telling me who it is. As to why I didn't say anything before now, you know what Aurors are like with questions. They would spend four hours asking me who it was despite how many times I tell them I don't know. After that we were busy showing Hermione we were fine." He explained his reasoning.

-ϟϟϟ-

They all sat down to lunch with the Quidditch team and their families all sitting together at the ends of their house tables. The team ate lightly as they didn't want to have a full stomach while trying to make a high speed turn but they also didn't want to end up low on energy eather.

Ron was encouraging them all, reminding them that they were a brilliant team and that he had every confidence in them.

The only downside to the lunch was Mrs Weasley. She kept making snide remarks about how Ron as captain should probably remove any trouble making hot heads from the team and replace them with someone more responsible." She didn't come out and say who she was referring to but her frequent looks at Harry made it obvious to everyone he was who she was referring to.

Fleur, who had never met Mrs Weasley before, wasn't taking the comments well. Harry and Hermione had both met the woman in the summer before their second year. She had even put Harry up for a few weeks when Harry really needed a place to stay. That gave them the contrast to how the woman was before she lost her husband and daughter to this war and let them feel sorry for her. Fleur didn't have any of that context and it was only both Harry and Hermione giving her a little shake of the head telling her to leave it that kept Fleur from exploding at Mrs Weasley.

Unfortunately for Mrs Weasley, while Fleur saw herself as equal to Harry and Hermione and let them make the call there were people sat at the table who were Harry's guardians and rightly saw it as their place to stand up for him no matter what his thoughts on the matter were. After one particularly acerbic comment from Mrs Weasley where she said something about a reckless teammate possibly getting other members of the team killed Emma Granger had had enough. "Will you please give it a rest? Maybe try going five minutes without insulting a teenager."

"I have no clue what you mean." Said Mrs Weasley looking affronted as she tried to play the 'I'm innocent' card.

"Oh please we can all see you shooting Harry dark looks every time you say the word reckless." Emma was in no mood to play games with this woman who was attacking her boy.

Mrs Weasley who always had her temper on a hair trigger got right in Emma's face and said "He got my daughter killed."

"Oh what bullshit. Everyone I spoke to who saw what happened said Harry tried everything he could to save her." Emma said.

"Well, it obviously wasn't good enough. Maybe if he had stayed out of it and let Dumbledore deal with it like he was supposed to then my daughter would still be here.

Hermione couldn't keep quiet hearing that. "Dumbledore hadn't been at the school for a year. How was Harry to know he was coming?"

"And who's fault is it that Dumbledore got removed from the school?" Mrs Weasley shouted.

"His own, for the ridiculous things he did as headmaster." Said an annoyed looking professor McGonagall who had walked up behind them and was not too happy with the disturbance in her school. "Now this is a school, I will not have parents bickering like pre school children. If this behaviour persists you will all be asked to leave."

A quick round of apologies and the professor left. Harry was surprised that Mrs Weasley listened to Professor McGonagall. His impression of the woman was more bull in a China shop or a dog with a bone. But then he realised Professor McGonagall was her head of house just like she was Harry's. He didn't have a real point of reference for it but he guessed it would be like getting scolded by a parent.

-ϟϟϟ-

During the match Hermione ended up sitting between her mother and Fleur while her father sat next to her mother with Sirius on the far side. For most of the group the Quidditch match was a rather middle-of-the-road affair. Sure the quaffle was bouncing back and forth and the players were dodging the bludgers but there were no spectacular feats of flying, no ridiculous death-defying dives. It was a normal everyday Quidditch match.

To Hermione's parents however it was as exciting as the World Cup. They were on the edges of their seats and were cheering for Harry at every opportunity.

Fleur may have been quieter about it but she too couldn't keep her eyes off of Harry. She had never really had a good opportunity to see him fly and she was getting a new understanding of just what Hermione meant when she said Harry was born for the sky.

The Hufflepuff team were up 80 to Gryffindors 60 when the Hufflepuff seeker spotted the Snitch. Unfortunately for the Hufflepuff Harry saw where he was looking and Harry was for a change the one who was closer to the Snitch. It took an almost vertical dive and a sharp change of direction to avoid eating the pitch but Harry was more than up to the task. Or at least he would be able to fix his foot up himself in the changing room so he didn't need to tell anyone just how close that last second pull up had been. Still, they had won the match and the Gryffindor stands went wild.

After seeing the families off, this time with a group of Aurors at the gate to prevent any further attacks, it was back to the Gryffindor Tower for the party.

-ϟϟϟ-

The next day as they were eating breakfast Harry got a letter from the goblins telling him who they had gotten. Harry couldn't help the massive grin that spread over his face. It was Rodolphus Lestrange, the warlock of the Lestrange house and husband to Bellatrix.

