The voyage home was, well a sailing ship in the North Sea in the early part of the new year. Lets just say that no one gained any weight except the basilisk. The HMS Demeter was rat free as soon as Noodle let slip Hermione made health potions for mouse and rat. A dozen flavours of rodent death snake skin, fang, and muscle improvement later, since the cauldrons were warm and stirred themselves in a Beufort Force Seven storm Hermione, Neville, Harry and Milicent created what would become a wizarding world best selling potion, the anti-nausea nutrient calming draught.
Don't ask what is in it.
Noodle was the busiest of the crew. Mind Healing was something that he had grown skilled at. More skilled than any mammal due to his life long linkage with his Speaker. Dumbledore had no idea what he had done when he turned these children into living weapons for a war he would never dirty his hands by killing himself in.
Noodle did. The pain of the prisoners of Azkaban was nothing. It was done to them. It shattered them, ripped them apart, but the broken pieces were still them, were still clean. Some of them could not survive because they had hidden from their own crimes, and once shattered were trapped alone with the memories they built such fortifications of lies and justifications against that they could not survive simply facing them. Those he mostly killed in Azkaban.
Those that lived simply needed time away from the trauma of repeated mental violations, time and Noodle weaving through their shattered mind and teaching them how to take their healing into their own hands. Occlumency was demonized by the Ministry as Dark Magic, mostly because in their eyes the only people who could want to hide their thoughts must be evil. That was a bit like saying everyone who wanted to wear clothes was ugly.
The power of Occlumency was organizing and compartmentalizing your thoughts. It was building connections, gateways, and yes, locks on certain thoughts and memories. It allowed you to better recall memories, both for knowledge, and to reexamine them either with or without the emotional context experienced at the time. It was critical in working through trauma, so of course, it was illegal. Luckily, reptiles treated laws like shoes; a mammalian oddity not worth considering.
The children were the hardest. Speaker was goblin raised, so he wielded his trauma internally like a branding iron, turning his wounds into scars to boast his power. He wore his pain like armour and the screams in his mind like the scrape of a whetstone on a sword blade, only serving to make him stronger. Noodle was sure the teaching of Griphook would keep his Speaker alive, but the Fool of the Light had sent a child into battles only a red handed killer could survive. Speaker was not a goblin, he was still a wizard, and deep inside the cold hearted champion and war leader was a screaming child who both deserved and needed protecting.
The only things keeping him sane, for a Noodle value of sane, were Mouse Giver, Noodle, and the ghost of his mother than Harry would essentially murder with Voldemort. Noodle very much feared he would not survive that. A fate the Fool of Light had been aiming Harry for since he was in diapers, a disposable tool that would carry the Fool of Lights crimes into the grave with him.
Noodle swore, if Speaker died, the Headmaster of Hogwarts would not see another dawn. It would not help, but just thinking of the Fool of the Light and the children he had fed to three wars now made his fangs ache.
Noodle looked over at Mouse Giver, Root Singer, Water Witch, and Speaker weaving the magic of the four elements into potions on a deck that tossed in a way that would be alarming to anyone who didn't look forward to riding a broom in December storms to chase little balls through the sky while trying to murder each other in strangely legal ways. Mouse Giver was wise. These children's boots still ran with the blood of those they had just slain. They MUST not be allowed time on their own to brood. They must laugh with each other, find the simple and clean joy of magic wielded to make wonders, not horrors, must see their magic weaving healing and life, not simply suffering and death.
The little one, the Seeress crept now to the railing, and she had the Yellow Haired Dragon's broom. Noodle was curious as to what she went to do. She had crowned herself in Ravenclaw's Diadem and its magic sang a song he could hear, a song that sounded in the deep. A call to something that slept and should never be wakened was singing from the stone in that diadem, and Noodle didn't know why.
Fleur Delacour watched Luna steal Draco's broom, Draco was huddling in a nest of furs as he struggled to come back to himself after having been more deeply a dragon than an Animagus was supposed to go. His transformation was too deep, the animal he became separated from life today by tens of millions of years, the mind as intelligent but so different from humanities that Draco was a long time putting himself back together. Luna had been caring for him so carefully, that to see her steal his broom and head for the heaving deck in a storm argued what she did was more important than safety, or caring for her Draco.
Motioning to Victor she pointed. "That one is going to do something stupid, dangerous, and probably necessary. I'm going to go with her."
Victor grunted. "I'm going to try to stay on this heading, storm willing. Send a patronus when you are done, and I will send a flare up every half minute or so until you find us again."
