2009, somewhere in the remains of Belgium

"Promise?" she said. "Won't hurt?"

"I promise," Harry confirmed. "You won't feel a thing."

The woman gave a hard, phlegmy, whining sniff. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

Harry cast a deafening spell on the blindfolded soldier, and stepped back. Her name was Shelly Dasher, and he'd picked her and her brother up a few months back. The brother was a simple man, the type he might have to cut loose now that there wasn't someone to look after him, but Shelly had been a good hand. Better on the shields than the swords, not cut out for the more aggressive manoeuvres the latter employed.

Too much of a coward for either part of the army, as it had turned out.

His forces were still gathering around them, forming a large crowd. Even Snape had come out of his hole, looking more and more like a malnourished vampire with each passing day. Hermione stepped up beside Harry, giving him a nod to signal that all the kids were there. A few more minutes passed before Ron joined them, carefully putting out a half-smoked cigarette so he could finish it later.

"All here," his right-hand man muttered. "Remember. Be firm, but clear."

Harry cast the sonorous charm.

"Today was almost a good day," he said. "Nev killed half a squad of Death Eaters all on his own. The kids successfully pulled off the new trios formation we've been working on. We won." He took a breath. "There was just one thing wrong.

"The left wing of our assault fell apart. The shield ritual failed because one of your peers broke and ran." He took another deep breath, and sought out the eyes of those who'd been a part of that failed pincer manoeuvre. There was no mercy to be found in any of them, so he squashed down any he himself might've had. "Now, that mistake will be punished."

Most were still watching, but a few had begun staring down at the ground or up in the sky. Shelly was well liked, her brother even more so, and no one there couldn't understand why she'd run. Everyone there understood how terrifying a battlefield could be.

Understanding and forgiveness were two entirely different things, unfortunately.

"None of you are forced to be here. Everyday you remain by my side, you make the choice to keep fighting. When you make that choice, you also accept a responsibility." Harry began slowly bleeding his magic out into the crowd, stirring up winds and emotion alike. "A responsibility to the soldiers to your left and right, behind and in front of you. A responsibility to shoulder their trust and expectations. A responsibility to never betray them.

"And in order to ensure that you follow through on that responsibility, there must be consequences."

He continued to flare his magic further and higher. He couldn't allow anyone in the rebellion to someday think back on this moment without the echo of his strength ringing clear in their memory. They had to know just who and what stood on the other side of the choice they made each time they remained on the battlefield.

"Had she not returned to us, I would've set Neville on the hunt. I would've told him to bring me back another piece of her each week." His voice was loud enough to be heard for miles, carried on the gusts and gales his power summoned. "But she has returned to us. In return, I shall grant her a quick death.

"I do this not out of anger, or vindication. I do it because I need each and every one of you to understand what it means to betray your family." He turned around to face the trembling woman. "All of you should rest that much easier, knowing now what sort of consequences your comrades should face if they were to betray you."

With yet another deep breath, Harry spiked his magic. The once subtle winds became cutting whips that threatened to knock people off their feet. Before anyone had the chance to brace themselves, he spoke.

"Avada Kedavra."

The bolt of green energy struck Shelly and she dropped. With her arms bound she didn't make the usual pose of the victims of the killing curse, but it was still just as sudden and heart wrenching. As soon as the spell had struck her, Harry had stopped pouring his magic out into the world, and the effect left the entire space feeling as dead as… Well…

"I pray to Magic that this is the only time I'm forced to make such an example." He began walking away, through the crowd which parted for him like he was a leper. "And I pray that all of you will do your best to make my hopes come true."

Ron and Remus would take care of things from here. Important business through the latter, personal through the former. Hermione would get back to whatever she was working on that day. Neville would return to the medical tent that he probably shouldn't have left in the first place. The scouts would go scouting, the hunters would go hunting, the patrols would go patrolling.

The war would continue on with one less soldier fighting in it.

Harry kept his ears peeled for any sound of a tag along, someone looking to speak with him despite the mood he'd created, but nothing came. He moved alone. When he got to his tent, he threw open the flap and 'locked' it behind him. It would stop anyone besides those closest to him from entering, and anyone who overcame the wards themselves would be beset by a boggart he kept in an unlocked trunk by the door.

