Everyone was in position under the cover of the trees. Even with distortion charms, the natural barriers sometimes made for the most effective surprise, what with the enemy's ability to detect active spells. There was nothing, though, that replaced choosing the time and place of battle, and having the enemy show up certain of its chances of victory.
The first step had been leaking false intel. As the risks had been low, Ernie and Blaise treated it as a trial run; the prospect of feeding lies to the Ministry bore experimentation before they could really use it for anything. The intel that they reasoned would be believable had taken them to an old-growth forest in Wales, somewhere far from the mountains. The area was decidedly magical, but not densely populated by wizards. Perhaps most importantly, it was far from the actual location of the centaurs.
"I really hate it how we never managed to do anything for them," Michael had said during the setting up.
"Waxing sentimental, are we?" he asked. "I thought you didn't care."
"I care about fairness," he said. "No, I don't really want to see their sort in my back garden, but anyone could have told you they were completely in the right from beginning to end. They should have won the case- it should have been easy, and we couldn't help them."
"Technically, they didn't exactly lose," Neville chimed in. "Because we defended them, the prosecutor switched the focus of the trial to the danger of the Forest, away from what guilt they might personally have. Our actions probably prevented Umbridge from getting a heroic memorial."
Harry would freely admit he had never thought about it like that. There was probably no greater injustice than the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts getting recognition as some kind of hero, even the deaths of his own parents could be waved away by saying that all was fair in war, and his classmates obviously did not feel as strongly about it as he did, not that he blamed them. That aside, his friend's way of looking of looking at the trial was probably correct. In order to secure a win against the school and any chance it had of being independent, the other side had abandoned its case against the specific centaurs.
His mind returned to the present when he saw the signal; Ginny had noticed the enemy first, or she thought she did. There were no plans to take prisoners for the long term- anyone they caught would be interrogated and executed shortly after. Despite the many objections, the argument about what to do with their last set of defeated enemies had basically set the standard for the policy going forward. They had no way to keep the captives alive for terribly long, and there was nothing else to do with them but to kill them, at least until someone learned the False Memory Charm. Even then, though, could they turn down the chance to deprive the Ministry of some amount of its finite pool of minions?
With the momentum arrest charm, he took out a single target, then hit someone else. It had been a fierce debate when Hannah had brought up that they should really all be learning dark magic, but the team that had been in charge of it thus far surprised everyone by advising against it. Neville did not think it was good in the long term for them to go on taking all the punishment onto themselves, but he had lost some of his confidence in arguments, probably because he felt less in his element. The enemy did not seem to have learned from any of their tactics, even though they knew some of them had escaped from the last time. How long would it be before everyone knew what he was doing? Would it get in the way of Ron's work at Hogwarts? What was going on with him anyway?
"Avada Kedavra!" Terry incanted from right next to him. He was not, in his words, much of a fighter and preferred the theoretical, academic side of magic. After the last battle, he confessed that the reason he joined the dark magic team was for interrogations and intelligence, but he found that the way they were having to treat captives horrified him more than open combat. "Avada Kedavra!" So fell from the sky another thestral.
"Help!" a voice screamed. He recognized it as Hermione, but he could not get to her from his position, and as they had last time, the setup for the current battle involved anti-apparation jinxes. It was one of his hardest responsibilities, but he would have to trust the others to save his friend. The most he could do for her was keeping the enemy from getting reinforcements onto the ground.
The trees had been intended to provide cover, but the main purpose was to obscure where exactly the enemy could safely land, because landing was the only way forward for them; they were too visible relative to their enemies to stay on broomsticks. The trees would make them hesitate, at least somewhat, but if the Ministry forces did not just entirely retreat, most likely they would land even if there was no way to know for sure that it was safe. It would result in some deaths, but as long as they were set on the battle, that was inevitable. The downside for the DA was the fact that it was horribly outnumbered, as they had been the previous time, and it seemed like the enemy was more ready for them, even if they had not figured out every single spell being used to knock them out of the sky. Advanced cushioning charms, however, could minimize their injuries upon hitting the ground, and they could keep themselves in the fight, provided they realized that their enemies would focus their strategy on knocking them off their brooms.
"Dragon formation!" he called out. It had been Ron's last brainchild while he was learning unit tactics himself, and probably the reason for the loudest objections to his self-assigned mission. The formation was inspired by the leathery wings on a dragon, which sounded somewhat more heroic than comparing them to bats or thestrals, and involved lining up basic rounded shields in front so that the weight of the deflection would be spread across multiple shields. An individual could put up more than one alone, of course, but if placed carelessly, entirely at will, the deflection of particularly difficult spells would hit an ally; part of the point was that no matter where he was in the formation, it would be easy to tell where the others were.