Piloting the HMS Demeter required a lot more magic and focus than simply flying, but conning her through a North Sea storm with storm sails rigged and a crew of witches and wizards to control the rig was operating on the bleeding edge of his abilities, one stray thought away from their destruction, and probably outpacing any motorized muggle watercraft capable of functioning in anything close to this sea state. He was having a blast!
Luna looked at Fleur as she tried to figure out how to get over the rail with a broom when the rail kept going up and down at unreasonable rates. "I have to go. Draco's father is coming, and they can't meet."
Fleur beamed at her. "Killing your inlaws. This is a fantasy I have heard ma mere dream about more than once. If mother has fantasized about it so much, it must be very fun. Veela have high standards for fantasy you know."
Luna blinked, not knowing how exactly to react to that. While she was blinking, Fleur gave a swish and flick with a muttered "Wingardium Leviosa" and shot Luna and broom overboard and reasonably far above the waves. Trusting the witch to figure out where the broom went on her own, Fleur simply mounted her own and threaded between the many lines connecting masts to deck with the unconscious grace of the quidditch star she was.
Shooting out to sea with Luna, she finally looked at the girl, whose crown was blazing with magic that stank of fairy, and created a sound that she could feel from the waves beneath them.
"Luna, ma petite, you are casting enough fairy magic down into the sea to wake the dead. What with the three queens we left at Azkaban, sorry, now I guess we call it Albion, is that a good idea?" Fleur offered as she strengthened her air shield against the driving rainstorm.
Luna shivered. "The sea sang to me. Sang to me about a ship of iron with a hundred hungry skulls sailing to the Isle of Heroes."
Fleur did well in literature, as poetry was a language of power that magic responded to rather strongly, so she parsed the message. "A muggle ship with a hundred Death Eaters headed to Azkaban."
She blinked. "A hundred Death Eaters? That has to be a huge chunk of what Voldemort has left. I mean we have just slaughtered the ones he was trying to free in Azkaban, and we trimmed off a lot in the Tri Wizard tournament. You and Harry have been trimming them for years. How many actual Death Eaters can he have left?"
Luna huddled on her broom, the magic of Rowena Ravenclaw dragging her own power from her as she made a call that could not be resisted to a power that should have been left to sleep. "Too many to face, if these ones get to return to him."
Fleur looked down at the sea. "Hence the call. What are you calling anyway?"
Luna smiled. "Not what. Who." And Fleur shuddered, as what shone in Luna's eyes was a madness she chose not to face.
-On Azkaban Princess (Once the Royal Princess)
" Ruddy useful animals, your muggle." Lucius No Name sat at the Captain's table while they were being served by rather pretty naked muggle women.
"Can't stand the beasts, I mean, fun to play with, but they keep acting like they are actual people, not magicless farm animals left too long unattended." Said Amanda Brentworth, sending a stinging hex at the musicians who had been huddling at the stage screamed as their conductor crawled to his podium while weeping from his hit.
"Play something, muggle, or you go overboard like the rest of your kind." Amanda threatened.
The conductor rose, and with what the Death Eaters would never suspect was defiance, dug through his personal library, then shared with the rest of the orchestra some music he had not played in years. Night on Bald Mountain, from the movie Fantasia. The devil's music. They began to play.
Ogden Stires strode in. "That's it. Got House Elves dealing with the blood. I can't remember the last time we had that many muggles to kill. I mean, the crew alone is over a thousand, mostly to care for the rich muggles who ride this thing. It has three pools. Three pools on a ship. Muggles! What won't they think of next. Say, this is a good tune. Makes you want to go torture someone."
Lucius smiled. "Do leave some of them dear boy. We are off to Azkaban to bring our brothers home. We are keeping some of the pretty ones for our brothers and sisters to play with on the way home, and some have to do muggly things to make this thing run.
Have some of the lobster, it is divine. The steak is only so so, but the salmon is amazing. The wine is a bit muggle, but if they never developed a proper pallet good wine would have been wasted on them anyway. This is drinkable in white, but the red is quite a bit better."
Lucius had been surviving on what they could scrounge on the run until Voldemort's resurrection. Now as the right hand of the Dark Lord, no luxury was beyond him, no atrocity denied him. Life was good. He was sent to get his brothers and sisters back from Azkaban, and to transport the Dementors to England without passing any of the damned Dragon sanctuaries and drawing an attack.
Why not take a cruise ship. The Royal Princess was in port, and was not Lucius…..even in his mind magic would not let himself name himself Malfoy, the descendant of royalty? Lucius sneered. He renamed the ship Azkaban Princess and cut the throat of the previous captain over the bow to rechristen her. The second mate babbled something about being bad luck to rechristen a ship, so Lucius turned him into a tortoise and levitated him overboard. It settled a bet with Rockwood about if tortoise and turtles were closely enough related that a tortoise could swim.
