Chapter 48

September 1st, 2018. Spellhaven.

It took only a couple of minutes to gather the Raven Host, but it felt like a small eternity as was usually the case when you were in a hurry.

Harry was a bit worried about them. Two had already died in the battle last month and one was a newbie. They were well trained and had some combat experience now, but there were only eight of them and Jones hadn't had much time to work with them on tactics. Especially since the man was not yet completely acclimated to the realities of magical combat.

The concern he felt for the Raven Host actually surprised him, even mild as it was. It was hard for him to feel much of anything for people outside his immediate circle these days… not that he'd ever been good at it. But it did make some sense, he supposed. Those who made it into the Raven Host were the more driven sort and that was something that Harry could respect, so he didn't want them to die. He resolved to offer them more advanced and less combat-oriented magical instruction once this mess with Voldemort was done with.

But that wasfor later. For now, they had to decide on a strategy.

"I agree that this is probably a diversion, but we can't just ignore an attack on a train full of children." Dora said firmly as they waited for the Raven Host to assemble.

Harry's fingers clenched around his staff and he bit down on the urge to say that they could, in fact, do exactly that. He knew that wouldn't go over well.

"Dumbledore will be there and Bones has been beefing up the Aurors for years. We can send the Raven Host to help them, but I want the four of us to focus on Voldemort." He said.

Dora bit her lip. "But what if they need more than that? We don't even know for sure if Voldemort will be going to the Ministry."

"I could go to Hogsmeade while you three go to the Ministry." Luna suggested with one of her uniquely dreamy expressions on her face.

"No." They all denied in unison.

There was an unspoken agreement between them that Luna was never to fight alone. She was extremely good with defensive magic of all kinds, but lacked the killer instinct to make a proper combatant. The only reason she was even taken into combat with them at all was because she refused to be left behind.

"But she does have a point." Fleur said thoughtfully. "Surely three of us would be enough to handle Voldemort?"

It probably would, but Harry still didn't want them to separate. It was an entirely emotional urge to keep his women safe that slipped right past the cold objectivity he could bring to bear on almost everything else. He had already nearly lost Dora a month ago and he didn't want to risk them again.

"I'll go to Hogsmeade then and you three go to the Ministry." The metamorph said firmly.

"No." Harry shot her down instantly.

"Damn it, Harry, we are not just going to hope for the best and go after Voldemort to the exclusion of all else." She snapped.

"Then Fleur will go to Hogsmeade by herself." Harry said in defeat and hidden frustration, seeing clearly that if he protested any further that Dora would just ignore him and go anyway. She could be as stubborn as a mule.

"Me?" Fleur asked in surprise.

"Yes, why her?" Dora also asked with a confused frown. "Out of the three of us, I'm the most balanced."

Because Fleur is less likely to try any stupid heroics. Harry thought in the privacy of his own mind.

"Because her spells are better suited for the outdoors." He said. It was even true.

"Alright…" Dora nodded slowly.

"If we're going to be fighting underground, then I won't need this." Luna suddenly declared, holding up a potions bottle with some strange beige, red and yellow stuff in it. "Here you go, Fleur. Just throw it at the ground somewhere near enemies."

"What is it?" Fleur asked curiously, inspecting the contents of the bottle.

"I call it Steve." Luna replied in all seriousness.

"But what is it?"

"I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."

Fleur would have pressed her further and Harry would have admonished the petite blonde about the battlefield being no place for surprises, even friendly ones, but his mirror vibrated again.

"Madam Bones, hello again." He said as he answered the call.

"Potter, you were right." The witch said brusquely. "I've just received word of a Death Eater incursion at the Ministry, but I can't spare anyone to deal with it. The situation in Hogsmeade is bad and getting worse, but Voldemort isn't here. Hurry up!"

She cut the link without another word.

"Must be one hell of a distraction." Harry said thoughtfully and turned to Fleur. "I need you to promise me something."

"What?" She asked with a raised eyebrow and a cocky smirk.

"If things start getting too heated over there, you will use your emergency portkey and get out of there, no matter who or what you leave behind."

Her smirk faded at his serious look. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dora's face light up with indignant realisation.

"I promise." Fleur said.

Harry still wasn't happy that they would be separated, but that did make him feel a little better.

Harry, Tonks and Luna appeared in the Ministry Atrium with a pop of displaced air and quickly scanned the area for threats.

There were none to be had. In fact, the large room was completely deserted. That was unusual even if it was long past working hours for most people, but the clear signs of spell damage spoke of the reason clearly enough. Even the Fountain of Magical Brethren had been blasted to pieces. No real loss there, as the damn thing had been ugly beyond description, both in appearance and in symbolism.

"It goes towards the lifts." Tonks said quietly.

"I really wish the Ministry had the sense to build some stairs." Harry grumbled as they moved towards said lifts. You didn't have to be a tactical genius to know that they made for nearly perfect ambush locations. If it wasn't for their magic, he wouldn't set foot into them.

"There used to be stairs, but everyone was so enthused about not having to use them anymore that they just replaced them with the lifts altogether." Tonks provided.

"Figures." Harry scoffed.

Despite his misgivings about lifts, there was no ambush waiting for them when they reached the Department of Mysteries, not immediately out of the lift and not in the hub room that connected the various branches of research the Unspeakables were conducting.

Without a word, Harry turned to face the door they'd just exited and used the low level fire writing spell to inscribe a glowing circle of flame on it. The flaming circle on the pitch black door looked very much like the Darksign from Dark Souls, something that amused Harry a great deal and was the main reason why he'd used that particular shape.

"What was that for?" Tonks asked.

"Wait for it."

The room started spinning, slowly at first but quickly gaining speed until the candles of blue fire on the walls and Harry's own orange fire marking were just blurs.

"Only the Unspeakables know the spells to control this stupid room." Harry explained in a casual tone. "It was a pain to get out of here the first time."

"So we're going to have to start opening doors at random and hope to get the right one?" The metamorphmagus asked in exasperation.

"Afraid so."

"How did you not get caught blundering through here?" She muttered mostly to herself while moving towards the closest door.

"Oh, I'm sure the Unspeakables know that someone was making unscheduled visits, but they're hardly going to admit to a breach in their security." Harry said airily, trying to open a door himself and frowning when it wouldn't budge. But he kept on talking. "Thing is, I've never actually seen an Unspeakable when I came here. Since they can decide their own schedules, I suspect that they have rather short working hours."

"Typical." Tonks scoffed, trying the next door and scowling when it wouldn't budge either.

"I think all the doors are sealed." Luna said dreamily, lightly tapping her wand on the one in front of her. She hadn't been able to open any of them either.

"This is starting to feel like a trap." Harry observed, casually walking backwards towards the center of the room and motioning the girls to come with him.

That was when one of the doors opened and Draco fucking Malfoy stepped forward as if he was a total badass. It was all very dramatic, but would have had a lot more impact if they couldn't clearly sense that he was not, in fact, a badass.

"Good guess." The young Death Eater sneered.

" You are here to spring a trap on us ?" Harry asked incredulously, staring with disbelief at his old schoolyard… well, nuisance really. Draco had never amounted to much more than that. "I always knew you were stupid, but this is like… advanced stupid."

Draco's eyes burned with hatred, but he managed to restrain himself to a verbal reply.

"Stupid am I?" He sneered. "Then what does that make you and your sluts for walking into this trap?"

Tonks rolled her eyes and Luna gave a perplexed blink.

Harry looked skyward, as if imploring all the deities he didn't believe in for the patience to deal with this fool.

Finally, he sighed and turned back to Draco. "Firstly, there is no such thing as a slut. People like to fuck, some more than others, get over it. Secondly, it's truly sad how you think you could handle even one of us. It's pretty obvious that the noseless wonder needed a distraction and you were probably the only one dumb enough to volunteer for a suicide mission. Your mother would be so disappointed."

The mention of his mother had Draco shrieking with fury and raising his wand in a clearly hostile fashion.

A wave of spiritual force flared from Harry before he could get it halfway up, sending the Death Eater stumbling back into the wall behind him.

"Your hatred is strong, Draco." Harry said conversationally. "Strong enough to keep you on your feet at least, but hatred alone won't give you the power to challenge me."

Draco glared, his teeth grinding together audibly. He poured his hatred into a vicious curse with a swipe of his wand just like the Dark Lord had taught him to do.

Harry negligently moved his staff, easily deflecting it and then yanking the wand out of the young Death Eater's hands with a quick Disarming Hex.

"Now what, Draco?" He asked.

"Harry, stop playing with the idiot." Tonks interjected sharply. "If Voldemort isn't here then he's probably at Hogsmeade."

Draco couldn't take it anymore. Both his pride and his hatred demanded satisfaction. He had thought that he would be able to take Potter on with all the training he'd received from the Dark Lord and it was frustrating beyond words to see how vast the gulf between them was.

