Chapter 39: Chapter 39 – Silver Shines As Brightly As Gold
Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 39 – Silver Shines As Brightly As Gold
There had been a hive of activity on the grounds following the announcement of an alliance by Cho. Many people were not at all happy about it, especially the few people who had lost friends to the spiders in the past, but the decision had been taken and the ghosts and portraits all supported her decision so that was final and those that objected had to stand down. The battlefield that was the lawn and the edge of the forest was left for the acromantulas to clean up how they would really have left it so as to make it look more accurate, they hoped that the escaped reservists or one of those at the Ministry had come to the conclusion that the first battlefield aftermath was probably a trap by the acromantulas in order to lure in more prey.
A lot more people than had initially objected to the alliance objected even more to the reservist aurors being eaten by the spiders but the jedi did what they did best and came to an agreement with the Prime to make sure that from now on those in the reserve auror robes would only be bitten and injected with enough venom to knock them unconscious which was apparently something that the spiders did to keep their food fresh. This agreement was only passed when it was also agreed that if the reserve aurors failed to pass a test of a magical oath that they were pressured into joining up that they were to be held until the government could be properly re-established and if they attempted to escape then the spiders could eat them. Almost everyone found this distasteful but it was either that, kill them all on sight or kill them immediately once they had been identified as enemies, this highly controversial argument was only stopped when one of the Sanctuary's older residence who had worked as a secretary in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement during the first war and then under Madam Bones before he retired had pointed out that Madam Bones's and her predecessors objections to trying to arrest and detaining Death Eaters for trial that they had caught after attacks as most of them dodged Azkaban by way of blackmail, bribery or claims of being under an unforgivable and went back out to offend again. Madam Bones had further said that arresting Death Eaters was all well and good but if they ever got out of Azkaban on mass like Crouch did then they would re-join the surviving Death Eaters and would resume terrorising the public which was exactly what had happened at the start of the war. Madam Bones and her predecessors had also said that it would be a much greater deterrent to people joining the Death Eater ranks if the law was changed so that the punishment for terrorism was death or the Kiss, if not for first time offenders at least for recaptured escapees. The realisation that the agreement with the spiders was virtually the same as this recommendation by multiple former directors of the auror force silenced most of the objectors.
It was quite a shock that within one hour of the failed attack that news came from Daphne's informants that almost the entire Ministry was being mobilised; Minister Malfoy has been furious when the reservist reported what had happened and was organising every inquisitor, auror, reserve auror and Ministry worker he could spare to march on the Forbidden Forest to wipe out the acromantula colony. The Prime had been overjoyed to hear this despite the reservations of the humans of the castle, though he was less enthusiastic when they added aurors & Ministry workers to the list of capture rather than kill targets, either way there was going to be a very big fight in the near future.
Later that day Harry, Hermione and Daphne were chosen to lead a scouting mission into Hogsmeade to see what the gossip on the street was and to see if they could get any more details of the impending attack, they were accompanied by three other castle defenders who after the trip through the Shrieking Shack tunnel and a pass along the main street through the town peeled off and headed for the Three Broomsticks while the trio headed for the Hogs Head, a much more dark and disgusting pub but a good place to pick up gossip or at least it was with liberal use of extendable ears and Force enhanced senses.
Hogsmeade was quite different to what it had been, unlike before where it had been a reasonable happy and normal village it was now somehow darker as if the presence of the supposedly dead castle nearby had sucked a lot of the life out of the place.
As soon as the group entered the inn, all heavily cloaked with a good use of cosmetic charms to disguise themselves in case they were forced to lower their hoods, Harry realised that this pub was going to be quite like a lot of the not so nice bars on and below the ground level of Coruscant; filthy, dark, undesirable and filled with people that could be described the same way.
After ordering drinks, firewhisky for Harry and gillywater for the girls in order to not make them look like children ordering butterbeer, they found a table in a dark corner of the pub and huddled inwards, their drinks there more for show than for thirst quenching.
The group talked quietly to each other for a while, observing the other patrons to see if they did anything unusual or spoke of anything of interest, each quietly using extendable ears that Hermione had thought to get disillusioned before they left so that it would be even harder to notice them as they crept towards their targets.
There were not more than half a dozen people in the Hogs Head which was currently quite empty, according to Daphne the landlord had expanded it when the Ministry was taken over as a lot of the less nice members of society including the now exonerated Inquisitors were patrons of the establishment.
A group of four inquisitors, none of them wizards or witches of any real rank or renown, were seated at one table boasting about tracking down and 'persuading' a group of escaped Muggleborns to reveal the locations of other blood-thieves, at the bar sat a couple of shifty looking characters looking around wearily especially at the group of inquisitors and talking to the bearded landlord who Harry seemed to recall someone talking about in the past but what about completely escaped him. A couple of older gentlemen who looked mostly harmless were having a game of wizarding chess at one table and lastly there was a group of three cloaked figures in the opposite corner of the pub that kept drawing Harry's attention.
He could tell from the faint depressions in the dirt covered floor that Hermione's and Daphne's ears were firmly pointed at the inquisitors which meant just Harry was focusing on the strange trio who if he had to describe them were concealed and acting almost the same as Harry and Co. were which only enhanced Harry's concerns.
