Hogwarts Express
Remus Lupin POV
He had failed. The last seconds of his awareness had been spent feeling his nervous system shut down under the hammer of an overpowered stunner. As a werewolf, he was hard to stun, but the witch with the cold voice had not only got the drop on him, hitting him from above and behind when he had eyes only for the Dementors, but she had been strong like only a dozen witches and wizards in his memory. The stunner blasted him into unconsciousness almost instantly. Just enough time to see the two Dementors flow back towards the train entrance, towards the students under his care. Towards Harry.
In 1981 he had been spying for Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix when James, Lilly, and Harry went into hiding. He never knew where, as he was spying among the werewolf packs on the continent, and didn't want secrets he might have torn out of him. He had not been there to save his friends. As a werewolf, he was a "dark creature" and not allowed near a magical child without the guardian's permission. James and Lilly had given it, Albus Dumbledore did not.
Remus had finally been given the chance to play Dumbledore's spy as the price for being there to protect Harry, and Remus had failed before Harry even got to Hogwarts. If the Dementor contact had not left him so emotionally drained, he would already be in tears. It was thus not even worth mentioning when his next memory was the painful shock of enervation hitting him, and coming to consciousness bound in goblin silver manacles specifically designed to bind and punish werewolves.
Auror Pius Thickness let his wand glow with the cold purple light of the cutting charm as he stared down at the stunned werewolf who had failed to protect the Hogwarts students. Was he the reason the Dementors went rogue? Was he in league with Sirius Black and somehow disabled the Hogwarts Express defenses to let the Dementors in? Pius was eager to end the dark creature, even if orders technically forbade harming the Hogwarts Professor, but any good Pure Blood knew what you did with werewolves who turned on you.
"Don't move, werewolf. Don't even breathe hard. You talk when we say talk, and if you talk when we didn't tell you to, I cut out your tongue. They say your kind will just grow it back next full moon, and I always wanted to test it." The Auror said coldly.
"Now, if we go in there, and find the Boy Who Lived isn't just a chocolate frog away from spiffy, I think you are going to have a pretty hard night before we let the Dementors kiss you goodnight." The Auror sneered down at Remus, and Remus felt shame bite into him worse than the silver cuffs. If James and Lilly's son died because of his stupidity, then he deserved it.
Whoever that witch was, she must be working with Sirius. If nothing else, Remus would stay quiet because he needed to live long enough to hunt down and kill Sirius Black, the traitor who destroyed the only people in the world who ever treated Remus Lupin as still human.
%%%
Hogwarts Express
Harry Potter POV
Daphne Greengrass was trying to teach public relations to Gryffindors, and it was not going well. Honestly, as their seeing eye Slytherin, it was enough to convince her that being sorted into Gryffindor counted as a learning disability, and should be treated the same. Remedial classes in communication to get them to at least stop communicating absolutely everything incriminating whenever asked even a casual question. How any of them survived was a question. Probably the propensity for violence as a first response was as much their only survival trait as it was their second mental disability. An example of nature's balance she was sure.
"So, when asked, we say we were all in here with the door locked. We heard some terrible sounds in the corridor, then were overcome with cold and depression whose source we DO NOT KNOW, that means we never use the word Dementor at all Neville, Harry, right?" Daphne asked, seeing as both boys were distracted looking at Lavender.
"Ooohh Hermione that is cold." Lavender complained as Hermione was putting the magical wound creme on a very personal area of the blonde witch.
Hermione frowned. "It is your own fault. You leapt on Harry like you were trying to get impaled. I mean, the lights were on, you could see how big he is. You were a virgin, you really need to let him warm you up a lot before you just go and jump on."
Harry smirked. "I kissed it better."
Lavender grinned. "So did Hermione, so did Parvati. That is why I ended up having to jump on you again."
Hermione frowned harder, then pinched the inside of Lavender's thigh hard. "Lavender, please stop trying to hump my hand while I am applying cream to fix the swelling, you are starting to swell again. We will have Aurors unlocking the door at any minute, do you want to explain to them why you are having trouble walking if no Dementors got this far and nothing bad happened to us?"
Tracy Davis was wiggling in her seat and whispering to Daphne. "When we get to Hogwarts, I am going to have to sneak off to the dorms real quick. This has been kind of a lot."