But he had a another card to play. In the moment that Harry turned his attention towards Tonks to accede to her words, Draco reached into his robes, pulled out a potions vial filled with a sickly yellow liquid and smashed it against the ground.

The sound of breaking glass caught everyone's attention and their eyes widened as the liquid quickly began evaporating into a sickly yellow mist.

"Fly up!" Harry yelled and the three of them rose upwards to escape the mist.

Draco began laughing manically, knowing that there was no escape for Potter and his bitches. Rookwood had taught him the spells to control this room and he had sealed all the doors so that they wouldn't open from this side. Draco had already taken the antidote to the poison he'd just unleashed, so he'd get to have the privilege of watching them die right in front of him.

His glee lasted about as long as it took him to realise that his eyes, skin and insides were beginning to burn with pain. That realisation was followed by another one. The 'antidote' he'd been given had not been an antidote.

"We can't reach the doors anymore." Luna observed with a calmness that was entirely inappropriate for the situation, especially with the Draco screaming in agony below them.

"Then we make our own door." Harry said, turning his staff towards the ceiling and firing off a powerful gouging curse. Sure, they had cloth facemasks enchanted to filter out airborne poisons and even allow underwater breathing, but that mist looked to be corrosive in nature.

The girls immediately grasped his meaning and set about helping him. Tonks pitched in with her own gouging curses to dig a hole and then with blasting ones to blow it apart, while Luna put up a shield to block the resulting sharpnel and falling debris.

The stone was thick, but not enchanted for durability. Apparently nobody had fathomed that someone might try to blast it apart one day. The real problem was the typical approach to architecture that wizards often took. Meaning that if something had to be adjusted, they often didn't bother with structural integrity if it was too much of a hassle. Why should they, when magic could hold it together just fine?

The spinning hub room of the Department of Mysteries might have been impressive and convenient for the Unspeakables, but structurally sound from the perspective of physics it was not. The ceiling may not move, but the walls did and that required a lot of spellwork to function as intended. Quite a few of those spells were anchored to the ceiling and started unraveling after Harry and Tonks began blasting it apart.

All three of them felt a sensation akin to having one's ears pop due to a change in atmospheric pressure as those spells winked out of existence and then the damaged ceiling suddenly caved in, dumping a large part of the Ministry Atrium into the Department of Mysteries, sliding off Luna's shield spell.

"The Unspeakables are going to hate us forever." Tonks said wryly, looking at the devastation they'd left behind.

"The horror." Harry replied sarcastically.

"Are those aquavirious maggots?" Luna asked excitedly, pointing down at a large water tank of green tinted water with what looked like brains swimming inside them. She clearly recalled her father talking about aquavirious maggots in one of his articles.

"Nope, those are cognivores. Thought-eaters." Harry answered, a thoughtful look coming over his face as he realised what an opportunity this situation was.

Then he pointed his staff at them and obliterated the tank with a powerful blasting curse.

"What the fuck was that for?!" Tonks demanded.

"They were an abomination." Harry never thought he'd find a line of magical research that he couldn't abide, but the Unspeakables had somehow managed to find it. Creating baby mind flayers that could eat your thoughts and leave you a drooling imbecile was something he found genuinely abhorrent and this was coming from someone that didn't think dementors were all that bad. Sure, they could take your soul, but that was basically just another way to die. He'd wanted to destroy the cognivores since the first time he'd taken a stroll through the Department of Mysteries and rifled through whatever research notes they left lying around.

Their security was really bad.

"You're one to talk." Tonks muttered. She knew very well what kind of weird shit he got up to in his own laboratories.

"At least I don't snatch homeless people off the street and crack their skulls open." Harry replied loftily.

"What?" Tonks asked, startled.

"Where'd you think they got the brains?" Harry asked back sardonically.

The metamorph's face grew thunderous as her opinion of the Ministry took another sharp dive. She didn't even think to doubt Harry's words. The Department of Mysteries predated the Ministry itself, although it hadn't been called that before, and was mostly independent as a result. The Unspeakables had basically free reign to do whatever they wanted as long as they were discrete and she'd already seen what too much freedom did to people. Hells, she'd experienced it herself.

Any further conversation was stymied as they all felt their magic ripple three times in rapid succession. All four of them had three bracelets on their left arm, one for each of their lovers, bound in blood willingly given. It was a commitment deeper than any wedding ring could ever be, but it also functioned as an unbreakable tracking device. More pertinently in this case, it also allowed the bearer to 'ping' the magic of those that the bracelets were bound to.

Three pings was an urgent call for help.

Much to their frustration, the Atrium Apparition point and most of the fireplaces had also collapsed down into the Department of Mysteries, forcing them to use the visitors lift to get out from under the wards.

While they waited impatiently for the lift to move, Harry was already chewing over what they'd learned here tonight.

Voldemort had known it was a trap. It had been a possibility of course. Harry certainly would have suspected a trap if the the roles were reversed, but he had figured that Voldemort would have been so paranoid about the prophecy that he'd get tunnel vision.

But that potion that Draco had used… brewing something that turned into a corrosive mist when exposed to air was some pretty high level shit. It would take a master of the art to keep such a thing stable in liquid form long enough to be put into a bottle and as far as he knew, Snape was the only Death Eater with the required skill.

Snape, who Dumbledore had far too much faith in and might have told about this trap even though there was no need for him to know.

Harry made a mental note to thoroughly investigate that possibility and put a knife in Snape's throat if it turned out to be true. The man might be an enemy of Voldemort in his heart, but he was ruled by his hatreds more than anything else. Just because he hated Voldemort the most for killing the object of his obsession, Harry's own mother, didn't mean that he was an ally. Harry knew that he'd earned himself Snape's hatred as well with his resemlance to James Potter and the way he'd walked all over the man's pride more than once.

His last thought before they apparated away was for Draco Malfoy, now dead by his own stupidity. Narcissa was going to be heartbroken, but Harry was at least glad that the problem had so conveniently solved itself.

Meanwhile…

The portkey deposited Fleur and the Raven Host some ways off from Hogsmeade, but they could immediately see that there was a fierce battle going on. That was pretty clear with the friggin' giant industriously turning the village into rubble with its club and the dementors loitering around it, kept at bay only by a handful of Patroni.

"Alright, move in, but remember to be careful and use your portkeys if you get in over your head." Fleur instructed, getting affirmatives from the two team leaders.

Assured that they would be fine, Fleur took to the air and quickly surveyed the situation.

It was, as Madam Bones had said, bad. Hogsmeade was a war zone and panicked people were running every which way. There were at least three dozen Death Eaters trading spells with Aurors, some Hogsmeade residents, the odd student, teachers and what appeared to be Order of the Phoenix for control over the stationary Hogwarts Express. The Death Eaters also looked to have taken hostages from the train and they looked dangerously organised in their actions, far more than they were during the mess of a fight on Spellhaven a month ago.

Oh, and there were also trolls and acromantula spilling out of the Forbidden Forest in a flanking attack in addition to the lone giant and the dementors. All the creatures were keeping so many of the defenders busy that the otherwise outnumbered Death Eaters were having a relatively easy time of it.

Dumbledore was easily spotted in this mess, seeming to be a spot of control in the chaos, but he was being less than effective. Some of it was almost certainly due to the sheer number of problems he was facing, but Fleur had to conclude that Harry was absolutely right about the old wizard. As a dueler he may be formidable, but he didn't have the faintest idea about how to wage a war or even a battle. He was obviously still holding back for pity's sake! Against an enemy that was killing his people and taking his students prisoner!

And there had definitely been casualties already. Fleur could see quite a few bodies lying on the ground, only a few of them in black robes. The most distinctive was the massive form of that half-giant that Hogwarts employed as a groundskeeper, Hagrid if she remembered correctly. That made sense, he was the one that met the train when it came in, didn't he? He would have been the first in the line of fire and the powerful constitution granted to him by his heritage didn't make him invincible.

Fleur didn't need more than a couple of seconds to decide where to go. Her best spells were too destructive for a hostage situation and the Raven Host was smart enough to see the tactical advantage of hitting the Death Eaters from the back. She would take care of the giant, dementors, trolls and acromantula.

Of those four targets, only the dementors were any kind of threat to her. The other three were land-bound and she could fly. That was why she went after them first, in addition to the racial hatred veela had for creatures of Dark of course.

Her raven Patronus was strong and Harry had been teaching her how to channel the Light intrinsic to her nature, so it blazed golden rather than silver and the dementors fled from it long before it reached them.

Fleur grinned as the people below her cheered, their spirits lifted by the sight. She could almost feel the awe directed at her and her pride swelled in response. Veela almost universally loved positive attention, but it was usually for their looks and sex appeal. She was finding hero worship to be quite to her liking as well.

Riding high on her victory, she flew in front of the giant and conjured a hefty iron spike in the air next to her. Conjuration was not her best skill, but giants were too magic resistant for anything non-physical to be effective. A minor bit of Transfiguration added rows of serrated blades to the spike, all the better to shred flesh.

