Planning Stage 4: Fighting
July to September 1998
Fighting in the heat of summer was a special kind of torture. Maybe it was only Harry's imagination, but summer in Germany seemed to be a bit warmer compared to England (and certainly compared to Scotland). Sweating through every day, he wondered how hard fighting during a snowy winter would be. Chances that they would find out before facing Voldemort were high.
Rhea didn't always join them as she was staying with the main branch of the Totengräber family rather than at Sephoneia's remote second house. Oddly, Harry noted her switching places with Lynea more often than not as time went on whenever she did come over and joined their training.
(Rhea still wore her gloves, despite the summer heat. She only took them off to fight. Harry didn't know how she endured it.)
They did occasionally switch out their team compositions to keep everyone on their toes, but as the months went on, they most often ended up with Sephoneia, Lynea and Rhea's Inferi facing Harry and the rest. Where Rhea had been scarily compatible with Sephoneia, Lynea struggled a bit. But she had no problems whatsoever working with Rhea's Inferi.
Creating Inferi for battle, Harry learned, was no different than creating Inferi in general. The issue lay with consent – the Inferi had to be willing to fight. Of course, they also needed training, though it helped if had been good at fighting in their original lives.
With Rhea's Inferi joining the fray, they also now had to always make the conscious decision whether they were fighting to survive, incapacitate or kill. They hadn't really thought about the differences before, as Sephoneia would only answer any questions they brought to her and not actually sit down with them to teach them any battle theory. Her strategy had consistently remained 'figure it out as you go'.
This applied to healing magic, as well. While Sephoneia would heal their wounds if asked, they had all quickly realised this was valuable knowledge they would need on the battlefield. Lynea and Rhea were both utterly useless, because their type of healing was instinctual and not something they were capable of using on other people. Lynea was at least willing to learn with them, but …
"She won't actually join us when the time comes, will she?" Harry asked Theodore one day. He had suspected for a while now, but something was keeping him from outright asking Lynea, herself.
Theodore gave him an inscrutable look. "You already know the answer to that."
"And Rhea?"
A shrug.
"She just might if it doesn't inconvenience her too much?" Harry guessed.
"Her studies with the Totengräbers are quite important to her," Theodore agreed.
"And you?"
There was a moment of silence.
Eventually, Theodore replied honestly with, "I don't know."
"I won't hold it against you," Harry told him. "No matter what choice you make."
"I've been thinking," Theodore began quietly. "The end goal is to kill the Dark Lord." He gazed at Harry with such a serious look in his eyes that it made Harry sit up straighter. "Would you be able to assassinate him?"
"In what way?"
"Use your Invisibility Cloak and silencing spells for stealth. A knife to the throat. Perhaps followed by a stab with a Basilisk fang to be completely sure."
Harry stared at Theodore for a moment.
"That … could certainly work."
The look in Theodore's eyes intensified. "I still remember the days after our first kills."
Harry turned away. "That was different."
"Was it? Could you now do the same to the Dark Lord without being wracked by guilt? Without waking at night, wondering whether you are slowly turning into the same monster he is?"
"I –" Harry swallowed. "I don't know how to answer that." He forced himself to meet Theodore's eyes again. "But I know that he has to die. I have had an entire year to think about this, now – more than a year. I've thought about it ever since he returned. There is no other way. I – I have imagined his death so often, I can almost grasp what it will feel like watching the life drain out of him. I don't know whether silently slashing his throat him or fighting him head-on or even using any of the many methods the Totengräbers know – of which I'm sure some would work, even if the more common ones won't – I don't know whether any of that would be easier to handle."
Harry sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. Distantly, he could hear Hermione chattering away cheerfully, likely discussing whatever new discovery she had made with Lynea while Ron just watched them fondly.
"Prophecy or not, it wouldn't feel right to burden anyone else with his death." A short laugh escaped his mouth. "Though I am sure watching Rhea handle it would prove to be quite interesting."
"Yes, it certainly would. I'm sure –" Theodore hesitated. "It may not be my place to say, but whatever is going to happen is meant to happen and I believe what is meant to happen is for you to win this war for us."
"So much faith in me."
Theodore gave him a small smile, then shuffled closer, a question in his eyes.
Theodore, Harry had come to know, always asked before reaching out to touch him. Usually, it was a simple thing of waiting for an invitation. Sometimes, like in this moment, it came in the form of a quiet, "May I?"
Harry nodded for him to go ahead and Theodore carefully put a hand around his shoulders, pulling him into a loose hug.
o
That night, Harry reached into the farthest corners of his own extended bag to fish out his Invisibility Cloak. He hadn't touched the thing in months. It still felt off to him.
He let it glide through his fingers now, shaking it out of the tight bundle it had been pressed into, then jumped in surprise when two objects fell out of the cloak and clattered to the ground – a wand he still suspected to have once belonged to Dumbledore and a small stone.
Somehow, Harry had completely forgotten about them.
o
Sephoneia declined when Harry tried to return the objects he had been keeping safe for her.
"They are yours," she told him. "You may yet have use for them. But, perhaps," she gave him an inscrutable look, "this means it is time for a new lesson."
This 'new lesson' turned out to be an excursion to a real battlefield.
"There's always a war going on somewhere," Sephoneia explained when asked how she had found one for them. "Humans are selfish like that. This one will be fought with bullets instead of magic. But the way I see it, most of your people wield their wands like guns, so it shouldn't make much of a difference. It will be good practice either way."
"Which side are we fighting for?" Harry asked.
"Does it matter? The choice is up to you. Of course, you can always take on both sides, as well. Now, all hands on the urn, please."
There was the familiar tug of a portkey activating, colours swirled around them, and then – utter chaos.
He barely heard Sephoneia tell them to, "Have fun!" before she disappeared.
(Her apparations never made any sounds.)
There were loud cracks Harry vaguely identified as gunshots all around them, dust kicked up in the air, stones cracking, people shouting.
Someone – Hermione – shrieked loudly and then Rhea threw up one of her hands and everything became muted.
"What did you do?" Harry heard Ron ask.
"Illusion shield. They won't be able to see or accidentally hit us. For now. Don't worry, they're too busy trying to stay alive to pay our temporary appearance much attention."
"She really dropped us right in the middle of it," Harry realised as he looked around.
They were standing literally in the middle of a battlefield – shells of ruined houses all around them, shots flying past their spot, people glimpsed running from one hiding place to another. Harry even caught sight of a few bodies lying bloodied and lifeless between the rubble. It was – a lot.
"Find shelter first," Lynea said. "Then you can come up with a plan."
Harry frowned, tearing his eyes away from the arm he could see sticking out from behind the closest piece of wall still standing.
"Are you not staying with us?" he asked.
Rhea gave him a smile that was entirely inappropriate for the situation they were in. "Lyn and I have a different task to fulfil." She gestured to the very arm Harry had been observing. "Giving the dead their last due."
Before they left, Lynea told them, "The shield will dissipate the moment you leave its range."
The two of them went to pick up the body of the dead man lying behind the wall and then were gone.
"Just the four of us, then," Harry turned to the others. "Hermione? Are you alright?"
Hermione didn't react, wide eyes fixed on the spot the dead man's arm had been sticking out from. She looked a bit green around the edges. Come to think of it, so did Ron.
"Guys?"
Harry helplessly turned to Theodore, who was watching their surroundings warily.
"They're panicking." Theodore gave him a look. "Can you blame them?"
Ah. No, he couldn't. Neither of them had ever seen death – not like this. They hadn't seen and learned what Harry had in the past two years.
"Shelter first," Harry decided, reaching out to take Ron and Hermione's hands. "Can you cover for us, Theo?"
"Of course."
Shelter came in the form of one of the remaining ruined buildings that no one was currently hiding in. Harry and Theodore immediately set up all the wards they could think of, including stabilising spells to make sure the building wouldn't accidentally collapse on their heads. Then they silently swept the building for dead bodies and put them by the entrance. Harry hoped Rhea and Lynea would collect them before they had to leave, though he knew very well that Hermione and Ron would have to get used to sight sooner rather than later.
"If we go out there and fight," Theodore began, "we would endanger the Statute of Secrecy."
Harry blinked. That hadn't even occurred to him. "Sephoneia probably never cared to consider that." He rested his forehead on one of his hands, contemplating. "Why is the first thought that comes to my mind that it won't matter if we leave no eyewitnesses behind?"
"I wonder."
"Right." Harry gathered himself. "As long as we don't use conventional magic, the Ministry won't be alerted." He frowned, looked at Theodore. "I'm not sure where we are. Will our location make a difference?"
"Yes. But," Theodore paused, turned his head to look out of one of the holes that had once been a window – gunshots could still be heard from the outside. "Wherever we are, the local magical government will have other things to worry about."
"So we should be fine on that account either way."
"Yes."
"The next step is to come up with things we can do without arousing suspicion. Sephoneia wants us to hone our battle skills – so she expects us to go out there and join the fray, to really be in the thick of it and get a taste of a real battlefield. Right." Harry sighed. "So we need to know who we are fighting against – are we choosing a side? Are we trying to save people or eliminate them?" He looked over at Ron and Hermione, who were staring at him with wide eyes. "I doubt Sephoneia will care if we take some time to gather information instead of jumping right into the fight."
"We can summon a few spirits," Theodore said. "There are plenty of dead to ask."
"We could – we could ask the people we put outside?" Harry suggested. "While we perform the burial rites for them."
Theodore nodded.
"Will you two be alright without us?" Harry asked and waited for either Ron or Hermione to at least nod in affirmation.
They could have performed the rites right there and then brought the bodies to a better location for burial later, but Harry doubted Ron and Hermione could have stomached the sight. Not right now. Not yet.
The tales of the dead were truly riveting. Most of them didn't even truly know what they were fighting for, merely following orders.
In the days that followed – once Ron and Hermione managed to get a grip – they all experienced first-hand exactly what the dead had told them being in the heat of a battle was like: Hours and hours of running and running and running, dodging shots left and right, dodging debris and shards of stone going flying from the impact of the bullets, unable to see where the shots came from, going deaf with all the noise, trying not to faint from the exertion. Hitting moving targets had always been difficult, but it was even worse when you were exhausted and your sight limited and you didn't even know who was friend or foe – not that the latter really mattered as long as Harry and his friends could identify each other. And every time you took shelter and then came back out to rejoin, the situation had already changed completely.
Sephoneia never came back to retrieve them, but they did catch glimpses of Rhea and Lynea flitting about, even talked to them a few times, confirming that they were expected to eventually return on their own.
They stayed for several weeks. The hardest part was acquiring food. Water, at least, they could conjure with magic. Well – the hardest part for Harry was acquiring food. He wasn't entirely sure about Theodore, but Ron and Hermione struggled with entirely different problems. And Harry could not help them with this. They had to come to terms with it on their own.
They were very valuable weeks. When they eventually left to return to Sephoneia's house, Harry felt completely indifferent about it all. They had gained a lot of valuable knowledge and experience. But they had also fought in a war that wasn't theirs to fight. It was … complicated. It was what it was.