"D?" he asked using the names or in this case abbreviations that they had arranged to disguise their identities should anyone overhear their conversation.
"Yes James?" she replied, not changing her eye line that was staring between him and Hermione towards the door.
"It was only the two groups that were sent into town wasn't it?"
"Yes, why do you ask?"
"Because the group at my two o'clock and your six are acting very similarly to us and I believe that they are aware of us the same way we are aware of them."
Hermione who had her back to the door and who could see the group from her position adjusted slightly so that she could get a look at them.
"They do seem to be scouting the place as we do; in fact if I am not mistaken I can even see an extendable ear running down from their table.
As soon as the words were out of Hermione's mouth the other trio flinched before one gestured to the exit and the trio after throwing a couple of coins at the landlord as they passed the bar headed straight for the exit.
"Next time remind me to whisper," groaned Hermione.
"Next time remind me to cast a privacy charm," corrected Harry.
"We need to follow them in case they are enemy spies and they realise where we are from," announced Daphne standing and dropping a couple of coins on the table as soon as the door was closed behind the other trio before leading the others out of the pub to a curious look from the landlord before he went back to cleaning a tankard.
Outside the door the trio looked around to see if they could see any sign of the unknown group. Hermione and Harry both exchanged a look before closing their eyes and focusing for a second before as one looking to their right.
"That way," Hermione advised before the trio started walking in that direction, each palming their wands, the padawans keeping their lightsabers hidden so as not to make it easy for anyone they encountered to figure out who they were or where they were from, they didn't really want to have to use their wands either as a fight would no doubt draw unwanted attention but it was better than the alternative.
They walked in single file Daphne led them with Hermione in the middle and Harry bringing up the rear. They passed a dark alley between the Hogs Head and the next shop, but just after passing it Harry slowed his steps as some familiar scent entered his nose causing him to pause and focus as he attempted to identify whatever it was as he breathed in deeply.
The others got a few meters ahead of him as he focused on the aroma but was snapped out of his musing as the Force alerted him to an incoming strike, he leaned his upper body to the left just in time as the hand that had been aiming to grab a hand full of his robes caught nothing but air. Unfortunately he was not fast enough to stop two more sets of hands as they grabbed his hair and arm before yanking him into the alley, the shock of which caused him to drop his wand as he stumbled and the back of his hand was hit hard, probably with purpose of making him do so.
He was flung into a wall and held there as the first attack who was taller than the other two threw a fist into his stomach. He reacted in time to stop the next as he Force pushed with one of his hands throwing the person who was holding him there away from him down the alley, the sudden motion and the grip on Harry's sleeve pulled both Harry and his other captor sideways meaning that the next punch missed his stomach and hit his other opponent in the stomach making her, and it was definitely a her from the female gasp of pain at the impart, stumble back into the wall as Harry broke free and tackled the taller enemy directly in front of him knocking them both to the ground in a very undignified scuffle.
He was aware out of the corner of his senses that Hermione and Daphne had entered the fight when as the first opponent had tried to come to the aid of the one he was struggling with she, definitely also female judging from the voice, had her legs knocked out from under her by Hermione's Force powers before the aforementioned jedi jumped over Harry and managed to pin that opponent to the ground while Daphne was having less luck against the last.
Their opponents were obviously not keen to use their wands either in fear of drawing attention as not one of them had thus far had attempted to use any spells but that was not proving of much use to Harry who had been flipped onto his back by his opponent who was physically bigger and stronger than he was, normally this would not have been a problem as Harry could have just thrown him off with the Force but the grip his opponent had on one of his fists and on his other wrist prevented him from sending a blast at him.
Reaching out with his mind Harry tried to win the battle mentally.
"You will release me," he commanded, it was enough as his opponent faltered for a moment allowing Harry to get his mechanical arm free but not for long as another scuffle to restrain each other's arms broke out during which his opponents hand brushed against his forehead and the scar that even good cosmetic charms would annoyingly only conceal for a few hours before failing. No sooner had his opponent touched his scar than he froze giving Harry the chance to punch him with his stronger metal hand before Force pushing him several meters down the alley and quickly regain his feet. As he did so and prepared to use the Force to restrain his opponent said opponent spoke for the first time.
"Harry?"
All motion in the alley instantly stopped as everyone turned to look at either Harry or the male wizard. Harry's mind immediately went into overdrive trying to work out who he had just been fighting as most enemies did not address him by his first name.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The wizard whose concealing hood had fallen away from his face during the fight slowly drew his wand in a cautious non-aggressive manner cast a finite. Harry and the others watched in shock as his face morphed from its disguised appearance of a young man about their age; his skin was dirty from the scuffle on the ground and was showing signs of some early bruising, it also showed several small scars and healing cuts several of which appeared to be reasonably old. His hair was unkempt and hung down in unclean mid-length tangles that partially covered the eyes of a battle worn and older Neville Longbottom.
"N…Nev?" Harry asked in shock cancelling his own disguise allowing his true appearance to become visible. Around the pair the other four released each other and cancelled their own disguises.