Seeing a huge smile on Harry's face Hermione held out a hand asking to see the letter, Harry handed it over. The letter wasn't long and it only took Hermione about four seconds to read it. Only she didn't look as happy as Harry did.

"What's wrong Hermione?" Harry asked. He was worried that she had spotted something he had missed.

"It's just Bellatrix Lestrange isn't going to like this. She is unstable enough at the best of times. Now we have her husband in a secret goblin prison. She is going to try and kill you again. She isn't a pushover like most of the Death Eaters. What if she actually gets into the castle? She has done it before. I don't want to lose you." The emotion was clear in Hermione's voice

Harry understood immediately and ducked under the table and came back up on the other side next to Hermione. He immediately put an arm around her and pulled her in close. "We aren't those third years anymore love. We are not alone, and we all have more than our fair share of tricks. If she comes here looking for a fight she will get a lot more than she can handle." He dropped his voice so he wouldn't be overheard. "Don't forget I can always Step away, or Step in to grab someone away if she tries to corner someone alone." Harry reassured her.

Neville who was sitting close by asked what was going on so after a quick look to see if Harry agreed Hermione handed Neville the letter. Even without speaking they knew they were both on the same page about this. Neville had as much experience fighting Lestrange as Hermione did and more reason to hate both her and her husband than either of them did.

Neville quickly read the letter and his eyes got an almost manic gleam to them. He then turned to Harry and in a very formal tone asked. "Warlock Potter, I as the Heir to the House of Longbottom, ally of the House of Potter in times of peace and war, humbly request the transfer of the Lestrange prisoner into our custody."

"Shit." Harry could tell immediately that this was a delicate situation. "Nev… no Heir Longbottom, please can we go somewhere more private to discuss this? I don't think the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast is a good idea."

"Sure Warlock Potter, that would be prudent." Neville nodded.

"Would it be acceptable for Hermione to come as well?" Harry asked. He still didn't get all this house business stuff.

"It's fine, while it may not be official yet, the lady of a House is normally welcome." Neville said standing up.

They all made their way to an empty classroom. Not even two minutes later the three of them were alone. Harry was the one to break the silence. "Please listen to my full explanation." Neville nodded so Harry continued. "I don't think I can give him to you. He definitely deserves it. And you and your grandmother deserve revenge for what he did. However I have agreements in place with the goblins. If I were to hand him over I would be putting that relationship at risk. I need that relationship to manage any future Death Eaters I can catch. If it's any consolation I can guarantee that he is currently having a terrible time."

Neville didn't seem moved by Harry's words at all. "Harry, this is one of the men who cursed my parents until their minds broke. I spent my entire life calling two shells of people who are long gone mum and dad. I don't care what deal you have with the goblins, we will pay them off, but I want that bastard at my feet so that I can give the sadistic son of a bitch the fate he deserves!" Neville was shouting by the time he finished.

"I don't think the goblins will budge on this one, but if you like we can speak with your gran tomorrow and see if she can think of anything." Harry suggested.

Neville nodded and after saying he was off to write to his gran he left Harry and Hermione who now had to go get everything ready for the fifth year's parents day.

-ϟϟϟ-

Draco Malfoy wasn't in a good mood. "An enter week of planning all up in smoke and Potter won again." He tested the crumpled up letter informing him of his uncle's disappearance into the fire of the Slytherin common room.

"What did you have planned?" The Slytherin girl who had been encouraging him to go after Potter asked.

"I was going to ambush and kidnap the mudbloods parents when they arrived for this damn foolish parent teacher muggle dragon shit. Trade them for Potter and kill the bastard for everything he has done. Even if Potter hadn't come it would have destroyed his relationship with the mudblood and possibly left him too distracted to avoid the next attempt." But my god damn aunt decided to take a shot early and fail. Now the arrival is crawling with Aurors and technically the muggles aren't part of the feud. In the Wizengamot I could have gotten away with it but right in front of the Aurors? Not a chance. What am I going to do Annette?"

The lips on Annette Warrington's face drew back in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You know Malfoy tomorrow will be the first time since Potter declared his feud that he will be in the same place as the people who decided to join his little farce. There are no doubt things that they have avoided talking about in letters because they could be intercepted. Who knows what important things they may need to talk about tomorrow? And if someone was sneaky enough to overhear them, then the information they could collect may be incredibly valuable to our side."

Malfoy thought about that for a second and nodded. "Sure but it's next to impossible. I don't know anyone in this school with an invisibility cloak except Potter, a Disillusionment wouldn't work that close in broad daylight, and if I was just standing there then Potter wouldn't say anything."

Annette smiled even wider this time reminding Malfoy of a snake that had just spied a particularly tasty looking mouse. "Oh I wouldn't worry about that Draco. I know just the spell to help you ferret out what we need to know

A/N

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