Suffice to say, it was not that the darkest spells were unblockable and everything else was stopped by shields at once. Blocking theory had been around for centuries, and it had been challenging, because it was all solid, but spell crafters had here and there come up with spells that were more difficult to block, requiring specific shields, or simply straining them. Susan, skilled and knowledgeable with all commonly known forms of magical protection, had verified it herself; the layering was difficult and time-consuming, but perfectly necessary to survive a hail of unknown spells. Only hours before the attack came in, she decided the best use of her time was teaching everyone who was available for it how to transfigure an effective glass shield.
"Stupefy!" He took down a wizard who had reached the ground, but there were already others. "Stupefy! Stupefy!"
It was the bodies. There was some way that the enemy was tracking where they were falling, and used that as a way of pinpointing where the others were. He called out an order to move in formation, but even if it worked, it was only a stopgap; if they left the unconscious bodies, they could be revived. A tree next to him caught fire and he whipped around to see who had done it, finding it was Daphne, who shrugged, as if she had trained herself to communicate nonverbally in the same general tone that she took normally.
"They're running!"
The enemy callout was demoralizing, probably, but there was no time to think about it; he had no idea how he was getting lucky with his hits, but their assailants were being forced to fan out, which was smart, and left them in a hardly better position than before. There was no way to know if they had lost someone. Backing up, he tripped on a random stick and landed badly, calling attention to himself when he swore. The enemy was baited into rushing forward, but the strength of the formation had yet to see its true potential, and spellfire from his own allies flew over him right at the point where they were rushing. A nearly total silence followed.
"They retreated," someone said. He looked back to see it was Neville, just talking in a higher voice than normal. It was even money whether it was a spell on the air around him of if he had landed on his bollocks at some point. No, there was no sense in making fun; his emotions were just running high. Had it not been for the others, after all, he would have died.
"Double check," he ordered before anyone else could say anything. "Don't let them trick us."
They moved forward slowly and carefully in formation, eyes flitting to their own casualties. How many had there been? Could everyone be saved, or had they lost someone? Each one was changed not to worry about questions for the future in the middle of a battle, though.
The enemy was not, in fact, tricking them by faking a retreat. If anything, they only found more reasons that they should have insisted on a prisoner exchange, but even those who had been grabbed were released just before the extraction. It was particularly frustrating for it all to happen without any clear explanation, but try as they might to beat it out of the captives, it seemed they knew nothing about it. As it turned out, none of them were close confidants of the Minister or really anyone important, but a vaguely anti-Harry group that had formed only in the last year. They saw to the wounded and the cursed before the questions, but when it came around, they were looking forward to it with a sense of foreboding in the background.
"What's the story?" Ginny asked him right after they were done with a round of interrogation. Terry had his wish and asked the questions himself, though it did not seem he was terribly chuffed. She had found him sitting under a tree away from the group; it was probably not the best for camaraderie's sake, but he simply could not read with everyone speaking in hushed voices around him.
"They're not working for anyone. They're just vaguely aligned against me," he explained. There was no convenient sheet of one-way-glass like in movies, but he was content with the papers of information in front of him. "I didn't know I was that interesting."
"It's the paper," she said. "Hermione thinks it's written just so that people who like that sort of thing will buy it, but I think it's got a secondary purpose. People who never had an opinion on the subject and couldn't have formed one on their own buy it because they need to be told how to think about certain things. At that point, they're powerless to resist it. For as long as it's been saying that you're a menace and a problem child, I'm surprised no one's come after you sooner. I don't know if the majority of people are like this, but it seems like a lot of them are."
"Are you speaking from experience at all?" he asked. Harry had never wanted to be put up on a pedestal in any way, and for her to be speaking about everyone else so badly, she was doing that by necessity. "I can't be talking," he said, shaking his head. "I've been manipulated just as much."
They sat there in silence as Ginny pretended to be reading the same thing he was pretending to read, the evolving report about their situation, papers linked by a Protean Charm so that they would all be able to share information as they interrogated different captives, though this time there were only two. Several others had been rescued and carried off by the enemy, but it was better that than if the enemy had focused on taking prisoners of their own. Most likely, they were total novices who did not go in thinking that they would really be playing for keeps, and either tried to leave on a high note, or before any of their numbers could be killed.
"Were they not prepared to sacrifice someone?" he asked out of nowhere. "Why didn't they just kill us?"
"That could be it," she said. "I really don't want to talk about that, though. I don't think there's any point in wondering when we have a better chance of getting it out of them."
"Well, what do you want?" he asked, looking and meeting her eyes a moment. He had not been expecting her to be so focused.
"Did you actually like Cho?"
"I don't know, I... she was pretty and I didn't mind her; she just... caused more problems than I really needed. I didn't really think about whether or not we were compatible going in."
"That wasn't very mature of you, was it?"
"I wasn't thinking about that," he said. "It was just... completely spur of the moment. When we actually got to the talking and the relationship, it should have been obvious it wouldn't work."
"It was fun in the moment, though, wasn't it?"