Harry barely had time to process what he was seeing in front of him when he felt that same familiar scent return just before a hand landed on his shoulder and spun him round.
In front of him stood a female redhead with long hair and a hardened look upon her face. He barely had time to register the appearance of this much older Ginny Weasley before a wand appeared in her hand and a punching hex hit him square in the face.
It was with a groan that Harry came around a short while later and looked up upon the rock ceiling of a cave that he remembered near Hogsmeade.
"Ouch," was the first thought that came to mind as he opened his eyes and raised his head.
"I would get up slowly if I were you," came a light voice to his left, "My loves been known to give people concussions when she's overpowered spells like that before."
Rolling his eyes slowly in that direction a young woman with dirty blond hair, wide eyes and a pleasant smile came into view.
"Hello?" he said uncertainly.
"Hello," she replied in an almost dreamy sort of voice. "You're Harry Potter."
"Yyeesss, I know," he replied slowly at the odd comment.
"Of course you do, it would be very strange for you not to know your own name wouldn't it," she replied in a completely straight manner.
"Then why did you tell me?"
"You were about to introduce yourself, but as I know who you are I introduced you to me to save you having to."
It took Harry a second to get his head around that one.
"Would it not be more useful for you to tell me your name?"
"I think that would be appropriate at this time," she replied with no hint of humour or sarcasm. "I'm Luna Lovegood, I went to Hogwarts when you were there, you didn't know me then. At least I don't think you knew me, at least I know I didn't know you then but now you know me and I know you so the question is rather redundant now wouldn't you agree."
Harry got the distinct feeling that this nice if rather strangely spoken girl was going to give him a new headache. Sitting up slowly and looking around he realised he was at the back of the cave and they seemed to be alone.
"Where are Hermione and Daphne…And Neville and Ginny?" he demanded, adding the latter two names after remembering who they had been briefly reunited with.
"Hermione and Daphne are on the way back up to the school with Neville. Gin is outside the cave keeping watch; I volunteered to stay to make sure that she did not hurt you before you came around."
Harry was about to ask why Ginny would hurt him before he remembered who it was who had laid him out.
"Why did…" he began before he was cut off by the blond placing a finger on his lips as he attempted to speak.
"You need to talk to her about it," she stated, for the first time since they had started speaking she looked serious. "Just remember she's not the same Ginevra Molly Weasley you knew."
With that she stood up and walked towards the entrance to the cave before pausing and turning back to him again with the slightly dreamy smile on her face.
"Oh by the way, if you intentionally hurt her I will take the horn of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack that I have hanging in my house and I will insert it into your rectum sideways…ok?"
Then without waiting for him to answer and still with the same smile on her face she turned and skipped out of the cave leaving Harry with a lot more questions than answers. It took him a couple of minutes to sort himself out enough to stand and after checking himself over he carefully walked towards the entrance of the cave where he could see the redheaded girl he was told he had to speak to.
He slowly walked out of the cave and down the slope towards the girl who he could see sitting on a rock, further down the slope of the hill he was able to see Luna standing in the tree line giving them the space they need.
As he came up beside her she did not turn to look at him but continued looking straight ahead.
"Ginny?" he asked cautiously.
No sooner was the word out of his mouth than venomous eyes were turned in his direction immediately followed by a wand.
This time they were out of the hearing and sight range of the village so he could afford to use his lightsaber and just as well as a barrage of spells started flying in his direction a lot faster than he would have been able to raise a shield with his wand to deflect them.
"How could you do it Harry?" she demanded in between wordless curses, fury and rage filling her voice. "How could you go off and leave like that? How could you abandon us?"
"I didn't leave to hurt you Ginny," he replied, having to duck around some of the more damaging and dangerous curses heading his way including some that might have killed him if they caught him in the wrong place. "I left because I needed to heal."
"And what about the healing of the rest of us?" she demanded. "What about those of us that were left behind? Did you think that everything would be happy and good when you returned? Did you think that we would have all just moved on?"
"I did think everything would be ok with Voldemort gone," he admitted shamefully.
"Well he's not gone is he," she shouted, her eyes shining from building tears. "He's back and my world has been destroyed because of it."
"That isn't my fault!" he argued back, his anger beginning to break through his jedi training due to what she was trying to heap on him. "I defeated him and I lost my godfather, my only link to my parents, and my best frie-"
"You dare to tell me that your loss is greater than mine!" she shouted in disbelief. "You had known Sirius for one year, ONE YEAR," she cried, tears openly streaming down her face now. "And my brother you had known for less than four."
"Ron was my first friend!" he shouted back, his lightsaber and her wand hung forgotten in their hands as they shouted their sorrows at each other.
"Don't, don't you DARE even speak his name! You don't have the right to say his name or mine after you led him to his death!"
"I didn't lead him Ginny," Harry pressed, ignoring her words. "He came after me; it's what friends do for each other! And because he followed me he ended up dead."
"Oh yes, that's right blame my brother for coming to help you" she replied slightly manically. "And you still think that losing someone who you knew for less than four years was worse than what happened to me. I lost my brother Potter, my BROTHER, I had known him my entire life, he had never not been there... He had always been there and then he was gone...because of you."