They can't. Good to know.
More importantly, he had first class cabins for all his sisters and brothers imprisoned in Azkaban, a full and amazing kitchen to feed them up to health, berthing for thousands of Dementors, and enough muggle crew to keep the Dementors fed and the Death Eaters entertained until they got back to London.
For some reason, neither his magic nor the muggle sensors could detect Azkaban, but Lucius knew well were it was. He could never forget that hell hole. He plotted the course himself, and two death eaters under his instruction carved powerful warding formations around the guidance gear. They would not be fooled by notice me nots or muggle wards.
The Muggle loudspeaker in the dining room sprang to life.
"Captain to the bridge, captain to the bridge. Two witches on broomsticks off the port bow."
Lucius dipped a last bit of lobster in the properly warmed butter, washed it down with a nice sip of wine, then blotted his mouth on the napkin.
"Work work work. Honestly, the Dark Lord has no idea how I struggle in his name." Lucius grabbed a single piece of calamari and dipped it in the tzatziki before striding to the bridge, silver hand gleaming as he drew upon his magic. "I do love a good bit of tentacle, I must have some more later."
Casting an eagle eye charm on himself, he recognized the two blondes. One was the French champion Fleur Delacour, and Lucius made a note to capture her alive. A bit young, but certainly the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Why shouldn't he have her?
Lucius frowned. The second one. Luna Lovegood. His son's paramour. His son who stole his very name, who defied him and cast him from the very society that he dominated by right! No, he would give the Veela to his crew. That was the one he would keep and break on his trip to Azkaban. When she was no longer pretty, he would give her to the Dementors to kiss.
"You may surrender now. It won't change your treatment, but dinner would be far fresher if you didn't drag this out unnecessarily." Lucius said, using his Sonorus to carry his voice across the heavy winds.
Oddly, it was the little Lovegood girl who answered. "Turn back Lucius. This place is denied your kind. Turn back now, or none of you will live to see British soil again."
"Who dares to deny me? Who dares to tell Lucius No Name he may not sail where he please?" Lucius roared.
Lucius lashed out with his hand and a scarlet beam shot from it as he shouted "Crucio!"
A wall of sea water rose up and drank his beam. When it faded, there was a pillar of water, and upon/within it stood a man taller than Lucius, fair and pale. Golden hair ran down his back, and pointed ears showed plainly. His aristocratic features conveyed age, power, and endless weary contempt. His eyes were shifting seawater, and his voice when he spoke made the water dance and echo in uncanny vibration.
"Who am I? I am Manannán mac Lir, whom your kind called god of the sea. My sisters have claimed the Albion as the Island of Heroes, the Queens Island. It is Azkaban no more. I deny you."
The water withdrew from the man's chest, revealing bronze armour long gone green with rust and a spear was in his hand, whale bone and bronze also long gone green with verdegris. He raised it and called out simply.
"Drag it below" Manannán mac Lir spoke softly
A single tentacle slapped the hull half way up. Lucius looked alarmed for a moment, then laughed.
"A kraken? A kraken. This ship is 141,000 tons, 1083ft long, 155ft wide, and you think a kraken can threaten it?"
Manannán mac Lir grinned, and his teeth were pointed and savage. "A kraken? Manannan does not summon a kraken, he summons Kraken."
A second tentacle, easily twenty feet across, wrapped around the ship. Then a second, a third. The ship groaned as the tentacles began to bend the ship, before she began to shatter, and water flooded her lower decks and engine rooms, causing internal explosions that further gutted aft. The ship groaned again as she began to break up, and Lucius tried to flee.
Lucius rose into the air, he reached out with his hand for the magic of the dark mark, to take his shadow smoke form and soar back to the shore, but the song from the sea rose, and that song was the song of fairy. The magic of the wil-o-whisp, the magic of illusion and unreality sang in the song of the ancient and everchanging sea. Luna gave herself to the song, and blazed bright at the first rainbow as unreality filled the sky above the sea with endless possibility and no reality. There was no place to fly, no place to run, no firm sense of place required for portkey or teleport.
Silver hand blazing with magic he could power but not release, Lucius refused to accept his fate, and tried to force open a rift in space to slip through by force of will alone, but magic is about balance. The first sliver of a cut in reality, not carefully contained and balanced by the precise magic of spellform, ritual, or rune array reacted to the ambient chaotic magic of the unreal and ran wild. Lucius blazed like a star, his body becoming a literal beacon of magic, his flesh ignited and transformed by his power, focused and returned through the amplifier that replaced his hand.
He burned for a time, and then a silver hand fell from the loose pile of ash that dispersed in mid air.
Manannán mac Lir took it. "He was no Silverhand. My brother will like this trinket, I think. I will accept it as your tribute, Seeress, and let you pass. Tell your kind not to come to Albion again unbidden. It belongs to the Queens who keep it, and those who follow."
Luna looked sad, and a tear fell down her cheeks.
"This will hurt Draco." Luna said, and almost slipped from her broom.
Fleur snorted. "That was a bad man, and I do not think either one of us would have had long or pleasant lives had we surrendered or been taken. I would gladly have killed him myself and spared you the problem."
Luna smiled and awkwardly hugged the other broom mounted girl. "No thank you. Draco is mine, so killing his father had to be me."
Fleur blew a lock of hair out of her face, and pointed them to where she expected Demeter to be, or at least to be shortly and started them flying. "You know, I never thought I would look at little Luna Lovegood and give thanks that my own love life was less complicated. Veela never get to say that!"
-HMS Demeter, Haroldswick, Shetland Islands,
Rita Skeeter looked at the angry owl.
"Look darling, I am sorry, but the story is too wild to be believed without pictures, and there was kind of a lot to say." Rita argued.
"HOOT" The owl objected.
"Look darling, you work for Hogwarts, you can't tell me you have never had to carry textbooks." Rita argued.
"HOOT" The owl counted.
"This is shrunken, and with a weightless charm, but weightless charm is an advertising term, it isn't really weightless is it. I mean think about it, it is still mass, and I didn't go around putting rune arrays around every photograph and news article did I? That would take weeks and I would lose the exclusive!"
"HOOT HOOT" The owl countered.
"You leave my sex life out of this. You just don't want to carry this to the printing press at Hogwarts because you are only half post owl. Your father got drunk and landed in a chicken coop. That's right, you are half chicken. A half flightless food animal, no wonder you don't want to carry my story." Rita sneered.
"HOOT HOOT HOOT" The owl protested, but finally took off, circled once overhead, pooping on Rita with devilish accuracy.
Rita spluttering, drew her wand and shot twice at the retreating animal. Milicent snickered and scourgified their semi-tame reporter.
"You know we have our own owls you could have used." Milicent offered.
Rita looked scandalized. "Replace Kate Addie? She has been with me since first year. She carried my stories home when the only people reading it were Aunt Agatha and her tea circle. I would rather cut off my left arm."
"That was your owl? You shot at her!" Said Milicent, because pointing out that it did something that rhymes whit shoot on her head was impolite.
"Yes, well, I only have complicated relationships right?" Rita said waving the question off. "The important thing is that the headlines get to the press before we come rising out of the lake. Got to put our spin on things."
They were headlines indeed.
"Harry Potter's forces take Azkaban. Dementors no more."
"Hundreds of innocent prisoners freed from Azkaban."
"Freed Death Eaters and Voldemort sworn prison garrison of Azkaban slaughtered, no survivors."
"Azkaban no more. Island given to the Fairy Queens."
"No more Dementors in Azkaban. Dementor race slaughtered, and source destroyed. Only the Ministry Dementors are left."
"Fallen Champions destroy Dementors, Cedric Diggory leads the charge"
"Tri Wizards cup enslaved souls of the champions, Ministry cover up."
"Harry Potter seen cuddling Muggle Born prodigy Hermione Granger. Is Harry Potter in love?"
"Lucius No Name and a Hundred Death Eaters steal muggle ship and desert. Is Death Eater Morale failing?"
Harry Potter was waging a war of violence and virtue. Rita didn't do that. She was waging a war of information and spin. The Ministry was afraid the Harry Potter was a rival, well the Ministry fell. Dumbledore was afraid Harry Potter might be a Dark Lord, well he was a problem. Voldemort was afraid Harry Potter was the next Lord of Light, well that one just solved itself.
The people of Britain had been sold a lie; that Harry Potter was sent by magic to stop Voldemort. Honestly, that was less a prophesy and more a delusion of Dumbledore who turned children into disposable weapons.
She was selling them something far more dangerous; the news that those forces they huddled in their homes in the sure and certain knowledge no common witch or wizard could dare oppose were not just beatable, they were more than halfway beaten already.
Harry wasn't a champion of light, or a dark lord. Harry Potter was a child soldier who decided he would be the last child soldier, and this would be the last war fought for old men who thought that programing children to do the killing and dying was a good idea. He wasn't coming to rule, he was coming to cleanse.