The giant was too having too much fun smashing stuff to really pay attention to her, so Fleur just waited for it to raise its club and expose its throat to her. As soon as it did, she hurled her conjured weapon at it with all the force she could muster.

A giant's skin was as tough as wood, but the throat was still a soft target and the iron spike sunk in deep.

The giant dropped its club with a pained gurgle and began stumbling around as it clawed at its throat, blood gouting from it like a fountain.

Fleur turned her attention towards the trolls next. The giant would bleed out all the faster if it succeeded in pulling the spike out.

On the way there, she remembered the bottle that Luna had given her and, overcome by curiosity since the moonbrained blonde had never gotten around to telling her what it was, she threw it towards the trolls.

The bottle shattered and the multicolored gunk within expanded rapidly. It grew over ten feet tall and had a roughly humanoid appearance of two arms and legs, although with no fingers or toes. The beige gunk looked dry and stretchy and seemed to form the main part of its body. The yellow had a more melted appearance, but was also stretchy and bubbled as if very hot. The red stuff also bubbled, but had the features of some kind of thick liquid rather than being melty and it also churned ominously.

The magical construct roared, which came out as a very loud, very wet gurgle.

"Is that…" Fleur trailed off for an incredulous moment. "… a pizza golem?"

One of the nearby trolls sniffed deeply and immediately made its way towards this new arrival, reaching out to touch it.

One should note that trolls are tremendously stupid and only rarely understood that things which smelled good might also be dangerous. They did grasp the notion that bubbling liquids are usually hot, their resilience and ability to regenerate made them far less wary of danger even when they recognised it.

The troll roared in agony as its hand was covered in burning hot tomato sauce and cheese heated to several hundred degrees Celsius. It responded as intelligently as it could, which for a troll meant 'hit it until it dies'.

Now it had both hands covered in burning hot tomato sauce and cheese. And the clearly hostile actions had prompted the pizza golem to retaliate.

Fleur snapped out of her incredulity upon hearing the troll's screams of pain. She would be having words with Luna later about inappropriate use of the kitchen, but this was not the time.

"Uh… Steve!" She recalled the name of the construct, not sure if she should be relieved or creeped out when it turned its head in her direction. "Kill the trolls!"

Steve the Pizza Golem heard the order from one of those it was bound to obey and set about doing it. It smashed its fist into the screaming troll's face.

A troll may have a fearsome regeneration, but having its nasal cavity filled up with superheated pizza dough, tomato puree and dairy product was a bit much. It toppled like a log with its face horribly burned, eventually dying of asphyxiation. It drowned in pizza.

The delicious abomination stomped towards its next victim when the first one fell, roaring a gurgling challenge that said victim was smart enough to understand but too stupid to refuse.

Fleur was just about to turn her attention to the acromantula when something far more pressing demanded her attention…

Hanging disillusioned over the boughs of the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort watched Potter's veela devastate his menagerie of attack beasts and frowned.

He'd expected her to be at the Ministry with the others, thinking to trap him into an inescapable fight only to run afoul Draco's suicide attack. Lucius' boy was the only one who hated Potter enough to have the guts to get close to him. Not that Voldemort truly expected his greatest enemies to be dispacthed so easily, but it didn't hurt to try.

But she was here and his servants couldn't handle her. They really were useless without him.

Granted, they had executed their initial attack perfectly, killing that half-giant oaf and beginning to take the newly arrived Hogwarts students hostage. Some of the students fought back of course, but a few summary executions had cowed most of them.

Quite a significant number had already been portkeyed away into captivity before the Aurors and Dumbledore's people had arrived on the scene. Voldemort had been pleased to note that they stayed organised and continued taking prisoners even afterwards. They would be useful later, the purebloods as leverage and the others as amusements.

Things had honestly been going so well that he was contemplating simply continuing the fight until he had secured victory completely. With a little luck, he might very well be able to kill Dumbledore today and cripple the Ministry so completely that taking over would be simple in the aftermath.

Unfortunately, he had almost forgotten about Potter in his excitement and now that veela had turned the tide nearly single-handedly. If nothing else he had to give credit where credit was due, the half-breed wasn't shy about completely obliterating the opposition. Not to mention that strange golden Patronus and that utterly bizarre golem.

Well, it was time to put an end to that nonsense. Voldemort took careful aim at the veela, focused his will and hatred and fired a powerful Killing Curse at her.

The green beam of death rushed through the air, leaving behind the familiar sense of silent finality.

Much to Voldemort's irritation, the veela's senses were apparently more than keen enough to feel the spell coming at her, as she stiffened for an instant and then juked out of the way.

It never ceased to baffle him that Potter shared power and knowledge with his women so freely. It simply wasn't done! And they called Lord Voldemort insane.

Fleur calmed her racing heart after dodging the Killing Curse. They had all trained exhaustively to sense incoming spells and instinctively determine how dangerous they were. The Killing Curse had a very distinctive feel to it, a palpable sense of impending doom. Very easy to detect, but damned unnerving.

Seeing the ugly form of the Dark Lord flying towards her, she quickly used the bracelets on her left forearm to ping her lovers for help.

Voldemort stopped a short distance away from her and Fleur had to struggle to keep the disgust from showing on her face. Quite besides his pasty complexion and serpentine face, the man was ugly down to the soul. Even his magic, although more than powerful enough that it should have been interesting to a veela, felt twisted and vile. Harry's own aura was far from being sunshine and daisies, it could be overpowering, intimidating and cold, but Voldemort didn't even feel human, more like a warped creature of hatred and cruelty wearing a human suit. It made her fingers twitch with the desire to burn him.

Fleur hadn't forgotten her promise to Harry, that she would portkey out the moment things got too heated. Facing off against Voldemort alone certainly counted, but she held off for the moment. She knew that she couldn't win, but he had a well known propensity for running his mouth and would likely keep pontificating until her lovers arrived.

"Your power is impressive for a half-breed, veela." The Dark Lord said with a sneer.

"There is nothing 'half' about me, I am a trueborn veela." Fleur retorted with a scoff, nearly rolling her eyes at the hint of surprise his face showed at her words. Figures that Voldemort would be so narrow-minded that he couldn't understand why anyone would take pride in being non-human.

She continued with a sneer of her own. "And you have some nerve talking about half-breeds looking as you do. Hypocrite."

Voldemort's expression twisted in outrage.

"You dare?" He whispered, red eyes glaring at her with deadly intent.

Fleur was a bit intimidated, but refused to let it show. She covered up any fear with derision.

"Why wouldn't I dare?" She mocked. "I am not one of the sheep that are afraid to even say your name, Tom Riddle."

Fleur tensed, prepared to defend herself and speak the activation word of her portkey. All her senses were focused on Voldemort's aura, watchful for the slightest ripple of a forming spell. She would not be caught off guard.

But the Dark Lord didn't attack just yet.

"Potter chose his women well, I see." He said, languidly moving his wand into an offensive position. "It will be a pleasure to kill you, for now you stand alone before Lord Voldemort."

Pretentious ass. Fleur thought, but her lips curved into a smile at what she felt coming.

"No, not alone." She said, now grinning openly. "Never alone."

"I'm not a jealous man, but I don't want you chatting up any of my women without me being present, Riddle." Harry said and the familiar presence of her lovers washed over the area, bolstering her and dwarfing Voldemort's vile power.

"Harry Potter." Voldemort said, seeming a bit irritated as he lowered his wand and turned to face Harry. "I see you've acquired a staff. Do you think that will give you the power to face me?"

"It'll help." Harry replied blithely. "Now are you going to run, or are you going to fight and die?"

Voldemort's jaw visibly clenched. "My purpose here is done. Until we next meet, Harry Potter."

And he vanished in a portkey transport. On the ground, all the Death Eaters, even those that had been dead or unconscious did the same.

"Cunt." Harry grumbled.

"Come, let's go clean up." Fleur suggested, gesturing at the few remaining trolls and acromantula running around Hogsmeade.

Voldemort reappeared back in his secret hideout and roared in anger, throwing an unshaped blast of magic at the nearest wall.

He may have achieved his objective, but his inability to win against Potter and his women was infuriating. He needed to do something about this or they would just keep coming after him as a group and overwhelm him every time.

The problem was that none of his Death Eaters were powerful enough to match them.

Much as it went against his instincts, he was going to have to train up a few elites so that he could focus on Potter while they dealt with the women.

He was also worried about Bellatrix being captured. What if Potter found out what she'd hidden in the Lestrange vault?

But no, there was no way for Potter to know that he'd made Horcruxes. If Dumbledore had learned of them, Voldemort could believe that he'd keep quiet about it, but Potter? That one was different, he'd tear the British Isles apart looking for them.

With the Death Eaters having bugged out, the fight was over quickly. Once that was done, they four of them dispersed. Tonks went to talk to Amelia Bones, Fleur wanted to check up on the Raven Host and Luna had a pizza golem to dismiss.