She turned slightly away from him as her wand dropped from her hand.
"Then no sooner had that happened then you get arrested and dragged off to prison and I despaired but then I heard Hermione's message to Dumbledore and I rejoiced, I knew that it wouldn't be true, I knew that it was obviously a trick to make them think you had left the planet so they would not be looking for the two of you. It was only a matter of time before you contacted us or that you and Hermione turned up at the Burrow or somewhere where we could find you, I knew that you would not just leave."
Harry's anger had been ebbing away as she vented and now he felt quite ashamed of himself for losing control like that. It had never occurred to him how the others would interpret their absence.
"…But you did, you left us...You left me...without a brother, without friends that I consider to be family...without the man I loved."
Harry's eyes that had dropped to the grass as she spoke snapped back to her at her words, everyone had thought that Ginny's crush had come and gone, he had no idea she had still had feelings for him.
"But I got over it, I got over you...eventually," she sneered turning back to him again with her tear stained face and raging eyes. "So I tried to move on, I got over my love for you...I got over you and Hermione abandoning me and no sooner had that happened when my father, my brother, my future sister-in-law and half my friends and their families get murdered or have to flee into hiding...I died that day Potter...Ginny Weasley died that day. If it wasn't for Neville and Luna I doubt I would even be alive right now. When they told me they had to leave to make sure Voldemort was destroyed for good I was elated, a chance for me to get revenge on the OTHER person responsible for destroying my family or a chance for me to join them."
"I..." Harry tried unsuccessfully for he could think of no words with which to reply to the redhead before him who had once been that sweet girl he had once rescued from the Chamber of Secrets. She was now a grown woman, gone was her sweet smile and bright eyes replacing them were eyes of steel and a face of stone, the innocent Ginny Weasley was well and truly gone.
His moment of distracted sorrow was enough for the punch to get passed his usually alert senses, slamming him in the face and knocking him to the ground.
"I hate you Harry James Potter, I hate you with every fibre of my being and if we did not need you to help us defeat Voldemort then I would likely kill you too," she snarled before leaning in closer to him and saying in a hushed voice of chilling coldness. "I shall never acknowledge your existence again, I shall never speak to you again...You are dead to me, and if you are responsible for any more of my families pain I will make it my life's work to kill you extremely painfully."
With that, her mask of stone once again covering her face, she turned retrieved her wand and started marching towards the Shack in the distance. Still slightly stunned by the hit he did not even get up as Luna ascended the slope back towards him.
"That could have gone better," she remarked, what appeared to be her usual dreamy look back on her face. "It could also have gone a lot worse."
"It didn't seem to go so well for me," Harry groaned getting to his feet and gingerly feeling what was going to become a bruise around his eye.
"You should have a nice shiner in a few hours," Luna remarked, reaching into her pocket before handing him a vial. "Pain reliever, that might look nasty but it doesn't have to feel it."
"Thanks," he nodded before downing the potion and grimacing as he remembered how horrible some of them taste.
"If you know how please don't heal the bruise yet, it would not do for Gin to suspect that I had helped heal what she had just caused."
Looking back towards the rapidly disappearing redhead he turned to her lover. "Did you think that was what was going to happen?"
"I was pretty sure you would end up with at least one bruise, possibly more depending on how skilful you are with a wand or that other weapon of yours."
"Then why did you encourage us to talk?" he asked confused and a little bit annoyed that he now had a bruise that he wasn't 'allowed' to heal and that he didn't need to have.
"Because she had been carrying the anger at you and Hermione around since you left and it's only been getting worse. When I first joined Neville and Ginny they worked together well but as time went on her attitude deteriorated, she started encouraging more aggressive courses of action more violence to achieve our ends when stealth was required. For a time I was able to mediate between them but it got to the point where the two of them had a huge row and when they turned to me to settle the matter despite the fact that I agreed with Neville I had to side with Gin in order to keep her with us although I knew siding with her was the mistake. I knew that if she left us she would have gone off and done something stupid that would either have got her killed or would have got her captured and tortured."
The girl paused for a moment and looked at the ground for a second.
"I...We paid for my mistake. For reasons I won't get into here we had to break into a secure location and in doing so we had to follow Gin's plan because of my choosing her side...We succeeded but in the process of doing so several innocents got seriously injured."
"I'm sorry," Harry apologised, gilt from the redhead's accusations no matter how undeserved was beginning to build in him. "Ginny was right about one thing; it's true we didn't think about what had happened to everyone else we just thought everything would have worked out fine. We never dreamed that while we were off training and flying around the galaxy that our world would have fallen apart."
"It isn't your fault Harry," replied Luna, her sorrow from a moment ago having disappeared in seconds. "She just needed to be able to let off steam, the pressure had been building for months and now that she has vented out on you and Hermione hopefully she will not be so suicidal in her courses of action. I didn't think that the issues would be resolved; I had no delusion of a fight followed by tears forgiveness and a hug but what was said needed to be said for everyone's sake. Let's get back to the castle; I believe they are waiting for us."