Damned thing didn't even try to scare non-intruders anymore, it was living off a comfortable aura of ever-present fear.

He'd thought it was getting fat last time he'd seen it.

"Fuck." Harry whipped his robes off and into the corner of the room in a far-less satisfying tantrum than he'd hoped for. "Fuck!"

Sally had been good people. What the hell was he supposed to do with her brother? Dash, as everyone called him, wouldn't understand. He couldn't. Even if he wasn't the way he was, there was no forgiving someone who executed your family. His disability was the only thing sparing him from a quiet disappearance in the night courtesy of that new kid, the one who'd survived the run in with the Dominicans. Little shit was too fanatically loyal to the cause to not put to use for macabre tasks such as that.

Maybe Harry would send him anyways; just put the headache to bed before it began.

"Mon amor." He tensed. "Are you alright?"

"Not tonight, Fleur." It was going to be a bad night. "I want to be alone."

She was just one of a very, very small handful of people who could enter his tent when it was locked.

"No you don't."

Harry grimaced as she wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face into the nape of his neck from behind. Immediately the numbing cold melted as her aura poured into him, sliding through every groove and crook in his being. As always, that deepest, coldest pit inside of him, the one Magic had locked away years ago, remained icy.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do," he said, voice as measured and stoic as he could make it. "Not. Tonight."

A part of him felt gross talking to his not-quite-romantic partner that way, but his second and newest bargain made it easy to ignore. At this point he wasn't sure why the hell he even put her on the 'white list' for who could get in without upsetting the boggart. He'd remember tomorrow when he'd managed to suppress today's emotions and needed someone to—

"Fine." Fleur pulled away, and with her went whatever comfort the embrace had given him. "Good night."

"Tell Bilguun I want to see him." There were no exceptions to the rule about coming into Harry's tent, no one left it without a new chore to do. "Now." A weird sort of panic hit him there, he was unsure of why his emotions suddenly spiked. "Not, like, you do it now, I mean, tell him I want to see him now, at your own pace."

"Aveugle à tes propres plumes…" He had no idea what that meant, something about blind feathers. "I know what you meant. Goodnight, mon amor."

"Goodnight…" Just once he wanted to say something similarly affectionate back to her. "See you tomorrow."

He just couldn't muster it up. Fleur had made it clear not to say things he didn't mean early on in their fucked up relationship, so now he just hoped she picked up on the conflict it caused within him. He didn't regret selling those memories and feelings, especially not since it helped him find children like Bilguun in the first place and saved him from going way, way too far off the deep end, but it was still unfair to her.

When he was alone again he raised his hand, about to 'unlock' the wards, but decided against it. It'd be interesting to see how the kid handled the challenge. Ron and Nevill regularly utilised boggarts to test the soldiers, but a less expected bit of fear might be interesting. You could tell a lot about a man by how he reacted to a surprise, even if the 'man' in question this time was just a boy far too big for his age and far too young for his kill count.

Still, it would be interesting.

After a few minutes of waiting Bilguun arrived with a bang. Kid had probably thought it was a test to try and get past Harry's personal wards, but the reality was that the wards were just there to stop him from being an easy target. They were more focused on making sure Harry was alarmed and awake in the eventuality that someone tried breaking into his personal quarters. He definitely was this time, and what crawled out of his boggart's trunk was a real piece of work.

It had a head and face like a mask you'd see in an Asian history museum. It was bright red with a wispy, fake-looking beard and a bull's heavy-horned visage. The head itself was far too large for the imaginative being's body, nearly twice as big as the inferi-like, half-rotted woman's corpse could've supported. Behind the fake-looking skull's eye sockets were a twin pair of glowing green eyes that practically bled fury into the air around them.

To Bilguun's credit, he did little more than pale before stabbing his wand forward and silently, detonating an un-manufactured blast of energy at the being.