Harry went after Snape like a guided missile, noticing that the greasy-haired professor was already skulking back towards Hogwarts.

He flew over Snape's head and landed on the road in front of him, blocking the way.

"Potter." Snape sneered. "Get out of my way."

Harry drew Blackrazor and smiled. "Not until you answer my questions."

Snape balked at the obvious killing intent in the expression.

"What questions?" He asked warily.

"Did you recently brew a potion that turns into a yellowish corrosive mist when exposed to air?"

"Yes." He said warily.

Truth. "Did you know it was going to be used on us?"

"No."

Truth. "Hmm. Did Dumbledore tell you about my plan to trap Voldemort into a fight in the Ministry?"

"Yes…"

Truth. "Did you tell Voldemort about it?"

"No."

And there was the lie. Harry smiled and said nothing, simply driving Blackrazor into Snape's gut.

The perpetually dour man looked shocked for a moment before the agony of the cursed dagger registered.

Harry watched without pity as the man writhed on the ground and screamed. The bastard had ruined one of the better opportunities to cripple Voldemort at least temporarily with his stupid grudges.

An exclamation of horror made him look up, seeing Dumbledore rushing over with a clearly distressed expression on his face. Amelia Bones was right behind him, looking at lot less upset but not exactly happy.

"Harry, what have you done?" He cried.

"Plugged a leak." Harry answered blandly, wiping Blackrazor on Snape's robes. The man was already dead. "He warned Voldemort about my trap."

"Severus wouldn't do that." Dumbledore protested.

"He did. Why the fuck did you even tell him about it in the first place?" Harry demanded before another protest could be made on the dead man's behalf. "You're usually so stingy with information, but you'll confide in the shadiest person you know? What the actual fuck, Dumbledore? If I didn't know better I'd say you wanted Voldemort to know about my trap."

"Harry, how could you think that of me?" Dumbledore asked in shock.

"Answer the implied question, old man. Did you Tell Snape about the plan in the hopes that he'd leak it to the enemy?" Harry was perfectly ready to stab Dumbledore as well if the answer was yes.

"No, of course not!"

Truth. Harry was almost disappointed. "Hmph, fine."

The hitherto silent Amelia Bones decided to speak up.

"Interesting weapon you've got there." She said, eyeballing Blackrazor.

"Thanks." He dodged the implied question. He was sorely tempted to tell her how he got it just to see the horror on Dumbledore's face, but bragging about murder was usually a bad idea even if the law couldn't touch you. "So, Voldemort took a bunch of incoming Hogwarts students prisoner. Any word on how many?"

"We don't have a solid number yet, but there could be as many as a hundred." Bones said with her lips drawn into a thin, angry line. "They were taking them pretty indiscriminately from what I saw."

"He's going to be able to pressure the Ministry now that he has hostages, which I suppose was the point." Harry sighed.

But this was unusually bold for Voldemort. While the Dark Lord certainly had no qualms about doing whatever was necessary to achieve his goals, he hadn't been quite this aggressive in his methods before. He'd almost say that it felt impatient.

"Can you do anything to find them?" She asked hopefully.

"Possibly, but I'll need willingly given blood from their parents." The Kinfinder had failed before, notably in the cases when he had used the blood of the Death Eaters rapespawn to cast it and when Narcissa had given her blood to find Draco. The first case had always been iffy and he suspected that Narcissa had not actually wanted him to find Draco out of fear for her son's life. That would have messed with the spell.

But blood given by parents desperate to have their children returned? That was something else entirely. Voldemort would be hard pressed to put up an anti-scrying ward powerful enough to block that.

How wonderfully poetic that the Dark Lord would plant the seeds of his own destruction now as he had that long ago day in Godric's Hollow.

Bones inhaled sharply and gave him a hard stare, but to her credit didn't say anything about Blood Magic being illegal.

"They won't like that." She warned instead.

"They'll like what the Death Eaters will do to their kids even less." Harry countered blandly.

Her facial expression became pinched and she nodded sharply. "Fine, as long as you agree to destroy the blood after the children are retrieved."

"Sure." Harry had little interest in Britain and the people who lived here, magical or otherwise.

"Dumbledore." Harry said, snapping his fingers at the obviously grieving old man. Grieving for Severus Snape of all people, the senile twit.

"What?" Dumbledore asked with unusual hostility.

"I need you to contact any parents of those that were taken who live in the mundane world, even the non-magical ones, and get them over here."

Dumbledore simply stared at him for a long few seconds before speaking. "Despite everything, I thought you were better than this, Harry. You have gone down a dark path."

Harry snorted in response. "Are you still whining about Snape?"

"He was a good man."

"You seriously need to stop living in the fucking clouds. Snape was a petulant, bitter, resentful manchild. A good chunk of your students have been kidnapped because of his grudges and here you are, trying to convince me that he was a good man. Are you going to tell that to their families as well, maybe right after informing them about the rape and torture Death Eaters are so fond of? Or after admitting that you didn't fight to protect them as hard as you could have? I'd say that's 'darker' than anything I did here today."

Dumbledore looked like he didn't know what to say. Harry had noticed a trend that the old man didn't really know how to respond to harsh criticism. He probably didn't get enough of it.

"Just go already." Harry sighed, suddenly feeling tired of dealing with the old man. "Contact the parents and get them here."

"Harsh." Bones said neutrally as Dumbledore walked away, although a hint of approval leaked through.

"Dumbledore is old and has barely left Hogwarts since he defeated Grindelwald. Sometimes it feels like he has trouble distinguishing the real world from the schoolyard." Harry scowled irritably. It made the old man as much of a hindrance as he was a help sometimes.

"That… would explain a lot." Bones agreed thoughtfully.

Luna watched sadly as a female Auror tried to gently coax a weeping Dennis Creevey away from the body of his brother.

She remembered Colin Creevey. An excitable boy with a bad case of hero worship for Harry. He'd wanted to be a hero too and now he was dead.

Bravery without ability has a lot in common with stupidity. One of Harry's little sayings. Nymphadora frequently accused him being too young to be philosophical and that he'd get old if he didn't knock it off.

"Luna?"

She turned towards the hesitant voice and saw a familiar face.

"Hello, Ginny." Luna said serenely. "I'm glad to see that you weren't killed or captured."

"Yeah…" Ginny replied glumly and stared at the battlefield forlornly.

A silence stretched between them, giving Luna time to think about her old friend. They had exchanged letters for a while after she'd left Hogwarts with Harry, but that had eventually petered out. They just didn't have much in common anymore.

If Luna had stayed in Hogwarts, this would have been her seventh year. She would have been sharing meals and classes with Ginny and doing homework with her. She might even have snuck into her bed for a cuddle sometimes.

Instead she was one of the most powerful witches in the world, in a four-way relationship with two other witches of similar strength and the wizard who had lifted them up so high. Together they worked on the best way to kill a Dark Lord so that they could turn their focus back to their personal lives on their private little island kingdom.

Luna took another look at Ginny and could almost see the distance between them. They might be the same age and standing on the same ground, but they lived in different worlds.

"What?" Ginny asked and Luna sadly noted how defensive she sounded.

Ginny didn't even realise it, but she was already subconsciously shrinking away from a power much greater than her. It was always this way with wizards and witches, the weak either followed the strong or shied away from them fearfully. Some might fight their instincts, but deep down they all instinctively knew where they stood in the pecking order.

That was Luna's main reason for working so hard under Harry's teaching. She didn't care about being powerful, but she didn't want to be left behind. Without her and Fleur and Nymphadora, Harry would stand alone on top of the world, grasping for more and more power to fill the emptiness of his life and growing ever more distant from people as a result. She would have to talk to Fleur and Nymphadora later about getting Harry to calm down a bit, once there was no more Dark Lord to worry about.

"They made you Head Girl." Luna said airily instead of explaining her thoughts, nodding at the badge on her robes. Ginny wouldn't understand anyway. She was too weak to see. "Congratulations."

"Yeah, Mum was so proud." Ginny replied tremulously, sounding as if she was about to cry. "And Ron was so jealous when he didn't get the Head Boy badge, he barely spoke to me for the rest of the summer."

"Ronald was always petty." Luna said, recalling what little she knew of him. Pettiness and jealousy had defined Ronald Weasley as a young boy. Apparently he hadn't grown up much. Why would he think they would make him Head Boy when he was so lazy about his studies that he had to repeat a year?

"He's been taken to St. Mungo's, the Death Eaters hurt him really bad." Ginny's voice broke. "I overheard the Aurors talking, they didn't think he'd make it."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Luna said in the same serene tone she'd been using the whole time. She really was sorry to hear it, but it didn't affect her personally.

Ginny burst into tears and threw her arms around her, sobbing into the crook of her neck.

Luna returned the hug readily. Ginny was only a couple of inches taller than her, so it was easy to do.

Since there nothing she could really say to make it better, Luna stayed quiet and rubbed Ginny's back while she cried. She did give her a magic hug though. Not a full Joining - that would be impossible anyway since they weren't having sex - but just a little something to soothe the pain in Ginny's soul, just like Harry had done for her after she had lost her father.

It worked too, because Ginny soon settled down into hiccups.

"Sorry for crying all over you." The redhead said, wiping her face with her sleeve.

"It's alright, basilisk hide is waterproof."

Ginna choked out a little laugh and then looked at her with eyes that were hard despite their watery sheen.

"You're going after them, right?" She near-demanded.

"The Death Eaters?" Luna asked, continuing at Ginny's nod. "Yes, Harry is quite determined to get them all."

"I want to help." The redhead said, her voice beginning to crack again. "I… I never want to be so helpless again. The Head Boy and Head Girl are supposed to take care of the other students, but all I could do was run."

Luna cocked her head to the side quizzically.

"How would you help?" She asked bluntly.

Ginny seemed taken aback by the question for some reason that Luna didn't understand.

"Well… I get pretty good marks at Defense Against the Darks Arts, second highest in my year." She said with a little pride, but mostly uncertainty.

Luna blinked slowly and furrowed her brow, trying to figure out Ginny's logic. What did marks in class have to do with anything?

Sometimes it really felt as if she was the only person in the world that made any sense.

"You should talk to Harry and Nymphadora." Luna finally said, deciding to pass this problem on to them because she couldn't figure it out. "Come on, I'll take you to them."

Ginny followed behind her old friend and tried to squelch her nervousness. She hadn't honestly thought this plan through very well, or at all really. She just knew that she didn't want today to ever happen again

Ron may have been her least favorite brother, sometimes usurped from that position by Percy, but he was still family and now he might very well die and she didn't even know why. They had been on different parts of the train and Ginny knew that it was pure luck on her part that the Death Eaters hadn't struck the part where she'd been at the time. She had been able to climb out a window and make a run for it along with the students near her. They had still needed to briefly exchange spells with several Death Eaters as they ran and not all of them had gotten away.

Ron had either not been so lucky, or had been stupid enough to try fighting them head on instead of retreating. She didn't want to think poorly of him now, but she had to admit that Ron might have thought that just because he was in the Order of the Phoenix that he'd be able to fight off Death Eaters.

Ginny had wanted to join the Order when she turned seventeen as well, but her mother had forbidden it. She suspected it was because she was a girl, something that had infuriated her at the time.

Ron had been insufferable about it, rubbing his own membership in the Order in her face every time he got the chance, the insecure little prat. She could easily imagine him taking this attack as his chance to be a hero. His common sense had always been slow in coming, but this time the consequences were a lot worse than just looking like a stupid arse.

Well fine . If the Order wouldn't take her, then maybe Harry would. He and his people seemed to be more effective anyway.

So she followed her old friend to where he was standing and talking with that metamorphmagus girlfriend of his. He was idly turning his deep red staff this way and that as they spoke.

The staff, Ginny had no idea what was up with that. It looked impressive, but its serpent motif wasn't going to do him any favors in Britain. Harry probably didn't care though, he'd barely cared about other people's opinions when she'd first met him and had become downright belligerent at any suggestion that he do or not do something for the sake of someone's opinion by the time he'd left Hogwarts.

The memory of how she'd tried to get him to throw away that naughty picture a seventh year girl had sent him or how she'd objected to him sleeping with Bryanna and Tiana stood out in particular. He had allowed their friendship to fall apart rather than give in.

Not that Ginny considered herself to be blameless or in the right there. With the benefit of hindsight, she could see that she'd been poking her nose into things that were none of her business and that she'd been too used to her parents settling disputes with her brothers in her favor. With a mother as pushy and opinionated as Molly Weasley and so many siblings there was little privacy to be had in the Burrow and they had all learned to live with it, but Harry was an orphan with no siblings and very private besides. He had resented her invasiness and presumption. Her crush on him, the resulting jealousy when he showed interest in other girls and her discomfort at how eager he had been to jump straight to sex hadn't helped either.

"Hello, Harry. Hello, Nymphadora." Luna greeted cheerfully when they arrived.

"Luna." Tonks said with a small smile. Charlie had told her that they'd dated for a while in their seventh year and that she hated being called by her first name, even by him. Apparently Luna could do it without getting reprimanded.

"Ginny." Harry said neutrally.

"Hi, Harry." Ginny responded nervously, almost trembling with the effort it took to not look away from the scarred face and the unnaturaly intense green eyes. He was so different from when she last spoke to him. It was like trying to keep eye contact with a dragon.

"Ginny wants to help us fight Voldemort." Luna chirped, thankfully interrupting the moment.

"Why?" Harry asked simply, still staring at her.

The words got stuck in her throat, this time due to the renewed rush of grief and anger rather than his overwhelming presence.

"Ron… he… he's been badly hurt. He might not make it." She managed to get out, trying to keep herself from bursting into tears again.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Tonks said sympathetically.

Harry notably did not offer his sympathies. Ginny was sharply reminded of his sneering disdain for that social nicety and how he sometimes wielded the deaths of his parents like a weapon to kill a conversation.

"That wasn't what I asked." He stated implacably.

"Because I was useless!" She snapped, hating the way her voice broke. "I thought… I thought I was pretty good, but when it came down to it, I was so terrified that all I could do was run and hope they wouldn't get me."

"Well, there are worse motivations out there." Harry mused and pinned her with another stare. "But do you have it in you to kill? I'll tell you right now that the Raven Host is not like the Order of the Phoenix or the Auror Corps. You'd have to drop out of Hogwarts and move to Spellhaven, and learning how to kill without flinching is a requirement."

Ginny swallowed thickly. She hadn't thought that far.

"I don't know." She admitted meekly. Fighting was one thing, but killing…

"Why don't you take a some time to calm down and think about it." Tonks interjected. "If you still want to join the Raven Host there will be a place waiting for you, but don't rush into things without thinking… hey, is that your mother coming over here?"

Ginny resisted the urge to groan. She'd just barely been able to get away from her mother's smothering earlier.

"GINNY!" The strident tones of Molly Weasley's voice rang for all to hear.

"Thar she blows." Harry muttered with a quiet snort, much to her confusion. She figured it was some kind of insult given the exasperated glare Tonks gave him.

Ginny turned around and there her mother was, quickly waddling towards them at a fast walk and looking half-panicked, as if another attack was going to happen at any time. The rest of the family was somewhat further behind her, obviously either not feeling any need to rush or wanting to be out of the immediate blast zone.

"Ginny, you said you were just going to talk to Luna." Her mother said as soon as she was close enough. The scolding tone came through loud and clear, as did the suspicious look she shot towards Harry.

"I did, and then we came to talk to Harry and Tonks." Ginny said.

"About what?" The suspicious increased.

"Nothing important." The last thing she wanted right now was to put up with her mother's hysterics and overprotectiveness.

Of course, that just made the Weasley matriarch even more suspicious. "Then you won't mind telling me about it."

Ginny struggled to keep the glare off her face. She loved her mother, she really did, but the woman just didn't want to see that her children had grown up. Even Bill sometimes still got treated as if he was no older than thirteen.

"Harry, did Mrs. Weasley just miss the subtext?" Luna asked innocently. "Didn't you say that when people said they weren't talking about anything important what they really mean is it was none of the other person's business?"

"She didn't miss the subtext so much as ignored it because she's completely unable to keep from sticking her nose where it isn't wanted." Harry explained blandly.

While that was undoubtedly true, it wasn't something that anyone really had the courage to say in the Weasley household. Ginny glanced over at her mother and noted that the infamous Prewett temper was already close to boiling over.

Mum finally couldn't keep it in anymore and exploded into yelling. "How dare-!"

" Shh ." Harry's voice carried far more force than a mere shush should, but the results were undeniable. Molly Weasley's mouth moved, but no sound came out.

"Harrykins, did you just…"

"… shush our mother?" Fred and George asked, dumbfounded.

"Screaming people annoy me." Harry said simply.

Percy began to bluster. "Potter, you can't just-"

" Shh ."

Ginny had to contain a laugh and saw that she wasn't the only one that found the situation amusing. Their father started trying to cancel Harry's silencing spell, but wasn't having much luck, while Bill, Charlie and the twins were hiding smiles.

Mum and Percy meanwhile looked like they were about to blow without the ability to vent their anger verbally.

At first she was almost surprised that they didn't try to attack Harry either with their wands or their fists, but upon second thought maybe not that surprised. The aura of power around Harry hadn't abated even a little bit and it promised painful consequences for any attack.

"Hello, lovers!" A French accented voice called gaily from the sky.

Ginny was startled to see Harry's veela girlfriend fly in like a bird and land nearby. She'd heard of and even seen these four flying without a broom, but it was still a bit surreal.

"You're looking cheerful." Tonks said suspiciously. "Fleur, what did you do?"