"You know I never claimed to be even remotely good at relationships," Harry confessed, as he looked on the younger girl with admiration, "But you are good for Ginny and I'm glad she was able to find someone like you who is willing to go through so much for her."
"I'm lucky to have her," Luna replied smiling. "We are so very different but I think that's what makes us work. We found each other when we needed to and hopefully when this war is over Gin will really be able to start healing and we can move forward."
After collecting the stores that the trio had left in the cave the duo headed down the hill towards the Shrieking Shack and back to the castle. The grounds had almost been completely cleared of inquisitors and reservists by the acromantulas though one or two were, much to the distaste of Harry, still there sucking the juices out of deceased reservists. As they passed Harry could not help wondering who one reservist had been; did he have a wife? Did he have children? Was there someone waiting at home for him to return from this mission that had been his last? And most importantly was he an eager participant in the cruelty? Was he merely a collaborator? Or worst of all was he just a scared victim who had to fight for a cause not his own in order to save himself or others?
As they re-entered the Sanctuary, which was not as full of injured as it had been, they could see that the large table where the jedi had greeted by Cho had been cleared again and around it was gathered the other jedi, Daphne and Neville who were both looking more than a little bit dishevelled, the lipstick marks and slight grin on Neville's face removed any doubt as to why. Also gathered were Cho, Ginny, Eragog who was being eyed with much suspicion by some of the others, a couple of men in cloaks that concealed their appearance and four others. The first of them was a tall bald man wearing brightly coloured battle robes, Fleur Delacour (or Weasley as she now looking just as stunning as ever) was the second, the third was presumably the real Mad-Eye Moody and Molly Weasley was the last who was sending looks that fluctuated between disapproval, worry and wariness at her 'wayward' daughter.
"Oh dear," sighed Luna quietly when they entered, sending worried looks from Ginny to her mother and back. "This won't be pleasant."
The first to notice their entrance, other than Aayla and the jedi who felt them coming, was Fleur who jumped to her feet as soon as they entered ran straight up to Harry and enveloped the very surprised padawan in a tight hug.
"Oh Arry, you are back," she exclaimed happily. "I didn't really believe it before when the others said so; I feared they had imagined it after so long."
"Yes, I'm back," he replied a little unsure as to what to do about the unexpected hugging from the French beauty who he had barely spoken to during the tournament.
Apparently she thinks she owes you a 'life-debt' Harry, his Master spoke down their link.
Owes me what? He asked back just as confused as ever.
For saving her sister during that tournament that you were competing in prior to us leaving the last time. Apparently it's something to do with her 'Veela culture' whatever that is and for obvious reasons she could not repay her debt to you while you were not here. She explained it to us while we were waiting for you.
As Fleur pulled away, but still kept a hold of him, Harry was able to see several of the other new arrivals approaching including the other Mrs Weasley who looked intend on hugging him to death. Thinking that he would like to avoid the usual Mrs Weasley smothering he turned himself around Fleur just as she approached putting the Veela between them but making it look non-deliberate and immediately struck up a conversation to stop Mrs Weasley trying to interrupt.
"I hear congratulations are in order, Bill's a lucky man."
"I'm a lucky woman," she beamed back at him as the others were forced to hang back to avoid themselves looking rude by interrupting.
"Your English is a lot better than the last time I saw you," he remarked, hating using her like this but although the conversation was a little forced at least he was not being insincere, he would certainly have earned a mental prod from his Master if he was.
"Thank you, I thought it best to improve as I now live in this country."
"How's Gabrielle?"
"She's well and doing well at Beauxbatons. She will be so excited when I tell her you are back."
"I'm sorry to break up this deeply heart-warming reunion," interrupted Ginny whose voice included as much sarcasm as Snape use to put into his comments. "But shouldn't we get on? We are expecting an imminent attack after all."
"Yes quite right," agreed Cho, knowingly or unknowingly she managed to stop a sharp word from Mrs Weasley (senior) to her rude daughter.
As he sat beside his Master Harry was able to see for the first time that Hermione like him was also sporting a rather brightly coloured black eye. They exchanged a moment of understanding with a look before they both glanced at Ginny before the meeting kicked off.
"Shall we get started then?" asked Daphne who then went to continue before Mad-Eye spoke up.
"Hang on, how are we," he said gesturing to all the new arrivals, "Supposed to know that this is the same Harry James Potter who left this planet all those years ago? For that matter how do we know that this is the same Hermione Granger either?"
"For Merlin sake Mad-Eye," exclaimed Mrs Weasley, having been distracted from her previous objective of smothering Harry to death with hugs. "You and your paranoia."
"Just because you lot take everything for granted does not mean I have to," he grunted back.
"Who did you live with when growing up?" asked Ginny bluntly not looking away from the table where she was sat.
"My aunt and uncle," Harry replied after a moment's confused hesitation in which he realised the question was directed at him after she had not fifteen minutes ago sworn never to acknowledge him again, apparently getting the meeting over so she could get out of his presence was a higher priority.
"Where was your room before you came to Hogwarts?" she continued still not deeming to look at him.
"In the cupboard under the stairs."
"What happened when we came to collect you from there by floo for the first time?"