He painted quite the tableau at that moment. Despite being around thirteen or fourteen, the kid looked like he weighed as much as Harry, and that was quite the feat when the soldiers lived on rations. It was easy for the rebellion's leader to envision Bilguun riding alongside Genghis Khan in epic battles back in the eras before bombs and napalm. His wand held strong, the beast being blown back; it would have been picturesque were it not for the way the Mongolian boy's wand exploded under the weight of his magical pressure.

"Riddikulus!" Harry called.

Immediately the boggart transformed. Its twisted, mask-like head morphed into something more akin to a raspberry lollipop with lime drops in the middle, and its body went from malnourished and decaying to buxom and underdressed. With a squeal it vanished away back into its trunk.

"Not bad," Harry said. "I liked my version better though, way better tits."

Crude jokes were the best way to a teen like Bilguun's heart. It was like a little secret that he was privileged to receive, hearing the usually cold and hard leader of the rebellion say words like 'tits'.

"Damn it," Bilguun said. The teen was staring down at the smoking end of what was once his wand. "Sorry, Harry."

"It's alright, better this than you being too scared to let loose," he replied. "What the hell was that thing?"

"Head was Erlik." Bilguun gestured towards his face. "God of death. My mother had, had…" Bilgun began snapping his fingers. "Helmet? Helmet. Of face, very scary."

"Okay," Harry said. "And the body?"

"That was my mother." Bilguun shrugged. "When I found her."

"Oh. Well, shit." He rubbed at the back of his head. "Didn't mean to… Comment on her…"

"Is okay. She was mother." The Mongolian lifted up one of his hands, then the other. "You are father figure." He clasped them together, nodding thoughtfully. "It make sense."

Harry blinked, then cringed back slightly. Bilguun was just staring at him as earnestly as ever, nodding as he kept his hands in a prayer-like pose. After a few seconds though, the teen's eye twitched, and Harry burst out laughing.

"Fucking hell, kiddo." He shook his head as Bilguun finally broke too, laughing along with him. "I don't know where your weird-ass sense of humour came from, but you need to quit creeping me out."

"Never." Bilguun nodded at him. "What did you need, sir?"

'Down to business then…'

He decided to wait for a few moments, turning away and reaching for a bottle of liquor they'd found a week ago or so. His craving for nicotine reared its ugly head for the thousandth time that day, but that was a demon he'd long since learned how to deal with. He no longer remembered the woman who'd made him quit, but he still had the reason she'd done it.

That thought nearly stopped him from making Bilguun do this, so he pushed it away. Bilguun wasn't actually his son, he was just another soldier. He shoved the cork back into the bottle and swirled the cheap vodka he'd poured around in his cup. Letting the tension rise would give off the impression that he regretted what he was about to ask.

It was a trick Dumbledore had taught him.

"Sally is dead." He intentionally said it like the fact had nothing to do with him. "That means we don't have anyone around to take care of Dash."

Bilguun scowled. "If not for Neville, my squad would've been wiped out. You were merciful more than she deserved."

"More merciful," Harry corrected. "Or pause between the two words, then it'll still work."

"Yes, sir."

He took a sip of his vodka, not relishing the taste but not wanting to slam it back and look bad in front of the soldier. "Bilguun, I hate to ask you this, but can you… take care of Dash?"

There really wasn't any other option. He already didn't have room for the one value-less mouth he had to feed in Quinn, but at least that man could occasionally be coaxed into giving up some valuable knowledge on wardings and other such protective measures. Dash was… He was a decent bloke, but he wasn't much beyond that.

"Of course, I'm glad you asked me," Bilguun said, not hesitating for a moment. Harry blinked. "He'll be a big help watching the younger kids. I'll make sure to earn an extra share for him every day."

"That's not—"

"I insist." The teen straightened up, looking even more proud than the time he'd beaten Ron in a mock duel. "That's what she did, I can do it too. I already earn more than one, is how I got so big!"

Damn it. Why'd the kid end up with an awful sense of humour and a great sense of morality. It was looking less and less likely that he'd grow into a wizard like Sirius, Snape, or Harry himself; and instead was turning out more and more like Neville.

He sighed. It wasn't like that was something he could turn his nose up at either.