All it took was a hand to her cheek, which made her smirk a little. Was she one for tenderness? The kiss certainly felt different than any he had enjoyed before. Ginny was active, like she wanted to devour him, and he responded in kind.
"Harry?" They looked over and saw Neville. "Oh. Sorry. Do carry on. I'll be elsewhere."
"I can't be away from my duties too long," he said.
"Right. Sorry. i didn't suppose you had a duty to show everyone a good time." It was hard to tell if he was joking, but Ginny laughed.
"Neville, please, just tell me whatever you were going to tell me."
"Of course. The captives are talking, but too many of us are injured or cursed to get back to base on our own."
"We'll have to put them down," he said. "They'll find out this isn't a game when their friends don't come back." He had already authorized multiple deaths. Doing it himself would not be any different, most likely. "I'll apparate the injured to the new base as soon as we can get set up with a healing facility there."
"Well, that's the thing. They got our healers. Hannah and Michael are practically... I don't even know the term for it."
"Does Hermione know anything that might help?" It was annoying that he was putting yet another thing on her, but she really was their best bet.
"We've roused her and she's on it. I can't give you a time estimate."
"That's fine. I don't expect one. Get everyone together to get out of here and I'll execute the hostages. There's no way they're anyone important and the other side probably wouldn't trade anything for them."
"How are you going to do that?" Ginny asked as soon as Neville was away. "Do you intend to use the killing curse?"
"He was right about something. We were probably wrong to have a specific dark magic team. It should have been everyone or no one." He sighed. It was not as if they could change the past. "I said I would kill them and I'll do it. I'll hit them with a severing charm in the back of the neck. They won't even feel it."
She did not challenge his prediction regarding the suffering of the captives. There was no sense in releasing them, and they had probably said all they would say, else he would find out soon enough. Therefore, there was no life left for them.
"This really can't happen again, Harry. I don't know if we got lucky to go up against someone who wasn't serious-"
"It won't," he said. "I'll make sure of it."
As promised, he executed the two captives and buried them. If the enemy really wanted to dig them up for some reason, he had no intention of stopping them. He had been perfectly honest in his estimation that it was woefully unlikely any offer would be made for them. The real work began when they got back to the camp and he found that Ginny was already screaming at everyone.
"TELL ME WHAT THIS IS!" she demanded, pointing with her wand at Ernie's injury. "How in the hell do you think you can fight like this?"
"That's my job," he said, walking up behind her. He had not gone through the trouble of apparating several people to a new location just for them to get a lecture while they were still healing. Perhaps that was the point, he supposed, to line up the pain with the lesson, but pain had never been a good motivator when he lived with the Dursleys; overwhelmingly he found that if he followed their stupid rules, he could eke out some kind of existence. He was not truly afraid of them, even as a child; he reserved that response for Aunt Marge's dog and Dudley's gang. "It's also my fault." He looked around. "I don't think this could have been avoided if I had just trained you harder, but it's going to be hard to pick up any recruits at this point, so our strategy for avoiding this kind of thing in the future is improving our unit tactics. Following that, we'll improve our understanding of advanced spells.
It was a hard road ahead of them whatever else happened. They had to get stronger if they even wanted to compete, and that was not even close to where they were at the moment. There was no way they would survive a raid by a team of Aurors or a mass duel with Death Eaters. Both of those needed to change.
"It'll be hard to get our recruits up to speed," someone said, not really objecting. Harry did not bother to check who it was; he caught sight of Susan helping out with the injured, seeming to have remembered a bone setting charm or something of that nature.
"We'll concern ourselves with recruits when we have them. When each of us are more capable and better practiced in unit tactics, there will be more of us spare to train the recruits," he added after a moment of thought. "Has anyone heard any news about Ron?"
"We actually got out of the captives that he's been officially expelled from Hogwarts." Again, the leader was pacing back and forth and not looking to precisely nail down precisely who had explained as much. It was, after all, completely unimportant.
"Brilliant," Harry said, caught in the middle of planning something else and trying to process his next move. "Bloody brilliant."
"Why is that a good thing?" Neville asked. Out of everyone, he was the quickest to assume that no one had said something genuinely stupid and that he had just misunderstood. As in the present, it led to helpful questions.
"He'd be in Azkaban if they'd caught him." His mind was working a mile a minute. He needed to plan, he needed to organize, and he needed to execute. The previous matter was almost completely gone from his thoughts. "If they'd caught him, they'd have led with something like that- if he'd been dead, they wouldn't have bothered to expel him. That means he's still out there." He looked back at everyone else. The only possible reason they were keeping it all together was because he had asked them to remain calm and quiet during official meetings. Hermione was still helping two of their patients- could he go with a smaller team or did he absolutely have to get everyone together?
"Change of plans, we're going after Ron. He told us we couldn't get him out of the castle, but he didn't say anything about Hogsmeade."