Bab 27: Hogsmeade Attack
It was the day of the Hogsmeade weekend. Harry made his way down the path to the village, Narcissa at his side. The pair were planning on meeting with Bellatrix and Apolline at the Three Broomsticks once Harry had completed his rounds with Minerva. Bellatrix had appeared in his floo that morning, telling him that she had something important to discuss with him once they arrived.
Narcissa looked at Harry with a fond smile. She reached over to take his hand and squeezed it, earning a smile from Harry, he pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her lips. "We have to be careful," He said softly against her lips, "I'd hate to forget we have plans today and drag you back up to the castle and to my quarters..."
She grinned and leaned back up to kiss him firmly, "I rather like that idea...but I believe I know what Bella and Apolline wish to discuss...Apolline wishes to become a Consort to either Peverell or Slytherin."
Harry nodded, still holding her against him, "I suppose it was bound to happen..." He said softly, "I mean she's beautiful, but we haven't spent much time together...any really...I don't think I can be in a sexual relationship, or a relationship at all with her until we've gotten to know each other better." That surprised Narcissa, she would have thought any man would jump at the chance to be with a Veela.
"She will enjoy that I think, a chance to be around you without expectations of anything more than your friendship..." Narcissa said, breaking from him and taking his hand to lead them down the path again, "Most men would give their wand hand to be in your position you know, three different beautiful women seeking your favor..." She mused more to herself than to him, "I know you care about Bella and me, I'm still trying to ignore the voices that tell me you're only here out of obligation. But I'm getting better at it."
They arrived at the final bend leading into Hogsmeade. Harry broke from his fiance with a kiss, before turning to walk into the square to meet with Minerva. The deputy Headmistress was waiting on him with a look that hovered between stern and amused, "Saying goodbye to your fiance, Professor Fawkes?" She asked him as he approached her.
"We'll meet up later. I promised I'd meet her and Bellatrix at the Three Broomsticks once I'd completed my round with you." Harry explained, walking with his fellow professor, "So, have you decided which day of the detentions I'll take for you?" he asked.
She nodded, "I have, Wednesday next, I am planning my teaching strategy for the N.E.W.T classes. If you would be amenable to it, I would prefer to use that evening." There was more to it than that of course but Harry didn't need to know that yet. I need to compose yet another letter to Feargus telling him I'm still not interested in a date...
"I can't believe Black and Potter got into a fight. From everything I've seen they are practically brothers." Harry said. I hope this doesn't cause a split between them... He thought as he watched Minerva look pensive for a moment.
She smiled softly, "I went to school with Fleamont Potter and Orion Black. They were not close as you could guess. Fleamont has never taken anything seriously in his life and Orion was the quintessential Slytherin, always trying to take more for himself." She looked at him and continued, "They fought over a girl, Augusta Macnair, but she was interested in Martellus Longbottom and barely paid them any mind."
Neville's grandmother was fought over by my grandfather and Sirius' father... That boggled Harry's mind. He tried to imagine Augusta as anything besides the angry old woman he'd met a few times, most notably at the funeral of Frank and Alice after St. Mungos was destroyed. "Macnair...I've heard that name before." I heard it when I was a third year, twenty-one years in the future...
She nodded, a sour look in her eyes now, "Walden Macnair Sr, her brother works at the Ministry. He was in my department before I left. Foul man that one, always pushing more harsh punishments if a Goblin is seen with a wand." She had always hated Macnair. He'd always been rude to her, never thought that a woman should be an Auror.
"You worked at the Ministry? I didn't know that." Harry said, earning a chuckle from his friend.
"I was an Auror, after Grindelwald and the Muggle war, I was tired of constantly seeing death. Albus offered me his old job when Headmaster Dippet retired, and here I am." She said with a smile.
"Here you are indeed, this seems a job that was made for you." Harry said to her, "I can't imagine you as anything other than a teacher. You're such a natural at it." Harry hadn't known this before, Minerva hadn't spoken often of her life before being a Professor. She had told him that she was half-blood, that her mother was a witch and her father was a Presbyterian minister, but never about her adult life.
"I wasn't always a natural. My first year I hid from the students for nearly ten minutes in my animagus form." She admitted, "Now I use that as an opportunity to show them what transfiguration can do for them." Harry nodded, so that's why she starts each first class as a cat He thought as they started walking.
Scene Break
In the Gryffindor Common Room, Sirius and Lily worked on their charms homework together. They hadn't made anything official, and to be honest, Sirius and Lily were both fine with that. They liked being around each other well enough, especially now that Sirius wasn't constantly teasing her best friend. Besides, Lily thought as she circled a term in her book, We're twelve years old...we've got five more years of school before we have to worry about if we want to be together as adults.