Daphne sighed, blushing, then tried again.
"Remember people, we locked the door, no one saw anything. We got cold, we got depressed, we got unconscious, and only woke up when we heard Aurors banging on the door." Daphne said firmly, getting a response from everyone except Lavender.
Harry sighed. "I'm going to have to make another trip to Gringotts. The Potter Ring is in the vault, and I will have to get it for you Parvati. I haven't been to the Peverel vault yet, but I bet the ring is in there too." Harry said turning to Lavender Brown-Peverel.
Magic swirled around Hermione, her hair rising like the snakes of Medusa as her eyes went white, and her face turned like a gun turret to look upon Lavender Brown.
"The Peverel ring was by serpent sundered. In the place the old line died must the new lord prove himself. The soul of the usurper guards the voice of the dead. To claim a ring, you must conquer desire itself, or three queens will fall before the new year rises."
Harry's eyes flashed to white, as did Lavender and Parvati as all of their bodies shuddered under the force of the seeress prophesy. Harry and Nidhogg beng closest to Pythia when he lost himself in the seeress/priestess vision, caught the edges of it so deeply that their minds bled. In Nidhogg's case, it bled the memories of Voldemort, a flash of the Gaunt shack and a ring. In Harry's case he felt the same connection he felt to his cloak, but stretching in a new direction, a missing part of himself that somehow he had never known.
Parvati felt the vision wash over her, ripping through her, and struggled to catch the details of it. Slytherin's sigils she saw. Then Peverel. Memory surged through her. The Peverel line had ended with murder, never solved. The ring had been lost. Peverel had been the cause of hunting the last Slytherin down for the crime of siding with invading Spain during the time of the Armada. A Slytherin branch family had been suspected, and spent their fortune buying their way out of Azkaban. She forgot the name of the branch family, because after bribing their way out of trial, they lacked the funds to pay for their wizagamot seat and had vanished into obscurity.
Lavender felt the vision shatter her mind like the orgasms she had just been trying to recover from, and unresisting let it take her into bliss. Visions danced through her as the power roared through her unresisting core. A cloak of liquid silver that caught the eye until it chose not to; a stone blacker than night that drank the light, and whispered in the darkness; a wand made of yellowed bone carved with runes that crawled along its length as if alive, and hungry, oh so very hungry. The stone called to her. Hers. That one was hers.
Neville Longbottom looked from one to the other of the white eyed shining figures that were caught up in Hermione's vision and prophesy and asked weakly.
"Does this sort of thing happen often." He squeaked.
Luna Lovegood clapped her hands happily and then hugged Neville. "Only on the very best days, and we shall have ever so many of them!"
Daphne and Tracy froze, minds busy in this most Slytherin way, attempting to resort all of reality to account for the mudblood know it all not only being Lady Slytherin, but a True Seer. The strength of the potential third side having just expanded from being a useful counterbalance to the two great sides, to being a legitimate player for dominance in the wizarding world. A truth only two of their House knew.
Knowledge was power. Magic was also power, and money was power. Daphne Greengrass came to this compartment sure that she was powerless, and seeking any chance of being sold for a slightly higher price on slightly less disastrous terms before she was stripped of any power at all, and now she was sitting beside a mountain of power that no one else saw. There was as much chance she would cut off her nose, as to let this power slip away without tying herself firmly to it. Whatever else this was, for Daphne Greengrass, for House Greengrass, and perhaps even for her doomed sister Astoria Greengrass, this was an opportunity. Daphne was far too Slytherin to let it get away.
There was a hammering at the compartment door. "Open this door, Ministry Aurors on official business. Open the compartment for inspection." An arrogant voice called out, having met Hermione's colloportus locking spell and failing to overcome it on their own, and being less than thrilled by that.
Hermione's wand flicked out, and the door not only unlocked, but opened. The Auror shoved through, badge in left hand, wand in right, and was shocked to find Harry and Hermione staring down their wands back at him, neither frightened or particularly submissive in the face of official ministry power.
Daphne coughed gently to get everyone's attention, then gently pushed between the two teens who seemed to be contemplating murdering a law enforcement officer for the crime of sneering without a license. Walking to the Auror's badge, she quietly begged his pardon, then cast a quick confirmation charm to assure everyone that this was indeed a Ministry Auror, then turning to her fellow students she said in perfect social sweetness.
"He is indeed a Ministry Auror, you can lower your wands." Daphne said, as it to make it clear that her friends met Auror Thickness with drawn wands because they did not know he was a Ministry Auror, not because they had a very trying day and would just like to hex someone over it.
Turning back to the Auror, she curtseyed, and said formally. "I am Heiress Daphne Greengrass, Auror Thickness, we were all sitting in our compartment on the way to school when something very cold and disturbing boarded the train, and were quite overcome, having only come round when you knocked just now. Do you know what it was?" The young Slytherin said. Butter would not have melted in her mouth and Verituserum would have boiled away into nothingness in the face of the sheer boldness of her lie, but its delivery was a mastercraft of innocence, and the Auror blinked, unable to find any sign of deception at all, even knowing it ought to be there.
Auror Thickness reapplied his sneer and began again.
"There was some irregularity. It seems someone working with Sirius Black did something to the defenses of the Hogwarts express, allowing Dementors to board and attack. Dementors he had taken control of by ambushing Ministry Auror's tasked with your protection. Now, you will be taken from the train, and each of you will be separately interviewed by an Auror to get a sense of what actually happened. Tell the truth, and it will be best for you all." The Auror said.
Daphne's expression did not change. Tracy giggled, Harry snorted, and Hermione and Parvati both frowned. Lavender had her mirror out, and was adjusting her hair and robes for being seen in public, and largely ignored the conversation beyond the bit about stepping outside and thus requiring emergency hair care.
For the Ministry Aurors, Harry Potter's compartment was a problem. Every other compartment had been filled with children all too eager to share whatever they knew, which was little, contradictory and confusing; and what they thought, which was even less useful. However, the Potter compartment was filled with witches and wizards of multiple houses, itself odd on the Hogwarts express, that all claimed to have seen and heard...nothing.
Ten minutes of hard questioning should break any student, but none of them, even the timid little boy and the young blonde girl with radish earrings stonewalled harder than hard core potion dealers, and hit wizards. It was enough to make the Aurors wonder if they were questioning teenagers involved in an escaped prisoner's random act of violence or a meeting of organized crime syndicate leadership.
Mad Eye Moody stumped around the side of the train, Lavender Brown in tow. She was gossiping non stop, as she held Auror Moody's arm like she was on a promenade not being interrogated. Not that she was being interrogated, because she was more or less impossible to stop talking once she was "spilling the tea" or releasing the hottest gossip that she knew, and this gossip was hot.
"So luckily Parvati's mother has these secret lesbian snake cult grimoires under her bed, and she and I had practiced at least a few pages of them for years, only I didn't know it. So when Harry and Hermione turned into magical holy snake gods we were totally ready to use secret lesbian snake cult magic to help save the day, and now we are married, isn't that awesome?" Lavender gushed.
Several Aurors and several teens froze in shock and or horror at the Lavender information dump, but Mad Eye, being made of sterner stuff continued to promenade the girl, allowing her to babble as he only supplied the occasional directional conversation prompt.
Mad Eye asked gruffly. "And the Dementors. Four of them, stone cold dead. Ministry handbook swears you can't kill the bloody things, now I have to be careful walking down the hallway on this bloody wooden leg, because the hallway is littered with Dementor corpses." Mad Eye grumbled.
Lavender swatted the big Auror's arm playfully. "You never tried a lesbian snake sex cult did you. I bet that is what Hermione used, she is ever so good at it."
One of the Aurors, a girl whose hair kept changing colours was visibly shaking with suppressed laughter as Hermione Granger blushed bright scarlet and refused to meet anyone's eye.
Moody turned his one living eye to Harry Potter. "And Mister Potter, I don't think lesbian snake cult magic will cover him."
Lavender blinked at Moody as if he was slow, and had missed the important point altogether.
"Harry Potter is clearly the snake god, I mean you can't very well have a lesbian snake sex cult without a snake god, can you. Doesn't the Ministry teach you that." Lavender asked, deeply concerned at the educational deficiencies of the average British Auror.
Mad Eye stumped to a stop in front of a defeated looking Harry Potter and the fuming Auror who had mere seconds ago accepted the truth Harry knew nothing at all about the train's events. Mad Eye smirked at the Potter lad, before answering Lavender Brown almost cheerfully.
"No, Miss Brown. I fear the Ministry has not enlightened us about the finer points of Lesbian snake sex cults. I shall have to write someone a memo about that I expect." Mad Eye said softly.
"And Mr Potter, I think that when we get to Hogwarts, the Headmaster, your little friends, and myself will be having a rather more detailed discussion." Mad Eye Moody said in a voice hard and cold as the ice that shatters the rock beneath the glaciers.
%%%
Department of Mysteries
Unspeakable Saul Croaker POV
The alarms were going off again. He didn't have TIME for this. He was in the middle of studying reports that four Dementors had been killed, a known impossibility, when the prophesy alarm began to go off again.
As the chief of the Unspeakables he had a small number of duties, each of which had absolute priority because they were all extinction level events. The idea that several of them could happen at once was obviously considered, and dealt with.
Taking his Time Turner, he gave it a half hour twist and stepped into the room of prophesy. He needed to give the study of the Dementor killing his full attention. He needed to give the new prophesy his full attention. For the next half hour, both of him would do so.
The prophesy rolled off the machine in a glowing orb.
HJGS to LBP re Deathly Hallow.
"Merlin's knobby wand," Croaker gasped. "The Granger girl isn't just seeing the Dark Lord, she is seeing Deathly Hallows?"
He knew that Ministry Aurors were on the way to the Hogwarts Express train to deal with the Dementor attack, and the Dementor deaths. He also knew that Cornelius Fudge, his less than stellar Minister of Magic, was in full ass covering mode with Sirius Black's unprecedented escape from Azkaban filling the press.
If Fudge believed for a second that Sirius Black could kill Dementors, he might well think silencing a few students before they could talk was a small price to save his career and regieme. Knowing Fudge, he could well order a Muggleborn like Hermione Granger to be killed, along with the Boy Who Lived, because he couldn't see any threat beyond those to his control of the Ministry.
Left to his own devices, Cornelius Fudge could kill off the only hope for the wizarding world before Saul Croaker could figure out exactly what Potter and Granger really were.
When the other Unspeakables saw Saul Croaker jogging through the hallways, pushing through other Unspeakables in the hall, only to run full speed into the emergency floo, using his wand to flick some powder into the fireplace, only just turning green before he dove in mask first, they knew things were truly going pear shaped somewhere in the world.
"What did he say? Anyone hear?" Unspeakble Thomas asked.
"Don't quote me, but I think he said 'That twinkly eyed idiot'. " Unspeakable Franklin said, then added. "It has to be some sort of code."
Everyone listening agreed. They were wrong, but they were also almost right.
Dumbledore's floo was warded, as the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, and Headmaster of Hogwarts, he was a high value target for far too many witches and wizards for it not to be. However as Warlock of the Wizagamot, those wards had one exception, the chief Unspeakable could pass them in an emergency, as if the chief Unspeakble himself came running in an emergency, you don't have time to call ahead for permission.
For that reason, he could be excused for screaming in surprise as the masked Unspeakable shot face first out of his fireplace and slid along his floor screaming at the top of his lungs.
"For the love of Merlin, don't let Fudge do anything with those kids! I need to talk to them, and I mean NOW!" Unspeakable Croaker, well, croaked, not having recovered from being a very old wizard who does not jog, and having sprinted several hundred yards like a rugby player with the game winning try in hand.
Dumbledore blinked. "Saul? Can we not simply wait for them to be delivered? That is the function of the Hogwarts express, is it not?" Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling merrily.
Standing and stomping over to the Phoenix on its perch, Unspeakable Croaker panted as he tried to get his breath back. He finally choked out.
"Do you think Fudge won't kill us all, to stop tomorrow's headline? Do you want to let Voldemort win because Fudge killed the Boy Who Lived to stop a drop in his polling numbers?" Unspeakable Croaker gasped out.
Dumbledore's kindly grandfather face slipped, and the most dangerous man Saul Croaker knew stared back at him. Picking up the Death Stick, the Elder Wand from where it was displayed on his desk, Dumbledore strode to beside his phoenix and spoke simply one word. "Fawkes." He said softly, and in a flash of fire, they were gone.
Cornelius Fudge and his protective detail dismounted from their brooms and stalked towards the train. Damage control was the only thing on his mind. Sirius Black escape was threatening to bring down his entire government. Now the rumors that Dementors had escaped control, rumors that they had even been killed? No. His use of the Dementors as a show of strength was not just to stop Sirius Black, it was to remind those old pure blooded families that used to follow Voldemort, and those uppity light families that treated every word from Dumbledore's mouth as some sort of holy truth, that there was only one power in wizarding Britain; the Ministry of Magic. The Dementors were his trump card, his ultimate sanction, the threat that kept everyone in line. There could be no rumors of anything less than total Ministry control over the invincible guards of Azkaban. The very order of wizarding society depended on it. Sacrifices have to be made.
%%%
Mad Eye Moody was cursing at the train conductor. "What do you mean you can't leave. This is the Hogwarts Express, now get it expressing back to bloody Hogwarts before I turn you into a turtle and make some soup!" The old Auror snarled.
The conductor wrung his hands, and flinched, but continued arguing. "I got a Patronus from the Minister's own security detail that we were to hold the children here for his arrival. No one is allowed to leave."
Moody snarled. "What kind of Minister has to have someone else send a bloody Patronus message. Bad enough half the Aurors who used to be able to cast it got killed in the war, now training in it isn't even in the Auror program. Now we have a Minister of magic who can't cast it. What's next, someone cast Lumos for him so he can read at night?"
Moody stomped back to the Potter kid's compartment. If Fudge wanted to make this disappear, he would have to either obliviate or eliminate those kids. That Potter kid, he would bet his remaining eye, would be almost impossible to Oblivate, and the Granger was a seer, and oblivating them was a real waste of time, they would just see what you erased and then you were back to square one. No, Fudge would have to kill the brats, and Mad Eye was sure that, while doubtless dangerous, they were more of a threat to the Dark Lord than wizarding Britain.
He chuckled. Oh, Fudge was right. They would bring his government down if it got in their way, but they were probably trying to save the rest of the world. The problem is no politician thinks a world without them in charge still matters, and the kids might just muck it up and destroy the world by accident, but they would at least try to do the right thing.
Lesbian Snake Sex Cult saves the world. That is not something he would have picked in his end of the world bingo card, which it turns out, was a mistake on his part. Can't let Fudge kill them. Dumbledore might choke on it, but sometimes Dark Times call for Dark measures. Killing Dementors to save kids is fine in Moody's books. Who cares how? Saving kids ought to be the important bit, but neither Fudge nor Dumbledore will see it that way. Loosening his wand, he prepared to kiss his pension goodbye.
Not that he'd live long, crossing Fudge and Dumbledore at the same time, but they didn't call him Mad Eye just because of the eye. Stomping into the compartment with the kids, he faced them and smiled.
"Now kids, the Minister is down to have a quick word. I don't want you to say anything, or move even a muscle, not even to smile until he has left. You just pretend to be good little statues until and unless I draw my wand." Mad Eye told them calmly.
Harry thrust his chin up and asked. "And when you draw your wand?"
Mad Eye grinned. "Shoot first, and I don't give a shite if you ask questions at all. Dead people tend not to appeal their sentence."
While the Longbottom boy looked like he wanted to faint, he noticed all of the kids tested their wand draws, and adjusted position to what they thought was their best casual position for a quick draw. Interesting. For an innocent looking group of school kids, they were looking better prepared for a fight than half those infnats passing for Aurors these days.
He grinned. He could hear Fudge's bellowing as he boarded the train. Fudge had to let everyone know he was here, and in charge. Funny. There might be just a wee bit of discrepancy in that second statement. Ah pension, it was good to know you.
Lesbian snake sex cult. I don't know how Lilly would have taken it, but James must be rolling around in his grave, laughing his ass off. Moody was almost the last Auror left from the war who remembered James, he would be damned if he let Fudge kill James Potter's kid just because he was afraid of scandal.