"You destroyed the fire place and Dudley's tongue grew because he ate one of the twin's sweats."
"It's him," she stated as if anything else anyone could say on the subject was automatically going to be wrong.
"Very well," Mad-Eye acknowledged reluctantly.
"Everyone please take a seat," requested Cho, trying to bring the meeting back to some form of order.
Slowly everyone retook their places, Eragog for obvious reasons just squatted down at the end of the table.
"Harry," Cho continued, "I have already introduced your Master and her colleagues to everyone, the people you probably do not know are the real Mad-Eye Moody."
The Ex-auror in question just grunted and gave a short nod.
"Kingsley Shacklebolt, former auror and the head of the Order of the Phoenix."
"Mr Potter," he greeted with a slight bow.
"Mr Shacklebolt."
"And these two are Unspeakables from the Department of Mysteries in the Ministry."
The sentence had not even been finished before Harry jumped to his feet with his lightsaber ignited in his hand.
"Good reflexes Mr Potter," complimented one in amusement replied a gravelly voice from under one of the hoods.
"Constant vigilance," agreed Moody.
"Relax Harry," calmed Hermione leaning towards him. "They are from the Ministry but they are not sided with it."
Harry slowly deactivated his lightsaber and retook his seat still eyeing the Unspeakables with suspicion.
"I am Croaker," the one who had already spoken introduced himself. "My colleague does not wish to be identified but he is one of the senior researchers in the DOM. Young Miss Granger is right, we may work in the Ministry but the DOM does not willing go along with the current state of affairs in that building."
Harry went to ask a question but Windu silenced him with a gesture. "We can go more into that later, for now I think we all want to hear Mr Longbottom's and Misses Lovegood and Weasley's report."
Both the ladies turned and nodded to Neville which he took as a gesture to speak on their behalf.
"As you know Voldemort created a series of horcruxes, you all know what these are from being told by myself or one of the others around this table or past knowledge. My companions and I have been hunting these down independently for the last few months and we have succeeded in tracking down and destroying two of these," as he said this he produced a twisted and distorted locket. "The locket that was recovered by the late Remus Lupin and his wife before...Well, you all know what happened, that was a fake. We discovered that the real one was being worn by Umbridge so we were forced to break into the Ministry to retrieve it."
"The incursion of the Ministry that was reported a few months ago?" questioned the unnamed unspeakable. "The one that destroyed three courtrooms when the Muggleborns that had been captured were freed and that was interpreted as an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Umbridge. That was you?"
"It was," nodded Neville, he obviously had not wanted to go into specifics on exactly what had happened but it seemed that he had no choice in the matter. A sideways glance that Harry sent at Luna clearly indicated that this is the event she spoke off. "We got in ok but things went wrong when we tried to escape; several innocents were seriously injured after we freed them as a distraction and we were nearly captured in the process. As for the other there was also a cup that we had to break into Gringotts to get to."
There were several gasps from around the table.
"How on Earth did you break into a Goblin stronghold?" demanded Daphne from her position beside her lover.
"It wasn't easy; we had to use the imperious curse on a human employee."
A couple of the audience gasped again at this, Harry included before he realised that he was being an incredible hypocrite as he had used it himself, it must have been coming back into an environment where it was against the law that was influencing his reactions. The others who gasped and had started a loud argument were all silenced when Moody let of a canon sound from his wand.
"This is war, the Unforgivables were authorised during the last one and if Madam Bones were still around today I seriously doubt even she would criticise the boy for using one in order to save lives in the long run, continue."
Neville nodded his thanks to the old auror before resuming his tale.
"We had to get him to tell us the layout of Gringotts and some secret ways that are only known by Gringotts employees of accessing vaults without a key."
Several of the wizards and witches around the table were deeply shocked by this, the vaults were supposed to be completely secure.
"What on Earth are these secret ways for?" asked Mrs Weasley.
"Admin mainly," Fleur replied, reminding those present that she had once worked there. "The Goblins and human employees use them to access the vaults to conduct transactions, to subtract admin fees, to do accounts statements etc." She then turned to the trio. "The three of you will need to have your memories of those methods erased; even ex-employees like myself are not allowed to retain that knowledge."
"What's to prevent a Goblin or human employee just taking money?" asked Coleman.
"Any Gringotts employee who knows the methods, which none of us are going to repeat," emphasised Neville nodding in Fleur's direction earning a nod of acceptance. "Can access the vaults but unless a trio of Goblin supervisors is present an alarm will sound when any money or property is taken from a vault between the time it is opened and when it is closed. Also any employee discovered stealing will face extremely severe punishment and don't ask me about that either because I don't know and I really don't want to find out."
"So you used the employee's knowledge to get in secretly and access the vault?" guessed Hermione, "Then what?"
"We had to use a basilisk fang to destroy the cup which was not as easy as it sounds and then we replaced the ruined cup where it was and took everything we brought with us back out."
"So it's still in Gringotts?" asked Fleur.
"Yes just not in any fit state to be used as a cup," Neville agreed. "Another of the seven is destroyed."
"So there is only one horcrux left?" stated Hermione.
