Chapter 70 Hell bound Express

It was a subdued group that met in the Manor, the aftermath of the attack upon Newcastle was front-page news in The Quibbler, Daily Prophet, and virtually every newspaper in existence. While the newspapers in the wizarding world had printed the truth, the muggles papers had printed but shades of the truth, and that was in no small part thanks to the herculean efforts of the Ministry: Every muggle they had been able to rescue had their memories modified, citing a terrorist attack, using a potent biological agent known as "VX," a poison gas that was odorless, tasteless and killed within minutes of exposure, with no known treatment to counteract the deadly poison. As wizarding history would prove, nature abhors a vacuum and the paper-thin story was enough. Needless to say, the muggles were outraged at such an attack, seeing it as an assault upon the nation.

True enough considering there was no way for muggles to comprehend just what a Dementor truly was. Something that the upper echelons of the Legion were only just coming to terms with, courtesy of Amelia Bones, Tonks, and Moody who was briefing them as to what Dementors truly are, something which the Unspeakables of the Department of Mysteries were not too sure about either. The meeting had lasted for over an hour, and there had been frustratingly little to go on.

"So we don't know where they come from, how they are created, why they exist, or why they work for the Ministry as the guardians of Azkaban. They've just "always been there?"" asked Neville.

The gathered trio basically shrugged and nodded, "That's about the size of it," said Tonks. Her eyes were ringed by dark circles. She had not really slept since the attack four days prior but then given what she and her fellow Aurors has been forced to do, it was no surprise. Harry was used to the lack of sleep. It was the nightmares that were a lot harder to handle. It had taken minimal effort for him to discover the identities of the Aurors who had survived the Newcastle Massacre.

Harry had made counselors and other such measures available through the most discreet of channels imaginable. So far, only seven of the surviving Aurors had taken up the offer. He hoped the rest would as well, in time. Survivors' guilt would be eating the nineteen survivors of what was once a fifty-strong task force. Tonks was one of the outstanding twelve.

The discussion would continue for another hour, illuminating the nature of Dementors in some detail that would probably have the Unspeakables getting their underwear in knots over such information being revealed to outsiders. The Dementors do not have a leader of any kind: The creatures share a common hive mind, with the will of the majority being imposed upon all of their kind. "So Voldemort has managed to entice a portion of the Dementors, but not all of them?"

"Not all," confirmed Amelia Bones, "My contacts tell me that this rouge hundred or so are all that have joined forces with Voldemort, but it's only a matter of time before the rest go over to him." Removing the Dementors was not something that the Ministry could even consider: It would only encourage more and more of them to join Voldemort. For now, at least they had them semi-contained and under some control.

"Basically, we have to kill them all," said Luna quietly. The question that remained was how this could be accomplished without raising the suspicions of all the Dementors. While the Iogulus Patronus Charm could kill them, it took significant magical strength and power to do so with a single charm. That was why Aurors tended to mass cast on a single target. That and the Ministry was not going to sign the death warrants of the Dementors for two reasons: The first was that doing so would drive the Dementors straight in Voldemort's arms. The second was the wizarding world slept at night because the Dementors guard Azkaban. The irony was not lost on any of those at the meeting. Harry made a note to have a chat with Fudge about the Dementor problem.

The remaining days of the summer holiday were spent making the usual preparations for a return to Hogwarts, something Harry found himself more and more against doing. He failed to see how writing essays could be of any use to him at all. At the end of the day, if he killed Voldemort, he would be able to walk into any job in the British Wizarding World. If he died, then it really did not matter how many NEWTS and Owls he had. The same would hold true for most of the Legion Core, and could possibly extend to the Legion as a whole. If they survived this, then they would be looking at careers in law enforcement.

Diagon Alley was under heavy guard, as were the other crucial centers of wizarding life across the country. The heavy presence of Aurors on the wizarding streets no doubt served to help reinforce the calm of the public as students from first-years through to those entering their seventh and final year at Hogwarts, but Harry could not help but wonder what Voldemort was planning to do next.

The Squib population had taken a significant hit as well: Over a hundred had been killed since the beginning of the summer and their cumulative deaths had been noticed. What had pleased Harry to no end however was that a few such families had managed to get their hands on hunting shotguns and had defended themselves to the last. They were unsung heroes who had taken half a dozen Death Eaters with them. If only they had been the real thing and not more of those damned Effingus.

For all the factions involved, the last few days of the summer passed quietly and without incident. But Voldemort was just waiting for the time to be right: Everything else, everyone else, was already in place. They but awaited his final command to execute what would essentially be the war-winning assault against the Ministry, Diagon Alley, Gringotts, St. Mungos, and several other choice targets, simultaneously. And those loyal to him would know in advance that a portkey, Floo, or Apparation would be the preferred methods of travel to Hogwarts for the coming school year: Only muggle-born filth, half breeds, and blood traitors were on board the Hogwarts Express along with a number of Professors.

Giving credit where credit is due, the Ministry had assigned two full teams of Aurors mounted on brooms to fly as escorts. However, calling them two full teams was something of an understatement, given that recent casualties had forced the Ministry to re-designate the size of their teams as eight instead of the standard twelve. Harry was pleased: Fudge seemed to have managed to get his head out of his ass, or he had some very good people now advising him on what to do, even if he had refused point blank to remove the Dementors from Azkaban.

Somewhere a clock chimed, fifteen minutes till eleven. Surrounded by his friends, they passed through the barrier onto Platform 93/4. For the first time, he could ever remember, Harry found himself dreading the start of another school year. Where Hogwarts had once been a bastion of his hopes, dreams, and happiest memories, there was little left of that happiness and good times, given the events of the last two years.

Harry studied the shiny red locomotive, and it threw his mind back to his first year, the first time he had seen the Hogwarts Express. With a start, something fell into place: How in the world could Mrs. Weaseley have forgotten the platform number for the Hogwarts Express? It was the only magical train platform in London! Not only that, but she had been sending her children to Hogwarts for at least a decade before Harry even entered the wizarding world! Something he was going to have to discuss with Dumbledore if the opportunity ever presented itself. The darker possibility, or possibilities for that matter, simply did not occur to him.

His presence had brought a dead stop to all activity on the platform. Parents and the students, all of them were staring at him. Recent events were on everyone's mind and the crowd parted respectfully as he moved towards the Express. Harry boarded the train, but for the life of him, could not get over the feeling of foreboding that dogged his every step. He took a seat in one of the compartments in the center of the train, and his friends piled in behind him, quickly expanding the space within the compartment to accommodate them comfortably. There was a shrill whistle followed by the sharp jerk one associated with the train pulling out of the station, beginning its journey North to Hogsmeade.

In Malfoy Manor, the Dark Lord watched the final preparations of his army of Death Eaters. However, his thoughts were focused on the overall progression of his campaign. Granted, they had already made good progress in eliminating the squibs that tainted the country, but Harry Potter was proving to be a significantly more tenacious foe than he had imagined. The battle at Grimmauld Place had proven that Harry had a strong cadre of followers, and the Order of the Phoenix was proving to be as large a thorn in his side now as it had posed during the first war.

However, the Dementors had proven to be a very effective terror weapon against the muggle population, though the Ministry had demonstrated that it was far from completely spineless, having reacted with unmatched speed. The Director of Magical Law Enforcement was listening to the advice of his deputy, Amelia Bones. Another thorn in his side: It had taken a significant number of Galleons to arrange her impeachment through the various pureblood families of the Wizengamot. Harry had played a smaller but still significant role in driving the Dementors away from Newcastle, and it spoke volumes of just how well his faction was trained and equipped. He had pondered the source of Harry's funding but quickly came to the conclusion that he was spending his family's wealth.

The Patronus glided through the walls of the Manor. He recognized the bat form almost immediately and the smooth, yet somehow still subservient voice with its oily undertones gave him the news he had hoped to hear: Potter and his friends were aboard the Express which had just begun its journey.

"Death Eaters!" he said in a near whisper. Still, all activity stopped, awaiting his next command, "Attack. Take no prisoners and leave none alive." With any luck, the attack would proceed as planned, wiping out Harry Potter, his friends, and the Hogwarts Express within a matter of minutes. Once he was dead, they would make their assault upon the Ministry of Magic itself and slaughter the upper echelons of the wizarding government in one fell swoop, giving him complete control of the country in a matter of hours. As much as he would have enjoyed killing Harry James Potter with his own wand - as it were - he understood full well that his presence at the assault upon the Ministry would ensure it fell that much faster, and sowed even more terror across the country. What better way to secure the start of his reign than by removing all oppositions... well, nearly all opposition: Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix would remain a threat, but one that could be easily marginalized and dealt with when the time came.

The Express made its way steadily north and they were perhaps halfway to Hogwarts when a knock came at the door. The knock certainly ruled out the possibility of Draco and his henchmen making their annual visit. The door slid open smoothly, and Harry was more than a little surprised to find his Charms Professor, Flitwick standing in the doorway, "Good morning, Professor Flitwick," said Luna, greeting her Head of House.

The diminutive charms instructor smiled warmly, "Good Morning Miss Lovegood. Ladies, gentlemen" he said, greeting the others, "I take it your summer has been... an interesting one."

"Interesting is not quite the right word for it," said Neville quietly, "What are you doing on board, Sir?"

"Professor Dumbledore felt that a little extra security on the Express would not be unwarranted, given recent events," he said in a reassuring voice, "Professors McGonagall, Vector, and several others are also aboard." Flitwick frowned and excused himself to deal with a number of students who were in the corridor, waving their wands about themselves.

"Exploding Snap?" suggested Colin pulling out a deck of cards. The game proceeded with all of them taking turns to get their fingers burned or their eyebrows singed or partially obliterated whenever the stack of cards exploded. It seemed unfair that Ginny had the lightest touch, always avoiding being the one to detonate the stack, even when it was smoldering. "How do you do it?" asked Colin who was nursing a pair of burned fingers.

She simply grinned, and laid down another card, "Practice," she replied.

Luna laid her card upon the pile as gingerly as she could. There was pin-drop silence before an explosion rang out. The train lurched and the stack of cards exploded upwards and outwards, showering them with flaming cards. They quickly came to the same conclusion and within moments had shed their bulky robes. Nobody was surprised that everyone was clad in full war gear beneath their robes.

Harry tapped the ring with his wand and dashed off a message as he caught sight of Professor McGonagall hurrying down the length of the train. Swinging open the carriage door he called out to her, "Professor, what's going on?"

"Death Eaters!" she replied as she slammed open a window, pushed herself through the opening, and unleash a cutting curse, "They have engaged the Aurors and taken out the Locomotive!" She ducked back inside as a curse tore through the wooden wall of the carriage. The walls of the carriages were at least a foot thick, but that clearly was not going to protect them from the upcoming assault. Another curse punched through the wall, and two windows were blown out raining glass onto the floor.

"The students," said Neville suddenly, "When we were getting on... there were so few of us remember? I hardly saw any of the senior Slytherins. And a lot of other people... weren't there either."

"It's one heck of an ambush," said Colin, "... I don't think any of us are meant to survive this." The train was rolling to a halt, "We're sitting ducks."

"I'm starting to hate," growled Harry, as a curse blasted in through the window, "how they always seem to have the initiative." From a broken window he launched a spell chain of blasting hexes and cutting curses in a wide swatch. He hit nothing, but at least it sent a clear message that they were not going down without a fight as a small copse of trees were obliterated.

"We can't hold here!" shouted Harry as he studied the battlefield. Overhead, the Aurors and Death Eaters continued to duel in midair on brooms. They had to move, he realized: All of them. Anyone left in the train would get an Avada Kedevra - if they were lucky. The copse of trees was the edge of a small wood. Almost fifty meters of open ground for them to cover, but for the moment, the Death Eaters were still too busy with the Aurors. Only two or three dozen effingus blocked their path. Harry pointed his wand at his throat and cast a Sonorus Charm, "Legion!"

Over two hundred voices roared back. A good sign: Their blood was up and choleric. They'd fight like demon-possessed lunatics, "Anyone who cares to take a stand for the Light: This is your time. Those of you that do not wish to fight, make your way to the woods when signaled!"

The wood stood in the middle of a large open field. It was better than their current cover: It was thick enough that fliers would not have a chance of hitting them from above, and they would hopefully be able to fortify it well enough to hold until the Aurors, and - Merlin help him - the Order of the Phoenix showed up. He tapped his ring, and his orders made their way to everyone. He waited, letting precious seconds they could ill afford pass. Along the length of the train, walls exploded and windows shattered, raining wood and glass on the students. The junior years were already hugging the floor and covering themselves with their robes, screaming in terror.

No time. There was never enough time, he realized, "Legion! Execute one!"

The doors swung and more than half the students streamed from the train, a mad dash to the relative safety of the woods. Those that stayed behind maintained a steam stream of curses and hexes. They threw everything they had from mundane schoolyard jinxes to those that were outright deadly. Harry and the Legion Core held their fire, watching and waiting. Sure enough, a Death Eater poked his head out. Colin blew him apart with a well-placed blasting curse without breaking stride as he dived into the woods. There were still a number of Legionnaires exposed in the open, "Shift fire! Shift fire skywards!" shouted Ginny.

She had spotted the airborne threat long before anyone. Small wonder, given that she was the Gryffindor Seeker, and had blown one Death Eater off his broom with a powerful wind charm. They were forced to split their attention, keeping the Death Eaters on the ground pinned in place. If the fliers were free to carry out strafing runs that meant the Aurors were slain.

The ring on Harry's hand grew warm. "Execute two!" he shouted. They abandoned the train, as the first half of the Legion to cross the treacherous open ground laid down covering fire from the relative safety of the woods. Harry was one of the last off the train, ensuring that nobody had been left behind or forgotten, and not a moment too soon. He was barely ten feet away when a pack of Death Eaters swooped down; unleashing a barrage of blasting and exploding curses that systematically obliterated the carriages of the Hogwarts Express, leaving matchsticks and kindling. The shockwave from the blast picked him up and bodily hurled him halfway across the gap. It was never the getting blown off your feet part that hurt, Harry mused as he spun head over heels through the air. It would be the landing.

He cast a quick cushioning charm, which worked well enough to prevent him from hitting the ground with bone-shattering force. It did not, however, prevent him from bouncing and landing in an undignified heap on the ground, several feet in front of his cushioning charm, but also several feet closer to a better grade of cover. Stunned for a moment, he voiced no complaint as several people dashed forward and dragged him into the cover of the trees, just as a pair of killing curses slammed into the ground, turning the grass a sickly grey before it turned to ash. He absently noted a silver streak shoot out of the woods, heading south towards London. Somebody, he was pleased to note, had thought of summoning reinforcements.

"Sitrep!" yelled Colin, as a wave of red and green light flashed into the woods at chest height. Not that it mattered; everyone was crawling around on their hands and knees, moving at incredibly high speed like a race of invertebrates. Nobody questioned Colin taking charge as the legionnaires set to work, converting the small dense stand of trees to a solid set of blockhouse-like fortifications that included plastering the entire area with as many wards as possible. They herded the junior students to the center, where they were arguably the safest. Out of the six hundred students actually on the train, about a third of that number was Legionnaires. If only the others would actually pick up their wands and fucking fight!

Harry abruptly sat up, "Anybody get the number of the truck?" he asked, shaking the cobwebs from in front of his eyes. There was a chuckle amongst the students at that as he held out his hand and wordlessly summoned his fallen wand to him. "Where are the professors?"

"Holding the other side of the wood with about a third of the Legion, they've got a lighter, almost screening force over there: They're happy to pin us here." replied Colin, "Luna's up in the trees with about three dozen, sniping and just generally giving them a hard time." The woods were warded up to the nines; they had good solid cover in and amongst the trees. The Death Eaters however were out in the open, and Luna had reported at least two hundred Death Eaters out in the field, they were scattered and spread out.

"No mercy, no prisoners," he thought savagely, "Fucking effingus." He shook his head, "That's not a screening force. That force is an anvil. The fuckers out there," he gestured vaguely towards the charred ruin of the express, "Are the hammer. We're smack dab in the middle."

The Legionnaires in the treetops employed blasting hexes and bombardment curses like grenades to keep the enemy from regrouping. A few used the Piercing Charm, almost like a sniper rifle to bring down lone Death Eaters. It was working as the followers of the Dark Lord were so busy dodging and throwing up temporary shields that they could not bring their full firepower to bear on the woods.

It did not take the Death Eaters long to realize that they could not advance so long as they were being sniped and harassed. Suddenly, almost forty Death Eaters raised their wands and unleashed a barrage of cutting and piercing hexes. Luna, who had orchestrated the unorthodox tactics, realized the threat, "Down! Down!"

She leaped as the trees she had been perched on came apart in a shower of knife-like splinters. She hit the ground and rolled. Others escaped the counter volley, but Jillian McDaniel, Steven Crawfoot, and Sean Corvin were literally blown out of their perches and smashed into the ground. A chorus of shouts, screaming "Man down!" or "Healer!" rang out almost immediately.

Russell Eugene Nolan was one of those who had opted to learn the healing arts and had waited silently, praying that his forte would not be needed. Recent events had proved that was not to be. The ground was ruined by so many fallen students, the curses and hexes that had scarred the terrain, making it look as if the entrails of the earth itself had been blown out and exposed. He moved towards the closest voice screaming "Healer! Healer!"

"I have it!" yelled another, scrambling across the open ground. A Legionnaire was holding someone down to prevent them from tearing a half a tree branch from their shoulder.

'This is what hell looks like,' Russell thought. He had first trained under Ginny Weasely in the Room of Requirement, then under the Goblins at Potter Manor. In both cases, he had seen the wounds, smelt the blood, and even tasted it. This was a full-scale battlefield, and he had only ever read a few texts on the subject. The death and injury were shocking enough. But what truly struck him to the core was the raging fury that was utterly callousness of the wounding, the pain, and the hurt. "Healer!"

He dropped to his knees, pulled open his kit of potions and supplies, and set to work, diagnosing, numbing, treating, and healing. "Guess I didn't duck in time," whispered Cho Chang with a weak sort of smile. It took only a minute and she was ready to return to battle.

Every time he thought he had seen a horror of war, the horrors of war, he would move to the next cry of "Healer!" and he would see some new horror. He shuddered, and wondered how Harry James Potter, could possibly be sane after everything that he had done in his life, "Healer!"

He waved, "Stay in cover! I'm coming!"

With a roar, the Death Eaters charged.

Ginny had sat in near meditative silence for several minutes and then her eyes had snapped open. She rose, wand in hand, and began to chant in the harsh guttural syllables of the Goblin Language. Those in the know recognized the spell as one of Geomancy. The rest simply stared as the ground absorbed her magic, cracked, and began to rumble. Neville recognized and understood what she was trying to do. He placed his hand atop hers, adding his magic to the spell.

Sweat was already beading upon Ginny's forehead, and her breathing was fast and shallow. The sheer enormity of what she was attempting could kill her, but she pushed on, sparing a moment to give Neville a smile of thanks. One he returned in kind. The jagged scar in the earth widened and deepened until it was almost ten feet across, and even deeper than that.

The wild unchecked charge of the Death Eaters was their own downfall, literally as the first ranks stumbled to a halt, only to be pushed forwards, and over the edge by their fellows who could not see the danger. Ginny slumped to the ground, soaked in sweat. Neville stumbled as her weight dragged him down. There was no denying he was feeling the drain as well, "Healer!" he screamed. Russell shouted back and like the rest of his kin, made like a high-speed invertebrate, scuttling on his hands and knees towards the pair.

"Fire one!" Some three hundred students opened up throwing everything from stunners to blasters, reductors, cutting, piercing, and bombardment charms. Hard on the heels of the first barrage, they took a moment to gather themselves and prepared to cast another spell chain. Just like they had trained. The first was spells designed to disrupt shields and shattered any conjured defenses.

"Fire two!" The Legionnaires cast, with intent to kill: Entrails expelling, bone crushers, pulverizing charms, blood boiling hexes, skinning charms, and from the Legion Core, five sickly green Avada Kedevra curses.

The sheer volume of magic did not kill as much as vaporize the Death Eaters. Over half their number lay slain on the battlefield or at the bottom of the gorge. The Death Eater commander recognized the futility of a frontal assault and signaled a withdrawal to the still burning Hogwarts Express. They would have cover there as he ordered half his remaining strength to circle, join up with their force on the other side of the wood, and assault from that direction.

Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting Harry looked around to check on the condition of his forces. Multiple injured... several were dead.... and they were stuck here. All they had done was push back the time of their death. Colin had taken to the trees, not to engage but to scout the enemy with a pair of ominculors. For the third time in his short life, he felt fear, but managed to keep it from his voice, "Enemy reinforcements! Portkey and apparition near the Express! Twenty, thirty... still incoming!" He clambered up to a higher branch, "Assault force regrouping on the far side, sixty plus.... seventy-plus... North line has a party of thirty or forty... flankers from Express side! Two-seventy-degree con.... fuck it! Contact is three-sixty! Contact approaching…" A dark green curse flew through the tree, narrowly missing him as leaves and branches died. He leaped for the ground as another killing curse swept through the tree, blasting the trunk of the tree, screaming as he fell, "Contacts approaching from all sides!"

The sheer volume of incoming fire forced them all to take cover. Only a few were crazy enough to brave the incoming storm, firing back at any target they could find, missing more often than not. They needed to regain the initiative, but by Colin's count, there were over three hundred Death Eaters surrounding them. What frustrated Harry was that he had the numbers! He had six hundred students! The only problem was that only a third were Legion trained. The bigger problem was that less than half of them had experienced the hellish nightmare of combat.

Death Eater Walden Macnair, commander of this attack had gone through several different emotional states in the past thirty minutes. He had been delighted when six of the Aurors and the locomotive of the Express had been reduced to molten slag. Things had gotten even better when the brats, blood traitors, and muggle-born vermin, had fled the train and headed for the woods. Things had become... complicated at that point, and then things had gotten completely out of hand. He simply could not fathom the fact that mere school children had been able to hold up so many Death Eaters. There were hundreds of them! Well... there were hundreds more children, but they were only children! It simply wasn't fair!

He was doing his level best but he was being outsmarted by children! He snap-apparated around the wood, in time to rejoin his forces as they advanced, this time doing it smart: They were using shields to cover their advance. They were still dying but still, they were closing the gap. Macnair grinned beneath his mask: It would not be long now. So many filthy muggle-borns... so many filthy little muggle-born girls. He would have his fun with them when the time came.

A beam of light shot down from the heavens and landed in the woods. Macnair frowned and called a halt to the advance. He looked around himself and nodded, more to reassure himself than anything else. In the middle of fifty Death Eaters, he could not be much safer than that.

The silver beam slapped the ground and immediately began to take shape. He had never seen a creature quite like it. It looked like a dog crossed with an armadillo. It turned to face Harry and he noted the incredibly long claws, and then teeth.

"Kerashaw," said Luna with just a hint of a grin, "Told you they were real."

They are real, but this was a Patronus messenger of the Goblins. It nodded and the voice of Griphook echoed from it, "The Axe Masters and Swordwind Blades are to the South. The Twins are with us. We will require a distraction to close the distance."

"Illusions," said Colin, "we just send them out in a suicide charge."

Harry nodded, "Do it," he turned to Russell, their current healer in charge, "how bad?"

"Eighteen dead, twenty-six with severe injuries. Forty-nine more wounded."

A flashback to the infirmary in the manor. He only hoped that the goblin healers he had on his staff were ready to deal with so many incoming wounded. No doubt Griphook had made them aware of the situation.

He handed a stack of what looked like post-its. They were the same type of portkey that the Ministry had used to evacuate the muggles when Northumbria had been nearly overrun by Dementors. Harry would be the first to admit that just because the Ministry was mostly brain dead or damaged, it did not mean that they didn't come up with an original idea once in a while. And there was no shame in copying a good idea. "One on each," he instructed, "When the wards drop, you get the injured... and the dead out of here. These single-use Portkey's will pass through the Manor wards no problem."

"Colin, on your mark."

The youngest of the Legion Core, one of the youngest Legionnaires, in fact, nodded. Somehow it came as no surprise that Colin had drawn the duty. He tapped his own ring and sent out instructions of his own; he waited a moment and then tapped his ring again before casting his own illusion.

A hundred illusionary Legionnaires charged from the woods out into the open field. The Death Eaters were stunned for a moment but opened with a furious barrage. Harry dropped the wards and Russell, along with several others portkeyed out, taking the wounded and the fallen with them. Harry turned his full attention to the fight: There was nothing left to do now, but kill them all.

The Axe Masters and Swordwind Blades had used the distraction to close until they were quite literally on top of the Death Eaters before making their presence known. In the first seconds, dozens of Death Eaters fell, struck down by both blade and spell. Walden Macnair was tossed forward as a bone breaker slammed in him, shattering his pelvis, dropping him to the ground where he screamed in agony, his wand rolling across the grassy ground.

A Goblin ended his suffering with a quick swing, decapitating the marked Death Eater. It was one stroke with an axe that radically altered the face of the battle. Across the field, dozens of Death Eaters stopped and began to scream in agony, as if they were all simultaneously being put under the Cruciatus Curse. But this was no curse. It was a long-held fact that should Voldemort die; all of his marked servants would also perish. It was why the Death Eaters had survived his defeat - not death - in 1981, the night he had tried to kill an infant Harry Potter. It was how the Death Eaters had known that their master was alive, in some fashion, for so many years before he returned some two years before. The Effingus Death Eaters are magical copies of the original, crafted through a blend of magic, alchemy, and muggle science - not that Voldemort would ever admit the last part even if he was on his death bed. But the same principle held true: With the death of the original, the copies also died - slower and far more agonizing deaths as the magic which sustained them faded, causing their bodies to decompose from the inside out.

Though they had no way of knowing it, they had just turned the tide at several other battles raging across the wizarding world at that particular moment.

Harry breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the wounded vanished, whisked away by Portkey to where the best healers money could quite literally buy were waiting. "Let's finish this," he said, turning, he strode out of the trees and into the whirling chaos of battle.

The Goblins had quite literally done a number on the Death Eaters, and the fighting was almost exclusively one-sided as the Goblin's fanned out, adopting a crescent with the points forward. Suddenly, the Death Eaters were the ones caught between a hammer of the Swordwind Blades and Axe Masters and the anvil of Legionnaires. The fighting would be over in minutes.

Death Eater Daniel Milnes was a recent inductee to the cause of the Death Eaters. So much so that this was his first battle alongside his marked brethren. The recent graduate of Ravenclaw house had never given a thought to how it was to die. He had been an ardent Quidditch fan and had played on his house team for his last three years at Hogwarts. He had joked with his friends that whatever lay beyond this life, was a nonstop, never-ending Quidditch pitch where every match was the World Cup Final and that they would always be on the winning team.

He had watched two of his friends, also Ravenclaws die. One was eviscerated by some curse, the other had his wand arm, followed closely by his head hacked off by a Goblin in silver-trimmed armor, wielding a pair of short scimitars. The clamor of battle was close, the screams and cries of the combatants on both sides. The smell of blood and death was rancid and thick in the air.

His wand arm was shattered: Every bone pulverized by a bone-breaking curse. The pain was something he had no experience with, and as he lay there, he cried. There was nothing beautiful, right, or pure about the cause he had supported for the past eight months, first quietly as a student of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and then as an adult wizard.

He could see the curses flash over his prone form as he looked up at the sky. He could see the smoke from the burning Express out of the corner of his eye, and he found himself wishing that he had died in the air as he closed his eyes, perhaps for the last time on the cold hard unforgiving ground. He could only lie there and wait for death to come. They were a lot closer now: he could hear the swish and crack of spellfire, of snap-apparition. Yes, death was very close. He couldn't help but wonder if death would come from a spell or from a Goblin blade, and found himself wondering which one would be... quicker? More merciful? He sighed and waited.

Ignoring the dried-out husks of the fallen Effingus, Colin stalked amongst the bodies, making sure that the "dead" were well and truly dead. The Goblins had taken more than their fair share of "trophies", but most were desiccated husks. Nearly the entire assault force had been Effingus Death Eaters, except for perhaps two dozen-odd bodies.

Some of the Legionnaires were in tears as they recognized the bodies of friends, and former housemates: All of them were recent graduates. What was worse perhaps was that they all bore the Dark Mark upon their right arm, just below the elbow. For Milnes, every bone from fingertip to collarbone- shattered. Fitting after a fashion. The pain was there, but it had subsided to a dull throbbing that ate away at the edges of his mind. At least, that was all it was until something kicked his arm, causing him to moan in pain.

"Got a live one here!" shouted Colin, and he could clearly see the Dark Mark imprinted on the young man's forearm. Someone, he thought grimly, who had completely chosen the wrong side. "Fucked with the wrong group of kids didn't you, Death Eater?"

Colin knelt next to what was, in his mind one of the most repulsive forms of human life on the planet, "You want me to kill you? Death Eater scum? Spare you Azkaban and the Dementors?" Danial would have moved, would have shaken his head were it not for his shattered arm and shoulder that made even the simple act of breathing agonizing, "Here's the good news: I'm not going to kill you." Colin rose, and pointed his wand at him, "I'm going to bind you and leave you for the Aurors to find - if they ever fuckin' show up!"

He flicked his wand, a quick up and down motion as a length of rope shot from the end of his wand. A shield snapped in place over the fallen Death Eater. The ropes bounced off and coiled loosely at the wounded Death Eater's side. "No," said Luna firmly.

"Luna? The hell?" he asked,

"He's wounded," she said.

"Yeah, he's wounded. He's also the enemy who would not hesitate to kill you if he could use his wand right now. He's a Death Eater, a scum follower of Voldemort!" he snarled, his wand still pointed at the prone figure.

"He's a soldier," agreed Luna, "He's also a human being. If we descend to their level, then we're no better than they are." Colin met his girlfriend's gaze, and to those watching, it was clear that an unspoken conversation was taking place between them. "Killing him won't bring back my father. Killing him, won't bring back your family. Don't become the animal that he is," Luna declared, a tear rolling down her cheek, "Please."

Finally, Colin nodded, "I'm keeping my wand on him. He so much as looks at you wrong, I'll kill him."

She nodded and knelt next to him, "May I look at your arm?" Daniel looked up into a pair of silver-grey eyes. He recognized her almost instantly. There was no doubt that this was the same Luna Lovegood he had called "Loony" for years. He nodded his head slightly, unable to speak. She cast a numbing charm, and set to work, gently immobilizing the shattered limb. He glanced over and saw Colin standing with his wand barely three inches from his head. "Did that hurt?" she asked with concern.

"No…no, it's alright," he answered in a whisper

"That should take care of you until you can get proper medical attention," she said, rising to her feet.

He raised his eyes and locked them onto hers. "Thank you," he said sincerely, "Who... are you people?"

She bound him with ropes, "We, are Legion." replied Luna. Moments later, there was a jerk behind his navel and he vanished in a whirlwind of color and sound.

The Hogwarts Express had burned until only the twisted, blackened remains of its steel chassis remained. But the Legion had wasted no time once the battle was done: They had secured their few prisoners and continued their journey North, towards Hogwarts via a rather circuitous route involving a trip back to London via Portkey, followed by Floo travel to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade.

It had caused no small amount of pandemonium when six Legionnaires had exploded out of Madame Rosemerta's fireplace, ready to blast her bar into smithereens. Harry James Potter, Boy-Who-Lived was the seventh person to emerge from the said fireplace, "Sorry for the disturbance Rosey," he said, "But afraid that your Floo is going to get one heck of a workout today: We've got about three hundred and fifty kids coming through this way." She did a passable goldfish impression as her mind struggled to process the sheer number of people involved. "Might I ask you to send word to whoever's waiting at the station that we're going to need the carriages at the Leaky Cauldron this year?"

No one had anticipated the incredible traffic jam that resulted as more than one student stopped to simply gawk at the creatures harnessed between the shafts of the carriage: The senior years seem to bear up to the scrutiny of a Hippogriff quite well, those first and second years caught up in the fight, who had quite accidentally seen death, did not handle it so well. Madame Pomfrey would be handing out an incredible amount of calming draught that evening.

Harry cast a Tempus spell: twenty-six minutes since the attack on the Express. No Aurors? That struck him as strange. What struck him as even stranger still was that Dumbledore himself had not arrived to investigate, never mind the Order of the Phoenix. Harry blinked as the pieces fell in place. There was no way that this was an isolated assault. He would have hit multiple targets.

He saw a beam of silver land next to Susan Bones, and deliver a message to her. "Harry!" she shouted. She ran to him, her face paler than bleached bone, "Death Eaters," she whispered, "My aunt… they've burned Auror Command to the ground!"