"There's something else I want you to take care of for me." If Bilguun was going to be stepping up the way he had been… "I'm not sure if you're ready though. Show me you are."

Without any other warning, he grabbed the wand he kept on his desk and stabbed it at the Mongolian. Bilguun went flying, tucking his chin just in time to stop his head from cracking against the wall. He dropped to the ground, then lept to the side as Harry launched another attack, a cutting curse that he probably would've had to call in someone else to heal if it had landed. Harry began to manoeuvre his weapon in a small circle to launch another bit of Potter family magic, but Bilguun stuck his hand out.

"Mine!"

The wandless, misnomered disarmament spell went shooting towards Harry, and he allowed it to strike him in the chest. The wand he'd used flew into Bilguun's hand. After a few seconds of panting, the teen realised what he was holding and dropped to the ground.

"I-! I'm not worthy!"

"No one ever is. Don't lose it; if I lose mine you'll have to give it back." Technically he'd have to fight the kid for it, but he'd beaten a far more terrifying wizard wielding the hallow than him. "Oh for…"

Bilguun still hadn't picked his head up off the ground from his bowed position. The Death Stick was pinned beneath his folded hands, and Harry's skin crawled from the prostration. He was a leader, not a king.

"Get up and get out," he ordered. "I have shit to do."

The teen looked like he wanted to argue as he got back to his feet, hands shaking as he carried his new wand like it was made of sugar glass, but he remained silent. Harry sighed in relief once he was gone, then turned to the damaged wall where Bilguun's attack had struck.

'Reparo,' he thought, holding out his hand. 'Reparo!'

Nothing changed.

"I don't have time for this," Harry grumbled. He flicked his wrist to give the spell some direction, and called, "Reparo!"

The singed wall and broken ground fixed themselves and he turned away with a disappointed sneer. They had been on the attack ever since his latest slaying of Voldemort, technically the third time he'd killed the dark lord, but maybe he should change their priorities. Focus more on taking the time they had to build up their forces, including his own skills, while they had breathing room.

No. Ron had decided to go hard now while they could, delay Voldemort's resurrection as long as possible, and force him to rebuild his army when he did inevitably come back. Then they would focus on building. Remus had agreed, Hermione hadn't, and Neville didn't have an opinion. With a two-one-one split, Harry had moved forward with the plan, and prayed that Ron was right.

Luckily for him, the man usually was.


BBaRtS


Another filler chapter while I try to get control on my life.

Good news: Still no eviction notice. I'm still sitting at a point where April 30th is the soonest I need to have moved out by.

Bad news: They're doing construction on the apartment above me, and have been since early February. I know that doesn't sound like bad news, but my brain is still like "Maybe they're just saving your place for last and as soon as they're done you'll get the papers." It's legit been going on since the first half of February, and that shit don't make sense cus how the fuck are they still doing stuff on a tiny-ass, shoebox-esque apartment like the one directly above me. It's also made my job a pain in the dick cus fuck is it hard to try and concentrate when they're literally shaking the walls of this entire building with whatever they got going on up there.

Good news to close the good news sandwich: My sister had a health scare recently that had me terrified, but it seems like she's going to be walking away okay, albeit using a literal walker. She's been having seizures lately, the latest of which left her pinned between the wall and her bed for 12+ hours and damaged her leg. The doctors think she'll be walking fine eventually, after some serious PT she needs to do following the procedures she's already had done, but going through all that and coming out with a bright prognosis is still enough to make me feel positive. It's absolutely awful that it happened to her, but as I said, I'm a pessimistic optimist, so her having the likely chance to be alright in the end makes me happy.

As for the main progression of the story when we get back to that, I'll at least say that I have a firm handle on some of the immediate things i want to do for the real chapter 65. I'm gonna do both a beginning and ending Herschels scene, I'm gonna reveal Death's newest chosen (brownie points if you guess which cannon character it will be), even got a scene planned out for Greyback of all people, and more.

Anyways, thank you all so much for reading still. Hopefully my living situation will be sorted soon. Love you all, see you when I see you, lessthanthree!