"Two," corrected Ginny sending a sharp look in the direction of the padawan her tone making it clear that she thought Hermione was not being as clever as she remembered. "Only five have been destroyed."
"Six," Harry corrected, not liking the way his best friend was being treated. "The one inside my head is gone."
Even Ginny looked at him in shock at that revelation before remembering herself and turning away again.
"That means that only the hardest is yet to come," concluded Luna.
"What is the last one?" asked Kingsley.
"It's a large snake that You-Know-Who keeps secure in the Ministry at all times called Nagini," revealed Neville, "Which must be destroyed before we can defeat Voldemort."
"Which brings us back to the reason the Department of Mysteries had joined this side," stated Windu, gesturing in the direction of the Unspeakables.
"The Department was willing to endure with the state of affairs at the Ministry," explained Croaker's companion. "At least until the current Minister rewrote our research to claim that no Muggleborn should have magic, if nothing else that alone turned the Department against him and caused us to seek out allies to help us restore the Ministry."
"What are the DOM able to bring to the table as regards a fight as I fear that is what this may result in?" asked Windu.
"Before the coup d'état we could have offered a lot more than we do now," explained the unnamed unspeakable. "We had to destroy or hide most of our most secret and dangerous work and research; it cannot be recovered until the Ministry is restored."
Croaker continued, "As a result of this we can only offer inside help and the considerable fighting skills of the Field Unspeakables."
"Field Unspeakables?" asked Hermione.
"The DOM has two main divisions; research and defence," explained Croaker. "My colleague here represents the research section, the remit for which you can probably guess, I on the other hand represent the Field Unspeakables; we are probably the most skilled group of duellers in the country and our job is similar to a combination of the Muggle MI6 and SAS, we deal with external threats to the country's magical community either through covert espionage or missions."
"What about Voldemort?" asked Alema, her voice indicating her doubt about the man's claims due to the current political situation.
"I said external threats," he repeated. "You-Know-Who was a home grown terrorist which tied our hands as regards acting, it should have been the job of the Aurors to deal with him but Former Minister Fudge's rejection of his return tied Madam Bones's hands too."
"What about when she became Minister?" asked Harry.
"Lack of intel was the problem then," replied Croaker. "Knowing that she could act against him he laid low and dropped off our radars for a bit, neither of us were able to get enough info at that time to strike at any targets and the intel we had from before she was promoted proved to be too out of date to be of any use. I spoke to Amelia about it on several occasions before her premiership and more than once she asked us to unofficially take the action that she could not but our mandate prohibited us from doing so. Now that the government is no longer unofficially recognised by the department we are throwing out the rule book and it is time to act."
"What is it you are suggesting?" asked Coleman leaning forward, like the other senior jedi he knew when a violent course of action was about to be suggested.
"No matter how skilled some of us are we are vastly outnumbered by the Auror Force even before the Reservists and the Inquisitors are added into the mix but the recent events here are to our advantage."
"As you know," continued Kingsley Shacklebolt. "The Minister is organising almost the entire Ministry personnel pool into one force to march on the forbidden forest." The prospect made Eragog smack his fangs in anticipation. "Our spies report that he was livid when he heard about the deaths of his only heir and of Umbridge, apparently he actually killed the first person to question his orders afterwards. At the moment he his thinking emotionally and not practically, he wants revenge on the beings he believes are the cause of his son's death. That will leave the Ministry more vulnerable than it had been in years giving us the perfect opportunity to not only seize the building but giving Mr Potter here a chance to finally destroy You-Know-Who."
Harry mentally groaned, one thing he had not missed about being on Earth was everyone looking to him because he was supposed to be the saviour of the Wizarding World because only he could kill Voldemort, having done it twice before.
"We have a confirmed reports that You-Know-Who is not going to be accompanying the Minister and instead is going to be hosting an emergency session of the Wizengamot to authorise the genocide that the Minister is about to commit against creatures which will no doubt be reclassified as a danger to the state."
Harry and Hermione both frowned and shared a look both suspicious of what had just been said.
"Since when did Voldemort care about what the Wizengamot thinks? If someone annoyed him in the past he would just have them tortured or killed?" Harry asked.
A couple of the others nodded in agreement.
"Between him and Malfoy they now legally control the Ministry," explained Kingsley, "They have to act within its laws whenever possible."
"Or bend those laws to suit them," added Moody.
"Still," Hermione continued, "From what we know of Voldemort it's not like him to shirk from a fight?"
Mad-Eye Moody grunted again in agreement.
"The girl's right, his behaviour is very out of character, in the last war he delighted in leading the Death Eaters into an attack, it was his way of ensuing terror amongst his enemies and reminding his followers how powerful he was."
"Do you have any idea why he's not doing that now?" asked Windu.
Kinsley exchanged a look with the old auror, the latter nodded his agreement before Kingsley lent forward as if about to impart some information that was very secret.
"One thing those older Order members from the first war have noticed during this conflict is that Voldemort is not behaving at all like he used to, to our knowledge he had not been witnessed to take part in any form of attack before he took power and other than basic spells and the odd torture spell he has barely been seen to cast at all."