She didn't think it mattered anyway. Sirius would be the Head of House Black once he reached his majority, pure-blood society would never accept a muggleborn Lady Black... Sirius was brave, she knew that. He wouldn't be in Gryffindor otherwise, but would a relationship between the two of them last in the fact of society treating her as second class?
She didn't want to think about that. Not now, and preferably not ever.
Sirius looked at her book, "What did you circle?" He asked her, sounding the word out in his head lepudente? What does that mean?
"It's the bunny-tooth jinx, I'm surprised you don't know it already. It'll make someones two front teeth grow down to their chest." Lily said showing him the spell, "With how much you like pranks, I thought I'd look at this so I'd know how to counter it if someone cast it on Sev."
"Why do you like him so much? I know I promised not to mess with him and I've kept that, but he is...hard to take in large doses." Sirius asked her, "He's your friend and I respect that, I do...but just why?"
Lily shrugged, "He was the one who told me I was a witch. When Petunia started harassing me for my abilities, he was the one who showed me that I wasn't alone. I know he can be short with people, sometimes he can even be cutting with me...but he's my friend." She explained to him, then smiled, "Thank you for keeping your promise...it means a lot to me." She placed her hand on his.
Sirius looked at their hands and then to her, "He's a git, but he's your git, so I won't bother him." He said, earning another smile from Lily. Sirius wasn't sure that he knew how it happened, but after the day he'd hugged her Sirius had found that he really liked being with her. Impulsively, he leaned in and kissed her cheek, that earned a surprised look on the swiftly reddening face of Lily Evans.
She touched her cheek, "You...you kissed me.." She said, "But...why?" This wasn't supposed to happen. Not yet anyway. Sirius was pure-blood, Lily was muggleborn, society would neve-
And then she kissed him.
As far as first kisses go, it was an enjoyable experience for the two of them. Sirius' eyebrows shot up when she kissed him, his features flushing the same crimson as hers had. "We should probably go to the Courtyard...or the Great Hall...anywhere.." He said to her, "James and Peter will be down soon and I don't know if I can get the red out of my face before then."
She grinned and took his hand, leading him out of the Common room.
Scene Break
Alexandra and Jane were walking together through Zonko's. "I can't believe you've got your eye on a little second year..." Alexandra teased her best friend, "Your mum's not the only dirty old woman in the family..."
"Shut it you," Jane said elbowing the blonde witch, "Remus is nice. He's very smart, extremely mature for his age-"
"Which is four years younger than you," Alexandra interjected.
Jane glared at her, "Shut. It. You. Anyway, it's not like I'm going to have him bare-arsed on the Gryffindor table anytime soon. I'll just scare off the little girls and when he's seventeen I'll do like my mother and pull him off the train and into the officiates office." She said grinning, "Or, more likely I'll kiss him when I graduate and send him progressively dirtier letters while he finishes his last three years."
Alexandra laughed at that, "Are you sure you aren't supposed to be a Slytherin? That is rather devious. If you do that, maybe I should snap up his friend James...he's cute in an 'emotional range of a teaspoon' sort of way"
Jane was prepared to answer, then the screaming started.
"ALL STUDENTS! RETURN TO HOGWARTS IMMEDIATELY!" Came the magically enhanced voice of Minerva McGonagall. Jane and Alexandra rushed out the door of Zonkos in time to see Professor Fawkes sending a jet of flame from his wand at a misshapen pile of shrieking flesh. For a moment, Jane was stunned by the horror before her, then Alexandra pulled her arm, breaking her from her terror.
"Come on you fool, we've got to get out of here!" Alexandra shouted as she tugged Jane along. The girls began to run when Alexandra fell to the ground stunned.
"Alex!" Jane screamed, shakily drawing her wand to cast enervate.
"Look at that, caught me a blood-traitor...two of them from the looks of it." Said a heavily accented voice, Jane turned and saw a silver-masked figure gaining on them, his wand drawn. The wizard went to curse them when a jet of purple light hit him and his mask began to leak a dark red from its holes. He shrieked and collapsed onto the ground.
"Wake your friend and run for it!" A woman with curly black hair said as she flicked the mask off of the now silent man, "Karkarov...I should have guessed..he always did like the young ones.."
Jane did as she was directed, helping Alexandra to her feet and leading her back towards the road. She saw Professor McGonagall with her wand drawn, a beam of light being absorbed by a shield of some kind. "Professor, what's going on?" She asked.