"Nothing." Fleur responded with such innocence that it put the twins to shame. Then the beautiful veela turned her attention to the Weasleys. "And what's going on here? Is Harry picking up a redheaded mistress to round out his collection? If that's the case then we should take the older two boys for ourselves, Nymmie."

Ginny sputtered in shock and she vaguely noticed that her brothers were all similarly taken aback by the forwardness. Her mother looked scandalised and outraged.

A look at Harry revealed that the extent of his reaction to this was an exasperated eyeroll. Obviously this wasn't anything new to him.

"You can have them both if you want." Tonks sounded as exasperated as Harry looked. "I already tried dating Charlie back in my seventh year, but he likes his girls to have scales and fire breath."

"I'd resent that if it wasn't true." Charlie said in good humor. "Hey, Tonks. I didn't get the chance to say it earlier, but it's good to see you again."

"You too, Charlie." Tonks said with a wry smile. "And don't mind Fleur. She's a semi-decent person when she's not thinking with her cunt."

"This is the thanks I get for trying to help you." Fleur sniffed disdainfully. "Luna is one thing, but I don't believe for a second-"

"Just drop it, will you?" Tonks groaned, interrupting the veela's tirade. Clearly this wasn't new either.

"This isn't over." Fleur promised ominously. "One day, you are going to end up fucking some pliable little boytoy because you're fed up with Harry always taking control and I'm going to be there to tell you that I told you so."

Ginny could only stare. What kind of messed up relationship did the four of them have?

"If we're quite finished sharing the dynamics of our sex life with all and sundry, we should probably be getting into the Great Hall soon." Harry's voice was as dry as a desert.

"Do you think the Hogwarts house elves would make me some pudding if I asked nicely?" Luna asked excitedly.

"I'm sure they'd be delighted." Harry replied wryly.

The two of them had already turned their backs on the Weasley clan and started walking away without so much as a goodbye. Ginny couldn't help but notice the understated arrogance of it. Harry's words and actions carried an unmissable expectation of obedience.

"Byeeeee~." Fleur said in a sing-song voice, complete with finger wiggle and flirtatious wink at Bill and Charlie. Then she flounced off after Harry and Luna, laughing all the way.

Ginny tried really hard not to be judgemental, but she couldn't help thinking that the veela was a shameless slag. What Harry saw in her was anyone's guess. Luna would probably say it was because she had nice boobies or something.

Tonks rolled her eyes at the veela's antics, but it was her father that spoke.

"Umm, excuse me?" He said nervously. "Could you please remove these silencing spells?"

"They'll wear off in a few hours." Tonks said dismissively and turned to Ginny. "Think about it and get back to us when you've made a decision, alright?"

"Right." Ginny nodded. She'd talk to Bill. He was her favorite brother for a reason and was sure to have good advice.

"It was nice seeing you again, Charlie. Take care of yourself." The metamorphmagus said.

"You too, Tonks."

"Interesting bunch." Bill commented bemusedly once it was just Weasleys, but Ginny thought she could hear a hint of wistfulness in it.

Apparently so did Charlie. "Your head's stuck on the veela, isn't it? You always were a sucker for pretty blondes and they don't get any prettier than that."

"Shut up, little brother." Bill grumbled.

Ginny pictured Bill and Fleur together and grimaced. Having that floozy for a sister-in-law… She shuddered at the thought.

Hogwarts, Great Hall.

It took a while to find which students were taken and then collect their parents, but they were all here now.

Harry and the girls stood on the raised dais in front of the head table, looking over at everyone. Amelia Bones was also up there with them with them, but Dumbledore was notably absent. He had the unenviable duty of breaking the news to those whose children had been killed and dealing with Fudge's hysterics.

The Aurors had just finished herding the mob of unruly parents into the Great Hall, but it was clear that quite a few of them were on the edge of starting a riot. Questions like 'What's going on?', 'where are our children?' and most annoyingly and irrelevantly, 'what are the muggles doing here?' were asked.

Harry slammed the butt of his staff into the ground, releasing a pulse of power that rushed through the room in a palpable wave, causing hair to stand on end and gooseflesh to form.

"Sit down and shut up." He said after he had everyone's attention.

The non-magical parents didn't really have any idea who he was, but they were so far out of their comfort zone that they obeyed easily enough. The magical ones were even quicker about it, fearful of getting singled out.

"As some of you may have already heard, Voldemort-" Harry had to fight down a scowl as nearly every magical in the room gasped, flinched, shrieked or otherwise made some fearful reaction.

He tried to continue. "Voldemort-"

There was no holding back the scowl this time as they did it again. "Will you useless bunch of cowardly cunts stop fucking flinching over a stupid made up name! " He roared at them in frustration.

Everyone, including the Aurors standing guard against the walls, shrank away. Several women and at least one man burst into tears.

Bones gave him an askance look, but he ignored her. She was just here to give the plan Ministry approval.

"Easy there, Harry." Tonks soothed. "Let's just do what we came for and leave, yeah?"

Harry's nostrils flared as he exhaled an irritably. He'd forgotten how goddamn annoying British wizards and witches could be with that dumb reaction.

Fleur muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'English! Hmph!' and Luna looked as imperturbable as ever.

"Right, as I was saying. Voldemort… " He waited for a moment, raking the room with a harsh glare that kept the typical reaction down to a barely audible whimper. "and his Death Eaters attacked Hogsmeade Station just as the Hogwarts express pulled in. Their goal appears to have been the kidnapping of as many students as possible. Those of you here are the parents of the students that have been identified as missing."

That predictably set the crowd off, all of them displaying their fear in as loud a manner as possible as if that was going to somehow help.

" Shh. " Harry hushed and a veil of silence blanketed the room.

"There is still a chance that we might get them back." He continued now that they had no choice but to listen. "I can cast a spell called the Kinfinder to track down close blood relations. All I need from each of you is a little blood, willingly given."

The magicals looked outraged and were clearly trying to yell, but the silence still held.

"For those of you who don't know, willingly giving blood to a master of what some term the 'Dark Arts' such as myself is generally a terrible idea. With it, powerful, unbreakable curses can be cast on your bloodline that will persist until it goes extinct or a geas may be placed on the donor that will make him or her beholden to the will of the caster or any of a dozen other unpleasant things can be done with willingly given blood."

He paused again to let that sink in, taking note of the stubborn, angry, fearful and resolved faces in the crowd.

"You'll be pleased to know that I'm not interested in doing any of that. Frankly, I don't give a fuck about any of you and have no reason to be casting curses on you or binding you to my will. I need the blood to find your children and hunt down Voldie and his minions, nothing else. For those of you willing to take my word on that, form orderly lines in front of me and my girls. Blades and vials will be provided and the blood will of course be destroyed afterwards."

There was a moment of silence even though Harry had cancelled the spell, then a young witch of about eighteen years stood up. Harry vaguely recognised her as Daphne Greengrass, a former yearmate that he'd never exchanged a single word with. He figured she was here because her younger sister was one of those captured.

"Lord Potter, do we have your assurances that our loved ones will be returned to us if we do this?" She asked formally.

"No, you don't." He replied blandly. "We will do our best, but Death Eaters aren't known for their humane treatment of prisoners."

Not the most diplomatic thing to say, but it was the truth. The palpable sense of fear that spread through the crowd would also motivate people to get moving already.

That was more than enough to get the non-magical parents moving towards the head tables. They didn't have the same stigma against Blood Magic that most magicals grew up with and they were terrified for their children. The magical parents followed suit, albeit with a great deal more trepidation.

It was well past dark when they returned to Spellhaven, bounty of blood vials in tow.

Harry estimated that it would take them most of the next day to cast the spells and track down the taken Hogwarts students, but he had one last unpleasant duty to perform today before he could get some sleep.

He found Narcissa in her room, still awake and pacing restlessly. She always stayed awake when there was fighting against Voldemort, worrying that this would be the day she learned that her son was dead.

"Harry." Narcissa greeted without formaility, her voice wavering between a question and fearful realisation.

"Cissy." He said back, stepping forward to take her hand and sit down on the bed with her.

"My son?" There were already tears in her eyes as she asked.

With no way to sugarcoat it, Harry explained everything that had happened.

Narcissa kept her composure rather well, all things considered. She was furious at Snape, both for brewing the potion that Draco killed himself with and for leaking information to Voldemort that led to the situation, and vindictively pleased when she learned that he'd killed him.

She only broke down into tears once he was finished talking.

Harry held her while she sobbed on him, feeling vastly uncomfortable but also knowing that she was his responsibility. He had made her his, so now he had to take care of her.

The things he had done to Narcissa weren't questionable - they were outright subversive, deeply manipulative and entirely unethical. Harry might not be terribly bothered with the moral implications, but he was well aware of them.

Now if only he knew what to do aside from holding her and wrapping his magic around her like a comforting cocoon.

"Would you stay with me tonight?" She asked softly some time later.

"Of course." He agreed easily. It was the least he could do.

September 2rd. Spellhaven.

"You'll have to hit them all at once." David Jones said, looking over at the map with targets marked. "If word gets out that one of them is being attacked they'll run and if they figure out they're being tracked through the prisoners they'll kill them for certain."

As expected, it had taken nearly most of the day to cast all the Kinfinder spells and the rest of it to scout the revealed locations of the kidnapped students, not least of which because they were fairly widely dispersed across Europe.

"We don't have the manpower and the last time we relied on local Aurors, Voldemort got tipped off by someone." Harry scowled.

"I know that politics " Tonks spat out the word like it was something foul. "might be a problem, but we could just use British Aurors. Strange as it sounds, they're the least likely to have a mole and you can do your lie detector thing on them before we go. Either way we can't let anything go wrong this time."

"I suppose we can either soothe ruffled feathers later or shame any whiners into silence." Harry admitted with a frown. He tapped at a particular spot on the map. "This is probably their primary base, Albania. That at least works in our favor since it's basically no man's land from a magical perspective."

"How can you be sure?" Jones asked.

"Voldemort hid there in the past and that's where the majority of the prisoners are, especially the politically valuable ones. I'm guessing they're still sorting them out and handing out the less valuable ones as prizes."

The metamorphmagus present became a fiery redhead with magma-orange eyes, a look that went well with her angry expression.

That expression was the reason that Harry didn't voice the thought that they could wait a bit until the Death Eaters finished distributing their prisoners and inadvertently revealed their hidey holes.

"So the four of us are going there?" Fleur asked.

Harry gnawed on his lip in thought. "I think that I might have to go alone if we want to save anyone." He concluded with a sigh.

"How do you figure?" Tonks asked, anger abating a bit.

"Because Voldie always retreats when he's overwhelmed." Harry replied.

"And he's very angry about it." Luna added dreamily, staring at an empty bit of wall. "He might decide to kill the prisoners out of spite."

"Yeah." Harry nodded with another sigh. "If I'm alone he'll mouth off like he always does. If all four of us show up he might just decide to Fiendfyre the building before flying away, even if it kills some of his own minions."

"But you can't take him on alone, not yet." It was more of a statement than a question.

"No, but I can definitely stall him for a good long while. I'll have an emergency portkey and Etal with me. Plus, I do need to get some serious combat practice in with this staff." He said, running a hand along the twisting length of bloodwood. "With a little luck, I might even be able to take a shot at Nagini while I'm there."

There was a few seconds of thought before the girls grudgingly agreed with him.

"Luna and I could take this one in France then." Fleur spoke up, tapping her finger on the map.

"Upset that there are Death Eaters on your home patch?" Harry asked jokingly.

"Yes." Fleur sniffed.

"I'll go to Norway." Tonks stated firmly. "It's awfully close to Durmstrang, so maybe we'll finally get some solid proof that Karkaroff is using the school to recruit for Voldemort."

"I'd feel better about this if we could run a few training drills and simulations." Jones said unhappily. "This all feels rushed."

"We're not leaving those kids in Death Eater hands a second longer than necessary." Tonks was immovable on that.

Harry didn't object. He could see the benefits of more preparation, but he knew that Dora wasn't going to budge on this and it wasn't worth the rift it would cause. It should be fine and his own part in it should be the only really dangerous one. There was more 'should' inherent in the plan that he'd like, but it was what it was.

Still, this attitude of hers could be a problem. Harry knew that his own sense of morality was murky at best and he had no issue with letting the girls put the brakes on things if his ideas went too far off the rails, but he'd have to put his foot down if Dora got any more willful. Not because he didn't like her fire, but because she was basically forcing him to change his decisions to appease her and prevent her from going off on her own.

"I'll talk to Bones and tell her to get her people ready for action at dawn." He said, keeping his thoughts off his face.

September 3rd. Somewhere in Albania.

Harry observed the isolated villa thoughtfully. He wasn't sure if it was a magical home that Voldemort had taken over or not. The magical world's oversight of the Balkans was shoddy to say the least.

"Are you sure he's in there?" Senior Auror Robards asked quietly.

"Yes." Harry replied simply.

"Right, let's get to it then." Robards said with a gusty exhale that carried a hint of nervousness. His wand was clenched tighly in his fist.

"Relax, Auror." Harry advised mildly. "You should be fine as long as you stay away from me and Voldemort."

The experienced Auror gave him a disgruntled look, although he nodded his agreement all the same as he moved off. No doubt his pride was stung at being told that by someone more than thirty years his junior, but the facts were the facts.

" They are scared. " Etal hissed into his ear.

" I know ." Harry hissed back.

" I do not understand. " The quetzalcoatl went on. " That which fears you is your rightful prey. Why would prey attack the predator? "

" Humans like to think themselves the masters of the world and delude themselves into thinking that they are above being preyed upon, to the point of being outraged that any creature dares hunt them. These that are with us today are convinced that defending the weak from being preyed upon is a worthwhile goal and will fight in spite of their fear. " Harry explained.

" Foolish to leave their own nests unguarded in order to protect those even weaker than they are. " Etal declared disdainfully.

Harry smiled wryly. Trying to explain the functions of a human society to the quetzalcoatl was a work in progress.

The Anti-Apparition and Anti-Portkey wards went up. Etal shot up into the air as planned.

" I'm waiting for you outside, Tom Riddle. " Harry said conversationally, using a minor cantrip to send his words into the house.

A couple of seconds later, one of the top floor windows exploded outwards and the dark-robed figure of Voldemort flew out of it.

"Harry Potter." The Dark Lord said softly as he landed in front of him. "Very brave… or perhaps very foolish of you to come alone."

"I missed these delightful conversations of ours and you always run away when I bring my girls." Harry smirked.

The sounds of Aurors and Death Eaters fighting could be heard in the background, but they both ignored it.

Voldemort's expression tightened, but he held on to his temper for now. "And what did you want to talk about?"

"I want to know if you've given our last conversation any thought. If you succeed in conquering the world, in which direction will you steer mankind?"

"Strange that you would fixate on what I would do long after you are dead." Voldemort commented, pointedly not answering the question.

"I've dedicated my life to asking how and why. I know how we became enemies, but I don't know why and it bothers me." Harry said flatly.

Voldemort actually looked thoughtful for a moment, so he continued. "The world is cold and unfeeling, it grants neither meaning nor answers, forcing us all to find our own if we can. So tell me, what does it mean to live? Is it to wage war against the passing days? To pray to the unseen for a few breaths more? To write yourself into history by any means necessary? To chase after a transient sense of love and spawn new life in turn? If you don't know the answer to this question, then is the tapestry you weave truly of your own design?"

"Why are you asking me this?" Voldemort demanded, visibly agitated.

"You've made many choices on the journey of your life, and the ripples of those choices have altered the paths of many, mine more than most. Is it so strange that I'd want to know what the point of it all is?"

"The point?" Voldemort sneered, his red eye burning with hatred. "The point is to show the filthy muggles their place. The point is to take my rightful place as ruler of wizardkind, as befits the greatest sorcerer in the world!"

Harry just looked at him silently for a long few seconds, then he sighed. "That's it? In the end you're just a petulant child that gained too much power, but never enough? I wasn't expecting much and yet I'm still disappointed. If I was going to be saddled with a prophecy then fate could have at least had the decency to give my nemesis more depth than a Super Mario character."

Disappointed though he was, Harry couldn't say he was surprised. After his last epiphany on the topic of Horcruxes, he'd gone over everything he knew about them again and begun to suspect that splitting one's soul had a multitude of deleterious effects that he'd previously not considered. The piece of soul sheared off from the whole remained static after all, while the main part continued to grow as a person accumulated life experience. The full scope of consequences such a thing would have was impossible to determine with only Voldemort as an example, but at the very least it would cause severe spiritual dissonance. There was a very good chance that a significant part of Tom Riddle had remained an angsty teenager with daddy issues, further exacerbated with every new Horcrus he made.

And this wasn't even going into the possible effects of then having those soul anchors destroyed. Little wonder that his aura was so twisted.

Voldemort was predictably infuriated by the condescending tone and reacted with predictable violence. He jabbed his wand forward with a vicious snarl, sending a crackling purple spell at him.

Harry grasped his staff in both hands and parried the spell into the ground nearby. A circular patch of grass at the point of impact melted into dribbling purple slime and it continued to spread.

He returned fire with a barrage of glowing silver darts that would have turned Voldemort into Swiss cheese if he hadn't quickly put up a shield.

But it was merely a distraction, for the slime had given him an idea. His next spell was not aimed at Voldemort, but raked across the grass and the patch of inert slime.

At a glance it could have been mistaken for a sustained arc of lightning… but only at a glance. It looked subtly off, the colors hurting the eye. It didn't crackle so much as shriek. Most importantly, it just felt wrong .

There was no time to watch what it did though, as Voldemort retaliated with a Flesh-Melting Curse that he only barely dodged. It hit a tree some ways behind him and caused its bark to slough off like hot wax.

"What is this?!" The Dark Lord demanded sharply, staring at the parts of the grassy field that he'd raked with his not-lightning earlier with cautious, but also curious, eyes.

Everything hit by it, the slime, the grass and every little critter unfortunate enough to be in the way, had begun to change . The slime was pulling together together into a bubble the size of a basketball, the grass shivered and grew and its edges became jagged and blade-like, and the various insects became the size of cats and mutated into something that would have landed Harry a lengthy stay in Azkaban for creating if he was still beholden to the law.

Evolution was a process that took millions of years and had to stay within the confines of what was physically possible. Harry's magic unshackled it from those limitations.

The spell was barely even a spell, but more of a corruption of the principles of Transfiguation given form. A less controlled version of the Indigo Flame of Change that created horrible things, mutated everything it touched into creatures tainted by his own soul.

"I call it Dhar." Harry replied, not even bothering to hide his amusement. He'd shamelessly stolen the name from Warhammer Fantasy. He thought it doubly fitting since, not only did it definitely fit into the somewhat ill-defined bracket of 'Dark Magic', but any master of Transfiguation that saw it would probably also cry 'heresy!'.

It was unfortunate that Fleur and Dora had completely ruined the eldritch horror aspect of it by naming the resulting creatures…

"Dharlings, attack!" Harry commanded, feeling utterly ridiculous, but there was no way to get out of using that silly name. They'd be viewing each other's memories of their respective fights later and the unholy alliance of the veela and metamorphmagus would make things very annoying for him if he refused to use what they claimed was a genius name.

Silly name or not, his menagerie of mutant roaches, grasshoppers, earthworms, ticks, ants and more was quite vicious and pounced on Voldemort like a horde of rabid wolverines.

They would have torn him to shreds in short order if he hadn't glided across the field and swirled his wand around him, defending himself with walls of fire. For all that the mutant beasties were impossibly vicious, they were not fireproof.

Except for one. The slime monster created from the residue of Voldemort's opening spell made it through the flames and latched on to the Dark Lord's leg, beginning to digest it.

Voldemort hissed in pain and aimed his wand at the little slime creature and cast a Dessication Charm on it, corretly guessing that drying it out would work better than trying to burn it.

While this was going on, Harry had been busy preparing one of his more powerful spells. With a gesture of his staff, an icy blue comet was sent streaking towards Voldemort, freezing solid everything it touched.

Voldemort couldn't miss the build up of magical energy and saw it coming just as he killed the slime monster. His eyes widened and he panic-apparated several meters away. He was skilled and focused enough that he didn't splinch himself, but he was badly rattled by the close call nonetheless. Especially as he saw the Frost Orb continue on, leaving behind a glittering trail of razor sharp frozen grass until it hit a tree and turned that into an ice sculpture as well.

Now furious that not only had his nemesis drawn 'first blood' so to speak, but also that he had been made to taste fear in a duel, the Dark Lord retaliated with renewed viciousness.

Harry was pushed firmly on the defensive by Voldemort's trademark barrage of nasty curses and had little room to retaliate. He returned fire with a quick spell here and there when he could manage it, but for the most part he had to keep his focus on dodging and shielding.

Both of them kept themselves on the ground to conserve their full focus toward the fight and only used flight to glide across the ground the a quick dodge was required. The formerly picturesque grounds of the villa rapidly became a spell-blasted ruin as a result.

Despite everything, Harry was satisfied. True, he wouldn't be winning this one, but he had now confirmed beyond doubt how Voldemort fought. For all his power, the Dark Lord had little imagination. He relied almost exclusively on direct-effect battle magic used with overwhelming speed and force. It was not necessarily a bad way to fight and would have probably been enough to defeat almost anyone, but it was a wee bit predictable if you had time to get used to it.

Not entirely his fault, Harry knew. Wands made magical combat fast-paced, but they also made it rigid and inflexible. On average, this was far superior to older forms of magical combat, because speed was in the end more important than almost everything else when you were fighting for your life, which was why European wanded wizards had been able to establish themselves as the pre-eminent group of magicals in the world, but at the highest tiers of power it started showing its limitations.

Harry was already able to keep up far better than he had a month ago. Back then, he had needed Etal to run interference for him and break Voldemort's focus, but now he was able to defend himself adequately all by himself. A little more skill and experience and they'd be on equal footing.

Then came the sign he was waiting for. Etal came out of nowhere and swooped past Voldemort at top speed, making him flinch and breaking the rhythm of his spellcasting.

Harry, knowing what that meant, slammed the butt of his staff into the ground.

" Blade Grave! " He said commandingly, needing the extra focus that the words brought after being stuck in the routine of attack and defend for the past couple of minutes.

The earth around him rumbled and a dense forest of stone spikes shot out of the ground.

Behind him, Nagini hissed loudly in agony. She'd thought to launch a sneak attack, which was exactly what Etal had been keeping an eye out for. Her hiss soon morphed into a supernatural shriek as Voldemort's soul fragment was ejected from her dead body.

"NOOO!" The Dark Lord roared in fury.

Harry grinned widely, running on an adrenaline high. He was breathing a bit hard from the exertion, his armor was scored by a dozen hits that he had needed to take to avoid worse ones and magical exhaustion was beginning to creep into the edges of his perception from the strain of fending off so many vicious curses, but another Horcrux was destroyed. Only the Diadem of Ravenclaw to find and then it would be almost over.

"Sorry, Tommy, but I learned about your sneaky little pet from Bella." He taunted.

" CRUCIO! " Voldemort screamed, his voice almost painfully high-pitched in his rage.

Harry dodged the predictable spell easily, although his eyes went slightly wide at the raw malice radiating from it. If that had hit him, it might have very well caused his heart to stop or a blood vessel to burst in his brain or any number of physical effects that the Cruciatus wasn't generally meant to cause.

Still, he didn't have time to ponder about how spectacularly pissed off Voldemort clearly was. He retaliated with a swarm of flames that would take up the Dark Lords attention enough to let him use something more powerful.

But Voldemort apparently had other plans. He viciously slashed his wand through the air with a snarl, snuffing out the flames. Then, instead of following it up with another spell, he glared and launched a Legilimency attack.

Everyone had their own particular take on the Mind Arts and Voldemort was no exception. Brutish and unsubtle, his assault cleaved into Harry's mind like an axe made of pure hatred, easily punching through the passive protection granted by the Aul'El rune on his forehead. Harry was taken off guard by the unexpected venue of attack and had he been untrained or a novice in the Mind Arts, it would have done about as much damage as an axe to the skull as well.

But he was trained, and very well at that. He practiced diligently every night before he fell asleep, he had mental spars with his girls and he often used Occlumency to compartmentalise his emotions when he needed to. However unexpected the initial mental attack was and however unpleasant it was to have Voldemort inside his head, Harry knew that as the defender, he had the advantage.

Voldemort's hatred-driven mental probe stalled as he drowned his mind in Dark; peaceful, serene and utterly apathetic.

The Dark Lord continued trying to tear apart his mind, but Harry was not impressed by the hatred that this miserable wretch had for him, nor was he intimidated by it. He gave no ground, did not try to throw his own hatred at the man, try to counter-attack or use love as a shield. All that he was remained buried behind impenetrable darkness and he gave Voldemort nothing but apathy; hollow, heavy, lifeless and exhausting. It clung to the Dark Lord's mental presence like an ever thickening coat of tar and leeched the strength out of it.

Harry had long since internalised the inevitability of death and the absolute insignificance of his own existence, which was a philosophical position anathema to Voldemort. He was terrified of death and full of his own self-importance, so he wasted his strength raging against the the uncaring Dark, throwing more rage and more hate into the attack. Harry gave him the mental equivalent of a dead stare for his efforts. He would win, therefore he had already won.

Voldemort stubbornly kept at it for a while longer, but the crushing weight of apathy eventually became too much and he broke off the attack with a gasp.

Although it had seemed like a long time in the mental plane, in the real world only a few seconds had passed.

The two powerful wizards stayed silent for a while, one trembling with rage and the other merely thoughtful.

Harry noted that there was no sound around them except for the crackling of fire here and there. There were no cries of battle from Aurors and Death Eaters or blasts of spellfire. That meant that the Death Eaters were either defeated or fled and the Aurors must have taken away the kidnapped students.

There was no more reason to stay here any longer.

"I'll be going now." Harry said casually as Etal settled around his shoulders. "You can count this one as a victory for yourself if you like since I'm technically running away because I can't beat you yet."

Voldemort bared his teeth in a hateful sneer. Both of them knew that by killing Nagini, Harry was not exactly leaving empty-handed.

"Hopefully I'll have my little surprise ready the next time we see each other." Harry continued, grinning aggressively and pointing the head of his staff at the Dark Lord. "Your final defeat approaches. Until it comes, live in fear."

And with that, he and Etal vanished in the swirl of a portkey transportation.