"That's not all," barked the gruff auror, "We have heard rumours of dissention amongst the ranks of the Inquisitors, they to seem to have noticed the change in their leader and several of them Malfoy included are now actively acting independent of his rule. We hear that it has almost got to the stage where Malfoy has taken effective active control of most of the Inquisitors and to our knowledge You-Know-Who has not tried to stop him."
"Why would he do that?" asked Harry as confused as the rest. "That does not sound at all like the Voldemort we knew."
"The best we can figure," relied Fleur, surprising those who did not know her as a technically minded person, "Is that something happened when Arry defeated him in the Graveyard, his magical core was damaged or in some way he is unable to cast spells as powerfully or proficiently as he used to."
"That might explain why he is unwilling to go all out as he used to," agreed Hermione.
"And in this it is actually an advantage," interjected Daphne. "With an almost deserted Ministry with the exception of the guards that do not leave the building, the Wizengamot members in session and the DOM the only people left behind will be You-Know-Who and his bodyguard of Inquisitors."
"Our suggestion," continued Croaker, "Is while the Minister's force is kept occupied by the acromantulas, we assist a group to infiltrate the Ministry and to engage and eliminate as many of the Inquisitors as we can and to take down Voldemort then to ambush the Minister on his return and to seize control of the Ministry so that we can re-establish the status quo."
"And I'm guessing you want those here to be the incursion force?" asked Aayla.
"Correct," nodded Croaker.
"The Order are able to bring about thirty skilled duellers to the fight," elaborated Cho. "We, assuming that enough people volunteer and that enough people stay here to take care of the hidden wounded, could bring between one hundred and one hundred and fifty but they will for the most part be less well trained than those we face."
"And the Department should be able to bring another fifty," concluded Croaker's companion, "Of which twenty will be top class duellers."
"A maximum two hundred and thirtyish mostly undertrained fighters?" asked Alema as if she could not believe what she was hearing. "It's one thing to defend your home or an entrenched position with people who don't know how to fight but storming a guarded government facility?"
"The odds are not as great as you imagine Miss Ani," explained Kinsley. "The entire workforce of the Ministry including the Aurors before the war was only measured in the hundreds; those numbers have now swollen with the addition of the Inquisitors and the Reservists to what we estimate to be around two thousand five hundred the majority of whom are undertrained reservists or standard Ministry personnel."
"We estimate that only seven hundred and fifty of those are skilled duellists including the Aurors and the Inquisitors," continued Croaker. "In a head on fight we would be outnumbered more than ten-to-one but we estimate that the majority of that force will be coming here so that should only leave some of the higher level inquisitors to guard You-Know-Who, a contingent of aurors to defend the building itself, the Wizengamot members and some essential Ministry personnel, at a maximum we estimate no more than four hundred should remain."
"That's still almost a two-to-one advantage assuming our entire human force went which is unlikely," concluded Aayla, "And they will likely be on alert with the Ministry so unguarded."
"True," acknowledged Kingsley gravely before sighing and looking around at the group. "But I doubt we will get another chance like this ever." He then turned and looked straight at Harry. "We will need all the help we can get. Are you with us?"
Harry for once remembered that he did not have to answer this for himself and nodded in Master Windu's direction. The older jedi did not answer immediately and was looking sadly into his hands, he may have been one of the most powerful jedi and one of the most deadly with a lightsaber but that did not mean he liked going into battle.
"The casualties will be high, and I wish there was another way," he remarked. "But we will assist you."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So so sorry about the long delay, really hectic couple of months, barely got any writing done at all.
Now I know someone is bound to make a comment on it so I will say something about it now; the size of the Ministry and the number of wizards involved. I can't recall anything in the writings of JKR that states anything about population size, the size of the Ministry and the size of the Auror Force but I know these three figures are going to be related and the only things we have to go on are the size of the Hogwarts student body (which is up for debate and is also assuming that there is only one Wizarding School in Britain and that no children are home schooled) and that the Ministry all fits into one building (though we have no idea how big that building might be). I did a lot of looking this up online including trying to work out the number of aurors to wizarding population based of the current UK Police Force to population figures but using that ratio for the five hundred aurors that pushed the wizarding population over 250,000 and we do know it's nowhere near that. As a result and based on the research I have done online I am (for this story) going to estimate the wizarding population of the UK to be between 7,000 and 15,000 assuming that the larger population of wizards are not working for the Ministry and that only some children go to Hogwarts and that others go to other lesser schools, trade schools, oversees schools or are home schooled etc.
Also so you know the full breakdown of the opposing force that I have worked out is this: 250 Inquisitors/Death Eaters, 500 Aurors, 1050 Reservists and 700 other Wizengamot/Ministry personnel, if I decide to change these figures I will advise in another AN. I assumed these figures on that basis that the Ministry is probably a creaking old bureaucratic machine that is overstaffed like every other government and government agency in the world, that the aurors aren't just police but do other things that require leg work outside the Ministry so there would need to be more of them and that of the thousands of wizards who were accused for stealing magic only a small number have been captured thus far and a smaller number have subsequently agreed to become reservists. I hope you enjoy it.
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