"The village is under attack, and they have placed wards to prevent us leaving..." Minerva said, "Seventh years with me, sixth years behind them and so on, the third years are to be surrounded at all times until we can find a way through this barrier." She directed the students into a half-moon shape as she continued to pour magic into the barrier, trying to overwhelm it.
Harry watched as the abomination before him burned and yet continued to lurch towards him. It was a horrifying thing, eyes bubbling forth from the oozing flesh glared at him before retreating in once more. Multiple mouths alternately cried, laughed, roared, and gasped, their noises turning into a cacophonous roar as it flung its bulk forward.
As Harry continued to hit the thing before him with flames, hoping that it would go down. He saw Amelia and another Auror running towards them, wands drawn. They began shooting cutting curses at the flesh he'd burned and Harry watched as bit by bit the creature was being broken down.
It was over the thing, whatever it had been was dead now. Then Harry heard a slow clapping from behind them. He turned and once he saw who it was, he sent a beam of green light at the man.
Voldemort, almost casually, conjured a granite slab that blocked the killing curse, "Professor Harry Fawkes," He said with a half bow, never taking his eyes off the man, "You have been an irritation since you made yourself known to me." Voldemort's tone was almost conversational as he looked at his creation, "Pity that. Perhaps when I try again with you and your friends here as building materials, I'll have better results."
"I don't think so, Tom," Harry said, sending another curse at the man. He grinned when this time Voldemort snarled as the very tip of his pinky finger was sliced away, "I will kill you, Riddle."
"Tom Riddle does not exist! I am Voldemort!" He shouted and then the fight was on. This wasn't a duel, they each chained spells as quickly as they could. Spells were meant to kill, not disarm, not stun. There would be no second chances if a spell connected.
"You are Tom Marvolo Riddle! Son of Tom Riddle and a cross-eyed squib named Merope Gaunt!" Harry said as he ducked behind the conjured earthen wall, "You are a half-blood using pure-blood idiots for your own ends..."
"I am Voldemort, Heir of Slytherin!" Voldemort roared, conjuring a cloud of silver darts that raced towards Harry. The darts connected with the earthen wall, spearing through it and going into the wall of Zonko's.
But Harry wasn't there. He appeared beside the now ruined shelter he'd created, "If you are the Heir of Slytherin, Tom, then why did Salazar himself name me? Why did his Basilisk call me Master? I am Harry Fawkes, the Lord Slytherin, I do not claim you in my House!"
"LIES!" Voldemort cried, chaining a killing curse and then another. Harry dodged them both and sent another cutting spell, this one taking Voldemort's hand and his wand. "You are marked, Fawkes. Nowhere in this world will be safe from me." He spat, before reaching into his robes and then vanishing.
"Fuck! He's gone!" Harry said, "I HAD HIM!" He shouted, then felt two bodies impact him. Bellatrix and Narcissa were both embracing him, "I failed. He vanished."
"Emergency portkey. Every Death Eater has one sewn into their robes." Bellatrix said against his shoulder.
Narcissa squeezed him, "You destroyed his wand. You took his hand. That was amazing..."
Harry smiled weakly and then collapsed, his magic drained by the battle. His last conscious thought was that Narcissa and Bellatrix were very pretty when they were terrified that he was about to die.
Scene Break
Harry awoke in the Infirmary of Hogwarts. He found quite a crowd at his side; Minerva, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Apolline, Rolanda, even Amelia stood there. "Did anyone catch the Hippogriff that hit me?" He said weakly as he rubbed his temples.
"You very nearly drained your core." Madam Pomfrey said to him, "You will not demonstrate anything in your classes until I give you permission."
Harry looked over at Minerva, "How are the students?"
"Terrified, but unharmed. Your wife saved two of ours from being harmed." She turned to Bellatrix, "Thank you, for saving them." She said quietly.
Bellatrix nodded, "Karkarov was a disgusting maggot. The organ liquefying curse was too good for him." She said before taking Harry's hand.
He squeezed it and then looked at Amelia, "So, how's the village?"
She looked pale, "A few shops will have to be torn down and rebuilt. We lost a few villagers..but we got six dead Death Eaters at least...that monster they had though, what was that thing?" She asked him.
"A necromantic construct, I should think." Came a voice from the door, Albus stood there. "Professor Fawkes, when you are up to it, I believe we need to speak to the portrait of Salazar. That was an old spell Tom used if I'm not mistaken."
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone